The entire Christian religion is a faith... On what basis do you claim a substantial portion of it claims otherwise?
No, things that are logically/metaphysically/mathematically impossible are not believable. The afterlife does not fall into that category. Technologically advanced alien life is believable, although there isn't any evidence of it. The opposite in fact (see Fermi Paradox) There is an ongoing debate in cosmology about whether multiverse theory even counts as a theory, since other universes are causally separated from us, and there will never be evidence of their existence. That doesn't stop a lot of scientists from believing other universes exist. It solves the fine-tuning problem quite nicely.
Well actually since the beginnings of man they did not believe in anything even close to the current concept of god. In fact even today different religions have vastly different concepts of god. Of the two or three thousand versions of god or gods there could only be one that is true if a god or gods actually exist. Odds favor that even if god/gods exist the current beliefs are wrong. Unless of couse all the myths are right in which case the pantheon is cluttered with gods.
No I accept totally that all religions are based on faith. It is only the claim that god is based on evidence that I disagree with.
Sorry but you are stlll argueing that anything that connot be disproved is believable. That is nonsense.
Are advanced aliens believable? Sure. Is there any evidence for them? No. Does that make belief in advanced aliens "nonsense"?
Sorry but nobody with even a bare modicum of intelligence believes in the existance of advanced aliens. What those of us with an even moderate degree of neuron connections believe is that probabilities make the possiblility worth considering. No such probalilities argue for the existance of a god as envisioned by organized religion.
You seem to have a shallow understanding of these things. Also, people with a "moderate degree of neuron connections" can usually spell. I don't normally point this out but I make exceptions when someone is crowing about their intelligence. If you're that smart, learn to spell.
Glad to see that given your supposed neural connections you are totally incapable of refuting anything in my post. And no, a proficiency in spelling isn't a sign of intelligence as you have just proven. It is usually the hallmark of a small mind to concentrate on the trivial while oblivious to the bigger picture.
Evidence is subjective to each individual. For example, observing nature could be evidence of God to one, and evidence of a lack of God to another. Did you perhaps mean 'proof', not 'evidence'?
Fallacious assumption duly noted! Matter exists, always has existed and always will exist in one form or another given that it can neither be created nor destroyed.
No direct evidence! But the math establishes that since we have achieved both life and intelligence it must be possible elsewhere in the universe. Note that the Higgs Boson was predicted by the math decades before it was eventually discovered. For our planet to be only source of life and intelligence means ignoring the mathematical probabilities entirely.
Science's precision comes from how a repeatable phenomenon repeating itself from now till a future. Science won't apply to knowledge lying outside our own space because science is experiment based while we can't go outside our own space to establish experiments or to gather evidence. The only way for humans to reach such a kind of unreachable areas is by means of human witnessing/testimonies. To put it another way, we can reach these areas only when have human witnesses accounts who gained knowledge through someone who knows (which is God, or any entities lying outside). Shall afterlife be a truth, the only way for humans to reach such a truth is, 1) God (or a supernatural entity) exists and He knows 2) human accounts testifying the existence of such a God 3) information given by this God spreads The process is analog to how you gather facts from TV channels or newspapers (before the invention of TVs). It relies on credibility of news instead of evidence for humans in majority to get to a truth. It remains your delusion to think that you need evidence in order to get to a truth!
That's true, but not very satisfying. For example, if I woke up in a strange motel room, it would be tautologically true that I'm in a strange motel room. However, I would still wonder how I got there and why I'm there. Those questions should have answers. The fact that I exist in this universe means there is obviously something rather than nothing, but that doesn't answer why there is something or how that something came to be. If science can't explain this, it leaves the door open to other explanations. Based on the ascendancy of multiverse theory, I think we're seeing the science community essentially throwing up their hands and saying we're just one universe in a vast ensemble of universes. There are string theory die-hards, but the LHC's lack of results has been to devastating to string theories.
Aside from life here on Earth, there's no evidence for advanced alien life at all (and I don't think you can use life here on Earth as evidence any aliens exist- it just establishes the possibility). Quite the opposite: no observed large-scale megastructures, no galactic-wide colonization waves, no friendly messages being beamed at us. For the past billion years or so, any alien species within a thousand light years with a fairly decent telescope has been able to determine this is a very interesting planet that probably has life on it. And yet people are pretty sure we're not alone. It would make us amazingly special if we're the only advanced life in the universe. But that's not really an argument. That's just saying we're probably not that special. But maybe we are. We only have this one sample size to work with. Anything's possible. There are degrees of possibility, though. Serious people like Hawking think there's a very good chance advanced alien life exists. He wouldn't be warning us to be careful if he thought there was nothing out there that could pounce on us. Until we start surveying exoplanets (or find some life in Europa's oceans), the Drake equation will still remain a mystery. It could be that life is incredibly common in the universe or incredibly rare. At this point, it can go either way.
There is no evidence that the Universe has always existed. One still has to only believe it has. Perhaps one day we will be intelligent enough that science will discover how a Universe can be created where nothing existed. For now, the Bible and writings of Ancient Civilizations 1000's of years ago is all we have. You have chose not to believe in God as the creator of heaven and earth, your right. But either way, at this moment in time Science has no proof and the only written history points to a God and then one night still ask how he came to being. Your comment about Christians is not appreciated. Unnecessary.
Nope! The Cyclical Universe theory is becoming more mainstream now. In simple terms all matter condenses into a Singularity to the point where the energy within the Singularity exceeds the gravitational forces holding it together. It then explodes in a Big Bang which results in an expanding universe that we are currently observing. Eventually the energy is expended and condenses back into matter which results in gravitational forces forming another Singularity. An endless cycle of universes for eternity.
Our civilization dates back a couple of thousand years but only in the last century have we had any means of communication that would be detectable from outer space. 25 years ago we did not have evidence that there were any planets around other stars. The mathematical probability that they existed was high and there was a lower probability of Goldilocks planets like ours. Since then we have discovered thousands of planets and about 30 or so meet the Goldilocks criteria. https://exoplanetarchive.ipac.caltech.edu/docs/counts_detail.html https://www.space.com/42275-habitable-exoplanets-kepler-discoveries-revised-by-gaia.html We are just on the fringes of figuring out Quantum computers and we would need to start sending them out into the universe if we are going to detect alien intelligence. Then there are the travel times for them to reach a point where they could begin any form of communication. So we are still in kindergarten when it comes to scientific discovery of alien life and intelligence. In another century or so we will probably have definitive evidence of life elsewhere in the universe but probably nothing resembling intelligent life. That could take several millennia to determine.
The Universe may be in an endless cycle no beginning and no end. But that doesn't explain how matter was created from nothing. In fact the concept of nothing is impossible to fathom. Describe nothingness. Can you?
I uphold your right to believe in stone age superstitions about the origin of the universe. I prefer the scientific knowledge that we have obtained about the nature of our universe which establishes that the Laws of Physics apply to what we can observe. It does not matter where in the universe you are but the mathematical value of Pi will always be the same. Your superstitions have no evidence to support them. Science has a growing body of evidence to support our knowledge base. Not a difficult choice to make IMO.
Your theist superstition about creation is a logical fallacy because it makes the assumption that your "creator" always existed thereby negating the concept of "nothing" because your "creator" always existed.
