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

[gnostic]

Define "nothing"

If energy and matter can't be created or destroyed, then they both always existed...they both existed pre-expantion.
Now some will argue there is no "pre" because our science breaks down and we can't understand it... yet everything that exists in our universe always existed, just in different form.

What did it come from?
What did it exist in?

Do you mean "pre-expansion"?

I am assuming that's what you mean, unless it is "pre-explanation", which don't make any sense.

 

[We Never Know]

Do you mean "pre-expansion"?

I am assuming that's what you mean, unless it is "pre-explanation", which don't make any sense.

Yep. Typo. My bad or my phones bad lol
And fixed

 

[Ben Dhyan]

The BB is based on observation and so is a stand alone idea. I don't think it would be an obligation to explain more. There is always the option of saying that they don't know and have no way to find out.
But that is not the human way, or the way of science and so mathematical calculations and speculation etc etc go on and on and hypotheses abound no doubt.
The sad bit about it is that the best of these hypotheses is usually seen as the more probably true answer until something else is devised.
This is what science does and the communications to the world are about what science thinks and much of the world sees this as the truth because that is the way it is communicated.
There is nothing in the communication that speaks about other possibilities, such as a God just creating everything from nothing.
The naturalistic methodology is treated as the truth of it even though it is just a presumption.

Pretty much agree with what you said.

 

[Ben Dhyan]

At no time was there nothing. The universe of spacetime 'just exists'.

Agreed.

 

[gnostic]

Oh there are. Lol. Why would you make a statement like that with some bizarre conjecture?



None of this is relevant to me. I didn't such things. So I can't respond to all of this.

I was addressing your point in the OP. Look at what you yourself mentioned. Physical Sciences, natural sciences etc. How in the world can "physical" sciences or "natural" sciences get involved in hypothesis testing or any of the sort in a "metaphysical" or "Supernatural" question or argument?

That's the point.

The point of OP was about "cause-and-effect".

In natural science, you cannot have only evidence for "effect" without showing also evidence for "cause".

Intelligent Design like using analogy that has "cause-and-effect" theme, but do not see the illogical of such analogy with life or with Universe.

Say for instance, ID used the computer analogy, like computer programming. So the finished product, the software is the "effect", but software was designed and coded by a programmer (or in this day and age, by team of tens or even hundreds of programmers), then the programmer is the "cause".

Now, normally people who buy the software, won't be interested in the programmer who designed the software, but if you really want to, you can find out who this programmer, his/her name, his/her address, email, numbers, social security number (if the programmer is an American), his parents or spouse (if he or she is married).

My point is that programmer is a real person, not invisible or imaginary person, like a deity or spirit.

The point is that if the cause exist, physically and naturally, then you can find evidence for that "cause".

Can you find evidence for spiritual entity? My answer would be no.

But if a person - a believer - is going to MIX "science" and "religion" together, then the burden of proof would fall upon the claimant, so he or she should evidence for that "cause", if that "cause" is a person or something else.

I am not the one trying to cause-and-effect on something natural with something supernatural (or unnatural).

 

[We Never Know]

The BB is based on observation and so is a stand alone idea. I don't think it would be an obligation to explain more. There is always the option of saying that they don't know and have no way to find out.
But that is not the human way, or the way of science and so mathematical calculations and speculation etc etc go on and on and hypotheses abound no doubt.
The sad bit about it is that the best of these hypotheses is usually seen as the more probably true answer until something else is devised.
This is what science does and the communications to the world are about what science thinks and much of the world sees this as the truth because that is the way it is communicated.
There is nothing in the communication that speaks about other possibilities, such as a God just creating everything from nothing.
The naturalistic methodology is treated as the truth of it even though it is just a presumption.

Define "nothing"

If energy and matter can't be created or destroyed, then they both always existed...there was never nothing....they both existed pre-expansion.
Now some will argue there is no "pre" because our science breaks down and we can't understand it... yet everything that exists in our universe always existed, just in different form.

Where did it come from?
What did it come from?
What did it exist in?

 

[firedragon]

In natural science

Again, natural science cannot engage with supernatural. This is basic science.

In trying to make scientific arguments when you are being unscientific it's a mismatch.

 

[Ben Dhyan]

Except that the BB cosmologists have said there was "nothing" before the Big Bang, first because there are no BEFORE the B, as the scope of the model is LIMITED to the Observable Universe.

Other cosmologists have tried to offer alternative scenarios, including the BEFORE the BB (eg eternal universe, cyclical model, multiverse models, string cosmology, etc), but these are largely theoretical, as in, they are all mathematical, not testable or observable evidence.

Most sciences are only focused on the WHAT & HOW questions, where as Creationism (OEC, YEC, ID, etc) focused on the WHO. There are no WHO in the Big Bang cosmology, because entities like the Designer, God, Zeus, Enki, Ra, Brahma, Vishnu, etc, are all untestable.

You have opened up a Pandora's Box of possibilities, it appears to my understanding that it really is early days on the path to realize ultimate understanding. Whatever the truth, that is God, God is all there is, was, or ever will be. .

 

[F1fan]

You have opened up a Pandora's Box of possibilities, it appears to my understanding that it really is early days on the path to realize ultimate understanding. Whatever the truth, that is God, God is all there is, was, or ever will be. .

You've been asked to provide evidence for this claim. Repeating the claim and ignoring the request suggests you can't back up your claim.

 

[We Never Know]

You've been asked to provide evidence for this claim. Repeating the claim and ignoring the request suggests you can't back up your claim.

Its......

 

[firedragon]

The point of OP was about "cause-and-effect".

In natural science, you cannot have only evidence for "effect" without showing also evidence for "cause".

Intelligent Design like using analogy that has "cause-and-effect" theme, but do not see the illogical of such analogy with life or with Universe.

Say for instance, ID used the computer analogy, like computer programming. So the finished product, the software is the "effect", but software was designed and coded by a programmer (or in this day and age, by team of tens or even hundreds of programmers), then the programmer is the "cause".

Now, normally people who buy the software, won't be interested in the programmer who designed the software, but if you really want to, you can find out who this programmer, his/her name, his/her address, email, numbers, social security number (if the programmer is an American), his parents or spouse (if he or she is married).

My point is that programmer is a real person, not invisible or imaginary person, like a deity or spirit.

The point is that if the cause exist, physically and naturally, then you can find evidence for that "cause".

Can you find evidence for spiritual entity? My answer would be no.

But if a person - a believer - is going to MIX "science" and "religion" together, then the burden of proof would fall upon the claimant, so he or she should evidence for that "cause", if that "cause" is a person or something else.

I am not the one trying to cause-and-effect on something natural with something supernatural (or unnatural).

Let's say someone takes an analogy of a natural cause to make a logical point, you cannot "need" it to be natural all the way. That's bad logic. The analogy will be for a cause, not a "needy" natural cause.

Following through with your argument a physical human being created a software on a computer without anything but software, so if you make the case everything in the universe is software just like a computer software but was invented by a physical being that's absurd argumentation. What you are saying is that every analogy has to exactly be the same all the way back for it to be a natural cause. It's absurd. This is not how logic works.

Cause and effect or what ever term you wish to call this argument is a metaphysical argument. You cannot test a metaphysical being in a jar. So your whole engagement is baseless and unscientific. You cannot just say "he did it so I can do it too".

 

[F1fan]

Its......

View attachment 67275

They get it. And they don't get it.

 

[We Never Know]

They get it. And they don't get it.

They not only get it, they admit it. You however don't get it.

 

[Ben Dhyan]

Common ground? Just accept the science. Dark energy is dark energy. Some theists have a bad habit of trying to abduct certain real phenomenon and re-label it with religious jargon. What this illustrates to us is that religious folks don't have evidence for their specific claims.


Religion is not relevant to understanding what is true about the universe.

But religion is relevant to understanding everything. Science is the path to duality, religion is the path to non-duality.
Wrt duality, there is a mental separation between the thinker and the conceptualized reality, in the Nirvanic state, there is no duality.

 

[Ben Dhyan]

Do you think the Big Bang is about something coming from nothing?

Some scientists hold that view, I certainly don't!

 

[Ben Dhyan]

You've been asked to provide evidence for this claim. Repeating the claim and ignoring the request suggests you can't back up your claim.

And you've been told that the proof of Nirvana/God/ Brahman is in the union. God is one, the sense of duality you experience is due to you not having realized God in non-duality. God is a concept to represent the one existence in which you find yourself, if you think the reality represented by the concept God is an external to you, then you will never understand. I can though promise you that it is possible for human being to realize what and who they really are through correct religious practice, one that leads to union, ie., non-duality.

 

[Brian2]

You don't think space and time, or spacetime, don't exist?

What cave have you been holing up?

Are you saying that the physics and cosmology of the BB has changed and not space and time are thought to have existed always? What makes that more right than the previous ideas that space time started with the BB?
Is that like the idea that time had to have had a beginning or we could not be here yet is wrong because Mathematicians have theorised the B model of space time which I hear says that everything, including time has always existed? and we can go forwards or backwards in space time even if cause effect shows time as a one direction thing. I hear this model is accepted by most physicists these days.
It gets over the need for a beginning and a beginner(even though it seems that the B Model has a beginning point somewhere in it) but still it's even weirder than hypothesising a God, and when you think about it, it does not get over the idea that we could not be here yet if time was linear because it says that space time has always been,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, sort of like the linear model is still there except once removed,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, like saying that God must have had a cause, and so first cause has not been eliminated just moved back a bit,,,,,, once removed.
But really who am I to say anything about any of this, I'm not a scientist of mathematician.

 

[Brian2]

Because spacetime - or space and time - do exist.

What you look at, in one of those larger telescopes, the objects we see, especially distant galaxies, do take time to reach us.

For instance, what we currently WITHOUT any telescope, like the Andromeda Galaxy is about 2 million light-year away. So what you see now, is actually happening 2 million years ago.

The more distant the objects the further back in time you are looking at.

Spacetime is real.

God not so much. You may believe in God, you may follow the Bible, but that's in some stories. God is not something or someone you see, touch, measure or test.

Does that mean because science has ignored the evidence for gods and spirit for hundreds of years and have figured out mechanisms for how things happen in the physical universe, that a naturalistic speculation for the beginnings of the universe has to be the right answer, even if there is no evidence for it except the lack of "scientific" evidence for God.
But really physical mechanisms do not and have not got rid of the need for God.

 

[Ben Dhyan]

Common ground? I don't know.

How do you know that spiritual energy is omnipresent?

And what is spirit? How do you know spirit is real? Can you observe it, measure it, test it?

From Einstein's Special Relativity was the famous mass-energy equivalence equation: E = m c^2

This equation only confirm the earlier relationship between mass and energy (eg relation between mass of object and potential/kinetic energy, Conservation of Energy & Conservation of Mass, etc).

Mass and energy can be measured, can be calculated.

Can you do the same for spiritual energy? Are there even mass in spirit?

My point is that when science talk of energy and when certain religions talk of energy, they are not talking about the same thing, so I really sure they are the same or at the very least what they have in common.

It is only very recently (last decade) that WMAP and Planck observations of universe, plus the uses of supercomputers from NASA and ESA that provided the most definitive calculations and measurements of the Universe's masses.

Yes, spirit can be realized, but you will need to devote your life to a very difficult religious practice to bring your awareness from its present dualistic relationship with the universe/existence to a non-dual awareness state. The process of developing your mind to transition from duality to non-duality requires the cessation of thought. All thought implies duality, the thinker and the conceptual thought, non-duality requires no thought, just a mind free from thought in a state of pure awareness.

 

[Brian2]

Changed my mind about posting. Is there anyway to cancel a reply if you don't want to proceed?

Delete it.
Same old, same old debates.