Quote from ares6

Quote from Rain1

Quote from ares6

He never said he believed in God. He just said the universe is logical and not random.

Did i say he believe in god ?

no double post dude. Also, try to bring subjects relevant to discussion.......

It is

(in my interpretation from his quote) God and science are seperate things

People can believe in everything they want, but the moment you trying to ask "the existence of God" as this poll is all about, then you can't just say Yes without prove it

"As long as we're seeing the same kind of musical vision, yeah, sure. But sometimes when things get hard, you balance out the pros and cons and say, am I being a wimp if I stay or am I being a wimp if I leave?" - D'arcy Wretzky

hey rain,
if you want i can tell you what the qoute was about, not that i mean that your interpretation is not valid, but it is pretty famous.
just an offer

300 votes.......45 pages of reply.....looks like my topic made history in BU. 🙂

Gay book discussion thread

Quote from you_no_see_me_

this is not about cannibalism...please get back on topic

Quote from Toto

I think it is exactly the topic. I see nothing wrong.

I know it's famous.

I know popular interpretations of his quote

I just don't 100% know what was in his mind when he said it (or what it was about).

"As long as we're seeing the same kind of musical vision, yeah, sure. But sometimes when things get hard, you balance out the pros and cons and say, am I being a wimp if I stay or am I being a wimp if I leave?" - D'arcy Wretzky

Quote from Dark_Sage

Has anyone read The God Delusion yet? I personally haven't, but I want to. Maybe I'll order it through my school library.

Yeah, I read it last year. It's pretty good and worth reading, but Dawkins has a really condescending tone towards religion. While he does make very good points, they were kind of masked by his hatred for organized religion. But, if you can ignore his hatred, it's a very good book. Not the best on the subject, but still very good.

Edit: Other books you might be interested in are God: the Failed Hypothesis and Atheist Universe. The first is really heavy on science, but the other is better for someone who isn't extremely knowledgeable science-wise. Atheist Manifesto is good, too, but it focuses on morality and its translation is a bit wordy and hard to understand (it was originally in French).

Quote from Dark_Sage

I'm sorry, but that's just plain old bullshit. I'm not supposed to question your god, but I am supposed to believe in it? COME ON.

As for your creation needing a creator argument, you can't honestly believe that it states that your god assuredly exists. Assuming there was something to start matter, it would inevitably have to be very simple in nature. Nothing as complex, or as illogical as your god would have started it.

Ignorance may be blissful, but it is sickening to those of us who choose the route of knowledge. Go ahead and believe what you want, but the externalities of your choice do negatively impact others.

From what I have studied independently, the laws of thermodynamics infer that not only can energy neither be created nor destroyed and that when energy is converted that a percentage of that energy is unusable from that point on leads to an idea called "heat death" (meaning that the universe will completely run out of usable energy some day because it cannot be created and that the universe will eventually work itself into oblivion). Using this idea one can extrapolate that since energy in the universe would have had a starting point, many would say then that the so called "big bang" was the starting point of 100% usable energy, but if this starting point was truly a big bang where all the matter and energy in the universe was crushed into an infinitesimally small point then one would have to wonder according to the idea that for every reaction there is an equal and opposite reaction and that an object in motion or in this case an object not in motion, just what thing in the universe would be left to cause such a reaction of a so called "big bang"? Also the state of matter that would be involved prior to the big bang would be in a state of no motion, which in of itself doesn't have any problems except when you apply the definition of time to it which itself is defined by particle motion. Also on another note, in such a state the entire universe would be compacted in a similar state to a black hole, in which the gravity would far outweigh the mass of the universe therefore completely restricting motion. And finally when you look closely at the big bang you can see that the state of the universe in almost completely identical to heat death.
I myself call myself a Christian, but in being a third generation engineer I do not discount science, but if you look hard it isn't overly difficult to question the logic of the "big bang" and evolution which in of themselves are rightly termed as theories because a theory in itself can never be proven just possibly disproven also something quite a few people don't want people to know is that science has proven that they can nor will ever be able to find any evidence able to form any definitive proof either way on the origin of the universe.

I hope I haven't overly offended anyone. I just tried to show what I see as a possible scientific problem in a logical manner for something many people call fact.

"Don't worry about the fine print. The soul consumption clause is never exorcised

Ahh, Drgn. Is it ok if I call you P-I? That seems like a better description. ^_^

The first 2/3 of your post was incoherent rambling about laws of the universe. That's great, but so what? All that you wrote has no way to prove that any of the deities commonly worshipped nowadays exist. The concept of a personal god is utterly ridiculous since the only reason you could consider a being god is because it started everything. (Which would be a simplistic being obviously.) Even then, there would be no point in worshipping it.

Since the big bang and evolution are so easy to poke holes in, please tell me what's wrong with them. I'm sure that you know all the answers. Ahh, undeserved pride and ignorant arrogance. The cornerstones of the Christian religion.

Slightly off topic, but have you heard of the "enter/return" button? It's REALLY handy.

[img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v230/DarkSageRK/ReligiousTrash.png[/img]

Quote from Dark_Sage

Ahh, Drgn. Is it ok if I call you P-I? That seems like a better description. ^_^

The first 2/3 of your post was incoherent rambling about laws of the universe. That's great, but so what? All that you wrote has no way to prove that any of the deities commonly worshipped nowadays exist. The concept of a personal god is utterly ridiculous since the only reason you could consider a being god is because it started everything. (Which would be a simplistic being obviously.) Even then, there would be no point in worshipping it.

Since the big bang and evolution are so easy to poke holes in, please tell me what's wrong with them. I'm sure that you know all the answers. Ahh, undeserved pride and ignorant arrogance. The cornerstones of the Christian religion.

Slightly off topic, but have you heard of the "enter/return" button? It's REALLY handy.

Well in order to save 2 hours of your time with what many would ( and possibly rightly see and mostly incoherent) I will say that I have no way to prove that there is a deity who created the universe and that that deity is in some way worshipped today, but I might also like to point out the fact that science draws a line between the observable and the metaphysical and that because of that there is no 100% way to try to prove that there is a god. At best I can only point to the fact that entropy (the second law of thermodynamics if I remember correctly) says that the universe is moving into a state of disorder not order as evolution states happens on the genetic level of all life, also before you point to natural selection I will agree that the fittest survive as Darwin says but I would differ in that it has no way to create a new species on a macro evolution level (ex: monkies into humans) but only separating a species into various breeds with no additional genetic information than the breed that the Micro-evolved (ex: a wolf separating into different breeds) from. And before one says anything about mutations being the key to additional genetic information I would like to remind you that the proteins that make-up dna are subject to entropy's universal disorder causing the lessening of genetic information instead of the adding of information needed for evoltion by mutation.

"Don't worry about the fine print. The soul consumption clause is never exorcised

I found this article of a book......a book perhaps blasphemous....
http://www.sff.net/people/Jim.Morrow/BLAME.HTML

[color=green]Life, what would it be without so much wrongs and rights?
[/color]

[color=red]Star Trek XI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZiR-NETDr0[/color]

Quote from ares6

I found this article of a book......a book perhaps blasphemous....
http://www.sff.net/people/Jim.Morrow/BLAME.HTML

The idea though I do find it a bit blasphemous myself does seem quite humorous from a secular point of view, I also find it interesting that the word Abaddon means "destruction", possibly a bit of needed commentary towards the dogmas of much of organized religion.

(note: I do not consider myself a Christian because I am part of a religious sect but because I take the Bible as my truth not the opinions of or commentaries of religious authorities who say what they want and justify it with out of context scripture or those who claim to be religious in this way but ignore their "source" entirely)

"Don't worry about the fine print. The soul consumption clause is never exorcised

Quote from TwilightDrgn

Well in order to save 2 hours of your time with what many would ( and possibly rightly see and mostly incoherent) I will say that I have no way to prove that there is a deity who created the universe and that that deity is in some way worshipped today, but I might also like to point out the fact that science draws a line between the observable and the metaphysical and that because of that there is no 100% way to try to prove that there is a god. At best I can only point to the fact that entropy (the second law of thermodynamics if I remember correctly) says that the universe is moving into a state of disorder not order as evolution states happens on the genetic level of all life, also before you point to natural selection I will agree that the fittest survive as Darwin says but I would differ in that it has no way to create a new species on a macro evolution level (ex: monkeys into humans) but only separating a species into various breeds with no additional genetic information than the breed that the Micro-evolved (ex: a wolf separating into different breeds) from. And before one says anything about mutations being the key to additional genetic information I would like to remind you that the proteins that make-up DNA are subject to entropy's universal disorder causing the lessening of genetic information instead of the adding of information needed for evolution by mutation.

Paragraphs please, I'm sure they taught you that in university.

God may or may not exist. Point taken, however many proposed models for a deity can be at least somewhat dismantled, (ex: omnipotence being a paradox.) However, the existence of god does not matter, since he does whatever he wants. So a deities importance is reduced to a social level, and as far as I can tell there are no benefits on a global scale. However this applies mainly to organized religion, because a "believer" in the Invisible Pink Unicorn hardly constitutes as a threat.

Disorder is a strong word. The second law of thermodynamics suggests that everything moves toward a balanced state i.e. the most likely state. However it does not exclude the possibility that a less likely state will happen. For example, there are two objects both name A; likewise there are two containers 1 and 2. How many states are there? Simple You can get 1(AA)-2( ), 1(A)-2(A), 1(A)-2(A), and 1( )-2(AA). Here one would guess that you would obtain one A in each container, however the other two are very likely to occur. On a macro scale where there are say 1^25 molecules the likelihood of random occurrences are remote, however they do occur for short periods of time (for example an electron the may normal be in your body may be as far as the moon at a certain instant.)

Humans did not evolve from monkeys we evolved from a common ancestor, now that the semantics are over with the real problem with your argument. The problem is... none of it makes sense. True we lose energy in every conceivable process that we preform, however we receive energy from the Sun (and the core of the earth) which enables us to preform tasks we would otherwise be unable to preform. Like most things macro is just micro viewed from afar the general result of a sum of smaller parts. The same is true for evolution, this was not a spontaneous occurrence it happened gradually over millions of years.

Furthermore, you state that there is a lessening of genetic material, this couldn't be further from the truth, yes less energy is available in the universe as a whole, not the energy available for use on earth. For now the forces in this small micro-state (our world) overcome the general behavior of the universe. Basically, you are applying a theory to something that it does not apply to.

Quote from TheEgoist

Quote from TwilightDrgn

Well in order to save 2 hours of your time with what many would ( and possibly rightly see and mostly incoherent) I will say that I have no way to prove that there is a deity who created the universe and that that deity is in some way worshipped today, but I might also like to point out the fact that science draws a line between the observable and the metaphysical and that because of that there is no 100% way to try to prove that there is a god. At best I can only point to the fact that entropy (the second law of thermodynamics if I remember correctly) says that the universe is moving into a state of disorder not order as evolution states happens on the genetic level of all life, also before you point to natural selection I will agree that the fittest survive as Darwin says but I would differ in that it has no way to create a new species on a macro evolution level (ex: monkeys into humans) but only separating a species into various breeds with no additional genetic information than the breed that the Micro-evolved (ex: a wolf separating into different breeds) from. And before one says anything about mutations being the key to additional genetic information I would like to remind you that the proteins that make-up DNA are subject to entropy's universal disorder causing the lessening of genetic information instead of the adding of information needed for evolution by mutation.

Paragraphs please, I'm sure they taught you that in university.

God may or may not exist. Point taken, however many proposed models for a deity can be at least somewhat dismantled, (ex: omnipotence being a paradox.) However, the existence of god does not matter, since he does whatever he wants. So a deities importance is reduced to a social level, and as far as I can tell there are no benefits on a global scale. However this applies mainly to organized religion, because a "believer" in the Invisible Pink Unicorn hardly constitutes as a threat.

Disorder is a strong word. The second law of thermodynamics suggests that everything moves toward a balanced state i.e. the most likely state. However it does not exclude the possibility that a less likely state will happen. For example, there are two objects both name A; likewise there are two containers 1 and 2. How many states are there? Simple You can get 1(AA)-2( ), 1(A)-2(A), 1(A)-2(A), and 1( )-2(AA). Here one would guess that you would obtain one A in each container, however the other two are very likely to occur. On a macro scale where there are say 1^25 molecules the likelihood of random occurrences are remote, however they do occur for short periods of time (for example an electron the may normal be in your body may be as far as the moon at a certain instant.)

Humans did not evolve from monkeys we evolved from a common ancestor, now that the semantics are over with the real problem with your argument. The problem is... none of it makes sense. True we lose energy in every conceivable process that we preform, however we receive energy from the Sun (and the core of the earth) which enables us to preform tasks we would otherwise be unable to preform. Like most things macro is just micro viewed from afar the general result of a sum of smaller parts. The same is true for evolution, this was not a spontaneous occurrence it happened gradually over millions of years.

Furthermore, you state that there is a lessening of genetic material, this couldn't be further from the truth, yes less energy is available in the universe as a whole, not the energy available for use on earth. For now the forces in this small micro-state (our world) overcome the general behavior of the universe. Basically, you are applying a theory to something that it does not apply to.

First of all, sorry to everyone. I have always had problems with properly organizing my ideas.
Secondly, though the second law of thermodynamics can allow that something will be ordered it cannot "gain" additional order without the influence of another something (yes I know "thing" is not a very scientific word).
Third, I did not refer to the lessening of genetic material (though with the way I speak I can easily be misconstrued that way). Instead I was applying the second law of thermodynamics to the fact the genetic material will become less ordered and the "readable information" that makes up our genetic code will become more and more frazzled. What I'm saying is that in order for a genetic code to become more complex (in an evolutionary point of view) their would have to be outside information added.
Also about what I was speaking about with heat death, I was speaking of the universe as a whole and not directly about the earth. On the contrary I was using that as a springboard to theorize that since the universe could have an "end" that if the usable energy is finite that it would then have had a point that it it was all usable (big bang, creation, call it what you will).

Lastly, I am very thankful for your patience and for you being civil to me when the way I frame my thoughts at the very best can be called scattered.

Oh and on a side note: this is my second semester in college and they still haven't bothered me about my paragraphs ( I do use them in formal settings, but on an online forum I hardly think that I want to bother at 12:15 at night).

"Don't worry about the fine print. The soul consumption clause is never exorcised

I wish i could say I'm an atheist but I'm afraid the god(s) will kick my a*%.

Quote from TwilightDrgn

First of all, sorry to everyone. I have always had problems with properly organizing my ideas.
Secondly, though the second law of thermodynamics can allow that something will be ordered it cannot "gain" additional order without the influence of another something (yes I know "thing" is not a very scientific word).
Third, I did not refer to the lessening of genetic material (though with the way I speak I can easily be misconstrued that way). Instead I was applying the second law of thermodynamics to the fact the genetic material will become less ordered and the "readable information" that makes up our genetic code will become more and more frazzled. What I'm saying is that in order for a genetic code to become more complex (in an evolutionary point of view) their would have to be outside information added.
Also about what I was speaking about with heat death, I was speaking of the universe as a whole and not directly about the earth. On the contrary I was using that as a springboard to theorize that since the universe could have an "end" that if the usable energy is finite that it would then have had a point that it it was all usable (big bang, creation, call it what you will).

Lastly, I am very thankful for your patience and for you being civil to me when the way I frame my thoughts at the very best can be called scattered.

In this case the sun influences the system (Earth), by inserting more energy into the system, with what otherwise be the probable result (i.e. heat would be lost into minerals and there would be no life.)

I'm not really qualified to completely rebuke the second point (although technically all I did was agree on the first), however you're stating the code becomes more "complex". While exceedingly complex it consists of a four letter alphabet Adenosine, Guanine, Cystosine, and Thymine, which has not gotten any more complicated. Mutations occur when an error occurs during transcription, whether it be addition, subtraction, duplication, or a simple substitution, this of course does not involve the use of much energy, typing this paragraph took more energy for example. So shall we say that mutation in states is a simple reordering of available information and does not get any more "complex".

Since I'm not really qualified I left this to later, as far as I can tell genetic information does not get less ordered since it is held in place by energy, genetic information is after all merely a certain specific order in bonds between molecules after all.

I'm not quite clear on astrophysics I'm only in what would be the last year of High School (1st year CEGEP, stupid Quebec education system). Basically if the acceleration of the expansion of the universe is increasing it results in heat death. On the other hand if the acceleration is negative the universe would collapse. I'll have to put this on hold for now. Basically it's the larger forces as a whole that we can analyze and not the available energy because we can only observe but a portion of the entire universe because the universe is expanding the distance between two objects gets larger even though the objects themselves don't increase in size (however, it's possible given a set situation, i.e. the acceleration of the universe in increasing). In fact the distance increases faster than the speed of light. Therefore we do not know if the Big Bang was just one of many occurances or not. This may or may not be outdated information in a rush just spewing stuff out.

I don't have to time to analyze the previous post to get exactly what you were talking about on heat death, and I only know a bit about the big bang theory and the expansion of the universe. I'll leave this unfinished for now (Cal mid-term, need sleep.)

Quote from TheEgoist

Quote from TwilightDrgn

First of all, sorry to everyone. I have always had problems with properly organizing my ideas.
Secondly, though the second law of thermodynamics can allow that something will be ordered it cannot "gain" additional order without the influence of another something (yes I know "thing" is not a very scientific word).
Third, I did not refer to the lessening of genetic material (though with the way I speak I can easily be misconstrued that way). Instead I was applying the second law of thermodynamics to the fact the genetic material will become less ordered and the "readable information" that makes up our genetic code will become more and more frazzled. What I'm saying is that in order for a genetic code to become more complex (in an evolutionary point of view) their would have to be outside information added.
Also about what I was speaking about with heat death, I was speaking of the universe as a whole and not directly about the earth. On the contrary I was using that as a springboard to theorize that since the universe could have an "end" that if the usable energy is finite that it would then have had a point that it it was all usable (big bang, creation, call it what you will).

Lastly, I am very thankful for your patience and for you being civil to me when the way I frame my thoughts at the very best can be called scattered.

In this case the sun influences the system (Earth), by inserting more energy into the system, with what otherwise be the probable result (i.e. heat would be lost into minerals and there would be no life.)

I'm not really qualified to completely rebuke the second point (although technically all I did was agree on the first), however you're stating the code becomes more "complex". While exceedingly complex it consists of a four letter alphabet Adenosine, Guanine, Cystosine, and Thymine, which has not gotten any more complicated. Mutations occur when an error occurs during transcription, whether it be addition, subtraction, duplication, or a simple substitution, this of course does not involve the use of much energy, typing this paragraph took more energy for example. So shall we say that mutation in states is a simple reordering of available information and does not get any more "complex".

Since I'm not really qualified I left this to later, as far as I can tell genetic information does not get less ordered since it is held in place by energy, genetic information is after all merely a certain specific order in bonds between molecules after all.

I'm not quite clear on astrophysics I'm only in what would be the last year of High School (1st year CEGEP, stupid Quebec education system). Basically if the acceleration of the expansion of the universe is increasing it results in heat death. On the other hand if the acceleration is negative the universe would collapse. I'll have to put this on hold for now. Basically it's the larger forces as a whole that we can analyze and not the available energy because we can only observe but a portion of the entire universe because the universe is expanding the distance between two objects gets larger even though the objects themselves don't increase in size (however, it's possible given a set situation, i.e. the acceleration of the universe in increasing). In fact the distance increases faster than the speed of light. Therefore we do not know if the Big Bang was just one of many occurances or not. This may or may not be outdated information in a rush just spewing stuff out.

I don't have to time to analyze the previous post to get exactly what you were talking about on heat death, and I only know a bit about the big bang theory and the expansion of the universe. I'll leave this unfinished for now (Cal mid-term, need sleep.)

All I am doing is trying to apply what I know of scientific principles to the universe and though I hold my own bias I will listen to valid arguments (which you were so kind to discuss with me). Also on a lighter subject good luck with that mid-term and thank you for your civility.

"Don't worry about the fine print. The soul consumption clause is never exorcised