Lost Data

[Thorne]

Actually, Thorne, that might be about right. After all, scientists talk about seeing traces of the Big Bang in background radiation, which is the same in every direction you look.

True, but it is not visible radiation. Therefore it is not light.

Of course, proof of the Big Bang would just about be the end for God.

No, you can't really say that. There is always the possibility, however remote, that some god started the whole shebang. But it would kill the myth of the biblical creation (as though that needs any more killing) and would relegate the Judeo/Christian/Islamic version of God to the fairy tale scrap heap where he belongs.

[DuncanONeil]

True, but it is not visible radiation. Therefore it is not light.


No, you can't really say that. There is always the possibility, however remote, that some god started the whole shebang. But it would kill the myth of the biblical creation (as though that needs any more killing) and would relegate the Judeo/Christian/Islamic version of God to the fairy tale scrap heap where he belongs.

Sorry can't quite accept that the referenced discovery would "kill the myth of the biblical creation". Being as a "Supreme Being" is by definition unknowable, their skills and abilities are also unknowable.

[Thorne]

Sorry can't quite accept that the referenced discovery would "kill the myth of the biblical creation". Being as a "Supreme Being" is by definition unknowable, their skills and abilities are also unknowable.

But somehow all those religious leaders seem to know about them? That would be a contradiction, wouldn't it?

But perhaps what they claim to "know" is really just speculation, based on a lack of understanding of the real world. Like how a bronze-age nomad would have viewed the world.

[DuncanONeil]

But somehow all those religious leaders seem to know about them? That would be a contradiction, wouldn't it?

But perhaps what they claim to "know" is really just speculation, based on a lack of understanding of the real world. Like how a bronze-age nomad would have viewed the world.

Basically all I was told was; God was all seeing, all powerful, and all knowing.

[Thorne]

Basically all I was told was; God was all seeing, all powerful, and all knowing.

Not pointing fingers at anyone in particular here, but far too many people base their beliefs only upon what they've been told, and not upon rational thought.

I was taught, through 12 years of Catholic schooling, that God was all good, all knowing and all powerful. (This is, of course, the standard Judeo/Christian/Islamic God.) It was also accepted that God was eternal, unchanging. Yet the only evidence we have for these statements are religious texts written by men about a being they cannot possibly begin to understand, by their own admission. So my question must be, how do we know just what, or who, this God is? Or if he even exists? We have no evidence for anything said in any texts, whether Bible, Torah or Quran. Hell, one of the greatest stories in the Old Testament, the story of Moses and the Exodus, may be nothing but a fairy tale! There is no evidence to suggest that anything written about this ever actually happened, in any manner. How can we trust anything else written there, then?

[DuncanONeil]

"(T)hrough 12 years of Catholic schooling, that God was all good, all knowing and all powerful. (This is, of course, the standard Judeo/Christian/Islamic God.) It was also accepted that God was eternal, unchanging"

You can not be trying to say that any being that can accomplish creation is not outside the understanding of mankind. Any "culture" sufficiently advanced will appear to operate as if by magic to a "primitive" culture.

12 years, huh, got you beat by one. Have you already forgotten one of the primary God questions we all asked? "Can God make a rock so big he can not pick it up?"

[Thorne]

You can not be trying to say that any being that can accomplish creation is not outside the understanding of mankind. Any "culture" sufficiently advanced will appear to operate as if by magic to a "primitive" culture.

No, I'm not saying that at all. What I am saying is that, if such a being existed, such that it's very being is outside the understanding of mankind, then no one, especially those self-proclaimed religious leaders, would be able to claim an understanding of that being. And to decide, without any evidence to confirm it, that all of the universe was built just for us smacks of a pride which those same leaders would condemn as sinful.