All because of a debate with Eskimospy...

[Vic]

So IOW a decent and pretty interesting thread about reconciling the nature of time with religious beliefs and scientific observation get pointlessly trolled with partisan hackery and personal attacks by Budmantom.

WTG dude!

 

[fskimospy]

Originally posted by: Budmantom

Originally posted by: eskimospy

Originally posted by: Budmantom

Originally posted by: eskimospy

Originally posted by: Budmantom
So eskimospy doesn't believe in God, hates America and is voting for Obama?

Well you got two out of three right, try and guess which two! It's like a game.

Are you too young to vote?

Sorry but no. As most people know on here I spent 7 years in the military. So start counting from there.

I think I got it!

You say you served in the military but you didn't specify the country.... so you are not a citizen and you can't vote for Obama?

I like how morons who have probably never served a day of their life think that they can tell people who actually went over and fought in some stupid war for this country that they hate America.

 

[Brainonska511]

Originally posted by: eskimospy

Originally posted by: Budmantom

Originally posted by: eskimospy

Originally posted by: Budmantom

Originally posted by: eskimospy

Originally posted by: Budmantom
So eskimospy doesn't believe in God, hates America and is voting for Obama?

Well you got two out of three right, try and guess which two! It's like a game.

Are you too young to vote?

Sorry but no. As most people know on here I spent 7 years in the military. So start counting from there.

I think I got it!

You say you served in the military but you didn't specify the country.... so you are not a citizen and you can't vote for Obama?

I like how morons who have probably never served a day of their life think that they can tell people who actually went over and fought in some stupid war for this country that they hate America.

You don't have to like it, but take comfort in the fact that you live in a country that allows those morons to spout their idiocy.

 

[shira]

Originally posted by: Vic

Originally posted by: Atreus21

Originally posted by: seemingly random

Originally posted by: Atreus21

Originally posted by: GenHoth

Originally posted by: JS80
I think it's safe to assume humans are not smart enough to understand even if an answer were to be presented by God Himself.

Pretty much, our inability to comprehend nothingness before the universe limits our discussion. Our views on the appearance of matter and time are just as hazy as 'and there was light'

Well, but that opinion implies that there might be a creator/God, and we might just not be able to know it. That's more of what an Agnostic would say.

So, because humans aren't very smart, they should believe that there is a creator or god? I'm not buying this.

Well, an agnostic simply says that because we can't know everything, we must be prepared for the possibility that a god might exist.

That's not agnosticism at all. An agnostic only believes in that which he can see and know. So he holds no opinion either way about that which he cannot see or cannot know. Being 'prepared' for the possibility that a god might exist doesn't even factor in.

I'm agnostic BTW.

Actually, a true agnostic (not the "I'm on the fence" type that 99% of the population mistakenly believes is an agnostic) says that ultimate cause is "unknown and unknowable." Thus, an agnostic would claim that the existence of God is unknown and unknowable. But claiming that something is unknowable is not the same as claiming that something can't be believed. Thus, and agnostic might also state that he himself strongly believes in God.

I'm an agnostic, and I believe all sorts of things that I cannot see and cannot know.

The nature of time may or may not be knowable (though I personally believe it is knowable); I just don't think we have sufficient data at this point to make a determination.

One problem in conceptualizing what time is is that most of us consider the issue from the viewpoint of a universe in which time exists. That is, we implicitly think of "before," "after," and "during," as if those are the only possibilities; thus those relationships get applied to everything, including "the beginning."

But I believe there might be another type of universe: one in which time doesn't exist - where "before," "after," and "during" don't mean anything. And I also believe that "the beginning" might merely be the transition from a timeless universe to a "timeful" one.

 

[maluckey]

Shira,

That is remarkably close many Chritian's POV. They relegate this earth and all on it as under a "testing" phase of sorts, in preparation for Judgement of the soul.




My own opinion on all of this is that Time is only meaningful to those bound by it. I also believe that our current understanding of the universe is woefully incomplete and will be refined and even revolutionized in my own lifetime, as it has done for over 500 years.

It was once thought by well respected and educated scientists, that singularities could not exist. In my lifetime that changed.

In my lifetime dinosaurs became overgrown chickens with feathers, and a man landed on the moon.

 

[Budmantom]

Originally posted by: eskimospy

Originally posted by: Budmantom

Originally posted by: eskimospy

Originally posted by: Budmantom

Originally posted by: eskimospy

Originally posted by: Budmantom
So eskimospy doesn't believe in God, hates America and is voting for Obama?

Well you got two out of three right, try and guess which two! It's like a game.

Are you too young to vote?

Sorry but no. As most people know on here I spent 7 years in the military. So start counting from there.

I think I got it!

You say you served in the military but you didn't specify the country.... so you are not a citizen and you can't vote for Obama?

I like how morons who have probably never served a day of their life think that they can tell people who actually went over and fought in some stupid war for this country that they hate America.

Did I hit a nerve?

 

[fskimospy]

Originally posted by: Budmantom

Originally posted by: eskimospy

I like how morons who have probably never served a day of their life think that they can tell people who actually went over and fought in some stupid war for this country that they hate America.

Did I hit a nerve?

No, to be honest being viewed as patriotic isn't particularly important to me. I just find it funny that someone such as yourself would accuse people of hating this country who have actually fought to defend it, while you sit in your computer chair eating cheetos.

You provide nothing of substance to this board, just stupid insults and childish trolling. I'm not sure if it's because you're too lazy to try or too stupid to succeed. Either way, I wish you would go back to wherever you were posting until about 2 months ago.

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

Originally posted by: Vic

Originally posted by: Atreus21

Originally posted by: Vic
Time appears to be infinite in one direction, but has a beginning in the other.

The law of conservation of energy implies that matter has been here an infinite time but doesn't say that. If time has a beginning though, then it would still hold true.

Well, I'm pretty sure infinity has neither beginning nor end, else it would be measurable, and that means finite.

Not at all. It is possible for something infinite to have a beginning. Just as long as it doesn't have an end.

8 - 1 = 8

Actually, infinities can have boundaries. The number of real numbers between 0 and 1 are uncountably infinite, yet 0 and 1 are still the boundaries of that infinite set.

It becomes important when we consider that time appears 1.) continuous and 2.) relative.

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

Nothing about science or logic will ever prove that a god, in the most general sense, can not exist. Only certain, rigorously defined god-concepts can be falsified through reductio ad absurdum.

Originally posted by: Atreus21
But is there infinite time? The earth is assumed to be about 4.5 billion years old. Infinity minus 4.5 billion years is still infinity. If there's already been infinite time, there's been infinite time for every possibility to be actualized, so why aren't we all dead?

This assumes that there are finitely many possibilities waiting for actualization. If there are infinitely many possibilities, then there's no reason to believe that they would all be exhausted after an infinite amount of time. For that matter, you couldn't prove that things haven't simply repeated themselves an infinite number of times.

In short, there is nothing necessarily contradictory or irrational about the idea of a universe with an infinite past and no beginning. The more contemporary cosmological models (Ekpyrotic, Tegmark's infinite sea) actually propose such a beginning-less universe, with the Big Bang representing only the beginning of our local patch of the larger universe.

 

[seemingly random]

Originally posted by: Cerpin Taxt

Nothing about science or logic will ever prove that a god, in the most general sense, can not exist. Only certain, rigorously defined god-concepts can be falsified through reductio ad absurdum.

Originally posted by: Atreus21
But is there infinite time? The earth is assumed to be about 4.5 billion years old. Infinity minus 4.5 billion years is still infinity. If there's already been infinite time, there's been infinite time for every possibility to be actualized, so why aren't we all dead?

This assumes that there are finitely many possibilities waiting for actualization. If there are infinitely many possibilities, then there's no reason to believe that they would all be exhausted after an infinite amount of time. For that matter, you couldn't prove that things haven't simply repeated themselves an infinite number of times.

In short, there is nothing necessarily contradictory or irrational about the idea of a universe with an infinite past and no beginning. The more contemporary cosmological models (Ekpyrotic, Tegmark's infinite sea) actually propose such a beginning-less universe, with the Big Bang representing only the beginning of our local patch of the larger universe.

So, if the universe is curved, why can't time be curved? If time is curved, might the beginning not be accidentally stumbled upon?

These concepts seem similar to the idea that the entire internet could be downloaded.

 

[seemingly random]

Originally posted by: JS80
I think it's safe to assume humans are not smart enough to understand even if an answer were to be presented by God Himself.

I was once having a discussion/argument with a very smart guy who, at one point, gave the retort, "I'm just not smart enough to figure that out". It was very disappointing. I knew he had the faculties to consider it (don't recall what 'it' was) and felt that he was being lazy.

Believing in a god does have its uses though. Believing that a god knows so much more than a person certainly takes the pressure off that person. It's a convenient scapegoat.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

Originally posted by: seemingly random

Originally posted by: JS80
I think it's safe to assume humans are not smart enough to understand even if an answer were to be presented by God Himself.

I was once having a discussion/argument with a very smart guy who, at one point, gave the retort, "I'm just not smart enough to figure that out". It was very disappointing. I knew he had the faculties to consider it (don't recall what 'it' was) and felt that he was being lazy.

Believing in a god does have its uses though. Believing that a god knows so much more than a person certainly takes the pressure off that person. It's a convenient scapegoat.

With sufficient raw intelligence, time and education one learns that we aren't very smart, don't have enough time and no amount of education will answer some things. How lazy is a chipmunk because he doesn't understand a car?

A chipmunk can know what a chipmunk can know, and same with a person. There is benefit in trying to understand, but expecting to know the nature of all things is hubris defined. We are all finite, not infinite.

 

[SP33Demon]

Originally posted by: Fern

Originally posted by: Atreus21
-snip-
a creator cannot have existed, because it would violate the law of conservation of matter, which states, as I understand it, that matter is never created nor destroyed, but only rearranged, assembled, manipulated, whatever you want to call it.

IMO, arguing religion with science, or vis versa is futile. But:

1. In the above there is an inherent assumption that either the law of conservation of matter pre-dated any creation, and/or that the creator is bound by such a law. Could that law have been a by-product of the original creation?

2. It fails to account for the possibility that, given the existence of such a law and the creator abiding by it, that the matter we have today is made up of the creator's own original matter. I.e., nothing has been created, just rearranged if you will.( a "He is everywhere" concept)

3. Misunderstanding of the word "create". If no matter can be created, why do we even have such a word, given that it's concept is an impossibility? People are said to create things all the time, perhaps the creation was just a rearrangement of already existing matter or energy. (which is what we do when said to have created something)

4. Perhaps matter did not previously exist. If the creator created everything, wouldn't that just mean he converted his energy into matter? (thus in conformity with the law). I mean the feat of creating everything would seem to axiomatically involve the expenditure of a great deal of energy; thus it was merely a conversion in keeping with the law.

5. Maybe the law doesn't really exist, or does but is different in ways we do not know yet.

6. There are said to be a number of dimensions. What if matter/energy can be moved from one dimension to another? In the grand total nothing has been created, but from one's perpective in that dimension receiving matter from another it would look that way. The only way to confirm or deny the law would require that all matter/energy in all dimensions be measured (and likely simultaneously were matter/energy able to move from one to the other). So, what if the creator created this dimension and filled it with matter/energy from another?

Fern

This.

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

Originally posted by: seemingly random

Originally posted by: Cerpin Taxt

Nothing about science or logic will ever prove that a god, in the most general sense, can not exist. Only certain, rigorously defined god-concepts can be falsified through reductio ad absurdum.

Originally posted by: Atreus21
But is there infinite time? The earth is assumed to be about 4.5 billion years old. Infinity minus 4.5 billion years is still infinity. If there's already been infinite time, there's been infinite time for every possibility to be actualized, so why aren't we all dead?

This assumes that there are finitely many possibilities waiting for actualization. If there are infinitely many possibilities, then there's no reason to believe that they would all be exhausted after an infinite amount of time. For that matter, you couldn't prove that things haven't simply repeated themselves an infinite number of times.

In short, there is nothing necessarily contradictory or irrational about the idea of a universe with an infinite past and no beginning. The more contemporary cosmological models (Ekpyrotic, Tegmark's infinite sea) actually propose such a beginning-less universe, with the Big Bang representing only the beginning of our local patch of the larger universe.

So, if the universe is curved, why can't time be curved? If time is curved, might the beginning not be accidentally stumbled upon?

These concepts seem similar to the idea that the entire internet could be downloaded.

Here's the problems with beginnings: to identify one, you need to be able to observe the non-existence of the allegedly beginning thing earlier in time. It's sorta built into the concept of "to begin." At one point it wasn't there, then afterwards it was there.

So, the string-theorists and others talk about extra dimensions, within which our own 3-dimensional region of space-time is couched. So it isn't so much that there is more of the universe "before" time existed, but that those extra parts of the universe are, in a way, enveloping space time.

That's a really fast-and-loose summary of the latest ideas, but really my main point was that even if time were to extend infinitely into the past, it would not be a logical contradiction.

 

[Jaskalas]

Originally posted by: Atreus21
Now, if my understanding of this law is correct, in stating that matter was never created, that must imply that matter has been here for an infinite amount of time.

But is there infinite time? The earth is assumed to be about 4.5 billion years old. Infinity minus 4.5 billion years is still infinity.

You muddled your argument down on something that is completely irrelevant. Do you understand that the universe has existed since before the planet formed? Do not assume that the universe revolves around the earth or your understanding would equal that of a cave man.

As to your more important question of a creator - maybe god set the big bang into motion, maybe he didn't. There is virtually no evidence that could ever rule out or prove the existence of something that is without witness

Although our existence and the design and complexity of living organisms is a miraculous thing, it remains plausible that we occur out of nature and not from a creator. At this point we do not have nearly enough intelligence or understanding to make a determination.

The answer to your question ends up being nothing more than what each of us likes to believe. It is has to be taken on faith, and that may very well be all it ever will be.

 

[seemingly random]

Originally posted by: Hayabusa Rider

Originally posted by: seemingly random

Originally posted by: JS80
I think it's safe to assume humans are not smart enough to understand even if an answer were to be presented by God Himself.

I was once having a discussion/argument with a very smart guy who, at one point, gave the retort, "I'm just not smart enough to figure that out". It was very disappointing. I knew he had the faculties to consider it (don't recall what 'it' was) and felt that he was being lazy.

Believing in a god does have its uses though. Believing that a god knows so much more than a person certainly takes the pressure off that person. It's a convenient scapegoat.

With sufficient raw intelligence, time and education one learns that we aren't very smart, don't have enough time and no amount of education will answer some things. How lazy is a chipmunk because he doesn't understand a car?

A chipmunk can know what a chipmunk can know, and same with a person. There is benefit in trying to understand, but expecting to know the nature of all things is hubris defined. We are all finite, not infinite.

Compared to what?

Why even consider things such as the subject of this thread if we aren't smart enough to grasp it? Who is to decide which unknown concepts are futile and which aren't?

Knowing 'everything' would indeed make life boring. Learning new things is something that makes it worth it. Not everyone will be able to grasp the same concepts equally. Nothing wrong with that. But if we don't try to grasp something with the excuse, "I'm just not as smart as a god", well...

This is a pet peeve of mine. It's similar to the statement attributing a person's bad luck, illness or death on some unseen force, "well, god has plans for us we just can't understand".

 

[piasabird]

This is an intersting question because the word create in genesis in my LDS version of the King James version of the Bible has a footnote that states Create is translated from a word which means "To Organize".

Isnt that what you do to make new things? You organize Matter.

Of course the big bang theory is just as flawed because where does the matter come from at the beginning of the big bang?

I think more key to this discussion is how does life begin?

After the big bang, then of course somewhere along the line life was just suppose to spontaneaously create itself through some chemical process or luck of the draw and boom people started walking erect. Very slim chances of that happening.

In the long run it does not matter if the world is flat or not. It does not really matter. It is all a matter of perception. It is like proving that someone landed on the moon. Were you there? Did you see it? Was it all a big hoax? Hard to prove.

 

[glugglug]

One theory I've heard, is that after the universe has been expanding for about 15 billions years or so after a Big Bang (as opposed to the Big Bang), all the matter that initially spewed out (which is at all times accelerating back towards the center of mass of the universe) starts moving back the other direction -- that is, the universe gradually collapses in on itself over another 15 billion years, forming a huge black hole in the center, and the process repeats. When the "age of the universe" is estimated, this is the duration of the current cycle. By the cycles may already have been repeating for an infinite time.

 

[WHAMPOM]

Originally posted by: glugglug
One theory I've heard, is that after the universe has been expanding for about 15 billions years or so after a Big Bang (as opposed to the Big Bang), all the matter that initially spewed out (which is at all times accelerating back towards the center of mass of the universe) starts moving back the other direction -- that is, the universe gradually collapses in on itself over another 15 billion years, forming a huge black hole in the center, and the process repeats. When the "age of the universe" is estimated, this is the duration of the current cycle. By the cycles may already have been repeating for an infinite time.

The expansion is now known to be accelerating. It may not have to collapse, but "BANG" again and again, throwing a universe off each time as excess matter.

We hane no idea the laws of nature were before the Big Bang, Entropy could have worked in reverse, Our eleven dimensions could have existed as one, gravity could have been equal to the other forces and made our Black Holes seem like empty space.

 

[Mxylplyx]

The stupid people are those who claim that they know the true answer to how the universe was created. There seems to be a logical cliff on both the scientific and theological sides of the coin that it's proponents are content to just stop at. I cannot fathom how anything has existed for an infinite amount of time. If that sounds like I'm leaning towards the theological side, I cannot fathom how god has existed for an infinite amount of time. What did god do for the inifinite time before he created the earth and the universe? Does god have a god that created him? Oh, am I not supposed to ask that?

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

Originally posted by: piasabird

Of course the big bang theory is just as flawed because where does the matter come from at the beginning of the big bang?

The big bang is not exactly the "creation" of mass-energy. It is an energetic expansion of space-time. Moreover, and more likely in my opinion, it is simply an origin for our space-time coordinates, from our frame of reference, and not exactly a feature of reality.

I think more key to this discussion is how does life begin?

How do you know it began at all?

After the big bang, then of course somewhere along the line life was just suppose to spontaneaously create itself through some chemical process or luck of the draw and boom people started walking erect. Very slim chances of that happening.

Not necessarily. In a multiverse it would be inevitable.

In the long run it does not matter if the world is flat or not. It does not really matter. It is all a matter of perception. It is like proving that someone landed on the moon. Were you there? Did you see it? Was it all a big hoax? Hard to prove.

"Proof," as they say, is for mathematics and alcohol. We're talking about things we observe, and the meanings of those observations. It only becomes an issue when people like certain subsets of the right wing create policies premised upon ideas which are contradicted by those observations.

 

[Vic]

Life exists because in a universe where anything can happen, everything does. It's just a matter of probability. When one takes into account the trillions and trillions of stars in the universe, most of which almost certainly have planets, that life could occur on at least one of those planets is more than probable.

 

[CycloWizard]

The simplest explanation is that, if a creator exists, he does so outside of time and space. Most modern theories of physics allow and even require additional dimensions that we cannot perceive, which agrees with this notion.

 

[soccerballtux]

Originally posted by: CycloWizard
The simplest explanation is that, if a creator exists, he does so outside of time and space. Most modern theories of physics allow and even require additional dimensions that we cannot perceive, which agrees with this notion.

The difference between the two though is with one (alternate dimensions) you still need to explain/justify their existence, as they didn't come from nothing. You're just passing the buck off to another dimension. With the creator, he is where it ends and there is no fuzzy multi-dimensional handwaving.

 

[jjzelinski]

Originally posted by: CycloWizard
The simplest explanation is that, if a creator exists, he does so outside of time and space. Most modern theories of physics allow and even require additional dimensions that we cannot perceive, which agrees with this notion.

I can't help but get stuck on the semantics of maintstream theism. Creator? To me that implies some super powerful entity that possesses enough human characteristics for us to somehow justify projecting our definition of awareness onto "it". Intent? God's will? Ehhh... wtf makes us think that something as powerful and incomprehensible as the "creator" of existence can be justifiably trivialized with projection of our own primitive thought processes? If you're truly in owe and in complete and willing subservience to this "mega man" then isn't that a bit insulting to trivialize "it" by using our own neurological mechanisms as a reference? After all, mankind is responsible for so much ignoble, deplorable, mindless stupidity that we quite literally hate ourselves as a species (hooray for self awareness!

That's why prayer is silly to me. That's why tithing is silly to me, on so on and so forth; existence and whatever is within, or without it functions exactly as it must with or without our consent, appreciation, resentment, or sorrow. It just *is*.

But maybe I'm off base here, maybe all the trivial bullshit like which incarnation of of the hindu god I enshrine in my pantry truly matters to "the creator(!)" of existence. Maybe an entire galaxy will contract syphillis if I vote for that guy who's name reminds me of a terrurist? Maybe the entire future of the universe hangs in the balance of whether or not I roll out my shitty little carpet five times a day and pray to teh mighty prophet? Maybe, but probably not.