Atheism and the Big Bang

[Polymath257]

Numerous verses describe the attitudes, verbals and responses of the righteous and unrighteous, dozens of such verses in Proverbs alone. Mockers . . . mock.

And mocking what deserves to be mocked is not a bad thing.

 

[gnostic]

I understand how the BB ties to what looks like a careful reading of Genesis, sure.

I also see how the universality of BB theory being accepted among cosmologists belies the fact that magical thinking is required to explain how this universe came to be--magical thinking that is akin to mysticism, positing a multiverse for which there is no proof.

Again, you comment on the Big Bang without understanding the Big Bang model.

The Big Bang doesn’t indicate anything magic, just as any supernatural being like god is not relevant.

As to the multiverse model, it is a completely different cosmology, positing by String Theory advocates.

And you are wrong, about Multiverse.

There are proofs with Multiverse model, they just have no empirical and testable evidences.

You are still not understanding that in science, particularly physics, proofs are mathematical or logical statements, like solutions in mathematical equations (or formulas), or logical but abstract models.

Empirical evidences are either some discoverable evidences in the fields or the test results from repeatable experiments.

You have been in Religious Forums for 6 years, and you still cannot understand the basic differences between proofs and evidences.

Evidence and proof are not the same things in science.

 

[Thermos aquaticus]

I also see how the universality of BB theory being accepted among cosmologists belies the fact that magical thinking is required to explain how this universe came to be--magical thinking that is akin to mysticism, positing a multiverse for which there is no proof.

You don't need to know the origin of the universe in order to understand how it changed over time once it was here. You are simply trying to draw a false equivalency between science and your dogmatic religious beliefs.

 

[ecco]

Numerous verses describe the attitudes, verbals and responses of the righteous and unrighteous, dozens of such verses in Proverbs alone. Mockers . . . mock.

You said...

The Bible predicts precisely how atheists will respond to the OP, and how born again believers will respond.

Today there are mockers who mock and you take that as evidence that the bible made precise predictions.

I suppose you also give credence to the prescience of Jehova's Witnesses who predicted their views of the end of times would be met with mockery.

I suppose you also give credence to the prescience of early Mormons who predicted their views of Christianity would be met with mockery.

Should I now predict that you will respond by saying "that ain't the same thing"? Would that prove that I too, like you bible authors, am prescient?

Saying that your radical ideas are going to be mocked is not a sign of prescience, it is an acknowledgement of reality. The people who introduced the concept of Plate Tectonics were mocked. Einstein was mocked. Hubble was mocked. Darwin was mocked. I'll bet they all saw it coming.

It's sad you have to grasp at such tenuous straws to help you continue to believe your silly book.

 

[Segev Moran]

In any case, strong atheism, at least the way I understand it, asserts that there are no intelligent or creative forces in the universe beyond the natural universe as we see it.

Close but not accurate.
Strong Atheistic or Anti-Theist, only claim there is no GOD or Supernatural Entities.
I think the more accurate statement of a strong atheist will be that there is no supernatural intelligent entity behind the creation of the
universe.
as for forces, , gravity as an example is a creative force.
[/QUOTE]

Additionally, most atheists believe that the universe began as an inconceivably small particle that exploded and rapidly expanded to produce the universe that we know today.

Also not true.
Buddhists are Atheists (Not strong one though ) for example.
There are many atheists who do not accept the scientific theory of the big bang.

I believe this as well, however I find it problematic to assert with confidence that there was no intelligent or supernatural agent involved in this process.

Me too

Think about it this way: Have you ever seen an explosion produce order?

Big bang is not an explosion.

Every example of an explosion that I can think of produces chaos, not order.

See above

Yet somehow, according to atheists,

Nope.
According the physicists, astronomers, chemists and many other scientific purview.
The fact of them being atheists or not is irrelevant.

this infinitely tiny particle exploded

Expanded (Or inflated)

in such a way as to produce an orderly universe (more or less)

Why would you say the universe is ordered?
I think you are mistaking the fact there are forces acting upon the universe with the notion of it being in order.
The universe is chaotic.
The fact we manage to describe some patterns that help us describe it, doesn't make it ordered.

built upon fundamental particles whose interactions are dictated by specific physical laws.

Nope again

All of the matter and energy in this tiny particle that exploded somehow just re-arranged itself

No it didn't rearrange itself.
It is a complex process that we can describe in a very detailed manner.
We can today mimic and test such processes in labs.

to form galaxies, stars, planets, and the conditions for life, and then life evolved and here we are, along with everything we know and love. Ultimately, according to this perspective, everything and everyone we know and love are ultimately the product of an entirely un-directed explosion that just happened to produce these conditions that would give rise to everything and everyone in existence

Not true, Not in existence, rather in the observable universe.
We today have many ideas regarding multiverse, other dimensions, dark matter and energy and many many things we are far from understanding.

, and ultimately, it's all meaningless,

Don't you have meaning in your life?

and the big bang was just a convenient accident

No one knows actually.
We don't really know what preceded the big bang.

that just happened to produce all the necessary conditions for the physical laws of the universe to cause atoms to re-arrange in such a way as to produce the universe as we know it, and to produce all of the wonders and beauties of it all.
The reality of things is not as beautiful as you would imagine.
It is our brain that interprets it as being beautiful (mostly due to many many details we cannot grasp with our 5 senses)

This is hard for me to believe. Bear in mind that if the initial conditions of the universe were even slightly different, there is no way that life, or even physical structures like galaxies, would exist.

Bare in mind that we might be the millionth "attempt" of a universe.
Bare in mind we can be one of Trillions of universes.

Of course I'm not asserting that any specific god of any religion orchestrated the whole process, nor am I trying to create my own magic genie-god of the gaps to deal with this problem. It's even more ridiculous to believe a magical anthropomorphic immortal genie created it all with an incantation spell. My purpose for this post is just to encourage atheists to keep an open mind. Maybe there's something greater than us

There is without a doubt.
Atheists just don't think it is a God

out there that is behind the whole thing. Maybe we'll never know what it is, or if it exists. In any case, it's interesting to speculate about, though many (though certainly not all) atheists tend to pooh-pooh any suggestion of a possible intelligent agent or creative force involved in the origin of the universe. Some of them also mock the idea that there could possibly be a purpose for all of this. I think that's a closed-minded mistake.

I don't think you've talked with many atheists.

Atheist "mock" the idea of making statement of truth without being able to back them up with evidence (no, the bible says so is NOT an evidence )

Atheist usually find the claim: "I Know god exists" as not valid.

 

[ecco]

In any case, strong atheism, at least the way I understand it, asserts that there are no intelligent or creative forces in the universe beyond the natural universe as we see it.

Close but not accurate.
Strong Atheistic or Anti-Theist, only claim there is no GOD or Supernatural Entities.
I think the more accurate statement of a strong atheist will be that there is no supernatural intelligent entity behind the creation of the
universe.
as for forces, , gravity as an example is a creative force.

Speaking for myself. Gods are the creations of man's imaginings. Period.

Hubert, do you agree...

There are no Easter Bunnies involved in creation..
​

And Segev, don't you believe...

There are no Easter Bunnies in the Universe.
​

So why all this discussion about what atheists believe?

 

[BilliardsBall]

Again, you comment on the Big Bang without understanding the Big Bang model.

The Big Bang doesn’t indicate anything magic, just as any supernatural being like god is not relevant.

As to the multiverse model, it is a completely different cosmology, positing by String Theory advocates.

And you are wrong, about Multiverse.

There are proofs with Multiverse model, they just have no empirical and testable evidences.

You are still not understanding that in science, particularly physics, proofs are mathematical or logical statements, like solutions in mathematical equations (or formulas), or logical but abstract models.

Empirical evidences are either some discoverable evidences in the fields or the test results from repeatable experiments.

You have been in Religious Forums for 6 years, and you still cannot understand the basic differences between proofs and evidences.

Evidence and proof are not the same things in science.

I didn't say the BB indicates magic, and I understand in lay terms some of the physics and cosmology behind the BB.

I'm saying you and others use a sort of magic to look beyond Planck time, when Occam's Razor tells us matter from nothing was Created by a Creator.

 

[BilliardsBall]

You don't need to know the origin of the universe in order to understand how it changed over time once it was here. You are simply trying to draw a false equivalency between science and your dogmatic religious beliefs.

Aquaticus, why not address the shortcomings in cosmology's current worldview before attacking my beliefs?

It is you and not I who is making a leap of FAITH in telling me what "probably happened before Planck time."

 

[Subduction Zone]

I didn't say the BB indicates magic, and I understand in lay terms some of the physics and cosmology behind the BB.

I'm saying you and others use a sort of magic to look beyond Planck time, when Occam's Razor tells us matter from nothing was Created by a Creator.

Occam's Razor does nothing of the sort.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Aquaticus, why not address the shortcomings in cosmology's current worldview before attacking my beliefs?

It is you and not I who is making a leap of FAITH in telling me what "probably happened before Planck time."

"I don't know" has never been a valid excuse to claim that a god exists. You are the one making the leap.

 

[Audie]

I didn't say the BB indicates magic, and I understand in lay terms some of the physics and cosmology behind the BB.

I'm saying you and others use a sort of magic to look beyond Planck time, when Occam's Razor tells us matter from nothing was Created by a Creator.

People tend to see their own faults in others.
Any religious person is deeply invested in magical thinking.
It is a false assumption that it means others are.

 

[BilliardsBall]

You said...

Today there are mockers who mock and you take that as evidence that the bible made precise predictions.

I suppose you also give credence to the prescience of Jehova's Witnesses who predicted their views of the end of times would be met with mockery.

I suppose you also give credence to the prescience of early Mormons who predicted their views of Christianity would be met with mockery.

Should I now predict that you will respond by saying "that ain't the same thing"? Would that prove that I too, like you bible authors, am prescient?

Saying that your radical ideas are going to be mocked is not a sign of prescience, it is an acknowledgement of reality. The people who introduced the concept of Plate Tectonics were mocked. Einstein was mocked. Hubble was mocked. Darwin was mocked. I'll bet they all saw it coming.

It's sad you have to grasp at such tenuous straws to help you continue to believe your silly book.

If you like, please present here the Bible verses predicting that JWs and Mormons will be mocked (!), and then I can post several hundred verses, from different authors in different time periods, writing in different locations, all of whom predict you would act like you are acting now. Instead, by being open-minded, showing me respect, and not saying uninformed canards like "silly book", you can prove the Bible wrong, but you cannot do so, I believe because you in spiritual thrall to a different master than I, IMHO.

IMO, were you to trust Christ, you would be set free from the enemy forces (including yourself being your own worst enemy) that compel you to behave exactly as the Bible predicted you would.

 

[Subduction Zone]

If you like, please present here the Bible verses predicting that JWs and Mormons will be mocked (!), and then I can post several hundred verses, from different authors in different time periods, writing in different locations, all of whom predict you would act like you are acting now. Instead, by being open-minded, showing me respect, and not saying uninformed canards like "silly book", you can prove the Bible wrong, but you cannot do so, I believe because you in spiritual thrall to a different master than I, IMHO.

IMO, were you to trust Christ, you would be set free from the enemy forces (including yourself being your own worst enemy) that compel you to behave exactly as the Bible predicted you would.

Actually all that you can provide are weak defensive verses from the Bible using the assumption that you are the one being unjustly attacked. Defensive verses exist because some of the authors of the Bible recognized horse puckey when they wrote it.

 

[Audie]

If you like, please present here the Bible verses predicting that JWs and Mormons will be mocked (!), and then I can post several hundred verses, from different authors in different time periods, writing in different locations, all of whom predict you would act like you are acting now. Instead, by being open-minded, showing me respect, and not saying uninformed canards like "silly book", you can prove the Bible wrong, but you cannot do so, I believe because you in spiritual thrall to a different master than I, IMHO.

IMO, were you to trust Christ, you would be set free from the enemy forces (including yourself being your own worst enemy) that compel you to behave exactly as the Bible predicted you would.

you can prove the Bible wrong, but you cannot do so, I believe because you in spiritual thrall to a different master than I

Speaking of canards, "prove the bible wrong" is among
the most ridiculous.

Some of the things it says are quite obviously true.
There really is an Egypty; there are goats, and camels.
Fish, too.

Some of the things in it are quite obviously not true.

But maybe not so obvious, for lo, you guys all
have ways to get out of it.

The bible is not wrong describing a world wide flood
because it was local, or because it was allegoricall
Or it is about the milky way.

Or, if it is literal, and all the evidence in the universe turns against it, well, you guys just call SEDI!
Same Evidence, Different Interpretation!

God says, Man says!

Nothing could be proved to the satisfaction of a "believer" if it is not to their liking. Fortunately, others have been able to move past the first century.

because you in spiritual thrall to a different master than I

So you'd be pretty much a believer in the WWCOSSTSTTOTB? (world wide conspiracy of satanic scientists to suppress the truth of the bible)

 

[gnostic]

I'm saying you and others use a sort of magic to look beyond Planck time, when Occam's Razor tells us matter from nothing was Created by a Creator.

Now you are spinning strawman, and it funny how you are trying to twist everything when I don’t believe in magic or supernatural but you do which you accuse me of, but you are the one who actually believe in supernatural, like god, miracles and magic.

The level of your dishonesty is truly appalling.

And btw, I have said we know thing before the Planck Epoch, and second, I still haven’t accepted the Multiverse model, because it is still theoretical, still hypothetical and still untestable. Multiverse is still a hypothesis, not a scientific theory.

Only a dishonest person would bring up the Multiverse strawman, when I have accepted this cosmology.

 

[ecco]

I suppose you also give credence to the prescience of Jehova's Witnesses who predicted their views of the end of times would be met with mockery.

I suppose you also give credence to the prescience of early Mormons who predicted their views of Christianity would be met with mockery.

If you like, please present here the Bible verses predicting that JWs and Mormons will be mocked

Once again you demonstrate an inability to comprehend plain English.

I did not say the bible predicted anything about the Mormons and the JW's.

I said the Mormons and JW's stated their views would be mocked.

You tried to make the claim that bible writers were prescient because they predicted bible stories would be mocked.

I showed that all new cults realize they will be mocked, It's not about prescience, it's nothing special, it's just common sense.

 

[ecco]

Instead, by being open-minded, showing me respect, and not saying uninformed canards like "silly book", you can prove the Bible wrong, but you cannot do so

Silly book:

Every "kind" of animal was placed on a wooden boat. The wooden boat and its occupants survived 40 days and 40 nights of the worst storm imaginable. After coming ashore on a mountain, the "kinds" of animals developed into millions of species and got to farthest reaches of the planet in less than 4000 years.​

Silly book!

, I believe because you in spiritual thrall to a different master than I, IMHO.
IMO, were you to trust Christ, you would be set free from the enemy forces (including yourself being your own worst enemy) that compel you to behave exactly as the Bible predicted you would.

God, as the Holy Ghost, raped a young virgin and impregnated her.

One can either believe God is a rapist or dismiss it as a silly story in a silly book? My choice was clear.

 

[Thermos aquaticus]

Aquaticus, why not address the shortcomings in cosmology's current worldview before attacking my beliefs?

Not knowing the origin of the universe is not a shortcoming of the Big Bang theory.

It is you and not I who is making a leap of FAITH in telling me what "probably happened before Planck time."

I don't know what happened before our universe began, and I don't know how it originated. Why does that position require faith?

 

[Segev Moran]

Speaking for myself. Gods are the creations of man's imaginings. Period.

How do you know for such a certainty?

So why all this discussion about what atheists believe?​

Atheism is LACK of belief.
That's all i was saying

And i have learned many things that might seem impossible or crazy yet were found to be true. so i can say for certainty anything.

I can only tell you what i know (or at least seem to know) and what i do believe. And no, Easter eggs (creation or not) are probably nothing but a cool attraction for kids



​

 

[ecco]

Speaking for myself. Gods are the creations of man's imaginings. Period.

How do you know for such a certainty?

To believe otherwise, I'd have to believe Atlas, Athena, Shango, Shiva, Pinga ... the Minoan Mother Goddess, Aumanil, et al. are real, actual gods. There is no evidence to support that conclusion.