If the Shroud of Turin was super-massive, giving off radiant energy, and moving through space relative to other points, we'd be able to measure its age give or take a few million years or so. If you informed yourself a bit on how the measurements are made, you wouldn't find the whole thing so mystifying - overwhelming, maybe, when you consider the distances in space and time and the masses involved, and just the sheer number of stars, but not so mystifying or so easily dismissable on the technical level. 70 sextillion stars in 'known universe' July 22, 2003 20:08 IST Ever tried to count the number of stars on a clear night? According to a study by a team of stargazers based at the Australian National University, there are 70,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (70,000 million million million, or 70 sextillion) stars in the known universe. That is about 10 times more than the grains of sand on earth. At the General Assembly of the International Astronomical Union meeting in Sydney, Dr Simon Driver, who headed the team, said the number was drawn up based on a survey of one strip of sky. Within the strip of sky some 10,000 galaxies were pinpointed and their brightness was measured to figure out how many stars they contained. That number was then multiplied by the number of similar sized strips needed to cover the entire sky, Dr Driver said, and then multiplied again out to the edge of the visible universe. Two telescopes, one at the Anglo-Australian Observatory in northern New South Wales state and one in the Canary Islands, were used to carry out the survey. According to him, it is likely that there are many more million stars, but 70 sextillion was the number visible within range of modern telescopes. The universe is so big that light from the other end of the universe 'hasn't reached us yet', Australia's The Age newspaper quoted him as saying. Asked if he believed there was other intelligent life out there, he said: "Seventy thousand million million million is a big number... it's inevitable."
Thank you, thank you, thank you for someone admitting that one does not have to commit intellectual suicide to be a theist nor is every problem known to humanity caused by religion and that, maybe, just maybe there's a snowball's chance that something supernatural has gone on in our universe.
I agree. I don't agree. I think this wrongly applies the F word. Ideas notions propositions may start out as faith. But at that stage faith can only be an idea notion or propositions (etc). These are only made more valuable and shown to be valid or invalid by the application of some testing (preferably using a same or similar method which science applies). Otherwise ANY statement or belief is true or false or maybe, rendering it useless or at best unknown. The idea that There is no guarantee that some physical constant won't change a few seconds from now suggests a question of which only a scientific explanation would offer some reasoning. If you choose to believe against everything ...... all the evidence, all the information, all the understood reality, all the usefulness to human understanding, the reasons and means of survival, all the scientifically explained why things are as they are ......that there are no physical laws which are stable (what do you mean?) then why would you believe that because of this, religion would be any more stable or useful? All you are really saying is substitute the unkown with religion. There is no real reason to commit 'intellectual suicide', if your God is only an unknown and unexplained event(s). Other than that you probably would.
*********************************************** All you are really saying is substitute the unkown with religion. There is no real reason to commit 'intellectual suicide', if your God is only an unknown and unexplained event(s). Other than that you probably would. ************************************************* I think this is an oversimplification. Rarely is anything in life simply comprised of two states: known/unknown. In the case of the hard sciences, this is the closest to being true. I believe the earth is round for example, even though I've never been in space. I can say that this is "known". Matters of faith are much better judged in my opinion by "court of law" judgements because there is increased subjectivity. I think that you can and should judge religions based on things like "beyond a reasonable shadow of a doubt" and "preponderance of evidence", etc. However, just because I believe that there is increased subjectivity, I am not saying that one cannot come to a reasonable conclusion just as one can generally come to a reasonable conclusion in a trial as well. In other words, I disagree that the religious aspect of the universe has to be completely unknown as I believe you were suggesting above. (Likewise, I am not saying that is completely provable in the hard sciences definition of the word either.) That's my $.02.
Then the case is lost. I suggest the evidence against is overwhelmingly subjective, but that's not what I meant. A known religious aspect of the universe, (or the ones which I have ever come accross) insist on an absolute. I am simply suggesting such has no significant evidence to back it up and supports non of the 'reality' which science offers. I would say Subjectiveness is not a reason for reasonable conclusions or certainty.
At the General Assembly of the International Astronomical Union meeting in Sydney, Dr Simon Driver, who headed the team, said the number was drawn up based on a survey of one strip of sky. Kamer; Read what they said.......it was an approximation based on ONE strip of sky and many Points of light were assumed to be thousands of stars.....measurements are only as good as the instruments and the man's interpretation of them....I was taught in school unequivocal that the speed of light was 186,000 miles per second .,..now they think it;s 300-400 times faster.....I was taught that earth is the only place where there is known life forms in our universe...now they think there may be algae on mars....Im questioning a lot of the so called findings of old and new thats all....my main point is that using artifacts here on earth we still can't pinpoint many things on earth but looking through a telescope we are going to say definitively that the universe is expanding ect....?
It depends on your definition of "subjective". By "subjective" I simply meant all areas that are not black/white such as the hard sciences are. But I think the word subjective to you implies more irrational and emotional-based thinking which isn't what I was getting at. But then even among cosmologists, there's a wide spectrum of beliefs...