So many long posts, I'll go in order (you can skip my answers to other people if you wish).
@ T0 Th3 M4X
1) Here you can find a more general assessment of the big bang theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang . For each chapter, you can find the corresponding reference which will often redirect you to paid journals. I have free access to them through my institution, but for the average citizen this knowledge is otherwise out of reach. This website https://openaccessbutton.org/ lets you selectively browse open access (free) articles. Otherwise, you can use *cough cough, shi-hub, cough cough to kinda unlock any paper by putting in the doi.
2,3,4) seem resolved
5) So basically this is the "infamous" cross-road that separates a believer from a skeptic: you choose to be optimistic and trust this person that claims that book to be the word of God, while I remain wary and distrustful and keep researching and questioning everything.
@ Godscreated
Even though you said you won't reply to this thread anymore (and then what was the point?), you didn't exclude other communication forms (eg through PMs) and so I'll answer to your points anyways for the sake of it:
Why are these believers so easily offended by my lack of understanding of their belief? Should I feel offended every time one of my students destroys math and chemistry in the tests I give them? Should I feel offended every time my granma asks me to solve a proportion for a cake recipe with my "science things"? I don't have any problem explaining the science I know and I have no problems admitting what I don't know. Why must they be so defensive about it?
I've already looked into it, but the problem is always the same: lack of evidence. It's speculation just like unknown science is, and is as worthy. Sure, I may feel more or less inclined towards one of the two, but it will remain a gut feeling until conclusive evidence shows up. Probably the difference is that I don't risk believing something that may be wrong and so I keep questioning it until conclusive evidence is shown. If no such evidence ever shows up, then I'll die questioning.
Anyways, if you possess some particular creation science article/page you want to share, feel free to send it to me via PM.
So you are saying the two are mutually exclusive? This poses a big problem. First of all:
How do you come to Christ and ask him? Like, do you go to a church and start asking the crucified statue of Christ to show up? I've already tried that and nothing happened. Also tried with my granma's rosary and nothing happened either. Then I tried reading a verse of the bible and ask midway to showup and nothing happened. I tried reciting a request in my mind, thinking that maybe he'd choose another communication channel, and didn't hear any whisper either. Also tried the opposite, as trying to provoke him, or invoke satan, even decided to join some "spiritual group" that claimed to be able to come in contact with superior being through spiritic sessions and nothing ever happened there either.
Being such an inquisitive guy, I've always explored and investigated everything. I had the most fun when I was a kid and was researching aliens and weird happenings because they were.... weird, unusual, unpredictable. But the more I learnt, the more disenchanted I became with the world until everything pretty much lost its charme as I came to understand it. In a way I wanted for those "things" to be somewhat real, because they'd have made my life more curious and fun. I tried to believe in them, but nothing worked.
While studying chemistry, which allowed me to understand how everything works even more, I also investigated psychology. I had read of people who had visions and hallucinations about angels or god and I was curious as to how they had them. Were they real? Were their testimony reliable? I read some case studies and came across the word "autosuggestion" which basically states that if you drive all your thoughts towards an idea so hard, you may actually convince yourself of it and even see it materializing. I read of schizophrenia, studied it in parallel, asked some university professor about it, and learnt that these hallucinations do not extend just to angels/gods but to pretty much anything. From imaginary friends to devils, monsters or just voices, annoying repetitive whispers, and what not. And so, how can you really differentiate at this point? What if anyone who claims to have met got just got caught in autosuggestion? What if what they saw was just the materialization of THEIR idea of god? Have you read about John Nash or watched the movie about him?
I'm not speaking of the bible in particular but any holy book. But if you so much want to cling to irrelevant details as this, then here you go:
https://www.cgg.org/index.cfm/fuseaction...verses.htm
https://bible.knowing-jesus.com/topics/Benevolence
https://www.bibletools.org/index.cfm/fus...lence-.htm
http://voiceoftruthblog.com/the-benevolence-of-god
https://crossexamined.org/the-omnibenevolence-of-god/
The order in which you put these operations is backwards. You first get the evidence and then believe it. You don't believe it and then get the evidence. Also re-read what you wrote and try to put yourself in my shoes: what should I exactly understand of what you described? You talked about trusting in god but when I read about it, it's described in such vague and general terms, it's invisible, intangible, everywhere and nowhere.... I just picture nothingness with this description. What did god teach you? How did he do it? Did he materialize (and how did it look? Was it a cloud or an old man?) and what did he tell you? Or you didn't see anything but heard a whisper in your ear? Or neither that and he just materialized in your mind and thoughts? How does all of this happen? You talk about it as if it was something normal and ordinary, but to someone who never experienced such thing it's impossible to picture. And what does it mean to see Christ as my savior? What is he saving me from? Why should I ask to be saved? And again, when you say you get the truth when you accept god as the truth, that's again backwards logic. From a purely logical point of view, that order is in reverse.
You state with such certainty and confidence that science will never explain everything. How do you know? Till some century ago it was unthinkable to fly or reach the moon and yet here we are and such mysteries are out of the way. What is exactly stopping science? Give it time.
Also, you say that god knows everything and has all truths but if he explained them to us, our minds would be blown. Then I'd like to tell him that he can go ahead and blow my mind. His followers may not consider themselves up to the task, but I'll take up the challenge and welcome any mindblowing truth. When you talk about "things we would never understand", I'd reply "speak for yourself". That's totally not the attitude of someone who wants to know the truth, but that of someone who has given up.
That's not how science works. When I research something, I start from an hypothesis. Then I carry out an experiment and if it does work out, then it just works, I was right. If it doesn't work out, then I don't go and falsify data to claim it was right. I investigate what went wrong and I study and study until I understand why. If I make a mistake along the way, thinking I proved something right when I did not, then I will go and correct my mistake and reshape my thesis. What I want to believe has nothing to do with it.
@ Drich
The first part of your post has a logic and I can agree to a certain degree. I did have confirmation from some honest believer who admitted that he'd rather believe there was some nice afterlife for good people than accept that all the wrongs he endured in life would have no effect or consequence afterwards.
So religion chosen as a way to justify the injustice of life, a way to feel somehow rewarded and not feel guilt. A longing for feeling loved, wanted, rewarded, justified, glorified. But that's not the same as researching the truth. And the truth may as well be that indeed nothing really matters. I do understand that some people find refuge in religion due to their impossibility to live aimlessly or without a truth or superior goal to work towards to, and so they cling to whatever claimed truth they find. But I want to stay positive and think that not everyone is like that.
About the second half of your post however, that's very subjective and sounds more like a way to justify(and why should you?) a success here and there in life. The thing is, I've had relatively nice success in life and career and health so far. I won many prizes for my age in my field, never had any serious illness (never went to the hospital in the past 23y), never had anything very wrong going on in my life. I would consider myself lucky since I was born in a decent family that gave me an education, but I also have my merits because I worked hard towards my goals and never gave up. My determination rewarded me, not some weird entity.
But In parallel, I could also see many other people who were born in even nicer conditions and were overall even "luckier". I always tried to earn things on my own, without asking others for help, but I also saw people getting credit for other people work and never getting any kind of bad consequence out of it. I also saw unlucky people born in violent families and enduring all sorts of wrongdoings and eventually either rise up or fall even lower. Sometimes I would feel annoyed at the former but lucky compared to the latter. In time I just stopped caring.
What I learnt so far is that nothing really matters. It doesn't matter if you are a horrible person who exploits others, you can still live a nice life and have 0 troubles, just like you can be the kindest and most gentle person, and have all sort of impeding illnesses and die at a young age in agony. There exist all kinds of combinations of situations, I'm one of those combination just like you.
You said that you trusted in god and were rewarded. That's nice for you. Now what about that kid who is born without legs and arms? What about that other kid who is born with down syndrome or is born blind and deaf? Just "bad luck" and let's shrug it off? Did they have any chance at any point to trust in god and get the same nice reward you got? What about those kids born in countries where war rages? They are taught from infancy to embrace arms and go to war. What about them? What about those kids who are kept in ignorance from birth? You had a choice, you chose to believe and supposedly were rewarded. They never had a choice, what about them? But let's go back in time a bit. What about all those people before christianity? Let's just forget the past 50.000 years of humanity (300.000 if we consider homo sapiens in general or 15 M years if we consider our ancestors as well)? Let's just swipe them under the carpet and forget they ever happened and let's start anew with the humans of 0 AC?
It's easy when you consider just yourself and your situation. You can fit all that happens in your life with patterns of any book, but try to expand and see how it applies to everyone else. Physical laws work because they are always valid in any circumstance. If they stopped working even once, then that would be a huge hole in the theory and would need to be revisited or it would become invalid.
@ T0 Th3 M4X
1) Here you can find a more general assessment of the big bang theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang . For each chapter, you can find the corresponding reference which will often redirect you to paid journals. I have free access to them through my institution, but for the average citizen this knowledge is otherwise out of reach. This website https://openaccessbutton.org/ lets you selectively browse open access (free) articles. Otherwise, you can use *cough cough, shi-hub, cough cough to kinda unlock any paper by putting in the doi.
2,3,4) seem resolved
5) So basically this is the "infamous" cross-road that separates a believer from a skeptic: you choose to be optimistic and trust this person that claims that book to be the word of God, while I remain wary and distrustful and keep researching and questioning everything.
@ Godscreated
Even though you said you won't reply to this thread anymore (and then what was the point?), you didn't exclude other communication forms (eg through PMs) and so I'll answer to your points anyways for the sake of it:
Quote:1) Most of those people were Christians looking to explain God's creation. The reason you only experience the present physical reality is because it's all you have. until you come to know God it will be all you will ever know. Christians like myself have come to know the creator God and in that we can have an understanding from Him if we seek it. Many Christians blab about God did it without ever knowing what they are talking about, but the sensible Christian will set down and explain things to you. But if you use the references about God that you did in this post to me you will find most Christians pushing back at you for not having respect for their beliefs especially when you have no proof they are wrong
Why are these believers so easily offended by my lack of understanding of their belief? Should I feel offended every time one of my students destroys math and chemistry in the tests I give them? Should I feel offended every time my granma asks me to solve a proportion for a cake recipe with my "science things"? I don't have any problem explaining the science I know and I have no problems admitting what I don't know. Why must they be so defensive about it?
Quote:2) I guess it might seem like magic to those who can't understand even to some Christians. However the correct word their is omnipotence, "all powerful." By the way if you are not as afraid as most of the atheist here you should seriously look into creation science you just might find yourself finding the truth you say you're looking for, if you are not afraid to.
I've already looked into it, but the problem is always the same: lack of evidence. It's speculation just like unknown science is, and is as worthy. Sure, I may feel more or less inclined towards one of the two, but it will remain a gut feeling until conclusive evidence shows up. Probably the difference is that I don't risk believing something that may be wrong and so I keep questioning it until conclusive evidence is shown. If no such evidence ever shows up, then I'll die questioning.
Anyways, if you possess some particular creation science article/page you want to share, feel free to send it to me via PM.
Quote:3) Since I can't and want speak for other religions I will speak to the case of Christianity. Yes you have missed out by rejecting God and yes you have rejected God, you see there is no middle ground, you either believe or reject. Some people play at Christianity but they too have rejected Christ. Again if you want to truly get somewhere in understanding the truth of God from others, words like magical want help you, alienating people with disrespect will put you on the outside looking in. Like I said earlier find a Christian who will set down with you and explain what they know, but if proof is the only thing you will except then you are never going to get there. God gives proof to those who come to Christ and ask Him to show them truth, he will do it in His time for your good.
So you are saying the two are mutually exclusive? This poses a big problem. First of all:
How do you come to Christ and ask him? Like, do you go to a church and start asking the crucified statue of Christ to show up? I've already tried that and nothing happened. Also tried with my granma's rosary and nothing happened either. Then I tried reading a verse of the bible and ask midway to showup and nothing happened. I tried reciting a request in my mind, thinking that maybe he'd choose another communication channel, and didn't hear any whisper either. Also tried the opposite, as trying to provoke him, or invoke satan, even decided to join some "spiritual group" that claimed to be able to come in contact with superior being through spiritic sessions and nothing ever happened there either.
Being such an inquisitive guy, I've always explored and investigated everything. I had the most fun when I was a kid and was researching aliens and weird happenings because they were.... weird, unusual, unpredictable. But the more I learnt, the more disenchanted I became with the world until everything pretty much lost its charme as I came to understand it. In a way I wanted for those "things" to be somewhat real, because they'd have made my life more curious and fun. I tried to believe in them, but nothing worked.
While studying chemistry, which allowed me to understand how everything works even more, I also investigated psychology. I had read of people who had visions and hallucinations about angels or god and I was curious as to how they had them. Were they real? Were their testimony reliable? I read some case studies and came across the word "autosuggestion" which basically states that if you drive all your thoughts towards an idea so hard, you may actually convince yourself of it and even see it materializing. I read of schizophrenia, studied it in parallel, asked some university professor about it, and learnt that these hallucinations do not extend just to angels/gods but to pretty much anything. From imaginary friends to devils, monsters or just voices, annoying repetitive whispers, and what not. And so, how can you really differentiate at this point? What if anyone who claims to have met got just got caught in autosuggestion? What if what they saw was just the materialization of THEIR idea of god? Have you read about John Nash or watched the movie about him?
Quote:4) Benevolent, show me in the Bible where that word or any phrase concerning that word is located. God is many awesome things but benevolent isn't one of them. God through His grace will show or give benevolence to individuals, but to be benevolent in the same way He is truth and love would limit Him in His work.
I'm not speaking of the bible in particular but any holy book. But if you so much want to cling to irrelevant details as this, then here you go:
https://www.cgg.org/index.cfm/fuseaction...verses.htm
https://bible.knowing-jesus.com/topics/Benevolence
https://www.bibletools.org/index.cfm/fus...lence-.htm
http://voiceoftruthblog.com/the-benevolence-of-god
https://crossexamined.org/the-omnibenevolence-of-god/
Quote:5) When you use the words you have to describe the Christian God and then say you are open to the truth, well, you betray yourself and show that you only engage in discussions with Christians as a pass time, you even said so in this post to me. There is a world of evidence for God and the creation, but only to those who will take their blinders off and actually seek the truth. Of coarse we are confident, Paul tells the believer that we can have such confidence when we trust in God, I do and I have that confidence, it is unshakable. There is no fast track to the truth, it takes an open mind, patience and trust in God. I'm a questioning Christian and through that God has taught me many things, I ask and if He desires for me to have the answer I will receive it and I have been shown many amazing things. Why me, because I have trusted my life to God through Christ and want to sincerely know the real truths. You can't get truths from God until you accept Him as the truth and that my friend means accepting Christ as your savior. Sorry if you do not like that but that's the way it has to be, it is God's creation man has spoiled after all
The order in which you put these operations is backwards. You first get the evidence and then believe it. You don't believe it and then get the evidence. Also re-read what you wrote and try to put yourself in my shoes: what should I exactly understand of what you described? You talked about trusting in god but when I read about it, it's described in such vague and general terms, it's invisible, intangible, everywhere and nowhere.... I just picture nothingness with this description. What did god teach you? How did he do it? Did he materialize (and how did it look? Was it a cloud or an old man?) and what did he tell you? Or you didn't see anything but heard a whisper in your ear? Or neither that and he just materialized in your mind and thoughts? How does all of this happen? You talk about it as if it was something normal and ordinary, but to someone who never experienced such thing it's impossible to picture. And what does it mean to see Christ as my savior? What is he saving me from? Why should I ask to be saved? And again, when you say you get the truth when you accept god as the truth, that's again backwards logic. From a purely logical point of view, that order is in reverse.
Quote:6) There you go again, far fetched story, you're betraying yourself again. Science will never explain everything because the science that you speak of is man made and man manipulated. God knows all, omniscient, He has all the truths, things that would blow our minds if explained to us, things we could never understand. About that "yet," I say the same thing when it comes to things we have not been able to explain that's in the Bible, so my yet holds the same weight as your's does. I have explained some things to you now it's up to you to search out the truth and it want happen on this forum, I've been here many years and I know what happens here. I came back from a rest that I've not finished to see what was happening and had no intentions of being in any discussions, I decided to for this one thread, but now I'm finished and will continue with my rest, yes that means I will have no further discussion with you about this thread, good luck in your search, i hope you can find a way to open your mind up to find the real truth.
You state with such certainty and confidence that science will never explain everything. How do you know? Till some century ago it was unthinkable to fly or reach the moon and yet here we are and such mysteries are out of the way. What is exactly stopping science? Give it time.
Also, you say that god knows everything and has all truths but if he explained them to us, our minds would be blown. Then I'd like to tell him that he can go ahead and blow my mind. His followers may not consider themselves up to the task, but I'll take up the challenge and welcome any mindblowing truth. When you talk about "things we would never understand", I'd reply "speak for yourself". That's totally not the attitude of someone who wants to know the truth, but that of someone who has given up.
Quote:7) Thus the problem with modern science, it doesn't seek absolute truth only that which supports what a given scientist wants to believe. As I said to Scientia, I will not be engaging in further discussions in this thread, I have a rest to finish.
That's not how science works. When I research something, I start from an hypothesis. Then I carry out an experiment and if it does work out, then it just works, I was right. If it doesn't work out, then I don't go and falsify data to claim it was right. I investigate what went wrong and I study and study until I understand why. If I make a mistake along the way, thinking I proved something right when I did not, then I will go and correct my mistake and reshape my thesis. What I want to believe has nothing to do with it.
@ Drich
The first part of your post has a logic and I can agree to a certain degree. I did have confirmation from some honest believer who admitted that he'd rather believe there was some nice afterlife for good people than accept that all the wrongs he endured in life would have no effect or consequence afterwards.
So religion chosen as a way to justify the injustice of life, a way to feel somehow rewarded and not feel guilt. A longing for feeling loved, wanted, rewarded, justified, glorified. But that's not the same as researching the truth. And the truth may as well be that indeed nothing really matters. I do understand that some people find refuge in religion due to their impossibility to live aimlessly or without a truth or superior goal to work towards to, and so they cling to whatever claimed truth they find. But I want to stay positive and think that not everyone is like that.
About the second half of your post however, that's very subjective and sounds more like a way to justify(and why should you?) a success here and there in life. The thing is, I've had relatively nice success in life and career and health so far. I won many prizes for my age in my field, never had any serious illness (never went to the hospital in the past 23y), never had anything very wrong going on in my life. I would consider myself lucky since I was born in a decent family that gave me an education, but I also have my merits because I worked hard towards my goals and never gave up. My determination rewarded me, not some weird entity.
But In parallel, I could also see many other people who were born in even nicer conditions and were overall even "luckier". I always tried to earn things on my own, without asking others for help, but I also saw people getting credit for other people work and never getting any kind of bad consequence out of it. I also saw unlucky people born in violent families and enduring all sorts of wrongdoings and eventually either rise up or fall even lower. Sometimes I would feel annoyed at the former but lucky compared to the latter. In time I just stopped caring.
What I learnt so far is that nothing really matters. It doesn't matter if you are a horrible person who exploits others, you can still live a nice life and have 0 troubles, just like you can be the kindest and most gentle person, and have all sort of impeding illnesses and die at a young age in agony. There exist all kinds of combinations of situations, I'm one of those combination just like you.
You said that you trusted in god and were rewarded. That's nice for you. Now what about that kid who is born without legs and arms? What about that other kid who is born with down syndrome or is born blind and deaf? Just "bad luck" and let's shrug it off? Did they have any chance at any point to trust in god and get the same nice reward you got? What about those kids born in countries where war rages? They are taught from infancy to embrace arms and go to war. What about them? What about those kids who are kept in ignorance from birth? You had a choice, you chose to believe and supposedly were rewarded. They never had a choice, what about them? But let's go back in time a bit. What about all those people before christianity? Let's just forget the past 50.000 years of humanity (300.000 if we consider homo sapiens in general or 15 M years if we consider our ancestors as well)? Let's just swipe them under the carpet and forget they ever happened and let's start anew with the humans of 0 AC?
It's easy when you consider just yourself and your situation. You can fit all that happens in your life with patterns of any book, but try to expand and see how it applies to everyone else. Physical laws work because they are always valid in any circumstance. If they stopped working even once, then that would be a huge hole in the theory and would need to be revisited or it would become invalid.
