Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Realmfighter]

Saying something is "Natural" is like me saying something is "Forhotiledly"

Just doesn't say to much.

[Shade-o]

I'll be more direct then.

Has there been any indication that a supernatural consciousness capable of manipulating reality exists?

[Micro102]

Of course, people have dreams that he talked to them. And the guys he talked to the most told everyone that they needed to donate money.

[Earthquake Damage]

Has there been any indication that a supernatural consciousness capable of manipulating reality exists?

There's plenty of anecdotal evidence.  There are also many people, even some well-respected ones, who insist there is.  Does that count?

[Shade-o]

It helps, but if that's all they got then they should be looking to one of the cool ones, like Anubis or Merlin or Yog-Sothoth.

[Makbeth]

Has there been any indication that a supernatural consciousness capable of manipulating reality exists?

There's plenty of anecdotal evidence.  There are also many people, even some well-respected ones, who insist there is.  Does that count?

Anecdotal evidence is not actual evidence.  Nor is insistence, so no.

Of course, that doesn't mean you can disprove that a god exists, and no one will ever be able to disprove that (although many things in various religious texts can be and have been disproved).  Still, the burden of proof is on God or anyone who says God exists.  The fact that a thing can't be disproved is meaningless, as there are an infinite number of completely absurd things that can't be disproved which no sane person would suggest truly exist.  This is the purpose of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, an intentional strawman argument meant to show that the belief in God because it can't be disproved is ridiculous.

Some say that it's foolish to state flat-out that God doesn't exist, since one cannot prove that statement.  While there is some logic to that, the same could also be said of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.  And in any case, the trend of science in history has been to remove the need to explain physical phenomena as a manifestation of God's work.  All throughout history fewer and fewer things have needed a divine explanation, and the scientists who thought that newly discovered inexplicable phenomena could not be explained without God have always been proven wrong later.  They simply lacked the tools or the motivation to go further.  This happened to Plato, Galileo, and even Newton.

This trend has never reversed, and taken to its conclusion, suggests that there is an explanation for everything, even if that explanation is beyond our abilities, and none of them require the participation of a God.

And, to be honest, the imaginations of the people who wrote the creation myths are put to shame by the wonder of what we have discovered through science.   The stellar life cycle and geologic history of the earth are far more fascinating than Genesis, with enough branching storylines to keep one entertained (or occupied in study) for a lifetime.  Next to what we know about the universe so far, God is just plain boring as an explanation.  On the one side, you have self-assembling gravity-powered chemical factories that produce everything we know, then shut down in titanic explosions, sometimes seemingly breaking the way we used the think the universe should work, whose byproducts condense into planets and eventually are assembled into us.  On the other side, in summary, A wizard did it. 

Meh.

[Omegastick]

On the topic of proof (which is one that many theists tend to avoid) do you have any solid proof of most of the theories you live by? Do you have, with you, a supernova that is creating the universe? No, you don't.
"But Omega! clever scientists tell us that this happened!" I hear you say. By listening to them you are believing what they say because they should know, just as Jesus should know (being the son of the one who made the world and everything) how the world was made. You actually have no more proof than we do.

[Bauglir]

On the topic of proof (which is one that many theists tend to avoid) do you have any solid proof of most of the theories you live by? Do you have, with you, a supernova that is creating the universe? No, you don't.
"But Omega! clever scientists tell us that this happened!" I hear you say. By listening to them you are believing what they say because they should know, just as Jesus should know (being the son of the one who made the world and everything) how the world was made. You actually have no more proof than we do.

Given the laws of physics as I've come to understand them through lab courses and reading of experiments that have been done (by looking at data myself, I mean, not by simply being told the correct conclusion), the Big Bang seems a logical extension, while "A Wizard did it" does not.

Also, with regards to Makbeth: I don't have a problem saying "God does not exist" if you're just going about your life and figuring out how best to take care of your own actions; you know what you mean, and terminological accuracy isn't so important. When you start debating with other people, though, it's very important that you be clear about what your arguments support, which is that "God probably does not exist."

[Omegastick]

Atheism may be the first thing that people would think of when studying physics, but further research into it shows that it, in fact, almost all theories that don't in some way involve a supernatural power creating the universe are incredibly flawed. Examples include: Big bang ('nothing' exploded to make the universe, this breaks every physics law imaginable), Evolutionism (how often do mutations make sapient? Failing sapient, how often do they improve the species at all?), the universe spontaneously existing for no reason whatsoever (if you believe this then there are obvious problems with you).

[Pillow_Killer]

Okay, if you said so, who made that supernatural power, then?

[Il Palazzo]

Atheism may be the first thing that people would think of when studying physics, but further research into it shows that it, in fact, almost all theories that don't in some way involve a supernatural power creating the universe are incredibly flawed. Examples include: Big bang ('nothing' exploded to make the universe, this breaks every physics law imaginable), Evolutionism (how often do mutations make sapient? Failing sapient, how often do they improve the species at all?), the universe spontaneously existing for no reason whatsoever (if you believe this then there are obvious problems with you).

What a strange conclusion. Science, when faced with the unknown, does not need any ad hoc explanation of the supernatural kind. It's perfectly ok, from the scientific point of view, to say that we don't have a working theory explaining the stuff you've mentioned.
I'd argue that atheism is the preffered stance when engaging in scientific research, as being a religious person you'd be more likely to see some problems as unexplainable(T'is God's domain), or already explained(God did it), and so, unlikely to look for the answers yourself.

[Omegastick]

1. If there ever was a time that absolutely nothing existed, nothing would exist now.
2. Something exists now.
3. Therefore, there was never a time that absolutely nothing existed.

It is obvious that nothing inside this universe can have always existed, that breaks every physics law ever imagined. No, instead it would have to be something outside physics, outside time and space if you will. This being that has always been there, that is the only thing we know of that can have always existed, is what we call God.

@Il Palazzo: I enjoy the pursuit of knowledge very much, and probably dwell on philosophical matters more than is good for me, but every time I manage to come to the conclusion that all knowledge is flawed if it doesn't, at some point or another, involve God.

Now, saying "I don't know" simply isn't a good enough an answer for me, and I intend on choosing an explanation of how the universe was created that already has all the answers than one that is so incomplete. For you, not knowing may be acceptable, but until someone proves creationism and all it's answers wrong with an incomplete set of answers such as atheism then I won't even bother considering the incomplete answer. Doesn't it seem at all foolish? There is an explanation that in [however long the universe has existed, I personally believe in an old earth] hasn't been shaken and that I reckon will never be disproved and you go about trying to make up answers in an attempt to make your theories canon.

[Bauglir]

Atheism may be the first thing that people would think of when studying physics, but further research into it shows that it, in fact, almost all theories that don't in some way involve a supernatural power creating the universe are incredibly flawed. Examples include: Big bang ('nothing' exploded to make the universe, this breaks every physics law imaginable), Evolutionism (how often do mutations make sapient? Failing sapient, how often do they improve the species at all?), the universe spontaneously existing for no reason whatsoever (if you believe this then there are obvious problems with you).

You've hit a nerve for me. I can't explain convincingly why the Big Bang doesn't violate laws of physics, because I'm not sufficiently well-grounded in advanced physics to know that; I can, however, say that according to evidence I can understand (background microwave radiation, universal expansion, etc), it is essentially obvious that something of the kind occurred. The last thing is kind of ridiculous (I see no problems with myself, and I don't think there needs to be any purpose to the universe' existence). But that middle one. Oh, man. You don't seem to understand that arguing "it's really unlikely!" does fuck-all to prove evolution wrong. When you have 4.5 billion years of history with so many organisms that I don't actually know what the relevant power of 10 is called, unlikely shit happens. How often does mutation and natural selection generate intelligence? Once in 4.5 billion years, apparently. If you have any further arguments to make, we can no doubt run this thread into the ground discussing this.

EDIT: In response to the above, explain your first premise. I don't accept it.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Examples include: Big bang ('nothing' exploded to make the universe, this breaks every physics law imaginable)

No respectable cosmologist would say "nothing exploded and that is our universe" because that isn't what the Big Bang Theory postulates. The Big Bang Theory states that approximately 13.75 Billion Years Ago, there was a massive expansion of matter from a single, infinately small point, which could be said to be an explosion in laymen's terms. Where the matter for this came from is still uncertain, and as Palazzo said, science is in fact fine with admiting that there are things we don't know yet.

, Evolutionism (how often do mutations make sapient? Failing sapient, how often do they improve the species at all?)

Alright, a couple of things first.
A. It's Evolution, or Darwin's Theory of Evolution if you want to be fancy, not Evolutionism.
B. That's biology, not cosmology, and has nothing to do with the begining of the universe.
C. Sapience isn't a line or anything, it just so happened that mutations brought our species past the point where we could be described as sapient first. Intelligence is a very good trait to have, as our utter domination of the whole planet demonstrates.

, the universe spontaneously existing for no reason whatsoever (if you believe this then there are obvious problems with you).

Fair enough.

[Earthquake Damage]

It is obvious that nothing inside this universe can have always existed, that breaks every physics law ever imagined.

What law(s) does it break and how?

No, instead it would have to be something outside physics, outside time and space if you will.

There is no such thing.  The universe is more or less defined as the largest possible closed system.  By definition, there is nothing outside it that interacts with it.  If a god exists, it must be part of the system.

Now, saying "I don't know" simply isn't a good enough an answer for me, and I intend on choosing an explanation of how the universe was created that already has all the answers than one that is so incomplete.

Rather than accept that you are ignorant, you'd rather pretend to explain things by not explaining them.  Is that a fair assessment?

Regarding evolution, I should note that while mutation is considered random, natural selection is not.