h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Maybe we should take a quick poll here on hootoo.

How many believe that there should be an elective course in alternative existence theories that would include the Hebrew Bible, the Christian Old Testament, the Quoran, the one about the world riding on the back of a giant turtle, as many other earthbound theories and mythologies as have been documented, and all of the ones mentioned in the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy?

I believe that, after a course like that, science would have a plethora of converts!

Fordstowel, my children learned all of that and a few more obscure ones in their RE classes at school (VA R.Catholic state schools). Both are avid science students.

Mr 14 year old is at the 'there can't be a higher being' stage and little Miss 9 is adamant that the Tooth Fairy, Santa and God are me and dad.

They really do make up their own minds... just as we all did. I don't believe witholding any information is to their benefit. They will be faced with it at some point in their life and likely not have formed an opinion. i would rather they hear it all when they are young, form an opinion, reacha point where they are no longer threatened by the evolving nature of opinion through a lifetime and then maybe one day find one that fits them.

Hi, Wilma:

I'm happy that your kids are getting such a rounded education in theology. I do hope that the curricula is as diversified in other areas of study.

It sounds like both of your youngsters are at about the right ages to form those opinions, and I trust that your frankness did not deprive them of a joyful childhood.

The weirdest thing about opinions though is that they are subject to change with new information. For instance, Mr 14 may someday realize that there's a difference between 'there need not be a higher being' and 'there cannot be a higher being'.

Pragmatically, it's nearly impossible to prove a negative, but that's a higher level of critical thinking than most 14-year-olds go through. Rigid opinions have held man's advancement back many times in history, like the refusal to accept that Earth revolves around the sun.

Now, referring back to my original polling question, did their studies really include the creation mythologies discussed in Hitchhikers??

OK FordsTowel,

Your original question:

>> How many believe that there should be an elective course in alternative existence theories that would include the Hebrew Bible, the Christian Old Testament, the Quoran, the one about the world riding on the back of a giant turtle, as many other earthbound theories and mythologies as have been documented, and all of the ones mentioned in the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy?<<

I believe there should not be a choice, therefore not an elective but a compulsory course. This relates beyond the question of faith and belief. It is directly related to good citizenship and tolerance.

My point in post 2 was to point out that even in faith schools (state and private, primary and secondary) these classes are presented as a compulsory part of the child's education. Nor its it a one-off occurence but it is reinforced with greater depth of study ont he same subjects as they grow.

My experience tells me that there is not necessarily a problem here. the problem is in the lack of acceptance that any individual (especially the children) have the absolute right to select their own path with regard to faith, which is a persoanl and individual aspect of their existence. All we can do is provide the information (all the information) and step back, trusting that they will reach the configuration that works for them.

Another point I would like to raise is one that seems to find little soil on hootoo... 'faith' and 'science' are not mutually exclusive. My most profoundly influential teachers at school were my biology teacher and my physics teacher. Both Catholics (as am I) teaching in a convent. I absolutely believe in evolution. I absolutely believe in a higher being. I absolutely believe that we do not yet have the full picture.

You may believe otherwise, but your faith in science seems as passionate as any belief system from where I am sitting. The odd thing is that I do not disagree with that aspect of your statements but I do find the snide hootoo-wide assertions that any 'believer' is stupid, uneducated and deluded just slightly offensive.

Another


W

Wilma:

Apparently, at some point, I led you astray somehow. It was not my intent, and for it I apologize. I never intentionally said anything meant to be snide.

To correct the delusion that I've apparently forced upon you, I should clarify that, although I have a deep respect for science, I do not 'believe in it'. I do believe in a creative force or being that began our universe and our existence. Further clarification must now follow.

My respect for science is based on its self-correcting nature. It has been dead wrong about simply everything it ever claimed to know since the beginning of time, but it keeps getting closer and closer to something resembling 'truth' by constantly rexamining itself and testing its latest hypotheses.

I can no more 'believe in it' at its current level than I could believe in it at the time science asserted that the Earth was flat and that things fell to the ground in an attempt to get 'home'.

I do believe that science and logic have combined to prove the absolute necessity of a creator-being, without which our universe would never have begun. At least for me, this is now a given.

My reason for asking 'The Question' in the manner I did was to recognize that if comparative religions are to be taught (and in some countries, it is illegal to teach religions in any non-parochial school unless it is in a comparative manner), it would have to include all of the 'traditional' ones, including the newer atheisism proposed ones like the 'Flying Spaghetti Monster', 'The Celestial Teapot', and 'The Invisible Pink Unicorn'; and that, if they were to be included, I would have to think that those listed in the HGTTG would have to be included as well.

I do agree with you that the classes would be an excellent place to try to instill tolerance, if not true understanding, among backgrounds. I can tolerate someone believing that the world travels on the back of a giant turtle, but I'll never understand it.

What I don't feel religions, at least any of which I am in any way knowledgeable, have to offer is a platform for reason, flexibility, tolerance, or growth. Having been raised a Catholic, I am too aware of its failings of the past - from crusades to inquisitions, from stifling thought and the advancement of man to selling 'indulgences' and bending its rules for rulers and tyrants, to not even being able to show an absolute lineage of Popes from Peter to present.

All major religions seem to have had their own 'embarrassments', bloody wars, inhumane punishments (mostly of women), etc. If there is any true 'word of God' message out there, no one has given it any real observance in the last few thousand years.

Questions I've had to ask myself include; Do I follow the dietic laws of Abraham? Would I stone to death a woman who cheated on her husband? Would I offer my son or daughter as a sacrifice to God?

So, I respect everyone's right to choose there religion or lack thereof. I respect everyone's right to believe in science or not. I try not to ridicule, vilify, or slight anyone based on their professed belief system. And, I never mean to sound snide.

I was just surprised that you said your children had been instructed in 'all of those and more', without feeling any real confidence that such a course included those of Douglas Adams. I was merely trying to clarify that point.

If I did believe that believers are stupid, uneducated and deluded, I would never voice it (or type it); but I don't. I know many intelligent believers, and consider myself among them; and, because I can never know which version of 'truth' is correct in this world, I have no opinion on who the deluded may be.

I hope that you no longer feel offended,

I am in agreement with almost all of your statement. I would only urge you to look at some of the successes of 'religion' though. It has provided the resources for the development of science through the ages. Look at the age of enlightenment of Islam (don't know what quite has happened since ) and the many many Catholic scholars of astronomy - I know mainly of the Jesuits.

Yes, ugly acts of Man have been committed in the name of religion but I fear those are merely the nature of man. Look at Communist Russia and the eventual evils of that degraded society. There are places where faith and religion provide a reason for 'right' behaviour... but again I suspect that is another manifestation of the nature of Man.

One other point I would make is this: I would be very surprised if you could get 2 Catholics in a room of a thousand to agree on more than a handful of the tenets of the 'faith'. I have no idea if this is true of other organised religions. This is part of the reason why I am adamant that faith, belief and conviction are personal and intimate. Then again, I have my own bias, coming from a nation that states my religion on my ID card...


Eh. Not at all. Thank you for taking the time to say all that. I shall go away and feel rather foolish now for misunderstanding your intent


Wilma

And I generally agree with you. All of the human condition has its positive and negative sides. I cannot credit religion with any particularly astounding successes without balancing them against the failures (such as the current problems with US clergyman who couldn't keep their hands of the children and the Chinese Catholicism by government).

It just seems that they are at least as human as the unreligious. Even when the result has been a 'success', it is often not because of - but more often in spite of - the religion.

I also agree with the fact that among the less fundamentalist sects (where variation is severely punished ) it is hard to find two in a thousand that would agree on every particular of their faith. This just ads to the dilemma of what really constitutes the minimum requirements of particular flavours of Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, etc.

In that way, religions are a lot more like physics than either camp would like to admit.

No problem on the misunderstanding, Wilma. As stated, I fear it was caused by the flippancy of my question.

I don't know about an elective course on creation stories, but I would strongly support the science sylabus including a section on what science actually is, and how to distinguish it from pseudo-science. It seems that the easier communication gets, the more twaddle people and bombarded with, and the harder it is to recognise what's true and what isn't.



I disagree with the (slightly PC, imo) idea that 'faith and science are compatible', both with regards to their bases and their conclusions.

Fundamentally, science is based on observation and evidence; faith is based on... well, faith. So the bases of the two are obviously incompatible.

I assume that when they say the two are compatible, people generally mean that the conclusions of science are compatible with (one particular) faith. Depending on the exact faith, this may include creationism (that contradicts the evidence), or it may include prayer, souls, an afterlife or the simple existence of God (for which there can never be any evidence). Science, of course, rejects all these ideas.

It rejects them because it's central to science that if there is no evidence for something, you do not accept its existence. The 'god of the gaps' idea (that since one particular idea of God does not contradict current scientific knowledge it may be true) is not compatible with this. So I am at a loss to see how the two might be reconciled. The human mind is quite capable of believing two contradictory things simultaneously, but that's not the same thing at all.

Of course, I simultaneously believe that I am right and that you should both post responses disagreeing with me...

Gif

Hiya Gif:

Well, my first thought at including a comparative course was to show that no one people have an exclusive claim on creation as an aspect of a diety. By comparing and contrasting, the course might help students to become more tolerant of each other's belief system (which I see as a positive thing).

If it also helps them to see how ludicrous some are (the giant turtle or celestial teapot for example), so much the better. It may also make them open to considering that ALL the stories can't be true, and the possibility that none of them are representative of a whole truth.

Science, likewise, does not really reject God, in the active sense of the word. They just don't incorporate the concept because of Occam's razor. Even Richard Dawkins doesn't claim that a god or gods - or souls, or the afterlife - can't exist, just that he sees no reason to incorporate (he would say invent) one without reason to do so.

The flaw in his reasoning is obvious to me, but has probably been expressed as well or better elsewhere. He believes that god cannot exist because a creator being who created a universe would have to be the result of evolution which he describes as complex forms resulting from simpler forms over time.

First, scientists have not come to a common understanding of what 'time' is or represents, or that it moves in only one direction.

Second, as evolution has created complex life forms from simpler ones, we create complex machines out of simpler ones; but the universe is not in itself simple, is it? The universal laws that allow stars and planets to form, elements to be made heavier by successively massive stars, and life to result is a finely tuned combination of laws that would preclude the universe and life as we know it if only marginally altered.

I find that the balance in the universe not only enables life, but is more complex than life. So evolution represents the growth of simple to complex within complexity, just as our producing a motor car in a factory represents growth from simple to complex in the midst of the complexity of a factory.

IF (big if) a god created the universe, and is not of the universe (which might make the god subject to its physical laws in some way), there is no reason to impose the 'simple to complex' rule on a being of that sort.

Third, without time as a restriction, if the god exists outside of time, there is no reason to impose evolution as a requirement.

Dawkins insists that hypothesising a god is unnecessary and, as such, is to be avoided by science; fine. But hypocrytically wants to impose physical laws on a theoretical god without sufficient reason to do so or believe it would be necessary. Remember Occam's razor.

[As a side note: At least one aspect of science, the medical community, believes in prayer. Numerous studies have shown that people with strong faith will often show better survival rates from life-threatening diseases and injuries. The doctors may believe that its the state of mind that makes the difference, but the numbers are there. It would, at least, represent a positive 'influence' of faith in the real world.]

Before I disagree with you though, I'd need to know if you believe in the theory of the big bang.



PS: that would be interesting for a number of reasons, but at the outset think of this:
If the Bible describes the creation as starting with 'Let there be light' and science describes it as starting with a 'big bang', which (in your opinion) would be a more accurate depiction. Can something really 'bang' in a void? Does the sudden existence of highly energized photons and particles sound more like it would create a banging noise, or flash of light?

Hi FT,

I'll take your PS first if I may, since it's much easier to deal with sciency bits than philosophical bits.

Aside from a small qibble with the word 'believe', yes I do accept that the Big Bang was a real event. The phrase 'Big Bang' was originally used by opponents of the theory (it was coined by steady state supporter Fred Hoyle if I remember rightly) as a parody, and is not necessarily an accurate description. There was no sound as such. Nor would there have been anything that could be described as visible light, as the universe would have been opaque for hundreds of thousands of years after the Big Bang. So neither description, as you have phrased them, would be particularly accurate. Both sound and light would presumably have appeared simultaneously with the formation of the first atoms.

The BB theory (Big Bang, not to be confused with the Big Brother theory that the universe consists entirely of hot air and dwarf stars confined in a microscopic place) differs from other theories of origins in that it can make testable predictions - Cosmic Background Microwave Radiation and so forth.



Working backwards through your post to prayer. The placebo effect is very real, and can be triggered by anything from prayer to sugar-coated pills. On the occasions where prayer has been tested in double-blind tests, prayer has only a placebo effect. The largest and most recent such test (afaik) was on patients being treated for heart conditions: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12082681/. It was found that prayer had a slight negative effect (i.e. the prayer group did worse than the control group). As with any test with a random element, if you repeat it often enough you will get a 'positive' result by chance, just as you will get 'negative' results by chance. Likewise, if you selectively eliminate some results ("But when we looked at prayers from faith X...", "Excluding patients whose illness was not life-threatening...", etc), you can 'prove' almost anything. Most results will be neutral, i.e. no effect, and this is exactly what we see.

It is also notable that these studies always involve medical conditions that are either hard to measure or poorly understood and prone to spontaneously healing on rare occasions. Why no tests on whether prayer can restore amputated limbs, raise the dead or heal broken bones?



The bulk of your argument seems to be whether complexity can arise out of simplicity (which is what we invariably see in random systems, so I don't see how that supports the idea of God - things becoming more ordered, not more chaotic, would seem a better indication of a 'plan' or 'control'), combined with a version of the anthropic argument, or 'argument from design'.

This line of argument has been attractive to many defenders of theism, but is widely regarded as deeply flawed, for several reasons. Firstly, we are left asking who designed the designer. If you are saying that the designer doesn't need to be designed, why do you need the designer in the first place? Why not just say that laws of physics apply WITHIN the universe, not TO the universe, so the universe doesn't need to be designed? If you are prepared to make arbitrary exceptions to the laws of physics and/or logic, you can't then rationally declare that those exceptions only apply where convenient to your argument.

On top of that, it is highly questionable whether the universe actually is designed for us. Douglas Adams described this view as like a puddle looking at the hole in the road it lies in and saying that the hole fits the puddle perfectly, so must have been designed for it.

There are several variations on the idea that every possible combination of laws of physics may have occurred - ideas such as string theory (with 10^500 possible universes) or a series of Big Bangs, each separate from each-other, or a string of Big Bangs and Big Crunches. To the best of my knowledge, none of these ideas is yet testable, so none is strictly scientific (the new collider at CERN may change that within the next couple of years).

You mentioned Occam's Razor; as long as these ideas (which require no additions to everyday physics) are viable, Occam's Razor means we must discard the idea that God intervened to select the laws of physics in our universe.

There are also calculations that show that universes with very different laws may allow the formation of stars, and thus life, even though slightly different universes do not. And, of course, we evolved in one of the tiny minority of universes capable of supporting life for the simple reason that nothing evolved in those universes where life is impossible. It's like the difference between you winning the lottery and someone winning the lottery - it's very likely someone will win the lottery, but whoever does win will have beaten huge odds, and may believe that supernatural influence (whether God or a lucky charm) must have been involved.



I don't follow why you think Dawkins is being hypocritical?

Gif

Nicely done reply, Gif:

I pointed out the light vs. bang thingy, realising that scientists actually prefer singularity.

Whether the universe was lit or opaque for millenia is probably less than useful. The highly energetic photons certainly constitute light. Any time electrons and protons came together, they were knocked apart by the photons, so a dim sort of twinkly cloudy of light may have existed some time before the universe expanded and cooled to the point that they could begin to stick together. Without an observer, it would not matter, I suppose. But I'm one of those who believe that trees do make a sound even when no one is there to hear it.

But, here is the reason I asked about the BB. If you believe a singularity was the source for the universe (as I do), why or how?
If the singularity existed throughout all 'time' before its bang, it must have been eternally stable. If it was eternally stable, why did it go bang when it did?
If the singularity was not eternal, where did it come from?
If the singularity 'came into existence', postulating a creator begins to make sense, despite efforts to find a mechanism through which a universe can create itself. I'm not sure that the concept isn't even more complex than postulating a creator-being.

You see, when I postulate the big bang (or, let there be light), I have to answer the logic of the existence of the singularity and/or its bang. An eternal object without a beginning must, by nature of its eternal existence, be stable; so stable that, if it never ever changed, it never ever will; because each moment in time looks identical for infinity. One point in time is no different from another for an eternal singularity.

This leaves only the sudden existence of a singularity and its subsequent bang as an unstable singularity.

So, did something cause a stable singularity to become unstable, or did something cause the singularity to come into existence and then bang? It must be one or the other.
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I certainly grant you the 'placebo' effect. It's just one of the potentially positive aspects of humans having faiths, whether misplaced or not. If we are to consider praying for restored limbs, perhaps lizards are better at praying than we are? We do raise the dead, on occasion, and many have their broken bones healed. Still, sometimes restoring life works and sometimes it does not. We don't really understand the whens and whys of it just yet; but medical science has more resurrection on record than religions or prayer.
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I also agree with, and recently used, the puddle analogy. That's a great argument against Intelligent Design, but not so much against religions. I understand that we look the way we do because of the physical laws of our universe and our planet. I know that we'd look quite different if the planet was significantly larger or smaller, if the atmosphere was different, if the seas had never receded, etc. But the only religious thing I know of, that relates to how we look, is the 'in His image' thing. A controversial phrase when applied to a god.
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If you are left asking the question, 'who designed the designer', you're asking the wrong question. If there is a god, and the god is 'the creator', the definition is that the god always existed. This is where definitions around 'always', 'existed', and 'time' get bogged down.

Outside of our space-time continuum, using term like that would be like asking if god was blue. The context of the question is all wrong.

Let's just take the biblical description called Genesis for example. It talks about creation, 6 or seven days, and describes a process for creating a populated world. As a six step flow-chart, the thing works pretty well until you start reading what's in the flow's boxes. One day to do this? One day to do that? Most of those steps would have been performed without benefit of an earth or a sun, which is the source of the time period we call a day. What could day mean in the context of creation?

Let's look at it from the input side of the bible, rather than the output side. A god, let's call 'him'.... 'God', creates a universe. He causes a big bang, lots of condensation of matter, repeated suns exploding creating every heavier elements, eventually stable planets begin to form, the seas slowly separate from the land, and life emerges. Crawling from the slimy shores, lungfish head for open ground. Eventually man evolves.

Okay, you've got man - several thousand years ago. How much science does he have? By our standards, nearly none. How much language does he have? Again, by our standards, very limited. If you tried to deliver a complex message about how and why you created the universe, I think you could do little better, especially considering the further translations will be imposed upon it. I should think I'd take one look at what they got from my message and go off in disgust, never to bother myself again.
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Either you or I do not understand Occam's Razor. To me, it supposes that if several solutions/possibilities are all mutually exclusive, the least complicated one is most likely to be correct. There is nothing there that says one MUST discard the others because, without definitive proof, additional information may change things; and because there is always the risk that one of the more complex options is correct. Risk (scientifically speaking) must always be managed.
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I'll try again on the Dawkins thing.

If you are going to postulate that complexity is the result of evolution from simpler forms, I can agree that this is the way our universe seems to work. He certainly seems to understand space-time and the (general) physical laws that work within it.

To say that a creator-being would have to follow that same process is anthropomorphic at best. If you aren't going to allow the anthropomorphic view that the universe seems 'created to fit us' then you shouldn't try to recreate a creator-being by ascribing anthropomorphic views of time, space, matter, and evolution on the god.

I've already agreed that the intelligent designs stuff is merely sidestepping the real issue, so I don't like to hear Dawkins trying to sidestep the real issue by ascribing limits to a god or gods.

One of the problems I have with some of the religious is there attempts to say 'god says this' or 'god demands that' because 'the bible says so. That is, in essence, confining their own god's actions, reactions, thoughts, and abilities to what they read. A god like a creator-being will not fit in the book of the religious or the box of Mr. Dawkins.
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Having said all that, I believe there is a creator-being that did either A or B with the singularity (probably B). Now if you ask me if there is the least interest in us? That's another thing entirely.

Hi FT,

First up, let me just say how nice it is to have this debatey talkey thing with you. I know that we are dealing with subjects that are close to a lot of people's hearts, and that can lead to people getting uncomfortable and defensive. With a purely text conversation, it can be hard to tell if someone is getting upset, joking or trying to be respectful-but-challenging (they say 90% of communication is non-verbal). I'd just like to say that I am enjoying this immensely, discussing (not arguing) with someone who clearly understands a lot of the issues and has given some thought to them. I think you are enjoying it too, so if you're not, or if I cross the line between challenging and offensive, let me know!

I'm also trying to keep my posts slightly lighthearted to keep them readable (they are getting pretty long, after all), so I hope that doesn't come across as being flippant about your beliefs.





Light, sound and the Big Bang:

There seems to be a lot we agree on. I'm definitely with you on trees in forests, and sounds caused by the falling thereof. And yes, there were photons from pretty much the moment of the BB.

It seems that our disagreement here is over whether invisible gamma rays constitute 'light' when passing through something opaque (i.e. something light cannot pass through). I think that there is a big difference between 'photons' and 'light' - I certainly wouldn't call radio waves 'light', even though they're part of the electromagnetic spectrum, and made up of photons. Anyone within the universe (assuming they could survive) couldn't see any light because the entire universe would be opaque, and anyone outside it couldn't see any light because it would be expanding too fast for light to escape. If I were describing the BB, I would talk about heat, followed by things like expansion, cooling, and pressure. The only Biblical word that would even come close would be 'formless'.

All of which is secondary to the main point, that describing the Big Bang as 'some light' is so woefully inadequate as to not be describing it at all. Describing it as 'In the beginning was the word' is more surreal than anything.



Initial cause:

Arguments trying to prove God's existence from First Cause inevitably fall into the trap of trying to prove something that contradicts their premises. You start out assuming everything has to have a cause, but there cannot be an infinite chain of causes or a first cause. You then resolve this by proposing that God is either an infinite chain of causes or a first cause. I'll run through how this applies (in my opinion, anyway) to your example.

You wrote: (quote 1)"If the singularity existed throughout all 'time' before its bang, it must have been eternally stable. If it was eternally stable, why did it go bang when it did?
If the singularity was not eternal, where did it come from?
If the singularity 'came into existence', postulating a creator begins to make sense, despite efforts to find a mechanism through which a universe can create itself. I'm not sure that the concept isn't even more complex than postulating a creator-being.

"You see, when I postulate the big bang (or, let there be light), I have to answer the logic of the existence of the singularity and/or its bang. An eternal object without a beginning must, by nature of its eternal existence, be stable; so stable that, if it never ever changed, it never ever will; because each moment in time looks identical for infinity. One point in time is no different from another for an eternal singularity."

Later, you put: (quote 2)"If there is a god, and the god is 'the creator', the definition is that the god always existed. This is where definitions around 'always', 'existed', and 'time' get bogged down.

"Outside of our space-time continuum, using term like that would be like asking if god was blue. The context of the question is all wrong."

You seem to be using different logic for the BB and for God. In the first section, you are arguing that it is impossible for anything to have existed forever and then acted; in the second, you are arguing that God has existed forever before acting. (As a side point, I think we may be using the word 'universe' differently. If you don't count God as 'part of the universe' then I could simply rewrite the whole thing using a word like 'omniverse', meaning 'everything that exists including the universe and god if he exists'.) I could rewrite your point as:

(quote 3)"If God existed throughout all 'time' before the BB, He must have been eternally stable. If He was eternally stable, why did He cause the BB when He did?
If God was not eternal, where did He come from?
If God 'came into existence', postulating a creator-of-a-creator begins to make sense, despite efforts to find a mechanism through which a God can create Himself. I'm not sure that the concept isn't even more complex than postulating a creator-of-a-creator.

"You see, when I postulate the big bang (or, let there be light), I have to answer the logic of the existence of God and/or His act of creation. An eternal being without a beginning must, by nature of His eternal existence, be stable; so stable that, if He never ever changed, He never ever will; because each moment in time looks identical for infinity. One point in time is no different from another for an eternal God."

So it seems to me that adding in God leaves you in exactly the same mess that we were both in before, but with an extra entity whose existence we now need to explain. Presumably you disagree with (quote 3), so you need to find a way to rewite it so as to allow for the existence of God but still disallow the existence of a universe without God. But anything you can say about a universe-not-containing-God, I can then rewrite as a comment on a universe-containing-God, and vice versa. Which leaves God as an extra entity, and I whip out my Occamistic shaving kit.



Logically, we only have two options here. Either the Universe has existed forever, with an infinite chain of cause and effect, or it has not and there was a first cause that had no cause itself. Adding God into the equation doesn't help with either. Although you seem to have discounted the second option, you might be interested in some of the work in quantum theory that shows that uncaused events - including the creation and destruction of matter - do happen frequently. While this is about as far as it's possible to get from the scale of the creation of the entire Universe, it's not clear (at least to me) whether that may just be a statistical thing (almost all of these 'vacuum fluctuations' produce things smaller than an atom, but perhaps a minority are larger, so wait enough trillions of years and you occasionally get something the size of the Universe). In any event, the principle is established: we do not need a 'first cause'.

The physics of the Big Bang (in at least some versions) also calls for time itself to come into existence at the moment of the BB - so the idea of the 'seed' or 'primordial atom' waiting forever before 'exploding' in the BB is not accurate; it 'exploded' the instant it first appeared, which was the first instant there was.

Other versions of the BB theory allow for an infinite series of 'Big Bangs', or that BBs are the effects of some other eternally changing system that we don't know much about ('brane theory, for example, which is a strong contender to explain quantum mechanics, has multi-dimensional membranes in eternal motion occasionally colliding, and producing a BB when they do so). Either option would avoid your idea of an unchanging 'seed' that suddenly causes a BB - instead we have an eternally changing 'seed' that is eternally causing BBs, one of which happens to be ours.






Prayer:

Again, we seem to agree on the positive effects of religions, at least under some circumstances. From what I hear of The God Delusion, Dawkins focuses a lot on the 'flashy', large-scale negative effects of religion (wars, genocide, 9/11, racism and homophobia, etc.), but misses the smaller-scale effects such as personal happiness of its followers, encouragement of charitable giving and, as you say, potential placebo effects). That said, there are small-scale negative effects too. I've seen someone reduced to tears by the belief that her family were going to Hell. I cannot make any judgement on whether the positive outweighs the negative overall.

"If we are to consider praying for restored limbs, perhaps lizards are better at praying than we are?" - Heh, nice idea! I just mentioned David Icke's theory that the world is run by a conspiracy of giant lizards in my last post (to a totally unrelated thread). Synchronicity or divine message? I think we could be on to something here.

More seriously, can you give any example of a well-attested case of a broken bone being instantly healed by prayer? Preferably something that was reported in the medical literature rather than reported third-hand and anonymously?

The only 'resurrections' on medical record that I'm aware of are where a patient has been incorrectly diagnosed as dead, but later gone on to recover. Of course, there is a danger of being circular here, since the assumption by doctors is that anyone who recovers after being diagnosed as dead wasn't really dead! To avoid circularity, we need a way of distinguishing the two.

It is certain that incorrect diagnoses do happen - death can be a surprisingly difficult condition to diagnose. Pulses, for example, can be hard to detect when weak, and tetanus can look like rigour mortis. So to tell whether we are seeing resurrections or misdiagnoses, we need to look at the observable differences between the two. The easiest way to do this is statistical. Among those things that seem likely to contribute to the chance of being diagnosed 'dead' incorrectly are: diagnosis made in a poorly equipped hospital (i.e. Third World) or by inexperienced or overworked doctors; diagnosis not made by trained medical personnel; recovery happens within a few minutes of dignosis (i.e. before obvious signs of death like rigour or decomposition set in); cause of 'death' typically causes vital signs to be reduced, e.g. hypothermia or some types of poisoning; patient has a history of catalepsy. Among things that should not contribute to chances of misdiagnosis: prayers (especially when started after diagnosis so that there is no possible psychological effect on the physician), wearing lucky charms, being a member of any particular religion.

Sadly, I can't find any surveys looking specifically at this. Let me know if you know of any. While looking to check this out, I found this unintentionally hilarious page that's obviously designed for a generic disease or illness: http://www.wrongdiagnosis.com/d/death/misdiag.htm I particularly like the link to 'Undiagnosed death'. Yes, many people out there may be walking around not even knowing that they are suffering from a potentially serious case of Death!

More seriously, contrary to what you said, doctors are far less likely than others to believe in miracles, with 6% of (American) doctors believing in medical miracles, compared to 70% of the (American) general public believing in miracles. The numbers are from different surveys and don't quite match, but the trend is clear. http://www.christianpost.com/article/20070411/26820_Survey:_Most_Doctors_Believe_Religion,_Spirituality_Have_Positive_Effects_on_Illness.htm
http://www.harrisinteractive.com/harris_poll/index.asp?PID=618


Genesis:

Looks like we're in complete agreement about puddles, Biblical days and the accuracy (or lack of it) in Genesis. Not sure that it's impossible to come up with a better description of evolution than that in Genesis - you seem to have done so yourself. Even bronze-age peoples really ought to be able to understand concepts like 'God made fish. God turned one / some of the fish into lizards. God turned one / some of the lizards into birds, and others into mammals.' Come to that, if it's possible to explain science to modern adults, I don't see why it wasn't possible to explain it to bronze-age adults. The Bible reflects bronze-age beliefs because it reflects its authorship, not its target audience.






Occam's Razor:

I'll quibble with your definition slightly, in that the possibilities don't need to be mutually exclusive. But I agree on the wider point that the Razor doesn't prove anything. What the Razor states is that any more complex option is so unlikely to be correct that it should be discarded. The Razor is one of the most frequently misused of all philosophical tools, which is a large part of the reason why I have an article on it in PR at the moment!



Dawkins:

I'm still not following you on the Dawkins thing. Are you saying Dawkins says a creator-God must obey the laws of physics? Are you saying that you think the laws of physics are anthropomorphic? How does any of this constitute hypocrisy?




Finally, we seem to agree on the absence of an interventionist God interested in humanity. Now, an interventionist God interested in lizards...



Gif

Hi again!

Yes, to all of your introductory caveat. I'm am rarely so serious about a topic that I can't enjoy a reasoned debate, calmly and intellectually (as well as being occasionally humourous ). I think you will find me almost impossible to offend without getting outright abusive or overly sensitive. And, my beliefs are not something that I ever impose on others; so, no worries about yours appearing flippant.

Light, etc.
Again, we largely agree, except for the minor point that you would probably classify ultra-violet and infra-red part of the light spectrum, even though it's not part of the 'visible light spectrum', same as I would. Therefore, I've found it easier not to try and draw arbitrary lines in the electromagnetic range of radiations.

Initial cause:

I don't recall proposing that God could be an infinite chain of causes, but the first cause sounds familiar.

In a very real sense, I am using a specific logic for the BB. To me, logically, the singularity must have EITHER existed forever, or not. If you can think of alternatives, my mind is open to hearing the options. What I'm trying NOT TO DO is force space-time on an external creator being. That's just to anthropomorphic.

It appears that you have correctly identified a difference in our definitions of 'universe'. I think of the universe as specifically that which resulted from the BB, whether 3, 4, 7, 9, 11, or 27 dimensions. But, it would not encompass a God.

To address your rewrite (quote 3), We have (if I'm not mistaken) agreed that the universe existed; and, because of advances in scientific knowledge, agree that it had a beginning (BB). Not so about God. We do have not agreed he existed, and have no specific knowledge to believe he had a causation, beginning, ending, etc. So, allow me to try to address your paraphrasing:

(quote 3)"If God existed throughout all 'time' before the BB, He must have been eternally stable. If He was eternally stable, why did He cause the BB when He did?
[Perhaps an analogy would cover this best. If you were an invisible man and chose to start your automobile and drive 30Km, an observer might be able to deduce that the auto did not start itself, that it would eventually run out of gas, that someone had to build it, and that it would eventually rust to pieces based on its construction. Trying do deduce who started the automobile, or why they chose to start it, or where they were before they got in the contraption, etc. would be beyond the observers ability to deduce. And, if that observer was a squirrel, they might never even deduce that much, much less be able to divine the thinking of the invisible driver.]
[What I'm trying to say is that sentient beings can make decisions that seem irrational or unknowable if the thinking process is not understood. I would not presume to be able to think at the level of a god capable of designing and creating a universe. Inanimate objects, on the other hand, can not just wish themselves into existence, or control their actions once they exist. Those things fall under the physical laws of the continuum in which they reside.]

If God was not eternal, where did He come from?
If God 'came into existence', postulating a creator-of-a-creator begins to make sense, despite efforts to find a mechanism through which a God can create Himself. I'm not sure that the concept isn't even more complex than postulating a creator-of-a-creator.
[As a result of my previous bit, it should be obvious that I can have no opinion of whether God has to be eternal, but I equally see no reason that He had to 'come from' anywhere, not being subject to our physical laws or understanding of existence. An eternal being who is not subject to physical laws, who is capable of 'deciding to do things' is perfectly acceptable to me, remembering that time as a linear proposition may not exist for such a being.]

"You see, when I postulate the big bang (or, let there be light), I have to answer the logic of the existence of God and/or His act of creation. An eternal being without a beginning must, by nature of His eternal existence, be stable; so stable that, if He never ever changed, He never ever will; because each moment in time looks identical for infinity. One point in time is no different from another for an eternal God."
[I think I addressed this part, but for sake of continuity: stability is for things that follow logical, physical laws. If you can show me a group of humans that always behave logically, I'll cede a point, but I don't think you can convince yourself (much less me) that humans are predictable; so why should a god be predictable. We can't even predict the motion of some particles; why should we think that God needs to act in a way we consider reasonable? And why would we postulate that anything like linear time exists for such a being, other than anthropomorphism?]

I am somehat familiar with the investigations into the creation of particles. Scalability would be a huge problem. And I am not entirely sold on Quantum theory. Yes, I know it's the holy grail of the world of theoretical physics, but I would have been laughed at a hundred years ago if I suggested the same doubts about Newtonian physics, and fifty years ago if I doubted Einsteinian physics.

I wonder what the physicists would say if the only way they could get their math to make sense was to postulate a photon the size of the current universe?

I don't know of, or believe (at this moment), that there are still those who seriously consider the multiple BB theories as viable. We have certainly calculated that we live in an 'open universe', one in which the universe will always expand until it cools to 'nothing much'. The alternative to a 'big crunch' would have to be singularities within our universe or outside of it. Outside just makes different universes that won't interact with ours (to the best of our knowledge). Internal singularities sound like a death wish, but may still prove possible (at which time I would concede that point, too).

Prayer:

I've never been convinced that prayers get answered 'yes' very often. And maybe no more often than statistical probabilities of the outcomes. I don't really insist that (if there is a God) the god is intimately involved (or even interested) in our lives. I've merely come up with no other explanation for the BB that satisfies my need for a logical answer.

Nice bit about the 'lizards' though .

On resurrections though, we do have clinical proof of such events. We have had people whose bodies have given up. Breath, circulation, and even detectable brain-wave activity have stopped according to our best machines, and still medical science has prevailed. Perhaps the key is the 'detectable' part; so, I'll not argue that we have 'true resurrections' of record.

Genesis:

The Bible, imho, reflects the limitations of the languages in which it was written. No Aramaic word for Quantum exists, or gravity, or electromagnetic, etc. Try to discuss quantum theory with a 5-year-old, using only words that you've heard them use. Get back to me on that. I'd love to hear how successful you were.

Occam's Razor:

Quibbling is fine, I love quibbling! I look forward to reading your entry!!! But, I'm glad we agree on the wider point. Occam's Razor is useful, but not definitive.

Dawkins:

That seems to be his contention, as yours was; because the universe had a beginning and went from simple to complexity, a god most follow the same course. Awfully anthropomorphic of him, awfully sanctimonious to try to but a god in a people suit. Yes, the laws of physics, when applied to anything not of our universe, is anthropomorphic. Attributing human traits to animals or inanimate object is anthropomorphic. Why wouldn't attributing human traits and limitations to god not be so?

The hypocritical part is trying to ridicule intelligent design (which I enjoy doing), because it's a silly misuse of logic, and then to illogically try to riducule the concept of a god because intelligent design is silly. It is not a quid pro quo, not a fait accompli, not a zeitgeist.

Attributing physical laws to a puddle helps to refute intelligent design. Trying to attribute physical laws and the rule of 'simple to complex', is a failure of logic for a being that is not subject to those laws by definition.

We may, someday, prove to our satisfaction that a god or gods do or do not exist, but that doesn't mean we'll be right. We can say that white is black and black is white, and still get run over at the next zebra crossing.

Hi FT,

OK, I'm arguing that 3 separate view points are possibly valid here, so I'll restate them just to be clear:

Viewpoint 1: Time started at the moment of the Big Bang. Any reference to time earlier than this is meaningless. The BB had no cause, since 'cause and effect' require time to exist. The Universe is an uncaused vacuum fluctuation on a massive scale.

Viewpoint 2: Although 'time' started at the BB, it is just one dimension and there are other dimensions that work in a similar way and so could be thought of as 'before' the BB. The laws of physics work in such a way that these extra dimensions occasionally cause Big Bangs, each giving rise to separate universes that do not interact with each-other. There is an infinite chain of cause and effect, with no beginning or end.

Viewpoint 3: Although 'time' started at the BB, it is just one dimension and there are other dimensions that work in a similar way and so could be thought of as 'before' the BB. Big Bangs happen without cause, each giving rise to separate universes that do not interact with each-other. Each Universe is an uncaused vacuum fluctuation on a massive scale.

I don't know which, if any, of these viewpoints is most acurate. The point I am arguing is that any of them is more likely than that the Universe was created by a deity, largely because of Occam's Razor. Other ideas are logically possible, but seem to be excluded by the evidence (e.g. 'Big Crunches' causing further Big Bangs).

I will also be using 'omniverse' when I mean 'everything that exists' and 'universe' when I mean 'physical reality excluding God', as I think this ambiguity is starting to cause serious confusion.

For the most part, we seem to be closer than ever to agreement. We seem to be agreed that there is no convincing evidence for miracles. The only things left under debate seem to be 'First Cause' and the hypothetical entity known as 'Richard Dawkins'.




Initial cause:

OK, we've agreed the universe had a beginning, though I am still undecided on whether the 'omniverse' did (i.e. have there been multiple BBs, did something cause the BB, can the phrase 'prior to' even be used with regards to the BB?). For the record, I tend to think of the omniverse as infinite, but I'm not sure I can come up with any rational reason to support that, so I won't try. Your point seems to be that the universe had a start but the omniverse didn't, or possibly that time cannot apply to the whole omniverse.

The only major point we differ on - as far as I can see - is whether adding in a God helps to explain this. I think we are agreed that if God doesn't help explain anything (and if we have no other reason to believe God exists), then Occam's Razor says we should not believe God exists.

If I've understood your 'invisible man in a car being watched by a squirrel' metaphor correctly (squirrel? why not a lizard?), you are saying that free will allows God to start the universe whenever he chooses? So you've backed away from the idea that anything that exists forever must be unchanging? (Unless you're saying something with free will can be unchanging?) So would you agree that an infinite non-sentient chain of events leading up to the BB is possible? So why add in sentience? (Whether free will genuinely exists would be a whole other debate...)





Dawkins:

First up, I have read only a minoroty of the stuff that Dawkins has written, so if you know better than me on what he has or has not said, do let me know.

"That seems to be [Dawkins'] contention, as yours was; because the universe had a beginning and went from simple to complexity, a god most follow the same course." - I've certainly never said that, and I don't think Dawkins has either. I have said that Creationists' claims that evolution would only go from complex organisms to simple organisms unless guided by God is nonsense.

"the laws of physics, when applied to anything not of our universe, is anthropomorphic" - which is why I haven't and, afaik, nor has Dawkins. The closest I have come is to say that some kind of laws probably applied. If they didn't, then of course all bets are off and there is no reason to think that the universe didn't spring into existence 5 minutes ago, complete with us and all our memories.

"The hypocritical part is trying to ridicule intelligent design (which I enjoy doing), because it's a silly misuse of logic, and then to illogically try to riducule the concept of a god because intelligent design is silly."
- Who does this? Dawkins? Me? There are plenty of ways to 'ridicule' (not the word or attitude I would use, obviously) the idea of God without drawing a false parallel between deism and Biblical literalism. Dawkins has argued against ('ridiculed', of you like) religion because it is a silly misuse of logic, but he has never used any argument of the form 'Intelligent Design is wrong, therefore God does not exist'. To do so would be an obvious non-sequiteur.





Other 'minor bits':

There are a few other pieces in your post that I would disagree with, but that I don't think are central to the main point.

"An eternal being who is not subject to physical laws, who is capable of 'deciding to do things' is perfectly acceptable to me" - it's acceptable to me too, but do you have any reason to think one exists? I find the existence of Daleks intellectually 'acceptable', but I have no reason to think they exist outside a TV show and its spin-offs.

"Stability is for things that follow logical, physical laws." - sometimes, yes. Would you call radioactive decay 'stability'? Would you deny that it follows 'logical, physical laws'? If not, it appears that it is possible to have something that follows physical laws but is not stable. It is therefore possible that something existed before the BB but was eternally changing.

You'll also note that 'stability' and 'behaviour' have no meaning if time does not exist, which seems to contradict your claim that God does/might exist 'outside time'.

"Scalability would be a huge problem." - granted, as I pointed out, but not as huge a problem as citing an infinite being.

"And I am not entirely sold on Quantum theory." - quantum theory is the best-tested theory we have, bar none. It has lots of very hypothetical 'spin-off' theories such as string theory and quantum loop gravity that seek to explain the predictions of QT, and many contradictory interpretations such as Copenhagen and Many Worlds, but the accuracy of the maths behind QT is not in doubt. It's also over 100 years old. Are you confusing it with a Theory of Everything, that is often described as "the holy grail of the world of theoretical physics"?

"I would have been laughed at a hundred years ago if I suggested the same doubts about Newtonian physics" - depends how you expressed your doubts. No-one laughed at Einstein when he rewrote Newton 102 years ago. The reason is simple: he had a logically impeccable theory that explained many observations in a simple way, and made predictions that differed from those of any other theory and could be tested. If you can come up with an argument for the existence of God that meets those criteria, I will concede this whole debate on the spot.

"I wonder what the physicists would say if the only way they could get their math to make sense was to postulate a photon the size of the current universe?" - if it were the only way, I guess they would tentatively accept that a photon the size of the universe most probably exists. If it were possible to use that to make predictions that no other theory does, and which turned out to be accurate, they would probably be very confident that such a photon exists. Without such evidence, they are confident that such a photon does not exist... for exactly the same reasons that I am confident that God does not exist.



Agreed that 'Big Crunch' theories seem to be out of the window, but it doesn't follow that any theory involving multiple BBs is out. 'Brane theory springs to mind, with its idea of sets of dimensions moving relative to each other and causing Big Bangs whenever they cross - rather like sparks flying.



Genesis:

"The Bible, imho, reflects the limitations of the languages in which it was written. No Aramaic word for Quantum exists, or gravity, or electromagnetic, etc. Try to discuss quantum theory with a 5-year-old, using only words that you've heard them use. Get back to me on that. I'd love to hear how successful you were." -

No-one contends that the Bible was written by 5-year-olds, or by people with the intellectual capacity of 5-year-olds. 500 years ago, English had no words for 'quantum', 'gravity' or 'electromagnetic'. When I was 5, I didn't knwo what those words meant either. However, like all humans, I can be educated and come to understand new things. I don't see why the ancient Hebrews would be an exeption to that.

I can't see any reason that ancient Hebrews would have been incapable of understanding these ideas if someone sat down and made an effort to explain them, provided they (Hebrews) were attentive students. And that's assuming a human teacher: an infinitely wise being should have had no trouble whatsoever.

I repeat that the Bible doesn't mention those things because its authors did not know of them.




"Occam's Razor is useful, but not definitive." - absolutely. The useful, but non-definitive, answer it gives here is that God does not exist. We can be as confident of that as we are of the non-existence of anything else for which there is no positive evidence, e.g. fairies, phlogiston, giant chocolate teapots in orbit around Venus. Should evidence for any of those things turn up, belief in them would become rational. Until then, it is not.





The 'argument from puddles' shows the falacy of the argument from design - 'I fit the Universe perfectly, therefore the Universe was designed for me' (and, by extension, 'therefore God designed it for me'). It doesn't show 'simple to complex'.

"We can say that white is black and black is white, and still get run over at the next zebra crossing." - That's what happens when you let lizards drive invisible cars.



Gif

This post has been removed.

That's pretty frustrating.

What did someone say that was so offensive?

Gif

Hi again, GIF:

Strangely, I think that must've been my morning post!!

It wasn't substantially different from the conversation we'd been having, so I've no idea why someone would Yikes it.

I'll read it over again, to see what may have contravened the rules; but I can't imagine what it could have been.

Perhaps the powers that be will send me a note.

I'll get back to you.

Okay, no emails. I've checked the moderation site, and 'hidden' means that someone is judging it for compliance.

If it becomes 'removed' I guess I'll know that something pretty serious went wrong; but I think it's more likely that they'll release it after a review.

My gosh, the conversation we were having might have appeared in DNA's own writings! Intelligent, reasoned, respectful, and controversial.

Moderation may take a while. Perhaps you might like to post a totally different response in the meantime?

Gif

Yes, I know of no specific time for moderators to act. Perhaps I can post my response section by section and see which part gets grabbed.

PLEASE let me know if any of it starts sounding abusive of the rules. I couldn't find anything.

Section 1:
Dawkins:
More than a couple of his excellent talks can be found on youtube.com. You may enjoy listening to them, they are often quite good; especially the Q&A sessions. But he quite clearly and plainly states that any God would have to evolve from some simpler entity.

I suspect that you would never claim that, though probably because you've negated gods' existence and therefore do not have to consider it/their evolution. And, yes, I agree that a god's guiding hand is not necessary for evolution (if, as god, you've designed a universe to behave like ours).

Dawkins, not you, suggested that the evolutionary laws would have to apply to a supreme being; but you are right, of course, that any truly supreme being could have done the 'snappy fingers' and have a 4 billion year old universe.

Dawkins, not you, ridiculed the god concept based on intelligent design silliness. I remember one Q&A session where the point was specifically addressed.

Perhaps 'ridiculed' sounds to harsh, but it seems to fit when he disregards another's opinion in a flippant manner with a non-sequiteur argument.