In the Beginning – Questions?
Offline Hey everyone – I’m new to this site. Been viewing posts for a few days and thought I might as well join in the great discussions.
First – I consider myself a theist. However, I would say that I have more questions than answers. (just thought I’d get that out of the way)
Question - It appears to me that the Big Bang theory would require more faith than the creation of this world by a supernatural being. Maybe I do not fully understand the theory, but biased on my knowledge we must believe (have faith) that by random chance matter (the universe, the earth, the ability of the earth to support life, and some living creature) was all of a sudden, BANG, there. It seems to me that this flies completely in the face of both the first and second law of thermodynamics. It seems to me to be unscientific. It seems to me that this theory would require just as much, if not more, supernatural ability as creation, therefore requiring faith. This theory seems to be lacking some scientific explanation or belief in the supernatural.
On the other hand, all one must do is: 1. Believe in God and 2. Believe that this God created the universe (everything after its kind) and all existence seems to make sense. This seems to me to be easier to believe. It’s explanation is complete with the belief in supernatural.
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Nah. Faith is belief in something despite evidence to the contrary or a complete lack of evidence. There are TONS of evidence for the big bang.
If you mean that there's faith involved in believing what caused the big bang, it's still not true. Our theories for what caused the big bang are based on really, really, really advanced mathematics that derive from deductive certainty. We don't know for certain that any of them is true, but any of them that might turn out to be true are based on a lot of very good empirical science.
God, on the other hand, is not an answer, but more questions.
First, what does the word 'supernatural' mean?
Second, if 'God' (whatever that might be) caused the big bang, what caused god?
Third, the uncaused cause is a paradox. If we accept this, then we must accept that contradictory statements can both be true. If this is true, then literaly nothing can be known about anything. Yet, we know that we exist, so it cannot be true.
You don't understand the theory.
Two things:
1) The people who are working on these theories have had decades of intense and very difficult study about really advanced shit. If you haven't, it's damn presumptuous of you to think that by reading a couple of issues of a science mag, or one of Stephen Hawkings' books, that you can declare all their work unscientific.
If you want to get a degree in astrophysics and then talk about it, feel free. I'm not trying to be rude, but you wouldn't tell a doctor of medicine how to do his job, would you? So what gives you the right to pronounce all of physics wrong?
2) You're still messing up the word 'faith.' There are two uses for the word. First, what we call contingent faith. I have 'faith' that when I sit in my chair, it will not collapse. This is not blind faith, for I have sat in it hundreds of times before, and felt no hint of weakness in its structure. I also recognize the brand name as reputable. I also know that people all over the world have been building chairs for centuries. My 'faith' could be called "justified belief."
Non-contingent faith is exactly the opposite. It's when you believe something despite there being no justification, or worse, when there's actually evidence to the contrary. There is not one shred of positive, empirical evidence for the existence of god. Not one. If you believe otherwise, it's because you don't understand the criteria of evidence. If you'd like to read about it, I wrote a brief explanation HERE.
There's a HUGE difference between an explanation that makes you, a science neophyte, feel good about things, and one that is scientifically accurate.
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
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Books about atheism
First, scientists would advise you to know the differance between a mere guess and a scientific theory.
Right, it is easyer to believe in Santa than to investigate Santa because he promises you presents, than it is to investigate and find out that in reality Santa is dad and mom.
It is easyer to cling to warm fuzzy ideas than to investigate these ideas to see if the are realy true or merely a placebo you hold based on an emotional appeal.
Intellectuall honesty and introspection is much harder than assuming that the status quoe will always be the same. But when you take that hard road, you grow.
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You need to understand the history of science. Before science, man's explanation of things that he couldn't understand was pretty much good gods and bad gods. So, to explain illness it was demons, to explain healing it was god and angels. To explain the origin of species it was god. Gods, Devils and angels are placeholders for everything man can't understand.
So when science answers the question about diseases(germs) and origin of species(evolution), god gets crowded out. The god concept is only still useful for mysteries like the origin of the big bang, human conscienceness, the meaning of life, etc...
Just as with other mysteries, science should provide better answers someday. To people in the future, your belief in god today will seem like our opinion of people 1000 years ago who believed all illnesses were caused by devils, witches, curses from god and sin.
I think 'God' is just your placeholder for things that don't have an explanation. Just be honest with yourself and say no one knows the answer yet, you don't need a placeholder. It is far more interesting to use science to learn about the universe than to just say 'God' for things you don't want to explore.
Science doesn't yet know what laws are in play during or before the big bang. So the first and second laws of thermodynamics may not even be in play since much of what occurred during the big bang can only be explained with a greater understanding of sub-atomic physics, string theory, etc...
Life being formed and evolving on earth does not violate the laws of thermodynamics. Remember these laws apply to CLOSED systems. The earth is not a closed system, it receives tons of energy from the sun. The net energy of the solar system has not increased nor has the entropy decreased. The sun is what powers life and the evolutionary process here on earth.
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Quick facts about the big bang :
Here is a simple definition of the Big bang : The universe was hotter and denser in the past and it is cooling down and expanding as time passes. That's it. No refference to the origin of the world in there.
The big bang theory as nothing to do with the creation of the universe.
I would be more acurrate to say that the universe as we currently understand it was form in the very first moment of the big bang but it does not explain to us how or why the big bang happened....
People have to stop reffering to the big bang as the moment when the universe came into existence... We don't know that.
There are tons of evidence in support of the big bang, like there are tons of evidence in support of gravity. While we understand how they work, we don't understand why they work...
No faith what so ever is needed to observe the traces that the big bang forever carved in this universe. On the other hand, faith is requiered to beleive in a God that left no traces whatsoever in this same universe.
Si Dieu existe, c'est Son problème !
If God exists, it's His problem !--Graffiti on the walls of the Sorbonne (France), May 1968
romancedlife.blogspot.com
I want to add that the only really closed system that exists is the universe as a whole, and entropy will continue to rise in the universe no matter what.
Si Dieu existe, c'est Son problème !
If God exists, it's His problem !--Graffiti on the walls of the Sorbonne (France), May 1968
romancedlife.blogspot.com