[Boerseun]

Questor - fine and profound questions you put here. And this is the right place to look for answers and debate.

However, matters of the metaphysical should be raised, debated and answered in the "Religion" forum.

Go to the forum index, find the "Religion" forum, and raise a new thread there. You'll get some lively discussion regarding your questions there.

Welcome, by the way!

[coldcreation]

I would suggest first reading some standard physics or cosmology textbooks, about forces of nature and so on, then draw your own conclusions based on the evidence. There are many differing ideas often about the same observations. One thing though, I would refrain from using cosmology as a "sentient planning" therapy or as a personal introspection treatment.

As far as the ultimate quest and the approach to finding the answers in some form of unified theory is concerned, "To this I answer with complete assurance, that in my opinion there is a correct path. Moreover, that it is in our power to find it.” (Einstein 1919, Ideas and Opinions 1954).

[questor]

to BOERSEUM..
why are the questions i have raised ''metaphysical''? are you saying there is no scientific
basis underlying the questions, or are you just saying that any question dealing with creation must deal with religion? why does the thought of a creator seem to shock and dismay many in the scientific community when it is quite obvious that there either is a creator or there is none? i am not pushing God or religion. i am asking questions which at sometime may be asked by many and perhaps be answered by scientific proof.
are you not interested in how a human thought is created? is it biochemical or some other
process? what is the process that creats life? what force propels the earth around the sun without the need for fuel? if the earth and the sun were formed at the same time,why does the sun produce such awesome nuclear power while the earth produces none?
perhaps someone here can answer these questions.

[questor]

sorry for the spelling error...Boerseun

[Boerseun]

Originally Posted by questor

sorry for the spelling error...Boerseun

No worries, mate!

The thing is that this specific thread deals with "The Final Theory", a book by McCutcheon.

We debate the pros and cons of that specific book here.

If you stray too far off the topic, I recommend you raise a new thread to cover that specific topic.

Look in the forum index; there's plenty of threads dealing with the creator/no creator issue.

And as far as metaphysics goes, the creator/no creator premise falls squarely, slap-bang into the metaphysical field.

[questor]

Boerseun, have to disagree with you about placing my questions into the metaphysical
trash bin of confusion and conjecture. i'm not trying to be argumentive, but if this thread
concerns the final theory, why is not the underlying force of evolution or creation or whatever you think caused all that we see the ''final answer''? in McCutcheon's theory,
what is the propulsive or motivating force that causes the expansion of bodies? do his theories also answer the ephemeral occurences such as thought, instinct, information?
yours for an open mind and a bottom line. Questor

[coldcreation]

Originally Posted by Boerseun

No worries, mate!
The thing is that this specific thread deals with "The Final Theory", a book by McCutcheon.
We debate the pros and cons of that specific book here.
If you stray too far off the topic, I recommend you raise a new thread to cover that specific topic.
Look in the forum index; there's plenty of threads dealing with the creator/no creator issue.
And as far as metaphysics goes, the creator/no creator premise falls squarely, slap-bang into the metaphysical field.

Actually, Father George Lemaître tested the idea of destruction to the limits of Creation. And what comes through in the beginning is a primal force, the mother of all explosions.

Where Lemaître was vague on just how the origin of the universe was to be defined or discussed, Pope Pius XII was obscure but not vague. For him it was possible to articulate explicitly the way in which the universal was embodied in the transcendental Creator.

A paper was presented and printed in the world’s leading journal of physics, the year was 1952, the publication was Physical Review, and the author of the paper was George Gamow. A bad practical joke though it may have appeared to the subscribers, the paper nevertheless created a precedent upon which the big bang opposition would not fail to grab hold.

In the paper was introduced a long drawn out citation by the pope in which he unequivocally and in no ambiguous terms officially accepted the big bang picture of creation as a rational support for the [irrational] doctrines of the Bible. The pope embraced the scientific community for having definitively proved the Church’s long-standing doctrine—giving new credibility to an old commandment, let there be light, is just a confirmation of what many had suspected from the start and served only as fuel to the fire in a controversy between cosmology and spirituality, between big bang believers and its adversary.

“Indeed, it would seem” explains the pope, “that present-day science, with one sweep back across the centuries, has succeeded in bearing witness to the august instant of the primordial Fiat Lux, when, along with matter, there burst forth from nothing a sea of light and radiation, and the elements split and churned and formed into millions of galaxies. Thus with the concreteness which is characteristic of physical proofs, it has confirmed the contingency of the universe and also the well-founded deduction as to the epoch when the world came forth from the hands of the Creator. Hence, creation took place. We say: therefore, there is a creator. Therefore, God exists.” (see Kragh, 1996, p. 257).

The pope had done more than just read about the big bang: He inhaled it. Of course the pope introduces his own quasi-scientific expression: Fiat Lux, synonymous for Big Bang, and written with capitals to make it an entity superior to man.

I hope the stray was ok.

Coldcreation

[questor]

good post C.C.-- i guess now it would be a good idea to define our terms. exactly what does one have in mind when he says GOD. does he mean an old man in a gown sitting on a throne in heaven? this is a difficult concept to believe in. it flies in the face of reason and observation. however if he means the transcendental, inexplicable, ubiquitious, all powerful force that could create the cosmos we live in and maintain it---that is quite imaginable and reasonable. is it not?

[coldcreation]

Originally Posted by questor

good post C.C.-- i guess now it would be a good idea to define our terms. exactly what does one have in mind when he says GOD. does he mean an old man in a gown sitting on a throne in heaven? this is a difficult concept to believe in. it flies in the face of reason and observation. however if he means the transcendental, inexplicable, ubiquitious, all powerful force that could create the cosmos we live in and maintain it---that is quite imaginable and reasonable. is it not?

Questor, No it is not reasonable. Science is not meant to deal with transcendental, inexplicable, all powerful forces.

I did not mean to get your G-word taste buds all riled up in my last post.

It still seems as if you did not read another previous post with regards to the ultimate quest and the approach to finding the answers in some form of unified theory is concerned, "To this I answer with complete assurance, that in my opinion there is a correct path. Moreover, that it is in our power to find it.” (Einstein 1919, Ideas and Opinions 1954).

Einstein is not referring to a path that leads to an ad hoc Superforce or Bottom Line, to use your expressions. My sole intention of introducing Lemaître and the pope into the discussion was to show how absurd both models really are: the Big Bang and the One you incessantly hint at with capital letters.

It is my argument that modern cosmology had, first, accepted, endorsed and embraced the Biblical description of creation in the early 1930s when Lemaître, himself a Catholic priest and high-ranking member of the Pontifical Academy, founded the primeval atom hypothesis.

Though Lemaître and many of his contemporaries were upset with Gamow’s unconventionally droll joke. To them, science should remain detached from religion, at least overtly (what people did in their bedrooms was their own business) atheist or not, altogether these were religious scientists in a very complete sense. Their stances were built as much on faith in the big bang as on nonrepresentational considerations, a faith stimulated by a visionary experience more than one based on looking and then theorizing. Their stances were not identical and diverged considerably, but in the essentials agreement was close and both stances were verbalized with the same abstract vocabulary, with the same uncertainty.

That the Church is in accordance with cosmology (and visa versa) merely demonstrates the important connections and ties between the two overtly dissimilar but covertly identical doctrine. The relation science-church strikes a resonant chord with a large number of people. The poignant irony is that the turbulent flames of a profoundly rooted belief, ideal, and enmity still continue to glow amongst mankind, burning up any mutual hope of squaring off once and for all the separation of church and state. The language of science, nature, physics, has been so cunningly seized and siphoned off by religious fundamentalists that plausible, reality-based dialogue has become nearly impossible.

Boerseun is right. This is not the place for this discussion.

Coldcreation

[Tormod]

Originally Posted by questor

i'm not trying to be argumentive, but if this thread
concerns the final theory, why is not the underlying force of evolution or creation or whatever you think caused all that we see the ''final answer''?

I think you misunderstood Boerseun's post, questor. He simply pointed out that this is NOT a debate about the creator/no creator issue but about the book "The Final Theory". You might want to catch up on the thread from page 1 (no offense).