Believing in god doesn't explain the beginning

Call Me Jimmy

You all know the argument about the beginning of time etc. The thing that strikes me about the argument that god started it all is the fact that the proponents of this argument usually say that we can't have come from nowhere, something does not come from nothing.

Most of these people would realise it's too hard to argue against evolution and simply say that something had to start the evolutionary cycle, and that evolution doesn't explain the beginning. They say something had to start it all... yet they accept that god just was... he has always been there. They will more easily accept that a supernatural being was always there rather than the matter that might have been there which kicked off the evolution of our species.

I don't know, I mean I know it's a slightly obvious point but, the bottom line is they will not accept that something could just be (like whatever was there before the big bang) but yet they say that god just was. I say, if you'll accept that something just was, why not let that be the substances that could possibly have exploded into other things to set off this whole cycle as opposed to a god who we are seemingly in the image of, so a human-like god that just floated around with nothing to do. I know I'm preaching to the converted here and I'm not trying to be a smart ass but it seems the argument that god gives us an explanation of creation is at least as "weak" as any scientific theory.

Also, on an unrelated note... Was it only Joseph and Mary's word that Mary was a virgin or did the people who wrote the bible have any evidence? lol that just popped into my head.

Ekancone

What on earth does evolution have to do with the beginning of the universe?

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

prob means the evolution of the planets and universe, not evolution through natural selection but still evolution.

Ciaran500

You're assuming god is governed by time but we don't know if time exsists or how it "flows" outside our universe

Ekancone

Mordances with wolves wrote: »

prob means the evolution of the planets and universe, not evolution through natural selection but still evolution.

Thats what I thought until I read 'evolution of our species', but maybe I'm just reading it wrong.

Zillah

God is omnipotent, he doesn't have to make sense, heretic.

rockbeer

Indeed. One of the most striking moments in the God Delusion (ofr me anyway) was the mathematical demonstration of how much more improbable the existence of god was than the the existence of the universe and the development of advanced life within it without his help.

God just replaces a question with a question.

Oh, and in a culture that stoned adulterers, you'd probably say pretty much anything if you'd gone and got yourself pregnant with the wrong guy

Dades

daithifleming wrote: »

What on earth does evolution have to do with the beginning of the universe?

He refers to theists who accept evolution, but who then go on to assert God must exist because we can't explain who invented the 'matter' that we all evolved from.

Akrasia

Zillah wrote: »

God is omnipotent, he doesn't have to make sense, heretic.

Actually, christians do impose one restriction on gods omnipotence, the principle of 'non-contradiction' (some also say he can not lie, but that's just something they made up to try and avoid the argument 'what if god is just fuking with us')

God can do anything he likes as long as he doesn't contradict himself.

Which is pretty wierd because humans who are far less than omnipotent are full of internal contradictions

PDN

Akrasia wrote: »

Actually, christians do impose one restriction on gods omnipotence, the principle of 'non-contradiction' (some also say he can not lie, but that's just something they made up to try and avoid the argument 'what if god is just fuking with us')

God can do anything he likes as long as he doesn't contradict himself.

Which is pretty wierd because humans who are far less than omnipotent are full of internal contradictions

Hmm, is this a misunderstanding or a misrepresntation of the principle of non-contradiction? The issue is not whether God could contradict Himself as a person does, but whether something can be both x and y where both x & y are mutually exclusive terms. For example, the principle of non-contradiction says something can not be both circular and square at the same time.

One of the funny things about the principle of non-contradiction is that in order to refute it you must assume it in the first place.

bus77

Dades wrote: »

He refers to theists who accept evolution, but who then go on to assert God must exist because we can't explain who invented the 'matter' that we all evolved from.

I don't think much of that argument either, but sometimes a follow-up argument comes from atheists along the lines of, ''Well, what came before God then? No answer to that? See, your talking ****e.''

Standman

Call Me Jimmy wrote: »

You all know the argument about the beginning of time etc. The thing that strikes me about the argument that god started it all is the fact that the proponents of this argument usually say that we can't have come from nowhere, something does not come from nothing.

Most of these people would realise it's too hard to argue against evolution and simply say that something had to start the evolutionary cycle, and that evolution doesn't explain the beginning. They say something had to start it all... yet they accept that god just was... he has always been there. They will more easily accept that a supernatural being was always there rather than the matter that might have been there which kicked off the evolution of our species.

I don't know, I mean I know it's a slightly obvious point but, the bottom line is they will not accept that something could just be (like whatever was there before the big bang) but yet they say that god just was. I say, if you'll accept that something just was, why not let that be the substances that could possibly have exploded into other things to set off this whole cycle as opposed to a god who we are seemingly in the image of, so a human-like god that just floated around with nothing to do. I know I'm preaching to the converted here and I'm not trying to be a smart ass but it seems the argument that god gives us an explanation of creation is at least as "weak" as any scientific theory.

Also, on an unrelated note... Was it only Joseph and Mary's word that Mary was a virgin or did the people who wrote the bible have any evidence? lol that just popped into my head.

There was no "before" the big bang. Asking what was before the big bang is the same as asking what is north of the north pole. It doesn't make sense as time was created along with the big bang. Time is not merely a backing track to which life plays out, it is a physical part of our universe that is affected by gravity. In order for something to be before something else you must have a timeline, but with the big bang, the timeline started at the same time the big bang occurred. It is natural for us humans who have taken time for granted to always think there must be something before something else, there must be a cause to an effect, but in a place where time does not exist the normal rules do not apply.

Its is hard to comprehend a place where time does not exist, and it is equally perplexing to imagine how from absolute nothingness came the Universe. But all that we can say for sure about the big bang is that something happened. That is it! We just have to accept that at this moment in time we do not know how something came from nothing in the form of the big bang, and as we know from our history it has always been the norm to fill in the incomprehendable gaps in our knowledge with god. In this way, one could define god as "that which is incomprehendable". So if you define god in that way, you could say god did create the universe and still be an atheist. If I am not mistaken, I think Einstein used god in this way, something that religious people often use to promote their creation bull****.

rockbeer

PDN wrote: »

Hmm, is this a misunderstanding or a misrepresntation of the principle of non-contradiction? The issue is not whether God could contradict Himself as a person does, but whether something can be both x and y where both x & y are mutually exclusive terms. For example, the principle of non-contradiction says something can not be both circular and square at the same time.

One of the funny things about the principle of non-contradiction is that in order to refute it you must assume it in the first place.

The principle also becomes increasingly irrelevant as knowledge improves. Quantum mechanics shows that things can in fact be both x and y... e.g. light which behaves as both a wave and a particle depending on the circumstances and/or method of observation. The principle of contradiction only really reflects humanity's limited perspective - the filters through which we view the world are necessary for our survival but don't show us anything like 'the truth'.

robindch

Akrasia wrote: »

Actually, christians do impose one restriction on gods omnipotence, the principle of 'non-contradiction'

Not all christians do impose restrictions. AFAIR, there's at least one poster in the Other Place who does believe that god can create square circles and the like, were he of a mind to. Apparently, the understanding is that it's only impossible right up until the time at which it happens, at which point it becomes possible (or something like that; I couldn't quite follow it). I seem to remember that Lewis Carroll sat down and had a good think about omnipotence and categorized the various classes. Can't remember what he decided and too lazy to google it.

And while I'm rambling, I turned on the telly one sunday morning a month or two back and got to hear a choir of kids -- and adults, mind! -- singing "My God Is So Big".

Anyhow, I can't help but wonder if all this talk of deistic omnipotence hides a fear of sexual impotence? I'm sure Freud had something to say about it all.

stereoroid

One important point that theists sometimes overlook has to do where theories like "Evolution" and "Big Bang" came from. It's hard to get through to them that they started with observations of the world and the universe. They did not start as abstract philosophical experiments, or expressions of human preconceptions and desires.

Evolution: Charles Darwin's observations on the Galapagos Islands lead him to examine the effect that differing isolated environments play in the development of physical features, such as the beaks of finches.

Big Bang: Edwin Hubble observes the Red Shift in the spectra of remote stars, and finds a correlation between their distances and the magnitude of the shift. Theory: the universe is expanding. Corollary: it was once smaller. Much smaller.

There's no point in attacking the people behind these ideas, or other people who agree with them. You could replace Darwin and Hubble with aliens, and it would not matter, because it starts with the observations, not with the specific people and their beliefs.

Calibos

I'd be atheistic with regard to all human religion and interventionist god and agnostic with regard to a deistic creator of the universe. I don't believe there was a god creator of the universe but we can never know.

What always gets me though is how so many of the non fundamentalist moderate religionists, ie those that see the bible as metaphorical, allegorical etc who actually believe the bible is quite fallible and wrong in so many ways, who even accept it as a flawed book written by men.ie. those most likely to fall back on, 'but who created the universe if there were no God'.

Well I just can't understand how one extrapolates from a position of not being able to comprehend the existance of the universe without a god creating it, to believing in the christian god and his son who died for our sins on a cross in a backwards desert country on the eastern mediterreanian circa 2008 years ago. How are they connected. How is the former a justification in believing in the latter??

rockbeer

Calibos wrote: »

Well I just can't understand how one extrapolates from a position of not being able to comprehend the existance of the universe without a god creating it, to believing in the christian god and his son who died for our sins on a cross in a backwards desert country on the eastern mediterreanian circa 2008 years ago. How are they connected. How is the former a justification in believing in the latter??

They aren't connected at all. There's no justification whatsoever, it's usually just an unfortunate coincidence between an accident of history and an accident of birth.

Call Me Jimmy

Yea, to clarify, what I'm basically saying is that these people are willing to accept that a god can either come from nothing or just always existed, but will argue to death that it isn't possible in the case of scientific theories like the big bang.

robindch

Call Me Jimmy wrote: »

Yea, to clarify, what I'm basically saying is that these people are willing to accept that a god can either come from nothing or just always existed, but will argue to death that it isn't possible in the case of scientific theories like the big bang.

Yes. There's a strong tendency that would be irritating (were it not quite funny too) to deny to the arguments of others, the infinite structural flexibility they permit in their own -- they're not called "holey" for nothing.

Dades

God is the exact same shape as the gap in our knowledge.

robindch

Dades wrote: »

God is the exact same shape as the gap in our knowledge.

Aye, and he no like the things that the religious no like either!

Marcus.Aurelius

Could this thread (and most other threads in this forum) be a little less snipey? I don't see any anti-atheist/anti-agnostic threads descending into such spiteful digs by a few cranks. And TBH, I like reading the threads here otherwise, except the utter self-righteousness that quite a few regulars express. Its worse than the damn christianity forum!!

How can anyone be so utterly full of themselves? Its a real turn off when people try to read about the information posted here!

Galvasean

maoleary wrote: »

Could this thread (and most other threads in this forum) be a little less snipey? I don't see any anti-atheist/anti-agnostic threads descending into such spiteful digs by a few cranks.

You should check out that Creationism thread.

mehfesto2

maoleary wrote: »

Could this thread (and most other threads in this forum) be a little less snipey? I don't see any anti-atheist/anti-agnostic threads descending into such spiteful digs by a few cranks. And TBH, I like reading the threads here otherwise, except the utter self-righteousness that quite a few regulars express. Its worse than the damn christianity forum!!

How can anyone be so utterly full of themselves? Its a real turn off when people try to read about the information posted here!

Totally agree. There seems to be a definite belief in some here that those with faith are somehow lesser people. Essentially, we will never known the answer to this question. And discussing it here, seems to be little more than an excercise in how much knowledge some people have on the topic and how to go about lording this knowledge over others.


Ive seen this topic on other Forums discussed rationally, fairly and with people in mind.

Marcus.Aurelius

mehfesto2 wrote: »

Totally agree. There seems to be a definite belief in some here that those with faith are somehow lesser people. Essentially, we will never known the answer to this question. And discussing it here, seems to be little more than an excercise in how much knowledge some people have on the topic and how to go about lording this knowledge over others.


Ive seen this topic on other Forums discussed rationally, fairly and with people in mind.

+1

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy debate, I enjoy reading what the regular posters write. I hate the supremacist thinking displayed. I hate the foreboding arrogance that they must be right because they think the Roman Catholic Church didn't satisfy their curiosity, as though no other Christianity existed.

People who avoid the idea of God, don't like the idea of being in subjection to a higher authority. The idea that they might be subject to rules that mean they need to change their behaviours. There's a certain arrogance on this forum. And that needs to be changed.

Ekancone

Don't let the door hit your arse on the way out lads...

Dades

Rather than a general rant, you could be more specific regarding what you have read and disagree with.

For example, I disagree with this:

maoleary wrote: »

People who avoid the idea of God, don't like the idea of being in subjection to a higher authority. The idea that they might be subject to rules that mean they need to change their behaviours.

You are suggesting that people's beliefs are based on something other than simply what they believe to be the truth, in this case a preference to not be subject to a higher power. While maybe your own beliefs are tempered by a more agreeable outcome, I assure you a genuine atheist does not concern themself with questions of what believing one side over the other entails when looking for 'truth'.

maoleary wrote: »

There's a certain arrogance on this forum. And that needs to be changed.

The is undoubtedly an air of self-assuredness which sometimes crosses the line. But it is public forum and posters can express their views however they see fit, as long as it doesn't get personal.

But to me arrogance would be believing that, by an accident of birth, you are one of Gods chosen people and will have eternal life while the rest of the worlds population burn in hell.

Sapien

maoleary wrote: »

Could this thread (and most other threads in this forum) be a little less snipey? I don't see any anti-atheist/anti-agnostic threads descending into such spiteful digs by a few cranks. And TBH, I like reading the threads here otherwise, except the utter self-righteousness that quite a few regulars express. Its worse than the damn christianity forum!!

How can anyone be so utterly full of themselves? Its a real turn off when people try to read about the information posted here!

See you at the top, chaps.

(And yes, I realise I've just compounded the impression of snideness, and I don't care.)

Marcus.Aurelius

Sapien wrote: »

See you at the top, chaps.

(And yes, I realise I've just compounded the impression of snideness, and I don't care.)

Didn't mean to come across so badly! :pac:

Don't get me wrong, I like the forum. It just gets a bit wearing. There's a lot of intolerance here at times, like the inquisition or something.

Marcus.Aurelius

Dades wrote: »

But to me arrogance would be believing that, by an accident of birth, you are one of Gods chosen people and will have eternal life while the rest of the worlds population burn in hell.

Well that's utter roman catholic hogwash.

Hell was never described as a real place in true word for word translations of scripture. You have to earn your salvation, you cannot be born into it. Roman catholics are nuts for baptising babies that cannot possibly make such a decision in their lives.

You should not judge all religion by one wishy-washy "We can't explain it, thus its a mystery" crackpot group.

Dades

maoleary wrote: »

Didn't mean to come across so badly! :pac:

Don't get me wrong, I like the forum. It just gets a bit wearing. There's a lot of intolerance here at times, like the inquisition or something.

It's all good.

I think people do like to blow off a bit of steam in here. 'Questioning' religion has been taboo for so long people get excited when they come across somewhere that doesn't really hold them back. TBH I thought this thread was fine - there are definitely worse ones.

You should not judge all religion by one wishy-washy "We can't explain it, thus its a mystery" crackpot group.

Not sure it's just the RCs who think that way! Anyhoo religions are judged one at a time here.

rockbeer

maoleary wrote: »

You should not judge all religion by one wishy-washy "We can't explain it, thus its a mystery" crackpot group.

The trouble is - and I don't mean this to sound snide or arrogant or superior - that all religions suffer from this problem on some level or another. I've never met a religious person who didn't dismiss some aspect or another of a competing faith's belief system as irrational or inconsistent, only to resist having the irrational inconsistencies of their own beliefs pointed out.

To paraphrase somebody: there's one thing that all religions are right about - all the others are wrong.

Malari

mehfesto2 wrote: »

There seems to be a definite belief in some here that those with faith are somehow lesser people.

I think you would in general find that atheists tend to come around to this way of thinking becuase they are inquisitive and have challenged what they have been taught regarding religion and found it to be an insubstantial way to explain things.

If you accept that many atheists place a great level of importance on scientific method and inquiry, then naturally they have less respect for people who don't question. Namely religious people. I don't think it's personal much of the time, it's genuine curiousity. Religion has the by-product of stifling inquiry a lot of the time.

robindch

maoleary wrote: »

Hell was never described as a real place in true word for word translations of scripture.

Actually, it is. In the original greek, "Hades" is the word translated into English as "hell". It's the same word which the pre-christian, classical greeks used word for the underworld, which certainly was believed to have a real existence.

Incidentally, there's also a lively and long-lasting urban legend about hell being discovered some miles beneath Siberia's taiga. Belief in the truth of this seems to be quite widespread and a recording of the tormented screams is available on youtube -- enjoy!

PDN

robindch wrote: »

Actually, it is. In the original greek, "Hades" is the word translated into English as "hell". It's the same word which the pre-christian, classical greeks used word for the underworld, which certainly was believed to have a real existence.

The King James Version of the Bible does certainly mistranslate Hades as 'hell'.

However, I believe that Hades, when referred to in the Bible, is different from the place of everlasting torment.

Fanny Cradock

What do you believe it to be, PDN?

robindch

PDN wrote: »

The King James Version of the Bible does certainly mistranslate Hades as 'hell'.

Not a mistranslation, but rather a word which is difficult or impossible to translate correctly into English, since the cultural context of the authors in first/second century Palestine is gone and we're left with little more than educated, or uneducated, guesses concerning their intent.

It's not clear to me why the original authors use the word Hades in the first place. The idea of "hell" that's prevailed for most of christianity is much closer to the torment of Tartaros than the tedium of Hades, and perhaps that's the idea that the KJV was reaching for. A fiery hell will certainly tend to encourager les autres rather more than a dull, gray one. More recent translations certainly do translate the word as 'Hades', but at the expense of suggesting to the classically-educated reader that the authors of the NT simply lifted the notion straight out of Greek mythology and plonked it into theirs.

In any case, the parallels between Plato's Georgias with its description of the brief or eternal torment of the wicked in Tartaros, and the synonymous christian belief, are easy enough to see. In the limited context of the depiction of the suffering, little more than the name has changed and I suspect the KJV translators should be given some credit for translating the idea arguably more accurately than the original word.

Galvasean

robindch wrote: »

Actually, it is. In the original greek, "Hades" is the word translated into English as "hell". It's the same word which the pre-christian, classical greeks used word for the underworld, which certainly was believed to have a real existence.

Incidentally, there's also a lively and long-lasting urban legend about hell being discovered some miles beneath Siberia's taiga. Belief in the truth of this seems to be quite widespread and a recording of the tormented screams is available on youtube -- enjoy!

Sounds like my local pub when a football match is on.
Wouldn't hell need to be much bigger than that to fit in all the damned?

An Fear Aniar

Standman wrote: »

Its is hard to comprehend a place where time does not exist, and it is equally perplexing to imagine how from absolute nothingness came the Universe.

Well, it is hard to comprehend, but the entirety of everything that exists is all a word uttered by God. Beautiful, isn't it?



.

calahans

An Fear Aniar wrote: »

Well, it is hard to comprehend, but the entirety of everything that exists is all a word uttered by God. Beautiful, isn't it?
.

Thats a very nice bit of whimsy

Dades

An Fear Aniar wrote: »

Beautiful, isn't it?

Beautiful like the ending of "Cinderella".
All pumpkins and glass slippers and happy-ever-after.

CerebralCortex

An Fear Aniar wrote: »

Well, it is hard to comprehend, but the entirety of everything that exists is all a word uttered by God. Beautiful, isn't it?



.

Get the f**k outta here.<ala Beverly hills cop 3>








..

Pompey Magnus

robindch wrote: »

Not a mistranslation, but rather a word which is difficult or impossible to translate correctly into English, since the cultural context of the authors in first/second century Palestine is gone and we're left with little more than educated, or uneducated, guesses concerning their intent.

As far as I am aware there was no word for hell in Aramaic, the nearest comparable word was "Gehenna" which was a place of purification, not everlasting torment, and was named after a burning rubbish dump outside Jerusalem. When Jesus spoke about Hell in in his native Aramaic this would have been most likely the term he used. The idea of Hell that we have in modern Christianity bears little similarity to the Jewish version that Jesus and his followers would have been aware of. The image of Hell we have today is a result of poor translation from Aramaic to Greek and pagan additions to it.

An Fear Aniar

CerebralCortex wrote: »

Get the f**k outta here.<ala Beverly hills cop 3>








..

Hey! Stop copying my dot thing.







.
(That's my foible, not yours).

Canis Lupus

CerebralCortex wrote: »

Get the f**k outta here.<ala Beverly hills cop 3>








..

heh heh

No I will no get the **** out of here.


Love that line.

Pompey Magnus

An article on the BBC today about what might have been around before the Big Bang.

Physicists studying Microwave radiation which was created soon after the creation of the Universe now believe that this radiation hints that our Universe "bubbled off" from another Universe, being created spontaneously out of empty space. This would have be an unremarkable event in the parent Universe. An interesting implication of this would be that similar Universes could have spawned off from our Universe, in fact it could happen right in front of us and we would never know. It still is just a theory, but it has some supporting evidence at least.

Who needs the Bible when you could have a Universe(s) as cool as that?