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StAnastasia
Guest
Very useful degrees, all of them.
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inocente
Guest
I call them supernatural thingamajigs since I don’t know what else to call things which are invisible, imperceptible and inexplicable, and you’ve never given a positive case for what they are or why anyone should believe in them. Call them what you like, I don’t care, but please make a constructive unemotional case without attacking those who of us who believe God created an explicable world by saying we’re mad and immoral to disbelieve in supernatural thingamajigs. Forgive, but until you do that I’ve no way of separating them from unexamined superstition.
Charitably, you must have forgot what you wrote a few posts previous. Here’s what you said to me again:
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inocente
Guest
This sounds like a prove-it-ain’t-so argument. For instance, someone believes in fairies, we ask where’s their evidence, and they say don’t need any, it’s our job to prove-it-ain’t-so. And of course it’s impossible to convince the fairy believer because there is a remote possibility that somewhere there’s a undiscovered fairy, and they won’t accept that a remote possibility doesn’t mean true.
All the evidence is that thoughts arise from physical activity within the nervous system, and this certainly does imply that thoughts are electro-chemical activity unless you have contrary evidence.
Why? Are you proposing that God, and souls, are made of a supernatural thinking substance? Don’t pass this one by pretty please, I want to know the theory here as it’s totally alien to everything I was taught as a Baptist.
They certainly exist in the sense they’re there for alien social species to discover, so they are not human inventions, but it doesn’t follow that they have an existence independent of minds.
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inocente
Guest
Errrm… the big bang theory was proposed by Monsignor Georges Lemaître, a Catholic priest who was rewarded by Pius XI by being inducted into the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. So unless you intended to suggest that Lemaître and his pope were godless materialists
, it might be an idea to restate your point.You may also want to reread the second law of thermodynamics (post #224). A wrong understanding of entropy has become a false religion in its own right on internet forums, it would be a pity to add to it.
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inocente
Guest
You’re unlikely to get much argument if by immaterial you merely mean not made of atoms. But if you mean that math, the physical law and the mind are made of undetectable non-physical substances, that’s a whole different kettle of fish. :slapfight:
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StAnastasia
Guest
Inocente, are you implying that science deals with reality? That’s a daring suggestion!
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StAnastasia
Guest
Telestia, Pope Benedict XVI accepts both evolution and the Big Bang as the most cogent theories to explain the respective questions they address. Do you regard Pope Benedict as mistaken?
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inocente
Guest
Check this out, spotted it yesterday. It’s super! It’s natural!
The news report is a bit breathless given the research is in its infancy, but we are such stuff as dreams are made on, and one day reality might include watching our dreams on YouTube. 
*It is currently unknown whether processes like dreaming and imagination are realized in the brain in a way that is functionally similar to perception. If they are, then it should be possible to use the techniques developed in this paper to decode brain activity during dreaming or imagination.
UC Berkley news - newscenter.berkeley.edu/2011/09/22/brain-movies/
Gallant’s lab site - sites.google.com/site/gallantlabucb/publications/nishimoto-et-al-2011
Paper - cell.com/current-biology/abstract/S0960-9822%2811%2900937-7*
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Telestia
Guest
Yes, I am familiar with his work. I certainly have no quarrels with his work. A brilliant piece of work.Errrm… the big bang theory was proposed by Monsignor Georges Lemaître, a Catholic priest who was rewarded by Pius XI by being inducted into the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. So unless you intended to suggest that Lemaître and his pope were godless materialists
You may also want to reread the second law of thermodynamics (post #224). A wrong understanding of entropy has become a false religion in its own right on internet forums, it would be a pity to add to it.
It is the Secular Humanistic Theory of the Big Bang that was developed in the 1960’s By Penrose, Hawkins, and a 3rd scientist whose name I do not recall at the moment, that I have problems with.
We all agree the universe is expanding. Their Copernican Principle has nothing to do with Nicolea Copernicus, but using Copernicus name was pure propaganda to give that theory legitimacy.
I’m sure Monsignor Georges Lemaître would never have agreed to it.
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tonyrey
Guest
The Big Bang was proposed by a Catholoc priest! The theory of evolution doesn’t exclude Design unless it is a version of NeoDarwinism…
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StAnastasia
Guest
I haven’t heard about the “Secular Humanistic Theory of the Big Bang.” Can you describe this theory, and how it differs from Lemaitre’s “Big Bang” theory?
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buffalo
Guest
Surely you have - your posts prove it.
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Wardog
Guest
I always thought the first chapters of Genesis were a poetic description of the Big Bang theory. What is the first thing that would a Big Bang cause? Light.
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You
Guest
Interesting you should say that; they say the universe was made of light [photons] one second after the big bang and that it remained made of light for about 300,000 years.
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Telestia
Guest
Why, Strawberry Jam, does this mean we’re not friends anymore? You know SJ, if I thought you weren’t my friend… I just don’t think I could bear it!
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tonyrey
Guest
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StAnastasia
Guest
No - haven’t heard of it.Surely you have - your posts prove it.
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buffalo
Guest
OKaaaay
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StAnastasia
Guest
Not only have I not heard of “the secular humanist Big Bang theory,” but I haven’t heard of “the secular humanist plate tectonics theory,” or "the secular humanist theory of gravity, or “the secular humanist theory of evolution.” I work with scientists who work with regular theories with the above names, but not “secular humanist” ones.
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Charlemagne_II
Guest
Strawberry
**Can you think of any examples of tools we rely on to know about things that are not evident to us through our senses? **
Imagination, most of all. Mathematicians have always imagined the principles they discovered before they articulated them. They could not possibly have seen these principles in the real world through the senses.
Infinite numbers, for example.
ERWIN SCHRÖDINGER Nobel Laureate in Physics:
In his famous book Nature and the Greeks (Cambridge University Press, 1954) Prof. Schrödinger writes:
“I am very astonished that the scientific picture of the real world around me is very deficient. It gives a lot of factual information, puts all our experience in a magnificently consistent order, but it is ghastly silent about all and sundry that is really near to our heart, that really matters to us. It cannot tell us a word about red and blue, bitter and sweet, physical pain and physical delight; it knows nothing of beautiful and ugly, good or bad, God and eternity. Science sometimes pretends to answer questions in these domains, but the answers are very often so silly that we are not inclined to take them seriously.” (Schrödinger 1954, 93).
Paul A.M. Dirac Quantum Physicist, Matter-Anti-Matter
“God is a mathematician of a very high order and He used advanced mathematics in constructing the universe.”
**Can you think of any examples of tools we rely on to know about things that are not evident to us through our senses? **
Imagination, most of all. Mathematicians have always imagined the principles they discovered before they articulated them. They could not possibly have seen these principles in the real world through the senses.
Infinite numbers, for example.
ERWIN SCHRÖDINGER Nobel Laureate in Physics:
In his famous book Nature and the Greeks (Cambridge University Press, 1954) Prof. Schrödinger writes:
“I am very astonished that the scientific picture of the real world around me is very deficient. It gives a lot of factual information, puts all our experience in a magnificently consistent order, but it is ghastly silent about all and sundry that is really near to our heart, that really matters to us. It cannot tell us a word about red and blue, bitter and sweet, physical pain and physical delight; it knows nothing of beautiful and ugly, good or bad, God and eternity. Science sometimes pretends to answer questions in these domains, but the answers are very often so silly that we are not inclined to take them seriously.” (Schrödinger 1954, 93).
Paul A.M. Dirac Quantum Physicist, Matter-Anti-Matter
“God is a mathematician of a very high order and He used advanced mathematics in constructing the universe.”
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