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The fact is there is no ideology worth killing for, eventhough, there might be some ideologies worth dying for.
If everyone would abide by this, there would be a lot less killing in the world.

When your surroundings disrupts freethought, that's where problem lies. Everyone has the right to believe in whatever they want to believe. But no one has the right to enforce their beliefs on others, even their own children. It is impossible for anyone to make a free choice without first having access to the full information at hand comming from both sides of the medal. There is no way to make any rational decision with parts of the information missing.

Keeping someone in the dark just so they will share the same beliefs and abide by your rules is a crime. Entraping someone's mind and not allowing it to make it's own decisions is a crime.

Freedom of thought and freedom of choice is probably the only thing worth dying for, but still not worth killing for.


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A longer neck provides additional advantages to the giraffe. One being that it can see further and thus has an advantage looking for lions and predators.

It is not uncommon for other African animals to use giraffes as an early warning system.
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/kids/creature_feature/0111/giraffes2.html


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Originally Posted By: redewenur
Correct me if I'm wrong:- you believe in a god that created the universe with all the requisite programming for evolutionary progression (as described in Darwinian evolution) built in. After which he left it to come to fruition of its own accord. Is that right?


Hiya Red,

Something along those lines. I don't really know what I believe - it seems we need an incredible amount of information to come to a firm conclusion.

I have talked alot about the difficulty of knowing anything objectively and I certainly don't exclude myself from that.

I may appear to be dogmatic at times, but it is only for the sake of argument and is in a sense playing the devil's advocate.

I am simply not sure of many things and this is what leads me to be suspect of the materialist atheist (like Dan Morgan, Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris). They simply do not have enough evidence as far as I can see for their dogmatic beliefs, and the fact that they appear to have all the zeal of a fundamentalist and non of the doubt, makes their motives for holding their views suspect.

Our beliefs are founded upon some very basic assumptions that are not subject to empirical falsification. This is the whole problem with science when it makes pronouncements upon what really are metaphysical issues. It cannot effectively examine the very assumptions that bring it to interpret evidence in a particular way.

In truth, I doubt God, and I also doubt materialism. I find them both equally hard to digest. I was not brought up religiously and started going to church with my mates when I was in my teens and we used to sit at the back and take the mick out of the 'religious freaks' and even used to laugh and heckle them when they preached their lunacy. Then I had a powerful experience of God. It was unasked for, unwelcome and unbelievable but has since been followed by more. I instantly saw an incredible change in my character and the inner workings of my mind. The experience I have found is common to many others, in ways that are so particular and counter intuitive, that for me, it precludes this being a phenomena associated only with the power of imagination.

What do I do with this? When all else is subjective and relies upon other people interpreting reality for me. If I want to know about apparent fine-tuning in the universe then I must listen to others, who either think that it is evidence for God, or will fall clearly into the anthropomorphic principle camp. If I want to know about whether it is reasonable for a material process to result in the seemingly miraculous process of creating mind, then there are people on both sides. If I want to know whether the gospels are reliable, then I have exceptionally intelligent and well informed people people on both sides.

In short if I want to know anything, there is someone there to tell me what they 'BELIEVE', including what I should do with my experience of God (delusion/reality).


I saw these definitions of life positions:

Quote:

1. Rigid Theism
2. Open-minded Theism
3. Open-minded Agnosticism
4. Open-minded Materialism
5. Rigid Materialism

Rigid Theism describes a theistic worldview that constrains the way the person views the empirical evidence. Creation Science advocates generally believe that Genesis chapters one and two in the Bible must be understood as a literal six twenty-four hour day history of the creation of the earth and life on it. Because of this understanding of what the writer of Genesis intended, the Bible gives controlling guidance as to how the scientific evidence must be understood.

Open-minded Theism describes a theistic worldview that does not constrain the way the person views the empirical evidence. The person believes that there is a God who is ultimately responsible for creating the world and life on it, but that God could have used macroevolutionary processes and mechanisms to do it and could have done it over millions of years. The person might have a very conservative view of Biblical authority, but does not believe that the Bible necessarily intends to convey that God created the world in six 24 hour days.

Open-minded Agnosticism describes a worldview in which the person is has no position on whether there is a God or not, and this worldview does not constrain the way the person views the empirical evidence.

Open-minded Materialism describes a materialistic/naturalistic worldview that does not constrain the way the person views the empirical evidence. Such a person will look for an explanation that comports with a materialistic framework, but will not assume that there necessarily must be a materialistic explanation. Such a person recognizes that science has not proven that there is no God or that there is no supernatural realm, so that it is presumptuous to assume that there must be a naturalistic explanation for all phenomena.

Rigid Materialism describes a materialistic/naturalistic worldview that constrains the way the person views the empirical evidence. If such a person encounters evidence that does not fit a materialistic explanation of nature, he will develop an explanation to make the evidence fit that framework. Only a naturalistic answer is acceptable, and all evidence must fit within these starting assumptions.


I sit somewhere between 2 & 3, but my approach to science definitely sits at 4. Dan and most others here sit at 5.

Red, I hope this explains my position (or lack of one) adequately, and I hope that when you see me defending Christianity you will not label me as a fundamentalist but will understand where I am smile

Blacknad.

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Blacknad

Thanks for taking the time and trouble to explain your position. I do appreciate it. I've said elsewhere that I have a great respect for people like Richard Dawkin because they refuse to succumb to intellectual treason. By that, I don't mean that they therefore have to be right in every way. The point is, it's very important (to my way of thinking) that one examines carefully not only the available external data, but also one's own thinking and experiences. Differentiating between the 'concrete' and the 'abstract': young kids see reality in predominantly concrete terms; abstract concepts are difficult for them. When we reach adolescence we are well into the abstract side of things, and that's usually the time when we start to ask the related questions. If we've never considered the metaphysical before, it's most likely happen then. It happened to me.

I rarely talk about my own related experiences. It's almost always pointless, as they are entirely personal, their exact nature is known only to me, and so they can have value only to me. In discussion, they would be wide open to misunderstanding, misinterpretation ridicule and...well, you name it. So, my position is that, according to religions, I'm probably an atheist. I'm simply not prepared to hang labels on the related events of my inner experience.

Thanks again.


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Blacknad,

My question to you is why christianity?
Why not islam, budhism, taoism or even scientology?
Do you even know enough about other relegions to make a fair assessment?
Do you base your belief on your surrounding and social upbringing or on your own personal judgement?
What makes the christian god more believable then any others?



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blacknad wrote:
"I am simply not sure of many things and this is what leads me to be suspect of the materialist atheist (like Dan Morgan, Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris). They simply do not have enough evidence as far as I can see for their dogmatic beliefs, and the fact that they appear to have all the zeal of a fundamentalist and non of the doubt, makes their motives for holding their views suspect."

I fear you have miscategorized me my friend. Materialist atheist? Ok I've got a 50ft boat and a Jaguar but I am hardly a materialist. Most of my worldly possessions, excluding the car would fit nicely in the boat and they don't include most of what most people spend money on. I guess I could use the books for additional ballast but what to do with the classical music CDs. <g>

"Our beliefs are founded upon some very basic assumptions that are not subject to empirical falsification. This is the whole problem with science when it makes pronouncements upon what really are metaphysical issues. It cannot effectively examine the very assumptions that bring it to interpret evidence in a particular way."

Not sure I can agree here either. Let me present the issue to you again. In a room put a devout Orthodox Jewish Rabbi, the Pope, an Anglican minister (you are English so I'm making allowances), both a Shiite and Sunni Imam, and a handful of believers in Buddhism, Hinduism, Shinto, and Animism for good effect. Oh heck lets add Tony Blair and Hillary Clinton to the mix too.

Now put a question to them ... any question. That to which they will all agree is objective. The temperature at which water freezes, the distance to the moon, the color of the sky, the depth of the Pacific Ocean, the length of a halibut.

Ask them questions about Paris Hilton, Jesus Christ, their favorite color, whether bacon tastes good. That is belief.

They are objectively and measurably different. And that is something I think you too will agree with making it universal.

"In truth, I doubt God, and I also doubt materialism."

So do I and I've little use for either. But there are more than two paths. Choose yours wisely.


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Dan,

Not economic materialism but philosophical materialism. Nothing to do with consumerism etc.

Reductive Materialism, Physicalism, Methodological Materialism.

I would characterise you by all of the above, but probably Scientific Reductionism most effectively sums up your position.

Blacknad.

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(this is tangent to the conversation, but i will post this anyways)
it is rational to beleive in a God. First, tell me this: have u ever seen a building? i would imagine that most (all) of you said yes. have you ever thought of who made that building? was it just fashioned there without any purpose and any inspiration? of course not. you know as much as i that there was a designer of that building, and the building has a purpose (to give someone shelter, to give businesses room, etc.), and it has an inspiration behind it (to help a homeless community, to get money, to better society, etc.)
in the same way, our universe was created. there was a designer (God), and a purpose (to glorify Him, although that is shallowing on a religious argument, not scientific, and is besides the point, so dont use that as an excuse to start another argument), and had an inspiration behind it (to give a chance for man to live).
let me ask you this: do you think it is irrational to beleive in a designer?
was frank lloyd wright a person? or did his masterpieces just appear somehow without a creator, with no purpose, and no inspiration behind them? of course not
DA Morgon a few posts ago said, "There is no purpose to the universe" is that a rational statement or an irrational statement? i will let u decide for yourself.

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Tim wrote:
"it is rational to beleive in a God. First, tell me this: have u ever seen a building?"

If your intent is to prove that application of synapses to conversation is not required you have succeeded.

For your statement is mindless parroting of what you were told as a child. Your second of even less value.

If you think there is a purpose ... go for it. But don't proselytize here. We have a way of dealing with trolls and those who think they can co-opt SAGG for their personal agenda selling their brand of religion.

One more post like the above and you will experience it first hand.


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Tim, you ask if it is rational to say that there is no purpose to the Universe. Of course it is, if you have no reason to believe otherwise. There is no empirical evidence that there is any purpose at all the Universe.

Is it rational to say that there IS a purpose to the Universe? Of course it is, if you have no reason to believe otherwise. There's no empirical evidence that there isn't one.

When you see a building, you only know that it was designed and built by somebody because you have been taught all your life that this is how buildings come into being. But what if you were a child raised by wolves and never saw civilization before? One day you come out of the forest for the first time and see a hut. You would probably think it was a big rock or a strangely shaped plant. That it is hollow and has somebody living in it isn't so surprising since lots of things live inside caves or hollow trees. Why would it even cross your mind that somebody made such a thing? It would be entirely rational to think it grew right where it was. And the same goes for all buildings. Until you have a reason to believe otherwise, there is no reason to assume a creator - of buildings or of Universes.

This is, in a nutshell, the difference between an atheist and a theist. An atheist sees the world and can't think of any reason there would have to be a God. A theist looks at it and can't think of any reason the wouldn't be a god. And each looks at the other with perplexity, unable to come to terms with such an alien though process.

Personally, I have reason to believe in God. I have had experiences that made it very clear that God exists and that faith can do amazing things. Some of these experiences could be easily explained away by an atheist as errant activations of the "god module" in my brain, but others cannot.

And a person who has never had such experiences will grow to believe whatever it is that they are most comfortable believing. I could tell such a person about all my experiences, and because they would doubt my motives in the telling, or my recollection of the events, or my interpretations of the outcomes, they would have no reason to change their beliefs. This is why I don't go around evangelizing. When a person wants to find God, they will find it wherever they look. When they don't want to, they won't look and won't see God even standing before them.

I have no problem with understanding atheists. The people I don't understand are the fundies. They can look at a black cat, and if there's something in the Bible about there not being any black cats, then they'll say it isn't black. Of course it's black! It's right in front you! "No, it isn't black. It's a test of my faith and I'm faithful so I know it isn't really black." They can't see that the point of the writings is to teach, not to rob us of learning. If the Bible said there are no black cats then it would clearly be a case of parable or hyperbole. But fundies prefer to allow themselves to be robbed of their intellectual capabilities.

The problem is this: A non-fundy Christian reads an article about evolution and thinks, "Hmmm. That's interesting. What else is in the paper today?" It has nothing to do with them, so they learn from it (or not) and move on. A fundy looks at the same article and sees it as a personal attack on their beliefs and so they take to the street en masse and make stickers to put on textbooks, and of course they call themselves Christians. Since the vast majority of Christians couldn't care less, and are remaining quiet, the public begins to assume that all Christians are unthinking idiots who can't see the evidence placed before them.

When I told my brother I was going to join the Catholic church, his first question was, "Will you be allowed to dance if you want to?" I was floored! He's an intelligent guy, but somehow the whacky rules that Christian cults have come up with have all been rolled up into one ball for him with the label "Christianity". If he thought that way, then so can anybody. And that's what ticks me off.

Christianity is in crisis, not because of rational atheists like Dan, et. al., but because of unthinking, non-discerning, led-by-the-nose, idiotic fundamentalists. Like George W. Bush, for instance. And I don't see it changing any time soon because the vast majority of Christians look on these morons and scoff, but do nothing about it because it's hard to get worked up about evolution, cosmology, quantum physics, or whatever unless you see them as an attack on you. And they simply aren't attacks. They are truth.

So rather than asking Dan if it's rational to think the universe has no purpose, ask a fundy if it's rational to think that God is a deceptive trickster with nothing better to do with his time than make a universe filled with logic if there is no need for that logic.

w

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Well said Z ... even though I disagree with some of what you said ... it is well said.

From my perspective it is not that there is not god but rather as in the beliefs of my country's founding fathers, who were deists, this is Judeo-Christian-Islamic style god.

A god that is sentient as depicted is a logical impossibility. One can not be all knowing and change one's mind ... that is logically impossible.

It is not possible to put together two imperfect beings, put them into a test (snake and apple) knowing that they can not pass and then punish them for their failure.

And throw out the logical impossibility of "free will" because if "free will" is renders us capable of making decisions unanticipated by that god then that god is not all powerful, not all knowing, etc.

Again ... logically impossible.

That does not preclude many other possible incarnations.


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"There is but one god."

There are lots and lots of ways in which to worship him/her/it/whatever, and to pay homage. Catholicism is the way I have chosen, Islam is the way some others have chosen, and blowing up buildings is the unfortunate way that some not very intelligent people have chosen. Pantheism is way chosen by lots of people in the past and a few people today. But, regardless, of our methods, the acknowledgment is there.

I'm not going to try to convert you Dan (even if that was possible, I think it would take a more eloquent locutor than I and you'd have to already want it which you don't seem to), but I'll ask you to indulge me for just a moment so that I can provide one possible way that your logical paradoxes might be resolved. I'm gonna get a little more metaphysicky than usual, but that's pretty hard to avoid in a discussion of this type.

In the Atemporal Universe thread I brought up the concept of an amazingly complex structure sitting on God's workbench. This structure contains within it every possible pathway through our self-contained universe. It is, in fact, our universe. Time is just another dimension, visible now as a direction since we are standing outside looking at it. Every particle in the universe is represented, and each one branches off every Planck length along the time axis into all the states it can exist in in the next Planck length.

You pick up a special tool from the workbench and look through it at the structure. Its lenses allow you to focus on one of the nearly infinite configurations and there you see a planet populated by people. The whole structure was built by the guy who is loaning you the lens, so he built this planet and the people on it. (Of course, he also built all the other planets and anything or anybody who might be living on those as well. Nothing special about this particular planet - only that it looks familiar and you realize, of course, that you are looking at Earth.)

Do you know what's going to happen to all these people? Of course you do: Everything that possibly can. You can use the lens to see any of it. Each of them will only experience that potion of it that they happen to travel down, but they are all traveling down all the paths - their very consciousnesses are splitting to follow them all. We (you and I, here inside the structure) only remember the path behind us even though we can see the many pathways approaching. When we hit a fork in the road we go both ways and split into another state for each of the ways we go, and each of those states will only remember the one behind them.

It took a lot of effort for the guy who built all this to put it together. He did it as a labor of love, and when he takes a look inside and sees all those creatures he wants the best for them. So he gives them a rich environment in which to live. There are paths they can take that he doesn't mess with at all so that they are free to go away from him, and there are paths where he has reached in and edited things to his liking. There are places where he has inserted his voice, and even one place (a place we remember as a little more than 2000 years ago) where he infused a bit of his own self so he could check out his creation from within for a few decades. He may have done that in lots of places, but we only know about one. (Two, if you're Mormon.)

He also built into these denizens of his giant ant farm the ability to recognize the times that he intervenes. And, in his wisdom, he knows that they couldn't understand an unchanging god because it would be too different from themselves, so he even built into this structure places where he gives different instructions. Without that, he might as well be an inscripted stone. He's not a stone, though, so he has what we might think to call a personality (though that's admittedly not a very apt word for it). Over time the creatures in his creation perceive him as having changed his mind, even though it's all still just part of the same big blueprint.

All of this, of course, is parable. I could say the same things calling him a gardener pruning an amazing Bonsai Tree. Or whatever. The visual is unimportant. The important thing is the concept of a designer able to create all possibilities and allowing us to take all those paths, and this designer having the desire to make himself known and to show his love for his creation and to not be known as an unchangeable rock.

Why do some people insist that prayer or mediations or mantras or repeated affirmtions or other focusing techniques work to bring about the things they want? I think it's because those things both come about and don't come about, and we happen to be living in the instance of time where they did come about and where they were prayed for (or meditated on, or whatever). Would they have come about anyway? Yes (and no). But, living in the time instance where they were prayed for, the one who did the praying feels rewarded for it. Now they have what they prayed for AND a feeling of reward. That's way better than only having what was prayed for.

I think free will is the ability to surf the probability wave and choose which paths we take. And I think that the focus that comes with prayer and meditation helps us increase that innate skill. So when we pray or meditate or do whatever else we do to give us focus on our desires, we are more likely to be able to choose the paths through the universe where those desires are realized.

So there it all is: My strange and unique blend of homogenized quantum physics and religion.

I could go on for days, and you no doubt feel like I already have, but that's the whole bit in a nutshell. I have no doubt you will find what seem to be contradictions and inconsistencies in the above summary, but if I tried to iron them all out then this already too-long post would be far too much longer. The wrinkles are what happens when you pack a full set of clothes in a shoebox.

(To tie this in more closely with Quantum Mechanics, I could also describe how the "Many Worlds" theory fits in, and how the discovery of a real tachyon particle would prove beyond a doubt to me the validity of Many Worlds and also strengthen all the stuff talked about above. But that's a whole 'nother essay.)

w

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I posted the above, and have even edited it a couple times, but the board still shows the last post to this thread as being the one before it. I'm hoping THIS post will update the timestamps...

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Like I've said ... Wayne I like the fact that you think ... even when I don't agree with the conclusion.

But here's where the analog breaks down.

Genesis: My recollection is that as an act of willful intent every person on the planet, save members of one family, were intentionally drowned. And this includes newborn children who had no guilt except that of their parents on their heads.

Exodus: My recollection is that as an act of willful intent every first born male child was murdered even though likely all but a handful had done nothing to deserve that fate.

How can you square what you wrote with the "historical" record?

No need to go on for days, and I've no doubt I'd enjoy meeting you, but I have been stuck since childhood awakened me to the fact that if there is a god ... penicillin was created and hidden. And hundreds of millions of newborn children perished for lack of it. I can not square that with a deity that gives a rip about its creations. And that is the PR message for the Judeo-Christian-Islamic monotheistic god.


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Wayne wrote:

"He may have done that in lots of places, but we only know about one. (Two, if you're Mormon.)"

And an atheist might say in everyone of us. I remember you saying somewhere that religions are judged by the extremes of their public face. I realise I have been judging Christianity by the fundamentalists. Thanks.

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I think the extremes are certainly the worst aspect of any thing. I don't want to be around extremists of any ilk.

But I also judge religions and other "ologies" on whether they ask people to suspend rational thinking.

On whether they are willing to be held accountable for their actions and their inactions.

On whether they can be found to have used phrases like "god is on our side" to justify atrocities against those whose belief system differs.

I'm still waiting for Turks to apologize to the Armenians.

Still waiting for the Catholics to apologize for their support of Nazi Germany.

Still waiting for an apology for Northern Ireland, and countless other examples.

Heck I'm still waiting for an apology to blacks for everything from the slave trade to slave keeping.

And yes I know there have been rare apologies such as the apology of the Pope for the treatment of Galileo. But that doesn't right the wrong until they guy sitting in the back rows also, sincerely, feels the same way.

I'm in for a very very long wait.


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Originally Posted By: DA Morgan
Genesis: My recollection is that as an act of willful intent every person on the planet, save members of one family, were intentionally drowned.


Uh, yeah. Right. And why is it, then, that there are animals today indigenous to specific parts of the world? They all got off the Ark in the same place, right? And how did the Ark fit all the insect specimens?

Obviously, the Great Flood is a parable and/or legend. There was an amazing flood when a giant lake emptied through a newly formed crack into a relatively flat area. (I'm sorry - I don't remember the specifics since it's been years since i read the article, but it was in a geographically appropriate place for biblical legends.) It is thought that this was where the legends of the flood may have originated. Surely anybody in the region would have thought the whole world flooded.

Only the hardcore fundamentalists believe that Moses saved all the animals by loading them two by two onto a boat. To dismiss Christianity because it has a few fanciful stories that you think all Christians believe literally is to misjudge the intelligence of a lot of Christians.

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And this includes newborn children who had no guilt except that of their parents on their heads.


Meh. We could argue for months on the concept of original sin, but I don't tend to blame baby deaths on God. People die. Animals die. Plants die. Sometimes those plants and animals and people are very young. Do you want a world with a zero infant fatality rate? You're the one talking in another thread about our population already being too big. Death is the price of living.

Quote:
Exodus: My recollection is that as an act of willful intent every first born male child was murdered even though likely all but a handful had done nothing to deserve that fate.


An act of a tyrannical human, not of God.

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if there is a god ... penicillin was created and hidden. And hundreds of millions of newborn children perished for lack of it.


Another human act. God didn't reach in and take away the Penicillin.

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I can not square that with a deity that gives a rip about its creations.


Do you have kids, Dan? Have you ever noticed that sometimes you have to go ahead and let them make mistakes? Does that mean you don't care about them?

w

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Wayne wrote:
"Uh, yeah. Right. And why is it, then, that there are animals today indigenous to specific parts of the world? They all got off the Ark in the same place, right? And how did the Ark fit all the insect specimens?"

Because it never happened. But that is the point. You can't have it both ways. Either it is all true, or it is not all true. If it partially or somewhat true then no one can tell which is which.

But I am somewhat puzzled by your statement about Exodus. The Old Testament clearly identifies the murders as being directly at the hand of the deity. It doesn't say a bunch of Jews with machetes went running around whacking people. So how can you excuse the deity?

God didn't need to take penicillin. God created it and hid it where it could only be found by godless scientists (ok a bit of hyperbole but you get my point I hope).


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i just cut in and i admit i didn't read everything you wrote so don't yell at me if i ask question that has been already asked.
they teach us all our lifes that universe is eternal, infinite and that there was nothing before the Big Bang. true, there may be other theories i'm not familiar as much as this one, but things that bother me are:
...how can there be nothing? doesn't that contradicts physics?
...if Big Bang created universe what existed before?
...how did Big Bang occur if there was nothing before?
i'm on college now and still whomever i ask can't answer me becouse they have same questions as i have.
is there any link or book that explain existing theories without wakeing new questions in my mind?

quantum #19278 03/22/07 01:09 PM
Joined: Mar 2007
Posts: 51
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Joined: Mar 2007
Posts: 51
at this moment i just can't accept any theory becouse (i admit) i don't understand them!!
maybe "understand" isn't the right word - they simply don't answer the questions i want them to answer.
but hey...if we knew all the answers...

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