Go ahead and skip up to 15:00. Then watch the rest of the videos in the series from then on.
Our brains evolved to cope with living in small bands of hunter-gatherers on the African veldt. So when we try to think about things outside that narrow gamut, our intuition is likely to lead us badly astray. Things that seem like amazing mysteries can actually have pretty straightforward explanations, but understanding the explanation often requires us to think against the grain of how our brains naturally work.
In other words, gut feelings are not a good way to discover the truth about most things in the natural world.
(And please, capitalization and paragraphs, I beg of you!)
heh. capitalization: no. sorry. typed this way for 17 years now.
paragraphs: already do. and i’ll keep on. not sure what you’re even talking about there.
who is implying they are using gut-feelings to discover truths about the natural world? you make it sound like i refuse the science behind how apples grow in favor of more mystical hippy-feely ideas. anyone who is dismissing observable reality and the science we understand of it all is clearly an idiot and we should all stop talking to them.
what i’m saying is i accept scientific theories all the way back to as far as we have theories for until it starts getting faith-based. when you get back to the “we don’t know but we think…” stuff about how we got here and what was at the beginning or if there even WAS a beginning, there is not observable natural world. it’s all theory, philosophy and supposition. i believe in all the tangible or otherwise known explanations of reality via science. i realize i have a hard time discussing such topics with people like you because you seem to have a very standoffish and absolute concept of “God:” he’s the skybeardman who gives golden hearted practitioners of blind faith wishes. he’s the default answer to anything we can’t explain and gets credit for all good things in our life but never anything bad.
that’s not my god.
deism is just as inarguable as the big bang, so i’m not sure why anyone would waste time doing either.
and i’m also not sure why you’d take time out of your day to step on what i just said i believed: what i think affects nothing and no one but me. why do you even care?
i’m not a scientist nor do i get to inject my philosophy into any meaningful realm of “the natural world” that would affect you–so why would you care? i don’t believe in miracles or a personal god or anything much different than you.
i’m 100% pro science. i just think whatever God is snugly fits into the natural world. i cannot stress enough that i do not believe there’s such a thing as “supernatural.”
i think atheists are just as afraid there is something resembling “God” just as much as christians are terrified there’s not.
either way you slice it, you’ll be hard pressed to come up with a cogent debate against my deistic stance. like i said, it’s just for me. there’s literally no reason to care.
It’s an unfortunate habit. It makes your posts hard to read.
Nope. I’m ready to engage with any God-concept you want.
Except there’s evidence for the big bang and there’s not for deism.
The big bang explains things. It explains why certain features of the universe are the way they are, and aren’t the way they’re not.
Deism doesn’t explain anything. A universe with a deistic deity behaves identically to one without. And you’ve invented a new, complicated entity that needs explaining.
I’m hoping to get you to take that final step out of the darkness and into the light.
Nope. Not at all. I find the universe fascinating. I find it particularly fascinating when I learn something new. Strong evidence for a god would be an amazing, exciting thing to experience. I’m not holding my breath, however.
If there’s no reason to care, why’d you bring it up?
It’s a bit of a cop-out, isn’t it? The forum is Great Debates. Here I am, putting my personal beliefs out there to be hacked apart and critiqued by strangers. Why should your personal beliefs get a pass?
Uh… okay… Actually, what really bugs me is not Christianity as such (though living in North America, it is the faith held by the majority and thus the one I’ve been most inundated with all my life - arguably even more so than the Judaism I was born into), but the willful ignorance it entails. I’ve no problem with people holding personal beliefs that are consoling to them, i.e. that there is a loving and watchful God who will ensure justice and reunite you with loved ones after death, etc. But when it starts creeping beyond the sphere of the personal and wants to interfere in matters that are political, legislative, or scientific… that’s when I have to object. Rule of secular law works, the scientific method works, and they work far better than anything tried before, so why should I stand by and let them be twisted because someone who finds his personal beliefs consoling has decided that I have to be consoled by them, too?
Well, those problems will be “solved” in the sense that USA as we know it will cease to exist. That might not be a deal-breaker, I know, if one is more interested in establishing a Kingdom of God than in preserving a Republic of Men, but I am somewhat curious which precepts you mean and how they will do away with economic problems, on the national or worldwide scale.
It’s no, barring so really good follow-up explanations on your part. I’m not holding my breath.
i brought it up solely for the purpose of jon. i thought it could help him reconcile the gap he seems to be fighting.
and you’re arguing against yourself dude. i never said i didn’t believe in the big bang or that there was no evidence for it. i believe in science just the same as you. essentially there’s nothing to debate.
i know you’re really aching to pick a fight here, but we’re in the same ideological ballpark. i believe in the big bang. i believe in science. i believe in observable nature.
when science proves there’s no god in any way shape or form, i’ll accept the evidence same as i do for any other corellary aspects of science.
until then, feel free to disprove it. oh, i know–burden of truth’s on me, i have to prove MY stance to YOU. only i don’t give a flying fuck what you think and i know there’s no empirical evidence for a god anyway. i’m not stupid.
what i have is a philosophical stance on deism and i don’t owe you a debate or an explanation.
i aslo know that science is seeking to understand unifying concepts that are exactly the same as my views on what a god would have to be to exist, so what i believe falls in line with science. i believe if there is a god it’s nothing more than a unifying concept, principle, theory, energy, or whatever other natural but as of yet misunderstood thing.
basically i don’t believe all this order came from nothing. i believe there’s SOMETHING. what that is i have no idea. so how could i debate it? what would even be the point…?
seriously. what joy or purpose does this serve for you? are you going to enlighten me to the gift of science and knowledge? oh, no. i already accept and believe in **all **of science. are you going to crush my belief in a loving god? nope, i don’t believe whatever god is could possibly love or care. are you going to wipe clean my belief in the afterlife? nope, i don’t believe in it or need to. i don’t remember being unalive before i was born and don’t really care that i won’t be alive just the same in the future.
you’re really aching to get my goat but there’s nothing to get. i already believe in all the same things as you, i just have a philosophical digestion slightly different. you take your shot of vodka straight. i have a chaser.
whoop dee doo. who cares?
debate Jon. he’s the one that believes in a christian God.
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It’s not going to. Science is not interested in doing so.
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As you well know, you can’t prove a negative. So demanding that someone do so is ultimately intellectual dishonesty.
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Yes, the burden of evidence is on the claimant, whether you like it it not.
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If you don’t give a fuck what anybody else thinks, what compels you to post? Are you being paid to do so?
Why do some Christians have such a hard on about the Big Bang? It’s completely orthogonal to the issue of whether there was/is a God. God could have caused the Big Bang or not caused it and nothing about it really changes. 2+2=4: is that because God made it that way? It doesn’t really matter when we do math. Stuff seems to be moving away from all other stuff, so scientists came up with an explanation. It’s not because they are atheists or anti-Christians, they are just smart and curious and decided to follow the evidence where it leads.
i already addressed/responded to all this. go back and read.
exactly
No, you haven’t. :rolleyes:
Several members have expressed skepticism as to the scientific status of the “mulitverse”.
In fact, the concept was provided with solid theortical underpinning over 50 years ago:
Scientific American: The Many Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics
(from link, emphasis added):
Personally I hope that MW is not true, and does not provide an accurate description of nature and reality,
since it leaves the door wide open for the existence of any number of alternate outcomes of human history
much worse than the one we are living in.
i sure did. if i post it again, will you read this time?
- science is working on various cohesion/unifying theories. apparently science does have an interest. the theory of everything falls closely in line with what i believe, with semantically different termonology.
2.can’t prove a god, either. demanding someone do so is just pointless rhetoric. - there IS no evidence, it’s a philosophy. i’ve already said i have no empirical evidence, no one does. no one ever has. it’s a PHILOSOPHY. when you figure out some kind of retarded cross-disciplinary sciensophical method you can apply to philosophies, you let me know, and we’ll run the tests on it. kay?
- i posted it for Jon, to help reconcile his disconnect between science and God. i don’t think there needs to be such a disconnect.
i get it, you guys. it’s like your jerkoff hobby to trounce anyone who believes in god because OMG they’re so stupid and unscientific. only i believes wholly in all of science. i just have a philosophical side that helps me better comprehend such things.
i also like heavy metal, hate Glee, and buy up all the neon colored shoes i can. let’s apply a scientific sort field to those things, too. and debate how wrong i am.
seriously. feel free to tear down philosophy using science. i already agree with and believe in science and my philosophy doesn’t impinge on it in any way. i’m sorry it annoys you so much that i’ve found a symbiotic reconciliation, but you might want to just get over it.
This is inappropriate for Great Debates. You can post like this in the Pit, but not here. My advice to you would is to not take this stuff so personally. Regardless, you can’t talk to people this way in this forum.
hey look. it’s marley.
i don’t go far without marley coming to say hi.
I’m not trying to get on your case here, but I’m trying to remind you of what the rules are. And I’ve been involved in this discussion since last night.
uh huh.
well look, i don’t have anything to take personal. i’ve already made it clear my stance is philosophical and there’s no evidence to support it. * at least not any evidence that will change anyone’s mind. like i said, it’s for me–to help me make sense of reality.i can’t impart it on anyone or debate it as it isn’t the kind of mechanism to stilt up that way.
like it or not, it IS a common rhetorical trend for atheists to tear down anyone who saying anything about god, but conceded my philosophy the same post i espoused it. yet the knee-jerk atheist response with the same ol rhetorical list come flying out as if they can’t help themselves.
if anything, it’s cute. but i have nothing personal to gain. i dont NEED there to be a god; he’s not doing anything to help me, or answer my prayers, or grant me things or give me eternal life. i don’t believe in any of that. i don’t know what “light” there is to bring me into since i already agree with science. i can’t for the life of me understand why a philosophy that impinges not-at-all on scientific theory needs to be accosted.
i serously think atheists just can’t help themselves. it’s always attack.
If you don’t wish to debate the subject, then why are you in this forum, talking about this subject?
for the third time, because i thought it might help Jon to see that he needn’t disconnect betwee a God existing and the big bang being correct.
if you DO wish to debate a philosophy, feel free.
You want * Philosophy 101*, over in the Philosophy building across the street. This is the Science building, and the name of this class is Evidence For The Big Bang 201.