Science for Religion A - proof of God Creation .

You can just look around and see all of this was designed, give me a break. Stereo vision, stereo hearing, the complexity of the cell and DNA, the fact that there are fruit trees and vegetables that taste good, the fact that we have what it takes to make ice cream is enough. How could one be so numb to not see it.
Sorry, it just seems so obvious to me, Like we make things and create things from stuff that was already here on this earth, all of this was also made by an intelligence far greater than us.
All you have to do is look around and it is more than proof enough.

OK flame on....

When we get older we loose sight of the magic that envelops us because our brain labels everything it observes, causing us to forever see labels, instead of the real beauty of creation.

So even though we exist on a rock, with a smidgen of atmosphere, surrounded by a near perfect vacuum, with 1.989 × 10^30 kg of hydrogen fusing hydrogen into helium nearby, to keep us warm.

People will accept it as normal because they see labels, not the reality behind the labels.

If there isn't a GOD then GOD help us, its all for naught.

originally posted by: glend
When we get older we loose sight of the magic that envelops us because our brain labels everything it observes, causing us to forever see labels, instead of the real beauty of creation.

So even though we exist on a rock, with a smidgen of atmosphere, surrounded by a near perfect vacuum, with 1.989 × 10^30 kg of hydrogen fusing hydrogen into helium nearby, to keep us warm.

People will accept it as normal because they see labels, not the reality behind the labels.

If there isn't a GOD then GOD help us, its all for naught.

how so? you think god is the only thing that can give us meaning? the only thing that makes existence worthwhile? a good life well lived is its own reward. people buy life insurance in case something happens to them. its basically you betting against yourself. religion is life insurance for people who plan on failing. plan on succeeding and you wont need it.

originally posted by: TzarChasm

originally posted by: chr0naut

originally posted by: TzarChasm

originally posted by: chr0naut
a reply to: midnightstar

There are more fine-tuned values than just this.

The improbabilities just stretch and stretch, the more you know.

Of course the 'standard' response to this is to say that it has to be this way, or we wouldn't exist to observe it. But this is a non-answer - a 'no think' statement.

At some point, one must abandon the supposition that the universe we find ourselves in, just happened by accident.

A supernatural origin for the universe is not the un-evidenced proposition.

"At some point, one must abandon the supposition that the universe we find ourselves in, just happened by accident." this statement sounds like a supposition to me, keeping in mind that conviction is not certainty anymore than opinion is fact.

Consider this:

In a simple system with few elements, the probability of random actions leading to a particular outcome is small:

Imagine two bricks in an enclosed space (a packing crate). Shaking the space randomises the scenario and one possible outcome is that the bricks will end up with one brick stacked upon another.

Increasing the volume of the space (say to a shipping container) decreases the probability that the bricks will end up one upon another.

Increasing the number of bricks to three also decreases the probability that all three will end up stacked upon each other.

So we can see that increasing the volume and increasing the elements vastly decreases the probability that a particular configuration (even one as simple as stacking) will be the result of randomisation.

Now expand that to apply to the size and content of the universe.

Of course, one may then suggest that there have been innumerable randomisations and that this raises the probability. Yet these randomising events take time. The physical movement of matter takes time. The birth and deaths of stars and the nucleosynthesis that occurs within them, takes time. The 'randomisation' events are far fewer when you consider that some of the most primary steps require stellar lifetimes.

The net result is that the observed universe could not have arisen by random factors in the time-frame of its existence. It is improbable to an enormous degree.

Any paradigm that depends upon actions so counter to reason, mathematics and physics is obviously false.

its fascinating that you have such great difficulty wrestling with improbable scenarios that you default to fantastically impossible solutions. solutions that cant be measured or calculated, solutions that depend on the plot holes in our investigative tools and techniques to retain just a shred of plausibility. how many improbable explanations turned out to be exactly correct?

My previous post suggested scenarios entirely explicable and measurable with mathematical probability, physical metrics and reason.

how many times has religion apologized for punishing the minds who produced those seemingly improbable but very astute explanations? how many times has religion all but plagiarized the credibility of accomplished scientists in order to promote unrelated models of morals and metaphysics as though science isnt disproving religious theory every day?

Religion has unfairly punished a few scientists and theoreticians. In defence of those with a religious viewpoint, how many did the Hiroshima bomb kill or injure? It was built by scientists, not clerics!

The mistreatment of one human being by another is an unfortunate thing but it doesn't actually disqualify either a religious or scientific belief.

The fact that many scientists are also religious underlines that the dichotomy of 'science versus religion' is false and superficial. Science and religion are not constantly disproving each other in some long-standing battle. Both science and religion agree on some things but are essentially not overlapping fields of study. Science will not find God and religion will never split the atom.

your skepticism rings hollow in the ears of all of who have eyes to see. for physics and mathematics being so false, it is strange that religion keeps copying their homework. trying to wedge a dying god into any little gap you can find.

A dying god would require existence.

The gaps in our knowledge are not small.

... and just for good measure, if matter can arise from quantum fluctuations, how do those virtual particles become real? What sort of forces are required to 'calve off' one of those supersymmetric pairs of virtual particles?

How could there be any such forces before they existed?

You see, once matter exists in significant local amounts, matter from quantum fluctuation is doable (in theory), but if no Bosons exist, there are no forces and the virtual particles annihilate back to nothingness.

You cant 'make' forces and matter unless you first have forces and matter.

originally posted by: TzarChasm

originally posted by: glend
When we get older we loose sight of the magic that envelops us because our brain labels everything it observes, causing us to forever see labels, instead of the real beauty of creation.

So even though we exist on a rock, with a smidgen of atmosphere, surrounded by a near perfect vacuum, with 1.989 × 10^30 kg of hydrogen fusing hydrogen into helium nearby, to keep us warm.

People will accept it as normal because they see labels, not the reality behind the labels.

If there isn't a GOD then GOD help us, its all for naught.

how so? you think god is the only thing that can give us meaning? the only thing that makes existence worthwhile? a good life well lived is its own reward. people buy life insurance in case something happens to them. its basically you betting against yourself. religion is life insurance for people who plan on failing. plan on succeeding and you wont need it.

You know someone who has succeeded in not dying?

Life insurance isn't a bet. There is no gambling involved. It is prudent succession planning.

Both life insurance and religion are realistic assessments of the fact that this life is finite.

If you plan on just living, you will still die, it's just that what you hope to occur beyond your death will die with you.

a reply to: TzarChasm

If we were nothingness for 13+ billion years then a 80 year life is a blink of an eye, hardly worth recognizing, adding nothing to the universe. Whereas everything else seems to have function.

Religion isn't life insurance in terms of Hinduism/Buddhism. Life in Buddhism is recognize as a period of spiritual growth, to work out our fears and loves, so we can evolve. It is seen as a dream that we will one day awaken from. Not all that different to dreams we experience at night.

Do you deny the possibility that you are in a dream?

a reply to: chr0naut

My previous post suggested scenarios entirely explicable and measurable with mathematical probability, physical metrics and reason.

scenarios that are, in a word, improbable. scenarios that are also, theoretically, inevitable. depending on how deeply you subscribe to multiverse theory and a thousand monkeys with typewriters banging away for a thousand years.

Religion has unfairly punished a few scientists and theoreticians. In defence of those with a religious viewpoint, how many did the Hiroshima bomb kill or injure? It was built by scientists, not clerics!

the atomic bomb was far more humane than nailing someone to a couple pieces of wood to maximize suffering and publicity. im not defending it as a method, but i am saying that it was an impersonal weapon made to avert far greater tragedy. science may have invented a means of horrifically efficient mass murder, but men of god invented a means of inflicting horrific mass terror. the kind of terror that makes you beg for death because death is less terrifying. and many did not deserve it. not just "a few scientists".

The mistreatment of one human being by another is an unfortunate thing but it doesn't actually disqualify either a religious or scientific belief.

The fact that many scientists are also religious underlines that the dichotomy of 'science versus religion' is false and superficial. Science and religion are not constantly disproving each other in some long-standing battle. Both science and religion agree on some things but are essentially not overlapping fields of study. Science will not find God and religion will never split the atom.

many scientists are religious because they may practice scientific methods with scientific tools, but they are still humans. they still experience irrational sensations that defy their logistics and their measuring equipment. they have no solid answer but they see no harm in humoring it. it is as relevant to their work as their sexuality or their diet.

A dying god would require existence.

The gaps in our knowledge are not small.

... and just for good measure, if matter can arise from quantum fluctuations, how do those virtual particles become real? What sort of forces are required to 'calve off' one of those supersymmetric pairs of virtual particles?

How could there be any such forces before they existed?

a pedantic response. no less than what i expected from a mind of your caliber. i dont pretend to comprehend the finer points of quantum mechanics. specialists in the field barely do. and they are perpetually bewildered by their measurements and data. what this amounts to is basically a big neon INCONCLUSIVE. anything else is speculation and hypotheses. feel free to show the big boys at cern what you can do if you feel like you are up to it. they probably wouldnt mind an extra set of hands.

You cant 'make' forces and matter unless you first have forces and matter.

aaaaand we are circling back around to the infinite regression conundrum. who made the god who made the god who made the god who made your god? since a being of such grandeur and majestic sophistication couldnt just happen on its own....

If we were nothingness for 13+ billion years then a 80 year life is a blink of an eye, hardly worth recognizing, adding nothing to the universe. Whereas everything else seems to have function.

Religion isn't life insurance in terms of Hinduism/Buddhism. Life in Buddhism is recognize as a period of spiritual growth, to work out our fears and loves, so we can evolve. It is seen as a dream that we will one day awaken from. Not all that different to dreams we experience at night.

Do you deny the possibility that you are in a dream?

technically speaking, if we must be absolutely perfectly completely technical, this entire galaxy is pointless. from the cosmic perspective anyway. no more purpose than any other galaxy out of billions and billions and billions...do you suppose an ant serves a purpose? a bacteria? any of the numerous microscopic lifeforms on the bottom of your shoe? do you think cancer cells have meaning?

originally posted by: TzarChasm
a reply to: chr0naut

My previous post suggested scenarios entirely explicable and measurable with mathematical probability, physical metrics and reason.

scenarios that are, in a word, improbable. scenarios that are also, theoretically, inevitable. depending on how deeply you subscribe to multiverse theory and a thousand monkeys with typewriters banging away for a thousand years.

My scenario's involved a packing crate, a shipping container and some bricks. These things are not normally conceived of as being improbable.



But it was entirely my point that what science proposes (matter from nothingness due to quantum fluctuations) is highly improbable, so, are you agreeing with me here?

As one increases complexity and spatial volume, the asymptote describing improbability tends towards infinity. This means that, scaling things up, even over vast numbers of repetitions of randomising events, things will continue to move away from inevitability and towards impossibility.

There is no "theoretical inevitability" - it is a concept built entirely on unfounded assumption, not measurement and calculation.

Religion has unfairly punished a few scientists and theoreticians. In defence of those with a religious viewpoint, how many did the Hiroshima bomb kill or injure? It was built by scientists, not clerics!

the atomic bomb was far more humane than nailing someone to a couple pieces of wood to maximize suffering and publicity. im not defending it as a method, but i am saying that it was an impersonal weapon made to avert far greater tragedy. science may have invented a means of horrifically efficient mass murder,

Yes Dr. Strangelove.



And.. it was the Persians that invented crucifixion and were copied by the Roman armies. It wasn't invented by the religious ones at all.

but men of god invented a means of inflicting horrific mass terror. the kind of terror that makes you beg for death because death is less terrifying. and many did not deserve it. not just "a few scientists".

Oooh, mass terror! Begging for death! ... but wait a minute, all those happy sunday school kids singing their "Jesus Loves Me" songs, that's somehow worse that the threat of atomic war?

Get real.

The mistreatment of one human being by another is an unfortunate thing but it doesn't actually disqualify either a religious or scientific belief.

The fact that many scientists are also religious underlines that the dichotomy of 'science versus religion' is false and superficial. Science and religion are not constantly disproving each other in some long-standing battle. Both science and religion agree on some things but are essentially not overlapping fields of study. Science will not find God and religion will never split the atom.

many scientists are religious because they may practice scientific methods with scientific tools, but they are still humans. they still experience irrational sensations that defy their logistics and their measuring equipment. they have no solid answer but they see no harm in humoring it. it is as relevant to their work as their sexuality or their diet.

Except for cosmologists and other physicists, where it is actually relevant to their work.

A dying god would require existence. The gaps in our knowledge are not small. ... and just for good measure, if matter can arise from quantum fluctuations, how do those virtual particles become real? What sort of forces are required to 'calve off' one of those supersymmetric pairs of virtual particles?
How could there be any such forces before they existed?

a pedantic response. no less than what i expected from a mind of your caliber.

You Americans - everything must relate to your guns!

i dont pretend to comprehend the finer points of quantum mechanics. specialists in the field barely do. and they are perpetually bewildered by their measurements and data. what this amounts to is basically a big neon INCONCLUSIVE. anything else is speculation and hypotheses.

Inconclusive, except, of course, when you use it as your argument.

feel free to show the big boys at cern what you can do if you feel like you are up to it. they probably wouldnt mind an extra set of hands.

It might surprise you but there's physicists all over the place. CERN is just one experimental lab.

You cant 'make' forces and matter unless you first have forces and matter.

aaaaand we are circling back around to the infinite regression conundrum. who made the god who made the god who made the god who made your god? since a being of such grandeur and majestic sophistication couldnt just happen on its own....

Although we know our physical universe is bounded by temporal constraints (requiring a chain of causality), an atemporal deity has no beginning, end, or even passage of recent moments. The God of the Bible is described as such; having no beginning or end and being the same yesterday, today and forever.

The application of a chain of causality is another reason that we know this universe must have started at some point, the universe is 'time bound'.

But there are many atemporal things, things such as numbers and meanings are not temporally bound, as are many concepts that we rely on for science and measurement to 'make sense'. So an atemporal God is not an absurd concept philosophically, or even from a scientific standpoint. Atemporality is essential in some things.

If we were nothingness for 13+ billion years then a 80 year life is a blink of an eye, hardly worth recognizing, adding nothing to the universe. Whereas everything else seems to have function. Religion isn't life insurance in terms of Hinduism/Buddhism. Life in Buddhism is recognize as a period of spiritual growth, to work out our fears and loves, so we can evolve. It is seen as a dream that we will one day awaken from. Not all that different to dreams we experience at night. Do you deny the possibility that you are in a dream?

technically speaking, if we must be absolutely perfectly completely technical, this entire galaxy is pointless. from the cosmic perspective anyway. no more purpose than any other galaxy out of billions and billions and billions...do you suppose an ant serves a purpose? a bacteria? any of the numerous microscopic lifeforms on the bottom of your shoe? do you think cancer cells have meaning?

Why do you say that the galaxy is pointless? Do you have a compelling reason for that, or is it just another unreasoned assumption?

You may call upon the ant as being insignificant but if all ants became extinct, there would be massive environmental damage affecting the whole planet. Ants consume dead biological matter, both plant and animal. Without them decay would become predominantly bacterial and fungal and disease would bloom. Ants also are predatory and many species kept in check by ant abundances, primarily of insects, would assume plague proportions, further damaging the ecology of the planet.

There IS now a direction to evolution. We know how to manipulate the genome and the future will be by our will and choice.

originally posted by: TzarChasm
technically speaking, if we must be absolutely perfectly completely technical, this entire galaxy is pointless. from the cosmic perspective anyway. no more purpose than any other galaxy out of billions and billions and billions...do you suppose an ant serves a purpose? a bacteria? any of the numerous microscopic lifeforms on the bottom of your shoe? do you think cancer cells have meaning?

Hmm. This statement of yours, at least to me, seems neither technically, nor scientifically, sound. If you really want to be technical (and honest) then I guess we can say we have no idea what a galaxy actually is, in a truly objective sense. Sure, we've defined it on our own terms so that we may try and understand it in our own context. But that ain't no galaxy. And those up there that make up those pointless galaxies, they aren't stars either...

Have you seen the structure that all of those so called pointless galaxies seem to forming?

a reply to: midnightstar

I really think you should avoid the word proof, when you don't actually prove anything. This is a common fallacy committed by creationists. You guys claim "proof", but yet not a single thing you say can be tested, it's just pure guesswork. When a new idea is presented in science, they ask, "How can we test this?" Creationists say, "I don't have an explanation or understanding of everything, therefor it was god" but offer no way of testing this idea beyond assumptions and conjecture. These claims are the same old apologetic claims that have been floating around the internet for the past 20 years or so.

So your claim here is that the ocean has "the perfect amount" of salt, so it must have been created? Again, your evidence is not testable, you are expressing your opinion, not giving proof of anything. If the freezing point of salt water is -2.7 c, then why didn't the globe already get frozen into oblivion? During the last glacial period (10,000 years ago), the average temperature on earth was well below that, so why didn't it go into this regression where the entire planet freezes? Based on science, this hasn't happened on earth since 650 million years ago. One problem with your claim is that the planet still goes through seasons, so even though it may be cold and much more frozen at the polls during colder times, to actually get to the point of freezing the entire planet, you'd actually need much lower average temperatures than you claim. The actual numbers to compensate for a completely frozen earth are more like -74 degrees Fahrenheit on average and it hasn't been that cold since 650mya during the snowball earth stage. A difference of 5 degrees Fahrenheit (NOT 5%, big difference) isn't going to freeze the entire planet.

There are too many other factors involved. In order for what you say to be true, the salt content in the oceans would have to be way lower and it would have to be still, which leads me to the next point. The oceans are constantly moving. You need much cooler temperatures to freeze moving water, you have to be at least -55 degrees Fahrenheit and that's not even accounting for the salt.

So based on those numbers, you are way off with your estimation of the salt content of the oceans (which changes over time depending on how many glaciers and frozen sea water there is. You need a much bigger difference than 5%. We know this because of the past history of the planet and the fact that the oceans are constantly moving. Also even if everything you said was true, it STILL wouldn't be evidence for design. To claim design you need actual evidence in support of a designer and mechanisms of the design process that can be tested. This type of thing has NEVER been observed, so no matter how many times you appeal to coincidence or your personal faith, there is still no objective testable evidence whatsoever to support design.

If the universe was designed to be inhabited by life, then more of it would be inhabitable. As it is, virtually 0% of it is inhabitable.

Even in this tiny corner of the universe that we inhabit, almost anything can kill us if we're not careful.

originally posted by: frenchfries
entropy always increases , yet silly people on a blue marble. For me enough proof.

False. Entropy only increases in a closed / isolated system. The universe contains many open and closed systems, the entire thing isn't going to experience entropy at the same rate. This is a common creationist misunderstanding and shows you didn't even read the 2nd law of thermodynamics in its entirety. The earth receives new energy from the sun on a daily basis. There is no reason to think order cannot increase when the earth is an open system actively receiving new energy. OLD argument, dude.

originally posted by: micpsi
1. proof that the sacred geometries of some major religions are isomorphic despite their origins being separated by thousands of miles and years. This has no rational explanation other that they are equivalent representations of a universal blueprint governing all fundamental systems.

That doesn't prove a divine designer. We don't know enough about these cultures. Maybe they somehow shared information, or figured out the same principals. If one person can figure it out, surely somebody else on the other side of the planet can. There is nothing sacred about it, sorry.

2. demonstrations that these sacred geometries are not only equivalent but embody the group mathematics of E8xE8, which is one of the two symmetry groups discovered by Michael Green and Gary Schwarz in 1984 to describe superstrings whose forces are free of quantum anomalies. This proof that ancient sacred geometries and discoveries in theoretical physics contain analogous, mathematical properties has no rational explanation other than that there really IS such a thing as "Divine design" that was captured in geometrical representation of God by mystics separated by thousands of years and miles.

Except for the fact that none of that has been proved. There is no evidence that anything was ever divinely designed. You are seriously claiming that ancient man was given building blueprints and mathematical concepts from god? Coincidence is not proof.

3. precise, quantitative correlations between scientifically established facts in micro-biology, music theory and superstring theory that are so detailed and numerous that chance is absurdly too improbable to invoke as their explanation.

BS. Show me a single test to prove this and show me your probability calculations. You are once again just appealing to coincidence. If the entire universe is made of strings (which still lacks proof), then why would you be surprised that certain things have similar numbers? You guys have no clue what proof is.

4. Evidence of conceptual coherence and mathematical connectivity between the sacred geometries of different religions that can be sensibly viewed only as indicating their transcendental/divine origin - there is no alternative, more plausible way to account for this absolutely amazing congruity.

Each of your points says the same exact thing. Why break it down to 4 points when you have only made 1? This ain't proof, again, this is your personal opinion based on things that can't be proven. Yes, there are plenty of alternative explanations. You are just biased toward this one.

originally posted by: PhotonEffect

originally posted by: TzarChasm
technically speaking, if we must be absolutely perfectly completely technical, this entire galaxy is pointless. from the cosmic perspective anyway. no more purpose than any other galaxy out of billions and billions and billions...do you suppose an ant serves a purpose? a bacteria? any of the numerous microscopic lifeforms on the bottom of your shoe? do you think cancer cells have meaning?

Hmm. This statement of yours, at least to me, seems neither technically, nor scientifically, sound. If you really want to be technical (and honest) then I guess we can say we have no idea what a galaxy actually is, in a truly objective sense. Sure, we've defined it on our own terms so that we may try and understand it in our own context. But that ain't no galaxy. And those up there that make up those pointless galaxies, they aren't stars either...

Have you seen the structure that all of those so called pointless galaxies seem to forming?

yes i have seen it. and of course it is very understandable that we should interpret that image as majestic and awe inspiring and possibly even ego reinforcing. makes us feel real good about ourselves that our neurons resemble the universe. but in the same way that you dont mourn or even register every brain cell that dies every second in your head, our galaxy (a cosmic "cell" if you enjoy metaphors) is more or less irrelevant to the greater picture. a super black hole swallows our galaxy and there will be absolutely no real consequence. no more than a brain cell taking its last figurative breath while you are deep asleep.

a reply to: TzarChasm

Fair point, but we're not talking about the presumed irrelevance of a galaxy's or cell's existence. This is totally your opinion.

What you said is these things are without purpose. Naturally this was to lend credence to your overall point for the lack of design in the universe. However, irrelevance and purpose are two different concepts.

Tell a dying cancer patient that a cancer cell has no meaning. All it takes is just one cell to go rogue, and look what it can do to the entire biological system which is several orders of magnitude larger than that very cell that started it all...

Never underestimate the power (and relevance ?) of really small things.

Edit to add:

You also mentioned purposeless bacteria. How well do you think you'd fair without your microbiome keeping you alive and healthy?

a reply to: PhotonEffect

Hi Photon. Long time no see! Hope all is well. I just wanted to point out that the argument is that things don't have a DIVINE purpose, not no purpose at all. Purpose itself is kind of a relative term, because there is no way to test this.

The ID proponents in this thread have very clearly said that they believe divine design has been proved. Do you consider function and divine purpose to be the same thing? I know you said irrelevance, rather than function, but function is essentially what is being discussed. Things have functions, sure, but do they have a divine purpose? The evidence is extremely lacking in this department, that's all.

a reply to: chr0naut

But it was entirely my point that what science proposes (matter from nothingness due to quantum fluctuations) is highly improbable, so, are you agreeing with me here?

As one increases complexity and spatial volume, the asymptote describing improbability tends towards infinity. This means that, scaling things up, even over vast numbers of repetitions of randomising events, things will continue to move away from inevitability and towards impossibility.

There is no "theoretical inevitability" - it is a concept built entirely on unfounded assumption, not measurement and calculation.

improbable yes. but still more possible than alternative theories, ie creationism. an eternal god is built on what is called "necessary presupposition" is it not? as in, suppositions are necessary for the hypothesis to float. suppositions designed to circumvent "measurement and calculation". which sort of flies in the face of the scientific method if Im not much mistaken. the gaps in scientific theory are far less dubious than the gaps in yours.

And.. it was the Persians that invented crucifixion and were copied by the Roman armies. It wasn't invented by the religious ones at all.

zoroastrianism, which informed a great deal of christianity in its younger years.

Oooh, mass terror! Begging for death! ... but wait a minute, all those happy sunday school kids singing their "Jesus Loves Me" songs, that's somehow worse that the threat of atomic war?

i imagine parents encourage a little bit of tact when it comes to the whole "burning in hell" bit. not to mention that our constitutional rights took care of the inquisition/crusade/witch burning complex that caused so much fuss. you speak as someone who has never experienced the methods used to recruit and convert so called heathens back when there was minimal oversight. easy to be glib about that sort of thing when you only read about it. but the point was that religion borrows the credibility of science to make its fantastical claims look a little more plausible. not exactly plagiarism but not really honest either. especially when you use one set of data to confirm an unrelated set of data. some people have gotten really good at drawing parallels that look good at first glance. second glance though...

Except for cosmologists and other physicists, where it is actually relevant to their work.

not strictly relevant. perhaps in a pareidolia sort of sense. if they form a sentimental attachment on that basis, i wont judge. but using their research to construct a moral framework complete with metaphysical conjecture is a little outside of their jurisdiction as cosmologists and physicists. the fact remains they are working with measurable phenomenon that can be calculated and mathematically expressed and predicted. anything else is happenstance. unless they can prove otherwise and demonstrate to us a supernatural influence on the celestial bodies.

Inconclusive, except, of course, when you use it as your argument.

there is a technical term - null hypothesis - which basically means that the default logical position is there is no connection between phenomenon unless demonstrated.

Although we know our physical universe is bounded by temporal constraints (requiring a chain of causality), an atemporal deity has no beginning, end, or even passage of recent moments. The God of the Bible is described as such; having no beginning or end and being the same yesterday, today and forever.

The application of a chain of causality is another reason that we know this universe must have started at some point, the universe is 'time bound'.

But there are many atemporal things, things such as numbers and meanings are not temporally bound, as are many concepts that we rely on for science and measurement to 'make sense'. So an atemporal God is not an absurd concept philosophically, or even from a scientific standpoint. Atemporality is essential in some things.

so god is an idea, rather than a physical thinking actively participating entity. a tulpa perhaps. does that not mean he was created by his followers? some rather unsettling implications in there.

Why do you say that the galaxy is pointless? Do you have a compelling reason for that, or is it just another unreasoned assumption?

You may call upon the ant as being insignificant but if all ants became extinct, there would be massive environmental damage affecting the whole planet. Ants consume dead biological matter, both plant and animal. Without them decay would become predominantly bacterial and fungal and disease would bloom. Ants also are predatory and many species kept in check by ant abundances, primarily of insects, would assume plague proportions, further damaging the ecology of the planet.

There IS now a direction to evolution. We know how to manipulate the genome and the future will be by our will and choice.

answering the last line first, it is arrogant and egotistical to believe that because we can script the future according to our will, we should. that is hubris and folly and a cliche. attempting to establish perfect control is the first step to creating perfect chaos and potentially absolute failure. its one of the ironies of classic literature mirrored by the sadistic humor of our reality. tempting us to engineer our own destruction by making it look like salvation. going back to the ant thing, yes ants have a progressive impact on the ecosystem. but the earth does not have a progressive impact on the galaxy. when the sun dies and consumes half of the solar system (or a third or whatever) no one will blink. no one will pause and spare even a second of pity for our world. we will be the tree falling in an empty forest. so make the most of your time here as no one will recognize it even if you fail miserably. how is that for a demotivational meme?

originally posted by: PhotonEffect
a reply to: TzarChasm

Fair point, but we're not talking about the presumed irrelevance of a galaxy's or cell's existence. This is totally your opinion.

What you said is these things are without purpose. Naturally this was to lend credence to your overall point for the lack of design in the universe. However, irrelevance and purpose are two different concepts.

Tell a dying cancer patient that a cancer cell has no meaning. All it takes is just one cell to go rogue, and look what it can do to the entire biological system which is several orders of magnitude larger than that very cell that started it all...

Never underestimate the power (and relevance ?) of really small things.

Edit to add:

You also mentioned purposeless bacteria. How well do you think you'd fair without your microbiome keeping you alive and healthy?

death has no meaning in the larger scope. thats the whole point. you are playing on my sense of empathy to make a point about impact and relevance, while im trying to explain to you that there is no empathy in space. the galaxy gives not one little crap about anything that happens in our solar system let alone on planet earth let alone in the cancer ward. the cosmos might be beautiful but they are also damn lonely. no one to hear you scream, or cry, or pray.

originally posted by: TzarChasm
a reply to: chr0naut

improbable yes. but still more possible than alternative theories, ie creationism.

Actually, no. I clearly stated a case showing how the level of improbability rises towards the infinite, in the case of randomness creating implicate order. You cannot get more improbable than that.

an eternal god is built on what is called "necessary presupposition" is it not? as in, suppositions are necessary for the hypothesis to float. suppositions designed to circumvent "measurement and calculation". which sort of flies in the face of the scientific method if Im not much mistaken. the gaps in scientific theory are far less dubious than the gaps in yours.

Except that the idea of the creation of matter from nothing by quantum fluctuations has its own "necessary presuppositions", some of which run entirely counter to the results of "measurement and calculation", as shown.

zoroastrianism, which informed a great deal of christianity in its younger years.

While Zoroastrianism did originate in Persia, not all Persians were Zoroastrians.

To suggest that a peaceful, gentle and law abiding faith such as Zoroastrianism invented crucifixion is unfairly accusative. A quick view of history will show that Zoroastrians have historically opposed war and murder, even when under quite intense persecution.

Herodotus in Histories 7.194 "On the Parthian War", ascribes crucifixion to the Persian military who used it to deal with prisoners of war.

Also, brass reliefs on the bands that bound the palace gates of Shalmaneser III depict impaled men, which dates that practice (a precursor to Roman type crucifixion) to between 858 BC and 824 BC. There are historians who believe that Zoroaster was born 100 to 200 years after this in the 6th and 7th centuries BC (I actually ascribe to an earlier date).

While Zoroastrianism may have had influence on Judaism, and Judaism strongly influenced Christianity, it is a stretch to ascribe direct influence.

i imagine parents encourage a little bit of tact when it comes to the whole "burning in hell" bit. not to mention that our constitutional rights took care of the inquisition/crusade/witch burning complex that caused so much fuss. you speak as someone who has never experienced the methods used to recruit and convert so called heathens back when there was minimal oversight. easy to be glib about that sort of thing when you only read about it.

I have spent 47 years as a follower of Christ and been the member of several different denominational churches in that time. I have experienced 'hell-fire and damnation' type preaching extremely rarely. It honestly doesn't play a big part in my faith, as I suspect it also does not play a big part in the lives of many Christians. That is because our faith teaches that we are exempt from it - we get heaven instead (you should read the book)!

The "inquisition/crusade/witch burning" stuff is clearly counter to actual Christian principles. A modern analogue would be the extremist terrorist groups who proclaim themselves as Islamic but break Islamic laws and do evil (especially against devout Muslims), or the supposed "Zionist" instigators who were actually Nazi's using inverse propaganda to segregate and vilify Jewish people.

but the point was that religion borrows the credibility of science to make its fantastical claims look a little more plausible. not exactly plagiarism but not really honest either. especially when you use one set of data to confirm an unrelated set of data. some people have gotten really good at drawing parallels that look good at first glance. second glance though...

Since the tenets of religion precede the discoveries of science and are unaltered by science, it is actually science that is the less credible, that is reactive and vacillates, one day right, the next day disproved.

Science, however, does not actually confirm or deny most religious tenets, it is incapable of doing so.

not strictly relevant. perhaps in a pareidolia sort of sense. if they form a sentimental attachment on that basis, i wont judge. but using their research to construct a moral framework complete with metaphysical conjecture is a little outside of their jurisdiction as cosmologists and physicists. the fact remains they are working with measurable phenomenon that can be calculated and mathematically expressed and predicted. anything else is happenstance. unless they can prove otherwise and demonstrate to us a supernatural influence on the celestial bodies.

You are ignoring the theoretical, which is a major component of the scientific method. Your definition of science, isn't.

there is a technical term - null hypothesis - which basically means that the default logical position is there is no connection between phenomenon unless demonstrated.

The null hypothesis (in inferential statistics) is that, absent any evidence or 'weighting' one way or another, one cannot make a valid determination - the default position is that one cannot reasonably draw a conclusion - that's what the null hypothesis means. It does not mean that one of the conflicting cases somehow becomes the default.

An example of why the null hypothesis does not make one of the conflicting cases the default would be that if you phrase the question inversely (i.e: negatively rather than positively, for example, changing "does God exist" to "does God not exist") the default would automatically change. As the change is largely semantic and not actual, the null hypothesis cannot be used to make one of its cases the default, as you seem to be implying.

If there is correlation between religious belief and scientific discovery, then one cannot invoke the null hypothesis because a correlation exists and has been observationally demonstrated. If one could invoke the null hypothesis in this situation, it would mean that all observations are similarly negated. Rationally, this cannot be. It is invalid to invoke the null hypothesis here.

so god is an idea, rather than a physical thinking actively participating entity. a tulpa perhaps. does that not mean he was created by his followers? some rather unsettling implications in there.

Since God's followers are temporal and God created His followers, it is necessary for God to exist prior to His creation

originally posted by: TzarChasm
a reply to: chr0naut
... continued from previous ...

answering the last line first, it is arrogant and egotistical to believe that because we can script the future according to our will, we should. that is hubris and folly and a cliche. attempting to establish perfect control is the first step to creating perfect chaos and potentially absolute failure. its one of the ironies of classic literature mirrored by the sadistic humor of our reality. tempting us to engineer our own destruction by making it look like salvation.

But we are already genetically engineering foods and medicines and not for arrogant reasons.

It's happening. Live with it.

I was not even particularly referring to going back to the ant thing, yes ants have a progressive impact on the ecosystem. but the earth does not have a progressive impact on the galaxy. when the sun dies and consumes half of the solar system (or a third or whatever) no one will blink. no one will pause and spare even a second of pity for our world. we will be the tree falling in an empty forest. so make the most of your time here as no one will recognize it even if you fail miserably. how is that for a demotivational meme?

Yes, you are deeply hopeless and insignificant.



I, on the other hand, am hopeful and want to make the future a better place and not just for myself.

One day, all those stellar scale events will be imminent. I would hope that by that time we are not just insignificant specks that are gone, but that we have a greater destiny.

An influence on the universe and a more elevated and purposeful existence than we can now know.

I can see the seeds of this future in our reach for greater things, in technology, in medicine, in science, in philosophy and even in religion.