Are religions manmade and natural or supernaturally based?

Hi Modulous,I think arguments along those lines are fine.I'm more concerned about ICANT's occupation with how science is wrong, which isn't the topic. This isn't even a science forum. I don't have a problem with side-topics, but I don't think they should be unending or threaten to drown out the topic. For example, I don't think any progress is being made concerning your point that the universe has existed for all time but that time has a finite past. You said it clearly, but ICANT responded with a Hawking quote saying the same thing but as if he understood Hawking to have contradicted you. Seems pretty hopeless. You're welcome to keep trying, but I'm not sure your efforts at explanation are being matched by any efforts at understanding, perhaps even the opposite, and I'd prefer that unprofitable side-topics not go on too long.AbE: Liked Message 480.Edited by Admin, : AbE.

[ NoNukes correction about entropy wasn't clear to me, and it may not be clear to others, so what he meant to say is that for closed systems entropy can only remain constant or increase. There's some fuzziness about entropy at the quantum level. --Admin] Simply changing form does not require that energy become unavailable. Yes it is true that some processes do have that result, and it is believed that for all known process, total entropy must remain constant.[1] The problem is that a perfectly acceptable mode of operation is for the amount of usable energy in the universe to remain constant over any given period of time. For example, the energy locked up in matter might well be eternal until it is unlocked in a nuclear process. There is a huge thread on this subject in the archives including calculations based on observation that indicate that the total energy in the universe is zero.Added by Edit.As was pointed out, I should have written remain constant or increase.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.Edited by Admin, : Admin comment.

You are claiming that the total entropy in the universe remains constant?!?We know of many dissipative processes (friction, thermal expansion, etc.) which increase entropy. If entropy is constant as you claim, then there must be some "anti-dissipative" processes to balance things out. Can you give some examples of these?

That's not what I meant. If that appears to be the meaning of something I wrote, then I expressed myself poorly.ABE:Looking back I see my error. I meant to say remain constant or increase. I won't change the post now that you've commented on it, but I will add a note about the error.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Hi NoNukes Why not?Example: I go camping and I gather some wood which is a form of energy. I build a fire with that wood. The fire keeps me warm as it is a cold evening. I then place cooking pans on the fire to cook food.
I cook food with the energy that is produced by the burning of the wood. I eat the food which produces energy for my body to use. When I put the fire out or let it burn out the wood and all the energy that was in it has been changed into different forms with the balance of the wood a pile of ashes which is what is left over from the wood. There is no usable energy in those ashes that I know of. Entropy has taken place and a lot of energy has changed into forms that are not usable energy. Like the heat that went into the air as well as the ashes on the ground. You did not answer the question, "Has his hypothesis reached a consensus yet?"The answer is no.OK you believe in a zero energy universe.Since energy can not be created and you have admitted that entropy does take place, how does a minus zero energy universe exist?Just one of my stupid questions.The universe will run out of useable energy in the future unless energy can be added to it by some means. How can the energy remain constant? Entropy is a fact.
What would be the mechanism to increase the energy in the universe?God Bless,

I thought I'd jump in to this conversation as it is becoming rather philosophically, if not scientifically intriguing,. First of all, do we all still agree with the idea that matter can be neither created nor destroyed? Belief in a Creator would seem to negate this fact---as a Creator would initially create, causing either matter or energy to appear out of nothing. This can be philosophically acknowledged though not scientifically at this time.

I added a note in bold red explaining this at the top of NoNuke's Message 482. When he said he "should have written remain constant or increase" he was referring to when he mistakenly said "entropy must remain constant." In other words, what he meant to say was more like, "For all known processes total entropy must remain constant or increase." This is actually only true for closed systems (which anyone familiar with thermodynamics would have understood NoNukes to be assuming), as I said in my note. The universe considered as a whole is presumably a closed system.

Hi Mod, Existence is the opposite of non existence.
Example: Before your parents were born you did not exist. Yet today you exist.Spacetime may or may not exist. It just depends on which scientist you want to believe. There are many who do not believe spacetime exists. They believe that space does exist. They also believe that events can be order by the concept of time.The universe does exist now but many say it has not always existed.You on the other hand want to believe the universe has existed for all time which had a beginning to exist when the universe had a beginning to exist. No speculating involve at all. Either there is existence or there is non existence as there is no in between. I totally agree that there can be nothing outside of existence. That is the reason I believe that there is a supernatural power that supplied all the energy and mass that makes up our present universe.You on the other hand believe that infinite energy did exist outside of existence. Otherwise where did the infinite energy that is supposed to have began to expand into our universe come from. There is only one place and that is non existence which is impossible. The existence of the universe has a finite past. That does not mean that existence has a finite past. In fact the existence of the universe requires that existence is infinite.The standard theory as well as string theory, and brane theory require something to exist in order for them to take place. I agree, existence is infinite. I agree, energy is infinite. I agree. I also believe entropy will consume all usable energy in the universe. Einstein believed that the universe was infinite, until it was proven that the universe was expanding. He did not want to accept the fact the universe had a beginning to exist. So he pulled his biggest blunder, which later he admitted.So I will let you argue with Einstein and others as to whether the universe had a beginning to exist or not. Because according to them and the standard theory the universe did have a beginning to exist. I don't really have a model.In my very first post in answer to GIA's question, "Do you think Gods are manmade or do you believe in a supernatural God?" I said the following:

quote:

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I believe in a supernatural God.

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Everybody says why?

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Scientific fact: The universe has not always existed.
Scientific fact: The universe had a beginning to exist.
Scientific fact: The universe exists.

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Before the universe there would have been an absence of anything. No space, time, matter, energy, or vacuum, as all those began to exist when the universe began to exist.

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Now whatever caused the universe to have a beginning to exist from an absence of anything would be a supernatural power.

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I call that supernatural power God, what do you call it?

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According to you the universe is finite. Which requires a beginning to exist as it is not eternal in existence.That would require a Supernatural Power to exist to provide the energy and mass for the universe to be composed of.Since the word Supernatural is used that means it would not be an entity that is controlled by natural means in the universe as it would be outside the universe and not subject to any restraints finite man might want to impose upon it.You can use your, the universe has existed as long as time has existed which has existed as long as the universe has existed because it is a part of the universe, and did not exist prior to the universe which did not exist prior to time existing all you want to.As Admin has said you will get no where making that argument with me.The reason you will get no where is:The claim is that time is a dimension of the universe when time is not physical and can not be measured.Being a dimension of the universe time could not exist until after the universe existed. Therefore the universe has existed longer than time has existed.I got to stop my head is spinning going around in this circle.God Bless,

Hi Phat, It does make the mind work don't it? Why would you assume that a Creator would initially have to create energy?The Supernatural Power I speak about is infinite. Which means it has no bounds, or constraints.So why wouldn't the energy that the Creator used to produce the mass for the universe also be infinite? I am persuaded you will not get that scientific proof until 1 femtosecond (which is one quadrillionth of a second) after death in which you meet the Creator. At that moment you will have all the answers or you will not exist.God Bless,

ICANT, there may be some slight confusion about thermodynamic terms.The TOTAL energy always remains constant. This is essentially a postulate of modern physics. If we think that we find total energy changing, we invent a new form of energy so that the total energy again remains constant.The concept of USEFUL energy is related to entropy. Entropy is NOT the same as energy. Entropy is related to disorder; it can never decrease. Entropy can remain the same (in conservative systems) or can increase (in dissipative systems). As entropy increases, the USEFUL energy decreases (though the TOTAL energy remains the same). This is the second law of thermodynamics.The universe contains dissipative processes, so the total entropy of the universe will increase over its lifetime. This means that our universe will eventually run out of useful energy and will die a "heat death". As Tolman argued in the 1930's, this also rules out the idea of an infinite series of Big Bang, Big Crunch, Big Bang, ... Fixing either of these problems would not require an input of ENERGY; it would require a (miraculous) reduction of ENTROPY.Edited by kbertsche, : No reason given.

Hi kbertsche, If I understand what you are saying it is that the amount of useable energy will decrease as entropy takes it course during duration. At a point in the future all of the useable energy will be turned into un-useable energy at which time the universe will be dead.Which is the reason that the universe requires a beginning to exist as it could not be infinite as the universe would already have reached the point of death. I do not understand how if energy was supplied to continue doing work that the problem would not be solved. The pile of un-useable energy would just get larger.I guess that is the reason the Bible says that our present universe's elements will dissolve with fervent heat. 2 Peter 3:12Then those elements (or other elements) will be taken and a new Heaven and earth will be created.Thanks for answering my question, "How can the energy remain constant? "Useable energy + un-useable energy = total energy of the universe.
Useable energy will always decrease and un-useable energy will allways increase. Thus the total energy will remain the same until all the useable energy in the universe becomes un-useable energy.zero useable energy = 100% un-useable energy = dead universeHas my understand cleared up?God Bless,

Yes, I think this is a good argument. The universe cannot be infinite either as a single universe, or as one occurrence in an infinite series of universes. Both concepts would have reached "heat death". I suppose more energy COULD be added to the system. But if so, it would have to be added as "useable energy", I.e. energy that is in a low-entropy state. This is equivalent to saying that the net ENTROPY of the universe must be reduced, which cannot happen by any natural process. Yes, but Peter seems to be describing something abrupt here. So this is not "heat death", which is a very gradual process.And we need to be careful not to read "elements" anachronistically as "chemical elements". To Peter, "elements" meant all of the individual pieces of the present creation, no matter how small or large these pieces are. Yes, I think this is accurate.

Because in my mind at least this crosses over from monotheism into pantheism. If you have an omnipotent Creator, the idea of infinite energy seems superfluous...at least to me. Because a Creator would have to initially create.Which came first? The Creator or the creation?

Hi kbertsche Yes, that would require a Supernatural Power. Peter was talking about a supernatural event.Since Peter was a simple fisherman he probably did not even know what the elements were. He was probably thinking of the Greek word meaning all the physical things in the universe.

No I don't, I had literally just said the opposite. Please make the effort to sincerely understand me. The universe didn't come from some place or time. It's existence itself. You are asking about something outside of existence. As I said: Speculating about things that are outside of existence is literally speculating on the non-existent. As you stated: "Either there is existence or there is non existence as there is no in between."So the place outside of existence which you speculate must exist to contain infinite energy?Doesn't exist in this model. By definition. This is technically correct, but not in the case where we are discussing a philosophical model in which Existence and The Universe are synonymous. You know, like when I said "The model I am describing Spacetime is synonymous with existence." No it doesn't. Einstein died before completing his registration at EvC. You are stuck with dealing with my model and your model. Your model can only lead to the conclusion that the supernatural exists by process of elimination. My model has not yet been eliminated, so you cannot reach the supernatural conclusion yet. Yes you do. In your model God is infinite and created the universe. That thing you pasted just after saying this, that includes 'Now whatever caused the universe to have a beginning to exist from an absence of anything would be a supernatural power'- That's your model. It has a finite past. That's all I care about for this thread. It does not require a 'beginning to exist'. It simply requires an earliest point in time. I said it before that the phrase 'beginning to exist' is frought with ambiguity and implications that are causing you some big hiccups.It didn't begin to exist. It exists. It has existed for all time. Time has a finite past. At the 'first point in time' it existed just as much as now. It was no more 'beginning to exist' than we are right now. Of course in my model, you are now speculating on the non-existent as 'outside of existence' is non-existent. (And remember, 'outside the universe' is 'outside of existence').The other problem you run into, that I mentioned earlier - is even if you reject the Universe=existence model, this still doesn't get you to the Supernatural. It just gets you to the superuniversal. Whether or not the superuniversal is supernatural is a completely different, and I'm going to say more difficult, argument. But simply speculating that the superuniversal exists does not advance your argument.There are lots of superuniversal natural models out there too. I kind of like the model which is infinite in space and time and the universe simply is noise. Increasing entropy in both directions of time, and one of the possible consequences of trying to increase entropy is to create pocket universes such as our own within the superuniversal realm. No supernatural, no direction, no intelligence required. Although it is speculative, it is mathematically consistent with what we know at the moment, which is more than can be said for infinitely powerful infinitely old beings that become ICANT's best friend. Start taking me seriously, and we can avoid you repeating yourself and us going in circles.This is all kinds of wrong, but let me tell you that time is part of the universe. If the universe exists, time exists. My model does not postulate{Some period of time passes} -> {The universe begins to exist} -> {Time and space begin to exist}Rather it is simply
{Space and time exist}This would be like speculating that I had a swimming pool in my back garden before it had a length (presumably I was stuck doing widths ) , that I started drinking my beer before it had any volume....The universe exists, time exists. They have some properties that apes find odd to the point of being difficult or impossible to understand, depending on species and individual.If you would prefer we can move beyond the 'the universe must have come from somewhere' argument, and start discussing why the 'somewhere' must be supernatural. I just think this is a simpler argument to have and I'm not confident that if this argument has been so difficult to have, the other one will go smoother. In my experience, this part of the argument is exactly the same as that part ultimately - we've just abstracted it one level which fools us into thinking our speculations can go wild and we can befriend entities from other dimensions. We have to get through that confusing point and then we realize we're having the same argument as we were before decided to go the further step. IE - is a supernatural agent required to 'kick start' it or no? The answer is 'no'. This is not the same as saying a supernatural agent didn't kick start it, just that there doesn't seem to be an absolute need to have one in order for a universe to exist.