Big Bang?

[Joel Katz]

he's right.  what's with all the chumps on this thread contrasting "science" 
and "religion" like they have equal weight, like it's multiple choice?  
where the fuck are you getting your history from?

one -- modern science -- is the clear negation of the other.  religion 
PRECEDED science, as your ass may precede your spouse's foot.  science, as a 
form of knowledge, essentially EXHAUSTS and transforms the contents of 
religion.

historically speaking, what people today consider religion can hardly be 
called a form of knowledge in its own right.  rather, it represents a 
transition between mythology and science per se.  religions became the 
civilized forms of mythos -- which is to say, they became "culture" (which 
is clearly what they are today, unless you're a moron/candle-lighter).

as for the big bang thread -- simply because we can't understand, in 
scientific terms, what preceded the big bang, is not some sort of descent 
into mysticism.  it's simply science -- knowledge based on limits -- 
confronting its own limit.





>From: Malignd <malignd at yahoo.com>
>To: pynchon-l at waste.org
>Subject: Re: Big Bang?
>Date: Wed, 28 Sep 2005 13:50:07 -0700 (PDT)
>
><<... both arguments (Big Bang and Divine Creation)
>take the form of a non sequitur, inferring the
>existence of a cause from the manifestation of an
>effect or effects.>>
>
>No.  One infers that there is a universe because one
>is in it.  One can see it.  One posits that there may
>be a beginning to it because such is the way we're
>doomed to think, time being, for us, inescapable.  It
>might have no beginning, although there's no way for
>me, at least, to do much with that idea.  But numerous
>measurements and calculations, red shifts and all,
>allow for the theory of an expanding universe and
>rates of expansion allow for theories about age, age
>implying a beginning.
>
>None of this is faith. It's theory and it's science's
>great merit that it uses, tests, and often tosses out
>theories.  I suspect there are few scientists who
>think there won't be major corrections in assumptions
>about the big bang.  Still, it's a useful and workable
>theory in the meantime.
>
>Believing "God" created the universe on the assurances
>of a collection of  primitive, idiotic, and
>superstitious myths thousands of years old is not a
>parallel case, however much you insist it is.
>
>
>
>
>
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