Faith vs Science - a rant on why is the Universe so big?

[Don Pensack]

I do have hope that intelligent life may exist somewhere in the galaxy or Universe, but I'm waiting for it to develop here. At the moment, the jury's still out.
Seriously, self-awareness is a sliding scale among animals (anyone who has spent time with animals knows this), peaking with, perhaps (well, it COULD be argued) Man. However, looking at this "sliding scale", it is equally possible to envision a species much higher up the ramp, so to speak.
But, the Universe is so vast, so the likelihood of our ever knowing that species exists is near zero. Our Sun's heat will end all life on Earth some time in the next billion or billion and a half years. Even if we've managed to seed the stars with Ark-like ships carrying thousands of us, the species that will develop from us (assuming we don't kill ourselves off) will look back at us in pity and wonder (similar to how we look at Homo erectus) as they flee the Earth before its end.
It is the height of anthropocentrism and egotism to believe there is something special in our existences. A large asteroid could hit us in a hundred years and put an end to all of us and the Universe would go on.
Indeed, we are capable of killing our own species off, but we will not end life on Earth.
WE care if there is purpose. WE care if there is life elsewhere. WE care about the nature of the Universe. IT does not know whether we exist....or care. It is simply up to us to define our own purpose. When you grow up, you realize that you are responsible for your own lives. Man is refusing to grow up and take responsibility for his own existence by deciding it has meaning and that the meaning is................

[netwolf]

Just as we still dont know many things, we dont know why there are so many stars. Why would you expect any human being to know the answer this question? The scientific method used by human beings can not unlock all the knowledge of the universe. And who said that life only exists on this planet. Again i think your allowing the biblical account of creation to cloud you view of creation and the creator. Perhaps if mankind paused and wondered more often abotu the natural wonder of the universe and its ordered behavious, they might realise that this order comes from some core system of rules that they are following. Perhaps human being would study and try to understand these rules. But will the understand what is plain in front of them. That universe is in harmony by following those rules. And perhaps we can have similar harmony by following similar rules for human beings. To some degree the legal instutions that have come to be are formed on the philosphies derived from such reflection of the universe. Perhaps that is there purpose to show us how to achive harmony and to inspire us to do so.

Don if there is nothing special in our existance then why should we define a purpose. Given that we all are aware that we will die some day. Why define a purpose when we know a day will come when a asteroid might destroy us all. If you follow this line of thought one might just say lets give up and not bother. I think you can see the contradiction in this.

Regards

[Lester]

Many are doing that every day= "lets give up and not bother" Its called Suicide.

[fringe_dweller]

I find the arguements so far for the faith side enigmatic and sometimes a little portentous, whereas the science side seemes to trying hard to be pragmatic as possible!
I agree with some other writers here, why the heck does the universe need to be so darn supersized just to accomodate one little planet with some mammals on wheels running around thinking they are in charge?. that one has got me stuffed!
But I have to admit there is one fact that does seem a little spooky to me, and thats why are the differences/developmental gap (not talking biology here either) between humans and the next sentient animal/critter in the pecking order, *appear* so flippin' LARGE!?? WOOOOOOOOO

[netwolf]

We are not necessarly the only life in the universe, my faith in creation does not exclude but includes this possibility. And more so it includes the possibility for more than one univerese. Creator of Universes.

There is much stuff on this site on a diffrent pespective on Creation. I inivte you to take a look. I have not reviewed it all and am uncertain how true it is. But its intresting all the same.
http://islam.speed-light.info/


Regards

[Don Pensack]

Originally Posted by netwolf

Don if there is nothing special in our existance then why should we define a purpose. Given that we all are aware that we will die some day. Why define a purpose when we know a day will come when a asteroid might destroy us all. If you follow this line of thought one might just say lets give up and not bother. I think you can see the contradiction in this.

Regards

The Existentialist Conundrum does point out the pointlessness of our consciousnesses and even our extistences. But it is the response to this that defines us as Human. As I said, WE care if there is meaning in our lives, and it is simply up to us to define this meaning, not to look for any Higher Authority.
From my vantage, Man created God(s) in his own image to externalize the value system he had internally. I think it's time for Man to realize this, debate what that value system is, and become a species who, though its existence is fleeting in the overall sense, defines its own purpose in being here. That purpose may have no meaning outside of Man himself, but it would be enough.
[And one of the purposes of Man I would like to see is that he strives to know everything there is to know, even though the quest would be endless. Learning is one of the First Purposes I would propose. But you see, that is just one point to debate and there are millions.]
Don Pensack

[netwolf]

Well look around you eveyone has defined there own purpose, some have done it within the context of a larger faith framework. This is a never ending discussion becuase our free will allows us to disagree.

At least we can agree that learning is one of our purposes in life. Faith does not limit this ability in anyway as it is seprate from this. I dont know of any faith that stops you from learning.
But our learning will never reveal any proof of the existance or non-existance of a creator. Because by virtue of that title excludes them from our concious ability to understand. You either belive or you dont that is part of your freely defined pupose.

Regards

[g__day (Matthew)]

That's a pretty reasonable perspective Don, and a faith belief simply responds with we have a purpose that is hidden at the moment.

By the way I found a decent list of biblical "absurdities" (their words) here http://www.infidels.org/library/mode...an/absurd.html

Personally I can see the evidence for a creation event, even if we have only a paltry understanding of reality that exists beyond our human senses (alah hidden variable theory). Its just the size of the universe and the unlikeliness of us being here with higher intelligence that leads me to ponder do we have critical purpose and mission to fulfil. Is this why we are here, because our actions will cause a 3rd party some collateral benefit from our human perspective? Seems a remote possibility to me. I ponder we are missing perspective somewhere in all of this.

And will we one day travel and colonise the stars? What if in 5,000 years or way less we discover say size, distance and time at lower levels of reality are simply illusions to be bent as far as we like with an uber-science? What if way faster than light travel isn't only a possibility, its simplicity - like pouring water from a tap, to a race than can play and totally master materials at a quantum or a galactic level with equal ease.

Perhaps our vision and dreams are way too small today. Maybe theoretcical physics will show us even how to create our own universe with definied physical constants. Would having the creation and environmental manipulation capabilities of a Biblical diety really help us that much? Of would it only serve as entertainment - lets go create a universe, play with it, raise a few higher life forms, then eat lunch at the other end of the Universe before the next wave of reality tv come son in the afternoon.

What is our purpose!

netwolf

That link you posted had better scientific analysis than I expected - but they are making some big assumptions, especially about the Earth / moon distance and length of a day in ancient times equaling each other put over extended periods of time, to give a constant formulea for the speed of light in the Koran. They don't go back to when say the moon was 1,000 times closer to the Earth and deduct what our orbital period was back then and what factors determine it to be so. They simply stated it was and faild to say why and check their results - Major Oppsie. Sadly their models are thoughtful but their assumptions are too strong and incorrect. For one they don't equate of mass changes to the Earth due to meteorites dumping extra mass onto our planet every day. Nor do the account for how far the moon travels thanks to our galactic cluster heading towards the Great Attracter at about 960 km/sec. So it would kinda change their figures.

And the way they spectulate with relativity is frivolous. I could just as reasonable argue God is a black hole that can't every enter our Universe by their brand of logic (e.g. God has inifinte power or energy, but e = mc^2 which implies God has inifinte mass, but large massive bodies create black holes that warp spacetime, and if God has infinite mass then in our reality he has a even horizon of infinite radius about him). So only an infinitesimaly small quotient of God can every enter and interact with our reality without blowing it all away.

Kinda cute logic isn't it? Maybe reality is just a bit more complext than that...

[netwolf]

Faith does provide a purpose, for me it is simply to submit to the will of the creator. It clearly identifies what that will is and what our duties and responsibilities are towards all of mankind. Further it limits us in no way from learning rather it encourages it. Lookup where the concept of Quarantine and Hospitals came from. So if you are going to argue faith limits purpose or limits our ability to learn then you are ignoring documented history. The lunar callendar, the concept of a moon circling the earth, and reflecting light from the sun. All these and more have come from a text 1400 years old that has remain unchanged in that time. Not one letter has changed. You are welcome to question its authorship but the knowledge and frame work it provides have encourage many of the modern scientific principles. Perhaps you have heard of the city of Babylon and what knowledge came from there, in art, scinece, music, phillosophy etc etc.

Some more links and insights
http://www.hinduism.co.za/vedic.htm
http://www.cyberistan.org/islamic/sciencehistory.htm
http://www.khwarzimic.org/frontline/history.html

Taoism (theres nice book called The Tao of Poh (winnie the poh)), Budhisim, Confusism all of these great Eastern Philosphies/Faiths have contributed much to current modern Science by giving there followers a framework to do so.

I have much much more shall we keep going..

I would like to state for the record that this is totaly in the nature of a discussion and i am not trying to push some hiden agenda to convert you all. One point i am trying to make is that Faith often is only seen in the west as western faiths and there treatment of science in the past and present. There are other faiths out there and other philosphies, Chinese, Midle Eastern, Indian (Vedic and other), etc etc. And these faiths/philosphies have contributed to what we call modern science by encouraging there followers.


g__day,

Yes its is a bit cute, but certainly there are concepts there that were not known at the time.
Rember it is after all man trying to extract meaning from the divine . And man is not infalable.
Look my point boils down to faith is seprate form Science, but it does provide man with a purpose that is condusive to learning. It also provides information if you are keen enoug to look.



Regards

[Doug]

Thanks for your reply g__day, I had trouble finding the reference because I was guided by the word 'creation' contained within "" in your earlier post. (I'm not pedantic, its my search tool ) It now emerges that rather than the whole creation, it was just a reference to the kingdoms of the world, and equally important; their glory or splendor. Not quite the same thing since these kingdoms would not have included loose tribal communities which covered most of the world's land surface in those days and were yet to be brought under the aegis of civilization. That is at least if one takes a literal view, however if one considered for discussion's sake, the nature of who Jesus is supposed to be, and the nature of who satan is supposed to be, we are forced to see this as a symbolic event where the vantage point would be such that all kingdoms in all ages then and future, would have been showcased.
Not wanting to play Dentist, just seeking facts and truth.
ta,
Doug

Originally Posted by g__day

Matthew 4:8, the Devil takes Jesus up to the highest mountain, from which he can see "all the world's kingdoms"

Lads there are about 480 well analysed scientific impossibilities in the Bible (just google biblical scientific inconsistencies) - not just the mountain, nor the worldwide flood, but how about God stopping space and time - God held the moon and stars fixed in the sky whilst..... Joshua 10:12, the Sun and Moon "stood still" in the sky at God's command for an entire day, so that the Israelites could complete their bloody vengeance upon the Amorites."

So don't go pulling out teeth becuase ancient texts got colourful.

Realise the way faith and science reconcile and interact is evolving and continues on an interesting path forward is all I say. Be tolerant, but questioning. My main question was its still an interesting ask - why do we need nore than 1, or 10 or 1 million stars if we were divinely created? Why do we instead need 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 do make it all work?

[g__day (Matthew)]

netwolf - no I was never trying to argue, in your words "faith limits purpose or limits our ability to learn ", puzzled you thought I were? Faith gives a purpose. Science ponders is there a discoverable purpose? Faith intreprets commands, their meaning and how our understanding of the world through science changes the way in which the faithful have intrepreted their faith in the past. So science certainly does interact with faith. When faith says the dinosaurs (leviathans etc) lived when the world was created 12,000 years ago and science says add a few more zeros you have a reconcilation challenge on timelines. To simply say "so what?" gets you quickly into the terrority of a book that is deemed holy, infallible given prophets words were classified as directed by God so not subject to mis-speaking - hence you get a direct clash between faith and science, but one that must play out in science's courtroom. Then faith must question not only all of sciences dating mechanisms to say science got it wrong when it sees the Earth as 5 billion years old, its less than 20,000, but multiple interlinked systems of geogology, astro physics, cosmology, ecology, etc... basically its fighting a very one sided battle.

I'd prefer to accept a signal to noise issue given how languages evolve in that the original message to the faithful got some noise in the signal, so keep searching! The truth is out there!

[Lester]

There is cirtainly some long winded replies going on here. This is what faith is= Faith calls what is not as though it is.

If you have got to see it with your own eyes first=you have no faith.

I am walking evidance that this is so, but will not go any further here. If anyone is interested to hear more you can P.M. me.

[netwolf]

g_day, the only problem in this debtat and the point i am making is that Science may disagree with some faiths, but there are faiths out there that Science is in complete compliance with. Some faiths give purpose and encourage Scietific discovery also.

As to purpose perhaps i missunderstood what you said. I appologise. I do agree that mans increase in knowledge has made permited him to explore faith in more detail. And that is as it is meant to be. As our knowledge expands we see things more clearly than in the past. That is why i am a strong supporter of Science and encourage it. But when we use Science to interprets Faith we should also realiase that perhaps our Science has not reached a level where it can helpe us intepretate Faith yet. And perhaps there are some relegions that from the outset have encouraged Scietific discovery and have withstood any challenge made by Scienctific interpretation. Much science has come from faiths that encouraged it. And they are also the faith that you can find more in sync with Science.

My framework and background are perhaps diffrent to what your using to base faith on. The scientific community seems to have a bias towards Chrsitianity to compare anything to. Why dont you compare Science to other faiths and be fair in it. Islam for one does not claim any age to the earth nor does it claim that evolution did not occur. Perhpas when you clasify theory of Creation you might want to brooden your field, rather than just dealing with one Religion. Faith in a creator is not the domain of Christians only but many many other religions and as a Scientisit you sureley need to be fair in genralising comparission to all.

Lester you are right Faith does not need proof. But it does not discourage the search for knowledge or proof for things. The debate here is Faith vs Science, there is no point to this. Because Faith and Science are not at war. This vs is only man interpretation that somehows Faith and Science are against each other or at odds with each other. This is not true if you examine more than just one faith.


Regards

[Lester]

Faith doesn't chop and change, faith believes. Faith doesn't just try something, faith gets results. Faith isn't influenced in anyway by what is seen with our eyes, heard with our ears, or touched.

All of these are contrary to how science works. Science doesn't work in the realm of the super natural. Science needs evidence that can be seen.

I am not against scientists; we need them, but just making a piont that faith and science are two completely different things. We would have more luck trying to get all the lions and tigers in the world to eat grass than for faith and science to be in harmony.

All the best.

[netwolf]

Lester, The interpretation of faith is down to the individual, each individual will see meaning based on his/her knowledge and circumstance. For a long time it was belived that the earth was the centre of the universe, but this is not true. Science helped us see that this is not even really based in faith. It was a man made concept that hijacked the faith and seperated it from Science.

Faith does not change but our understanding of it does increase over time. Thats the point i was making. But the basic tenants of the faith do not change. But perhaps we can see more of the wonders of faith as we increase our knowledge.

Regards

[Shawn]

Come on Guys,, Love the title to the thread,,,But Faith implies something we believe that is not material nor tangible....have we not in the last 2 millenia evolved past that indoctrination ...wake up and consider that we are what we are is a result of a chain of events we have No control over. Self comfort is a warm fuzzy thing that cannot be defined as faith nor science...
.. its more like whatever flicks your switch...

[Lester]

Hi Shawn,

What can I say to that little out burst; except that just because something is not seen or tangible to our senses doesn't make it "crap".

[netwolf]

The many and varied Faiths of the world are the rational behind most social norms of the day, and most laws we have. Shall we dispense with them. I mean why is stealing wrong, is there any tangible proof that it is wrong to steal. Is it for example wrong to steal if no one can possibly find out about it. Modern man accepts all the comforts that have developed from faith yet wonders why it is necessary. When you teach your children to respect ther elders, is there any tangible proof that they must..

Look at our society and how more and more teenagers are disrespectfull towards there peers. Perhaps because there is no tangible proof not to be.


Regards

[Shawn]

Lester ,Hi I reworded It was a little strong, no offence was meant by my comment. I do have thoughts on what you say, but currently Im late for work..pick it up again soon,,,

Apologies to those who may have been offended..
S

[Lester]

Hi Shawn,

thanks, apology accepted. Many of us have been hurt, stabbed in the back or just convulse at the demoninational big wiggs etc. etc. (myself included) But just because I have been put down, hurt and stabbed in the back isn't reason for me to throw the baby out with the bath water.

There are so many counterfiets out there that taint the Truth.

All the best.