• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

Do Most Atheists Know that science..... Part 2

Fiona said:
I do not have faith God does not exist, no matter how you trade on the ambiguity of the word.

I JUST DON'T CARE.
Click to expand...

<delurk>

Hello boys and girls. Eeep! My first forum-post proper...which I'm sure will allow DOC to utterly dismiss what follows, but never mind...

I realise that this is a response to an old (or relatively so) post, but I wanted to add my weight to this. The only time I have to put any thought into not believing in god is when some theist engages me in conversation about it. The fact that I do not spend every waking hour of my life justifying to myself my belief/faith/otherwise that their imaginary friend doesn't exist seems the hardest thing to get through.

To my mind it is so patently obvious that the default (and only truely defensible) position is not to believe in any invisible beardy arbiters of the universe.

I care no more about refuting the Abrahamic god than I do about proving the Quetzecotl wasn't real. I have more important things to concern myself with.

Having said that...shields up!

<lurk reactivated>
 
Posted by DOC

God said the word and

Bang!!

the universe came into being, .....snip...


Darat said:
Of course this isn't actually what it says in Genesis....
Click to expand...

But it said God made the stars.

Gen 1:16 And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: [he made] the stars also.

There are 10 billion trillion stars in the heavens. Do you think it happened with a whimper. I think when God created the beginnings of those 10 billion trillion stars there was one heck of a bang. Of course whether or not there was a Bang noise is not important.

But if man purposely makes fireworks to have a bang, surely creating the universe would make one heck of a noise, don't you think. Once again the noise is just a conjecture on my part. And don't come in and say there is no noise in space. God could find a way.
 
DOC said:
Posted by DOC

God said the word and

Bang!!

the universe came into being, .....snip...




But it said God made the stars.

Gen 1:16 And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: [he made] the stars also.

There are 10 billion trillion stars in the heavens. Do you think it happened with a whimper. I think when God created the beginnings of those 10 billion trillion stars there was one heck of a bang. Of course whether or not there was a Bang noise is not important.

But if man purposely makes fireworks to have a bang, surely creating the universe would make one heck of a noise, don't you think. Once again the noise is just a conjecture on my part. And don't come in and say there is no noise in space. God could find a way.
Click to expand...
Is the greater light not a star. And did this (Gen 1:16) happen before or after God made the Earth (Gen 1:1)
 
Ryan O'Dine said:
More importantly, I’ll reiterate what I’ve posted twice before. Anyone who thinks the physics of 100 years from now is going to look much like the physics of today -- cosmology included -- is trippin’.
Click to expand...

The authors of these books aren't so optimistic about physics as you.

The Trouble with Physics: The Rise of String Theory, The Fall of a Science, and What Comes Next (Hardcover)
by Lee Smolin (Author)

Not Even Wrong: The Failure of String Theory and the Search for Unity in Physical Law (Hardcover)
by Peter Woit (Author)

The End Of Science: Facing The Limits Of Knowledge In The Twilight Of The Scientific Age (Paperback)
by John Horgan (Author)
 
Last edited:
DOC said:
And don't come in and say there is no noise in space. God could find a way.
Click to expand...

There's no noise in space because there's no air in space.

And the rest of your post is just so incredibly wrong that it stuns me with how very, very wrong it is.
 
Mark Felt said:
There's no noise in space because there's no air in space.

And the rest of your post is just so incredibly wrong that it stuns me with how very, very wrong it is.
Click to expand...

I said it was a conjecture, if my conjecture is wrong it's no big deal.
 
Isn't this how it all began???

In the worlds before Monkey, Primal Chaos reigned. Heaven sought order. But the Phoenix can fly only when its feathers are grown. The four world's formed again and yet again, as endless aeons wheeled and passed. Time and the pure essences of heaven, the moisture of the Earth, the powers of the sun and the moon worked upon a certain rock, old as creation. And it became magically fertile. That first egg was named "Thought". Tathagata Buddha, the Father Buddha, said "With our thoughts we make the world". Elemental forces caused the egg to hatch. From it then came a stone monkey.

The nature of Monkey was irrepressible........
Click to expand...
 
DOC said:
The authors of these books aren't so optimistic about physics as you.

The Trouble with Physics: The Rise of String Theory, The Fall of a Science, and What Comes Next (Hardcover)
by Lee Smolin (Author)
Click to expand...

Have you read this book?
I've googled Lee Smolin, and I'd be interested in his opinion on String Theory -- something I know hardly anything about. (Just that it involves more dimensions than I would have guessed and experiments which might back it up are way too expensive).
 
Last edited:
DOC said:
Ryan O’dine said:
More importantly, I’ll reiterate what I’ve posted twice before. Anyone who thinks the physics of 100 years from now is going to look much like the physics of today -- cosmology included -- is trippin’.
Click to expand...
The authors of these books aren't so optimistic about physics as you.

The Trouble with Physics: The Rise of String Theory, The Fall of a Science, and What Comes Next (Hardcover)
by Lee Smolin (Author)

Not Even Wrong: The Failure of String Theory and the Search for Unity in Physical Law (Hardcover)
by Peter Woit (Author)

The End Of Science: Facing The Limits Of Knowledge In The Twilight Of The Scientific Age (Paperback)
by John Horgan (Author)
Click to expand...
It looks like you may have misunderstood my point, DOC. If String theory fails, that would actually make my argument.

You and your sources are basing a lot of your reasoning on what cosmology looks like today. But the cosmology of 100, or even 10 years from today could look surprisingly different.

Bottom line: the physics is provisional. Genesis isn’t. By propping Genesis up with physics, you’re setting yourself up for an almost certain fall.
 
DOC said:
The authors of these books aren't so optimistic about physics as you.

The Trouble with Physics: The Rise of String Theory, The Fall of a Science, and What Comes Next (Hardcover)
by Lee Smolin (Author)

Not Even Wrong: The Failure of String Theory and the Search for Unity in Physical Law (Hardcover)
by Peter Woit (Author)

The End Of Science: Facing The Limits Of Knowledge In The Twilight Of The Scientific Age (Paperback)
by John Horgan (Author)
Click to expand...

Have you read these? Could you summarise their arguments for me?
 
DOC said:
Posted by DOC

God said the word and

Bang!!

the universe came into being, .....snip...

But it said God made the stars.

...snip...
Click to expand...

Which has nothing to do with what you originally posted...

I really do suggest you pick up a bible (preferably one with a modern day translation) and actually read at least the start of Genesis. You seem to have picked up your understanding of what the first book of the Christian Bible actually says by way of out of context and out of sequence quotes from various websites.
 
Last edited:
DOC said:
Well I've always said that like Billy Graham I'm not a literalist.
Click to expand...
If the bible is not to be taken literally then your statement that the big bang theory is science's way of describing the biblical truth falls flat.

If the biblical order of events can not be taken literally it calls into question the posts you made suggesting that the events in the bible matched the scientific view.
 
joobz said:
Further, I still do not get the "divide by zero" error. Can you explain when Einstein did this?
Click to expand...
I am assuming that it would be with respect to one of the many limits in the calculations. However, this is not nearly the same thing as 'dividing by zero', nor is dividing by zero always wrong as DOC would have us believe. The classic example of the limit of sin(X)/X as X → 0 involves the concept of 0/0, yet makes perfect sense.
That said, if there is a legitimate case of an error I would like to hear it.

To clear up that other issue, I don't think anyone is claiming Einstein didn't make an error when he changed his calculations. We're claiming the error wasn't algebraic. While this position follows from previous points, I have not seen this stated, while it was clearly the intention of the posters to dispute the type of error rather than the error itself.

Think of it this way: You're in a Maths exam and you do a calculation. Because you think it is wrong, instead of going with the calculated answer you go with your gut. The error wasn't in the calculations, it was in your intuition.
 
DOC said:
I said it was a conjecture, if my conjecture is wrong it's no big deal.
Click to expand...
In other words, If science agrees with the bible, the bible is proven true. If science disagrees with the bible, science if false.


Heads I win....
 
Mr Blue Sky said:
I am assuming that it would be with respect to one of the many limits in the calculations. However, this is not nearly the same thing as 'dividing by zero', nor is dividing by zero always wrong as DOC would have us believe. The classic example of the limit of sin(X)/X as X → 0 involves the concept of 0/0, yet makes perfect sense.
That said, if there is a legitimate case of an error I would like to hear it.
Click to expand...
Yes, you can use l'Hôpital's rule rule to clear up the sin(x)/x limit issue. But I'm asking DOC where this Divide by zero error of Einstein has come about.

Like I said, you can consider a singularity as a division by zero, limit (mass/volume) as volume → 0. Since we have evidence (indirect) for the existance of black holes, it stands to reason that nature isn't afraid of dividing by zero.

Mr Blue Sky said:
To clear up that other issue, I don't think anyone is claiming Einstein didn't make an error when he changed his calculations. We're claiming the error wasn't algebraic.
Click to expand...
Yup, that is the opperative word. It's clear that the error Einstein made was, like you said, one of not trusting his math. It had nothing to do with the algebra.
 
I apologise if this is either OT or just grossly wrong, but it seems appropriate…

In my understanding, there is no requirement for the size of a black hole to be zero. All that is required is for the structural collapse to bring all the matter within the radius of the event horizon (the EH being that point at which the escape velocity is equal to that of light, iirc). The actual radius of the black hole can be finite, so long as it is within the event horizon.

I am dredging up an old physics degree and I haven’t had to use any of this knowledge in any forum more demanding than my eight year old nephew for a while, so please forgive me if I’m horribly and embarrassingly wrong. It’s possible that this is a simplification that becomes meaningless when you understand the maths well enough.
 
Evolved Wookie said:
I apologise if this is either OT or just grossly wrong, but it seems appropriate…

In my understanding, there is no requirement for the size of a black hole to be zero. All that is required is for the structural collapse to bring all the matter within the radius of the event horizon (the EH being that point at which the escape velocity is equal to that of light, iirc). The actual radius of the black hole can be finite, so long as it is within the event horizon.
Click to expand...

The "problem" (n.b. scare quotes) that DOC is focusing on is that we have no idea what actually happens inside the event horizon, and when the surface gravity becomes high enough, we have no understanding -- no hints, even -- about any type of force that could possibly support any structure under that gravity.

To put it in perspective -- the earth remains solid because it's made up of atoms (with electron shells) and the electron shells repel each other if they get too close. When you get too much mass (say, about the size of the sun), then the electron shells are no longer able to support the weight and they collapse. The sun is therefore made of plasma; the electrons are wandering freely and the sun is supported by mutual proton-proton repulsion (and of course by photon pressure from the ongoing fusion reaction.)

If you get slightly more massive, then the protons themselves will not be able to support the weight; the electrons will be smashed into the protons creating masses of neutrons (that will repel each other via the strong nuclear force). This is what a pulsar is believed to be; masses of neutrons where the gravitational collapse is held off by the strong nuclear force. But at about 4 solar masses, even the strong nuclear force isn't enough and the neutrons themselves will be crushed under the weight.

What happens then? We don't know. There may be another force we don't know --- Chuck Norris' machismo? -- that will stand up to even that much pressure. Or maybe it will undergo an infinite collapse. Since we can't stare into a black hole --- well, we can but we won't see much, we have no way of knowing what lurks within the event horizon.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom