Sri Lumpa said:
Science wasn't always science but evolved through time to be come what it is today. It could also not be the same thing in the future if religious literalists had their way (granted it wouldn't be science anymore but they still would use the name to deceive people). Like freedom, science requires eternal vigilance to prevent its corruption.
My Response:
I was not implying that Science was the same as it is today as it has been in the past. I was stating the fact that science will always be changing in with new information we obtain through it and with new tools we aquire IN THE FUTURE. Humans back close to their beginning knew that if a rock hit them in the head it caused a sense of pain based on what we refer today as evidence through scientific methods of studying of the effects of a rock making contact with someones head with substantial force. We know through experience, and study that getting hit in the head with something hard and with a fast motion will cause pain. The first Humans knew that their bodies required food or else they get hungry and can die.
Science can be described as; The intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment. The early humans did this, but didn't know what science really encompased. They could study what their eyes observed, their ears heard, their nose smelled, and what they bodies could touch.
Sri Lumpa said:
Science doesn't know anything; it is a process by which we can gain knowledge but knowledge is the result of science, not science itself. Also, we mostly don't study science (except in epistemology) but we use science to study a given domain.
It may seem to be pointless semantics but it is important because most people do not understand what science is and they subsequently expect it to do things that are beyond its purpose and, when it fails to do so, claim it as a shortcoming of science; which is like complaining that a hammer makes a rubbish screwdriver.
My Response:
Agreed. Science is not living and breathing. I could have used better wording in this instance. A more appropriate explanation of my point is that there is an absolute truth that exists, but man on his own will likely never be able to prove it without any doubt.It is true that some form of faith at some point must be required to accept the absolute truth in our origin and in our meaning of existance.
Sri Lumpa said:
A perfect example of what I just said. It is not science's role to prove or disprove whether a higher power exists. In fact, it can't do either because a higher power implies something that can break the laws of this universe (miracle) and generally is claimed to have come from outside it (and to have created it).
Science is concerned with discovering how this material universe works. Anything outside of it (and thus any higher power) is outside of science's purview so expecting science to prove or disprove that a higher power exists is expecting a hammer to drive a nail.
Now it doesn't mean that science cannot make the existence of a particular god less likely; for example the greek used to believe that lightning was cast by Zeus so having science help us understand lightning makes that particular belief much less likely though it wouldn't prevent anybody with ehough faith to believe that Zeus is the god casting lightning.
When a scientist (like Dawkins for example) tries to answer the question (whether in the affirmative or the negative) of a god's existence they are not so much using circumstancial evidence as exapounding on their faith in the existence or non-existence of a god/gods. Granted, their belief is informed by their scientific knowledge but in the end, that last jump between evidence and belief or disbelief is a leap of faith.
For example, Richard Dawkins will readily admit that the existence of god (of any flavour) cannot be disproved at 100% but he base his atheism on the probability of any god's existence being so small that it is virtually indistinguishable from zero (of course, religious people will have a different idea of that probability) so you might has well take that last little step away from belief or agnosticism to atheism. Of course, as small as it might be it still is a leap of faith.
My Response:
The entire problem here is the premise in which you seem to be implying and how other atheist scientists approach science. You come from the premise of, "our Universe and its properties exists by means which we cannot fully explain with sure confidence, however they exist outside of any real possibility of a creator or higher being." This is the same approach as saying, "My car has absolutely no maker, or designer. That mass of metal, rubber, frabrics, ect just became a car on its own." The universe is full of space and matter just like a car is. We see the universe contains planets, stars, galaxies, and at least one planet that is supporting complex life. That life requires everything its planet provides including position from the sun, the correct tilt of its axis and rotation, water, oxygen, nitrogen, correct gravitational pull, ect. The universe as well as our planet is a product. It is a product with certain laws and certain aspects of order. Using science one can determine by examination that a car was designed and made by an intelligent maker. So too using science one can look into our universe and through examination see that it too was designed by an intelligent being.
So my friend, Im sure you will try to counter this, but indeed when discussing the origin of our universe the premise of a scientist should be to use science to try and prove whether the universe can sceintifically exist without the existance of a designer, which they have yet to do even though you and some scientists claim they have. The current mindset of the scientist is to say, "The existence of our Universe required no intelligent maker". They might as well say,"The existence of my car required no intelligent maker". The universe exists with certain laws just like a car was made with certain laws of what its designer made it capable of doing for specific reasons. Do you not see the truth in this?
Sri Lumpa said:
Point number one is an incorrect summation of the big bang theory. First, there wasn't space as it is the whole point of the big bang theory that if the universe (space) is expanding and you rewind the clock then space itself must have been smaller and smaller the further back in time you look, until there was no space at all. Also, some theories of the big bang posit that time expanded during the big bang (like space did) so there wasn't necessarily time in the beginning either. As for gravity, I would make no difference whether it existed or not given that there was no matter to project a gravitational field. Zero from non-existence or zero from no matter projecting a field is still zero.
The biggest problem I have with your summary though is that you say that the big bang started from a singular point, which is not quite correct as the big bang actually happened everywhere. It was a singular point only because there was no space.
To see the difference imagine a cake with raisin. A typical explosion would be like having all the raisins in the center when the cake already exist and exploding outward to wherever they end up. The big bang is more like the raisins are distributed throughout the cake before it swells up during the baking process and as the cake itself becomes bigger the raisins expand too and move away from each other.
Also, I wouldn't say that we have two options to choose from. I would say that option 1 is the best explanation (or group of possible explanations) advanced by scientists to explain the facts as we know them but it is subject to change and revision as we gain more knowledge. But any theory that want to replace the big bang will at a minimum have to explain all the same facts that the big bang does. Sri Lumpa said:
It implies that you believe that the existence of logic is dependent on the existence of a god, which is highly ironic as an awful lot of people whose livelihood depends on the existence of such a being tolerate logic up until it undermines their belief (and thus their livelihood) at which point they will say that reason is not enough and you must also have faith. Or worse, a lot declare reason to be contrary to faith, like Luther.
My Response:
I agree I may have articulated the big bang theory not percisley accurate. I have some relative understanding of it, but the problem is I have read so many different views on it from different scientists that there can be slight differences depending on who you read or talk to. Now, first of all I could easily punch a huge hole into your theory right off the bat. The farther back in time we go you say the space would be smaller and smaller until there is no space at all. So you are essentially saying space came about from no space at all...
How does that theory even get discussed in realm of science? you have no space which then becomes space. Essentially you are saying that at the farthest back that time can possibly go there was "jack Sh1t" in existence and then eventually you have space, matter, gravity, elements, laws, chemicals, stars, planets, life, ect. How does that get even considered in science, which teaches that in order to have certain matter there must be something to make the matter in the first place? Even the ones who argue for infinite universes, what brought about any matter space for those universes to even have an existence at all?
It is of course logical that it should be so as when confronted with logic undermining their faith (or part of it) either they abandon that particular faith (say belief in a flat earth because of Matthew 4:8) and are thus not a believer anymore (at least for that part of their faith contradicted by logic and knowledge) or they keep believing in their now discredited belief but do not do so with reason but with faith and in spite of reason (what some call blind faith).
My Response:
You either don't seem to get what I am trying to say here, or you are just simply rejecting it entirely. How could beings such as us have the ability of understanding and the ability to use logic if in the beginning there was no intelligent force to allow us to have the ability to understand. According to a scientist with no belief in God life began as chemical reactions. chemicals do not possess the ability to understand or use logic. If there is no intelligent force to input the code of understanding to eventually arise in more complex life, then how would the first cells of life obtain that code of knowledege and intellect to appear later in more complex life forms?
Sri Lumpa said: Science is actually quite close to proving the opposite (not close as in in the next few days but close as in it took us centuries to get to that point of understanding and it probably will only take us a few decades to finish the work on abiogenesis). We do not know what happen at instant zero of the big bang but we are reasonably certain of what happened right after, from a few seconds after the big bang until the universe cooled enough for baryons to form, then atoms, then stars, then planets (you need the first batch of stars to exist so they can manufacture heavier elements found in non gas giants planets and then to explode in a supernova to release those elements before you can have an earth like planet)... We know how we evolved from mono-cellular life forms to intelligent life forms. We do not have all the details yet (for example there are a number of competing theories on how sexual reproduction initially evolved, though the later break of symmetry between males and females is quite well understood) but we have the big picture. The biggest remaining piece of the puzzle would be abiogenesis: How life started out of non-life. We do have theories on how it might have started and there were experiments that simulated the conditions on the primordial earth that produced molecules that are necessary for life to form (but not life itself). Not only does science not prove that you cannot obtain intelligence from non-life but it is likely to prove the opposite (that life can begin and evolve toward intelligence without intelligent design) in the coming decades. The problem with that approach of your is that you basically believe in the god of the gaps. That is, before science knew as much as it does today, it was easy to believe in a superior being that was the cause of all those unexplained phenomena. As science progressed and explained more and more phenomena beyond a reasonable doubt religions started retreating from ascribing those phenomena to gods, leaving god-as-an-explanation-for-natural-phenomena to smaller and smaller pockets that science did not explain yet; i.e. god exists in the gaps left by science.
This is basically the reason why there is such a debate about teaching evolution in school, with young earth creationists trying to pass off their religious beliefs as a scientific theory so that it will be taught in school. They are basically drawing their line in the sand and do not want to concede that explanation of where today's species come from.
I think that if one wishes to believe in god it is the wrong approach. Remember that god is supposedly this omnipotent being, so it is completely possible (under that assumption, of course) that he caused the big bang so that it resulted in life and intelligence as we know it without further intervention. It is equally theologically sound to believe that god created the world 5 seconds ago and made it look like it is billions of years old, including the cosmic background that is the best evidence of the big bang, including the light from galaxies receding away from us; light that appear to be thousand of years old but might have been created 5 seconds ago to look like it comes from a galaxy thousands of light-years away. Oh, and including all the posts in this thread that were written more than 5 seconds ago.
Of course, such a position is not based on logic, it relies purely on faith in an omnipotent god.
My Response:
The major links in the molecules-to-man theory that must be bridged include (a) evolution of simple molecules into complex molecules, (b) evolution of complex molecules into simple organic molecules, 
evolution of simple organic molecules into complex organic molecules, (d) eventual evolution of complex organic molecules into DNA or similar information storage molecules, and (e) eventually evolution into the first cells. This process requires multimillions of links, all which either are missing or controversial. Furthermore the parts required to provide life clearly have specifications that rule out most substitutions. Not once has abiogenesis produced any form of DNA in all studies done so far. It has not even produced nucleotide which is the basic building block of DNA. abeogenesis is therefore not close to unlocking any mysteries of how the first living cells. Most of it is just speculation from some scientists thinking they are close when abeogenesis has failed to even produce anything basic for building DNA.
Also more species are dieing off than the amount of new species we are finding. The new species we are finding isn't due to new ones evolving, its due to an already existing species existing that we have just newly discovered. The other explanation is species A mates with Species B and is able to create Species C. No scientist that Im aware of has yet to prove that a certain species has evolved from another species without natural means of reproduction.
Sri Lumpa said:
Scientists do not try to take god out of the equation, quite the opposite, god is not in the equation to start with (otherwise it would be theology, not science) and they have no need to put him in the equation. Like Laplace replied to Napoleon when the latter remarked that his scientific book did not mention god: "I had no need of that hypothesis".
You might want to google Occam's razor if you want to understand why scientists do not add god to their theories when they do not need it.
It is your belief but it is not based on facts.
My Response:
Occam's razor suggests to use the most simplest method when it applys in science. The most simple explenation is often times the correct one. Well, I dont see how the big bang without a creator is more simple than the universe with a creator. The more simple and logical choice as I have laid out is a universe is a product. A product requires a maker. You cannot start with nothing and get something as the phrase goes.
Sri Lumpa said: It goes both ways. In my experience a lot of people believe in god because they are afraid of their own mortality (for example claiming that "there are no atheists in a foxhole" which is false) and cannot bear the thought of their own annihilation at death, hence a convenient belief that doesn't require them to really die and even promise them rewards (I do not mention the threats of hell because every believers knows that hell is for other people, not for them as they are believers). My Response: Sri Lumpa, I believe it because it is the simplest explanation that makes sense and that offers the best evidence based on what information we have available. The big bang still does not offer enough explanation even though some evidence could support it. There are some deep flaws in it. And a universe that exists without some form of intelligent intervention goes completely against any scientific principal out there, and yes the scientists who subscribe to it without questioning the its validity are just denying the obvious. Do you not see the evidence?
Sri Lumpa said:
A lot of people believe in god because they are afraid of the unknown and prefer to fill it with unicorns, leprechauns, dragons or god(s).
As forthe second part of your sentence, once again, it is your belief, nothing more.
My Response:
First part, it is likely that some believe in God because they are afraid of the unkown, but I would argue for many its because the evidence gives it a lot of weight. Also the belief in a creator is much different than the belief in unicorns, leprechauns, dragons ect. You cannot put them in the same category. There is absolutely NO physical evidence that suggests unicorns exist. It is based on stories and fairytales. There is however some heavy evidence that a creator/ higher intelligent being does exist. Im like a broken record, but the proof is in the pudding. We can see, observe study, and examine our planet, other planets, our sun, the stars, and the universe and see a PRODUCT. a product that has laws. LAWS CANNOT JUST BE IMPLICATED BY NOTHING! Can a rock create laws on its own? answer me that, please. You cannot deny there are certain laws in place that make everything work the way they do. If not then science would not be reliable as so many variables would constantly be changing without laws.
Sri Lumpa said: Like snowflakes: Emergent behaviour. Every snowflake is a highly organised pattern and there are millions (at least) of different patterns. It could be argued that such order cannot emerge from the disorder of water droplets and that it require intelligence to create them. Do you believe that god creates every single snowflake or that there are some simple rules that create all of that complexity. Yeah, it's turtles all the way. Somehow you think that it is more logical to believe in one turtle (god) than in an infinity of turtles (gods) but your position is actually the least logical of all as either the world needs the support of a turtle (god) and thus logically that turtle (god) needs the support of another ad infinitum or the turtle needs no support and if it doesn't then why does the world need support?
My Resonponse:
Have you given thought to why the snowflakes come out of the clouds the way they do with that particular pattern? yes the cloud develops them to appear in that fashion. Here si something interesting about snowflakes: As the snow crystal grows, it's often blown about in the sky. The air and temperature around the crystal are consistently changing. Snowflakes are very sensitive; even a small change in these conditions can lead to different growth patterns.The final shape of the crystal reflects these growth conditions in what it endured. The longer the snowflake is blown about in the air above, the more complex the resulting snow crystal. No two crystals have the exact same history so they don't grow in the same way. no two have ever been the same, or ever will be.
It is more logical to believe in one God rather than a multitude of gods, if you look at our universe and its properties in the correct prism. If you observe the universe and come to the realization that it is a product with certain laws in place then you will see it has a maker. One maker makes more sense than a multitude of makers to me, because of how many things work together and in a uniformal manner. A universe with conflicting laws cannot exist. For instance in a setting you cannot have the law of A and also not-A in the same time and same relationship. It would be like me saying, "My house is by the street, and it is not the case that my house is by the street". that contradicts itself. The universe incorporates certain laws that just work together. In light of that it makes the case even more that it was one Designer that formed the product of the universe together with the laws that all work together. Also if the Designer of the universe is the ultimate being that incorporates all knowledge, power, eternity and energy then the need to support that being is null. That being is self sufficient. Yes there is a dose of faith that has to be used in this instance, but also it is evident that a scientist also MUST use a dose of faith when try to explain that the universe originated with NOTHING, because that defys what science can prove. That goes against science at its core. Both view points MUST require some form of faith to believe them.
So I argue you too have to have Faith that the Big Bang transpired with NOTHING. Faith, and belief is required in that instance so you too must say IMB (In My Belief).
Sri Lumpa said: If we had had that conversation a few thousand years ago you might have argued for the existence of god but claiming that lightning cannot be explained any other way than by a god creating it. If we had that conversation a few thousand years in the future you probably would accept the theory of the origin of life and intelligence (barring a nuclear holocaust, other catastrophe or the end of the world; I doubt that we won't have a very good idea of how life happened in a few thousand years, but that is just speculation) and would then argue another point.
In order to have a code of laws that programmed an omnipotent god to form there had to be some level of intelligence for those codes to form; so why stop where you do? My Response: You and some scientists can continue to try and explain the existence of a universe with laws and order that began from nothing, but through the study of science we know that matter can not just appear when nothing was there to begin with. If a scientist built an empty room that was impervious to rot, decay, and rust and sealed it off, no matter how long you wait you cannot get the creation of a complex product like a computer in that room. As far as your last statement, you make it, because you have the incorrect view of who the Intelligent Designer really is. It comes down to using some logic and I agree a dose of faith to believe that God is self suffiecent and eternal. One who does not need support, or other intelligent beings. Its a much easier explanation than the one you argue, which also requires faith. Obtaining a complex product with the start of nothing requires tremendous faith, because it falls outside of the realm of science in what we know.
Sri Lumpa said:
As for the luck of the draw and it making less snese than a god, the argument against that would be that, from your own admission, intelligence is more complicated than dead matter, so you are taking the problem of the origin of a very complicated universe with some reasonably intelligent life forms (us) and exchanging it with the even bigger problem of the origin of an entity more complicated than the universe itself as it needs to be supremely complicated to be able to create the universe. You are exchanging a difficult problem with an even more difficult one and then you argue that the exchange makes sense.
My Response:
The argument makes much more sense, because through the sudy of science we see a complex product, which is the universe. The two options are it came about in same way or form by a complex being, or else "magic" has always existed and somehow a universe just spontaneously appeared with the codes to create all matter, laws, and life. a complex being makes more sense than a spontaneous existance of a complex product. How would I sound to a scientist if I went to him/her and said, "hey I was sitting on my bed last night and I saw pieces of metal, transistors, microprocessor, and other computer components form together and they all came together to make a computer right in my lap!" They would ask me if I take medication.
Sri Lumpa said: Is it though? A volcano is just dead matter but it is pretty lively too. A star is only dead matter but it manages to create things more complicated than what it starts with (it starts with hydrogen and ends with heavier elements). Just because we do not know the exact process by which the more complicated organisation that we call life first happened from less complicated substances does not mean it is not possible. My Response: Stars have not produced any DNA that we have seen. So far scientists have yet to provide create anything that is even basic building blocks for DNA from dead matter. Its looking like even though dead matter can produce some more complex things it has never produced anything even close to the building blocks of DNA. So this should not even be in the discussion if it hasn't even come close.
