An eternal universe and the 'special plead' of God [cosmology]

[muichimotsu]

Guys, I really love this discussion and it's suuuper insightful...but let's try not to make passive aggressive attacks on each other, okay?

I'm engaging in a mature fashion, it's the people convinced that God is somehow innate that are utilizing the DARVO tactics, far as I can tell, whereas I'm pointing out the fault in their thinking rather than just assuming my conclusion is right

 

[Halbhh]

Guys, I really love this discussion and it's suuuper insightful...but let's try not to make passive aggressive attacks on each other, okay?

It might be interesting to post this as you suggested earlier, for Christians only, and then you could get a higher level of discussion by avoiding the repetitive posts starting from the anti-Christian talking points some bring to an thread in this area.

 

[muichimotsu]

It might be interesting to post this as you suggested earlier, for Christians only, and then you could get a higher level of discussion by avoiding the repetitive posts starting from the anti-Christian talking points some bring to an thread in this area.

Yeah, an echo chamber is totally enriching discussion and not just throwing any challenge to your position out the window.

 

[Halbhh]

You also don't seem to understand what proof means in proper context, what you are claiming is absolute certainty and such, rather than something utilized in logic and math, not investigations of a scientific or philosophical nature

You don't have to have a bias against Jesus to still be credulous enough to then believe in Jesus because you're exercising selective skepticism.

You've still failed to show how your methodology is anything remotely conclusive rather than just something that could just as easily convert someone to Buddhism or Islam with a particular control and "experiment"

You have one correct part.

Today, finally I no longer have a bias against Jesus, so that I no longer want Him to be wrong.

That's correct.

But when I did much of this very extensive testing, all the time I was searching for failure, trying to find Him wrong somewhere. I did want Him to be wrong, then. During the testing.

That's what you endlessly try to deny, which...well, is showing a very powerful confirmation bias in your thinking on this.

 

[muichimotsu]

You have one correct part.

Today, finally I no longer have a bias against Jesus, so that I no longer want Him to be wrong.

That's correct.

But when I did much of this very extensive testing, all the time I was searching for failure, trying to find Him wrong somewhere. I did want Him to be wrong, then. During the testing.

That's what you endlessly try to deny, which...well, is showing a very powerful confirmation bias in your thinking on this.

Not sure where I imply I want him to be wrong, I'm not convinced he's right on everything, or even most things, that's not the same as explicitly or even implicitly having that bias you claim

You keep saying that, you haven't actually demonstrated it, I'm questioning the efficacy of your methodology, which you don't seem to understand is not as simple as you claim it to be, because it's not testing anything significant, just the kind of things that don't require the faith aspect that you've failed to show is actually reliable rather than just a leap in logic because you don't have the kind of testability that applies to things like, "be nice to people" (which doesn't really require religion at all to see is demonstrable)

 

[Halbhh]

Yeah, an echo chamber is totally enriching discussion and not just throwing any challenge to your position out the window.

To avoid an echo chamber wherever you go, you could stop using the repetitive assertions that points and begin to listen more fully or accurately to what others are saying, and don't use repetitive talking points to deny what they said.

You also don't seem to understand what proof means in proper context

That's a key mistake you are making. But I don't expect you to get out of your mistake, at this point. You'd have to be willing to find your mistakes, and you don't seem willing, for now.

 

[Halbhh]

is not as simple as you claim it to be

A key, central point for you to re-examine, to yourself try to find out where you are making your errors.

You have to be willing to do that. Trying to merely win an argument is entirely self-sabotaging.

 

[muichimotsu]

To avoid an echo chamber wherever you go, you could stop using the repetitive assertions that points and begin to listen more fully or accurately to what others are saying, and don't use repetitive talking points to deny what they said.

That's a key mistake you are making. But I don't expect you to get out of your mistake, at this point. You'd have to be willing to find your mistakes, and you don't seem willing, for now.

I'm not denying that you infer such things from your experiments, I'm questioning the methodology

Oh, you're suddenly the arbiter of what proof means? And I'm the one that is stuck in a loop or has biases? You can't even consider that your use of a term might be wrong?

 

[Halbhh]

I'm questioning the methodology

Not actually.

No, you didn't ask questions.

You make...belief-like assertions.

 

[theoneandonlypencil]

I'm engaging in a mature fashion, it's the people convinced that God is somehow innate that are utilizing the DARVO tactics, far as I can tell, whereas I'm pointing out the fault in their thinking rather than just assuming my conclusion is right

Not dropping names, just giving everyone a general reminder.

It might be interesting to post this as you suggested earlier, for Christians only, and then you could get a higher level of discussion by avoiding the repetitive posts starting from the anti-Christian talking points some bring to an thread in this area.

Actually, no. If you read what I really wrote, I deliberately said that originally I only didn't want to engage with Muichi because at that time I didn't like him personally for his debating style; it had nothing to do with his points, and I was going to bar other Atheists from the thread just to be fair. For the record, I actually like engaging in conversation with Atheists--they don't have a Religious bias, and engaging with them helps me strengthen my arguments and gives me new information to study.

Christian echo Chambers are not my style...especially given that a lot of Christians, when faced with realistic reason to doubt or think critically, ironically abandon the notion of relying on faith alone and do one of three things;
1) Try to discredit opposition
2) 'Christian-fy' popular scientific facts even at the cost of honesty and discarding half of the truth
3) bury their head in the sand like an ostrich and pretend they're right

Everyday Christians can be very uneducated. I obviously believe God exists, but I think Christians do a poor job at searching for him outside of the Bible.

I mean if you're a true Christian it doesnt matter if evolution or any popular scientific fact is true or not. If the truth of God being real actually hinged on science being right wrong or wrong, we'd be in trouble lol

 

[theoneandonlypencil]

Follow up: not saying atheist mentality is infallible either, just that they're better at rationalizing on average

 

[Halbhh]

Not dropping names, just giving everyone a general reminder.



Actually, no. If you read what I really wrote, I deliberately said that originally I only didn't want to engage with Muichi because at that time I didn't like him personally for his debating style; it had nothing to do with his points, and I was going to bar other Atheists from the thread just to be fair. For the record, I actually like engaging in conversation with Atheists--they don't have a Religious bias, and engaging with them helps me strengthen my arguments and gives me new information to study.

Christian echo Chambers are not my style...especially given that a lot of Christians, when faced with realistic reason to doubt or think critically, ironically abandon the notion of relying on faith alone and do one of three things;
1) Try to discredit opposition
2) 'Christian-fy' popular scientific facts even at the cost of honesty and discarding half of the truth
3) bury their head in the sand like an ostrich and pretend they're right

Everyday Christians can be very uneducated. I obviously believe God exists, but I think Christians do a poor job at searching for him outside of the Bible.

I mean if you're a true Christian it doesnt matter if evolution or any popular scientific fact is true or not. If the truth of God being real actually hinged on science being right wrong or wrong, we'd be in trouble lol

It's very easy to find plenty of Christians on the internet wrong about all manner of things, yes.

Did you find anything interesting in the aspects of naturalism post I wrote to you a while back? It's a long thread, and you might not have seen it.

 

[theoneandonlypencil]

It's very easy to find plenty of Christians on the internet wrong about all manner of things, yes.

Did you find anything interesting in the aspects of naturalism post I wrote to you a while back? It's a long thread, and you might not have seen it.

I probably did. I find interest in a lot of posts I read--just hard to remember them individually because of how much I read every day.

I think you could classify what I do as 'separating the wheat from the tears'. I pick up the breadcrumbs of truth from everything I read, and am currently trying to build a bigger picture.

 

[Halbhh]

Follow up: not saying atheist mentality is infallible either, just that they're better at rationalizing on average

I wish I could find a larger number of atheists that were indeed more interested in reality than in their constructions though.

When I point out the hidden assumptions they have in something, often then the person will fall back on a common list of talking points, defensively.

Funny example up thread is to dogmatically criticize a putative (in this case non-existent) dogma of others.

The talking points number about 40 or so I think, from what I've seen, and quite a lot of them have premises that are false. But to avoid examining one, usually the response is to list more of the talking points.

Diversion is very typical, and so the discussions rarely ever have anything truly discussed in depth.

That's why you might find it interesting to have a thread without atheists.

Sure, then you will still have the individual idiosyncratic 'Christian' unique viewpoints of some individuals that are 100% irrelevant to your topic, but you don't have to focus on them, really.

 

[theoneandonlypencil]

I wish I could find a larger number of atheists that were indeed more interested in reality than in their constructions though.

When I point out the hidden assumptions they have in something, often then the person will fall back on a common list of talking points, defensively.

Funny example up thread is to dogmatically criticize a putative dogma of others.

The talking points number about 40 or so I think, from what I've seen, and quite a lot of them have premises that are false. But to avoid examining one, usually the response is to list more of the talking points.

Diversion is very typical, and so the discussions rarely ever have anything truly discussed in depth.

That's why you might find it interesting to have a thread without atheists.

Sure, then you will still have the individual idiosyncratic 'Christian' unique viewpoints of some individuals that are 100% irrelevant to your topic, but you don't have to focus on them, really.

I get what you mean. But you also have to remember that these discussions can be very complex, given the need to explain the definition of things and all the intricacies involved. One thing naturally leads to another.

Tbh, I think I just thought of a great thread idea; asking Atheists how, hypothetically, they would make an argument for the existence of God/a higher power, if they had to.

 

[Michael]

You mistakenly assume a lab experiment is the sole way we perform science, showing you don't remotely understand the methodologies that are involved.

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.

Positing something as supernatural without definition makes it easy to dismiss something out of hand without really considering the certainty with which scientists are talking about something when it's in even a theory, the highest respect in science, practically (barring a law, but those are more constrained in nature).

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.

And also you assume the law of conservation of energy applies in terms of what gets into quantum mechanics and such,

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.

I'm skeptical that your absolute application of such a law would necessarily be the case anymore than Newtonian physics was the be all end all of how we understood gravity, etc. Science is not static, you're the one making it appear that way based on skewing it

So you're just tossing out "laws" of physics to suit yourself and to save a single cosmology model from the "natural" falsification processes.

Science isn't making dogmatic claims, you're asserting that based on how you perceive them to be absolutely certain (they're not), it's an explanation that is still rooted in some degree of falsifiability with advanced testing rather than positing an entity with agency outside the universe that might as well not exist with all the qualifications given so it can't be investigated

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.

 

[Halbhh]

Okay, to keep this short, I was wondering if anyone had a genuine theory/explanation to this concept I see a lot;

Eternal universe = false, because we need God for the universe to exist
God's existence = He always existed, thus created the universe

There's kind of a...contradiction here? A 'special plead' or exception for God, as I've heard some put it. It's an interesting concept and I wondered if anyone else has put much thought into it.

We say that the universe cannot be infinite or eternal because it needed God to exist, yet we have no explanation for how or when God came into existence.

I'd prefer replies from people who are at least semi-versed in cosmology, so no quoting the bible to base arguments (which is funny coming from a Christian)

First, consider the proposition: if God exists, then He'd "always" (see below for meaning of "always") have existed in this Universe timeline.

Either:

A) God has always existed in the sense of "real time" (* see below) -- for instance this particular Universe we are in is widely thought in the leading theory today -- the plain vanilla Big Bang/Inflation model -- to have had a beginning point in "real time". God would have existed at that point simultaneously (or from the first moment) of that beginning of real time.

We don't have to assume that's all there is to it, but, in this view, God "always" existed at least in the only sense of the word "always" that can be meaningful, see. It's not meaningful to speak of what is before anything that exists in time -- there is no "time before time" (but see just below!). The word "before" refers to a moment in time prior to another moment, timewise.

* -- (by "real time" a physicist would mean what people commonly think of as simply "time", but that's not the only time-like possible dimension; to read more about a representative theory of another type of time-like dimension vis-a-vis this Unverse, this overview is useful (for me, but possibly for anyone with some moderate ability to tolerate new ideas and a desire to get an overview): The Beginning of TIme note that these are theories in this Stephen Hawking monograph).

or

B) Instead we are only one Universe of many, and then God might be as it were,

either:

1) Operating from another Universe into ours, or with physics we cannot access (or perhaps that other Universe physics we might access(!)).

2) Or, God may transcend any physics (i.e. fixed natural laws that obey some kinds of rules in their constancy or evolution). This is one more pronounced meaning of the word "Transcendent"

This last could also be a separate possibility
C)


But none of these would suggest that God is necessarily dependent on this Universe. To assume He is an assumption that would seem to be chancy. A guess that could easily be not even close. It begs a lot of questions to assume that. But already modern physics widely shows we don't know all physics, and it's quite possibly the case other Universes exists, and possibly other time-like dimensions.

In short, people think on these questions far too simply, and also, wrongly think they can reach final conclusions, which of course they cannot short of God appearing to them and answering such questions.

So, recognizing that everyone else is guessing (and many don't even know they are), my own "guess" is C, as it seems more fitting the sense, metaphorically implied, in scripture, when one reads through all the entire full 66 books of the common grouping.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

Today, finally I no longer have a bias against Jesus, so that I no longer want Him to be wrong.

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?

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

Follow up: not saying atheist mentality is infallible either, just that they're better at rationalizing on average

I assume you mean the atheists that engage with believers on these forums? - otherwise, it's rather a sweeping and unlikely generalisation...

 

[theoneandonlypencil]

I assume you mean the atheists that engage with believers on these forums? - otherwise, it's rather a sweeping and unlikely generalisation...

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.