Have you not heard what i said? There are 8,8 billion habitable planets in our galaxy alone. There are approximately 170 billion galaxies in the observeable universe. By habitable planets we mean planets which are in some way similar to the earth. Planets which could contain possible life. Again, our observeable universe is just the part of our universe which WE can see. That's however not even 0.00000000000000000000000000000001 of the entire universe. That means there are more galaxies out there we haven't discovered yet. Again...quite naive, right?
Also, on the God related discussion.. Anyone who dismisses a possible excistence of an all knowing deity is a fool. Maybe we're describing it in a wrong way but there could definitely be truth to something we call God. We haven't discovered certain parts of the earth yet people are already argueing how this universe is created. Tell me, what happened before the Big Bang? If we take time as something real here and not as an illusion, could somebody explain what occured seconds before the Big Bang? You don't know because nobody does. Also, if you think i'm sort of a religious nutcase, go look up Richard Dawkins and see what he has to say about a possible excistence of an intelligent life form which could have created us.
Not knowing everything about the universe doesn't legitimize the claim that there is a God and that he cares what you do, say, eat, and who you have sex with. We don't know what happened before the Big Bang, but we might know in a hundred years, considering the knowledge we've gained in the last hundred years is enormous. Richard Dawkins is an atheist. If I remember correctly, he speculated that some alien life form brought life to earth, but he hasn't speculated that a personal god has done it.
See I knew you'd have this exact mindset judging by your previous posts on football. My people reading skills are through the roof. Yeah I'm with Sarajevsko on this one... whoever dismisses a deity is a damn fool. The origin of the universe is beyond our comprehension.
^ That's the "God of the gaps" argument. We don't understand everything, thus God did what we can't understand. As we know more, we attribute less to God, by definition. BTW, the main problem I have with the Christian/Islamic/Jewish conception of God is that he's so human, full of jealousy and the need to be loved. It's clear that humans created that image, as opposed to the other way around. As far as some force putting everything in motion, it could be true. We just don't have any evidence. But it's clear that if there's a God, he's nothing like the God presented in the holy scriptures. It'd be so ridiculous for him to care whether or not I prayed to him five times per day.
Not knowing everything about the universe doesn't legitimize the claim that there is a God and that he cares what you do, say, eat, and who you have sex with. We don't know what happened before the Big Bang, but we might know in a hundred years, considering the knowledge we've gained in the last hundred years is enormous. Richard Dawkins is an atheist. If I remember correctly, he speculated that some alien life form brought life to earth, but he hasn't speculated that a personal god has done it. Listen, i think you're not quite understanding my point. I'm argueing that dismissing the chance that we're in fact made by an intelligent designer (Dawkins mentioned this specifically) is quite foolish since we can't yet disprove it. To quote what i precisely said: "Maybe we're describing it in a wrong way but there could definitely be truth to something we call God." This 'God' i'm talking about could be anything and it doesn't have to do with any current religion excisting today. Unless there comes a moment we truly figure out how we got here, where we came from and why, any theory is legitimate unless proven otherwise.
--- What do you guys think about this? Is there life after death? Are souls real? Is our body merely housing our souls until death?
You should give this one a read: http://mobile.news.com.au/lifestyle...roof-soul-exists/story-fneszs56-1226507452687 Some scientists believe souls exist in the microtubules of brain cells and they even try using quantum theory to explain it.
Very interesting indeed. I too believe we don't just vanish away in the earth after death. We're all unique beings. Could it be that somewhere in the universe, everything we know about eachother and ourselves is stored?
I wonder what happens when we die.. Would the soul seep out of dissipating microtubules and enter the nearest microtubules of another living being, say a spider? Would suck to be a spider.
Haha could be. But that spider doesn't have a soul until we step in it. Does that mean there are spiders who have a soul and some who don't? I'd like to know how that would work.
How many souls are there though you know? It's in the trillions and trillions. Think of all the sperm cells inside a human being, do they have souls too? What about ants? Will ants ever experience the type of consciousness we experience in their after life if there is one?
Every living being has a sense of self (soul). It's only us humans and our closer relatives who are smart enough (more brain cells, complex brain structure) to be conscious of it.
Yeah. How do we develop consciousness? Was it already there when we were still in our mother's womb or even before that? Also, a critical question here. We say souls excist. We are aware of the things around us based on the memory stored by our brain. However, as a baby, you probably won't remember anything. Does that mean we create a consciousness instead of being borned with one? In that case, it's fair to say that after we die, nothing happens with our souls. Maybe there's an easier explanation for this, let me know.
Hmm I'll get back to that one. The only mystery is why can't we remember anything before our birth? I guess you need brain cells to remember. What were we before that? It was like complete blackness for us all these billions of years until just now. And when we die, blackness again?
Yeah, i'm wondering the same. Obviously because we aren't developed yet as sperm cells or as fetuses, but i'd like to know what the quantum physisists have to say about this.
Very few people would completely dismiss the possibility of someone or something initiating the formation of the universe. Even most atheists are open to it, but they don't see any evidence. So how is it foolish to say "we don't know"? It's a perfectly acceptable answer for a lot of things. We don't know until we do know. And we may never know, but that's fine. For a theory to be somewhat legitimate, it has to, at the very least, be falsifiable. When you make supernatural claims, you're providing a non-falsifiable theory by definition. We can't just accept any nonsense just because we can't disprove it. The burden of proof is on those that make positive claims. If I made a claim that Avdija Vrsajevic's spirit initiated the Big Bang, it would be non-falsifiable claim. So should we give it legitimacy just because no one has disproven that claim? Science has provided credible answers for a lot of big things, such as the expansion of the universe (I don't remember the exact number, but I think scientists can explain the Big Bang except the first millionth of a second or something like that), the formation of galaxies, the formation of planets. There's even good explanations for the origins of life since lab tests have shown that, under certain conditions, simple amino acids can be synthesized from non-organic matter. Evolution explains (though there are still many things we don't know) the diversity of life. "Why'' we're here is irrelevant and is non-falsifiable. It's HOW we've arrived at this point that really matters. We don't have good answers yet on dark matter/dark energy, but it doesn't mean that we won't soon.
Very few people would completely dismiss the possibility of someone or something initiating the formation of the universe. Even most atheists are open to it, but they don't see any evidence. So how is it foolish to say "we don't know"? It's a perfectly acceptable answer for a lot of things. We don't know until we do know. And we may never know, but that's fine. True, nobody knows. But that's my entire point. If you don't know, you can't dismiss it. It's perfectly okay to say: 'well, i don't know if we were made by a higher intelligent designer or whatever. I however don't believe we were made by a higher intelligent being but i can't say that with certainty'. In that case, i would agree. For a theory to be somewhat legitimate, it has to, at the very least, be falsifiable. When you make supernatural claims, you're providing a non-falsifiable theory by definition. We can't just accept any nonsense just because we can't disprove it. The burden of proof is on those that make positive claims. If I made a claim that Avdija Vrsajevic's spirit initiated the Big Bang, it would be non-falsifiable claim. So should we give it legitimacy just because no one has disproven that claim? Science has provided credible answers for a lot of big things, such as the expansion of the universe (I don't remember the exact number, but I think scientists can explain the Big Bang except the first millionth of a second or something like that), the formation of galaxies, the formation of planets. There's even good explanations for the origins of life since lab tests have shown that, under certain conditions, simple amino acids can be synthesized from non-organic matter. Evolution explains (though there are still many things we don't know) the diversity of life. "Why'' we're here is irrelevant and is non-falsifiable. It's HOW we've arrived at this point that really matters. We don't have good answers yet on dark matter/dark energy, but it doesn't mean that we won't soon. Yeah, maybe i took this too far, but it basically goes back to my first point. It's how we got here, that's important. Unfortunately, we don't know all the answers. Dawkins has admitted that the theory of an intelligent specie could be the answer for a lot of questions we're still dealing with. I believe he could be right. We don't know yet.
Imagine someone googling Avdija Vrsajevic and then encountering this discussion. It'd blow their mind.
I get frustrated with it sometimes because i can't tell you how many times i've seen something written about a drug or some food or a planet, our earth, etc...That it does this or that(sometimes good and other times bad) yet later on, maybe several years down the road, somehow they made a mistake and its not exactly true. I'm sure you've read those articles...It's as if we're only now starting to understand things and haven't quite perfected ways of coming to better conclusions.
Yep. I too have that alot. There are still plenty of things we need to learn how to understand, but that comes with time. I wonder how advanced we'll be in thirty years from now.