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We don't know how the universe began, and we will never know

backreaction.blogspot.com

471–480 of 610 posts

Re: We don't know how the universe began, and we will never know

#471
post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One that is backed by proofs and evidence. I have seen zero proofs for the existance of god. Not in your video or anywhere else. If such proof existed then that would be the biggest scientific breakthrough in history and it would be the absolute focus for science to understand more. > Your argument is not very different from can God create a rock so heavy that He cannot cary it? The answer is simple, it's a logical…

> If such proof existed then that would be the biggest scientific breakthrough i You still continue to conflate science with God who exists outside the realms and is not bound by the laws of our world. He created logic, it does not apply to him. When He revealed to us his attributes, we are not ones to question whether they make sense to us or not.

If you are leaving the realm of logic then any further reasoning becomes nonsensical. The argument will be pointless.

Re: We don't know how the universe began, and we will never know

#472
post #463
post #456

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know why people do this so often on the (english)internet. People will write off all religion, while obviously speaking from the perspective of Christianity only. People have bad experiences with Christianity, and then decide that Buddhism, Jainism, Daoism, and Shinto are all a scam. It's a strange fallacy that people should know better by now, it's just straight up a sweeping generalization.

It’s not writing it off (whatever that means here) but if you’re asserting Buddhism, Daosim, and Shinto do not have many foundational faith-based/supernatural elements you may want to review their sacred texts. Jainism I am less familiar with, but the other three are entirely founded in faith-based tenants that have no supporting evidence. Background: degree in philosophy, focussing on philosophy of religion. I have…

Uhm well it's more this part;

>religion does not and should not, especially with its centuries-long history of malice and suppression towards free and scientific thought

That I was referring to. Show me where Zoroastrianism, Sikhism, and Bahaism are against scientific thought.

Being familiar with a smattering of religious texts you learned in University is hardly enough to make such large claims about every single religion in the entire world.

Re: We don't know how the universe began, and we will never know

#473

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>worldly logic So your argument stems from illogic? Surely you don't admit such do you? When I was religious, religion captured me by thinking 'that makes sense'. It used a minor amount of logic to convert me but ultimately it failed because it didn't stand up against my rigors in the end. Religion wants to ultimately refrain from the rigors of logic but when confronted, how does it defend itself? That's right, it tr…

> So your argument stems from illogic? No. I as mentioned in another post, God exists outside the realms of this reality, and is not bound by our laws. He created our laws, and he created logic, and they do not apply to him. We don't deny logic. If you study Islam, logic is one of the 3 methods to arrive at truth. The other two are observations (not dissimilar from experimental science) and the final is truthfully re…

  > No. I as mentioned in another post, God exists outside the realms of this reality, and is not bound by our laws. He created our laws, and he created logic, and they do not apply to him.
Yea and once you leave our realm of logic nothing can be proven or argued about apart from stating that we don't know anything about it. To claim otherwise is futile.

  > We don't deny logic. If you study Islam, logic is one of the 3 methods to arrive at truth. The other two are observations (not dissimilar from experimental science) and the final is truthfully relayed news (الخبر الصادق). We take all of those into consideration when studying our reality.
But you denied logic. You said when talking about god and his rules we can't apply our logic because he operates outside of it. This is a very dangerous method in order to make some people be the bearers of truth and any other individual must not assume he can independently verify any of it. It is a method to create a power structure.

Re: We don't know how the universe began, and we will never know

#474
post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Tell me, how many scientific "claims" that you rely on a day to day basis, have you verified personally? Many. Science claims when I push the brakes in my car I will slow down due to the friction. Seems to be working pretty well so far. How does religion explain it? You fell into the trap of thinking that each person needs to verify each claim in order to put general trust in science. That's not how it works. If I…

As I mentioned elsewhere, you cannot prove everything only by science. In Islam, we have logic and the honest news as two other sources we rely on to study and deduce facts about our reality.

Nobody claims science can prove everything! I mentioned multiple times how science is honest about that fact.

Unfortunately it doesn't seem like you addressed any of my points.

Re: We don't know how the universe began, and we will never know

#475
post #111

John Wheeler popularized the term "it from bit" and the idea of a participatory universe. The limits of human observation aside, it could be that the universe itself doesn't really know how it began. If a superheated plasma is indifferent to being in a 5 dimensional black hole as opposed to a state where only space exists, then, in a sense, there isn't any difference between the two explanations (given that the plasm…

The origin can’t be explained, because if it was explained it wouldn’t be the origin anymore. So the question of the origin is ill-posed. Yet there has to be an origin because an infinite history makes no sense. In the end, nothing makes sense. God must be laughing at us.

Can't it be some kind of self-explaining recursive thing - Doesn't it have to be? I think this is what Christopher Langan is on about with his CTMU theory.

Re: We don't know how the universe began, and we will never know

#476
I really love when science goes so deep, it loops back around into philosophy. When I took intro philosophy in college, I really was pleased how deeply it is ingrained in everything else. There’s a reason people like Descartes are well known in both math and philosophy.

Re: We don't know how the universe began, and we will never know

#477
post #439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What we observe in nature. Everything in nature that begins to exist was caused by something else. (Some have suggested quantum exceptions to this rule, but even those claims are tenuous at best.) > The best observable evidence we have is that everything that begins to exist must be caused. Inside our observable universe? Yea most likely. We can't deduce that the same hold true outside the universe. Einstein explai…

> Inside our observable universe? Yea most likely. We can't deduce that the same hold true outside the universe. Which is why we rely on the honest news. Prophets like Muhammad, Jesus, and Moses Prayers of God be upon them all proved that they came with a message. They performed miracles, and their character is well known. It's basically an inductive proof.

No, it's just complete bullshit. Zero reasoning, just wild claims. Your argument with me started out not that bad and I tried to use sound logic to see who might be right. But as the argument went on you drifted more into babble, left the realm of logic and gave up addressing my arguments. Now we're in full tilt nonsense territory it seems.

Re: We don't know how the universe began, and we will never know

#478
post #459
post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's not 100% true. There can (and is) proof and evidence for validating religious claims. You're conflating belief in the unseen (with evidence) with blind faith without evidence, those are two different things. Any religion who claims there is a God does not have proof of such. If there was real experimentally testable and unambigous proof than scientists would need to accept that. What does belief in the unsee…

>Any religion who claims there is a God does not have proof of such. Anyone who claims God does not exist does not have proof of such.

Correct. We can't prove the existance and we can't disprove the existance. Either side would be wrong.

Religion claims there is a god. Science says just we don't know.

It is pointless to be on the side of religion because as we agreed one cannot prove or disprove it and therefor it becomes indestinguishable from any other claim that can't be falsified. Christianity says there is a god. I say there's a funny pink machine spitting out universes. You can't prove me wrong so you can't say who is right.

Re: We don't know how the universe began, and we will never know

#479
post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're straw manning when you say things like "cares about the sexual life of humans". I highly recommend you watch this to broaden your horizons: https://youtu.be/If3cNUixEBM

There is a great deal of evidence, philosophically and rationally, for the existence of God. The Big Bang, first theorized by theoretical physicist and Catholic priest Georges Lamaitre, states the universe sprang into existence 13.7b years ago; it was not eternal as previously thought. And we know from observation that everything that begins to exist has a cause for its existence. This suggests that the universe was…

why you think this should be your god or gods? I don't want to attack you, just I have my religion, too. so when every time, I found same argument, I just confused at how this can connect to some specific object.

Re: We don't know how the universe began, and we will never know

#480
post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not all texts are vague and open to interpretation. A proper religion with strong scholarly underpinnings like Islam has this issue figured out. The Quran itself calls out the issue, and Muslim scholars from the very beginning have a foundation on which to base rulings. I don't want to claim all are vague. Many are. If the foundation though is based upon an arbitrary claim of a god and unprovable claims that such g…

> If the foundation though is based upon an arbitrary claim of a god and unprovable claims that such god spoke to someone and gave us some rules then I cannot subscribe to that concept because any other concept with arbitrary rules is equaly valid and I wouldn't know which one to choose. And if I can't know which one to choose then that means there is no right or wrong choice, it is arbitrary. Which is why you evalua…

  > Which is why you evaluate those claims and see what evidence they bring forth. We have a lot of proof and evidence in Islam. Some are listed on www.provingislam.com
Please bring a single proof of god here in your own words. I have already wasted one hour on that video which didn't lead anywhere.

  > Correlation vs causation.
You might want to try apply that to your original claim that the western civilizations are declining because they are so secular.

  > False dichotomy. No one is saying science isn't useful. As a matter of fact, many of today's foundational sciences and discoveries go back to the Islamic Golden Age. Great Muslim scholars like Al-Khararizmy (the word "algorithm" is a direct derivative of his name), Algebra (the science of Al-Jabr, an Arabic word), and many many more were because Islam pushed those people to seek knowledge and learn about the world around them. Many of those scholars saw studying and exploring the world around them as signs of God. This is something established in the Quran and Hadith.
Any many go back to christians, jews or even predate our mainstream religions. During many times throughout history not claiming to be part of a belief system would net you severe repercussions. Maybe Islam encouraged seeking knowledge. Pretty sure it also persecuted people who seeked knowledge that Islam didn't like.

  > Maybe the colonizing West that engaged in dirty divide and conquer tactics has something to do with it?
Or maybe that happened already before all the western influence? I am also not claiming the west being good. I'm saying both sides are doing shit. I'm no fan of the wars that the US waged in Iraq, Afghanistan etc. That one side is doing something bad does not make the bad things that the other side is doing OK. The point is any fighting is bad.

  > So tell me why are they wrong to say that rape is just a phenomenon or that incest is ok. On what basis, from a strictly atheistic materialistic world view are you going to make an opposite claim? 
That's super trivial. I'd argue rape being just a phenomenon is wrong because accepting it as such has bad repercussions on our society. Rape leaves the victim traumatized and less productive in society. Society has to expend resources to help the victim. As for incest: anyone with a bit of knowledge how reproduction and genetics work can see that inbreeding increases the chance of genetic defects. The whole point why evolution came up with the concept of sexes is to mix genes from different pools to avoid this problem. Genetic defects again hurt a society.
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