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We don't understand how matter acrually works on a large scale. Inventing imaginary terms that we can't observe to satisfy the equations in the models to match

by douche 9y ago

We don't understand how matter acrually works on a large scale. Inventing imaginary terms that we can't observe to satisfy the equations in the models to match the observed reality seems a poor practice.

hwillis 9y ago
We understand that when two galaxies hit each other, the visible mass gets all tangled up and suns and nebula smash into each other. Meanwhile the invisible mass continues onwards, oblivious to everything else. We CAN observe it and we have. Seriously this is basic object permanence. We can see hidden things moving around by themselves. Dark matter is still there even when there's normal matter on top of it.
Avshalom 9y ago
No. When the model is wrong, you build a new model. A bunch of weakly interacting particles is the new model.
gaius 9y ago
Right it's like when people say, I don't believe in Creation, that stuff is just nonsense. And you say, so what's your alternative theory then? And they reply, well there was a "big bang" and everything just sort of appeared, for no reason. Really, that's the alternative explanation?
- hwillis 9y ago
  Well yes, if you ignore all the evidence of something then you can confidently say there is no evidence. Christian genesis: There was a garden of Eden, and a god. Evidence: No garden of Eden, no evidence of angels or god, no reason those things would suddenly stop being apparent. Direct contradictory evidence that YHWH[1] was a minor god in the original jewish pantheon rather than an actual creator god. Big Bang: The universe started for an unknown reason and rapidly expanded outward. Evidence: The universe is visibly expanding outwards and formed in a way consistent with an explosion. Did you think that the big bang theory was just something someone thought of, and then they looked for evidence? Evidence came first, then the big bang was proposed. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahweh https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahweh
  - shakna 9y ago
    > Christian genesis: There was a garden of Eden, and a god. That's a really bad example to go to. The tale of Eden follows a poem, and if you take both literally, then you end up with contradictions. For why? Genre. Neither were intended to be literal. They were designed to convey meaning. > YHWH[1] was a minor god in the original jewish pantheon rather than an actual creator god. Origins are highly disputed, but El seems to be the most likely title, who is the head of the Caananite pantheon, and influential enough to be remembered in Babylon. Not a minor deity. I understand you were responding to a statement which sort of ignores the basic premises of science, but that doesn't mean your narrative should ignore a scholarly approach to documents whose origins predate writing.
    - hwillis 9y ago
      >Neither were intended to be literal. They were designed to convey meaning. Even Genesis has direct geographical references to it. It has directions. Calling it a metaphor is moving the goalposts. Ad reductio Abrahamic religion is simply that god made whatever we can't understand. It's not like I'm saying the world wasn't made in seven days. I'm saying that god said we were kicked out of where we came from and would never be allowed back, and that place doesn't exist. I'm saying god says he talks to us and appears to us, and those things don't happen. The basic, central tenants of the bible aren't real. These are important things, not minutia. >Origins are highly disputed, but El seems to be the most likely title, who is the head of the Caananite pantheon, and influential enough to be remembered in Babylon. Not a minor deity. That's not true. The introduction of Yahweh to the Semetic religion was very visibly followed by a shift in personal names referencing El (eg Michael) to names referencing Yahweh. Yahweh was an individual, entirely separate god that aggressively replaced El, and El was relegated to an increasingly minor role. The thing called YHWH in 1200 BC is a 4th tier divine warrior, and the thing called YHWH now is a sole god. Bare minimum, the Semetic religion was demonstrably polytheistic before it was monotheistic, and that alone massively undermines the bible.
      - shakna 9y ago
        > Even Genesis has direct geographical references to it. It has directions. Treating Genesis as a single book is insane. Its a collection of oral traditions. Multiple authours, genres, and hundreds of years separate each tale. > geographical references to it. It has directions. Calling it a metaphor is moving the goalposts. Ad reductio Abrahamic religion is simply that god made whatever we can't understand. Eden isn't a metaphor, its an allegory, using as its basis a common Mesopotamian myth, as was common at the time. Its origin lies in the story of Lilitu. The directions to the Euphrates are in Babylonian and Egyptian myths too. It was an area considered symbolic of the spiritual world. You get similar directions to forests that never existed in Japanese myths. And as a people, the Caananites, and their descendants, were incredibly symbolic. See Kabbalah's number system, and references to it throughout the Bible. > The introduction of Yahweh to the Semetic religion was very visibly followed by a shift in personal names referencing El (eg Michael) to names referencing Yahweh. Firstly, "Yahweh" was a best guess about an unspoken name that wasn't allowed to be written in complete form. We are fairly certain that guess was wrong, and the actual name was "Elohim". They're the same name, and yes, the same spelling. (We transliterate to English using sounds in this case). El wasn't replaced, nor were his attributes. The Caananites set out to seize their promised land, backed by their warrior god. > the thing called YHWH is a sole god. Not to begin with, in Biblical record. Or commands such as: > I am a jealous god, you will have no gods before me Wouldn't make sense. Nor would the Caananites hospitality to those of the Ba'al religions. The Biblical record shows this, and it doesn't undermine the record. The Psalms frequently reference belief in other gods. The first reference to monotheism comes in the Davidic era, after Israel has been established, but it isn't entirely fixed, and instead is something that slowly took hold over a great deal of time. Different scholars and theologians have different theories on the why of that. > that alone massively undermines the bible. I wasn't arguing for or against it. I was simply explaining a couple of documents in a large collection have different intended meaning than that which you gave it. We don't simply lift out parts of Herodotus and think that we should take his mentions of Achilles literally. The Bible is a collection of documents. The meaning ascribed to them doesn't exempt them from treating them as ancient documents. I'm sure they seem insane to you, but no moreso than our ancient Greek records, or the Roman ones either.
- douche 9y ago
  When you get down to the bedrock, there's very little difference between theistic and atheistic explanations for creation.
  - hwillis 9y ago
    That's total nonsense.
    - douche 9y ago
      A.) God waved his finger, and the universe sprang into existence. B.) something happened, and the universe sprang into existence.
      - hwillis 9y ago
        A.) God waved his finger, and the universe sprang into existence, along with a bunch of mythology. B.) something happened, and the universe exploded from a single point. And meanwhile we have no evidence of god, and a crapload of evidence that the whole universe is expanding outwards.
        manquer 9y ago
        disingenuous.. we have zero understanding of "something happened" a lot of about everything later, you are conflating the two. If you have better logical or scientific explanation than God about the actual creation I am very interested
      - TheOtherHobbes 9y ago
        The difference is that god is a bizarre, nonsensical, and clearly wrong story that shuts down questioning. The Big Bang is a debatable story - could be right, could be wrong, our best effort so far - that encourages questioning.
  - gaius 9y ago
    Absolutely. "Big bang" or "let there be light", what's the difference?
- alayne 9y ago
  Creationism is nonsense and has no place in a scientific discussion because it's not a falsifiable scientific theory. Thanks for derailing this discussion.

by douche 9y ago

hwillis 9y ago

We understand that when two galaxies hit each other, the visible mass gets all tangled up and suns and nebula smash into each other. Meanwhile the invisible mass continues onwards, oblivious to everything else. We CAN observe it and we have. Seriously this is basic object permanence. We can see hidden things moving around by themselves. Dark matter is still there even when there's normal matter on top of it.

Avshalom 9y ago

No. When the model is wrong, you build a new model. A bunch of weakly interacting particles is the new model.

gaius 9y ago

Right it's like when people say, I don't believe in Creation, that stuff is just nonsense. And you say, so what's your alternative theory then? And they reply, well there was a "big bang" and everything just sort of appeared, for no reason. Really, that's the alternative explanation?

hwillis 9y ago
Well yes, if you ignore all the evidence of something then you can confidently say there is no evidence. Christian genesis: There was a garden of Eden, and a god. Evidence: No garden of Eden, no evidence of angels or god, no reason those things would suddenly stop being apparent. Direct contradictory evidence that YHWH[1] was a minor god in the original jewish pantheon rather than an actual creator god. Big Bang: The universe started for an unknown reason and rapidly expanded outward. Evidence: The universe is visibly expanding outwards and formed in a way consistent with an explosion. Did you think that the big bang theory was just something someone thought of, and then they looked for evidence? Evidence came first, then the big bang was proposed. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahweh https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahweh
- shakna 9y ago
  > Christian genesis: There was a garden of Eden, and a god. That's a really bad example to go to. The tale of Eden follows a poem, and if you take both literally, then you end up with contradictions. For why? Genre. Neither were intended to be literal. They were designed to convey meaning. > YHWH[1] was a minor god in the original jewish pantheon rather than an actual creator god. Origins are highly disputed, but El seems to be the most likely title, who is the head of the Caananite pantheon, and influential enough to be remembered in Babylon. Not a minor deity. I understand you were responding to a statement which sort of ignores the basic premises of science, but that doesn't mean your narrative should ignore a scholarly approach to documents whose origins predate writing.
  - hwillis 9y ago
    >Neither were intended to be literal. They were designed to convey meaning. Even Genesis has direct geographical references to it. It has directions. Calling it a metaphor is moving the goalposts. Ad reductio Abrahamic religion is simply that god made whatever we can't understand. It's not like I'm saying the world wasn't made in seven days. I'm saying that god said we were kicked out of where we came from and would never be allowed back, and that place doesn't exist. I'm saying god says he talks to us and appears to us, and those things don't happen. The basic, central tenants of the bible aren't real. These are important things, not minutia. >Origins are highly disputed, but El seems to be the most likely title, who is the head of the Caananite pantheon, and influential enough to be remembered in Babylon. Not a minor deity. That's not true. The introduction of Yahweh to the Semetic religion was very visibly followed by a shift in personal names referencing El (eg Michael) to names referencing Yahweh. Yahweh was an individual, entirely separate god that aggressively replaced El, and El was relegated to an increasingly minor role. The thing called YHWH in 1200 BC is a 4th tier divine warrior, and the thing called YHWH now is a sole god. Bare minimum, the Semetic religion was demonstrably polytheistic before it was monotheistic, and that alone massively undermines the bible.
    - shakna 9y ago
      > Even Genesis has direct geographical references to it. It has directions. Treating Genesis as a single book is insane. Its a collection of oral traditions. Multiple authours, genres, and hundreds of years separate each tale. > geographical references to it. It has directions. Calling it a metaphor is moving the goalposts. Ad reductio Abrahamic religion is simply that god made whatever we can't understand. Eden isn't a metaphor, its an allegory, using as its basis a common Mesopotamian myth, as was common at the time. Its origin lies in the story of Lilitu. The directions to the Euphrates are in Babylonian and Egyptian myths too. It was an area considered symbolic of the spiritual world. You get similar directions to forests that never existed in Japanese myths. And as a people, the Caananites, and their descendants, were incredibly symbolic. See Kabbalah's number system, and references to it throughout the Bible. > The introduction of Yahweh to the Semetic religion was very visibly followed by a shift in personal names referencing El (eg Michael) to names referencing Yahweh. Firstly, "Yahweh" was a best guess about an unspoken name that wasn't allowed to be written in complete form. We are fairly certain that guess was wrong, and the actual name was "Elohim". They're the same name, and yes, the same spelling. (We transliterate to English using sounds in this case). El wasn't replaced, nor were his attributes. The Caananites set out to seize their promised land, backed by their warrior god. > the thing called YHWH is a sole god. Not to begin with, in Biblical record. Or commands such as: > I am a jealous god, you will have no gods before me Wouldn't make sense. Nor would the Caananites hospitality to those of the Ba'al religions. The Biblical record shows this, and it doesn't undermine the record. The Psalms frequently reference belief in other gods. The first reference to monotheism comes in the Davidic era, after Israel has been established, but it isn't entirely fixed, and instead is something that slowly took hold over a great deal of time. Different scholars and theologians have different theories on the why of that. > that alone massively undermines the bible. I wasn't arguing for or against it. I was simply explaining a couple of documents in a large collection have different intended meaning than that which you gave it. We don't simply lift out parts of Herodotus and think that we should take his mentions of Achilles literally. The Bible is a collection of documents. The meaning ascribed to them doesn't exempt them from treating them as ancient documents. I'm sure they seem insane to you, but no moreso than our ancient Greek records, or the Roman ones either.
douche 9y ago
When you get down to the bedrock, there's very little difference between theistic and atheistic explanations for creation.
- hwillis 9y ago
  That's total nonsense.
  - douche 9y ago
    A.) God waved his finger, and the universe sprang into existence. B.) something happened, and the universe sprang into existence.
    - hwillis 9y ago
      A.) God waved his finger, and the universe sprang into existence, along with a bunch of mythology. B.) something happened, and the universe exploded from a single point. And meanwhile we have no evidence of god, and a crapload of evidence that the whole universe is expanding outwards.
      - manquer 9y ago
        disingenuous.. we have zero understanding of "something happened" a lot of about everything later, you are conflating the two. If you have better logical or scientific explanation than God about the actual creation I am very interested
    - TheOtherHobbes 9y ago
      The difference is that god is a bizarre, nonsensical, and clearly wrong story that shuts down questioning. The Big Bang is a debatable story - could be right, could be wrong, our best effort so far - that encourages questioning.
- gaius 9y ago
  Absolutely. "Big bang" or "let there be light", what's the difference?
alayne 9y ago
Creationism is nonsense and has no place in a scientific discussion because it's not a falsifiable scientific theory. Thanks for derailing this discussion.