Why BELIEVE, shouldn't we KNOW?

[lucaspa]

Sometimes, you do. Expectations can play a major role in how you enjoy something. Consider smoking in that example as well...

And people don't usually enjoy the first experience, do they? Despite what people tell them. They persist for chemical and social reasons. So having a concept doesn't mean you make your experience fit the concept.

I didn't know about CS Lewis' story. I see he (and you?) fit into the category of "christian apologetics".
So the man was a skeptic and he became convinced of the thing.... I'm a skeptic and I haven't become convinced of the thing.

But you haven't had the experience Lewis had, have you? When it comes down to it, you don't trust that Lewis was accurate. Why not?

Some people are convinced by some arguments, others find them insufficient.
Until there is "one argument to bind them all" this will always be the case.

No, when the evidence is the same for all, then it's the case. This is how science works -- intersubjective evidence.

Again, I said "some people". Not all.

How many is "some"? Usually it applies to much less than 50%. If that is the case then it refutes your previous claim.

nope, I was being honest.

Considering how well known these arguments are, I find that difficult to believe. As you say "the argument doesn't convince me".

 

[lucaspa]

2I have a nagging suspicion the explanation of this is simple, but why?

Because the explanation is pretty simple?

If the universe has been around for an infinite time, there has been infinite time for stars to emit photons. Thus, there is an infinite number of photons out there, meaning that enough are hitting earth from all sides such that, even in the absence of the sun (night), there are so many photons that the sky would be just as light as on the day side.

How so?

The second law of thermo deals with the energy available to do work. Entropy is the energy unavailable to do work. This is sometimes inaccurately described as "order" and "disorder". Think of a gas cylinder with all the gas compressed. It has more "order" than the same amount of gas spread evenly around the room, because it is in such a small space. If you release the valve and the gas begins to come out, you can direct that stream over a windmill and use the turning windmill to run other machines: do work. However, once the gas is evenly spread thru the room, the windmill stops and no more work can be done.

The Second Law of Thermodynamics states that, for any cyclic process, you cannot get back to the same level of entropy. So, if there are cycles of Big Bang and Big Crunch, the universe can never get back to the same level of entropy as at the first Big Bang. Each cycle will have an increase in entropy. Mathematically it can be shown that, after as few as 10 cycles, the initial entropy state is such that you can't get the universe that we see around us.

So there goes the idea that the universe "exists forever" or is cyclic.

Notice that this is independent of porcareas' claim (false) that there is enough dark matter to cause a big crunch. Scientists know about how much dark matter exists by measuring is gravitational effect on the matter (stars and galaxies) that we can see. Now, gravity would tend to cause the universe to collapse. If there were enough matter (light and dark) to do that, the rate of expansion should be slowing. It has to in order to come to a stop, then reverse and collapse. However, as it turns out, the rate of the expansion is increasing. The expansion is speeding up. There is no possible way there is enough matter -- both light and dark -- to stop the expansion and get a collapse.

 

[razeontherock]

Ok, so under the BB model, the quickest rate of expansion of the Universe would be immediately after the BB, (assuming no other forces acting) with that rate of expansion de-accelerating?

If the universe has been around for an infinite time, there has been infinite time for stars to emit photons. Thus, there is an infinite number of photons out there, meaning that enough are hitting earth from all sides such that, even in the absence of the sun (night), there are so many photons that the sky would be just as light as on the day side.

So our OP was right

The Second Law of Thermodynamics states that, for any cyclic process, you cannot get back to the same level of entropy. So, if there are cycles of Big Bang and Big Crunch, the universe can never get back to the same level of entropy as at the first Big Bang. Each cycle will have an increase in entropy. Mathematically it can be shown that, after as few as 10 cycles, the initial entropy state is such that you can't get the universe that we see around us.

So there goes the idea that the universe "exists forever" or is cyclic.

Ok, math proves it, I'm a numbers kinda guy. Still, my reason tells me if all matter were re-collected into a singularity, we'd have a perfectly conserved system. Interesting stuff, of the big picture variety! Thanks for some good explanations.

It seems science concludes there was a beginning, and will be an end; Alpha and Omega is a true concept. And we don't have to believe it, we can know it, scientifically.

 

[lucaspa]

Could you back this up please? Or explain how evolution has been working for millennia? Because there is no proof of this, and you can't use an unworkable and unprovable idea to claim that an existing and living God does not exist.

Pocarias' error is in thinking that evolution shows God does not exist. It doesn't. Another error is in claiming that "evolution has no purpose behind it". Science can't say that. See essay at the end of my post by the head of the organization whose job it is to promote good science education.

Yes, we can back up that evolution has been working and that our physical selves are the product of evolution. There is "proof" in the form of "proof" for all the valid scientific theories: observations.

Basically, because of cause and effect, the present is the way it is because the past was the way it was. There are aspects of the present world that can only be explained if evolution has been operating. Notice that I am talking only about the present. When we throw in the fossil record that shows evolving populations in the past, there is as much doubt about evolution as about gravity. You aren't planning to jump off any 10 story buildings because you think there is no "proof" of gravity, are you?

Now the essay refuting the "no purpose":

"...scientists can be more careful about how they use terms. For example, evolutionists sometimes confuse the evidence we have for considerable contingency during the course of evolution with evidence for a lack of ultimate purpose in the universe. Fuytuma writes, 'Perhaps most importantly, if the world and its creatures developed purely by material, physical forces, it could not have been designed and has no purpose or goal...Some shrink from the conclusion that the human species was not designed, has no purpose, and it the product of more material mechanism -- but this seems to be the message of evolution.' (20) GC Simpson is regularly quoted with dismay by creationists as saying 'Man is the result of a purposeless and natural process that did not have him in mind. He was not planned.' (21) A theist might respond that we do not know what God's purpose is or what he planned. It is possible that if there is an omnipotent, omniscient deity, it was part of its plan to bring humans and every other species about precisely in what seems to us the rather zig-zag, contingency-prone fashion that the fossil record suggests. Of course, this would be a theological statement, but that, indeed, is the point. Saying that 'there is no purpose to life' is not a scientific statement. We are able to explain the world and its creatures using materialist, physical processes, but to claim that this then requires us to conclude that there is no purpose in nature steps beyond science into philosophy. One's students may or may not come to this conclusion on their own; in my opinion, for a nonreligious professor to interject his own philosophy into the classroom in this manner is as offensive as it would be for a fundamentalist professor to pass off his philosophy as science." Eugenie Scott in the essay "Creationism" in The Flight from Science and Reason, New York Academy of Sciences, volume 775, 1995, pg 519.

 

[lucaspa]

Ok, so under the BB model, the quickest rate of expansion of the Universe would be immediately after the BB, (assuming no other forces acting) with that rate of expansion de-accelerating?

Exactly. Gravity would be slowing the expansion down. Up until 1997, the question was whether there was enough matter in the universe for gravity to overcome the expansion, or whether the expansion would keep going but always getting slower. Now that we know the expansion is speeding up, there's no way for it to stop.

So our OP was right

For the wrong reasons. He had the stars in every possible point in space. That is incorrect.

Still, my reason tells me if all matter were re-collected into a singularity, we'd have a perfectly conserved system.

But some of the energy can't be collected back in the form of matter, remember? Our star converts something like 4 million kg of matter to energy per minute. that's where the entropy comes in

It seems science concludes there was a beginning, and will be an end; Alpha and Omega is a true concept. And we don't have to believe it, we can know it, scientifically.

Ah, actually there will be no end. The universe keeps expanding forever. No end. What happens is, eventually, 2 things:
1. Stars use up their matter for fusion and stop emitting light. Basically, all the energy available for work is converted to work and entropy and eventually entropy reaches a maximum. When that happens, all life becomes impossible.
2. As the universe expands, more and more of the universe is beyond our visual horizon. We can't see it, and it can't see us. Eventually, the only part of the present universe we can see is the solar system. No stars. No galaxies. As far as we could tell, only the solar system exists. Of course, by that time the sun has become a red giant and wiped out earth anyway, but you get my drift.

So there is no "Omega" within science. If you want an Omega, then God has to intervene and close the universe down.

Now, I have to caution you. There are two hypotheses for the universe to appear to have a Big Bang but not have a beginning. One is No Boundary and the other is ekpyrotic.

 

[pocaracas]

About 15 years ago it was observed that the expansion of the universe was accelerating. What that meant is that the gravity is no longer sufficient to stop the expansion and have it reverse. The universe is going to expand forever and the ultimate end (assuming nothing else happens before then) is heat deat.

The "name" given to the force expanding spacetime is "dark energy".


Actually, there is consensus on how much there is. What is under hot debate is exactly what it is. However, it is known that the amount of dark matter is insufficient to counter the expansion and cause the universe to contract again:
8. G Tarke and S.P. Swordy, Cosmic Antimatter. Scientific American, 278(4): 36-41, April 1998.
11. LM Krauss, Cosmological antigravity. Scientific American, 280: 52-61, Jan. 1999. discusses cosmological constant to explain accelerating expansion.
17. LM Krauss and GD Starkman, The fate of life in the universe. Scientific American 281: 58-67, Nov. 1999.

Did you notice that all those papers you mentioned are from 10 years ago?
Try some of the papers in the wiki page about it.

 

[paul becke]

Curious, isn't it?
How about neutrinos?

I'm sorry, but I didn't understand this very well...
In vacuum , light travels at the speed of light in vacuum (commonly called 'c'), which is very close to the speed of light in air, but not quite.
Considering we're in vacuum, regardless of the speed of the observer (always less than c), light will always travel at 'c', relative to that observer.
It's a bit counter-intuitive, but it's just one of the many counter-intuitive things about physics at the extremes.
Our intuition didn't evolve to cover those situations...

Then you say "space evidently constitutes a pole of the space-time continuum." I have no idea what you mean by this...

No, it is quite wrong to apply the term, 'counter-intuitive' (although it is, in fact, routinely done in the scientific sphere) to what is 'counter-rational', 'counter-logical'. They are paradoxes, and as such will never, can never be rationally understood. They are imponderable mysteries, just like the mysteries of the Christian faith, although they are EMPIRICALLY PROVEN to be such! All that remains is the application of logic to deduce that.

The mysteries of religious faith, however, are accessible, even in this life, in a limited way to what Aldous Huxley, in his essay, The Perennial Philosophy, calls the 'unitive' (as opposed to the analytical) intelligence', intuition; chiefly, as regards the truth of them, but some extrapolation is possible. The Christian creeds were teased from scripture.

Re my use of 'pole' in relation to a continuum, it is neither counter-intuitive nor paradoxical, I'm afraid, but rather oxymoronic. A 'continuum' is a confusion of concepts. I was designating the two distinct concepts of the continuum as 'poles', but I can see how it can be misunderstood if taken literally, since 'poles' signify the precise converse of a continuum, counter-rational and perforce nebulous as our conception of the latter must remain to our rational (actually superficial) intelligence.

Re light and its reference frame, the fact that its speed is absolute in the circumstance I referred to, indicates that its reference-frame is external to the universe - just as the stream of particles at the Big Bang existed prior to the formation of space-time.

Indeed, it is reminiscent of the mysterious force referred to by Max Planck, when he stated:

"As a man who has devoted his whole life to the most clear-headed science, to the study of matter, I can tell you as a result of my research about atoms this much: There is no matter as such. All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particle of an atom to vibration and holds this most minute solar system of the atom together. We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent mind. This mind is the matrix of all matter."

 

[pocaracas]

Sounds like you are dimissing it. As you are using the term, all evidence is "subjective". That is, what we personally experience.

Don't distort what others say, please.
All "evidence" of phenomena that happens inside people's minds is subjective.
If anyone had proper experience of god in the physical realm, would there be any need for faith?

Which shows that having the concept doesn't equate to putting experience into that concept.

That's not the way I reasoned, but yes, you're right.
The way I see it, you make the interpretation that the "experience" has a divine nature because you have the concept of the divine. Of course, many people will not make the same interpretation, but some will and that's enough.

That wasn't quite your claim. What you claimed was that they would not accept it as anyting other than divine. That part isn't true. The reason they accept it as divine is the same reason science accepts theories: they falsified every other alternative they could think of. You are thinking theists don't test their experience to see if it could be something else. That's the part that isn't born out by the evidence. Many have come to the experience very skeptical, thinking it must be anything but divine.

There are lots of concepts out there. So you can't say the people that concluded the experience was of deity did so because they had the concept.

Now, could all those experiences be wrong? Yes. That's one reason it's faith. Could all the atheists be wrong? Yes. That's one reason it is a faith.

Lots of concepts out there? They all converge: being responsible for creating the world; being responsible for creating life; being responsible for rain, etc...
Some being (or more than one) responsible for doing something that is out of humanity's control.

Oh, there can be. Just because it is "faith" doesn't exempt you from reason. It may be counter to what you have accepted as "normal" or "common sense", but then so are of the discoveries of science.

So what reason is there to believe that a deity exists?
From my point of view, this last sentence of mine is an oxymoron, but let's go with it...

But now you are in a position that you can't use this to deny the validity of the personal experience as evidence.

Sure I am: personal subjective experience cannot be evidence of the existence of anything.
Just because one million people dreamed (or had some other experience where) they met a pegasus, doesn't mean that pegasus exists.... does it?

And where do you think I did that? I was commenting on logical flaws in atheism. How did you make the jump to this?

Ah, it was a tiny jump... I got it from the part where you assumed that just because someone is raised in a belief system where the divine is absent, they didn't have the concept of such divine.... and somehow came to the conclusion that the divine was the only possible answer to whatever experiences they had.

Nowhere have I said that everyone having personal experience of deity was Christian. Or Jewish. Or Muslim. Or Hindu. I said there were commonalities about the experience, not that the experience resulted in the individual belonging to a particular religion.

No, you did not. Did I say you did? If I did, I must have been mistaken. I'm sorry.
But given the commonalities about the experience and the previously absorbed concept, it would be easy to pin the experience on any particular religion. Ok, you don't like it when I say it's easy, because people like Lewis went through the hell of a time to arrive at that particular conclusion.

That isn't what I said nor is it implied. I said the experiences were not consistent with the tenets of the religions. But then again, there is no reason every religion has to reflect the personal experience of deity.

Indeed, there is no reason... but how would you explain that such a religion would exist in the first place?

You just negated your own argument. It's may be a matter of interpretation of what religion you belong to, but it is evidence of deity.

I'm sorry, sometimes I just try to assume what you assume and don't give proper warning. Such attempts are really attempts to find holes in your reasoning...
You claim evidence. I'd say, as I said above, subjective conclusion regarding the origin of some "experiences" is far, far from evidence.

I shoudl ask: how do you know? "In my father's mansion are many rooms ..."

Then why did you go to war with the other people in those rooms? Why did yahwe (OT) actively pursue and killed people from other religions? (I'm not even going into what the christians did somewhere in the 12th~14th centuries).

Sorry, but the evidence is against you. That Egyptians constructed a particular religion does not say the underlying experiences were different. After all, Christians have constructed some forms of Christianity
inconsistent with the experiences, too.

I don't know that much about egyptian divinities, but I think they're very different from monotheists... One could make the same argument from other polytheistic religions, where peace and love are not the norm, such as the norse religion and their Valhalla.

You haven't shown that there are distinctly different experiences. All you've shown are different religions. There is no requirement for each and every religion to be based on personal experience of deity.

Oh no? Then how do you make people believe all the stuff priests tell them?
Just assume they're dumb and believe everything they're told? If, according to you (or someone else in this thread, sorry), this argument doesn't go for christians in the desert, why should it go for other people elsewhere on the globe?

I think it is. It shows how ready you are to dimiss any evidence that disagrees with you, no matter the source. It also shows you are willing to use the fallacies of ad hominem, ridicule, and poisoning the well. The figure 98% refers to what you were referring to: hydrogen and helium compared to the other elements. You thought it was "knowledge", not a "guess". You were just wrong. BTW, whatever dark matter is, it's not any of the elements. Why not, you ask? Because the elements have specific frequencies of light that they absor when light hits them. They show up as dark lines on a spectrum. Dark matter has none of those absorption lines.

hmmm, I didn't know that bit about dark matter. I just keep learning new stuff every day here!
And when I wrote that, I wasn't aware that most of the universe's mass is actually dark matter... another thing I learned while wiki'ing for this thread!
As for the rest, my original number of 99.999999% was a wild number I got out of my mind. Forgive me for not being an astrophysicist! I just knew it was a lot, not the exact number... It didn't matter to know the exact number, that's why I said it's of no interest to the thread.

Nope. Two reasons:
1. For everything after that we have "natural" causes which are sufficient and therefore it is not permissible to hypothesize direct action by God. That direct action would be another "natural" cause. So direct action by God is permissible in science only a) as cause of the universe and b) as explanation why the universe has this order instead of some other order.
2. Theologically, hypothesizing God in a direct role for some continuing part of the existing universe would be god-of-the-gaps.

In science, hypotheses/theories remain possible unless and until they are falsified. If you deny this, then science stops.

Indeed.
And atheists will always tell you that hypothesis has little probability of success. Of course, it's a subjective probability they're applying, but it's just their point of view.
God-of-the-gaps? what sort of god would that be?

What you are stating here is god-of-the-gaps. According to Judeo-Christian theology, this was never permissible. It was J-C that convinced science that there had to be a "natural" cause.

ORLY?! Well, I guess a lot of people missed that memo!
But ok, let's go with it: god made nature, so all things natural come from god. Is that it?

Now, the statement ""he [God] has nothing to do with lightning" is not a valid scientific statement. "God did not do it" is not a valid scientific statement. There you are stating the basic atheist statement of faith: natural = without God. We are going to have to talk about Methodological Naturalism.

Nature is so perfect, so awesome, it had to be designed by a grand engineer, hence god must exist.
Having learned a bit of quantum physics, nature seems to be a bit of a mess... although it looks good from afar. Maybe it's just our very imperfect way of discovering about nature.. maybe the theory of everything will be awesomely simple. Until then, the Universe is a great big mess where some things work very well.

For now, I'll let you read this statement and see if you can tell me how you know it is wrong:
"The only distinct meaning of the word 'natural' is stated, fixed, or settled; since what is natural as much requires and presupposes an intelligent agent to render it so, i.e., to effect it continually or at stated times, as what is supernatural or miraculous does to effect it for once." Butler: Analogy of Revealed Religion.

I don't think I'll get much out of this quote... It seems completely out of context. Where does that claim about the meaning of "natural" come from?
The online dictionary says nature is:

1.
the material world, especially as surrounding humankind and existing independently of human activities.
2.
the natural world as it exists without human beings or civilization.
3.
the elements of the natural world, as mountains, trees, animals, or rivers.

I don't get why Butler uses the "fixed, stated, settled"... As you see from the dictionary definition, nature does not require intelligent agents. It is what it is regardless of humans... hmmm "it is what it is"... kind of sounds familiar.. where have I heard something like this before?

But you base that extrapolation on 1) faulty science, 2) invalid theology, and 3) an unproven statement of faith. So the extrapolation is worthless. If that is your reason for atheism, then you need to rethink your commitment to it.

Just like that! POW!
Faulty science? you make me laugh...
Invalid theology? perhaps... perhaps not. I'm still not convinced that people in Europe, 500 years ago didn't believe lightning to be a manifestation of the divine (perhaps the devil).
unproven statement of faith? that one is so broad, you lost me in it! what does this mean?

And no, this extrapolation is not my basis for atheism...it's just one more kindling for the fire. (maybe that's more of a portuguese expression...)

See above. You can't compact those extra dimensions far enough. Even by the math, much less the observations, they can't exist.

Think outside the box.
Dimensions outside our own... not compacted into our own... whatever that is.
My analogy (and since you're christian, you know about using analogies to make a point) is along the lines that our Universe is to these other dimensions just like a 2D drawing on paper is to our 4D world...although, in a much more complex way, of course. It's a subset of dimensions and we can't acknowledge the extra dimensions because we're trapped here, like in the book: flatland.

But science can't tell you that "life was simply a chemical event". Why did the chemistry happen? Does the chemistry require God to will the chemical reactions to happen? And by "chemical reactions" I mean every chemical reaction every time.

Here we have a limitation of science and the mistake of saying a statement of faith is true without evidence. You are obviously working on god-of-the-gaps. But what if God is not found in the gaps? What if every process found by science also requires God for it to happen?

You haven't thought it thru. I'm a theist, remember? Yet I'm the one that told you about life arising by chemistry. Didn't it occur to you that, if such a thing really did falsify theism, that I would not be a theist?

Actually, I was waiting for you to come to this!
If every process found by science requires god for it to happen, I'd say: poor god. He's got his work cut out for him... But I'll give you this: the guy is consistent on that job.... not so on some others, maybe miracles are when god misses some control over those processes?
Back on the god hypothesis. Is it a likely one? You, apparently say yes... I'd have to say no. Subjectivity is back. Then you still have to say all other gods are wrong and were invented by humans. Why can't I say the same for yours?

The first part is wrong. There is very definitely a short term purpose behind natural selection. That purpose is to design the population for the particular environment in the present.

You can't say, by science, "there was no purpose behind it". What we can say is that natural selection has no long-term purpose. But that isn't the same as "no purpose behind it".

Well, I seem to be making statements in the wrong order.
No purpose behind it, except survival... meaning survival was the only (as far as I see it) purpose. There may be others, but I don't see them.
So, short term survival by adaptation to the particular environment, just like you said.
Long-term purpose: survival. Not survival of a given species, just survival of life itself.

You can't eliminate that God used evolution for His purpose. You canj't even eliminate that God has influenced evolution over those years. There are, at least, 2 methods by which God can/could influence evolution that would be undetectable by science.

Now, natural selection is an unintelligent process to get design. That is a good thing for Judeo-Christianity in particular and theism in general.

Yes, you're right, I can't completely dismiss the god hypothesis.
But you shouldn't assume that, just because it is a hypothesis, it is the correct one.
Would evolution be any different if there was no god on the job?
Would any natural process be any different if there was no god on the job?
You can't answer such questions with "certainly yes". You have no certainties... just beliefs.
I also have no certainties. But why would anyone have to go to that extreme to justify god's existence?

Question: When and how was the god hypothesis first introduced?

 

[pocaracas]

And once again, you have the statement contrary to science.

Science requires god for the physical world to work the way it does?

Notice the "ifs". As it turns out, scripture itself tells us there are errors in scripture. Mark 10 and Matthew 14. So the second "if" is gone. You are basing your argument on Fundamentalism.

And you're mixing prophets (OT) with whatever were those who wrote the NT.... scribes?

Yep. Of course, today the whole town throws his ass in jail, because not listening to your parents probably means committing a crime. If the crime is severe enough, we will execute the child. So, are we really so far from that?

Some states and some countries execute, yes... not all... not most.
However, today everyone is entitled to a trial (in some countries, at least) where guilt is determined. Punishment comes after.
And you'll seldom find that parents bring their own children in for such punishment, so yes, we've come a bit far from that.
Unfortunately, some people still go against the law, harm others and they deserve the punishment they get.... which, nowadays, is rarely corporal punishment.

It could easily be a mixture of both. Jesus said it was. However, you never disputed the point that, for the time, the rules were liberal.

I don't know enough of that time to argue either way... so I won't dispute that.

And apparently I labeled it correctly. So why the razz? Do you always razz people when they are correct.

You're the one who said I was miscalling it... Why the razz?!

I falsified that and you admitted that above when you retreated to just "some" people.

Exactly, some people "escape" indoctrination and are called "smart atheists" The minority.
Hence, indoctrination plays a large role.... because it's the majority that remains.

Read about the personal experience again. Even if people had not had the label "god" to put on it, they would still have 1) an entity they were mentally talking to, 2) an entity that can do things people can't, 3) and entity whose love and forgiveness know no bounds, 4) an entity who intervenes in their life. Whether or not they have the word "god" or concept of "god", they would have invented a word and concept to describe what they have.

So many entities!
1) I'm talking to myself!
2) "That's an amazing volcano! No one could ever do that... I guess it just happened because magma was under pressure, under all this rock and, suddenly, it gave way, for the pressure was more than it could handle. No wait, some entity did this awesome volcano!" -.-'
3) love and forgiveness? why would anyone "have" such an entity? forgiveness for what? love? How about the opposite sex?
4) "what was that sound?" the boogie man!
See how indoctrination plays a major role on your view of things?

You are thinking the concept makes the experience. Instead, the experience makes the concept. Let's take an example. Jump off a step. you fall. Drop an apple. It falls. Do you interpret these experiences as "gravity" only because you have heard of such a concept? NO. The experiences lead you to the concept. If there was no concept of "gravity", you would have to invent a word that would mean the same thing.

So, let's assume humans from the bronze age are the first ones to grasp the concept of divinity. Which experience would you conceive they could have had that led them to the concept of the divine?
If you don't like humans from the bronze age, pick another age.

Argument from Ridicule. Doesn't negate my claim. Try again.

You LOLed and said somethings that I could only argue with be repeating what I'd already said on the same post. So no argument required... hopefully.

Wrong again.

You're saying the concept "evolution" didn't exist before Darwin?
So Darwing invented the word and all to put in on the cover of his book?

By your logic, however, the limitation of concept would prevent the novelty. The physicists would have had to interpret the evidence to fit in a concept they already had. Thank you for providing another refutation of your claim.

You're welcome! I aim to please!

Actually, new things do tend to be just old things put together in new ways.
Then the new things become old things and are then used to build other new things.
And I used the word "things" in a broad sense (not just material things). Replace it with "concept" and it's still valid.

 

[pocaracas]

So having a concept doesn't mean you make your experience fit the concept.

It's not a one-to-one rule, no. But it's a rule that tends to happen.

But you haven't had the experience Lewis had, have you? When it comes down to it, you don't trust that Lewis was accurate. Why not?

No I did not have such experience. And you're right, I don't trust Lewis' conclusion. Why not? simply, because it goes against my own experience of "absence of divine intervention"... and knowledge of the potential of the human brain/mind.
I still don't know what it is that he experienced that led to such conclusion.

How many is "some"? Usually it applies to much less than 50%. If that is the case then it refutes your previous claim.

Which claim? The one about indoctrination playing a major role on the faith people have? nope, can't be that one.
The one about people who are (or became) atheists and then had some "experience" and returned to their faith (usually, the same as before they became atheists)... yes, people are susceptible, so when they have some experience they can't (or won't) understand in other way than divine, it seems obvious that they then become theists. Is the percentage of atheists who become theists lower than 50%? I'd say so, but how does that refute any claim I made?

Considering how well known these arguments are, I find that difficult to believe. As you say "the argument doesn't convince me".

Good!
A toast to many fruitful replies to this thread!

 

[pocaracas]

Notice that this is independent of porcareas' claim

Pocarias' error is in thinking that evolution shows God does not exist.

Can't you ever get my nick right?!


About that essay concerning the "purpose of evolution".
One can state, without being too philosophical, that evolution has as much purpose as gravity, for example.
Does gravity have a purpose to exist?

 

[pocaracas]

No, it is quite wrong to apply the term, 'counter-intuitive' (although it is, in fact, routinely done in the scientific sphere) to what is 'counter-rational', 'counter-logical'. They are paradoxes, and as such will never, can never be rationally understood. They are imponderable mysteries, just like the mysteries of the Christian faith, although they are EMPIRICALLY PROVEN to be such! All that remains is the application of logic to deduce that.

Intuition is the built-in knowledge we have about the world around us.
It is what makes us retreat in the face of danger. What makes us brace for impact when we see impact is inevitable. What makes us put our hands first, when falling. What makes us reject very bitter food, etc, etc, etc.
Anyone can, intuitively, understand that, if two persons are running at the same speed, each of them will see the other always at the same distance from them... or, if there were no exterior cues and they didn't know they were moving, they could think the other was stopped.
A counter-intuitive event is an event which goes against this built-in knowledge. Light does not behave in this intuitive way, so counter-intuitive seems to me to be the most appropriate description.

Re my use of 'pole' in relation to a continuum, it is neither counter-intuitive nor paradoxical, I'm afraid, but rather oxymoronic. A 'continuum' is a confusion of concepts. I was designating the two distinct concepts of the continuum as 'poles', but I can see how it can be misunderstood if taken literally, since 'poles' signify the precise converse of a continuum, counter-rational and perforce nebulous as our conception of the latter must remain to our rational (actually superficial) intelligence.

Sorry, I must be completely disconnected from reasoning, today. I still don't get it.

Indeed, it is reminiscent of the mysterious force referred to by Max Planck, when he stated:

"As a man who has devoted his whole life to the most clear-headed science, to the study of matter, I can tell you as a result of my research about atoms this much: There is no matter as such. All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particle of an atom to vibration and holds this most minute solar system of the atom together. We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent mind. This mind is the matrix of all matter."

Or he was a victim of what I've been telling lucaspa all along: If you can't explain it any other way, you use the hypothesis that fits all: god.

 

[pocaracas]

Exactly. Gravity would be slowing the expansion down. Up until 1997, the question was whether there was enough matter in the universe for gravity to overcome the expansion, or whether the expansion would keep going but always getting slower. Now that we know the expansion is speeding up, there's no way for it to stop.

Buggers....
Not that it will have an impact in my lifetime, but still: It's not a very happy perspective.

For the wrong reasons. He had the stars in every possible point in space. That is incorrect.

How would you have light come from every direction, then?

But some of the energy can't be collected back in the form of matter, remember? Our star converts something like 4 million kg of matter to energy per minute. that's where the entropy comes in

Energy is conserved. The bit that escapes does so by neutrons, fast particles and photons (and perhaps some more others). They will still be part of the universe if it collapses, it will take them all in.

Now, I have to caution you. There are two hypotheses for the universe to appear to have a Big Bang but not have a beginning. One is No Boundary and the other is ekpyrotic.

And you're still a theist... why?

 

[Devo49]

Poca, there is no gravity. The Earth sucks!
I really admire your debating skills, I'm amazed you have the patience to go on with this bunch of fools, whose only argument is 'The Bible says, therefore it is indisputable'
A couple of quotes from Numbers:
31. 15 “Have you allowed all the women to live?” he asked them. 16 “They were the ones who followed Balaam’s advice and enticed the Israelites to be unfaithful to the LORD in the Peor incident, so that a plague struck the LORD’s people. 17 Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, 18 but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man."
This a direct order to commit genocide, but keep the virgins for your own pleasure.
15.32 While the Israelites were in the wilderness, a man was found gathering wood on the Sabbath day. 33 Those who found him gathering wood brought him to Moses and Aaron and the whole assembly, 34 and they kept him in custody, because it was not clear what should be done to him. 35 Then the LORD said to Moses, “The man must die. The whole assembly must stone him outside the camp.” 36 So the assembly took him outside the camp and stoned him to death, as the LORD commanded Moses.

This is the book these nutters revere, and base their world-view upon. What a lovely GodFairy they have!

 

[Devo49]

Poca, there is no gravity. The Earth sucks!

 

[paul becke]

Intuition is the built-in knowledge we have about the world around us.
It is what makes us retreat in the face of danger. What makes us brace for impact when we see impact is inevitable. What makes us put our hands first, when falling. What makes us reject very bitter food, etc, etc, etc.
Anyone can, intuitively, understand that, if two persons are running at the same speed, each of them will see the other always at the same distance from them... or, if there were no exterior cues and they didn't know they were moving, they could think the other was stopped.
A counter-intuitive event is an event which goes against this built-in knowledge. Light does not behave in this intuitive way, so counter-intuitive seems to me to be the most appropriate description.

Sorry, I must be completely disconnected from reasoning, today. I still don't get it.

Or he was a victim of what I've been telling lucaspa all along: If you can't explain it any other way, you use the hypothesis that fits all: god.

This extract from the site linked below it makes my point - although the author finds no diffculty in going along with the term, 'counter-intuitive', to describe the imponderability of paradoxes, specifically here in relation to quantum physics:

"In this perspective it may be more than a coincidence that some of the most counterintuitive theories of modern science were produced by scientists working in a Lutheran milieu. In 1820 the Danish physicist Hans Christian Ørsted (1777–1851) discovered electro-magnetic force. In line with Schelling, Ørsted believed that the spiritual forces of attraction and repulsion are more basic than material particles, and their laws were claimed to reign in nature as well as in society. The quantum theory of the 1920s involved even more counterintuitive notions, and the embrace of paradoxical statements in the Copenhagen Interpretation by Niels Bohr (1885–1962) and Werner Heisenberg (1901–1976) was probably facilitated by a philosophical climate in which paradoxes could be better guides to truth than more pedestrian appeals to order and rationality. Bohr's indebtedness to Søren Kierkegaard (1813–1855) is an interesting case of a disguised presence of a religious tradition in the heuristics of science as well as in its subsequent interpretation."

Christianity, Lutheran, Issues in Science and Religion: Encyclopedia of Science and Religion

I believe it was you who gently scoffed with the atheists' at their ascription to Christians of what they term, the God of the Gaps. The primordial fact is that you don't know that God does not exist. Many Christians do, but, of course, if God had wanted it to be provable He need not have left it to his followers - to the chosen few of whom however he did make it abundantly clear: when, for example, Jesus checked the wind and the waves, and again when he resurrected the putrefying body of his friend, Lazarus. So that Peter was able to say, "We believe, we know that you ar the Christ, the Son of God." And indeed true faith and knowledge, whether religious or secular, form a continuum. I have faith that when I switch on the sitting-room light, it will come on. Though the bulb might have blown when it was last on, and no-one had replaced it.

So, in view of the preceding findings of physics relating to the absolutely insoluble mysteries of the paradoxes of physics, belief in God need not be a gratuitous flight of fancy, since it is a conclusion which the fathers of the modern scientific age fully endorsed. And you believe that you and the myriad other materialist scientists are smarter than they are, concerning the fundamental nature of matter and the universe? It does seem hardly likely, doesn't it?

"Sorry, I must be completely disconnected from reasoning, today. I still don't get it. "

Well, had the Big Bang been the prevailing paradigm in Planck's day, he might have invoked the force which emitted the stream of particles at the Singularity, before the coalescence of space-time to explain the "force which brings the particle of an atom to vibration and holds this most minute solar system of the atom together. ("We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent mind. This mind is the matrix of all matter.")

Incidentally, as regards light, it would seem that it follows every individual around, as if personally attached, otherwise its speed would be relative like the rest of our space-time universe, at least at the grosser, mechanistic, human level. If a person stood on the cusp of the earth with the sun right at his back, we know that the speed of light does not take account of the speed of the motion of objects in our world moving in the same direction; so it always hits the person at the same speed, irrespective of the speed of their motion in the same direction.

In order for that speed of light as it hits the person, to remain the same, irrespective of the speed they are tavelling at in the same direction, it must be the light, or the agency propelling the light, which makes the adjustment for it to always hit that person at the same speed, sticking to them like a limpet.

This would fit in with the notion of multiverses, as well as our own experiece as individuals who mysteriously enter this life alone and leave it alone. Another echo of this is found in the remark made by Jewish kabbalist to the effect that when a man dies, a whole world dies with him.

 

[pocaracas]

This extract from the site linked below it makes my point - although the author finds no diffculty in going along with the term, 'counter-intuitive', to describe the imponderability of paradoxes, specifically here in relation to quantum physics:[...]

So, it's ok to use the term "counter-intuitive", then?

I believe it was you who gently scoffed with the atheists' at their ascription to Christians of what they term, the God of the Gaps. The primordial fact is that you don't know that God does not exist.

And the fact remains that no one knows that god does exist.
Some claim he does exist, but they only believe it... hence my original question remains unanswered.

Many Christians do, but, of course, if God had wanted it to be provable He need not have left it to his followers - to the chosen few of whom however he did make it abundantly clear: when, for example, Jesus checked the wind and the waves, and again when he resurrected the putrefying body of his friend, Lazarus. So that Peter was able to say, "We believe, we know that you ar the Christ, the Son of God." And indeed true faith and knowledge, whether religious or secular, form a continuum. I have faith that when I switch on the sitting-room light, it will come on. Though the bulb might have blown when it was last on, and no-one had replaced it.

I don't have a problem with faith... I must have said it before: I have faith that my wife in not cheating on me!
My problem is with "faith in god".
My wife earned this trust... god is simply a concept someone else passed on to me... he has never proved he's worthy of my trust in him. (I know you guys are going to go ballistic on me because of this sentence! )

So, in view of the preceding findings of physics relating to the absolutely insoluble mysteries of the paradoxes of physics, belief in God need not be a gratuitous flight of fancy, since it is a conclusion which the fathers of the modern scientific age fully endorsed. And you believe that you and the myriad other materialist scientists are smarter than they are, concerning the fundamental nature of matter and the universe? It does seem hardly likely, doesn't it?

Even Stephen Hawking has admitted, once, that god was the best solution to the beginning of the Universe.... now, not so.
So what if some people believe? our colleague lucaspa has proven to be quite knowledgeable in all things scientific and yet he still believes.
Belief in the existence of god is not completely incompatible with scientific knowledge. Just some scientific knowledge is incompatible with religious scriptures... If you accept a given religion and accept it's scriptures, then either science is wrong or that given religion is wrong.... or you accept science and that some claims of the scriptures were blatantly made up, given the lack of that particular piece of knowledge.

 

[Devo49]

We are the product of a process of 'development', that has made us with particular characteristics which ensure the survival of the species. Thus, men are driven to distribute their seed as widely as possible, women are driven to find a tall, strong, masterful man, and attach themselves thereto as firmly as possible, and children are made to believe unquestioningly anything an adult tells them. This system worked very well for many thousands of years, making mankind the most 'successful' animal on Earth. Religion has hijacked the last phenomenon, the gullibility of children, and used it to ensure that succeeding generations will pour money into the coffers of the 'Church', and, particularly the Abrahamic faiths, to interfere in the natural process of the first.
It all started with 'Thou shalt not covert thy neighbour's wife.' There's not a (real) man alive who doesn't flout this silly edict on a daily basis.
The result is a huge conflict of interest, and the suppression of sexuality in general, means many people, men particularly, are stalled in a very early stage of development, and look on children as sexual objects. The result is the proliferation of pedophiles, very often 'men of the cloth'. MAKO/Files-'Within the Church'__MAKO sex offender list-WTC
Wouldn't you think God would have foreseen this result when he was chipping out marble slabs for Moses? He IS omniscient, after all. Or maybe he enjoys watching children being raped by men wearing dresses?