In another forum, I had a debate with atheists. I tried to defend my firm belief that there must be a God because the Universe is not entirely logical, but many people seem to think that science can by itself give an answer to all the mysteries of the Universe.

When asked about the beginning of the Universe, the scientist will answer: "It's the Big Bang, duh." I don't know much about physics and stuff, but to me it's only one part of the answer. One of the most basic laws of the Universe says that neither energy nor matter can be created out of nothing. Then, how can science explain how those things came into existence in the first place?

Another basic law is that anything that happens must have a cause; in other words, any event must be triggered. But if there was nothing before the Big Bang, what could possibly have caused it? Where is the trigger?

Scientists also say that before the Big Bang, even space and time did not exist. How can an event happen without a place and a time? That seems like utter nonsense to me.

To me, it seems obvious that the Universe is, as Frank Herbert wrote in Dune, "one step beyond logic".

I am an Athiest. Athiesm is the rejection of "theism" which means that I reject the idea of a unified all-powerful, all-knowing, eternal consious being named "God." It is in fact possible to be a religious Athiest. "Religion" comes from the latin "re ligio,", which means
"to link back." I do think that, over time, humans have been able to grasp more and more partial truths about the universe, and are, at this point, no longer in need the "idea of God" as an explanation for things which are unexplainable.

I believe Reason is a human tool, and comes from the structure of language, which is the way by which we grasp "meaning" or "truth". Reason can explain that which is rational, but it can never explain that which is irrational. I beleive that the universe is composed of both rational and irrational events. Since these irrational events cannot explained by reason, they lie in what may be called "the rhelm of the mystical," or mysticism.

Essentially, what cannot be understood objectively, will be grasped subjectivly, by mystical explanation. "God" is one of many mystical explanations, and I think that even in the mystical rhelm of thought, we have come up with better means of subjective understanding than "God". For example, Buddhism doesn't adhere to a concept of "god" in any theistic sense, but it offers a very interesting insight into the mystical aspects of the universe.

No one can really answer a series of questions, each string being a long row of "whys". We may never be able to figure out how or why the big bang or the universe was created. Science cannot concretely answer this, though there are various theories, the most strong being the String and M theories, etc.

Science has holes, but thats not to say it has a good deal in it too. Various ideas (all available on the internet) can be found, such as the M theory, String Theory, the idea of Brane dimensions and universes, the idea of gravitational singularity, and whatnot. It's all to complex for me, and there are a lot of big words, plus I don't have much of an attention span for that stuff. But people do in fact muck through it somehow.

Anyway, what exactly is your theory on the Universe?

The first thing I would like to point out is that we are not using logic at all in the correct sense. Logic is used to analyze the validty of an argument. It cannot say what the answer is, it can only say whether or not the conclusion follows from the premises.

Take this example:
All dogs are beings that are capable of flight.
Fifi is a dog.
Therefore Fifi flies.

This argument, while factually flawed, is logically valid.
Why?
Because the premises follow from the conclusion.

Now, if you'd like to argue whether or not reason and the human mind can be used to solve the answers of the universe, that's completely different, and, I assume, that's what you originally intended for this topic to lead. However, if you're going to talk seriously about a philosophical subject, it is an absolute must that you get your language right.

This is actually a very large problem with America today. We are still stuck in a positivist form of thinking, that the only true knowledge we can ever attain comes from science (and everything else, such as values, are left up to whatever you believe).
Science can explain the How of the universe, such as how a black hole works, how evolution is accurate, etc.
But can it truly answer the fundamental questions? Why am I here? What is the good life? What is morality and is it objective? These are the questions that define us as human beings. To ask these is to be human. We are the philosophic animal.
And these questions cannot, and will not, be answered by science.
Rather, I'd say that, although we can never know absolutely, these questions are to be answered by the human soul and human reason.

Have singled out this quote for a bit of contention.

Reasoning can explain how things occur which are illogical. For instance, mathematical reasoning is the use of operations and operands. Before man could be put onto the moon, they had to find a missing ingredient to use in factoring within the equations.

This ingredient is the square root of negative one. Having said this, it is completely illogical to add an illogical number into mathematics dealing with more concrete and substantative items than abstract theory. Yet it was through a process of reasoning that they had to add the illogical to the logical components which had thus far failed to yield the data needed.

Emotional reactions are often illogical responses to logical events. Yet a person can understand how inappropriate acts occur when realizing the instability of human nature. If a person is poor or starving, they are more likely to commit irrational crimes that do not resolve their underlying problem of hunger or poverty. Mental instable are then added to the mix. Diseases and personal health contribute. Post-traumatic stress disorder causes a partial break with reality.

Logic is a practice in some ways. A person has to remove the illogical portions out (like the square root of negative one had to be factored out) to still obtain a logical response/recourse. A person thinking there is always a single right or wrong answer found via logic will of course find this basis rather flawed.

This is just me being a language Nazi again, but you're using the word "irrational" when you should be saying "non-rational."
The difference between the two is that non-rational refers to things outside the realm of reason and cannot be explained by reason; and irrational refers to, well, things that just don't make sense.
Here, I'll give examples.
Non-rational:
God. God cannot be explained rationally as we have no objective proof to His existence.
Irrational:
A married bachelor. This would be false simply because once a man is married, he is no longer a bachelor. Obviously, it's an oxymoron, but those are irrational concepts.

No, logic cannot answer everything. who determines the first principles? ie. laws of physics break down, like the second law of thermodynamics, when you start talking about "what happened before the big bang." I'm not saying faith is the only way to go either, because there is no answer. perhaps we have to just get comfortable with the nothing, the indeterminacy of existence.

Wow, even just after a year I think what I posted above is incoherent. I guess I'm learning? :huh: