I Can't Take The Big Bang Seriously

originally posted by: Titen-Sxull
I know of no such fact.

It might not be a scientific fact, but it is a logical one.

However even granting this it still creates an infinite regression wherein God's consciousness must have an origin in consciousness as well. There must be an Uber God and an Uber Mega God above that and an Uber Mega Super God above that. And in the end it really is turtles all the way down.

Think of God as infinity. There is no Uber infinity or Uber Mega Infinity; infinity as a word already encompasses the origin.

Rather it seems the case to me that consciousness emerges from the ground up and the idea of God out of that consciousness. The story of Adam and Eve seems, at least to me, a story of human beings grappling with becoming conscious. The knowledge of good and evil is tied to the emergence of consciousness and the discovery of the future and that discovery, called the Fall in the story of Eden, prevents human beings from partaking of the fruit of the tree of everlasting life. In other words we discovered our own mortality and by extension the effects we have on others and the future consequences of our actions thereby discovering morality/good and evil as well.

Interesting view, but I still disagree that consciousness could emerge from "the ground up".

It may be human intuition to assume order is imposed from the top down but in nature we usually see order emerge out of chaos, bottom up.

That is true. However, it can be argued that consciousness is not strictly apart of the natural/physical world. How does one explain or show evidence of the non-physical world? You cannot do so using empirical evidence, it is something you have to experience yourself.

a reply to: Incandescent

There are logical axioms but I don't know of any logical facts.

Even on the playground as kids we understood infinity was just a concept and used to BS each other with double triple quadruple infinity, or an infinity of infinite infinities. I'm not saying an actual infinity cannot exist or doesn't exist but usually infinity is just used as a concept. God is many things to many people but if we already have infinity why must we postulate that this infinity is a living being or consciousness?

Interesting view, but I still disagree that consciousness could emerge from "the ground up"

And yet this idea fits quite neatly within everything we understand about the nature and evolution of life on this planet. A dog has a certain level of self-awareness. A dolphin can recognize itself in a mirror. Mice laugh ultrasonically when tickled. A troop of chimpanzees might sharpen sticks and go to war against a rival group. All around us in our fellow animals we see fragments of the thing we have, consciousness, and we know that we share a common ancestor with all of these animals.

It isn't a leap at all to suggest that consciousness emerged from the ground up. Not saying it couldn't have been enhanced or accelerated somewhere along the line (at the very least certain substances that cause the expansion of consciousness were likely involved) but given that the first life on this planet was single celled and now we have human beings building pyramids and writing symphonies it seems pretty obvious that things are developing from the ground up.

At best we could posit a God who is "feeding the fish" so-to-speak. That is to say giving evolution a little push now and then by introducing some fuel to the fire. I see no reason why we NEED such a being to exist.

How does one explain or show evidence of the non-physical world? You cannot do so using empirical evidence, it is something you have to experience yourself.

How does the non-physical world even manifest itself in any real tangible way? If its manifestations have no measurable effect than from a pragmatic standpoint they are irrelevant. However you suggest it can be experienced. How? Consciousness, as near as we can tell, is a function of brain activity. If the non-physical has a measurable effect on brain activity than we should be able to measure some anomalous interactions with this realm. If the non-physical has absolutely NO measurable effect on reality it is indistinguishable from the non-existent in every practical sense.

a reply to: strangechristian777

You're missing a fundamental problem. There is zero evidence for your God but there substantial evidence to suggest there was some massive explosion of matter 13 odd billion years ago.

And no real person of science claims to know what was before the big bang, or what we call that moment, 'the big bang'. They theorise, hypothesise, etc. No one knows. No one.

Yet the religious - oh, well - *they* know. God did it. He always existed.

According to your lot, God put forward a universe so big, so vast, so immense....all for us. Or lives aren't even a spec on a spec of time in the grand scheme of things.

Galaxies collide with each other, black holes devour stars, stars explode and consume their solar systems -- all these massive events of utter destruction and chaos....

...and god made it all for us.

Yeh. That makes perfect sense.

Yet here we are.

Deal.

Can we find more to argue over?

You idiots can argue where you live, I'll argue that I live by the Grace of God.

originally posted by: noonebutme
a reply to: strangechristian777

You're missing a fundamental problem. There is zero evidence for your God but there substantial evidence to suggest there was some massive explosion of matter 13 odd billion years ago.

And no real person of science claims to know what was before the big bang, or what we call that moment, 'the big bang'. They theorise, hypothesise, etc. No one knows. No one.

Yet the religious - oh, well - *they* know. God did it. He always existed.

According to your lot, God put forward a universe so big, so vast, so immense....all for us. Or lives aren't even a spec on a spec of time in the grand scheme of things.

Galaxies collide with each other, black holes devour stars, stars explode and consume their solar systems -- all these massive events of utter destruction and chaos....

...and god made it all for us.

Yeh. That makes perfect sense.

No proof anything happened besides some idiot saying it did and the rest of you just melting about it.

It's here, innit?

BTW, what's the alternative?

The whole life thing is BS?

Your theme song?



Give up!

originally posted by: Titen-Sxull
How does the non-physical world even manifest itself in any real tangible way? If its manifestations have no measurable effect than from a pragmatic standpoint they are irrelevant. However you suggest it can be experienced. How? Consciousness, as near as we can tell, is a function of brain activity. If the non-physical has a measurable effect on brain activity than we should be able to measure some anomalous interactions with this realm. If the non-physical has absolutely NO measurable effect on reality it is indistinguishable from the non-existent in every practical sense.

I can give an example of when the non-physical world manifests itself: when dreaming whilst asleep. If you have a really intense, vivid dream, how can you prove the content of that dream to another person upon waking? You can't. And science can merely establish that there is brain activity when dreaming; it cannot establish the content of that brain activity.

a reply to: Incandescent



The Infinite is probably the only void of space we dont need Scientific facts about to know that it exists.


Anyone With common sense would know. We all know that there is Space byond Our observable universe of 13.799 billion years. What kind of void of Space there would be is a fact we scant ask science about. Science wouldnt know.


Some People... not all of you... would probably also know that if we back up the finite timeline enough, we will end up With a single point.

originally posted by: spy66
a reply to: Incandescent



The Infinite is probably the only void of space we dont need Scientific facts about to know that it exists.


Anyone With common sense would know. We all know that there is Space byond Our observable universe of 13.799 billion years. What kind of void of Space there would be is a fact we scant ask science about. Science wouldnt know.


Some People... not all of you... would probably also know that if we back up the finite timeline enough, we will end up With a single point.

No, u have no idea what is beyond 14 bil light yrs.

No one does.

Could be your worst nightmare or joy behar.

originally posted by: strangechristian777
Them: Where did God come from?

Me: He always existed.

Them: That's impossible. God had to come from somewhere. Nothing can always exist.

Me: Where did the material for the big bang come from?

Them: It just always existed.



Mind blowing how people can be so oblivious to what they actually believe.

First and foremost, I should like to point out that the good news is that the big bang theory is not dependent on whether you take it seriously; there exists a stupendous amount of evidence in support of it.

Secondly, there exist some models in math/physics/quantum physics that offer great insight as to what the "material for the big bang" was. The best guess right now is that it was merely a "point" of infinitely dense matter that, as far as we know, "always" existed... though saying that makes me cringe a bit, because "always" would lose its meaning in this context as it implies time, and there was no time prior to the big bang; with the big bang came space AND time.

A quantum fluctuation occurred, thus cosmic inflation. I can get you some articles on that, if you wish.

Science has best guesses (with mathematical formulae, etc) as to how the big bang was caused and what its constituents were, and absolutely nothing when it comes to some purported "Him".

This is where your argument absolutely falls apart.

a reply to: Incandescent

I think this is referred to as the problem of thoughts being ABOUT something. We can measure brain activity but only the subject can tell us what that brain activity is ABOUT?

In that case I simply think neuroscience will eventually catch up to the point where even something as obtuse and subconscious as a dream will be readable in detail from a brain scan.

This is rather like discovering DNA and then positing that we will never be able to break down DNA in detail to see which proteins code for which traits, however science has shown time and time again that it can and will figure even the most seemingly mysterious details out.

Someone a few thousand years ago who believed in the 'elements', things like fire and air, as the building blocks of the Universe could have speculated that those elements will never be replaced by new information and broken down into even smaller constituents. The word atom itself implies that atoms were never meant to be broken down yet we now know of the strange subatomic world of quantum mechanics.

At the very best suggesting that dreams involve interactions with some non-physical realm is unfalsifiable, that is to say we can't confirm it one way or the other so it becomes pragmatically and naturalistically meaningless.

Also we run afoul of the Unknown of the Gaps (or God of the gaps). Science can't or will never explain X, therefore X is where I choose to insert this non-physical or supernatural activity, right on the edge of understanding. As understanding expands the supernatural is then pushed farther and farther out of our every day lives into ever-shrinking pockets of ignorance.

a reply to: Titen-Sxull

Perhaps it depends on which side of that wave of discovery, one is surfing?

Maybe the one surfing on the edge of knowledge, pushing into areas previously unknown, believes he is cornering ignorance?

Maybe the one surfing on the side of the unknown, sees the vastness of the unknowable?

a reply to: Nothin

Who is to say?

I'm not a scientist myself.

Most of my discoveries are self-discoveries.

However I am interested in the rapid progress of scientific knowledge and it seems to be a consistent trend that things once believed to be supernatural tend to have natural explanations which lead to the supernatural being pushed farther and farther out into obscure corners of the sea of the unknown.

Anything COULD be out there in that endless ocean of the unknown but I think in unwise to think that there are things science will never find the answer to even if think those dark corners house something we hold sacred.

i take it with a pinch of salt. as Wittgenstein said; "explanations come to an end somewhere". there are some things we will never know.

a reply to: Titen-Sxull

That comes across as a strong faith in the potential of science.
You believe that science can potentially explain everything, and will indeed probably explain everything.
Therefore: will science be able to explain god someday?

How is your belief in the all-knowing power of science, different, or similar, to one who believes in god?

a reply to: Nothin

It's not that science is all powerful or all knowing.

What we have is a trend of people who assert that there is a subset of facts about the Cosmos that can only be explained by some supernatural or non-physical (immaterial) reality or being. Or at the very least they suggest that science will never be able to explain these phenomena.

As I stated before the word atom means indivisible, the whole idea of an atom was proposed as a unit of matter that cannot be divided into smaller parts. YET, despite this assertion of certitude we DID discover smaller parts than the atom, the atom is DIVISIBLE. Our technology and everyday comforts now take for granted quantum mechanics when a few centuries ago proposing quantum mechanics would have seemed farfetched if not outright ridiculous.

For each corner of ignorance that the supernatural is poured into it always turns out to be an ill-fit as the details become clear (the devil is literally in the details here). No one today would suggest that Zeus hurling thunderbolts is more parsimonious to what we know and observe about thunder and lightning than the idea of electrostatic discharge from excited particles in the clouds. AND YET we still don't have all the answers about how lightning forms, it is something very much still being studied!

So science isn't all knowing, far from it, but if I have to make a bet I'd say our understanding of lightning and the details around its formation will become better as science progresses and that the odds of finding out Zeus or Thor are really actually behind it all along are slim to none.

As for science explaining the idea of god(s) I think we already have a general outline of how the idea of God developed, much like how consciousness developed, from the ground up. In my own limited estimation the idea of gods developed from animistic superstitions of our prehuman ancestors which, initially, were a form of ancient science. These animistic superstitions and the tendency to anthropomorphize natural forces and objects are also linked to the human need for narrative substructure, that is I believe human beings evolved as story-tellers and that these stories developed into archetypes which formed the first actual gods. I could go into more detail but that is the gist of what I believe.

a reply to: Titen-Sxull

Do we not also have a "trend" of people saying that there is a subset of facts about the Cosmos that can only be explained by some as yet unknown, but potentially knowable scientific data?

What's the difference between that, and any other belief system?

Perhaps when we look back: we can observe that the scientific method has given us answers, where there were none before.
Maybe most answers are right, but not all. Science evolves, and makes new discoveries, discounting previous scientific "knowledge".

But does that truly justify believing that science can explain everything?

From this viewpoint: believing that science will one day explain everything, is the equivelent of believing one day god will explain everything.

Just a couple of belief systems.

a reply to: Nothin

Do we not also have a "trend" of people saying that there is a subset of facts about the Cosmos that can only be explained by some as yet unknown, but potentially knowable scientific data?

What's the difference between that, and any other belief system

The difference is thus far the trend has been proven correct whereas truth claims about the natural world invoking the supernatural have never been confirmed and are often uselessly unfalsifiable.

Most places where folks like to insert the supernatural are in the gaps in scientific understanding. There are facts about the world for which believers have assured the world a naturalistic explanation will never be found. It used to be things like abiogenesis or human evolution and even farther back it was morality and ethics and now it's things like consciousness and the Big Bang (although those other issues are still discussed as well). We now know that a stroke or a brain tumor can irrevocably alter someone's personality, something about them long ago believed to be the realm of the human soul. It seems to me that science has a powerful tendency to surpass the challenges of believers and that typically those who believe the hardest simply ignore the findings while others will push the supernatural further and further into these smaller and smaller areas of ignorance.

But does that truly justify believing that science can explain everything?

No offense but I never claimed that science can or will explain everything.

I'm simply saying that when naysayers go "nuhuh, science won't ever be able to explain X" if you give it a few decades or maybe even a century those naysayers tend to look stupid and usually end up shifting the goalposts by pushing their supernatural pet theories into shrinking pockets of ignorance.

The sea of the unknown may well be infinite, and there may well be things beyond human comprehension or beyond the ability of human language to explore/explain. But when some believer says consciousness or dreams or thunderbolts or DNA or the Big Bang have some unknown element that lends itself to their insertion of the supernatural into that gap and they claim that science cannot or will not ever find an explanation for said thing I would put my money on science every time.

Call it faith if you will, even call it a belief system if it makes you feel better but there is no denying that science is the best tool human beings have produced in terms of observing and discovering how the world actually works. Equally there seems no use denying that science produces better and more accurate answers to objective naturalistic questions than the supernatural ever did or could ever hope to in the future.

So the answer from believers is to insert the unnatural or supernatural that can be postulated and speculated about out in that potentially infinite sea of the unknown. It seems unwise to me, especially in these early stages of the scientific endeavor, to suggest that there are places in that sea that will never be and could never be explored without invoking the supernatural.

a reply to: Titen-Sxull

Do you have any doubts about science, in general?

We don't know anything about the future, all we can do is observe the present.

We observe that this pc, internet, and this forum, appear to function using established science.
Yet how many forum users could adequately describe everything that goes into a keystroke, that leads to shared words in the public forum? There's a whole lot going on there, that is woo to the vast majority of us.
The infamous "black-box" of technology at work.

We observe it appearing to work, so we believe those that can give a scientific explanation for a part of the process, without fully understanding it ourselves.
There is a bit of a leap-of-faith there, for the common user.
In this way: observable science still has a woo factor, to the common folks.

Can you see what am nibbling at?

Frank Turek has an interesting view on this:

"I believe in the big bang...I just know who banged it" ~ Frank Turek

Until about the time of Einstein, atheists could comfort themselves with the belief that the universe is eternal, and thus did not need a cause. But since then, five lines of scientific evidence have been discovered that prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the universe did indeed have a beginning. And that beginning was what scientists now call “The Big Bang.”

commonquote.com...

originally posted by: noonebutme
a reply to: strangechristian777

You're missing a fundamental problem. There is zero evidence for your God...

Clearly the OP is not the one missing a fundamental problem.

There is NO lack of evidence, the real problem is that most are scared spitless of what will happen to them if they actually BELIEVE said evidence.

Fear and ridicule are massive tools used by TPTB to hinder people from finding the truth about everything that matters.

The man who tells the truth is universally disliked by every person because every person has an agenda and is hiding behind a fantasy which the truth penetrates like an arrow and leaves him stripped naked before the whole universe, and he does not like that." ~ Milton William Cooper

There are few nudities so objectionable as the naked truth. ~ Agnes Repplier

I think it's fairly true that most people aren't that interested in recognizing the truth and orienting 100 percent around it. To do so could be fairly disruptive to the status quo and even to how the person is getting their needs met. ~ Thomas J. Leonard

Could This Change How We Think About God and The Universe?

Recent scientific discoveries have physicists and philosophers alike radically revising their ideas on the nature of the universe, and indeed the existence of God. Countless years and hours of calculations and mind-bending theories continue to reach the conclusion that the universe has a beginning, and did not occur by chance. In 2004 notorious atheist, Andrew Fleet, announced his retirement from the stringent rhetoric of atheism, based on these conclusions. He changed his mind.

Research into DNA has shown, by the almost unbelievable complexity of the arrangements which are needed to produce life, that intelligence must have been involved. – Andrew Fleet

Many Scientists now believe the existence of God is not only possible but probable. From their perspective, an intelligent force predating our universe initiated creation. And what’s more, scientific minds have drawn clear links between this force of intelligence and the spiritual realm.

Has Science Proven the Existence of God?

Reviews of Books with Scientific Evidence that God Exists

My Belief in God Began with a Book Recommendation
My Favorite Books
The Young Earth by John D. Morris, PhD (Read online)
By Design by Dr. Jonathan Safarti
Darwin’s Black Box by Michael J. Behe
Darwin’s Enigma by Luther D. Sunderland
Bones of Contentionby Marvin L. Lubenow
Buried Alive by Jack Cuozzo
Icons of Evolution by Jonathan Wells
The Case for a Creator by Lee Strobel
In Six Days Edited by John F. Ashton PhD.
On the Seventh Day Edited by John F. Ashton PhD.
Many Infallible Proofs by Henry M. Morris
The Answers Book by Ken Ham (Read online)
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My Belief in God Began with a Book Recommendation. After over 40 years of not believing that God exists, I was dared by a Christian friend to read a book. I was surprised to find that there was scientific evidence for the existence of God. After that first book, I found other books with more scientific evidence. After nine months of reading, I suddenly believed in God and became born again as a Christian. (See My Testimony)

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