Advertisement
If you have a new account but are having problems posting or verifying your account, please email us on hello@boards.ie for help. Thanks :)
Hello all! Please ensure that you are posting a new thread or question in the appropriate forum. The Feedback forum is overwhelmed with questions that are having to be moved elsewhere. If you need help to verify your account contact hello@boards.ie
God is not dead
Comments
-
I came close to saying I wasn't going to bother with this thread anymore but I'll give it one more shot. Please try to understand...
Ok, I promise to try and understand.Ok, a few broad points to explain where you went wrong here:
1 - "Singularity of nothingness" is not a collection of words that means anything. This is not a thing.2 - All of your tea metaphors are completely useless unless you are defining tea as "All that exists, has existed or will exist". We're talking about ALL THINGS, not one small thing.
I disagree. You are assuming that the universe is all that ever existed and all that ever will exist. That is not the case. The universe had its beginning in the Big Bang. But what caused the big bang? You say that it doesn’t need a causer and therefore has no cause and therefore you contend that the universe came from nothing and by nothing. All I’m saying is, is that that takes more faith than believing that God did it. Ok imagine of you can absolutory nothing, not a thing, nada and from this comes everything. That’s rabbit out of the hat stuff. But the Judaic/Christian view contends that yes it came from nothing but not by nothing, rather it came because before there was anything God was there to create it. You cannot get anything from nothing especially everything. If everything came from nothing then that is a miracle. To us the universe incorporates everything but if it came from nothing then how? How can everything come from nothing?3 - All your questions about how and why the universe popped into existence from apparently no where are valid...we don't have an answer. Super powerful intelligent entity beyond space and time is not something you have evidence for.
The famous English atheist astronomer turned agnostic Sir Fred Hoyle stated the following: “Would you not say to yourself, "Some super-calculating intellect must have designed the properties of the carbon atom, otherwise the chance of my finding such an atom through the blind forces of nature would be utterly minuscule." Of course you would . . . A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature. The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question.”4 -God is a member of the set of "something" in terms of the question "Why is there something rather than nothing?" Not only that, but he's an amazingly complex and baffling thing to simply be there always. That's far more puzzling than matter and energy popping into existence for no apparent reason.
If God does exist and He did create everything that we call “the universe” then that means that He existed before the universe was created and therefore cannot be part of this universe he created. Surely you concede this point even though you don’t actually believe He exists?1 - Atheists such as myself are not saying that we know for sure it wasn't God. I'm not in the habit of inventing answers about stuff from before time. I'm saying: We have no evidence as to what caused the big bang. Therefore any answer to the question of what caused it is made up. All of the following are baseless assumptions that a sane person should reject pending further investigation: It was an unknown super particle, God did it, it was an explosion from a previous big bang's collapse, Santa sneezed.
I have to cite Sir Fred Hoyle again on this point. He at least conceded that an intellect beyond anything man can aspire to meddled with physics, “it must have” he would say. He came to this conclusion by empirical study of the facts as he knew them. I thought that is what science was? Conclusions based on research of what can be studied. If we don’t listen to the conclusions of the likes of Hoyle then who do we listen to?2 - Yes I poo poo the extra-universal God theory as its a contradition in terms and you have no evidence. Evidence please.
God by your own definition is an “amazingly complex and baffling thing” or as I would put it “a Super Intellect”. Surely what Hoyle concluded to be a super intellect can only be attributed to a being beyond human comprehension. There might not be particles with “Made by God” stamped on them, but evidence like what Hoyle concluded about, is strong enough to at least leave the open that I might have been God, God being defined in the terms described above.Please read a dictionary. Universe does not mean "matter and energy that came from the big bang". It means "all that is, was and will be". This is important for when we ask the question "Why is there something rather than nothing"? God is something.
The universe is not all that ever was and ever will be if it had a beginning. And the most accepted theory in science today with regards to how the universe came into being is the Big Bang theory. And the Big Bang theory postulates a beginning from nothing, so again my question is: “How can everything come from nothing?” I do get your point that God is something. But if He is “something” then that means He exists. And if He exists then that means He created the universe. And if He created the universe then that means He was around before the universe was created, because in order for One to create a universe One must actually exist before endeavoring to do so. Again you don’t have to believe in God to concede this point.Please read a dictionary. I was asking for evidence, the insane ramblings of ancient Israelites do not constitute evidence from the dawn of existence.
Nor was it presented as such, but it does show you that they were onto something when in their scriptures God placed Himself outside and separate from the creation. Clever move for such long time ago. All the other pagan creation myths have God inside the creation, rearranging things that were already there. Not so with the Hebrews. “In the beginning God created” the word created in this verse is ‘Bara’ which means to create from nothing at all and is only used with God as its subject. There are other words in the Hebrew that translate “create” but they refer to a type of creating that needs something there to create from. Not ‘Bara’ though. So all those centuries ago the Hebrews were saying that from nothing God created everything and now science is telling us that the most plausible explanation of how the universe came into being is from nothing. Funny that.I can't believe I just had to say that to another human being.
I’m sure you’ll get over it.Its baseless assumption. One baseless assumption among a hundred billion other baseless assumptions. I'm saying we do not know the answer yet, whereas you're plucking one you like out of the air and insisting its true because you think its plausible.
Well no not really, I’m telling you what I believe to be true and then I’m telling that I have good reason to believe it based on discoveries made in science. That is not a baseless assumption. You say you don’t know how the universe came into being but you poo poo me for saying that I believe God did it. I’m not telling you to believe what I believe, I’m just showing you that I have good reasons to believe what I actually believe.1 - The universe is "everything".
No it’s not unless you conclude that nothing made everything. How can nothing make everything?2 - Any hypothetical cause is "something".
Yes. But if nothing is the cause then how can nothing be something?3 - "Something" is a part of "everything".
Something is but not “nothing”. Nothing is not part of everything because nothing is well “nothing”. You could say that nothing simply isn’t.You must understand that the question "What caused the big bang?" is subtly different to the question "Why is there something other than nothing"?
I agree but what is your point?You're still making a gigantic assumption. I've explained the reason for why its a very poor assumption but I'll try again. God help me, I'll try again. With a hypothetical:
Lets say there's no God for now. Lets take a look at 100,000 versions of the universe. In all but, lets say, three versions it implodes or flies apart due to parameters unlike our own. By chance those three get life. That life looks around and goes "God must have fined tuned the universe to suit our existence as its far too unlikely!"
Please tell me you understand?
I understand your point of view perfectly. It is you who can’t see mine. But anyway let us assume that there is not God. And that your analogy is accurate. Then what? People made God up? Of course I agree 100%. That is exactly what happened if we take all your preconditions as true.Ok, this is how it went:
1 - Over a couple of centuries science works out that life appears to have emerged without inteligent direction due to natural selection.
2 - Some guy comes up with ID and says "Lets see if we can find something that would definately need to have been designed rather than developed via natural selection".
3 - The afformentioned guy and his colleagues either fail utterly or lie.
4 - Afformentioned guy's rich powerful Christian friends spend millions spreading those lies because it supports their beliefs.
Thats the entire ID movement right there, no embellishment.
Point 1 is strongly supported but not proven. Science has shown that some things in nature do not appear to need a designer, but that is not proving that they do not actually have a designer. And if what we can take from the cosmological discoveries has any foundation, that a super intellect has monkeyed with physics in such a way as to enable carbon based life to exist, then it is still an open debate IMO.Its....its a metaphor... You have to understand that, right? This is a cruel joke you're playing on your old pal Zillah, right?
Me? NeverWe call the killing of a child immoral because we're programmed to feel that way by evolution. I don't understand why you're having such difficulty with this concept. Is it confusing because the reaction is such a strong one? How is it fundamentally any different to other very strong reactions such as the sexual arousal we feel with a mate or the rising fury of when someone threatens those we love?
Why call it immoral though? What’s so immoral about it? From an evolutionary point of view I would call it socially non-advantageous for the culprit and detrimental to the health of the herd mentality, but not immoral. Immoral has that whole right and wrong thing going on with it. How does one define right and wrong without a God or a higher standard in which to aspire to? To what do we measure the rightness and wrongness of something to if no objective values exist? All you are saying to me is that you believe they do exist and you express it because you find the killing of children morally reprehensible as do I.The "Made by God" thing has nothing to do with it. There are a billion billion things we can assert exist for which there is no evidence. We'd go uselessly insane if we didn't reject them until we get evidence. You do this in every case that I do it except your Abrahamic God. The fact that you find this one baseless assumption quite appealing does not change my standards for evidence.
I don’t though. Just because I don’t hide the fact that I believe in God and that I believe He created all things is not the same as me squashing reality into that frame of reference as you suppose. I have given here and over in the Christianity forum the reason why I believe it many times. Some reasons that I believe are personally experience reasons, reasons that only I can benefit from which I never hold out as proof anyway. Some are biblical and some historical and some as discussed here scientific. I have plenty of reason to believe in God and have no reasons to not believe in Him. I don’t expect anyone else to adopt my reasons as reason why they should believe in Him. What I don’t like is being poo poo’d for it for no good reason. My faith might be laughable to some but I don’t care. Doesn’t bother me, give me good reasons to stop believing and I will.1 - There is no evidence that there was a cause to the big bang.
2 - There is no evidence that, should such a cause exist, it was God.
3 - Thats the only logical position.
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. In any case, if the universe had a beginning then it logically follows that it had a beginner. This is the main reason Fred Hoyle remained atheistically agnostic. He just could not believe in a beginner which is why he refused to accept the Big Bang theory but everyday science is showing us more and more evidence that the universe had a beginning and is not eternal in the past and is not in steady sate or whatever else state. It had a beginning and therefore a beginner and as an already believer in ‘God did it’ for other reasons, this just strengthens that, I am not bending reality to fit my beliefs here.This has nothing to do with our discussion really but I'll bite: It is not rational to conclude that a man you never met broke the laws of physics based entirely upon the testimony of unknown individuals, which was in turn recorded by unknown individuals, from a time where superstition was endemic.
Way too big a subject to go into here and maybe I should not have brought it up the last time. All I will say is that based on what you have just stated I conclude that you know very little about the subject matter. I’ll wager that you haven’t spent five hours of your life studying the historical evidence for the resurrection of Jesus, which if true gives a basis to believe in His other claims. No point in saying you don’t believe it happened because the laws of physics prohibit it. He claimed to be God not just a mortal man who is only governed by natural laws. And if God exists as we have discussed at length here then a resurrection from the dead should be no big deal to Him (to us yes) but not to Him. If God can create the universe from nothing and provide the subatomic stratum from which to permit carbon based life then a resurrection should be no big deal. But I digress on this point.Where do you think society would be today if everyone applied your absurdly sloppy standards? You think you can put a space station in orbit using maths that an unknown individual with no education insists if valid? Why do you think they're doing things like spending billions on particle accelerators? Its because getting answers is really really hard. It takes discipline and scepticism, not child-like trust and naive assumptions.
Yeah but was the €6Billion it cost to fund the LHC project only taken from atheists tax Euro’s or gullible religious fools as well? That makes it theirs too doesn’t it? Hey look, I’m all for Large Haydon Particle Accelerators. Bring it on, I want to know more too. If there is something that they can uncover that proves there is no God then let’s have it.Where did I say the issue was entirely concluded? I said God is on the run. He is. People used to think lightning was caused by Gods. People used to think the sun was God. The moon, animals...virtually everything in existence has been thought to be divine by someone somewhere. Now, science has driven him out of all of those things by explaining what they are. God exists only in the places we don't understand. You've had to resort to putting him at the dawn of time, one of the last places we cannot yet see with the ever illuminating eye of science.
The Judaic/Christian God was never believed to be anything other than a being which transcended space and time. He has always been believed in by Christians to have created everything but never part of what was created. He was never believed to be lightening or the sun and so forth by Jews or Christians. What you are implying is only applicable to the many pagans religions of the world not the Abrahamic ones.Er, so? Yes, your beliefs were originally conceived by ancient peoples who knew less about the universe than the average modern ten year old, whats your point?
They never claimed they knew anything about the universe except to say that God created it from nothing. The Bible is not a scientific journal nor was it designed as such. It just declares things from the perspective of a particular people at particular times in history and in historical and poetic terms. And if their concept of God is only a concept among other concepts to be considered, then that God does not exists, but if what they say about that God intruding into their history is true then we are dealing with a being that is beyond space and time and human comprehension. I don't expect you to be fascinated by this but I am.0 -
Soul Winner wrote:You say that it doesn’t need a causer and therefore has no cause and therefore you contend that the universe came from nothing and by nothing. All I’m saying is, is that that takes more faith than believing that God did it. Ok imagine of you can absolutory nothing, not a thing, nada and from this comes everything. That’s rabbit out of the hat stuff. But the Judaic/Christian view contends that yes it came from nothing but not by nothing, rather it came because before there was anything God was there to create it. You cannot get anything from nothing especially everything. If everything came from nothing then that is a miracle.
Certainly, in our universe, you can't create something from nothing. However, that doesn't really apply to the creation of the universe, of which we know absolutely nothing about. You shouldn't apply the rules and logic of the universe itself to prove or disprove different theories regarding to the creation of that universe.
If God can exist before time in contradiction to the laws of our universe, why can't some other cause?If we don’t listen to the conclusions of the likes of Hoyle then who do we listen to?
Hoyle, as you describe him, is an agnostic. He hasn't concluded that God exists - his own personal experience tells him that it is a possibility. And that's probably true for most athiests - I don't know that God doesn't exist, and I recognise that there is a possibility that he does exist. However, for me - and plenty of Hoyle's peers, it must be said - it is a very, very minute possibility.Soul Winner wrote:All the other pagan creation myths have God inside the creation, rearranging things that were already there. Not so with the Hebrews.
I'm pretty sure that the opening verses of the old testament stick God inside creation (what with there being time and everything) moving things about, screwing in lightbulbs and so on.Soul Winner wrote:Well no not really, I’m telling you what I believe to be true and then I’m telling that I have good reason to believe it based on discoveries made in science.
Lets hear them!Soul Winner wrote:Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
No athiest will claim otherwise. Just because we don't have any evidence as to the cause of the creation of the universe, it doesn't mean there wasn't a cause. Of course, it doesn't mean that there was a cause either, and it certainly doesn't mean that that cause was God.Soul Winner wrote:I’ll wager that you haven’t spent five hours of your life studying the historical evidence for the resurrection of Jesus
Well, that's just it. There is no evidence. If the resurrection of Jesus had a basis firmer than anecdotes retold, rewritten and retranslated over a period of 2,000 years, everyone and his mother would be queuing up for mass on a Sunday.
There is no clear-cut, verifiable evidence. And because there's no evidence - of any of Jesus' miracles - it's a very big leap to take everything at face value and build your life around it.0 -
Soul Winner wrote: »I disagree. You are assuming that the universe is all that ever existed and all that ever will exist. That is not the case. The universe had its beginning in the Big Bang. But what caused the big bang? You say that it doesn’t need a causer and therefore has no cause and therefore you contend that the universe came from nothing and by nothing. All I’m saying is, is that that takes more faith than believing that God did it.
That isn't what he is saying.
He is saying that your assertion that the big bang must have had a "cause" is flawed thinking, because time itself appears to have originated with the big bang.
Saying therefore that everything must have a cause (something that holds true only in this universe as far as we know, and appears to not always hold even in this universe) and therefore the universe must have had a cause is an unfounded assertion.
The universe might have had a cause, but equally such a concept could be nonsense in the reality that existed "before" the big bang. One cannot use the assertion that it must have had a cause to start arguing for the existence of a particular god (leaving aside that that argument is in of itself seriously flawed and silly)
One of the very interesting things that scientists have been discovering as they delve deeper into the systems that govern our own universe is that the assertions we make at this relatively large scale (humans, buildings, cars, trees) do not hold either at tiny or large extremes of nature. For example locality, the idea that something cannot influence something else without physically interacting with it over a distance of space, does not appear to hold true in certain conditions. Equally the concept of "now" and the uniform flow of time doesn't hold over large distances at different velocities.
The flaw (one of them at least) with the idea that the universe must have had a cause and that cause must be God, is that it is applying the rules of inside this universe in certain circumstances to the formation of the universe itself, which doesn't work.
It is like wondering why the referee hasn't blown his whistle to stop play when you are in a sports shop and the casher has just picked up a football you are buying and is placing it in a bag to give to you. The rules of the game of football apply only to the game of football. They are meaningless outside of the game.
Equally the rules of the universe apply to the universe. Space and time apply to the universe. The concepts are rather meaningless when discussing something else.0 -
Soul Winner wrote: »I disagree. You are assuming that the universe is all that ever existed and all that ever will exist. That is not the case.
I'm sorry we must have gotten our wires crossed! I'm speaking English, you must be using another language that is very like it but makes no sense.
Could you possibly use normal English for the purposes of our discussion?The famous English atheist astronomer turned agnostic Sir Fred Hoyle stated the following: “Would you not say to yourself, "Some super-calculating intellect must have designed the properties of the carbon atom, otherwise the chance of my finding such an atom through the blind forces of nature would be utterly minuscule." Of course you would . . . A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature. The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question.”
Thats nice. The fact that you have found a fancy sounding person that supports an irrational view does not make a view any less irrational.If God does exist and He did create everything that we call “the universe” then that means that He existed before the universe was created and therefore cannot be part of this universe he created. Surely you concede this point even though you don’t actually believe He exists?
Again I must insist that we use English rather than whatever makey-upey language you're using.I have to cite Sir Fred Hoyle again on this point. He at least conceded that an intellect beyond anything man can aspire to meddled with physics, “it must have” he would say. He came to this conclusion by empirical study of the facts as he knew them. I thought that is what science was? Conclusions based on research of what can be studied. If we don’t listen to the conclusions of the likes of Hoyle then who do we listen to?
People who don't make stuff up without evidence.God by your own definition is an “amazingly complex and baffling thing” or as I would put it “a Super Intellect”. Surely what Hoyle concluded to be a super intellect can only be attributed to a being beyond human comprehension. There might not be particles with “Made by God” stamped on them, but evidence like what Hoyle concluded about, is strong enough to at least leave the open that I might have been God, God being defined in the terms described above.
Lets be clear, you're still relying on the "finely tuned" argument that I've already countered, right?The universe is not all that ever was and ever will be if it had a beginning. And the most accepted theory in science today with regards to how the universe came into being is the Big Bang theory.
SPEAKEY ENGLISH PLEASE???“How can everything come from nothing?” I do get your point that God is something. But if He is “something” then that means He exists. And if He exists then that means He created the universe.
What?
WHAT?!Nor was it presented as such, but it does show you that they were onto something when in their scriptures God placed Himself outside and separate from the creation. Clever move for such long time ago. All the other pagan creation myths have God inside the creation, rearranging things that were already there. Not so with the Hebrews. “In the beginning God created” the word created in this verse is ‘Bara’ which means to create from nothing at all and is only used with God as its subject. There are other words in the Hebrew that translate “create” but they refer to a type of creating that needs something there to create from. Not ‘Bara’ though. So all those centuries ago the Hebrews were saying that from nothing God created everything and now science is telling us that the most plausible explanation of how the universe came into being is from nothing. Funny that.
Here, take a copy of my new book, "Luminescent Turtles pooed out the universe from nothing".
SEE MY TRANSCENDENTAL UNDERSTANDING OF EXISTENCE!I’m sure you’ll get over it.
Its becoming increasingly difficult.Well no not really, I’m telling you what I believe to be true and then I’m telling that I have good reason to believe it based on discoveries made in science. That is not a baseless assumption. You say you don’t know how the universe came into being but you poo poo me for saying that I believe God did it. I’m not telling you to believe what I believe, I’m just showing you that I have good reasons to believe what I actually believe.
I'm telling you two things:
- Your reasons are completely ridiculous.
- Your conclusions are not supported by science.
If the above two things were not correct statements then someone would have been awarded several Nobel prizes for their work in the field of Pre-Universal Physics and Theology-Thermodynamics Integration Studies or some such nonesense.No it’s not unless you conclude that nothing made everything. How can nothing make everything?
We don't know.Yes. But if nothing is the cause then how can nothing be something?
We don't know.Something is but not “nothing”. Nothing is not part of everything because nothing is well “nothing”. You could say that nothing simply isn’t.
Correct. Isn't.I agree but what is your point?
The Big Bang refers to the appearance of observable matter and energy and the dimensions of space and time as we know them. It is potentially a far smaller concept than "The Universe".I understand your point of view perfectly. It is you who can’t see mine. But anyway let us assume that there is not God. And that your analogy is accurate. Then what? People made God up? Of course I agree 100%. That is exactly what happened if we take all your preconditions as true.
If you do actually understand my argument then you've just conceded that we can't rationally conclude that God exists without further information.Point 1 is strongly supported but not proven. Science has shown that some things in nature do not appear to need a designer, but that is not proving that they do not actually have a designer. And if what we can take from the cosmological discoveries has any foundation, that a super intellect has monkeyed with physics in such a way as to enable carbon based life to exist, then it is still an open debate IMO.
As much as anything can be "proven", it has been.
Science has shown that life on earth can be explained as having resulted from a combination of non-intelligent factors. Adding a trans-dimensional super intelligence to the mix because of some very old books would not be good science. You have to be able to see that.Why call it immoral though?
Its a way to rationalise our feelings.What’s so immoral about it?
We feel very strongly on the matter.From an evolutionary point of view I would call it socially non-advantageous for the culprit and detrimental to the health of the herd mentality, but not immoral.
From an evolutionary point of view you'll do whatever the hell evolution dictates, and that is to consider it repugnant, reprehensible and to have a strong bias towards considering it an objective phenomenon rather than a subjective one, because saying "That is evil" is way more convincing than saying "I don't like that".Immoral has that whole right and wrong thing going on with it. How does one define right and wrong without a God or a higher standard in which to aspire to? To what do we measure the rightness and wrongness of something to if no objective values exist?
It is based on a confluence of genetic pre-disposition and societal factors.All you are saying to me is that you believe they do exist and you express it because you find the killing of children morally reprehensible as do I.
I'm not sure what the sentence means.I don’t though. Just because I don’t hide the fact that I believe in God and that I believe He created all things is not the same as me squashing reality into that frame of reference as you suppose. I have given here and over in the Christianity forum the reason why I believe it many times. Some reasons that I believe are personally experience reasons, reasons that only I can benefit from which I never hold out as proof anyway. Some are biblical and some historical and some as discussed here scientific. I have plenty of reason to believe in God and have no reasons to not believe in Him. I don’t expect anyone else to adopt my reasons as reason why they should believe in Him. What I don’t like is being poo poo’d for it for no good reason. My faith might be laughable to some but I don’t care. Doesn’t bother me, give me good reasons to stop believing and I will.
There's little I can say aside from pointing that your philosophical arguments are flawed, your personal impressions are irrelevant, and your claims to scientific support are false.Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
In the context of billions of equally baseless assumptions, yes it is. Absence of evidence is indeed evidence of absence. The fact that there is no evidence for the universe having been a result of the poo of luminescent turtles is evidence that the universe is not the result of the poo of luminescent turtles.In any case, if the universe had a beginning then it logically follows that it had a beginner. This is the main reason Fred Hoyle remained atheistically agnostic. He just could not believe in a beginner which is why he refused to accept the Big Bang theory but everyday science is showing us more and more evidence that the universe had a beginning and is not eternal in the past and is not in steady sate or whatever else state. It had a beginning and therefore a beginner and as an already believer in ‘God did it’ for other reasons, this just strengthens that, I am not bending reality to fit my beliefs here.
Correct, you're not bending anything, you're making things up. The notion that a beginning needs a beginner is an assumption.Way too big a subject to go into here and maybe I should not have brought it up the last time. All I will say is that based on what you have just stated I conclude that you know very little about the subject matter. I’ll wager that you haven’t spent five hours of your life studying the historical evidence for the resurrection of Jesus, which if true gives a basis to believe in His other claims. No point in saying you don’t believe it happened because the laws of physics prohibit it. He claimed to be God not just a mortal man who is only governed by natural laws. And if God exists as we have discussed at length here then a resurrection from the dead should be no big deal to Him (to us yes) but not to Him. If God can create the universe from nothing and provide the subatomic stratum from which to permit carbon based life then a resurrection should be no big deal. But I digress on this point.
Lets not get into it.Yeah but was the €6Billion it cost to fund the LHC project only taken from atheists tax Euro’s or gullible religious fools as well? That makes it theirs too doesn’t it? Hey look, I’m all for Large Haydon Particle Accelerators. Bring it on, I want to know more too. If there is something that they can uncover that proves there is no God then let’s have it.
My point is that if the rest of humanity accepted your standards for evidence and logic then we would have no useable technology. People would be trying to make square blocks of sticks fly into space.The Judaic/Christian God was never believed to be anything other than a being which transcended space and time. He has always been believed in by Christians to have created everything but never part of what was created. He was never believed to be lightening or the sun and so forth by Jews or Christians. What you are implying is only applicable to the many pagans religions of the world not the Abrahamic ones.
Not true though. The Abramahic religions used to claim that God was the cause of life's diversity, the destruction of cities, the source of plagues, the inspiration for huge literary tracts etc. Science has been consistently debunking such claims and God has been retreating ever since. It used to be quite acceptable for people to assume a disease was a curse from God, these days we disregard such absurd claims.They never claimed they knew anything about the universe except to say that God created it from nothing. The Bible is not a scientific journal nor was it designed as such. It just declares things from the perspective of a particular people at particular times in history and in historical and poetic terms. And if their concept of God is only a concept among other concepts to be considered, then that God does not exists, but if what they say about that God intruding into their history is true then we are dealing with a being that is beyond space and time and human comprehension. I don't expect you to be fascinated by this but I am.
Trust me, I do find it fascinating. Thats why I just responded to this thesis of absurdity. I find it a compelling and terrifying mystery that another otherwise intelligent human being can assert the things that you have.0 -
AtomicHorror wrote: »Why assume it was? For all the evidence you have, it could have been Odin, the Flying Spaghetti Monster or someone we haven't made up yet.
We've made up so many Gods at this point that if areal God does exist, chances are it be like one of the ones we made up by coincidence.0 -
Advertisement
-
NekkidBibleMan wrote: »Certainly, in our universe, you can't create something from nothing. However, that doesn't really apply to the creation of the universe, of which we know absolutely nothing about.
Absolutely nothing? We now know it had a beginning. That's huge. Do you know how long science believed that the universe just always was? Eternal in the past? For centuries. It is only recently that it was discovered to have had a beginning and the more science is finding out the more it is strengthening this view. So if it had a beginning then either the universe came about from nothing and by nothing or it was brought into being by another transcendent reality not part of our universe's reality.NekkidBibleMan wrote: »You shouldn't apply the rules and logic of the universe itself to prove or disprove different theories regarding to the creation of that universe.
This has already happened. Einstein came on the scene.NekkidBibleMan wrote: »If God can exist before time in contradiction to the laws of our universe, why can't some other cause?
Well assuming God can then how could anything else cause it unless God also caused that. "Well then what caused God?" you might say. Well nothing caused God. Only what begins to exists needs a cause. If God does exist then He never began to exist. He is eternal, not the universe, and if He is eternal in the future then He is also eternal in the past and therefore has no cause.NekkidBibleMan wrote: »Hoyle, as you describe him, is an agnostic. He hasn't concluded that God exists - his own personal experience tells him that it is a possibility. And that's probably true for most atheists - I don't know that God doesn't exist, and I recognise that there is a possibility that he does exist. However, for me - and plenty of Hoyle's peers, it must be said - it is a very, very minute possibility.
If matter is all that there is then how can matter make matter? Matter when broken down into its fundamental elements is a made thing. Elementary particles which make up atoms, atoms which make up molecules and so on up the chain to a rock or a tree or a human being. What made the subatomic particles though? Nothing? Something made them. You don't believe that can be a transcendent consciousness well then fine. I do. Am I right? I think so. Why not? You might ask the same of me regarding what you believe. I would say "maybe you're right." When you get down to the bare bones of the matter we are left with randomness that defies comprehension and yet this primordial randomness has in it the capacity to organize itself into complex carbon based life forms. A mindless, purposeless universe would not do that and if it has done that and we are but the byproducts of that process then what we are talking about here is just more mindlessness. It's not debating and seeking after truth, its mindless garbage with no meaning to it even though we might believe it has.NekkidBibleMan wrote: »I'm pretty sure that the opening verses of the old testament stick God inside creation (what with there being time and everything) moving things about, screwing in lightbulbs and so on.
"In the beginning God created..." That puts God before the beginning and the creation "In" the beginning...NekkidBibleMan wrote: »Lets hear them!
Thought I gave some already? But just to recap. The constants that are present in the early miniscule moments of the big bang have life permitting parameters so finely tuned that for all of them to have been caused by nothing and to have come about from nothing are in the degrees of magnitude so unlikely to happen by chance that for mathematicians to even attempt to calculate it would be ridiculous. That is why there are many seasoned physicist and scientists trying to push science to a new paradigm shift in how science views things. Interesting article here about this very thing. I feel it is only a matter of time before science itself changes in order to deal with the many problems it faces today. It has done it before, I'm sure it will handle the change, nay it will be the better by far for that change.NekkidBibleMan wrote: »No athiest will claim otherwise. Just because we don't have any evidence as to the cause of the creation of the universe, it doesn't mean there wasn't a cause. Of course, it doesn't mean that there was a cause either, and it certainly doesn't mean that that cause was God.
I agree, the absence of any evidence doesn't mean any of those things.NekkidBibleMan wrote: »Well, that's just it. There is no evidence. If the resurrection of Jesus had a basis firmer than anecdotes retold, rewritten and retranslated over a period of 2,000 years, everyone and his mother would be queuing up for mass on a Sunday.
I doubt it very much. I contend that even if God did peep out through the clouds and announce in thunderous tones that He does in fact exist then you will still have those who will contend that it was super mass hallucination due to mass airborne drug inducement by super aliens or something.NekkidBibleMan wrote: »There is no clear-cut, verifiable evidence. And because there's no evidence - of any of Jesus' miracles - it's a very big leap to take everything at face value and build your life around it.
I agree. But we do not need to believe in any of Jesus' miracles in order to settle the big one, the resurrection. If that one happened then that gives basis for believing the others also happened. And that big one can you can be convinced of by careful study of the facts, that the resurrection issue assumes to be true. This has been discussed ad-infinitum in the Christianity forum so I suggest check here for one of the full discussion on it to see why there are those who have a basis for believing it. It is not just blind faith which says “the Bibles says so it must be true” so that's good enough for me. It is an historical account of an historical person that can be scrutinize and cross referenced and concluded about. There have been many over the years like Frank Morrison who have gone out with the specific intention of disproving it by exposing themselves to the facts as there presented to us in the accepted literature and have come back convinced that there is no other explanation that can adequately explain the assumed facts except the resurrection itself. Sherlock’s "Trial of the witnesses", Morrison's "Who moved the stone", Professor Greenleaf's -Trial of the Evangelists", C.S. Lewis's "Mere Christianity" are all great reads when it comes to this subject. I contend that you cannot have a proper informed opinion on any subject until you have done a bit of research into it. Same with this subject. If you can read any or all of the books I've cited and still not be convinced then that is fine, at least you took the time to look, most people who deny the resurrection have never spent two hours of their life researching or reading anything about it to have an proper informed opinion on it. They contend that ressurections can't happen so therefore they didn't happen so the reason people believe it did must be wrong because it can't happen and therefore didn't happen and on they go. At least read a few books on the subject that people have put years of their life into compiling on the subject and get an informed opinion on it.
Wick and Z, I will reply to your other posts tomorrow if I get a min. Going to bed now. Wrecked0 -
Soul Winner wrote: »Well assuming God can then how could anything else cause it unless God also caused that. "Well then what caused God?" you might say. Well nothing caused God. Only what begins to exists needs a cause. If God does exist then He never began to exist. He is eternal, not the universe, and if He is eternal in the future then He is also eternal in the past and therefore has no cause.
So...the cause needs to be something that has not had a beginning? It doesn't necessarily have to be a sentience? What if someone were to propose a timeless super particle that can cause big bangs, would that satisfy you? Would that not be a more probable proposal than a timeless super intelligence?0 -
We've made up so many Gods at this point that if areal God does exist, chances are it be like one of the ones we made up by coincidence.
I mean, honestly, something with such incomprehensible power is hardly going to share petty human emotions such as pride, or ego or anger. Or constantly read the thoughts of every human that ever lived, jotting down on a ledger the times they transgressed some ambiguous set of rules provided. Or care if someone's skirt is too short, or if their hair is uncovered, or if they ate a rasher.
If we're going to assume there's an intelligent designer, at least credit it with some intelligence.0 -
Soul Winner wrote: »I agree. But we do not need to believe in any of Jesus' miracles in order to settle the big one, the resurrection. If that one happened then that gives basis for believing the others also happened. And that big one can you can be convinced of by careful study of the facts, that the resurrection issue assumes to be true. This has been discussed ad-infinitum in the Christianity forum so I suggest check here for one of the full discussion on it to see why there are those who have a basis for believing it. It is not just blind faith which says “the Bibles says so it must be true” so that's good enough for me. It is an historical account of an historical person that can be scrutinize and cross referenced and concluded about. There have been many over the years like Frank Morrison who have gone out with the specific intention of disproving it by exposing themselves to the facts as there presented to us in the accepted literature and have come back convinced that there is no other explanation that can adequately explain the assumed facts except the resurrection itself. Sherlock’s "Trial of the witnesses", Morrison's "Who moved the stone", Professor Greenleaf's -Trial of the Evangelists", C.S. Lewis's "Mere Christianity" are all great reads when it comes to this subject. I contend that you cannot have a proper informed opinion on any subject until you have done a bit of research into it. Same with this subject. If you can read any or all of the books I've cited and still not be convinced then that is fine, at least you took the time to look, most people who deny the resurrection have never spent two hours of their life researching or reading anything about it to have an proper informed opinion on it. They contend that ressurections can't happen so therefore they didn't happen so the reason people believe it did must be wrong because it can't happen and therefore didn't happen and on they go. At least read a few books on the subject that people have put years of their life into compiling on the subject and get an informed opinion on it.
Wick and Z, I will reply to your other posts tomorrow if I get a min. Going to bed now. Wrecked
Okay so say we establish that the resurrection has occurred, that is a human body that was dead clinically, and then three days later the same human being is alive. Pretty awesome but my question is what does it prove? What does it say to you that its not saying to me? If of course its actually what happened and even if it did crazy unimaginable things happen in the universe everyday, why do you hold this thing in such high regard?0 -
I mean, honestly, something with such incomprehensible power is hardly going to share petty human emotions such as pride, or ego or anger. Or constantly read the thoughts of every human that ever lived, jotting down on a ledger the times they transgressed some ambiguous set of rules provided.
Pray (or don't y'know what I mean) that i never come into a position of great power.0 -
Advertisement
-
CerebralCortex wrote: »Okay so say we establish that the resurrection has occurred, that is a human body that was dead clinically, and then three days later the same human being is alive. Pretty awesome but my question is what does it prove? What does it say to you that its not saying to me? If of course its actually what happened and even if it did crazy unimaginable things happen in the universe everyday, why do you hold this thing in such high regard?
An excellent question and one which I hope I can answer as articulately as possible. Right so let us assume that this is an actually fact of history and that what the reporters give in their accounts about Jesus resurrection is actually true. Then that means that it is highly unlikely that they would make up the other stuff that it is claimed Jesus said and did. Why? Because for one these reporters have seen the risen Christ with their own eyes and would be careful to report the events of His earthly ministry as accurately as possible, and that includes the things He said and did.
Now it’s not that somebody rose from the dead even in the supernatural way that the Gospels declare Jesus rose, but it is the fact that it is Jesus who rose that is the amazing thing. Think about it for a second with an open mind. It is the One who made all the other outrageous claims about Himself for which He was accused as a blasphemer by the Jewish leaders and rightly so if He actually wasn’t who He claimed to be, who actually rose. The Jews were right to adjudge Him as a blasphemer if He was not who He claimed Himself to be. His family were right to try to take Him away because they believed He was beside Himself in madness. People today are right to think that Christianity is a “Looney Bin” religion if Christ did not rise from the dead as a fact of History, even the apostle Paul said that “If Christ be not risen then our faith is vain and that we are false witnesses of God” if in fact God did not raise up the Christ as the Church has proclaimed for two millennia. Jesus Himself is a looney if God did not actually raise Him from the dead because He at least believed the things He claimed about Himself even if nobody else did, or if He didn’t really believe them and knew them to be false then that makes Him crook which is worse.
So we have what C.S Lewis calls the starling alternate. A man whom you must accept for what He Himself claims to be or you must conclude that He was either a nutcase or a malefactor. You cannot put Him on the same shelf with other respected founders of religion like Buddha, Confucius or Mohamed because they at least never made such claims about themselves. For instance you will never hear Mohammad saying that He is the bread of life that came down from God out of heaven or that he was the water of life and that if anyone drinks from me will have eternal life. Confucius never said ”Before Abraham was I was” or that “I beheld Satan cast from heaven like lightening” which happened long before even Abraham lived. Buddha never said that his death meant anything, in fact He is on record as saying that he means nothing, that all he can do is leave you the way that he followed, which was what eight fold path which brought you to a trance like state that broke the chain of Tanya which is what holds all mankind in bondage and you can live out this life having been changed by this middle road which will eventual lead you to Nirvana his definition of eternal life and you become one with ultimate reality at death and so on. He offered that experience, he never offered himself as the way. Only Jesus and all the nutty religious fruit cakes say the things that Jesus said and yet Jesus is respected along with all these other respect founders of religion as being merely a good and wise teacher but not supernatural. Well he cannot be both good and wise without also being supernatural. “Well why not?” You may ask. Well if He was good but not supernatural then he couldn’t be wise because to also be wise He must know that the claims He makes are not true. Or he could be wise and not supernatural but not good because He knows that what He claims is not true and is lying about them to make others think impossible things about Him for some crazy egotistical reasons so He would not be good. He can’t be both good and wise and not be also supernatural, He is either all three or one of the others, He can’t be both without also being who He claimed to be.
So how can you resolve the issue? That is what the resurrection does. If you can research that issue and from that research conclude that there is no other explanation for the facts that pertain to this story that explain the facts of this story better than that than He actually rose. Then that will give you a basis for believing all the other claims. If the one who went around making these ridiculous claims about Himself including the claim that He would die and three days later will come out of the tomb and this actually happened then I don’t know about you but that gives what He said prior to His death and resurrection real validity. That means He actually is who He claimed to be and that the Jewish leaders were wrong about Him. And that what He said regarding future events will also come to pass.
Here is a sample of some of the claims Jesus made about Himself:
“When Jesus came into the coasts of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I the Son of man am? And they said, Some say that thou art John the Baptist: some, Elias; and others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets. He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am? And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.” Matthew 16:13-18
He never denies what Peter said, in fact He praises Peter for knowing it.
”The woman saith unto him, I know that Messias cometh, which is called Christ: when he is come, he will tell us all things. Jesus saith unto her, I that speak unto thee am he.” John 4:25-26
This does not prove that He was in fact the Messiah but He at least thought He was. You don’t get this in other respected founders of religion. Sure they claim weird stuff but not about themselves. If what Jesus said to this woman is not true then Jesus was either deluded or a liar. No middle ground. If you said something like that to me I would think you were nuts, but if you die under the same circumstances as Jesus did and come forth from the grave as it is reported He did then I will take a second look at what you said to me about being the Messiah. If that’s true then that gives a basis for believing the rest..
"Jesus heard that they had cast him out; and when he had found him, he said unto him, Dost thou believe on the Son of God? He answered and said, Who is he, Lord, that I might believe on him? And Jesus said unto him, Thou hast both seen him, and it is he that talketh with thee." John 9:35-37
"But Jesus held his peace, And the high priest answered and said unto him, I adjure thee by the living God, that thou tell us whether thou be the Christ, the Son of God. Jesus saith unto him, Thou hast said: nevertheless I say unto you, Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven. Then the high priest rent his clothes, saying, He hath spoken blasphemy; what further need have we of witnesses? behold, now ye have heard his blasphemy. What think ye? They answered and said, He is guilty of death." Matthew 26:63-66
The fact that the priest tore his clothes is proof enough that they perceive what Jesus was saying was blasphemy. As a side bar, this ruling was illegal. It was held at night for one which in their own law was not legal, and at a time that they called “High Sabbath”. It was an illegal gathering and ruling because not all the members of the Sanhedrin were present which was required under their own law so to pronounce death in such circumstances without a proper trial which was highly illegal. This is shown in stark clarity by what the priest says. What need we of anymore witnesses. Well they did need more witnesses. A full Sanhedrin was required and that is why they held it at night, because they knew that if all the members were present that they could not have gotten Him convicted on these grounds. It wasn’t incumbent on Jesus to say anything but they presented that He speak and on these words they condemned Him. Totally illegal and they knew it.
Anyway we have these stories because they were first preached by the disciples. If their account can be found to false for whatever reason then we can dismiss the account but I fail to see how it can be. I’ll leave Professor Simon Greenleaf with the last word on this. Sorry about all the religion in the atheist forum but I was asked the question
Prof Simon Greenleaf – The Testimony of the Evangelists Examined by The Rules of Evidence Administered in Courts of Justice, read more here
“And first, as to their honesty. Here they are entitled to the benefit of the general course of human experience, that men ordinarily speak the truth, when they have no prevailing motive or inducement to the contrary. This presumption, to which we have before alluded, is applied in courts of justice, even to witnesses whose integrity is not wholly free from suspicion; much more is it applicable to the evangelists, whose testimony went against all their worldly interests
The great truths which the apostles declared, were that Christ had risen from the dead, and that only through repentance from sin, and faith in him, could men hope for salvation. This doctrine they asserted with one voice, everywhere, not only under the greatest discouragements, but in the face of the most appalling terrors that can be presented to the mind of man. Their master had recently perished as a malefactor, by the sentence of a public tribunal. His religion sought to overthrow the religions of the whole world. The laws of every country were against the teaching of his disciples. The interests and passions of all the rulers and great men in the world were against them. The fashion of the world was against them. Propagating this new faith, even in the most inoffensive and peaceful manner, they could expect nothing but contempt, opposition, revilings, bitter persecutions, stripes imprisonments, torments and cruel deaths. Yet this faith they zealously did propogate; and all these miseries they endured undismayed, nay, rejoicing. As one after another was put to a miserable death, the survivors only prosecuted their work with increased vigor and resolution
The annals of military warfare afford scarcely an example of the like heroic constancy, patience and unblenching courage. They had every possible motive to review carefully the grounds of their faith, and the evidences of the great facts and truths which they asserted; and these motives were pressed upon their attention with the most melancholy and terrific frequency. It was therefore impossible that they could have persisted in affirming the truths they have narrated, had not Jesus actually rose from the dead, and had they not known this fact as certainly as they knew any other fact. If it were morally possible for them to have been deceived in this matter, every human motive operated to lead them to discover and avow their error. To have persisted in so gross a falsehood, after it was known to them, was not only to encounter, for life, all the evils which man could inflict, from without, but to endure also the pangs of inward and conscious guilt; with no hope of future peace, no testimony of a good conscience, no expectation of honor or esteem amom men, no hope of happiness in this life, or in the world to come.
Such conduct in the apostles would moreover have been utterly irreconcilable with the fact, that they possessed the ordinary constitution of our common nature. Yet their lives do show them to have been men like all others of our race; swayed by the same motives, animated by the same hopes, affected by the same joys, subdued by the same sorrows, agitated by the same fears, and subject to the same passions, temptations and infirmities, as ourselves. And their writings show them to have been men of vigorous understandings. If then their testimony was not true, there was no possible motive for this fabrication.”0 -
Thanks Sw for the long answer, but I'm still left wondering why you find these "extraordinary" events so much more extraordinary than the known and unknown universe? The answer is great in the context of the bible and the claims Jesus made but my question wasn't. Now I'm just confused that piece about good, wise and supernatural is a head wrecker. Could you elaborate? Good means making supernatural claims?0
-
Soul Winner wrote: »Well obviously they haven't been that effectively disposed of to everyone, otherwise they would not be still doing the rounds. Maybe every generation needs to be reminded of their effective disposal somehow, because as far as I’m concerned they are still valid arguments
No they aren't. As you've been told they have been trashed to pieces over and over again.Huh? ACCORDING TO GROWING NUMBERS OF SCIENTISTS, the laws and constants of nature are so "finely-tuned," and so many "coincidences" have occurred to allow for the possibility of life, the universe must have come into existence through intentional planning and intelligence. In fact, this "fine-tuning" is so pronounced, and the "coincidences" are so numerous, many scientists have come to espouse "The Anthropic Principle," which contends that the universe was brought into existence intentionally for the sake of producing mankind. Even those who do not accept The Anthropic Principle admit to the "fine-tuning" and conclude that the universe is "too contrived" to be a chance event. More here
You don't understand what the anthropic principle is. Quite simply it's hardly surprising that we find oursleves in a universe that is capable of producing something like us. What other type of universe could we find ourselves in? And even if the physical constants are a put-up-job, to suggest that you know the answer to who or what was responsible is surely far greater arrogance than you'll ever see from the atheist posters here (and we're the ones accused of it)I'd imagine few here entertain the notion that any intelligent entity responsible for our universe is ANYTHING like a God as described by humans.
I mean, honestly, something with such incomprehensible power is hardly going to share petty human emotions such as pride, or ego or anger. Or constantly read the thoughts of every human that ever lived, jotting down on a ledger the times they transgressed some ambiguous set of rules provided. Or care if someone's skirt is too short, or if their hair is uncovered, or if they ate a rasher.
If we're going to assume there's an intelligent designer, at least credit it with some intelligence.
That pretty much sums it up for me. It's rather pathetic that people think a superintelligence capable of creating a universe would be saddled with the same petty little shortcomings as us mere mortals. What a truly bizarre notion.0 -
That isn't what he is saying.
He is saying that your assertion that the big bang must have had a "cause" is flawed thinking, because time itself appears to have originated with the big bang.
No, what is asserted is that everything that begins to exist has a cause. The universe began to exist, therefore it has a cause. Now you might say that the cause was not God but it still was caused by something, and that something either purposely fine tuned it to permit carbon based life like ours, or it was mere chance happening. If finely tuned deliberately then that suggests that behind this fine tuning lies an intellect which surpasses by orders of magnitude more than anything known to us. Jesus calls God sprit and they which worship Him must worship in spirit. If God is spirit and is also eternal then He does not have or need a cause nor is He made of the same stuff that we are made of.Saying therefore that everything must have a cause (something that holds true only in this universe as far as we know, and appears to not always hold even in this universe) and therefore the universe must have had a cause is an unfounded assertion.
Can you give us an example of something that began to exist in our universe that had no cause?The universe might have had a cause, but equally such a concept could be nonsense in the reality that existed "before" the big bang. One cannot use the assertion that it must have had a cause to start arguing for the existence of a particular god (leaving aside that that argument is in of itself seriously flawed and silly)
That argument is only seriously flawed and silly when you make it so by having the presupposition that it cannot be true based on what can be observed in nature. Of course it is seriously flawed and silly if all you are ever going to do is measure everything with that (flawed) presupposition. You have taken the possibility away by that presupposition so of course is is going to be seriously flawed and silly.One of the very interesting things that scientists have been discovering as they delve deeper into the systems that govern our own universe is that the assertions we make at this relatively large scale (humans, buildings, cars, trees) do not hold either at tiny or large extremes of nature. For example locality, the idea that something cannot influence something else without physically interacting with it over a distance of space, does not appear to hold true in certain conditions. Equally the concept of "now" and the uniform flow of time doesn't hold over large distances at different velocities.
I know. I pointed to one of the leading voices (Amit Goswami) in this realm of quantum mechanics in an earlier reply to NekkidBibleMan. Here it is again, really interesting interview, he has some very radical views but IMO probably the only way science can go if it wants to begin to answer the questions it has inevitable lead itself to ask. Like what is consciousness? Does anyone want to argue about whether consciousness exists? It does exist. We are conscious of our surroundings therefore consciousness exist. But we cannot see it and yet it still exists. But how, where and probably most importantly why does it exist? These are not jus philosophical questions any more, they are questions that are beginning to overlap with quantum mechanics and quantum theory questions. Anyway it’s a good read even if you don’t accept what he is postulating as the new way for science to precede. I’m not a scientist so I don’t really have an opinion on it as such; I just find what scientists are doing and saying more and more fascinating by the day.The flaw (one of them at least) with the idea that the universe must have had a cause and that cause must be God, is that it is applying the rules of inside this universe in certain circumstances to the formation of the universe itself, which doesn't work.
It is like wondering why the referee hasn't blown his whistle to stop play when you are in a sports shop and the casher has just picked up a football you are buying and is placing it in a bag to give to you. The rules of the game of football apply only to the game of football. They are meaningless outside of the game.
Equally the rules of the universe apply to the universe. Space and time apply to the universe. The concepts are rather meaningless when discussing something else.
Wick you have many strong attributes but analogy is not one of them. We know from science that the universe had a beginning. So what we are left with is speculation as to how it began. If it came from nothing as the big bang theory postulates, then how? How can all the matter and energy that is obviously there now in the universe have come from nothing at all without having a cause? If I hear a loud bang in the street and go out to investigate it, the first thing I will ask is; “What made that loud bang?”. If you turn to me and say; “Nothing, it just happened” a confused frown would appear on my face. That confused frown was caused by your answer to my question. Your answer was caused by my question. My question was caused by the loud bang I heard. So what caused the loud bang? What applies to small bangs surely applies to big bangs. If the universe was created then what else but an eternal super intellectual being could have caused it? What are the other plausible alternatives? If it is assumed that it was actually created or caused by something then what is so outlandish about believing that it was caused by what we call God, or a super intellectual and eternal being?0 -
Soul Winner wrote: »....If finely tuned deliberately then that suggests that behind this fine tuning lies an intellect which surpasses by orders of magnitude more than anything known to us. Jesus calls God sprit and they which worship Him must worship in spirit. If God is spirit and is also eternal then He does not have or need a cause nor is He made of the same stuff that we are made of.
Thats a big leap. No? You'd have to take what Jesus said as fact most including myself in here obviously don't even if he did actually say it so it doesn't really stand in the argument.Soul Winner wrote: »...How can all the matter and energy that is obviously there now in the universe have come from nothing at all without having a cause?
Has that actually been said in here.Soul Winner wrote: »...If the universe was created then what else but an eternal super intellectual being could have caused it?...
I don't know. Does anybody know that?Soul Winner wrote: »What are the other plausible alternatives? If it is assumed that it was actually created or caused by something then what is so outlandish about believing that it was caused by what we call God, or a super intellectual and eternal being?
Because its just a guess.0 -
CerebralCortex wrote: »Thats a big leap. No? You'd have to take what Jesus said as fact most including myself in here obviously don't even if he did actually say it so it doesn't really stand in the argument.
Well yeah. What basis does one have to say that what Jesus said was false? You cannot believe what He says but that does not prove what He says to be false. At some point you must settle for something that you will believe in and inexorably you will found those beliefs based on something that you have read or heard and live your life accordingly. That is why the resurrection is so important. If you can believe that that happened then that is a good basis to believe the other things, and yes that becomes a leap of faith but then that does happen no matter you decide you want to base you life on.CerebralCortex wrote: »Has that actually been said in here.
Yes it has been suggested that the universe does not have a cause.CerebralCortex wrote: »I don't know. Does anybody know that?0 -
Soul Winner wrote: »Now you might say that the cause was not God but it still was caused by something, and that something either purposely fine tuned it to permit carbon based life like ours, or it was mere chance happening.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Just-Six-Numbers-Universe-Science/dp/0753810220
MrP0 -
If you are actually interested in this subject, have a read of this book. It is very interesting and an enjoyable enough read:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Just-Six-Numbers-Universe-Science/dp/0753810220
MrP
Thanks MrP. Looks very interesting. I've read his name mentioned in a few articles I came across on the net and but haven't read any of his books. Will start with this one. Cheers.0 -
Soul Winner wrote: »No, what is asserted is that everything that begins to exist has a cause. The universe began to exist, therefore it has a cause.
As I said, that is an unfounded assertion.
It appears to not apply to everything in our universe, let alone things "outside" of our spacetimeSoul Winner wrote: »Now you might say that the cause was not God but it still was caused by something, and that something either purposely fine tuned it to permit carbon based life like ours, or it was mere chance happening.
It would take a very egotistical race of creatures to look around the universe, see no other evidence of life, and conclude that the universe was "fine tuned" for them to exist.Soul Winner wrote: »Can you give us an example of something that began to exist in our universe that had no cause?
Yes, sub-atomic particles can exist or be altered in a way that breaks the classical views of causality and locality. This is part of what is known in physics as "entanglement" and it is very very weird when contrasted to our day to day lives and how we view spacetime and interactions between "things"Soul Winner wrote: »You have taken the possibility away by that presupposition so of course is is going to be seriously flawed and silly.
well yes, that is the point.
Your assertion that everything that begins must have a cause does not hold universily as you claim. For a start there is absolutely no reason to believe it holds when one removes time from the equation as one would do when discussing "before" or "outside" the universe. It appears not to even hold in side the universe.
So naturally when one factors that into the mix your assertion, and the conclusions you draw from that, become silly.Soul Winner wrote: »I just find what scientists are doing and saying more and more fascinating by the day.
Goswami has been musing about his ideas of a universal spiritualism in place of matter since the early 1990s. It is not science, it is his is own personal philosophy inspired by Eastern mysticism.Soul Winner wrote: »Wick you have many strong attributes but analogy is not one of them. We know from science that the universe had a beginning. So what we are left with is speculation as to how it began. If it came from nothing as the big bang theory postulates, then how?
The big bang theory does not postulate that "it came from nothing". The big bang theory does not postulate anything about what happened before the big bang because we don't even know if such a concept as "before" applies.
You really need to understand this because it is crucial to this discussion, all evidence and models suggest that time itself is a product of the big bang.
Therefore concepts such as "before" and ideas of cause and effect are rather null and void when discussing any possible trigger of the big bang.Soul Winner wrote: »If I hear a loud bang in the street and go out to investigate it, the first thing I will ask is; “What made that loud bang?”. If you turn to me and say; “Nothing, it just happened” a confused frown would appear on my face.
Scientists have known for a while that observing a particle, such as an electron, causes the collapse of what is known as it's probability wave. Before a particle is observed it exists in some blurry state of probability. It might be here, it might be there. You don't actually know until you observe it in some fashion (interact with it). And the amazing thing is that it isn't a case that it is in one spot but you just don't know until you look, experiments have revealed that it doesn't actually exist in a single spot until you interact with it by observing it.
The really amazing thing is that observing a particle appears to effect how it was in the past over great distances. The probability waves of light are bend around stars. Light can go one way or the other. When you observe a light particle you collapse the probability wave and determine that it went one way around the star. Until you do that the light particle is in a blurred state of having gone one way or the other. The really weird thing is that it went around the star millions of years ago. So how can observing it now cause the probability wave 5 million years ago to collapse?
It is when one starts looking at things like this one realizes that our notions of how the universe work based on our personal experiences are really only half the picture. Our "rules" are formed because of the circumstances that the broader rules of the universe find themselves in when dealing with our local interactions.
Things like causality and locality apply to use because of the circumstances of our particular patch of the universe but they do not necessarily apply universally to all things in the universe and there is certain no reason to believe they apply to the universe itself.Soul Winner wrote: »If the universe was created then what else but an eternal super intellectual being could have caused it? What are the other plausible alternatives?
Well for a start I wouldn't rate an eternal super intellectual being as "plausible"
If something did cause the universe to spring into existence it is far more likely to be along the lines of something like Zillah's fundamental super particle.Soul Winner wrote: »If it is assumed that it was actually created or caused by something then what is so outlandish about believing that it was caused by what we call God, or a super intellectual and eternal being?
Why would someone believe that?0 -
It is very frustrating to read througha long thread, decide what you want to say and then discover that Wicknight says it all much more elgantly than you can in the last post!
So I agree with everything he says. The concept of "the universe must have a creator because it has a start point" is invalid because the notion of start and stop only make sense in the context of linear time. remove linear time (as we seem to under the context of a big bang event) and you lose teh concept of a start. Remove our understanding of causuality - as per the excellent examples above, and you start to understand that every assumption we make has to be questioned. Yes even the assumption of beginning and end, cause and effect. They simply do NOT apply at the levels we are discussing.
So you are applying "conventional" models of understanding to explain events and that leaves gaps and holes. These holes are caused by the fact that our traditional understanding doesn't apply or work in these conditions. Real scientists look at these gaps and ask how they can change thier assumptions and models to fit the facts as observed. Religious apologists alter the facts - adding agents such as god - in order to both explain facts and maintain (not alter) thier assumptions and understanding.0 -
Advertisement
-
Soul Winner wrote: »Well yeah. What basis does one have to say that what Jesus said was false?
Second hand information from 2000 years ago and if even true aren't astounding enough to prove anything except that he was a very powerful being.Soul Winner wrote: »You cannot believe what He says but that does not prove what He says to be false. At some point you must settle for something that you will believe in and inexorably you will found those beliefs based on something that you have read or heard and live your life accordingly. That is why the resurrection is so important. If you can believe that that happened then that is a good basis to believe the other things, and yes that becomes a leap of faith but then that does happen no matter you decide you want to base you life on.
Not sure how to answer that but... ...personally how I chose to lead my life involves me trying(struggling) to be dynamic changing myself instead of trying to change the world which is what so many major religions try to do. Admitting to myself that there is nothing certain.
0 -
If someone can believe that god either came into being without a cause, or has always existed, why can't they believe that the universe either came into being without a cause, or has always existed? Why not just remove god from the equation? -Carl Sagan
Indeed, god is a lot more complex than the universe (to understate), so it is far easier to believe the latter.0 -
As I said, that is an unfounded assertion.
It appears to not apply to everything in our universe, let alone things "outside" of our spacetime
The Big Bang as defined by “Wikipedia” and “All about science” respectively:
"The Big Bang is the cosmological model of the universe that is best supported by all lines of scientific evidence and observation. As used by scientists, the term Big Bang generally refers to the idea that the universe has expanded from a primordial hot and dense initial condition at some finite time in the past, and continues to expand to this day."
“The Big Bang theory is an effort to explain what happened at the very beginning of our universe. Discoveries in astronomy and physics have shown beyond a reasonable doubt that our universe did in fact have a beginning. Prior to that moment there was nothing; during and after that moment there was something: our universe. The big bang theory is an effort to explain what happened during and after that moment.”
My assertion is based on what Science is telling us, nothing else. Expanding from a finite time in the past means it had a beginning and before that beginning there was nothing. How can everything come from nothing? That is the question.The universe is not fine tuned to permit carbon based life. You can tell that by how little evidence of carbon based life there is in the universe.
Ok let us assume that it was not actually fine tuned by anyone or anything. The fact still remains that if any of the 26 constants in the initial conditions of the universe were different by even 2% in either direction then we would have a completely different universe. Incapable of producing let alone sustaining life as we know it.It would take a very egotistical race of creatures to look around the universe, see no other evidence of life, and conclude that the universe was "fine tuned" for them to exist.
To date we have yet to see any evidence whatsoever anywhere else for the existence of carbon based life or any other based life other than what we observe here on earth. Until we do then I think we (the most complex of life forms we know of) have every right to be egotistical about it. The fact is that it just so happens that when our universe began to exist it “instantaneously” not gradually - in the first microseconds – it possessed the constants with the properties that they actually possess and that we also need them to possess in order that we may exist. A fraction off and we would not be here to talk about it.Yes, sub-atomic particles can exist or be altered in a way that breaks the classical views of causality and locality. This is part of what is known in physics as "entanglement" and it is very very weird when contrasted to our day to day lives and how we view spacetime and interactions between "things"
Taken from : www.existence-of-god.com/index.html
“It is important to remember that much science is provisional. What may seem to be an uncaused event may be an event the cause of which is unobserved. We should therefore not be too hasty in agreeing that uncaused events are possible on the basis of observations of subatomic particles.
Just as important, however, is the fact that the apparent randomness of the behaviour of subatomic particles is not also found in larger structures. Randomness, if randomness there be, is confined to the microscopic. The behaviour of everything else can, at least in principle, be explained.”
And might I add, as subatomic particles are part of, nay what make up our universe then they also began to exist in that finite time in the past.well yes, that is the point.
Your assertion that everything that begins must have a cause does not hold universily as you claim.
But it does though. Everything that begins to exist has a cause even subatomic particles, the big bang is the cause of subatomic particles. All matter space and time came into existence from and after the big bang including subatomic particles. How they behave now is irelevant to the question of what caused them to exist in the first palce.For a start there is absolutely no reason to believe it holds when one removes time from the equation as one would do when discussing "before" or "outside" the universe. It appears not to even hold in side the universe.
So naturally when one factors that into the mix your assertion, and the conclusions you draw from that, become silly.
But that does nothing to counter argue the principle that things that begin to exist have a cause. Outside time things are eternal and therefore do not begin to exist and therefore have no cause.Amit Goswami is, I'm not sure that translates to a general "scientists"
Goswami has been musing about his ideas of a universal spiritualism in place of matter since the early 1990s. It is not science, it is his is own personal philosophy inspired by Eastern mysticism.
He is a scientist though and he maintains that science will have to cross this bridge eventually if it is to answer some of the questions that science itself asks. What is behind that door? I don’t know. How do we find out? Try opening the door. That is how science work isn’t it?The big bang theory does not postulate that "it came from nothing".
Like I showed above, the Big Bang theory DOES postulate that all matter space and time began to exist in a finite time in the past before which there was nothing.The big bang theory does not postulate anything about what happened before the big bang because we don't even know if such a concept as "before" applies.
I never said that it did, read back on my posts. I said that it postulates a beginning and that what’s left is open to speculation as to how it began. So something caused it to begin because as I have already pointed out, everything that begins to exist has a cause. What caused it does not necessarily have to have a beginning and therefore does not necessarily have to have a cause.You really need to understand this because it is crucial to this discussion, all evidence and models suggest that time itself is a product of the big bang.
Therefore concepts such as "before" and ideas of cause and effect are rather null and void when discussing any possible trigger of the big bang.
Why? Isn’t that what science is? Asking the questions that are begging to be asked? Do we destroy the basic tenet of science now because we might be afraid of what we find out? I say no, let us forge ahead with science and ask these questions. What caused the BIG BANG???Scientists have known for a while that observing a particle, such as an electron, causes the collapse of what is known as it's probability wave. Before a particle is observed it exists in some blurry state of probability. It might be here, it might be there. You don't actually know until you observe it in some fashion (interact with it). And the amazing thing is that it isn't a case that it is in one spot but you just don't know until you look, experiments have revealed that it doesn't actually exist in a single spot until you interact with it by observing it.
The really amazing thing is that observing a particle appears to effect how it was in the past over great distances. The probability waves of light are bend around stars. Light can go one way or the other. When you observe a light particle you collapse the probability wave and determine that it went one way around the star. Until you do that the light particle is in a blurred state of having gone one way or the other. The really weird thing is that it went around the star millions of years ago. So how can observing it now cause the probability wave 5 million years ago to collapse?
It is when one starts looking at things like this one realizes that our notions of how the universe work based on our personal experiences are really only half the picture. Our "rules" are formed because of the circumstances that the broader rules of the universe find themselves in when dealing with our local interactions.
Things like causality and locality apply to use because of the circumstances of our particular patch of the universe but they do not necessarily apply universally to all things in the universe and there is certain no reason to believe they apply to the universe itself.
And there is absolutely no reason at all to believe that they don’t apply to the universe as whole either but that is beside the point and irrelevant to this discussion IMO. We are talking about the big bang and you contend that the big bang does not postulate a beginning for the universe and what you have just said here has nothing to do with that. You are merely describing observable (or not) subatomic behavior within our universe. I see no relevance to what hitherto we were discussing.Well for a start I wouldn't rate an eternal super intellectual being as "plausible"
Well as we are talking about outside of space and time now so anything is plausible and hypothesitical to make a word up.If something did cause the universe to spring into existence it is far more likely to be along the lines of something like Zillah's fundamental super particle.
But aren’t particles made up of matter? If so then surely so are hypothetical super particles? It is only after the big bang that matter arrives not before. Anything before the big bang is not part of matter, space and time and is therefore timeless (eternal), matter-less and space-less. So how can matter be eternal if all matter came after the big bang which happened in a finite point of time in the past?Why would someone believe that?
Because what we are seeing today is science reaffirming biblical attributes of God in relation to the universe. Cosmological discoveries and observations are serving to augment faith in God as the creator as the only plausible nay possible explanation as to how the universe came into being. Why? Because no matter how deep you delve into the micro and macro universe or how far you go back in time to the initial conditions of the big bang you will come to a point of absolute nothingness. And without a causer of everything it is absolutely impossible that everything that does in fact exist could exist from and by nothing, if all there ever was was nothing, then there would still be nothing. In short “something” caused “everything”. It is a valid scientific inquiry to find out what that something was. Someone said in here before that science will have the answers to ALL the questions someday. To say that science will never know just nullifies the need for science and gives no basis to tell people that their faith in a creator is stupid.0 -
ChocolateSauce wrote: »If someone can believe that god either came into being without a cause, or has always existed, why can't they believe that the universe either came into being without a cause, or has always existed?
Because science tells us that the universe had a begining in a finite time in the past that's why. Before which nothing (time, space, and matter etc) at all existed. Nothingness. And from that begining point of nothingness came all time, space and matter. if somehting caused it then that somehting is outside space and time and therefore is eternal and if eternal then it has not cause.ChocolateSauce wrote: »Why not just remove god from the equation? -Carl Sagan
They've been trying for centuries. Can't do it.0 -
Soul Winner wrote: »They've been trying for centuries. Can't do it.
I assure you that there are at least a couple of equations in science that have God removed from them and yet they still function.
I know, I think its amazing too.0 -
Soul Winner wrote: »The Big Bang as defined by “Wikipedia” and “All about science” respectively:
"The Big Bang is the cosmological model of the universe that is best supported by all lines of scientific evidence and observation. As used by scientists, the term Big Bang generally refers to the idea that the universe has expanded from a primordial hot and dense initial condition at some finite time in the past, and continues to expand to this day."
“The Big Bang theory is an effort to explain what happened at the very beginning of our universe. Discoveries in astronomy and physics have shown beyond a reasonable doubt that our universe did in fact have a beginning. Prior to that moment there was nothing; during and after that moment there was something: our universe. The big bang theory is an effort to explain what happened during and after that moment.”
My assertion is based on what Science is telling us, nothing else. Expanding from a finite time in the past means it had a beginning and before that beginning there was nothing. How can everything come from nothing? That is the question.
First of all, your assertion is not based on what Science is telling you, its based on what you have read in two websites, not the same thing. Secondly everything didn't come from nothing, it came from something that is not believed to exist under the universal constrains that we do (time, gravity etc). This is known as a singularity. The wikipedia link explains that prior to the big bang there was a "primordial hot and dense initial condition", and while the part of AllaboutScience.com you quoted uses the word "nothing" the very next paragraph ends with:
"Our universe is thought to have begun as an infinitesimally small, infinitely hot, infinitely dense, something - a singularity. Where did it come from? We don't know. Why did it appear? We don't know."
You should read the "Big Bang Theory - Common Misconceptions" section too,Soul Winner wrote: »Ok let us assume that it was not actually fine tuned by anyone or anything. The fact still remains that if any of the 26 constants in the initial conditions of the universe were different by even 2% in either direction then we would have a completely different universe. Incapable of producing let alone sustaining life as we know it.
Then it would just produce a different kind of life, or none at all. You are assuming that life is something that has to exist.Soul Winner wrote: »To date we have yet to see any evidence whatsoever anywhere else for the existence of carbon based life or any other based life other than what we observe here on earth. Until we do then I think we (the most complex of life forms we know of) have every right to be egotistical about it. The fact is that it just so happens that when our universe began to exist it “instantaneously” not gradually - in the first microseconds – it possessed the constants with the properties that they actually possess and that we also need them to possess in order that we may exist. A fraction off and we would not be here to talk about it.
Again, if the universal contains where different, then a different kind of life, or no kind of life at all, would exist. You cannot examine this scientifically if you go in with the assumption that life is something the universe must have. Its a fair indication that life isn't something that has to exist in a universe, given that we have no evidence of it outside of earth.Soul Winner wrote: »Like I showed above, the Big Bang theory DOES postulate that all matter space and time began to exist in a finite time in the past before which there was nothing.
As above, not nothing, just something that the laws and constrains of our universe apply to.Soul Winner wrote: »I never said that it did, read back on my posts. I said that it postulates a beginning and that what’s left is open to speculation as to how it began. So something caused it to begin because as I have already pointed out, everything that begins to exist has a cause. What caused it does not necessarily have to have a beginning and therefore does not necessarily have to have a cause.
Yes but what was there before the big bang (the singularity) existed in a state where it didn't have a beginning, therefore anything it did didn't have a beginning therefore it didn't have a cause.Soul Winner wrote: »Originally Posted by Wicknight View Post
You really need to understand this because it is crucial to this discussion, all evidence and models suggest that time itself is a product of the big bang.
Therefore concepts such as "before" and ideas of cause and effect are rather null and void when discussing any possible trigger of the big bang.
Why? Isn’t that what science is? Asking the questions that are begging to be asked? Do we destroy the basic tenet of science now because we might be afraid of what we find out? I say no, let us forge ahead with science and ask these questions. What caused the BIG BANG???
Science is not trying to discuss something in terms that don't apply to it. If you use inaplicable terminology (or misinterpret the current terminology) you will just ask the wrong questions.Soul Winner wrote: »And there is absolutely no reason at all to believe that they don’t apply to the universe as whole either but that is beside the point and irrelevant to this discussion IMO. We are talking about the big bang and you contend that the big bang does not postulate a beginning for the universe and what you have just said here has nothing to do with that. You are merely describing observable (or not) subatomic behavior within our universe. I see no relevance to what hitherto we were discussing.
The big bang is an event that happened to the singularity. As the singularity existed outside time (eternal as you say) then it doesn't have a beginning, likewise anything that it undergoes has no beginning and therefore no cause.Soul Winner wrote: »Well as we are talking about outside of space and time now so anything is plausible and hypothesitical to make a word up.
Plausibility is subjective, possiblility is not. You may think that all things possible are plausible but thats not a very scientific (or frankly efficient) way to think about something.Soul Winner wrote: »But aren’t particles made up of matter? If so then surely so are hypothetical super particles? It is only after the big bang that matter arrives not before. Anything before the big bang is not part of matter, space and time and is therefore timeless (eternal), matter-less and space-less. So how can matter be eternal if all matter came after the big bang which happened in a finite point of time in the past?
Matter is made up of particals, not vice-versa.Soul Winner wrote: »Because what we are seeing today is science reaffirming biblical attributes of God in relation to the universe. Cosmological discoveries and observations are serving to augment faith in God as the creator as the only plausible nay possible explanation as to how the universe came into being. Why? Because no matter how deep you delve into the micro and macro universe or how far you go back in time to the initial conditions of the big bang you will come to a point of absolute nothingness.
No you don't, you have the singularity, something that is scientifically undefined as it is something that doesn't come under the same universal constrains as everything in the universe. This only points to God if you are already facing that direction when you start, which isn't scientific.Soul Winner wrote: »And without a causer of everything it is absolutely impossible that everything that does in fact exist could exist from and by nothing, if all there ever was was nothing, then there would still be nothing. In short “something” caused “everything”. It is a valid scientific inquiry to find out what that something was. Someone said in here before that science will have the answers to ALL the questions someday. To say that science will never know just nullifies the need for science and gives no basis to tell people that their faith in a creator is stupid.
A large part of your problem with this is that you seem to apply a macro-scale idea of causality to the beginning of the universe (ie a sentient decision). Just as the randomness inherent in particles only exists in the micro-scale, and not the macro-scale, macro-scale causality only applies to the macro-scale. What happen to start the big bang was a cause, but a mcro-scale cause, which is more like a spontaneous chemical reaction, but one in which absolutely none of the normal constrains apply because it occured outside the universe. To examine it in terms of macro-scale causality would be as crazy as to examine macro-scale behaviour in terms of the micro-scale randomness of particles.0 -
Soul Winner wrote: »My assertion is based on what Science is telling us, nothing else. Expanding from a finite time in the past means it had a beginning and before that beginning there was nothing.
No it doesn't.
No one is doubting the event of the Big Bang. What we are saying is that your assertion that something before the Big Bang must have caused it to happen is unfounded.
Time itself appears to have originated at the Big Bang. "Before" the Big Bang is therefore largely a meaningless concept, like "north of north"
As is the concept of causality, something happening before something else that leads to that something else, applied to the Big Bang itself. How can you have "before" time (outside of Disney). If time itself originated at the Big Bang then there is no before the Big Bang.Soul Winner wrote: »How can everything come from nothing? That is the question.
But again there is no evidence that the Big Bang "came from nothing". We have no idea what the Big Bang came from or even if such a concept of coming from something can be applied to the Big Bang.Soul Winner wrote: »Ok let us assume that it was not actually fine tuned by anyone or anything. The fact still remains that if any of the 26 constants in the initial conditions of the universe were different by even 2% in either direction then we would have a completely different universe. Incapable of producing let alone sustaining life as we know it.
There is no evidence for that, and as pointed out the universe does not appear to be at all well tuned for "life as we know it". You are also ignoring life as we don't know it, any form of life that could have emerged if the forces were different.
But even if this particular universe was quite unlikely (it was by the way, but not for the reasons you are putting forward), that still doesn't imply that it was created for a purpose. This is known as the Antropic Principle
Any universe like ours will produce life like us. It is not really surprising then that we find ourselves in a universe like we do.Soul Winner wrote: »To date we have yet to see any evidence whatsoever anywhere else for the existence of carbon based life or any other based life other than what we observe here on earth. Until we do then I think we (the most complex of life forms we know of) have every right to be egotistical about it.
Quite the opposite in fact. The idea that the entire universe was created so that we could evolve on a tiny planet in a totally average corner of a totally average galaxy in a totally average galaxy cluster is rather ridiculous.
It would be like a grain of sand one day thinking that the entire solar system, and the billions of years before it existed, was created to sustain its own existence.Soul Winner wrote: »The fact is that it just so happens that when our universe began to exist it “instantaneously” not gradually - in the first microseconds – it possessed the constants with the properties that they actually possess and that we also need them to possess in order that we may exist. A fraction off and we would not be here to talk about it.
Yes, but then we wouldn't be hear to talk about.Soul Winner wrote: »Taken from : www.existence-of-god.com/index.html
Ok ... I'm not sure what you think that says but I don't see the relevance.Soul Winner wrote: »And might I add, as subatomic particles are part of, nay what make up our universe then they also began to exist in that finite time in the past.
Particles can be "created" or influenced in the future, throwing the notion of locality and causality on its head.Soul Winner wrote: »Everything that begins to exist has a cause even subatomic particles, the big bang is the cause of subatomic particles.Soul Winner wrote: »He is a scientist though and he maintains that science will have to cross this bridge eventually if it is to answer some of the questions that science itself asks. What is behind that door? I don’t know. How do we find out? Try opening the door. That is how science work isn’t it?
Well no. Science works by modeling what is behind the door.Soul Winner wrote: »I never said that it did, read back on my posts.Soul Winner wrote: »Why? Isn’t that what science is? Asking the questions that are begging to be asked?
No, you are missing the point. It isn't that you are asking questions. It is that there is a flaw in your question.
What is north of the north pole? What is south of south pole?
Such questions are meaningless. It isn't that we don't know the answer, it is that the question doesn't make sense. It isn't that we are left wondering what lies north of north pole without ever knowing the answer, it is that the concept of north of north is meaningless. There isn't an answer to that question beyond saying that the question doesn't make sense.
Asking what happened before time is equally meaningless. Without time itself there is no before, there is no after. Asking what caused time to exist is equally meaningless because cause implies an action in the past triggering an action in the present. But there is no past without time. There is no present.Soul Winner wrote: »What caused the BIG BANG???
What is NORTH OF NORTH!Soul Winner wrote: »And there is absolutely no reason at all to believe that they don’t apply to the universe as whole either but that is beside the point and irrelevant to this discussion IMO.
Not at all, it is completely relevant to your assert that everything has a cause.
If causality might not even apply inside our own universe there is little reason to assert that it must apply to the universe itself.Soul Winner wrote: »We are talking about the big bang and you contend that the big bang does not postulate a beginning for the universe and what you have just said here has nothing to do with that.
How can something cause time to exist. For a cause you need time to already exist. Causality is something that happens on an already existing time line. Something at point A on the time line caused something at point B on the time line.Soul Winner wrote: »Well as we are talking about outside of space and time now so anything is plausible and hypothesitical to make a word up.
Certainly. But you are making assertions about how it must be, the universe must have had a cause (a cause to which you assign your own particular deity).Soul Winner wrote: »But aren’t particles made up of matter?
All matter is made up of particles but not all particles make up matter. And scientists are discovering that matter appears to be simply a state that some particles can find themselves in. In reality (again theoretical but all signs point in this direction) energy is what everything is made up of.
So no, the "super particle" would not be matter.Soul Winner wrote: »Because what we are seeing today is science reaffirming biblical attributes of God in relation to the universe.
Indeed. And "reaffirming" every other religion that believed the universe had a beginning, which is most of them.Soul Winner wrote: »And without a causer of everything it is absolutely impossible that everything that does in fact exist could exist from and by nothing, if all there ever was was nothing, then there would still be nothing.
Again that isn't true. Particles appear out of "nothing" in our own universe. Of course that brings one on to how we define "nothing", which is a very interesting question a bit like how we define "space". But again the point is that the universe does not behave the way our intuition would like it to. For all intensive purposes something can come from nothing.
Besides, how does God make something out of nothing?
You don't have an answer for that, you just say he can because he is God. He uses magic. Which is pointless. You are simply defining yourself out of a problem.0 -
Couple of questions.
Has the big bang / big crunch idea been totally discounted now?
The super particle being mentioned, could the "Higgs Bosun" particle be that?
MrP0 -
-
Advertisement
-
Its a completely baseless hypothetical thing. I believe the timeless super particle idea was first used by Wicknight many moons ago.0
Advertisement