Religion, Scripture and logical thinking

a reply to: Develo

Have you seen this?
www.abovetopsecret.com...

It may be up your alley.

originally posted by: Krazysh0t
a reply to: Develo

Have you seen this?
www.abovetopsecret.com...

It may be up your alley.

Very interesting, thanks!

Though the title is a bit misleading in order to make more it sensational (usual with vulgarization papers, in the text they clearly mention it's only the singularity that is discarded) it does seems to resolve a few theoretical issues with the currently accepted model. So this new model eliminates the big crunch scenario, but that's not new and seems to be the conclusion of the latest observations (infinite expansion and heat death of the universe).

Most important it eliminates the singularity which was a big black box. I'm fine with this idea since in my understanding, nothing indicates the universe was initially contained in a small space (the singularity) which made many people think it was the result of another black hole or other oversimplifications.

The observable universe is a sphere centered around us, it's logical given its limited age. It doesn't mean the whole universe is a finite sphere; it's a classical mistake. So what we know is that there was a quick expansion (big bang) which this model still account for, and before that, a very hot and dense universe.

The singularity was a theoretical projection further down the past, but it never made sense to me. For all we know the universe could be infinite. So we would have an infinite hot and dense universe in the beginning, not a singularity.

But anyway most of this remains theoretical and we might never know, unless we find other ways to go deeper back in time than observing light and other EM radiations.

Maybe if we discover another particle; another kind of radiation, we could go back further in time, before the current wall that blocks our view to the past.


Nice link


You were right, I love cosmology

a reply to: Farlander

And I would further argue that since Christians almost universally claim to have experienced a personal, specific God on a spiritual level, that there is a TYPE of evidence in favor of His existence. And in light of that, one might say that atheism requires MORE blind faith than Christianity.

There is a huge issue intrinsic to that. It’s not only Christians making that claim.

People of other faiths, throughout our religious history, have claimed to have had a direct experience with the divine. Some mystical experience that gives them absolute affirmation of their faith. If we are to believe those experiences from the Christians is legitimate evidence for the ‘truthiness’ of their dogma and their god, what reason is there to not extend that to the other religious yet non-Abrahmic people?

The underlying problem here is that it would amount to evidence in the favor of multiple creator gods within fundamentally conflicting theologies. As such the Universe would have been made in various different ways. Doesn’t work.

So would you like to rephrase your belief in this regard? Would your position be instead that lots of religious people claim a personal experience with god but they are all full of crap unless they are Christian?

As was pointed out already atheism is the lack of belief in god’s existence and not necessarily the claim of knowledge of its non-existence. I don’t know there isn’t an invisible spaceship filled with advanced beings zipping around our solar system, but that’s not preventing me from having disbelief that’s the case. It certainly wouldn’t be illogical of me to disbelieve either. When strong evidence shows up for not only a creator god, but for your creator god specifically, I might just become one of your brethren.

a reply to: Develo

Yea, it is fascinating. Cosmology, especially breaking cosmology is pretty exciting. In fact, my desktop wallpaper is a picture of a black hole with false colors on it. Looks pretty crazy.