Things that make you believe in a God

[wuapinmon]

I really liked these two, wap.

Thank you.

Sure. He's one of my favorites. I used to go to estate auctions in New Orleans. The best ones were usually Jewish couples who were either both physicians, or both psychologists. They usually had excellent tastes. Anyway, one day I bid $30 for all of the art books on this one bookshelf. I found lots of good stuff, a bunch of junk, and 4-5 thick books. One of them was a Karhu collection. I can't remember what I got for it on ebay, but at the time, I needed the money more than I needed the book, but I wish I still had it.

I believe you're in the vicinity of this place; you should go check it out. At the very least you could afford a furoshiki of a Karhu work.

[Uncle Ted]

IS that really a fair assessment of what he says? I am not familiar wiht his wirting, but in the quoation offered he refers to the harmonized reactions, which is at once more specific and basic than your refernce to qualities of a living organism. Perhpas you know, but is he talking abotu the reacitons needed to give rise to the first 'living' molecule or is he talking about the existence of something like respiration and photosynthesis?

I don't have the background in biochemistry to understand what he is saying is true. I do doubt the probability is absolutely zero but actually very unlikely especially in the relatively short time of four billion years.

You can look in other fields of science and find similar quotes about how things have to be just right, however. For example:

"The laws of science, as we know them at present, contain many fundamental numbers, like the size of the electric charge of the electron and the ratio of the masses of the proton and the electron. ... The remarkable fact is that the values of these numbers seem to have been very finely adjusted to make possible the development of life." -Stephen Hawkings.

[Uncle Ted]

The Big Band certainly doesnt explain how the material the Big Bang used existed int he first place.

String theory might have the answer for that.

[ame="http://www.amazon.com/Dark-Cosmos-Search-Universes-Missing/dp/006113032X"]Amazon.com: Dark Cosmos: In Search of Our Universe's Missing Mass and Energy (9780061130328): Dan Hooper: Books@@AMEPARAM@@http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51VA2V1MHWL.@@AMEPARAM@@51VA2V1MHWL[/ame]

[myboynoah]

I don't have the background in biochemistry to understand what he is saying is true. I do doubt the probability is absolutely zero but actually very unlikely especially in the relatively short time of four billion years.

You can look in other fields of science and find similar quotes about how things have to be just right, however. For example:

Good stuff Ted.

This is a good thread.

I am amazed with the sudden appearance of life at birth and the similarly sudden withdrawal of life at death. It is hard for me to fathom that a consciousness that exists today didn't and won't always exist.

[Sleeping in EQ]

The dismissal of views in this thread reminds me of this quote:

When one turns to the magnificent edifice of the physical sciences, and sees how it was reared; what thousands of disinterested moral lives of men lie buried in its mere foundations; what patience and postponement, what choking down of preference, what submission to the icy laws of outer fact are wrought into its very stones and mortar; how absolutely impersonal it stands in its vast augustness,--then how besotted and contemptible seems every little sentimentalist who comes blowing his voluntary smoke-wreaths, and pretending to decide things from out of his private dream! Can we wonder if those bred in the rugged and manly school of science should feel like spewing such subjectivism out of their mouths? The whole system of loyalties which grow up in the schools of science go dead against its toleration; so that it is only natural that those who have caught the scientific fever should pass over to the opposite extreme, and write sometimes as if the incorruptibly truthful intellect ought positively to prefer bitterness and unacceptableness to the heart in its cup.

William James "The Will to Believe"

[wuapinmon]

The dismissal of views in this thread reminds me of this quote:

What a stupid quote!

[Slim]

This is another thread that serves to remind me just how differently I'm wired from almost everyone else. I can't think of anything that makes me believe in God. For every beautiful and well-organized thing out there I can think of a much more plausible explanation than the existence of a divine creator. And then for every beautiful thing that seems to point to the existence of a loving God the Father, my mind seems to instantly bring up the existence of an equally horrible thing that would negate the idea of a loving God.

I'm glad that so many of you can find so many reasons to believe in God. I wish that I could. I really want there to be an afterlife.

[Bjorn Turoque]

Kantian self-reflection.

<========

And to be honest, a very strong skepticism about all human knowledge. Ironically, when David Hume permanently devastated the foundations of both inductive and deductive reasoning, he reinforced my belief in God. I'm pretty sure that wasn't his intention.

[wuapinmon]

This is another thread that serves to remind me just how differently I'm wired from almost everyone else. I can't think of anything that makes me believe in God. For every beautiful and well-organized thing out there I can think of a much more plausible explanation than the existence of a divine creator. And then for every beautiful thing that seems to point to the existence of a loving God the Father, my mind seems to instantly bring up the existence of an equally horrible thing that would negate the idea of a loving God.

I'm glad that so many of you can find so many reasons to believe in God. I wish that I could. I really want there to be an afterlife.

Heidi Klum ca. 1998?

[Jackrabbit]

[/B]
I guess this is TIC? Doesn't seem like your style to mock believers, though, ox.

If not TIC, I'm pretty sure my six-year old could explain to you why fruit exists and tastes good.

Nothing makes me believe in God. But the existence of the universe itself makes me realize that there is a lot we don't know and that I can't completely rule out the existence of God: If matter/energy cannot be created or destroyed but only changes form, then how the hell did the universe show up in the first place? Nobody knows. Unless woot can explain it to me.

At the quantum level mass comes into existence randomly. So the singularity at the beginning of the Big Bang may have appeared randomly.

What's more miraculous, however, is how the laws that underpin the universe can be summarized in a few simple equations. How can we know something millions of light years away with such certainty, while the issues that natural selection equips us to deal with (ecology, medicine, social sciences), are fuzzy? Of course, if we were simple enough to be understood, we wouldn't be smart enough to understand. But still.

I don't think we can know these things unless the universe obeys a rational order.

[creekster]

At the quantum level mass comes into existence randomly. So the singularity at the beginning of the Big Bang may have appeared randomly.

Are you saying that mass comes into existence, meaning ex nihilo, randomly, or do you mean it appears randomly, as in the uncertainty principle? If the former can you explain a bit more?

[Jackrabbit]

String theory might have the answer for that.

Amazon.com: Dark Cosmos: In Search of Our Universe's Missing Mass and Energy (9780061130328): Dan Hooper: Books

I talked to a PhD candidate in physics at U. Florida and she said string theory as a unifying theory is complete bunk. It's been 40 years without progress. They keep hyping it up to get funding.

[Jackrabbit]

Are you saying that mass comes into existence, meaning ex nihilo, randomly, or do you mean it appears randomly, as in the uncertainty principle? If the former can you explain a bit more?

Nothing exists until you observe them (they appear). They're the same thing.

[creekster]

Nothing exists until you observe them (they appear). They're the same thing.

Are they? Then how can there be multpile universes?

I am no physicist, but as I understand it (and please tell me if I am wrong) the uncertainty principle assumes that quantum matter exists within a wave packet and that you cant measure momentum and location at the same time. But it assumes the matter exisits. It might appear randomly within it packet, but it is somewhere; it is something. So how did the quantum particle come to exist?

It seems like you are saying, in effect, that the universe is purely a byproduct of consciousness. Are we but God's dream?

[Uncle Ted]

I talked to a PhD candidate in physics at U. Florida and she said string theory as a unifying theory is complete bunk. It's been 40 years without progress. They keep hyping it up to get funding.

You just need to think in 11-dimensional space to get the math to work. Proving those dimensions are there is the problem.