Cosmology: Latest theories of everything (Introduction)

by John Kalber, Thursday, July 20, 2017, 20:34 (2470 days ago) @ John Kalber

Here is some more! The vexed question regarding the existence of any god is paramount for atheists, agnostics and believers. It is a prime example of the 'difficulty' encountered in proving a negative. Whilst I can show reasons to believe that something isn't there, this falls short of proof positive. There is always the 'what if' brigade to contend with. The most I can offer is as follows.
The real presence of something is made plain in at least two or three ways. We may see, feel or hear it. With modern technologies, we can 'see' the invisible!
We cannot 'see' something that isn't there - or is insubstantial - such as an idea, though we can detect the energy waves that indicate its process.
God is classed as physically 'insubstantial', so its presence cannot be detected. Other than by claims made by its ardent proclaimers, no evidence whatever is available that proves its existence. One may say that any ongoing peculiarity that presently remains unexplained is only explicable by the acts of God. This line of reasoning presently has (as its mainstay) the enigmas of an obviously positively, directed evolution and of life itself.
I maintain that my explanation of evolution (whatever its theoretical faults) is fundamentally sound and removes this feature from rational discussion. It adds an enormous dose of reality to the atheist argument. Life itself may be perhaps an element, like every other force of nature, but requiring specific conditions to become apparent.
So – (I maintain ) – the argument boils down to choice. Either you (emotionally) go for a religious stance and damn the consequences, or you adopt sit on the fence agnosticism. If this latter does not cut the mustard, it’s the dreaded atheism for you!
What I see as ‘consequences’ is that you honour a belief in a God that is Almighty, unlimited in any way, that permits evil/misguided men (principally) to commit unspeakable cruelties upon all and sundry. It allows the decent peoples of (particularly) the western ‘democracies’ to wallow in comfort while watching TV reports of children dying in their hundreds of thousands. To think it ‘tough titty’ for desperate folk to drown fleeing their persecutors and so on.
In my opinion, no God - having created the Universe - would permit these insults to its integrity, not for a second. Nor require humanity to worship or ‘adore’ it (or even believe in it). The perhaps most notable attributes plastered on to the godhead, are the straight up and down political requirements of human dictatorship. Damn all to do with the wishes and purposes of an Almighty God, but wonderfully handy for a dictator!
I come back to why I am an atheist. I have Nature all around me and I understand that Mother and in Nature has achieved all this aided only by pre-existing physical laws. The plethora of conflicting ideologies are very adequately resolved and any others disposed of by using Occam razor.
The atheist argument was amusingly exemplified by Dave Allen many years ago. His story featured an atheist arguing with a Pope. After hours of fruitless discussion, the Pope says, “You are like a blindfold man in a lightless room looking for a black cat that isn’t there.”
The atheist replied, “No! It’s you who is like a blindfold man in a lightless room looking for a black cat that isn’t there. Only - You Found It!”
There is nothing wrong with Agnosticism as a medium in which you may consider what is, for yourself at least, an unresolved question. In that sense, we can logically widen the scope of agnosticism to include controversies such as those concerned with politics. Religion is in my opinion deeply rooted in politics.
“... it is the separate coming into being of the living, self-reproducing primeval organisms, the hitherto unthought-of even if the primeval eye, ear, nose, lung, heart, penis, vagina, etc., that presents the problem. Darwin himself understood this, and so refrained from discussing such origins.”
Darwin laboured without our modern day knowledge and his thinking hampered by a gradually diminishing religious belief. That can leave a thinker in a disturbed state of mind.
I (at least) am confidently aware of the natural and automatic way that Mother Nature performs these amazing acts of creativity. The simple proof of my explanation is the total absence of any other natural alternative! Chance – a mathematical concept – has little bearing on the works of Mother Nature. Dawkins and co. are plain wrong. Numbers can often lead to a likely conclusion – they do not create the events they may explain in terms of human understanding. One example will do.
Flipping a coin will get heads or tails. 100 flips should be 50-50 but that is highly unlikely as the force that produces heads will not produce tails! In the absence of a full understanding we employ chance to cater for uncertainty.
Natures forces do not obey laws invented by man!