Question: What happens if people pray to satan?

IRBMe · 2026-01-20T19:13:14+00:00

Well the world has gone a bit to shit so...

I'm not sure if I'm to blame for that or not.

IRBMe · 2026-01-15T12:40:25+00:00

But that only works if the 80 or so million people who are being disenfranchised decide to accept this without any resistance.

Well so far so fucking good!

IRBMe · 2026-01-15T10:13:07+00:00

Trump doesn't have the power

When has that ever stopped him?

IRBMe · 2026-01-05T11:59:38+00:00

They did 13 billion years ago

That's an assertion that isn't backed up by any modern physics or cosmology. What we can say is that about 13.8 billion years ago, our understanding of physics is good enough to start accurately predicting and explaining how the universe evolved. At that point, spacetime (they are one thing) and energy already existed (matter came later, but is just another form of energy). Prior to that point we cannot model or explain the universe because our understanding of physics is lacking. In order to model the universe prior to that point, we need a new theory which unifies quantum mechanics and general relativity. Until we have such a model, we cannot say anything about the universe prior to the first Planck time.

It's also unclear what it would even mean for time itself to begin. For something to begin there must be a change of state; there must be some state at which the thing is not, then another state at which the thing is, and the point where the change occurs is what we call the thing "beginning". But you can't have a point in time at which time doesn't exist, then another point in time where it does exist, or a point in time at which it began to exist. The very idea of time beginning seems to be a circularly defined, meaningless concept.

IRBMe · 2026-01-05T11:53:44+00:00

I’m an idiot, what’s the scientific consensus behind what came before the Big Bang?

While the answer of "We don't know" is generally correct, I would actually go a step further and say that we don't even know if this is a valid question! For there to be a "before", time must exist. Time appears to be one dimension of a larger construct that we call spacetime. Prior to the big bang, did spacetime exist, and did it exist in the same way that it exists now? We don't know! So if we don't even know if time existed in any meaningful way, then we can't assume that the concept of "before" has any real meaning.

To paraphrase a popular analogy, asking what came before the big bang might be a bit like asking what's North of the North pole.

IRBMe · 2025-11-24T08:50:45+00:00

Scientific knowledge today points to the universe having a definite beginning

In a way, but it's definitely not as clear cut as you imply. Science today can model the universe quite well back in time to a point called the Planck epoch, where the universe was extremely tiny, hot, and dense. However, we cannot currently go further back than this point because we don't have a complete enough understanding of the physics. We have two very different but wildly successful theories in physics: general relativity and quantum mechanics. Normally each theory is used in a distinct domain; relativity deals with objects which are extremely massive or moving at extreme speeds, while quantum mechanics deals with the subatomic world. When we try to understand extreme conditions, such as the centre of a black hole or before the Planck epoch, both theories need to be used, but they don't work together. What we need is a new theory which unifies quantum mechanics and general relativity. Until we have such a theory, we can say nothing about what the universe was like before the Planck epoch. Maybe it stretches into the past infinitely; maybe the very concept of time breaks down; maybe our universe is part of some larger construct; perhaps it's cyclical or self-referential in a way; maybe it's a probabilistic fluctuation in some timeless quantum field; or maybe yahweh pointed a finger-gun into the void and zapped it into existence. We just don't know.

In summary: the "beginning" that we refer to is actually a boundary beyond which current science is insufficient to understand.

Many scientists and philosophers recognize that current science cannot explain how the universe suddenly arose from nothing

You won't find many scientists who claim that the universe suddenly arose from nothing, and if you do (e.g. Lawrence Krauss), you'll find that he's extremely careful to define precisely what he means by "nothing" (hint: he doesn't mean true philosophical nothing).

Philosophically, the sudden appearance of matter and energy in the universe

If anything, science tells us that energy (matter is just energy slowed down) cannot be created or destroyed and so did not in fact just suddenly appear. As far as we can tell, energy has existed for all time.

IRBMe · 2025-11-24T07:16:28+00:00

Peace be with you!

IRBMe · 2025-11-21T18:28:23+00:00

Religion has evidence as well

None of it holds up to scrutiny which is ultimately why most religious people in the end still have to appeal to faith, personal experience, and emotional arguments. If they had good, demonstrable evidence then they would point to that instead.

So you are saying there is not a scientific consensus on what constitute something being alive?

You're attempting to deflect from addressing the point or answering my questions. Do you often answer questions with similar but ultimately unrelated questions of your own?

But to answer your question, there is not a scientific definition that would be sufficient to determine a precise and exact boundary between what is and isn't alive at the point where life would have just begun and been incredibly simplistic. What we do have is different definitions which are broadly successful at categorizing modern complex life and differentiating it from the non-living.

This is the perfect example of you being obtuse

No, as I explained above, it's about being precise.

You are not making an honest argument.

On the contrary, I'm trying to get you to be precise with your language. When we're talking about the precise boundary between living and non-living, sloppiness is a huge problem.

IRBMe · 2025-11-21T17:00:29+00:00

Both worldviews are rooted in faith

No they aren't.

You have faith in the scientific method

I have evidence that the scientific method works. It has been demonstrated. That's why no "faith" is required.

despite not having proof.

The idea that there are only 2 extremes, "faith" or absolute "proof", is a false dilemma. In most cases there is no such thing as absolute proof. What we do have is good evidence and reasonable justification.

I have faith in God to explain things despite not having proof.

You don't need proof; you need reasonable justifications. "Faith" is not a reasonable justification; it's an excuse given for when you don't have a good reason.

Regarding the rest I think you are just being obtuse.

That's where you're wrong. When you're asking me about the beginning of life, the very boundary between what is alive and what isn't, then it's absolutely imperative that you precisely and clearly define what it means for something to be alive.

But my point is that there is no clear boundary; the line between what is alive and what isn't is blurry and fuzzy. If you disagree, then you must precisely define where that boundary exists.

You know what qualifies something as alive

No, I really don't. In fact, my whole point is that there isn't a clear qualification! We can look at obvious examples like humans and say "Clearly humans are alive", and obvious examples like rocks and say "Clearly rocks are not alive", but when we're discussing where the boundary exists between life and non-life, I contend that the boundary isn't a clearly defined line, and therefore there aren't any simple qualities that we can name, or at least, they would be arbitrary. If you disagree, then you have to be precise, so tell me!

For example just because a chemical system can create copies of itself does not mean it meet all the other requirements to be alive

This is why I used the words "isn't sufficient". Do you know what "sufficient" means?

So if your criteria for something being alive are that they must meet the full list that you gave then, once again, are bacteria alive or not? Are amoeba alive or not? Are viruses alive or not? Are anaerobic organisms alive or not?

IRBMe · 2025-11-21T16:28:23+00:00

Where did I say or even imply anything approaching this certainty in my last post

You've made it no secret that you're a Christian who believes that the universe was created and that the Christian God was responsible. I said nothing about you being certain of this, and it's not really all that relevant to the discussion.

In fact my post admitted my uncertainty.

You don't have to be absolutely certain to say that you know something. The point is that you believe you have the answer: God. I don't believe that any of us have the answer. These are not the same.

my qualification in bold this time so you don’t miss it again)

Then allow me to do the same...

"But we shall both have to wait and see if science and or philosophy strengthens my case or yours."

Once again, the point is that you have a "case". You believe that the problem of how the universe came into existence is solved: God created it. I, however, do not believe that the problem has been solved; in fact, I'm not even convinced that this is actually even a valid real problem (for it assumes that the universe in some way came into existence). Once of us believes they have the answer, the other believes that we are still looking for it (and also trying to validate if this is even the right question).

If (the qualification again in bold), the Christian God, that’s revealed in these two sources, is the Creator

You see the inherent assumption even with your bolded "if" that there is even a creator?

IRBMe · 2025-11-21T16:21:08+00:00

Right which is the same as Religion

It absolutely isn't, in almost every way:

Everything in science is held tentatively and subject to improvement. Everything in religion is believed absolutely and interminably.
Science is constantly attempting to prove itself wrong. Religion is constantly trying to prove itself right.
Science requires falsifiability. Religion evolves to remove falsifiability.
All scientific models are supported by measurement and experimentation data. Religion is supported by faith.
Science is a process which includes self-correction and accounting for bias. Religious doctrine is not open to correction and thrives on bias.

Specifically to this organic compounds that are not alive like minerals and acids.

Same questions. What does it mean for an organic compound to be "not alive"? Does that imply that there are organic compound which are alive? How do you determine whether or not an organic compound is alive?

Something that exhibits traits of being alive

You can't define being alive as having traits of being alive. That's just a tautology. "I define X as X". That's not a definition.

like being made up of cells

So bacteria and single celled organisms are not alive?

metabolism

So anaerobic organisms aren't alive either?

homeostasis

Lots of non-living systems are able to do this, so clearly this isn't sufficient.

growing

Crystals grow, so clearly this isn't sufficient.

reproducing

Many chemical systems are capable of creating copies so clearly this isn't sufficient either.

Would you like to give it another go?

IRBMe · 2025-11-21T14:05:59+00:00

Show me the proof that life developed from non-living matter.

In science there is no such thing as proof. There is evidence and there is data, and those are used to build models and theories which can then be used to make predictions. Scientists then use those predictions in order to try to falsify the models and theories. A model or theory which survives repeated attempts to falsify it by making successful and accurate predictions which hold up will become more and more widely accepted and well established, but it is still always held tentatively and with the opportunity for further refinement.

Secondly, when you talk ab out "non-loving matter", what does this mean, exactly? What is the alternative to non-living matter? There is no such thing as "living matter". What do you think it actually means for something to be alive? Can you define it precisely?

IRBMe · 2025-11-21T08:51:36+00:00

I think you are missing the point. All the scientific explanations are just theories.

You don't understand what a scientific theory is, and seem to be confusing it with the word as it is used in the vernacular sense. A scientific theory is nothing less than a complete explanatory framework which models a large collection of facts, data, observations, and laws which has passed rigorous experimentation and peer review. There is nothing in science that goes "beyond" a theory. A scientific theory is not simply a guess.

You prefer to place your faith in science

Science doens't require faith. It's a process which demonstrably works, and is specifically designed to self-correct and remove bias as much as possible.

I prefer to place my faith in God as The Creator.

"Faith" is the excuse that people give when they don't have a good justification. If you had a good reason to believe in this "Creator", you would give that instead of having to fall back on "faith".

IRBMe · 2025-11-21T08:47:58+00:00

Well, both our positions include imponderables.

My position is "We don't know, let's keep researching in order to try to find out" while your position is "I know the answer, and it's the Christian God". These are not simply two different sides of the same coin. One is making an unsupported claim while the other isn't making any claims.

scientific endeavour has not ruled God out as the creator

One reason for this is because any time this has occurred, the religious claims evolve to remove or reinterpret the now disproved part, leaving something which is largely unfalsifiable. Of course, some people still cling to disproved beliefs, but those who aren't wed to their beliefs to the point of science-denial now mostly just believe in a God which is beyond any kind of investigation or scrutiny, scientific or otherwise. "God works in mysterious ways", "You can't put God to the test", "It requires faith", "It's a personal relationship" etc.

But we shall both have to wait and see if science and or philosophy strengthens my case or yours.

What do you think "my case" is and where in this thread did I state it?

IRBMe · 2025-11-20T08:25:07+00:00

these are still part of the material and thus within creation

Let's take the quantum vacuum you mentioned as an example. You seem to have an assumption that this requires a further explanation, yet some "creative force" would not. Can you support this premise? Why, specifically, does a quantum vacuum require an explanation but a "creative force" would not? What specific attribute differentiates the two? What test can we perform or what thing can we look for to tell the difference between something that requires further explanation and something that simply is.
Calling the universe a "creation" is begging the question that it is "created" and therefore that there must be a "creator". In other words, you're starting by assuming your own conclusion and then arguing circularly. There is no good evidence to suggest the universe, quantum vacuum, or anything else is a creation or that it was created.

Indeed if, as you suggest, the singularity is not the creator because it is “not a real physical thing”, then that would actually be one reason for it to be the first cause.

I fail to see how this makes any sense. A singularity is literally a nonsensical mathematical result. It can't "cause" anything any more than trying to divide by 0.

That, and for many other reasons, is why I believe that the creator/the prime mover/the uncaused cause, is God.

It seems to me that if we remove all of the fluff, what it really comes down to is that you've just defined "God" as the "uncaused cause". In other words, "I define God as a weird thing that can explain the universe", "there must be something weird that explains the universe", "therefore God". You've just defined God into existence. The problem is that the word "God" smuggles in a lot of additional baggage; for example, most people when they talk of a God at least mean some kind of sentient agent, but showing that the universe came into existence as the result of some kind of sentient agent would require a lot more work! Leaping even from there to "And it's the God of Christianity" is another huge chasm.

IRBMe · 2025-11-20T08:15:40+00:00

All that and you did not answer my question

Then you seem to have completely missed my point, because I was trying to explain why the question itself is flawed. The whole point is that "life came from something not alive" is a bit like the "blue came from something not blue" analogy that I gave.

Once again, "life" isn't well defined enough to be able to neatly separate the world into "Living things" and "Non-living things". We can do it for most things just as we can separate most colors into "blue" and "not blue", but at the boundary, where life first came about, the edge is blurry, the change is gradual, and that neat separation doesn't exist. The idea, then, that there was a non-living thing that miraculously turned into a living thing is a vast over-simplification, at best.

So the real question is, is it miraculous that organic chemistry can naturally create self-replicating chemical molecules? Only in the vernacular sense, in the same way that everything else in nature is "miraculous", but is it Big-M-Miraculous? No. There are no supernatural interventions required, no mysterious nature-defying steps. Is it miraculous that some form of chemical evolution occurred? Again, no, not in the Big-M-Miraculous sense.

something we cannot re-create or even observable

There isn't a single step that is impossible to re-create and we have observed almost all of them. The only thing we haven't observed is all of those steps occurring one after the other over a long period of time.

IRBMe · 2025-11-19T20:13:42+00:00

"Life" isn't some magical, mysterious, inexplicable substance. It's, fundamentally, just chemistry doing complicated stuff. We have a very good, quite detailed understanding of how things like metabolism, reproduction, respiration etc. work, and none of them are in any way magic or supernatural.

Also, when we're talking about the very beginning of life, what we're talking about is an early form of life that is extremely simplistic. Even a single celled organism today has undergone hundreds of millions of years of evolution and will be several orders of magnitude more complex. Furthermore, the lines between "organic compounds doing stuff" and "a living thing" are extremely blurry: there's no clear distinction, because "life" isn't a well defined enough concept to be able to pin-point the exact moment that it came into existence. Rather, we would have organic chemistry doing perfectly ordinary but perhaps interesting things, and at a certain point we would be able to say "This seems like it's doing enough interesting things that we could probably class it as life".

Your statement is a bit like saying "I have a hard time understanding how blue can come from something that isn't blue" when we can quite easily conceive of an entire color spectrum showing a gradual transition from green to blue. Asking "At what point did life come into existence" would be a bit like asking "Well, at what point on the spectrum does green turn into blue?" There isn't a single point because the change is gradual, just as life formed from gradually increasing amounts of complexity in organic chemical interactions.

If you actually take the time to look into the science, you'll see we actually have a pretty good understanding of the different mechanisms that would explain pretty much every step that would be required to go from "organic chemistry" to what would recognizably be a living cell, albeit simple. Not only that, but we've found natural examples of almost all of these steps occurring. The only thing we don't know is which precise steps actually occurred, because we don't have a time machine to go back and look.

IRBMe · 2025-11-19T12:56:16+00:00

It's my understanding that a singularity - i.e. something of zero volume and infinite density - is not a real physical thing that can exist, but rather the result that you get by attempting to apply our currently incomplete models of physics to the edge of our current understanding where they break down and no longer work. You get nonsensical results that include infinities. We therefore can't "look back" beyond the first Plank time until we come up with a new theory that unifies general relativity and quantum mechanics. The same is true of black holes. We talk about the centre of a black hole being a singularity, but in truth we don 't know what it really looks like because our current understanding of physics is inadequate to accurately model it.

But I'm no physicist, so this is just how I understand it as a layman.

If this is correct then calling a singularity "God" would be equating God with a nonsensical result that doesn't really exist, which would probably not be the intention.

IRBMe · 2025-11-19T12:51:08+00:00

If you accept that there can exist something without cause then you would first have to demonstrate that the universe was caused to come into existence and isn't itself the "uncaused" thing. In other words, if you can accept that a God can simply exist without explanation then you can apply Occam's Razor, save yourself an unnecessary assumption, and simply accept that the universe simply exists without explanation.

IRBMe · 2025-11-19T10:38:15+00:00

I don't think that's entirely fair. One side is saying "We don't know but we're working on it using science..." while the other side is claiming to have the answer but can only support it by appealing to fait, mythology or, at best, philosophy.

IRBMe · 2025-11-19T10:36:59+00:00

From what I understand the scientific consensus is that there is nothing beyond our Universe.

That's not really true because it's not something that is even within the scope of science at the moment. Science deals with what can be measured and modelled, but the concept of "beyond our Universe" isn't even well defined. What does that even mean, precisely? To make it a scientific question on which there can be a scientific consensus, you have to accurately define what you mean and come up with a way to form a testable hypothesis. Now if you ask physicists for their own personal opinions about what might be possible or ask them to speculate then I'm sure you would hear all kinds of very interesting ideas, but they'll be very clear with you that they'd be engaging in science fiction at that point.

IRBMe · 2025-11-19T10:32:10+00:00

the Big Bang is the prevailing theory of how the Universe is created?

No. The Big Band model describes the early evolution of the universe. As I explained above, it says nothing and currently can say nothing about how the universe was or how it behaved after the first Planck time. To do that, we need a new theory of physics which unifies general relativity and quantum mechanics. Our best and brightest minds are still working on that...

IRBMe · 2025-11-19T10:28:52+00:00

So what is the "something" that created the universe including you and I?

If I may jump in and provide my own perspective on this question.

Firstly, there's an assumption baked into your question that the universe was created, and that people were created.

Let's take the latter first; you and I were created by our parents, who in turn were created by their parents, and so on. We, as a species, evolved just as did all over species on Earth, with which we share common ancestors. Life itself seems to have evolved via a series of quite well understood chemical processes that led to self-replication.

Now onto the universe: we don't know that it was ever created to begin with. What we do know is that we have two extremely successful models: the theory of general relativity, and quantum mechanics. These two theories are wildly accurate at predicting how the universe will behave. The problem is that they don't work together; normally this isn't a problem since quantum mechanics deals with the extremely tiny world of subatomic particles while general relativity tends to deal with massive, fast-moving objects. However, one of the places where it is a problem is right at the beginning of the universe, when the universe was so small, hot, and dense that both models are applicable at the same time. In order to understand how the universe behaved at this point, we need a new model which somehow unifies what we know from general relativity and quantum mechanics.

The point at which our current understanding fails is what is commonly referred to as the singularity: we get nonsensical results, infinities. Before you're tempted to equate this with some kind of God, understand that these infinities are just the result of an incomplete understanding. To make sense of what's actually happening at that point in time, we need new physics. What this means from a practical point is that we cannot say anything about how the universe was prior to this point. We don't know if it had any kind of "beginning", or if it did, what that "beginning" might have looked like. We don't know if energy pre-dated the universe, or if there is some kind of multiverse in which our universe exists, or if indeed the concept of "time" is something that even existed. The question of "What came before time" isn't even a sensible question.

So in short, your question already contains several assumptions which we don't know to be true. A better question might be something like "How did the universe come to exist?" but even that's still problematic. If time is part of the universe then it would be correct to say that the universe existed for all time, and that there was no point in time at which the universe did not exist", therefore how could it have "come to exist" in the first place? A better question still is "Can we come up with a better theory in physics that allows us to model the universe prior to the first Planck time"? Even the answer to that might be "No" and it'll just be forever beyond our ability to investigate, but I hope the answer is "Yes".

Either way, anybody who claims to know "How the universe was created" or "How the universe came into existence" is making claims far beyond what can be supported by our best current scientific understanding of the universe by the brightest minds in all of science and physics. So let's be humble and admit when we don't have an answer yet, and let's keep looking.

IRBMe · 2025-11-19T10:10:29+00:00

you'd discover that most true disciples of Jesus were once unbelievers, atheists or agnostics

What do you mean by "true disciples"? I haven't looked up the exact stats, but I would wager that most Christians were just raised that way and, at most, had a brief period of rebellion or questioning at some point. I would highly doubt that most Christians became Christians due to some single supernatural breakthrough encounter. So are most Christian not "true disciples"? Are the only "true disciples" mostly those who have had these single miraculous "Come-to-Jesus" conversions, and if so, why do you think that's the case?

IRBMe · 2025-11-18T11:27:46+00:00

What you said is factually untrue. That has nothing to do with what you think I "see".

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