Religion In A Clubby Hole

Re: # 129
Thats true. But its so hard for science to even start explaining about LIFE or LIFEFORCE. While religion does a wonderful job of that. People need to quit blaming religion because it also goes through evolution. Maybe Christianity & Islam goes to through less evolution than compared Hinduism or Buddhism. But still one would not have imagine Islam to be so different in Middle East, Kashmir & Rajasthan & South East Asia. Similarly for Christianity.

Re: # 132

The smugness of believers is amazing.

What is LIFEFORCE?

While the discussion is going on whether GOD exist or not, should religion be used to answer that question or does science trumps religion.
Can science explain what is LIFE or lifeform and where does it come from or go to?
Science can explain things that has a physical characteristics associated with it thus science will not be able to explain LIFE or MORALS. so should science be used to trump religion as author is trying to do?

Let me summerize moral of the story for romair:

Please stop taking it for granted that bringing in the unsolved mystries of all times will contribute towards the defence of some religion(s) you tend to sympathize for.

Please try to defend the question, `why do I believe that god talked to muhammad` or that `jesus had some godly genes` or that `moses saw some sparklings when he was alone`.

By the way, I am so bothered by the fact that god is too shy to come in front of a crowd. Why is god like this?

I want to point to a somewhat stupid assumption inherent in many of the interactions pertaining to cause and effect. The assuption being that cause and effect need to be ``different``. This need not be so.

At an abstract level let ``x`` cause ``y``. Moreover let ``x`` cause ``y`` through the following (known or unknown) process: y=2+1/3x. For simplicity let x and y be ``represented`` by positive real numbers. Let us start with x=0. This causes y to be equal to 2. To see what effect does 2 have, plug in x=2. Now x=2, causes y to be equal to 8/3. Repeat this process. The process continues and at the limit we have that y=3. What is the effect of 3? Plug in x=3. But with x=3 as the cause, we have that y=3. Thus, 3 causes 3! God creates itself, or the Big Bang causes itself or what have you.

I just pointed out that cause and effect need not be different. But they could also ALWAYS be different. Just do the above exercise starting from x=3.1. You will never reach a number which causes itself!

The point of my interact is that you cannot use logic to talk about GOD (like Romair and other philosophers before him). I am surprised that Urstruly is doing the same! This is because I remember a post by him a long time back. He mentioned that using logic to talk about GOD creates paradoxes like the following: ``Can a God, who can do everything, create a stone which he cannot lift``. (This is known as the Russel Paradox).

Existence (or the non existence) of God is an axiom. Let it remain there.

Also do me a favor. Do not react to my example without thinking for sometime (say at least 10 mins.) Plus I am an agnostic.

GT

Come On Guys....

you are here only to get prepared , to be used either as a fuel for this universe, or if you are lucky enough.... via the religious route or any other route , to achieve a higher degree of productiveness for God/Allah/Creater or whatever , to be used for some other purpose.....
maybe as janitors for a different Cosmos,of which this God/Allah/Creater is again a overseer or Owner or even creator....

Those who achive a pious or favourable or good status as a good person, either you follow Judiasm, Christanity, or islam or Hinduism or Bhuddism or Shinto or even some strain of Maya`s or Inca`s religion , will go to a higher plane... placed in favourable positions for the Next stage ....... for they will then have attained a higher energy level or purer energy level or the required prepared level.... like you Bake a Cake, or prepare artificial Coal...etc.... and will be more usefull for this God/Allah/Creator is his bigger scheme of things....
for this God/Allah/Creator religion is meaningless, its just a toy , a diversion he has given to his cannon fodder creations, so as they may be able to spend the neccessary time, in which they go through this preparation process , without getting bored or to keep them occupied.
....so which ever path a Man takes... if he achieves the required level of preparedness
He will be worthy for him...

for the Rest.... who could not achieve this required level ... they will end up.... as Fuel...which propels his Universe.... like a Coal that is fed into a fire to keep the energy level going for any process.....

since his this energy sources called man are sophisticated , programeable , and thinking
species, he has given them various manuals like Bibble, Quran, Geeta, ....etc..etc....
and to some he has just given hints... from which they then have made up their own manuals like Confusious.....or Zorastars.....etc....

He need products that are near perfect.... from all aspects.... like they should follow the codes of living given in his Manuals ....and thus better prepared....
Like they teach you various subjects in a school, they train you, similiarly, his books
or Manuals which he has given to a select few over the whole existence of Humanity...simply guide these cannon foder products called Man to achieve a greater degree of prepardness for the next stage....
All those who fail.... will end up in Hell, which is nothing but `` the Bhatti `` which burns the fuel which propels this universe....

.....and when he find any requirements short,... he will pull up some from this `` Bhatti ``
the one who are relatively Less Impure to fill in the as Fixes in his scheme of things...

... .... and thats what he has told in his sent Manuals..... we will forgive some .......

Romair uncle...er..I mean Romair: I am sure you have both proved and disproved the existence of God by now. Just like Immanuel Kant. Except you have done it several times over, while Kant did it only once each time. Is there anything you PMA graduates cannot do??

Romair uncle,

The logic you are advocating is useless.

People like us don`t have any problem with contemplating and speculating for theories of explaination. This is what likes of einstien do exactly.

Our problem starts when we hear a religion X trying to insist that it is from that god. I can digest the presence of god but in no way I can accept somebody telling me something to do because of that god unless there is explicit truth. It is just not fair with me.

So, please don`t twist logic and don`t take refuge behind the `need for god` theory. We all know that we have invented god because we needed him badly.

Romair#112:

You misinterpreted again. When I said at least not yet, it clearly implies the possibility that science may never find asnwers to the question.

You are telling others that they are not debating the issue while the fact is that you are changing the debate. The debate is not about what or who created this world and why? It is about parents indoctrinating their children into accepting unproven answers to this question based on nothing more than what their parents told them and so on.

Romair #109,

You insist that these 2 questions.

1. How was something created from nothing?
2. How did life originate from inorganic materials?

are formally unanswerable.

Well, #2 refers to a historic event that occured sometime during the history of the universe. It is absolutely a natural phenomenon that will one day be explained by science.
I know of no scientist who claims otherwise. Please point me to some evidence if you disagree.
As for #1, there is some question regarding its validity. Can we meaningfully talk of `before` creation of time itself? Can we say that there was nothing `before` something if something includes time itself?


Invoking a supernatural being doesn`t seem necessary in either case. The First Cause argument is very old and has been shown to be inadequate for just as long.

Besides, don`t you see the shortcomings of your approach to religion? You can invoke God at the creation of the universe or even at the creation of life. What about after that? Is He totally removed from the world, since scientific expalanations take over? Or does He drop by once in a while and perform a `miracle` which has no scientific explanation?

Romair:
some more homework for you:

If God is Omniscient that he knows everything to occur beforehand and Omnipotent then he is a contradictory mess.

He knows things to occur before so it means he cannot change them as they are planned. Or else if he is omnipotent and could change their occurence then surely he would have to let go of the Prescient clause.

and Why there is only one God...

and if God is All Merciful then Why Evil exists and Earthquakes happen?

and If he has predestined your life on a plan (Prescient that he is) then why are you being Romair and going to Hell?

Can God be moral, meaning he could tak eresponsibility of his actions if he does then Hitler`s preordained path should send God in his own hell for planning Hitler`s fate like he did.


think some more...

UrsTruly:
``If there is no God then our line of logic must breakdown at a known terminal point,``

Must Breakdown? WHY? and why do you presume a known terminal point?

Re: # 116 Raw

The philosophy of Cause-n-effect and Prime Mover remain irrefutable to this day; 3000 years after Aristotle presented them. This logic always takes us upto a known terminal point of which we become aware of thrugh our reasoning and science of observation. If you look at the above logic in my post, you will see that our last frontier of knowledge aka known terminal point is energy. As you can see that we can never be sure that this ``known terminal point`` is the final terminal point unless we assume that ``yes there are innumerable interim points of knowledge but this logic ends at the Prime Mover``.

Now look at the forward-pass of the logic that was presented in my first post. In this case we assume that the energy is our known terminal point.


Let`s assume that energy came into being by itself

The energy must turn into atoms by itself

Atoms must turn into carbohydrates by themselves

Carbohydrates must turn into trees by themselves

Trees must turn out carved wood by itself

Then logically a chair must come into existence by itself.

This contrdicts the very science we are so proud of.

Re: # 116: Because they are confusing Profundity with Divinity

parthab #111`` You are unnecessarily letting your views about religion cloud your judgement. Let`s leave religion aside. Let`s look at science, only. And, see if scientific thought has paradoxical gaps. You can fill those gaps with whatever you want. God, Bhagwan, aliens, or just not think about them........

Do you, at least, agree that science, itself has proven that matter or energy cannot appear from nothing? Isn`t this the basis of scientific research and theories? Is more and more data that is appearing, proving this fact to be more and more solid? Or is it disproving it?

Do you agree that there is this big hole that exists in science, and that it is not because of lack of data. But because science, itself, based on its own logic, demands this hole. This hole cannot get filled with the current, ``scientific`` thought we have, because the filling of this hole, will lend science, itself, to be wrong...........i.e. the mechanism used to solve the problem, will, itself, be proven wrong, if the problem is to be solved........

This is called a paradox..................And paradoxes cannot be solved by more data. They exist because the more data that becomes availalbe, the more solid the paradox becomes...............i.e. the more science evolves the more it is going to prove that matter cannot be created from nothing................

So how the initial building blocks of matter (the raw material) and energy came into existence is beyond the scope of science to answer.........hence the paradox...........you may not want to fill the paradox with an entity called, ``God.`` But at least, admit the paradox exists! Or prove that it doesn`t exist.............

Re: # 113

Why do you have to discuss black holes, matter and paradoxes etc., when religious books or gods do not talk about them? Those are the last things we need to resolve on the basis of sticky `faith`.

If you do want to discuss black holes, the big bang and the cosmos, you better debate them with physicists who will happily debate them for you. And maybe make you a better scientist yourself.