If this topic is one that toes the line on breaking forum rules, I would just ask that a moderator delete it or inform me so I can delete it. My hope is that its actually a topic that brings about healthy and substance filled discussion. Please bear with me here as I'm not even 100% sure where I was going with this. If it seems like a pointless discussion or one unnecessarily extrapolated on and made more difficult than it has to be, please just let it fade into the archives :)
Lately I've been really interested in learning more about Historical and Modern Day Science, more specifically Science related to how the world works and consiousness; Physics and Neuroscience. I've been using Books, Magazines, Videos, Articles, and other Educational Tools to attempt to gain some insight into where the field of Science was a thousand years ago, hundred years ago, etc., and what it has grown to today. Along the way, you naturally get an idea of the Human Culture during those times. For example, Atomic Theory was actually first proposed by Democritus somewhere around 400 B.C (Incredible incredible genius this guy was). He was a "Pre-Socratic" Philosopher and the traditional line of thinking then was that space was synonymous with the Heavens...The late 1600's brought Newton, and even with emerging revelations on how the world worked (his own), he was heavily involved with the Church and Biblical studies.
Why I'm asking? I had given my Mother a list of books I wanted (Yes I still give my Mom a Christmas list) and one was "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins. She was noticeably upset when I next saw her and, in so many words, told me she thought it was incensitive of me to ask her to purchase me something that so obviously and easily dismisses God. I didn't really notice the title was so forthcoming, I thought it would be more fact presenting rather than God shaming... and the contents of the book likely are, but still she was right. I know her better than anyone and it was a poor decision to ask her for that, knowing full well how strongly she felt about her faith and how much effort she put in as a Mother to give her son the opportunity to do the same (while not forcing her belief on me, ever). So I've always respected her faith and feel like I kind of put her in a compromising position by forcing her to speak up about that.
Anyway, the title of this thread is a bit vague but the reason I brought it up is that I dug a little and watched Richard Dawkins speak at an event related to getting "something from nothing" and then another video, and another. He seems overly hostile at times towards creationists. He gets agitated and even seems offended if a person even insinuates that a creator exists. So I decided to drop his book from the list because it all just seems condescending now. Hopefully I'm not doing myself a disservice.
Do you personally believe in a God and still agree with the majority of widely accepted Science today (big bang, something from nothing, ever expanding universe, black holes, time dilation, age of the Earth, etc.)? If so, how do you reconcile, if you were asked to, to someone that both of these are part of your core beliefs? If not, do you think that the two can truly co-exist or do you look at someone who says this as contradicting themselves?
I understand many atheists believe that the idea of God was originally created to explain the unknown and continued/continues as more of a comfort than anything. I believe that's how most Atheists would explain that. But I also wonder if the advancement of Science should (or is expected to) negatively correlate with religious faith. If a Theory of Everything becomes universally accepted 500 years from now, what would the World's general view on Religion be?
Religion is an expression of faith.
Science does not require faith. Faith does not require science. Both can live compatibly because neither really infringes on the other.
I need to look into Weinberg. I love Witten but sometimes I find it difficult to listen to his voice for prolonged periods.
Murray Gell-Mann's brush with the CIA - ( New Window )
Yet they also believe in God and the Church. Shows the minds ability to comparmentalize and hold otherwise contradictory beliefs. Logically science and religion contradict one another but the mind allows the same person to believe in both
Believing in God does not make you ignorant, it's quite the opposite. If you are a analytical and logical person like myself, it takes a plethora of information outside the bible to believe in a creator (coming from an ex atheist). Those that claim that faith is the bridge to ignorance haven't truly dived into the historical, archeoligocal, and even scientific information that all points to one thing; an intelligent creator.
Believing in God does not make you ignorant, it's quite the opposite. If you are a analytical and logical person like myself, it takes a plethora of information outside the bible to believe in a creator (coming from an ex atheist). Those that claim that faith is the bridge to ignorance haven't truly dived into the historical, archeoligocal, and even scientific information that all points to one thing; an intelligent creator.
I understand where you are coming from here and it is sort of in line with how my personal thinking leans.
Probably not where you were going with this exactly but...I remember researching the Double Slit and becoming fascinated with how it worked. Then I got drawn into the Delayed Choice Quantum Eraser studies. Went down that path for months and since then I've always thought that there is some sort of Superior or Quantum Consciousness that makes all of this reality tick.
That is just one thing I've always been fascinated by and lost some sleep over but there is no one reason I can pinpoint to feel in line with your thoughts above. Rather it is a culmination of everything I've packed into my tiny brain. However I admittedly backed my way into that with a pre bias on looking for ways that the Science I learn could fit into the faith I had. I do believe I am still open minded enough to follow where my intuition leads me, but thats about where I am at right now. (I couldn't imagine having this discussion if I still smoked the ganja)
At that moment when your mortality becomes in imminent danger you will attempt to "hedge your bet". I work with elderly every day and it is an almost universal action.
I'd bet that under the worst of circumstances you'd likely start praying.
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because God is a figment of somebody's imagination.
I'd bet that under the worst of circumstances you'd likely start praying.
Praying = talking to yourself. So, yeah. I might talk to myself.
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Organized Religion and science cannot or will not.
This is a good point. It's actually two different questions and your statement is perfectly reasonable in my mind
My all time favorite quote is an iteration of:
Never have I learned something from someone I agree with
I think this is at the heart of what's wrong in todays society (politics, religion, sports,cooking methods pick a topic) people cant just admit that it's okay to be ignorant. "I dont know" is not only an ok statement Its my prefered state of mind and thing I most like to hear.
We are all extremely ignorant across a wide array of subjects.
We just dont like to admit it. Which is why there are a lot of inane arguments here at times instead of debates and I honestly dont know If I have had the pleasure of being involved in more then a handful of honest debates in my life. Where two or more people were willing to reconsider their position based on any new information provided.
when you start from an acknowledgment as you are, now learning can actually be achieved and in that space science and God can co-exist.
God and science are constructs and one doesnt preclude one from another.
At the core there is an understanding that both constructs are not fully understood. Religion has become a finite solution for people to understand God. But it's a man's interpretation. Religion has become a solution and so has anyone who considers themselves a science expert instead of someone still learning science. A science expert ceases learning and just as much at fault.
Anyway that's my expounded view on my initial statement.
If you're in the Rochester area I'd love to buy you a beer and discuss the marriage of both.
No scientist with religion that I have ever seen handles the reappearance of an interventionist God in the lives of modern civilized humans at all well.
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That theory is way over my head but curious if you've tried discussing it on a Physics forum like Reddit r/physics or something similar. Bet you'd get a good thought provoking discussion going.
I want to do more study on black holes, graviton and anti-graviton pairs, the holographic principle, and string theory in general before presenting it. I need to make sure I fully understand what I think I understand when it comes to what Susskind called the Black Hole Wars between him and Hawking. Youtube is such an amazing resource.
It truly is. So much material. If you haven't watched any of the PBS Space Time videos, I'd recommend adding those to your watch list:
PBS-Space-Time-Channel
Out of curiosity, is this something you do for a living or just a type of hobby? I've been regretting not getting into Physics at a younger age and at this point, Mathematics is downright scary. I've just never been interested enough to pursue higher levels. However, I've always been naturally good with numbers.
I do understand that an expert level grasp of Math isn't necessarily "required", but I've made an effort to get re-acquainted with Calculus lately anyway. Wondering if there's any sources or materials out there that could help me pursue this. If anyone has any suggestions, fire them my way!
However I have a strong belief in God. The
complexities of the universe let alone the human
eye to me cannot he explained by entropy.
To me the lack of believing in a Creator is useful
for those subscribing to moral relativism.
Sorry but a Big Bang plus entropy and chaos
does not a universe make.
Real sciences, the hard sciences, and scientists of _course_ you can rationally debate them. That's the whole darn point of real science. Rationality and discourses.
So, hard sciences + real faith = real thinking.
Science ISM , false and complex ever changing opaque theory about humans, for example... And it's mirror version within religion, not so much.
Yes. Well put.
People here are still unsure or "up in the air" about visitors from another planet. Meanwhile, there are cave paintings portraying spacecraft and strange looking people coming from them. Science has proven this but the findings are classified.
I believe in science completely. However, half of the other people out there who claim to be all about science are science believers only when it happens to support their argument. Rarely do they cite science when it disproves their position. It is actually comical.
mathematical precision is able to happen
autonomously. To me science is being used
to deny God again for many who subscribe
once again to moral relativism.
to deny God again for many who subscribe
once again to moral relativism.
... and in many instances those who are using science as a way to deny that there is a God are often the same people who ignore science when they say a man can be a woman.
Sorry but a Big Bang plus entropy and chaos
does not a universe make.
There are vast numbers of books that show how the sequencing works, aside from Dawkins' wonderful "The Ancestor's Tale." My favorite is
The Story of Life in 25 Fossils
Tales of Intrepid Fossil Hunters and the Wonders of Evolution
Donald R. Prothero
It's not really about 25 fossils, it's about 25 families or genuses of evolutionary niches. But the amount of knowledge, evidence and detail shown in it is spectacular. And in every family, the sequencing from primitive to modern works, exactly, in ways that confirm evolutionary theory. So-called intelligent design can't respond to that, or come close. "Belief" in Intelligent Design stops working when you do the reading beyond the very simplistic work used in ID.
Dawkins is a jerk as a human being, but he's an extraordinarily knowledgeable jerk. His knowledge and ideas are compelling, when you get beyond the self-love.
the-story-of-life-in-25-fossils - ( New Window )
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Sorry but a Big Bang plus entropy and chaos
does not a universe make.
But, some ghost that lives forever in a sort of magical place does? Not only does that not make a whole lot of sense, it sounds ridiculous.
Well it certainly sounds ridiculous when you use those words to describe it. No one person has all of the answers. However if you are going to be so certain of your belief that the idea of creation is dismissed at every point made (or vice versa, goes for both sides) then I would argue that you SHOULD have all of the answers. But using language such as "magical place", "ghost", and "ridiculous" don't seem synonymous with having answers, but rather a dismissal using condescending language.
Here's a good example from a Hitchens-D'Souza debate (Thanks Matty)...These ideas are from D'Souza and I'm paraphrasing this:
Many people have a false understanding of what evolution actually entails. Many believe the idea of evolution explains the introduction of life on the planet...but evolution does not explain how life became on this planet (Even Darwin knew this). Evolution explains the transition of one life form to another, which is very different from accounting for life itself.
For example, the Primordial cell. This is described by professional biologists as a kind of super computer due to its level of complexity. Even Richard Dawkins describes it as a sort of digital computer. This cell could not have evolved (come about via the process of Evolution) because Evolution pre-supposes the cell. Evolution requires the cell as it already has the built in capacity to reproduce itself.
"So hiw did we get a cell? The very idea that random molecules in a warm pond through a bolt of lightning assembled a cell, would be akin to saying that a bolt of lightning in a warm pond could assemble an automobile or a skyscraper. It's preposterous. Richard Dawkins knows it preposterous and therefore when asked how did we get life originally...he said well maybe aliens brought it from another planet. It's ridiculous but it's in a way the best explanation he could come up with other than intelligent design."
^^
This is likely a dated example as the something from nothing theories have come a long way, but it makes the point either way.
Btw I am way out of my element here if it isn't obvious. Simply playing Devils advocate.
To only answer the OP’s question, yes I believe God created the universe but don’t ask me to explain it, I just believe it....not sure how He did it or by what means. Just believe that He did. I guess you could call it faith but not necessarily blind faith. Of course you could google Intelligent Design answers to the creation of the universe if you need to know such.
I do believe science and God can “work together” but I also don’t believe science has all the answers or that some of the answers they propose are always right for whatever reason.
But couldn't this also be an argument FOR intelligent design? My thinking is along the lines of, someone could argue that Evolution is a tool of the creator. And/or using my post above that Evolution pre-supposes the cell and therefore wouldn't exist without the cell which is a design from an intelligent source.
Fair question, but with strong answers available, I think.
1) I have no objection to the idea that there was an original creator, an entity that triggered the Big Bang or even the first spark of life on earth. My issue is with an intervening God that is required by organized religion. As I said, no one has been able to link evolution through natural selection with the idea that after 2 billion+ years of evolution and 2 million+ years of proto-humans an intervening God returned to have a relationship with humans that he didn't directly create.
2) ID and evolution through descent by natural selection are irreconcilable. The idea of ID is specifically designed to provide a role for an intervening God that pushed life toward the creation of modern humans, not for a random process.
3) Btw, ID is a gimmick. American Protestant Creationists needed a way around the idea that Creationism is religion, not science, so they edited their texts to call it ID. But they never reconciled any of that with the massive evidence for evolution, especially including the vast fossil record. See the link for a start.
4) But it always returns to the fossil record, and to thousands of PHD-level scientists in close to a dozen disciplines who study this stuff in exquisite detail.
Link - ( New Window )
To only answer the OP’s question, yes I believe God created the universe but don’t ask me to explain it, I just believe it....not sure how He did it or by what means. Just believe that He did.
1) As I have been discussing, the combination of a spectacularly detailed fossil record which NEVER comes up with inconsistent evidence that would require the need for an alternate theory. To be sure, there are vast holes in the record about specific species but the aggregate record is remarkably accurate and consistent--even while being examined by well trained scientists with a massive body of knowledge and research data. That puts the odds the odds of an alternate solution at a vanishingly low level--albeit not at zero.
2) Scientists who deal with this kind of material argue strenuously that ID isn't science, because it isn't "falsifiable." Proponents Of ID will never accept evidence that shows their theory to be wrong--so it is no theory. Proponents of evolutionary theory would accede to a single case where the fossil record shows ID-like evidence. There just isn't any. The mathematical odds of 1) and 2) both leaning toward evolution through thousands and thousands of pieces of evidence, but still being incorrect is just tiny.
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To only answer the OP’s question, yes I believe God created the universe but don’t ask me to explain it, I just believe it....not sure how He did it or by what means. Just believe that He did.
Who created God? And where did He exist before He created the Universe?
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I do believe science and God can “work together” but I also don’t believe science has all the answers or that some of the answers they propose are always right for whatever reason.
Science doesn't claim to have all the answers, in fact, it makes that disclaimer right up front. Science openly admits that the Universe poses riddles and mysteries of which some will be forever beyond our grasp. Science is humble. It recognizes its limits and mankind's infinitesimal place in the cosmos. As Dick Feynman once said, "We can never know if we're right, we can only know if we're wrong."
This is a trap question and a never ending wormhole. Only created things have a creator, God always existed and was not created. If there is some back story here we will never know it. Also this question is a trap, because then the next question becomes "Who created God's creator" and so on. Everything will not always come to finite, mathematical conclusion the human species can understand. If there was such an "ending" we would have scientifically found it already
to deny God again for many who subscribe
once again to moral relativism.
mathematical precision is able to happen
autonomously.
"God did it" doesn't prove anything, either.
But He loves you. He loves you, and He needs money! He always needs money! He's all-powerful, all-perfect, all-knowing, and all-wise, somehow just can't handle money!”
Non-denominational churches are about this. A direct relationship with God, not a relationship with religion
This is a trap question and a never ending wormhole. Only created things have a creator, God always existed and was not created. If there is some back story here we will never know it. Also this question is a trap, because then the next question becomes "Who created God's creator" and so on. Everything will not always come to finite, mathematical conclusion the human species can understand.
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This is a trap question and a never ending wormhole. Only created things have a creator, God always existed and was not created. If there is some back story here we will never know it. Also this question is a trap, because then the next question becomes "Who created God's creator" and so on. Everything will not always come to finite, mathematical conclusion the human species can understand.
But that's the point of the question because the same thing can be said of the Universe: that it always existed in one form or another. If it's possible that there can be existence "before" there was time, then it's fair game for both those who don't pretend to know how the Universe began and those who pretend it began with a creator. You don't get exclusive rights "but what was there before that?"
Well seeing as science can not explain everything, I guess people who demand mathematical or scientific proof for everything have a decision. They can either believe in a higher power, or they can continue to deny God and not have any other explanation.
2) the known universe is accelerating outward into... What? (The "known universe" seems to be a good metAphor for scientific knowledge expanding against--but not "into"--something ultimately unknowable.)
3) scientists can identify a fraction of the sources of energy that would be necessary to accelerate this expansion of the universe last the speed of light. If memory serves, that fraction has a numerator of 1 and a denominator of 10 to the 23rd power. In other words, there is vastLy, almost infinitely more energy in our universe than we can comprehend. The product of science is knowledge and humility.
4) While I think it is not productive to try to align science and religion on a point for point basis, the question of what was there before God created the light in Genesis is not unlike what was there before the Big Bang.
5) Man's relationship with God evolves in the Bible. From the demand that the first monotheist, Abraham, sacrifice his son to prove his faith to God's sacrifice of his son, there is a movement from the stern God of the early prophets to a spirit of grace and redemption.
6) I have no sophistication in physics, but the "mysteries" of life-after-death and a Fall into Time, bookended by eternity, does not seem inconsistent with our experience of time even when some physicists contend that directional time is an illusion.
At this point in my life, the desire to wrestle the infinite into the finite seems a parallel-- rather than exclusive--endeavor in science and faith.
Well seeing as science can not explain everything, I guess people who demand mathematical or scientific proof for everything have a decision. They can either believe in a higher power, or they can continue to deny God and not have any other explanation.
Richard Feynman--The Uncertainty of Knowledge - ( New Window )
Why - ( New Window )
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Those who believe blindly in faith to the exclusion of science, and those who believe in science to the exclusion of faith. Both are closed minded people who cling to a belief and shut out rational discourse.
I understand rejecting religion as a human construct. But if you equate faith with Santa Claus, you have shut your mind to logic just as tightly as those you criticize.
I equate faith with wishful thinking, what do you equate it with? Explain the "logic" of believing in something that has no basis in fact, but conveniently rids you of your biggest fear: death. Or did I just answer my own question?
Do you believe all facts are now known by humans? If you don’t, then there is plenty of things that are not based on fact which are true. Or do you believe everything that can be known is already known?
And if you think faith means nothing but “I get to go see grandma and mr. whiskers in Heaven when I die, you have no concept of what the word means.
Then consider what science has disproven about religion.
Yes, they can co-exist if one dismisses all doctrine and claims of a known supernatural being, and in the end, chooses a position of agnosticism.
Otherwise, they only exist in people who avoid making a choice by avoiding looking at the evidence.....which is cool and probably accounts for a huge amount of people in this world.
Religion is a complete fraud (spiritualism is not), though there may be evolutionary benefits to it in societies that justify it's importance, at least historically, and maybe currently as well.
I read The God Delusion about 2 years ago along with God Is Not Great (Hitchens) and several other atheist-oriented books (mostly Sam Harris) and Dawkins' God Delusion, by far, has done the most thorough job of all the ones I have read, explaining the complete scientific lack of evidence for God, complete lack of veracity by the doctrine, including the evidence showing the bogus claims for God's existence by all the major and minor religions. I came away thoroughly convinced that all supernatural claims are bogus and that the best one can believe is that there is no proof either way.
As far as the original question goes, yes they can co-exist, provided one doesn't hold all the fairy tales as evidence of the sham and takes a position of agnosticism. But this is only a general view, individuals often have their own experience that swing things one way or another. And even a scientist would find his own personal God, regardless of all know lack of evidence, should he/she have an experience that germinates some faith, even a tiny bit,