Religion

[atomic7732]

I'm really proud of everyone for having such a civil conversation about a potentially contentious topic.

Thanks!

I know, that's what I was afraid of. Glad it not happening. I hope I didn't just speak too soon. 

[Bla]

But without the wanting of a table, it would not exist. Maybe just the belief in an afterlife will make it exist. Maybe you are right, there was a ridiculously large amount of matter in a small space and you know the rest.

I just want to know if science will ever explain the true spark of life. Where did the first cell come from? A meteor? A comet? There are certain things that science cannot explain. And if science can't, what do you turn to?

As an atheist, when science cannot explain something, I believe in natural solutions.

A comet/asteroid/meteor (isn't that important, but usually comets contain organic material in form of carbon, so it might be a comet) brought some organic material (carbon) to Earth. When it happened, there were some fatty acids on Earth. And well... Watch this video:
The Origin of Life - Abiogenesis.

That's the scientific explanation. Abiogenesis.
And then, after abiogenesis, evolution explains how life evolves.

[FGFG]

I just want to know if science will ever explain the true spark of life. Where did the first cell come from? A meteor? A comet? There are certain things that science cannot explain.

Indeed there is an explanation:
On Earth, about 4.4 milliard years ago, the oceans contained a lot of molecules, very complex molecules. With the tides or simply with the waves a little bit of water remained on the shore, forming the "primordial soup" (translation by google... don't know if it is correct). Here the water evaporated, but not the molecules, so the density of them raised. At a certain point, when the complexity raised to a critical value, some molecules started to aggregate, forming a bubble, with water inside and outside, a simple bubble. After a while some molecules entered the bubble and combined forming the first very simple organs. The first cell was born. With this process an enormous amount of different cells born, many more than the ones we know. Some didn't have DNA, other with many more simple organs than now. The natural selection, then, selected the ones we know, and pushed the evolution to go on and on and on... till now.

However I remain always fascinated by one thing, present even in the cell. The survival instinct. It's the thing that make every single animal, plant, cell, whatever, to go on even if there isn't hope. And it is the thing that make us fear death. I think that he created religion after all.


EDIT:

A comet/asteroid/meteor (isn't that important, but usually comets contain organic material in form of carbon, so it might be a comet) brought some organic material (carbon) to Earth. When it happened, there were some fatty acids on Earth. And well... Watch this video:
The Origin of Life - Abiogenesis.

OOOps, Didn't noticed it! However it is correct.

[hbmp88]

Lets see if I can explain this... I'm semi-religious. It's very complicated. I try not to be ignorant, I look for answers. If I can't find an answer then I look for relations to other occurrences. If there are none then its an act of God.

Does that make sense?

[FGFG]

Well this is why religion was born thousends of years ago  (nothing bad) : the Gods (Greek and preistorical) were personifications of natural elements (lightnings = Zeus, etc.), that logic was not able to explain.

[rottweiler07]

I am Catholic and do believe in God.

[Bla]

Continued from another thread...:

I hope people in here don't get the feeling that I'm speaking against any form of religion, because I'm not

Ok, speaking of this, my friend is a... umm... I don't know... I forget... But, whatever. I wasn't there but he told me that two kids called him for stupid for being that religion. That is just messed up. And he also noticed one of them started feeling bad for him. That's messed up. I don't care wheter you are this or that, but if anyone calls you stupid for that... That's... Just not right.

Agreed. Calling people stupid is, in my opinion, just wrong in most cases. I think it's much better to discuss the religion(s) instead without the insultive words (in a dialog or polylog).
It's also much more effective, because then the persons you're discussing will might even want to listen to your arguments and perhaps even question their own religion.

I am an atheist and if anyone called me stupid for being it I'd confront them with their religion immmediately. If they think I'm stupid they would at least have to tell me why and hear my arguments before I'd take it serious.
I can't take insultive words serious before I know there is a good reason behind them. And they aren't showing any reason by just calling him stupid, so I'd say that it's wrong of them (but hopefully not harmful).

[Bla]

Answer to a post in another topic:

Somone (WHO I TRUST!!!!!!) told me that to God, a day is really a thousands of years. So Earth created in- A LONG TIME- is 6 days to him.

But NeutronStar, if we assume one day in the creation week is in fact 1,000 years, how can the plants created on day three survive without the Sun, created on day four, for 1,000 years?
Anyways, even though you really trust him, remember that it's still a belief and that it's what he believes - it's not something he knows. The human brain doesn't separate facts from beliefs, it's something you do as you speak, but your brain works with them in the same way. He didn't lie, he didn't want to lie, of course, but it's just what he believes.

[monmarfori]

Catholic.

[atomic7732]

Answer to a post in another topic:

Somone (WHO I TRUST!!!!!!) told me that to God, a day is really a thousands of years. So Earth created in- A LONG TIME- is 6 days to him.

But NeutronStar, if we assume one day in the creation week is in fact 1,000 years, how can the plants created on day three survive without the Sun, created on day four, for 1,000 years?
Anyways, even though you really trust him, remember that it's still a belief and that it's what he believes - it's not something he knows. The human brain doesn't separate facts from beliefs, it's something you do as you speak, but your brain works with them in the same way. He didn't lie, he didn't want to lie, of course, but it's just what he believes.

I'm not saying exactly 1,000 years (which would be creationist (right?)) but whatever.

[Bla]

Sorry, I thought you were saying that since God created the universe in 6 days, and one day to him is a thousand years to us, that he then created the universe in 6,000 years, each day being 1,000 years (or so).
If we multiply the creationist assumption that the universe is 6,000 years old by 1,000, we only get 6,000,000, nothing compared to 13,700,000,000. But as I said before, I don't think it would work. But ok, you didn't believe it anyways.

[Ben]

I dont believe in religion but i do believe in god or some higher intelligence, but i also am infatuated with quantam physics and its whole "observer" thing and i also believe that the only reason we are here is because we noticed that we were here...  and since the bible (which people seem to take abit to much at face value) says 7 days it took to create the universe who really knows what the means? the bible was more about spreading the message and they probably put that there because it fit them for the time. ( this is all therotical ofc  ) and just like the guy who wrote Hyperspace, we could be the result of a past universe of humans saving themselves from the destruction of thier universe, but im not to sure about anything now....

[Bla]

Interesting, but why do you believe in a god? I just mean, what does it justify the existence of? If something is required to justify our existence, then I assume something more is required to justify the existence of the one who created us, and then we will end up with infinite gods.

[atomic7732]

Chicken or the Egg? Puts you in the same position, eh? 

[Bla]

Yes, I like the chicken and the egg, because evolution explains it.
First, the single-cellular organisms copied themselves. Then, they grew more advanced, and gained the big variety. Some early ancestor to the chicken evolved the ability to make a membrane around the chicken it would be going to... Bear? What do you call it... But then, a harder membrane seemed to increase the chance of survival for the chicken, and those would have a higher chance of survival, and therefore a higher chance of having their genes passing on. So the nature selects eggs. The chicken slowly evolved into a chicken with the ability to lay eggs over time.
I am not completely sure about  what I wrote, so I couldn't go into detail, because I haven't studied it, but this is how it might have happened.

Perhaps that's why some people believe that universes "evolve", by passing their physical laws etc. on to the next universe, which it produces in black holes. So, "universal selection" would select universes producing the most black holes, = universes with stars = universes which also allow life. The physical laws can then be changed randomly (but usually not much) while the next universe is getting started.
It sounds strange to me, and of course these things are not parts of the evolution theory, but I think it's interesting. I think there are other explanations that are more likely however, until we begin to find information codes in the universe.

[FGFG]

the problem is that universes don't reproduce with other universes and they don't die because of external causes...

[Bla]

Evolution can still happen (I know there's no evidence for this kind of evolution, but let's just say there is ).
If you have ten universes, each with different physical laws, and three of them have physical laws allowing stars to form, and some of these stars turn into black holes, which causes new universes to form (there isn't evidence for this either, but let's just say there is ), where the new universes forming have the same physical laws as the parent universe, with slight changes. Then the universes with most black holes will be selected.

Anyways, this is just an idea, which might soon make me sound like I'm crazy. I don't believe in it.

[atomic7732]

Aren't there like a million universes in my room right now? I mean those 11 dimensional Calibai-Yau manifolds.

Universes transferring physical laws seems reasonable if they pass through each other. Like in the Eridanus Supervoid, where we might be colliding with a universe.

[Bla]

To continue the debate from another thread:

God did not create the universe, because a person cannot do that. Why do people think god created the universe?

To answer this anyways: No one said "God" was a person.

God doesn't exist, and don't be a non-atheist.

Whether God exists or not, that doesn't give you the right to tell us what to believe.

Fight!
Nah. But Deoxy99, please remember that everyone are allowed to believe what they want to. We have to respect each other's beliefs.
Btw a non-atheist is called a theist (or deist, if the person believes in a god that doesn't interact with the universe).

Personally, I think:

1) If the universe requires a creator, that creator must require one as well. That will just lead to an infinite regress of creators having to create each other, never stopping.
2) That it would be easier to believe that the universe has always been here rather than believing that a creator is required for the universe, then stating that the creator has always been here.
3) That an all-loving, all-powerful and all-knowing god cannot exist. It would know how to prevent all evil and do it if it were all-powerful and all-loving. It could have created humans with only good desires. And I also find that god incompatible with for example handicapped people, people born in poverty, autists and other people who are born with problems they cannot choose or change.

[atomic7732]

For an answer to 3. Its freedom of choice otherwise we would be robots.

I would have to say you make sense for 1, but if there is no creator, what caused the Big Bang if the was nothing at all. No time, then how would it advance to explode? ow was it created then if there was no creator?

[Bla]

I think it's possible if:
1) Either the total energy of the universe is zero. Laurence Krauss explains it in this video.
2) That the universe has always existed, and that a previous universe or a previous state of it caused the Big Bang.
In either case, it should be possible that our universe is not the only one existing.
This could make us wonder why our universe has forces that allow life. But if our universe didn't have forces that allowed us to exist, we wouldn't be here to wonder about why they existed. I think that the forces are set randomly during the Big Bang, as in the standard model where the forces seperate, and that there could probably be many universes with forces not allowing stars and life to form.

As for the answer to the answer to 3:
We have freedom of choise, but we still have certain desires. Many humans want power, sometimes at the expense of other humans. Some humans consider themselves more important than other people. An omnipotent god would be able to create us with better or perfect desires, while we could still have freedom of choise.
If we have choises with our current morals, we would also have choises with different morals. The morals would just affect the choises we make.

[Arata]

I'm mostly a spiritual person, not religious.

[FGFG]

3) That an all-loving, all-powerful and all-knowing god cannot exist. It would know how to prevent all evil and do it if it were all-powerful and all-loving. It could have created humans with only good desires. And I also find that god incompatible with for example handicapped people, people born in poverty, autists and other people who are born with problems they cannot choose or change.

Of course religion (christian) already answered this questions in the form of a mith: Eden

Firstly humans (Adam and Eva) where living in Eden, a perfect world, but because of the original sin, they were chased away.
Moreover (always according to the Christian religion) God do not have power to our will, so it's our fault if we have wrong thoughts. It's up to us having a good behaviour to go back to Paradise.

[Bla]

3) That an all-loving, all-powerful and all-knowing god cannot exist. It would know how to prevent all evil and do it if it were all-powerful and all-loving. It could have created humans with only good desires. And I also find that god incompatible with for example handicapped people, people born in poverty, autists and other people who are born with problems they cannot choose or change.

Of course religion (christian) already answered this questions in the form of a mith: Eden

Firstly humans (Adam and Eva) where living in Eden, a perfect world, but because of the original sin, they were chased away.
Moreover (always according to the Christian religion) God do not have power to our will, so it's our fault if we have wrong thoughts. It's up to us having a good behaviour to go back to Paradise.

But that doesn't explain it, because then the god created the humans knowing that they would sin, and knowing that its own design wouldn't meet his expectations.
By the way, I can't find the logic in the myth anyways. What's the meaning of creating humans who become tempted by a snake, which the god didn't want, but created anyways, to eat a fruit of a forbidden tree, which the god didn't want, but created anyways. Why create all that mess if it didn't want it? Remove the tree, remove the snake/satan or remove the temptation for "bad things" and there would be no problem. Or did the god want the problem? He knew it would happen. He was omnipotent and all-knowing.

And if the god doesn't have the power over our will, it is not omnipotent.

[FGFG]

Infact I'm atheist...

[Bla]

Infact I'm atheist...

I know. You said that earlier in the discussion. I was just responding to the arguments.

[Laura]

If some random guy today claims to be a prophet and gathers followers, nobody considers it a 'proper religion'.
It usually ends badly with a mass suicide or a compound being stormed, or both.
Why is that, when most people agree that we must 'respect the belief systems of other people'?
Why are the crazy ideas of a contemporary person automatically invalid, while nearly everyone accepts the crazy ideas of an ancient person as the absolute truth?
In fact, schizophrenics have prophetic visions on a daily basis and often write down things that are no more or less deranged than what's in the bible. Why are they not worshipped?
What is the substantive difference between modern ravings and ancient ones?

[Bla]

So true. Why should we respect crazy people like these? I mean, if they didn't have the word 'religion' to hide behind, I'd simply call them sick nazis (don't get me wrong - Hitler was religious too, but nazism isn't a religion, and we usually don't respect nazism because we see how crazy it is).
Pat Condell - Aggressive Atheism

I've been touched by His Noodly Appendage!
Couldn't resist posting it, sorry.

And just a note: I know most religious people aren't so extreme. Of course I think they should be respected, when they show respect. But if they ask me to respect their religion, I can only take it as a joke, because their religion offers me no respect at all.

[space guy1]

i agree completely. Thess what i really hate people hide behind religion so that they can get away with being racist, sexist, gayist (or whatever you want to call it) @$$holes.  i mean seriously why do they even care what other people do?  its not like they're hurting anyone but themselves, and even thats debatable. 
And on another note, why cant science and religion exist together?  there is absolutely nothing in the bible that i know of that goes against science in my view.  For example, take the creation story according to the bible god created the world in six days.  but there were no humans around to agree (or disagree) with that, only god.  But god is timeless six days to him could be 100's of millions of years to us or vice versa.  now how he did it:  the bible says the earth was shapeless and dark of course it was, it was just some random particles in a nebula with no sun for it to orbit.  next:  "Let There Be Light"  the sun ignited.  next the separation of light and dark, the dust was cleared by solar winds.  The next couple  of verses dont really make sense to me (about the creation of heaven).  next the earth coalesces fron the PP disk and gets its ocean.  then volcanoes form land.  next come plant (though they would be microbes, but this was origionally made for an audience that had no idea what a microbe was so they used plants that they would have heard of) formation of stars / sun/moon: for the stars /sun the athmosphere became clear (i believe it is thought to have been very cloudy and hazy like titan).  the moon confuses me because it formed earlier but it makes sense that if you couldnt see the sun you also couldnt see the moon.  next formation of sea life.  and so on and so on there discrepencies here and there but you have to remember it was written at least 3000 years ago.  translation errors would be expected.      and yes as you can tell, im a christian but i also believe in science evolution and other things of that sort

[Bla]

gayist

Homophobic.

But in response to the rest, well, what's the point of saying you create something in six days if it isn't six days anyways? Wouldn't it be useless to tell us you create it in six days without saying what a day is?
I mean, a day is the time it takes for Earth to rotate once, the length of a day is based on Earth and is changing as the rotation of Earth slows over time (it's slowed by The Moon).
Also, what about Big Bang? That's not even mentioned in the bible. We know Big Bang happened 13.75 billion years ago, The Solar System formed about 4.6 billion years ago and The Earth about 4,567,200,000 years ago. The first life on Earth appeared 3.5 billion years ago, and was very simple - in fact, multicellular life is only 610 million years old.
That's what Science says, I don't see it fit completely into the six days. The 'heavens' are 13.75 billion years old, Earth is only 4.6 billion years old.

In Genesis 1:11-13, on the third "day", the christian god creates plants, but he didn't create 'the two great lights' [Sun and Moon] before 1:16, the fourth day. So you can check how long a day can be at most - the amount of time plants can survive without sunlight to fuel their photosynthesis.

Also, if a god wanted us to read his words and is omnipotent, how come he gave us a book that required translations by imperfect humans?

And the bit about them caring about what other people do... That's also based in the bible - leviticus 20:13. Gays should be killed if they 'lie with a man as one lies with a woman', according to the bible.