This was the news I read yesterday, and at first, I didn't care to waste my time commenting on something that, really, has no substantial point or evidence to make. The Pope came out with claims that God really is behind the Big Bang, thus preserving the theistic view of our universe.
"The universe is not the result of chance, as some would want to make us believe," Benedict said on the day Christians mark the Epiphany, which is the day the Bible says the three kings reached the site where Jesus was born by following a star.
"Contemplating it (the universe) we are invited to read something profound into it: the wisdom of the creator, the inexhaustible creativity of God," he said in a sermon to some 10,000 people in St Peter's Basilica on the feast day.
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Atheists say that science can prove that God does not exist, but the pope said that some scientific theories were "mind limiting" because "they only arrive at a certain point and do not manage to explain the ultimate sense of reality."
He said scientific theories on the origin and development of the universe and humans left many questions unanswered.
"In the beauty of the world, in its mystery, in its greatness and in its rationality ... we can only let ourselves be guided toward God, creator of heaven and earth," he said in his sermon.
Now, c'mon! Anyone with some degree of scientific background can see plenty of holes in such flimsy argument.
1. This is nothing more than God-of-the-Gaps. Because science can't come up with any idea for something, then that shows God is at work. Of course, one only needs to be aware of history of our civilization to realize that such "gaps" have been shrinking and shrinking. There's nothing to indicate that they will not continue to shrink. So using that argument actually is a damning point against the existence of god.
2. Notice that nowhere in here is any mention of "evidence" to support such statement. Maybe that's why one can get away with saying such a thing - it is not even false! Unfalsifiable statements really are a waste of time, because it is an argument based on a matter of TASTES. The Pope wants you to accept what he says because he likes the color red.
3. Whose god are we talking about here? When you claim something not based on evidence, but based on Tastes, then that taste can differ from one person to another. While it is find and dandy to claim that god is behind such creation, different religions have different versions of such god. There is no way to distinguish one version versus another to see which one is valid.
None of what I've said above is new. I've said different versions of each of the points above in previous blog entries. But what sparked me to stop ignoring this news article is that MSBC decided to do a poll, yes folks, A POLL, of the public (which we all know are very scientifically literate {I'm kidding here}) to see if they agree with the Pope! As of the writing of this blog entry, the option for "There is no God and the Big Bang was probably responsible for all creation." is leading by 10% ahead of "I agree with the Pope. If there was a Big Bang, it was God's work." I wonder if Las Vegas is putting any odds on this one.
MSNBC should also show side-by-side with this poll the latest NSF survey on scientific literacy of the US public. I think that should put this survey in some perspective.
Hey, maybe *I* should start a survey on something similar! Y'know, ask something substantially more important than the last survey that I did, which was the highly shallow and superficial contest on the most attractive physicists.
Naaaah! That requires too much work and too much thinking.
Zz.
6 comments:
If God created big bang who created god?Does God exist?What is religion?AHHHH.....WE are tired of these questions...
I agree with you, God or god can only be believed in!
But I have a question for you!
What is time if not a belief too?
Nobody knows what is time, (just as nobody knows who is God) yet everybody “believes” it exist (just as some believe God exists)!
Zapper, you might recognize me as gravimotion.
Nothing personal though, just questions!
I have no idea who you are. Nevertheless, what you write is utterly silly.
1. Is god involved in the Lagrangian/Hamiltonian equation?
2. Can got be quantified via measurement as time is?
3. Is there a broken-god reversal symmetry? There is for time. In fact, there are many phenomena characterized via their broken time-reversal symmetry.
I don't care if you disagree with me. But at least give me SOME respect by presenting an argument that is half-way intelligent and that you've some SOME background research, rather than present something as superficial as this! It is very tiring and it sounds as if the ONLY physics you've ever learned was out of some pop-science books!
No wonder you can't tell the difference between our understand of time and the belief in god.
Zz.
faith. its all about faith. if u don't believe that's you're purgative. I believe in God but don't condempeople when they don't. When judgment day comes I know I have led a good christian life.
No it's not! It is irrational argument like yours that brings such a discussion to a halt. You might as well say "It is because I said so".
BTW,. how do you know your christian life is the life to lead. The Hindus, the Muslims, the Buddhists, the Jews will a lot of arguments against that!
When something is taken as a matter of faith and without any empirical evidence, then the conclusion that you end up IS NOT UNIQUE. There can be a plethora of other conclusions as well, because these are not falsifiable! Christians like you seem to think that YOU ARE IT! Well, jews, muslims, hindus, etc.. also think that they are IT! Why can't you guys argue amongst yourselves and figure out who's right here? After all, you guys are all contradicting each other in a BIG way!
Zz.
Something can only be classified as scientific if it is quantifiable. All scientific theory stems from someone making a hypothesis based on an educated guess and incorporating certain assumptions but it only becomes scientific if such a hypothesis is testable, can be modelled and its outcome measured. This is how all formulae and equations are initially constructed.
Time isn’t truly scientific; we simply use it in classical mechanics as it is how we perceive the world. We now use ideas of space time as a better model (something that is made more difficult to understand because of our ‘common sense’ perception of time). So perhaps god is closer to the concept of time than we would like to believe, after all the idea of god was created in a less informed time, as you said, to fill in the gaps (as was our perception of time). Both make things in the universe easier to comprehend even if they are not correct, so people apply them to the world they see.
But this is really beside the point. Clearly the idea of God can’t be tested, it is therefore incorrect to apply scientific logic to the idea of a creator, and it is unscientific to try and disprove such an idea or belief. Yet God is real to some extent as the idea is a reality to many… people believe god exists and therefore God must be part of reality.
Ultimately a better question than ‘Did God create the universe’ would be is the idea of god still useful to society or is it a superannuated method of maintaining morals and of aiding peoples understanding of the universe.
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