I understand you feel this way, but there are occasions God cannot give you the answer. NL had suggested the spiral structure of galaxies was primarily caused by magnetic fields. I argued above that it looked to me as if gravity was the most important factor. You may well believe that God made the galaxies and gave many of them spiral structures, but you cannot explain what maintains that structure, and I don't believe scripture provides an answer. Nor does scripture explain why God provided a spiral structure to some galaxies, but not others. I would argue that if we seek an explanation, then it can only come from science. There are many other similar types of questions for which scripture provides no answers at all. Science is our only window into the physical world. If scripture provides its own window, and some think it does, then, I suggest, it is a window into the spiritual realm. Stephen J. Gould called it a separate magisteria that he said stood apart from science. Each was master of its own realm he claimed. Not all agreed with him.
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Yes, from the colloquial definition at least. I've felt remorse and regret over decisions I have made and I have felt the strength of initial moral intuition. Beyond that I have read writing from other people which have the same basic concept which leads me to believe it is something that happens to more than just my mind.
I am not completely sure. Humans, and some other animals, tend to have decent pattern recognition skills and seem to use these skills to understand how the world around them functions. Some of processes of prediction probably run faster than others. I think a conscience is a collective of these processes when they start to deal with the subject of "right" and "wrong". Sometimes when people use that term "conscience" I think they specifically referring to the faster running systems or the others ones that reflect on the actions made.
Before or after the action? When it comes to doing things initially I usually have feelings about how I have to act in order to get something done. I suppose when people ask me for money my conscience tells me that I should not give it to them. The feeling I get that tells me to try and listen to people's problems and give food to those in need I usually associate with conscience as well. I can't say I have the best understanding of it and often the things that it nags me to do or condemns me for later are in direct contradiction to other ideas that have come with the same feelings attached to them.
What idea that only the strong should survive? I don't know of anything like that. I can certainly see how the processes that are getting labeled as a conscience would evolve in a social species. It can help an animal make predictions on how other members of the group will judge its actions, and act accordingly so that it does not get cast out of the group. In this way, it actually has a lot in common with empathy.
Many processes of the brain do care about whether you live or die. Somewhere within my brain there is the information on what death is. However, it is not necessary for a system to directly understand what death is in order for it to have tools that help prevent death from occurring.
Why does that make it more logical? Sounds to me like you are multiplying entities beyond necessity.
I am not completely sure. Humans, and some other animals, tend to have decent pattern recognition skills and seem to use these skills to understand how the world around them functions. Some of processes of prediction probably run faster than others. I think a conscience is a collective of these processes when they start to deal with the subject of "right" and "wrong". Sometimes when people use that term "conscience" I think they specifically referring to the faster running systems or the others ones that reflect on the actions made.
Before or after the action? When it comes to doing things initially I usually have feelings about how I have to act in order to get something done. I suppose when people ask me for money my conscience tells me that I should not give it to them. The feeling I get that tells me to try and listen to people's problems and give food to those in need I usually associate with conscience as well. I can't say I have the best understanding of it and often the things that it nags me to do or condemns me for later are in direct contradiction to other ideas that have come with the same feelings attached to them.
What idea that only the strong should survive? I don't know of anything like that. I can certainly see how the processes that are getting labeled as a conscience would evolve in a social species. It can help an animal make predictions on how other members of the group will judge its actions, and act accordingly so that it does not get cast out of the group. In this way, it actually has a lot in common with empathy.
Many processes of the brain do care about whether you live or die. Somewhere within my brain there is the information on what death is. However, it is not necessary for a system to directly understand what death is in order for it to have tools that help prevent death from occurring.
Why does that make it more logical? Sounds to me like you are multiplying entities beyond necessity.
Well, I think you've put your finger on the real reason for belief -- when a person feels powerless and has no other option for survival, he or she may turn to religion just to regain that feeling of control. But it isn't necessarily true that this will happen, and to suggest anything of all atheists is to stereotype.
The fool hath said in his heart, "Someone told me there was a God and that's all the evidence I ever needed."
The fool hath said in his heart, "Someone told me there was a God and that's all the evidence I ever needed."
Are you trying to claim that all animals only have fixed action patterns while humans do not? Not all of the actions of non-human animals are due to instinct.
Incorrect. Many animals are found dead after disasters. People even make huge efforts to go out and save the animals that are injured in these disasters.
For example, this bird was trapped in the sand after the 2011 Tohoku tsunami. If it wasn't for human rescuers he would have starved to death.
I don't find the 10 commandments to be very spectatular or something that necessitates a god for its development. I have no idea what person, or group of people, originally wrote it. Best I can say is that it came from an early group of Jews or some proto-Jewish group.
Because those people believed in a god that had these attributes. But just because they believed in one doesn't mean that god existed. I'm pretty sure you wouldn't apply this same kind of logic to mandates from gods from other religions, would you?
Incorrect. Many animals are found dead after disasters. People even make huge efforts to go out and save the animals that are injured in these disasters.
For example, this bird was trapped in the sand after the 2011 Tohoku tsunami. If it wasn't for human rescuers he would have starved to death.I don't find the 10 commandments to be very spectatular or something that necessitates a god for its development. I have no idea what person, or group of people, originally wrote it. Best I can say is that it came from an early group of Jews or some proto-Jewish group.
Because those people believed in a god that had these attributes. But just because they believed in one doesn't mean that god existed. I'm pretty sure you wouldn't apply this same kind of logic to mandates from gods from other religions, would you?
I may have said too much too soon but here is an update with help from private correspondence from my author-contact:
Magnetism is more powerful than gravity "only when ions predominate over atoms in any quantity of matter, and even then only at a relatively short range.".
"In Big Bang Cosmology, protons and electrons are thoroughly intermixed, hence nothing but atomic hydrogen emerges from the big bang."
In reality, we have a highly ionized universe with protons and electrons separated from each other and hence electrical-magnetic forces are active. Atoms are opaque and dusty and cloudy while ions and electrons are transparent. Fortunately, we can see deep into the universe better through empty space and through transparent ions than through opaque, cloudy, dusty atoms.
"With zero ionization, you have zero magnetism, hence Big Bang Cosmologists have only gravity to help them explain what formed after the Big bang".
The influence of electrical-magnetic forces have been marginalized under BBC and their role has been discounted.
>> In BBC,equal masses of matter and antimatter explode intermixed from a point, producing myriad conundrums. In [alternative, Harmonic Origin Cosmology (HOC)], creation began with equal masses of antimatter and matter separating from each other on a billions-of-light-years-wide spherical plane in pre-creation space-time. <<
Hence, in this alternative cosmology, something roughly equivalent to a "big bang" happened but the explosion occurred from a wide, spherical plane rather than from a spherical point. The wider, space of origin made it easier for electrons to remain separate from the neutrons, protons and any independent, component particles. Electrical imbalance creates opportunities for electrical-magnetic forces to operate powerfully even if within short distances and time periods. The momentum generated can be sustained over larger distances and time.
"An enormous bubble of antineutrons popped outwardly from that plane with eastward spin as an equal-mass bubble of neutrons collapsed inwardly from that plane with westward spin.
Due to the natural 12-minute half-life of free neutrons, protons and electrons proliferated across the matter bubble in such a way that 90% of the protons failed to link with electrons. Ergo 90% of the resulting hydrogen was ionized, rendering magnetism far more powerful at first, with gravity taking over only after magnetism had finished concentrating ionized hydrogen around positive and negative poles everywhere in that early contracting phase of the cosmos.
That initial contraction also aided gravity's coalescence of matter much better than imaginary dark matter. Then, as conservation of angular momentum accelerated the matter bubble's westward spin, everything formed during the initial contraction phase was flung back outward. That is the phase we are in now."
Even on a large scale, it seems that orbital spins and spiral spins can be sustained by momentum long after the forces that generated that initial momentum have dissipated.
+++
Knowledgeable people have generated alternatives to the dogmas of big-bang cosmology. We weren't there as eye-witnesses so assumptions and presumptions are necessary to assert conclusions about the past.
If we are open-minded to the Bible granting revelations from events that Almighty God witnessed, then we have this: "Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear" (Hebrews 11:3). Almighty God has never owed anyone a "bread-crumb trail" of how He created the universe or life on earth and we shouldn't expect to find the whole story arrayed for human detectives and scientists to figure out from clues that were left behind. There are some amazing things that can be discovered in astronomy, physics, chemistry, geology, biology, etc. We do well to discover and marvel.
Magnetism is more powerful than gravity "only when ions predominate over atoms in any quantity of matter, and even then only at a relatively short range.".
"In Big Bang Cosmology, protons and electrons are thoroughly intermixed, hence nothing but atomic hydrogen emerges from the big bang."
In reality, we have a highly ionized universe with protons and electrons separated from each other and hence electrical-magnetic forces are active. Atoms are opaque and dusty and cloudy while ions and electrons are transparent. Fortunately, we can see deep into the universe better through empty space and through transparent ions than through opaque, cloudy, dusty atoms.
"With zero ionization, you have zero magnetism, hence Big Bang Cosmologists have only gravity to help them explain what formed after the Big bang".
The influence of electrical-magnetic forces have been marginalized under BBC and their role has been discounted.
>> In BBC,equal masses of matter and antimatter explode intermixed from a point, producing myriad conundrums. In [alternative, Harmonic Origin Cosmology (HOC)], creation began with equal masses of antimatter and matter separating from each other on a billions-of-light-years-wide spherical plane in pre-creation space-time. <<
Hence, in this alternative cosmology, something roughly equivalent to a "big bang" happened but the explosion occurred from a wide, spherical plane rather than from a spherical point. The wider, space of origin made it easier for electrons to remain separate from the neutrons, protons and any independent, component particles. Electrical imbalance creates opportunities for electrical-magnetic forces to operate powerfully even if within short distances and time periods. The momentum generated can be sustained over larger distances and time.
"An enormous bubble of antineutrons popped outwardly from that plane with eastward spin as an equal-mass bubble of neutrons collapsed inwardly from that plane with westward spin.
Due to the natural 12-minute half-life of free neutrons, protons and electrons proliferated across the matter bubble in such a way that 90% of the protons failed to link with electrons. Ergo 90% of the resulting hydrogen was ionized, rendering magnetism far more powerful at first, with gravity taking over only after magnetism had finished concentrating ionized hydrogen around positive and negative poles everywhere in that early contracting phase of the cosmos.
That initial contraction also aided gravity's coalescence of matter much better than imaginary dark matter. Then, as conservation of angular momentum accelerated the matter bubble's westward spin, everything formed during the initial contraction phase was flung back outward. That is the phase we are in now."
Even on a large scale, it seems that orbital spins and spiral spins can be sustained by momentum long after the forces that generated that initial momentum have dissipated.
+++
Knowledgeable people have generated alternatives to the dogmas of big-bang cosmology. We weren't there as eye-witnesses so assumptions and presumptions are necessary to assert conclusions about the past.
If we are open-minded to the Bible granting revelations from events that Almighty God witnessed, then we have this: "Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear" (Hebrews 11:3). Almighty God has never owed anyone a "bread-crumb trail" of how He created the universe or life on earth and we shouldn't expect to find the whole story arrayed for human detectives and scientists to figure out from clues that were left behind. There are some amazing things that can be discovered in astronomy, physics, chemistry, geology, biology, etc. We do well to discover and marvel.
I've run into a growing population of 1. Atheists who believe there is a God, but not necessarily Jesus. 2. Atheists who believe in Jesus, but not God. 3. Agnostic Atheists who believe there is a God, but no specific God, or believe there was a God in time and space, such as the first human or organism, but not God as in the sense we believe in.
I would encourage watching some debates of William Lane Craig vs. Christopher Hitchens, as they exemplify the reason atheistic reasoning is flawed. Atheists use logical reasoning fallacies to sometimes try to debunk Christianity, but forget that they are presupposing many non-evidential theories, and still requiring evidence for believers on things we cannot provide evidence for. For example, atheists presuppose math, logic, and science, even though none of these theories have evidence other than self-evidence, which is usually the same evidence for believers. Craig has a few evidences to support the Bible, but the problem with needing evidence for Jesus as God is that you can't prove something like that until we get to heaven, and if we found Jesus's body, then the Bible wouldn't be true, since he ascended back to heaven. You will find atheists will shoot down all your theories with reasoning, but when confronted with the same reasoning against atheism, it's not fallacious all of a sudden. I try to point out to atheists that the very word "A"-theist means without theism, as in without God, but they have redefined and made so many different groups now that it is hard to define what atheists particularly believe anymore.
I would encourage watching some debates of William Lane Craig vs. Christopher Hitchens, as they exemplify the reason atheistic reasoning is flawed. Atheists use logical reasoning fallacies to sometimes try to debunk Christianity, but forget that they are presupposing many non-evidential theories, and still requiring evidence for believers on things we cannot provide evidence for. For example, atheists presuppose math, logic, and science, even though none of these theories have evidence other than self-evidence, which is usually the same evidence for believers. Craig has a few evidences to support the Bible, but the problem with needing evidence for Jesus as God is that you can't prove something like that until we get to heaven, and if we found Jesus's body, then the Bible wouldn't be true, since he ascended back to heaven. You will find atheists will shoot down all your theories with reasoning, but when confronted with the same reasoning against atheism, it's not fallacious all of a sudden. I try to point out to atheists that the very word "A"-theist means without theism, as in without God, but they have redefined and made so many different groups now that it is hard to define what atheists particularly believe anymore.
And just to clarify yet again...
An atheist is someone who doesn't believe in a god. That's it!
Nothing to do with evolution, abiogenesis or anything else.
I like how everyone wasted their time saying I believed in things that I don't and then attacked stances I don't have.
Once more
Atheist: someone who doesn't believe in god. Nothing more
An atheist is someone who doesn't believe in a god. That's it!
Nothing to do with evolution, abiogenesis or anything else.
I like how everyone wasted their time saying I believed in things that I don't and then attacked stances I don't have.
Once more
Atheist: someone who doesn't believe in god. Nothing more
