[Hypocrism]

(Original post by Raphael Lopes)
God exist in the mind of those who believe in him, if you dont believe in God or not should be discussed in my opinion as people often are very close minded about this subject.

This was posted from The Student Room's Android App on my GT-I9300

If god only exists in the mind, then it's a delusion, isn't it!

[Raphael Lopes]

(Original post by Hypocrism)
If god only exists in the mind, then it's a delusion, isn't it!

maybe ur right, but i think arguing about it is pointless...

This was posted from The Student Room's Android App on my GT-I9300

[Hypocrism]

(Original post by Raphael Lopes)
maybe ur right, but i think arguing about it is pointless...

This was posted from The Student Room's Android App on my GT-I9300

We're not arguing about it - if god is in the mind, it's not a real entity.

[When you see it...]

Yes we can make amino acids from elements, but you ca't make a functional organism just from amino acids - we don't know where life came from. Typical of tsr, you have completely misinterpreted my point.

[amime]

(Original post by When you see it...)
Yes we can make amino acids from elements, but you ca't make a functional organism just from amino acids - we don't know where life came from. Typical of tsr, you have completely misinterpreted my point.

That's because your point was stupid. Just because we how something happens, that doesn't mean we automatically have the technology to recreate it.

We also know how mountains are formed but aren't able to make them ourselves.

[Hypocrism]

(Original post by When you see it...)
Yes we can make amino acids from elements, but you ca't make a functional organism just from amino acids - we don't know where life came from. Typical of tsr, you have completely misinterpreted my point.

We don't know. Does that mean "God did it"?

NO.

We can demonstrate that amino acids are able to form in conditions resembling early earth.

We know that lipids can form micelles.

We know that nucleic acids can form, polymerise and replicate.

All of these evidences point towards a central concept - the building blocks of life can arise spontaneously. Life therefore has no restrictions to its development.

"The Selfish Gene" starts with a decent hypothesis behind the development of life in terms of a replicative particle whose proportions and mathematical propagation tendencies drive the natural selection of particles that are better at propagating. There are no barriers to the development of life that we can see.

This all means that while God is obviously a possibility, it isn't necessary for this God to create life itself - creating the natural world with its laws the way we see them is sufficient to allow life.

[AdenYafa]

(Original post by Alofleicester)
Ok then, provide some of this evidence.


And so we follow on - who created the creator?


What does that have to with the existence of a God?


Again - what connection is there with a God there?

The Creator is infinite, he has no beginning and no end. The fact that the universe exists is proof of this! Let me explain why.. lets say the universe is 'A', and 'A' was created by 'B' (and lets say there was no God and everything has a beginning) which means 'B' cannot create 'A' until 'C' creates 'B', and 'C' cannot create 'B' until 'D' creates 'C', and 'D' cannot create 'C' unless 'E' creates 'D'.. and lets say this goes on FOREVER. Tell me.. will 'B' ever create 'A'

[Hypocrism]

(Original post by AdenYafa)
The Creator is infinite, he has no beginning and no end. The fact that the universe exists is proof of this! Let me explain why.. lets say the universe is 'A', and 'A' was created by 'B' (and lets say there was no God and everything has a beginning) which means 'B' cannot create 'A' until 'C' creates 'B', and 'C' cannot create 'B' until 'D' creates 'C', and 'D' cannot create 'C' unless 'E' creates 'D'.. and lets say this goes on FOREVER. Tell me.. will 'B' ever create 'A'

The flawed infinite regress argument.

With infinite time, we can have infinite "creators" before A and we will still reach A.

Odd things happen when two infinities meet; this is one of them.

Think about this: an infinite number has three possibilities.

1) Infinite beginning and infinite end - stretches infinitely in both directions on a number plane.
2) Finite beginning and infinite end - stretches infinitely forward from a point on a number plane.
3) Infinite beginning and finite end - stretches infinitely backward from a point on a number plane.

The universe would be #3. If you deny this can exist, you deny pi can exist, because it's the exact equivalent: a number that has a finite reference point and an infinite strand of numbers after it, compared with our universe with a finite reference point (now) and an infinite time before it.

[When you see it...]

(Original post by amime)
That's because your point was stupid. Just because we how something happens, that doesn't mean we automatically have the technology to recreate it.

We also know how mountains are formed but aren't able to make them ourselves.

We don't know how life started - we know how amino acids formed.

(Original post by Hypocrism)
We don't know. Does that mean "God did it"?

NO.

I'm not saying godditit. I'm glad you are admitting that we don't know.

(Original post by Hypocrism)
We can demonstrate that amino acids are able to form in conditions resembling early earth.

We know that lipids can form micelles.

We know that nucleic acids can form, polymerise and replicate.

All of these evidences point towards a central concept - the building blocks of life can arise spontaneously. Life therefore has no restrictions to its development.

You can't prove how life started using any of the 'known' things you have mentioned. You can prove how amino acids formed, but you can't prove how they were assembled into a organism and how that organism began functioning (if you built a human artificially, it wouldn't automatically be breathing or have a heart beat - the life processes have to be induced).
Basically you have a hypothesis about how abiogenesis ocurred (naturally as a result of the 'laws of nature'), but contrary to what you seem to be implying, that hypothesis is no more valid than saying godditit as we have no reason to believe that life can arise from chemical elements just naturally any more than we have reason to say that a divine being started the first bacterium's respiration (or whatever).

(Original post by Hypocrism)
"The Selfish Gene" starts with a decent hypothesis behind the development of life in terms of a replicative particle whose proportions and mathematical propagation tendencies drive the natural selection of particles that are better at propagating. There are no barriers to the development of life that we can see.

This all means that while God is obviously a possibility, it isn't necessary for this God to create life itself - creating the natural world with its laws the way we see them is sufficient to allow life.

You are correct in saying that your hypothesis doesn't refute god's existence per se, but it doesn't even refute god's involvement in abiogenesis because there is no evidence to back it up other than the "central concept" that you were referring to which is no proof at all. Let me use this example to show you how I view your reasoning:
You can use a computer to listen to music.
You can use a computer to watch video.
You can use a computer to communicate with people.
You can use a computer to masturbate.
You can use a computer to order food.
All of this points to a central concept that you can use a computer for any experience, and by extension anyone who experiences anything must be using a computer.
That is how your reasoning sounds to me.

[AaronM1D1]

Thank you, Tom Stoppard.

[...] It makes me so happy. To be at the beginning again, knowing almost nothing. People were talking about the end of physics. Relativity and quantum looked as if they were going to clean out the whole problem between them. A theory of everything. But they only explained the very big and the very small. The universe, the elementary particles. The ordinary-sized stuff which is our lives, the things people write poetry about – clouds – daffodils – waterfalls – and what happens in a cup of coffee when the cream goes in – these things are full of mystery, as mysterious to us as the heavens were to the Greeks. We’re better at predicting events at the edge of the galaxy or inside the nucleus of an atom than whether it’ll rain on auntie’s garden party three Sundays from now. Because the problem turns out to be different. We can’t even predict the next drip from a dripping tap when it gets irregular. Each drip sets up the conditions for the next, the smallest variation blows prediction apart, and the weather is unpredictable the same way, will always be unpredictable. When you push the numbers through the computer you can see it on the screen. The future is disorder. A door like this has cracked open five or six times since we got up on our hind legs. It’s the best possible time to be alive, when almost everything you thought you knew is wrong.

This is my favourite passage from 'Arcadia'. One which I think is a nice thinking point considering the topic.

I'm still confused about scientists claiming that the universe came from nothing considering the most fundamental doctrine in the Scientific community is that 'Everything has a cause'. Are we really progressing towards the answer? Personally I think we're as close to figuring out how we ended up here today as we were a thousand years ago when William the Conquerer was prancing round Sussex.

I believe in God, but my beliefs have been shaped by the world around me, not a book.

[Gofre]

(Original post by AaronM1D1)
Thank you, Tom Stoppard.



This is my favourite passage from 'Arcadia'. One which I think is a nice thinking point considering the topic.

I'm still confused about scientists claiming that the universe came from nothing considering the most fundamental doctrine in the Scientific community is that 'Everything has a cause'. Are we really progressing towards the answer? Personally I think we're as close to figuring out how we ended up here today as we were a thousand years ago when William the Conquerer was prancing round Sussex.

I believe in God, but my beliefs have been shaped by the world around me, not a book.

Is god not subject to that same principle? If not, why not?

[Okashira]

Wouldn't it be a fair hypothesis to say whatever started everything off (the beginning of the universe), has to be completely different than the foundations of everything? Many scientists are now speculating this universe is the result of a multiverse. Basically this universe is a result of something else creating it. My thing is if this universe is a result of other universes, what started the creations of the other universes? On a personal note, I believe the multiverse hypothesis would be the worst conclusion scientists could come to because it actually creates the necessity of something transcendent. (Because even though scientists agree that this universe had a beginning at the Big Bang, it was always accepted that the foundations of this universe was always there. With the multiverse hypothesis, you are now arguing the foundations of the universe also had a beginning)

[Hypocrism]

(Original post by Okashira)
Wouldn't it be a fair hypothesis to say whatever started everything off (the beginning of the universe), has to be completely different than the foundations of everything? Many scientists are now speculating this universe is the result of a multiverse. Basically this universe is a result of something else creating it. My thing is if this universe is a result of other universes, what started the creations of the other universes? On a personal note, I believe the multiverse hypothesis would be the worst conclusion scientists could come to because it actually creates the necessity of something transcendent. (Because even though scientists agree that this universe had a beginning at the Big Bang, it was always accepted that the foundations of this universe was always there. With the multiverse hypothesis, you are now arguing the foundations of the universe also had a beginning)

It was NEVER accepted, you mean. Scientists have never claimed to know something they have no evidence about. Unlike your post, which claims that something needs to "start off" the universe, with no evidence supporting that.

Your ideas about the multiverse make no sense. 'The necessity of something transcendent'? No, simply another universe which, when we have the technology, we may be able to detect and study.

And once again you make the fallacy of asking "what created what came before". What created God? is the answer to that, and if you claim it's an irrelevant question, you are committing the fallacy of special pleading.

[Okashira]

(Original post by Hypocrism)
It was NEVER accepted, you mean. Scientists have never claimed to know something they have no evidence about. Unlike your post, which claims that something needs to "start off" the universe, with no evidence supporting that.

Your ideas about the multiverse make no sense. 'The necessity of something transcendent'? No, simply another universe which, when we have the technology, we may be able to detect and study.

And once again you make the fallacy of asking "what created what came before". What created God? is the answer to that, and if you claim it's an irrelevant question, you are committing the fallacy of special pleading.

Well, there was no law or theory stating the foundations of this universe always existed, but I'm pretty sure that is probably how most scientists felt or still feel. I don't think I'm creating a special pleading either when it comes to something transcendent. My hypothesis would be something completely different than the foundations of the universe would have started things off, because the foundations would have needed a beginning.

[tammie123]

The universe was created from one single point which was initially derived from nothing (an explosion almost), I believe that God created the universe in such a way that his plan inevitably unfolds the way he has planned it to. But mathematically God can not intervene in the universe whilst it's still running, so his plans were obviously implemented whilst creating it, which I believe to be true. I think the main problem people have with the idea of God is the christian view that God has a human form. To me God is a never ending cycle of energy with no beginning and no end. So the question of who created him can not possibly arise. I also believe that God's form is that of an unimaginable one, not in the shape of a human!

[Gofre]

(Original post by tammie123)
The universe was created from one single point which was initially derived from nothing (an explosion almost), I believe that God created the universe in such a way that his plan inevitably unfolds the way he has planned it to. But mathematically God can not intervene in the universe whilst it's still running, so his plans were obviously implemented whilst creating it, which I believe to be true. I think the main problem people have with the idea of God is the christian view that God has a human form. To me God is a never ending cycle of energy with no beginning and no end. So the question of who created him can not possibly arise. I also believe that God's form is that of an unimaginable one, not in the shape of a human!

The only reason the "who created god" question arises at all is as a response to assertions that everything must have a creator/cause. If you were to make that claim, it would still be a valid criticism of your concept of god because there is no evidence that your god is an infinite cycle of energy, or that god can be but the universe can't. That is the crux of this question, it demonstrates that the aforementioned assertion is entirely arbitrary.

[Fingersmith]

Clearly there is an unimaginably vast life force in the universe of which we, and all the life forms which have evolved, are part; call it god if you must. This is an awesome and wondrous thing but why do we need to anthropomorphise it? Why does it need to have a plan, to be worshipped and obeyed? Why do we need a purpose beyond existing? Wonder at the universe and especially wonder at our little corner of it. Make the most of every minute of life and don't waste it looking for more - it's all there is and it's enough.

[Jabberwox]

No. Load of rubbish.

[Jabberwox]

(Original post by tammie123)
The universe was created from one single point which was initially derived from nothing (an explosion almost), I believe that God created the universe in such a way that his plan inevitably unfolds the way he has planned it to. But mathematically God can not intervene in the universe whilst it's still running, so his plans were obviously implemented whilst creating it, which I believe to be true. I think the main problem people have with the idea of God is the christian view that God has a human form. To me God is a never ending cycle of energy with no beginning and no end. So the question of who created him can not possibly arise. I also believe that God's form is that of an unimaginable one, not in the shape of a human!

See I used to wonder this as well... not really 'God' but a 'higher power' of some sort. But then I realised this 'higher power' cause easily be a product of science. Nearly everything can be explained on a scientific basis.

[tammie123]

(Original post by Jabberwox)
See I used to wonder this as well... not really 'God' but a 'higher power' of some sort. But then I realised this 'higher power' cause easily be a product of science. Nearly everything can be explained on a scientific basis.

I agree, but many people seem to believe that science and God aren't compatible. I think otherwise. What caused you to become an athiest? Or was it just this?