Is there a God?
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jordanvraptor
Founding Member
Or maybe the universe isn't all that complex, we're just to stupid to understand itbreakemlose said:
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Visceral
New Member
jordanvraptor said:Yeah, that "Free Will" thing screwed it all up....
Well... theres two things at work here that are being discussed... the basic principals of physics and the concept of the human conciousness. You can put them together as one and marvel at how a God created a system of physics that would lead to the wonders of the biochemical brain and it's deep abilities of empathy and self awareness. Or you can imagine that physics are a direct result of the fundamental lengths of strings within string theory, and that there are literally other parallel universes where the strings resonate at other frequencies creating different strengths of gravitational, electromagnetic, strong, weak, etc forces. If those forces are at different proportions, none of the basics exist for our existence, let alone matter in general. So are we the lucky inhabitant of a fotunate coordination of forces? You could say yes and still counter that the human brain... the self awareness, the "spirit"... is still a miracle that could only be a result of a higher power. OR you could ascribe to the thought of folks like Stuart Kauffman and several modern abstract mathmeticians that say that autocatalytic sets in a high variety field are inevitable... leading to an actual high likelyhood of complex life. Given the imperfections of human nature and the tragedy of animalistic "evil" as we think of it, I have no $%^&ing clue what the real story is. But theres alot of options, and anyone is welcome to subscribe to any one of them. I have no hard evidence to dispute much of anything. Im jus a po' white boy.
stang_lover69
I gave special favors for a CT
Darkness
Founding Member
Darkness
Founding Member
Yep I know, that one is the Capri RS Cosworth, made for European Touring Car Championship. I still own a 1974 Capri 1600GT MKII.MTMMAN said:
Darkness
Founding Member
Yeah I might bring mine over one day, nothing better than a 2200lbs car with a 5.0 in itMTMMAN said:
breakemlose said:
You assume a whole hell of a lot in this statement. For one, you assume that the universe was created. What if it always existed? You also assume the existence of a singular God... what if there are many Gods? You assume there are hard fast "rules"... what if they are only rules because we don't know any other way to operate?
I'd like to share a story by Carl Sagan.
The Dragon In My Garage
by Carl Sagan
"A fire-breathing dragon lives in my garage"
Suppose (I'm following a group therapy approach by the psychologist Richard Franklin) I seriously make such an assertion to you. Surely you'd want to check it out, see for yourself. There have been innumerable stories of dragons over the centuries, but no real evidence. What an opportunity!
"Show me," you say. I lead you to my garage. You look inside and see a ladder, empty paint cans, an old tricycle--but no dragon.
"Where's the dragon?" you ask.
"Oh, she's right here," I reply, waving vaguely. "I neglected to mention that she's an invisible dragon."
You propose spreading flour on the floor of the garage to capture the dragon's footprints.
"Good idea," I say, "but this dragon floates in the air."
Then you'll use an infrared sensor to detect the invisible fire.
"Good idea, but the invisible fire is also heatless."
You'll spray-paint the dragon and make her visible.
"Good idea, but she's an incorporeal dragon and the paint won't stick."
And so on. I counter every physical test you propose with a special explanation of why it won't work.
Now, what's the difference between an invisible, incorporeal, floating dragon who spits heatless fire and no dragon at all? If there's no way to disprove my contention, no conceivable experiment that would count against it, what does it mean to say that my dragon exists? Your inability to invalidate my hypothesis is not at all the same thing as proving it true. Claims that cannot be tested, assertions immune to disproof are veridically worthless, whatever value they may have in inspiring us or in exciting our sense of wonder. What I'm asking you to do comes down to believing, in the absence of evidence, on my say-so.
The only thing you've really learned from my insistence that there's a dragon in my garage is that something funny is going on inside my head. You'd wonder, if no physical tests apply, what convinced me. The possibility that it was a dream or a hallucination would certainly enter your mind. But then, why am I taking it so seriously? Maybe I need help. At the least, maybe I've seriously underestimated human fallibility.
Imagine that, despite none of the tests being successful, you wish to be scrupulously open-minded. So you don't outright reject the notion that there's a fire-breathing dragon in my garage. You merely put it on hold. Present evidence is strongly against it, but if a new body of data emerge you're prepared to examine it and see if it convinces you. Surely it's unfair of me to be offended at not being believed; or to criticize you for being stodgy and unimaginative-- merely because you rendered the Scottish verdict of "not proved."
Imagine that things had gone otherwise. The dragon is invisible, all right, but footprints are being made in the flour as you watch. Your infrared detector reads off-scale. The spray paint reveals a jagged crest bobbing in the air before you. No matter how skeptical you might have been about the existence of dragons--to say nothing about invisible ones--you must now acknowledge that there's something here, and that in a preliminary way it's consistent with an invisible, fire-breathing dragon.
Now another scenario: Suppose it's not just me. Suppose that several people of your acquaintance, including people who you're pretty sure don't know each other, all tell you that they have dragons in their garages--but in every case the evidence is maddeningly elusive. All of us admit we're disturbed at being gripped by so odd a conviction so ill-supported by the physical evidence. None of us is a lunatic. We speculate about what it would mean if invisible dragons were really hiding out in garages all over the world, with us humans just catching on. I'd rather it not be true, I tell you. But maybe all those ancient European and Chinese myths about dragons weren't myths at all.
Gratifyingly, some dragon-size footprints in the flour are now reported. But they're never made when a skeptic is looking. An alternative explanation presents itself. On close examination it seems clear that the footprints could have been faked. Another dragon enthusiast shows up with a burnt finger and attributes it to a rare physical manifestation of the dragon's fiery breath. But again, other possibilities exist. We understand that there are other ways to burn fingers besides the breath of invisible dragons. Such "evidence"--no matter how important the dragon advocates consider it--is far from compelling. Once again, the only sensible approach is tentatively to reject the dragon hypothesis, to be open to future physical data, and to wonder what the cause might be that so many apparently sane and sober people share the same strange delusion.
Darkness
Founding Member
No, no, the car was restored back to original condition back in 99, the 5.0 was just an idea I always had, sorry if I misled you, but in order to have a V8 in a capri you'd have to change the whole drive train cause the tranny and rear end and too weak for that kinda power.MTMMAN said:
I believe that TIME is simply a measurement and creation of mans consciousness and desire to understand something we are not capable of understanding.
It is impossible for anyone one of us to fully comprehend existence without TIME. It is impossible to imagine being dead without being alive. It is impossible to understand there is no beginning and there is no end because we revolve around time.
Therefore I believe in a higher power because I do not believe time was a creation of nature or science and means absolutely nothing to something that has always existed.
Rye
It is impossible for anyone one of us to fully comprehend existence without TIME. It is impossible to imagine being dead without being alive. It is impossible to understand there is no beginning and there is no end because we revolve around time.
Therefore I believe in a higher power because I do not believe time was a creation of nature or science and means absolutely nothing to something that has always existed.
Rye
ddonaca351
Active Member
jordanvraptor said:Yeah, that "Free Will" thing screwed it all up....
naaaahhh , his only mistake was telling a WOMAN "don't do that, it's bad for you".... and woman being a woman, went and did it anyhow.
DD
(now donning nomex undies)
ddonaca351
Active Member
Darkness said:Yeah I might bring mine over one day, nothing better than a 2200lbs car with a 5.0 in it
unless it's a 2200 lb car with a 7.0 in it... (cough)Cobra(cough)
DD
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