RE: 10 Questions Biblical Literalists Cannot Honestly Answer
July 24, 2017 at 1:18 pm
(This post was last modified: July 25, 2017 at 9:14 am by Mister Agenda.)
Just to clarify, a fair generalization about rational skeptics is that they (or at least one would hope) accept the best, most current science provisionally. If they aren't willing to adjust their opinion on science when science itself adjusts its position due to new evidence, they probably either aren't being properly and rationally skeptical, or they know something most of us don't (I would hesitate to argue with Alex if he was doubtful about new evidence in physics, for instance).
When someone believes in the 'Initial Expansion', it should be a lightly held belief, ready to be discarded in the face of new information. However, what GC might take as faith that the Big Bang happened is more properly taken as awareness that the preponderance of available evidence supports that theory: there is strong evidence that the universe is expanding and predictions have been made about discoveries we should make if the universe was once in a small, hot, dense state, and we have, indeed, made those confirming discoveries. There's always a chance that we'll discover something that makes another explanation more likely, however small.
For instance, it's remotely possible that we're living in a simulation that actually started this morning and any memories and history before that are merely fictional backstory. I can't prove that's not the case. But I can observe that there's currently no good reason to think it actually IS the case.
When someone believes in the 'Initial Expansion', it should be a lightly held belief, ready to be discarded in the face of new information. However, what GC might take as faith that the Big Bang happened is more properly taken as awareness that the preponderance of available evidence supports that theory: there is strong evidence that the universe is expanding and predictions have been made about discoveries we should make if the universe was once in a small, hot, dense state, and we have, indeed, made those confirming discoveries. There's always a chance that we'll discover something that makes another explanation more likely, however small.
For instance, it's remotely possible that we're living in a simulation that actually started this morning and any memories and history before that are merely fictional backstory. I can't prove that's not the case. But I can observe that there's currently no good reason to think it actually IS the case.
I'm not anti-Christian. I'm anti-stupid.
