But for the very least, we can all see the link between higher numbers on amazon, and higher consequent sales numbers. We know what a supply shortage is. You know what console is, you know what a game is, you know pretty much exactly why someone would want either of them, and have personal experience with it. An expert could give more *precise* predictions, surely, with higher chances of accuracy, but you can make an approximation, which you do for yourself, which is fine. 

The topic at debate here is about as abstract as it gets. You're using words that you almost certainly don't understand (I surely would never claim to in a thousand years) and making conclusions off of them, judging work that took decades of the highest expertise to conceive with dubious conclusions you've made in the last hour on terms so oversimplified they contain none of the information that resulted in the construction of the theories.

But if it shares the same space/time it is by definition apart of the same universe, that's what I'm saying.

Well a resonating universe is still pretty likely in my opinion. Space isn't stable and always continues to change. So why couldn't the universe contract again after the expansion has reached its peak. It would explain the concept of infinite time. Also if our universe keeps contacting as a singular the amount of energy the singularity contains could become unstable resulting in a new big bang and the cyclus starts all over again.

I like the idea. 

It would describe the age of the universe figure that we have as not the age of the universe but the age since the last expansion. Once we figure out what dark energy is we may then be able to work out if the universe will expand forever or if it will stop and gravity will win over again and contract back to singularity until it becomes too unstable and expands again and again and again. 

I mean seriously... read the comments between this and my last one

As a mexican: I hope the hate continues and increases. It has to be said.

Maybe because they deserve the criticism after all the terrible stuff they've done and then tried to cover up.

There are things that CANNOT be trivialized sufficiently to a layman (which is pretty much everyone on the planet with the exception of a few hundred) without losing the very elements that constitute the arguments. I know that to be true for a large part of mathematics, and the extremely theoretical physics they are talking about are not all too different, in that regard. You can perhaps trivialize a concept, you most definitely can't trivialize the arguments. I do NOT think that it is a good practice to use bad arguments in the lack of being able to provide any good ones. I believe truth to be important. That involves accepting what you cannot know. Science isn'T a popularity contest, and shouldn't be treated as one.

And I most certainly cannot provide any aid on their debate of the validity of M-theory, or the big bounce, or etc... Firstly, of course, because it's not something that I know the intrinsics of; secondly, even if I knew them, there would be no way to explain an argument to them in less than a few years.

M theory/string theory really is no longer in a range of anything that can be simply visualized/illustrated in a way that seems natural, in which you can make any intuitive logical followings. Those simply don't exist in anything that abstract. Any conclusion you CAN make is math, pages and pages of it. There is, in fact, *NO ONE* that can make any statements as broadly as some statements that appeared in this thread. It's collective knowledge, that slowly transitions at each new incite. My father has done some collaboration in works on string theory. He does not understand string theory, or the small subconcept that was discussed in his paper. In fact, he can't comprehend half of the material of the paper that he collaborated on. He is an expert on maximal green sequences, a mathematical structure which appears in the problem, so he gives any incite that may be required regarding maximal green sequences. A colleague in physics is then able to make use of those results, to create results regarding *his* specialized structure, which in turn allows a third person to make conclusions based on that, etc... As a whole, hundreds of scientists can collectively build a sound web of logical conclusions which allows us to say certain things on the universe. Not a single person explain more than a couple steps within that web.

Its Matt Stone and Trey Parker and no neither one is or ever was Mormon.  Matt Stone was raised Jewish but is now atheist.  Trey Parker believes in God but isn't very religious. 

Why is it that every discussion about the merits of religion has to devolve into 'but science doesn't have ALL The answers either!' debates?

Nobody says that science has all the answers, at least not at any one given time. The whole point of science is to test and theorize and test and hypothesize and test some more. It's not perfect - by nature it can't be - but it's a lot more accurate than anything religion offers.

When comparing the two, here's how it goes:

Science - "How do I know? Well, I tested the theory, I repeated the results, I had it vetted by another who was able to also recreate my results in a lab. It was then posted and challenged in an open forum for others to criticise and scrutinize, and they all agreed as well."

Religion - "How do I know? I read it in a book, and the author of that book assures me that they wouldn't lie to me."

These two shouldn't even be in the same discussion. Science may not have all the answers and may never be perfect, but at least it attempts to answer questions with distiguishable authority. Religion does no such thing. The people who criticising religion - especially the catholic religion - aren't doing it from a place of arrogance or superiority (most of the time), but are criticising it because any belief system DESERVES to be criticised, scrutinized, and tested if they want to make the sort of claims ANY religion makes about our origins and the greater nature of the world around us.

By denying any scrutiny or critique, religion has basically opened itself up to be the target of hate and disrespect. until it can back up its claims with evidence of ANY sort, it doesn't deserve your respect, and should be laughed at for the joke it is.

Sadly we don't live in that world; we live in a world where religion is, for some stupid reason, put on the same level of science and demands the same amount of respect. Religion deserves to be in a science class about as much as Alex Jones needs to be teaching history. Or Trump deserves to be in the white house. Completely ill-equipped to fulfil that position.