All Gone Very Quiet In R&s

[nailit]

Has the rapture happened?
Or has reason taken over faith?

[andy-hughes]

Khandro - // Do you need as a substitute for that lack to feel the camaraderie of the like-minded in order to deconstruct and debunk something you can't understand? //

It's somewhat lofty of you to assume that nailit 'can't' understand something.

It is for him to tell you what he does and does not understand, not for you to tell him.

[Theland]

Beso, sorry mate, your infinite void is not NO THING. It is very much something, and partly the miracle that Hawking craves, that allows his science to take over. You have not convinced me.

[vulcan42]

Theland, you haven't convinced me. You will have to explain how a void, described as empty, without content, can be defined as something.

[beso]

A void is nothing. A limitless void leaves no possibility for anything. You are playing semantics but not doing it very well.

But lets accept for that moment that a void is something. But I must ask, why do you demand that science starts from "no thing" when your God didn't either?

Remember, "In the beginning there was the Void and there was God."

Clearly God didn't make the Void, it was there from the Beginning. Moreover, despite God's propensity to declare everything as "good" at the end of each day, His void wasn't even a very good void. It wasn't infinite since God was not part of the void. God clearly had more to work with than science.

Then you have the enigma of God. Along with the imperfect void, the most complex thing to ever exist was there from the start without an explanation for its origin. By the "watchmaker and watch" principle so favoured among the believers, God could only have come from something more complex. This leads us to the paradox that the whole sequence must have begun with something of infinite complexity, thus requiring infinite order.

Science shows, with a few simple coherent rules, how everything we have ever observed came out of the perfect formless void because of the obvious impossibility of obtaining infinite order. No need for anything else at all.

Not only is your God an unnecessary complication it fails at the most important parts. The void is enough and science's void is actually far better than yours.

Your turn now. Explain how the most complex thing ever was here from the beginning. We have agreed that we can both have a void to start with, so no more demanding for science to work from "NO THING".

[vetuste_ennemi]

//Science shows, with a few simple coherent rules, how everything we have ever observed came out of the perfect formless void because of the obvious impossibility of obtaining infinite order. No need for anything else at all. //

I'm an atheist. But do I get "how everything we have ever observed came out of the perfect formless void"?

Book three(?) of Lucretius' De Rerum Natura (a VE set book book for Latin A-Levels 1961) was strong on "void" (accounted for the denisty of matter, don't you see?). But can't remember Lucretius on causes.

[vetuste_ennemi]

... as I recall the gods according to the Epicureans (if they exist) don't give a damn.

[vetuste_ennemi]

Apologies to the Epicureans who did exist and my pardons to the gods who might have.

[mibn2cweus]

Confronted with the choice to believe in an incomprehensible god I chose rather to devote my mind to the pursuit of comprehensibility.

[benhilton]

The first act of creation , the creation of something with form that can be detected , was " Let there be light " - and there was light .
This co-incides nicely with the earliest thing that science can observe , which is the big bang .
"let there be light " - and there was light = the big bang .
Convince me otherwise .

[beso]

benhilton //" Let there be light " - and there was light .
This co-incides nicely with the earliest thing that science can observe , which is the big bang .//

Such tenuous comparisons are frequent among believers. It is called "confirmation bias". Anything that doesn't confirm their preconceived notions is ignored.

"Light" hardly describes the intensity of the energies which would have been gamma rays at Planck wavelengths. Moreover any comparison between Biblical descriptions and cosmology immediately falls apart in the next verses.

Genesis 1:4-5 He separated the light from the darkness. He called the light "day" and the darkness "night".

Nothing even vaguely parallel to the ensuing processes of the Big Bang.

[benhilton]

Here's a bit more confirmation bias for you : "Light " is the general term for all electromagnetic radiation , including gamma rays at Planck wavelengths and "Let there be light " describes the big bang perfectly .

[benhilton]

The earliest thing that scientists can detect - "the Big Bang " - does it confirm the first act of creation written in the Bible - " let there be light and there was light " ?
Who's biased , Me or Beso ?....Are we both biased ? ...Which of the two is most biased ?

[Zacs-Master]

Nope, because the 'light' referred to is after the earth has been created. Waaaaay after TBB.

[naomi24]

^Quite right.

[maggiebee]

Look no further than the previous 54 posts to understand why it has gone very quiet in R & S.

[nailit]

//Look no further than the previous 54 posts to understand why it has gone very quiet in R & S.//
Just looked. Still cant see why Maggie?
Do you mean that its gone quiet because some people question others about their beliefs?

[jourdain2]

This is probably my last post in this section. I don't bother anymore because people simply shout their own corner and take extreme sides as examples. I would be happy to debate sensibly and quietly about mainstream ideas - but this is definitely a no-no on here. Rapture has not happened, nor has reason overtaken faith - the shouting match has simply become very boring.

[nailit]

//people simply shout their own corner and take extreme sides as examples//
Pretty much Like the rest of AB then jourdain.

//I would be happy to debate sensibly and quietly about mainstream ideas//
but a lot of the religious on here don't debate, they preach and then get upset when someone challenges them to defend their beliefs.

[nailit]

I would love a proper debate with Theland or goodlife et al on certain subjects, but they simply DONT debate. They post some stuff from the Bible, tell us to research for ourselves on youtube and then disappear.

[naomi24]

Jourdain, I don’t see any shouting, but I do see a reluctance from the religious contingent here to actually enter into discussion on the subject. Perhaps that’s why this section goes quiet occasionally. For example I recently provided a link to the names of multiple creator gods and asked ‘Why your god rather than one of the others?’, or words to that effect. A very relevant question in R&S but it elicited no answers.