Dear athiests and "scientists" [Spirituality & Religion]

@Quizzical Well perhaps to you, perhaps in this current planet, however you don't know what lies above

People didn’t think many things were possible in the past yet we have AI technology and other inconceivable inventions. Anything is possible. @Quizzical

@Aidan

You are right, everything is possible. That's why people today are still trying to make a functional "perpetuum mobile". People keep looking for that system that produces MORE energy that you have put into it. Everything is just possible, even tough the laws of physics say they aren't. But that kind of thinking really doesnt make us progress as a species right? Thinking that everything is possible, what it does is keep true believers wait for the second comming of Hitler, because you know, to them that is all possible. He's probably having a beer with 2-pac shakur, bob marley and elvis on the dark side of the moon annyway.

Fuck, this threat feels like an acid trip and I'm totally sober... just keep it going till saturday night will you guys.

@Quizzical [quote]Some things are just blatantly impossible though...[/quote]

Yeah, like the Universe just suddenly popping up all on it's own, without a Creator.

@Budwick

You know, one of the questions you sould try to answer if you use "a creator" is ... where does this "thought" come from? Like, who or what put it in your head? Did you create the creator? Or did your culture (mom, dad, people around you) put that idea in your mind? And how much was actually researched, and just adopted by yourself as an indvidual.

As I said before (higher up) I take the side of the agnostic. Because I don't want to debate if there is trully a creator or not. For me, it really doesnt matter. What I do find intresting are all the ideas that are shared in groups or just by one individual. Once they have an idea, once they make a claim, it can be looked at, rechearched adopted or thrown out according to validity.

If you make a claim, what this creator of yours and your forefathers did, once we have this information. We can do research and find if this claim holds up or not. Till this day, none of these claims have hold up to anny scientific validity.

Can you imagine if there was validity, probably all the people that heared it and were open to reevaluate their position to the knew knowledge that came to be would adopt the ideas of this new creator. It would (in the long term) be one of the strongest forces in the world because there would actually be valid truth to the claim of something amazing. Till this day, none of that really happened. We have wishy washy ideas that have travelled generations, that were indoctrinated in children because they grew up in a society OR because they found these believes by listening to others that propagate them. And till this day these believers are critical about everything that questions their believes but they are rarely critical on how they came to their own conclusions, myths and believe systems.

@Kwek00 [quote]you sould try to answer[/quote]

When you tell somebody what they should be doing, you're not giving advice or assuring them of anything, all you're really doing is criticizing them. By using "should" you are essentially tell that person that they are living their life wrong, that they need to do what you think they "should" do.

And, just so you know, I am perfectly happy with what I said.

@Budwick

So now we moved to a linguistic conversation? And we are no longer talking about spiritual matters that appear not to hold up to anny scientific standard?

You are right btw, I actively encourage you to reevaluate your position. Because your position is not substainable in the current data set, is not supported by logic, is not rational within all the knowledge that we know. And if you don't take my sentence as "advice", that is honestly your interpretation of the matter, but I believe that is still "advice". And you are absolutely right, I do critise the position you take because it's not substainable.

And you are most probably super happy with what you said. I'm sometimes super happy with what I say, and after a few years of reading into the matter, I'll have to confess to others how irrational my believe was back then. But in the heat of the moment, most people that come out for a believe are perfectly happy how they defend it, no matter how irrational it is for people that live outside the field of that believe, and how much factual data goes against that believe system.

You know, people that believe in stuff, aren't "dumb" or "idiots". They are just normal people. Some are superb scientists. Just look at Albert Einstein. The guy was a jew, had strong believes on God and believed (as a metaphysician) that the universe could be made mathematically work. That it was all Gods' plan. The irony is that his theory of relativity made the groundwork for kwantumphysics. A theory that finds that the smallest particles (that we know off) don't behave like we would think they do. And certainty kinda goes out the window. Suddenly we have a science in physics that works with "probability", something Einstein couldn't graps because his God doesn't throw dice. The end result was that Einstein in his second part of his carreer tried to disprove quantum physics and ended up as a hermit. A great mind that just couldn't reevaluate his position because of a believe.

@Kwek00 [quote]So now we moved to a linguistic conversation? [/quote]
It's the only thing I thought you might actually take to heart and learn from. You seem to have closed your mind to spiritual matters.

It's a waste time or energy fretting over my belief in God, His Son, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit. I trust them implicitly.

BTW - Science has disproven it's own theories regarding Creation.

AND - When you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth!

@Budwick [quote]without a Creator[/quote]

Is that the same as a creator suddenly popping into existence without a creator?

Or the creator of the creator suddenly popping into existence without a creator?

@Budwick

[quote]You seem to have closed your mind to spiritual matters.[/quote]

I believe there is such a thing as "spirituality", I believe people can experience spirituality. I believe certain things can feel and see incredible. But I also believe these experiences, moments, are verry subjective. They can be really strong, they can feel really real. But objectively, there has never been proof of it meaning annything more then a subject experience. And because our brains does some really messed up stuff, a good amount of people can be tricked all the time. (just look up some James Randi vids on youtube, super entertaining)

When you are in rally, or something you really believe in. And someone gives an incredible beautifull touching speech or sermon. Emotions can take the upper hand. People can cry out of joy, out of tragedy. People can feel the most amazing our heartbreaking stuff. This (for a lot of people) is seen as a really spiritual thing but "objectively" there is not much more going on then your brain releasing components that create those emotions. But the experience can be breathtaking. Same goes for "love", people can have the most remarkable emotional rollercoasters together and except for the cold science of chemicals in the brain there isn't much else that will describe it. But love can be seen as a really spiritual experience.

Being "spiritual" , enjoying emotions, enjoying moments, enjoying things that you don't want to be demystistified by the cold factual science is something people like to do. As I said in another post in this threat, it was one of the foundations for "Romanticism" which went against the rationality and modernity that comes with the englightenment tradition.

But the moment you start creating a religion/movement out of it? The moment you start putting your faith in emo and totally neglect ratio. That's the moment I think we should really back off and reevaluate our position. Cause that's the moment we are giving emotions to much credit and that has taken humanity to some really dark places in history.


[quote]BTW - Science has disproven it's own theories regarding Creation.

AND - When you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth![/quote]


If you want to make this stick, you'll have to give sources. Cause I don't know what you are actually pointing at. But science is not a believe, and it changes it vieuw points according to new discoveries. So if the theorie changed because new data and new findings come out, I don't see a problem with that. Science should not be dogmatic, it's open for debate, and scientist do disagree on stuff... but disagreement also rises the bar on hypothesis and research. When you see a part of science getting disproven in a scientific way, finding a better understanding of the world around us, it's not really seen as a loss, but as a victory. A dogmatic truth that is disproven, always meets resistance within it's followers, because it's seen as a loss and most believers never see it as a victory that there is a better understanding of the world around us. It's like a child that doesnt want to know Santa doesn't excist, clinging to some fairytale because reevaluating the world with a new truth is painfull business. Just like finding out that the wife you loved and trusted was humping your neighbour behind your back. Loosing your belief in something is pretty traumatic at times, but keeping it just because you find it enjoyable and find comfort with it will just make you come home to an emptied home someday.

This openess that science has towards it's theories, you will not find in a belief. Once a belief takes over, once it gets hegemony over a community, you can either accept it and embrace it or get out. The dissident voice needs to be removed from the religious community, cause doubt and questions will otherwise prevail and destroy the faith. It has to protect itself against its own irrationality or fall to truth. There is good reason why the english adopted the saying: "Ignorance is Bliss" ... the more ignorant you are towards things that perceive your emotional tendencies as the truth, the more you can revel in the blisfull fairytale you gave a prominent place in your concept of how the world works. It happens in dogmatic theological countries, it happens in extremely religious neighbourhoods, cults, dictatorships and it happens in political activist movements.

@newjaninev2 No Janine, the Creator that has always been and always will be - THAT one!

@newjaninev2 Yeah Janine, that one creator, you know, that one! *point to some random point*. Djeez Janine, don't you know annything.

@Budwick [quote]the Creator that has always been[/quote]

If it’s in any way valid to claim that it has ‘always been’, then it’s equally valid to claim that the universe has ‘always been’. That has the advantage of being simpler, because it removes the need to even postulate the existence of a complex magical entity in the first place.

@Kwek00 [quote]But science is not a believe, and it changes it vieuw points according to new discoveries.[/quote]

So, what I'm understanding from what you have written - science can't prove shit.

I think that's a little harsh. And, I wouldn't expect science to be able to prove or disprove something like God.

@Budwick

[quote]I wouldn't expect science to be able to prove or disprove something like God.[/quote]

The beauty is that it doesn't have to disprove God.
And there are loads of scientists that devote their carreer to shit and how to use it in an effecient way.

Since can't prove God is real, we have to asume that God isn't real. There is no prove for it, so we can assume it's not there. So far we have to asume Unicorns don't really excist, dragons are the result of imagination. Just because people have been really looking for them, but never found them. (We did find dinosaurs, how cool is that)

If you have a really good theory, and you go looking for missing links. You sometimes find out you are wrong, or you take another step forwards toward to a better dataset for understanding our reality.

@Budwick [quote]Yeah, like the Universe just suddenly popping up all on it's own, without a Creator.[/quote] What makes you think this is impossible? Just how much do you know about the process of how a universe gets kick-started?

@QuixoticSoul The principle of causation says that everything that begins to exist must have a cause. The universe began to exist at some point, it exists now, and we exist within its boundaries. Since the universe exists, it must have had a cause. Something caused it to come into existence. This something had to be greater than the universe, and outside of the universe.

Now, an atheist might claim that the Big Bang, or something like it, caused the universe to come into existence. Even if that were so, the Big Bang came into existence; therefore, it must have a cause. If we work backwards from an effect to its cause, and from that effect to its cause, we would eventually wind up at a first cause, or an uncaused cause.
The first, or uncaused, cause

This first cause would have to have several characteristics.

First, it would rely on nothing for its existence. If it needed anything else, it would be an effect instead of a cause.
Secondly, it would be powerful enough to create the something from nothing. Obviously, if it alone existed, anything it made would have to be created from nothing.
Thirdly, it would also have to be intelligent and have the will, the desire, to create…or to not create.
Fourth, this cause would have to exist outside of the universe it would create.

These characteristics only make sense when applied to a powerful, sentient, being that exists outside of the universe, with the will and ability to create. These are the characteristics of God; which are revealed beginning in the book of Genesis and extending throughout the entire Bible.

Read more: http://www.whatchristianswanttoknow.com/cosmological-argument-for-the-existence-of-god/#ixzz4mjnywLpd


You're welcome.

@newjaninev2 [quote]If it’s in any way valid to claim that it has ‘always been’, then it’s equally valid to claim that the universe has ‘always been’.[/quote]

Except that people smarter than you and me [scientists! With lab coats and pocket protectors!] say that's not possible.

'Where the cosmic egg came from no one seems to know. Certainly no cosmic chicken has been located! Some allege that the egg always existed. They speculate that it possibly resulted from some earlier universe that collapsed upon itself. This assumes that matter is eternal. But this idea is refuted by our knowledge of physics (e.g., the second law of thermodynamics). Jastrow concedes that “modern science denies an eternal existence to the Universe, either in the past or in the future” (15). Others, like Professor Victor Stenger of the University of Hawaii, muse that perhaps the universe came from nothing (the egg laid itself!):'

@Budwick Budgie, these are just plainly unsupported conjectures. You draw massive conclusions from nothing but wishful thinking. Conveniently untestable conclusions, mind you. All of the "prime mover" variations fall into certain similar pitfalls, but you added some massive logical leaps in the chain to boot.

"We don't know how the universe came about, we just know it's here" is at least an honest answer, and a rational position.

@QuixoticSoul [quote] Budgie, these are just plainly unsupported conjectures.[/quote]

Are you suggesting that science and logic a faulty too?

@Budwick Science is a methodology for gathering a certain type of knowledge. You're not using it here. Your "logic" has gaping holes, and is hilariously contrived.

@QuixoticSoul Well, you ought to get a real chuckle from this!\

THE ISSUE: Does current scientific data support the theory that the universe was created with intelligent design?

WHAT SKEPTICS SAY: Belief in an intelligent designer is a religious theory that has no basis in science. Scientific data supports evolutionary theory, and everyone knows it.

WHAT THE BIBLE SAYS: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" (Genesis 1:1). "The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands" (Psalm 19:1).
THE DESIGN HYPOTHESIS

"A big, fundamental question, like belief in God (or disbelief), is not settled by a single argument," said physicist-turned-theologian John Polkinghorne in Quarks, Chaos, and Christianity. "It's too complicated for that. What one has to do is to consider lots of different issues and see whether or not the answers one gets add up to a total picture that makes sense."

That's the approach I took in my investigation. I probed six different scientific disciplines to see whether they point toward or away from the existence of an intelligent designer.

When I opened my mind to the possibility of an explanation beyond naturalism, the theory denying any supernatural existence in the universe, I found that the design hypothesis — that says there is a purposeful, intelligent, created order to the universe — most clearly accounted for the evidence of science. Consider some of the facts from my investigation:

The Evidence of Cosmology

Thanks to scientific discoveries of the last 50 years, the ancient kalam cosmological argument has taken on a powerful and persuasive new force. As described by William Lane Craig, the argument is simple yet elegant: First, whatever begins to exist has a cause.

Second, the universe had a beginning. Based on the data, virtually all cosmologists now agree the universe began in the Big Bang at some specific point in the past. Craig stressed that even alternate theories for the origin of the universe require a beginning.

The conclusion then follows from the two premises: Therefore, the universe has a cause. Even once-agnostic astronomer Robert Jastrow conceded the essential elements of Christianity and modern cosmology are the same: "The chain of events leading to man commenced suddenly and sharply, at a definite moment in time, in a flash of light and energy."

The Evidence of Physics

One of the most striking discoveries of modern science has been that the laws and constants of physics unexpectedly conspire in an extraordinary way to make the universe habitable for life. For instance, said physicist-philosopher Robin Collins, gravity is fine-tuned to one part in a hundred million billion billion billion billion billion.

The cosmological constant, which represents the energy density of space, is as precise as throwing a dart from space and hitting a bull's-eye just a trillionth of a trillionth of an inch in diameter on Earth. One expert said there are more than 30 physical or cosmological parameters that require precise calibration in order to produce a universe that can sustain life.

The Evidence of Astronomy

Similar to the fine-tuning of physics, Earth's position in the universe and its intricately choreographed geological and chemical processes work together with exquisite efficiency to create a safe place for humans to live.

For example, astronomer Guillermo Gonzalez and science philosopher Jay Wesley Richards said it would take a star with the highly unusual properties of our sun — the right mass, the right light, the right age, the right distance, the right orbit, the right galaxy, the right location — to nurture living organisms on a circling planet. Numerous factors make our solar system and our location in the universe just right for a habitable environment.

What's more, the exceptional conditions that make life possible also happen to make our planet strangely well-suited for viewing and analyzing the universe and our environment. All of this suggests our planet may be rare, if not unique, and that the Creator wanted us to be able to explore the cosmos.

"If the universe had not been made with the most exacting precision, we could never have come into existence," said Harvard-educated astrophysicist John A. O'Keefe of NASA. "It is my view that these circumstances indicate the universe was created for man to live in."

The Evidence of Biochemistry

Darwin said, "If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down." Biochemist Michael Behe has demonstrated exactly that through his description of "irreducibly complex" molecular machines.

These complicated, microscopic contraptions, such as cilia and bacterial flagella, are extremely unlikely to have been built piece-by-piece through Darwinian processes, because they had to be fully present in order to function. Other examples include the incredible system of transporting proteins within cells and the intricate process of blood clotting.

More than just a devastating challenge to Darwinism, these amazing biological systems which far exceed the capacity of human technology point toward a transcendent Creator. "My conclusion," said Behe, "can be summed up in a single word: design. I say that based on science. I believe that irreducibly complex systems are strong evidence of a purposeful, intentional design by an intelligent agent."

The Evidence of Biological Information

The six feet of DNA coiled inside every one of our body's one hundred trillion cells contain a four-letter chemical alphabet that spells out precise assembly instructions for all the proteins from which our bodies are made. Cambridge-educated Stephen Meyer demonstrated that no hypothesis has come close to explaining how information got into biological matter by naturalistic means.

On the contrary, he said that whenever we find a sequential arrangement that's complex and corresponds to an independent pattern or function such as books and computer code, this kind of information is always the product of intelligence.

"Information is the hallmark of a mind," Meyer said. "And purely from the evidence of genetics and biology, we can infer the existence of a mind that's far greater than our own — a conscious, purposeful, rational, intelligent designer who's amazingly creative."

The Evidence of Consciousness

Many scientists are concluding that the laws of chemistry and physics cannot explain our experience of consciousness. Professor J.P. Moreland defined consciousness as our introspection, sensations, thoughts, emotions, desires, beliefs and free choices that make us alive and aware. The "soul" contains our consciousness and animates our body.

According to a researcher who showed that consciousness can continue after a person's brain has stopped functioning, current scientific findings "would support the view that 'mind,' 'consciousness,' or the 'soul' is a separate entity from the brain."

As Moreland said, "You can't get something from nothing." If the universe began with dead matter having no conscious, "how, then, do you get something totally different — consciousness, living, thinking, feeling, believing creatures — from materials that don't have that?" But if everything started with the mind of God, he said, "we don't have a problem with explaining the origin of our mind."

@Budwick That’s mostly just remixed nonsense. Do you even bother reading these things you’re posting?

@QuixoticSoul I love when people post evidence for "design by a creator" without reading or understand it and all it does is become evidence for exactly the opposite.

@Budwick Yes indeed, it's hilarious, isn't it! A bunch of pretend-scientists from many decades ago. I didn't know this sort of thing was still around. Of course, it's easily dispensed with

"Whatever begins to exist has a cause"
Nonsense. There’s absolutely no reason to make such a supposition. Elementary particles are seen to appear from nothing all the time

"The universe had a beginning"
Nonsense. There’s no compelling evidence that the universe ever began. It underwent a brief inflationary event 13.7 billion years ago, and has been expanding ever since then, but that’s the beginning of expansion, and says nothing about the beginning of the universe itself.

"make the universe habitable for life"
In fact, the entire universe is trying its best to annihilate us. All life is currently constrained to a few hundred metres above and below the surface of a tiny planet orbiting a nothing star, and is clinging to its niche through fortunate happenstance alone.

The life that we currently see isn’t supported by natural laws… its form is [i]dictated[/i] by those physical laws, and concomitantly [i]constrained[/i] by them. If the physical laws were different , then life on this planet would be different. If things were not the way they are, then they would be different... hardly a deep and meaningful thought

""irreducibly complex" molecular machines"
Neither Michael Behe nor anyone else has ever been able to demonstrate a [i]single[/i] example of irreducible complexity. Zip. Nada. Nothing.

The splurge about ‘information’ fails to first define what is meant by the term… and I simply can’t be bothered to unpick it here… but such definition results in the premise evaporating. (I’d be happy to do so if you insist)

The end piece seems to be a waffling reference to brain phenomena… again, I can’t be bothered with such meaningless pap.

‘Intelligent design’… which is just creationism wearing heels and lipstick… died because of such flawed arguments.