NationStates Jolt Archive

I am not trying to say there is this paticular God, although I have my belief as a Christian, but there has to be some type of creator here me out. The Big bang theory can be refuted in one line:
Where did the dust come from, where did the space come from, it had to originate somewhere.
So maybe the big bang theory happened but something had to create the space to do it. Maybe I am missing something, but how can this be refuted.

I am not trying to say there is this paticular God, although I have my belief as a Christian, but there has to be some type of creator here me out. The Big bang theory can be refuted in one line:
Where did the dust come from, where did the space come from, it had to originate somewhere.
So maybe the big bang theory happened but something had to create the space to do it. Maybe I am missing something, but how can this be refuted.

Where did God come from?

I'm loving the Christian outspeak here, man.

Yeah--I believe in the intelligent design theory, too.

(More than believe - know. But I can't say that, the secularist Nazis will get me.)

I am not trying to say there is this paticular God, although I have my belief as a Christian, but there has to be some type of creator here me out. The Big bang theory can be refuted in one line:
Where did the dust come from, where did the space come from, it had to originate somewhere.
So maybe the big bang theory happened but something had to create the space to do it. Maybe I am missing something, but how can this be refuted.
You are missing something. There was no space. There was no dust. There was nothing. Then, a singularity appeared. Considering that matter comes into existence all the time, that was not surprising. The singularity then expanded at light speed (Actually, it was slightly faster for an extremely short period.) resulting in the expansion of space-time and the formation of the universe.

I am not trying to say there is this paticular God, although I have my belief as a Christian, but there has to be some type of creator here me out. The Big bang theory can be refuted in one line:
Where did the dust come from, where did the space come from, it had to originate somewhere.
So maybe the big bang theory happened but something had to create the space to do it. Maybe I am missing something, but how can this be refuted.

It comes down to this:

Do you believe in a single uncaused cause (a god), or do you believe in an infinite regression of gods / dimensions / universes / whatever?

Both are logically rediculous concepts, but you have to choose one. Either way, there's no proof and you have to admit you simply don't know, or you have to have faith to support one cause over the other.

The answer to the creation of the Universe is not one that can be understood by any human at this time in our development. It is just too complex of an answer. Think of humans on the like 4th dimension of a 9 dimension++ evolution to "enlightenment", or a better comprehension of the start of the Universe. It is simply something we can't fully comprehend.

Considering that matter comes into existence all the time, that was not surprising.
And how exactly does matter come into existence?

I agree with Sdaeriji.

However, just for fun, for those who may not have read or heard any Bill Hicks:

How about a positive LSD story, that would be newsworthy. Don't you think? Anybody think that? Just once, to hear a positive LSD story. "Today, a young man on acid, realised that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration. That we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively, there is no such thing as death, life is only a dream, and we are the imagination of ourselves... here's Tom with the weather."

Where did God come from?
True a good point, with most beliefs the God is outside in a heaven or a place like that outside the World, that you go there when you body dies and you enter there with your spirit. Since God is outside the universe he is infinite, time is a continuim.

I don't know what I am talking about you got me, so nothing can be explained, but isn't a law Mass can be created nor destroyed. So I think that would only leave a divine power to do this...

And how exactly does matter come into existence?

He's talking about particles. They can pop up anywhere, randomly disappear, be in 2 places at once, and all that fun stuff.

And how exactly does matter come into existence?
Beats me. I don't have a degree in physics. It is, however, a well-documented phenomenon.

Considering that matter comes into existence all the time, that was not surprising.

I understand where you're coming from, but, as I understood it, that only occured in particle accelerators as part of an atomic collision. When two particles collide, matter made of something entirely separate from the original particles appears, but only as a result of Einstein's E=mc2 equation, which states that energy can convert to matter.

I don't claim to understand physics that well, but is there proof of spontaneous creation of matter without energy?

There is a God and I am he. And I can prove it!

My beliefs on creation are thus.

Genesis, whatsoever we can gain from reading it, tell us, in my mind, but one important thing: God created. How long it took, and how he did it, doesn't matter to me, what does matter is that He created. Whether He merely made things come into existence by His will alone or not is a matter of contention for Christian theologians.
But NS isn't a reknowned gathering place of Christian theologists. So, I offer this explanation. the Big Bang probably did happen. Macro-evolution even may have happened. But, it was all guided by God's hand, because He wanted to create a universe, and wanted to set it up according to the laws He had set in place to govern it.
I even know a few people who are not Christians, or really religious, who think that at the very least there is some guiding force in the universe.
Thats my two cents worth.

There is a God and I am he. And I can prove it!No you can't.

"There is a creator". You made the claim. Please prove it.

I don't claim to understand physics that well, but is there proof of spontaneous creation of matter without energy?
Since science doesn't deal with proof, no. However, it has been observed. However, since antimatter forms along with the matter, the total energy and matter of the universe remains constant. (Approximately zero.)

Note that, unlike evolution, the Big Bang is actually theoretical. There isn't any solid proof as of yet. All theories about our universe differ, and I'm not up to date on the latest one. The one I was most familiar with the theory a great explosion form a single 0-dimension point, then expanding over time, and will eventually contract and implode. But I don't have a degree in physics. (yet!)

My personal belief is that there is no greater intelligence. There are certain rules and laws, some we're aware of and some we're not, and everything must adhere to that. It just seems too farfetched to me, but I'm not against deism.

True a good point, with most beliefs the God is outside in a heaven or a place like that outside the World, that you go there when you body dies and you enter there with your spirit. Since God is outside the universe he is infinite, time is a continuim.

I don't know what I am talking about you got me, so nothing can be explained, but isn't a law Mass can be created nor destroyed. So I think that would only leave a divine power to do this...

That would be energy, not mass. The law of energy conservation states that you cannot create or destroy energy. Energy can be converted to mass and vice versa, however the total energy in the system, since mass is basically a form of energy, cannot change.

And that would only be one of our various scientific theories. You never know, some clever bod might figure a way to violate that law, and then we would have to think up a new theory to fit the facts all over again. Frankly though, I'd love it if someone managed to overturn the second law of thermodynamics. It's thoroughly depressing, is that one.

I personaly believe in a spiritual world, I could even say that I believe in reincarnation. But God? No, I don't think there's a creator. I just can't wrap my mind around a Judeo-Chrisitian God dictating morality and preaching salvation.

The "singularity" is rather a plot hole in the big bang theory.

I don't believe in the big bang theory, but I don't EXACTLY believe in creationism.

The Bible says that God created everything in seven days. I remember a sermon in church that said "a day in God's kingdom can be a thousand years in ours..."

God transcends time. "Day" is a meaningless word in the Bible, really. I believe in evolution, and I believe that God created us all. Intelligent design.

I've done a bit of research, and most of it is over my head. But scientists have a theory that our universe was created by the collision of two other universes. And... something about an eleventh dimension... Over my head, yes, but very interesting--you ought to research it.

Note that, unlike evolution, the Big Bang is actually theoretical. There isn't any solid proof as of yet. All theories about our universe differ, and I'm not up to date on the latest one. The one I was most familiar with the theory a great explosion form a single 0-dimension point, then expanding over time, and will eventually contract and implode. But I don't have a degree in physics. (yet!)

My personal belief is that there is no greater intelligence. There are certain rules and laws, some we're aware of and some we're not, and everything must adhere to that. It just seems too farfetched to me, but I'm not against deism.

Well, Stephen Hawking suggested an alternative to the singular Big Bang - basically that lots of universes could have been created, are being created, or have yet to be created, sometimes overlapping each other. I think he also suggests that there is enough energy in this universe that the end will not be a crunch, rather the opposite: a slow "heat death" as the second law of thermodynamics takes its toll and everything gradually becomes more and more indeterminate, ending with the last stars, planets, asteroids, right down to atoms and other particles evaporating into useless heat energy. I'd recommend reading The Universe In A Nutshell for more information.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/055380202X/102-9109694-7252109?v=glance

I understand where you're coming from, but, as I understood it, that only occured in particle accelerators as part of an atomic collision. When two particles collide, matter made of something entirely separate from the original particles appears, but only as a result of Einstein's E=mc2 equation, which states that energy can convert to matter.

I don't claim to understand physics that well, but is there proof of spontaneous creation of matter without energy?
Trust me you want to end this now. What your going to get into is superstring theory, which basically, and I mean absurdely basically, states there are two mirrored universes, with particles and their reciprocal form on each side. They are linked and bounce around and its all very complicated, so trust me, its not worth getting into all the antimatter universes and singularities and black hole physics, etc.

Also, some people have brought up certain chaos theory ideas, but don't go there either, as its all unproven.

However, I will make one point. There is no way we can possibly state how the Universe started because at present we do not know what the Universe is. Our perception is purely limited to a strictly 3 dimensional world. However, at present some scientists speculate there might be as many as 8 dimensions (this is to say, supported theories, not random guesses), of which time figures in as a dually dimensional function that I don't want to get into. Let it just be stated that we do not perceive the Universe in its entirety, but only in a very limited scope.

In all reality, this is a very philosophic question, not even scientific. At what point do our senses lose their ability to truly perceive what Is. When is Reality different from Perception, and can our mind differentiate between the two?

Furthermore, here is something for you all to chew on.

According to physics, travelling at the speed of light causes to time to cease. Photons thereby do not change in the passage of time according to said physics (frame shift physics). What does this say about time and the universe?

And here we aren't even getting into neutrinos, muons, tauons, pions, etc.


Next Question: Quantum Theory: Everything is made of waves, to say it simply (is worked in conjunction with Superstring theory), waves of probability, and where that probability is greatest is where particles usually appear, however they can appear elsewhere, but thats besides the point. Particles and waves, according to Quantum, are relatively the same thing, or rather light is both a particular and a wave. According to the Uncertainty Principle, you cannot measure a particle and its velocity as separate functions, thereby you have to consider if they are even different! (Going back to perception as reality). From this we have to ask ourself if light is solid, or is it a wavelength, and if its both (as it appears to be) what the hell does that make everything else?



I'll leave this for you guys to chew on, maybe I'll come back in a bit and drop some more stuff to think about, but in the meantime i'll amuse myself by watching people try and understand complex philo-mathematic ideas, with some physics and other stuff tossed in on the sides.

Where did the dust come from, where did the space come from, it had to originate somewhere.
Booya!!!

The "dust" is the body of the earth. It gives form. Combined with the water of "mist" that permeated the area, it creates a form-emotion being, which is what we are without our intellect. Pure instinct.

It's symbolic, you see. Earth (dust) = form. Water = emotion. Then "God" = 'transcendent being' breathes (imparts) soul and intellect (fire and air).

Now 'space', or the waters of the deep, did not have to originate, since they are eternal. Things that are eternal don't have a beginning or an ending.

That would be energy, not mass. The law of energy conservation states that you cannot create or destroy energy. Energy can be converted to mass and vice versa, however the total energy in the system, since mass is basically a form of energy, cannot change.

And that would only be one of our various scientific theories. You never know, some clever bod might figure a way to violate that law, and then we would have to think up a new theory to fit the facts all over again. Frankly though, I'd love it if someone managed to overturn the second law of thermodynamics. It's thoroughly depressing, is that one.
Second law=Thoroughly irritating. Honestly, who doesn't want to see someone find something that doesn't spread the way matter is supposed to, maybe something that constricts instead (antimatter or some such misunderstood stuff), and totally blow away what we know. However, for the law of conservation, just remember one thing. Total Energy is hard to qualify, especially if you believe in superstring and say that these particles are bouncing in and out of our reality (as we know it), all the time. Thereby if certain energy can be popped out the equation, and return later, isn't it technically possible to facilitate a reaction fast enough (just below the speed of light/speed of perceivable time) for the returning particle to not undergo whatever your doing, thereby using less energy than you should have, and if this is remotely possible, probably causing some kind of massive rip in whatever links the two sources (matter and antimatter). Its all very interesting, but at the same time lets assume Quantum is correct, and in reality both particles and wavelengths are both different forms of quantum wavelengths, and thereby if we mix in superstring and say we are taking a few wavelengths out of the equation, aren't we thereby eliminating energy, if not destroying it? At what point would this become a perceivable change, and what would this effect be? Its all so very awesome.

Well, Stephen Hawking suggested an alternative to the singular Big Bang - basically that lots of universes could have been created, are being created, or have yet to be created, sometimes overlapping each other. I think he also suggests that there is enough energy in this universe that the end will not be a crunch, rather the opposite: a slow "heat death" as the second law of thermodynamics takes its toll and everything gradually becomes more and more indeterminate, ending with the last stars, planets, asteroids, right down to atoms and other particles evaporating into useless heat energy. I'd recommend reading The Universe In A Nutshell for more information.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/055380202X/102-9109694-7252109?v=glance
*Nudge*
Shhhh...your making a fool of yourself. Hawking himself came forward this year and said he was wrong, his data was wrong, and his theory didn't work. We'll pretend you never said that.

Well considering how mans way is to assume in order to seek a so called truth. We are destined to continue an improvement endlessly upon our knowledge of anything and everything. Considering God has an absolute sense of every heart beat of ours I personally feel he knows more about us than we do. With our own sense of misguidance we create our own little everlasting counter theories. Also think about God as speaking of "no formalities" and how a man asking someone else to prove something is an absolute formality. Heck with all the formalities we have created downstairs what if it came down to a formality of only the first 13 a year got to go upstairs.

You see how formalities and labels are an automatic generator of biased thought and action?

Maybe thats why God is all about "no formalities" and "no labels"? Maybe because God is all understanding, accepting and loving to our premature (immature w/politics) adult lives. Do you really think the religion you are matters? The color of your skin matters? The amount of donations you mask as a gift for a tax write off matters (this one may), the truth is what matters. Truth, those 5 letters and Jesus his truth, those 13 letters are what truly matters to me.

Second law=Thoroughly irritating.
<snip>


I confused "matter" and "mass". Oh dear.

Well it's half four in the morning, I'll blame my idiocy on that.

*Nudge*
Shhhh...your making a fool of yourself. Hawking himself came forward this year and said he was wrong, his data was wrong, and his theory didn't work. We'll pretend you never said that.

And that.

Some theories would say that the "nothing" that was the Universe before the Universe came into existence was a previous incarnation of the Universe. The idea (Exit Mundi says something about this, for all you Exit Mundi fans) is that the Universe expands for trillions of years and then contracts in the same amount of time to what's called the "Planck length", or a really tiny length. Then, when it reaches that length, it starts expanding again, hence the "big bang." I don't know if I agree with it, but part of me hopes for it, thinking it's a means of reincarnation.

And Faithfull Freedom, next time try to go a little easy on the question marks, could ya? **EDIT: FF beat me to it.**

Booya!!!

The "dust" is the body of the earth. It gives form. Combined with the water of "mist" that permeated the area, it creates a form-emotion being, which is what we are without our intellect. Pure instinct.

It's symbolic, you see. Earth (dust) = form. Water = emotion. Then "God" = 'transcendent being' breathes (imparts) soul and intellect (fire and air).

Now 'space', or the waters of the deep, did not have to originate, since they are eternal. Things that are eternal don't have a beginning or an ending.
Pardon me, but what the hell are you talking about? This seems like a non-sequitor, and...and just odd. If the universe always existed, what about the Big Bang... Call me dense, but I just don't see what you're trying to say.

Also, should I or should I not read The Universe in a Nutshell? I can't tell form eveyrone's comments.

*Nudge*
Shhhh...your making a fool of yourself. Hawking himself came forward this year and said he was wrong, his data was wrong, and his theory didn't work. We'll pretend you never said that.


And that.


On saying this though - I'm sure more than just Hawking think the universe will end in a Big Evaporation rather than a Big Crunch (as per second law of thermodynamics), despite him being wrong about the multiple-universes-at-once thing.

But I'm a PC service technician, not a quantum scientist. So feel free to laugh and point fingers.

There is a God and I am he. And I can prove it!

If nobody can even prove God is right, how could a complete brainless dolt, like you, prove that you are anything near God.

I am almost never one to flame but you are truly begging for it.

Booya!!!

The "dust" is the body of the earth. It gives form. Combined with the water of "mist" that permeated the area, it creates a form-emotion being, which is what we are without our intellect. Pure instinct.

It's symbolic, you see. Earth (dust) = form. Water = emotion. Then "God" = 'transcendent being' breathes (imparts) soul and intellect (fire and air).

Now 'space', or the waters of the deep, did not have to originate, since they are eternal. Things that are eternal don't have a beginning or an ending.
Mmmmhmmmmm. So according to you we are some kind of emotional creature without our intellect, relying on pure instinct. Well sorry to say it, but how much of your life now is instinctual? A majority of it. In fact, what say you to the studies that show that our "intellect" as you call it, tend to process information after we do something, rather than before?

From here you procede to give a rather...murky connection to some kind of quasi-symbolic creation that doesn't really explain how it makes sense. I mean, how does soul and intellect=fire and air under any metaphorical sense, especially a religious one? Furthermore, if things that are eternal don't need a beginning or an ending, if the Universe is considered to be eternal, why can't we say that the big bang was simply a single event in that infinity? Furthermore, if we know that infinities are in fact a scaled item, i.e. some infinities are larger than others, then what kind of infinity is time, and how does it apply to reality? If nothing has a beginning or an end, as an infinity states, how can you place any kind of quantitative marker on a point in time, considering thats a relativistic viewpoint?

To make it blunt: If there is no beginning, then how can Creation be possible, as technically this infinite timeline would place Creation nowhere, as it can't happen before infinity, because infinite time is just that, its infinite. You can't have Creation in an infinite time, because thereby it never starts, as there is no beginnings nor endings, and thereby the whole system comes crashing down!

On saying this though - I'm sure more than just Hawking think the universe will end in a Big Evaporation rather than a Big Crunch (as per second law of thermodynamics), despite him being wrong about the multiple-universes-at-once thing.

But I'm a PC service technician, not a quantum scientist. So feel free to laugh and point fingers.

Stephen Hawking said he was wrong about getting useful information out of black holes. It's not really related. :-)

Well, I can refute that all by asking this one simple question.

What came first, the chicken or the egg?

:eek: :sniper:

On saying this though - I'm sure more than just Hawking think the universe will end in a Big Evaporation rather than a Big Crunch (as per second law of thermodynamics), despite him being wrong about the multiple-universes-at-once thing.

But I'm a PC service technician, not a quantum scientist. So feel free to laugh and point fingers.
Well, from what he said he's no longer sure of any kind of crunch or evaporation. I guess he started, crunching, the whole black hole problem into his equation, and realized that for the big evaporation to really work, then the black holes would have to break apart, which isn't physically possible (as we know it).

I myself subscribe to the belief that our Universe is cyclical, all matter expands at first, until it is slowly contracted into super-dense regions (the "black-holes") which accumulate so much mass as to contract everything, including each other, into a single tiny area, which then goes beyond physics as we know it, which finally erupts in another Big Bangesque type of beginning. I find very little to sway me from this belief in the other theories presented by Hawking and the like.

Stephen Hawking said he was wrong about getting useful information out of black holes. It's not really related. :-)
Which he then proceeded to say screwed up his entire theory, as its data was incorrect.

I myself subscribe to the belief that our Universe is cyclical, all matter expands at first, until it is slowly contracted into super-dense regions (the "black-holes") which accumulate so much mass as to contract everything, including each other, into a single tiny area, which then goes beyond physics as we know it, which finally erupts in another Big Bangesque type of beginning. I find very little to sway me from this belief in the other theories presented by Hawking and the like.
That makes the most sense of everything I"ve heard so far. Though with physics like this, scientists seem to be finding flaws every year or so, so I doubt it'll be "correct" for long.

Second law=Thoroughly irritating. Honestly, who doesn't want to see someone find something that doesn't spread the way matter is supposed to, maybe something that constricts instead (antimatter or some such misunderstood stuff), and totally blow away what we know. However, for the law of conservation, just remember one thing. Total Energy is hard to qualify, especially if you believe in superstring and say that these particles are bouncing in and out of our reality (as we know it), all the time. Thereby if certain energy can be popped out the equation, and return later, isn't it technically possible to facilitate a reaction fast enough (just below the speed of light/speed of perceivable time) for the returning particle to not undergo whatever your doing, thereby using less energy than you should have, and if this is remotely possible, probably causing some kind of massive rip in whatever links the two sources (matter and antimatter). Its all very interesting, but at the same time lets assume Quantum is correct, and in reality both particles and wavelengths are both different forms of quantum wavelengths, and thereby if we mix in superstring and say we are taking a few wavelengths out of the equation, aren't we thereby eliminating energy, if not destroying it? At what point would this become a perceivable change, and what would this effect be? Its all so very awesome.

According to the transactional intepretation, all particle interactions are based on the past and future positions of particles. If the particle isn't there in the future, all other particles "know" it. Mainly, the one particle sends back a reverse message in time signalling where it will be. This isn't exact, check the wikipedia on the transactional interpretation. Now, this is a response to what I think you said, I'm really not sure if I got you at all. :-)

There is a God and I am he. And I can prove it!
Please do.

:sniper:
This philosophical question isn't any sort of refutation of physical existence.
Yes, it is an evolution question if anything. It seems to be essentially asking, from a modern biological standpoint, where it was that the chiken first began. There's no debate, except among Creationists, that life began as unicellular archaebacteria. (do I remember correctly on the archaebacteria?) So, the chicken came first in that regard. But chickens evolved from creatures that already laid eggs, so technically, the first chicken emerged from the first egg, even though it quite difficult to draw the line when a species actually becomes separate from its predecessors. I'll stop my philosphical rant now.

Mmmmhmmmmm. So according to you we are some kind of emotional creature without our intellect, relying on pure instinct.
Go figure. ;-)

Well sorry to say it, but how much of your life now is instinctual? A majority of it. In fact, what say you to the studies that show that our "intellect" as you call it, tend to process information after we do something, rather than before?
Well, d'uh. How much of my life is water and mist? About as much as air and fire.

From here you procede to give a rather...murky connection to some kind of quasi-symbolic creation that doesn't really explain how it makes sense. I mean, how does soul and intellect=fire and air under any metaphorical sense, especially a religious one?
Ooh! I'd love to explain the symbolic significance of each symbol. But are you ready to hear them? Do you *really* want to learn astrology? ;-) It might corrupt your delicate sensibilities.

Furthermore, if things that are eternal don't need a beginning or an ending, if the Universe is considered to be eternal, why can't we say that the big bang was simply a single event in that infinity? Furthermore, if we know that infinities are in fact a scaled item, i.e. some infinities are larger than others, then what kind of infinity is time, and how does it apply to reality? If nothing has a beginning or an end, as an infinity states, how can you place any kind of quantitative marker on a point in time, considering thats a relativistic viewpoint?
Ooh! lots of "furthermores." Like the raven's, "Nevermore!"

Infinity cannot be larger than "another infinity" since they are infinite in size.

To make it blunt: If there is no beginning, then how can Creation be possible, as technically this infinite timeline would place Creation nowhere, as it can't happen before infinity, because infinite time is just that, its infinite. You can't have Creation in an infinite time, because thereby it never starts, as there is no beginnings nor endings, and thereby the whole system comes crashing down!
Creation takes place in the only reality, namely "now". Creation is immanent.

Sorry, this is a pet subject of mine, so my post might be long-ish.

Since science doesn't deal with proof, no. However, it has been observed. However, since antimatter forms along with the matter, the total energy and matter of the universe remains constant. (Approximately zero.)

Actually, I don't think you could argue that the energy of the universe is zero. We have quite a lot of positive mass, positive background radiation and plenty of extras. Most physicists agree the universe is definately "unbalanced" towards the positive (matter vs antimatter). Why? We haven't figured that one out yet!

Note that, unlike evolution, the Big Bang is actually theoretical. There isn't any solid proof as of yet. All theories about our universe differ, and I'm not up to date on the latest one. The one I was most familiar with the theory a great explosion form a single 0-dimension point, then expanding over time, and will eventually contract and implode. But I don't have a degree in physics. (yet!)

Don't worry about not being up on the latest theories. There's 5 or 6 major ones right now and all but one or two require some advanced math to sort out.

And evolution is actually theoretical in the same sense as the big bang is. We've seen proof of microevolution, but can't prove macroevolution (as I understand it, but then, I'm a physicist and not an archeologist). With the big bang, we can enter all the current numbers and see a regression trend towards the big bang, and can explain a /lot/ using that theory (including the background radiation), but can't prove it because, just like evolution, we can't exactly recreate it.

The Bible says that God created everything in seven days. I remember a sermon in church that said "a day in God's kingdom can be a thousand years in ours..."

God transcends time. "Day" is a meaningless word in the Bible, really. I believe in evolution, and I believe that God created us all. Intelligent design.

Well, I've done a bit of research myself, and you might want to look into what Dr Sailhammer (one of the best language experts in the world on ancient hebrew, greek, and latin) has to say on that. The word "day" in hebrew that's used there is used something like 50 more times in the old testament and /never/ refers to anything other than a literal 24 hours.

I myself subscribe to the belief that our Universe is cyclical, all matter expands at first, until it is slowly contracted into super-dense regions (the "black-holes") which accumulate so much mass as to contract everything, including each other, into a single tiny area, which then goes beyond physics as we know it, which finally erupts in another Big Bangesque type of beginning. I find very little to sway me from this belief in the other theories presented by Hawking and the like.

I liked Hawking's dark energy theory better. The cyclical universe theory is just almost too absurd to be right anymore. First, it would require an infinite regression of universes. Assuming you accept that, it would require the 2nd law of thermo not to be in effect (as the recombination and explosions of the universes would slowly fade to smaller and smaller explosions ... and in an infinite regression, only a finite amount of universes could actually be created, which means there would have to be a beginning and an end ... hence, no infinite universes). Assuming you get around that somehow, you have to assume a balace of mass througout the universe so that the recombination to the plank length is uniform and doesn't have two or three separate recombinations. Assuming you get around that, you have to account for a huge amount of mass that's missing in the universe. The galaxies are moving away from eachother too fast to slow down and turn around unless we're missing something like 50% of the mass of the universe in dark matter (not anti-matter, which would actually mean we're missing more) ... according to Segan and Hawkings (Segan, I believe, was the first to postulate the dark matter idea).

Well, d'uh. How much of my life is water and mist? About as much as air and fire.
Not really. Taking a literal standpoint (nice to know you were getting into astrology, makes more sense now), directly, a whole lot of your life is water. Study osmosis, perhaps a little less on your concieved extraterrestrial signs. Mist...there isn't much. Air directly affects you because all non-aquatic life requires it, including humans. And fire is pretty important as well...I think our star is self-explanatory in that regard, unless you aren't aware of its heat keeping everything alive.

Considering that matter comes into existence all the time, that was not surprising.

My little friend named the Law of Conservation of Matter seems to disagree with you.

Yes, it is an evolution question if anything. It seems to be essentially asking, from a modern biological standpoint, where it was that the chiken first began. There's no debate, except among Creationists, that life began as unicellular archaebacteria. (do I remember correctly on the archaebacteria?) So, the chicken came first in that regard. But chickens evolved from creatures that already laid eggs, so technically, the first chicken emerged from the first egg, even though it quite difficult to draw the line when a species actually becomes separate from its predecessors. I'll stop my philosphical rant now.
The question of the chicken and the egg is a philosophical one meant to demonstrate a continuance that is eternal. Apart from symbolism, it has no meaning.

Not really. Taking a literal standpoint (nice to know you were getting into astrology, makes more sense now), directly, a whole lot of your life is water. Study osmosis, perhaps a little less on your concieved extraterrestrial signs. Mist...there isn't much. Air directly affects you because all non-aquatic life requires it, including humans. And fire is pretty important as well...I think our star is self-explanatory in that regard, unless you aren't aware of its heat keeping everything alive.
The great thing about astrology is that it makes zero sense when taken from a literal standpoint.

My little friend named the Law of Conservation of Matter seems to disagree with you.

Conservation of matter, btw, isn't true. Conservation of ENERGY is. A photon with enough energy can generate an electron and a positron - creating matter where there was none before. Energy, of course, stays conserved.

It's symbolic, you see. Earth (dust) = form. Water = emotion. Then "God" = 'transcendent being' breathes (imparts) soul and intellect (fire and air).

Now 'space', or the waters of the deep, did not have to originate, since they are eternal. Things that are eternal don't have a beginning or an ending.Mmmmhmmmmm. So according to you we are some kind of emotional creature without our intellect, relying on pure instinct. Well sorry to say it, but how much of your life now is instinctual? A majority of it. In fact, what say you to the studies that show that our "intellect" as you call it, tend to process information after we do something, rather than before?

From here you procede to give a rather...murky connection to some kind of quasi-symbolic creation that doesn't really explain how it makes sense. I mean, how does soul and intellect=fire and air under any metaphorical sense, especially a religious one?
Our body is our shape, made from the stuff of Earth.

Our intellect defines us through invisible but very real "things" called thoughts.

Our emotions flow like water, here one moment and gone the next.

Our spirit burns like fire, igniting ambition and motivation.

Simple symbolism.

I've come to a conclusion.

It takes faith to believe that a random spec of dust spontaneously generated and then somehow expanded into a very large spec of dust that then, somehow exploded with just enough force to create an equilibrium of orbits and gravitational pulls on each piece of said dust to keep them in those orbits, and somehow one of the pieces of dust, that had water and was just the right distance away from the sun to sustain the properties of that water, spontaneously generated proteins from a reaction of said sun to just the right elements in the air, thus creating a single-celled organism, who bred, and through billions of years of mutations and missing links, formed the wonderous nature that surrounds us. It takes faith, especially considering it goes against the law of the conservation of matter, energy, and the second law of thermodynamics.

It also takes faith to believe that an intelligent designer created the marvels around us. It just seems a little simpler to believe in.

They both take faith. Neither can be proven. You have to choose.

Here's a question: Does it really matter? None of us were there in the beginning, none of us will be there in the end (and if we are, it's not going to matter one way or the other).

What's more important? HOW it happened, or THAT it happened?

Whether we were created by some omnipotent god/goddess, an explosion, magic, or the Tooth Fairy... doesn't change a thing except who wins the pool and claims bragging rights.

Yes, it is an evolution question if anything. It seems to be essentially asking, from a modern biological standpoint, where it was that the chiken first began. There's no debate, except among Creationists, that life began as unicellular archaebacteria. (do I remember correctly on the archaebacteria?) So, the chicken came first in that regard. But chickens evolved from creatures that already laid eggs, so technically, the first chicken emerged from the first egg, even though it quite difficult to draw the line when a species actually becomes separate from its predecessors. I'll stop my philosphical rant now.
Don't ever stop your logical rationale, man. You'll reach the answer someday.

Strictly speaking, we don't know how matter and energy originated in the big bang.

We can be pretty sure what happened after a certain point - 10^-24 seconds after the big bang, I think it is - but we don't know what happened before then, since none of the theories we have are truly applicable because the conditions were so extreme.

We know that after that small time frame, the universe expanded, and we can deduce quite a bit about how. But before then - what we have is simply the assumption that it was expanding before then, too, and thus must have started as a singularity. But where did this singularity come from? Why did it start expanding? Why is there more matter than antimatter in the world? Where did all that energy come from? ...there are hypotheses, but none of them have yet been tested, so we can say we don't know.

All we know is what happened after that first 10^-24 seconds. [...it might be 10^-34... not sure... I remember it's something frickin small by our terms.]

Here's a question: Does it really matter? None of us were there in the beginning, none of us will be there in the end (and if we are, it's not going to matter one way or the other).

What's more important? HOW it happened, or THAT it happened?

Whether we were created by some omnipotent god/goddess, an explosion, magic, or the Tooth Fairy... doesn't change a thing except who wins the pool and claims bragging rights.
What's most important is "now."

Now is the only reality.

Furthermore, if things that are eternal don't need a beginning or an ending, if the Universe is considered to be eternal, why can't we say that the big bang was simply a single event in that infinity?
We can. Only I have no reason to believe in the "big bang."

If nothing has a beginning or an end, as an infinity states, how can you place any kind of quantitative marker on a point in time, considering thats a relativistic viewpoint?
Time is an illusion; "now" (the present) is the only reality. We exist at a threshold of time. We do not exist in the past, and the future does not exist.

I merely chime in by a quote said by Dr. Bill Rice III:

"Order Takes Design, Design Takes Intelligence."

thus I do believe that a higher being, God, created the universe.

Someone said "Where did God come from?" on the first page, and that's pretty much my stance, too. I figure that, considering how science is constantly advancing, we will eventually figure out "where matter came from". I doubt it'll be soon.

I don't think the idea of their being a creator god is entirely out of the ball park, though...I just have yet to see proof of one. Eh. Complexity is not proof of design, as some people like to think.

It takes faith to believe that a random spec of dust spontaneously generated and then somehow expanded into a very large spec of dust that then, somehow exploded with just enough force to create an equilibrium of orbits and gravitational pulls on each piece of said dust to keep them in those orbits, and somehow one of the pieces of dust, that had water and was just the right distance away from the sun to sustain the properties of that water, spontaneously generated proteins from a reaction of said sun to just the right elements in the air, thus creating a single-celled organism, who bred, and through billions of years of mutations and missing links, formed the wonderous nature that surrounds us. It takes faith, especially considering it goes against the law of the conservation of matter, energy, and the second law of thermodynamics.

Strawman. Check out my post at the beginning of the thread to see what the Big Bang actually was.

What's most important is "now."

Now is the only reality.

But by understanding the past we can understand the present and predict the future.

The statements like "time is an illusion... the past does not exist, neither does the future" are philosophical speculation. The fact is that I can make predictions about the future and make inferences about the past...

I prefer to think of it as 4-dimensional spacetime. Particles have world-lines which specify where they would be at any given time t; hence it would be more that ALL times exist.

...but again, that's philosophy and speculation. The assumption that the future is, in some circumstances, predictable has brought us all the technology that we have now. Science is based on the assumption that inferences we make today are still valid tomorrow - the central tenets of the scientific method are "validity of PREDICTIONS" and "REPRODUCIBILITY of scientific results." As well as, of course, explaining past results.

It seems silly to discount the future and ignore the past when we will soon be in the former and we can learn from the latter.

I agree with Sdaeriji.

However, just for fun, for those who may not have read or heard any Bill Hicks:
.......and here's Tool with "Third Eye"
;)

Well considering how mans way is to assume in order to seek a so called truth. We are destined to continue an improvement endlessly upon our knowledge of anything and everything. Considering God has an absolute sense of every heart beat of ours I personally feel he knows more about us than we do. With our own sense of misguidance we create our own little everlasting counter theories. Also think about God as speaking of "no formalities" and how a man asking someone else to prove something is an absolute formality. Heck with all the formalities we have created downstairs what if it came down to a formality of only the first 13 a year got to go upstairs.

You see how formalities and labels are an automatic generator of biased thought and action?

Maybe thats why God is all about "no formalities" and "no labels"? Maybe because God is all understanding, accepting and loving to our premature (immature w/politics) adult lives. Do you really think the religion you are matters? The color of your skin matters? The amount of donations you mask as a gift for a tax write off matters (this one may), the truth is what matters. Truth, those 5 letters and Jesus his truth, those 13 letters are what truly matters to me.
Nice idea and all but most of the "hell" concepts don't tend to agree much with them ... unless concessions are made about the dubious and possibly sadistic nature of said "god". Accepting = hell?

Well, I can refute that all by asking this one simple question.

What came first, the chicken or the egg?

:eek: :sniper:
M'kay, here .....
OED:
refute /rifyoot/ - 1. Prove the falsity or error of (a statement, etc)
2. Rebut by argument

Since the statement is neither a proof of falsity or error, nor a rebuttal, given for it to be an argument it would have to fall within logical parameters of already said conditions and circumstance ....
it is therefore no case of you "refuting" anything,
but an attempt at a similar tautological trap. Maybe you want another thread or a hijack of this one, but you didn't manage to "refute" much.

According to the transactional intepretation, all particle interactions are based on the past and future positions of particles. If the particle isn't there in the future, all other particles "know" it. Mainly, the one particle sends back a reverse message in time signalling where it will be. This isn't exact, check the wikipedia on the transactional interpretation. Now, this is a response to what I think you said, I'm really not sure if I got you at all. :-)
Bell's theorem figure in here somewhere? How 'bout your take on scalar fielding? Sounds like you, Mac The Man and Tremalkier have an interesting go at this one. Seems a little more civil then calling people liberals. ;)

Here's a question: Does it really matter? None of us were there in the beginning, none of us will be there in the end (and if we are, it's not going to matter one way or the other).

What's more important? HOW it happened, or THAT it happened?

Whether we were created by some omnipotent god/goddess, an explosion, magic, or the Tooth Fairy... doesn't change a thing except who wins the pool and claims bragging rights.
That it happened could be the same as Napoleon trusting his military successes upon an eclipse or a comet.
It might be important, in the sense that ...
if there were some kind of loving god that bestowed rewards upon efforts and faith, then the deeds you could perform in total devotion (note: NOT FEAR) to the actual desires of whatever that god was would go directly into your being rewarded for it with a corporal as well as spiritual consummation in the living flesh ....
an idea that would leave many of the "faithful" hard pressed to prove at all, since if there are any actual immortals around here they seem pretty f*cking selfish to keep the big answers to themselves ....
Point is the mortal coil may be the only point this time around, what we choose is worth it ...?

We can. Only I have no reason to believe in the "big bang."


Time is an illusion; "now" (the present) is the only reality. We exist at a threshold of time. We do not exist in the past, and the future does not exist.
Issues with this ....
time only perceived as cause and effect, to the smallest observable degree. "Now" doesn't exist sans cause and effect, else you lead to a logical solipsist quandry. In solipsism, of course, it's all a degree of mutual delusion between yourself and what you think you want to be seeing.
I qualify that further by pointing out that future certainly comes to being, with or without consent, often not of a human planning of events (consider scope) but as a direct result of consequential action, resulting in knowledge and experience, unless you discount that through some logical medium (note: consider the very function of logic and its lack of coherence without cause and effect) .... consider also now your ability to refine your understanding of your own reaction to this thread in both digital and mental form and show how you may consider yourself restricted IN CERTAINTY to now (or more appropriately almost now) as well as your immediate perception but how also now is inescapably intertwined with past and future. That's the beauty of mortality, it must have by definition more than right now.
And on a "moral" note, it seems often that the excuse of now being the only reality, that rationale leads to the most brutal and conscience-less of acts in regard to anyone and anything else within the direct perception of the one seeing it that way.
I may need to explain further but there's plenty of material on the mortal coil as well as varying degrees of metaphysics, physics, cosmology and the definitions of things.

I wanna find out which bugger created hotpants!

Originally Posted by Moonshine
Infinity cannot be larger than "another infinity" since they are infinite in size.
Sorry, but this is totally wrong, and has been known to be wrong for about a hundred years. Case in point, there are more real numbers than there are integers, but there are an infinite number of both. For more information look up Georg Cantor.

Hey, first post, don't burn me to death.

My piece - I don't follow either theory, honestly. I don't much care how the universe came into existence. Too much energy and intellect is wasted debating what may never be resolved. Since both parties think they're right, the arguments (in my experience) tend to go like this:
SCIENCE: Yes, but you see, we're right because...
FAITH: We're right.
SCIENCE: But you're not, what your belief is based on is...
FAITH: We're right.
SCIENCE: Goddammit, listen to me! My point is...
FAITH: Dude, we're like, right. God said so, he's always right, and you have no proof, just theories.
SCIENCE: God doesn't exist. You're wrong.
FAITH: We're right.

I personally believe the universe is infinite, and that therefore there are lots and lots of combinations of solar systems, distances of planets to the sun, etc. It makes sense that at least one of those random planets would have the best proximity to the sun, the water etc. required to start off life. The people who say "Oh, well, how did we get the exact conditions of living then, huh?" wouldn't be asking that if we didn't, because they'd never have existed. Who cares how the universe came about? It's still here, and it will probably go on for a little while longer at least. And if it decides to end, there's not a damn thing I can do about it.

Now what you REALLY want to be discussing is religion. Hoo boy, now there's a topic.

It's symbolic, you see. Earth (dust) = form. Water = emotion. Then "God" = 'transcendent being' breathes (imparts) soul and intellect (fire and air).Mmmmhmmmmm. So according to you we are some kind of emotional creature without our intellect, relying on pure instinct.
Exactly. If you remove the intellect that God "breathed" into the first man, we would be emotional creatures running on instinct.

But by understanding the past we can understand the present and predict the future.

The statements like "time is an illusion... the past does not exist, neither does the future" are philosophical speculation. The fact is that I can make predictions about the future and make inferences about the past...
Absolutely. Nothing about it's illusionary nature prevents you making predictions.

I prefer to think of it as 4-dimensional spacetime. Particles have world-lines which specify where they would be at any given time t; hence it would be more that ALL times exist.

...but again, that's philosophy and speculation. The assumption that the future is, in some circumstances, predictable has brought us all the technology that we have now. Science is based on the assumption that inferences we make today are still valid tomorrow - the central tenets of the scientific method are "validity of PREDICTIONS" and "REPRODUCIBILITY of scientific results." As well as, of course, explaining past results.

It seems silly to discount the future and ignore the past when we will soon be in the former and we can learn from the latter.
I have been challenged in other posts to envision infinity (the claim that it's not possible) but really I have little problem with it. I do have a problem with envisioning an "all times existing at once" concept. That warps my mind.

Yes, it's philosophy. That's what we're discussing in this thread: the Creationists, the Big Bangists, and me. Each of us presenting our own philosophies. :-)

Mine just happens to make sense (to me). And it seems that your ideas of the future are more speculative than mine, since my claim that I exist in the present is rationally true. :-)

Yes, we can predict the future. It's one of man's talents: to extrapolate, to anticipate, to foresee. But the future is "not yet now" and any number of variables can happen to change the predicted outcome before it becomes "now". It's not real until it becomes "now".

Issues with this ....
time only perceived as cause and effect, to the smallest observable degree. "Now" doesn't exist sans cause and effect, else you lead to a logical solipsist quandry. In solipsism, of course, it's all a degree of mutual delusion between yourself and what you think you want to be seeing.
I qualify that further by pointing out that future certainly comes to being, with or without consent, often not of a human planning of events (consider scope) but as a direct result of consequential action, resulting in knowledge and experience, unless you discount that through some logical medium (note: consider the very function of logic and its lack of coherence without cause and effect) .... consider also now your ability to refine your understanding of your own reaction to this thread in both digital and mental form and show how you may consider yourself restricted IN CERTAINTY to now (or more appropriately almost now) as well as your immediate perception but how also now is inescapably intertwined with past and future. That's the beauty of mortality, it must have by definition more than right now.
Oh, marvelous! Yes, "now" doesn't exist without cause-and-effect. Our consciousness exists on the threashold of that cause-and-effect phenomenon that we call "the passage of time." I'll look up "solipsism" and get back to you, but if I understand the dictionary.com definition correctly, it is an idealistic view? Idealism alone (like materialism) is insufficient to describe all that is reality.

When I said the past is gone and the future doesn't exist, I merely meant we do not exist there. We exist where our consciousness resides, in the present. This (all around us right "now") is reality, or dynamic reality if you prefer.

The universe in the present is everywhere changing --matter becoming energy, energy becoming matter. This is Creation, and it happens in the present, not at some ephemeral time in the past. Immanent creation is a philosophy that gives symbolic (and useful) meaning to creation myths, like the Mesopotamian ones. In symbolic context, the stories *do* make sense, and they are useful tools for spiritual enlightenment. (This is where people start pointing a "diest" finger at me; which is okay, but it's their label, not mine.)

And on a "moral" note, it seems often that the excuse of now being the only reality, that rationale leads to the most brutal and conscience-less of acts in regard to anyone and anything else within the direct perception of the one seeing it that way.
I may need to explain further but there's plenty of material on the mortal coil as well as varying degrees of metaphysics, physics, cosmology and the definitions of things.
I don't undestand how an understanding of "now" being reality leads to brutal and conscienceless acts. That seems a horrendous, not to mention painful, leap. What is your reasoning?

I am not trying to say there is this paticular God, although I have my belief as a Christian, but there has to be some type of creator here me out. The Big bang theory can be refuted in one line:
Where did the dust come from, where did the space come from, it had to originate somewhere.
So maybe the big bang theory happened but something had to create the space to do it. Maybe I am missing something, but how can this be refuted.
your lack of understanding does not disprove anything. the Big Bang isn't what you seem to think it is. furthermore, the idea of a "first cause" disproves God as well (what created the Creator?), so it's a worthless argument for your goal. not to mention that even if there must be one single originating force of some kind it still does not mean that said force is conscious or intelligent in any way.

I'm not about to take sides on this debate, as I myself am undecided which to believe, but I think this website puts forth a rather compelling "argument" for the existance of a Creator:
http://www.godandscience.org

Check it out. If nothing else, it's an interesting way to look at a difficult topic to create an argument for.

I'm not about to take sides on this debate, as I myself am undecided which to believe, but I think this website puts forth a rather compelling "argument" for the existance of a Creator:
http://www.godandscience.org

Check it out. If nothing else, it's an interesting way to look at a difficult topic to create an argument for.
LOL, i'm sorry, but that site is a total crock. they have a whole section about how the Bible hasn't been changed from the original manuscript...that should be a big red flag to anybody who enjoys things like "truth," "fact," or "legitimate information."

Quote:
Originally Posted by Faithfull-freedom
Well considering how mans way is to assume in order to seek a so called truth. We are destined to continue an improvement endlessly upon our knowledge of anything and everything. Considering God has an absolute sense of every heart beat of ours I personally feel he knows more about us than we do. With our own sense of misguidance we create our own little everlasting counter theories. Also think about God as speaking of "no formalities" and how a man asking someone else to prove something is an absolute formality. Heck with all the formalities we have created downstairs what if it came down to a formality of only the first 13 a year got to go upstairs. You see how formalities and labels are an automatic generator of biased thought and action?Maybe thats why God is all about "no formalities" and "no labels"? Maybe because God is all understanding, accepting and loving to our premature (immature w/politics) adult lives. Do you really think the religion you are matters? The color of your skin matters? The amount of donations you mask as a gift for a tax write off matters (this one may), the truth is what matters. Truth, those 5 letters and Jesus his truth, those 13 letters are what truly matters to me.


Straughn wrote Nice idea and all but most of the "hell" concepts don't tend to agree much with them ... unless concessions are made about the dubious and possibly sadistic nature of said "god". Accepting = hell?

Who wanted to talk about hell, I choose to look at the positives more often than the negatives, because I lived the negatives for 28 years. When you truly look at the brighter side of things at least in a balanced way to the darker side of life if not in a complete replacement. You become a much happier person, trust in me. God condeming us to hell might be from our own truth as to knowing what we did was mortally wrong, but only one knows this truth.

Its like if you choose to marry a man or woman, you fullfill the faith full atributes that are entrusted with you. I know God will help guide you if you become way off track, at least I believe in that. The problem with formalities of marriage seem to be stemming from people that get married thinking they still get to be who they really are. Formalities that are not self placed become self defeating to being really whoever you are. This is why we have such a high divorce rate, because we are more free to be ourselves (women especially though,since mens was based more on control in the past). I believe for the most part men and women have alot in common. But its the small things that people refuse to meet in the middle on. The small things happen to always be big things to the other side though, if you know what I mean.

Look at it this way, acclimation. When it is very cold outside, some people will not see it as being as cold as others. Just as some will see a 100 degree day not so warm while others will feel it is unbarable. Well look at this on the larger scheme of things like how everyone of us is marriaged into a society that has so many set formalities creating everyone of our perceptions (due to allowing politics to take hold) are biased to one side that has another person in that society with the exact oppisite view of freedom. I am speaking of simple freedoms that never harm another person in the process. Look at any two differing states in the country, the ones labeled the 'most liberal' and 'most conservative'. Well when politics is used (to control someone else)it creates a faction to happiness for whoever those people with differing opinions are.

Now I will finally get to my point. Point being is that man and woman and whoever else that is human seem to be stuck in a constant struggle of their own set formalities and way of life. Trying to meet a middle point with a marriage between two individuals is not anymore easier (unless they are both understanding and accepting) than trying to use politics to meet a middle ground between individuals of any society(society wants it their way or the highway, not understanding and not accepting). They are destined to fail through out history at an increasing amount of greater numbers. The magnitude that is left from our failures as human beings in our past have noticably been getting greater. There are just some things that are destined to be doomed and politics is the largest one of them. Manipulating other peoples lives when you know it is wrong either through politics of society or the politics in a marriage. Some Men and Women don't see that everytime we do something that we know we wouldnt like done to us. We harm someone else when an oath of promise to be faithfull was given and not taken seriously. Harming others in place of loving others is what will get you a taste of hell. Again depending on your taste buds, since some of us like things hot( one way) and others like it hot( another way). Nobody is more right than the other in a simple marriage that is faithfully committed to equally. But someone is wrong when a society uses formalities to compensate for their lack of faith in thier fellow friends. They create the faction to thier own motives when they drive to control someone else. A natural instinct that is not ignored much these days is rebelling conformity by formalities. Our natural instincts is to know right from wrong, knowing that harm(control) is bad, love(understanding,accepting) is good. Faith is the only way to permanently getting rid of murderers, rapists, molesters, thefts, harm from one person to another. With faith all you have to do is hold up your part of the bargain. Being real. We all happen to love every single person on this planet when we take away the labels and formalities that we allowed to stand in our ways.

"The Law of Conservation of Energy states that energy cannot be created or destroyed, but can change its form.

The total quantity of matter and energy available in the universe is a fixed amount and never any more or less."

New matter does not just "appear". This is the big gaping hole in the big bang theory, the question of where did the original energy come from?

I personally believe in "God". I do not really believe in the "biblical" version of God. To me organized religion is mans way of trying to understand "God" without actually having to trouble themselves with thinking. That is just me.

But whether you believe in a God created universe or not, you simply must admit that there had to be some creation event that cannot yet be explained by science, BEFORE the supposed Big Bang.

I merely chime in by a quote said by Dr. Bill Rice III:

"Order Takes Design, Design Takes Intelligence."

thus I do believe that a higher being, God, created the universe.

Order doesn't take design, though... so the second proposition has no basis.

Drop sand.

Take a handful of sand.... and let it run from your hand in a stream.... don't bother 'aiming for any shape', just let it trickle. What 'shape' is formed?

The sand automatically assumes a conical form, with a 'sand' textured surface (obviously) - so, it naturally assumes a form which is both GEOMETRICAL and COMPLEX, just by the simple process of falling.

Order doesn't take design, it takes probability, and the right circumstances.

Thus, you have no reason to believe in a higher being (by your reasoning) - so, does that mean you have just recanted?

I personally believe in "God". I do not really believe in the "biblical" version of God. To me organized religion is mans way of trying to understand "God" without actually having to trouble themselves with thinking. That is just me.

There are so many others out there that agree with what you state. Exactly what happens when we try to understand God with a one sided opinion (biblical). It would be best I imagine to read everything you can within and about the bible and everything you can not about it. Peoples understanding throughout history has always involved politics, yes even look at the politics between Prophet Paul and the deciples about writing the bible. Peoples understanding away from the bible has always involved politics. We need to get rid of the evil parts within politics in order to get rid of the selfish, greedy parts within ourselves.

There may be a creator. But that's irrelevant to understand the Universe.

"The Law of Conservation of Energy states that energy cannot be created or destroyed, but can change its form.

The total quantity of matter and energy available in the universe is a fixed amount and never any more or less."

New matter does not just "appear". This is the big gaping hole in the big bang theory, the question of where did the original energy come from?

I personally believe in "God". I do not really believe in the "biblical" version of God. To me organized religion is mans way of trying to understand "God" without actually having to trouble themselves with thinking. That is just me.

But whether you believe in a God created universe or not, you simply must admit that there had to be some creation event that cannot yet be explained by science, BEFORE the supposed Big Bang.

Playing Devil's Advocate here, but if you assume that there must have been some kind of creator to start the Big Bang, then what created the creator?

Please do.

I would prove it, but I won't. Have you not learned anything about Me yet. I am omnipotent and omniscient, but rather than clearly prove I Exist, I rely on My believers exercising blind faith and vague hints at My existence.

You must have faith in Me and the proof will be forthcoming.

If nobody can even prove God is right, how could a complete brainless dolt, like you, prove that you are anything near God.

I am almost never one to flame but you are truly begging for it.

I condemn you to Hell for Calling Me, the Almighty, a brainless dolt. Your faith is weak and you have obviously turned to the dark side.

I can prove I am God just as easily as anyone else can prove that God exists. It require faith on the part of My believers. The signs are all around you. Look at the beauty of nature, the intricacy of the eye - all signs of My Glorious Power. Pray to Me for a miracle and if your faith is strong, I shall grant it.

Sorry, but this is totally wrong, and has been known to be wrong for about a hundred years. Case in point, there are more real numbers than there are integers, but there are an infinite number of both. For more information look up Georg Cantor.
Errors in Georg Cantor's logic have been noted.

http://descmath.com/diag/tale.html

I am not trying to say there is this paticular God, although I have my belief as a Christian, but there has to be some type of creator here me out. The Big bang theory can be refuted in one line:
Where did the dust come from, where did the space come from, it had to originate somewhere.
So maybe the big bang theory happened but something had to create the space to do it. Maybe I am missing something, but how can this be refuted.


This argument always makes me smile. The logical falacy that if the sum total of human knowledge cannot yet explain everything, then the only "logical" conclusion is that there must be a higher power.


The specific argument used this time, that the Big Bang Theory can be refuted. Even if we accept this statement, all this implies is that WE are NOT perfect. That WE are NOT Gods.

But this does not prove that Gods exist. There is no logical framework to derive this conclusion except that it is a conclusion that you want to derive. It is no more a proof of this concept than one caveman looking at his buddy after watching the lightening strike ignite a tree, and asking "can you explain that? No? Well then - this phenonenon certainly proves that God exists..."


God is about Faith. If you are looking for proof that (S)He exists then you are doomed to failure (or agnosticism). On the flipside, for those of us who refute the existance of God, your pointing out gaps in human knowledge will never be taken as "proof" either. Because it isn't proof.

Who wanted to talk about hell, I choose to look at the positives more often than the negatives, because I lived the negatives for 28 years. When you truly look at the brighter side of things at least in a balanced way to the darker side of life if not in a complete replacement. You become a much happier person, trust in me. God condeming us to hell might be from our own truth as to knowing what we did was mortally wrong, but only one knows this truth.

Its like if you choose to marry a man or woman, you fullfill the faith full atributes that are entrusted with you. I know God will help guide you if you become way off track, at least I believe in that. The problem with formalities of marriage seem to be stemming from people that get married thinking they still get to be who they really are. Formalities that are not self placed become self defeating to being really whoever you are. This is why we have such a high divorce rate, because we are more free to be ourselves (women especially though,since mens was based more on control in the past). I believe for the most part men and women have alot in common. But its the small things that people refuse to meet in the middle on. The small things happen to always be big things to the other side though, if you know what I mean.

Look at it this way, acclimation. When it is very cold outside, some people will not see it as being as cold as others. Just as some will see a 100 degree day not so warm while others will feel it is unbarable. Well look at this on the larger scheme of things like how everyone of us is marriaged into a society that has so many set formalities creating everyone of our perceptions (due to allowing politics to take hold) are biased to one side that has another person in that society with the exact oppisite view of freedom. I am speaking of simple freedoms that never harm another person in the process. Look at any two differing states in the country, the ones labeled the 'most liberal' and 'most conservative'. Well when politics is used (to control someone else)it creates a faction to happiness for whoever those people with differing opinions are.

Now I will finally get to my point. Point being is that man and woman and whoever else that is human seem to be stuck in a constant struggle of their own set formalities and way of life. Trying to meet a middle point with a marriage between two individuals is not anymore easier (unless they are both understanding and accepting) than trying to use politics to meet a middle ground between individuals of any society(society wants it their way or the highway, not understanding and not accepting). They are destined to fail through out history at an increasing amount of greater numbers. The magnitude that is left from our failures as human beings in our past have noticably been getting greater. There are just some things that are destined to be doomed and politics is the largest one of them. Manipulating other peoples lives when you know it is wrong either through politics of society or the politics in a marriage. Some Men and Women don't see that everytime we do something that we know we wouldnt like done to us. We harm someone else when an oath of promise to be faithfull was given and not taken seriously. Harming others in place of loving others is what will get you a taste of hell. Again depending on your taste buds, since some of us like things hot( one way) and others like it hot( another way). Nobody is more right than the other in a simple marriage that is faithfully committed to equally. But someone is wrong when a society uses formalities to compensate for their lack of faith in thier fellow friends. They create the faction to thier own motives when they drive to control someone else. A natural instinct that is not ignored much these days is rebelling conformity by formalities. Our natural instincts is to know right from wrong, knowing that harm(control) is bad, love(understanding,accepting) is good. Faith is the only way to permanently getting rid of murderers, rapists, molesters, thefts, harm from one person to another. With faith all you have to do is hold up your part of the bargain. Being real. We all happen to love every single person on this planet when we take away the labels and formalities that we allowed to stand in our ways.
Booya! Well said. And let me congratulate you on expressing your thoughts clearly, a talent that often eludes me. ;-)

And how exactly does matter come into existence?
Inflation of a singularity. It's far more understandable and probable than a god.

Order doesn't take design, it takes probability, and the right circumstances. And lets be quite sure about this - the universe is a staggeringly large place - there's an awful lot of probability out there to give things a chance to happen.

And, of course, it's not at all improbable that this planet happens to be one on which life has evolved. If it weren't - we couldn't be discussing this.

Order doesn't take design, though... so the second proposition has no basis.

Drop sand.

Take a handful of sand.... and let it run from your hand in a stream.... don't bother 'aiming for any shape', just let it trickle. What 'shape' is formed?

The sand automatically assumes a conical form, with a 'sand' textured surface (obviously) - so, it naturally assumes a form which is both GEOMETRICAL and COMPLEX, just by the simple process of falling.

Order doesn't take design, it takes probability, and the right circumstances.

Thus, you have no reason to believe in a higher being (by your reasoning) - so, does that mean you have just recanted?
Take a handful of sand, and let it run from your hand in a stream. It forms a conal shape that is both order (the shape we recognize) and random chaos (the positioning of the individual quantum particles) --order from chaos. It takes man to recognize the order. It takes an observer to assign "order" to the pattern of natural chaos.

This is the "intelligence" in intelligent design. Man, the Observer, who assigns meaning ("order") to what he observes. This process is called symbolizing: to label the recognized shape "order" or more specifically "cone". Man is necessary for there to be order.

Man is necessary for there to be god.

This isn't an argument for or against God (with a capital g), but if we recognize god who is a part of us, and we together as parts that shape him, then the design instantly becomes an intelligent design. It becomes so because of an intelligent observer.

LOL, i'm sorry, but that site is a total crock. they have a whole section about how the Bible hasn't been changed from the original manuscript...that should be a big red flag to anybody who enjoys things like "truth," "fact," or "legitimate information."

I'm looking at their reference page - where they claim to have scientific studies as support.

http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/prayer.html#04

Out of the references on the bottom of the page...

Reference #1 leads to a page on their OWN site with a paper. When I try to visit the link that leads to the off-site reference, I get a "article not found" webpage.

Reference #2 gives me an "article not found" webpage.

Reference #3: valid link to journal abstract - but NOT THE ONE THEY CLAIM IT IS! It has no relation to religion and prayer.

Reference #4: valid study in biomedical journal. There is some debate over the results -

"The data supporting the conclusion is very weak. The reader has a set of three significance tests, one of which gives a non -significant result and another of which gives a barely significant result that amounts to weak evidence. This leaves only one test that provides strong evidence to reject a hypothesis of 'no effect'. Regarding this third test we are told nothing about the clinicians responsible for decisions about patient discharge. Presumably several clinicians were involved. Was there no control of this variable? It was needed. What about post-experimental control using statistical methods?" - but overall, valid study.

The methodology of the study is simple, and easily replicable - but yet, there are no links to follow-up studies that confirm this. Also, there have been concerns raised that the statistical analysis might be incorrect - but the author of the paper did not provide the initial data.

" Dr. Leibovici's article ("Effects of remote, retroactive intercessory prayer on outcomes in patients with bloodstream infection: randomized controlled trial") provides a classic example of the dangers of assuming that, if one only assures that N>30, the [...] Central Limit Theorem will take care of the rest.

We note that (for instance) the median stay in hospital was 8 days for the control group, while the maximum was 320; for the duration of the fever, the figures were 2 and 50. With such enormously skewed data, the means must be largely determined by the handful of patients in each group whose stay is longest. The fortuitous (and not improbable) inclusion of more of these patients in one group or the other will create differences in the mean that would be highly improbable in data from equivalent normally-distributed populations.

The release of the entire data set would be a service to those teaching statistics or writing textbooks on the subject! "

"...these results need to be interpreted with caution. There was no significant difference between the two groups with regards to the most clinically important outcome (mortality), and the median values varied little between prayer and non-prayer on both length of stay (7 and 8 days) and fever duration (2 days each)."

Reference #5-8: Biblical references. They're only valid if you accept the bible as true. Circular reasoning - if you accept that the bible is true, then you have to admit that there is a God. No duh... but invalid argument for those that consider the bible to be an unreliable source, due to the factual errors in it.

Reference #9: Valid study, as far as I can tell - I could not find a link to "comments and criticisms." Regardless, it comes to the conclusion that "Results were not statistically significant for any outcomes comparisons. " Though it makes the claim that "however, index hospitalization data consistently suggested a therapeutic benefit with noetic therapy," in claiming that, it does not separate the group that was prayed-for from the group that recieved "stress relaxation, imagery, touch therapy," which can be valid methods of relaxation and improving health regardless of whether religion is true or not.

Summary - only reference #4 gives support to their position. It is a SINGLE study, with some people doubting the validity of the statistical analysis. No follow-up study is presented.

One of the comments documents a follow-up study that gave the opposite result - no statistical significance of prayer.

"We did a statistical appraisal of whether remote retroactive intercessory prayer affects in-hospital mortality or hospital length of stay after hospital admission for trauma. The intercessory prayer was done 1 month to 8 years after the patients’ hospitalisation. The hypothesis was that remote, retroactive intercessory prayer shortens hospital stay and lessens mortality after trauma.

Our medical centre’s institutional review board approved this study.

All patients recorded in the trauma registry of a Level 1 trauma centre between January 1996 and May 2004 were included in this study. The trauma centre serves a metropolitan area of greater than 3 million inhabitants and has approximately 4,000 trauma admissions per year.

In June 2004 the patients were stratified into subgroups using bifurcation values for each of four variables known to have a strong impact on mortality after trauma. The variables were age, systolic blood pressure on arrival, Glasgow Coma Score on arrival, and Injury Severity Score. Their lower grouping values were age less than or equal to 55 years, systolic blood pressure on arrival less than or equal to 100mm Hg, Injury Severity Score less than or equal to 8, and Glasgow Coma Score on arrival less than or equal to 8. Within each subgroup, a block randomization into two groups was performed using a pseudo-random number generator.

Once randomisation was complete the two groups of patients’ names were printed out, using the first name and last initial. A coin toss was used to designate the study group. The list of names for the study group was given to an intercessor who prayed for the health and well being of the people in the study group.

Two outcome variables were measured: length of hospital stay, and in- hospital mortality.

The Mann-Whitney test was used to compare the study and control groups to verify they were comparable with regard to age, Glasgow Coma Score on arrival, systolic blood pressure on arrival, and Injury Severity Score. For these variables, a 2-sided analysis was done based on a null hypothesis of no difference between the two groups.

A 1-sided Mann-Whitney test was used to compare the study and control groups’ hospital lengths of stay. The test was based on a null hypothesis that the stays of members of the control group tended to be shorter.

Fisher’s exact test was used to compare the study and control group’s mortality rates. This test was 1-sided, where the null hypothesis is that the mortality rate of the control group does not exceed that of the prayer group.

Our sample size of over 33,000 patients was sufficient to detect a 1% difference in mortality rate, if such a difference existed, with 99% power with a Type I error of .05.

Of the 33473 trauma registry patients, 16736 were randomized to the control group and 16737 were randomized to the study group. There were no significant differences between the groups with regard to age, systolic blood pressure on arrival, Glasgow Coma Score on arrival, and Injury Severity Score.

Median length of stay was 2 days for the control group (range 0 to 375 days) and 2 days for the study group (range 0 to 730 days). The p-value for the associated test of hypothesis was .27. In-hospital mortality for the control group was 4.6% and 4.6% for the study group (p=.44).

Our study’s findings conflict with those reported by Leibovici (1) who showed that remote retroactive intercessory prayer was beneficial. It may be argued that the outcomes we studied – mortality and hospital stay – were not appropriate measures to assess improvements in “well being”. It is arguable that, in some cases, death may end suffering, and so bring a form of benefit to a patient. Similarly, a shorter hospital stay may not necessarily reflect improved health or well-being. Additionally, we did not assess the long- term health outcome or the patient’s sense of well-being. It is possible there were differences in the two groups that we did not assess. Nor did our study make an effort to control for prayer that may have been said on the patients’ behalf by other people, such as family members or friends. However, our aim in this study was to assess objective and measurable outcomes that are important to clinicians. Our thought (and perhaps it is a biased one) was that survival was better than death, and that a shorter hospital stay was better than a long one. Although we cannot claim we have shown remote retroactive intercessory prayer provides no benefit to trauma patients, we think we can claim to have shown it is quite unlikely that it affects in-hospital mortality or length of stay. This study does not prove that intercessory prayer has no benefits. There are several compelling studies which appear to show the benefits of prayer, and we feel further research in this area is warranted. "

However, even ignoring the fact that the statistical significance of the study was dubious and that a follow-up study did not confirm the finding, there are still issues with the methodology of the study itself.

" Would you accept a RCT in which it is suspected that a considerable number of individuals in the control group were given the active drug? Since this study does not offer major precisions about the applied intervention (e.g. What kind of prayer? Prayers from who? Where was it made? To what God?), we must assume that any prayer should produce the same effects, and there is no way to rule out that any individual from the control group (or his/her relatives) had not prayed to God for their health during their time of illness. Control subjects, to be considered as such, must not have received any prayer, at any time (since “God is not limited by a linear time, as we are”). Therefore, the study is invalid, or it can lead us to a dangerous conclusion such that a prayer said ten years later by an unknown person is more effective than one said at the moment by a beloved one; and its consequent recommendation would be: if you need God’s help, don’t pray now, do it in a few years, it will be better. However, even if we accept the study and its conclusions as valid, it should be reproducible. Let’s suppose, then, that we want to reproduce this same study, but now with a crossed design (like a RCT in which those who were initially given placebo will receive the active drug). The subjects in control group should then improve their condition like those who received the intervention in the first place. That is obviously impossible, but… why? What are God’s excuses to not help these people? None of the following would be acceptable: - Sorry, there’s nothing I can do, it happened in the past. - I’m sorry, I have already helped the other group. - I’m not allowed to help control subjects.

Anyway, it would be enrichening to go on discussing about Religion, but only a miracle could turn this work into strong evidence about the effectiveness of praying."

Conclusion - the site's attempted references to research are invalid.

My conclusion - QUIT IT. Religion is not science, science is not religion. You can't prove God exists, it's a matter of faith. Nor can we prove that God does not exist, that is a matter of faith too. Just please, please don't try to mix the two and sound "scientific" when talking about religion. It doesn't work. Religion is religion, science is science, they both have their place. They don't mix.

"The Law of Conservation of Energy states that energy cannot be created or destroyed, but can change its form.

The total quantity of matter and energy available in the universe is a fixed amount and never any more or less."

New matter does not just "appear". This is the big gaping hole in the big bang theory, the question of where did the original energy come from?


On what basis do you apply laws that govern our universe to a situation where it does not exist yet (as we know it, at least)?

Errors in Georg Cantor's logic have been noted.

http://descmath.com/diag/tale.html

The site claims that 1/3 might not be equal to .333333333....

"First off, I have never been convinced that 0.333... is perfectly equal to 1/3. The remainder doesn't seem to vanish when I think about the equation.."

However, it never refutes the simple proof I was first taught.

Let X=.333333333... (infinite repeating decimal).
Let Y= 10*X = 3.33333333 (another infinite repeating decimal).

Subtract X from Y. Get

Y - X = 10 X - X = 9X
3.33333333... - .33333333... = 3

Therefore, 9X = 3
X = 3/9
X = 1/3.

We had defined X to be .33333333...

Therefore, 1/3 = .3333333....

He disputes this by claiming that "digit to digit comparison from left to right does not prove that numbers are actually the same thing."

His argument for this goes as follows...

"My thoughts on this subject begin at an interesting point: I've been told authoratively that every number on the the number line can be expressed by a distinct infinite decimal. This leads to a problem: Let's say that q is an irrational number. As a member of the reals it can be expressed as a distinct infinite decimal. If I understand the term "distinct" to mean that q differs from all other infinite decimals at a finite digit from the decimal point (I will call this digit n), then I can construct a real number that exists between q and all real numbers less than q. To do so, I simply truncate q at a digit somewhere to the right of digit n.

For my concept of infinite decimal to be complete, I have to modify my understanding of distinct decimal. That is I have to accept that there might be two distinct decimals a and b, where a and b do not begin to differ until after an infinite number of digits from the decimal point.

Accepting such an idea means that I cannot establish absolute equality simply by starting at the decimal point and comparing digit by digit. In other words, I might have two decimals with repeating nines, but the decimals themselves are different. "

However, he has a logical fallacy. The claim that "If I understand the term "distinct" to mean that q differs from all other infinite decimals at a finite digit from the decimal point (I will call this digit n), then I can construct a real number that exists between q and all real numbers less than q." is false. You CANNOT construct a real number between q and all real numbers less than q by truncating. That gives you a number less than q, but by no means is it between q and ALL numbers less than q. There is no single real number that is less than q but greater than all other real numbers less than q.

This argument that you can't compare two infinite decimals is the crux of his argument, and without it his logic falls apart.

He ends by concluding that "Certainly, we can make mathematical models that assume repeating nines equal one. Yet other mathematical models are equally valid."

Yes, we can make other models. There's nothing wrong with having more than one model - noneuclidian geometry started out as a mere hypothetical model, but ended up as the mathematical tool for general relativity. But the fact that other models might be possible does not discredit the fact that our current model works.

"The only conclusion I can derive from such thought experiments is that we do not know anything conclusively about infinite numbers. " Yes we do. It's a whole branch of mathematics - calculus! You add an infinite number of infinitely small numbers, and get a finite number. You can take limits as a variable approaches a number, or as it approaches infinity. It's the basis behind 99% of physics.

I like to think of God, as the good book says, as the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.
I'd like to add to that as The beginning and the end of Infinity.

God, in my view, IS infinity.
Both the philosophic and mathematical view it.

Like the old folks imagined it, everything in the world is "built" on something. Molecules are build out of atoms, atoms out of electrons, protons,....
All down to the "infinetly" small particles.
There is the first big guestion? Is there a first, primal particle or do the building block go down infinetly?
The same goes the other way. We have stars, star systems, galaxies, galaxy clusters,...
Is there an end of the universe or does it go on forever?

I believe the answer is BOTH.
I believe that there is no primal or final element and that the particles and the universe goes on forever.
But because I don't believe that any scientifc theory can explain the infinetly ascending or descending large and small ellements, i assume that the primal building block, which shouldn't exist, is infact God. ANd if we would ever get to the end of the Universe, we would find God there

Where did God come from? He has always been. I like how the kabbalah teaches, that once EVERYTHING was God. But then God contracted to make room for SOMETHING. Of this God we can't know anything because he is incomprehensible, infinite.

This is all very unscientific, because i'm not educated enough to discuss complicated scientific theories
But simple science is useless when confronting such big questions.
It all comes down to philosophy and faith.
Science can only prove that it cant prove anything

When you can create a new law of physics, you can say there is no god.

I am not trying to say there is this paticular God, although I have my belief as a Christian, but there has to be some type of creator here me out. The Big bang theory can be refuted in one line:
Where did the dust come from, where did the space come from, it had to originate somewhere.
So maybe the big bang theory happened but something had to create the space to do it. Maybe I am missing something, but how can this be refuted.

Science is so easy to refute because it gives reasoning to support its claims. If arguements for God had to start giving reasoning for their claims, they could be refuted to.

"The only conclusion I can derive from such thought experiments is that we do not know anything conclusively about infinite numbers. " Yes we do. It's a whole branch of mathematics - calculus! You add an infinite number of infinitely small numbers, and get a finite number. You can take limits as a variable approaches a number, or as it approaches infinity. It's the basis behind 99% of physics.
I can see why they call you Reasonabilityness. :-)

But simple science is useless when confronting such big questions.
It all comes down to philosophy and faith.
Science can only prove that it cant prove anything

You have very good points, I like your view of things.

Except the fact that "science can only prove that it cant prove anything." Science can prove exactly what it says it can prove - which isn't nothing.

In the mathematical sense, nothing can be conclusively proven - there are always assumptions made.

It depends on the definition of proof. There is mathematical proof - "prove something conclusively, no other option." In math, all that is proven is if-then statements - "IF we make certain assumptions, THEN we get this result." Euclidean geometry starts with axioms that we assume are true. Other branches of mathematics have their own set of axioms, I don't know the details. But what we can prove is the statement that "if the axioms hold, then the following conclusion holds."

But in most of science, we want more than if-then statements. We want actual predictions. So we use a standard of proof that's closer to the "beyond a resonable doubt" standard used in courtrooms than the "purely, 100% true" standard used in mathematics. There is only 100% certainty when you're talking about something other than the real world.

So we prove theories by testing them. That's what's considered proof - sufficient evidence, prediction that agrees with experimental results.

It's not 100% certain. But it's good enough to put a man on the moon.

Religion is not science, science is not religion. Science is founded around "proof by evidence" - religion is founded around faith. It's just the way that they are. People that try to provide "proof by evidence" of religion are probably doomed to fail, because religion is founded on faith which doesn't have proof. Likewise, a scientist had better try to keep faith out of his published papers as much as possible and stick with that which is evidence-backed.

...now, most people don't have direct proof of science. We're not the ones doing the experiments - I have to simply believe that it isn't all a grand conspiracy. I never did the measurements - how do I know that light travels at exactly the same speed regardless of reference frame? I don't. In that sense, I take it on faith. But on the other hand, it's faith backed by some evidence - I've seen lasers, I've been on airplanes, I've wired LEDs to flash in response to input.

But the central tenet of science is that the evidence exists, and can be verified. That's what we consider proof.

Science isn't geared towards answering the "Why" questions of the world. Why are the physical laws the way they are? Maybe eventually scientists will come up with a Grand Unified Theory that will make the answer to "why" obvious. Most likely not - a theory is simply the best model we have to date. And we'll never know the specifics of why life appeared here as opposed to elsewhere, or why it formed the way it did - we might be able to explain why the conditions were favorable here, but we'll never be able to trace back to those atoms that formed the first RNA molecule and say why it was those and not some other ones, or none at all.

That's the domain of religion and philosophy. Science intruding in religion and trying to "prove" that there is not a God "because there's no evidence for him" is just as ludicrous as religion trying to tell science that evolution didn't happen because the Bible says so, despite the evidence. Science is about evidence. Religion is about faith. The two are different.

But simple science is useless when confronting such big questions.
It all comes down to philosophy and faith.
Science can only prove that it cant prove anything
erm, i know you are trying to sound deep, but you're garbling reality as you try. science can prove far more than its own limitations, though it can establish those as well. it's true that science cannot tell us anything about objective "right" and "wrong," but that's because science proves that there IS no objective right and wrong, at least not in any empirical sense. science proves that morality is our own creation, and that only our own minds (or a supernatural force beyond the scope of science) carry the significance of moral judgments. i'd say that's pretty damn useful in philosophy, and i think it establishes the limitations of faith quite solidly.

When you can create a new law of physics, you can say there is no god.
What the hell does that mean? That one must study physics and come to conclusions that no one else has in order to be atheistic? That's ridiculous, accomplishment and/or invention in physics has nothing to do with whether there is God or not.

Sorry, this is a pet subject of mine, so my post might be long-ish.



Actually, I don't think you could argue that the energy of the universe is zero. We have quite a lot of positive mass, positive background radiation and plenty of extras. Most physicists agree the universe is definately "unbalanced" towards the positive (matter vs antimatter). Why? We haven't figured that one out yet!



Don't worry about not being up on the latest theories. There's 5 or 6 major ones right now and all but one or two require some advanced math to sort out.

And evolution is actually theoretical in the same sense as the big bang is. We've seen proof of microevolution, but can't prove macroevolution (as I understand it, but then, I'm a physicist and not an archeologist). With the big bang, we can enter all the current numbers and see a regression trend towards the big bang, and can explain a /lot/ using that theory (including the background radiation), but can't prove it because, just like evolution, we can't exactly recreate it.



Well, I've done a bit of research myself, and you might want to look into what Dr Sailhammer (one of the best language experts in the world on ancient hebrew, greek, and latin) has to say on that. The word "day" in hebrew that's used there is used something like 50 more times in the old testament and /never/ refers to anything other than a literal 24 hours.



I liked Hawking's dark energy theory better. The cyclical universe theory is just almost too absurd to be right anymore. First, it would require an infinite regression of universes. Assuming you accept that, it would require the 2nd law of thermo not to be in effect (as the recombination and explosions of the universes would slowly fade to smaller and smaller explosions ... and in an infinite regression, only a finite amount of universes could actually be created, which means there would have to be a beginning and an end ... hence, no infinite universes). Assuming you get around that somehow, you have to assume a balace of mass througout the universe so that the recombination to the plank length is uniform and doesn't have two or three separate recombinations. Assuming you get around that, you have to account for a huge amount of mass that's missing in the universe. The galaxies are moving away from eachother too fast to slow down and turn around unless we're missing something like 50% of the mass of the universe in dark matter (not anti-matter, which would actually mean we're missing more) ... according to Segan and Hawkings (Segan, I believe, was the first to postulate the dark matter idea).
As I already stated, Hawking as retracted his theory on the basis of incorrect information. I don't know the status of Segan's beliefs.

As I already stated, Hawking as retracted his theory on the basis of incorrect information. I don't know the status of Segan's beliefs.
I don't think Sagan has any beliefs right now. As for Hawking, he admitted to being wrong on getting information out from a black hole. That has nothing to do with the rest of his theories, on which, by the way, he has no data at all, since he is a pure theoretician. His theories make mathematical sense, but we are technologically incapable of testing them yet. Which leads me to believe that you really have no idea of what you're talking about and are merely parroting something you read in the popular media or that somebody told you.

LOL, i'm sorry, but that site is a total crock. they have a whole section about how the Bible hasn't been changed from the original manuscript...that should be a big red flag to anybody who enjoys things like "truth," "fact," or "legitimate information."

Well, enlighten us, then? Where has the bible been changed? The Qumran scrolls are showing that it's 99.9% accurate so far going back thousands of years. The changes they've found so far have been spelling changes.

If you're arguing that the /translations/ are different, I don't know who would dispute you. If you want something accurate, you don't look at a translation.

Playing Devil's Advocate here, but if you assume that there must have been some kind of creator to start the Big Bang, then what created the creator?

If something created the creator, then something created the creator that created the creator ... back and back to infinity. That's just as absurd as the cyclical universe argument. Of course, it's also just as absurd as having a god-creature who's outside of space and time (hence not having to obey the laws of cause and effect). Either way, you have to believe in an infinity.

Inflation of a singularity. It's far more understandable and probable than a god.

Then where'd the singularity come from? Nothing? It just happened sometime? Where'd all the energy in the singularity come from if there was nothing? No universe, no space, no time existed before the universe did ... those things are inexorably tied to space-time as einstein and quantum are showing very well.

No, a singularity is impossible without something before it. Segan and Hawkings advanced a theory that there was a huge amount of underlying energy at a "zeroth" dimension that exploded through what we would call a singularity and created out universe. However, they still can't say /why/ it would explode, where the energy would have come from, or how it would actually create a multi-dimension universe from a no-dimension one.

Well, enlighten us, then? Where has the bible been changed?


There is no original manuscript.


The Qumran scrolls are showing that it's 99.9% accurate so far going back thousands of years. The changes they've found so far have been spelling changes.


This is incorrect. The Dead Sea scrolls do contain fragments of almost every Old Testament book. They are not however, "The King James Version, Copyright 68 CE."


If you're arguing that the /translations/ are different, I don't know who would dispute you. If you want something accurate, you don't look at a translation.


Difficult if there is no original manuscript in the first place.

Either way, you have to believe in an infinity.


Question

What is singularity and why do all laws of physics break down at singularity?

Answer

When a physicist refers to a singularity he or she is generally referring to a quantity which is infinite. Specifically, a quantity which approaches infinity as another parameter goes to zero, such as

http://www.physlink.com/Education/AskExperts/Images/ae251a.jpg

It isn't true to say that all laws of physics break down at a singularity. You can imagine the problems though -- how do we interpret an infinite mass or infinite energy or infinite force? Usually we assume that there is some new set of laws or some new way of looking at the problem that makes the apparent singularity go away.

Here's an example. You may be familiar with Hooke's law for the force exerted by a spring: F=kx where k is the tension of the spring and x is the distance it is stretched. Now write the equation as k=F/x. Written this way it would seem that if you compare the tension between any two points on the spring, it grows and grows the closer together the two points are. In fact, two points spaced infinitesimally apart seem to have an infinite tension! It's just a manifestation of the 1/x limit above.

But of course that's not true. If you really want to know what's happening at small distance scales you can't use the classical physics behind Hooke's law. At some point x drops below the spacing between molecules in the spring's metal. Now Hooke's law no longer applies and you have to use atomic physics to explain the spring's properties. So in the large-scale theory (Hooke's law) there was no fundamental distance scale: x could be as small as you want. But at some point this law breaks down. In the small-scale theory (quantum mechanics and atomic physics) there is a fundamental distance scale: the atomic spacing. We would say that the singularity has been 'resolved.'

Most people worry about singularities involving general relativity: two examples being a black hole and the singularity that classical general relativity predicts was our universe at the moment it began. If you try to apply the laws of general relativity in these situations you will inevitably find the same 1/x singularities I've been talking about. How are we going to resolve these singularities? We expect quantum mechanics to do the job, since it is the theory that correctly describes physics at small distance scales. Unfortunately, while we have good theories of atomic physics, we don't real have a good theory of quantum gravity. Many of us think string theory will ultimately provide the resolution to these problems.

In short then, a singularity represents an infinity and we generally don't think nature is infinite. The problem arises from not having some kind of 'floor' built into a theory that keeps you from taking the limit of 1/x as x goes to zero. The way out is to apply a new theory that has such a floor, such as quantum mechanics or string theory (quantum gravity).



Then where'd the singularity come from? Nothing? It just happened sometime? Where'd all the energy in the singularity come from if there was nothing? No universe, no space, no time existed before the universe did ... those things are inexorably tied to space-time as einstein and quantum are showing very well.

No, a singularity is impossible without something before it.

I would first like you to first explain how we can have "cause and effect" if time does not exist.

There is no original manuscript.

So ... what are you trying to say here? That the books of the Torah are all fakes ... what? I'm rather confused.

This is incorrect. The Dead Sea scrolls do contain fragments of almost every Old Testament book. They are not however, "The King James Version, Copyright 68 CE."

Since when is the King James Version:
1) The official Bible, since it's probably the most errenous translation there is
2) Written in 68AD?

The books of the "bible" were agreed upon at the council of Nicea in about 400AD and were written around 100AD. The books in the Torah were recorded at latest around 500BC. Since they're all individual books, though, don't think I'm pinning all of them all down to one time period.

Difficult if there is no original manuscript in the first place.

Once again. What are you talking about?

I would first like you to first explain how we can have "cause and effect" if time does not exist.

We can't have cause /or/ effect without time. If there's no time (and there's nothing outside of time/space to create time or a universe) then there can be no cause to create the universe.

I am not trying to say there is this paticular God, although I have my belief as a Christian, but there has to be some type of creator here me out. The Big bang theory can be refuted in one line:
Where did the dust come from, where did the space come from, it had to originate somewhere.
So maybe the big bang theory happened but something had to create the space to do it. Maybe I am missing something, but how can this be refuted.

Theorizing that the universe all of a sudden started to exist out of nothing doesn't make sense.
Theorizing that some creator created the universe doesn't make sense, if only because where did they come from?
Theorizing that the universe had no beginning and has always existed doesn't make sense.

In other words, believe whatever you like - it's all equally as nonsensical as the rest.

I like to think of God, as the good book says, as the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.
I'd like to add to that as The beginning and the end of Infinity.

God, in my view, IS infinity.
The great thing about Infinity is that it has no beginning and no ending. If it did, it would be finite. The Alpha is the Omega: a closed loop.

Who created the creator? and who created the creator of the creator? it goes on and on.

Theorizing that the universe all of a sudden started to exist out of nothing doesn't make sense.
Theorizing that some creator created the universe doesn't make sense, if only because where did they come from?
Theorizing that the universe had no beginning and has always existed doesn't make sense.

In other words, believe whatever you like - it's all equally as nonsensical as the rest.


Not equally no ...
Besides some can be proven ... or worked twords

It is all a matter of evidence

and just because you cant understand it does not make it not feasable (or nonsensical)

Who created the creator? and who created the creator of the creator? it goes on and on.
That's why most Creators are virgin god/desses. They are self-created.

That's why most Creators are virgin god/desses. They are self-created.

The same is true in christianity, in a symbolic representation... but the feminine sexuality is subverted.

Well, enlighten us, then? Where has the bible been changed? The Qumran scrolls are showing that it's 99.9% accurate so far going back thousands of years. The changes they've found so far have been spelling changes.

If you're arguing that the /translations/ are different, I don't know who would dispute you. If you want something accurate, you don't look at a translation.



Interesting, how do they compare on "Daniel", one wonders...

So ... what are you trying to say here? That the books of the Torah are all fakes ... what? I'm rather confused.



Since when is the King James Version:
1) The official Bible, since it's probably the most errenous translation there is
2) Written in 68AD?

The books of the "bible" were agreed upon at the council of Nicea in about 400AD and were written around 100AD. The books in the Torah were recorded at latest around 500BC. Since they're all individual books, though, don't think I'm pinning all of them all down to one time period.



Once again. What are you talking about?



We can't have cause /or/ effect without time. If there's no time (and there's nothing outside of time/space to create time or a universe) then there can be no cause to create the universe.

Well, at least PART of what he is getting at, is that there are NO original manuscripts... it's really not that hard.

Show me a document written in 900bc, which is about when the Hebrews started recording a written history.

It is easy to see, when looking through the pentatauch, that the books are clearly works of multiple authors - even when read in the english translations, those changes are perceptible.

Not just stylistic, but also content changes. From where one 'book' was crafted from several smaller disparate texts, for example.

The great thing about Infinity is that it has no beginning and no ending. If it did, it would be finite. The Alpha is the Omega: a closed loop.

That was meant philosophically.
But that is the best description I can think of to describe the undescribable.

That was meant philosophically.
But that is the best description I can think of to describe the undescribable.
Philosophically, as opposed to...? :-)

Alright, then... The great thing about a philosophy of infinite being is that it has no beginning and no end. It is Alpha and Omega. ;-)

Now describing the undescribable, that's what we have poetry for. And your natural gift for it speaks well.

So ... what are you trying to say here? That the books of the Torah are all fakes ... what? I'm rather confused.

Since when is the King James Version:
1) The official Bible, since it's probably the most errenous translation there is
2) Written in 68AD?

The books of the "bible" were agreed upon at the council of Nicea in about 400AD and were written around 100AD. The books in the Torah were recorded at latest around 500BC. Since they're all individual books, though, don't think I'm pinning all of them all down to one time period.

Once again. What are you talking about?

We can't have cause /or/ effect without time. If there's no time (and there's nothing outside of time/space to create time or a universe) then there can be no cause to create the universe.
This is quite entertaining, and reminds me of the Daily Show.

"The is no original Biblical manuscript."

"Whaaaa...?!?"

The idea is just seems so ridiculous to you that it is outside the bounds of normal reason.

Instead of relying on a few books of a specific time period or regional culture, when trying to talk about God, we should gather as much information from every credible source of all time periods and regions and compare the gathered data.

Specifically, to try to find things that are in common instead of things that are different.

A limited research of mine about all the world's mayor religions and most smaller subreligions finds that the basis of all is a peacefull coexistence with nature and other people, the notion of Good, equality and respect and, not to go too far from the subject, a primal source of the universe, it's creator in a form of an intelligence, spiritual or material, or "sentient" energy (not the cold matter science talks about)

All the thousands of years of human existence through all the time periods and cultural differences and through all the time the vast mayority of humanity had these notions of God in common without any scientific reason to do so...
To me, the Creation itself and the notion of Goodness (which is against the nature's law of the survival of the fittest) is the proof of God.

Instead of relying on a few books of a specific time period or regional culture, when trying to talk about God, we should gather as much information from every credible source of all time periods and regions and compare the gathered data.

Specifically, to try to find things that are in common instead of things that are different.

A limited research of mine about all the world's mayor religions and most smaller subreligions finds that the basis of all is a peacefull coexistence with nature and other people, the notion of Good, equality and respect and, not to go too far from the subject, a primal source of the universe, it's creator in a form of an intelligence, spiritual or material, or "sentient" energy (not the cold matter science talks about)

All the thousands of years of human existence through all the time periods and cultural differences and through all the time the vast mayority of humanity had these notions of God in common without any scientific reason to do so...
To me, the Creation itself and the notion of Goodness (which is against the nature's law of the survival of the fittest) is the proof of God.
Oooh! A theologist! Or at least an amateur one. I feel that a theological viewpoint from someone who has studied more than one religion is a very good addition.

Yet, I must ask, have you considered human nature in your calculations? Did it occur to you that many cultures arrive at the same divine conclusion, if that is in fact veracious, that it is because that is how Homo sapiens attempt to explain nature? Because, and I'm sure any analytical theologist would agree, religion is merely man's attempt to explain that which he doesn't understand. Some may argue that science is precisely this, but they are mistaken in the way that this explanation is gone about.

And anyone who thinks goodness actually exists needs to observe nature a little more. Darwinism is always present if you bother to look. In fact, I was reading about precisely this today in the book I'm reading about bees, William Longgood's The Queen Must Die, in which the author tries to explain robbing behaviour demonstrated among bees, since he is a great admirer of them, but can contrive nothing to explain it but Darwinism. Bees will steal honey from weaker hives even if they have surpluses. Goodness is a human concept, and no other form of life we're aware of adheres to it in any contrivable way.

Well, at least PART of what he is getting at, is that there are NO original manuscripts... it's really not that hard.

Show me a document written in 900bc, which is about when the Hebrews started recording a written history.

Ok, that part I get and agree with, but he said 68AD ... that made zero sense to me. It sounded like he wanted an entire "bible" from 68AD when the concept wasn't even there yet!

I understand the idea that there's no originals, but I was simply pointing out that between 500BC (the Qumran documents) and 1400 (was that the printing press?), there were virtually zero changes in the transcription of the documents. If it survived (before mass production) with virtually zero changes over almost two millenia, then it's not such a stretch to think that it's survived unchanged from the original documents.

It is easy to see, when looking through the pentatauch, that the books are clearly works of multiple authors - even when read in the english translations, those changes are perceptible.

Not just stylistic, but also content changes. From where one 'book' was crafted from several smaller disparate texts, for example.

Well, that's easy to see in the Pentateuch, but most of the other books are singular books by separate authors. They never claim to be anything different.

This is quite entertaining, and reminds me of the Daily Show.

"The is no original Biblical manuscript."

"Whaaaa...?!?"

The idea is just seems so ridiculous to you that it is outside the bounds of normal reason.

Outside the bounds of normal reason because the phrase doesn't make sense to me. There's no manuscript for the whole Bible ... just a bunch of books compiled together. It's like saying, "Why can't you smell the color red?"

Whaaaa...?!?

You are missing something. There was no space. There was no dust. There was nothing. Then, a singularity appeared. Considering that matter comes into existence all the time, that was not surprising. The singularity then expanded at light speed (Actually, it was slightly faster for an extremely short period.) resulting in the expansion of space-time and the formation of the universe.

matter comes into existence? wat about the law of conservation of matter
matter can neihter be made or desrtroyed

matter comes into existence? wat about the law of conservation of matter
matter can neihter be made or desrtroyed

It was shipped in by UPS. :)

Because, and I'm sure any analytical theologist would agree, religion is merely man's attempt to explain that which he doesn't understand.
I would disagree with those theologists.

I believe the first religions explained things completely understood, but that over time, as man's consciousness evolved, that understanding got left behind. Evidence of this is the myths leftover from ancient religions, and even in how we have perverted the concept of 'myth' in our modern English to equate it with a 'lie' (doing damage to the very tool used to understand religious meaning).

Outside the bounds of normal reason because the phrase doesn't make sense to me. There's no manuscript for the whole Bible ... just a bunch of books compiled together. It's like saying, "Why can't you smell the color red?"

Whaaaa...?!?
I have to admit, that was a very good, and humbling, comeback. Although synaesthetic persons may be able to say that. My main point was that man wrote the Bible, it wasn't God. And God didn't dictate either, or at least there's insubstantial evidence that he did. I was trying to say that Christians follow the Bible blindly and don't even realise it was passed down orally for centuries before it was written down. There was no original manuscript because that isn't possible. And original manuscript would have had to be written by someone like Homer, which there wasn't for Christianity.

But, again, thank you for making me come around to the absurdity of my post.

I'm not entirely convinced there's a Creation. I'm still up in the air about the whole existence thing. Are we really here? There's evidence to the contrary.

But if there's a Creation, then I believe in a Creator.

I also think he should have stuck to pottery. :p

I have to admit, that was a very good, and humbling, comeback. Although synaesthetic persons may be able to say that. My main point was that man wrote the Bible, it wasn't God. And God didn't dictate either, or at least there's insubstantial evidence that he did. I was trying to say that Christians follow the Bible blindly and don't even realise it was passed down orally for centuries before it was written down. There was no original manuscript because that isn't possible. And original manuscript would have had to be written by someone like Homer, which there wasn't for Christianity.

But, again, thank you for making me come around to the absurdity of my post.

hehe :). Well I think the whole point of this thread is that it's basically impossible to prove whether there's a god or not, let alone the Christian God, so let's leave the idea of whether He inspired the Bible or not as a matter left to faith.

I'll not argue that there certainly are many (most, probably) Christians that do exactly as you say, follow the Bible blindly, but probably not even reading the whole thing. Personally, as a Christian, I find that pretty rediculous.

As to the "original manuscript" idea. I think I'm still hitting a stumbling block here. I think you're trying to say there's no original for the entire bible. That's true. However, for several of the books, even though we don't /have/ the original copy, there was at one point an original. Take, for instance, the books of Jude and Job in the Old Testament. Those were most likely written as individual books at one point, and then eventually included in the list of holy books. Most of the New Testament comes directly from letters written by the people who were there. The 4 Gospels were written as individual accounts of what happened and the Pauline letters were all written as letters to individual churches instructing them in how to behave. So for those you could definately say there were original manuscripts.

Some of the Old Testament would have been passed down as word of mouth. Most notably Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy, though much of Deuteronomy is probably a fairly accurate lineage as kept by a court recorder. Many others, however, were books that were written first or second hand and passed down in written form.

The "bible" as we know it today wasn't even compiled as a book until the council of Nicea in about AD 400 anyway, so, as you say, an original manuscript of the whole thing would be impossible. However, most of the New Testament is now agreed by historians to have been written before 100AD, and probably before the fall of Jerusalem in 70AD. (I might be slightly off in my dates there ... +/- 10 years?). As a historical document, it's considered extremely reliable, if not as a spiritual or scientific document.

My chief belief in there being a creator is that this all could not just have

somehow just started all by itself, and what was before it, if it did.

Nothing?

How can nothing exist?

I believe I've just heard the sound of subtley going over a person's head.

Ok, that part I get and agree with, but he said 68AD ... that made zero sense to me. It sounded like he wanted an entire "bible" from 68AD when the concept wasn't even there yet!


You seem to have some ridiculous idea that the dead seas scrolls are copy of the Bible (well, just the old testament) that matched the modern copy verbatim.


I understand the idea that there's no originals, but I was simply pointing out that between 500BC (the Qumran documents) and 1400 (was that the printing press?), there were virtually zero changes in the transcription of the documents. If it survived (before mass production) with virtually zero changes over almost two millenia, then it's not such a stretch to think that it's survived unchanged from the original documents.


No doubt refering to the copy of the book of Isiah found (of which there are more than one, and they differ). However, there are notable differences such as in Jeremiah, 1-2 Samuel, Exodus and Deutronomy which don't share the same level of general agreement with the Masoretic texts.

The scrolls have caused renewed analysis and changes to the current translations. No one was making a big checkmark on the Bible exlaiming "Yep. We had it perfectly right all along."


Outside the bounds of normal reason because the phrase doesn't make sense to me. There's no manuscript for the whole Bible ... just a bunch of books compiled together. It's like saying, "Why can't you smell the color red?"

Whaaaa...?!?

I'm too used to hearing biblical inerranists saying "the original had no errors." when they have no original.

The main point was ... there is nothing to compare to now for any real vertification.

The 4 Gospels were written as individual accounts of what happened


You do realize they're anoymous and date from roughly fifty to a hundred years after the fact?


and the Pauline letters were all written as letters to individual churches instructing them in how to behave. So for those you could definately say there were original manuscripts.


One of the few parts of the Bible with a definite author on them.


Some of the Old Testament would have been passed down as word of mouth. Most notably Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy, though much of Deuteronomy is probably a fairly accurate lineage as kept by a court recorder. Many others, however, were books that were written first or second hand and passed down in written form.


Deutronomy was "found" by King Josiah in the Temple. It's very curious how despite being set in continuity before the Hebrews entered the promised land it makes a lot of overt references to the monarchy in place at the time of King Josiah and is used to justify the current state as well as condone his actions.

I know I'm jumping in late here, but I don't think anyone's said this yet, so here goes:

It's clear that neither the the existence of a creator, nor the big bang is at present a provable thing. Though some people would like it otherwise, the Big Bang doesn't really answer the question of the origin of the universe, it just tells us what happened 'right after' the beginning. And a creator just leads us to ask who created him

Ignoring this problem, which both theories share, the primary advantage the big bang theory has is that it requires far less assumptions. We can actually work out most of the details of the why's and how's of the beginning of the universe, and the Big Bang theory produces testeable predictions like the Cosmic Microwave Background radiation. If we instead posit a creator, we just have to assume that he made the universe exactly the way it is because that's what he wanted, and the will of god is ineffable. You do have to wonder at the amazing coicidence that he decided to make the universe look like it exploded from a singularity at its origin. But maybe that's what he did to create it *shrug*.

Going back to the question of the Universe's origin, though it may be counterintuitive, it is a legitimate logical possibility that the fabric of the universe in both space and time is a closed surface, like the surface of bubble, which has no edges i.e. no possibility of a beginning in space OR time Ultimately, unless you want to invoke some sort of infinite recursion, this seems like the most satisfactory explanation to me at least.

And anyone who thinks goodness actually exists needs to observe nature a little more. Darwinism is always present if you bother to look. In fact, I was reading about precisely this today in the book I'm reading about bees, William Longgood's The Queen Must Die, in which the author tries to explain robbing behaviour demonstrated among bees, since he is a great admirer of them, but can contrive nothing to explain it but Darwinism. Bees will steal honey from weaker hives even if they have surpluses. Goodness is a human concept, and no other form of life we're aware of adheres to it in any contrivable way.

Exactly.
In nature there is no Goodness.
But Humanity has the notion of it and strives to it.
And the notion of Goodness is closely tied to religion. Infact, religion elevated human conduct to another set of laws, higher and contrary to nature's Survival of the fittest.
Interestingly, Gnosticus, do you just like the sound of it or are you in fact Gnostic(WHere there is a a spark of God, Goodness in each and one of us)?

WHen someone asked, if God was the Creator, why did he made the universe through a singularity?
Firstly, the singularity theory is just a theory and even if it stands, we have no idea what goes on in a singularity. All the laws break down into a point of Infinity? :D , and it's the point where science gives way to faith.
And if the chaotic nature of the Big Bang doesn't cope well with you and an orderly Creation, maybe God just made the circumstanes, that made Creation possible, while the process itself was not guided at all.

I believe I've just heard the sound of subtley going over a person's head.

Obviously I missed the subtlety in in saying there was no 68AD copy of the King James Bible.

You seem to have some ridiculous idea that the dead seas scrolls are copy of the Bible (well, just the old testament) that matched the modern copy verbatim.

Nope, just that they're closer and contain fewer transcription errors than any other work near that age we've ever discovered.

No doubt refering to the copy of the book of Isiah found (of which there are more than one, and they differ). However, there are notable differences such as in Jeremiah, 1-2 Samuel, Exodus and Deutronomy which don't share the same level of general agreement with the Masoretic texts.

The scrolls have caused renewed analysis and changes to the current translations. No one was making a big checkmark on the Bible exlaiming "Yep. We had it perfectly right all along."

And yet, while there have been some changes in phrasology, as I understand it, there have been zero fundamental changes in the scripture itself.

I'm too used to hearing biblical inerranists saying "the original had no errors." when they have no original.

And I'm too used to people claiming the Bible is useless and must not be correct in any way because it was transcribed and we don't have our hands on any of the original manuscripts. Like, oh, the Iliad, Herodotus' History, Plato's works, Caesar's Gallic Wars, Livy's History of Rome, etc, etc, etc. Somehow, even though we never had the original of any of those, and the /shortest/ amount of time between when one of those was originally written and the /olded/ piece of manuscript we've found is 500 years ... we feel we have reliable copies of the original. Because the Bible is a religious / historical text, that's not true for its books?

The main point was ... there is nothing to compare to now for any real vertification.

Just like ... uh ... pretty much every book written that long ago? Is history then a useless study? Are the copies of all our old books worthless? We arguably have more accurate copies of the books in the Bible than we do of Shakespeare's works simply due to the huge amount of manuscripts we /have/ found all from all over the ancient world that have allowed us (just like with Shakespeare) to piece together reconstructions of the original.

You do realize they're anoymous and date from roughly fifty to a hundred years after the fact?

And /you/ realize that your statement is highly in debate, even among historians who aren't Christians? Go read William Albright or Dr John Robinson, both of which say the entire new testament can not have been written any later than 70AD. They are both considered some of the world's best scholars on the historicity of the New Testament and both had argued in the past for dates of fifty to a hundred years after the fact. They have since changed their minds due to their findings and believe the books to be first hand accounts .. primary sources, if you will.

Deutronomy was "found" by King Josiah in the Temple. It's very curious how despite being set in continuity before the Hebrews entered the promised land it makes a lot of overt references to the monarchy in place at the time of King Josiah and is used to justify the current state as well as condone his actions.

And yet, strangely, the fact that a book is convenient for a ruler at the time it was "discovered" doesn't necissarily make it any less accurate historically.

[QUOTE=Moonshine]I think he also suggests that there is enough energy in this universe that the end will not be a crunch, rather the opposite: a slow "heat death" as the second law of thermodynamics takes its toll and everything gradually becomes more and more indeterminate, ending with the last stars, planets, asteroids, right down to atoms and other particles evaporating into useless heat energy.[QUOTE]

Which has to rank up there with the most depressing thoughts a person can ever have. Probably true however.

My chief belief in there being a creator is that this all could not just have

somehow just started all by itself, and what was before it, if it did.

Nothing?

How can nothing exist?
Isn't the concept of God creating out of the void the same as the big bang coming from nothing?

Originally Posted by Gnostikos
And anyone who thinks goodness actually exists needs to observe nature a little more. Darwinism is always present if you bother to look. In fact, I was reading about precisely this today in the book I'm reading about bees, William Longgood's The Queen Must Die, in which the author tries to explain robbing behaviour demonstrated among bees, since he is a great admirer of them, but can contrive nothing to explain it but Darwinism. Bees will steal honey from weaker hives even if they have surpluses. Goodness is a human concept, and no other form of life we're aware of adheres to it in any contrivable way.
Exactly.
In nature there is no Goodness.
But Humanity has the notion of it and strives to it.
And the notion of Goodness is closely tied to religion. Infact, religion elevated human conduct to another set of laws, higher and contrary to nature's Survival of the fittest.
Interestingly, Gnosticus, do you just like the sound of it or are you in fact Gnostic(WHere there is a a spark of God, Goodness in each and one of us)?

WHen someone asked, if God was the Creator, why did he made the universe through a singularity?
Firstly, the singularity theory is just a theory and even if it stands, we have no idea what goes on in a singularity. All the laws break down into a point of Infinity? :D , and it's the point where science gives way to faith.
And if the chaotic nature of the Big Bang doesn't cope well with you and an orderly Creation, maybe God just made the circumstanes, that made Creation possible, while the process itself was not guided at all.
Oh! I have to disagree, and somewhat agree.

Goodness exists, by man and for man. And it *is* a religious concept, yes.

Man creates such concepts. Man alone creates religion.

"Robbing" is a concept of the human observer, not the bees. Goodness has nothing to do with nature --it is a thing of man.

...nevermind.

Interestingly, Gnosticus, do you just like the sound of it or are you in fact Gnostic(WHere there is a a spark of God, Goodness in each and one of us)?
No, my name is Gnostikos in its derivational form, "of knowledge", a Greek word. I'm actually agnostic, although I'm leaning towards atheism.

Faith is wonderful, it's what you use when you are too stupid, lazy or cowardly to continue thinking.....

Ok, that part I get and agree with, but he said 68AD ... that made zero sense to me. It sounded like he wanted an entire "bible" from 68AD when the concept wasn't even there yet!

I understand the idea that there's no originals, but I was simply pointing out that between 500BC (the Qumran documents) and 1400 (was that the printing press?), there were virtually zero changes in the transcription of the documents. If it survived (before mass production) with virtually zero changes over almost two millenia, then it's not such a stretch to think that it's survived unchanged from the original documents.

Well, that's easy to see in the Pentateuch, but most of the other books are singular books by separate authors. They never claim to be anything different.



I don't recall anyone setting the Qumran scrolls at 500bc, I was under the impression that they are mostly contemporary documents, since they list temple duties, etc... of about the life of Jesus, maybe a little before and/or after.

Also - there are texts that are not covered in CANONICAL hebrew or christian listings, which have been excised over time.

Imagine for a second that the two books that previously followed Genesis said "ha ha, only joking", and you will see the difference that even omission can make.

And, actually, almost all of the christians arguing for the 'inerrant' bible claim ONE author - him being god.

Faith is wonderful, it's what you use when you are too stupid, lazy or cowardly to continue thinking.....
Exactly! That is the precise reason that it is hard to argue with religious people, they don't think and are very hard to lure out of their shells of faith.

And I'm too used to people claiming the Bible is useless and must not be correct in any way because it was transcribed and we don't have our hands on any of the original manuscripts. Like, oh, the Iliad, Herodotus' History, Plato's works, Caesar's Gallic Wars, Livy's History of Rome, etc, etc, etc. Somehow, even though we never had the original of any of those, and the /shortest/ amount of time between when one of those was originally written and the /olded/ piece of manuscript we've found is 500 years ... we feel we have reliable copies of the original. Because the Bible is a religious / historical text, that's not true for its books?


It would be all well and good, if the bible wasn't claimed to be a history. Or, if it wasn't claimed that it was inerrant. The bible may record some history, due to it's contextual nature - but it also a collection of books written for a very definite purpose, and, therefore, with a very definite bias. Biblical texts can never be taken as 'pure' histories in any conventional, scientific analysis.

Similarly, the Illiad, for example, is a drama - and is usually treated as a drama, and is used to support historical facts, because of it's context. It is arguably a little MORE reliable source than biblical scripture, just because of WHY it was written.

As for texts that were written as historical texts - observational texts, since these are likely to have the least bias, these are most likely to contain reliable information... but should always still be treated as less-than-absolute.

You are ignoring the fact that their are different TYPES of texts, for different reason... and treating all texts as equal.



Just like ... uh ... pretty much every book written that long ago? Is history then a useless study? Are the copies of all our old books worthless? We arguably have more accurate copies of the books in the Bible than we do of Shakespeare's works simply due to the huge amount of manuscripts we /have/ found all from all over the ancient world that have allowed us (just like with Shakespeare) to piece together reconstructions of the original.


Except that there ARE complete manuscripts of Shakespeare's works - since there are the official published versions of his texts. There are also 'unoffical' texts that other dramatists 'copied' from the live performances of the plays - and these give us extra insight into how the plays may have evolved, but they do not replace the published originals.


And /you/ realize that your statement is highly in debate, even among historians who aren't Christians? Go read William Albright or Dr John Robinson, both of which say the entire new testament can not have been written any later than 70AD. They are both considered some of the world's best scholars on the historicity of the New Testament and both had argued in the past for dates of fifty to a hundred years after the fact. They have since changed their minds due to their findings and believe the books to be first hand accounts .. primary sources, if you will.


Which must mean that some people are lying... since at least one of the gospels was written by smeone who WASN'T there. (A secondary source, at best).

The problem is, that New Testament texts, as a whole CANNOT truly be verified any earlier than the canonisation of the 'bible' - and even that date only vouches for the 'theme', if you like (since it decides which books to include) - it doesn't vouch for a definitive text.



And yet, strangely, the fact that a book is convenient for a ruler at the time it was "discovered" doesn't necissarily make it any less accurate historically.

But it does mean that the texts are more likely to be corrupt in some manner, since the context of discovery implies that a certain angle would be favoured.

As such, those texts should be considered as 'suspect', at best.

Ok, here's a theory that I've been bandying around for a few years (someone probably thought of it before me as there is no such thing as a new idea, just the way that you act on it!)
The Big Bang is the end of the universe and vice-versa. The idea being is that the Universe is on a continuous loop. It's said that the universe will continue to expand until a certain point, then it will collapse in on itself. This collapse then creates a massive explosion as all the particles would not be able to co-exist in the same place at the same time. This causes a massive explosion (The Big Bang) and the Universe expands until the point that it cannot expand any further, collapses, explodes etc ad infinitum!
It's just an idea :rolleyes:

Ok, here's a theory that I've been bandying around for a few years (someone probably thought of it before me as there is no such thing as a new idea, just the way that you act on it!)
The Big Bang is the end of the universe and vice-versa. The idea being is that the Universe is on a continuous loop. It's said that the universe will continue to expand until a certain point, then it will collapse in on itself. This collapse then creates a massive explosion as all the particles would not be able to co-exist in the same place at the same time. This causes a massive explosion (The Big Bang) and the Universe expands until the point that it cannot expand any further, collapses, explodes etc ad infinitum!
It's just an idea :rolleyes:

Yes, big bang/big crunch. That has been speculated about. As with all the ideas about what the big bang is or why it happened, it doesn't really have too any evidence supporting it, it's speculation. We don't know what happened AT the big bang or why. [And especially now, when it seems like the universe is expanding fast enough so that it'll never collapse back down, or so the latest observations indicate]

Yes, big bang/big crunch. That has been speculated about. As with all the ideas about what the big bang is or why it happened, it doesn't really have too any evidence supporting it, it's speculation. We don't know what happened AT the big bang or why. [And especially now, when it seems like the universe is expanding fast enough so that it'll never collapse back down, or so the latest observations indicate]
True, but as there is no scientific evidence supporting any ideas for the creation of the Universe it doesn't necessarily make it untrue, just highly improbable. But, if the Universe is continuing to expand, what is it expanding into? Nothing, isn't that also a scientific improbability. So perhaps it is a mirror of this universe (and many others) that continue to expand outwards destroying them providing the impotus (sp) for the Universe to continue expanding and will eventually reach another Universe of the same size and power which will force itself against ours forcing both to contract and cause the explosions already explained in the previous post creating another Big Bang stylee event!

Trust me you want to end this now. What your going to get into is superstring theory, which basically, and I mean absurdely basically, states there are two mirrored universes, with particles and their reciprocal form on each side. They are linked and bounce around and its all very complicated, so trust me, its not worth getting into all the antimatter universes and singularities and black hole physics, etc.

Also, some people have brought up certain chaos theory ideas, but don't go there either, as its all unproven.

However, I will make one point. There is no way we can possibly state how the Universe started because at present we do not know what the Universe is. Our perception is purely limited to a strictly 3 dimensional world. However, at present some scientists speculate there might be as many as 8 dimensions (this is to say, supported theories, not random guesses), of which time figures in as a dually dimensional function that I don't want to get into. Let it just be stated that we do not perceive the Universe in its entirety, but only in a very limited scope.

In all reality, this is a very philosophic question, not even scientific. At what point do our senses lose their ability to truly perceive what Is. When is Reality different from Perception, and can our mind differentiate between the two?

We have to accept what we perceive as reality - because in our limited scope we can only 'perceive' reality; we have no other way of 'sensing' it.

Furthermore, what is to say there really is a difference between reality and perception? Because, after all, perception is just a part of reality - it is composed of a set of interconnected neurons and chemical impulses, which are composed of molecules, which are composed of atoms, which are composed of subatomic particles, which all ultimately boil down to energy. Are you saying that energy cannot perceive (aka interact) with itself? From my own limited perception, I would say no.

Furthermore, here is something for you all to chew on.

According to physics, travelling at the speed of light causes to time to cease. Photons thereby do not change in the passage of time according to said physics (frame shift physics). What does this say about time and the universe?

It says that time is not affected by this: because when you think about it, time is simply the (measured) progression of energy's interaction with itself. If nothing changes, time really cannot be said to be passing.

And here we aren't even getting into neutrinos, muons, tauons, pions, etc.


Next Question: Quantum Theory: Everything is made of waves, to say it simply (is worked in conjunction with Superstring theory), waves of probability, and where that probability is greatest is where particles usually appear, however they can appear elsewhere, but thats besides the point. Particles and waves, according to Quantum, are relatively the same thing, or rather light is both a particular and a wave. According to the Uncertainty Principle, you cannot measure a particle and its velocity as separate functions, thereby you have to consider if they are even different! (Going back to perception as reality). From this we have to ask ourself if light is solid, or is it a wavelength, and if its both (as it appears to be) what the hell does that make everything else?

Light and matter are both energy. Energy, at least at the moment is inexplicable: it, along with 3(+) dimensional space are the two primitives of our universe. They have a given set of properties (not to say we fully understand them); more than that is impossible to know. This is explained by Godels Theorem: (over)simply put, you can NEVER know everything, most notably yourself. As we are composed of energy, it is essentially fruitless to try to understand energy (kind of funny, I know).


I'll leave this for you guys to chew on, maybe I'll come back in a bit and drop some more stuff to think about, but in the meantime i'll amuse myself by watching people try and understand complex philo-mathematic ideas, with some physics and other stuff tossed in on the sides.

Gimme the next |31+3!

We have to accept what we perceive as reality - because in our limited scope we can only 'perceive' reality; we have no other way of 'sensing' it.

Furthermore, what is to say there really is a difference between reality and perception? Because, after all, perception is just a part of reality - it is composed of a set of interconnected neurons and chemical impulses, which are composed of molecules, which are composed of atoms, which are composed of subatomic particles, which all ultimately boil down to energy. Are you saying that energy cannot perceive (aka interact) with itself? From my own limited perception, I would say no.



It says that time is not affected by this: because when you think about it, time is simply the (measured) progression of energy's interaction with itself. If nothing changes, time really cannot be said to be passing.



Light and matter are both energy. Energy, at least at the moment is inexplicable: it, along with 3(+) dimensional space are the two primitives of our universe. They have a given set of properties (not to say we fully understand them); more than that is impossible to know. This is explained by Godels Theorem: (over)simply put, you can NEVER know everything, most notably yourself. As we are composed of energy, it is essentially fruitless to try to understand energy (kind of funny, I know).



Gimme the next |31+3!
1) Perception of the senses and perception of the mind are two entirely different things. When you look upon a woman you may see a beauty, but when your mind weighs them, you may see nothing but a whore. The difference in these perceptions is what leads away from the knowledge of Truth, and thereby we must find what is the truer path, and whether or not what we think we see is reality, or whether it is biased upon what we think we know.

However, we cannot state that perception=energy because to do so would be to leave the order of magnitudes entirely out of the equation, which is totally unrealistic. I cannot claim that my loaf of bread equals a tiny universe, but by your logic I can. The order of magnitude, the difference between the transcendent qualities and physical ones is key.

2) However, if things are changing outside that one isolated area, can we truly say that time stands still? For if time does not effect a single object, but effects all else, then can we say that in reality that time is not passing? No, we cannot. Thereby Time cannot solely be the interaction between energy and energy because although we may perceive that to be the truth, it does not make sense when broken down.

3) However neither light nor energy are inexplicable. We know their sources, we know their basic structure, we just don't know their natures. The question of knowledge of oneself is truly an interesting one. Is it possible for one to truly know their own reasoning, and understand their purpose? For this question we must ask whether in fact their is an aim to life, for if there is we can follow this back, and by comparing it to our actions we could deduce our natures. However, if there is no aim to life, what can we do to know ourselves?


As for something else for you to think about, how about this: The idea of the aim of life has meandered its way into this discussion, so I'll bring it up here. Can we, as merely a collection of sub-atomic particles, or perhaps even just a collection of quantum wavelengths, truly have a purpose in life? If we don't, than how does life in itself make any sense at all, for if there is no purpose there is no morality, law, or reason, and all we state as Truth is patently false. If there is an aim to life, then were does it come from, and how can we truly know that it is the Truth, and not merely a veil over our eyes?

I don't recall anyone setting the Qumran scrolls at 500bc, I was under the impression that they are mostly contemporary documents, since they list temple duties, etc... of about the life of Jesus, maybe a little before and/or after.

I have to tentatively give you that one. I went back to look up sources and the furthest back date I can find is the Isaiah copies that date to about 200BC. My memory is telling me there's some from about 500BC as well, but I can't find proof, so I'll concede that point.

Also - there are texts that are not covered in CANONICAL hebrew or christian listings, which have been excised over time.

Imagine for a second that the two books that previously followed Genesis said "ha ha, only joking", and you will see the difference that even omission can make.

True. That's possible, but do you honestly think it's likely? There are hundreds of books that were not included in the canon for various reasons. Some are heretical, some are clearly false and written at later dates, etc, etc. The old testament is basically a collection of the hebrew holy books from before Jesus time that were already accepted. The new testament is a collection of letters and books written between Jesus' death and the council of Nicea around 400AD when a priest was trying to spread false gospels. The council sat down and collected the oldest manuscripts they could and verified them as best they could. Is it possible they made a mistake and included something wild and false? Sure. However, the new testament is considered one of the most reliable books from that era as a historically accurate description of the times and is proven over and over. That makes it rather unlikely.

And, actually, almost all of the christians arguing for the 'inerrant' bible claim ONE author - him being god.

Not exactly correct. They claim that God inspired the authors, not that God sat down and wrote the books or even dictated them word for word.

It would be all well and good, if the bible wasn't claimed to be a history. Or, if it wasn't claimed that it was inerrant. The bible may record some history, due to it's contextual nature - but it also a collection of books written for a very definite purpose, and, therefore, with a very definite bias. Biblical texts can never be taken as 'pure' histories in any conventional, scientific analysis.

And yet, again and again they turn out to be more accurate than our assumptions of what the history was like at the time. Many historical findings have been made because someone set out to disprove something the bible said, only to find it was actually, surprisingly, accurate.

Similarly, the Illiad, for example, is a drama - and is usually treated as a drama, and is used to support historical facts, because of it's context. It is arguably a little MORE reliable source than biblical scripture, just because of WHY it was written.

The Bible /was/ written as a history, however. The new testament is simply filled with eyewitness accounts. The old testament has many of these, as well as lineages, and a history of the jewish people. That makes it inherrently less accurate than a drama? How?

As for texts that were written as historical texts - observational texts, since these are likely to have the least bias, these are most likely to contain reliable information... but should always still be treated as less-than-absolute.

Except that historians of that time were under the employ of the government, and actually tend to be extremely biased towards the government in power. Look at the roman or egyptian historians. Look even at Josephus, the historian at the time who was considered one of the most accurate of the ancient world. There are more historical inaccuracies in his work due to assumptions than in the new testament.

You are ignoring the fact that their are different TYPES of texts, for different reason... and treating all texts as equal.

No, I'm just making a point that among texts written around the same time, there are less transcription errors in the bible and less historical inaccuracies than in any of the other texts.

Except that there ARE complete manuscripts of Shakespeare's works - since there are the official published versions of his texts. There are also 'unoffical' texts that other dramatists 'copied' from the live performances of the plays - and these give us extra insight into how the plays may have evolved, but they do not replace the published originals.

And yet, from my english studies at university, I was under the impression that many of his sonnets and plays were not put into typset, but are just transcribed copies of the originals, which were then transcribed again, and later, etc. In 2002, I remember a big fuss in the english lit department when some phrasing of shakespears work was filled in because an older manuscript was discovered?

Which must mean that some people are lying... since at least one of the gospels was written by smeone who WASN'T there. (A secondary source, at best).

Proof?

The problem is, that New Testament texts, as a whole CANNOT truly be verified any earlier than the canonisation of the 'bible' - and even that date only vouches for the 'theme', if you like (since it decides which books to include) - it doesn't vouch for a definitive text.

Why can't it be verified? We have manuscripts of the original books from /well/ before the bible was compiled. And the canon was decided on by what books were already in use by the majority of churches. The four gospels and the pauline letters (the majority of the new testament) made up 90% of the sermons of the early churches! Of course they'd be included! And are we just going to ignore how historically accurate they are as far as allowing them to be "definitive" in any way? The fact that they're religious books doesn't make them any less historically accurate.

But it does mean that the texts are more likely to be corrupt in some manner, since the context of discovery implies that a certain angle would be favoured.

It doesn't imply that they have to be corrupt and you can't say they /are/ corrupt until you can issue some proof that they're lying. So far, all attempts to do so have failed or turned into more solid evidence that the bible contains a very reliable historical record.

I am not trying to say there is this paticular God, although I have my belief as a Christian, but there has to be some type of creator here me out. The Big bang theory can be refuted in one line:
Where did the dust come from, where did the space come from, it had to originate somewhere.
So maybe the big bang theory happened but something had to create the space to do it. Maybe I am missing something, but how can this be refuted.
Off topic as hell, but Cubs suck and the White Sox rule.

And to go back to topic, the fact that the Flubs haven't won since 1908 proves an existance of a sovereign and almight God.

I'll reply to some things...

" But, if the Universe is continuing to expand, what is it expanding into?"

We don't know. All we know is what the measurements of the redshifts of other galaxies tell us - overall, the universe is expanding. We don't know "into what" or "why" - but the claim that "the universe is expanding" remains valid even if we don't know those details, because the evidence points towards it.

Okay, branching off from the facts and into metaphysical speculation...

Science mostly operates on the assumption that there is a reality. A single underlying reality. We try to use our perceptions to get information about it, and then put what we see into theories, which we claim "describe reality."

At first, the only method of perception people had was what they saw or felt. They saw the sun move and concluded that "the sun goes around the earth." As science progressed, we got better and better methods of perception - we built microscopes and telescopes to look at what goes on. That allowed us to make conclusions such as "all living things are made of cells" - something we would have never found out without looking at them through a microscope. Fast forward more, and we're launching satellites into space to measure (observe, percieve) the Cosmic Background Radiation and building enormous underground particle accelerators to percieve what happens when particles smack into each other in certain ways.

As we get more advanced devices for perception, the amount we know about "reality" increases - the amount of things that we (humanity as a whole) have percieved increases.

The scientific method deals with sorting out all of these perceptions and figuring out what they MEAN. From observing things fall, Newton concocted an equation to describe falling objects. After checking enough different objects, everyone concluded that the equations were, in fact, correct and described ALL objects. And that became considered "reality" - although there were of course countless instances in which the equations weren't tested. How do you know that, say, your mouse isn't an exception and doesn't decide to accelerate at 3.14 meters per second instead of 9.8? Well, you don't, but we have tested Newton's equations to believe that they describe reality ALWAYS.

Now, is this generalization truly reality? No, it's not. In the case of Newton's laws, eventually Einstein came along and showed that in fact Newton's laws are merely a convenient approximation. And probably sometime in the future, somebody is going to come along and show that Relativity as it stands now is a convenient approximation but not truly "reality."

We don't truly know what "reality" is. Theories supported by evidence are the best approximations we have - but we know they're not complete. Plenty of things that are part of reality aren't described at all. I can close my eyes and envision a large pink elephant - and though it's not there, somehow I can make myself percieve it, and science has no clue what goes on in my brain to make me "see an elephant" when there's none there. What we think in our minds is part of reality - after all, we percieve it - and yet there's no good description of it in science, or really anywhere. It's there - we do have thoughts, we can envision things - and yet nobody knows what it IS.

At the opposite level, there's something such as Quantum Mechanics - there are perfectly good mathematical descriptions of what particles will do, but we can't be certain of what "reality" is past the mathematical equations because it's just so strange. How can something be a particle and wave at the same time? What IS a wave, if there's nothing waving? What IS energy? We don't know, we can describe very well what it will do but we don't know what it IS.

My view is that reality is something. Something. We don't know what.

Our perceptions are all different views of that underlying reality - reality is, in essence, the sum of all possible perceptions.

We can't directly observe all of reality, because we can't make every single possible observation - we make some, and then generalize and figure out what we WOULD have observed had we tried something else, and then sum it all up and try to figure out what reality seems to be.

[Or at least that's my view of things. That's not necessarily the way reality works]

I have to tentatively give you that one. I went back to look up sources and the furthest back date I can find is the Isaiah copies that date to about 200BC. My memory is telling me there's some from about 500BC as well, but I can't find proof, so I'll concede that point.


I think what you are referring to is the 'latest date' at which people have theorised that the 'Book of Daniel' was written - but without 'paper' evidence to back up that theory, just based on content.


True. That's possible, but do you honestly think it's likely? There are hundreds of books that were not included in the canon for various reasons. Some are heretical, some are clearly false and written at later dates, etc, etc. The old testament is basically a collection of the hebrew holy books from before Jesus time that were already accepted. The new testament is a collection of letters and books written between Jesus' death and the council of Nicea around 400AD when a priest was trying to spread false gospels. The council sat down and collected the oldest manuscripts they could and verified them as best they could. Is it possible they made a mistake and included something wild and false? Sure. However, the new testament is considered one of the most reliable books from that era as a historically accurate description of the times and is proven over and over. That makes it rather unlikely.


The fact that hundreds of books were excised speaks nothing for the reliability of the text - quite the opposite, in fact. Since, you can easily remove any elements you don't like if you excise enough text - thereby shaping the resulting text to fit an agenda. And the problem is, you state that some of the books they removed were 'clearly false', and yet they left in Revelation, for example - which has no evidentiary support. Also, to the non-christian most of the text is clearly false. Most people are willing to acknowledge the life of a man called Jesus, since there are supposed to be roman documents dealing with the crimes of a rabble-rouser by that name - but all the stuff about resurrection, etc. has no evidence - so is clearly false.


Not exactly correct. They claim that God inspired the authors, not that God sat down and wrote the books or even dictated them word for word.


No - there are people on this very forum that have claimed the bible is the perfect word of god, and inerrant, because the 'edited' the text.


And yet, again and again they turn out to be more accurate than our assumptions of what the history was like at the time. Many historical findings have been made because someone set out to disprove something the bible said, only to find it was actually, surprisingly, accurate.


Not true - some abstract details may be true, certain sweeps of history may be true, but, as a historic text, the Bible has been proved to be largely full of (at the very least) inaccuracy, and, at worst, lies.

Let's talk about the 'Exodus', perhaps - or maybe we should discuss the Flood? What about the city of Jericho, which the Hebrew's destroyed, razed to the ground - and which, strangely, is still almost intact, and has been for 9000 years?


The Bible /was/ written as a history, however. The new testament is simply filled with eyewitness accounts. The old testament has many of these, as well as lineages, and a history of the jewish people. That makes it inherrently less accurate than a drama? How?


No - the bible was written as a collection of histories of certain holy men, as well as pornographic poetry, weird acid-tinged dreams, and the babblings of 'prophets'. The fact that these texts were written to record 'church-practices', if you will, probably makes them fantastically precise on church-practice - but will obviously have SOME adverse effect on the doings of non-church individuals and states.

In the same way that my local Baptist church talks about "the evil moslems who serve the devil, and carry out all kinds of sick and perverted rites".


Except that historians of that time were under the employ of the government, and actually tend to be extremely biased towards the government in power. Look at the roman or egyptian historians. Look even at Josephus, the historian at the time who was considered one of the most accurate of the ancient world. There are more historical inaccuracies in his work due to assumptions than in the new testament.


Josephus was writing histories based on secondary sources. He wrote histories on event happening long before his own birth, which we can prove because we can ascertain his rough life-span. The pentatauch books have been claimed as written by 'moses', even though one details his own death.

Those histories that can be proved to have been written by a person, WITHIN that person's lifespan, of events that transpired WITHIN that person's lifespan, and which that person COULD have witnessed, are obviously going to be more reliable than any collection of texts written by people CLAIMING to be a long-dead patriarch.


No, I'm just making a point that among texts written around the same time, there are less transcription errors in the bible and less historical inaccuracies than in any of the other texts.


I disagree.


And yet, from my english studies at university, I was under the impression that many of his sonnets and plays were not put into typset, but are just transcribed copies of the originals, which were then transcribed again, and later, etc. In 2002, I remember a big fuss in the english lit department when some phrasing of shakespears work was filled in because an older manuscript was discovered?


As far as I recall, the large bulk, if not all, of Shakespeare's work was printed, on and off, throughout his life, and then republished AFTER his death, with the insistence of his family. And, there is no lack of coordiation here between finished Folio prints, and different 'earlier' texts in Shakespeare's own hand - since the works were widely accepted as having been altered consistently over the entire duration of their performances... most of them, no doubt, being amended hundreds of times over the many years they were used.


It doesn't imply that they have to be corrupt and you can't say they /are/ corrupt until you can issue some proof that they're lying. So far, all attempts to do so have failed or turned into more solid evidence that the bible contains a very reliable historical record.

Once again, I disagree over the issues of historical 'accuracy'. Most of the time, the 'proof of the historicity' of the bible consists of 'scientists' (ahem) saying 'look, the bible says there was a guy called Caesar, and this document was signed by someone called 'Caesar', so they MUST be the same person, and, therefore, the Bible is ALL true."

Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, and any other believers in a Supreme Being and ultimate creator who engage in debates to "prove" the existence of that deity are fools. They are fools because by merely engaging in the debate they are accepting the premise that their belief in god is based upon verifiable factual data. They are entering into the world of science and reason, which is not the world of religion. To do so they must accept the basic premise of science, that the proof of a theory is dependent upon evidence that can be independently corroborated, knowing that further data may one day overturn that theory. Science is not about ultimate truths, but rather truth as we comprehend it now.

Those arguing for a "proof" of God would do well to keep in mind that the opposite of faith is not doubt, but rather certainty. Belief in god is just that - a belief, based upon faith, "the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." Believers show their lack of faith by entering into such a discussion.

Rationalists, humanists, atheists, and scientists would also do well to stop wasting their time applying the scientific method to an idea that exists beyond the boundaries of science. Logic and reason are powerful tools, but as a wise Vulcan once said, "logic is the beginning of wisdom, not the end." The scientific method cannot create a painting to rival Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring, craft a play on par with Shakespeare's Hamlet, compose a song to compare with Willie Dixon's Hoochie Coochie Man, nor comprehend a person's faith in God.

Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, and any other believers in a Supreme Being and ultimate creator who engage in debates to "prove" the existence of that deity are fools. They are fools because by merely engaging in the debate they are accepting the premise that their belief in god is based upon verifiable factual data. They are entering into the world of science and reason, which is not the world of religion. To do so they must accept the basic premise of science, that the proof of a theory is dependent upon evidence that can be independently corroborated, knowing that further data may one day overturn that theory. Science is not about ultimate truths, but rather truth as we comprehend it now.

Those arguing for a "proof" of God would do well to keep in mind that the opposite of faith is not doubt, but rather certainty. Belief in god is just that - a belief, based upon faith, "the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." Believers show their lack of faith by entering into such a discussion.

Rationalists, humanists, atheists, and scientists would also do well to stop wasting their time applying the scientific method to an idea that exists beyond the boundaries of science. Logic and reason are powerful tools, but as a wise Vulcan once said, "logic is the beginning of wisdom, not the end." The scientific method cannot create a painting to rival Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring, craft a play on par with Shakespeare's Hamlet, compose a song to compare with Willie Dixon's Hoochie Coochie Man, nor comprehend a person's faith in God.

Actually - the 'scientific method' could quite easily create an exact duplicate of "Girl with a Pearl Earring", "Hamlet" or "Hoochie Coochie Man" - given sufficient time, and an acceptability of a lot of misses... but it would, potentially, lack the INTENT to create art. The scientific method can also 'comprehend' a faith... but can never comprehend what that faith MEANS to the faithful... only what it mirrors in psychology, for example.

The 'scientific method' can validate that Vermeer existed, as well as his "Girl with a Pearl Earring" - but it has yet to prove the existence of god... and there is the thing...

Personally, I don't see why people shouldn't have to PROVE the existence of their gods, empirically... when the laws of society are often based on the existence of such gods, and are sustained by no evidence but faith.

"There is a creator". You made the claim. Please prove it.
Here is a response to that: MAX BARRY

Honestly, who cares?

Knowing or not, creator or not, it doesn't change a whole lot.

Anyway, I'm exercising my right to not have an opinion on this one.

And them's my two cents...

1) Perception of the senses and perception of the mind are two entirely different things. When you look upon a woman you may see a beauty, but when your mind weighs them, you may see nothing but a whore. The difference in these perceptions is what leads away from the knowledge of Truth, and thereby we must find what is the truer path, and whether or not what we think we see is reality, or whether it is biased upon what we think we know.

However, we cannot state that perception=energy because to do so would be to leave the order of magnitudes entirely out of the equation, which is totally unrealistic. I cannot claim that my loaf of bread equals a tiny universe, but by your logic I can. The order of magnitude, the difference between the transcendent qualities and physical ones is key.

2) However, if things are changing outside that one isolated area, can we truly say that time stands still? For if time does not effect a single object, but effects all else, then can we say that in reality that time is not passing? No, we cannot. Thereby Time cannot solely be the interaction between energy and energy because although we may perceive that to be the truth, it does not make sense when broken down.

3) However neither light nor energy are inexplicable. We know their sources, we know their basic structure, we just don't know their natures. The question of knowledge of oneself is truly an interesting one. Is it possible for one to truly know their own reasoning, and understand their purpose? For this question we must ask whether in fact their is an aim to life, for if there is we can follow this back, and by comparing it to our actions we could deduce our natures. However, if there is no aim to life, what can we do to know ourselves?


As for something else for you to think about, how about this: The idea of the aim of life has meandered its way into this discussion, so I'll bring it up here. Can we, as merely a collection of sub-atomic particles, or perhaps even just a collection of quantum wavelengths, truly have a purpose in life? If we don't, than how does life in itself make any sense at all, for if there is no purpose there is no morality, law, or reason, and all we state as Truth is patently false. If there is an aim to life, then were does it come from, and how can we truly know that it is the Truth, and not merely a veil over our eyes?
Ugh, so many things...These are going to be short.
[1]Regardless of 'Truth' or not, what you ultimately perceive is determined by a set of reactions, which can be broken down to the point where it is simply a bunch of atoms and energy in our brains, at which point perception becomes synonymous with reality.
[2]Time ceases when NOTHING is moving: therefore there cannot be any objects moving "outside the given area," because the given area is the known (or perhaps unknown) universe.
[3]To clarify, one can never know EVERYTHING about oneself. Yes, we know this that and the other thing about energy's nature, but can it ever be broken down into something LESS than energy? Not as far we know; therefore, it is a primitive.

From the most logical sense, the aim of life is to continue living. How else would we have gotten here? We are simply patterns of subatomic particles that happen to rearrange other subatomic particles into the same pattern (it's recursive). From a less depressing and more humanities-oriented-yet-scientifically[sp]-based standpoint, one might say that we are energy's quest to understand itself - though this might be fruitless according to my prior arguments (though who knows?). I suppose your highly-esteemed 'Truth' would be the underlying...truth of our universe. What it is and what its point, we don't know and probably never will. Can we seek to fully deduce and understand our natures? No, but we can get damn close. (If you don't know Godel's theorem, read up on it. It proves why.)

Actually - the 'scientific method' could quite easily create an exact duplicate of "Girl with a Pearl Earring", "Hamlet" or "Hoochie Coochie Man" - given sufficient time, and an acceptability of a lot of misses... but it would, potentially, lack the INTENT to create art. The scientific method can also 'comprehend' a faith... but can never comprehend what that faith MEANS to the faithful... only what it mirrors in psychology, for example.

The 'scientific method' can validate that Vermeer existed, as well as his "Girl with a Pearl Earring" - but it has yet to prove the existence of god... and there is the thing...

Personally, I don't see why people shouldn't have to PROVE the existence of their gods, empirically... when the laws of society are often based on the existence of such gods, and are sustained by no evidence but faith.

You really think the Scientific Method can create art or music? I beg to differ and would ask you to prove such an outlandish statement. I won't deny that all art, music, and literature have elements of scientific rules, but to take the step beyond mere technical proficiency to true art is far outside the capability of science and reason.

Even science is based on faith. After all "cause and effect," a pillar of the Scientific Method, is based upon the belief that things will continue to act in the future as they have in the past. I drop a ball a thousand times and each time it lands on the floor, so I therefore assume that on the 1001st time it will also hit the floor. Yet, what rational, observable basis do I have for that belief? What, in the world of observation, tells me that the idea of cause and effect has any merit?

Yet, we know that there is more to the world and existence than just what we observe, feel, taste, hear, or smell. I myself am not a religious person, but neither do I have the hubris to say definitively that life is no more than what we perceive through our limited senses.

You really think the Scientific Method can create art or music? I beg to differ and would ask you to prove such an outlandish statement. I won't deny that all art, music, and literature has elements of scientific rules, but to take the step beyond mere technical proficiency to true art is far outside the capability of science and reason.

Even science is based somewhat on faith. After all cause and effect, a pillar of the Scientific Method, is based upon the belief that things will continue to act in the future as they have in the past. I drop a ball a thousand times and each time it lands on the floor, so I therefore assume that on the 1001st time it will also hit the floor. Yet, what rational, observable basis do I have for that belief? What, in the world of observation, tells me that the idea of cause and effect has any merit?

Yet, we know that there is more to the world and existence than just what we observe, feel, taste, hear, or smell. I myself am not a religious person, but neither do I have the hubris to say definitively that life is no more than what we perceive through our limited senses.

As for science creating art... I've seen it done... random generated poetry can be very lovely in a free-form fashion... and with progress towards parsing grammatically correct 'english', and the refinement of 'technique', if you will, to give 'nuance', it is not unreasonable to expect fairly high-quality literature before too long... especially if you allow for something like Keruoac as being an example of what humans can do... and you are willing to put up with 'less-than-perfect' attempts in order to receive a masterpiece.

Especially when you factor in the old monkeys-and-typewriters factor.

The whole art thing is one can of worms, anyway.... I would argue that INTENT makes art... so, when the K Foundation burns two million pounds, and calls it 'art', I guess that's art.... but where does that leave a beautiful accident?

If you spill paint, and create a truly lovely and evocative action painting, is it not art, because of the 'no-intent'.... what about if a machine accidentally does the same thing? What about if you program certain algorithms of light and dark, shade and composition, etc... and then leave it to duplicate 'in art' a real event? Is it art? Did the scientific method create art?

As for your bouncy ball.... the scientific method follows patterns. If the ball observes cause-and-effect repeated... a pattern is observable. If the pattern is observed, it will set an hypothesis, which will stand until refuted... then a new concept will have to be created to cope with the anomolous results.

It's not too much of a stretch to conclude that, if repetition does NOT require the input of god a million times, then maybe 'god' isn't a factor. That's not really hubris - just observation...

I do LOVE the word 'hubris', though.

Hubris. :)

"Even science is based on faith. After all "cause and effect," a pillar of the Scientific Method, is based upon the belief that things will continue to act in the future as they have in the past. I drop a ball a thousand times and each time it lands on the floor, so I therefore assume that on the 1001st time it will also hit the floor. Yet, what rational, observable basis do I have for that belief? What, in the world of observation, tells me that the idea of cause and effect has any merit?"

What gives that idea merit is the RESULTS it gives. It gives CORRECT PREDICTIONS.

Drop a ball anywhere on earth. I predict it will go down, unless its density is less than that of the surrounding medium or the molecules in the surrounding medium have a net upwards velocity.

There's your evidence.

Or look at photographs taken from outer space. Those who figure out the trajectories that satellites should take to get into orbit assume that yes, objects will keep falling down and won't suddenly decide to fall up. The satellites work and do exactly what they were expected to. Hence, the assumption was most likely correct.

There's your evidence.

There are laws in the universe:

1) Law of Conservation of Matter

2) Law of Conservation of Energy

are two of them. They both state that matter and energy can not be created or destroyed. Now the intelligant desgin and the big bang theory refutes these two laws since everyone makes the assumption that there was nothing pior to the creation of the universe or the beginnngs of the Big bang when all the dust accumalted. So they have to be wrong, right? Well, no since God is something and he was always there. Not hard to go from that to matter and energy was always there would it?

The fact is we don't know enough about the early universe to answer that question. There that is the current answer.

"Even science is based on faith. After all "cause and effect," a pillar of the Scientific Method, is based upon the belief that things will continue to act in the future as they have in the past. I drop a ball a thousand times and each time it lands on the floor, so I therefore assume that on the 1001st time it will also hit the floor. Yet, what rational, observable basis do I have for that belief? What, in the world of observation, tells me that the idea of cause and effect has any merit?" - Ogiek

What gives that idea merit is the RESULTS it gives. It gives CORRECT PREDICTIONS.

Drop a ball anywhere on earth. I predict it will go down, unless its density is less than that of the surrounding medium or the molecules in the surrounding medium have a net upwards velocity.

There's your evidence. - Reasonabilityness

My point is nothing exist in the sensory world of observation to demonstrate the concept of cause and effect. The belief in cause and effect resides within us - it is a function of how the human brain is wired. You see A happen, followed by B. What sensory experience tells you A caused B? None. The inference is within you, the observer.

We observe a sequence of events, however we do not observe the connection between one event and the other. Where, then, do we get the notion of a cause and effect connection? As you pointed out, we get it from the habit developed of expecting event B to occur whenever event A occurs. We have observed such sequences many times before, and in each case event B follows event A - they are constantly conjoined. Because of this wherever we witness event A our mind automatically anticipates event B. In science this is called correlation. However, this correlation is a psychological necessity in us, not an objective necessity in things. As David Hume said, "No object ever discovers, by the qualities which appear to the senses, either the causes which produced it, or the effects which will arise from it."

We live by feelings and beliefs that because event B has always followed A in the past, it will continue to do so in the future. Feelings and belief. Sounds alot like religion, doesn't it?

The larger point I was attempting to make is that not everything that is real falls within the rhelm of rationality and reason. Immanual Kant pointed out it is a "Fallacy of the Enlightenment" to believe human reason and science can unmask the whole of reality.

We comprehend reality through our five senses. They are the tools of the Scientific Method. But why should we believe our limited five senses are sufficient for capturing all of reality? What makes us think there is no reality beyond our five senses? Surely a dog, limited by the lack of cones (the photoreceptors in the eye that sense color), has no concept of a world beyond that of black, white, and gray. Are we also not similarly limited by our senses?

My point is nothing exist in the sensory world of observation to demonstrate the concept of cause and effect. The belief in cause and effect resides within us - it is a function of how the human brain is wired. You see A happen, followed by B. What sensory experience tells you A caused B? None. The inference is within you, the observer.

We observe a sequence of events, however we do not observe the connection between one event and the other. Where, then, do we get the notion of a cause and effect connection? As you pointed out, we get it from the habit developed of expecting event B to occur whenever event A occurs. We have observed such sequences many times before, and in each case event B follows event A - they are constantly conjoined. Because of this wherever we witness event A our mind automatically anticipates event B. In science this is called correlation. However, this correlation is a psychological necessity in us, not an objective necessity in things. As David Hume said, "No object ever discovers, by the qualities which appear to the senses, either the causes which produced it, or the effects which will arise from it."

We live by feelings and beliefs that because event B has always followed A in the past, it will continue to do so in the future. Feelings and belief. Sounds alot like religion, doesn't it?

The larger point I was attempting to make is that not everything that is real falls within the rhelm of rationality and reason. Immanual Kant pointed out it is a "Fallacy of the Enlightenment" to believe human reason and science can unmask the whole of reality.

We comprehend reality through our five senses. They are the tools of the Scientific Method. But why should we believe our limited five senses are sufficient for capturing all of reality? What makes us think there is no reality beyond our five senses? Surely a dog, limited by the lack of cones (the photoreceptors in the eye that sense color), has no concept of a world beyond that of black, white, and gray. Are we also not similarly limited by our senses?

Cause and Effect, observed once, and acted on, would be faith.

Cause and Effect viewed repeatedly, always with the sme result (or explicable variety) is actually pretty good evidence that 'Cause and Effect' is not just an inference.

We are limited in our senses. We know this. That is why we make a whole variety of detection devices that operate OUTSIDE of our capacity... from low-frequency 'submarine detectors', to scanning electron microscopes, and a host of strange and interesting things in between.

I suspect, however, that you were aiming at some kind of 'there is a god, we just can't see him, because our eyes don't work that way' argument.

Maybe you are right... but, the way I figure it.... if you can't SEE it, if you can't TOUCH it, if you can't HEAR, TASTE or SMELL it, and, if it has no DISCERNABLE effect on the world around you.... erm... maybe it's not there?

So, with the creation of instruments to measure X-rays, infrared rays, ultra-violet, neutrinos, electrons, sounds outside the range of 20-20,000 kHz, etc. those things now exist, whereas they did not before?

So, with the creation of instruments to measure X-rays, infrared rays, ultra-violet, neutrinos, electrons, sounds outside the range of 20-20,000 kHz, etc. those things now exist, whereas they did not before?

Except that almost all of those things have noticable effects... which was also part of my post.

Even electrons have measurable effect, at the macro-level, as well as the micro-level, since electricity has been a measurable, recordable phenomenon for a fairly long time (Hell, even the Egyptians had batteries).

Maybe Neutrinos fall outside of the 'effects' bucket... but then, as far as I can tell, neutrinos aren't all that far from theoretical at the moment!

Also, it has to be said... the electromagnetic spectrum may have increased in measurable scope... but humans have certainly been 'aware' of a swathe of it for a considerable amount of time. We can 'perceive' the electromagnetic spectrum... just not all of it, not all of us.

here's a story i heard once that seems to go along with the general theme of this thread, in other words, our desire to understand what we perceive.

God created Adam and placed him in the Garden of Eden. Adam looked around at the wonders of the world.
"Well," said God. "What do you think?"
Adam was silent for a moment, then replied: "What's the meaning of all this?"
"Must there be one?" God asked.
"Well, yes," said Adam.
"Then I leave it to you to find one," said God and then He left.

some find this story a little glib, but i think it is an interesting perspective on metaphysics, religion, science, and all the other methods that seek to explain what reality is. perhaps, if there is a creator, he wants us only to appreciate what he has done, not spoil the wonder of it by constantly seeking to find a reason for it. the universe is, but it is human nature to search for reasons why it is and how it is. maybe, like adam, we cannot see the universe for all the atoms.

I don't believe there is any deity. I find it an exercise in deep arrogance to use arguments like:

"What is outside the universe? Science can't tell me so God must be behind it"
"Where did the Big Bang come from"
"Animals are just too well made for it to not be done by some intelligent, omnipotent being"

Most people won't even understand the physics behind simply everyday occurances anyway. Frankly, the idea that simply because the human mind cannot comprehend something then a deity must be involved, is arrogant. You are saying that because you cannot understand something, then ONLY an all-powerful, all-knowing creator can understand it and must be behind it. Just accept the fact that humans have limited cognitive abilities.....and as a consequence we will always be ignorant and limited in regards to many things. Our brain evolved a specific environment and will be limited in so many ways that it was stupid of us to ever expect to understand everything. A lot of the stuff we have worked out is only understandable in abstract mathematical form anyway. Just because people didn't know how the earth formed 1000 years ago didn't mean that God created the earth. Religion simply changes to fit with other alterations in our cultures, "Christianity" now is so hugely different to even 100 years ago that it is laughable to think you are even following some form of god-given practises. Religion picks and choses which morals it wants, and which it prioritizes too.

As for the intelligent design approach, again I feel that people simply rush to this conclusion without even investigating for themselves. It is abundantly clear that evolution is correct. You are suggesting that there is a "perfect" design for an organism, which is imposing human assumptions upon biological organisms with a total failure to grasp the totality of their existance and the selective forces acting on them. The fact also remains that organisms often display traits that simply wouldn't be there if designed before-hand by a deity e.g. the arrangement of light-sensitive cells in the human retine (behind a whole mass of nerves), the human knee, the appendix. The intelligent design theory is so flawed at so many levels, the evidence against it is undeniable

Is it not a coinsidence that this supposed all-powerfull, all-knowing, all-seeing deity seems to think in the same terms as your own culture generally does? A being has managed to amass all the knowledge possible, has seen everything in the entire universe etc and yet simply comes to the final conclusion that what matters to the mere humans on a plant they call earth, is: get married, be faithful, don't do the following, being gay is a sin, don't worship statues but worship me etc.....lmfao. It's clear that the concept of a diety has been historically created, manipulated and moulded by humans - the diety is now a reflection of specific beliefs, a tool used to explain anything your are ignorant or arrogant about, and yet this being is so human (because we regard ourselves as being so superior and perfect) that it's universal lesson is nothing more than a set of subjective guidelines telling the human organism how to live (which just happens to be the way some of you want to live anyway).

I am not trying to say there is this paticular God, although I have my belief as a Christian, but there has to be some type of creator here me out. The Big bang theory can be refuted in one line:
Where did the dust come from, where did the space come from, it had to originate somewhere.
So maybe the big bang theory happened but something had to create the space to do it. Maybe I am missing something, but how can this be refuted.

You'd have to disbelieve some pretty vital laws in physics to believe that anything was created.

1. The law of conservation of matter dictates that matter can be neither created nor destroyed. That means the same matter has always existed in one form or another infinitely.

2. The first law of thermodynamics (Conservation of Energy) dictates that energy in a closed system (the universe) most be conserved, that is neither created nor destroyed.

If you can disprove these two Laws, then go on with your wacky creation theories.

"We comprehend reality through our five senses. They are the tools of the Scientific Method. But why should we believe our limited five senses are sufficient for capturing all of reality? What makes us think there is no reality beyond our five senses? Surely a dog, limited by the lack of cones (the photoreceptors in the eye that sense color), has no concept of a world beyond that of black, white, and gray. Are we also not similarly limited by our senses?"

Of course we are. Which is why scientists need grants to buy/build newer/better equipment, to expand what we can sense. We can't sense neutrinos, so we build detectors.

"My point is nothing exist in the sensory world of observation to demonstrate the concept of cause and effect. The belief in cause and effect resides within us - it is a function of how the human brain is wired. You see A happen, followed by B. What sensory experience tells you A caused B? None. The inference is within you, the observer."

True, corellation does not imply causation. That's the first thing they taught us in Statistics class.

However, there ARE ways of proving causation...

You do experiment A a dozen times, always getting result B.
You change one thing, C, and make sure everything else stays the same. You get result B'.

Therefore, changing C CAUSED the change from outcome B to B'.

"We live by feelings and beliefs that because event B has always followed A in the past, it will continue to do so in the future. Feelings and belief. Sounds alot like religion, doesn't it?"

You seem to be saying that everything we "know" about the past or future we're taking on faith.

Now, that's definitely a defensible position - we can't directly observe the past or the future, so we can't objectively know anything about it. After all, we can't know anything about the past either - who's to say that the world wasn't created five seconds ago but with all the molecules moving as if they had been in existence for billions of years? Or who's to say that what we percieve isn't just a hallucination projected into our brains by aliens?

There's a difference between science and religion, between evidence and blind faith. Science, unlike religion, provides nice and testable hypotheses...

There's two ways of looking at this.
1) We can't know anything about the future and are taking it all on faith.

Now, where does that get us? Nowhere, we don't know anything about the future and can't predict it and thus can't really find out anything.

2) It's possible to find out things about the future.

Where does that get us? Well, that gets us lots of theories which allow us to send a man on the moon and make instantaneous communication lines around the world. That's evidence that this view of looking at the world has some merit to it. Now, of course, nothing can *prove* it's true - but there are plenty of things which can provide evidence.

That's the one thing that yes, we scientists do have to take on faith - we have to take on faith the fact that yes, that which is supported by evidence has a higher probability of being true than that which isn't.

You'd have to disbelieve some pretty vital laws in physics to believe that anything was created.

1. The law of conservation of matter dictates that matter can be neither created nor destroyed. That means the same matter has always existed in one form or another infinitely.

If you can disprove these two Laws, then go on with your wacky creation theories.

Actually, matter CAN be created or destroyed. Matter is just one form of energy - it can be destroyed or created according to E=mc^2. Total energy, however, has to be conserved.

If something infinite and unbounded such as God doesn't need an origin, then why does something finite and bounded like the universe need one?

Actually, matter CAN be created or destroyed. Matter is just one form of energy - it can be destroyed or created according to E=mc^2. Total energy, however, has to be conserved.

Which leads me to think:

Why is it so hard for people to conceptualise a universe starting from no matter?

If you take a book and hold it a foot above the ground, it has 'potential' energy, due to the potential for an energy transfer when it is released... the potential energy becomes kinetic energy... when the book hits the ground, the energy is liberated in a variety of ways... the slight rebound, the loud noise, and a small amount of heat...

Well, before there was any matter in the universe, before there was any 'kinetic' energy, there must have been a huge amount of 'potential' energy... over the infinity of time, it is not too unlikely that eventually, the potentiality would 'spill over', so to speak. Why should the equilibrium break... well, for an infinity of time, perhaps it didn't... all it would take is the very slightest conversion of potential to some other energy, and the 'seed' of a universe is planted... and given infinite time...

And, of course, once there is another form of energy, the 'levy' is effectively broken, and ALL of the potential energy can become kinetic energy, or matter, or any other energetic form, in order to try to re-assert equilibrium.

Less of a big-bang, more of a 'mass-conversion'.

Actually, matter CAN be created or destroyed. Matter is just one form of energy - it can be destroyed or created according to E=mc^2. Total energy, however, has to be conserved.
No, matter can be changed, but never destroyed. Note the "=" in the equation. That means that it is equivalent, and that nothing can be removed or added, only altered.

Why debate something that cannot be proven at this point in time?
Nobody knows!

No, matter can be changed, but never destroyed. Note the "=" in the equation. That means that it is equivalent, and that nothing can be removed or added, only altered.

Not true... matter can, quite clearly be 'destroyed', in as much as it can be converted into energy...

I am not trying to say there is this paticular God, although I have my belief as a Christian, but there has to be some type of creator here me out. The Big bang theory can be refuted in one line:
Where did the dust come from, where did the space come from, it had to originate somewhere.
So maybe the big bang theory happened but something had to create the space to do it. Maybe I am missing something, but how can this be refuted.

The only problem with this is that you could say the same thing about the Creator as the original dust:

Where did the Creator come from, where did his power come from, it had to originate somewhere.

...Maybe Neutrinos fall outside of the 'effects' bucket... but then, as far as I can tell, neutrinos aren't all that far from theoretical at the moment!...


Actually, neutrinos were detected at least as far back as 1998. They are created during nuclear fusion and can hit atoms in water and be detected.
Here's a blurb on it from NASA:
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap980605.html

So, yes, they have effects...a lot of theorhetical ones and some visible ones. Data from observed supernovas seem to support they are used to release energy from said super-dense stars. (as I understand it...I'm a biologist though, not a physicist)

"There is a creator". You made the claim. Please prove it.

Which proof would you prefer? Descartes?

1.) Everything existing is the effect of some cause. (Premise, known by clear and distinct intuition)

2.) There must be at least as much reality in a cause, as there is in its effect. ( Premise, known by clear and distinct intuition)

3.) Every cause has either formal or eminent reality. (Premise, known by clear and distinct intuition)

4.) Every (materially true) idea has objective reality. (Premise, known by clear and distinct intuition)

5.) There must be at least as much formal or eminent reality in the cause of an idea's objective reality, as there is objective reality in the idea. (Follows from steps 1-4)

6.) I have an idea of a perfect being. (Premise, know by clear and distinct intuition)

7.) That idea has infinitely objective reality. (Follows from step 6 and the definition of "perfection")

8.) The cause of that idea's objective reality must have infinite formal or eminent reality. (Follows from steps 5-7)

9.)I am a finite thing. (Premise, known by common sense)

10.) So I could not have caused the objective reality of the idea of a perfect being. (Follows from steps 8 and 9)

11.) So something other than myself is the cause of that idea's objective reality. (Follows from step 10)

12.) And that something-other-than-myself must have infinite formal or eminent reality. (Follows from steps 7 and 11)

13.) And that something-other-than-myself which has infinite formal or eminent reality is what we call "God." So God exists. (Follows from step 12 and the definition of "God") Thus it is demonstrated.

"There is a creator". You made the claim. Please prove it.

How about Godel?

Axiom 1. (Dichotomy) A property is positive if and only if it's negation is negative.

Axiom 2. (Closure) A property is positive if it necessarily contains a positive property.

Theorem 1 A positive property is logically consistent (i.e., possibly it has some instance).

Definition. Something is God-like if and only if it possesses all positive properties.

Axiom 3. Being God-like is a positive property.

Axiom 4. Being a positive property is (logical, hence) necessary.

Definition. A property P is the essence of x if and only if x has P and P is necessarily minimal.

Theorem 2. If x is God-like, then being God-like is the essence of x.

Definition. NE(x): x necessarily exists if it has an essential property.

Axiom 5. Being NE is God-like.

"There is a creator". You made the claim. Please prove it.

You could give the ontological proof a try.

1) God is, by definition, the greatest possible being.

2) Suppose God does not exist.

3) If [2], then a being greater than God is possible, because this being could possess omnipotence, omniscience, omnibenevolence, and existence.

4) If [3], then it is possible for there to be a being greater than the greatest being possible.

5) But [4] is not logically possible.

6) Hence, the assumption [1] must be false.

7) Therefore, the supposition that God does not exist is false.

"There is a creator". You made the claim. Please prove it.

There is the cosmological proof.

1) Everything that exists has a cause of its existence.

2) The universe exists.

Therefore:

3) The universe has a cause of its existence.

4) If the universe has a cause of its existence, then that cause is God.

Therefore:

5) God exists.

"There is a creator". You made the claim. Please prove it.

I think Pascal's Wager is fits in quite nicely with American capitalism. Pascal’s Wager is an argument for belief in God based not on an appeal to evidence that God exists but rather based on an appeal to self-interest. It is in our interests to believe in God, the argument suggests, and it is therefore rational for us to do so. The claim that it is in our interests to believe in God is supported by a consideration of the possible consequences of belief and unbelief. If we believe in God, the argument runs, then if he exists then we will receive an infinite reward in heaven while if he does not then we have lost little or nothing. If we do not believe in God, the argument continues, then if he exists then we will receive an infinite punishment in hell while he does not then we will have gained little or nothing. Either receiving an infinite reward in heaven or losing little or nothing is clearly preferable to either receiving an infinite punishment in hell or gaining little or nothing. It is therefore in our interests to believe in God.

Which proof would you prefer? Descartes?

1.) Everything existing is the effect of some cause. (Premise, known by clear and distinct intuition)

2.) There must be at least as much reality in a cause, as there is in its effect. ( Premise, known by clear and distinct intuition)

3.) Every cause has either formal or eminent reality. (Premise, known by clear and distinct intuition)

4.) Every (materially true) idea has objective reality. (Premise, known by clear and distinct intuition)

5.) There must be at least as much formal or eminent reality in the cause of an idea's objective reality, as there is objective reality in the idea. (Follows from steps 1-4)

6.) I have an idea of a perfect being. (Premise, know by clear and distinct intuition)

7.) That idea has infinitely objective reality. (Follows from step 6 and the definition of "perfection")

8.) The cause of that idea's objective reality must have infinite formal or eminent reality. (Follows from steps 5-7)

9.)I am a finite thing. (Premise, known by common sense)

10.) So I could not have caused the objective reality of the idea of a perfect being. (Follows from steps 8 and 9)

11.) So something other than myself is the cause of that idea's objective reality. (Follows from step 10)

12.) And that something-other-than-myself must have infinite formal or eminent reality. (Follows from steps 7 and 11)

13.) And that something-other-than-myself which has infinite formal or eminent reality is what we call "God." So God exists. (Follows from step 12 and the definition of "God") Thus it is demonstrated.

First of all - EXPLAIN WHAT YOU'RE SAYING!

What is "eminent reality?" "formal reality?" "objective reality?"

You're throwing terms around without defining them - your argument is too confusing to disprove, you're not staying it clearly enough. I have no idea what you're trying to say.

So. Before I can respond to this, explain what formal, eminent, and objective reality are. You're being too confusing and obscure. I think I know what you're saying, but I'm not quite sure.

...ok. Looking it up - I think a more understandable version of descarte's argument is

"1) I have an idea of infinite perfection

2) My idea of myself, however, involves imperfection (and finitude).

3) There must be as much reality in the CAUSE of an idea as in the idea itself

--------Therefore--------

The idea I have of an infinite perfection could only originate from infinite perfection itself

In other words, God exists, because I have an idea of Him that could only have Him as its SOURCE"

However, that is based on the premise that the idea of the infinite cannot be caused by the finite, that the idea of the perfect cannot be caused from the idea of the imperfect. Which is an improper premise - the perfect is simply a negation of the imperfect, the infinite is simply the negation of the finite. So, the idea of infinite perfection can be caused by the reality of finite imperfection.

(Note - maybe I'm interpreting your argument wrong. BE MORE CLEAR.)

Btw, nice copy-paste jobs... very original.

First of all - EXPLAIN WHAT YOU'RE SAYING!

What is "eminent reality?" "formal reality?" "objective reality?"

You're throwing terms around without defining them - your argument is too confusing to disprove, you're not staying it clearly enough. I have no idea what you're trying to say.

So. Before I can respond to this, explain what formal, eminent, and objective reality are. You're being too confusing and obscure. I think I know what you're saying, but I'm not quite sure.

...ok. Looking it up - I think a more understandable version of descarte's argument is

"1) I have an idea of infinite perfection

2) My idea of myself, however, involves imperfection (and finitude).

3) There must be as much reality in the CAUSE of an idea as in the idea itself

--------Therefore--------

The idea I have of an infinite perfection could only originate from infinite perfection itself

In other words, God exists, because I have an idea of Him that could only have Him as its SOURCE"

However, that is based on the premise that the idea of the infinite cannot be caused by the finite, that the idea of the perfect cannot be caused from the idea of the imperfect. Which is an improper premise - the perfect is simply a negation of the imperfect, the infinite is simply the negation of the finite. So, the idea of infinite perfection can be caused by the reality of finite imperfection.

(Note - maybe I'm interpreting your argument wrong. BE MORE CLEAR.)

The language is Descartes'. Take up issues of clarity with him.

I myself don't believe in god. My original post made the point that trying to prove god's existence or non-existence was a denial of faith on the part of religious folks and a waste of time for scientific folks.

Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, and any other believers in a Supreme Being and ultimate creator who engage in debates to "prove" the existence of that deity are fools. They are fools because by merely engaging in the debate they are accepting the premise that their belief in god is based upon verifiable factual data. They are entering into the world of science and reason, which is not the world of religion. To do so they must accept the basic premise of science, that the proof of a theory is dependent upon evidence that can be independently corroborated, knowing that further data may one day overturn that theory. Science is not about ultimate truths, but rather truth as we comprehend it now.

Those arguing for a "proof" of God would do well to keep in mind that the opposite of faith is not doubt, but rather certainty. Belief in god is just that - a belief, based upon faith, "the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." Believers show their lack of faith by entering into such a discussion.

Rationalists, humanists, atheists, and scientists would also do well to stop wasting their time applying the scientific method to an idea that exists beyond the boundaries of science. Logic and reason are powerful tools, but as a wise Vulcan once said, "logic is the beginning of wisdom, not the end." The scientific method cannot create a painting to rival Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring, craft a play on par with Shakespeare's Hamlet, compose a song to compare with Willie Dixon's Hoochie Coochie Man, nor comprehend a person's faith in God.

Nuke Gay Whales For Jesus!!!!!!!

How about Godel?

Axiom 1. (Dichotomy) A property is positive if and only if it's negation is negative.

Axiom 2. (Closure) A property is positive if it necessarily contains a positive property.

Theorem 1 A positive property is logically consistent (i.e., possibly it has some instance).

Definition. Something is God-like if and only if it possesses all positive properties.

Axiom 3. Being God-like is a positive property.

Axiom 4. Being a positive property is (logical, hence) necessary.

Definition. A property P is the essence of x if and only if x has P and P is necessarily minimal.

Theorem 2. If x is God-like, then being God-like is the essence of x.

Definition. NE(x): x necessarily exists if it has an essential property.

Axiom 5. Being NE is God-like.

Again, same thing. Explain what you're saying...you're making your argument completely unintelligible. It's not a good thing when I have to basically independently look up godel's proof to have an idea of what you're saying.

...I was going to refute it, but you're not even making sense.

Axiom 2 is recursive - something is a positive property if it contains some other positive property? But then that other positive property contains some other positive property? Infinite amount of positive properties?

Axiom 3. Being God-like is a positive property.

False. Not proven.

...what I think you're trying to say - I've seen this proof, I think this is what you mean -

"God is defined to be a perfect being.
A perfect being must have all positive properties.
Existing is a positive property.
Hence, God must have the property of existing.

Therefore, God exists."

The flaw in that is that you're defining god to exist. I can make the same case for an IPU - an invisible perfect unicorn..

"An IPU is defined to have three properties - it is invisible, it is perfect, and it is a unicorn.
If it is perfect, it must have all positive properties.
Existing is a positive property.
Hence, an IPU must have the property of existing.

Therefore, an IPU exists!"

Basically, that proof implicitly assumes that "existence" is part of the definition of "perfection" which is part of the definition of "God" - you're defining God to exist, and saying "therefore He exists because He is defined to exist." It's circular logic.

Again, same thing. Explain what you're saying...you're making your argument completely unintelligible.

Again, take up language issue with Godel.

My point is there are lots of "proofs" for the existence of God and probably an equal number for non-existence. And it all still boils down to Kierkegaard's leap of faith.

You could give the ontological proof a try.

1) God is, by definition, the greatest possible being.

2) Suppose God does not exist.

3) If [2], then a being greater than God is possible, because this being could possess omnipotence, omniscience, omnibenevolence, and existence.

4) If [3], then it is possible for there to be a being greater than the greatest being possible.

5) But [4] is not logically possible.

6) Hence, the assumption [1] must be false.

7) Therefore, the supposition that God does not exist is false.

Ah! An understandable one!

Same thing. It's a definitions issue. You could just as logically make the last step of that proof

"7) Therefore, the definition that God is the greatest possible being must be false."

Or, heck, I could take objection to step 2) - step 2 assumes that a "being that could possess omnipotence, omniscience, omnibenevolence, and existence" is possible. If no such being is possible, the rest of the argument falls through - God, who possesses the qualities of "omnipotence, omnicience, and omnibenevolence" but NOT existence be greater than a being that possesses the quality of existence but not the qualities of omni-anything.

Save yourself time and go to Godless Geeks

http://www.godlessgeeks.com/LINKS/GodProof.htm

There is the cosmological proof.

1) Everything that exists has a cause of its existence.

2) The universe exists.

Therefore:

3) The universe has a cause of its existence.

4) If the universe has a cause of its existence, then that cause is God.

Therefore:

5) God exists.

Step 4 is false. That cause can be anything - physical laws, an invisible pink unicorn, whatever.

Other possible objection - step 1. How do we know that everything has a cause? We don't know whether that assumption is correct or not. At the macroscopic level, that seems to be right - but then again, so do Newtons Laws.

Other possible objection:
"
1) Everything that exists has a cause of its existence.

5) God exists.

6) Therefore, God has a cause of existence."

That train of logic can be carried on ad infinitum. Does that mean there are an infinite number of Gods?

...you can say, of course, that God can be his own cause.

But then again, you can also say that the universe is its own cause.

No way around it - that argument is flawed.

"Reasonabilityness," hear that wooshing sound? That is my point going right over your head.

Have a good day.

The language is Descartes'. Take up issues of clarity with him.

No. I'm taking up issues of clarity with whoever presented the argument.

I am 100% sure that if Descartes had to convince somebody that did not believe him, he would be able to EXPLAIN his argument.

In history class, at one point, we read a version of his argument that was clear, EXPLAINED, did not throw around terminology, and was actually very persuasive - much more so than yours.

You remind me of
"#26 ARGUMENT FROM INCOMPREHENSIBILITY
(1) Flabble glurk zoom boink blubba snurgleschnortz ping!
(2) No one has ever refuted (1).
(3) Therefore, God exists." (from the very website you provided)

I myself don't believe in god. My original post made the point that trying to prove god's existence or non-existence was a denial of faith on the part of religious folks and a waste of time for scientific folks.

I agree 100%. It is impossible to prove the existence of God. It is impossible to prove the nonexistence of God. As you said, it comes down to faith.

What it IS possible to do is debunk the false proofs that people present. Your original couple of posts gave me the impression that you actually believed those proofs, so I found and posted the refutations.

*sigh* Let's just face it, people. None of us are going to come to an agreement.

Well. Maybe those who share a particular viewpoint. But they, in turn, won't necessarily agree with anyone whose viewpoint differs from theirs.

In the words of parental units:

"Let's just agree to disagree."

For all of those happy to accept the idea of a God/Goddess/Creator/Divine Being of Some Sort without any question (Yay, dogmatism!)..... all the power to you.

For those believing in Big Bang and all the physics vesches...... all the power to you.

I refuse to take a side.

Actually, scratch that. My position: We exist. Be happy in just knowing that.

Okay, before I leave and go to sleep, I post a link to refutation of Pascal's Wager... just to finish refuting the last of the credible proofs you provided here.

http://www.infidels.org/news/atheism/arguments.html#pascal

*sigh* Let's just face it, people. None of us are going to come to an agreement.

Well. Maybe those who share a particular viewpoint. But they, in turn, won't necessarily agree with anyone whose viewpoint differs from theirs.

In the words of parental units:

"Let's just agree to disagree."

For all of those happy to accept the idea of a God/Goddess/Creator/Divine Being of Some Sort without any question (Yay, dogmatism!)..... all the power to you.

For those believing in Big Bang and all the physics vesches...... all the power to you.

I refuse to take a side.

Actually, scratch that. My position: We exist. Be happy in just knowing that.

Of course! I'm not going to try persuading anybody that God doesn't exist. There's no way to prove that.

...now, I can and will try to defend the positions that science has proven relatively conclusively - evolution, for example. Big Bang up to a point. But that by no means implies the non-existence of God...

I just can't stand false proofs that masquerade as being valid.

Not true... matter can, quite clearly be 'destroyed', in as much as it can be converted into energy...

Matter is energy.

Ogiek - lmao, some of those "arguments" are totally discredited nonsense. I've had to cover them and they make assumptions all over the place that don't stand up to philosophical or anthropological critique. As for "proving" God does/doesn't exist, I could just as easily invent something that noone can prove/disprove. However, if you look at the history of religion with an anthropological understanding, then it's clear that religion is simply a social construction like everything else (and moulds itself to the values of the time) - and is full of hypocrisies and contradictions.

I am not trying to say there is this paticular God, although I have my belief as a Christian, but there has to be some type of creator here me out. The Big bang theory can be refuted in one line:
Where did the dust come from, where did the space come from, it had to originate somewhere.
So maybe the big bang theory happened but something had to create the space to do it. Maybe I am missing something, but how can this be refuted.


Your beliefs as a christian or any other religion are holding you back regards the question as are any other preconceptions. You cannot understand the answer until you understand the perspective from which you are observing. As most people are too lazy to understand themselves they can never get out of the center of their own little universe.
The answer is ridiculously simple but most are too afraid of contemplating it or too engrossed in their own fantasies. All the major religions have an inkling of the answer, but as I said few people really want to know.

As a christian and a Big Bang believer..... couldn't God have made the Big Bang happen? It is an amazing phemonena so why presume that God did not create as it is not the same words as Genesis? You assume Genisis was not watered down for the Jew! Adam's head would've exploded if God had gone..... "Well, I started the universe using the equations of General Relativity which in one form predicts that theuniverse started with an infinetesimal point and exploded into nothingness!"
In the words of the oh so clever mathematician to an atheist:
"(a+b^n)/n = x. Therfore God exists. Discuss.!

In the laws of the universe everything has a beginning and a end, this means the universe itself has to begin and to end. But how did it begin if there was nothing? How can something excist from nothing? Why isnt there just nothing? No space, no matter, mass, energy no thoughts?

God created the universe, and the universal laws, this means He doesnt have to 'obey' to these laws, this means He doesnt have to have a begin and an end. My brains cannot explain me how He could always have been there, and no one can proof there is a God. But othere than that for me its far more logical that there is a God.

God understands our limits and asks us to have faith.

With the words of Jesus:

"blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed."

(sorry if I made some grammar/spelling mistakes, english isnt my first language)

ok i cant be bothered to read all 198 posts but has anyone thought of the circular universe theory. no god involved. at the end of the universe all matter and energy will be brought together into one space and transported back in time. it sort of relies on a black hole spinning very quickly. however it is far more likely than you might think.
anyway. thats my personal favourite when it comes to creation theories.

oh and i dont know if anyone explained but earlier there were people talking about particles popping into existence. this only happens, as far as i know, if there is a corresponding decrease in energy. if all matter was measured in terms of its energy then the total energy in the universe would always be a constant. equally if all energy was measured as the amount of mass it could be converted to the total mass in the universe would be a constant.

Not true... matter can, quite clearly be 'destroyed', in as much as it can be converted into energy...
Well, could you please explain how? What is it that destroys matter? What process? E=mc² means that matter can be converted. Where is the destruction?

Also, Ogiek seems to be of the school of thought that if anything can be imagined, than it must exist. That would explain his "interesting" explanations. I forget who it was that first came up with that though...I'm pretty sure it was a Greek philsopher, but I just can't recall.

Well, could you please explain how? What is it that destroys matter? What process? E=mc² means that matter can be converted. Where is the destruction?

Also, Ogiek seems to be of the school of thought that if anything can be imagined, than it must exist. That would explain his "interesting" explanations. I forget who it was that first came up with that though...I'm pretty sure it was a Greek philsopher, but I just can't recall.
If I may field this one, isn't it so that matter is defined not only by its content but by its structure? Matter is a solid, liquid or gas particles; energy is energy.

oh so many lovely proofs. so much logic. all very fancy. and yet i am left with one great big question....


SO WHAT?

that there may have been a creator of the universe (ignoring of course the question of where did the creator come from) does NOT mean that this creator is the christian/jewish/muslim god. it does not mean that this creator is any kind of god.
it doesnt make him all powerful
it doent make him all knowing
it doesnt make him all loving'
it doesnt make him all wise
it doesnt make him the only god in the universe
it doesnt mean he still exists
it doesnt mean he WANTS to be worshipped
it doesnt mean he knows we exist
it doesnt mean he cares about us
it doesnt mean he has one particular (or indeed any) religion that he wants us to follow
it doesnt mean he thinks of himself as a god
it doesnt mean that the whole thing wasnt some kind of colossal mistake or joke. or even a freaking ACCIDENT.

so there was a creator.

SO WHAT??

Actually, neutrinos were detected at least as far back as 1998. They are created during nuclear fusion and can hit atoms in water and be detected.
Here's a blurb on it from NASA:
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap980605.html

So, yes, they have effects...a lot of theorhetical ones and some visible ones. Data from observed supernovas seem to support they are used to release energy from said super-dense stars. (as I understand it...I'm a biologist though, not a physicist)

Neutrino activity has been theorised for a long time, but it is (still) hard to concretely prove their existence in real terms. A neutrino can pass through an entire planet without reacting, and yet they are 'detected' passing through water. I am not saying it is impossible, just inconsistent... perhaps there is too much assumption at work... and what is observed in water is some other phenomenon that the actual passage of neutrinoes.

Note: I am not saying neutrinoes DON'T exist, I am saying there is speculation far disproportionate to the solidity of evidence.

Also - the blurb itself is contradictory... they claim a 12.5 million gallon tank, I believe, and yet they also claim to measure an oscillation that takes place over hundreds of kilometres. A quick rough-calculation of volume to dimensions of linear measurement gives us a tank smaller than the size of a football field, so how are they measuring multi-kilometre reactions?

Like I say... not saying neutrinoes don't exist - just that there is too much speculation, and not enough evidence... neutrinoes still rightly belong where I put them, in the 'largely-theoretical' bucket.

oh so many lovely proofs. so much logic. all very fancy. and yet i am left with one great big question....


SO WHAT?

...etc.

Not phrased too well, perhaps, in terms of eloquence, but pretty much identical to my response to this question.

I'd also add that while the logic claiming there must be a creator due to the causal argument (or Aquinas' third - fourth? - way, they're basically the same anyway) is very strong, it doesn't actually get anywhere to proving God. The problem is, you can't ever explain how something could just "be" without a cause. That counts for God as much as for the universe.

It's always more logical to not unnecessarily complicate things, so if something is going to have to be inexplicably uncaused in our model of everything, it's probably going to be energy. It's complicating things to say it's a sentient being.

(It'll still be just a theory, but we'll never get anything better with this argument.)

I think people miss the point, if God wanted to reveal everything and anything to anyone it would be for a reason. Why would anyone try to prove something in the first place to another person? To brag? Bragging probably only matters to people, we should want to prove it to ourselves not others.

Basically since all of our truths are based on assumption in some form along the way, we do not achieve a status of absolute. We have endlessly improved upon previous theories throughout the history of mankind. So we can officially say that we all don't even know jack shit. We grow as human beings with knowledge of our past mistakes and new discovery. Just as everything else among us grows and finalizes. We as mankind are destined to follow suit unless people start thinking for themselves instead of whatever our family,friends,culture,government, or neighbors would like them to think. Within everyone of us is our natural instincts. There are many assumptions and some of them being the holy ghost, your soul (soul guides your instincts) and etc. that lead us the right path in our lives. Our souls that have no formalities and labels it is our souls that hate politics and seek peace. It is our souls that are the true adults within us.

I dare anyone to drop the #1 addiction for adults: Politics, because I know that all of the stress we have in life and the despise and hate stems from political competition and the baby like sandbox control syndrome. There is no giving but only recieving. There is only greed, lust, selfish thought and action in politics, unless everything that isn't "all about me, me, me ", is now not considered selfish or greedy? We as grown adults do not see the immature child (greedy,selfish little pigs) we become. When we were children we did not know how to give we only knew how to recieve, politics is all about what I can recieve. Even if you do not believe in the bible or ten commandments and whatever else out there you most likely dislike greedy, selfish hateful and controlling people. That I think is a fairly common attribute we all share, but when we dwelve into political fervor person we forget all about our understanding of what it means to be a good person.

Look at how everything we create with actual helpful creativity and imagination is an emulation to God. Look at christmas and the "spirit of giving". That is our spirit, to give. It is our selfish greedy bodies that want to recieve all the time. The next time you change your mind (or stand up for)on something that you know is for the better, thank the real you. When your body and soul are in cahoots.

Neutrino activity has been theorised for a long time, but it is (still) hard to concretely prove their existence in real terms. A neutrino can pass through an entire planet without reacting, and yet they are 'detected' passing through water. I am not saying it is impossible, just inconsistent... perhaps there is too much assumption at work... and what is observed in water is some other phenomenon that the actual passage of neutrinoes.

Note: I am not saying neutrinoes DON'T exist, I am saying there is speculation far disproportionate to the solidity of evidence.

Also - the blurb itself is contradictory... they claim a 12.5 million gallon tank, I believe, and yet they also claim to measure an oscillation that takes place over hundreds of kilometres. A quick rough-calculation of volume to dimensions of linear measurement gives us a tank smaller than the size of a football field, so how are they measuring multi-kilometre reactions?

Like I say... not saying neutrinoes don't exist - just that there is too much speculation, and not enough evidence... neutrinoes still rightly belong where I put them, in the 'largely-theoretical' bucket.

No, by now neutrinos have been solidly detected... they were speculation back in the 50s, but were detected.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutrino_experiment

Since you say that "perhaps some other phenomenon is being observed" - they tested that.
"The Results

They performed the experiment preliminarily at Hanford, but later moved the experiment to the Savannah River Plant near Augusta, Georgia where they had better shielding against cosmic rays. This shielded location was 11 m from the reactor and 12 m underground.

They used two tanks with a total of about 200 liters of water with about 40 kg of dissolved CdCl2. The water tanks were sandwiched between three scintillator layers which contained 110 5-inch photomultiplier tubes.

After months of data collection, they had accumulated data on about three neutrinos per hour in their detector. To be absolutely sure that they were seeing neutrino events from the detection scheme described above, they shut down the reactor to show that there was a difference in the number of detected events.

They had predicted a cross-section for the reaction to be about 6*10^-44cm2 and their measured cross-section was 6.3*10^-44cm2. Their results were published in 1956."

So - the number of detections expected was PREDICTED based on the theory; the experiment was done, and the expected value was obtained.

That was actually back in the 1950s. There've been plenty more detections since then; the question right now isn't whether they exist, it's what their mass is and what some of their other properties are. The evidence for the existence of neutrinos is quite solid.

A neutrino can pass through an entire planet without reacting, and yet they are 'detected' passing through water. I am not saying it is impossible, just inconsistent...

No, not at all inconsistent. There's simply a LOT of neutrinos coming from the source.

"An nuclear power plant produces approximately 50000 neutrinos per second."

And the detection rate in that experiment was approximately 3 neutrinos per HOUR. That means out of the 1.8*10^8 neutrinos per hour that were produced, 3 were detected - that's one out of 60000000! The other 5999999 pass through undetected, as expected.

You are missing something. There was no space. There was no dust. There was nothing. Then, a singularity appeared. Considering that matter comes into existence all the time, that was not surprising. The singularity then expanded at light speed (Actually, it was slightly faster for an extremely short period.) resulting in the expansion of space-time and the formation of the universe.
Really? Matter appears all the time. let me explain some science for you, my boy.

The First Law of Thermodynamics states that energy can be neither created nor destroyed. Therefore, I'm not sure where you got that part about new matter appearing all the time, because you are 100% wrong on that issue.

Not only that, but according to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which is that the entropy of the universe increases during any spontaneous process. Basically, it means that things tend to become more chaotic and unorganized over time. However, you expect us to believe that in a spontaneous process, i.e. "the Big Bang," the Second Law was defied, and instead of increased disorder, i.e. entropy, we ended up with our incredibly complex, unimaginably huge universe, which we still struggle to understand today? I'm calling bullshit on that one. And no one has ever disapproved the Second Law, so feel free.

Bloody hell - it started as a discussion about whether god produced the universe or not, and now it's turned into a physics lecture. I thought this one was going to be more about personal belief than the physics of the universe!
Oh and not to go off topic, I don't know or really think about how the universe was created - if it's god or the big bang it's still too hard for us mere mortals to comprehend.

Not phrased too well, perhaps, in terms of eloquence, but pretty much identical to my response to this question.

I'd also add that while the logic claiming there must be a creator due to the causal argument (or Aquinas' third - fourth? - way, they're basically the same anyway) is very strong, it doesn't actually get anywhere to proving God. The problem is, you can't ever explain how something could just "be" without a cause. That counts for God as much as for the universe.

It's always more logical to not unnecessarily complicate things, so if something is going to have to be inexplicably uncaused in our model of everything, it's probably going to be energy. It's complicating things to say it's a sentient being.

(It'll still be just a theory, but we'll never get anything better with this argument.)
Actually, the greatest error we make in trying to comprehend God is that we actually fool ourselves into thinking our minds can encompass the nature of such a being. You see, binding an illogical being to our laws of logic is self-defeating. Logically speaking, someone can not instantaneously turn water into wine. Logically speaking, we cannot comprehend the notion of enternity, because we are bound by our limitations. We have finite capabilities, and therefore we cannot truly understand the idea of a being without limits. That is why religious types can say that God has always existed, and that he always will exist. He existed before this universe, and he will exist after it is gone. It is illogial, and therefore fits with the nature of God. However, it is impossible to logically explain to creation of our universe, based on what we know, because it would require us to refute our own understanding of the world we live in, and constantly observed processes that have always been born out. To our knowledge, something cannot come from nothing. In our experience, there is always a source.

Oh and not to go off topic, I don't know or really think about how the universe was created - if it's god or the big bang it's still too hard for us mere mortals to comprehend.
Now that is quite possibly the most intelligent post I have seen in a while. Very sensible. :)

Now that is quite possibly the most intelligent post I have seen in a while. Very sensible. :)

thanks! not a sign of quantum physics either ;)

The God of the Gaps strikes again.

Let's not forget the creationist creedo: "The law of cause and effect is always valid, even without the existance of time, except when it's convenient for us."

Obviously I missed the subtlety in in saying there was no 68AD copy of the King James Bible.


The date of the latest writings found in Qumran.


Nope, just that they're closer and contain fewer transcription errors than any other work near that age we've ever discovered.


I guess having a bunch of monks who consider the damn thing sacred and revere it helps. You're not getting hellfire if you're lazy copying 'War and Peace.'


And yet, while there have been some changes in phrasology, as I understand it, there have been zero fundamental changes in the scripture itself.


I mentioned 'omissions' actually, but it does itself satisfactorily.


And I'm too used to people claiming the Bible is useless and must not be correct in any way because it was transcribed and we don't have our hands on any of the original manuscripts. Like, oh, the Iliad, Herodotus' History, Plato's works, Caesar's Gallic Wars, Livy's History of Rome, etc, etc, etc. Somehow, even though we never had the original of any of those, and the /shortest/ amount of time between when one of those was originally written and the /olded/ piece of manuscript we've found is 500 years ... we feel we have reliable copies of the original. Because the Bible is a religious / historical text, that's not true for its books?


First, to kitpick. Herodotus is known for his exaggeration and you have to watch for his bias. Unless you're fond of hellfire, the Illiad can't be true according to your beliefs. Every literature needs critical analysis and historical context to be useful.

Problem is the claims made. Socrates didn't rise from the dead. The Greeks didn't fend off a galactic invasion from The Covenant.

Okay, we are getting off topic.

But one thing -- life. How did it get here? If it came from somewhere else, how did THAT life originate?

ok i cant be bothered to read all 198 posts but has anyone thought of the circular universe theory. no god involved. at the end of the universe all matter and energy will be brought together into one space and transported back in time. it sort of relies on a black hole spinning very quickly. however it is far more likely than you might think.
anyway. thats my personal favourite when it comes to creation theories.

oh and i dont know if anyone explained but earlier there were people talking about particles popping into existence. this only happens, as far as i know, if there is a corresponding decrease in energy. if all matter was measured in terms of its energy then the total energy in the universe would always be a constant. equally if all energy was measured as the amount of mass it could be converted to the total mass in the universe would be a constant.

(Not to say there is a God, but) How did this whole cycle start in the first place?

There is the cosmological proof.

1) Everything that exists has a cause of its existence.

2) The universe exists.

Therefore:

3) The universe has a cause of its existence.

4) If the universe has a cause of its existence, then that cause is God.

Therefore:

5) God exists.

Step 4: how can you say the cause is God? Wait don't tell me....it just is.

You should have just stopped them at "step" one.

I don't believe there is any deity. I find it an exercise in deep arrogance to use arguments like:

"What is outside the universe? Science can't tell me so God must be behind it"
"Where did the Big Bang come from"
"Animals are just too well made for it to not be done by some intelligent, omnipotent being"

Most people won't even understand the physics behind simply everyday occurances anyway. Frankly, the idea that simply because the human mind cannot comprehend something then a deity must be involved, is arrogant. You are saying that because you cannot understand something, then ONLY an all-powerful, all-knowing creator can understand it and must be behind it. Just accept the fact that humans have limited cognitive abilities.....and as a consequence we will always be ignorant and limited in regards to many things. Our brain evolved a specific environment and will be limited in so many ways that it was stupid of us to ever expect to understand everything. A lot of the stuff we have worked out is only understandable in abstract mathematical form anyway. Just because people didn't know how the earth formed 1000 years ago didn't mean that God created the earth. Religion simply changes to fit with other alterations in our cultures, "Christianity" now is so hugely different to even 100 years ago that it is laughable to think you are even following some form of god-given practises. Religion picks and choses which morals it wants, and which it prioritizes too.

As for the intelligent design approach, again I feel that people simply rush to this conclusion without even investigating for themselves. It is abundantly clear that evolution is correct. You are suggesting that there is a "perfect" design for an organism, which is imposing human assumptions upon biological organisms with a total failure to grasp the totality of their existance and the selective forces acting on them. The fact also remains that organisms often display traits that simply wouldn't be there if designed before-hand by a deity e.g. the arrangement of light-sensitive cells in the human retine (behind a whole mass of nerves), the human knee, the appendix. The intelligent design theory is so flawed at so many levels, the evidence against it is undeniable

Is it not a coinsidence that this supposed all-powerfull, all-knowing, all-seeing deity seems to think in the same terms as your own culture generally does? A being has managed to amass all the knowledge possible, has seen everything in the entire universe etc and yet simply comes to the final conclusion that what matters to the mere humans on a plant they call earth, is: get married, be faithful, don't do the following, being gay is a sin, don't worship statues but worship me etc.....lmfao. It's clear that the concept of a diety has been historically created, manipulated and moulded by humans - the diety is now a reflection of specific beliefs, a tool used to explain anything your are ignorant or arrogant about, and yet this being is so human (because we regard ourselves as being so superior and perfect) that it's universal lesson is nothing more than a set of subjective guidelines telling the human organism how to live (which just happens to be the way some of you want to live anyway).
<applause>a few minutes</applause>

I am not a physicist, but what are these laws of thermodynamics? I thought that thermodynamics was an ecological concept on the movement of energy in an ecosystem.

I am not a physicist, but what are these laws of thermodynamics? I thought that thermodynamics was an ecological concept on the movement of energy in an ecosystem.

Well, they have to do with the transfer of heat and motion. Actually, looking them up, they're not particularly simple laws - we simplify them a bit more than we should when talking about them in a forum like this... I'll try to get the essence across though. There's lots of different ways to phrase them in language; I'm sure they have a nice mathematical formulation, but I don't know it, haven't studied thermodynamics yet.

1st Law: Conservation of Energy.
"Energy can neither be created nor destroyed, only changed."
This also means that "The amount of energy going into a system is equal to the change of energy in the system plus the amount of energy flowing out of the system." Same thing.

2nd Law: In a closed system, total entropy (also a measure of "orderliness") never decreases. (Entropy is the measure
There is no possible process the result of which is only the conversion of heat into positive work.
A system operating in a cycle cannot produce a positive heat flow from a colder body to a hotter body.

3rd Law: All processes cease as temperature approaches absolute zero.

...not sure what they mean, myself. Would take a bit more background in physics and chemistry than I currently have to explain them better.

http://www.fact-index.com/t/th/thermodynamics.html this site seems to have nice readable explanations, though they get slightly technical at times.

One of the cleverer ironies in this conversation is that the Big Bang theory was conceived and championed by Catholic priest and mathemetician, Georges Lemaitre, whose theories continue to be proven correct to this very day.

There's no hard and fast rule I know of that says faith and science have to be mutually exclusive; why so many insist on one needing to be correct at the expense of the other is something I've never understood.

There's no hard and fast rule I know of that says faith and science have to be mutually exclusive; why so many insist on one needing to be correct at the expense of the other is something I've never understood.
Well, actually, when there are discrepencies between the two's conceptions, they are quite mutually exclusive. Remember when the Church used to insist on geocentricity? That is at direct odds with science. And the thought that the world is thousands of years old, not billions, is also kind of mutually exclusive. So is the idea that evolution does not exist.

Playing Devil's Advocate here, but if you assume that there must have been some kind of creator to start the Big Bang, then what created the creator?

I am so glad you asked that! This is exactly why I believe in God (the concept of a higher power incomprehensible to intellect). If there had to be an originating event to the universe that defies known scientific law, the originating event had to be carried out by an originator. Who or what was the originator we probably will never know. Was it the Judeo christian God? Was it an alien? Was it something we could never even begin to wrap our heads around? Who knows. I just believe it was, period.

The Judeo-Christian God states in biblical texts that He is the alpha and the omega. The beginning and the end. Infinity if you will. My concept of God IS infinity. It is indefinable and need not have been created itself. It IS that which defies all logic and reason as WE know it. At least as we know it now.

God need not be some head in the clouds. The bible and its writings need not be fact for a God to exist. Then again science, evolution and even the big bang do not disprove a God. To me God is the source energy for all that exists. It could very well be a source energy that is totally detached from us after the initial creation. We simply do not know. My personal belief (faith if you will) falls somewhere in the middle. I do not think God is some big guy with a long beard checking off all our transgretions and deciding whether or not to toss us into some inferno. But I also do not believe He, She, or It is a completely detached random entity, either.

On what basis do you apply laws that govern our universe to a situation where it does not exist yet (as we know it, at least)?

Ah we are being obtuse, I see. Maybe I shall type slower. My belief in God is such: A power greater than human comprehension that is responsible for the initial creation of the "uncreatable" (by the laws that govern our physical world (as determined by science). Do not worry, my version of a God is not running around taking notes on your sex life or whether or not you went to church last Sunday. God=a concept of power or force or energy that defies posibility as we know it. Now it may very well be some entity with a hands on participation in our world. But it could just as easily be some fly-by entity that never gave us a single thought, perhaps is not capable of thought.

I personally believe (from person experiences I could never explain, nor would I feel compelled to) that the entity IS in some way "hands on" with our existence. I do not believe It is micro-managing our entire lives and keeping some kind of score. But those beliefs are a matter of my personal faith. The former statement is a concept that transcends faith OR reason. God=that which cannot be known, cannot be proven. People need to get off the old guy with long beard thing.

oh so many lovely proofs. so much logic. all very fancy. and yet i am left with one great big question....
SO WHAT?
that there may have been a creator of the universe (ignoring of course the question of where did the creator come from) does NOT mean that this creator is the christian/jewish/muslim god. it does not mean that this creator is any kind of god.
it doesnt make him all powerful
it doent make him all knowing
it doesnt make him all loving'
it doesnt make him all wise
it doesnt make him the only god in the universe
it doesnt mean he still exists
it doesnt mean he WANTS to be worshipped
it doesnt mean he knows we exist
it doesnt mean he cares about us
it doesnt mean he has one particular (or indeed any) religion that he wants us to follow
it doesnt mean he thinks of himself as a god
it doesnt mean that the whole thing wasnt some kind of colossal mistake or joke. or even a freaking ACCIDENT.
so there was a creator.
SO WHAT??

Problem is you cant prove your side of the arguement either, that an all

knowing God doesnt exist, and until you can give me absolute proof of that

fact, I'll try to stick with Christianity.

You have admitted how insignificant the Earth is, but humanity isnt.

To "Quote" from the Rocky horror show

'On a lonley speck in Space

drifts an innocence called the human race

Lost in time and space and in meaning'.

I believe their is an all knowing force behind creation, something so huge and

powerful, we can not even mentally grasp it.

Mankinds intelligence has made it aware of this presence, our religous efforts

are solid proof of this.

There is the cosmological proof.

1) Everything that exists has a cause of its existence.

2) The universe exists.

Therefore:

3) The universe has a cause of its existence.

4) If the universe has a cause of its existence, then that cause is God.

Therefore:

5) God exists.


6) But god is omnipitent-therefore he does not exist. He defies logic.

7) "Ah, I didn't think of that." says god before vanishing in a puff of logic.

(I love the hitch-hikers guide to the galaxy...)

No, not at all inconsistent. There's simply a LOT of neutrinos coming from the source.

"An nuclear power plant produces approximately 50000 neutrinos per second."

And the detection rate in that experiment was approximately 3 neutrinos per HOUR. That means out of the 1.8*10^8 neutrinos per hour that were produced, 3 were detected - that's one out of 60000000! The other 5999999 pass through undetected, as expected.

You don't see where I am drawing the blank here, do you.

A nuclear power plant produces approximately 50,000 neutrinos per second, and you can detect about 3 an hour.

Logical responses:

1) There are not 50,000 neutrinos produced per second... there are about 3 an hour - since that is all that can be detected, and, therefore, verified.

2) What is affecting the water is something about the reactor. Note: this still doesn't PROVE neutrino activity... just that 'something' happens... about 3 times an hour.

My problem with it is... if you can't 'prove' it exists - you can't claim it as a fact. There has been no proof, to my satisfaction, that a neutrino is a real particle (although I accept the theoretical basis of the argument).

*snip*

This is the same God of the Gaps invoked yet again.

The same arugments were used by the Mesopotamians and Egyptians to explain their natural surroundings which they did not understand. Mesopotamian gods were angry and vegeneful as evidenced by the unpredictable and violent flooding of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Egyptian gods were calm and peaceful as evidenced by the predictable flooding of the Nile river. As well, the Greek gods follow the same vein. All this mythology was an attempt to explain the origin of the natural world.

However, as we all know, Electricity trumped Zeus as the cause of lightning and I don't see why we should make the same mistake again.

Actually, the greatest error we make in trying to comprehend God is that we actually fool ourselves into thinking our minds can encompass the nature of such a being. You see, binding an illogical being to our laws of logic is self-defeating. Logically speaking, someone can not instantaneously turn water into wine. Logically speaking, we cannot comprehend the notion of enternity, because we are bound by our limitations. We have finite capabilities, and therefore we cannot truly understand the idea of a being without limits. That is why religious types can say that God has always existed, and that he always will exist. He existed before this universe, and he will exist after it is gone. It is illogial, and therefore fits with the nature of God. However, it is impossible to logically explain to creation of our universe, based on what we know, because it would require us to refute our own understanding of the world we live in, and constantly observed processes that have always been born out. To our knowledge, something cannot come from nothing. In our experience, there is always a source.

See, this is where your shaky grasp of science is coming back to haunt you...

It would be easy to spontaneously turn water into wine. That's not even a miracle - hell, I could do that now.

I can do it the other way, too.

We have a thorough understanding of the science that would be required to actually 'transmute' water into wine, and it could be done by science - although instantaneous might be a little more difficult.. but still, the SCIENCE that would be required is fundamental...

Similarly, it is actually relatively easy to explain, not only the spontaneous generation of the universe, but also the formation of our 'complex' systems... I am afraid this is more to do with YOUR take on the situation than any ACTUAL hardship.

I find it humourous, and very telling, that you finish with the idea that 'something' cannot come from nothing... and yet, you use that as a profession of faith in an 'infinite' god...

All this mythology was an attempt to explain the origin of the natural world.

However, as we all know, Electricity trumped Zeus as the cause of lightning and I don't see why we should make the same mistake again.



yeah i have gotto agree, christinaity didnt even exist 3000 years ago. after it was invented by someone, it began creeping across Europe, and the ancient religons like Greek, Egyptian and Norse began nto disappear, when all those peace loving new christians

oh well :headbang:

I am not sure on the origins of the universe, but the Big Bang sounds convincing to me, and the thought of a creator is out-dated superstition.
As Isaac Asimov said:
"Creationists make it sound like a ‘theory’ is something you dreamt up after being drunk all night."

The same arugments were used by the Mesopotamians and Egyptians to explain their natural surroundings which they did not understand. Mesopotamian gods were angry and vegeneful as evidenced by the unpredictable and violent flooding of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Egyptian gods were calm and peaceful as evidenced by the predictable flooding of the Nile river. As well, the Greek gods follow the same vein. All this mythology was an attempt to explain the origin of the natural world.
Actually, that's an oversimplified (and inadequate, in my opinion) explanation of the process of symbolising athropomorphised gods. The Mesopotamian gods were the planets in the heavens. Literally and figuratively. Each had astrological symbolism attached to him, that accounted not only for many of his/her godly attributes but also his/her actions. For instance, a thunder god's "anger" and "judgement" does not reflect storms in the sky but the symbolism of the planet Jupiter moving into a particular astrological alignment. Astrology was an integral part of their religion.

The out-dated thinking of gods as "primitive attempts at conceptualizing the forces which comprised the natural world and the phenomena therein... intrinsically tied to the phenomena they represented; hence Ninurta, the ancient Sumerian thunder-god, was conceptualized as a great winged lion, whose roars thundered across the lands in times of storm"(1) has been replaced by a deeper understanding of the symbolism inherent in the myths surrounding the gods. (Mythology has grown into quite a fascinating study, and I highly recommend it, at a college level, to anyone interested in such things.)

This is from the Enuma Elish, Tablets 4-5(2), the story of Marduk creating the world from Tiamat's dead body, which demonstrates the importance of astrology in their religion (of course, it helps to know something of astrology to fully appreciate it):Then the lord rested, gazing upon her dead body,
While he divided the flesh of the ..., and devised a cunning plan.
He split her up like a flat fish into two halves;
One half of her he established as a covering for heaven.
He fixed a bolt, he stationed a watchman,
And bade them not to let her waters come forth.

He passed through the heavens, he surveyed the regions (thereof),
And over against the Deep he set the dwelling of Nudimmud.
...
He made the stations for the great gods;
The stars, their images, as the stars of the Zodiac, he fixed.
He ordained the year and into sections he divided it;
For the twelve months he fixed three stars.

After he had [...] the days of the year [...] images,
He founded the station of Nibir to determine their bounds;
That none might err or go astray,
He set the station of Bêl and Ea along with him.
He opened great gates on both sides,
He made strong the bolt on the left and on the right.
In the midst thereof he fixed the zenith...
1. http://www.gatewaystobabylon.com/religion/sumrel1.htm
2. http://www.sacred-texts.com/ane/stc/stc08.htm

It would be easy to spontaneously turn water into wine. That's not even a miracle - hell, I could do that now.

I can do it the other way, too.
Haha :-) that's one of Brad's miracles, too.

You don't see where I am drawing the blank here, do you.

A nuclear power plant produces approximately 50,000 neutrinos per second, and you can detect about 3 an hour.

Logical responses:

1) There are not 50,000 neutrinos produced per second... there are about 3 an hour - since that is all that can be detected, and, therefore, verified.

2) What is affecting the water is something about the reactor. Note: this still doesn't PROVE neutrino activity... just that 'something' happens... about 3 times an hour.

My problem with it is... if you can't 'prove' it exists - you can't claim it as a fact. There has been no proof, to my satisfaction, that a neutrino is a real particle (although I accept the theoretical basis of the argument).

Well, here's how they proved it.

Originally, the Neutrino was purely theoretical. Upon calculating the energy released from a nuclear decay, they saw that some of it was missing. They postulated that this would take the form of a small particle, which would have no charge and little or no mass.

They calculated this particle's energy. They calculated what they could about what its properties were supposed to be, if it existed. They calculated how many would be emitted by this nuclear reactor, if the theory were correct; they calculated how many would react in the experiment that they set up.

They did the experiment.

The number of reactions was the same as that which was predicted by the theory.

To test whether those three collisions per hour were definitely caused by the neutrinos from the nuclear reactor, they turned off the reactor and saw that the effects of collisions were no longer observed.

Hence, this is taken to be proof of the the existence of neutrinos.

It's possible, of course, that the theory is wrong - but it explains the results well, and nobody has a different explanation that accounts for both the results and the 'lost' energy. Either way, the theory isn't complete yet, there are plenty of things that these neutrinos do that we don't understand yet - but that doesn't mean we don't have proof that what we have so far is mostly correct.

[Hmm... maybe the disconnect is that we're interpreting the word "theoretical" differently? If you mean "theoretical" in the sense of "not directly observed," then yes, that's the case - as it is with all of particle physics. We can't directly observe anything that's smaller than a single atom. All of particle physics would then classify as "theoretical." ...if you mean "theoretical" in the sense of "not proven," then I'm going to keep arguing.]

Isn't the concept of God creating out of the void the same as the big bang coming from nothing?

I think the point is God transcends our scientific laws. If our scientific laws transcend themselves they are basically hooey. Just clarfiying. :)

I have to ask why people seem sooooooooo freaked at the the mere idea there might possibly be a God. Ah well I guess I can understand since many people who believe in God use it as an excuse to hurt other people.

But chew on this... there may be a God that has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with what the intolerant bible thumping crowd have in mind. In other words, the Judeo Christian God (or what the seeming majority believe him/her/it to be) may not exisit, the Muslim God may not exist, the...well you get the idea. However, there could very well be a force beyond our understanding that created the initial singularity of our universe. And if so...it just might not hurt you!

The only problem with this is that you could say the same thing about the Creator as the original dust:

Where did the Creator come from, where did his power come from, it had to originate somewhere.

/sigh Ummm no. The concept of God defies all reason. The concept of God defies all science. The concept of God as creator means that God itself does not need to be originated itself. That is the entire POINT of the concept of a God. (Please do not confuse the concept of a God or creating force with organized religion)

Well, here's how they proved it.

Originally, the Neutrino was purely theoretical. Upon calculating the energy released from a nuclear decay, they saw that some of it was missing. They postulated that this would take the form of a small particle, which would have no charge and little or no mass.

They calculated this particle's energy. They calculated what they could about what its properties were supposed to be, if it existed. They calculated how many would be emitted by this nuclear reactor, if the theory were correct; they calculated how many would react in the experiment that they set up.

They did the experiment.

The number of reactions was the same as that which was predicted by the theory.

To test whether those three collisions per hour were definitely caused by the neutrinos from the nuclear reactor, they turned off the reactor and saw that the effects of collisions were no longer observed.

Hence, this is taken to be proof of the the existence of neutrinos.

It's possible, of course, that the theory is wrong - but it explains the results well, and nobody has a different explanation that accounts for both the results and the 'lost' energy. Either way, the theory isn't complete yet, there are plenty of things that these neutrinos do that we don't understand yet - but that doesn't mean we don't have proof that what we have so far is mostly correct.

[Hmm... maybe the disconnect is that we're interpreting the word "theoretical" differently? If you mean "theoretical" in the sense of "not directly observed," then yes, that's the case - as it is with all of particle physics. We can't directly observe anything that's smaller than a single atom. All of particle physics would then classify as "theoretical." ...if you mean "theoretical" in the sense of "not proven," then I'm going to keep arguing.]

First: That isn't a proof. That is evidence that can be used to support a theory, perhaps... but it is a long way from proving one theory over another.

You, and those who have told you this is 'proof' and 'fact' make too many assumptions.

And ignored little fallacies... how could they calculate the charge of the particle? There has been no direct observation, and at that point, it was entirely hypothetical.... couple that with their estimates of how many were liberated, what did they base that on??? Obviously, on the amount of charge they calculated might be associated with one particle...

Also.. they 'turned off' the nuclear reactor? And that is proof, yes? You do realise that radioactive decay doesn't have an 'on/off' switch? Sure you can stop the primary reaction, by inhibiting it, or by removing a reaction mass... but you are still left with radioactive material, that keeps on decaying.

See, my theory would be that it isn't about particulate matter at all, it is about radiation (but not of the alpha, beta or gamma species), and I would further argue that 'stray particles' in a water tank were most likely traces of a radioactive interference, or a radioactive interaction with some more mundane particle - hence the rarity.

I most certainly mean theoretical in the context of 'not directly observed', but also in the sense of 'not proven', since it hasn't been.

And, I have some bad news for you... all sub-atomic theory IS theory.

Even our understanding of the electron changes continuously.

/sigh Ummm no. The concept of God defies all reason. The concept of God defies all science. The concept of God as creator means that God itself does not need to be originated itself. That is the entire POINT of the concept of a God. (Please do not confuse the concept of a God or creating force with organized religion)

Beautiful.

Got to be a contender for the greatest quote of the thread.

"The concept of God defies all reason".

Of course, you can take what you want from that sentence...

The Universe is a sine wave function - it never begins nor ends, simply flips between positive and negative polarities.

It didn't start anywhere, it will never end.

Is there a "God"? Sorta, yes, but not an old man in a robe whacking people over the head who disagree with ten scribbles on rocks. A better way to visualize would be...

Imagine a billion sided diamond. Now, all you can see is one facet. However, every other person looking at the diamond can see another facet. No one has a complete view, only a small piece of the whole.

Anyone mind if I say "diety" for "God"? No? Thanks. Much better. The term has gotten so maligned and malformed.

Is there "intelligent design/Creation" or "evolution"? Feh - dumb question.

Evolution is the means by which intelligent design is achieved. The main problem I've seen from the Creationists is their hatred of the idea their bodies came from monkeys.

Uhm, folks? Its in the text. You aren't these dust forms. Stop worrying about where they came from, it doesn't matter. You could be intelligent slugs. No difference.

More later, after I get jumped a few times.

My beliefs on creation are thus.

Genesis, whatsoever we can gain from reading it, tell us, in my mind, but one important thing: God created. How long it took, and how he did it, doesn't matter to me, what does matter is that He created. Whether He merely made things come into existence by His will alone or not is a matter of contention for Christian theologians.
But NS isn't a reknowned gathering place of Christian theologists. So, I offer this explanation. the Big Bang probably did happen. Macro-evolution even may have happened. But, it was all guided by God's hand, because He wanted to create a universe, and wanted to set it up according to the laws He had set in place to govern it.
I even know a few people who are not Christians, or really religious, who think that at the very least there is some guiding force in the universe.
Thats my two cents worth.

Good show, my friend.

"To you I'm an atheist; to God, I'm the Loyal Opposition."

Woody Allen

One of the earlier arguments is that the Big Bang singularity had to come from somewhere.

Well, as Stephen Hawking wrote in his book A Brief History of the Universe, if we were able to step outside the universe and look at it from a five-dimensional perspective, we might see that there was no Big Bang singularity. It just looks like a singularity from our three-dimensional perspective-- that is, as part of a three-dimensional cross-section of a four-dimensional hypertoroid on the surface of a five-dimensional hyperhypersphere.

Of course, this is just a mathematical description that happens to be entirely consistent with what we have observed about the universe, which also guarantees that the universe should look approximately like it does. Should this mathematical model be accurate, God is not guaranteed to exist. (He still can, He's just not necessary to insure that the universe is habitable.)

There is no God becuase there cannot be an uncaused cause the idea is completely stupid.

If god created us who created god? God but if he created him self that means he caused him self? Wham you get an infinite regress.

Therefore ockams Razor sujests, that there is no cause.

Stop buring books and think for a second, why does there need to be a cause. The world is not perfect quantum mechanics has proved that, and the universe in entireity will eventually disperse into blackness, As for the Big bang a think some one allready mentioned steven hawkins, well in his new book Universe in a nut shell, he sujest that in fact the discurction and creation of unviverses is a constant procress on an N-th dimensional scale.

Therefore there is no creator as what created the creator. You cannot have an uncaused cause it just makes no sense unless your mind isunt cloulded by blind faith. The whole idea of creation in itself is a stupid antiquated idea, from a time when religion opressed the world on mass, and so is a product of an imperfect outlook on the status of the universe.

And ignored little fallacies... how could they calculate the charge of the particle?


"Law" of conservation of charge.


There has been no direct observation, and at that point, it was entirely hypothetical.... couple that with their estimates of how many were liberated, what did they base that on??? Obviously, on the amount of charge they calculated might be associated with one particle...


Conservation of energy, I think. The assumption was that one neutrino would be liberated from a single reaction of a certain type...

Ok, I looked it up - beta decay was the reaction that was leaking energy to somewhere. That's where a neutron emits an electron to become a proton.


Also.. they 'turned off' the nuclear reactor? And that is proof, yes? You do realise that radioactive decay doesn't have an 'on/off' switch? Sure you can stop the primary reaction, by inhibiting it, or by removing a reaction mass... but you are still left with radioactive material, that keeps on decaying.


Yes, but the key feature of a nuclear reactor isn't just radioactive decay - that happens naturally too. What separates a reactor from naturally-occurring-decay is the fact that we set up conditions to cause a chain reaction - that goes much faster than it would otherwise. By removing those conditions - say, by separating the reacting material into portions which are individually less than critical mass - we can "turn off" the reactor, i.e. decrease the amount of radioactivity by several orders of magnitude.


See, my theory would be that it isn't about particulate matter at all, it is about radiation (but not of the alpha, beta or gamma species), and I would further argue that 'stray particles' in a water tank were most likely traces of a radioactive interference, or a radioactive interaction with some more mundane particle - hence the rarity.


It's definitely something from the radioactivity of the reactor - it goes away when the reactor is removed from the picture.

Well, if it were some more mundane particle - that leaves two questions.
1) Where does that extra energy from the reaction go, if there isn't a particle emitted?
2) Why is that hypothetical "mundane" particle never detected anywhere except where we would expect a neutrino would appear?

[BTW, the neutrino as it was proposed originally it was pretty mundane. It was just a neutral particle with a very small (possibly zero) mass. ]

Ok, I looked it up -
http://www.ps.uci.edu/physics/news/nuexpt.html
details on the experiment.

Basically, if a neutrino was emitted in the reaction, they realized that a proton absorbing a neutrino would trigger the reverse reaction. They looked for something that would indicate that specific reaction occurred - the result of the positron annihilating with an electron (which would create two gamma rays of energy 0.5 MeV in opposite directions) and the capture of a neutron by cadmium dissolved in water, which would also emit gamma rays of a certain energy (they didn't give details on that site). The evidence of the neutrino reaction would be the detection of the gamma rays from the positron and from the neutron at a certain time interval.


Even our understanding of the electron changes continuously.

Yes, but that doesn't mean we doubt whether the electron exists or not.

[ok, I'm gonna give to you the fact that it's "theoretical" - nobody's ever held/seen a neutron and nobody ever will, just like nobody's ever directly observed the curvature of spacetime. I do maintain that there is sufficient evidence for it that we are fairly sure it exists, though it's properties are under debate.]

This is the same God of the Gaps invoked yet again.

The same arugments were used by the Mesopotamians and Egyptians to explain their natural surroundings which they did not understand. Mesopotamian gods were angry and vegeneful as evidenced by the unpredictable and violent flooding of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Egyptian gods were calm and peaceful as evidenced by the predictable flooding of the Nile river. As well, the Greek gods follow the same vein. All this mythology was an attempt to explain the origin of the natural world.

However, as we all know, Electricity trumped Zeus as the cause of lightning and I don't see why we should make the same mistake again.

I'm not sure which of my posts your are refering to since you snipped the entire post. But it does not matter. Since I am actually reading your end of the conversation, I can see why you are misunderstanding me.

Its my fault really, for using the word "God". I choose to define my concept of God a certain way, but the word "God" really does have a specific defined meaning that comes with its own baggage. Unfortunately, there IS no word for what I am talking about.

MY feeling is there are things in this universe that are not known. Disagree? If so stop reading we are done. If not keep going. Of these unknown things, some will eventually be known. Others will never be known because they are unknowable. Just because something is unknowable does not mean it is automatically supernatural, however. My concept of God is that which can not be known or reasoned, yet IS.

Science seems to point to the idea that the universe will end. It also points to the idea that the universe began. If we assume the universe began, there was an initial creation, a start point. Some unknowable (at least at this point) event took place. This event had a catalyst of some sort.

The only way to truely argue the universe was not created is to argue it does not exist, or possibly to argue it is infinite. (never began never will end, always was) The only thing to argue is whether the creator or catalyst was a he, she or it and whether the creation was a conscious act done by an "intelligent" form or force. I do not claim to know the he, she or it answer or the conscious act answer.

What is all this talk of a crater? Of course there is a crater. Heck, there are lots of craters. The moon is covered with them. There is a big one in Arizona. Why, I even saw...

What?

Creator?

Oh.



Never mind...

(nod to Gilda Radner)

Problem is you cant prove your side of the arguement either, that an all

knowing God doesnt exist, and until you can give me absolute proof of that

fact, I'll try to stick with Christianity.

You have admitted how insignificant the Earth is, but humanity isnt.

To "Quote" from the Rocky horror show

'On a lonley speck in Space

drifts an innocence called the human race

Lost in time and space and in meaning'.

I believe their is an all knowing force behind creation, something so huge and

powerful, we can not even mentally grasp it.

Mankinds intelligence has made it aware of this presence, our religous efforts

are solid proof of this.
was i making an arguement?
i was asking a question
how do you go from "there has to be a creator" to "the creator is this specific entity"?

to me, the "logical" assumption of there having to have been an intelligent start to the universe leads me no-where. it does NOT lead to "jesus died on the cross for my sins".

many people find this "there must be a creator" argument very compelling. i would like to know just WHY you feel it leads you to christianity. i see no logical connection between the 2.

surely the need for a creator can just as logically lead you to the greek pantheon or the hindu creation theory as to the judeo-christian god. so where is the "missing link" that i dont see?

In my opinion, the god (if there is such thing) is a hopeless drug addict. Everyone knows that it took 7 days for him/her/it to create the world before he had to rest. What was the stuff that kept him going for all this time? Amphetamine keeps one awake for only 5 days. He must have mixed up some really fancy stuff any addict would like to get their fingers on. And if he's always looking after us from up there, he's using something that has made him stay up for, say, 4 billion years. What do you say about that, hey?

"Law" of conservation of charge.

Conservation of energy, I think. The assumption was that one neutrino would be liberated from a single reaction of a certain type...

Ok, I looked it up - beta decay was the reaction that was leaking energy to somewhere. That's where a neutron emits an electron to become a proton.

Yes, but the key feature of a nuclear reactor isn't just radioactive decay - that happens naturally too. What separates a reactor from naturally-occurring-decay is the fact that we set up conditions to cause a chain reaction - that goes much faster than it would otherwise. By removing those conditions - say, by separating the reacting material into portions which are individually less than critical mass - we can "turn off" the reactor, i.e. decrease the amount of radioactivity by several orders of magnitude.

It's definitely something from the radioactivity of the reactor - it goes away when the reactor is removed from the picture.

Well, if it were some more mundane particle - that leaves two questions.
1) Where does that extra energy from the reaction go, if there isn't a particle emitted?
2) Why is that hypothetical "mundane" particle never detected anywhere except where we would expect a neutrino would appear?

[BTW, the neutrino as it was proposed originally it was pretty mundane. It was just a neutral particle with a very small (possibly zero) mass. ]

Ok, I looked it up -
http://www.ps.uci.edu/physics/news/nuexpt.html
details on the experiment.

Basically, if a neutrino was emitted in the reaction, they realized that a proton absorbing a neutrino would trigger the reverse reaction. They looked for something that would indicate that specific reaction occurred - the result of the positron annihilating with an electron (which would create two gamma rays of energy 0.5 MeV in opposite directions) and the capture of a neutron by cadmium dissolved in water, which would also emit gamma rays of a certain energy (they didn't give details on that site). The evidence of the neutrino reaction would be the detection of the gamma rays from the positron and from the neutron at a certain time interval.

Yes, but that doesn't mean we doubt whether the electron exists or not.

[ok, I'm gonna give to you the fact that it's "theoretical" - nobody's ever held/seen a neutron and nobody ever will, just like nobody's ever directly observed the curvature of spacetime. I do maintain that there is sufficient evidence for it that we are fairly sure it exists, though it's properties are under debate.]

Okay - I read the link you posted, and, in combination with all I already knew about neutrino theory... I still don't see how that proves anything... the article posted admits that the neutrino theory was a response to uncertainty, and that it seems to fit the gaps - it also admits that the whole field of 'neutrino physics' is experimental.

The neutrino is a concept here... it is being used to 'explain' certain factors, and it is a convenient 'carrier', if you like. That doesn't mean that it is a REAL particle.

For years, the model of the electron was some kind of solid ball that orbits the massive centre of an atom - but increasing awareness is making that image less and less convincing... the 'electron' is becoming less of a reality as we explore deeper into the atom, and more obvious that it is just a 'tool' for calculation... an easy rationalisation of something far more complex.

So, too - with the neutrino... it is a convenient 'package'... but that doesn't equate to any degree of reality or actuality. It's just how we describe cetain phenomena... at the moment.

Okay - I read the link you posted, and, in combination with all I already knew about neutrino theory... I still don't see how that proves anything... the article posted admits that the neutrino theory was a response to uncertainty, and that it seems to fit the gaps - it also admits that the whole field of 'neutrino physics' is experimental.

The neutrino is a concept here... it is being used to 'explain' certain factors, and it is a convenient 'carrier', if you like. That doesn't mean that it is a REAL particle.

For years, the model of the electron was some kind of solid ball that orbits the massive centre of an atom - but increasing awareness is making that image less and less convincing... the 'electron' is becoming less of a reality as we explore deeper into the atom, and more obvious that it is just a 'tool' for calculation... an easy rationalisation of something far more complex.

So, too - with the neutrino... it is a convenient 'package'... but that doesn't equate to any degree of reality or actuality. It's just how we describe cetain phenomena... at the moment.

Okay, I think we're on the same page now. I just use different terminology. If you accept that the existence of a neutrino is equally valid as the existence of an electron, then we're on the same page. (Neutrino does have less evidence for it than electrons though, no denying that. To most scientists in the field, it's enough evidence).

Yes, in essence, all the subatomic particles are convenient packages for calculation. Nobody's ever seen a single electron; we can measure that charge only seems to come in certain increments, and that atoms behave in such and such a way, and the idea that there are these waves/particles/thingamabobbers that we call electrons would explain it all very neatly and enable us to do useful calculations. Same with neutrinos - there's missing energy, we suppose that it's carried away by these somethings that we call neutrinos, and it gives us useful predictions and lets us calculate things that we couldn't before. I use that to say "they exist," you say "they're theoretical constructs" - I just use more vehement words.