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hippy4christ
Skeptic Friend
193 Posts |
 Posted - 04/28/2003 : 14:38:36
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Hello Everyone,
I recently heard on NPR that scientists now agree that all matter in the universe is not moving away from a central position, which was one of the major premises of the Big Bang theory. With that in mind, how often does explosion create an ordered structure?
Hippy
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Faith is believing what you are told, whether it's by a priest or a scientist. A person's scientific beliefs are ones based on personal observation and experimentation.
Lists of Logical Fallacies |
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jmcginn
Skeptic Friend
343 Posts |
Posted - 04/28/2003 : 15:53:20 [Permalink]
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quote:
I recently heard on NPR that scientists now agree that all matter in the universe is not moving away from a central position, which was one of the major premises of the Big Bang theory.
Can you please provide anything better than just NPR? I would like to listen to the broadcast myself and doing a search on Big Bang brought up nothing recent at npr.org. Thanks.
quote:
With that in mind, how often does explosion create an ordered structure?
An explosion by itself does not create an ordered structure, but what does that have to do with Big Bang and cosmology in general, where gravity and various laws of motion have organized over billions of years what was initally space dust into suns, planets, solar systems, galaxies, etc.? |
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NubiWan
Skeptic Friend
USA
424 Posts |
Posted - 04/28/2003 : 16:16:57 [Permalink]
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| Well, have beat me little head against this brick wall, sum might say, one too many times. Actually the BB is part of the proof, that the Universe actually has no "center." Or in other words, any point within our universe, is as good a "center" as any other. In Cosmology, we must first agree upon which "universe" we are discussing. Most of the time, it will be "the Observable Universe." It's a misconception to think of the BB as an "explosion, albeit a very common one. |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 04/28/2003 : 16:18:08 [Permalink]
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quote:
With that in mind, how often does explosion create an ordered structure?
Shaped charges, to give an example. With these, properly set, a steel beam can be cut as if with a knife, or a hole blasted that can be tapped to thread in a bolt.
And thus is the beauty of science. There are many things that we don't know and may never find out. The joy is in the search. Thus, scientists are involved in research into the beginnings of the universe. I'll have to leave it to the Bad Astronomer or someone else to elaborate, 'cause I don't know. I do know that as discoveries are made, more mysteries develop -- dark matter for instance. Seems the universe becomes stranger the more we study it.
Welcome to SFN!
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
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Randy
SFN Regular
USA
1990 Posts |
Posted - 04/28/2003 : 19:19:33 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by NubiWan
Well, have beat me little head against this brick wall, sum might say, one too many times. Actually the BB is part of the proof, that the Universe actually has no "center." Or in other words, any point within our universe, is as good a "center" as any other. In Cosmology, we must first agree upon which "universe" we are discussing. Most of the time, it will be "the Observable Universe." It's a misconception to think of the BB as an "explosion, albeit a very common one.
Yep, on the above.
Maybe something is amiss with the NPR blurb. Matter never did move away from a central position.
The "single" point "explosion" of the Big Bang goes in the urban legend file. Fer what I understand, it, the BB, happened everywhere, like a rip or tear. And here we are today.
Tada!
Well, to fill in a bit of the BB (big blank) I left out, here's a link to the award winning science site Astronomy Cafe, hosted
by the great cosmos head Dr. Sten Odenwald, and its question archives:
http://itss.raytheon.com/cafe/qadir/qanda.html
Below is an assortment of related BB questions and answers from the site. Hope this helps. Read thru all the below and I guarantee it'll clear up your sinus problems (head expanding ).....
"Where in the universe did the Big Bang happen?"
http://itss.raytheon.com/cafe/qadir/q1164.html
"What are the simplest things we know about the Big Bang?"
http://itss.raytheon.com/cafe/qadir/q2069.html
"Why can't we see where the Big Bang started?"
http://itss.raytheon.com/cafe/qadir/q2161.html
"How is the age of the universe determined?"
http://itss.raytheon.com/cafe/qadir/q681.html
"Was there really no time at all before the Big Bang?"
http://itss.raytheon.com/cafe/qadir/q294.html
"Scientists keep hammering on the Big Bang theory like it is some kind of divine truth. It's only a theory, so why not give it up and find something else that fits the data better?"
http://itss.raytheon.com/cafe/qadir/q55.html
"Do you believe in the Big Bang theory, or Creation?"
http://itss.raytheon.com/cafe/qadir/q916.html
"Can you name 10 things that contradict Big Bang theory?"
http://itss.raytheon.com/cafe/qadir/q1794.html
"Can you list 10 or more observational facts supporting Big Bang Theory?"
http://itss.raytheon.com/cafe/qadir/q401.html
"What alternate theories of the universe are being actively tested today?"
http://itss.raytheon.com/cafe/qadir/q1044.html
"What ever happened to the rival theories to Big Bang cosmology?"
http://itss.raytheon.com/cafe/qadir/q407.html
"In your list of 10 things supporting Big Bang theory, why do they not also support other ideas too?"
http://itss.raytheon.com/cafe/qadir/q2561.html
"How can some stars in the universe be older than the universe?"
http://itss.raytheon.com/cafe/qadir/q2544.html
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"We are all connected; to each other biologically, to the earth chemically, to the rest of the universe atomically."
"So you're made of detritus [from exploded stars]. Get over it. Or better yet, celebrate it. After all, what nobler thought can one cherish than that the universe lives within us all?"
-Neil DeGrasse Tyson |
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jmcginn
Skeptic Friend
343 Posts |
Posted - 04/29/2003 : 07:23:30 [Permalink]
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quote:
Shaped charges, to give an example. With these, properly set, a steel beam can be cut as if with a knife, or a hole blasted that can be tapped to thread in a bolt.
I found quite an interesting example of another type of explosion that leaves a very orderly structure while reading a book on Volcanos to my 8 year old last night. In Northern Ireland is quite an amazing feature called the Giant's Causeway.
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In Northern Ireland there is a place called the Giant's Causeway where a series of hexagonal (six-sided) columns made of basalt is found. The local people tell stories that many years ago the Giant's Causeway is all that is left of a bridge built by the Irish giant Finn MacCoul from Ireland to Scotland. Today scientists have explained this natural phenomena as the unique result of magma cooling in this shape after it was pushed to the surface. But the story is certainly a lot more fun , don't you think.
The Causeway proper is a mass of basalt columns packed tightly together. The tops of the columns form stepping stones that lead from the cliff foot and disappear under the sea. Altogether there are 40,000 of these stone columns, mostly hexagonal but some with four, five, seven and eight sides. The tallest are about 40 feet high, and the solidified lava in the cliffs is 90 feet thick in places.
http://www.educ.uvic.ca/faculty/mroth/438/VOLCANO/Volcanoes_around_the_world.html
The picture in the book was better than this web-site and showed some of them upclose and they are truely perfect hexagons (at least in cross-section - imagaine a haxagonal column).
Also underwater volcanos create very complicated spherical shapes that are quite amazing but not as orderly as these columns.
A little more:
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Today you will be escorted by Sarah Howell, a native guide from the Antrim area. Along this linear coastal route you can enjoy a spectacular walk from White Park Bay to the Giant's Causeway. The Causeway is made up of 37,000 black basalt hexagonal columns. It is the result of a massive underground explosion some sixty million years ago. In 1693 the Royal Geographical Society publicised it as one of the great wonders of the natural world.
http://www.joycesireland.co.uk/causeway-cliffs-castles.asp (Day 4)
http://www.geographia.com/northern-ireland/ukiant01.htm
This site has quite a few good pics of the formation. It is quite striking that long before people knew of how this structure came to be they recognized it as orderly and attrbiuted its construction to a giant.
What's even better is this is a really good analogy of the Big Bang leading to the somewhat ordered planets and galaxies we see today. |
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Slater
SFN Regular
USA
1668 Posts |
Posted - 04/29/2003 : 22:36:59 [Permalink]
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The only reason we would have to think that there was a god and that this god created the universe is because a book from thousands of years ago says so.
Only this book doesn't content itself with claiming that god created the universe, life and everything it also tells how he did it and what it looked like. It says he did it by magic. Magic words, magic breath, magic pile of dust and a magic spare rib.
But we know that there is no such thing as magic.
This book also has a flat Earth, a solid dome of the sky, stars that are hung from this dome…in other words IT'S ALL WRONG.
So you can't claim that god created the universe because the bible is verifiably wrong about the basics of this creation.
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Infamous
Skeptic Friend
85 Posts |
Posted - 04/30/2003 : 08:57:57 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Slater
This book also has a flat Earth, a solid dome of the sky, stars that are hung from this dome…in other words IT'S ALL WRONG.
The Bible doesn't say that the Earth is flat.
Job 26:10 "He described a circle upon the face of the waters..."
This refers to the curve of the horizon. Why write about a cuved horzon if you believe that the Earth is flat?
Proverbs 8:27 "...he set a compass upon the face of the depth."
See above.
Luke 17:31 "In that day..."; Luke 17:34 "...in that night..."
These two passages both refer to the idea of Christ's second coming. "That day" and "that night" are both occuring at the same time--a phenomenon only possible on opposite sides of a spherical Earth.
In fact, two early flat-Earth promoters, Lactantius in the 3rd and 4th century, and Cosmas Indicopleustes in the 6th century, were rejected by the early church fathers.
Nor does the Bible say that there is a solid dome for the sky. At least not literally. For the original readers, the intended figurative meaning was understood. Astronomers and cosmologists freqently refer to a "celestial sphere" and the "fabric of space" in the same way.
As for stars being hung from this (non-existant) dome..."He hangeth the Earth upon nothing" implies that the same is true of the stars. Anyway, astronomers draw the celestial sphere as if the stars were attached to it, but only as a simplification to make mapping easier. |
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NubiWan
Skeptic Friend
USA
424 Posts |
Posted - 04/30/2003 : 10:48:24 [Permalink]
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quote:
The only reason we would have to think that there was a god and that this god created the universe is because a book from thousands of years ago says so.
With all respects, must disagree. One needs only a clear dark night and a passing familarity with the contempory understanding of the objects we see in it, the scale in both time and distances. What else but a 'god,' could 'create' that magnitude of being? That we should happen to be members of a species, who's life span in universal perspective, would be briefer than a single twinkle of a star among the millions of stars, that shine upon us, at a moment within our race's life span, we presume to understand a significant portion of how, it all came to be. Dabs of earthly clay, antimated, self aware, seems nothing short of at the least a "minor miracle" to me. Hey, we hit the cosmic lotto! We exist.
Just look through a sampling of Hubble images, galaxies as large as our own Milky Way, crashing into each other with a thousand billion suns, violently impacted and cast into a chaos of expoding, colliding stars and massive black holes, all cast adrift. Me fav is one of five galaxies, in a slow dance of mutually assured destruction. Are we not, truly blessed not to have one of their stars as our 'home star?'
Who/what am I, and how does me fit in all this? A god concept can be a comfort amidst all this, IMHO, even without an old book. 
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Slater
SFN Regular
USA
1668 Posts |
Posted - 04/30/2003 : 11:39:03 [Permalink]
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| Look as hard as you can Nubi through the Hubble and you won't see a firmament. The world god makes in the bible isn't the one we can observe. And what has your "comfort" to do with anything? |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 04/30/2003 : 13:23:47 [Permalink]
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Infamous wrote:quote:
The Bible doesn't say that the Earth is flat.
And yet, the only way by which one could look down on all the countries of the Earth from a mountain top is if the Earth were other than roughly spherical.
NubiWan wrote:quote:
With all respects, must disagree. One needs only a clear dark night and a passing familarity with the contempory understanding of the objects we see in it, the scale in both time and distances. What else but a 'god,' could 'create' that magnitude of being?
I understand where you're coming from, especially the 'comfort' angle, but it's clear from the OP's choice of alias that he/she is referring specifically to Christianity, and the odds are high that he/she is a fundamentalist.
hippy4christ wrote:quote:
...how often does explosion create an ordered structure?
An ordered structure? Depends on what you call a 'structure', now doesn't it?
All explosions do some nifty things (shaped charge or no), like impart low-mass things with a higher velocity than higher-mass things. Segregation of objects based on mass is definitely a kind of ordering.
Beyond that, explosions are highly predictable, allowing us to have, for example, firearms competitions where the assumption is that the explosions are identical, therefore it's the skill of the shooters which gets awards. Heck, explosions are predictable enough that we can calculate how many fish will die given just a few of the details of an underwater explosion (and if all the fish are floating, that's more 'ordered' than if they're all swimming around willy-nilly).
Finally, there's gravity. It seems to me that everything we see in the universe can be explained through explosions (in the lay sense, the BB is one), followed by the workings of gravity on the results, then more explosions and more time for gravity to work, and on and on.
If God wanted to make a truly ordered structure, He did a crappy job. This place looks like a mess.
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- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Slater
SFN Regular
USA
1668 Posts |
Posted - 04/30/2003 : 14:06:23 [Permalink]
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Job 26:10 "He described a circle upon the face of the waters..."
This refers to the curve of the horizon. Why write about a cuved horzon if you believe that the Earth is flat?
Okay, now go outside and take a look at the horizon. Is it curved? No, it's straight. The only way it is a circle is if you turn around and do a 360. The horizon always seems the same distance from you, a circle. A circle is not a sphere, it is flat.
A circle upon the face of the ocean? There is no circle upon the face of the waters. The bible is wrong.
Proverbs 8:27 "...he set a compass upon the face of the depth." Same thing. You can't make a sphere, a globe, with a compass (protractor with two points used in woodworking). You can only make discs, flat circles. The bible says that the Earth is flat land in a circle, floating on the waters, which stretch out to the firmament. And that the sky is water too (Gen 1)
In other words, not this planet. And made by saying a magic word, in other words, not reality.
And this part of the bible was written hundreds of years before the 4th or the 6th Century so I don't know why you are quoting them.
You know the shape of the Earth but the author of the bible got it wrong. How can he claim to know who made it if he doesn't even know what "it" is?
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Randy
SFN Regular
USA
1990 Posts |
Posted - 04/30/2003 : 19:54:06 [Permalink]
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| If it wasn't for fundies trying to force their junk nonscience on us in public schools and well, everyone else, a lot of this would be laughable. |
"We are all connected; to each other biologically, to the earth chemically, to the rest of the universe atomically."
"So you're made of detritus [from exploded stars]. Get over it. Or better yet, celebrate it. After all, what nobler thought can one cherish than that the universe lives within us all?"
-Neil DeGrasse Tyson |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 05/01/2003 : 02:24:29 [Permalink]
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Hmm. We seem to have lost H4C. They comes, they sees, they goes. Kinda sad, when you think about it.
I seem to remember seeing that handle somewhere else, possibly at Infidels. But if so, it hasn't been on the couple of forums I visit there for quite a while.
Ah well.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist!
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| Edited by - filthy on 05/01/2003 02:26:04 |
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Infamous
Skeptic Friend
85 Posts |
Posted - 05/01/2003 : 10:40:00 [Permalink]
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Dave W.:
quote:
And yet, the only way by which one could look down on all the countries of the Earth from a mountain top is if the Earth were other than roughly spherical.
I assume you are referring to the story of Satan tempting Jesus. This story does not require that the Earth is flat. It's possible that Satan used his power to show Jesus distant kingdoms which he otherwise wouldn't see. In other words, Satan displayed for Jesus the images of the nations of the world. We don't know for sure exactly what was going on here; the passage isn't specific.
And again, Judgement Day happening in both the daytime and the nighttime is only possible on a spherical Earth.
Slater:
If you go out to sea ("the face of the waters", "the face of the depth"), where there is nothing to obstruct the horizon, and look closely, you will notice a slight curvature in the horizon.
quote:
The bible says that the Earth is flat land in a circle, floating on the waters, which stretch out to the firmament. And that the sky is water too (Gen 1)
The Bible never says the land of Earth floats on the water. It says:
"And God said, 'Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.' And it was so. God called the dry ground 'land,' and the gathered waters he called 'seas.' And God saw that it was good." (Gen. 1:9-10).
In other words, "in the beginning" the land was covered by water. Then the water flows into the ocean basins and gathers there, leaving dry land in some places.
As for the sky being water, the Bible doesn't say that either. The Bible says that water was suspended in the sky (think vapor clouds).
BTW, the word traditionally rendered as "firmament" is more correctly translated as "expanse". Anyway, it may be no more literal than when astronomers speak of a "celestial sphere". |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 05/01/2003 : 13:38:56 [Permalink]
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Infamous wrote:quote:
And again, Judgement Day happening in both the daytime and the nighttime is only possible on a spherical Earth.
Not at all - the Earth just can't be absolutely planar. Lots of other shapes would allow for shadows from the Sun to make "night" as well as allow a person to see the entire world from a mountain top. But none of them are spherical.
And falling back on magical premises ("Satan displayed for Jesus the images of the nations of the world") demolishes any attempt to reconcile the Bible with science. Fundamentalists might as well say "Goddidit" and be done with it, rather than attempting to show how other Biblical events could have been real, physical events consistent with science, as they are trying to do ("Flood geology," for example).
"Goddidit" (or "Satandidit") is irrefutable, but it's also not science, and won't sway any scientists or non-scientist critical thinkers. The people for whom "Goddidit" is an acceptable rationale for events already believe.
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- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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