he would disagree that what you are calling TBBT is TBBT.

His point is that TBBT doesn't cover that period 'before/during' the singularity, only after.

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and regarding being forced to believe in a miracle - not knowing the answer to a question doesn't force you to believe in a miracle. "i dont know" is an acceptable alternative to "therefore god". There are lots of things we used to not know that we do now. And there are almost certainly things we dont know now that we will know in the future.

The Big Bang Theory does not attempt to explain where the universe came from. It does not ask that you believe in any specific explanation for where the universe came from. You're making things up and then wondering why we disagree with your conclusions.

So basically...no one can explain what happened before the big bang or to cause the big bang....essentially if you believe in it then you believe in the biggest miracle of all correct?

Thats what she said.....

This is just semantics of language.

Here is the first sentence if you look up religion on wiki....

A religion is an organized collection of beliefs, cultural systems, and world views that relate humanity to an order of existence.

No. As I've already said, the BBT does not ask that you have any specific belief, if any belief at all, as to what occurred prior to the big bang.

I don't believe that the Big Bang theory states that the early universe came to be out of nothing. It doesn't say anything at all about the state of the universe "prior" to a certain point, or even whether speaking about a "prior" to a singularity is even meaningful. I think it would be more useful to consider it a theory about the early state of the universe based on what we can observe to today and what meaningful inferences we can draw.

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by miracle in this context, because of all the connotations of that word. But I'm reading "miraculous" here as mostly meaning "unexplainable". But it is certainly possible to be a naturalist, agree that the Big Bang does not provide a complete explanation to the problem of Being as such (why is there something rather than nothing?), or even agree that it's impossible to know. But it is of course not impossible to know that the universe exists. There are meaningful distinctions between the supposed inexplicability of the existence of the universe and the supposed inexplicability of (for example) a healing, or other things traditionally called miracles.

There is also the fact that the cosmological argument (which I think all of this is more or less a restatement of), even if accepted, does not demonstrate the existence of some reality that meets the usual theological conceptions of God. You could make the word "God" represent the origin of the universe as an unknown, remain a naturalist, and this concept of God does not bare any resemblance to popular understandings of what God is, excepting deism. And this concept of a Source outside the universe is not particularly more compelling logically than simply to say that the Universe is itself that cause. There is nothing really added by the former over the latter

All of that said, I am probably in more agreement with you than you realize. I am not a naturalist, I am a Christian. I agree that there exist experiences and realities which can't be understood by conceptual or dialectical reasoning. That being is more than what is thinkable, or what is non-contradictory. But I don't think an awareness of those realities is best expressed as an argument against the Big Bang, or that naturalism is inherently contradictory in the way you are suggesting (i.e that BBT requires a belief in the miraculous)

Exactly, you're playing a semantics game to try to make science fit into the definition of religion. But it doesn't fit. Science just isn't what people mean when they say religion.

Yet how is it you are able to even comprehend 'sentience'? Is the observer effect not holding reality 'together'? How is consciousness implied at all within you? This is one consideration chain which will lead to god. The universe is observably capable of thinking, at least 'locally'. I don't mind saying that god does not exist, It only means that I don't exist either, but then Descartes comes back in.

I would not say science is a religion as such, but it does become an art at some point past what is observable and religion is somewhat created by observation, and science still has to paint god in that frame, there will always be the next non-observable thing and so god is omniscient ('infinite science'). As truly smart scientists would consider. Hawking is not so smart, his mind is tainted from his disability and this causes dislikes the concept of God to begin with, as shown in his contempt for humanity (chemical scum).

incorrect

so what happened before the big bang can be explained or you don't view the big bang as the biggest miracle of all?

Could you confirm that your usage of the word miracle is equivalent to "unexplained (unexplainable?) event"?

If so, one could remain a naturalist and agree that the existence of the universe is miraculous.

There is no problem there, but there is a problem in that you seem to want to equivocate this definition of miraculous with the naturalistic denial of supernatural causes

I don't think my statement was all that ambiguous given the context, but i'll play along.

above part is correct

your re-phrasal is not correct.

Ok. None the less it is a set of dogmatic beliefs that can only be explained within the the context of itself from purely an objective point of view.

unless well named is correct and by miracle you just mean 'unexplained thing'. In which case you have a very silly definition, but yea sure, believing that an unexplained thing is fact an unexplained thing is pretty much a tautology.

I'm not trying to remain a naturalist but yes, that is what I mean. However, there are supernatural things happening in this universe which science doesn't want to acknowledge let alone study.

mir·a·cle [mir-uh-kuhl] Show IPA
noun
1.
an effect or extraordinary event in the physical world that surpasses all known human or natural powers and is ascribed to a supernatural cause.


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yea....such a silly definition i have of miracle

Miracles under that definition can only exist if God was not the ultimate answer. Miracles are usually defined by divine intervention. The magic of divination:

the practice of seeking knowledge of the future or the unknown by supernatural means.

supernatural:

(of a manifestation or event) attributed to some force beyond scientific understanding or the laws of nature.

There you go, the big bang (if deemed miraculous) occurred by divination. Hence God. Unless someone believes that science is capable of understanding the laws of nature in perfection. Logic (finite) means that it is impossible. Infintie logic means it is possible, and God is the only consideration which allows this omniscience to occur.

All considerations lead to god. All paths of science lead to god, (especially physics and 'psychiatry') Should be a new saying to replace the rome one.

ok, so you're not using wellnamed's definition then.

you do realize that 'unexplained thing' and 'unexplained thing assumed to be of supernatural cause' are not the same?

wellnamed's definition that you mistakenly agreed to did not require a supernatural cause, but merely that the possibly natural cause was not yet known (or possibly could not be known).

you're still conflating science with naturalism

It's probably a bit of a stretch to describe as dogmatic as well. There is no creed, or organization(s) claiming authority over the tenets of naturalism as a worldview.

I think what you mean is rather that the metaphysical tenets of naturalism are conclusions reached abductively, based on principles of parsimony, rather than being the conclusion of a deductive or inductive (scientific) argument.

Which is fair to point out to the extent that you perceive naturalists as taking the success of the scientific method as an inductive or deductive proof of the correctness of a naturalistic worldview, but nevertheless science is not religion.

ok i agree with that.

the big bang doesn't require a supernatural cause, however a supernatural cause is just as likely as a natural one. in fact, it's possible that a supernatural one is more likely as if it was a natural cause there is a chance we may have already found the cause of the big bang.


again, people are having supernatural, subjective, experiences that the majority of scientists won't even attempt to discuss in any way. should these experiences be written off as "not real" or "BS" simply because they're subjective?

at some point should science and religion not get together to try to explain what is going on for millions of people subjectively rather than just ignore it?

What a ridiculous statement.

Also, this sounds like a miracle to me.



And here...

-There was no time before the big bang.
-A cause can only exist in time.
-A creator is a cause.
-A creator could not have existed

He uses science to explain itself bc he doesn't actually know that a creator or cause can not exist outside of time.

there's no need to use intentionally provocative language that leads to horrible tangents...

...when you actually have a legitimate point.

It's likely that Hawking's statement are merely shorthand of something like "a temporal cause cannot exist outside of time" which is true by definition - but says nothing about the possibility of an atemporal cause, of which we have essentially no way to say anything about.

And how is time not considered knowledge anyway? Time cannot exist in a vacuum, just like language cannot exist without an interpreter.

If can conclude that time and knowledge are the same thing, then you can say ' a cause cannot exist outside of knowledge'. Even the consideration of constructionist explanation for reality, ('things do not exist outside of language) has to lead to God eventually. Planck, studying physical language, surely considered this logic in his world view (he may die but language remains, and language existed before observation, how? guess).