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"Science .vs. Religion"

This is just my opinion on some stuff. Which side do you favor - scientific or religious route? Foreword: This, which I am about to type isn’t science-fiction nonsense. Much of what is written is based on scientifically proven fact, and the rest is my opinion. Using a combination of the two, a reasonably non-contradictory explanation can hopefully be created. Right.

In the beginning there was the big bang, the creation of OUR universe. There, at the same time, were also an infinite number of other big bangs elsewhere in the multiverse. The multiverse is a fluid medium in which our, and many other universes float. Our universe is likely to be donut-shaped, but as we have no scientific proof, and never will have, this can never be proved. The multiverse cannot be defined; it is a place where “god” exists. Here he/she/it created all the universes, possibly simultaneously. He DID create everything we know, but in a random manner. Each universe is similar to at least one other universe, but with one single tiny difference in the laws of physics. For every possible outcome that could arise, there is a universe for each possibility (hence parallel universe. But this is actually lies because if it was a parallel universe then everything would be the same and it’s not, there is one difference in each one). Our universe is almost infinitely large, and is expanding, at an almost infinite rate. (Again not 100% scientific fact but this is what is generally believed to be happening)

The universe is several billion years old, this IS scientific fact and flatly contradicts the Bible, which claims the earth is a mere 5000 years old, but the earth is also several billion years old. It could be ¼ the age of the universe or perhaps even less. But still, that is substantially more than 5000 years. If the bible is wrong on such a scale, such a massive fact then surely other, more minor facts must also be incorrect. The bible clearly has a lot of truth. And it also has many valid points, and thus should be followed. But, in my opinion, whether you follow it or not, has no effect on the “afterlife”, more on this later.

The earth was formed in space over millions or billions of years, due to the accumulation of dust and particles in space, formed by a destroyed star or the creation of the universe itself. The gravity of all the little bits pulled together to form a large planet. There was extreme heat here because of all the forces acting upon the planet, during its creation. Here it sat and boiled for a while, until it got smacked by a super-massive asteroid, and this caused bits of it to fly off. These bits went into orbit around the earth and formed the moon. Earth now is kind of cooling down, and sort of becoming habitable. Life will soon form, but there are two possible ways in which this could happen.

1. Bits of stuff, proteins etc congealed in a pool, by chance formed an organism and this organism then decided it was a plant. And thus life on earth arose due to its own volition.

2. There was already life elsewhere in the universe, which is highly likely due to the place’s age, 5 billion years+ is likely to form life (as stated in 1.), and a meteor or whatever struck this planet. Some bacteria or plant material was transported through space in/on the asteroid. It landed on our humble planet, escaped and started up here.

If either of these are true, which they could well be, does it not occur to you that life is just a big bunch of random proteins and stuff congealed together, by luck/chance, and evolution have culminated, on this planet at any rate, in humans. Look at really basic life: an amoeba. It clearly has no intelligence; it simply isn’t capable of it. Don’t say it does, because it simply cant think, it lives, breeds etc on genetic instinct built into it. It has no choice, it has no ethics, and it has no ‘spirit’. Eat or not eat. Divide or not divide. That’s about the limit of its choices. Then look at us: are we any different? NO. Our brains are just 2 lbs of gray mush that has been formed over millions of years of natural selection. The brain is really great. It’s quite smashing. It can do millions of things per second; it’s faster than ANY computer. It controls electrical signals generated in our brain, generally by external stimuli. Sight, smell etc. these electrical signals go to glands or whatever, send out hormones, and stuff.

Personality is just a bonus, a side effect of the brain. Look at dolphins, or sharks, or snakes, or mice. Not stupid animals, they have personalities, just like any one of us. But would you say they have a “spirit”? Do they have a god? In the literal sense, yes they do as god is (potentially) an omnipotent being who created the universes. But do they go to heaven when they die? Do the dolphins go to a massive sea in the sky with as many hoops, balls and fish as they want? To the mice go to cheese-land? No. How? Because there is no such place, there is no such thing as “spirits,” or “your soul”. There is the person inside oneself, but that is primarily defined at conception, then later, after birth, formed through external influences. It may sound heartless but it is, in my opinion, the truth.

So, what happens when we die? Where do we go, what happens to our consciousness? It simply stops. There is nothing there; you simply don’t exist (other then your dead body). Whatever thoughts, feelings or whatever you had on your dying day will be stored there still, in your deceased brain, until it degrades, the memory cells die and THEN, you are gone. So in a way you do exist after death, if only briefly. But of course you are dead, there is no heart action, thus no brain function, therefore it is the end.

If you disagree with any of my points, feel free to criticize.

Thanks for reading,
LF

nh wrote:
> Keep strong Ant - sorry I wasn't around the last couple of days to
> join in with this one - looks like it was fun !!

To a reasonable extent, yes. :D

I think the reason it's harder for us to explain, or even try to persuade, is that it's not really based on facts. It's personal experiences that we go through that really make the difference.

But knowing facts is cool too. Went to a service once where our Pastor had been looking up facts on the Internet and he showed us pics of Jesus' tomb and places like that, and you know the story of the two towns/cities? Sodom (sp?) and somewhere else, I can't remember, but I know God basically burnt them down because of the evil there.

He showed us some photos of these massive sulphur balls they found where the two cities were located.

Nice. {:)

Insane Bartender wrote:
> if you want proof of evolution, look no further than your own
> appendix. A redundant organ, which would have been utilised by our
> ancient ancestors to digest grass (it's true, humans *had* 2
> stomachs!). Obviously, we haven't had to use this organ for probably a
> few tens of thousands of years, and so, the organ is small, useless,
> and expendable.
>
> In a few more tens of thousands of years, this organ will likely not
> exist.
>
> Not concrete proof sure, but why else would it be there? What would
> "God"'s purpose have been in creating it? etc etc.

Iv'e no idea IB and without wanting to get into a lovely circular argument with you it's just a theory about the 2 stomach malarky put forward by guess who - the evolutionist's.....I have no idea why it is there but I do know that it has been there for a long time, it has even been observed in 5000 year old mummies found in china that contained all of their internal organs intact, in the same proportions as today.

Insane Bartender wrote:
> if you want proof of evolution, look no further than your own appendix.

Or indeed the opposable thumb.

Yo Ant - don't worry - I have plenty of faith as well, I have seen and done enough things over the last five years to know that my beliefs are true.

I'm not going to start writing about things that I have witnessed and know to be true here but for the silly people who go on about what Paul Daniels can do then they are so far away from the real world.

Keep strong Ant - sorry I wasn't around the last couple of days to join in with this one - looks like it was fun !!

if you want proof of evolution, look no further than your own appendix. A redundant organ, which would have been utilised by our ancient ancestors to digest grass (it's true, humans *had* 2 stomachs!). Obviously, we haven't had to use this organ for probably a few tens of thousands of years, and so, the organ is small, useless, and expendable.

In a few more tens of thousands of years, this organ will likely not exist.

Not concrete proof sure, but why else would it be there? What would "God"'s purpose have been in creating it? etc etc.

And can I say that the concept of a multiverse is quite ludicrous. For a species that can't even venture out of its own solar system, trying to conceptualise an infinite number of "universes" is quite silly. I do however put credence in the possibility of a second universe, although only for the sake of "anti-matter". I also say I understand very little of the concept.

erm...what nh said. :D

Most of my beliefs are based on faith alone, and basically that I just know God is there. It'd be useful if I knew more facts like nh, but as long as he's here I don't need to. ;)

Ok - call it quits there for now - I'll just wait for someone to start picking holes in others points I raised now. ;-)

We could argue all day, we both believe our own ways so strongly.

Ok - whatever - why dont you go look at some of the evidence for yourself and then come back and show me some concrete proof of evolution. I'm happy to look at and read anything and at the moment there is nothing that I have seen that proves evolution at all.

In fact the more that you look into it the more we see all the theories from the formation of life from some kind of primordial goo onwards being shown to be false using our known scientific methods.

Indeed it was only a couple of years ago that the theory that we all evolved from some kind of spontaneous reaction in a little pool somewhere was shown to be completely flawed. That was when a group of scientists proposed that we accept the fact that life on this planet must have stared by some kind of asteroid strike that contained life in a very basic from from another planet. they did not however explain how life would have started on that planet. It is a case of coming out with a theory that will work and fit the argument at the time.

Some more for you to read :

The proposition that something as incredibly diverse and irreducibly complex as life - and which is characterised by order, purpose and the ability to reproduce itself (in other words, displaying consciousness) - could have spontaneously defied the Second Law of Thermodynamics and come into being out of the relatively simple primordial environment of pre-biotic earth by way of some unknown, 'unconscious', purposeless, mechanistic process, sounds incredible. The fact that no empirical evidence in support of such a notion has ever been discovered or put forward almost defies belief that such a theory could become the predominant 'scientific' view of reality. Presumably, under normal circumstances such a notion would have been rejected without a second thought.

Darwinian theory attributes biological complexity to the accumulation of adaptive micro-mutations by natural selection, but the creative power of this hypothetical mechanism has never been demonstrated, and the fossil evidence is inconsistent with the claim that biological creation occurred in that way. The philosophically important part of the Darwinian theory - its mechanism for creating complex things that did not exist before - is therefore not really empirical science at all, but rather a deduction from naturalistic philosophy.

nh wrote:
> This shows that he himself was doubting alot of the things that he had
> originally written.

Darwin only wrote this to try and stem the backlash from the mostly christian scientific minds.