People of varying kinds and amounts of faith when confronted with the idea of God not existing often assert something similar to the following: “if God doesn’t exist then where did all this come from?” meaning of course that the universe is so complex that it hurts their heads so there must be someone out there twiddling the knobs.
This is actually a simplified version of an old, lengthy, and very sophisticated theological argument known as the watchmaker. It goes as follows:
“A watch requires a watchmaker.”
Translation: the watch is so complex that it hurts my head so there must be someone twiddling the knobs.
This is meant to be a general rule that doesn’t just apply to Rolexes, but to all things including universes so it follows:
“A universe requires a universe maker” which is of course: (insert your favorite god).
However, the problem with this rule is that it if it’s to be applied to other situations such as the origins of the universe, then consistency demands that it also be applied to itself (consistency is a hard taskmaster).
So, is the watchmaker himself complex? Remember the hip bone’s connected to the brain bone, or something of that effect.
If so then according to our new and edifying rule does a watchmaker require a watchmaker-maker? Did God come from a God factory? Was there a rebate involved?
The answer usually given is that the universe maker has always existed so there’s no need to lose sleep about how such a complex being came into existence.
But consistency has tossed another penalty flag. We’ve made a special rule for our universe maker that we aren’t allowed to apply to the universe itself (illegal procedure). Otherwise we could also just say that the universe has always been around so there’s no need to ponder how it came into being either (false start). There are other more important things to worry about like “tastes great vs. less filling.”
Some apologists will try to circumvent this problem by tossing God out of the universe altogether, i.e. “God is outside of the universe and therefore not subject to rules.”
However, anything that is not subject to rules also can’t have reasoning applied to it and therefore can only come from faith as an accepted premise.
The universe maker rule would then depend on this accepted premise being true. Remember, can’t have a consistent universe maker rule without an unmade universe maker can we?
Again inconsistency raises it’s ugly head because the purpose of the universe maker rule is to support the idea that the premise (the unmade universe maker exists) is true and so you end up with a circular argument which is… ummmm… invalid.
In other words it’s invalid for a rule to support a premise that the rule itself is based on.
Rule supports premise supports rule supports premise supports rule… Jane, get me off of this crazy thing…
It’s a neverending chaos (the premise) that’s killing this planet and all would-be “decent” people! Ouch my head hurts from all the feeble attempts of bible-believers, apologists, and fundamentalists trying to *prove* that there is anything/anyone outside of nature, that tests humans to see if they are loyal to “him” and will mind-fuck “his” own “creation” and gets “his” rocks off from it. Pass me the advil. And they say that a “devil” exists, and they won’t even take a look at their own “god” which unbeknownst to them IS MADE IN THEIR OWN IMAGE!
They need to look at themselves, people are the ultimate supreme beaing. They created a God! So what does this make people? Gods! So why is there this word God to begin with. Can you create a god without being a god? Then if you had you would be Gods equal, then all you created was another person. (funky paradox i suppose).
All people are, is the universe becoming aware of itself. For we are part of the universe, we are made of stardust, as everything else. In effect, since we have the ability to wonder about the universe, we are the mind of the universe, and we are the universe wondering about itself. So we really are wondering where we (the universe) came from. But we have not yet found the answer. Religion is just an attempt to answer the unanswerable. Maby the truth will come to light someday, we will need much more technology and knowlege about the universe to find out.
Well, this is an interesting one. If the Universe really has existed for infinity does that mean that there have been infinite events in the past? I think logically it would. I believe the Universe had a beginning. Can you get infinity by adding one thing after another? No, we didn’t add a bunch of events together and get infinity right? So, if the Universe has existed for infinity that means that we could not have added enough events together because there was already infinity. The very fact that we are here seems to show that somehow we have traversed infinity. Impossible. Ifinity is infinity, and you can’t add or take anything away from infinity. So I shouldn’t be able to add anymore words to this page or anymore events to my life. INFINITY, no. Thnak you all for your time.
In theory, the universe couldn’t have been created. Albert Einstein demonstrated that mass equals energy. The Law of the Conservation of Energy states that energy cannot be created nor destroyed, only transferred. This means the universe wasn’t created ex nihilo (out of nothing), but has always existed in some form.
Keith, how are you? Well, what would be the status of the Universe if it has always existed(meaning infinity)? What about the Universe expanding. Wouldn’t that show that it would have had a begginning? Matter cannot be created or destroyed by any “natural means”. How would you explain the Universe Naturally? Everything that you know in existence has been caused by something. What makes the Universe any different. And where does a Supernatural cause come in to play in your opinion Keith. And what do you think about the Universe being around for infinity? There needs to be a plausable explanation for that also.
Thanks for your time Keith, I look forward to your thoughts.
That the universe is expanding doesn’t necessarily mean it had a beginning. The universe could be oscillating (expanding and contracting continuously) or it could have come from elsewhere. If it did have a beginning, that is no reason to attribute it to any particular god or any god at all for that matter. At this time it is merely a question mark.
All through history people have been gratuitously replacing question marks with gods. Example: “We don’t know what the wind is so it must be a wind god” (Feng Bo, Tate, Fisaga, Laufakanaa, etc…). Of course today we know that the wind is merely air movement caused by natural phenomena such as convection and/or difference in air pressure, etc… obviously not the wind god(s) people had previously believed in.
We may or may not ever know the correct explanation for the situation of the universe but taking a lesson from the “wind god” we shouldn’t jump to conclusions and arbitrarily replace this question mark with a “universe making god.”
For anyone that is curious about the causation argument, see my page about why I think the “First cause” argument is fallacious:
First cause
At the same time, is plausable to rule out GOD? You said it’s a question mark at this point. Before the evidence is all the way in you’re already ruling things out. Is that right?
Here is what scientist Richard Lewontin said on the issue….
We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, and in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so-stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counterintuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is an absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.” – Richard Lewontin
No, didn’t say anything about that. Where we don’t have enough information we can’t rule out anything, not even the possibility that Bugs Bunny said “What’s up Doc” and then blinked the universe into existence, or that the Easter Bunny laid an Easter egg and the universe hatched out of it, or that Santa Claus sneezed the universe into existence , or that a God poofed out of nowhere and spoke the universe into existence, etc… Where there is no data or sound reasoning, no matter how silly the idea, as a discipline it can’t be ruled out in science.
Seems that you like to respond to certain questions and others you leave out. Maybe you don’t have enough time. I’ve notice more than a few times that you don’t always address all of the subjects I or others set forth. No disrespect to you Capella, just an observation, someting I’ve been noticing. And if you wish to go along the lines of Santa Clause etc, and be condescending so be it.
I think I see what’s going on. Correct me if I’m wrong, just because you don’t believe in God (of Christianity) doesn’t mean that you don’t think it’s possible, is that correct?
Those same comments you gave before are true of EVOLUTION. To put the Bible along the same lines of Bugs Bunny means that there is absoluty no logical reason of how or why the Bible came about. And if there is no reason for the Bible and it’s evidences, what reason is there for Evolution and IT’S evidences.
Also, please address the Cambrian explosion. What do you make of that, and it’s compatibility with Darwinism?
Another thing I would like you to address Capella, forgive me, as I am I danger of taking up too much of your time, but:
“A key point to notice is that if the universe had a Designer with both the power and the knowledge to construct it, it does not seem likely that a subset of the creation (mankind) can ever come to posses the knowledge of how the Designer came to be — and quite possibly not even the whole of the design of which we are a part.” UNKNOW WRITER
Regardless of whether we can comprehend a designer or his design (that is a special pleading), you can’t assert a designer’s existence from a “rule” that requires the designer’s existence as a premise. Again, that is circular logic.
As far as the Cambrian explosion, you’d have to mention why you think it somehow contradicts evolutionary science. For anyone reading, only young earth creationists call evolutionary science “Darwinism.”
As far as the Bugs Bunny comparison, my point was that no matter how silly an assertion is, even a god “speaking” the universe into existence, science can’t completely rule it out, but only as a discipline. In psychology however, things such as psychological needs can be brought up as a possible reason for beliving such a thing as the Genesis creation myth in the face of overwhelming data to the contrary. IMHO, psychological needs are the “logical reason” for much of the Bible’s content.
It’s seems to me that evolutionary science commuity has a foundation in assuming the gradual mutations of all species. Little by little things started to mutate until we arrive where we are today. The Cambrian explosion goes against that doesn’t it? WIth all the different fossil types appearing suddenly, where did the gradual process go?
For anyone reading, “special pleading” would be for atheists to maintain that the universe is eternal and uncaused and at the same time saying that God cannot be eternal and uncaused. It can work for you but not for me?
The premise of my above post was not to be rude, but to show what was really being said without naming the different types of “reasoning” that are being mentioned. If it is a possibility that the universe is eternal and uncaused, why rule out the possibility of God. Isn’t that inconsistent.
(Seems like we’re sliding slowly into philosophy Capella, lol)
First off, the Cambrian explosion is not good news for young earth creationists (people who take the Genesis 1 creation myth literally). Dating shows that it happened hundreds of millions of years ago, not the 6 thousand years that the Bible indicates. Also there are transitional (species evolving into new species) life-forms within the Cambrian explosion fossil record which contradict the young earth Creationist’s assertions of all species coming about fully formed.
The Cambrian “explosion” happened over anywhere from 5 to 40 million year period, so the word “explosion” is relative to huge geologic time scales not biblical ones such as 6 days or thousands of years.
There are many explanations of why the predecessors to these lifeforms rarely fossilized. For example: some were microscopic and others may have not formed a hard shell until the Cambrian period (for protection against predators).
Here’ some good material on the Cambrian explosion:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/03/4/l_034_02.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CC/CC300.html
This website this is also generally an excellent website refuting Creationists:
http://www.talkorigins.org
What transitionl species could you be talking about Capella? Please show me what species we have proof of that became another species altogether. Explanations huh? Well, let the reaching begin(no disrespect Capella, I had to throw that in there, lol!) We will talk about the age of earth in a little while; for now the issue here is that evolution cannot explain the Cambrian.
I would defer them to an introduction a British biologist wrote for Darwin’s infamous book:
The fact of evolution is the backbone of biology, and biology is thus in the peculiar position of being a science founded on an unproved theory — is it then a science or a faith? Belief in the theory of evolution is thus exactly parallel to belief in special creation — both are concepts which believers know to be true but neither, up to the present, has been capable of proof.2 (taken from the Institute of Creation website)
Transitional Fossils
Here are pictures of actual transitional fossils from this website, fossils that according to creationists don’t exist:
Transitional fossils1
Transitional fossils2
A couple of other sources of information:
List of Transitional fossils from Wikapedia
Discussion of transitional fossils from talkorigins.org
The ICR
Beware, the icr’s goal is to turn public school science classrooms into Sunday school. Their goal is to sneak their fundamentalist Christian religion into public high schools by trying to disguise it as science. They haven’t had any luck passing scientific peer review, so they tend to take their “case” to the public instead.
Darwin
Young earth creationists tend to attack Charlse Darwin and his book because over 150 years ago Darwin lacked the mountains of data we now have concerning evolution. They would rather attack Darwin and the primitive state of understanding in the 1800s rather than take on the current modern findings and understanding of evolutionary science.
This is rather like if there were people who were “anti-computerists” and they preffered to attack Charlse Babbage’s primitive mechanical gear computer designs from the 1800s rather than today’s integrated chip computer designs as an example that computers don’t work.
The above quotes were taken from various websites.
And one thing, you notice that I didn’t use fairies, or little smurfs when I was talking about the above stuff. you notice that we are keeping it in a scientific forum. So all that myth and other disrespectful stuff you tend to say I feel is unwarrented, forgive me if I have ever disrespected you on this site.
thank you.
“Evolutionists”
Creationists call people who assert evolution “evolutionists” and proceed as if they are some separate band of renegade scientists that worship Darwin and are out of step with the rest of the scientific community. Some even assert that “evolutionists” have an agenda to “steal the faith” of school children.
The truth is that people in the scientific community that deal with evolution are spread out among many of the disciplines of science, i.e., medical researchers, biologists, physiologists, paleontologists, archaeologists, anthropologists, geologists, physicists, etc…
In other words, the quarrel of creationists is with the scientific community, not some isolated group called “evolutionists.” Curiously however creationists tend to take their arguments to the general public instead.
One might ask “if their case is so good and their people so qualified, why don’t they take their case to scientific peer review and change the thinking of the scientific community?
The reason why they can’t is because the case of the creationists is so poor that they can’t get it past scientific peer review.
Two flavors of creationists
To anyone reading, there are actually two types of creationists. Old earth creationists and young earth creationists.
Old earth creationists are religious people who agree with science about the origins of the universe, mankind, and the timescales involved. They usually consider stories in Genesis to be metaphore.
Young earth creationists are people who believe the Genesis 1 creation myth literally, that the universe was created in 6 periods of 24 hours each and that this happened only 6-10 thousand years ago (so as to not disagree with Bible listed geneaologies). They also assert that geological features such as the Grand Canyon were formed almost instantly by a literal worldwide flood after Noah literally marched every species of animal on the planet into a boat.
Young earth creationists are usually fundamentalist Christians who believe every part of the Bible is perfect and all stories in it literally happened. Old earth creationists are typically from Catholicism, Judaism, and other non-fundamentalist religious groups.
For the purposes of discussion on this website, I use the word “creationists” to refer to young earth creationists, not old earth creationists.
Speciation
One tactic of creationists when dealing with the public is to claim that no fossils have been found that are partially between two designated species because this would falsify their claim that all species came about fully formed.
This tactic only works with some of the general public because they have no training on how to recognize different species. It doesn’t work with the scientific community however as they are the ones who discern and assign the species designations.
“Incremental” fossil record
Creationists also try to assert to the public (not the scientific community) that if evolution had caused speciation, then we would see a whole series of small incremental changes between two species in the fossil record.
The truth is however that fossilization is an extremely rare process and we are very fortunate to have the many transitional fossils we do have.
“Macro” and “micro” evolution
Creationists accept that evolution does happen but wherever they see data that indicates evolution they call it micro-evolution to discredit it. Contrary to the scientific community, creationists define micro-evolution as evolution where speciation (changes which accumulate into new species) cannot occur and throw all evolution into this category.
Smurfs and Myths
If we are going to talk about science or in the case of creationism: pseudo-science that’s fine. That is a somewhat scientific discussion, or at least a discussion that can contain science.
If however we are talking about religion, then it invites comparisons to mythology since as anyone that has studied the history of religion from a secular point of view should agree, it is the same thing.
If it’s “my” beliefs then it’s “religion.” If it is theirs, then it is mythology or paganism. This is a cultural bias people typically grow up in.
The comparison to Bugs Bunny, Santa Claus, Easter Bunny, etc… are needed to convey the remoteness of the possibility of deities from an atheist’s point of view to people, religious or not, that have been raised with religious bias.
It’s seems that you neglected to mention that the “creationists” that you are speaking about are scientists also. Biologists, physicists, archaologists, medical doctors, geoligists and so on.
” The truth is that people in the scientific community that deal with evolution are spread out among many of the disciplines of science…”
So are the creationists Capella, what’s your point? An “evloutionist” is a person who believes in the natural evolving all all creatures on earth and a common ancestor. Weather you are a archaeologist or a biologist evolutionist is what you “believe” happened.
You made a lot of assumptions about creationists. Now, a tactic of the naturalist(if you like that word better) is to portray “creationists” as dumb gullible people that follow some ancient book blindly. That is not the case. The naturalist continually tries to separate “religion” and “science” which is fine. In doing so, tries to appeal to the intellect of the person by telling them that you cannot “believe” in something and be a scientist at the same time. Which is just not true.
No disrespect, but all those tactics that you are talking about, you are doing right now. Who are you appealing to? And what types of attacks are your making?
My point is not to argue, I’m sorry it went that way. My goal here is to see what people who don’t belive in what I do have to say. I have learned many many things by coming here, and I appreciate that very much.
The more I see and read, the more questions I get and look for stuff to satisfy my curiosities. And the More I realize how much sense God’s word makes. The are still a lot of questions that need to be answered not only in the scientific terms but others as well. Not all of us will believe, and according to the Bible, that is a risk that must be taken. We have free will, otherwise God would have made us prisoners, hence, with a choice to rebel must come a choice of consequence for that rebellion. Your choices matter: To God and to the ones you care about.
Which scientific community would you be talking about my friend?
This was a fun one Capella, keep it coming, I enjoy your site very much. Have a good night, I’ll talk to you later.
Macro and micro-evolution
Thanks for pointing my error out. I stand corrected. I apologize for my misunderstanding about the terms. The words “macroevolution” and “microevolution” apparently are used and were even coined within the scientific community, not by creationists. I will correct my previous comments.
Where the creationists disagree with the scientific community on these words is that speciation (changes which accumulate into new species) can occur during micro-evolution and that the universe is old enough for the timescales that macro-evolution refers to.
The scientific community
The scientific community is the body of scientists who’s goal is objectivity through the scientific method. Peer review, through discussion and debate within journals and conferences, assists in this objectivity by maintaining the quality of research methodology and interpretation of results.
(My paraphrase of Wikapedia’s definition)
For theories to have any validity in the scientific community they must pass peer review. Many of the assertions basic to young earth creationism cannot pass peer review because they are flawed. Again, this is why creationists take their case to the general public instead.
Creationist scientists
Yes, there are scientists that happen to believe in both old and young earth creationism within the scientific community.
However, there are no scientists *within* in the scientific community that are dealing with “young earth creationism” as science because many of the assertions of young earth creationists contradict known facts that are asserted by the scientific community such as timescales, formation of geologic features, lack of evidence of a worldwide flood, fossil evidence, vestigial organs, etc…
The words “evolutionist” and “evolutionism” are rarely used within the scientific community because there is general agreement within the scientific community that evolution is fact.
A medical researcher, archaeologist, biologists etc… practices their science in part from knowledge learned from evolutionary theory and their knowledge in part is contributing to evolutionary theory. It’s possible they could actually do this without believing evolution happened, although I would think this is rare.
The assertions made by what creationists refer to as evolutionists are supported by the scientific community as a whole. That’s why I say that the creationist’s argument is with the scientific community.
Example: contrary to the assertions of new world creationists, geologists say that the earth is billions of years old and the Grand Canyon was formed over millions of years of erosion.
For all I know there might be some of these geologists that don’t actually believe the timescales involved or how the Grand Canyon was formed, but that is the state of the current knowledge of geology that they deal with until someone presents an adequate opposing theory to peer review. So far no creationist has done so successfully.
The point is that this is not some group of scientists outside of the scientific community asserting these things. This is the current knowledge of geologists and the scientific community as a whole. Those are the people who the creationists are arguing against.
You mentioned: “…who’s goal is objectivity through the scientific method.”
I. The scientific method has four steps
1. Observation and description of a phenomenon or group of phenomena.
2. Formulation of an hypothesis to explain the phenomena. In physics, the hypothesis often takes the form of a causal mechanism or a mathematical relation.
3. Use of the hypothesis to predict the existence of other phenomena, or to predict quantitatively the results of new observations.
4. Performance of experimental tests of the predictions by several independent experimenters and properly performed experiments. (Above steps are By Frank Wolfs)
I would like to focus on #4 because that seems to be a crucial factor of the “scientific method” as you claim. This is why it is said that evolution is just a belief. Because you cannot reproduce what you are claiming. I’m sure your going to have a rebuttal for that(which I am hoping for, lol.)but that is the case regarding mutations into different species.
Also from Frank Wolf: “…where one can repeatedly test the system under study after making limited, controlled changes in it.”
I do not know of a time where mutation can or has created a new species altogether. Even with the intellegence of the human brain behind it. That is where the “theory” falls. Because being able to reproduce the hypothesis in question is what separates “scientific” from “non scientific”. That is where evolution cannot be proven, hence it is a “belief” just like mine.
Now, to address the universal acceptance within the community.
Science by it’s very nature must move along with the data. It cannot stay where it is especially when new discoveries are being made all the time. So to say that the creationists are arguing with the community as a whole is pointless. A lot of scientific discoveries tend to start out in the minority then gradually gain accpetance. For you to point out the minority of a particular group in science seems almost like a smoke screen being put up, it has no relevance.
Yes it goes against popular concensus among “scientists”, but it is by no means out of the question. Plenty of things pointing to age of the earth are in favor of the creationist while some are not. Future discoveries will continue to give us more info.
At best (and I still feel that’s a stretch) is that most we can say is “it is generally accepted” at this time. Nothing is set in stone(no pun intended).
And you didn’t respond to the duck billed platypus. What do you think of this Interesting little creature.
Until next time my friend, Good night.
A common assertion by young earth creationists is that if scientists can’t observe speciation in the laboratory then the scientific method can’t be used to support evolutionary science.
This would of course require recreating something in the laboratory that typically takes at least tens to hundreds of thousands of years in nature and is of course unnecessary.
What might be amusing is for scientists to require that young earth creationists attempt to hold their own assertions up to such a ridiculous standard such as requiring them to have their invisible being speak something into existence repeatedly under controlled experiments in a laboratory.
From: http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CA/CA220.html
1. Science requires that observations can be replicated. The observations, on which evolution is based, including comparative anatomy, genetics, and fossils, are replicable. In many cases, you can repeat the observations yourself.
2. Repeatable experiments, including experiments about mutations and natural selection in the laboratory and in the field, also support evolution.
As far as the Platypus, here is an article which addresses the quotes from Huse that you are alluding to:
Article on the Platypus
Actually I’ve really already addressed the answer to this question in comment number 7 with the wind example, but I’d like to bring it up again:
Until a few hundred years ago, people had no idea of what caused the wind so they said the wind must be caused by a god and that god is…
(they inserted a god they happened to believe in, Feng Bo, Tate, Fisaga, Laufakanna, etc…)
Today, knowing that the wind is simply convection and difference in air pressure it probably seems odd to us that all those different groups of people throughout history would for some reason automatically assign *their particular god* they happen to believe in to something just because they didn’t understand it.
But this is what people from different religions still typically do about the questions that are at or beyond the limits of our understanding today.
Science is a wonderful tool for discerning the universe, but there are some things that although people may be working on them today, we still don’t have adequate understanding of, just like our ancestors didn’t have understanding of the wind.
The difference for scientists is that they have to have the courage to put a question mark on unknowns, assign an “X” if you will.
Imagine these sorts of things as presents. Imagine that you’ve walked into a room and found that a stranger has brought a 6×6x6 foot present into your house. Other than an approximate size, you have no idea of what the present is. You can start guessing or proclaiming to people in the room that it is this or that but the scientific method says that without significant data or observations, you are wasting your breath.
It could be a tie, it could be a riding lawnmower, it could be a bomb, it could be empty, etc…. It could be a ring (I did that with my mother one time, put a ring in a huge box).
Science says you must put a question mark on that present until you can weigh it, shake it, x-ray it, put a Geiger counter up to it, etc…
The origins of the Big Bang and of the laws of physics are like a big present. Unfortunately, we can’t shake it or x-ray it, much less open it, so the best thing to do for right now with our current understanding is to say we don’t know. We may know someday or we might not.
We can guess, but guesses are almost useless where there is little or no information available. We can make the same mistake that was made over and over and over by our ancestors before the scientific method and assign whatever god we happen to believe in to it, but I think that would just be yet another mistake.
The reason why we have come so far in the last few hundred years is because the scientific method wasn’t perfected until a few hundred years ago. Before that every opening of a flower or death of a bird, etc… was attributed to a god which settled the question for most people so that they didn’t have to investigate it any further. Most progress by humans up that point was painfully slow, by trial and error.
With the scientific method, as you mentioned, in a relatively short time, we are traveling in space, we have laptop computers, and we can talk to anyone in the world with a device no larger than a pack of playing cards. Things that just a few hundred years ago, people would have thought were magic.
Even more importantly, we are curing so many diseases that typically killed or compromised the quality of life our ancestors and we have a basic understanding of how our brains work and of its psychology. Also the toil of most people in civilized country’s has been greatly reduced and their standard of living is much higher.
It is amazing that just a way of thinking, a mental tool if you will, has enabled people to do all these things.
I’m not sure if you meant this as a joke or not? If not then you apparently missed my point. My point is that no matter how what is in the box got there, if you don’t have any data or observations that would help indicate what it is, then it makes no sense to declare that you know what’s in the box, the same situation as throwing a god at the Big Bang.
Again you appeared to miss my point. I said that *in the past* many people thought that every fall of the sparrow or opening of a flower was caused by an angel or god or something and hence they didn’t investigate it any further, not today.
How does that relate to today? For today’s Christians, insert the origins of the universe or the Big Bang in place of fallen sparrows or opening flowers.
If you’ve got the origins of the Universe settled by arbitrarily assigning your favorite god to it, then there’s no need to look into the issue any further. Exactly what has held progress back for thousands of years before the perfection of the scientific method.
To arbitrarily assign your favorite supernatural being as being something uncaused and eternal is absurd because it’s inconsistent, illogical, and unnecessary. If you can believe in an uncaused, eternal invisible being, then there’s no reason to not save a step and just think that the universe is uncaused and eternal, since uncaused eternal entities don’t need creators. In any case my understanding is that any ideas about what was “before” the Big Bang are not much more than wild guesses.
“If you’ve got the origins of the Universe settled by arbitrarily assigning your favorite god to it, then there’s no need to look into the issue any further.”
You have chosen not to recognize that, so you will continue your journey until you can reach a satisfactory answer. That is very convinient since there is never going to be any way to know that. At best, your are putting your mind at ease for rejecting the Gospel, and your disagreements with God. Which, of course, is your God given right to make that decision.
Something that kind of caught my attention, you believe that if the majority of scientist agree on something, the minority should reconsider what they are saying. In other words, be subjected to peer review.
That being said, the majority of scientists say that the universe had a beginning. Where does that take us? If that is true, it seems that we have to move a step up to something else that is uncaused and eternal. If it’s not GOD, and it’s not the universe, I would like to hear your hypothesis on what it could possibly be.
We can get into the oscillating universe later on too.
I will talk to you later my friend, Good night.
Actually your last sentence tells the tale. It’s likely that no one is ever going to know, at least in our lifetimes, even people who close their eyes and lift their hands. So the best thing to do is put a question mark there.
I don’t believe in any gods, saints, angels, etc… so for me, there’s nothing to put my mind at ease about and nothing to have a disagreement with. I do disagree with many of your positions and I understand them having been there before I awoken out of it.
To be clear, what most scientist think is that there was a start of the current expansion of space nicknamed “The Big Bang.” Whether there was something that preceded that or whether something even could precede that is very much in question in the scientific community.
I’m in agreement that there is a question mark about any predecessor of the universe and again if there could even be a predecessor.
I’m also in agreement with the position of the scientific community on the supernatural. Since there is not a shred of genuine definitive data or substantiated observations on the matter, the scientific method can’t deal with the subject and hence the scientific community has nothing to say.
Psychology however, that’s another matter…
Fair enough.
Another question to throw at you regarding the expanding of the universe. Regarding the energy that is contained in it and with the assumption that there is no outside force to think about, where does the Universe keep getting the energy to expand its self then contract and expand yet again?
Expansion of the Universe
As far as the start of the expansion (Big Bang), my understanding is that the formulas that physicists use to describe the universe break down when they get close to the moment that the expansion started, so as I said before, no one knows what happened before or even if there was a before.
Stephen Hawking described what was before the Big Bang as a meaningless question, like asking what is north of the North Pole. Since our algorithms breakdown as we go back to the moment the expansion started then possibly the laws of physics themselves break down at that point so temporal concepts such as “before and after” and concepts of causation may not apply at all.
An assumption that the universe needs energy to expand may be a meaningless assumption if there was no “before” or causation.
Also the current expansion of the universe doesn’t imply that the universe is necessarily oscillating (expanding and contracting). Like human lives, the universe may only go ‘round once for all we know or it may have been oscillating for an infinite number of times or maybe it oscillates between the current universe and another. The possibilities go on and on.
“According to the 2nd law of thermodynamics, energy is neither created nor destroyed. Energy can be converted from one form to another but the total amount of energy in a system is conserved (stays the same).”
Your above quote better suites the first law of thermodynamics, if you will accept the correction.
Then comes the question of Entropy. So, allow me to rephrase my question stated earlier. How does the universe continue to get it’s Usuable energy. By you stating that energy cannot be created or destroyed I have no disagreement. But I want to make it clear that entropy is in there too. You cannot avoid that.
Unless of course the Universe is an open system. And if it IS and open system, where is the energy comming from? Where are not talking about before the Universe came to be, just the concept of the universe expanding then contracting.
From Wikipedia: Theoretically, the oscillating universe could not be reconciled with the second law of thermodynamics:
Next time we will see if time has existed infinity, which is what I believe you claim. How else could the Universe be here?
Yes, you’re right. I meant the first law, instead of the second.
I looked up what you are saying in Wikipedia and that definition of an “oscillatory” universe *never reaches singularity again* that’s why it would experience heat death from entropy buildup.
When I say “oscillating universe,” I’m talking about a universe that “crunches” into singularity before exploding or expanding again.
http://education.yahoo.com/reference/dictionary/entry/oscillating%20universe
Also I’m not asserting that the universe oscillates, I’m merely saying it is one of many possibilities. What happens when the universe reaches singularity after the collapse no one knows, one can only speculate at this time.
If you choose to come back and continue arguing against an oscillating universe, make sure that the source you are using is talking about the one where the universe collapses to a singularity.
No, actually if you read what I’ve been saying, I’ve been claiming that the opposite may be true, that if the universe breaks down mathematically when it reaches singularity that the concept of time (temporal concepts such as before and after) may also break down.
“Stephen Hawking described what was before the Big Bang as a meaningless question, like asking what is north of the North Pole. Since our algorithms breakdown as we go back to the moment the expansion started then possibly the laws of physics themselves break down at that point so temporal concepts such as “before and after” and concepts of causation may not apply at all.”
Well if that’s the case, how are you ever going to reach answers to questions that you are looking for if all the paths lead to a point in time where none of your “rules” work? Your singularity argument leads to a point where neither time nor physics nor energy exist. How then will you show that scientifically (not the path I was thinking of going but this works).
What have you observed that would make you think that that is how the Universe works(besides deciding ahead of time that it could not have been GOD)?
From the Website Answers in Genesis: “The main rationale for this particular ‘big bang’ scenario is a set of mathematical equations deduced by human reason alone.”
“Evolution is a very unique “science.” Typically, scientists observe evidentiary data and then formulate their conclusions. Evolutionists have formulated their conclusion, and now look for the missing data.”
All about creation.org
Talk to you later Capella, have a good night.
I’m not making any assertions about the singularity. I’m saying that the algorithms break down as the singularity is approached so no dependable predictions can be made at this time.
As far as “reaching answers,” my whole point in this discussion has been to assert that we don’t have any answers concerning the singularity at this time and we may possibly never have any. If we do reach any valid answers in the future, it will probably be from some method that we currently can’t even envision.
As far as the “evolution science” quote, it is just creationist propaganda. Even Darwin derived the idea of evolution from his collecting of specimens, not the other way around.
Contrary to your quote, Evolutionary science like all other areas of science is “falsifiable” which means that if it or any part of it is genuinely shown to be false, then it must either be modified or discarded to fit the data.
The problem for young earth creationists has been the lack of any arguments that would do so that would pass peer review in the scientific community.
One more thing. Rack your brain and your computer real real hard and find the Most DEFINITIVE evidence that EVOLUTION is real, that it all came from nothing. Matter of fact list the TOP 5 evedences that show humans were once monkeys. And we were all plants. TAKE YOUR TIME ON THIS!
Thanks for your time Capella, good day to you.
No one that does evolutionary science claims that humans evolved from monkeys. Humans and *apes* are 98% identical in genetic makeup because they evolved from a common ancestor.
If you want me to give you evidence that it all came from nothing,” then I’ll have to ask you to first provide evidence that your god “came from nothing” to “speak” the universe into existence. But of course we’ve already been through this.
If you don’t have any new questions for me then I think we are through.
This Zulla guy seems to be very good at throwing questions at you (and he seems to have a cocky attitude,like you wont have an answer)but very bad at answering the questions you throw at him.Also,you OWNED him!Just an observation.
Thanks Alan! I appreciate the encouraging words.
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