A New Series

[Cody]

This looks like it might be interesting:

http://www.universetoday.com/2010/06/08 ... -wormhole/

It starts tomorrow on the Science Channel.

[ClymAngus]

This looks like it might be interesting:

http://www.universetoday.com/2010/06/08 ... -wormhole/

It starts tomorrow on the Science Channel.

I really hope that's a "peak the interest" line. I really don't need Morgan giving the creationists more ammunition.

[Poro]

Creationists will sculpt ammunition regardless. If the program simply tells the scientific truth: 'We don't know for sure what happened before the singularity' creationists will pounce on that anyway.

"You see! They don't even know what happened... whereas this divinely inspired book right here..."

[Cmdr James]

My understanding is that time started at the singularity, so discussion of before is flawed. Its like talking about colder than 0K.

I have to say that the intro I saw for that show is disturbingly towards the science doesnt know anything, its all so mysterious God musta done it.

Whether or not god exists and/or did create everything, that kind of bland armwaving dismissal of science and blind acceptance of something mysterious and higher makes me sick.

[snork]

Anything with a 1st episode "Is there a creator?" should go on church channel and not bugger the folks who want to see something (popular) science.

Not interested.

[ClymAngus]

Well I can see that in a cynical way it is great for getting a big audience. I'm not sure this marketing tactic really adds anything to the credibility of the programming.

Do we know anything about the programmes background?

The incubator is the production company behind it.
http://www.imdb.com/company/co0216780/

They don't look particularly agenda hungry given some of the grubby toss they have produced in the past.

The other production company involved is Revelation Entertainment. (oh dear) hang on though, a name means little it's the will behind it. "a mission to develop films that enlighten, express heart and glorify the human experience."

Hmm, I guess it is a case of look and see but I see little outwardly book slapping about it.

[Poro]

My understanding is that time started at the singularity, so discussion of before is flawed.

Yes, I didn't phrase that correctly. In fact I'm usually correcting others in the same way on this issue. Silly me.

*Drinks_coffee*
*Switches_brain_on*

[Steve]

Let's face it, it's all a bit of a mystery. Creationism or not. Nobody knows how it all kicked off

[Poro]

Let's face it, it's all a bit of a mystery. Creationism or not. Nobody knows how it all kicked off

"Turtles all the way down" my friend... turtles all the way down.

[Cmdr James]

Let's face it, it's all a bit of a mystery. Creationism or not. Nobody knows how it all kicked off

It is true that noone knows all the details for sure, but actually a lot is known about the when and the how.

Not knowing the full details is no excuse for a science show to go all dewey eyed and mysterious and talking about creators. Save it for church.

A side issue, but something that I find interesting is that creationism seems to often be conflated with Young Earthers, the people who think the universe/earth is 6000 years old. Pretty much anyone of any religion are creationists as almost all religions believe their god created everything.

[Commander McLane]

Pretty much anyone of any religion are creationists...

Nah. Only inasmuch as they don't know what they are talking about. (Which, as I have to admit, an astonishing number of people actually don't.)

Scientific worldview and religious belief really don't mix, because they are talking about two different and distinct subjects. Science (in this case cosmology) is talking about the when and the how, the hard facts. Religious belief doesn't. It is talking about a relation. Only in a time when there wasn't yet any science in the modern sense and pretty much everything was theology it was the theology which reflected upon the when and the how, and given the scientific knowledge in the 6th century BC, Genesis 1 is remarkably accurate (for instance, it correctly identifies the stars as light-emitting dead celestial bodies, not—like the ancient babylonians did during the same time—as gods). But eventually theology and science (and the other academic disciplines) split, and it would be plainly silly to simply maintain a 6th century BC scientific hypothesis and disregard more than 25 centuries of scientific discovery. On the other hand, it would be equally silly to try to use scientific facts in order to make statements about the relation between god and humankind. We have two seperate fields, and meaningful statements can be made within each field, but transported into the other field they become meaningless.

[Cmdr James]

Thats a fairly standard view these days, that religion and science are different domains, Im not going to argue with it per se.

The thing is though, that most religions do state that their deity is the creator, and for many people that is pretty key. If a christian doe not accept that god created everything, they are left with a slightly strange 'reverse-deist' god. A god that exists only to listen to prayers, and not for the real meat of setting up and running the universe.

[Poro]

On the other hand, it would be equally silly to try to use scientific facts in order to make statements about the relation between god and humankind.

Not at all

When a believer says that their god exists, that becomes a question of science, whether they like it or not. Existence is interaction with our universe, otherwise you get into the flim flam of 'Well, what if he/she/it is outside our universe?"

If something can interact with this level of reality, then at least the interaction can be measured - if not the god (in this case). If even the interaction cannot be proven through science, then the entity is exactly synonymous with something that doesn't exist.

We have two seperate fields, and meaningful statements can be made within each field, but transported into the other field they become meaningless.

A meaningful statement can be made within Oolite fan-fiction, which is internally consistent and logical in every way. The same can be done with science/natural methodology. One would never use that to imply equivalency though. (I paid attention to your wording, and I understand you didn't assert this, but I got a whiff of post-modernist 'Different but equal' for a second )

[Commander McLane]

The thing is though, that most religions do state that their deity is the creator, and for many people that is pretty key. If a christian doe not accept that god created everything, they are left with a slightly strange 'reverse-deist' god. A god that exists only to listen to prayers, and not for the real meat of setting up and running the universe.

Not really.

As I said before, the scientific sphere is about the how and when, the hard facts, while the religious sphere (from a theologically responsible, protestant, a little closer to lutheran than to reformed, post-enlightenment and therefore post-mythical/magical christian standpoint that is, which happens to be my standpoint; needless to say that I cannot speak for fundamentalists who haven't understood the difference between the spheres) is about relation. Therefore the statement that "god created everything", to which I subscribe, does not translate into anything that would or could contradict the latest scientific hypothesis about cosmogony (this will only be contradicted—or amended—by tomorrow's newly discovered latest scientific facts). It does translate into something completely different, namely into the statement "we (as humans) have a responsibility in and for this world and are accountable for what we are doing to this world", which is a statement about relation, to be precise a twofold statement, because it talks (a) about the relation between us humans and the rest of the creation, and (b) about the relation between us humans and the one we are accountable to: god. Note furthermore that this second statement cannot be concluded or translated from the scientific facts about cosmogony. It can neither be proven nor disproven by science (like the known facts about cosmogony can neither be proven nor disproven by theology or personal belief). We really have two seperate spheres here.

When a believer says that their god exists, that becomes a question of science, whether they like it or not. Existence is interaction with our universe, otherwise you get into the flim flam of 'Well, what if he/she/it is outside our universe?"

If something can interact with this level of reality, then at least the interaction can be measured - if not the god (in this case). If even the interaction cannot be proven through science, then the entity is exactly synonymous with something that doesn't exist.

I agree inasmuch as "interaction" has a lot to do with "relation". There are two practical problems, however: First, how do you measure a relation scientifically? You can say that you love your husband/wife/boyfriend/girlfriend, but how do you measure that scientifically? Perhaps it could be measured that your heartbeat changes, and there are a lot of electrical activities going on in your brain while you are talking about him/her. But would that be an irrefutable scientific proof for your relation? Hardly. It even gets worse if I ask the question vice versa: how would you measure scientifically that you are loved by somebody? Especially if that somebody is unavailable for putting electrodes on him/her? Scientific method and testing would have a hard time proving anything in this realm.

Second, many of the (alleged) interactions between god and humans have taken place in the past, and are therefore out of the bounds of science. History is no hard science, and will never be. Has Jesus risen from the grave? Not a question which science will ever be able to answer. Or even the more general question: Has Jesus ever existed? The only thing we have are the testimonies of eye-witnesses, which are (as all eye-witness-testimonies of all times) notoriously unreliable, and simply not in the same category as scientific facts. Note that Jesus is but one example. You also cannot scientifically prove that Julius Caesar ever existed, or Socrates, or Charlemagne, or Oliver Cromwell, or Abraham Lincoln. Generally, there is no way of scientifically proving that any person who already died has ever existed.

A meaningful statement can be made within Oolite fan-fiction, which is internally consistent and logical in every way. The same can be done with science/natural methodology. One would never use that to imply equivalency though.

I wouldn't even know what equivalency would mean in the scenario we are discussing here. Obviously knowing the hard facts about cosmogony is not the same as appreciating your accountability. Is it equivalent? Hardly. I would say, however, that the acknowledgement of accountability is adding a different quality to the pure knowledge of scientific facts, and this added quality is basically the difference between the worldview of a believer and a non-believer. (I also assume that the fact that many scientists are in fact religious people has something to do with this added quality.) You are of course free to dismiss this quality. From my personal perspective that wouldn't make you freer, though, but poorer.

[DaddyHoggy]

As a scientist/physicist I can only claim to be agnostic. Personally, I do not believe in "God" as the creator of the Universe (and therefore us, by happenstance), but as a proper scientist I must keep an open mind, simply because while science cannot prove the existence of a divine, omnipotent, creator, nor can it conclusively disprove it either, and until disproved I cannot (and should not - if I am a proper scientist) say "there is no God".

The existence of the Higgs Boson is yet to be proven one way or another - it's not referred to as the God particle for nothing!