Superstitions

[Ard-Rí]

Science (after a bit of research): "Well actually, we've figured it out.  We've discovered this Cosmic Background Radiation thing, and the only explanation for it that stands up to any scrutiny is the Big Bang."

Theists: "Well, what about what happened before the Big Bang?  You can't explain that!  God must be behind it! Gotcha!"

It was actually a Roman Catholic priest who first developed the Big Bang theory, I believe. Fr. Georges Lemaitre.

The science v. theist narrative you have going there is quite interesting, in that it shows up the fallacies believed on both sides of the fence. As you rightly demonstrate, the "God of the Gaps" fallacy is generally recurring in theism and fairly obviously unacceptable as an argument of any kind. As is "Science of the Gaps" incidently. But mainly, your argument shows that you think science is in some sort of eternal conflict with religion -- or that the two are some sort of competing "knowledges" for want of a better word. That fallacy is called "scientism", and it comes down to a belief that scientifically based knowledge is the only valid form of knowledge. The whole thing is self-defeating of course, because Science itself never claimed nor demonstrated any such thing and therefore the principle is a philosophic position.

Anyway, the point is Science is not in conflict with Religion, unless you really want it to be.

[Hardy]

I think science necessarily has to come into conflict with religion, primarily in the political arena, in areas like the campaign to teach creationism and I believe it is a noble mission to fight against the promotion of ignorance in this way.

Again, it's a matter of respect. Respect people, but not their ideologies or the malign influences of those ideologies. Live and let live, but not live and let lie and deceive.

Eamonn, I was about to post something about the "only a theory" cant, so thanks for saying what I wanted to say. However, I can't refrain from mentioning that one  thing that grinds my gears is the refusal of people to spell 'lightning' correctly.

[Jonah]

What I love about these topics is the smugness of people that actually think they above anyone else know the truth and anyone that believes otherwise are ignorant and/or not intelligent enough to understand the real truth and just follow a religion like sheep because they are told to and really if they had even half a brain they wouldn't believe a word of said religion teachings.

I'm not saying anyone is right or wrong.I don't know who is or isn't the same as anyone else in this world doesn't know.
No one can know the real truth,it's all just a matter of opinion. Or maybe I am wrong and we have assembled the greatest set of minds that have ever been born and they all are members of gaaboard.com.
Who would ever have guessed that someone from Meath and Mayo of all places would know all the answers 

One thing that annoys me though is how some see it so black and white. If you have a little belief then you are automatically cast into the ignorant group who follows everything the religion you may be a part of or born into teaches.
I like to think of myself as a half and half,I'm not sure what that makes me(nor care) but I do believe in a afterlife and a "higher power" but I'm not religious at all and don't attend my religions services or don't intend to ever.So yeah I have a little faith but I also believe a lot of the science side of how we are here and so forth.

It's not as simple a matter of being one or the other (a believer or non believer)

[Hardy]

What I love about these topics is the smugness of people that actually think they above anyone else know the truth

Funny thing, but that is exactly what I've experienced all my life from teachers, monks, priests, bishops, archbishops, cardinals, popes and others who have insisted to me that there is only one avenue to the truth and that to believe otherwise is not only in error, but qualifies me to by tormented for all eternity by the agents of this transcendent truth.

And you choose to condemn those who ask for a bit of evidence before proclaiming to believe something and call them smug, while giving a free pass to those who force their truth on people and tell them "this is the truth because it's what we've always believed"?

I suppose next you'll be telling us all to live and let live, with just as little sense of irony.

[Jonah]

What I love about these topics is the smugness of people that actually think they above anyone else know the truth

Funny thing, but that is exactly what I've experienced all my life from teachers, monks, priests, bishops, archbishops, cardinals, popes and others who have insisted to me that there is only one avenue to the truth and that to believe otherwise is not only in error, but qualifies me to by tormented for all eternity by the agents of this transcendent truth.

And now you are exactly the same as them albeit it with a different argument.
Funny how things work out isn't it.

[thewobbler]

Over the last few years I've come to a different take on the God/Origins of the Universe conundrum.

Instead of wondering why people believe/don't believe in God, I'd put us, the human race, into three very broad groups:

1. Those people who have thought about it all in depth, and come to accept that God does not exist, and are content with life on earth being as good as it gets. Therefore they can marvel at the world and enjoy what's in it, and don't need to worry about things beyond it.

2. Those people who cannot find peace with themselves unless the mystery of our origins and futures can be understood. As these things cannot be pinned down, they need to lean on a higher being, in order to fill the vacuum left behind. They need this crutch in order to carry out their human lives, and it occasionally manifests itself in extremism.

3. The majority (of the western world anyway) who do not feel the need to overly ponder the big question, and (mostly unknowingly) are happy to go along with what's the current feeling in their community/area/country. In Catholic Ireland in my lifetime, this has moved from fear of a higher being, towards nodding at the existence of a higher being.

I don't think it's possible for those in group 1 to convince those in group 2 of the "errors" of their ways, and vice versa. It is futile trying. People who "find God" need to find God. They should neither be pilloried or applauded for doing so, but if doing so helps them live a happy life, then it's only a good thing. The real problem is that there's too many people in groups 1 and 2 who spend too much of their lives trying to convert group 3 people towards their thinking. Which, again, is human nature and unfortunately is just not something we can stop happening

[Hardy]

What I love about these topics is the smugness of people that actually think they above anyone else know the truth

Funny thing, but that is exactly what I've experienced all my life from teachers, monks, priests, bishops, archbishops, cardinals, popes and others who have insisted to me that there is only one avenue to the truth and that to believe otherwise is not only in error, but qualifies me to by tormented for all eternity by the agents of this transcendent truth.

And now you are exactly the same as them albeit it with a different argument.
Funny how things work out isn't it.

Really? Show me where I force people to believe what I believe, under penalty of awful punishment. Or show me where I ask (never mind insist) that anybody believe anything without evidence.

[Lar Naparka]

Well, this 'discussion' is bubbling nicely now, isn't it?
I admit that I was up to a bit of mischief when I slipped in the questions that led to this dust up (back in post #39.)
I hope it goes on for a bit longer- long enough to get the New Year off to a lively start at any rate.Yet, when it's over, I don't expect anyone here or anywhere else who has a definite opinion on the subject in question to have changed position one iota.
At the same time, I am being deadly serious when I pose the question; "Where did it all begin?"
I can't accept the teachings of the Catholic Church on the matter or indeed those of any other religious organisation of any sort.
That's not to say that I reject totally the  idea that some source outside our knowledge of physics didn't initiate the process of creation. I don't actually believe this to be the case but I leave the possibility open.
I accept that current scientific thinking points to the probability that there was a Big Bang and that the universe as we know it evolved from this event. No problem with that; logic as we know it points in that direction.
But future discoveries may alter our thinking in this regard; I have no way of knowing and neither, I suggest, has anyone else.
I did a Google search on ' origin of the universe' and some interesting results came back.
Here's one I found

"The Big Bang
Once it was understood that the Universe had a beginning, scientists began to ask "how did it come into existence, and what existed before it?"
Most scientists now believe that the answer to the first part of the question is that the Universe sprang into existence from a singularity -- a term physicists use to describe regions of space that defy the laws of physics. We know very little about singularities, but we believe that others probably exist in the cores of black holes.
The second part of the question, as to what existed before the Big Bang, has scientists baffled. By definition, nothing existed prior to the beginning, but that fact creates more questions than answers. For instance, if nothing existed prior to the Big Bang, what caused the singularity to be created in the first place?"

Yeah, I know, I know.. Abot.com isn't a high brow, high tec source of information about anythiing but nevertheless, the question posed remains a very valid one.
According to another source, all matter in existence before the rapid expansion we call the Big Bang, could have fitted into a modern sitting room. Yet another stated that to account for the phenomenon we call Cosmic Background Radiation, some particles traveled at speeds far in excess of the speed of light.
Obviously, the laws of physics and of logic as we know them didn't apply back then.
So what did?

[armaghniac]

The thing about science and religion is that science describes the system, but cannot help with the reason the system exists.

As for priests, monks, rabbis etc having a limited view with everyone else in error this is like Marxists or Sinn Fein

[ONeill]

Leprechauns.

[Eamonnca1]

"God did it" is a lot easier to understand than a 500-page explanation of the Big Bang or other scientific theories. Science is hard work. The amount of knowledge we have now is more than a single person can assimilate. It's a lifetime's work just understanding pieces of the current body of scientific knowledge.  Even understanding the gist of it takes a bit of work.

A lot of people give up at page 1 and just throw their lot in with the God hypothesis. This is a lazy approach that doesn't require much work. But people who actually put in the work to try and understand these things almost always come to accept them once they understand. Evolution by natural selection is accepted by just about everyone who actually understands it and rejected by those who don't. Does that make me "smug" for saying so?  I don't really care, because this is about the biggest questions of the universe, not the personal attitude of eamonnca1. 

[Puckoon]

A lot of people give up at page 1 and just throw their lot in with the God hypothesis. 

What? To quote the line you followed this whopper with - That is a lazy analysis!

[Eamonnca1]

Sorry Puck, but I have heard it many times from people saying something along the lines of "I don't understand how natural selection could possibly work, so I'm going with the God hypothesis."

[Ard-Rí]

Sure why are the two mutually exclusive? I'm out of my head with drink and I can still see that they're not.

[Eamonnca1]

Sure why are the two mutually exclusive? I'm out of my head with drink and I can still see that they're not.

The prosecution rests.