I'm too dumb to be an atheist

[rsb]

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Actually, gravity really is just a theory, and a disproven one, at that. Newton's math was very, very, VERY close, but not quite perfect, because he was missing details that couldn't be observed on anything smaller than trying to predict the orbit of the planets around the sun. And even then, his math was only noticeably wrong for Mercury, by a very small fraction of a percent (He was off by 43/3600 of a degree per century). Einstein's General Theory of Relativity corrected this.

I'm currently reading Hawking's "A Brief History of Time", which goes into a lot of this, including the Big Bang. I highly recommend it. I think you're underestimating how much evidence there is for the Big Bang Theory.

The Big Bang theory is a silly Catholic theory about creation. If you think about it you will see how ridiculous it is. It only works for a supernova and it can't be applied for the entire universe.

If you don't believe in gravity go step off of a high bridge, cliff, or building without a parachute. If you don't end up smashing into the ground you may have a point. But I'll bet that you will fall like a rock and kill yourself. BTW, how do you explain how things always eventually fall toward the ground?

His point was that Newtonian gravity, that does not work for close to the speed of light and near black holes perfectly, and even in the obit of mercury slightly, needs a small adjustment and actually an alternate mathematical theory appears to have more validity. He left out additional alternatives that we have not distinguished between yet with actual experiments. It sort of is confusing if you don't get the reference.

However people can still hit a 12 foot or smaller circle with an ICBM using the "flawed" theory so I will continue to call it a law, which has been refined.

Actually the big bang as being heavily influenced by the concept of god the creator is interesting, but not relevant to if it is true or not. We do know about a lot of evolution of the stars that is not at all as speculative as the early seconds of the big bang, and extremely reliable. It is very interesting and often neglected.

[Fromper]

Actually, gravity really is just a theory, and a disproven one, at that. Newton's math was very, very, VERY close, but not quite perfect, because he was missing details that couldn't be observed on anything smaller than trying to predict the orbit of the planets around the sun. And even then, his math was only noticeably wrong for Mercury, by a very small fraction of a percent (He was off by 43/3600 of a degree per century). Einstein's General Theory of Relativity corrected this.

I'm currently reading Hawking's "A Brief History of Time", which goes into a lot of this, including the Big Bang. I highly recommend it. I think you're underestimating how much evidence there is for the Big Bang Theory.

The Big Bang theory is a silly Catholic theory about creation. If you think about it you will see how ridiculous it is. It only works for a supernova and it can't be applied for the entire universe.

If you don't believe in gravity go step off of a high bridge, cliff, or building without a parachute. If you don't end up smashing into the ground you may have a point. But I'll bet that you will fall like a rock and kill yourself. BTW, how do you explain how things always eventually fall toward the ground?

I will once again recommend Stephen Hawking's "A Brief History of Time", since he explains the Big Bang a lot better than I could. And why you think it has anything to do with Catholicism is beyond me.

As for gravity, you totally missed the point of what I was saying. We were talking about the accuracy of scientific theories, and rsb tried to claim that gravity is a law, not a theory. So I pointed out that it's a theory which is accurate enough to use it to explain anything less extreme than Mercury's orbit around the sun, but it's still just a theory. And it's actually not perfect, as its very tiny inaccuracy regarding Mercury proves. But for anything here on Earth, it's close enough for its inaccuracy to not be measurable. Again, the point was that gravity is "just" a theory, but that well established theories are extremely accurate, even when every detail isn't explained yet, and they're sometimes still useful even when there's a detail that's been proven wrong.

[rsb]

Spoke to soon on monopoles, after reading the article in more detail and doing a little research:

"Some condensed matter systems propose a structure superficially similar to a magnetic monopole, known as a flux tube. The ends of a flux tube form a magnetic dipole, but since they move independently, they can be treated for many purposes as independent magnetic monopole quasiparticles. Since 2009, numerous news reports from the popular media[16][17] have incorrectly described these systems as the long-awaited discovery of the magnetic monopoles, but the two phenomena are only superficially related to one another.[18][19] These condensed-matter systems continue to be an area of active research. (See "Monopoles" in condensed-matter systems below.)"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_monopole

So it appears to me we still have no evidence. Or I could be wrong, please let me know if I am.

Nothing about this changes the fact that only an idiot could believe in Noah, given even the most basic scientific knowledge. I don't think reading "a brief history of time" would help with basic geology and radioactive dating. Try a book on the grand canyon.

[Wyrd of Gawd]

By definition everything had to originate from Nothing. The stumbling block is that it is very difficult to understand what Nothing is and what its properties are.

When the Earth was first formed did it have any dirt on it?

Not sure I follow. Do you mean each item in the cosmos, such as our Earth, had to have originated from nothing? Because that much we know is not true. The blob of debree whose gravitational field led to the formation of our solar system with the greatest mass of debree conscentrated in what was to become our sun. But owing to the rotation of the field about its center became stabilized in rotation rather than crowding into the center. One such ring became our planet.

I don't think this makes a good example of anything coming from nothing. The earth and our solar system arose following multiple generations of larger, less stable stars whose destruction created debree fields one of which, eventually, became ours. I find no "nothing" in this story.

There is a huge difference between saying before I was born the world was devoid of me versus saying before I was born there was absolutely nothing. Choose anything currently existing, sure there was a time before which it existed. But none of it sprang from nothing. Anything can always and only come from recycled and transformed states of what there was before. As proof I offer this entire bald assertion. QED

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Experiences with God are not evidence of God. They're anecdotes.

At the very least "experiences" of anything are first of all the product of the interface between our cognitive-perceptual capacities and whatever there may be out there. Some experiences are generated entirely on-board, such as dreams. They can feel real while you're dreaming and of course they are real - as dreams. They are "on-board" phenomena.

Anecdotes of interfacing with God are likewise on-board phenomenon. They are real as experience but there is no guarantee of linkage to anything out there in the world beyond us.

Remember learned people have been "attesting to dreams" too through all of human history. Some cultures believe there are real and important connections between dream time and waking time, and there probably are .. but there is no reason to posit a parallel universe for this. Our brains are able to generate it just fine.

Connecting experiences of God to the bible in a literal way is a clumsy and stupid way to understand ones experience of God. If you're really interested in God you should follow what you experience directly and not trade it in for the bible. If God is anything at all and you settle for the bible, He would be disappointed.

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When I say that everything came from Nothing what I'm saying is that Nothing produces the first building blocks, such as strings. The strings then evolve into quantum foam. Quantum foam produces the first particles. And eventually those particles produce hydrogen. Once hydrogen is created then everything else follows one step after the other until we get the current universe. That's not to say that the process is over. It may continue to create even more complex elements in the future.

Here's a link to an interactive video that explains it. Move the cursor from the left to the right and you will progress through the entire process.
http://scaleofuniverse.com/

Our main stumbling block is that it's almost impossible for us to comprehend Nothing and its properties that cause it to be the source of creation.

The growth and death of stars that we see is really no different that the life and death of body cells. But when stars go supernova it results in the creation of new elements in that area that didn't have them before.

Things start out simple and over eons they become more complex. Right now we don't know how long each stage takes. We know it took over 5 billion years for the Earth to produce humans. We don't know how long it takes Nothing to produce hydrogen. And we don't know how long it takes hydrogen to form nuclear masses that become stars. We just know that it happens on a continuous basis throughout the universe.

[rsb]

Two links on the from hydrogen till now part:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metallicity Don't be scared by the math it is all basic simple observed percentages dressed up to look impressive and overly complicated (dam scientists just love to LOOK super smart more than anything don't they?), just ignore the parts you don't get.

If the elements themselves are too confusing, start here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_element

Then move on to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geochronology and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiometric_dating.

Actually pretty simple, but very interesting stuff largely overlooked by many pop shows who tend to focus on bleeding edge science.

[LittleAFish]

I'm too dumb to be an atheist too - don't have a clue what is being discussed here. But I'll learn and grow wiser. It takes time and lots of reading. Good luck!

[Wyrd of Gawd]

Two links on the from hydrogen till now part:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metallicity Don't be scared by the math it is all basic simple observed percentages dressed up to look impressive and overly complicated (dam scientists just love to LOOK super smart more than anything don't they?), just ignore the parts you don't get.

If the elements themselves are too confusing, start here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_element

Then move on to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geochronology and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiometric_dating.

Actually pretty simple, but very interesting stuff largely overlooked by many pop shows who tend to focus on bleeding edge science.

Speaking of hydrogen, I wonder if you had a very large volume of pure hydrogen and subjected it to fantastic pressures if it would go nuclear?

[Whateverist]

As for wondering how everything could come from nothing, I wonder if you've ever questioned what evidence you have for thinking that there was ever an absolute, total nothing before there was anything at all. Christians don't believe that. They think the means to everything was already there all along in the form of God. Physicists don't think that either. They think each successive state of the universe(s) were always preceded by the necessary pre-existing conditions. The only difference is the scientists don't begin by assuming they already know everything.

By definition everything had to originate from Nothing. The stumbling block is that it is very difficult to understand what Nothing is and what its properties are.

I guess we are at a semantic divide. Why say "nothing" if by that you actually mean something like strings, foam or God? Perhaps pure nothing has never existed. Hundreds of years ago people would have thought a jar with nothing but air in it was empty. Now we know better. Less than a hundred years ago we would have thought the vacuum of space was nothing but now we understand that space itself has structural properties which apart from anything else can generate uber-tiny phenomena which in vast quantities may do God only knows what.

[Cinjin]

Evidence? Or did you just pull it out of your ass, as usual.

Me thinks ....

[Wyrd of Gawd]

By definition everything had to originate from Nothing. The stumbling block is that it is very difficult to understand what Nothing is and what its properties are.

I guess we are at a semantic divide. Why say "nothing" if by that you actually mean something like strings, foam or God? Perhaps pure nothing has never existed. Hundreds of years ago people would have thought a jar with nothing but air in it was empty. Now we know better. Less than a hundred years ago we would have thought the vacuum of space was nothing but now we understand that space itself has structural properties which apart from anything else can generate uber-tiny phenomena which in vast quantities may do God only knows what.

As I wrote it's extremely difficult to get a grip on what Nothing is. It obviously becomes something once strings form. However, there's no current way to determine when that is. If strings exist where did they come from? The most likely answer is that they came from Nothing. That's because no matter where you start you always have to go deeper into the well.

We don't know what the properties of Nothing are but one of them is that it is extremely cold. So maybe it's the the cold that acts in some way to create the strings.

BTW, our particular zone of space isn't a true vacuum. It's full of stuff. It's just short on breathable air. But there are large zones of apparent Nothing in the visible universe. Those voids could be completely devoid of material.