Religion vs Science How does it all add up?

[squealpiggy]

I've long been of the opinion that religions fail because their gods are too small. I made a thread about this very issue.

The fact is that believers are telling us that:

God created the Universe of which we can only see a sphere with a 46 billion light year radius and he did it 14 billion years ago, it's filled with about a hundred billion galaxies each containing between 200 and 400 billion suns and around those are countless planets which we are only beginning to discover.

The observable universe alone contains 300 sextillion stars. That's 300,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars. And that's just what we can see. Our own sun is one of the smaller ones and it has a mass of 2,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 kg. Unimaginable numbers of stars and unimaginable numbers of planets stretching across unimaginable distances for an unimaginable amount of time, and all at the behest of a provincial little deity who doesn't care for gay sex or wanking.

That's what you have to overcome to reconcile scientific rationalism with science.

http://scaleofuniverse.com/

[ROSS CALIFORNIA]

Galaxy NGC 6872 the largest known spiral galaxy in the universe. Tip to tip, the galaxy spans over 522,000 light years, making it five times bigger than the Milky Way. At minimum there are at least 100 billion galaxies in the entire Universe.
How does this fit in with religion? Or does it? Where did we really come from? How? What are some thoughts and theories?

Well, there's a reason why there's intelligent life on only one planet.

[PAC-BOY]

Well, there's a reason why there's intelligent life on only one planet.

Why's that?

[Russian Crushin]

Getting defensive are we? I havnt said anything about 'proving Gods existence'. If anything it should be thought provoking, hopefully we are not afraid of thought provoking stuff when it disagrees with our worldview. If that was the case, science would have progressed nowhere. Data suggests we are in a fractal universe. Maybe its all happenstance, and maybe its the signature of something more. And since you brought up plants, lets take a look at fractals/sacred geometry in nature;





I could keep going, but i believe ive made my point. Maybe it is all happenstance, and came about from random chaos on so many scales. And maybe, just maybe, its something more, possibly evidence on the methods/means by which a creator created.

Proof of gods' existance.....coincidence? I think not

[ROSS CALIFORNIA]

Why's that?

You tell me. lol

[~AK49~]

The math isn't speculation but the idea that it has some deeper spiritual or religious meaning is. (Interpretation as you correctly put it.)

I actually don't care if there is a creator or there isn't. It's just when people try and wrongly justify believing in it then I feel I am entitled to discuss it with them, especially on a public forum.

I'd like the idea of a deeper meaning in life, a soul that never dies and what not which is why I tried so hard to be religious as a young person. However I can't rationally believe it so I don't pretend that I do.

The mathematically cool things in nature you're pointing to are generally just a common manifestation of the physical law that controls it.

If I was making you're argument I'd make the suggestion that God made physical law (such as gravity, electromagnetism) and that's why stuff turns out nice, rather than saying God designed the niceties personally.

But then again since we are playing with theories that don't have a huge amount of backing, I'll throw in M-Theory(an advance on string theory) that predicts 10^500 universes all with their own physical law.

Fair enough. For arguments sake, if a creator does exist, this would constitute as evidence of the methods of creation, no?

[PAC-BOY]

You tell me. lol

i cant....I cant goddamnit!

[TX_BOXNG]

[Mud]

Getting defensive are we? I havnt said anything about 'proving Gods existence'. If anything it should be thought provoking, hopefully we are not afraid of thought provoking stuff when it disagrees with our worldview. If that was the case, science would have progressed nowhere. Data suggests we are in a fractal universe. Maybe its all happenstance, and maybe its the signature of something more. And since you brought up plants, lets take a look at fractals/sacred geometry in nature;







I could keep going, but i believe ive made my point. Maybe it is all happenstance, and came about from random chaos on so many scales. And maybe, just maybe, its something more, possibly evidence on the methods/means by which a creator created.

interesting stuff.

[talip bin osman]

well...

for one, religion was the first to take hold of our ancestors' brains... they were willing to worship anything that is bigger than themselves... curiosity about nature and rational inquiry came much much later... even then, religion's grip had become so tight that it has impeded scientific inquiry to the point of persecuting those who attempted such investigations to physical phenomena...

religion has a lot more going for it... aside from all the psychology behind it, the thing is a lot more accessible... praying is leagues easier for everyone than going through the drudgery of the scientific method...

the promise of a blissful afterlife is quite universal... science has nothing as metaphysically comforting as that...

and yes, the threat of hell for the unbeliever is it's biggest ace... that has got to be it's most definite advertisement...