Proof that God exists

[Agnosty]

I'm only going to respond to part of this, because family etc.

That's cool and I wouldn't expect a reply to everything; just what strikes a chord.  Btw, Happy New Year!

Yep. Think of a portable power pack, the kind that you might use to charge your phone battery when mains charging is not available. The energy of the phone battery increases, but at the expense of the energy in the power pack. The sum total of the exchange results in less energy available to the system as a whole.

You're saying because the power pack was used to charge the battery that some energy was lost as heat and therefore there is less energy in total?  I can see that, but only because it's not an isolated system.  If the analogy were applied to the universe, there would be no place for the heat to go because the definition of an isolated system is that energy can't get in or out (distinct from a closed system where energy can get out and an open system where mass can leave. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isolated_system )

The example isn't much different than the solar system losing energy in the form of light.  But we have to consider that all the energy in the coal and oil in the ground is captured sunlight and that's sunlight that's not on it's way out of the solar system, so it would seem life has slowed the dissipation of energy rather than increase it.

The nuts and bolts of the matter is that thermal energy is the kinetic energy of the vibrating molecules that happen to contain charge, and when charges accelerate (as in vibration/oscillation), they create light (EM radiation) or what we commonly call heat.  The radiated light, in turn, creates kinetic energy when it interacts with the charge on other molecules and the transference of energy between the molecules defines heat (energy in storage is not heat).  So all that's really happening is a soup of charged particles are moving each other at various distances.

Now, we have decide if light can exit the universe because if there is no line of sight out of the universe without hitting charged particles, then it means anything radiated out is re-radiated back, eventually.  The light can't escape the universe because there is no place to go; the universe is all there is.

Next we could consider, for instance, the regenerative effect of black holes.  All galaxies have black holes and, contrary to popular belief, they do not operate like vacuum cleaners, but more like tornadoes flinging particles across the cosmos.  It's as if the universe is renewing itself.  If an iron atom goes in, it's ripped apart and recycled back into fundamental particles ready to form new stars.  Really, why does it all have to end?

Incidentally, on a physics forum I used the conservation of mass/energy to show that the universe can't be infinite (because how can the infinite be conserved), to which they replied that the law is not really a law.  I was like "wut?"  I suppose what is true depends on what you believe.

I believe laws are observed regularities and we inherited our science terminology from theology where a creator issued laws that nature obeyed; now we have the laws of thermodynamics as if nature must obey them rather than merely that we have observed some regularities in nature.  I believe the "law" terminology promotes an erroneous way of thinking: rather than dismiss an idea because it broke a law, we'd dismiss it because it's inconsistent with what we've regularly observed to be true; that way we can first decide if the regularities are local to us or universal and weigh the competing evidence without feeling monarchical.

If you don't understand it either, then why do you believe what you said?

Please don't put words in my mouth. I think I've asked that of you before; regardless, I won't have to ask you again, okay?

I'm sorry, I thought you were stating that you didn't have a full understanding.  I certainly don't; hence all the questions.

Dark matter or god?  Either way, I have no idea.  EM radiation travels right through dark matter with no interaction (except the gravitational effects between light and mass, which is exceedingly tiny and probably undetectable).  I don't know how god would interact.

Then perhaps don't posit the idea until there's evidence sufficient to warrant it?

The reason I introduced the dark matter was to show that sometimes things can be inferred to exist without too much objection from the community.  Even though I'd prefer to exhaust other baryonic possibilities before resorting to conjuring up new forms of matter, I have to admit that the incoming evidence is not supporting my preference.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_matte...nic_matter

I suppose dark matter isn't so bad and it's actually intriguing to ponder (regardless if it actually exists), but what bugs me is the cognitive dissonance with a twist of hypocrisy that certainly must have been employed to get the theory on the table:

- There is not enough matter in galaxies to explain what we see; therefore, there must be a new form of matter that can't be seen.
- There is not enough intelligence in rocks to explain life; therefore, there must be an intelligence that can't be seen.

I'm assuming that much of the astronomical community objects to one statement while supporting the other.  Just to be clear, some of the same people who reject god on the grounds of insufficient evidence are accepting dark matter without sufficient evidence.

In other words, the god concept has a zero percent track record for accuracy.

That seems accurate.

Why should anyone even entertain the concept with any seriousness?

Probably 1000 answers to that question.  People are products of their cultures and are indoctrinated from an early age.  When you challenge them, they dig in more because it wasn't a conclusion arrived at cognitively, but accepted by faith.  Kids should be taught to think rather than indoctrinated.

I have a bit of a theist lean mainly because I have trouble believing that a bunch of junk could assimilate by means of a dumb, mechanical process into the writer of this post, but I've rejected the idea of a monarchical deity barking orders because it doesn't make any sense.  I'm currently considering the eastern line of thinking and find it's well-aligned with the goals of the atheist community (in fact, most buddhists could be considered atheists. see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatta  But I'm not buddhist.).  I'm also a fan of Christopher Hitchens and I'm pretty sure I've placed some wear n tear on youtube's servers with some bouts of obsessive listening (what a wordsmith he was).  Anyway, I say that because I hope you won't view me as an enemy, even though we may disagree on trivial points.