He is risen!

[Kidlicious]

JM,
I was referring to
Both A and B are possible but neither can be proven.

No. You're saying that if you believe something that can't be proven you are closed-minded. You should be ashamed.

[C0ckney]

There's a reason I didn't quote the rest of your post.

it's not even the reason that i think your ideas are nonsense.

[Lorizael]

This seems vague and unproductive.

[ricketyclik]

I think we basically just don't know. I remember reading about radiation traces that seem to predate the big bang though, which would seem to point more towards a cyclic nature. I think it appeals to me too because it seems like a more fitting way for eternity to work, despite how unfathomable the concept still is of course.

Or the outer reaches of neighbouring big bangs.

[kentonio]

Your assertion might have been true 20 or more years ago, but cosmology today is a robust field practically drowning in observations. Hubble, the various CMB maps, and other instruments have provided a wealth of data about large structure and previous epochs. There are certainly a number of unanswered questions cosmology-wise, but there is a great deal cosmologists can say today with a fair degree of certainty. It is not a purely theoretical field, but the headlines often are about theoretical or speculative aspects of cosmology.

None of which has anything to do with what I was talking about, which is the larger scale of what happens outside the behaviour we're able to study, I.E. the expansion resulting from the big bang. It is basically completely theoretical, and I've no idea why you'd try and argue with something that obvious.

Yeah. Penrose has a big name, but there is currently very little support for his idea.

So? He's proposing a theory about something that we only have theories for. He could be dead wrong, but so could any of the others.

You should dispense with your notions of how the universe must be. When science goes down a wrong path (vitalism, aether, etc.), it's because people are very sure that the universe must be a certain way. The universe doesn't have to be 14 billion years old, but it's telling us (from multiple, strong lines of evidence) that it is.

Except it isn't. You're looking at the local available data and basically saying that must mean that the bigger picture flies in the face of everything we know about the laws of physics. If the universe is only 14 billion years old then it has a distinct starting point before which nothing existed and the universe just appeared out of nothing and started existing. It doesn't take a wild stretch of the imagination to find that deeply unsatisfying and to find it inconsistent with everything else we know about anything. For all we know the 'universe' is just a very tiny part of a vastly larger system on a scale so immense we cannot even conceive of it.

Physics has very little (nothing) to say about what can come from "true" nothing. But from less complete forms of nothing, matter pops up all the time. QED (the best tested physical theory ever) tells us this.

Physics has no agreement on whether there is such a thing as 'true nothing', but if you're claiming the universe (assuming there's no greater body) is only 14 billion years old, then any form of less complete nothing would constitute part of it.

Presumably as you're so sure of yourself that a cyclic nature of the universe is nonsense, you have a competing theory you support that explains a linear path?

[kentonio]

Please stop making statements that you aren't willing to defend.

Please try actually reading what people say instead of making up stupid strawmen. It's what Ben does all the time, and its a large part of why people think he's a cnut. You're better than that. I made a jokey reference to a bit of a hippy meme about how if the universe began with all matter coming from a single point, that we're basically all just stardust and are all connected on some deeply spiritual level. I didn't say I believed it, because I'm not a damn hippy, and I certainly didn't say anything about individuals not existing, mostly because I'm not actually insane.

[kentonio]

No. You're saying that if you believe something that can't be proven you are closed-minded. You should be ashamed.

No, he's saying that believing something doesn't mean you can declare that it's the absolute truth, unless you can actually prove it. Believing it is fine, but insisting every other idea must be wrong makes you close minded.

[Kidlicious]

No, he's saying that believing something doesn't mean you can declare that it's the absolute truth, unless you can actually prove it. Believing it is fine, but insisting every other idea must be wrong makes you close minded.

Once again displaying the fact that you don't know what words are; believing, faith, and absolute truth. It's not possible to have a productive conversation with you until you learn what these words mean.

Insisting other ideas are wrong is believing. It means you have faith. It does not make you closed-minded. 'Closed-minded' is always used (when I've seen it), to try to manipulate others to not think for themselves. There's actually some bull**** pseudoscience that says men are more closed-minded than women. It's conjecture, and bull****.

[Kidlicious]

Please try actually reading what people say instead of making up stupid strawmen. It's what Ben does all the time, and its a large part of why people think he's a cnut. You're better than that. I made a jokey reference to a bit of a hippy meme about how if the universe began with all matter coming from a single point, that we're basically all just stardust and are all connected on some deeply spiritual level. I didn't say I believed it, because I'm not a damn hippy, and I certainly didn't say anything about individuals not existing, mostly because I'm not actually insane.

Well those hippies are liberals like you. How was I suppose to know it was a joke?

[kentonio]

Once again displaying the fact that you don't know what words are; believing, faith, and absolute truth. It's not possible to have a productive conversation with you until you learn what these words mean.

If you have faith in absolute truth then you are by definition close minded. That should be a compliment to you rather than an insult if you're completely sure you're in the right. Why would you need an open mind if you already know the answers?

[Kidlicious]

If you have faith in absolute truth then you are by definition close minded. That should be a compliment to you rather than an insult if you're completely sure you're in the right. Why would you need an open mind if you already know the answers?

That is not the definition of closed-minded.

[kentonio]

That is not the definition of closed-minded.

What is then?

[Kidlicious]

What is then?

It means that when you are presented with information that doesn't fit in with your world view you are incapable of processing it in any way that makes sense. Let me give an example. Emma Watson, that HeForShe chick, tells people not to say that feminists hate men. What's wrong with that? Well it's an indication that she is closed-minded. An open-minded person would tell feminists to stop hating men.

[kentonio]

It means that when you are presented with information that doesn't fit in with your world view you are incapable of processing it in any way that makes sense.

Erm, if you believe 100% that god is all and tell anyone who says otherwise that they're wrong, then how are you processing their information in a way that makes sense? You're just rejecting it outright because it doesn't agree with your preconceived ideas.

Let me give an example. Emma Watson, that HeForShe chick, says tells people not to say that feminists hate men? What's wrong with that? Well it's an indication that she is closed-minded. An open-minded person would tell feminists to stop hating men.

Well no, she's saying that feminists don't hate men, which with a few radfem exceptions is true. It's not close minded to not say something she doesn't believe.

[Kidlicious]

"Erm, if you believe 100% that god is all and tell anyone who says otherwise that they're wrong, then how are you processing their information in a way that makes sense? You're just rejecting it outright because it doesn't agree with your preconceived ideas."

Atheists also tell people that they are wrong. Everyone does that. You're being an *******.