The Life, The Universe, and Everything Thread

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The Life, The Universe, and Everything Thread

Postby Arclight_Dynamo » 07 Jul 2015, 15:19

Okay, so a discussion of god, creation, and all that stuff broke out in LRL chat. It wasn't appropriate there, so here's a thread for it. Have at it!
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Re: The Life, The Universe, and Everything Thread

Postby Elomin Sha » 07 Jul 2015, 15:26

Why does God need a starship?
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Re: The Life, The Universe, and Everything Thread

Postby orthogonaltee » 07 Jul 2015, 15:28

I was just going to say that I am not trying to say that I know what happened before the Big Bang and I didn't mean to give the impression that I did by my very first comment. I generally don't go beyond saying that I don't know. That being said, there are an awful lot of things that I don't know, and I don't necessarily think I have to acknowledge all the vast number of statements people make that I know nothing about to be right or wrong in order to say that there is a large amount of evidence towards the Big Bang having occurred, at least as the current theory stands.
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Re: The Life, The Universe, and Everything Thread

Postby Himyul » 07 Jul 2015, 15:29

There were a number of things being talked about in chat, and I certainly couldn't keep up with all of them, so thank you Arclight, for creating the thread.

I believe what we were discussing was the postulate that in order claim something exists, one must be able to prove its existence. I hope I'm not mis-characterizing the sentiment on that. Is that roughly stating the position accurately?
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Re: The Life, The Universe, and Everything Thread

Postby orthogonaltee » 07 Jul 2015, 15:30

Elomin Sha wrote:Why does God need a starship?


Never quote Star Trek V. It brings the bad juju.
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Re: The Life, The Universe, and Everything Thread

Postby Elomin Sha » 07 Jul 2015, 15:32

orthogonaltee wrote:
Elomin Sha wrote:Why does God need a starship?


Never quote Star Trek V. It brings the bad juju.

So, no dancing Ohura then?
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Re: The Life, The Universe, and Everything Thread

Postby Inevitable » 07 Jul 2015, 15:39

So someone mentioned that it was silly to look at the universe, in all its wonder, and not believe that there was a God behind it. Now there are a number of ways I can address this, and various different points I could make, but I'll go with this analogy concerning the probability of life developing, since that's what is usually being referred to when someone brings up complexity or beauty. It's somewhat relevant to the universe as a whole as well, I suppose.

It involves the lottery. Hopefully everyone here is at least aware of the lottery and the probabilities involved in winning it. In case anyone somehow interprets this as a strange advertisement for gambling, let me stress it's not. I only know this information about the lottery because I work in a store and sell tickets. It is a money black hole and I strongly advise against doing it. Anyway, follow along with the questions:

1. What is the chance of a specific person winning the lottery?

I'm going to assume it's some variation of "astronomically slim".

2. What is the chance of someone, anyone, winning the lottery in any game?

If you don't know, I'll save you the trouble and tell you it's very high. Rollovers (where no-one wins a draw and the prize rolls over to the next game) are extremely rare. Someone almost always wins.

Now, to the person that just won the lottery their win might seem like a miracle. They know what the chance of them winning was, and they can barely believe they actually beat the odds and won. But to the rest of us, nothing unusual has happened. We know that SOMEONE was probably going to win and it just happened to be them. It's all simply probability, no divine intervention necessary.

3. What is the chance of life developing on a specific planet?

"Astronomically slim" would be my answer once again. The criteria required is incredibly specific.

4. What is the chance of life developing an a planet, somewhere in the universe?

Almost certain. The conditions are specific, but the Universe is vast and there's plenty of opportunities for it to happen.

Just like the lottery winner, the life that develops on this lucky planet might be prone to describing their existence as miraculous. They see the chances, the complexity and the specificity of the required conditions and to them it seems unbelievable. But, just like the lottery, it's not. It's nothing more than probability.
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Re: The Life, The Universe, and Everything Thread

Postby Himyul » 07 Jul 2015, 15:40

Orthogonaltee:

Well, none of us were there, so nobody really knows for sure :). To the best of my knowledge, there are only two generally accepted views on the creation of the universe. 1, the Big Bang. 2, God did it (possibly with a Big Bang).

Personally, I ascribe to the young universe model, not primarily because of observable data, but because the bible claims it. This is not to say that I don't take observable data into account. Simply that the worldview I ascribe to informs my decisions on the matter.

Now, if those are the only two options for creation, and I were to not believe in God, then I would definitely believe in the Big Bang and an old universe.

As for the data itself, there is evidence that can be used to support either claim. It all depends on the assumptions you make in the process of interpreting the data, and those assumptions will generally be based on how one is approaching the problem.

For example, arctic ice cores: Deep core analysis finds that there are something like 100,000 layers of dust in the glaciers of the arctic. Old Earth subscribers would say that proves the earth is at least 100,000+ years old, so the Young Earth theory must be wrong. Young Earth scientists look at that data and point out that distinct layers of dust can be created by a single storm, which means the number of years of history could be much less.

My point is, it's quite difficult to form one's ideas about God from observable data. Far more often, our views of the observable data are formed based on our understanding of God.
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Re: The Life, The Universe, and Everything Thread

Postby orthogonaltee » 07 Jul 2015, 15:48

Himyul,

The thing is, we can actually see back pretty far into the past because of the nature of the speed of light. For the most part, much of the evidence we have for the Big Bang is actually based on radiation, which is the same thing that visible light is. We've actually seen back and observed a universe that appears to be much older than a 100,000 years. We can see a universe that is anywhere from 13.7-14 billion years old at current estimates, and we have better equipment making more observations all the time.

As to forming opinions about God based on observable data, that would be one of the things I think it is best for people to assess themselves. I can't tell another person what they themselves have experienced, but I can speak from something of an expertise in cosmology (the study of the origin and development of the universe) and cosmological topology (the study of the shape of the universe) which is essentially my area of study in physics.
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Re: The Life, The Universe, and Everything Thread

Postby Himyul » 07 Jul 2015, 15:55

Inevitable:

The universe surely is vast beyond comprehension, and in general, your argument is mathematically sound. Incredibly improbable things happen the time.

However, there are also a lot of even more incredibly improbable things that don't happen, such as teleporting to the room next door due to quantum fluctuation.

For this to be a valid explanation the odds must be reasonable that the whole process could occur by random chance. The numerator must be the probability that the universe, galaxy, solar system, planet, single cell life, multi-cell life, and everything on up to us (and beyond?) all generated by random chance. The denominator would be the number of planets that were even capable of supporting life, which itself requires extremely specific conditions.

I put forward the idea that while the odds of <i> someone </i> winning the lottery are high, the odds of life spontaneously generating anywhere are still low.
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Re: The Life, The Universe, and Everything Thread

Postby austriamann » 07 Jul 2015, 15:59

The points made about light, soil layers, etc. all depend on the assumption that the universe has always worked the way we observe it now. If God created the universe already in motion, this is not necessarily the case. As for the lottery analogy, the ability of anyone to win the lottery is entirely dependent on human beings DECIDING to declare a winner. If this conscious choice was not made there would be no winner, similarly, with life in the universe.
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Re: The Life, The Universe, and Everything Thread

Postby orthogonaltee » 07 Jul 2015, 16:01

Himyul

You flip a coin, it lands up heads. What is the probability that it landed heads just now. It's actually 100% The problem with applying probability to past events is that probability actually says nothing about past events, only about future events. The probability that this universe exists and that I exist and that you exist is actually 100%. We have seen it to be true. Probability is a dangerous tool when not applied to scenarios where it can be applied.
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Re: The Life, The Universe, and Everything Thread

Postby Himyul » 07 Jul 2015, 16:05

Orthoganaltee:

Yes, the "starlight problem" as I believe it's generally called, seems to contradict a young universe model. I've heard explanations for it (such as God made the light in transit), but none of them are satisfying to me.

My understanding is that the Big Bang theory suffers from a similar problem, though. You probably know more about it than me since I'm not a physicist, but I've heard it described as the "Horizon" problem, which states that the CBR is too homogenized. The accepted solution to the problem is Inflation, which states that for a very brief time, all the matter in the universe expanded outward at (much) faster than light speeds. It's not understood how or why it started or how or why it stopped. It has been added in to make the model fit. The only evidence for it is that the universe exists as observed.


As for the coin flip, you're right. Once observed, the probability curve collapses and you have either 0% or 100%. The point of running those sorts of odds isn't to prove anything, but just to see how likely it would've been. If the number is 00.000001%, that's probably not how the universe/life came to be. If it's 95%, it's a pretty darn good theory. All we know for sure (the 100%) is that one way or another, we exist.
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Re: The Life, The Universe, and Everything Thread

Postby orthogonaltee » 07 Jul 2015, 16:07

austriamann

It is a potentially valid assumption that at some point in the past, the rules of the universe were different than they are observed to be in future. Thus, the things we observe today may be tainted by our inability to understand how and when the rules changed. But let's look at why. If it is the case that God shows us a world that has a set of laws and observable evidence today, that God would be showing us evidence that is giving us a large amount of erroneous data that overwhelming says one thing. Why? I like Galileo on this, who said "I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with senses, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use". By all means, believe in God, but I don't think I'd want to believe in a Trickster God.
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Re: The Life, The Universe, and Everything Thread

Postby orthogonaltee » 07 Jul 2015, 16:11

Himyul, I will say we know very little, something like 4% of the Universe has a well-established explanation for it. But still, we know more than we exist. "What might have been" has no real meaning when we can adequately find evidence of a large amount of things in our past.

As to the Big Bang Theory suffering problems, it most certainly does. All theories, in the end, suffer problems that must be tackled, and scientist actually love problems. We routinely delight in problems because it means we get to do more science. What scientists do not do is throw away what works because of what doesn't work. We try to fix what doesn't work by gaining more evidence.
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Re: The Life, The Universe, and Everything Thread

Postby Himyul » 07 Jul 2015, 16:15

On uniformitarianism:

The big objection to uniformitarianism from a biblical standpoint is the account of the Flood in Genesis. If we assume there wasn't a global catastrophic flood, then yeah, it's reasonable to assume that everything we see was generated/refined by processes we see today. I think most Christians would agree that God is a God of order, and not only has he given us the senses to observe the world, He has also created and maintains the rules of the the universe that allow us to form use our senses and reason.

The bible itself speaks on this issue in 2 Peter 3:3-6

"Know this first of all, that in the last days mockers will come with their mocking, following after their own lusts, and saying, “Where is the promise of His coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all continues just as it was from the beginning of creation.” For when they maintain this, it escapes their notice that by the word of God the heavens existed long ago and the earth was formed out of water and by water, through which the world at that time was destroyed, being flooded with water."

I don't expect that the orbit of the earth is going to change dramatically overnight, but I do believe that there was a incomprehensibly catastrophic event on the order of 4000ish years ago.
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Re: The Life, The Universe, and Everything Thread

Postby Himyul » 07 Jul 2015, 16:23

orthogonaltee wrote:As to the Big Bang Theory suffering problems, it most certainly does. All theories, in the end, suffer problems that must be tackled, and scientist actually love problems. We routinely delight in problems because it means we get to do more science. What scientists do not do is throw away what works because of what doesn't work. We try to fix what doesn't work by gaining more evidence.


That's fine. I don't have a problem considering the Big Bang a valid theory. I just have a problem with it being considered the only valid theory. Since the Horizon problem and the Starlight problem are basically the same problem (light is just too darn slow), that is not sufficient justification to consider one theory valid and the other invalid.

It's the same sort of thing with the Oort cloud and dark matter. The old universe model assumes an Oort cloud because comets can't last for millions of years because they would melt. Dark matter must exist because without it, galaxies would spin apart after millions of years. A Young universe doesn't have these problems (admittedly, it probably has others), and therefore doesn't require these unproven solutions. I, too, am keen to learn more about the universe. From my perspective, the immensity and wonderousness of the universe is a testament to God's glory.
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Re: The Life, The Universe, and Everything Thread

Postby austriamann » 07 Jul 2015, 16:26

Scientifically, there are elements to the universe that we can't explain. Science has pieced together the big bang from scattered,inconclusive evidence, and still can't explain how matter appeared from "nothing".

"What scientists do not do is throw away what works because of what doesn't work."

The fact that so many unpatchable holes appear in a theory proves that it does not "work" in its current form.
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Re: The Life, The Universe, and Everything Thread

Postby Himyul » 07 Jul 2015, 16:31

Austriamann:

I wouldn't say that it doesn't "work". I would say that there is a lack of confirming evidence. It's not wrong to have a theory without being able to prove it. That's kinda the basis of having a hypothesis. Unfortunately, the scientific method demands testing of hypotheses, which is hard to do when you're talking about creating universes :D.

All we can do is collect data and interpret it as unbiasedly as possible. As I stated before, the former is relatively easy when compared with the latter.
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Re: The Life, The Universe, and Everything Thread

Postby Inevitable » 07 Jul 2015, 16:33

Himyul

I fear you've missed my point. It's less about what is likely to happen and what's not, and more about our reaction to things we know are unlikely, especially when such things are to our benefit (and the basic fact of existence is very much to our benefit).

The gist is that, just like the lottery winner, we are prone to seeing design in something that's nothing more than improbable chance.

----------------------------
Regarding the Great Flood. Written history actually goes back to as early as the 4th millenium BC. It's not a complete unknown what was happening back then and we can even make pretty accurate predictions on population levels. It's honestly impossible for humanity to grow that fast with what was, relatively speaking, a catastrophically high death rate at the time. Nothing on the scale that would be required to alter data across the entire planet could have realistically occurred in the short time window demanded by the Young Earth hypothesis.
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Re: The Life, The Universe, and Everything Thread

Postby orthogonaltee » 07 Jul 2015, 16:34

austriamann

"Unpatchable holes" are not things that scientists believe in. "Need for more evidence", sure. The Big Bang Theory is not so broken as you seem to think. Most astrophysicists are taking the basic premise of the theory, which is actually supported by the observable evidence, and trying to find new ways of looking at it according to new evidence. Most scientists and astronomers are by no means close to throwing away the Big Bang theory.
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Re: The Life, The Universe, and Everything Thread

Postby Himyul » 07 Jul 2015, 16:53

Inevitable:

That's fair, but it's still hard for me to imagine any man-made machine, say a 747, spontaneously generating from wind & erosion and time and raw materials. The same sort of thing might happen when playing poker and you get four aces. However, just because there is a possibility of something being due to chance doesn't mean we shouldn't strongly consider the complexity of the observable design.

As for the history of the world, my knowledge of world history is admittedly toilets. I will say this, though: Nearly every culture around the world, even the small isolated tribes, have some version of a global flood in their record of history. Many of them share many of the same details, such as the flood being caused by a deity because of the sinfulness of man and a small number of people being saved through the flood in a boat.

I imagine if there was proof positive that the flood couldn't have happened, then I would probably have heard of it, if only from like minded people trying to defend the bible. I could be wrong, though.

Let me reiterate, because I think I'm straying from my initial point some. My goal here is not to prove anything one way or another. I am convinced that the bible is true and the universe is young. Many (most?) of the people reading this are convinced of the opposite. This is due to us seeing and interpreting data in accordance with our own worldviews. Worldviews are very difficult to change, because all of our thinking is filtered through the current one.

In fact, the bible claims that it's impossible for one to spontaneously decide to have faith in God.

Ephesians 2:8 "For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God."

I doubt people here want to get into a discussion on the sovereignty of God and the free will of man, but my point is that observing the universe won't get us answers about God, but that our understanding of God will inform our understanding of the universe.
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Re: The Life, The Universe, and Everything Thread

Postby JustAName » 07 Jul 2015, 22:05

I mean, you really don't want to get into probabilities unless you want to come up with a probability satisfactory to everyone that a god exists. Because I do find it far more probably that people wrote all the religious texts in attempts to propagate their morals or claim power for themselves than that a god exists and is somehow as inconsistent as these texts make it out to be.
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Re: The Life, The Universe, and Everything Thread

Postby Elomin Sha » 08 Jul 2015, 01:42

Himyul wrote:In fact, the bible claims that it's impossible for one to spontaneously decide to have faith in God.

Ephesians 2:8 "For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God."


Most of the time people beingreligious is due to being brought up in a religious family.
Any saving, (tree of knowledge), would be down to the all knowing God not knowing that Adam and Eve were going to eat from the tree anyway.

Himyul wrote:I doubt people here want to get into a discussion on the sovereignty of God and the free will of man, but my point is that observing the universe won't get us answers about God, but that our understanding of God will inform our understanding of the universe.


Scientists don't look at the unvierse to learn about god, they do it to learn about the universe, something they can see.
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Re: The Life, The Universe, and Everything Thread

Postby Inevitable » 08 Jul 2015, 04:08

Himyul

That's fair, but it's still hard for me to imagine any man-made machine, say a 747, spontaneously generating from wind & erosion and time and raw materials.


This is the Watchmaker argument, yes?

First of all, I realise this is about the universe as a whole, but I'd like to just establish of the bat that the analogy does not work for evolution, since that actually IS designed in some way, just not by some sort of intelligence, and yes, we understand the method of that design.

Secondly, the problem is, we know that 747s and watches are made by man already. So assuming that's... let's say, intelligently designed, is a radically different thing to assuming the universe is.

If you walk along a beach and see the letter "e" written in the sand you would assume someone put it there for some reason.

If a person from 6th Century China, who has never seen the English alphabet, was walking along that beach they would see a random assortment of lines that mean nothing to them, if they even noticed it at all.

Our ideas of order and chaos are pre-determined. Where one person sees design, another might not. The correct thing to do is step back and think about other ways this supposed design might have come about.

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