Is there a God?

[HAL9000]

Have to share this amazing animation.

Using computer animation based on molecular research it is possible to see how DNA is actually copied in living cells. This animation shows the ?assembly line? of biochemical machines which pull apart the DNA double helix and output a copy of each strand. The DNA to be copied enters the whirling blue molecular machine, called helicase, which spins it as fast as a jet engine as it unwinds the double helix into two strands. One strand is copied continuously, and can be seen spooling off on the other side. Things are not so simple for the other strand, because it must be copied backwards, so it is drawn out repeatedly in loops and copied one section at a time. The end result is two new DNA molecules.

The animation clearly shows the violet DNA Polymerase (the copier) and the green sliding clamp protein (which keeps the DNA Polymerase into place). The actual machinery is more complicated, Read the literature in footnote #2 for more details about the replication fork."

 

[BelowtheBelt]

You've all got too much time on your hands !

Do some bloody work or something worthwhile ...

Simple answer to all of you is this : You open your eyes and you see - there is evidence of far greater intelligence right there than you can ever come to fully know or understand ( and you can bet that it will eternally remain that way !! ).

Now, all go and do something useful with your lives, please ...

[Chick]

Dont be daft and lay off the vodka.

[eyespy]

Lovely, beautifully said

I would say

If you want to know if there is a God/Creative force/Higher Intelligence just ask for HELP. Ask for help to find a parking space, help with understanding anything, help with what ever you need help with, sincerely ask for help. I think the reason many find God in their darkest hours is that asking for help can take some humility.

Then don't forget to remember to listen out (including to your own thoughts and feelings), watch out and notice what happens.

Have Fun.

[Jeremy]

Next time I can't find a parking space, I'll give it a go and report back.

[BigOne]

Yes - but the catch is you can't see the creator til after you leave this realm.

[eyespy]

Can't see the creative force but I reckon you can feel it.

[Mark]

eyespy Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> I would say

>

> If you want to know if there is a God/Creative

> force/Higher Intelligence just ask for HELP. Ask

> for help to find a parking space, help with

> understanding anything, help with what ever you

> need help with, sincerely ask for help.

Isn't that what an iPhone's for?

Seriously though I believe it's more effective to ask someone or something real for help (and therefore actually get it) rather than ask a make believe god and make up the answers to suit.

Feeling Lonely?

a) Speak to God

b) Phone a friend

I know which one I would recommend.

[Loz]

The entire universe is a Higher Being Teenager's high school science project. He started with a 'Make Your Own Universe!!" science kit and set it off with a big bang early in the semester. He will pop back later to see exactly what happened. By the end of the year (his time scale, 40 billion years in ours) we'll be binned.

It's the only possible explanation. Science can't really explain what happened before the big bang - or even what went bang. The "Science Project" theory brings science and a god concept together quite neatly. And it's all mine.

Take that, Hawking.

[silverfox]

While we're waiting for Stephen Hawking's response, can I just clarify your point: God is an extra-terrestrial teenage nerd?

Edited for typo

[Loz]

Yup. He's not omniscient, though. But he does have acne.

[Brendan]

I've read that, or something like it before. Was it Douglas Adams or Terry Pratchett or somesuch?

[Loz]

Tsk. Hope not. My future place in the scientific elite is under threat.

Prachett had the world resting on the backs of four huge elephants which are in turn standing on the back of an enormous turtle*. But that's just silly.

Professor Loz

(* not to be confused with Hawking's story about it being "turtles all the way down").

[Brendan]

You are of course referring to Pratchett?s Disc World which travels through space on the back of 4 giant elephants standing on the back of a turtle. It is not the world though, that is to say our world which is by all accounts a lot stranger.

[eyespy]

Why limit yourself....do both!

[Brendan]

Not keen. That sort of thing always lands you in trouble with the ladies.

[silverfox]

The great Stephen Hawking has now weighed into this debate in The Times today.

"The Big Bang was an inevitable consequence of the laws of physics"..., Hawking says.

?Because there is a law such as gravity, the Universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the Universe exists, why we exist,? he writes.

?It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the Universe going,? he finds.

Sorry Stephen, you've no more idea than the rest of us on this forum trying to find an answer. Stick to black holes. The universe cannot create itself from nothing and by mentioning 'blue touch paper' the assumption is something had to start it, even if it came from a parallel universe or multiverse.

Back to square one

[jctg]

silverfox Wrote:

The universe cannot create itself from nothing

How do you know this? You seem to be speaking from a position of some authority.

[silverfox]

No authority, just sheer commonsense and logic. Nothing is nothing, not even a teeny weeny little atom or subatomic particle - nothing.

If our universe came into existence due to some discharge from a parallel universe or a couple of the bubbles of the multiverse bumped together and the energy discharged by this collision created our universe this may well have produced our universe as a result of knowable physical laws but it would still have been created by something.

Ignoring for now the unproven notions of parallel universes and multiverses (which themselves fall into the category of belief and faith) all Hawking has done is push the idea of a cause for the universe even further back. What caused the parallel and multiverses that (I'm told) are required by M-theory/String theory to exist to give the theory any validity?

In short, once you start talking about spontaneous existence from nothing, you leave the realm of science and have to confront the idea of some supernatural cause - some people call this God.

[Jeremy]

Congratulations silverfox, it seems as though you have out-thought Stephen Hawking! Have you considered writing to him with your discovery? Have you contacted The New Scientist? I think the world should know.

May I suggest that the title of your paper should be "OI HAWKING! STICK TO BLACK HOLES!"

[silverfox]

Thank you Jeremy, but you flatter me by saying I have out-thought Professor Hawking. Nor have I discovered anything that will rock the world of physics or cosmology. I'm simply saying "hang on prof, I don't care how many blackboards full of higher mathematical equations you've used to reach your conclusion but it doesn't make sense. Have a C+"

Let's take one of his quoted statements from his forthcoming book:

?Because there is a law such as gravity, the Universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the Universe exists, why we exist.?

The first part of this statement somehow implies that gravity is a causal agent of spontaneous existence from nothingness. But if nothing exists, the force of gravity cannot exist. Gravity can only play a part if if already exists and the only way it can exist before our universe came into existence is in a parallel universe or in other universes of the multiverse. Therefore something existed to create our universe.

I'm afraid on this point Prof Hawking is in danger of disappearing up his own black hole.

[missus]

I agree in saying that we just can't know for sure, but my gut instinct tells me that there isn't a God. Call it blind atheistic faith if you will, but I just reckon the big bang happened because it happened. I'm happy believing that there there is no singular omnipotent know-it-all who spontaneously decided to ignite the bang.....just an ever contracting and expanding universe caused by the universal laws of gravity.

And do you know what? That gives me greater comfort than endlessly pondering over the curious acts of a mysterious higher-being. Why? Because the universal laws of physics are tried and tested which is precisely why I'm happy to put my faith in THAT being the most logical explanation.

Organised faiths can all go suck it, as far as I'm concerned. Crowd-control at its most shrewd, if you ask me! Why would anyone trust a book without references?!

[Huguenot]

It's a very good argument in the everyday 'literal' world in which we live Silverfox, but everything gets a bit crazier at the quantum level.

It's important to distinguish between Newtonian physics (gravity is what makes the apple fall to earth), and quantum physics (the indistinguishable conflation of mass and energy from which particles are formed and interact).

In the most brutal way, at a quantum level, energy (and hence mass, matter) can appear and disappear out of nowhere in a spontaneous and unpredictable fashion. Quite simply, out of nowhere.

To quote (you can Google the source)...

"In modern physics, there is no such thing as "nothing." Even in a perfect vacuum, pairs of virtual particles are constantly being created and destroyed. The existence of these particles is no mathematical fiction. Though they cannot be directly observed, the effects they create are quite real. The assumption that they exist leads to predictions that have been confirmed by experiment to a high degree of accuracy."

So what does this mean in the real sense? Well Silverfox is right in saying it doesn't make sense that one can create something out of nothing. The point is that these new 'existences' are simply a fluctuation around a fixed central concept that is nothing. It's just a momentary aberration that will eventually return to it's initial state.

So this is what Hawking actually says about the existence of the Universe, and it explains why it is not necessary to have a God, or any other creator:

"There are something like ten million million million million million million million million million million million million million million (1 with eighty [five] zeroes after it) particles in the region of the universe that we can observe. Where did they all come from? The answer is that, in quantum theory, particles can be created out of energy in the form of particle/antiparticle pairs.

But that just raises the question of where the energy came from. The answer is that the total energy of the universe is exactly zero. The matter in the universe is made out of positive energy. However, the matter is all attracting itself by gravity. Two pieces of matter that are close to each other have less energy than the same two pieces a long way apart, because you have to expend energy to separate them against the gravitational force that is pulling them together.

Thus, in a sense, the gravitational field has negative energy. In the case of a universe that is approximately uniform in space, one can show that this negative gravitational energy exactly cancels the positive energy represented by the matter. So the total energy of the universe is zero."

So it doesn't mean that Hawking is disappearing up his own arse, it just means that you haven't done the maths ;-)

[jctg]

I do find it quite amusing that 'silverfox' is claiming more knowledge and understanding of theoretical physics than Prof Hawking. Maybe 'silverfox' is a theoretical physicist. Then I would look silly.

[vinceayre]

Huguenot

The point with particles being created and destroyed simultaneously out of nothing is the same point Schr?dinger made regarding his cat, was the act of observation creating the event or would it have happened anyway? Under quantum physics law the answer is yes to both meaning the same event has two different out comes simultaneously.

Hawking's will be regarded with the same regard as the likes of Niels Bohr and Max Planck in the future, as to some one out thinking him now, i don't think so.