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Religion is the biggest bullshit story in the world. Think about it. There's an invisible man in the sky. And he watches you, every second of every day. He knows everything you're doing, everything you're thinking, and everything you've done. God has 10 rules. And if you break those rules, he has a special place for you. A horrible place full of fire, and smoke, and darkness, and misery and anguish and torture and screaming and pain, where you'll suffer for all eternity! But he loves you.
George Carlin
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Karnaj stopped beating up furries long enough to write:
Ah yes, the First Cause arguement, and a patent load of sophistry.OK, so you assert that everything has a cause. Fair enough. Therefore, there must be an impetus to universe, which we'll call God, right? Fine. Seems fair, as long as you can answer me this: what created God? After all, you can't create something from nothing, and God is something.
And BTW, the current cosmology, like it or not, accounts for this, as well. Time began when the universe began. The universe has always existed; there was nothing before it, and is nothing outside it. The universe is absolutely everything. Time is inextricably linked with the universe and does not run independent of it. Something did NOT come from nothing, because something(read: the universe) has always been here.
God, by definition, would have no creator, or he would not be God. You cant have an all powerful entity if he's not the start of everything, who has always been. But in that sense, the mythological being of God could in fact be the universe itself.
Last I knew, they estimate the universe at 16.5 billion years old; which of course is just a theory, just like your theory that it has always existed. Honestly to me, it makes sense with either explanation, but something we wont be able to prove for a while (if ever).
Just depends which theories you choose to accept and deny in the end. There's a theory for everything when it comes to this stuff.
As many of those who did not believe in God were standing together there he excited considerable laughter. Why? is he lost? said one. Has he strayed away like a child? said another. Or does he keep himself hidden? Is he afraid of us? Has he taken a sea voyage? Has he emigrated? - the people cried out laughingly, all in a hubbub. The insane man jumped into their midst and transfixed them with his glances. "Where is God gone?" he called out. "I mean to tell you! We have killed him, you and I! We are all his murderers! But how have we done it? How were we able to drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the whole horizon? What did we do when we loosened this earth from its sun? Whither does it now move? Whither do we move? Away from all suns? Do we not dash on unceasingly? Backwards, sideways, forwards, in all directions? Is there still an above and below? Do we not stray, as through infinite nothingness? Does not empty space breathe upon us? Has it not become colder? Does not night come on continually, darker and darker? Shall we not have to light lanterns in the morning? Do we not hear the noise of the grave-diggers who are burying God? Do we not smell anything yet of God's decomposition? - gods, too, decompose! God is dead! God remains dead! And we have killed him! How shall we console ourselves, the most murderous of all murderers? The holiest and the mightiest that the world has hitherto possessed, has bled to death under our knife - who will wipe the blood from us? With what water could we cleanse ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to devise? Is not the magnitude of this deed too great for us? Shall we not ourselves have to become Gods, merely to seem worthy of it? There never was a greater event - and on account of it, all who are born after us belong to a higher history than any history hitherto!"
Here the madman was silent and looked again at his hearers; they also were silent and looked at him in surprise. At last he threw his lantern on the ground, so that it broke in pieces and was extinguished. "I come too early," he then said. "I am not yet at the right time. This prodigious event is still on its way, and is traveling - it has not yet reached men's ears. Lightning and thunder need time, the light of the stars needs time, deeds need time, even after they are done, to be seen and heard. This deed is as yet further from them than the furthest star - and yet they have done it themselves!"
It is further stated that the madman made his way into different churches on the same day, and there intoned his Requiem aeternam deo. When led out and called to account, he always gave the reply: "What are these churches now, if they are not the tombs and sepulchres of God?"
-Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science.
[ 02-05-2004: Message edited by: Pvednes ]
quote:
Reynar had this to say about Jimmy Carter:
God, by definition, would have no creator, or he would not be God. You cant have an all powerful entity if he's not the start of everything, who has always been. But in that sense, the mythological being of God could in fact be the universe itself.Last I knew, they estimate the universe at 16.5 billion years old; which of course is just a theory, just like your theory that it has always existed. Honestly to me, it makes sense with either explanation, but something we wont be able to prove for a while (if ever).
Just depends which theories you choose to accept and deny in the end. There's a theory for everything when it comes to this stuff.
You misunderstand, the universe is 13.5 or however many billion years old, but it has always existed, and is absolutely everything. The idea of "before the universe" is identical to a square circle, or 1+1=40. Time is a property of the universe, to be thought of in the same way one would think of space. Newton's objective time is a myth. A singularity is an "edge" of spacetime. [ 02-05-2004: Message edited by: Pvednes ]
quote:
Pvednes probably says this to all the girls:
You misunderstand, the universe is 13.5 or however many billion years old, but it has always existed, and is absolutely everything. The idea of "before the universe" is identical to a square circle, or 1+1=40. Time is a property of the universe, to be thought of in the same way one would think of space. Newton's objective time is a myth.
If there's an age to it, how can it have always existed? In what form did it exist before that 13.5 billion years? How can you be sure, aside from just guessing?
Yes I know reletivity killed objective time, but we aren't stuck in a black hole, we've observed the universe in the same reletive time as the rest of the galaxies that inhabit it.
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A singularity is an "edge" of spacetime
What's that mean? You're gonna have to explain things rather then just type out buzz words. Spacetime gets distorted inside a singularity but the universe is not made up of these, they are occurances, just like blackholes.
Certain parts of the universe dont all experience the same reletive time for different reasons, but the majority of it still rides the same line. Don't you think?
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Reynar put down Tada! magazine long enough to type:
If there's an age to it, how can it have always existed? In what form did it exist before that 13.5 billion years? How can you be sure, aside from just guessing?Yes I know reletivity killed objective time, but we aren't stuck in a black hole, we've observed the universe in the same reletive time as the rest of the galaxies that inhabit it.
The universe did not exist before 13.57 billion years ago because time did not exist, either. When the universe began, so did time. The counter started from zero; the timeline began.
Now, how are we sure? Check out the findings for yourself.
Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it's just the opposite. - John Kenneth Galbraith
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Reynar thought about the meaning of life:
If there's an age to it, how can it have always existed? In what form did it exist before that 13.5 billion years? How can you be sure, aside from just guessing?
I think what he's trying to say is that time is an intrinsic part of the universe. Just like it's non-sensical to ask "What's 3 meters to the left of the universe?", even though the universe is only finite, it's non-sensical to ask "What happened 5 minutes before the universe", even though time is finite. We don't even know if the concept of "before" is sensical in that way.
It's *possible* there was a notion of time "before" the big band (ideas about a pulsating expansion/contraction of the universe have fallen out of favor recently, but are still not entirely ruled out, I think), but if there was, it could have no possible effect on this universe, and there may not have even been that much.
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Yes I know reletvity killed objective time, but we aren't stuck in a black hole, we've observed the universe in the same reletive time as the rest of the galaxies that inhabit it.
And again, that's not the right way to think about other galaxies. You're falling into a trap of common sense (and yes, common sense is a trap). The best way to think of it is to realize that there is NO WAY to get from this galaxy to a distant galaxy without causing time contraction, because of the speeds we'd need to "catch up". *Any* path between the two will have drastic effects on time. Therefore we really shouldn't think of the other galaxy as having the same "relative" time (which has no meaning in the universe as we know it). The universe definitely does not really "ride on the same time line."
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What's that mean? You're gonna have to explain things rather then just type out buzz words. Spacetime gets distorted inside a singularity but the universe is not made up of these, they are occurances, just like blackholes.
The Big bang singularity is an "edge" in the sense that the longest possible paths in the universe lead there, and no further, as far as we can tell. It's the maximal distance in time. Edge may not be the perfect word, but it's hard to fit anything in the english language to non-euclidian notions.
As for the implications on god with not having a notion of "before" at the big bang... The problem is nothing that early in the universe meets our common sense notions on how things worked. It may be wrong to say there absolutely needed to be a cause. It may be more correct to say that the universe, existing as some hyper-dimensional object, is simply really tightly packed on that side, in the "time direction". There wasn't something else that was further in the "time direction" that made it so.
We haven't really worked out the laws of the universe at the big bang, but it's seems likely that we will work them out, we're getting better and better at this. Appealing to "god before the big bang" is likely to be only a temporary possibily, and god will have to take yet another step back, to "outside of time", who made the entire universe as a solid object in 26 (or whatever) dimensional space, without any notion of time.
[edit: fixing where I incorrectly used the word "theory". I should be more exact in something like this.] [ 02-05-2004: Message edited by: Chalesm ]
In the beginning the Universe was created.Douglas Adams, 1952-2001
No matter what aspect of knowledge mankind advances, the religious groups simply claim anything we haven't analyzed to be god's domain. Whether is is the stars, and underground as it used to be, or before the big bang, now, or something else in the future, there's simply no way to fight a group that doesn't take any firm stand except "what you haven't figured out yet has to be god"
In the beginning the Universe was created.Douglas Adams, 1952-2001
Reynar, youre not thinking fourth dimensionally!
[ 02-05-2004: Message edited by: Pvednes ]
quote:
Pvednes probably says this to all the girls:
Reynar, youre not thinking fourth dimensionally!
That reminds me how long it's been since I've seen those movies. Darn it, now I need to go out a rent them this weekend. 
In the beginning the Universe was created.Douglas Adams, 1952-2001
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From the book of Talonus, chapter 3, verse 16:
So what creation theory makes the least assumptions? Creationism, simplified, makes one assumption; there is a god-like being out there who creatd the universe. People don't care how right/wrong they are, they just make the assumption that a god-like being set the universe in motion.Can you name any scientific creation theories that make zero assumptions? No, as we've yet to actually prove a creation theory. Thus, as there have to be assumptions made simply to think of a theory, it being impossible to think of something entirely new without there being any bias at all. Science makes many assumptions, working backwards to prove that the assumptions were right/wrong.
So, let's look at them in comparison. Occam's Razor does not totally favor religion or science in this case. If anything, it leans in favor of religion, simply because religion makes the one assumption, while science has to rely on multiple assumptions.
The odds that there's a god-like being out there are small according to Occam's Razor. But, the odds that a god-like being out there created the universe are relatively large according to Occam's Razor. And again, we come to that paradox.
Do you not understand the concept, or are you being purposely dense?
Science works from the observation to the conclusion; you are reasoning from the conclusion to the observation, which is flawed.
Making one all-inclusive, magical assumption that defies all explanation, proof, or observation is in no way consistent with the principle of Occam's Razor. The current cosmological theories begin with the observations, and construct explanations based upon observable, mathematically sound postulates intricately linked to each other.
The bottom line fact is that there is no logical way to begin with the observations and deduce the existence of a God (or a magical pink bunny in a time-shielded strip club powering the universe through a neverending lap dance, which has exactly the same evidence to back it up, and fits your flawed definition of Occam's Razor equally well).
An assumption is not something one simply pulls out of thin air for the sake of covenience, as you seem to think.
--Satan, quoted by John Milton
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Chalesm's fortune cookie read:
a lot of stuff
Thanks, that did help
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Vernaltemptress had this to say about Jimmy Carter:
Just a couple of questions that have been on my mind lately...
- If life begins at conception (as some people posit), why are our astrological signs determined by our day and time of birth? I know astrology is a pseudo-science, but ignoring this fact, how do we justify not using a child's day/time of conception for his astrological chart?
Astrologists claim that for a true repesentation of your personality you should incorporate both (conception date/time and birth date/time).
Then again, they also claim that theirs is a true and accurate science like physics and chemistry too, but can provide only circumstantial evidence in support (Kinda like Somthor when challenged to prove anything*)
* - Wildly off topic, but represents just how bad the efforts of Astrologists are to "prove" their science.
quote:If certain behaviors (such as, prayer and worship) are required for entering heaven, or whatever a particular religion claims, why don't we find the same type of behavior in animals and other species?
Those religions which claim the need for a soul to enter heaven also insist that animals were all created to be subservient (and/or sources of food) to humans.
Those religions that promote reincarnation into various forms (including animals) generally do not include the concept of heaven or hell. Instead they promote the view of a soul reaching ultimate enlightenment through its life experiences, and thus becoming a god in its own right.
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When the babel fish was in place, it was apparent Cowboy Darius said:
The Christian god is a being that can create whatever he wants out of dirt, and creates the laws of the universe as we know them. Logically, this is impossible. You can't just change a physical law whenever you want. God can. Thusly, god is an illogical being, and cannot be discussed, proven, or disproven properly with logic.
"Oh dear," said God. "I hadn't thought of that."
And he promptly disappeared in a puff of logic.
"And that's that," said man, who then went on to prove that black is white and was promptly run-over by a bus on the next zebra crossing.
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Random Insanity Generator stopped beating up furries long enough to write:
And my own personal question:If nothing sticks to Teflon, how does Teflon stick to the pan?
Very small magnets!
