Obesity, skiny, tall, short, unibrow, hairy, flat figure

[Som1Lse]

You need proof to propose a theory? hmph..

You do indeed need evidence for a theory. There is a difference between theory and hypothesis.
Edit: Also proof vs. evidence.

[Marko]

You need proof to propose a theory? hmph..

fundementals.. Does God at the end of the wormhole has any evidence that is theory based on? That was what i was trying to say,... It's pure guessing and nothing else. Based on nothing.

I am not sure if that's what you mean to say, or if you're saying that we can't progress as long as we are believers. But if it's the latter, then I disagree here. Conflicting ideas and competition are the reason we have advanced so far in everything.

Progress is made by scientists who were willing to disagree with God if necessary. Eratosthenes was almost killed by believers after stating 100% truth that Earth is round object. Do we need that kind of persons?

Let me complete my words. We can't progress to our full potential as long as we have believers.
Just look at how many wars happened just because of different religions. People killed each other because their stupid and misleading beliefs. How many wars are still there because of different beliefs ?
Religion is huge problem in our society, huge.

No wonder any aliens haven't already visited us. We are primitive beings, kill each others, same race, because of something someone wrote down in bible thasaunds years ago which is total nonsense. Whole our history is nonsense. So many killed people for nothing.

Most of what has been theorized of black holes are still theories btw.

Theory based on our logic we can prove atm here on the earth, not theory behind our beliefs and possibilities. See the difference? It's huge.

You said at the end of wormhole. This is example of one of many wormholes and he is not at the end of it as you said he will be, is he?

He isn't. But that doesn't prove anything.

You are missing the point. When you came up with some theory, you are the one who should prove it affirmative, not me who should deny it by proofs because it's impossible. Let me ask you something?
I believe Batman really exsists.. now prove me i am wrong? You can't because that's not how it works.

[Rhino.Freak]

Religion and the concept of a creator that I believe are waay too different.
Religion is a way of living, it doesn't have much things to back what they imply but it's mostly to comfort the people in their bad times, teach disciple and gives message of peace and prosperity  (though the latter works in a reverse manner many a times)

I don't aim to discuss religion here, but the concept of a higher being that may have a hand in the creation of space, time is certainly an interesting thought. It might be too early to prove OR deny it's existance though. We barely know our universe.

[Marko]

so you are okay with comforting yourself that you will live infinitely in heavens after you die or you would rather know real truth of life, real purpose, our goals as humans?
I refuse to lie to myself, no matter how crappy and pointless life seems at the moments, i face the truth because that only matters. When we have already got chance to live let's use it to its full potential.

Even if there was a creator of everything (which is very unlikely because where that creator would come from?) why would he care about us, tinny dot of nothing in multiverse? Having that said why would we care about him then?.. i truly believe we are just coincedence of incredible huge universe and that there is even more intelligent life than ours out there somewhere considering how big it is and how old universe is, maybe even in our galaxy.

[STM1993]

...
Conflicting ideas and competition are the reason we have advanced so far in everything.
...

We can't just believe in God because we don't have answers YET. That's closed minded to believe in "nothing" (no evidence) because you can't answer certain question atm.

Most of what has been theorized of black holes are still theories btw.

I think you are still being confused about the meaning of the word "theory".

When you speculate an idea to explain something, it starts off as a hypothesis - this is what most confused people mean when they say 'theory'.

A hypothesis becomes a scientific theory/law(law & theory are interchangeable in this case) when the idea is thoroughly tested and has been consistently proven to be accurate. Conflicting ideas and competition drive progress, but an idea that doesn't have practical applications isn't very valuable. Because a theory is proven to be accurate and thus has practical applications, it has value and the reason why you get a Nobel prize for disproving it.

Merely saying "God did it" only begs the question of who God is and how he did it, and it would be ignorant to dismiss those concerns as some variant of "God is unknowable" since that is exactly the kind of attitude that silences conflicting ideas and competition that you said drives progress.

I'm not saying that our current theories are infallible, but I'm saying that they are our best models for what we know about the world around us and certainly more useful than the flimsy equivalent of "god/magic", and we would demand new theories if our current ones prove to be inadequate or wrong.

I think it is equally arrogant to claim to know for a fact that gods don't exist. I'm open to the idea that gods exist, but I've yet to hear anything beyond weak or unprovable propositions. There's the idea that maybe I should believe in god just in case, but which one? Not to mention I find a lot of religious teachings to be toxic or even contradictory. So rather than try to believe in a virtually unprovable/unknowable being, I would rather treasure the life I already know and live as though divine beings don't exist.

[Marko]

I think it is equally arrogant to claim to know for a fact that gods don't exist.

It depends on what you mean by the notion of God(s). If you mean like something that is beyond us that we will never be able to reach, then yes, God is symbol of that.. if you mean someone who created everything, including humans and takes care of them since day one as Bible says, then that's too ridiculous considering our knowledge atm.


I hope you don't find me in that arrogant category because, as you can see, i used "i truly believe" sentences only.

[bashscrazy]

I'll just leave this here (Learned about it yesterday watching Psycho Pass 2 )

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

In essence, the opposing statement's lack of proof makes the statement true in some sense. This connects with the idea that, while substantial evidence may prove the devil's existence, there is no evidence that denies the devil's existence; therefore, one cannot deny the devil's existence.

[A-Man]

Someone Else (Click to View)

That is just a random guess, and about as good as somewhere in the belt of saturn, the center of the earth or another planet or perhaps he is in my attic. The thing is whatever guesswork anyone comes up with is about as useful and worthy of being believed as saying that there is a dragon in my garage.

And what will your dragon serve to explain? It was indeed a random guess, but it is to prove that the possibility exists.

Because God is complete speculation, with literally zero actual evidence.

Really? I am pretty sure you've heard of "Schrodinger's Cat" thought experiment. That experiment has direct implications which suggests that there exists an observer who (needs to) observes our quantum mechanical world.  

Things that previously needed a god to explain how they worked (how did we come into existence? (evolution)

Has holes. The second law of thermodynamics states that entropy can only increase; meaning, things can only proceed in a direction which increases the randomness and the disorder of the system. This can be countered by the anthropic principle, but it should still make you doubt what you know on the topic. I personally am convinced with evolution as an explaining theory so far, but know that this doesn't disprove the existence of a creator. For such a thing like Evolution to happen, the singularity that marked the beginning of time needed to have extremely accurate configuration for our universe to work. Lighting a match just means you lighted a match, but it also means you are the one responsible for the fire it causes when it comes into contact with the petrol.

Universe popped into existence/was always there vs. God popped into existence/was always there and made the universe pop into existence.

But why are you assuming the concept of time applies on where God is at all? The universe is made of space-time fabric; therefore it can not have always existed.

"Why not?" is a question someone asks in order to move the burden of proof away from themself.

You're right, but there isn't any proof of God's existence. God is a good theory though (or more strictly, hypothesis).

No. For one thing an actual hypothesis needs to be somewhat well defined (which God is not), so you can actually test it, and see whether or not it holds up in reality.

While what you said does stand true by definition, a lot of theories like the string theory pertained the name "theory" way before it was actually tested just last year. Hawking radiation hasn't been tested or observed either. And now that I think about it, was Evolution tested?

Thirdly the ideas are usually not actually very creative, as they are usually based on our current understanding of reality (as in previously well established theories)

How can you say that the general and the special theory of relativity and quantum mechanics, were all theories (hypotheses) which were considered incomprehensible and eccentric when first proposed. Quantum Mechanics almost rebooted Physics.

as opposed to thousand year old books. When other scientists do look at others' hypotheses it is generally because it accommodates our current understanding of the world in a nice manner, that seems plausible, and surely it is possible that something which seems very implausible (like string theory) turns out to be a subject worthy of study, but it takes time for it to be recognized as such.

A "nice manner"? "plausible"? It was usually went a scientist went against being plausible that they discovered something revolutionary.

Speaking of wormholes:
Has any actual wormhole ever been sighted? Do we have any actual evidence of them? Or are they simply something which our current understanding of the universe does not seem to forbid, and MAY help explain certain phenomena?

Sight has long been rendered unreliable for scientific explanations. I assume you're implying that God can't help explaining a phenomena? If so, I hope I have given an answer above.

Marko (Click to View)

ls.. Does God at the end of the wormhole has any evidence that is theory based on? That was what i was trying to say,... It's pure guessing and nothing else. Based on nothing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schr%C3%B6dinger's_cat

Progress is made by scientists who were willing to disagree with God if necessary. Eratosthenes was almost killed by believers after stating 100% truth that Earth is round object. Do we need that kind of persons?

Galileo was persecuted too because of such beliefs, but that's not the point now. You don't need to deny the existence of a God to not follow a religion.

Let me complete my words. We can't progress to our full potential as long as we have believers.
Just look at how many wars happened just because of different religions. People killed each other because their stupid and misleading beliefs. How many wars are still there because of different beliefs ?
Religion is huge problem in our society, huge.

As in WW1-2? It's true that religion (aka Islam) has been referenced as the cause of all the problems recently. But you're missing the point still. This has nothing to do with whether you believe in the possibility of the existence of a God or not.

No wonder any aliens haven't already visited us. We are primitive beings, kill each others, same race, because of something someone wrote down in bible thasaunds years ago which is total nonsense. Whole our history is nonsense. So many killed people for nothing.

Well, :\.

Theory based on our logic we can prove atm here on the earth, not theory behind our beliefs and possibilities. See the difference? It's huge.

Hawking radiation, an important theorized (or hypothesized .. argh) property of blackholes couldn't be tested. They're still both possibilities.

You are missing the point. When you came up with some theory, you are the one who should prove it affirmative, not me who should deny it by proofs because it's impossible. Let me ask you something?
I believe Batman really exsists.. now prove me i am wrong? You can't because that's not how it works.

I was merely stating a possibility. Neither what I said nor what you said proves anything really.

STM1992 (Click to View)

I think you are still being confused about the meaning of the word "theory".

Yes, you're right.

When you speculate an idea to explain something, it starts off as a hypothesis - this is what most confused people mean when they say 'theory'.

A hypothesis becomes a scientific theory/law(law & theory are interchangeable in this case) when the idea is thoroughly tested and has been consistently proven to be accurate. Conflicting ideas and competition drive progress, but an idea that doesn't have practical applications isn't very valuable. Because a theory is proven to be accurate and thus has practical applications, it has value and the reason why you get a Nobel prize for disproving it.

I see. But these naming rules haven't been followed really. The idea of God does have many implications actually, like why did God do this? It can also serves for an explanation to what was deduced from Schrodiger's Cat thought experiment; an observer needs to observe the universe for its "wave function", or to be more clear, ,the super position in which one of many possible events haven't been determined, to collapse into set determined events.

Merely saying "God did it" only begs the question of who God is and how he did it, and it would be ignorant to dismiss those concerns as some variant of "God is unknowable" since that is exactly the kind of attitude that silences conflicting ideas and competition that you said drives progress.

I agree. That should not be acceptable.

I'm not saying that our current theories are infallible, but I'm saying that they are our best models for what we know about the world around us and certainly more useful than the flimsy equivalent of "god/magic".

I think it is equally arrogant to claim to know for a fact that gods don't exist. I'm open to the idea that gods exist, but I've yet to hear anything beyond weak or unprovable propositions. There's the idea that maybe I should believe in god just in case, but which one? Not to mention I find a lot of religious teachings to be toxic or even contradictory. So rather than try to believe in a virtually unprovable/unknowable being, I would rather treasure the life I already know and live as though divine beings don't exist.

It's you who gets to pick your way of live, and I respect that. I can help you narrow the "Which" one by linking you to Occam's Razor. It basically says that when faced with theories, you should stick to what proposes the least number of assumptions. Only 1 God is enough to be the cause of the universe.

Edit:
@Bashscrazy: Useful finding! Thanks.

[STM1993]

Things that previously needed a god to explain how they worked (how did we come into existence? (evolution)

...
And now that I think about it, was Evolution tested?

Forgot to address this. Evolution doesn't explain the origin of life, but rather how one form of life passes on to the next. In fact there could be multiple origins as far as I'm concerned. I would assume Someone Else was referring to "we" being modern humans having diverged from our ape cousins against the idea that modern humans were created just like that.

Yes, evolution has been tested. I'll try to explain as simply as possible:

1. Creatures pass on their genetic traits to their offspring. If you paint a red bird blue, his children will still be red, not blue.
   
2. Creatures must produce viable offspring. You can cross a tiger and a lion, but the resulting hybrid creature, while incredibly strong, is unable to bear children(not viable); its the end of the line. The fittest(most adapted to their present surrounding) survive only because they live long enough to mate while the unfit die before they can mate.
   
3. Suppose a type of bird that is always either red or blue. I neuter all red birds but leave blue birds alone. Because the red birds cannot reproduce and thus cannot pass on their red genes, the number of red birds will decrease or outright go extinct. The red birds don't necessarily have to be neutered by me, it could very well just have been that birds prefer blue over red and so blue birds mate more than red birds, or the red birds isolate themselves from the blue birds by living in some other part of the world.
   
4. To further illustrate the above red/blue bird example, this table shows the concept of dominant & recessive alleles. Suppose the red alleles are dominant(B) and blue alleles are recessive(b) - it'd mean that out of 4 possible combinations, only the combination where the child bird receives both recessive alleles(bb) will end up being blue. That means there won't be any carriers(Bb or bB) of the red gene, and by neutering all red birds, I've ensured that these birds will only ever be blue; red birds will go extinct.
   
5. Incidentally the table also accounts for a population trend, in my example there should be 3 red birds for every 1 blue bird (1 full red, 2 carrier red, 1 full blue).
   
6. Mutations, because sometimes the genes aren't copied correctly or are altered/damaged along the way. Most of these mutations don't do anything or are very subtle changes, and even then it only matters if these mutations get passed on to kids.
   
7. Which brings me to the concept of descent with modification. Using the birds example, even if I let completely dominant(BB) red birds mate, their child would still end up a little different from their parents. Suppose a child is always different from his parent by 1%. Is it a stretch to suggest that at some point, after maybe 100 generations in my example, the 100th generation bird is completely different from his 1st generation ancestor, to the point that if the 100th generation bird were to mate with the original bird, they wouldn't produce viable children? That's how we get many different species.
   

These ideas can be applied to many things, including explaining the emergence of drug resistant bacteria, overfishing leading to fish being smaller compared to many years ago, fossil records that support the concept of descent with modification, useless traits in our bodies like our appendix and useless DNA, domesticated silver foxes and dogs actually diverged from ancestral wolves. I remember coming across an article about some creatures(lizards I think) that were left alone in an isolated area and scientists coming back a few decades later to find that the original type of creatures are no longer there but instead finding a new species very similar to the original.

So yes, evolution has been tested and in fact stands as one of the strongest theories we have in the scientific community, even better established than gravity.

I think it is equally arrogant to claim to know for a fact that gods don't exist. I'm open to the idea that gods exist, but I've yet to hear anything beyond weak or unprovable propositions. There's the idea that maybe I should believe in god just in case, but which one? Not to mention I find a lot of religious teachings to be toxic or even contradictory. So rather than try to believe in a virtually unprovable/unknowable being, I would rather treasure the life I already know and live as though divine beings don't exist.

It's you who gets to pick your way of live, and I respect that. I can help you narrow the "Which" one by linking you to Occam's Razor. It basically says that when faced with theories, you should stick to what proposes the least number of assumptions. Only 1 God is enough to be the cause of the universe.

My problem is more with the various doctrines attempting to describe god(s). If a scripture has mistakes/contradictions or can be overwritten, then its not infallible like followers claim and thus becomes unreliable. If the scripture is said to be metaphorical, then which texts can be taken metaphorically and which ones can be taken literally - and as a result spawn so many ambiguous interpretations and thus religious denominations? I'm forced to take the one with least assumptions etc as you said, in this case assuming its all literal and go with that interpretation. And of course, I still often find mistakes in scripture going by this route.

It is also common nowadays to believe that god(s) are omnipotent and all-good (if you look at a lot of old myths, gods are often portrayed as jackasses with their own limited dominions who are born from something else). Problem is, a truly all-good God would not allow injustice or unnecessary suffering, yet that is what I see around me in the world today. I can only conclude that this God isn't good at all, or he is nowhere near as powerful as he is claimed to be. At best, god is more like a team of developers making a video game world, and then moving on to new projects after its done while the characters in the video game are none the wiser.

At the end of the day, even if the question about God is answered, is there anything we can do with the knowledge? If there's really nothing we can do with the knowledge, then we shouldn't worry about it. We should live our lives pragmatically, and in this case treating life as a limited one-time gift and that god is irrelevant is most pragmatic option.

[Marko]

How can you compare black hole theories with God?
Black holes theories are well known because it's based on the same laws of physics. Scientists also created dumb hole (black hole for sound) and they can see how sound acts.

Even tho we will probably never come close to any of black holes we know exactly how they
act outside, only thing which is still mystery is what is inside of black hole, is it maybe space ripped from such a high density so there is a wormhole or something else.. that would be theory? Black holes from outside are almost a fact

couldn't be said for God at all... he is totaly and only imagination of humans. Only thing we have as a proof of God are our historical creations, nothing else.