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Massive Quasars, Julios, and all cosmos people

Posted: Mon Apr 11, 2005 1:29 am
by DRuM
Possible solution to how God created the Universe. It's a bit of a read, and I'm not sure I fully understand what he's on about, but it's interesting and I think you'll find it interesting too.

http://209.25.203.234/showthread.php?t= ... ge=1&pp=12

Posted: Mon Apr 11, 2005 1:36 am
by Canidae
Thats pretty similar to my marriage of God & creation and science & evolution.
If there is a God he would be the greatest scientist and one to also want to create almost infinite detail to give us an eternity to try to understand all its artful details

Posted: Mon Apr 11, 2005 2:44 am
by [xeno]Julios
Reminds me of an excellent book I read by Robert J. Sawyer, called "Calculating God".

Posted: Mon Apr 11, 2005 3:10 am
by R00k
The telling thing to me about the whole debate -- and this could just be my warped perception -- is the fact that the intelligent creation discussion always seems to be an attempt to reconcile god's existence with proven scientific data, whereas proven scientific data always speaks for itself, and has practically led us by the nose to any discoveries we were willing to be curious about.

So on one hand we have all the accumulated knowledge that has shown itself to us over thousands of years to be true, and on the other hand we feel the need to reconcile this data with the idea of a super-intelligent being. And the desire is merely based on books that we know absolutely nothing about, except what they say, roughly when they were written, and that they were written by men's hands.

And when I think about it that way, it really seems like the greatest fallacy of all time - or maybe the biggest practical joke.

Posted: Mon Apr 11, 2005 3:37 am
by Canidae
[xeno]Julios wrote:Reminds me of an excellent book I read by Robert J. Sawyer, called "Calculating God".
I've read about 6 of his books and still haven't finished Hominids after reading the second book in the series first
Love his multitude of references to his Ontario roots

Posted: Mon Apr 11, 2005 4:38 am
by Hannibal
R00k wrote:The telling thing to me about the whole debate -- and this could just be my warped perception -- is the fact that the intelligent creation discussion always seems to be an attempt to reconcile god's existence with proven scientific data, whereas proven scientific data always speaks for itself, and has practically led us by the nose to any discoveries we were willing to be curious about.
Rook, I probably agree with your general sentiment if not all the specifics...but just to be clear, "scientific data" NEVER <i>speak for themselves</i>. This is a common misunderstanding of science---it fails utterly as a demarcation criterion.

Posted: Mon Apr 11, 2005 5:19 am
by R00k
I used that statement for lack of a better way to express what I was trying to say. I do know that it doesn't speak for itself, and isn't really even proven in the layman's sense of the word.

I'm not sure how to say exactly what I mean, but it's the general idea that we have theories based on solid evidence from the world we live in; most of which have passed every scrutiny we can hold them under.

Trying to reconcile a theory that can never be proven or disproven by the same standards with the ones we do attempt to disprove seems to fly in the face of the reasoning behind science to begin with. So it follows -- in my mind at least -- that the only reason for trying to do such a thing isn't based on determining the real answers to our questions, as much as trying to reconcile our preconceived notions, and attempting to force them to fit into the same mold of science.

It's like, deep down somewhere, you believe that you can make a horseshoe out of a piece of wood, so you carve one. It looks like a beautifully crafted horseshoe, until you try to put it in the coals, place it on the anvil, or actually put it on a horse. And even the horse will be able to walk on it, for a while.

But I'm still digressing a little away from what I was originally trying to say. Just the debate itself to me has this feeling of a strained attempt to be accepted by proven methods of science. But we never needed an old, dusty collection of writings to point us in the right direction in science.

When I am searching myself and my own mind for answers to hard questions about myself or my personal life, I find that the easy answers which conveniently fall in my lap are almost always only justifications for what I already wanted to believe, and not true answers in themselves. Why would the question of origin be any different?

Posted: Mon Apr 11, 2005 10:17 am
by Massive Quasars
I'm not refuting the possibility, but others have posed similar scenarios. edit: I couldn't begin to gauge the probability of any such scenario applying to this universe in particular.

PH are you a deist?

Posted: Mon Apr 11, 2005 6:33 pm
by GONNAFISTYA
Canidae wrote:If there is a God he would be the greatest scientist and one to also want to create almost infinite detail to give us an eternity to try to understand all its artful details
Then I'll say this: God seems like a narcissistic, spoiled brat who needs to be constantly told how great He is or he'll throw a tantrum and throw you into Hell.