God vs Big Bang- Are either correct?

[Mister Agenda]

Why does it matter? Why do I care? With regard to the bother of pondering such things, Tyson said the question becomes "How big of a Universe do you want to live in? Some like it small, and that's fine; understandable. But I like it big." I do too

Not being 'very skeptical' of things that have a lot of evidence for them is not the same as not liking your universe big. They aren't related at all. What's in your universe that isn't in mine, besides wild speculation?

My point is that neither explanation has been a very good one. That's all.

Really? Because it certainly looked lilke your point was that we hold one of those positions.

Is it also strawman that you assume my position is like your father's?

No. Saying your position reminds me of my father's is not making your position out to be what it is not, it's comparing it to another position that has some superficial similarities, in my opinion.

I would say I wouldn't have blind faith in any of it.

No one thinks their faith is blind.

It's unfortunate too, because as someone who understands the principles of psychoneuroimmunology (study of stuff such as the placebo effect), it is likely that the belief does influence the ability of the remedy to work. Doesn't work for me though, I'm too skeptical.

It's an interesting effect. I'm glad you're working on helping us to understand it better.

I feel like I should start getting all worked up about this poster assuming to know my perspective on "god" and that I'm trying to argue in favor of "god".

Fair enough.

Can I play that game too? Strawman! Strawman! Strawman!

It isn't a game, it's a tool for evaluating claims, and I'm happy to see you using it correctly.

I agree that the big bang is a much more logical theory, but I don't like the fact that the supporting evidence regarding what is being observed in the universe is constantly not as predicted and the laws are being rewritten to support the original ideas when there may be times we need to reconsider things from their foundational principles.

What does you not liking a fact accomplish?

Most astrophysicists admit that they are humbly ignorant with regard to the truth about our universe. Specifically, very recently they had to completely revise their opinions regarding the expansion of the universe and in doing so had to add in that 96% of reality is now stuff called "dark matter" and "dark energy" that we know nothing about other than than it now makes sense what we're observing.

Yes. Of course that 96% of reality barely affects us directly, but it's important on a galactic scale. More than 90% of reality that we were aware of before these discoveries was undetected a century ago, and we didn't have to re-evaluate everything from scratch over that.

Care to elaborate? If I'm making false assertions, I'm interested in knowing what they are. I specifically asked for feedback which includes clarifications if my assertions are flawed. Care to give it?

If you haven't had that feedback enough yet, your description of the scientific explanation for the origin of the universe was false. It didn't come from nothing, and no one said it does, except figuratively.

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I guess that's my point, with such a limited understanding of "dark matter" and "dark energy", how does one conclude that it's not relevant?

One doesn't. One holds the null hypothesis until it's overcome.

If it's 96% of our reality, how can one be sure it does not influence those things that we are trying to learn about? How do you know it's not an important variable?

We don't know it, we estimate it. Far more than 96% of our reality lies outside our solar system, but all other things holding steady, if our solar system as is was the only one in the universe, it wouldn't affect how life evolved much. The main difference would be that we wouldn't see stars, only the sun, planets, and other objects of our system.

If an important variable were lacking, it would be detectable by its absence. In the absence of effects, it's reasonable to conclude (not assume) that something which has no effect is not a relevant cause to the matter at hand. Your question is akin to asking how we know astrology isn't an important variable.

Philosophical skepticism is very problematic. Rational skepticism is much more useful: it tells you to proportion your skepticism to the unlikeliness of the claim in Bayesian terms.

[*Deidre*]

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[sswhateverlove]

I guess all I can say is-fair enough. It's difficult to say whether or not things we know very little about have the ability to influence other things we know very little about until we know more about them. I respect your opinion. Maybe someday we will know for sure.

[Jackalope]

I guess all I can say is-fair enough. It's difficult to say whether or not things we know very little about have the ability to influence other things we know very little about until we know more about them. I respect your opinion. Maybe someday we will know for sure.

It certainly would be nice to know. From my perspective, it simply makes sense to not form positive beliefs about such things until there's some meat on the bone.

[sswhateverlove]

I guess all I can say is-fair enough. It's difficult to say whether or not things we know very little about have the ability to influence other things we know very little about until we know more about them. I respect your opinion. Maybe someday we will know for sure.

It certainly would be nice to know. From my perspective, it simply makes sense to not form positive beliefs about such things until there's some meat on the bone.

From my perspective, it's just a little bit more to add on to to what is already a pretty meaty bone. But I realize others are not so convinced.

Interesting.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYH_nFwMXRM

[Surgenator]

I don't get the point of the video. It just goes over the proof for dark matter. However, dark matter doesn't interact through electromagnetism. Our planet and ourselfs mostly interact via electromagnetism. So it doesn't affect us on a local scale i.e. on Earth.

[Alex K]

Indeed, the people who work in dark matter detection can tell you all about it - if it interacts with matter, it certainly doesn't interact much, which is why it is notoriously difficult to detect directly.

[sswhateverlove]

I don't get the point of the video. It just goes over the proof for dark matter. However, dark matter doesn't interact through electromagnetism. Our planet and ourselfs mostly interact via electromagnetism. So it doesn't affect us on a local scale i.e. on Earth.

In the last 4 minutes or so, the presenter seems to be claiming that "dark matter" seems to be the "grid" or "scaffolding" on which everything in the universe (including earth and it's beings) sits upon. If this is the case, then it could be assumed that dark matter and our known reality would be intrinsically linked. In this sense, I don't see it unreasonable to assume that once we know more about the dark matter "scaffolding" we may find it's state or status does have the ability to influence our material existence.

[sswhateverlove]

Ok, I appreciate your clarification. It is not claimed that it started as nothing, from what you posted I now understand it is believed to have started as something extremely small that existed in it's smallness for all the time prior to the bang and then just "banged" with no cause. Am I correct now?

Still no. What did your university physics professor tell you about the properties and origin of "time?"

Another article I'd like to discuss with regard to time.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn24...BbbAhbDXZg

[Surgenator]

I don't get the point of the video. It just goes over the proof for dark matter. However, dark matter doesn't interact through electromagnetism. Our planet and ourselfs mostly interact via electromagnetism. So it doesn't affect us on a local scale i.e. on Earth.

In the last 4 minutes or so, the presenter seems to be claiming that "dark matter" seems to be the "grid" or "scaffolding" on which everything in the universe (including earth and it's beings) sits upon. If this is the case, then it could be assumed that dark matter and our known reality would be intrinsically linked. In this sense, I don't see it unreasonable to assume that once we know more about the dark matter "scaffolding" we may find it's state or status does have the ability to influence our material existence.

The "scaffolding" is caused by gravity which is caused by the matter density. Dark matter is just the most abundant matter in a galaxy. Hence, it is the major contribution to gravity which binds galaxies together. However, dark matter passes through us like we aren't there. Listen again to the video when she is talking about the bullet cluster. Here on Earth, gravity does play an important role but nowhere near as an important role as electromagnetism. And the Earth is effectively all normal matter. Your constant mistake is your assumption that how much of it exist determines how relevant it is. However, how relevant it is dependents on how often it interacts. Since DM interacts sooooooooooooooooo little with us, it's not relevant.