Officially Converted into a Deist

[michaeledward]

Can someone, for simplicity's sake, clarify the big bang theory for me...

Was it

"There was this big empty nothing, and then the nothing went BANG, and tossed stuff into the universe"

or

"There was a boatload of stuff hanging out in one place surrounded by a bunch of nothing and the stuff went BANG and tossed all the stuff apart into the universe"

or

"We dunno, but something went BANG and now there is a Universe"

Thanks

Oh, also... How much of what we know about it is hard scientific facts, and how much a theory?

I believe the current theory is that there was a point, infinitely small containing everything. The Big Bang caused this point of matter to accelerate in all directions outward.

Most of this explanation of the universe is supported by evidence. Stars and Galaxies are expanding outward. The further away, the faster they are moving. Extrapolating backward and we can deterimine that all measurable matter originated from a single point.

As we experiment with how matter and energy behave as we backtrack from the present, we have gained understanding about the makeup of the universe.

There is still much we don't know. But what we do know, is known with a pretty high confidence level.

 

[Crom]

There is no before the big bang in the current scientific theory, time doesn't extend befoyond it. This is something pretty much impossible for the human mind to comprehend so i stopped trying a while back, apparently it can drive people crazy.


There's nothing particularly special about it either, its just a place and time where dimensions happen to be quite small, like the poles on a globe which are only important because of the coordinate system we use. The way we experience time makes that particular point important to us. If you follow evolution the human brain developed enough sense of time to know yesterday from tomorrow and to throw a spear just in front of a running deer, we can't really handle anything beyond that.

This is just how i've been taught physics and i might have retold it wrong. I think Hawkin goes over this in "A Brief History of Time".

I don't really see how this goes towards proving or disproving God's existence though, its a matter of faith not fact as far as i'm concerned. In fact I tend to believe that if God's existence could be proven what would be the point in believing in him/her?

 

[rmcrobertson]

The single most-famous answer to the question of what came before the Big Bang comes from St. Augustine, one of whose students is supposed to have asked him what God was doing before He created the heavens and the earth.

Augustine replied, of course, that, "He was busy creating Hell, for people who asked questions like that."

 

[Kenpodoc]

I'm not sure how the presence or absence of a big bang has anything to do with one's belief in god or one's spirituality. It is very difficult to grasp either God or the vastness of time and space. Lack of comfort or understanding neither proves nor disproves either. Much of the discussion of Cosmology here is significantly out of date. Spend some time reading about string theory or even better the current Membrane theories of the universe. They are difficult, fascinating and enlightening. Membrane theory gets rid of the Singularity that confines Hawking.

Jeff

 

[michaeledward]

I'm a tiny bit familiar with string theory, less so concerning membrane theory.

String theory is interesting, but as I understand it, at the current time, the String Theorist are excited about their theory, but have yet to provide convincing evidence to the Non-String Theorists.

It will be a wonderful, exciting debate concerning these topics. Probably, they will occupy the next 100 years, at minimum. Good Times.

 

[Crom]

Righty, sorry if any of thats wrong then, i'll add some things to my excedingly hard reading list and sometime catch up.


Still not much to do with God IMO.

 

[Tgace]

Way over my head..but heres the "membrane theory" in detail for you guys...

http://webuser.fh-furtwangen.de/~webers/membthe1.htm

 

[bignick]

Basically, the 'brane theory as I understand it uses the analogy of a bunch of bed sheets or something similar...each membrane is basically a seperate universe and they exist in another dimension. so picture our 3 dimensions as flat(like a sheet) and there are a bunch of these membranes out there. When they come in contact with each other, we get what we now explain as the Big Bang...

As for what this has to do with Kane converting to Deism...I don't know...

 

[punisher73]

There is an article this month in, I believe though could be wrong, Scientific American(n). But, it was on the most common misconceptions of the big bang theory.

One of them was that the big bang was a single point of super ultradense material that exploded outward. Newer theory is that it was bunches of points clustered very close together and space EXPANDED outward. The analogy they used was several dots on a balloon that look like one single dot and then when you blow up the balloon and expand it, you see many dots as the space expands. Lot of other technical "stuff" in the article, but that was the main part of one section related to the initial bang.

 

[Blind]

Kane, I don't know why you are using this line of reasoning, the first point you made seems to me to be a case of there being a first mover, the next was that the chances of us being a random accident is so small that there has to be a designer.

There is no evidence to suggest that if there was something before time and/or the big bang that it was a God or Gods.

While I agree it is amazing to think that something like a human being or a flower or a mountain was not created by some intelligence the fact remains there is a possibility that it is all an "accident", especially considering how vast and infinite the universe seems.

That said I do believe that we are not just physical, and if that is so then it would not be surprising if God/Gods did exist. There is however no proof(to my knowledge), and until science manages to find a verifiable way of doing so we will have to judge as best we can for ourselves.

 

[Flatlander]

Now you might ask, why and how did I turn from an agnostic who believes there is no way to proves that there is or there isn’t a God to a believing Deist?

OK, how?

Well, if you study the laws of physics more deeply as I have, you will find hard proof that there is a God. For example: 15 billion years ago at the birth of the universe there was a big explosion called the big bang. Some scientists are puzzled on what happened before these 15 billion years. Did the universe come out of nothingness? I laughed when I read this, silly little atheistic scientists (no offense), it is so obvious what happened before the beginning of the universe. A Supreme Deity which lives outside the laws of time and space, that lives outside the laws of physics created the universe.
Whether or not this God is what the Dessert Monotheistic religions speak of or not, there was some sort of God that created all this. I think that the few atheistic physicists in the field are stubborn IMO to admit the fact that there is a supreme Deity.

This doesn't explain how you became converted, Kane. All you've really said here is that its "obvious" to you that "a Supreme Deity which lives outside the laws of space time created the Universe". Why is that obvious to you? If your definition of Deist, as given above, specifies a result based upon reason, then highlight your reasoning for us, please.

Furthermore if you look at the laws of time, it shows that some sort of being already planned out our timeline and where it is heading.

How does it show this?

 

[Feisty Mouse]

I believe the current theory is that there was a point, infinitely small containing everything. The Big Bang caused this point of matter to accelerate in all directions outward.

I like thinking about things like this. It seems to incomprehensible and impossible and strange...I feel like I'm going to turn my brain inside-out.

There was recently a PBS special explaining string theory. V.v. interesting. The major flaw or bone to pick people had with it was the lack of testable hypotheses that the theory generates/d.

But I have seen plenty of people who claim to be rational try and use science as an excuse why there is no god... or at best as to why THEY dont believe there is.

Oh, yes, me too. Being a scientist who has spiritual/religious beliefs is not a socially easy thing to do all the time. It's not really highly regarded by some. Sometimes it may be because of what you mention - and sometimes it's just because some scientists (like anyone who devotes themselves to one thing in life - perhaps even like some martial artists) have given themselves solely to one discipline or one subsection of a field of knowledge, and are entirely uninterested in what goes on outside that field.

It makes me feel a bit sad, but there it is.

 

[Flatlander]

Do you even read my posts?

I do. Reading your posts is assisting me in uncovering your contradictory trollish behaviour.

If you read any of my posts you would know I am NOT religous. Being moral doesn't mean you have to be religous.

From the lead post in this thread (which, by the way, you have abandoned) :

I am officially converted into a Deist recently...<snip>...So far I think Christianity, Islam, or Judaism are the true doctrines of God, but again there is not enough proof for me to go either way.

Kane, after having made this proclamation, how on earth can you claim to be non-religious? To quote your President, "The Senator has got to understand - he can't have it both ways. He can't take the high horse and then claim the low road."

-To everyone else reading, I am NOT trying to denigrate or otherwise disrespect people of faith here, rather, I am illustrating a blatant contradiction of claim.

 

[Kane]

I do. Reading your posts is assisting me in uncovering your contradictory trollish behaviour.From the lead post in this thread (which, by the way, you have abandoned) :
Kane, after having made this proclamation, how on earth can you claim to be non-religious? To quote your President, "The Senator has got to understand - he can't have it both ways. He can't take the high horse and then claim the low road."

-To everyone else reading, I am NOT trying to denigrate or otherwise disrespect people of faith here, rather, I am illustrating a blatant contradiction of claim.

Being Deist doesn't mean you are religious. I believe that there is a God, and that is it. I don't follow or believe any religions on our planet that attempt to define God. They maybe right, especially the three dessert monotheistic religions but I don't believe there is any way to prove it, but I don't believe there is way to disapprove Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. Either way I don't follow a religion. Period. I made that thread just for viewing replies, sorry if not responing offended you.

 

[Flatlander]

Being Deist doesn't mean you are religious. I believe that there is a God, and that is it.

From dictionary.com:

re·li·gious

adj. Having or showing belief in and reverence for God or a deity.

I think perhaps you mean that you aren't a member of any specific religion. You are, however, by your own definition, religious. Further, I don't think that you mean that you are a deist.

From dictionary.com:

deist

n : A person who believes that God created the universe and then abandoned it.

 

[Kane]

From dictionary.com:

I think perhaps you mean that you aren't a member of any specific religion. You are, however, by your own definition, religious. Further, I don't think that you mean that you are a deist.

From dictionary.com:

No no no, I am merely saying I am open-minded to those beliefs, as I am also open-minded to those beliefs of atheists too. I however mostly feel that God did abandon us. So I am Deist for the most part, Flatlander. I don't follow a particular religion, so I am not in general religous. I don't believe that believeing in a God alone makes you religous.


No matter, religion has NOTHING to do with my belief on whether Terry Shiavo should live and die. I don't want Terry Shiavo to die because I believe in the Bible, Ku'ran, or the Torah says that she should live. I believe she should live because I think life is important, and I do not believe her husband or government should have and say on whether she should live or die. No one deserves to die unless they themselves took a life intentionally. IMO, that should be a moral norm, not a religous norm.