Simple question?

Quote: FrGamble

Are you really trying to say that if I think the sky is blue

I'm saying asylums are full of people who
have a reality so skewed they can't live
in society. The rest of us keep our personal
realities in check, we try and get along.
You created a god in your reality that
isn't in mine. What does that tell you
about him. It should speak volumes.

Do you know why doctors who work is
asylums have shrinks they see a couple
times a week? Because the crazy people
are so compelling, they often drag the
doctors into their reality with them. The
shrinks keep them sane.

Quote: FrGamble

Not quite sure what Q.E.D. stands for

"quod erat demonstrandum"

I think you speak Latin.

Quote: FrGamble

So your so called logical solution is to posit what we know is impossible? Energy does not create itself, it is not the source of its own existence.

You keep trying to bend reality to your belief, when the evidence strongly suggests an amount of eternal energy.

No amount of sincere belief or strongly held faith can change the spin of a single photon, no matter how important changing that spin might be to your belief and faith.

The point is you insist that energy requires creation, when the evidence shows no such thing. Had NOTHING existed in the 0.00 seconds of the universe's existence, I'd grant the point. The evidence, though, is that 99.999999999999999% of the universe's energy predates the universe.

You also seem to think a being that by definition cannot be seen, sensed, detected or measured, and who can act upon the universe at will without leaving marks, trails, footprints, or any other evidence behind, can be proven beyond any doubt by cleverly manipulating scientific knowledge. I seriously do not see how you can reconcile self-contradictory premises. Science, after all, is all about seeing, detecting, sensing and measuring things that do leave marks, trails, footprints and plenty of other evidence behind.

Thus far the closest thing to an entity that cannot be seen, sensed, measured, leaves no evidence, etc. but that we have reason to think is real, is dark matter (and perhaps dark energy).

I leave any conclusions up to you.

Quote: rxwine

No one should call such events unusual because of the sheer numbers of people meeting everyday, but I'm betting many do and call it intervention by their god of choice.

It's the Lottery paradox:

The chances of one specific person winning the jackpot are one in several millions. But, given millions of tickets sold, the chances of someone winning the jackpot are very high.

Quote: Nareed

No amount of sincere belief or strongly held faith can change the spin of a single photon, no matter how important changing that spin might be to your belief and faith.

I agree. Likewise no observation or experiment no matter what will cause a single photon to begin spinning.

Quote:

The point is you insist that energy requires creation, when the evidence shows no such thing. Had NOTHING existed in the 0.00 seconds of the universe's existence, I'd grant the point. The evidence, though, is that 99.999999999999999% of the universe's energy predates the universe.

This is hogwash. I have never seen such evidence and have no idea what you are referring to.

Quote:

You also seem to think a being that by definition cannot be seen, sensed, detected or measured, and who can act upon the universe at will without leaving marks, trails, footprints, or any other evidence behind, can be proven beyond any doubt by cleverly manipulating scientific knowledge.

No scientific knowledge is a help but it cannot possible prove the existence of such a being. This being is proved by simple logic and reason.

Quote:

I seriously do not see how you can reconcile self-contradictory premises. Science, after all, is all about seeing, detecting, sensing and measuring things that do leave marks, trails, footprints and plenty of other evidence behind.

I completely agree that is why I don't understand why you keep trying to use science to prove or even speak intelligently about something that is "above its pay grade" so to speak.

Quote:

Thus far the closest thing to an entity that cannot be seen, sensed, measured, leaves no evidence, etc. but that we have reason to think is real, is dark matter (and perhaps dark energy).

I leave any conclusions up to you.

I leave it to you to explain the contradiction you just admitted to above.

Quote: FrGamble

I agree. Likewise no observation or experiment no matter what will cause a single photon to begin spinning.

Q: When does a photon not spin?
A: When it doesn't exist.

Quote:

I completely agree that is why I don't understand why you keep trying to use science to prove or even speak intelligently about something that is "above its pay grade" so to speak.

Because that which cannot be seen, sensed, detected, measured, etc. is outside the realm of reality. That's the most important thing revealed by the scientific revolution. (Yes, you can measure love and any other feelings qualitatively; it's the near-impossibility of measuring them quantitatively that renders the social sciences nearly impotent).

Quote:

I leave it to you to explain the contradiction you just admitted to above.

We can detect the effects of dark matter (and dark energy), but we can't detect it directly. Failure to directly detect it can mean any number of things. One is that there is no dark matter, in which case our understanding of gravity is sorely lacking, Einstein or no Einstein. Another is that our hypotheses of what dark matter is made of are completely wrong. In the latter case, wed' be like XIX century scientists looking for luminiferous ether; it's just not there. In the former, we'd be like XIX century scientists looking for a planet between Mercury and the Sun, which also wasn't there.

In both cases, Einstein provided two little thoughts to resolve these problems. One was the Special Theory of Relativity, the other the General Theory of Relativity. Given such precedent, I'm rooting for the last three decades of research to be wrong, wrong, wrong (with apologies to the physicists involved).

Quote: FrGamble

This being is proved by simple logic and reason. .

Such a silly conversation. The creator
of the universe, the mover and shaker,
the god who influences so many lives
and so many people believe in, can
only be proven to exist by correct thinking.
If you get your logic and reason just
right, god can be found (sometimes)
hiding behind a bush winking at you.

Silliness personified.

Quote: Evenbob

Such a silly conversation. The creator
of the universe, the mover and shaker,
the god who influences so many lives
and so many people believe in, can
only be proven to exist by correct thinking.
If you get your logic and reason just
right, god can be found (sometimes)
hiding behind a bush winking at you.

Silliness personified.

What is silly is those who say there is no God. No one is saying that the only way someone can know God is through correct thinking. In fact it is not even the best or most meaningful way. It is only a way to get people who aren't thinking straight and have blocked off the possibility for God through illogical and wishful thinking to at least open up their minds again. If they open their hearts is a whole other matter.

Those who know God and love Him realize that while it is undeniable that God exists based on the evidence and logical arguments, such things don't hold a candle to the real relationship they have with God.

Quote: Nareed

Because that which cannot be seen, sensed, detected, measured, etc. is outside the realm of reality. That's the most important thing revealed by the scientific revolution.

Then you don't understand the scientific revolution at all! Please tell me how science saw, sensed, detected, and measured the philosophical claim that anything that cannot be seen, sensed, detected, measured, etc. is outside the realm of reality? Your own words condemn you and you contradict yourself. Maybe you could ask yourself the famous philosophical question, "If a tree falls in the middle of the forest and no one is there to see, sense, detect, measure, or observe it - does it make a sound?" Or you could ask yourself about that same tree, "Can you be 100% certain that some force acted upon that tree to make it fall?"

Quote:

We can detect the effects of dark matter, but we can't detect it directly.

I think you could replace the words 'dark matter' with God and say the same thing.

Quote: FrGamble

Really where does it say this?

It's implied. The Bible is a book of myths, not a philosophical treatise (that's what makes it so hard to extract even good morality from it).

If you read Ptolemy's works, you'd find such things clearly stated. In the Bible you get implications of what everyone at the time knoew to be so. For example, when, I think, Joshua fights a Canaanite tribe, Jehovah orders the Sun to stop moving in order to lengthen the day. As far as the procession of daytime goes, the Sun does not move in relation to the Earth. Ergo this means the writers believed the Sun revolved around the Earth. And I fail to see how that can make sense unless Earth is at the center.

Q.E.D.

The whole scene is absolutely impossible. Had the myth stated Jehovah made the Earth stop spinning, I'd like to see how far into orbit everything goes: seas, people, trees, buildings, even bits of the crust. It would almost be safer to stop the Sun, if Earth was in an orbital position away from the direction of motion at the time. If not, when the Sun's very, very, very hot atmosphere were all sloughed off at once, at least half the Earth would have been cooked to a crisp, including Joshua, the children of Israel, the Canaanites, the Middle East and most of Asia.