I'd say! I would have thought the predictive nature of the doppler effect from the bigbang model is what keeps it in the forefront and reduces the knockers to make the same old spurious claims.Diogenes' Dog said:
How we know God exists
- Thread starter Lawdog
- Start date
Is scientific evidence the only evidence?
God gave them the right. The reason I know this is because there is no other universal Church which the entire planet recognizes as founded by Christ. Only a few agitators who call themselves protestants, in northern countries such as europe and america, have claimed otherwise through an act of Pride.
I wouldnt bother with them, after all, they have separated and cut themselves off from holy mother Church.
I argue from the standpoint of reality: The Church is and in the end all will believe, yeh or nay.
You are correct, I lack authority to do such. That you recognize this gives me hope for you, that you may also properly discern who has authority in spiritual matters. Not science!
Also: Not all philosophies are equally valid. Surely you will agree?
You make observation the standard of reality? That is bizaar! Please explain.
Blah is correct. Sometimes alot of Blah hides many gems.
Lawdog said:
No of course not. As I said, I respect your right to grant the church authority. I don't believe however that you respect my right not to.
EDIT:
I hypothesize that your ego demands of you to diminish my capacity for choice after having clearly shown by that which your ego has come to value, that I do not choose as you do and as such, clearly lack the capacity for valid decision making because I do not grant the church the authority you deem it to require.
That's all fine and dandy. The only problem I have with such a fundamentalist stance is that it precludes all others as you demonstrate below.
Judge not lest ye be judged, bitches.
I believe the church exists and indoctrinates to maintain its power base and cultural influence. I don't necessarily think it's a bad thing unless of course, the indocrination is so successful that it precludes the validity of choice.
Science, as far as I know - cannot make a claim of authority. Only the ego of the scientist can. The church has no more authority than science, or me, or you or whoever, unless of course as stated above, it is granted by the indoctrinated.
They are all subjectively valid to the proportion their ego demands.
No, but perception of reality is all we have to go on. Reality is what it is. Observational distance forever separates perception from reality. The thing itself cannot be known, it can only be thought to be known - by definition. What keeps you alive does, and thus via ego validates what we think we know, regardless of that it is a necessarily skewed reflection of reality - and not reality itself.
True dat.
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Lawdog said:
If every person on the planet gave up religion and became atheist, would you also give up religion? Even if the Pope held up his hands and said "The Bible is lies", would you throw the towel in?
I'm just interested to know, no real point in my question I confess.
Flaws in the Big Bang
The recent history of the Big Bang theory has been of mathematical struggle to find solutions to a sea of problems. We are now a very long way from Hawking’s ideal of a theory which “on the basis of a few simple postulates will make definite predictions which can be tested”. For example, when it became impossible to reconcile the standard cosmological model with the Universe as it appears, the concept of inflation involving a finite period of inflationary expansion was introduced. Since the proposal of what is now termed old inflation by Guth in 1981, we have experienced new inflation, chaotic inflation, eternal inflation, stochastic inflation, modified gravity, and their sub-variants. At the end of which, we have no evidence that inflation ever happened. All the above theories and their numerous variants are effectively attempts to explain the “facts” as we know them by mathematical modelling. Depending on results from the Large Hadron Collider, due to be completed at Geneva in 2005, it may be possible to determine whether we are in living in a (mem)brane universe in 11 dimensions of space time.7
It may not be unfair to conclude that the modern Big Bang theory comes with more patches and fixes than a piece of Bill Gates’ software.
click
Big Bang theory depends critically on three first prin-
ciples: that the Universe is holistically and systematically
expanding as per the Friedmann model; that General Relati-
vity correctly describes gravitation; and that Milne’s Cos-
mological Principle, which declares that the Universe at
some arbitrary “large scale” is isotropic and homogeneous,
is true. The falsification of any one of these principles would
lead to the catastrophic failure of the theory.click
It will soon become obvious, that the universe is quite older than predicted, that the BB theory is in peril. Just as once ignorance supported the geocetric theory on rationalization without evidence, it fit well with the church and all the authorities, and if one were to contradict such claim, they were simply jailed, punished or burned as heretics, it is today yet again, with a main supported theory, one that is today accepted by the IGNORANT church the BB theory is the accepted norm, yet when in light of new evidence that contradicts the BB theory, the powers that be, act as foolish as they once did and are not open to new interpretations of reality. However just as we know today, that the geocentric theory is just plain WRONG and that the heliocentric theory is reality so it will also be known that the universe is as is, and that it has existed longer than the predicted BB theory tries to explain, that in fact, the universe has always been an existent without a begining point.
Geocentric vs Heliocentric theory
The Scriptural Basis for a Geocentric Cosmology
Godless
The recent history of the Big Bang theory has been of mathematical struggle to find solutions to a sea of problems. We are now a very long way from Hawking’s ideal of a theory which “on the basis of a few simple postulates will make definite predictions which can be tested”. For example, when it became impossible to reconcile the standard cosmological model with the Universe as it appears, the concept of inflation involving a finite period of inflationary expansion was introduced. Since the proposal of what is now termed old inflation by Guth in 1981, we have experienced new inflation, chaotic inflation, eternal inflation, stochastic inflation, modified gravity, and their sub-variants. At the end of which, we have no evidence that inflation ever happened. All the above theories and their numerous variants are effectively attempts to explain the “facts” as we know them by mathematical modelling. Depending on results from the Large Hadron Collider, due to be completed at Geneva in 2005, it may be possible to determine whether we are in living in a (mem)brane universe in 11 dimensions of space time.7
It may not be unfair to conclude that the modern Big Bang theory comes with more patches and fixes than a piece of Bill Gates’ software.
click
Big Bang theory depends critically on three first prin-
ciples: that the Universe is holistically and systematically
expanding as per the Friedmann model; that General Relati-
vity correctly describes gravitation; and that Milne’s Cos-
mological Principle, which declares that the Universe at
some arbitrary “large scale” is isotropic and homogeneous,
is true. The falsification of any one of these principles would
lead to the catastrophic failure of the theory.click
It will soon become obvious, that the universe is quite older than predicted, that the BB theory is in peril. Just as once ignorance supported the geocetric theory on rationalization without evidence, it fit well with the church and all the authorities, and if one were to contradict such claim, they were simply jailed, punished or burned as heretics, it is today yet again, with a main supported theory, one that is today accepted by the IGNORANT church the BB theory is the accepted norm, yet when in light of new evidence that contradicts the BB theory, the powers that be, act as foolish as they once did and are not open to new interpretations of reality. However just as we know today, that the geocentric theory is just plain WRONG and that the heliocentric theory is reality so it will also be known that the universe is as is, and that it has existed longer than the predicted BB theory tries to explain, that in fact, the universe has always been an existent without a begining point.
Geocentric vs Heliocentric theory
The Scriptural Basis for a Geocentric Cosmology
Godless
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wesmorris said:
EDIT:
Why? After all, you grant your government authority over you, right? They also limit your decisions.
I admit that I have been too hard on them.
We do believe in indoctrination, an imperfect method. However we also promote free thinking within a certain set of rules, such as logic.
Science seems to have some unofficial authority based on its advances helping technology and medicine. I think that this authority has been abused however, by evolutionists and stem-cell scientists.
Excellent. I would like to discuss this more. Why do you say that the thing itself cannot be known?
A fine question. It has not been easy being a Catholic. God wants me to devote my entire life to him. I sometimes styruggle deeply with hypocrisy and weakness that I see in the Church.wsionynw said:
I hope that I would be a strong enough person to hold on to faith even if everyone else abandoned it, however, our faith is communal and relies on prayers of one another. Honestly I cannot say for certain that on my own I could remain in a faith that has such high moral standards and restrictions.
Lawdog said:
I don't grant it so much as tolerate it as requisite for participation in society. Technically, my decisions are limited only by circumstance and capacity. One must however, be willing the live with the consequences of their actions (as they have no choice but to do so, or die). With this consideration I tolerate an element of authority from societal practicality.
Good man, didn't jesus teach forgiveness or something?
How "free" can the thinking be of someone who is indoctrinated? Indoctrination = brain washing = limitation of thought/philosophy. One cannot be free to think as they wish if they are indoctrinated. If they do think freely, they aren't indoctrinated.
I do agree, but add creationists to the list of abusers of "unofficial authority". What would be "official" authority? I presume you must answer "that from god" or something to that point. In such a case, can you not relate to those who grant science similar authority? So we have a duality of sorts whereby from your perspective it is absolute that "god" is the authority and by someone else's "science" is the absolute authority. It is my opinion that this "duality" is revealing to the nature of authority. It tells me authority is utilitarian and a social construct that is subjectively as valid as the willingness of the individual to submit to it or grant it. It tells me that there is no such thing as absolute authority outside of "reality", which is the absolute authority - nameless, faceless, the source of the reflection. Claims of it are meaningless. Reality, that which cannot be known, that is the ultimate authority. Some call it physics, some call it god. *shrug* I call it "the tao", because I like that cool eastern sounding shit, and it seems that ultimately this is the true nature of the term: That which is spoken is not it. Stuff like that. Blah.
pardon the run-on paragraph if you will...
Because what you "know" is in your mind and thus: a reflection of the thing, an impression. Even when you hold it in your hand or eat it - you experience its impression... but not it. The only thing that could know it would be it were it to have the capacity for knowing.
In my view, which I base on my historiacl knowledge, authority is found in the family structure of the human race. A nation is merely are large and complicated family. I think that the reason that so many Americans have problems with government authority over them is because there is not enough unifying social and cultural cohesion to signify a large family. There used to be, but that has eroded and people share less and less in common. A false and forceful poilice state type of authority must step in to mantain order.
The Church was a spiritual family, similar in function to a state. Now since the philosophical ground is no longer widely accepted, and authority in general is suspect, the Church is implicated.
The Church was a spiritual family, similar in function to a state. Now since the philosophical ground is no longer widely accepted, and authority in general is suspect, the Church is implicated.
Lawdog said:
Historically speaking, I envision in tribal days for instance.... church = state. Specialization, human psychology and growing populations.. along with the "melting pot" of the world has put too many churches in the same state - to the extent that church and state had to separate. Note that in the middle east it's sort of the opposite, the church has split in bloodthirsty factions competing for allah's favor, all seeking to re-unify the state and their version of the church.
Sort of an over-simplification and generalization I admit, but I think there's probably truth in it nonetheless.
* Pardon the tangent *
What I was trying to say is that I think "the church" (as in religions throughout human history) are basically the reason we've survived as a species - which is of course debatable. But IMO, it's the common purpose provided by a religion - no matter how retarded it is, so long as everyone believes it, the bonding in purpose it provides makes humanity a very strong species.
I often phrase the above thusly: "without bullshit to bind us in purpose, we'd be extinct".
What I wonder is: Can we drop the bullshit and still work to the common purpose of advancing the species?
Of course part of the function of the bullshit is to allow us to delineate what exactly constitues "advancement".
Freakin fascinating stuff.
I do not think that religion can be dropped without the most dreadful of circumstances. Here is why:
Although most wars have been fought over religion or used religion as an excuse, there has been much less cruelty as a result of religious principles truly being observed and practiced during such episodes. Often the enemy is taken prisoner when it would have been sufficient and easier to kill him.
Now if we were to illiminate this religious superego from the human race, the resulting lack of formed consciences would result in an entire devaluation of human life. Secular gain would be the cause of numerous wars of annihilation.
nevertheless it looks like the world is going to come to that state anyway. Islam is dangerous because although it teaches God, as it stands now, the Islamic faith devalues human life extremely.
Although most wars have been fought over religion or used religion as an excuse, there has been much less cruelty as a result of religious principles truly being observed and practiced during such episodes. Often the enemy is taken prisoner when it would have been sufficient and easier to kill him.
Now if we were to illiminate this religious superego from the human race, the resulting lack of formed consciences would result in an entire devaluation of human life. Secular gain would be the cause of numerous wars of annihilation.
nevertheless it looks like the world is going to come to that state anyway. Islam is dangerous because although it teaches God, as it stands now, the Islamic faith devalues human life extremely.
Hmm.. well the thing is you can't just "drop religion". A person can - sort of, but a society or the human species cannot. It's basically due to what I think of as cultural lag or I think what you claim to be "soft indoctrination". If you earnestly believe what you do, you pass it on to your children who out of innocence believe what you tell them. Over time the beliefs mutate, some are rejected, blah blah but you can't erase it and I agree that attempts to do so would be terrible, horrible, even despicable - as to do so, one would have to kill all the religious people. If such a thing were attempted, I would fight along side the religious people. I don't see it happening really, but I"m just saying you can't...well at least not yet, you can't erase people's experiences, and most people's experiences are inclusive of religious beliefs.
Bollocks. Secularism today values life much more than any fundamentalist religious nutjob. Advances in genetics that have huge potential to alleviate certain diseases are being blocked by people who think that the "sanctity" of a few cells are more important than living adults and children with incurable disease. Now does the theist value life more because a few cells can not be used for medical purposes? Or does the non-religious value life more because they want to cure diseases?
thankyou, wes. and to think i thought all theists accepted others despite their differences. the whole brotherhood thing and all. to think that there are theists out there thinking i'm not good enough because i'm american...wesmorris said:
good show, wes! if there's anything i hate more than a pompous egocentric atheist, it's a pompous egocentric theist.
Lawdog said:
like you said that's the way it used to be.
perhaps, religion views stem cell research in this way:
it's bad that people are sick. but refusing what will in essence be a new life is worse. kind of like survival of the fittest.
I AM IN NO WAY PROVIDING A PERSONAL STANCE ON THE SUBJECT. i don't even want to talk about abortion. too much gray.
it's bad that people are sick. but refusing what will in essence be a new life is worse. kind of like survival of the fittest.
I AM IN NO WAY PROVIDING A PERSONAL STANCE ON THE SUBJECT. i don't even want to talk about abortion. too much gray.
nubianconcubine said:
Hmm.. which got me thinking along these lines:
There is no such thing as "soft indoctrination" with children.
I have a hard time thinking that introducing children to religions, as if their contents to be factual, is nothing short of criminal....
But then again...
It IS (subjectively) factual if you actually believe it, perhaps via your own indoctrination.
Funny that.
And I suppose were we to be fair, there are all sorts of indoctrinations we could discuss. Some of them are seemingly unavoidable.
Indeed. It seems indoctrination is an unavoidable part of any culture. You need to teach your kid something in the way of values.
nubianconcubine said:
There are differences between theists:
In Islam, the use of embryos for research and therapeutic purposes is acceptable from fertilization through the 40th day of development.
As for abortion, the different theological schools of thought have different opinions about when the fetus can be considered a human being. The Hanafi school (predominant in Turkey, the Middle East and Central Asia) allows abortions to take place principally until day 120; The Shafi school (Southeast Asia, southern Arabia, parts of East Africa) allows abortions to be performed up to day 120. For the Maliki school (prevalent in North and Black Africa) an abortion is permissible with the consent of both parents up to day 40; it is no longer allowed after that. For the Hanbali school (predominant in Saudi Arabia and United Arabic Emirates) abortions are principally prohibited from day 40 onward. Exceptions are made in some countries if the life of the mother is endangered, based on Surah 2.233: "A mother should not be made to suffer because of her child." If, say the jurists, after the baby is completely formed, it is reliably shown that the continuation of the pregnancy would necessarily result in the death of the mother, then, in accordance with the general principle of the Shari'ah, that of choosing the lesser of two evils, abortion must be performed.
Contraception is permitted in Islam.
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