Which is a more likely explanation for creation?

[Landlord]

 

NUance, as to your question, there's a lot of data that supports the universe springing into existence from a singularity and becoming complex. It's documented and recorded. God has none of those things going for him, so the evidence makes it less likely.

I guess it depends on whether you believe the universe sprang into existence spontaneously and then randomly organized itself and developed into what it is today, or sprang into existence from the word of God and then organized itself under his guiding hand. I don't see how the former could seem any more likely than the latter. :

 

 

 

Because God is supernatural, and hasn't left empirical evidence of His involvement.

 

 

The universe did spring forth. Maybe God was the source of that. Maybe not. Science has nothing to say on that matter, because there's no evidence of a supernatural imprint on that event. All science says is, "If God was involved, he didn't leave evidence of His involvement behind."

[Bradr]

As I've aged and seen my little slice of this universe, I've decided to believe the infinite universe theory.

 

I guess playing video games, having a fairly scientific mind, and not being particularly religious got me here. I figure my interpretation is as good as any other I've heard.

 

My perspective figures that as we evolve, we create our own little universes in the simulations and games we create. Whether it's the Deep Blue Computer and chess, a game like Dwarf Fortress, or a forecaster's weather simulation. These all have their own rules, physics, and structure. And we create countless more every day. In the scheme of things, these are pretty damn simplistic, but some appear advanced to us. I figure we ourselves, and our universe too, is just another simulation created by some entity. As that entity lives in their own simulation. And so on. Where it gets heady, is where did it all start? Now that makes a good drunken conversation.

[Scratchtown]

 

 

NUance, as to your question, there's a lot of data that supports the universe springing into existence from a singularity and becoming complex. It's documented and recorded. God has none of those things going for him, so the evidence makes it less likely.

I guess it depends on whether you believe the universe sprang into existence spontaneously and then randomly organized itself and developed into what it is today, or sprang into existence from the word of God and then organized itself under his guiding hand. I don't see how the former could seem any more likely than the latter. :

 

 

 

Because God is supernatural, and hasn't left empirical evidence of His involvement.

 

 

The universe did spring forth. Maybe God was the source of that. Maybe not. Science has nothing to say on that matter, because there's no evidence of a supernatural imprint on that event. All science says is, "If God was involved, he didn't leave evidence of His involvement behind."

 

Or maybe he did. The Earth/Universe/Life/etc. Atheist faith just tells us that God didn't leave evidence behind.

 

This whole thing doesn't come down to creation or spontaneous combustion. It comes down to people not wanting to believe in a God because they don't want to believe they MIGHT NOT be in control of their lives.

 

Of course, that's depends on the God you believe or don't believe in.

[Landlord]

Or maybe he did. The Earth/Universe/Life/etc. Atheist faith just tells us that God didn't leave evidence behind.

 

 

I'm talking in terms of empiricism.

 

 

It's like... think of a specific tree or lake. Those things are naturally occurring, but then humans also plant trees in certain places and also create lakes. However, there's no real way to easily discern whether the tree is naturally occurring or was planted there purposefully by a person, or if a lake is natural/man-made. It's totally possible that they are put there by man, but even if they are, just the fact that they exist isn't really evidence of man putting them there.

 

Obviously not a perfect analogy, but when we're talking about evidence, we're talking about things that are empirical, observable and documentable. God hasn't really left stuff like that, and science doesn't have any thoughts towards the supernatural. Obviously everyone knows that I bat for Team Jesus, but the more I learn the more I freely and comfortably admit that the evidence doesn't lend towards that active conclusion.

[The Dude]

 

 

Be they theist, atheist or anti-theist, on this nearly all scientists agree: In the beginning there was nothing. There was no time, space or matter. There wasnt even emptiness, only nothingness. Well, nothing natural anyway.

Then: bang! Everything. Nonexistence became existence. Nothing became, in less than an instant, our inconceivably vast and finely tuned universe governed by what mankind would later call after we, too, popped into existence from nowhere, fully armed with conscious awareness and the ability to think, communicate and observe natural law or physics.

Time, space, earth, life and, finally, human life were not.

And then they were.

 

 

 

Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Christian author Eric Metaxas notes, The fine-tuning necessary for life to exist on a planet is nothing compared with the fine-tuning required for the universe to exist at all. For example, astrophysicists now know that the values of the four fundamental forces gravity, the electromagnetic force, and the strong and weak nuclear forces were determined less than one-millionth of a second after the big bang. Alter any one value and the universe could not exist. For instance, if the ratio between the nuclear strong force and the electromagnetic force had been off by the tiniest fraction of the tiniest fraction by even one part in 100,000,000,000,000,000 then no stars could have ever formed at all. Feel free to gulp. It would be like tossing a coin and having it come up heads 10 quintillion times in a row. Really?

 

And so, they have reasoned themselves into a corner. These same materialists acknowledge that, prior to the moment of singularity the Big Bang there was no natural. They admit that there was an unnatural time and place before natural time and space that something, sometime, somewhere preceded the material universe. That which preceded the natural was, necessarily, beyond the natural and, therefore, was, is and forever shall be supernatural.

Reader, meet God.

In short: the Big Bang blows atheism sky high.

 

http://www.cnsnews.com/commentary/j-matt-barber/big-bang-blows-atheism-sky-high-even-science-may-eventually-catch-gods-word

lolwut

 

He's essentially saying "if nothing existed before the big bang, then obviously that means a supernatural god existed before the big bang".

 

And people accept that as a viable, coherent argument?

[cm husker]

Once you can accept the universe as matter expanding into nothing that is something, wearing stripes with plaid comes easy.

[C N Red]

 

 

Be they theist, atheist or anti-theist, on this nearly all scientists agree: In the beginning there was nothing. There was no time, space or matter. There wasnt even emptiness, only nothingness. Well, nothing natural anyway.

Then: bang! Everything. Nonexistence became existence. Nothing became, in less than an instant, our inconceivably vast and finely tuned universe governed by what mankind would later call after we, too, popped into existence from nowhere, fully armed with conscious awareness and the ability to think, communicate and observe natural law or physics.

Time, space, earth, life and, finally, human life were not.

And then they were.

 

Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Christian author Eric Metaxas notes, The fine-tuning necessary for life to exist on a planet is nothing compared with the fine-tuning required for the universe to exist at all. For example, astrophysicists now know that the values of the four fundamental forces gravity, the electromagnetic force, and the strong and weak nuclear forces were determined less than one-millionth of a second after the big bang. Alter any one value and the universe could not exist. For instance, if the ratio between the nuclear strong force and the electromagnetic force had been off by the tiniest fraction of the tiniest fraction by even one part in 100,000,000,000,000,000 then no stars could have ever formed at all. Feel free to gulp. It would be like tossing a coin and having it come up heads 10 quintillion times in a row. Really?

And so, they have reasoned themselves into a corner. These same materialists acknowledge that, prior to the moment of singularity the Big Bang there was no natural. They admit that there was an unnatural time and place before natural time and space that something, sometime, somewhere preceded the material universe. That which preceded the natural was, necessarily, beyond the natural and, therefore, was, is and forever shall be supernatural.

Reader, meet God.

In short: the Big Bang blows atheism sky high.

http://www.cnsnews.com/commentary/j-matt-barber/big-bang-blows-atheism-sky-high-even-science-may-eventually-catch-gods-word

lolwut

He's essentially saying "if nothing existed before the big bang, then obviously that means a supernatural god existed before the big bang".

And people accept that as a viable, coherent argument?

So something coming from nothing is coherent??

[cm husker]

It's coherent but not easy to contemplate.

 

That said, even if there is a "prime mover" there's no evidence that any religion is the "correct" one and, more importantly, no evidence that the prime mover continues to influence the current universe.

[The Dude]

 

 

 

Be they theist, atheist or anti-theist, on this nearly all scientists agree: In the beginning there was nothing. There was no time, space or matter. There wasnt even emptiness, only nothingness. Well, nothing natural anyway.

Then: bang! Everything. Nonexistence became existence. Nothing became, in less than an instant, our inconceivably vast and finely tuned universe governed by what mankind would later call after we, too, popped into existence from nowhere, fully armed with conscious awareness and the ability to think, communicate and observe natural law or physics.

Time, space, earth, life and, finally, human life were not.

And then they were.

 

Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Christian author Eric Metaxas notes, The fine-tuning necessary for life to exist on a planet is nothing compared with the fine-tuning required for the universe to exist at all. For example, astrophysicists now know that the values of the four fundamental forces gravity, the electromagnetic force, and the strong and weak nuclear forces were determined less than one-millionth of a second after the big bang. Alter any one value and the universe could not exist. For instance, if the ratio between the nuclear strong force and the electromagnetic force had been off by the tiniest fraction of the tiniest fraction by even one part in 100,000,000,000,000,000 then no stars could have ever formed at all. Feel free to gulp. It would be like tossing a coin and having it come up heads 10 quintillion times in a row. Really?

And so, they have reasoned themselves into a corner. These same materialists acknowledge that, prior to the moment of singularity the Big Bang there was no natural. They admit that there was an unnatural time and place before natural time and space that something, sometime, somewhere preceded the material universe. That which preceded the natural was, necessarily, beyond the natural and, therefore, was, is and forever shall be supernatural.

Reader, meet God.

In short: the Big Bang blows atheism sky high.

http://www.cnsnews.com/commentary/j-matt-barber/big-bang-blows-atheism-sky-high-even-science-may-eventually-catch-gods-word

lolwut

He's essentially saying "if nothing existed before the big bang, then obviously that means a supernatural god existed before the big bang".

And people accept that as a viable, coherent argument?

So something coming from nothing is coherent??

Maybe not in the philosophical sense nor in what we understand to be true in day-to-day life. Within the constraints of quantum mechanics and relativity, however, yeah it holds up. Although, quantum mechanics has changed our understanding of what "nothing" is.

 

What a time to be alive.

[NUance]

** BUMP **

 

Kirk Cameron Thinks He’s Smarter Than Stephen Hawking

Renowned dipsh*t and GROWING PAINS star challenges the science of world’s leading physicist.

By DEVIN FARACI May. 18, 2011

Over the weekend a story ran in the Guardian where Stephen Hawking said that the afterlife was a “fairy story for people afraid of the dark.” As usual this sort of talk - you know, rational, scientific talk - has ruffled some feathers from people whose belief systems are so thin that any challenge to them results in outrage. Leading the pack: Kirk f'ing Cameron. LINK

 

 

Here you go, The Dude.

[TGHusker]

This is above my 'paid grade' to explain but I think WLC does a good job

 

http://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/1980/JASA3-80Craig.html

 

http://www.reasonablefaith.org/the-existence-of-god-and-the-beginning-of-the-universe

http://www.reasonablefaith.org/a-universe-from-nothing

http://www.reasonablefaith.org/search/results?q=can+something+come+out+of+nothing

[huKSer]

The central creation myth is that an invisible and undetectable Flying Spaghetti Monster created the universe "after drinking heavily". According to these beliefs, the Monster's intoxication was the cause for a flawed Earth. Furthermore, according to Pastafarianism, all evidence for evolution was planted by the Flying Spaghetti Monster in an effort to test the faith of Pastafarians.

 

And the singularity was created by the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

 

[Red Dead Redemption]

The central creation myth is that an invisible and undetectable Flying Spaghetti Monster created the universe "after drinking heavily". According to these beliefs, the Monster's intoxication was the cause for a flawed Earth. Furthermore, according to Pastafarianism, all evidence for evolution was planted by the Flying Spaghetti Monster in an effort to test the faith of Pastafarians.

 

And the singularity was created by the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

 

 

RAmen

[I AM FOOT FOOT]

[cm husker]

Haven't read the article and I don't believe in God, at least not organized religion God, but the lead into the article is exactly why I won't read it.

 

Accusing people of faith as being afraid of the dark is anything but "rational, scientific talk."

 

I'm actually a little surprised Hawkins would communicate in those terms, but admittedly I've only read a brief history of time. I haven't heard much of his off the cuff comments.