The question has two possible outcomes so we should initially assign a 50% probability to each outcome. — Devans99
I fail to appreciate your objections. We can have absolute knowledge of abstract concepts only (eg logic and maths); we can never have absolute knowledge of the physical world.
So we can discuss the physical world as much as we like but we will never reach any conclusions without employing probability. — Devans99
I need an answer to this question so I use the only tools at my disposal. I know these tools are not entirely satisfactory: science gives provisional answers, probability even more so but the pure logic tool failed to give an answer for 1000s of years and there are no other tools to use. — Devans99
The question has two possible outcomes so we should initially assign a 50% probability to each outcome. — Devans99
We can have absolute knowledge of abstract concepts only (eg logic and maths); we can never have absolute knowledge of the physical world. — Devans99
I don't believe God caused the Big Bang, but it is certainly possible to believe such a thing, just as it is possible to believe that a god created the world in 6 days about 6,000 years ago. — Bitter Crank
While it is certainly possible to believe both, they are not equivalent beliefs. The former is not in conflict with fact or reason, the later is. — Rank Amateur
While it is certainly possible to believe both, they are not equivalent beliefs. The former is not in conflict with fact or reason, the later is. — Rank Amateur
God created the earth in 6 days 6000 years ago and in doing so constructed it in such a way as to appear much older to our limited technology. What's in conflict with fact or reason in that account? — Pseudonym
So we can discuss the physical world as much as we like but we will never reach any conclusions without employing probability. — Devans99
Start by examining the universes origins. The Big Bang. — Devans99
Next examine the universe itself. It’s incredibly unlikely for a randomly selected universe to be life supporting so we live in a fine tuned universe. — Devans99
To accept the Big Bang as the creation event is already to accept a scientific tale of existence — apokrisis
]By 1951, Pope Pius XII declared that Lemaître's theory [of the 'primeval atom'] provided a scientific validation for Catholicism. However, Lemaître resented the Pope's proclamation, stating that the theory was neutral and there was neither a connection nor a contradiction between his religion and his theory. When Lemaître and Daniel O'Connell, the Pope's science advisor, tried to persuade the Pope not to mention Creationism publicly anymore, the Pope agreed. He persuaded the Pope to stop making proclamations about cosmology. While a devout Roman Catholic, he was against mixing science with religion, though he also was of the opinion that these two fields of human experience were not in conflict. — Wikipedia
So the religious are naturally inclined to believe in a Creator, for which many arguments can then be adduced, whilst the non-religious will be naturally inclined to argue the contrary. — Wayfarer
the idea that the Universe springs into existence from an infinitesmally small point sounds suspiciously like 'creation ex nihilo'* — Wayfarer
however, one can always ask, how is it that what emerged from total disorder was order? — Wayfarer
You can't peer back in time past the 'singularity', nor can you see anything beyond the horizon of this universe. — Wayfarer
While it is certainly possible to believe both, they are not equivalent beliefs. The former is not in conflict with fact or reason, the later is. — Rank Amateur
The latter may not have been in conflict with "fact and reason" six thousand years ago. The same may be said of our present beliefs in 6000 years (if humanity manages the energy, resources, population, pollution and global warming crises sufficiently well to survive that long). — Janus
One might scientifically keep an open mind on the possibility of eventually encountering this Creator face to face at some point. And yet we are also able to say - as cosmologists - we've gone all the way back to the first 0.00000000000000000000000000000000000000000001th of a second, and He ain't showed up in any essential way thus far. — apokrisis
everything we understood by that scientific route reduces any telic role He might have played to plucking a few constants out of the air for no obvious good reason. — apokrisis
Sure - if you think about 'God' as on the same level of existence as the kinds of things that science investigates, then I would certainly agree that there is no such thing. — Wayfarer
We have no way of knowing that. Without them, then no us and the nature we are familiar with, but perhaps something else. — Janus
The ‘sky-father-god’ which Apokrisis mentions above, in some ways skews the debate. That’s because for Apokrisis [and many people], the whole ‘conception of the divine’ is inextricably bound up with that understanding. — Wayfarer
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