No, I am applying skepticism equally. I don’t at all disapprove of the Big Bang as a model to describe a step in the process that led to where we are today. However, I see a lot of hubris coming from the atheistic side that has more bolstering from social cohesion, than it does from actually applying the principles of skepticism fairly. I see a lot of imperious declarations coming from many of the forums atheists. Calling all of us who believe in God, ‘stupid’, when there are plenty of holes in Big Bang theory. Not that I think that the holes falsify it, but that there are significant gaps in our knowledge of how the universe was formed. So unless you know for a fact how the universe was formed every step of the way, you should probably be a little bit more humble and use the terms, ‘I don’t know’, and ‘maybe’ a lot more.
The soul. ;p
Cosmology doesn’t apply just to science. Cosmologies are built by belief systems. You are talking about A cosmology, not cosmology in general. It’s grand that you find more and more evidence. However, science only describes mechanisms. It does not at all falsify anything about God. It does not show that there was not an intelligent hand guiding the formation of these things from before the big bang and on through it until now. To claim that it does is to make as specious a claim as “My God is absolutely the true definition of God and trumps all other definitions.”
And here you go closing an otherwise good post with a vicious appeal to emotion and ad hominem. Score one for the rationalists! But of course ‘rabid insistence’ is only a tactic of ‘the other guy’.
Just because the nature of the evidence is such that you cannot comprehend it, that does not render it invalid.
There is plenty of evidence for how the Big Bang happened and there is a great deal of educated conjecture as to why it happened and what the nature of its happening was. I do not dispute this.
There is also a great deal of evidence as to the Nature of God, and there is a great deal of educated conjecture as to just what that entails. You do seem to dispute this, chiefly, if not solely, because the evidence for it is of a nature of which you disapprove or cannot comprehend.
No, I dispute it because claims that you “feel” God or had a “spiritual experience” are not evidence; they are empty claims. There is ZERO evidence for God. At best.
Well, most negatives can’t be proven, but what if Der Trihs had said “Humanity is not known to be in possession of solid empirical evidence substantiating the existence of the God of Abraham. Given this, it is foolish to expend precious time, energy, and material resources venerating him in much the same way that it would be considered foolish for an adult to behave morally in order to ingratiate himself with Santa Claus”? Would that be better?
Well I do believe at the point we are at right now it is impossible to disprove god. However, it is not impossible to disprove some of the stuff in the bible.
1 example Noah’s ark
With the amount of rain that it would take to fill up the world in 40 days and 40 nights, there would be enough rain per second to sink an aircraft carrier. There is no way Noah’s wooden ship could stand up to this rainfall.
Religion is ridiculously outdated. It was created thousands of years ago when we had intelligence just better then that of a monkey’s. Anyone recall the Greek gods. They were created and supposedly lived up on Mount Olympus. This could not be dis proven until we evolved and had the fortitude and intelligence to climb mount Olympus and realize that there were no gods up their. Religion has changed over the years so that it has become harder and harder to disprove it, which does not mean it’s true.
There are still a ton of religions out there and everyone is saying theirs is right. We need to move beyond this for the greater good of our world. Religion is most of the reason so many people are dying in the middle east. And before all the Christians say “ya, but there crazy Muslims” just remember the KKK and Crusades.
Sorry for hijaking
It’d be better, but it would again turn on whether “empirical” evidence is the only kind on which one ought rely; furthermore, even assuming the truth of the first statement, it does not necessarily follow that His veneration IS foolish.
I freely admit that, in an antiseptic and emotionless world, a writing on why I believe God exists carries little weight in comparison to the pictures from the Hubble or other well-founded scientific theory. But the thing that I do find beautiful about this world and my place in it is that streams of data are not the sole definition of our existence.
Well not going too deeply into that one, my response to your post is that religion can never die because there is a God and there is also a deceiver who creates and animates false ‘gods’. Denying it won’t stop it.
Oh, it could be. However, I assure you that it is NOT the case.
Or perhaps you should stop implicitly demanding that I use your definition of “evidence.” It’s perfectly provable. To ME. Perhaps to you. But that’s not something I can tell.
And, since you’re an adequate stand-in for Der Trihs, allow me to explain again that what I know isn’t scientifically quantifiable. That doesn’t make it any less existent.
This is why I am disinclined to argue with you or others like you, for the same reason I put forth in my reply to DT.
Yes, it does. That’s why modern technology is based on science, and not religious revelations; science, and therefore technology, works. Science discovers the true nature of the world; religion just festers in it’s own delusions, and discovers nothing. It has no connection to reality; it is the intellectual equilvalent of closing your eyes, covering your ears and yelling “LALALALA I CAN"T HEAR YOU ! !” Science is real; religious beliefs are not.
The give me or provide for me an exact electrochemical diagram of the frustration I am feeling at having to explain this to you yet again.
Did the Big Bang only become existent when we had the means to perceive it or to posit it?
Was the world flat at one point? Did it bend into its current form the first time some ancient scholar put forth a reasonable hypothesis? Or did it become spherical when that notion became generally accepted?
How comfortable it must be, how… safe… it must be to KNOW all the things that you do. How gratifying it must be to be privy to the knowledge that we human beings now have ALL the POSSIBLE means to quantify that which we see and that which affects us.
Your argument doesn’t hold up. Your tone is even worse, but it’s to be expected I suppose.
Look, DT, clinical depression exists as an actual phenomenon, does it not?
How do we know? Because of its effects. It certainly can’t be quantified.
Or do you wish to argue against the existence of clinical depression?
I’m sure that can be arranged. Of course, you would have to submit to extensive neurological testing (CAT scans, MRI scans and suchlike) but the production of a photographic negative showing which sections of your brain are producing these feelings of frustration is well within the capabilities of today’s neuroscientists.
Of course, such pictures may not be precise enough for your liking. It should go without saying, however, that modern technology is developing at an alarming rate. I once read that the sum total of scientific knowledge doubles every ten years. If this is true, more precise graphical representations of your frustration will be forthcoming.
Of course, no amount of testing or diagramming will answer the question of how your brain processes electrochemical activity into emotions, but this is a philosophical question, not a religious one. Specifically it comes under the purview of a branch of philosophy known as ‘Philosophy of Mind’. It could also, theoretically, be a question answerable by the rigorous application of science. Maybe not today, but in a hundred years from now. It could never be answered by recourse to the Bible, Qu’ran, Bhagavad Gita, or any other religious text.