--- <salyavin808@...> wrote :
--- <jr_esq@...> wrote : Barry, You used the acronym QED, which means "quod erat demonstrandum", and is used when you have proved your point. Actually, you have failed to do so. In fact, you did not even address any of the main arguments in the Kalam Cosmological Argument. Instead, you made a conclusion that the universe was never created nor had a beginning. Whatever gave you that idea? Most reputable scientists in astrophysics today will tell you that the universe had a beginning as shown in the Big Bang Theory. IMO, you should stop making conclusions without adequate proof. By failing to do so, you will continue to make errors in your observation of the world. You are making an error in reason just as the jihadists are using fundamentalism as their justification to murder those who don't believe in Islam. Is this irony? I can't tell anymore. Yes, this universe had a beginning. An eternal universe implies that the universe is also infinite. An eternal universe also implies that trillions of years after the earth is gone, another identical earth will form and everything that happened here will again repeat ad infinitum. The possibilities also become infinite. Every conceivable thing must spring into existence at some point. But, if there were preceding universes, before this universe, the First cause principle, Prime mover, becomes redundant or unnecessary. By the way, John hasn't studied evolution carefully. Hey John, read below and weep, http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/ce/4/part2.html http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/ce/4/part2.html This universe clearly had a beginning and will have an end. This universe is also finite. So, you don't have to worry about another identical earth existing or springing up. Such a possibility becomes almost zero. --- <anartaxius@...> wrote : Barry usually stops posting at about 20:00±1 hour GMT. So I will pipe in until he returns to the light of European day. There are three scenarios: the universe created itself the universe did not create itself the universe is here, but was never created in the first place (And because we are here, it probably is not true that it never existed in the first place.) We do not know why the universe is here, or how it came to be, we have certain scenarios that correspond to observation. We have books written in the past that tell us things about the beginning of the universe, but these books have no supporting evidence. The beginning of the universe is something of a mystery. Logic cannot be applied until there are some ideas and facts to reason with. A beginning which has not been directly observed has no real facts to argue upon. --- <salyavin808@...> wrote : The universe is expanding. This is a fact (or something funny is going on, but we have no reason to suspect that is the case) This means it must have been smaller in the past. Run it back further still and everything gets compressed into an infinitely dense singularity. This will cool as it expands and break up into the subatomic particles that make up everything we know today. This is well sussed maths that accounts for everything we see and is being tested bit by bit in particle accelerators even if we didn't personally witness it. What came before then is a mystery but it makes no sense to get religious at that point as there are ways quantum information can move back and forth over any barrier very slightly. A vacuum won't stay a vacuum for very long. Symmetry is broken. These ideas are incredibly simple and simply is how I think that's how it would have to start. Any complexity has to be accounted for, complexity requires information and we are trying to get from a state where there was none to a state where there is an awful lot. Any god could not have survived the start of his creation, that doesn't mean he wasn't there but he sure isn't here now, at least not in the way I've ever heard him imagined. I think we have to look within for an explanation to why the idea is so seductive still. Looked at from a spiritual viewpoint, it is also a mystery. If, for example, being is an eternal present, there is no past and the universe cannot have been created, even though it is here now, and were this to be an 'experience' resulting from spiritual practices revolving around the concept of consciousness, we also have a problem in that there is nothing to test, because the only fact is first person, and cannot be experienced by another awareness, there is only a person's description of that experience, there are no direct facts. Further, being is often described as being 'undefined', that is, we give names to it, but these are simply tokens, not the actual being, so we are logically manipulating tokens, and logic cannot touch the real thing, were it to be this way. If being is regarded as transcendental, then it is beyond the manipulation of logic and its conclusions. Science assumes for the present the universe had a beginning based on various factors relating to the background black body radiation, cosmology, general relativity and quantum mechanics. What came before that scientifically, if there was a before, is unknown. If you have ever seen Hawking's eyes, they are clear and without anguish. Atheism is not necessarily the result of anger, most atheism is simply the lack of belief in fairy tales that seem to lack evidence and appear ridiculous in the light of common sense. Atheism is basically the absence of certain ways some people look at and understand their lives. In its place is another way but it is not somehow empty or removed from meaning. I do not have a belief in the tooth fairy even though when I was very young this myth seemed to have reality. That that belief is no longer a reality does not result in anger or disappointment; other experiences more than made up for the revelation that the story was untrue. By the way, Eckhart Tolle ran into Hawking when he was much younger and the clarity of Hawking's gaze had a profound effect on him. In my opinion and that of others, Hawking does not seem to have the qualities you are attributing to him. He has a profound grasp of science and quantum mechanics, and feels that such beginnings as that of our universe are more profoundly accountable for without metaphysics and imaginary entities. Hawking believes the universe came in to being spontaneously as the result of a quantum fluctuation in basically nothing; there was no super intelligent directing force that caused this to happen, instead it just happened. As Suzuki Roshi at the San Francisco Zen centre once said, 'You do not say, "I will fart at 4 o'clock", it just happen'. Beginnings of grand totality are like consciousness, it is not possible to independently observe it from afar because we are the very thing we are trying to seek. So we end up with a tautology, a description that is always true in a certain sense, but it trivial because it cannot contain any information other than itself, and therefore proves nothing. What we are, and what the universe is is ultimately a circular argument, which is logically pointless as a logical structure cannot reveal the reality of it. You can experience the light of being in terms of anything, and atheism is just as good an anything as anything else, and saves one from wading through a mountain of dreck. If you think being is infinitely correlated, it can correlate infinitely in the absence of mankind's tokens for gods and angels and devils. It can correlate infinitely with a bunch of spinach, a cloud, a mouse, with Barry's writings, with comic books, with the writings of great philosophers, with a galaxy or a dying star. I am not defending Barry's viewpoint here. I think your contention here concerning Hawking, atheism, and the concept of creation, is unsupportable. And when the sun rises on the Netherlands, maybe you will encounter another round of someone else's lack of conviction in what you say as well. If you want to argue with Hawking, read The Grand Design by Hawking and Leonard Mlodinaw, which is quite a readable book, and you can see how he presents his argument. It is obviously not the final say, but it goes as far, and perhaps farther, than religious tracts discussing the same subject in a way that is much less amenable to logical analysis. From: "jr_esq@... [FairfieldLife]" <FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com> To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Friday, September 26, 2014 5:40 PM Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Hawking: 'There is no God' Barry, As I've pointed out to you and others here, it's not logical to conclude that the universe created itself, which is what Hawking is essentially saying. And, I do respect Hawking for his mathematical brilliance and contribution to physics. But his embrace of atheism is simply inconsistent with logic. Therefore, IMO, he's made his conclusion based on emotion and deep-seated psychological anger. IOW, his physical condition has contributed to his rejection of God's existence. He may disagree. But his human condition is speaking louder than words. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <turquoiseb@...> wrote : People who are constantly angry at atheists (of whose number jr_esq is a prime example) often try to convince themselves that the atheists they're angry at are similarly angry at...uh...that non-existent fairytale being that they don't believe exists. :-) :-) :-) It's pretty fascinating how incredibly stupid believers can be, when you think about it. "This atheist in a wheelchair HAS to be angry at God for putting him there, even though he doesn't believe such an entity as God exists." One can only pity someone whose mind is so weak that he thinks like this... From: salyavin808 <no_re...@yahoogroups.com> To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Friday, September 26, 2014 9:19 AM Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Hawking: 'There is no God' ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <jr_esq@...> wrote : It's part of human psychology. He wouldn't be human if he didn't have any anger for his health condition. I think his lack of belief in god comes from seeing how the universe operates and not seeing a need for any creator. I doubt it's a blame thing, he might be happy that he's lived for decades longer than expected and been able to work all that time too. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <no_re...@yahoogroups.com> wrote : --In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <jr_esq@...> wrote : Do you think he's angry at God because he lost his ability to speak and walk? What makes you think he's angry? ,_._,___
