Hello.

First off, I'm pretty drunk, and I've been smoking the best plant on Earth, so keep that in mind.

Second off, I'm studying for a Physics degree, which in this first year includes a broad range of science.

Thirdly off, I'm an Atheist.

So, on to the point. I've been an Atheist from a VERY young age, me and 80% of the kids from our village went to an Atheist primary school, because it was the only one in the village.

I'm still an Atheist, but the more I study now into the depths of 'how it all works' (as such) the more I become conflicted! The sheer mathematical beauty of it all constantly steers me away from 'random events' to 'engineered perfection'.

Is this a common stage for Atheists studying 'how it all works' or am I just smoking too much too often?

You've been smoking chocolate? <3

If it has to be engineered perfection, then the engineering happened in an environment where logical constructs are possible, which is probably an environment that itself has to be engineered to perfection, ad infinitum. Surely to goodness.

So it's clearly just that things somehow naturally work out that way because it's a simple, orthogonal system that can just happen.

In the infinite number of possible universes, at last one was bound to be like ours

I grew up "Christian" and became an atheist once I reached an age where I was old enough to start thinking for myself (between 11 and 14, I think). I think that it's good for you to question everything, even science, and potentially good to be exposed to religion, if only to experience first hand how corrupt and ridiculous it is. I don't even know how you can say an "atheist school". To me that's just a school. Did it teach no god as a religion or just not teach a religion [and teach science AKA knowledge instead]?

Bruce Perry basically explained the very rudimentary logic to contradict your own (that which is the same argument that many religious minds use, which I think demonstrates their own logical fallacies). If there had to have been a "creator" then there had to have also been a creator of the creator, ad infinitum. Effectively, it's an infinite loop, which doesn't make any sense. Even if that were the reality, it contracts every practiced religion that I am aware of, so none of those are optional even if you could somehow justify it to yourself.

Append: And it's not hard to find "flaws" in our universe if you define what a flaw is before you look for it. It's actually quite easy. They are a common occurrence.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wdi_u1ZenRw

If you look around you and see "engineered perfection" instead of "shit biology that somehow happens to work despite all the crap that's behind it" then... well... whatever you've been smoking, I want some of it.

No, really, "engineered perfection"? What the fucking hell? Give me a single example of "perfection". Because I've sure as hell never seen anything like it.

Ok, lock the thread, question answered!!

@Bamccaig - it meant no 'carols' at christmas, no references to 'the lord' in any plays or assembly's, I dunno there was just no Jesus. It was because of the Headmaster at the time, who I'm guessing at some point had lost his way with the lord...but I was very, very young!

Seriously, I respect you and all, becuase you're A.cc 'oldskool' but, man, what a weird comment. Perfection? Look at ANYTHING that exists on Earth today...any living thing...it's 1% of anything that EVER lived here!

Seriously mate...shut the shell up.

May?

In fairness, wasn't there one involving the earth sitting on an infinite stack of turtles?

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(The final suggestion is a little more serious than the others )

<then that photo>

Sorry...did I miss something here? Is Bruce Perry up for best replies to ironic posts of the year award??? He's on fire!

Not sure if Dizzy ...

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... likes girl or not.

Thank you I guess I might be slightly unable to sleep at the moment. Of course this may have something to do with the fact that last night I was at work till 2:30 making a convex hull triangulator, and then I stayed even later to play the piano, and then I went shopping too.

I made a spelling mistake.

Um, biology is far from perfect. In fact its all about imperfect. It's how evolution works. Even random mutations play a fair roll in it.

Well Thomas, I have to completely disagree with you, which suprises me.

I am perfect. Nothing else is.

The personal god is complete bullshit, especially the Christian one. I love how he must test his people despite being "all powerful". Is he insecure? Does he not know what his people will do when giving them hard task? Then why call him all powerful. He hasn't done shit for us for 2000 years ever, the sources in the bible are not reliable at all.

Jesus ressurection is bullshit aswell, also surely the great immigration from egypt which is only mentioned in the bible, would be written down somewhere else except the bible? Perhaps I'm being ignorant on the egypt thing, but I cannot remember my history book telling me that a dude named Moses split the sea, defeated the egypts and led the israelites(?) to safety. Also, ressurection seemed like a pretty common thing back in the days aswell.

The bible uses itself as evidence for God, to me that's about as reasonable as using the Narnia books as proof that Narnia is exists.

Narnia is real. I've been there.

Me too, but only when I smoke weed the greatest plant on earth.

Who does that?

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The bible? I don't know, the Christians boast about it(the ones I've met), and I'm pretty sure it was taught to me at school as well.

Edit: I can remember it being said at church as well. But I can't be arsed to dig through the Bible and check if it says that. So if you want you can disregard that argument.

Also I think one of the things Epicurus said, probably one of his most famous quotes if not the most famous, is pretty solid aswell:

Nope.

Aw, you're being reasonable. That's no fun.

There's no such thing as fun when religion is involved Unless it's one of the cool religions.

Edit: Actually I did dig a bit and found http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Revelation+19%3A6&version=KJV

Though this verse seems to differ from each version of the bible. I guess that in it self is a weak argument against the bible(it being different dependant on the version).

But I'm pretty sure Omnipotent means, as defined by dictionary.com, almighty or infinite power.

Thank God, I made a new track!

Where is the sun?

If you know the word omnipotent and are able to project your meaning of it onto millions of other people ... you might be an A.cc Atheist.

I can't see how anyone could think biology is perfect, other than it manages to work there are a crap load of downsides from the way things currently work, but it manages to balance out, at least in the grand scheme (maybe not for an individual or even an individual species).

I guess it depends on your definition of the word "perfect".

I certainly wouldn't use the official definition of the word to describe it.

Apparently, the word "omnipotent" doesn't mean anything at all to people who believe in god. When they say that God is omnipotent, clearly they mean that he can do everything... except for what he can't do.

If you want a concise definition when it is used in a theological context, it would be something like "the ability to do anything within one's nature or desire." If your desires are restricted by your ability, then you aren't omnipotent.

You can get your panties up in a bunch about it, but it's a pretty simple concept.

There's no need to project your meaning onto Christians. Somebody as perfect as you ought to be able to poke holes in the concept while not trying to purposely misrepresent what they believe.

It is one's nature that defines one's limitations. By your definition, I'm omnipotent. When a theist says that god is omnipotent, they're simply wasting air and producing meaningless sounds. "God is omnipotent" gives you absolutely no information about god's actual abilities. You could say that god's omnipotence is bounded by the laws of logic, but all that tells you with certainity is what god can't do.

It's always funny to see Physics majors try to apply mathematical beauty to Biology and fail utterly once they realize how utterly messy it is .

One example of how utterly badly "designed" our bodies are that I learned recently is the recurrent laryngeal nerve. This thing descends down from the brain to the heart, then loops around the aorta and goes back up before innervating the laryngeal muscles (muscles that allow you to speak normally). This detour is perhaps a few inches in humans, but is a few feet in animals like giraffes .

If we were designed by god, then god is like a noob who as his first programming project decided to make a MMORPG, stuck with it but created a source repository of such ungodly spagettiness that it's a miracle it works at all.

If the world was perfect, the housefly wouldn't exist.
We wouldn't occasionally bite the insides of our mouths.
We wouldn't have a little intestine left over from evolution that has no other purpose than to randomly try to kill you.

Also, the world would be no fun to live in if it was perfect.

If the world was perfect it would differ from person to person and deity to deity.

If a deity made the universe and it is perfect in its eyes, then the universe itself is proof that deity is evil by our definition of evil. The definition of evil may differ from person to person as well.

I guess a better way to say it is if a deity created the universe and it was perfect in its eyes. That deity is responsible for everything in existence.

I don't believe that, but I'm pretty sure that the Bible says God created the universe, and everything that is bad is a result of him either not being able to or not willing to fix that is bad. Why aren't Christians pissed off at him, he's a massive douche.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

I've argued with theists a few times where they'd point to the puffy white clouds in the sky and say how beautiful they were, it was by design. I'd point out that innumerable associations with such weather and enjoyable outings had created that impression, and there was no such association with storm clouds, was there? And if the sky was lime green, and the clouds were blood red, the same associations would hold (providing the theist had grown up going to picnics etc. with such a sky visible).

That's funny. I know religious schools of various description (which means you study the standard curriculum and whatever religion-specific background and holy books and you may have things like starting the day with a prayer) and I know of secular schools where you get none of the religion-specific stuff (and you get a mix of backgrounds). Perhaps you meant secular?

No.

Can't say, but I would think it has nothing to do with anything.

It really is quite wondrous to see how some of the mathematics works out, how simple and elegant fundamental physical laws can be when expressed in term of mathematical functions (the relativistic version of Maxwell's equations is one of my personal favourites, especially when compared to the incredible mess of their 3-D Newtonian formulation). But to see "engineered perfection", I think, is to overinterpret what you see. For one thing, if you get down to the details of it, physical laws are not actually as neat and tidy as they appear. For another, if someone engineered the laws of the universe, then by induction the question becomes where the engineer comes from and what laws govern him/her/it (I know, not if you're religious, but this is from trying to answer whether someone created the universe from data; yes, it's a valid scientific question).

By the way - when it comes to that question, whether someone designed and created the universe, the intellectually most honest position is agnosticism: we simply have no data one way or the other. You can perhaps rule out creators with certain properties (or specific concrete examples), but not the general concept. Einstein for instance was an agnostic when it comes to the concept of a creator-god, but firmly rejected the idea of a personal god.

Anyone who knows a jot about biology and still thinks it's all meticulously and specifically designed by an intelligent being is an idiot. Of course, the easiest way to make an eco-system is to create multiple instances of a generic creature, each slightly different, and Monte-Carlo the whole thing by just letting it run for a while and search its own equilibria. Which is basically what we have anyway.

Regardless though: the universe could have a creator without that creator having personally and specifically have had a hand in how life works; that could just be a side-effect.

Wouldn't my wife and son disability (FSH Muscular Dystrophy) and everyone with genetic disabilities like ALS be proof of your point?

Would seem so.

I'm not really a religious person myself, but this argument would have to apply to other possibilities such as the big bang theory. If there was a catalyst that initiated the creation of the universe, what created the catalyst? Was there simply nothing at all in existence until all of a sudden, spontaneously, there was?

I think most of the ideas are that it's cyclical, but "between" big bangs time and space have no meaning. If you object that this makes it "infinite", it doesn't bother me, but most people have a hard time believing infinity. On the gripping hand, Xians believing that sinners get burnt in lava for an infinite time for not giving god his upvotes is OK.

Sure. The nice thing about science is it doesn't stop looking for answers. New information is integrated into the current understanding, even if it completely reverses years, decades, or centuries of theory. Its just that we can't currently look back farther than just after the big bang, so there's no real direct evidence as of yet, that there was something before the big bang, and if so, what it was. There are plenty of hypotheses that try and guess at how things were during and before inflation, but they are all currently just guesses (although educated guesses).

Or at least that's how I understand it.

It's less of an objection and more of a counter-objection. Who's the creator's creator? Well, what's the origin's origin? Unless you have a double-standard, either both or neither should bother you.

It's not so much that a[n infinite] loop is unreasonable. It's that it doesn't make sense according to any practiced religion that I am aware of for there to suddenly be multiple omnipotent beings, let alone for an omnipotent being to create an omnipotent being to create an omnipotent being to create an omnipotent being [ad infinitum] ... to create humans. The OP basically justifies his doubt based on a subjective beauty. One could spill paint on a canvas and somebody somewhere would find it creative and intelligent. Even creations that we make (or do, etc.) are sometimes complete accidents (whether we admit it or not).

I personally envision a single universe with energy inside of it that obeys physical laws that leads to a cycle of compression that at some point leads to a rapid expansion, formation of simple chemical elements (composed of compressed energy), formation of stars, the formation of complex elements, planets, blah blah blah, then eventually the energy gets decomposed and recirculated into another big bang. Not all that unlike our own life cycle, I suppose.

Why? Fuck if I know. It's not my job to study it (though, I guess I wish it was), and I wouldn't be surprised if existing knowledge already contracts this, but I'm quite confident saying that no reliable evidence for a deity behind the curtain has ever been found. If you create a man behind the curtain then you have to include the possibility that he too has a man behind a curtain, ad infinitum. Effectively, religious beliefs substitute unknowns with "magic", which accomplishes nothing ... until people exploit the faith of others in this "magic" for their own gain. I'd much rather say "maybe" or "I don't know".

I'm ashamed that I missed this before. What did the other 20% do?

The question how something can originate from nothing is very interesting IMHO. There's also the question whether there was nothing to begin with.
In the spirit of McCaig's story, here's how I (roughly) picture the universe originated:
There was one string(?) with an infinitesimal difference to its neighbour. To the universe zero and infinitesimal are equal in this particular case. But the difference couldn't exist without a neighbour. So the neighbour existed too, but you can't spawn a string without emitting particle X etc. And this went on for some time to even out this 'mathematical' discrepancy. Then the universe ended.

Older religions often have family-trees. And often it is not the first oldest deity that creates the earth/universe. Maybe that is related to family honour, or maybe our ancestors just remembered the creation of the universe better ;P

Are you referring to how the story of Genesis bears a remarkable resemblance to earlier Phoenician myths or what?

Science created the concept of god, and when we stop worrying about him, a situation will eventually arise that he will be needed again, and he will be recreated to suit that purpose.

The Last Question - Isaac Asimov

if you went to a school teaching atheism rather than abstaining from religious teaching isn't that then a religion which means you aren't a non-believer but a believer?

Just wanna drop a comment on the "there can't be an infinite regress of creators" discussion

As someone said, there can't have been an infinite regress of creations, it just doesn't make sense, especially within a religious context.

First off: In order to recognize that an explanation is the best, you don't have to have an explanation of the explanation. If that was the case, science would be destroyed.

Imagine a lightning bolt that strikes your house and starts a fire. You are justified in believing that the lightning bolt was responsible for putting your house on fire, without having to explain where the lightning bolt came from.

To clarify, you don't need to explain how God came to exist in order to believe God is the best explanation of the cause of the universe.

Secondly: Christians, Jews and Muslims believes God is necessary in his existence and a maximally great being, meaning there is nothing greater than God: If God had a creator, that would be God. The very nature of God is that he is un-caused, timeless, changeless etc.

I just wanted to point out that this argument is not valid to use against the existence of a God

My current preferred belief is that there is a consciousness and nothing else. There is no need for a physical universe, it's all just imagined by this consciousness.

Nothing has ever been created, just like dreams are not created. Everything we experience is only thoughts. I also think nature is such a mess because before we started thinking that everything had to make sense we just imagined stuff into existence.

In this theory, all the mythical creatures and gods may very well have actually "existed", but then we started thinking scientifically and those scary things were so hard to explain logically that we suppressed those ideas out of existence.

The pure consciousness does not consist of any matter or energy. It needs no creator because it isn't a thing and it hasn't created anything, it's just dreaming. It may or may not be self conscious, I believe it is not.

Why don't you calculate the probability that taking into account the known size of the universe the atoms in your body would come together to form the living organism that is you, then you will be closer to the answer...I'm pretty much an agnostic when it comes to these questions, and went to school for physics as well but I don't think most people understand what science really is and tend to ask the wrong questions, especially when it comes to physics, math or biology. Science is not here to explain why we are here or why it is beautiful, is there a god etc, these questions are very personal ones. The mathematical description for me is beautiful for example the Lagrangian formulation of mechanics or the calculus of variations. When I was younger I often mystified and even hopefully suspected something extraordinary behind some formulas but I became more and more disillusioned as I understood more of the science...The beauty lies in the art, the art of describing the world in a graceful way even in math. It's like a painting by Van Gogh, it is not the real thing, but it captures it "perfectly".

Bullcrap science is all about explaining things. Even its own explanations. Invariably, we get shit wrong. Or at the very least, incomplete. So more information, and more explanations are needed. It's just how science works.

This is absolutely true. Science would be at a standstill if every explanation had to be consistent all the way to the beginning of the universe. But...

...this is the better way of continuing that sentiment . The "what created god" is a very stupid argument against god given that there are so many many more good ones that don't require delving into that issue.

I'd say this argument is more like a rebuttal to "where did the primordial atom come from?" question.

Yeah. Honestly, the only remotely tenable place for god right now is him exploding with a big bang and not existing thenceforth. And that's only because there's no good scientific explanation that I'm aware of of how big bang arose. I wouldn't bet on the god exploding explanation being true however.

You need to explain it because the sole reason for introducing a god as the "cause of the universe" is to explain how something could come from nothing.

Grow thread grow! >:D

If you believe that there is no god, then you believe that the physical laws that govern the universe simply "are".

If you believe that there is a god, then you believe that he/it/she/they simply is/are.

Either way, something has to exist with no explanation for how it came into being.

But it's simpler to believe that the stuff we see "just came to be" than it is to believe "god and all the stuff we see just came to be".

I got this from Stephen Hawking's “Into the Universe”. The argument is that since time and space are united and without space you cannot have time then time did not exist before the creation of the universe. Since there is no time prior to the creation of the universe, the concept of “before” the universe has no meaning.

If you're going to use the pedantic definition of time as "measurement of entropy", sure.

For the same reason, it doesn't really make sense to say that the universe was "created" since "creation" is an action and therefore requires the existence of time. I feel like this is just arguing semantics, though. I think the concept of cause and effect makes sense without time, so you could still ask about the cause of the universe. And the cause of the cause of the universe, etc. I guess you could toss aside these questions as having no practical significance, but they're still valid questions. Maybe there are limits to human reasoning after all.

I don't remember the argument exactly but apparently at the quantum level things come into and out of existence all of the time.

But there's always an anti-whatever to balance it out, and we can't find our "anti-universe".

Maybe it's a good conceptual explanation for some physical phenomena but surely, you can't directly observe things coming into and out of existence? I don't know much about quantum physics.

Not sure if that's a question or a statement. Anyway how can you be sure ?

Read that as "makes no sense to me, but I'm not an expert". Are we talking about tangible or conceptual things spontaneosly coming in and out of existence? I mean, acceleration is real but not tangible. An atom is both real and tangible. Are we talking about things belonging to the first or second category? Can we detect the things themselves or only their effects on other things?

The virtual particles haven't been directly observed yet, but they're hoping...

Generally, if the statement ends with a '?' (question mark) it constitutes a question.

I thought I was the king of pointless discussions, but I've lost my crown. Even I don't care enough to debate this topic any further. We have covered religion and creation in the other thread. I will bring up one point though, we are gods in a small manner (we create games, art, music, web sites, etc out of nothing). Perfection is just another delusion of man in the same regard as religion. < scratches head>With all the programmers, geeks, musicians, and artists we have here I can't figure how these are the only topics that seem to be most active lately</scratches head>

Because we can't come to a definite conclusion, so it goes on endlessly.

Wikipedia said:

Sounds to me like virtual particles can't be detected by definition. I think they fall into the category of concepts invented to explain various phenomena. It's not the same as actual tangible things coming into and out of existence.

Really? Can you sense the irony? I don't think there's anything quite as pointless as you popping up and informing the participants of a discussion about how pointless it is.

Check out the third paragraph here.

Stas, in fairness, Specter did refrain from actual debate, and instead made a comment that is actually quite perceptive and positive: that we're all gods in a small way. The 'pointless discussions' comment can be taken as tongue-in-cheek. So there's no need to be mean.

Hootenanny

Alright. I'm not acquainted with fancy modern physics so let's put it another way: does any of you, knowledgeable gentlemen, have an example of something just coming into existence for no reason whatsoever?

The universe?

The reason the universe came into existence is so the chicken could cross the road.

What I was trying to point out is that there must be some inherent flaw in the way humans reason. It makes no sense to just arbitrarily draw a line somewhere and say "Well, this thing has no cause as far as I'm concerned". On the other hand, everything having a cause implies a realized actual infinity, which doesn't really make sense to me either.

That's been my position the whole time ...

Yeah, well, some people have more flawed reasoning than others.

If time did not exist before the universe came into existence, then does it makes sense to base a theory of the creation of the universe on causality? It seems like that might be our inherent flaw, that we cannot grasp a timeless concept in which events don't necessarily proceed one another. It certainly is my flaw. Much like I cannot visualize a universe with more than 4 dimensions.

I don't really see why some form of casuality cannot exist without time. Event A may still precede event B in the sense that A caused B. It don't see any contradiction. You can define casuality in a consistent manner that holds with or without time in place.

But there isn't enough time to cause things to happen!

I really don't understand why time is necessary. You can think about cause and effect in terms of logic. Given the existance and nature of A, it logically follows that B must also exists. In that sense, A causes B.

Except without time there is no linearity. One thing can not cause something to happen after, since there is no time. If one thing can cause something to happen, there would be no guarantee it happened before, after or purring. again, since there is no time.

Why does it have to "happen"? Thing A exists, therefore thing B exists. No before or after.
For example, given the infinite nature of natural numbers, there exists a prime larger than 10,000.

I didn't have time to notice A or B.

Well I don't get it. Are you just trolling?

Trolling takes time.

Its in the language. For something to cause something else to happen it has to happen after. Which definitely implies time exists.

Primes larger than 10,000 exist. They exist becuase the set of natural numbers exists and it has the property of being infinite. It doesn't make sense talking about the set of natural numbers existing before primes. The concept of time does not apply. That's an example of something having a cause regardless of time.

Deep thoughts there Tretzker...I wish that more of us humans would embrace such possibilities.

When something comes into existence, how long does it take for all the phenomena associated with it to also come into existence? An hour? A second? Some infinitesimal amount of time? Are they even seperable that you could say "this thing came first and everything that follows directly from its nature came afterwards"?

I had an experience very much like the one described here, which I would further describe as "the realization of the interconnectedness of all things". Replace physics degree with "TTC lectures I pirated" and "Week long David Attenborough marathons".

However, I was also conflicted with crap like this at the time. I moved away from that, and after creating a website for a local woo-woo-voo-doo centre for massage and things like "chakra balancing", I really started thinking differently than I did when I was a self-proclaimed atheist. It's not that I started believing in deities or anything... but I started to believe in phenomena that go somewhat against the typical "atheist scientist paradigm" that Evert is often representing.

The mathematical beauty is there due to the laws of nature, engineering has nothing to do with it. I.e. given a set of physical laws, certain patterns will emerge, which will seem so beautiful they may be considered engineered.

But the chicken didn't want to cross the road it was the pervert who couldn't get his... sorry wrong joke.

Math is independent from natural laws. No matter how the universe works, math would work exactly the same. PI is the same value no matter what universe you're in.

Originally I meant what if all the energy/matter was 'created', and then just did whatever it did and here we are billions of years later...I knew what I meant at the time but again, I was very, VERY high.

Me and a friend once created a picture in delux paint of our friend Andy who had a pony tail and it looked like phil collins, so we called it 'Pony Phil'. We OCD'd every pixel that was out of place in zoom mode and in the process his pony tail turned into Jesus and hidden in a nostril was a helicopter.

Pretend there is a picture of an orange, on a table, with a lamp in the background. Most people will say there is (an orange shaped) shadow on the table, because there is an orange on table, between the light source. Given images of other objects on said table similar conclusions can be made. On the other hand the opposite statements "there is an object of Shape X, because there is a shadow of shape X" would also seem valid. This has a name... "dependency"? It is generally not called " "causality".
The fact that we can put an orange on the table, and causatively form a shadow, makes us inclined to interpret the dependence that way around.
It might illustrate your point, though. If we are presented with 'pictures' only, we could still speculate a causality.

Any 'complete' reasoning of how the universe was created should boil down to "it was created, because it exists", so you might as well accept that answer now

Any concept your mind allows to be applied to everything you know will seem beautiful. That's what I think. Math can be ugly IIRC the formal definition of addition is butt-ugly.

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The nature of light and the nature of opaque objects necessitate the existence of shadows. It's not the logical relationship that requires time but the nature of light and opaque objects. There's no reason why such relationships could not be formed between objects with a nature independant of time.

Human reasoning assumes that the existence of anything in the universe is necessitated by the nature of something else. Reasoning differently about the universe itself is special pleading.

But the light has to hit the orange earlier (timewise) than the table to form a shadow.

Light travel itself is bound by time so I think that discussion is nonsense. :P I think the entire discussion is so theoretical that it is no more useful than guessing. There's probably only a couple of people in this community that have studied this level of physics and fewer still that are experts on it. I am neither.

Philosophy is fun that way.

Hey apple!

You guys want an example of causality without time?

x=3; therefore x²=9.

However, x²=9 doesn't imply x=3, because x could be -3.

Not sure if troll or not.
I honestly don't understand what you guys are talking about. There can be logical relationships between entities regardless of time. What's the problem with a logical relationship where the existence and nature of one thing necessitates the existence of another thing? I obviously can't give an example from the universe because it depends on time, but if you're going to say that such relationships are incomprehensible to the human mind, I'm going to say that you're lying because math is full of them. I guess it does not fit the usual definition of casuality, but I'm obviously not talking about the usual form of casuality.

If you're going to talk about static concepts, then they can't form a universe. Otherwise I'm gonna smash your face with a PI! Just yesterday a hippie threatened to punch me right in the aura.

Annoying as I may be, even I don't get threatened by hippies.

I'm fairly sure I've experienced things disappearing, but not actually seen them disappear. There was a paper clip which was there one moment on the table when I was being interviewed for a maths degree and then a moment later it had disappeared.
The woman interviewing me said "never mind", so it was a shared experience.

Now I know it's me and what happens in my world is of no concern to scientists, but it happened and so for me the idea of a particle appearing or disappearing is not a possibility I can't cope with.

@Spectre : a statement ending with a question mark is generally a question but a question starting with the word surely doesn't require an answer so is a statement.

</rubs collar>

Atheist view: "So how far back can we reconstruct the beginning?"

Theist view: "It's fucking magic, so don't ask! Anyway, it hurts my head!"

Specterist view: "Who fucking cares?! Future events will kill us before we figure out our beginning."

It's through figuring things out that we even stand a chance in the future we could stick our heads in the sand and let ourselves die due to stupidity, or lack of action.

Yeah. Who cares about anything at all? Future events will kill you 50 years from now or even sooner. Might as well just drop dead right now.
No? Maybe our imminent death has no direct relation to what we care about after all.

That's about exactly what I meant.

The "="operator used to freak me out, because I couldn't tell what the computer would do if I told x = 2 * x Now differential equations

If you are given only the "still pictures" without any notion of time, the "causality" expressed in those pictures can only be hypothesized.

Maybe not. If we assume there was "nothing" before "anything", there has to be a process or mechanism that forms "nothing" into "anything". (But if changes shape, it's not nothing(?)) Then however, if there was nothing to begin with, the state we are in now must somehow be equivalent to nothing. Or, you assume that there is a "origin state" that changes from something beyond our comprehension, to the domain that we can perceive, and perhaps then to a state that we cannot perceive^[1]. To us that would seem like existence (including time) coming into being from nothing. I'm still pondering on the implications of this last view.

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(Courtesy of SMBC)

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Yeah, about that...
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Who is that supposed to be, and why is he relevant? Tineye couldn't find any duplicates of that image.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jul/14/pastafarian-photo-religious-headgear

Why isn't there a facepalm "smiley"?

[EDIT]

Test for small images

facepalm.png

nope, still doesn't work

What? It's sort of relevant, seeing as the FSM is an atheist parody of religion.

I meant I should have guessed from the colander (strainer).

[EDIT]

But isn't it sacrilegious? It would prevent you from being touched by his noodly goodness!

Morgan Freeman narration:

The year is 3015 and scientists announced on June 5th that they have discovered the beginning of the universe, man, and that God does exist. On June 8th a mutation in a simple virus starts a plague that wipes out the human population. June 12th a global killer hits the planet and wipes out the remaining life forms. Though they all died at least knowing where their beginning was.

That seems just about as unlikely (wiping out the entire human population, followed in four days by an asteroid?) as anything else in this thread. Oh, well, if you can't dazzle them with brilliance...

There is no brilliance in this thread to begin with. It is the same bullsh!t that has been batted back and forth in numerous threads. Whether we started everything in the big bang or some supreme being breathing us into creation or if aliens created us, I don't give a sh!t. I'm here now, I won't be here 100 years from now, but the world will be. P!ssing and moaning over the beginning of creation won't solve any future problems and is a complete waste of time. If a scientist proved everything came into existence through the big bang, religions would argue they are just trying to phase out God. If religion proved a supreme being existed, there would be people that would say they are just trying to get more followers for the religions. It will never matter if they give a definitive answer because it will never be taken by all as the accepted answer. This debate and all like them are nothing more than a p!ssing contest.

As for my fictional story, we have movies of zombie outbreaks, alien invasions, plague outbreaks, asteroids, earthquakes, etc. I just chose two plausible topics as doctors have said "It's not a matter of if a pandemic will occur, but rather when it will occur." Scientists have said there are several global killers that we know about and probably thousands we don't know about heading at us right now. My scenario, while obviously fiction, could very well happen. There are tons of scenarios that could happen that have been used to develop stories from.

Then why don't you GTFO? That would be the only intelligent thing for you to do. Nobody cares what you think about the topic of this discussion. It's amusing me. If it's not amusing you, just go away.

Once you get your dick out of your ear and quit f*cking your brain you would realize that will never happen. My speciality is complaining and whining and this thread is the best place to do that. Can't believe you even bothered typing that, figured you would know that by now after being here 4 years.

I love it how you're so proud of being a useless dick.

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Aaaaaand we're done.

Calling you out on your stupid behavior never gets old.

Add some transparent space:

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Easily amused?

Yeah, but not as useless as having three threads in one month that have all boiled down to the same creation discussion. One thread wasn't even a religion thread and still somehow got derailed into a religion thread. I'm useless, but so is everyone else here as they are beating a dead horse across three threads and still stating the same point of views.

You find it amusing that an allegro/programming/game development site has been hung up on religion threads for a whole month now?

I wonder if there is a God, and if so, did he make the Universe?

OK, that one is pretty good. It would save us the trouble of repeatedly embedding Piccard and Riker.

Geeks.

Yes, same here. The math says things that big don't disappear (without tremendous force). Still, I find it very illustrative, and helps me keep an open-mind to this kind of meta-physical thinking.

I have been thinking on what it means if there were sort of a 'meta universe' from which ours spawned. Assuming that some 'force' alters a part of this meta universe 'slowly'^[1] into what we can perceive, including space and time, it should leave traces of 'parts' of the universe which have 'less perceivable existence'. Assuming space and time were created when our universe was born, these 'parts' would have no correlation^[2] to either space or time.
There is however a very strong correlation to time and (the) existence; it seems to begin and end^[3] at a certain time. This implies that there is some correlation between the aforementioned meta-universe-force and time. In fact in this reasoning, space-time itself could be leaking into our universe. There might be some other reasoning/measurement, which makes this impossible, but I don't know it. If space-time leaked into our universe, it would (merely) shift the question to: "what is our universe?".
And as I pointed out in the notes, this assumes there is some fluctuation in the meta universe force.

In the light of the "most annoying avatar" thread, I was thinking to have an animated GIF of an "infinite facepalm".

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Circular arguments are circular,

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tempting as they may be.

I'm now very curious as to what a laptop would do if you actually plugged one of those in.

Would it short out? Would it lose some extra power through the cable?

@Arthur Kalliokoski

If it didn't cause some sort of loop to happen, it would lose a lot of power because of all the conversions. First, most laptops like to charge at > 12V (I think mine is 19v or higher), then the dc->dc converter inside the laptop converts the power from the battery/ac adapter down to 12v, 5v, and 3.3 which isn't 100% efficient, thus losing power along the way. Then that cable would have to boost the USB's 5v @ 500mA power up to something like 20v @ 2A (or more), which I think is quite impossible, but even if it was, it'd be highly inefficiently.

So yeah.

I really, REALLY wan't to come visit you and Jasper! And get high! (With you not Jasper!). Along with Edgar Reynaldo you're one of my top Allegroids, I like you Thomas!

editation: I made a you your you're woopsie.....again

Herm?

If it didn't lose power, you'd just plaster the screen with solar cells to make a perpetual motion machine.

I love free energy! It's so awesome.

But thats an amusing thought. They actually are thinking of making mobile device screens with mini solar panels in the screens to generate power from the wasted light. It seems the glass panel and other bits of an LCD panel block 80% (or something) of the light emitted from the backlight. So some "bright" people thought it might be possible to recoup some of that energy.

Makes one wonder about one's intelligence when they resort to pictures to express themselves rather than their vocabulary. ML can even verify that those three threads have dominated the forums this month (almost 600 posts between them while some of the threads asking for help or feedback have gone unanswered). Though makes one wonder intelligence too when you don't have the balls to verbally insult a person and rely on pics for it. Guess it is better than "I'm right, prove me wrong!" though.

If there is, no. According to the bible He made earth in the first six days and rested on the seventh day. Don't know about other religions, but I'm guessing they are similar. So that leaves big bang, aliens, or a bigger supreme being over God.

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I would like to end the thread now, so please, listen and drift away...and endeth...ahhh...yes....ahem. Hello.

A dog turd looks more fabulous than me. I don't worry about my looks. I keep shaved just so my wife doesn't go on about me having a beard.

Jeez, guys. Haven't you .m1425 { display: none; }'d yet?

Remember in the 80's when there were white ones?

Good points, Spencer Penix.
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Nah, while annoying at times, I still have my moments .

It is just that most the guys here could tell instantly I was trolling, but Stas B. makes it too d@mn easy for me. I always hear that voice in my head saying, "Just because you can do it, does it mean you should do it?" Sadly it is drowned out by the answering voice screaming "YES!!!!!!".

Yes you are retarded, but is it normal to post pictures about yourself? Explains so much about you posts now.

Stas, you may want to look over your posts again, mindful of the discussion about your attitude in the other thread. Regardless of who's right and who's wrong (I honestly don't even know what you guys are arguing about anymore), you're coming across as a complete twat.

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He didn't like my point of view on this topic and told me to GTFO, which as you know just makes me start trolling that person. Apparently he is coming across as that because he is a complete twat who has a limited vocabulary as shown by his obsession for using pictures to talk for him. Didn't think it was possible, but he is actually coming across more childish than me .

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Let's all just assume people who consistently act and talk dumb are simply clever and consistent trolls.

Stas_B_++;

I think you meant to put Stas_B_--; as I seem to recall you saying in one of my troll threads or on IRC (and mind you this is paraphrasing) that only dumb@sses keep replying to threads after a person admits to trolling. Yet, there you have Stas B. continually replying to my trolling remarks.

Assumption is the mother of all f*ck-ups. Seems you like to be consistent with making your self look bad. Guess you have pride in being a d!ck too.

Say it a few more times, you know, just in case someone reads your post and thinks you're just really stupid.

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Yeah, make it easy for me and just keep talking.

This is such a great type of discussion. , it's been a few years since I last took part in this lynching.

I believe in God though. I feel the evidence of intelligent design can be seen by looking in the mirror, the brain for example and how incredibly complex it is, let alone the rest of the human body.

Like atheists, I don't like most of the churches out there, I feel that almost every thing the Catholics teach is the opposite of the truth.

I told my father, who is an atheist, we'll all find out the truth in the end. If he's right and there is no God, I'll never know, but if I am right and there is...

Other than stating my beliefs, I'll pass on getting sucked into this type of discussion again. I think I have upset both atheists and Catholics now, so my job is done.

Hopefully your god is too incompetent to recognize that you're weighing the consequences.

To be honest, I personally do not weigh them like that, it just sounded like a good way of wording it at the time.

My usual response is that I do not believe in God at all. I know He exists. To me personally anyhow, I have come to a point in my life where it is no longer a doubt in my mind.

I would explain my reasons why in more detail, but I've been through that before in here, so I'll pass.

As others have stated in a couple threads, not all Christians "believe" the same. I usually can end up in an argument with other Christians just as easily as I can with Atheists as I can't stand most of the religious institutions of this world, but a "belief" in God doesn't require you to subscribe to any of their doctrines. If you examine religious institutions like Evangelism and Catholics you'll find a lot of what they practice comes from paganism and not their bible at all.

I don't celebrate Easter or Christmas for example.

But I've said too much already, I find it difficult to stay out of these discussions as I love a decent discussion about God and such, but not the kind I see in here.

There is one point I would like to make before I exit this thread and that is that I constantly see Atheists accuse Christians of being inflexible in their beliefs, but aren't Atheists the exact same way? This is why these "arguments" are pointless, each side thinks the other is irrational and inflexible.

Only the extremists are.

Or they label the other side "extremists" for not changing their point of view.

We need some Muslims in here to balance it out with what they "know" to be true. OTOH, they'd probably bomb our houses instead of just flaming in threads.

I'm talking about the extremists on both sides. Who talk about nothing but absolutes and never even once try to consider the other side's point lest it conflict with their deeply held beliefs, and maybe, just maybe make them think a little.

Actually I have several beliefs which would be considered quite irrational by just about everybody, but I'm careful to keep them to myself, since I have so many stories of real life that nobody can swallow either.

I would love to see who you think are the non-extremists here ...

All the thousands of members who didn't bother to post?

What he said

I try hard not to be an absolutist. I have such disdain for it that I fight against it. That said, I can't guarantee I'm 100% free of such things. I am human after all.

I was going to say that but refrained, because of ...

... that. "If you post at all, you're an extremist" seems ... extreme.

I'll be the first to admit I am not flexible when it comes to my beliefs. But I do enjoy science. There are just certain scientific ideas that I dismiss. It's not always due to my beliefs. I don't ignore new ideas, I just don't subscribe to some of them because I don't see any solid evidence to back them up, just a lot of theories which somehow turn into fact over time when repeated enough. I see flaws in the logic and so I dismiss them. As I told my wife one time, even if I didn't believe in God, some of these theories I have heard I wouldn't subscribe to anyhow, I just wouldn't know what to believe. I have examined my own beliefs intelligently, for the past 30 years in fact and I just cannot escape the fact that there has to be an all powerful being I label God that designed everything. There is just too much evidence in the human body alone to dismiss. Who made God? Nobody, he has always existed. People tend to think in absolute terms, everything has a beginning and an end is the common misconception but in fact, everything has always existed. Even me, the matter that makes up who I am now has always existed, but in different forms. It didn't pop out of nowhere, it's a complex process involving all the food and drink and anything else I have ingested in my lifetime that has been converted into who I am today, before me it was an apple, a grape... before that it was nutrients in the soil that helped the seed grow, that made the apple tree, that made the apple, that I ate and helped me grow etc.... matter has always existed so the idea that some all powerful being has always existed as well, suddenly doesn't seem like a "stupid" idea at all to me, in fact, it makes perfect sense.

I have arrived at my beliefs logically. I don't know how God does things, no more than I know how people in this forum do things that I cannot see. But I think that science has discovered how God has designed the universe, after all, as Einstein discovered, all matter is energy, I find that alone fascinating. That energy came from somewhere, and it has always existed, unless of course you believe it spontaneously popped into existence.

I hope this explains why I believe the way I do without getting into details on specific theories I disagree with that would only lead to nasty arguments.

Do tell!

I already did tell, a few years back. Maybe the old posts still exist, I see no reason to bore people with repeating myself.

Since chimpanzees share 99% of our chromosomes, do they have a 99% chance of being designed by God? Or did God stop just short of perfection?

Maybe Evolution got to 99%, then God made man in his own image (using an ape as a template/base).

Evolution should have patented apes before it was too late. That's not a very nice thing to do, God. And he took all the credit!

Obviously that was a bit tongue in cheek. Just because you post in one of these threads doesn't make you an extremist. You may be more likely to be one however.

Is that Riley Martin?

And you let other people examine your beliefs intelligently and they arrived at very different conclusions. What makes you right and them wrong?

As a neuroscientist, I find this notion insulting. We will find out how the brain works, and there will be no god.

As for being extreme and inflexible... it's better to be extreme and inflexible and right than be extreme and inflexible and wrong. And the rightness of forcing people to provide tangible (and not "intelligent" self-introspection or personal communions) evidence and provide reproducible experimentation and provide predictions is evidenced by the absolutely incredible increase in the scientific understanding of essentially everything that we can observe and the corresponding technological advances.

What evidence is for not making tangible predictions (when you die? You must be joking), not providing tangible evidence being right? Some stress reduction is about the only one I can think of.

Maybe I'll learn that I was wrong when I die. I think I'll take the certainty of being right while I'm alive though.

You realize the one does not necessarily follow the other, of course ... these statements are basically unrelated.

But then you'll know the mind of god

....

They are related to the extent Neil Roy thinks the brain's complexity requires a god. I meant that there will be no god in the brain.

Even if you have a face only a mother could love?

If our genes were constructed by an intelligent designer, why did he stop halfway?
We have endless genetic bugs that needs to be fixed.

The same thing that makes you right and me wrong.

My thoughts exactly.

My thoughts exactly.

You think they're bugs, perhaps you just haven't discovered what they are used for? To be honest though, I don't know anything about genetics, ask God.

Ah, back to the old "God Did it" explanation.

Another option: Magic.

I dunno. But I think its lazy to immediately go for "God" when ever you don't personally understand something.

Arguing from a Judeo-Christian point of view, it can be said that the "genetic bugs" and mutations are the accumulated result of thousands of years of human reproduction; mutations occur and are passed on to progeny just like any other living thing.

Edit: that's assuming you were referring to harmful mutations, but just generally useless ones.

Yeah that is interminable. But 'involving' some kind of 'God' wherein the word 'God' implies something way beyond anything we're even close to understanding, as an entity that may have had direct involvement on all that matter/energy expanding all of a sudden (and maybe being involved in it being there in the first place!) is, well, quite exciting, when you're single and high.

I have absolutely no problem with people thinking about things and trying to understand the way of the universe.

Its those that use "God did it" to stop thinking that I don't agree with. Since its easier to say "God did it" than to think about things you don't understand.

I agree 100%, it's the theological equivalent of saying 'look over there' and running away.

'God moves in mysterious ways'.....I wish I could fecking use that every time I get asked something I daren't try to answer!

Still not following, but I probably shouldn't jump into other people's conversations anyway.

Hey Neil, welcome to the thread

I say "ask God" because I am not a genetisist. And unlike most Atheists in here, I don't claim to know all the ins and outs of the universe. There is no way I am going to take a course in genetics just to answer a question in a forum that will only be argued endlessly anyhow.

When I say "ask God" it's because I don't know the answer, but I don't mean to imply God's waved a magic wand and used magic. I do feel that we can understand how it is all done given time, but I strongly feel that all the laws scientist discover that govern our lives (gravity, inertia etc...) were created by God.

I hope that someday I can fully understand how God did everything and in fact the bible states that after the return of Christ, all knowledge will become available to us, I look forward to that day because like you, I have a lot of questions.

Yeah, I do get easily sucked into these types of threads, but I enjoy the conversation so long as it doesn't get insulting or too sarcastic. I respect people's point of views and understand a little how they have a hard time believing in a creator. I'm being VERY careful what I say though as I know what types of replies certain comments/opinions from me will spark.

PLEASE, feel free to jump in, take over even!

But why? If God did it, you have all the answers you need.

I was quite surprised how aggressive SiegeLord was

My view is that most religious people treat religion as a personal choice, they don't push it on other people, they are smart enough not to allow their religion to screw them over (do you notice how most religious people are not Scientologists?), and they do not have an issue with science. I don't see a problem.

I never push my beliefs on anyone. I also don't walk around with a permanent smile etched on my face like some I have seen. I do joke around a lot, but that's different. I like to drink once in a while etc... in other words, if I didn't tell you my beliefs, you wouldn't be able to guess them.

You definitely cannot push your beliefs on anyone. Unless they are interested in learning for their own reasons it is pointless I think.

Nobody pushed it onto me, I had a series of events happen in my life, I won't go into detail about them, but I ended up in a jail cell and the only book I was allowed to read was a bible. So I started reading it and that was basically the start of me thinking about the subject.

Your view is compromised. Maybe there's a tree blocking North America...

Too bad they didn't give you a science journal.

The brain comment struck a nerve. It's ridiculous to have people use something that scientists using the scientific method (an antithesis to religion) have spent so much effort and have had so much success in understanding be used as an argument for an intelligent creator.

Something being a personal choice does not make something immune from being right and wrong. You can make a personal choice not to believe in evolution, but you are still wrong. You can make a personal choice not to believe in gravity, but you are still wrong.

It boggles the mind to think that atheism and religion are somehow on equal standing as far as what to believe, that it's somehow an opinion to follow one or the other, and opinion that cannot be criticized because it's an opinion! It's like me resenting my math teachers for pushing their beliefs that 2+2=4 onto me!

That's an okay belief, but it doesn't imply anything about morality, or the verity of contents of the Bible or existence of life after death. What does the mathematical form of general relativity and the details of quantum mechanics tell you about what happens when you die?

SiegeLord, I don't give a rats a$$ what you think. I would have thought you could have figured that out by now, seeing as how you're so smart.

Still not getting why "understanding" is at odds with "creation". Does this mean that you would expect creation to warrant understanding impossible?

(I don't necessarily agree with either of you, mind ...)

And what makes you think that I care about what some ignoramus thinks? Just like with Specter Phoenix, calling people out on their stupidity never gets old. I'm not posting for your sake, as you are beyond hope, but for people who are not quite as dead set on being wrong, those who post here and those that don't. So they don't read your arguments from ignorance and somehow think that they are valid reasons to believe in god. The worst thing you can do with believers in god is let them speak unchallenged to the questioning.

Because complete understanding will establish the evolutionary link between the brains of insects, fish and mammals (including humans). The "creation" will, as with everything else, will be pushed back to 14 billion years ago.

You see, this is the kind of statement I can respect. It's the "I am right and you are wrong!" statements or the sarcastic "God did it all" statements that I tend to ignore (or try to ).

I didn't see this mentioned by Neil, so someone should probably ask him if he doesn't already believe that ...

And again, as somehow being right and wrong about this question is equally likely.

Hold on... is the argument going to be something like "God created the laws of the universe such that, through evolution etc, humans would obtain brains such as ours."?

I have no idea; it's your argument. But if you don't know what you're arguing againt, that might explain why I've been reading your arguments as a bit nonsensical ...

Maybe by "brains such as ours", Siegelord meant the emotional matrix that prompts humans to imagine there's some sort of god watching over them. After all, we've had thousands of gods!

You're right, he didn't mention it, and no, they shouldn't ask him because he won't say.

I really should learn to take a page from Trent's book and just hide these threads as soon as I see one.

How is it my argument? I'm responding to your pulling Neil's thoughts out of your behind, trying to make his original argument be more unassailable. The original argument I am arguing against is this:

Clearly, the argument is that the complexity of the brain is evidence for a creator. I don't see what's hard to understand about this argument. The argument is wrong, as the complexity of the brain is a consequence of evolutionary pressures and conserved building blocks that are shared amongst many animals.

An Altair 8800 can't comprehend itself either, so what's the point here?

You're in it.

I'm arguing that you don't know his thoughts, and I thought I was pretty clear that I don't know them either. Which thoughts of his were extracted from my behind, exactly?

And I don't see what "It's ridiculous to have people use something that scientists using the scientific method ... have spent so much effort and have had so much success in understanding be used as an argument for an intelligent creator" has to do with it. Unless you make some broad assumptions about something Neil already pointed out he didn't (and apparently won't) say, in which I'll chalk this up to a strawman and drop it.

That's just the justification for my tone, it has nothing to do with the argument itself.

The fact that we understand that the brain's complexity arose from evolutionary pressures is the argument against that complexity being evidence for a creator.

The reason why I won't bring up my opinion is because I've done this before and it is pointless. Nothing I can say will convince anyone else that my beliefs are valid and nothing they can say will convince me that there is no God and that science has all the answers.

The verse in my signature at the bottom of this message is there to remind me not to get into the dirty details and pointless arguments. If you want to call it some sort of strawman, have at it. If you think anything I say will convince someone like "SiegeLord" that my opinions are valid, you're more delusional than he thinks I am.

Who said that? The investigations of science wouldn't be necessary if we had all the answers. OTOH, the religious viewpoint of "God did it" (it's magic) isn't very satisfying to somebody who wonders how it all works.

Funny thing is, the phrase "God did it" has never been used by me.

Edit: Anyhow, I think I'll pull out of this thread now. It's been fun.

Don't those imply the same thing?

Directly

No, it's not. Religion is all about having something nice to believe in, to give you strength when you need it, a role model, a sense of belonging, things like that. It's not about literally how the universe was actually made. It doesn't interfere with scientific method in any way.

I won't even bother to read anything after that, until that point is understood. Not enough time in the day

Maybe to you. But to many people who are devout in their beliefs, what you just said is probably very insulting.

They've fought wars just based on which day god rested.

Why not believe something that's actually true?

Those things are in principle fine, but people (it seems) insist on them (the role model bit is especially a big offender here) because there's authority in the Bible that is invested in it by virtue of god doing supernatural things. Like they say that doing X is good, but doing Y is bad and then go "because that's what's written in the Bible". There are some good things in the Bible (haven't found them myself, though, but I'm told there are good things in it), but there are also plenty of bad things too. It seems odd to follow some things in it and not others while at the same time using the Bible's authority to justify one's morals.

I think morals should come from philosophical and practical consideration, not because of their accidental inclusion into some ancient cult's storybook. You can have a sense of belonging, role models etc without religion too. I've just been to a scientific conference with lots of smart people who chatted and joked and had fun etc etc while being brought together by a common quest for knowledge, and not some ancient book.

I'll repeat the beginning of my post: Why not believe something that's actually true? The scientific method is awesome at discovering truth about the world, and scientific pursuit is an incredibly social activity. You can have so much fun doing science... why do you need religion?

vs the sig

The irony never fails to humor me.

Hmmm. I think I've heard enough to satisfy my curiousity (and clarify something I seem to have not been understanding), so I'll drop it. For what it's worth, I kind of agree and kind of disagree with both of you.

Fail troll is fail.

The nature of the world, maybe ...

I see this very odd attitude pop up every now and then, usually from the science department. When was a "need" implied?

Which means "the everything of"... so what's your point here?

No, it doesn't. For anything you can't observe, measure, experiment on, repeat, or otherwise apply a scientific technique to, science is (unsurprisingly) shit.

You mean if it exists or not?

Seriously though, something is either part of existence or not. If it is, science has a good chance of actually getting an answer to it. If something doesn't exists then science can never come close to it.

Hear, hear!

It's a good thing you're not Catholic. IIRC, they frown on that!

Churches and non-religious governments are both equally likely to do this. Additionally, people naturally do it even if they try not to. People complain if the ethics are wrong, and most religious leaders can't help but respond to that. We're generally built to conform to crowd wisdom because it makes us stronger as a species.

Science is all about understanding things we observe, and using that understanding to make cool stuff happen. (For example, understanding electricity led to people making computers.) Some people take this further and see beauty in the various scientific theories kicking around, which is a nice touch. Many people take it further still and treat it as a religion. This can be healthy (for example if the beauty you see in science motivates you to live a good life), or it can be unhealthy (for example if you push members of other religions to define themselves the same way you do).

If someone's motivation in life comes from the God they know and trust, and they are using that motivation to study science and cure cancer, then destroying their motivation in life would be a shame, wouldn't it?

Okay, I just HAD to reply to this.

This shows you how much Catholics know and why I don't subscribe to their cult. The bible states it is perfectly fine to pull out, which obviously I have a hard time doing, this thread is so sexy after all.

I would appreciate if you could find the verse(s).

My old church in Winnipeg used to do things like hold charity dinners to raise money for cancer research (think I've mentioned that before). Religion financially supporting scientific research seems to blow people's minds more than it ought ...

It's not a question of existence, it's a question of truth. Unsolved crimes, just to pull an example off the top of my head.

Yes a local community supporting cancer research is so mindblowing

What would be a bit surprising is say the pope or some other religion head coming out and agreeing with science on something. That said, it does happen. I think pope john paul II admitted he supported evolution. That was somewhat unexpected. But then he was also completely against birth control, and did his best to ignore pedophile priests. woot.

Of course its a question of existence. If something doesn't exist, "it existing" can't be true. Or said another way if something doesn't exist, it has no truth.

In your example, unsolved doesn't mean much. there was a crime, so it existed. the hard part is finding the evidence.

Science does NOT preclude a god, or gods from existing. So far there has been very little evidence to show one way or the other, so science itself can't really say much other than "it's unlikely" or (probably more accurate) "I don't know".

Reading atheist arguments with Christmas decorations in their avatars makes this thread more confusing.

Here's the fun part, I'm not Athiest

IKR?

I have no idea how we got onto existence then. "It doesn't exist" can certainly be true, though.

The point wasn't that the crime exists, it's that we don't know all the truth of it. Who did it, possibly their motivation or method, etc. Science can be applied to an extent, naturally, but if it's got nothing to work with, it's dead in the water.

That's pretty much my stance, yup.

Ok that's one down. Here's hoping a.cc scans posts and just appends religions to the member tags to be able to skim these threads.

Christmas has next to nothing to do with religion. It is predominantly a marketing tool to increase market activity via tradition and peer-pressure. Insert: Additionally it is a good opportunity to cheer your peers up and get together with friends and families before a long, dark, cold, depressing winter sinks its hooks in. The emphasis is on the first bit though.

You're right, if no traceable evidence is left behind or found by investigators then science can't do much. Did you have an alternative strategy for solving said crime?

You're on the wrong side of the debate then.

?

Science does existence. It can't measure that which doesn't exist. If something does exist, science will find a way to measure it.

If science can never explain it, that means it never existed, and can't exist, and will never exist. Science evolves with itself, with what it learns. Should one day there be evidence for something it previously said was extremely unlikely, then it has to incorporate that into the current understanding. Anything less is akin to sticking your fingers in your ears and going "la-la-la-la-la"^[1].

Sure. But if there's truly no evidence what so ever, the most logical conclusion is that it didn't happen. But what "Truth" are you talking about here? That it happened? That necessitates there was some evidence that there was a crime, ie: that it happened, that it exists.

Probably the closest label that describes my beliefs is agnostic.

I somewhat disagree with Wikipedia's "unknowable" bit though.

I suppose that depends on the crime, but that's not the point. The point was that science is not some solve-all that applies to everything.

Not that it happened. What happened. I seriously don't know how we got onto existence here, but you and I are clearly not even talking about the same thing, and possibly never were.

I dunno. It seemed like you were implying that god and other such things were unobservable, and untestable. That means it doesn't exist. Now if you were to say it is currently not testable, that's different. But given past posts you've made on this subject, I doubt that's something you'd admit.

What does Xmas have to do with God or the bible? Last time I checked it came from the winter solstice celebration that ancient Roman sun worshipers took part in.

My comment was that the scientific method cannot always be applied to discovering the truth about something in all situations. This is completely divorced from religion, God, etc. Your own comment was roughly equivalent:

No, but it's the best we have, ever have had, and ever will have.

Science today can solve crimes that it couldn't 50 years ago. It's not that science can't do it. It's that it can't do it yet. Science is knowledge, and humanity's capacity for knowledge has no known bounds.

If it was left to religious minds then some "chosen one" would go into a dark, soundproof room, all by themselves, "ask God", and return with the definitive answer. The people would then subsequently take that as absolute truth and hang the fingered party. ... And the guilty part would go free.

You basically can't form any conclusions based on this "point" so I'm not sure why you're making it. A belief in God doesn't better equip you to solve crime, for example. It doesn't really do anything for you. At best, it allows yourself to be delusional, and at worst those delusions lead you to harm yourself or others. Seeking the real truth while simultaneously accepting that you don't have all the answers and maybe never will is the best that you can hope for. You don't need a delusional belief system to have morals, or feel good about yourself, to make friends, etc. It serves no practical purpose and has a lot of harmful side effects (and sometimes blatantly harmful effects).

I think you're misunderstanding the scientific method as a whole. Yes, specific tests may fail rather badly with insufficient information. (kinda like "OMG I Can't see it, thus it can't exist!" when talking about sub atomic particles)

In the grand scheme of things however, it will continue to evolve till we get our "meaning of life, the universe and everything", or at the very least, an approximation thereof.

Actually, according to the bible, you have to have at least two witnesses to a crime, and there are laws against bearing false witness. There were even cities that were set aside as safe havens for the accused until their guilt or innocence could be determined. It's not hocus pocus involving some chosen one.

There's also a commandment.

FTFY.

That's easy, 42!

I agree! The real bugger is knowing how to arrive at it! Deep thought .exe anyone??

If you knew the answer to life, the universe and everything, just what possible questions could you have?

Touche. I originally read it as some ultimate designed purpose, which sounds religious and superstitious to me. Append: That is, I don't believe there's a reason for our existence.

If I knew the answer to life, the universe and everything I'd ask why I know the answer to life, the universe and everything, because I'm human, and I can't help myself.

Dizzy_Egg++;

Stopped reading here.

I'm judging science based on its own merits, and would say the same comments as an atheist because religion doesn't enter into what I'm saying. Religion and science are also seperate in the discussion Neil and SL were having; neither of their opinions negated the other's. Sorry, but if I wanted to watch people bash an opposing viewpoint that doesn't exist in order to justify their own views, I'll watch American politics.

The whole "science vs. religion" thing just baffles me in general, and posts like yours just make it look stupider and stupider. Bruce Perry offered some nice examples of harmony between science and religion; do they seem that unusual to you?

Sounds like the nature of things to me. Are we in agreement then?

Depends if you still claim god is unknowable or completely separate from "Nature". I completely disagree with this type of claim. As if something could be excluded from everything.

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I don't recall making a claim like that. I do claim that science is a poor or impractical tool in some situations. I think other people have claimed that God is (or can be) outside of nature by definition, ie: supernatural. That's unrelated to my comment, though, as is religion in general. What comment specifically were you disagreeing with?

bamccaig: Did you not read the thread past that point?

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Cdesign proponentsists.

By your count, just how many discussions did Neil Roy and SiegeLord have in this thread? Feel free to mark the boundaries if you would.

I only see the one. There was a whole other discussion on that last line you quoted though. Point is I've already answered this, at least (apparently) to their satisfaction. You're kind of late to the party; was there something specific you disagreed with?

I'm not entirely sure how you got onto the topic you got onto to be honest. Who else was talking about science in that way? I was assuming you were more on topic, and trying hard to keep science and theology separate, as if science couldn't possible explain god or any other religion based subjects.

At least as far as science is concerned the nature of the world is the truth of the world. But science is just an infant. You can't expect it to be perfect. The fact that its as good as it is already says a lot.

Now, even if some scientific tests are not ideal tools in some situations, would you not even try? Especially given its likely that those tests are the only option short of torches and pitchforks?

Are you trying to say that, if some tests and theories aren't perfect, that they shouldn't be used at all?

append: Or that since science is evidence based, and their is no evidence for god, that science should keep its nose out of it? Rather than trying to ask questions, and solve problems, it should just sit on its thumbs?

Not at all. If you can apply them, go nuts.

That if, does that preclude trying to make new tests?

Make all the new tests you need.