What do non-Christians believe about where the matter in the big bang came from?

[albeto]

I'm not Spock, so in addition to observation and analyzing, I put a lot of weight on intuition, emotion, relationships, wisdom ... and probably a lot more than that.

 

Understood. However, just because you don't realize how you're interpreting information through your sensory organs and how the brain processes this information doesn't mean you don't do it. As a matter of fact, we all do this. It's all we have. Our sensory organs are all we have to interpret objective information. Our cognitive strengths allow us to interpret those experiences in certain ways and belief in supernatural gods and demons was a very common way to interpret the world around us. Today, however, we have more reliable pieces of evidence than "it's been interpreted this way for a very long time."

 

I hope that makes some sense. Not sure if that's more than you wanted to know or not.

 

Thanks! It makes very good sense. I think we simply interpret these same experiences differently.

[shinyhappypeople]

Understood. However, just because you don't realize how you're interpreting information through your sensory organs and how the brain processes this information doesn't mean you don't do it. As a matter of fact, we all do this. It's all we have. Our sensory organs are all we have to interpret objective information. Our cognitive strengths allow us to interpret those experiences in certain ways and belief in supernatural gods and demons was a very common way to interpret the world around us. Today, however, we have more reliable pieces of evidence than "it's been interpreted this way for a very long time."

 

 

Of course my BRAIN is involved. Just not in a conscious, analytic sense.

[astrid]

Yes, scientists usually have a quirky sense of humor.

 

Science has not yet figured out what was before the BB. I probably won't be around when they do. If they do. I don't need to know. It's not a question that my mind has to have an answer to.

 

I'm fine with science being the foundation of my beliefs and that it doesn't answer everything.

 

Ditto.

 

astrid

[albeto]

Of course my BRAIN is involved. Just not in a conscious, analytic sense.

 

Analyzing is what your brain does best. You may not be aware of it. You weren't thinking of it when you learned to walk or talk; you weren't thinking of it when you learned how to throw or catch; and when you decided which kids would make good friends you may not have been aware of the analysis going on, but that's how we learn and think and conclude anything, including religious beliefs. The only difference is that religious believers include what they've been told people have believed for a long time and assume it's accurate. For the purposes of the OP, what we think about the beginning of the universe doesn't include the assumptions of ancient religious beliefs simply because they can't be analyzed in any practical, meaningful way with regard to exploration of nature. Just because people believed in a mythology doesn't make that mythology true and just because people still believe it today doesn't make it true. It has no bearing on the subject of the origins of the universe so it simply isn't a part of the equation.

[WishboneDawn]

I've never encountered anything or anyone that was truly impartial. That's just part of being human. We carry personal bias into everything. We all do it, not just scientists.

 

Scientists aren't science. People aren't science. The bigger system of how we gather, build and test knowledge is science. The scientists are simply a piece of that. A brick is not a house, it's a piece of the house.

[Night Elf]

Not so. If there is only one correct choice from two available options, one side has a 100% chance of being right and the other a 0% chance.

 

You're right. I shouldn't use statistics when I don't understand them. What I was trying to say was that either one side is right or the other side is right, and I believe that either side has the same chance of being right because we cannot know which side is right. If I think that it is a 100% chance for each side to be right, that implies both sides must be right. Is that right?

 

If only one side can be 100% right, and we don't know which side is right, how do we distribute the probability rate? I hate mathematics. Actually, as I'm rereading your note, I'm wondering if we can assign a probability right. Instead, I picture two sides of people with a rope on the ground. One side is saying nanana-booboo, we are right and you are wrong. Then the other side answering back with their own chant.

 

I am not surprised in the least this becomes such a hot topic. Frankly, I have no opinion on the subject. I'm not part of either side because neither side make 100% sense. (maybe I used the percent right that time). But I do tell God that I think it's all a mess and that I disagree with him if he finds fault with our logic since he made us. However, I do open each talk with 'I don't know if you are there or not, but here are my thoughts.'

Edited July 6, 2011 by Night Elf

[WishboneDawn]

I hate mathematics.

 

:blink:

 

:crying::crying::crying:

 

You need therapy, you poor thing. ;)

[LoveBaby]

I don't really believe much about it. I suppose it must have been lurking about because somethings generally don't appear out of nowhere. What difference does it make how the universe began? The important bit is that it did. Maybe the Big Bang wasn't the start of everything, maybe it was just the first thing that was worth writing home about.

 

Basically, those details are in the "too hard" basket, and knowing the answers for sure wouldn't change how I live my life so I concentrate on other, more important things, like learning to knit and what to make for dinner.

 

Rosie

 

:iagree:

 

 

and...any ideas on dinner?! 'cuz I'm running out of them!

[Audrey]

It's not a matter of belief. There are various scientific hypotheses and theories out there regarding the origins of the Universe, only one of which is the Big Bang Theory. Personally, I find the ideas behind the studies of entropy and M-theory to be the most promising and logical explanations for the state of the Universe, but I don't "believe" in them.

Edited July 6, 2011 by Audrey

[albeto]

If only one side can be 100% right, and we don't know which side is right, how do we distribute the probability rate?

 

In the case of matter and the universe, we may not know which is the right answers, but we do know which are the wrong answers. Magic is wrong. 100%. There is no example in nature in which words beget matter and believing it might be simply because others before us believed this, is not a reasonable way to conduct any kind of discovery.