Cipher Girl

What I'm saying is that, if science indeed describes the entire domain of possible human knowledge (does it describe poetry?), then at some point it will talk about matters which I would call "religious". It will do this once it's able to talk about the fabric of reality itself--its matter and form (existence vs. nonexistence, and the existence of governing laws.) If it keeps going in some of the directions it's going in cosmology and philosophy of mind, it should either begin speaking of such matters, or realize it can't speak of such matters. But even if that were to be the case, we could still talk about mysteries like the mystery of existence in meaningful language, just as we do now.

Well if science is able to completely describe the universe and finds their is no need to add a god in the equation, will you still add one in? Even if this adds nothing? If this god is equal to zero or no effect, then why would we need to posit such an entity?

smalltown

cypher girl said : Well if science is able to completely describe the universe and finds their is no need to add a god in the equation, will you still add one in? Even if this adds nothing? If this god is equal to zero or no effect, then why would we need to posit such an entity?


Sorry but I disagree, science has a lot of loop holes that have yet to be explained, like ...

1. Where did the rock (or whatever it is called) come from that started the big bang ?

2. Is it reasonable to believe that the earth for 4.6 billion years has always been orbitting 93 million miles from the sun ?

3. Is it reasonable to believe that the sun has not changed in size for 4.6 billion years ?

4. The elipse of the moon is moving away from the earth (proven scientific fact), what kept the elipse in place for 4.6 billion years till now ?

The claim by most athiests on this page is that everything can be explained by scientific fact, I will take you up on that challenge (I am just an average Joe, not a scinetist).

Thanks

Hawkingfan

It wasn't a rock. All of the matter and energy in the universe was condensed into a super-hot, very tiny singularity prior to the big bang. A singularity is a point in the universe where current theories of science and math "break down" (usually the math breaks down simply because it has difficulty dealing exclusively with infinite numbers which are common in singularities. The breaking down of science is another matter. Superstring theory could be the answer, or the Unified theory of gravity--Quantum Mechanics and Relativity combined). In any case, it is highly probable that scientists will have an answer to this problem in our lifetime. Black holes are also singularities and gave scientists serious problems in the past, similar to the big bang now. But mathematical and observational advances have been made to better understand them in great detail. The same thing will happen with the big bang theory, even if it means coming up with a whole new theory.
Yes, it is.
It probably has, since it is constantly burning energy. It will continue to change size and will eventually become a red giant, I think.
Yes, that is correct. But the moon is not the same age as the earth. The moon is relatively new in the earth's life. The moon was probably created by a colliding asteroid or some say a collision with another planet that is no longer here!

the_cave

Sure it's "unnatural" in some sense--but that doesn't mean it's wrong.

Ok, that's your opinion. I think at this point we diverge, and we will not get anywhere criticizing one another's arguments.

As an aside, what attidude to you have towards things existentially? Do you merely accept them, without question, or wonder?

But know what better? Sure, we're better at explaining efficient causes, but we're still not much better at explaining existential causes. However, you don't seem to feel these need explaining, so once again, I don't think we'll get anywhere discussing this issue.



Agreed, but why would that make it a science?

You're catching on.

Cipher Girl

cypher girl said : Well if science is able to completely describe the universe and finds their is no need to add a god in the equation, will you still add one in? Even if this adds nothing? If this god is equal to zero or no effect, then why would we need to posit such an entity?


Sorry but I disagree, science has a lot of loop holes that have yet to be explained, like ...

Well, I said hypothetically if we found that the universe can be described with our mathematics and those mathematics did not need a god to explain how and why the universe exists, would you still posit that one exists? And why?

Hawkingfan

I'm not sure what you mean. With chance, whatever exists will look like it has a "purpose", but if something else had survived or nature took a different turn, THAT object would look like it had "purpose" as well. But, in fact, there is no greater "purpose" for anything. Things are just the way they are.

smalltown

cypher girl said : Well, I said hypothetically if we found that the universe can be described with our mathematics and those mathematics did not need a god to explain how and why the universe exists, would you still posit that one exists? And why?

smalltown replies : the problem is science (or math) does not explain the existence of the universe. In answer to my first question, Hawkingfan came up with this answer :"All of the matter and energy in the universe was condensed into a super-hot, very tiny singularity prior to the big bang." Then where did this tiny singualrity come from, did it just magiaclly appear ? In answer to my 2nd question Hawkingfan said it is reasonable that the earth has been in orbit 93 million miles from the sun for 4.6 billion years. Of course the contradiction to this possibility comes in the answer to question 4, where he says an asteroid collision probably put the moon there. How could the earth avoid asteroid collsions (or other cosmic fatalities) for 4.6 billion years, yet that is how the moon came into existence (in a perfect elipse so as not to reek havoc on our tides none the less) ? If the moon is a mere 250 million years old and you rewind the clock back that far, figuring in the current rate at which the moon is moving away from the earth, the moon would have been so close to the earth that nothing would have survived the tidal storms that would have ensued and it would have destroyed all life. Of course "something" must have happened, it always does....

I'll take my chances that something did happen, its called creation. You see both the Big Bang and Creation are faith based, it takes faith to believe that all the circumstances necissary for life to evolve from a singualrity (that appeared out of no where) happened and that all the parameters fell "perfectly" into place. The mathematial odds at which these things could happen are incomprehendable, or you can belive that a higher order (God, as I believe) was responsible. I say look at the science, could the earth really have been in perfect orbit for 4.6 billion years without anything hitting it or knocking it off its track ? Has the sun been the same exact size for 4.6 Billion years , given what our own science knows about the volatility of stars ? The moon is still unexplainable, I believe evoltuoinists call this "Lunar Crisis", because of the big "loop" it puts in all there theories about how life evolved.

I am just an average Joe, making a "faith based" decision on the science in front of me.

Hawkingfan

But it certainly can. We just don't have the answer yet. I said we are expecting the answers within our lifetime.
Like I said, that is what scientists are figuring out right now.
How is that a contradiction? The earth has been hit by asteroids many times. Meteors strike the earth constantly, even today. Some of them are large. But for the most part they burn up in the atmosphere, lessening their impact. Look at the surface of the moon. See all of those craters? Some of them are larger than most countries. Those are from meteor and asteroid collisions. The surface of the earth would look like that if it didn't have an atmosphere.
Where did you get this? This is wrong. Yes, the moon was indeed closer to the earth. I think it would have appeared 5-10 times larger in the sky than it is now (?) But anyway, the moon's existence is crucial to the development of life on earth. Life developed on earth after the moon came into existence. The moon was and is at a distance where it is keeping the earth's "wobble" on it's axis at no more than 23 degrees. This has regulated and steadied the temperature of the earth. If the temperature was not regulated (at an average of about 55 degrees F) then life would not be able to develop. An example of what the earth would be like without the moon would be Mars. There is no life on Mars and probably never was. This is because the degree of its "wobble" is too great. It has two moons, but they are asteroids that flew by at just the right distance to be caught in Mars' gravitational pull, yet they are too small to have any affect on Mars' wobble. Mars' wobble is several times that of earth and its temperature ranges are much higher and lower.

Hawkingfan

That is not really true. The big bang theory was not made up out of nowhere. Observations were made first.
Three excellent reasons exist for believing in the big-bang theory. First, and most obvious, the universe is expanding. Second, the theory predicts that 25 percent of the total mass of the universe should be the helium that formed during the first few minutes, an amount that agrees with observations. Finally, and most convincing, is the presence of the cosmic background radiation. The big-bang theory predicted this remnant radiation, which now glows at a temperature just 3 degrees above absolute zero, well before radio astronomers chanced upon it. (there is also nucleosynthesis of elements)
More than anything else, breaking down the light from celestial objects into its constituent colors has helped us understand the universe. A spectrum can tell astronomers what an object is made of, how hot it is, how fast it is moving, and a host of other important attributes. Spectroscopy has revealed the great abundance of hydrogen and helium in the universe—providing observational support for the big-bang theory—and showed the relative amounts of the other elements since cooked up in stars.
Just as important, spectroscopy revealed the expansion of the universe. When an object moves away from us, the lines in its spectrum get displaced toward longer wavelengths, with the amount of this so-called redshift proportional to the object’s velocity. Edwin Hubble first showed that the spectrum of almost every galaxy is shifted to the red, and that the farther away the galaxy, the greater the redshift. From these observations, cosmologists correctly deduced that the universe is expanding.
But one big question that remained was the nature of the fuzzy patches of light known as nebulae.
In 1923 and 1924, Hubble used the largest telescope in the world—the 100-inch Hooker Telescope at Mt. Wilson—to examine the Andromeda Nebula. The Oxford-trained lawyer-turned-astronomer detected for the first time stars similar to those in our own galaxy. By comparing how bright the stars appeared with how much light they actually gave off, he estimated the distance to the nebula as nearly a million light-years, clearly making it a huge galaxy in its own right.
Hubble went on to find the distances to many other galaxies, eventually pushing the frontiers of the universe out to hundreds of millions of light-years. He then compared the distances to the speeds with which the galaxies were racing away, and deduced that the farther away the galaxy, the faster it moved. This relation, known as Hubble’s Law, was observational proof that the universe was expanding. Appropriately, the famed Hubble telescope was named in his honor.
Again, what he found set the stage for much of 20th-century cosmology: the farther away the galaxy, the faster it receded. This relation—that a galaxy’s speed is directly proportional to its distance—became known as Hubble’s Law. It was observational proof that we live in an expanding universe, and it helped lay the foundation for the big-bang theory of the universe’s origin.
Tiny temperature fluctuations in the otherwise smooth cosmic background radiation represent the gravitational seeds in the early universe around which galaxies and galaxy clusters ultimately formed.
Predicted by George Gamow and his collaborators in the 1940s and detected by Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson in the 1960s, the cosmic background radiation is the faint echo of the Big Bang. Following the explosive birth of our cosmos, the universe both expanded and cooled off rapidly. After roughly 300,000 years, its temperature had fallen to about 3000 kelvin (5000° Fahrenheit) and a big change was taking place. Before this time, conditions were too hot for atoms to form—protons and electrons each went their separate ways—and photons of light could travel only short distances before interacting with the free electrons. It was as if the universe existed in a thick fog that kept light from penetrating.
But when the temperature reached 3000 kelvin, atomic nuclei finally captured electrons and formed stable atoms. Photons were then able to travel unimpeded—the fog lifted—and the universe became transparent to light. It’s that light we see as the background radiation, coming at us from all directions. However, in the 10 billion or more years since the Big Bang, the universe has expanded by a factor of a thousand, causing the temperature of the radiation to fall by the same amount. It now glows at just 3 kelvin (3° Celsius above absolute zero) in the microwave part of the electromagnetic spectrum, a faint reminder of our universe’s hot start. The background appears very smooth, varying by only one part in 100,000 across the sky.
You act like it was all done lickity-split. All of the parameters did not fall perfectly into place. For every macromolecule that was able to survive and evolve, millions were not. And its funny you mentioned the word "perfectly" because that is exactly what the macromolecules were not. Due to the Uncertainty Principle of Quantum Mechanics and the thermal motion of atoms, the macromolecules had many errors and imperfections in their reproduction. But under certain circumstances and environments, the errors proved to be beneficial by chance (like say, for instance, a molecule that was able to combine with the sulfur oxide in the atmosphere because of its error). The mathematical odds (which is funny you should mention that also, as that is what quantum mechanics deals with (it doesn't predict anything, it just tells you how likely something is)), even though low, states that these things can and will eventually happen because they are not forbidden by QM.
As I said before, this conclusion is completely wrong. The earth has been hit and devestated many times. And some of the hits did kill off life, but not all of it. For instance, most dinosaurs were wiped out, some were not (like crocadilians), and some survived and evolved into other creatures.
Who says the sun cannot be the same size as it was 4.6 billion years ago? Maybe it is, maybe it isn't.
The moon isn't giving anyone major headaches. There are only a few possibilities.
Actually, it sounds like you are being very close minded. Have you REALLY thought about all the nonsense in the first 2 chapters of Genesis? What about all the scientifically incorrect information in the bible? Do you want me to go into it?

Cipher Girl

I'll take my chances that something did happen, its called creation. You see both the Big Bang and Creation are faith based,
What do you mean by this. How can these events be "faith-based"? People were not around at the time, so there could be no faith involved. It makes no sense to say somthing like this.

Are you trying to say it takes faith to believe that the big bang happened? That's like trying to say I have faith in the color red. Evidence of both exists, therefore no faith is needed because you have knowledge of the event. If you say that evidence for the big bang implies that god exists, how can you jump to this conclusion? How does evidence of the big bang imply god exists? That is like saying that lightning existing implies god exists. That was the common thought until the 1700's until electricity was discovered. Now we know we don't need a god to explain lightning, just basic electromagetic theory.