Ask a Catholic

[Combine 017]

Or maybe these particles created the universe, since they come in and out of existence. And theres no proof that they didnt exist before the universe. Theres no proof they exist at all. Also, the laser is supposed to give scientists new info on other dimensions, which im not entirely sure how that works. But if other dimensions do exist, does that mean they each have their own God, or does the one God rule all dimensions too?

[jeepnut]

Originally Posted by Combine 017

Or maybe these particles created the universe, since they come in and out of existence. And theres no proof that they didnt exist before the universe. Theres no proof they exist at all. Also, the laser is supposed to give scientists new info on other dimensions, which im not entirely sure how that works. But if other dimensions do exist, does that mean they each have their own God, or does the one God rule all dimensions too?

Alright, let's say that the particles did create the universe as we know it. What created the particles? Or are the particles the transcendent cause necessary for a finite universe?

[Combine 017]

Originally Posted by jeepnut

Alright, let's say that the particles did create the universe as we know it. What created the particles? Or are the particles the transcendent cause necessary for a finite universe?

Sure. Maybe these little particles are "God". They could call them Godons or something.

[jeepnut]

Originally Posted by Combine 017

Sure. Maybe these little particles are "God". They could call them Godons or something.

Okay. Are the particles sentient?

[Vampyr]

OK, let's not call it God. It is still a transcendent cause which is necessitated by the fact that the universe came into existence at a definitive point in time before which nothing existed.

Scientists believe a gravitational singularity existed before the universe.

How it happened is actually beside the point though. We are discussing your proof of god existing. Here is a wikipedia page that lists unsolved problems in physics:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unsolve...ems_in_physics

I'm a computer science person, so I actually know of an unsolved problem in computer science: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NP-complete Basically there is no way to tell if a certain type of problem (categorized as NP complete) can be solved quickly. There's a lot of prize money out there if someone can figure out a way to do it.

According to your line of thinking, though, we should give up now, because since science doesn't have an answer, there is no answer, and we must look to god for the answer.

Do you see how little since that makes? There are tons of unsolved problems. People are actively working on solving these problems, the same way scientists, engineers, and mathematicians have solved problems all through history. Many things that were once unsolved are now solved.

No scientist is saying they have the perfect answer to origins of the cosmos, or what came before it. They have hypothesis that they are working on proving. You, and every other religious person, have pulled a random solution out of thin air and said "This is it." - without proof.

But why did we come to this conclusion? If life is meaningless and nothing we do matters, then there is no concept of good. What is good is up to each person to decide and would likely revolve simply around "what advances my desires at this moment." If murder solves a problem or provides an advantage, then it is good for the person who is committing the murder. Since life is meaningless, the feelings of the one being murdered are also meaningless. Good is relative.

Why is this not the case then? Why do we have objective wrongs? A meaningless universe presents no requirement for this to be the case.

Well that's THE question, isn't it? That's basically the question of the absurd that I outlined earlier, with the three possible answers: suicide, religion, and rebellion.

You should read The Stranger. It's pretty short and it's written by the absurdist author and philosopher Albert Camus, and it's basically about murder and justice in an absurd world.

[jeepnut]

Originally Posted by Vampyr

Scientists believe a gravitational singularity existed before the universe.

And what created the gravitational singularity? Sure there may have been singularities, universes, or other things present prior to our current universe, but we still run into the same problem. No naturally occurring thing exists without a cause. At some point, there must be a first cause that existed prior to everything. This first cause must be transcendent.

Originally Posted by Vampyr

How it happened is actually beside the point though. We are discussing your proof of god existing. Here is a wikipedia page that lists unsolved problems in physics:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unsolve...ems_in_physics

I'm a computer science person, so I actually know of an unsolved problem in computer science: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NP-complete Basically there is no way to tell if a certain type of problem (categorized as NP complete) can be solved quickly. There's a lot of prize money out there if someone can figure out a way to do it.

According to your line of thinking, though, we should give up now, because since science doesn't have an answer, there is no answer, and we must look to god for the answer.

Do you see how little since that makes? There are tons of unsolved problems. People are actively working on solving these problems, the same way scientists, engineers, and mathematicians have solved problems all through history. Many things that were once unsolved are now solved.

No scientist is saying they have the perfect answer to origins of the cosmos, or what came before it. They have hypothesis that they are working on proving. You, and every other religious person, have pulled a random solution out of thin air and said "This is it." - without proof.

I never said there is no point to scientific inquiry. What is pointless is the assertion science has rendered belief in God obsolete. Since God created the universe, the only thing science can do is further reveal the magnificence of God's creation. We were made to question and understand the world in which we live (something that separates us from all other animals). This desire is good.

Originally Posted by Vampyr

Well that's THE question, isn't it? That's basically the question of the absurd that I outlined earlier, with the three possible answers: suicide, religion, and rebellion.

You should read The Stranger. It's pretty short and it's written by the absurdist author and philosopher Albert Camus, and it's basically about murder and justice in an absurd world.

I wouldn't say that that is THE question. I would agree that it's a key part of THE question though. THE question of course in my opinion is "where did we come from and what is our purpose?"

Obviously, I didn't read The Stranger in this short period of time. I'm a very slow reader. I did however look up a synopsis of the plot. Basically, from what I gather, Meursault has no emotion and is indifferent to world and his actions are irrational. Others find this difficult to relate to. In the end, in prison, Meursault realizes that the universe is also indifferent and irrational and this frees him from worrying about his upcoming execution since it ultimately does not matter whether he lives or dies. Correct?

Are you arguing that morality is a construction of society? Then why has man looked for meaning in his life throughout all of recorded history and likely long before as well? What purpose does this serve in a meaningless universe.

Let's assume that the universe was not created by God, has a natural origin, and is as a result, meaningless and indifferent to creation. If this is the case, then humanity is the random result of atoms randomly smashing together to create larger molecules eventually resulting in a planet capable of supporting life. Eventually, this process resulted in living organisms and through the process of evolution, we have humanity.

Where in this process is the evolutionary purpose for morality, good/evil, and the search for a higher purpose? None of these things provides an evolutionary advantage. Time wasted worrying about right and wrong and our purpose in life is energy uselessly devoted to tasks that do not increase our chances for survival. In fact, many would say that they impair our survival in some circumstances (for those that take option 1 in the absurdist belief structure). It would seem that evolution and survival of the fittest should have seen this as a worthless adaptation and stamped it out long ago. Yet, humanity still struggles with these questions after millennia.

Morality, the concept of good and evil, and the search for a higher purpose has no explanation in a universe without God.

[Teuthida]

Originally Posted by jeepnut

Where in this process is the evolutionary purpose for morality, good/evil, and the search for a higher purpose? None of these things provides an evolutionary advantage. Time wasted worrying about right and wrong and our purpose in life is energy uselessly devoted to tasks that do not increase our chances for survival. In fact, many would say that they impair our survival in some circumstances (for those that take option 1 in the absurdist belief structure). It would seem that evolution and survival of the fittest should have seen this as a worthless adaptation and stamped it out long ago. Yet, humanity still struggles with these questions after millennia.

Morality, the concept of good and evil, and the search for a higher purpose has no explanation in a universe without God.

It's been forever since I took biology (actually going back to college in a few months to continue the bio degree I abandoned a decade ago in favor of art) so looking forward to having a proper debate on evolutionary once I'm refreshed.

Worrying about trivial things such as if there is good or evil in the world is for people who have time to do so. (I personally don't believe in good and evil. They're just man-made labels.) Once civilizations begun to arise, and you had a bit of downtime, of course the human mind would wonder about these things. Would be as simple as four cave men sitting around a fire after a successful day hunting and chatting about why things are the way they are. Wondering about the way things are gives rise to new ideas, and new ideas gives rise to better techniques of solving the pressing problems.

As for morality. It is ingrained. You want your genes to pass on. That is the ultimate goal. And if not you, then genes similar to yours, so you would also care about your family such as cousins. And so on. Not sure at which point humans began to care for those distinctly related from themselves. Altruism can be beneficial though.

So I would say it's more altruism, rather than morality, since many different species exhibit that. Rather than give you hazy memories of biology class I'd refer you read up on this. It's quite interesting. It's basically do unto others. Do something for someone else and expect to get treated in kind. If someone holds out, then the whole thing can collapse. Take vampire bats. If a bat returns home after a night of bloodsucking but didn't get enough blood, another will feed the bat a share of the blood it collected. So if sometime in the future it happens to the giving bat, it can expect to receive blood on one of its bad nights.



Oh, saw this video yesterday.
http://www.wimp.com/wecould/

Acts more like Jesus than most Christians.

And that's a great part of what I have trouble with. It seems more people use religion to divide and hate rather than love. You don't need to believe to believe in religion to be a good person.

[jeepnut]

Originally Posted by Teuthida

And that's a great part of what I have trouble with. It seems more people use religion to divide and hate rather than love. You don't need to believe to believe in religion to be a good person.

A quote popped up in my Facebook feed that is a good reply to this. I'll reply to the rest later.

“It is no disgrace to Christianity, it is no disgrace to any great religion, that its counsels of perfection have not made every single person perfect. If after centuries a disparity is still found between its ideal and its followers, it only means that the religion still maintains the ideal, and the followers still need it."

~G.K. Chesterton: 'Illustrated London News,' March 2, 1929.

The man in the video you posted is a fantastic man. We should all strive to be more like him, Christian or not. However, if your point was to state that Christianity is woefully inept at inspiring its followers to its ideals, I don't see how this video proves that. ALL religions are inept at inspiring their followers to purity, charity, and love. We are human. We are imperfect. As G.K. Chesterton says above, that would only be the fault of the religion if the religion altered its teachings to appeal to those who refuse to follow them.

Okay, one more quote before I go. I'll have to paraphrase this one since I can't find/remember where it's from:

"If you're worried there are too many heretics in church, don't worry. There's always room for one more."

[Teuthida]

So we're in agreement that religion isn't a deciding factor if you're a good person or not.


Now I pose this question to you: If Christianity didn't promise an eternal afterlife in heaven (or hell), and explicitly said that when you die, that's it, would you still be as devout a Catholic as you are?


Sort of on topic....just remembered this comic and thought I'd share.

[jeepnut]

Originally Posted by Teuthida

It's been forever since I took biology (actually going back to college in a few months to continue the bio degree I abandoned a decade ago in favor of art) so looking forward to having a proper debate on evolutionary once I'm refreshed.

Worrying about trivial things such as if there is good or evil in the world is for people who have time to do so. (I personally don't believe in good and evil. They're just man-made labels.) Once civilizations begun to arise, and you had a bit of downtime, of course the human mind would wonder about these things. Would be as simple as four cave men sitting around a fire after a successful day hunting and chatting about why things are the way they are. Wondering about the way things are gives rise to new ideas, and new ideas gives rise to better techniques of solving the pressing problems.

As for morality. It is ingrained. You want your genes to pass on. That is the ultimate goal. And if not you, then genes similar to yours, so you would also care about your family such as cousins. And so on. Not sure at which point humans began to care for those distinctly related from themselves. Altruism can be beneficial though.

So I would say it's more altruism, rather than morality, since many different species exhibit that. Rather than give you hazy memories of biology class I'd refer you read up on this. It's quite interesting. It's basically do unto others. Do something for someone else and expect to get treated in kind. If someone holds out, then the whole thing can collapse. Take vampire bats. If a bat returns home after a night of bloodsucking but didn't get enough blood, another will feed the bat a share of the blood it collected. So if sometime in the future it happens to the giving bat, it can expect to receive blood on one of its bad nights.

I realized that I promised a response to this and never did so.

First off, a question: Do you agree that there is an objective morality? For instance, that there are certain actions or behaviors that are always right or wrong, regardless of the circumstances?

It seems from your statements above that you equate altruism with morality. I would disagree with this belief. While animals may be capable of forgoing a personal gain for the benefit of the group, they show no sign of having a concept of "right" vs. "wrong" like humans do. For instance, when you hear a story on the news of a mother who drowned her children, you would rightly comment that that action was "wrong" despite it having no direct perceivable effect on you. Animals do not judge actions as "right" or "wrong" because they do not have a system of morality.

Furthermore, while science may be capable of describing a mechanism by which a certain action is beneficial to humans, science is not capable of describing why human beings have an obligation to choose the correct action.

Because of this, I argue that objective morality does not have a natural explanation.