I guess reading is not your thing. It's been explained 3-4 times in this very thread. So I'll assume you don't want to discuss it.

Why? Its a flaw of the human mind that makes us think there has to be patterns and beginnings and ends. This is the way things work on earth. It doesn't mean its that way everywhere.

Because if this is true, its the worst plan in all the universes.

Actually I would argue that's not entirely the case, as I believe both the establishment of science and the establishment of religion are highly dogmatic and conservative institutions that have a great deal of difficulty dealing with ideas that are either outside of or in opposition to their accepted norms. Human nature, after all.

The difference of course being that, over time, science can actually change. Slowly, kicking and screaming the whole time, but it can change. Because as you mention at its core it's based on observation.

But, in any case, I would say that they do in many ways compete for the same turf, as you put it. At the end of the day it's all about trying to quantify the universe and our place (if any) in it.

Stop, drop, KABOOM!, baby rub on your nipples
Some call me Ludacris, some call me Cosmic Ripples
Far from little, make ya mammary glands jiggle
Got 'em under control, with a bowl of Tender Vittles
Doc-tor giggles, I can't stop until it tickles
Just play a little "D" and I'll make ya mouth dribble
Bits and Kibbles, got 'em all after the pickle
I swing it like a bat, but these balls are not Wiffle
Hit 'em in triples, with no strikes, stripes, or whistles
I ain't felt this good, since my wood lived off a thistle
Sippin' some ripple, I got quarters, dimes, and nickels
For shizzle dizzle, I'm on a track with the Big Snoop Dizzle
Let the Henny trickle, down the beat, with a ghetto tempo
I done blazed the instrumental, laid it plain and simple
Getting brain in the rental, I done did it again
My eyes chinky, I'm with Chingy, at the Holiday Inn

You are a bad man!
http://www.chiefsplanet.com/BB/data:.../pN+RfAUX9P//Z

Quote from the future:

Yeah, we were wrong.

hot blonde from nebraska
already unbelievable

Because it's self-evolving, right? God's plan CAN'T be true because he screwed up by not making everything "perfect" instantly, despite God himself being "perfect", right?

Think about this for a second. What would be the point of making everything perfect the first time? Don't you think it would be too easy?

- Define "perfect"

- Define "God"

Why do science stories have to turn into religion arguments? The universe is really cool. I think that's what should be taken from this thread.

Absolutely. I'm still not sure why it matters how the universe evolves. What matters is the universe is incredible.

I think its all tied to what I was saying about there really being no such thing as big or small.
Only bigger or smaller.
The entire universe really isn't big if there is mega multiverse that could be in a cluster of MMVs.
In a different number of levels of dimensions.
With every point and in the universe being connected
And the the theory that the total number of minds in the universe being one-Erwin Shrodenger.
THE greatest minds ever Tesla and Einstein, both knew that there is.......something..something conscious, something niether big or tiny in the sky, but omnipresent, and a part of us all.
ALL of this is here for whatever we are or it is to exist on a phsical plane IMO. For what I don't know.
But like you said. It is absolutely no more far fetched than to think that somebody wrecked a truck full of paint and left Il Giudizio Universale on the pavement...no way.

Because some see it as a threat to their faith?:popcorn:

That's ridiculous, or should be.

^

Anyone that feels threatened by something as simple as a discussion about the universe should have their faith examined. I think the reason these things start is because one smart comment bashing one side or the other turns into something like this

You've got a pic of a Royals player in your sig. Nobody can question your faith ever.

LMAO

For some.
For others its because science and religion are two pieces of the same puzzle.
And for some, science is thier religion.

I agree with you. If we could stay on track without the muckrakers it would be heavenly


(pun intended)

This thread sums up why the midwest sucks and why our country is far behind others in science and mathematics.

Science and religion are not mutually exclusive. The big difference that I see is exactly what you saw with Nye vs Ham.

You give Nye evidence and you can change his mind. You give Ham evidence and he points to a book written thousands of years ago and refuses to accept your evidence.

Yep, like God teaching algebra to ants, ants wanna know, just not smart enough. Throw in the fact people have a spirit or soul? Science cant begin to touch that.

Ants have no concept of algebra or knowledge or anything that you and I think about. An ant acts on instinct - it doesn't have the necessary tools for higher-thinking.
Where's the proof of a spirit or a soul? Near-death experiences (white light, seeing grandma) can be explained by DMT.

Ugh

Two problems with this. First, how do you know ants don't know algebra or even have a better system of mathematical equations than we have. Two, science never claims to know everything. In fact they do the opposite. They say "hey we think this is the way it is and we invite you to prove us wrong in hopes that we get it right."

You just had to start, didn't you?

This all day long...

That is not a fact :harumph:

I would like to believe that we have a soul, but it isn't anything tangible that can be proven though. Like information and evidence of the Big Bang for example.

We'll only know the answer when we can't share the answer

Exactly. No ****ing way is it a fact that my first wife had a soul.

I understand the thought process behind religion, spirits/souls, etc, etc.
We are a species that is so far advanced that we have essentially "mastered" our existence in the sense that we don't really have much to truly fear other than ourselves. We are the dominant species on the planet.
But, we've been here for just a fraction of time in relation to the age of our planet, let alone to age of the universe.
Further more, we have this mindset as humans that we are special - there has to be some reason for our existence other than just pure luck. (sorry, but probably not)
We, like every animal, are afraid to die. We say we aren't, but we are. We're afraid that when we die, it's just that - we're dead. We cease to exist. Our thoughts are gone. So, we have created this idea that there is a special afterlife just for us where we can continue to live forever.
It sucks, but realistically, we're just like any other animal.

“A myth is a way of making sense in a senseless world. Myths are narrative patterns that give significance to our existence.”
― Rollo May

Could be, and realism is harsh enough to probably confirm it.

The thought of being special though, is unique to humans, poetry, love (sex for pleasure not just procreation). The extras over and beyond just animalistic instincts to survive or live.

Dogs have been companions to mankind since the written word, yet humans have dreamt and see the dreams fullfilled; air travel, internal combustion, jet propulsion, travel to the moon, see the ripples created by the birth of the universe on a telescope.....

It's hard to accept some realities, but humans not having a special quality and are just like any other animal, not true.

Does that mean any of the religions are right? I didn't say that....

The thought of wanting o be special is somewhat unique to humans. All other emotions you listed including sex for pleasure are demonstrated by members of the animal kingdom. Oh yeah and they dream too, they just don't have opposable thumbs to be able to build stuff.

"What created the universe? What made the sparks?"--dumb ****s offended by the mirror suggestion, "Who created God?"

I don't know that anyone is offended. Are you?

If you want to get to the literal since, humans did. Allah, Christian God, Jewish God, Greek/Roman Gods, and The Flying Spaghetti Monster are examples of different perceptions and beliefs of a omnipresence .

What do we possess that is unique to us? We are gifted in that evolution fell our way, but there's nothing in us that isn't a chemical predisposition that is imposed on us through the transfer of genetic material. The transfer of that material was made possible because it aided our survival for long enough to allow us to pass our genes on.

If you can accept that and a higher being, kudos, you believe what I do. If you can't I repeat, kudos, I can't speak for you.

My point is in the same quantifiable thousands of years of evolution in humans/mankind is measurable, dogs not so much.

So it's easy to correlate that "evolution" into "special" qualities. Now is that just happenstance, primortal sludge going our way, or a devine design. We don't know, we think either science or religion points respective directions but in truth we just don't know.

It could be one or the other, maybe something we haven't thought of or "discovered" yet, or some combination of those. So we mask this primal ignorance into beliefs; of religion or science or some combination, so we can "explain" the truth we can't even comprehend (or may be ever able to comprehend)

Oh and iirc penguins are the only other mammal having sex for pleasure. Or so scientists say....

We're back off topic.

But, that's not true. There is a ton that the human mind is capable of that no other creature has. Humans, more importantly the human mind is the coolest thing ever.

Bill Nye wouldn't know evidence if it hit him in the face. The fact that people cling to him as a spokesman for "science" is hilarious.

Put this thread in DC where it belongs.

I agree, with the DC part.

No, it hasn't been explained at all. You did a few early posts about the quantifiable measurement of time which did not exist before the big bang:

This doesn't answer the question of how something came out of nothing. Then you say:

Guess what, time and energy (light) and space did not exist before the big bang, so this post does not address how everything came out of nothing. Do you even understand what nothing is?

Here's the same question by another poster:

Then you post this which does not answer the question of the big bang, but is more of a philosophical discussion on how the universe came into existence:

That's pretty, but completely useless. Thanks for nothing, again. Then you post this:

Again, this has nothing to do with how the big bang started. Then there is this 2 hour video which is nothing but conjecture and more philosphical discussion than it is hard science:

This is where Krauss likes to talk about magic, that is, the creation of something (or everything) from nothing. Of couse, this breaks every single scientific law and is complete speculation based more on faith than on facts, hard science and provable theories, it's a discussion on magic. You won't call it that but people like me who have common sense see it for what it is, a discussion on magic.

yep, how can an expanding universe be expanding into nothing?

Sex for pleasure isn't unique to humans by any means. If you include masturbation, there are many many species that participate in sexual pleasure for fun. Porcupines masturbate with sticks. Bonobo females exchange sex for food, prostitution style. Groups of male dolphins often capture a concubine female and continuously rape her up without allowing her to escape. They also capture and rape baby seals sometimes, just for giggles.

All throughout the animal kingdom there are other animals that do most everything that humans do. In most cases, they do it better. The mantis shrimp has eyes that completely put human eyes to shame by a huge huge margin. Most underwater species have better vision that humans. Human strength is nothing compared to other similar sized species. We're slower than most other species.

Every animal is uniquely special in some way. Humans simply have a deeper intellect than others. And if we look back at our evolutionary history, we can even pinpoint the time in the past where we reached that intellect. We can see when we figured out how to use fire, how to use tools, how to hunt using teamwork, etc. The interesting thing is that we can see other species in their own stages of learning these things. We can see other birds and mammals using tools, using teamwork. We can see the process in action.

Humans certainly have a special quality. Just like all the other animals.

Humans can ask questions and have a much, much, much more profound way of communicating. This thread is a perfect example, your post is a perfect example. Humans can talk about things like facts and fiction, reality and magic and ask questions like "where do I come from, how does the universe work?"

There was a time, just a few hundred years ago, when people didn't understand what made humans sick. They blamed it on silly things like punishment from God, witchcraft, contact with dead animals, bad air, etc. Then someone came along and proposed that there were tiny microscopic creatures too small to see, that were invading the human body and causing sickness. This was overwhelmingly met with the same denial you're showing here. People refused to believe it could be possible. There was no proof. It was a discussion on magic.

Yesterday's magic often becomes tomorrow's science.

Humans accumulate knowledge over generations. Learning, not just from own own past, but that of our ancestors is a special thing.

You're talking about god of the gaps.

Other species also communicate directly. Dolphins have names for each other. Elephants have a specific call to warn each other of humans. And surprisingly a specific call to warn of bees. Elephants hate bees. Ants communicate through the use of chemical pheromones, and they display complex colonies where everyone has a specific job function, and they can communicate things like where food is, where danger is, and many more things even we can't understand. You could argue that ants have a more efficient communication method than humans do.

Boy, this thread went from "Wow, cool...science!" to DC in no time.

true, but correct me if I'm wrong, scientific laws are there for a reason, that is, they are provable, varifiable and accepted facts. You cannot create matter from nothing according to scientific laws, that's impossible. However, in order to justify the theory of the big bang, and by proxy the theory of evolution, people like Krauss are resorting to what is little more than a discussion on magic.

My whole involvement in this thread came about because the Dave Lane poster said it's easier to explain the existence of the universe if you take the supernatural out of the equation. But then when you do that how do you explain everything coming out of nothing? It takes a lot of speculation, imagination and pure fiction to explain something coming out of nothing, yet people like Dave Lane say it's easier to do this than say "God created the universe?"

This is called being a hypocrit where I come from.

:spock:

You guys realize that arguing about what you're arguing about is pointless right? You're never going to get anyone that believes either side of this to convert to your opinion by offering it up on a web forum. True belief in anything can only come through personal research and study. Anyone that believes something simply because someone says it to be true doesn't actually believe it.

If I post a new thread stating that we've just traded for Desean Jackson, you'd all ask me for a link. Whether you believe in science or any religion...go find your own link.

Science will never say, god created the universe, because it can't. Science must stay to what is in the natural world. Once god enters the equation, you're talking faith and believe. I don't for a second think you can't have both, but you'll never come to the scientific conclusion that god created the universe.

And this needs to leave the lounge.

First the big bang doesn't say the universe came out of "nothing"
There was always some form of energy that existed

Second technically something can out of nothing. At the quantum level things behave in ways that break the laws of physics. To even to pretend to understand how the universe MUST operate is beyond naïve, for anyone, let alone someone without a lifetime's work in the field of physics.

Unless you have an answer as to how a single electron can go every direction at the same time, then you should not try to fit everything into a cause and effect relationship because things at the quantum level don't behave that way.

Third you just can't say "well it can't come from nothing, so there must of been a creator"
If there is a creator, then where did it come from?
A creator of universes of far more complex than a single universe.

It is not the simplest explanation, it is a deflection

Classic god of the gaps argument

yep, and the psuedo-theoretial-magic behind the theory of the big bang and what caused it breaks all the scientific laws that these same scientists claim are fundamental to understanding the universe and how it works. It's the irony of ironies and it's really quit baffling as to how hypcritical the whole thing is.

I'm with you. I did the research and have for years. Happens to be something I care strongly about. The fact people like Donkeystone doesn't understand science only reinforces his ignorant beliefs. No one elses.

OK quit trolling.

Sure. But his ignorant beliefs are still his beliefs. Let him do his thang and you do yours. I am an atheist, but I don't, and never would, try to push those beliefs on anyone else and all that I ask is that members of other faiths show the same respect to me in return.

the big bang theory does say that our universe, as we know it, all came out of a tiny particle that exploded. So, this tiny particle existed in space and in time, right? Or, it didn't, right? Regardless, out of this tiny particle came all matter and energy, so again, this is a huge problem/issue/question because out of one tiny particle came everything, and the universe is massive. I understand that the scientific community is still trying to figure it all out, especially at the quantum level and at levels that are basically unmeasurable, but that being said, it's still somewhat of a faith based system to believe everything came out of one tiny particle becasue it breaks all the laws of science that these same scientist claim are essential to understanding the universe.

You give man too much credit. "Mastered our existence" Lol. Sadly man likes to jump to conclusions on both the religious side and scientific side. If science can't see it or measure it, it doesn't exist. At least religion is somewhat honest telling you to believe on "faith".
I don't know 100% that there's a heaven, but I know 100% that there's a Satan and demons doing his bidding. No, I'm not referring to Obama, I'm referring to outright supernatural demons. I've personally been attacked 4 times by by a Demon. The unrecommended use of an Ouija board spared me a self inflicted death by identifying the attacking demon. I've also seen a full body apparition that science has zero explanation for except to say that I must've been asleep and dreamt it. The reality of these experiences are unexplainable through the myopic lens of science. I was agnostic and dismissive of the Bible when the first attack occurred. I really had a problem with Genesis. I am now a creationist, not in the Adam and Eve way, but in a intelligent design way. "If"science ever finds the missing links and proves macro evolution, I'm fine with it. Doesn't disprove God or Christ in any way. It's just a reminder to be cautious about the literal interpretation of everything in the bible and use it as a guide. I was also extremely dismissive of an ouija board. I thought plastic and cardboard was in no way powerful.
Man's problem is that he doesn't know what he doesn't know and anything from another dimension or supernatural gets dismissed because it can jeopardize previous findings. It's easier to just dismiss it as crazy. Man and science are in their infancy and until science realizes that, it shall remain so.
I haven't had a near death experience, but many have. Some had a great experience and some had a horrific experience. Science likes to explain it as a hallucination from the brain dying. That's the easiest determination to make because it only takes into account brain patterns and makes no mention of a soul which would be hard to prove.
Just 120 years ago, it was believed that if you went 70mph in a car, you would suffocate. Some believe that the vastness of the universe and the distance involved precludes any visitation of extraterrestrial life. They fail to recognize that just because it takes man 9 months to reach Mars, doesn't mean that lifeforms that are a million earth years older or even 1000 years more advanced can't cover distance with ease.
I've also seen a craft accelerate at a rate that would render any life aboard liquid if gravity wasn't mastered and all weight reduced to absolute zero. Someone has the capability. Spacemen, US, Russians? I don't know, but people that haven't seen are conditioned to put a tin foil hat on you.
Man's arrogance is his biggest handicap.
.

lol, you haven't answered one thing, you are skirting the issue. If you just said let's agree to disagree I'd have more respect for you, but you can't even do that.

What missing links do you feel are required to prove evolution?

That's good.

I only problem I have with, "evangelical atheism", is the idea that people who believe in god are ignorant, or stupid. I've said on here before, I've known some dumb atheists, and some of the most brilliant people I've ever known are christian. It does nothing to belittle someone for their beliefs.

And done.

Okay let's agree to disagree. There has never been nothing. There is no nothing anywhere at any time. It's hard for man to wrap his limited brain around because of how poorly the human mind works. All we know from our very very limited view of the universes is how things work on earth. Beginnings and ends. Therefore this pattern must be cast on the universe.

Just because our minds seek patterns is no reason to assume this pattern is true everywhere. There was something before the Big Bang probably lots of something's. What it was we don't have anything more than speculation because of the limits of our minds and instruments.

Einstein quote: "There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle."

"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind."/A. Einstein

I agree almost everything is a miracle, except ticks, **** them. It's a natural miracle, but miraculous none the less.

Whether you believe in God or not, existence is a miracle.

What "laws of science" does this theory break?

Tell me what they are and what theory these laws you speak of are attached to. I think you're pulling that out of your rear.

It's not faith based. It's extrapolation via complex mathematics. I know you think this is some 'gotcha' moment...but it's not. Science doesn't claim to know everything. It creates theories and then attempts to disprove or validate them.

Disprove the big bang if you're so certain astronomers aren't as clever as you.

the laws of thermodynamics for one.

fair enough

Oh Jesus ****ing christ...

No... it...doesn't. If it did, the theory wouldn't exist or those laws would have to change. You don't understand the laws of thermodynamics.

That's not necessarily true. We've never witnessed matter created from nothing. But some science says it's certainly plausible. Quantum theory says it's possible. Quantum theory says that the Big Bang could have spontaneously emerged from a random quantum fluctuation in an simple quantum vacuum. Which satisfies quantum theory science. So you cannot say that science has no answer. At that point, you have to understand the relationship between quantum theory and relative theory.