(January 11, 2019 at 9:29 pm)Angelina Wrote: How was energy existing in the universe?

No one is saying it (pre) existed IN the universe.

Quote:How did it come into existence in the first place

We don't know that it did 'come into existence' and neither do you, unless you know some pre universe that we don't.

Quote:and if you think it has always existed then why did it always exist?

We don't know, you believe in a god, why did your god always exist ?

Quote:How is it capable of producing life with self-awareness, eyesight, hearing, smell, intelligence, senses to experience pleasure and pain, sexual desires, a high functiioning elaborate body with a organs all serving a purpose, self healing and equipped with an immune system?

We don't know how life started from chemical mixtures, why don't you educate yourself.
https://www.bbc.com/teach/class-clips-vi...th/zh8fcqt
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/03/r...-conundrum

As for what happened after, evolutions is a very good explanation as to how we evolved from very small uncomplexed creatures to what we see now.  Have you any proof at all that your creation myth is reasonable to believe ?

Quote:Your claim is that this all "just happened" without any sort of God,

We have no evidence for a god at all, do you ?

Quote:no information or knowledge of anything? And please do not try to insult my intelligence by pretending science can explain any of those things.

Actually science can explain a great deal, and is already explaining vastly more than all religions combined

Quote:All science can do is observe some of those things occuring. That does not explain how or why.

Science observes and tests it's theories, and can give us vast amounts of information,  about the past, present and what we can expect in the future.

Quote:No offense, but that is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard.

Why not try the god myth ?

Quote:It does not explain any of the things I mentioned or a million other things in our universe.

It certainly is incomplete knowledge yes, but unlike your religion and scriptures is explaining the world around us in detail and reliably.

Quote:You are claiming an unknowing universe just miraculously makes things for no reason.

What reason would you propose is a good one ?

Quote:How do you even manage to believe that?

Because science gives us, and continues to give us reliable information about the world we live in. unlike your god and religions.

Quote:That is a straight up guess and not proven in any way

You have a better answer, give it a shot, and your reason why you believe it so

Quote:Physical laws that came to be how? A universe from nothing is an unproven guess with nothing to substantiate it.

Well the universe is here, and no one is really claiming it came from no-thing at all, to say it was a god would require proof, do you have any ?
How and why is god ?.. any god will do.

(January 11, 2019 at 1:00 pm)Angelina Wrote: Because everything that exists did not miraculously come into existence the way it has without a source of knowledge and power. How could it possibly?

Theists are the ones that invoke magic and give no method or evidence to back up their assertion that it must have been not only some sort of god, but the one that hates gays and, for some reason, eating bacon.

More rational people tend to think it must have been a natural event of some kind, rather than some hyper improbable magic man that not only has no proof of its existence but has zero explanatory power.

(January 11, 2019 at 9:29 pm)Angelina Wrote:

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(January 11, 2019 at 8:05 pm)polymath257 Wrote: Knowledge isn't required. Stars are formed all the time without any knowledge input from anyone.

That is a straight up guess and not proven in any way.

(January 11, 2019 at 8:05 pm)polymath257 Wrote: All that is required is the action of the physical laws. As for 'power', that term is rather ambiguous in this context, but again, the physical laws are what mediate the formation of things.
But, and this is crucial, the known physical laws *do* allow for a 'universe from nothing', in part because the the total energy balance of the universe is zero (the gravitational energy is negative and exactly balances the energy from other sources).

Physical laws that came to be how? A universe from nothing is an unproven guess with nothing to substantiate it.

No, it is NOT a guess how stars come into existence. We can see the process happening right now in several nebula. The main thing that is required is gravity.

The most basic laws *cannot* have a cause. Why not? Because any cause would be from a deeper law, so the law in question wouldn't be basic.

Yes, the universe from nothing is a *conjecture*. But it is a conjecture based on the known physical laws. Such is *allowed*, but not guaranteed.

On the other hand, in essentially every model, there is something physical whenever there is time.

My personal default is that the physical universe including all of spacetime simply exists. because time and causality are part of the universe, it is simply maningless to talk about a cause of the universe.

(January 12, 2019 at 8:19 am)downbeatplumb Wrote:

(January 11, 2019 at 1:00 pm)Angelina Wrote: Because everything that exists did not miraculously come into existence the way it has without a source of knowledge and power. How could it possibly?

Theists are the ones that invoke magic and give no method or evidence to back up their assertion that it must have been not only some sort of god, but the one that hates gays and, for some reason, eating bacon.

More rational people tend to think it must have been a natural event of some kind, rather than some hyper improbable magic man that not only has no proof of its existence but has zero explanatory power.

So you make generalizations about people and then assert you are rational?

Don't have the words to describe your typical statements and various other banter, so I'll go with a photo to illustrate.

(January 12, 2019 at 11:48 am)polymath257 Wrote: No, it is NOT a guess how stars come into existence. We can see the process happening right now in several nebula. The main thing that is required is gravity.

It is a guess. Observing something happen does not explain why or how it is happening and you should ask yourself why you are pretending it does.

(January 12, 2019 at 11:48 am)polymath257 Wrote: The most basic laws *cannot* have a cause. Why not? Because any cause would be from a deeper law, so the law in question wouldn't be basic.

To the contrary, there must always be a cause for certain things always happening under defined circumstances. That points straight to an intelligent designer of the universe without question.

(January 12, 2019 at 11:48 am)polymath257 Wrote: Yes, the universe from nothing is a *conjecture*. But it is a conjecture based on the known physical laws. Such is *allowed*, but not guaranteed.

On the other hand, in essentially every model, there is something physical whenever there is time.

My personal default is that the physical universe including all of spacetime simply exists. because time and causality are part of the universe, it is simply maningless to talk about a cause of the universe.

It is pseudoscientific bullshit posited only to make a profit from the gullible.

(January 11, 2019 at 9:48 pm)T0 Th3 M4X Wrote:

(January 11, 2019 at 9:36 pm)Brian37 Wrote: Um as I said in another thread about "something vs nothing" neither require a super cognition.


"Infinite regress" destroys the logic of inserting a super cognition as a starting point. 

It does not matter if this universe came out of nothing, or was a result of the death of a prior universe. Scientists have predicted in the future that all the energy in the universe we live in now will run out.

You are insisting on a "who" being the starting point, instead of considering that the cycle of on and off are natural not a factory product.


Infinity is a possibility, as much as coming out of nothing is. But, even with infinity, it does not have to be a cognition doing it. Just like there is no Frosty The Snowman God causing winter, leading to a Peter Cotton Tail  God caused spring, or  Jalapeno Speedy Gonzales God causing summer, leading to a Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown God causing fall.

The evidence to "all this" is looking like a wave function, which leads to particles, then atoms then structures that lead to both non living objects and life itself.  None of what science is saying now, is pointing to Allah or Yahweh, or Vishnu or Buddha, or Jesus anymore than observations of lightening prove the existence of Thor.

Personally I lean to infinity. But not in a super cognition causing it. I see the "forever" as being a natural cycle of the death of some prior universe becoming fuel for the one we live in now, which will eventually suffer from "heat death", and like dead tree, rot and become fuel leading to another big bang leading to a future universe that comes out of the death of the one we are in.

Much like a light switch can start of in the "off" position, turn on for a while, run out of fuel, go back to off, and spark the on position again because of the rotted fuel from the on position.

Our species cognition is not a product of a factory. It is a result of evolution. We are finite as a species, and just like we were not around 4 billion years ago, we will not be around 10 billion years from now. We are simply a temporary blip in this current universe.

Why would there have to be an infinite regress?  Actually I would assert quite the opposite, but happy to hear you out.

God as a gap answer begs the question if you are to assert everything has a creator. If everything has a creator, then that creator had an even more complex creator. But if you want to claim God did not have  creator, then it seems to me the universe not having one would be a much more simple answer then trying to plug in a super cognition as the starting point. 

If you look at life, our planet, our sun, solar system, our galaxy and the universe as simply cycle, like you accept spring turning into summer, then fall, then winter, then back to spring, it would be a much more simple answer to see the universe as a cycle, and not a factory product.

(January 12, 2019 at 1:45 pm)Brian37 Wrote:

(January 11, 2019 at 9:48 pm)T0 Th3 M4X Wrote: Why would there have to be an infinite regress?  Actually I would assert quite the opposite, but happy to hear you out.

God as a gap answer begs the question if you are to assert everything has a creator. If everything has a creator, then that creator had an even more complex creator. But if you want to claim God did not have  creator, then it seems to me the universe not having one would be a much more simple answer then trying to plug in a super cognition as the starting point. 

If you look at life, our planet, our sun, solar system, our galaxy and the universe as simply cycle, like you accept spring turning into summer, then fall, then winter, then back to spring, it would be a much more simple answer to see the universe as a cycle, and not a factory product.

You're asserting something that isn't necessary.  If God is eternal, self-sufficient, and time is subject to Him, then no need for a regress.

I don't see the universe as a factory product.  Additionally, the right or best answer isn't always the simplest one.  But even so, your explanation seems to be the one complicating things.  If we have a root source of knowledge, then no need to make assumptions about what that root source has already shown us.

(January 12, 2019 at 11:52 am)T0 Th3 M4X Wrote:

(January 12, 2019 at 8:19 am)downbeatplumb Wrote: Theists are the ones that invoke magic and give no method or evidence to back up their assertion that it must have been not only some sort of god, but the one that hates gays and, for some reason, eating bacon.

More rational people tend to think it must have been a natural event of some kind, rather than some hyper improbable magic man that not only has no proof of its existence but has zero explanatory power.

So you make generalizations about people and then assert you are rational?

Don't have the words to describe your typical statements and various other banter, so I'll go with a photo to illustrate.

Crap, Mosses didn't get the memo. Meh, no worries, he's fictional anyway.

(January 12, 2019 at 1:54 pm)Brian37 Wrote:

(January 12, 2019 at 11:52 am)T0 Th3 M4X Wrote: So you make generalizations about people and then assert you are rational?

Don't have the words to describe your typical statements and various other banter, so I'll go with a photo to illustrate.

Crap, Mosses didn't get the memo. Meh, no worries, he's fictional anyway.

Says you.  The subject of all your claims.

(January 12, 2019 at 3:09 pm)T0 Th3 M4X Wrote:

(January 12, 2019 at 1:54 pm)Brian37 Wrote: Crap, Mosses didn't get the memo. Meh, no worries, he's fictional anyway.

Says you.  The subject of all your claims.

How is saying, "that was then, this is now, and we have better data now" make me self absorbed?

This is funny considering you are defending a head character from a book of old mythology whom gets angry when you don't kiss his ass.

And yes, I do have a cat, and he is far more friendly and loving than many humans I run into.