Thread: If there is no god...

Originally Posted by Dittohead not!

and if spirits are simply another part of the natural universe, then they wouldn't be a problem.

I agree completely. However, if they are part of the natural universe, then it should be possible to objectively observe, verify, and measure them, and the effect they have. Since we have yet to do this, as I said earlier, I will continue to err on the side of scepticism as to the existence of spirits, and such.

Originally Posted by Czernobog

I agree completely. However, if they are part of the natural universe, then it should be possible to objectively observe, verify, and measure them, and the effect they have. Since we have yet to do this, as I said earlier, I will continue to err on the side of scepticism as to the existence of spirits, and such.

Just because we haven't objectively observed and measured them doesn't mean that they can't be observed and measured.

But, you're right to be skeptical. I, too, tend toward skepticism of anything that hasn't been objectively proven, but we do need to keep an open mind. Undoubtedly, lots of things are yet to be discovered.

Originally Posted by Czernobog

I agree completely. However, if they are part of the natural universe, then it should be possible to objectively observe, verify, and measure them, and the effect they have. Since we have yet to do this, as I said earlier, I will continue to err on the side of scepticism as to the existence of spirits, and such.

By all current standards of astrophysics, dark matter is making up 90 % of all matter in the universe.
Yet we can't measure it, observe it, or verify it in any way.

Originally Posted by Dittohead not!

That could be a real disappointment, depending, of course, on how long one must wait for a body. If I had to wait an extra hundred years or so, I might just come haunt people too.

Come to think of it, haunting people could be a lot of fun,.

So apparently you DON'T need a body to be a part of the material life then... and think to have even MORE fun being a ghost / spirit, haunting folks.

So your previous argument, that spirits occupy bodies out of "boredom"... doesn't hold that much then either :-)

Originally Posted by Djinn

Population growth makes such a system mathematically problematic.

Why?

Originally Posted by NeoVsMatrix

By all current standards of astrophysics, dark matter is making up 90 % of all matter in the universe.

Well, it is still a hypothesis, though, precisely because we have not yet observed it directly.

Originally Posted by NeoVsMatrix

Yet we can't measure it, observe it, or verify it in any way.

Yet. We may yet still learn to do so, or discover that it is not there and that there is some other explanation for the effects we do observe.

Originally Posted by Ian Jeffrey

Well, it is still a hypothesis, though, precisely because we have not yet observed it directly.


Yet. We may yet still learn to do so, or discover that it is not there and that there is some other explanation for the effects we do observe.

I sure hope so.

Chances are, we gonna make strides in this area before string theory leads to any reasonable and provable results. Even Sheldon Cooper gave up on it at some point

Originally Posted by Dittohead not!

Just because we haven't objectively observed and measured them doesn't mean that they can't be observed and measured.

But, you're right to be skeptical. I, too, tend toward skepticism of anything that hasn't been objectively proven, but we do need to keep an open mind. Undoubtedly, lots of things are yet to be discovered.

Did I say that they can't be observed, and measured? I said they haven't been observed, and measured. Once they have, I will abandon my scepticism.

Originally Posted by NeoVsMatrix

By all current standards of astrophysics, dark matter is making up 90 % of all matter in the universe.
Yet we can't measure it, observe it, or verify it in any way.

Not entirely true. While we cannot directly observe exotic matter, we can observe, verify, and measure its interaction on the matter around it. We have yet to do that with spirits, or the like. Hence my continued scepticism.

Originally Posted by Czernobog

Not entirely true. While we cannot directly observe exotic matter, we can observe, verify, and measure its interaction on the matter around it. We have yet to do that with spirits, or the like. Hence my continued scepticism.

No we can't. We have inexplicable movement in the universe, which we currently explain with the theory of dark matter. It's an entity we envision to be the cause of those movements, just as Einstein spread the idea of black holes back in 1916, while personally actually never believing in their physical existence, it was to absurd for him, while it fit th math.

What we currently call dark matter could as well be the power of the spirits dittohead is trying to justify.