has to be included here.

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All of these conversations eventually reach the same philosophical asymptote. Asking, “what causes the vacuum fluctuations” continues on an infinite vertical progression, but comes no closer to answering the underlying question of “how did we get here”, and barely touches “Why?”

It creates room for statements such as, “It is just as amazing that this entire universe came about of its own accord as it is that it was created by a supreme being.” Both would be equally wondrous for different reasons.

And, you can always ask, “Well, where did God come from, and why?”

The great circle of conversation has a tiny gap at this asymptote, a waiting room where believers either continue to believe, and unbelievers continue to disbelieve based on the last experience from their trip around that circle.

Much of science as it pertains to answering these metaphysical questions is sort of like trying to find the architect of a building by studying the molecules and atoms of the wood from which it’s built. Science is not trying to answer any metaphysical questions; it’s only trying to find out what’s there and how it works.

Whichever way you go from this waiting room, this break in the circle; it’s still a tremendous distance to travel towards believing that a disembodied hand wrote prophetic words on a wall for Belshazzar , or that stem cell research is morally wrong.

In the words of Bertrand Russell, “I think that if I heard a voice from the sky predicting all that was going to happen to me during the next twenty-four hours, including events that would have seemed highly improbable, and if all these events then produced to happen, I might perhaps be convinced at least of the existence of some superhuman intelligence.”

But even that would not fully convince the rest of humanity, only he alone.

I don’t think that there are any teachers of atheism. It is not a religion. It is a position that is usually arrived at alone by a rational mind excluding improbable explanations for observable phenomena. Some people can explain their reasoning better than others and we can learn from them, but it is not like there is a serious plan to teach the subject. Most atheists are quite indifferent about religious beliefs of others, so long as they are not proposed as part of scientific solutions.

The Creator option defies Occams Raser so it is automatically suspect to, and rejected by, informed rational minds. This is not a religious decision. It is simply normal scientific method.

The scientists who are trying to solve the puzzle of how the universe began will not be helped by religious people who try to explode every unknown into proof that God exists. There will be many unknowns in such a complex study, and as they are subjected to scientific exploration their number will decrease, but only if irrelevant religious wishful thinking is eliminated.

Very few people have the mathematics to explore explanations for how the universe may have began. It is kind of pointless to have the discussion in English as is happening here. If there are holes in an argument they will appear in the mathematics describing the physics, and so they are the languages that must be used.
Attempts to explain this mathematics in lay terms lends itself to the kind of naive religious objections that we are seeing here. There does not have to be a simple lay explanation, so one will probably never be found that satisfies devout Christians.

What you originally said was:

Now I feel that it would be Disingenuous for anyone to suggest that all of the information stored in the DNA &RNA in all the various forms of life could assemble itself purely by chance or accident. What makes this third point so emphatic is that ‘instinct’, knowledge amassed by the parent, can be passed on to the offspring through DNA. Many animals, & especially birds, gain knowledge from their parents without demonstration. A fine example is the blackpoll warbler. These birds when fledged can follow a seemingly illogical path to get from Alaska through New England to South America. It has been seen that they don’t need a companion that has previously made the trip.

The Blackpoll Warbler is not “a fine example” of this if the path it follows isn’t the “seemingly illogical” one. Since the path is still disputed, it’s not at all clear to me that the example shows what you’re suggesting.

As I read this, you’re suggesting that the fledgling’s path derives directly from its parent having earlier made the trip, and that “learned” knowledge being passed on genetically. Well, sorry, but that doesn’t happen. I doubt you could find a single reputable scientist who’d argue that it does. That’s just not how genetic inheritance works.

You’ll have to give examples, then. The link you gave is dead, and I say you’re simply wrong.

First, “indemonstratable theories” aren’t theories. They’re, at best, conjectures. Second, there is a quite clear picture of the formation of the “atomic universe”, as you call it, starting from the Big Bang. The theory that goes with the Big Bang is pretty well established back to about one picosecond (a trillionth of a second) after the “singularity”. The details of what happened during that picosecond are still debated, but the general outline of it isn’t.

The main reason for the remaining debate is that we can’t generate sufficiently high energies in laboratories, yet, to make observations. But we can use what we know of the 400 million billion trillion (4 × 10²⁹ps) since then to make some educated guesses.

Yes. And that’s what physicists today generally mean when they talk about a vacuum. Atoms, the weak and strong forces, and electromagnetic fields are the result of interactions between particles — a vacuum has no particles, and therefore, none of these. Gravitation is believed (though not yet proven) to be the result of interactions between Higgs bosons — again, more particles. Experiments planned with the new LHC at CERN are expected to go a long way towards proving that.

So, the vacuum we’re talking about when we talk about “vacuum fluctuations” is exactly the same as the “perfect vacuum” you’re thinking about, and it’s that vacuum that fluctuates, and it’s that vacuum that Stenger was talking about in his “plausible scenario”.

Incorrect. I’m sorry if this seems counterintuitive to you, but quantum theory says you’re simply wrong.

You may not understand the theory, but the theory’s backed up by experiment. Again, you may not understand how experiments in the “atomic universe” can allow us to draw conclusions about a vacuum, but that doesn’t make it wrong. You’ve already admitted your education in these areas is weak.

And what relevant point do you think that paper you linked makes?

No, I don’t.

We’re still working at building an understanding of these things, so it’s not surprising at all that we don’t have a good handle on what goes on several more steps up the causal chain. The question you’re asking is a mostly meaningless one, sort of like asking “how do we tell the male germs from the female germs?” during the formation of germ theory.

Let me turn the question around, though — do you see why it’s asinine to go from “the perfect vacuum needs something that causes it to fluctuate” to “Jesus Christ died for our sins”?

That’s the point — the “creator” theory would explain it, if it were true. The theory “explains” anything at all. Which is the same as saying it explains nothing at all.

It’s an open forum, feel free.

The person who posted the message to which you replied gets an email notifying them of the reply — in this case, you replied to wyldeling’s comment, so he got an email. I just happened to see the message in the “last ten comments” box. There really isn’t any way of changing that.

Yes, and a perfect vacuum as you’ve defined it excludes the possibility of a creator. They are, by necessity, mutually exclusive. As far as having “nothing” to fluctuate, I’ve tried to explain vacuum fluctuations in the past and I won’t try to do so here. Reread my old posts, and see what they say.

Are you suggesting that laboratory conditions are artificial, in the sense that they require some sort of agency to set them up? In other words, is there a distinction between “naturally occurring” and “laboratory occurring” phenomena?

I was taught by empiricists, without a hint of any form of theism present. They are interested in demonstrable knowledge, i.e. can you or can’t you repeatedly reproduce your results? Also, can your results be reproduced by someone else on their apparatus. If your results can’t be reproduced by both you and someone else, then either the experiment is flawed, or the theory is flawed. There is no middle ground. Everything I’ve talked about has been held to this high standard. So, yes it is the truth. It may not be the “truth” you are looking for, but that cannot be gained from empirical knowledge.

That is how arguments are won and lost. The central point of an argument rests on the shoulders of its minor aspects, so if you show that the minor aspects are flawed, then the central point is flawed. This is how rational discourse occurs.

Yes and no. I have to partially disagree with scott here, in that scientists use the word theory almost like the common usage. It means, simply: an explanation of why something happens. Scientists then make distinctions between whether the theory is good (consistent with experiment) or bad (not consistent with experiment). From there, we make distinctions based upon whether it explains more of the observed phenomena than the other theories. At some point (and usually after some modification), a theory will have beaten the other contenders, and be called established. But, I’ve explained this before.

Scott was pointing out that there is nothing demonstrable that can be attributed to a creator. If you read the full paragraph, you would understand that.