Who are happier -- Christians or Atheists?

Quote: Evenbob

People hate mysteries,

I beg to differ, people love mysteries. Along with power of sacrifice they make the best and most enjoyable books, movies, and stories. Also if people hated mysteries than they would hate their very life.

Quote:

The natural assumption is, when you see
something like a universe, that's apparently
very old and very self sustaining, the assumption
is that it's been here forever.

Bob, remember the old statement about what happens why you ASS-U-ME. Let's just stick to the scientific facts which show that the universe did have a beginning.

Quote: FrGamble

I beg to differ, people love mysteries.

I should have phrased it differently. People hate
unsolved mysteries, so they solve them whenever possible.
No matter how convoluted the solution.

Quote: FrGamble

Let's just stick to the scientific facts which show that the universe did have a beginning.

Unless your 'facts' have changed since last
time, they don't solve anything. They might
convince the lemmings in the Church, but
they believe Mary was a virgin, & Jesus walked
on water. They'll believe about anything you
tell them.

Quote: Evenbob

I should have phrased it differently. People hate
unsolved mysteries, so they solve them whenever possible.
No matter how convoluted the solution.

True, the only thing people like more than a mystery is solving one or striving to do so.

Quote:

Unless your 'facts' have changed since last
time, they don't solve anything. They might
convince the lemmings in the Church,

I can hear all the diligent and mainstream scientists, some of who are atheists, shouting, "Watch who you are calling a lemming in the Church, bub."

It is unknowable what happened before the big bang. Neither of you make a compelling argument as to the origin of the universe. Both of you can make "reasonable sounding" arguments, but ultimately neither of them are provable in any way.

Here is Dr. Hawking's take on The Origin of the Universe

I think it is very, something - prideful, egotistical, something like that, to think that the entire universe was put here just for us.

Quote: Dalex64

It is unknowable what happened before the big bang.

Maybe.

As of now we know, with reasonable certainty, what happened mere fractions of a second after the Big Bang. If we never determine what happened at it, or before, if there even was a "before," that would be a shame.

BTW here's an interesting question:

A successful theory makes predictions. The Big Bang Theory is no exception. but, does it predict or account for dark matter and dark energy?

As far as I know, it does not. Dark matter was inferred when measuring the rotational speed of galaxies (they turn too fast for the matter we can account for), and Dark energy was inferred recently when measuring the rate of expansion of the universe using a particular type of Super Nova as a metric (they always give out the same amount of light).

This is a far cry from finding gravitational lensing, the Higgs boson or black holes based on theory, then confirming them with observation.

Also I think there's something a bit hollow about it, if we can say when atoms arose, what were the first compounds made, and even how stars and galaxies formed, without considering dark matter and dark energy in the process.

Trying to describe the universe before the big bang is like trying to describe an ice sculpture after it has been melted and poured into a bowl.

The information about its former state has been lost. You can't even tell if it was an ice sculpture before it was a bowl of water.

Obviously no one has the answer about dark marrer, dark energy, or where all the anti-matter went. Actually, people might have the answer, but no one has been able to prove it, so we don't know which answer is right, or even if any of them is right.

I think eventually we will have more of the answers. I feel like things are moving forward again. But I do believe some things, like the nature of the universe before the big bang, will remain unknowable, unless there is a god (or gods) and they clearly manifest and outright tell us the way things were. We'd still have to take their word for it, though.

Quote: Dalex64

Trying to describe the universe before the big bang is like trying to describe an ice sculpture after it has been melted and poured into a bowl.

The information about its former state has been lost. You can't even tell if it was an ice sculpture before it was a bowl of water.

Not entirely. You could tell what the sculpture was made if. In some cases, given the knowledge and equipment and expertise, you could say where the water came from.

Suppose we find particles which we cannot account for, that they couldn't have arisen in the universe. Then those particles might be leftovers from "before" the Big Bang.

I'm not saying we ever will, just giving an example of things that may lead to clues about it.

Quote:

[..], unless there is a god (or gods) and they clearly manifest and outright tell us the way things were. We'd still have to take their word for it, though.

There's a joke about a physicist, I think it was Fermi, who dies and goes to heaven. Upon meeting God, he asks why the mass of the electron is such a strange ratio of the mass of the proton. "Every hypothesis I've heard or can come up with," he says, "is obviously wrong."

God hands him some sheets of paper and says "Here you will find the explanation, expressed in the mathematical language of quantum mechanics."

The physicist reads through the proof quickly, then again with slow deliberation. Finally he shakes his head and says "Still wrong!"

How Secular Family Values Stack Up

Quote: Mosca

How Secular Family Values Stack Up

Uh Oh.

'He was surprised by what he found: High levels of family solidarity and emotional closeness between parents and nonreligious youth, and strong ethical standards and moral values that had been clearly articulated as they were imparted to the next generation.'

“Many nonreligious parents were more coherent and passionate about their ethical principles than some of the ‘religious' parents in our study,” Bengston told me. “The vast majority appeared to live goal-filled lives characterized by moral direction and sense of life having a purpose.”

Quote: Mosca

How Secular Family Values Stack Up

This article just blows me away. I knew all
of this was true, to see it all in one place
is amazing. Proof that religion causes more
problems than it solves. Proof that 'guilting'
people into behaving themselves is not the
best way to go.

Atheists were almost absent from our prison population as of the late 1990s, comprising less than half of 1% of those behind bars, according to Federal Bureau of Prisons statistics. This echoes what the criminology field has documented for more than a century — the unaffiliated and the nonreligious engage in far fewer crimes.

When these teens mature into “godless” adults, they exhibit less racism than their religious counterparts, according to a 2010 Duke University study. Many psychological studies show that secular grownups tend to be less vengeful, less nationalistic, less militaristic, less authoritarian and more tolerant, on average, than religious adults.

As one atheist mom who wanted to be identified only as Debbie told me: “The way we teach them what is right and what is wrong is by trying to instill a sense of empathy ... how other people feel. You know, just trying to give them that sense of what it's like to be on the other end of their actions. And I don't see any need for God in that. ...

Another meaningful related fact: Democratic countries with the lowest levels of religious faith and participation today — such as Sweden, Denmark, Japan, Belgium and New Zealand — have among the lowest violent crime rates in the world and enjoy remarkably high levels of societal well-being. If secular people couldn't raise well-functioning, moral children, then a preponderance of them in a given society would spell societal disaster. Yet quite the opposite is the case.