Do you see anything wrong?

[Emanresu13]

1) the parts that i take literally are the parts that say something along the lines of "he ate bread." Nothing unbelievable about that ;p. it's been a while since i picked up a The Bible.

2) i see no reason to think he was not a real person. i do believe he was "divinely" inspired, because "why not?" Assuming God is real, any other assumptions are not very far-fetched.

i wish we had a definitive answer for the cause of the universe, but since there isn't, i think God is just as plausible as anything else. maybe more so. but what/who is God? i put "divinely" in quotes, because i'm not sure if divinity is part of the truth. perhaps God is just a more intelligent/knowledgable being than us, and has more control over nature. that's where i'm most skeptical. i do think God could be real, but i'm not so certain there isn't a good explanation for that, too. where did God come from, what motivations are there, etc. i dislike supernatural explanations for things, but i accept that we don't really have a full grasp on nature. who knows what freaky deaky secrets reality is hiding? is this all just a dream, blah blah. i tend to get sucked so deep into philosophy that many of my arguments are pointless, and could easily go any direction.

i should probably make a flow chart to explain my views on life, the universe and everything.

[Pseudo Enigma]

guys, we are playing in the biggest sandbox in the history of existence. Shut up and enjoy it. If some people want to think there's a storyline along with it, so be it.

I just wanted to say that. Continue with whatever debate was going on.

[Choofers]

Originally Posted by Emanresu13

=
i wish we had a definitive answer for the cause of the universe, but since there isn't, i think God is just as plausible as anything else. maybe more so.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Ban...ional_evidence

If a god existed, it wouldn't be any of the gods of religion. It would simply be an all powerful being that created everything and then had nothing else to do with it.

Dunno about you, but I can't remember the last time I saw tangible evidence for, say, the Christian God.

[Emanresu13]

i'd like a cause for the big bang, as well. causes for causes for causes, i wanna go all the way down the rabbit hole.

"It would simply be an all powerful being that created everything and then had nothing else to do with it."

that statement is totally legit, i see nothing wrong with it. i also think that if a being created things, why not play with them a little? we certainly play with our creations.

[j-rodd123]

i just wanna say that hardcore atheists are far more annoying to me than hardcore christians, they are the most smug/obnoxious people and i wish i could just knock them all out

[T-Force]

Originally Posted by i heart candy

I'm a person who does believe in God (I'm a Christian), but I'm not the type of person to shut someone out of my life because they do not necessarily agree with my beliefs;hence, all people are different anyway. People can believe whatever they want to believe and anybody who is anybody has that right.

This.

On-topic though, and here's just my two cents, as many have mentioned, it's all up to interpretation. And sadly WAY too many people just absolutely touched in the head a few too many times decide to view it in the most extremist of ways. And because of it, they're the ones who get referenced in this kind of talk. I'm not going to quote anything or post links or whatever because I'm blissfully unaware (and cue the bashing), but I am because I choose to be. I follow what I do because I choose to. When I was younger, it was fed to me and me not knowing any better ate it up; but with my growth and seeing the views of people around me, I've been able to form my own conclusions and believe what I choose to believe. And this is what's sorely lacking in the growth of the close-minded religious zealots who we see picketing, debating, etc, etc.
Following God's commandments may come first, but in reality, they're all common sense. As well, if you do that, family (and as an extension, friends) automatically becomes tied for first.

tl;dr everyone needs to be lighten up and whoever OP posted is a dumbass.

[Emanresu13]

Originally Posted by Pseudo Enigma

gaise
who created the creator :O

that's what i'm talking about ;p

Originally Posted by j-rodd123

i just wanna say that hardcore atheists are far more annoying to me than hardcore christians, they are the most smug/obnoxious people and i wish i could just knock them all out

that's what i'm talking about xD

[SC_coolguy44]

Originally Posted by hi19hi19

Religion is like a penis.


It's okay if you are proud of it.
It's okay if you spend a lot of time with it.
It's even okay if you let it guide your life.

But please don't go sticking it in my face. Thanks.

^This. I also respect people's beliefs. Also, IMO religion is like a cult and I find some of the stuff too weird to believe (hence most of the reason why I'm an athiest).

[Choofers]

Originally Posted by Emanresu13

i'd like a cause for the big bang, as well. causes for causes for causes, i wanna go all the way down the rabbit hole.

"It would simply be an all powerful being that created everything and then had nothing else to do with it."

that statement is totally legit, i see nothing wrong with it. i also think that if a being created things, why not play with them a little? we certainly play with our creations.

Person A - "What created all of the matter in the universe?"
Person B - "It's always been there!"
Person A - "That doesn't make any sense! God made it all!"
Person B - "Then where did God come from?"
Person A - "God was always there."
Person B - "Ah shit man, ya got me."


ps I poop all the time but I never play with it

[Reincarnate]

Originally Posted by Emanresu13

i'd like a cause for the big bang, as well. causes for causes for causes, i wanna go all the way down the rabbit hole.

"It would simply be an all powerful being that created everything and then had nothing else to do with it."

that statement is totally legit, i see nothing wrong with it. i also think that if a being created things, why not play with them a little? we certainly play with our creations.

This is just my current opinion of things since I obviously don't *really* know the answer:

I suspect that our existence is attributable to natural cosmic selection and logical necessity. It may not even be possible for existence to "not exist" logically speaking. In other words, existence is an inevitable framework.

We know how evolution in our universe works so far. You have all these galaxies forming as a result of dark energy/dark matter/gravity doing their thing. Within these galaxies, you'll get tons of stars. Out of the stars that go nova and create heavier elements, you get even more stars and the addition of things like planets. On some of those planets, conditions will be ripe for abiogenesis. Once abiogenesis kicks in, natural selection takes over with evolution. Complex things arise as a result of simpler predecessors being better suited for the environment compared to their competitors. Yada, yada, yada, etc.

Now, we know for a fact how complex things arose on Earth. Things that look designed did not need a designer. This also applies to our Earth and solar system and galaxy. They are all complex systems that arise out of simpler laws.

So what about the universe, space, and time itself? Don't atoms have a particularly interesting structure? Did these just come out of nowhere? How come we had just the right amount of dark energy required for galaxies to stabilize? Why did certain atomic pairings have just the right energy balances to give rise to thermodynamic processes which allow for things like planets and life? This is an appeal to the anthropic principle, of course, but this gets at a deeper question.

If our complex universe wasn't created, where did it come from?

This is either going to make a TON of sense or absolutely no sense at all -- it's probably the most analogous thing to what I sort of envision in my head when I think about this:

Watch this video for a few minutes (it's a trance music compilation but the video is what I care about in this case... all that grey shit with the waves/lines pulsing in and out of different shapes and forming all these arrangements, etc):

When I think about "early universes," visuals like these are sort of what I think of.

I imagine that existence began in very simplistic forms where you basically hadn't even developed the notion of "things moving around in space" yet, where the fabric of spacetime is just undergoing all this flux and generating permutations of itself until it finds stable formations. In other words, even though we, here on Earth, have our Darwin to explain biological evolution, we do not yet have our Darwin for the cosmos: Cosmic natural selection.

It seems reasonable to posit a mechanism by which you get to complex things like universes through simpler predecessors just like we do everything else we know of. The universes that allow for life, well, allow it -- because here we are! There may be other universes that have different laws of physics altogether but do not allow for sentient life to ever occur naturally, so we don't know about them.

But as I take this idea back further and further, it almost feels like our universe is just yet another result of existential evolution giving rise to a framework that just so happens to have the conditions that ultimately allow for life.

It makes sense, too, when you look at the structure of our universe. It's exactly what you'd think of if you were asked, "What kind of universe would be needed to create life naturally?" You've got a massive universe, with tons of stars/planets, ample variety, "fine-tuned constants," etc.

Not sure if I am making any sense at all.

EDIT: I might also add that when you consider how quantum mechanics work on tiny scales, this sort of approach makes even more sense if your goal is to think about the evolution in terms of mathematics/boundary conditions/operators.

[Emanresu13]

that made perfect sense to me, actually.


"It may not even be possible for existence to "not exist" logically speaking. In other words, existence is an inevitable framework."

yeah that's so tricky. i can see it working the one way, existence ceasing. non-existence spawning something, i can't wrap my head around. if in fact that is the case... mind = blown, probably one of the coolest concepts i can't conceptualize. the ultimate awakening, i suppose. at some point there either has to be the previously mentioned "get ready, here comes stuff" or else something eternal that has always existed. though, we experience time linearly, so maybe that's the biggest problem with our observations and current understanding of things.


the main point of my beliefs is that humans don't know enough to dictate what is truth. dogma really bothers me. religious, political, whatever. scientific dogma ;D

[rushyrulz]

I'll return to one of Neil deGrasse Tyson's points about essentially hitting the ceiling of our understanding. Basically history shows that scientists made all kinds of profound discoveries and advances in mathematics and in our understanding of how the universe works, but when said scientists reached the limit of their understanding they turned to God(s). Here are a few quotes from famous scientists referencing divinity at the limits of their knowledge:

Ptolemy: "I know that I am mortal by nature and ephemeral, but when I trace at my pleasure the windings to and fro of the heavenly bodies, I no longer touch Earth with my feet. I stand in the presence of Zeus himself and take my fill of Ambrosia."

Galileo: 'The bible tells you how to go to heaven, but not how the heavens go.'
'I don't feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with senses, reason, and intellect has intended for us to forego their use.

Newton: "The 6 primary planets are revolved about the Sun in circles concentric with the Sun and with motions directed towards the same parts and almost in the same plane, but is it not to be conceived that mere mechanical causes could give birth to so many regular motions. This most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful being."

Huygens: "I suppose nobody would deny but that there's somewhat more of contrivance, somewhat more of a miracle in the production and growth of plants and animals than in lifeless heaps of inanimate bodies for the finger of God and the wisdom of divine providence is in them, much more clearly manifested than in the other."

So basically when we look at the big bang and are like wtf? it's because we don't understand how it works that we turn to God.

[Pseudo Enigma]

well assuming we have infinite Big Bangs, it's only a matter of time before humanoids pop up. We could be the millionth set of humanoids in existence for all we know. Plus @Newton, we only perceive it as beautiful because we don't know anything else like it.

[Emanresu13]

i'm considering putting a new thread in CT where i posit (more or less) God's existence, then give a bunch of silly (in a CT kind of way) analogies, anecdotes, maybe even that flow chart i mentioned. let everyone flame me / duke it out. see how it goes.

when it comes to stuff like this, i believe the only ones who are wrong are the ones who know they are right. high horse and whatnot. sorry if it's offensive, but no, i won't rephrase that.


new thread is on hold cuz im goin downtown to play games k

[Dynam0]

Good stuff here. I'm really liking the idea that applies biological evolution to the cosmos. Now as far as existence goes, where it comes from etc...it seems highly unlikely that, even through scientific means, we can arrive at an answer to "how did anything come into existence?" This really becomes a philosophical task and you start playing with the idea of perception and reality and so forth. Non-existence seems to be the biggest mind-dart ever though...how can one possibly imagine a universe where there is nothingness? And even if there once was, how to get something from nothing? I'm considering the idea that the amount of matter/energy can never equal zero, there's this constant imbalance that will always yield some sort of existence. An anomaly, a remainder, that forever keeps the existential ball rolling. After all, if somehow it was possible for non-existence, there would be absolutely no way to come back into an existential reality.

I'm far from an expert on any of this but it's something everyone should contemplate or at least attempt to every once in a while

[Reincarnate]

Originally Posted by Dynam0

Good stuff here. I'm really liking the idea that applies biological evolution to the cosmos. Now as far as existence goes, where it comes from etc...it seems highly unlikely that, even through scientific means, we can arrive at an answer to "how did anything come into existence?" This really becomes a philosophical task and you start playing with the idea of perception and reality and so forth. Non-existence seems to be the biggest mind-dart ever though...how can one possibly imagine a universe where there is nothingness? And even if there once was, how to get something from nothing? I'm considering the idea that the amount of matter/energy can never equal zero, there's this constant imbalance that will always yield some sort of existence. An anomaly, a remainder, that forever keeps the existential ball rolling. After all, if somehow it was possible for non-existence, there would be absolutely no way to come back into an existential reality.

I'm far from an expert on any of this but it's something everyone should contemplate or at least attempt to every once in a while

A long time ago, when Einstein was walking with a friend (I forget who -- I think it was George Gamow), the friend proposed the idea that the universe is just a massive imbalance of positive (rest mass) and negative (gravitational) energy that net out to 0 due to Einstein's own equations -- and this caused Einstein to stop in his tracks in the middle of the street (forcing many cars to throw down the brakes immediately). XD

Worth a watch (Lawrence Krauss):

(40:33)
"The universe is flat, it has zero total energy, and it could have begun from nothing. And I've written a piece, although of course I got a lot of hate mail, saying that in my mind this answers this crazy question that religious people always keep throwing out, which is 'Why is there something rather than nothing?' The answer is 'There had to be.' If you have nothing in quantum mechanics, you'll always get something. It's that simple! It doesn't convince any of those people, but it's true."

[devonin]

*Tidy tidy*

Believe it or not we CAN have civil religious discourse on this forum. It's happened before. Just keep the pointless "yup" and "lol" posts out, and the posts that just say someone is wrong without any evidence, and we'll be fine!

[Reincarnate]

Originally Posted by Choofers

Every week, people pay this man money.

First dude is Duane Gish -- originator of the infamous "Gish Gallop" debating strategy. XD

"Gish has been characterized as using a rapid-fire approach during a debate, presenting arguments and changing topics very quickly. Eugenie Scott, executive director of the National Center for Science Education, has dubbed this approach the "Gish Gallop," describing it as "where the creationist is allowed to run on for 45 minutes or an hour, spewing forth torrents of error that the evolutionist hasn't a prayer of refuting in the format of a debate" and criticized Gish for failing to answer objections raised by his opponents"

Entire video is hilarious nonsense though lmfao

But I raise you one worse:

[A2P]

Originally Posted by devonin

*Tidy tidy*

Believe it or not we CAN have civil religious discourse on this forum. It's happened before. Just keep the pointless "yup" and "lol" posts out, and the posts that just say someone is wrong without any evidence, and we'll be fine!

theres never a civil religion/theism thread because it's all boils down to "my beliefs are better *cockwave*" in the end.

[devonin]

Well, with that attitude no. But there have been discussions between religious and non-religious people that ended perfectly amicably, where both sides admitted they'd come away with interesting things to think about, even if neither side "won"

I had conversations with Guidohunter like that all the time back in the day.