Jimi

Let me add here, after ButterMup's statement, that I'm not trying to convert anyone. I'm, as was said, trying to state why I believe what I believe. I do have valid reasons for such. I do find it insulting that I am called illogical because I do believe in something, due to the fact that I am a very logical person.

billpl

Jimi, you don't have to defend yourself. you're well within reason.

This tread is hardly a trainwreck. Religious discussions always gets the blood to boil. I make a point of cruising around the net through various forums and have had discussions with Muslims, LDS, hard ass Catholics, gays, every form of fundie and even polygamists...believe me...this is a good natured bunch here at webrats.

...must admit though, ButterMup made some every good points

Master Chief

I didn't mean to call people illogical for believing in faith, if that was what you thought I implied somewhere along the line.

Personally, I don't believe in faith because I am an extremely logical person as well. I don't understand how someone can believe in a created idea that has nothing proving its existance in the first place. Doesn't that mean that I could create my own religion right now, and in a couple thousand years people would believe everything I say?

I don't think if someone believes in an illogical principle, it makes them an illogical person either.

I'm not trying to force my opinion on other people either, I'm just trying to express why I feel the way I feel.

EDIT - Bedtime.

Jimi

You might as well start your own religion..... none of the ones now are 100% correct.

schutzenkonig

That suggestion yields no result. You have an infinite number of tries, yet an infinite number of possibilities, ergo an indeterminant answer. But (assuming you believe the big bang theory) while the universe is infinantly large, it yields only a finite number of solar systems as those are expanding away from one another only a finite distance from the center of the universe. Since this shows a finite number of chances, the probability that even one of a finite number of tries will yield one particular result with an infinite number of possiblities is zero.

Jimi

Big Bang happened.

schutzenkonig

I never said it didn't, but some people don't believe in it. I was also clairifying what theory I was basing my claim off of.

ButterMup

And I thought I'd be able to let this thread lie. Silly me.


I'm not looking for an answer, schutzie. I'm looking for you to pop your head outside of the box. The weather's not bad out here.
This entire thread is about religion, which is nothing but conjecture and theory anyway, so let's speak in theoretical terms.

Now, I'm not exactly a mathematical whiz, lord knows - I don't even like numbers - but if what I'm reading in your response is, in fact, what you're saying, then I have no choice but to call your formula broken.
I see that you're applying the Big Bang theory as support for the statement that there is, in fact, only a finite amount of matter in the universe. Okay.
My point, by contrast, is that the universe itself is an infinite space, wherein all of that matter which has been dispersed (the total quantity of which of which we honestly don't know) is perpetually expanding outward, but in no way does this affect the existence of that matter.
I'm sure you're familiar with the principle that matter can neither be created nor destroyed, but only altered in form.

Moreover, the Big Bang is assumed to have happened sometime between 10 billion and 16 billion years ago, but I'm going to say 12 billion for the purposes of this example as, again, nobody really knows.
It's not like there's a wealth of written records dating from B.C. 12,000,000,000.
Now, using the number 12 for control, the scale of time can be represented as a cosmic calendar in which the Big Bang occurs at the stroke of midnight on January 1st, and in which today, right now, represents the stroke of midnight on December 31st. Exactly 12 months.
By that design, each month represents 1 billion years of time.
On this calendar, our solar system (including the Earth) wouldn't have even formed until around August 13, and humans first walked this planet roughly 3 mere hours ago.
We're a very, very new phenomenon in the grand scope of existence.

So what's been going on for the previous 364 days and 21 hours?
Quite a lot, I'd imagine.
It's true that with a finite amount of matter, as we have, and a finite amount of time such as 12 billion years, the possibility of a set of circumstances coming together the way they would have had to in order to generate something akin to humanity is very, very small. However, given the infinite scope of the universe, where all of this is taking place, it is most certainly not, as you claim, statistically impossible.
The odds are not zero. Slim, yes. Immeasurably so. But not zero.
The flaw in your argument comes in assuming that because there is a limited amount of matter, that equates to a limited amount of tries - a statement which ignores the immutable fact that matter does not cease to be. What the universe had to work with 12 billion years ago is exactly what it has to work with now, and what will remain in another 12 billion years.
The only change is in the form that matter takes: a change which, in fact, has to be recognized if you are to acknowledge the existence of humanity at all. People, trees, birds, water, even the atmosphere and the Earth itself didn't explode out of the Big Bang, completely formed and ready to support life - we, as well as our entire environment, are comprised of the base components which were present at that time, combined and altered in form in such a way as to create one world out of who-knows-how-many which served as the template for fostering very specific forms of life, ourselves among those.

I can't imagine that you can ignore the possibility that something similar may have nearly happened innumerable times before (or maybe it has...ooooh...how very X-Files), anywhere in the universe, by very similar means.
If you must make this mathematical, then you must recognize that existence, from a strictly scientific perspective, is naught but a game of numbers and probability - you yourself said so, when you based your argument above on probable outcome. Probability is a general rule, identifying that which is unlikely, not impossible.
Never forget that every rule is subject to exceptions.

Lorill

A+++ conversation people... kudos. I just want to chime in for a sec.

I think what gets lost in this debate every time is that religion as we know it is the only argument for the "God" side. One side says claims science and says there is no God while one side says that God HAS to exsist because of the design of the Universe. There never seems to be any middle ground. Well, let me offer my beliefs as a middle ground.

I believe in science in that everyting Butter and Chief have said. I don't beleive in any earthly religion that was manufactured to try to explain our purpose (and serve other purposes such as controlling the masses but that is not for this discussion). I believe that life is soooooooo far beyond our comprehension that it is silly and arrogant to think that we have a grasp on the whole thing. I believe in an invisible hand (call it God, if you want) that keeps life in balance. I don't believe in a father figure that listens to your prayers and sends you to heaven or hell after you die. All that stuff was made by man.

There is something much greater going on that we could never possibly fathom. And for now, I don't want to. If God wanted us to believe in him so bad, he would do something to prove his existence.

romdos

Not so much religious as phiolosophical... I'm into Taoism, and Zen ... always made a lot more sense to me than anything else...

Jimi

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I'm into everything.... in case anyone remembers my old WR name... NibiruZen. I Once was AnunnakiZen, for A-Z, but it didn't sound right.

The original religion started with monotheism, and included basically the same God Christians, Muslims, and Jews believe in today. It was also more based on physics than religions are these days. The Sumerians were quite advanced in that field. If you look into the Torah, and Old Testament, and whatnot, they even use a lot of the same names.

Did you know that Christians and Jews believe in Aliens, and don't realize it?

The Sumerians believed that a groups of aliens came from a planet called "Nibiru" as directed by God.

Genesis 6:4 in the Torah says that God sent the Nephalim to Earth to take human women as their wives.

Genesis 6:8 in the Old Testament, I believe, says that God sent his "Divine Beings" to Earth to take women as their wives.

Just something I wanted to piint out, I find humor in it.

ButterMup

You know, Jimi, I'm inclined to agree with you (off the record, of course) in that religion as we recognize it today is a far cry from what it was several thousand years ago, back before a group of wandering desert nomads got together, cribbed up some notes from oral traditions which were already hundreds of years old before the first copy of Genesis ever even appeared, and said, "We've got yer God right heee-ah!".

The problem with religious faith is that nobody's willing to simply have it, and let other people believe what they want; everybody wants to 'share' their faith. It's considered perfectly okay for one to mock rational ideas about evolution, but if I then point out, in turn, that their position depends upon the notion of a magic superhero in the sky, they're probably going to take offense. Why? Why are irrational beliefs somehow less subject to scrutiny and dissection than rational ones?
After all, the whole point of science is consistency.
Any scientific experiment can be replicated by anyone who cares to undertake it, and any theory is based upon sound experimentation and/or observation...a fact which is indisputably untrue of religion. Nobody can run luminescent dye through God so that we can see Him under a microscope (or in a telescope, natch). God does not speak to everyone, and He doesn't even say the same things to the people who do claim to hear from Him.
If he did, there wouldn't be three major Western religions and a dozen more Eastern ones.

It is funny, isn't it, how far-reaching the idea of religion has become?
I'd never really considered it from that angle before, but I think that's a small part of the reason why I view religion with so much general irreverance: simply enough, nobody knows what the fuck religion actually is or isn't...and even though we all claim we do, there enough dissenting opinions on the matter to make a guy wonder if this is really something worth getting involved in, or if it's all just a silly, superstitious waste of time.

Jimi

Albert Einstein once said, "Science without religion is lame, and religion without science is blind."

Master Chief

Just another interesting topic that I'd like