The Existence of God Proven!!!

[MysterionMuffles]

So I typed into Google: Scientific proof that God exists and found this article.

http://realtruth.org/articles/070601-006-teog.html

Naturally, I felt sceptical and wanted to back down from reading it in its entirety. What was I afraid of? That I will start believing in God again? TRY ME!!!

I decided to read it anyway and what I found was just a lot of merely interesting scientific anecdotes. To his credit, I find the clock one interesting as I always did wonder how clock makers measure a solid second. But I found the next section about evolution being debunked to be quite condascending.

Perhaps the biggest reason that so many theories within the overall theory of evolution collapse is because they contain terrible logic requiring great leaps in faith to believe. Here is one example of a “debunked” theory: “Many evolutionists have tried to argue that humans are 99% similar chemically to apes and blood precipitation tests do indicate that the chimpanzee is people’s closest relative. Yet regarding this we must observe the following: ‘Milk chemistry indicates that the donkey is man’s closest relative.’ ‘Cholesterol level tests indicate that the garter snake is man’s closest relative.’ ‘Tear enzyme chemistry indicates that the chicken is man’s closest relative.’ ‘On the basis of another type of blood chemistry test, the butter bean is man’s closest relative’” (Morris, Henry M., The Twilight of Evolution, Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1967).

And of course an onslaught of non-answers...my attention waned horrible and I could not read word for word after that. So to anyone with a better attention span than me, please tell me where if it all does this guy empirically proves that God exists.[^o)]

[Brandon Buck _BB_]

 

So to anyone with a better attention span than me, please tell me where if it all does this guy empirically proves that God exists./emoticons/emotion-40.gif

 

 

In his head. That's where he proves it.

Every argument he offers has been soundly refuted time and time again.

[Bradford26]

What follows will explain why God calls atheists “fools.”

This article presupposes the existence of God. In summary: "God exists, therefore God exists." I found the article manipulative and dishonest.

[Brandon Buck _BB_]

 

 

This article presupposes the existence of God. In summary: "God exists, therefore God exists." I found the article manipulative and dishonest.

 

 

In other words... the typical creationist argument. []

[UndeadRufus]

David C. Pack is a professional nonsense merchant, whom I've occasionally seen come up in the context of prophetic doom claims. That he makes terrible theistic arguments is no surprise. The article begins by presupposing the Christian deity and invoking scripture, which is a complete non-starter, and I think most serious theistic philosophers would agree at least on this point. What follows is a string of ignorant assertions, hand-waving and appeals to ignorance. The short list includes:

• evolution denial;
• teleological arguments;
• word gymnastics (e.g. defining "faith" as "absolute confidence");
• question-begging;
• thermodynamic confusion [1, 2];
• general misunderstanding of the scientific method, scientific theories and the scope of science;
• the infamous "explosion argument."

As someone else mentioned, all of this stuff has been dealt with thoroughly many times over.

[Livemike]

The clock stuff was one of the stupidist creationist arguments I've ever heard.  He argues that clocks MADE BY MAN are astonishingly accurate.  They're so accurate they make previous attempts at telling the time AGAIN MADE BY MAN look bad.  The argument seems to be that physical processes have a high degree of consistency in regards to their how often they happen/how long it takes them to happen and this couldn't happen by accident.  Well no, it happened due to the nature of the physical processes, which does not vary because it's their nature.  It's no more an "accident" that Cesium atoms vibrate a certain number of times than that the speed of light is 299792458 m/s.  It's how the universe is.  It doesn't imply that a God made it.  It simply implies that whatever made it made it consistent, which we've known for a while now.

[Metric]

For entertainment purposes only, here's a real-life mad scientist talking about his proof of the afterlife, god, etc. at TEDx.  This guy actually was, at one point, a great theorist -- you can judge for yourself the extent to which religion has rotted his brain: 

[fingolfin]

Just ask the theists to draw a picture of god for you.

They'll run away every time! (And if not – bonus points – ask them also to kindly illustrate for you the creation moment from there on out. That should be fun!).

[PatrickC]

professional nonsense merchant

This phrase will now be forever etched on my mind for eternity.. oops, I mean a lifetime. []

 

[Kevin Beal]

Perhaps the biggest reason that so many theories within the overall theory of evolution collapse is because they contain terrible logic requiring great leaps in faith to believe

My brain honestly hurts. It shut itself off after reading this to spare myself the trauma of actually trying to follow this logic. I'm afraid to read it again.

[Joey M]

Doesn't this prove that All life comes from a common ancestor, removing the need for and making the case against theism even more?

[pretzelogik]

It's all in the definitions.  Define "God", then define "existence".

After that, proceed to the proof part. 

Aaannnd, Go!

 

[Dogbyte]

well if we claim the article presupposes the existence of God and its therefore circular, then how is it any different then by presupposing the physical world is all there is, which is what is implied by appealing to science for the answer?  

[TheRobin]

can you give an example of a non-phyiscal thing or process? I genuinly have no idea what that would even mean.Also, what exactly do you mean with "science"? (i.e. how do you understand science to work in it's essence? I ask because I never heard anyone use the phrase "appeal to science")

[Dogbyte]

can you give an example of a non-phyiscal thing or process? I genuinly have no idea what that would even mean.Also, what exactly do you mean with "science"? (i.e. how do you understand science to work in it's essence? I ask because I never heard anyone use the phrase "appeal to science")

 

well with regard to the OP, whether or not you believe in the existence of a being that transcends the physical world, nevertheless the definition of such would be dealing with a being who's non existence is not possible, or rather, a metaphysically necessary being.

 

Science is the search for naural explanations, or causation of events or phenomena.  THus, when you google for proofs that call upon science to deliver you results outside of what scientists presumes to measure, its worth pointing out the special pleadng.

[Pepin]

well with regard to the OP, whether or not you believe in the existence of a being that transcends the physical world, nevertheless the definition of such would be dealing with a being who's non existence is not possible, or rather, a metaphysically necessary being.

 

Can you expand upon this? I am having a difficult time understanding and I don't want to mis-characterize your argument.

[TheRobin]

well with regard to the OP, whether or not you believe in the existence of a being that transcends the physical world, nevertheless the definition of such would be dealing with a being who's non existence is not possible, or rather, a metaphysically necessary being.

What does "transcend" mean then? and how does that lead to bein impobbislbe to not exist? Oh and also what do you mean with "existence"?

 

Science is the search for naural explanations, or causation of events or phenomena.  THus, when you google for proofs that call upon science to deliver you results outside of what scientists presumes to measure, its worth pointing out the special pleadng.

 

So, are you saying that whatever is non-physical has no influence over the phyiscal (no causation)? Because if so, how would that not fit the criteria of "non-existent"?

 

[Dogbyte]

i dont want to be viewed as hijacking this thread, thats really not my intention. so if i may, i will keep referring back to the OP as the context. 

 

the truth value of the existence of a supernatural being is the central idea behind the purpose of searching for "proof" is it not? In addition, "scientific" proof was specifically sought, as opposed to maybe philosophical proof.  A proof can be evidence or an argument. Maybe some folks do not agree with the idea of allowing a definition of a supreme being, but for the sake of argument, you do need a definition if you are to either accept or deny the plausibility of the premise. God will be defined as non contingent by a theist, you are free to argue against this possibility, but  nevertheless you are arguing against the premise. What if the premise lays outside of physical processes? 

 

Science deals with natural explanations. So unless you accept other methodological theses, you are limiting your findings to natural explanations, which is fine...if that is your method of belief, but you are assuming the nature of the thing in your question. What if the being has no physical contingencies? Im not saying they do either way, and im not offering any proofs. 

 

The word scientific in the OP question was the flag. If you dropped that off, then you leave open the proofs to being philosophical, scientific, OR some other discipline....get what i mean?  If scientism is your method of how you accept or gain knowledge, then the OP question is moot, since you wouldnt allow for the possibility of the question "is there scientific proof that God exists?" to have a truth value in the affirmative....since it cant be empirically proven by its very nature. 

[Wesley]

 

i dont want to be viewed as hijacking this thread, thats really not my intention. so if i may, i will keep referring back to the OP as the context. 

 

the truth value of the existence of a supernatural being is the central idea behind the purpose of searching for "proof" is it not? In addition, "scientific" proof was specifically sought, as opposed to maybe philosophical proof.  A proof can be evidence or an argument. Maybe some folks do not agree with the idea of allowing a definition of a supreme being, but for the sake of argument, you do need a definition if you are to either accept or deny the plausibility of the premise. God will be defined as non contingent by a theist, you are free to argue against this possibility, but  nevertheless you are arguing against the premise. What if the premise lays outside of physical processes? 

 

Science deals with natural explanations. So unless you accept other methodological theses, you are limiting your findings to natural explanations, which is fine...if that is your method of belief, but you are assuming the nature of the thing in your question. What if the being has no physical contingencies? Im not saying they do either way, and im not offering any proofs. 

 

The word scientific in the OP question was the flag. If you dropped that off, then you leave open the proofs to being philosophical, scientific, OR some other discipline....get what i mean?  If scientism is your method of how you accept or gain knowledge, then the OP question is moot, since you wouldnt allow for the possibility of the question "is there scientific proof that God exists?" to have a truth value in the affirmative....since it cant be empirically proven by its very nature. 

 

Wikipedia:

 

Scientism is a term used, usually pejoratively,^[1][2][3] to refer to belief in the universal applicability of the scientific method and approach, and the view that empirical science constitutes the most authoritative worldview or most valuable part of human learning to the exclusion of other viewpoints.^[4]

What else exists? What standard is there besides nature, science, etc? If you are going to assert that we should use something besides the scientific method to prove anything, then you need to assert this method and prove that it results in valid conclusions.

 

Of course, as I write this I think that may be impossible as this would be holding whatever this other standard is to the standard of science and logic, but I figured I would ask anyway.

 

Regardless, what standard should we use for determining truth from falsehood?

[TheRobin]

so you divide reality into "natural" and "supernatural" and say science only deals with one aspect of reality? How and by what criteria do you make this divide? And what's the difference between the two?p.s. you can't define something usng a negative ("non-contingent" in your example), as the absence of a negative still leaves open an unlimited amount of positive characteristics and therefore still leaves one without a definition at all.

[Dogbyte]

What else exists? What standard is there besides nature, science, etc? If you are going to assert that we should use something besides the scientific method to prove anything, then you need to assert this method and prove that it results in valid conclusions.

 

Of course, as I write this I think that may be impossible as this would be holding whatever this other standard is to the standard of science and logic, but I figured I would ask anyway.

 

Regardless, what standard should we use for determining truth from falsehood?

 

"what else exists?", "What standard is there besides nature, science, etc?" 

 

Im not certain if you are asking an epistemological question, or ontological one. However i must admit by judging from your comments about the nature of science, i would guess that may you reject metaphysics all together. Regardless, no matter how confused i am, i want to point out that im not asserting that you or anyone else adopt some single methodology for finding truth, but rather the correct methodology appropriate to the claim. Sometimes you can only deduce from what evidence is left behind to reach a logical inference. You cannot always conduct an experiment. For instance, you cannot prove the claim that all truth comes from empirical evidence, with an experiment. This very claim cannot carry out its own methodology, so is it the truth? according to its own claim, it is not.

Draw the most rational inference, where ever the argument leads. So whether the evidence is logic, mathematics, scientific, philosophic, or historical, ect...use the methodology appropriate to the claim. To me that seems the most reasonable.

so you divide reality into "natural" and "supernatural" and say science only deals with one aspect of reality? How and by what criteria do you make this divide? And what's the difference between the two?p.s. you can't define something usng a negative ("non-contingent" in your example), as the absence of a negative still leaves open an unlimited amount of positive characteristics and therefore still leaves one without a definition at all.

 

All i am saying is that the question "does God exist", is not a scientific question. you cannot run an experiment to determine whether or not its true, no more than you can for whether or not two people are in love, or if purple is uglier than blue. We can do experiments on the evidence we have, but not replay any event or take measurements. Negatives are used all the time in logical arguments, they are valid and doesnt leave anything open as long as the rest of the argument is sound. If the question concerns things outside of space-time, then of course we can only use the evidence we do have to create a philosophical argument that reaches the best plausible explanation. If you deny the conclusion based on your view of the premise, that only a natural reality exists, all well and good, but i think its reasonable to believe that you would only get half the picture by doing so. i think it lacks ability to explain a lot of fundamental things that we believe to exist, things that even science assumes to exist, like mathematics. no matter how many natural explanations you come up with, you still cannot account for why there are natural explanations to begin with, unless you believe its rational to think the natural world exists necessarily and infinitely. In which case if you do, then i would like to hear about the arguments that lead you to this belief.

[Wesley]

Mathematics do not exist. It is a set of valid concepts derived from experiences.

 

I'm not sure if the metaphysics question was meant to be cutting, but it is highly irrelevant to the questions I asked.

 

Lets pretend that I make the claim that unicorns exist. My method of proving this is that last night I dreamt that unicorns existed and I have not dreamt of things that did not exist before, thus unicorns must be real. What standard would disprove this claim when I have told you my method for answering this question, no matter how absurd it sounds?

[Pepin]

All i am saying is that the question "does God exist", is not a scientific question.

 

If the concept of a deity is considered to be in a higher or non-physical dimension, the question is: how the person making such a claim know that there is this dimension? Furthermore how do they know that a deity is contained within it?

 

If no experiment can prove the existence of a deity, if a deity is proposed to be in an un-accessible dimension, then everyone that currently claims the existence of one is making a claim without reason nor evidence and must be considered wrong in their claims, as what they are doing is the equivalent to making up a concept with no null hypothesis.

[Dogbyte]

Mathematics do not exist. It is a set of valid concepts derived from experiences.I'm not sure if the metaphysics question was meant to be cutting, but it is highly irrelevant to the questions I asked.Lets pretend that I make the claim that unicorns exist. My method of proving this is that last night I dreamt that unicorns existed and I have not dreamt of things that did not exist before, thus unicorns must be real. What standard would disprove this claim when I have told you my method for answering this question, no matter how absurd it sounds?

 

no im not cutting at all, and im sorry if it came across that way. its just usually the case when reasoning with folks that prescribe to some sort of verificationism. 

 

Ah the unicorn. Yes, I would press you on your definition of what a unicorn is, and what about this thing makes it a necessary being, it seems as if its existence is contingent upon you having a dream of it, so not a necessary being but a contingent one.   There is no reason to say that it exists in reality because it is just a contingent being, you have to make a leap of modal logic in order to do so. A unicorn 's contingent existence in a possible world means it only may exist in a possible world,  so at best a possibility in some possible world, and at worst, non existent in all possible worlds. Possible worlds do not exist in the mind, they transcend that. Possible worlds are logical constructs...they exist like logic does, abstract, true and independent of human thought.  Unicorn's do not have necessity, which would mean it would have to exist in all possible worlds (a necessary being). Sure then, a unicorn exists in some possible world, how does that make it a reality? Or how does a contingent being suggest the reasonable conclusion that this contingency exists in the actual world?  

 

allowing for your idea of mathematics, " a set of valid concepts" sure sounds like an abstract to me.  2+2=4 would still follow necessarily whether humans could count or not, why?  

If the concept of a deity is considered to be in a higher or non-physical dimension, the question is: how the person making such a claim know that there is this dimension? Furthermore how do they know that a deity is contained within it?

 

If no experiment can prove the existence of a deity, if a deity is proposed to be in an un-accessible dimension, then everyone that currently claims the existence of one is making a claim without reason nor evidence and must be considered wrong in their claims, as what they are doing is the equivalent to making up a concept with no null hypothesis.

 

We dont know, thats the question. But we can ask what the evidence points toward, a universe that has a beginning, the structure and order, and laws all fitting and or working together. By implication if this physical reality had a beginning, then what was its cause? Is the cosmos a contingency? Logic would not allow a physical cause to be contingent upon itself.  Its cause would need to come from beyond or before (not before, in a temporal sense). Do we have to know the answer before we can ask the question? Seems a bit backwards and not intuitive at all.

 

as to your second paragraph, I could say the same thing about you having no experiment to prove the existence of an external world, how do you not know that you are just a brain in a vat of nutrients on some alien planet, hooked up to stimuli that creates the illusion that you are here reading this post, or that you should  think its absurd to even think you are only a brain in a vat?

 

Every observation or measurement would involve you depending upon your 5 senses, how do you even determine if they themselves are empirically proven and reliable?   If we followed that very restrictive line of methodology, then you would have to follow your own advice in considering your claims wrong since there is no empirical evidence and thus no reason to claim it is real knowledge.

 

So for two reasons, being an overly restrictive methodology and being self defeating, i dont see that as a reasonable way to gain knowledge. No experiment can "prove" logic or mathematics either, so do we throw them away as well? Surely not.  Science cannot prove these truths without reasoning in a circle. We may ask why nature adheres to or encompasses mathematics, and the answers may range from a happy coincidence to intelligent design.

 

Doesnt matter whether or not the universe behaves this way, or whether you call it an accurate concept that we humans can recognize, you still have the question of "why the exhibition in the first place?", i just dont make the mistake of assuming that anything can be answered by the scientific method alone, the question doesnt involve a scientific claim, and neither does the question "does God exist?". 

[Pepin]

Why don't you believe an objective reality exists?

[Dogbyte]

Why don't you believe an objective reality exists?

 

not sure why you assume that i dont, but i do.

[carlip]

The only thing I've EVER heard that could even be slightly convincing is as follows, "if you believe in god and he is not real, not thing happens. If you believe in god an he is real, you go to heaven. If you do not believe in god and is not real, nothing happens, if you do not believe in god and he is real you go to hell."

 

50% chance nothing happens, 25% hell, 25% heaven. For me I will take my 50% and life my life as I see fit.

[2bits]

50% chance nothing happens, 25% hell, 25% heaven. For me I will take my 50% and life my life as I see fit.

I have excellent news for you. Pascal's Wager is only that dire if we assume the binary proposition of vengeful-jealous-hell god exist, or vengeful-jealous-hell god not exist. The unbeliever's odds are infinitely better than that given a fuller set of possibilities.

[Robofox42]

I have a masters degree in Physics and I just wanted to add my 2 cents

 

"In 1967, scientists built an “Atomic Clock.” It uses Cesium 133 atoms because they oscillate (vibrate) at the rate of 9,192,631,770 times per second. This produces accuracy within one second every 30 million years! Wouldn’t you love a watch that accurate? Cesium 133 atoms never vary a single vibration. They are steady—constant—reliable—and cannot be an accident of nature that just “happens” to always turn out exactly the same. God had to design the complexity and reliability of these atoms. No honest mind can believe otherwise. Men merely learned how to capture what God designed, for use in time measurement. Again, the story continues."

 

Actually, he is wrong.  Notice that the reliability is not perfect else we wouldn't have the error bar of 30 million years.  Electronic transitions are based on quantum mechanics which is all about probabilities.  The probabilities are very close to harmonic but do indeed have variations.  In fact these variations in electronic transitions can be caused by different energy levels of atoms such as having different levels of kinetic energy.  These variations are actually how we can detect that some stars have planets.   The planets cause the stars to wobble ever so slightly which allows us to detect teh variance in teh emission frequencies.  Electronic transitions are not always exactly teh same.   He is using classical physics and that has been replaced with the not so perfectly predictable world of quantum mechanics.

     Now to my knowledge the speed of light is constant but that is only in a "perfect" vacuum (which doesn't exist).  The speed of light is always varying due to the variance of the medium through which it travels.  This is why there is an error bar on the optical clock.   On whether light has constant speed in a theoretical vacuum, I am not as knowledgeable.  The problem with those types of questions are they are much harder to measure, and when you go near the speed of light, quantum theory starts to run into relativity and they contradict each other.  Particle physicists right now are trying to come up with a theory that works for both and can be demonstrated with evidence.  In science, evidence is very important to believing a theory to be more than just an idea.

 

"The First Law of Thermodynamics is stated as follows: Matter and energy can be neither created nor destroyed. There are no natural processes that can alter either matter or energy in this way. This means that there is no new matter or energy coming into existence and there is no new matter or energy passing out of existence. All who state that the universe came into existence from nothing violate the first law of thermodynamics, which was established by the very scientific community who now seem willing to ignore it. In summary, this law plainly demonstrates that the universe, and all matter and energy within it, must have had a divine origin—a specific moment in which it was created by someone who was all-powerful."

 

Actually he is wrong again.  Physicists who study the beginning of the universe pretty much say this:  Before a plank time (~ 10^-44 sec), we really don't know.  We don't have a unified theory that works at that time scale.  Physicists "speculate", but we don't have the arrogance to say we know what we don't.  Some of the current speculation is that the universe is closed in a repeated cycle.  There are also theories of other dimensions of giving birth to our space-time (space and time can't be separated) and that is where you get the phrase multi-verse.  What he also fails to understand is that the big bang is time and space itself.  The big bang is now.  The big bang is all past.  The big bang is all future.  The big bang is all time and everywhere.  To say before the big bang is to say before time and space itself.  The way he explains it, he doesn't understand the concept of the big bang at all. 

 

"What are we saying? There was a point in time when the uranium could not have existed, because it always breaks down in a highly systematic, controlled way. It is not stable like lead or other elements. It breaks down. This means there was a specific moment in time when all radioactive elements came into existence. Remember, all of them—uranium, radium, thorium, radon, polonium, francium, protactinium and others—have not existed forever. This represents absolute proof that matter came into existence or, in other words, matter has not always existed!"

 

This argument is very stupid.  All those elements came in to existence from supernovas.  As a star dies and explodes, it becomes hot enough to create those elements.  There are speculated to be other elements that can exist, but supernovas aren't hot enough to create them.  Scientists are trying to find ways to produce new elements and they have (notice the really large atomic numbers in the periodic table), but they don't last more than very short periods of time.  Saying that elements not always existing therefore matter hasn't always existed is like saying because your body didn't always exist, the matter in it was created from nothing.  Very non-sequitur.

 

"Even evolutionists admit that the theory of evolution and the second law of thermodynamics are completely incompatible with each other. Consider: “Regarding the second law of thermodynamics (universally accepted scientific law which states that all things left to themselves will tend to run down) or the law of entropy, it is observed, ‘It would hardly be possible to conceive of two more completely opposite principles than this principle of entropy increase and the principle of evolution. Each is precisely the converse of the other. As (Aldous) Huxley defined it, evolution involves a continual increase of order, of organization, of size, of complexity. It seems axiomatic that both cannot possibly be true. But there is no question whatever that the second law of thermodynamics is true"

 

No scientist that understands evolution and entropy thinks they are incompatible.  You can have a system that goes toward order without violating entropy.  It does so by creating more entropy somewhere else.  You can use what I like to call "ordered" energy to do this.    Basically a fridge can lower the entropy of food put inside of it, but it does so by emitting heat elsewhere (this is why opening a fridge in your house is not a good idea for AC).  The fridge uses electricity as a ordered source of energy for this process. 

     Life can create order, but only by getting energy from the sun.  Without the source of energy from the sun, the order of life would be impossible.  The 2nd law only demands that the total disorder of an isolated system not increase, not that every part of a system decrease in order.  The sun is what makes life possible and this is in complete harmony with the 2nd law. 

     More knowledgeable creationists will argue that since the 2nd law is one directional, that means that the order has to come from somewhere.  This is one of the much better creationist arguments.  However, we don't understand the physics before the planck time, and so it is very possible that the 2nd law can be broken in the first plank time of the big bang.  The 2nd law is an empirical observation based on probabilities.  It is not an absolute, but there is no way to eliminate probability from a system so that is why the 2nd law has always held in any observed system.  I imagine when the universe is so close together and heated in teh first planck time, it might collapse the probability space of different possibilities sufficiently to violate teh 2nd law, but that is just my own personal speculation. 

 

"Perhaps the biggest reason that so many theories within the overall theory of evolution collapse is because they contain terrible logic requiring great leaps in faith to believe. Here is one example of a “debunked” theory: “Many evolutionists have tried to argue that humans are 99% similar chemically to apes and blood precipitation tests do indicate that the chimpanzee is people’s closest relative. Yet regarding this we must observe the following: ‘Milk chemistry indicates that the donkey is man’s closest relative.’ ‘Cholesterol level tests indicate that the garter snake is man’s closest relative.’ ‘Tear enzyme chemistry indicates that the chicken is man’s closest relative.’ ‘On the basis of another type of blood chemistry test, the butter bean is man’s closest relative."

 

I am not a biology expert, but his examples show he doesn't understand evolution is in terms of genes.  He also assumes that apes are our ancestors.  They are not.  We have a common ancestor with them.  Apes have evolved from that common ancestor as much as we have.  It is easy to pick genes where apes genes changed and ours didn't so that we are more in common with other ancestors than apes.

 

"Everyone has witnessed explosions. Have you ever seen one that was orderly? Or one that created a watch or a clock? Or one that produced a single thing of exquisite design—instead of the certain result of chaos and destruction? If you threw a million hand grenades, you would see them produce chaos and destruction a million times! There would never be an exception."

 

Think of all that random processes that happen so orderly, like the oscillations of Cessium 133 atoms.  Oh wait...

 

"the probability of life originating from accident is comparable to the unabridged dictionary resulting from an explosion in a printing shop” (Origins?, p. 15). And this only speaks to the likelihood of any life at all, rather than the most highly complex forms such as large animals or human beings—let alone all the different kinds of life that exist today."

 

False comparison.  One event does not produce complexity.  It requires a feedback loop.  The feedback loop eliminates the bad, and reinforces the good.  If you think of all the genetic reproduction of biological chemical process we are talking quadrillions (or more?) of reinforcement loops to produce the complexity of life.

[Robofox42]

I have excellent news for you. Pascal's Wager is only that dire if we assume the binary proposition of vengeful-jealous-hell god exist, or vengeful-jealous-hell god not exist. The unbeliever's odd are infinitely better than that given a fuller set of possibilities.

 

Don't forget that the 50% odds only comes if the probability of there being an after-life as depicted is 50%.  If it is only 1%, then the nothing happens becomes 99%, and the other two outcomes split a percent.  Also the nothing happens is glossing over the fact that most religions require sacrifice.  Basically using the logic of Pascal's Wager, you should also buy a bunker for protection from an apocalyptic meteorite.

[TheRobin]

Hey, since you're a phisicist: Can you tell me how physicists define or understand space and time (or space-time)? As I understand it or as it makes sense to me both space and time are concepts for a relation between matter and/or energy, but you (or physicists in general) seem to use the ideas as if they're things themselves and that never made much sense to me. 

[Robofox42]

Explaining energy, matter, space, and time is essentially asking me to explain all of physics.  I will take a crack at it.

 

First off, when we say there is energy, matter, etc, what do we mean by that.  We say something (or a system) has matter when it exhibits certain properties.  Basically we define matter as exhibiting properties of momentum, gravity, etc.  Saying matter is a shorthand for saying that something has certain properties.  If there were no properties of a concept such as matter, than the term becomes meaningless and useless.  We can only usefully use a concept in physics as long as there are detectable interactions that can be predicted in a systematic way.  When someone creates a model that successfully predicts these interactions, then a new concept goes into Physics.  Sometimes things can have properties even when they are not directly detectable.  We can detect they exist indirectly.  These are things like ether, dark matter, dark energy.

 

Ether was postulated to exist because to our understanding energy waves required a medium to travel through for it to exhibit that property.  Light was discovered to travel as a wave, so we called the medium ether.  It wasn't detectable, but it exhibited the property of light traveling like a wave through it.  It was later discovered that the ether wasn't needed for that property so the concept was abandoned.  Dark matter is postulated because galaxies exhibit more gravity than the visible matter that they contain.  Dark energy is postulated because the universe is expanding at a rate inconsistent with our models of what the rate of expansion should be.  My point is that even things that are undetectable are postulated to exist in physics because of observable properties that scientists observe and try to logically predict the source.

 

We say that energy, matter, space, and time are separate things because they have separate properties.  Matter and energy do indeed have separate properties and so they are separate.  What is interesting is that in recent times, we have discovered that some properties that we thought only matter or energy have, the other have as well, but in a different form.  For example, energy does indeed have momentum, but its momentum acts differently than the momentum of mass.  There are still properties that differentiate them.  Energy such as in light can't change its velocity.  Matter turns out to have the property of traveling in quantum waves of probability, and waves were traditionally a energy only feature.  Even though they both travel in waves, and both have momentum, they still exhibit their properties differently.

 

What makes matter and energy even more interesting is that they can convert to each other.  Now there are several constraints on how they convert.  The conversion has to preserve momentum, and it also has to obey the quantization of matter, has to keep the total energy of the system constant (including rest mass), charge has to be conserved, etc.  The idea of E = mc^2 is really that matter can convert to energy.  The rest energy of mass is basically the conversion rate.  Now the fact that these two can convert to each other leads many scientists including me to conclude that there is a more fundamental thing or set of properties and that thing changes state and in different states it exhibits different properties, but there are a set of properties that are universal.  Finding the complete set of universal properties is the quest of combining quantum mechanics and relativity. 

 

Now space and time are completely different set of properties.  Space and time are position and time of interactions in a system.  It is more of a description of what happens than what is in a system.  However, time and space indeed have properties as well.  These properties are more of restrictions on what something can do. 

 

Now for a very long time, space and time were considered separate.  This changed with relativity.  When you think about the x, and y dimensions, you realize that they are convertible.  Forward and backwards and side to side are really interchangeable.  All you have to do is rotate your head.  This rotation is what makes us realize that they are convertible and that the idea of x, y, z really depends on how you define them.  They are relative to the observers position and rotation.  What Einstein demonstrated was that this same relationship also happens between x and time.  Instead of rotating your head, you need to start moving.  The same event happen at different places, or at different times depending on your velocity, just like rotating your head makes something that happens in front of you happen to the side of you. 

 

Now there are restrictions on these conversions.  You can't rotate your head and make two things that were touching not touch.  Likewise you can't travel at a velocity that breaks causality.  This is why traveling faster than the speed of light is impossible.  It is like saying you can rotate your head fast enough so that two touching objects are no longer touching.   We intuitively understand rotating our head won't make that happen, but we don't intuitively see that trying to go faster has fundamental limits, because we don't experience relatively in our daily environment.

 

We are all traveling through space-time at a constant rate.  When we are stationary, we are traveling through time at the fastest rate and other objects which are traveling faster than us in our frame of reference are experiencing time slower.  What I find interesting to think about is that if you travel the speed of light, then in essence you have fully converted time to traveling in space.  What this means is that time doesn't pass at all in the frame of reference of a photon of light.  Also it experiences the entire universe as a point in space.  Light travels at the speed of propagation of space-time, and this makes the speed of photon of light the same in all reference frames. 

 

I hope this helps, but it probably just made things even more confusing.

[2bits]

Don't forget that the 50% odds only comes if the probability of there being an after-life as depicted is 50%.  If it is only 1%, then the nothing happens becomes 99%, and the other two outcomes split a percent.  Also the nothing happens is glossing over the fact that most religions require sacrifice.  Basically using the logic of Pascal's Wager, you should also buy a bunker for protection from an apocalyptic meteorite.

Hey, give me credit for saying our odds are infinitely better.

[Robofox42]

Hey, give me credit for saying our odds are infinitely better.

Alright, I give you credit

[Pepin]

I think your explanation was pretty good Robofox. It is also a good way to understanding time dilation. You are always traveling at the speed of light through space-time, so if you are travelling at 95% the speed of light through space: you will be traveling through time to a small extent. If you had a laser with you and shone it in the direction you were traveling, you would measure the laser to be traveling at the speed of light because time is passing much slower. If you were to measure the speed of a laser some someone who was traveling at 2% the speed of light, you would also measure the speed to be the same, and this is because light travels exclusively through space and not through time.