What are your beliefs on religion, god?

[Further]

So my proof is there was a creator. Is mine the right one? Yes to me mine is right for me.

For me, I understand completely how you and others can see god in these knowledge gaps. And this allows someone who is logical and accepting of science to also believe in god. God made the Big Bang. Not how I see it, but I understand and can't combat that view.

However, where humans have learned things, through science and measurement, I don't understand how those areas can be denied. Age of earth, evolution, these things don't mean there is no god, and they are clearly demonstrated. Why are these facts fought against by believers. Many of the scientists I work with believe in god, they just are much less ridged about anything that science disproves.

 

[crowTrobot]

I just explained it before and it was explained on that YouTube video. If you believe that mass can only be produced by mass; then mass cannot be made from nothingness. Space, time and mass are finite; therefor it has a starting point. Only something supernatural and eternal can create mass; because nothing can never make something.

The genesis is the biggest proof because science even using cosmology are still scratching their head.

You can bring up multiverse; but still who started that? If there is such thing as a multiverse; then there is mass in other parts of the void. They are still mass that can't be created by nothingness.

So as hard as science is trying to band aide the genesis "god of gaps"; they just choose to ignore because they don't know. Unfortunately; they know that nothingness cannot create mass.

So my proof is there was a creator. Is mine the right one? Yes to me mine is right for me.

off on your own tangent there again. it was a simple question that doesn't have to be framed in terms of christianity -

how does a human in an emotional relationship with an object that isn't otherwise detectable in any way know that object isn't a delusion?

 

[porkchopexpress]

"For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together." (Colossians 1:16-17).

This was written 2000 years ago. This is description of atoms; which can't be seen by the eye.

"In the beginning (time) God created (power) the Heaven (space) and the Earth (matter)... And the Spirit of God moved (motion) upon the face of the waters." [Genesis 1:1,3 … written some 3450 years ago].

This explains time, space and matter.

So, 3400 years ago someone wrote about observations that had been made for millennia? Mythology, including the bible (regardless of god being real or not), were written/told to explain the observed world. Thunderstorm? Oh, that's just Zeus throwing lightning. Fire? Oh, Prometheus stole it from the gods. We live on the earth, see the stars (heavens) at night and experience time. Why is it so groundbreaking that someone wrote about this? Every civilization has a creation story to try and explain how we came to be. Christianity/Judaism is no different.

 

[TripTango]

"For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together." (Colossians 1:16-17).

This was written 2000 years ago. This is description of atoms; which can't be seen by the eye.

"In the beginning (time) God created (power) the Heaven (space) and the Earth (matter)... And the Spirit of God moved (motion) upon the face of the waters." [Genesis 1:1,3 … written some 3450 years ago].

This explains time, space and matter.

Not even remotely. What it really shows is how easily one can find evidence for anything, if one looks hard enough for it in the Bible (or any similar text).

 

[drexlersdad]

anybody working tomorrow?

Exodus 31:15 "Whosoever doeth any work in the sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death."

Numbers 15:32,36 "And while the children of Israel were in the wilderness, they found a man that gathered sticks upon the sabbath day. . . . And all the congregation brought him without the camp, and stoned him with stones, and he died; as the Lord commanded Moses."

 

[TripTango]

anybody working tomorrow?

Exodus 31:15 "Whosoever doeth any work in the sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death."

Numbers 15:32,36 "And while the children of Israel were in the wilderness, they found a man that gathered sticks upon the sabbath day. . . . And all the congregation brought him without the camp, and stoned him with stones, and he died; as the Lord commanded Moses."

You mean working today, right? Everyone knows that Saturday is actually the Sabbath. It turns out that Satan convinced early Christian leaders to shift their holy day to Sunday in order to trick them into disobeying God's clear commandments. They're all going to be sooooo surprised when they end up in Gehennah on that little technicality!

 

[PapaG]

My biggest problem with the notion is "God" is that I have no proof, and lack the ability to have faith.

My biggest problem with evolution is that genetic mutations should be in the literal millions, and frequently, if organisms mutate and the best of those mutations survives.

Other than that, this is an emotional issue, and I tend to side with those who are invested in "faith" and admit it, because the evolutionary side is also faith-based, yet won't admit.

I don't know the answers, and I am comfortable in not knowing.

 

[Denny Crane]

adam and eve?

Adam and Eve is pretty close.

http://science.howstuffworks.com/life/evolution/female-ancestor.htm

Are we all descended from a common female ancestor?

In 1987, a group of genet*icists published a surprising study in the journal Nature.* The* researchers examined the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) taken from 147 people across all of today's major racial groups. These researchers found that the lineage of all people alive today falls on one of two branches in humanity's family tree. One of these branches consists of nothing but African lineage, the other contains all other groups, including some African lineage.

Even more impressive, the geneticists concluded that every person on Earth right now can trace his or her lineage back to a single common female ancestor who lived around 200,000 years ago. Because one entire branch of human lineage is of African origin and the other contains African lineage as well, the study's authors concluded Africa is the place where this woman lived.

The scientists named this common female ancestor Mitochondrial Eve.

 

[SlyPokerDog]

My biggest problem with the notion is "God" is that I have no proof, and lack the ability to have faith.

My biggest problem with evolution is that genetic mutations should be in the literal millions, and frequently, if organisms mutate and the best of those mutations survives.

Other than that, this is an emotional issue, and I tend to side with those who are invested in "faith" and admit it, because the evolutionary side is also faith-based, yet won't admit.

I don't know the answers, and I am comfortable in not knowing.

Do you get a flu shot?

 

[PapaG]

Do you get a flu shot?

Nope. Never have had one, and have never had the flu.

 

[crowTrobot]

This is our missing link. You are making assumptions about what the universe ought to look like, if it was purposefully designed. Upon what do you base these assumptions? What is your metric by which you distinguish a "soulless" universe from a purposefully created one? I can think of no empirical measure by which these two possibilities can be evaluated. If you can, please fill us all in: how do the findings of evolution, cosmology, and biology definitively preclude (or reduce to highly improbable) the possibility of design?

Ironically, these are the same fallacious assumptions at work in the teleological arguments for the existence of god, just used for the opposite purpose. Aquinas recognized patterns in the world and concluded that they were evidence of a conscious designer. You see randomness and disorder in the world and conclude that there must be no designer at all. Both of these arguments presuppose that there are specific characteristics of the universe that suggest one thing or another -- as if we have other universes to which we can compare our own, and make conclusions about its design (or lack thereof). You can't categorize a sample size of 1, and you can't claim as remarkable any of its traits, however chaotic or ordered they may appear.

as previously noted i was addressing the traditional religious (christian in this case) narrative - as you said something vague about the hypothetical creator judging humans i went ahead and filled in the blanks. i was not addressing a deistic designer too vague to be accessible to testing.

science certainly has and will continue to have a say in the matter of whether humans have souls or not, the probability that a deity intervenes in the natural world, the probability that the universe was created specifically as a testing ground for humans etc. if you dispute that there's not much to discuss.

You grossly overstate the scope of scientific knowledge, and in so doing perpetuate the image of atheists and scientists as arrogant and close-minded. Science has nothing to say about that which is untestable. Nothing at all.

i did not disagree with that. i was simply arguing the benefits of using certain semantics, so as not to lend credibility to the idea that religion can answer questions about objective reality that science is currently unable to. i feel like one of your eariler posts in this thread was likely to be taken just that way by the christians here.

I think the benefits of science and scientific understanding are self-evident, and that rational thinkers will always recognize the importance of testing their beliefs critically. Yes, I think the correct answer to many of these questions is "I don't know, and you don't either", but that can often be a tough sell. I don't think overstating the powers of your product and ridiculing its critics is the right way to go.

in some cases ridiculing is not, in some it can be quite useful. but in my view pandering by advocating the notion of domains or referring to currently untestable questions as 'unscientific' never is.

I agree with most of your perspective. I think your conclusions on the nature of the world are generally correct. And even I think you come off sounding like a self-righteous prick. I can only imagine how you sound to those you are ostensibly trying to convert.

seems like there's a bit of pigeonholing going on here. you're reading things into my posts that aren't there, and i don't think it's entirely the fault of my communication skills.

 

[TripTango]

science certainly has and will continue to have a say in the matter of whether humans have souls or not, the probability that a deity intervenes in the natural world, the probability that the universe was created specifically as a testing ground for humans etc. if you dispute that there's not much to discuss.

Once again: show me the journals. Show me the science. If you can't point me to the peer-reviewed papers that specifically address these questions, then indeed we don't have anything to discuss, scientifically speaking.

i was simply arguing the benefits of using certain semantics, so as not to lend credibility to the idea that religion can answer questions about objective reality that science is currently unable to. i feel like one of your eariler posts in this thread was likely to be taken just that way by the christians here.

This may be another semantics issue. When I say that religion "answers questions", I don't necessarily mean that it "answers questions correctly". Religion DOES answer many of the questions that science can't touch -- it just happens to do so through oral tradition and mythology. The fact that I recognize the appeal of seeking religious answers to unscientific questions in no way implies that I consider those answers valid or valuable.

I'm not a proponent of "domains" in the sense of "this is a question for science, and this is a question for religion", because I don't consider the two at all comparable. It's more accurate to say "this is an empirical question, which science can answer (or attempt to answer), and this is not". If folks want to make up stories to fill in the blanks, that's their prerogative -- and they've been happily doing so for thousands of years. I think it's a little silly, but then I also think Pokemon is silly, and look how popular that is.

As long as religious individuals are willing to adapt their worldviews in the face of actual empirical discoveries, I don't have a problem with those who find comfort in using stories to fill in the gaps. You can call it pandering if you wish -- I just call it respect. As long as there remains the faintest shred of possibility that a belief could be true, I'm not going to try too hard to overwrite it with my uninspiring "I don't knows". Sure, there are plenty of die-hards who will go down in a sinking ship of belief, no matter what the evidence shows (e.g. young earthers), but there are also many (including some religious leaders) who have expressed more flexibility. Take the Dalai Lama, for example: "If scientific analysis were conclusively to demonstrate certain claims in Buddhism to be false, then we must accept the findings of science and abandon those claims."

 

[Denny Crane]

[video=youtube;1zblTCsThDE]

 

[SlyPokerDog]

A group of flamingos is called a “flamboyance.”

 

[TripTango]

[video=youtube;1zblTCsThDE]

Great quote from a truly great man.

This also gets back to my earlier question for Mags, which I believe got missed: if time itself began with the Big Bang, was there ever a time at which the universe did not exist?

 

[Denny Crane]

Great quote from a truly great man.

This also gets back to my earlier question for Mags, which I believe got missed: if time itself began with the Big Bang, was there ever a time at which the universe did not exist?

I think he directly addresses the question of "does God exist." Scientifically.

Does it really need to be peer reviewed?

I would point out that while I strongly believe in science and do not believe in anything religious at all, I do recognize that we might not understand something or that something may not fit our models so we grasp it.

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, right?

 

[TripTango]

I think he directly addresses the question of "does God exist." Scientifically.

Does it really need to be peer reviewed?

I would point out that while I strongly believe in science and do not believe in anything religious at all, I do recognize that we might not understand something or that something may not fit our models so we grasp it.

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, right?

He says "it's my view that the simplest explanation is: there is no god." And I wholeheartedly agree. He doesn't claim empirical proof, and he doesn't claim that there are no other plausible explanations -- merely that this is the simplest. Occam's Razor, while useful, is not iron-clad and is not to be confused with scientific evidence. His comment that "there is no time for god to make the universe" is easily countered by the good ol' "god is timeless!" classic. What he really does here is summarize why god is not necessary for the Big Bang.

Peer-review is not a prerequisite, but if a given topic simply doesn't show up in the scientific literature at all, I think it's a strong indication that the question is not considered scientific in the first place. As far as I know, Hawking never published any of these ideas in a formal physics paper -- why wouldn't he, if it is a question to be answered by science?

 

[Denny Crane]

"Did god create the universe?"

"I tell them it makes no sense. There was no time for god to make the universe in."


Let me ask you a question. Something to ponder.

What if the speed of light isn't a constant? Like really far away from us it goes at 1/2 the speed it does when we can measure it. Or if it went 2x the speed it does now much earlier in time?

My thinking on this sort of question is that we BELIEVE it is constant because we prove it over and over again, but only within our frame of reference.

There's an assumption in there, that physics works (mostly) the same everywhere. It sure seems like it does, but I bet you can perform experiments that prove they are and experiments that prove they aren't.

 

[crowTrobot]

Once again: show me the journals. Show me the science. If you can't point me to the peer-reviewed papers that specifically address these questions, then indeed we don't have anything to discuss, scientifically speaking.

i don't get the significance of this demand. i'm sure there are other reasons topics pertaining specifically to disproving religious tenets aren't commonly published other than that they aren't testable. scientists presumably consider most of them trivial/unimportant, or already thoroughly if indirectly refuted by other published evidence, and a waste of their time. there may also be funding issues if one sets out specifically to disprove a religious tenet.

just because nobody has published a paper with the title 'evidence humans do not have eternal souls' (if noone has) does not mean there is not a mountain of evidence that all of human cognizance, personality, and behavior is the purely physical result of evolution.

 

[crowTrobot]

"Did god create the universe?"

"I tell them it makes no sense. There was no time for god to make the universe in."


Let me ask you a question. Something to ponder.

What if the speed of light isn't a constant? Like really far away from us it goes at 1/2 the speed it does when we can measure it. Or if it went 2x the speed it does now much earlier in time?

My thinking on this sort of question is that we BELIEVE it is constant because we prove it over and over again, but only within our frame of reference.

There's an assumption in there, that physics works (mostly) the same everywhere. It sure seems like it does, but I bet you can perform experiments that prove they are and experiments that prove they aren't.

thanks to QM there is no shortage of working physicists who think GR is just an approximation of a deeper reality.

 

[Denny Crane]

If the speed of light isn't a constant, or physics don't truly work the same everywhere (how about everywhen?), then a lot of what we think we know to be right is actually wrong.

The ramifications are staggering.

 

[TripTango]

i don't get the significance of this demand. i'm sure there are other reasons topics pertaining specifically to disproving religious tenets aren't commonly published other than that they aren't testable. scientists presumably consider most of them trivial/unimportant, or already thoroughly if indirectly refuted by other published evidence, and a waste of their time. there may also be funding issues if one sets out specifically to disprove a religious tenet.

just because nobody has published a paper with the title 'evidence humans do not have eternal souls' (if noone has) does not mean there is not a mountain of evidence that all of human cognizance, personality, and behavior is the purely physical result of evolution.

It's significant because publications are important indicators of the scope of any particular discipline. If a question is at all significant and within the scope of physics, a paper related to it has probably appeared at some point in Physical Review Letters or something similar. I'm not asking for a paper explicitly titled "Humans Do Not Have Souls", but I don't think it's too much to ask for a direct statement to that effect somewhere in the conclusions.

And yes, of course it is considered a waste of time for researchers to consider disproving the existence of an immortal, intangible soul -- it's unscientific.

 

[MadeFromDust]

Great quote from a truly great man.

This also gets back to my earlier question for Mags, which I believe got missed: if time itself began with the Big Bang, was there ever a time at which the universe did not exist?

Yes, time came into existence when matter came into existence when the universe was created since matter/time/space are all interconnected, but we're not arguing about whether time exists or not, we're debating why it came into existence. How can something from eternities past come into being without the deliberate will of something greater than itself that existed priorly? How can something that has been the way it has for eternity (no beginning/no end) suddenly pop into existence at a distinct point where it breaks the eternal constant and creates a point in time without the driving force of a personal, intelligent being behind it [IE, 13.7 billion years ago if you believe that)? It makes sense that an intelligence and a force exists outside of the universe that has always existed and created matter/time/space from nothing, and I think we can all agree that from nothing, nothing comes. So something always existed in one form or another.

Yes, it's hard to grasp since the universe is all we can see and know, but consider the universe from the perspective of a being with the attributes of God. If you are eternal and are not bound by time or spacial restrictions, a grain of sand and a galaxy will look the same to you, since there is nothing dividing the two. God exists in a greater dimension (as in more than 3 dimensions, matter/time/space) so us conceiving what matter may look like outside the context of time and space is impossible for us even conceive. That's why God knows the beginning from the end. It's like God is a cosmic author who brought His story to reality.

 

[crowTrobot]

It's significant because publications are important indicators of the scope of any particular discipline. If a question is at all significant and within the scope of physics, a paper related to it has probably appeared at some point in Physical Review Letters or something similar. I'm not asking for a paper explicitly titled "Humans Do Not Have Souls", but I don't think it's too much to ask for a direct statement to that effect somewhere in the conclusions.

i have no idea if any such conclusions have been published and i don't think it's relevant. someone publishing within the scope a particular discipline is doing just that, and presumably wouldn't feel the need to or would think it would be unprofessional to extend their conclusions to encompass ramifications for religious tenets. that doesn't mean there aren't ramifications.

And yes, of course it is considered a waste of time for researchers to consider disproving the existence of an immortal, intangible soul -- it's unscientific.

would you deny that science has shown that the christian concept of a soul, retaining aspects of personality and memory after death, is improbable?

 

[speeds]

I think we can all agree that from nothing, nothing comes.

[video=youtube;EjaGktVQdNg]

 

[Further]

This is a fun little article about trying to scientifically detect the soul.


How much does your soul weigh?

DURHAM — For at least 100 years, the more oddball branches of science have struggled to answer this metaphysical head-scratcher: How much does the human soul weigh?

In 1907, a Massachusetts doctor named Duncan MacDougall settled on the figure of 21 grams – the average weight loss experienced by six terminal tuberculosis patients he strapped to a scale at the moment of death.

A dozen years ago, an Oregon rancher named Lew Hollander tried to measure the souls of one ram, seven ewes, three lambs and a goat. His findings: The animals actually gained weight as they shook off this mortal coil – anywhere from 18 to 780 grams.

Now this summer, the Rhine Research Center in Durham will host the latest experiment aimed at nailing down the intangible essence of mankind.

The method: 1.) Stand on a scale. 2.) Have an out-of-body experience. 3.) Record weight.

...........

 

[MadeFromDust]

[video=youtube;EjaGktVQdNg]

Yes I've heard of this man and his book, I think it's desperation tactics honestly. If something came from nothing then I think you could form a powerful argument that there was never really "nothing" in the first place. Either way, it's an endless totem pole with no answer or explanation in sight.

 

[TripTango]

Yes, time came into existence when matter came into existence when the universe was created since matter/time/space are all interconnected, but we're not arguing about whether time exists or not, we're debating why it came into existence.

I'm going to stop you right there for a moment. If time didn't exist before the universe came into being, then it's meaningless to ask how something could come from nothing -- there literally never was "nothing". Your common-sense refrain of "from nothing, nothing comes" relies on a flow of time: at some moment (in time) there was nothing, and then, a certain span of time later, there was something. But that's not what we're talking about here. If time began WITH the Big Bang, the universe is essentially eternal. There never was nothing. That is but one example of how this particular "proof" for the existence of god comes unraveled -- it applies time-dependent conservation laws to a potentially timeless context.

 

[MadeFromDust]

I'm going to stop you right there for a moment. If time didn't exist before the universe came into being, then it's meaningless to ask how something could come from nothing -- there literally never was "nothing". Your common-sense refrain of "from nothing, nothing comes" relies on a flow of time: at some moment (in time) there was nothing, and then, a certain span of time later, there was something. But that's not what we're talking about here. If time began WITH the Big Bang, the universe is essentially eternal. There never was nothing. That is but one example of how this particular "proof" for the existence of god comes unraveled -- it applies time-dependent conservation laws to a potentially timeless context.

The universe (matter/time/space) began to exist according to modern scientific theories, correct? No more static, steady-state theory since it has been proven that the universe had a finite beginning. So what could bring that into existence without the deliberate action of a personal, eternal and intelligent being? Dead, brainless eternal constants do not change forms and create independent realms on their own. I mean, why didn't the Big Bang happen infinitely ago, not a finite point in time (IE, 13.7 billion years)? I mean, give me one example in the known universe where chaos brings forth order, complexity, information and interworking systems? You can't, because it doesn't happen. And that doesn't even answer the question of how it came into being!

 

[TripTango]

i have no idea if any such conclusions have been published and i don't think it's relevant. someone publishing within the scope a particular discipline is doing just that, and presumably wouldn't feel the need to or would think it would be unprofessional to extend their conclusions to encompass ramifications for religious tenets. that doesn't mean there aren't ramifications.

Right. And just because you can't see, touch, or hear God with your physical senses doesn't mean he isn't there, right?

Science is not in the business of addressing nonempirical questions. Period. I honestly don't understand how someone can disagree with this.

would you deny that science has shown that the christian concept of a soul, retaining aspects of personality and memory after death, is improbable?

Science tells us quite consistently that there is no objectively measurable evidence for such a thing. I don't know how one would go about generating an actual probability for that which is unmeasurable, though. Again: unscientific.