about which we know very little. So how can atheists make assertions about reality when they challenge religious reality?
most of the universe is made up of dark energy and dark matter
by Ruby456 15 Replies latest jw friends
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Twitch
Very carefully, lest they get imprisoned for heresy ;)
BTW, pls define religious reality
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cantleave
Filling our gaps in understanding with the supernatural is not a viable alternative to the scientific method. By using the scientific method we will learn more about what Dark Energy and Dark Matter are. By saying "god did it" we will learn nothing.
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cofty
Firstly science is not synonymous with atheism.
Science discovered the existence of "dark matter". Science has measured the size of the universe, it has even weighed the total mass of the universe.
Can you even begin to grasp how incredibly clever that is? To measure the total mass of the millions stars in milliions of galaxies in millions of clusters of galaxies!
From the mind-boggling size of the universe to the particles that make up atoms, sceince is pushing the boundaries of what we now about reality.
When did religion last say something useful or even interesting?
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Ruby456
thanks guys - you rock
coming back to this thread now that I have sorted my backlog of things to do. I am facinated by our universe and feel like a schoolgirl when reading about it so bear with me.
I fully support methods based on evidence to make claims about reality - but then again I like to speculate. So if I have understood it correctly dark matter seems to basically clump the universive together and slows down expansion while dark energy has the opposite effect - it drives apart and speeds expansion. The other thing I found fascinating is that dark matter is transparent and passes though us all the time. Much else about dark matter and dark energy is unknown - so what effect if any they have on us would be speculation wouldn't it?
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prologos
using the then current model and formula & equations the "existence of dark matter and then dark energy was discovered in the measurements.
perhaps dark matter is fishy, is a red herring.
It is the model, the therories of all that needs to upgraded?
If these two dark entities, can only be detected by how they effect MOVEMENTS, velocities, expansions, movement through time, the intangible,
lets wait until they show us better models, fornulae, equations.
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OnTheWayOut
I won't pretend I understand what science does know about dark matter and dark energy, but I do know that science honestly tells us that it is something they don't understand very much yet.
So creationists jump on it as a "gap." The God of the Gaps (things that science hasn't explained) has been getting smaller and smaller. If they jump on this as a newer gap, then their God has gotten a bit bigger. But science will figure this stuff out and eliminate this gap.
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jgnat
http://www.ted.com/talks/gian_giudice_why_our_universe_might_exist_on_a_knife_edge.html
Challenge certainty. Ignorant certainty can kill.
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Ruby456
I must say I am quite ignorant about US intelligent design and creationism - all I know that this is a hot topic in the states. As I find myself at a bit of a disadvantage here I will stick to what I know - ie what Jehohahs witnesses teach or even better what Jehohahs witnesses don' teach about the universe.
OTWO, jignat, prologos - you make good points. In saying Jehovah made all these things, obey Jehovah's representatives, Jehovahs witnesses are trying to render the gaps safe and certain. ontoh Is the average Jehovahs witness thinking the same as the leaders or does each and every JW reach a point of disconnection and want to make a leap into the unknown?
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Anony Mous
The thing is that we have measured the size, shape and weight of the Universe by experimentation. However we "see" far less "stuff" in the Universe than what we measure. Therefore there is a lot of 'stuff' missing because our instruments cannot measure it.
Empty space, as we have found, is not so empty after all and is the probable cause for the creation as well as the expansion and weight of the Universe (read Krauss on that subject).
Where is that stuff? Is it in another dimension, multiverses, multi-dimensional strings, black holes, heavy undiscovered (anti-)particles? We simply don't know because we are limited in our measurements. It's there because otherwise the Universe wouldn't behave the way it does if it weren't. If it's in another dimension, we would not be able to see it because we only see in 3 dimensions (see the Flatland argument) however we CAN calculate it and it's "shadows" (eg. hypercube) although detecting it may be harder. Same goes for anything else, we may discover heavy anti-particles within a few decades (basically make the current Large Hadron Collider even bigger).
If you say "god did it" you gave up, you cannot search for an answer if you say that. If it's a god of the gaps, then your god is already dead, there are no gaps in our understanding of the creation of the Universe or life on earth, we pretty much know how that happened and when it did, we're missing some details but the mathematics and the physics are there and they check out with experimentation, there are no 'great unknowns' nor anything that cannot be accounted for that requires a god-like intervention.