Scientists and believe beyond ourself

Discussion in 'Religion' started by timojin, Apr 27, 2016.

  1. timojin Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    3,252
    To be a scientist do you have to believe in nothing ?
    By J. Matt Barber | April 26, 2016 | 2:30 PM EDT
    Atheists attribute all of existence to, well, nothing. It just kind of happened. Genesis 1:1 of the materialist bible might read: “In the beginning nothing created the heavens and the earth.” Even in the material world that’s just plain silly. Nothing plus nothing equals something? Zero times zero equals everything?
    And so, they have “reasoned” themselves into a corner. These same materialists acknowledge that, prior to the moment of singularity – the Big Bang – there was no “natural.” They admit that there was an unnatural time and place before natural time and space – that something, sometime, somewhere preceded the material universe. That which preceded the natural was, necessarily, “beyond the natural” and, therefore, was, is and forever shall be “supernatural.
    http://www.cnsnews.com/commentary/j...h-even-science-may-eventually-catch-gods-word
     
    ajanta likes this.
  2. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  3. paddoboy Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    27,543

    While certainly getting one's head around the fact that the Universe could well have evolved from nothing, is counter intuitive and apparently against what could normally be called logic and common sense, to then extent that to another counter intuitive step, [god did it] with the same supposed properties against logic and common sense, is just taking it further into the mire.
    But hey, I'll let probably the greatest educator of our time tell you what I'm trying to convey to you.




    And before you go off half cocked, no Carl Sagan was not an Atheist.
     
  4. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  5. Daecon Kiwi fruit Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    3,133
    Well I'm convinced.

    I'm going to convert to Hinduism.

    That's the result that the creationists wanted, wasn't it?
     
  6. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  7. Schmelzer Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    5,003
    Indeed, plain silly. But, on the other hand, it has also nothing to do with science.

    Science is, up to now, able to describe what has happened starting from some time ago. What has happened before this moment is simply unknown. The theories about the universe which we have fail to predict what was before.

    Once scientists do not claim to know everything, they cannot tell what has happened before.

    Every scientist is free to believe whatever he likes about what has happened before. All he is obliged to is not to claim that such unbased beliefs are science.
     
    exchemist likes this.
  8. James R Just this guy, you know? Staff Member

    Messages:
    39,397
    I think you'll find that most atheists consider the reason for existence to be an unsolved problem. But we're working on it.

    If you'd like to read a good account of "nothing", you could do worse than read Lawrence Krauss's book A Universe from Nothing.

    No. It's more complicated than that. For a start, there's the problem that time supposedly started at the big bang, so asking what came before the big bang is kind of like asking what is north of the North pole.

    If it turns out that something like the multiverse exists, it will be a natural multiverse, not a supernatural one.
     
  9. exchemist Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    12,451
    Well if you want to get your information about cosmology from a retired professional boxer, good luck to you: http://www.cnsnews.com/author/j-matt-barber

    (I wonder what you think about "Every muslim will bow before Jesus"......but that's by the by.)

    Seriously, the trouble with these people is they are so comprehensively ignorant, about science and its limits, about the arguments for and against atheism and even, frankly, about Christian theology.

    1) Atheism is not a product of science. Science is unable to pronounce on the existence or non-existence of an entity for which there is no objective evidence, such as most conceptions of God - except to say that there is no objective evidence for it, obviously. Science limits itself to the study of the natural world. Anything said to be "supernatural" is outside the scope of science to consider. Plenty of scientifically trained people are religious believers. And plenty of people with no science background are atheist. And plenty of both are agnostic.

    2) Big Bang cosmology does not say there was something called "unnatural" time and space before the Big Bang. This clown has just made that up. Big Bang cosmology, being science, is a theory based on evidence (cosmic background radiation etc). It cannot and does not try to explain what was "before" the Big Bang, because the evidence does not tell us. Just as evolution cannot and does not try to explain the origin of life, contrary to what creationists choose to tell one another.

    So, the answer to your question is No. It is not necessary to believe in nothing in order to be a scientist.

    (But, if you have nothing much in your head, possibly as a result of too many boxing matches, you most certainly can be a homophobic preacher of the Religious Right, of course.

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

    )
     
  10. Billy T Use Sugar Cane Alcohol car Fuel Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    23,198
    Things come from nothing millions of times each second - I. e. electron/positron pairs from the vacuum. That violates conservation of energy, which can only be done for the brief period allowed by the uncertainty principle. (delta E delta T product version). However, if they "pop into existence" near the event horizon of a Black Hole, one member of the pair may fall inside, leaving the other with out a partner to cancel out to nothingness again.

    That is how the universe got started, but of course there was no Black Hole. Instead there was the "inflation" that separated the positive energy from the equal amount of negative energy before they could entirely re-combine to zero energy again. (Zero total energy still.) Matter and EM radiation came from the positive energy and the negative energy, is more commonly called "Dark Energy" now. More details at: http://www.sciforums.com/threads/proof-there-is-a-god.152686/page-54#post-3376067
    and at:
    http://www.sciforums.com/threads/proof-there-is-a-god.152686/page-48#post-3375068 but this earlier post does not have this graphic:

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

    which tells the story, but the period called "Dark Ages" was only without visible light.
    There was very intense gamma rays, that have now greatly increased their wave lengths and are called the "cosmic background radiation."

    SUMMARY: A whole unverse came from nothing without the help of any prexisting agent. (Which explains nothing. - That unsupported postulate just moves the question "Where did it all come from?" back one stage.) Science has answered the question: "Where did the universe come from?"
     
    Last edited: Apr 27, 2016
  11. Yazata Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    5,902
    I don't know what 'believe in nothing' means. To believe in the existence of 'nothing' as if it was a kind of something? That suggests logical problems. (I think that physicists such as Krauss are prone to that error.)

    Or to have no beliefs at all? Scientists believe in no end of things, from the existence of the glassware on their laboratory benches to the mathematics that many of them lean on so heavily.

    I'm an atheist, I guess, when it comes to the personalized deities of the world's religious traditions. I certainly don't believe in the literal existence of Yahweh or Allah (or Vishnu, Shiva, Krishna, Brahma or whatever.) I'm inclined to believe that whatever Christians, Muslims, Jews and theistic Hindus refer to when they use the English word 'God' doesn't exist as anything more than a human concept, a fictional character in effect.

    But then there are the philosophical functions often associated by philosophical theology with the 'God' concept, like the reason that existence exists in the first place, what the 'first cause' was, what exists most fundamentally and can't be reduced to anything more basic, why the universe has the kind of order that it does, and similar questions. I'm a strong agnostic with regards to those. I don't know the answers and I don't think that any human being does. I'm not all that confident that humans ever will.
     
    Last edited: Apr 27, 2016
  12. timojin Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    3,252
    So where did the universe come from . What is the answer ?
     
  13. Ophiolite Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    9,232
    So far there is no answer, only the question. Does that bother you?
     
  14. birch Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    5,077
    I agree humans will probably never know everything, even in the future.

    Existentially and fundamentally, we dont know whats around the corner just as an ant on the ground.

    We dont know how many layers the onion has and no one will most likely get through most or all to know how or why. But we can only analyze processes for some clues but only a fraction of the picture. As in we really dont even know what the universe 'is' or if its part of something larger for another reason etc.
     
  15. timojin Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    3,252
    If you know you don't ask question . Perhaps some will have some reasonable answer based on some working experience .
     
  16. timojin Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    3,252
    I agree with your first line .
    You have read read it , so you are recommending it in a sarcastic manner
    According to your third line , for me it would be better sayid time zero is arbitrary after the process have started
    How it started we just plainly don't know and not get on the bandwagon and support some fancy theory and call your self a scientist .
     
  17. Yazata Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    5,902
    It may or may not bother Timojin, I don't know.

    It doesn't bother me. I'm an agnostic about the big metaphysical questions.

    The problem I see is that physicists playing metaphysician like Krauss and BillyT think that they do possess the answer. Krauss is associated with the so-called 'new atheists' and wants his readers to believe that "science" has solved the 'something from nothing' question by replacing 'God' with 'quantum fluctuations'. I think that his motivation is to defeat that traditional theistic argument.

    Of course, imagining 'nothing' as if it was a quantum vacuum in which pair-production occurs, and imagining the formalism of quantum mechanics as being applicable to absolute non-existence, seems to me to beg no end of questions.

    That's why I think that physics is out of its depth when it tries to address the 'something from nothing' question. Any explanatory principle that physics appeals to in answering the question, whether it's quantum mechanics or anything else, is part of the 'something' that needs to be explained. So any attempt by physics to answer the question can only be circular.
     
  18. Ophiolite Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    9,232
    Will you please answer my post please. Does it bother you that we do not have an answer to the origin of the universe?
     
  19. timojin Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    3,252
    It does not bother me at all . I am happy on this planet which we have plenty to learn
     
  20. cosmictraveler Be kind to yourself always. Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    33,264

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

     
  21. exchemist Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    12,451
    Agree with the last bit - seems to me it is pure speculation, without any predictions as to what observation could possibly validate it.
     
  22. C C Consular Corps - "the backbone of diplomacy" Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    3,320
    Scientists don't view the world as lawless or unregulated. They just don't conceive those principles or general tendencies as a personhood that could sport the emergent interests of even lesser biological entities, much less those of humans.
     
  23. wellwisher Banned Banned

    Messages:
    5,160
    At the speed of light, space-time contracts to a point-instant. This is special relativity 1.0. At the speed of light, the fabric of space-time comes undone to form separated threads of distance and threads of time. If we follow a time thread without the constraint of distance, this allows us to know the history of the universe at any point in space; omniscience. If we follow a thread of space without the constraint of time we can be anywhere in zero time. This is called omni-presence. This is possible because since the universe reference is contracted to a point-instant, allowing one to be everywhere in the universe, at the same time, without violating the speed of light.

    The ancient traditions considered God both omnipresent and omniscience. Therefore, based on modern physics, this would place God within the speed of light reference, where time and space are not constrained as space-time. Instead God gets to use time threads and space threads that can work separately.

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

     

Share This Page