People do not Understand Science, yeah I'm talking to you Creationist so bring it!

Heisenberg's principle becomes important only in the realm of the very small ... or the very fast. Subatomic particles exist in this realm.
If you combine the above link with the one included here, you'll be on your way. But Heisenberg's theorem most emphatically does not have to do with the broad strokes of epistemology. cn

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/uncer.html#c2

♥ Heisenberg certainly likes this.

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Oh too cool ... cn

Which is harder to believe?

1. The universe was created by being called "God".

2. All matter in the universe was once bound together in an infinitely small, infinitely dense point. And at some point it "decided" to explode (expand - Big Bang style) and create the universe (from nothing - as Stephen Hawking recently said)? How did it decide if and when to expand?

I think the problem with the above is that it begs the question by anthropomorphizing. Either way you have an agency deciding. Thus I select option 3. cn

WileyCoyote said:

Which is harder to believe?

1. The universe was created by being called "God".

2. All matter in the universe was once bound together in an infinitely small, infinitely dense point. And at some point it "decided" to explode (expand - Big Bang style) and create the universe (from nothing - as Stephen Hawking recently said)? How did it decide if and when to expand?

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2? easily? If this being exists I want to know how it was created.

cannabineer said:

I think the problem with the above is that it begs the question by anthropomorphizing. Either way you have an agency deciding. Thus I select option 3. cn

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Excellent dodge! Kind of like "I have no recollection of that, senator".

Just kidding, hope you know. You're answers are at least as good as mine...probably better.

Good Growing.

Catchin22 said:

2? easily? If this being exists I want to know how it was created.

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So do I. And I'd also like to know how the universe created itself from an infinitely small, infinitely dense point 14 billion years ago.

...at least one contains something we know exists and the other is completely man made. Try replacing "God" with "Invisible Pink Elephant" It's just as ridiculous as that.

300 billion stars per galaxy...billions upon billions of galaxies...and all that matter was once an infinitely small point that "expanded" at some magical moment 14 billion years ago? At least as hard to believe as a divine creator...at least for my simple little mind.

Catchin22 said:

...at least one contains something we know exists and the other is completely man made. Try replacing "God" with "Invisible Pink Elephant" It's just as ridiculous as that.

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Wait a minute now...I've seen that "Invisible Pink Elephant"...many times while high...I'll be seeing him again in a few minutes...my wife just fired upo the vaporizer

WileyCoyote said:

Which is harder to believe?

1. The universe was created by being called "God".

2. All matter in the universe was once bound together in an infinitely small, infinitely dense point. And at some point it "decided" to explode (expand - Big Bang style) and create the universe (from nothing - as Stephen Hawking recently said)? How did it decide if and when to expand?

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We do not judge truth value on the difficulty of grasping the concept. You presented these choices as if one is simple and the other is complicated. The logical question to ask is, which one of these explanations makes fewer and less ambiguous assumptions? The big bang theory has specific evidence to back up it's assumptions, evidence which comes from multiple independent lines of research. Every assumption made is reasonable and substantiated. God creating the universe not only makes many unsupported assumptions, the ones it does make are huge. We must not only accept that there is a divine creator, but that he is capable of magic and ignoring every known law of the universe. That he wants to have a special relationship with us, one species on one planet among billions, and he qualifies that relationship by testing if we can believe in him without evidence. Without any substance to back this up, aside from complexity, it becomes indistinguishable from fantasy.

When we do consider complexity, we must also notice that a creator being does nothing to answer the riddle. Any creator capable of creating a complex universe must be at least as complex himself, if not more so. So how do we explain this complex being? Was he created? Was he an accident of randomness? If you are willing to just shrug off the question of who created the creator, then why not shrug off the question of who created the universe. They are in essence the same question.

So while the big bang theory attempts to answer questions and bring us closer to the truth, creationism only serves to compound the mystery and ground it in fantasy.

...so on one hand, everything out of nothing (a nothing that always was).

...on the other, everything from everything - that was nothing just before that?

I'm starting to wonder, in terms of leaps, which was easier to make

WileyCoyote said:

I was born and raised in the US Bible Belt (southeast). I held very conservative Christian beliefs until I went off to college and met different people with different views. Today, I consider myself an agnostic. I don't know what to think about the existence of God. I certainly have my doubts

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Don't take offense but I would like to point out, you are technically an atheist. You don't (yet?) accept the premise that god exists, therefore you are not a theist and there is only one other category and that's atheist.

But I don't discount the possibility of the existence of God either. Even if He was/is just an extraterrestrial being who planted life on Earth. Hell, I don't know. I certainly can't say for sure.

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Most atheists don't discount the possibility of a god either, many of us just think it's very, very unlikely. If you can call an ET god, then that doesn't do anything to answer the question of how life got started, not just on earth, but in general. It's interesting to think about but doesn't really answer any of the real questions.

I'm also a believer in science. I'm a Computer Scientist myself. I have a degree in Applied Mathematics, and a Master's Degree in Computer Science. But I doubt that science can account for everything in our universe; especially not in ourselves.

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Not to quibble, but do your degrees give you much training in the scientific method? Most computer scientists I know are great at math but don't even know what the null hypothesis is. Science doesn't attempt to claim to be able to answer every type of question, just the ones about the nature of our cosmos.

What is love? Love is not a thing, it is a concept. Romantic love? Family love? Your question is too vague and ambiguous.
Why do we get sad? Neurochemicals
Why do we laugh? Neurochemicals
Why do we cry? Neurocehmicals
Why do baby animals like to play? Because they are learning. You may as well ask the bigger question about what are instincts and that can be answered but is lengthy.

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If pro-creation is indeed among the greatest of human desires, then why are so many people gay? (I'm not bashing gays here; I'm just asking a logical question).

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Procreation isn't desired, sex is. There is some desire for choosing long-term mates too. Both of these innate desires lead to procreation in heterosexuals but gays have those instincts too. Many people have a desire for offspring, (many don't but still like sex and even relationships) and that is reflected in gay adoption too. We are just a vehicle for our genes. Our genes desire to be spread as far and wide as possible. Most animal behavior, including human can be answered by using this model.

Science as we know it is as far from answering those questions as religion is.

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You're nitpicking. Out of all of the big important questions of all of humankind has had, which one has done a better job of coming up with concrete answers? Your questions are not specific enough to be a valid criticism of what science can't answer.

I would love to know that a loving God exists who will give us an eternal life of bliss. I would also love to know that reincarnation is real, and that I'll get a chance to live again from youth and fix all the stupid mistakes I've made in my life. And I'd hate to think that the perpertrators of 9/11 are in heaven right now with 40 virgins apiece.

But the truth is, I don't know. No one does.

Peace to you. And good growing.

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I'd like to see a unicorn shit rainbows but what I want has no bearing on what is reality. Comfort and a desire for answers is what created religion and the god myth but skeptical inquiry has given us more useful answers. Even if some of those answers make me uncomfortable, I prefer to not wear blinders and seek truth where I can find it.

WileyCoyote said:

I certainly don't discount that you may be right. I have absolutely no problem with gays. I have gays relatives and friends. But science claims that pro-creation is what drives us to want sex. And the reality of homosexuality is not in line with that. And I don't think science will ever have an answer for that.

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I have never heard anyone in anthropology or biology make this claim. Do you have any references?

WileyCoyote said:

Which is harder to believe?
1. The universe was created by being called "God".

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Whether it is hard to believe or not, ask yourself if this is really an answer? A universe that comes from an intelligent agent makes me ask more questions than it solves. The infinite regression problem begins here. If god is unexplainable, that's actually one level more complex than just saying the universe is unexplainable.

2. All matter in the universe was once bound together in an infinitely small, infinitely dense point. And at some point it "decided" to explode (expand - Big Bang style) and create the universe (from nothing - as Stephen Hawking recently said)? How did it decide if and when to expand?

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You added a question that everyone would like to answer but just because we don't know doesn't mean it is unknowable. I personally like the idea that our universe is actually part of a larger cosmos in higher dimensions. Even without the backing of m-theory, it is certainly something everyone asks at one point -- does our universe exist within anything?

WileyCoyote said:

Which is harder to believe?

1. The universe was created by being called "God".

2. All matter in the universe was once bound together in an infinitely small, infinitely dense point. And at some point it "decided" to explode (expand - Big Bang style) and create the universe (from nothing - as Stephen Hawking recently said)? How did it decide if and when to expand?

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I think you may be missing a big point, it's not that matter was in an infinitely dense point, theory points more to matter being energy before the big bang. E=mc^2. I will explain.

Before our universe, and still today, there was/is an inflationary field containing extremely high energy levels, a uniform and constant POTIENTIAL energy, and negative pressure (therefore repulsive gravity). This field is similar to an electromagnetic field. You can't see it or feel it but you know it has energy because it does work. So now we have our inflationary field that has a very high potential energy and is expanding faster than the speed of light. How did the university come from this?

Any system with potential energy will exploit an opportunity to release it. This opportunity comes in the form of quantum uncertainty. Energy fields like all things in a quantum universe are subject to this. Quantum uncertainty among an energy field means the fields values will under quantum jitters or up and down fluctuations in it's value. This isn't seen in our everyday life because they are too small to notice. Yet with the incredible amount of energy harbored in the field, these fluctuations would be much larger. Simply put, one of these jitters would knock the field down it's potential energy curve. The resulting decrease in energy and negative pressure ends the encredible expanse.

Now this energy isn't lost, it is converted to matter. E=mc^2. This all happens in the order of about 10^-35 seconds. In this time the tiny area of potential energy would expand by a factor of about 10^30. What we have left is a region in space that is no longer expanding at the rate of the inflationary field, full of matter, uniform temp for example a Universe.

mindphuk said:

Don't take offense but I would like to point out, you are technically an atheist. You don't (yet?) accept the premise that god exists, therefore you are not a theist and there is only one other category and that's atheist.
Most atheists don't discount the possibility of a god either, many of us just think it's very, very unlikely. If you can call an ET god, then that doesn't do anything to answer the question of how life got started, not just on earth, but in general. It's interesting to think about but doesn't really answer any of the real questions.

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I guess you're right about that.

You make good points. My grasp of overall science (non-computer science) is certainly not as large as yours. Maybe that's where God exists for those of us who don't discount His existence; in our lack of understanding. Hell, I don't know.

If God does exist, I wish he would log in here right now and set us all straight. If I was Him, I would.

WileyCoyote said:

I guess you're right about that.

You make good points. My grasp of overall science (non-computer science) is certainly not as large as yours. Maybe that's where God exists for those of us who don't discount His existence; in our lack of understanding. Hell, I don't know.

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Excellent insight. This is basically what many skeptics call the god of the gaps. When people say they don't understand something and insert god as an answer, that's fallacious reasoning because it takes non-understanding and inserts an answer without making any steps in reasoning.

Don't worry about your overall lack of grasping hard science, anyone that can make it through the mathematics and courses you did certainly has enough intelligence to learn. There is no shame in ignorance, only willful ignorance.

There are some excellent video series on youtube that might be worth perusing. Here's one from one of the best creators of skeptical videos IMO.

[video=youtube;6OLPL5p0fMg]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OLPL5p0fMg[/video]

mindphuk said:

Excellent insight. This is basically what many skeptics call the god of the gaps. When people say they don't understand something and insert god as an answer, that's fallacious reasoning because it takes non-understanding and inserts an answer without making any steps in reasoning.

There are some excellent video series on youtube that might be worth perusing. Here's one from one of the best creators of skeptical videos IMO.

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Thanks. I will certainly do that.