Six biblical truths about money...

[userque]

So Big Bang has to be proven but God just is?

Never said that. [Neither has to be proven. Neither can be proven.]

Despite how complicated this discussion may seem to the casual observer, it's really simple:

@stu wanted a discussion, so I gave my opinions--boy was he upset:

Neither (big bang theory, creationism) can be rigorously proven to a scientific certainty. Full stop.

Both require faith in an initial premise. Full stop.

This premise can't be mathematically derived. Full stop.

@stu doesn't seem to enjoy the fact that belief in how the whole universe was created, necessarily requires some sort of initial 'given' to be assumed true; as the foundation to all that follows from that initial 'birth' of the universe; or birth of the precursors to the universe (strings, membranes, whatever it was that went BANG!, God).

Bottom line: If either could've be proven by now, they would've been proven. So it boils down to ... a choice.

I'm not sure who hurt @stu, but I'm praying for him.

EDIT: These sorts of debates tend to assume that the two creation beliefs are mutually exclusive. They are not. As long as science can also not answer the "Why?" question (Why did it go BANG! Why were the membranes there in the first place?)--it's possible that "science explains how, God explains why." But that's a different discussion.

"And if it seem evil unto you to serve the LORD, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD."

 

[GRULSTMRNN]

A load of horseshit from you as usually.

Big bang is a theory, gravity is a scientifically proven law. Please don't elevate a totally unproven idea in value.

And no particles were ever created from nothing. No particles and no velocity no nothing, but suddenly you have a big bang and DNA and life forms. Don't make me laugh hysterically. I rather delight in Scientology and the mormons if you forced me to decide between this clown theory and mentioned sects.

Yes religion is faith based, but so is your big bang theory (based on the idea something originates from nothing). The way crazier thing to believe is something came out of nothing. In that context believing in a creator God makes a million times more sense.

And I understand we may disagree on this. And that is fine. But please stop telling people to educate themselves further each single time you fundamentally disagree with their thoughts because your big bang school sucks big time.

Let me guess, product of a christian school "education" (I speak from experience). I would highly recommend you take a course on the scientific method, the kind usually taught in middle school science classes. The big bang is a scientific theory (just like everything in science, including gravity). It is the best consensus explanation we currently have for what we observe. No one "believes" in it, in fact those most involved in studying the origins of the universe will tell you that it is certainly wrong in at least several key areas and potentially or even probably entirely wrong. They actually spend their lives trying to figure out which parts are wrong to improve our understanding of what happened at the beginning of the universe.
That the absolute opposite of christian fundamentalists. They believe that the bible is infallible on a word for word basis (bizzarially based on the words laid down in 1611, no newer no older for you KJV zealots). You don't and in fact can't question the truth of what is written there, you would never admit that there's even the possibility that it could be wrong (I know, I was raised as one and left because of this belief, among other backwards things). It is faith based belief, the opposite of science no matter how hard you try to misunderstand what science is. There's nothing wrong with faith to help you through life. But you'd think that since that whole Galileo thing you would have learned the idiocy of mixing what belongs in the realm of faith and what belongs in the realm of science.

By the way, before you decide you understand something like quantum physics you may want to actually spend a little time learning about it. You may be interested to know that in fact particles and anti-particles do appear "from nothing" all the time. All kinds of mind-bending things happen with particle physics. Some of us find that fascinating and try to learn all we can about it. Others throw up their hands and say "the human mind can't wrap around any of these concepts, I'm going to believe in something written by semi-literate goat herders 3000 years ago and modified by the ruling parties to meet their needs in the intervening time instead." What you have to ask yourself is which type of person you are?

 

[GRULSTMRNN]

I made the point early on that the idea that something originates from nothing is the possibly most flawed idea and as unscientific as it gets. But then the atheist thought police switched into full tilt and sent all the unbelievers back to re-education camp. Sometimes I get the impression that some are willing to twist their brains much further than a leap of faith for the possibility of the existence of a creator would require.

I disagree. Math can't explain "nothing." There's nothing to explain. If there were truly nothing, where did the material for the big bang come from?

If there were something there before the mystical big bang, where did that come from?

Quantum action takes place within the known universe. Magicians make things seem to disappear and reappear all the time, but it's not what it appears to be.

Quantum action takes place in something, the universe.

Before the big bang, there was nothing, so there could be no quantum particles nor energy.

It's a flawed concept: Out of pure NOTHING, out pops a big bang. What caused this big bang? Why did it happen? Where did all this matter and energy come from if there were nothing to start with?

A fifth grade teacher told our class, "God explains why, science explains how."

 

[GRULSTMRNN]

Oh goodness, could you perhaps consider not throwing everyone in one pot? Yes there are some mentally challenged individuals who consider themselves Christian fundamentals. (And there are mentally challenged people who are not part of above group).

Nobody forces others what to believe. You are free in your choice and nobody forces you to believe in something you don't want to believe in. Does that ease your hatred towards Christians somewhat?

On the one had, fundamentalists believe that they know the complete and unerring truth about where the universe came from. They are certain everyone who doesn't agree with them is 100% wrong. They believe it is impossible for them to be wrong and they are utterly uninterested in investigating any further to determine if their view is correct or not. That is an incredible level of arrogance and hubris, but that is their "belief".

On the other hand, I believe that the current consensus theory best explains what we observe. And that it is incomplete, probably wrong in several if not all areas, and I hope that we keep trying to prove and disprove testable, falsifiable hypothesis. As an agnostic I believe that there is a miniscule but non-zero chance that the fundamentalists are correct. The fundamentalists of all 10,000 or so religions that have existed in the span of humankind and mostly all claim that only they can be correct. If fundamentalist christians want to put forward and falsifiable hypothesis to investigate further I'm all for it.

Do you seriously think those are the same kind of belief? And I'll ask you a third time, which of those ways of thinking do you ascribe to? The lengths to which you've gone to avoid answering this question straight up are answer enough. It's clear that you realize the first set of "beliefs" is completely irrational and indefensible. But for whatever reason you insist on clinging to them despite the fact that you are so ashamed of them that you won't embrace them, so you dance around and try oh oh so hard to avoid confronting the question head on. How does that work out for you? Seems mighty uncomfortable, why not just embrace the religion of love and helping make the world a better place that Jesus taught and toss the fundamentalism you can't defend in the trash heap where it belongs?

BTW, instead of arguing semantics maybe try to actually listen to what I'm illustrating with gravity. Read the wikipedia article (the fact that you use wikipedia to "prove" anything aside), near the end you'll see that even this "law" has some problematic aspects making it still a work in progress. What part of the fundamentalist explanation of creation is a creationist humble enough to admit is still a work in progress again?

 

[userque]

A load of horseshit from you as usually.

Big bang is a theory, gravity is a scientifically proven law. Please don't elevate a totally unproven idea in value.

And no particles were ever created from nothing. No particles and no velocity no nothing, but suddenly you have a big bang and DNA and life forms. Don't make me laugh hysterically. I rather delight in Scientology and the mormons if you forced me to decide between this clown theory and mentioned sects.

Yes religion is faith based, but so is your big bang theory (based on the idea something originates from nothing). The way crazier thing to believe is something came out of nothing. In that context believing in a creator God makes a million times more sense.

And I understand we may disagree on this. And that is fine. But please stop telling people to educate themselves further each single time you fundamentally disagree with their thoughts because your big bang school sucks big time.

Yes, @stu never asked the obvious question (they never do): " ... why do you choose intelligent design over random creation ..."

The more I learn about the complexities of our world; of life forms; the more impressed I become with the designer. There's tons more we don't/can't understand, than do, regarding our universe and existence.

I wonder if you take all the individual parts of a computer, put them in a bucket, and shake it up for billions upon billions of years (maybe throw a lightning bolt or two in there), would you eventually get an assembled computer again? (Quantum theory says you would. Every screw will find it's proper place, and ... be screwed in by all the shaking. )

Ok, maybe that's too difficult. A computer is tons more complicated than a life form.

 

[GRULSTMRNN]

I actually believe that the hatred and anger some display here towards the Christian faith does not stem from the fact that it is faith based. Their leap of faith is much larger that a matter originated from nothing and in a probabilistic event that is infinitely small in chance. I believe their anger stems from "organized religion" that admittedly abused people for self serving purposes for centuries. Can't argue with that but what i argue is that there are "believers" by word only and not deed and then there are others who live out their faith in life. The problematic thing to do is to throw all people into one and the same pot, stir and then cast judgement via generalization.

Yes, @stu never asked the obvious question (they never do): " ... why do you choose intelligent design over random creation ..."

The more I learn about the complexities of our world; of life forms; the more impressed I become with the designer. There's tons more we don't/can't understand, than do, regarding our universe and existence.

I wonder if you take all the individual parts of a computer, put them in a bucket, and shake it up for billions upon billions of years (maybe throw a lightning bolt or two in there), would you eventually get an assembled computer again? (Quantum theory says you would. Every screw will find it's proper place, and ... be screwed in by all the shaking. )

Ok, maybe that's too difficult. A computer is tons more complicated than a life form.

 

[userque]

I actually believe that the hatred and anger some display here towards the Christian faith does not stem from the fact that it is faith based. Their leap of faith is much larger that a matter originated from nothing and in a probabilistic event that is infinitely small in chance. I believe their anger stems from "organized religion" that admittedly abused people for self serving purposes for centuries. Can't argue with that but what i argue is that there are "believers" by word only and not deed and then there are others who live out their faith in life. The problematic thing to do is to throw all people into one and the same pot, stir and then cast judgement via generalization.

Here, we totally agree. I can't even add to it.

Many years ago, an old man once told me at work after I said something to him regarding the job (forgot what I said), "...what you eat don't make me sh.t ..."

@stu seems way too concerned about what others believe. Not to be disrespectful, but I do feel like others make him sh.t

 

[GRULSTMRNN]

A lot of those generalizations originate from identity politics. If someone calls him or herself a Christian one must behave a certain way, if someone considers himself an atheist one has to behave a certain way. Nothing could be further from the truth. Each individual has complete freedom how they want to conduct themselves in and organize themselves around life. Of course each individual will be judged and measured by their deeds and hence I am often confused why atheists belittle those Christians who live a selfish life style as if there are not millions of atheists who do exactly the same. Atheists should rest assured that self serving Christians will be judged harshly at the end of their lives. And if someone takes offense at a Christian who wants to disciple others but lives a hypocritical life style then just ignore that person and move on. What I find funny is how atheists reserve self determination and are intolerant to those who follow a different faith yet want to enforce tolerance from everyone else.

Here, we totally agree. I can't even add to it.

Many years ago, an old man once told me at work after I said something to him regarding the job (forgot what I said), "...what you eat don't make me sh.t ..."

@stu seems way too concerned about what others believe. Not to be disrespectful, but I do feel like others make him sh.t

 

[stu]

It was just a simple question. Why the hostility.

Doesn't matter anyway. Science is so successful because it is a method based on doubt not on faith. Science is proof without conclusion, religious faith is conclusion without proof.

Of course there's nothing wrong with those who live out their faith in life. There is however a problem in making false arguments by it, such as 'science is faith' and frankly silly things like, 'no faith is a faith'. It is ridiculous to suggest pushing back on that kind of nonsense is hatred toward Christians. Good grief. Is religious faith really that flaky and insecure?

As long as science can also not answer the "Why?" question

It did answer the "Why?". Gravity is the "Why?".
At least get up to speed on these things.

"Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing"
Hawking/Einstein or the supernatural.
Math or Myth.
Which is more likely.
Just a simple question.
No need for you to get nasty.

The more I learn about the complexities of our world; of life forms; the more impressed I become with the designer.

Ok, you choose myth. You could have just said so in the first place.
I respectively suggest the more you learn, the more you may come to understand how simple evolved to complex.

 

[userque]

"Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing"

LOL. From nothing to full blown universe because ... gravity. Guess what? gravity doesn't exist without matter. I feel silly debating this.

Please explain to us how there can be nothing, no universe, no matter, no energy, no gravity, no light ... to full blown universe because of gravity (that wasn't present).

We've got plenty of gravity now. Had it for thousands, millions, billions of years ... ever since the universe was formed. Why no more big bangs? Why just one? Why did it stop?

Please link to Hawking papers explaining how the universe created itself from non-existent gravity. Please ... I'd love to read how that happened.

Additionally, Hawking was wrong a lot. That notwithstanding, here's the real reason he said that self-serving silly statement:

Stephen Hawking Was an Atheist. Here’s What He Said About God, Heaven and His Own Death
http://time.com/5199149/stephen-hawking-death-god-atheist/