Big Bang? - Now Scientists Must Evolve

[Caano Geel]

^ Liibaan sorry man i disagree, the author is just plain wrong with regard to the science.

 

To try to make an analogy with the watchmaker example just shows how little he understands about the subject he is trying to address.

[Jacpher]

Originally posted by

liibaan:

I have noticed when it comes to Socod Badne and Johnny B, they seem to like to argue over nonsense when it comes to the Qur'an.

A unique, one of a kind pet peeve.

[Paragon]

When i see such arguments starting i cant help but have the phrase

'the god of the unkown'

come to mind.

Indeed, Caano Geel. But so much for the 'God of the gaps' argument! It seems so-called Scientists are becoming more and more 'certain' about what is/or isn't, without the certainty of knowing the secrets of the 'gaps'. My hope is that one would accept Pascal's Wager (of probability) in order to safeguard the soul from the wrath of God . A paraphrasing of Pascal's Wager:

 

"If you believe in God and turn out to be incorrect, you have lost nothing -- but if you don't believe in God and turn out to be incorrect, you will go to hell. Therefore it is foolish to be an atheist."

[Qandalawi]

Big Bang theory, as it clearly says is only a Scientific theory, It could be right or wrong!

 

Almost all of the Scientific theories were based on assumption from the begining, It is followed up to improve it and only the proved theories were regarded as real and made into Formulas, Laws and other rules with clear procedures.

 

 

This is not the case for the Big Bang theory, its neither proved nor even completed it, It brings up many question with no answers, It can only go as far the so called Singularity point? Absurd who made or created this Singularity?

 

I think only the rediculously ****** poeple will fall for this, but I for one think the theory could either be right or wrong, neverless cannot be used to refute the existence of God.

 

Here are Some of the question posed, no revealing aswers as of yet:

 

---

1. What or who caused the big bang?

 

2. If a big bang created all the Universes and millions of Planets. Then according to scientific logic, it should be possible to create a small planet or something with a small bang. Can any scientist create anything with a bang?

 

3. Some chemicals mixed together created the first living being. The scientists have all the chemicals in the world; can they mix them and create a living being?

 

4. All the millions of planets are shaped like a sphere, is this by chance?

 

5. The sun has been giving exact amount of sunlight to the various planets including Earth for millions of years. Is this by chance? Too much sun or too little can destroy all life on Earth.

 

Source

----

[Qandalawi]

Another Intresting Article from Christian Courier, good points in it, worth a read.

 

The Big Bang Theory vs. God’s Word

[juba]

is it not possible that GOD created the Big Bang? How does the Big Bang contradict Allah or Islam??

[ElPunto]

Originally posted by ATLAS:

The point dont sulk off thank you for participating my two cents:

I am not sulking off - just taking a much needed break from work - and understanding the fundamental futility of trying to prove God exists to atheists and the like. Apart from that, I must say this is an exceptionally clear and well-written post notwithstaning all the refutations and rejections that follow.

 

 

Let's start with this: watches DIDN'T just appear in the world as they presently are! As a matter of very obvious fact, they evolved . The first timepieces were very primitive, clumsy, and inaccurate. They improved over the years. If we can refer to really old time-keeping devices as "fossils," then we can show a fossil sequence of the evolution of watches from some dim time in the past up to our present electronic wonders. Nowadays they evolve visibly from one year to the next. The watchmakers went through a whole, evolving series of clocks and watches before someone carelessly dropped one in that desert. So is this supposed to prove that the animal we find in the desert was made in its present form, with no significant changes over many generations? Am I missing something here?

Remember, the debate is really about whether evolution occurs , not about whether there's a creator behind it.

No, indeed it is not. To me that is precisely what the debate is about - whether a creator exists. From that(affirmative in my case) I draw only limited conclusions(based on Islam) to Big Band/Evolution. Big Bang - directed, first originator was God. Evolution - certainly seemed to have occurred for animals and the like but modern humans were created by God as revealed in the Quran.

 

A watchmaker (mankind) slowly developed (evolved) the sequence of timepieces. Maybe a Watchmaker slowly developed (evolved) the sequence of living things--you'll get no argument about that here. But the evolution happened in both cases. The message of that lost watch is NOT "I sprang up in my present perfection, with no primitive ancestors before me." It's more like "I'm at the end of a long chain of slowly evolving ancestors, and my descendants will continue to change."

No real argument there - read the above response paragraph. Again, I don't know why you extrapolate no evolution from Watchmaker theory. I certainly didn't make that point. The point is the watch had to have an 'original' framework that was created by God - whatever evolutionary cycles occurred afterward depended on that original framework.

 

An individual watch is, of course, always assembled by something outside itself (a human watchmaker, although nowadays it's more likely to be industrial robots). All the animals I've ever seen have assembled themselves , quite literally! They take in (usually) nonliving material from their environments, chemically process it, and turn it into parts of the living animal. In the case of mammals like us, the only parts of us that are directly made by someone else are the sperm and egg cells that unite and subdivide into our first few cells. After that, for the rest of our lives, we take in material from the outside, and assemble it ourselves into parts of us. Early on, that material is supplied by our mother, but she doesn't make us: she just supplies the raw material. We absorb it, manipulate it, build ourselves , and get rid of what we don't need.

You stated earlier that watches evolved etc. but up here - you state that the individual watch(or first watch at least) is made by watchmaker. But apparently, for you, it is too impossible to also logically say, the first living matter or first animal was also created. Instead, we get 'all the animals I have ever seen assemble themselves'. The question is if you can accept an outside watchmaker for the watch(first one at least) as it appears you can, why can't you accept a creator for the first animal/animals?

 

 

OK, I know, the point is the first animal. How could it get started? All presently living animals are started off with bits of already-living matter created by their parents. Nonliving chemicals don't spontaneously assemble, don't create orderly, complex molecules out of simple elements... Don't they? If the creationist gets to this point, he has revealed his basic ignorance of the simplest chemistry. Elements and simple molecules combine spontaneously all the time to form more complex molecules. When was the last time you found any loose hydrogen on the Earth, or fluorine? All of it has spontaneously combined with other elements to form more complex molecules. If you turn some loose, it won't stay uncombined for long. Carbon atoms, especially, have a tendency to form spontaneously into all kinds of complex molecules, which in turn often combine to form very complicated polymers and mega-molecules. Some of those combinations are even self-replicating , if the raw materials are available.

"Elements and simple molecules combine spontaneously all the time to form more complex molecules" - That is what we have today in our universe. Just because we have it NOW - does that mean it was always the case? Isn't that rather a huge assumption? Because X(read spontaneous combinations) is occuring now and has led to XYZABC - X was always occuring from time immermorial. Also, what happened to causality - What has set elements and simple molecules in motion that they are forming more complex molecules?

 

We don't commonly see molecules assembling themselves into living systems, but then it only had to happen once--from then on the natural tendency of life has been to keep itself going, spread out, and evolve.

But strangely enough, significant life is only found on this planet. Of the 9 or 10 planets in our solar system - none is even remotely like the Earth. Here is your theory of life. For whatever reason and by some unknown cause, elements/simple molecules started banging against each other, created more complex molecules resulting in living systems etc, and the only place these living systems were able to exist was the Earth out of all the other possible places in the universe. And nowhere else is this replicated. What a fortuitous theory! Based on one improbability after another! For me, the logical conclusion is that this was directed by a creator. One would likely never say, if the above was a human endeavour, that there was no one directing.

 

And, if we are committed to the idea of a Creator, He certainly could have been the one to arrange that first unlikely combination. He could have even directed all the evolution since then. Again, the point of the tired, old watch-in-the-desert analogy was supposed to be that evolution does not and could not occur.

To the first two statements - obviously that is my take on matters. Again, I do not use the watchmaker analogy as a blanket denial of evolution. I look at the watchmaker analogy as one that is purely illustrative that a watchmaker(the Creator, God) exists.

 

But watches have evolved; they aren't created miraculously, ex nihilo ; and their inability to self-assemble has nothing to do with the obvious ability of chemical compounds and living things to assemble themselves out of available materials.

Again, the first watch was created by an initial watchmaker - whatever evolutionary cycles it has undergone subsequently had been built into its original and miraculous framework. The inability of watches to self-assemble has everything to do with other life. Again, simply because we see elements/molecules assembling themselves now - we assume that is always the case? And what happend to causality - out of nowhere they started banging into each other?

 

At the end of the day, my friend, no one can prove or disprove the existence of a creator through science. One can only point to the signs and hope that others may be convinced by them.

[ElPunto]

My Thoughts on Science:

 

I am always amused, facsinated, disgusted and saddened by those who think science is the be all and end all with regard to discovering the truth. In fact, science can only tell us only limited truths - science is locked in the straight-jacket of the Scientific Method. It can't grasp anything that does not neatly slot into the confines of the Scientific Method. Don't get me wrong - limited truths are always better than nothing and certainly superior to outright falsehoods. But it seems those defenders of science ascribe an almost biblical belief and significance to it(in our case Quranic). That is a big mistake. A simple illustration will suffice.

 

Back in the 1920s and earlier, it was commonly agreed on by scientists, and widely accepted by the general public as a result, that some races were inferior to others(namely 'Negros' at the bottom and 'Caucasians' at the top). These conclusions were arrived at with reference to the Scientific Method and the scientific knowledge as understood at that time. At this same time, had you spoken to an illiterate nomad deep in the Somali bush with only a minimum of knowledge of the Quran and Hadith - he would tell you the immutable truth. All races are equal - a black man in not superior to or inferior to a white man etc as revealed to Muslims by the Prophet (PBUH) in the seventh century. Revelation, based on divine knowledge, trumped science and the Scientific Method then(and trumps it now) regardless of the 'intellect', 'knowledge', 'schooling', etc that scientists of that era may have had in comparison with our illustrative nomad. In fact, they would have looked down him with dismissiveness and arrogance and would have laughed at our nomad and his citation of revelation as proof in comparison with the 'vaunted' Scientific Method. Something that is still happening in our world today and to an extent in this forum.

 

At this point, a chorusof howls will echo from folks like Socod-Badane etc. that science is self-correcting etc. That IS precisely the point - something that is, in fact, self-correcting CANNOT tell us about the fundamental and immutable truths about our universe and human existence. Because science is locked into the straight-jacked of the Scientific Method it simply cannot grasp anything beyond this. Furthermore, even if the falsehood or racial superiority/inferiority issue existed for a short time before it was corrected - it still doesn't excuse those who did believe as scientific 'fact' - their flawed 'science' led to a lot of injustice etc.

 

From my perspective, scientists are like a bunch of amoebas locked into the stagnant pool of their own world - and they grasp their truths only from the confines of their very limited poo. They(amoebas) cannot ever possibly grasp or comprehend something as complex as the human mind or the human heart, with their abilities to think/plan, and feel emotions etc. In addition, our illustrative amoebas(read scientists) cannot ever acknowledge the possiblity of the existence of a world outside thier own pool because it simply doesn't conform to the dictates of the Amoeba Scientific Method. This latter trait is the bigger sin. In the interests of clarity, let me spell it out. The amoebas in this case refers to the scientists, and broadly humans, and the human/human heart and mind refers to God although God is, as always, above comparison.

 

My request for our friends of the 'Science is the only truth'/atheist ilk - please recognize science's very severe and fundamental limitations. And more importantly, please refrain from knocking or bashing, unless legitimate mistakes were made in regard to science, those who take their fundamental and immutable truths from revelation. As opposed to the self-correcting and always fallible human endeavour called science. To me, it is clear which takes precedent.

[ElPunto]

Originally posted by Caano Geel:

^ Liibaan sorry man i disagree, the author is just plain wrong with regard to the science.

 

To try to make an analogy with the watchmaker example just shows how little he understands about the subject he is trying to address.

Before passing judgement - it is important to wait for and sift a response. After a reasonably long time, if no response is forthcoming - you can then pass the judgement above. If this above post is as a result of too much spiked Holiday caano-geel, I can make allowances.

[Socod_badne]

Originally posted by liibaan:

I have noticed when it comes to Socod Badne and Johnny B, they seem to like to argue over nonsense when it comes to the Qur'an.

 

Where? Surely not in this thread.

 

Whether scientists argue the universe was nothing at one time or if some little piece of crap

was

there, is irrevelant.

 

It is very relevant to scientists and that is all that matters since this is a discussion about science.

 

The author is simply making the point that the theory of the big bang cannot be trusted or relied upon, because of the simple fact he stated that things do not come together by themselves.

 

He did more then that, I pointed them out in my 1st rebuttal.

 

So while you two are arguing over bullsh*t like it's unoriginal or what scientists say, our sister is giving us da'wa on a topic of extreme importance.

What da'wa? Proud-Muslimah (I don't fault her for anything BTW) posted an article that was full of scientific errors. I discovered the errors and corrected them. What else should I've done?

[Socod_badne]

Originally posted by ThePoint:

Back in the 1920s and earlier, it was commonly agreed on by scientists, and widely accepted by the general public as a result, that some races were inferior to others(namely 'Negros' at the bottom and 'Caucasians' at the top).

 

What does this show other then scientists are humans and reflect the common mindset of their times? And if we are going to judge science by the behaviour of it's practioners, then we should do the same for ALL. If we do that, we'll find everyone in the past was racist.

 

These conclusions were arrived at with reference to the Scientific Method and the scientific knowledge as understood at that time.

 

That is not true, there are no scientific grounds for racism. More precisely, the whole concept of race with regard to humans is scientifically valueless. We are all Homo sapien sapiens as far as science is concerned. Some scientists like Jane Goodall, believe we should go further and consider our closest relatives, the great apes, close enough to humans and give them equal rights. What do you think?

 

 

At this point, a chorusof howls will echo from folks like Socod-Badane etc. that science is self-correcting etc.

 

Not entirely true. Science is both self-correcting AND provisional enterprise. Nothing is set in stone, ideas are only believed as long as the evidence available supports them.

 

 

They(amoebas) cannot ever possibly grasp or comprehend something as complex as the human mind or the human heart, with their abilities to think/plan, and feel emotions etc.

 

How do you know about the complexity of the brain when, according to you, it is beyond our comprehension?

 

We can fully comprehend the human heart. Aren't you familiar with heart trasplant, open surgeries..?

 

We also can comprehend great deal about emotions, pain and all the other brain functions.

 

 

As opposed to the self-correcting and always fallible human endeavour called science. To me, it is clear which takes precedent.

Well, I don't share your view. Mainly because I don't believe in the false dichotomy you set up - science vs faith.

[Cara.]

The Point,

 

You've made some excellent points there. However (there's always one of those in these fora...), I have a few objections, some of which I'll quickly mention.

 

You wrote:

 

...a chorusof howls will echo from folks like Socod-Badane etc. that science is self-correcting etc. That IS precisely the point - something that is, in fact, self-correcting CANNOT tell us about the fundamental and immutable truths about our universe and human existence.

How so? If slowly, piece by piece, science reveals the truth, occasionally going off on a red herring, but ultimately returning to the correct course, how would it fail? What fundamental and immutable truths will science overlook? This seems like special pleading to me: okay, rational inquiry cannot confirm my beliefs, so I'll just claim that my beliefs are beyond rational inquiry. So there!

 

And anyway, who says Divine Revelation is not changeable? The Qur'an, I understand, was revealed as a "correction" to earlier Divine texts that were "corrupted" by mankind. Specifically the Torah and the Injil, in terms of actual texts, but keep in mind that God had to send numerous prophets to constantly bring people back to the fold, as they continuously changed his message. But even within the same tradition, Divine Revelation is hardly immutable. The same Holy Book is often modified even as it is being revealed: Verses in the Qur'an were corrected by other verses in the Qur'an, or even by Hadith. Divine Revelation can be mutable and usually is. Then of course, there are all the countless cases of Divine Revelation which you would not accept as such: The Mormon Bible, the Hindu holy texts, the Ancient Egytian Book of the Dead. Why reject some Divine Revelation and accept others? If we are to reject reason and rational inquiry (ie, the Scientific Method) to decipher truth, then on what basis should we decide what is true revelation from the Creator and what is manmade lies? Honestly, ignore everything else I wrote if you like and simply answer that question.

 

Because science is locked into the straight-jacked of the Scientific Method it simply cannot grasp anything beyond this.

That's because there is no beyond. The scientific method is a tool for ascertaining the truth. It is not the only tool, just the most reliable.

 

Furthermore, even if the falsehood or racial superiority/inferiority issue existed for a short time before it was corrected - it still doesn't excuse those who did believe as scientific 'fact' - their flawed 'science' led to a lot of injustice etc.

Now here's where I cannot understand you. First of all, your earlier romantic assessment of our noble grandfather is sentimental hogwash. He most certainly would not have said that all men were created equal. He would have told you that Somalis were superior to all others, and his tribe in particular was the most exalted of Somalis. To suggest otherwise demonstrates remarkably efficient rose-tinted glasses! In point of fact, every race considers itself to be superior to all others. The Somalis, the Whites, the Arabs, the Japanese, the Inuit. We all do it. It's self-affirming. To suggest otherwise is to deny human history and stick one's head in the sand. What's more, when Islam proclaimed that all Muslims are equal, it effectively drew new boundaries, making the Muslim superior to the non-Muslim. Since one's religion is mostly determined by one's parents' religion, in practical terms Islam did not remove equality, merely redistributed it. Case in point: most Arabs are Muslim, whereas most Whites are not. Ergo, a greater fraction of Arabs will go to heaven than Whites. As I said, merely a redistribution of inequality. To me, a theist who thinks he's better than another person simply because of his religious heritage is no less bigotted than someone who ascribes to theories of racial superiority.

 

By the way, Whites who insisted that their race was superior to others would have referenced the Bible far more readily than they would point out scientific evidence of their claims. Black slaves were exhorted to read the Bible, which explains that they were enslaved as divine punishment for their forefathers' sins (the story of Ham). In fact, some creationists argued that Blacks were a different species and justified slavery on those terms, even as Darwin (the quintessential amoeba-scientist) wrote:

 

Picture to yourself the chance, ever hanging over you, of your wife and your little children ... being torn from you and sold to the highest bidder! And those deeds are done ... by men who profess to love their neighbors as themselves ... and pray [God's] Will be done on earth! It makes one's blood boil.

 

Indeed.

 

But there's another important point. If you're suggesting that the scientific method is flawed because it was once used by evil men to justify racism, would you also use the same measuring stick for judging Divine Revelation? The Qur'an is used by many to advocate the murder of innocents who are born of other faiths. It's used to justify subjugation of women and it condones slavery, easily the most unjust institution ever created by humans. Would you reject the Qur'an as the ultimate arbiter of truth, since some have used it to wrong others?

 

While science can be incorrect, it is, fortunately, a self-correcting process, incrementally revealing the truths of the universe, whatever they happen to be. Divine Revelation on the other, is neither comfortingly eternal and unambiguous, as multiple contradictory holy texts demonstrate, nor is it able to incorporate facts as they become evident. So this particular amoeba will give it a pass, thanks.

[Johnny B]

As usual some Nomads are out of the scope and with deliberateness, to take cheap Ad hominen shots,instead of contributing to ( according to me) the only subject matter of debate , namely (ThePoint´s ) William Paley´s WatchMaker analogy.

 

I won´t be distracted from the subject matter, i´ll stick to that. from what i could tell ThePoint has sulked off by stating that her/his earlier post was the last one, becouse this was going to be a tit for tat kind of debate.

I think it is the contrary, i Think the Point failed to defend William Paley´s watchmaker anology, The WatchMaker anology is too frail , it diden´t stand the test back in 1800,nor will it do in 2006 . And it´s not a proof for the existance of ThePoint´s or anybody´s Creator, therefore let me share with you another finding, i seem to like 'the finding things' anology so let us find a vegetable this time and let us wrap it with Hume´s famous words on the WatchMaker anology .

"We have as much reason to believe that the universe grew like a vegetable as we have to believe that the universe was designed by God "

I decided to shed that stronger light on it before i go ahead with some other points raised by Cano Geel and Paragon becouse i´ve noticed the unwillingness of thePoint to defend his stance and free from himself/herself the burden of the proof and correctness of the anology.

It´d be unfair to leave the WatchMaker anology without presenting the words of David brooks

"To explain the unknown by the known is a logical procedure; to explain the known by the unknown is a form of theological lunacy." that about that .

 

When i see such arguments starting i cant help but have the phrase 'the god of the unkown' come to mind

CG, I owe ya that one , man you picked the God of the unknown at the known time

It´s really an intresting point you make there, given that the ' in between ' is not gonna be redefined and presented as 'no between'.

 

Paragon , you raise a better argument for reasoning as to WHY one would beleive in a diety through Pascal´s wager than the Watchmaker anology presented by Thepoint, At first Pascal´s wager better known as "God is a safe bet " looks appealing and smart choice, but if you look at it deeply you´ll see that it has several flaws. It´s like signing a life insurance before going to war, worse , we´ve too many religions , too many Gods on earth that we´d difficulties avoiding the wrong hel.

the statement that "If you believe in God and turn out to be incorrect, you have lost nothing" is not true.

As Homer said , " Suppose we've chosen the wrong god. Every time we go to church we're just making him madder and madder " .

 

The boldest flaw in Pascal´s Wager argument is it´s assumption of both possibilities (there is that God and there is no that God) beeing equally likely, why?

becouse the "There is no that God" stance is the correct stance as long as the "There is that God" stance is unproven. to make it more sorbile let me take an example.

If you claim "I know where Castro lives " the notion " you don´t know where Castro lives " is the correct one untill you SHOW where Castro lives.

and to wrap it Pragon, One has to be intellectually honest, we don´t have to beleive what we like to beleive , "belief is based on evidence, with some amount of intuition. It is not a matter of will or cost-benefit analysis".

 

I´m more into Stephen Roberts stance .

"I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours."

... enjoying the hilodays, can´t and won´t post till JAN , happy holidays all.

[Castro]

^ Happy new year saaxib and don't be gone too long lest the tide turn and we're left talking watches and CPUs in your absence. It's kinda sad how some view your logical arguments as an attack on their faith. If anything, it should make one think and in the process, strengthen their faith. But what do I know?

[Qandalawi]

^^^Isn't it sad that anyone arguing against the case of the Big Bang as nothing but only a Scientific theory, be seen as a defender of the faith.

 

It's kinda sad how some view your logical arguments as an attack on their faith.

Whats the purpose of this Big Bang thread? What is the discussion? Only to teach the Nomads what this Scientific theory is? or can it be used to prove/disprove anything? How are we suppose to believe it, and up to what limit? It's only a scientific thoery....

 

Castro what is the morale of the discussion?