The beginning

[Wraithlike]

Ok, seriously everyone. This is stupid. Science and religion aren't the same thing, any arguments between them are pointless.

I'll put this simply:

Religion isn't science.
Religion is faith.

Also:

Science isn't religion nor is it faith.

For example: I have faith that my mother and father love me. Science can't prove or disprove whether or not they do.

[frogboy]

any arguments between science and religion are silly because religion doesn't have this wonderful thing called occam's razor

[urraka]

{LAW} Gamer_2k4:
Yeah, I'm aware of that point of no return, that's one thing why I don't take this as a fact.

KorrupT MerC:
If the theory of Big Bang is right, then of course there is a center of gravity in the universe. That center doesn't necessarily contain any matter. I don't know much about this, but I think that if everything that exists comes from that explosion, that center of gravity should remain in the same place since all forces would be internal to this system "universe".

[KorrupT MerC]

Ok, i know there are a lot of atheists (and/or unreligious people) here and on the other hand, their are religious people also. I, myself, was born into a christian family, and i was always forced to go to church until i became of age to rebel against. Although, i believe God exists, my morals dont follow what the religion says he wants from humanity, so i dont claim to be a 'true' follower. Though i believe God exists because of how the universe is here, i believe their had to be a higher power for such ''coincidences'' to happen.

The Big Bang Theory makes no sense to me, i cant believe that a small speck decided to have a nuclear reaction into what is believed to be an infinite universe.

So for those who dont believe any God/gods exists, how do you think the universe came to be? Are you truly convinced by it? It makes me curious, as any scientific theory i've heard just doesnt sound right, and since some dont believe in a higher power they have to wonder how they got here, its only human, right?

This really wasn't mean to be an argument between science and religion, it was to be what everyones personal belief was, although i did foresee the argument, it doesnt matter, i'll just let it flow however it goes.

*edit:

Perroazul: Something i forgot to mention was the universe is supposedly infinite, so for what you say to be true would mean that the universe would have to be finite(i am using that word correctly? it sounds weird heh) for it to retract. If its not infinite, what the fuck is outside of that... lol, yeah i know that question cant be answered, so just leave that as a rhetorical question.

[KorrupT MerC]

Well, bond, this is a topic about the beginning of the universe not about religion or science, but religion was mentioned because i was stating my point of view on how i believed the universe began.

[Chuck]

Ok, seriously everyone. This is stupid. Science and religion aren't the same thing, any arguments between them are pointless.

I'll put this simply:

Religion isn't science.
Religion is faith.

Also:

Science isn't religion nor is it faith.

For example: I have faith that my mother and father love me. Science can't prove or disprove whether or not they do.

Good point. No argument alone can settle the debate.
Although science isn't faith, some peoples faith may lye in scientific discoveries. Some people may even say that their religion is scientific (Scientology, for example), although that may not be true.

KorrupT MerC:
Agreed. This topic could  branch out to other theories, although it has not yet.

[Mangled*]

Both religious and scientific explanations of how the universe began sound very absurd.

Religious (generally speaking): God made the universe and everything in it, although there's no way of detecting him
- Which makes me wonder... how did all the people who wrote the bible... know what they were writing was true? The bible was written after Jesus died (the second time) and so without Gods direct representation here on Earth how did they know?

Scientific: Calculations and observations made on massive objects such as large stars show that there is a point in a massive object where the combined gravity of each atom in the mass is large enough to override the electromagnetic force (the electron shell that surrounds each atom and acts as a structure for it {because atoms consist mainly of empty space}) which means that the massive object (usually a star) will begin to contract and get smaller as more mass is added to it (and more mass is added to it because its gravitational pull attracts more and more mass) and it will continue getting smaller and smaller and becoming denser and denser until its gravitational pull is so powerful that it can bend light and prevent light from leaving its surface. (which is why black holes appear black, light cannot escape the gravitational pull) The idea is that if all the mass in the universe was in one large mass, the gravitational pull would collapse the entire mass into the size of an atom. And since all matter in the universe is flying away from all the other matter in the universe, this gives rise to the idea that they all originate from a center.
- I know quite alot about this and it makes perfect sense to me. You can't dictate the impossible but you can observe the possible and work from that. Science works backwards to find the answer... just like in algebra where you reverse an equation to find X. (X+2 = 12 therefore 12-2=10 therefore X=10)

[mar77a]

What's not letting you accept the fact that there CAN be someone superior to you? By not understanding what this superior being does you're recognizing he is in fact, superior. If we could understand everything this superior being does then we'd be at his level. Obviously there's a lot of things we don't (and never will) understand so we'll always be inferior to him. Stop pretending we are gods.

[Mangled*]

What's not letting you accept the fact that there CAN be someone superior to you? By not understanding what this superior being does you're recognizing he is in fact, superior. If we could understand everything this superior being does then we'd be at his level. Obviously there's a lot of things we don't (and never will) understand so we'll always be inferior to him. Stop pretending we are gods.

... Isn't that a slightly self-defeating argument? Since God is superior how can you possibly even fathom to comprehend his existence in the first place?... Humans are superior to mice... but mice are more than aware of the existence of humans and are able to interact in a physical manner with us.

We're the closest thing to Gods we'll ever know... We can build gigantic cities and destroy entire forests, we can harness nuclear energy as weaponry and we can save people from death with medicine.

[Laser Guy]

This whole topic is just worthless...

PS And stupid....

[mar77a]

What's not letting you accept the fact that there CAN be someone superior to you? By not understanding what this superior being does you're recognizing he is in fact, superior. If we could understand everything this superior being does then we'd be at his level. Obviously there's a lot of things we don't (and never will) understand so we'll always be inferior to him. Stop pretending we are gods.

... Isn't that a slightly self-defeating argument? Since God is superior how can you possibly even fathom to comprehend his existence in the first place?... Humans are superior to mice... but mice are more than aware of the existence of humans and are able to interact in a physical manner with us.

We're the closest thing to Gods we'll ever know... We can build gigantic cities and destroy entire forests, we can harness nuclear energy as weaponry and we can save people from death with medicine.

Mice don't understand why or how do humans do the things they do. Humans don't understand why or how God does what he does.


What's 'building a gigantic city' compared to creating out of nothing? you're merely transforming energy or matter. Also, the greeks probably thought: "hmm we are awesome we can transport water instead of moving our city to where water is". What's the compared to what we can do now? Nothing. What's  'building a gigantic city' compared to what we'll be able to do in the future? Nothing.

[Svirin Kerath]

Both religious and scientific explanations of how the universe began sound very absurd.

Religious (generally speaking): God made the universe and everything in it, although there's no way of detecting him
- Which makes me wonder... how did all the people who wrote the bible... know what they were writing was true? The bible was written after Jesus died (the second time) and so without Gods direct representation here on Earth how did they know?

The Gospels and Letters were written after Jesus died, most other books were written before. however, they weren't translated 'till after Jesus died, but that's not really the same thing. Sorry to nitpick, but it is an important point.

I think it was after capture and enslavement by the Assyrians or Babylonians or somesuch (I think that's who did it, they were then freed by the "bad guys" from 300, the Persians). Then there's also the famous Dead Sea Scrolls, which were discovered in a cave in the desert, and many were probably written some time ago (some placed around 350 BC).

I wish I had a bible here so I could check on this stuff.

However, there is no way they could really know what they were writing was true. A look at all religions indicates that a kind of mass schizophrenia may have affected all peoples, from 1000 B.C. and earlier, and the gods they believed in they had to, because voices and hallucinations seemed so real to them, and schizophrenic nature is to follow their commands without question. After that time they started to develop an individual consciousness; those voices and hallucinations began to stop, and it is around this time that across all religions of the middle east there are lamentations about their gods not being present, and prayer arose.

Sorry, that's pretty long, but the point is that the religion grew out of a mental state where the existence of a god could not be understood as anything but fact due to the psychological nature of people at the time. Not necessarily true, but it is an explanation.

edit:

What's not letting you accept the fact that there CAN be someone superior to you? By not understanding what this superior being does you're recognizing he is in fact, superior. If we could understand everything this superior being does then we'd be at his level. Obviously there's a lot of things we don't (and never will) understand so we'll always be inferior to him. Stop pretending we are gods.

... Isn't that a slightly self-defeating argument? Since God is superior how can you possibly even fathom to comprehend his existence in the first place?... Humans are superior to mice... but mice are more than aware of the existence of humans and are able to interact in a physical manner with us.

We're the closest thing to Gods we'll ever know... We can build gigantic cities and destroy entire forests, we can harness nuclear energy as weaponry and we can save people from death with medicine.

Mice don't understand why or how do humans do the things they do. Humans don't understand why or how God does what he does.


What's 'building a gigantic city' compared to creating out of nothing? you're merely transforming energy or matter. Also, the greeks probably thought: "hmm we are awesome we can transport water instead of moving our city to where water is". What's the compared to what we can do now? Nothing. What's  'building a gigantic city' compared to what we'll be able to do in the future? Nothing.

If we define superiority as understanding, that still makes many animals, and even some objects of science, potentially superior.

For instance, we don't understand much at all about Iapetus, a fascinating but mysterious moon of Saturn. Does that automatically make us inferior to it? The moon probably doesn't have a form of understanding, but it could and we wouldn't know about it, because it's so far away and we've studied relatively little.

This may be more relateable, but a lot of animal behavior is a complete mystery to us, especially on an individual level.

Do you personally know how spiders make their webs, and why they developed to use them? Do you know why cats purr, when dogs don't? Do you know why mice are genetically so similar to us?

You act like we think we know everything, but really, we know very little, and science certainly knows it. But that makes your definition of 'superior' inapplicable to us.

But I do have a problem with the god and understanding thing. If we don't understand something about god (and really, we can understand very little), it is because he or she choses to not allow us to understand it.

Doesn't that seem a bit unfair?

One can argue that this is a matter of free will, if we did understand, we would always know what to do.

But people know and understand the consequences of smoking, and they still do it. That seems like an invalid argument, and makes it rather unfair that god chooses to not let us understand him.

[Tallacaps]

And for life and death. In the deep they are the same. No exact limit between death and life.
A virus is an example.

Expand that thought.

Well a virus is so simple that only lives when it reproduces.
It's basicly a machine.

And the limit between life and death.

I think about dreams or when we are sleeping.
I don't understand it. I exist when I sleep. I have no conscience.
Well in fact I have no facts...
I supose neurology must clarify these issues.

Or that conscience are a property of some kind of structured matter.
If you can do that structured matter, you will have a conscience.


Some sciencists say basicly life is a process.

In my mind I have a "theory" about life and matter, about conscience and death.

The concept of wave and energy and the matter.

But actually I don't  understand the physics of duality of waves and particules.


My analogy is:

Waves are respect water.
Spirit, conscience are respect matter.

A waves can be mathematically infinite in space and in time. But you only see the main wave.
The others littles wave are there but you can not see them.
The main wave are our actual life. The litlle waves are the life beyond death.

I don't understand.
I can only hope.

[Mangled*]

Calm down there Plato.

[The Philanthropist]

Well that would mean that there is a center to the universe, a center of gravity for everything to retract too, which probably doenst exist, as we would revolve around it. There are galaxies that have their own gravity, which pull against each other and there are thousands among millions and more galaxies at that, so for what you say to happen would mean that each galaxy would eventually pull one another into each other until there was one galaxy remaining until that final galaxy collapses back into the "speck" it originally was.

No...

It's called the Elastic Band theory. When the Big Bang occurred, everything went flying outwards. It is still flying outwards, at a slower rate. Gravity pretty much didn't exist until a few thousand years after the big bang, when the universe cooled enough to allow massive particles to form.



EDIT: And

This whole topic is just worthless...

PS And stupid....

Quit trolling.

[KorrupT MerC]

I was trying to avoid paying attention to lasers post, seems if they dont get attention they stop coming by

So you were telling me that there is no 'center of gravity' in the universe? Which if you were, thats what my reply was trying to convince.

[Cookie.]

Fruitless debate will come from this... most people that are willing to debate only want a prove themselves right... not reach understanding. However I read up on evolution when I was a kid before I really listened to creation and didn't really feel like it gave any answers. Creation makes more sense to me, but then again I am a Christian.  However neither side can prove their debate 100% either way... takes an equal amount of faith on both sides.

Creationism can coexist with evolution. 

-=Edit
Maybe god did create everything 6000 years ago, but there is no denying that evolution is occurring today.  If you believe in creationism what is the reason you can't believe in evolution as well?

-=Edit2
Darwin married his cousin. Lulz. 

-=Edit3
The absolute origin of everything baffles me O_O

-=I love to edit5

And for life and death. In the deep they are the same. No exact limit between death and life.
A virus is an example.

Expand that thought.

Well a virus is so simple that only lives when it reproduces.
It's basicly a machine.

And the limit between life and death.

Viruses are not alive > They don't even reproduce, they are reproduced by living cells.

You are basically a machine

[frogboy]

The Big Bang theory is based upon observable phenomena, and while I'm sure it is entirely possible that a higher being caused it, it has no bearing on the mechanisms behind the Big Bang and the observable predictions of the theory and can be therefore omitted without changing the overall theory. Likewise for Darwin's theory of evolution.

words

1 Day 1 God is Evil worship,
for it is bad math that will
destroy educated ONEism
in a  universe of opposites.
 I have created 4 corner Time
 Cube, wherein 4 corner Earth
quadrants rotate simultaneously
to create 4 corner Days within a
single rotation of 4 corner Earth.
I am wiser than a 1 Day God,
for 1 Day lie dooms humanity.

[Graham]

We're the closest thing to Gods we'll ever know... We can build gigantic cities and destroy entire forests, we can harness nuclear energy as weaponry and we can save people from death with medicine.

Here is a little joke I learned that can be kind of a response to this. Its a pastor joke...  so don't expect a laugh >.>

One day a group of scientist got together and looked at all the marvelous things mankind has done. So they decided to talk to God, they did and told Him they humanity so scientifically that they don't need God anymore. God told them to prove themselves right. To do so they would have to make an animal out of dirt and bring it to life. So the scientists went out to collect dirt, right before they started to collect the dirt God showed up and said, "No, get your own dirt."

Basically the point is that science and engineering aren't equal to being a god. Its taking something thats already here and  putting it to another use.

[7th_account]

I'm not so sure he ment that we were the dictionary-definition of a god, rather than the closest thing there will be to gods - A dominant race.