Trufflehound
Re-enfranchised
---Deja Vu---
I knew you were going to say that.
---Deja Vu---
Therefore surely God can only have come about by intelligent design. If this is the case then who designed God?
One of the slightly alarming things about living in the USA is finding out that –
46% believe in Creationism - Gallup poll
55% believe they are protected by Guardian Angels - Washington Times
and 57% believe in the Devil - Washington Examiner
Normally as countries become more prosperous and educated they become less religious, America seems determined to buck this trend.
I love how people completely dismiss intelligent design with logic such as this. Am I right in thinking you believe in the Big Bang Theory? If so, do you actually understand it or do you have a rough notion but have faith in other people who do understand it? Is that not just another belief system then? You can argue that the scientists work with proof (they don't but that's another argument) but ultimately you're just relying on strangers that you trust.
You've been mocking the nonsensical argument of a deity creating all life and then arguing that if that was the case then who created God. It's a fair point - but worth bearing in mind that your whole belief system rests on the idea of there being absolutely nothing, then there was a bang and the universe was created and a few billion years later there were sentient beings. Which sounds the more ridiculous?
I'm not a creationist, by the way - I'm firmly agnostic.
You've been mocking the nonsensical argument of a deity creating all life and then arguing that if that was the case then who created God. It's a fair point - but worth bearing in mind that your whole belief system rests on the idea of there being absolutely nothing, then there was a bang and the universe was created and a few billion years later there were sentient beings. Which sounds the more ridiculous?
I'm not a creationist, by the way - I'm firmly agnostic.
The big difference between scientific and religious beliefs is that one can be tested, the other can't - putting them on the same level as each other, making comparisons or suggesting that explanations of natural phenomena made on a religious or scientific basis are equally valid is to misunderstand both religion and science. You can be a scientist and still have a religious belief, the two are not mutually exclusive.
Science doesn't try to prove or disprove religious beliefs, it simply tries to understand the mechanics of a system.
These are the kinds of questions children ask - not any adult who has seriously taken the time to consider what "time" actually is.
I love how people completely dismiss intelligent design with logic such as this. Am I right in thinking you believe in the Big Bang Theory? If so, do you actually understand it or do you have a rough notion but have faith in other people who do understand it? Is that not just another belief system then? You can argue that the scientists work with proof (they don't but that's another argument) but ultimately you're just relying on strangers that you trust.
You've been mocking the nonsensical argument of a deity creating all life and then arguing that if that was the case then who created God. It's a fair point - but worth bearing in mind that your whole belief system rests on the idea of there being absolutely nothing, then there was a bang and the universe was created and a few billion years later there were sentient beings. Which sounds the more ridiculous?
I'm not a creationist, by the way - I'm firmly agnostic.
It is worth noting that whenever you see or hear scientists talk about cosmology, there is an acceptance of simply 'not knowing' what went before. The theory of the big bang is commonly thought of as 'the creation of the universe', however this is really incorrect, as it is a theory that explains the origin of our 'known' universe as we currently observe it. It is merely a point at which our known scientific discovery and theory can get us back to. Beyond the big bang is the unknown, not nothing.
The singularity prior to the big bang is some crazy quantum mechanical relativity science that has various theories, but the concept of 'nothing' doesn't exist, the is in essence always something, even if we don't understand what that is.
I think creationists jump at the Big Bang theory as an opportunity to ask who created the singularity. Science doesn't have the answers to that question, but that in turn doesn't support the conclusion that something created it.
I agree with your point to [MENTION=1313]BadFish[/MENTION] that there is no way of using science to argue against religion. Religion is a belief system that does not require empirical experience or evidence. Science will eternally never know all the answers. There can always be the question laid at its feet of 'what came before', or 'what created the start of that'. The absence of knowledge is not the proof of faith.
Only evidence supports science, hence why scientific theories and laws are disproved with welcoming joy and excitement of a new discovery. When Einstein proved Newton incorrect in his explanation of the universe, there was a seismic shift and science adapted and simply rewrote it's text books. The Higgs Boson came along and actually helped prove the hole Einstein knew was in his Theory of Relativity all along. These are exciting discoveries in a journey of discovery. Ultimately you have a belief in a theory because it makes sense, however that belief is not absolute and unchallengeable. It's a belief that has nothing to do with faith.
So in essence, the theory of the big bang is not a belief that there was nothing, then suddenly a bang, the universe expanded and then there was life. It's a theory that says all this that we can see started at a single point. What went before we don't really know, but conceptually it is not a theory of creation, it is merely a point in time that we can establish.
This can be true of evolution. The absence of knowledge of what binded the cells in the primordial soup is not a justification for intelligent design, it's just that we don't know. Again, the absence knowledge can never be the explanation for something.
I'm agreeing with you by the way (at least I think I am...) in that science can never be used as an absolute tool to disprove religion. It simply can't because 95% of life the universe and everything we simply don't understand, therefore science has to perhaps philosophically at least accept that one day a deity maybe proved or discovered. A true atheist to my mind is not someone who blindly believes they will always be an atheist, they are simply an atheist in the absence of sufficient proof of a God.
.......
Oh my, just as I'm typing this 2 Jehovah Witnesses have knocked on the door. Brilliant timing. In the end they had to make their excuses to leave! I was quite prepared to make them a cup of tea and go through my thoughts on life, death the universe and everything, but they have more doors to knock on and get going. They were very sweet and looking forward to their resurrection which is nice for them.
WHAT?? Evolution is based on facts. Creationism is based on a book written 200 hundred years after the events they're supposed to be talking about.
Evolution = fact
Creationism = belief
It's not that hard really
Glad you think someone who speaks English, Russian, French, German and Spanish and teaches Science at the one of best Universities in the world is an utter idiot.
But one set of strangers bases its beliefs on evidence and logic, available to all for repeated peer review and testing....It just comes down to faith in strangers and a belief that what those strangers are doing is right.
I don't disagree with any of that, my point was that how many people who claim to believe the Big Bang Theory on here understand it. I doubt there are many so for the others it just comes down to faith in strangers and a belief that what those strangers are doing is right.
The other point was that some of the assumptions that we are asked to make when considering the Big Bang Theory are just as mind-blowing as the idea of intelligent design. "There was nothing forever and then there was a big bang and then everything was created." Err..okay.
I didn't mean to appear condescending, sorry.
The concept of "time" you're referring to is a subjective interpretation based on your own perception of the world around you changing, for example "before, now and after" - this is the classical understanding of time based on a deterministic universe which precedes our understanding that time is not a constant - it could well be a complete illusion as we are conscious observers which perceive the changes that we call time.
Without writing an essay, they are a child like questions because as far as we are aware the big bang or God and time are likely to have emerged together, nothing necessarily happened "before" them, because time didn't necessarily exist to make "before" possible.
Glad you think someone who speaks English, Russian, French, German and Spanish and teaches Science at the one of best Universities in the world is an utter idiot.
Some interesting questions there, some silly ones too.
I suppose that somewhere there are 22 questions for creationists too.
From what I understand there are many questions that scientists are still looking for answers to. The fact that there are still questions doesn't mean that the theory is wrong it just means that their are questions that still need to be answered. The great thing about science is that if the evidence proves them wrong then they will rethink their theory.
View attachment 50957
Not sure if this was actually said but hey I haven't watched the whole thing yet.
The other set of strangers derives its beliefs from an old book packed with ambiguity, contradictions and painfully obvious myths.
The problem I have with debates like this is that people believe that science can or has somehow falsified the existence of God, but it hasn't, far from it - possibly even the contrary.
Putting the apparent divine perfection of our universe and its life aside, we are learning through quantum physics that the atheist ideas of a deterministic, mechanistic, "Godless" universe are most probably wrong.