God allergy
Mindmelda - I love it! Seems to be an epidemic at the present time.
I continue to find it incredible....
by AK - Jeff 35 Replies latest jw experiences
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Meeting Junkie No More
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ziddina
"To me it seems that Big Bang means we understand all and creation means there are things we can not conceive.
Woo Hoo!! No, UpNorth, scientists don't "understand all", and that's why they're STILL LOOKING...
Creationists, on the other hand, have basically given up and decided on "God did it" as the most scientifically accurate means of explaining anything they don't understand...
Zid
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Psychotic Parrot
That's a strawman. Most believe every created thing had to have a Creator.
Well duh, that's a tautology. And who's to say that the universe was a created thing? We don't know that the big bang was the beginning. And a 'creator' doesn't have to be intelligent, so it needn't be GOD.
A better way of stating it would be: Everything with a cause had to have a first cause.
Which simply is not known to be true, so strawman or not, it's still an incorrect statement. A better way of stating it would be: Everything with a cause may have had a first cause (just don't tell William Lane Craig that it only MAY have had a cause, he'll be upset).
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Terry
I usually try to avoid discussions of creation vs science because my opponents always want to do violence to language to muddy the waters.
Three things to watch out for.
1.Redefining words (draining concepts of their referents) and switching from specifics to generalities when the going gets rough.
2.False analogies
3.Attacking the rational mind's abilities
In other words, you can't have an honest argument.
God is "outside of time" is one example.
Nobody I've ever met can even tell you a firm definition of "time". But, they can sure slip God "outside" of it!
Once you buy a premise like that you may as well go watch Gilligan's Island re-runs.
I personally don't care where anything comes from except my paycheck because I have a direct effect on its certainity!
People will defend their belief system not on facts or evidence or proof but on emotion and desperate special pleading.
But, you won't find me slugging it out with them. It is a sinkhole.
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bohm
MM: I would like to know more about this Pointcare-Einstein buisness.
First off, when you say 'discovered relativity', what do you mean then? The special theory of relativity (1905) is about how electrical phenomena behave under coordinate transformations between inertial frames - it was directly motivated by the Michalson-Morley experiment a few years prior where it was discovered light has the same speed in all inertial frames. Its fairly simple, yet has some remarkable consequences - specifically E=mc^2, the slowing of times in fast-moving frames, etc.
If Einstein had only discovered general relativity, he would not be very known today. It was a matter of years (or months) before someone else made the discovery. Special relativity contain no harder math than what is taught in high-school.
GENERAL relativity is Einsteins 'big' theory. Its about transformation between non-inertial (ie. accelerating) frames, so it naturally also include gravitation. It was discovered over a number of years (i believe 1911-1916), primarely because Einstein had to learn advanced geometry (tensors) to formulate it. During this time he was helped by a number of mathematicans who was experts in geometry (Einstein was no mathematican and it was very hard for him to get it right). General relativity give all the really exotic effects - black holes, framedragging, etc. General relativity is also the starting point for the Standard Model (yes big letters - not to be confused with the standard model of particle physics) of cosmology.
IF Einstein had not discovered relativty at all, he would still be remembered as one of the 20th centuries greatest scientists for discovering that energy is quantized (this was one of the great realizations that lead to quantum mechanics) and his calculations on brownian motion that allowed him to deduce molecule weight.
Regarding the topic - i hear you Terry! Redifining and inventing words seem to be the favorite game by creationists - my favority example is 'infinite' and 'eternal'. The reasoning goes something like this:
Nothing can be INFINITE, hence the universe must have a beginning.
God does not have to have a beginning, because he is ETERNAL*
QED* he wrote it in the bible, so it must be true!
The definition of the two words are ofcourse completely circular. Eternal is stuff that does not need to have a beginning and something that apply to god. Infinite is something that need a beginning and does not apply to god. Color me unimpressed!
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mindmelda
I don't mind being wrong at all. I'm used to it, I have three teenagers who tell me that all day long.
Some of the things you assert as being dead right are simply different points of view or debateable. Other people say differently. If we're just BSing, I don't mind anyone saying anything, but if you come out with "That's WRONG!" show me where you got it from so I can read it myself and make a decision from there.
I'm sourcing information that says differently about the Einstein thing, just as an example. I have no idea which source is wrong, but it's in conflict from some of your assertions or sources.
I'm not overly invested in any of it, it's not even my opinion, so yelling "You're wrong!" isn't going to offend me at all. My sources may be wrong, but that's my sources, not my opinion, opinions are not right or wrong, they're individual. On some matters, I care so little, I don't have much of an opinion. When I'm opinionated about something, I say "This is my opinion." Which is worth pretty much nothing, except to me. Opinions may be based on inaccurate information, but they are never wrong, nor are they right. They just are.
I'm just a person who likes to throw information out there and see what happens. That doesn't mean it's always my opinion or that I'm asserting I'm right.
I don't do right and wrong contests. I prefer discussion to debate.
Debate is never about who is right, it's about who wins through persuasion, and isn't about searching for the truth, it's about who presents facts in such a way as to win. Why do you think our legal and political systems are so "interesting" in America? It's not based on right and wrong, it's based on who is the best at persuasion, debate and presenting information in such a way as to win over public opinion, a jury or a judge...that's all.
If you don't believe that, ask a lawyer. They will tell you right away that the first thing law school teaches you is that the law is not about right or wrong, it's about what the people and representatives vote in as law. That's why it changes all the time, because what people think is right or good at one time can change when a situation changes. Law is not immutable because it's based largely on public opinion.
I can be fairly persuasive if I want to be, I used to sell things for a living. That doesn't make me right, it makes me persuasive.
But, just in case anyone missed it, I don't care if some information I throw out here is wrong or inaccurate if you can show me how or why.
And I'm not mad at anyone, I just think that nitpicking at information I throw out there is not equivalent to proving my opinions wrong, it means you think my sources of information are wrong which they might well be. I don't know, I'm sort of at the mercy of people who compile knowledge and present it to the public, like most of us.
I actually haven't contributed anything new and relevant to the body of human knowledge in any field, so when I offer something and someone disagrees, I'm not going to waste my time being offended for the person who originated the idea. How ludicrous is that?