No, this is not true. If we are to believe our models of the big bang are correct (and you'd be a fucking idiot not to) then we say "god created the big bang". But then you must ask the question "where did god come from?" And the answer to that question requires more faith than the opinion of not needing a god for the universe to exist.

Well God didn't come from nowhere, He has simply always existed. Sussing this out, if the Universe began to exist, it has a cause. So, unless you're saying that something came from nothing, your other choice is an uncaused eternal first cause of the Universe. It's widely accepted in big bang cosmology that time, space, matter and energy had a finite beginning, which makes the cause of the Universe timeless, spaceless, unimaginably powerful and transcendent. You can make some further deductions about this, but that is sounding a lot like God already.

But also even just in the creation of humans, when you get to the circular "Why are we here?", "God made us", "How do you know?", "Because god says he's always right, and he says he made us", you are asking for a complete leap of faith based on nothing.

We know God through faith, but it isn't blind faith. To know God is to know Him personally. I know Jesus is God because I received the Holy Spirit. That proves what scripture says is true.

On the other hand, if we are to decide that humans were created by certain atoms colliding or reacting with certain other atoms, and various conditions being perfect. And even if it's got a one in a billion to the power a billion chance of happening, we just need to wait for the odds to come up, and we're not exactly short on time on the scale of the universe.

You have to consider the finely tuned physical laws that govern the Universe if you want to discuss odds. And the controvery is not that they are fine tuned for life, because they are. The controversy is that there is a fine tuner. Consider that the odds for just one of these laws (the cosmological constant) being set the way it is, let alone the dozens of other laws, is greater than 1 part in 10 to the 120th power. That's a number greater than the number of particles in the Universe. Your odds would be better winning the powerball 100 times in a row. We're dealing with a virtual impossibility here.

Human emotion is irrational, and believing in god is an emotional choice. I respect the choice, but it cannot be correctly claimed that it makes more sense to believe in god based on any logical argument or physical evidence; you have your own reasons and that's fine by me.

It wasn't an emotional choice for me. I was strictly a materialist before I came to faith, and that because God shook me from my agnosticism and woke me up to the spiritual reality of which the material reality is only a veil. I have no choice in believing in God because it is plainly obvious to me that He exists, not to mention that He makes it known to me every single day. It is not something I could for a moment deny.

However, i think you understand atheism differently to the meaning i've always known. Accepting god requires faith. The faith to accept something you aren't certain of. You have faith that god is real. Now i can't make that leap; our chemistry is different and i can't accept something that i haven't got evidence for. Now, if i refuse your proposal of how the world, the universe exists, then i must form my own opinions on the evidence that i am presented. That is not a faith, not a belief in something, it is something that i can work out and solve for myself. If you follow the science, it makes sense, and i don't need ANY faith for that; my atheism drops right out of the undeniable logic of maths, and i don't have to keep believing in it for it to be true (in your case, you do).

Science doesn't have any information on whether God exists or not. Science strictly deals with empirical evidence, and God is a Spirit, and spirit is immaterial. In regards to logic, where do the laws of logic come from? What place do absolute laws have in a material universe that is always changing?

Faith isn't something you believe without certainty. This is what scripture says about faith:

Hebrews 11:1

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

Faith is the substance, or foundation for the hope that I have in Christ. It is not something I hope is true, it is something I know is true, in which I place my hope. I cannot see God at the moment, and neither are all of His promises of the future yet actualized, but I have faith that He is there, not because of wishful thinking, but because I have a tangible, experiential relationship with Him. Even though Jesus is not in the room with me, He is always with me through the Holy Spirit. His is a peace beyond words. The promises have not all yet manifested, but my faith is that they will be manifested, because of the hope I have in Jesus Christ, hope that is well founded.

I understand that you are simply trying to evaluate evidence and postulate the most likely scenerio. The quote is simply saying that it is a large leap for a finite being to make. I am praying for you to receive a sign and the gift of faith (because it is a gift). What is true is that no one comes to the Son unless the Father draws Him near. If you are open to the truth, regardless of what it might be, and if what is actually true is important to you, then you could know God is real. God will lead you if you love the truth.

>> ^dannym3141:

That's what you're arguing for huh? how quickly your position changes..how about you just admit you are out of your league and don't know what the hell you are talking about.

>> ^JiggaJonson:
@<A rel="nofollow" class=profilelink title="member since January 21st, 2011" href="http://videosift.com/member/shinyblurry">shinyblurry
You're not factoring in differing views in science. From that same site:
"There are a number of other observations that are suggestive of the need for a cosmological constant. For example, if the cosmological constant today comprises most of the energy density of the universe, then the extrapolated age of the universe is much larger than it would be without such a term, which helps avoid the dilemma that the extrapolated age of the universe is younger than some of the oldest stars we observe!"
We can't go back in time to make precise measurements and observations to say that the big bang itself was the very beginning of the universe. "What was going on before the big bang," is what I would ask. You can't say with certainty the the universe had a beginning with the big bang and it's very presumptuous for you to assume that I should believe in god based on an idea that we will always be uncertain of. That's not to say, exactly, that I don't think the universe followed the big bang theory. Instead, I would argue that there was a similar "big compression" that preceded the expansion, and the expansion is the only thing we can measure because it's all we're left with. I'll dig up theory if you like; though dont make me waste my time if you can't be dissuaded though.
p.s. I worry you may be delusional based on all the posts I'm reading. Repent! Reason! and perhaps you can save yourself.

@shinyblurry
You're not factoring in differing views in science. From that same site:
"There are a number of other observations that are suggestive of the need for a cosmological constant. For example, if the cosmological constant today comprises most of the energy density of the universe, then the extrapolated age of the universe is much larger than it would be without such a term, which helps avoid the dilemma that the extrapolated age of the universe is younger than some of the oldest stars we observe!"

We can't go back in time to make precise measurements and observations to say that the big bang itself was the very beginning of the universe. "What was going on before the big bang," is what I would ask. You can't say with certainty the the universe had a beginning with the big bang and it's very presumptuous for you to assume that I should believe in god based on an idea that we will always be uncertain of. That's not to say, exactly, that I don't think the universe followed the big bang theory. Instead, I would argue that there was a similar "big compression" that preceded the expansion, and the expansion is the only thing we can measure because it's all we're left with. I'll dig up theory if you like; though dont make me waste my time if you can't be dissuaded though.

p.s. I worry you may be delusional based on all the posts I'm reading. Repent! Reason! and perhaps you can save yourself.

1. The logic is simple; The only true God could be the being that no one else created. If a God was created by something else, then he wouldnt be a God. This points to one true God.

The Universe had an absolute beginning, including all matter energy time and space. Therefore this points to a reality beyond the Universe, a transcendent non physical immaterial reality beyond space and time. This points to a supernatural cause.

How could something come from nothing? Only nothing can come from nothing. Therefore there had always had to have been something for there to be anything. This points to an eternal cause.

The Universe appears to be designed. The are dozens of physical constants which, if altered even slighty, would result in a lifeless Universe.

Two good examples:

Imagine a ruler 14 billion light years wide, which is the length of the Universe. It's divided into one inch increments, which is the range of settings for the strength of gravity. It just happens to be set in just the right place for life. If you move the setting one inch life to any other setting as compared to the length of the ruler, life becomes basically impossible.

The cosmological constant is finetuned to 1:1 with 53 zeros behind it. It has been compared to throwing a dart at the earth from orbit and hitting a bullseyes 1 trillion trillionth of an inch.

Taken together, their level of fine tuning is to a precision of 1 in one hundred million trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion. Which is like one atom out of the entire universe.

That's just the periphery of it..

2. Sounds like you were a pretty terrible Christian..you did as you were told and prayed a lot. lol. This a Christian does not make. The total actual knowledge you seem to have about Gods will, or what is in the bible, could probably fit on the head of a pin with room to spare. You ever stop to think that you never saw God because didn't have any real faith to begin with? Sounds like your parents didn't understand their own faith, therefore raised you in ignorance..you became worldly..and tada, you're an atheist. For the record, every ex-christian atheist I meet never knows shit about the bible..they're also usually ex-catholic.

3. It's not really your fault..you're just totally disillusioned. I wasn't raised Christian so I was never disappointed by it. I made an informed decision to become a Christian after God showed me definitively He is the God of the bible. Otherwise I would just be a theist.
Because you used to be a Christian, it's in Gods hands if He wants you back. Nothing I say to you is going to make any difference what so ever. All I can tell you is that I'll pray that God has mercy on you, though with comments like "non-existant facist dictator" I can tell you you aren't helping your case.


>> ^MaxWilder:
1. You have "stated" that there can be only one God, but you have not put any logic into it. Things are created by individuals, by teams of individuals, and by natural forces without any outside assistance. There is no reason to believe that the universe could only have been created by a single force, much less a single conscious entity. It is an unknown, and you don't have a shred of evidence or logic to indicate otherwise.
2. As I have already explained here and here, I was raised a Christian. I went to church. I did as I was told. I prayed for strength and guidance. And when my natural curiosity began to reveal the flaws in Christianity and the Bible, I prayed about it quite a bit. Over the course of many years. I got no response. God never revealed himself to me. So you can shove that "God will reveal Himself to you if you seek Him out" crap. It simply isn't true. You may think that God has revealed himself to you, but as far as I know that was a total hallucination brought on by some sort of temporary brain trauma. Unless the same thing happens to me, there is absolutely no reason for me to trust your word on the matter.
3. As far as spirituality in atheists goes, there is a huge spectrum. I can only speak for myself. I often find myself wishing for some sort of insight or revelation about the nature of the universe. But for the most part I am ok with not knowing. I understand that nobody really knows, and that comforts me a little. I still hope that there is something more to life after we die, but there's no way of knowing until after it's over, and I'm not going to waste my life hoping that there's something better afterward. So yeah, occasionally I still find myself in a "prayer-like" moment, hoping that there is some force out there that may help me solve a problem I'm facing. Then I get over it and start working on the task myself. Even if there was some sort of "miracle" that fixed what I was thinking about, that wouldn't mean it was Jesus! Again, there would still be no link between what I experience and the Bible, unless like you I had a hallucination about Jesus revealing the secrets behind the curtain. Heck, even if that happened I'd probably assume I had a brain injury and go see a doctor about it as soon as possible.
By the way, your little jabs like "It's obvious you don't really know anything about the bible, or even comparative religion." and "your viewpoint is not very sophisticated" are called Ad Hominem attacks. They fail to make any point. I know I occasionally will throw in an insult when I'm feeling weak, so I don't take it personally. Just be clear that you are dodging my points without answering them whenever you dismiss them like that. To quote you, "you're just making yourself look foolish", "childish at best", and "not very sophisticated". Sheesh, this coming from a guy who seriously thinks satanists on a website are throwing spells around. Holy crap. Keep it up man, you are making my case for me.

>> ^Kraz:
Not to sound cheeky, but can you kindly point out where the bible states that the Earth revolves around the Sun? I've heard this before and it piques my interest because I know of no such passage.

It doesn't say anything about it, which is why the first popes took the most recent and celebrated work on geography and cosmology at the time, that of Ptolemy, as the base of their temporal doctrine. Later some Aristotle was thrown in retroactively by Thomas Aquinas, on the epistemological level. To make an analogy, this means that if the Christ would have been born in the 17th century, the first popes would have used Newton's Laws of motion and gravitation. They would have then condemned Einstein as a Heretic for his special and general Relativity.

>> ^Dadeeo:
This is what happens when "scientists" accept theory AS fact.

Theories explain known facts and predict (as yet) unknown facts. Theories are not facts, but their predictions can be taken as such until proven otherwise by experiments.

Too bad the theory's are constantly changing, yet every new one gets embraced as the truth without ever acknowledging the error of accepting the now former "defunct" theory.

Accepted scientific theories are never "defunct": they are expanded, generalized, etc. For example, euclidean geometry still has good predictive value under certain circumstances, as when the surface you examine is sufficiently flat. So are Newton's Laws of motion a good appromixation when speeds are not near the speed of light. Pythagoras' theorem still holds and his divisions of the octave still divide the octave.

How could you ever trust anyone that refuses to admit their errors?

Scientists admit their errors all the time. Einstein admitted that the cosmological constant was the biggest mistake of his life. When they're stubborn, death makes their outdated views irrelevant, as with Einstein vs. Quantum mechanics. In religions, being dead makes you a Saint, and your opinions that of God himself (or close enough).

The Bible speaks of them is "ever learning but never able to come to the knowledge of the truth".

Wow, postmodernism at its 1st century's best! It's true that ultimate, absolute knowledge by observation is now thought to be impossible, but careful observation over many centuries has shown that those who don't learn can't know and are doomed to repeat their mistakes.

Of course a baby's eye develops as it grows from egg to full term, but does that prove the theory of evolution? No! Do creatures with varying degrees of eye function prove evolution? No! Does a blind cave fish prove there is no God? No!

Maybe they don't prove anything, but they don't need to, since empirical science doesn't need and can't have "proofs" in the same sense as logic and mathematics. There are facts and theories that explain the particular facts. The theory that explains all of the particular facts and that is consistent with the greatest number of other accepted theories in other fields of knowledge, is said to be the most adequate. It is not impossible that new facts should reveal a hitherto less adequate theory to now be the most adequate &mdash it happens &mdash and sometimes two or more theories will seem equally adequate. But not all theories can fit the facts and be globally consistent. Of course, if you reject all of science or all of empirical science, then you may as well go live with the Amish, 'cause it's not God that gave anyone the knowledge required to build the computers we both used to transmit these electronic messages.

The statement in the video about the speculated cause of the big bang is incorrect - the author is confusing two objects colliding with M-theory branes colliding in higher dimensional space, giving rise to a big bang.

The statement about Einstein's blunder is also incorrect, the blunder being referred to is Einstein's fudge of the cosmological constant - which was since proved wrong, then proved correct, then proved wrong again. 'Empty' space in the universe is in fact expanding exponentially.

The origin of the spin of galaxies (and all particles in nature) is inherited from the spinning of the entire universe - this is a controversial theory but can be demonstrated mathematically.

The domestication of the banana info is completely accurate!

the theory of evolution says nothing about creation, and as such does not rule out a creator

Nothing can, even in principle, rule out a creator, it is simply impossible to do. Thats what we are trying to show by postulating celestial teapots and invisible unicorns, you cant rule anything out.

To say evolution "says nothing about creation" is a bit like saying "the football coach hasnt scored a single goal this season" it is correct in one sense, but a pretty pointless argument against the coach. The answer in both cases is "well, not exactly". You still need a coach, thats my point.

Evolution explains how all life went from really simple to really complex with no need for, and perhaps not even room for, a divine intervener. In other words, God is shown quite certainly to be ruled out of the entire circle of life as we know it, and he/she/it is reduced to a previous gap, this time not to explain the wonderful diversity and beauty of the life of this planet (Which is the reason we invented him in the first place), but to explain how he twisted the cosmological constant knobs into place and made lifeless, barren rocks unevenly distributed in galaxy clusters so far apart it shouldnt even count..

An interesting and intriguing documentary-drama on Einstein's life, work & ultimately death - focusing on his theory of everything, which he worked on until he died on April 18th 1955. It touches on his religious beliefs, plus the critical reluctance of his theoretical 'grandchild' - Quantum Mechanics: "God does not play dice" - as he's famously said on both subjects. Like his Cosmological Constant, his work caused controversy & he never completed his unified theory - but ironically his disdain towards Quantum theory may have finally finished his work...

A fascinating one-off documentary from Channel 4 (UK) - detailing Einstein's struggle with his cosmological constant:

" When Albert Einstein formulated General Relativity in 1915, he was not aware the Universe was expanding. Large scale structure in the form of galaxies was not known and all fuzzy luminous nebulae were considered basically similar and within stellar distance scales. Only with Hubble work in 1930 came the realization some of those nebulae were in fact island universes, and that they were not only very far, but also receding from us at enormous speeds. This was not known for Einstein, and since gravitation exerts its influence up to infinity, it was natural for him to postulate some force working in the preservation of an apparent equilibrium among matter, preventing universal collapse. This is why he postulated the Cosmological Constant, symbolized by the Greek letter Lambda, and included a term accounting for it in the field equations. Once universal expansion was discovered, the need for an unknown repulsive agent could be dropped and Einstein dismissed the Cosmological Constant as his 'biggest blunder'"