Ye Religion Thread

[QuakeDuke]

i don't really have a problem with being dead. it didn't bother me for billions of years before 1988.

How do you know you didn't have a problem with it? The whole concept of a "pre-life" (which would be necessary to have died) opens up the necessity of an "after-life" of some sort. 

Yeahbut...  
I thought that was kind of axiomatic?  For example: would you agree it's impossible to know the entire Universe as we understand it wasn't just created 30 seconds ago?  How would we know?

Well, using the reasoning I've been trying to following in this thread, it's impossible for the entire Universe as we understand it to have been created just 30 seconds ago because of all the hard (fossils etc) evidence that points to the contrary To say all this evidence could be done "naturally" in the last 30 seconds and be shown to be millions/billions/trillions of years old doesn't meet (and I emphasis current) current scientific methods...

i am enjoying the irony behind these two statements. you pick and choose what you like instead of what is most reasonable. a religious person picking and choosing what they like? NEVAR!
DHG

I see. Ok.. and this would differ how from a "non-religious" person picking and choosing what they like instead of what (to others) might be more reasonable?
Actually, I thought it was pretty clear, but hey, what do I know?

QD

[reaper]

modern science shows there isn't this 'need' you think there is for a god

i believe they haven't shown that yet, from what i gather they have done one observable test - i consider the point they're at pure speculation

i don't want to forumlate a theory how there is a need for a god - within certain modern hypothesis that show the universe could be around forever, becuase the hypothesis hasn 't gone through enough testing yet
i bet it will change a lot, or be disproved
i think we are talking about the imaginary time theories, where the universe is aroundforever

[DaHanG]

I see. Ok.. and this would differ how from a "non-religious" person picking and choosing what they like instead of what (to others) might be more reasonable?

lets see how it would differ...hmmm.

non-religious people (i would think) do NOT believe in some sort of pre-life before conception?

[reaper]

non-religious people (i would think) do NOT believe in some sort of pre-life before conception?

non religious people really don't believe in anything.

[DaHanG]

non-religious people (i would think) do NOT believe in some sort of pre-life before conception?

non religious people really don't believe in anything.  maybe they pick and chose things reasonably, but they're only picking from things we "know" because of  the scientific process.

what a crime! i mean, if i'm going to believe in something it must be silly and baseless 

it's much easier to believe matter/energy existed forever, than a god existed forever outside of "time"

your above quotation is jumping to a lot of conclusions, that's not much different than a religous person choosing what they want to believe. 

....? of course religious and non religious people reach their own conclusions on what they do/don't believe.  the difference, for example, can be believing something with no evidence (such as life before conception) and believing the earth is more than 6,000 years old. one uses reason/evidence, the other is speculation that a 3 year old with a wild imagination could conclude. just because both are picking and choosing doesn't mean there aren't fundamental differences between religious/non-religious thinking. 

[reaper]

what a crime! i mean, if i'm going to believe in something it must be silly and baseless

that would seem to imply religion is silly and baseless - which it isn't.

[DaHanG]

what a crime! i mean, if i'm going to believe in something it must be silly and baseless

that would seem to imply religion is silly and baseless - which it isn't.  it's your opionion though and i'm not gonna knock it

i wasn't talking about religion, even though there are elements that are silly and baseless (to put it mildly). i was talking about belief in life before conception...it's like :WHAT?:

one uses reason/evidence, the other is speculation that a 3 year old with a wild imagination could conclude. just because both are picking and choosing doesn't mean there aren't fundamental differences between religious/non-religious thinking. 

in general religious people believe in god.  i'm sure many of them use reason to believe in a god.  also, there's no evidence(to me) that would make it unreasonable to believe in god.  and yes, i do think the big bang theory supports religion, because it's not probable the initial stages of the big bang formulate a universe that supports life

as far as some ideas (hypothesis) out there that say the universe could of been around forever; that's speculation.  either way  it's not making it unreasonable (by any means) to believe in a god.
you can knock someone believing in god - but don't say believing in the universe being around forever, and there is no need for a god is anymore rational(at this point in time).

once again, i was not talking about belief in god in particular, i was picking on the idea of life before conception. you're just completely off on a tangent. 

[deft]

how are any forms of intelligent life such a lottery win?  The universe is billions of years old, with billions of galaxies, and billions of planets and stars within each galaxy..probability is favored for life, we (intelligent life) have found non-intelligent life in the VERY small fraction of the universe we know. 

[reaper]

how are any forms of intelligent life such a lottery win?  The universe is billions of years old, with billions of galaxies, and billions of planets and stars within each galaxy..probability is favored for life, we (intelligent life) have found non-intelligent life in the VERY small fraction of the universe we know.

yeah probability is favored for life in the universe now, at the start it was not (according to the big bang theory).

"The lawlessness of the singularity entails that it 'would thus emit all [possible] configurations of particles with equal probability'
Indeed, the singularity and the symmetry-breaking stages occurring shortly after the big bang, where the particles and forces acquired their specific masses and strengths, had an extremely low probability of occurring in a way that leads to an animate universe.
"

[reaper]

in any event, i looked at the chapter discussing the big bang in "a brief history of time"  and all the theories about the start of the big bang show it's chance that it forms a universe capable of intellegent life.  also the only way to have more than one big bang, doesn't fit into the science we know.  and the only proposal to make that work is a fairy vague idea by the guy in a wheelchair - so there could be an infinite amount of big bangs.

[DaHanG]

how are any forms of intelligent life such a lottery win?  The universe is billions of years old, with billions of galaxies, and billions of planets and stars within each galaxy..probability is favored for life, we (intelligent life) have found non-intelligent life in the VERY small fraction of the universe we know.

yeah probability is favored for life in the universe now, at the start it was not (according to the big bang theory).

"The lawlessness of the singularity entails that it 'would thus emit all [possible] configurations of particles with equal probability'
Indeed, the singularity and the symmetry-breaking stages occurring shortly after the big bang, where the particles and forces acquired their specific masses and strengths, had an extremely low probability of occurring in a way that leads to an animate universe."

is it me or did you interpret that completely backwards? "would thus emit all [possible] configurations of particles with equal probability". if every configuration is equally probable, then there is no individual configuration that is more unlikely than the next. going along with this thinking, doesn't this imply there are an infinite number of configurations possible from this big bang? who's to say only one (or very few) configuration(s) out of infinity is to support life? even if i am misinterpreting the concept, who cares if it was improbable?

i believe in a god, and was noting that accepted science now would imply a god - or it least imply we are pretty "lucky" (if the big bang theory is correct as it stands)

this is one of many recent posts where your focus is on the big bang and how the improbability of life implies a god. i would like to point out that evolution is "accepted science". through evolution we learn that as we go back in time, things are simpler and more simpler. things increase in complexity with time. this should at the very least raise our consiousness to the probability (from a scientific point of view) that the beginning of the universe was more simple than complicated - god intervening would be VERY complicated rather than a spontaneous, natural singularity. anyways...i am looking at the page you got your information from - (googled "The lawlessness of the singularity entails that it...etc"). when we continue to read further we see:

1) "Since big bang cosmology implies that the initial state is instead a lawless singularity, big bang cosmology disconfirms the theistic hypothesis."
2) "The hypothesis that God creates a universe also does not lead us to expect that there is a big bang singularity (for there are an infinite number of different ways God could begin a universe and there are infinitely many possible beginningless universes that God could create)."
3) "...the new atheistic hypothesis about the simplest beginning implies that big bang cosmology confirms atheism to a higher degree than it confirms theism"

there is a lot of good information on this page, and ultimately it's clear that the big bang is an atheistic theory - unless, of course, we bend the rules for better personal understanding.

check for yourself: http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/quentin_smith/simplicity.html

[reaper]

is it me or did you interpret that completely backwards? "would thus emit all [possible] configurations of particles with equal probability". if every configuration is equally probable, then there is no individual configuration that is more unlikely than the next. going along with this thinking, doesn't this imply there are an infinite number of configurations possible from this big bang? who's to say only one (or very few) configuration(s) out of infinity is to support life? even if i am misinterpreting the concept, who cares if it was improbable?

i don't care if it was improbable to produce a life sustaining universe from the big bang.

[deft]

If god exists who created him or where did he come from?

[DaHanG]

the article in your link says that "had an extremely low probability of occurring in a way that leads to an animate universe."  who is the authority on this matter

clearly we have a universe, so if it happened, we did get lucky. i don't think many atheists will deny that life is a special thing. i just don't understand how you can be so conclusive "oh life was improbable so i believe in god" (while failing to mention how more improbable god is). you say the big bang encourages theism, but you avoided addressing these two quotes i pulled from the page you were reading off.

1) "Since big bang cosmology implies that the initial state is instead a lawless singularity, big bang cosmology disconfirms the theistic hypothesis."
3) "...the new atheistic hypothesis about the simplest beginning implies that big bang cosmology confirms atheism to a higher degree than it confirms theism"

i'm curious, why haven't you addressed this? perhaps because, like i said, you're bending the rules for better personal understanding.

[reaper]

If god exists who created him or where did he come from?

of course i have no idea, but my belief is it's likley there is a god (for many philosophical reasons mostly)