Tom are you saying these people have proved me wrong? In truth these people (and they will be the first to admit) are only giving their speculations as to what they think might be the truth. Your religion attempts to give an absolute answer to things we really don't know to be true. i.e. gives you an explanation and reason to your suffering. Yes I have been entertaing the idea that the origins of the universe are (at this time) beyond our understanding.
You think this is foolishness? I am in good company. The fact that we are inside this universe only allows us limited knowledge as to what it is, Thus you have religion. Thomas Aquinais expaining every little detail yet you yourself know that he was only speculating. I know you have read bios on Thomas Jefferson. To me this guys exemplifys what I believe. Get outside of your limited understanding. Investigate what others have to say, learned. Much of the evangelical church today is saturated with lies. Look at the hipocracy of our "Born Again" president who initiated a war based on lies, killed innocent people over wmd that have yet to be found? In truth the U.S. gave IRAQ 7 starnds of Anthrax in 1980 to fight Iran with. But George who states "Jesus is my best friend" has refused to send aid to libyria because...it's not economicly to our advantage.
Dave,
This post shows that your understanding of science could use some improvement.
Have you ever heard of Einstein? Special and general relativity?
Speculating!!! E=MC2 comes from Einstein's work on special relativity. Just ask the folks from Hiroshima and Nagasaki if he was just speculating.
On general relativity...do you know about Eddington's 1919 confirmation of Einstein's prediction that light could be bent by gravity?
Do you know about Hubble's work on the red shift of distant galaxies, confirming the expansion of the universe?
Do you know about Penzias and Wilson's discovery of the universal microwave background radiation in 1964...confirming Kurt Godel's 1932 prediction that if the universe began in a "Big Bang" that we should find the remnants of its heat at about 3 degrees above absolute zero?
Do you know about Hawking, Penrose, and Ellis' refinements of the theorems of general relativity showing that time and space began at the same time matter and energy did?
You call all this theoretical work and its observational and experimental confirmations "speculation".
Dave, you frequently lecture folks that they need to "get outside of their limited understanding" and read and expand their minds.
So, why don't you get a copy of "God and the Astronomers" by Jastrow, or "The Creator and the Cosmos" by Ross. You will find them mind expanding.
You might try a spelling book as well.
Tom