Does God exist or not exist?

[Athena]

This is not quite correct. Buddhism and pantheism don't believe in the existence of any God and so are Chinese religions like Confucianism, Taoism and secular humanism.

 

Also God-believers have no convincing way to explain the existence of a loving deity when there are people dying every day or are in a state of terrible pain, suffering, misery and illness.

 

Perhaps you confuse God with tangible reality? What every religious people seems to forget is God is unknown and beyond our comprehension,. They keep trying to make God a knowable and tangible reality. This is a mistake. The moment we think we know God, we know God not.

 

God like time is an abstract concept. This is not tangible reality, but we treat time and God as though these abstract concepts are tangible reality. Even atheist do this, because the argument that God does or does not exist, depends on insisting God is a tangible reality, effectively destroying every argument about God, to the great peril of humanity. That is without God, some discussions just are not possible, and this strongly effects our ability to discuss matters regarding democracy. Just as without the concept of atoms, and invisible units of energy, discussion of quantum physics would not be possible.

 

Does an abstract thought exist? We begin with simple concepts and combine them into complex concepts. This is abstract thinking. As if out of a magician's hat, we pull the concept of a 24 hour day, and 60 minute hour, and this works great on earth, but may not work at all on a smaller or larger planets, where their rotation gives them shorter or longer days and years. Also if a person on a distant planet is walking towards us, this person's present is our future, but if the person is walking away from us, this person's present becomes our past. Or as the seasons change we can decide to move clocks forwards and backwards. We also have to divide the planet into time zones to make trains and our system time of work. Time is obviously a concept not tangible reality, so abstract thought does exist and it serves a purpose. God as an abstract concept, that does exist and serve a purpose.

[immortal]

There's no reason to think there is such fine tuning, because all attempts to show that there was were based on shit analysis done by people who put ideology before science. I notice you've still not found a multivariate analysis in an infinite dimensional space.

 

You can't do shit work, declare it to be the truth and then demand someone explain your faulty conclusions. Fine tuning is crackpottery.

 

 

Other religiously motivated people might have an ideology to push in the form of fine-tuning but Roger Penrose is an atheist and he doesn't have any ideology to support. Fine-tuning cannot prove that a God exists but what it can show is that the universe as a purpose and therefore it has no implications for religion.

 

According to Roger Penrose the odds against universe originating by chance is this much:

 

[ecoli]

Other religiously motivated people might have an ideology to push in the form of fine-tuning but Roger Penrose is an atheist and he doesn't have any ideology to support.

being an atheist is not the same as not having an ideology. Penrose holds quite a few heterodox ideas, regarding human intelligence, etc.

 

Fine-tuning cannot prove that a God exists but what it can show is that the universe as a purpose and therefore it has no implications for religion.

 

According to Roger Penrose the odds against universe originating by chance is this much:

 

How do you equate a low probability event with directed purpose?

[immortal]

being an atheist is not the same as not having an ideology. Penrose holds quite a few heterodox ideas, regarding human intelligence, etc.

 

Penrose's claim that strong AI is impossible is not based on an ideology, it is based on sound mathematical arguments through which he has put Godel's ideas on a much firmer ground. Human thought is not mechanical or algorithmic, there is an element of non-computability in conscious thinking.

 

 

How do you equate a low probability event with directed purpose?

 

Yes it is a low probability event and yet as it is self-evident it has happened and that implies that there are rules which we have yet to discover and the purpose may be hidden in those rules.

[Alan McDougall]

Find an example of a paper arguing for fine tuning that actually does good analysis and considers covariance? Oh, and using an infinite dimensional space for the analysis would be good too since there are actually an infinite number of possible variables most of which just happen to be zero in our universe.

 

Let me know when you do.

 

 

 

Why would you want him to watch a video of crap analysis?

 

 

 

Dr Penrose is a highly respected physicist and colleague of Stephen Hawkins, watch the video and then givea sensible comment

 

 

 

Dr Penrose is a highly respected physicist andcolleague of Stephen Hawkins, watch the video and then give sensible comment He is an atheist you might like that!

 

 

 

The common objection to the"God hypothesis" is the problem of how God came to be?. If everything has a cause,why does God get an exception? The problem with such reasoning is that it assumes that time has always existed.

 

In reality, time is a construct of this universe and began at the initiation of the BigBang. A God who exists outside the time constraints of the universe is not subject to cause and effect. So, the idea that God has always existed and is not caused follows logically from the fact that the universe and time itself was created at the Big Bang. God has always existed and that God created time,along with the entire universe, being described as an expanding universe. Why is it impossible for the universe being uncaused? Of course, it is possible that the universe is uncaused. However, there is a tremendous amount of evidence that contradicts that idea. So, an unbeliever who claims to live by logic and evidence cannot arbitrarily assign eternity to a universe that is clearlytemporal.

 

 

Edited July 25, 2012 by Alan McDougall

[ydoaPs]

Dr Penrose is a highly respected physicist and colleague of Stephen Hawkins, watch the video and then givea sensible comment

 

 

And it's still abundantly clear that his comment was based on complete shit analysis. If I'm wrong, show me the paper that did the analysis correctly. Show me the multivariable analysis on an infinite dimensional space.

 

Until then, all you've got is argument from authority.

[tar]

I wonder what Dr. Penrose thinks happened the 10 to the 10 to the 123rd minus 1 times the universe did not happen?

 

If time and space were created by the Big Bang, then there is no "other" time to consider and no "other" place available for ANYTHING to occur. Where and when would one have to stand to figure the odds? Seems to me that the odds of our universe should run quite close to 100%, as in, a sure bet, with no other possibilities available.

 

Perhaps this is what Athena is talking about, when she says we need the concept of God. We can't figure the odds, without stepping outside time and space to make the judgement. And we have no place to stand, once outside time and space, but in God's shoes.

[ecoli]

Penrose's claim that strong AI is impossible is not based on an ideology, it is based on sound mathematical arguments through which he has put Godel's ideas on a much firmer ground.

I said heterodox ideas. As in, non-mainstream.

 

Human thought is not mechanical or algorithmic, there is an element of non-computability in conscious thinking.

That has not been proven. But please don't follow up as its off topic (start a new thread).

 

Yes it is a low probability event and yet as it is self-evident it has happened and that implies that there are rules which we have yet to discover and the purpose may be hidden in those rules.

So if I roll a 1 on a 100 sided die, is that also divine intervention?

[immortal]

So if I roll a 1 on a 100 sided die, is that also divine intervention?

 

I don't think God had used Big Bang and DNA to create the universe and the life in it respectively. I am not a proponent of Intelligent Design or a creationist, religion is based on a different epistemology and I'm least concerned of making my beliefs scientific and hence it would be silly to speculate about the divine in that direction.

 

If you ask from a religious perspective, yes, most of the religions teach us about predestination and you do realize that if we can measure the classical forces acting on the dice then we can determine the outcome in a deterministic way, rolling a dice is not true randomness.

[ecoli]

I don't think God had used Big Bang and DNA to create the universe and the life in it respectively. I am not a proponent of Intelligent Design or a creationist, religion is based on a different epistemology and I'm least concerned of making my beliefs scientific and hence it would be silly to speculate about the divine in that direction.

Ok, good to know where you stand.

 

If you ask from a religious perspective, yes, most of the religions teach us about predestination and

Do they? I think I remember something from the Old testament about people being made in God's image: AKA they have the power of choice (incompatible with predestination).

 

 

you do realize that if we can measure the classical forces acting on the dice then we can determine the outcome in a deterministic way, rolling a dice is not true randomness.

We can measure all of the classical forces, yet cannot predict dice rolls with any accuracy. So either 1) there is true randomness built into physical systems (and beyond the classical level) that we cannot ever predict with certainty or 2) physics is deterministic, but just too complex to model in any detail that would result in high accuracy. http://www.random.org/analysis/

 

Either way, I don't see much room for purpose in outcome.

[immortal]

Do they? I think I remember something from the Old testament about people being made in God's image: AKA they have the power of choice (incompatible with predestination).

 

Its compatible with pagan beliefs, the stoics believed in providence and both the Gnostic Christians and the eastern religions believe in predestination. The people in the east will better accept the outcomes of modern science and the Veiled reality of Bernard d'espagnat and will embrace it. We have to abandon the multitudinist view of the classical physics and accept that there is a reality where nonseparability and non-locality are the key elements of our reality.

 

We can measure all of the classical forces, yet cannot predict dice rolls with any accuracy. So either 1) there is true randomness built into physical systems (and beyond the classical level) that we cannot ever predict with certainty or 2) physics is deterministic, but just too complex to model in any detail that would result in high accuracy. http://www.random.org/analysis/

 

Either way, I don't see much room for purpose in outcome.

 

There can be other choices.

 

If there is ever a law of both Religion and Science then it will be this-

 

"What we call empirical reality is only a state of mind"

[Alan McDougall]

And it's still abundantly clear that his comment was based on complete shit analysis. If I'm wrong, show me the paper that did the analysis correctly. Show me the multivariable analysis on an infinite dimensional space.

 

Until then, all you've got is argument from authority.

 

PARALLEL UNIVERSES: CAN THEY EXIST?

 

http://leminuteur.fr...r/Universes.htm

58% of physicists (including Stephen Hawking) think multiple universes exist

 

18% (including Roger Penrose) do not accept this theory

 

13% admit the possibility, but remain unconvinced

 

and 11 % have no opinion.

 

 

Contrary to what you might expect, Sliders is actually based on real science. Indeed, the idea of parallel worlds may seem on the face of it to be pure fantasy, but for many scientists, it is much more than mere science-fiction.

Einstein's theory of relativity predicted the existence of "

black holes", a hypothesis which has since been verified. These cosmic phenomena arise from the death of a star, after it collapses in on itself under the force of its own gravity. Inside a black hole, gravity is so intense that even light cannot escape the gravitational field (hence the name black hole).

Albert Einstein and another physicist by the name of Nathan Rosen posited that each black hole would symmetrically on another gravitational well called a

white hole (or sometimes also white fountain). The black hole/white hole pair would form a "wormhole", or vortex (the interdimensional passage used by the Sliders, called an Einstein-Rosen Bridge).

Thus, any matter swallowed up by the black hole would be quickly spat out by the white hole, in an unknown location... This could be either a distant point in the universe, in which

case the wormhole would act as a shortcut through space and time. Alternatively, it could be a parallel universe, in which case it would act as a bridge between the different dimensions.

The second hypothesis could explain the

total absense of antimatter in the universe as we know it. According to the universe's governing principle of symmetry, there must be equal amounts of matter and antimatter. However, we have failed to discover the slightest trace of the latter, although we have succeeded in producing it artificially (at the CERN laboratory in Geneva, Switzerland in 1995, and in other particle accelerators). The existence of parallel universes could explain the lack of antimatter in our world. In parallel dimensions, then, there could be objects similar to the planets and stars we are familiar with in our own, but constructed of antimatter (this is one of the most recent theories, after the principles of dissymetry, and of the annihilation frontier).

According to a poll of 72 leading physicists conducted by the American researcher David Raub in 1995 (published in the French periodical Sciences et Avenir in January 1998), the multiple universe theory is widely accepted:

Sadly, we are not yet able to cross these bridges, if they exist. In fact, it would require a tremendous amount of energy to open a wormhole artificially, and the gravitational force inside would be so strong that we would be completely crushed.

Thus, Quinn must be a true genius to be able to open an interdimensional vortex so easily and quickly, and without suffering any injury!

Those who believe time travel may be possible rely similarly on the existence of parallel universes, which would allow for the resolution of the &quotgrandfather paradox":

If a man were to go back in time and kill his grandfather as a

child, logically speaking he would not be born, since his father before him would not be born. But if he wasn't born, he can't go back and kill his grandfather, therefore his grandfather lives, and the grandson is eventually born, therefore he can kill his grandfather, and so on...

If you consider that wormholes are shortcuts through the space-time continuum, the man could use one to go kill his grandfather. However, he would arrive not in the past of his own universe, but instead in that of a parallel universe, in which his existence does not depend on the continued existence of his grandfather. In killing this version of his grandfather, he would simply be preventing the birth of his double in the parallel universe...

Edited July 26, 2012 by Alan McDougall

[tar]

My answer to the grandfather paradox would be that it makes no sense, either way, therefore you can not go back in time.

What's done is done. And we are on to what we are going to do next.

[Alan McDougall]

THe bible says " ever learning and never coming to the knowledge of truth"

 

I agree no scientist know how life came to be out of the mass/energy of nature into living things|?Rock- to- life Abiogenesis has not been answered?

Scientist cant even agree on what life is, or give a definition of it, yetclaim to have the answer to know how Abiogenesis happened by natural biologicalprocesses

 

 

 

 

 

 

[iNow]

Interestingly, theists also can't even agree on what god is, or give a definition of it, yet claim that it answers how life was created by mythological processes.

[TheVillageAtheist]

I really don't think we need to get into the odds of life occurring by chance, or any other math-related discussion in order to have a good idea as to whether or not there is a god. All we really have to do is understand where religion and superstition comes from. If you can show that superstition is a byproduct of ignorance, and that religion is a natural product of superstition, then you can reasonably conclude that the very concept of godhood itself is nothing more than a human invention. In other words, godhood itself is no less a figment of our imagination than any particular god is. We shouldn't simply disregard easily-debunked gods like Yahweh or Zeus, just as we shouldn't simply disregard individual leprechauns. Rather, we should disregard godhood itself.