same old error of equating evolution with randomness/chance........ which indicates a basic ignorance of even the very basics of evolution.

Why is this person going to be on the show?

Strawman fallacy. Evolution is not a product of chance, it's a product of natural selection.

Hello, this is the RRS answering machine, if you are hearing this message, your call has...

Forget it, there is no point in an answering machine talking to a parrot. You just keep going repeating the same idiotic argument as everybody else does.

Or... or actually read an actual book on evolution, that was actually made by a actual sceintist, and learn for yourself instead of reading from a list of lies and making yourself look like in idiot!

Expanding on my last post....

Having him on the show will give us a chance to explain evolution, while receiving responses from someone who doesn't understand it. It'll be more entertaining then us lecturing for an hour. His questions and rebuttals will be similar to that of any Christian who doesn't understand evolution, and often times those are questions and rebuttals I cant even begin to conceive. His presence on the show may also entice some theist listeners to tune in to hear what we'd say to such arguments.

todangst,

Not equating evolution with randomness.

Please elaborate on what the very basics of evolution are, or as you see them?

I would like to be on the show to explain to intellectuals like yourself that you're really not as smart as you think you are.

Hello Randalllord,

Tell me from a rational perspective what force acted on the singularity which ultimately developed into the Big Bang?

In what context did the singularity exist? If space and time were contained in the singularity, then where and when was the singularity?

Looking forward to your responses.

Dave

Sapient,

My final thoughts before I retire for the night.

I said it before and I'll say it again, the burden of proof is on you! Prove to me there is no God! Evolution does not prove there is no God. Big Bang does not prove there is no God. Show me the objective hard evidence that God deosn't exist, other than its "BS", which I hear alot from your folks.

Here's the truth, not as I see it, or have been told, or have been indoctrinated in, but as I experieiced it myself: Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.

I do agree with you, religion can be, and is a terrible thing. It has adversely affected many millions of lives, and on the surface it does fit the description of controlling, brain washing and intoloerant, but we're not talking about religion. We're talking about truth. Also, just so we don't fight his battle down the road I think we can both agree that Secular Humanism (Communism, Fascism, and other Atheist lead war machines) is responsible for an equal amount of destruction throughout history.

So let's put the insults, profanity, and jibber jabber away, and lets get to the real issue - which is the truth.

Dave

OK, I'm better now.

Right after you prove there are no leprechauns.

Martha,

I'm waiting.

Dave

Are you that fucking stupid??!!!?? Anyone who is not retarded would realise that the burden of proof is on the one who claims something DOES exist. If I claimed I invented a time machine would you just believe it until someone proved otherwise? Not unless you're a moron. The burden of proof is always, always, always on the person who claims something exists. That's just the way logic works.

The RRS is going to tear you a new asshole if you use such idiotic shit that has been refuted for centuries. Read what Einstein said about religion. Oh boy, this is going to be funny.

You stupid fucking idiot! The burden of proof is on the person claiming something exists! In other words the default position is there is no god. It is up to you to prove otherwise. That is just the way logic works. I don't expect you to understand or attempt to prove this. Christians are sp stupid. Just waiting for the next RRS show. Brian, Rook, Yellow and Left of Larry are going to make such an ass out of you......

The proof is what we see, not being created by what is visible so that we have no excuse. That's the proof. The world did not come from nothing. But you don't accept that, you believe in magic which is a greater leap of faith than to believe in God. So we have to go to the next logical step in our debate which is: If you don't believe that God created the universe, then explain how it was created.

Explain how it was created without intelligent design.

Very Simple, and without magic.

Dave

This is an unintelligible sentence. It is virtually meaningless.

No it isnt'. You haven't even begun to meet your burden of proving that god exists. Tell us what he is made of, where is he, and how does he interact with the physical universe. This would be good for starters.

Can you demonstrate where someone said it did, or is this merely a diversionary strawman?

Who, other than you, is positing a magical being? You are projecting your own weak position.

This is a classic burden shift. "accept my position or prove it false". As someone else suggested to you, right after you prove all other gods false. This is an impossible, unreasonble burden. You cannot prove a concept as loose as "god" as unreal, anymore than you can prove any other equally unlikely concept false. We can only demonstrate certain concepts of god are impossible, but then you can slightly change your definition ad nausem.

Explain *how* it was intelligently designed, and who designed the necessary designer.

Thanks in advance.

Maybe I miss read you but.

It's that same ol', "OMT, it's highly unlikely therefore god."

Becuase, you know, when you roll a die. it's always god pushing it, it's not physics or anything making it land on a number.

should I pull out my big list o' gods?

The Big Bang theory does not describe the origin of the universe. It describes events immediately following the origin of the universe.

It may not make sense to talk about cause and effect in this period, as time itself probably could not cross the event horizon of the original singularity. Your evocation of the First Law is invalid, as physics as we know it breaks down into quantum events in the earliest moments of the Big Bang model. In other words, nothing that came before the Big Bang could have had any effect on anything that occured after the Big Bang. Time itself starts at the Big Bang.

It is also possible that the Big Bang was caused by a non-causal quantum fluctuation, which are theoretical events that are thought to occur at very small scales. These events are random, and cannot be said to follow from any force or influence - including a god.

The short answer is that the ultimate origin of the Big Bang singularity is not known. This does not mean it was created by god. It doesn't even suggest that it was created by god. It doesn't even allow that it was created by god, until theists satisfy their burden of proof to show tha god exists. The default answer for unknown questions is not "goddidit".

I'd also take issue with your assertion that anything that looks like it was created, was in fact created. First of all, how do we decide what appears to be created? Anything that we can't imagine coming to exist by other means? This places an entirely arbirary limitation on the universe - if it exceeds the human imagination, it must be created. In the Middle Ages, germ theory exceeded the human imagination so people imagined that disease came from a Creator - either Satan or the evil thoughts of the victim. Today, germ theory is within our imagination and we don't hear too many christians advocating exorcism as a viable medical procedure. Isn't it reasonable to assume that the explanation for the universe lies similarly outside our present knowledge, but well within the bounds of nature and logic?

Fine by me, however we have proof that paintings are painted and buildings are built we can see those things happen wherever we want. We even have proof that creations need creators, however we DONT have proof that the Universe was "created." If you can show me a Universe factory to prove that all Universes are created by someone or something, then you'll have proven your claim.

Instead of making false assertions so often, it would behoove you to ask questions more often to avoid making so many fallacious claims. I never have said all of this came from nothing, and I can't see how I ever will.

Maybe because the line of argumentation didn't even warrant a response. Please provide the transcript.

First of all the burden of poroof is still on you to prove that the Universe was created thereby needing a creator. Secondly read up on the law of conservation of matter and energy. Please read more than the story I link you to because it seems to be an important point for you. Now, the law has been proven over and over and over and over (etc) that the total quantity of matter and energy available in the universe is a fixed amount and never any more or less.

What does this mean? It means that the matter that caused our planet has always existed and always will. In fact this scientific law in itself shows us how now god is needed in any equation to determine where we came from, but I will entertain the notion of your god if you'd like to get back to proving his existence at some point. You should stay away from making assertions about my position with no knowledge, as you're not doing a very good job at it.

I have to admit that this is the most cohesive argument that anyone on this site has presented. Good Job.

DPM

Incorrect. It is the theist who believes in ex nihilo creation. You believe that things 'come from nothing" through magic.

Can you please stop projecting your own flaws onto others? It gets messy....

Now that we've left your projections aside (and what can an ignorant person do otherwise but project, seeing as he has no real information?) let's look at what cosmologists actually say:

1) Common misperception: The "big bang" theory is not a 'creation theory', but a description of what occured at planck time, and immediately aftwards:

"Before a time classified as a Planck time, 10-43 seconds, all of the four fundamental forces are presumed to have been unified into one force. All matter, energy, space and time are presumed to have exploded outward from the original singularity. Nothing is known of this period - (from the perspective of the big bang - ed.)"

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/astro/planck.html

2) There is no reason to hold that there MUST have been a creation point.

According to Penn State physicist Lee Smolin, there are three possible scenarios, not just one:

* [A] There is still a first moment in time, even when quantum mechanics is taken into consideration.

* [B] The singularity is eliminated by some quantum mechanical effect. As a result, when we run the clock back, the universe does not reach a state of infinite density. Something else happens when the universe reaches some very high density that allows time to continue indefinitely into the past.

* [C] Something new and strange and quantum mechanical happens to time, which is neither possibility A or B. For example, perhaps we reach a state where it is no longer appropriate to think that reality is composed of a series of moments that follow each other in a progression, one after another. In this case there is perhaps no singularity, but it may also not make sense to ask what happened before the universe was extremely dense.[6] [7]

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/mark_vuletic/bigbang.html

One particular explanation of the third option: The theory of Stephen Hawkings holds that the universe is finite, but boundless, without any "beginning point"

http://www.lfrieling.com/univers.html

Another third scenario option can be found here:

The Myth of the Beginning of Time
String theory suggests that the big bang was not the origin of the universe but simply the outcome of a preexisting state
By Gabriele Veneziano

This argument is for an enternal megaverse that creates universes out of vaccum point energy.

The following cosmology theories deal with the 'something from nothing' scenario, but not in a literal ex nihilo sense:

1) Edward Tryon has put forth the idea of a vacuum fluctation, which is NOT a violation of physical law, as the original source for matter/energy. Alan Guth's Inflationary Model explains the rapid expansion of this energy.

Source: The Inflationary Universe by Alan Guth.

Tryon makes the point that the total sum of positive and negative energy in the universe may well be ZERO, indicating again, that no physical laws are violated by the big bang event.

As Tryon writes: "Im my model, I assume that our present universe did appear out of nowhere 10 to the 10th power years ago. Contrary to the popular belief, such an event need not have violated any of the conventional laws of physics.

Source: The Inflationary Universe by Alan Guth.

2)
'Brane-Storm' Challenges Part of Big Bang Theory

"The new idea would not replace the Big Bang, which has for more than 50 years dominated cosmologists' thinking over how the universe began and evolved. But instead of a universe springing forth in a violent instant from an infinitely small point of infinite density, the new view argues that our universe was created when two parallel "membranes" collided cataclysmically after evolving slowly in five-dimensional space over an exceedingly long period of time."

This collision would provide the original energy.

So even the 'something from nothing' scenarios don't have a universe coming from a 'literal nothing' i.e. ex nihilo

Again, theists are the ones who believe in ex nihlio creation. "Something from nothing" Cosmologists are not arguing for this at all. For example, Hawkings argues that the universe is boundless but finite both spatially and temporally. I have a great deal of posts on this subject from infidelguy that I will have to pull up and store on this site...

In the meantime, I have to pull out Yellow's post again:

More basic, BASIC information for our theist 'debaters'

But first...

1) This is bullshit. You really, seriously don't know what you're talking about, which makes your evalutations of the topic nearly worthless

2) SagAn Can you at least spell the one of the most popular scientists of the 20th century's name right?

Yellow writes:

There is still no official version of the essay, and most of them are still in a "response" sort of format. Feel free to take and adapt as needed, but I would apprieciate credit where due if you share it with others, mainly, because I want to know what they think of it. Glad you found it helpful

First let me start off by saying that I'm certainly no cosmologist, but I think you'll find that it certainly doesn't take a Stephen Hawking to refute the intellectually devoid horror that is fishdontwalk.com.

Let's dive right in on the creationist's assault on the Big Bang:

Apparently it is one of the most misunderstood and straw-manned scientific theories out there, as we shall soon see.

Right off the bat, things have gone horribly wrong. The Big Bang theory is not a secular explanation at all, it is a scientific one – and there most assuredly is a difference. The theory itself originated back in 1927 when a Catholic monk named Georges Lemaître independently derived a set of equations (now known as the Friedmann-Lemaître-Robertson-Walker equations) from Einstein's theory of general relativity. These equations coupled with observations of the recession of spiral nebulae led Lemaître to theorize that the Universe began as a point or "primevial atom".

So like it or not, the first to propose such a thing was a theist, a Catholic monk no less. Obviously Lemaître didn't think his proposal conflicted with his belief in God, unlike certain fundamentalists who insist upon placing scriptural limits on their God's creation.

In the end, unless one wants to say that physics, mathematics and telescopes are strictly and solely for the secularists or atheists; one ought to rethink how they couch the theory and science in general.

Shockingly, it is correct that Hoyle coined the phrase "Big Bang"; what isn't shocking is that the author of this piece doesn't seem to understand or even care why proponents of the theory take some issue with the term. The Big Bang, as it is currently uderstood, was not an explosion, but a rapid expansion from an enormously hot and dense point. This expansion agrees with the Friedmann-Lemaître-Robertson-Walker model of general relativity and our empirical observations, which we'll get into a bit later.

Actually, current figures put it closer to 13.7 billion years ago, and we aren't talking about a "clump" of mass-energy floating around in space. First, space or more accurately space-time as we understand it and know it today weren't manifest yet, and this "clump" contained all of the matter-energy (not matter and energy – the two are equivalent) in the entire universe. The rest of the author's description is grossly simplified and generic, but accurate enough.

Oh, and btw, stars and planets are spherical (though not perfect spheres – they spin and therefore bulge in the center) due to gravity, and anyone with a high school education ought to know this (watch as this fundamental lack of understanding continues to play out in the rest of the author's arguments). Hell, anyone with common sense ought to know this. Imagine building a skyscraper miles high – what do you think is going to happen? Eventually the building will be crushed under its own weight and pulled toward the center of mass of the planet – this is what makes planets and stars spherical on a much larger scale. Smaller objects like boulders, houses and pebbles can be irregularly shaped, because the mechanical strength of the material is sufficient to overcome the force of gravity – this is not the case for massive objects.

So finally, we cut to the chase. How sad that the best a theist or creationist can typically do is cry, "Well, your beliefs are just as much faith based as mine!", then cross their arms in a huff and think they've won some point. When your best argument is that others share faith similar to the faith you are so confident in and proud of, you must know you're fighting a losing battle.

Suffice it to say though, there is nothing miraculous, faith-based or even convoluted about the Big Bang theory.

And again, I find it ridiculously disingenuous to paint the Big Bang as an atheist theory or something that only atheists believe. The fact of the matter is the entire Catholic Church is officially on board with the theory, as are a multitude of people from other faiths. Only fundamentalists, typically Christians, seem to have a real problem with it in this day and age.

Actually, you've got things reversed. It is theists who insist upon a creation ex nihlo, from literally nothing. Are you now positing that God didn't create the universe from nothing, that He didn't simply say "Let there be Light" and make it so, or that God Himself must have had a creator? No, I think not. The theist position IS one of creation ex nihlo, an atheist wouldn't be caught dead believing something that foolish.
What baffles me, is that you've actually answered your own question here, and are simply too thick to realize it. You've simply projected your own problems onto the atheist, which is sadly typical.

Atheists are very well aware of the first law of thermodynamics, and it is this very concept that makes what theists propose, a creation ex nihlo, ridiculous.

Creation ex nihlo is a classic failure of human perception.

No painting comes to exist without a painter, no building is built without an architect, etc. Seems logical enough, but do these people create from literally nothing or is it more accurate to say they assemble existing materials? For no painter starts with nothing - they start with blank canvass and paint. No builder starts with nothing, they start with brick, mortar and blueprints. Something never comes from literally nothing.

Looking at things from the perspective of a First Cause argument, which theists are quite fond of, for something to exercise influence on the universe this causal agent must have already existed. Something nonexistent can't serve as a causal agent; thus causality must assume existence. Theists arguing for a creation of the universe ex nihlo, however have their logic backward - that existence assumes causation.

What the atheist can offer is a scientific explanation that meshes with conventional logic.

If we take matter-energy to be eternal, uncaused - as our best science seems to suggest (see the first law again), then existence is simply axiomatic. The universe just is, and the Big Bang becomes more or less a transitional event. The universe as we know it began with the Big Bang, but the matter-energy was always there, it must have been - to say otherwise turns all of physics as we understand it on its head.

We know that matter-energy is conserved - always, in every instance we have ever observed or theorized about. It is but a simple and very reasonable extrapolation to then say that matter-energy has always been, and it is empirically evident. There is no need to postulate a creator or a creation ex nihlo.

Not only does science point to existence being axiomatic, but simple logic does as well, because "nothing" is an incoherent concept. "Nothing" is not lack, not empty, not the void, not darkness, not the absence of anything, because the absence of anything would still be something. So again, the concept of creation from literally nothing makes no sense, because "nothing" quite literally cannot exist.

In the end, the theist is reduced to demanding to know why there is something rather than nothing – but this too begs the question, because it presumes that nothing or non-existence ought to be the natural state of things. This is like presuming the sky is supposed to be green and then citing the fact that it is blue as evidence for a Creator.

A scientist does not ask "why is there something rather than nothing", but rather "why SHOULDN'T there be something rather than nothing". There isn't anything about the universe that suggests it shouldn't be here and be exactly as we observe it be.

All of that aside, current quantum theories may in fact have room for our universe coming from what would be perceptually (not literally) nothing. Such theories included the universe arising from a quantum vacuum fluctuation that propagated itself, proposed by Ed Tyron in the early 1970s and a variation upon this proposed by Alex Vilenkin in the 80s that was dubbed quantum tunneling.

The most lucid theory going at the moment was proposed by Stephen Hawking and James Hartle, and is often dubbed the "no boundary proposal". Their view provides a description of the universe in its entirety, viewed as a self-contained entity, with no reference to anything that might have come before it – pretty much what I've laid out above. For Hawking, this description is timeless, for as one looks at earlier and earlier times, they find that the universe is not eternal, but has no creation event either. Instead, at times of the order of Planck time (10-43 seconds), our classical understanding of space-time is reduced to quantum soup. In Hawking's exact words:

"The boundary condition of the universe is that it has no boundary.' The universe would be completely self-contained and not affected by anything outside itself. It would neither be created nor destroyed. It would just BE." - A Brief History of Time (New York: Bantam, 1988), p. 136.

Smolin's theory of fecund universes illustrate what I'm trying to describe quite well, I think. He essentially theorizes that each black hole is the begininning of a new universe, and there is evidence to support this on the quantum level. What we believe happened at the big bang and what we observe to happen at black holes are quite similar. Now why this is an ad hoc theory to a certain degree, there is a distintinction that must be made:

In the end, naturalistic explanations of why and how we are here are infinitiley less ad hoc than supernaturalistic ones, and that's what should concern us as critical thinkers and scientists.

Whew. We're just getting warmed up here.

This is just plain ridiculous, and again all too familiar.

The Big Bang most certainly does not violate the second law of thermodynamics either, nor does evolution (I never get tired of hearing that one). Theists and creationists would do themselves a gigantic favor to stop pontificating on subjects they clearly have no understanding of.

First of all, entropy is not a measure of order or disorder, per se, nor does it stipulate that ordered systems are not possible, even for a closed system.

Let me assure you that what follows is greatly simplified, but I wanted to take a look at the actual energy states of the universe, pre and post Big Bang.

The total mass-energy of the universe is constant (1st law of thermodynamics). Entropy is a spread in the distribution of energy over quantum states (from a quantum standpoint) or phase space (from a classical standpoint) over time. In more basic terms, entropy is a measure of the "quality" of heat or available energy. It is essentially the thermodynamic principle that gives us equilibrium and states that systems tend to move toward equilibrium - i.e. a hot or cold object tends to reach the temperature of the environment it is in. (Note that while in general systems move toward equilibrium, it is still possible to move away from equilibrium at points within the system where there are energy gradients).

The only cosmological implication I can think of that results directly from the 2nd Law is the theory of the "heat death" of our universe - that once our universe reaches equilibrium it will be cold, dark and desolate (if there is not enough dark matter in the universe to halt its expansion and quantum fluctuations don't become large players, that is).

The theory goes that once the universe reaches maximum entropy that there will be no more free energy to sustain motion or life and the temperature of the universe would be around absolute zero. It is important to realize what "heat death" means here - we are talking about maximum entropy for a given state and temperature. It is very possible and indeed many theorize that before the universe began its current expansion that it was also at "heat death" - albeit at a different, state and temperature. We are not necessarily talking about temperature, but free energy - the amount of work that can be extracted from a system
If the system is at maximum entropy it is at equilibrium for that particular state by definition. Change the state (temperature, pressure, volume, etc) and you move away from equilibrium.

Now for some math and thermodynamics, brace yourselves:
Free energy is the amount of work that a system can do - you can think of it as the amount of useful energy in the system; energy that can cause motion, or heat things up. There are two kinds of free energy - Helmholtz and Gibbs.

Gibbs free energy is defined as:

G = H - TS

where G is the Gibb's energy, H is enthalpy*, T is temperature and S entropy.

Any natural process will occur spontaneously if and only if the associated change in G for the system is negative. This means that, a system reaches equilibrium when the associated change in G for the system is zero (ΔG = zero), and no spontaneous process will occur if the change in G is positive (ΔG > 0).

*-enthalpy is heat content.

Helmholtz free energy is defined as:

A = U-TS

where A is the Helmholtz energy, U is the internal energy of the system, T is the temperature and S is entropy.

The total work performed on a system at constant temperature in a reversible process is equal to the change in Helmholtz free energy.

Now, let's do some math.

(In the below = will be greater than or equal too and less than or equal to. dX will be the partial derivative of the property X.)

The second law states that in a closed system, equilibrium is reached when entropy is maximized:

dS >= dQ/dT

Now, let's examine "heat death". Let's say for simplicity's sake that prior to the universe expanding, it was at a constant temperature and volume.

A little algebra allows us to write the 2nd law as:

dQ - TdS = 0

One can combine the 1st and 2nd laws in a well known equation (I'll derive this if you are really interested, but it should be well known to people in engineering and physics fields):

dU = TdS - pdV

substituting in the Helmholtz equation:

dA = dQ - TdS - pdV - SdT

If the universe were at constant temperature and volume (say prior to the big bang) we get:

dA(T,V) = dQ - TdS <= 0

So at constant T and V the Helmholtz free energy will seek a minimum - this means that for a spontaneous process to occur the net change in free energy must be zero (equilibrium) or decrease (not yet at equilibrium). Alternatively, one could expand the system and reduce the temperature - and this is what we think happened and is happening now.

So now we have an expanding, cooling system. Similarly we can substitute the Gibb's equation and get:

dG(T,P) = dQ - TdS <=0

This means that as our universe cools and expands to a constant temperature the Gibbs energy seeks a minimum. For a spontaneous process to occur the change in Gibbs energy must be negative (if not yet at equilibrium) or zero (if at equilibrium).

In the two cases I've described - two states of the universe, there would be no free energy available to do work and the system would be essentially static.

That the universe will reach another state of heat death depends on whether or not there is enough dark matter-energy in the universe to halt its expansion. Why the universe began to expand in the first place is a bit of a mystery, but ample empirical evidence tells us that this expansion did indeed occur.
So no, "disorderly" helium and hydrogen didn't form the stars, for these gases certainly aren't what one could ever call disorderly from an entropic point of view. Helium and hydrogen did condense as the universe began to cool, and were coalesced into stars by gravitational forces between the molecules.

I marvel at how a person who doesn't even know why planets and stars are spherical can presume to now pontificate on the laws of gravity.

Like I alluded to above, it is a bit of a mystery why the universe began to expand, but that expansion is certainly not a violation of any physical laws, especially gravity. This probably boils down to you erroneously seeing the Big Bang as an actual explosion; you've made it clear that you refuse to learn why people who actually understand the theory don't see it as such in your first paragraph. The energy for this expansion didn't come from anywhere, it was already there. The singularity the universe we know today originated from contained exactly the same amount of matter-energy it does now.

A simple quantum perturbation could have upset the equilibrium of the proto-universe and set it off on an expansion as I have previously described. We also see what may be an analogous situation and a violation of the "laws of gravity according to theists" in black holes, which emit Hawking radiation in the form of x-rays and photons – yes, black holes slowly evaporate, even with all that gravity holding them together.

The point is, even if it is a mystery why the universe began to inflate, it doesn't change the fact that we have obscene amounts of empirical observations that tell us this is exactly what has happened, and the mere existence of a mystery certainly does not lend any sort of credence to one's case for a deity. That we don't know something, means only that we don't know – nothing more. Mysteries aren't a problem for science, rather, science thrives on mysteries. If we already had all the answers, there would be no reason to explore any further.

I can't believe I've rambled on this long without sharing some of the evidence we have for the Big Bang, so allow me to indulge myself:

We have empirical evidence like cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB) which pervades the observable universe. This CMB was predicted as a result of Big Bang theory, it is a remnant of the very young and VERY hot infant universe and was first observed in 1965 by radio-astronomers Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson who shared the Noble for their discovery.

Then there is the fact that galaxies are moving away from us at speeds proportional to their distance. This is called Hubble's Law, named after Edwin Hubble who discovered this phenomenon in 1929. This observation supports the expansion of the universe and suggests that the universe was once compacted.

Then there's a little thing called Olber's Paradox, which is why the night sky isn't filled totally with starlight and as bright as the sun. The only plausible explanations for this are that distant stars are red-shifted into obscurity because they are traveling away from us at enormous speeds, or that the light from very distant stars hasn't reached us yet. Both explanations support the inflationary Big Bang model of the universe.

Then there's the homogeneity and isotropy of the observed universe – gobs of data showing that our location in the universe is not special or central and that the universe looks the same in all directions – more support for the Big Bang.

And there's time dilation in supernovae light curves! This was a direct prediction of the inflationary Big Bang model and has been directly observed several times.

Just read the two links above myself today, at least I learned something from responding to this gibberish.

We've already been over this. What, exactly, is the "law of physics" that would prevent this, anyway? Planet and star formation is a well documented and well understood concept, and as I've already explained, the formation is caused by gravity – not a miracle.

We can see the formation of stars today in nebulae throughout the universe.

Stars are born in gas clouds like the Eagle Nebula. It is here that dense clouds of gas coalesce and collapse under their own gravity to form a rotating ball. As more and more material is gathered due to the growing gravitational mass of the proto-star, the temperature and pressure and speed of rotation increases. This is very simple high school level physics. Eventually, the central core of this dense cloud of gas and dust will become a star, and the surrounding disk of dust on the central axis may further coalesce into planets.

The star once formed will persist so long as the star maintains its internal pressure against its own gravity, this is done by the nuclear fusion of light elements into heavier ones. When the star runs out of fuel, depending on its solar mass it will either swell into a red giant and then shrink to a white dwarf while ejecting it's planetary nebula, like for instance the Cat's Eye nebula, or go supernova, ejecting it's heavy elements into the universe.

These are well understood concepts, and there is nothing miraculous about them.

As a side note, I'd like to say that I love it when creationists and theists drone on and on about the "laws of science", as if they controlled our universe. A physical law or a scientific law is simply a human description of how the universe consistently behaves. Human descriptions based on human observations. Because of this they are open to refinement or outright rebuttal as new observations are made.

IDers and creationist like to ignore this fact, and claim that such laws actually govern or control the universe - for example saying that the laws of chemistry control atomic and molecular interactions, or prevent this or that. Utter bollocks. This is like saying that a reporter covering a political election controls the election's outcome by writing the story. It is ridiculous to think that the laws of science, which are accounts of human observation, control the phenomena and observations they are derived from.

Sorry, but science does not require faith. It takes no faith to believe in gravity or in well understood and documented aspects of our universe which are based on sound reasoning and empirical evidence. Oh, and notice again that the best a theist can ever hope to do is denigrate reasonable positions by attempting to bring those positions down to their own faith based position. You aren't going to win any battles or converts by crying, "Well, your beliefs are just as ridiculous and as much faith based as mine!" – especially when that simply isn't true.

Also, be sure not to miss the thinly veiled threat as to where one puts their so called faith. Classic!

I highly recommend that you save yourself $15.95, and simply head over to the Rational Response Squad. Reason won't cost you a cent.

In addition to this I highly recommend Richard Carrier's "Sense and Goodness Without God: A defense of metaphysical naturalism". I've talked to Richard pretty extensively on these issues and we are more or less on the same page; and he writes a damn bit better than I do.

You can check out some of the interviews we did with carrier at the RRS homepage, though I think most of those are still subscription only.

But I can give you some free shit as well that is along these lines:

Show #9 - The squad debates the guy this essay was written in response to:

http://www.RationalResponders.com/Shows-6-15/RRS-Show9-24k.mp3

What is evolution? What's the damn difference between law and theory? A response to an ignorance:

http://www.rationalresponders.com/media/Mailbag/David6-26-06.mp3

Hope that helps, let me know if you need more.

Impressive post, todangst. I certainly learned a great deal.

Feel free to put that on the top of the list, and carte blanche for you as to however you want to make that happen. I actually have put together some Sagan clips I want to put out as an RRS commercial on Youtube that ends with the words....

"Come explore the Cosmos with us

www.RationalResponders.com"

Wow... there's an awful lot from that post that will need to be touched on, however I'm too busy to get my hands dirty. I just wanted to post a video response that dealt sort of with this issue from another youtuber...

Oh, and you made a bad analogy. The analogy would be akin to me getting a check for a million dollars, then cashing it, then saying I never got a check for a million dollars. Your interpretation of the passage is such a ridiculous rationalization it almost deserves no comment.

Look for Todangst to point out the projections you made in your first point. 's at Todangst.

The properties of black holes and singularities have been carefully calculated, and that math checked by thousands of scientists all over the world. The resulting calculations made certain predictions which have subsequently been confirmed through direct observation. It is not a stretch to say we know about black holes in the same sense that we know that the sun will come up tomorrow. Why is this not enough for you?

That's where all the cosmological discussion came from. You stated that the pre-Bang singularity would have had to be "perturbed" by some outside force to begin expanding. We have explained that it is unlikely that this happened. You now have one less reason to believe that a god had anything to do with the Big Bang. You're welcome.

I think Todangst answered this best.

No, because no one here has ever experienced anything like that. I have never seen anything in my life that can't be explained through reference to natural causes. Your example is a poor one, since how do you control for the possibility that I would have gotten better anyway? If your god is all powerful and wants us to believe in him, he would know how to convince atheists he is real. Hell, I don't seem to have any problem convincing all kinds of people that I'm real, and I'm just a guy.

Why do you try so hard to talk and act like a rational person and take rational positions most of the time, yet discard rationality when it comes to the question of god? Why, in this one instance, is faith the appropriate mental tool and not the same tool you use in all other aspects of life?

Wow, you need to crack a book, or at least read Todangst's post. The Big Bang theory has advanced way past these beginnings.

The theory that the sun will come up every day for the rest of my life is based on incomplete data since all the days of my life haven't happened yet. I think this demonstrates that perfectly solid theories can be built on incomplete data. The theory of evolution is quite beyond your questioning. Evolution is fact, in the same way as the earth's revolution around the sun is fact.