Yes: Nothing at all.
If you postulate that God created the Universe, you’ve “answered” one question by substituting an even bigger question: What created God?
That’s like “explaining” that clouds move because they’re dragged around by invisible flying robots.
Fine. Maybe the Big Bang just happened. Maybe the Big Bang was caused by some graduate student. However, once we grant that “God” created the Big Bang, we need to show that “God” did anything else. If God is sitting on the other side of the event horizon, the universe is the same if God exists or if God does not exist to all intents and purposes.
I have no problem with people who feel more comfortable believing that something created the universe. But, if they want to tell me that this thing has an opinion about my sex life, they are going to have to present rather more evidence of its existence and its interaction with humanity.
Not as far as I can tell…
I don’t know enough about specific examples, but in one sense you are correct. Science fill gaps of knowledge with theories of what seems to fit there – what would explain the state of the universe as far as we can observe it.
The difference between science and religion is that these theories are open to revision or complete disposal if new evidence indicates they are incomplete or incorrect.
And you seem to be equating these theories with another term almost exclusively related to religion – dogma. Dogma is not subject to change due to observable evidence.
I’m not sure if this completely addreseses your question. But certainly there are areas of ignorance in science, and certainly scientists present theories that they believe represent the best explanation to fill in that gap. But because of the nature of science and scientific evidence, these scientific beliefs are subject to revision and dismissal and aren’t remotely comparable to religious beliefs.
Are you aware there is some recent experimental evidence that challenges the idea of the speed of visible light (c)as being a kind of universal speed limit? It’s arguable that theories related to c has been and remains one of the cornerstones of physics. And so this data is being challenged and tested and experimented upon. Ultimately, if the data holds up, science will have to do a massive re-thinking of how the universe works to account for it. Religion, not being subject to objective reality, has no such obligation to revise its dogma.
Not being the least bit religious, I’m continually flabbergasted that seemingly intellectual people can insert “God” into anything and think that answers all questions. Just one problem: what the hell is God?! I’ve never heard a satisfactory answer for this. God ranges from a character in the Bible to vague nonsense like “the beauty of nature”, or some kind of super entity that conveniently exists outside the universe and therefore apparently requires no further explanation. These days for many people God just seems to be another way of saying “I don’t know.” So just say “I don’t know.” Don’t use a word that has all kinds of cultural baggage along with it. Maybe being a nonbeliever would have less of a negative stigma attached to it if more people were honest about it.
I hate when people do this.
Person A: Ok, lets call the first cause god.
Person B: Well, ok, but I don’t see why you’d use a word that…
Person A: AHA! God exists!
Person B: Yeah, but you posited a god whose only attribute is creation. That’s nothing at all like the general conception of a god. You’re just trying to get a soundbyte that you can take out of context later.
Person A: LALALALALALALA I can’t hear you, god exists!
To quibble a bit, but it is important, scientists will present hypotheses, not theories, to fill in these gaps, because scientist abhor a vacuum even more than nature was supposed to. But the hypotheses will come with predictions of observed data that will distinguish them from alternative hypotheses, and experiments to do to collect this data. Unless you are a very senior scientist, you don’t publish wild guesses. In fact, the common wisdom is that you use the current grant to do the experiments to give convincing evidence of the correctness of what you will be proposing for your next grant, and so on. This process is booted by young investigator grants, which you use to do the background for your first grant.
I’ve been reading Aristotle, and he logically proves all sorts of wrong things. He never once seems to propose experiments. Theology seems very similar - they prove all kinds of stuff, but never propose tests to see if their ideas about what God does make any sense. They say that God is a slippery character who doesn’t like to be verified (why I’ve never figured out.) If atoms were as sneaky as God, we’d be back using kerosene lamps and the Internet would be run using semaphore flags.
First I would like to apologize for my disappearing act last night. Ice storm, mountains, satellite dish…bleh. I lost my internet.
If it is not too late, I will try to answer.
I do not feel that I am misrepresenting what the word postulate means, rather I am representing what you do not want it to mean. Let us take a closer look…and just because you insist…let us take a closer look at hypothesis and theory along side of postulate and faith. For constraint of space, I will only post the words/definitions that have not been addressed already, and are now in question.
faith [feyth]
noun
the·o·ry
[thee-uh-ree, theer-ee] Show IPA
noun, plural the·o·ries.
1.
a coherent group of tested general propositions, commonly regarded as correct, that can be used as principles of explanation and prediction for a class of phenomena: Einstein’s theory of relativity. Synonyms: principle, law, doctrine.
2.
a proposed explanation whose status is still conjectural and subject to experimentation, in contrast to well-established propositions that are regarded as reporting matters of actual fact. Synonyms: idea, notion hypothesis, postulate. Antonyms: practice, verification, corroboration, substantiation.
hy·poth·e·sis
[hahy-poth-uh-sis, hi-] Show IPA
noun, plural -ses [-seez] Show IPA.
1.
a proposition, or set of propositions, set forth as an explanation for the occurrence of some specified group of phenomena, either asserted merely as a provisional conjecture to guide investigation (working hypothesis) or accepted as highly probable in the light of established facts.
2.
a proposition assumed as a premise in an argument.
3.
the antecedent of a conditional proposition.
4.
a mere assumption or guess. <—Kinda speaks for itself
Can we at least agree that, although not the EXACT same word, they are so intricately wound together that it is not as far of a reach as science proponents make it out to be?
The English language is not nearly as precise as many others. I believe we can all find consensus in that (maybe?). There are special nuance distinctions that need to be made, but to pretend that these words are not closer than your typical science person is willing to admit…well…dat dere som crazee tawk.
Words are extremely important, how you use them more so. This is not to pretend that I do not ever say something that I am not intending to say. But I will not stand by and watch the complete and total high-jacking of the language. U knw wht im sayin? Just because you want a word to mean something…or you have always taken it to mean something…or they want you to believe it means something…does not make it true.
No, I don’t agree with that at all. More importantly, playing games with the dictionary isn’t an argument.
Alright, then we are at an point at which we cannot agree. I am not playing games with the dictionary (another gratuitous assertion). If you cannot see what is there…I cannot force you. The words probably, assumed, conjecture…none of them mean proven or exact.
I understand that what I am suggesting is a “tough pill” for many people to swallow, after all…you have heard these things you are saying for your entire life. I would love to answer every aspect of what is here, but alas, I have work that gets in the way (and you guys are way too fast for me 
).
I will not answer every charge of “well what about this or that”, its foolishness, based on an assumption that I do not believe in science. Science is good and has its place, I am not against science. I am against foolish ideas being shoved down my throat using words that they either do not understand (best case) or are intentionally misused (abhorrent) . All science is not bad…let me say it again…all science is not bad; however all science is not good. Is the galaxy expanding? Sure. Is the only explanation the Big Bang? Yes? Foolishness, blindness, closedmindedness (yes…its made up)
If you choose to believe a man’s word or if you choose to look around you and say, “Hey it makes sense to me that a Big Bang happened and order sprung from it”, I cannot stop you. I would certainly understand more about you, but in the end, it has very little bearing on my life or my beliefs.
The question was Provability?
The answer? Still no.
Am I stupid? Am I childish? Am I unlearned? Well I will leave you to hypothesize about that, but one thing is certain…of the so precious little learning I have been able to muster through…I can tell you, the more I learn, the more I find I don’t know. The next “fact” only begs the next question.
It’s not really true to say that the Big Bang is the only explanation; it is, as of right now, the most likely explanation. As I pointed out in a previous post, the Steady-State theory is another explanation. But further discoveries made it less likely to be the correct one. But you know what? Previous followers of the Steady-State theory, once the cosmic microwave background was discovered, changed their minds in accordance with the new evidence. How is that closed-minded?
Once again, the Big Bang was not an event. The Big Bang is an on-going process, currently causing a decrease in density in the universe at large scales. Please research the theory before disparaging it.
You don’t prove anything with the scientific method.
You apparently haven’t grasped that.
Certain pieces of evidence (including the cosmic background radiation) were PREDICTED by hypotheses before the evidence was discovered. That makes the probability of correctness quite high.
In comparison, religion makes no such predictions that are verified by evidence.
There is no equivalence.
Why are you asserting otherwise?
Please do me the favor of not making assumptions of what I’ve been told and what I haven’t.
As noted, nobody says the Big Bang is the only explanation. However at the moment it’s the best explanation of what we have observed and what we understand about those observations.
Our understanding in science is always provisional. Theories don’t get to a point where nobody is allowed to question them anymore. They can get to a point where just about everyone agrees the evidence is overwhelmingly in favor of the theory, and I think the Big Bang has gotten to that point, but that doesn’t mean it won’t ever be altered as we learn more. Anyway I think this is more productive than making assertions about science based on the dictionary.
The problem with your kneejerk assertion is that I do not believe in God. Introducing yourself with the first few posts would have saved you from feeling hatred.
This is continued willful ignorance.
As has been repeated over, and which you continue to ignore over and over and over again: nobody, nobody, nobody claims that the Big Bang is “proven”.
Your characterization of them as doing so and then condemning your own false characterization of them as “foolishness, blindness, closedmindedness” is intellectual dishonesty.
To repeat: nobody claims to have proven the Big Bang. Nobody claims to have proven the Big Bang. Nobody claims to have proven the Big Bang.
What people HAVE said is that there are numerous lines of evidence which point towards it, and make it a reasonable conclusion; and that they are happy to take into account any new evidence and revise that hypothesis. You have to take the first step and acknowledge that this is what they are saying before you can even begin to reasonably debate the issue.
THEN we can begin discussing the evidence itself. Unless you understand the evidence you’re willfuly disparaging (which you clearly don’t), any argument with it is simply noise. You dont’ even know what you’re arguing against, other than a few buzzwords you heard on TV.
Where did you pick up the idea that any theory or hypothesis in science is proven to be exact, or that any scientist thinks this? We are taught how Newton’s Laws, the closes thing to absolute truth we’ve seen, got overturned in practically no time when new data came in.
You might want to give whatever cosmology book you got your ideas from another read. The galaxy is not expanded - it is bound gravitationally. The universe is expanding. The universe and the galaxy are slightly different things. And this is not a simple semantic difference.
True, cosmology doesn’t impact most of our lives a lot. However, it does show a lack of openness to ideas and evidence. This has nothing to do with things making sense (much of quantum physics doesn’t) and a lot to do with intellectual processes. I don’t see how it would come up, but I sure wouldn’t hire who was aware of but denied the evidence. I’d worry that he’d look at the output of a program and deny the evidence that he had inserted a bug.
No, the question is not provability. The question is: which hypothesis best fits the facts we have, and has made successful predictions about what we will find. The old theories changed to include inflation. I don’t know if dark matter and dark energy have been integrated into the theory already, but if they haven’t they will be.
so many things to digest and this is just one thread on an ever expanding forum. i know this forum is expanding because the post count says so. (although can we really ever know since we can’t watch the post counter in person? i mean couldn’t it say any one of random infinite numbers? or are they infinite?)
somebody asked for an alternate idea here’s one courtesy of James Constant;
The illusion of expanding space occurs because most cosmologists associate the observed redshift with the doppler speed of receding galaxies, an association which remains to be actually observed. Current observations fall far short of a substantial departure from linearity of equation (1) to confirm the association of the observed redshift with the recession speed of galaxies. After almost a century of its existence, the theory of space expansion remains to be confirmed. In the meantime, all we can say is that the universe does not expand and, what we see are redshifts which associate with the distance of galaxies and radiation in a cosmic sphere of radius Dc=21.1 bly.
okay go ahead and tell james how lazy and unlearned he is. you can’t blame me as i am but a lowly messenger.
someone asked about monotheism in old testament writings and how Christians can claim a polytheistic new testament tradition (or something like that). although i find it quite odd that we touch on hubbles’ law and the very nature of the Godhead in the same post, who am i to question those who have been educating the masses on truth since james taylor was still shooting up? so, allow me to pontificate that not all Christians hold to the traditional view of the nature of the Godhead, much to the chagrin of those who do. alas, that is for another time.
now, quote me away, but be nice as i am but a fragile sort.
Inflation makes me puke if I give it any thought, and I “saw” the falsehood of Relativity when I was in high school in 1970 (“Wait a second: The universe is X big, it started Y long ago, but C is still a limiting factor? Doesn’t that mean that, for some time, the universe expanded faster than the speed of light?”), but that doesn’t prove that Goddidit.
I’m not fragile, but I puke easily. :rolleyes:
It is considered good form to give a cite to the passage you just quoted, since we don’t even know what equation 1 is, and what the context is.
Okay, here it is. I’m not a physicist, but it sure seems to descend into gibberish as he goes on. As far as I can tell, because it is hard to make observations past 3.9 bly he thinks space beyond that is somehow different. However I’m fairly sure we’ve made good observations past that today.
As for him being lazy and unlearned, certainly not lazy, and I don’t know about unlearned. I’m thinking more crackpot. Web sites and self-published books hardly constitutes scientific publication. I suspect the physicist will be by shortly to explain to us exactly why this is a crock.
You didn’t “see the the falsehood of relativity”; you just didn’t understand it. You’re not a child genius who disproved Einstein while in high school.
c is the maximum speed at which something that move through space. Relativity makes no claim whatsoever on space not being able to expand faster than c; there’s nothing there to prove false.
Yes, the universe expanded faster than the speed of light during the early inflation period. Not only that, parts of the universe far enough away from us are receding at faster than the speed of light right now. And the acceleration of expansion means that eventually even closer things will recede at faster than the speed of light.