Hypothesis: the more educated you are the less likely you are to be religious

Nicker on 25/1/2012 at 03:14

Quote Posted by dethtoll

Most porn is fucking disgusting anyway.

More like, everybody else's porn is disgusting.

Xorak on 25/1/2012 at 04:26

I think intelligent people might be less likely to believe in 'god and the heavens,' but generally the same need for godliness somewhere will always exist. Only, the more we remove God from the equation, the more we want to believe ourselves as gods. I think this is a subtle aspiration in science which will become even more dangerous in the future.

Man as God is the theme of the coming century.

We're already approaching the point where we need to believe we control the world and everything that happens on it. Man as God.

In a way, I think religion was only ever devised to protect us from our own destructive egos. Our egos will drive us down so many more dark and ruinous corridors than religion could ever dream of doing. Religion has always just made a handy excuse. Man as God is the most destructive thing we will ever experience.

Sulphur on 25/1/2012 at 04:55

Quote Posted by Renzatic

The most interesting thing about the universe is that there is no truly simple and reasonable answer to account for it. Our two most adhered to explanations, The One True Creator God, and The Big Bang, are both absolutely outlandish, and completely ridiculous when you truly think about it.

Unfortunately, I have to head out for a bit. I'll expand upon this later on tonight.

And why would the Big Bang be so outlandish? It's an extrapolation of the current trajectories of everything we see in the sky.

Renzatic on 25/1/2012 at 04:56

Quote Posted by Nicker

Equating the Big Bang to the God excuse is just an argument from ignorance.

It's not just the big bang. Think of the universe as it existed during those moments before. There wasn't a universe. There wasn't time. There wasn't even a big black empty void, because a void signifies space, and empty space is a potential medium for something to exist in. It wasn't even a negative. It wasn't anything. It was an impossible nil.

Then, at some unmeasurable moment in this absolutely nothing at all our universe began. Everything that we know, everything that we see, all of infinity as far as we know, exploded out of a single infinitesimally small point, and expanded to All.

So how did the most solid, literal concept of complete nothing suddenly give birth to something, that expanded into an infinite universe? Was it God? A vast, omnipotent and omniscient force that decided to create an entire universe for some unconceivable reason?

Well nothing can't be infinite. So where did this God come from? Was this God created by another God? Who created that God? Have these Gods sat around for X, creating more and more and more Gods until one God decided to create the universe?

But what if there is no God? How did the universe begin? If nothing can be infinite, then where did the raw material for All come from? What happened at Moment Zero of the Big Bang? What caused the Big Bang? Is our universe a byproduct of some other unimaginable force? Some other all encompassing Outside that produces other bubble universes due to some vast process? Does this Outside follow the same rules of physics as we know them? Is it infinite? If not, what's beyond this Outside? Has it always existed? If not, where did the raw material for it come from? Some other even bigger bang? What started that? Ad infinitum.

Since nothing can come from nothing, then something has to have existed for infinity to start a vast chain reaction that eventually led to this universe we all know and love. But if nothing can come from nothing, then that means that something has to have existed without beginning, and conceivably without end.

So God? Or helium? Which one of these has existed without beginning or end? Helium, you say? Why? Because it's simpler? There's nothing simple about any of this. God and helium are equally as likely an answer to this unimaginably vast question that is the universe.

And this is why I'm not an atheist.

scarykitties on 25/1/2012 at 06:25

Quote Posted by Renzatic

So God? Or helium? Which one of these has existed without beginning or end? Helium, you say? Why? Because it's simpler? There's nothing simple about any of this. God and helium are equally as likely an answer to this unimaginably vast question that is the universe.

And this is why I'm not an atheist.

Ouch, talk about flawed logic. So, here's your conclusion of the likely possibilities:

1. Helium, a singular element composed of two protons and two neutrons (I assume you actually meant hydrogen, the simplest element, which is only one proton and one neutron).

2. A God so infinitely complex, his complexity demands that he is at LEAST most complex than the entire known universe and everything in it, including every law. Creating the universe doesn't necessarily require God to have infinite power, just power greater than anything in the universe.

We know that Hydrogen, working naturally within the physical laws that exist, can come together to form stars, and from that, heavier elements, and from the explosions of those stars, even heavier elements, which can form planets, which can create the idealistic conditions for organic chemicals to bond, which can result in at least the beginnings of life.

So, putting these side by side: a simple element working within known physical properties, and a God, a being so complex, it defies understanding or measurement because it is more complex than the entire universe...

You say that they are equally likely.

With logic like that, yes, it is clear why you are not an atheist.

Phatose on 25/1/2012 at 06:38

Quote Posted by Renzatic

It's not just the big bang. Think of the universe as it existed during those moments before. There wasn't a universe. There wasn't time.

With no time, there was 'moments before'. Not a lot of point to asking us to think about something that you posit out of existence two sentences later.

Renzatic on 25/1/2012 at 06:53

Quote Posted by scarykitties

Snip

You're taking that line far too literally. I'm not talking specifically about helium. I'm not even talking about base elements. I'm talking about an infinitely long natural process that has produced our universe, and the element called helium within it.

The way I think about it, you have two models to choose from.

God. The omnipresent, omnipotent creator who is the prime mover of our universe, but has no prime mover itself. It has always existed, and always will exist.

The aforementioned process that produced the big bang, and thus our universe. A random system of possibly unimaginably complex laws of nature, maybe not even specifically the laws of nature as we know them, considering we do know is a byproduct of this larger process that has no point of origin. No beginning point, and no end point. Think of this process as taking a few rocks, putting them in a can, then shaking them around. Except that at no point were the rocks put into the can, and at no point was said can shaken. The rocks have always existed in the can, and the can has always shaken.

Hell, I can put it even more simply. This process is a reaction that isn't the consequence of an initial action. It never even came into being. It's a system of nature that has no beginning or end. It just is, and everything else, up to and including the Big Bang, is a consequence of it.

They're both ridiculous notions when it comes right down to it. Neither are provable, but both are probable.

Quote Posted by Phatose

With no time, there was 'moments before'. Not a lot of point to asking us to think about something that you posit out of existence two sentences later.

Exactly. But how can you get something from nothing? Is the Big Bang the only prime mover to ever exist in an infinite amount of what we'd call time?

Xorak on 25/1/2012 at 07:09

I don't see what's wrong with Renzatic's position. Essentially, whatever all of existence is, it had to start from something, at some point in time. That is the one question that philosophers and theologists have been struggling with since the beginning of time. Otherwise, something starts out of nothing, and that doesn't make sense.

However I do think that just the same way galaxies are created, essentially by other galaxies 'exploding' (super-novas), the same is true for universes. I think the expansion of other universes caused our universe to take form. However, this still doesn't explain the idea of something from nothing. There has to be a start even to the creation of millions of universes. Science might follow it backwards forever but never gets to an origin.

scarykitties on 25/1/2012 at 07:29

The problem with Ren's statement is that God and nature aren't equally probable. That's just an enormous misconception.

Things are the way they are in our universe because natural laws push things to be that way. Let me go back to the example I stated earlier.

Let's say that, through whatever means (I'll get to this later), you have a universe that has helium, but no other elements. Over time, gravity will bring these elements together (particularly if they are in close proximity, as the big bang posits). The greater mass creates yet more gravity, which draws in more and more until there is enough gravitational pressure for fusion to start.

The star's fusion puts off helium and other heavier elements. This goes on until the star's life passes and it burns out. Then, the leftover gasses created by the star, along with other gasses in the area, are drawn together again by gravity, creating another, cooler star, which creates yet heavier elements. Eventually, this star becomes a supergiant and explodes, scattering its products around.

This continues a few times until there are heavier elements such as metals, carbon, etc. Gravity draws these together until planets form. Energy given from stars provides a fuel source on the planet for more complex chemical reactions to take place. And that's how things come to be.

It's been proven that organic molecules naturally come together. That is to say, organic chemicals, and even simple forms of RNA, form on their own if organic chemicals mingle in a system that has some form of energy input (in this case, it could be the sun, charge in the air, whatever).

The point is that we understand enough of how things work to draw a rough timeline of how what we see could come to exist. It's not random chance; the laws of nature cause chemicals to react in such a way that encourages the possible eventual creation of life, and from there it's not random, but simple natural selection. It's not at all like blowing up an ink-and-paper factory and expecting to get the work of Shakespeare as a result. The laws of nature are the closest thing we have to an intelligent designer.

Maybe you even want to suggest that God IS the laws of nature. Maybe the rules of the universe that cause life to occur are the essence of God, or the work of God, or whatever. However, I think that this is a hasty conclusion. Why posit that when you can just accept that the laws exist and not assume that they exist because of a super-powerful, intelligent creator?

Now, it's true that science can only speculate as to what was before the Big Bang, but just because we don't know what happened before doesn't mean that it MUST have been a super-complex super-being with magic enough to invent a universe. That's, in fact, likely the LEAST probable option.

Another option would be that this universe is a computer simulation, either because it was meant to be this way, or because what we see and experience as reality is merely a byproduct of some calculation that we do not understand. I'm sure that you'd scoff at this idea, but THAT is actually just as probable as a God. It's a super-powerful system that created this universe that exists outside of its laws and boundaries. That is exactly what God is, except religious folk tend to insist that God must, for some reason, still be around and give a shit about where people put their peckers and when we take our naps.

Is that not the most petty idea of a God and the most ridiculous assumption to make? He's so powerful that he created the universe, but he's so bored that he cares what enters your anus?

My point is that we don't know what caused the universe to begin, but there's nothing wrong with admitting that we simply don't know and assuming that it was by some natural process. It's certainly FAR more probable and FAR more reasonable than assuming it was done by a magical man in the sky. If God can exist infinitely without a need for a beginning or an end, why can't the laws of nature do the same?

Vernon on 25/1/2012 at 07:32