Does God exist?

[Pookah]

I think I read it does metabolize in a way. Only reproduce in the sense that when it dies/explodes it can be taken up to form another.

I like thinking about weird possibilities.

Some science is pretty fantastical. Quantum physics makes about as much sense as alchemy to me. But perhaps I don't have the brain for that. I do like reading stuff/questioning though.

I suppose my point is I like when we all share info/ideas.

Edited to add: I think my idea of space comes from Star Trek. So I keep picturing starting out from a set of coordinates and being able to go in any direction infinitely. Like from the center of earth out. If I can't do we hit a wall? Transport back?

 

[NathanielWingatePeaslee]

A lot of the time quantum physics doesn't even make sense to quantum physicists. It's totally counter-intuitive. I can understand some of it, but it's way outside of my degree. It's mostly just cool.

 

[Anomaly]

I like this entry because I wanted to know how life can arise from inorganic matter.
Abiogenesis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

First came the synthesis of organic matter, which has been shown to be possible in fairly simple conditions. Protobionts then probably lead on to the first prokaryotic organisms.

Here's a picture from the Campbell and Reece bio text.

Phospholipids naturally assemble themselves in a bilayer which forms the cell membrane.

It's selectively permeable, so things can start to assemble on the inside, if they weren't caught in the initial formation of the cell shape already. The current thinking is that RNA was the initial genetic code as it has enzymatic properties. It would probably not be DNA as protein and DNA are like the chicken and the egg problem.

 

[Banvard]

I think I read it does metabolize in a way. Only reproduce in the sense that when it dies/explodes it can be taken up to form another.

I like thinking about weird possibilities.

Some science is pretty fantastical. Quantum physics makes about as much sense as alchemy to me. But perhaps I don't have the brain for that. I do like reading stuff/questioning though.

I suppose my point is I like when we all share info/ideas.

Edited to add: I think my idea of space comes from Star Trek. So I keep picturing starting out from a set of coordinates and being able to go in any direction infinitely. Like from the center of earth out. If I can't do we hit a wall? Transport back?

"I think I read it does metabolize in a way. Only reproduce in the sense that when it dies/explodes it can be taken up to form another."

The sun is made up mostly of hydrogen and sort of feeds on helium in a way. When it starts running out of helium, it starts to panic, and expands; which will encompass half the solar system. Then after millions of years after that, fusion will stop and the sun will collapse into a white dwarf; our sun is too small to cause a supernova.

 

[Banvard]

I have questions that google can't answer.

What is the significance behind our ability to sing?

Is space infinite in all directions or a finitely dimensioned loop...which is expanding? What is outside of that then?

I like this entry because I wanted to know how life can arise from inorganic matter.
Abiogenesis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Could the sun be alive?

"What is the significance behind our ability to sing?"

I'm terrible at singing - so not everyone has the ability. Our brains have developed to appreciate music, so we have the luxury of utilising it. I like to listen to birds on the garden - their music is some form of communication as well.

"Is space infinite in all directions or a finitely dimensioned loop...which is expanding? What is outside of that then?"

The known universe isn't infinite - beyond the universe, who knows. The observable universe is 95 to 100 billion light years across. It still continues to expand, but scientists think (expansion is speeding up). In trillions of years time, the universe might be just one fixed size; or it might start to reverse back into another big bang. The latter is less likely, because you'd need the same amount of force that created the universe and started off the acceleration. Unless the universe is like a rubber band and will snap back into place when it's at its maximum size.

This article hinted somewhere that our universe could be in a black hole in another universe. Boggles the mind.

Our world may be a giant hologram - space - 15 January 2009 - New Scientist

 

[Banvard]

A lot of the time quantum physics doesn't even make sense to quantum physicists. It's totally counter-intuitive. I can understand some of it, but it's way outside of my degree. It's mostly just cool.

So true, they'd rather it not there. So unpredictable, and it doesn't make sense to them, because it goes against so much. Sort of like String Theory.

 

[NathanielWingatePeaslee]

It still continues to expand, but scientists think expansion is slowing down.

Actually, the current consensus is that the expansion is accelerating, which has everyone baffled. Dark energy FTW!

Dark energy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[James1]

God does exist, it surely cannot be one big coinsedence that we exist in the way we do and all the order that comes with being human, what it takes to live etc etc

Religion is indeed man made but that does not equate to saying there is no God. Look around you there is God everywhere!

 

[Banvard]

Actually, the current consensus is that the expansion is accelerating, which has everyone baffled. Dark energy FTW!

Dark energy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Thanks for correcting me - I was under the impression that it was slowing down - from old documentaries or books I read as a kid. Can't keep up with the new stuff coming out.

Speed of expansion of the Universe

 

[NathanielWingatePeaslee]

God does exist, it surely cannot be one big coinsedence that we exist in the way we do and all the order that comes with being human, what it takes to live etc etc

Have you actually read this thread?

Thanks for correcting me - I was under the impression that it was slowing down - from old documentaries or books I read as a kid. Can't keep up with the new stuff coming out.

Speed of expansion of the Universe

Oh good, I was afraid I was going to come of as combative.

Entropic heat death; the most depressing end of the universe imaginable. Absolute cold stillness and infinite isolation.

 

[Banvard]

Have you actually read this thread?

Oh good, I was afraid I was going to come of as combative.

Entropic heat death; the most depressing end of the universe imaginable. Absolute cold stillness and infinite isolation.

"Have you actually read this thread?"

This thread won't stop expanding with the same questions. :: I'm not going to touch this one - think I've explained myself fully.

 

[Pookah]

I start to think "why does anything exist at all?" and then my head asplodes.

 

[yohannes]

Premise 1. Whatever begins to exist must have a cause.
Premise 2. The Universe began to exist.
Conclusion: Therefeore the Universe has a cause

 

[yohannes]

Whatever begins to exist must have a cause. Most of us have no problem accepting this principle. We assume its truth in virtually every aspect in our daily lives. Our experience always confirms it and never denies it.

Most Common Objection

"What caused God"

The question "What caused X?" only makes sense if there was some indication that "X" had a beginning. There is nothing that indicates that the cause of the Big Bang had a beginning. In fact since time did not exist beyond the Big Bang, the cause of the Big Bang must have existed timelessly. Thus it could have no beginning, and hence no cause. We may want to say this about the universe, but we can't, since as we have seen, the evidence is the universe had a beginning.

Astrophysicists have been discovering that the Big Bang appears to have been incredibly fine-tuned. Stephen Hawking describes the situation,

"...the universe and the laws of physics seem to have been specifically designed for us. If any one of about 40 physical qualities had more than slightly different values, life as we know it could not exist: Either atoms would not be stable, or they wouldn't combine into molecules, or the stars wouldn't form the heavier elements, or the universe would collapse before life could develop, and so on..."7

The numerical values of the different natural forces like gravity, electromagnetism, subatomic forces, charges of electrons, etc. "just happened" to fall into an extremely narrow range that is conducive for life to exist. Minute changes in any one of these forces would have destroyed the possibility for life and in most cases destroyed the universe itself.

Consider these examples from among dozens:

1. The Proton/Electron Mass Ratio is 1836 to 1.
- Had it been slightly different, there would be no chemistry.
2. Yet the electrical charge of the proton and the electron are exactly equal numerically.
- Had they been fractionally different, hydrogen atoms would repel one another, and there would be no galaxies.
3. If the strong force (the force that binds protons and neutrons in the nucleus) was just
- 2% less, it would have destroyed all nuclei essential to life
- 2% more, it would have prevented the formation of protons and therefore matter
4. If the expansion rate of the universe was
-less by one part in a million million, the universe would have collapsed very early
-greater by one part in a million, galaxies, stars and planets would never have formed.

 

[NathanielWingatePeaslee]

yohannes: in response to your cut and pasted (without credit to the actual author) 'proof' that God exists, I shall now post a link with rebuttals to it:

Infophilia: The Cavuto on Campus

I'd rebut it myself, but since you're unlikely to read it, what's the point? I see no evidence that you've done anything more than google 'proof that God exists' and spend a few seconds skimming, cutting, and pasting (again).

Have a nice day now.

 

[worrywort]

Premise 1. Whatever begins to exist must have a cause.
Premise 2. The Universe began to exist.
Conclusion: Therefeore the Universe has a cause

Yea man, I think you're exactly right again! The cosmological argument continues like this;

Premise 4: The cause of the universe must be either natural or supernatural.
Premise 5: It can not be natural as it is nature itself that is being created.
Conclusion: Therefore the cause of the universe must be supernatural.

i.e. supernatural = something outside of space, time, matter and energy.

And the answer to the question "What caused God?" to me is an obvious one, because it is impossible to have an infinite string of causes stretching back into the past. There has to have been a first cause that itself was uncaused, and this uncaused first cause I'd call God.

To illustrate this, imagine a domino called 'X' that represents the moment 'now'. Now imagine a series of dominoes stretching back to infinity. If you require an infinite string of dominoes to fall before you reach domino 'X' you will never reach domino 'X'. Therefore there has to have been a first domino that fell to start off the chain, and this domino itself must be uncaused.

yea, and the teleological argument, Roger Penrose calculated the odds that the cosmos would generate a life permitting universe by chance as 1 in 10^[10^123]. i.e there's no way this universe came together by chance. There must have been something guiding it.

 

[NathanielWingatePeaslee]

I start to think "why does anything exist at all?" and then my head asplodes.

People who refuse to think for themselves make my head asplode. Case in point.

The fact that you do makes it beside the point that I don't agree with you about whether God exists.

 

[phobiadictates]

if it does exist than he is a fuker some of the people's lifes

 

[Emily_G]

if it does exist than he is a fuker some of the people's lifes

Or we do that to ourselves.

 

[johnny 85]

well said emily. u get ur life, total freedom, its up to u to live it. no one said it was gonna be easy.