Can God really exist?
Posted on: May 29, 2007 - 12:12am
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Can God really exist?
For all the hype and argument there has been on this forum you would think that we could reach some compromise or at least logical evidence for one side or the other based on common premises as to weather or not god CAN exist! with the goal of answering this all important question in mind I would like to take a census of weather or not the majority believes in the following:
1.the big bang
2.the evolutionary theory
3.logical proccess
Don't get me wrong i believe these should go without saying but never the less i won't proceed until these questions are answered by at least rook and sapient so without further ado start answering!
Philosophy means love of wisdom my question is which wisdom do you love?
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1.the big bang-Yes
2.the evolutionary theory-Yes
3.logical proccess-Yes
Yes to all of the above and I can say with confidence that all atheists that I have encountered on here believe in all 3 - and so exactly what is your point?
Just because someone has logic and such behind there point doesn't mean people will come to a consensus
Biochemist & Law Student
"The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the Supreme Being as His father, in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter." -Thomas Jefferson
The big bang and the logical process will be necessary for my main point and evolution will provide a supporting role you will see what i mean in the next stage of this discussion.
Philosophy means love of wisdom my question is which wisdom do you love?
When are we going to go to the next stage of discussion?
Ignatious, there are many well-versed members in this forum. Rook and Sapient rarely have time to respond to specific posts. Please don't assume you will get special attention from specific members for your questions.
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Yes to all three.
I smell a "first cause" argument brewing...
Oh let's sing a hearty round of:
Oh the prime moverrrrrrrr....
Fill the gap with the prime moverrrrrrrr....
I don't believe in Santa Claus but there's gotta be a first cauuuuuuse......
What about my intellectual superiors Kelly and Todangst? You prefer to deal with the lightweight of the group?
Vote for Democrats to save us all from the anti-American Republican party!
Please become a Patron of Brian Sapient
If they don't answer by tomorrow then i will continue.
sorry writen before sapient replied posted after.
Philosophy means love of wisdom my question is which wisdom do you love?
My guess was actually gonna be the argument: "See you've got faith too! You're just as bad as me!"
I'll bet you a tenner!
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no i would like for them to answer to but you and rook are the minimum.
Philosophy means love of wisdom my question is which wisdom do you love?
Being pushy doesn't win you friends y'know. I'm sure we're just as capable of addressing your issues Mr Loyola. There are many of us here who are students and Doctors of Philosophy, Biology, Physics etc. Please do proceed with your argument.
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You crack me up sometimes Pineapple.
That's incredibly arrogant and rude.
Why do you think you deserve special attention?
There are many posters on this forum that are welcome to post within each forums' rules.
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I apologize that was not my intention,however i would like them on board for this discussion and as i said they can decline simply by not answering the three questions by tomorrow,and as far as my answer to sapient he was accusing me of trying to get off easy with just him and rook. this will proceed regardless of weather or not they accept it will just take a little longer thank you for your patience and sorry if you are offended. and by the way sapient you haven't answered and if you don't want to you can also decline the old fashioned way by simply declining.
Philosophy means love of wisdom my question is which wisdom do you love?
1.the big bang - Yes.
2.the evolutionary theory - Ja.
3.logical proccess - How exactly does one "believe in" logic?
Look Ignoramus de Whatsit, what you have to say can be said to the board on the whole. If the core members answer then they answer. I'm sure you can find answers from equally intelligent members of the forum.
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Can you cut to the chase here buddy? I have the feeling that I'm not alone in guessing that the coming argument has been seen before. To death.
By the way - burning people is much more absurd than telling them to talk to the hand. And your tag line is more absurd still.
Religion is the ultimate con-job. It cons the conned, and it cons the conner.
Mr.T : "I ain't gettin' on no damn plane [sic]" - environmentalism at it's best
I won't have a chance to post it till tomorrow anyway and as far as my tag line,it cut off so you can't see it all i will change it soon.
Philosophy means love of wisdom my question is which wisdom do you love?
God does exists.
I said it.
You'd better believe it.
That settles it.
I'm going to throw you in a wave of lava! Then you'll freak out about a wave.
"When I die I shall be content to vanish into nothingness.... No show, however good, could conceivably be good forever.... I do not believe in immortality, and have no desire for it." ~H.L. Mencken
Thank god i'm a atheist!
LOL. Cowabunga, dood.
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Cpt_Pineapple and Thingy:
You guys can keep me entertained until I can play pin the label on the theist.
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No need for insults around here!
"When I die I shall be content to vanish into nothingness.... No show, however good, could conceivably be good forever.... I do not believe in immortality, and have no desire for it." ~H.L. Mencken
Thank god i'm a atheist!
Alright got some time now so here goes nothing.
If you believe in the big bang then you believe that the universe is finite and that all in the universe was once an infanintessimaly small "bubble"(if you will)of energy and one day it expanded out and crystalized into matter which then was forged in the stars into more complex elements from hydragen to heilium etc. so if it wasn't A God or infinite being,then what gave cause for the expansion of the energy(and that energys existence but that is a completely different can of worms)it would seem there is no explanation that doesn't beat around the bush and just answer this simple question.
If you believe in evolution and you beleive in biogenisis which states that life was produced from minerals and energy from the stars.This life over a period of about 4.55 billion years has become steadily more complex till it became plants and aquatic beings. The aquatic beings eventualy became more complex crawled onto land and adapted. And when the dinosaurs were the dominant animals they mystieriously went extint alowing for us mammals to thrive and develope into human beings. Now again the question lies at the begining if its the proper conditioning of minerals and energy then Why has there been only one biogenisis instead of one evolutionary chain why aren't there fifty? And why can't we produce a similar biogenisis in a controled lab environment?
As i said from the begining I started out to logicaly discern as to weather or not God can exist this is some good evidence that he can and unless some one adresses these concerns probobly does.
I,m interested to hear your comments just so long as they are competent and don't resort to name slinging and declareing each other to have mental disorders.
;">
Philosophy means love of wisdom my question is which wisdom do you love?
Some required reading.
http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/faqs-mustread.html
You haven't read The God Delusion, have you? Most of your concerns (sans cosmological) are addressed in that book.
As for your cosmological concerns, I'm more interested in life sciences, but as I understand it, the bubble or singularity was inherently instable. Nothing had to "cause" it to expand. BGH or someone else will be along to correct me if I'm wrong.
Once again, if you state that everything has to have a cause, god creates more problems than he solves if you invoke him as a cause because (all together now):
What caused god?????
And no, you can't claim he's an uncaused cause or exists out of time and space because that's special pleading. Aquinas was refuted a long, long time ago. Care to try another argument?
Now I'm off to play pin the badge on the theist.
On edit: Did you really want to waste Rook's and Sapient's time by rehashing 13th century arguments? I suggest you 1) learn what evolution really is and 2) read some Dawkins, paying particular attention to his "cranes" and "skyhooks" analogy. Evolution has a wonderful "crane" in natural selection and scientists are looking for similar "cranes" in other fields.
Just because we don't know the answer, there is no reason to default to "goddidit." That's lazy and an intellectual cop-out.
Once again: I can't believe you wanted to waste the time of our core members on crap that has been rehashed ad nauseum. I'm sorry if telling you so hurts your feelings, but you did not do your homework before coming here and demanding the attention of core members. That's in very poor taste.
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Yes Indeed, as well as the horrendiously named stellar evolution, and I've played around a bit with both string theory and the more accepted particle model.
Again, you bet yer bottom dollar.
Sure, let's see your position and get to work, shall we?
Not speaking as a scientist or anything like that I'll give this a go based on my love of physics, cosmology and theoretical cosmology to the best of my knowledge. I'm sure that someone else here will be better equiped to handle the details, or can school me on a few points, but here goes.
Quantum Physics allows for what I believe is called a zero-point quantum fluctuation. If memory serves me, particles of matter or energy (they are in fact the same thing) can enter and leave our universe in an interstellar vacuum. Therefore it IS theoretically possible for "something to come from nothing."
The Big Bang theory is simply the theory of the expansion of our current universe. It does not explain how the big bang began.
I've said this a MILLION times in local debates with raving fundies: The Big Bang does not disprove god.
The truth is that we don't know if our current universe began as a quantum fluctuation that resulted in a singularity as Stephen Hawking had written or as a collision of two hyperdimentional membranes as some string theorists hold.
The FACTS are that there is a TON of evidence for the Big Bang. We've mapped the microwave background radiation, we've discovered red-shift and measured the speeds at which the universe is expanding, and mapped out what we think happened almsot down to the planck time.
Abiogenisis and Evolution are two entirely different things. Evolution is the change, over time, of species through adaptation, artificial selection, natural selection, sexual selection and genetic mutation.
Abiogenisis seeks to understand how the building blocks of life came together and eventually formed the first single celled life forms which have DOMINATED the planet since life began.
Not sure if you've been paying attention, but there's not really all that much of a mystery regarding the dinosaurs dying out... A combination of Meteorite impact, and massive volcanic eruptions in Syberia combined to drive the extinction of the dinosaurs.
There may have been more than one abiogenisis. I don't know of anyone claiming that we all came from one type of single celled life. In fact, there may have been MANY of these first life forms. In fact, evolution calls for ancestry from one "or a few" common ancestors.
Well, I don't know about you, but none of the scientists I've know have been able to set up an experiment and watch it for 4.55 Billion years...
The ONLY thing your points prove is that we don't have all the answers. Evolution, Abiogenisis, Stellar Evolution, the Big Bang, Germ theory, String theory, and quantum mechanics cannot disprove the existance of a first cause of the universe. However they are not evidence FOR a first cause either.
Give our lack of knowledge the RATIONAL and LOGICAL position to hold is one of Agnosticism until we can gather more of the facts.
What these things DO tell us is that the universe works on some fundamental and knowable forces and laws. Most of the people here would probably freely tell you that there may well be a first cause. Where we differ with you is what that first cause is.
What MOST of the people here are hardcore on is the EXISTANCE of the man-made gods. Those ideas that man made up to explain that which they couldn't. There may be a creator god and there may not be. I don't know. But I do know that if there is a creator god, the nature and beauty of the universe around us would testify to just how WRONG all of man-made religion got it.
Aw man... You take the fun out of everything...
Who needs God when you have Chopin?
Thank you Ghost Rider I'm sorry I didn't more clear that what I was saying is agnosticism is far more rational than atheism if you will note I set out to prove that God CAN exist not does or must but can. thank you for bringing me up to speed on evolution,I was not informed on the dinosaur point (exactly why I didn't make evolution my main point)though I knew that abiogenisis was separate (I was not aware of the a) but I forgot to make it the fourth question (entirely my fault). one should note that I never denied the big bang and in fact have already said that it should go without saying. as far as the lab problem we only need 4.55 billion years to get to humanity as it is to day, all I we would need is to create a simple single cell organism to prove abiogenisis.
thank you also for refraining from making this A nonsensical name calling match.
As far as Iruka Naminori
This is not an answer this is an equivocation.
I'm not arguing why it expanded but why it chose then to expand.
first i never said everything must have a cause just every thing with a finite time span. second I haven't gotten around to reading St.Thomas Aquinas as I am to bogged down with Bertrand Russel and third read what I wrote I never said I believed in God just that without an answer to these arguments it was probable he existed.
First I wanted Rook and Sapient on board because I know they are better at advocating their position than you have shown yourself to be. Second did I make a fundamental mistake in my understanding of the evolutionary theory? If so point it out.I intend to look into dawkins are there any of his books you would recommend?
As always looking forward to comments but keep 'em clean.;">
Philosophy means love of wisdom my question is which wisdom do you love?
I don't understand what makes you think Sapient and Rook are the atheist gods. they are very smart people and run this site, but they aren't the only ones that know what they're talking about. your arguments aren't that great themselves. i want the pope.
This topic makes The Society of Jesus cry.
I don't think they are the atheist gods but they did post a lot where I originally posted this thread. And if you can advocate your position do so instead of complaining. Also why would the pope argue for agnosticism?
Philosophy means love of wisdom my question is which wisdom do you love?
What caused the big bang to expand? Simple answer, gravity. Big bang was a ball of matter/energy(mass-energy scale they are the same thing). We do not say the universe is finite with the big bang, on the contary actually. For the big bang to have taken place, infinite matter is required accross a plane. Matter fathers due to gravity, creates a singularity and eventually when the singularity has more and more matter packed into a tiny tiny place it gets hotter, when matter reachs thermal energy of 10^32 kelvin matters thermal vibrations have touched the speed of light. Thermal energy is the atoms vibrating, faster vibrations, higher heat, but they also expand away from eachother(Eg. cold air is more dense then hot). However when the thermal vibrations reach the speed of light, atoms become so expanded that each, and every atom would collapse in on itself, causing it's own singularity. However when atoms are already part of a sinularity, and reach this tempeture, when they begin the rapid expansion they cause great pressure within the singularity, causing a massive expansion, and the singuarlity lets out it's matter. The atoms slow down due to the cool tempetures of space, and begin to cool below the thermal limit and do not cause singularities themselves anymore. They are still expanding, and moving away although.
That is the big bang. Of course not infinite matter was in our singularity. What I meant by infinite matter, is basically if we had a finite amount of matter, big bangs would never happen. The expansion might be to great, throwing the matter beyond gravities reach, etc. However with infinite matter, if the expansion is to great, the matter just gets added to a new possible matter area for another possible expansion.
Of course there is other things with the big bang of course, we can never tell EXACTLY what happened. Although we do know what would of happened to cause an event, coupled with the evidence the event happened. Although we ourselves can only tell what happened up to 1 planck second after the big bang.
Oh, and you are right there is always a cause. However the cause in this case is gravity. Since matter existed forever, and matter caused gravity, then gravity existed forever, causing an infinite number of big bangs.
The dinosaurs went extinct for a number of reasons. When the asteriod hit the earth, 65 million years ago it caused a great winter, dinosaurs could not coup with. Some could, most died. Coupled with the poison thrown up in the atomosphere which layered the entire earth from the asteriod, also was a big factor. Other then that, mammals evolved because we had something dinosaurs didn't, bigger brains. Of course mammals were primitive, and even to our standards of normal animals the brains were nothing, but smart enough to survive. Also they better couped with the cold.
As for the rest, please read a book on evolution, you have no clue about it.
"When I die I shall be content to vanish into nothingness.... No show, however good, could conceivably be good forever.... I do not believe in immortality, and have no desire for it." ~H.L. Mencken
Thank god i'm a atheist!
1.the big bang YES
2.the evolutionary theory =horse shit
3.logical proccess YES
I believe in the Big Bang it's a solid mathematical argument. But perhaps what you are meaning is do I think it is the ultimate conclusive one. In which case I say No.
Again, I believe. But do I think all known realistic facts are conclusively incorporated into it's working? again No. (NB I don't mean intelligent design; I'm actually more concerned about consistent histories here)
Yes, I believe in the logical process; OTOH I do not think it's morphism is fully exploited, nor do I think it has never been morphemically distorted.
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Incorrect.
1)There is NOT an infinite amount of matter in the universe. I think the number of atoms is 10^76 (I'm not sure though)
2) Gravity is ATTRACTIVE not repulsive, the universe is expanding due to dark energy
Where are you getting these ideas?
[edit quote tags]
Let me ask you one thing. Where are you getting the idea I said gravity repels?
Those estimates of matter in atomic form are that of the OBSERVABLE universe.
1011 galaxies, 1021 stars, 1078 atoms, 1088 photons. Those are the answers to the amount of matter in the observable universe. What we can actually observ and see. However the estimates of the actual size of this universe(expansion formulas, big bang expansion etc) is around 185 billion light years accross. However matter exists in many forms also. Other then that we know of no end to space itself, only the end of our universe, the outer wall of the expansion. Outside of that, is a void, and if big bang theory holds true(which more and more evidence shows it is) that void would be required to be filled with matter itself, or eternal self consistancy would be destroyed.
Also, you argue there is a finite amount of matter, and energy in the universe, yet you believe in evolution? If matter/energy was finite, the law of entropy now applies.
Oh and to clarify I am sorry if I worded anbything wrong my proof reader is gone today so I have to try my hardest to get it right. Dylexia sucks.
"When I die I shall be content to vanish into nothingness.... No show, however good, could conceivably be good forever.... I do not believe in immortality, and have no desire for it." ~H.L. Mencken
Thank god i'm a atheist!
^ From that quote, but perhaps I misread.
I'm not sure what you mean when you say Big Bangs cannot happen with finite matter.
All you have to do to create a Big Bang is condense matter to Planck lengths. It is my understanding this may require as little as an ounce of matter.
What I meant by gravity making the big bang expand is, gravity caused matter to collect, after awhile form a singularity, more time it got more matter, and hotter. Then when it reached thermal limit, it expanded to the point where it could break free of gravity.
Gravity was the cause the big bang happened, it did not expand it. I thought I clarified that during it w/e.
As for creating a big bang, there is 2 theories, gravity and vacuum fluctuations. There is enough energy in a single atom in vacuum energy to create a big bang, if this energy was ever released, a big bang is no problem. However the leading theory is gravity.
Ok here is what I meant about finite matter. Gravity travels at a certain speed. Now if all of the finite matter gathers in one area, and when it expands due toa big bang, it accelerates faster due to dark energy then what gravity can reach. That matter now expands forever outwards, never to join together again. With infinite matter however, if that happens the finite matter that expanded to fast, just gets added into another region of a possible big bang.
Oh and for the person talking in our context about something coming from nothing, the matter is still coming from somewhere. Infinite matter could simply exist in an infinite number of universes, each with finite matter and other universes give up, or gain other universes matter(brane world theory/string theory). However on some plane of dimensional existence, all universes are connected to do so, so it would could as infinite matter, even if the universe was finite itself.
"When I die I shall be content to vanish into nothingness.... No show, however good, could conceivably be good forever.... I do not believe in immortality, and have no desire for it." ~H.L. Mencken
Thank god i'm a atheist!
The last number I'm aware of is 3 x 10^52
Super Gravititational Theory holds that gravity can act as a repulsor at large distances. Of course, it's a little "out there" as a cosmological theory and not generally accepted over Dark Energy yet...
Who needs God when you have Chopin?
You do make me laugh Al.
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Actually it's 10^78. Of course the best estimate calculated from what we get in the observable universe. We do not know if dark matter is made of atoms(Which aparently makes up 60-80% of our universe). Also, do we could the matter in black holes? Do atoms still hold as atoms when they go into a black hole? Or are they ripped apart to be packed even tighter as smaller sub-atomic parts? Such as qwarks, and quarks.
Isn't this part of string theory? Pretty sure it is, however no evidence is for it. Other then why we are being pushed faster and faster outwards, they suggested was also gravities work. Myself i'm pretty sure it was just an after effect of the rapid expansion, matter expanding after our matter expanded first, at a faster rate. We of course call this dark matter/energy.
"When I die I shall be content to vanish into nothingness.... No show, however good, could conceivably be good forever.... I do not believe in immortality, and have no desire for it." ~H.L. Mencken
Thank god i'm a atheist!