So we Live in a Black Hole...

[1yR4jE8b]

It's just a decent attempt at guessing...

Um. No. We don't "guess". We perform verifiable, repeatable experiments that give us objective data about certain aspects of the nature of reality. We gather up as many of those related facts as we can, group them up and call that a "Scientific Theory". Not to be confused with "yo man, I'm so drunk and I came up with this theory". That would be what we call a hypothesis in science.

If you believe it believe it, then it's not that different from religion in a way.

Except the big bang has evidence, experiments, journals peer-reviewed by hundreds of people all backing up the claims. The bible has no evidence whatsoever to demonstrate that it is accurate.

Just there is no actual proof.

Funny how you don't apply that logic to your own religion. There's no actual proof that the Bible is actually true, so why should we believe it? Faith is not proof. Faith is by definition choosing to believe in something when there is no evidence/proof.

The people that performed the experiments about the big bang theory, etc. may have come up with something that makes sense doesn't make it true.

That's not how science works. When you do the experiment, that tells you something objectively verifiable about the nature of reality. When you do that experiment over and over again, yes we can say within a degree of certainty that it is verified to be true.

When I drop a ball, it falls to the ground. If I do it over and over again, the same thing happens because the laws of physics do not change. We can model that effect using mathematics, and that gives us a way to predict how objects will work in nearly all situations on this scale. We call that effect "gravity". Would you argue against the existence of gravity?

When it comes to the big bang, it's very much the same. Hubble observed the expansion of space. We worked the math backwards to show that at one time, everything was condensed into the singularity. We can verify the math, because we can use that same math to predict the red and blue shift of moving objects. We have also observed the cosmic microwave background radition (which is radiation which was created during the big bang and still exists today), this radiation is also consistent with Hubble's observations and red/blue shift. There's a lot more corroborating evidence, I suggest you start with the wikipedia article and read the associated papers on the citations at the bottom.

George LeMaitre was the scientist that deduced the big bang theory. He was also a catholic priest. I don't believe it conflicted his faith all that much, and it shouldn't: what if the big bang was the method that God used to create the Universe? All genesis really says about cosmology is that he basically "created the heavens and the earth"...well...how? Maybe he used the big bang?

EDIT:

That is what the Bible says, so we know it is true.

How?

[Paoletti301]

That is what the Bible says, so we know it is true

why is your holy document the one thats true

[jwkNwA7f]

That's not how science works. When you do the experiment, that tells you something objectively verifiable about the nature of reality. When you do that experiment over and over again, yes we can say within a degree of certainty that it is verified to be true.

At one time science proved many things and then people noticed or discovered something that was contradictory to what they knew before. Also, I just read that in science today (BTW, not s Christian science book).

When I drop a ball, it falls to the ground. If I do it over and over again, the same thing happens because the laws of physics do not change. We can model that effect using mathematics, and that gives us a way to predict how objects will work in nearly all situations on this scale. We call that effect "gravity". Would you argue against the existence of gravity?

No I am not arguing with that.

George LeMaitre was the scientist that deduced the big bang theory. He was also a catholic priest. I don't believe it conflicted his faith all that much, and it shouldn't: what if the big bang was the method that God used to create the Universe? All genesis really says about cosmology is that he basically "created the heavens and the earth"...well...how? Maybe he used the big bang?

God said what he did for each "day" (eg. Created plants on one day light on another, etc.) He did not say how long a day was, though. So I really don't think the big bang theory could be true based on that.

[1yR4jE8b]

No I am not arguing with that.

I didn't say you were. I was giving you a smaller example, to illustrate the methods we use to come to the big example.

He did not say how long a day was, though. So I really don't think the big bang theory could be true based on that.

What if a "god day" is nearly 2 billion years? With a timeline like that, the creation story is actually a bit more accurate. What if God was like, "Yo, Imma make a Universe. Let me just use this big bang!" and *poof* there it was. Just like science says. Being able to describe the specific mechanisms of how that creation happened is way more interesting than "god created the heavens and the earth"; and they don't need to be in conflict.

How do you know what the bible says is true? What metric do you use to gauge it's accuracy?

[htirwin]

Except the big bang has evidence, experiments, journals peer-reviewed by hundreds of people all backing up the claims. The bible has no evidence whatsoever to demonstrate that it is accurate.

You're missing my point. Yes it is a theory, and theories are not claims of fact, and they are liable to be replaced by better theories. For example, aether theories prevailed before special relativity.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aether_theories

[jwkNwA7f]

How?

Mostly, faith (I know this will get a lot of shots at it). There is some proof. Also, when you pray for somethings (I have had this happen many times) where I will pray for something and almost immediately afterwards it is answered. There was actually one time where I kinda had a feeling that I need to pray for my grandpa at 11:23am (just happened to have happened to look at the clock). After school I was told that my grandpa was hit by an 18 wheeler head on at about 11:30am. He did later get out of the hospital 2 months later. The doctors said he would never be able to talk, hear, etc. They also said he wouldn't be able to walk with out a wheelchair for about 9 months, he started walking 1 month after he got out of the wheel chair. Many people prayed for him and he was heeled. I think that is enough proof right there.

[htirwin]

There not just claims. That is what the Bible says, so we know it is true.

You believe it is true on faith. There are millions of people who would say the same thing about contradictory beliefs and other books. What you have is ink on paper, nothing magical.

[jwkNwA7f]

@htirwin Read my above post.

Edit: I am going to have to have to stop posting for today (I have to go to bed) :(

[timprograms]

About the long day creation theory it is stupid if you know hebrew you can figure out it is 24 hours

[htirwin]

Even when I have felt that some sort of mystical or spiritual force had influenced physical reality, or that there is a deeper meaning to life than the obvious, I was never so bold as to expect to know exactly what it was.

What is the difference between one religion and another from which you can be certain which is correct? Maybe both of them condemn contradictory belief? Do you either guess which one, and hold onto your faith, hoping you are correct, or you are just taught from birth when you are impressionable?

Why would a god expect you to make such an irrational decision as to have blind faith?

If you want to be on the good side of whatever supernatural force that might exist, wouldn't it be most prudent to just do what you feel is the right thing, without simply being told what is the right thing from one of many claimed authorities on the supernatural world?

[1yR4jE8b]

They also said he wouldn't be able to walk with out a wheelchair for about 9 months, he started walking 1 month after he got out of the wheel chair. Many people prayed for him and he was heeled. I think that is enough proof right there.

Bruce Lee was paralyzed and was told he would never walk again. He also, regained the ability to walk. Bruce Lee was an atheist (and is apparently being tortured in hell eternally as we speak). People make these seemingly "miraculous" recoveries all the time -- with or without prayer. That's evidence that the human body is extremely good at reparing itself, not that a magical Jew was crucified for our sins 2000 years ago.

I kinda had a feeling that I need to pray for my grandpa at 11:23am. After school I was told that my grandpa was hit by an 18 wheeler head on at about 11:30am.

God must have a pretty sick sense of humor then.

Mostly, faith

Faith, by definition, means believing something without proof. I find it funny when people say science is wrong because it doesn't have proof (even though we have mountains of evidence), but their entire belief system is based on believing things without proof.

[helios]

Wow. Talk about thread derailment.

[Superdude]

Faith

- Our belief in Christianity is based on our faith and evidence ^{See the evidences heading.} pointing towards a Creator and intelligent design.


- Your belief in evolution/Big Bang and all that it entails is based on evidence ^{Again see the evidences heading.} and faith that that is what happened.

Bible vs. Evolution

- According to the Bible, the Bible is the infallible Word of God. It was written by many authors, who were all inspired by God. The Creation account explains that God created the universe in six twenty-four hour days.


- According to evolution, the earth, and life, evolved over time. This took billions of years, and eventually, it came to be what we see now. This is said to be correct by the some of the leading scientists today.

Evidences

- Origin of the universe:
No man was there to witness the event, so we must make educated guesses, or believe the Biblical account.
Something cannot come from nothing! You can put nothing in a sterile container all you like, and "something" will not appear.

The only other explanation is that there was almighty, eternal being who created the universe.

-Origin of life:
Life cannot come from non-life. This is something that evolution cannot explain. Many people have produced/found amino acids, basic building blocks of proteins, etc. But nothing close to life has ever been made without life being coming first. Besides, if anyone were to create life, it would still be from life. Humans made it.

- Fossil record:
http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/tj/v14/n1/fossil
Don't say that these guys have an agenda and that
they are biased; so are the guys at http://www.atheismresource.com/

I'm done!

[Disch]

@ disch:http://www.frc.org/?i=IS01B1 (This is one proof that it is not natural)

That article links all sorts of things to homosexuality that are based in fiction and/or correlation (and not causation). Things like promiscuity and unprotected sex.

Yes... being promiscuous and having unprotected sex increases your risk of contracting STDs.
No... being gay does not increase your chance of being promiscuous.

Yes... anal sex is more dangerous than other forms of sexual activity.
No... anal sex is not strictly a homosexual act. Nor do homosexuals engage solely in anal sex.

A lot of this could be attributed to the fact that we do not teach homosexual behavior in sex ed classes. And/or we teach "abstinence only" education (another wonderful example of religious influence spreading ignorance) rather than teaching actual safe sex practices.

It also does a nice trick of spouting off homosexual statistics without pairing them with comparable heterosexual statistics as a control. I wouldn't be at all surprised if there were a comparable level of promiscuity and infidelity among heterosexual couples.

Also... nothing I read in that article suggests it's "unnatural" as you paraphrased. The only definition for "unnatural" is meaning "does not exist in nature". Since there are many cases of it clearly existing in nature, it is clearly natural by the only definition of the word.


Though this is a tangent point that I don't care about... so I will even concede that engaging in unsafe homosexual activity will pose a greater risk than engaging in unsafe heterosexual activity.

Even conceding that... what does that have to do with whether or not they should be allowed to marry? All that tells me is we should increase education on the subject to encourage people to be safer about sex.

But talk about a tangent point.

For all you know, the carbon dating thing is messed up.

No, it actually isn't. But I'll give you a chance to explain why you think it is. Please do.

http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/shroder/040221

From that article:
"So if you're newly diagnosed with HIV, and you don't have health insurance, what can you do?

You get married. BOOM. Medical benefits."

That's not speaking out against gay marriage... it's speaking out against marriage in general. Since all the same arguments that article makes against gay marriage apply equally well to heterosexual marriage.

The other articles you linked are similar, and all seem to say the same things in different ways, so I'll stop there.

cppprogrammer wrote:

Edit: How do you know carbon dating is correct? Were you there or do you know of anybody who was? I can answer this question: No

For starters, carbon dating can only date back to ~50,000 years or so, at which point all of the C14 would have decayed. Dating older artifacts typically involves Radiometric dating:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiometric_dating

Secondly... the principles behind these practices are observable. We can visually observe C14 and radioactive decay over time. It's been witnessed and measured by several independent parties. So the logic behind it is sound.

From there it's just extrapolating the technique, which is generally not difficult to do.


So yeah.... carbon/radiometric/etc dating methods are for reals. They didn't just make that stuff up. The burden of proof has been met.

htirwin wrote:

The difference, is that there was never a claim that it was true; this is the common misconception, that modern cosmology is a bunch of statements of fact.

Exactly. The key word here is "theory". Theories are theories, they are not facts. They are possible explanations, but are unproven.

This was kind of my original point. Science tries to explain but accepts that it might be wrong and is constantly trying to correct itself. Conversely, religiosity speaks in absolute truths and claims to be infallible.

When you claim to have the "one true" answer to any question.. even when that answer is incorrect... then people not only stop looking for the answer, but they actively refuse to entertain other possible answers. That's what I mean by perpetuating ignorance.

cppprogrammer wrote:

Many people prayed for him and he was heeled. I think that is enough proof right there.

Fortunately, science has a much stricter burden of proof. A one time correlation is not enough for science to accept something as proven. The effect has to be reliably repeatable.. and anybody must be able to independently reproduce and observe the phenomenon and obtain the same results.

What about all the times you prayed for something and your prayers didn't come true? Do you just not count those times? In science, those would be examples of how the results could not be repeated, and therefore the claim would be rejected.

With that in mind... knowing that science has a much stricter burden of proof than faith... that things have to really be proven with a high standard of evidence before they are entertained.... why are you so hesitant to accept scientific findings like evolution? They adhere to a stricter standard of evidence, so they exceed or at least meet the same burden of proof you place on your religious beliefs.

I submit the reason why is because you're ignorant about evolution. That you really don't know just how much evidence there is to support it (which is actually quite a lot). That you choose not to (or refuse to) educate yourself on the subject because you are content in your ignorance.

This willful ignorance is exactly what I have been talking about for the last 8 or so pages of this thread. Religiosity imposes this mentality on people which drives them to deprive themselves of education. That discourages them from asking questions and seeking broader understandings. And in extreme cases even forbids them from accepting things which have been long proven to be true.

helios wrote:

http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/tj/v14/n1/fossil
Don't say that these guys have an agenda and that
they are biased; so are the guys at http://www.atheismresource.com/

I don't trust atheist claims any more than I trust religious claims.

Anyone claiming to know something as fact which cannot possibly be proven is merely filling in the gaps of the unknown with their opinion/religious doctrine.

My goal is to get people to stop doing that. To get them to accept that sometimes, the right answer is "I don't know", and that the right course of action is to find out for yourself rather than accept an arbitrary explanation at face value.

Ignorance isn't a bad thing as long as you are aware of it. It's when you think you aren't ignorant is when it gets you in trouble.





On a side note... Did we ever clear up the contradiction in Genesis that cire mentioned?

[S6k9GNh0]

I don't understand why people believe that they know the only explanation. Whenever an alternative explanation is presented, they seem to ignore it and still claim that their belief is the only true explanation. I think that is called "blind faith".

There are explanations that life can come from non-life. But it's not the easiest thing to present evidence of. That doesn't mean it's not possible.

Even in the case that there is an eternal being that created the universe, do you seriously believe that he interacts with us? Do you actually believe that such a being would kill us based on fallacious tests of faith?

You cannot truly cite anything that hasn't been journalized and peer reviewed. While even then, things can still be quite abstract and non-understanding. That doesn't remove the validity, it only adds ignorance into the equation.

To admit ones own ignorance is a sign of growth. i.e. I don't admit that I know everything about programming because if I did, I would then have no reason to learn more. But then to say words like "only" is quite limiting in and of itself. Do you truly know whether that is the only explanation? You seem to know the only possibility in a universe of unknown possibilities. I seriously don't believe that even within human grasp as of yet.

Alas, I have a feeling that even if abiogenesis was provided with solid evidence, people who follow a religious text would still distort their views to either accept it or to somehow try to disclaim the evidence.

Please note that this post is agnostic in all means and follows only a logical point of view.

[Disch]

Also did anyone watch that Neil Degrasse Tyson video? Seriously... it's only like a half hour long, and it's completely captivating.

Here's the link again. Seriously... please watch it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1te01rfEF0g

He has a way with words that I envy.

[cire]

superdude wrote:

According to the Bible, the Bible is the infallible Word of God.

The bible says no such thing about itself, and if it did that would be mighty suspicious. Would you care to specify chapter and verse?

superdude wrote:

According to evolution, the earth, and life, evolved over time.

Evolution has nothing to do with the earth, except inasmuch as the life we know about resides on it. Furthermore, it is not an attempt to explain or a theory about the origin of life.

superdude wrote:

No man was there to witness the event, so we must make educated guesses, or believe the Biblical account.Something cannot come from nothing! You can put nothing in a sterile container all you like, and "something" will not appear.

We can put an empty container somewhere and monitor it for evidence of god all you like, that evidence will not appear. Saying unprovable things... proves nothing.

superdude wrote:

The only other explanation is that there was almighty, eternal being who created the universe.

There are actually quite a few competing theories as to the origin of the universe. The Big Bang and creationist theories just happen to be the most popular. Even were there no other theories, that doesn't mean an alternative unknown to us couldn't have happened. Life is but a dream.

superdude wrote:

Besides, if anyone were to create life, it would still be from life. Humans made it.

So, if life were created by life it would be created by life. It's a lovely circular argument. Doesn't prove anything except that you're able to commit logical fallacies.

[Script Coder]

Wow, leave for 8 hours and this thread is still going on.

@Disch
Regarding dating techniques, maybe God could have put "older" rocks on earth so as to reduce radiation, thus helping ensure our survival?

This willful ignorance is exactly what I have been talking about for the last 8 or so pages of this thread. Religiosity imposes this mentality on people which drives them to deprive themselves of education. That discourages them from asking questions and seeking broader understandings. And in extreme cases even forbids them from accepting things which have been long proven to be true.

As I have said before, please do not generalise. Secondly, the only reason I accept Christ to be my Lord and Savior is because I can see no other logical explanation. Please I urge you to question my logical understanding if you believe that we are all ignorant. And if push comes to shove and I am wrong, I will admit it.

As for your video, I do not have that kind of cap at the moment, sorry.

[Disch]

As I have said before, please do not generalise.

I am trying very hard not to speak in absolutes, but I stand by what I said in that text you quoted.

The youtube video I linked shows how some of the greatest scientific minds in history have been stifled by religiosity. That doesn't mean religiosity must perpetuate ignorance.... only that it tends to.

Secondly, the only reason I accept Christ to be my Lord and Savior is because I can see no other logical explanation.

Nowhere in this thread have I questioned anyone's belief in God.

I am merely questioning their refusal to accept scientific discoveries.

The two are not mutually exclusive, as the youtube video also explains (seriously... watch it)

[S6k9GNh0]

So because you don't see a possible theory, you believe that there isn't one? Isn't this just the railroad of ignorance? That's a lot like saying, "I don't think I can do this in C++" and then someone proving me wrong literally the next day just for the sake of proving me wrong.

There are theories, you cannot ignore them and then claim that you don't see any logical explanations. You must refute each one before claiming that.