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  1. Polymath257

    Do you believe in God?

    No, for several reasons. First, there are literally thousands of ways humans have conceptualized deities. To use the word 'God' seems to be intended to pick out one of these many viewpoints without specifying which to be used. In that way, it is horribly vague. Second, it fails to specify...
  2. Polymath257

    Do you believe in God?

    The word 'accident' here seems strange. The universe did not 'come into existence'. Whenever there was time, the universe existed since time is part of the universe. So there was no time at which the universe failed to exist. Second, the word 'accident' implies there is some intention, which...
  3. Polymath257

    Do you believe in God?

    Fair enough. It is an assumption you make that I find no reason to make.
  4. Polymath257

    Do you believe in God?

    I see the properties of things to be co-existent with the things. So neither the universe nor the laws were 'first'. I would also point out that the use of the word 'first' implies time exists and thereby the universe exists. Third, I don't see how consciousness is relevant to there being...
  5. Polymath257

    Do you believe in God?

    I don't see how that affects what I said. That 'higher source' still has properties (such as having a 'will') and those properties lead to some sort of natural law that is MORE fundamental than that source itself. Also, because 'having a will' is much more complicated than having generic...
  6. Polymath257

    "Reality is not what you perceive it to be. Instead, it's what the tools and methods of science reveal."

    Please describe this 'religious method'. Explain how it would resolve a conflict between, say, an evangelical Christian and a Shiite Muslim.
  7. Polymath257

    Do you believe in God?

    But then that 'higher source' would also need to have properties, which means natural laws governing that source. All that means is that we haven't found the correct 'fundamental particles' yet. Which, of course, may be true, but does not eliminate that the most fundamental laws have no further...
  8. Polymath257

    Do you believe in God?

    Well, look to physics. Fundamental particles have certain properties: mass, charge, spin, parity, etc. These properties determine what interactions the particles can have with other particles. This is what natural laws describe.
  9. Polymath257

    Do you believe in God?

    If there are laws then the development is not random. It may not be intentional, but it would be predictable, at least to some degree. That’s what it means to be an observable law.
  10. Polymath257

    Do you believe in God?

    Exactly. So the question becomes what qualifies as an equivalent macro state. In the computations relating to, say, the formation of life, that is very far from being clear. For questions related to the structure of the universe, it is even less so. So, for example, many calculations ask what...
  11. Polymath257

    Do you believe in God?

    Exactly. And the probability of any is very, very, low.
  12. Polymath257

    Do you believe in God?

    Not necessarily. If time doesn't 'go back infinitely', neither does the universe. That can be the case even if there is no 'originating'.
  13. Polymath257

    Do you believe in God?

    On the contrary, even the article you gave assumes this as a background. The fact that there is a volume maintaining measure (Louiville measure) on the phase space is of interest, but the fact that it cannot be normalized shows that even talking about probability in this situation isn't meaningful.
  14. Polymath257

    Do you believe in God?

    \ What I found interesting about that article is that it essentially admits that finding an appropriate probability measure in this context is impossible. While there is a uniform measure that can be considered, it is not normalizable and so cannot be used to calculate probabilities. In other...
  15. Polymath257

    Do you believe in God?

    As I see it, they did not 'originate' as that would imply a time when they did not exist. As properties, they simply exist. They were not 'caused'.
  16. Polymath257

    Do you believe in God?

    Not even close to being true. Take, for example, the molecules of gas in your room. The probability of those molecules each being on the side of the room that they are is far, far, far lower than that 1 in 10^70 figure. But it objectively is the case. The problem comes from calculating the...
  17. Polymath257

    Do you believe in God?

    I have read quite a number of arguments for the existence of some 'God'. I have found none of them even close to being convincing. At this point, there is nothing I believe in that I would label as 'God'. So, I believe the universe simply exists. It has no cause (because causes are within the...
  18. Polymath257

    "Reality is not what you perceive it to be. Instead, it's what the tools and methods of science reveal."

    Once again, the scientific process is to modify beliefs based on evidence. If the evidence goes against an agreed upon test, and the person doens't change their beliefs, then they are not doing science. It then becomes a social/political/psychological issue. No matter what area of study you...
  19. Polymath257

    "Reality is not what you perceive it to be. Instead, it's what the tools and methods of science reveal."

    I would disagree with that, to some extent. I would say that a process in the brain has two aspects: one that is objective and the other is subjective. The objective part can be accessed by brain scans, chemical analysis, etc. The patterns of neural firing is objective. So, the chemical...
  20. Polymath257

    "Reality is not what you perceive it to be. Instead, it's what the tools and methods of science reveal."

    Yes. It is limited to matters of fact. It cannot deal with those things that are mostly opinions. For example, aesthetics are an important part of life, but science itself can say nothing about whether something is beautiful or not. It *can* determine the chance that a person will consider it to...
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