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Hi Paul,<br><br>
Great answer to Kai's false dilemma.<br><br>
Nick<br><br>
At 06:01 PM 6/26/2008, you wrote:<br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite="">Kai Eiselein, Editor wrote:<br>
> Actually both sides of this debate require suspension of
belief.<br>
> <br><br>
Not really. The Big Bang theory doesn't try to answer the question
of <br>
what happened before the singularity or what caused it to explode.
It's <br>
just there to explain certain observations, such as why the farther away
<br>
something is the greater it's redshift is, which it appears to do really
<br>
well. For example, the theory predicts certain ratios for the
abundance <br>
of certain elements as a by-product of the known state of the universe
<br>
within the first twenty minutes of it's starting point, which seems to
<br>
fit really closely with what we've observed.<br><br>
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang_nucleosynthesis" eudora="autourl">
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang_nucleosynthesis</a><br><br>
So there's little suspension of disbelief required. You just follow
the <br>
evidence, and don't worry about those kinds of questions (what happened
<br>
before the Big Bang?) until you have some kind of framework you can use
<br>
to address them.<br><br>
A deity, on the other hand, requires a whole bunch of different beliefs
<br>
for which there is no evidence, nor is it predictive in any way.
<br>
Fortunately, belief in that system requires belief with a complete lack
<br>
of evidence (faith) and the assumption that no meaningful predictions
<br>
can occur (God works in mysterious ways), so it all works out in the
end.<br><br>
Paul<br><br>
<br>
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<font size=2>"Truth is the summit of being; justice is the
application of it to human affairs."<br>
--Ralph Waldo Emerson<br><br>
"Abstract truth has no value unless it incarnates in human beings
who represent it, by proving their readiness to die for it."<br>
--Mohandas Gandhi<br><br>
"Modern physics has taught us that the nature of any system cannot
be discovered by dividing it into its component parts and studying each
part by itself. . . .We must keep our attention fixed on the whole and on
the interconnection between the parts. The same is true of our
intellectual life. It is impossible to make a clear cut between science,
religion, and art. The whole is never equal simply to the sum of its
various parts." --Ma</font><font size=1>x Planck<br><br>
</font>Nicholas F. Gier<br>
Professor Emeritus, Department of Philosophy, University of Idaho<br>
1037 Colt Rd., Moscow, ID 83843<br>
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