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No proof is not to do with courtrooms alone. "Proof" in science just means "to test". To prove in common speech means to "show true" while in science it just means to "test".
However I hear there is a "lot of good evidence" a lot in the context of god. However only from people who then do not actually give ANY of it. Ever. If I had a dollar for every person I have heard claim there is lots of evidence I would be rich. If I had another dollar for everyone who then left without offering a scrap of it... I would be exactly twice as rich.
The saying goes: For those who see it they see it in everything and for those who don't it is in nothing. I see the complexity of life as evidence for example. If you think of just how complex our own bodies are it is very logical that a being of intelligence "put" us together. To me the belief that "we" just happened doesn't make sence. It is like saying a car built itself or just appeared. Some intelligence went into the design and construction of it. Now think of how much more complicated life and human beings are.
When matter is condensed at the density at which would necessitate the big bang, time functions in a different manner. It's technically incorrect to think of the beginning of the universe or multiverses as having a set fixed point relative to the present. It's been 13.75B years give or take a hundred million or so since the big bang according to the lambda-cdm model but that doesn't mean anything beyond that's the point at which we commonly accept to begin counting.
I'd just like to know what University you graduated from.
I'm saying it possibly has no beginning. Why should it? To me, it actually seems simpler logically if it doesn't. If it has a beginning, you have the problem of what caused it to begin. Of course there are questions either way and scientists are trying to solve them.
So if the problem is "If it has a beginning, you have the problem of what caused it to begin" then we are back at square one.
I'd just like to know what University you graduated from.
I once watched a news show where the newsreader was giving the politician a rather hard time -as they do. The politician then asked whether the newreader was a lawyer. This is a bit of a dishonest trick ('I will only entertain queries on these matters from experts in the field') designed to fend off pertinent questions.
I don't think you were doing that, but it's maybe worth repeating my position of not being an accredited expert on anything much, but an ordinary bod who is trying to evaluate the many various claims thrown at me. If I try to address (for example) Mystic's Universal field theory, I am somewhat out of my depth, but by some study, I believe that I have grasped the matter enough to get a grip on the merits and demerits of the theory.
Millions of people are arguing about all sorts of matters and it's right that they should, rather than swallow whatever they are told. Even if they are university graduates, if they graduated in physics, how is that going to help in deciding the ID/evolution debate? We are all laybods in some areas and the right thing to do is to refer to the authorities in the relevant areas. Maybe that's what Zippedisks did - unless he really is an expert in the field.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Vansdad
So if the problem is "If it has a beginning, you have the problem of what caused it to begin" then we are back at square one.
Indeed we are. The First cause question elicits the response: 'what caused First cause?' Theism tries to find a solution to this by postulating an eternal uncreated force that had the 'Will' (Mystic's useful term, term, I recall) and the ability to be the first cause without itself needing to be caused.
It's a good and even persuasive answer but it does raise the question of why we can't have eternal matter which has inherent qualities of matter-production? This may run counter to the 'something cannot come from nothing' mantra but may look more reasonable than a complex, intelligent, powerful and apparently invisible being which has always existed.
It's all very speculative about areas where we have very little data so of course, I have doubts about that. In fact, I am so open to the possibility of some kind of ongoing creative universal force that we could regard as 'intelligent' and which we might label 'God' that it really isn't a disbelief that I sometimes have doubts about. It is a hypothesis for which I have seen no persuasive evidence and I don't have many doubts about that, just at the moment.
But. when we start to call this hypothetical creative force 'God' and start to link it it with any one of the deities on offer ('Which god?' is a very pertinent question (1), we do have some falsifiable data and stack up it does not. These are the gods (and crypto -gods of the atheist religions like Buddhism (Karma)and scientology (Thetans) of which we can say with very little doubt 'I believe that there is no God'.
(1) has to be a footnote - because the response 'the god of all of them' either means the god of one religion and all the others are wrong (which is back to square one of 'which god?') or it sidelined all religions and leaps back to another square one - a postulated cosmic 'It' which is unproven and rather academic anyway if it doesn't intervene in human affairs as I have no doubt seems to be the case.
Last edited by TRANSPONDER; 03-02-2012 at 12:32 AM..
For those who see it they see it in everything and for those who don't it is in nothing.
So rather than offer any evidence out of the LOTS you claim there is, you just offer a meaningless and empty cliche phrase? See what I mean? You just proved my point. You people claim there is lots of evidence and then never provide a shred of it.
Every. Single. Time.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Vansdad
I see the complexity of life as evidence
Complexity is an attribute of the observer, not the observed. If something seems complex to you then this is just a measure of your ability to comprehend it and nothing more. As evidence for a god it certainly is not, especially given the same questions you bypass about human life and it's complexity are still applicable to the god you invent to explain that complexity away. You have answered nothing by inventing such a god. You have just moved all the same questions to that god.
So rather than offer any evidence out of the LOTS you claim there is, you just offer a meaningless and empty cliche phrase? See what I mean? You just proved my point. You people claim there is lots of evidence and then never provide a shred of it.
Every. Single. Time.
Complexity is an attribute of the observer, not the observed. If something seems complex to you then this is just a measure of your ability to comprehend it and nothing more. As evidence for a god it certainly is not, especially given the same questions you bypass about human life and it's complexity are still applicable to the god you invent to explain that complexity away. You have answered nothing by inventing such a god. You have just moved all the same questions to that god.
Maybe you should post my whole response and not just take a sentence out of context. I already went through this and I hate repeating myself. Here's another example anyway.
If the things we observe all have something deeper why wouldn't life itself be like that. We look at the surface of the earth and below it is so much life and microscopic too that we cannot see. When we look out to the universe there are all sorts of EM waves we need special equipment to observe, and who knows what else we still cannot detect. So why would all these things in our observable life have such depth and life itself not. One has to stay open minded. Just as the walls you look at seem so plain there are atoms bonded to form molucules that make that wall and it goes for everything we see. That invisible bond between molecules exists so the depth of life does too. It is only logical. To say that all these things have depyth and life itself doesnot makes no sence. Some more evidence of the existance of God, at least for so many who are willing to be open. But of course for those who stay closed they see none of this.
It all depends on what you call proof. Once you have proof within yourself that God exists then there are no doubts, at least for me. Let me ask you this: Do you believe in love...what proof do you have that IT exists?
Those are commonly referred to as fantasies or delusions.
Why? I replied to the whole post. You know what you wrote in it. I know what you wrote in it. I do not need to quote it all in order to reply to it. Once you know generally which part I am replying to then I have quoted enough. There is no need to reproduce it all, I just need to reproduce enough so you have a fair idea how my response links to yours.
The issue is that you people claim there is lots of evidence then you never provide any. You proved my point by trotting out a cliche empty phrase instead of giving evidence. This helps no one and it proves what I was saying.
Read your empty phrase again. I could make up anything, literally anything, and use that same phrase to support it. Homoeopathy for example. What evidence have we it does anything at all? "For those who see it they see it in everything and for those who don't it is in nothing." What evidence have we for bigfoot or unicorns. Well: "For those who see it they see it in everything and for those who don't it is in nothing."
See? Its a pointless empty phrase and you could paste it anywhere. Case closed.
You then followed up with nonsense about how things are complex to you, therefore there must be a god. This answers nothing. If something is complex to you, that just means it is hard for you to understand it. Adding "Therefore God" at the end is just a non sequitur.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Vansdad
If the things we observe all have something deeper why wouldn't life itself be like that.
This is called "begging the question". You find two situations, say X and Y.... say something is true about X. Then you just assume it is true about Y too based on nothing.
So here you simply say "There is something deeper to A B and C... therefore there must be something deeper to D too". Life is just life. It does not owe us deeper meanings. It makes as much sense as saying "If you look close enough at cake you see it contains sugar, if you look close enough at a Mars Bar you see it contains sugar too.... so why should we not assume my car contains sugar".
Again, what you are doing here is called "Begging the Question" and showing that something is true about one thing does not allow you to magically say it is true about another based on nothing at all.
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