Pedro Martínez: call it a placebo, but I do agree that for some it really doesn't matter if "God" exists.The comfort the belief provides is beneficial for them to get through the day

Jim Dandy: Yup, we're on the same page there.

Jim Dandy: then likely religion is not the root of the problem but something else is.

Tuesday: I paid Fencer

Pedro Martínez: what kinds of proof would you expect to find?

Artful Dodger: Oh I don't expect to find any proofs.
:)

edit: The above sentence is probably gramatically incorrect, but I hope my intentions are clear enough. lol

Artful Dodger: non evangelical religions generally avoid world conflict.Judaism of course is an exception due to the issues it has faced since the inception of Israel, but it's not due to any crusade to convert

Pedro Martínez: in what way?

Jim Dandy: It's impossible to engage in the world of ideas without engaging in some sort of conflict from time to time. Take religion out of it and you would still have conflicts.

Artful Dodger: I would never state that religon is the root of all conflict

Artful Dodger: In what way? Well, the proof of existence of anything is generally easier than the proof of non-existence, don't you think so?

Tuesday: I believe we can live hell on earth, within the confines of our brain

Tuesday: and if I let food expire it goes bad

Tuesday: There can be (and there probably are) billions of suns and planets like that in the universe. This has nothing to do with God. And by the way, if you wait long enough, you will see the Sun grow bigger and burn “us” up.

Tuesday:

Tuesday: maybe a weak analogy, but my point is, the existance of an environment condusive to the creation of human beings is no more telling than a corpse that is friendly to the creation of maggots

Pedro Martínez: Not so. It's impossible to prove the non-existence of anything.

Jim Dandy: I like it. But I do think both tell us something. For example, we now know maggots like dead people.

Artful Dodger: Well, sometimes it is possible, but I don't want to be a nitpicker. The important thing is we agree on the essence.

Pedro Martínez: I'm not sure we fully agree. I say that proof of the existence of something can take many forms. In the case of God, the kalam cosmological argument comes to mind. We know from science that this universe had a beginning in time. We can trace events back to the singularity. We can't go farther back than that. And we know that the universe is expanding. To expand, it must have necessarily come from a starting point. (scientists can back up the process mathematically and they come up to a single point - the singularity). That singularity contained in it all the matter and energy that is now contained in our universe. Before the "Big Bang" there was likely nothing. We can't know. But something set off the Big Bang. You don't get an effect without a cause. God is that Uncaused Cause.

Tuesday:was it a double whopper with cheese, no onions?

Artful Dodger: I meant that we clearly agree that proving existence is easier than proving non-existence.

As for cosmological arguments, I'm not a big fan of them. First of all, even though I view the Big Bang theory as the most likely scenario, it still is only a theory. And there is a vast unexplained area in the theory, too. I have already found out that I will never fully understand what made the universe look the way it looks and how it actually looks. And nobody will ever understand that – it's simply beyond our limited thinking. Secondly and (maybe) more importantly, my problem with cosmological arguments is that I don't think there had to be a cause. I know that our experience tells us that every action brings reaction and that effect must have a cause, but how do we know this was also the case under as exteme conditions as at the time of the creation of time and space?

Pedro Martínez: And, in addition to that, if I admitted for a moment that God indeed was the cause we're talking about, there would still remain a question to be answered: what was the cause of God's creation and existence?

Tuesday: Do believe that. You will never figure out that the Bible, as well as any other “holy book“, is a hoax and you will find comfort in the belief that God exists and will take you to his kingdom after you die.

Pedro Martínez: every effect that we can study we can identify that it had a cause. We know of no uncaused effect. It's more reasonable to believed the Big Bang was caused than it "just happened." That "just happened" scenario takes a huge leap of faith.

Here's something else we're certain of: Time had a beginning. Time is not infinate and in fact, it's an impossibility.

Even the language you use gives it away. You say "creation" of time and space. In my view, an all knowing all powerful First Cause created. In your view, it created itself.

Artful Dodger: I can live with the fact that I don't know how come that time and space and everything in it exists and that I will never know it either. It doesn't bother me. I do agree that the Big Bang theory is the most reasonable of all the theories out there, but there still are too many grey areas.

The problem with our view of the time as finite or unfinite is this: we cannot imagine either of these possibilities. Can you imagine the creation of time? To me, it seems exactly as impossible as infinity of time.

I also fail to imagine how anything can create itself. :)

Pedro Martínez: God couldn't be "created" because you end up with the problem of infinite regress. An infinite temporal regress of causes cannot exist.

Artful Dodger: An infinite temporal regress of causes cannot exist.

But that's a philosophical premise. Based only on our extremely limited experience. I believe in the matter of creation of universe, it's not right to rule out a possibility just because it looks impossible to us. :)

Artful Dodger: And by the way, by saying that an infinite temporal regress is not possible, you say that the original uncaused action “just happened“.

AD: In my view, an all knowing all powerful First Cause created. In your view, it created itself.
PM: I also fail to imagine how anything can create itself.

Oops, I misunderstood you there. Got it now. 2:30 a.m. here, time to go to bed, I guess. :)

Pedro Martínez: I can imagine it to some extent. But Einstein certainly understood it. We know that time is relative to the observer. And we certainly know that time is not infinite.

Quantum mechanics 101 ... things can just come into existance. Gravity 101 ... the more G the slower the time. Singularity 101 Einstein's theories do not work at the quantum level.

Time only starts when the Big Bang took place. The rules of gravity were not the same as they are now, from gravity being a strong force it 'leaked' into other dimensions and became a weak force.. that's why magnets can pick up things.

We cannot see gravity with our eyes, we can only see it's effect.

Moses saw the plagues.... how did he see them?

An electron knows quantum mechanics it can be in more than one place at a time

Plants know quantum mechanics... It's how they manage to convert light so efficiently into energy.

Pedro Martínez: Ummmmmmm....I always thought we were decendants of the mighty ape....OH, of course...that is only AD.

Bernice: who me?

Artful Dodger:

If one could achieve light speed time stops.. why.. to protect the speed of light which cannot be broken. At the event horizon of a black hole.. time stops.

http://www.costellospaceart.com/html/time_and_the_speed_of_light.html