Disturbing Passage from The Bible

01/04/2007 08:35:01 PM · #302

Originally posted by jhonan:

Enlighten us.... ;)

As master Beagle suggested, this is pointless since what existed before there was a universe has little bearing on current events. Just to humor you though, there are plenty of possible scenarios.

There could have been some sort of potential energy that had always existed, and collapsed by a random anomaly to trigger the Big Bang. It's also possible that before our expanding universe, there was a contracting one that reached critical mass and exploded as part of a continual cycle.

Consider that the most massive objects in the universe tend to occupy diminishing amounts of volume. A neutron star with considerably more mass than our sun may have a 20km radius, while an even more massive black hole is a sigularity smaller than this period. Though difficult to comprehend, it seems reasonable to conclude from this that ALL matter could have sprung from an object with essentially zero volume and infinite age.

It seems to me that religion only pushes the question of creation back one level by saying the universe was created, but not how the creator was created. If it's possible for an assumed creator to always have existed, then it's no less possible that the universe has always existed (without the extra step of an unexplained being smart enough to devise an entire universe, yet apparently incapable of convincing most of his creations that he even exists).

Message edited by author 2007-01-04 20:51:12.

Nikon AF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 ED

01/04/2007 08:44:58 PM · #303

Originally posted by milo655321:

legalbeagle,

you've posted A LOT these past few days. Have you been loney and bored lately? LOL

just a little! have also got a new phone with decent wi-fi, so am rarely out of range of the inter-web (hence fewer capital letters) - but must catch up on sleep now.

RonB

Canon EOS-300D Rebel

01/04/2007 08:45:14 PM · #304

Originally posted by legalbeagle:

Originally posted by RonB:
The "watch" is homo sapiens and the "beach" is the only planet in the universe that we have so far ascertained to be hospitable to that life form.

PS - it is generally acknowledged that Earth like planets are too small for us to detect with current technology (consequently we tend to detect only Jupiter sized and fast-orbiting planets).

Out of interest, would you predict (based on your religious understanding) that we will never find such a planet outside our own?

No. Given the billion billion stars and their planets, it seems unlikely that there would NOT be another planet somewhere that is like our own, in terms of temperature, atmosphere, and composition, including both land and water.

Originally posted by legalbeagle:

If so, would the discovery of such a planet (maybe possible with the next gen of telescopes) shake your faith in any way?

No, not at all. Not even if it could be shown to be occupied by life forms similar to what we have on earth. In John 10:16, the Lord said, "I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen." Far be it from me to entertain disrespecting the Lord's prerogative to choose what His other pens will be like, or where they will be located. Then again, Scripture speaks of a "new heaven and a new earth", and it's possible that the reference is to an actual place, another earth-like planet orbiting a far distant star. But one that is more like the Garden of Eden before the fall of man.

Apple iPhone 5

01/04/2007 08:46:05 PM · #305

Originally posted by scalvert:

As master Beagle suggested, this is pointless since what existed before there was a universe has little bearing on current events. Just to humor you though, there are plenty of possible scenarios.

Some interesting thoughts there (and I do appreciate your reply, even if it is just to 'humor me')

I'm off to bed now, but it'll give me something to sleep on. No doubt I'll have dreams of randomness, and things springing into existence... :)

01/04/2007 09:54:17 PM · #306

Originally posted by scalvert:

This is fallacy when speaking of past events. Imagine that any sequence of numbers from 1 to 9 are possible and they come up 4, 6, 4, 1, 8, 8, 7, 3, 5, 9, 0, 1, 1, 2, 6, 5, 8, 4, 7, 1, 5, 5, 8, 6, 2, 4, 1, 1. You are essentially saying that the odds of each particular number coming up is 1 in 9, but the odds of that particular sequence appearing are astronomical (even though it obviously did). The odds of the universe appearing in its present form may be long, but if some other sequence of events occurred, then the universe wouldn't be in its present form, now would it?

Your analogy would be a bit more precise if one were to refer to a sequence of 9 numbers coming up wherein every time one number was drawn 100 or so more numbers were added for drawing. So, for the first draw, you have 1-9 and for the second draw, you now have 1-109, and the third you have 1-209. This isn't a specific combination with a defined set of variable from beginning to end.

For me and my original point, I am simply saying that a God at the cause makes as much sense as random chance. To refer back to an earlier point, if the odds of a God are so low as to not be bothered with, so, too, were the odds of the universe and here we are. So we think.

More relevantly (because the discussion has progressed quite a bit in the 5 hours since my lunch break), the usage of the word 'fallacy'. Let's not us it okay? Anything beyond the simple phrase of 'I am' is fallacy in way or another considering that all of this universe and reality stuff cannot be completely confirmed as it is.

Edited: to make a little bit more sense. Not much, but some.

Message edited by author 2007-01-04 21:57:01.

scalvert

Canon EOS-5D Mark III

01/04/2007 10:09:32 PM · #307

Originally posted by EducatedSavage:

To refer back to an earlier point, if the odds of a God are so low as to not be bothered with, so, too, were the odds of the universe and here we are.

Really? Looking back at those earlier points, it seems like the choices are a universe where one thing simply led to another (the odds of knowing each individual quarter flip), or a god with the intelligence and foresight to plan everything out ahead of time (and thus the odds of knowing the entire sequence of quarter flips). Those are not at all equal likelihoods.

01/04/2007 10:16:40 PM · #308

Originally posted by scalvert:

Really. And yes, I said 'really'. Unless you have special access to all the variables that would effect either one and the means by which they could all be accurately measured. Looking back that far, I find the likelihood of all this randomly happening (leaving you and me typing at our computers after wandering out of very hot pond scum) as reasonable as some engineering minded deity watching his own personal reality show. Or some being creating all this and orchestrating all of history for means unknown to me (because there's a lot I don't know).

Edited to add: But you said I only had two choices, didn't you? Where did this come from? And how did dominoes get in here? We started with the Christian God vs. no gods whatsoever and I think we've hit every point in between (and a few out of the way, no doubt, oh divine teapot and FSM).

Message edited by author 2007-01-04 22:18:26.

DrAchoo

Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX5

Tokina AF 12-24mm f/4.0 AT-X Pro DX

01/04/2007 11:25:05 PM · #309

Originally posted by EducatedSavage:

Edited to add: But you said I only had two choices, didn't you? Where did this come from? And how did dominoes get in here? We started with the Christian God vs. no gods whatsoever and I think we've hit every point in between (and a few out of the way, no doubt, oh divine teapot and FSM).

Nail that Jell-o Charlene! Nail it! Shannon's more slippery than a greased pig in a vaseline plant.

milo655321

Nikon D70

01/04/2007 11:41:39 PM · #310

Originally posted by DrAchoo:

Nail that Jell-o Charlene! Nail it! Shannon's more slippery than a greased pig in a vaseline plant.

Speaking of Jell-o and walls, when might I expect your response on whether it was moral for the Israelites to commit genocide at the command of God?

Blue Moon

Canon EOS-40D

Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 USM

01/04/2007 11:45:03 PM · #311

Personally I think the passage is very straight forward, and I don't see why so many are debating this. It simply says, that if someone else has a different idea, that you should kill them. That the very definition of intolerance. I'm not saying that the religion is the root of intolerance, because clearly people wrote this book, so intolerance must be rooted in people, not a book.

However it gives the message that one has the right to kill in the name of religion, and I think that nowadays most people who have even an ounce of compassion know that murder is wrong. It doesn't seem to matter if the wording in the New Testament has changed, because the initial "pure" idea was based on what is said in this passage.

Message edited by author 2007-01-04 23:45:25.

scalvert

Canon EOS-5D Mark III

01/05/2007 12:04:43 AM · #312

Originally posted by EducatedSavage:

Looking back that far, I find the likelihood of all this randomly happening (leaving you and me typing at our computers after wandering out of very hot pond scum) as reasonable as some engineering minded deity watching his own personal reality show.

That is the very crux of any debate on the existence of God, isn't it? Despite your assertion though, the likelihood of those two possibilities is not at all the same. With an unguided progression of time, physics and chemistry, there IS no preset outcome of incredible odds. The first hypothetical flip of a coin is 50-50 odds. Whatever happens happens, and then it's on to the next random flip with the same 50-50 chance. The end result of countless trillions of random flips will ALWAYS be a sequence of ridiculous odds, but it's still merely the product of many 50-50 chances. Different random events would lead to different outcomes (the Butterfly Effect on a massive scale), but the universe we perceive can ONLY be as we see it because if it were different, then what we perceive would be different (if we were here at all under the alternate circumstances). Thus, the odds of the overall sequence of chance events are irrelevant to the results.

This is in sharp contrast to the popular belief of the Bible, which DOES refer to an entity of the staggering intelligence required to actively create a specific, known outcome of staggering odds.

Message edited by author 2007-01-05 00:21:33.

01/05/2007 12:34:33 AM · #313

Originally posted by scalvert:

Thus, the odds of the overall sequence of chance events are irrelevant to the results.

Only so long as you have the required number of attempts to assure it would happen. When you have a finite number of attempts, the sureness of this occurence becomes severely limited. And until we know how many 'attempts' we've had and how many we'd need, this is a great unknown. Unknown is really hard to deal with empirically.

A diety would be a reasonable source or success since these odds would be assured because they chose them to be.

In addition, your assertion that the odds of the overall sequence of chance events are irrelevent implies that only the possibility is necessary to make this reasonable. If a possibility is all that's needed, then a diety wouldn't need good odds, either, to be reasonably believed in, only a possibility, regardless how slim.

Currently, we're still relying on vague theories and hypothesis to know how our planet came to contain life at all. Science only has a few guesses at this point - so even that field lacks surety here - we don't even know if the universe is growing or shrinking for sure!

((By the by, thanks for the edit))

- C, ES

Edited to add: In addition, in order to really compare the probabilities of random chance vs. god (y'know, whose is biggest), you need to be able to really quantify the odds by defining all the variables involved in each case. We could try to simulate each of these occurances with coin-flips, but that would be foolishly over-simplifying each process.

Earlier in the thread, God was determined as too simple an answer. If that is assumed as true, then I would venture inevitibilty as too simple as well.

Message edited by author 2007-01-05 01:16:54.

RonB

Canon EOS-300D Rebel

01/05/2007 12:45:41 AM · #314

To me it's quite simple, really. If there is no God, then there is no free-will - the EXACT movement of EVERY proton, electron, neutron, quark, etc. was dictated at the moment of the Big Bang. Once set into motion every particle HAD to obey the laws of physics - meaning that the movement of EVERY particle was dictated by its location relative to every other particle at the time of the Big Bang.
If you were to fill a rather large room with mousetraps and ping-pong balls, and you could ACCURATELY define the precise three dimensional attitude of every object in the room, plot the gravitational forces, and the coefficients of friction of every object, plus the density and reflective qualities of every spot on the walls and floors and ceiling, and the tension and torsional forces of every mousetrap spring, etc. etc. etc. - and if you had a humongous computer - you could EXACTLY predict every movement within that room if you triggered one of the mousetraps. It's complex to be sure, but it is ENTIRELY predictable if you know all of the forces involved and all of the details surrounding the objects. The mousetraps and ping-pong balls and walls and floor and ceiling have no choice but to obey the laws of physics.

So, if there is no God, it is impossible for any of us to exercise free will since, being composed of mere atomic structures, our every thought and action was immutably set in the first millionth of a second of the Big Bang. And given all THAT, then we must surmise that we cannot be "guilty" of murder, rape, theft, {insert immoral act here ). We have no choice but to obey the laws of physics.

But guess what? I don't buy into any of that. I believe that there is a God, that He created the Universe and everything in it, that we DO have the ability to change our inertial state thru the exercise of free will, and that He still takes part in "tweaking" that which He created.

That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

DrAchoo

Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX5

01/05/2007 01:16:36 AM · #315

Keep going Charlene. Shannon has a point, but he's not telling the whole story. His idea only works if there are an infinite number of attempts (in other words, if there are an infinite number of universes). While this is logical and plausible, no evidence exists for them. Therefore, we are left back at square one where we inhabit a universe which is extremely unlikely to have formed at random. We can look to Chance as the master or we can look to Design, but we have no evidence of either.

Ha, milo, I answered your question a half dozen times, but you kept not hearing me.

Message edited by author 2007-01-05 01:17:22.

01/05/2007 01:18:39 AM · #316

Originally posted by DrAchoo:

Wow. That was concise and well said. Um... in case my post fell flat, that's what I meant.

-- C, ES

DrAchoo

Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX5

01/05/2007 01:23:37 AM · #317

ooh, good one Ron. I was going to bring that up a long time ago, but never did. Determinism (or Materialism) is a great demon to keep the atheist up at night (but of course he had no choice in the matter).

Combine it with Solipsism and you have a real double whammy. It appears to me that I have Free Will. In fact, I know I have Free Will in a way unlike any other information I have access to. It is part of me and not part of the extrinsic world. IF it is a charade (and Determinism is the truth), then how can I know anything? If I cannot even trust my deepest sense of myself, how can I trust at all?

I keep promising to myself I'm going to quit this thread, but it's just too much damn fun.

Message edited by author 2007-01-05 01:26:57.

Gordon

RIM BlackBerry Curve

Canon EF 85mm f/1.8 USM

01/05/2007 01:35:57 AM · #318

Originally posted by DrAchoo:

Combine it with Solipsism and you have a real double whammy. It appears to me that I have Free Will. In fact, I know I have Free Will in a way unlike any other information I have access to.

So how many things in your life to date could you have done differently ? Not things you'd like to think you could have done differently before you did them, or things that you'd now like to think you could have done differently after the fact.

But things you actually could have done any differently - and if so, why ?

Just like you keep wanting to leave this thread, but you can't because you are who you are, not who you'd like to will yourself to be ?

Message edited by author 2007-01-05 01:37:06.

01/05/2007 04:55:15 AM · #319

Originally posted by RonB:

To me it's quite simple, really. If there is no God, then there is no free-will - the EXACT movement of EVERY proton, electron, neutron, quark, etc. was dictated at the moment of the Big Bang.

I think that this is a really good argument - it has been at times a real thorn in my side. On my simplistic understanding, it has also been a thorn in the side of Dr Hawkings, who has taken some time to locate a source of randomisation of information in the universe. The answer he came up with was very complicated (and may seem a little removed), but provides a proof of concept that random information can and does exist in the universe.

The example he came up with (and apologies if I am mis-relaying this - it is not simple stuff) is that at the edge of a black hole, there is the event horizon - a point beyond which all energy is inevitably drawn into the black hole. According to quantum theory, particles have a duality - their location may be in one of two places, undetermined until measured. Which of those locations it inhabits cannot be predicted. A particle that had potential existence in locations either side of a black hole's event horizon would either continue, or be sucked in and effectively removed from the accessible universe, apparently at random. Black holes, therefore, operate as randomness generators, preventing universal predictability.

I think he had some maths to back that all up - but I forget the details... (!).

01/05/2007 05:23:13 AM · #320

Originally posted by EducatedSavage:

Not really - you are starting from the assumption that the purpose of the universe was for us to exist - and that it is miraculous that we have reached this point via an almost infinitely improbable series of events. Shannon and I say that it is mere chance that we are here - we are a byproduct, and no-one sought to set up a chain reaction that resulted 8 billion years later in humanity.

In my earlier example, I gave the example of the odds on a hundred coin flips - each a 50:50 chance, to demonstrate the problem with attributing miracles to unlikely sequences of events. The odds of a particular end result occurring are astronomical, even in simple sequences, but each event in the sequence may be probable.

If you want to calculate the real odds of starting with a blank slate/big bang and the end result being humanity, every intervening event has an almost infinite number of permutations - you can probably just say that it is infinitely impossible and be pretty much right. However, this has no meaning - in reviewing the visible history of the universe, no intervening event appears to be particularly unusual or impossible. Something had to happen and that something happens to have been the world/universe we see around us.

This conclusion provides a rational explanation coherent with all our understanding and data about how the universe works. It does not require us to invoke the magic of a god.

The one event that I anticipate will be brought up as unusual would be the emergence of the first cell representing life as we recognise it - though there are a number of possible explanations (many disputed, I know) that do not rely on magic.

Message edited by author 2007-01-05 05:35:11.

01/05/2007 05:33:32 AM · #321

Originally posted by DrAchoo:

We can look to Chance as the master or we can look to Design, but we have no evidence of either.

No evidence, but we can realistically assess the probability:

1. Omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent being (possibly corresponding to a portrayal written by a small group of people 8 billion years later) intended to create us and initiated a vast and almost infinitely complex chain reaction with the intention that 8 billion years later we would come about in accordance with his plan.

2. The universe exploded in to existence, within which, after billions of years of following predictable laws (which can still be observed today), one of the byproducts within its vastness was a biologically active planet inhabited by some creatures with large egos, a very active imagination and an original inability to understand how they might have come to exist.

Nikon AF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 ED

01/05/2007 05:52:35 AM · #322

Originally posted by DrAchoo:

It appears to me that I have Free Will. In fact, I know I have Free Will in a way unlike any other information I have access to. It is part of me and not part of the extrinsic world. IF it is a charade (and Determinism is the truth), then how can I know anything? If I cannot even trust my deepest sense of myself, how can I trust at all?

Dr - what are "you"? As a doctor, I am sure that you have a better understanding than me of the electro-chemical way in which the brain works. Are you suggesting that there is something *else*? Would this ever figure in a medical opinion?

Can you ever "know" that you have free will? Surely your argument is regressive?

How do you reconcile your having free will with God's omniscience? His omniscience requires that he knows every free will choice that you will make it before you do so. Why should having a physical imperative to work in a particular manner worry you more than having god know all that you will "decide" to do in advance?

An interesting aside, if god knows everything that will happen, is he really omnipotent? After all, how can he act freely if he also knows all that will happen? If he does not know all that will happen, is he omniscient?

Apple iPhone 5

01/05/2007 06:06:56 AM · #323

Originally posted by legalbeagle:

An interesting aside, if god knows everything that will happen, is he really omnipotent? After all, how can he act freely if he also knows all that will happen? If he does not know all that will happen, is he omniscient?

I could see this coming - Are you leading up to the 'all knowing, all powerful, all loving' paradox?

If a God does exist, how can we possibly define him using our human understanding of motive, power, knowledge and love?