Comic Discussion > QUESTIONABLE CONTENT
Atheist Penelope
Tropylium:
--- Quote from: Jeff7 on 15 Dec 2008, 20:01 ---If <deity> is exempt from the laws of spacetime, why not exempt the Big Bang singularity from it as well? Stephen Hawking said that asking "what came before the Big Bang" is like asking "What's south of the south pole?" As best as we can figure, space, energy, and time erupted from the Big Bang singularity. There was a "before," but not in any terms we can quantify, because we exist within space and time. What is there when space and time don't exist?
--- End quote ---
BTW
The Big Bang Singularity only exists as a mathematical limit, it's not anything we have direct evidence on. For starters, the entire "back in time" concept is not 100% sound. Remember that relativity tells us there is no absolute time. When things get hotter, particles moov faster, which makes their "personal" time pass slo'er - so any single thing that comes from a Big Bang would be infinitely old to begin with. The "14 billion years" is calculated with respect to a generalized coordinate system averaged over galaxy groups - which are surprizingly static with respect to one another. This however is largely explainable by the Cosmic Inflation phase (the proper "bang" part) which flatten'd out any differences across the observable universe. It really makes little sense to then "interpolate to the beginning of time". It's not even like asking what's south of the South Pole, it's like asking how far beyond the horizon do the railroad tracks meet, and what do they do after having cross'd one another?
But apparently it is easier to explain all this in a science-as-religion fashion as absolute beginning of all existence…
Loungehound:
--- Quote from: Alex C on 17 Dec 2008, 15:16 ---Jens, he's saying they're not really living up to the label of Orthodox Christians, which is true.
and
To take us back to proselytizing, some religions basically believe that not bothering to convert someone is roughly equivalent to not bothering to help a drowning man.
--- End quote ---
Exactly. And to take us back to labels, some some self identified Christians claim the right to determine who may label themself Christian. As in, "You're not a Christian unless you do X." That is not inherently negative. "Sorry, we don't really believe you're a Christian if you're actively murdering people."
jtheory:
...were a whole bunch of posts removed from this conversation? I'll assume that the discussion was getting a tad heated. :-D
I wanted to throw in my handful of pennies, though; a few things to chew on from my now many years of arguing about religion with family & whoever else starts the discussion:
Some reasons why some atheists get so wound up:
* To reject the faith of your parents and often community can be a wrenching experience -- my parents and relatives were quite mild on the religious scale (and Catholic, not evangelical or anything where the entire community was focused on religion...) but I have still spent hundreds of painful hours of my life arguing the subject. On the nastier end of the spectrum, people are disowned, shunned by their community, etc. etc.. Because they've been told that they're "losing their child to Satan", some parents will try damned near anything to force their child to stay with the faith.
* Check out this poll (scroll down to the numbers): http://www.gallup.com/poll/26611/Some-Americans-Reluctant-Vote-Mormon-72YearOld-Presidential-Candidates.aspx If their political party nominated an otherwise well-qualified candidate who was atheist, 53% of Americans would refuse to vote for them. We all know how homophobic the average American is -- but notice that only 43% would refuse to vote for a homosexual.
* The fight to break down the wall between church & state is being fought constantly by some highly organized religious groups (obviously atheists are nowhere near as organized), and they're succeeding on many fronts. Anyone know how many extra people died of AIDS in Africa because Bush wouldn't fund programs that distributed condoms (only abstinence education is God-approved... regardless of what actually works)? It's not just about freedom of religion; people are dying & lives are destroyed because of religious intrusions into government.
I personally spend a decent amount of time & money in these various related causes, so I'm sure I'm more sensitized to the issue. Seriously, it grates like nails on a chalkboard every time a politician wraps "God" around everything, and they do it all the friggin' time.
I also got a mildly negative vibe from the strip, since that stereotype is pushed so very hard by the people trying to smear atheists -- i.e., "they claim we're irrational, but they're clearly far more unhinged... and they're just worshiping blindly in their own wacked belief system!". I wouldn't say it's unrealistic -- there are plenty of Penelopes around -- but it's sort of a milder version of how it'd be a dicey if you had a Jewish character who happened to talk frequently about money. You know, I'm probably overstating my case (this stereotype isn't as famous) -- but I personally got a jolt from it. If I'd been standing there in front of them I'd have really wanted to jump into the conversation.
I technically have no problem with religion in many of its forms -- plenty of people go to some kind of service every once in a while, spend a little time thinking about how to be a bit nicer, and go about their business; that's excellent. If you ask them, "what's something you absolutely know to be unquestionably, absolutely true?" they won't even think of brandishing a Bible at you. So those aren't the people I'm fighting; unfortunately, many of them don't even realize the fight is happening... so when they get caught in the crossfire somewhere along the way, it's all that much easier for them to think they've just met a raving atheist, and the rumors were true.
@Tropylium, and in regards to the discussion of the Big Bang, etc. etc. -- science is an endless endeavor (dunno how certain we'll ever be about the origins of the universe, but new breakthroughs continue to be made regularly on dark matter, etc.), and there are various different theories that still integrate the most up-to-date observations and science. I think Jeff7's main point was that we have no idea what came before the big bang, and we'll probably never know.
The important point: this is where science says "these are the limits of what we know, and here are our current best ideas for explanation that account for all of the latest observations". Religion says "we know for sure", but the holy books contain answers based on the best scientific observations and ideas of two thousand years ago (if that recent). Obviously this assumes you don't take the various religious texts as collections of fables & instructive moral tales, I should say.... I personally think there's plenty of interest in them, but only if you believe there was no supernatural provenance.
**Edit: I read your post again. Now I'm not even clear that you're disagreeing with Jeff7 -- you're both saying the "time" before the big bang is basically meaningless and/or beyond possible investigation anyway. This is what threw me off the most: "But apparently it is easier to explain all this in a science-as-religion fashion as absolute beginning of all existence…" What did you mean by that?**
Dotes:
Excellent post jtheory, that's a great summation of an atheist viewpoint, and a great response to a number of topics. That Gallup poll is interesting, I'd read something similar in the book The God Delusion, but I was hoping those statistics would be different than the ones posted in the book - from 1999, I believe.
Loungehound:
--- Quote from: jtheory on 17 Dec 2008, 17:27 ---...were a whole bunch of posts removed from this conversation? I'll assume that the discussion was getting a tad heated. :-D
--- End quote ---
I think I offended someone- nothing new there, but it certainly wasn't my intention, and nothing heated on my part for sure. So some folks removed ther posts, I guess, immediately after I quoted and responded to their post. What did I say that was so egregious?
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