I agree that the Big Bang theory is compatible with a belief in Creation. However, there certainly are religious folks who object to the Big Bang on the grounds that they think it’s incompatible with their faith or that it’s on the same level as thinking a magic man wished everything into existence. I am assuming that the OP is one of these religious folks – if I am wrong, he is welcome to correct me.
The Big Bang theory is not a metaphysical explanation. It is a scientific account based on observation of physical events. It does not claim to explain the whole of reality. Only a fool would believe it is related to the nature, value and purpose of the mind.
The beliefs in the Bible are not arbitrary but are based on the concept of He Who Is - the Source of existence.
So you claim.
What is your source of existence? Thin air? Or do you take refuge in obscurity?
Religious belief is on a superior footing to scientific belief because it is based on our personal experience of the most important aspects of reality: truth, goodness, justice, freedom, beauty and love.
Sorry, buddy. Having a “personal experience” of something that you label “beauty and love,” or whatever, doesn’t give you more of an insight into what’s going on.
Sorry, buddy. Without having a personal experience you would be incapable of knowing or labelling anything! Our knowledge of our thoughts is the the basis of all our knowledge. We know that the physical world exists only as the result of inference from our perceptions.
.
… something that you label “beauty and love,” or whatever, doesn’t give you more of an insight into what’s going on.
It is ironic that you dismiss truth, goodness, justice, freedom, beauty and love as labels when they are the realities you cherish most and enable you to have insight into not only the physical world but the purpose of your life.
Experience, in and of itself, has no ability to tell you what’s going on – our knowledge of what’s going on is a rational construct built upon evidence.
Indeed. Our knowledge of what’s going on is a rational construct built upon the evidence of our own experience and nothing else. The only immediate and direct evidence you have is within your mind. There is no magical way in which you can get outside your mind into the physical world.
Now you can say that all evidence is experienced, but there are different kinds of experienced evidence. The kind that can be investigated and confirmed by multiple people is going to give you a much better picture of what’s going on than simple, direct “personal experience.”
The fact remains that the picture is derived from **inner **knowledge and not direct knowledge of the world. The primary reality for all of us remains within ourselves. It is far more valuable and important than external events.
An example: I have the “personal experience” of observing the sun at different points throughout the day, but I would be completely wrong to say that my “experience” gives me “superior footing” to say that the sun goes around the earth.
It is significant that your example is of a physical event. It tells us nothing about how we reason and conclude that the sun goes around the earth. That is an epistemological issue that is beyond the scope of science. You cannot find truth or the power of reason by looking through a microscope or telescope. The superior footing is not to be found in the world but within our mind.
If you want to actually know what’s going on, nothing beats evidence-based inquiry.
Certainly. Indirect evidence from without the mind is a supplement to direct evidence from within. What would you know without a mind? Precisely nothing… That is the miracle of our existence. It is an inescapable fact. We are conscious - not of the world but of our thoughts, feelings, emotions, sensations, perceptions, fears, hopes, desires and decisions. We cannot understand what existence is but we can understand what it entails. We don’t have to prove we exist because it is absurd to think our experiences exist in a vacuum. The most economical and adequate explanation is that each of us is an individual, a self with an enduring identity, a person.
We can pretend the world doesn’t exist but if we try to pretend we don’t exist we finish up by contradicting ourselves. We forget ourselves when we are absorbed in thought but sooner or later we distinguish ourselves from what we are thinking about. Thought and feeling are at the very core of our being. External objects are peripheral. We all interpret the same physical environment differently but each one of us knows exactly what we are thinking and feeling.** That is the most important evidence of all.**
Physicalists reduce “why?” to “how?”.They attribute purposeful activity to that which is purposeless - without explaining how it has come about! Their explanation of reality overlooks the fact that their reasoning and explanation are purposeful. If reasoning has no goal in view it is going precisely nowhere… To reject purpose is to endow the past with supreme significance, to dismiss the future as irrelevant and be forced to live in the meaningless present…
For you everything occurs according to physical necessity - with consequences which are as inevitable as objects falling to the ground. A purpose has no reference to the future but is simply a physical function. So we only imagine we have control over ourselves. We are just cogs in an immense machine operating for no reason or purpose whatsoever - and achieving precisely nothing…
