I want to believe in evolution

[Kidlicious]

It's amazing to me when someone claims to believe in reason and resorts to childish bull**** to try and get others to share their beliefs.

[Jon Miller]

I just made the mistake of reading some of your posts.

Kid

If you want to reach or connect with people, you have to make an effort to understand them. You need to make that effort, you need to listen to them.

JM

[Alexander's Horse]

don't listen to these fools DaShi, just close your eyes and I shall sprinkle fairy dust on you and you shall believe in evolution

[kentonio]

First, you just said "the creation of the universe." Thanks, now I don't feel so dumb for saying that you science guys assume that everything has to be created.

Things can be created through natural processes. Just not from nothing (as far as we know).

Ahem. Believing that the universe was created does not require that one not observe the natural world and study it. This has nothing to do with the question of how the universe exists. In fact, if you study the natural world you see the law of cause and effect. That should lead you to ask how can an effect exist whithout a cause. Ok, now we see that sometimes there is no cause (just randomness). This is my point.

I don't really get your point, how can you use god as a cause and then wave off the inevitable 'what was the cause that created the effect of god' with a casual 'oh he's omnipotent'.

What exactly are you seeing in the natural world which leads you to the belief that it wasn't created?

Everything in the natural world leads backwards to something else. We reach the point of the big bang and basically get pretty stuck, as we don't have the tools yet to work any further back. Hopefully one way we will, but when you bring a god into it you're basically just using god of the gaps. You're inventing an infinitely complicated being and saying thats the answer. How is that any more logical than someone saying the universe just appeared one day?

Incidentally I think I read a while back about the discovery of some faint radiation rings that appear to pre-date the big bang. I'm guessing Jon will know whether that happened or not though.

[Kidlicious]

I just made the mistake of reading some of your posts.

Kid

If you want to reach or connect with people, you have to make an effort to understand them. You need to make that effort, you need to listen to them.

JM

Why don't you go take a long walk off a short cliff? You suck.

[Kidlicious]

Things can be created through natural processes. Just not from nothing (as far as we know).

Then where did the natural processes come from? If we are going to get anywhere here you have to answer my question and stop avoiding it. I didn't say things were created from nothing. I'm saying that the creator of the universe is superior to the universe and everything in it, including the laws that govern it, because he created it.

I don't really get your point, how can you use god as a cause and then wave off the inevitable 'what was the cause that created the effect of god' with a casual 'oh he's omnipotent'.

You seem to not understand what omnipotent means. It means that he is not governed by any laws (natural laws), which means that he doesn't need a cause for himself.

Everything in the natural world leads backwards to something else. We reach the point of the big bang and basically get pretty stuck, as we don't have the tools yet to work any further back. Hopefully one way we will, but when you bring a god into it you're basically just using god of the gaps. You're inventing an infinitely complicated being and saying thats the answer. How is that any more logical than someone saying the universe just appeared one day?

Incidentally I think I read a while back about the discovery of some faint radiation rings that appear to pre-date the big bang. I'm guessing Jon will know whether that happened or not though.

Again, you are just avoiding the problem. I really am at a lose as too why so many of you do this. The Big Bang is a theory, not a fact. Ok, so what if theoretically you could find some cause for the Big Bang. That doesn't amount to a hill of beans. You still have the problem that there must be a first cause, an effect which can't be explained by science. I'm asking you what do you think that is? You seem to have no desire to inquire about that, which is strange for me. How can you just avoid this problem when it is so important? I mean the answer to this question means everything about everything. If you don't even bother to think about it you are seriously misguided.

[kentonio]

Then where did the natural processes come from? If we are going to get anywhere here you have to answer my question and stop avoiding it.

I have no idea why you equate 'we don't know' with avoiding the question. It's quite simple, we don't have the tools or the knowledge yet to answer that question. Surely the honest thing to do when something is unknown is to admit that you don't know? That doesn't mean of course that we're not going to keep trying to find out.

I didn't say things were created from nothing. I'm saying that the creator of the universe is superior to the universe and everything in it, including the laws that govern it, because he created it.

Which with all due respect is a cop out.

You seem to not understand what omnipotent means. It means that he is not governed by any laws (natural laws), which means that he doesn't need a cause for himself.

Something we've never found any evidence for, but which magically answers all our questions. Sorry but that requires blind faith and I don't trust anything that requires you to blindly believe.

Again, you are just avoiding the problem. I really am at a lose as too why so many of you do this. The Big Bang is a theory, not a fact. Ok, so what if theoretically you could find some cause for the Big Bang. That doesn't amount to a hill of beans. You still have the problem that there must be a first cause, an effect which can't be explained by science. I'm asking you what do you think that is? You seem to have no desire to inquire about that, which is strange for me. How can you just avoid this problem when it is so important? I mean the answer to this question means everything about everything. If you don't even bother to think about it you are seriously misguided.

Of course I think about it, like I presume pretty much everyone else does too. The thing is however I don't expect there to be a simple 'oh that's why!' kind of answer to the question. As a species we think on a very scale oriented level with the things around us generally determining how we think about everything else. Have you ever spent any time thinking about how the world looks at an atomic level? Ie, not just a picture of an atom, but how that means the world must look and work at that scale? It's completely mindblowing to think about, and I don't see why it shouldn't be just as insane to us when you scale up to universe scale science. For all we know our entire universe could be one 'atom' in another entire mega-universe, we just have no real idea.

[Kidlicious]

Which with all due respect is a cop out..

Let me try this just one more time. You aren't going to find out how things exist with science, because the scientific laws say that every effect has a cause. It is not a cop out to say, how else could things exist if an omnipotent God didn't create it.

[Alexander's Horse]

Nice troll DaShi, love your work

[kentonio]

Let me try this just one more time. You aren't going to find out how things exist with science, because the scientific laws say that every effect has a cause. It is not a cop out to say, how else could things exist if an omnipotent God didn't create it.

Of course it's a cop out, you're making a giant assumption that the only way this stuff could have happened is with some magical creator figure who just made it all happen. You completely ignored my point about scale btw, and how the workings of the world at a micro scale are completely unrecognizable to the way we think. You want an easy answer and I'm saying you're probably not going to get one. That doesn't mean there isn't an answer to be had.

[Kidlicious]

Of course it's a cop out, you're making a giant assumption that the only way this stuff could have happened is with some magical creator figure who just made it all happen. You completely ignored my point about scale btw, and how the workings of the world at a micro scale are completely unrecognizable to the way we think. You want an easy answer and I'm saying you're probably not going to get one. That doesn't mean there isn't an answer to be had.

Maybe you don't understand what an assumption is. I didn't assume that God created the universe. That is my conslusion. An assumption would be that we can use logic to come to a conclusion regarding this question. I have logically considered the facts. Particularly that observing the universe does not explain how things can come to exist.

I don't know what your point is about scale. You will have to explain to me how that has anything to do with the question of how we exist. Sure, there are atoms, so what?

[DaShi]

So far AH has the most plausible argument.

[kentonio]

Maybe you don't understand what an assumption is. I didn't assume that God created the universe. That is my conslusion. An assumption would be that we can use logic to come to a conclusion regarding this question. I have logically considered the facts. Particularly that observing the universe does not explain how things can come to exist.

No, you're assuming thats the only way it could have happened. That's an assumption.

I don't know what your point is about scale. You will have to explain to me how that has anything to do with the question of how we exist. Sure, there are atoms, so what?

Think about it more, it's not about atoms existing its about how the world works at an atomic scale. I.E. in a way that is basically completely alien and incredible to us because the scale we think on is shaped by our experiences and how we view the world. The point being that there is no reason why if you scale UP instead of down, that the universe might not work in a very different way to anything we can currently understand or relate to, and its much harder to look up rather than down because for one thing we're looking for things taking place over billions of years. Understanding that stuff is likely to take us centuries/millenia if indeed we ever can.

What I'm saying is that when you ask 'how did it start' you're probably asking a question that is far too simple to really mean anything. For all we know there was no start and will be no end.

[Kidlicious]

No, you're assuming thats the only way it could have happened. That's an assumption.

No, you don't know what an assumption is. An assumption that is taken for granted, that needs nothing to support it. Like I said, the physical universe can not explain how something can exist. And I am not assuming that that is the only way it could have happened. I'm saying that since it is impossible to have happened (as far as logic dictates) it must be because of a being that can do the impossible. That is the only reasonable conclussion. There aren't anyothers. Your thing about the atoms isn't a conclussion.

Think about it more, it's not about atoms existing its about how the world works at an atomic scale. I.E. in a way that is basically completely alien and incredible to us because the scale we think on is shaped by our experiences and how we view the world. The point being that there is no reason why if you scale UP instead of down, that the universe might not work in a very different way to anything we can currently understand or relate to, and its much harder to look up rather than down because for one thing we're looking for things taking place over billions of years. Understanding that stuff is likely to take us centuries/millenia if indeed we ever can.

What I'm saying is that when you ask 'how did it start' you're probably asking a question that is far too simple to really mean anything. For all we know there was no start and will be no end.

Can you think of any reason how things can exist other than the one I provided, or are you just going to go on with this irrelevancy? I mean perhaps the natural laws just don't exist. I could think of others. But that's not explaining how things can exist.

[kentonio]

No, you don't know what an assumption is. An assumption that is taken for granted, that needs nothing to support it. Like I said, the physical universe can not explain how something can exist. And I am not assuming that that is the only way it could have happened. I'm saying that since it is impossible to have happened (as far as logic dictates) it must be because of a being that can do the impossible. That is the only reasonable conclussion. There aren't anyothers. Your thing about the atoms isn't a conclussion.

Sorry, that's a ridiculous conclusion. My point about scale was to illustrate that the possibilities are almost certainly beyond our understanding. You are looking for easy answers to incredibly complex questions and insisting that because you can't have an easy answer that you'll make one up yourself. Also the idea that there are no other possible conclusions is incredibly arrogant. It makes you sound like a flat earther insisting that the earth being flat is the only possible conclusion. If history has shown us anything its that there is always more to learn.

Can you think of any reason how things can exist other than the one I provided, or are you just going to go on with this irrelevancy?

I already pointed out that if the universe is infinite there may well be no start or end but just an endless cycle. Once again you're making an assumption that everything has to have a start point. As I've repeatedly said though, we don't know the answer, we don't yet have the capacity to find the answer, but that does not mean there is no answer to be found. The stuff we now know would have seemed utterly ridiculous and beyond comprehension just a century ago, so what makes you so certain that you have all the answers now?