At what age did you come to realize that God/Devil/Heaven/Hell/Angels/Demons are all man-made fairy tales?

[one...two...tree 2,762]

We say "I don't know".

Atheism is saying with certainty that God doesn't exist. Agnosticism is about not knowing.

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

We say "I don't know".

Then you have something in common with many theists.

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

Atheism is saying with certainty that God doesn't exist. Agnosticism is about not knowing.

Anti-theism is an active opposition to theists.

ETA: Quite the sport I hear on British talk radio.

Edited November 23, 2010 by ##########

[mawilson 2,133]

Atheism is saying with certainty that God doesn't exist. Agnosticism is about not knowing.

There's no difference between agnostics and atheists. Religious people like to think there is.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

There's no difference between agnostics and atheists. Religious people like to think there is.

But there is. If a person takes the position that they believe there is no God, regardless of whether they can prove it, they are no different from someone who believes there is a God. Both are unprovable positions of the same coin.

[웃 910]

But there is. If a person takes the position that they believe there is no God, regardless of whether they can prove it, they are no different from someone who believes there is a God. Both are unprovable positions of the same coin.

Logic and reason and common sense and lack of evidence all favor the non believer

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Logic and reason and common sense and lack of evidence all favor the non believer

Logic and reason would conclude that there's nothing behind curtain number one? How so? How does logic and reason explain what made the universe? And then what made that? How do you explain a true beginning of all matter?

[웃 910]

Logic and reason would conclude that there's nothing behind curtain number one? How so? How does logic and reason explain what made the universe? And then what made that? How do you explain a true beginning of all matter?

A big bang. Kaboom. Kabing. Kablow.

Was the Big Bang Preceded by Another Universe (Which Was Preceded by Another Universe)?

11/22/2010

The current widely-held theory of life, the universe, and everything holds that at some point roughly 13.7 billion years ago everything that now is was packed into a tight little package from which sprung the Big Bang, which violently hurled everything into existence. But 13.7 billion years to get to where we are isn’t enough for renowned physicist Sir Roger Penrose, and now he thinks he can prove that things aren’t/weren’t quite so simple. Drawing on evidence he found in the cosmic microwave background, Penrose says the Big Bang wasn’t the beginning, but one in a series of cyclical Big Bangs, each of which spawned its own universe.

By Penrose’s estimation, our universe is not the first – nor will it be the last – to spawn from a dense mass of highly-ordered everything into the complex universe we see around us. In fact, it’s that high degree of order that was apparently present at the universe’s birth that set him on this line of thought. The current Big Bang model doesn’t supply a reason as to why a low entropy, highly ordered state existed at the birth of our universe unless things were set in order before the Big Bang occurred.

According to Penrose, each universe returns to a state of low entropy as it approaches its final days of expanding into eventual nothingness. Black holes, by virtue of the fact that they suck in everything they encounter, spend their cosmic lifetimes working to scrub entropy from the universe. And as the universe nears the end of its expansion the black holes themselves evaporate, setting things back into a state of order. Unable to expand any further the universe then collapses back in on itself as a highly ordered system, ready to trigger the next Big Bang.

There are crazier theories out there, but as creation stories go it sounds relatively sane, and Sir Penrose claims he’s found the evidence he needs to bolster his cyclical universe hypothesis in the cosmic microwave background. The CMB is believed to have been thrust into existence when the universe was just 300,000 years old, and as such it’s treated as a kind of record of the state of the universe at that time.

The current model of the universe says any temperature variations in the CMB should be random, but Penrose claims he and a colleague have found very clear concentric circles within the CMB, suggesting regions where the radiation has much smaller temperature ranges. These, he posits, are spherical evidence of the gravitational effects of black hole collisions during the previous universe. The circles fit well in his theory, and not so well in the standard inflationary theory.

Of course, it’s not all that simple and Penrose has by no means shattered the foundation of modern physics. Not yet, anyhow. Peers will read his paper critically, and he still has some loose ends to tie up and some assumptions to prove. But it’s fun to try and wrap one’s head around it all. And if you’d care to give that a try, you can get a PDF of Penrose’s paper here.

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

A big bang. Kaboom. Kabing. Kablow.

Was the Big Bang Preceded by Another Universe (Which Was Preceded by Another Universe)?

11/22/2010

The current widely-held theory of life, the universe, and everything holds that at some point roughly 13.7 billion years ago everything that now is was packed into a tight little package from which sprung the Big Bang, which violently hurled everything into existence. But 13.7 billion years to get to where we are isn’t enough for renowned physicist Sir Roger Penrose, and now he thinks he can prove that things aren’t/weren’t quite so simple. Drawing on evidence he found in the cosmic microwave background, Penrose says the Big Bang wasn’t the beginning, but one in a series of cyclical Big Bangs, each of which spawned its own universe.

By Penrose’s estimation, our universe is not the first – nor will it be the last – to spawn from a dense mass of highly-ordered everything into the complex universe we see around us. In fact, it’s that high degree of order that was apparently present at the universe’s birth that set him on this line of thought. The current Big Bang model doesn’t supply a reason as to why a low entropy, highly ordered state existed at the birth of our universe unless things were set in order before the Big Bang occurred.

According to Penrose, each universe returns to a state of low entropy as it approaches its final days of expanding into eventual nothingness. Black holes, by virtue of the fact that they suck in everything they encounter, spend their cosmic lifetimes working to scrub entropy from the universe. And as the universe nears the end of its expansion the black holes themselves evaporate, setting things back into a state of order. Unable to expand any further the universe then collapses back in on itself as a highly ordered system, ready to trigger the next Big Bang.

There are crazier theories out there, but as creation stories go it sounds relatively sane, and Sir Penrose claims he’s found the evidence he needs to bolster his cyclical universe hypothesis in the cosmic microwave background. The CMB is believed to have been thrust into existence when the universe was just 300,000 years old, and as such it’s treated as a kind of record of the state of the universe at that time.

The current model of the universe says any temperature variations in the CMB should be random, but Penrose claims he and a colleague have found very clear concentric circles within the CMB, suggesting regions where the radiation has much smaller temperature ranges. These, he posits, are spherical evidence of the gravitational effects of black hole collisions during the previous universe. The circles fit well in his theory, and not so well in the standard inflationary theory.

Of course, it’s not all that simple and Penrose has by no means shattered the foundation of modern physics. Not yet, anyhow. Peers will read his paper critically, and he still has some loose ends to tie up and some assumptions to prove. But it’s fun to try and wrap one’s head around it all. And if you’d care to give that a try, you can get a PDF of Penrose’s paper here.

You put a lot of faith in the possibility of an event that happened 14 billion years ago, that no one has ever seen, even looking back in time, through the most sophisticated telescopes. Further, if you really understand the theory, that all matter in the universe comes from that one event, no one ever will. Even more alarming, is that the visible universe is almost twice as large as Einstein's theory of special relativity would allow, which would put the radius of the theoretical universe at one and a half to twice that. The big bang theory is far from complete.

[LaL 418]

You have all the answers LI. Too bad about the absolute arrogance though.

[^_^ 5,021]

I find his arrogance befitting a man who really does have all the right answers.

[LaL 418]

I find his arrogance befitting a man who really does have all the right answers.

yeah ok.

[웃 910]

You put a lot of faith in the possibility of an event that happened 14 billion years ago, that no one has ever seen, even looking back in time, through the most sophisticated telescopes. Further, if you really understand the theory, that all matter in the universe comes from that one event, no one ever will. Even more alarming, is that the visible universe is almost twice as large as Einstein's theory of special relativity would allow, which would put the radius of the theoretical universe at one and a half to twice that. The big bang theory is far from complete.

I would rather put my faith with pHd's, geniuses, scientists, educated people that are purely brilliant than your average pastor that would face stiff competition if they went on the show "are you smarter than a 5th grader".

Why are the ancient religions considered mythology now and the main modern religions are considered credible? There were no video cameras or tape recorders back in those days. If Jesus (a jew) was really performing godly miracles then, trust me, every jew would have known about it in a matter of hours. Yet the jews obviously weren't buying it.

There hasn't been a sighting in over 2000 years so why would I put my faith in something that old? Back then they thought the world was flat and tiny. They didn't know what gravity was. I'm sure they barely knew your basic kindergarten mathematics.

It's very suspicious that God was around thousands of years ago communicating with the religious but nobody has heard a peep from him in 10s of centuries. We are talking about billions of humans over 1000s of years and not one has ever heard or seen God. Unless of course your proof of God is that he had a slow day and sent a tow truck driver to jump your car when it was stalling out in a parking lot or that you had a near death experience in 2002 (the self proclaimed proof of God that was shared earlier in this thread).

[웃 910]

You have all the answers LI. Too bad about the absolute arrogance though.

[chri'stina 190]

There's no difference between agnostics and atheists. Religious people like to think there is.

I don't care if there is a difference between agnostic and atheist, however some people who are those things seem to have an opinion of whether they are one or the other. I take their word for it, not just my own idea about what those words mean.