Lion- do try and get a bloody clue, there's a good chap.

Agrippina wrote:There's another thing I thought about yesterday. Theists ask how the Big Bang happened from nothing; I want to know how God created the entire universe from nothing? Snapping fingers and saying "let there be light!!" is a little too much like David Copperfield magic to me. And I don't believe in magic.

The theist physicist asks how did God do it.
The atheist asks how is it possible without God.

I dont think of God as magic but even if you did think of God as a "magic wand" how can you then argue against Him?
If you admit even the slightest degree of metaphysics into the "Something out of Nothing" question about our origins, you are hard pressed to reject theism as a valid hypothesis.

Lion IRC wrote:The theist physicist asks how did God do it.

From one of the early proponents of the Big Bang theory, Fr. Georges Lemaître.

As far as I see, such a theory [of the primeval atom] remains entirely outside any metaphysical or religious question. It leaves the materialist free to deny any transcendental Being. He may keep, for the bottom of space-time, the same attitude of mind he has been able to adopt for events occurring in non-singular places in space-time. For the believer, it removes any attempt to familiarity with God, as were Laplace's chiquenaude or Jeans' finger. It is consonant with the wording of Isaiah speaking of the 'Hidden God' hidden even in the beginning of the universe ... Science has not to surrender in face of the Universe and when Pascal tries to infer the existence of God from the supposed infinitude of Nature, we may think that he is looking in the wrong direction.

Lion IRC wrote:
The theist physicist asks how did God do it.
The atheist asks how is it possible without God.

You can't even get a question I ask straight, how the fuck are you going to even be able to formulate anyone elses' (thiest or non-theist) question? This is rhetorical and therefore requires no answer to evade.

Lion IRC wrote:It is both scriptural and orthodox that Adam and Eve died as a result of doing something which satan told them would NOT result in death - the wages of sin.

That's not what is said in Genesis 3.
No Satan.
They did not die in that day.
Doesn't mention wages of sin. The serpent was not lying, God was.

Address the refutation of your assertion that the serpent lied and God did not.

I'm NEVER astonished that atheists like MrFungus420 and Oldskeptic think Adam and Eve were both pronounced dead at exactly 3.45PM on the first day in July according to some (extra-biblical) coroner's report.

Now you're just being silly. We are not talking about anyone that I think actually ever existed. We are talking about what is written in the bible.

Lion IRC wrote:Q. Are there any errors of fact in the bible?
A. No

HA HA HA HA HA HA!

Tell me, Lion, since when was it demonstrated that coloured sticks could change organismal genomes wholesale? Oh, that's right, an Austrian monk demonstrated that this was horseshit, by alighting upon the real basis of genetics. That's one "error of fact" in your mythology to start with.

Oh, and how about that whole "global flood" bullshit? The fantasy "global flood" never happened, and there are a large number of items of solid scientific evidence refuting the assertion that this happened. Such as the fact that I have certain tropical fish swimming happily in two aquaria just 6 feet from where I'm typing this. None of those fish would exist if the fantasy "global flood" had ever happened.

Lion IRC wrote:Q. Does the bible include any lies?
A. Yes. satan told Adam & Eve they wouldnt die if they ate the apple. They did.

Actually, the one who lied, if the text of your mythology is to be believed, was your magic man, who said that death would follow immediately if they ate the magic fruit. The talking snake said, "er, no, that's not going to happen". Sure enough, Adam lived another 900 years, according to your mythology.

Lion IRC wrote:It's like asking, do you think quantum physics is literally true.

/me steers back to the topic.

Except that there's a massive difference between the postulates of quantum physics and the assertions of your mythology. Namely, that the former enjoy massive evidential support in the form of the requisite experiments, whereas the latter enjoy nothing of the sort. Moreover, the computer you're typing your post on wouldn't exist in its current form, if the relevant quantum postulates were wrong.

Lion IRC wrote:

aban57 wrote:Let me make it simple for you, so you can answer correctly (for once) :

Do you think Noah's ark story is true ?
Do you think Jonah's 3 days in a fish story is true ?
Do you think the jews stayed in the desert for 40 years, only fed by mana falling from the sky ?
Do you think the "army of zombies" that raised in jesus times really happened ?

Remember, these are yes/no questions

Noah - yes

HA HA HA HA HA HA!

Oh dear. My tropical fish are now pointing and laughing at your answer.

Lion IRC wrote:It is both scriptural and orthodox that Adam and Eve died as a result of doing something which satan told them would NOT result in death - the wages of sin.

Except that your mythology asserts, that these two individuals were told they would die immediately if they ate the magic fruit. Your mythology then asserts that Adam lived for 900 years afterwards. It doesn't matter what apologetic spin you try to put on this, Lion, these are the established facts, alwys assuming that the word "fact" can be associated with your mythology in the first place.

Lion IRC wrote:I'm NEVER astonished that atheists like MrFungus420 and Oldskeptic think Adam and Eve were both pronounced dead at exactly 3.45PM on the first day in July according to some (extra-biblical) coroner's report.

Oh look. Once again, if in doubt, resort to strawman caricature when the facts piss all over apologetic fabrications.

Lion IRC wrote:Large Haddron Collider - €7.5 billion
Why?

Because it's more likely to provide real answers than a collection of 3,000 year old myths penned by ignorant, pre-scientific Middle Eastern nomads.

Lion IRC wrote:List of unsolved problems in (non-theistic) cosmology/physics

Oh look it's time to resurrect the tiresome apologetic "science doesn't know all the answers, therefore Magic Man" horseshit. As Dara O'Braian said, "of course science doesn't have all the answers, because if it did, it would stop". But don't let this prevent you from peddling yet more apologetic horseshit, will you Lion?

Lion IRC wrote:What is the origin of matter, energy, spacetime and the fundamental forces that form the universe / multiverse?

Not yet known definitively, but physicist are working on the answers. Such as Neil Turok and Paul Steinhardt. I've presented on several occasions two papers by these authors, containing a solution to the above. Namely, that spacetime and the fundamental forces were always in existence, and matter arose from the energy liberated by a braneworld collision, which also resulted in our instantiated universe having several space dimensions compactified.

Lion IRC wrote:What is the origin of simple patterns in complex nuclei?

Be more specific. What patterns? How are these defined?

Lion IRC wrote:What is the origin of the M-sigma relation between supermassive black hole mass and galaxy velocity dispersion?

Ask Martin Rees and Joseph Silk. Who proposed a mechanism for this in a 1998 paper. Namely this paper:

Quasars And Galaxy Formation by Joseph Silk and Martin J. Rees, Astronomy & Astrophysics, 331: L1-L4 (1998)

Silk & Rees, 1998 wrote:Abstract. The formation of massive black holes may precede the epoch that characterises the peak of galaxy formation, as characterized by the star formation history in luminous galaxies. Hence protogalactic star formation may be profoundly affected by quasar-like nuclei and their associated extensive energetic outflows. We derive a relation between the mass of the central supermassive black hole and that of the galaxy spheroidal component, and comment on other implications for galaxy formation scenarios.

You really should stop navel gazing at mythological bollocks, and catch up with some real science.

Lion IRC wrote:What is the origin of magnetar magnetic field?

The current hypothesis on the table is that if magnetars are indeed true neutron stars, then the magnetic field arises from coupled spin magnetic moment of the constituent neutrons. Spin magnetic moment is what makes NMR spectroscopes and MRI scanners possible.

Lion IRC wrote:How do gamma ray bursts originate?

Although there is no true consensus yet, not least because of the difficulties inherent in measuring events that take place billions of light years distant from Earth, one proposal is that inverse Compton scattering generates the relevant photon pulses. Electrons moving at relativistic speed in the plasma of a collapsing supernova impart energy to the photons present in that plasma immediately prior to full gravitational collapse, resulting in those photons being shifted to the gamma ray region of the spectrum, in accordance with the relation E=hν, where E is energy, h is Planck's constant, and ν is the frequency of the photon.

Lion IRC wrote:Age crisis - what is the "age" of the universe if it has always existed?(Infinitely recurring cyclic model)

Actually, if braneworld collisions are established on a rigorous footing in the near future, the question becomes utterly transformed. Only the products of braneworld collisions can then be said to have an 'age', and in the case of our particular instance thereof, this figure is known to a reasonable degree of precision. Which means your apologetics fails once more.

Lion IRC wrote:Does nature have more than four spacetime dimensions? (Interesting word - "nature". Philosophy is dead?)

Certain quantum processes, including some whose existence has been empirically verified, require ten. Why is this a problem ?

Lion IRC wrote:Why is the distant universe so homogeneous? Boundary/no boundary?

Inflation after the first Planck second. Do you ever bother to read anything other than mythological horseshit?

Lion IRC wrote:Why did the universe have such low entropy in the past? (Arrow of time.)

First of all, this depends upon how one defines "low". The entropy of the universe was lower in the past than in the present, not least because one of the basic entropy relation dS = δQ/T, where dS is change in entropy, δQ is change in energy, and T is thermodynamic temperature. The current mean thermodynamic temperature of the universe is around 2.75 K, whereas in the immediate aftermath of the first Placnk second, that temperature was of the order of 1040K or more, which means that the denominator in that expression becomes enormous as one approaches the first Planck second. This on its own accounts for lower past entropy, before one considers any other mechanism.

Lion IRC wrote:Why do people refer to the quantum vacuum state as "nothing" when it is "something" which itself awaits explanation?

Actually, if you bothered to pay attention to what physicists actually say, as opposed to looking for quote mined versions thereof from apologetics websites, I'll introduce you to Michio Kaku. Who said recently "Physicists use the word 'nothing' simply to mean an absence of stuff". In other words, they consider that space-time in some form existed before the first Planck second of our instantiated and observable cosmos.

Lion IRC wrote:More Gaps than ever wouldnt you say Mr Krauss and Mr Dawkins?

No. Merely interesting research subjects. Some of which have already had research attention focused upon them.

Lion IRC wrote:

Agrippina wrote:There's another thing I thought about yesterday. Theists ask how the Big Bang happened from nothing; I want to know how God created the entire universe from nothing? Snapping fingers and saying "let there be light!!" is a little too much like David Copperfield magic to me. And I don't believe in magic.

The theist physicist asks how did God do it.
The atheist asks how is it possible without God.

Correction. The scientist asks "what testable natural processes can account for what we observe?" When the scientist has performed the experiments, the atheist accepts the results, instead of bitching about them because they happen not to genuflect before mythological wankery.

Do learn to be rigorous here, Lion, and avoid the usual fatuous strawman cariactures.

Lion IRC wrote:I dont think of God as magic

You think being able to tell the laws of physics to fuck off whenever it happens to be administratively convenient, doesn't involve magic? Please, do present your detailed theoretical hypotheses with respect to this, and let's see if they're worthy of submission to Nature.

Lion IRC wrote:but even if you did think of God as a "magic wand" how can you then argue against Him?

Because asserted magic entities aren't an answer, they're a placeholder for ignorance. Plus, once again, do point to one scientific paper out of the million or more in existence, which doesn demonstrate that testable natural processes are sufficient to explain vast classes of real world observational phenomena.

Lion IRC wrote:If you admit even the slightest degree of metaphysics into the "Something out of Nothing" question about our origins, you are hard pressed to reject theism as a valid hypothesis.

Bollocks. "Let's invent a magic man" isn't a hypothesis. Not least because supernaturalists deliberaterly construct their magic men to avoid empirical test.

Ah, don't you just love it when mythology fetishists try to use science to prop up their fantasy magic men, only for those of us who actually paid attention in science class to see through the bullshit?

It's 2012 and people are still doing gap-theology.

You just keep banging that drum as hard as you can, Lion.

Lion IRC wrote:

Agrippina wrote:There's another thing I thought about yesterday. Theists ask how the Big Bang happened from nothing; I want to know how God created the entire universe from nothing? Snapping fingers and saying "let there be light!!" is a little too much like David Copperfield magic to me. And I don't believe in magic.

The theist physicist asks how did God do it.

And alight upon either nothing at all, or a natural process that works without god, of if it's just a little bit hard, they throw the towel in the ring and just declares goddidit by fiat.

Lion IRC wrote:The atheist asks how is it possible without God.

Actually, we merely ask "how?", because unlike bullshittitionists, we don't start by assuming a specific conclusion.

Lion IRC wrote:I dont think of God as magic but even if you did think of God as a "magic wand" how can you then argue against Him?

There is no evidence that magic exists, or miracles, or the ability to manipulate the fundamental forces and laws of nature merely by wishing for it hard enough. That's how, among other things.

Lion IRC wrote:If you admit even the slightest degree of metaphysics into the "Something out of Nothing" question about our origins, you are hard pressed to reject theism as a valid hypothesis.

Theism consists of nothing more than making shit up to support a priori assumed conclusions, please don't make the mistake of thinking this constitutes metaphysics.

Lion IRC wrote:
List of unsolved problems in ( non-theistic ) cosmology /physics
What is the origin of matter, energy spacetime and the fundamental forces that form the universe / multiverse
What is the origin of simple patterns in complex nuclei
What is the origin of the M sigma relation between supermassive black hole mass and galaxy velocity dispersion
What is the origin of magnetar magnetic field
How do gamma ray bursts originate
Age crisis - what is the age of the universe if it has always existed ( Infinitely recurring cyclic model )
Does nature have more than four spacetime dimensions ( Interesting word -nature Philosophy is dead )
Why is the distant universe so homogeneous Boundary/no boundary
Why did the universe have such low entropy in the past ( Arrow of time )
Why do people refer to the quantum vacuum state as nothing when it is omething which itself awaits explanation

More Gaps than ever wouldnt you say Mr Krauss and Mr Dawkins

First of all : there is no such thing
as non theistic cosmology as indeed
has already been mentioned : there is
just cosmology : it is not theist neither
is it atheist : just simple cosmology right
Secondly Science never makes claims that
pertain to absolute knowledge as that is the
prerogative of your belief system : so strange
to see you employ it here : no one knows every
thing and that is the beauty of Science : Religion
on the other hand believes otherwise and therefore
has nothing to investigate : so one seeks answers to
questions while the other refuses to question answers

Lion IRC wrote:Large Haddron Collider - €7.5 billion
Why?

List of unsolved problems in (non-theistic) cosmology/physics
What is the origin of matter, energy, spacetime and the fundamental forces that form the universe / multiverse?
What is the origin of simple patterns in complex nuclei?
What is the origin of the M-sigma relation between supermassive black hole mass and galaxy velocity dispersion?
What is the origin of magnetar magnetic field?
How do gamma ray bursts originate?
Age crisis - what is the "age" of the universe if it has always existed? (Infinitely recurring cyclic model)
Does nature have more than four spacetime dimensions? (Interesting word - "nature". Philosophy is dead?)
Why is the distant universe so homogeneous? Boundary/no boundary?
Why did the universe have such low entropy in the past? (Arrow of time.)
Why do people refer to the quantum vacuum state as "nothing" when it is "something" which itself awaits explanation?

More Gaps than ever wouldnt you say Mr Krauss and Mr Dawkins?

Do you have any idea how childish it is to keep arguing from the God of the gaps when you have put nothing forward to show that including your god in our scientific deliberation does anything to solve these problems?

Grow up, Lion.

surreptitious57 wrote:Would infinite entropy not require infinite matter

Not matter, no. Otherwise, this is a difficult question to answer. Hawking-Bekenstein theorem tells us that the entropy of a black hole (the only analogue of the pre-Planck cosmos we have) is given by the area of the event horizon times the Planck area. The problem comes in that the pre-Planck cosmos had no area, which gives us some difficulty in even attempting to address its entropy. There is a proposal that, in fact, the universe has always been infinite in extent even while compressed to a singularity (yes, I know it's counter-intuitive; this will always happen when you're dealing with an area in which our two most successful theories and yet our two most counter-intuitive theories have to talk to each other, something that nobody has successfully managed as yet), in which case the area of the event horizon would still be infinite, and if the Hawking-Bekenstein calculation is carried out on this it would give a solution for entropy that is infinite.

Does the Uncertainty Principle invalidate zero energy

It certainly does, and indeed this is the entire idea behind Krauss's lecture, namely that zero energy cannot possibly exist in any stable sense.

Presumably entropy will stop in this Universe when it dies

Well, that depends on what you mean by 'dies'. Twistor and I have had some interesting discussions in this area. My contention is that, as long as expansion continues, entropy can increase, because the point of equilibrium continues to change. Entropy is the tendency toward equilibrium, so as long as expansion continues, the point of equilibrium continues to be driven downwards because the temperature (if you can even talk about the universe having a temperature) continues to decrease. Twist says that this isn't correct, but I haven't quite grasped his reasoning yet. In any event, absolute zero is an asymptote.

Would every law of physics be reversed in a mirror Universe

Not sure that makes much sense. All our physical laws are time-reversible now, with only the possible exception of the law of entropy, and even this might only seem not to be time-reversible for statistical reasons.

Do they only therefore apply to this particular one and not others

Well, I'm of the school of thought that says that the laws that apply in our local cosmic expansion are probably what they are because they can't be any different, not least because there's no good reason to suppose otherwise. Lots of thought has been given to an expansion with different constants, because such 'what if' thought experiments give us insight into how ours behaves. So if there are other expansions, they probably have the same constants. This could be wrong, of course, but it's the only conclusion that is currently supported by the observational data, and that's unlikely to change, and I mean ever.

There's an awful lot of wibble in this area, and it's important to distinguish what is simply a thought experiment for the purposes of study and what is more, shall we say, ideologically motivated. It leads to such fuckwittery as 'fine-tuning' arguments, and the like. What almost all of these arguments overlook (and indeed some of the thought experiments arising in physics) is that it isn't the values of the constants that are interesting in this regard, it's the ratios between them, because this is what determines the behaviour.

Any links or references you could provide for mirror Universe theory

I'll see what I can dig up. It was something I read about in passing, and I can't remember precisely where.

Calilasseia wrote:

Lion IRC wrote:

Lion IRC wrote:

aban57 wrote:Let me make it simple for you, so you can answer correctly (for once) :

Do you think Noah's ark story is true ?
Do you think Jonah's 3 days in a fish story is true ?
Do you think the jews stayed in the desert for 40 years, only fed by mana falling from the sky ?
Do you think the "army of zombies" that raised in jesus times really happened ?

Remember, these are yes/no questions

Noah - yes

HA HA HA HA HA HA!

Oh dear. My tropical fish are now pointing and laughing at your answer.

They are supposed to laugh at the one about Jonah

Lion IRC wrote:It is both scriptural and orthodox that Adam and Eve died as a result of doing something which satan told them would NOT result in death - the wages of sin.

Not really. It may be the orthodox position, but it is not what the Bible says.

Adam and Eve were slated to die from the beginning. God kicked them out of the Garden of Eden NOT for eating the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, but to prevent them from eating from the Tree of Life and, thus, BECOME immortal.

God specifically told Adam that Adam would die the same day that he ate the forbidden fruit ("in the day"). Adam did not die that day. He went on to live the life-span that God had allotted to Adam when Adam was created.

Lion IRC wrote:I'm NEVER astonished that atheists like MrFungus420 and Oldskeptic think Adam and Eve were both pronounced dead at exactly 3.45PM on the first day in July according to some (extra-biblical) coroner's report.

Funny, I am not particularly astonished that you have said something so ignorant.

I don't believe that Adam and Eve existed, so how could I think that there could be anything like a coroner's report.

What I do is point out what the Bible says at face value.

Everything that i have posted here is according to the Bible. It is based on what the Bible actually says.

Lion IRC wrote:Large Haddron Collider - €7.5 billion
Why?

To experiment and learn.

Lion IRC wrote:List of unsolved problems in (non-theistic) cosmology/physics

****SNIP****

More Gaps than ever wouldnt you say Mr Krauss and Mr Dawkins?

So what? If there were no gaps, there would be no science because we would be FUCKING OMNISCIENT. Until we do become omniscient, there will always be gaps. And dishonest theists will continue to try to shoehorn their idea of "god" into those gaps.

Gee, too bad there isn't a simple shorthand name for trying to claim that God is responsible for things that we don't yet understand.

Lion IRC wrote:

Calilasseia wrote:

Lion IRC wrote:

Lion IRC wrote:

Noah - yes

HA HA HA HA HA HA!

Oh dear. My tropical fish are now pointing and laughing at your answer.

They are supposed to laugh at the one about Jonah

Not really.

They would be laughing because the change in salinity in the waters of the world would kill almost everything that lives in water.

The Christian doest say, gaps ---> therefore God.

Instead, they say...God ---> what gaps?

MrFungus420 wrote:

Lion IRC wrote:

Calilasseia wrote:

Lion IRC wrote:

HA HA HA HA HA HA!

Oh dear. My tropical fish are now pointing and laughing at your answer.

They are supposed to laugh at the one about Jonah

Not really.

They would be laughing because the change in salinity in the waters of the world would kill almost everything that lives in water.

Change?
Are you saying flood = more salt out of nowhere or flood = salt magically disappearing?

Oh my!

Lion IRC wrote:The Christian doest say, gaps ---> therefore God.

Instead, they say...God ---> what gaps?

God ---> what reality?