Earth, center of the Universe..

scotchfaster..God likes comets thats funny.  A human does not have to be a narcissist for crying out loud to believe that God love's him and created humans for personal fellowship.  You have hard science, ok no fight from me.

relax....relax...adolphus won't get here until 2029.  You know the rock that is going to sand blast Santa Anna Cailf.

But it is the scientist that told me "It is as if the Universe was created and was waiting for the arrival of man".  Its not like it will cause a paradigm shift in what you believe, its not that difficult.

 I believe there are parallel Universes out there. I believe in the Calibi-yau manifold, I read Lisa Randalls book  Warped Passages,  I read Michio Kaku's book  Parallel Worlds.  And a whole lot of other books.  Creation by Grant Jefferys. 

 There has to be upper dimensions.  Nothing comes from nothing.  To have something, anything at all there has to be a progenitor.  The upper dimensions could be the spirit world.  A scientist told me,  There was a collapse in the upper D world that caused the "expansion" (BIG BANG) with the CY manifolds curling up around atoms.  The upper dimentions that was already there (parallel worlds, spirit world, Kingdom of Heaven,  Supermans world,)  curled up on the atoms.  And that there might be ONE atom in the Universe.  It is superpositioned and is itself every atom in the big U.

  What the #@*# do I know I was not born 14 billion years ago.  I just read a bunch of bloody paper backs, ha ha One thing we can agree on,  it is a wonderfull Universe and if you take away the people in it (those infestations) I would not want to be here.

 I want Pittsburgh to win their seventh super bowl.  My gut is telling me Green Bay will over come Pitts defense in the fourth quarter and win it.  "cheers"

I like it when religious people say things like "Nothing comes from nothing.  To have something, anything at all there has to be a progenitor," but then will argue that god does not need a creator because god has always existed.  If one can wrap their head around the idea that god always existed than they can understand the theory that something has always existed without a god, whether that thing be a universe, a mutliverse, or something else.  All that can really be said on this topic is that we don't really know anything (yet); some will see god in the unknown, but this is because they want to see him not because there is evidence of his being there.

You obviously haven't met many religious people, have you? ;)

collinsdanielp hello..God is not unknown.  I tried to keep this on science,  but science can not stand on its own.  Many people keep the religious thing going day and night wrestling with it.  Those that feel estranged from God persecute Christians thinking they are getting God's favour in it.  

 collinsdanielp, You really can not draw any deductible conclusions about God unless you have experienced him.  Christians can't stay the course without God intervening into their lives.  I can't, or I would have givin up the Bible as just another form of mythology.

 Im not the type that will accept a religion based only on teaching, I needed more than that.  I needed to meet him or just for get it.  If any Christian has not had real revelations (not psychosoematic imaginations) you would have to wonder if they are really sincere.

 On the other hand some people do not want there to be a God, and will fight him all of their lives.   

I would like to thank you for a very civil arguement thus far, too often people can not debate such matters without things soon devolving into a name calling contest.  I was one of those people who wrestled with religion day and night for years, without any otherworldly intervention, and now am a non-believer.

I said people see god in the unknown.  The arguement that people have had personal experiences of god is all fine and good, but recognize that people have experienced allah, brahma, buddah, zeus, and thor among a large host of others throughout history; and numerous people, myself included, have never had such an intervention from any deity.  Ultimately personal revelations are completely subjective and provide no evidence to anyone besides the person who experienced them.  I like that you made sure to mention that your revelation was not psychosematic imaginations, since mental hospitals and street corner are filled with people who believe god talks to them on a regular basis, and there are numerous crimes committed because god told them to do it.  I'm not questioning the truthfullness or honesty of your exprience, but I do question the authenticity of most such communications with the divine, especially when they are calls to criminal action.  You will understand if I am unconvinced by the personal revelations of others.

I do not believe there is a god, but that is not for lack of want of one.  Believeing that there would be ultimate perfect justice meted out, believing that there is an afterlife of eternal happiness waiting those who lead good lives, believing that there is a divine and good plan in place for the world, would all be very nice and comforting, but I see no evidence of any of these things.  I do not choose my beliefs on what I would like to be the case, or what makes me feel better, but on what I think and percieve to be true.

I'll echo both those sentiments. This has been an interesting conversation.

As far as God goes, if I have to label myself it's as an atheist, but I always want to put an asterisk after that. I'm an atheist with regards to any conventional God I've ever heard of. A God that would reward or punish His creations for eternity based on whether or not they managed to "find Him" during their mortal lives while He dropped subtle clues? No, I don't believe that. Talk about injustice! All those born before Jesus are condemned to eternal torture? If such a God existed, I wouldn't consider him worthy of worship.

God as a divine, unknowable creator spark infusing the Universe in some way? I'm agnostic when it comes to that vision of God. If it brings you comfort and doesn't warp your thinking, there's certainly no harm.

collinsdanielp , scotchfaster.. Id rather not push anyone into a position to define themself.  It is about science; to see if science can stand on its own. With out God it can not.  If that is really all about religion then so be it.  Information no matter how much of it we have is of little value without real intellegence.  I can preach all day long in a church, I do not need to here, that is not my intent.

 Our faith is only as good as the object we believe in.  If I cry out into the fog for God and he never answers but I have to provide his answer , forget it.  He must make a real attempt to come like a bolt out of the blue to convince me.  Im not as smart as most people so I must be convinced. 

 Religion of itself bores me to death.

 The people of the Old Teastiment are not condemed because of not recieving Jesus.  They are children of God the father.  Christians are children of his son Jesus. 

 When the Holy Spirit enters ones life, he has a personality change.  We come into a daily revelatory walk with him.  Not a schizophrenic voice in the head mental problem.

Yes, there's some mystery in the Universe, and currently known scientific principles can't explain them all. Physics itself breaks down inside the singularity of a black hole (a point of infinite density makes no sense), we don't know why the Universe seems to be expanding at an accelerating rate, and so on. There's no universal theory of physics, just two very different ones that are both excellent at predicting very different phenomena.

But why should we expect science to explain everything anyway? It can only speak to observations that we can make and theories that we can verify. 

You seem to be saying that God is the only explanation for what science cannot explain. This has been the historical position of the Catholic Church, but the problem is that the realm of God has shrunk as science has advanced. So why should you think that God must reside in one mystery that science has no answer for, when those mysteries have fallen to scientific advances time and again? Even the Vatican has accepted the truth of evolution through natural selection.

I personally like to think of the big cosmic/metaphysical mysteries as just mysteries. I don't know the answers, and perhaps no one does. I'm okay with calling the explanation "God", but for me "God" is just a shorthand for "mysterious explanation."

collinsdanielp.  Before the BB I mean at 10 -43 of a second it was superphysical. These are the words of the scientists.  Physics was born from the superphysical, how ever you choose to interpret that.

 Mathematics is the language of physics. Jonn Wheeler (a pillar in the science community for decades) said (and I have this on DVD) "that mathematics are a bunch of equations like rescipes, and if we try and make them fly, not on equation will put on wings and fly. But the Universe flys.  The Universe that we observe is not a chance phenomenon."

 Im saying if we follow scientific logic far enough it becomes circular reasoning. Every thing in the Universe is supported by a upperdimensional force.  Particles have Sparticles..The Universe has parallel Universes..man has a spirit..etc.

 Can science answer "What keeps the molecules moving?"  " They have no answer for consciencesness at all.  Only that it has to do with the head." "How did life start?" Iv'e read all the ad hoc theories.  Ordinary matter can not form itself into organic matter even if Evolution could repeat itself a million times. 

 I can give you Bibical quote's to your personal e-mail if you like. 

 But..My OP was the center of the universe. Check Joseph Silk  Head of astrophysics and Professor of astronomy at Oxford.  His book  The big bang 3ed edition  page 55.

Hey scotchfaster..Im ok with that..It was the Vatican that took ptolemys view that the earth was in the center of the Universe.  Then they were embarrassed  to find out how wrong they were.  Galileo was persecuted  far more from his colleagues than the Church.

If the center is .0001%  then that is 13.7 Milliom light years. Or 27 Million light year radius. Or 27 thousend galaxies end to end.

There's really no difference between ordinary matter and organic matter, unless you are using the term "organic" as its used in "organic chemistry": molecules that contain carbon-hydrogen bonds.

There are plenty of non-living organic molecules and compounds out there. When a person dies, they don't change from organic to ordinary matter - they are made of the same matter, but certain processes stop.

Better to use the term "living matter", I think.

The origin of life from non-living matter is called abiogenesis, not evolution. We know that organic molecules would naturally form under the conditions of the early Earth, and there are theories of how that might have lead over the next two billion years to complex cells...but if you choose to believe that abiogenesis required God, no one can really refute you.

scotchfaster. No one that I know of preaches on this topic in any church.  They should.  I believe God is apart of science and should not be excluded.  What are they afraid of?  What are ministers afraid of?

 All we talk about is ethics. 

 You never told me who is going to win the super bowl..

Easy: the Packers and the Steelers will both win in different Universes.

I'm rooting for the Packers, though, on account of working for a client in Wisconsin...

scotchfaster then we need to count up all those Us out there and see who wins the most of them. Are you saying I am in other Us?  scary.. At my karate school they called me scary larry..

 Timothedous how ever you spell it gave me an invite to  Atheist and Theist forum.  I have only posted twice.  More freedom to express things.

"Im saying if we follow scientific logic far enough it becomes circular reasoning."

I couldn't disagree with you more.  Give me an example of scientific circular reasoning.  The presence of an upperdemensional force, super particles, or multiuniverses do not show circular scientific logic, even if any of these were more than hypotheses.  If you are arguing that propents of science often make wild hypotheses when presented with things science can not yet explain, than I agree.  Too often people will jump into a multiverse or circular universe theory to explain what happened before the big bang when in reality we don't know and currently (and perhaps will always) have no way of knowing. 

Religious reasoning, however, is often unabashedly circular.  Arguements about the divine inspiriation or authenticity of the bible (or any other such book, like the koran) or the inherent goodness of god are notoriously circular. 

"Before the BB I mean at 10 -43 of a second it was superphysical. These are the words of the scientists.  Physics was born from the superphysical, how ever you choose to interpret that."

We do not understand what happened in the universe so soon after the big bang, and it seems as though the physical laws did not govern the universe for the first nanoseconds of its existence.  This period is currently a nadir of scientific understanding, but a lack of understanding no more points to gods intervention than it does to a circular universe or a multiverse theory, it merely means we don't know.

"Can science answer "What keeps the molecules moving?"  " They have no answer for consciencesness at all.  Only that it has to do with the head." "How did life start?" Iv'e read all the ad hoc theories.  Ordinary matter can not form itself into organic matter even if Evolution could repeat itself a million times. "

You again see god begining where human knowledge ends, finding god in the unknown.  This is fine, but I disgree that lack of knowledge is proof of gods existence.  Science makes no claim to be able to answer every question about the universe, but it can provide strong evidence in support of those phenomina it does claim to understand.  The beginnings of life on earth, the mysteries of consciousness, and the origin of physical laws have no scientific answers (currently).  Be wary of such god of the gaps arguements, science is making progress every day.  Research into the nature of consciousness and contributions to our understanding of the human brain, as well as experiements on hypotheses concerning the origins of life,  are ongoing. 

Go Packers!

collinsdanielp.  Good position you take can't argue.  Even better position with the Packs..

 If we only stick to science and nothing elce we are limited.  But I"ve got good news.  The bub-bidy  bub-bidy Bible shows us how to communicate with the almighty.  Children do it.  Follow the instructions and when you do not expect it according to his will and purpose he does.  And let me tell you something,  I say this from experience (Why elce would I make a fool of myself)  When he does commuicate (audible voice wile fully awake) You will NEVER have any dought again. 

At the risk of repeating collinsdanielp, whose every post I've agreed with so far, when I read statements like "they (scientists) have no answer for consciencesness at all" I wonder if you've surveyed the field of conscious research (here's a good paper to start with)  or the book "Conciousness Explained" by Dennett.

You may not like the answers, just as you may not like Paul Davies' answer to the finely tuned universe question, but the answers are out there.

Now here's a question to you. You obviously see the Bible as holy scripture and the path to knowing God. However,the Hindus have their sacred texts, the Muslims have their Koran, Mormonism is by some reports the fastest growing religion, and so on. From my perspective, they all seem to have followers who are convinced that their path is the one true way to connect with God. All religions will have advocates who will say essentially "I know my path is the correct one, try it and you will agree with me."

As an atheist who would nonetheless like to connect with God if he/she/it exists, what am I supposed to do - give every religion a fair shake? This seems kind of impossible, because each religion (with the possible exception of Hinduism) teaches that all other religions are wrong, so it seems like I'd be stuck with the first religion I embraced. Why should I go with Christianity and not some other religion with equally devout followers?