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Belief in "god" without a belief in religion

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  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 24,421 Mod ✭✭✭✭robindch


    Quantum Mech is of profound importance. Quantum computing for example, ask it a question, it calculates all possible answers (For example; 2+2=A small snail) And returns the correct one, instantly.
    Anybody asked a quantum computer if there's a god out there?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,314 ✭✭✭sink


    O'Coonassa wrote: »
    But it's not an idle guess. It's based on observation. Had you observed anything at all that contradicts the theory that there is no creation without it's creator then I'm sure you'd have brought it to the table ;)

    Time is a property of our universe relative to each individual observer and it can be manipulated trough relative velocity and gravity. In a singularity (infinite mass in a single point) such as a black hole or the universe pre big bang, time stops completely. So before the big bang there was no time, no progression and therefore no cause & effect. How can there be a prime mover without time?


  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 24,421 Mod ✭✭✭✭robindch


    sink wrote: »
    How can there be a prime mover without time?
    ...and how can there be movement without a time during which a change of location can happen?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,318 ✭✭✭O'Coonassa


    Naz_st wrote: »
    This is getting into some pretty funky theoretical physics mind you, so I still think the only correct answer to the first cause question is "we don't know yet".

    Cool, I need time to digest this stuff. I must say I'm very impressed with the fact that "If CTCs exist, their existence would seem to imply at least the theoretical possibility of making a time machine" :)


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,318 ✭✭✭O'Coonassa


    sink wrote: »
    Time is a property of our universe relative to each individual observer and it can be manipulated trough relative velocity and gravity. In a singularity (infinite mass in a single point) such as a black hole or the universe pre big bang, time stops completely. So before the big bang there was no time, no progression and therefore no cause & effect. How can there be a prime mover without time?

    But surely the singularity, the universe-pre-big-bang to which you refer only relates to this particular universe?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,353 ✭✭✭Goduznt Xzst


    O'Coonassa wrote: »
    As I said earlier, give me a list of things with no first cause and I'll stop smirking.

    Why does it matter? You are making a false argument that is utterly irrelevant.

    It's akin to someone who has only grown up around animals and living creatures who sees a plane and says, "because I know all things that fly have mothers, that flying thing in the sky must also have been born by a creature of the same type"

    You are looking at what you know and using it to explain something you know nothing about. Please tell me you understand why this is wrong.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 21,611 ✭✭✭✭Sam Vimes


    O'Coonassa wrote: »
    As I said earlier, give me a list of things with no first cause and I'll stop smirking.

    god?

    also, even if you establish that the universe was created, how do you jump from that to worshipping a jewish guy who lived 2000 years ago?

    And what do you know about how the universe began that the world's foremost scientists don't?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,314 ✭✭✭sink


    O'Coonassa wrote: »
    But surely the singularity, the universe-pre-big-bang to which you refer only relates to this particular universe?

    Since time part of the fabric of our universe (spacetime) and is only relative to that which is in our universe, there is nothing to suggest time exists outside of our universe and even if it did it wouldn't matter because it wouldn't be relative to us i.e time outside of our universe has no meaning to us and similarly outside of our universe the time we experience has no meaning. It's kind of hard to explain.

    I think I explained it better over in the philosophy forum.

    http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=58902885&postcount=30


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,182 ✭✭✭Genghiz Cohen


    O'Coonassa wrote: »
    But surely the singularity, the universe-pre-big-bang to which you refer only relates to this particular universe?

    Look, we don't know how the current version of this universe started, lets not bite off more than we can chew, yes?
    We know nothing of alternate universes, it's irrelevant to this current conversation. (As far as I can tell)


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,789 ✭✭✭Mark Hamill


    robindch wrote: »
    Anybody asked a quantum computer if there's a god out there?

    Yes, the answer it gave was 42


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,318 ✭✭✭O'Coonassa


    Why does it matter? You are making a false argument that is utterly irrelevant.

    It matters to me is all, it confounds my sense of reason to think of it otherwise. BTW you're giving off the exact same vibe as I get from theists when I suggest the Bible isn't the word of God.
    It's akin to someone who has only grown up around animals and living creatures who sees a plane and says, "because I know all things that fly have mothers, that flying thing in the sky must also have been born by a creature of the same type"

    Up until the invention of powered flight that was entirely true surely? Because the Wright brothers were creatures who gave birth to powered flight it still hold true to a degree. :)
    You are looking at what you know and using it to explain something you know nothing about. Please tell me you understand why this is wrong.

    But all I have is what I know, my conscious mind. I'm happy enough to trust it, does me no harm like. I know the universe to a degree because of what I've learned about it. It seems to me that your position is like a faith based refusal to trust your senses.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,318 ✭✭✭O'Coonassa


    Sam Vimes wrote: »
    god?

    That's what I call It. The only thing that has that quality so far as I'm aware. If you want me to even entertain the possibility It doesn't exist then I need to know of other things that have arisen without being caused to do so.
    Sam Vimes wrote: »
    also, even if you establish that the universe was created, how do you jump from that to worshipping a jewish guy who lived 2000 years ago?

    Er..I don't. Worshipping people isn't my buzz. The dead fella from Palestine said some pretty spot on things so far as I can make out. I blame God for that though, he certainly seemed to have a thing about It. And just look at the history of western civilisation that it has caused. Impressive stuff.
    Sam Vimes wrote: »
    And what do you know about how the universe began that the world's foremost scientists don't?

    Only as much as the average atheists do really. IMO the agnostics are the ones who come out of the cold application of logic looking the most sensible followed by the deists and the weak atheists and trailing behind there are the strong atheists and the theists.


  • Registered Users Posts: 391 ✭✭Naz_st


    O'Coonassa wrote: »
    IMO the agnostics are the ones who come out of the cold application of logic looking the most sensible followed by the deists and the weak atheists and trailing behind there are the strong atheists and the theists.

    We seem to be heading for familiar ground here on the atheism/agnosticism definitions front: but being "agnostic" about something simply means that there is not enough information to make a judgement on it, aka "I don't know", which is the same position most "atheists" take on this topic, and certainly the position the posters who have replied to you have unanimously taken.

    See here for more:
    http://atheism.about.com/od/aboutagnosticism/a/atheism.htm


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,314 ✭✭✭sink


    "Not only is the universe stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine." - Werner Karl Heisenberg

    O'Coonassa you are making the Fundamental mistake of thinking that your evolved intuition is capable of intuitively grasping the nature of universe, when it is has only adapted to deal with everyday aspects of nature. No one understands Quantum Mechanics it only works when you put numbers and calculations down on piece of paper, if you sit back and try to imagine QM in your head all you'll get is a head ache. There are many aspects of physics which are just as incapable of being understood intuitively by the human brain, but yet the maths is as accurate as it can be.

    "If you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don't understand quantum mechanics." - Richard Feynman


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 21,191 ✭✭✭✭Latchy


    '' Jesus was the son of God and he was alright ,it was just his disciples who were thick ''

    John Lennon

    I would have more belief in a ' God ' rather than the humans who claim to represent him and his intrests here on earth .

    Latchy


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,353 ✭✭✭Goduznt Xzst


    O'Coonassa wrote: »
    It matters to me is all

    Understandable, but it doesn't make it any more objectively correct.
    O'Coonassa wrote: »
    it confounds my sense of reason to think of it otherwise.

    Then don't think of it either way. It is a sight more injurious to yourself and others you profess this opinion to to claim knowledge of an event through logic and reason when not even the most logical or reasonable individuals would do so.
    O'Coonassa wrote: »
    BTW you're giving off the exact same vibe as I get from theists when I suggest the Bible isn't the word of God.

    The difference is I'm not telling you what is right, i'm telling you why you are wrong. I don't know how this Universe started and you don't either. Your default answer when asked how this Universe began should be "I don't know, but we have our best minds trying to figure that out" ;)
    O'Coonassa wrote: »
    the Wright brothers were creatures who gave birth to powered flight it still hold true to a degree. :)

    Sorry I don't wish to entertain an argument on semantics :)
    O'Coonassa wrote: »
    It seems to me that your position is like a faith based refusal to trust your senses.

    Not at all. I trust my senses, and know that an understanding of how this Universe came to be is not required for them to function. Sure, under my current level of knowledge I could hazard a guess, like you, about the start of the Universe, but what would be the point, does it make my life better to think that God created all this or not? No, imo, it doesn't, and I would only be guessing on my limited acquisition of information up to this point.

    There are plenty of aspects of this Universe that confound, confuse and are out of the bounds of our current understanding, trying to leap frog them and make up an explanation for the beginning of it all is foolish.

    It is okay to say "I don't know" icon14.gif


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,182 ✭✭✭Genghiz Cohen


    Not at all. I trust my senses,

    Derren Brown would have something to say about that. (Amazing show, get it)


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,353 ✭✭✭Goduznt Xzst


    Derren Brown would have something to say about that. (Amazing show, get it)

    Just because I trust my senses doesn't mean I don't accept they can be fooled. Plus ahead of my trust in my senses is a distrust of mentalists ;)


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,182 ✭✭✭Genghiz Cohen


    Just because I trust my senses doesn't mean I don't accept they can be fooled. Plus ahead of my trust in my senses is a distrust of mentalists ;)

    Have you seen what he can do!?
    Never answering a pay-phone ever again...


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 11,097 ✭✭✭✭zuroph


    Derren brown can do a lot less than you think.

    stop stealing my thread with the same old proof/no proof debate. :p


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,318 ✭✭✭O'Coonassa


    Naz_st wrote: »

    Thanks I read this from your link "In the end, the fact of the matter is a person isn’t faced with the necessity of only being either an atheist or an agnostic. Quite the contrary, not only can a person be both, but it is in fact common for people to be both agnostics and atheists. An agnostic atheist won’t claim to know for sure that nothing warranting the label “god” exists or that such cannot exist, but they also don’t actively believe that such an entity does indeed exist."

    It took all the heart out of my argumentativeness lol

    I can't really be having a row with people who admit the possibility I could be right, it just doesn't seem right.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 21,611 ✭✭✭✭Sam Vimes


    O'Coonassa wrote: »
    That's what I call It. The only thing that has that quality so far as I'm aware. If you want me to even entertain the possibility It doesn't exist then I need to know of other things that have arisen without being caused to do so.
    Atheists don't argue that the universe arose without being caused to do so. In the vast majority of cases the answer you will get when you ask an atheist how the universe came to be is "I don't know". The choices are not "God" (whichever flavour people happen to believe in) or "the universe popped into being on it's own". There is also option C: we don't know because we don't know enough about the universe yet.

    The fact that we don't yet know how the universe came into being is not an argument for God. Just because someone claims to have an answer to a question doesn't mean their answer is right

    O'Coonassa wrote: »
    Only as much as the average atheists do really.
    So are you an atheist? I was under the impression that you weren't
    O'Coonassa wrote: »
    IMO the agnostics are the ones who come out of the cold application of logic looking the most sensible followed by the deists and the weak atheists and trailing behind there are the strong atheists and the theists.
    I wouldn't put them in that order tbh. Agnostics generally leave open the possibility for the Christian god, a hypothesis that is clearly invented in the desert 2000 years ago. Someone who rejects the illogical rather than leaving open all possibilities no matter how ridiculous is more logical imo. I'd pretty much agree with the rest of your list though.


  • Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 10,088 Mod ✭✭✭✭marco_polo


    Yes, the answer it gave was 42

    On a philosophical note, can a quantum computer say no?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,097 ✭✭✭kiffer


    marco_polo wrote: »
    On a philosophical note, can a quantum computer say no?

    Probably maybe.


  • Registered Users Posts: 391 ✭✭Naz_st


    marco_polo wrote: »
    On a philosophical note, can a quantum computer say no?

    Not only that, it can say "Yes" and "No" at the same time... :)


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