> 93.9% of Icelanders younger than 25 believed the world was created in the big bang, 6.1% either had no opinion or thought it had come into existence through some other means and 0.0% believed it had been created by God.
Why are those exclusive? Once you believe there is an omnipotent god, and basically not understandable by the human mind, then his delivery mechanisms can be anything. Big Bang can be just "the way" god created the Universe.
I would say religion is compatible with anything: since it is not based on reason, it can not conflict with any other human discipline. Which is (if you ask me), by design.
They are not exclusive. But 0.0% of Icelanders 25 or younger believe that God had anything to do with the creation of the universe.
Additionally - as I'd like to argue - is that it might be a divine being or a being of sorts that ignited the Big Bang, but it is very unlikely to be God, i.e. the Christian God. So the Icelanders' opinion seem very reasonable to me.
This is kind of weird. Most people I know would distinguish between "the world" (not created in the big bang) and "the universe" (also not created in the big bang -- it's an expansion event -- but at least related to the big bang).
> I would say religion is compatible with anything: since it is not based on reason, it can not conflict with any other human discipline. Which is (if you ask me), by design.
That isn't by design; it's what remains after religion lost a bunch of conflicts ("where did the water from Noah's Flood go?").
> This is kind of weird. Most people I know would distinguish between "the world" (not created in the big bang) and "the universe" (also not created in the big bang -- it's an expansion event -- but at least related to the big bang).
Dont't get you there. What is the world, and what is the universe in your definition?
> That isn't by design; it's what remains after religion lost a bunch of conflicts ("where did the water from Noah's Flood go?").
I would say that religion is always, by design, outside the realm of reason. That "design" was badly done when humankind knew less things, so that the religion "designers" made mistakes thinking that they could get away with stuff which was later on taken over by other human disciplines, so that lots of subjects can now be reasonably debated.
But the aim of all religion is to be outside rational discussion. As human knowledge progresses, religion is forced to become more and more metaphorical: since the actual facts that it can claim are dwindling, it must relegate itself to the emotional, and accept the facts we know about the universe as god way of expressing himself.
>But the aim of all religion is to be outside rational discussion
That's pretty revisionist. Religion certainly was not like that in the past. People 100% truly believed things were literal fact. Religion was an actual thing that "happened" in day-to-day life. It's only in more modern times, with more investigatory powers that people claim that all of religion is out of reach, and that if you try to claim it to be literal, then you're interpreting it wrong.
> That's pretty revisionist. Religion certainly was not like that in the past.
"There is a teapot orbiting the sun, between Venus and Mercury". That is a very concrete fact, and in principle verifiable. I am anyway making a claim outside of rational discussion, because I know that with out current knowledge and technology, it is impossible to discuss this fact.
That's how religious facts work: they make concrete claims, but unverifiable with the knowledge and technology of the period when the claim is made.
That those claims are unmasked by the progress in human knowledge is just a design flaw of religion, not a prove that they anyhow want to take part in the rational discourse.
There's probably a grain of truth in Noah's Flood. There's similar flood myths in several religions, that place the flood in around the same period (for a very wide definition of around). I suspect there was a major flood event, a flood so big people interpret it as divine punishment. The flood may have went as far as the eye can see, at every place people may have ever been to, and would translate to "It was flooded everywhere", which over time got translated to "the whole world". [1]
For a fun exercise, we could replace statements involving God and they would suddenly make more sense.
"God created the universe." => "The universe created the universe".
"God created human beings" => "The universe created human beings"
"God shapes everyone's lives." => "The universe shapes everyone's lives".
"Jesus is the son of God." => "Jesus is the son of the universe".
"God is omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, omnibenevolent, divinely simple, eternal and necessary"[2], "The universe is omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, omnibenevolent, divinely simple, eternal and necessary".
"So God created mankind in his own image" => "So the universe created mankind in its own image".
Floods happen often. I see no reason to think 'the grain of truth' means we should even consider the idea that the water went as far as the eye could see.
Your "wide definition of around" is a span of over 1,000 years. Look to the tall tales of the American West, like Paul Bunyan or Pecos Bill, for examples of how tall tales can be embellished in an oral tradition. Each ended up giving a creation myth for the Grand Canyon. What is the grain of truth behind those stories?
Your exercise is also one of cherry picking. Consider Job 1:1 with your replacement: "This man was blameless and upright; he feared the Universe and shunned evil." What does it mean to fear the Universe?
Or Job 9:13 "God does not restrain his anger; even the cohorts of Rahab cowered at his feet." What does it mean for the universe to be angry? What are the feet of the universe?
Or in Genesis 1:6-8: ""And [the Universe] said, “Let there be a vault between the waters to separate water from water.” So [the Universe] made the vault and separated the water under the vault from the water above it. And it was so. [The Universe] called the vault “sky.”"" How does the Universe speak?
Also, I find it hard to reconcile omniscience with special relativity, which says that it's not possible to know what lies beyond the light cone. Perhaps each point in the Universe is its own god?
By grain I meant a grain in an entire granary. They are quite tall tales. It doesn't mean those tales weren't borne of actual human experience.
To fear is to fear the universe, obviously.
When you are angry, the universe is angry, since you and the universe is inseparable. Every foot in the universe are one of the feet of the universe.
You quoted an English bible. Did the early Christians believe God, spoke, English? Of course not. The God they believed in merely expressed the idea of seperating the waters. One could say the universe expressed the idea of splitting the waters by splitting the waters, and it was so.
Do the nerves in your toes know what lies in your brain? Perhaps each neuron is its own brain?
Anyway, it is a fun exercise, I did not say all statements, and I did not say it would make complete sense, merely more sense.
But thanks and upvoted for quoting those passages. It was fun reading the substitutions you've made.
Ahh, the "religion as metaphor" approach. The Bible mentions Claudius, therefore that kernel of truth ... tells us nothing, because we can't tell which tales are "borne of actual human experience" any more than we can do the same with Paul Bunyan and Pecos Bill.
In context, Job is an honorable man and someone to emulate. If I fear the universe, then I fear the wheat, and a mouse, my neighbor, and my nose, and the water I drink, and my children. Is that really someone to emulate? Not according to Psalm 118:6: "The LORD is with me; I will not be afraid. What can mere mortals do to me?". How can someone be afraid of the universe, but not afraid of mortals in the universe? Your interpretation of God = Universe is inconsistent with the God of the Bible.
FWIW, some of the other gods mentioned in the Bible are Remphan, Jupiter, Baal, Mercurius, and Diana. So a phrase like Deuteronomy 6:14 "Do not follow other gods, the gods of the peoples around you" doesn't make sense as "Do not follow other universes, the universes of the people around you." That makes less sense than God as an entity distinct from the universe. (And an entity with the ability to have a hand write 'Mene, mene, tekel upharsin' on a wall, using a human hand.)
Yes, I used an English translation of the Bible. I could have used Swedish, but I doubt you know Swedish. Do you think I'm so ignorant as to think early Christians thought God spoke English to the early Jews?
Then you slip into solipsism, which is even less interesting than the metaphor argument. One can say many things. One can say the universe started as a cosmic egg in floating in non-existence before opening up to produce the 8 heavenly worlds and one earthly one. But you didn't. You started with, and stayed close to, the monotheism associated with the Christian Bible.
Yes I did. I'm not a Christian, but it doesn't mean I can't find the Bible interesting in telling me how a group of people thousands of years ago thought of the world.
As I'm not Christian because I can't bring myself to believe in the Bible as it is, of course my interpretation is different to ordinary Christians. If I could interpret a way to be consistent with other Christians and still have it make sense to me, I'd be a Christian.
I don't know why you talk like interpreting the Bible in anyway at all to be useless or even harmful. Even when I do it for fun.
There are Christians, there are non-Christians like me, and then there are people like you who insist there's nothing good about the Christians. You even find the idea that they are able to pass down the bible for two thousand years abhorrent.
I had the Quran in mind when I wrote some of those statements, then I realised some people here might be more familiar with Jesus so I added a line about Jesus.
It's a fun exercise, to make some statements make more sense. Nothing more. Once upon a time I tried to find a way to believe in the bible and Jesus (well the Abrahamic religions in general), and that was as close as I got.
Why does even saying the bible interesting as a text substitution exercise offend you? Clearly you're not a Christian, so it's not the fact that I'm changing the bible.
I am pointing out intellectual dishonesty. You cannot replace "God" with "Universe" for most religious texts and get a meaningful, or even more consistent, interpretation. The exercise cannot even be applied to most polytheistic religions - you conveniently stayed within the Abrahamic faiths. Nor can you reconcile omniscience with special relativity.
Certainly you can cherry-pick phrases, but it makes no more sense to substitute God with "Universe" than with "Merlin" or "my dog Spot." The result sounds ineffable, but it's as fundamentally sound as numerology.
If you read the Bible as a story of ancient culture, which I encourage you to do, then you malign the culture by misreading what they wrote. You instead end up reading reflections of your own thoughts of the world, so of course that interpretation is going to make more sense to you. And yes, self-delusion can be fun.
If you really want to understand what those early Jews were trying to pass on, learn more about the Mesopotamian mythologies, and archeology, and the political dynamics of around 600 BC.
BTW, I am not "offended." I am annoyed. Those are different emotions. I am also annoyed that you make false assertions about me, when my own HN history shows just how false that is. I would be intellectually dishonest should I believe it impossible or "abhorrent" to pass down a faith tradition over dozens of centuries. The 2,000+ year history of Christianity, the 2,500 year history of Buddhism (200 years with a written canon), the 2,600+ year history of Judaism, and the 3,000+ year old history of Hinduism - the Bible, Torah, Pāli Canon, and Upanishads, respectively - are all trivial counter-examples. On what basis did you conclude that I reject any of that history?
>> On what basis did you conclude that I reject any of that history?
The way you replied to my comments, I thought you were offended at the idea that I even tried to make sense of the Bible. You've made this clear now, that this is not the case. I had not gone through your HN history.
>> If you read the Bible as a story of ancient culture, which I encourage you to do, then you malign the culture by misreading what they wrote. You instead end up reading reflections of your own thoughts of the world, so of course that interpretation is going to make more sense to you. And yes, self-delusion can be fun.
My family members include both Muslim and Taoists[1]. I've been trying to reconcile both sets of beliefs. I've spent time with each of those sides of family. And, although I now see how putting what I understand out here can offend people, I maintain there are some philosophical links between those two beliefs.
I'm not entirely in self-delusion entertaining these thoughts, I point you to another blogger, who writes about the Taoist's pantheist world view through the lens of Sufism:
>> Nor can you reconcile omniscience with special relativity.
I know now it's not going to mean anything to you. I believe the universe (a passive) is working out what everything will be by moving time into the future. And that's how it "knows" everything. It's model of reality is reality itself. I know there's no "The reality", but I know there is "The universe". I know I might as well said left is on the left side of right, and that's exactly what it is.
[1] My grandmother a Taoist, my uncle Muslim, and my aunt Christian. They have all tried to teach me their beliefs basically my entire life, and I listened.
What you describe is religious syncretism. It is not the same as trying to understand the original beliefs of a group of people thousands of years ago.
I would not have wanted my original comment to be interpreted as claiming to understand the original beliefs of people from thousand of years ago. If that was the case a text substitution exercise would not be appropriate. It was intended as a fun, non-serious and non-religious exercise, as I've repeatedly emphasised.
> Because the world being created by the Christian God implies the creation story which is pretty different from big bang.
No, the world being created in accord with a literal reading of either of the two mutually conflicting creation stories in Genesis implies something pretty different than the big bang, but literalism as an essential doctrine is, within Christianity, restricted to a particular minority -- though one that is extremely politically active and very well represented in the US -- subset of Protestantism.
If 'god' did not create the universe but allowed the Big Bang to take place then it would be impossible to 'anthropologise' this deity. 'god' would just be an energy completely unlike how the religious view he/her/it.
Do you think that all religious people imagine God as a man with a long white beard who lives in the sky? Many are just fine with the idea of a non-anthropomorphic God.
It's funny what strange things some atheists believe about all theists. (The reverse is also true, of course, but frankly I'd expect better of the atheists.)
No, you are misrepresenting what he was saying. If god created the universe, but did not interact with it after it's creation then you can't claim him to be one of the many mythical figures people make him to be. Second, if god does interact with our universe he is than testable to some degree.
> If god created the universe, but did not interact with it after it's creation then you can't claim him to be one of the many mythical figures people make him to be.
Sure, you can, since the watchmaker god precisely is one of the many mythical figures people make him out to be.
> Second, if god does interact with our universe he is than testable to some degree.
Not really; if you have a complete model of all interactions within our universe, you can test whether there is anything else acting on our universe (though that's indistinguishable from a gap in your model of what goes on in our universe). OTOH, if you have a predictive model of how God interacts with our universe (which mythical portrayals disagree on whether this is even in principle possible) you could test if that particular model seems accurate.
>Sure, you can, since the watchmaker god precisely is one of the many mythical figures people make him out to be.
Or it could be magical fairies with magical universe creating powder. You can't claim something without something to support the claim. My fairies with magical fairy universe creating powder is just as plausible as any god in this scenerio.
Also if it manifests in the universe it is at least detectable. We might not know the cause but we can see the "supernatural" event taking place in the universe
> Or it could be magical fairies with magical universe creating powder.
Sure, the watchmaker god is not distinguishable from lots of other things, but that's different than it conflicting with all mythical portrayals of god (which it can't do since it is one such portrayal.)
The problem with this is the assumption of the god. God of the gaps argument. Unless the evidence points to it being a god we can not start making claims about it.
Example. You can't disprove god but he is all knowing loving and created the universe. This logic makes me scratch my head. Thinking Why just Why
> Or it could be magical fairies with magical universe creating powder. You can't claim something without something to support the claim. My fairies with magical fairy universe creating powder is just as plausible as any god in this scenerio.
You're moving the goalposts. First you said that a non-involved deity is incompatible with any religious conception of God, which is incorrect. Now you've shifted to asserting that there's no evidence for the existence of a non-involved deity, which is reasonable, but has nothing to do with whether or not the idea is compatible with theism as it exists.
I didn't write anthropomorphic... I wrote anthropologise (which I'm sure is not a word) but I wrote that to state that it would then be impossible to include this deity into human culture. I mean, what are we including?
As an atheist I don't care what conception religious people have of their 'God'; while it remains private, it's up to them.
The problem arises when they suggest courses of action affecting other people, based (they say) on an indirect or direct communication with that God. Aside from its breathtaking arrogance, this is demonstrable fairy-tale-telling. Sadly the history of humanity is littered with the miserable results of this chain of command.
This is not an argument along Dawkins' line. An internal religious life is perfectly possible provided one is clear that, as Simone Weil puts it 'God can only be present in creation under the form of absence' (tr) or 'necessity rules!'. Weil had a formidable intellect and this idea is far from mere incantation or nuttiness in her hands.
You are right that they aren't necessarily mutually exclusive. But I really dislike the idea that religion is somehow "beyond science". That's a very modern idea that isn't really compatible with most real religious beliefs through most of history, or even the present day.
>Back in the old days, there was no concept of religion being a separate magisterium. The Old Testament is a stream-of-consciousness culture dump: history, law, moral parables, and yes, models of how the universe works. In not one single passage of the Old Testament will you find anyone talking about a transcendent wonder at the complexity of the universe. But you will find plenty of scientific claims, like the universe being created in six days (which is a metaphor for the Big Bang), or rabbits chewing their cud. (Which is a metaphor for...)
>Back in the old days, saying the local religion "could not be proven" would have gotten you burned at the stake. One of the core beliefs of Orthodox Judaism is that God appeared at Mount Sinai and said in a thundering voice, "Yeah, it's all true." From a Bayesian perspective that's some darned unambiguous evidence of a superhumanly powerful entity... The vast majority of religions in human history - excepting only those invented extremely recently - tell stories of events that would constitute completely unmistakable evidence if they'd actually happened. The orthogonality of religion and factual questions is a recent and strictly Western concept. The people who wrote the original scriptures didn't even know the difference.
...
>The idea that religion is a separate magisterium which cannot be proven or disproven is a Big Lie... It is a wild distortion of how religion happened historically, of how all scriptures present their beliefs, of what children are told to persuade them, and of what the majority of religious people on Earth still believe.
Religion was at the center of everything when human knowledge was very limited, and religious claims could not be proved or disproved. While knowledge progresses, religion is still in the business of making claims about non-falsifiable things, but the amount of things non-falsifiable has been dramatically reduced; they have been pushed out of the center to the margin, where they can still keep on making non-falsifiable claims. They have been in a slippery slope since immemorial times: once they are caught red-handed, they adapt the message, even accepting newly established facts as an expression of their god of choice.
So yes, religion can not be disproved, since once you find out a fact which could disprove it, they basically say "you did not understand what we meant, we meant exactly this, and this how our god is responsible for this newly found fact".
> I would say religion is compatible with anything:
The is only the case for the particular religion called Deism, which believes the creator god created the universe (including natural laws and all) but apart from that is totally hands-off. Most religions are not like that, but believes God or gods influence the world.
Deism is practically indistinguishable from atheism. It was popular among 18-century thinkers because it was believed religion was necessary for the good of society. Deism allows you to justify religions institutions and rituals without really believing in anything supernatural.
Well, I would say most religions have been forced then to become more and more "Deistic", since the influence of god in the world has become less and less easy to sustain.
Current religions still claim that god takes part in the daily works of men and nature, but have taken a less outspoken attitude, since making open and concrete claims open them to ridicule.
I wonder if any significant proportion of the religious community these days actually seriously identifies as a deist.
(I've always found deism weird -- at least outside the historical context -- if a god doesn't influence the world in any way whatsoever... what would be the point? At that point it seems to just be a placeholder for "I don't know".)
I think the point of deism is you can still justify religion as an institution, so it was favored by "conservative" thinkers who believed religion was necessary for morality and for society. Atheism has historically been associated with opposition towards religious institutions.
Prominent deists tended to also be major detractors of religious institutions (not just particular religious institutions, but the idea of religion and religious institutions), and very often were liberal rather than conservative thinkers, so I find the idea that deism was somehow a conservative response to justify religion as an institution to be rather hard to swallow.
I shouldn't have used the term "conservative", since it is being interpreted as the political position, but I just meant the deists typically saw value in religion and God as a concept, while often being critical towards the actual church. This in contrast to more radical atheism which sought to eradicate religion.
The short answer to that is: No. The long answer is: Fuck no. (Sorry, just had to put that Stephen Fry joke in there!)
The whole point of the "historical context" that I, and the post I responded to, referred to is that "deism" served as a sort of "escape hatch" in that you could refer to yourself as a deist and usually avoid being persecuted as an unbeliever/heretic/atheist -- the latter of which I'd wager most of the deists actually were (for all practical purposes) even if the term might not have been invented then.
The deists were actually some of the most freethinking (i.e. non-conservative) people of their time.
EDIT: Wikipedia actually has a marvellous page on this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deism . Incidentally the page also answered my question (for the US, at least): Apparently 0.02% of people in the US identified as deists in a survey conducted in 2001. Quite a few years ago to be sure, but I don't imagine it's grown a lot.
Well I shouldn't have used the term "conservative" since it is too politicized, but I'm thinking of sentiment like Voltaires statement that "if God didn't exist it would be necessary to invent him". This in opposition to the more radical atheism which believed that religious belief in itself was bad. Obviously Voltaire was very critical towards the church, but believed religion itself was valuable.
"I would say religion is compatible with anything: since it is not based on reason,"
That view is not compatible at least with the actual history of 1st century Christians. For them, Christianity was about the historical person of Christ. See Paul, a former persecutor of Christians, writing to Christians in Corinth, circa AD 55:
"And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead." - 1 Corinthians 15:14-15
Christianity is about the person of Christ, it's a historical claim, and therefore open to investigation by reason, according to the historical method. For an ancient historian's understanding of the historical method as applied to Jesus, see Paul Barnett's "Jesus and the Logic of History" (http://www.amazon.com/Jesus-History-Studies-Biblical-Theolog...)
> Christianity is about the person of Christ, it's a historical claim, and therefore open to investigation by reason, according to the historical method
What investigation? That there was a person called Christ living in that period, in that area? Probably hundreds of them ...
That he performed the claims attributed to him? How are you going to verify that? Little written records, general superstition abounded, populace was illiterate and easy to fool ...
The historical facts have been scrutinized for centuries, and each time findings have contradicted biblical facts either the bible itself has been adapted (there are lots of versions), the message has been turned into a metaphor, historical records have been tampered with, ... The remaining message is largely metaphorical, and unverifiable.
Besides: on the one hand you have a small and powerful establishment in control of the message, the historical facts and all secrets which could help in falsifying all christian claims; on the other hand you have those who would be able to unmask the plot, but do not have the access, or even the interest, in doing so.
"That there was a person called Christ living in that period, in that area? Probably hundreds of them ..."
Christ was not a surname, but a title for the expected Jewish Messianic King promised throughout the Old Testament (Isaiah 52-53, Psalm 22 are a few accessible descriptive examples). In the 1st century, given Roman control of Judea, any claim to be "the Christ" risked death. It was not a title that one would take to oneself lightly. Despite this, there were a few false messiahs of the period. Their mission and memory have faded in comparison to that of Jesus of Nazareth.
"Little written records,"
If you're keen to investigate further, you actually couldn't ask for better, more reliable written accounts (incidental vs biographical etc.) concerning Jesus. The historicity of the New Testament documents merely as historical documents is stunning.
"general superstition abounded, populace was illiterate and easy to fool ..."
I would not agree that that is an accurate description of the time period. It may be tempting for "modern" man to underestimate the culture and learning of earlier civilizations. If you dig deeper on this point, I think you would be impressed as to the intelligence, education, capability and common sense of 1st century Jews.
"each time findings have contradicted biblical facts"
I am not aware of any historical details in the New Testament documents which have been contradicted by historical findings? On the contrary, historical details (social, political, geographical, cultural, nautical etc.) in the New Testament documents tend to have been corroborated over time.
"the bible itself has been adapted (there are lots of versions)"
There are many translations of the canonical Bible into different languages, but there is only one version of the Bible, and if one is not sure of this, one can always read the extant MSS copies in the Greek. Textual criticism has shown that what we read today is what they wrote then, with no significant differences, as early as the 40s, no later than the 90s.
"on the one hand you have a small and powerful establishment in control of the message, the historical facts and all secrets which could help in falsifying all christian claims"
Are you referring to claims made by Dan Brown? The followers of Jesus were a motley crew at best, hardly powerful, hardly establishment. Furthermore, what they wrote, mostly independently and at great personal cost, their "testimony" (what we know as the New Testament), was in wide circulation by the end of the 1st century.
If you have any more questions, feel free to drop me an email: joran@ronomon.com
Yeah this. Growing up I took Islamic studies courses at school (mandatory), the teacher explained it like that, God created the universes via the Big Bang. Even cited verses from the Quran that confirmed it. I was young and fascinated by the idea of the Big Bang.
I am not religious now but I would love to see people study the Quran with the same scrutunity they did to the Bible in order to refute it because many issues people have with the Bible aren't even mentioned in the Quran and it seems hasty to discard the existence of God solely on the inconsistencues of one book.
(Well, alright, if you want to be pedantic these people claim to not actually having done so specifically to refute it, but let's just say that there are a lot of contradictions...)
I would say religion is compatible with anything: since it is not based on reason, it can not conflict with any other human discipline. Which is (if you ask me), by design.
Or as some of us like to think of it: religion is a bunch of poppycock.
I think the other replies to this post miss the point that gonvaled was making (or at least my interpretation for it!): that, by giving such available options, there are tainting the results.
If someone believes in God to some extent, but they are more sure that the Big Bang occurred, with this poll you are polarizing the answer of that person. That is, if you don't get multiple choice in that question, the results are tainted. That's a possible reason for the absolute 0 responses of "God created the world", where "of people who were 25 years or younger [...] only 42% said they were Christian". "only" for almost half of them sounds a little biased, by the way!
> I would say religion is compatible with anything: since it is not based on reason, it can not conflict with any other human discipline. Which is (if you ask me), by design.
You can trivially compare Genesis to scientific knowledge and see that nothing fits.
That's like saying schizophrenia is compatible with anything because it's not based on reason, which is obviously not true as some people who have it cannot navigate the world at all.
Deism seems completely compatible with science. I'm not sure how a Deist would answer this -- would depend on exact phrasing and meaning of terms in Icelandic, which I don't know.
"The Big Bang" is just as hand-wavy as "God." It's still belief in a set of laws that govern the universe with no explanation for the origin of these rules other than no where. Call it what you want: God, the Trinity, Allah, Jupiter, Zeus, the "Big Bang."
They're all the same concept.
Man seems to crave an answer to the question posed by what Aristotle called the "prime mover," the force that set all other events in motion. Unfortunately,the universe isn't very good at explaining what happened before it existed.
It isn't. It is a theory. There are many theories of what the universe is and how it started. So far, like all theories, it is not absolute fact. But for those that believe in God, and are devout, God is absolute.
In scientific discourse a "theory" is a framework of ideas that aligns with existing known facts, and can be used to make future predictions.
To the extent that additional facts fit a theory, that theory becomes stronger or more established. This is because the additional evidence makes the theory more likely to be true. The most powerful evidence in favor of a theory is when it accurately and precisely predicts future events.
The Big Bang is a very strongly established scientific theory. For example, the cosmic microwave background radiation is exactly where the theory says it should be.
As for your remarks about religion... Religion is a serious topic. It involves dimensions of human interaction, discussion, and philosophy. It is far more complex than your reductionist comment. Belief in a creator God is far more than binary, and many great scientists and theologians have struggled with these very issues, and no one yet has an entirely satisfactory answer.
I can, however, confidently say that, unless God has a very very strange sense of humor, the Big Bang occurred, the Earth slowly formed over billions of years, life arose from the primordial chemical environment, first as a single celled organisms, and eventually leading to animals, mammals, primates, and us.
The difference is how we arrived at the realisation. Big Bang is by scientific method, looking to be improved or proven wrong. And God is through stories that somebody just made up.
The Big Bang scientific theory is how it happened. God, Hawking's quantum fluctuations in the metaverse, etc. is what caused it. They are completely unrelated.
Also, science has nothing to say (no falsifiable theory) about what caused the Big Bang, unless we find some way of observing outside the universe. The argument by Judaism/Christianity/Islam is that an entity exists outside of the universe (God) and has communicated with us, and said entity asserts to having made the universe. Presumably via the Big Bang. The stories might be made up, but then again, it is possible that some of them might be true. However, unless God acts consistently over repeated observations (unlikely), you will have to use a different way of evaluating truth than science.
People don't really have a problem with God created it as much as they do with all the things that go along with that statement and the social system and the distributions of power that go along with a God. That's ultimately the problem. When you say big bang you are giving social power to scientists, who are subject matter experts which will say little more than that about their domain. When you say God then you give priests power to preside over many aspects of life, and we know their heads are often filled with very bad ideas.
No, it isn't. The Big Bang theory doesn't say anything about a prime mover. The Big Bang theory is simply: once, in the past, the universe was very dense and extremely hot. Ever since then, it's been getting less dense and less hot.
Further back, there's a singularity, which we can't reason well about because our math stops giving answers that seem physical (what does infinite density even mean?).
The Big Bang says nothing about why or how the universe got to be so hot and dense a finite time ago. Was there a previous "Big Crunch"? Was there a quantum soupy bulk? Eternal inflation? The Big Bang theory doesn't care. It just describes what we think the early universe looked like.
As roywiggins said: "Further back, there's a singularity, which we can't reason well about because our math stops giving answers that seem physical"
I sense that with your what you're trying to find a why. There is no why. There is only what.
Science and math do not give meaning or intent to the universe. They just describe it. You are free to put intent or meaning into it, but that is you doing it.
I am not looking for an answer. I just suspect the answer is "It's not currently known." And that's fine. By definition, the answer is probably unknowable. But that event did occur, and everything you see around you is a result of it.
I must respectfully disagree with regard to the role of the question "Why?" in the scientific method. "Why" is very much a core part of science. Science almost always begins with the question of "Why?"
Why is the sky blue? Why does an apple drop to the Earth? Why doesn't the movement of the Earth through the Ether deflect light? Why is there a spike in the cosmic microwave background radiation 2.725 Kelvin? Why are the laws of physics the way they are, instead of some completely different set of laws?
Most importantly, what caused the universe expand rapidly from a single point? What was that event? This is the question I've posed.
So far I've seen three answers:
>>1. The math stops giving us answers that seem physical.
>>2. That question can't be answered because it happened before the existence of the universe.
>>3. That's not science because it's not falsifiable.
---------------
To answer each of these in turn:
1. Math is not divine. (Gasp!)
It is merely a human tool for the communication of ideas.
"The math breaks down" usually means one of three things:
>>a. It would be far easier to explain this with a more precise and efficient language for communicating these ideas. Can we switch to mathematics to discuss?
>>b. The mathematics makes sense logically, and renders sound predictions, but doesn't correspond to any human experience of the physical world, so it can't be explained.
>>c. I don't know, but that's what my [teacher, professor, Feynman's ghost] told me.
In the case of (a.), sure, no problem. We're a fairly mathematical bunch around here. With regard to (b.), let's say I was constructing a theory of the universe in very precise German. Then one day, my German model started giving descriptions that didn't seem physical, I would assume the bug was in my German. If your mathematics stop giving answers that seem physical, maybe it's the math that's off, not the universe.
So the question remains: what caused the universe to expand to its current size from a single point? What was that event? If you can't answer, or believe the answer to be extant but unknowable, then we're back to square one.
2. Math is hard, and while not all of us are Physics PhDs, this isn't exactly a lay audience either, so do your best to explain in English.
Physicists use analogies all the time. Einstein was famous for his thought experiments, which communicated tremendously complex ideas with analogies so simple and elegant that someone with less than a secondary school education could grasp them.
Einstein even wrote Relativity: The Special and General Theory as a "popular" science text, so that as many scientists in as many fields as possible could understand the implications of his theories.
As has often been said on HN, "if you can't explain it, you probably don't really understand it."
3. What is your evidence that all possible hypotheses about the cause of the expansion of the universal singularity cannot be falsified?
----
It seems to me that you want to have an existential fight over the meaning of life, wherein mighty Physics slays the godly believer in the name of truth, justice, and the scientific method.
All I want is an answer to a single simple physical question: What caused this singularity to suddenly expand?
Ah, so, that's another problem. There's no obvious way to describe the transition between "singularity" and "not a singularity." Look at the graph of 1/x. There's a singularity at x=0. You can't describe the slope between any part of the equation and the singularity, since the derivative is also singular at the origin. At x=0, you're actually outside the domain of the function and the slope between x=0 and x=a is undefined.
So what I mean is, it's not even clear that "the singularity began to expand" is a meaningful statement at all. Spacetime came into existence (as far as we can tell) with the big bang, and ordinary ideas of an "event" require a before and after. So far as anyone can tell, there might not have been a before at all, so talking about an event happening at "time zero" is... tricky.
The Big Bang theory concerns itself with all instants that the universe had some finite extent. The equations go singular if you look back far enough, but it's possible there wasn't even a singularity, and our math is wrong: the universe was very, very dense, but not infinitely dense, and then expanded. We don't know.
I just came back and looked at this thread. This is the only answer I've heard that satisfies both "here's what we know," and "here's what we don't," topped with a great mathematical analogy.
Your delivery was also welcome. Intelligent without being facetious, and elegant without being arrogant. Often it can be difficult for me to hear the merit of others' positions over the emotional noise.
Very sincerely, thank you.
If you don't mind, this is the answer I'll be using for a while.
First, I wouldn't call observing the red light shift, figuring out how supernovas created heavier elements and so on quite as hand-wavy as "I read it in this book I found".
Second, and most important, I'm fine with people using the label "God" if that makes sense to them. It's when people claim to know the mind of this god and tell me how to live that I draw the line.
In other words, most religious people will argue against atheists as if they where deists, when in fact most are theists.
The Big Bang is a scientific theory which follows (explains) what we know about the world. It is a testable and falsifiable theory.
Science does not claim to know what happened before the Big Bang, and does not even claim that the Big Bang is the only explanation: it is just a plausible enough theory that deserves consideration.
And most importantly: the second that some experiment or observation contradicts the Big Bang theory, science will happily (literally) drop it.
Which is not even remotely the same for religion: the second that a certain religious fact will be contradicted by experiments, religion will change its message to claim the same basic ideas, with a new discourse.
EDIT:
Regarding my last paragraph, I was suggesting that religion will adapt its discourse as soon as new knowledge is acquired by the race, but this obviously not the case. They more accurately follow the "fight, embrace and extend" principle, so it really takes them some time to accept new knowledge and adapt their discourse.
Why? Belief can be grounded in many things, faith, empirical evidence, etc. Even for an extreme version of empiricism-as-the-only-basis-of-knowledge, there is nothing wrong with belief, only with belief grounded in anything other than empiricism.
The cosmological Lemaître- Eddington model later became knick named "big bang" by Frederick Hoyle later, who apparently was reluctant to "believe" that the universe had a beginning point. It's commonly speculated that many of the physics community at that time disliked the idea as a statically existing universe was in vogue and that Lemaître was a Catholic priest caused Hoyle and others to deride the model as a "big bang" (with an underlying assumption that Lemaître assumed that God was the originator of why the expansion happened, see [1] pg 6). It's a bit unclear as to the exact thoughts of Lemaître and Hoyle, but there a good history on arrival [1].
So belief in the big bang affected the physicists who figured out the original cosmological model of the big bang and it took changing beliefs (based on evidence gained day the scientific method) for it to become accepted as a theory. Belief matters quite a bit. :)
I wonder how humanity will handle the decline of religion.
I identify as an atheist (I think), so I've always greeted stories like this as good news. The sooner we all move past the medieval stuff and start thinking rationally the better, right?
However there's a part of me that's envious of religious people. I still struggle with the idea that life is inherently pointless, that there is no fundamental morality in the universe.
How amazing it would be to believe in an omnipotent being who loves me and wants me to be ok. I'd love to believe this so much, my rational brain just won't let me.
Something I've noticed about non-religious people: when pushed on the issue, very few will admit to being 100% Dawkins-style atheists. People will often say something hand-wavy like "I believe there's something out there".
Well, the religious story seems to be inherently pointless to the same degree. If you just need someone telling you that you are important or significat, just ask yor mom or kid. But thrid party assigned purpose only works if I submit and give up my independence.
I say "I believe there's something out there" if I am unsure of how it will affect our professional relationship - to give a non-answer to someone who is so unpolite to actually ask.
I've never understood the 'life is inherently pointless' statement. The meaning of life is to give your life meaning.
And we do have fundamental morality. It's instinctual morality that has evolved as we have physically. We didn't need Moses to show us the tablets; we know we must not kill because the human race would have never got this far if we did not evolve morally.
Yes. And interestingly enough, we're certainly not the only species with morality, so the idea that Moses has to bring morality is even more absurd because of this widespread biological base that spreads far beyond humans.
> there is no fundamental morality in the universe
How about this: Morality may not be a fundamental property of the universe, but since we, created by the universe, shape and experience morality, it can be argued that morality is an emergent property of the universe.
And in my opinion, some of the most beautiful things in this plane of existence are emergent properties of simple systems.
"A religion is a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, that is to say, things set apart and forbidden -- beliefs and practices which unite into one single moral community called a Church, all those who adhere to them." E.Durkheim [1][2]
In this sense, liberal democracy, with its rituals (eg. PC) and non-provable beliefs ("we are all equal"), etc. can be seen as religion.
It's kind of thought provoking to apply the definitions of religion in a logical manner to movements like string theory, or LGBT movements, or even programming cultures in addition to traditional religions like Christianity. Essentially if there are beliefs and practices which are beyond questioning at the risk of violating taboos and social ostracization then you get a form de facto religion. Not that this necessarily makes these things wrong, but it does carry consequences and should be realistically scrutinized by the public. At least if I become religious I prefer to knowingly choose it or be aware of it -- e.g. I'm Christian and chose to be so including accepting certain intellectual dissonances. Personally most of those intellectual dissonances have provided more areas for me to grow in deeper understanding of the world (vis-a-vis my world views). In physics I keep an eye on similar dissonance like the current non-compatability of quantum mechanics and relativity at mixed scales. Or that new EmDrive which could prove valuable insight into physics... However, since social beliefs also follow physical laws and result in consequences (I consider it as a multivariate game theory problem where different religious beliefs and axioms will produce different optimal outcomes -- though we rarely live up to the optimal solutions). Look forward to reading Durham and see if the views offer more clarification.
This being Iceland everyone knows that the world was created by the Gods ,emphasis on the s, not God, so stupid question.
But on a more serious note the Norse creation myth is actually interesting:
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[ 4.5 ms ] story [ 174 ms ] threadWhy are those exclusive? Once you believe there is an omnipotent god, and basically not understandable by the human mind, then his delivery mechanisms can be anything. Big Bang can be just "the way" god created the Universe.
I would say religion is compatible with anything: since it is not based on reason, it can not conflict with any other human discipline. Which is (if you ask me), by design.
Additionally - as I'd like to argue - is that it might be a divine being or a being of sorts that ignited the Big Bang, but it is very unlikely to be God, i.e. the Christian God. So the Icelanders' opinion seem very reasonable to me.
Particularly if the survey was this simple.
> I would say religion is compatible with anything: since it is not based on reason, it can not conflict with any other human discipline. Which is (if you ask me), by design.
That isn't by design; it's what remains after religion lost a bunch of conflicts ("where did the water from Noah's Flood go?").
Dont't get you there. What is the world, and what is the universe in your definition?
> That isn't by design; it's what remains after religion lost a bunch of conflicts ("where did the water from Noah's Flood go?").
I would say that religion is always, by design, outside the realm of reason. That "design" was badly done when humankind knew less things, so that the religion "designers" made mistakes thinking that they could get away with stuff which was later on taken over by other human disciplines, so that lots of subjects can now be reasonably debated.
But the aim of all religion is to be outside rational discussion. As human knowledge progresses, religion is forced to become more and more metaphorical: since the actual facts that it can claim are dwindling, it must relegate itself to the emotional, and accept the facts we know about the universe as god way of expressing himself.
That's pretty revisionist. Religion certainly was not like that in the past. People 100% truly believed things were literal fact. Religion was an actual thing that "happened" in day-to-day life. It's only in more modern times, with more investigatory powers that people claim that all of religion is out of reach, and that if you try to claim it to be literal, then you're interpreting it wrong.
"There is a teapot orbiting the sun, between Venus and Mercury". That is a very concrete fact, and in principle verifiable. I am anyway making a claim outside of rational discussion, because I know that with out current knowledge and technology, it is impossible to discuss this fact.
That's how religious facts work: they make concrete claims, but unverifiable with the knowledge and technology of the period when the claim is made.
That those claims are unmasked by the progress in human knowledge is just a design flaw of religion, not a prove that they anyhow want to take part in the rational discourse.
The conventional meanings -- the world is the planet; the universe is the universe.
Did you ever read or hear of "Around the World in 80 Days"? Ever hear that Magellan circumnavigated the world?
For a fun exercise, we could replace statements involving God and they would suddenly make more sense.
"God created the universe." => "The universe created the universe".
"God created human beings" => "The universe created human beings"
"God shapes everyone's lives." => "The universe shapes everyone's lives".
"Jesus is the son of God." => "Jesus is the son of the universe".
"God is omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, omnibenevolent, divinely simple, eternal and necessary"[2], "The universe is omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, omnibenevolent, divinely simple, eternal and necessary".
"So God created mankind in his own image" => "So the universe created mankind in its own image".
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flood_myth#Claims_of_historici...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God
Your "wide definition of around" is a span of over 1,000 years. Look to the tall tales of the American West, like Paul Bunyan or Pecos Bill, for examples of how tall tales can be embellished in an oral tradition. Each ended up giving a creation myth for the Grand Canyon. What is the grain of truth behind those stories?
Your exercise is also one of cherry picking. Consider Job 1:1 with your replacement: "This man was blameless and upright; he feared the Universe and shunned evil." What does it mean to fear the Universe?
Or Job 9:13 "God does not restrain his anger; even the cohorts of Rahab cowered at his feet." What does it mean for the universe to be angry? What are the feet of the universe?
Or in Genesis 1:6-8: ""And [the Universe] said, “Let there be a vault between the waters to separate water from water.” So [the Universe] made the vault and separated the water under the vault from the water above it. And it was so. [The Universe] called the vault “sky.”"" How does the Universe speak?
Also, I find it hard to reconcile omniscience with special relativity, which says that it's not possible to know what lies beyond the light cone. Perhaps each point in the Universe is its own god?
To fear is to fear the universe, obviously.
When you are angry, the universe is angry, since you and the universe is inseparable. Every foot in the universe are one of the feet of the universe.
You quoted an English bible. Did the early Christians believe God, spoke, English? Of course not. The God they believed in merely expressed the idea of seperating the waters. One could say the universe expressed the idea of splitting the waters by splitting the waters, and it was so.
Do the nerves in your toes know what lies in your brain? Perhaps each neuron is its own brain?
Anyway, it is a fun exercise, I did not say all statements, and I did not say it would make complete sense, merely more sense.
But thanks and upvoted for quoting those passages. It was fun reading the substitutions you've made.
In context, Job is an honorable man and someone to emulate. If I fear the universe, then I fear the wheat, and a mouse, my neighbor, and my nose, and the water I drink, and my children. Is that really someone to emulate? Not according to Psalm 118:6: "The LORD is with me; I will not be afraid. What can mere mortals do to me?". How can someone be afraid of the universe, but not afraid of mortals in the universe? Your interpretation of God = Universe is inconsistent with the God of the Bible.
FWIW, some of the other gods mentioned in the Bible are Remphan, Jupiter, Baal, Mercurius, and Diana. So a phrase like Deuteronomy 6:14 "Do not follow other gods, the gods of the peoples around you" doesn't make sense as "Do not follow other universes, the universes of the people around you." That makes less sense than God as an entity distinct from the universe. (And an entity with the ability to have a hand write 'Mene, mene, tekel upharsin' on a wall, using a human hand.)
Yes, I used an English translation of the Bible. I could have used Swedish, but I doubt you know Swedish. Do you think I'm so ignorant as to think early Christians thought God spoke English to the early Jews?
Then you slip into solipsism, which is even less interesting than the metaphor argument. One can say many things. One can say the universe started as a cosmic egg in floating in non-existence before opening up to produce the 8 heavenly worlds and one earthly one. But you didn't. You started with, and stayed close to, the monotheism associated with the Christian Bible.
As I'm not Christian because I can't bring myself to believe in the Bible as it is, of course my interpretation is different to ordinary Christians. If I could interpret a way to be consistent with other Christians and still have it make sense to me, I'd be a Christian.
I don't know why you talk like interpreting the Bible in anyway at all to be useless or even harmful. Even when I do it for fun.
There are Christians, there are non-Christians like me, and then there are people like you who insist there's nothing good about the Christians. You even find the idea that they are able to pass down the bible for two thousand years abhorrent.
I had the Quran in mind when I wrote some of those statements, then I realised some people here might be more familiar with Jesus so I added a line about Jesus.
It's a fun exercise, to make some statements make more sense. Nothing more. Once upon a time I tried to find a way to believe in the bible and Jesus (well the Abrahamic religions in general), and that was as close as I got.
Why does even saying the bible interesting as a text substitution exercise offend you? Clearly you're not a Christian, so it's not the fact that I'm changing the bible.
Certainly you can cherry-pick phrases, but it makes no more sense to substitute God with "Universe" than with "Merlin" or "my dog Spot." The result sounds ineffable, but it's as fundamentally sound as numerology.
If you read the Bible as a story of ancient culture, which I encourage you to do, then you malign the culture by misreading what they wrote. You instead end up reading reflections of your own thoughts of the world, so of course that interpretation is going to make more sense to you. And yes, self-delusion can be fun.
If you really want to understand what those early Jews were trying to pass on, learn more about the Mesopotamian mythologies, and archeology, and the political dynamics of around 600 BC.
BTW, I am not "offended." I am annoyed. Those are different emotions. I am also annoyed that you make false assertions about me, when my own HN history shows just how false that is. I would be intellectually dishonest should I believe it impossible or "abhorrent" to pass down a faith tradition over dozens of centuries. The 2,000+ year history of Christianity, the 2,500 year history of Buddhism (200 years with a written canon), the 2,600+ year history of Judaism, and the 3,000+ year old history of Hinduism - the Bible, Torah, Pāli Canon, and Upanishads, respectively - are all trivial counter-examples. On what basis did you conclude that I reject any of that history?
The way you replied to my comments, I thought you were offended at the idea that I even tried to make sense of the Bible. You've made this clear now, that this is not the case. I had not gone through your HN history.
>> If you read the Bible as a story of ancient culture, which I encourage you to do, then you malign the culture by misreading what they wrote. You instead end up reading reflections of your own thoughts of the world, so of course that interpretation is going to make more sense to you. And yes, self-delusion can be fun.
My family members include both Muslim and Taoists[1]. I've been trying to reconcile both sets of beliefs. I've spent time with each of those sides of family. And, although I now see how putting what I understand out here can offend people, I maintain there are some philosophical links between those two beliefs.
I'm not entirely in self-delusion entertaining these thoughts, I point you to another blogger, who writes about the Taoist's pantheist world view through the lens of Sufism:
http://www.techofheart.co/2013/11/sufi-intepretation-tao-te-...
>> Nor can you reconcile omniscience with special relativity.
I know now it's not going to mean anything to you. I believe the universe (a passive) is working out what everything will be by moving time into the future. And that's how it "knows" everything. It's model of reality is reality itself. I know there's no "The reality", but I know there is "The universe". I know I might as well said left is on the left side of right, and that's exactly what it is.
[1] My grandmother a Taoist, my uncle Muslim, and my aunt Christian. They have all tried to teach me their beliefs basically my entire life, and I listened.
I would not have wanted my original comment to be interpreted as claiming to understand the original beliefs of people from thousand of years ago. If that was the case a text substitution exercise would not be appropriate. It was intended as a fun, non-serious and non-religious exercise, as I've repeatedly emphasised.
One random source: http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/commentandblogs/2014/10/31/p...
No, the world being created in accord with a literal reading of either of the two mutually conflicting creation stories in Genesis implies something pretty different than the big bang, but literalism as an essential doctrine is, within Christianity, restricted to a particular minority -- though one that is extremely politically active and very well represented in the US -- subset of Protestantism.
It's funny what strange things some atheists believe about all theists. (The reverse is also true, of course, but frankly I'd expect better of the atheists.)
Sure, you can, since the watchmaker god precisely is one of the many mythical figures people make him out to be.
> Second, if god does interact with our universe he is than testable to some degree.
Not really; if you have a complete model of all interactions within our universe, you can test whether there is anything else acting on our universe (though that's indistinguishable from a gap in your model of what goes on in our universe). OTOH, if you have a predictive model of how God interacts with our universe (which mythical portrayals disagree on whether this is even in principle possible) you could test if that particular model seems accurate.
Or it could be magical fairies with magical universe creating powder. You can't claim something without something to support the claim. My fairies with magical fairy universe creating powder is just as plausible as any god in this scenerio.
Also if it manifests in the universe it is at least detectable. We might not know the cause but we can see the "supernatural" event taking place in the universe
Sure, the watchmaker god is not distinguishable from lots of other things, but that's different than it conflicting with all mythical portrayals of god (which it can't do since it is one such portrayal.)
Example. You can't disprove god but he is all knowing loving and created the universe. This logic makes me scratch my head. Thinking Why just Why
You're moving the goalposts. First you said that a non-involved deity is incompatible with any religious conception of God, which is incorrect. Now you've shifted to asserting that there's no evidence for the existence of a non-involved deity, which is reasonable, but has nothing to do with whether or not the idea is compatible with theism as it exists.
The problem arises when they suggest courses of action affecting other people, based (they say) on an indirect or direct communication with that God. Aside from its breathtaking arrogance, this is demonstrable fairy-tale-telling. Sadly the history of humanity is littered with the miserable results of this chain of command.
This is not an argument along Dawkins' line. An internal religious life is perfectly possible provided one is clear that, as Simone Weil puts it 'God can only be present in creation under the form of absence' (tr) or 'necessity rules!'. Weil had a formidable intellect and this idea is far from mere incantation or nuttiness in her hands.
http://lesswrong.com/lw/i8/religions_claim_to_be_nondisprova...
>Back in the old days, there was no concept of religion being a separate magisterium. The Old Testament is a stream-of-consciousness culture dump: history, law, moral parables, and yes, models of how the universe works. In not one single passage of the Old Testament will you find anyone talking about a transcendent wonder at the complexity of the universe. But you will find plenty of scientific claims, like the universe being created in six days (which is a metaphor for the Big Bang), or rabbits chewing their cud. (Which is a metaphor for...)
>Back in the old days, saying the local religion "could not be proven" would have gotten you burned at the stake. One of the core beliefs of Orthodox Judaism is that God appeared at Mount Sinai and said in a thundering voice, "Yeah, it's all true." From a Bayesian perspective that's some darned unambiguous evidence of a superhumanly powerful entity... The vast majority of religions in human history - excepting only those invented extremely recently - tell stories of events that would constitute completely unmistakable evidence if they'd actually happened. The orthogonality of religion and factual questions is a recent and strictly Western concept. The people who wrote the original scriptures didn't even know the difference.
...
>The idea that religion is a separate magisterium which cannot be proven or disproven is a Big Lie... It is a wild distortion of how religion happened historically, of how all scriptures present their beliefs, of what children are told to persuade them, and of what the majority of religious people on Earth still believe.
So yes, religion can not be disproved, since once you find out a fact which could disprove it, they basically say "you did not understand what we meant, we meant exactly this, and this how our god is responsible for this newly found fact".
The is only the case for the particular religion called Deism, which believes the creator god created the universe (including natural laws and all) but apart from that is totally hands-off. Most religions are not like that, but believes God or gods influence the world.
Deism is practically indistinguishable from atheism. It was popular among 18-century thinkers because it was believed religion was necessary for the good of society. Deism allows you to justify religions institutions and rituals without really believing in anything supernatural.
Current religions still claim that god takes part in the daily works of men and nature, but have taken a less outspoken attitude, since making open and concrete claims open them to ridicule.
(I've always found deism weird -- at least outside the historical context -- if a god doesn't influence the world in any way whatsoever... what would be the point? At that point it seems to just be a placeholder for "I don't know".)
The whole point of the "historical context" that I, and the post I responded to, referred to is that "deism" served as a sort of "escape hatch" in that you could refer to yourself as a deist and usually avoid being persecuted as an unbeliever/heretic/atheist -- the latter of which I'd wager most of the deists actually were (for all practical purposes) even if the term might not have been invented then.
The deists were actually some of the most freethinking (i.e. non-conservative) people of their time.
EDIT: Wikipedia actually has a marvellous page on this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deism . Incidentally the page also answered my question (for the US, at least): Apparently 0.02% of people in the US identified as deists in a survey conducted in 2001. Quite a few years ago to be sure, but I don't imagine it's grown a lot.
That view is not compatible at least with the actual history of 1st century Christians. For them, Christianity was about the historical person of Christ. See Paul, a former persecutor of Christians, writing to Christians in Corinth, circa AD 55:
"And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead." - 1 Corinthians 15:14-15
Christianity is about the person of Christ, it's a historical claim, and therefore open to investigation by reason, according to the historical method. For an ancient historian's understanding of the historical method as applied to Jesus, see Paul Barnett's "Jesus and the Logic of History" (http://www.amazon.com/Jesus-History-Studies-Biblical-Theolog...)
What investigation? That there was a person called Christ living in that period, in that area? Probably hundreds of them ...
That he performed the claims attributed to him? How are you going to verify that? Little written records, general superstition abounded, populace was illiterate and easy to fool ...
The historical facts have been scrutinized for centuries, and each time findings have contradicted biblical facts either the bible itself has been adapted (there are lots of versions), the message has been turned into a metaphor, historical records have been tampered with, ... The remaining message is largely metaphorical, and unverifiable.
Besides: on the one hand you have a small and powerful establishment in control of the message, the historical facts and all secrets which could help in falsifying all christian claims; on the other hand you have those who would be able to unmask the plot, but do not have the access, or even the interest, in doing so.
"That there was a person called Christ living in that period, in that area? Probably hundreds of them ..."
Christ was not a surname, but a title for the expected Jewish Messianic King promised throughout the Old Testament (Isaiah 52-53, Psalm 22 are a few accessible descriptive examples). In the 1st century, given Roman control of Judea, any claim to be "the Christ" risked death. It was not a title that one would take to oneself lightly. Despite this, there were a few false messiahs of the period. Their mission and memory have faded in comparison to that of Jesus of Nazareth.
"Little written records,"
If you're keen to investigate further, you actually couldn't ask for better, more reliable written accounts (incidental vs biographical etc.) concerning Jesus. The historicity of the New Testament documents merely as historical documents is stunning.
"general superstition abounded, populace was illiterate and easy to fool ..."
I would not agree that that is an accurate description of the time period. It may be tempting for "modern" man to underestimate the culture and learning of earlier civilizations. If you dig deeper on this point, I think you would be impressed as to the intelligence, education, capability and common sense of 1st century Jews.
"each time findings have contradicted biblical facts"
I am not aware of any historical details in the New Testament documents which have been contradicted by historical findings? On the contrary, historical details (social, political, geographical, cultural, nautical etc.) in the New Testament documents tend to have been corroborated over time.
"the bible itself has been adapted (there are lots of versions)"
There are many translations of the canonical Bible into different languages, but there is only one version of the Bible, and if one is not sure of this, one can always read the extant MSS copies in the Greek. Textual criticism has shown that what we read today is what they wrote then, with no significant differences, as early as the 40s, no later than the 90s.
"on the one hand you have a small and powerful establishment in control of the message, the historical facts and all secrets which could help in falsifying all christian claims"
Are you referring to claims made by Dan Brown? The followers of Jesus were a motley crew at best, hardly powerful, hardly establishment. Furthermore, what they wrote, mostly independently and at great personal cost, their "testimony" (what we know as the New Testament), was in wide circulation by the end of the 1st century.
If you have any more questions, feel free to drop me an email: joran@ronomon.com
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus
I am not religious now but I would love to see people study the Quran with the same scrutunity they did to the Bible in order to refute it because many issues people have with the Bible aren't even mentioned in the Quran and it seems hasty to discard the existence of God solely on the inconsistencues of one book.
They do: http://www.answering-islam.org/Quran/Contra/
(Well, alright, if you want to be pedantic these people claim to not actually having done so specifically to refute it, but let's just say that there are a lot of contradictions...)
(Of course, what with personalized searches who knows what Google thinks of me and wants me to find...)
Or as some of us like to think of it: religion is a bunch of poppycock.
Compatible or incompatible, what's that?
If someone believes in God to some extent, but they are more sure that the Big Bang occurred, with this poll you are polarizing the answer of that person. That is, if you don't get multiple choice in that question, the results are tainted. That's a possible reason for the absolute 0 responses of "God created the world", where "of people who were 25 years or younger [...] only 42% said they were Christian". "only" for almost half of them sounds a little biased, by the way!
You can trivially compare Genesis to scientific knowledge and see that nothing fits.
A metaphor for what? Because it certainly isn't a metaphor for the origin of life, the universe or anything.
They're all the same concept.
Man seems to crave an answer to the question posed by what Aristotle called the "prime mover," the force that set all other events in motion. Unfortunately,the universe isn't very good at explaining what happened before it existed.
In scientific discourse a "theory" is a framework of ideas that aligns with existing known facts, and can be used to make future predictions.
To the extent that additional facts fit a theory, that theory becomes stronger or more established. This is because the additional evidence makes the theory more likely to be true. The most powerful evidence in favor of a theory is when it accurately and precisely predicts future events.
The Big Bang is a very strongly established scientific theory. For example, the cosmic microwave background radiation is exactly where the theory says it should be.
As for your remarks about religion... Religion is a serious topic. It involves dimensions of human interaction, discussion, and philosophy. It is far more complex than your reductionist comment. Belief in a creator God is far more than binary, and many great scientists and theologians have struggled with these very issues, and no one yet has an entirely satisfactory answer.
I can, however, confidently say that, unless God has a very very strange sense of humor, the Big Bang occurred, the Earth slowly formed over billions of years, life arose from the primordial chemical environment, first as a single celled organisms, and eventually leading to animals, mammals, primates, and us.
Also, science has nothing to say (no falsifiable theory) about what caused the Big Bang, unless we find some way of observing outside the universe. The argument by Judaism/Christianity/Islam is that an entity exists outside of the universe (God) and has communicated with us, and said entity asserts to having made the universe. Presumably via the Big Bang. The stories might be made up, but then again, it is possible that some of them might be true. However, unless God acts consistently over repeated observations (unlikely), you will have to use a different way of evaluating truth than science.
No, it isn't. The Big Bang theory doesn't say anything about a prime mover. The Big Bang theory is simply: once, in the past, the universe was very dense and extremely hot. Ever since then, it's been getting less dense and less hot.
Further back, there's a singularity, which we can't reason well about because our math stops giving answers that seem physical (what does infinite density even mean?).
The Big Bang says nothing about why or how the universe got to be so hot and dense a finite time ago. Was there a previous "Big Crunch"? Was there a quantum soupy bulk? Eternal inflation? The Big Bang theory doesn't care. It just describes what we think the early universe looked like.
I sense that with your what you're trying to find a why. There is no why. There is only what.
Science and math do not give meaning or intent to the universe. They just describe it. You are free to put intent or meaning into it, but that is you doing it.
A textbook case of the Münchhausen Trilemma.
I must respectfully disagree with regard to the role of the question "Why?" in the scientific method. "Why" is very much a core part of science. Science almost always begins with the question of "Why?"
Why is the sky blue? Why does an apple drop to the Earth? Why doesn't the movement of the Earth through the Ether deflect light? Why is there a spike in the cosmic microwave background radiation 2.725 Kelvin? Why are the laws of physics the way they are, instead of some completely different set of laws?
Most importantly, what caused the universe expand rapidly from a single point? What was that event? This is the question I've posed.
So far I've seen three answers:
>>1. The math stops giving us answers that seem physical.
>>2. That question can't be answered because it happened before the existence of the universe.
>>3. That's not science because it's not falsifiable.
---------------
To answer each of these in turn:
1. Math is not divine. (Gasp!)
It is merely a human tool for the communication of ideas.
"The math breaks down" usually means one of three things:
>>a. It would be far easier to explain this with a more precise and efficient language for communicating these ideas. Can we switch to mathematics to discuss?
>>b. The mathematics makes sense logically, and renders sound predictions, but doesn't correspond to any human experience of the physical world, so it can't be explained.
>>c. I don't know, but that's what my [teacher, professor, Feynman's ghost] told me.
In the case of (a.), sure, no problem. We're a fairly mathematical bunch around here. With regard to (b.), let's say I was constructing a theory of the universe in very precise German. Then one day, my German model started giving descriptions that didn't seem physical, I would assume the bug was in my German. If your mathematics stop giving answers that seem physical, maybe it's the math that's off, not the universe.
So the question remains: what caused the universe to expand to its current size from a single point? What was that event? If you can't answer, or believe the answer to be extant but unknowable, then we're back to square one.
2. Math is hard, and while not all of us are Physics PhDs, this isn't exactly a lay audience either, so do your best to explain in English.
Physicists use analogies all the time. Einstein was famous for his thought experiments, which communicated tremendously complex ideas with analogies so simple and elegant that someone with less than a secondary school education could grasp them.
Einstein even wrote Relativity: The Special and General Theory as a "popular" science text, so that as many scientists in as many fields as possible could understand the implications of his theories.
As has often been said on HN, "if you can't explain it, you probably don't really understand it."
3. What is your evidence that all possible hypotheses about the cause of the expansion of the universal singularity cannot be falsified?
----
It seems to me that you want to have an existential fight over the meaning of life, wherein mighty Physics slays the godly believer in the name of truth, justice, and the scientific method.
All I want is an answer to a single simple physical question: What caused this singularity to suddenly expand?
You seem to want an answer noone is able to give. Is it impossible for you to accept that some things are unknowable?
So what I mean is, it's not even clear that "the singularity began to expand" is a meaningful statement at all. Spacetime came into existence (as far as we can tell) with the big bang, and ordinary ideas of an "event" require a before and after. So far as anyone can tell, there might not have been a before at all, so talking about an event happening at "time zero" is... tricky.
The Big Bang theory concerns itself with all instants that the universe had some finite extent. The equations go singular if you look back far enough, but it's possible there wasn't even a singularity, and our math is wrong: the universe was very, very dense, but not infinitely dense, and then expanded. We don't know.
I just came back and looked at this thread. This is the only answer I've heard that satisfies both "here's what we know," and "here's what we don't," topped with a great mathematical analogy.
Your delivery was also welcome. Intelligent without being facetious, and elegant without being arrogant. Often it can be difficult for me to hear the merit of others' positions over the emotional noise.
Very sincerely, thank you.
If you don't mind, this is the answer I'll be using for a while.
Second, and most important, I'm fine with people using the label "God" if that makes sense to them. It's when people claim to know the mind of this god and tell me how to live that I draw the line.
In other words, most religious people will argue against atheists as if they where deists, when in fact most are theists.
Science does not claim to know what happened before the Big Bang, and does not even claim that the Big Bang is the only explanation: it is just a plausible enough theory that deserves consideration.
And most importantly: the second that some experiment or observation contradicts the Big Bang theory, science will happily (literally) drop it.
Which is not even remotely the same for religion: the second that a certain religious fact will be contradicted by experiments, religion will change its message to claim the same basic ideas, with a new discourse.
EDIT:
Regarding my last paragraph, I was suggesting that religion will adapt its discourse as soon as new knowledge is acquired by the race, but this obviously not the case. They more accurately follow the "fight, embrace and extend" principle, so it really takes them some time to accept new knowledge and adapt their discourse.
[edit] I just hope someone will not create a "Big Bang Church".
Why? Belief can be grounded in many things, faith, empirical evidence, etc. Even for an extreme version of empiricism-as-the-only-basis-of-knowledge, there is nothing wrong with belief, only with belief grounded in anything other than empiricism.
So belief in the big bang affected the physicists who figured out the original cosmological model of the big bang and it took changing beliefs (based on evidence gained day the scientific method) for it to become accepted as a theory. Belief matters quite a bit. :)
[1]: http://arxiv.org/pdf/1301.0219.pdf
I identify as an atheist (I think), so I've always greeted stories like this as good news. The sooner we all move past the medieval stuff and start thinking rationally the better, right?
However there's a part of me that's envious of religious people. I still struggle with the idea that life is inherently pointless, that there is no fundamental morality in the universe.
How amazing it would be to believe in an omnipotent being who loves me and wants me to be ok. I'd love to believe this so much, my rational brain just won't let me.
Something I've noticed about non-religious people: when pushed on the issue, very few will admit to being 100% Dawkins-style atheists. People will often say something hand-wavy like "I believe there's something out there".
I say "I believe there's something out there" if I am unsure of how it will affect our professional relationship - to give a non-answer to someone who is so unpolite to actually ask.
And we do have fundamental morality. It's instinctual morality that has evolved as we have physically. We didn't need Moses to show us the tablets; we know we must not kill because the human race would have never got this far if we did not evolve morally.
How about this: Morality may not be a fundamental property of the universe, but since we, created by the universe, shape and experience morality, it can be argued that morality is an emergent property of the universe.
And in my opinion, some of the most beautiful things in this plane of existence are emergent properties of simple systems.
In this sense, liberal democracy, with its rituals (eg. PC) and non-provable beliefs ("we are all equal"), etc. can be seen as religion.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Émile_Durkheim
[2] http://durkheim.uchicago.edu/Summaries/forms.html
http://norse-mythology.org/tales/norse-creation-myth/
Shorter version:
http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/creation.html
Executive summary:
We live inside the dead ice giants Ymir's eyebrows...