Anytime, friend. Anytime.
I thought it might have been an opportunity to bring up National Geographics
Journey of Man
I don't know if that is what C.I. had in mind or not. He and I were kind of in a slightly warm discussion.
I would bet on it. Very interesting material. :wink:
I will take a look at it tomorrow. I am on my way to bed right now. It's 1 a.m. here and I am a bit sleepy.
Have a good night and sweet dreams!
cicerone imposter wrote:You are asking a question that has no answer - yet. However, there is evidence that our universe is in an expansion that supports the big bang theory.
You must realize that this planet is billions of years old. Our science and technology about our universe is a recent phenomenon. The astronomers that first studied the galaxies didn't have the instruments we have at our disposal today.
You can continue to ask foolish questions you know are not answerable today, but most scientists/physicists of today agree on the big bang theory.
We don't have to realize anything. It is up to you to provide your proof. If these are foolish questions that do not have answers, why do you continue to ask foolish questions that we cannot provide answers to for the same reason?
Quote:We don't have to realize anything. It is up to you to provide your proof. If these are foolish questions that do not have answers, why do you continue to ask foolish questions that we cannot provide answers to for the same reason?
No matter what we say, if it disagrees or puts them in a bad spot, we become foolish, illogical, and blind.....funny
mesquite wrote:I thought it might have been an opportunity to bring up National Geographics
Journey of Man
Interesting quote from article:
Quote:Wells's take on the origins of modern humans and how they came to populate the rest of the planet is bound to be controversial.
His work adds to an already crowded field of opposing hypotheses
(Emphasis mine.)
Nothing like a crowded field of opposing hypotheses to clearly state our origins!
real life wrote:Brandon9000 wrote:Questioner wrote:Brandon9000 wrote:real life wrote:It would seem a little odd if I said that the only way I would believe in the existence of sound is if I could smell it.
Or that I would not believe that light exists unless I could taste it.
You state that you will not believe in a transcendent Being such as God unless you have empirical evidence. Seems a little odd.
I will not believe that a fact is true unless I have an indication that it is true. Having the being show himself would certainly be sufficient. Failing that, I will only accept evidence that comes from reason.
This may seem slightly pendantic, but start with "What was there before the Big Bang" and see where you end up. Not saying anything will be different in your mind, merely stressing that "evidence" isn't always empirical and as such, can sometimes be no more than a good guess.
As for having the being show itself. . . if only it were that easy.
Having two degrees in Physics, I know enough to know that the dynamics of the Big Bang, the first second of existence of the cosmos, the prior cause of the Big Bang, etc. are not beyond human grasp, and that this is an active field of research in theoretical Physics. I believe this is the provice of Quantum Electrodynamics. However, even were this not true, the fact that a scientific explanation for something is temporarily unknown, as the causes of thunder and lightning once were, or even too complex for the human mind to understand, is no indication that the explanation is supernatural. You are advocating one theory of the structure of the universe, and no frameork for understanding these things except science is capable of successful verification as a method when tested.
According to your understanding of the Big Bang, where did the matter and energy involved in the event come from?
Sorry, but Quantum Electrodynamics is a bit over my head. I suspect they have some sort of answer. But let me just cut this short by saying that even regarding aspects of the origin of the universe that science doesn't understand yet, just as it once didn't understand the nature of thunder and lightning, I would hardly take that as cause to postulate supernatural forces. If you criticize science for not having solved everything with convincing proofs, you can hardly turn around and offer a magical explanation with no proof at all.
Brandon9000 wrote: Sorry, but Quantum Electrodynamics is a bit over my head. I suspect they have some sort of answer. But let me just cut this short by saying that even regarding aspects of the origin of the universe that science doesn't understand yet, just as it once didn't understand the nature of thunder and lightning, I would hardly take that as cause to postulate supernatural forces. If you criticize science for not having solved everything with convincing proofs, you can hardly turn around and offer a magical explanation with no proof at all.
Do we, at last, understand the nature of thunder and lightning? Or do we just explain it to our satisfaction?
Really, that is all the bible was ever meant to do: explain things to the satisfaction of the uninitiated.
neologist wrote:Brandon9000 wrote: Sorry, but Quantum Electrodynamics is a bit over my head. I suspect they have some sort of answer. But let me just cut this short by saying that even regarding aspects of the origin of the universe that science doesn't understand yet, just as it once didn't understand the nature of thunder and lightning, I would hardly take that as cause to postulate supernatural forces. If you criticize science for not having solved everything with convincing proofs, you can hardly turn around and offer a magical explanation with no proof at all.
Do we, at last, understand the nature of thunder and lightning? Or do we just explain it to our satisfaction?
Really, that is all the bible was ever meant to do: explain things to the satisfaction of the uninitiated.
Yup.
Just like the tales of the Brothers Grimm were written to explain things to the satisfaction of the uninitiated.
Only the Bible is a lot more gory...and a lot less realistic than the Grimm tales.
neologist wrote:Brandon9000 wrote: Sorry, but Quantum Electrodynamics is a bit over my head. I suspect they have some sort of answer. But let me just cut this short by saying that even regarding aspects of the origin of the universe that science doesn't understand yet, just as it once didn't understand the nature of thunder and lightning, I would hardly take that as cause to postulate supernatural forces. If you criticize science for not having solved everything with convincing proofs, you can hardly turn around and offer a magical explanation with no proof at all.
Do we, at last, understand the nature of thunder and lightning? Or do we just explain it to our satisfaction?
Really, that is all the bible was ever meant to do: explain things to the satisfaction of the uninitiated.
Baloney. We understand the nature of thunder and lightning as they fit into the entire framework of Physics and Chemistry. Our knowledge of these things has worked well enough to give us our civilization, which makes it possible for you to send these words to an Internet message board, and get a doctor when you're sick. The Bible is a non-scientific document, obtained by non-scientific means, which is not generally subject to any testing or verification, and whose adherents merely dance quickly when asked for supporting evidence.
Brandon9000 wrote:real life wrote:Brandon9000 wrote:Questioner wrote:Brandon9000 wrote:real life wrote:It would seem a little odd if I said that the only way I would believe in the existence of sound is if I could smell it.
Or that I would not believe that light exists unless I could taste it.
You state that you will not believe in a transcendent Being such as God unless you have empirical evidence. Seems a little odd.
I will not believe that a fact is true unless I have an indication that it is true. Having the being show himself would certainly be sufficient. Failing that, I will only accept evidence that comes from reason.
This may seem slightly pendantic, but start with "What was there before the Big Bang" and see where you end up. Not saying anything will be different in your mind, merely stressing that "evidence" isn't always empirical and as such, can sometimes be no more than a good guess.
As for having the being show itself. . . if only it were that easy.
Having two degrees in Physics, I know enough to know that the dynamics of the Big Bang, the first second of existence of the cosmos, the prior cause of the Big Bang, etc. are not beyond human grasp, and that this is an active field of research in theoretical Physics. I believe this is the provice of Quantum Electrodynamics. However, even were this not true, the fact that a scientific explanation for something is temporarily unknown, as the causes of thunder and lightning once were, or even too complex for the human mind to understand, is no indication that the explanation is supernatural. You are advocating one theory of the structure of the universe, and no frameork for understanding these things except science is capable of successful verification as a method when tested.
According to your understanding of the Big Bang, where did the matter and energy involved in the event come from?
Sorry, but Quantum Electrodynamics is a bit over my head. I suspect they have some sort of answer. But let me just cut this short by saying that even regarding aspects of the origin of the universe that science doesn't understand yet, just as it once didn't understand the nature of thunder and lightning, I would hardly take that as cause to postulate supernatural forces. If you criticize science for not having solved everything with convincing proofs, you can hardly turn around and offer a magical explanation with no proof at all.
Hi Brandon,
Not a prob at all. I would expect that even the QE guys may respond "Dunno yet" and that's perfectly cool. I am not criticizing them for not having an answer.
My point is that, logically, either matter/energy had a beginning point (a moment of creation, if you will allow me to use that term), or they didn't have a beginning point (basically they were eternally pre-existent).
Without committing to either one, would you agree that this is the case?
real life wrote:Brandon9000 wrote:real life wrote:Brandon9000 wrote:Questioner wrote:Brandon9000 wrote:real life wrote:It would seem a little odd if I said that the only way I would believe in the existence of sound is if I could smell it.
Or that I would not believe that light exists unless I could taste it.
You state that you will not believe in a transcendent Being such as God unless you have empirical evidence. Seems a little odd.
I will not believe that a fact is true unless I have an indication that it is true. Having the being show himself would certainly be sufficient. Failing that, I will only accept evidence that comes from reason.
This may seem slightly pendantic, but start with "What was there before the Big Bang" and see where you end up. Not saying anything will be different in your mind, merely stressing that "evidence" isn't always empirical and as such, can sometimes be no more than a good guess.
As for having the being show itself. . . if only it were that easy.
Having two degrees in Physics, I know enough to know that the dynamics of the Big Bang, the first second of existence of the cosmos, the prior cause of the Big Bang, etc. are not beyond human grasp, and that this is an active field of research in theoretical Physics. I believe this is the provice of Quantum Electrodynamics. However, even were this not true, the fact that a scientific explanation for something is temporarily unknown, as the causes of thunder and lightning once were, or even too complex for the human mind to understand, is no indication that the explanation is supernatural. You are advocating one theory of the structure of the universe, and no frameork for understanding these things except science is capable of successful verification as a method when tested.
According to your understanding of the Big Bang, where did the matter and energy involved in the event come from?
Sorry, but Quantum Electrodynamics is a bit over my head. I suspect they have some sort of answer. But let me just cut this short by saying that even regarding aspects of the origin of the universe that science doesn't understand yet, just as it once didn't understand the nature of thunder and lightning, I would hardly take that as cause to postulate supernatural forces. If you criticize science for not having solved everything with convincing proofs, you can hardly turn around and offer a magical explanation with no proof at all.
Hi Brandon,
Not a prob at all. I would expect that even the QE guys may respond "Dunno yet" and that's perfectly cool. I am not criticizing them for not having an answer.
My point is that, logically, either matter/energy had a beginning point (a moment of creation, if you will allow me to use that term), or they didn't have a beginning point (basically they were eternally pre-existent).
Without committing to either one, would you agree that this is the case?
Not in the simple sense that you may mean it, since time itself is part of the cosmos that was created in the Big Bang. The bottom line is that you are attempting to do QE without learning it, and I cannot bless that. Simple arguments about cause and effect, based on intuition obtained in the realm of our experience, are not necessarily correct.
Even if it could be shown that present theory wasn't adequate to explain something, which I do not grant, the last thing I'd do would be to switch to primitive superstitions. If you have an emotional need to believe this stuff, go ahead, but don't claim a rational basis for it.
real life wrote:My point is that, logically, either matter/energy had a beginning point (a moment of creation, if you will allow me to use that term), or they didn't have a beginning point (basically they were eternally pre-existent).
Couldn't they have also had a transition point? A point at which they changed from what they might have been to what we call them now?
Where are you going with your line of reasoning?
Excuse me
Not in the CURRENT flow of this discussion ... but an interesting OFF bit theory about Evolution and life by natural selection....
Carl Sagan has been cited, from a book he edited, Communication with Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (MIT Press, 1973), a record of the proceedings of a conference on SETI. Sagan himself presented a paper at that conference, in which he reports (pp. 45-6) the odds against a specific human genome being assembled by chance as 1 in 10^2,000,000,000 (in other words, the genome of a specific person, and not just any human). As a build-up to this irrelevant statistic he states that a simple protein "minimum" consist of 100 amino acids (for each of which there are 20 "biological varieties (different types of amino acids)") for a chance of random assembly, for one specific protein of this sort, of 1 in 10^130. He uses these statistics as a rhetorical foil for the fact that no human genome is assembled at random, nor did life have to start with only one possible protein of a particular, specific type, but that "the preferential replication, the preferential reproduction of organisms, through the natural selection of small mutations, acts as a kind of probability sieve, a probability selector," so that one must account for natural selection in estimating the odds of any alien species existing elsewhere in the universe, and not just calculate the odds of random assembly like the examples he just gave.
rosborne979 wrote:real life wrote:My point is that, logically, either matter/energy had a beginning point (a moment of creation, if you will allow me to use that term), or they didn't have a beginning point (basically they were eternally pre-existent).
Couldn't they have also had a transition point? A point at which they changed from what they might have been to what we call them now?
Where are you going with your line of reasoning?
Postulating a transition point only pushes the question backwards somewhat but does not add any third alternative to consider. So still, these things (whatever you think they may have been prior) either had a beginning point (a creation) or they did not (they were eternally pre-existent). Would you agree?
Brandon9000 wrote:neologist wrote:Brandon9000 wrote: Sorry, but Quantum Electrodynamics is a bit over my head. I suspect they have some sort of answer. But let me just cut this short by saying that even regarding aspects of the origin of the universe that science doesn't understand yet, just as it once didn't understand the nature of thunder and lightning, I would hardly take that as cause to postulate supernatural forces. If you criticize science for not having solved everything with convincing proofs, you can hardly turn around and offer a magical explanation with no proof at all.
Do we, at last, understand the nature of thunder and lightning? Or do we just explain it to our satisfaction?
Really, that is all the bible was ever meant to do: explain things to the satisfaction of the uninitiated.
Baloney. We understand the nature of thunder and lightning as they fit into the entire framework of Physics and Chemistry. Our knowledge of these things has worked well enough to give us our civilization, which makes it possible for you to send these words to an Internet message board, and get a doctor when you're sick. The Bible is a non-scientific document, obtained by non-scientific means, which is not generally subject to any testing or verification, and whose adherents merely dance quickly when asked for supporting evidence.
It's amusing when we are, in effect, saying the same thing. You say our understanding of thunder and lightning has worked well enough and the bible is not scientific. I agree.
Where we disagree is in your assertion that the bible cannot be verified. It can, once the straw men have been exposed.
