Another Big Big Thread of Religious Discussion

[POS Industries]

Originally Posted by Serenity

I would say that a complex intelligence suddenly spawning is far less likely than a simple clump of lots of hydrogen atoms spawning.

Not really. Impossible is impossible, no matter which way you look at it. You can't say that one impossibility is more likely than another. Matter cannot be created. And yet, there it is. Saying it either spawned forth from nothingness or always existed is as valid as saying anything did so, including a deity.

I'm not using it to support the existence of a god, of course, as much as I'm just pointing out that the universe really shouldn't exist at all and it's highly suspicious that it does.

Oh, I'm sorry, I thought you were proposing a deity who actually likes complex organisms, rather than mindlessly going to the middle and assuming that any quantity of the AIDS virus is worth the same as a single human life. I guess you're a maltheist then?

Naw, I'm just someone who took Galileo's word for it and accepts that the universe doesn't revolve around us.

(if by complaining you mean pointing out that it's blatantly stupid to any deity who wanted complex life to form to include bacteria and viruses)

Well, since we evolved from single-celled organisms in the first place, I don't see why it's stupid that there's a whole shitload of them still around. Not to mention that our bodies benefit from a great number of bacteria more often than they are infected by bacteria that grew and evolved to survive by means that are unfortunately harmful to other species.

I don't pretend what the greater purpose of anything is, but I can tell you what life is like for a human on Earth. So yeah, survive, grow, reproduce, repeat is about it. What that has to do with the great whole, I have no idea.

Don't impose notions of human causality and linear time on the universe. Especially not to a time when the universe was almost completely governed by quantum phenomenon. Aside from the fact there doesn't actually have to be a beginning or end to time and the universe that whole quantum thing really gets in the way.

When the universe first started to expand, and where talking like femto seconds after the expansion started, it was wholly and completely quantum mechanical (well almost cause there might have been gravity and we have no idea how to make quantum mechanics and gravity play with each other). I'd say that before that it was governed by quantum mechanics but even quantum mechanics breaks down at those scales. Now quantum mechanically cause and effect aren't even remotely related in the same manner as they are in the macroscopic world. Time can flow just as easily one way as the other and you can't really tell were something is let alone how much energy it has. Its not hard to see why we might have a tiny bit of trouble when we try to apply the logic of our everyday experience to that situation.

I didn't know we'd tested and figured out time travel. Sure, I've heard some interesting ideas on the subject, but nothing even close to conclusive.

[ZAKtheGeek]

Matter cannot be created. And yet, there it is. Saying it either spawned forth from nothingness or always existed is as valid as saying anything did so, including a deity.

I'm not using it to support the existence of a god, of course, as much as I'm just pointing out that the universe really shouldn't exist at all and it's highly suspicious that it does.

Why is it difficult to believe that the universe has always existed?

Also, I doubt anyone really says there can't be a deity because it had to have either always been there or magically spawned, and that makes no sense; rather, they object because that makes no sense in the context of trying to explain why the universe exists. If we're to accept that it's possible for something to do one of those two things, then we don't need to invoke any gods to explain why stuff is here for us to poke.

Naw, I'm just someone who took Galileo's word for it and accepts that the universe doesn't revolve around us.

And yet you extrapolate our own structure to that of the whole universe...?

[POS Industries]

Originally Posted by ZAKtheGeek

And yet you extrapolate our own structure to that of the whole universe...?

When did I ever propose that it was our structure? I just said a body.

[Sithdarth]

I didn't know we'd tested and figured out time travel. Sure, I've heard some interesting ideas on the subject, but nothing even close to conclusive.

Do not confuse the macroscopic world with the quantum one. The most basic equations of quantum mechanics, ie Schrodinger's, are the same no matter which direction time flows. There is still a debate raging over what this means exactly. However we do have evidence of quantum effects propagating into the past. Don't confuse this with macroscopic time travel and such.

Quantum mechanics and Relativity require so much complex math because the laws we normally take for granted are really poor approximations. That doesn't mean that you can go around ignoring them because they accurately describe our environment just not the more exotic ones.

[ZAKtheGeek]

When did I ever propose that it was our structure? I just said a body.

In the grand scheme of the universe, does it really matter which organism from this particular planet you pick? It's less arrogant to say "life on earth in general" but to apply it to the whole of existence makes just as little sense...

[POS Industries]

Originally Posted by Sithdarth

Do not confuse the macroscopic world with the quantum one. The most basic equations of quantum mechanics, ie Schrodinger's, are the same no matter which direction time flows. There is still a debate raging over what this means exactly. However we do have evidence of quantum effects propagating into the past. Don't confuse this with macroscopic time travel and such.

Quantum mechanics and Relativity require so much complex math because the laws we normally take for granted are really poor approximations. That doesn't mean that you can go around ignoring them because they accurately describe our environment just not the more exotic ones.

From what I've read, the "quantum particles can move backward through time" is one interpretation of that experiment, but not the most widely accepted idea.

Originally Posted by ZAKtheGeek

In the grand scheme of the universe, does it really matter which organism from this particular planet you pick? It's less arrogant to say "life on earth in general" but to apply it to the whole of existence makes just as little sense...

Slow down, skippy. I never suggested that the universe was modeled after any organism that exists on Earth, or anywhere else for that matter. I used Earth lifeforms as a generalized example because, you know, we can safely say for sure those exist.

[I_Like_Swordchucks]

Originally Posted by POS Industries

I'm just pointing out that the universe really shouldn't exist at all and it's highly suspicious that it does.

Mind if I sig that? It seriously made me laugh.

Originally Posted by Sithdarth

Do not confuse the macroscopic world with the quantum one. The most basic equations of quantum mechanics, ie Schrodinger's, are the same no matter which direction time flows. There is still a debate raging over what this means exactly. However we do have evidence of quantum effects propagating into the past. Don't confuse this with macroscopic time travel and such.

Quantum mechanics and Relativity require so much complex math because the laws we normally take for granted are really poor approximations. That doesn't mean that you can go around ignoring them because they accurately describe our environment just not the more exotic ones.

Not trying to be an ass here, but you do realize that none of these theories are complete, and more and more is being added to them each day? I mean its one thing to explain parts of the universe that you know works, but theoretical physics is exactly that, theoretical, and can't be expected to work in EVERY aspect of the universe simply because its so incomplete and impossible to scientifically test with our current level of technology.

There could be much deeper laws of physics than quantum physics which may in fact suggest the existence of intelligent design that we simply haven't discovered yet.

Heck, if we can describe the entire universe in big math equations, you could take that to mean maybe God is really some big cosmic math geek.

[ZAKtheGeek]

Slow down, skippy. I never suggested that the universe was modeled after any organism that exists on Earth, or anywhere else for that matter. I used Earth lifeforms as a generalized example because, you know, we can safely say for sure those exist.

No, but you likened it to an organism, and unless you're studied extraterrestrial life, you likened it to an earthen one. Unless you think all the theoretical life in the universe would share these similarities with life as we know it, which is similarly faulty thinking.

[Sithdarth]

From what I've read, the "quantum particles can move backward through time" is one interpretation of that experiment, but not the most widely accepted idea.

Did I say particle? I'm pretty sure I didn't. What I said was that quantum effects propagate into the past. Effects are not objects or things. The paper itself says nothing about particles moving backwards in time. It says that an observation that hasn't been made yet still has an affect on the quantum state of a system. This is directly predicted by Quantum mechanics and can't be argued about. This is also what I've been driving at, namely human concepts of causality don't always hold in more exotic situations.

Not trying to be an ass here, but you do realize that none of these theories are complete, and more and more is being added to them each day? I mean its one thing to explain parts of the universe that you know works, but theoretical physics is exactly that, theoretical, and can't be expected to work in EVERY aspect of the universe simply because its so incomplete and impossible to scientifically test with our current level of technology.

There could be much deeper laws of physics than quantum physics which may in fact suggest the existence of intelligent design that we simply haven't discovered yet.

Heck, if we can describe the entire universe in big math equations, you could take that to mean maybe God is really some big cosmic math geek.

The point is that Quantum Mechanics has be experimentally verified. Which means it explains that which it properly predicts. Which means no later theory can come along and say "Nu-uh you were wrong there." Since Quantum Mechanics properly describes causality on such small scales then when the Universe was that scale it must have been governed by a very similar set of causal laws. I say similar and not exact because the situation is different, however the situation is not different in a manner that is suddenly going to bring back the macroscopic laws of causality. If anything its going to make the laws even more strange.

If we can describe the universe with math all it means is that 1+1 still equals 2. In other words one can say that math works because of the conservation of mass/energy. All math is based on counting and counting only works when you can't make something suddenly vanish from the system. Since we can't do that it means counting and thereby all the math built on it must describe the universe.

[POS Industries]

Originally Posted by ZAKtheGeek

No, but you likened it to an organism, and unless you're studied extraterrestrial life, you likened it to an earthen one. Unless you think all the theoretical life in the universe would share these similarities with life as we know it, which is similarly faulty thinking.

I could liken it to the anatomy of a man made of straw if you'd like.

Originally Posted by Sithdarth

Did I say particle? I'm pretty sure I didn't.

Same to you. You know damn well what I meant.