[crandc]

Originally Posted by lalooska

I accept that... but only if you share some of your world famous desserts first!

You mean post the recipes or bring you the cake?

[Schilly]

Originally Posted by lalooska

That's pretty neat. It sometimes amazes me what things my little guy finds comfort in.

From knowing everything about each one of the presidents, to knowing each country's location and identifying their flag, the level of critical thinking is much different than my other kids.

One Saturday night a couple of years ago, he let us know he didn't want to go to church the next day. When asked why he let us know that he didn't believe in that "legend". He has come around since then and says a prayer for Bill Gates (who created his favorite program, publisher) most nights.

Sorry for hijacking the thread, guys. Like Jayps mentioned prior, acceptance should be a key component of these types of discussions, so that's the angle I'm taking here.

I read a really interesting thread on an aspergers forum one day regarding religion. Many many Aspies and autistics struggle tremendously with the concept of god because frankly it's not logical. It requires abstract analytical acceptance of something that frankly can't be quantified by any means known. To take it a step further the concept of alien life is much easier theory to accept than that of God. With aliens you can throw statistics and odds at it, based on the frequencies of life in our solar system compared to the number of potential solar systems by the number of potential planets in the universe etc..etc... But with god, there is no math to throw at the concept.

[e_blazer1]

Originally Posted by Schilly

I read a really interesting thread on an aspergers forum one day regarding religion. Many many Aspies and autistics struggle tremendously with the concept of god because frankly it's not logical. It requires abstract analytical acceptance of something that frankly can't be quantified by any means known. To take it a step further the concept of alien life is much easier theory to accept than that of God. With aliens you can throw statistics and odds at it, based on the frequencies of life in our solar system compared to the number of potential solar systems by the number of potential planets in the universe etc..etc... But with god, there is no math to throw at the concept.

Interesting theory, Schilly, but frankly, I don't see how the existence or non-existence of God can be reduced to a set of scientific proofs either way. It's no more logical to assume that a universe can be created from nothing or that, given enough billions of years, life can arise in that universe on its own from inanimate objects, than it is to credit such events to a creator. Either way, you have to exercise faith to believe something that can't quite be replicated in a science lab.

[Schilly]

Originally Posted by e_blazer1

Interesting theory, Schilly, but frankly, I don't see how the existence or non-existence of God can be reduced to a set of scientific proofs either way. It's no more logical to assume that a universe can be created from nothing or that, given enough billions of years, life can arise in that universe on its own from inanimate objects, than it is to credit such events to a creator. Either way, you have to exercise faith to believe something that can't quite be replicated in a science lab.

It's not a theory really. How can you logically rationalize acceptance by faith? Can you prove any of the acts Jesus performed by means of science? There is a reason such a high percentage of autistic spectrum kids are comforted by numbers and arithmetic. it is the ultimate in logic, every thing is absolutely concrete there is no abstract math.

From the life on other planets thing... Let's throw some math at it. There are 8 planets in our solar system. There is life on one of them, so 12.5% of the studied planets in the universe harbor life. The Sun called Sol is one Star in the Milky Way Galaxy. The total number of Stars in the Milky Way is estimated at somewhere between 400,000,000,000 and 600,000,000,000. Let's use the minimum estimate and also estimate that each solar system has 1/4 the planets ours has. That would be in the neighborhood of 800 billion planets in just the milky way. There are 3,000 visible galaxies from the Hubble telescope. Some larger some smaller than the Milky way. IF we then take the 800 billion by 3,000 we come up with 2,400,000,000,000,000.... Yep 2.4 quadrillion. It is estimated though that there are over 125 billion galaxies, that would make for 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, yep thats one hundred sextillion.

So there is life on 12% of the known planets in a given solar system. Granted that figure would never hold consistently. SO to think life exists even at the bacterial level only on our planet which based on very very conservative figures is one of 100 sextillion isn't that big of a grasp. Especially when considering that I only factored 2 planets per system, not 4 or 8... And didn't factor moons.

There I threw some statistics at the possibility, but I would have no clue how to start to expalin someone walking on water in a way that sounds logical beyond simply believing it.

[Schilly]

Originally Posted by e_blazer1

Interesting theory, Schilly, but frankly, I don't see how the existence or non-existence of God can be reduced to a set of scientific proofs either way. It's no more logical to assume that a universe can be created from nothing or that, given enough billions of years, life can arise in that universe on its own from inanimate objects, than it is to credit such events to a creator. Either way, you have to exercise faith to believe something that can't quite be replicated in a science lab.

Hehe I'll address it though. Even though we haven't been able to replicate life in a lab to think we have the full natural conditions harnessed in a lab to be able to attempt it is folly. The amount of energy and elements just floating around the universe is huge. Nothing we have seen on earth is remotely close.

[Jayps15]

For the record as an Aspie I define myself as Agnostic, I won't completely disregard the possibility of a higher power mainly because I have trouble assuming we are the most powerful things in the universe. But there's no tangible proof of God, and no matter how many people believe something without proof you logically have to assume something isn't there, you can't just say that because you believe and that because you can't disprove the existance of something that it's there. Or else I could say there's a planet full of purple skinned, three boobed women out there, and becuase you can't disprove my theory I must be right!(which is basically what religion is to me, the belief in purple skinned, three boobed women without proof)

[e_blazer1]

I think you're both missing the point. Let's say for the sake of discussion that the Big Bang Theory of the origin of the universe is true. So there was a heckuva explosion 10 billion years ago or so and then there was a universe where one didn't exist before. When you talk about the causation of that event, there's no logical basis to assume that it either just happened due to unexplained natural phenomena or because a creator was behind it. Similarly with the origin of life, there's no way to get at the causation of life beginning. It could have happened through strictly natural events and the passage of a tremendous amount of time, or it could equally reasonably have happened because a creator brought the elements of life together and caused it to begin. In a total absence of any tangible evidence, either explanation is nothing more than a statement of faith.

[Schilly]

Originally Posted by e_blazer1

I think you're both missing the point. Let's say for the sake of discussion that the Big Bang Theory of the origin of the universe is true. So there was a heckuva explosion 10 billion years ago or so and then there was a universe where one didn't exist before. When you talk about the causation of that event, there's no logical basis to assume that it either just happened due to unexplained natural phenomena or because a creator was behind it. Similarly with the origin of life, there's no way to get at the causation of life beginning. It could have happened through strictly natural events and the passage of a tremendous amount of time, or it could equally reasonably have happened because a creator brought the elements of life together and caused it to begin. In a total absence of any tangible evidence, either explanation is nothing more than a statement of faith.

Apparently you don't get it. What I posted was from reading the opinion of many different Aspergers people. Yes for you and form many "neurological Normal" people faith in creationism is easier to accept. For most Aspies I have discussed it with it, religion simply isn't a logical thing that can be accepted. If you look at the big bag theory of the creation of the universe as we know it there is quite a bit of information available to indicate an event may have occurred, and that information has been come to using in general math.

There is simply no logical explanation for divine creation. You can't even apply a logical theory to it, other than the trained ideal that it simply happened. Show me a way to build a theory about divine creation using an applied science or applied logic. Then do some research about the hypothesis behind the big bang theory. Heck there are mini version of the big bang occurring right now they are called supernovas. It's not a big stretch to think that if all the mass in a single solar system can collapse on itself and explode outwards that it possibly could have happened to all the matter in the universe.

[dudleysghost]

Originally Posted by Schilly

It's not a theory really. How can you logically rationalize acceptance by faith? Can you prove any of the acts Jesus performed by means of science? There is a reason such a high percentage of autistic spectrum kids are comforted by numbers and arithmetic. it is the ultimate in logic, every thing is absolutely concrete there is no abstract math.

From the life on other planets thing... Let's throw some math at it. There are 8 planets in our solar system. There is life on one of them, so 12.5% of the studied planets in the universe harbor life. The Sun called Sol is one Star in the Milky Way Galaxy. The total number of Stars in the Milky Way is estimated at somewhere between 400,000,000,000 and 600,000,000,000. Let's use the minimum estimate and also estimate that each solar system has 1/4 the planets ours has. That would be in the neighborhood of 800 billion planets in just the milky way. There are 3,000 visible galaxies from the Hubble telescope. Some larger some smaller than the Milky way. IF we then take the 800 billion by 3,000 we come up with 2,400,000,000,000,000.... Yep 2.4 quadrillion. It is estimated though that there are over 125 billion galaxies, that would make for 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, yep thats one hundred sextillion.

So there is life on 12% of the known planets in a given solar system. Granted that figure would never hold consistently. SO to think life exists even at the bacterial level only on our planet which based on very very conservative figures is one of 100 sextillion isn't that big of a grasp. Especially when considering that I only factored 2 planets per system, not 4 or 8... And didn't factor moons.

There I threw some statistics at the possibility, but I would have no clue how to start to expalin someone walking on water in a way that sounds logical beyond simply believing it.

Even with a lot of numbers in hand, there is a lot of presumption in the assumption that 1 in 8 represents the probability of life on any given planet. Our solar system is a small sample size, and I don't know of any statistician who could endorse using 1 "hit" as a basis to calculate the probability of getting more hits, even conservatively.

From our system, we see that the conditions required for life as we know it exist only in narrow bands of certain metrics. Are those conditions common or rare in other solar systems? Right now, we just don't know. We can almost make solid guesses, but it was only just recently that we even detected a single earth sized (size being just one metric) planet in another system, and that only by observing the wobble in one star as it passed in front of another. We just lack information to make a calculation, although with the sheer number of stars, we can I think make an educated guess that there are more Earths out there.

[dudleysghost]

Originally Posted by e_blazer1

I think you're both missing the point. Let's say for the sake of discussion that the Big Bang Theory of the origin of the universe is true. So there was a heckuva explosion 10 billion years ago or so and then there was a universe where one didn't exist before. When you talk about the causation of that event, there's no logical basis to assume that it either just happened due to unexplained natural phenomena or because a creator was behind it. Similarly with the origin of life, there's no way to get at the causation of life beginning. It could have happened through strictly natural events and the passage of a tremendous amount of time, or it could equally reasonably have happened because a creator brought the elements of life together and caused it to begin. In a total absence of any tangible evidence, either explanation is nothing more than a statement of faith.

That sounds like an excellent argument for concluding that agnosticism is the only logical choice, rather than theism or atheism.

[Jayps15]

Originally Posted by e_blazer1

I think you're both missing the point. Let's say for the sake of discussion that the Big Bang Theory of the origin of the universe is true. So there was a heckuva explosion 10 billion years ago or so and then there was a universe where one didn't exist before. When you talk about the causation of that event, there's no logical basis to assume that it either just happened due to unexplained natural phenomena or because a creator was behind it. Similarly with the origin of life, there's no way to get at the causation of life beginning. It could have happened through strictly natural events and the passage of a tremendous amount of time, or it could equally reasonably have happened because a creator brought the elements of life together and caused it to begin. In a total absence of any tangible evidence, either explanation is nothing more than a statement of faith.

I think you misinterpreted me as well, I wasn't stating anything as true or fact. I was merely pointing out that a statement of fact or belief without proof is not logical. There's no proof that there's other life out there on other planets, the probability is high as Schilly pointed out, but it's still not proven and therefore anyone stating that there is without a doubt life on other planets is only doing so out of their own beliefs and not fact.

Same thing with the big bang and creationism, neither has been proven (although the big bang has a more logical basis given our understanding of things like supernovas). The main difference is that the big bang theory is just that, a theory, a somewhat accepted theory but by otherwise not stated as fact by any credible logical mind. Whereas in my experience with people believing in religion (and creationism falls under that) is that they often times state beliefs as proof or facts, and sometimes won't accept otherwise. Religious wars and religious persecution happen because of these kinds of statements of beleifs as facts, but I don't remember anyone ever starting a crusade over the theory of relativity.

This is why I'm agnostic, I won't say for certain that some form of God doesn't exist, but I refuse to illogically use belief as proof that he does. Everything that hasn't been proven is fairly 'grey' to me, and I like dealing in that non absolute much more than saying I think one way or another without proof.

[e_blazer1]

Originally Posted by dudleysghost

That sounds like an excellent argument for concluding that agnosticism is the only logical choice, rather than theism or atheism.

There are many logical arguments for having belief in God, and lots of books have been written on the subject. I know that I'm nowhere near gifted enough to write a logical argument here that will convince anyone to believe in God. Ultimately, logic fails due to a lack of imperical data and you cross into the area of faith and making a decision about what seems right to you about the nature of our world and our universe. Every person ends up making that decision for themself.