Hey kids, let me show you proof that God's real

[Big Empty]

Jesus was an alien and the universe is alive. Every galaxy is equivalent to a cell that makes up ur body. **puff puff cough cough cough**

[spurraider21]

Agreed, but your ALWAYS going to run into the "but where did that come from? Issue. It's an issue that the more the thinks about it the more your head hurts. Matter cannot be created not destroyed so where did it come from? And religion can't answer that either. If God created everything/anything, where did he come from? Neither will ever fully answer those questions.

Well, matter can be converted to and from energy. The singularity as we understand it was a point of heat/energy. And there was no “before” as time did not exist prior to the expansion.

It it gives me a headache too. Gives the smartest theoretical physicists in the world headaches.

i don’t think there has ever been the claim that science as a body of knowledge knows everything about everything. It’s a pretty absurd standard. Science has boundaries but we are always expanding those boundaries. What was “unknowable” 100 years ago is known now.

the humility in not knowing and coming to terms with that is a valuable lesson in and of itself, rather than pretending to know an answer that is demonstrably false or at the very least completely unsupported by evidence or reason

[UNT Eagles 2016]

The biggest problem I have is the religious right trying to get creationism taught in science classes. I don't want the US to end up like the middle east did after they shunned intellectuals for piety 1200 years ago.

Yes. Agree 100%. Very hypocritical. Yes, the Muslims who still do this today in the Middle East and such parts are evil, but some on the far religious right here in the US are almost as bad... minus the killing part, I guess. But still, very hypocritical.

& I'm a right leaning libertarian Trump voting atheist

[UNT Eagles 2016]

Well, matter can be converted to and from energy. The singularity as we understand it was a point of heat/energy. And there was no “before” as time did not exist prior to the expansion.

It it gives me a headache too. Gives the smartest theoretical physicists in the world headaches.

i don’t think there has ever been the claim that science as a body of knowledge knows everything about everything. It’s a pretty absurd standard. Science has boundaries but we are always expanding those boundaries. What was “unknowable” 100 years ago is known now.

the humility in not knowing and coming to terms with that is a valuable lesson in and of itself, rather than pretending to know an answer that is demonstrably false or at the very least completely unsupported by evidence or reason

Better explanation, it's an endless cycle. There always was, there is, and there always will be. No big bang, just endless entropy.

[spurraider21]

Better explanation, it's an endless cycle. There always was, there is, and there always will be. No big bang, just endless entropy.

in fairness, "big bang" is kind of a misnomer, it was a term originally used to make fun of the concept of an original expansion. it isn't thought to be an "explosion" at all

but we know the universe is expanding. we know the expansion is accelerating (though to my understanding, don't know what is driving the acceleration... hence the term 'dark energy'). given that, they've calculated backwards to a starting point.

there is the Futurama-esque idea that there is an ever-going oscillation of the universe... an expansion followed by contraction, etc.

all we can confidently know at this point is that the universe has expanded from a singularity

[baseline bum]

Agreed, but your ALWAYS going to run into the "but where did that come from? Issue. It's an issue that the more the thinks about it the more your head hurts. Matter cannot be created not destroyed so where did it come from? And religion can't answer that either. If God created everything/anything, where did he come from? Neither will ever fully answer those questions.

If you really want to hurt your head, energy/matter can be created from nothing and destroyed; it's only zero sum when averaged out over a period of time. Quantum effects are ing nuts. I forget the name of the experiment, but there was one where you can measure a force pulling two metal plates together in a vacuum due to virtual particles being created and annihilated out of nothing. I wish I could explain it better but that's quantum field theory and I never studied anything beyond junior level quantum mechanics.

[baseline bum]

in fairness, "big bang" is kind of a misnomer, it was a term originally used to make fun of the concept of an original expansion. it isn't thought to be an "explosion" at all

but we know the universe is expanding. we know the expansion is accelerating (though to my understanding, don't know what is driving the acceleration... hence the term 'dark energy'). given that, they've calculated backwards to a starting point.

there is the Futurama-esque idea that there is an ever-going oscillation of the universe... an expansion followed by contraction, etc.

all we can confidently know at this point is that the universe has expanded from a singularity

And if our theories about black holes are correct anything that could be "before" the singularity can leave no evidence, so we might as well define the big bang as the start of time. It's kind of funny the cosmological constant used to account for dark energy was something Einstein added to his field equation to try to derive a static universe.

[spurraider21]

If you really want to hurt your head, energy/matter can be created from nothing and destroyed; it's only zero sum when averaged out over a period of time. Quantum effects are ing nuts. I forget the name of the experiment, but there was one where you can measure a force pulling two metal plates together in a vacuum due to virtual particles being created and annihilated out of nothing. I wish I could explain it better but that's quantum field theory and I never studied anything beyond junior level quantum mechanics.

you're much more well versed than I am, so i'm pretty out of my league, but any time i look into quantum mechanics, regardless of what specific principle/test, i end up more confused than i started and with a headache

the most insane to me is the double slit experiment where electrons fired one at a time still leave an interference pattern.... unless you observe the slits. in which case they stop showing interference. freaks me the out, and some think its good evidence of the many worlds interpretation

[spurraider21]

And if our theories about black holes are correct anything that could be "before" the singularity can leave no evidence, so we might as well define the big bang as the start of time. It's kind of funny the cosmological constant used to account for dark energy was something Einstein added to his field equation to try to derive a static universe.

yeah and he ended up rejecting his own cosmological constant... which turned out to be needed

he called it the biggest blunder of his life, and yeah it was a double whoopsie

[baseline bum]

you're much more well versed than I am, so i'm pretty out of my league, but any time i look into quantum mechanics, regardless of what specific principle/test, i end up more confused than i started and with a headache

After taking a couple of classes on it the subject was more confusing than ever

[baseline bum]

yeah and he ended up rejecting his own cosmological constant... which turned out to be needed

he called it the biggest blunder of his life, and yeah it was a double whoopsie

Amazing how that up in his field equation is now shown to be correct by all indications. At least Bell's inequality shows he was dead wrong about "God not playing dice with the universe". should have still had three Nobels though: one for the photoelectric effect, one for special relativity, and one for general relativity. Too bad he only got one for the photoelectric effect.

[spurraider21]

Amazing how that up in his field equation is now shown to be correct by all indications. At least Bell's inequality shows he was dead wrong about "God not playing dice with the universe". should have still had three Nobels though: one for the photoelectric effect, one for special relativity, and one for general relativity. Too bad he only got one for the photoelectric effect.

i had just assumed he got one for general relativity

[baseline bum]

i had just assumed he got one for general relativity

Nope, both special relativity and general relativity were pretty controversial at the time and his Nobel award specifically stated it wasn't for relativity. It's pretty funny, his discovery of the photoelectric effect and showing that light comes as quanta of energy was basically the birth of the field of quantum mechanics that he was so at odds with by the 1920s and 30s. It's pretty ridiculous he didn't get one for SR considering you can derive magnetism from the postulates of SR and the known laws of electric interactions.

[spurraider21]

Nope, both special relativity and general relativity were pretty controversial at the time and his Nobel award specifically stated it wasn't for relativity. It's pretty funny, his discovery of the photoelectric effect and showing that light comes as quanta of energy was basically the birth of the field of quantum mechanics that he was so at odds with by the 1920s and 30s.

i still find it absurd that these ans of science could be so diverse... you'd think they'd be significantly more specialized in one particular discipline. how does somebody get from studying light at a quantum level to rewriting the book on gravity, and spacetime

[baseline bum]

i still find it absurd that these ans of science could be so diverse... you'd think they'd be significantly more specialized in one particular discipline. how does somebody get from studying light at a quantum level to rewriting the book on gravity, and spacetime

Einstein said he had been thinking about light his entire life by the time he published his papers on the photoelectric effect and special relativity in 1905. His theory of special relativity came from the idea that if mechanical phenomena follow a law of relativity (like Galileo proposed) it would be stupid for electromagnetic phenomena to not follow it too, that the universe's laws should be simple, not one law for relative frames when studying pulleys and levers and another one for relative frames when studying light and electrons. So then by considering a beam of light from two different reference frames the only way that could work was light having the same speed in all reference frames, even with all the crazy consequences it caused. General relativity came from Einstein being frustrated his special theory couldn't account for accelerated frames of reference. It's pretty cool how GR all came out of his idea that if you were standing in an elevator with no windows you couldn't tell if the elevator was sitting on the surface of the Earth or being pulled by someone in outer space at an acceleration of 9.8 meters per second^2 (eg the equivalence principle). So gravity and acceleration should be indistinguishable.

[baseline bum]

the most insane to me is the double slit experiment where electrons fired one at a time still leave an interference pattern.... unless you observe the slits. in which case they stop showing interference. freaks me the out, and some think its good evidence of the many worlds interpretation

Yeah the double slit experiment is the ing craziest thing ever. I don't see how it shows any difference between many worlds vs Copenhagen though. When you observe the location of an electron you have to hit it with at least one photon, which causes it to collapse into a wavefunction that has a definite position whereas before the electron was a superposition of a bunch of wavefunctions each of a different definite position. To quote Ramamurti Shankar, the funniest physicist I have ever seen:

“The act of observing an electron is very traumatic for that electron. Right now I’m getting hit by millions of photons. I’m taking it like a man. But for the electron, this is not the same”

Why the collapse of the wavefunction though? Who the knows? It's a postulate of quantum mechanics that is accepted because it agrees with all experiments ever done in the field.

[sickdsm]

As a kid I literally thought about that until my head hurt. I had reoccurring dreams where I'd wake up in a panic feeling miniscule next to something gigantic

[UNT Eagles 2016]

in fairness, "big bang" is kind of a misnomer, it was a term originally used to make fun of the concept of an original expansion. it isn't thought to be an "explosion" at all

but we know the universe is expanding. we know the expansion is accelerating (though to my understanding, don't know what is driving the acceleration... hence the term 'dark energy'). given that, they've calculated backwards to a starting point.

there is the Futurama-esque idea that there is an ever-going oscillation of the universe... an expansion followed by contraction, etc.

all we can confidently know at this point is that the universe has expanded from a singularity

It regulates itself, expansion and contraction, to an extent. The idea that everything was ever compressed into the size of an atom was always absurd. It's cyclical and most likely never ending

[ElNono]

Yea, cos creationism wouldn't be based on science

wow...

[spurraider21]

It regulates itself, expansion and contraction, to an extent. The idea that everything was ever compressed into the size of an atom was always absurd. It's cyclical and most likely never ending

what do you base that on?

[ElNono]

It all really comes down to the scientific method, and where the burden of proof lies...

In science you can attribute behavior you don't understand to anything, but then the burden of proof is on you to support it and your peers to bring it down. That synergy is what creates knowledge. We're not talking opinions or faith, but actual tangible, testable, observable behavior.

That's why creationism and other faith or dogma based theories are really intellectually lazy, since once you attributed it to the deity of your choosing, and since such deity is not actually tangible, testable nor observable, the scientific method can no longer be achieved, and, as such it's not science.

It's lazy because once it's attributed to the imaginary guy, the process ends. There's nothing to support or debunk, since it's not testable. IOW, from a scientific standpoint, worthless. It doesn't advance the sciences or knowledge, it doesn't promote advancing the sciences or knowledge. Just junk.

(That's not to say that scientists can't be religious people themselves, which is a completely different topic).

[UNT Eagles 2016]

what do you base that on?

Logic and probability.

Just like numbers... time and space must be infinite. Yes, you can go to a hundred trillion googol, but you can always add one on top of that. So if you run into a wall or a black hole, there's always got to be something beyond that, right?

[spurraider21]

Logic and probability.

wow. who needs to study physics and crunch numbers when you can just talk out your ass

[Blake]

Logic and probability.

Just like numbers... time and space must be infinite. Yes, you can go to a hundred trillion googol, but you can always add one on top of that. So if you run into a wall or a black hole, there's always got to be something beyond that, right?

Or it ultimately loops back around

[Spurtacular]

wow...

In the event that you were to subscribe to a deity, you wouldn't think God would use science? I would think the alternative would be laughable; thus you either haven't thought it out, or you are showing your bias.