I assume you mean the atheists that engage with believers on these forums? - otherwise, it's rather a sweeping and unlikely generalisation...
I agree.
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I assume you mean the atheists that engage with believers on these forums? - otherwise, it's rather a sweeping and unlikely generalisation...
Can you explain why you had a bias against Jesus and wanted Him to be wrong?
What was it you wanted Him to be wrong about?
Can you explain why you had a bias against Jesus and wanted Him to be wrong?
What was it you wanted Him to be wrong about?
I suspect both are small subsets of all atheists; just as old-fashioned, well-read believers, and fundamentalist creationists, are small subsets of believers.Good point. I suppose when I made the observation, I was thinking of the old-fashioned, well read skeptic type Atheists.
Not the 'New age atheist' clique.
Big Bang - WikipediaEvidence such as...?
All scientific theories make untestable predictions?I roughly agree (although proof isn't part of science). Pretty much all scientific theories make untestable predictions - multiverses are speculative (contingent) predictions of successful scientific theories.
They're all interesting. I think some are less susceptible to Occam's Razor than others.I don't want to believe, nor do I believe, in any particular cosmology - but I find some cosmologies more interesting than others.
Big Bang - Wikipedia
You can look into the details if you want.
The scientific community was once divided between supporters of two different models, the Big Bang and the steady state, but a wide range of empirical evidence has strongly favored the Big Bang which is now universally accepted.
All scientific theories make untestable predictions?
They're all interesting. I think some are less susceptible to Occam's Razor than others.
I skimmed through the article which is about HEP. I don't know what HEP is and the article doesn't explain. Neither does Google. It would be hepful to know.Well, in physics, a boatload of theories make entirely just testable predictions only. Though at times the needed test could involve a technical ability yet to be accomplished, it is always doable in principle, for most theories. The exceptions are the minority. One notable and prominent exception now are multiverse theories, which might possibly be forever untestable. This has caused some controversy, as you could imagine.
Here's one site that came to prominence because of that controversy:
Not Even Wrong
which has the clever moniker "Not Even Wrong" heh heh
I was talking with a Quaker woman last week, in a philosophy group, about her idea that it would be wonderful if everyone was just friendly and loving to each other. We came to the conclusion that it was an appealing but rather naive aspiration that, in practice, was inevitably frustrated by the vagaries of human nature - as was so effectively demonstrated by the supposed followers of Christ himself, in the Christian rampage of destruction across the classical world from around 300 A.D. onwards.Pretty much everything past love your neighbor, at first. (I'm going all the way back to early 20s for that attitude, a very long time ago), though I was eventually intrigued more than just casually about "love your neighbor as yourself (maybe about age 26 or later) -- and then finally willing to test love your neighbor as yourself, as a very interesting proposition (see below for why) --
I thought in some moment something like: What if the Beatles had it right about how to have peace between nations? == Beatles lyric: 'all you need is love'.
Get that: what if the simplistic, naive, childish idea was....more than just a simple, naive, childish idea...?
So, of course, I could see that Christ was a main source of that idea, the seeming possibly naive, but....maybe not...Beatles lyric that love is one of the key things that could help humanity for peace (instead of self-destruction). That attitude of I know better was maybe around age 20-25 or so. Ok? Don't try to paint it onto me now, plz.
So, at first my idea was to test that isolated proposition. And soon there was one other, which I'd picked up from the local culture of the self-help moment in Austin (way back, early 90s) -- of forgiving people in order to let it go and be free of them. So I next became interested in that "forgive not just 7 times, but seventy times seven." idea. Proposition. To be tested.
To test and see if it really was such a good idea.
I did not want to have any other stuff be right, because that would be a lot of trouble for me, as I saw it. But again, this was youthful stuff, which I slowly grew out of, and especially after I tested these 2 propositions (to see if they worked a lot better than the dozens of other things I tried out about how to live and be in the best state of being).
High Energy Physics.I skimmed through the article which is about HEP. I don't know what HEP is and the article doesn't explain. Neither does Google. It would be hepful to know.
That's just what I thought was likely -- that I'd get inevitably frustrated by the vagaries of human nature -- good wording!I was talking with a Quaker woman last week, in a philosophy group, about her idea that it would be wonderful if everyone was just friendly and loving to each other. We came to the conclusion that it was an appealing but rather naive aspiration that, in practice, was inevitably frustrated by the vagaries of human nature - as was so effectively demonstrated by the supposed followers of Christ himself, in the Christian rampage of destruction across the classical world from around 300 A.D. onwards.
Regarding the last....consider an analog: did Mao represent socialism, or did Stalin? It's a question to ask about just how Rome related with Christianity politically at that century. After all, have a look at some of the details here:I was talking with a Quaker woman last week, in a philosophy group, about her idea that it would be wonderful if everyone was just friendly and loving to each other. We came to the conclusion that it was an appealing but rather naive aspiration that, in practice, was inevitably frustrated by the vagaries of human nature - as was so effectively demonstrated by the supposed followers of Christ himself, in the Christian rampage of destruction across the classical world from around 300 A.D. onwards.
HEP = High Energy Physics.I skimmed through the article which is about HEP. I don't know what HEP is and the article doesn't explain. Neither does Google. It would be hepful to know.
That's the point - it may be fine and dandy for those individuals prepared to try it, but how many are both willing and able?My best guess: only a minority of Christians through the centuries ever tried doing it, possibly a small minority, though I cannot say if that's 5% or 50%.
I'm familiar with that evidence and the opinions of leading cosmologists about it - that we cannot say what preceded the big bang (or inflation if that's your preferred model) because we don't have a theory (e.g. quantum gravity) that can manage the relevant conditions. Many cosmologists have been working on models for pre-big bang (or inflation) cosmologies, which suggests, to me at least, that they don't consider the big bang (or inflation) to be an absolute beginning, but only the beginning of the universe as we know it.Big Bang - Wikipedia
You can look into the details if you want.
Pretty much, yep - of course, they also make testable predictions, or they wouldn't have become scientific theories...All scientific theories make untestable predictions?
Indeed - there are some that claim whole untestable non-physical ontologies... Occam must be spinning in his grave... some are less susceptible to Occam's Razor than others.
Pretty much, yep - of course, they also make testable predictions, or they wouldn't have become scientific theories...
Indeed - there are some that claim whole untestable non-physical ontologies... Occam must be spinning in his grave
I never suggested that a lab experiment is the *sole* way we perform "science", but it is the only reliable way to demonstrate that something exists "naturally" and isn't just "made up" to prop up an otherwise falsified claim. Dark energy is a case in point. It's *only* value/use is to prop up an otherwise falsified expansion theory. No other branch of physics "requires" it to exist. Furthermore it violates known conservation laws of energy putting it *squarely* into the "supernatural" category.
The only reason dark energy was even proposed in the first place is because no other "natural" form of energy would work! Astronomers are constantly claiming to "know" that dark energy exists, and they've handed out Nobel prizes for it's so called "discovery". Fast forward a couple of decades and *still* there's no astronomer on the planet that can even name a source of the stuff, let alone explain how it retains a constant density over multiple exponential increases in volume. It's failed later SN1A "tests" as well. It's the ultimate "supernatural" gap filler to support big bang "dogma" which cannot simply be allowed to die a "natural" scientific death.
Can you show me a *controlled* experiment where energy *isn't* conserved? Even the original support of neutrinos came about because either the conservation laws of physics were false, or they were applicable to particle physics decay processes.
So you're just tossing out "laws" of physics to suit yourself and to save a single cosmology model from the "natural" falsification processes.
Oh please. I've personally been banned from astronomy forums simply for posting a link to a *published* paper by Anthony Peratt that didn't jive with the big bang model. The astronomy community acts like a cult. The BB model of cosmology has failed more tests than I can count. In fact it *failed* a SN1A "test" and viola, dark energy was cut out of whole cloth to save the BB theory from otherwise being falsified. How many tens of *billions* of dollars have we spent testing various, poorly constrained "dark matter" models? Twenty billion in direct costs? Fifty billion including labor costs? Dark energy claims just failed two more tests in the last couple of months, and distant galaxies are far more "massive" and "mature" than BB models "predicted". There's no logical way to falsify the BB model or it would already be dead and buried. Is treated just like "sacred" dogma at this point. The anger aspects alone directed at everyone who questions that dogma says volumes.
"Whosoever"That's the point - it may be fine and dandy for those individuals prepared to try it, but how many are both willing and able?
The thing becomes, what alternative model do you have?
If you're positing something that's so scientific, then either you're claiming a conspiracy against your model,
which is an unfalsifiable crackpot idea in itself,
or it's more likely you're using faulty methodology to even claim that your theory is more falsifiable and doesn't rely on some nebulous idea,
which dark energy doesn't necessarily fall into if you grasped science (which from others' explanations, you don't appear to)
We can't falsify the big bang model in the sequential aspect before it happened,
until we get to a point we can observe beyond the Planck time, but we can reasonably conclude particular aspects from observations we've made that the big bang occurred.
You're putting the cart before the horse in terms of falsifiability, because science isn't making an absolute claim in regards to big bang, it's saying it's the best explanation we have and you've failed to present a valid alternative, or any, not unlike creationists.
Well, I personally prefer a static universe model that is based on EU/PC (electric universe/plasma cosmology) theory and/or tired light models. Plasma redshift has actually been documented in the lab, and correlated to the number of free electrons in the plasma (Chen).
I certainly wouldn't call it conspiracy since astronomers keep poking holes in their own models, and EU/PC theory is not "my model". I'm sure Ptolemaic proponents didn't necessarily 'conspire" against Aristarchus of Samos' heliocentric solar model for 1800 years, but they certainly did get it all wrong for 18 centuries.
Well, EU/PC models actually work in the lab, including the generation of a "hot" and full sphere solar corona. They also work in the lab with respect to the cause of photon redshift. It's not really a nebulous idea either since it's based on the same principles that make your computer and cellphone function.
The only reason "dark energy" was even proposed to start with is because no "natural" form of energy would work to save the expansion model from falsification. Two very recent SN1A studies have also demonstrated that the larger set of SN1A data doesn't automatically support an acceleration process to start with.
I'm not sure i understand what you mean by 'sequential aspect before it happened'. Can it be falsified at all?
I suppose that depends on how one defines "reasonable". Is it really "reasonable" to introduce three unfalsifiable and unsupported (in the lab) causes of redshift when one documented cause of redshift would do the trick?
I suggest you read the book "Physics of the Plasma universe". It's certainly a valid scientific alternative to a big bang theory of cosmology. You might also study a few "tired light" models. Chen even demonstrated that plasma redshift occurs in controlled experimentation and the amount of redshift can be correlated to the number of free electrons in the plasma
Not by the strict definition of 'scientific theory' as a well-established and well-tested model for observed phenomena. It's more a mathematical theory grounded in physics, i.e. it's theoretical physics - it's a theory in that sense.Would you consider M-theory to be a "scientific theory"?