How did the universe begin???

[endscape]

All the circular reasoning in this thread makes me dizzy.


This needs to get moved to P&N

E

 

[CTho9305]

Originally posted by: zugzoog

Originally posted by: FreemanHL2
Actually I don't believe man landed on the moon GILBY! You would need at least 10ft of lead to protect those inside the shuttle from being subjected to the suns highly dangerous levels of radiation.

Source? What are the levels of radiation from the sun in space surrounding the Earth? What is the accepted radiation dose for a human? What is the effectiveness of radiation sheild for various materials that could be used.

Oh, come on. Do you really expect someone who believes the bible is the complete truth just because daddy, mommy, and preacher thought so to do something so potentially-non-faithful as to check facts???

 

[soccerballtux]

Originally posted by: CTho9305

I assume the existence of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, because without him nothing follows. His existence is the only foundation on which consistency may be derived.

...blah blah blah...

Nothing and no one can disprove that. The moment anyone begins to try, they start assuming and, hence, refute their own beliefs.

So you are exempt from the last part of your argument?

edit: Nearly all arguments require some premises - assumptions which the argument depends on. For example, if I wanted to argue that HP is better than Dell, I might have premises like:
1. Cheaper is better
2. HP is cheaper (I'm only using this as an example - it may not be true)
We could then conclude that HP is better than Dell. In order to have a reasonable debate, we need to settle on at least a SMALL set of premises, and you refuse to allow this - the only premise you allow is "The bible is irrefutable truth". A Dell "fanboy" might react similarly by refusing to allow the use of premise #2 in the debate, thus making discussion impossible. You refuse to accept that other hypotheses for creation can be reached if you argue from starting points other than the bible.

BTW of course I am not exempt from my arguement. My point is that I am being consistent and you are not. Only by presupposing the existence of the Lord Jesus Christ can any other assumptions be made.

I'm not the one who is refusing to allow these premises, or assumptions. I'm pointing out that it is your view of the world (that absolute authority be given to reason-only based science) that refuses to allow these assumptions to be made, yet you still make them, so you are inconsistent.

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: soccerballtux
BTW of course I am not exempt from my arguement. My point is that I am being consistent and you are not. Only by presupposing the existence of the Lord Jesus Christ can any other assumptions be made.

Um, sure. But a lot of people are not going to agree with that statement. It was pretty fashionable with philosophers back in, say, the 16th century (Descartes was a big fan of this one), but is no longer really in style.

I'm not the one who is refusing to allow these premises, or assumptions. I'm pointing out that it is your view of the world (that absolute authority be given to reason-only based science) that refuses to allow these assumptions to be made, yet you still make them, so you are inconsistent.

This is a silly argument; you can ground reason and logic (the sort of 'if A then B; A; therefore B stuff, anyway) in math (boolean algebra, to be specific; you can formalize logic as functions on truth tables and that sort of thing). While it is not really possible to provide a "reason" for math, it is internally self-consistent (you might want to check out Whitehead and Russell's Principia Mathematica for more on this approach). Basically, you can start from just a few axioms and prove all of mathematics is consistent; no God about it.

If you're going to just spout semantic nonsense like this, nobody's going to take you seriously.

 

[r00tcause]

What about the idea that an invisible pink dragon in my garage did everything?

Now wait just a minute here... exactly how did you know it was pink?

 

[r00tcause]

Yet you just reasoned there. Whats your basis for the ability to reason, to say "I'm right!" or "You're wrong!" when all that is is a chemical process? You are still ignoring the fact that:
You can't explain the fundament origin of reason. and
You can't disprove anything (including the Bible) without using reason.

Im tired of listening to this and I cant take the mental pain anymore.

Reason and logic can be created by a complex chemical reaction, no god is required.

The fundamental origin of reason is the continual organization of chemical and biological agents over time.

Your argument is therefore, invalid. Yes, I used reason to come to that conclusion, reason which I gained through complex organization over time, not god.

Now, while you completely refute that as I know you will despite it being true I will turn your logic against you.

You cant explain the fundamental origin of God.

Therefore, it must be false.

I said this in another post and I will say it again, science and religion all come down tot he exact same argument. Either God always existed, or the universe always existed, either way, something always existed. I can see the universe, I cannot see god. I am betting on #2.

 

[r00tcause]

IGNORENT IS THE ONE SAYING THERE IS NO GOD!

No, ignorant is spelling ignorant wrong in a thread where you call people ignorant.

 

[Sahakiel]

For anyone arguing over reason, here's some more fuel :

The human brain is by and large a very good noise filtering device. Given the functional model of the various types of neurons and how they interact with each other, it becomes relatively easy to understand exactly why the brain functions as it does. A full description is too long for one post, so I'll try to summarize.
At a somewhat low-level abstraction, one more useful to the largely engineering-oriented population, neurons are discrete digital components. If a post-synaptic response is not strong enough to trigger an action potential, the neuron will not generate a signal to stimulate neighboring neurons. A neuron, depending on its synapses, can emulate any combination of basic logic gates such as AND, OR, NOT, etc. to even something as "complex" as an adder (to a certain extent).
A lot of the human brain has been studied to provide a clear direction to a full functional description. It is known, for example, that given a specific visual stimulation such as the face, a single neuron in the temporal lobe will consistently fire but not for other visual stimuli. That single neuron is actually connected to millions of other neurons from the retina of the eye all the way to the back of the brain, then looping into the temporal lobe. The actual number of neurons in a given brain volume decreases as you go along the visual pathway until you reach the single neuron in the temporal lobe. So while the millions of neurons in the eye will fire, a few hundred thousand will fire in the visual cortex, and so on.

Given what is known about the brain, one is able to provide a reasonable explanation for logic and reasoning as a function of the brain. After all, reason and logic is little more than picking the most likely result from a known basis, which is very similar if not exactly the same as object recognition in the visual system.

Edit: Oh, yes, and please stop equating the Theory of Evolution with Cosmology (aka Big Bang Theory, etc).

Edit2: Do try to recognize models as a layer of abstraction and not as truth. Although, if one were to take a loose interpretation of General Relativity and extrapolate it far from its accepted domain, "reality" is nothing more than a model for what is really happening.

Edit3: Quoting the Bible is, by and large, not a valid basis for arguing for the existence of God. Why is that? Well, the reason is due to the idea that God provided the basis for the Bible. Using the product of your assumption as the proof of the assumption is called circular reasoning. It's a perfect argument in that the assumption can never be proved incorrect, so a lot of people love using circular reasoning. However, at the same time, the assumption can never be proven correct, so it's basically blowing hot air.

Edit4: Evolution does affect any model of "time." In fact, the Theory of Evolution assumes the layman's interpretation of time as part of its foundation. As such, it cannot and does not provide any conclusions to how "time" works.

 

[Gilby]

Originally posted by: r00tcause

What about the idea that an invisible pink dragon in my garage did everything?

Now wait just a minute here... exactly how did you know it was pink?

I have faith.

And despite the rantings of some heritics, it is a dragon and not a unicorn.

 

[BannedTroll]

Originally posted by: FreemanHL2
Actually we are discussing the "highly technical" subject of evolution transcending time.

People tend to think of time as being "physical" when it is merely our way of counting "moments." Time is not real, you cannot travel through time, because time has already passed, and it is just the name we give to passing moments. How do you suggest we travel back in time??? How can we relieve moments that have already passed??? Time is just our way of COUNTING moments and cannot be traversed at all.

For this reason time cannot have a beginning and therefore had to exist forever... How can you have a beginning to time??? How can you START counting moments when clearly you could continue counting the moments before time started??? Time is forever.

I'd also like everyone here to know something startling, space is nothing... yes it contains no oxygen, no atoms, NOTHING. Obviously there are bodies of gas in space, and stars and planets... but space itself is NOTHING. Space is never ending, because NOTHINGNESS has no beginning or end, and neither do moments of time.

I hope we can all agree on this??? I hope all the evolutionists on this forum can agree with me on something; it cannot be any other way.

So time is never ending and so is space... after all almost every scientist on the planet now agrees space has no ending. So the REAL question is how did WE start. Well no matter what you believe in we had to have a cause in order to come into effect. I doubt anyone is disagreeing with me so far.

So SOMETHING had to transcend time! Now was it atoms or was it god? That is the difference between evolution and creation.

Now I ask you, why does an atom have the properties it does? Why does it have an intricate design, a nucleus, electrons...? How was something like that ALWAYS there??? And if time never began then why are we here, how can we be here if it took an infinity to get here???

It can only be answered by god, god himself transcends time. God created our own perception of time, time started for us because we started when god decided to create us, he gave us the perception of time. But to him, time is different, time has no beginning or end, time is infinite. It somehow makes perfect sense, that time doesn?t actually exist to god, it is merely a perception given to us by our creator.

It is the ONLY logic. I'd like to hear your replies.

a. Time is very real. It is dimension of the current universe. Therefore it begins when the universe does and will end when the universe does.

b. "Space" in your context does end as you describe it as nothing. Right now we have something. Eventually we will have nothing again. Well we won't be here but anyway...

c. An atom has the properties it does because it needs to for there to be a viable universe or at least one we can exist in. If it did not there would be no you to ask the question. There are potentially infinite numbers of different "physics".

d. if anything can transcend time it would be information. This would be assuming "nothing" can retain information.

e."nothing" creates universes because "nothing" is unstable and wants to be "something".

 

[smith26]

Freeman, I agree that time had no beginning, I believe it always was, and I agree that space is nothingness. However, I disagree with your "logic" on evolutionism vs. creationism. I think Tyrial completely ripped you apart on that subject. If time always existed like you said, then it nor anything that exists was created. Humans are made of the atoms that always were, and always will be. Also...Chimpanzees have the most similar DNA to ours which gives us the guess that they or something similar were the ancestors that homo sapiens evolved from.

The truth is we haven't the slightest idea about anything of this magnitude. Because of our "ignorance" i'll call it, we conclude that "god did it" to things we don't understand.

And lastly, I too love HL2!

 

[CQuinn]

Originally posted by: FreemanHL2
Firstly the entire evolutionary path is supposed to follow a simple rule, survival of the fittest.

Wrong. I shouldn't even bother addressing the rest of your arguements when the initial premise
is so obviously flawed.

"survival of the fittest" is an oversimplification that is applied by people who can't be bothered
to actually study or understand evolutionary theory.

No area of advanced scientific research is based on one simple rule. The whole premise of the
scientific method is to accumulate many, many simple rules, and bring them together to form
a better understanding of the more complex structures of nature, like evolution.

Taking the two together brings you to an illogical conclusion that seems to be the formation for
the rest of your arguements, which in itself is a series on ill-formed arguements that don't
even "disagree" with evolutionary theory. Its just that you haven't applied enough of existing
science to see where they connect to the greater whole.

 

[dguy6789]

Religious people will never in their life be able to comprehend the idea that their "god" could ever not be the true god. They do not understand that their god is nothing more than all the other gods of the world, and there is no more proof of their god's exhistance than there is of other people's gods. They have been babied too much, and will never accept the cold hard facts.

Bottom Line:

You cannot talk to a religious person about the exhistence of other gods, or a lack of exhistence of their god with any progress at all. So dont bother.

 

[Anubis08]

I have heard a theory that in the "beginning" there was infinite energy and no matter. SOmething happened that caused the energy to coalesce into matter. I take this as a method the universe really could have been spoken into place. That is just my opinion. Please no flames.

 

[Gilby]

Originally posted by: Anubis08
I have heard a theory that in the "beginning" there was infinite energy and no matter. SOmething happened that caused the energy to coalesce into matter. I take this as a method the universe really could have been spoken into place. That is just my opinion. Please no flames.

No flames needed. This actually would work with a number of possible religious takes on the matter. It does, however, have absolutely nothing to do with science.

 

[unipidity]

Erk... but surely that happens.. all the time...

 

[Paratus]

Originally posted by: FreemanHL2
Actually I don't believe man landed on the moon GILBY! You would need at least 10ft of lead to protect those inside the shuttle from being subjected to the suns highly dangerous levels of radiation. In comparison, those shuttles (on the moon) had nothing more than a couple of layers of steel and aluminum... and to be honest I don?t care what it was made from, they didn't have 10ft of lead so they should be dead. Plus the shadows and the perspective are all wrong, it was filmed using spotlights. But this is beside the point.

No one believes the universe was snorted from a nostril or created from a pink dragon. We are not PRIMITIVE BEINGS that can easily be persuaded by unlikely theories that have more bearing on children?s fantasy stories. I resent your statements GILBY, the Christian religion has made PROPHESIES, Jesus is WRITTEN in history you fool! These are far more likely than a pink dragon in your garage! You are an incompetent, ignorant, fool, who seems to dismiss much of the proof presented in my (and other ppl?s) statements, DENY before god that he did not prophesy of the fall of America and he did not predict the tidal waves!!! DENY it to all of us, tell me that it is as likely as a pink dragon!!! When did the pink dragon prophesy the future! Since when did I find snot all over the galaxy from some grotesquely overlarge nostril from which we all came!!!

IGNORENT IS THE ONE SAYING THERE IS NO GOD!

You cannot refuse the evidence that prophesies provide. You cannot deny Jesus, he is written in history! You cannot deny the fact that we have never found a half-evolved human being!

And in the end I don't honestly care weather this goes past biology and into astronomy and other sciences. I do not need to keep within the boundaries of biology; I will prove my point using all means available to me!!! I will change the name of this thread to "HOW DID THE UNIVERSE BEGIN."

I was just going to read this thread and thats it. I swear. I thought I could let the ignorance slide ie Evolution is Not Abiogenisis is NOT Big Bang or String Theory. But the crap about not landing on the moon just has to be answerd.
<=== Works in Mission Control

FreemanHL2 please see the following link (I know you won't but others might) Bad Astronomy

That link debunks every shot at proving the apollo moon landing was a hoax

By the way SHUTTLES DON"T GO TO THE MOON

FreemanHL2 you have a lot of questions but don't seem real interested in the answers.
When you are I'm sure many people here would love to help you.

[Edit Big Band Theory to Big Bang theory. Big Band theory is the theory Duke Ellington created the world on the A Train )

 

[Paratus]

Sorry TuxDave

got so worked up I didn't read your next post.

Sorry for the duplicate link

 

[sao123]

Why is it that everyone argues that creation &amp; evolution must be mutually exclusive?

The theories of the big bang and evolution are a measurable path from the beginning to present day. Everything that has been measured and observed has led us to a conclusive theory of that path. What we cannot do is prove or disprove that this was a result of a random accident or the result of the desires of a higher power. Even Stephen Hawkings himself now admits that everything as he sees it and understands it, probably must have been the result of an intelligent creator of a higher power.

Everyone is talking about all the evidence that supports this theory and how heavily that it weighs.
Yet ? Why does everyone forget or dismiss all the archaeological evidence which supports a great many of the stories in the bible? The evidence about the earliest events is probably the Noah's Ark, buried under thick ice in the mountains in turkey i believe. After that, much has been found and documented about various cities, people, and events (depicted in the bible) as evidence that those events have acutally occured. Anyone who relates the bible as a bunch of hooey, ought to read it, and take a Major University class taking an unbiased look at all the evidence supporting biblical events as described therein.

If you claim to support knowledge &amp; theories which can be supported by facts &amp; evidence (as you do with Big Bang and Evolution) then you cannot dismiss the bible as easily as you do. While archaeology can not prove the Bible is the Word of God, it can illustrate the accuracy of many biblical passages and shed light on various passages in the Bible and that archaeology confirms the historical accuracy and trustworthiness of the Bible.

 

[BannedTroll]

Originally posted by: sao123
Why is it that everyone argues that creation &amp; evolution must be mutually exclusive?

The theories of the big bang and evolution are a measurable path from the beginning to present day. Everything that has been measured and observed has led us to a conclusive theory of that path. What we cannot do is prove or disprove that this was a result of a random accident or the result of the desires of a higher power. Even Stephen Hawkings himself now admits that everything as he sees it and understands it, probably must have been the result of an intelligent creator of a higher power.

Everyone is talking about all the evidence that supports this theory and how heavily that it weighs.
Yet ? Why does everyone forget or dismiss all the archaeological evidence which supports a great many of the stories in the bible? The evidence about the earliest events is probably the Noah's Ark, buried under thick ice in the mountains in turkey i believe. After that, much has been found and documented about various cities, people, and events (depicted in the bible) as evidence that those events have acutally occured. Anyone who relates the bible as a bunch of hooey, ought to read it, and take a Major University class taking an unbiased look at all the evidence supporting biblical events as described therein.

If you claim to support knowledge &amp; theories which can be supported by facts &amp; evidence (as you do with Big Bang and Evolution) then you cannot dismiss the bible as easily as you do. While archaeology can not prove the Bible is the Word of God, it can illustrate the accuracy of many biblical passages and shed light on various passages in the Bible and that archaeology confirms the historical accuracy and trustworthiness of the Bible.

ummmmm.....there is no "evidence" of Noahs Ark being on Mt. Ararat. Also the bible seems to have borrowed the story and changed a few things. Nobody has said that events and places in the Bible didn't happen or exist. They simply attribute the idea that there were divine cause to human perception and embellishment.

How do you think the recent tsunami would have been perceived 4000 years ago?

Give me an example of an event that would prove the divine side of the bible correct . There are many myths and religions that are based on the human perception and embellishment of real events. Does that mean all of the mythical and religous aspect are true?

Also any Major University class is not going to show evidence of the events as they are described because the Bibles reasoning for them are divine.

 

[soccerballtux]

wait let me make sure of something....you consider reason and logic an absolute, correct? like you can safely base science and whatnot on it?

I think so to, our reasons are different however. And the implications of those reasons are different.

Tell me, am I safe to assume that all of us can agree that what Hitler did in killing so many people was wrong? As in, he shouldn't have done it?

 

[sao123]

Give me an example of an event that would prove the divine side of the bible correct . There are many myths and religions that are based on the human perception and embellishment of real events. Does that mean all of the mythical and religous aspect are true?

Also any Major University class is not going to show evidence of the events as they are described because the Bibles reasoning for them are divine.

Nothing can prove or disprove the divine. The primary medium through which all religions exists is human faith. Faith (Noun) - a firm belief in something that cannot be proven to be true.

Since neither of us disputes any of the fact in evidence that point to the path of evolution and the big bang, what makes the aethiest theory that it was just some random occurance that happened by accident, any better or more acceptable, than the idea that all these events occured at the desire of a higher deity.

 

[blahblah99]

Originally posted by: FreemanHL2
Now ppl are always posting threads in an attempt to prove/disapprove creationism. This thread is all about the holes in evolutionism.

Firstly the entire evolutionary path is supposed to follow a simple rule, survival of the fittest. Things apparently evolve in order to survive, keeping only what is necessary, and adapting to new conditions. Now let's take a look at some things that disagree with this theory, I'd like to call them "unnecessary evolutions."

For a start why do we feel compassion and love? It is indeed evolutionary unnecessary for our brains to evolve entire ?sections? dedicated to love, compassion and even emotion.

Would it not make more sense for evolution to use INSTINCT to base our decisions on rather than choice? For instance we often DIE for the ppl we love, even disabled people, who are technically not fit to survive by evolutionary standards. If evolution is true the human brain should have evolved into an organ of INSTINCT, choosing the path of survival, over an emotional decision.

Why is it that we play computer games??? Why is it that we watch sport??? We enjoy recreation... We have chosen to base our entire civilization on entertainment, which is opposite to the priorities of evolution.

You may say that these are our choices, but in the end if evolution truly existed it would not have let us evolve into a state were we enjoy such minor "distractions" from what is important.

Indeed how is evolution determined? Our DNA is instructed on developing our own bodies, it does not think or have a larger scale of development in mind? If evolution is based solely on our environment (we adapt to our environments), then why does ANYTHING evolve when clearly it has already adapted. For instance why did we evolve from monkeys when clearly they are already perfectly adapted to their environment? Indeed why did the one celled organism evolve into a multi-cellular organism when it was quite adapt to its conditions? If there is some kind of ?rule? in our DNA then tell me were it is? And how complex would this DNA need to be in order to make DECISIONS, such as evolving into multicellular creatures?

Did the one celled organism DECIDE to evolve into a multicellular organism??? No, not only did it not have a brain but nothing can DECIDE to evolve, it is obviously DNA. So why would the DNA evolve? Did the DNA WANT to become multicellular???

Whatever the case, how can DNA decide anything? And if it is predetermined instructions in DNA then who made those instructions??? It certainly wasn?t based on survival, because we have evolved into beings with so many unnecessary functions, contradicting everything we based evolution on???

In conclusion I don?t really see how evolution is any more likely than creationism, although if you sat down long enough, you?d end up deciding that creationism is more logical, even if you prefer evolutionism.

Ultimately, our genes are programmed (took them billions of years to figure out how) to do whatever it takes to PASS ON genetic information, whether that'd be working out so you are physically more attractive to the girls, or studying to be more intelligent, etc etc.

There's no holes in evolution - those who watch tv all day, or play video games all day, or sit and do nothing all day will have a lower chance of passing on their genes. To put it bluntly, if you were a male that had money, would you want a fat girl who sits and watch TV all day? Exactly. I wouldn't be surprised if the top 10% of the richest and most powerful people in the world are all genetically related in some way.

I personally think that society as a whole have stopped human evolution from occurring. If a baby was born with four arms instead of two, that baby would be viewed as a mutation and steps would be taken to correct that so the baby can fit normally into society. Yet, intuitively, a human with four arms would be able to do much more than a human with two arms.

 

[Sahakiel]

Originally posted by: soccerballtux
wait let me make sure of something....you consider reason and logic an absolute, correct? like you can safely base science and whatnot on it?

I think so to, our reasons are different however. And the implications of those reasons are different.

Tell me, am I safe to assume that all of us can agree that what Hitler did in killing so many people was wrong? As in, he shouldn't have done it?

Actually, no, it is quite possible and logically valid to derive an argument that Hitler was in the right. The reason is due to the fact that your conclusion is derived from your sense of morality, which is highly subjective and largely unbound by objectivity (morality is unmeasurable). Even a simple change, such as assuming that selfishness is morally better, can turn around the Hitler argument.

Scientific study strives to deal with objective, observable phenomenon, although in hindsight, many such observations have been proven heavily biased. Scientists are human and as such, contain a sense of morality (even sociopaths have morals) which provides bias in all scientific endeavors. For that reason, the scientific method has been developed to help identify and eliminate personal bias (among other traits).
As far as I know, reason and logic are absolute. The primary flaw in any valid argument lies in the assumptions.

 

[BannedTroll]

Originally posted by: sao123

Give me an example of an event that would prove the divine side of the bible correct . There are many myths and religions that are based on the human perception and embellishment of real events. Does that mean all of the mythical and religous aspect are true?

Also any Major University class is not going to show evidence of the events as they are described because the Bibles reasoning for them are divine.

Nothing can prove or disprove the divine. The primary medium through which all religions exists is human faith. Faith (Noun) - a firm belief in something that cannot be proven to be true.

Since neither of us disputes any of the fact in evidence that point to the path of evolution and the big bang, what makes the aethiest theory that it was just some random occurance that happened by accident, any better or more acceptable, than the idea that all these events occured at the desire of a higher deity.

Because we see these "accidents" happening all the time.