Religion

[emprworm]

The Futile Religion of Science

{continued from previous post.

[Acriku]

What I want to know, is that why those three? Why are all others with absolute certainty not included? Just because we cannot imagine it or comprehend it with our primitive minds, does not mean there are only 3 possible answers. To say that there are only 3 choices that might be true is absurd...

[emprworm]

The Futile Religion of Science

{continued from previous post.  segment 3/3}

So what has the atheist done?

[ordos45]

Yep sounds like a pretty organized view on Atheism and the Enlightenment that occured during Darwin's time in Europe.   Did you all know Darwin was racist?  He believed African people to be less evolved than whites.  Anyhow back on topic for me.

Three choies.  Those choices seem to cover most conclusions.  There are others that seem far fetched though, such as that we have never existed and are merely imagining our existence and that there is no universe.  That nothing exists.  Or that there are multiple dimensions in whihc universes coexist...yep the old alternate unvierse theory.  What really happens to matter which goes into a black hole if matter cannot be created or destroyed?  Science and its other religious contemporaries don't know everything.

(And I will admit I searched.  The Trinity is not mentioned even once in the Bible.)

[Acriku]

The Trinity was only made to cover up that the original hebrew text had plural form of God, so the Catholic Church said oh hey look the Bible must mean there are these Trinity things.

[emprworm]

What I want to know, is that why those three? Why are all others with absolute certainty not included? Just because we cannot imagine it or comprehend it with our primitive minds, does not mean there are only 3 possible answers. To say that there are only 3 choices that might be true is absurd...

Sorry, but there are no other options.  Three and only three.  Any possible 4th option you can conceive of will violate the law of logic, thus can be thrown out.   Example:  Ordos mentioned the theory that we dont exist.  I have heard people say this, but it is a contradiction and therefore impossible.  Here is the logic:

To absolutely deny your existence, you must first exist in order to deny it

Yet you denied your existence

Therefore, you must exist

To say that the universe doesn't even exist, requires more faith than the Hale Bopp cult.  I challenge you Acriku to come up with one single 4th option for the origin of the universe that doesn't fall under one of the three categories.  Sorry, but there's only 3 options.  Its really not as complicated as you make it seem.

[Digital Guerrilla]

This argument faulters on the borders on insanity because humankind does not understand that it's perception, is limited of the universe that surrounds its very being. How can you continue to argue the forces that you do not understand and the forces that you do not know, not knowing and not understanding both lead to total obilvation.

[emprworm]

Sandwraith, I am willing to converse and dialogue with anyone.

[Acriku]

worm, those may be the only three, OR there are more that we haven't imagined, because our minds are too limited. My point is that just because we may only be able to imagine 3 possible reasons NOW, does not mean in any way(!) that there are no more. You assume we have perfected our comprehension of the universe and we can deduct 3 reasons of it's becoming. Well we haven't, as we have much to learn. So saying there are only 3 is ludicrous.

[The_old_worm]

True, emprworm, Atheism requires as much faith as theism does. It's just as foolish to assert that God does not exist as it is that he does. I am not an atheist, I'm an agnostic, so I agree with much of your post.

As for the three possibilities of the creation of the universe, there is a problem with your logic. You don't consider the factor of faulty human perception. You assume that our perception is adequate, therefore we can conclude the existence of only three possibilities. Like acriku said, you have to accept the possibility of other explainations that we are unable to comprehend. Check out Gryphon's posts on the truth and you'll see what I'm getting at.

Another fault in your argument is that you assume that because a supernatural creation is possible, that it validates creationism. The problem with any conclusion along the lines of the supernatural, is that we can only guess. The Biblical creation is just a guess, and therefore less likely than a contradictory theory supported by evidence and observation.

The Creation theory is no more valid than a theory of Aliens creating humanity and setting up our morality through religion, or that creation pixies arose from nothingness and built the universe we see, set the laws and then vanished. The point is, without ANY kind of evidence to support your assertion, no matter how you dress it up in pseudo-scientific jargon, it's still just a guess.

The theory of the Big Bang CAN be validated. Your error is in not realising that validation of a theory can come through INDIRECT evidence. The theory makes predictions about what we should see if it were true, such as galaxies moving outwards from a central point, and while, yes I will admit, this is debatable, it does serve as validation for the theory. The more of these predictions that are met, the more likely the theory. Creationism fails at every attempt to fit the observations from science. THAT is why science can make more rational claims to the origin of the universe.

Another major error that you make, is assuming that science "proves" anything. Science proves nothing, it only proposes theories. The theories that carry more evidential weight, carry the most likelyhood to be true. THAT'S logical! Your assumption that guesses carry as much likelyhood as scientific theories is ILLOGICAL.

Again, you make an error in saying that, if God exists, then by default creationism is the truth. Wrong. How many other creation stories are out there? Why is Creation more valid than those others? What about the belief that God kickstarted the universe with the Big Bang, then allowed it to develope from there? This theory actually fits the observations better than yours does, and therefore more likely. Yet you arrogantly assume that you know the truth.

[gryphon]

Who, what's this ?

I don't know where to begin, so I'll just quote some things.

"I am glad that science does not depend upon a person's belief or unbelief. 1 + 1 will always equal two, regardless of how anyone feels about it."

You're glad ? Have you read the previous posts ?

1 infinant object + 1 infinant object = 1 infinant object

computer science : true + true = true, ie. 1+1=1

electronica : input signal + input signal = outputsignal, again 1+1=1

Science DOES depend upon the commen believe we trust in it !

The 3 way the univers came into existense. Yea, right. You only have the possibilety that this / our univers is the only one. What if there is another one ? And not simular like ours, put let's say [ because you say it's a philosophical work ] the univers of Plato. Of object. That are 2 different types of univers. So your 2nd and 3th point are irrelevant. Point one remains. "our univers is created". That is way tho simple. It can mean anything.

"I have heard people say this, but it is a contradiction and therefore impossible.

[Anathema]

I know I am slightly drifting away from the topic iwth this post, but creationism does not necesarilly fall or stand with scientific revelations. What if God did present his message to mankind, but that the original message was altered, or things left out? There are several things in the bible that even most religious people believe to be false nowadays.

I'm saying it is possible that God does exist, but not as we think he does. Maybe he is misunderstood. Perhaps God triggered the Big Bang (wich somebody already pointed out, I forgot who), then introduced himself to mankind, and mankind began to make up stories about him, make a book out of it, and give that book the status of absolute truth. Maybe God is banging his head against the wall of his house because he can't believe that mankind is making up such stupid things.

Or maybe God never showed up in front of mankind, but does exist, but he is nothing like we can imagine.

My point is that our perception of the concept of "God" may be totally false. Maybe aliens did create our spiecies, in wich case they would be gods (try as you will, but you'll find it hard to contradict this).

The Greeks worshipped Gaia, goddess of the Earth. Gaia means Earth. Therefore Gaia is Earth. Therefore, Earth is a chunk of rock with a spirit. The concept of "God" can be interpreted in many ways.

[Caid Ivik]

"God" is a concept of "superbeing" or "superpower", which created this universe and that's why we call him omnipotent, because all of our known potentials are created by him. Christians believe, that this being is wise and we are in his "eyes" (metaphore) more than just one odd thing in far space, so he gave us some orders. They (or we) believe that we have some link to him via our spirits. After death also. About those "orders", everytime when they were crushed, it brought a problem. Materialism, wars, hate, AIDS etc.

[Acriku]

Caid, if you think people think of God as omnipotent just because he created the universe, you are assuming things, therefore your conclusion isn't valid based on how you got it. What if Aliens had such power to create the universe, would you think them to be omnipotent? Man, the animals must think us as Gods since we created artificial habitats (their universe in a metaphorical sense).

[nemafakei]

"WHY?"

Edric, without understanding the rules of what we CAN perceive, how can we possibly understand things we are not aware of? How do we know where to look? How do we know when we know all the things we can't perceive are understood - we can't perceive them to know they're there in the first place?

I agree that we should find out if we can... but at present, we can't.

"...where man has no purpose and no objective meaning "

Just because we don't believe in omnipotent magical beings, doesn't mean we have no purpose! Search for truth is one well-quoted example on this thread.

I don't assume atheism as the default position. Way back, I pointed out that I once held christianity as default. I then thought about it rationally. I then worked out that it was far more probable that no god existed. It made no sense whatsoever.

I am constantly assessing the position of what I know, and the conclusion is Atheism.

"I don't have any faith at all!"

I can base my belief on probability (ie, from what I know, it is extremely unlikely that a god exists as such). I have a religious position. It just happens to be one without a drive to prove I'm right, just one to investigate and test what is and isn't right.

Now as to the creation and design argument, the counter to this is evolution.

We perceive things as fairly nice and good, because otherwise we would be more prone to suicide because we hated the way the world worked. Such thinking would die out... etc.

Now some have said there is no proof for this. There is proof, although not totally 100% conclusive proof, but there is no proof whatsoever for religion anyway, so lack of proof is hardly a means by which to attack an argument.

[emprworm]

cmon gryphon, lets get real here:

1 infinant object + 1 infinant object = 1 infinant object

that is an absurdity because there is no such thing as an infinite object in this universe.

[emprworm]

Acriku:  "worm, those may be the only three, OR there are more that we haven't imagined"

Sorry, Acriku, but there simply cannot be a fourth option.  This is an exclusive set and does not only apply to the universe, but to everything within the universe as well.  Take your computer in front of you right now.  The same 3 possibilities apply to the origin of your computer-  THERE IS NO FOURTH POSSIBILITY:

1)  Your computer was caused (i.e. created) by something else beyond it.

2)  Your computer came into existence by itself.

3)  Your computer has simply always existed for eternity.

There is no fourth option!  I have stated that philosophers both atheistic and theistic for thousands of years have known this.  You are arguing with a very basic and obvious law of logic and causality.  I did not make up these 3 options.  These have been known for thousands of years.  Neither you nor anyone else will ever come up with a fourth option that doesn't violate the law of non-contradiction (law of logic).  One of those three must be true- not just about the universe, but about everything within the universe.

[Acriku]

You are not getting my point! Those are assumptions based on our LIMITED imagination! In a million years from now, we might have hundreds of possibilities! It is because of our limited mind that we cannot think of anymore, or even now there may be a person with another possibility in their head - you don't know! You are bringing up a subject that we have just been arguing about - limited minds!

[emprworm]

Acriku the three possibilities I cited above are rooted in fundamental science and mathematics.

[gryphon]

"that is an absurdity because there is no such thing as an infinite object in this universe."

No, not IN this univers, but even according to the 3 point you gave, the univers itself is could be

[gryphon]

"1 puddle of water + 1 puddle of water = 1 puddle of water Does this mean that 1 + 1 does not equal 2?

[emprworm]

"And 1+1=1 applies again. hurray

[gryphon]

"And, by the way:

[emprworm]

Your AND converter is not adding the sumation of two quantities.

[emprworm]

"1,000,000 years from now, the density of H20 will still be 1 gm/cm^3"

Ok, where to begin .. . . I now, let's boil the darn H2O molecules. . .no a better one. ..