Part One - Starting From The Big Picture and Focusing In
staubng
Posts: 39 Member
See Preface in Atheists on MFP Forum: Adaptation - A Subtle Clue As To Why Atheism Saved My Life
Link: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/935466-adaptation-a-subtle-clue-as-to-why-atheism-saved-my-life
What is out there?
(feel free to read this paragraph with Morgan Freemans Voice In Mind. I like to.
)
When I was a child, I used to sit on my trampoline in the backyard and look up. I marveled at the moon, squinting my eyes to try and make out features. I'd take my telescope or binoculars and become lost in the beauty of its craters. I didn't know it then, but the moon back then looks exactly the same as the moon I see from my lanai each night today, and it looks exactly the same as what my early ancestors would have undoubtedly gazed upon generations before generations ago.
Space, the moon, Mars, stars, the bright light of Venus and other planets that filled my skyscape every night always filled my mind with unanswerable, and often breathtakingly beautiful examples of something that was not only bigger than me and my brief existence here, but could be further observed and, as it turns out, was a lot less unanswerable than I thought. I remember going to my school library every time we were forced to march down there as a class for whatever purpose our teachers had in mind and going straight to the astronomy section. Fuzzy pictures of Saturn and limited views of Mars and Jupiter were available back then, but even the blob of light and dark that represented Pluto, still years away from being reclassified from a planet, were enough to fill me with excitement. As technology improved and over the last, oh, about 10 - 15 years or so, information on our solar system and extra-solar systems began to emerge, questions too emerged. Like a domino recklessly knocked over by a child, these questions evolved into much more than a childhood desire to be an astronaut. What was taught in Sunday School seemed to fit in perfectly fine with my limited experience of life in those early years, but that wasn't always to be. In the beginning, something happened to long dead people, and what was left was me, my family, and all that I could see through squinted, inquisitive eyes.
My atheism, as I recognize it now, starts here. We are fortunate that we have the ability to see cosmic evolution in all stages by the sheer number of opportunities this universe has to provide. We can see nebulae. Hubble's false color images, red representing hydrogen, green for helium, blue for oxygen etc (by artists interpretation) are constantly being processed and released. Within these nebulae, we see countless examples of stellar nurseries, where clumping gas and dust become so dense that the gas within begins to fuse and a new star ignites. 1* http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-stellar-nursery.htm *http://phys.org/news190637945.html *http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/01/130116091451.htm
Within these stellar nurseries, we find in numerous examples of accretion discs, where the initial burst of energy blasts a hole in the nebulae, resulting in more clumping of material that begins to orbit the gravitationally strong central new-born star. Solar systems are shown to form in this method. Small particles of dust so fine that it would more resemble a whispy smoke seems hard to fathom that it could turn into something as solid and as large as the moon, let alone Jupiter or a star. But to grasp how this is possible, we have to look at the big picture. And it is a massively big picture. Consider the Eagle Nebula. At the tops of it's columns are star nurseries; stars igniting within a cloud of smokey dust.
How does it have enough material?
Consider that the left-most column spans 9.5 light years. That is to say, it would take 9.5 years from one end of the column to see the ignition of a star on the opposite end. To put this into perspective, it takes light 8 minutes to travel from it's exit point on the surface of the sun to reach earth. Voyager 1, which is believed to be nearing the edge of our solar system, is 123 times as distant. It takes sunlight nearly 16 and half hours to reach it. That means in the Eagle Nebula's largest "Pillar of Creation", you could approximately fit 5,004 Solar Systems end to end. This makes it rather easy to understand that in one nebula of countless nebulae, there is easily enough material to make thousands of solar systems, let alone one. 2*http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/01/eagle-nebula-new/
This raised the first red flag for me. As a child, I thought we were an interesting, rather large plot of space surrounded by a lot of stars. We are TINY compared to this all, and yet, this counter-intuitively, rather tiny plot of space has 8 planets, 2 astroid belts, countless comets and moons, and us.
Did our Solar System have a start like all the others?
Why wouldn't it? Since the answer "God Made It That Way" Doesn't really answer anything at all, some theists will dare take the next step and say God very well may have made our system this way. But we cannot deny that, by evidence, whether a creator had a hand in it or not, there are countless other systems that were formed, maybe thousands, millions or billions of years ago (depending on how long it's taken for the light of any given object to reach us compared to it's relative position to us) and why would they be made unless either a) We aren't the only one God is concerned about (counter to most theistic interpretations of religion, but not exclusively so) or b) God had nothing to do with it. Whichever is more likely, what can't be denied is that extra-solar systems do exist and we have lots of pictures of them happening everywhere around us. 3*http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap961207.html *http://hubblesite.org/hubble_discoveries/discovering_planets_beyond/how-do-planets-form *http://hubblesite.org/hubble_discoveries/discovering_planets_beyond/hunting-for-planets
What evidence do we have that our solar system was created through a process of Accretion?
Simple examples would be that we've seen comets, asteroids and meteors collide with both earth and Jupiter as well as fly harmlessly by. This shows that there is still movement of conglomerated material within our otherwise stable orbiting planets. Further, many small asteroids are little more than lumps of gravel, held together by the mutual gravity of the entire lump. Mid sized asteroids which carry more material force the gravel-like lumps closer together. Once an asteroid contains enough material, the object begins to collapse on itself, creating solid rock. You can see lumpy, potato looking asteroids with dense enough material to essentially be considered solid yet not enough to pull itself into a spherical shape. And finally, we have asteroids that do, in fact, have enough material that the object begins to pull itself into a sphere. These are where Pluto, Cheron, and even Mercury come into picture. The state at which an object becomes gravitationally heavy enough to become spherical is called its Hydrostatic Equilibrium and is roughly 320km - 600km in diameter, depending on the material of which it is composed. Keep in mind, the difference between an asteroid, Dwarf Planet or Planet all have to do with how much of the material the object has cleared from its orbital path. 4*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwarf_planet#Size_and_mass *http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2010/03/04/2834310.htm
If our Solar System formed from accreted material as it appears to resemble extra-solar examples and as evidenced by the range from particles to planets and everything between still present around our own star, then where did the parts necessary come from?
The answer is from the stars! Consider this, based on early observations of the universe, we know the most abundant elements in the universe are also the simplest and the oldest. Hydrogen and Helium. Early nebulae wouldn't be nearly as colorful if we could get a clear enough picture of them. Through spectroscopy (more on this fascinating subject in later posts), we can determine that the earliest nebulae were made of the two most basic elements in nature. As these early Hydrogen rich nebulae began collapsing upon themselves, stars flashed into existence, creating enough pressure and heat to fuse the Hydrogen molecules together. When Hydrogen fuses, it creates Deuterium. This can further fuse with another hydrogen atom and creates an isotope of Helium. Fuse these two Helium isotopes together, and it creates one Helium atom and spits out two hydrogen atoms plus a ton of energy. The pressure continues as the heavier element sinks to the core, creating enough pressure to create the next atoms. In any given star, depending on its age, size, and the material of the nebulae from which it was created, the process will continue until up to Iron is created through normal fusion. Iron, being a very stable atom, can not fuse to form anything higher through simple accretion and star creation. The iron will then sit at the core, slowly getting larger as its gravity fuses the layers of different elements around it until, as no more energy is being released from fusion, the star becomes heavier on itself than the iron core can withstand with no otherwise outward energy to balance it. This causes the star to collapse on itself in a SuperNova. It is from this supernova that briefly, gravity gains an upper hand on the nuclear forces that otherwise would keep the atoms from touching each other. In a flash, it collapses, created the pressure and energy needed to fuse the iron and create all the other heavier, naturally forming elements. These exploding newly fused atoms are launched out into the universe, eventually to mix with the whispy smoke of neighboring hydrogen clouds, creating a more diverse nebulae. Note: is it any coincidence that life as we know it are based off the most simple elements formed in stars? Hydrogen, Carbon, Nitrogen, Oxygen, Calcium and Phosphorus. 5*http://access.teachersdomain.org/resources/ess05/sci/ess/eiu/fusion/index.html *http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Composition_of_the_human_body *
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_nCIJnZDW8 *http://www.universetoday.com/61103/what-is-a-nebula/
So we can see evidence that earth was formed as naturally as other visible systems and all the building blocks were provided through the birth and death of stars in a span of time that shows simplest nebulae developed into ever increasingly complex compositions over time. This certainly doesn't explain life, or what's more, us still about 4.5 billion years off from what this means about us losing weight. If you're still reading, perhaps you looked at the links provided, double checked my descriptions, and wonder where I'm going with this. I appreciate you for sticking around. This is the part that fascinated me the most, and like I said, was a precursor to what led me to drop my religion and, ultimately, my weight. It does seem unrelated right now, but in part two, we'll discuss the probabilities of abiogenesis and thus, the spark of evolution through natural selection. As for right now, I'll conclude Part One with this:
When we look at the big picture of the universe, we are able to find consistencies all across the galaxy and into neighboring galaxies. We seem rather insignificant compared to all that is going on for any supernatural being to be interested in us as a species let along as individuals. Although, this isn't where I lost my faith quite yet. But this is where I started asking more questions. Please comment below, although i suspect the more debateable view is yet to come. We just needed some laid groundwork to build from, as any good Hypothesis is developed. Not only is everything about our developed solar system consistent with the images and data collected, it shows that this is a common, natural process. Whether God were involved here or not, it would be as indirectly manipulated or affected as modern day Christians have grown accustomed to no longer being able to communicate with Him say as Paul, Moses or Adam would have done. If there is no God necessary for development at this stage, part two will inquire if he is as unnecessary during in the next stage - the development of life. Stay Tuned.
Link: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/935466-adaptation-a-subtle-clue-as-to-why-atheism-saved-my-life
What is out there?
(feel free to read this paragraph with Morgan Freemans Voice In Mind. I like to.
)When I was a child, I used to sit on my trampoline in the backyard and look up. I marveled at the moon, squinting my eyes to try and make out features. I'd take my telescope or binoculars and become lost in the beauty of its craters. I didn't know it then, but the moon back then looks exactly the same as the moon I see from my lanai each night today, and it looks exactly the same as what my early ancestors would have undoubtedly gazed upon generations before generations ago.
Space, the moon, Mars, stars, the bright light of Venus and other planets that filled my skyscape every night always filled my mind with unanswerable, and often breathtakingly beautiful examples of something that was not only bigger than me and my brief existence here, but could be further observed and, as it turns out, was a lot less unanswerable than I thought. I remember going to my school library every time we were forced to march down there as a class for whatever purpose our teachers had in mind and going straight to the astronomy section. Fuzzy pictures of Saturn and limited views of Mars and Jupiter were available back then, but even the blob of light and dark that represented Pluto, still years away from being reclassified from a planet, were enough to fill me with excitement. As technology improved and over the last, oh, about 10 - 15 years or so, information on our solar system and extra-solar systems began to emerge, questions too emerged. Like a domino recklessly knocked over by a child, these questions evolved into much more than a childhood desire to be an astronaut. What was taught in Sunday School seemed to fit in perfectly fine with my limited experience of life in those early years, but that wasn't always to be. In the beginning, something happened to long dead people, and what was left was me, my family, and all that I could see through squinted, inquisitive eyes.
My atheism, as I recognize it now, starts here. We are fortunate that we have the ability to see cosmic evolution in all stages by the sheer number of opportunities this universe has to provide. We can see nebulae. Hubble's false color images, red representing hydrogen, green for helium, blue for oxygen etc (by artists interpretation) are constantly being processed and released. Within these nebulae, we see countless examples of stellar nurseries, where clumping gas and dust become so dense that the gas within begins to fuse and a new star ignites. 1* http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-stellar-nursery.htm *http://phys.org/news190637945.html *http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/01/130116091451.htm
Within these stellar nurseries, we find in numerous examples of accretion discs, where the initial burst of energy blasts a hole in the nebulae, resulting in more clumping of material that begins to orbit the gravitationally strong central new-born star. Solar systems are shown to form in this method. Small particles of dust so fine that it would more resemble a whispy smoke seems hard to fathom that it could turn into something as solid and as large as the moon, let alone Jupiter or a star. But to grasp how this is possible, we have to look at the big picture. And it is a massively big picture. Consider the Eagle Nebula. At the tops of it's columns are star nurseries; stars igniting within a cloud of smokey dust.
How does it have enough material?
Consider that the left-most column spans 9.5 light years. That is to say, it would take 9.5 years from one end of the column to see the ignition of a star on the opposite end. To put this into perspective, it takes light 8 minutes to travel from it's exit point on the surface of the sun to reach earth. Voyager 1, which is believed to be nearing the edge of our solar system, is 123 times as distant. It takes sunlight nearly 16 and half hours to reach it. That means in the Eagle Nebula's largest "Pillar of Creation", you could approximately fit 5,004 Solar Systems end to end. This makes it rather easy to understand that in one nebula of countless nebulae, there is easily enough material to make thousands of solar systems, let alone one. 2*http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/01/eagle-nebula-new/
This raised the first red flag for me. As a child, I thought we were an interesting, rather large plot of space surrounded by a lot of stars. We are TINY compared to this all, and yet, this counter-intuitively, rather tiny plot of space has 8 planets, 2 astroid belts, countless comets and moons, and us.
Did our Solar System have a start like all the others?
Why wouldn't it? Since the answer "God Made It That Way" Doesn't really answer anything at all, some theists will dare take the next step and say God very well may have made our system this way. But we cannot deny that, by evidence, whether a creator had a hand in it or not, there are countless other systems that were formed, maybe thousands, millions or billions of years ago (depending on how long it's taken for the light of any given object to reach us compared to it's relative position to us) and why would they be made unless either a) We aren't the only one God is concerned about (counter to most theistic interpretations of religion, but not exclusively so) or b) God had nothing to do with it. Whichever is more likely, what can't be denied is that extra-solar systems do exist and we have lots of pictures of them happening everywhere around us. 3*http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap961207.html *http://hubblesite.org/hubble_discoveries/discovering_planets_beyond/how-do-planets-form *http://hubblesite.org/hubble_discoveries/discovering_planets_beyond/hunting-for-planets
What evidence do we have that our solar system was created through a process of Accretion?
Simple examples would be that we've seen comets, asteroids and meteors collide with both earth and Jupiter as well as fly harmlessly by. This shows that there is still movement of conglomerated material within our otherwise stable orbiting planets. Further, many small asteroids are little more than lumps of gravel, held together by the mutual gravity of the entire lump. Mid sized asteroids which carry more material force the gravel-like lumps closer together. Once an asteroid contains enough material, the object begins to collapse on itself, creating solid rock. You can see lumpy, potato looking asteroids with dense enough material to essentially be considered solid yet not enough to pull itself into a spherical shape. And finally, we have asteroids that do, in fact, have enough material that the object begins to pull itself into a sphere. These are where Pluto, Cheron, and even Mercury come into picture. The state at which an object becomes gravitationally heavy enough to become spherical is called its Hydrostatic Equilibrium and is roughly 320km - 600km in diameter, depending on the material of which it is composed. Keep in mind, the difference between an asteroid, Dwarf Planet or Planet all have to do with how much of the material the object has cleared from its orbital path. 4*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwarf_planet#Size_and_mass *http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2010/03/04/2834310.htm
If our Solar System formed from accreted material as it appears to resemble extra-solar examples and as evidenced by the range from particles to planets and everything between still present around our own star, then where did the parts necessary come from?
The answer is from the stars! Consider this, based on early observations of the universe, we know the most abundant elements in the universe are also the simplest and the oldest. Hydrogen and Helium. Early nebulae wouldn't be nearly as colorful if we could get a clear enough picture of them. Through spectroscopy (more on this fascinating subject in later posts), we can determine that the earliest nebulae were made of the two most basic elements in nature. As these early Hydrogen rich nebulae began collapsing upon themselves, stars flashed into existence, creating enough pressure and heat to fuse the Hydrogen molecules together. When Hydrogen fuses, it creates Deuterium. This can further fuse with another hydrogen atom and creates an isotope of Helium. Fuse these two Helium isotopes together, and it creates one Helium atom and spits out two hydrogen atoms plus a ton of energy. The pressure continues as the heavier element sinks to the core, creating enough pressure to create the next atoms. In any given star, depending on its age, size, and the material of the nebulae from which it was created, the process will continue until up to Iron is created through normal fusion. Iron, being a very stable atom, can not fuse to form anything higher through simple accretion and star creation. The iron will then sit at the core, slowly getting larger as its gravity fuses the layers of different elements around it until, as no more energy is being released from fusion, the star becomes heavier on itself than the iron core can withstand with no otherwise outward energy to balance it. This causes the star to collapse on itself in a SuperNova. It is from this supernova that briefly, gravity gains an upper hand on the nuclear forces that otherwise would keep the atoms from touching each other. In a flash, it collapses, created the pressure and energy needed to fuse the iron and create all the other heavier, naturally forming elements. These exploding newly fused atoms are launched out into the universe, eventually to mix with the whispy smoke of neighboring hydrogen clouds, creating a more diverse nebulae. Note: is it any coincidence that life as we know it are based off the most simple elements formed in stars? Hydrogen, Carbon, Nitrogen, Oxygen, Calcium and Phosphorus. 5*http://access.teachersdomain.org/resources/ess05/sci/ess/eiu/fusion/index.html *http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Composition_of_the_human_body *
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_nCIJnZDW8 *http://www.universetoday.com/61103/what-is-a-nebula/So we can see evidence that earth was formed as naturally as other visible systems and all the building blocks were provided through the birth and death of stars in a span of time that shows simplest nebulae developed into ever increasingly complex compositions over time. This certainly doesn't explain life, or what's more, us still about 4.5 billion years off from what this means about us losing weight. If you're still reading, perhaps you looked at the links provided, double checked my descriptions, and wonder where I'm going with this. I appreciate you for sticking around. This is the part that fascinated me the most, and like I said, was a precursor to what led me to drop my religion and, ultimately, my weight. It does seem unrelated right now, but in part two, we'll discuss the probabilities of abiogenesis and thus, the spark of evolution through natural selection. As for right now, I'll conclude Part One with this:
When we look at the big picture of the universe, we are able to find consistencies all across the galaxy and into neighboring galaxies. We seem rather insignificant compared to all that is going on for any supernatural being to be interested in us as a species let along as individuals. Although, this isn't where I lost my faith quite yet. But this is where I started asking more questions. Please comment below, although i suspect the more debateable view is yet to come. We just needed some laid groundwork to build from, as any good Hypothesis is developed. Not only is everything about our developed solar system consistent with the images and data collected, it shows that this is a common, natural process. Whether God were involved here or not, it would be as indirectly manipulated or affected as modern day Christians have grown accustomed to no longer being able to communicate with Him say as Paul, Moses or Adam would have done. If there is no God necessary for development at this stage, part two will inquire if he is as unnecessary during in the next stage - the development of life. Stay Tuned.
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Well since you posted your topic here you actually have a chance that people will actually read all of this. The sheer quantity of text alone will intimidate your average forum reader in to clicking elsewhere.
The vast expanse of the universe has been pointed to as proof of God's existence in the past. When Stephen Hawking pointing out his work did not disprove the existence of God but it did demonstrate that God was not necessary. He was essentially able to show how all of this could have have happened by natural processes which we have a pretty strong understanding of.
The issue of course is God exists within the ever receding grounds of scientific ignorance. God's existence used to be found in the lightning the thunder and the rainbow. Today he is placed in that gap we have in the moment just before the big bang. If we ever find out what happened then he will simply move again.
BTW Morgan Freeman's voice was in my head the entire time.0 -
Yeah, I figure I'll leave this up for a while, if there's interest in me to go on, I will, otherwise, it leaves it open and it makes for an interesting afternoon read. It got a lot longer than I anticipated, but then it often occurs to me, it took much thought and education for me to claim atheism, its not something I took lightly, and evidently I should just write it down into a book, if for no other reason than to have a written record for just one more person's perspective.
Hawking's example has often led me to the search for Natural Process explaining the unnecessary nature of the common interpretation of God. Your statement "The issue of course is God exists within the ever receding grounds of scientific ignorance." is the culminating point I appreciate, and you are absolutely correct.
Living on the island, it is much more superstitious than I'd anticipated. I've had a few clients ask me my belief system to only receive the range of laughter, gasps and perplexed looks. What I've found to be wonderfully true, is I never feel upset or hurt by their reactions in the manner that I did when an active christian facing opposition. I sometimes wonder if by nature of a "faith" based belief structure, it is difficult to feel calm when you know that at some point, a question will be asked that you have no justifiable explanation for why you conclude your stance beyond tradition or scriptural discipline. I know that what I believe about Gods recession to the annuls of irrelevance, at least a god to which I need to answer or face damnation, can point to references beyond myself or any one individual who can experimentally provide evidence for the natural beauty that has proved even more exceptionally magnificent to me through natural process rather than designed and be some illusion.0 -
I can remember when I was christian and I would be told that my beliefs weren't true I would get offended. I would point out things we don't yet have complete explanations for claim that the only possible explanation must be god. I understand today just how wrong I was in those days. I have matured a lot since then and now I have a belief structure that is built up after evidence appears and not before. Now I will honestly say "I don't know." rather then than "God did it." when I am faced with a question I don't know the answer to. As a result I find that I no longer get offended when someone says that I am wrong. Now my response is "Ok that is possible. Let's examine how you think I am wrong." Now I twist my beliefs to conform to facts rather than twisting facts to conform to my beliefs. It is very liberating but it is also very isolating.0
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EXACTLY. Hey, look. There's two of us out there, by our line of reasoning in a reality of probabilities, that means there are many more. We can only lead by example how to approach life positively, yet inquisitively skeptical. It really comes down to laziness. I often find myself wondering "Do you argue what you do because that's your gut reaction or have you double checked your opinion-creating sources?" Incidentally, this is a question I hold myself to as well. I've always maintained that if everything works exactly how it works when you take the God factor out of the equation, then I feel he had no place in the equation to begin with. God equals giving up on intelligence for the ease of ignorance while calling it faith.
>>" Now I will honestly say "I don't know." rather then than "God did it." when I am faced with a question I don't know the answer to. As a result I find that I no longer get offended when someone says that I am wrong. Now my response is "Ok that is possible. Let's examine how you think I am wrong." "0 -
I know that in my case when I was christian I was having a hard time with questions about my religion. I basically was desperate for anyone that could give me a reason to believe my religion was correct. I remember actually stating out loud that there were millions of people all over the world and only one of them would have to be correct for my religion to be correct. For my religion to be wrong all of them would have to be wrong. I felt very safe and secure in my beliefs using reasoning like this. Truth be told if I had not actually bothered to research my religion or religion in general then I would probably still be a believer today. For me it was a long and grueling process.
There were many things that caused me to let go of my preconceptions about my religion. To list a few:
Pascal's Wager is simply belief through fear.
The burden of proof has to lie with the one making the assertion. "Prove there is no god is the rally cry of the weak." This question is always out of bounds in a fair and honest discussion about the existence of anything supernatural.
The nature of evidence. I used to accept miracle stories as evidence. In the catholic church that sort of thing is encouraged. Today I now know that evidence is a very specific thing and you completely delete its value when you start to label anything that confirms what you want to believe as evidence.
There is much more but I don't want to ramble too much.0
