I believe that when people understand why they don't worship the islamic god or the jewish god, they will know why atheists don't worship any god at all. I believe that when people know why they don't believe in another religion, then they will realize that their own is the exact same.
He just won ^ The Debate thread, if anything, is here to expand our points of view. This has certainly been the most interesting debate I've seen on these forums. I've learned a lot on both sides of the argument. I also have to say its nice to see everyone being so civil.
Proof is proof, you do not have to beleive proof, it is either proof, or it is not proof. And the bible, of all things, is not proof. What proof? The bible has more bullshit within it than a book named 'Bullshit.' True, but why beleive if you cannot know?
Rusty!, I'm so glad you posted, I've been wondering where you've been. Just a quick question, though. To explain means it entails a clear, understandable and/or intelligible point. What is clear about god? What is understandable about god? Thanks. Edit: Oooo thought of another one. Can there be another explanation for the universe other than god? I understand that you think we don't have one but in the future is it possible that a scientific explanation may exist (or any explanation so long as it does not involve god)? Edit 2: Edited out my third question due to redundancy, lol. I misread intelligible as intellectual.
Law of Entopy debunks order and structure to the universe. 1st Law of Thermodynamics debunks the Big Bang theory. Biologists, physicists and all other sorts of scientists study the universe on different levels according to natural processes. Since the universe did not come about as a result of natural means, it has supernatural origins. Nitrous I'll answer those questions in time, but since the Debate is about God the debate breaks down into three components. Where did I come from, why am I here, and where am I going. I am starting with origin which answers the first question.
Ah, entropy. Haven't done this one for a bit now. I dusted off one of my books for this one. Entropy[1]- In simplicity, entropy is the measure of the unavailability of the energy in a system to do work. It describes the tendency of heat to flow from hot regions to cold regions homogenizing the system by allowing energy to be distributed in the greatest number of microstates. The notion that entropy is a measure of disorder is one of the more pervasive misconceptions regarding thermodynamics. In fact, the idea that everything should tend toward disorder is disproven by crystallization. You took an unordered amount of atoms and ordered them in a crystalline pattern which should tell you that order can be achieved even if the second law stated that everything is head towards disorder.[1] If you don't like diamonds you can use snow. You also have the problem of emergence but that's an irrelevancy at this point. But of course you may have objections to this. Crystallization and snow flakes require added energy to form, to which I would agree. If the earth were in a closed system I suspect no life would have arose, however, the earth is an open system as it constantly recieves energy from the sun, which reduces the sun's ability to do work while increasing the earth's ability. It doesn't overcome entropy it just delays it. It's a double-edged sword. You may continue to say that the universe itself is a closed system, which I would disagree once more, since the universe is expanding and the definition of a closed system is that it must be closed and static.[1][2] I'm not exactly sure how knowing that matter can not be created or destroyed shows the big bang is incorrect as the big bang does not deal with the creation of matter, only the expansion of spacetime and matter along with it. That's just a red herring. You make the assumption that the universe came about through supernatural means, though you have no way of backing it up and if you did it would be natural. So it is a philosophical and defintioninal impossibility that you could prove such a statement it must be believed on faith and you have no way of justifying that faith other than, you were born into it. 1) Sonntag RE, Borgnakke C, Van Wylen GJ. 2002. Fundamentals of Thermodynamics, 6th ed. Wiley. 2) Spergel DN, Bean R, Doré O, Nolta MR, Bennett CL, Dunkley J, Hinshaw G, Jarosik N, Komatsu E, Page L, Peiris HV, Verde L, Halpern M, Hjill RS, Limon M, Meyer SS, Odegard N, Tucker GS, Weiland JL, E Wollack, and Wright EL. 2007. Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) three year results: Implications for cosmology. Astrophysical Journal Supplement, 170:377-408.
God does not explain nothing until something is revealed that gives him a remote chance of being there; something which has not yet bee found. Your statement is very vague and untrue. 'God exists' is not a fact, it is an unfounded opinion. 'God does not exist' is a founded opinion. What makes it founded? Prehaps you would like to take a look through the previous 35 pages, and notice there is not one comment that remotely gets close to proving God, and then look at how the atheists, imparticular Nitrous, shoots them down like they were never there.
There are no natural means of proving the origin of the universe, because it has a supernatural origin. Take the Big Bang Theory for example. It was speculated that dark matter was in existence before the big bang. Dark matter isn't matter because it is without energy and structure. They are building blocks. The universe is made up of billions of galaxies with billions of stars. The Earth is 8,000 Miles in diameter and it would take 3,000 earths to fill up the sun. If the sun blew up, we wouldn't know it for eight minutes. Imagine all that mass. Now we realize that all that mass couldn't just have appeared from the big bang like that. So, we say that the big bang only produced the 1st universe which made stars because there are only light elements at this time. Why? Well again, dark matter are the building blocks of matter. Dark matter is allowed to come from nowhere because it is the loophole in the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. Somehow energy brought those building blocks together to form light elements such as hydrogen and helium. Thus stars were born. How did earth come about then? Well Stars die and when they supernova they make blobs of heavy elements. These smaller blobs collided with other blobs and eventually with a giant chunk of iron. Well actually it would be a miniscule chunk compared with other stellat objects. Land formed then water and yada yada yada. There's no way to prove any of it. Science can only observe our surroundings and intreprets it through natural processes. If you accept that that is the origin then you accept it on faith. Since it is a logical impossibility then it is logical that a supernatural event occured.
Not being able to prove the universe's origin through "natural" ways does not necessarily mean that God exists; this might just be something that is too big for us to uncover as humans. Similarly, that does not mean God doesn't exist. You can't really say it "has a supernatural origin", because that is stating it like a fact; facts that neither side have or may never have.
Supernatural Just because we don't understand it yet doesn't mean it was supernatural(magical), and it definitely doesn't mean god did it. Humans used to have gods for everything they didn't understand, from the sun to the weather, to the tides. Do you see a pattern in our history of pinning the term god or supernatural on things we didn't understand at the time? Now that we know the sun is not a wrathful god it seems a little silly, no? Lack of scientific understanding does not equal god, period. Saying that believers in the Big Bang are excepting that theory on faith is ridiculous. Humans have spent 1000's of years gazing into the sky, asking the hard questions, studying and submitting scientific papers. We have been working towards the big bang theory since humans first looked through a telescope. All of the evidence is pointing towards that as the origin of the universe. Are you really going to try and compare "faith" in a scientifically scrutinized theory to "faith" in an ancient book that says "god did it"?
It's a logical fallacy to think that the big bang occured. First of all explosions can't happen in space. Where did the dark matter come from. Why is there order to the universe when things are prone to disorder. I once watched a show called the universe. In the show an astrophysicist claimed that there were millions of other alternated universes contained in spheres. He stated that these universes would often collide causing cataclysmic events. His next statement made me laugh out loud. He said that the most amazing thing about all of this was that there was no way to prove it. That was an astrophysicist. He's spent years dedicated to his research and logically he's loony. There's no way to prove the big bang. Scientists disagree as to whether the universe is expanding or rebounding. There is software that can track a star's movement forwards and backwards but not it's origins. The Bible is probably the most peer-reviewed book on the face of the planet. The pattern has a simple explanation. Every god except for the Judeo-Christian God can logically be traced back to human origin. The ontological argument is grounds for God's exisitence. I am certain that gravity is a constant. You are not certain that the big bang occured. You accept it on faith. That's what faith is, belief in something amid uncertainty.
The Bible?!? No one who reads the Bible can agree on what to believe in it; what is right and what is not. I'm not just talking about the different sects, I also speak of those within the sects. If there is that much dispute and confusion, how can you use it as a reliable "resource"? That would be illogical, yes?
Nitrous already explained this. What you are talking about is M-Theory not the Big bang theory. Those "spheres" are called membranes. They hold universes, this is part of the multiverse theory. This does not directly relate to the Big Bang theory. M-Theory is untested and will probably stay that way for a while. This is not the sole explanation for why the Big Bang happened, just one theory. If it is disproved, that doesn't mean that the Big Bang Theory is out of the window. I don't know where you got that. They know it is expanding because of the Doppler affect and spectroscopy. When a galaxy is moving away from you the color lines move toward the red section.
What makes you believe that? The Big Bang Theory claims that a super dense black hole containing all matter in the universe suddenly expanded. Wouldn't those two statements contradict one another? If you do agree that gravity exists and that it is a constant, then you must also agree that all matter will eventually end up in one singular point.
What you are talking about is M-Theory not the Big bang theory. Those "spheres" are called membranes. They hold universes, this is part of the multiverse theory. This does not directly relate to the Big Bang theory. M-Theory is untested and will probably stay that way for a while. This is not the sole explanation for why the Big Bang happened, just one theory. If it is disproved, that doesn't mean that the Big Bang Theory is out of the window. I know it isn't about the big bang theory. It was a remark about what's his face claim about 1,000s of years of study to get to the point of the Big Bang. Specifically that scientist are infallible.