[quote]pat wrote:
pookie wrote:
pat wrote:
There are quite few miracles that have been reviewed by scientists many times. I didn’t read all 400 posts.
How do you review a miracle?
For you, I will show you, cause you have a brain…I will PM it to you.[/quote]
If you want to convince people with that “miracle”, I suggest you send it to people without a brain.
[quote]pookie wrote:
pat wrote:
pookie wrote:
pat wrote:
There are quite few miracles that have been reviewed by scientists many times. I didn’t read all 400 posts.
How do you review a miracle?
For you, I will show you, cause you have a brain…I will PM it to you.
If you want to convince people with that “miracle”, I suggest you send it to people without a brain.
[/quote]
And now my curiosity is piqued. Share?
[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
Regardless, when they change forms, they cease going the speed of light and are subject to time again. or their energy they transfered is. what are we even arguing at this point?[/quote]
Simply pointing out that there is good evidence for matter and energy existing outside of time, and hence no compelling reason to manufacture a supernatural being as the explanation for the current state of the universe.
[quote]forlife wrote:
DoubleDuce wrote:
Regardless, when they change forms, they cease going the speed of light and are subject to time again. or their energy they transfered is. what are we even arguing at this point?
Simply pointing out that there is good evidence for matter and energy existing outside of time, and hence no compelling reason to manufacture a supernatural being as the explanation for the current state of the universe.[/quote]
Or conception of time being incorrect doesn’t excuse the particles from needing a cause.
[quote]whoami wrote:
Does that prove… ah fuck it! You know where I’m going with this. I can’t prove anything, but one can certainly point out the primitive, intolerant, implausible, illogical, inconsistent and vicious claims of christianity. Most people feel silly when confronted with this, and usually respond by saying that they don’t believe the stuff literally. Now, THAT is bullshit.
Now, deism… that’s another story. I certainly do not exclude the possibility of a creator, but I do not believe the creator cares where I stick my thing.
[/quote]
Good post. It is impossible to prove a negative. There could be a god(s), or the sky could by populated by invisible flying unicorns. There is no way to prove either of these hypotheses is not true.
The best you can do is look at the claims people make, as those claims relate to the material universe. If someone claims to channel the divine power to heal, for example, you can put them in a lab and see if their claims are true.
What doesn’t make sense is to actively believe there is a particular kind of god, when there is no real evidence for doing so. I think agnosticism informed by probabilities is the most honest approach, since actual knowledge is impossible.
[quote]Doyle wrote:
If you only believe in what is physical then we are the pruducts of our genetics and experiences. Therefore we have no free will but each “decision” we make has been programmed by our genetics and the external influences through our lives.
Of course you can argue that if there is a creator there is no free will either. That if a god created us and controls the events around us that we are just pupets responding.
In a way true free will is like randomness and can’t exist if you beleive exclusively in cause and effect. [/quote]
I agree with you to some extent. Randomness is different from free will though, because it isn’t enough simply to be nondeterministic. Free will implies purpose, which is contrary to randomness.
As I see it, the only way true free will could exist would be if we have always existed. If we were created, then the thing that created us would be ultimately responsible for the decisions that we make.
[quote]Scrotus wrote:
How do you know that god doesnt just help people at random, on a whim or on the basis of some other standard? It didnt even occur to me that prayer could be used to get stuff from god, so I hadn’t thought of that lol. So, my question is, how do you know god doesn’t help people? If god was all-knowing then he would know who he should help and who he shouldnt, and all that. [/quote]
The question being studied wasn’t whether god helps people, but whether praying results in better recovery outcomes than expected by chance alone.
You could be right, but if a god doesn’t answer prayers why would anyone bother praying to him/her/it?
[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
Or conception of time being incorrect doesn’t excuse the particles from needing a cause.[/quote]
If you exist outside of time, how could you even have a cause?
[quote]Makavali wrote:
And now my curiosity is piqued. Share?[/quote]
My apatheism was quite shaken.
[quote]forlife wrote:
DoubleDuce wrote:
Or conception of time being incorrect doesn’t excuse the particles from needing a cause.
If you exist outside of time, how could you even have a cause?[/quote]
I think you are having a problem with the “outside of time concept”. The way you think of time is not accurate. It isn’t that photons disobey the laws of time, its that time is not a universal standard. You are still trying to say they always existed when the term always doesn’t apply to them. Using the logic of time does not make any sense.
Futher, when an electron jumps between orbital levels it doesn’t cause a photon?
Let me try to explain.
In calculus you have differential areas. A differential area is a limit as the length and/or width dimensions go to zero. essentially a differential area is a approaching zero though it never technically does.
So, the sum of how many differential areas does it take to equal the entire original surface? infinite, right?
So does the original surface have no beginning and end? because it’s made of infinite areas? NO! the differential area is really just a point/line. You cannot add them up to make an area because the dimensions don’t apply.
1D to 2D space doesn’t convert. Even though a surface is made up of 1D lines, you cannot quantify it in terms of lines.
A surface has a beginning and end, it just has to be defined in terms of another dimension. You have to have an X AND Y dimension to define 2D space. You are attempting to define the boundaries of a surface with only the one dimension.
Aren’t you the one attempting to define the boundaries of a surface with only one dimension?
You can’t talk about cause and effect in the context of timelessness. It makes no sense to do so.
Saying “god” exists outside of time is no different from saying a photon exists outside of time.
If you require a photon to have a cause, the same logic can be applied to the theoretical “god”.
All I’m saying is that you are applying a double standard if you insist that all matter and energy have a cause by virtue of existing in the current universe, while excusing “god” from the same requirement.
[quote]forlife wrote:
Aren’t you the one attempting to define the boundaries of a surface with only one dimension?
You can’t talk about cause and effect in the context of timelessness. It makes no sense to do so.
Saying “god” exists outside of time is no different from saying a photon exists outside of time.
If you require a photon to have a cause, the same logic can be applied to the theoretical “god”.
All I’m saying is that you are applying a double standard if you insist that all matter and energy have a cause by virtue of existing in the current universe, while excusing “god” from the same requirement.[/quote]
Even if God and photons share some properties in this existence (a bit of a stretch if you ask me) that doesn’t mean they are of the same existence. Maybe God exists as a dimension higher than the energy or matter? No one can say. The point is you cannot quantify a higher dimension with the rules of a lower one. infinite in time doesn’t have to mean no origin.
I’m only trying to show contingency, not necessity.
The universe could very well exist without the need to invoke a supernatural influence.
Are you as willing to admit there may be no “god” as I am to admit there could be one/some?
[quote]forlife wrote:
I’m only trying to show contingency, not necessity.
The universe could very well exist without the need to invoke a supernatural influence.
Are you as willing to admit there may be no “god” as I am to admit there could be one/some? [/quote]
I think it’s a logical fallacy to try to scientifically estimate it either way. It is purely a question of faith and you can have faith in whatever you want.
You could have faith that existence is infinite in both scaled directions. That we are the microscopic matter of a larger universe while all our atoms are universes themselves.
Or maybe that we are the decaying remains of what you might call god.
Or how bout existence being an experiment preformed by god.
Maybe this is a dream state and I will wake up in the real universe soon.
You cannot logically disprove any of these things. You also cannot scientifically state probabilities of an entirely unique systems like existence.
Scientifically, pretty much anything you could believe about existence is contingent in that it is as likely a possibility as anything else.
Is it possible there is a god involved in creation? Yes. Is god a logical necessity? No.
Is it possible there is no god involved in creation? Yes. Is a lack of a god a logical necessity? No.
But nothing is a logical necessity when discussing existence.
[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
You cannot logically disprove any of these things. You also cannot scientifically state probabilities of an entirely unique systems like existence.[/quote]
You can state scientific probabilities, given reasonable assumptions about the nature of reality as we are able to comprehend it. Yes, it is possible that our current reality doesn’t reflect the greater whole, but you can still create a hierarchy of probabilities based on what we currently know.
For example, it is theoretically possible that flying invisible unicorns exist. However, since nobody has ever seen one, the best you can do is hypothesize how they might interact with the material world, and see if any supporting evidence can be found for their existence.
Most reasonable people do not believe in flying invisible unicorns, nor do they equate the probability of flying invisible unicorns with the probability of certain other invisible forces like gravity or potential energy.
It’s not exactly honest to say that since it is impossible to know something with 100% certainty, all hypotheses have equal probability of being true.
All of that said, it is good to keep an open mind. What scares me are people that say they KNOW something is true, at the exclusion of alternate hypotheses, which is true both in the religious and the scientific communities.
These absolutists are in denial, clinging to the false security of convictions not born out by observable facts.
[quote]forlife wrote:
DoubleDuce wrote:
You cannot logically disprove any of these things. You also cannot scientifically state probabilities of an entirely unique systems like existence.
You can state scientific probabilities, given reasonable assumptions about the nature of reality as we are able to comprehend it. Yes, it is possible that our current reality doesn’t reflect the greater whole, but you can still create a hierarchy of probabilities based on what we currently know.
For example, it is theoretically possible that flying invisible unicorns exist. However, since nobody has ever seen one, the best you can do is hypothesize how they might interact with the material world, and see if any supporting evidence can be found for their existence.
Most reasonable people do not believe in flying invisible unicorns, nor do they equate the probability of flying invisible unicorns with the probability of certain other invisible forces like gravity or potential energy.
It’s not exactly honest to say that since it is impossible to know something with 100% certainty, all hypotheses have equal probability of being true.
All of that said, it is good to keep an open mind. What scares me are people that say they KNOW something is true, at the exclusion of alternate hypotheses, which is true both in the religious and the scientific communities.
These absolutists are in denial, clinging to the false security of convictions not born out by observable facts.
[/quote]
Like I said it’s not a question of probability, but faith. I don’t think probabilities to things beyond our true comprehension or science.
Things like infinity. Infinity is not a number. It is a concept that isn’t really testable or determinable or calculable. I basically consider it philosophic more than mathematic. It is a representation of a boarder for our comprehension. It is used to fill in when no quantity makes sense.
You have to make the distinction that you are extrapolating statistics from our knowledge, not interpolating it. The farther you extrapolate from a given data set the larger the error term becomes. As you extrapolate to “infinity” your error term becomes infinite.
The present existence of invisible unicorns would be interpolation which is bounded and much more accurate, though not analytically correct.
Mathematically it makes sense to make statistical statements as to the probability of unicorns today, it does not however mathematically make sense to statistically state probabilities about existence.
The only thing either of us really has on the issue is gut intuition. My gut intuition tells me there is a god that started it all. Yours does not. And that is all.
You’re wrong about it only being gut intuition. By your logic, it is equally likely that the universe was created by green three-eyed aliens as it is that the universe was created by your version of god.
More to the point, faith is a farce. Faith is claiming something is true when you have no idea whether or not it really is true.
What about being honest and simply withholding judgment?
[quote]forlife wrote:
You’re wrong about it only being gut intuition. By your logic, it is equally likely that the universe was created by green three-eyed aliens as it is that the universe was created by your version of god.
More to the point, faith is a farce. Faith is claiming something is true when you have no idea whether or not it really is true.
What about being honest and simply withholding judgment?[/quote]
Statistically that is true.
Faith is believing something is trustworthy. Most people have faith in science and many other things, even though science is wrong a lot of times.
You seem to have a problem with faith without proof. However, you believe in things like love without scientific evidence.
You can believe in things that aren’t provable. You believe that there are no magical invisible flying unicorns without proof. Shouldn’t you remain agnostic with regard to unicorns?
Really and truely agnosticism is about provability, not faith. I consider myself an agnostic. In fact I think I’m more of an agnostic than you. But I still have faith.
[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
Faith is believing something is trustworthy.[/quote]
Then why do people believe the Bible?
What is your justification for believing your particular brand of religion is “trustworthy”? Science makes mistakes, but it is the most reliable method we have for determining objective truth. It is far, far more accurate in that regard than religion will ever be.