No, that's ok. No worries
What denomination or sect are you?
- Thread starter wil
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You may assume what you wish. I speculate that man will continue to uncover more of the incredible mechanism of the universe, but it will always be a tiny fraction of what more there will still be to know.
And it will still only be a revealing of the mechanism.
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For what reason should you NOT assume an intelligence higher than that of man ?
Why condemn more than half of the human race that believe in God to be "wrong" ?
Makes no sense to me, that everything we see is "pure coincidence" ..
I've always struggled with that since I was old enough to think..
Science should not assume anything, imo. If science constants like the speed of light limit seem to be assumed, nevertheless electron orbits, Planck's constant and the uncertainity principle etc, are daily open to question, if someone wants to ask.
They are used, but not assumed. The Hubble Constant, for example is recently coming in for a lot of questioning and debate.
When religion prevented science from asking questions, it was the duty of science to insist on asking those questions instead of accepting 'God did it' as the answer to life's mysteries.
However I believe modern science has suffered mission creep so that now, instead of rightly insisting that religion must not limit the questions science may ask, it has now swung over to insisting that there is not and cannot be a higher intelligent power than mankind.
It has battened down the hatches. Science has now become militant atheist. It has elevated a doubt into scientific constant and then elevated that into an assumption about the universe. Repeat: about the universe!
But science has no grounds for assuming the definite lack of a possible 'super natural' higher intelligence, which activity surrounds and contains and permeates nature, other than on the grounds that science itself cannot go beyond nature.
All the wonderful scientific instruments and telescopes and accelerators and detectors and apparatus are really just extensions of the range of man's five natural senses of sight, hearing, etc.
Insisting that nothing exists beyond nature, because our natural senses cannot detect it, is simply wrong. It is the same as saying: 'if I can't see it, it's just not there.'
But still the possibility exists. Smirk at the possibility if you like. But still it has to be allowed. It is not scientific to exclude the possibility.
Many scientists work with the 'shut-up and calculate' philosophy. They simply work with the data and leave divine speculation to others.
But there is an arrogant collection of popular internet science celebrities: Dawkins, De Grasse Tyson, Lawrence Krauss etc, who have made lucrative populist careers from their celebrity atheist positions. They charge well for lectures and tee shirts and so on.
And imo the big problem is that it is mainly toward this vain and arrogant collection of painfully narcissistic popular science gurus that a lot of the general public turn for their quick soundbites of science lite. And I do not mean anyone here.
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If anyone is seriously interested, here is a 90 minute definitely non-commercial video of my favourite absent minded genius scientist Roger Penrose bumbling and losing his handwritten pages as he explains for laymen like myself the latest Big Bang concept of a non-conformal recurrent universe -- and tossing inflation out of the window.
All accompanied by zero animations, very crude graphics, bad sound and poor photography, along with a lifetime of experience and with solid evidence in the microwave background of 'Hawking points' to back-up his prediction of black holes the size of galactic clusters leaking through information from the previous aeon into our present universe, with 99.98 certainty of accuracy.
It is a recent video, only a year old.
NB: Skip the first 14 minutes. Penrose only comes to the desk after the first 14 minutes of boring intro speeches. So ...
All accompanied by zero animations, very crude graphics, bad sound and poor photography, along with a lifetime of experience and with solid evidence in the microwave background of 'Hawking points' to back-up his prediction of black holes the size of galactic clusters leaking through information from the previous aeon into our present universe, with 99.98 certainty of accuracy.
It is a recent video, only a year old.
NB: Skip the first 14 minutes. Penrose only comes to the desk after the first 14 minutes of boring intro speeches. So ...
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Aupmanyav
Be your own guru.
I do not see any evidence of that.For what reason should you NOT assume an intelligence higher than that of man ?
..Makes no sense to me, that everything we see is "pure coincidence" ..
I've always struggled with that since I was old enough to think..
No coincidence. All happenings have a reason (except for your acceptance of existence of Allah). Some we know, others we are trying to know.
You struggled because you wanted what you thought to be true even if it is not, perhaps knowing that very well in your mind. I do not struggle because I do not make presumptions. My religion does not compel me to make any presumptions.
Aupmanyav
Be your own guru.
I do not know anything about these gentlemen, I have not read what they have written - except I know that Krauss stands for Creatio Ex-nihilo. I stand for no creation at all, all perceived being but an illusion (including the supposed perceiver). My atheism is from Hindu scriptures.
Of course, they charge for their lectures, but I doubt if they are as rich as the Christian evangelists.
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Well I was not judging anyone's lack of belief in a deity, but I was commenting on your belief that mankind will one day know all the answers.
Also as your earlier comment was based upon inflation as the event horizon of the BB singularity I posted a recent talk by a very respected scientist who disagrees with you on that point.
It is sad the wealthy American televangelists have managed to create the impression that they are the true face of Christianity. I dislike them very much.
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Well, first of all, I make the presumption that what I see is "real" .. I assume we ALL do
..carry on trying to work out the source of reality .. I don't see how it can be answered without the concept of God.
An answer that intelligence and consciousness is an illusion produced by physical tissue .. and evolved from nought, brings us back to the question of "what is nought?"
I don't think most people have a problem with the existence of aliens that possess superior intelligence..
They DO however, seem to have a problem with being told what to do by a BOOK which restricts them.
Hmm .. interesting.
Poor American evangelist preachers haven't had a tax exempt offering in a month:
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...ulus-cheques-church-evangelists-a9471436.html
"A Louisiana pastor has urged people to donate their coronavirus stimulus cheques to churches, amid extended stay-at-home orders.
Pastor Tony Spell, of the Life Tabernacle Church, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, posted a video to his YouTube channel, where he asked his subscribers to donate their cheques to churches and evangelists.
The stimulus package is intended to provide $1200 to every American who earns under $75,000 per year, as well as $500 to every family for every child under the age of 16, due to the coronavirus pandemic ..."
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...ulus-cheques-church-evangelists-a9471436.html
"A Louisiana pastor has urged people to donate their coronavirus stimulus cheques to churches, amid extended stay-at-home orders.
Pastor Tony Spell, of the Life Tabernacle Church, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, posted a video to his YouTube channel, where he asked his subscribers to donate their cheques to churches and evangelists.
The stimulus package is intended to provide $1200 to every American who earns under $75,000 per year, as well as $500 to every family for every child under the age of 16, due to the coronavirus pandemic ..."
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We can travel round the world and see different cultures and "ways of life".
We can study how these civilisations evolved .. their SOURCE, as it were, and make reasonable conclusions.
Example: a society that has 'a little red book' written by mankind
..or a constitution mentioning God .. or one which constantly changes,,
What we call 'the west' has evolved from Roman Christianity .. it is now the predominant global system
that we recognise as 'secularism'
Yes .. in some countries we find 1000's of churches and temples and mosques.
Atheists seem to think that our ancestors were not very bright, and followed only superstition.
I think its the other way round. Mankind today are arrogant, and while thinking they know so much these days, in fact they are heading for catastrophe. [ climate-change, wars, disease, famine, obesity ]
..well, we've been FORCED to change our course at present .. and God knows best.
Whose god? The source of ALL .. our Maker .. forget 'personal gods' and 'names of gods' .. there is only ONE physical reality .. which we are all trapped in until we die ..
We can study how these civilisations evolved .. their SOURCE, as it were, and make reasonable conclusions.
Example: a society that has 'a little red book' written by mankind
..or a constitution mentioning God .. or one which constantly changes,,
What we call 'the west' has evolved from Roman Christianity .. it is now the predominant global system
that we recognise as 'secularism'
Yes .. in some countries we find 1000's of churches and temples and mosques.
Atheists seem to think that our ancestors were not very bright, and followed only superstition.
I think its the other way round. Mankind today are arrogant, and while thinking they know so much these days, in fact they are heading for catastrophe. [ climate-change, wars, disease, famine, obesity ]
..well, we've been FORCED to change our course at present .. and God knows best.
Whose god? The source of ALL .. our Maker .. forget 'personal gods' and 'names of gods' .. there is only ONE physical reality .. which we are all trapped in until we die ..
But to be fair it is often the despicable behaviour of religious leaders like the pastor in my post above who turn people away from God? If the US took away the tax exempt status for religion most of these charlatans and their tens of thousands of different churches would wither away very quickly.
The tax exempt status is supposed to facilitate churches to use the donations they receive to set up schools and hospitals and missions and feeding centres for the poor -- not for these nasty hypocrites to buy private jets and Gucci outfits.
The tax exempt status is supposed to facilitate churches to use the donations they receive to set up schools and hospitals and missions and feeding centres for the poor -- not for these nasty hypocrites to buy private jets and Gucci outfits.
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Ahanu
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To be clear my argument is not with anyone else's religious belief or lack of it, but with the entirely false assertion that because science succeeds in revealing a (very small) part of the mechanism of nature, it therefore disproves the existence of anything beyond nature.
It is not true.
It is not true.
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No, not yet.
But it does keep chipping away at the religious writings which were deemed by billions for millenia as facts regarding creation, history and the nature of things...
Changing the tune of the average religionist and the hierarchy to say ah, it was all parable and allegory....we know there wasn't EXACTLY a talking snake, and rib, and ark, and red sea parting and the rainbow wasn't created by G!d as a promise if no more wiping out humanity...
Will we have to say someday yeah, it is a crucifixion story?
They already say that, in spite of the actual evidence:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacitus_on_Christ
"The Roman historian and senator Tacitus referred to Christ, his execution by Pontius Pilate, and the existence of early Christians in Rome in his final work, Annals (written ca. AD 116), book 15, chapter 44.
The context of the passage is the six-day Great Fire of Rome that burned much of the city in AD 64 during the reign of Roman Emperor Nero. The passage is one of the earliest non-Christian references to the origins of Christianity, the execution of Christ described in the canonical gospels, and the presence and persecution of Christians in 1st-century Rome.
The scholarly consensus is that Tacitus' reference to the execution of Jesus by Pontius Pilate is both authentic, and of historical value as an independent Roman source ..."
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suetonius_on_Christians
"Christians are explicitly mentioned in Suetonius' biography of the Emperor Nero (Nero 16) as among those punished during Nero's reign. These punishments are generally dated to around AD 64, the year of the Great Fire of Rome.
In this passage Suetonius describes Christianity as excessive religiosity (superstitio) as do his contemporaries, Tacitus and Pliny ..."
As Nero was Emperor from 54 AD to 68 AD it seems unlikely the 'Jesus cult' could have evolved in such a short time from a make believe story?
But I am carefully avoiding the term religion in favour of beyond nature or higher intelligence, etc.
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Slight exaggeration...
And popular belief in anything tends to be founded on dubious grounds, be it 'religion' or 'science', and if we want to know what the doctrine actually is, best not to ask the man in the street, who probably can't explain that any more than s/he could explain electricity.
Well that's hyperbole...
Unlikely.
Again, there will always be populist broad-brush assumptions and assertions, that simply overlook the fine detail, but really, they're not be to relied upon, they're certainly not 'scientific', or even logical or rational arguments.
Aupmanyav
Be your own guru.
Nothing new in that. Scientists (or Hindu religionists) always differ. Albert differed with Max.
People will keep working on it as long till the unexplained remains, the search would not stop.
Aupmanyav
Be your own guru.
There is nothing more illusory in Hinduism than this presumption. As you know, we term it 'maya'.Well, first of all, I make the presumption that what I see is "real" .. I assume we ALL do
I don't think most people have a problem with the existence of aliens that possess superior intelligence.
They DO however, seem to have a problem with being told what to do by a BOOK which restricts them. Hmm .. interesting.
Yeah, I agree with you. 80 billion galaxies, a 100 thousand million stars in Milky Way galaxy (and ours is not a particularly big galaxy).
I do not understand what you meant by the underlined sentence. Some of the things that books mention are ludicrous.
My whole point. When people dislike [ or disagree with ] what God reveals
through His chosen messengers, they deem it lies or try to kill them.
Mankind is violent in his love of wealth and power.
It may be that we like something that is bad for us, and dislike something which is good for us.
We might think that we're smart .. but we're not THAT smart