If the earlier date takes precedence, then which incarnation of a supreme being is supposed to be disproved? Roman deities were preceded by Greek, Greek by Egyptian, Egyptian by Minoan, Minoan by Babylonian... and that's as far back as I've read. This, of course, doesn't take into account far Eastern religions. And that's only the organized ones.

Disproving something presents a problem. Take, for example, disproving the existence of Minotaurs. You could prove they did exist by finding remains, but, because you haven't found any, you can't definitively say they did or did not exist. That's why religion stresses 'faith' and not 'proof'.

Quote - I think that some of the conclusions being jumped to on both sides of the coin are...well, at best, demeaning.  People of faith are not inherently followers any more than atheists are inherently amoral.

There is part of the above statement that I find hard to understand. I thought (rightly or wrongly) that the essence of a religious faith was that you followed the teaching of some prophet (Mohamed, Jesus, Moses, etc), or the teaching of some some religious leader (Gandhi, Billy Graham, Kohmani, the Pope, etc), or some religious text (Bhavagad Gita, Torah, Qur'an, etc).

If people of religious faith are not inherently followers (and I'm not knocking being a follower of something), then what are they? I am not asking out of a desire to be argumentative, I really want to know. It has always seemed to me that being of a religious faith is synonymous with following some religious teaching. If I am mistaken, could someone please set me straight?

Quote -

If people of religious faith are not inherently followers (and I'm not knocking being a follower of something), then what are they? I am not asking out of a desire to be argumentative, I really want to know. It has always seemed to me that being of a religious faith is synonymous with following some religious teaching. If I am mistaken, could someone please set me straight?

I think she probably just didn't express what she meant properly.
I took it to mean that there are those who claim to be believers, but don't really follow the religion strictly. The "lukewarm" Christians mentioned in the Bible book of The Revelation - those who pay lip service and go through the motions, but aren't fully immersed.

I'm sure all religions have their lukewarm followers.

EDIT-

-OR-

Maybe she meant "followers" as in mindless sheep.

OK, I was reading it in the wrong way. Thanks Schecterman!

*Now it is such a bizarrely improbable coincidence that anything so mind bogglingly useful could evolve purely by chance that many thinkers have chosen to see it as a final and clinching proof of the non-existence of god.

The argument runs something like this. "I refuse to prove that I exist". Says god "For proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing". "But" says man, "The Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn't it? It proves you exist and so therefore you don't. QED". "Oh dear", says god, "I hadn't thought of that", and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic. "My, that was easy", says man, and goes on to prove that black is white, and gets killed on the next zebra crossing.

Most leading theologians claim that this argument is a load of dingo's kidneys. But this did not stop Oolon Colluphid making a small fortune when he used it as the central theme for his best selling book, "Well that about wraps it up for god". Meanwhile the poor Babel fish, by effectively removing all barriers to communication between different cultures and races, has caused more and bloodier wars than anything else in the history of creation.

The HitchHikers Guide to the Galaxy, By Douglas Adams.

we miss you Douglas. happy 42 day Everyone.

Quote - Right, religion predates science.  That's why it's up to science to disprove god.  Before science, religion didn't have need for proof of god.  Only if religion had arrived after science would it need proof of god to base its claims on.

There seems to be an unspoken assumption here that science wants to disprove the existence of god, and this seems to be a common conception amongst many religious people. I have never seen any evidence that science wants to disprove the existence of god. In general scientists want to speak freely about their theories and discoveries. Sometime they may say something like "Man is descended from apes", and because the bible does not say that, some people get the idea that science is trying to argue with religion. Its not! Scientists are just saying what they believe, without reference to religious opinions.

Scientists are people, and some of them are interested in proving the existence of god, and some of them want to disprove the existence of god, and many of them (probably the overwhelming majority) are happy in their own beliefs and don't seek proof one way or another. But that has nothing to do with science, that's just personal beliefs of people who just happen to be  scientists.

If you hold the view that god is a supernatural being, then it would be impossible for science to prove, or disprove god's existence. Science only deals with the natural world, and by its very nature, can't say anything about a supernatural world. On the other hand it your definition of god has it that god is everything, then it would seem that science is the attempt to understand god, not to refute his (her, it's) existence.

It seems that some religious people feel that scientific ideas, if true, would disprove the existence of god. Don't blame science for that, that's a religious idea, not a scientific one. Same goes for those of no faith who claim science disproves god. Where exactly is this theory that disproves the existence of god? Science can give convincing evidence that some religions teachings are false, but on the existence of god, science  is, and must forever remain mute.

Quote - Same goes for those of no faith who claim science disproves god. Where exactly is this theory that disproves the existence of god?

Well like I wrote above I feel that science has disproved God, or more specifically, the Creation; the idea of Intelligent Design.

I should elaborate on that though - not exactly "disproved", as in definitively and positively, but close enough in terms of how religion presents their idea of Creation, which is supposedly given to them straight from the words of God himself.

particle physics won't be used in proof/disproof of god(s) thanks to einstein's precedent, but:

• some believe god(s) will be proven to exist if they produce higgs boson (CERN)
• others believe the end of human civilisation will occur if they produce higgs boson

Schecterman,

As you rightly point out 'not exactly "disproved"'.

Certainly one could construct an argument against the existence of god using scientific knowledge. One argument might go something like this:

Science makes certain claims about the world we live in. Religious authorities make certain claims about the world we live in. On balance the scientific view of the world seems [my personal assessment] to give a more accurate and useful description of the world I live in than the religious authorities do. Therefore, in general, I think that scientific pronouncements on this world have more veracity than do to those of religious authorities.

If religious authorities are not a reliable source of knowledge about this world, where I can check and compare their statements with those of scientists, and come to my own conclusions based on the available evidence. Why then should I assume that their statements on religious matters, and the existence of god, have more veracity than their statements on the physical world. If they are not very good at divining the truth in one field, why should I assume that they are better at divining it in another field?

As claims for the existence of god seem to emanate in the first instance from religious authorities, should I not doubt these claims? If I can not put much weight on statements by  religious authorities, then I must look elsewhere for evidence of the existence of god. But I do not see evidence elsewhere. Therefore I will not believe in god, unless, and until some convincing evidence is discovered.

That's an argument in favour of not believing in god, it's not a proof, its just one argument, to be weighed and assessed in conjunction with other arguments for and against. I think it is a good argument, but I don't think that by itself it carries enough weight to be the basis of a firm conclusion.

I believe that anyone seeking a proof, for or against the existence of god, is on a fool's errand. Many people have tried to prove or disprove the existence of god, over many hundreds, and probably thousands of years. To anyone undertaking that project, I wish you luck, but I won't wait up for your result!

Quote -

I believe that anyone seeking a proof, for or against the existence of god, is on a fool's errand. Many people have tried to prove or disprove the existence of god, over many hundreds, and probably thousands of years. To anyone undertaking that project, I wish you luck, but I won't wait up for your result!

And therein lay the dilemma for the religious, or even more for the so-called "agnostics"...
("Agnostic" of course being a word always used wrong, but it suits its purpose well enough here. ;-))

The "seekers" have nothing to go by but faith and probably a good dose of what they would like to believe in the first place.

Hey, I'd LIKE to believe that heaven is a place where I can go hog wild, partying down, abusing my system with all kinds of intoxicants yet causing no damage, and fornicating wantonly with multitudes of hot women and never getting complaints from my neighbors about the loud music... where the God just gives you eternal life and eternal health at no cost - none of that salvation this or thou shalt not that - then just leaves you alone to do as thee will. ;-)

And if there were a serious religion that espoused that, I might have already become its pope. :-D

Quote - > Quote - > Quote - there is no hell. No heaven either.

While the man known popularly as Jesus Christ may have existed, and while he was likely an exceptional figure, he was nothing more than a teacher and a "missionary" of sorts. An exceptionally intelligent and brave teacher no doubt, but very human and there was nothing godlike or metaphysical about him.

No salvation, no Creator, no messiah... just space, matter, energy, chemistry and the laws of physics that all eventually led to an intelligence so consumed with its own self-importance that it invented gods, heaven and salvation to ease its troubled mind and make its existence more bearable...

I guess you have your work cut out for you to prove all this.

I wouldn't even try.
That's the conclusion I've come to after 35 years of learning about religion and science and overall human society, culture and nature. And half that amount of time regularly actively debating it both with many other people as well as myself.
I would have to write an entire book explaining how I came to that conclusion and I'm not about to do that, especially since so many others already have.

Besides, it's an opinion, which should be pretty obvious, and opinions don't demand "proof".

Just lettin' you know it wasn't "Obvious" it was just an opinion since it wasn't stated that it was an opinion. It was framed as a fact gramatically.

Quote - > Quote - I think that some of the conclusions being jumped to on both sides of the coin are...well, at best, demeaning.  People of faith are not inherently followers any more than atheists are inherently amoral.

There is part of the above statement that I find hard to understand. I thought (rightly or wrongly) that the essence of a religious faith was that you followed the teaching of some prophet (Mohamed, Jesus, Moses, etc), or the teaching of some some religious leader (Gandhi, Billy Graham, Kohmani, the Pope, etc), or some religious text (Bhavagad Gita, Torah, Qur'an, etc).

If people of religious faith are not inherently followers (and I'm not knocking being a follower of something), then what are they? I am not asking out of a desire to be argumentative, I really want to know. It has always seemed to me that being of a religious faith is synonymous with following some religious teaching. If I am mistaken, could someone please set me straight?

Well most Christians I know tend to consider themselves to be "Believers" as their whole salvation is based on the "Belief" that Jesus is the living word of God and that he is what he said he is. The doorway to our salvation. You can follow anyone you want to follow, even Christ, and still be lost to God if you don't truely believe. The bible says without faith it's impossible to please God.

What ship does this Higgs chap sail on, and if he is only a bosun why is he so important? I say we heave him overboard before gets a chance to cause any trouble!

Quote - Well most Christians I know tend to consider themselves to be "Believers" as their whole salvation is based on the "Belief" that Jesus is the living word of God and that he is what he said he is. The doorway to our salvation. You can follow anyone you want to follow, even Christ, and still be lost to God if you don't truely believe.

Thanks LostinSpaceman. So "People of faith are not inherently followers" but they can still be Believers, even if they don't follow what they believe. Is that the point?

Quote -

Just lettin' you know it wasn't "Obvious" it was just an opinion since it wasn't stated that it was an opinion. It was framed as a fact grammatically.

Well you're wrong about that. It should have been obvious it was an opinion because nobody can say "There is no God,  no hell, no heaven" as a fact.

How it was phrased grammatically should make no difference to anyone able to follow the context and understand what was being said.

Hence, it should be obvious that it was an opinion.

Just so happens it's also a fact. ;-)

Quote - > Quote - I think that some of the conclusions being jumped to on both sides of the coin are...well, at best, demeaning.  People of faith are not inherently followers any more than atheists are inherently amoral.

There is part of the above statement that I find hard to understand. I thought (rightly or wrongly) that the essence of a religious faith was that you followed the teaching of some prophet (Mohamed, Jesus, Moses, etc), or the teaching of some some religious leader (Gandhi, Billy Graham, Kohmani, the Pope, etc), or some religious text (Bhavagad Gita, Torah, Qur'an, etc).

If people of religious faith are not inherently followers (and I'm not knocking being a follower of something), then what are they? I am not asking out of a desire to be argumentative, I really want to know. It has always seemed to me that being of a religious faith is synonymous with following some religious teaching. If I am mistaken, could someone please set me straight?

What I meant was, not all of a faith (any faith, I'm not just talking Christianity here) follow blindly, but do so by choice.  I know people in my personal life who HAVE taken the step to question their faith, and found that, for them, the answer was within their faith rather than outside of it.  

I'm going to be perfectly honest, my intentions aren't to put anyone in a box.  I am neither a true believer, nor a true disbeliever.  My personal thoughts are...whether there is a God or not, none of us can ever know for sure, and that fighting and debating over it isn't going to solve the question.  Which, I guess, would make me Agnostic.  

In any case, it's never a bad thing to have a little discussion once in a while.  That's why this thread was left open, and, I have to tell you...with the lack of fighting, and the respect shown by you guys...I'm pretty amazed that the thread has gone on as long as it  has.  And pretty proud of you guys (I know it sounds facetious, but it isn't).  

i hate to alienate those whose "side" i'm on but i have to mention something about science.

science boosters tend to have the opinion that science is proving things and talk about what science knows.  they're pretty secure in this position.  i think this is an error.  science is not about what is known.  science is an admission that things are unknown, and that even today's comfortable "facts" will become yesterday's misinformation or disproven scientific theory.

after all, look at what happened to newtonian physics.  now regarded as close enough for government work at macro scales, but not really accurate.  remember the theory had been long held that life arouse spontaneously, until evolution came along.  and don't get me wrong, evolution sounds pretty solid to me, especially how it fits in to my own idea of the universe as stated above a bit.  but that doesn't mean another idea might not come along to disprove it.

there was the solar system, then the galaxy, then the universe, then string theory, then m theory, and there will be more.  there are lots of neat entirely alternative theories to the universe out there right now, like holographic theory, and the idea that we are a simulation within a device.

let's not even get into how the social and psychological sciences change continuously, always confident in their current realities, shaking their heads later at their mistakes.

religion gets comfortable in it's realities, yet it's realities change too.  religious folks (especially on the right) get to assert their certainty about it's ideas, based on text or custom or whatever they are using.  they have problems admitting at times that the belief they are backing currently was ever not the popular belief, or they may be of the opinion that earlier takes on religion were wrong, and just now they got it right. 

i like religion that talks more about mystery.  it seems ridiculous and arrogant for anyone, scientist or religious person, to state that they know the laws of the universe or what's wrong or right.  for the scientist, the universe is just to big for anyone to get it.  even all of us together in sync are not gonna get it.  for the religious person, you're talking about god here.  i'm pretty sure you don't know what he's thinking.  he's also at least the size of the universe.

Quote - i hate to alienate those whose "side" i'm on but i have to mention something about science.

science boosters tend to have the opinion that science is proving things and talk about what science knows.  they're pretty secure in this position.  i think this is an error.  science is not about what is known.  science is an admission that things are unknown, and that even today's comfortable "facts" will become yesterday's misinformation or disproven scientific theory.

after all, look at what happened to newtonian physics.  now regarded as close enough for government work at macro scales, but not really accurate.  remember the theory had been long held that life arouse spontaneously, until evolution came along.  and don't get me wrong, evolution sounds pretty solid to me, especially how it fits in to my own idea of the universe as stated above a bit.  but that doesn't mean another idea might not come along to disprove it.

there was the solar system, then the galaxy, then the universe, then string theory, then m theory, and there will be more.  there are lots of neat entirely alternative theories to the universe out there right now, like holographic theory, and the idea that we are a simulation within a device.

let's not even get into how the social and psychological sciences change continuously, always confident in their current realities, shaking their heads later at their mistakes.

religion gets comfortable in it's realities, yet it's realities change too.  religious folks (especially on the right) get to assert their certainty about it's ideas, based on text or custom or whatever they are using.  they have problems admitting at times that the belief they are backing currently was ever not the popular belief, or they may be of the opinion that earlier takes on religion were wrong, and just now they got it right. 

i like religion that talks more about mystery.  it seems ridiculous and arrogant for anyone, scientist or religious person, to state that they know the laws of the universe or what's wrong or right.  for the scientist, the universe is just to big for anyone to get it.  even all of us together in sync are not gonna get it.  for the religious person, you're talking about god here.  i'm pretty sure you don't know what he's thinking.  he's also at least the size of the universe.

I don't think that you are going to alienate anyone. You are right that scientific knowledge is largely about probabilities rather than certainties - though it can conclusively falsify empirical claims, which is perhaps where it has had its greatest impact on religion in the past and the experience of this has put paid to any thoughts of a God of the gaps. Perhaps if theologians would put forward a coherent concept of a God, that too might be subject to scientific falsification - but as yet, I've yet to see something coherent presented from monotheism and so with regards to the presented beliefs, I feel that I can be certain (being of the position that to entertain the posibility of square triangles existing would be to not understand the concepts). Of course, it would be a fool who denies any posibility that he is wrong but there are diferent kinds of doubt - doubt of myself is very different from doubting logic or scientific method.

Quote -
I do, however, take great exception to being told (not by philebus) that I base my beliefs on celebrities and/or governments.  They would be the very last people I would ever look to for enlightenment, instruction or truth.  In fact, I have a hard wired distrust of anyone in a position of "authority", simply because the people who gravitate to such posts are usually those least fit to hold them.

I read that and thought of "intellectual authorities", such as Sagan, Fermi or Hawking.  If Hawking goes looking for god, a number of people may give the ideal more credit.  If Hawking says there's no need of god, another number of people may get excited...

Quote - If the earlier date takes precedence, then which incarnation of a supreme being is supposed to be disproved? Roman deities were preceded by Greek, Greek by Egyptian, Egyptian by Minoan, Minoan by Babylonian... and that's as far back as I've read. This, of course, doesn't take into account far Eastern religions. And that's only the organized ones.

Disproving something presents a problem. Take, for example, disproving the existence of Minotaurs. You could prove they did exist by finding remains, but, because you haven't found any, you can't definitively say they did or did not exist. That's why religion stresses 'faith' and not 'proof'.

That's why I, unlike some posters in this thread, never felt god actually has been disproved.  I don't take very much of the bible literally, I'm just open to the idea of a divine influence guiding what was written and also what was later chosen for canon.

Those other gods weren't exactly disproved either, but other belief systems came along that met the emotional/spiritual needs of the people better and so they moved on.  Who can even say if the people of those times even believed in their own gods any more than we (devout and atheist alike) often still hold onto figures such as Santa Claus while admitting that we no longer believe in his factual existence.  I don't personally use faith as a substitute for science, though many older cultures may have needed to.

All of this takes me back to some stuff I read years ago that posited that the bicameral mind was a fairly new adaptation in humans.  According to the writer, people just a few thousand years ago had much more communication between the hemispheres of their brains than we do now, causing both real events to often be described fantastically, with dreams and visions often being treated as real and literal events.  The researcher went on to compare religious writings of antiquity to the writings of schizophrenics and people on hallucinogens, noting many interesting similarities.  Even Joseph Campbell once remarked that western civilization was the first to insist that it's mythological truths also needed to be facts, and I can't help but thinking that's a huge factor in the way atheists and theists have often viewed one another, especially in the last few hundred years.

This is also why I don't think older religions can easily be disproved by science.  People recorded things for effect, not always for historical accuracy;  An army of hundreds might have been described as being an army of thousands.  A tribe that was 7 feet tall may have been recorded as having been 20 feet tall.  Those things don't necessarily make the stories less useful for illustrating moral points or lessons, but they do make them less than desirable sources of factual information.  In order to disprove a religious text, it would first be necessary to separate the history from the prophecy, the simile from the hyperbole, and the bread and wine from the body and the blood.  History shows us that this is almost impossibly difficult among even those that agree on the alleged divinity of the texts, I don't know if it would be an easier task for a neutral non-believer to do or not. 

Quote - > Quote -

I do, however, take great exception to being told (not by philebus) that I base my beliefs on celebrities and/or governments.  They would be the very last people I would ever look to for enlightenment, instruction or truth.  In fact, I have a hard wired distrust of anyone in a position of "authority", simply because the people who gravitate to such posts are usually those least fit to hold them.

I read that and thought of "intellectual authorities", such as Sagan, Fermi or Hawking.  If Hawking goes looking for god, a number of people may give the ideal more credit.  If Hawking says there's no need of god, another number of people may get excited...

 

The excited parties in this case were mostly the Press and some religious heads who spoke out before the book was even in print. Others bother to read the book and consider it more carefully. I'm not done considering it but I'm not as impressed as I would have liked.

Of course, intellectual authorities usually have a track record that makes it reasonable to listen to them and consider seriously what they have to say and sometimes, to some extent at least, we must defer to their judgement where they have expertise in a field which we cannot hope to attain. When my doctor tells me what he thinks could be wrong with me, I would be stupid not to pay attention.

Quote - i hate to alienate those whose "side" i'm on but i have to mention something about science.

science boosters tend to have the opinion that science is proving things and talk about what science knows.  they're pretty secure in this position.  i think this is an error.  science is not about what is known.  science is an admission that things are unknown, and that even today's comfortable "facts" will become yesterday's misinformation or disproven scientific theory.

I agree mostly with what you said, but I didn't want a full page for a quote so I cut it. ;-)

RE what science knows and doesn't know, I was watching a lecture on teh interwebs by an astrophysicist from the University of Arizona (I think it was UA), and he was talking about how we came about our knowledge of the universe in terms of modern science and the history of astronomy and physics and all that.
Pretty interesting stuff if you're into all that. ;-)

So anyway, he said that 100 billion years from now, which will still be long before the universe has died from chronic entropy, all the galaxies of the universe will have moved so far apart, not even the strongest and best radio telescopes any civilization could ever have, will be able to see them.
Obviously Earth and its sun will have been long dead by that point, but any civilization anywhere will have this problem , since all the matter clusters (galaxies and galaxy clusters)of the universe have been all moving away from each other and accelerating since the Big Bang.

And the problem is that there will be a "wall" of impenetrable radiation between anybody's position anywhere in the universe and all the other galaxies which is what will make it impossible to see anything.

So, an astronomer on any planet anywhere in the universe 100 billion years from now will see only his own galaxy's stars and nothing else. Even his civilization's most powerful radio telescopes will show nothing but utter nothingness "out there". Their own galaxy will give them all they need in terms of observation and testing to determine all the basic laws of physics, and they will be able to speculate of course, but they will never be able to come to the Big Bang conclusion definitively - there will be no supporting evidence whatsoever about how the universe began or even IF  it ever had a beginning.

I thought that was all pretty interesting. If we were in that situation now, our universe would for all intents and purposes be utterly empty, aside from us and our own little galaxy, floating along in a vast sea of nothingness with no idea how large it is, and no idea how it began, and no way to determine it.

The religious people of the far far future will have a much easier time convincing people of their own versions of Creationism, and science won't ever be able to refute it. ;-)

I'll agree that good science, and good scientists, should never claim to have an absolute answer to any subject. And yes theres always danger in "celebrity science", thats almost like a blind faith in own right.   

What science should do is attempt, to the best of it's avaliable knowlege, is question and explore things and provide us with answers where it can. Even if thats not a absolute truth at the time. 

Does religion play a part there ? On a evidential level I'd seriously doubt it.  Though what it does does is provide comfort for those who need it/disbelive science/etc etc and if that helps them through the day, then fair play to the belivers..  

Quote -

Does religion play a part there ? On a evidential level I'd seriously doubt it.  Though what it does does is provide comfort for those who need it/disbelive science/etc etc and if that helps them through the day, then fair play to the belivers..  

Major problem with religion though is it tends to get too powerful, like governments.
Of course that's the fault of those who run their various religions - the "prophets", the priests, all the various officials and administrators, and not to mention the nutcase fringe groups who create their own versions for the sake of some form of control.

So religion in and of itself isn't dangerous or bad and only can become so in the hands of leaders with their own agendas.

For many it provides comfort, but for many it provides the perfect justification for their anger and prejudices...

I personally have a serious problem with the fact that our not-so-distant ancestors allowed their religious leaders to become so powerful that they in effect set back our scientific progress by hundreds of years. The Roman Catholic Church imprisoned Galileo for telling the truth about what he saw in our solar system and set a precedent that scientists needed to be VERY  afraid of what they say.
Who knows how far along we  would be by now if it hadn't been for the organized and methodical suppression of knowledge that went on for centuries under the rule of The Church?

And now in the 21st century, with our massive radio telescopes, our Hubble space telescope, the Large Hadron Collider, and all our accumulated knowledge... it's payback time. ;-)

A hypothetic civilization, mastering the "holy grail" of space engineering - interstellar travel - must be quite advanced, so much more advanced in comparison to our current state, that we would appear like a Neandertal...

Such developements of civilizations proceed over an extremely long timespan, and I am deeply convinced - proven by history until the current day - that a civilization whos ethics and goals are predicated on religious ideas cannot last such long, with the advancing of technology they will either extinct themselves or drop such irrational ideas from the bronze age.

*With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.

Steven Weinberg - Nobel laureate 1979*

Oh and please never mix up science and religion, individual scientists might glue to some theories as if they were dogmas, maybe because they spent their whole life proving them, but a true scientist and science collectively MUST and WILL abandon a beloved theory if there is a conclusive counter evidence...  Relgion won't and can't do that for they are self-contained and their architecture disallows any prove or disprove.

Quote - *With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.

Steven Weinberg - Nobel laureate 1979*

Just like liberalism, which is a religion for many on the left.

Quote - > Quote - *With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.

Steven Weinberg - Nobel laureate 1979*

Just like liberalism, which is a religion for many on the left.

Without taking sides on politics here, the distinction you may be missing is that a political ideology is in principle open to debate, while religious dogma is not.

 aaaaaaaaaaaand I'd like to point out that mudslinging in any direction is one of the fastest way to get a thread closed, so let's not walk down that road, please.

Quote -  aaaaaaaaaaaand I'd like to point out that mudslinging in any direction is one of the fastest way to get a thread closed, so let's not walk down that road, please.

I'm sorry if my reply looks that way, I did try to keep it politically neutral and factual with regards the distinction between a political philosophy and articles of religious dogma. I think that I'm more concerned with going too far off topic.

 I'm just pointing out what needs to be said before the thread gets derailed.

that's the problem with particle physics dogma IMVHO:

• big bang
• dark matter
• finite age of universe
• finite size of universe
• linear time

they've got to the point where they're starting to understand that it's an infinite loop,
e.g. black holes dump their matter/energy out of white holes, but they still cling to
the above as self-evident truths.

Quote - that's the problem with particle physics dogma IMVHO: - big bang

• dark matter
• finite age of universe
• finite size of universe
• linear time

they've got to the point where they're starting to understand that it's an infinite loop,
e.g. black holes dump their matter/energy out of white holes, but they still cling to
the above as self-evident truths.

When you say "they" you imply all of them, as if the physicists were all in agreement with some standard. It's true that most of them seem to prefer clinging to basics... but then they frequently have to appear "mainstream" to keep the grant money flowing. ;-)

There are many though who are more than willing to totally dump their preconceived notions or their pet theories when confronted by new realities, so it will continue going forward.

Quote - > Quote -

*So anyway, he said that 100 billion years from now, which will still be long before the universe has died from chronic entropy, all the galaxies of the universe will have moved so far apart, not even the strongest and best radio telescopes any civilization could ever have, will be able to see them.
Obviously Earth and its sun will have been long dead by that point, but any civilization anywhere will have this problem , since all the matter clusters (galaxies and galaxy clusters)of the universe have been all moving away from each other and accelerating since the Big Bang.

And the problem is that there will be a "wall" of impenetrable radiation between anybody's position anywhere in the universe and all the other galaxies which is what will make it impossible to see anything.

So, an astronomer on any planet anywhere in the universe 100 billion years from now will see only his own galaxy's stars and nothing else. Even his civilization's most powerful radio telescopes will show nothing but utter nothingness "out there". Their own galaxy will give them all they need in terms of observation and testing to determine all the basic laws of physics, and they will be able to speculate of course, but they will never be able to come to the Big Bang conclusion definitively - there will be no supporting evidence whatsoever about how the universe began or even IF  it ever had a beginning.

I thought that was all pretty interesting. If we were in that situation now, our universe would for all intents and purposes be utterly empty, aside from us and our own little galaxy, floating along in a vast sea of nothingness with no idea how large it is, and no idea how it began, and no way to determine it.

The religious people of the far far future will have a much easier time convincing people of their own versions of Creationism, and science won't ever be able to refute it. ;-)

*that would be tough to be them.
i would hope that maybe they'll figure out something from the radiation itself, but maybe that won't work.  hopefully, just their galaxy will be enough to grow on. 
we ourselves are only catching a glimpse as it is.  perhaps in a "smaller" environment they'll get more information from this environment that we might miss because of our larger view.

i have to agree with another earlier post that if it hadn't been for the crusades, the plague and the dark ages, the continuous destruction of whole civilizations in the west's past, we'd have been a starfaring civilization centuries ago.  but maybe not?  after all, china and india, japan and iraq, these have been continuous civilizations that managed to get into slumps like the ones in the west where progress was slow.

but as for religion being a cause of things, i see it more as a rallying point more than a cause.  there are certainly other organizations people unite under.  that is more about the peoples need to unite against or for a cause, than it is the rationale they use to justify their endeavors.  their endeavors satisfy an emotional need they have to do something.  whatever their endeavor is seems to me to be an afterthought as much as a cause.

[lurk mode off]
De-lurking to see how long it's been since I last posted... And to say best thread, ever.

And to say I be an agnostic. I suspect, though I can't prove, that Dark Energy and Dark Matter would include the Fairie Realm.

99.5 percent of Universe is plasma. A lot of religion probably came from a time when plasma events were like auroraes cavorting around the inner solar system.

EDIT: Wow, 2007!

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Such developements of civilizations proceed over an extremely long timespan, and I am deeply convinced - proven by history until the current day - that a civilization whos ethics and goals are predicated on religious ideas cannot last such long, with the advancing of technology they will either extinct themselves or drop such irrational ideas from the bronze age.

Proven by history until the current day?  It seems to me that religions usually tend to outlive the societies that give rise to them.  Approximately 75% of Americans claim a religion that predates the founding of the country by over 1500 years.  

also wanted to mention that it's cruel to argue with believers about the existence of god and
whether their theories are wrong, as it always comes down to lack of evidence, but astrophysicists
have the opposite problem: there's a plethora of data and evidence, but they continue to mis-
interpret and "dumb it down" in order to get funding from their secular money sources.

e.g. the 'big bang' theory.  the theorists exist in a culture dominated by religion, which is reflected
in their absurd ideations about how the universe was somehow created ex nihilo, and their concept
of linear time forces them to believe that the universe has a beginning and an end.

hence we might have a theoretical physicist apologising for his deficiencies: yes, the big bang implies
items in the universe are expanding away from each other, but we can observe galaxies colliding.
yes, we have a big bang and a universe consisting of various particles and forces, but we can't
account for 70 - 90% of what should be there.  so please give us another few billions of currency
units that might otherwise go to feeding the homeless, caring for the sick, or other trivia.

Quote - particle physics won't be used in proof/disproof of god(s) thanks to einstein's precedent, but: - some believe god(s) will be proven to exist if they produce higgs boson (CERN)

• others believe the end of human civilization will occur if they produce higgs boson

How would higgs boson prove the existence of god? I thought it was the other way around. And why some believe civilization would end if found? Just really curious about the comments, and couldn't find much googling around.

Quote - > Quote - particle physics won't be used in proof/disproof of god(s) thanks to einstein's precedent, but: - some believe god(s) will be proven to exist if they produce higgs boson (CERN)

• others believe the end of human civilization will occur if they produce higgs boson

How would higgs boson prove the existence of god? I thought it was the other way around. And why some believe civilization would end if found? Just really curious about the comments, and couldn't find much googling around.

Someone called Leon Lederman wrote a book titled "The God Particle: If the Universe Is the Answer, What Is the Question?", and the media started referring to the Higgs Boson as "The God Particle".
The two possiblities mentioned originally are just more nonsense from one or other lunatic fringe.

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e.g. the 'big bang' theory.  the theorists exist in a culture dominated by religion, which is reflected
in their absurd ideations about how the universe was somehow created ex nihilo, and their concept
of linear time forces them to believe that the universe has a beginning and an end.

hence we might have a theoretical physicist apologising for his deficiencies: yes, the big bang implies
items in the universe are expanding away from each other, but we can observe galaxies colliding.
yes, we have a big bang and a universe consisting of various particles and forces, but we can't
account for 70 - 90% of what should be there.  so please give us another few billions of currency
units that might otherwise go to feeding the homeless, caring for the sick, or other trivia.

I would suggest you go and read up on the latest advances in physics before suggesting it's absurd that matter can be created out of nothing. It can and does.
It's not just "their concept of linear time" that makes them believe the universe has a beginning, it's what the evidence shows.
Galaxies are observed colliding because all galaxies exist in their own "local groups" of galaxies where local gravity can override the force of expansion and cause some to collide. The red shift that Hubble first observed does in fact prove all galaxies are moving away at a continuously accelerating rate though. No contradiction there.
They have accounted for all the matter in the universe - dark energy and dark matter. It's not just theoretical anymore, and it actually makes up the majority of the stuff in  the universe. Actual matter is only about 4% of the entire volume of the universe.

I don't know if you're religious or just have something against physicists, but if these are your assumptions upon which you base your beliefs, you might want to update your knowledge of the current state of physics.

Attached Link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00vdkmj

Quote - Attached link to info on a recent episode of Horizon entitled "What Happened Before the Big Bang?", which went over some new thinking (including by some previously staunch BB supporters).

I can't watch that - it just says "Not available in your area" when I try to play it.

At any rate, I too saw something recent about some new theories about what happened before the Big Bang, but it seems almost irrelevant being that technically time - our time that is - didn't even exist prior to that. So it's like anything before the big bang is more or less something that happened in a different universe.
It all gets pretty weird. ;-)

Re Miss Nancy's comments...

Hawking's idea regarding the lumpiness of the universe is straightforward and - IMO - plausible.

If the explosion from the Big Bang had been perfect - and therefore perfectly symmetrical - there would be no chance for the current structures to form.  Which is, I believe, what you were getting at.  Hawking says there's no chance of anything being perfect in our universe and, further to this, he calculated just how much imperfection would be necessary to start the ball rolling.  I don't remember the figure but I do remember it was very, very tiny.

As for non linear time,  we'd have no way of knowing so it's a question that's closer to philosophy than science.  I do know of one hypothesis, published in New Scientist around 20 years ago, which said there's no such thing as time at all.  Every possible event happened all at once.  Sounds daft but there you go.  

Missing matter may be explained by some of the ideas about non baryonic matter, which some physicists believe must exist.  Another idea is the missing stuff has been absorbed into black holes, which seem much to be more common than first thought.

As for a finite universe, I don't see why this can't be the case.  I know physicists don't like the idea of infinity anyhow but according to most recent research, our current models make no sense if we add infinity to the equations.  Of course, that could just mean our current models are wrong.  :)

As for God...

I don't believe simply because I don't.  I'm not looking to prove anything and I don't believe any arguments or theories on either side can ever provide proof one way or another.  I also think that, should a supreme creator exist, it would be so far beyond our understanding as to make any attempts at comprehending its motives ludicrous.

I never found God and then rejected Him.  This may be a surprise to our American members here, but most Brits don't believe in God.  We're very much a secular country and the few who do believe are generally regarded as being a bit weird.  I'm not making this up, btw.

My own stance on religion is, Live and Let Live.  My wife is a Christian and her dad was a Lay Preacher.  It's never caused any conflicts and I can't imagine it ever will.  I also have several very devout friends from various faiths and I can't imagine us ever parting ways over religious differences.  Same thing applies here, too.  There are a lot of people I regard as friends here, all of different faiths.  I can't see I'd ever stop regarding them as friends just because they believe in a God and I don't.

 OT - We need a "like" button on posts.

Or, I need to run away from facebook forever.

Quote - I can't watch that - it just says "Not available in your area" when I try to play it.

But the links to some of the people in the episode should still work.

Quote - At any rate, I too saw something recent about some new theories about what happened before the Big Bang, but it seems almost irrelevant being that technically time - our time that is - didn't even exist prior to that. So it's like anything before the big bang is more or less something that happened in a different universe.
It all gets pretty weird. ;-)

That was pretty much what I picked up on, that time becomes irrelevant, and so what does before actually mean in those circumstances.

Quote - OT - We need a "like" button on posts

You should implement a "Karma" system like other forum software has (of course you'd have to limit it to up voting only for all the usual reasons).

People shouldn't make such broad assumptions of others' beliefs, or so I have been told. 

I don't necessarily believe in a god creating itself out of nothing.  I lean more toward the grey area where kabbalah meets string theory.  Just as string theory has the tightly wound higher dimensions that we can't directly observe, kabbalah describes a model of a creation which has a broken foundation.  I won't bore everyone with pseudo-science and mysticism, but just as scientists hope to find the missing matter in unproven higher dimensions, theists conceive of a metaphysical that intersects the physical.  (The explosion of the universe into being may simply have been the unwinding of the the dimensions we inhabit, leaving the higher dimensions so dense as to be immeasurably small.)  If a large percentage of the universe's energy is believed to be contained in these dimensions, is it so foolish to think that order and intelligence could exist in them too?

Quote - .... theists conceive of a metaphysical that intersects the physical....

What you wrote is fine and all and I'm not going to try and argue with it, but I wanted to highlight that one part of what you said.

The problem with that is, most religious people - at least the ones I personally know, couldn't care less about metaphysical this intersecting physical that...

They believe because they were told to believe, raised to believe, and told that to doubt is to put one's soul in jeopardy.
To think about it all too much is skirting dangerously close to damning oneself to an eternity of fire and brimstone (in spite of the fact the Bible clearly says that Hell is only for Satan and his evil minions, but that's a whole separate argument altogether), so thinking is discouraged.

That's not to say there aren't some really devout religious people out there who don't think about it and who aren't capable of appreciating science and enjoy a good debate, but the majority of religious people seem to not be interested in anything but just believing - "I believe and that's that, and it's not up for debate."

Thinking about it, most of the religious (at least Christian) people I've met (including my entire family), actually know very little about their own religion, let alone science, let alone debating either. I've met alot of devout  people who thought Christ was Jesus' last name. ;-)

But my point being, I don't think the majority do a whole lot of thinking about it.... Thanks for everything, Jesus, 'preciate that whole sacrifice thing and all, and I'll see you in heaven one day, cuz if I believe, I know I'm saved....

Interesting points there, Schecterman.

My observation regarding the devout people I know is rather the opposite.  Maybe that's because  Christianity - or any other religion - isn't mainstream thinking here.  Anyhow, The ones I know of  have - in the main - thought, debated and questioned everything.

Then again, I can choose my friends.  I tend to keep away from people who aren't open to question and discussion.  That's not to say we spend all the time debating the existence (or otherwise) of God.  

Quote - Interesting points there, Schecterman.

My observation regarding the devout people I know is rather the opposite.  Maybe that's because  Christianity - or any other religion - isn't mainstream thinking here.  Anyhow, The ones I know of  have - in the main - thought, debated and questioned everything.

Then again, I can choose my friends.  I tend to keep away from people who aren't open to question and discussion.  That's not to say we spend all the time debating the existence (or otherwise) of God.  

It's probably a geographical thing. Here in the American South, thinking is discouraged.
Not just religion either, but pretty much all thinking. ;-)

Haha.  We have the same thing here.  :)  

Our North is the equivalent of your South, more or less.

it's funny that in the us we're still having trouble keeping creationism from being taught in science class.  i would find it hilarious if the aliens showed up with proof that the universe is sitting on the back of a giant turtle.  and typical, too.
not that anyone would believe it, no matter how advanced they are.  it would be hilarious from the view of the humans at the time.  late night comedy would be riffing on them all the time.  "amazing that these guys can travel from one star to the next and yet be so intellectually challenged!"
but you know, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to drive your car from new york to l.a.  believers and nonbelievers can get there equally quickly.

o yeah speaking of which:
there was a ufo thing on tv the other night.  they were talking about film from witnesses from "artists in the nevada desert in the summer evening" and then went on to show those typical film clips,
you just know they were talking about burning man, right?  but you don't want to mention that half the witnesses were on acid and the other half highly suggestible considering their environment.
but there is the reason the aliens were over burning man, 
they were sad, offended.  "we came from light years away and no one invited us : (  waaaa!"
hell, considering how people dress, maybe they were in the crowd there!

one can hope.

also wanted to mention that there's a controversy amongst SETI and METI personnel, involving
some of them quitting over policy issues, because they apparently can't agree who is authorised
to broadcast messages from this planet to other planets.  some of them think they've got powerful
enough radio arrays that they can do this (they're wrong), hence they're trying it.  the ones who
object wanna be in charge, and they're saying that earth should remain hidden from aliens until
they know more.  currently they know nothing, as the aliens can't contact us, either.

however, there's no cause for concern, as their radio emissions are so weak that it's like trying to
see the hawking radiation emitted from the edge of a black hole.  the background radiation is
several orders of magnitude stronger than anything they can produce, when viewed from the
average distance (50 - 150 lt.yrs) separating inhabited planets IMVHO.