Faith and Reason. My thoughts on God, science and the world

[zsdersw]

You are not arguing the question asked. I was asked if there had to be a creator for a snowball to roll down a hill. I've lived in the snow all my life and have never seen a natural snowball. What happens after the snowball is made could be up to the snowballs free will or random chances. But the fact remains that there had to be someone to create the snowball in order for it to roll down a hill.

No, you were asked if an intelligent creator was needed to intelligently design the start of rolling a snowball down a hill.

I've lived in the snow all my life as well, and I've seen it do and form into very perplexing (and often beautiful) shapes.

 

[Dr. Zaus]

No, you were asked if an intelligent creator was needed to intelligently design the start of rolling a snowball down a hill.

I've lived in the snow all my life as well, and I've seen it do and form into very perplexing (and often beautiful) shapes.

Here's a thought: In an infinite universe of infinite universes the universe that randomly evolves an all-powerful being that can understand, create, and re-produce things from other universes may be the one that will win at multi-verse evolution.

 

[rudeguy]

No, you were asked if an intelligent creator was needed to intelligently design the start of rolling a snowball down a hill.

I've lived in the snow all my life as well, and I've seen it do and form into very perplexing (and often beautiful) shapes.

Please re read the post I replied to.

I have seen many shapes in the snow as well. But I have yet to see or hear about a random snowball forming and rolling down a hill.

Let's get away from the metaphors. If the universe has a beginning (it does according to science) then it had to be created. Our if you believe something was there before the universe, then please explain where that something came from.
If you belive that two masses of nothing smashed into each other to form something, then I question your logic.

 

[jackstar7]

Please re read the post I replied to.

I have seen many shapes in the snow as well. But I have yet to see or hear about a random snowball forming and rolling down a hill.

Let's get away from the metaphors. If the universe has a beginning (it does according to science) then it had to be created. Our if you believe something was there before the universe, then please explain where that something came from.
If you belive that two masses of nothing smashed into each other to form something, then I question your logic.

Well, the laws of thermodynamics state that energy is neither created or destoyed, so right now the Big Bang was less likely the beginning and more likely just another stage in an expansion and contraction cycle of all matter and energy within the dimensions we exist. It implies nothing about a creator. It simply is beyond our comprehension at this point; i.e. infinite.

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

If the universe has a beginning (it does according to science)...

No, it doesn't.

...then it had to be created.

No, it didn't.

Our if you believe something was there before the universe, then please explain where that something came from.

Why do you expect others to explain where "that something" came from when you will not explain where the God you posit has come from?

If you belive that two masses of nothing smashed into each other to form something, then I question your logic.

Who has claimed that this is something they believe? Name just one person. Anywhere. Ever.

 

[Paul98]

Please re read the post I replied to.

I have seen many shapes in the snow as well. But I have yet to see or hear about a random snowball forming and rolling down a hill.

Let's get away from the metaphors. If the universe has a beginning (it does according to science) then it had to be created. Our if you believe something was there before the universe, then please explain where that something came from.
If you belive that two masses of nothing smashed into each other to form something, then I question your logic.

What do you mean by "created" are you assuming natural forces or some sort of "God"? Was the grand canyon, a rainbow, star's, planets, created by some "God" or are they the result of the physics? Also if you assert that all of this needed creator, how does it mean that the creator doesn't it's self need a creator. Plus if this is a "God" creator will need to be super powerful, much more complex than the world you are trying to define. It will only bring about more questions.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xmc55o_curiosity-s01e01-did-god-create-the-universe_tech

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELOoqqkygLY

 

[zsdersw]

Please re read the post I replied to.

I did. Perhaps you should re-read it. The question that you answered was: "Does it take an "intelligent design" to start a small snowball rolling down a big hill?"

You said yes.

After my next reply you restated, incorrectly, what my question was. You said: "I was asked if there had to be a creator for a snowball to roll down a hill."

Missing are the pertinent words: intelligent and design. You said you were asked if it took a creator to start a snowball rolling down a hill. I said an intelligent design. Are you contending there is no difference?

I have seen many shapes in the snow as well. But I have yet to see or hear about a random snowball forming and rolling down a hill.

Then I would suggest that your limited experience does not carry enough weight to support your argument or refute anyone else's.

Let's get away from the metaphors. If the universe has a beginning (it does according to science) then it had to be created. Our if you believe something was there before the universe, then please explain where that something came from.
If you belive that two masses of nothing smashed into each other to form something, then I question your logic.

Created, perhaps, but was an intelligent creator implementing an intelligent design REQUIRED or somehow necessitated?

 

[JD50]

Please re read the post I replied to.

I have seen many shapes in the snow as well. But I have yet to see or hear about a random snowball forming and rolling down a hill.

Let's get away from the metaphors. If the universe has a beginning (it does according to science) then it had to be created. Our if you believe something was there before the universe, then please explain where that something came from.
If you belive that two masses of nothing smashed into each other to form something, then I question your logic.

So who created the creator?

 

[Dr. Zaus]

So who created the creator?

If, and where, there is nothing: there are literally no rules. To this effect there is always a rules-less nothing that is outside of something. This infinite nothing can only end when an infinite something culls it into itself; like a pan-dimensional 'something' that organizes the somethings that come from nothing into the functional. Like a beam of light with fuzzy light emanating from it, all that light being reality that is potential inline with the stasis of the external.



... is what I thought when I was on peyote.

 

[rudeguy]

I did. Perhaps you should re-read it. The question that you answered was: "Does it take an "intelligent design" to start a small snowball rolling down a big hill?"

You said yes.

After my next reply you restated, incorrectly, what my question was. You said: "I was asked if there had to be a creator for a snowball to roll down a hill."

Missing are the pertinent words: intelligent and design. You said you were asked if it took a creator to start a snowball rolling down a hill. I said an intelligent design. Are you contending there is no difference?



Then I would suggest that your limited experience does not carry enough weight to support your argument or refute anyone else's.



Created, perhaps, but was an intelligent creator implementing an intelligent design REQUIRED or somehow necessitated?

Good question!
Without giving it too much thought I would say required. In order for any of the things discussed to make logical sense, they had to be created. My original argument stands that science relies more on faith than reason. A reasonable person would look at all the coincidences that had to happen and continue to keep happening and deduce that there had to be some firm of intelligence behind it all. To accept that all of these billions of things just happened does not sound like reason. It sounds like faith.

 

[rudeguy]

No, it doesn't.


No, it didn't.


Why do you expect others to explain where "that something" came from when you will not explain where the God you posit has come from?


Who has claimed that this is something they believe? Name just one person. Anywhere. Ever.

One by one:
So the universe is infinite? Then why do I keep hearing about how old it is?

Because according to the Bible (which according to earlier discussion has never been proved wrong) God was always here. He was not created as he is the original Creator.


If the universe is finite, it had to start somewhere, some time. Since you can't make something out of nothing, that is basically what you have argued.

If you are now calling all the scientists wrong who claimed that the universe stated at the big bang, then I question how anything scientific can be believed if it can be changed to fit your argument.

 

[rudeguy]

What do you mean by "created" are you assuming natural forces or some sort of "God"? Was the grand canyon, a rainbow, star's, planets, created by some "God" or are they the result of the physics? Also if you assert that all of this needed creator, how does it mean that the creator doesn't it's self need a creator. Plus if this is a "God" creator will need to be super powerful, much more complex than the world you are trying to define. It will only bring about more questions.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xmc55o_curiosity-s01e01-did-god-create-the-universe_tech

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELOoqqkygLY

You did a whole lot of putting words in my mouth.

Explaining God's ways of creating things does not prove He doesn't exist. If we explain how an engine works, does that mean the engine doesn't exist?

 

[Charles Kozierok]

So who created the creator?

That question is never answered.

Usually all you get is: "God was always there". The obvious response to that is: "If you can say that God was always there, why can't I say that the universe was always there?"

That question is never answered either.

 

[Retro Rob]

Well Charles, you answered the question -- God has no beginning. The question is only posed as a sarcastic rebuttal so that's why I don't bother addressing it.

For believers, the Bible has always spoken of God being "eternal", always existing.

Someone that goes by the name of Hubble is the reason why you can't say the universe always existed, and plenty in science throughout the 20th century did say the Universe always existed, not because of evidence, but due to the fact "beginning" agrees with theists views, and Genesis 1:1.

 

[zsdersw]

Good question!
Without giving it too much thought I would say required. In order for any of the things discussed to make logical sense, they had to be created.

Created by physical processes or random chance is different than being created by an "intelligent designer".

My original argument stands that science relies more on faith than reason. A reasonable person would look at all the coincidences that had to happen and continue to keep happening and deduce that there had to be some firm of intelligence behind it all.

Your argument doesn't stand as anything other than your opinion. There is no "reason" behind it, as reason requires evidence the interpretation of which is beyond dispute (aka "facts")... and the "coincidences that had to happen and continue to keep happening" is not evidence that no one can dispute.

To accept that all of these billions of things just happened does not sound like reason. It sounds like faith.

No, you got that switched around. To assume that these billions of things HAD to happen according to some "intelligent design" is faith, not reason.

 

[Paul98]

You did a whole lot of putting words in my mouth.

Explaining God's ways of creating things does not prove He doesn't exist. If we explain how an engine works, does that mean the engine doesn't exist?

Actually I asked you a bunch of questions so I might be able to understand what you believe and how I might be able to make you understand. If I can explain through physics the way things came to be. This means that your god didn't explicitly create each item. Instead started everything at the big bang, the rest is due to physics. This would lead to if you wanted to understand "God" you would need to understand the universe and the deepest level. The more you understand about the real world the more you understand the thought process of "God".

But then again there is no evidence for your "God", and until you provide some there is no reason to believe in it. While there is lots of evidence that the "God" is simply your mind rationalizing what you don't understand. I come to this conclusion due to your rejection and lack of understanding of science, rationalization of the bible as truth, rejection of evolution, making everything need a creator except the creator.

I have no problem with a belief in some "God", and heck depending on the definition of this "God" I may even believe in it also. If you were to define "God" as the universe I would have no problem believing in this "God" as it exists. It's the "God" and similar like you believe in that require rejection of science and evidence that we can no to not exist. That we know is simply due to your mind making connections that aren't there, and that is unable to coincide your beliefs with the real world.

If you actually want to understand, you first need to start questioning your own beliefs in what is true and what you find logical is wrong. I posed some logic that doesn't seem logical when you first look at but in fact it is true that it's how it happens. Check post 388

 

[Paul98]

Well Charles, you answered the question -- God has no beginning. The question is only posed as a sarcastic rebuttal so that's why I don't bother addressing it.

For believers, the Bible has always spoken of God being "eternal", always existing.

Someone that goes by the name of Hubble is the reason why you can't say the universe always existed, and plenty in science throughout the 20th century did say the Universe always existed, not because of evidence, but due to the fact "beginning" agrees with theists views, and Genesis 1:1.

So your assertion that everything needs, or everything has a creator falls apart. It is not a sarcastic question, and that you take it as one shows a problem.

The bible can say what ever it want's it doesn't convince anyone other than those who already want to believe.

Hubble says nothing about it not always existing, only not existing in it's current form. The expansion theory is only about the rapid expansion of the universe, not about where it came from. Currently where it came from is trying to be explained, heck we are even trying to see what happened before the big bang.

 

[Paul98]

One by one:
So the universe is infinite? Then why do I keep hearing about how old it is?

It doesn't have to be infinitely old to be an infinite universe if it's infinite in spacial directions.

Because according to the Bible (which according to earlier discussion has never been proved wrong) God was always here. He was not created as he is the original Creator.

This is nonsense.

If the universe is finite, it had to start somewhere, some time. Since you can't make something out of nothing, that is basically what you have argued.

If you are now calling all the scientists wrong who claimed that the universe stated at the big bang, then I question how anything scientific can be believed if it can be changed to fit your argument.

That is not what the big bang theory says even without talking about a creator. The big bang isn't an explosion in space, it's an expansion of space. This is a common misconception. The big bang happened everywhere since the expansion is what creates space time. Think of it as a balloon, not as the air in the balloon but the balloon it's self. As you blow it up each point on the balloon gets farther away from every other point, also there is no center and no point where the big bang happened as it's happening everywhere. This is why the CMB is all around us, it's also why galaxies are moving away from us in every direction. Plus it's why we see galaxies moving away from us faster and faster the farther away we look, since the universe is still expanding, the space it's self is still expanding. We can even see galaxies moving away from us faster than the speed of light, this isn't because the universe is moving through space faster than light, but that the space is expanding so the distance between is is growing faster than light.

 

[Retro Rob]

So your assertion that everything needs, or everything has a creator falls apart. It is not a sarcastic question, and that you take it as one shows a problem.

The bible can say what ever it want's it doesn't convince anyone other than those who already want to believe.

Hubble says nothing about it not always existing, only not existing in it's current form. The expansion theory is only about the rapid expansion of the universe, not about where it came from. Currently where it came from is trying to be explained, heck we are even trying to see what happened before the big bang.

My argument doesn't fall apart at all. If God isn't the creator, he isn't "God", as there can only be one -- like there can only be one President of a country at a time, one King, one "Lead", and God doesn't share his authority, in scripture anyway.

Secondly, I was taking about the Solid State theory, and how the Hubble telescope completely falsified it, IIRC, so correct me if I am wrong, please.

 

[Paul98]

Good question!
Without giving it too much thought I would say required. In order for any of the things discussed to make logical sense, they had to be created. My original argument stands that science relies more on faith than reason. A reasonable person would look at all the coincidences that had to happen and continue to keep happening and deduce that there had to be some firm of intelligence behind it all. To accept that all of these billions of things just happened does not sound like reason. It sounds like faith.

This is your mind playing tricks on you, what you find logical is not. The brain tries to make sense of things and see's coincidences all the time where they aren't. You reject the evidence that doesn't support your belief. This is the same problem that Rob M. is having with this. What YOU see as logical is actually not. This is the point I tried to make on the earlier post. 388 or something, where how people logically think the world works is not how the world actually works.

This is why science works so well and relies on evidence to show something is correct, rather than just taking what someone finds logical as correct. If what you thought was logical, the rest of science would agree. But since it doesn't agree with the data and evidence science tells us that it isn't correct.

 

[Paul98]

My argument doesn't fall apart at all. If God isn't the creator, he isn't "God", as there can only be one -- like there can only be one President of a country at a time, one King, one "Lead", and God doesn't share his authority, in scripture anyway.

Secondly, I was taking about the Solid State theory, and how the Hubble telescope completely falsified it, IIRC, so correct me if I am wrong, please.

So what you are saying is that everything you see around you needs a creator, that everything needs a creator. This creator MUST be "God", this "God" doesn't need a creator because he is "God", and there can only be one "God".
Is this correct?

For the second part that's what I said, Hubble only disproved that the universe always existed and will continue to exist in it's current form.

 

[fskimospy]

My argument doesn't fall apart at all. If God isn't the creator, he isn't "God", as there can only be one -- like there can only be one President of a country at a time, one King, one "Lead", and God doesn't share his authority, in scripture anyway.

Secondly, I was taking about the Solid State theory, and how the Hubble telescope completely falsified it, IIRC, so correct me if I am wrong, please.

You were presumably referring to the 'steady state' theory, and yes it appears to be false. As for the rest of the universe, I think you misunderstand what the science says. There is no knowledge as to what might have existed before the big bang, as knowing that is impossible. Absolutely nothing about its existence then precludes the composition of the universe being eternal in exactly the same way that you say god is eternal. To claim that the universe requires a creator while god does not is simply an arbitrary decision to assign different requirements to the two.

I have always found it strange that people have so little problem saying that a tightly packed ball of energy could not possibly have always existed, but a guy with a beard in a toga who cares desperately about who we have sex with has clearly always been there. A creator god is inherently vastly more complex, and therefore much less probable.

TLDR: If you say god is eternal then you have to accept the possibility that energy and mass are eternal.

 

[Paul98]

You were presumably referring to the 'steady state' theory, and yes it appears to be false. As for the rest of the universe, I think you misunderstand what the science says. There is no knowledge as to what might have existed before the big bang, as knowing that is impossible. Absolutely nothing about its existence then precludes the composition of the universe being eternal in exactly the same way that you say god is eternal. To claim that the universe requires a creator while god does not is simply an arbitrary decision to assign different requirements to the two.

I have always found it strange that people have so little problem saying that a tightly packed ball of energy could not possibly have always existed, but a guy with a beard in a toga who cares desperately about who we have sex with has clearly always been there. A creator god is inherently vastly more complex, and therefore much less probable.

TLDR: If you say god is eternal then you have to accept the possibility that energy and mass are eternal.

I wouldn't go so far as saying what happened before the big bang, or what started it can't be known. There are people who have testable ideas for what happened before the big bang or what created the big bang.

 

[Retro Rob]

You were presumably referring to the 'steady state' theory, and yes it appears to be false. As for the rest of the universe, I think you misunderstand what the science says. There is no knowledge as to what might have existed before the big bang, as knowing that is impossible. Absolutely nothing about its existence then precludes the composition of the universe being eternal in exactly the same way that you say god is eternal. To claim that the universe requires a creator while god does not is simply an arbitrary decision to assign different requirements to the two.

I have always found it strange that people have so little problem saying that a tightly packed ball of energy could not possibly have always existed, but a guy with a beard in a toga who cares desperately about who we have sex with has clearly always been there. A creator god is inherently vastly more complex, and therefore much less probable.

TLDR: If you say god is eternal then you have to accept the possibility that energy and mass are eternal.

I didn't know God has a beard and wears clothes, as those are indicative of physical beings, which God is not. I have no clue what he looks like.

Yes, thanks, I did mean Steady State, my bad. My point in bringing that up is that they've concluded that the universe expanded from a point, 14 billion or so years ago, which means it had a beginning.

 

[jackstar7]

Yes, thanks, I did mean Steady State, my bad. My point in bringing that up is that they've concluded that the universe expanded from a point, 14 billion or so years ago, which means it had a beginning.

Beginning in this form. In these dimensions as we understand them.

We simply do not know (and perhaps cannot know) if there was a caterpillar state or if we exist in another stage within a system we simply have not created the tools to understand yet.

Just blanketing such vast complexity with god(s) is intellectually lazy.