Religion – your views

[spiraldoor]

If we knew exactly what each brain cell's function was, we could take someone's brain, cut it into cell-thick slices, scan them all and reassemble them on a computer, creating an exact virtual (and theoretically immortal) copy of the person whose brain we took. But that wouldn't actually be the person themselves, just an exact copy. Unless there's some way to transfer consciousness.

[Puruun]

You sound like evil geniuses! If all people would be immortal, the world will get too small for us.
Personally, I believe in reincarnation.

[Tobbe]

Why?

[Puruun]

Why I think you sound like evil geniuses?

If we knew exactly what each brain cell's function was, we could take someone's brain, cut it into cell-thick slices, scan them all and reassemble them on a computer, creating an exact virtual (and theoretically immortal) copy of the person whose brain we took. But that wouldn't actually be the person themselves, just an exact copy. Unless there's some way to transfer consciousness.

[Xenon]

Eternal life? I guess that's dependent on my body's strength of coping. If I continued to get more old and frail then there's no way I'd choose to live on, but if I remained of the same age (not too old) then it's something worth considering.

I'd definitely like to see what kind of a world we'd live in in 1000 years time. I wonder how technologically advanced we'd be then.

[stan423321]

Have you seen Idiocracy? This was 500 years later. So, if there would be no Not Sure...

[Joshua822]

If we knew exactly what each brain cell's function was, we could take someone's brain, cut it into cell-thick slices, scan them all and reassemble them on a computer, creating an exact virtual (and theoretically immortal) copy of the person whose brain we took. But that wouldn't actually be the person themselves, just an exact copy. Unless there's some way to transfer consciousness.

It's actually a REALLY bad idea. If that brain would want control he could get it. If he finds a leak in the software and can get to the modules and services needed he could take over every computer in the world. Including computers from defense offices, and that would mean that he could start a nuclear war, our much more advanced wars ( we don't know what they all experiment with in secret army territory )

I know, it sounds like a doomsday tale, but this CAN happen, if you give a computer a tool to think for himself...

[spiraldoor]

If we knew exactly what each brain cell's function was, we could take someone's brain, cut it into cell-thick slices, scan them all and reassemble them on a computer, creating an exact virtual (and theoretically immortal) copy of the person whose brain we took. But that wouldn't actually be the person themselves, just an exact copy. Unless there's some way to transfer consciousness.

It's actually a REALLY bad idea. If that brain would want control he could get it. If he finds a leak in the software and can get to the modules and services needed he could take over every computer in the world. Including computers from defense offices, and that would mean that he could start a nuclear war, our much more advanced wars ( we don't know what they all experiment with in secret army territory )

I know, it sounds like a doomsday tale, but this CAN happen, if you give a computer a tool to think for himself...

*cough* TERMINATOR *cough*

I hope they do more research into what consciousness is.

[blacklumbob]

i do not belive in god, and i worship nobody. the idea of god itself is just insane. HEY LOOK A DUDE IN THE CLOUDS ABOVE US IS DESTROYING THE EARTH'S POPULATION BECAUSE A GIRL MADE OUT OF A FREAKING RIB BONE ATE A BLOODY APPLE BECAUSE A SNAKE POSSESED BY A HORNED RED DUDE WITH A TAIL AND A TRIDENT TOLD HER TOO! YAY!
i mean COME ON! what are these guys ON?
i merely belive only 1 thing: in the beggining, there was intergalactic space, outside time and existence. sub-atomic particals were flying through space. they all collided together, causing so much pressure, and it expanded rapidly, creating the universe we know today. i belive that other life, probably way more inteliigent than us are populating outside this galaxy, on other planets. this is what i belive.
my dad is a christian, and thats the reason my mum split up with him.
next person to contradict anything i say will get owned by the most awesome comeback in history.

[Xenon]

I challenge your point about the initiation of everything. How can a collision of essentially nothingness cause the creation of planets, stars and everything else in existence? That is impossible on every scientific level unless you can account for what instigated this explosion, what was actually involved, and what was around before this. I'll go and read a newspaper while I sit and wait for the most awesome comeback in history.

I'm not saying I disagree with you (though I do believe in a slightly different theory), but you can't adopt the 'anyone who disagrees with me gets owned' attitude when you can't even prove what you're saying.

[Cairnie]

What a dumb excuse for a divorce. :/

[Tobbe]

i merely belive only 1 thing: in the beggining, there was intergalactic space, outside time and existence. sub-atomic particals were flying through space.

Nobody really knows what caused the Big Bang. If you do, please inform the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences so that you may be awared the Nobel Prize in Physics. Also, I might be wrong, but seeing as spacetime was compacted into a singularity (a location where mass has zero volume and infinite density), how could these subatomic particles you speak of "fly through space" and "collide together"? Wouldn't that be impossible?

For the record: I completely agree with you that the Universe was created by the Big Bang and not by some invisible skygod for whom there is no evidence whatsoever. I'm an atheist and a passionate scientist.

How can a collision of essentially nothingness cause the creation of planets, stars and everything else in existence?

First: Essentially nothingness? Before the Big Bang, all the mass in the Universe was compacted into a singularity, which, as previously stated, had zero volume. But that doesn't mean that it was "essentially nothingness", it just means that it didn't have any volume in "conventional" three-dimensional space.

Anyway, after the expansion of spacetime (big bang) started (it has not stopped! The expansion of spacetime is still going on, and it's accelerating!), huge gas clouds formed in space for reasons I don't know. Eventually, the densest parts of these clouds started collapsing due to the force of gravity. This caused huge spherical objects, called protostars, to form in the centres of these dense spots. The force of gravity caused mass to be drawn towards the centre of the protostar, until the release of potential energy caused the temperature of the star core to reach about 10mill. K. At this point, hydrogen in the core started fusioning to helium, and the gravitational collapse stopped because the forces created by this hydrogen fusion countered it. The star remains in this state for most of its life. That's how you get a regular star like the Sun. Planets are simply (I am not completely sure of this) protostars that didn't have enough mass to reach the required temperature to start hydrogen fusion. Fascinating stuff, eh?

I am no astrophysicist, so I can not guarantee that I've understood the Big Bang Theory and star formation 100%, but I am confident that I've understood the basic concept. Feel free to correct me if I've got anything wrong.

What a dumb excuse for a divorce. :/

Not neccesarily. Obviously, divorcing someone just because they are Christian, Muslim, Jewish or whatever is stupid, but if blacklumbob's father for example was trying to force his religion on him and his mother, I'd say that's a valid reason for a divorce.

[Joshua822]

What i personally don't get is what was around before all those particles that created the big bang ? What created those particles ? Everything must have a start ?

[Xenon]

The problem is the Big Bang theory still does have its flaws, no matter how it is decorated. Even if a space is single volume or whatever, it's accountable for its 'nothingness' (nothing present that us humans can establish), so it does effectively still have 'space'. And the same applies to the Big Bang theory: what existed originally to bring this particle collision about? And what atmospheric force actually caused the explosion to occur? Gravity doesn't really answer to this.

[Tobbe]

Like I said, nobody really knows what caused the Big Bang, and the Big Bang theory does not deal with this question, just like the Theory of Evolution doesn't deal with the origin of life, it just explains the diversity of life. Your reasoning is flawed because you try to apply regular physical laws and time to the singularity that was the Universe before its expansion. First of all, you've got to understand (well, not understand, but know) that there was no 'time' before the Big Bang. The Big Bang was not merely the expansion of space, it was the expansion of space and time, the two being closely linked as discovered by Albert Einstein. This is pretty advanced stuff, so I cannot fully explain it. Google it for more information.

Second, you cannot apply the "law" of cause and effect to the pre-Big Bang Universe, because it doesn't neccesarily have a cause. This is impossible, you might say, as every effect we can observe on macro level has a cause. Things don't 'just happen', you might argue. Well, they quite commonly do on a quantum level. The best example of this is the decay of radioactive material, something that doesn't have a cause; it "just happens". Similarily, the Big Bang doesn't need to have a definite cause. Like a radioactive core decaying, the Big Bang could have happened completely by random. This is of course just a hypothesis, because, like I said, nobody really knows what happened before the Big Bang. I hope we find out someday, preferably in my lifetime.

To answer your question, Xenon: The Universe doesn't have an atmosphere, the Big Bang didn't neccesarily have a "cause" and the Big Bang was not, contrary to popular belief, an explosion. Also, wtf do you mean by "Gravity doesn't really answer to this."? First, how the hell would you know? And second, the force of gravity didn't neccesarily have anything to do with the event that triggered the Big Bang, it just explains the star-, planet-, and galaxy formation that took place after the Big Bang.

Final word: If anyone tries to apply the following logic to this conversation - "Nobody knows what triggered the Big Bang, therefore there must be a god" - I will be exasperated and angry. Filling gaps in knowledge with god is a stupid argument for the existance of a deity, so please don't poison this intellectual discussion with it. Thank you.

[Xenon]

To answer your question, Xenon: The Universe doesn't have an atmosphere, the Big Bang didn't neccesarily have a "cause" and the Big Bang was not, contrary to popular belief, an explosion. Also, wtf do you mean by "Gravity doesn't really answer to this."? First, how the hell would you know? And second, the force of gravity didn't neccesarily have anything to do with the event that triggered the Big Bang, it just explains the star-, planet-, and galaxy formation that took place after the Big Bang.

You seem to have misconstrued my post for an argument against your reasoning. It was not. I was merely explaining that whichever theory you choose to stand by, there will always be unanswerable questions that challenge it. These questions don't necessarily undermine the belief as a theory, but they do bring about a sense of mystery to it. I was headlighting some of these quandaries for good discussion. As for my comment, whether or not gravity was involved, it doesn't elucidate the cause of creation (and by the way, I do believe there was a cause. Everything, in theory, has a cause. In fact, the word 'random' is the most pointless in the English language as nothing can truthfully be random).

[MLII]

the idea of god itself is just insane. HEY LOOK A DUDE IN THE CLOUDS ABOVE US IS DESTROYING THE EARTH'S POPULATION BECAUSE A GIRL MADE OUT OF A FREAKING RIB BONE ATE A BLOODY APPLE BECAUSE A SNAKE POSSESED BY A HORNED RED DUDE WITH A TAIL AND A TRIDENT TOLD HER TOO! YAY!
i mean COME ON! what are these guys ON?

Um...

No offence, but do you realise how offending that is? I'm not Christian, but I know people who are, and I know they'd be very offended by that. Just 'cus you don't believe in something -which I have no problem with - does not mean you can slag it off.

[Tobbe]

(and by the way, I do believe there was a cause. Everything, in theory, has a cause. In fact, the word 'random' is the most pointless in the English language as nothing can truthfully be random).

I wouldn't be so sure if I were you. The smartest quantum physicists in the world are not completely sure whether certain events at quatum level are completely random or not, although the most commonly supported view is that they are. Logic that can be applied to all events on macro level (such as the "law" of cause and effect) cannot alwas be applied at quantum level. What makes you so sure that you're right (here's your golden opportunity at a Nobel Prize!)?

And what you believe is insignificant. Subjective beliefs have no place in the world of science. Only objective results and observations do.

the idea of god itself is just insane. HEY LOOK A DUDE IN THE CLOUDS ABOVE US IS DESTROYING THE EARTH'S POPULATION BECAUSE A GIRL MADE OUT OF A FREAKING RIB BONE ATE A BLOODY APPLE BECAUSE A SNAKE POSSESED BY A HORNED RED DUDE WITH A TAIL AND A TRIDENT TOLD HER TOO! YAY!
i mean COME ON! what are these guys ON?

Um...

No offence, but do you realise how offending that is? I'm not Christian, but I know people who are, and I know they'd be very offended by that. Just 'cus you don't believe in something -which I have no problem with - does not mean you can slag it off.

If your friend suffers from the delusion that he is Napoleon, do you encourage him? Of course not! When a delusion is individual, it's called insanity, when it's communal, it's called religion. The only reason not to "slag off" delusional faith is that delusional people can be very upset and possibly dangerous when exposed to the truth.

[MLII]

And what you believe is insignificant. Subjective beliefs have no place in the world of science. Only objective results and observations do.

Hang on a minute, it sounds to me like you're saying if something isn't proven, it isn't true. Of course that's not the case. They haven't proved there was a God, but they haven't proved there wasn't a God. (and I don't count the big bang as proof.)

If your friend suffers from the delusion that he is Napoleon, do you encourage him? Of course not! When a delusion is individual, it's called insanity, when it's communal, it's called religion.

Religion isn't delusion, it's a belief. Just because you don't believe it doesn't automatically make it a bunch of lies. I find that statement very unfair.

[Tobbe]

And what you believe is insignificant. Subjective beliefs have no place in the world of science. Only objective results and observations do.

Hang on a minute, it sounds to me like you're saying if something isn't proven, it isn't true. Of course that's not the case. They haven't proved there was a God, but they haven't proved there wasn't a God. (and I don't count the big bang as proof.)

The god hypothesis is impossible to prove, because there is no way to falsify it. It cannot be tested by science, but that doesn't make it anymore true than the hypothesis that there are invisible unicorns orbiting Jupiter that can survive in the vacuum of space and cannot be observed using any known instrument of measurement. It's important to understand that just because it's impossible to disprove a god, the probability for its existance is exactly 50%. Also, stop using the term proof. It's strictly a mathemathical term, and cannot be used in fields such as physics and chemistry. You know what the closest thing you get to "proof" in scince is? A fucking theory! You know, like the one about evolution, or the Big Bang, or general relativity.

If your friend suffers from the delusion that he is Napoleon, do you encourage him? Of course not! When a delusion is individual, it's called insanity, when it's communal, it's called religion.

Religion isn't delusion, it's a belief. Just because you don't believe it doesn't automatically make it a bunch of lies. I find that statement very unfair.

The definition of the word 'delusion': A false belief or opinion. After all, you friend who thinks he's Napoleon also has a belief, but it's false, just like the belief that some deity kicked some humans out of some garden for eating an apple, the belief that the same deity flooded the Earth 4400 years ago because humans were mean to each other, and the belief that 2000 years ago, some dude was born from a virgin, died, and then woke up from the dead and ascended to some place unreachable for living humans where he could sit by this deity's side until armageddon and watch football and drink beer.