|
|
Corribus
Hero of Order
The Abyss Staring Back at You
|
posted June 01, 2008 08:08 AM |
|
Edited by Corribus at 08:11, 01 Jun 2008.
|
@ Mytical
I think the premise of your argument is weak.
For one thing, you presume that the scientist does not believe in miracles. That is perhaps an unfair generalization of scientists. But in any case, what is a miracle? The observation is the not the important thing that is described as miraculous - it's the interpretation of the origin of the observation that is thought to be miraculous.
By which I mean, a religious man and a scientist (understanding of course, we're generalizing) observe some phenomenon which is in some way contrary to what one considers "normal". The religious person believes that the observation is so unlikely as to be impossible to arise due to mere chance. And thus concludes, illogically, that a supernatural explanation is the best explanation.* The scientist, who understands statistics, believes that the observation, though unlikely, is within the realm of statistical possibility. If you were given a bag full of a thousand six sided dice, and you managed to roll one thousand sixes in a single throw: is that a (supernatural) miracle? or is it just lucky chance, a very unlikely possibility but a possibility that technically requires no divine intervention? or are the dice rigged? What about a million dice? Is there a difference between rolling a six on five dice simultaneously and a thousand? According to the religious person, maybe there is. According to the scientist, it's a statistical difference at worst.
The point being that you portray the scientist and religious man in some sort of cosmic struggle WITH EACH OTHER. But that's not really the way it works. Sure, the scientist dismisses the first option because it is not scientifically testable. But you can't criticize the scientist for doing this and he doesn't do it to spite the religious man - he does it because the first option is simply not scientific and not logical. At the very least, the scientist understands that, even lacking a specific explanatory mechanism, the laws of statistics allow for bizarre observations that might only be observed once every thousand or hundred thousand years. That does not logically lead to the conclusion that such an observation must be supernatural. The very discipline of science operates under the axiomatic assumption that supernatural explanations are not required to explain any observation, so you can't criticize a scientist for following that "rule". If he didn't, he wouldn't be a scientist in the first place! Of course, given an observation of immense improbability, the scientist is likely to search for other explanations - empirical explanations - such as the fact that the dice may be weighted. This is also inherent to the scientific discipline. The first experiment would be to roll the dice in this way many many times and see how the statistics fall out - if all sixes are rolled more often than one would statistically expect, then other explanations are searched for; if not, the statistical explanation for the anomaly is acceptable. The scientist understands that in a statistical problem, the number of trials is important; the religious person often doesn't understand this, not being trained in statistics. And in any case, the religious person doesn't care about statistics - they are only really interested in belief. Which is fine. The point being that the scientist and the religious person try to understand the world in different ways (logic vs. belief), and to try to force them into the same category is unfair and futile.
In any case, you must just simply understand that most scientists will accept an explanation that boils down to simple probability over supernatural intervention (or... "miracle!") because that's just the nature of the beast.
*[Note: illogical has taken on something of a perjorative meaning for some reason, but it really is not meant to be. The conclusion that an unlikely event MUST be explained supernaturally IS illogical. It is NOT a logical deduction. Of course, the fundamental difference between science and religion IS a matter of logic - science is logical/rational, religion is not. So what? The problem is that religious people get offended when they are called illogical - if they would just accept that their view of the Universe is irrational and illogical, AND that "illogical" does not mean the same thing as "wrong", there'd be a lot less misunderstandings.]
____________
I'm sick of following my dreams. I'm just going to ask them where they're goin', and hook up with them later. -Mitch Hedberg
|
|
Mytical
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
Chaos seeking Harmony
|
|
posted June 01, 2008 08:15 AM |
|
Edited by Mytical at 08:18, 01 Jun 2008.
|
I am not talking about random statistical events..like 1000 sixes from 1000 six sided dice. I am talking about something like somebody having terminal cancer one day, then having no signs of it the next with no reasonable explination of why.
Edit : Like I said Corribus. I know I don't know as much about science as you. I am not going to argue a obvious fact. However, I am religious, and do not consider myself Illogical. Saying all religious people are illogical is like saying that all scientists are athiest. Which we both know is not the case.
____________
Message received.
|
|
OmegaDestroyer
Hero of Order
Fox or Chicken?
|
|
posted June 01, 2008 08:17 AM |
|
|
So people that don't believe the same you do are illogical and irrational? Am I illogical and irrational because I believe in God, Corribus?
____________
The giant has awakened
You drink my blood and drown
Wrath and raving I will not stop
You'll never take me down
|
|
TitaniumAlloy
Honorable
Legendary Hero
Professional
|
|
posted June 01, 2008 08:25 AM |
|
|
Yes. 
There is no logical reason to believe in god as the roots of religion and belief in a higher power can already be scientifically explained..
____________
John says to live above hell.
|
|
TheDeath
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
with serious business
|
|
posted June 01, 2008 01:04 PM |
|
|
Wow how much activity has gone through some hours in this thread
@TA:
Quote:
The Death the only thing I could construe from that link is that the bible confirms the current theories of evolution, making the bible effectively redundant and leaving only a creator and not a personal god per se.
While this is quite a good argument for a deist god is doesn't really support the dying cause of "the holy bible" all that much.
You're missing the point. The author of that article explicitly states that "(I refuse to use modern Biblical commentary, because modern commentary already knows modern science, and so it is influenced by that always.)".
Also "This ancient commentary was finalized hundreds or thousands of years ago, long before Hubbell was a gleam in his great-grandparent's eye. So there's no possibility of Hubbell or any other scientific data influencing these concepts. That's a key component in my attempt to keep the following discussion objective.".
Thus, it's more like the other way.
Quote:
What I thought was particularly amusing about it was the ending:
Quote:
But there's more. The Bible goes out on a limb and tells you what happened on each of those days. Now you can take cosmology, paleontology, archaeology, and look at the history of the world, and see whether or not they match up day-by-day. And I'll give you a hint. They match up close enough to send chills up your spine.
Spooky, huh. 
'Look at science and you'll find it's EXACTLY LIKE THE BIBLE. I'm too busy to do this but trust me it is.'
If you're really interested and don't trust him (like you trust NASA for example), you can read his book The Science of God (unfortunately of course I did not find it free online and I doubt you'll have time anyway  ).
Quote:
While he managed to write a very wordy web page he didn't feel like quoting one shred of this evidence that sends chills up his spine?
So you actually just believe a piece of text on the net is 'evidence', because he left it out that means it's not? (of course he also has a lengthy explanation in a book, you can't write this stuff in a single article!)
What I find interesting however, is not 'what happened' in the Six days. I find it interesting how people ignore the theory of relativity, and those usually just directly say "Six days is not 15 billion years". From what frame of reference? Can it be the Earth? It hasn't even been created on Day One, how can it be the Earth's frame of reference? (as is the 15 billion frame of reference, which is from the Earth).
The thing that I find interesting among these close-minded scientists is not that the Bible is true or not, but the IMMEDIATELY dismission of the Six Days fact. They don't even THINK about it (should they do so, they would have replied with a question like "from what frame of reference" or stuff like that). Also remember though, that scientists before the relativity was discovered, were UNABLE to understand such a thing (how can time pass faster/slower depending on speed? it is illogical, that's what they said). So likely, what makes you think NOWADAYS we can be 100% sure of what's logical and what's not? People some years back said most quantum physics nowadays is illogical. What will people in 50 years say?
Remember also what scientists said in 1959. From the article "Now, in 1959, astronomy was popular, but cosmology - the deep physics of understanding the universe - was just developing. The response to that survey was recently republished in Scientific American - the most widely read science journal in the world. Two-thirds of the scientists gave the same answer. The answer that two-thirds - an overwhelming majority - of the scientists gave was, "Beginning? There was no beginning. Aristotle and Plato taught us 2400 years ago that the universe is eternal. Oh, we know the Bible says 'In the beginning.' That's a nice story, it helps kids go to bed at night. But we sophisticates know better. There was no beginning."
That was 1959. In 1965, Penzias and Wilson discovered the echo of the Big Bang in the black of the sky at night, and the world paradigm changed from a universe that was eternal to a universe that had a beginning. Science had made an enormous paradigm change in its understanding of the world. Understand the impact. Science said that our universe had a beginning, that the first word of the Bible is correct. I can't overestimate the import of that scientific "discovery." Evolution, cave men, these are all trivial problems compared to the fact that we now understand that we had a beginning.".
You see how absolutely sure they were on themselves and their ideas? You see how they dismissed anything else IMMEDIATELY as illogical or irrational? What makes you think now we're different? Maybe there are a lot of things we now call illogical that we will look completely ridiculous some 50 years in future.
Remember that MOST people in the 1950s did BELIEVE there was a beginning, even not necessarily a religious one. Now of course scientists have to be the 'authority' and the 'less enlightened ones' that will require time to pass by to just realize how wrong they were. Wrong not because they had some ideas that proved wrong (heck we all have those). Wrong because they were so sure of themselves that they completely dismissed any other claim without even thinking about it in the true sense. So much for open-mindedness.
Quote:
I can understand the whole "birds and fish come before man" thing as a parallel but the rest is way off. This one simple fact is the only one that matches up with his suggested light reading of 'cosmology, paleontology, archaeology, and look at the history of the world' which is nothing short of excessive
Stars and moon on the fourth day? After the water and land?
Remember that without the theory of relativity this thing was IMPOSSIBLE to be even 'taken seriously' by the scientists (in their utmost pride). Maybe there is a new theory, which now seems illogical (much as the theory of relativity was back then), that will either 'explain' this (I put it in quotes because for some people it's already explained, others though want a different explanation), or maybe change our perspective on what happened during the Big Bang (because a new theory that affects all the Universe will completely change our view of the world as well).
Quote:
People just try to tweak the Genesis story as much as possible to be consistent with scientific data but the more they do so the less religious it becomes
Like the guy said in the article, it's the other way around.
@Corribus:
Quote:
By which I mean, a religious man and a scientist (understanding of course, we're generalizing) observe some phenomenon which is in some way contrary to what one considers "normal". The religious person believes that the observation is so unlikely as to be impossible to arise due to mere chance. And thus concludes, illogically, that a supernatural explanation is the best explanation.* The scientist, who understands statistics, believes that the observation, though unlikely, is within the realm of statistical possibility. If you were given a bag full of a thousand six sided dice, and you managed to roll one thousand sixes in a single throw: is that a (supernatural) miracle? or is it just lucky chance, a very unlikely possibility but a possibility that technically requires no divine intervention? or are the dice rigged? What about a million dice? Is there a difference between rolling a six on five dice simultaneously and a thousand? According to the religious person, maybe there is. According to the scientist, it's a statistical difference at worst.
The problem is that 'statistical' arguments with very low probability are pretty similar to miracles. If the Sun explodes tomorrow, you can either:
a) explain it with a miracle (a bad one)
b) explain it with a statistical infinitesmall probability
Of course you can choose the later, but we have to draw a line somewhere. For example, if a person predicts the following day COMPLETELY correct (just an example), which has a very low probability by itself, you can either use common sense logic to mean the person has some 'supernatural' abilities (supernatural is a vaguely used term, it doesn't necessarily mean it's not natural, because hey what can you define as 'natural' and how do you know that ability is not natural?), or either use the statistical low-probability argument. Honestly, the statistical low-probability argument can be used for almost any phenomenon, but I do not see scientists use that argument when they explain, for example, particles or how an engine functions. They don't take the 'low-probability' scenarios in account, they take the more probable explanation (probability in this case is subjective because there's no formula for it). Not so with miracles.
Here's a quote someone gave to me:Quote:
Records of another person having observed details of an object or event which existed in the past constitute the second level of veracity. I can choose to believe or not to believe them.
If these records show internal consistency and external consistency, I will tend to consider them as reliable. Internal consistency is the lack of contradictory statements in the record. External consistency is the presence of descriptions which correspond with the times, names, places and events around about the time when the object existed or event occurred.
The degree to which I can consider such records as reliable is the degree I believe that such an object or event is real.
Quote:
There are cases of children being able to recall events experienced by deceased individuals when they were alive. (Ian Stevenson)
One explanation is that this phenomenon has occurred by chance. However, the number of corroborated cases indicate that the likelihood of chance is extremely remote.
(this book is linked to the quote)
Quote:
*[Note: illogical has taken on something of a perjorative meaning for some reason, but it really is not meant to be. The conclusion that an unlikely event MUST be explained supernaturally IS illogical. It is NOT a logical deduction. Of course, the fundamental difference between science and religion IS a matter of logic - science is logical/rational, religion is not. So what? The problem is that religious people get offended when they are called illogical - if they would just accept that their view of the Universe is irrational and illogical, AND that "illogical" does not mean the same thing as "wrong", there'd be a lot less misunderstandings.]
Well to be honest someone once said that being 'rational' (not logical) means you have to care about yourself and not about others (especially when the 'others' don't influence you later in life, like returning a favor). So probably irrationality is not that bad, well it does make you less selfish to some extent, but that's not for this thread anyway.
|
|
DagothGares
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
No gods or kings
|
|
posted June 01, 2008 01:59 PM |
|
|
Alright, I wanna join the discussion. Why? Cuz it makes me feel very important... I'll start out by reasoning that probably already has been used, but I don't have the time to read everything.
Very well, I'll give one reason why God exists. Follow with me, here. I can just plainly that God, to begin with, is the force that burst the bubble that was the very first supreme atom.
most people wouldn't be very satisfied with this, I know. But you can understand that something must've caused nothing to be something, right? Alright, then you can say that the energy should die or at least dissipate in due time.
But God exists. People believe in God, so God, at least, exists as a symbol. Alright, if everyone believes so superficially in God, it will just remain a symbol. But we believe in God as the primary energy of sorts. Then you can state that several religions believe in the same God. Whether they are monotheistic or polytheistic.
Religions only differ in stories and rituals. They are all equal that they center around a God. So the jews are talking to this energy. The christians ask strength and aid from their God and so on. If you all put this energy in this idea, then God should exist. God is then the energy source of people to do great and terrible things. God is then the inspiration to be compassionate to other people or the comfort people find in times of trouble or hope with which people face every day or... the fervor with which the suicide bomber strikes.
At the very least, you must admit that God exists in this way. I'm sorry if i offended anyone. I'm sorry that I used terms that some religious people may take an affront to.
____________
If you have any more questions, go to Dagoth Cares.
|
|
TitaniumAlloy
Honorable
Legendary Hero
Professional
|
|
posted June 01, 2008 02:05 PM |
|
|
Quote:
You're missing the point. The author of that article explicitly states that "(I refuse to use modern Biblical commentary, because modern commentary already knows modern science, and so it is influenced by that always.)".
Also "This ancient commentary was finalized hundreds or thousands of years ago, long before Hubbell was a gleam in his great-grandparent's eye. So there's no possibility of Hubbell or any other scientific data influencing these concepts. That's a key component in my attempt to keep the following discussion objective.".
Thus, it's more like the other way.
Yes but he does live in a time where he must be influenced by scientific discoveries, and from what I can gather his arguments are so obtuse that he could have used such logic to come to any conclusion, and the fact that he knows which ones to come to is what "sends shivers down the spine" of his readers.
Quote:
If you're really interested and don't trust him (like you trust NASA for example), you can read his book The Science of God (unfortunately of course I did not find it free online and I doubt you'll have time anyway ).
Spite? 
____________
John says to live above hell.
|
|
TheDeath
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
with serious business
|
|
posted June 01, 2008 02:09 PM |
|
Edited by TheDeath at 14:10, 01 Jun 2008.
|
Quote:
Yes but he does live in a time where he must be influenced by scientific discoveries
By that logic, then anyone who is interested in religion nowadays is 'corrupted', therefore discussions on religion are pointless unless we travel back in time and talk to people then? (also he does not use 'evidence' but rather logic from the theory of relativity).
Quote:
and from what I can gather his arguments are so obtuse that he could have used such logic to come to any conclusion
Maybe you don't understand the theory of relativity well enough?
EDIT: What do you mean with 'spite?' ?
|
|
Moonlith
Bad-mannered
Supreme Hero
If all else fails, use Fiyah!
|
|
posted June 01, 2008 02:12 PM |
|
|
Don't worry TA, I still support you... from far behind, waving a little red flag that says "Go TA!"  
____________
|
|
TitaniumAlloy
Honorable
Legendary Hero
Professional
|
|
posted June 01, 2008 02:19 PM |
|
|
Quote:
Maybe you don't understand the theory of relativity well enough?
Maybe not.
Could you explain to me, using the theory of relativity, how the stars were created after the earth?
____________
John says to live above hell.
|
|
DagothGares
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
No gods or kings
|
|
posted June 01, 2008 02:21 PM |
|
|
The stars would've been created before that, but we wouldn't see them from Earth's perspective. If Sirius (one of the brightest and closest stars) would explode, we would notice 24 years later. Imagine how long it would take for all the other stars to be seen by us.
____________
If you have any more questions, go to Dagoth Cares.
|
|
TheDeath
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
with serious business
|
|
posted June 01, 2008 02:25 PM |
|
|
Quote:
Could you explain to me, using the theory of relativity, how the stars were created after the earth?
Again I was talking about the "amount of how many days was the Universe created" not "what happened during those days".
For the latter, assume for the moment that we did NOT know about the theory of relativity and it seems illogical (it seemed back then). Then, it would be IMPOSSIBLE to 'explain' (more than what the Bible offers anyway) even the former. Now, suppose we fast forward 50 years.. maybe a new 'illogical' theory will be brought up, who knows, one that will definitely maybe explain the latter as well (at least maybe it will explain that WE WERE wrong that the starts appeared first, or maybe something else, I DON'T KNOW).
Or perhaps we can use the theory of relativity to explain that already. To be honest, I do not have that much knowledge about the Universe (like how it formed during the Big Bang), so even though I'd like to explain it (if it's short anyway) I can't do it precisely.
|
|
Galev
Famous Hero
Galiv :D
|
|
posted June 01, 2008 02:39 PM |
|
|
Quote:
Someone pointed this link to me:
Logical arguments for the Six Day Creation
Why does one need logical reasoning and/or arguments for their faith? I'm sure all of you here know this one well:
"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." [oooh yes: it's a verse from the Bible. Hebrews 11:1, if you are interested]
And: "Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear". [from the same chapter]
Therefore you shall not consider every believers think this way. A few (or more) people thinks they don't want to prove or verify God with science or cognition for "rational people" who will never accept their views anyway. The tool for mission is not science as the tool for believing is not mere cognition. Well, noone tries to hear with their tounge or see with their fingers. (please forget braille and synaesthesia for a moment)
Here I'm not going to proselytize you. I just wouldn't like if you thought every Christian is thinking that way like that page...
Quote:
So people that don't believe the same you do are illogical and irrational? Am I illogical and irrational because I believe in God, Corribus?
Quote:
Yes.
There is no logical reason to believe in god as the roots of religion and belief in a higher power can already be scientifically explained..
And if something is irrational, does this mean it is not true, that it is completly false? Just because you can't understatnd it, it can't be true? Is it not the blindness you were writing about in the masterpost? Saying the Sun goes round the
Earth because you don't understand it's motion on the sky is totally stupid, but saying God does not exist, his a delusion etc because you can't understand how he could "work" is all right?
Is that not inconsistent, illogical?
____________
Incidence? I think it's cummulative!
|
|
TheDeath
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
with serious business
|
|
posted June 01, 2008 03:00 PM |
|
|
Quote:
Why does one need logical reasoning and/or arguments for their faith? I'm sure all of you here know this one well:
"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." [oooh yes: it's a verse from the Bible. Hebrews 11:1, if you are interested]
Well of course but the link does not prove God exists. And it was not my intent to mean necessarily that faith is logical. Only that the Six Day creation stuff (which is a tiny percent of the religion anyway) can be taken logically or AT LEAST it has more 'deep' meanings than what you would expect from such a phrase "Six Days" because TIME is a very complex beast. 
|
|
Corribus
Hero of Order
The Abyss Staring Back at You
|
|
posted June 01, 2008 03:45 PM |
|
|
I will have to keep my answers brief (for once), but here they are:
@Mytical
Quote:
I am not talking about random statistical events..like 1000 sixes from 1000 six sided dice. I am talking about something like somebody having terminal cancer one day, then having no signs of it the next with no reasonable explination of why.
That's the point. There's no fundamental difference between a rare, "unexpected" event like rolling 1000 sixes an someone "unexpectedly" recovering from stage 4 cancer. If you know anything about Gaussian distributions in statistics, you will know that there is no point that has absolutely zero probability. So while an observation that lies an extremely large distance from the "expected" mean may seem miraculous, it is in fact nothing more than statistical anomaly (of course, you can't model everything with Gaussian statistics). For instance, let's pretend that you take everyone in the country who has cancer (and normalize it the best way you can) and record their survival time, and let's pretend that the distribution of survival times is normal (Gaussian). The width of the distribution represents what percentage of the population falls within a certain percentage of the mean. Let's say the mean survival time is 5 years. Depending on the width of the distribution, you can predict that if someone else gets cancer they have an X% chance of surviving for X years. That's sort of like an expectation value. However, just because statistics predict that most people who get cancer will be dead within X years, statistically it is not impossible for a person to survive 20 years. Does that make it a miracle? Depends on how you define miracle, but it certainly does not logically imply a supernatural explanation - by statistics, ANY large survival time is possible, no matter how unlikely. The statistics which govern cancer survival times are fundamentally no different from those that govern dice rolls (just the factors are more complicated). Certainly, it is worth looking for ways to explain statistical anomalies - WHY did such person live 20 years whereas the mean is 5? Sometimes those explanations are not easy to find, given the number of factors involved.
@OD
Quote:
Am I illogical and irrational because I believe in God, Corribus?
Yes, attributing any observation or process to a supernatural agent is illogical, but again I stress that "illogical" is not a fundamentally negative word, even though people like to take it as such. Nor does "illogical" necessarily mean "wrong". The conclusion that God is responsible for anything is not a logical deduction. It can't be - there's no way to make a logical deduction based on something that is fundamentally illogical. It has nothing to do with believing the same things as I believe. And when I say that if you believe in god, you are irrational - that does not mean that you are wrong and I am right. It means that I view the world as being governed by the laws of logic and rationality, whereas you believe that the world is not restricted to what is logical, or rational. It's best illustrated by the idea of a miracle - when you and I looked upon something that is extremely rare or unexpected, the logical, rational explanation is that it is a statistical anomaly, and that we can, given enough experimentation, determine why the observation fell on one extreme side of the mean value. The illogical, irrational explanation is that the observation was a miracle, something not predictable by natural law, something that requires divine intervention and has no rational explanation, and that such experimentation is unnecessary - i.e., no logical explanation exists.
I hope you understand that there is nothing insulting in that above paragraph. I'm not making fun of religious people or impugning their beliefs - I'm explaining that they don't believe that everything about the universe is rational or logical; I *do* believe that everything in the universe is rational and logical. It's a fundamental difference in belief system.
@theDeath
Quote:
The problem is that 'statistical' arguments with very low probability are pretty similar to miracles.
No they're not. Miracles require no logical explanation.
I guess I fail to see the point you're making with the sun exploding.
Meh, out of time. Sorry - maybe I'll have a chance to be more detailed later.
____________
I'm sick of following my dreams. I'm just going to ask them where they're goin', and hook up with them later. -Mitch Hedberg
|
|
TheDeath
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
with serious business
|
|
posted June 01, 2008 03:57 PM |
|
|
Quote:
No they're not. Miracles require no logical explanation.
What I meant was that both can be attributed to any 'special' phenomenon. Something weird happens? A miracle, or a very low probability. In this both are similar
|
|
mvassilev
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
|
|
posted June 01, 2008 06:13 PM |
|
|
Quote:
Well to be honest someone once said that being 'rational' (not logical) means you have to care about yourself and not about others
That someone was wrong. Because it is rational to care about others, since it is pleasurable to the one who is caring.
Quote:
But you can understand that something must've caused nothing to be something, right?
Why? Nothing can cause nothing to be something.
____________
Eccentric Opinion
|
|
DagothGares
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
No gods or kings
|
|
posted June 01, 2008 06:16 PM |
|
|
Quote:
Why? Nothing can cause nothing to be something.
Then you say that the vacuums in outer space must be teeming with life, then. I suppose I understand fail to understand that.
____________
If you have any more questions, go to Dagoth Cares.
|
|
mvassilev
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
|
|
posted June 01, 2008 06:30 PM |
|
|
I fail to see what you're getting at. But let me explain my point of view.
The law of conservation of matter says that matter can neither be created nor destroyed. That means that matter was neither created nor destroyed. "Where did the universe come from?" is a question that assigns an impossible quality to an object. The term "created universe" makes as much sense as "nonpolar water", "non-metallic metal", or "friendly war".
Let us describe the universe.
1. It is made of matter and energy.
2. It exists.
Since neither matter nor energy can be destroyed, this leads us to two possibilities. It either exists and has always existed, or it doesn't exist and has never existed. Since we know that it exists, we know that it has always existed.
____________
Eccentric Opinion
|
|
Lexxan
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
Unimpressed by your logic
|
|
posted June 01, 2008 06:35 PM |
|
|
I think what Dagoth want to tell us that in the context of "God created us" The matter that caused the Big Bang (the eleventh dimension) is God.
I agree with Dagoth about the rest that he's saying: Yeah God exists, but only because some genuinly believe in Him/Her. To me personally however, God doesn't exist, as I'm an atheļst, who doesn't believe anything that written in a book (unless it's a scientific one). Yes, I think that believing in the Bible is stupid, it's like believing in LOTR or Harry Potter or searching for Narnia.
____________
Coincidence? I think not!!!!
|
| |
|
|
This Popular Thread is pages long: 
