A few days left to check this film out...

[Edwardo Piet]

I've sort of got my own speculation that because atoms can be broken down and down because you can always find smaller particles with in them. And scientists keep finding smaller and smaller particles over time (or so I've heard) perhaps the thing is if you postulate something almost infinitely simple (or infinitely, I'm not sure) then perhaps its what everything reduces to. And such a simple thing would be much less complex (and therefore less improbable than a supernatural creator that's incredibly complex). Although they can't know this.
And they are undetectable.
Like I said this is just me speculating to help me understand the mysterious. I don't believe it I'm just thinking about it. And I certainly claim nothing about this "idea" of whatever, of mine.
Evf

[CoxRox]

If the mathematical models fit and it explains our universe perfectly then fair enough, but it would still be based on an unverified/unverifiable premise. I suppose you're right. Scientific, but not science.

Would any of you agree with me, that it's not lunacy to speculate about a Creator anymore than about string theory? Is anyone going to give me an inch?

[Darwinian]

It's not lunacy to speculate about a creator but there can be no comparison with string theory.

Although string theory cannot be directly observed it does work beautifully in the world of mathematics and there are a lot of very good reasons (scientifically and practically speaking) why it has merit.

The evidence for string theory is in the maths but the same cannot be said for the notion of a 'creator'.

[Tiberius]

I can understand where you are coming from though CoxRox, but comparing String theory to a creator ignores all the notions of String theory. Firstly, strings are vibrations of energy, and we know that energy exists. They extend into other dimensions, and we know dimensions exist (we live in 3 of them and travel along the fourth). Secondly, strings aren't given any intelligence, which a God apparently has, so they don't need to explain the origins of their being, and strings aren't given any degree of moral or otherwise control over us as a species. They simply hold together reality in a natural way.

So all in all, I'd say a creator is much more unlikely than string theory, even when you accept that string theory is unprovable.

[CoxRox]

It's not lunacy to speculate about a creator but there can be no comparison with string theory.

Although string theory cannot be directly observed it does work beautifully in the world of mathematics and there are a lot of very good reasons (scientifically and practically speaking) why it has merit.

The evidence for string theory is in the maths but the same cannot be said for the notion of a 'creator'.

I'm sure there are mathematicians who would say 'the evidence for God is in the maths'. I was chatting to my dad earlier and he said to ask you this? 'If only fools believe in 'God' why did Einstein believe in a 'God'?' I know he didn't believe in a theistic, or personal God, but he could see something more than nature in nature.

[Edwardo Piet]

Einstein was a pantheist. It was only a metaphor. He didn't seem to believe in the supernatural at all. According to Dawkins he wasn't even a deist as he's often thought. Dawkins has said that deism is watered down-theism. Patheism is sexed-up atheism.
When Einstein said "God does not roll dice" it was basically his response to quantum mechanics and why he thought it was wrong, and what he basically meant was: The universe is not governed by random chance.
He used God as a metaphor as Stephen Hawking does/did.
Or so I've heard.
Einstein described himself as: "A deeply religious nonbeliever" and he said it was a "somewhat new kind of religion".

[CoxRox]

I can understand where you are coming from though CoxRox, but comparing String theory to a creator ignores all the notions of String theory. Firstly, strings are vibrations of energy, and we know that energy exists. They extend into other dimensions, and we know dimensions exist (we live in 3 of them and travel along the fourth). Secondly, strings aren't given any intelligence, which a God apparently has, so they don't need to explain the origins of their being, and strings aren't given any degree of moral or otherwise control over us as a species. They simply hold together reality in a natural way.

So all in all, I'd say a creator is much more unlikely than string theory, even when you accept that string theory is unprovable.

I understand your reasoning on this. I only compare them in that they are both 'unproveable' at the minute. Obviously their natures are very different and hence Leo in an earlier post somewhere, is right that I shouldn't be comparing them. From what I've learnt of string theory it does seem very possible and it also seems possible that 'God' is the ultimate means of 'hold(ing) together reality in a natural way (via strings)'. The further you go back something has got to be controling or holding together matter and if that something is an eternal force it would explain matter and space and time maybe being 'eternal'. I'm getting a bit tongue tied now, but I know that it's the 'intelligence' aspect or complexity of this 'force' that deems it unlikely to you guys but to me its not impossible.

[Darwinian]

Einstein was a Pantheist, meaning that he considered nature itself as God. This is nothing to do with the gods of religion and is always a problem when theists use Einstein as an example of someone who believed in God.

As for finding evidence of God in the language of mathematics, well, it depends who's god you are talking about. Einsteins? Yes, as as far as he was concerned, the Cosmos is God. Not a conscious, intervening god but reality itself.

If you are talking about the god of the bible then no. How could anything mathematical support or backup this character?

I think what you are looking for is an ultimate and deliberate reason for everything being here. A single conscious point from which everything else emanates. Maybe a decision made by some unimaginable entity to create the Universe.

It's true that the more you look into the way reality works, the more complex it seems to get. It follows strict and confusing rules that somehow all seem to work together to 'create' the world around us.

For example, if the value for the strong nuclear force were a little different then atoms would not be able to hold themselves together and the Universe would just be a cloud of sub atomic particles. And what about gravity? If it were weaker than it actually is then stars could not form so, no galaxies or planets etc.

Many people use examples like this to point to the fact that there must be a creator who tuned everything so perfectly as to allow our existence. However, the very fact that we are here to ask these questions means that we must live in a Universe that 'works'. For all we know for each Universe like this there may well be billions that have 'failed', or perhaps others that support far superior forms of life and would consider a reality like this with its chaotic laws of physics as ridiculous.

Anyway, back to Einstein. He didn't consider that there was something more than nature in nature. To him, nature was everything and sometimes he also called it God.

[Edwardo Piet]

Well even if string theory is only detected by mathematics. The supernatural isn't. "God" or "gods" isn't. A deist God isn't - let alone theist God.
String theory is a lot more simple than "God". And it isn't supernatural. Its part of natural law - not, "above it".
Right?
There's another version of the Einstein quote that I found CR, he doesn't just say: "The mystery is in its comprehensibility" he says thats whats mysterious is how "Everything is comprehensible".
Everything is comprehensible? Not giving room for an unknowable God here is he? He's talking about nature, he's talking about the natural. He only believed in the natural universe, natural laws. He just sometimes used "God" as a metaphor for it.
Einstein the "deeply religious nonbeliever".
Evf

[CoxRox]

Einstein was a pantheist. It was only a metaphor. He didn't seem to believe in the supernatural at all. According to Dawkins he wasn't even a deist as he's often thought. Dawkins has said that deism is watered down-theism. Patheism is sexed-up atheism.
When Einstein said "God does not roll dice" it was basically his response to quantum mechanics and why he thought it was wrong, and what he basically meant was: The universe is not governed by random chance.
He used God as a metaphor as Stephen Hawking does/did.
Or so I've heard.
Einstein described himself as: "A deeply religious nonbeliever" and he said it was a "somewhat new kind of religion".

I've just done a quick check and found this quote by Einstein:

"Do you believe in the God of Spinoza?" Einstein replied as follows:

I can't answer with a simple yes or no. I'm not an atheist and I don't think I can call myself a pantheist. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many different languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of the books but doesn't know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God. We see a universe marvellously arranged and obeying certain laws, but only dimly understand these laws. Our limited minds cannot grasp the mysterious force that moves the constellations. I am fascinated by Spinoza's pantheism, but admire even more his contributions to modern thought because he is the first philosopher to deal with the soul and the body as one, not two separate things.'' 26

http://www.ctinquiry.org/publications/torrance.htm