Negative gravitational energy gives an explaination for the lack of anti-matter as compared to matter.  Given our knowledge (or lack therof) of physics under conditions produced in a singularity (big bang), the occurance of a negative force acting on the universe could be accounted for by the disappearance of the balancing anti-matter.  Lets look at this, matter + anti-matter = nothing and matter or anti-matter = energy then matter + energy = nothing. Nothing created, nothing destroyed.  So before you start giving a name to something that you don't understand, maybe you should do a bit of reasearch.  Oh, and also in your little story about the tourtises, it was not the intellectuals that said it was turtles all the way down, but a traditionalist old lady who was arguing with Bertrand Russell.

--On Sunday, February 16, 2003 8:47 PM -0800 Darwin Bedford <Darwin@atheists.net> wrote:

Dear Nicholas,

You are guilty of transference, see
http://www.atheists.net/pages/DB_advocacy_Transference_post.html
.  If "negative gravitational energy" is the true essence of the
universe then where did it come from--was it always there?

Darwin Bedford
www.atheists.net


At 01:51 AM 2/14/2003 -0600, you wrote:

        I just want to say that I am about as hardcore an
        atheist as you  will ever find.  I have debated with
many christians and atheist and  others, and overall I find that
there are four groups.  The atheists that  don't believe in a
god because of a true scientific basis, the atheist  that don't
believe in a god because of an abstract philosophic doctrine  or
prejudice against religion, the religious persons who believe in
a god  because they have a weak character, and the religious
persons who have  chosen religion as the safest of all options.
        Out of those I would definitely consider myself to be an
        atheist  based on science, having read numerous books on
the subject written by  credible authors e.g. Stephen Hawking.
You however would rather create  abstract conjectures off of the
top of your head and claim them as  scientifically viable.  I
respect this almost as much as I respect  whoever first decided
that it must be gods that create rain and  thunder.  Your
creation theory is simply ludicrous, if your going to  attribute
the universe to natural phenomenon you need a better background
in physics.  If your going to say that it was already there,
then don't  try to piss off the christians because your
explanation is just as  unreasonable as theirs.
        Let's try a bit of plausible reasoning, here is Stephen
        Hawking's  theory.  "Quantum mechanics allows matter to
be created out of energy in  the form of particle/antiparticle
pairs. And where did the energy come  from to create this
matter? The answer is that it was borrowed from the
gravitational energy of the universe.  The universe has an
enormous debt  of negative gravitational energy, which exactly
balances the positive  energy of the matter. See, wasn't that
refreshing to have something like  "The total amount of squeeze
force in the universe is finite because it  is proportionate to
the true essence of the universe which itself is  finite in
amount. "
        I just want to end by saying that when I piss christians
        off, it  is because they realize that my arguments hold
water better than  theirs.  It's much more satisfying than
turning into the very thing you  hate just to feel superior for
a fleeting moment.

---------------------------------------
E*****, Nicholas P*****
Van******* University