DonRamsay

Turbo, you still seem to be hung up on the delusion that an "Atheist is one who doesn't believe in God". An Atheist is a person who lives without reference to any God. Not only do they have no regard for or interest in your God they don't have any interest in any of the myriad of gods invented by men to meet some primeval need for answers for everything, an imaginary big brother to look after them and a place to go when their atoms disassemble. Only a Theist defines and Atheist as a non-believer and thinks of them as anti-theist. Why not define us as pro-evidence or pro-logic. Why the negative "anti-theist" tag. I know why and it is because of long held prejudices encouraged and enforced by the religious hierarchy clinging to temporal power. Most people would term a person who doesn't believe in the tooth fairy an "adult". Why do people who live without regard for deities have to be thought of as anti-theist?

An extract from the article posted by Bex: " The new study confirms that zircon crystals from Western Australia's Jack Hills region crystallized 4.4 billion years ago, building on earlier studies that used lead isotopes to date the Australian zircons and identify them as the oldest bits of the Earth's crust. The microscopic zircon crystal used by Valley and his group in the current study is now confirmed to be the oldest known material of any kind formed on Earth. The study, according to Valley, strengthens the theory of a "cool early Earth," where temperatures were low enough for liquid water, oceans and a hydrosphere not long after the planet's crust congealed from a sea of molten rock. "The study reinforces our conclusion that Earth had a hydrosphere before 4.3 billion years ago," and possibly life not long after, says Valley. My question to the Great Gnu is how can you maintain that the Earth is just 6,000 y.o. in the face of all the evidence that have been verified many times over? Are you asking us to accept that Science has got everything wrong and only the goat herders really know the truth? If Science has everything wrong, how could they possibly have landed a man on the moon?

It's like if you only had perfect weather everyday you wouldn't appreciate it. Now we get lots of sh!tty weather so the rare good day we can appreciate and thank God for. Of course you can blame all the cross winds and thunderstorms on the devil or FT.

Can't wait for the last post . . . anyone any good with a bugle?

The words "God of Abraham", can be read literally just like the fundamentalist view of the words of the bibles. It is simply the God that Abraham worshiped. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think "God" is a status or rank rather than a personal name. A bit like Arch Angel or Fallen Angel. Abraham, whose religion founds the basis of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, had a God who is referred to by the name Yaweh or YHWH sometimes pronounced Jehovah (9,000 times). The (Greek) Christian translators substituted the more familiar "Lord" for Yaweh which had too much of a Jewish ring to it. A bit like the way they lightened his skin and gave him red-brown wavy hair to look more Eurpean. Similarly, the Arabic translators ripped off the name of an existing pagan, pre-Islam God (Allah) and recycled it for the far too Jewish Yaweh. This trick of using previous pagan gods and festivals is a widely practiced piece of political correctness. People did not want to give up their pagan mid-winter festival and kept it but changed the name to "Christmas", falsifying the Nazerene's birth certificate in the process. Similarly, they didn't want to give up the extra long weekend over Easter and made that into Christian holy-day(s). There is nothing new under the sun, Horatio. The confusion suffered by GG over God = Jewish Jehovah = Christian Lord = Muslim Allah is down to mischievous translators. The Christians went on to soften their God and make him much more likeable. The Muslims went the other way and made him even vainer and meaner. Still, whenever men are involved, there will be interpretation and re-engineering to suit their purposes. There are aspects of the Islamic interpretation that are pure heresy to the original Jewish texts. For example, you get no schizophrenic "three Gods for the price of one" (buy one get two free) in Islam. Muslims have the equivalent of a religious ACCC to eliminate such false and misleading advertising. Oh, and Turbo, "crapping on"? That sort of remark could see you in the sin bin at the downtown Melbourne debating society. Try logical debate instead of "beneath you" aspersions.

This is just a silly statement. The theory of evolution is a theory. It is not Newton's 4th law of motion. Einstein's theories are still referred to as theories. They are the most sensible explanation of how things are and work. Boyle's Law is not a theory is an immutable law of physics. Gravity, for God's sake, is a Theory! Try ignoring that one next time you get the inclination to aviate. Knocking evolution because it is just a scientific theory is puerile. It is beneath contempt. Is it fully understood? No more than the theory of Gravity is fully understood. How many times does it have to be stated? Even in the USA, Creationism can not be taught in schools as Science because it is merely a religious doctrine. No credible, real world University, would teach creationism instead of evolution. Evolution as a theory may be incomplete but it is as good as it is at the moment. When Turbo and I were in high school an atom was composed of (only) neutrons, protons and electrons. Were they wrong? Was it the best explanation of what had been observed at the time? Is science always open to new evidence and revised theories? Will creationists ever open their minds to anything but a book with no provenance?

Sounds like a sensible way to go about life. But the problem comes that vast numbers of Christians, particularly the born again evangelists require the Bible to be read literally. And then if you want to depart from the literal interpretation, as the Catholic Church is comfortable with doing, then how do you decide which bits are just parables and which bits remain literal. The Catholic Church gets around this with the neat trick of the Pope conferring infallibility on himself. Other denominations have been slow to catch on to this solution. All that we know about God comes from the Bible and from an oral tradition. Unfortunately both are without any authority. You say that some Bible stories can be confirmed from other sources. It may well be that the battle of Jericho actually happened and the walls fell down and that they fell down because of the Arch (Ark) of the Covenant. However, could those records ever give both sides of the story that of the victors and the victims? Could you ever get any more understanding than a battle actually happened and the jewish ancestors were the victors? I doubt it.

Gnarly, I have no problem with you writing down your interpretation of the scriptures for my benefit. You clearly have read widely and/or listened well to what people of your particular evangelistic form of Christianity have written or said. You have a level of expertise in this. And, after all, in the end it is your personal view and nobody here can tell you you are right or wrong. However, please do us all a favour and stop pontificating on something about which you really have not authority. All you seem to be able to do is to regurgitate what some totally discredited creationist "scientists" have to say on the matter. I seriously doubt you have even a bachelor's degree in geology, astronomy, particle physics or molecular biology or perhaps any of the sciences. Until you at least have achieved some education in the real world, you have no authority to write or speak on these matters. Until you take your creationist ideas to a recognised university and have them challenged by people who have done the research they are not science but religious doctrine. Being Religious Doctrine nobody can say you are wrong - it is your religious belief. But let's not try to dress it up as real science. I will happily argue the logic of theist concepts but you won't catch me arguing against the real scientists whose experiments and peer reviewed papers have established their authority and credibility. On matters of Evolution, you can have no credibility until you can produce papers that are independently peer reviewed and accepted by real scientists.

And an excellent example of a book written from the viewpoint of a Theist. By this definition, Atheists are branded as "deniers" a truly pejorative term. Look how effectively that pejorative "denier" is used against climate change skeptics. The term "Atheist" is defined by Collins as somebody who is anti something when the true meaning of the pefix "A" is "without reference to"not "anti". Perhaps a man like Bernie Madoff (massive ponzi scheme) might be described Amoral. He seems to act without reference to most moral standards. A paedophile priest might be a very good person but with one awful, fatal flaw. He understands and accepts generally accepted moral standards (believes in the God of Abraham) but chooses to act contrary to one particular moral standard and could be described as being IMmoral. Chances are neither the immoral nor the amoral person deny the existence of morals. The Amoral person just thinks that they don't apply to him whereas the immoral person knows that morals are relevant but acts contrary to them. The more reputable Oxford English Dictionary defines Atheist in terms of: "A person who disbelieves or lacks belief in the existence of God or gods" While closer to the usual meaning of the prefix "A" it still suffers from the Christian/Muslim viewpoint of equating Atheists with infidels. There is a technical difference between a disbeliever and and a person for whom the concept has no relevance. Even the Oxford tries to define an atheist as "lacking änd therefore in some way deficient. Atheists are not obliged solely by their atheism to convert others to atheism. On the other hand Theists, particularly Christians and Muslims are required by their particular theism to convert others to their belief system. Perhaps that is why they think atheists want to convert everyone to atheism? Atheists crave a truly secular government because it allows them to live free from religious dogma. Theists need to appreciate that the only societies who truly allow freedom of choice of religion are truly secular states. Theocracies like England, Iran and the Vatican do not have an even hand regarding choice of religion. The USA does have such a system in theory but it is corrupted by fundamentalist Christians who would like Muslims to swear on a Christian Bible (but do not get their way on that any more). However, Theists still get to have "One nation under God" engraved all over the place. The logic is we don't deny a god or gods because their is no God to deny. We also don't deny the existence of the tooth fairy or Santa Clause or (insert your own favourite myth) we just know they are not real. We don't go around trying to convince people who believe in the tooth fairy or other imaginary friends to give up their beliefs. Let's try to stick with logical argument and leave the illogical denigration to others. When people quote the literal word of their unreliable Bible at you to prove they are right and you are wrong then it is hard to resist showing them the fallacy in their argument. And when they attempt to use totally discredited creationist "science" to disprove the generally accepted Theory of Evolution it is again very hard to leave that nonsense stand unquestioned. The Theists claim that the Bible is the inspired word of their God and that every word can be read literally (according to their idea of literally). If they claim the massacres at Jericho happened for the reasons it says in the Bible and that that was a good thing then they have to account for how that can be a good thing. OMG! How can you say that? The Roman Empire lasted along with their Gods for most of 6 centuries. The Romans acted like they believed in their Gods and accepted that their Emperors were Gods in the same way that the Egyptians accepted that their Pharohs were Gods. True and an admitted defect in my character where I get frustrated by reading the name nonsense over and over . . . oops, there I go again. I'm afraid you are mixing concepts of "rational" and "sensible". Faith relates to belief and not to reason. Rational relates to reason and not to accepting without evidence or logic. Religion is not necessarily anti-rational more "Arational" - see how the "A" works? On the contrary, apart from a little hypocrisy here and there and the mindless repetition of prayers until they had no meaning whatsoever, I had a lovely time growing up in the Catholic system. To be fair, I only ever heard of one peadophile in the clergy although as it turned out the Hunter Valley was a hotbed of the bastards.

Coal is a relatively small part of our total economy but it is an awfully large part of our export earnings. We currently have a situation of roughly 5% unemployment. The other way to look at that is that we have 95% employed supporting the 5% who don't have jobs. And that's doable. Change that to 15% unemployed being supported by 85% in work and it gets to be a strain. At 30% unemployed we have the Great Depression and the 70% with jobs buckle under the weight of tax and unemployment relief and people genuinely go hungry. I am not saying don't get rid of coal but be aware it will be very painful for this country, more so than for just about any other than Indonesia and South Africa.

Mike, I was very religious once. I studied Christian Doctrine extensively and was pretty good at it. I enjoyed being religious. It can be very uplifting and completes everything. All questions are answered and all the dots are connected. Anything that seems at odds with God's great goodness (like Ebola and bugs that eat eyeballs in the living and the suffering of children with terrible cancers) is just explained away as "God works in mysterious ways" or its the work of the Devil. Too easy. I wasn't a christian because I feared the Lord, I loved being a Christian. The Sermon on the Mount brought tears to my eyes. But then I chose to think rather than just accept everything I had been told. For me reason and rational behaviour is important. Doesn't mean I can't enjoy the beauty of music or the feel for an animal released from a death sentence and welcomed into a new family as a "rescue" pet. It doesn't mean I don't have a purpose in life. It does mean I don't think this is a dress rehearsal and if I stuff it up it doesn't matter because all will be better in the next life. I only get one crack at life and I have to get the best out of my one go at it. Ashes to ashes dust to dust.

I prefer the logic to endless facts. In the end it is pretty simple and you don't need to know the contents of the Library of Congress to know that faith by definition just requires acceptance without evidence. Turbo is scratching around and finding stuff that hints in a particular direction - searching for facts to support his hypothesis rather than looking at all the evidence and accepting that there is none that stands any test. There is no compelling evidence for the existence of any of the thousands of man made Gods - if there were evidence then atheism would be illogical and there would be no need for blind faith. But we are all, in this country at least, free to believe what we like to believe or know what we can know. The end.

Thanks Nev. Serious stuff indeed. Not what I'd like to leave my grandkids as a legacy. I've long thought that, regrettably, the world will not act until there is a present emergency. It may be coming but it hasn't been recognised yet. Let's hope people are not right that it may already be too late. Nobody, especially the Greens, should underestimate the size of the task to get off coal as an energy source. Between the USA, China, Russia, and one or two others, the world currently burns approaching 5,000,000,000 tonnes of coal each year. The number of windmills you'd need to replace that is beyond reality. To power a city the size of Paris alone the number of windmills is in the tens of thousands. Solar has the possibility of delivering base load but we're a long way from that at this stage. I am a great believer in the promise of electric cars and what they'll do for the preservation of petroleum reserves and the reduction of emissions. Hard for me to see intercontinental being done by anything but jets for the foreseeable future. The charge to offset emissions for a Jetstar flight from Newcastle to Brisbane last week was $1.27 and that makes me think aviation is not the problem when it comes to emissions. The great hope is fusion for electricity generation and there are some non-stupid claims that it is within 20 years of becoming practical. I am a bit cynical about that but, without it I become fairly pessimistic.

Turbs, you are doing a fantastic job of batting back everything thrown your way without help from anyone much. However, I have to take exception to "As an Atheist, you are bound to deny the existence of God". As an Atheist I am able to live my life without reference to any of the thousands of gods dreamed up by men over the millennia. I have no need or desire to deny the existence of any of these gods. I feel zero compunction to relieve believers of their particular faith. I am comfortable in my godless state and don't need to be surrounded by other infidels or have everyone in the world achieve a similar level of rationality. Each to his own. I only ask that theists do not try and ram their personal beliefs down my throat or require me to live my life according to anything other than sound ethics. I am particularly aggrieved by Theists who feel they have the right to punish me for not believing or respecting their particular deity or deities. (deleted - too personal to share)

My biggest problem with Climate Change Theory advocates is the shifty way they moved from "Global Warming" an apparent good thing for people who live in cold climates to the meaningless term "Climate Change". It is not even "Climate Change for the Worse". And I have never heard a statement from a Climate Changer that says there might be some good things come from Climate change. As the old saying goes, it is an ill wind indeed that brings no good for anybody. Is there nothing, not anything good that can come from climate change?" Civilisation has been hard on the animals in Africa but even that unfortunate thing has given us a few streets in a few towns in Africa where you are unlikely to be eaten by big cats or trampled by elephants. Not all bad? What drives me to distraction though are the people who equate a hot day or even a hot decade as examples of Climate Change happening NOW. By the time we can safely declare that the Climate has changed it could be 50 or 100 years. The same can be said for people who say it was cold last Tuesday as evidence that Global Cooling is happening. But, to be fair, they are usually only saying that as a counter to the people who declare climate change happened last Wednesday afternoon. Even Climate Changers would not be worried by a climate 4 degrees warmer and higher levels of CO2 giving the trees a better environment to grab carbon from the air. What they are reasonably concerned about is what happens when you put that much extra energy into the atmosphere leading to massive storms and alteration to weather patterns and to the melting of the Greenland and Antarctic ice caps raising seawater levels and inundating the densely populated, highly productive big river deltas. But, I think that they really don't know what the outcome of 4 degrees hotter will be and are just broadcasting their greatest fears in a lopsided prediction of only woe. The end is nigh! For all that, can anyone realistically deny that levels of CO2 in the atmosphere are higher than they have been for millennia (refer ice cores) and that they are increasing rapidly (as measured) and that a lot of that increase is coming from burning carbon based fuels? Would it be such a bad thing to move to conserving the world's petroleum reserves for making plastics and lubricants, and fuelling intercontinental air travel? Running the world's fleet of cars on electricity would go a long way to doing that and bringing CO2 emissions down to an acceptable level especially if the electricity was generated from solar. I agree with the Captain that smashing the Australian economy for a token gesture is stupid. We all know that if Australia ceased forever to emit a gram of CO2 that it would not make one rats bum of difference to the global level of CO2. Also, be very careful what you wish for. We've all seen the huge benefits Australia earned from the mining boom. That is what saved us from the great recession not the profligate spending by Kevin and his unco dancing partner. The depression Australia would face if the Coal industry were phased out the way Christine Milne would have it does not bear thinking of. To quote the ill-considered Ms Milne "do you want Death or Coal?" Well, for the moment I can live with Coal rather than embrace Death.

Turbs, that is a bit of a copout. The reality that GG needs settled is whether or not the God he believes in is the same one that Muslims believe in. I think he accepts that it is the same one those of the Jewish faith believe in but suffers from this inexplicable delusion that Allah and Yaweh are not the same and that somehow the God of Muslims resides in Hell. He really needs help.

FT, on politics you would do yourself (and us all) a big favour by keeping it to yourself. I've been impressed with the quality of your commentary for some time but this mindless insulting is beneath contempt. Feel what you like about who you like but we don't need to hear this demeaning nonsense.

Yes it is baseless because of the covert nature of stone cutting there is no reliable base to work from. However, it is, I believe, a widely held view that the advantages that flow from mutual back-scratching is the big attraction for many masons. No, I haven't looked over the fence and am not about to pay a couple of ex Masons for the privilege of looking over the fence. When they take the fence down and operate in an open way I probably still won't look to see what they are up to because they have become irrelevant and destined to fade away. Have a look at the demographics of their membership - older even than Recreational Aviation and getting older by the day. Not invented by JC and carried on by Peter and those who walked in the shoes of the fisherman? Been any recent examples of persecution of Masons by Catholics recently? I know there is no love lost between them but shouldn't both sides just get over it now? A bit like Cosa Nostra and the code of silence. Mostly worked for them why wouldn't it work for the Masons? So, all we need is for Gorbachev to join the Masons and introduce them to the concepts of Glasnost (openness) and Perestroika (restructuring)? Perhaps it is time to lose the silly dress-ups and secrecy.

The question related to "respect" not "belief". Once again, GG your comprehension skills seem to have let you down. Are you saying your God doesn't believe Atheists exist? What about all the children who have never heard of any god? They wouldn't even know they are supposed to believe in a god or gods unless somebody tells them they better or else. GG, no matter how often you assert that the God of Abraham is not a.k.a. "Allah" the only person you are kidding is yourself. It is not disputed by any Muslims, Christians or Jews, not even you, that they and you worship (and fear) the God of Abraham. I don't know who told you Allah resides in Hell but you really need to go back and ask any priest, minister, sheik or rabbi and they will relieve you of that misconception. It is true that Muslims and Jews do not recognise Yeshua (JC) as Barabas (Son of God) but they do worship the same God of Abraham, just with some different ceremonial practices. They just call Her different names. Get over it. Turbo, feel free to arbitrate on this and tell me if I am misunderstanding something.

Try "accept the theory of" rather than "believe" and intelligent people will not be lost as soon as you say "believe". At least you put it in inverted commas giving some recognition that Evolution is a Scientific Theory not a doctrinal belief system. All of the above is, I'm sorry to say, creationist nonsense and non-science. This forum is not the place for a total exposition of the life work of one of the world's all-time top 5 scientists (imho). If you genuinely want to understand the scientific theory of Evolution as it stands in the 21st Century, get yourself off to a University and spend a year or two in deep study with genuine scientists. The unarguable FACT is that the scientific theory of Evolution is the overwhelmingly accepted scientific theory of what's been happening to life forms since the first life form appeared on this planet. If creationists weren't so bound up in the literal word of Genesis then they could simply say that God created the Singularity and kicked off the big bang according to Her laws that we now call science. But instead, died in the wool creationists (I can't give them the title "scientist") stick with a parable that bronze-age nomadic goatherders could comprehend and make themselves the laughing stock they are. I respect, for their view, everyone that believes frogs don't evolve into princes. We could respect creationists if you didn't make deliberately inane statements like that for effect. No credible scientist ever said that frogs evolve into princes. Again, this statement offers nothing but disrespect for people who accept the scientific theory of evolution by equating it with a "belief" in a theism. All good science starts as conjecture, goes through the stage of being an hypothesis and can evolve into a scientific theory if there is credible tested evidence and logic supporting it. A belief in Creation meets none of these requirements. Evolution meets all of them. Happy to do that as long as that does not give those who love that awful, terrifying deity the right to end my life for blasphemy. The last person in the UK put to death for Blasphemy was just about 300 years ago. The last person put to death for Blasphemy by believers in your God would be sometime today. How can I respect that God?

Anyone who believes in the illuminati had better also believe in God because only She is the more powerful. Personally, I think the Illuminati is the greatest load of bollocks ever dreamed up by a paranoid schizophrenic. On a totally different matter, thanks Turbo for posting the link to Noel Pearson as I had missed the original broadcast. This speech has been rated by many as the best speech ever made in Australia. Even though every year I put my vote in for Noel Pearson to be awarded "Australian of the Year" I might not go that far. Those same people rated that ridiculous bit of calumny delivered by Julia Whatsername to be one of the best as well - so what would they know?

I don't know, I leave you lot alone for a day or two and somebody turns on the poor old stone cutters in their dotage. Not to mention all the usual stuff like atheism being a belief, having faith in Darwinism and science-deniers mis-quoting science to prove science is wrong about science. I tried to go back through it all and help some understand the flaws in their argument but what is the point? You can't argue logically with people who deny logic, who do not need evidence and don't want to look for evidence and who don't want to look at the evidence that exists. They just swallow everything they're told by other creationists and refuse to recognise that the faux-science of the creationists is universally derided. I really wonder why we are trying to argue, we'd be better off just bickering. At least we wouldn't have to think so hard or counter oxymoronic (and plain moronic) assertions for which there is no evidence or logical support. At least Turbo planner has kept providing us with a genuinely interesting titbits of ancient history.

If you rate mutual back scratching "good things" or working very hard against papists and dominating the British and Australian Civil Services in their war against Catholics. Self-serving Masons about whom we can know very little first hand because of the covert nature of their activities do not inspire me as the "good guys". Like I said we know very little about what they do with goats behind closed doors so I could be wrong, they could be saints on Earth. Or not. Secrecy with occasional flashing to the public does not constitute anything that should be admired in a free and open society. Simple thing is that if they are only up to good works why do they need to hide behind a burqa of secrecy? Well, a better place if you are a stone cutter perhaps. Is Masonry a society that promotes equality of opportunity or one that works very hard to ensure that less capable Masons get most favoured treatment in business and the public service than non-Masons?

What, me get something wrong? Never been known to happen before. Guess there's a first time for everything. I look for to your critique - always happy to be corrected. (Not sarcasm - genuine.) I do hope you mean you don't have time now not don't have time ever. Don

I don't see anything funny in Genocide justified by being "God's chosen people". I have no idea whether the Jews fought the battle of Jericho or not and neither does anyone else. What I know as a fact is that Theists generally accept, even boast about this conquest amd mayhem. My question, asked many times and remaining unanswered by either you or GG or any theist is on the morality of people who consider Genocide a practice to celebrate. And yet all the born again Christians hang off every word of it and look down their noses at people who don't. On the contrary, there are those, like GG who hold these (to quote you) "ridiculously and transparently nonsensical translations", to be immutable facts. My question is that if you believe that the massacre at Jericho was a fact, how can you justify that abomination to be a good thing? Being approved by a schism of the Catholic church in a time of mortal sectarian combat hardly is a justification to elevate any version of the King James Bible to "fact" status. Provenance is still the issue. There is no reliable provenance for any modern English version of the Bible. And written, non-contemporaneously, in conflicting versions by four different people. And these are only the edited, carefully selected, surviving versions. And for which no first editions survive. Again zero provenance as an historical record. Well known. And as fraught an exercise in translation as can be imagined. Just more evidence of distortion and illegitimacy of books said to be the "inspired word of God". And was it not King James who oversaw the "Hang, draw and quarter" of every Catholic priest he could get his hands on? And what was their heinous crime warranting such a cruel punishment? Loyalty to the Church allegedly founded by the Apostle Peter at the request of JC himself in words to the effect of "upon this Rock I build my church". Whether I believe JC existed or ordained Peter as the first Pope is immaterial. King James and his cronies believed that. All very interesting but beyond the capability of other than the experts to fathom. I'm happy to wait for the video. In fact I doubt any atheist is all that interested in spending hours fathoming the fantasies of any of the thousands of religions that plague this Earth. For me, there is enough Science to get back to within a whisker of the Big Bang and to dispel the myths and legends as to how the Universe began. Why would I want to pore over translations of ancient documents in case somebody suffering undiagnosed schizophrenia really did claim to be Barabas ("Son of God"). Many people in the Philippines really believe the tricksters who appear to do surgical removals of body parts without leaving a mark on the surface of the skin. People will believe anything, who am I to tell them to snap out of it and get a real education in facts? What happened before the Big Bang is, at this time anybody's guess. My hypothesis (not a scientific theory) is that the Universe will continue to expand but eventually be swallowed by Black Holes. Eventually all Black Holes will disappear into one incredibly dense Black Hole which will eventually reduce to a "Singularity". As it achieves critical mass, it will explode in another Big Bang and the Universe will rapidly expand in a never ending cycle of expansion, contraction and explosion. Do I believe this? No, I surmise this. It is just as plausible as a God who always was and always will be and is omni everything and works in mysterious ways? To me it is more plausible. The best Theists could do if they were into logic would say that God created the singularity and lit the blue touch paper and stood well back and watched the Big Bang go off to the rules She had deemed. But logic and religion seem to be the antithesis of one another. You Turbo, if I could be so bold as to suggest, appear to be a genuine enquirer and for that reason, for the moment at least, an Agnostic. It is possible for us to argue with you (as opposed to bickering with GG). Argument can lead to enlightenment but bickering gets nobody anywhere and is a waste of electrons. In a way we are all agnostic in that nobody can prove or disprove the existence of a divinity whether it is Yaweh or Shiva or Jupiter or Zeus. Even Dawkins is prepared to admit the possibility of Intelligent Design by a divinity. He just says there is no evidence for it and that if there were such an entity the question of who created the creator remains unanswered. Scientists and genuine enquirers are comfortable or even joyous that they don't know it all, that there is so much more to discover. Theists are joyous because they have the answer to everything and for some of them it is not 42 or Shiva or Zeus but Golf Oscar Delta. And that's no skin off my nose unless they want to impose their peculiar beliefs on me and prosecute me for what they perceive as blasphemy.