I know all about your Big Bang theories, your evolutionary concepts, your philosophies how a God couldn't possibly exist, your statistics showing how everything came to be by pure chance, etc.
And if the universe did not come about by pure chance - what did happen? Perhaps a better question would be 'who' did it?
I
I just choose to refuse to accept this information. I NEED FAITH. Faith is the only way I can believe it to be true. Nothing can change my worldview and my faith I have in Jesus Christ.
The faith you possess to believe how processes like evolution and the Big Bang actually occurred matches the faith I have that my God created everything in existence.
The faith you have to believe in the occurrence of the Big Bang and transpeciation is the same faith you have that the chair you're sitting in will hold you, that the building you're in will not collapse on you, that the planet you're on will not disintegrate.
I
Unless you can construct a time machine and go back to the "very beginning", your faith in scientific explanations will be no different from my faith in Biblical interpretations.
So explain to me how you'll be 100% confident in the formation of the universe once you board a time machine and travel back to the beginning.
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Pp,
A huge post would be needed to tidy up your Op to the point where a rational discussion is even possible! Why would I waste my time? It seems that you have absolutely nothing to teach us judging by your Op.
Why are you even here? We don't need to be told that a fanatic will be unmoved by a mountain of facts piled half-way to the moon. We already know that from experience. So, why don't you take your faith, such faith being akin to going to work in a car without an engine, and go back to wherever you came from? If you want to believe in a flat earth, as some Christians still do, that's just fine with me.
LOL - I had time on my hands. Just finished grading papers and now I am playing on the internet.
The only people that make the assertion that "Chance" had anything at all to do with the emergence of the universe are the frigging Creationists. No one with more than an 8th grade education would make that assertion.
@Paul Pores:
You said, " Everything came to be" and "Big Bang" in the same sentence, while professing that you understood what you were talking about.
HERE IS YOUR FRIGGING WAKE UP CALL - You have no idea what you are talking about. The "Big Bang" is a FACT. It is not a "cosmology." It is not a theory concerning the "CREATION" of the universe. The 'BIG BANG' is a theory, supported by every fact we can observe, about the 'EXPANSION OF THE UNIVERSE." The BIG BANG says nothing at all about the creation of the universe. NOTHING!!!
You have no idea at all what you are talking about.
@"Who did it?"
This is a logical fallacy called "Begging the Question." You can not assert a "who" without facts and evidence. You can not even assert that the universe had a beginning without proving it. IT HAS NOT BEEN PROVED. The BIG BANG begins with a hot dense mass or sometimes a singularity. Physics breaks down at Plank time so we have no idea at all what happens before that. THERE IS STILL STUFF AT PLANK TIME. We have no example of NOTHING. To assert Creation from nothing you have to show, demonstrate NOTHING is something that is actually there.
@ I NEED FAITH.
There is nothing that can not be believed based on faith. Millions of Gods, now dead and gone, all relied on faith. Mormons rely on faith and their God lives on Golob. Catholics rely on faith and they can pray to saints. Buddhists rely on faith and they think you are reborn until you reach Nirvana. FAITH is not a path to truth. No faith is required when facts and evidence can be reproduced, observed and measured to give us an understanding of the world in which we live.
@The faith you possess to believe how processes like evolution and the Big Bang actually occurred matches the faith I have that my God.
First of all: Evolution and the Big Bang have nothing at all to do with Atheism. Let's just assume evolution (another scientific fact that you seem to know nothing about) is Bullshit and the Big Bang theory (I have already shown that you know nothing about) is a pile of 'HOGWASH" (The word of the day thanks to another Christian poster.) They are both completely wrong. 100% bullshit. You have still not proved your god is real. We have no reason at all to accept your god as real any more than you accept any of the millions of gods that came before it as real. EVOLUTION AND THE BIG BANG, have nothing to do with Atheism. The fact that you think they do just demonstrates your own ignorance.
@Unless you can construct a time machine and go back to the "very beginning",
I really hate to point out the obvious. We have a time machine. It's called the Hydron Collider. It has taken us all the way back to fractions of a second before the creation of the universe; back to a point in time where our understanding of physics and the universe itself all seem to break down. And now that we are there, we are searching for the next step, not stopping and just assuming that a magical flying sky daddy popped everything into existence.
@So explain to me how you'll be 100% confident ....
No one is 100% confident in anything, except for the ignorant who are 100% confident in their magical God with no good evidence at all. Confidence is on a sliding scale. I am about as confident as can be that the sun will appear in the sky tomorrow. That does not mean it will. It means I have realistic expectations based on facts and evidence through my exploration and understanding of the world. I also have about as close as you can get to 100% confidence that your god is not real.
There have been millions of gods who have all died and passed on into history and mythology. What makes your god special? There are thousands of books making assertions about the gods they support and none of the books say anything convincing. What makes your book better or more real than all the rest? There is absolutely no reason what so ever to believe in your magical flying deity until you give us proof and evidence. Fulfill your obligation to God under 1-Peter 3:15 before you start asserting that we have FAITH AND BELIEF like you. WE HAVE NEITHER. You only assume we do as you have been raised in a world of FAITH AND BELIEF, and are completely unable to imagine what the world would be like without it.
So if you don't believe in God, then you must believe that everything just "happened" when that singularity released its unfathomable amount of energy and birthed the universe.
If you don't believe God did it, then you must believe that everything happened by pure chance.
Otherwise... What do you believe?
@PP
I know your comment was directed at Cog, but I also do not believe in god or "that god did it."
I do believe in: I do not know. And you do not know, and no one knows.
Delving deep into this sort of question, there is other options to, god created everything, and pure chance. How about the option of: there always was something. True nothing, and infinity are two concepts we humans will never fully be able to grasp, as we are something, and we are finite.
How about an option we have not yet considered, or an option we will never be able to consider due to limitations of our intellect and understanding?
Also, it is worth noting: does it really matter? What happened ~14 billion years ago? It is a fun philosophical question to be sure, but the answer is very elusive, and the answer would not change anything useful, except maybe to have us stop asking the question.
"If you don't believe God did it, then you must believe that everything happened by pure chance."
Nonsense, that's a false dichotomy.
"A false dichotomy is a type of informal fallacy in which something is falsely claimed to be an "either/or" situation, when in fact there is at least one additional option. A false dichotomy can arise intentionally, when a fallacy is used in an attempt to force a choice or outcome."
Everyone wants to believe in something or that something happened for a reason. for example, we all want to believe we were born for a reason but that is not always the case.
The questions really are then, why do you want to believe that you and everything around you was created for a reason.
“Everyone wants to believe in something or that something happened for a reason. ”
No, not everyone wants to believe that.
Science and scientists are still doing thinking and research about the origins of the universe, and the origins of life on earth. However, I don't think that things just happen, that is only permitted if there is a god (with sufficient powers). Saying "God" did it, EXPLAINS nothing, and permits pretty much anything - it just happens because "God" made it so.
Without a god, things happen according to the properties of the universe, and it is not possible in that way of thinking. for anything to JUST HAPPEN. Only things permitted by the "laws" of physics and chemistry can happen. In this non-theist view, there is no overall encompassing plan.
But in the case of evolution, for example, what comes about is not merely random, but the result of passing the test of viability. Not just any change is likely to come about, (at least not come about and stay). In evolution we expect changes to persist, only if they are either beneficial, or harmless, or at least not too detrimental.
Again, with "God" as the explanation, anything can happen - "God" just needs to will it. That means that it explains nothing.
Paul, you said ==> So you don't believe in God <==
I find that to be a prejudicial statement from my point of view. From my perspective, I have no reason to believe that any gods exist.
To say that I don't believe in God implies that there is a god, and I simply choose not to believe it. So I am not rejecting anything which I think exists, and so I'm not rejecting "God". I am simply not convinced by all of the arguments and evidence put to me thus far, which propose that a god does in fact exist. In that light I don't believe. Give me something new, which is convincing to me, and I'd tautologically be convinced ! ! !
Thanks, Cognostic, for doing such a great job! You hit all the nails on the head.
I didn't have the energy to wade into that pile of manure.
Before I write anything (and before I take a shower as I have to get ready for some drinks with the lads),
I am going to give 3 links of my argument to a person who said some of the things you are saying here, although his own focuses more on the origin of life instead of the origin of the universe but since you mention both and they at times overlap, here they are:
Link 1: http://docdro.id/6r5nwvo
Link 2: http://docdro.id/34pMf7b
Link 3: http://docdro.id/WYtI3Gv
Take from these what you will. I might be back later to focus on what you have said but for now, I hope this will have to answer a few of your questions and claims you have made PaulP, especially the claim that it takes faith to believe in certain scientific theories and hypotheses in comparison to your faith in a supernatural creator. Equating these and putting them on a 50/50 footing is ludicrous indeed. Nobody can say for sure whether or not a teapot orbits the Sun somewhere in space between the Earth and Mars, but that doesn't mean the probability is midway.
First of all, science is a organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. It goes through regiments of falsifiable tests. So no, I don't have faith in it.
You seem to be ignorant of this while dishonest theists like to conflate what you call "faith" (belief in something without evidence) with "reasonable expectation" that is based in either pattern of behaviour or evidence-backed assumptions. There is a reasonable explanation of the big bang and the universe existing without the need to posit supernatural deity to them. There is no need for that hypothesis.
Perhaps a little introduction of the definitions and differences of theories, hypotheses facts and law's might be a good way to start.
Fact vs. Theory vs. Hypothesis vs. Law… EXPLAINED!: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqk3TKuGNBA
As it does seem you are conflating abiogenesis and evolution by natural selection. Evolution makes no claims about how life began. This is your first mistake PaulP.
And if anybody else wants to have a look at my links, please be my guest. If you have any corrections again I welcome them.
@ Paul Pores
"The faith you possess to believe how processes like evolution and the Big Bang actually occurred matches the faith I have that my God created everything in existence."
The answer is NO.
First off, for me the correct term would not be "faith" but "confidence". And that confidence is built on the scientific process.
One easy example would be to demonstrate gravity. I take an apple, hold it ten feet above the ground, and let go. It falls directly down to the ground, impacts, and remains motionless. Then I repeat it ten thousand times to check for consistency. Lo and behold, every time I drop that apple, if falls in exactly the same fashion as before. I could even use video cameras and other instruments for measurement, and every darn time, every drop is exactly the same as before. I then refine my testing, I measure acceleration, the specific path, and the force of impact. And for tests 10,001 to 20,000 I get identical results.
I now have confidence I am on to something, but I also understand that it is just the first small step.
I repeat the same experiment and drop that darn apple another ten thousand times, but from a different location. To my relief, once again, every drop was exactly like the rest. Not once did an apple drop vary by any means of measurement. So I expand my research, I do the experiment at 50 different locations around the world. And each time, the same result. Now I'm sure I'm on to something. So I bring in 50 other scientists, explain my experiment, and ask them to perform the experiment. Six months later I get all my test results, and 50, not 49 or 48, but every darn scientist has exactly the same results. That is over 25 million apple drops, and each and every drop, with no exceptions, was identical.
Now it is time to go public, and I publish my findings in a scientific paper. Now other scientists tear into my experiment, some wanting to prove my results, some wanting to disprove it. But the testing is now out of my control, because all I know is that other scientists are testing my testing. Two years later I have collected 20 returns from scientists who have performed the experiment, and once again, every drop was exactly the same as the original. No exceptions.
That is the scientific method, and that is why I have confidence, not faith, that gravity exists and works.
But when you, Paul Pores, try to test something based on faith (such as the power of prayer) the results are so inconsistent and poor that flipping a coin yields better results.
This is why I have confidence in what is incorrectly labelled the big bang. Since Georges Lemaître first noted in 1927 that an expanding universe could be traced back in time to an originating single point, scientists have gone nuts on this phenomena. And trust me, my work on the apple drop is literally one drop of water based on the ocean of work scientists have worked on the big bang for the last 89 years. And many of those scientists did not work on the big bang to prove it, but to disprove it, shred it to tatters. So it is not a close club of buddies working in cahoots, it was thousands of research institutions with many more scientists devoting their lives in examining the big bang.
So my confidence is completely different than your faith.
Great post David. Should be compulsory reading for everyone.
" Nothing can change my worldview and my faith I have in Jesus Christ."
Primus: we know the Universe exists. It is observable. It is not subject to "faith".
Secundus: It is improbable to the point of absurdity that the magical "jesus" as described in the Synoptic pauline gospel texts ever existed. Your "faith" is unevidenced and false.
End of argument. Have a wonderful, if phantasmagorical day.
"It is observable."
my thinking... scientific method...observation....hmm. how can you observe what you can't see... Or even more importantly what you weren't around for 14.6 billion years to see lol?
We haven't seen the creation of the universe, the stars, the galaxies, the back holes, and everything else - so we are using faith in scientific experimentation to believe what could have happened.
So if you haven't seen it with your own eyes it can be dismissed? Ok so how are those air molecules doing that you are breathing a the moment? Nonsensical argument.
If there is sufficient amount of evidence to show that is the case one does not need to directly observe it and it does not require faith.
The Big Bang is the best explanation we currently have of what happened in the past (not necessarily what started the universe - although it can be inferred), but it is the best explanation of what happened when the universe expanded from a singularity changing into one form into another, given the available evidence and that provisional acceptance of it is justified.
We observe air molecules. We know they exist from scientific experimentation.
It's in the present - we don't have to go back into the un-observable past to understand and attempt to analyze air molecules.
That argument is invalid compared to what we are discussing.
But to me, I'd rather pursue what is holy and absolute Truth than simply going for the "best explanation". A good explanation doesn't cut it for me, the faith I have does.
When you observe air molecules or stars, light takes time to reach your eyes. So according to you, we can never observe anything.
As Sapporo pointed out: all observations are from the past.
Pp,
Haven't you heard? We have a kind of time machine that can look back billions of years! It's called a telescope. Microwave "telescopes" can actually see the glow of the Big Bang. Maybe you should do some reading on these subjects instead of pontificating. (An expanding universe--verified by studies of galaxies--cooled that original glow down until today it is detected as microwaves of the predicted wavelength.)
Why are holding science to a different standard than your religion? You say your belief in God is due what is written in a book, and yet won't accept textbooks.
And you now claim you know the "absolute truth" without presenting a shred of measurable and quantifiable evidence, can you not see the frailty of your argument?
I accept textbooks that provide real, testable, observable, and repeatable evidence.
Books that use philosophy and are based on events that are speculated to have happened I reject.
The Bible is different - because it is not a book about just the past, it is a book about the past, present, and the future.
So your criterion for acceptance of a book is that it about the past, present, and future?
"I accept textbooks that provide real, testable, observable, and repeatable evidence."
So science then.
"Books that use philosophy and are based on events that are speculated to have happened I reject."
Irony overload, your trolling is woeful.
"The Bible is different "
The bible can't validate it's own claims, man said this will happen then it happened isn't evidence for prophesy, it's a claim that someone predicted something followed by either en event matched to the claim or a claim that what was predicted happened. Even if we had unequivocal evidence of a prediction being spot on accurate of a later event, all we'd have is something we couldn't explain, not evidence for a prophesy and certainly not evidence of anything supernatural.
"it is not a book about just the past, it is a book about the past, present, and the future."
Yeah you'd have demonstrate objective evidence it's predicted the future, and again you're still left holding an empty bag for the reasons stated.
So far all you've evidenced is your bias has set the bar so low you'll believe anything if you think it validates your religious beliefs, and you have no clue hot to critically test things to ensure what you're believing is true.
Not one but...
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"But to me, I'd rather pursue what is holy and absolute Truth than simply going for the "best explanation". A good explanation doesn't cut it for me, the faith I have does."
1) If you're deluded enough to think you know absolute truth then what on earth is left to pursue.
2) The best explanation *IS the truth.
3) Faith is useless in establishing the truth of anything, and forget good explanations, you don't have any, nothing about the superstitious belief in a deity has any explanatory powers at all, that's axiomatic.
So now the faith is the truth? And any concrete evidence against that faiths claims are not?
Well, now you have lost it PP. I think you may need to refill your subscription to prozac?
Indeed it is, fruyian.
Because the faith you possess to believe how processes like evolution and the Big Bang actually occurred matches the faith I have that my God created everything in existence.
Unless you can construct a time machine and go back to the "very beginning", your faith in scientific explanations will be no different from my faith in Biblical interpretations.
@PP
Your understanding of scientific process and findings, or your understanding of biblical interpretations is so hopelessly erroneous, no wonder you are so confused. If that is the way you think, I am not surprised at all you so strongly believe in your religion/god.
Let us start at what lots of ~5 year olds know. Fire is hot and equals oww if you go near it. How did this 5 year old early stages of brain development kid arrive at this? Were they told by some heavily edited ~2000 year old biblical story that fire is hot? Most assuredly no. They learned from eithir responsible parents that instilled upon them that fire is hot, or they learned the hard way them selves. They also learned that when they learn these things, it is pretty constant. If a 5 year old wanted to reaffirm fire is hot, they can put their hand near it again, test the theory w/o getting burned.
When you cross a busy street, do you blindly walk across because someone told you in a heavily plagiarized book that started ~2000 years ago via word of mouth that most likely: people on the road will get out of your way if they see you? Or do you use sensory input (is the road clear for a little bit?) combined with the knowledge big fast moving objects hurt, alot and you should be on the lookout for them if you want to avoid pain/death?
You already know and practice both these things, and much more real world data, sensory input things. Or you would not still be alive today. You have logical skills, you know how to use real world data plus understanding to make useful decisions in your life. You already know you can not trust words that are not backed by real data, experience and data based conclusions. Stop making your god/religion the exception to that rule that serves you so well. You are better than that. You do not need the warm "blankie" of religion that provides a few comforting answers even if it breaks the rules or reasoning logic and data.
@ Paul Pores
"how can you observe what you can't see"
Do you own a car? How do you know how much gas is in the tank? You can not "see" the level directly, you must use an instrument (in this case the gas gauge) to arrive at an understanding on how much fuel is in your gas tank.
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