Death.. Then what?

[Chaos]

First off, Mr. Pwnage - the bible states that "God made us in His own image". This is why God is depicted in a 'human' form.

Second @ Chaos - I don't find nothing randomly turning into something logical, by any means what so ever. If absolutely NOTHING existed, how could ANYTHING have ever occurred? Its completely illogical, no doubt about that. Additionally, about Jake's statement that "unintelligence cannot create intelligence unless it was designed to." does not mean God couldn't exist either - Jake's point was that God has always been there, he wasn't created. He is above the laws of man and our comprehension.

It has yet to been addressed on why the universe couldn't have always existed just as easily as God.  Frankly, I'm of the theory that the Big Bang was not the beginning of the universe, just the start of a new era in an infinite cycle.  As for the 'unintelligence cannot create intelligence', that's irrelevant anyway, because it's a load of bollocks.   :-\  Intelligence always comes from Unintelligence.  That's how we progress.  Once upon a time, no one understood physics.  No one understood biology.  No one understood chemistry.  And let me tell you, no magical intelligence came along and showed us the way.  Intelligence evolved from unintelligence.  It happens CONSTANTLY in nature all around us. 

P.S.  Feel free to ignore my previous post before this one, it was late and I was in the middle of a ustream, and I couldn't be arsed to write something more explanatory and insightful.

[Hikarikuen]

Intelligence always comes from Unintelligence.  That's how we progress.  Once upon a time, no one understood physics.  No one understood biology.  No one understood chemistry.  And let me tell you, no magical intelligence came along and showed us the way.  Intelligence evolved from unintelligence.  It happens CONSTANTLY in nature all around us.

The UNDERSTANDING evolved (in a manner of speaking), but that has little to do with the intelligence, assuming we're looking at this as understanding being knowledge itself and intelligence being the capacity for knowledge - but this may not be what you meant. Anyway, I fail to see how this proves that humans were not always intelligent and therefore gained understanding.

This theory of "infinite cycles" is certainly fascinating - but it still almost sounds like it was created in a conscious attempt not to involve an intelligent being in the origins of the universe. If nothing else, it explains what (supposedly?) went "bang".

At least we pretty much all agree that something has to be eternal and that humans came from somewhere, so we know that we all have some degree of sanity :D

... unfortunately, now that we've summed up all the basics of beginnings, we're still left with the actual subject of this topic: what happens after life. And the means we've been discussing most definitely affect the ends, which pretty much means we're going in a circle: the end has one of 2 general results depending on which of the beginnings is true... we get as far as we can with the beginnings, and we realize that we've learned nothing when we get back to the end.

So when it comes to the actual topic, I for one have nothing left to discuss.

[Chaos]

I think the 'nothing left to discuss' part is what kind of spawned the new direction of topic in the first place, lol.

Yeah, in a way, I think a clock is a perfect representation for time.  No matter how much time passes, it always repeats in an infinite loop.  There is no beginning or end to the loop, it just continues to pass.  I heard once upon a time that the universe was expanding, and that it was to eventually stop, reverse, and contract again.  That would support my stated theory perfectly, since the universe would eventually contract into a tight little ball of matter, explode, and start all over again.

From what I've heard, the 'contracting' of the universe has since been disproven, and apparently it is indeed supposedly ACCELERATING.  What that means for my theory, I couldn't tell you at the moment.

However, another concept is to once again keep in mind the concept of perception.  If everything in the entire universe was 3 times as big as it was now, would we notice ANY difference?  Naturally, the answer is no.  We have no point of reference for comparison, so as far as we'd be concerned, everything is the exact same size as it would be if it were 3 times as big.  After all, a 'foot', a 'meter', a 'mile' are all human-made systems of measurement.  They would also be 3 times as big.  So, what if everything was a trillion times smaller than it is now.  WOULD WE NOTICE A DIFFERENCE?   :-X

[Lingus]

Firstly, I need to address the fact that people are stating that the Big Bang Theory is flawed. Why does anyone think that? The Big Bang Theory is pretty much proven. What I believe people are referring to here is that the Big Bang Theory does not explain how the universe was created from nothing... Guess what, it doesn't have to. The Big Bang Theory only addresses what happened from the beginning of time, the beginning of the universe as we know it, onward. It does not address what caused that. So, encapsulated as it is, it is not flawed. It would be like saying the theories that address the quantum levels and the macro levels are flawed because they do not address the opposite sides of things. Encapsulated as they are, they correctly address everything they are supposed to address. What we need to say here is that we currently do not have a proven theory on what caused the big bang. In fact, there are already several theories that look plausible. As I've mentioned before, one of them is (I believe) called "Brane" (as in membrane) theory. Without going into detail, it uses the concept of a membrane (a 2 dimensional sheet) as reperesentations of objects in higher dimensions. Something about these branes moving in a higher dimension and then colliding somehow cause the creation of our 4 dimensional universe. Again, I don't understand it fully, but suffice it to prove that there are actually theories out there that deal with this kind of thing unlike some people here have claimed.

On that note, I would also like to address the claim that something cannot be created from nothing. On the contrary, it has been theorized that this does occur. I will state again that I do not fully understand all of the concepts. I'm not a theoretical physicist. None of us are and we're all just using what we know to discuss a topic, so we'll leave it at that. But, anyways, they say that around a black hole certain particals would be destroyed, and other particals are actually created. That is, something is created from nothing. It is not a matter of something changing into something else. The theory is that something is actually created.

And furthermore, on the topic of intelligence coming from unintelligence, this is also something that science can perfectly explain. Again, not going into detail, but I do know that there are perfectly plausible theories for how this occurs.

Basically, my point is that science is actually capable of explaining quite a bit, even now. It's not a matter of, "One day we might be smart enough to explain these things." Some of us are smart enough now. It's a matter of years/decades before a lot of these things are put together. Progress is constantly being made. It's highly likely that the elusive "Theory of everything" (that is a theory that explains both the quantum and macro levels accurately) will be presented some time soon. With that will come a lot more. I urge people who are into using God or a higher power to explain some things to look up some of these theories and scientific explanations.

And again, I will state that I am NOT trying to say there is no God or higher power. As I mentioned before, that is NOT something science can ever explain away. What science can do is give us answers for these questions that we're asking. What was the force that created everything? How did life, and from it, intelligence, come to be? The answer doesn't have to be a higher power that is pulling the metaphorical strings of the universe. That can all be perfectly explained by science. But the role that a god plays in everyone's life is deeper than that. It is something inside each of us... those that choose to believe in that manner. And that is fine. That means everything is completely logical and makes sense. Science advocates are right, and religion advocates are right... but only within the confines of their own arena.

[Chaos]

+karma for j00, my good man.  That was *sniff sniff* beatiful...  ;)

[Torch]

WARNING Above post contains dangerous amounts of win.

[Mystery]

THAT was incredible, Lingus. +karma, my good sir. +karma.

[Cactuscat222]

I honestly can't say I agree with Lingus though. :/

[Chaos]

I honestly can't say I agree with Lingus though. :/

How so?

[Jake]

Firstly, I need to address the fact that people are stating that the Big Bang Theory is flawed. Why does anyone think that? The Big Bang Theory is pretty much proven. What I believe people are referring to here is that the Big Bang Theory does not explain how the universe was created from nothing... Guess what, it doesn't have to. The Big Bang Theory only addresses what happened from the beginning of time, the beginning of the universe as we know it, onward. It does not address what caused that. So, encapsulated as it is, it is not flawed. It would be like saying the theories that address the quantum levels and the macro levels are flawed because they do not address the opposite sides of things. Encapsulated as they are, they correctly address everything they are supposed to address. What we need to say here is that we currently do not have a proven theory on what caused the big bang. In fact, there are already several theories that look plausible. As I've mentioned before, one of them is (I believe) called "Brane" (as in membrane) theory. Without going into detail, it uses the concept of a membrane (a 2 dimensional sheet) as reperesentations of objects in higher dimensions. Something about these branes moving in a higher dimension and then colliding somehow cause the creation of our 4 dimensional universe. Again, I don't understand it fully, but suffice it to prove that there are actually theories out there that deal with this kind of thing unlike some people here have claimed.

On that note, I would also like to address the claim that something cannot be created from nothing. On the contrary, it has been theorized that this does occur. I will state again that I do not fully understand all of the concepts. I'm not a theoretical physicist. None of us are and we're all just using what we know to discuss a topic, so we'll leave it at that. But, anyways, they say that around a black hole certain particals would be destroyed, and other particals are actually created. That is, something is created from nothing. It is not a matter of something changing into something else. The theory is that something is actually created.

And furthermore, on the topic of intelligence coming from unintelligence, this is also something that science can perfectly explain. Again, not going into detail, but I do know that there are perfectly plausible theories for how this occurs.

Basically, my point is that science is actually capable of explaining quite a bit, even now. It's not a matter of, "One day we might be smart enough to explain these things." Some of us are smart enough now. It's a matter of years/decades before a lot of these things are put together. Progress is constantly being made. It's highly likely that the elusive "Theory of everything" (that is a theory that explains both the quantum and macro levels accurately) will be presented some time soon. With that will come a lot more. I urge people who are into using God or a higher power to explain some things to look up some of these theories and scientific explanations.

And again, I will state that I am NOT trying to say there is no God or higher power. As I mentioned before, that is NOT something science can ever explain away. What science can do is give us answers for these questions that we're asking. What was the force that created everything? How did life, and from it, intelligence, come to be? The answer doesn't have to be a higher power that is pulling the metaphorical strings of the universe. That can all be perfectly explained by science. But the role that a god plays in everyone's life is deeper than that. It is something inside each of us... those that choose to believe in that manner. And that is fine. That means everything is completely logical and makes sense. Science advocates are right, and religion advocates are right... but only within the confines of their own arena.

I agree with you on many points, but theories on creation from nothing are assuming that nothing is creating that something, when it could simply be a force out their that can't be detected with any of our instruments. If a particle appears out of no where with no visible trace of how it got there (much like the concept of quantum physics), people assume that it had no reason for it's creation, simply because we don't know how it got to be. So to say that we can prove that creation from nothing does indeed exist is false, and can only ever be regarded as a theory because of our limited scope of what is actually happening in the universe.

As for your statement on the big bang, I never disagreed with this. The big bang is a perfectly plausible scenario. As for ideas on the creation of it, I am skeptical of the concepts behind it. I feel like basing theory on theory on theory gets you into a rut. Do I believe a higher being created the big bang? Not really. I believe a higher being is only existent at the very base of all existence.

As for your statement that unintelligence can create intelligence, it can't be proven simply because any theories created that try to prove this statement could be from the result of a greater intent driving the science of the universe. We simply don't know in this respect. You can't say for certain that it's one way or the other. My belief is that unintelligence cannot create intelligence, but I admit that this could be wrong, while you must do the same because you have to take into account theories that do not coincide with your beliefs.

Why am I making these points? To support the idea that believing science (as we believe it to be) can explain everything is simply a concept that can't be proven. Somebody can take an opposite stance and still have logical reasons for doing so.

[Lingus]

Jake, I think that we perfectly agree. We are just coming from two different view points. You're siding more with religion whereas I am siding more toward science. I think we are still coming to similar conclusions though: that the other viewpoint is potentially just as plausible. It seems like we have a similar viewpoint of what a higher power would be were it to exist. Not some dude with a beard sitting in heavan making things happen within our world. It would be just a force that is within everything. Not that it is the root cause of the universe or anything like that.

Btw, my point in mentioning all of those theories was not to say, "Hey look, we have theories on that therefore it must be true." My point was more to say that we have theories on those things... That's it. I'm not saying that they are necessarily true, but that we are coming pretty close to understanding a lot of the more difficult things to understand about the universe.

In any event, to respond to some of your comments: The theory relating to something from nothing is in fact that a physical particle is created. There was nothing there, and then there is. That's not to say something isn't happening in a higher dimension. But I don't really understand the entire theory so I don't know. And keep in mind, these are theories based on mathematics. I don't believe any of this has actually been observed. But in general, these types of theories tend to be true. For instance, the theory that black holes even exist was originally just based on some mathematical function. When the theory first came out no one had ever observed anything about a black hole. Now though, they have ways of detecting the existance of black holes, and so the theory was essentially proven.

Again, my comment on the big bang theory was simply to set the record straight. The discussion was not relating to the big bang but everyone was using that term. The discussion was actually about what happened before the big bang. What caused the big bang to happen. And my point in mentioning theories was simply to point out that theories are there, not that they are necessary true.

I think what this comes down to is acceptance of certain things. If you can accept certain truths about the universe, then you have to accept certain other things. If you aren't willing to accept those things, than that can be used against you. If you don't accept scientific theories as likely possibilities, then you shouldn't accept the truths that we know about the universe either. Maybe everything you perceive is really false. Everything breaks down at that point. Saying that the accepted theories on certain scientific questions are potentially false is like the old arguement that evolution is potentially false. Sure, it's not necessarily proven, but you can't deny the fact that it is based on some strong evidence. It's the same with a lot of the other things I'm talking about. The big bang theory wasn't always accepted as fact. It's still considered a theory because it's pretty much impossible to prove. But there is enough factual evidence that points to it being true. Some of the other theories I'm talking about might not be as strong, but it's a similar idea. They won't ever be anything more than theories because you can't prove them. The only thing scientists can do is amass evidence that agrees with their theory. The more observations that agree with a theory, the stronger the theory is. It's really only ever possible to disprove a theory.

But, the point of all of this is not to say, "I'm right and you're wrong." In fact, I think we both accept that the other person might be right. I'm just pointing out that science isn't as flawed as one might think. I don't claim that science will one day be able to explain everything about everything. But I do think it's a potential possibility. You can't prove that wrong as much as I can't prove it to be true.

Btw, Cactuscat, what parts don't you agree with? I'm curious.

[Cactuscat222]

You'll have to forgive me; I didn't mean I disagreed with all of what you said.

I was mainly irked about the same things Jake was, but you two have deliberated much the same way I would have, and you have made things more clear (IE I had the same interpretation from your first post that "These things are fact", but you've clarified now).

I still haven't figured out my own personal belief system yet though - one day I'll have to try and figure it out fully.

[ARTgames]

Now only if there was a way to turn these sentences in this topic into lines of code for stick online 3.

[Lingus]

Ah. I see. That's cool.

As far as figuring out your own beliefs. Don't. Don't solidify your way of thinking. Don't convince yourself that "This is the way it is as far as I'm concerned." Leave your mind completely open to new ways of thinking. Constantly reassess your viewpoint on these things. Once you settle on one way of thought, you've closed off other avenues of possible truths. None of us have the answers, so don't ever fool yourself into thinking you do.

At least that's how I see it.

[ARTgames]

Looking at the last few post i think this topic has gone off what is after death. I wanted to make a post but im really not sure what we are discussing as a main topic now. It seems to be science and religion. Is that right?