Berkeley CSUA MOTD:Entry 39188
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2025/04/03 [General] UID:1000 Activity:popular
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2005/8/19-22 [Science/Biology, Science/Physics] UID:39188 Activity:moderate
8/19    Hey Emarkp.  Re: Religion. Please prove that there is God. For
        extra credit prove Joseph Smith was telling the truth.
        \_ Someone deleted this along with a post about ID.  I'll note that I'm
           not presenting God or Joseph Smith as a falsifiable scientific
           theory.  ID proponents /are/ claiming their theory as science.
           -emarkp
           \_ We had a long discussion about this already.  In the narrow
              sense of
        \_ Please prove there is no god.  For extra credit prove Joseph Smith
           was not telling the truth.
           \_ The burden of proof is on someone who claims God exists.  (Just
              like the burden of proof of evolution being on someone who claims
              evolution is real.)
                 \_ Absence of proof is not proof of absence ;-)
                    \_ yup, Rumsfeld can tell you that it worked well with
                        Iraq.
              \_ You are confusing a syntactic distinction with a semantic one.
                 You seem to be saying that existence statements are 'special'
                 and require more proof than their negations.  But almost
                 anything can be phrased as an existence statement (e.g.
                 there exists a sequence of physical events giving rise to
                 a bacterium while starting from raw chemicals).
                 \_ What about "One can't prove a negative."?
                    \_ I don't understand what this means.  In mathematics,
                       as in empirical science, 'a negative' is just a
                       syntactic distinction.  In math what you can prove
                       usually has little relation to its syntactic form.
                       In empirical science you can prove nothing.
                       \_ Apparently you flunked Science. The central tenet
                          of science is that if you can't empirically prove
                          that it does exist, we will assume that it
                          doesn't. Science has traditionally followed
                          such principals as Occam's Razor, in which
                          the simplist explanation (we assume that
                          things do not exist until they are empirically
                          proven to be as such) is usually the most
                          \_ Uh no, science says that if something cannot be
                             empirically proven, it means that it cannot be
                             empirically proven.  Whether that implies "yet" or
                             "at all" is up to the observer.  Last I checked,
                             science made allowance for, say, circumstantial or
                             observational evidence not obtained through proper
                             empirical experimentation, even though you wouldn't
                             necessarily rely on these as proof.  Note that I'm
                             not implying that ID and friends are complete and
                             not implying that ID and friends aren't complete,
                             utter intellectually dishonest bunkum, I would
                             just like to point out the flaw here.  -John
                          likeliest. Also, in science, it's not merely
                          a syntactic distinction, that's why it's referred
                          to as empirical science vs. religious wizardry.
                          And math != science, because yes, math IS
                          pure syntatics.
                          \_ 'Empirically prove'?  'Pure syntatics?'
                             'Simplist'?  'Likeliest'?  You such at science,
                             you suck at English, you suck at trolling, and you
                             suck at life.
                          \_ Since Science can't explain the change from
                             "nothing" to "something" in the universe should
                             we assume that Science doesn't exist or that
                             the universe doesn't exist?  Please explain
                             further.  ;-)
                             \_ Science CAN explain how the universe could
                                have come from nothing:
                      http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/question.php?number=541
                                \_ Nonsense.  Did you even read your own link?
                                   It not only doesn't attempt to explain how
                                   the universe was created.  It makes it
                                   quite clear that we have no idea and
                                   presents a bunch of ideas that don't rise
                                   above the level of hypothesis.  These
                                   non-explanations are no better than "God
                                   did it" or "it fell out of a magic hat with
                                   a rabbit".  By the standards mentioned
                                   earlier in this thread not only does
                                   science not exist, but the universe doesn't
                                   either.  Your link (that you apparently
                                   didn't read or expected others not to) says
                                   something entirely different from what you
                                   claim it says.
                                   \_ Alexander Vilenkin (mentioned in the
                                      link above) has written many papers
                                      about this. You can google for more
                                      detailed info.
                                   \_ Well the universe does exist to
                                      science since we observe it.
        \_ http://www.yfiles.com/y3nf.html
2025/04/03 [General] UID:1000 Activity:popular
4/3     

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curious.astro.cornell.edu/question.php?number=541
Assuming the Big Bang is a valid theory of the creation of Earth and the Universe, then where did the original mass come from, that formed everyt hing that we see today? So, the total mas s of the Universe need not be conserved even though the total energy (ta king into account the energy that is equivalent of the mass in the Unive rse) is conserved. Mass and energy are related by the famous equation E= mc^2. Hence if there is enough energy, photons can create matter-antimat ter pairs. This is called pair production and is responsible for the mas s in the Universe. As to where everything came from, there is no conclusive opinion. One ide a was that the Universe was created from vacuum. This is because accordi ng to quantum theory, the apparently quiescent vacuum is not really empt y at all. For example, it is possible for an electron and a positron (a matter antimatter pair) to materialize from the vacuum, exist for a brie f flash of time and then disappear into nothingness. Such vacuum fluctua tions cannot be observed directly as they typically last for only about 10^-21 seconds and the separation between the electron and positron is t ypically no longer than 10^-10 cm. However, through indirect measurement s, physicists are convinced that these fluctuations are real. Hence, any object in principle might materialize briefly in the vacuum. T he probability for an object to materialize decreases dramatically with the mass and complexity of the object. In 1973, Edward Tyron proposed th at the Universe is a result of a vacuum fluctuation. In addition, physicists would question Tyron's starting point: if the Universe was b orn from empty space, then where did the empty space come from? Vilenkin took the idea of quantum tunnel ing and proposed that the Universe started in the totally empty geometry and then made a quantum tunneling transition to a non-empty state (suba tomic in size), which through inflation (the Universe expands exponentia lly fast for a brief period of time which causes its size to increase dr amatically) came to its current size. Hawking proposed a description of the Universe in its entirety, viewed as a self-contained entity, with no reference to anything that might have come before it. T he description is timeless, in the sense that one set of equations delin eates the Universe for all time. As one looks to earlier and earlier tim es, one finds that the model Universe is not eternal, but there is no cr eation event either. Instead, at times of the order of 10^-43 seconds, t he approximation of a classical description of space and time breaks dow n completely, with the whole picture dissolving into quantum ambiguity. In Hawking's words, the Universe "would neither be created nor destroyed . So, the origin of mass in the Universe and the Universe itself is quite s peculative at this point. If you are interested, you can read Alan Guth' s book "The Inflationary Universe", page 271-276. You can also read Hawk ing's "A brief history of time: From the Big Bang to black holes" page 1 36.
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www.yfiles.com/y3nf.html
Stephen Hawkings Universe Implodes Stephen Hawkings Universe Implodes By Guy Cramer Irreversibility in the Direction of Time has been questioned with 3 documented cases of apparent massive time reversals. If he chooses to respond publicly, his response will be posted at this site. When reading any modern physics book the average person may be surprised to find that time is not constant in the universe. Under normal circumstances time cannot reverse, however, it can slow down or speed up. A time reversal is not impossible with known physical law, but referred to as - a virtually infinitely unlikely event, it is too unlikely to expect it actually to happen. In other words it is known as the irreversibility in the direction of time. Evidence that the direction of time reversed twice in the last 50 years. Over 2,500 years ago, the history of a country and a city were foretold and documented accurately to within days of modern events that took place within the last 50 years. The predictions are so accurate that they baffle theoretical physicist of our time. The only possible explanations are massive time reversals, and according to our present knowledge of the universe, this should be impossible for a three dimensional being. Only a being that exists in higher dimensions would be able to transcend the time-line forwards and backwards at will. The Bible tells us that God transcends time: In the beginning time , God created the heavens space and the earth matter . Genesis 1:1 A being who created time, space, and matter must be able to operate outside these boundaries. A prophecy could deceptively be authored into an earlier scripture after the event has happened, so this doesnt offer any proof of transcendence to the modern day skeptic. In 1988 a calculation was discovered in the Bible that accurately foretold the exact year of 1948 for the Independence of Israel over 2,500 years after the prophecy was made. The prophet Jeremiah around 600 BC predicted that because the Jews were turning away from God to idol worship and other Gods he would punish them for 70 years under Babylonian captivity see: Jeremiah 25:11. It has been historically documented that this did indeed take place, but again this prophecy could have been written in the Bible after the 70 years were fulfilled. Ezekiel, another prophet, was also alive at this time, further prophesied in Ezekiel 4:3-6 that God knew that his people still would turn away from Him. Ezekiel was given a mathematical calculation, which clearly stated the number of years that this punishment lasted would equal 430 years. When we subtract the initial 70 years of punishment from the 430 years, we end up with 360 years of punishment that has been added to the initial 70 years. It has been determined that Biblical Prophecy uses a 360 day per year rule, not 365 days per year. See: Y94 What happened at the end of the 360 prophetic years of punishment? The people of Israel failed to repent of their sin and disobedience again. No further words in the Bible are given on this, but Grant Jeffrey found a solution to the calculation at an earlier point in the Bible. Leviticus 26:18 And after all this, if you do not obey Me God, then I will punish you seven times more for your sins. The historical records from non-biblical sources confirms the start times for these prophecies. Were the Jews able to fulfill these ancient prophecies knowing the above calculations. Did they understand that 1948 was foretold and they declared their independence in 1948. Did they then cause the Egyptians to attack them in 1967 which would allow them to take Jerusalem under Israeli government rule for the first time since 587 BC There are a few overwhelming problems if we assume the Jews and Arabs collaborated together to achieve fulfilled prophecy. The political and religious views of the Jews and Arabs are completely at odds with each other. Could the Jews have been able to purposely fulfill the prophecies without the help of the Arabs? This would be highly unlikely when one reviews the military history of two dates in question of 1948 and 1967. Military action in both cases was initiated by the surrounding Arab nations. To purposely fulfill these two dates should have been suicide for the country. Also, in purposely fulfilling the 2 prophecies the Jews would then provide evidence that Jesus was the Messiah. There is a third prophecy by Daniel that was given at approximately the same time as the other two prophecies. Daniel 9:24: Seventy weeks are determined for your people Israel and for your holy city Jerusalem , to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy. Just one verse later in Daniel we read about the third prophecy: Daniel 9:25: Know therefore and understand , That from the going forth of the command To restore and build Jerusalem Until Messiah the Prince There shall be seven weeks and sixty two weeks; The street shall be built again and the wall, Even in troublesome times. NKJV Another mathematical calculation: Daniel 9:25 states that from the time of the command to rebuild Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince there will be 483 years. If a shabuim is a week seven of years, it therefore follows that 69 sevens is 483 years 69 x 7483 years. The logical choice is the decree of Artaxerxes to Nehemiah Nehemiah 2:1-8. Because it is the only decree that mentions rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem. The commandment to restore and build Jerusalem was given by Artaxerxes Longimanus on March 14, 445 BC. Of course the atheists understanding the implications of all the data put forth on the Daniel 9:25 prophecy coming out to the very day, argued that the decree used as a starting point for the prophecy was not a decree at all. I reviewed the original Hebrew in both Daniel 9:25 and Nehemiah 2:1-8 and asked a Professor of Hebrew to verify it. He showed that the royal letters issued in Nehemiah 2:1-8 can be understood as a decree and even sited another reference to back this up. The book of Daniel was translated into Greek the Septuagint nearly three centuries before Jesus was even born. If the Jews were trying to fulfill biblical prophecy, they never mentioned this after the fact. The discovery that the 932,400 days also applied to Jerusalem and not just Israel was just discovered in the Summer of 1997. So the Israeli government and military both provided, quite by accident, evidence that Jesus is the Messiah. A Challange to Stephen Hawkings Universe Stephen Hawkings God is used as a word put in place of a quantum question mark. Where Stephen has no answer for something such as what caused the big bang, he uses the term God in place of a question mark, hoping one day to find an answer and use a better word in place of the question mark; When a theory in physics is presented, that most in his position would grasp until something better comes along, he follows it through to a conclusion this usually takes a day or two with Stephen and then states if it works or fails. Many theories have been presented which take the place of a Creator and a singular beginning The Big Bang, but Stephen admits that they do not fully work. He is hopeful that we will find an explanation that will rule out God in his Universe. Stephen Hawkings quotes from his book A Brief History Of Time, A readers companion Einstein once asked the question: How much choice did God have in constructing the Universe? If the no boundary proposal is correct, he had no freedom at all to choose initial conditions. He would only had the freedom to choose the laws the universe obeyed. There may well be only one unified theory that allows for the existence of structures as complicated as human beings who can investigate the laws of the universe and ask about the nature of God.