I see theory as a belief.
Why would anyone attempt to prove something they don't believe.

"We should be able to split the atom.
Lets see if we can."

An initial belief.

Then they develop a theory on how it could be done all while still believing it can be done.
If they didn't believe it could be done, nobody would even try.

I disagree.
However, it explains religion because religion has belief but never tries to find convincing evidence.
In science, there would not be any theories without belief but it tries to find convincing evidence based on their belief.
That is the marked difference between religion and science.
Both are based on belief but science works to prove or disprove it.

We have to disagree on that one. Maybe it's a language difference between American and English?

In electronics (my subject) I have many times said, "What if...?" which doesn't mean I have any belief, but does mean that I *think* there is a possibility...... so I need to conduct an experiment to find out. For example, is this transistor a substitute for the faulty one? I can think of reasons why it might be but before I solder it in to try, there is no belief that it will work, just a hope that it might. If it doesn't, nothing has changed, I don't have a failed belief, only a failed experiment.

On the other hand I totally agree with you about belief in the area of religion. That subject is based on an unquestioning belief and you can be criticised, even punished, for having a belief that goes against the official teaching. Poor old Copernicus was excommunicated from the Catholic Church because he dared to suggest that the earth is not the centre of everything that is. As if that detail would make any difference to a belief in a deity - but it did to the people of that time! It's not many years since the Catholics finally admitted that he was right.

I often attempt to prove something I don't believe. For example if someone told me that this transistor really will work as a substitute for the faulty one. It has happened that I don't believe my colleague. The only way to prove which of us is right is to test it. We might even take bets on who is right! Belief doesn't come into it, just a theory held by one person and a different theory held by another.

Belief comes only after the experiment when we can say we believe this to be the case because we have tested it.

OK sorry, chaps this is off topic.

Electricity also begins with a Source, it is not its own Source. and then it must be relayed to reach its destinations. from there, you are required to tap into it (plug/circuit).

i also work with 3-phase, standard 110, and general power around 200 Amps.

Tom,

excellent points made as usual, lol


the more i learn the more i question. my walk in God is always a seeking one to keep it "warranted." as a believer, if what Science discovers does not relate to God, you need to research until it does and you can find logic and proof of it.

and when you finally discover that seeking proof, each time not just reaffirms my Faith, but it gives me the view that what Science finds next will definitely be revealed in how God utilizes it to me.

and today, i my walk in God, "I just know that I know!!"

and so far, Ive been able to tie Science, God, Mathematics and find the connection.

A small quibble he says
This is how wars start
Dig those trenches, stock up on beans

Actually the three Bs
Beans
Bullets
and Bandages
LOL


Perhaps disagree is a bit severe.
I do understand your reasoning, you don't, however, understand mine.
It is therefore my responsibility to rephrase myself in hope you will grasp my meaning.

In all thought, we have ideas. Well, some of us do?
When an idea comes to us, we tend to think about it.
When we determine that this idea has no merit, we abandon it, in favor of the next idea that does have merit (potential).

If I imagine a new idea that has not been tested yet and reason it to the point I believe it might be possible, I dedicate my time, effort, funds and everything I can muster to see if that idea is worth expressing in reality.
I need to believe in the idea before it is fully tested and exampled so I have drive to make the commitment of my time, effort, funds, whatever to finding out.

I must believe in some way faster than light travel is possible before I dedicate my life to finding out.

On the other end of the observance.
If you believe something is possible I require you to prove to me it is possible before I can believe it. So, in a sense you are correct. In another sense, so am I.

If I believe in God and you don't, it is my responsibility to prove it exists to you. Likewise, if you believe in God and I don't, it is your responsibility to prove to me it exists.
So far the ONLY proof I have encountered is not irrefutable nor indisputable.
There are no measurements, no observations and no repeatable tests that have been performed by independent parties.
All who have attempted to prove their belief require I believe first.
Since it was not my idea, it is not my belief, it is someone else's.

Maybe that cleared up our misunderstanding?


Is that supposed to mean something?
All I did was voice my opinion according to my own rational thinking.


Been there, also questioned my path.


Seriously?
All I need to do is survive.
All I can do is exist in reality.
I shouldn't need to research God at all.
If God were what y'all say it is, it would be evident in reality every second of every moment of life.
Why is your God so hidden that it requires research?


So now you are assuming that what I do is for you...LOL, Really?
Can you say...narcissistic?


Good for you, I am happy you are happy.
Personally, I'll settle for just being able to tie God to reality, which isn't and has not happened as long as I have been alive.

Then again, when it rains, your God thinks you stink and need a shower...
...narf!...

Tom, I agree with you and understand that this is how you see things. I see that 'disagree' was the wrong word to use. Instead I will say that I see life a little differently. I have no need to believe in an idea to test it. All I need is to think about this idea and wonder what would happen if I test it. Quite likely the first attempt will not work. So that will hopefully help me to understand what I am doing wrong. Out of curiosity, I might well think that if I do the test again but make a change or two maybe that will work. I still do not 'believe' that it might or will work. I just hope it will and am intrigued as to what test is needed to prove my theory. While testing I keep an open mind and when it doesn't work I have to guess whether that is because my test method isn't right or perhaps the idea won't work at all. If I keep testing I will soon find out if the error is in my testing method or in my original idea.

If and when I finally make it work, I can then demonstrate to others this this is a valid test to prove that my idea works. It is only at that point and not before that I will make the statement that says I believe this works.

The difference lies in the meaning of 'I believe'. It is sometimes meant in the sense of 'I think', as in, "I do believe you're right". That statement really means I *think* you're right and can occur before any proof is offered. For example, "I do believe it will rain today". That is not a statement of fact because the rain has not yet come. Its arrival, or non-arrival, is an event in the future. So that statement really means, "I think it will rain today".

I don't think I have ever said, "I believe it will rain today" I would always use an expression like, "looks like it might rain today".

So we don't need the three Bs

just meant i agreed for most part with what you had posted and nothing more. if you feel the need to look into it more then grab a shovel and start digging.





Research = read how God dealt with others.
some He spoke to in Person
some audibly
some through a message from someone else
some through a series of thoughts.
all of them through the Holy Spirit.
but it was not just 1 set way God communicates to us.
there are over 20 distinct examples of how.
oddly enough, we have things happen today that the Bible spoke about (deja-vu is a good example and other ways).
i don't mean go to the Library and begin researching...





the part of "When You" happens to be referring to "Myself and experience," this was not or never about You!!

just like we use Darwin's Tree as an example of how we can go about our own researches and format theories...i gave an example of what takes place in my own life so you can see an example that's possibly relatable from your viewpoint.




actually, when it rains, it rains on both Believers and Non-Believers...

i would bet you have had an experience but logically you have refuted it. God reveals Himself to everyone in a way that for a moment "puzzles them." because only they can be affected by it in a way that remains with them in memory. eventually, if you don't act on Faith, you will dismiss on Reason.

The 3 Bs were directed at r2d2r2d2 lol



I do understand that.
In your understanding it is cause and affect.
Belief to proof.
I get what yer sayin.



On a primal level, to dedicate yourself to test it, requires some form of belief.
Otherwise, you would dismiss it without wanting to test it.
In some place in the mind, it must be worth dedicating time, effort, money or whatever to find out if it was possible.

At one time, I believed time travel was possible.
Then I did some research into physics and time and no longer believe it.

At one time, I believed God existed, then I did some research into practial reality and devised my own rendition of what I think God could be.

Nobody else on the planet thinks of God the way I do and I have no proof besides my own understanding of reality. My own belief - Unproven belief.

If I believe I can pass my hand thru the table and try to do it, it is a failed belief but the belief was there all the same.
It may no longer be there but it was when I started.

In a scientific take, what you are stating is accurate but in an everyday life type thing, we all believe in things before they can be proven.

The fact you are on a dating site having this discussion is an example of you believing something before it is reality.
You could be having this discussion on any of the millions of forums on the internet.
You are here for a reason.
A reason that initiated in belief before proof (reality).

So, research into heresay (isn't that what the courts call 2nd hand knowledge)?
I live first hand.
When someone else communicates with me, I know it.
Never been in a conversation with God.
Have you (or is it a one way dialog with you doing all the talkin)?


There you go again, including me in your delusion.
I don't even know what Darwin's Tree is let alone been near one?


??? where do you get this stuff?
You do realize reality requires no faith.
Reality requires nothing from anyone, it just is.
My God requires nothing from me, it just is.
It doesn't tell me to do things, makes no promises to me good or bad and frankly, probably doesn't even know I exist.

I require nothing from my God.
I understand the nature of the reality in which I exist.
I realize exactly how insignificant I am to the Universe.
I have no problem dealing with it and seek no comfort in a fantasy or a delusion as told by others.

If reason and perception are insanity, perhaps I am just as insane as those scientists you keep talking about.
If insecurity and delusion are a requirement for sanity, I'd rather be insane.

Hey, I am not mad at you or think any less of you, just voicing my own beliefs and offering reasonable alternative thinking to ponder.

there are too many coincidences to deny a design, but this does not necessarily imply a designer

Coincidence and chance are very strange phenomena. A few people (very few) have won the lottery more than once. Are they 'lucky' people? No. Did they have some sort of system to win? No. It was nothing more than coincidence.

There is no evidence of design, just random things happening. Remember, we are talking about very long times. They say if you give enough monkeys with typewriters enough time they will eventually produce the entire works of Shakespeare - and here's the funny thing: They *might* take many thousands of years of typing to get there; that's what people would expect. But chance says they might do it all in a few months only. In other words the day that they succeed does not have to be a long time in the future, it could be a lot sooner than people expect!

Rather like conspiracy theorists, the deluded will all too easily find a pattern and then call it a design. They are all wrong and guilty of lazy thinking.

heresy?

by Whom's opinion when we have documented Ancient Historian (12 separate Historians of that day) fact of Jesus (Yeshua) being a real person with the ability to do miracles no one could ever imulate.

i've been in life and death situations (and have heard "go left," or choose that door when there were multiple options). both times I was alone running for my life. had i been caught or within range, i no doubt would be typing this to you.. running, scared, tired, trying to catch my breath, and not enough ammo to stop and engage fire. during that, i have heard a voice just come to me and what direction was given literally "saved" my life!!



the older Science Books included the "Family Tree" which Darwin was connecting all life forms to and by through his idea of Evolution, that TREE!!



it would be impossible to be God and not know "Everything," which includes Your Name...


Hey, I am not mad at you or think any less of you, just voicing my own beliefs and offering reasonable alternative thinking to ponder.




why would someone like me need a God?
the life i have lived (with exception to cut and clear miracles) i did it all on my own merit.

nah, i do need God, but it's not for anything concerning life on Earth. what does however happen on Earth that is indeed the work of the miraculous, is watching the things i plant "SEED" into (not semen, not a plant or herb seed or garden variety, nothing physical or of monetary value) and then be blown away by "results" i never could have prepared for, planned for, even caused myself from my own effort.

Things happen not because I am "Lucky" (you cannot have the streak i have had all of my life within the realm where i am 100% unable to do something or create a plane to cause a reaction in order to save my own life)(then the blessings from business adventures, and when a literal "DIRT FARM" as in soft silky dust becomes fertile and yields for profit) luck has not a single thing to do with any of it!!

Random huh? The Goldilocks Universe is random...smh. Ok well modern physicists have proven that the wave-particle duality of quantum mechanics is affected by consciousness. I hold that the fundamental duality of existence is consciousness and energy. Without energy consciousness can do nothing and without consciousness energy can do nothing useful. It would then in fact be random. But they have proven that the presence and expectation of an observer affects the outcome of an experiment, where several states previously exist simultaneously, the touch of consciousness collapses the field into a single state. For creation to be random, consciousness would have to be random as well. The expectation and presence of the mind of an observer is only random if we agree to disagree about what the word random means. Lazy thinking is to really make a reference to monkeys on typewriters, whose writing I would rather read than that of self-proclaimed realists unqualified to declare what is naive. It's always easier to attack a position than to take one and accept the intrinsic uncertainty of the universe.

Erm?
Did you read what you just wrote?

How do you define conscious?
Perhaps the Universe is conscious of us but we are not conscious of it?
We are, after all, part of the Universe and in turn, the Universe is part of us.
To assume that the Universe existed before mankind with human conscious is absurd.

What little we do understand of reality proves, by measure and testing that random interactions are abundant in nature. We also understand that movement is heat. That heat is energy.

The spin of an electron or a boson or a gluon is evidence energy exists at the fundamental level of existence. Yet, thought is not able to stop the spin of an electron. Schrodinger's Cat is a thought experiment, try not to get too hung up on it. A thought experiment devised by a human being.

Wave-particle duality is interesting when applied to photons in a laboratory experiment but in reality, the world in which we exist as we live, there is no significance. You can't track a photon let alone determine if it is currently a particle or a wave. All the light we see is reflected or refracted.

If you take the time to read this thread, you will see I address light and time in my understanding of what God might be.
I also state that our current Universe is the result of random interactions over the course of its existence. Random interactions, cause and effect at all levels of relativity. From the nanoscopic to the macroscopic. Including waveforms, gravity and persistence. Only not limited to those values, could include values unknown as yet.
It is random and NOT by Design.
But that is my opinion and I don't really care if you agree with it or not.
I won't be changing that opinion till someone can offer me reasonable real-world example of something different.

Are you really saying that human beings existed at the start of the universe? I have always thought that the universe was about 13 billion years old. After that the stars formed, and then the planets formed and eventually some sort of life got going - all of that a very long time before that life evolved into what we would recogsnise as a thinking human being! I think I misunderstood you?

Yea, misunderstood.
Human conscious did not exist before humans developed the ability for rational thought.

The Universe existed waaaaaaaay before the human conscious mind.

To assume it had conscious thought is absurd.


It is random but insignificant to the creation of the Universe.
(That was a separate process.)
Consciousness is a personal process.
We do not have a hive mind.
Humans must communicate their thoughts and feeling in order for another human to understand.
If we had the same conscious, no other form of communication would be needed.

Thus, human conscious is random.
There are nearly 8 billion on this planet right now and all a random example of each person and the conditions they experience.

The discovery of the first planet to orbit a sun like ours has now resulted in a Nobel Prize for those involved in the discovery.

Assuming that such planets are numerous, what chance is there of 'intelligent life' (whatever that means!) on at least some of these planets?

Yes, you can see where this is going! Do they believe in a god of any type which might be recognisable by those on this planet who believe in that nonsense? Perhaps they are all deluded, believing in the most strange ideas? Or perhaps when we finally meet them they will laugh at us for our ideas?

What do people think?