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…Signaling round two.
What Hawking was on about is the implications of M Theory, an attempt to unite at least 5 different string theories, and his conclusion that the same laws of physics that we observe today applied at the occurrence of the Big Bang.
I saw a British TV news item on this that contrasted the views of an atheist particle physicist in Geneva (presumably working on the Large Hadron Collider) and Alister McGrath author of the Dawkins Delusion. McGrath put up his usual line that amounts to “it's good we are talking about god” and the atheist physicist made the analogy that in looking for a unified theory we are still playing on the shore of a very deep ocean. I think Hawking is stating in his usual gently mocking way that there is no reason to invoke a god in the appearance of the universe, that the god invoked at the beginning of the universe is a god of the gaps and doesn't actually explain anything anyway, and if M Theory is right then you can move that god of the gaps back further because the laws of physics apply consistently through the Big Bang and “before” it.
The problem is this aspect of it is a mathematical model that is not supported by empirical evidence. The Large Hadron Collider will take us back closer to the Big Bang singularity by producing higher energy collisions, but it will not be able to show us strings, which are smaller than the grain of space and therefore not observable by us anyway.
McGrath's other “point” was that science might be completely different in 100 years, to which the atheist physicist patiently explained that science is mainly a journey of refinements.
Going back to the point I made earlier about a media beat-up, I think it is pretty clear that all the global media wanted was to sell its schedule by another round of “science versus god”.
Actually science has nothing to say about gods: it is not the problem of a scientist that there is no unambiguous evidence whatever for the existence of any god.
You would think that, with so many gods out there maybe one would have accidentally left a real trace of its existence. But no!
Stuart
Stu,
Refinement of WHAT?
– Refinement of what: Only what he has DISCOVERED
– What has he Discovered: Only what has been CREATED
– What has been Created: Everything in EXISTENCE both SEEN and UNSEEN
– Science is only uncovering what has already been created (“For what was covered will be uncovered – What is hidden will be exposed”)
– Science is like a retrograde Computer Programmer or Electronics Guru who is picking his way through Code/hardware he has found and working out how it was put together. What he DISCOVERS he redesigns (Rather badly) and tries to claim as his own “Invention” while denying that his Discovery is just that – A discovery from an already created unit – and if he is designing something 'different'(read similar) then there must have been someone who created the original. Like a child learning Mathematics and discovers Quadratic Equations by accident then denies all the books he read that lead him to discover Quadratic Equations because he feels that his discovery warrants him a place in Prodigiousness. Who wrote the books he read – Someone gretaer than himself for sure!Quote (Stu @ Sep. 12 2010,11:38) Actually science has nothing to say about gods: it is not the problem of a scientist that there is no unambiguous evidence whatever for the existence of any god. You would think that, with so many gods out there maybe one would have accidentally left a real trace of its existence. But no!
I can only conclude then that your latter statement is not science according to the former statement.Thanks. You appear to be making further progress and I am glad that you have finally arrived at the point where faith in God and faith in science are not necessarily contradictory. This is how it was in the beginning. Many scientists thought of science as uncovering how God did it. It was never meant to be a means of disproving God because it cannot do that.
Science can only work out what happened after the beginning. That is why you struggle to argue against God. Because you are trying to use reasoning and theories that are wholly contained within the creation to explain that which is outside and beyond that and which is not subject to the creation it caused.
Quote (JustAskin @ Sep. 12 2010,18:40) Stu, Refinement of WHAT?
– Refinement of what: Only what he has DISCOVERED
– What has he Discovered: Only what has been CREATED
– What has been Created: Everything in EXISTENCE both SEEN and UNSEEN
– Science is only uncovering what has already been created (“For what was covered will be uncovered – What is hidden will be exposed”)
– Science is like a retrograde Computer Programmer or Electronics Guru who is picking his way through Code/hardware he has found and working out how it was put together. What he DISCOVERS he redesigns (Rather badly) and tries to claim as his own “Invention” while denying that his Discovery is just that – A discovery from an already created unit – and if he is designing something 'different'(read similar) then there must have been someone who created the original. Like a child learning Mathematics and discovers Quadratic Equations by accident then denies all the books he read that lead him to discover Quadratic Equations because he feels that his discovery warrants him a place in Prodigiousness. Who wrote the books he read – Someone gretaer than himself for sure!
Nice.
Quote (JustAskin @ Sep. 12 2010,18:28) Stu, String Theory… ha! – have you figured out how long a piece of string is yet?
Nice one JA.Stu, show me the string.
Regardless, if it is true, then someone is at the end of the string. Strings can't come from nothing.
I like it how they say there are strings and have never seen them, and deny God which at a scientific level is a perfect explanation for how all things got here. An infinite intelligence can easily make all what you see happen.
As for strings, well their IQ is zero.
t8,
Excellent prognosis.
One thing though: Science can also show what can happen in the future, undoubtably. But it can't work IF it will happen – AND it only deals with the Physical World/Universe – it does not align that with Soci-Economic, Spiritual and physio-Spiritual aspects because it cannot Calculate them. This, then, is a very dangerous position from which to be claiming leadership of the entire world (Who was that said about : oh, yeah: Satan!)
Quote (JustAskin @ Sep. 12 2010,18:40) Stu, Refinement of WHAT?
– Refinement of what: Only what he has DISCOVERED
– What has he Discovered: Only what has been CREATED
– What has been Created: Everything in EXISTENCE both SEEN and UNSEEN
– Science is only uncovering what has already been created (“For what was covered will be uncovered – What is hidden will be exposed”)
– Science is like a retrograde Computer Programmer or Electronics Guru who is picking his way through Code/hardware he has found and working out how it was put together. What he DISCOVERS he redesigns (Rather badly) and tries to claim as his own “Invention” while denying that his Discovery is just that – A discovery from an already created unit – and if he is designing something 'different'(read similar) then there must have been someone who created the original. Like a child learning Mathematics and discovers Quadratic Equations by accident then denies all the books he read that lead him to discover Quadratic Equations because he feels that his discovery warrants him a place in Prodigiousness. Who wrote the books he read – Someone gretaer than himself for sure!
Only three platitudes this time. Perhaps you are still suffering from a hangover. You have added a t8-like analogy, although I've no idea what the analogy is for.Let's take the engineering aspect of what you were going on about. The human back very commonly causes problems, sometimes quite debilitating pain. The reason for this is that walking upright has such a phenomenal advantage that the adaptation of the back to that position has been pretty abrupt. There has not been time for much refinement of that structure in the relatively very short time we have been walking upright.
Let's consider your alternative model of a designer of the human back (although there is no scientific theory of creationism): the alleged designer has done a worse job of the human back than a first-year engineering student could manage, and I think I could have a decent stab at the job with almost no training in engineering at all, although I did make a pretty stunning wooden pencil case when I was twelve. If we consider the properties of this designer, then it is a phenomenally brilliant biochemist, far beyond what we can do yet with our own biochemistry, but it is a third-rate engineer that has left poor design behind it, including stuff that is just dangerous, and other stuff that is completely unnecessary.
The best fit for explaining the origins of the human body is natural selection, and that is mainly because most creationists have no idea just how cobbled-together we are. They usually pine lyrically about perfection in design without realising just how random and haphazard the development has been.
If you want to change your model to a careless designer, then I would be prepared to take another look…as long as you can supply a falsifiable, evidence-based theory to go with it, a mechanism akin to natural selection. You might also like to come up with a reason for why it appears to be obsessed with beetles.
By the way, don't god-deluded people usually capitalise the “h” in “he” when referring to their Imaginary Friend?
Stuart
Quote (t8 @ Sep. 12 2010,19:31) Quote (JustAskin @ Sep. 12 2010,18:28) Stu, String Theory… ha! – have you figured out how long a piece of string is yet?
Nice one JA.Stu, show me the string.
Regardless, if it is true, then someone is at the end of the string. Strings can't come from nothing.
I like it how they say there are strings and have never seen them, and deny God which at a scientific level is a perfect explanation for how all things got here. An infinite intelligence can easily make all what you see happen.
As for strings, well their IQ is zero.
Go back and read what I wrote. I cannot show you the strings, no one can. That is why it is little more than a mathematical attempt to unify gravitation and quantum mechanics. I'm not claiming this is how it is, and I don't think many people are at this stage.I'll show you the strings if you show me your god. The empirical evidence for each is about the same. The only difference is that the physicists are prepared to state how the strings would explain the properties of matter. Christians never have any mechanism for how their Imaginary Friend interacts with matter.
I agree that the strings, were they real, would have zero intelligence. You should tell that to JustAskin. He seems to believe that matter has intelligence. Perhaps he believes in the life force theory that was disproved in 1828.
Stuart
Quote (t8 @ Sep. 12 2010,19:29) Quote (Stu @ Sep. 12 2010,11:38) Actually science has nothing to say about gods: it is not the problem of a scientist that there is no unambiguous evidence whatever for the existence of any god. You would think that, with so many gods out there maybe one would have accidentally left a real trace of its existence. But no!
I can only conclude then that your latter statement is not science according to the former statement.Thanks. You appear to be making further progress and I am glad that you have finally arrived at the point where faith in God and faith in science are not necessarily contradictory. This is how it was in the beginning. Many scientists thought of science as uncovering how God did it. It was never meant to be a means of disproving God because it cannot do that.
Science can only work out what happened after the beginning. That is why you struggle to argue against God. Because you are trying to use reasoning and theories that are wholly contained within the creation to explain that which is outside and beyond that and which is not subject to the creation it caused.
You're playing to the crowd again t8. I have never changed my statement on this in all the time I've posted here. I am agnostic, as we all are. I make the provisional conclusion that, in the complete absence of any unambiguous evidence, there is no such thing as a god.I have added the word unambiguous recently because Ed began to claim that what he was presenting was evidence. He still has not said what it is evidence for!
Stuart
Quote (JustAskin @ Sep. 12 2010,19:36) t8, Excellent prognosis.
One thing though: Science can also show what can happen in the future, undoubtably. But it can't work IF it will happen – AND it only deals with the Physical World/Universe – it does not align that with Soci-Economic, Spiritual and physio-Spiritual aspects because it cannot Calculate them. This, then, is a very dangerous position from which to be claiming leadership of the entire world (Who was that said about : oh, yeah: Satan!)
Once you have stopped spouting what the last evangelical pastor told you, and stopped to think about it, you might realise that it is not scientists who have delusions of world domination.That would be the religious you are thinking of. The rest of us believe in democracy, mostly.
Stuart
Stu,
You are so small… you so close in you are like an industrious ant hurrying to gather food to take back to the nest but cannot see the Flood rolling down the hillside coming to sweep all away and take him to perdition. And even if he did see the flood he wouldn't understand it – nor what with his short legs he could do to avoid it so he would just ignore it in his fright!
Stu, the world around you is being prepared for the great Spiritual Flood that will sweep sin away – and you, you scurry around picking up 'science scrap' to bring back to your laboratory.
Stu, did you know that the sun will go SuperNova in 45 Billlion years time; “Hmmm…just time for another cup of tea, then!” (HHGTTG)
Stu,
Let me nice to you, as Shimmer has asked me…
Tell me about yourself. What is your background – “Where are you from and where are you going to?” (Ha ha – What's your name and where do you come from (Game show introduction!))
And have you figured out how long a piece of string is yet? No pressure – I'm sure you have put “Big Blue's Sequoia” to work onto it. here's a tip: The human brain is faster than the fastest Supercomputer created by man – Who created the human brain – oh yeah, Science did – Why do I keep forgetting? (Michael macDonald: Album:”sweet Freedom”)
JustAskin
Quote You are so small… you so close in you are like an industrious ant hurrying to gather food to take back to the nest but cannot see the Flood rolling down the hillside coming to sweep all away and take him to perdition. And even if he did see the flood he wouldn't understand it – nor what with his short legs he could do to avoid it so he would just ignore it in his fright!
I wish I was special like you so I could see all that big stuff.Would you like a cup of tea while you wait? The men in white coats will be here for you soon.
Quote Stu, the world around you is being prepared for the great Spiritual Flood that will sweep sin away – and you, you scurry around picking up 'science scrap' to bring back to your laboratory.
No, I don’t think any of that matches reality. How does it?Quote Stu, did you know that the sun will go SuperNova in 45 Billlion years time; “Hmmm…just time for another cup of tea, then!” (HHGTTG)
You need to check your facts there. Our sun will never go supernova because it is too small. It will become a red giant in about 5 billion years and almost certainly its radius will increase to beyond the orbit of the earth. Still I suppose the earth won’t be needed then, will it, because Jesus is coming soon. Within a few years of his martyrdom, oh no wait that can’t be right can it, within a millennium, um, actually it’s been two millennia now. Are all bets off on that one?Stuart
Quote (JustAskin @ Sep. 12 2010,20:35) Stu, Let me nice to you, as Shimmer has asked me…
Tell me about yourself. What is your background – “Where are you from and where are you going to?” (Ha ha – What's your name and where do you come from (Game show introduction!))
And have you figured out how long a piece of string is yet? No pressure – I'm sure you have put “Big Blue's Sequoia” to work onto it. here's a tip: The human brain is faster than the fastest Supercomputer created by man – Who created the human brain – oh yeah, Science did – Why do I keep forgetting? (Michael macDonald: Album:”sweet Freedom”)
I've heard recently it is only a matter of decades before supercomputers are faster than human brains. I wonder if they will try to make a computer that works like a human brain, with the reptilian part at war constantly with the neocortex for control over behaviour.Stuart
Stu,
you so low… and puny. Jesus did not say when he would return – but he did leave CLUES as to when – he said “Only the Father knows” … Stick to Science Stu, cos Scriptures just doesn't hack it with you – and you would be sooo way out of your depth you would need junior floating wings and a safety line before anyone allowed you to venture out near the Scriptural waters.
Stu… logic: One cannot create something greater than oneself.
The thing that creates something greater than itself is only a tool used “BY” a greater thing that is itself only creating something LESS than itself.
Stu, think about it: What a dangerous concept it would be if we could create a thing greater than ourselves… What idiot would do that – mad Scientist would try… yes.. Stu, You would…
that is why man fears Robots and Androids so much – because they fear that they will supercede Mankind – But Stu, does this not align with SATAN….Satan, desire worship by Man but was denied by God. So, Satan deceives man into creating an “Andriodam” that will take over from man and worship him, Satan. Beautiful.
Stu, You just inadvertently made a revelation – wow – from the mouth of a baby and a suckling in Scriptural matters
– God is Great, Praise Jah!!
Even form the mouth of the adversary he reveals his Truth (But who will hear it – let alone believe it – Be careful – What God has cleansed… But all the same – test the Spirit!)
“Androidam” – isn't this what Revelation is talking about as the One who was given Power and Authority by the great dragon. The beast that was wounded but yet lived
– it's ok, just a supposition I don't know.
By the way, Stu, Sequoia is, for all it's 21st century Worlds most powerful Computer, only as powerful as a Microbe – perhaps less!
Yes, it will take a little while bfore Satan can breathe life into it's input-output i-Scsi external port.
Quote (JustAskin @ Sep. 12 2010,20:52) Stu, you so low… and puny. Jesus did not say when he would return – but he did leave CLUES as to when – he said “Only the Father knows” … Stick to Science Stu, cos Scriptures just doesn't hack it with you – and you would be sooo way out of your depth you would need junior floating wings and a safety line before anyone allowed you to venture out near the Scriptural waters.
Stu… logic: One cannot create something greater than oneself.
The thing that creates something greater than itself is only a tool used “BY” a greater thing that is itself only creating something LESS than itself.
Stu, think about it: What a dangerous concept it would be if we could create a thing greater than ourselves… What idiot would do that – mad Scientist would try… yes.. Stu, You would…
that is why man fears Robots and Androids so much – because they fear that they will supercede Mankind – But Stu, does this not align with SATAN….Satan, desire worship by Man but was denied by God. So, Satan deceives man into creating an “Andriodam” that will take over from man and worship him, Satan. Beautiful.
Stu, You just inadvertently made a revelation – wow – from the mouth of a baby and a suckling in Scriptural matters
– God is Great, Praise Jah!!
Even form the mouth of the adversary he reveals his Truth (But who will hear it – let alone believe it – Be careful – What God has cleansed… But all the same – test the Spirit!)
Would you agree with the often-stated platitude that god did not use the scriptures to reveal the detailed mechanism of the creation because it would have been wasted on bronze-age readers?Revelation 22:20 He which testifieth these things saith, Surely I come quickly.
If you do agree, why then would you be advocating that your god has told you Jesus will return “quickly”, but we will not be able to understand when?
Not sure what you would make of these then:
“Verily I say unto you, There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom.” — Matthew16:28
“Verily I say unto you, All these things shall come upon this generation.” — Matthew 23:36
“But this I say, brethren, the time is short: it remaineth, that both they that have wives be as though they had none.” — 1 Corinthians 7:29
“Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son….” — Hebrews 1:2
“But the end of all things is at hand.” — 1 Peter 4:7
“The Lord is at hand.” — Philippians 4:5
“For the coming of the Lord draweth nigh.” — James 5:8
“For yet a little while, and he that shall come will come, and will not tarry.” — Hebrews 10:37
“The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to shew unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass. — Revelation 1:1
“The time is at hand.” — Revelation 1:3
“Behold, I come quickly.” — Revelation 3:11
If “soon” doesn't really mean soon, and “quickly” doesn't really mean quickly, then perhaps “resurrection” doesn't really mean resurrection.
Stuart
Stu,
You are in Spiritual ignorance.
Jesus is refering to his Coming into Power – and indeed this did take place in the lifetime of many who were alive at the time. In 70 Ad. when the Romans overran the temple – the people had to “Run for the Hills” and the Abomination” stood in the Holy Place of God, the inner Sanctum where only the High Priest is allowed to go.
Yes, there were some alive at that time. At this time Satan had free reign on the earth as his domain so he immediately attacked “God” and his people hoping for a swift [foolhardy] victory.
But god did not abandon his people and many survived to continue the fight against unRighteousness and bring many to Him through their faith.
But that was NOT THE END – the END is still yet to come, and for this we wait like bridesmaid and the Bride arrayed for the wedding (In case you don't know – in those days a Bridesmaid had to prepare the Bride days before – and on the day – and both WAITED for the Bridegroom who could arrive at ANY TIME – even until Midnight. Not like today where the Bridegroom waits for the Bride)
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