In other words, Zeldar, you have no trouble with the notion that there is a “god” being that exists outside of time and space, that can indeed create time and space, propagate an entire universe, preside over it for billions of years, and be intimately concerned with the details of the lives of each bit of animated carbon, but you balk at the notion that said universe may emerge from physical processes.
Isn’t there a Biblical verse to the effect of being able to swallow a camel yet straining at a gnat?
More of the sorts of things Oriental medicine is into than “hard sciences.” Bill Moyers had a special several years ago that made an impression on me (not hard to do, I’m afraid) about the various methods of improving “chi” or in using “chi” to solve more serious medical conditions.
I’m of the opinion that of all the sciences currently undergoing change to the more “scientific approach” of double-blind and repeatable results format that the “hard sciences” are supposed to include as part of their methodology, that medicine is among the slowest to make the shift. But it’s equally amazing to me that some of the “hard sciences” consider their methods to be above the need for the same rigors of “double blind” testing.
I’ll try to locate a link to some reporting done by somebody whose methods were pooh-poohed by the peer reviews for not having the proper protocols only to find that his protocols were vastly superior to the ones used in the fileds represented on the peer review. It was a fascinating read.
Another fun read had to do with how the so-called “constants” used in Physics and Chemistry aren’t!
Zeldar, I was just trying to point out that the notions of what appears to be incredible or impossible or unswallowable may vary to an extreme degree between belief systems. The theistic approach that balks at the big bang includes a notion that to outsiders appears to require an infinitely huger leap of credulity. However, to believers that leap is a step easily made.
This was merely a response to your comments that indicated you think that today’s understanding of an acausal big bang to be too incredible to believe.
You have to be able to examine the hidden assumptions behind all belief structures to be able to make any sense of them.
Exapno Mapcase, please look back to my first post in this thread. After checking the dictionary definition of “theism” I find that the definition is a little more specific than what I remembered of the term. Therefore, you may freely ignore my comments that say the Big Bang theory is theistic.
However, if you allow the limited definition I started with, I still contend that the Big Bang theory does rely on some “cause” to the event. In the meantime I have read the linked article in the OP and I think the article’s conclusions (if that’s what they can be called) are in sync (for the most part) with what I have stated.
The difficulty I have with the notion of “theism” as defined in the dictionary is that attributes of that “god or gods” (like being “immanent” – whatever that means) are not required. To believe there is some undefined and unknown entity that is responsible for the Universe being here is as far as I like to go. It’s a bit further than agnosticism, but not as far as atheism.
However, my beliefs are not the issue here. So I will refrain from further comments about the article in question, since it appears to be a moot point anyway.
I am surprised that no one has addressed a basic fault with the claim cited in the OP:
Actually, Scientists do speculate on events causing the Big Bang all the time. There are all sorts of theories about higher dimensions, quantum flucuations, etc. So some conjecture that our Universe is a “small” bubble that randomly popped out of a greater still universe. Perhaps these ideas will be testable at some point. (There’s still a lot to be worked out about just the open/close/flat stuff. It’ll be a while.)
So a lot of statements about Science in this thread so far basically just don’t apply. No theism issues whatsover.
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I am surprised that no one has addressed a basic fault with the claim cited in the OP:
Actually, Scientists do speculate on events causing the Big Bang all the time. There are all sorts of theories about higher dimensions, quantum flucuations, etc.
My original post said that big bang theory itself didn’t have any attached explanation, so it could still be valid even if the Primal Cause were shown to be God farting. I do realize that scientists are struggling to better understand the BB and also that they likely are neglecting the aforementioned possibility.
this thread has survived longer, and been far more interesting, than I had expected, thanks guys.
Pardon my ignorance, but are you also implicitly implying that this driver (‘Something’) is external to the realm of the singularity?
Pardon my arrogance here but IMO religion is a socially conditioned organism that evolved in human civilization as a response to factors that human cognition couldn’t relate to immediate and/or directly perceived causes. From what I read, you’re suggesting that pseudoscience / religion are scientifically valid models. Science just doesn’t know it yet. Science will break new ground, but its direction will coincide with religious methods only by pure chance.
KidCharlemagne, in one of my replies to you above (I didn’t quote it since there was too much in the post that doesn’t relate to this) I said I’d try to find a link to something I had read. It took me quite a while to remember where it was, who it was by, and all that. And I still haven’t followed the trail all the way to the “fascinating read” I mentioned earlier. But to start with, if this sort of thing has any interest for you, check out Rupert Sheldrake Online for some of the articles that led me to the ones about his run-in with the peer reviewers, etc.
Be forewarned that Sheldrake has a reputation as a crackpot by such authorities as The Skeptic’s Dictionary and Salon.com and doubtless others in the 13,700 hits I got at Google using his name.
It’s the very act of calling people crackpots that stirs my curiosity about them and what they have attempted. Velikovsky got that treatment from Sagan (and probably for very good reasons). But it’s in the areas of “research” and speculation where these crackpots are operating that I suspect we’re going to learn eventually that there really is something going on there that will help explain some of the hitherto unexplained phenomena that are baffling mainstream science.
James Randi notwithstanding (and I applaud Randi’s work toward the same basic audience that Cecil Adams is addressing) there are likely to be some winners of his reward eventually and those winners may help break down that barrier that has existed between Science and Religion (Religion in the broadest sense) since the dawn of the “Modern Era.”
In an effort to consider myself “open minded” I try not to dismiss out of hand those people (and their efforts) in the fringe areas between Science and Religion (again in the broad sense of Religion). I don’t have as big an ax to grind against Religion as some do.
For you others who have been posting to this thread, please forgive this sidetrack. I didn’t want to start a new thread for fear the title might not draw KidCharlemagne’s attention, and I did feel an obligation to follow up on the promise to get at least a link to what I had mentioned. If someone else wants to start a thread on this topic, I’d be interested in further discussion of it.
For what its worth I think its only language and association - whether you say “God” or “not possible to know” it amounts to pretty much the same thing, as God the primal creator is held to be unknowable.
I don’t want to make this personal, but here is the exact flaw in your reasoning. It is not likely that there will ever be winners of his reward. Ever.
I do dismiss these people and their efforts out of hand, and so far I have been right every single time. Crackpots do not become correct. They become forgotten crackpots. History is littered with them.
It is a sad fact that our culture remains littered with them. But they remain crackpots, nevertheless.
