Do you believe in God and why

[thaibeachlovers]

1 minute ago, canthai55 said:

My desires ? This is a Forum discussion.

Do you not feel that replying with a load of 555 and hilites is belittling and scoffing at people ?

Speaking as one that has been personally attacked multiple times on this forum, I find your outrage at a few 5555s somewhat OTT.

As  I said before, feel free to put me on ignore if I'm being too boisterous for your sensibilities.

 

Have a nice day.

[mauGR1]

7 minutes ago, VincentRJ said:

I recall stating many pages ago in this thread, that God exists as a construct of the human mind. If one expands upon this concept, it seems undeniable to me that everything, without exception, that humans can think about, perceive, talk about and express in any way, are constructs of the human mind.

When we mention the 'Laws of Physics', there is usually an assumption that such 'laws' are embedded in the external reality of the universe, and that we humans, through the scientific process, have discovered such laws, which exist independent of us. However, the concept of a 'law', whether in the legal context or the scientific context, is still a 'construct of the human mind', and as we know from the history of scientific enquiry, science is never settled and every 'so-called law' is subject to change or modification.

 

The unique characteristic of humans, amongst the animal kingdom, is our greater capacity for language and abstract thought. Mathematics is an example of this abstract thought, which has been essential for all scientific and economic progress.
It is difficult to deny that 1+1=2, in abstract mode, or in terms of the practical reality that most humans experience, attributing simple words to objects that appear to be the same but in reality are different.

 

For example, (one human being) + (one human being) = 2 human beings. However, we know that every human being is different to some degree. Even 'so-called identical twins' are not really identical. In fact there are no two objects that are completely identical. They are just 'similar' to varying degrees.

 

Common language uses a very rough and approximate degree of similarity when applying the same name to objects which, in reality, are different. Science has to be much more precise, hence the huge number of scientific words or terms in the many disciplines of science.
One might think that at a fundamental level, such as the atom, there are identical objects. For example, the nucleus of an atom contains neutrons and protons bonded tightly together. However, the same chemical element can have a different number of neutrons, but still have the same name, as in 'Carbon'; but science digs deeper and finds there are about 15 different isotopes of Carbon with a different number of neutrons, although the most common variants are Carbon 12, 13 and 14.

 

One might ask, are two Carbon 12 atoms identical? The answer is 'No'. The electrons, protons and neutrons in the nucleus of any atom are in various states of excitement, and the nucleus as a whole can rotate and vibrate at various speeds.

 

In other words, there are no two objects in the world that are truly and completely identical. Mathematics is a an abstract, human construct, which is extremely useful, but still a human construct.

 

Hope my post is not too profound for you all.  ????
 

Nice post, but a bit too long.

Well, the fact that every drop of water, every grain of sand, and even every atom is different and unique,  is not a proof of the non-existence of God and not a proof of his existence. 

To say that everything is a product of the human mind is at best a partial truth.

 

It's still my opinion that the laws of mathematics exist with or without humans.

[thaibeachlovers]

13 minutes ago, Fat is a type of crazy said:

So what should the benchmark be. A sunset makes you feel good and therefore god exists.

Faith is personal, so the benchmark is whatever one wants it to be. I don't have a Bible for my faith that  tells me what to believe or do.

 

Anyway, God exists whether or not a sunset happens, though God created them. The relevance of sunsets in my life are that when I see a spectacular one I am grateful to God for creating such an amazing spectacle for me to experience. Same goes for a starry, starry night when I can see the true glory of God's creation above, and think of all the billions of other suns and planets and life forms on them. Creation is truly amazing.

[VincentRJ]

56 minutes ago, mauGR1 said:

Nice post, but a bit too long.

Well, the fact that every drop of water, every grain of sand, and even every atom is different and unique,  is not a proof of the non-existence of God and not a proof of his existence. 

To say that everything is a product of the human mind is at best a partial truth.

 

It's still my opinion that the laws of mathematics exist with or without humans.

 

I've already stated that God exists, as a construct of the human mind, and that everything we can imagine and discuss, including all opinions and scientific theories, are constructs of the human mind.

 

The important issue is, which constructs are helpful to assist human survival, progress, well-being, and prosperity. The scientific methodology of repeated testing to find consistent results, is the foundation of our modern, developed societies. There's no way I would choose to live my life hundreds or thousands of years ago, if such a choice were possible.

 

Belief without scientific verification is like believing in the truth of a scientific hypothesis before it has been confirmed or debunked. Considering the possibility that there might be some sort of supreme, intelligent power that created the universe, is reasonable. Believing in it, without scientific verification, can be either a weakness because of the need for a placebo effect, or a disaster as a result of conflicts to promote one's unsubstantiated beliefs.
 

[mauGR1]

6 minutes ago, VincentRJ said:

 

I've already stated that God exists, as a construct of the human mind, and that everything we can imagine and discuss, including all opinions and scientific theories, are constructs of the human mind.

 

The important issue is, which constructs are helpful to assist human survival, progress, well-being, and prosperity. The scientific methodology of repeated testing to find consistent results, is the foundation of our modern, developed societies. There's no way I would choose to live my life hundreds or thousands of years ago, if such a choice were possible.

 

Belief without scientific verification is like believing in the truth of a scientific hypothesis before it has been confirmed or debunked. Considering the possibility that there might be some sort of supreme, intelligent power that created the universe, is reasonable. Believing in it, without scientific verification, can be either a weakness because of the need for a placebo effect, or a disaster as a result of conflicts to promote one's unsubstantiated beliefs.
 

What you say makes a lot of sense from a purely materialistic point of view. 

My point of view, however, is that everything we can see, hear and touch is condensed thought,  which couldn't be possible without a supreme being thinking. 

Clocks, airplanes and computers are products of human creative thoughts,  in the same way, my logic is telling me that us humans are the product of creative thoughts. 

If we compare humans to the most evolved animals on this planet, one could say that it's our consciousness,  more than our better brains, that makes us the dominant species, try taking away consciousness from a human being,  and what you have is just a more evolved animal, yet unable to develop further. 

 

 

[thaibeachlovers]

1 hour ago, VincentRJ said:

Believing in it, without scientific verification, can be either a weakness because of the need for a placebo effect, or a disaster as a result of conflicts to promote one's unsubstantiated beliefs.

OR, it could be a result of some event eg a road to Damascus moment, in which one knows that God exists. If one has never experienced such one may be skeptical of such, but that's a personal problem and no matter how much one carries on about "scientific verification" it's not going to make an iota of difference to those that have had their moment.

It must be annoying to those vested in the capabilities of primitive human science that some have a certain belief that can't be proven ( or dis proven ) yet are as certain of their belief as others are that the earth turns.

Given that science isn't fixed, and that God is certainly ( at this point in time ) unknowable by humans, I guess the believers will carry on believing and the unbelievers will carry on with "but, what about science", till we find out for ourselves on the next great adventure.

[thaibeachlovers]

2 hours ago, VincentRJ said:

The important issue is, which constructs are helpful to assist human survival, progress, well-being, and prosperity. The scientific methodology of repeated testing to find consistent results, is the foundation of our modern, developed societies.

Pity then that the great efforts of human science are used to find better ways to kill each other, and to make a few more wealthy than the majority.

All we are doing is destroying everything in a rush of greed.

 

While one may dismiss religion as a human construct that is misused by certain people, the fundamental message of the major religions, if adhered to would actually lead to a better world for all. One just has to peel away all the dross of religious teaching to reach the kernel of truth that does lead to a better life.

It is true, is it not, that love of money ( greed ) and gluttony, to mention just 2 sins, are bad for us?

How much better would the world be if we stopped spending money on killing each other and worked together to find a better path?

Edited June 20, 2021 by thaibeachlovers

[Fat is a type of crazy]

3 hours ago, VincentRJ said:

I recall stating many pages ago in this thread, that God exists as a construct of the human mind. If one expands upon this concept, it seems undeniable to me that everything, without exception, that humans can think about, perceive, talk about and express in any way, are constructs of the human mind.

When we mention the 'Laws of Physics', there is usually an assumption that such 'laws' are embedded in the external reality of the universe, and that we humans, through the scientific process, have discovered such laws, which exist independent of us. However, the concept of a 'law', whether in the legal context or the scientific context, is still a 'construct of the human mind', and as we know from the history of scientific enquiry, science is never settled and every 'so-called law' is subject to change or modification.

 

The unique characteristic of humans, amongst the animal kingdom, is our greater capacity for language and abstract thought. Mathematics is an example of this abstract thought, which has been essential for all scientific and economic progress.
It is difficult to deny that 1+1=2, in abstract mode, or in terms of the practical reality that most humans experience, attributing simple words to objects that appear to be the same but in reality are different.

 

For example, (one human being) + (one human being) = 2 human beings. However, we know that every human being is different to some degree. Even 'so-called identical twins' are not really identical. In fact there are no two objects that are completely identical. They are just 'similar' to varying degrees.

 

Common language uses a very rough and approximate degree of similarity when applying the same name to objects which, in reality, are different. Science has to be much more precise, hence the huge number of scientific words or terms in the many disciplines of science.
One might think that at a fundamental level, such as the atom, there are identical objects. For example, the nucleus of an atom contains neutrons and protons bonded tightly together. However, the same chemical element can have a different number of neutrons, but still have the same name, as in 'Carbon'; but science digs deeper and finds there are about 15 different isotopes of Carbon with a different number of neutrons, although the most common variants are Carbon 12, 13 and 14.

 

One might ask, are two Carbon 12 atoms identical? The answer is 'No'. The electrons, protons and neutrons in the nucleus of any atom are in various states of excitement, and the nucleus as a whole can rotate and vibrate at various speeds.

 

In other words, there are no two objects in the world that are truly and completely identical. Mathematics is a an abstract, human construct, which is extremely useful, but still a human construct.

 

Hope my post is not too profound for you all.  ????
 

You have noted science is a best fit by humans. Also that 2 atoms, objects, people etc, are categorised by certain characteristics, that link them though they are not exactly the same.  I get your point but I am not sure what you think the implication of this is as it relates to god.

Maybe it is the old elephant example where different religions come to the elephant from a different angle and interpret it in different ways - leg, trunk, etc. A human construct. That assumes there is an elephant in the room at all and they are not touching a part of themselves that they have lost touch with and thinking it is god.  

[canthai55]

“The religious man will constantly look for the proof of Heaven and Hell; while the atheist man will constantly look to disprove Heaven and Hell. And they go on like that, locked-head in battle, both battling for beliefs that really cannot be proven. Neither the existence nor the non-existence of Heaven and Hell can be proven. And soon they will all be dead. And nobody will know where they go to, except they themselves who die. And so the battle continues, as it always has. And why should I join either side? If there is a God Almighty, I should imagine Him not needing human beings made out of carbon to believe in Him. What use to God would our species be? If He loves us, then He will love us because He chooses to love us. Never because He needs us to believe in Him. It wouldn't make any difference whatsoever, to an Almighty God, if carbon species breathing oxygen believed in Him or not. If He wanted to love the species then He just would. Regardless of their own persuasions. And if there is not an Almighty God, then it would not matter if I joined such a battle, either. Either way, why would I join such a cursed downward spiral? The truth that we do know for sure, is that it is our responsibility and it is in our best interest, to live our lives in such a way that creates Heaven on Earth and puts Hell on Earth far away.”
― C. JoyBell C.

[mauGR1]

Btw, I'm almost sure this isn't yet been said in this long thread...

Apparently all of the cells which compose our physical body, including the brain, have a short life, and die, to be replaced by new cells. 

It takes about 7 years for all cells to be completely replaced, that way, every 7 years or so, we are physically another being.

Yet, the memory of our past and our consciousness are not affected by that complete physical change.

This is a serious clue,  imho, that consciousness is not originated by the brain, but exists regardless of our physical existence. 

[canthai55]

3 minutes ago, mauGR1 said:

This is a serious clue,  imho, that consciousness is not originated by the brain, but exists regardless of our physical existence. 

We are a part of a greater consciousness ?

Buddhism has taught this very thing.

[mauGR1]

3 minutes ago, canthai55 said:

We are a part of a greater consciousness ?

Buddhism has taught this very thing.

That's what I think, if Buddha really said that i don't know, but it's surely possible. 

Actually i think that wise men came to the same conclusion long before Buddha appeared on this planet

[Fat is a type of crazy]

27 minutes ago, mauGR1 said:

Btw, I'm almost sure this isn't yet been said in this long thread...

Apparently all of the cells which compose our physical body, including the brain, have a short life, and die, to be replaced by new cells. 

It takes about 7 years for all cells to be completely replaced, that way, every 7 years or so, we are physically another being.

Yet, the memory of our past and our consciousness are not affected by that complete physical change.

This is a serious clue,  imho, that consciousness is not originated by the brain, but exists regardless of our physical existence. 

Human organs are similarly replicated. No need to rely on some non physical presence to accept how organs keep functioning over the years so same for memories I think.  You have taken an amazing fact of physical humanity and felt the need to attribute it to a non physical presence.

[VincentRJ]

2 hours ago, mauGR1 said:

What you say makes a lot of sense from a purely materialistic point of view. 

 

 

Science does not only address materialist issues. Matter has weight and mass. The signals that transfer what I'm writing, from my computer to your computer or iPhone, are not matter, although they interact with matter.

 

Radio waves, gamma-rays, visible light, and all the other parts of the electromagnetic spectrum are electromagnetic radiation. Electromagnetic radiation can be described in terms of a stream of mass-less particles, called photons, each traveling in a wave-like pattern at the speed of light.
A massless particle cannot correctly be described as materialistic. Radio waves are even more invisible and undetectable than the 'claimed' spiritual messages received by Yogis and Buddhist monks during their deep meditation. ????

 

I've never come across any story of a Yogi or Buddhist monk being able to listen to radio programs without a radio. Some of these people claim to be able to interpret non-material spiritual signals from some sort of God, yet cannot detect the very common and widespread non-material radio signals that consist of massless photons which pass straight through their head. ????

 

"If we compare humans to the most evolved animals on this planet, one could say that it's our consciousness,  more than our better brains, that makes us the dominant species, try taking away consciousness from a human being,  and what you have is just a more evolved animal, yet unable to develop further. "

 

What a strange comment. Taking consciousness away from human beings is a common medical practice which is necessary during surgery, through the use of drugs. It's usually temporary. When it's permanent, the person or animal remain in a coma until they die.

 

One can remove consciousness without removing the brain, but one cannot remove the brain without removing consciousness. The brain is the first requirement for consciousness. Isn't that obvious? ????

[mauGR1]

4 minutes ago, VincentRJ said:

One can remove consciousness without removing the brain, but one cannot remove the brain without removing consciousness. The brain is the first requirement for consciousness. Isn't that obvious? ????

Well, it's perhaps obvious if we talk about your brain and your consciousness,  but I'm reasonably sure that consciousness existed before me, and will exist after me.

[mauGR1]

15 minutes ago, Fat is a type of crazy said:

Human organs are similarly replicated. No need to rely on some non physical presence to accept how organs keep functioning over the years so same for memories I think.  You have taken an amazing fact of physical humanity and felt the need to attribute it to a non physical presence.

It seems to me that you felt the need to tell me that I felt the need to...????

Well, if you feel the need to think that everything is physical,  and matter creates thoughts, i  can live with that.

[VincentRJ]

1 hour ago, mauGR1 said:

Btw, I'm almost sure this isn't yet been said in this long thread...

Apparently all of the cells which compose our physical body, including the brain, have a short life, and die, to be replaced by new cells. 

It takes about 7 years for all cells to be completely replaced, that way, every 7 years or so, we are physically another being.

Yet, the memory of our past and our consciousness are not affected by that complete physical change.

This is a serious clue,  imho, that consciousness is not originated by the brain, but exists regardless of our physical existence. 

 

This is obviously not true that the memory of our past and our consciousness are not affected by that physical change due to cell replacement. Our memory and consciousness is definitely affected as we age, as well as our physical characteristics. There's still a lot of uncertainty about the replacement of neurons in the brain because of the very complex structure of neurons with their multiple synapses, which are required to store our memories, produce thinking, and are essential for our beliefs, values, expectations, goals and habits.

 

In other words, a memory is not stored in a single neuronal cell, but a complex web of connected cells. The following article addresses the issue. However, I've read research that suggests additional neurons can be created during a period of significant fasting, but that's not necessarily a replacement of an existing neuron. There is also the concept of neural plasticity, which is the ability of neural networks in the brain to change through growth and reorganization. 

 

"Red blood cells live for about four months, while white blood cells live on average more than a year. Skin cells live about two or three weeks. Colon cells have it rough: They die off after about four days. Sperm cells have a life span of only about three days, while brain cells typically last an entire lifetime (neurons in the cerebral cortex, for example, are not replaced when they die)."

 

https://www.livescience.com/33179-does-human-body-replace-cells-seven-years.html

[VincentRJ]

3 hours ago, Fat is a type of crazy said:

 I get your point but I am not sure what you think the implication of this is as it relates to god.

 

I think the implication is that our survival, well-being, prosperity and progressive understanding in science and technology, depends upon the precise definition of the terms we use, (except for entertainment of course.  ???? )

 

The problem with the 'God' issue, is that there is no precise definition, therefore there is no possibility of science ever proving or disproving its existence. If you define God as simply 'everything', then of course God exists, because everything that exists must exist, by definition.

[mauGR1]

1 hour ago, VincentRJ said:

There's still a lot of uncertainty about

Thanks for the interesting post, i ll try to read the article, but the study about the lifespan of different cells and their relation with each other is surely a very interesting subject indeed. 

As you said, your intellectual honesty is appreciated,  there's still a lot of uncertainty,  even in the definition of the word " consciousness ".

[OmegaRacer]

Found this on Quora and found it relevant to the discussion:

 

What are the logical / scientific reasons to believe in the existence of God?

 

There are a few logical reasons, some with scientific bases, to believe in the existence of God. Here are some of them:

 

1.    The fine tuning of the universe to our existence. This is what convinced Anthony Flew, perhaps the leading atheist thinker of the second half of the 20th century, to decide that he was wrong and God exists. The argument is that somewhere between six and a dozen constants of nature are so finely tuned for our existence that random processes cannot account for it. (We are talking about probabilities of one divided by ten to a power of hundreds or even thousands of digits.) The counter argument is the infinite multiverse with an infinite number of local bubbles. If you get an infinite number of shots at even the lowest probability event, the event will happen an infinite number of times. The evidence for a multiverse is very thin, but not zero.

 

2.    Human consciousness. Truth is we don’t have a clue as to what human consciousness is. The mechanical electro-chemical explanations are not very convincing. How does a chemical moving across a synapse in some kind of energy exchange create a thought? If I hold two wires connected to a battery near one another and get a spark between them, did I just create a “thought?” Doesn’t feel like I did. Maybe human consciousness is on a higher level than science. The counterargument is that thought is just the whirring of the brain’s machinery and has no reality independent of the whirring. One of the most prominent atheists or our times, Daniel Dennett - a member of the so called Four Horseman of New Atheism, was so troubled by the problem of human consciousness that he insisted that it does not actually exist and that thinking is just an illusion. What do you think about Dennett’s counterargument? Oh wait, if he is right you don’t think at all.

 

3.    The mathematical structure of the universe and our ability to understand it. The equations that govern everything in the universe can be written in longhand on two 8 1/2 x 11 inch pieces of paper. Why is the universe so ordered and mathematical? There is no fundamental reason for this. It could just as easily be chaotic at a profound level if there is no purpose to the order. Princeton professor Eugene Wigner ranks among the important physicists of the twentieth century, winning the Nobel prize in 1963. He wrote a frequently noted 1960 article on “The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences.” Speaking bluntly and candidly, Wigner acknowledged that the mathematical foundations of the natural world are a true “miracle” that lies outside any scientific understanding itself. Indeed, as he further explained, it seemed to him that there are actually “two miracles,” first the very “existence of [mathematical] laws of nature” and a second miracle “of the human mind’s capacity to divine them.” Wigner thus considered as implausible any suggestion that the electrical and chemical workings of the physical brains of human beings could have created the complex abstractions—themselves lacking any physical reality—of higher mathematics of the kind routinely used by physicists. Why is the human mind that evolved to be good at calculating the trajectory of spears being thrown at mammoths able to grasp everything from the Planck length (the incredibly smallest possible sub-atomic distance in physics) to our Big Bang-produced universe that is probably 156 billion light years across (including the bigger region beyond the light horizon)? Jesus said to love God not only with our hearts but with our minds. Maybe God is a mathematician and our ability to understand his math is what “in his image means.” The counterargument is we were just lucky that the universe randomly turned out to be mathematically ordered because if it hadn’t we wouldn’t be here to contemplate it and our ability to understand it is the result of a long series of random beneficial DNA mutations that while not helping us to down mammoths, didn’t hurt our ability to do so.

 

4.    Human conscience. The argument is that human beings in every culture throughout history have felt the desire to behave well and do the right thing toward other human beings. Cruelty and wanton self-interest are viewed as aberrations, even being deemed a mental illness (sociopathic behavior). Most cultures, no matter how separated in time and space from ancient Judaism, have moral codes that overlap significantly with the Ten Commandments. Why are all human beings drawn to similar standards of good behavior? The famous mathematician, Blaise Pascal, first referred to this concept as an abyss in the heart that can only be filled with God. (Modern writers have rephrased this to be the “God shaped hole in our hearts.”) The counterargument is that human conscience evolved because benevolent societies had a reproduction and survival advantage over more self-centered societies.

Atheists holding to the current views of the state of physics believe that all of observable reality is the result of an initial random fluctuation in the pre-Big Bang vacuum energy that led to a multiverse that spawned our local Big Bang in a process that randomly determined the constants of nature in the resulting local bubble which along with early random quantum particle fluctuations necessary to seed star formation in the early plasma after the Big Bang led to a chaotic process of particle collisions cascading through billions of years that created everything we are and see. As Rupert Sheldrake famously said in his book the Science Delusion, “Give us one free miracle and we will explain the rest.”

Believers hold the view that God had a purpose in creating the universe and us, however it was he went about it including possibly every law, constant, and event in the current views of physics and biology, and we should learn that purpose to the best of our abilities.

Both positions are positions of faith. You can’t prove either one is right. Two different people, both rational and well-meaning, can look at the arguments and counterarguments above and come to different conclusions.

 

Longing seems to permeate the debate. Longing colors everyone’s perceptions of the evidence. Atheists long for the intellectual and moral freedom that they interpret a universe with no creator gives them. Then they try to bravely accept the attendant purposelessness that would characterize human life. Believers long for a universe in which our lives count for something.

So it boils down to this: what do you long for?
(Answer by David Seuss)

[VincentRJ]

7 hours ago, thaibeachlovers said:

Pity then that the great efforts of human science are used to find better ways to kill each other, and to make a few more wealthy than the majority.

All we are doing is destroying everything in a rush of greed.

 

While one may dismiss religion as a human construct that is misused by certain people, the fundamental message of the major religions, if adhered to would actually lead to a better world for all. One just has to peel away all the dross of religious teaching to reach the kernel of truth that does lead to a better life.

It is true, is it not, that love of money ( greed ) and gluttony, to mention just 2 sins, are bad for us?

How much better would the world be if we stopped spending money on killing each other and worked together to find a better path?

 

Good point. The amount of money or resources, world-wide, which are spent on maintaining armies, fighting wars, rebuilding destroyed cities, medically treating the injured, taking care of the displaced who have lost their homes and jobs as a result of the conflicts, and so on, is absolutely enormous.

 

If such resources were instead directed at lifting people out of poverty and providing good education, the world would be a much better place.
However, if you look at the broad picture of human development since the beginning of 'so-called' civilization, it should become apparent that wars, various types of conflicts, and frequent burglary and murder, have been very common occurrences. 
We haven't yet solved the problem, but we're gradually making progress, despite the fact that certain areas like Afghanistan and Syria are in a total mess.

 

China is often criticized for clamping down on dissidents and jailing them, as in Hong Kong, or forcefully re-educating people with different cultures, such as the Uighurs. But despite claims of unfair treatment, forced labour, and even torture, I suspect that what occurred in previous civilizations, such as the ancient Roman Empire, was much worse.

 

Killing people by nailing them on a cross, causing them to slowly die in agony, was a common occurrence. Slave owners in the Roman Empire would often punish disobedient slaves by nailing them to a cross, and the entertainment in Roman amphitheatres consisted of actual, real killings in gladiator contests. Not even China would approve of that, so we've made some progress. ????

 

And hundreds of years after the collapse of the Roman Empire we were burning dissidents alive on a stake, which I imagine would be even more agonizing than being nailed to a cross.

[Elad]

13 hours ago, VincentRJ said:

One might ask, are two Carbon 12 atoms identical? The answer is 'No'. The electrons, protons and neutrons in the nucleus of any atom are in various states of excitement, and the nucleus as a whole can rotate and vibrate at various speeds.

 

In other words, there are no two objects in the world that are truly and completely identical. Mathematics is a an abstract, human construct, which is extremely useful, but still a human construct.

All electrons in the universe are identical, they carry the same amount of rest mass and electric charge. The way we interpret their properties by using numbers and units is a human construct, but the fact that all electrons are identical is not, its just how the universe is and science or mathematics wont change that. The fundamental forces we know of such as gravity and electromagnetism do have certain values or strengths that were embedded from the beginning time. We know that gravity is much, much weaker than the electromagnetic force and the ratio reveals that the electromagnetic force is around 2000 times stronger. It doesn't matter who, what or how these ratios are measured, whether its an alien from another galaxy or even God himself (if he exists) they will always find the same ratio and find that gravity is the weaker force of the two.    

[Fat is a type of crazy]

10 hours ago, OmegaRacer said:

Found this on Quora and found it relevant to the discussion:

 

What are the logical / scientific reasons to believe in the existence of God?

 

There are a few logical reasons, some with scientific bases, to believe in the existence of God. Here are some of them:

 

1.    The fine tuning of the universe to our existence. This is what convinced Anthony Flew, perhaps the leading atheist thinker of the second half of the 20th century, to decide that he was wrong and God exists. The argument is that somewhere between six and a dozen constants of nature are so finely tuned for our existence that random processes cannot account for it. (We are talking about probabilities of one divided by ten to a power of hundreds or even thousands of digits.) The counter argument is the infinite multiverse with an infinite number of local bubbles. If you get an infinite number of shots at even the lowest probability event, the event will happen an infinite number of times. The evidence for a multiverse is very thin, but not zero.

 

2.    Human consciousness. Truth is we don’t have a clue as to what human consciousness is. The mechanical electro-chemical explanations are not very convincing. How does a chemical moving across a synapse in some kind of energy exchange create a thought? If I hold two wires connected to a battery near one another and get a spark between them, did I just create a “thought?” Doesn’t feel like I did. Maybe human consciousness is on a higher level than science. The counterargument is that thought is just the whirring of the brain’s machinery and has no reality independent of the whirring. One of the most prominent atheists or our times, Daniel Dennett - a member of the so called Four Horseman of New Atheism, was so troubled by the problem of human consciousness that he insisted that it does not actually exist and that thinking is just an illusion. What do you think about Dennett’s counterargument? Oh wait, if he is right you don’t think at all.

 

3.    The mathematical structure of the universe and our ability to understand it. The equations that govern everything in the universe can be written in longhand on two 8 1/2 x 11 inch pieces of paper. Why is the universe so ordered and mathematical? There is no fundamental reason for this. It could just as easily be chaotic at a profound level if there is no purpose to the order. Princeton professor Eugene Wigner ranks among the important physicists of the twentieth century, winning the Nobel prize in 1963. He wrote a frequently noted 1960 article on “The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences.” Speaking bluntly and candidly, Wigner acknowledged that the mathematical foundations of the natural world are a true “miracle” that lies outside any scientific understanding itself. Indeed, as he further explained, it seemed to him that there are actually “two miracles,” first the very “existence of [mathematical] laws of nature” and a second miracle “of the human mind’s capacity to divine them.” Wigner thus considered as implausible any suggestion that the electrical and chemical workings of the physical brains of human beings could have created the complex abstractions—themselves lacking any physical reality—of higher mathematics of the kind routinely used by physicists. Why is the human mind that evolved to be good at calculating the trajectory of spears being thrown at mammoths able to grasp everything from the Planck length (the incredibly smallest possible sub-atomic distance in physics) to our Big Bang-produced universe that is probably 156 billion light years across (including the bigger region beyond the light horizon)? Jesus said to love God not only with our hearts but with our minds. Maybe God is a mathematician and our ability to understand his math is what “in his image means.” The counterargument is we were just lucky that the universe randomly turned out to be mathematically ordered because if it hadn’t we wouldn’t be here to contemplate it and our ability to understand it is the result of a long series of random beneficial DNA mutations that while not helping us to down mammoths, didn’t hurt our ability to do so.

 

4.    Human conscience. The argument is that human beings in every culture throughout history have felt the desire to behave well and do the right thing toward other human beings. Cruelty and wanton self-interest are viewed as aberrations, even being deemed a mental illness (sociopathic behavior). Most cultures, no matter how separated in time and space from ancient Judaism, have moral codes that overlap significantly with the Ten Commandments. Why are all human beings drawn to similar standards of good behavior? The famous mathematician, Blaise Pascal, first referred to this concept as an abyss in the heart that can only be filled with God. (Modern writers have rephrased this to be the “God shaped hole in our hearts.”) The counterargument is that human conscience evolved because benevolent societies had a reproduction and survival advantage over more self-centered societies.

Atheists holding to the current views of the state of physics believe that all of observable reality is the result of an initial random fluctuation in the pre-Big Bang vacuum energy that led to a multiverse that spawned our local Big Bang in a process that randomly determined the constants of nature in the resulting local bubble which along with early random quantum particle fluctuations necessary to seed star formation in the early plasma after the Big Bang led to a chaotic process of particle collisions cascading through billions of years that created everything we are and see. As Rupert Sheldrake famously said in his book the Science Delusion, “Give us one free miracle and we will explain the rest.”

Believers hold the view that God had a purpose in creating the universe and us, however it was he went about it including possibly every law, constant, and event in the current views of physics and biology, and we should learn that purpose to the best of our abilities.

Both positions are positions of faith. You can’t prove either one is right. Two different people, both rational and well-meaning, can look at the arguments and counterarguments above and come to different conclusions.

 

Longing seems to permeate the debate. Longing colors everyone’s perceptions of the evidence. Atheists long for the intellectual and moral freedom that they interpret a universe with no creator gives them. Then they try to bravely accept the attendant purposelessness that would characterize human life. Believers long for a universe in which our lives count for something.

So it boils down to this: what do you long for?
(Answer by David Seuss)

My 2 cents...again.

Point 1.  Life adapted to the conditions it found. We find tuned to it not it to us.

Point 2.  Though I have no idea how it works it doesn't seem that difficult for me to believe it is part of the physical body.  I see dogs dream and ants work stuff out.  If we see - there is the seen and the seer. An individual life form differentiating between the two seems just a further step that life would work out.

Point 3.  It's not surprising in a sense that, if there is stuff, that it consistently works in a certain way. If it didn't that may indicate a god more than if it does. The maths of the parabolic movement of a spear could be seen as  a bigger step than some of the more complex stuff later since it required a scientific way of thinking not common at the time. 

Point 4 I have done some average things to people . Not that bad but a bit bad. Later I copped the same. So I worked out it's better if we are nice. No god required. 

[thaibeachlovers]

22 hours ago, VincentRJ said:

One can remove consciousness without removing the brain, but one cannot remove the brain without removing consciousness. The brain is the first requirement for consciousness. Isn't that obvious? 

and without a biological transport mechanism ( our bodies ) we'd not be able to do anything. I find your argument somewhat pointless.

Either one believes that "I" exists independently of a biological machine to contain "US", or one doesn't.

Those that believe in God also believe that "I" does not die with the body, and those that do not, ergo believe that when the body dies they cease to exist. That's a rather depressing belief IMO, as it means that everything we are and were and will be are nothing when our heart stops beating ( no need to get pedantic with the "but, but, but when one is having a heart transplant etc "I" does not cease- I'm not going to get bogged down in that sort of morass- you know what I'm meaning ).

[thaibeachlovers]

7 hours ago, Fat is a type of crazy said:

If it didn't that may indicate a god more than if it does.

Given that none of us even agree what "God" is, and it's not possible to find out this side of death, I don't see how God can be proven or not.

I don't even understand why a non believer would care enough to keep trying to "prove" to believers that God does not exist. It's not like we are going to try to do nasty things to them, for not believing, is it?

Perhaps it's some sort of challenge, or they had a bad experience at Sunday school.

For sure, just saying "science can't prove the existence of God, so God doesn't exist" thousands of times isn't going to change any minds, is it?

Far as I can see, some believe that God doesn't exist because bad things happen, which isn't much of an argument, IMO.

[thaibeachlovers]

13 hours ago, Elad said:

It doesn't matter who, what or how these ratios are measured, whether its an alien from another galaxy or even God himself (if he exists) they will always find the same ratio and find that gravity is the weaker force of the two.    

"If" God exists, and "if" God created the universe, then God created the ratios, and "if" God decides to change the ratios then they get changed.

God is not governed by physics, as God created physics to be whatever God wants physics to be.

Believe whatever you will, but if I'm right we''ll find out after we are dead, and if you are right we won't. Either way it makes no difference to me, as I can't do anything about it.

[Fat is a type of crazy]

1 hour ago, thaibeachlovers said:

Given that none of us even agree what "God" is, and it's not possible to find out this side of death, I don't see how God can be proven or not.

I don't even understand why a non believer would care enough to keep trying to "prove" to believers that God does not exist. It's not like we are going to try to do nasty things to them, for not believing, is it?

Perhaps it's some sort of challenge, or they had a bad experience at Sunday school.

For sure, just saying "science can't prove the existence of God, so God doesn't exist" thousands of times isn't going to change any minds, is it?

Far as I can see, some believe that God doesn't exist because bad things happen, which isn't much of an argument, IMO.

Fair point. Today's post is not to prove or disprove god. It is just an exercise in logic. Something to think about for 5 minutes  in between doing my job. And what else is there to post about. Most posts on this site are constant whining about the covid response by government. Someone says something the same as yesterday and the day before and gets 50 likes.

 

The post I referred to gave reasons why people might believe in god and I gave reasons as to why these reasons might not amount to much. The aim is not to prove god doesn't exist but just to set aside reasons that people think are evidence of his existence so the argument can move to a more interesting discussion. I concur that just saying god doesn't exist is as boring as someone saying I believe in god with no further detail or nuance.

[VincentRJ]

16 hours ago, Elad said:

All electrons in the universe are identical, they carry the same amount of rest mass and electric charge. The way we interpret their properties by using numbers and units is a human construct, but the fact that all electrons are identical is not, its just how the universe is and science or mathematics wont change that. The fundamental forces we know of such as gravity and electromagnetism do have certain values or strengths that were embedded from the beginning time. We know that gravity is much, much weaker than the electromagnetic force and the ratio reveals that the electromagnetic force is around 2000 times stronger. It doesn't matter who, what or how these ratios are measured, whether its an alien from another galaxy or even God himself (if he exists) they will always find the same ratio and find that gravity is the weaker force of the two.    

 

This is what I wrote: "In other words, there are no two objects in the world that are truly and completely identical."

 

Is an electron an object? Is an electron matter, like an atom or molecule?

 

The following Wikipedia article states: "In classical physics and general chemistry, matter is any substance that has mass and takes up space by having volume."

 

Searching the internet, I find it frequently mentioned that the Electron is a point-particle which has zero volume and no internal structure, although it does have a very tiny mass that is 1/1836 the mass of the proton. The mass is due to the electron's interaction with the Higgs field. Photons don't interact with the Higgs field, and therefore have no mass.

 

However, the Wiki article, in its summary, mentions there is no broad consensus on the definition of matter.
 

"The modern conception of matter has been refined many times in history, in light of the improvement in knowledge of just what the basic building blocks are, and in how they interact. The term "matter" is used throughout physics in a bewildering variety of contexts: for example, one refers to "condensed matter physics", "elementary matter", "partonic" matter, "dark" matter, "anti"-matter, "strange" matter, and "nuclear" matter. In discussions of matter and antimatter, normal matter has been referred to as common matter. It is fair to say that in physics, there is no broad consensus as to a general definition of matter, and the term "matter" usually is used in conjunction with a specifying modifier."

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matter

 

Wow! This is similar to the problem of no precise definition of God. ????

[Surelynot]

3 minutes ago, VincentRJ said:

 

This is what I wrote: "In other words, there are no two objects in the world that are truly and completely identical."

 

Is an electron an object? Is an electron matter, like an atom or molecule?

 

The following Wikipedia article states: "In classical physics and general chemistry, matter is any substance that has mass and takes up space by having volume."

 

Searching the internet, I find it frequently mentioned that the Electron is a point-particle which has zero volume and no internal structure, although it does have a very tiny mass that is 1/1836 the mass of the proton. The mass is due to the electron's interaction with the Higgs field. Photons don't interact with the Higgs field, and therefore have no mass.

 

However, the Wiki article, in its summary, mentions there is no broad consensus on the definition of matter.
 

"The modern conception of matter has been refined many times in history, in light of the improvement in knowledge of just what the basic building blocks are, and in how they interact. The term "matter" is used throughout physics in a bewildering variety of contexts: for example, one refers to "condensed matter physics", "elementary matter", "partonic" matter, "dark" matter, "anti"-matter, "strange" matter, and "nuclear" matter. In discussions of matter and antimatter, normal matter has been referred to as common matter. It is fair to say that in physics, there is no broad consensus as to a general definition of matter, and the term "matter" usually is used in conjunction with a specifying modifier."

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matter

 

Wow! This is similar to the problem of no precise definition of God. ????

Just to throw a Spaniard in the works there is no matter per se.......only fields and waves/disturbances in those fields. 

[VincentRJ]

2 minutes ago, Surelynot said:

Just to throw a Spaniard in the works there is no matter per se.......only fields and waves/disturbances in those fields. 

 

There are fields and waves, and microscopic particles, like electrons and photons, are seen to oscillate between being a particle and a wave in the quantum 'two slit' experiments. However, the macroscopic world could be different. I suspect the waves and disturbances occur only within the macroscopic object.