So then if the universe did not come about by pure chance - what did happen? Perhaps a better question would be 'who' did it?

[John Cuthber]

16 hours ago, dimreepr said:

Evidence...

I wish I could "upvote" that more than once.
Incidentally, the title is "So then if the universe did not come about by pure chance - what did happen? Perhaps a better question would be 'who' did it?"

Turning that round,

Since we can't find sensible evidence of a "who", we are forced to the conclusion that the universe did "just happen" about 14 billion years ago.

It seems to have started off with a dense dot of very hot stuff, and since then has followed a handful of relatively simple laws.

The scale is big, but the fundamentals are quite simple.

 

The alternative is to propose that there was a "who" at the start, - we might as well follow convention and call them God.

That poses a more difficult problem. Where did God come from?

 

Well, given the choice between a simple thing- the big band and a handful of physical laws on one hand, and a massively complex , thinking, purposeful, powerful God on the other hand, statistics suggests I should choose the simple option as more probable.

 

[Bender]

2 hours ago, Lasse said:

Because the claimed scientific clarity and consistency between theory and observation is failing at some points and can be explained just by believes and faith.

Yes. Which is why scientists don't claim to explain them. 

[Phi for All]

9 hours ago, Lasse said:

Faith is needed in science you like it or not...

Lasse, since you can't seem to accept standard definitions, and this bad habit leads you to make soapboxing statements like this one, I don't see how you're adding to the discussions here. You seem to be at odds with our purpose, which is to discuss science using critical thinking and rational discourse, not preaching and blogging and generally forcing your personal religious standards into every conversation. You like it or not, if you keep it up, you will be leaving.

[Lasse]

27 minutes ago, Phi for All said:

Lasse, since you can't seem to accept standard definitions, and this bad habit leads you to make soapboxing statements like this one, I don't see how you're adding to the discussions here. You seem to be at odds with our purpose, which is to discuss science using critical thinking and rational discourse, not preaching and blogging and generally forcing your personal religious standards into every conversation. You like it or not, if you keep it up, you will be leaving.

Thank you for your correct handling. I keep your remarks is mind. I always tried... 

[Ten oz]

9 hours ago, Lasse said:

I can bring an infinite number of mathematical predictions whichones can not have a single observation.

Faith is needed in science you like it or not...

If you measure (measurements are mathematical) the weight of a sealed box a thousand times and its always 500 grams than you're going to have to accept that the contents of the  box weighs less than 500 grams. Arguing about what is inside the box may seem incredibly relevant to predicting it weight yet actually isn't.

The definition of Faith is "trust or confidence in someone or something". So one can characterize basically everything in the positive or negative of faith. You are inflating the the definition by specifically insisting faith is needed in science. By definition faith is needed breath since one must have confidence or trust in air to inhale. Faith, as you are applying it, is useless to this discussion. 

[JamesT]

Quote

  10 hours ago, Lasse said:

Faith is needed in science you like it or not...

I suggest you watch this well rasoned video by QualiaSoup about faith:

EDIT: Apologies I quoted the wrong person. I changed it now. This is meant for Lasse. Sorry I am not used to this site.

 

Everybody asks for evidence in every area of life - except believers and only when it comes to their chosen religion. Popes look both ways before crossing the road just like atheists.

The Reformed Epistemology bullshit ("you have no evidence against sollipsism") is just rhetoric. Yes, there are degrees of certainty. Still, the evidence that the belief in the external world is better than the belief in sollipsism lies in the observable epistemic productivity of the former. So, yeah, we all use evidence unless we willingly make an exception for irrational reasons.

In one of my links on page 1 of this thread I have given a few examples around this (baring in mind this is from a whole different conversation - but the underlying point about faith and science is still there):
 

Quote

 

Faith comes with many definitions. Some use it to mean "trust", others mean "Expect", and others yet use it as "believe without evidence". Well, It's a bad thing to believe without evidence. Yet, we all do it all of the time about one thing or another. There is just too much out there, too much content. It isn't pragmatic to personally evaluate all evidence on every subject. This is why the courts use the testimony of experts, for example. The court itself cannot be counted to know everything, so it uses specialists to help understand the stuff, as a witness to the knowledge.

A person does not have to know everything, to know some things. You may not know exactly how many marbles are in a small jar but you can still be accurate in saying the jar does not contain a million trillion marbles. Science accurately predicts by observing facts and evidence using skepticism and inquiry. Scientific theories adapt while new evidence is discovered. It is self-correcting. Science doesn't claim to know everything but is our best method of attempting to find out everything and we still might not know everything. "I don't know" is not an irrational stance. It's an intellectually honest one that anyone, regardless of his beliefs, can give.

Yet you mean faith in the origin of life. There is no scientific claim that the process via which life came about has been worked out. There are a number of possibilities consistent with known chemistry and biology, but to outline and flesh out a possibility is not to make the claim that it necessarily happened that way. To propose a possibility without claiming that this is necessarily what actually did happen is not a statement of faith. However, on the other hand, religious people believe without evidence regarding their religion, and their understanding of how life came about. There is a scientific understanding for where life came from that doesn't require magic, miracles, deities or demigods. IT just requires the natural workings of the universe and enough time and enough space for it to occur. It happens "on it's own". 

The theory of abiogenesis isn't yet perfect, but it is close enough to warrant belief without faith. Science gets stuff wrong, but it error-corrects itself. When we learn something knew about a subject in science, we update our understanding of how things work. The same can't be said for faith.

So the reason why people who hold faith that life was created is mocked is because they are doing so despite very rational evidence and argument that life is possible without a creator, yet they seem to reject this because their trust in their own religion (probably because it was taught to them by people they respect, and their whole life has been affected by it) outweighs their interest in following the specialists understanding of the scientific answers to these questions.

We don't want to have faith, even though we all do. We must try to be better than belief-without-evidence, and theists seem to have no interest in doing so. They literally treat faith as a virtue, which many atheists find absurd. No, theists are proud of their faith so much so that they don't even want to trust the specialists. I'll mock that, shamelessly.

For example, I cannot say with certainty that my wife will be home when i arrive in the morning. I believe it to be true because i have a reasonable expectation based on a pattern of behavior that lies outside of "faith". I cannot say with certainty that my neighbor owns his home. I believe it to be true because i have a reasonable expectation based on demonstrable evidence that lies outside of "faith". You dishonest (yes, you are dishonest) theists like to conflate what you call "faith" (belief in something without evidence) with "reasonable expectation" that is based in either patterns of behavior or evidence-backed assumptions.

Belief is a conviction that a proposition of fact is true or false, regardless of the reason for that belief. Faith is belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence. Faith is belief in a god that is not based on evidence. Faith is the surrender of reason and skepticism. If you have substantial evidence, you don't need faith. Faith starts at the conclusion and justifies it working backward, science starts from now and works backs justified by repeatable testing in real world situations. 

When there is not sufficient evidence to support a claim, the default position should be rational skepticism if the goal is to minimize the number of false beliefs and maximize the number of true beliefs one holds. Atheists maintain that there is no strong evidence for the presence of a higher power, which is why theists need faith -- to replace evidence. Not believing in fairies or Santa Claus is not an act of faith, because those who are making these claims have the burden of proof, and must provide evidence to support the acceptance of such propositions. Technically, disbelief of a claim, when evidence is lacking, requires less a statement of faith, in the same sense that 0 is less than 1. Definitionally, it doesn't make sense to say that disbelieving "takes more faith," as it doesn't require any faith not to place one's belief in unsubstantiated truth claims. 

 

 

Anyways I have to go now. Bye all of you lovely people.

Edited April 29, 2018 by JamesT

[Lasse]

32 minutes ago, Ten oz said:

faith is needed in science

No. It point some of the gaps and inconsistencies Science has. (I.e separated physical and mathematical value recognition). I do not want to be religious. I want to know and understand because I think life is a possibility One can consciously use. 

Science serves Humanity and not humanity serves science.

Certain level of Consciousness every single individual has. Science can not just neglect that and give axiomatizations 99.99% of the population does not understand. (Tested ca 2000 sample)

Edited April 29, 2018 by Lasse

[Ten oz]

14 minutes ago, Lasse said:

No. It point some of the gaps and inconsistencies Science has. (I.e separated physical and mathematical value recognition). I do not want to be religious. I want to know and understand because I think life is a possibility One can consciously use. 

What we do not know doesn't subtract from what we do know. 

[Strange]

1 hour ago, Lasse said:

It point some of the gaps and inconsistencies Science has.

What inconsistencies?

1 hour ago, Lasse said:

Science can not just neglect that and give axiomatizations 99.99% of the population does not understand. (Tested ca 2000 sample)

It doesn't matter to science what proportion of the public understands it. (Even if you made up the numbers.)

[PaulP]

I'm so sorry for all of you people. I am praying for each one of you that the Lord would reveal His Truth to you. There is a God who created you and has an inifite love and joy beyond what we can imagine. I have that joy... Nothing would make me happier than for you to experience it too.

I cannot prove the existence of God to you. I cannot prove Him to anyone. Only God Himself can prove Himself to you - that is how someone believes in His existence and trusts in Him.

It is a basic fundamental idea - we haven't seen God, so we need faith to believe in Him.

We haven't seen the creation of the universe, the stars, the galaxies, the back holes, and everything else - so we are using faith in scientific experimentation to believe what could have happened.

[beecee]

24 minutes ago, PaulP said:

We haven't seen the creation of the universe, the stars, the galaxies, the back holes, and everything else - so we are using faith in scientific experimentation to believe what could have happened.

Try again....While nothing is certain in science, the evidence points to a BB 13.83 billion years ago, and the fact that we have absolutely no need for any mythical construct that ancient humans may have needed to explain the wonders around him/her.

[Strange]

7 hours ago, PaulP said:

I'm so sorry for all of you people. I am praying for each one of you that the Lord would reveal His Truth to you.

He has revealed his truth. In the form of real physical evidence. 

You have chosen to believe in twisted version of religion that rejects the beauty and completely levity of that creation. 

Nearly all major religions accept the reality of the world revealed by physical evidence. Only a few misguided heretics like you insist that your beliefs are better than reality. 

7 hours ago, PaulP said:

We haven't seen the creation of the universe, the stars, the galaxies, the back holes, and everything else - so we are using faith in scientific experimentation to believe what could have happened.

We have seen evidence of all these things. 

I agree that there is no evidence for a god (or gods) and so you need faith to believe in those things. I don’t have a problem with that (unlike some people here ) but that is no reason to reject all evidence. 

 

[koti]

27 minutes ago, Strange said:

I don’t have a problem with that (unlike some people here )

I hear somebody calling my name. 

[Ten oz]

On 4/29/2018 at 10:14 PM, PaulP said:

I'm so sorry for all of you people. I am praying for each one of you that the Lord would reveal His Truth to you. There is a God who created you and has an inifite love and joy beyond what we can imagine. I have that joy... Nothing would make me happier than for you to experience it too.

I cannot prove the existence of God to you. I cannot prove Him to anyone. Only God Himself can prove Himself to you - that is how someone believes in His existence and trusts in Him.

It is a basic fundamental idea - we haven't seen God, so we need faith to believe in Him.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with you believing this. However it provides no supporting information about the creation of the universe. 

On 4/29/2018 at 10:14 PM, PaulP said:

We haven't seen the creation of the universe, the stars, the galaxies, the back holes, and everything else - so we are using faith in scientific experimentation to believe what could have happened.

Those have been measured. We have seen left over heat (cosmic microwave background) from the creation, measure the influence of a black holes gravity, and etc. 

[Phi for All]

On 4/29/2018 at 8:14 PM, PaulP said:

I'm so sorry for all of you people. I am praying for each one of you that the Lord would reveal His Truth to you. There is a God who created you and has an inifite love and joy beyond what we can imagine. I have that joy... Nothing would make me happier than for you to experience it too.

Ignorance can be bliss.

[Raider5678]

On 4/29/2018 at 10:39 PM, beecee said:

Try again....While nothing is certain in science, the evidence points to a BB 13.83 billion years ago, and the fact that we have absolutely no need for any mythical construct that ancient humans may have needed to explain the wonders around him/her.

Actually, we still can't explain how the BB came into existence.

It had to start somewhere.

And if there was something before that, where did that come from?

Etc.

So. I mean. We have no start point for our theoretical model of the Universe, which is an illogical concept to say it just sprang into existence out of nothing.

That being said, the supernatural doesn't have to be logical.

So the supernatural could have existed out of nothing, while the Universe could not have.

Although there is a theory I've heard proposed by a popular physicist(Steven Hawking. Might have heard of him before) that the Universe came into being because of the law of Gravity said it had to exist so there could be gravity.

Where did the law of Gravity come from? And why does it demand there be something to create gravity?

And if that's true, does it mean we can create matter out of thin air by harvesting the law of Gravity somehow?

 

Just saying. You could say we have all the evidence for everything, or just say "I don't know."

 

[Strange]

9 minutes ago, Raider5678 said:

It had to start somewhere.

There is no evidence it started.

[zapatos]

7 minutes ago, Raider5678 said:

Actually, we still can't explain how the BB came into existence.

No one is claiming we can.

Quote

So. I mean. We have no start point for our theoretical model of the Universe, which is an illogical concept to say it just sprang into existence out of nothing.

Who said it just sprang out of nothing? When they said it did they provide an explanation? If so, then perhaps it is logical, but you just don't accept it.

Quote

That being said, the supernatural doesn't have to be logical.

Of course it does.

(At the very least my assertion is as valid as yours.)

 

[Phi for All]

39 minutes ago, zapatos said:

Who said it just sprang out of nothing?

Recent evidence suggests this argument sprang from straw....

[zapatos]

21 minutes ago, Phi for All said:

Recent evidence suggests this argument sprang from straw....

...sound of chuckling...

[Moontanman]

I believe i know exactly where the universe came from! Not to mention what created it! 

A brobdingnagian creature so large it can only exist in 5d space, it consumes dark matter, excretes universes, and doesn't know it's own shit...  

[Raider5678]

9 hours ago, Strange said:

There is no evidence it started.

There is evidence we're here.

Obviously, it exists, so it must have had a beginning.

If it didn't have a beginning, then you're going to have a hard time explaining that to me without saying it's supernatural.

9 hours ago, zapatos said:

Who said it just sprang out of nothing? When they said it did they provide an explanation? If so, then perhaps it is logical, but you just don't accept it.

Well, our universe had to come from something.

And that something had to come from something.

Etc.

So at some point where did the first something come from?

8 hours ago, Phi for All said:

Recent evidence suggests this argument sprang from straw....

That's a pretty cheap way to undercut the entire argument wouldn't you say?

Clearly, it had to have a beginning.

[Phi for All]

7 minutes ago, Raider5678 said:

There is evidence we're here.

Obviously, it exists, so it must have had a beginning.

If it didn't have a beginning, then you're going to have a hard time explaining that to me without saying it's supernatural.

Well, our universe had to come from something.

And that something had to come from something.

Etc.

So at some point where did the first something come from?

We can't be sure the BB event was a beginning. We can't even be sure the universe we observe "must have had" a beginning. We're dealing with something unique, and just like we have to think differently about its expansion (it didn't expand "into" anything the way we might intuitively think it "must have"), we have to be careful when making assumptions about its origins. 

We'd prefer not to run into the paradoxes religion creates in this vein (if God created us, who created God?). Why not stick with a model that gets within a fraction of a second of the beginning evolution of this universe, and be satisfied that we're clawing our way carefully towards understanding, rather than simply proclaiming it's turtles all the way down. 

22 minutes ago, Raider5678 said:

That's a pretty cheap way to undercut the entire argument wouldn't you say?

Nobody claimed the universe sprang from nothing. Strawmen are pretty cheap reasoning, cheaply refuted.

29 minutes ago, Raider5678 said:

Clearly, it had to have a beginning.

And that's another strawman. Having a beginning is NOT the same as springing from nothing. Argument undercut cheaply.

[Raider5678]

2 hours ago, Phi for All said:

And that's another strawman. Having a beginning is NOT the same as springing from nothing. Argument undercut cheaply.

Having a beginning is springing from nothing though in this sense.

Let's just pretend what ever created the big bang happened to create what created the big bang.

It had to come from somewhere.

And then that thing had to come from somewhere.

At some point, it had to have a beginning.

And that beginning would be springing from nothing.

It's not mental gymnastics.

 

[zapatos]

20 minutes ago, Raider5678 said:

Having a beginning is springing from nothing though in this sense.

Let's just pretend what ever created the big bang happened to create what created the big bang.

It had to come from somewhere.

And then that thing had to come from somewhere.

At some point, it had to have a beginning.

And that beginning would be springing from nothing.

It's not mental gymnastics.

 

The only thing springing from nothing is your argument. You can repeat "it had to have a beginning" as often as you like. It doesn't make it true.