A world with a loving God.

[(Q)]

You blame God for that? Who is wasting the food?

Who created us and then left us with no guidelines on how to feed ourselves?

 

[davewhite04]

Who created us and then left us with no guidelines on how to feed ourselves?

God.

 

[(Q)]

God.

Exactly, he gave us nothing in the way of guidelines to be responsible stewards of the Earth, but made damn sure he told us to hate gays and keep slaves.

 

[Xelasnave.1947]

The thing is Alex [and remember I'm only a poor old amateur at this game] the BB is not about the beginning of the universe...it's
about how our "observable" universe evolved and expanded from a hot dense state.

Absolutely I know that and have pointed that out myself many times.

.It does not incorporate the universe as a whole and what is beyond our observable horizon.

Yes ..the bit we study just got bigger. The small bit we study presumably was part of something much larger..but can we know that..can we?

Secondly, even contemplating a BB beginning, I would see that as a "quality" or excellence of science in general. I mean why would they not reject it knowing that the church would hang their hat on it, knowing that the door was still open for their god of the gaps?

I will introduce as many conspiracy theories as required to give you an answer...I can only express my opinion, which I have, I make no claim it is valid.

It's all good science but finally rests on inflation and in my view inflation is not science...my view...but so much rests on what is unestablished..maybe I am wrong or just too demanding.

This in my opinion was why the otherwise great Freddy Hoyle rejected the BB and proposed the Steady State.

I am with Fred.

the BB and proposed the Steady State.
Thirdly the BB certainly was not floundering or on its knees before Inflation.

That was my impression only formed by stuff I read and I don't know it could have been no more than a journalists interpretation...

Inflation was proposed to explain the flatness and horizon problems,

Yes I understood that and have thought of other ways to manage that aspect...there could be something "internal" that made the need for everything to be close irrelevant...in other words some mechanism that would have stuff reaching a similar stage as other stuff because reaching that stage is dictated from within not from association with other stuff...really for me there must be something better than inflation..

The SS theory for example, would need to explain a region or aspect where the extra matter was created to maintain this steady state.

I know that..but if the universe is not expanding we don't need more matter...and irrespective of our observations suggesting expansion is real we need to remember all we observe is I expect a very small part of the universe...we "see" it at 90 billion light years..who is to say that the expansion we observe extends to all the universe..maybe you get out 1000 billion light years and find that part is contracting...is that not possible?

The BB adheres to the notion that no new is created.

True but the consumption of matter by black holes makes a similar problem at the opposite end of things...why should that be so...and even if you accept Hawking radiation it will be a long time before black hole matter is recirculated...

The other point is that even speculatively extrapolating the BB backwards to arrive at the beginning, leads to the aspect of creation from nothing.

Extrapolating is dangerous. Aliens visit Earth and observe the growth rate of an infant human, without observing an actual human grow to an adult they go home and extrapolate that at sixty years old a human will be 100 feet tall...and that is something simple yet we are content to extrapolate the growth of the universe with less than 100 years considering the matter...speculation back to any particular point can only ever be a big guess..sure GR says OK but really we can make GR say the opposite..as it did when the CC was given a number to make GR say what its creator expected..a static universe.

Here I propose the Lawrence Krauss hypothetical of nothing not actually being what we commonly perceive as nothing.

He is indulging in unsupported speculation...the BB theory takes us back to hot and dense...he jumps in to define a nothing that is not required other than by the church. One must ask why his need to comment at all given it is mere unneeded speculation.

..It actually maybe NOTHING and had existed for all eternity.

Pure unsupported speculation..I can speculate that the hot dense something was the souls of the dead from a parallel universe...or speculate anything..but it is speculation...Why Lawrence gets any traction is crazy and I suggest that traction is on a road laid down by religion that perhaps he is unaware that he has some control from little accessed regions of his memory causing him to indulge such speculation..At best the science takes us to hot and dense...there is/was no need to speculate...the only comment must be "we don't know" ..well that's what the theory says after all... does not consider pre t=0

Far more sensible and logical then proposing a god or other deity existing for all eternity!

Absolutely. The notion that some entity exists in eternity and pops out at some point to create a finite universe (creation can only give finite you could think) so he can house his look like him pets is just so crazy only delussional folk could accept the possibility for if they thought for only an instant it would seem nonsense even to them.

But otherwise I don't know or have read enough about it to confidently support it, other then Guth did receive the Nobel for it, and most scientists do accept it.

Well I know very little but it seems that we take a little universe and keep doubling its size at a seemingly impossible rate to a size that now suits the rest of the story.
But its main stream, it fixed the problem, so no more thought was wasted..it seems to me at least.
And there are critics who can be more cruel than me...I don't buy it...not that my layman opinion means a thing...I wish I knew maths etc as I am confident one could invent something more reasonable.

And of course it also fits like a hand in a glove with GR, our accepted theory of gravity.

Yes but when GR equations were first written they could tell you the exact opposite...and why was that? Because the man who created the equations started with a fundamental assumption that the universe was static..It can go either way depending on the value assigned to CC.

And the point of my observation is there is a case to be made that the cosmology comes first and the science is employed to support it...so the church wanted a cosmic egg and they got it.
Thank you for you wise words and the tolerance you extend.
Alex

 

[davewhite04]

Exactly, he gave us nothing in the way of guidelines to be responsible stewards of the Earth, but made damn sure he told us to hate gays and keep slaves.

Hold your horses. Did you have parents?

 

[Write4U]

No one has ever explained it better than George Carlin.

(warning crude language)

 

[(Q)]

Hold your horses. Did you have parents?

No. I was developed in a lab, escaped and am now floating in low earth orbit.

 

[Xelasnave.1947]

Everybody accepts evolution, but not everybody accepts Darwin’s theory.

Jan I tried to work out what you mean when you started talking this way earlier but I can't see what you are driving at.
May I ask you to give a definition to each of Darwinism and Evolution and perhaps identify in greater depth the difference you personally see between the two terms.
I would really appreciate you taking your time to help me understand you view.
Alex

 

[davewhite04]

No. I was developed in a lab, escaped and am now floating in low earth orbit.

Oh well, you are a lifeform with a divine spark just like a blade of grass.

 

[Xelasnave.1947]

We all take certain things on faith.

I recall Matt on The Atheist Experience being challenged that he must have faith in something.
I liked his reply and feel bound to share it here.
First he outlined how faith was simply accepting a proposition without out evidence and went on to say that he could express that he had confidence in something but to be confident he would require much more than faith.
Alex

 

[davewhite04]

Write4U:

If you like comedy, Bill Hicks is my favourite comedian of all time, and I'm English. Anyway, pretty short:

 

[Xelasnave.1947]

Then God must REALLY hate the 9 million that die every year. Letting them starve in the midst of plenty.

Unrelated question - do you eat meat?

This is where you could expect that a god who loves us could just help out just a little...maybe he could get a Twitter account if nothing else..heck if the president of the USA van keep in touch via twitter surely a god could spend just a minute or two a week giving some hints etc.
This is the sort of thing I had in mind with the OP..just some things that you could expect from someone who is supposed to care about you.
Alex

 

[billvon]

Matthew 6:26

Xactly.

EDIT: I forgot, Jan doesn't think Jesus is God in the flesh.

Well, what he thinks seems to change pretty frequently, so perhaps in a few weeks he will?

 

[Xelasnave.1947]

You blame God for that? Who is wasting the food?

You don't get it sadly.
Theist contend there is a loving God...is it not reasonable to expect a little help. The deal is he can do anything but he can't help....thank goodness we can invent gods..I am going to invent one that cares and helps out...mmm a problem what will I say when my invented god does not show...he would have helped but had to go to a wedding in another universe...if nothing else at least change the BS to ..there is a god but he could not care less somewhat more honest.
Alex

 

[davewhite04]

You don't get it sadly.
Theist contend there is a loving God...is it not reasonable to expect a little help. The deal is he can do anything but he can't help....thank goodness we can invent gods..I am going to invent one that cares and helps out...mmm a problem what will I say when my invented god does not show...he would have helped but had to go to a wedding in another universe...if nothing else at least change the BS to ..there is a god but he could not care less somewhat more honest.
Alex

Don't get what? Humans throwing away hamburgers while people in a desert are starving? Do you not think it's about time humans sorted themselves out? Forget God, let's pretend he doesn't exist. Deal with what I said.

EDIT: What I can't understand is I've been given charities money to buy water pumps in some places in Africe, like Ethopia back in the 80/90s, 30 years and it still hasn't changed?

 

[Xelasnave.1947]

Forget God, let's pretend he doesn't exist.

That should not be too difficult.
However I am just sick of all this crap from folk saying God loves you etc etc a d simply say..if he loves us do something...anything?
You are right of course and it should be easy to pretend there is no loving God.
I feel hungry mmm hamburgers.
I never throw out food ..that should be a sin for a start...
Alex

 

[davewhite04]

That should not be too difficult.
However I am just sick of all this crap from folk saying God loves you etc etc a d simply say..if he loves us do something...anything?
You are right of course and it should be easy to pretend there is no loving God.
I feel hungry mmm hamburgers.
I never throw out food ..that should be a sin for a start...
Alex

Cherry picking quotes for another uninspiring trip down pointless lane.

 

[(Q)]

Don't get what? Humans throwing away hamburgers while people in a desert are starving? Do you not think it's about time humans sorted themselves out? Forget God, let's pretend he doesn't exist. Deal with what I said.

EDIT: What I can't understand is I've been given charities money to buy water pumps in some places in Africe, like Ethopia back in the 80/90s, 30 years and it still hasn't changed?

Didn't you hear? Your money was diverted to pay for a parking lot for a new megachurch in Alabama. Sorry.

 

[davewhite04]

Didn't you hear? Your money was diverted to pay for a parking lot for a new megachurch in Alabama. Sorry.

It makes you wonder doesn't it? I donated a tenner 2 years ago, and that's it. I'm going there with my wife. To see firsthand.

 

[(Q)]

You don't get it sadly.
Theist contend there is a loving God...is it not reasonable to expect a little help. The deal is he can do anything but he can't help....thank goodness we can invent gods..I am going to invent one that cares and helps out...mmm a problem what will I say when my invented god does not show...he would have helped but had to go to a wedding in another universe...if nothing else at least change the BS to ..there is a god but he could not care less somewhat more honest.
Alex

And, how many times has Jan referred to God as a "Loving Father" to his children? He even said such a loving father would never let his children play in traffic, but damn it to hell if he's going to make them a sandwich for lunch.