How can anyone in their right mind still believe in the big bang theory?

[Katzpur]

I liked this one, Kat.

http://www.religiousforums.com/forum/showthread.php?t=16588

Thanks, Mr. Guy. I hadn't seen that thread before, and I'll admit that it was an interesting read. I guess my main problem with it is that I find it kind of amusing that God would have to prove Himself to us by such means and that, if He doesn't, we're supposed to conclude that He doesn't exist. S2a's comments sounded like those of a little kid daring some other little kid to do something to prove he can. If the second little kid doesn't feel so inclined, the first little kid automatically assumes that the other kid couldn't do what he was challenged to do. It doesn't really change anything. It definitely doesn't prove that the other kid couldn't do what he was dared to do.

I'm really not into debating the existence of God with non-believers. That's why you seldom see me post on threads on that subject. I know I can't prove God's existence to anybody, so I'm not even going to try. I was just curious, when Sunstone said he could find no evidence that God exists, what kind of evidence would satisfy him -- something along s2a's line of reasoning, except hopefully something a little less juvenile than an "I dare you" kind of proof.

 

[The Conspirator]

Just curious, Sunstone...

What would you (or any other atheist or agnostic on the forum) consider to be valid evidence for the existence of God? Is there anything that, if there were a God, He could do to convince you that He was real?

Something tangible, not a vision, or anything like that, something tangible that can't be easily explained away or interpreted in another way (such as a spontaneous healing that which can be explained as mind over matter) and can be proven to have happened and not made up or a hoax or a trick.

 

[mr.guy]

something along s2a's line of reasoning, except hopefully something a little less juvenile than an "I dare you" kind of proof

what do you expect from a guy who has Calvin as his avatar?

 

[scitsofreaky]

- He created time as we know it. You believe your singularity just is and ill believe God just is.

Really, which day did God create time? Time is a construct created by man.

I believe God is outside time, the beginning and the end, alpha and omega

Biginning and ending of what? And what about before alpha and after omega?

 

[Katzpur]

Something tangible, not a vision, or anything like that, something tangible that can't be easily explained away or interpreted in another way (such as a spontaneous healing that which can be explained as mind over matter) and can be proven to have happened and not made up or a hoax or a trick.

Sorry to be persistent, but I don't understand. Something tangible such as?

 

[Katzpur]

I'm confused. I answered, "falsifiable evidence". Why doesn't that answer you question?

Sorry, I guess I'm just dense. It seems to me that "falsifiable evidence" is evidence that could be "falsified," or made to appear true when it is not, like a forgery. Would you give me an example of "falsifiable evidence"?

 

[John Eastern]

Big bang? No thanks, had a big dinner instead.

 

[The Conspirator]

Sorry to be persistent, but I don't understand. Something tangible such as?

Real undeniable evidence, God comes down, dose something imposable and it can't be explained away as an illusion or a trick or mind over madder.

 

[Steve]

Ok ill put my response to ryan back into context..

the theory is a cop out, It says there was a singularity that just is and then exploded into everything.

Yes, because time did not exist before the singularity... You, therefore, cannot ask where the singularity came from, because that suggests there was a time before the singularity, which, according to the theory, is wrong. If you believe that god made the singularity, then you believe that there was a time before the singularity, which goes against the evidence we currently have.

I believe God is outside time, the beginning and the end, alpha and omega - He created time as we know it. You believe your singularity just is and ill believe God just is.

Really, which day did God create time? Time is a construct created by man.
Biginning and ending of what? And what about before alpha and after omega?

On the first "day" of time as we know it. - He is eternal so is outside of time, is at the beginning and the end and the middle of time in out universe.
What about befor the alpha - Just God, but then time wanst as we know it now, its aparently like me asking you what about befor the singularity which just existed and was then able to exploded and become everything.

Real undeniable evidence, God comes down, dose something imposable and it can't be explained away as an illusion or a trick or mind over madder.

You mean like coming down doing impossible things like making the blind see, walking on water, turning water to wine, making the lame walk, fullfilling lots of prophecies, RAISING FROM THE DEAD.. etc
Oh thats right he did that! You ever ask yourself why you dont believe Christ did raise from the dead? You think he is still dead somewhere on earth? You think that the apostles just decieded even after losing their leader to crucifixion and having everything they believed apparantly turned upside down that they would go and die for somthing they knew was a lie?

Suppose Christ does love you and did indeed go through Crucifixion and death to pay for your sins befor God, have you good reason to deny his resurection? I have good reason to believe it.

 

[scitsofreaky]

You mean like coming down doing impossible things like making the blind see, walking on water, turning water to wine, making the lame walk, fullfilling lots of prophecies, RAISING FROM THE DEAD.. etc

Yeah, that would work. But, sadly for you, The Bible is not evidence because none of those events are varifiable.

On the first "day" of time as we know it. - He is eternal so is outside of time, is at the beginning and the end and the middle of time in out universe.

How do you know that alpha is refering to the first day? In other words, where does The Bible say this?

but then time wanst as we know it now, its aparently like me asking you what about befor the singularity which just existed and was then able to exploded and become everything.

"ut then time wasn't(I'm guessing) as we know it now"? So God does experience a sort of time?

 

[The Conspirator]

You mean like coming down doing impossible things like making the blind see, walking on water, turning water to wine, making the lame walk, fullfilling lots of prophecies, RAISING FROM THE DEAD.. etc
Oh thats right he did that! You ever ask yourself why you dont believe Christ did raise from the dead? You think he is still dead somewhere on earth? You think that the apostles just decieded even after losing their leader to crucifixion and having everything they believed apparantly turned upside down that they would go and die for somthing they knew was a lie?

You can't prove that Jesus did those things, you can't prove that they were not added later.
I know exactly why I don't believe, its the same reason I don't believe that the Quron was given to Mohamed by God, its the same reason I don't believe that Moses separated the red sea, its the same reason I don't believe in the Hindu gods or any other gods.
I looked at the world, looked at the evidence and thought about it.

And if the apostles believed Jesus, than its wasn't a lie to them.

Why do you think people in cults commit suicide? The difference is, Jesus don't tell them to get them selves killed, they decided to do that on there own.

 

[Steve]

You mean like coming down doing impossible things like making the blind see, walking on water, turning water to wine, making the lame walk, fullfilling lots of prophecies, RAISING FROM THE DEAD.. etc
Oh thats right he did that! You ever ask yourself why you dont believe Christ did raise from the dead? You think he is still dead somewhere on earth? You think that the apostles just decieded even after losing their leader to crucifixion and having everything they believed apparantly turned upside down that they would go and die for somthing they knew was a lie?

You can't prove that Jesus did those things, you can't prove that they were not added later.
I know exactly why I don't believe, its the same reason I don't believe that the Quron was given to Mohamed by God, its the same reason I don't believe that Moses separated the red sea, its the same reason I don't believe in the Hindu gods or any other gods.
I looked at the world, looked at the evidence and thought about it.
And if the apostles believed Jesus, than its wasn't a lie to them.
Why do you think people in cults commit suicide? The difference is, Jesus don't tell them to get them selves killed, they decided to do that on there own.

The sheer number of manuscripts from around the world that remain consistant is a strong indication that they havnt been tampered with, as soon as they spread out if someone wanted to add in stuff then the others would need to be changed also.
Why dont you believe the bible? Why dont you believe Jesus did the things it says he did? You instead would rather believe the apostles made us a lie were willing to die for it, that to also applies to many other people who experince supernatural things like the muslim woman i mentioned ealier who was heeled by Christ and suffered alot from her family because of it. Sure i cant prove the apostles and others who claim miracles etc arnt just making it up - but when i consider their claims and the circumstances it dosnt make sense that they would make it up, they have nothing to gain unless its true and many know they will suffer for what they proclaim.
If you want to believe

-that the apostles were willing to die for what they knew to be untrue
-its just coincedence that Christ fullfilled so many prophecies many specific like

Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. Isaiah 53:4-6
​

-that the people from around the world who still claim Christ has heeled them even when they know it will bring them trouble do it knowing its not true(however i do not claim that all people making such claims though are legitamate)
​

go ahead God gives you freewill to choose if you will believe in him but dont pretend there are no reasons to believe.
You get one go at life, believe what you will but if you decide to reject Christ and your wrong dont whinge to God about there being to no reason to believe.

 

[The Conspirator]

Have you ever heard the phrase the end justifies the means?
And if they lied, why are the gospel, which are supposed to tell the same story, different? Perhaps the story's were changed by those who wrote them down.

And that prophecy can be interpreted in a different way.

My beliefs are supported by evidence and thought not a book and it is that book that is your biggest "evidence" and that book is far from proven.
And you forgetting about the people who see vision and are "healed by" or are "saved" Alla, God as the Jews see him, the Hindu gods and many other things.

 

[scitsofreaky]

that the apostles were willing to die for what they knew to be untrue

Do you have evidence outside of The Bible of this?

You instead would rather believe the apostles made us a lie were willing to die for it

It is unlikely that any of the apostles actually wrote any of the Gospels. Actually, it is generally accepted by scholars that they didn't.

that the people from around the world who still claim Christ has heeled them even when they know it will bring them trouble do it knowing its not true(however i do not claim that all people making such claims though are legitamate)

Nobody said that people now are lying. Many do actually believe that Jesus/God healed them, so they aren't lying, but that doesn't mean that Jesus/God did actually heal them.

 

[Quoth The Raven]

Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. Isaiah 53:4-6​

Yes, yes...Handel's Messiah. Add some baroque music and it becomes quite uplifting. In fact, 'All we like sheep...' is one of my personal favourites. Without the vocal trills it's just , well, ink on paper.

So there was a prophecy and you can make Jesus fit it...you can make Hitler into a Nostradamus bogeyman if that's your desire.
​

 

[Quoth The Raven]

You mean like coming down doing impossible things like making the blind see, walking on water, turning water to wine, making the lame walk, fullfilling lots of prophecies, RAISING FROM THE DEAD.. etc
Oh thats right he did that!

Hundreds of cataract operations every day make the blind see.In 30 BC the Roman physician, Cornelius Celsus described the proceedure to remove cataracts in his book 'On Medicine'. Hardly an impossibility, then.

Did you personally see this person walk on water, or are you relying on hearsay evidence?

Any magician worth his salt can turn water into wine. Are we going to proclaim David Copperfield as the next messiah? I've personally seen him saw himself in half and fly...looked pretty convincing from the seat I was sitting in.

Benny Hinn makes the lame walk every week on TV.

Fulfilling lots of prophecies...see my other post regarding Hitler and Nostradamus.

Raising from the dead...once again, hearsay.

You ever ask yourself why you dont believe Christ did raise from the dead?

No, no more than I ask myself why I don't believe Roland of Gilead is actually repeating the same quest over and over again, somewhere in an alternate universe.

 

[Solon]

This thread has gone way off track, the concern is the viability of Big Bang theory; Jesus and God should be kept out of this thread. We are concerned with questions of science here, not whether god exists or not.

Solon

 

[Mr Spinkles]

Like?

[referring to evidence for a singularity]

Well we know for a fact that space is expanding and has been for a very long time, as we can observe the redshift in galaxies all around us, and how this redshift increases with the distance of the galaxy (Hubble's Law). The expansion of space is also predicted by Einstein's famount theory of relativity.

We also know for a fact that the universe was once extremely dense, because we can see this directly. Because light takes time to reach Earth, looking out into space with a telescope is equivalent to looking back in time. At large distances, you'll find that galaxies are more and more dense. If you look at the furthest distance possible, you see radiation, called the Cosmic Microwave Background radiation, coming from all directions. You can see nothing further than this, because in its early stages the universe was so dense that photons of light could not escape from it. Thus, if there was a singularity, we cannot observe it directly. But it's reasonably certain that if space is expanding now, it must have always been expanding, and thus it must have once been a singularity.

 

[Popeyesays]

This thread has gone way off track, the concern is the viability of Big Bang theory; Jesus and God should be kept out of this thread. We are concerned with questions of science here, not whether god exists or not.

Solon

Go back and read the FIRST post. You'll see that the thread is pretty much on target.

Regards,
Scott

 

[Mr Spinkles]

Just curious, Sunstone...

What would you (or any other atheist or agnostic on the forum) consider to be valid evidence for the existence of God? Is there anything that, if there were a God, He could do to convince you that He was real?

An atheist or agnostic probably requires the same evidence to convince them of your god as you would require to convince you of all the other gods (Zeus, Tree Spirits, etc). For me personally, I can say that it depends on how you define "God" and what observable predictions this definition implies. If gods are supernatural, then by definition there can be no evidence for or against their existence, just as there can be no evidence for or against the existence of an unobservable, supernatural frog floating in front of my face right now.

I wonder, if there were no gods, what would you consider to be valid evidence against the existence of god(s)?

Anyway, to address Steve's points, the difference between belief in a god or gods and belief in the big bang is that the big bang is directly observable. Of course, the big bang in no way contradicts belief in gods or any other supernatural entities, so the whole "god vs. the big bang" issue is moot.