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I take it (in light of the last two sentences) this wasn't directed at me. But I do want to clarify that no one's saying the science suggests there's nothing more than our universe. There could be "disconnected spaces of other closed universes" as Alexander Vilenkin put it in the article I quoted from. Nevermind that there's no evidence for such a thing. But even assuming they existed they wouldn't be part of this contiguous spacetime, which plenty of physicists (including Vilenkin) argue probably had a beginning. And when these physicists say that there was literally nothing before it, that's specifically referring to material causation. Creation ex nihilo. IOW, no physical reality to create "our" universe. No space for it to exist in.
we don't even have to go to alex whoever. look at just this planet. How would you best describe the biosphere? We are part of the biosphere.
1) life
2) tweener
3) non life
4) other
I'll evaluate any "other" claim with the same rigor I asked the question and look at the possible answer.
does the answer you choose seem to explain, offer a mechanism, and make repeatable predictions over the choices?
when I say i don't think your "type of god" is not the most rational answer I offer a counter explanation and why i think the science points to my interpretation over your interpretation.
then (you, me and others) then look to see if your explanation or my explanation offer an explanation, mechanism, and repeatable predictions.
Claims that have the "four horsemen" ... explanation, mechanism, predictions that match the future state, and repeatability, are more valid than those that don't.
that is distinctly different that just running around bashing people telling them are all wrong.
some of them actually say "I don't have too." lmao, like that is even reasonable.
but remember vic, we have some ex-religious that are going through a grieving process. their brains have only just recently matured and they are violently striking back due to their present brain state. basically, their brains are moving from "childhood belief" and now are in "adolescent stage". and we all know how adolescents can respond.
for me, when talking to people, its more about "brain age" than "calendar age.". When I see people believing in "dude died, woke up, and flew away for our sins.", past the age of 21, I am not talking to a mature brain. Not on the east coast of the united states anyway.
usually, when I am talking to a violently anti-christian brain I am looking at an adolescent brain. They often sound like my kids did when they were teeangers.
The key is, we have to figure out what brain stage we are talking to. And how to we address a 45 year old person with a child like brain, adolescent brain, and mature brain?
I am not an atheist but I AM skeptical of religions. I am particularly skeptical of Jesus Christ as many here already know. I think skeptics have a lot to offer a religious discussion by raising inconvenient truths religions don't like to talk about, funny enough like Jesus Christ now that I mention it.
But it appears that after 10 years here in the Christian/Religion forums I have worn out my welcome so it's time for me to say goodbye and depart to find another religion forum to haunt under a different avatar. I've had a good time here, folks. I will say on balance the mods have been more than fair, especially to me--notwithstanding a few suspensions I didn't feel I deserved. But one gets indications they're not welcome and so I leave.
Skeptics, keep fighting the good fight against lies and obfuscations religion try to spread. Good luck.
as you know I gree. and VIC is definitely addressing this.
where i disagree is the notion that we shouldn't be offering counter interpretations and the science supporting the counter claims. at the very least, make it clear you are a theist that just doesn't agree with died, woke up, and flew away for our sins. well not "you" as in trill, "you' as in all of us.
i don't buy into "keep more valid claims Hush hush so we can stop religion". That is just not the most valid philosophy, no matter how we slice it.
I am not an atheist but I AM skeptical of religions. I am particularly skeptical of Jesus Christ as many here already know. I think skeptics have a lot to offer a religious discussion by raising inconvenient truths religions don't like to talk about, funny enough like Jesus Christ now that I mention it.
But it appears that after 10 years here in the Christian/Religion forums I have worn out my welcome so it's time for me to say goodbye and depart to find another religion forum to haunt under a different avatar. I've had a good time here, folks. I will say on balance the mods have been more than fair, especially to me--notwithstanding a few suspensions I didn't feel I deserved. But one gets indications they're not welcome and so I leave.
Skeptics, keep fighting the good fight against lies and obfuscations religion try to spread. Good luck.
Good luck, Thrill. You never struck me as a quitter but you are particularly obsessive about God not somehow treating you fairly by personally communicating with you. How much effort have you put into meditation or devout prayer? It took me 18+ years of extremely disciplined and diligent meditation before my encounter. Why do people want or expect everything to come to them easily?
The black and white of it is, the main forum, Religion, and Spirituality is for everyone. The subforms are for a more detailed and specific area and usually for those interested in those specific areas.
It's usually assumed everyone will post on the main forum, have questions answered by everyone. It's sort of a community space, and then the others are like office buildings or apartments. lol
Some intrude on subforums to ask specific questions regarding those areas. "Hey, Christians, why do you do this or that?" "Hey, Atheists, why do you not do this or that?"
How disingenuous! 'The universe began from a big explosion that originated who knows how.'
That's right. Just like ...'Life began on this planet. We know not how'.
Quote:
This is where my discussion ends. As Vic just showed scientists do believe law and matter was created out of nothing in the so called big bang.
No they don't. Scientist have absolutely no idea of what was going on before BB
Quote:
As for my camp, I don't know who you're talking about. I don't go to Church and I don't interpret the Bible literally.
Really? Then what process do you use to decide what in the bible is true and what isn't. For example, what process do you use to claim say, that the global flood is not true but the crucifixion and resurrection is true?
That's not entirely true. From the traditional Big Bang model to the post-BGV nucleated closed universe model, physicists have meant that contiguous spacetime had a beginning. As Barrow and Tipler (each of them eminent cosmologists as well as physicists) emphasize, "At this singularity, space and time came into existence; literally nothing existed before the singularity, so, if the Universe originated at such a singularity, we would truly have a creation ex nihilo."
John Barrow and Frank Tipler, The Anthropic Cosmological Principle (Oxford: Clarendon Press), p. 442.
Stephen Hawking agreed in a lecture available online: “The conclusion of this lecture is that the universe has not existed forever. Rather, the universe, and time itself, had a beginning in the Big Bang, about 15 billion years ago.â€
Vilenkin (2015) “We have no viable models of an eternal universe. The BGV theorem gives reason to believe that such models simply cannot be constructed.â€
And yes, Vilenkin means all of contiguous spacetime. From his article, "A nucleated closed universe is all the space there is, aside from the disconnected spaces of other closed universes. Beyond it, there is no space, and no time." He even throws in the question "What causes the universe to pop out of nothing?" to make it explicit that we're talking about creation ex nihilo.
I would say that they are referring to our present universe. Before BB we have absolutely no idea of what was going on. The 'Big Bounce' theory has weight.
I would say that they are referring to our present universe.
Contrary to what they themselves are saying, especially Vilenkin...
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rafius
Before BB we have absolutely no idea of what was going on. The 'Big Bounce' theory has weight.
How do you figure? As Vilenkin put it in his correspondence with Lawrence Krauss:
Quote:
The BGV theorem says that if the universe is on average expanding along a given worldline, this worldline cannot be infinite to the past.
A possible loophole is that there might be an epoch of contraction prior to the expansion. Models of this sort have been discussed by Aguirre & Gratton and by Carroll & Chen. They had to assume though that the minimum of entropy was reached at the bounce and offered no mechanism to enforce this condition. It seems to me that it is essentially equivalent to a beginning.
Now if you're defining "universe" as "what happened after the contraction" or some such, well then that just entirely misses the point. The contraction itself (being part of what these physicists are calling "the universe") couldn't be extrapolated to past infinity. You can read more about it here:
The black and white of it is, the main forum, Religion, and Spirituality is for everyone. The subforms are for a more detailed and specific area and usually for those interested in those specific areas.
It's usually assumed everyone will post on the main forum, have questions answered by everyone. It's sort of a community space, and then the others are like office buildings or apartments. lol
Some intrude on subforums to ask specific questions regarding those areas. "Hey, Christians, why do you do this or that?" "Hey, Atheists, why do you not do this or that?"
This is actually a pretty good description of how it works. Sometimes we have to move threads to get them into their proper homes. Of course, City-Data does not restrict any member from posting in any of the forums.
Good luck, Thrill. You never struck me as a quitter but you are particularly obsessive about God not somehow treating you fairly by personally communicating with you. How much effort have you put into meditation or devout prayer? It took me 18+ years of extremely disciplined and diligent meditation before my encounter. Why do people want or expect everything to come to them easily?
Question:
Why should it take '18+ years of extremely disciplined and diligent meditation' before 'encountering' anything? Why should it be so hard to achieve? Why shouldn't it come easily?
For arguments sake, what if you had spent 18+ years of extremely disciplined and diligent meditation and never actually got there - popped your clogs before you achieved anything? Doesn't that seem like a waste of a life to you?
What were you trying to achieve anyway?
EDIT. Didn't mean that to sound so harsh. Just asking a question...
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lmao, like that is even reasonable.
