Ask Jenae for real answers - no games.

[sesame]

Just because scientists have observed a few Laws, dont take nature for granted! "Oh, its that simple nature we've always known!"
NO! Its that Ancient, mostly Unknown Nature, that has controlled everything since the beginning of time. All the mysteries are inside her belly!

Natural and Supernatural are different terms concocted by us! We call Supernatural whatever we cannot explain with our limited knowledge. But it belongs to the same Nature.

Who conveniently created life from non-living matter? Who sustained it in this hostile environment? What caused so much water in liquid form on earth? Who taught the first phototrophic bacteria or algae to photosynthesize? What plan caused the emitted oxygen to support all other lifeforms? All other cycles... Nitrogen, CO2, H2O, Aminoacids, RNA, DNA... ... I mean not only things concerned with life, but also atoms, their structure, their properties, sub-atomic particles, electrons, their orbits, their hungry and satisfied states... its amazingly well planned! You think all these connections happened by chance? This unscientific fascination of prejudiced scientists with Chance or, Accident or, Luck is so illogical!

Just think of it, the states of matter, solid, liquid, gas, ionic vapour, plasma, fusion, energy... its arranged in a perfect order! Come on, Tracy, this cannot be random!

I am not talking about the insane worship ritual of some deity here. I am talking about Nature in the most Logical manner.

[sesame]

There was no theory of relativity or Quantum mechanics then. I know Gallileo died in 1642. Kepler lived before 1630 and Copernicus before 1543.

If you really want to go back, Euclid lived in the 3rd century BC and there was Vedic Mathematics 1000s of years ago.

Great sage Kapil, the author of Samkhya Philosophy admitted the existence of soul, but denied God, in absence of proof! (Samkhya gave rise to Vedanta and Tantra )
In the Later Vedic age, Philosopher Charvak said, there is no afterlife, so take huge loans, eat butter, enjoy life. There is no God to punish you!

So what? In every age, some people believed in God, some remained sceptics. What I am trying to say is, that Nature's perfect engineering is proof enough of a Higher consciousness. Nature herself is God!

I am not looking for some bearded man on a throne, set upon some clouds, who either sends you to heaven, or, to eternal hellfire, for the work of one tiny lifetime! This idea is indeed preposterous.

[Jenae LaTorque]

Originally Posted by sesame

What I am trying to say is, that Nature's perfect engineering is proof enough of a Higher consciousness. Nature herself is God!

I am not looking for some bearded man on a throne, set upon some clouds, who either sends you to heaven, or, to eternal hellfire, for the work of one tiny lifetime! This idea is indeed preposterous.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Well then you had best explain how Nature is God. And don't give me that perfect engineering nonsense again, and everything in Nature is a miracle BS.

If nature is such a perfect engineer, then somebody better talk to whoever is in charge of quality control.

The fact is that you are suffering from PITS syndrome and you are the only one who can cure yourself of it. You don't seem to have as bad of a case as a lot of people, so perhaps there is hope for you.

[sesame]

Originally Posted by Jenae the Turk

Well then you had best explain how Nature is God. And don't give me that perfect engineering nonsense again, and everything in Nature is a miracle BS.

If nature is such a perfect engineer, then somebody better talk to whoever is in charge of quality control.

Is there ANYTHING else other than nature? Are you not a part of Nature? If nature had not designed it so perfectly, how could anything work? Would atoms react to form compounds? Would haemoglobin in blood react with oxygen? Would calcium ions be effective in the synapse... and allow you to formulate arrogant answers?

Your medula oblongata controls your breathing automatically. Your heart cells vibrate automatically. Your enzymes and hormones secrete on time... and allow you to live. Its a miracle that you are alive and not falling down dead like a pebble... thats because we dont sustain ourselves, we dont control our muscles, glands and nerves! Nature does it for us.

Nature is miraculous, her laws are mysterious... such were the thoughts of Michael Faraday(without whom there would be no motor today, no generators... we would be using oil lamps and candles... Now, forget the quantum theory and relativity by Albert ). Einstein considered himself to be a child collecting pebbles on the shores of Nature. (He was not an atheist. He changed his several religion more than once in his lifetime.)

And here comes little Jenae, proud of her bookish knowledge and wikipedia quotes... who is blind to nature's awesome power (she must be raving mad!!!)

How much space did this universe occupy before the big bang? All of it

Yeah, your logic is so unsound. The expanded and contracted Universe cannot occupy the same amount of space! One is extremely big, another is very small in volume.

How many times did this universe expand and collapse? Like Bang...Bang...Bang... 319 times

Thats a good one! I guess you are too tired to think straight today.

Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind. ~Albert Einstein

In his later years he referred to a cosmic religious feeling that permeated and sustained his scientific work. He wished to experience the universe as a single cosmic whole..

In 1926 Einstein said, "He [God] does not throw dice" referring to randomness thrown up by quantum theory.

Sesame~ This is what I am saying that in Nature, everything is well planned, nothing is a random or chance occurence.

[Jenae LaTorque]

If you read the post above in referance to more foolish questions then it should be obvious why I replied as I did.

Now I can see why you think Einstein was in your camp. That quote of his regarding god's dice has been brought up so many times we are literally sick of hearing it. The correct quote is " God does not play at dice with the Universe." which or course did refer to his uneasiness at the implications of quatum theory. There is nothing there to suggest that Einstein believed in a god. What he also said was:

The more a man is imbued with the ordered regularity of all events the firmer becomes his conviction that there is no room left by the side of this ordered regularity for causes of a different nature. For him neither the rule of human nor the rule of divine will exists as an independent cause of natural events. To be sure, the doctrine of a personal God interfering with natural events could never be refuted, in the real sense, by science, for this doctrine can always take refuge in those domains in which scientific knowledge has not yet been able to set foot.
But I am convinced that such behavior on the part of representatives of religion would not only be unworthy but also fatal. For a doctrine which is to maintain itself not in clear light but only in the dark, will of necessity lose its effect on mankind, with incalculable harm to human progress. In their struggle for the ethical good, teachers of religion must have the stature to give up the doctrine of a personal God, that is, give up that source of fear and hope which in the past placed such vast power in the hands of priests. In their labors they will have to avail themselves of those forces which are capable of cultivating the Good, the True, and the Beautiful in humanity itself. This is, to be sure, a more difficult but an incomparably more worthy task ...

and

It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it. -- Albert Einstein, 1954, from Albert Einstein: The Human Side, edited by Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffman, Princeton University Press

some more quotes by good old Albert:


The word god is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this.
-- Albert Einstein, in a letter responding to philosopher Eric Gutkind, who had sent him a copy of his book Choose Life: The Biblical Call to Revolt; quoted from James Randerson, "Childish Superstition: Einstein's Letter Makes View of Religion Relatively Clear: Scientist's Reply to Sell for up to £8,000, and Stoke Debate over His Beliefs" The Guardian, (13 May 2008)

I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, whose purposes are modeled after our own -- a God, in short, who is but a reflection of human frailty. Neither can I believe that the individual survives the death of his body, although feeble souls harbor such thoughts through fear or ridiculous egotisms.
-- Albert Einstein, obituary in New York Times, 19 April 1955, quoted from James A Haught, "Breaking the Last Taboo" (1996)

I do not believe in immortality of the individual, and I consider ethics to be an exclusively human concern with no superhuman authority behind it.
-- Albert Einstein, 1954, from Albert Einstein: The Human Side, edited by Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffman, Princeton University Press

One thing I have learned in a long life: that all our science, measured against reality, is primitive and childlike -- and yet it is the most precious thing we have.
-- Albert Einstein, echoing Robert Green Ingersoll ("I admit that reason is a small and feeble flame, a flickering torch by stumblers carried in the star-less night, -- blown and flared by passion's storm, -- and yet, it is the only light. Extinguish that, and nought remains." from the Field-Ingersoll Debate), quoted from PhysLink.com

I myself like this one the best:

The mystical trend of our time, which shows itself particularly in the rampant growth of the so-called Theosophy and Spiritualism, is for me no more than a symptom of weakness and confusion. Since our inner experiences consist of reproductions, and combinations of sensory impressions, the concept of a soul without a body seem to me to be empty and devoid of meaning.
The religion of the future will be a cosmic religion. The religion which based on experience, which refuses dogmatic. If there's any religion that would cope the scientific needs it will be Buddhism....
If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed.
The further the spiritual evolution of mankind advances, the more certain it seems to me that the path to genuine religiosity does not lie through the fear of life, and the fear of death, and blind faith, but through striving after rational knowledge.
Immortality? There are two kinds. The first lives in the imagination of the people, and is thus an illusion. There is a relative immortality which may conserve the memory of an individual for some generations. But there is only one true immortality, on a cosmic scale, and that is the immortality of the cosmos itself. There is no other.
-- Albert Einstein, quoted in Madalyn Murray O'Hair, All the Questions You Ever Wanted to Ask American Atheists (1982) vol. ii., p. 29

I think you had better come up with sources on when and where Einstein became angry and more importantly, the reason he became angry.

[sesame]

Originally Posted by Jenae the Turk

Well then you had best explain how Nature is God. And don't give me that perfect engineering nonsense again, and everything in Nature is a miracle BS.

If nature is such a perfect engineer, then somebody better talk to whoever is in charge of quality control.

Is there ANYTHING else other than nature? Are you not a part of Nature? If nature had not designed it so perfectly, how could anything work? Would atoms react to form compounds? Would haemoglobin in blood react with oxygen? Would calcium ions be effective in the synapse... and allow you to formulate arrogant answers?

Your medula oblongata controls your breathing automatically. Your heart cells vibrate automatically. Your enzymes and hormones secrete on time... and allow you to live. Its a miracle that you are alive and not falling down dead like a pebble... thats because we dont sustain ourselves, we dont control our muscles, glands and nerves! Nature does it for us.

Nature is miraculous, her laws are mysterious... such were the thoughts of Michael Faraday(without whom there would be no motor today, no generators... we would be using oil lamps and candles... Now, forget the quantum theory and relativity by Albert ). Einstein considered himself to be a child collecting pebbles on the shores of Nature. (He was not an atheist. He changed his several religion more than once in his lifetime.)

And here comes little Jenae, proud of her bookish knowledge and wikipedia quotes... who is blind to nature's awesome power (she must be raving mad!!!)

How much space did this universe occupy before the big bang? All of it

Yeah, your logic is so unsound. The expanded and contracted Universe cannot occupy the same amount of space! One is extremely big, another is very small in volume.

How many times did this universe expand and collapse? Like Bang...Bang...Bang... 319 times

Thats a good one! I guess you are too tired to think straight today.

Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind. ~Albert Einstein

In his later years he referred to a cosmic religious feeling that permeated and sustained his scientific work. He wished to experience the universe as a single cosmic whole.. Einstein became angry when his views were appropriated by evangelists for atheism.

In 1926 Einstein said, "He [God] does not throw dice" referring to randomness thrown up by quantum theory.

Sesame~ This is what I am saying that in Nature, everything is well planned, nothing is a random or chance occurrence.

[Jenae LaTorque]

Originally Posted by sesame

Is there ANYTHING else other than nature? Are you not a part of Nature? If nature had not designed it so perfectly, how could anything work? Would atoms react to form compounds? Would haemoglobin in blood react with oxygen? Would calcium ions be effective in the synapse... and allow you to formulate arrogant answers?

Your medula oblongata controls your breathing automatically. Your heart cells vibrate automatically. Your enzymes and hormones secrete on time... and allow you to live. Its a miracle that you are alive and not falling down dead like a pebble... thats because we dont sustain ourselves, we dont control our muscles, glands and nerves! Nature does it for us.

Nature is miraculous, her laws are mysterious... such were the thoughts of Michael Faraday(without whom there would be no motor today, no generators... we would be using oil lamps and candles... Now, forget the quantum theory and relativity by Albert ). Einstein considered himself to be a child collecting pebbles on the shores of Nature. (He was not an atheist. He changed his several religion more than once in his lifetime.)

And here comes little Jenae, proud of her bookish knowledge and wikipedia quotes... who is blind to nature's awesome power (she must be raving mad!!!)

/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Sesame~ This is what I am saying that in Nature, everything is well planned, nothing is a random or chance occurrence.

__________________________________________________ _____________

I am not blind to the awesome power of nature. And I cerainly am not raving mad. You are the one who is ready to worship nature as a god because you believe it is perfect and so well planned. And all without any evidence. That is irrational behavior. It is irrational to believe that nature is perfect when there are so many examples of things that go wrong in Nature.
When you encounter a child with a cleft palatte, or when you meet a person with Down's syndrome, do you say "Praise Nature for making you this way."
When Nature brings a tsunami to your shores and kills thousands of people, do you just smile and say, "It is Nature's will." I should hope not. If I was standing where my house used to be and my family was all dead; then you come up to me and voice such opinions I would simply kill you and say "Ain't it wonderful that Nature needed you dead because you were TSTL."

[TracyCoxx]

Originally Posted by sesame

What I am trying to say is, that Nature's perfect engineering is proof enough of a Higher consciousness. Nature herself is God!

I am not looking for some bearded man on a throne, set upon some clouds, who either sends you to heaven, or, to eternal hellfire, for the work of one tiny lifetime! This idea is indeed preposterous.

Again you are mischaracterizing. Who brought up bearded men on thrones and heaven and hell?

Evidence of order is not evidence of consciousness. Take the game of life for example. These complex designs
http://www.codeproject.com/KB/cs/Gam...rit/Life35.png
were created by a few simple rules:

* A cell is either dead or alive.

* Each cell (dead or alive) is evaluated according to the number of immediate neighbours (maximum eight in original model).

* Then according to the number of neighbors, each cell may be born, stay alive or die.

(and yes, I know a consciousness invented the game of life, but that was only to create the virtual world where simple physics exists). You can claim that a consciousness created the laws that govern the universe and gave rise to life on earth like a gigantic game of life. But still, who created the consciousness? What does the consciousness exist in before it creates the universe?

Here's an example that doesn't include any consciousness. It's just math. The mandelbrot set, which uses the iterated equation Z = Z2 + C. From that, infinitely complex fractals can be created.
http://www.ddewey.net/mandelbrot/spiral.png

[TracyCoxx]

Originally Posted by sesame

Who conveniently created life from non-living matter? Who sustained it in this hostile environment? What caused so much water in liquid form on earth? Who taught the first phototrophic bacteria or algae to photosynthesize? What plan caused the emitted oxygen to support all other lifeforms?

Who created the entity who caused all these things? Who created the entity that created the entity who caused all these things? Who created...

Originally Posted by sesame

Just think of it, the states of matter, solid, liquid, gas, ionic vapour, plasma, fusion, energy... its arranged in a perfect order! Come on, Tracy, this cannot be random!

When did I say it was random? Actually you claimed that was my position before and I called you out on your strawman argument. I went through lengthy explanations of cause and effect examples showing that it wasn't just random. Apparently that went in one eyeball and out the other. If you want to have meaningful discussions you will have to stop mischaracterizing my position.

[ila]

Astronomers tell us that the universe is expanding.

What is the universe expanding into?

Is it displacing anything as it expands?

How much more can it expand?

[Jenae LaTorque]

Originally Posted by ila

Astronomers tell us that the universe is expanding.

What is the universe expanding into?

Is it displacing anything as it expands?

How much more can it expand?

I don't quite see the point in asking questions that you know full well are unanswerable at this time. What is your point here? Do you suspect I am an alien from a super advanced race, and might impart some wisdom to you? Do you want some nonsense answers like I gave Sesame when he asked the same type of questions? Are you drawing attention to the fact that there is so much in the universe that we don't know, not to mention what lies beyond it? So what? So where? and So how?

[ila]

Originally Posted by Jenae LaTorque

I don't quite see the point in asking questions that you know full well are unanswerable at this time. What is your point here? Do you suspect I am an alien from a super advanced race, and might impart some wisdom to you? Do you want some nonsense answers like I gave Sesame when he asked the same type of questions? Are you drawing attention to the fact that there is so much in the universe that we don't know, not to mention what lies beyond it? So what? So where? and So how?

There is no correct answer to what I asked. It is all a philosophical discussion. I was hoping to spark a discussion among the members on what their thoughts are on this subject.

[TracyCoxx]

Originally Posted by ila

Astronomers tell us that the universe is expanding.

What is the universe expanding into?

Is it displacing anything as it expands?

How much more can it expand?

There were 3 possibilities. The universe is closed, and therefore shaped like a 4D sphere, flat, or open, and shaped like a 4D hyperboloid. The WMAP probe has given us the answer. To very close approximation, the universe is flat. So it extends out to infinity in all directions.

It can still expand. The distance between two points in the universe will, on the whole, increase.

How much more can it expand? Forever.