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The key difference from religion being the word “could”.
We sometimes also rule out other ways it "could" have happened, because they're further from our current paradigm, or just harder (or maybe impossible) to verify. In this sense, it may not be a "religion", but there is an element of "faith"
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Science is not a religion. If scientism means thinking that science is the best tool we have right now to explain reality then I guess yea I'm pro science. But it's very far from a religion. BTW science does not claim to know it all or even be able to know it all. In fact it is an important part of science to find the limits of science.
Proper religion and science do not disagree. I am a person of faith (which is backed by evidence), and my faith pushed us to seek knowledge. The Islamic Golden age is a testament to that fact. Scientism is not what you defined. From wikipedia (which I take with a big grain of salt) > Scientism is the opinion that science and the scientific method are the best or only way to render truth about the world and reality. W…
> Proper religion and science do not disagree.
> I am a person of faith (which is backed by evidence), and my faith pushed us to seek knowledge. The Islamic Golden age is a testament to that fact.
My problem is that any religion who believes in an all powerful God quickly runs into logical problems. Here is one quick example and I'd love for you to explain to me where my reasoning went wrong:
1. Assume there is an omnipotent being called God
2. If God is omnipotent then he can create two other omnipotent beings that have the following two goals: 1. destroy the other being 2. protect itself from being destroyed.
3. Clearly both of these created beings cannot both achieve their goals because they cannot both destroy the other and at the same time protect themselves.
4. If these beings cannot do what they were created for then clearly they cannot be omnipotent.
5. If God cannot create such beings then clearly he himself is not omnipotentEarlier quoted context omitted.
Why anxious? the answers to those questions, while interesting and entertaining, aren't relevant to you today. Just be glad you get to experience this tiny little part of the universe for the brief time you're here.
Is the universe gigantic enough and long-lasting enough that my consciousness will come back in some form after I die?
I am sure all pot smokers know the answer. The observable universe is in a much larger universe with many like itself. Sometimes universes collide and form a new universe. There is an infinite stack of these much larger and much smaller universes (more like a fractal tree actually); some are hot and some are cold but even cold universes can collide make a hot universe.
“We will never know” is such a contradictory statement. On the surface, it implies the limits of our knowledge while simultaneously indicating that the author possesses the omnipotence required to know what humans will learn throughout the entirety of our future. Add it to your list of things to never write.
I read into one a few years ago when I was trying to find when the last American slave died.
The problem is they were considered property so no documentation or birth records were produced. The lack of record keeping made this an impossible question.
The last documented one was in the 1930s but the last civil war veteran died in the 1950s, surely there was some baby of the 1860s that was born into the system that probably survived until at least the Montgomery bus boycott or Brown v. Board.
But this is something I discovered is a factual statement that's impossible to verify and will never be resolved.
Why is there even such a gigantic universe? Like what is the purpose of it - why was there a Big Bang? If I really think hard about these questions it makes me uncomfortable and anxious.
If you look at an ant, do you ask yourself "Why is this ant here?".
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«they», «us», «we» ? no matter what your beliefs are, I urge you to figure out where it comes from, by who, and how your beliefs are shared.
I don't have a prevailing interest is how the universe was formed. The subject matter doesn't interest me. What does interest me is that the generally accepted position of all scientists who worked in this field said "Big Bang" was the de facto position. Until is suddenly isn't. That just throws the whole reputation of all those scientists into doubt with the average Joe.
Those who prefer blind trust in unchanging authorities will be disappointed.
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That was a popular theory for a long time, although I think it's declined over the years. I don't recall the reasons why, though.
Probably the Big Bang and evidence of inflation and the CMB. There is a lot of credible evidence that our universe had a definite beginning.
This blows away all religious arguments trying to plug a creator in there: since the universe was never created, it doesn't need a creator.
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To be clear, it makes a ton of sense to ask such a question. The underlying assumption to the question is why only one thing is allowed to be uncreated .. ? Are there others like them, much like here on Earth where we have many authors writing many books? The Bible doesn't answer those at all, it starts in media res (despite its first three words!) (I have other complaints about such a God but)
The Bible very explicitly teaches that there are no other gods. Here is one passage among many. Isaiah 44:6-8 ESV Thus says the LORD, the King of Israel and his Redeemer, the LORD of hosts: "I am the first and I am the last; besides me there is no god. [7] Who is like me? Let him proclaim it. Let him declare and set it before me, since I appointed an ancient people. Let them declare what is to come, and what will hap…
“We will never know” is such a contradictory statement. On the surface, it implies the limits of our knowledge while simultaneously indicating that the author possesses the omnipotence required to know what humans will learn throughout the entirety of our future. Add it to your list of things to never write.
> On the surface, it implies the limits of our knowledge while simultaneously indicating that the author possesses the omnipotence required to know what humans will learn throughout the entirety of our future That's no contradiction though. A contradiction would be "I know everything about X" and at the same time "There's a limit to our knowledge of X". It's no contradiction to claim that there are limits to our know…
No we can't. We can only prove that certain formal systems cannot resolve certain statements. We might still invent other formal systems that are acceptable to us and that can resolve those statements.