The "creator hypothesis"

[Mikey]

That's not the quote you provided, though. You said that he said "within the natural order of things." Everything that happens in nature is by definition within the natural order of things. If you mean that he said something to the effect of "...without supernatural intervention," then I understand his point.

[Lighthawk]

Not from nothing... from so little that we don't really have the capacity to conceptualize it either qualitatively or quantitatively.

That's still something from nothing, the infinitely dense little whatever it was that kicked off the Big Bang was a something that came from nothing, unless it had always been there, which is hardly any less hard to try and explain.

Either the Universe (in whatever form) has always been around, or it sprang out of nothingness. I'm not sure which is more amazing to consider.

[Mikey]

I don't see it is a conundrum. You can't talk about what things were like "before" the Big Bang, because time is a metric and a dimension which didn't exist "before" the Big Bang. To co-opt Hawking's term, whatever "preceded" the singularity at the heart of the Big Bang was itself outside of that singularity's light cone.

[Lighthawk]

So the idea that the entirety of the universe: time, space, matter, and energy, simply popped into existence all at once from no source, as there could be nothing before it for it come from, does not twist your brain into considering how such an event could happen?

[Mikey]

Nope. As I've said twice, I don't believe that there's any theory extant which promulgates the idea that there was "no source." If you'd prefer to continue to ignore what I've said and keep to this "no source" idea, then fine - yes, my mind is blown... I'm so twisted by this... etc., etc.

[Graham Kennedy]

Even if we produce life from scratch in a laboratory, that tells us nothing whatsoever about what happened on Earth 3 or 4 billion years ago. Unless we invent time travel, we're never going to know how life arose; at most we will only ever know how it may have.

What I wonder is, if there is a question that science doesn't or can't address, why is this automatically presumed to be the arena of religion? Dawkins once said that he saw a quote along the lines of "That's not a question for science, you should ask your priest," and his thought was "Well why the priest? Why not the gardener, or the plumber?"

I don't mean to be facetious, but so far as I'm aware religion has never provided a really good satisfactory answer to anything, whether or not science could be involved. I honestly don't see why religion gets elevated to the platform where it's taken to be the answer to things that science can't handle.

[Mikey]

That's exactly what I've been trying to say! Religion - and this is coming from someone who believes - isn't a substitute for science, nor is it a band-aid for the gaps that science can't (yet) answer. Religion and science seek to answer two different types of questions, and only come into the sort of conflict that GK describes when someone adopts an untenable position of fundamentalism or (perhaps worse) dogmatic closed-mindedness to the fact that science and religion can peacefully coexist.

As to this:

"Well why the priest? Why not the gardener, or the plumber?"

Well, that's silly. Assuming, based on my statement above, that we're talking about a theological question, then one would ask a clergyman because they are trained in theology... the same reason why one would, if faced with leaky pipes, ask a plumber and not a veterinarian.

[Graham Kennedy]

Yes, but I rather think that the point he was making is that theology doesn't really accomplish anything useful. Theology is great for theological questions like "how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?" because angels are entirely theological constructs. But from Dawkins' point of view theology fails as soon as you apply it to any kind of real world question like "does god exist?"

[Mikey]

Yes, but I rather think that the point he was making is that theology doesn't really accomplish anything useful. Theology is great for theological questions like "how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?" because angels are entirely theological constructs. But from Dawkins' point of view theology fails as soon as you apply it to any kind of real world question like "does god exist?"

OK, so let me get this straight. "How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?" is an entirely theological question, supremely capable of being debated in a theosophic context, but "Does G-d exist?" isn't, because G-d isn't a theological construct as angels are? Is this some sort of British irony that I'm not getting?

Listen - either way has its ridiculous extremes. On the obverse, there are the fundie nutjobs who believe that the Earth (and universe) are 6000 years old and that dinosaur fossils were planted by anti-religion activists. On the reverse are the most extreme of "without perception, there is no reason to believe" empiricists... however, when it comes to brass tacks, you'll note that Bishop Berkeley was never willing to stand on those tracks. However, to say theology is OK for discussing fairy tales or parables like angels but not OK for discussing the very central raison d'etre of theology is simply a way of handwaving because some atheists feel that they are too superior to have any discourse with us stupid adherents of religion.

Well, guess what? I'm not stupid. Nor do I consider it a moot topic to discuss theology within the context of theology... a context which this Dawkins would apparently dismiss. That would be tantamount to considering it moot to discuss jurisprudence within the context of law.

The overarching fact here is that we are in agreement - and in fact, you should consider it even weightier support that a religious person agrees with your assertion that religion can't supplant or replace science. However, to go on a offer some citation from a person who says that theological topics can't discussed in a theological conversation... well, that's just banal.

[Graham Kennedy]

Yes, but I rather think that the point he was making is that theology doesn't really accomplish anything useful. Theology is great for theological questions like "how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?" because angels are entirely theological constructs. But from Dawkins' point of view theology fails as soon as you apply it to any kind of real world question like "does god exist?"

OK, so let me get this straight. "How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?" is an entirely theological question, supremely capable of being debated in a theosophic context, but "Does G-d exist?" isn't, because G-d isn't a theological construct as angels are?

Actually the difference between the two questions wasn't in the nature of the being but rather the other part. It's the existence of god (or angels for that matter) that aren't questions of theology.

Listen - either way has its ridiculous extremes. On the obverse, there are the fundie nutjobs who believe that the Earth (and universe) are 6000 years old and that dinosaur fossils were planted by anti-religion activists. On the reverse are the most extreme of "without perception, there is no reason to believe" empiricists...

I don't agree that those two are remotely comparable as "extremes".

Well, guess what? I'm not stupid.

Nobody suggested that you were, other than you.

[Mikey]

It's the existence of god (or angels for that matter) that aren't questions of theology.

Really? I'd call that the very definition of theology.

I don't agree that those two are remotely comparable as "extremes".

Way to ignore the context, compadre. What I wrote was "the most extreme of..." which is by definition the, well, most extreme. If you hadn't ignored the rest of my statement a/o decided to omit it when you quoted me, you'd have illustrated the fact that I described Bishop Berkeley (and by extension the rest of that sort of neo-Platonic school of thought) which are indeed quite as extreme as the other end of the spectrum which I'd mentioned.

Nobody suggested that you were, other than you.

By his unveiled dismissal of faith as completely inferior to atheism, the Dawkins you cited certainly did.

[Nickswitz]

Really? I'd call that the very definition of theology.

Actually, theology relies on those being true, therefore not really a theological question, so Graham is correct. Asking if they do exist is more of a scientific approach attempting to meld theology with science.

[Tsukiyumi]

...meld theology with science.

I call it: "Theoscience".











Because "Scientology" is already taken.

[Mikey]

You can call it whatever you want, because it's utter crap. The very act of faith denies proof. That's why I use the term "belief" for myself rather than "knowledge" - as much as I know that G-d exists, the term "belief" in conversation lends itself much better to the idea that it is faith-based, and therefore is antagonistic to proof.

As such, the very idea of talking about a theological subject from an empirical standpoint is so much bull-pucks, usually only put forward by people without religious faith in order to try to semantically entrap those who do have faith.

[Vic]

Mikey, how about; My belief does not require your proof. Shut down a rather fractious argument quite nicely. Did garner me a few dirty looks though.