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

But they don't have to prove or explain anything Iago, that's the whole point. The god squad simply tell us all that their god is revealed to them in his works, offer nothing but myth and apocrypha to back this up and then ask us heathens and athiests to prove that he doesn't exist (an impossible thing to do generally and under these particular circumstances).

As far as this universe is concerned, it represents everything in the broadest sense possible. In addition it is also everthing that ever was. There can be no before since both time and space came into existence at the point of the 'Big Bang'.

Two further things have to be said in relation to this point, both of which qualify the statement (scientific method alert): -
1. Anything about the 'Big Bang' carries the caveat that science does not KNOW what happened and that what is said is based on current observational results and is the most widely regarded theory at the moment (other theories exist).

2. The term 'Big Bang' was first coined by Fred Hoyle in a derisory statement seeking to belittle the credibility of the theory that he did not believe to be true. It in no way attempts to describe what actually happened.

Anyway, your Invisible Pink Unicorn is a false god. Join us in the sauce of the FSM and be touched by His Noodly Appendage!

Waits for a n i g h t h o o v e r comment.

t.

Is post 101 a good thing?


t.

Whichever way it all reduces to why is there anything here at all? Why would there be God? Why would there be quantum fluctuations?

No-one knows the answer to that. No-one has any idea how we might get the smallest snippet of that information. Anyone who makes any claims about it is either lying or playing make-believe.

HonestIago & BouncyBit,

I still think there is a problem with even conceding that some of the God-as-first-cause type arguments are even infinitesimally probable.

The claim is that
*something must have caused the big bang and ...

OK hang on lets correct it as we go:

*something may have caused the big bang; if something did, let's call that something "God"

What I suggest is that there is no meaningful content in there. There is nothing you can grab hold of that is capable of being either true or false. "If something exists, lets give it a name." is not an assertion of any kind, and talk of proof or disproof or probability is premature.

Of course if they are asserting that this "God" is the same as the source of tingly feelings during prayer, then that is a meaningful assertion, and we can perhaps test it, in principle, by comparing the brain states of believers with the conditions of the very early universe.

Now I suppose you could tread a careful path between total meaninglessness, and all the inconsistency and absurdity of religion. But unless the advocate does actually tread that path - to show it can be done - I see no reason to credit them with having done so.

>>Anyway, your Invisible Pink Unicorn is a false god. Join us in the sauce of the FSM and be touched by His Noodly Appendage!<<


Away with you, foul advocate of the Purple Oyster of Doom! Next you'll be telling me I should put pepperoni on my pizza.

I denounce you, heretic!

And a more serious reply to Extra Bold...

I can see what you mean about the difference between "may have caused" and "must have caused" and we do have to accept the possibilty that nothing caused the Big Bang, that it was the first cause, and I think (though I don't presume to speak for him) that's what BBitM was talking about when he was talking about probabilities.

If we have an uncaused cause, there are three candidates for being it: the Big Bang itself; random particle interactions, governed by rules we cannot currently fathom; or personal agent, be it Unicorn, Spaghetti Monster or deity. Of these, it is the personal agent which is far and away the least likely.

>>Of course if they are asserting that this "God" is the same as the source of tingly feelings during prayer, then that is a meaningful assertion, and we can perhaps test it, in principle, by comparing the brain states of believers with the conditions of the very early universe.<<

This was the meat of my point - in the exceedingly unlike event that a personal deity did exist and did set the universe going, it has now departed for pastures new - there is no evidence for it whatsoever, and indeed there never has been.

>>What I suggest is that there is no meaningful content in there. There is nothing you can grab hold of that is capable of being either true or false.<<

I agree with this point too - at the moment, positing an uncaused cause, or the thing which caused the Big Bang is a bit meaningless - it's currently imcomprehensible to us - any Whovians amongst us might recall the 10th Doctor arguing with the Beast when it said it came "before time" as that statement is meaningless. Problem we're stuck with is that one or both of those imcomprehensible options had to occur, because we have our universe.

I don't agree that we have to call something before the Big Bang God, because God refers to a specific personal agent, and other people have discussed the other possibilities and named them as such.

<< there is no evidence of God in the universe *at all*. >>

There is evidence, but it's all about people, and within people.

<>

No you don't!

*it's all about people*

Again, isn't this all about perception and ultimately about faith? Evidence and faith are mutually exclusive, are they not?

<< Evidence and faith are mutually exclusive, are they not?>>

Once again, not necessarily!

Vicky

Just so people know, I've made a decision not to interact with Vicky in any way, shape or form. After 5 years here I've realised she has nothing to add to conversations other than baseless assertions, bigotry and bile.

I didn't want folk to think I was being rude in not responding to her reply.

A wise move based on empirical evidence

t.

>>Evidence and faith are mutually exclusive, are they not<<

I'm not so sure. I have faith in certain things: that Joss Whedon is the greatest TV writer of all time; and that there is some inherent good in people that I need to respect.

On both counts, the evidence is against me: since Firefly was cancelled, Joss hasn't made another TV show; and we only have to look at all the violence this weekend to see how questionable human goodness is.

There is conflict here, and evidence causes my rationality to want to reject principles my faith wants to believe in. But I can hold both ideas at the same time because I realise that faith is a personal thing and evidence isn't.

So long as I don't try and make everyone become an existentialist because that is the will of Joss, or force everyone to respect everyone else, the conflict between evidence and faith remains a personal one, which I feel comfortable with.

Also, I think in a lot of cases faith was at one point rational, but the evidence that supported it has changed or stopped: Joss Whedon was an amazing writer, as evidenced by Buffy and Firefly, but he seems to have lost his touch, as evidenced by Serenity.

Religion used to make sense, because people millenia ago couldn't possibly understand the universe in the way we can now. The Israelites didn't know about fusion which makes the sun burn, the Meccans didn't understand how bacterial and viral plagues can wipe out whole populations, the disciples couldn't comprehend an infinite universe that started billions of years ago.

Because these people were so limited in their world view, it made sense to base their assumptions on the things they did know - people, and especially powerful people. All the populations in the cradle of civilisation had experienced domination by exceptionally powerful leaders, whether from Mesopotamia, the Nile valley or Media, so it makes sense they'd see incredibly complex and powerful actions like the rising of the sun, or the cycle of floods as the work of a *really* big, powerful *person*.

With millenia of scientific advances and education, we can say they were hopelessly misguided, but hindsight is always 20/20.

A short interjection.

I am not saying ( to Extra Bold ) that God started the universe with the big bang, we just don't know.... which begs the question , "How much more don't we know?", and is it really worth arguing about?

Let the believers believe and the non-believers not believe

Novo

I think it all depends what is meant by 'evidence'. If we are talking scientific evidence, that is just one type of evidence, resulting from the strict scientific method of repeated identical experiments giving the same result each time. But even then it is only based on probability. Sometimes a different result happens. Scientist frequently argue about evidence.

Same in a criminal trial. Some evidence may point to guilt. Some to innocence. People thrash out what evidence is most meaningful and come to a certain decision. Sometimes the wrong decision.

Vicky's idea of evidence maybe different to yours HI.

100% blanket dismissal of where someone else is coming from, strikes me as very narrow minded and rigid.

"If we are talking scientific evidence"

It's phrases like this which annoy me intensely (although that is not to say I get annoyed with the authors ).

Scientific evidence is a mesaningless phrase. Ain't no such thing.

What, exactly, does everyone think evidence is?
To me, evidence is something which can be used to help formulate a hypothesis - or even theory. Scratchmarks around the keyhole on my car door are evidence that someone may have tried to break in. Is that 'scientific' evidence? Or maybe 'theistic' evidence? Perhaps 'irrational' evidence?

nope, it is evidence. Evidence can only be divvied up by reference to how strong it is. That mentioned above is fairly strong. Someone telling the spoke to a bloke in the pub who said someone had tried to break into my car is less strong.
A dodgy looking bloke not known in the area hanging about near my car for half an hour last night is circumstantial evidence.
My mum saying she had a prophetic vision from God that someone had tried to break into my car is evidence. Just extremely weak evidence.

So what evidence is there that leads to the God hypothesis, and how strong is such evidence? That's the question.

>scientific evidence<

Scientific evidence indeed has a very precise and circumscibed meaning. As I say it is evidence accruing from the Scientific Method, who's principles are clearly and precisely defined. Such evidence is obtained by making an Hypothesis, and then performing a large sample size of experiments to test that hypothesis. Repeated identical experiments are needed for the evidence to be meaningful in a scientific sense. At least that's what I was taught at school and University, and have read in numerous papers in scientific journals, and scientific books. I'm fairly sure I would have failed all the science exams I have ever taken, without understanding that.

There is no evidence scientific or other that points to the existance of God. The point I think Vicky is making is that it does not matter. Faith does not need proof and maybe faith is god! it all depends on your perspective. apologies to V if I have that wrong

>>Vicky's idea of evidence maybe different to yours HI.

100% blanket dismissal of where someone else is coming from, strikes me as very narrow minded and rigid.<<

Effers, Vicky's idea of evidence is very different to mine. She believes that all evidence is equal and that her beliefs should be given greater respect than hard, objective, quantifiable evidence. I believe that some evidence is stronger than others and that evidence that is derived from scientific enquiry usually trumps all other kinds of evidence.

And as for the blanket dismissal - as I said on TGD thread I've heard all that she has to say, and decided it isn't worth much. For reasons which escape me, you want to continue to engage with her - that's entirely your right and your choice - but I have no reason to any more.

Fair enuff

Effers:
Hmmmm, OK, but I know that's what you think from the post I replied to. You got any actual counters/discussion points concerning what I have said or shall we just both leave our statements of understanding as is and forego any further discussion?

It'd be a shame if so as I really can't see the help/use in describing something as 'scientific' evidence, what it make 'non scientific' evidence. It just serves to further promote the idea that there is this big monolithic thing called 'science' and that it is different/seperate from everything else, which it isn't.