God did not create the Universe

[outhouse]

a scientific theory is one based on available evidence

eaxactly and it describes FACTS

I scientific theory describes facts, it is not conjecture as websters might state.

 

[Troublemane]

Heres another example.... before the extrasolar planets were discovered, any scientist you asked would tell you without blinking that "Oh yeah, we have the solar system figured out! The Sun ignited and that blew all the lighter elements outward, the heavier elements stayed close by and formed the terrestrial planets (mercury, venus, earth and mars), and the lighter stuff made up the gas giants."

Sure, its all quite reasonable and rational. But..what have they found so far, looking at the extrasolar planets?

Virtually ALL are massive gas giants that are extremely close to stars much bigger than our sun. Again, the danger of applying what we know to be true here, and projecting that out there.

Now I am not saying I know the truth about the cosmos any better than a physicist. But if science is motivated by free exchange of ideas and a resistance to adhere to dogma, why should we simply accept the word of someone who has no definite proof of what they are saying is true?

Why should we reject the dogma of a priesthood, only to embrace the unquestioned authority of another?

 

[opuntia]

God did not create the universe, although he did organize whatever material he found. All things are believed to be eternal and if that is so, God did not create anything but merely organized existing material. We don't build houses by merely gazing at an area and waiting for it to appear. We first need carpenters and then wood, stone or brick for material. This may seem unusual for people who think (that is, if they actually believe) God is all-powerful. First, he would need intelligence to consider how material can be collected (and not from materializing from nowhere!) and then how it may be bound together at the molecular level. He would have to wear many hats such as scientist, biologist, chemist, physicist, astronomer and so forth.

Usually God is referred to in the two dimensional sense: he exists or does not exist. What people need to do is move beyond such basic thinking and consider (if only theoretically) how he may be organized physically, spiritually, socially, psychologically and so forth. We seem to hear people raise him to such heights that we cannot understand such a being. It would be better if we considered if he were of a certain race of intelligent beings. Intellectually, he seems superior to us, so that would indicate a superior intelligence or in other words another, higher level. In other words, a superior race of beings. Are there many Gods? Perhaps there are and we are only connected to just one God or Being. If people would move beyond today's worn arguments between the religions and nonbelievers we may see with fresh eyes.

It may be that we are here to see if we are of the right material for the raising of acceptable candidates to their level or best left at a stage or level angels inhabit (another order or caste of beings). It appears such a choice is left to us in the way we conduct ourselves here--believing or unbelieving. Atheists need not worry about religion if they do not desire any elevation of status in that other world--of course, if they believe in no afterlife they need not worry about religion on those grounds. But if there is an afterlife, what we do here will impact what will happen there--hence, our ability to choose intelligently and suffer consequences.

 

[David M]

To say that you have Carbon dated something and found that it is millions of years old constitutes the same belief that it takes to accept that God created the universe.

True. But that would because carbon dating does not extend back millions of years. Do try and learn what science says before trying to criticise it.

However when carbon dating says something is up to about 60,000 years old we can know its correct.

There is no way of truely checking your conclusion.

There is. You can date objects of known age to see if your dating methods match up. Its called consilience.

I have heard examples of recently deceased animals to have been Carbon dated as thousands of years old.

True, however this is not the problem that you think it is because in fact there would be problems if these animals did not date to such ages. These animals do not grow using atmospheric carbon but sources that contain carbon that has been sequestered from the atmosphere for a very long time, so the ratio of C14 should be low.

All im saying is that you need faith to believe something that you can never really check yourself with your five senses.

You can, you just need to replicate the work of previous scientists. Thats the strength of science, its repeatable and testable.

 

[PolyHedral]

But..what have they found so far, looking at the extrasolar planets?

Virtually ALL are massive gas giants that are extremely close to stars much bigger than our sun. Again, the danger of applying what we know to be true here, and projecting that out there.

Actually, there's a perfectly rational explanation for that one: Gas giants are easier to see.

 

[Meow Mix]

In fact, I can list a few times in history when scientists/thinkers/authority figures made assumptions based on what they knew at the time, and were found to be totally wrong later on.

(1) Phlogiston Theory
(2) Ptolemaic Epicycles
(3) "the Flat Earthers"
(4) the Newtonian "clockwork" cosmology

...Now I know the whole history about how the belief in "dark Matter" came about, the whole "missing mass" debate, etc. (despite the fact we have just learned there are over 2 septillion more stars than they thought, that should alter the figures a bit...)

But do you really expect any sane thinking person to believe that there is a type of matter which exists only outside of galaxies, and has as its sole purpose for being there to act as a mechanism to make our observations fit with our mathematical theories???

But many discoveries in physics had the sole purpose of "being there to act as a mechanism to make our observations fit with our mathematical theories." That isn't new. There also aren't any other reasonable explanations right now that can account for the gravitational lensing and the nonluminous mass found separate from the luminous mass in the Bullet Cluster (seen through gravitational lensing and gravitational effects).

If you started talking about string theory, I'd be right there with you. But dark matter is very well established.

 

[Meow Mix]

Heres another example.... before the extrasolar planets were discovered, any scientist you asked would tell you without blinking that "Oh yeah, we have the solar system figured out! The Sun ignited and that blew all the lighter elements outward, the heavier elements stayed close by and formed the terrestrial planets (mercury, venus, earth and mars), and the lighter stuff made up the gas giants."

Sure, its all quite reasonable and rational. But..what have they found so far, looking at the extrasolar planets?

Virtually ALL are massive gas giants that are extremely close to stars much bigger than our sun. Again, the danger of applying what we know to be true here, and projecting that out there.

Now I am not saying I know the truth about the cosmos any better than a physicist. But if science is motivated by free exchange of ideas and a resistance to adhere to dogma, why should we simply accept the word of someone who has no definite proof of what they are saying is true?

Why should we reject the dogma of a priesthood, only to embrace the unquestioned authority of another?

You're aware that the extrasolar planets we've discovered happen to be gas giants because they have the most mass, which is why they're the only ones we're able to see right now... right?

 

[PolyHedral]

Also, it may be the maths is more correct than we think.

For instance, in 1928, Dirac publishes an equation that describes the electron perfectly, but with one caveat: the equation actually has two solutions, only one of which corresponds to the electron. The second was usually ignored, until 1932, when it was discovered that the second solution corresponds to a real, physical object that had never been seen before.

 

[painted wolf]

Wait.... are you saying that really really huge things are easier to see than little things? Who would have figured on that?

wa:do

 

[Meow Mix]

Also, it may be the maths is more correct than we think.

For instance, in 1928, Dirac publishes an equation that describes the electron perfectly, but with one caveat: the equation actually has two solutions, only one of which corresponds to the electron. The second was usually ignored, until 1932, when it was discovered that the second solution corresponds to a real, physical object that had never been seen before.

You mean holes in the Pauli states? Er, I mean, uh, positrons?

 

[Kilgore Trout]

Wait.... are you saying that really really huge things are easier to see than little things? Who would have figured on that?

wa:do

Ah, that explains why I see my ego everywhere I look.

 

[ellenjanuary]

If you started talking about string theory, I'd be right there with you. But dark matter is very well established.

What?!?! Blasphemy!
Actually, string theory is getting less stringy and more like theory:
Testing String Theory? How Real Science Progresses « The Skeptical Teacher

 

[PolyHedral]

You mean holes in the Pauli states? Er, I mean, uh, positrons?

Shh, negative energy states'll just confuse 'em.

 

[St Giordano Bruno]

Symmetry breaking, not God makes better sense for me. Symmetry breaking of even the simplest systems such as an unstable pristine nothingness at time zero of the universe leading to more complex systems as important phase transitions along the universe's timeline endowed it with its complexity. Explaining one complex entity like the universe with another complex entity like God is like turtles all the way down.

 

[ellenjanuary]

Yay symmetry! Here's some more stringiness:
The Reference Frame: Surviving Indian supersymmetric island
SUSY may just be months away, says the last happy string theorist Lubos Motl.

 

[Meow Mix]

Yay symmetry! Here's some more stringiness:
The Reference Frame: Surviving Indian supersymmetric island
SUSY may just be months away, says the last happy string theorist Lubos Motl.

Hey, I hadn't heard about that. That's pretty fantastic though, I'll see if anyone at the department knows about it.

I want some souvenir Higgs fermions. Forget the bosons. Psh.

 

[Kilgore Trout]

I want some souvenir Higgs fermions. Forget the bosons. Psh.

Pfft - you would.

 

[Skeptisch]

Back to the OP:

"It might be that to describe the universe, we have to employ different theories in different situations. Each theory may have its own version of reality, but according to model-dependent realism, that is acceptable so long as the theories agree in their predictions whenever they overlap, that is, whenever they can both be applied."

http://physics.about.com/od/stephenhawking/f/ModelDependentRealism.htm

 

[Autodidact]

Heres another example.... before the extrasolar planets were discovered, any scientist you asked would tell you without blinking that "Oh yeah, we have the solar system figured out! The Sun ignited and that blew all the lighter elements outward, the heavier elements stayed close by and formed the terrestrial planets (mercury, venus, earth and mars), and the lighter stuff made up the gas giants."

Sure, its all quite reasonable and rational. But..what have they found so far, looking at the extrasolar planets?

Virtually ALL are massive gas giants that are extremely close to stars much bigger than our sun. Again, the danger of applying what we know to be true here, and projecting that out there.

Now I am not saying I know the truth about the cosmos any better than a physicist. But if science is motivated by free exchange of ideas and a resistance to adhere to dogma, why should we simply accept the word of someone who has no definite proof of what they are saying is true?

Why should we reject the dogma of a priesthood, only to embrace the unquestioned authority of another?

Science has nothing to do with unquestioned authority. Science = questioning authority. How do you think we found out all that surprising stuff about extrasolar planets?

Here's an important thing to understand about science. It's always wrong. Always. Using the scientific method, over time it gets less wrong. And less wrong. And less wrong. Until it's so close to right we call it right. But it's still not True in the sense of a mathematical proof, and it never can be.

When you say that we found out that something in science was wrong, that doesn't mean that science doesn't work or we shouldn't trust it--that's exactly the way science DOES work.

 

[Skeptisch]

Why should we reject the dogma of a priesthood, only to embrace the unquestioned authority of another?

It is astounding and somewhat worrying how many people seem to have faith in some supernatural deity while faith in the laws of nature is a complete no-go for them. They even go as far as proclaiming that faith is faith and there is no difference between their faith in the supernatural and other’s faith in scientific truth and evidence.