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

[g__day (Matthew)]

I was watching a Star Trek genre tv episode late last night (Enterprise?) and a person had the rather apt throw ayway line "us arguing the existence or not of a transcendant diety is kinda like cockroaches arguing about nuclear fusion".

Kinda a nice perspective on the whole matter.

But still I ponder why so many stars? The only scientific rational that may align with faith is a diety wants to set up a self consistent, self correcting system where things generally work without a creators touch at the helm every micro second, possibly this was the system and physical laws and constants needed for higher intelligent life to exist.

Given Heisenberg showed that one of the strongest laws in physics is the uncertainity principle its pretty clear the universe is non deterministic and not just a giant abacus going through its motions towards a definable result. Face it if it were we and the universe wouldn't need to exist if we are simply a tool like a hammer or a monkey wrench. So if a God created us and in built uncertainity into the very framework of our existence, plus promises us free will - meaning he doesn't intervene with lightning bolts every time we piss him off, well it implies to the faithful our purposeis more subtle and grand. You don't do a high risk experiement unless you want to find out something. So where on a journey to answer something fairly important and teh fact we get to live in a pretty neat universe and have often a swell time is just some neat collateral benefit for many.

[avandonk]

If you really need to know why the Universe is so big. Look up Godel's incompleteness theorem.

Or to paraphrase him 'a finite system always has paradoxes and non proveable truths'

In other words the Universe has to be 'very big to infinite or even better bigger than infinite' so there are no internal inconsistencies.

Bert

[Starcrazzy]

ok..enough sitting back reading..here goes...

The notion of a god as an interveening being in the day to day lifes of mere humans is an obsurd proposition..It is almost comical..i was raised in a strict christian house, by parents that werre ministers, so i know the bible and the religon as well as anyone...i grew up believeing all the story's my parents taught and preached as 'facts' to young minds..while the thought of religon is honourable, the means and the message is simply unscientifacally sustainable..

It wasn't untill i removed myself and my mortality from the equation that i started to see things much more clearly...
We as humans have a basic urge, a longing to know when we die we move on...our loved ones 'move on'...its a nice thought...

But i urge you all to try looking at the facts from an unsympathetic, un human view...

Christianity can't have its cake and eat it too, nor can any other religon for that matter...either the bible speaks the truth, or it doesn't...either the earth is 6000 years old, or its 14 billion..there is no eating of the young earth cake..im sure you have all heard the analogy of the timeline thing...if all the time in the earths history were compressed into a 24 hour period, humans would have appeard at around 10 seconds to midnight...life itself appearing within the last few minutes...

now...consider that for a moment...what was god waiting for??

I am well read on all the alternate theories...the youg earth, intelligent design..these theory's use so called science as there basis..where if you look deeply enough(which isn't very deep) you see the science is simply ludecrous..things like 'irreducable complexity' and the inconstance of the speed of light...thats my personal fav...some creationist would have us bel;ieve that the speed of light has slowed(or sped up) dramatically in the lsat few thousand years...therefor these galaxies and so on that we see that are measured mathmatically to be millions of light years away, aren't rea;lly that far at all...

well...i believe the closest thing we have to a god is mathmatics...its the one true constant thing...2x2 is 4..no matter what speed, no matter how old or young, or how far away....maths is the true unmovable object in the way of an interventionist god being a reality...he simply doesn't ADD up...

of course...this is all just my opinion..

[Shawn]

Excellent SC...

My thoughts I composed today after putting my foot in it, so to speak..

Hi Again Lester ,also

my remark regarding indoctrination was not intended to belittle any persons individual beliefs, I myself am a pious man. What irks me however is that whilst "for example" and Christianity is not the only faith that this applies to, Christs teachings have over the millennia been edited , altered , embellished and in some cases been totally and intentionally misinterpreted , to enable those in power to both maintain and increase there hold on the masses, not to mention any pecuniary gain from these activities. Some of these dubious alterations to Christs original teachings have stuck and we have been indoctrinated with these since childhood. My point is that we should now be relying on science and research to remove the veils of deception and deliberate misinterpretation in order to reveal a more accurate description of the teachings and the life of Christ. As per the title of this threat Faith vs Science. It is unfortunate that through the ages "faith "and I use that word carefully, has severely and to some extent still is impeding scientific research, purely as a result of the manipulations I have mentioned here. Literally millions of souls have perished as a result of these manipulations over the last two millennia. As a religious man this angers me immensely. Hence the rather terse post prior to this one. I should have bit my lip.

Do you believe for a moment, that fat cat televangelist with their silk shirts 25 thousand dollar wrist watches, diamond rings and stretched limo,s and multi million dollar mansions actually believe what they preach. A modern day example of mass manipulation in that lucrative business called faith. I am sure that a lot of people like myself are not happy with having their faiths and beliefs capitalised on by ruthless hypocrites.
Again I apologise if I offended anyone,

A comment made on the youth of the day, hmmm. IMHO I don’t think that faith nor any kind of religion are the main problem here, I believe that breakdown of the extended family followed be the breakdown of the nuclear family are the main cause of this contentious issue. Family values for the majority are being watered down due to various external pressures for the most part beyond their control. This saddens me also.
All the best
S

[netwolf]

A persons faith can not be judged by the actions of others. There are out there as we all know people who are called fundamentalist, but do not follow the fundamentals of any religion. The use of this term trueley irks me because, the religion that my parents have taught me would not condone such behaviour. Do we for example hold all Scientists responsibile for the actions taken at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The fatman and the little boy were after all made by Scientists. So you and I both can then agree that the actions of some can not be used to attack the whole.

So yes there are people out there that manipulate relgion to gain power. I dont dispute this point, it is most valid in todays world. There is no shortage of this in any faith. But there actions make them clearly unfaithfull. They condem themselves but i will not be there judge nor executioner a more suitable fate awaits them. But there are true and pious people too, pepople who truely lived there faith. And you can never take that away with any amount of Science.

People say they dont belive in God, and they dont belive in any organised religions. And I respect your right to that. But this does not mean you have not faith. Everyone has faith in themselves at the very least. The good people, also have faith in following some basic principles. Like do not steal, etc etc. I again asky why do they do this, why follow any such rules if you only belive in mathematics and logic, then why do you have emotions. Why do you follow the norms of society. Why do you follow any rules, when often you can not find any prof of there value.

As i said before can Science provide any tanginble evidance that doing the right thing is necessary?

To me life is a test to see for ourselves who we are. There is no judgement necessary because we will testify for our own actions. Faith keeps us on our path to success. And even the Scientific method requires Faith in onself if nothing else.

I wonder how many countless souls people like Mother Terassa have saved. And how many of them because of her faith will become the next Einstiens.

Regards

[RAJAH235]

& here is little ol' me thinking that we just evolved to suit the ever changing/current conditions....Well, bless my soul.. Live n let live..Believe it or not..
L.

[Shawn]

Originally Posted by RAJAH235

& here is little ol' me thinking that we just evolved to suit the ever changing/current conditions....Well, bless my soul.. Live n let live..Believe it or not..
L.

This is also my belief, its a fact that cannot be disputed. another manipulation of the faith.

[netwolf]

Yes Humans adapt and evolve to the changin environment, and many faiths concur with this view. But then there is postivie and negative change, progress has its vices and virtues. Faith provides a moral framework from which we can assess the vices and virtues of progress/evolution.

Why is the universe so big? This is a question for Science more than faith, faith accepts what is as the will of the creator. Some quotes that may be of intrest on the subject at hand.

Big Bang...
"Do the unbelievers not realize that the heavens and the earth used to be one solid mass that we exploded into existence? And from water we made all living things. Would they believe? "
<Qur'an-Anbiyaa 21:30>

And on Expanding universe.
Sura 51, verse 47 "The heaven, We have built it with power. Verily. We are expanding it."

Regards

[g__day (Matthew)]

Avandonk,

Unfortunately you just quoted or intreptred Godel's Incompleteness theory to the guy who topped maths at Uni in 1983.

That's not at all what Godel stated, rather he said in simplitistic terms once a system (say a logic system or a mathematical system) gets beyond a certain level of complexity (that is he implied once a system is powerful enough to be actually real-world useful), then its loses the power to be fully deterministic. So once you move a logic system above a certain level of grunt it inherits infinite possibility for asking questions that must have a clear answer but can't be answered by the rules of that system. I.e. our reality - is there a god? In maths Godel showed using an Godel Universal Truth Machine you could ask a question which itself had an embedded but reversed GUTM that flips the correct answer and then when you point the first GUTM at the inverted second GUTM and ask it what happens you have a contradiction - the orignal GUTM can't prove or disprove the second inverted GUTM because both are fully state aware and both will therefore conflict in any answer given.

http://www.miskatonic.org/godel.html

So in essence once a system achieves a certain level of power - it looses precision in its ability to have assured outcomes. So a ruler can always measure an inch, but a PC can't always get the right answer to the problems it attempts to solve. Simple things work, but they can only do Mickey Mouse tasks. Powerful things mostly work, but there is a level of power or capability beyond which things are always guaranteed to have some level of failure! Enhancing such a powerful system with more rules, or inference systems, or logic, or capabilities or more levels of redundancy doesn't address the problem, it only brings in new and more subtle points of failure!

So bottom line your quote "Or to paraphrase him 'a finite system always has paradoxes and non proveable truths' ... In other words the Universe has to be 'very big to infinite or even better bigger than infinite' so there are no internal inconsistencies." doesn't quite hit the mark. A finite system above a certain level of complexity always has areas it can never resolve or illuminate. A universe is not proven to need size nor complexity to avoid internal inconsistencies; I wish that it were that simple!

* * *

My personal belief is science doesn't preclude nor prove a directed intelligence rather than blind luck created our Universe; rather it can predict and go some ways to explore the mechanisms used for creation and why things are the way they are. It can show what likely happened when the big red creation button was pushed, but not if a God or a stray quantum possibility tripped this switch.

But equally faith is often reinforced for various reasons by folk who wish to intreptret reality and recorded past events in a certain way. In this faith must contend with science and what can be observed and validated to be internally consistent and what can't. As said above 2 + 2 must always equal 4, even for very large values of 2! Once you get into trickier proofs you can either show a system with a known level of consistency and tens of millions of validation points works; or you can try and twist out an outcome you wish and either say its unknown or scientists have it all wrong (a.k.a. bad science or psuedo-science).

On th esubject of is there a God - its neither proveable or dis-proveable to science by a long, long shot. As I said before its kinda like as relevant as gnats arguing about nuclear fusion; the capabilities and/or very existence of an infinite supreme being not of our existence are beyond us to predict, test or verify in any material way, shape or form. Regardless of human longing for a God, gods or no gods, it doesn't change the underlying reality or result. God or gods either exist or they don't. You can not use logic to either confirm or deny your point of view in any material way - it has to be a faith call; science can't solve this one either way for anyone.

At best science can say if a powerful, directed intelligence (or random chance) initiated creation as a set and forget event - what likely mechanisms were used so as to be self sustaining and internally consistent with the self propgating reality or laws of that system as it came into existence.

[Starcrazzy]

g'day g_day..lol..
Your understanding of maths is obviously a lot more profound then the lay persons..i wonder if you.ve heard of the turing machine experiments??I think your post was pointing towards sort of self referencing equations??am i correct..anyway i recently read an interesting parrable about an ultimate truth machine...evryone was invited to ask it a question, and anyone who could ask it a question that could not be answerd would get the prize...many men came with tricky questions that the machine handled easily..intill one man put to it a simple statement...."the machine cannot prove that this statement is correct".....the machine exploded and the man recieved the prize...

anyway, to the rest of you that keep quoting phrases from the bible and the koran...whats the go??you speak as if a statement in a book, written a long time ago by some human, can prove the existance of a god...i mean, the human mind can conceive and write down on paper almost anything, it doesn't make it a fact..science is the only true measuring stick..not phrases from works of fiction..you may not like this, or even believe in it, but evrytime you turn the key in your car, its science that starts the engine...evrytime you flick that switch, its science that turns your light on...and when your sick and go to the doctor, its science that will make you well..i am yet to see faith alone affect the physical world at all..not even in the slightest..i have seen faith effect the person who holds it, but they still need science to make that car go...

i leave you with a wise proverb...(from a scientist)
"if there were no death, then there would be no god..there simply would be no need"

[Lester]

That is your opinion= wise proverb

From where I stand= foolish

[Starcrazzy]

yes..sorry...i forgot to add that its just my opinion..
It may seem foolish to you..but its quite true, if we all lived forever, why would we need religon??can you answer that??

[Starcrazzy]

where did we come from??in all likely hood, we evolved from lower mammals.not from the garden of eaden..where did the universe come from??in all likely hood from the big bang..not from a 6 day working bee by the creator..have i missed something...may just be my opinion, but its also the opinion of science..

[iceman (Mike)]

Seems that this thread has a lot of the same opinions rehashed in a different form every day or two...

Unless there's something new to add, maybe just let the thread continue on its natural course to inactivity.

These threads are usually preferred to be avoided, because topics like this are very close to people's hearts, and there's usually zero chance of convincing either side to change the way they believe. They also have a very high risk factor of someone getting upset and things start to get personal.

[Shawn]

Good point Mike, I agree this is probably a thread that should be discontinued. Each to there own, and adding to it ,is wear and tear on your keyboard. indoctrination is called that for a reason.

Indoctrination

1. To instruct in a body of doctrine or principles.

2. To imbue with a partisan or ideological point of view: a generation of children who had been indoctrinated against the values of their parents.

...

[g__day (Matthew)]

Starcrazzy - Yes HaltTester on a Turing machine is analogus to a truth machine in Godel's argument.

Lester - science answers how thing soperate, not why they are here, faith intuits or guesses or simply hopes for the why and physicology also studies why some people need an external source of hope to help validate their existence. No absolutes there.

iceman - the question can only be asked to see what new information surfaces. When its simply saying I saw something interesting and staying calm at worst a bit of name calling happens (thought I saw the audience here as being experienced enough to not fall into that simple stumbling pit), at best you get a very intriguing dialogue occuring and clever people actually examining not only what they believe, but more importantly why. You don't ask, you won't learn!

Sometimes you get an unexpected post of incredible elegance or insight, so nothing venture, nothing gained. This post good or bad will fade away eventually if no further value is added.

[fringe_dweller]

Mike, while I fully respect and understand you and the mod squad have to say that, but it may be asking too much to start a forum based around and on the enjoyment, study and understanding of the universe, and not expect a few curly questions/threads and debates containing the 'G' word now and then.
this is stating the obvious i guess, but in my limited experience and understanding, a certain percentage of AA's and people attracted to astronomy/star gazing will always be the type of person who likes to go beyond the usual lightness and fluff, take the grey matter for a bit of a workout, and think deeply or profoundly on the BIG questions (rightly or wrongly) occasionaly. Kinda goes with the territory?
So good luck with keeping that genie in the bottle constantly
maybe shoulda started a forum on woodworking or something else instead? could always rename it to astronomical imaging only?

[Shawn]

I for one say...more sport and haircuts,, going off topic a bit, "well not really because Im sure he would have something to say here" wheres snavexela, or whatever his screen name is ,,,you know Spock, he ok ? anyone know.

Great couple of recent posts here too , might add.

S

[iceman (Mike)]

Originally Posted by kearn

So good luck with keeping that genie in the bottle constantly

You'll note Kearn, that no attempt has been made to keep the lid on it constantly.
These discussions have been left to run their course, because as g__day said, they often reveal some well thought out and insightful posts. They also often (in the past) have revealed some nastiness, personal attacks and preaching. That's all my friendly reminder was about.

Originally Posted by kearn

could always rename it to astronomical imaging only?

I don't understand why you'd try and be so sarcastic and leading with that sentence. Astrophotography is a very important part of astronomy, and is very important part of the hobby to a large percentage of the membership here.. just as visual astronomy and observing is a very important part to others.
You'll note that many aspects of the hobby are catered for here, Kearn..

[netwolf]

Starcrazy,

Science is also man made, and to some it would seem that it to has become a faith. Science started the car, i dont think so. Without the will of a person wanting to start the car the car would not start. You speak of Scince as if instead of a method it is a sytem of belifs. Next you will say Science created tha car, the atom and the universe. Lets get some perspective here shall we. I was merly quoting the Q'uran to show that modern scientific methods are only now discovering what is already known. So what you place so much faith in was touting the earth centred universe when clearly there was some higher intelect authoring works of fiction as you call them that today are considerd facts. And these quotes were in direct response to the thread title, which poses the question about what Faith vs Scince's with regard to the size of the universe. So i belive i was on topic in quoting what a current faith of the day has to say on the matter. If i have offended then i apologise but i belive i am on topic.

I am not against Science, i have been intrested in how things work from a very young age. But i dont take my study of the universe and turn it into a faith. As that study provides no morality, no right and wrong. There is a place for both. And I am as intrested to learn about the many scientific theories on the matter as the many and varied faith based theories on the matter. That is indeed the topic is it not.

Regards