For scientific-minded believers, what is God the Creator of?

[BilliardsBall]

I'm saying the text describes the *sky* as a piece of cloth spread out over the Earth.

In other words, it is *wrong*.

So you refuse to acknowledge that the active phrase "God stretches the sky" is obviously not the context, especially since the plural word HEAVENS is in play here.

 

[BilliardsBall]

Not at all. Simply to explain where comets come from. The age of the solar system is quite well established from other evidence.

The Oort cloud is an elegant hypothesis:

1) We accept only naturalistic explanations for the abundance of remaining comets in an old solar system

2) We conjecture a sizable cloud of distant objects that generates nearby, observed comets, due to solar system gravitation and other gravity and momentum forces

3) No one has ever observed even one Oort cloud object (too far, too faint, too small) but we accept as naturalists it must exist as a mathematical possibility

One reason I trust in Bible is because Israel has demonstrably fulfilled dozens of specific prophecies since 1948, observably, without possibility of self-fulfillment -- mathematically the Bible's prescience is probable, and the odds of the prophecies fulfilled by chance almost nil.

Therefore, you believe in never-seen conjectured objects because they might exist, and because the alternative, a young solar system, causes you severe cognitive dissonance. I trust the Bible because of massive, observed evidence.

That's why it's hard to talk to atheists--they constantly make faith-based claims they cannot perceive as logical fallacies because it causes cognitive dissonance to think they themselves are faith-based, their very definition of irrationality.

Or perhaps instead you may someday visit an asylum and tell the psychiatrists "Everyone is born atheist, but then due to worldwide delusion, almost everyone becomes a theist or deist, and only the few initiated superior beings known as adult atheists are hip to the truth", then they will lock you away and discard the key for you llunatic conspiracy theory that "everyone except the chosen initiated are under a supreme delusion".

 

[Polymath257]

So you refuse to acknowledge that the active phrase "God stretches the sky" is obviously not the context, especially since the plural word HEAVENS is in play here.

The heavens at the time were the different 'shells' on which the planets and sun were places.

 

[Polymath257]

The Oort cloud is an elegant hypothesis:

1) We accept only naturalistic explanations for the abundance of remaining comets in an old solar system

Can you provide a testable non-natural explanation? Yes, the Oort cloud is testable.

2) We conjecture a sizable cloud of distant objects that generates nearby, observed comets, due to solar system gravitation and other gravity and momentum forces

3) No one has ever observed even one Oort cloud object (too far, too faint, too small) but we accept as naturalists it must exist as a mathematical possibility

4) We understand our ignorance of planetary and comet formation.

5) We understand that observing comets that are very distant is impossible with current technology.

6) We know that some comets have very elliptical orbits that take then very far from the sun.

One reason I trust in Bible is because Israel has demonstrably fulfilled dozens of specific prophecies since 1948, observably, without possibility of self-fulfillment -- mathematically the Bible's prescience is probable, and the odds of the prophecies fulfilled by chance almost nil.

Sorry, but the 'prophecy' here is at best tortured and surpassed by many scientific predictions in other areas.

Therefore, you believe in never-seen conjectured objects because they might exist, and because the alternative, a young solar system, causes you severe cognitive dissonance. I trust the Bible because of massive, observed evidence.

No, the youth of the solar system is proved in other ways. The Oort cloud was not postulated to get an old solar system. That was already a conclusion based on other facts. The Oort cloud was postulated to understand the origin of comets in that context.

A young solar system is NOT the alternative to the Oort cloud. An alternative to the Oort cloud would be a *different* way of forming or holding comets and releasing them every so often into the inner solar system.

That's why it's hard to talk to atheists--they constantly make faith-based claims they cannot perceive as logical fallacies because it causes cognitive dissonance to think they themselves are faith-based, their very definition of irrationality.

Maybe you just don't understand how the scientific method actually works. The Oort cloud is conjectural. But if it is wrong, that would not imply a young solar system. It would at most imply a different way to have comets formed or released over long periods of time.

Or perhaps instead you may someday visit an asylum and tell the psychiatrists "Everyone is born atheist, but then due to worldwide delusion, almost everyone becomes a theist or deist, and only the few initiated superior beings known as adult atheists are hip to the truth", then they will lock you away and discard the key for you llunatic conspiracy theory that "everyone except the chosen initiated are under a supreme delusion".

Most people are taught by parents or other adults to believe in a deity. What do you think would happen if that stopped?

Your 'evidence' is weak, at best. The evidence of an old solar system comes from multiple independent lines of data (look at asteroid spin down, for example). The absence of an Oort cloud would not negate that evidence. It would just lead to a puzzle about comets.

 

[Polymath257]

Undifferentiated phenomena existed. We chose to differentiate it into stars and galaxies, and we labeled them, and we chose to understand them as we do. Without us, existence is just a lot of undifferentiated phenomena.

But your aren't going to grasp this, I think.

I grasp what you are saying. I just think it is badly wrong.

Yes, we label what we find. We construct hypotheses and theories, etc. And the universe does what it does.

But no, existence is not differentiated because of us. We look and recognize the differentiation.

 

[Polymath257]

Science is composed of specialists, who know a lot about one thing area of science. However, as they move away from that area of specialty, they become more and more like a layman. The science that results is composed of disjointed steps, that cannot fully see that a mouse trap game was set up. For example, Quarks are important in Physics, and although Chemistry is the next adjacent science, Chemist do not even use this, even if we intuitively sense these are both connected. There is nobody to make a bridge who can see both sides of two specialties.

I think that you will find this to be false in practice. Many people study both, or even multiple, sides. The reason quarks don't arise much in chemistry is that they are in the nucleus and simply don't affect very far away from that (the strong force has a finite reach, limited to a few proton diameters). But muonic atoms have been made and are studied. Their chemistry is different because of their different size.

In terms of the mouse trap game called the universe, the fusion reactions of stars have populated the universe with atoms. The five more common atoms in the universe are hydrogen, helium, oxygen, carbon and nitrogen. While the four most abundant atoms in the human body are hydrogen, oxygen, carbon and nitrogen. This is not a coincidence. Hydrogen gas; H2, water; H2O and carbon monoxide; CO, are the most common molecules in the universe. Water based life was part of the mouse trap game.

The ball bearing of stellar fusion rolls down the ramp, hits the lever, that releases the pendulum that swings to set the stage for life to appear. The game is already set up. However, science is not set up to see it. That would required a more generalist science path for education instead of just specialists.

And many people do, in fact, think about these connections. Not all scientists are specialists in this way.

In fact, I think that you will find many treatments linking various aspects of the interconnectedness of the universe if you look a bit.

Yes, it is no surprise that the basic elements of life are those early in the periodic table because those are also the most common and those that have the type of activity required for forming the complexities of life (even silicon seems not to allow for the complex structures of carbon).

But you can also go further. The rate of expansion in the early Big Bang determined how fast the universe cooled. So, when nucleosynthesis occurred, some of the reactions were stopped before completion. This is what gave the initial concentrations of hydrogen, helium, and lithium in the early universe. The first stars only had those elements to form from. So all the rest of the elements (carbon, oxygen, sulfur, etc) were formed in the interiors of stars, often at the end stages of their cycles. They were then blown into the cosmos via supernova. Even heavier elements formed around neutron stars.

So the Earth simply could not have formed prior to the deaths of these first stars. Life was simply not possible (at least as we know it) before the basic elements were formed. So this gives a reason why we see the universe as old as it is: it has to be in order to form us.

Now, the question is whether the 'mouse trap' formed spontaneously or was created by an intelligence. In this, the trap itself is simply the laws of physics and the basic parameters of the early universe.

Bu then, that gets into what is required to form something as complicated as an intelligence. What laws govern that? The mouse trap goes back farther again.

 

[PureX]

I grasp what you are saying. I just think it is badly wrong.

Yes, we label what we find. We construct hypotheses and theories, etc. And the universe does what it does.

But no, existence is not differentiated because of us. We look and recognize the differentiation.

What you're not getting is that the universe as you conceive of it, and that you assume exists beyond your conceptualizations, is a conceptualization. Not a universe. And it appears to me that you are not capable of grasping what that means.

 

[Polymath257]

What you're not getting is that the universe as you conceive of it, and that you assume exists beyond your conceptualizations, is a conceptualization. Not a universe. And it appears to me that you are not capable of grasping what that means.

So what do you think it means?

I just happen to disagree with you. I think the universe beyond my conceptualization is *reality*. My conceptualization is simply my approximate model of that reality, limited by my abilities. I use my senses and intellect to form that approximate, ever revised, model. But it is a model, not reality.

I don't get to define *the* universe. I merely construct *my* model of that universe limited by my abilities. It appears to me that you are not capable of grasping what that means.

 

[PureX]

So what do you think it means?

I just happen to disagree with you. I think the universe beyond my conceptualization is *reality*. My conceptualization is simply my approximate model of that reality, limited by my abilities. I use my senses and intellect to form that approximate, ever revised, model. But it is a model, not reality.

I don't get to define *the* universe. I merely construct *my* model of that universe limited by my abilities. It appears to me that you are not capable of grasping what that means.

Like I said, it appears you are not capable of grasping the difference between your cognitive experience of existence, and existence uncognated.

 

[Polymath257]

Like I said, it appears you are not capable of grasping the difference between your cognitive experience of existence, and existence uncognated.

And I feel that I do. I know, for example, that there are many aspects of the universe I cannot directly perceive. I know there are many aspects that I (or anyone else) am unaware of. That does not make then undifferentiated. That simply makes them unknown to us.

You seem to think that unless we observe it, it doesn't exist.

 

[PureX]

You seem to think that unless we observe it, it doesn't exist.

Our observations only exist in our minds. Can you understand that?

 

[Polymath257]

Our observations only exist in our minds. Can you understand that?

Not true. They exist in reality. The sensory data collected exists in our minds. But there are usually records independent of our minds.

Can you understand that?

 

[PureX]

Not true. They exist in reality. The sensory data collected exists in our minds. But there are usually records independent of our minds.

Can you understand that?

It's all just moot phenomena until it's observed and cognated. 'Sensory data' is just the bits and aspects of that sea of moot existential phenomena that we humans are able to experience either directly or indirectly (via machines). There is no data "independent of our minds". There is only moot phenomena. I don't know how to say it more clearly or simply. Existence is not made of "data". Data only happens when existence encounters cognition. Data is what existence becomes when a human mind encounters it.

 

[Polymath257]

It's all just moot phenomena until it's observed and cognated. 'Sensory data' is just the bits and aspects of that sea of moot existential phenomena that we humans are able to experience either directly or indirectly (via machines). There is no data "independent of our minds". There is only moot phenomena. I don't know how to say it more clearly or simply. Existence is not made of "data". Data only happens when existence encounters cognition. Data is what existence becomes when a human mind encounters it.

And existence exists independent of our ability to detect it. It is still organized and differentiated, even if we don't detect that organization or differentiation.

And yes, there most certainly *is* data independent of our minds. In fact, *most* data is never evaluated by a mind. Data is simply a function of the structure of matter and energy in the universe. NOT undifferentiated.

Your use of the term 'moot' seems very strange here. You seem to want to know what something is, but then deny that it is independent of our observation. The universe is interactive and dynamic and is so whether or not we observe those interactions or the dynamics.

 

[PureX]

And existence exists independent of our ability to detect it. It is still organized and differentiated, even if we don't detect that organization or differentiation.

Existence is organized, but not differentiated. Because "difference" is a cognitive observation, of which there is none.

And yes, there most certainly *is* data independent of our minds.

This is where you prove that you cannot understand existence apart from cognition. Even though existence apart from cognition seems to be your major philosophical pillar.

Your use of the term 'moot' seems very strange here. You seem to want to know what something is, but then deny that it is independent of our observation. The universe is interactive and dynamic and is so whether or not we observe those interactions or the dynamics.

And all that interactive dynamism is then completely 'moot' as it's occurring unobserved, and unaware. It's like removing a mind from a body claiming it's still a "person".

 

[Polymath257]

Existence is organized, but not differentiated. Because "difference" is a cognitive observation, of which there is none.

I disagree with that statement. Two different stars have a difference whether or not there is a consciousness witnessing that difference.

This is where you prove that you cannot understand existence apart from cognition. Even though existence apart from cognition seems to be your major philosophical pillar.

And it seems to me that you can;t understand data and information apart from cognition.

And all that interactive dynamism is then completely 'moot' as it's occurring unobserved, and unaware. It's like removing a mind from a body claiming it's still a "person".

I don't give consciousness the importance you do. It seems to me to be a rather interesting side effect of biology on Earth and not much else. So whether the dynamics is witnessed by an intelligence is, to me, completely beside the point. It is still there. The mind is how *we* know about it. But it does not make it real. It is real *and then* we become aware of it.

 

[BilliardsBall]

The heavens at the time were the different 'shells' on which the planets and sun were places.

No, the three biblical Heavens are the troposphere as in "the birds of heaven", visible space and the place where God resides. Heavens, plural.

That God actively stretches the second Heaven, as reflected by receding galaxies, is clear.

 

[BilliardsBall]

Can you provide a testable non-natural explanation? Yes, the Oort cloud is testable.



4) We understand our ignorance of planetary and comet formation.

5) We understand that observing comets that are very distant is impossible with current technology.

6) We know that some comets have very elliptical orbits that take then very far from the sun.



Sorry, but the 'prophecy' here is at best tortured and surpassed by many scientific predictions in other areas.



No, the youth of the solar system is proved in other ways. The Oort cloud was not postulated to get an old solar system. That was already a conclusion based on other facts. The Oort cloud was postulated to understand the origin of comets in that context.

A young solar system is NOT the alternative to the Oort cloud. An alternative to the Oort cloud would be a *different* way of forming or holding comets and releasing them every so often into the inner solar system.



Maybe you just don't understand how the scientific method actually works. The Oort cloud is conjectural. But if it is wrong, that would not imply a young solar system. It would at most imply a different way to have comets formed or released over long periods of time.




Most people are taught by parents or other adults to believe in a deity. What do you think would happen if that stopped?

Your 'evidence' is weak, at best. The evidence of an old solar system comes from multiple independent lines of data (look at asteroid spin down, for example). The absence of an Oort cloud would not negate that evidence. It would just lead to a puzzle about comets.

I have been clear. You have faith in non-observed, invisible, distant objects.

I have faith in books that are verified by looking at newsreels and newspapers from the last 70 years or so.

My faith is based on evidence.

 

[Polymath257]

I have been clear. You have faith in non-observed, invisible, distant objects.

I have faith in books that are verified by looking at newsreels and newspapers from the last 70 years or so.

My faith is based on evidence.

I don't need to observe the Oort cloud to know that the solar system is billions of years old. That is fully demonstrated by multiple other lines of evidence. Without an Oort cloud, there would be a puzzle about comets, but nothing more than a puzzle. It would not negate the other evidence for an old solar system.

Yes, your faith is based on a book and newsreels. Mine is based on looking at the universe as a whole. You interpret those events on Earth in terms of your religious text, while twisting the text to read as predicting the events. I have seen your claim for the prediction of Israel and its date. Tortured is the least I can say about it.

 

[BilliardsBall]

I don't need to observe the Oort cloud to know that the solar system is billions of years old. That is fully demonstrated by multiple other lines of evidence. Without an Oort cloud, there would be a puzzle about comets, but nothing more than a puzzle. It would not negate the other evidence for an old solar system.

Yes, your faith is based on a book and newsreels. Mine is based on looking at the universe as a whole. You interpret those events on Earth in terms of your religious text, while twisting the text to read as predicting the events. I have seen your claim for the prediction of Israel and its date. Tortured is the least I can say about it.

What's the most you can say about it? The most I can say is that dates verifiable in secular history matched to two Bible prophecies yield 1948 AD for the restoration of Israel as a Jewish state!

Now explain how the Jewish people remained intact for 2,500 years in diaspora without a nation, retaining their identity, culture and scriptures . . .

All an atheist can say regarding Bible prophecy is that they have a different interpretation--then fail to say what their interpretation IS.