The Faith & Religion mega Thread

Lay a 20 foot (6.1 meter) long, 6in x 6in (15.2 cm x 15.2cm) steel beam out on your lawn. Now traverse it. I'm reasonably confidant that a very large percentage of all dear readers here could accomplish that fairly easily. Now place that same beam between the roofs of two 20 story buildings. How many of us would even attempt it? There are people who have trained sufficiently and many insects, birds and mammals that would barely even hesitate but that hesitation or lack of it is based on the recognition relative to what or who we are of how much risk it involves and what really is at stake. Some animals would be unaware of any risk, either because they can't recognize the height of the fall or they know they would survive it if they did fall. Others just know from experience that they won't fall either due to size, ability, or training. Most of us here would likely shake with fear making the attempt doomed before it even began.

As for humans possibly many more of us here would be willing to attempt such a feat provided there was a cushioned safety net below us to safely catch us should we fall. It would be substantially easier if we could actually see and inspect the safety net but vastly more difficult if I or anyone said, "I know you can't see the net but trust me, it's there"

Me? I'd prefer many months of training and a 25 foot (~7.6 meter) balance pole.

You didn't mention the high power, I'm out.

New thread title ideas:

Dreamers and Believers

Deniers and Non-deniers

Everything's Been Said Here, You're Either Born Wrong or it's Evolution

...

But none of us in this thread and on internet by itself and on Earth in general is authority to put final decision about claim that there is or not yet Deity some call God(still lame choice of word if read backwards) and in what way and how(including height, hair color, gender, sex, interests, etc.) or why it is not yet visible despite claiming of Second Coming. However when it comes to possibility of Deity working either in past or present or future or whatever - that claim is valid and does exist because the more we live the more we understand world is simply much more complex than we thought. Kinda like when kids grow up from childhood they start to understand what parent and other adults were talking about before but they refused to care cause were busy chasing illusions and other interests. Same goes for idea about Devil and Creator being not only misunderstood but also different than what were are told it to be. This is why all who seek truth sooner or later find clues about life.

And yea almost forgot: This thread is about human origins not origins of deities from mythology..but they might be similar. So what does argument "If humans were created who created creators of humanity" is 100% nonsense and offtopic cause irrelevant. Are we discussing our or other birth?

You can create a religion and\or god tomorrow and it may evolve over a thousand years to become the norm. That's how we have so many religions and deities today, they've\'re evolved\ing to cancel each other out... unlike like an eggplant. Truth is what we're taught*, believe it or not but have some eggplant!

you can create a belief system in 1859 and watch how it evolved over the years until today as well.

The 90 year old Big Bang Theory (when horse-drawn carriages were still as common as the earliest cars) has a vast amount of supporting evidence that goes back 99.9% of the way back to The Beginning. It is very unlikely we can push that to 99.999% because as Singularity is approached things stop making any sense because among other things Time itself began with Big Bang... at least for this, our Universe. If other Universes exist we will most likely never be able to know since no information of anything OUTSIDE our Universe gets through to ours and us, including any possible "Creator".

This is why Science is sadly unconcerned with the subject since the point is the Ultimate Moot Point, relegated forever to mere speculation where anything goes, even "Turtles all the way down". Whatever else is true, it is a fact that we are products of THIS Universe, completely bound by it's Laws and Limitations and can never see, feel, or understand anything not in it. It's hard enough just exploring that and because of Expansion, assuming anyone will be around millions and billions of years from now, there will be much less of that to observe, assuming Expansion continues and if it doesn't all bets are off then, too. We can count on this playing out this way as much as we can count on the fact that the moon will show in our sky tonight and tomorrow and tomorrow... though the length of time till Tomorrow is ever growing as Earth's rotation slows and our Moon drifts further away. At some point in time anything able to notice on Earth will only be able to see the Moon once a month, for a month, however long a month is then.... at least until our Sun swallows them both.

The Big Bang Theory is a joke, unless you consider a universe to be multiple... like the complex seed it makes sense!

And don't take that as string theory low unknown...

There's guesses like religion which are all theories evolving and eggplants which are edible!

Whoops I forgot: ...aahh... that's the stuff.

Originally Posted by BW-userx you can create a belief system in 1859 and watch how it evolved over the years until today as well.

May I ask what you think the difference between a "belief system" and a "religion" is BW ? (if any)

Has "Christianity" "evolved" over time? I contend, yes, it has... $$$

Originally Posted by jamison20000e The Big Bang Theory is a joke, unless you consider a universe to be multiple... like the complex seed it makes sense!

OK Jameson2000e, I'll bite. How and why is Big Bang a joke? I should remind you of the axiom that "The Universe is under no obligation to make sense to you".

Originally Posted by enorbet OK Jameson2000e, I'll bite. How and why is Big Bang a joke? I should remind you of the axiom that "The Universe is under no obligation to make sense to you".

Historically the "Big Bang" was indeed a joke. The term was invented by Fred Hoyle to make fun of the alternative to his preferred steady state solution. Then, as so often happens, the insult was taken up as a badge of honour.

Originally Posted by hazel Historically the "Big Bang" was indeed a joke. The term was invented by Fred Hoyle to make fun of the alternative to his preferred steady state solution. Then, as so often happens, the insult was taken up as a badge of honour.

Oh I am very much aware of Fred Hoyle and for several reasons. His is a cautionary tale. The man was brilliant and creative. He wrote thought-provoking Science Fiction (Black Cloud is excellent) but he is the main originator of the entire concept of Nucleosynthesis which is why anyone ever said anything like "We are stardust" in song or story. Before Fred it was not known or even conceived that the conditions within stars could combine atoms to make more complex atoms up to and including Iron. Apparently his initial concern over Georges LeMaitre's "Cosmic Egg" was that he was worried for several reasons that it was either religious based bias or that it would promote religion as LeMaitre was a priest and in the employ of The Vatican. It turns out he needn't have worried because when the Pope did exactly that LeMaitre told the Pope essentially, "You should stick to religion and leave Science to scientists".

I imagine something else must've driven Hoyle because he went to his death near the turn of the millennium still rabidly locked into Steady State despite some 60+ years of major advancements in gathering data that became absolutely overwhelming. Steady State had been a favorite of Albert Einstein's as well but the evidence convinced him to change his mind. Fred's career stalled, and now his name will be forever tied to his most embarrassing failure since almost everyone has heard of The Big Bang but far less know anything about nucleosynthesis and how important it is to their very existence.

Frankly I was expecting jamison to deliver the punchline "It wasn't big and it didn't bang!!!" and I was playing "straight man"

The answer was stated there after: we do not live in one "universe" we live amongst many, again putting aside strings theories... an oak seed does not bang into a Mighty Oak Tree in a forest by itself!