cause-and-effect: "cause" require evidence too

[Brian2]

God isn't a book of stories. What you are referring to is an ancient book written by humans, and they refer to a God in a creation myth. That is not evidence. You misrepresent the facts in your claim here. The stories is what ancient people said, not any god. .

The stories are what I believe and most people can understand that. I wasn't using it as evidence.

I would argue that theists in these creationism debates are not using reason, thus no rational approach to these issues. They have a vested interest in finding utility for their religious beliefs which have become less and less relevant over time.

If religious beliefs have become less relevant partly because of speculation and flawed thinking by science which some people like to say is scientific truth then maybe those who say science has it all right are not being rational.
I don't mind having a faith to justify but some people want to say that I oppose science when really all I am doing to opposing what some people call the truth (which is derived from scientific ideas) and they are using religious type faith to do that.

 

[Ben Dhyan]

I said quite a few things. You seem to have not read what I actually said. Or you are deliberately ignoring it.

I'm betting on the latter.

Ok, so one thing at a time..
Science says dark energy is omnipresent.
Religion says Holy spirit is omnipresent.
Any problems with that?

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

No, you may believe what you like, if you want reality, you must realize it!

I will call "true", those things that match the evidence of reality.

If you disagree with that (and it sounds like you do), then I wonder how you define "true".
And more specifically, how you distinguish it from "false".

 

[Brian2]

I don't care what "some atheist physicists" say - especially not in such vague assertions without citation.
Secondly, show me a physicist that claims that science KNOWS what "caused" the big bang.

Atheists have no creed. Some believe that science can explain it all. Actually I lie, this "atheist" did say that there was a possible god and it ended up being a deist idea of God, a God who got things going and stepped away. He also said that if God existed in the universe and did things then science would be able to detect that.

The best speculation is the speculation that requires the least amount of unevidenced assumptions.
Occam's razor, if you wish.

Science should have stopped at the BB with God as the creator. As it is, Occam's Razor has led to more question and problems than it has fixed. And the interesting thing is that God has evidence for His existence.

Concerning science, it seems to me that the best speculation at this point is a multi-verse, as multiverses pop-up spontaneously through the math when attempting to model certain specific aspects of the universe like inflation theory.

But it is speculation since all this stuff is in hypothesis state for the time being.
It's just so that the scientific investigation, which follows the evidence, is seemingly going in that direction. Not because the scientists "want to" go that direction. But because the available evidence points in that direction.

The only correct actual answer at this point is "we don't know - scientists are working hard to try and find out".[/QUOTE]

Scientists can never find out the truth of their speculations on that sort of thing. The only thing that can come from it is educated guesses which are in part based on the assumption that there is no God who has created it all. And as I said there is evidence for a God in what the Bible says.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

It may seem to be a reasonable belief to some

It's not a "belief". It's a well-tested and supported scientific theory. A scientific theory is body of knowledge that is supported by the available evidence and which makes testable predictions (which check out when tested).

, particularly if passing an exam depends on that belief.

To pass an exam on big bang cosmology, believing / accepting big bang cosmology is not at all a requirement.

What is required, is for you to demonstrate to have a good understanding of what the theory actually says, how it can be tested, etc.

Your acceptance of that model as being "true" or lack thereof, is not relevant.

Having said that...
The acceptance of big bang cosmology by the scientific community is the result of the evidence in support of it, not of what the school textbooks say.

 

[Brian2]

Why is it do you think, that the universe is also referred to as the space-time continuum?

The universe existed at Planck time. Planck time is the very very first "moment" of the universe after T = 0.
The very first "point in time" if you wish.

But nobody knows if space/time has always existed, as in the B model of time.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Ok, so one thing at a time..
Science says dark energy is omnipresent.
Religion says Holy spirit is omnipresent.
Any problems with that?

Why would I go one thing at a time?
Why would I lose time by humoring you to allow you to dumb it down with post hoc vaguery just to make it a little similar as if that makes any kind of vaild point at all?
All the while, off course, deliberately ignoring the elephant in the room that these things are actually nothing alike.

MANY things are "omnipresent".
Virtual particles, space, time, gravity,.......

None of which are even remotely similar to how believers would describe "the holy spirit".


You are grasping at straws with this silly "argument".

 

[Brian2]

Right. And I'm asking, other then you already believing it, what reason is there to suggest such a thing?



I don't see how that justifies that belief.
To justify a belief, you would have to provide evidence for that belief.

Pointing to a random thing that doesn't necessarily contradict the belief, does not magically turn it into evidence for that belief.

I'm guessing that this will once again end up with you "justifying" your a priori belief with telling me that "you can't disprove it!!!I", in yet another shift of the burden of proof.

I don't know what more to tell you to make you see the obvious logic error in your thinking.

You can instantly recognize the exact same error when we are talking about undetectable graviton pixies being involved in the workings of gravity. But you can't see it at all when making the exact same error when talking about the god you believe in.

You should read the whole line of the discussion where those comments came from and you might understand what I was saying.
As I said there is evidence for a God but not scientific evidence and that is fine since science has nothing to do with deciding whether there is a God or not. That decision is made by humans who aren't under the control of what science can or cannot say about God.
We cannot say that graviton pixies do not exist but why should anyone believe they exist when there is no evidence for them? This is not the case for God.

 

[Brian2]

You don't need "faith" (religious or otherwise) to NOT believe unevidenced claims.

I wasn't talking about belief or not in God I was talking about the corollary beliefs that come from a lack of belief in God, beliefs that many atheists have just because of their unbelief in God. They are religious beliefs.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Causality in the universe is dependent on the natural laws of the universe

Which means that it wouldn't apply if you remove that universe, with its laws that produce the phenomenon of causality.

That does not mean that causality does not exist outside the universe

Actually, it does. Unless you posit that this universe exists in yet another universe with its own time dimension and causality-producting set of natural laws.

, it just means that another set of laws might apply there.

Which would also have to include a time dimension. So we end up with another space-time. And the same "causality" problem that you are trying to solve in the first place, simply remains. Only now it shifts to that "outer" space-time within which our space-time was created.

So not only have you posited an external conscious entity as the "creator" without evidence to "solve" the problem of the creation of this space-time... You also now posit another space-time where that "creator" exists in. So who created that space-time then?

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

I suppose it is scientism.

Yeah, but also some versions of God.

 

[Brian2]

The definitions are precise, jumping sideways does not change them

As I said it does not matter about those definitions. There are corollary beliefs that come from not believing in God and this is what I am talking about and those beliefs are religious beliefs that some atheist have. "We don't know how but we know that God did not do it".

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Yes that morality thing can turn into bigotry against those who do morality a different way. But it is not seen as bigotry, the others are seen as the bigots because they disagree with their morality.

It is a bit more complex than that, because they are not the only group of humans doing that. Some religious people also do.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

It's all speculation so why not introduce something outside?

I already addressed this.
For the same reason that, when you find a dead body with a knife stuck in the chest, it is okay to speculate a human killed him and the fled the seen... while it is NOT okay to speculate that aliens beamed in star trek style, killed the man and then beamed out again.

It's "all speculation", but obviously certain speculative options have more and better justification then others.

A God might be outside and all the way through a a time space model.

And aliens might be beaming into random rooms to kill humans.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

But nobody knows if space/time has always existed, as in the B model of time.

Again, what do you mean by "always"?

If you mean "for all of time", then it is absolutely correct to say the universe has always existed.

Time and space combined IS the universe.

 

[Brian2]

That is your prerogative.

I know of 32 different ways this universe could have formed each is justified either by mathematics or extrapolation of observed evidence. I have never seen any evidence to say "god" so i have believe in gods

You have 32 speculations and God is another possibility with evidence for it's existence.
Science cannot say one way or the other about the existence of God and science cannot say one way or the other about whether God created the universe.
If you want to believe God did not do it because of science then that is a religious belief.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

You should read the whole line of the discussion where those comments came from and you might understand what I was saying.
As I said there is evidence for a God but not scientific evidence and that is fine since science has nothing to do with deciding whether there is a God or not.

The reason science doesn't care about gods, or anything other supernatural, is because there can't be any evidence for it, as they are unfalsifiable things without detectable manifestation.

This means that they are indistinguishable from things that don't exist.

So your claim that "there is evidence" is problematic. If there were evidence possible, then science could investigate it.

So clearly when you say "evidence", you're not really talking about evidence, are you?
You are more then likely just talking about people believing things and expressing those beliefs in anecdotes and alike.

Those aren't evidence. Those are claims, in need of evidence.
If that is not what you have, then please share this evidence you say exists.

We cannot say that graviton pixies do not exist but why should anyone believe they exist when there is no evidence for them?

Exactly.

This is not the case for God.

You have failed to demonstrate otherwise.

Show me how your god is objectively any different from undetectable pink graviton fairies.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

I wasn't talking about belief or not in God I was talking about the corollary beliefs that come from a lack of belief in God

I have already explained to you how that is nonsense.
No beliefs come from a "lack of belief" in some unrelated thing.

, beliefs that many atheists have just because of their unbelief in God.

You keep claiming this and I keep asking you what those beliefs are.
You have yet to mention a single one that is actually shared among a decent number of atheists (and I'm not even saying "most").

They are religious beliefs.

Or so you keep claiming.

 

[ChristineM]

As I said it does not matter about those definitions. There are corollary beliefs that come from not believing in God and this is what I am talking about and those beliefs are religious beliefs that some atheist have. "We don't know how but we know that God did not do it".

Sorry definition is what its all about, if you want them to mean something different than please provide definitions for your beliefs.

We know because there is no falsifiable evidence of a god existing, and there is no need for a god.

So what is corollory about disbelief or lack of belief in the existence of God or gods?

 

[ChristineM]

You have 32 speculations and God is another possibility with evidence for it's existence.
Science cannot say one way or the other about the existence of God and science cannot say one way or the other about whether God created the universe.
If you want to believe God did not do it because of science then that is a religious belief.

There is no falsifiable evidence for a gods existence
Science does not say, there is a difference between can not and does not. It does not say because it does not deal in woo.

Evidence is not belief, not is lack of evidence.

FYI
Religion: the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods.

There is no way that atheiem comes near to a religion in the same way that not collecting stamps is not a hobby