Big Think

Jonathan Evans on February 9, 2008, 6:54 PM

If you follow that reasoning you come to this: if we were in fact created by a higher being, who created said higher being?
I happen to believe in a creator as well, but your logic is shaky. You ask ‘where does that dot come from?’ but it has to start somewhere. Maybe God and the Point of Origin are one in the same.

Denys Artasevych on February 9, 2008, 11:55 PM

Heres the diference between science and religion (monotheistic religion in the west at least). Sciense reasons, deduces, experiments and so on comes up with a fair ammount of reasonable answers, but you find that if you keep asking why and how long enough you will always come to just because, thats the big bang thing, the matter was there just becasue or we dont know.

Religion gets to this point right away. Why is there anything? Just because god said so. Why does something work a certain way? Just because god said so. I think you get my point.

This is basically why i find science to be more apealing even though it as well can never give us final answers. It is based on reason, and atleast tries to reasont its way to answers, and because in science you can say, i dont know. While if you have faith you are saing i belive just because.

Personaly im an agnostic.

Jason Mancer on February 11, 2008, 4:49 PM

seanchai- god and the point of origin cant be the same cause god dosnt ‘need’ a creator and to even try to figure out were he came from is imposible its uncomprenshable to th human mind who knows maybe god has millions of brothers and they all have a god who has millions of brothers ect. but i dont think its pissible but the bigbang just throws u in the midddel with some dot they need to go back all the way and anyway u go it will lead to some higher knowing force

Denys Artasevych on February 12, 2008, 10:29 PM

Im still misssing the argument of a nessesity of a creator. Ok let us say that the big bang is a poor explanation. That not much of an argument for a creator. Jut what is it about our existance that requires a concious force to have spawned it. Your teacher may not be able to answer where that point of matter came from, but your priest will have no better answer for where god came from.

Mark Tagliaferri on February 12, 2008, 11:28 PM

I completely agree with skeptic44 and I want to build on the point a little.

It always causes me pause when theists contend that, if science hasn’t completely answered a question yet, religion should be the default answer. As if the onus was on science to disprove religion.

Religion, it must be said, has an utterly terrible track record with getting things right. The Bible was absolutely wrong about the nature of the planet, it was absolutely wrong about the nature of the cosmos, it was absolutely wrong about the age of the planet, it was absolutely wrong about the source of disease and epidemics, and the list goes on and on. I would think that religion had long ago lost its right to claim for itself the “default position.” By no means is science perfect; however, it is always improving and has made incredible strides in finding out who we are and figuring out the universe. The same can not be said for religion, which has made no advancements to knowledge in the past 2000 years.

Furthermore, it is far too easy (and intellectually dishonest, I think) to simply declare, by fiat, that god necessarily exists, simply because the Bible says so. I would argue that it is the intellectual equivalent of the child who, in a playground argument, just keeps saying “is so, is so, is so,” without being able to offer even one iota of proof or evidence for the position. There’s circularity in that sort logic which I find utterly reprehensible.

Similarly, the entire concept of paraconstant logic (that god is somehow outside of logic) is incredibly transparent. Science is held to such strict evidentiary standards, but the theist can simply magic god into existence and declare that the rules that apply to everyone else simply don’t apply to him. This is a form of charlatanism, a cheap parlor trick that we must no longer fall for.

By and large, I think people have smartened up. I often ask myself: why do we not see great and mighty powerful religious thinkers these days? We are all familiar with the Einstein’s the Weinberg’s, the Dawkins, etc., who have dominated intellectualism in the past 50 years. Yet, religion still relies on the words of Aquinas and St. Thomas. There are no religious intellectuals breaking through with forceful ideas about the universe. I would argue that this is because it is no longer possible for theists to compete in the arena of logic and evidence alongside scientists. They simply have no more legs to stand on.

Marc Parsneau on February 24, 2008, 4:23 PM

Darn. Marktags said what I was going to say. And quite eloquently. Props.

John Dundas on February 25, 2008, 10:26 AM

thatguy – I understand that you believe in a higher power.
I respect your right to believe that.
You just don’t get that it’s a losing argument from the get go,
every time you try to use any kind of correct logic to show why
your belief is correct. The nature of faith excludes you from a logical argument. period. You believe in god because you believe in god.There is no correct logic that can lead you to that belief.
So just believe what you believe. When you try to make it into some kind of logical argument you show yourself as having a
complete ignorance of reason.

Musycks on March 10, 2008, 2:41 AM

Thatguy,
Sorry mate, but how can you be credible by just asserting something like this? claims made without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.
extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
Science does not know it all, but it’s a whole lot more credible than the primitive nonsense the religious sprout. You profess belief or faith based on what? most Christians barely know the history of their own church, they just swallow the party line without question. Once you’ve read the history you have a whole other perspective.
It’s so patently man made, that the God stuff is so pathetically inept in accounting for anything, much less the things that define us as humans.