| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"Words of Truth" |
| Date: |
07 Nov 2004 10:33:39 PM |
| Object: |
13 Reasons To Believe God Created The Universe |
Unmasking the Creator
Looking to science to define the undefinable, Lee Strobel finds the
'master Designer.'
By Lee Strobel
Excerpted from "The Case for a Creator" by Lee Strobel.
As I reviewed the avalanche of information from my investigation, I
found the evidence for an intelligent designer to be credible, cogent,
and compelling. Actually, in my opinion the combination of the
findings from cosmology and physics by themselves were sufficient to
support the design hypothesis. All of the other data simply built an
even more powerful cumulative case that ended up overwhelming my
objections.
But who or what is this master Designer? Like playing a game of
connect-the-dots, each one of the six scientific disciplines I
investigated contributed clues to unmasking the identity of the
Creator.
The evidence of cosmology demonstrates that the cause of the universe
must be an uncaused, beginningless, timeless, immaterial, personal
being endowed with freedom of will and enormous power. In the area of
physics, Collins established that the Creator is intelligent and has
continued to be involved with his creation after the Big Bang.
The evidence of astronomy, showing that the Creator was incredibly
precise in creating a livable habitat for the creatures he designed,
logically implies that he has care and concern for them. Also,
Gonzales and Richards presented evidence that the Creator has built at
least one purpose into his creatures--to explore the world he has
designed, and therefore to perhaps discover him through it.
Not only do biochemistry and the existence of biological information
affirm the Creator's activity after the Big Bang, but they also show
he's incredibly creative. Evidence for consciousness, as Moreland
said, helps establish that the Creator is rational, gives us a basis
for understanding his omnipresence, and even suggests that life after
death is credible.
This is not a picture of the god of deism, who supposedly formed the
universe but then abandoned it. The abundant evidence for the
Creator's continued activity in the universe after the initial
creation event discredits deism as a credible possibility.
Pantheism, the idea that the Creator and universe are co-existent,
also falls short of accounting for the evidence, because it cannot
explain how the universe came into existence. After all, if the
pantheistic god didn't exist prior to the physical universe, then it
would not be capable of bringing the universe into being.
Also, Craig explained how the scientific principle of Ockham's razor
shaves away the multiple gods of polytheism, leaving us with a single
Creator. In addition, the personal nature of the Creator argues
against the impersonal divine force that's at the center of some New
Age religions.
In contrast, however, the portrait of the Creator that emerges from
the scientific data is uncannily consistent with the description of
the God whose identity is spelled out in the pages of the Bible.
Creator? "In the beginning you laid the foundations of the earth, and
the heavens are the work of your hands."
Unique? "You were shown these things so that you might know that the
Lord is God; besides him there is no other."
Uncaused and timeless? "Before the mountains were born or you brought
forth the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are
God."
Immaterial? "God is spirit."
Personal? "I am God Almighty."
Freedom of will? "And God said, ‘Let there be light,' and there was
light."
Intelligent and rational? "How many are your works, O Lord! In wisdom
you made them all; the earth is full of your creatures."
Enormously powerful? "The Lord is…great in power."
Creative? "For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my
mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully
made; your works are wonderful, I that full well."
Caring? "The earth is full of his unfailing love."
Omnipresent? "The heavens, even the highest heaven, cannot contain
you."
Has given humankind purpose? "For everything, absolutely everything,
above and below, visible and invisibible…everything got started in him
and finds its purpose in him."
Provides for life after death? "He will swallow up death forever." As
the apostle Paul wrote two millennia ago: "For since the creation of
the world God's invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine
nature--have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been
made [that is, his creation], so that men are without excuse."
The question of whether these qualities might also describe the
deities of any other world religions became moot once I added the
evidence that I discovered through the study of ancient history and
archeology.
As I described in my book The Case for Christ, the convincing evidence
establishes the essential reliability of the New Testament,
demonstrates the fulfillment of ancient prophecies in the life of
Jesus of Nazareth against all odds, and supports Jesus' resurrection
as being an actual event that occurred in time and space. Indeed , his
return from the dead is an unprecedented and supernatural feat that
authenticated his claim to being the one-and-only Son of God.
To me, the range, the variety, the depth, and breathtaking persuasive
power of the evidence from both science and history affirmed the
credibility of Christianity to the degree that my doubts were simply
washed away.
Unlike Darwinism, where my faith would have to swim upstream against
the strong current of evidence flowing the other way, putting my trust
in the God of the Bible was nothing less than the most rational and
natural decision I could make. I was merely permitting the torrent of
facts to carry me along to their most logical conclusion.
Unfortunately, there's a lot of misunderstanding about faith. Some
believe faith actually contradicts facts. "The whole point of faith,"
scoffed Michael Shermer, editor of The Skeptical Inquirer, "is to
believe regardless of the evidence, which is the very antithesis of
science."
However, that's certainly not my understanding. I see faith as being a
reasonable step in the same direction that the evidence is pointing.
In other words, faith goes beyond merely acknowledging that the facts
of science and history pont toward God. It's responding to those facts
by investing trust in God--a step that's fully warranted due to the
supporting evidence.
Oxford's Alister McGrath pointed out that all worldviews require
faith. "The truth claims of atheism simply cannot be proved," he said.
"How do we know that there is no God? The simple fact of the matter is
that atheism is a faith, which draws conclusions that go beyond the
available evidence."
On the other hand, the available evidence from the latest scientific
research is convincing more and more scientists that facts support
faith as never before. "The age-old notion that there is more to
existence than meets the eye suddenly looks like fresh thinking
again," said journalist Gregg Easterbrook. "We are entering the
greatest era of science-religion fusion since the Enlightenment last
attempted to reconcile the two."
To many people, including physicist Paul Davies, this is a shocking
and unexpected development. "It may seem bizarre," he said, "but in my
opinion science offers a surer path to God than religion."
Added nanoscientist James Tour of Rice University: "Only a rookie who
knows nothing about science would say science takes away from faith.
If you really study science, iit will bring you closer to God."
Astrophysicist and priest George Coyne put it this way: "Nothing we
learn about the universe threatens our faith. It only enriches it."
"For Polkinghorne, who achieved acclaim as a mathematical physicist at
Cambridge before becoming a full-time minister, the same kind of
thinking he uses in science has helped him draw life-changing
conclusions about God:
No one has ever seen a quark, and we believe that no one ever will.
They are so tightly bound to each other inside the protons and
neutrons that nothing can make them break out on their own. Why, then,
do I believe in these invisible quarks? … In summary, it's because
quarks make sense of a lot of direct physical evidence…I wish to
engage in a similar strategy with regard to the unseen reality of God.
His existence makes sense of many aspects of our knowledge and
experience: the order and fruitfulness of the physical world; the
multilayered character of rality; the almost universal human
experiences of worship and hope; the phenomenon of Jesus Christ
(including his resurrection). I think that very similar thought
processes are involved in both cases. I do not believe that I shift in
some strange intellectual way when I move from science to religion…In
their search for truth, science and faith are intellectual cousins
under the skin.
He added, however, an important distinction. "Religious knowledge is
more demanding than scientific knowledge," he said. "While it requires
scrupulous attention to matters of truth, it also calls for the
response of commitment to the truth discovered."
According to McGrath, the Hebrew word for "truth" suggests "something
which can be relied upon." Thus, he said, truth is more than about
simply being right. "It is about trustworthiness," he explained. "It
is a relational concept, pointing us to someone who is totally worthy
of our trust. We are not being asked to know yet another fact but to
enter into a relationship with the one who is able to sustain and
comfort us." The facts of science and history, then, can only take us
so far. At some point, the truth demands a response. When we decide
not merely to ponder the abstract concept of a designer but to embrace
him as our own--to make him our "true God"--then we can meet him
personally, relate to him daily, and spend eternity with him as he
promises.
And that, as a young medical doctor and his wife learned, changes
everything.
No one was more surprised by the scientific evidence for God than the
soft-spoken, silver-haired, 77-year-old physician who was sitting
across from me in a booth at a Southern California restaurant.
His story is yet another testimony to the power of science to point
seekers toward God. However, it's something else too--a road map for
how you might want to proceed if you're personally interested in
seeing whether faith in God is warranted by the facts.
Viggo Olsen is a brilliant surgeon whose life was steeped in science.
Graduating ***** laude from medical school, he later became a diplomat
of the American Board of Surgery and a fellow of the American College
of Surgeons. In fact, his name has a whole raft of letters after
it--M.S., M.D., Litt.D., D.H., F.A.C.S., F.I.C.S., and D.T.M.&H. He
attributes his former spiritual skepticism to his knowledge of the
scientific world.
"I viewed Christianity and the Bible through agnostic eyes," he said.
"My wife Joan was a skeptic too. We believed there was no independent
proof that any Creator exists. Rather, we believed life came into
being through evolutionary processes."
The problem was Joan's parents, both devout Christians. When Viggo and
Joan visited them in 1951 on their way to starting his first
internship at a New York City hospital, they got an earful of
religious propaganda. In late night discussions, Viggo and Joan would
patiently explain why Christianity was inconsistent with contemporary
science. Finally, in frustration at two o'clock one morning around the
kitchen table, they agreed to examine the Christian faith for
themselves.
Olsen implied his search would be sincere and honest, but inwardly he
had already hatched a plan. "My intent was not to do an objective
study at all," he recalled. "Just alike a surgeon incises a chest, we
were going to slash into the Bible and dissect out all its
embarrassing scientific mistakes."
At their new home, Viggo and Joan labeled a piece of paper:
"Scientific Mistakes in the Bible," figuring they could easily fill
it. They worked out a system under which they would discuss with each
other what they were learning in their investigation. At the end,
there would always be more unanswered questions. While Viggo was
working at the hospital, Joan would research the issues left hanging.
Then, on alternate nights and weekends, when Viggo was off duty, they
studied together, analyzed, discussed, and argued.
Problems quickly emerged--but not the kind they were anticipating. "We
were having trouble finding those scientific mistakes," he said. "We'd
find something that seemed to be an error, but on further reflection
and study, we saw that our understanding had been shallow. That made
us sit up and take notice."
Then a student passed along a 1948 book called Modern Science and
Christian Faith. Each of its 13 chapters was written by a different
scientist about the evidence in his field that pointed toward God.
Even though it was published before many of the eye-popping scientific
discoveries that I've described in this book, the evidence was
nevertheless sufficient to stun Viggo and Joan.
"It blew our minds!" Olsen said. "For the first time we began to see
there were reasons behind Christianity. Deciding to believe would
definitely not be committing intellectual suicide."
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/154/story_15483.html
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| User: "ZenIsWhen" |
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| Title: Re: 13 Reasons To Believe God Created The Universe |
08 Nov 2004 02:53:32 AM |
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"Words of Truth" <wordsoftruth417@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:3d02dea6.0411072033.45a47031@posting.google.com...
You wouldn't know truth if it slapped you in the *****!
Unmasking the Creator
Looking to science to define the undefinable, Lee Strobel finds the
'master Designer.'
You CANNOT "find": anything without facts and evidence. There are no facts
and evidence support5ing a "designer".
By Lee Strobel
Excerpted from "The Case for a Creator" by Lee Strobel.
As I reviewed the avalanche of information from my investigation, I
found the evidence for an intelligent designer to be credible, cogent,
and compelling. Actually, in my opinion the combination of the
findings from cosmology and physics by themselves were sufficient to
support the design hypothesis. All of the other data simply built an
even more powerful cumulative case that ended up overwhelming my
objections.
Then it must have been your objections that were faulty and weak.
There IS no evidence for a master designer - no matter WHAT ignorant
bellowers cry!
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| User: "Libertarius" |
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| Title: Re: 13 Reasons To Believe God Created The Universe |
08 Nov 2004 04:19:57 PM |
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ZenIsWhen wrote:
"Words of Truth" <wordsoftruth417@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:3d02dea6.0411072033.45a47031@posting.google.com...
You wouldn't know truth if it slapped you in the *****!
Unmasking the Creator
Looking to science to define the undefinable, Lee Strobel finds the
'master Designer.'
You CANNOT "find": anything without facts and evidence. There are no facts
and evidence support5ing a "designer".
By Lee Strobel
Excerpted from "The Case for a Creator" by Lee Strobel.
As I reviewed the avalanche of information from my investigation, I
found the evidence for an intelligent designer to be credible, cogent,
and compelling. Actually, in my opinion the combination of the
findings from cosmology and physics by themselves were sufficient to
support the design hypothesis. All of the other data simply built an
even more powerful cumulative case that ended up overwhelming my
objections.
Then it must have been your objections that were faulty and weak.
There IS no evidence for a master designer - no matter WHAT ignorant
bellowers cry!
As the 9th century Hindu scripture, The Mahapurana by Jinasena states:
"Some foolish men declare that a Creator made the world.
The doctrine that the world was created is ill-advised,
and should be rejected. If God created the world,
where was he before creation?...
How could God have made the world without any raw material?
If you say He made this first, and then the world,
you are faced with an endless regression...
Know that the world is uncreated,
as time itself is,
without beginning and end."
Some people cannot match that logic 12 centuries later!
Because they are brainwashed and wedded to doctrinal
prejudices. -- L.
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| User: "Iain" |
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| Title: Re: 13 Reasons To Believe God Created The Universe |
08 Nov 2004 04:33:48 AM |
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"Words of Truth" <wordsoftruth417@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:3d02dea6.0411072033.45a47031@posting.google.com...
Unmasking the Creator
Looking to science to define the undefinable, Lee Strobel finds the
'master Designer.'
By Lee Strobel
Excerpted from "The Case for a Creator" by Lee Strobel.
The evidence of astronomy, showing that the Creator was incredibly
precise in creating a livable habitat for the creatures he designed,
logically implies that he has care and concern for them.
What evidence? The evidence uncovered thus far indicates organisms that
adapt over time to their environment -- hence habitats suiting their
organisms.
Also,
Gonzales and Richards presented evidence that the Creator has built at
least one purpose into his creatures--to explore the world he has
designed, and therefore to perhaps discover him through it.
Don't you think movement of animals emerged from the need to escape death
and aquire food?
Not only do biochemistry and the existence of biological information
affirm the Creator's activity after the Big Bang, but they also show
he's incredibly creative. Evidence for consciousness, as Moreland
said, helps establish that the Creator is rational, gives us a basis
for understanding his omnipresence, and even suggests that life after
death is credible.
I'm still waiting for this biochemical evidence from Moreland.
<snip>
Unlike Darwinism, where my faith would have to swim upstream against
the strong current of evidence flowing the other way,
Are you denying the evidence that the most successful of a population at
reproduction are more likely to pass on their advantageous genes to the next
generation and that the only logical net result of this is increasingly
elaborate functional complexity or extinction? That plus the entire fossil
record? Go right ahead and prove your tiring notion.
~Iain
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| User: "Libertarius" |
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| Title: Re: 13 Reasons To Believe God Created The Universe |
08 Nov 2004 06:38:13 PM |
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Iain wrote:
"Words of Truth" <wordsoftruth417@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:3d02dea6.0411072033.45a47031@posting.google.com...
Unmasking the Creator
Looking to science to define the undefinable, Lee Strobel finds the
'master Designer.'
By Lee Strobel
Excerpted from "The Case for a Creator" by Lee Strobel.
The evidence of astronomy, showing that the Creator was incredibly
precise
===>There is no such evidence. "Words of Truth" and Lee Strobel are
LYING!
in creating a livable habitat for the creatures he designed,
logically implies that he has care and concern for them.
What evidence? The evidence uncovered thus far indicates organisms that
adapt over time to their environment -- hence habitats suiting their
organisms.
===>You are absolutely right!
Why do creationists try to prove their baseless beliefs?
"Faith" is supposed to be WITHOUT EVIDENCE!
But they are not comfortable with their faith, since reality speaks
against it. Therefore the falsify "evidence" and LIE about
astronomy, physics, cosmology, and science in general, knowing
well that their fellow believers will not know the difference but accept
their lies to buttress their "faith". -- L.
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| User: "Billy Goat" |
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| Title: Re: 13 Reasons To Believe God Created The Universe |
08 Nov 2004 10:47:52 AM |
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(Words of Truth) wrote in message news:<3d02dea6.0411072033.45a47031@posting.google.com>...
The evidence of cosmology demonstrates that the cause of the universe
must be an uncaused, beginningless, timeless, immaterial, personal
being endowed with freedom of will and enormous power. In the area of
physics, Collins established that the Creator is intelligent and has
continued to be involved with his creation after the Big Bang.
Whoa, wait a minute! Someone who believes in both God *and* the Big
Bang? I'm bookmarking this for future reference. There are many
Christians visiting alt.atheism who will dismiss Strobel's argument
for that reason alone; perhaps you should argue with them, and win
them over, before arguing with us.
The evidence of astronomy, showing that the Creator was incredibly
precise in creating a livable habitat for the creatures he designed,
logically implies that he has care and concern for them.
Are you suggesting that God created people *before* creating the
earth? That contradicts the Bible.
--Billy
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| User: "Llanzlan Klazmon" |
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| Title: Re: 13 Reasons To Believe God Created The Universe |
08 Nov 2004 05:16:58 PM |
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(Billy Goat) wrote in
news:6bd3c70a.0411080847.1de7b0f4@posting.google.com:
wordsoftruth417@hotmail.com (Words of Truth) wrote in message
news:<3d02dea6.0411072033.45a47031@posting.google.com>...
The evidence of cosmology demonstrates that the cause of the universe
must be an uncaused, beginningless, timeless, immaterial, personal
being endowed with freedom of will and enormous power. In the area of
physics, Collins established that the Creator is intelligent and has
continued to be involved with his creation after the Big Bang.
Whoa, wait a minute! Someone who believes in both God *and* the Big
Bang?
This is more common than you might think. The "big bang" theory was
originallly proposed by the Jesuit priest Abbe George Lemaitre.
I'm bookmarking this for future reference. There are many
Christians visiting alt.atheism who will dismiss Strobel's argument
for that reason alone; perhaps you should argue with them, and win
them over, before arguing with us.
Heh heh nothing more fun than the different cults arguing the toss about
whose interpretation of their scripture is correct. (Don't forget to
stand well out the line of fire though :-),
The evidence of astronomy, showing that the Creator was incredibly
precise in creating a livable habitat for the creatures he designed,
logically implies that he has care and concern for them.
Are you suggesting that God created people *before* creating the
earth? That contradicts the Bible.
I have never been able to get this particular theist attempt at bringing
the anthropic principal to their cause. They say that the universe is
fine tuned just for humans but that is nonsense, the vast volume of space
is supremely hostile to human or any other form of life we know of. It
kind of calls into question if a god created a vast universe just so a
speck of dust in a remote galaxy would happen to have the right
conditions for humans to develop LOL.
LK.
--Billy
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| User: "tinyurl.com/uh3t" |
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| Title: Re: 13 Reasons To Believe God Created The Universe |
08 Dec 2004 09:11:50 PM |
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From: (Words of Truth)
The evidence of cosmology demonstrates that the cause of the universe
must be an uncaused, beginningless, timeless, immaterial, personal
being endowed with freedom of will and enormous power.
No such evidence has ever been found. In fact all evidence to date
shows the nature of the Universe to be quite IMpersonal, the direct
opposite of what you quote there.
Furthermore there is currently no evidence of anything before the start
of the Big Bang, hence no evidence whatsoever of anything beginningless
or timeless. It's pure speculation whether talk of anything "before"
the Big Bang even makes sense. So for all we know the start of the Big
Bang might be the very start of all time whatsoever. We just don't
know, and don't have any evidence one way or the other.
Now that we know about quantum mechanics, we're aware that there are
problems in the use of the word "cause". For example, if an electron
sits in an excited state for a long time, then suddenly drops into a
lower energy state and emits a photon containing the energy difference
between the two energy states, what would you say is the "cause" of
that dropping occuring at that particular time as opposed to earlier or
later when it could have dropped but in fact didn't? If you can't find
a "cause" for such a simple everyday electron-dropping event, then you
have to discard the whole idea that events require causes, and accept
that almost *nothing* that occurs has a clear-cut cause. In particular,
the Big Bang didn't need a cause, it just happened suddenly one day,
like an electron dropping.
There's no evidence whatsoever for anything immaterial, although dark
matter is pretty weird and might be immaterial in some sense, and dark
energy (cosmological constant) might be considered mmmaterial too. But
it really depends on what the author of that text meant by the word.
.
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| User: "Libertarius" |
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| Title: Re: 13 Reasons To Believe God Created The Universe |
09 Dec 2004 06:27:21 PM |
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"tinyurl.com/uh3t" wrote:
From: (Words of Truth)
The evidence of cosmology demonstrates that the cause of the universe
must be an uncaused, beginningless, timeless, immaterial, personal
being endowed with freedom of will and enormous power.
No such evidence has ever been found. In fact all evidence to date
shows the nature of the Universe to be quite IMpersonal, the direct
opposite of what you quote there.
Furthermore there is currently no evidence of anything before the start
of the Big Bang, hence no evidence whatsoever of anything beginningless
or timeless.
===>There is no evidence that the universe or anything else
can come out of NOTHING.
If there was a "Big Bang", it was the "Bang" of SOMETHING,
not of nothing.
It's pure speculation whether talk of anything "before"
the Big Bang even makes sense.
===>Any talk of NOTHING before the "Bang" is totally
ludicrous. Our local cluster of galactic superclusters,
commonly called the "universe" is just the most recently
recognized "world", succeeding the Milky Way Galaxy,
the Solar System, and the solid dome-covered, water-
surrounded flat earth standing on pillars.
So for all we know the start of the Big
Bang might be the very start of all time whatsoever.
===>That is a foolish conclusion, based on an appeal to
ignorance.
"Today's inflation models have evolved beyond the original assumption
of a single inflation event giving birth to a single Universe,
and feature scenarios where universes nucleate and inflate out of other
universes in the process called eternal inflation."
(SEE: BEFORE THE BIG BANG: The INflationary Universe at
http://www.superstringtheory.com/cosmo/cosmo41.html
ALSO:
"Before the Big Bang" by DISCOVER at
http://www.discover.com/issues/feb-04/cover
"Maverick cosmologists contend that what we think of as the
moment of creation was simply part of an infinite cycle of titanic
collisions between our universe and a parallel world." -- L.
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| User: "tinyurl.com/uh3t" |
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| Title: Re: 13 Reasons To Believe God Created The Universe |
13 Dec 2004 09:20:02 PM |
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From: Libertarius <Libertarius@Nothing_But_The.Truth>
There is no evidence that the universe or anything else can come out
of NOTHING.
That's not quite correct. There's evidence that particle/antiparticle
pairs get created completely at random virtually all the time, most of
the time falling back together and anihilating each other, but
sometimes one of them escaping into the Universe at large (the other
falling into a black hole).
It's possible, consistent with current evidence, that a vacuum existed
for all time, and at some random time it spontaneously a Big Bang. But
so little is known about such kinds of events that this is pure
speculation, not really known if it can happen or not.
If there was a "Big Bang", it was the "Bang" of SOMETHING, not of
nothing.
The term "Big Bang" is simply a derogatory term the opponents of the
theory made up. What it actually refers to is an expansion of the
Universe, and a corresponding separation of all the matter and energy
within it, such that projected back in time it seems to have come from
a single point or at least a region so small we can't tell whether it
was a single point or not. Just the extrapolation of the current
dynamics gives a very loose bound on the size of that initial region,
but the calculations of synthesis of nucleons gives a much tighter
bound. In any case, it's not a "Bang" in the usual sense of something
exploding, so your remark it must be a "Bang" of something is not a
valid conclusion. It's just an expansion we observe, and as yet have no
confirmed explanation how it really got started.
Any talk of NOTHING before the "Bang" is totally ludicrous.
We have no evidence to support either NOTHING or SOMETHING before the
"Bang", so speculation as to what it might have been is just find. But
anybody, such as you, claiming to be sure one way or the other, is
ludicrous.
So for all we know the start of the Big
Bang might be the very start of all time whatsoever.
That is a foolish conclusion, based on an appeal to ignorance.
Ignorance about the possibility of anything before the Big Bang is all
we currently have, other than some wild speculations.
"Maverick cosmologists contend that what we think of as the
moment of creation was simply part of an infinite cycle of titanic
collisions between our universe and a parallel world."
Like I said: wild speculations. At present we have no evidence to
support or refute those speculations, and it's not clear that it's even
possible to ever get such evidence. It might be "metaphysics" in the
derogatory sense of words that sound like they mean something but in
fact don't have any bearing on any evidence hence actually don't mean
anything scietific at all.
http://www.superstringtheory.com/cosmo/cosmo41.html
In the Inflation model, our Universe starts out as a rapidly
expanding bubble of pure vacuum energy, with no matter or radiation.
That's not the way I heard the theory when it first came out. Instead,
there was already a Big Bang happening, with the Universe expanding and
getting cooler, but at a particular temperature some sort of phase
change happened whereby a lot more space was rapidly created within
every unit of pre-existing space, causing exponential growth until the
phase-change energy was exhausted, at which point normal slow expansion
resumed. Did Guth change his theory since I heard about it, or is the
Web Page wrong, or does the Web Page refer to somebody else's theory
based on Guth's but attribute it incorrectly to Guth directly?
So an inflationary phase before the Big Bang could explain how the
Big Bang started with such extraordinary spatial flatness that it is
still so close to being flat today. A magnet cut in half still has two
poles
That's a non sequitur. Flatness of space has nothing to do with
existance or non-existance of magnetic monopoles or with magnetism
being really a property of moving electric fields or with magnetism
being a fundamentally dipole property.
The inflationary model also solves the magnetic monopole problem,
because in the particle physics that underlies the inflationary idea,
there would only be one magnetic monopole per vacuum energy bubble.
That means only one magnetic monopole per Universe.
Invalid argument. There's nothing in the basic idea of inflation to
prevent monopole-antimonopole pairs from being formed in large numbers
during the phase change that caused inflation. So the theory of
inflation doesn't explain the deficiency of observed monopoles. In fact
if extra space is being created from existing space, the principle
behind exponential increase in total space, such extreme conditions
would seem to almost demand lots of other weird creation going on at
the same time, including monopole-antimonopole pairs, mini-blackholes,
etc. It would take an ad hoc addition to the theory to specify that
none of these extra kinds of things are created by inflation, *only*
empty space would be created, i.e. the phase change was very special,
making *only* new space, not new anything else whatsoever.
a phase transition, like
when steam cools and condenses into water. For water the critical
temperature T[crit] where this phase transition happens is 1000C, or
3730K.
[Note: degree sign shows as digit zero in VT100 mode.]
Only at one specific pressure, basically average air pressure on Earth
at sea level during the current era, or that same pressure occurring at
other elevations within low-pressure or high-pressure cells locally or
during other eras when the total amount of atmosphere was different.
I suppose if you re-define the "Big Bang" to include only the time
after the inflationary period, then you can claim the inflationary
period came before the Big Bang. But then you need a third term to
cover the pseudo-Big-Bang that was already occurring before the
inflationary period started.
(And when I said start of Big Bang might have been start of all time,
I meant start of pseudo-Big-Bang before inflationary using the new
definitions of the terms.
)
.
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| User: "Pastor Dave" |
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| Title: Re: 13 Reasons To Believe God Created The Universe |
14 Dec 2004 07:50:17 AM |
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On Mon, 13 Dec 2004 19:20:02 -0800, while scaling the
Mt. Everest, (tinyurl.com/uh3t)
pontificated:
From: Libertarius <Libertarius@Nothing_But_The.Truth>
There is no evidence that the universe or anything else can come out
of NOTHING.
That's not quite correct. There's evidence that particle/antiparticle
pairs get created completely at random virtually all the time, most of
the time falling back together and anihilating each other, but
sometimes one of them escaping into the Universe at large (the other
falling into a black hole).
A black hole wouldn't have existed. Nothing =nothing.
--
Pastor Dave Raymond
"I have more understanding than all my teachers:
for thy testimonies are my meditation." - Psalm 119:99
/
o{}xxxxx[]::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::>
\
"And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of
the Spirit, which is the word of God:" - Ephesians 6:17
.
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| User: "Therion Ware" |
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| Title: Re: 13 Reasons To Believe God Created The Universe |
14 Dec 2004 08:08:05 AM |
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On Tue, 14 Dec 2004 13:50:17 GMT in alt.atheism, Pastor Dave (Pastor
Dave <newsgroupmail@nospam-tampabay.rr.com>) said, directing the reply
to alt.atheism
On Mon, 13 Dec 2004 19:20:02 -0800, while scaling the
Mt. Everest, (tinyurl.com/uh3t)
pontificated:
From: Libertarius <Libertarius@Nothing_But_The.Truth>
There is no evidence that the universe or anything else can come out
of NOTHING.
That's not quite correct. There's evidence that particle/antiparticle
pairs get created completely at random virtually all the time, most of
the time falling back together and anihilating each other, but
sometimes one of them escaping into the Universe at large (the other
falling into a black hole).
A black hole wouldn't have existed. Nothing =nothing.
But you're not assuming there was "nothing" for I detect a hidden
supposition!
.
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| User: "Pastor Dave" |
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| Title: Re: 13 Reasons To Believe God Created The Universe |
14 Dec 2004 08:26:15 AM |
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On Mon, 13 Dec 2004 19:20:02 -0800, while scaling the
Mt. Everest, (tinyurl.com/uh3t)
pontificated:
From: Libertarius <Libertarius@Nothing_But_The.Truth>
There is no evidence that the universe or anything else can come out
of NOTHING.
That's not quite correct. There's evidence that particle/antiparticle
pairs get created completely at random virtually all the time, most of
the time falling back together and anihilating each other, but
sometimes one of them escaping into the Universe at large (the other
falling into a black hole).
A black hole wouldn't have existed. Nothing =nothing. I know because I am
a world famous scientist who has disproved evolution and now I am becoming
a world famous physicists who will disprove the theory of Einstien.
--
Pastor Dave Raymond
"I have more understanding than all my teachers:
for thy testimonies are my meditation." - Psalm 119:99
/
o{}xxxxx[]::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::>
\
"And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of
the Spirit, which is the word of God:" - Ephesians 6:17
.
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| User: "Pastor Dave" |
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| Title: Re: 13 Reasons To Believe God Created The Universe |
09 Dec 2004 12:15:52 PM |
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On Wed, 08 Dec 2004 19:11:50 -0800, while scaling the
Mt. Everest, (tinyurl.com/uh3t)
pontificated:
From: (Words of Truth)
The evidence of cosmology demonstrates that the cause of the universe
must be an uncaused, beginningless, timeless, immaterial, personal
being endowed with freedom of will and enormous power.
No such evidence has ever been found. In fact all evidence to date
shows the nature of the Universe to be quite IMpersonal, the direct
opposite of what you quote there.
Creation science" is a contradiction in terms. A central tenet of modern
science is methodological naturalism -- it seeks to explain the universe
purely in terms of observed or testable natural mechanisms. Thus, physics
describes the atomic nucleus with specific concepts governing matter and
energy, and it tests those descriptions
A broadcast version of this article will air June 26 on National
Geographic Today, a program on the National Geographic Channel. Please
check your local listings
experimentally. Physicists introduce new particles, such as quarks, to
flesh out their theories only when data show that the previous
descriptions cannot adequately explain observed phenomena. The new
particles do not have arbitrary properties, moreover -- their definitions
are tightly constrained, because the new particles must fit within the
existing framework of physics.
In contrast, intelligent-design theorists invoke shadowy entities that
conveniently have whatever unconstrained abilities are needed to solve
the mystery at hand. Rather than expanding scientific inquiry, such
answers shut it down. (How does one disprove the existence of omnipotent
intelligences?)
Intelligent design offers few answers. For instance, when and how did a
designing intelligence intervene in life's history? By creating the first
DNA? The first cell? The first human? Was every species designed, or just
a few early ones? Proponents of intelligent-design theory frequently
decline to be pinned down on these points. They do not even make real
attempts to reconcile their disparate ideas about intelligent design.
Instead they pursue argument by exclusion -- that is, they belittle
evolutionary explanations as far-fetched or incomplete and then imply
that only design-based alternatives remain.
Logically, this is misleading: even if one naturalistic explanation is
flawed, it does not mean that all are. Moreover, it does not make one
intelligent-design theory more reasonable than another. Listeners are
essentially left to fill in the blanks for themselves, and some will
undoubtedly do so by substituting their religious beliefs for scientific
ideas.
Time and again, science has shown that methodological naturalism can push
back ignorance, finding increasingly detailed and informative answers to
mysteries that once seemed impenetrable: the nature of light, the causes
of disease, how the brain works. Evolution is doing the same with the
riddle of how the living world took shape. Creationism, by any name, adds
nothing of intellectual value to the effort
..
--
Pastor Dave Raymond
"I have more understanding than all my teachers:
for thy testimonies are my meditation." - Psalm 119:99
/
o{}xxxxx[]::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::>
\
"And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of
the Spirit, which is the word of God:" - Ephesians 6:17
.
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| User: "JT" |
|
| Title: Re: 13 Reasons To Believe God Created The Universe |
02 Feb 2005 08:56:03 PM |
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That's a really good point. I was raised in a Catholic School system in
NY and our Monsenior (one step up the ladder from Priest) actually
taught this way which made sense to me.
You can't just ignore the facts. The earth is old... billions of years.
Things evolve from other things, humans included... you can see the
fossils of it taking place. You can't ignore that and call yourself a
reasonable person.
However, you can't just blow off the unreasonable either. There are too
many encounters with supernatural things, spirits, etc. to merely
discount. Also, if you look at the nature of things like DNA you see a
program. A self replicating, self repairing, binary program running.
Biologists say it's just a random smattering of atoms that got together
in an ingenious way and just started working, but does that make sence
scientifically? Go to the computer lab or math dept and ask "can I make
an equasion or program by just randomly banging away on a keyboard or
just scribbling on paper?" They'll all tell you NO. Even with an
infinite amount of time and infinite amount of collisions it can't
happen because there is no error checking program to hold onto links
that make sense. You need the presense of a mind, some type of
intelligence, to put a program together. Now, once it's up and running
does it need input? Not really, hence we just evolved into these bodies
by luck and events, but the fact that we evolved into something
reasonable was programmed to happen, eventually, somehow. We could have
evovled from dinosaurs or whales and looked completely different, but
still have been in God's image because he means our spiritual image, our
internal humanity, not the bones and shape we just fell into.
They are tied together. It's obvious if you just stop listening to
everyone who calls themselves an expert and just hear God, in everything
and everyone around you. He's there, not in the bible, not in the
church, in front of YOU. Just listen.
Logically, this is misleading: even if one naturalistic explanation is
flawed, it does not mean that all are. Moreover, it does not make one
intelligent-design theory more reasonable than another. Listeners are
essentially left to fill in the blanks for themselves, and some will
undoubtedly do so by substituting their religious beliefs for
scientific ideas.
.
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| User: "Robibnikoff" |
|
| Title: Re: 13 Reasons To Believe God Created The Universe |
03 Feb 2005 06:24:13 AM |
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"JT" <grey_lead@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:Xns95F1D4F27C727greylead@151.164.30.42...
snip
They are tied together. It's obvious if you just stop listening to
everyone who calls themselves an expert and just hear God, in everything
and everyone around you. He's there, not in the bible, not in the
church, in front of YOU. Just listen.
<listens> Nope, still nothing.
--
---------
Robyn
Resident Witchypoo
#1557
.
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| User: "wcb" |
|
| Title: Re: 13 Reasons To Believe God Created The Universe |
04 Feb 2005 05:52:39 AM |
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Robibnikoff wrote:
"JT" <grey_lead@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:Xns95F1D4F27C727greylead@151.164.30.42...
snip
They are tied together. It's obvious if you just stop listening to
everyone who calls themselves an expert and just hear God, in everything
and everyone around you. He's there, not in the bible, not in the
church, in front of YOU. Just listen.
<listens> Nope, still nothing.
But if you listen very hard, you can hear the Easter Bunny
whistling.
--
Cheerful Charlie
.
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| User: "stoney" |
|
| Title: Re: 13 Reasons To Believe God Created The Universe |
07 Feb 2005 09:54:17 AM |
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On Fri, 04 Feb 2005 05:52:39 -0600, wcb <wbarwell@mylinuxisp.com>
wrote:
Robibnikoff wrote:
"JT" <grey_lead@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:Xns95F1D4F27C727greylead@151.164.30.42...
snip
They are tied together. It's obvious if you just stop listening to
everyone who calls themselves an expert and just hear God, in everything
and everyone around you. He's there, not in the bible, not in the
church, in front of YOU. Just listen.
<listens> Nope, still nothing.
But if you listen very hard, you can hear the Easter Bunny
whistling.
Nope! The 'Tooth Fuzzy' (not faerie) is purring.
--
Contempt of Congress meter reading-offscale.
Hello, theocracy with a fundamentalist US Supreme
Court who will ensure church and state are joined
at the hip like clergy and altar boys.
America 1776-Jan 2001 RIP
.
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| User: "Tukla Ratte" |
|
| Title: Re: 13 Reasons To Believe God Created The Universe |
03 Feb 2005 09:45:48 AM |
|
|
Robibnikoff wrote:
"JT" <grey_lead@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:Xns95F1D4F27C727greylead@151.164.30.42...
snip
They are tied together. It's obvious if you just stop listening to
everyone who calls themselves an expert and just hear God, in everything
and everyone around you. He's there, not in the bible, not in the
church, in front of YOU. Just listen.
<listens> Nope, still nothing.
(Good. I was afraid she'd hear me breathing in the closet.)
--
Tukla, Eater of Theists, Squeaker of Chew Toys
Official Mascot of Alt.Atheism, aa 1347
.
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| User: "Robibnikoff" |
|
| Title: Re: 13 Reasons To Believe God Created The Universe |
03 Feb 2005 10:19:45 AM |
|
|
"Tukla Ratte" <tukla_ratte@tukla.net> wrote in message
news:36ev9kF51fcb2U1@individual.net...
Robibnikoff wrote:
"JT" <grey_lead@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:Xns95F1D4F27C727greylead@151.164.30.42...
snip
They are tied together. It's obvious if you just stop listening to
everyone who calls themselves an expert and just hear God, in everything
and everyone around you. He's there, not in the bible, not in the
church, in front of YOU. Just listen.
<listens> Nope, still nothing.
(Good. I was afraid she'd hear me breathing in the closet.)
Goodness and here I thought it was the steam in the radiators! :)
--
---------
Robyn
Resident Witchypoo
#1557
.
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| User: "stoney" |
|
| Title: Re: 13 Reasons To Believe God Created The Universe |
07 Feb 2005 09:53:32 AM |
|
|
On Thu, 03 Feb 2005 09:45:48 -0600, Tukla Ratte
<tukla_ratte@tukla.net> wrote:
Robibnikoff wrote:
"JT" <grey_lead@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:Xns95F1D4F27C727greylead@151.164.30.42...
snip
They are tied together. It's obvious if you just stop listening to
everyone who calls themselves an expert and just hear God, in everything
and everyone around you. He's there, not in the bible, not in the
church, in front of YOU. Just listen.
<listens> Nope, still nothing.
(Good. I was afraid she'd hear me breathing in the closet.)
Heheheehheheeh
--
Contempt of Congress meter reading-offscale.
Hello, theocracy with a fundamentalist US Supreme
Court who will ensure church and state are joined
at the hip like clergy and altar boys.
America 1776-Jan 2001 RIP
.
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| User: "Libertarius" |
|
| Title: Re: 13 Reasons To Believe God Created The Universe -- and one NOT tobelieve |
02 Feb 2005 09:13:57 PM |
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|
Every snow flake forming by natural processes without a
"plan" refutes your argument, which contradicts itself
by positing a self-emerged, uncreated, undesigned "designer".-- L.
JT wrote:
That's a really good point. I was raised in a Catholic School system in
NY and our Monsenior (one step up the ladder from Priest) actually
taught this way which made sense to me.
You can't just ignore the facts. The earth is old... billions of years.
Things evolve from other things, humans included... you can see the
fossils of it taking place. You can't ignore that and call yourself a
reasonable person.
However, you can't just blow off the unreasonable either. There are too
many encounters with supernatural things, spirits, etc. to merely
discount. Also, if you look at the nature of things like DNA you see a
program. A self replicating, self repairing, binary program running.
Biologists say it's just a random smattering of atoms that got together
in an ingenious way and just started working, but does that make sence
scientifically? Go to the computer lab or math dept and ask "can I make
an equasion or program by just randomly banging away on a keyboard or
just scribbling on paper?" They'll all tell you NO. Even with an
infinite amount of time and infinite amount of collisions it can't
happen because there is no error checking program to hold onto links
that make sense. You need the presense of a mind, some type of
intelligence, to put a program together. Now, once it's up and running
does it need input? Not really, hence we just evolved into these bodies
by luck and events, but the fact that we evolved into something
reasonable was programmed to happen, eventually, somehow. We could have
evovled from dinosaurs or whales and looked completely different, but
still have been in God's image because he means our spiritual image, our
internal humanity, not the bones and shape we just fell into.
They are tied together. It's obvious if you just stop listening to
everyone who calls themselves an expert and just hear God, in everything
and everyone around you. He's there, not in the bible, not in the
church, in front of YOU. Just listen.
Logically, this is misleading: even if one naturalistic explanation is
flawed, it does not mean that all are. Moreover, it does not make one
intelligent-design theory more reasonable than another. Listeners are
essentially left to fill in the blanks for themselves, and some will
undoubtedly do so by substituting their religious beliefs for
scientific ideas.
.
|
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| User: "Zaghadka" |
|
| Title: Re: 13 Reasons To Believe God Created The Universe -- and one NOT to believe |
02 Feb 2005 10:46:31 PM |
|
|
Libertarius bolted into alt.atheism, wreathed in wicked, white hot flames, and
screamed...
A self replicating, self repairing, binary program running.
Biologists say it's just a random smattering of atoms that got together
in an ingenious way and just started working, but does that make sence
scientifically
So you're saying that if 1000 monkeys, banged away on 1000 typewriters, for
1000 years not a one would come up with a work of Shakespeare?
I agree. Replace those 1000's with infinities and I still agree.
Of course, scientists don't say DNA is a random occurance, there are a set of
very specific chemical tendencies that cause a DNA molecule to form, and a very
good working theory about why it reproduces and advances.
Nobody's using the 1000 monkeys allegory here. Either those rules of creation
have always existed or someone made them up. I think they've always existed. I
think the idea that "someone" made them up is silly anthropomorphism. It's as
dumb as some tribal shaman saying a rock has a spirit.
--
Zag
I thought I could organize freedom, how very
Scandinavian of me. ...Björk
.
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| User: "Al Klein" |
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| Title: Re: 13 Reasons To Believe God Created The Universe -- and one NOT to believe |
03 Feb 2005 01:11:57 AM |
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On Wed, 02 Feb 2005 22:46:31 -0600, Zaghadka <zaghadka@hotmail.com>
said in alt.atheism:
It's as dumb as some tribal shaman saying a rock has a spirit.
It's as dumb as claiming that anything like the Christian concept of
'spirit' exists.
--
Zymurgist # 2
(random sig, produced by SigChanger)
rukbat at verizon dot net
.
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| User: "Zaghadka" |
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| Title: Re: 13 Reasons To Believe God Created The Universe -- and one NOT to believe |
07 Feb 2005 02:41:11 AM |
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Al Klein bolted into alt.atheism, wreathed in wicked, white hot flames, and
screamed...
On Wed, 02 Feb 2005 22:46:31 -0600, Zaghadka <zaghadka@hotmail.com>
said in alt.atheism:
It's as dumb as some tribal shaman saying a rock has a spirit.
It's as dumb as claiming that anything like the Christian concept of
'spirit' exists.
That's not exclusive to Christianity.
--
Zag
I thought I could organize freedom, how very
Scandinavian of me. ...Björk
.
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| User: "Al Klein" |
|
| Title: Re: 13 Reasons To Believe God Created The Universe -- and one NOT to believe |
07 Feb 2005 02:48:49 PM |
|
|
On Mon, 07 Feb 2005 02:41:11 -0600, Zaghadka <zaghadka@hotmail.com>
said in alt.atheism:
Al Klein bolted into alt.atheism, wreathed in wicked, white hot flames, and
screamed...
On Wed, 02 Feb 2005 22:46:31 -0600, Zaghadka <zaghadka@hotmail.com>
said in alt.atheism:
It's as dumb as some tribal shaman saying a rock has a spirit.
It's as dumb as claiming that anything like the Christian concept of
'spirit' exists.
That's not exclusive to Christianity.
It would be nice if, just once, your response were responsive. The
concept of a spirit that's anything more than a breath is stupid,
whether it's exclusive to Christianity or not. The exclusivit | | | | | | | | |
