If I had $1 for every time God bailed me out...

[Manta]

If I had $1 for every time God bailed me out..

I might seem semi-aggressive as I see people do heinous things in the name of their religion, but we'll delve into that another time. The reason the post was so long was because after most discussions, certain questions are routinely asked, and that post had explanations to what I believed your next thoughts would be.

Anyways Y-Disciple ~ Scientists don't know a lot of answers to the universe. We've described why it's not the end of the world if we don't know everything *right now* ~ We're working on it, I'm sure it's impossible to be satisfied with our description of gravity or dark matter -- but it's the best we've got, and until you have a far better explanation, you'll just have to be satisfied. You really don't have a choice, as amazing claims require amazing evidence.

I think it's awesome that we're still exploring what the universe has to offer - it's not predetermined by some divine being (which by definition is more complex than the universe since he/she/it created it. .. so who created the creator?)

Though Straydogstrut points out a good example, that if God has always existed then time and the universe could have existed forever as well ~ it's not quite how it's understood at the moment. We've seen that the universe is expanding from a point where it used to be a single condensed singularity. Do plenty of studying on it, astronomy and cosmology ~ And you'll realize just how insignificant the human race, this planet and it's understanding is in comparison. Being agnostic is probably the best way to go (not entirely sure if there is a god) But I'm convinced he wouldn't waste his time performing miracles to illiterate peasants, word of which wouldn't reach China for 1000 years.

DC: You've just described Pascal's Wager (what do you have to lose?) Well, Felix beat me to it about choosing the correct God. It's probably good to do a lot of research on the subject, if of course you're interested ~

Humanity's got a long way to go =)

EDIT: Just posted as Felix did ~ timing, lol.


-Manta-

 

[docvizzo]

If I had $1 for every time God bailed me out..

It functioned as a singularity, which strongly suggests that the laws of physics behaved in a different fashion during that time, much as they seem to do while in black holes.

Well and GOD created the singularity and here we go again.

@ Y-Discipline

Your request for a beginning of time and room is 100% human, but if you doubt physical explanations you gotta ask yourself the following question: " WHERE DID GOD COME FROM?".

If your answer is, well, he is allmighty and the beginning of everything, then you have to accept that the beginning out of singularity, which is the concentration of time and mass in one single point is as plausible as your God-Idea.

And if you are gonna ask "And where does the MASS in the singularity come from?", which is a 100% legitim question, you just gotta be patient, since this is one of the elementary questions which are tried to be solved at the Large-Hadron-Collidor in Switzerland.

 

[Y-Disciple]

If I had $1 for every time God bailed me out..

The Universe (as we understand it) began during the Big Bang, which was a rapid expansion of space-time. It functioned as a singularity, which strongly suggests that the laws of physics behaved in a different fashion during that time, much as they seem to do while in black holes. For the idea that there was a "beginning" at some point, there is the idea of an infinite universe as well as circular causality via a multiverse. Time does not necessarily have a beginning, we put labels on it as a human concept (and through dating methods such as dendrochronology or radiometric dating) as to better understand causality. There is no reason for it to have a true "beginning." Saying the Big Bang theory is thrown out the window because, to you, it is inconceivable, holds no water.

I'm not trying to take pot shots at you, I'm merely explaining flaws with the supposition of any God. The point of my reply was not to attack you, specifically.

No one was calling you an idiot, Manta responded in a semi-aggressive manner because of the way you presented your ideas as though God fixed these problems. You wanted an answer to how the Universe began by replacing a (currently) unexplained phenomenon with another unexplained phenomenon, God. That's all.

I'm not a physicist, so of course, I won't be able to fully understand how time can exist without a previous force besides itself triggering it, but I suppose if I look into it, I'll understand it more. Thank you for explaining it.

My original point though, was not that God created the big bang, but that simply, God exists. I used the big bang as an example because it seemed to be the strangest of phenomena I could think of. Now that you've explained it, I (sorta) know how God is not involved in this.

Anyways, I just wanted to give input and say that I do believe in God. Everyone can believe what they want, but unless there comes a time that fully proves God's nonexistence, I won't stop believing in Him. Sorry to create any controversy by the poor wording of my first post.

EDIT: The reason I gave God as an explanation for starting time, just for the record, was that I believe, theoretically, God is not a living being with a mind like humans, but rather a force that has no need for time, and therefore, if this was true, could potentially be a cause.

 

[Manta]

If I had $1 for every time God bailed me out..

Everyone can believe what they want, but unless there comes a time that fully proves God's nonexistence

I'll let ya know ahead of time that this is essentially impossible -- It's the same of asking you to prove that the grand meatball of all creation himself, the Flying Spaghetti Monster doesn't exist. You simply can't do it any more than the god you might believe in ~ But yes, you're free to believe what you want, I'd just recommend that you have something to base it off of. You can understand it better if you did a bit of research ~ It couldn't hurt, right? =)


-Manta-

 

[LKV]

apologies if this was already stated..

And there I was wondering if I was the only one...
I don't believe in any god, but there HAS to be something somewhere that lives just to toy with me.
It's impossible for such repetitive, perfect bad luck, to "just happen".


To make by belief even stronger, when I was a kid, I was absurdly lucky.
In elementary schools, if we put our name on a paper and there was a prize for whoever got picked, the best prize was automatically mine.

So I went from impossible good luck to impossible bad luck.



(And when I play OR watch people play in SCIV, I can't help thinking that some people occasionally have extremely good luck, while others seem to have a streak of bad luck. I consider luck a trait, like strength potential, intelligence potential, etc.)

well you inadvertently described what i believe to be the fundamental reason why the concept of god exists: to quell a lack of understanding.

lacking a causal understanding of things, or an admittance of random possibilities in certain situations, creates a void of comprehension, and shows the limitations of our current understandings. when we look up, so to speak, we see no end to our ignorance. instinctively fearing this void, we have historically capped our ignorance with the ultimate stopper of confusion, namely god. we gave this entity enough power to solve all of our problems at the time, and as we progress in knowledge of the world (and beyond), we gradually weaken his position. it seems inevitable to me that any remaining reasons for his existence will approach zero.

the more you know, the less you need him. at the moment, we are still severely lacking in knowledge, and we don't have enough explanations (perhaps some things cannot be explained definitively) to dismiss it conclusively, so it'll be around for a while yet.

i think that some of the phenomena described in this thread can be chalked up to unconscious motivation produced by one's self, the concept of which is not well-understood by most people i would say. people unintentionally sabotage and/or assisting themselves, continually or sporadically, contextually or not, all the time. for this sort of thing, i personally believe psychology and philosophy of mind to provide more satisfying answers than any god-type solution.

On a final note, isn't being moral only because you're afraid of repercussion bordering on immorality?

ah, i love this sort of thing. this is a simple competence vs. performance issue as found in linguistics.

acting moral, whatever that means for wherever you happen to find yourself, is really just altering your intrinsic morality to fit some particular situation that your intrinsic morality is somehow incompatible with. you're essentially bending yourself to the will of some kind of consensus. under this consensus-based approach, i find it unlikely that anyone in, say, Canada would object to someone altering or suspending their morality wherein they believe that killing Canadians is, as Wilfred Brimly would say, "the right thing to do".

but anyway, whether or not you judge it ("being moral only because you're afraid of repercussion") to be immoral would depend on your own sense of morality. ;)