God / Life After Death
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Menelik said:
I read once that there are 32 different dimensions and time is just one of them. Don't expect me to explain the 32 dimensions because that is way above my pay grade.
I can see the rational point of view has few supporters in this thread and instead what is represented is a whole bunch of circular arguements, begging the question, and things people "believe". Hopefully the battle against the caste sytem will be a little more "reality" based.
jaxvid said:
Sometimes "belief" is more important than cold, hard facts. If we were to ask a high ranking pro football official, I'm sure he would deny any conspiracy against white athletes. Yet we believe there is a caste-system based on what we see. We don't actually see (sometimes we do
Is it so much different with God? We can look around and see the earth, the stars, the entire universe; the complexity and yet the simplicity, the order. We cannot look up into the sky and see God, but we can certainly see the works of his hands. Thinking that all this, EVERYTHING, just came up out of nothing, would be very shortsighted. It would be like not believing in the caste system, because Roger Goodell hasn't issued a statement saying "whites not allowed". Thats just my two cents. Edited by: Sean
Don Wassall said:
I hate to disagree with the "man" but I think we know a lot about ourselves, the planet, and the universe. "Science" is not a single entity but a method of analyzing information. It has been almost wholly developed by white men and more then anything constitutes a true "white" religion, certainly more then the leftover ancient fairy tales from jews and arabs.
The Big Bang is the cosmological model of the universe that is best supported by all lines of scientific evidence and observation. It may seem an unlikely occurance but the great minds of science did not come up with the idea during an all night bong session.
For instance some of the reasons the theory exists are as follows:
The essential idea is that the universe has expanded from a primordial hot and dense initial condition at some finite time in the past and continues to expand to this day. Georges Lemaître proposed what became known as the Big Bang theory of the origin of the Universe, although he called it his 'hypothesis of the primeval atom'. The framework for the model relies on Albert Einstein's General Relativity as formulated by Alexander Friedmann. After Edwin Hubble discovered in 1929 that the distances to far away galaxies were generally proportional to their redshifts, this observation was taken to indicate that all very distant galaxies and clusters have an apparent velocity directly away from our vantage point.
This idea has been considered in detail back in time to extreme densities and temperatures, and large particle accelerators have been built to experiment on and test such conditions, resulting in significant confirmation of the theory.
The observed abundances of the light elements throughout the cosmos closely match the calculated predictions for the formation of these elements from nuclear processes in the rapidly expanding and cooling first minutes of the universe, as logically and quantitatively detailed according to Big Bang nucleosynthesis.
The Big Bang theory developed from observations of the structure of the universe and from theoretical considerations. In 1912 Vesto Slipher measured the first Doppler shift of a "spiral nebula" (spiral nebula is the obsolete term for spiral galaxies), and soon discovered that almost all such nebulae were receding from Earth.
After the discovery of the cosmic microwave background radiation in 1964, and especially when its collective frequencies sketched out a blackbody curve, most scientists were fairly convinced by the evidence that some Big Bang scenario must have occurred.
Huge strides in Big Bang cosmology have been made since the late 1990s as a result of major advances in telescope technology as well as the analysis of copious data from satellites such as COBE, the Hubble Space Telescope and WMAP. Cosmologists now have fairly precise measurement of many of the parameters of the Big Bang model, and have made the unexpected discovery that the expansion of the universe appears to be accelerating.
While I'm sure most of you gentlemen are more learned on the subject then the great scientists of the past
None of this really addresses whether there is a "God" or not since HE would be responsible for all this anyway but I think it calls into question the traditional beliefs in God as a bearded thunderbolt thrower passing judgement on errant jews.
Re: evolution, strictly speaking Darwin's theory only addresses the process of change in the inherited traits of a population of organisms from one generation to the next. Something that we deal with on this site all of the time. As far as the creation of life or original life forms that is not part of it. Darwin of course was very religious and did not feel his observations replaced God in any way.
Neither does teaching evolution in school. It is merely the best theory from observation and experimentation to explain most biological occurances. As far as taking it all the way back to the beginning of life, it does not profess to do that.
Neither does teaching evolution in school. It is merely the best theory from observation and experimentation to explain most biological occurances. As far as taking it all the way back to the beginning of life, it does not profess to do that.
jaxvid said:
Where did the "primordial hot and dense initial condition" come from? What was there before it? To believe there is a beginning of the universe is to believe that before the universe there was nothing that somehow became the universe. My proposition is quite simple and logical: How did nothing become something? If that's not an impossibility please explain how it's possible.
White Shogun
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Whether something is rational or irrational has no bearing on whether something is a fact or not.
Like I said earlier, it seems more rational to believe that something created, birthed, made, or sourced the universe than not, simply because most of what we see in the world around us was created, birthed, made, or sourced - even those things that are not man made.
Just because it's rational does not mean it's a fact. I don't think we can really 'know' the truth, at least not on this side of death, or not yet at least.
To be truly rational, I think one has to believe that the universe either, a) is eternal and has always existed, or b) was created by something. I don't see how one can say that the universe was the size of an atom at one point and expanded to what we know now as the universe. What existed outside this atom? From where did the atom originate?
It seems more logical to assume the universe has always existed, than to believe in the 'Big Bang.' And like I posted earlier, there is already plenty of information available to lead some astronomers to question the Big Bang theory anyway.
Like I said earlier, it seems more rational to believe that something created, birthed, made, or sourced the universe than not, simply because most of what we see in the world around us was created, birthed, made, or sourced - even those things that are not man made.
Just because it's rational does not mean it's a fact. I don't think we can really 'know' the truth, at least not on this side of death, or not yet at least.
To be truly rational, I think one has to believe that the universe either, a) is eternal and has always existed, or b) was created by something. I don't see how one can say that the universe was the size of an atom at one point and expanded to what we know now as the universe. What existed outside this atom? From where did the atom originate?
It seems more logical to assume the universe has always existed, than to believe in the 'Big Bang.' And like I posted earlier, there is already plenty of information available to lead some astronomers to question the Big Bang theory anyway.
Just the Milky Way galaxy is far larger in size and scope than the human mind can comprehend. Yet it is just one of billions of galaxies, each containing millions of starswith each starseparated fromits nearest neighborby trillions of miles.
The "theory" that all of this is the result of an exploding marble is truly ludicrous.
I'm all for the scientific method, but there is a lot of voodoo in Big Science in this country. The scientific establishment holds that people are animals, close cousins to apes, when there is a huge difference between human beings and all animals, namely our minds and our ability to think and study. Or, our spiritual side if you will.
When I was a young boy I used to read astronomy books. Those books now, from less than half a century ago, look silly -- for example one postulated that Venus was a water covered planet with temperatures around 200 degrees on the surface.
The medical textbooks of a century ago are hopelessly outdated today, even comical. Science always presents its findings as if from God on high, but science is constantly changing its previous findings. Science is indeed a religion as utilized by the power structure.
And yes, we know very little about ourselves and our planet. Most of our planet remains unexplored and unmapped. Every time a deep sea dive is made, many new species of animals are found. Same in deep tropical jungles. We know nothing about what's inside the earth more than 8 or so miles below the surface, and this is a planet almost 8,000 miles in diameter.
We know almost nothing about sleep and dreaming, something that humans spend a third of their lives doing. We still don't know much about how our wonderful brains work (or how they"evolved").
The point about the eyes is a strong one. Was the earth populated entirely by sightless creatures, until one day one was magically born with a pair of eyes?Or was one born with one-eighth of one eye, which slowly evolved over many millions of years into a whole eye, and then a second, matchedone? Same with the senses of smell and hearing. There's so many holes in the evolution theory but it's been made sacred by the scientific and governmental establishment.
The only credible evidence for evolution is slight changes within a species geographically separated over time, the best illustration being the races of man. Ah, but science tells us the races are exactly equal in all ways -- except for black physical superiority -- and to question it is heresy. Yes, Big Science has the attributes of a religion, an often quite irrational religion.Edited by: Don Wassall
The "theory" that all of this is the result of an exploding marble is truly ludicrous.
I'm all for the scientific method, but there is a lot of voodoo in Big Science in this country. The scientific establishment holds that people are animals, close cousins to apes, when there is a huge difference between human beings and all animals, namely our minds and our ability to think and study. Or, our spiritual side if you will.
When I was a young boy I used to read astronomy books. Those books now, from less than half a century ago, look silly -- for example one postulated that Venus was a water covered planet with temperatures around 200 degrees on the surface.
The medical textbooks of a century ago are hopelessly outdated today, even comical. Science always presents its findings as if from God on high, but science is constantly changing its previous findings. Science is indeed a religion as utilized by the power structure.
And yes, we know very little about ourselves and our planet. Most of our planet remains unexplored and unmapped. Every time a deep sea dive is made, many new species of animals are found. Same in deep tropical jungles. We know nothing about what's inside the earth more than 8 or so miles below the surface, and this is a planet almost 8,000 miles in diameter.
We know almost nothing about sleep and dreaming, something that humans spend a third of their lives doing. We still don't know much about how our wonderful brains work (or how they"evolved").
The point about the eyes is a strong one. Was the earth populated entirely by sightless creatures, until one day one was magically born with a pair of eyes?Or was one born with one-eighth of one eye, which slowly evolved over many millions of years into a whole eye, and then a second, matchedone? Same with the senses of smell and hearing. There's so many holes in the evolution theory but it's been made sacred by the scientific and governmental establishment.
The only credible evidence for evolution is slight changes within a species geographically separated over time, the best illustration being the races of man. Ah, but science tells us the races are exactly equal in all ways -- except for black physical superiority -- and to question it is heresy. Yes, Big Science has the attributes of a religion, an often quite irrational religion.Edited by: Don Wassall
White_Savage
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Shogun:
All the smart-ass atheists in the recent waves can come up with their reasons for thinking Christians and theists are dumb, this argument and that.
But they have never been able to demonstrate why "You will rot in a box" is a better offer than John 3:16.
All the smart-ass atheists in the recent waves can come up with their reasons for thinking Christians and theists are dumb, this argument and that.
But they have never been able to demonstrate why "You will rot in a box" is a better offer than John 3:16.
White Shogun
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Damn, where you been Savage? I was just talking about you. Miss you around here man.
And carrying on with me 'what is rational' argument, it seems more rational that a sane man would choose John 3;16 over rot in a box as well.
White_Savage said:
And carrying on with me 'what is rational' argument, it seems more rational that a sane man would choose John 3;16 over rot in a box as well.
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Bart said:
It's rational for (most) people to want to continue to live, to want to see their loved ones again, etc. If it wasn't rational to think this way, why do we think suicide bombers are crazy?
The example Savage provided, John 3:16, is just an example, as if I recall correctly Savage is an Asatruar, unless he's converted since then. But the point of the example is dead, cold, science has nothing to offer man after the grave. Hence the belief among 99% of the world's population that we continue on in some conscious existence after we die, whether reincarnation, resurrection, 'soul advancement,' what have you.
Again, doesn't mean it's true, per se, merely rational.
Speak of the Devil('s Big Bang), take a look at this article on Yahoo front page:
Do We Live in a Giant Cosmic Bubble?
I don't know whether to LOL or exclaim 'Dayum!' But why the Copernican model? That is throwing out a way of studying data without reason. We do live in a very unique spot in the universe. It's not to say there aren't others like it, but this is one of few places that we know of that can support life. Doesn't that make it unique? Take a look at the Anthropic Cosmological Principle for more info on that topic.
White Shogun said:
Depends on the situation. Many people commit suicide because life for them has become untenable.Aresuicide bombers crazy? Many Islamic suicide bombers apparentlly have made their decisions based on future rewards to be gained in the here after. I'm sure they would feel they were very rational.To gain eternal joy, virgins, and the whole nine yards, in exchange for their perceived life of misery. seems rational to them, I'm sure. To me, they have offed themselves for a promise which cannot be verified in any way. But they make the decision based primarily on faith that thieir prophets and scriptures are true. I'm probably missing your point, but what the heck. Edited by: Bart
White Shogun
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I kinda figured that argument re: suicide bombers would come up. I used the qualifier (most) because I know -some- people do not want to live on and just want to check out of this existence. I haven't taken a poll or anything, but it seems throughout history that most people have wanted to believe that their consciousness will continue to exist after this life.
Just my opinion though, not trying to convert anybody. I don't really have a dog in the hunt, so to speak, because I feel that most of it is mere speculation anyway. Including the science.
Just my opinion though, not trying to convert anybody. I don't really have a dog in the hunt, so to speak, because I feel that most of it is mere speculation anyway. Including the science.
Don Wassall said:
Years ago, I watched a video of a creationist trying to debunk the idea of the evolution of the eye. It was quite interesting. He was very persuasive, but I am not a noted scientist. Anyway, if one studies the mechanisms and everything involved in seeing, one would be amazed. It is so incredibly complex. Surely, there must besome type ofsuperior intelligence behing the process Call it God, nature, the universe, or whatever.
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jaxvid said:
these are excellent points.
the problem, however, is that evolution isn't taught with the restrictions inherent in both jaxvid's post, nor with the limitations Darwin himself espoused.
Darwin presented his theory (and the word THEORY is important) as what is now technically classified as "micro-evolution." the evolution of a species into a more highly specialized version of itself. for example, under environmental pressure or changed conditions of some sort, cheetahs might become faster, giraffes become taller, elephants on an island grow smaller, and so forth. or to use his actual examples, a finch might develop a different beak to make use of an abundant food source, or a tortoise might grow incredibly large in the absence of predators. there is plentiful, and worldwide, evidence that indicates this theory is accurate. i don't think i need to offer any, but if i do then i will in a later post.
but Darwin's theory is not taught in this manner today.
two problems regarding evolution crop up as it is presented in our "modern" world. 1) rather than micro-evolution, macro-evolution is taught. macro-evolution, for those unfamiliar with the term, is the idea that bacteria eventually become fish which evolve into dinosaurs which eventually turn into little furry critters that turn into monkeys which evolve into humans (you get the idea). and 2) it is presented as proven fact rather than a highly credible theory.
the tremendously abundant, and obvious, number of problems with macro-evolution are so pronounced that the only way to combat serious debate about them is to not allow any such debate. (much like the man-made golbal warming nonsense.) Darwin certainly espoused no such notion. i can offer plenty of examples of this as well, if anyone deems them necessary.
the "religion" of macro-evolution, and all its inherent shortcomings, are likely why the notion of evolution as described by Darwin (a deeply religious man himself, as was mentioned earlier) is so challenged by the religious right, and many scientists without religious funding.
Don Wassall said:
this is an excellent point.
as i said in my initial post, which seems to have been mostly ignored (at least it hasn't been much debated, and you guys are a tough, thoughtful crowd), whether the "god" that created the universe is one mentioned in a religious text or not, if the Big Bang theory has any validity whatsoever, "something" must have started it/made it happen.
this "something," in its loosest sense, could certainly be called a god.
and if the Big Bang theory isn't valid, then it would seem that the notion of time (at least as we understand it) is very different than we've taken it to be. for something, anything, to not have a beginning would fly in the face of most "scientific" and perhaps even logical (though i'm certainly no philosopher) thought.
I remember studying the Big Bang theory in a college physics class and there are two philosophies out there. One is the theory that everyone is familar with that has already been discussed (marble size matter exploding). The other theory is that the universe expands and contracts in cycles. The universe will expand to a given point and then all matter will contract back to one mass, explode, and then expand again. In this form of the theory, time has no beginning or end and the universe continues these cycles forever. It doesn't explain how the matter was created, but I thought that it was interesting for this topic.
White_Savage
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I use John 3:16 as a concise and well-known alternative to turning into fertilizer after you die. "You will be carried across a bridge of swords by in the arms of a gorgeous Valkyrie" is another option far more appealing than anything the militant atheist offers.
I also don't find militant atheists drubbing up a laundry list of every bad thing that has been done in the name of religion a very convincing argument as to why we should throw it out entire. Communism is but the most noticeable example of how human beings will find ways to be jackasses even without religion.
I also don't find militant atheists drubbing up a laundry list of every bad thing that has been done in the name of religion a very convincing argument as to why we should throw it out entire. Communism is but the most noticeable example of how human beings will find ways to be jackasses even without religion.
Don Wassall said:
I read a little bit of physics. I understand most people do not and so are unaware of certain phenomenon that are actually quite common. I have excerpted some information for your reading displeasure below.
Your argument: "If the universe arose out of a big bang, it must have had a beginning. If it had a beginning, it must have a beginner." This is the Traditional First-Cause Argument.
The problems with the traditional first-cause or cosmological argument for the existence of god are legion. The traditional first-cause argument rests on the assumption that everything has a cause. Since nothing can cause itself, and since the string of causes can't be infinitely long, there must be a first cause, namely, god. This argument received its classic formulation at the bands of the great Roman Catholic philosopher, Thomas Aquinas.
To sum it up:
1. Everything is caused by something other than itself
2. Therefore the universe was caused by something other than itself.
3. The string of causes cannot be infinitely long.
4. If the string of causes cannot be infinitely long, there must be a first cause.
5. Therefore, there must be a first cause, namely god.
The most telling criticism of this argument is that it is self-refuting. If everything has a cause other than itself, then god must have a cause other than himself. But if god has a cause other than himself, he cannot be the first cause. So if the first premise is true, the conclusion must be false.
To save the argument, the first premise could be amended to read:
1'. Everything except god has a cause other than itself.
But if we're willing to admit the existence of uncaused things, why not just admit that the universe is uncaused and cut out the middleman?
The simplest way to avoid an infinite regress is to stop it before it starts. If we assume that the universe has always existed, we don't need to identify its cause.
Even if the universe is not eternal (as the big bang suggests), the arguement is still unacceptable because modern physics has shown that some things are uncaused. According to quantum mechanics, subatomic particles like electrons, photons, and positrons come into and go out of existence randomly (but in accord with the Heisenberg uncertainty principles).
Quantum electrodynamics reveals that an electron, positron, and photon occasionally emerge spontaneously in a perfect vacuum. When this happens, the three particles exist for a brief time, and then annihilate each other, leaving no trace behind. (Energy conservation is violated, but only for a particle lifetime Dt permitted by the uncertainty DtDE~h where DE is the net energy of the particles and h is Planck's constant.) The spontaneous, temporary emergence of particles from a vacuum is called a vacuum fluctuation, and is utterly commonplace in quantum field theory.
A particle produced by a vacuum fluctuation has no cause. Since vacuum fluctuations are commonplace, god cannot be the only thing that is uncaused.
Premise 1, in either its original or its amended version, is unacceptable. But even if it could be salvaged, the argument would still not go through because premise 3 is false. An infinitely long causal chain is not a logical impossibility. Most of us have no trouble conceiving of the universe existing infinitely into the future. Similarly we should have no trouble conceiving of it existing infinitely into the past. Aquinas's view that there must be a first cause rests on the mistaken notion that an infinite series of causes is just a very long finite one.
In an infinite causal chain, however, there is no first cause. Aquinas took this to mean that an infinite causal chain is missing something. But it is a mistake to think that anything Is missing from an infinite causal chain. Even though an infinite causal chain has no first cause, there is no event that doesn't have a cause. Similarly, even though the set of real numbers has no first member, there is no number that doesn't have a predecessor. Logic doesn't demand a first cause anymore than it demands a first number.
This has never been experimentally observed. Because of the the nature of measuring instruments, it perhaps is not possible to experimentally observe this. It is a mathematical INTERPRETATION of observations, which may or may not have any correspondence with physical reality. There have been other attempts at explaining the same observational data in different ways.jaxvid said:
Faulty logic and bad example. Your example using the set of real numbers indeed has a dependency on an entity without which it would not exist: in this case, the human mind. If there was no intelligence in the universe, the set of real numbers would not have a separate existence. It is also a kind of created thing, although it is not physical.Edited by: Observerjaxvid said:
Jax, I never said the universe had a "beginner." If there was a "beginner" then the universe already was and didn't have to be "begun."I never said it was God, though that is certainly possible. The "spark" or force that created or allowed the first atom to come into existence was "something" nota complete vacuum.
One of the problems with trying to explain the unexplainable is that time is a man-made construct used to help us make sense of things. It may be that the universe always existed because there is no such thing as "time" that applies to it.
Science is the attempt to explain the physical world by using the human senses and the gadgets we invent to look at the world. Anything that humans and their gadgets can't see or sense -- mind, spirit, consciousness -- is categorized as "religious" and irrational.
My guess is that the universe is a combination of the physical and the spiritual. The spiritual may be in part or wholly responsible for the physical andthe laws governing physical existence.
I doubt that we humans and our very limitedsenses and gadgets know one one-millionth of the secrets of life and the universe. A thousand years ago we probably knew one ten-millionth, so we're making progress.
Science has to Explain Things, which is why theories are presented as facts and those who disagree are called negative things, much as racially aware whites are branded negatively. Science and technology is used by Power to deceive and manipulate; we are told lies constantly that are supposedly backed by scientific fact, the "all races are equal" blather being a pertinent example.
A college class onbasic sciencewould not use a textbook written 400 years ago; the material contained therein would be laughable even though at the time it was presented as "fact." In the year 2408, today's scientific knowledge will be just as laughable in how wrong and primitive it is.
Quantum physics is moving in very interesting ways, including ideasattempting to explainthe relation between matter, energy and thought.
My hope is that our great race survives, because we will figure it all out eventually, or at least as much as we're allowed to know.
One of the problems with trying to explain the unexplainable is that time is a man-made construct used to help us make sense of things. It may be that the universe always existed because there is no such thing as "time" that applies to it.
Science is the attempt to explain the physical world by using the human senses and the gadgets we invent to look at the world. Anything that humans and their gadgets can't see or sense -- mind, spirit, consciousness -- is categorized as "religious" and irrational.
My guess is that the universe is a combination of the physical and the spiritual. The spiritual may be in part or wholly responsible for the physical andthe laws governing physical existence.
I doubt that we humans and our very limitedsenses and gadgets know one one-millionth of the secrets of life and the universe. A thousand years ago we probably knew one ten-millionth, so we're making progress.
Science has to Explain Things, which is why theories are presented as facts and those who disagree are called negative things, much as racially aware whites are branded negatively. Science and technology is used by Power to deceive and manipulate; we are told lies constantly that are supposedly backed by scientific fact, the "all races are equal" blather being a pertinent example.
A college class onbasic sciencewould not use a textbook written 400 years ago; the material contained therein would be laughable even though at the time it was presented as "fact." In the year 2408, today's scientific knowledge will be just as laughable in how wrong and primitive it is.
Quantum physics is moving in very interesting ways, including ideasattempting to explainthe relation between matter, energy and thought.
My hope is that our great race survives, because we will figure it all out eventually, or at least as much as we're allowed to know.
White Shogun
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jaxvid said:
Why should we do that?
I feel that science (and theologians) draw conclusions from insufficient data to say unequivocally that A means B.
For example, proving that the universe has always existed does not mean there is not a being that would be, to us, 'God.'
Second, even by postulating that even God must need a creator doesn't mean there is no God, either. It pushes the question further back but does not 'resolve' whether there is a God or not.
Just seems too much assertion and speculation and not enough humility to go around (not this board; science and theology. Lots of arrogant SOB's in both fields.)