A Big Question: Does God Exist

[Mad Scientist]

Due to what has so far been a lack of good debating topics, i thought i would start the ball rolling with what is most certainly a deep and meaningfull topic. The question is in the title. I will throw my own opinions on the matter in shortly, however first, i would like to see what others believe. The questions this topic brings up are numerous:

Do you think the universe is is ordered by a deity?

To what level?

And the most important one of all:

WHY?

[hot564231]

I believe in a being that is greater than us, but a god like being, bah you might as well as me to whopship bush...

[Garcian Smith]

No. I have always hated the possibilty that my life was forever out of my hands. Especially when you factor in Christianity's Original Sin and the belief that we must prove ourselves before God.

I'm not Agnostic either, even if tomorrow God came to me and proved his existence, I would still refuse to believe because I would sign up to the very problem I mentioned above.

[Flarty]

basically, i dont know, thought theres unexplained instances in universe it doesnt mean theres a god, but because we have science that explains other things doesnt mean there isnt one,
i tend not to worry about, and just live the best life i can.

a more important question to ask are religions rightous, it seems to me they mourn there faith more than celebrate it.

[natedgreat3]

Its very true that in the past, when people looked at the stars, animals, or even their own body and they just couldn't explain how things like that worked, I could see how they could think that someone smarter then them MUST have created all this. Therefore, God.

However, I do believe that a God exists. If you haven't noticed by now.. you soon will. I have a strange style of debating, I take a look and validly consider ALL possible views on a subject, even those contradicting my own. I'll sometimes even press someone that has a view that's the same as my own to explain themselves. And sometimes I'll even argue against myself, stupid as that may sound :P Thats because everyone's views, yours, mine, have holes, problems, questions that can't be answered. We need to look at those carefully.

This debating style will hopefully generate more knowledge for everyone :) My style is not to change anyone's mind, just give everyone a clearer picture. I look at all views as equally and as unbiased as I can.

As far as the question of God goes... even though I believe He exists... I do have one big question for those who don't. Evolution only goes back so far as the Big Bang. What started it? Surely something must have. What existed before then? No one knows. Just because we don't know doesn't mean there's not an answer, but you DO have to admit, a God who is eternal would explain the question.

[Garcian Smith]

What existed before then? No one knows. Just because we don't know doesn't mean there's not an answer, but you DO have to admit, a God who is eternal would explain the question.

Without a lot of knowlegde on Universal physics, I would hazard this guess:

It is widely acknowledged that the Universe is continually expanding, and I believe that - if it isn't happenening already - that the process will reverse, resulting in a complete collapse and implosion, leading to another, completely different Universe.

Now, the obvious retort would be 'What created the first Universe?' My answer is: I don't know - but I will not tie it to a God, because I simply do not believe a supreme being exists.

[natedgreat3]

I have heard that theory before, its very interesting. There's not much scientific evidence to support the shrinking, but IF it happened, the universe could have been doing this for eons and eons for all we know.

But your right, anyway you look at it.. it all had to start with SOMETHING.

[DarkFlood]

However, if the theory on the "heat death" of the universe is true, then everyone is screwed. :P

[natedgreat3]

careful about going OT now.. look at the rules please. This forum isn't as casual as the others.

[Flarty]

ive actually heard a very good observation on the shrinking thing,
apparently the universe is still very hot from the big bang, and hot things expand, so when it begins to cool down logic would say it will contract, till the point of the big bang again, we have lived our lives a 1000 times before, and thats why we get deja vu :P

not saying this true, but how can anyone disprove this? i like that idea lol

[Dr.Aaron]

I think this universe is just a very small particle for another even bigger universe and so on. And the other way round, this room is made up of zillions of very small universes, so by walking YOU ARE KILLING XILLIONS OF UNIVERSES. So in theory we are gods, and the people in the biger universe are gods to us, and this universe could be squished by them at any second while they are doing their toast. :ohmy: :ohmy: Just my little theory..:)

[natedgreat3]

that sounds suspiciously like Men in Black

[Ares]

I am an atheist, however, you can't really completely prove the arguement either way, can you?

Personally, I can't believe there's some almighty being watching over us when most things we find can either already be explained or eventually will be explained by science. Despite what some people may say, there is nothing that Science can't explain.

[Mad Scientist]

RATHER LONG POST COMING UP

However, I do believe that a God exists. If you haven't noticed by now.. you soon will. I have a strange style of debating, I take a look and validly consider ALL possible views on a subject, even those contradicting my own. I'll sometimes even press someone that has a view that's the same as my own to explain themselves. And sometimes I'll even argue against myself, stupid as that may sound :P Thats because everyone's views, yours, mine, have holes, problems, questions that can't be answered. We need to look at those carefully.


That's not really that stange at all. Thats how you are MEANT to debate, although not evryone does.

As for the question of what comes before the big bang? Well, there are two things about that.

1. Its a bit of a strange question really. As time started AT the big bang, to ask what came before is somewhat odd. Its like asking what is north of the north pole, or what is inside an infinatly small point.

2. There are various theories that attempt to explain this, however, they are very difficult to understand without a heavy mathmatical background. Therefore, i am going to try to use a metaphor to explain of of the front-runners. Remember before you debate against it THIS IS A METAPHOR. The actual thing is something that is excruciatignly difficult to understand without a great deal of practice (and i'm not certain that i understand it that well either)

I want you to ask yourself, what is the universe? The best answer anyone can come up with is that it is a region of existance (region in what? you may ask. Metaphor remember :P) in which there are laws that must be obeyed. These laws are the laws of physics as we know them. If the laws of physics are X, then you get a universe like ours.

Now, what therefore is the absence of a universe? Is it just a black void? No it isn't, because this follows a rule, even if it is that everything must be black. A non-universe, is an absence of rules. ALL rules. It is chaos. It is a chaos where, as there are no rules ordering it, anything can happen.

Here is the heavy metaphor part. Imagine a picture on a tv screen. The picture has order, and it has rules (it can be broken down into pixels, etc.). It is analogus to a universe in this respect. So therfore, the absence of a universe would be akin to multicoloured, random static. Static that is constantly changing and totally random in that it follows no rules.

Now, if you left such a static running for long enough, it would form a picture. This is like the infinite monkies on infinite typewriters effect. However, in our case, it doesn't just form a picture, it forms a level of ordered picture so picturyness (here is where the metaphor is being pushed to the limit), that the picture orders the chaos around it. A big bang event can be described as a universe crystallising out of chaos.

There is a lot of mathematics behind all this, and some strong evidense as well (to do with the chaotic structure of quantum foam). You can Visualise this as universe "bubbles" of order forming in a random static snowstorm of chaos. This is not correct in terms of visualisation, of course, but it is a lie that human minds can understand. The chaotic structure (now THERE is an oxymoron and a half) of this ultimate phase space (the phase space of a system is all the possible states that a system could occupy. The PS of a flipped coin would be heads, tails, edge and every rotation of the three. As the chaos has an infinate, non limited number of states, it is sometimes refered to as ultimate phase space, in that all conciveable states of anything are possible) is timeless. This is one of the points you can see the metaphor break down as it relyies on us picturing it changing over time. However, as the UPS is timless, then all concivable states, and therfore all universes, can be said to be occuring simultaniously, in an infintesimal instant.

And oddly, this proves that you CAN logically get something out of nothing. Whether or this is true or not, is not known for certain, but it has more evidense than the alternatives. All this shows, is that a God is not neccisary to have started the universe. He may still have or he may not have. All this shows is that from the point of view of "what started everything off" God is not the only answer. We can do without him.


The argument of "what started the universe off originally" was orignally postulated by Thomas Aquinas, and is known as the "Cosmological Argument". As this thread progresses, i will also espouse the originators and authors of any other well known arguments of or against God if and when they come up.

[hoboman725]

I find it ironic that after going to a die-hard Catholic school from kindergarten all the way up to eigth grade, I ended up more or less an Atheist. I do not believe in a God.

In my eyes, religion and God in general were created by man originally as a means to explain what the earliest of man could not understand. As the years went on, early man became so attached and dependent on these ideas that they were willing to kill and die for it. Maybe because they believed only they were righteous, or maybe because they could not handle the psychological trauma of their belief of existence being wrong, I do not know. Either way, these ideas about where they came from, transformed from ideas, into fact.

In this fashion, a locust hoarde descending on Egypt is no longer just a pest problem, it is the vengeful hand of God punishing the egyptians for enslaving the Jews, or a natural disaster such as a flood is God wiping the earth clean of all that is evil.

In a further effort to solidify their own view of existence, the early religous leaders created heaven and hell. Essentialy saying that those who believed and worshipped their way of thinking would be rewarded, but those who resisted would suffer eternally.

This leads to another 'use' of religion; to control people. If you told a person that they will suffer eternally unless you follow what they say, they may very well listen to you. I believe we can see a somewhat recent example of this with the way European powers converted Native Americans to Christianity, as a way to keep them in line. In all likelyhood this sort of thing was also happening thousands of years ago. Even in modern times, politicians often rally behind God in times of trouble, or during an election to unify people for their cause.

I remember very distinctly from my elementary days, religion teachers saying that scientifically God could not be proven, but we should just have faith in him. But as far as I see, we are not having faith in God as much as we are having faith in the people who are telling us God exists.

None of this evidence actually disproves the existence of God. It is possible to look at this and say: "God spoke to early man, and since then we have distorted his ways". However, considering human nature, I think it is infinitely more likely that Man created him for many of the things listed above.

For anyone interested, their is a website that I believe puts it somewhat in perspective. If any of you remember the creationism vs. evolution arguments from Kansas a few years back, this will make more sense as this was originally a letter sent in response to it. Among other things, it raises the thought: If god is in our image, it is altogether holy, but if he were actually a flying spaghetti monster...well that's just downright silly. http://www.venganza.org/


Edit> I would just like to add that many believers in God ask: if the big bang started everything, then who started the big bang? it must have been God.

however this argument can run both ways; if god created the big bang, then who created God? and if someone else actually made him how can he possibly be almighty?

[natedgreat3]

What came before the universe is indeed somewhat of a trick question. Along the same lines as what came before God. Its a paradox that the human mind has trouble understanding.

Along the lines of what Mad Scientist says (and unfortunately, to a point, we'll have to use his analogy) I still don't quite see how something could arise out of nothing. Assuming the chance to making something happen was there (eliminating randomness), all we need now is matter of some sort. In Mad Scientist's example, we have the pixels of static: thats the "ingredients" needed to make a picture. But it once again begs the question: if there was matter of any quantity, of any sort, before the Big Bang, where did the matter come from?

I press the question not because you or I know the answer, but because evolution pretty much rules out anything supernatural ever occuring. My answer, simply that God exists and is eternal, answers the question. Some people would call that a copout for something that I can't explain, similar to what Hoboman and I mentioned earlier about why God might have been "thought up" by primitive man.

If you believe in evolution, unless you're one of those people that believe God started the evolutionary process out like a guy tipping the first domino in a sequence, then you are pretty much required to explain everything without anything supernatural involved. For evolutionists, the big bang is the main problem with this.

[Acerbus]

But seeing as there is an infinate randomness without any rules, then what rules are there to stop matter wihtout any origin from just being somewhere in this randomness?

[natedgreat3]

Randomness has to be composed of something, otherwise there won't be anything which is random. A vacuum, for instance (not the housecleaning appliance lol) has NOTHING inside it. Therefore, is a vacuum "random"? Can whats inside a vacuum (nothing) be random enough to suddenly have matter?

Once again I reiterate, I don't have the answers to these questions either, and I'm sure the mathematics behind it are impossibly complex. I'm just making a point that one of the solutions to this problem does give an acceptable answer (infinite God) while the other one does not, at least at the present time.

[Mad Scientist]

A vacuum, for instance (not the housecleaning appliance lol) has NOTHING inside it. Therefore, is a vacuum "random"? Can whats inside a vacuum (nothing) be random enough to suddenly have matter?

Yes it can, and we can observe it happening on small scales.

A vacuum is not nothing. It still runs on the rules that govern our universe. Not only this, but a vacume is full of virtual particles, and various other energy forms. Even if you take these out, you get the quantum foam (a weaker version of the UPS, underlying everything). As a result, for short times, the quantum foam can briefly create short lived particles. I know this goes against alot of the conservation of energy laws you have been taught, but this is deep physics, where the equations are stacked so high they block out the sun. the conservation of energy still holds, but on slightly different scales.

all we need now is matter of some sort.

The matter addition is built into this theory, believe it or not. There are numerous theories with interpretations of it, but here is one of the simpler ones:

Any student of high school physics can tell you what energy is. It is the ability to do work. Whether that work is heating a kettle, or driving a car. It is effectivly the universes away, of doing the book-keeping. It is an accountancy trick. It is part of the order.

And yet from einstien, we know that energy can be converted into matter. From a trick used to keep a physicists accountancy book running smooth, we can get hard solid matter. Indeed, we have witnessed this very proccess taking place inside high energy partical accelrators.

The thing is, matter IS part of those rules. Remember, the ultimate phase space contains ALL possible states of existance and not existance. This includes there being matter, or being no matter. The existance of matter is one of the theories easier tasks to explain. There are far harder hurdles that it is struggling (although by no means defeated) on. I understand if you find it hard to visualise, but the addition of matter into the universe is not a problem with the theory.

There are other things that you may pick up on though. Its just that this isn't one of them.

This idea that god is a neccisary part of starting and running the universe has been termed "the god of the gaps". Initialy, humans used this god rather liberally, to explain things such as rain and sunshine, however as we come up with more plausible explanations, the gaps that this god inhabits become smaller and smaller. With modern scientific methods, we can get away with no God of the Gaps at all. However, there are still other aspects of human experience for god to play apart in. Its just he is not neccisary to start them all off.


However, i would now like to ask a different question here reguarding the nature of God. It may cause some people to think.

Firstly, let us suppose that our God is omnipotent, in that he can do anything. If God can do anything, then the converse of this, is that there is no task however great or small, that God cannot perform.

Therfore, can God set himself a task, that he cannot perform?
An interesting question no doubt. For if God can set himself such a task, then there is something that God cannot do, namely the task itself.

However, if god cannot set himself such a task, then he is in the same predicament, for the task that he cannot perform is the act of setting himself a task that he cannot perform. The question is often illustraited in the original question of "can God create a rock so heavy that even he cannot lift it?"

To me, this shows one of two things. Namely, that either an omnipotent god is impossible, or the notion of god in a logical context is impossible.

Either way, it is something that strongly detracts form the concept of an existant god, in my personal opinion.

[Dr.Aaron]

Randomness has to be composed of something, otherwise there won't be anything which is random. A vacuum, for instance (not the housecleaning appliance lol) has NOTHING inside it. Therefore, is a vacuum "random"? Can whats inside a vacuum (nothing) be random enough to suddenly have matter?

Actually vacuum does have stuff in it, like in the middle of space, you can see light from stars, reflection from planets and light from the sun ect and also radiation has to travel across space(the vacuum) and to the planets.

And at nates earlier post, so that's were I got my idea from!

[Acerbus]

But randomness doesn't have to be composed of nothingness. Basically, the randomness is everything in a single infinatly small point in a single point of time. It isn't composed of nothing, like a vacuum, it's composed of everything.

But then again, I could have it all wrong, I have no actual knowledge of complex matchematics or physics :happy:

Edit: Woops, there was quite a lot of posts while I was writing.

[Dr.Aaron]

Wait a min, if it took god 7 days to create earth, then it would take MEGA XILIONS of years to make the rest of the universe, if I was god then I wouldn't bother. =/ I win god does NOT exist. :)

[OddFlame 2.0]

Q: Does God exist?

A: No.

[Dr.Aaron]

Isn't that what I basically said oddflame? And can you add more evidence to the table to pwn christianity please.

[natedgreat3]

ahh good points :)

I refine my point about vacuums slightly, energy particles and things do exist in it. Light can pass through it. And though I hadn't gotten that deeply into physics lol, I'll take Mad Sci's word on viral particles and quantum foam. Even his energy points I'll take into effect. One must still ask though where these things came from.

Therfore, can God set himself a task, that he cannot perform?
I hadn't heard this one.. but I had heard the one about creating a rock so big it can't be lifted :P

The best way I've been able to answer the paradox thus far is the following:

IF God can create an infinitely great task, and IF He can perform an infinitely great task, then the two infinites will come together and basically cancel each other out all the way up to infinity. This will nullify the answer to the question.

EDIT: Dr. Aaron:
Firstly you are talking about the God of the Bible, which wasn't necessarily defined in this debate topic ;)
Secondly, the God of the Bible took 4 days to create the earth, not 7. Read Genesis, and you'll notice the following:

Genesis begins with the earth, apparently, already existing in the form of water.

1st day: God created Light
2nd day: God created the atmosphere of the earth
3rd day: God created dry land on the earth, and vegetation
4th day: God created all the stars and planets (this is the universe part you were talking would take MEGA XILIONS of years ;))
5th day: God created sea creatures and birds
6th day: God created land creatures and man
7th day: God rested

The God of the Bible could have done all this in an instant if He wanted to. He did it this way to symbolize how we should live our lives: Exodus 20:9-10: Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. [He details how you should rest on this day]

[Dr.Aaron]

I hadn't heard this one.. but I had heard the one about creating a rock so big it can't be lifted :P


Any rock can be lifted with enough force... Even the earth can be lifted and thrown...

[natedgreat3]

you completely missed the point of the paradox. reread it again ;)

[hoboman725]

He did it this way to symbolize how we should live our lives: Exodus 20:9-10: Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. [He details how you should rest on this day]
Also because at the time the Bible was written, humans thought of the earth as the center of God's universe, and everything out there was small and insignificant, therefore taking little time to create.

@Dr. Aaron it's just a metaphor of sorts

[natedgreat3]

This may be true, but its beside the point. The Bible claims to have been written by God, telling the humans who actually wrote it down what to say.

IF this true... then God would know better then anyone how big the universe is. Remember, technically God could have created all of this in literally no time at all if He saw fit. But everything He does is chock full of symbolism.

Its my opinion that the fact He created the rest of the universe in 1 day, yet took 4 days on the earth, shows that the Earth is His prized creation.

[Acerbus]

I've always found it funny when people think that they somehow "chosen" by god. The old testament says that the yews are somehow better than the rest of the world. Humans think that they are better than animals, when in reality the human species is a small species which hasn't even proven to be successful yet, as it has only excisted for a few thousands of years, and that the little insignificant backwater planet of earth, which in reality is nowhere near the center of anything, is somehow more significant than the rest of the freaking kvaxillion planets that are out there.

I quess some people really need to believe that they are the centre of the world.

[redgrassbridge]

This may be true, but its beside the point. The Bible claims to have been written by God, telling the humans who actually wrote it down what to say.Actually, most religions that use the Bible as a utility for worship say that the writers were inspired by God, so that their own creative worrk would contain the neccessary religious truth. This allows for all the historical and scientific discrepancies, like the idea that rabbits chew cud.

To me, this shows one of two things. Namely, that either an omnipotent god is impossible, or the notion of god in a logical context is impossible.


I believe in an illogical God. I believe in a God that created the concept of logic, the concept of creating things and the concept of concepts.

In other, not even slightly clearer words, I think of God as something that is indescribable. As the origin of the idea that a universe is a piece of that-thing-we-don't-have-a-word-for that follows a set of physical laws. As something that at the same time can be described with every adjective and by none, due to the act of creating the meanings behind those adjectives.

You get the picture. I take all the basic ideals that make my world make sense, and describe what breaks them as God. It's humbling, but it makes sense to me (and makes me look like a loon to anyone who reads this).

But that's only my opinion.

EDIT: Wow, I completely missed page 2 when I typed this.

[Dr.Aaron]

Whoops nate you got me there. ;)

EDIT: Dr. Aaron:


1st day: God created Light
2nd day: God created the atmosphere of the earth
3rd day: God created dry land on the earth, and vegetation
4th day: God created all the stars and planets (this is the universe part you were talking would take MEGA XILIONS of years ;))
5th day: God created sea creatures and birds
6th day: God created land creatures and man
7th day: God rested

Here is something contradictory, as the light cannot exist without something making it, which is the STARS, therefor God could NOT make light BEFORE stars and planets was made...Completely pwned. :)

[redgrassbridge]

Whoops nate you got me there. ;)

Here is something contradictory, as the light cannot exist without something making it, which is the STARS, therefor God could NOT make light BEFORE stars and planets was made...Completely pwned. :)Sure, it could, if an omnipotent God wanted it to.

[Dr.Aaron]

Yeah but we're talking about this God redgrass, not an 'omnipotent' God..

[ewanlaing]

my argument was always that, since the universe is not instantly perfect, whatever "god" may exist is having to work within time. and since time is a force outside of his/her control, he/she cannot be god, as god is all powerful in the christian, jewish and muslim faiths.

[hoboman725]

Yeah but we're talking about this God redgrass, not an 'omnipotent' God..

most religions say that god is in fact omnipotent

[Dr.Aaron]

Another random contradictory fact is: Hell, it says ''god forgives all'' so NO ONE has ever been to hell not even Hitler, so the devil is sitting all alone..awww(is there even a devil?). The bible is just something to try and make people good that's all, so God is proberly made up.

[lubbe]

No, God does not exist.

[Mad Scientist]

One must still ask though where these things came from.

I'm sorry, but you've kind of missed the point. The place where these things come from is understood, and is a basis of a combination of quantum mechanical properties and vacuum energy. Suffice it to say, that the "come" from the same chaotic phase space that the universe did. They require no creator. Its monkeys on typwriters with particle physics. Just becuase the monkeys produce the works of shakespear, doesn't mean there is an overriding intellegence (and PLEASE do not overextend this metaphor. I'm sure you understand what i'm getting at).

And as for the logical arguments against an omnipotent God? Take a little look at this, and see how it compares with some of the commonly held beliefs over a deity.

http://www.philosophersnet.com/games/whatisgod.htm

Also, this little quiz is something that will look at the self consistancy of your beliefs over god:

http://www.philosophersnet.com/games/god.htm

[natedgreat3]

Actually, most religions that use the Bible as a utility for worship say that the writers were inspired by God, so that their own creative worrk would contain the neccessary religious truth. This allows for all the historical and scientific discrepancies, like the idea that rabbits chew cud.
People have stretched the Bible in a million different directions. In cases like this, I like to use verses directly from the Bible and leave the reader to decide.

II Timothy 3:16: All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness,

II Peter 1:21: For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

As for the inaccuracies of the Bible, IF the Bible really is the infallible word of God, written without human error, it would be a huge mistake to allow any scientifically incorrect error whatsoever. While there do seem to be some glaring errors with the Bible, there are also certain explanations. These explanations have been able to explain enough that, to my knowledge, there's never been any PROVEN error in the Bible thus far. Feel free to correct me however.

On "rabbits" chewing the cud for instance, this might be due to a difference in what the primitive people who wrote the Bible called "chewing the cud." In rabbits and hares, food goes right through the rabbit and is passed as a special dropping, which is later re-eaten to extract extra nourishment. In ancient times, where they didn't have the rigid classification system we had today, people probably just lumped the rabbit/hare together with cattle as chewing the cud.

Since the Bible was written during that time, I doubt God would have gone to the trouble of explaining in detail why a rabbit actually technically didn't chew the cud :P

Or, an alternate explanation could be a translating error. On Google Answers (amidst people saying the Bible is wrong) an expert on the Torah says "The Torah says that we should not eat "the arnevet, for it chews its cud but its hoof is not split." Most commentaries translate arnevet not as rabbit but as either coney, rock badger or hyrax, all of which do in fact chew their cud."

Either way, there's enough of an explanation there to arise at least some doubt on whether this is indeed an error, agreed?

@Dr. Aaron: Light is a term. When you say light can't shine without stars... your correct.. but just because there were no stars at the time doesn't mean light didn't exist as an entity. Who knows.. maybe God shone as a light when he created it.

[jambo]

1. I do not believe in God at ALL! I think that it is quite selfish and self-centred for humans to believe that a "divine being" created the Earth and all things just for us. Just look at the Hubble Deep Space Field, where there are thousands and thousands of galaxies in a spot in the sky that is the size of a grain of sand held at arms lengths. There more galaxies than the human mind can possibly comprehend, but oh no, God created one little planet for us, and we are therefore the most important species ever to exist. We need to get over ourselves and look at the BIG picture.

2. Big Bang theory is a load of big ********! I have watched a few documentaries about John Dobson and he absolutely tears apart the Big Bang theory and it all makes sense. He shows how scientists who support the theory have had to change their physics to match the theory, and that the theory has also been changed (tortured) to keep up with modern discoveries and new theories.
He also cites that Red Shift is NOT evidence that the universe is expanding. It is simply evidence that galaxies are moving away from us. Big Bang theory would mean that we are at the centre of the Universe, if everything was moving away from us. Another good point is that the Big Bang theory is put into childrens minds before they can even think of challenging it (something we often see in religious teachings).
His theory is that although the universe is expanding forever, matter is being recycled from the Universes edge, in a similar way to quantum tunneling. He stresses that we have to remember not to seperate matter and energy as they are the same thing. Matter is just an arrangement of energy.
With this in mind, Dobson points us towards an infinite universe with no beginning and no end, which raises one importnat point; LIFE. In an infinite universes one would theorise that all life would be continually recycling when matter is recycled form the edge.

SO, to sum up: no God, infinite recycling universe and infinite recycling life.

[redgrassbridge]

Mad Scientist: Why does the lack of necessity beget nonexistance?

natedgreate: I never knew that tidbit about the rabbit. Either way, I feel that several of the faith guidelines set forth in the Bible are wrong anyway. I believe it is, as a creative work, a source of spiritual growth through the reader's interpretation, just as are the works of Shakespeare and More.

Edit: and jambo: God doesn't have to be so anthrocentric to be real.

[P-Thunder.]

I do belive in god. I dont know what to belive about "It" but i blankly refuse to belive that some "Bang" or anything else like that made this universe, look a round you, the ballance of life, new life is given, life is taken away. I refuse to belive that a bang could make all this.

[jambo]

Edit: and jambo: God doesn't have to be so anthrocentric to be real.

Good point, but I still think that God is a go-between until we are able to fully understand the Univers (if ever). I think that many people underestimate the power of natural life and the power of the Universe. People feel a great deal more comfort with a Godly human-like figure who is always watching over them. In my opinoin, God was created because people could not deal with the fact that we were a nothing in this infinite universe. We were unimportant, just another planet.

"God is the opium of the masses"

[Dr.Aaron]

Jambo#41: Good point...But actually the andromada galaxy is moving towards us not away..

Wow this forum is moar active than off-topic.:)

[natedgreat3]

@Jambo: that documentary you watched on the Big Bang sounds interesting. Its true they have had to change the theory countless times, as they have most other facets of the theory of evolution. And if you take it even further, they've had to change facets of science countless times too :) change isn't necessarily bad if, eventually, the end result is correct.

I have to say the theory of recycling energy at the end of the universe sounds shaky :P But I have no evidence to rebut that.. so I won't challenge it officially.

One question though... where did the infinitely recycling universe come from? How did it start?

whoops that was 2 questions :P

*** I'm done with debating for tonight.. I've got a final project to finish. You guys have fun B) ***

[jambo]

That is one problem that people have with the theory. They are unable to comprehend an infinite existence, where teh Universe has, and always will be.

[Mad Scientist]

Big Bang theory is a load of big ********! I have watched a few documentaries about John Dobson and he absolutely tears apart the Big Bang theory and it all makes sense.

Sorry to tell you Jambo, but Dobson has been rubished some time ago. Hawking pretty much gave the steady state theory the old heave-ho when he proved black holes are theoretically possible in our universe, something incompatable with Dobson's theories. After all, if you can have black holes that remove matter from the universe, how can it be recycled? It has been conclusivly proven that although big bang may not be right, the steady state theory is catagorically WRONG in mile high letters. It just predicts so many things that we would expect to see, that we dont.

Dobson is very much a showman among scientists. He knows his theories don't stand up to peer review, so he goes and trys to talk about his on pet projects to people with no scientific background because he knows he can talk them round. I doubt he even mentioned the amount of "theory saving" steady state has gone through in order to get to this point and STILL be inadequate.

For example, that theory about "well if all the galaxies are moving away from us, we'd have to be in the centre of the universe" argument is a load of old tripe. Look at the picture below:
http://img205.imageshack.us/img205/9126/bigbangba7.jpg


In the bottom picture, all the galaxies (represented by dots) are moving (in the directions of the lines) are moving away from our own galaxy (the red one). This is fairly easy to see, yet rather implausible that our galaxy happens to be the center of the universe.
Now look at the top one. As the galaxies further away from us are moving away from us at a faster rate, even though we are not at the center of the universe, all the galaxies are still moving away. Imagine a balloon about to be inflated. If you put two dots ANYWHERE on the balloon, and then blow it up, then they will move apart. Neither of them needs to be stationary in the center.

Not only that, but an explosion like the big bang would leave one heck of a noise behind. Not only this, but as this noise gets stretched with the universe, it would come from us from all directions. Does this noise exist? Absolutly, it is called the cosmic background radiation. You know what the most interesting thing about its discovery is? Big bang theory predicted it would exist before it was discovered. It wasn't a case of "we've found this dohicky, lets make up a random reason for it!". It was a case of, the theory says this should exist, and quite by accident, (originaly it was atributed to being pidgeon muck in the radio telescope, but cleaning it out affected nothing) it was found. THAT is when you know your on the right track in science. When you can predict something BEFORE you actually discover it.

On the other hand, steady state has no explanation for this radiation. Nor does it explain why the radiation is slowly getting stretched out as if the universe was expanding. Nor does it explain the way the universe is cooling down.

I'm not saying Big Bang is 1oo% correct, but its certainly one helluva lot better than the alternatives.

[jambo]

*jambo retires on account of exploded brain*

[geekofalltrades]

Wow, I just came back after a few weeks off the forums... and this thread WINS.

I must say god does exist. I'm going to use a much smaller piece of (for lack of a better word) "evidence" for my argument than the entire universe: I'm going to use life. Anyone with a detailed knowledge of biology knows that evolution is not a theory (as argued by creationists), but a fact, which throws creationism out the window. However, anyone with said knowlege of biology also knows about the systems that make life work: DNA and the universal genetic code, at the fundamental level. DNA consists of a double helix connected in the middle by "rungs," and each "rung" of the helix consists of two complimentary units.

Here's where it gets into complex biology. DNA is, in total, completely composed of only four different units: guanine, cytosine, thymine, and adenine (commonly notated as G,C,A, and T). The double-helix, as previously mentioned, is made up of pairs of these units (called base-pairs or nucleotides). On the helix, G is only ever across from C, and A is only ever across from T. (See this crappy figure)

A-T
C-G
C-G
G-C
T-A
A-T
etc.

This same pattern extends for millions and billions of units in a single DNA chain. The purpose of the DNA chain is to build proteins, which all life forms are made up of. "Genes" are regions of a peice of DNA that code a specific type of protein, like the cartilage in your earlobe. A gene is further broken down into units of three nucleotides, each of which codes for a specific amino acid. These units are called "codons." Through a process that would take pages to describe, amino acids are assembled into polypeptide chains, which are then assembled into proteins. If you remove philosophy from the picture, then this is the purpose of life: to make these protiens.

The point I'm getting at is that life is really very simple and very complicated at the same time: DNA is made up of an alphabet that consists of four letters and three-letter words, and yet this alphabet has given rise to all known life.

So, in a theory/philosophy that mushes creationism and darwinism together, I ask: can a process that is this brilliantly simple, and yet at the same time so incredibly complex and capable, have possibly occurred by chance in nature? I propose that god originally created all life, and that He gave it the ability to evolve upon its creation.

[El]

Me too.

God+Evolution.

I believe that God created the world, gave us men the power to ruin it, and watched us destroy, rebuild and repeat.

And that he created us in a way that allowed us to evolve over time. Not from species to species, mind, but from dumb, hunch-back homosapians to smart, briefcase-carrying homosapians.

[Chepito]

The point I'm getting at is that life is really very simple and very complicated at the same time: DNA is made up of an alphabet that consists of four letters and three-letter words, and yet this alphabet has given rise to all known life.

So, in a theory/philosophy that mushes creationism and darwinism together, I ask: can a process that is this brilliantly simple, and yet at the same time so incredibly complex and capable, have possibly occurred by chance in nature? I propose that god originally created all life, and that He gave it the ability to evolve upon its creation.

So, just because something is both simple and complex at the same time means that god created it? Where is your evidence other than stated definitions of what DNA is?

[jambo]

I still think that people underestiamte the natural world and have to have a divine being in their image so that he can be smart and powerful enough to create life.

[hoboman725]

So, in a theory/philosophy that mushes creationism and darwinism together, I ask: can a process that is this brilliantly simple, and yet at the same time so incredibly complex and capable, have possibly occurred by chance in nature? I propose that god originally created all life, and that He gave it the ability to evolve upon its creation.

this is certainly one explanation, but I think it's a little far-fetched.

to put it into a bad example: the pyramids are insane models of architecture that even today would be ridiculous to construct; so the egyptians must have had some sort of otherworldly help.

even though this is one example, I'm sure they just had some sort of method that we simply havent discovered.

It is unbelievably unlikely that something as simple yet complex as DNA would simply happen on it's own,without some sort of divine intervention. However this fits with the theory of God not existing perfectly, since in all the known universe, we have never come across another planet with life

[Mercer]

...we really haven't expolred "All the known universe" man. We dont really have the abiltiy to see if there is life in any star systems that are nearby or on the other side of our galaxy...

DNA could have certainly developed naturally, the fact that you say that life is rare or non-existant in many places seems to fit with that as DNA has a very small chance of coming out of a chaotic system full of non-life.

[Flarty]

to be fair i dont think we've discovered 0,00000000000001% of the planets in our own glaxy let alone the universe, how ever with the amount of diffrent types of life on this planet, theres got to be another life form somewhere.

[cowfish13]

I don't like reading every post before.



This question is mind staggering though.

How was Universe created...

If you said big bang and nothing else, answer this:

What was before that

Keep on asking the same question.

[DKR1138]

Life is as simple as carbon and energy for the most part... it could happen anywhere and it could happen in any circumstances... maybe the life isn't even carbon based like our own evolution.

I can say firmly that Creationism is flat out wrong, it can't be fact it can only exist in faith and faith is as good as fairy tale. Evolution is factual, that has definitive evidence and samples to prove so.

Gods are many and few throughout human history and it has everything todo with our ancestors not knowing how things work, if they had our science back then the bloom of religion would have been small, because there would have been fact and insight to the universe and our existance, its just so ingrain that its hard to shake it.

Saying things like DNA is so complex it had to had intervention is just hooey... it got complex through a wonderful thing called natural selection... it had to become complex to survive, to evolve to purge through competitors, the fact were here today and that our build is so complex and splender is because we've been struggling for it for millenia.

As for the big bang, its easy, the was one thing before it, the size of the universe was smaller than an atom... eventually for unforseen reasons it exploded, expanding infinately. Its hard for people to beleive so much matter can exist from nothing, but look to your friend the black hole for some sage like universal advise.

[Flarty]

Wow, I just came back after a few weeks off the forums... and this thread WINS.

I must say god does exist. I'm going to use a much smaller piece of (for lack of a better word) "evidence" for my argument than the entire universe: I'm going to use life. Anyone with a detailed knowledge of biology knows that evolution is not a theory (as argued by creationists), but a fact, which throws creationism out the window. However, anyone with said knowlege of biology also knows about the systems that make life work: DNA and the universal genetic code, at the fundamental level. DNA consists of a double helix connected in the middle by "rungs," and each "rung" of the helix consists of two complimentary units.

Here's where it gets into complex biology. DNA is, in total, completely composed of only four different units: guanine, cytosine, thymine, and adenine (commonly notated as G,C,A, and T). The double-helix, as previously mentioned, is made up of pairs of these units (called base-pairs or nucleotides). On the helix, G is only ever across from C, and A is only ever across from T. (See this crappy figure)

A-T
C-G
C-G
G-C
T-A
A-T
etc.

This same pattern extends for millions and billions of units in a single DNA chain. The purpose of the DNA chain is to build proteins, which all life forms are made up of. "Genes" are regions of a peice of DNA that code a specific type of protein, like the cartilage in your earlobe. A gene is further broken down into units of three nucleotides, each of which codes for a specific amino acid. These units are called "codons." Through a process that would take pages to describe, amino acids are assembled into polypeptide chains, which are then assembled into proteins. If you remove philosophy from the picture, then this is the purpose of life: to make these protiens.

The point I'm getting at is that life is really very simple and very complicated at the same time: DNA is made up of an alphabet that consists of four letters and three-letter words, and yet this alphabet has given rise to all known life.

So, in a theory/philosophy that mushes creationism and darwinism together, I ask: can a process that is this brilliantly simple, and yet at the same time so incredibly complex and capable, have possibly occurred by chance in nature? I propose that god originally created all life, and that He gave it the ability to evolve upon its creation.


i thought you was gonna finish off on saying, "and when you open the last nucleus you can find, God Woz ere 0 B.C lol"
:haha:

[natedgreat3]

Lets run the chance of life forming by itself. Some of you say its a simple matter of time and chance... others say its impossibly complex, and thus proves God. I think the real facts might surprise everyone ;) **long post warning**

There's no question that life is incredibly complex. Too complex to break down here. So I will give evolution every advantage scientifically possible, and even some that aren't possible. Then and only then, with everything going just the right way, will we calculate the chance.

First of all, simple "real world" bacteria, the simplest form of life, need DNA, RNA, ribosomes, and proteins to function. But we'll grant that all we need to form is genes: the core structure of DNA, this will instruct the cell on what functions it needs to perform to keep itself alive. Genes are just one component of DNA, but we'll just limit ourselves to genes. Evolutionary advantage #1.

On genes, the simplest self replicating organism known to man, "mycoplasma," needs 482 of them. This bug is itself a parasite, unable to survive without a host to draw nutrients that the bacteria itself can't produce. But scientists have whittled down the number to a bare minimum of 256 genes absolutely critically essential for life. I'm going to whittle it down further and say just ONE gene needs to form by chance. Fair enough? Evolutionary advantage #2.

Genes are formed by amino acids. There are 21 different types used in life and countless others not used for life. Of each of these, there are "left handed" and "right handed" varities, but only left handed are used in life. We will restrict ourselves to a pool of the 21 pure, left handed, activated amino acids needed to form life. Sound good? Evolutionary advantage #3.

How big should the space be with which we should try this calculation? Well... lets just go all out and use all the atoms currently in the universe. Matter cannot be created or destroyed, so we can't use anymore then that. Evolutionary advantage #4

And finally, what about time? Though the time will change, the supposed maximum amount of time given before SOMETHING would have had to form, on the evolutionary timeline, is (from what I can tell) about 1.1 billion years. But we'll be generous and allow 10 billion years. Evolutionary advantage #5

======================

Now, lets run this. Information theorist Hubert Yockey calculated that after 10 billion years of letting that whole universe of pure primordial soup swirl around and combine at random chance, he would only end up with a maximum of 49 properly combined amino acids. Thats 1/8 of the needed length to assemble a single gene. We need at least 256 of those to form a bare minimum of the INSTRUCTIONS needed to START to form THE SIMPLEST CELL in the form of life.

Like the Mythbusters, once we've figured we can't get a single gene in 10 billion years, how many years WOULD it take to get a single gene to form? The answer is a number so large its hard to comprehend: 10^147 years. Thats 10 with 147 zeros. How big is this number? Wel... the number of atoms in the entire universe is 10^80 (10 with 80 zeros). So needless to say... 10^147 is a ridiculously massive number :haha:

If you still can't understand this number, it'd be like packing the entire solar system full of blind people, giving them each a rubix cube, and having them all arrive at the solution to the cube at the EXACT. SAME. TIME.

But lets just go all out... Evolutionists have calculated the chance of a single cell forming randomly in their given timeline. Guess how much that turned out to be? Evolutionists figured out it was worse then 10^57800. Thats, uh, 10 with 57,800 zeros.

I wonder why they didn't tell us that chance in school? Well perhaps they were afraid of people's common sense.

[DKR1138]

Everyone knows life is rare, and they do tell you in school if you goto a good one... GOD cannot be proved, he is mythic, and relies on faith to remain an entity of peoples lives. Evolution, science, and math is factual evidence of existance, of detecting existance and predicting existance.

eeeehh look at me, life is so rare GOD must exist because I can't explain just how theoretically lucky we are... Its a problem I have always had, and will always have behind the thinking of a Christian and there Creationist view.

[natedgreat3]

You are absolutely right, God can never be proved, He will always require some amount of "faith" to believe. However, there's no definite proof that He DOESN'T exist either, leaving the possibility open.

But really, evolution requires a certain amount of "faith" too. You've shown that you already have it. You've kindof brushed past the chance of evolution starting and have said "Well... nevermind that, we're 'theoretically lucky'." That's faith, isn't it?

[DKR1138]

No thats chance. Its by chance that we occured, faith and chance are different beasts IMO. Faith is not based on probability, chance is.

[Kester]

While I have little knowledge on what you have just spoke about, it is based on probability and therefore it could have also happened over night with freak 'accident' after 'accident'.

However I'm not going to touch on that any futher here.

On the subject of the big bang and what came before that. That very question is based on our, as humans, understanding of the world we see from what we experience around us, which is obviously not the best stand to start on, as it's understanding of this universe is limited to what is can see, hear, touch, taste and smell.

As everything we know in our life has a beginning and an end, we find it almost incomprehensible that the universe could possible be outside of this understanding.

I prefer the question of "Why does the universe have to have a beginning, why can't it have always been and forever will, in what ever form?" rather than "If the big bang was the beginning of everything we know, what was before it?".

Now if you can answer my question I will answer yours.

[DKR1138]

Grid Lock. and Check Mate.

[Raminator]

Lets run the chance of life forming by itself. Some of you say its a simple matter of time and chance... others say its impossibly complex, and thus proves God. I think the real facts might surprise everyone **long post warning**The thing is, Nate, it was never hypothesised to be completely random. There was probably some precipitating event that set everything in motion.

The Urey-Miller experiment back in the '60s showed that it was completely possible for organic subcomponents necessary for life (such as nucleotides, amino acids and phospholipids) to form in primordial conditions. Obviously though, this wouldn't be occurring at random, it would be occurring at concentrated locations where the conditions were right, and as such the likelihood of combination would be likely to be exponentially higher. If these substances are able to become concentrated enough, phospholipids will spontaneously form a polarised bilayer (the basic structure of all cell membranes) and nucleotides will polymerise into single-stranded RNA or DNA. All of a sudden you've got an extremely primitive cell that's arisen from completely inorganic sources. It may not be life as we know it, but it's surely a step in the right direction.

[natedgreat3]

@DKR1138: lol I wasn't speaking of the probability itself of the universe happening, I was speaking of when you IGNORED the probability and instead stated we were theoretically lucky. The act of you doing that is a suspension of belief and common sense that could be called "faith."

It's going against common observance of the world we live in to believe in a God, so thats faith, like you said. But its also going against common observance and sense to ignore the numbers stacked against the theory of evolution and believe it must have happened, so thats faith as well :)

@Kester: This is similar to the question "who created God?" the answer that Christians give being "He's always been there." The problem is, that requires some supernatural or unexplainable element, for a being to ALWAYS have been there and have no creator. The theory of evolution was created to explain how things could have happened without anything supernatural or scientifically impossible ever occuring.

Perhaps I could say "well we can't explain how a cell could have formed by chance, therefore there have always been cells and life in the universe and always will be." Saying something is eternal, something has always been there, doesn't mesh too well with the rest of the theory.

EDIT: @Ram: sup man :) Your absolutely right, the right conditions, purposefully set in motion, can increase the chances of a cell forming. I know its long but if you'll read my post the rest of the way down you'll see I've granted the evolutionary process 5 huge breaks. These are similar to what your talking about.

[Raminator]

No, that's basically granting all these farcical conditions and then using dubious statistics to come up with an answer. I'd like to look at this guy's maths, I get the feeling he's just applying the product rule.

[Kester]

This is similar to the question "who created God?" the answer that Christians give being "He's always been there." The problem is, that requires some supernatural or unexplainable element, for a being to ALWAYS have been there and have no creator. The theory of evolution was created to explain how things could have happened without anything supernatural or scientifically impossible ever occuring.
I don't really see it similar to "who created god?" as that question assumes god exists, we however know the universe exists, as we are here able to have this discussion. In my mind you have to prove something exists before you can even start asking how it formed as otherwise it's an futile exercise.
Perhaps I could say "well we can't explain how a cell could have formed by chance, therefore there have always been cells and life in the universe and always will be." Saying something is eternal, something has always been there, doesn't mesh too well with the rest of the theory.
Not really as they are two totally seperate things, it's like saying "An orange is juicy and tastes great, why doesn't gravel?". They hold little relevance, if any, to each other and cannot have the same understanding attributed to them.

Lastly, I don't see how saying something is eternal doesn't mesh to well with the rest of the theory. I think, infact, that it reinforces the theory.

[natedgreat3]

The final quote in the article was an evolutionist-calculated number. (the 10^58700). The number will vary slightly depending on who does it. The exact source is D.A. Bradbury, ‘Reply to Landau and Landau’, Creation/Evolution 13(2):48–49

A quick search across the internets yielded a very technical pdf. Its from a different scientist and I didn't bother to read it haha.. but perhaps this will yield further insight (http://www.iscid.org/papers/Mullan_PrimitiveCell_112302.pdf)

EDIT: @Kester: There are alot of things that haven't been proven, yet we still talk about it. We'd best not talk about Black Holes, for instance ;) But I for one, have no problem discussing these, as if you think about it, back when nobody knew that friction existed, if they hadn't talked about it, it would never have been proven. Its impossible to talk in a topic entitled "Does God Exist" without holding a certain suspension of belief.

Not really as they are two totally seperate things, it's like saying "An orange is juicy and tastes great, why doesn't gravel?". They hold little relevance, if any, to each other and cannot have the same understanding attributed to them.
Your right, they don't hold any relevance to each other except for one point. Of course, by saying the universe is eternal, your going against how the majority of scientists think the universe started (big bang), just as I am by saying that God exists. We both do this for the same reason: We can't explain otherwise. You, however, are basically saying that I'm not allowed to hold that God exists because it hasn't been proven, while simulataneously allowing the same for yourself on something that hasn't been proven either :)

You did put the burden of proof on me to answer your question though. I will say this as a final answer: there's nothing wrong with holding the view that the universe is eternal, but once you start saying that certain parts of evolution are wrong (big bang) is it possible other parts could be wrong as well? That might be a dangerous position to take.

Its my personal opinion that an eternal universe doesn't fit well with the theory... and its your personal opinion that it reinforces it. But personal opinion doesn't make good debating heh.. so I'll leave that to rest.

[e-freak]

God exists. I truely belive that though honest i can't prove it. It is a deep trust inside of me which is the very same trust that says me: My girlfriend loves me, My parents love me, My Friends accept me - and they all do the way i am - with bad sides and good sides. I can prove God is real - i can prove it for my self by listening to his word and doing what he expects from me. But i can't prove him scientific. Science is a nice thing and it is good that we do research - but god is like the metaphilosophy above everything. God gives a sense to the mind of man and he gives a sense to every single cell and gene. Biology, Chemics, Physics - they all work but they don't give ethics or anything like this. They work without you. Evolution works without you. You are worthless to say it that way. God - pc said: Your mind and your sociality - gives you a worth to the world - to the universe.

[Kester]

Nate, I believe the big bang did happen, but it happened as a result of something before.

Also, perhaps I worded a few parts badly on the proving god exists part. It should have been you cannot ask why something happened without proof, or logical assumptions as to it's existance.

Black holes and friction have logical assumptions as to their existance, whereas God, in my opinion, has none.

[e-freak]

Is there any - any logical reason someone loves? and i don't speak about recreation - i speak about love aside from sex or anything body-based.

[hoboman725]

...we really haven't expolred "All the known universe" man. We dont really have the abiltiy to see if there is life in any star systems that are nearby or on the other side of our galaxy...


that's why I said the known universe, who knows about the other stuff

[Kester]

Is there any - any logical reason someone loves? and i don't speak about recreation - i speak about love aside from sex or anything body-based.
Yes, chemical reactions and electrical impulses.

[e-freak]

Has your life a sense then? Or could you just jump down the bridge - because this would be the only thing you could do which would raise you above your chemical and eletrical drives.

[Kester]

I honestly believe I'm not here for a reason, so yes death would be the only thing to separate my from my chemical and electrical impulses.

Although that doesn't mean I don't value and enjoy my life.

[e-freak]

yes i didn't say so ;)

I just think it is important to see your life in a bigger context. It is not you who gives your life a sense but your civilization - or by creating the civilization you give your life a sense. If this happens because of your religious belief - which is what i do - or if you do this because of what ever - I myself found the answer to my questions in god and i would say i am happy with it - i keep with buxdehude's "Everything you do, with words or with works, do it in the name of god" ("Alles was Ihr tut, mit Worten oder mit Werken, das tut alles im Namen unsres Herrn")

[El]

Good for you, e-freak!

I think that we were all created for a purpose, which most of us spend our entire lives searching for.

[Delphic]

I'll be honest I haven't read all the post up to here, I got bored.
I'd like to point out that God by definition must be omnipotent (I think I saw an arguement where he wasn't earlier), if he's not then it's not God it's merely a metaphysical entity that happened to create our universe but not have full control over it.

I recently attented a couple of philosophy lectures on this, basically there were three big arguements which seem to have been repeated in some form or other here.

Okay this one may not have been said but I'm gonna include it anyway:
1) Logic Trick: God is perfect, you can apprechiate that he might exist, existance in reality is better than abstract existance, therefore if God is perfect me must exist in reality as otherwise he's not perfect.
- This argument is stupid, but it's fairly hard to disprove (I may have worded it badly, google The Ontological Argument for a better discription), it assumes that one can fully apprechiate the defintion of perfect (which I have a problem with actually visualising, I dunno about you) but David Hume's counter-argument is the best here imo, that the argument presumes that the 'is' in 'is perfect' and 'is' as in exists are the same to prove it's point, however this is balantly untrue, existance is different from having a property.

2) The teleological argument - essentially this is intelligent design, you presume if you find a watch that it was made by a watchmaker, not by random processes, you can apply the same to many parts of nature.
- A counter argument to this (Hume again) is the problem of evil, i.e. if God is as you define God, why is there evil in the world.... this can be used a general arguement against God though. Personally I think this arguement just fails to take into account how HUGE the universe is, and hence how actually random process' resulting in life which then evolves to high adeptness is in fact very likely.

3) The Cosmological Argument - again a summary: there is a cause to everything, therefore there must be a first cause, this first cause must be God. I think Nate brought this one up.
- This assumes firstly that cause and effect always holds, this is a 'fact' obtained by induction and hence can never be used for certain, it's quite possible that there isn't always a cause. Secondly it presumes there must be a first cause, I don't see a problem with an infinate regress myself, although if you take the original big bang theory, I believe that it's said that there simply was no time before the big bang, so there wasn't anything before, mayb hard for you to imagine but there really wasnt' anything, not a vaccum or void, absolutely nothing including no time. And Finally it assumes that the first cause must be God, whilst I can't come up with a better one, doesn't mean it's true.... (also the whole thing relies on our everyday perception of time being correct, as a physicist, I question this slighlty).

You can probably tell I'm a bit of an Athiest... Sorry if that post was slightly too simplified, might offend someone that actually does philosophy... All that said, all I said, in many words, was you can't tell. And we should respect each others beliefs, it's naive to assume that any one set of beliefs if universally accepted would result in greater harmony

[Tesseract]

Alright my miniature input is going to be as follows:

I am an Atheist. I think religion is the worst thing to ever happen to mankind and is the one thing holding us as a race back from advancing. Anything the simply acts as a way of segregating groups apart from each other is a bad thing, and as an intelligent species who knows better we should all learn to accept our place in the universe. I think the idea of religion is silly, and think that Douglas Adams said it best. His idea and mine were along the lines of: religion is a lot like the story of the water puddle. The water puddle is born after a rainstorm collecting in a small hole and being a story the puddle is aware of itself and perceives the world around it. It says to itself my don't I fit into the hole nicely and I'm nice and comfortable and I can exist quite nicely in the hole that seems to fit me just so nicely. You know it's almost as if this world was designed for me. After a while it decides that it must have been some sort of god that has made this world that suits her so well. and it begins to have faith in this imaginary being that created this world for a puddle. then it gets warmer and the puddle starts to evaporate, but the puddle doesn't worry because it has faith in what created it and it says to itself that i'm starting to get a little small and the whole is getting bigger it doesn't fit so well but god designed this world for me he wouldn't let anything happen. So the puddle get's smaller and smaller until it evaporates, now some puddles might realize just before the end that something isn't right and that maybe there isn't a god but most die certain that god will be there for them and they should wait for intervention.

People need to wake up realize we have only each other to depend on and hope that we can pull ourselves up and make sure we can continue to exist. People who don't will never really get anywhere and will only end up hurting each other and themselves.

[jambo]

I completely, and i mean COMPLETELY agree with you. I have always thought of religion as a terrible burden on mankind, and I love what Douglas Adams said about the puddle :lol:

[Delphic]

The ID arguement (what tess was talking about) is rather flawed, what with the fact you can just reverse it.

"The World is great for me, it must have been tailored to my needs"
"The World is great for me, I must have been tailored to the world"

ofc, some might say both imply god, but then we just switch to the arguement about evolution... ooo thinking of that mayb ID vs. Evolution is a battle made by the religion zealots so that if they win they can go yay: teleological argument, god exists!

Anyhow, personally I think this Richard Dawkins type view given by jambo and Tess, is no offence, incredibly naive. I mean perhaps if we just, swap everyone to athiesm it'd be all great, but you can't, so what you gonna do? Go tell everyone they have to be athiests? that's not going to go down too well me thinks.
Surely tolerance and understand on everyone's (or at least a majority) part regardless of religious belief is only viable solution, and going around saying Religion is a burden on humanity is not going to make people inclined to listen to you... :\

[Raminator]

Let's stay on track, people: this thread is not about religion, it's about the existence of a god. The two are completely separate, and it'd be nice if we could maintain the distinction for the time being.

[Tesseract]

alright then yes I do think there is something that from our perspective would seem to be a god. But any god that exists wouldn't be a god that is there for us.

Also I'm not naive. I know my ideal will never exist, I'm not saying that other people being different from atheism is bad either. I just don't think people should look to god to solve their problems or use god as a means of segregating themselves from another group to feel powerful. God shouldn't be something we use for an excuse, god should be an empowering thing. I'm comforted by the thought that humans can exist despite the possible non existence of god, and despite our place in the universe.

[Delphic]

Yeah, I agree totally.
(Sorry for slightly condesending tone in last post, just a lot of internet people have seen Richard Dawkins' stuff recently and just started doing / saying the same like it's the answer to all lifes problems. When, while I agree with many of his sentiments, it's not the way to go about 'solving the problem' if indeed you think there is one).

[Mad Scientist]

I'm glad to see that someone knows of some of the classical arguments for Gods existance. To Delphic's well developed arguments, i would add one more, one that i alwasy find good for a laugh as it has logic so bad it would make the average mathematician cry.

3. The Ontological Argument: This was develpoed many years ago, by a fellow called Anselm. A frim beleiver, he came up with this argument to "logically" rationalise his beleife in a deity. It follows thusly

1. For the perpose of this argument, we are defining God as a perfect being. As a perfect being, we can conceive that God must have no flaws.

2. On this point, God not actually existing, could be considered a rather major flaw.

3. Therefor, God must exist, otherwise, God would not be the perfect being we have concvied.

After hugging himself to sleep, Anselm then published this argument. It was ripped apart fairly quickly an succinctly by a christian monk called Gaunelio:

1. you are defining existance as being a condition to something being perfect. This is effectivly saying that existance is uniformly a good quality, for all things to possess. This is clearly not the case (i would cite dog muck on pavments to be an excellent example).

2. Effectivly, you are tying the qualities of "perfection" and "existance" together (something that we can never observe in this universe). Simply by saying that something can be conceived to be perfect, is not forcing it to exist. I can imagine a perfect island where everything is wonderful (known as gaunelio's island), but simply because i can imagine it, it does not follow that it MUST exist.

In other words, the ontological argument is a circular argument. If you already beleive in God, and do not think about matters clearly, then it holds true. Your argument would effectivly simplify down to "i'm assuming God exists, therfore he must exist!". However if you do not beleive in God, or can examine the subject critically, then the argument holds less water than seive. Anselm's reply to Gaunelio was really quite a masterfull debating tactic, that can be simplified to the following:

Yeah, but...erm...your a christian anyway! You HAVE to agree with me!

hmmm...

This is not to say that God doesn't exist, merely that this is a lousy argument to justify God's existance with. Don't forget, ANY argument that claims to prove God's existance can either be outright rubbished, or debated to a standstill. Beleif in a God is unilaterally a personal matter, that each individual must assess for themselves what they beleive in, or do not beleive in.

Personally, i have faith, just not in God. I have a very strong faith in humanity's ability. I beleive we got where we are through sweat, blood, blind stupidity, and the occasional moments of shear unbelievable genius. We may have problems, but we will have solutions, and what we do about them is up to us. I do not beleive that any God will ever intervine.

[raw_bean]

Personally, i have faith, just not in God. I have a very strong faith in humanity's ability. I beleive we got where we are through sweat, blood, blind stupidity, and the occasional moments of shear unbelievable genius. We may have problems, but we will have solutions, and what we do about them is up to us. I do not beleive that any God will ever intervine.

Here here Mad Sci!

Damn, but there's so much I want to respond to on this thread. Early warning, I may well have to post an almighty essay after work tonight!