OllyK

It was covered in the recent Horizon program. In short the flagella still has a funtion with only 5 of the 40 some parts. It isn't the "same" function, but it's a function. This is the fundamental flaw with the ID argument, they assume that some "part" must retain the same function all they way back through it's development.

MY93WRX

I've actually got that sketch on VHS, its very funny!!

JTaylor

Thanks for the reply Olly. I've trawled through Hawkins and keep an eye on the goings on at CERN. Right here, right now, we don't have the answer. I don't like the phrase "irreducible minimum" - it sounds a bit pessimistic and makes me feel that I may face eternity not knowing, perhaps there is still a place for God. The issue of beyond the big bang is the scientific and atheistic community's thorn. Until it finds a workable theory of everything , God's still in with a fighting chance.

OllyK

You're probably about as up to date as me on your reading then.

god's role is ever reducing, about the best you can claim for a god is that it set the whole thing in motion and then abondoned it. There is certainly nothing beyond that point that even remotely requires a god, nor is there any evidence for any of the currently documented gods, indeed most of them are logically inconsistent anyway.

JTaylor

Roughly how I see it, although I'm not of the opinion that a notional God was lazy or abondoning. Perhaps he just worked smart.

Kieran_Burns

iTrader: (1)

I always think it is a wonderful arrogance on our part that because we don't understand something there must be a higher purpose to it.

It's a simple carry on from the flat earth "how can it be round? we'd fall off!" to the Earth being the centre of the Universe "look, you can SEE they revolve around us!" series of arguments... because WE don't understand it - it can't be understood.

Yeesh.

We are a VERY small insignificant part of a VERY large and complex dynamic & random interplay of forces, but at the same time we are wonderful example of the fruits of that very same dynamic interplay... who needs a God to explain this? Why look for intelligent design?

Kieran_Burns

iTrader: (1)

I agree - but why would that mean that there is a God, or that there is some intelligence behind what is happening?

As said above - just because WE don't understand it, doesn't mean that there is some over-riding intelligence steering it.

It just means we don't understand it.

OllyK

Time started at the big bang, there was no concept of time before this.

OllyK

I suspect it will be explainable one day, and probably sooner rather than later. I suspect however there will be very few people that truely understand that explanation, and I doubt I'll be one of them.

MY93WRX

You could easily argue God/a higher being ect ect put together the elements required for the big bang - prove he didn't or prove he did it's not possible to do either thats why you have to have faith.

OllyK

You can argue any gibberish you like, if however, you're suggesting you can put forward a convincing evidence based case for a divine creator, then that's a different issue, and I'd love to see you try. What we do know so far, doesn't require the intervention of a deity.

MY93WRX

Prove that wasn't what God wanted to happen.

RedFive

So we are assuming there is only one universe then ? That's a bit easy isn't it ?

lozgti

I believe in God.Certainly we live in a far more Godless society.No day of rest,Sundays as busy as every other day with everyone out doing the shopping.

24/7 greed culture with only ourselves in mind.Bit of war in the background and a potential World War III that could be started by any number of suspect countries.

Makes you wonder if God fancies cleaning up the earth a bit,with a little help from a self destructive world population.

Sorry no science input and if it is a bit deep, but I am afraid none of us have the ability to explain pre big bang and the thread sums up how I feel society(in general) thinks.Saddens me.

Funnily enough,the change seems to be just over the past 20/30 years..Must be about the time when computers were born to explain everything to us.

NotoriousREV

The universe isn't infinite, just so big as to seem infinite (to us, at least). I reckon our universe is merely a gluon within someone else atom

MY93WRX

Well put, Amen

OllyK

E=mc2 - no need for matter at all, matter is merely condensed energy.

OllyK

You prove the existance of god, then I'll show you how he had nothing to do with it.

Richard_P

Don't forget that a lot of the wars going on are started by and participated in by people that believe in a god. Many Americans are strongly religious, even stronger religious beliefs exist in many of the arab countries involved in wars.

Belief in a god does not make a person peace loving it would seem.

OllyK

And the 2 leaders most involved in all the Warmongering are....yup, devout Christians!

Just because you don't understand something, doesn't mean it is beyond being understood.

So stop using it then

OllyK

If it's infinite, how can it be expanding?

TonyG

So, if there is an Intelligent Designer (or God if you like), who designed him/her/them?

OllyK

That's why ID is known as god of the gaps. It doesn't actually answer any of questions that we can't currently answer, it just shifts the question one level up from "we don't know" to "god dunnit". Then of course you just get in to the problem you describe above.

NotoriousREV

Nothing can be infinite. There is almost certainly something beyond the universe. We just can't see it.

If you're floating in the middle of the ocean, I should imagine you'd consider it infinite if you couldn't reach the shore

TonyG

Not necessarily. Look at a sphere, and imagine you're a flat 2-dimensional creature living on the surface of this sphere, who can't see 'up' (or dig 'down'), only left/right. If you start moving around it, you'll never hit the edge of it. It could also be expanding by inflation into the 3rd dimension, which is something you would be able to measure.