Wally wrote:

Donal wrote:



Why should non-believers be given more credence than believers?


Get a clue, Donal - you're out of your depth.

Does that mean that I shouldn't have an opinion - or that I shouldn't
express it?



You don't seem to understand that my position is the opposite, in its very
nature, of yours. I'm not making a specific claim that might stand to be
substantiated by evidence. I'm making no claim about the origin of the
universe, and I'm not invoking some imaginary creator. What I'm doing is
critiquing our knowledge system, and thereby critiquing such outlandish
claims as those we have seen in this thread regarding the supposed origins
of the universe. I'm right outside of your box, Donal, and your desire for
me to 'present evidence' tells me that you still haven't noticed.

Why then, have you made so many contributions to this thread?




I'm saying is that the evidence presented by those who seek to state how the
universe came to be is woefully inadequate. Once again, if not for the
world, then at least for you, I argue my case thus...

From the observations that mankind has made so far, the universe is
mind-bogglingly huge and exceedingly old. We can make highly detailed
observations of it, and draw incredibly accurate inferences concerning its
causal nature. However, we can only resolve to this sort of detail in a very
local area - Earth and its environs, basically. The rest of it is little
more than a bunch of dots in the sky. We're also attempting to extrapolate a
life cycle of this most ancient of entities, supposedly billions of years,
from a ridiculously small timeslice of - what - a couple of centuries? What
mankind is essentially doing is observing a speck of dust for a second, and
trying to describe what has happened on the whole planet for a year.

Ultimately, the data that we have, compared with the data that we think is
still out there, is laughably small - it's statistically insignificant. And
here's the best bit - because we haven't actually observed the data that we
haven't availed ourselves of yet, we don't even know how much there actually
is!

In terms of the constructs of our own knowledge system - empricism - we are
damn-near absolutely clueless!

To sit here on our silly little speck of dust for a whole second, and then
try to state categorically - to draw an "inescapable conclusion" with regard
to - how the universe came to exist is stupefyingly pointless. Not only do
we know next to bugger all, we don't even know if we really *do* know next
to bugger all!

Excellent dissertation, Wally! I'm almost proud that my stupefying
pointlessness has prompted such eloquence - and such a large percentage
of your activity here over the past week!!!


Let me see if I understand you. Are you saying that we know sod-all
about the Universe, and therefore we shouldn't try to understand it?
That strikes me as being a bit defeatist!


Regards


Donal
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