[Guest]

I hope you will find this text interesting.

According to science our universe (space-time) has a beginning (http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/9403004).This paper is written by the cosmologist Alexander Vilenkin of the Tufts university and Arvind Bonde.)

It is a fundamental law of physics (causality) that every physical occurrence in the universe has a cause. Since space-time has a beginning there was a first physical occurrence. Causality requires that the first physical occurrence had a cause. Causality and the fact that space-time has a beginning implies that this Prime Cause is non-dimensional and independent of space-time.

To conclude the above paragraphs:

Fact: No thing nor event in the known universe or laws of physics lacks a cause.

Assume: There is no Prime Cause (Creator).

Ergo: There is no universe.

Fact: There is a universe.

Therefore: the statement that was assumed is proven to be a false statement by reduction ad absurdum (proof by disproof).

(Since "There is no Creator" is proven false, the opposite is true: There is a Creator.)

Being logically consistent (orderly), our (to say perfectly-orderly would be a tautology) orderly universe must mirror its Prime Cause / Singularity-Creator—Who must be Orderly; i.e. Perfect. An orderly—"not capricious," as Einstein put it—Creator (also implying Just), therefore, necessarily had an Intelligent Purpose in creating this universe and us within it and, being Just and Orderly, necessarily placed an explanation, a "Life's Instruction Manual," within the reach of His subjects—humankind.

It defies the orderliness (logic / mathematics) of both the universe and Perfection of its Creator to assert that humanity was (contrary to His Torah, see below) without any means of rapproachment until millennia after the first couple in recorded history as well as millennia after Abraham, Moses and the prophets. Therefore, the Creator's "Life's Instruction Manual" has been available to man at least since the beginning of recorded history. The only enduring document of this kind is the Torah —which, interestingly, translates to "Instruction" (not "law" as popularly alleged). (Some of the text is a quote from www.netzarim.co.il)

The fact that the Creator is perfect implies that He isn’t self-contradictory. Therefore any religion, and all religions contradicts each other (otherwise they would be identical), that contradicts Torah is the antithesis to the Creator.

The most common counter arguments are answered here: http://bloganders.blogspot.com/search/label/counter%20arguments)

Anders Branderud

[Guest]

about the big bang, couldn't the universe be contracting? The universe could be a sphere and objects are being drawn around to the point of attraction. Just a thought.

[Guest]

about the big bang, couldn't the universe be contracting? The universe could be a sphere and objects are being drawn around to the point of attraction. Just a thought.

It's a bit off topic, but a quick synopsis on the expanding Universe. The evidence for expansion has to do with the Doppler Effect and the red-shift of light. When we look at distant objects in space, we can get the light readings and match them to elements to see their composition and determine other factors about them. However, no matter where we look, the light from far-away galaxies is all red-shifted. This means that when they match the light received to the expected elements for the type of star, it appears redder than it is.

That happens because the object is moving away from us at high velocity. The speed of the galaxy spreads the light-waves farther than they would normally be and since red is a longer wavelength, it's said to be "red-shifted." It's the same principle as the Doppler Effect. If you're standing on the side of a road with a car driving past you, the sound of the car is higher pitched coming towards you and then lower pitched as it is moving away. That's because the velocity of the car adds (or subtracts) to the length of the sound waves.

So since we see all the other far-off celestial bodies red-shifted, we've determined that every body is moving apart. The simplest explanation for all the objects separating is that the Universe is expanding, since otherwise we would see some galaxies approaching us (blue-shift) and others moving at close to the same velocity.

red     blue

  |  |  | - Expected elemental color bands

 |  |  |  - What we see with red-shift

Scientists have found the red-shift so reliable that Hubble developed a law to relate the object's distance from us to the amount of red-shift since the farther the object is from us, the greater the degree of red-shift that we see.

If you want to discuss expanding/contracting Universes further though, I would suggest starting a new topic for it.

[Guest]

There is of course the argument between scientists regarding whether time is the fourth dimension or something else entirely. As for the Universe, my astronomy professor explained the expanding Universe in the manner of a balloon blowing up. The volume of the Universe is growing with the expansion and the distances are getting farther apart, but not because the Universe is expanding into a vast nothingness. They're getting farther apart because the fabric of the Universe is expanding. How's that for mind blowing?

(As an aside, the class got a good jump when he forgot to turn off the air pump that was blowing up the balloon--I hope our Universe is a little more robust than that... )

Funny thing was, just as I was writing that time is the fourth dimension, I was mentally questioning it.

May make a topic about the expansion thing later if I feel like it

[unreality]

on topic, just saw this video haha:

I bet there's some christians watching it that think he's serious and are agreeing with everything

[unreality]

he seems to have quite a few such spoof videos...

[Guest]

unreality, I think there are some holes in his stories but, even though its a satire, his views aren't fair. He just used circular logic and didn't show any other views. Last, isn't it just as reasonable that the universe was created by god as the big bang. THat was worded badly, but to say there is a absolute 0% chance of a god is just as unreasonable as you think a gos is.

[unreality]

i'd be the last to say that there's a 0% chance of a god. I just admire the guy's ability to throw light on subjects that most people don't think about. Religion doesn't want you to think because thinking leads to questioning and questioning leads to progressive knowledge which may usurp in the follower's mind the more stone-locked premises of the religion.

I personally have nothing against belief in a deity, even an intelligent one. But I do have a problem when that belief becomes twisted and distorted by "religions" and becomes a weapon for intolerance, fear, control, and discrimination. And I hate it most when people use circular logic to promote it (God exists because the Bible says so... and the Bible is valid because God says so...???)

In short, I'm fine with religion when it can coexist with other religions... but when a religion can't do that, I get angry. I think it's ridiculous when a Christian says Buddhism is wrong because all the crazy stuff in Buddhism, and the person never stops to think about all the crazy stuff in Christianity. I'll be happy when all religions can respect each other, and atheists and all other spriitualities

[Guest]

unreality, thank you for that post, I couldn't agree more.

[Guest]

I did want to state that I try to question my religious beliefs on a daily basis. I don't consider the bible the "holy word of God" any more than I consider Santa Clause to be real. I found those videos hilarious and I have much the same problem with many religious views. perhaps like in one video he does, I treat God as a sort of imaginary friend. I discuss various thing with myself, and if the conclusion seems logical, I accept it. I try to go back and requestion things to see if the logic still stands. for example, at one point I pictured God as having the name No One, and he could only do what no one does. then I tried to extrapolate this to a kind of universal view. for example, as a system of punishment, I imagined that No One would give evil what it wants but not what evil needs, and give good what it needs but not necessaryly what it wants. on the whole this would create a balance between the two forces of good and evil that would allow No One to maintain his internal balance. (if no one was evil then No One would be evil.)

[Guest]

Another one of his videos talked about abortion. He implied that because there is evil in the world life is not precious. I'd like to talk about that more, new topic?

[unreality]

Don't worry, I don't share that worldview and I doubt anyone here does, except maybe Izzy since her philosophy seems more nihilist (not necessarily a bad thing) but you probably misread into what the guy is implying.

Personally I am pretty strongly against abortion but like most problems of morality, I see it as another thing decided on a case-by-case basis. Things like rape and extreme youth and the mother's health - and her ability to give birth and/or raise a child, etc - all need to come into play. Ultimately I think it should be up to the mother since I believe in maximum allowable personal freedom (except where conflicting with other freedoms, and this is where the situation with the fetus being a potential human makes it hazy) but on a case-by-case basis I would frown on abortion as an easy way out that causes lifelong physical and emotional problems.

But this is straying off topic

[Guest]

We could still do a topic on abortion though. Could be a good discussion!

[Guest]

my personal proof of the existence of God:

perhaps not the most rational or logical proof, But I feel God has helped me out of many a tough spot. for example, yesterday I was feeling very depressed, but oddly alert as well. I decided to go for a jog just to try to clear my head. Along the way I talked to some people, and was looking for signs as to what I should do. while talking, this van drove by, zepherhills, saying for home delivery, call yatta yatta number. but this van drove by me 3 times. I took this as a sign. I called the number, it was just zepherhills of course, so I hung up. I suddenly felt very thirsty. so I got myself some water, and turned on some music. you know what song played? "hey, don't write yourself off yet...", the very next song was "looking for a life line..." . by then I had finished my water and my parents get home. I feel these songs helped calm me down a bit. I told them about what I was feeling. we had a discussion. I kinda feel my life has been leading up to these sorts of moments.

not everything is a sign of course, most things aren't. but I think if you truly trust God, he'll help you when you truly need it. note however, it is up to you what signs you listen to, and what path you choose.

[Guest]

my personal proof of the existence of God:

perhaps not the most rational or logical proof, But I feel God has helped me out of many a tough spot. for example, yesterday I was feeling very depressed, but oddly alert as well. I decided to go for a jog just to try to clear my head. Along the way I talked to some people, and was looking for signs as to what I should do. while talking, this van drove by, zepherhills, saying for home delivery, call yatta yatta number. but this van drove by me 3 times. I took this as a sign. I called the number, it was just zepherhills of course, so I hung up. I suddenly felt very thirsty. so I got myself some water, and turned on some music. you know what song played? "hey, don't write yourself off yet...", the very next song was "looking for a life line..." . by then I had finished my water and my parents get home. I feel these songs helped calm me down a bit. I told them about what I was feeling. we had a discussion. I kinda feel my life has been leading up to these sorts of moments.

not everything is a sign of course, most things aren't. but I think if you truly trust God, he'll help you when you truly need it. note however, it is up to you what signs you listen to, and what path you choose.

Clarification: so the van advertising zepherhills did nothing? Besides maybe making you thirsty? And for that matter, the drinking did nothing? Or were you listening to music because you were drinking? Sorry, I'm just confused.

On topic: well, this certainly introduces another interesting way at trying to prove something without reason. I wouldn't call it intuition though... either A) feeling or B) observation of events that at first seem arbitrary but actually reveal some sort of pattern.

Sadly, I'd just reply A) of course many people want to believe in God, so they'll also want to feel the belief, and eventually they will feel it, and B) humans are way too good at seeing patterns that aren't there. (Plus another refutation for B, off topic and about God, is that the pattern phillip referred to was a benevolent one, and that goes into a discussion of whether God is benevolent, especially in such minutia)... but maybe there's more to it?

[Guest]

B) humans are way too good at seeing patterns that aren't there.

^^^^ deketed quotes mea copa

If you look up at the sky in a city, others will come up next to you. Eventually one person will say i see it! even though nothing is there. Is that what your goin for?

[Guest]

the van itself didn't do anything except help me take my mind off what I was feeling for a bit. (and perhaps made me feel thirsty, which once again was a calming thing.) maybe I am reading too much into this sort of stuff, seeing a pattern that wasn't truly there, I really don't know. none the less, I am fairly convinced that what I experienced was a weird sort of act of God, and this isn't the only example I have from my life.

[Guest]

What I mean is that humans tend to attribute patterns to coincidences more often than they should. It was kind of a segue into this: so many events happen in the world, millions of things going on and occuring every second of every day, then it would be _surprising_ if coincidences didn't happen on occasion. It's just probability.

Not to say that looking for patterns is a bad thing... it's what theoretical science and observational studies are basically based on. It's a useful little skill. But it doesn't make sense to assign getting-thirsty to some higher-power showing you a benevolent-sign. O.o

[Guest]

you are correct of course, coincidence =/= proof.

As I said, it wasn't the most logical or rational proof.

my "proof" for the existence of God kinda reminds me of this one funny onion article I read, where "strange" coincidences would occur many miles apart, so that no one was aware of their occurrence. (like two people with the same fist name pulling into the parking lot of the same named store, one in Wisconsin, the other in Florida)

still it's hard to shake the awe and mystery of the universe. I find it something worth worshiping.

[Guest]

you are correct of course, coincidence =/= proof.

As I said, it wasn't the most logical or rational proof.

my "proof" for the existence of God kinda reminds me of this one funny onion article I read, where "strange" coincidences would occur many miles apart, so that no one was aware of their occurrence. (like two people with the same fist name pulling into the parking lot of the same named store, one in Wisconsin, the other in Florida)

still it's hard to shake the awe and mystery of the universe. I find it something worth worshiping.

My entire point is that coincidences like that aren't strange: so many people are going to that store of the same name in the states of Wisconsin and in Florida, people with the same name are BOUND to go at the same time every once in a while. The more things that happen in the world, related to people, the more likely coincidences (which just means "two incidences") will occur.

And yes... there is a lot of awe-inspiring mystery within the universe. Which is why science is so awesome! Have you ever read about some of the unsolved mysteries or problems in physics? For example (though this isn't a mystery really):

The list of fundamental physical constants* increases when experiments measure new relationships between physical phenomena, and decreases when advances in physical theory show how some previously fundamental constant can be computed in terms of others. The reduction of chemistry to physics was a big step in this direction, since the properties of atoms and molecules can now be calculated from the Standard Model, at least in principle. A long-sought goal of theoretical physics is to find first principles from which some or all of the dimensionless constants can be calculated rather than empirically estimated. A successful Grand Unified Theory (colloquially termed a "Theory of Everything") might yield a further reduction in the number of fundamental constants, ideally to zero. To date, this goal has remained elusive.

- lifted straight from Wikipedia

*things like the gravitational constant G or the speed of light

[Guest]

I'm not entirely sure how relevant this really is to the discussion, but in my head, it seems closely correlated...

Humans have a very bad idea of what randomness is. They look for patterns everywhere, so they are very good a recognizing real patterns when they exist and they succeed at "creating" patterns when they don't exist. But they are really bad at creating or recognizing randomness. I don't have any references, but I remember anecdotally (and it's not a hard thing to do experimentally) that when people were asked to provide a random list of 1s and 0s and these compiled lists were compared to some computer-generated lists of random 1s and 0s, the human-generated lists could be statistically identified because humans tried too hard to eliminate patterns from the list and, in so doing, destroyed the randomness.

Randomness does involve a lot of repetition at times and the key difference between the human- and computer-generated lists had to do with how often and long each would repeat a particular value consecutively. The truly (pseudo-)random list from the computer would often have many repeated digits in the sequence (eg. 10+ 0s in row), while the humans generally viewed this as too much of a pattern and would limit the repetition.

My point, however far from the actual topic at hand , is that when we view random events or try to justify them, we often turn them into something that they aren't or something that they oughtn't to be. So when we are trying to construct random events, we see a pattern too easily in the data and don't truly appreciate the randomness of what we are seeing. When we witness a series of coincidences one right after the other, we say, "That couldn't have been random; something must be pulling the strings!" instead of realizing that sometimes there are going to be a large sequence of coincidences that are really just part of a longer series of random events.

[Guest]

My part to the discusion,

My athiest friend has told me christianity is wrong because it has been proven that jesus was born in the spring. This bis true but, what he didn't tell me is that the date was changed for a very legitimate reason. Several years ago a scientist found an old roman coin with a goat looking at a bright star. The scientist connected the goat with a constelation(I foret the specifics )so he looked for noteworthy events around the birth of Jesus. He eventually found the day, cicra march 27. He discovered that the astrological event the three wise men saw was not literally bright of colorful, but it was amazing to them. Jupiter, the star of kings, partially eclipsed the moon and formed a line with several other stars. This event may seem average to us today, but in that time, when star gazing was used for navigation, it was an extraordinary event.

Now, the reason the date was changed was to protect early Christians. It would seem very odd for people to be preforming elaborate rituals in Rome when there was no pagan celebration would it not? So the date was changed to December 25th.

Kinda oftopic sorry.

[Izzy]

In a reply to Panda (sorry, Panda > p4p). Christianity being wrong sort of revolves around Jesus. Ready for some kick-butt circular logic?

Christians (and Muslims) accept the Torah (the Jewish name for the first few books of the Bible), which is more commonly called the Old Testament. In the New Testament (when Jesus shows up), he pretty much retracts a bunch of OT beliefs, calling them out dated, wrong, etc. The omniscient, omnipotent, etc. God of the Old Testament (the God Christians believe in) would have never screwed up the OT in the first place because of his magical powers, hence there being no need for a New Testament. Jesus also didn't fulfill the requirements of the Messiah the Jews were looking for (remember, it was their religion first), so it's meh. He's a prophet at best.

Now, I'm not Jewish. I'm just saying that if you're magical sky-fairy exists, they're most right.

My views on this can be summed up in the few thousand other old and very much dead religious debate threads on this site.

[Guest]

My part to the discusion,

My athiest friend has told me christianity is wrong because it has been proven that jesus was born in the spring. This bis true but, what he didn't tell me is that the date was changed for a very legitimate reason. Several years ago a scientist found an old roman coin with a goat looking at a bright star. The scientist connected the goat with a constelation(I foret the specifics )so he looked for noteworthy events around the birth of Jesus. He eventually found the day, cicra march 27. He discovered that the astrological event the three wise men saw was not literally bright of colorful, but it was amazing to them. Jupiter, the star of kings, partially eclipsed the moon and formed a line with several other stars. This event may seem average to us today, but in that time, when star gazing was used for navigation, it was an extraordinary event.

Now, the reason the date was changed was to protect early Christians. It would seem very odd for people to be preforming elaborate rituals in Rome when there was no pagan celebration would it not? So the date was changed to December 25th.

Kinda oftopic sorry.

I have to say that your atheist friend is missing some more important points since when Jesus was born is really totally irrelevant to anything of consequence regarding the religious debates that flame across the Internet and elsewhere. It's small beans.

That being said, there's a different aspect to consider when discussing the change of date for celebrating the birth of Jesus. After all, it's easier to co-opt someone else's religion if you adopt their celebratory structure..."Why don't you come to our home to honor the Winter Solstice this year? We have some extra special ceremonies that we perform on the side for our lord." That's why so much paganism permeates some of the more bizarre rituals of Christianity. By using the pagan ritual in their Christian practices, it made it easier to assimilate the pagans. Now they're just part of Christian tradition and we obviously can't remove them now since that would be destroying centuries of religious indoctrination and unquestioned authority. If we acknowledge that some Christian practices are pointless or stupid now, someone might think to question all Christian practices and we can't have that, can we?

Sorry for the snideness of this post, it hasn't come out with quite the tone I wanted, but I do think that some practices are particularly ridiculous and the insistence on holding onto those practices against all reason is one more reason that I can't stand most religions. Blind adherence is almost never a good thing.

[Guest]

In a reply to Panda (sorry, Panda > p4p). Christianity being wrong sort of revolves around Jesus. Ready for some kick-butt circular logic?

Christians (and Muslims) accept the Torah (the Jewish name for the first few books of the Bible), which is more commonly called the Old Testament. In the New Testament (when Jesus shows up), he pretty much retracts a bunch of OT beliefs, calling them out dated, wrong, etc. The omniscient, omnipotent, etc. God of the Old Testament (the God Christians believe in) would have never screwed up the OT in the first place because of his magical powers, hence there being no need for a New Testament. Jesus also didn't fulfill the requirements of the Messiah the Jews were looking for (remember, it was their religion first), so it's meh. He's a prophet at best.

Now, I'm not Jewish. I'm just saying that if you're magical sky-fairy exists, they're most right.

My views on this can be summed up in the few thousand other old and very much dead religious debate threads on this site.

You're basing your arguments on incorrect facts and incorrect statements. Therefore, they must needs be viewed as incorrect arguments and incorrect conclusions. Not having even a basic understanding of the Old and New Testaments, you have failed to make a valid argument either for or against them.

[Guest]

I have to say that your atheist friend is missing some more important points since when Jesus was born is really totally irrelevant to anything of consequence regarding the religious debates that flame across the Internet and elsewhere. It's small beans.

/agree

That being said, there's a different aspect to consider when discussing the change of date for celebrating the birth of Jesus. After all, it's easier to co-opt someone else's religion if you adopt their celebratory structure..."Why don't you come to our home to honor the Winter Solstice this year? We have some extra special ceremonies that we perform on the side for our lord."

The assimilation of the Pagan religions into the Christian church was not friendly. Yes, it made it easier to swallow, but it was still literally convert or die at the tip of a Roman broadsword.

That's why so much paganism permeates some of the more bizarre rituals of Christianity. By using the pagan ritual in their Christian practices, it made it easier to assimilate the pagans. Now they're just part of Christian tradition and we obviously can't remove them now since that would be destroying centuries of religious indoctrination and unquestioned authority. If we acknowledge that some Christian practices are pointless or stupid now, someone might think to question all Christian practices and we can't have that, can we?

Any Christian that thinks that their holidays, or any day, are more important than living the gospel (i.e. being all you can be, bearing up others, helping where and when you can as much as you can, etc) in every day life is sadly misguided. The point of being a true follower of Jesus is, in my opinion, to better the world and every person in it, regardless of nationality, creed, religion, skin tone, gender, age or appearance, which are all attributes that people have that lead discrimination to them.

Sorry for the snideness of this post, it hasn't come out with quite the tone I wanted, but I do think that some practices are particularly ridiculous and the insistence on holding onto those practices against all reason is one more reason that I can't stand most religions. Blind adherence is almost never a good thing.

I'll second that. Blind adherence is not a good thing. But if you know why you're adhering, and chose it with that knowledge, then no person can knock you for it. I admit that there are people that adhere to beliefs for no reason, however anybody who does that doesn't actually believe what they profess to, and aren't actually Christian anyways.