Atheism : Love it or Leave it? - Part 2

[Knight Rise]

all im saying is, a giant explosion containing everything just doesnt pop out of nowhere

 

[SuperFerret]

Ah, the stuff of internet debates. Logical fallacies, burden of proof, general willingness to jump on someone immediately for a small misstep. Such things cannot be found in a more purer fashion than a religion thread on an internet forum.

Also, we (Homo sapiens) did not come from monkeys. We came from apes.

 

[Llama_Shepherd]

Actually it happens all the time. It's happening right now. Vacuum particles continuously pop up from nowhere and annihinilate each other. However, around the event horizon if a black hole the negative vacuum particle falls in to the black hole, and the positive vacuum particle becomes matter, as the negative particle falls in to the black holle a small piece of the black hole is destroyed and releases Hawking radiation.


Something comes from nothing all the time.

 

[redhawk23]

I'm curious on everyone's views on what was the catalyst that started the Big Bang...how did the Universe begin? What caused it?

I have a Christian friend who argues against the Big Bang because, as he states, in what other cases can you think of where an explosion creates life? None...what do you guys think of life arising (billions of years after the Big Bang) and its origins?

Explosions are just releases of stored energy.

The sun through fusion releases huge amounts of light and heat energy, the basis of all life on earth.

The hydrogen in stars, through the fusion reactions that create all that light and heat energy combine into heavier elements with more particles. Many stars when they die explode sending all of these different kinds of matter into space. Nebula are giant and gas clouds, matter formed in the heart of these fusion explosions, these heavier elements are what planets are made out of. The matter of all life on Earth comes from the earth. The earth is made of matter released from stars.

Without these "explosions" there are no planets for life to live on, matter to build chemicals, chemicals to build bodies or energy to drive those bodies.

We are the stuff of stars.

 

[Nell2ThaIzzay]

I haven't really followed this thread, but I wanted to give my thoughts.

I'm not an atheist. But I don't like religion. In fact, I rather despise religion. In my experiences, it causes way too much division to be worth it.

That's not to say religion doesn't do good things. I personally have benefited from religion. And I do not have anything against religion people inherently. I think people who believe in religion as a part of their life is a great thing. My beef is with organized religion, who I believe largely manipulate the "word of God" for their own benefit, as well as people who force their religion upon others, and use their religion as a tool of division and hatred. I have seen both aspects of religion first hand. Unfortunately, I have had a lot more experience with the divisive and hate aspect of religion than I have the union and love aspect of it. I have had relationships with family members strained because they couldn't deal with the fact that I didn't have the same religious beliefs as they did, and that I stood up for my beliefs when local Christian organizations (including their church, who was one of the front runners) tried to protest and stop a mosque from being built, with many different accusations from many different parties of the Muslim community here being nothing but terrorists. Members of that part of my family accused me of having no values because I didn't believe in Christianity, gave me the "I'm going to hell because their religion is correct and everything else is wrong" speech, and finally just cut me out of their lives period. I have since reconciled with that side of the family, but I have noticed that they demand a level of respect from me that they are not willing to give themselves. They expect me to not talk about my religious beliefs, but they still constantly bombard me with theirs.

As a disclaimer, I am not attempting to say that all religious people are like that. They are not. This is an isolated experience, with an isolated group of people that I have had issues with. My issues with religion stem from experiences deeper than just this one, and as I said earlier, I certainly do not take issue with religious people on the whole. I take issue with a certain type of religious person, and a certain type of church, that unfortunately seem to be a very vocal minority.

As far as Atheism vs. Theism goes; I think that I believe in God. But I don't believe in God in the traditional sense. I'm not sure if I believe in an afterlife, or Heaven and Hell. I don't believe in fate. But I don't believe that we came from nothing. I believe that something created us. What that something has to do with our everyday lives, and afterlife judgement is what I'm unsure about. So I am very hesitant to call myself an atheist. But whatever God I do believe in, I don't believe in God in the traditional sense. And I also don't subscribe to any religious doctrine. I believe what I believe based on what I know of the world, and what I believe makes sense to me.

 

[Knight Rise]

there have been cases on the research of God. read some books by Lee Strobel who wrote "The Case For Christ" and "The Case for God". very interesting reads

 

[redhawk23]

all im saying is, a giant explosion containing everything just doesnt pop out of nowhere

Yet omnipotent, omniscient, incorporeal deities do?

 

[Llama_Shepherd]

Nvm

 

[Llama_Shepherd]

Knight Rise quick question. Abrahamic religion? If so you surely realise using anthropomorphism in those books cannot describe God and are therefore redundant.

 

[Knight Rise]

Yet omnipotent, omniscient, incorporeal deities do?

wtf? this is one of the reasons i cant stand science, you give words that arent basic and make no sense to the average mind. you think you know what God is, but you dont. because you dont believe in Him

 

[Bubonic]

wtf? this is one of the reasons i cant stand science, you give words that arent basic and make no sense to the average mind. you think you know what God is, but you dont. because you dont believe in Him .

So one of the reasons you can't stand science is because you can't be bothered to understand it?

Big words intimidate you and are therefore invalidated because they may force you to pick up a dictionary?

Language is a tool, you should learn to use it.

Is your argument here that we can't speculate what God is because we don't immediately believe in him/her/it? We should just blindly believe in whatever it is that our parents shovelled into our heads without question and leave it at that?

 

[Knight Rise]

how dare you. seriously, how f**king dare you. "whatever our parents shovelled into our heads". Religion isnt Santa Clause, it was built on the foundations of what some people believed over the years. science is labeling every single thing in existence and giving them words. if the universe is made of particles and atoms, where did they come from? because an explosion has a start and if that is made up of particles and atoms, both of those things had to come from somewhere now dont they?

 

[Thundercrack85]

Religion was early man's way of making sense of the universe. There's a reason why the Greeks had a powerful sea god, and the Hawaiians had a powerful volcano god. They had no idea how the seas and volcanos worked. This still happens. Point in case, we don't know the exact details of the big bang, so a lot of people attribute it to a god.

 

[Knight Rise]

ok i stick with God. you guys go on about what you believe. Maybe God created the Big Bang? because i can believe that

 

[Upset Spideyfan]

how dare you. seriously, how f**king dare you. "whatever our parents shovelled into our heads". Religion isnt Santa Clause, it was built on the foundations of what some people believed over the years. science is labeling every single thing in existence and giving them words. if the universe is made of particles and atoms, where did they come from? because an explosion has a start and if that is made up of particles and atoms, both of those things had to come from somewhere now dont they?

Science and by extension human knowledge is constantly growing and evolving as technology and new discoveries enable us to understand more about our universe.

Just because science has yet to reach the point wherein we understand the origins of the universe does not automatically lend itself to the existence of God or any other deity for that matter.

Furthermore if I was to toy around with your idea and try to apply that sort of logic back onto religion I would be forced to ask where did GOD come from?

 

[Thundercrack85]

ok i stick with God. you guys go on about what you believe. Maybe God created the Big Bang? because i can believe that

Maybe something or someone did. But we have no evidence for that.

 

[Knight Rise]

Science and by extension human knowledge is constantly growing and evolving as technology and new discoveries enable us to understand more about our universe.

Just because science has yet to reach the point wherein we understand the origins of the universe does not automatically lend itself to the existence of God or any other deity for that matter.

Furthermore if I was to toy around with your idea and try to apply that sort of logic back onto religion I would be forced to ask where did GOD come from?

maybe you should read "The Case for Christ" to explain Jesus and read "The Case for God" to explain God. because obviously, people here will stick to what they say no matter how hard i try to make my point. is that a bad thing? no, i respect people's beliefs as long as they dont bash mine

 

[Upset Spideyfan]

I really find the concept that an actual God would resemble anything like the Judeo-Christian God to be out there as well.

 

[Llama_Shepherd]

maybe you should read "The Case for Christ" to explain Jesus and read "The Case for God" to explain God. because obviously, people here will stick to what they say no matter how hard i try to make my point. is that a bad thing? no, i respect people's beliefs as long as they dont bash mine

Ok, how about this? If God is infinite in scope, he is infinite in lifespan. If God existed forever before the Earth, then he can never create the Earth, as infinity, by definition, never ends, so either a) he is not infinite, and therefore, not omnipotent and omniscient or b) isn't real.


How do you explain that?

 

[Bubonic]

how dare you. seriously, how f**king dare you. "whatever our parents shovelled into our heads". Religion isnt Santa Clause, it was built on the foundations of what some people believed over the years. science is labeling every single thing in existence and giving them words. if the universe is made of particles and atoms, where did they come from? because an explosion has a start and if that is made up of particles and atoms, both of those things had to come from somewhere now dont they?

Religion basically is Santa Claus, prove to me it isn't.
It's just Santa Claus with more years behind it's belt, so many years people get confused into believing it has been around forever and is infallible(something that can't be proved false).

All religion ever was were ways to make sense of the world.

An all powerful being that started off the big bang can't be argued against at this point, but saying the current man-made monotheistic God started it can be argued against easily enough.

Oh and one of our common ancestors has advice for you.

 

[redhawk23]

how dare you. seriously, how f**king dare you. "whatever our parents shovelled into our heads". Religion isnt Santa Clause, it was built on the foundations of what some people believed over the years. science is labeling every single thing in existence and giving them words. if the universe is made of particles and atoms, where did they come from? because an explosion has a start and if that is made up of particles and atoms, both of those things had to come from somewhere now dont they?

You're right, Bubonic is being overly disrepectful, although you have been as well in the past.

wtf? this is one of the reasons i cant stand science, you give words that arent basic and make no sense to the average mind. you think you know what God is, but you dont. because you dont believe in Him

Omniscient= all knowing. Omnipotent= all powerful Diety= in your case I'm assuming the Abrahamic God.

I'm sorry I did not realize those words were obscure in any way.
And I guarantee you my mind is no more than average. Also my question had little to do with science.

You ask where all the original particles come from, I ask again, if you are going to try to argue that point as a point again scientific observation, where does God or what ever diety you so choose come from?

Once again I state my argument that you are replacing one paradox that is based on what we can observe, that there are particles but we have a hard time currently explaining where they came from, with another paradox based on something that cannot be observed or truly known, that there may be a God, but no explanation what so ever of where he came from.

And you have a very limited view of what science is. Yes classification is part of it. It is necessary to agree on what things are. (is that a rock? or a chunk of wood?) but that is not science in its entire. Sciences is also systematic observation of how things interact, what they do, what they don't do. Through observation we produce an understanding of what things are. We can use this understanding to use the world around us for our purposes. Do you really think that key board you are typing on, the electricity running your computer, or the materials they are made out of or run through were produced through simply labeling things?

Religions may be built upon what people have believed over time, but scientific inquiry is built upon a foundation of what we have managed to perceive over the past 500 years or so. Is our perception limited? Yes but the goal is to expand our gaze, which we do time and time again. Can our perception be skewed? Yes of course, there is always error, instrumental or human. There will be some kind of bias. But being aware of it allows us to combat it, to try to remove increasing amounts of that error. We work towards a goal of true objectivity in our perception. Error will always be present, no matter how miniscule. The difference is unlike most systems of belief, no one ever said that the scientific method, or the knowledge found through its implementation was infallible. Quite the opposite actually. Its in trying to constantly remove as much error and fallibility as possible that we expand our knowledge.

Religious observations are not invalid by any means. There is much truth involved. I just am uncomfortable with the statement that it is the only source of truth. There are many religions and philosophies and many points of view. Limiting your view is limiting potential

Also, do not assume that just because I come to a different conclusion than you on the topic of God that I do not understand the concept of religion and deities. You might argue that I don't understand what is to believe but that is also a fallacy. Just because I do not believe in a diety does not mean I do not have beliefs. There are ideals I believe in, that I devote my life to. However I also accept uncertainty. That's where I stand, we may disagree, but I can accept that to. I'm sure there are other things that we would find we would have in common.


I think everyone in thread needs to chillax. Whatever your background, I'm sure we can all agree that we deserve respect.

 

[Bubonic]

You're right, Bubonic is being overly disrepectful, although you have been as well in the past.

How wasn't I being respectful, especially considering the post I responded to?
I could of flamed him harder than hell could.

He's the one that made the Santa Claus connection, did all the hard work for me.

And what else is it but parents programming their children to believe what they and their respective communities believe. I used shovelling because I was trying to keep my language easily digestible for him since he made a big deal out of people using big confusing words and sentences.

 

[redhawk23]

Religion basically is Santa Claus, prove to me it isn't.
It's just Santa Claus with more years behind it's belt, so many years people get confused into believing it has been around forever and is infallible(something that can't be proved false).

All religion ever was were ways to make sense of the world.

An all powerful being that started off the big bang can't be argued against at this point, but saying the current man-made monotheistic God started it can be argued against easily enough.

Oh and one of our common ancestors has advice for you.

While your opinion on that matter is as valid as anyone else's, your "Santa Clause" argument is counter productive.

Calling something a "Santa Clause" implies a deliberate lie told to the naive to make them behave. That is condescending to no end.

Religions have provided ways of understanding the world and each other. They have provided, across centuries, mutually agreed upon symbols that have been used to understand extremely complex ideas, and pass on useful values.

I do not discredit the positive roles religions have served.

I do discount them as absolute undiluted truth however.

 

[Dr.]

I have a Christian friend who argues against the Big Bang because, as he states, in what other cases can you think of where an explosion creates life? None...

Tell you friend that he’s inappropriately isolating two events and ignoring the long and gradual chain of causality that connects them. It’s a bit like comparing a (single cell) zygote to an adult animal and pronouncing that the two couldn’t possibly have anything to do with each other.

 

[Knight Rise]

Heres all i have left to say: I believe God created the unvierse, but i respect what other people believe. I dont need to have reasons or proof, I have the sense to respect others beliefs