Everything has a beginning, and so does the universe, firstly lets look at the big ban theory this is the most accurate and well supported ‘scientific’ theory about the origin of the universe. What really is the big bang? According to the big bang, the cosmos was shaped sometime between 10 billion and 20 billion years ago from a cosmic detonation that hurled matter and in all different directions. This was further supported by the discovery of (*1) cosmic background radiation (http://www.damtp.cam.ac.uk/user/gr/public/cmbr_home.html) by Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson (1) I really don’t have the time to explain background radiation so I am adding a hyperlink to it. So basically it comes down our universe (and it’s pretty big, and is also expending (2)) formed out of an uncontrolled explosion. So the age of the universe is 13.7 billion years (3). And the age of the earth is about 4.55 billion years (*2). And we are supposed to believe in that from there everything you see around you just ‘evolved’ from that uncontrolled explosion, intelligent life has taken place. Well what is the probability of that happening? “arbitrariness/chance/randomness” that created the universe, lets get into a little more detail here;
If the Big Bang was definitely such a calamitous explosion then it is logical to suppose that matter should have been spread everywhere at random. And yet it is not. Instead it is organized into planets, and stars, and galaxies, and clusters of galaxies, and super-clusters of galaxies. That the matter shaped by the Big Bang should have created such tidy and organized shapes is indeed an astonishing thing. The occurrence of such synchronization leads us to the consciousness that the universe was the result of its perfect creation by God/Allah.


Let us now make a brief deviation and mull over the coincidence theory of materialism. Coincidence is a mathematical term and the likelihood of an event's occurrence can be calculated using the arithmetic of probability. Let's do so.
http://img359.imageshack.us/img359/8286/untitled3ib.jpg
Taking the physical variables into explanation, what is the likelihood of a universe giving us life coming into continuation by happenstance? Roger Penrose, an illustrious British mathematician and a close friend of Stephen Hawking, wondered about this issue and tried to calculate the likelihood.
Together with what he considered to be all variables required for human beings to exist and live on a planet such as ours, he computed the likelihood of this environment happening among all the feasible results of the Big Bang.
According to Penrose, the odds against such an incidence were on the order of 1010123 to 1.

It is hard even to envisage what this figure means. In math, the value 10123 means 1 followed by 123 zeros. (This is, by the way, more than the total number of atoms 1078 believed to exist in the whole universe.) But Penrose's answer is vastly more than this: It requires 1 followed by 10123 zeros. Or consider: 103 means 1,000, a thousand. 10103 is a number that that has 1 followed by 1000 zeros.
If there are six zeros, it's called a million; if nine, a billion; if twelve, a trillion and so on. There is not even a name for a number that has 1 followed by 10123 zeros.

In practical terms, in mathematics, a probability of 1 in 1050 means "zero probability". Penrose's number is more than trillion trillion trillion times less than that. In short, Penrose's number tells us that the 'accidental" or "coincidental" creation of our universe is an impossibility

Individuals hearing of the Big Bang but not taking into deliberation the subject at extent do not reflect upon what an astonishing plan must lie behind this explosion. That's since the concept of an explosion doesn't hint harmony, preparation, or organization to most individuals. In reality there are a number of very perplexing aspects to the complex order in the Big Bang.
One of these puzzles has to do with the increase of velocity caused by the explosion. When the explosion took place, matter unquestionably must have begun moving at a gargantuan speed in every direction. However there is an additional point that we need to pay consideration to here. There must also have been a very big attractive energy at the first instant of the explosion: an attractive force that was physically powerful enough to draw together the sum total of the universe into one point.
2, diverse and contrasting energy are at work here. The energy of the explosion, driving matter outward and away, and the force of magnetism, trying to resist the initial and pull everything back together. The universe came into being for the reason that these two, forces/energies were in symmetry. If the attractive energy had been greater than the explosive, the universe would have warped. If the conflicting had been factual, matter would have been splattered in every direction in a way never to amalgamate again. Then how receptive was this equilibrium? How much "slack" could there have been among the two forces/energies?

The mathematical physicist Paul Davies, a professor at the University of Adelaide in Australia, performed extensive calculations of the setting that must have existed at the moment of the Big Bang and came up with an end result that can only be described as shocking. According to Davies, if the rate of increase had differed by more than 10-18 seconds one quintillionth of a second, there would have been no universe.

The statistics defining the design and plan of the universe's symmetry play a fundamental role and surpass intellectual capacity. They demonstrate that the universe is by no means the result of a coincidence, and show us how accurate the creator's aim must have been.
In actuality in order to identify that the universe is not a "product of coincidences" one does not in reality need any of these calculations at all. Simply by looking around himself, a person can effortlessly perceive the fact of design in even the tiniest details of what he sees. How could a universe like this, faultless in its systems, the sun, the earth, citizens, houses, cars, trees, flowers, insects, and all the other things in it ever have come into survival as the result of atoms falling together by chance after an explosion? Every element we peer at shows the verification of Allah's existence and absolute power. Only individuals who reflect can grasp these signs.

I am not doing that as I am providing evidence I am not telling anyone here to convert or just start believing in Islam, I provide logical evidence.



Citation:
http://liftoff.msfc.nasa.gov/academy/universe/b_bang.html (1)
http://archive.ncsa.uiuc.edu/Cyberia/Cosmos/ExpandUni.html (2)
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/map_discovery_030211.html (3)

References:
(UK)University of Cambridge (*1)
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-age-of-earth.html (TalkOrigins.org) (*2)

I have not even finished the first sentance and it already has a mistake. "Everything has a beginning" is not proven by any means. Surely common sense would tell us that something on some level must have always been. One thing that is for sure, is that nothing could never produce something. Anyway, will read on.

Maybe the best way to blow your Theory out of the water is to throw in to the debate that the Universe is not alone and that maybe an infinite number of Universe's exist. If this is the case all possibility no matter how remote will occur. Please see my thread http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=53834 as this would shed some light on the fact that all things could occur no matter how remote the chance if the possibly exists.

Seeing how this is complete plagiarism, I'm not going to bother responding.

How dare he quote Roger Penrose. He authored a huge tome on physics - two of the cleverest people I know had serious working through it (Penrose makes no apology that the first 16 chapters are dedicated to mathematics!!). I would have no chance. Muslim shouldn't be uttering/mis-quoting anything to do with that man.

Although, I suspect Muslim did not type one character of that essay.

edit: and it seems he didn't (http://forums.ratedesi.com/showthread.php?p=3158591)

Not trying to be crass or anything, but at what point are we expected to reach the concensus that the concept of 'a god' is a really stupid idea?
I mean--if you mention Zeus or mount-olympus nowadays, people think of it as a fun little quaint belief primitive society used to subscribe to, but for some reason, we haven't graduated past god.

I read that tome by Penrose. I'm a physics major because of it. It's awesome. I want to be able to understand a good bit of that stuff.

You actually read the tome? I need to sort my brain out badly - such poor concentration these past few years. I put it down to laziness.

Trying to proof the existence of a supernatural force by means of a logical scientific language?


:D

Trying to proof the existence of a supernatural force by means of a logical scientific language?


:D

took the words right out of my mouth :p

This thread is destined for success.

hey its solidus, whats up buddy

nice article muslim, keep up good work.

peace.

Ok here is sopmething that we can all (hopefully agree on)

before our universe was created, either by the big bang or by God/Allah there was something.

Scientists would say that this was a tiny sub-atomic particle containing some matter and energy and theists would say that this was a supernatural God.

The question is which of this is more likely to be created?

I'd day the particle

Ok here is sopmething that we can all (hopefully agree on)

before our universe was created, either by the big bang or by God/Allah there was something.

Scientists would say that this was a tiny sub-atomic particle containing some matter and energy and theists would say that this was a supernatural God.

The question is which of this is more likely to be created?

I'd day the particle

To split down these options a little bit more to help us make up your minds what came first maybe we should look at it like this.

Option 1/ The simple Sub-Atomic partial

Most matter in the Universe is made up of Helium and Hydrogen in some form or the other. And with Helium and Hydrogen being two of the most basic elements in the Universe we are talking about a simple start that under certain conditions lead to more complex formation of particles. Or you could say the very simple getting more complex over time.

Option 2/ God

Now this one works with the most complex first and then gets more simple all the way down to the people that believe in it, hence Muslim. We are not just talking about the start being the most complex but by far the most complex and powerful being that has ever been. This is the most illogical thing I can think of.

Ok here is sopmething that we can all (hopefully agree on)

before our universe was created, either by the big bang or by God/Allah there was something.Evidence please...?

option ambigious

matter-energy is active intelligence

option ambigious

matter-energy is active intelligence

option ambiguous

matter energy is intellignce in dynamic action

Evidence please...?

There is evidence in the quantum world that particles can come from nothing and then fad again. So it's not without base that something can come from nothing but there must be some law that governs this. So there must have always been something. We cannot look back and observe this, but some things we have to take as fact because, nothing is as it says on the label 'nothing'.

There is evidence in the quantum world that particles can come from nothing and then fad again. So it's not without base that something can come from nothing but there must be some law that governs this. So there must have always been something. We cannot look back and observe this, but some things we have to take as fact because, nothing is as it says on the label 'nothing'.
yes, and that's why i used term 'ambiguous'---rationality cannot grasp, because ratio-nality MEASURES. but rather see te polarity of reality. that for 'something' to be implies 'nothing' and vice versa
as does 'wave' and 'particle'...? etcetera

option ambiguity

Duendy point taken. But your statement is based on philosophy rather than Science.

First of all the big bang is just an illustration of our own known universe, a cluster of a bigger idea and space, there could be millions of universes and infinite space. Obviously something is infinite because nothing comes from nothing, and finite is a subset of infinite. Therefore the statement everything has a beginning is false (not everything). If you don't think the universe is infinite you've got some serious thinking to do. Does God exist? i'd rather leave that to the preists and Imams, I however have never seen the likes of such. Though its not hard to agree with an idea of a higher being. Here's what I know; If something ugly is inside something beautiful you will not infer properly if that ugly thing is beautiful or not. If something beautiful is inside something ugly there is no verifiable justification that such beautiful thing is ugly or not. Chaos. I think we are trying to make symetric ideas of the universe when we speak of Gods.

So basically it comes down our universe (and it’s pretty big, and is also expending (2)) formed out of an uncontrolled explosion. And we are supposed to believe in that from there everything you see around you just ‘evolved’ from that uncontrolled explosion, intelligent life has taken place.

The Big Bang was an expansion, not an 'uncontrolled explosion.' Creationists often make that mistake.

If the Big Bang was definitely such a calamitous explosion then it is logical to suppose that matter should have been spread everywhere at random. And yet it is not.

And yet it was. The newly expanded universe was a sea of radiation.

Instead it is organized into planets, and stars, and galaxies, and clusters of galaxies, and super-clusters of galaxies. That the matter shaped by the Big Bang should have created such tidy and organized shapes is indeed an astonishing thing.

Matter wasn't shaped by the Big Bang. Gravity primarily shaped the planets, etc.

The occurrence of such synchronization leads us to the consciousness that the universe was the result of its perfect creation by God/Allah.

A leap of faith from atop the the tower of ignorance will surely end with a splat!

The energy of the explosion, driving matter outward and away, and the force of magnetism, trying to resist the initial and pull everything back together. The universe came into being for the reason that these two, forces/energies were in symmetry.

Yet, not all bodies exhibit magnetism, what about them? All mass exhibits gravity, though. Perhaps that's what is refered?

And what about the other known forces, they were tantamount to the others in forming the universe?

If the attractive energy had been greater than the explosive, the universe would have warped. If the conflicting had been factual, matter would have been splattered in every direction in a way never to amalgamate again. Then how receptive was this equilibrium? How much "slack" could there have been among the two forces/energies?

Pseudo-gibberish.

The mathematical physicist Paul Davies, a professor at the University of Adelaide in Australia, performed extensive calculations of the setting that must have existed at the moment of the Big Bang and came up with an end result that can only be described as shocking. According to Davies, if the rate of increase had differed by more than 10-18 seconds one quintillionth of a second, there would have been no universe.

Or, perhaps the universe would simply be different. Is there any reason to suspect that our universe isn't the result of a rate increase?

The statistics defining the design and plan of the universe's symmetry play a fundamental role and surpass intellectual capacity.

Evidently.

They demonstrate that the universe is by no means the result of a coincidence, and show us how accurate the creator's aim must have been.

Or, more precisely, the author has no idea what he's talking about and is looking for anything to support his Islamic driven conclusions.

Simply by looking around himself, a person can effortlessly perceive the fact of design in even the tiniest details of what he sees.

And there it is in a nutshell, the primitive mind of an age long past, reawakened only to repeat history and make the same mistakes.

How could a universe like this, faultless in its systems, the sun, the earth, citizens, houses, cars, trees, flowers, insects, and all the other things in it ever have come into survival as the result of atoms falling together by chance after an explosion?

Simple. The answer is that the author simply stood up and looked around, the same as early man did.

Every element we peer at shows the verification of Allah's existence and absolute power. Only individuals who reflect can grasp these signs.

Only individuals who are indoctrinated into Islam will not consider anything other than Allah for any reason.

I am not doing that as I am providing evidence I am not telling anyone here to convert or just start believing in Islam, I provide logical evidence.

All the author has managed to do is show how ignorant those who are indoctrinated into religion can be.

No one can scientifically prove there is a GOD.
GOD transcends the finite human mind.
There are things of science, nature, philosophy, and history that point to GOD's existance for those who have the eyes to see, but there is no definitive "scientific", as we know it, proof that GOD exists.

The human mind tries to box GOD into its own perception of what GOD must be so that the mind can subject GOD to the mind's own understanding and limit GOD's power and influence or reject it totally in the person's life.
As such, the human mind will never know or understand GOD until the mind chooses to see outside of the box of it's own perception.

Those who hold science as the final authority in their lives have just replaced GOD with the god of science. Those that follow the god of science place their FAITH in science the same way that those that follow the god of their religion place their faith in a god of human created religion.

I follow GOD, not the god of science, nor the god of religion, nor myself as my own god.

I personally do not want to follow something that man has devised in his own mind as truth. Man has certainly fucked up the whole human race with his selfishness and pride in promoting his own agenda for his own benefit twisting the truth to serve his needs. Many parts of this website is devoted to the discussion of those fuck ups.

Why would I want to follow anything of man's creation?

[QUOTE=Muslim]Everything has a beginning,

Well, surely if god created everything he also created time, which would show that ur (imaginary) god would of always been around, and the contradicts most of your thread :bugeye:

Duendy point taken. But your statement is based on philosophy rather than Science.
so....you presume YOu don't have a philosophy?

so....you presume YOu don't have a philosophy?

Nothing wrong with Philosophy it is the pre-cursor to most science and it may well be in this case. But also religion is a Philosophy and this thread is very much a sci v phil debate.

Muslim any chance you could work out the odds that God the most powerful being in the universe was always there?

Oops then again I will answer this for you, you can't put any odds on it at all because it so unlikely to have happened that it makes your odds for big bang Theory look a certainty.

I wish that people with little or no knowledge of probability would refrain from attempting to base agruments on their naive notions relating to it.

I would not attempt to educate such people in the basics of probability theory. They are not likely to have the patience to become knowledgeable. However, they shoud be able to understand the following obvious notion.Once an event has happened, it is silly to talk about the probability of its having occurred.Burn that concept into your brain, you who are ignorant of probability theory. Note that I am saying those who are ignorant of probability. Saying a person is ignorant is not equivalent to calling that person stupid, although the latter word might also apply.

I play duplicate bridge 4-6 times per week, which results in my being dealt over 100 hands per week. the odds against each of those hands is about 635 billion to one. If you consider an entire deal (Id Est: If you also consider the hands dealt to the other three players at my table), the odds against each is about 5.28*10²⁸. My being at the table when a deal with odds of 5.28*10²⁸ to one against it occurs does not mean that I have seen somethiing unusual. A similarly unlikely event will occur when the next hand is dealt.

Suppose a mineral deposit is discovered containing some radioactive elements and some decay products. Knowing the half life of the radioactive elements, a computation might conclude that the odds against the particular atoms which remain was10³⁰ to one against (or even worse) when the material was first created in the interior of some star. Does that indicate that some intelligent being was involved in protecting those remaining elements which did not decay yet?

Calculating odds for an event which has already occurred is a waste of time. It is meaningless.

Those who talk about intelligent design and/or a creator of the universe only display ignorance of logic and mathematics when they attempt to prove their view by invoking probability.

Talk about faith. If a pesron claims to have a faith based belief in a creator (or anything else), I do not argue with that person (although I happen to be an atheist). When a pesron claims that probability supports his belief, he is displaying ignorance. I usually ignore such people and look for a more intelligent conversation.

Seeing as we are talking about odds and here in the UK we had the Grand National yesterday I have linked the two to show you why your horse could never win. Now the Grand National is one of the toughest horse races in world so whoever wins it will be amazing, lets see what happens.

Commentator:

And they are lining up nicely on the start line. We have 'My Little Pony' steadfast and focused for the starters orders. Then next to him I would guess it's 'nothing' who is not giving away anything at this moment in time.

And there off.........

As we approach the 1 thousand year mark 'My little Pony' has taken a decisive lead due to that gust of wind.

It looks like 'nothing' is having trouble keeping up with the field. In fact we are hearing rumours that 'nothing' has an injury. Yes it's been confirmed he is suffering from a pulled leg.

And 'My little Pony' has cleared the first fence due to that hurricane, but he land awkwardly on his head, it doesn't look good and he lays there for a few millions years.

Then we look to back of the field, then we look beyond the back of the field, and as we look beyond that, we still see no sign of 'nothing'. So we look beyond the beyond and round the corner and still 'nothing'.

And it's all gone wrong for 'My Little Pony' he's been fossilised, twice. Surely it's all over for him now and it will be nothing's race.

And we have a major earthquake and it's freed 'My Little Pony' he is well and truly back in the race.

And as he passes the half way mark you can see the huge crowd of 'nothing' supports. Yes 1 billion people getting excited over 'nothing'. Oh and in the crowd we can see the traditional get overexcited and trample each other to death taking place.

And as 'My Little Pony' approaches ‘beachers Brooke’ one of the toughest hurdles on the course. And he jumps it nicely with the Aid of a hurricane and the formation of a mini cliff.

And as he passes the 3/4 mark you should be able to see his owners the scientists in the crowd. Yes there they are, building a big machine.

And the crowds are going mad you can see the ‘nothing’ supports getting ready to celebrate a clear win. Which is strange as 'nothing' has yet to pass the start line. They must have faith he will make a very strong finish.

And it's 'My Little Pony' at the line by a whole race course.

*Cut to the winners enclosure*

Yes and this year the winning enclosure has been expanded to the whole race course as 1 billion Muslims think they have won this years Grand National. Mean while the scientists are building another big machine.



Muslim your whole debate is based on odd's and you cannot quantify any odds at all for Gods existence as there is NO supporting data with which to make ANY calculation AT ALL.

Maybe think about the title of this thread "proof god exists". You have shown no proof at all, you have only shown (with plagerism) that the Big Bang had huge odds, which we all knew anyway.

Therefore, you are correct as normal that the Big Bang odds are huge but no one can set odds for your beliefs. It's good to see you showing good evidence to disprove God again. I suspected you off being an Evolutionists before, but I do believe we could make an atheist of you yet ;)



Do you have another point you would like to raise?

Nothing wrong with Philosophy it is the pre-cursor to most science and it may well be in this case. But also religion is a Philosophy and this thread is very much a sci v phil debate.
no, alexb123, your not understanding.....i am saying you cant HAVE science without philosophy. your 'science' --which i'm presumimg is materialistic science, is coming FROm materialistic philosophy.....yes?

If God did not exist, why did you talk about HIM?
HE exists, at least, in your mind.

Muslim, if you believe that "everything has a beginning", then what was the beginning of your God? A sub-atomic particle maybe? Another God? Or was he "Always there," being a contradiction to your last statement?

Maybe the best way to blow your Theory out of the water is to throw in to the debate that the Universe is not alone and that maybe an infinite number of Universe's exist. If this is the case all possibility no matter how remote will occur. Please see my thread http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=53834 as this would shed some light on the fact that all things could occur no matter how remote the chance if the possibly exists.

That's like small organisms in the water saying that "there is an infinite amount of oceans". What in the hell do you know?

That's like small organisms in the water saying that "there is an infinite amount of oceans". What in the hell do you know?

I don't know, but thats the point!

Assuming that your post makes half sense and that it conclusively proves that a god exists, then we get into the debate of which god that is. And it's pretty obvious you're trying to prove that a god exists just so you have grounds to claim that Islam in particular is valid.

Sorry Muslim.

muslim is going to zoom in here and give us all the proof we and the entire world has being searching for since the dawn of time

yeah right

don't you get it muslim?
god is such a concept that it MUST be taken on faith
therefor there will never be any proof

I wish that people with little or no knowledge of probability would refrain from attempting to base agruments on their naive notions relating to it.

I would not attempt to educate such people in the basics of probability theory. They are not likely to have the patience to become knowledgeable. However, they shoud be able to understand the following obvious notion.Once an event has happened, it is silly to talk about the probability of its having occurred.Burn that concept into your brain, you who are ignorant of probability theory. Note that I am saying those who are ignorant of probability. Saying a person is ignorant is not equivalent to calling that person stupid, although the latter word might also apply.

I play duplicate bridge 4-6 times per week, which results in my being dealt over 100 hands per week. the odds against each of those hands is about 635 billion to one. If you consider an entire deal (Id Est: If you also consider the hands dealt to the other three players at my table), the odds against each is about 5.28*10²⁸. My being at the table when a deal with odds of 5.28*10²⁸ to one against it occurs does not mean that I have seen somethiing unusual. A similarly unlikely event will occur when the next hand is dealt.

Suppose a mineral deposit is discovered containing some radioactive elements and some decay products. Knowing the half life of the radioactive elements, a computation might conclude that the odds against the particular atoms which remain was10³⁰ to one against (or even worse) when the material was first created in the interior of some star. Does that indicate that some intelligent being was involved in protecting those remaining elements which did not decay yet?

Calculating odds for an event which has already occurred is a waste of time. It is meaningless.

Those who talk about intelligent design and/or a creator of the universe only display ignorance of logic and mathematics when they attempt to prove their view by invoking probability.

Talk about faith. If a pesron claims to have a faith based belief in a creator (or anything else), I do not argue with that person (although I happen to be an atheist). When a pesron claims that probability supports his belief, he is displaying ignorance. I usually ignore such people and look for a more intelligent conversation.


That is a aload of bullshit. We are asserting it didn't happen by probability.

So anyof you genius would like to tell me, how the big man was instigated if there was n matter before it?

I can tell you any answer you give me will be wrong!

So anyof you genius would like to tell me, how the big man was instigated if there was n matter before it?

I can tell you any answer you give me will be wrong!
two premises you make:
'big man'...????
and 'big bang' unproven

two premises you make:
'big man'...????
and 'big bang' unproven

typo I meant big bang. I was thinking about something before that.


So the BIG BANG is unproven?

typo I meant big bang. I was thinking about something before that.


So the BIG BANG is unproven?
is there solid evidence....or theory?

Muslim the Big Bang has a lot of problems and I think its far from being proven. After all Big Bang Theory leaves us looking for Dark Energy and Dark Matter, which we can't find. There is a good chance that another Theory may be correct, but it's not your mate tho.

The big bang is unproven, it is still in its infancy. But, nevertheless, there is more proof for the big bang than for your God. What created your God, Muslim. Answer me this!

how can anything create anything atall to begin with? im not bieng funny hear, but i actualy think as far as explanations go, i would rather bet on a god creating this universe we reside in, than the big bang,


this universe is not all there is, what is physical is not all that exists truley,

peace.

Muslim: In your original post, you made the following statement.In practical terms, in mathematics, a probability of 1 in 1050 means "zero probability". Penrose's number is more than trillion trillion trillion times less than that. In short, Penrose's number tells us that the 'accidental" or "coincidental" creation of our universe is an impossibility.Again I say, you have no understanding of the concepts of probability. No matter how unlikely an event is, once it has happened any discussion of its probability is silly.

Those who believe in creationism and/or Intelligent Design use the same type of argument. They come up with some incredibly low probability for our existence due to random mutations culled by natural selection. They, like you, do not understand the following basic concept.Once an event has happened, any consideration of its probability is both silly & meaningless.The previous statement was posted earlier, and I am repeating it in case you did not read it. Perhaps you did read it, but did not understand. Read it again and think about it this time.

Once again: Your belief in allah is faith based. Proofs for or against the existence of allah or any other god are a waste of time. Are you ashamed to say: "I believe in allah due to faith"?

I often wonder about believers who try to prove the existence of some god. I speclate about their mind set.One possibility is that they have doubts about their own faith and need the comfort of what they consider to be a logical proof of the existence of their god.


Another possibility is that they have naive views about logic and think that it is possible to devise a valid proof for the existence of god, allah, whatever.


It is also possible that their faith causes a form of blindness, allowing them to accept a fallacious proof for the existence of allah/god.


The last possibility I can think of is that they are basically con artists who know their proof is fallacious, but have a desire to convert others. by any means possible. I wonder what category you fit.

Some atheists seem to have similar desires to prove the non existence of a god. This is just as foolish as trying to prove his existence.

BTW: I happen to be an atheist. While I capitalize proper names, I avoid capitalizing words like allah & god. I am not very consistent in this idiosyncrasy. I tend to capitalize Ahura Mazda, Ahriman, Zeus, Jupiter, Apollo, Thor, Odin, Loki, Isis, Osiris, Ra, Baal, Mithra, et cetera.

The big bang is unproven, it is still in its infancy. But, nevertheless, there is more proof for the big bang than for your God. What created your God, Muslim. Answer me this!

what you mean your god, its everyones god. You make it sound like as if am a crazy loon with crazy imaginary gods.

our god is beyond our universe so the same laws of creation don't apply to him.

what you mean your god, its everyones god. You make it sound like as if am a crazy loon with crazy imaginary gods.

our god is beyond our universe so the same laws of creation don't apply to him.
a 'crazy loon' as in 'crazy LUNAtic' is patriarchal black propaganda against prepatriarchal Old religion that was more Lunar based than solar based, as the patriarchs were/are

Look, Mus, all you have. all you invest in is tat book you call the Koran. only that. that is your life, your meaning.........
so. you cant learn! you cant look farther afield and checkout thehiostory of it, where its ideas originae from, going bakc back to roots, to patriarchal roots which divide 'light' from 'dark, female from male, 'spirit' from Nature. back back baaaaack, to prepatriarchl uniderstanding. your stuck with your Koran, and oppressive 'God'. and tis shit is causing havok in the world. not just yours, but patriarchy has many branches. all of them coming from same root which fears Nature and the Feminine, etc. you have allowed rigidity to get you...! you are in a cage but are not aware of it.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/b/bc/Ipu.gif/180px-Ipu.gif

It is common when discussing the Invisible Pink Unicorn to point out that because she is invisible, no one can prove she does not exist, thereby making the point that simply by claiming that something cannot be sensed in any way, shape or form, such as God in Theistic beliefs, someone could claim that any divine object or entity existed and argue that no one can prove this theory right, but no one could prove it wrong, either, and saying that this is reason to believe in said divine object/entity - which is the main point of the satire, namely pointing out that the Invisible Pink Unicorn has all the credibility of God from Theistic beliefs, and that it is no different to believe in the IPU than to believe in God. The IPU's two defining attributes, "invisibility" and "pinkness", are inconsistent and contradictory; this is part of the satire. The paradox of something being invisible yet having visible characteristics (eg. color) is reflected in the mythology of some East Asian cultures, wherein an "invisible red string" is said to connect people who have a shared or linked destiny.

The Invisible Pink Unicorn is a useful teaching tool. In his essay The Dragon in my Garage in his book The Demon-Haunted World: Science As A Candle In the Dark (ISBN 0345409469), Carl Sagan uses the example of an invisible dragon breathing heatless fire that someone claims lives in his garage [1]. The supposed dragon cannot be seen or heard or sensed in any way nor does it leave footprints. We have no reason to believe this purported dragon exists. This raises the question: How does the claimant know that this is a dragon rather than a cat? For that matter, how can we know that the IPU is pink and has one horn instead of a horse with three or zero horns? This observation is suggested in the title of a book by Judith Hayes—In God We Trust: But Which One?

read all: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invisible_Pink_Unicorn

Does God exist? its a probability of 1/2, just as the probability of a man somewhere in the world right now is wearing a green unicorn custume. Usually any probability with no verifiable variables or constraints is considered 1/2. Some will say its undefined, again any probability with no verifiable variable is undefined. Again the probability is also zero as there is no veriable data. Then again he may exist,1. So we know the answer is definately one of the four scenarios, it has to be. Hence we add all four possibilities as
(1/2) + (~)+ (0)+ (1),

which gives 1/2 after subtracting ~ from both sides. This means one of the four is not even the entire answer, the flabbergasting thing I can infer is that half the existence of God is inside you. The biblican scriptures do say he created us in his image; I don't know what that means. Good luck finding God and better luck proving she exists

according to my calculations God's existence is undefined or her existence is both inside and outside us. Either or both of the two is correct amundo

Even though God does exist, what does it to do with us?

Which God? Since we now live in a multiverse, I guess it is more than probable that more advanced life forms exist. In fact its likely there are many Gods.

Do you mean a "maker" who encompasses the entire assembly of parallel universes?

Thats a little hard to swallow but I suppose some creature from a long dead universe might have survived and amassed enough power over trillions of years to be inseparable from a Deity.

I think there is a god and a goddess. It only makes sense because god created us therefore he would want to reflect both sexes. Since god is a he and the goddess is a she they would play differnt roles in our lives. For example the goddess would be about movement and emotion and god would be about expenrincing while the goddess coused the movement. I think the statement everything has a beginning means that when god first created humans that is when our time began.

I think there is a god and a goddess. It only makes sense because god created us therefore he would want to reflect both sexes. Since god is a he and the goddess is a she they would play differnt roles in our lives. For example the goddess would be about movement and emotion and god would be about expenrincing while the goddess coused the movement. I think the statement everything has a beginning means that when god first created humans that is when our time began.

That's an interesting fantasy you have going there, much better than most monotheistic fantasies I've read as it explains the differences between the sexes much better. It doesn't explain why women were not treated as equals throughout history though, as would be expected in your explanation.

Its called free will! a god or goddess cant control the fact that people wanted to undermine women or that is why society choose tothink for a long time. Before in the past there used to followers of the goddess until she was denounced by religious men.

If God is love, why people go to Hell ?

Science cannot prove or disprove a belief. That's not science's realm; skip it.

Muslim, you believe in the big man (what a cool slip from you) who started it all and then disappeared only to let you figure it all out for yourself, whether and why to choose good or evil. Like an abandoned child.

Why do you supposed he just up and left? Boredom? Something better to do? Is he silently testing you so that he can reward you or damn you when you die? Or maybe he, the big man himself, maybe he just up and died.

So what if he never existed? Have you ever allowed yourself to go there? Just you and what is and nothing else?

Everything has a beginning, and so does the universe, firstly lets look at the big ban theory this is the most accurate and well supported ‘scientific’ theory about the origin of the universe. What really is the big bang? According to the big bang, the cosmos was shaped sometime between 10 billion and 20 billion years ago from a cosmic detonation that hurled matter and in all different directions. This was further supported by the discovery of (*1) cosmic background radiation (http://www.damtp.cam.ac.uk/user/gr/public/cmbr_home.html) by Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson (1) I really don’t have the time to explain background radiation so I am adding a hyperlink to it. So basically it comes down our universe (and it’s pretty big, and is also expending (2)) formed out of an uncontrolled explosion. So the age of the universe is 13.7 billion years (3). And the age of the earth is about 4.55 billion years (*2). And we are supposed to believe in that from there everything you see around you just ‘evolved’ from that uncontrolled explosion, intelligent life has taken place. Well what is the probability of that happening? “arbitrariness/chance/randomness” that created the universe, lets get into a little more detail here;
If the Big Bang was definitely such a calamitous explosion then it is logical to suppose that matter should have been spread everywhere at random. And yet it is not. Instead it is organized into planets, and stars, and galaxies, and clusters of galaxies, and super-clusters of galaxies. That the matter shaped by the Big Bang should have created such tidy and organized shapes is indeed an astonishing thing. The occurrence of such synchronization leads us to the consciousness that the universe was the result of its perfect creation by God/Allah.


Let us now make a brief deviation and mull over the coincidence theory of materialism. Coincidence is a mathematical term and the likelihood of an event's occurrence can be calculated using the arithmetic of probability. Let's do so.
http://img359.imageshack.us/img359/8286/untitled3ib.jpg
Taking the physical variables into explanation, what is the likelihood of a universe giving us life coming into continuation by happenstance? Roger Penrose, an illustrious British mathematician and a close friend of Stephen Hawking, wondered about this issue and tried to calculate the likelihood.
Together with what he considered to be all variables required for human beings to exist and live on a planet such as ours, he computed the likelihood of this environment happening among all the feasible results of the Big Bang.
According to Penrose, the odds against such an incidence were on the order of 1010123 to 1.

It is hard even to envisage what this figure means. In math, the value 10123 means 1 followed by 123 zeros. (This is, by the way, more than the total number of atoms 1078 believed to exist in the whole universe.) But Penrose's answer is vastly more than this: It requires 1 followed by 10123 zeros. Or consider: 103 means 1,000, a thousand. 10103 is a number that that has 1 followed by 1000 zeros.
If there are six zeros, it's called a million; if nine, a billion; if twelve, a trillion and so on. There is not even a name for a number that has 1 followed by 10123 zeros.

In practical terms, in mathematics, a probability of 1 in 1050 means "zero probability". Penrose's number is more than trillion trillion trillion times less than that. In short, Penrose's number tells us that the 'accidental" or "coincidental" creation of our universe is an impossibility

Individuals hearing of the Big Bang but not taking into deliberation the subject at extent do not reflect upon what an astonishing plan must lie behind this explosion. That's since the concept of an explosion doesn't hint harmony, preparation, or organization to most individuals. In reality there are a number of very perplexing aspects to the complex order in the Big Bang.
One of these puzzles has to do with the increase of velocity caused by the explosion. When the explosion took place, matter unquestionably must have begun moving at a gargantuan speed in every direction. However there is an additional point that we need to pay consideration to here. There must also have been a very big attractive energy at the first instant of the explosion: an attractive force that was physically powerful enough to draw together the sum total of the universe into one point.
2, diverse and contrasting energy are at work here. The energy of the explosion, driving matter outward and away, and the force of magnetism, trying to resist the initial and pull everything back together. The universe came into being for the reason that these two, forces/energies were in symmetry. If the attractive energy had been greater than the explosive, the universe would have warped. If the conflicting had been factual, matter would have been splattered in every direction in a way never to amalgamate again. Then how receptive was this equilibrium? How much "slack" could there have been among the two forces/energies?

The mathematical physicist Paul Davies, a professor at the University of Adelaide in Australia, performed extensive calculations of the setting that must have existed at the moment of the Big Bang and came up with an end result that can only be described as shocking. According to Davies, if the rate of increase had differed by more than 10-18 seconds one quintillionth of a second, there would have been no universe.

The statistics defining the design and plan of the universe's symmetry play a fundamental role and surpass intellectual capacity. They demonstrate that the universe is by no means the result of a coincidence, and show us how accurate the creator's aim must have been.
In actuality in order to identify that the universe is not a "product of coincidences" one does not in reality need any of these calculations at all. Simply by looking around himself, a person can effortlessly perceive the fact of design in even the tiniest details of what he sees. How could a universe like this, faultless in its systems, the sun, the earth, citizens, houses, cars, trees, flowers, insects, and all the other things in it ever have come into survival as the result of atoms falling together by chance after an explosion? Every element we peer at shows the verification of Allah's existence and absolute power. Only individuals who reflect can grasp these signs.

I am not doing that as I am providing evidence I am not telling anyone here to convert or just start believing in Islam, I provide logical evidence.



Citation:
http://liftoff.msfc.nasa.gov/academy/universe/b_bang.html (1)
http://archive.ncsa.uiuc.edu/Cyberia/Cosmos/ExpandUni.html (2)
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/map_discovery_030211.html (3)

References:
(UK)University of Cambridge (*1)
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-age-of-earth.html (TalkOrigins.org) (*2)Has anybody ever told you that you are a genius?

No?
Well there’s a reason for that.

Imagine the myth that everything evolved being taken seriously when it is far more logical to believe in an intelligent being with no beginning and no reason to be intelligent, to begin with.
It’s almost as ludicrous as believing that everything has a beginning.

“Coincidence” is a word most often used by minds that either have no idea what is going on or are obsessed with finding justifications for their needy desires and already established prejudices.
It’s like me connecting a solar eclipse with an event and believing that it could not have been a mere coincidence that the solar eclipse happened at the moment the event happened. Thusly connecting two independent phenomenon with a string of ignorant superstition.

I wonder what the odds are of a spontaneously existing entity to spring into existence with an intelligence that had no purpose and no reason to exist and who then found it necessary to add to his perfection by creating imperfections he tested and offered eternity to if they adhered to his rules.
But how does omniscience test when it already knows the results before he even begins testing?
How does perfection even entertain the notion of imperfection and how does goodness even come up with the idea of evil?

Whenever I listen to someone talk about absolute power, absolute good, absolute knowledge, or absolute anything I always think about absolute stupidity first.
It’s one of those absolutes, like the Vodka, you can always count on to inebriate your mind.

The only comforting thing about stupidity is that it absolutely pays for itself, even when it thinks it is being rewarded with virgins and lands of milk and honey. It becomes a victim to itself.
Stupidity dies in the soothing embrace of absolute oblivion and the last thing it thinks as it releases itself to the delusions of its fears is how special it is and how much it deserves recompense for its suffering and sacrifices.

Ok we got here on earth, somehow it doesnt matter how, or why, there may be a reason there may be not. Look at the universe as a system. Everything that happens in the universe is within the system. god is outside of the system. You are within the system therefore you can not explain what happens outside the system. On another note, numbers can be manipulated it the favor of ones opinion read the book probability by asimov. Lastly i would like to adress your reasoning for this post. What exactly are you trying to prove hear im sure no one is going to read your post and say to themseleves "o shit god exists im an idiot" Or do you post this because you get some sick satisfaction by provoking people. I would like to add one more thing you will never accomplish anything by saying stupid shit like this, you can never change how any one believes. Because you might think you know how the universe was formed but you dont deep down in your mind you have no clue but you need to convince yourself just so you can sleep at night. You are Pathetic.

I get it. The universe is too complex to happen by accident. Some character called allah, Baal, god, Shiva, whatever must have created it.

Now in my experience, every object, device, whatever is simpler than the designer/creator of the object. Hence, the creator of the universe must be more complex than the universe or anything in it.

Hence allah, god whatever must have had a creator. The creator of the universe is too complex to have just happened by chance. He/she/it is too complex to have evolved. Hence there had to be a creator of allah/god.

The creator of allah/god must be more complex than allah/god. Hence, there must have been a creator of the creator of the universe. There seems to be an infinite series of creators, like the infinite number of transfinite numbers proposed by Cantor. In that hierarchy of creators, allah/god seem like the least important & least complex. Just as man is less important than his creator, so allah/god is less important than his/her/its creator and the rest of the creators.

If I decide to give up my atheist beliefs, I think I will worship one the of the super creators instead of the least important creator. Perhaps if I die in his/her/its service I will not only get rewarded with a bunch of virgins, I will also be given the sexual potency to satisfy them all.

nice one, Dinosaur :D

Perhaps if I die in his/her/its service I will not only get rewarded with a bunch of virgins, I will also be given the sexual potency to satisfy them all.

No, in their vision of heaven you don't actually get to have carnal knowledge of these willing, nubile virgins, you just sort of get to hang out with them and drink in their purity. Or Something like that.

The universe deceives us by our perception of size, to us the universe is vast unimaginable space - but in actuality it is a cell amongst a trillion trillion others that reproduces itself in our god's body. One day it will be scratched and killed and there will be 100 more replace it. Time is irrelevant as well as we measure it according to our size. We are a cell on the hair of an arm of a god who is the cell on one greater...and on.

Perhaps if I die in his/her/its service I will not only get rewarded with a bunch of virgins, I will also be given the sexual potency to satisfy them all.
Well, they must be virgins or there would be a problem, as you have said.
Funny, to think it isn't about receiving pure things to own for yourself (which is bad enough), but about maintaining a continued egoic pleasure experience, without a hitch, as you have pointed out.
I am sure this 40 virgins thing must be some type of propaganda, pointing out the folly of a doctrine which real muslims (the sufi's for example) would not accept. An afterlife with a bunch of virgins is not compatible with a person's self being extinguished, like a moth and flame - the goal of the sufi mystic.

Many people eventually get past the point where probabilities are accepted as proof given from one to another of God's existence, and see that God, does not function in a way that allows, in the end, a person's faith to be recycled from outside sources.
Many people cannot accept something that is not verified by other people and their experiences and understanding, and this prevents them from getting past this rest stop on the path.
When we understand that our philosophical and moral decisions, not just the ideas of a relation to God, are made with the light we have inside of our own minds, we will have a better arena within which to evaluate our ideas on God. One in which fundamentalist hatreds and conceitedness are not part of the game.

- free thoughts

You make it sound like as if am a crazy loon with crazy imaginary gods.
Is it bad that this made me chuckle?

our god is beyond our universe so the same laws of creation don't apply to him.
What an oddly convenient loophole.

What an oddly convenient loophole.

I laughed at that. It's great.. when there is no obvious answer or provable line of reasoning, it's because God cannot be understood. Great.

I am going to go through the 20 some odd notebooks of ideas and notes I got.. see if I can find the "proof of God" I got.. it's all logically sound, but one or two premises can be debated.. nonetheless, it's logically sound :)

nice article muslim, keep up good work.
If by "good work", you mean "plagiarism and blatant lying", way to fail.

Ah ha.. here it is.

St. Thomas Aquince, 13th Century Theologian & Philosopher.

Basically this guy set out to create a real proof for a higher being not based on the Bible or faith.

1) Everything that we are aware of is contingent (subject to change). That is, everything come to being, everything ends.

2) Time stretches infinitly into the past and the future

3) In an infinite amount of time everything that could happen, will happen.

4) Therefore, there must have been a time when nothing contingent existed (no physical universe)

5) Something cannot come from nothing

6) Two kinds of existances: contingent and necessary

7) We have run out of contingent being to derive the universe because of point number 5.

8) Necessary being is only left as the source of everything else

9) Therefore, contingent being had to have come from necessary being

10) We may, if we choose, call this necessary being God.

The guy that made this argument points out that he only demonstrated the existance of SOMETHING necessary, and that the nature of this being is unknown.

Ah ha.. here it is.

St. Thomas Aquince, 13th Century Theologian & Philosopher.

Basically this guy set out to create a real proof for a higher being not based on the Bible or faith.

Okay, I'll say up front there's a lot I don't know. But here's my first reaction to this.

1) Everything that we are aware of is contingent (subject to change). That is, everything come to being, everything ends.

I'll buy the first part. But how does that mean everything starts/ends?
And what about the things we are NOT aware of?

2) Time stretches infinitly into the past and the future

yes, probably. I'd hate to try to prove it

3) In an infinite amount of time everything that could happen, will happen.

Okay, let's assume that's true. Then it is also true that everything will happen multiple times, even an infinite number of times. My reasoning: if everything happens that's possible, then that must be a finite number of events. At some point in time, all of those events have occurred (I wonder if that was yesterday :) ). After they've all occured, every subsequent event is a repeat of a previous event. At some later point in time, everything must have occurred twice (don't know if I can prove that). In an infinite time, everything must happen an infinite number of times.

4) Therefore, there must have been a time when nothing contingent existed (no physical universe)


Yes, I think this follows from #1 above. From my own meanderings on #3, in fact, there would be an infinite number of times, when nothing contingent existed.

5) Something cannot come from nothing

Again, considering my previous thoughts, something did come from nothing, many times; and will again, many times.

6) Two kinds of existances: contingent and necessary

Not sure what's being said here. From above, "Everything that we are aware of is contingent." So does "necessary" here refer to something we are NOT aware of? Also, if we are not aware of anything except contingent existences, how do we know how many non-contingent kinds of existences there are? Why only "necessary?"

7) We have run out of contingent being to derive the universe because of point number 5.

I confess I don't follow this one at all ("We have run out of contingent being..."). However, in my line of reasoning #5 is invalidated anyway (via #3).

8) Necessary being is only left as the source of everything else

Maybe I'd understand this if I understood #7

9) Therefore, contingent being had to have come from necessary being

ditto

10) We may, if we choose, call this necessary being God.

ditto

The guy that made this argument points out that he only demonstrated the existance of SOMETHING necessary, and that the nature of this being is unknown.

Wish I had something intelligent to say after #7. Oh well, if everything happens that's possible, then sooner or later I guess I will. :)

Believers are in such a mess; they know rational thinking demonstrably delineates and explains the material world for them, but when they use logic to justify what they have faith in, they stumble big time. They'd be better off saying, "I believe because I just do." In the modern world, that's a pretty lame reason, but that's their best retort.

Bruce, I would not know how to strongly defend any point, I am just giving everyone the proof I found in my notebooks of "misc shit." hehe.

The biggest debate come from #4, as it's the conclusion of 1, 2, and 3. And many cannot see the connections or whether or not they are true.

4) Therefore, there must have been a time when nothing contingent existed (no physical universe)

The time when nothing exists could be in the infinite future, not necessarily in the past.

But basically this argument contradicts itself. It says all circumstances will be fulfilled in an infinite time span, and also that all circumstances cannot be fulfilled.

I am confused that this was ever considered a sound argument - i must not be reading it right.

Also, what is the definition of "everything that could happen"? This is quite vague.

It could be both ways. The argument makes sense to me, but I could have wrote it down wrong. :confused:

Believers are in such a mess; they know rational thinking demonstrably delineates and explains the material world for them, but when they use logic to justify what they have faith in, they stumble big time. They'd be better off saying, "I believe because I just do." In the modern world, that's a pretty lame reason, but that's their best retort.

couldn't have put it better myself.

I personally believe faith waa introduced at a time when laws did not govern people, and when there where no authorities to uphold any lkaws even if they had been in place. At this point people used religion as a way to control people in a way that did not require authority, it literally "put the fear of god/allah in them". I mean look at the 10 commandments.

Another point is if you ran around today claiming you had spoken to god and he had told you to do this and that, the chances are they would lock you up and throw away the key, and keep you in a room with padded walls. However in biblical times these people were regarded as great prophets!!

Anyway, there is no sicence or supporting evidence and just personal opinion in my arguements so by my own standards that makes it a bad post, but i am gonna post it anyway because i have spent the last 5 minutes writing it

3) In an infinite amount of time everything that could happen, will happen.Not true. At 1:05pm (UK time) exactly today I could drop my pen on the floor.
It won't happen.
Even in an infinite amount of time - it won't happen - because as soon as that precise moment has passed it will never be back.

There - the time has gone - and I did not drop my pen.

Not true. At 1:05pm (UK time) exactly today I could drop my pen on the floor.
It won't happen.
Even in an infinite amount of time - it won't happen - because as soon as that precise moment has passed it will never be back.

There - the time has gone - and I did not drop my pen.

Perhaps it is not possible to have happened at that specific time.. but maybe billions of years from now you somehow exist again and you drop your pen at that exact place.

I think what the premise assumes is that the universe is like a closed-in system that is in motion... as you can see, in this box anything that can happen will happen. You are missing the point.

Somehow I think he didn't mean anything that could happen would happen, speaking in that manner, because at some point there are things that COULD happen which contradict each other and therefore all things that could happen CAN'T happen, if you understand what I am saying - even if the human race were never to die out, by some miracle, the human race could not both continue the production of nuclear weapons forever and also stop producing nuclear weapons, although both of those scenarios COULD occur. EDIT - unless he was talking about mulitiple dimensions and universes???? prob not.

The pen mentioned above is a specific example of why this statement of things that could happen is poorly defined, by us, if not by aquinas in his head.

P.S. For non-believers and believers, most, if not all, philosophical ideas and moral arguments in the end come down to, "because i think that makes sense".
Don't fool yourself into thinking ethics or philosophy are hard sciences when performed by non-believers, that is a joke.

Okay, now that god’s existence has been proven let’s prove the existence of Leprechauns.
I suspect some of the same reasoning is involved

Okay, now that god’s existence has been proven let’s prove the existence of Leprechauns.
I suspect some of the same reasoning is involved
how original

Muslim,

You would be the first genius I ever heard who was not concerned with how others perceive the quality of his writings. Or maybe you stumbled upon some new design drug that supercedes crack cocaine.

This proof is contingent on the Big Bang theory but there is still insufficient evidence to make even that scientifically valid. First, I am no genius like you but I have what is called common sense. In the event that the universe was not the result of the Big Bang but rather something more contradictory and widely accepted by scientists, in which case it is not the result of anything but rather always existing, then life becomes inevitable and probability of it is 100%. I say this with hesitation since the sciforum physicists might turn around and tell me "well physical infinities are an absurdity." I don't know whether the infinity is a mutli-verse or just on big empty hole, but either way it seems to be more scientifically favorable.

To reiterate on some comments already made, the omnipotent intelligence would seem to have no purpose let alone compatibility within such a universe. But I guess we could just go off on a limb and say that such an intelligence is so vast that, what seems to be purely senseless and unreasonable is part of the nature that makes it limitless.

Somehow I think he didn't mean anything that could happen would happen, speaking in that manner, because at some point there are things that COULD happen which contradict each other and therefore all things that could happen CAN'T happen, if you understand what I am saying - even if the human race were never to die out, by some miracle, the human race could not both continue the production of nuclear weapons forever and also stop producing nuclear weapons, although both of those scenarios COULD occur. EDIT - unless he was talking about mulitiple dimensions and universes???? prob not.

The pen mentioned above is a specific example of why this statement of things that could happen is poorly defined, by us, if not by aquinas in his head.

P.S. For non-believers and believers, most, if not all, philosophical ideas and moral arguments in the end come down to, "because i think that makes sense".
Don't fool yourself into thinking ethics or philosophy are hard sciences when performed by non-believers, that is a joke.

I wouldn't know what it means for something that could happen versus could not happen. It's just a premise that is true or false. To me, it's a true statement. How it is true, I don't know. But like others, I sense a flaw it in somewhere, most likely having to do with the first conclusion (#4).

I for one don't know which side to stand on. But for argument's sake, I am probably going to argue for this "proof of a higher being." When I get around to it, is just a matter of when I have the energy to really debate anything. Lately I have just been too drained to do anything constructive. :(

Satyr: You cannot use the same proof for leprechauns. A leprechaun proof requires being in an Irish pub, talking with a brogue, and first consuming at least a pint of Irish whiskey.Okay, now that god’’s existence has been proven let’’s prove the existence of Leprechauns.

I suspect some of the same reasoning is involved My ancestors came from Wales, making me closer to being Irish than most of you who post here. I was unable to understand the proofs for the existence of Leprechauns, but I listened intently and know that those proofs were not like the proofs presented here for the existence of god/allah. Perhaps if I had been drinking Irish whiskey, I would have better understood what Pat & Mike were talking about. I drank Blush Zinfandel with dinner and had Irish cream liquor in my coffee afterwards.

My Chinese/English date was drinking Irish whiskey, and said that Pat & Mike sounded very convincing and that she now believed in leprechauns. She then said that if I disagreed with her new belief, I could go home and she would take Pat and/or Mike back to her apartment. I suddenly realized that I believed in leprechauns.

Perhaps Muslim and others would be more convincing if they included some Chinese philosophy in their proofs.

BTW: While it might be considered politically incorrect and racist, I think that Eurasian women are incredibly beautiful and desirable.

I've not read the responses of everyone else to your post so sorry if I'm repeating some of you.

I myself am a Christian... I wont bother explaining what I believe since you all know. I'm just saying this so you don't think I'm criticising religion.

But there are a few things that mean you don't have proof of divine creation.

Firstly although the chances of the universe suddenly existing and supporting life are slim, it has had an eternity to take place, so at some point, it would have come into being.

Secondly you seem to be influenced by the evidence of design argument. I believe it was William Pailey who came up with the analogy of the watch to explain how there's "evidence" of design in the universe. However this supposed design can be explained by evolution and how over time relationships have formed between certain organisms and their environment e.g. how some flowers are dependant on insects for reproduction.

As well as this you mentioned that everything has a cause. This relates to St Augustine’s cosmological argument where he claimed God is the "prime mover" that started the universe. In simple terms imagine someone knocking over dominoes - God would be the one who knocks the first one down. I happen to agree with this since logically there has to be something timeless to start the universe. You can't get something from nothing therefore something must have always existed.

Firstly although the chances of the universe suddenly existing and supporting life are slim, it has had an eternity to take place, so at some point, it would have come into being.

Before you read my paragraph, let me just say I read your statements incorrectly... but I am going to leave mine as support :) Sorry.

How could it be improbable for life to form? Do you realize how much energy is in the universe? How much matter? How much "random" motion there is? It is so great that given enough time, something might happen. Given the universe is probably around 12 billion years ago, there was 8 billion or so between the creation of everything and the formation of Earth and our solar system. That's a LOT of time for much to happen.

Secondly you seem to be influenced by the evidence of design argument. I believe it was William Pailey who came up with the analogy of the watch to explain how there's "evidence" of design in the universe. However this supposed design can be explained by evolution and how over time relationships have formed between certain organisms and their environment e.g. how some flowers are dependant on insects for reproduction.

As well as this you mentioned that everything has a cause. This relates to St Augustine’s cosmological argument where he claimed God is the "prime mover" that started the universe. In simple terms imagine someone knocking over dominoes - God would be the one who knocks the first one down. I happen to agree with this since logically there has to be something timeless to start the universe. You can't get something from nothing therefore something must have always existed.[/QUOTE]

Yea, I guess you and I agree. Unless you say something that diverges, thanks amigo :cool:

I for one cannot decide either way as to whether or not there is a higher being. To me, it's about a leap of faith if one wants to believe, but then again there is no way for us to truly know. Even in death, it's possible we just rot in the ground and that's it.. no heaven or hell.

Like, imagine you created an ant farm... you are the ants' god. When the ants die, do you have a heaven for them? Did you create any after life for them? No. Perhaps we are "God's" toy or hobby.

I've not read the responses of everyone else to your post so sorry if I'm repeating some of you.

I myself am a Christian... I wont bother explaining what I believe since you all know. I'm just saying this so you don't think I'm criticising religion.

But there are a few things that mean you don't have proof of divine creation.

Firstly although the chances of the universe suddenly existing and supporting life are slim, it has had an eternity to take place, so at some point, it would have come into being.

Secondly you seem to be influenced by the evidence of design argument. I believe it was William Pailey who came up with the analogy of the watch to explain how there's "evidence" of design in the universe. However this supposed design can be explained by evolution and how over time relationships have formed between certain organisms and their environment e.g. how some flowers are dependant on insects for reproduction.

As well as this you mentioned that everything has a cause. This relates to St Augustine’s cosmological argument where he claimed God is the "prime mover" that started the universe. In simple terms imagine someone knocking over dominoes - God would be the one who knocks the first one down. I happen to agree with this since logically there has to be something timeless to start the universe. You can't get something from nothing therefore something must have always existed.
Good post, Phasmid! :)
I especially like your dominoes analogy. I'll have to put some thought into it. I like it because the beginning could be small, very small, infinitesimally small. And because it accepts evolution.

Regarding the belief that "... everything has a cause," I believe that. But I am undecided a bit, because I can't imagine a "first cause." But without a beginning, the universe must have existed forever. And I can't imagine that either.

"Everything has a cause" suggests determinism and denies free-will. Think about it before you say "I believe that," Bruce.

Isn't free will just a 'cause of the gaps'?

:confused:

What?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_of_the_gaps

Aren't you using free will as a 'plug in' for things that don't seem to have causes? :p

Not me. What I go by is this: if we cannot explain something, we don't know all the causes. But there is at least one cause, and it can be explained by at least one other causes

Isn't "there is at least one cause" the same as "everything has a cause"? (Sorry if that's what you were saying from the start...)

Yes it is, but what I am saying is that we do not know how many causes there may be for a single event, but we do know there is at least one cause (it's the mathematician in me).

So you don't hold with free will? Sorry, I thought you were using free will to deny causality :p

Although, even if we assume a cause for everything, there's no guarantee we can determine that cause...

Well, if you want I could argue for free-will... but I will find it much harder to do than it is to argue determinism. I like picking sides that will cause debate... Very rarely is anything accomplished when two people engage in intellectual incest.

"Everything has a cause" suggests determinism and denies free-will. Think about it before you say "I believe that," Bruce.
It's true. :) I don't believe we, or anything, has "free will." I don't know that I believe in Determinism. At least not when it's defined as the future being fixed. I think that there is at least some random factor so that the result of every action is not absolutely fixed.

The best description of Free Will the way I see it is in a post by "Ocelot" in another forum altogether. It's brilliantly written! Here's a link:

http://myreality.churchofreality.org/index.php?s=&showtopic=768&view=findpost&p=9459

Let me know if the link doesn't work for you. I'm a member of that forum and I don't know if it's directly linkable from a non-member.

Very rarely is anything accomplished when two people engage in intellectual incest.
So that's why I assumed a meaning I could disagree with...

Well, free will or not, I'll pretend I have some and go to sleep.

Everything has a beginning.

Let's take this claim by claim Muslim. Please demonstrate that everything has a beginning. Might I ask for evidence where the laws of physics has a beginning?

So that's why I assumed a meaning I could disagree with...

Well, free will or not, I'll pretend I have some and go to sleep.

Yea. I am just a hypocrite when it comes to things I argue and believe. I pretend I have free-will, too.

Bruce In Time: The link you provided led to an interesting and lucid discussion of free will, determinism, theism, et cetera.

One small nit I want to pick with the author of that discussion.The Uncertainty principle is not a claim about problems with making precise measurements. It is a claim that a quantum particle cannot have both a precise position and a precise momentum at the same time. It is not related to the obvious fact that measurement apparatus must have some effect on the object being measured, with the effect causing extreme problems with quantum particles.

The effects of measurement apparatus on extremely small particles was known long before quantum theory or the Uncertainty Principle. The Principle would not be a big deal if it merely referred to technological difficulties in making precise measurements.Read about Bose Einstein condensates as experimental evidence that atoms with very precisely known momentum have blurred locations. It is an interesting thought experiment to contemplate the effects of reaching absolute zero temperature. The effects due to getting very close are surprising and counter intuitive.

I like to believe that I have free will, but do not think I can provide a convincing argument supporting the view.

When I learned about Quantum Theory, I was glad that it undermined the classical concept of a deterministic universe. Free will and a deterministic universe seem to be opposing concepts. One cannot be valid if the other is. Even a universe deterministic in principle (and unpredictable in practice) is incompatible with free will.

At least free will is not in direct opposition to a probabilistic universe.

BTW: I believe that if it were possible to rewind the universe to the exact state of 100 years ago, the history of the previous hundred years would not be repeated, with the deviations getting larger as each year was repeated. I cannot believe that probabilistic laws are compatible with a universe that would repeat if rewound to a former state.

I assume that I do not jump off high buildings or engage in other risky behavior because I consider it irrational to do so, not because I have no choice in the decision. Running my life based on a belief in free will seems to have resulted in decisions which mostly worked out well. I wonder if those who deny free will behave irrationally and make a larger number of what I consider to be bad decisions.

...Read about Bose Einstein condensates as experimental evidence that atoms with very precisely known momentum have blurred locations. It is an interesting thought experiment to contemplate the effects of reaching absolute zero temperature. The effects due to getting very close are surprising and counter intuitive.


The Bose Einstein Condensate really freaks me out (in a good way). It is a superposition which can be directly observed which almost sounds paradoxical. Bless those tiny super-cold atoms.

I like to believe that I have free will, but do not think I can provide a convincing argument supporting the view.

When I learned about Quantum Theory, I was glad that it undermined the classical concept of a deterministic universe. Free will and a deterministic universe seem to be opposing concepts. One cannot be valid if the other is. Even a universe deterministic in principle (and unpredictable in practice) is incompatible with free will.

At least free will is not in direct opposition to a probabilistic universe.

BTW: I believe that if it were possible to rewind the universe to the exact state of 100 years ago, the history of the previous hundred years would not be repeated, with the deviations getting larger as each year was repeated. I cannot believe that probabilistic laws are compatible with a universe that would repeat if rewound to a former state.

I assume that I do not jump off high buildings or engage in other risky behavior because I consider it irrational to do so, not because I have no choice in the decision. Running my life based on a belief in free will seems to have resulted in decisions which mostly worked out well. I wonder if those who deny free will behave irrationally and make a larger number of what I consider to be bad decisions.

Dinosaur: Good post! :)

Glad you enjoyed the Church of Reality post (by Ocelot) on determinism and free will as well. I just read parts of it again and it just really blows me away. You're exactly right in calling it lucid.

I agree with you in that I favor the idea that the universe is probabilistic.

Here's an excerpt from Ocelot's essay:


A belief in a non deterministic universe is not incompatible with either belief in free will or the belief that free will is an illusion so here we are again at the poker table though this time we are in a non deterministic universe. As such when we rewind time we do not end up with every photon and electron in exactly the same location because the photons and electron do not have exact locations. I get to make that decision again but this time the deterministic laws of physics have not determined the outcome. There is the possibility that the outcome would be different. However just because Newtonian Physics has not determined the outcome doesn't mean that the outcome hasn't been determined by other means. There were factors in the decision making process that I was not completely aware of. I called that intuition but what if instead it was post hypnotic suggestion, the guiding hand of a controlling deity or simply better poker players manipulating my thought processes.


The key phrase I want to discuss is, "However just because Newtonian Physics has not determined the outcome doesn't mean that the outcome hasn't been determined by other means."

I believe that the outcome IS determined by other means. Well, of course it's determined by something in one sense of the word. But here I think he means more or less "pre-determined." Or as I would think of it: "pre-probabilized." :) Okay, not a sensible word. But another way to put it is that the probabilities for certain results/action/etc. are being set up and modified all the time. By the time my mouth opens to speak, the probability of what I will say (not to mention the set of options we choose from) has gone through the filters of inheritance, up-bringing, formal and informal training, a life-time of experience, the climate you live in, today's and yesterday's weather, all our previous thoughts! As well as what's-happening-right-this-second as we perceive it.

And whether or not all those outside and inside influences were set up in a fixed timeline or in a probabilistic universe, they still end up being perhaps the 99.9999...% of the reason that when my mouth is open, out comes, for example, "Oh." There's an awful lot of history that went into that "Oh"!

And frankly, I lean toward calling that 100%. Because if there's any tiny percentage NOT covered by all the things I tried to imply (with my above list), where did THAT come from? I mean what else is there? I think the totality of our physical and mental experience comes from our mental and physical contact with the universe. Who "we" are is a product of everything that went in.
"Garbage in, garbage out", right?
"You are what you eat."
"What goes around, comes around."

If you want a bottom line: That 0% or .9999% is the room that's left in which free will could exist. I don't think we have it.

Well, that was a bit more than I intended to say. :)

Muslim, first off, quantum physics blows your argument out of the water, but taking that out of the equation, your argument is still weak.

If the Big Bang was definitely such a calamitous explosion then it is logical to suppose that matter should have been spread everywhere at random. And yet it is not. Instead it is organized into planets, and stars, and galaxies, and clusters of galaxies, and super-clusters of galaxies. That the matter shaped by the Big Bang should have created such tidy and organized shapes is indeed an astonishing thing. The occurrence of such synchronization leads us to the consciousness that the universe was the result of its perfect creation by God/Allah.

First off, for matter to spread everywhere and be evenly spaced, the explosion would have had to be perfectly symmetrical. The slightest possible irregularity would make particle A closer to particle B then to particle C, and then Particle A would be attracted to particle B through gravity, hence starting a clustering process that ends up as we see it now. This isn't tidy and organized, but for the molecules to all be perfectly evenly spaced with all forces in equilibrium would be. Thats what we would call zero probability.

Taking the physical variables into explanation, what is the likelihood of a universe giving us life coming into continuation by happenstance? Roger Penrose, an illustrious British mathematician and a close friend of Stephen Hawking, wondered about this issue and tried to calculate the likelihood.
Together with what he considered to be all variables required for human beings to exist and live on a planet such as ours, he computed the likelihood of this environment happening among all the feasible results of the Big Bang.
According to Penrose, the odds against such an incidence were on the order of 1010123 to 1.

Like someone already said, you really don't calculate the probability after it happened. Sure, penrose is right (mabye, I haven't looked deeper), but it doesn't change anything. What are the chances that I poured exactly 1,530,765,365,889,132,666,143,544 molecules of water into my tea this morning, and, on top of that, walked exactly 14.894756328364826 feet to the table? Would you be terribly surprised if I did? No, not really.

How could a universe like this, faultless in its systems, the sun, the earth, citizens, houses, cars, trees, flowers, insects, and all the other things in it ever have come into survival as the result of atoms falling together by chance after an explosion?

Well, gravity pulls them together and forms planets stars ect. That much is mere physics. One of the planets happens to be the right distance from its sun, not that unlikely, and have the right ingrediants. The part I have trouble with is how we went from molecules to cells, but it has something to do with amino acids ect. After that, it is a matter of evolution. evolution is undeniable. Mabye you can deny that we came from evolution, but you can't deny that it happens. If you do, then you are truly an idiot. Just look at fossil records.