Do you believe in God?

  • Thread starter Patrik
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Do you believe in god?

  • Of course, without him nothing would exist!

    Votes: 624 30.6%
  • Maybe.

    Votes: 368 18.0%
  • No way!

    Votes: 1,051 51.5%

  • Total voters
    2,042
How can you preach open mindedness if you aren't open minded yourself?

Sounds good on the surface, but there's a problem with the idea of "open mindeness". At the risk of everyone whining about yet another YouTube video, please, watch this on open mindedness. This is gold.




By showing that you are willing to listen to the opposing side, even though you disagree, they will be more than likely to be open minded with your viewpoint.

You are right. As I explained earlier, that one comment about the bible being "pure brilliance" really pushed me over the edge. I felt such a comment deserved little to no "respect", and unloaded. I will attempt to exercise a little more restraint in the future.
 
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In any event, you have no problem with the idea or action if it's in print, but blow a gasket if you see a picture of it. That, my friend, is very strange.

As strange as the fact that if you say "naked woman pole-dancing" on broadcast television, you don't irk the censors, but if you have a video of a naked woman poledancing, you need to censor over the jiggly bits?

GTPlanet is broadcast TV (family-friendly broadcast TV), not late-night cable. Just stick to those sensibilities and we'll be all right. ;)


On a more serious note, how does arguing against the bible disprove the existence a higher being?

It doesn't, actually. But then, since most religious people here are Christian (English-speaking board full of Brits and Americans, that's the direction these things inevitably seem to go. Especially when people start bible-thumping.

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It's true I put no stock in the Judeo-Christian-Islamic "God." He's erratic, irrational, prone to fits of rage, changes stances on political and social issues from chapter to chapter and loves suffering.

But that doesn't mean that there isn't a God-the-Creator. The Prime Mover. Not (obviously) one who created the world in seven days and molded man whole from a lump of clay, but one who designed this Universe to make it suitable for life. Though, again, there are chances that the Universe is merely suitable for life due to sheer chance. Out of an infinite number of Universes, this one may be unique... but then, in an infinite number of infinites, the chances of having an infinite number of life-bearing Universes is... infinite. :lol:

But since we cannot know for certain what lies outside the Universe, where such a Prime Mover must reside, along with those infinite other Universes, and since we have no evidence that said Prime Mover intervenes with the daily affairs of men, worship of this hypothetical "God" would be kind of pointless except as a philosophical exercise.
 
I've said, and explained how wrong you are on that. But, I guess you will see what you want to see, and believe what you want to believe.

When you post purely on this one thread over a year alone...when there is so much more on this site then post what you did which is what a troll would do to incite a massive reaction to fuel their fire....then yeah you're going to get called out. You can argue it all you want but that is what a troll does. Sorry just saying. Also I'm not the only one that has said this so don't get worked up over me when religious and non religious people here seem to think you're acting in a way that isn't correct for a debate thread. However, since you said you'll act more appropriate I will drop it.
 
As strange as the fact that if you say "naked woman pole-dancing" on broadcast television, you don't irk the censors, but if you have a video of a naked woman poledancing, you need to censor over the jiggly bits?

GTPlanet is broadcast TV (family-friendly broadcast TV), not late-night cable. Just stick to those sensibilities and we'll be all right. ;)




It doesn't, actually. But then, since most religious people here are Christian (English-speaking board full of Brits and Americans, that's the direction these things inevitably seem to go. Especially when people start bible-thumping.

-----

It's true I put no stock in the Judeo-Christian-Islamic "God." He's erratic, irrational, prone to fits of rage, changes stances on political and social issues from chapter to chapter and loves suffering.

But that doesn't mean that there isn't a God-the-Creator. The Prime Mover. Not (obviously) one who created the world in seven days and molded man whole from a lump of clay, but one who designed this Universe to make it suitable for life. Though, again, there are chances that the Universe is merely suitable for life due to sheer chance. Out of an infinite number of Universes, this one may be unique... but then, in an infinite number of infinites, the chances of having an infinite number of life-bearing Universes is... infinite. :lol:

But since we cannot know for certain what lies outside the Universe, where such a Prime Mover must reside, along with those infinite other Universes, and since we have no evidence that said Prime Mover intervenes with the daily affairs of men, worship of this hypothetical "God" would be kind of pointless except as a philosophical exercise.

You sir are brilliant!
 
The only people worse than preachy religious people are preachy atheists. No difference, in reality, is there? :lol:

Me? Not bothered by the fact that I only have 70 or 80-odd years on this planet, taught morality by my parents, and am perfectly comfortable with the fact I will cease to exist and be eaten by worms or tossed out to sea in a fine dusty powder.

We live, things happen that are out of our control, and we die. I am not scared enough of this to need to cling to the notion of a higher being to explain everything.
 
This means nothing until we can determine exactly how life begins.

To all intents and purposes we know how life begins because we know what "ingredients" are needed for life.

You must stop focusing on odds, as they mean nothing in this situation.

And you have to realise that anywhere there is a probability of anything happening, odds exist. They are perfectly relevant to the discussion.

It is only opinion until we know how life begins. (We're talking about science)

You're right, we're talking about science. Odds are part of that science.

You keep responding, don't you? I wouldn't want to ignore you.

It's more the case that had any of what I've been saying got through to you in the first place then it wouldn't have needed to continue.

Let me make myself clear: We've been debating the existence of extraterrestrial life (which I'm sure has a thread of its own somewhere, but for reasons I now can't remember we're debating it here).

I'm saying:

  • We know what ingredients are required for life - not just human life, but basic life and even extremophile life
  • We know those ingredients exist on planets beyond our own
  • We know the science behind star and planet formation, which gives us a pretty good idea of numbers for a galactic census of sorts
  • Using those numbers we have a pretty good idea of the likelihood of life elsewhere, especially given that, thanks to our own existence, we already know that life is possible in the universe, and because the numbers are so unimaginably high, the odds of life elsewhere are essentially a certainty
  • ...and none of any of this has anything to do with God's existence, at least not any longer
 
  • We know what ingredients are required for life - not just human life, but basic life and even extremophile life
  • We know those ingredients exist on planets beyond our own
  • We know the science behind star and planet formation, which gives us a pretty good idea of numbers for a galactic census of sorts
  • Using those numbers we have a pretty good idea of the likelihood of life elsewhere, especially given that, thanks to our own existence, we already know that life is possible in the universe, and because the numbers are so unimaginably high, the odds of life elsewhere are essentially a certainty
  • ...and none of any of this has anything to do with God's existence, at least not any longer

I think the debate between you and Sam evolves around the bolded part. In any case, and recentering the debate on the issue of God's existence I will say that:

a) I agree with you in that, based on what we know scientifically, we can already estimate a possibility/probability (odds) on the existence of extraterrestrial life.

b) I agree with you that considering the known size of the universe the existence of ET life is almost a certainty.

c) For me, animals and vegetals and whatever else deemed to be a living organism ... in another planet ... is as relevant for my belief as the simple existence of other planets. No problem. A dog from Pluto bothers me as much as a dog from Earth. Can't really see the problem with that.

d) About "intelligent life" ... being a believer in God an a believer in the existence of a human soul ... I have no problem whatsoever to accept in non-Godlike spiritual entities beside humans.

e) In fact, and forgive me for going back to my own faith (because this thread is larger than that), Christianity does indeed comprehend other spiritual beings than just God (in its three dimensions for lack of a better word) and us humans.

f) So, really, whatever, I'm scientifically curious about ET life, and religiously curious if indeed we're - also spiritually - alone in this Universe, that I believe was created by God.

g) One curious historical fact about finding ET physical life and having to consider the possibility that they have "souls" (again, for lack of a better word). It already happened, when portuguese discoverers found South America. One of the first things needing assessment was if the natives there had souls (therefore were not animals or just a new kind of monkeys). It was, in the XVIth century, a very serious and scientific debate I am sure.
 
g) One curious historical fact about finding ET physical life and having to consider the possibility that they have "souls" (again, for lack of a better word). It already happened, when portuguese discoverers found South America. One of the first things needing assessment was if the natives there had souls (therefore were not animals or just a new kind of monkeys). It was, in the XVIth century, a very serious and scientific debate I am sure.

And that scenario I'm sure has caused problems in the past - and still today, in all likelihood. Not understanding another culture's spirituality beliefs can potentially lead someone to treat them as lesser beings.

In the same way that many atheists seem to pity religious folk for what they fail to understand or choose not to learn about science, and the same way religious folk pity atheists because their lack of faith means they're going to hell....
 
And that scenario I'm sure has caused problems in the past - and still today, in all likelihood. Not understanding another culture's spirituality beliefs can potentially lead someone to treat them as lesser beings.


Well, in all honesty in those days litle pity was granted to other culture's spirituality, christians and muslims had the nasty habit of killing each other quite happily (oh and btw, don't blame it all on the christians, I guess in northern europe people seem to think only in the crusades ... here in the south we were invaded so in the end, we fought for land. Politics, politics ...)

But this went deeper, it was not a question of meeting yet another religion. It was meeting a never-seen before kind of human. Indeed there was a debate about the humanity of these newly found "creatures". In religious termns, that also meant the debate of the existence of their souls. That was what I was talking about (lol, catchy phrase ;) )


In the same way that many atheists seem to pity religious folk for what they fail to understand or choose not to learn about science, and the same way religious folk pity atheists because their lack of faith means they're going to hell....

I don't think atheists go to hell, but let's not debate that here :lol:
 
@Homeforsummer

You dismissed the bit where I told you why you were wrong (And you even asked). Also, so as not to drag this on to much farther, are we talking about factual odds? In other words, real odds? Anyway, read what I already quoted by me below.

As far as we know, we are alone in this universe. We do not fully understand (Although we believe we are close) how exactly how life begins on any given planet. And, because this is science, we could be missing anything from some nice soft dirt, to something much less likely and much more complex. Or, for all we know, we may have something wrong to begin with. We just don't know yet.

That being said, we cannot place a number on whether or not there is other life out there until we completely understand how we got here to begin with. Right now, numbers & odds mean nothing.

Explain to me why this is wrong. Keep in mind that if science "almost" knows something, it does not count because, well, it's science. Also, I agree that odds can exist in regards to anything, but they must be your opinion assuming you can't factor in all major contributors.
 
Explain to me why this is wrong. Keep in mind that if science "almost" knows something, it does not count because, well, it's science. Also, I agree that odds can exist in regards to anything, but they must be your opinion assuming you can't factor in all major contributors.

Lucky for us, "science" isn't in charge of creating life, eh?

Science is observation. We don't have to know the precise nature of the graviton, whether or not it exists, to know that gravity works and describe how it works. We merely need to observe it happening to describe it.

In fact, we can describe the processes whereby organic precursors form, whereby lipids form membranes, the precursors of cells, and whereby RNA stands start to combine and replicate more fully than we can explain gravity.

We don't "almost" know how life forms. We know exactly, in a detailed manner, how some steps go. We're simply missing details about some other steps. That's a big difference from being "almost" right... Because there will Benoit forthcoming data showing us those parts we do know are impossible, because we have replicated them ourselves.

We don't know enough to assign a precise number to the probability of life elsewhere, but we know enough to say that the probability is far, far greater than zero.
 
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Explain to me why this is wrong. Keep in mind that if science "almost" knows something, it does not count because, well, it's science. Also, I agree that odds can exist in regards to anything, but they must be your opinion assuming you can't factor in all major contributors.

It's wrong because science already has the evidence for life based on 1) the conditions on which life thrives, and 2) the ingredients needed for life to exist.

Since we know both of those things (again, with ourselves and other creatures on Earth as evidence), we know that life is possible on any planet that offers those things. And that's where the odds come in, because there are literally billions upon billions of planets offering those conditions. It's incredibly naïve to assume otherwise.

Also, you misunderstand the nature of science. If science "almost" knows something, then it's scientific theory - which is still science.

And my opinions can be separated from odds. It's my opinion that life exists elsewhere. Even if I didn't think life existed elsewhere, the odds would be vastly stacked against me.
 

We don't know enough to assign a precise number to the probability of life elsewhere, but we know enough to say that the probability is far, far greater than zero.

Here's why I would say any number at all, let alone a precise one. We are missing one big slab of the puzzle, and that is, we don't know how life begins (And I must remind you that this is science, so it's extremely susceptible to change). If you don't know how life starts, you can't say how likely, or unlikely, other life in the universe is. You may think other planets are suitable, but because we don't know for certain, we can't say.


It's wrong because science already has the evidence for life based on 1) the conditions on which life thrives, and 2) the ingredients needed for life to exist.

Science is not definite. It's science, so it changes. It doesn't mean it's right. It's what we currently know to be true. And until we know exactly how life begins, (As in create artificial life on earth) we can't be placing "accurate" numbers.
 
Science is not definite. It's science, so it changes. It doesn't mean it's right. It's what we currently know to be true. And until we know exactly how life begins, (As in create artificial life on earth) we can't be placing "accurate" numbers.

Again, that's the beauty of odds. The numbers don't necessarily need to be accurate, they just need to point to a likelihood one way or another.

There's a huge difference between, say, a 1% chance of something happening and a 100% chance of something happening - but both figures accurately reflect a chance that something will happen.

The distinction here is that you could also suggest a 99% chance that something won't happen and a 100% chance that something won't happen. The former is still a chance that something will happen, and the latter a certainty that it won't.

As it is, ET is firmly in the former camp, which makes it a statistical likelihood purely because of the huge numbers involved - such as the one I mentioned a few posts ago, in which even a trillionth of a percent of there being life elsewhere would still point to 100 million planets on which life could exist. Those sort of numbers are statistically significant.

And yes, science changes, but once again - humankind, and every other species on earth, is measurable evidence that life works in certain ways, and since rules are generally accepted to remain as they are throughout the universe, there's currently no strong evidence to suggest things should be any different.

I really can't see what you're batting at here - you're arguing against accepted scientific methods and statistical likelihoods, and I'm sure you've even said yourself somewhere a while back that you think that ET life could exist - so where are we going with this?

Incidentally, I just popped back 7 pages to try and discover where this discussion actually started, and I think it was around about this comment:

So you basically believe there is an intelligent designer of some sort. I think that would be my view at the very lowest point. This is simply because I just could not come to grips with believing that every single part of our universe, be it the galaxies, the stars, the planets, and life itself, just happened to come about by chance.

...and I think this might be a better place for continuing the discussion as it seems rather closer to the topic at hand!

I can understand that it's difficult to believe how the universe started in the way it did and that the concept of a higher, god-like power provides a nice, easy answer to how everything got going, but thinking that everything happened "by chance" is too simplistic a way of looking at it, IMO.
 
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Again, that's the beauty of odds. The numbers don't necessarily need to be accurate, they just need to point to a likelihood one way or another.

There's a huge difference between, say, a 1% chance of something happening and a 100% chance of something happening - but both figures accurately reflect a chance that something will happen.

The distinction here is that you could also suggest a 99% chance that something won't happen and a 100% chance that something won't happen. The former is still a chance that something will happen, and the latter a certainty that it won't.

As it is, ET is firmly in the former camp, which makes it a statistical likelihood purely because of the huge numbers involved - such as the one I mentioned a few posts ago, in which even a trillionth of a percent of there being life elsewhere would still point to 100 million planets on which life could exist. Those sort of numbers are statistically significant.

You really must stop focusing on the numbers as that is what I'm showing is false here. Any number, claiming it is accurate, placed on whether or not there is life out there is currently opinion (or is based only off of what we currently know). Like you said, they aren't accurate.

Here's a run-down. You can only place an accurate number on what we believe to be true. In this case, we know a lot to be true in terms of ET forms of life. However, we are still missing some key factors. Therefore, you can place a number on whether or not there is ET life, but it won't necessarily be accurate.

Would you agree with that?

..and I think this might be a better place for continuing the discussion as it seems rather closer to the topic at hand!

I can understand that it's difficult to believe how the universe started in the way it did and that the concept of a higher, god-like power provides a nice, easy answer to how everything got going, but thinking that everything happened "by chance" is too simplistic a way of looking at it, IMO.

So what's your take on it? because I don't believe it happened by chance.
 
Would you agree with that?

Not necessarily, because as I've already stated, accurate odds don't necessarily need to be calculated. Whether the odds are massively likely or only slightly likely, it's the likelihood that's important.

And the likelihood is that life exists elsewhere. It doesn't matter whether there's a one in hundreds of quantillions chance or a one in two chance.

So what's your take on it? because I don't believe it happened by chance.

Nor do I, but I don't believe a higher power was responsible either. On a subatomic level particles are incredibly volatile - this volatility could easily have been responsible for the big bang, and everything since is just a matter of elements being formed inside the intense heat of starts. It's reckoned that the only two elements in the early universe were hydrogen and helium. Since stars are largely hydrogen that's the stars' fuel taken care of, and other elements are created under the nuclear reactions at the heart of stars.

I don't want to make it sound ridiculously simple because it isn't, but that's essentially what scientists believe happened.
 
Nor do I, but I don't believe a higher power was responsible either. On a subatomic level particles are incredibly volatile - this volatility could easily have been responsible for the big bang..

But where do you think those subatomic particles came from? You don't really need an answer, but, technically speaking, this question repeats itself to infinity, as I stated earlier.
 
You could also say, do those subatomic particles had to have come from somewhere?

Which brings one right back to the question: "Why is there something rather than nothing?"

"But, can there be "nothing"? I just Googled "can there be nothing" and found interesting material.
 
There's a lot of things that could push yes and no either way. On ten NO side, you have science, but on the YES side you things yet to be proven by science still.
 
Which brings one right back to the question: "Why is there something rather than nothing?"

"But, can there be "nothing"? I just Googled "can there be nothing" and found interesting material.

MRI scan of George Bush's brain?
 
There's a lot of things that could push yes and no either way. On ten NO side, you have science, but on the YES side you things yet to be proven by science still.
Just because there are things yet to be proven by science doesn't mean there must be a higher power causing them. All it means is we don't understand yet, but chances are we will eventually, and when we do understand, it probably won't have anything to do with a god.
 
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