NationStates Jolt Archive

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.

Why should we beleive you, Mac the Man? You can't even spell ridiculous correctly? The Big Bang theory is as follows: Dust particles collected from everywhere in space and expanded, combusting and creating the solar system/universe(s). Who created the dust? Who made it expand? I see where WrigleyIvy is coming from, also, The Darwin Theory needs support. Who made the first amoeba that evolved into a fish or whatever? There has to be some sort of supreme being that caused it all. No matter which was you look at it.

Why should we beleive you, Mac the Man? You can't even spell ridiculous correctly? The Big Bang theory is as follows: Dust particles collected from everywhere in space and expanded, combusting and creating the solar system/universe(s). Who created the dust? Who made it expand? I see where WrigleyIvy is coming from, also, The Darwin Theory needs support. Who made the first amoeba that evolved into a fish or whatever? There has to be some sort of supreme being that caused it all. No matter which was you look at it.
well there has to be a FIRST being (maybe) but why does that being have to be SUPREME? why cant it just be a lucky INFERIOR being?

Why should we beleive you, Mac the Man? You can't even spell ridiculous correctly? The Big Bang theory is as follows: Dust particles collected from everywhere in space and expanded, combusting and creating the solar system/universe(s). Who created the dust? Who made it expand? I see where WrigleyIvy is coming from, also, The Darwin Theory needs support. Who made the first amoeba that evolved into a fish or whatever? There has to be some sort of supreme being that caused it all. No matter which was you look at it.
why does any of it need to have been created by a being? why couldn't those things have been created by forces or inanimate events, rather than by a conscious effort by some intelligent creature?

Everything that could possibly happen does happen, always, in the same place and time. Only the presence of Mind-Spirit differentiates this world from such utter chaos of possibility. The world exists because G-d is paying attention to it.

Beats me. I don't have a degree in physics. It is, however, a well-documented phenomenon.

I do. It's called quantum uncertainty, and it does NOT cause matter-energy to be created or destroyed. Nor does Hawking radiation (subspace particle-antiparticle tunneling/exchange through the event horizon of a black hole.)

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

What came first, the chicken or the egg?

:eek: :sniper:

The egg came first, because G-d created fish before He created chickens, and the female fish had eggs in their ovaries. :D

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.

...since this thing has come back to life, apparently, or since I did ot notice it until now.

I just want to say that the above quoted post is very condescending, and rather foolishly so considering that you, a poster with the username "Gnostikos", had just admitted that you had previously not recognized that the previous poster was speaking in mystical terms.

Just venting. :D

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

No I don't.

my view on creation: God made the big bang, shaped everything together and planted a few dinosaur bones and stuff to fool the archaoligists (sp)

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.

Totally wrong. :(

Science provides methods for choosing the best possible explaination of available evidence. It proves nothing. Unless you take its conclusions on faith to be true, and then it's not science, it's a religion.

my view on creation: God made the big bang, shaped everything together and planted a few dinosaur bones and stuff to fool the archaoligists (sp)

Are you sure that it wasn't H.R. "Bob" Dobbs that did that? ;)

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.

It obviously means that when you can alter the laws of reality, you can then say that there is no G-d.

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 doubt that anyone living knows the status of Segan's beliefs. :(

Totally wrong. :(

Science provides methods for choosing the best possible explaination of available evidence. It proves nothing. Unless you take its conclusions on faith to be true, and then it's not science, it's a religion.
*sigh* read my post again. IF one accepts the basic premises of science, mainly the premises of materialism and cause and effect, it is quite possible to prove any number of things. now, that is a big IF, and does not apply to the big theories and hypotheses that people tend to debate. but as somebody who has worked and lived in science for pretty much her entire life, i can assure you that many things can be proven by science if the big IF is complied with.

you need to keep in mind that science defines hypotheses in such a way that they can be answered. for example, i am currently helping to finish up a project to test the hypothesis that a particular drug is effective in treating a particular syndrome; our results prove that this drug causes positive, reliable results, and our imaging data proves that the drug is interacting exactly where we guessed it would be. our use of controls confirms that no other agent is responsible for the effects we see with the drug, and without the drug the positive effects are not observed. we use science and science alone in my lab, and we have just proven that our drug is effective. now, we must assume materialism and cause and effect to do this, because all of scientific work depends on this, but that fits just fine with my original description.

...since this thing has come back to life, apparently, or since I did ot notice it until now.

I just want to say that the above quoted post is very condescending, and rather foolishly so considering that you, a poster with the username "Gnostikos", had just admitted that you had previously not recognized that the previous poster was speaking in mystical terms.

Just venting. :D
Thank you :-)

*sigh* read my post again. IF one accepts the basic premises of science, mainly the premises of materialism and cause and effect, it is quite possible to prove any number of things. now, that is a big IF, and does not apply to the big theories and hypotheses that people tend to debate. but as somebody who has worked and lived in science for pretty much her entire life, i can assure you that many things can be proven by science if the big IF is complied with.

you need to keep in mind that science defines hypotheses in such a way that they can be answered. for example, i am currently helping to finish up a project to test the hypothesis that a particular drug is effective in treating a particular syndrome; our results prove that this drug causes positive, reliable results, and our imaging data proves that the drug is interacting exactly where we guessed it would be. our use of controls confirms that no other agent is responsible for the effects we see with the drug, and without the drug the positive effects are not observed. we use science and science alone in my lab, and we have just proven that our drug is effective. now, we must assume materialism and cause and effect to do this, because all of scientific work depends on this, but that fits just fine with my original description.

So your current best theory is to say that the drug is responsible for the positive effects. IF you have faith is materialistic cause and effect and IF you have faith in your own and your team's methodology and that you have not overlooked any other possible causes, then it is reasonable to believe that your conclusions represent a theory that might very well never become superceded by a better one.



Science

1. The observation, identification, description, experimental investigation, and theoretical explanation of phenomena.
2. Such activities restricted to explaining a limitied class of natural phenomena.
3. Such activities applied to an object of inquiry or study.



I repeat: science is not about proving ideas true, it is about demonstrating evidence that a given theoretical paradigm explains the evidence better than any other. Find me any valid definition of "science" anywhere that mentions proof of truth, other than in a negative context, and I will recant.