The Book of Ath

[jomifl]

contributions of fundamental truths from Atheists please
refutations from believers in whatever ..

[Ankou]

jethuth chritht jno !

[jno]

"sodomy by mulletfish was also common".

Not a phrase you hear all that often.

[jomifl]

Any statement or truth in a holy book that has been proven false is a metaphor or an allegory.

[jomifl]

Zabadak..am i to understand that a holy book is not part of a 'truth system'

[jomifl]

jno ...you have opened a whole can of wor...mulletfish.( A little biological postscript here..it so happens that I have some knowledge of mulletfish,(but not the carnal kind)
mulletfish have 4 or 5 very strong and sharp spines in their dorsal fin, They can fold flat backwards but not forwards. You can work the rest out (but not the mulletfish))

[woofgang]

All holy truths are true for a given value of teapot (nicked that one off Terry Pratchett)

[jno]

I guess you'd have to dangle some bait down your throat and just hope they keep working their way upward.

[woofgang]

jno.....urghhhh

[Zabadak]

Jomifl: umm - not sure what you're getting at. More often than not, I suppose, holy books form at least part of a truth system, but equally, as all "religionists" are reminded on AB as soon as they appeal to their holy texts, they took centuries to pull together, and the originals are lost for ever. The building up of belief systems around them also takes time and a lot of debate, argument and occasional outright warfare.
I genuinely wish you luck with this venture: I think it's one of the best ideas I've seen in the R&S section of AB. And just in case Naomi should drop in, I'm really not being facetious or flippant here.
I might say, though that the early signs are not promising.

[Zabadak]

Perhaps people just need time to mullet over 8-)

[naomi24]

Perhaps you feel the early signs are not promising because you fail to understand that atheists don't need another man's creed to live by.

[jomifl]

jno.. re the big bang, I read an article in 'new scientist' some years ago that propounded the idea that assuming that the universe eventually stops expanding( whether it will or not is not yet known) it will collapse back to its centre, get very hot, all the matter being converted to energy producing another big bang and so on forever. Some maths calculations indicate that it is possible in principle( inasmuch as any knowledge that we have would apply to such extreme conditions) This is a very appealing idea as it reconciles both steady state and big bang theories.

[jake-the-peg]

That would be some years ago - general consensus of opinion now seems to be that the Universe is open and will continue to expand.

However there is an issue about people's understanding of the "date of the big bang" Time and space are intricately linked. The figure for the age of the Universe is extrapolated back based on time as it is now.

If you were "in" the Univeres and wound back the clock. Time would run slower and slower and you'd never get there.

The Universe has always been here for observers in it

[jomifl]

Zabadak, I was referring to your differentiation between a religious(assumed) 'belief ' system and an atheist 'truth' system(your words). I must add that there cannot be such a thing as a truth 'system' since facts or truths exist independantly of any system that man attempts to impose on them. You are putting the cart before the horse.

[jomifl]

Thanks Jake, I am a few years out of date with astronomical theories. Your point about time, mass, and space all being inter-related echos a point that I made in another thread where I said that time(as we would understand it) did not really exist before the big bang took place as time can only exist in the presence of matter. therefor it is impossible and pointless to try to say exactly when the big bang took place. Is that about right?

[jake-the-peg]

Not only that but the very notion of time is so embedded in our minds and language it is almost impossible to even consider it.

Words like "before", verbs, even the very phrase "big bang" imply time which just doesn't exist in this context.

One of my favourite observations in this was made by Alan Guth - must be 30 years ago now.

He pointed out that virtual particles pop in and out of existance. The length of time that they can stay in existance depends on the net energy. If you take the gravitational energy of the universe (which is negative) as far as we can tell it exactly balances out the mass energy.

Of course the probability of that event is dependant of the amount of energy created. An entire Universe is unimaginably improbable - but where there is no time probability is not a problem.

I think he was not suggesting this was a real explanation it's easy to pick holes in it. It is rather a manner of getting people to think about what is suddenly a possibility where there is no time.

Time is very much at the heart of this

[jno]

jomifl, as I recall from the 1950s (when I was even less of a physicist than I am now), there were three theories: the universe had always existed, it was created in a big bang, and it expanded and shrank and expanded and shrank, perhaps through a series of big bangs. The first theory was neat and tidy and far more plausible than the biblical theory. Unfortunately it seems to have been wrong. So now we have a big bang that created time and space which is actually far closer to the biblical tale of a god who created time and space - and both are about as easy to get your head around as sodomy by mulletfish. Even the old calculation that creation took place at 9am on October 23rd 4004BC no longer seems absurd. Wrong, but not absurd.

[jake-the-peg]

Well as I said - the first two are the same.

for a hypothetical observer "in" the Universe it has always existed.

As for time "outside" well there we leave science behind and start making it up as we go along

[jomifl]

jno is october 23rd based on the current calender or does it take into account the calender that predated the emperor julian.

[jno]

I think it was the Julian calendar, which had got out of date by the time the calculation was made, so in fact it might have been November sometime. The Soviets used to celebrate the October revolution in November so I don't suppose the philosophical leap is insuperable.

jake, yes, point taken, but I don't think the steady state theory posited a starting point, did it? (As I said, my memories of the details are hazy.)