Reply #53: In case you actually wanted answers...

[darkstar3]

What is "illogical" about believing that there might be a universal intelligence or plan that we are not entirely familiar with?
The illogic lies in the word "believing", because with absolutely no evidence or solid and irrefutable logical processes to back up this idea, it is no different than imagination. To believe it, to TRULY believe it, is illogical.

What is illogical about acknowledging that science is extremely good at measuring things, but fails when there is nothing to measure?
The illogic lies in the word "failure". Until such time as you can measure something, or at least measure its effects, you cannot authoritatively claim that it exists. As such, to call lack of measurement a scientific "failure" is to stand on a false premise or an unprovable assumption, making such statements illogical.

What is illogical about exploring the possibilities that there are ways of gaining knowledge beyond our five senses?
Everything. Tell me one way in which people have been irrefutably recorded as gaining knowledge from something other than their five senses. You can't do it, and neither can the Bible. In the Bible, when God supposedly speaks to people, he does so through at least one if not more than one of their normal five senses. People always see burning bushes, hear voices, and so on. We have zero evidence that other senses exist, and dedicating time and money to the search for those very possibly imagined senses is illogical in the face of real problems that require real solutions, like heart disease or juvenile diabetes.

While I have no argument with the Big Bang, come on now-- it's really no easier to prove than Quaker or Unitarian understandings of God. Fits right in with a lot of Buddhist thought, too, without stretching too much.
That is not true. Any understanding of a supreme being is far too complex and nebulous to ever be able to prove, and the necessity for such first movers is not borne out by logic. We have no measurements, no physical evidence, no logical arguments that could even approach "proving" the existence of a supreme being.

The Big Bang Theory, on the other hand, is a scientific theory and not a hypothesis, which means that we have evidence to back up the idea. Evidence in the form of radiometric measurements and Hubble telescope data, evidence in the form of local universal consistencies in acceleration, composition, and directional movement. We have all sorts of data, and there may well come a day where we build a telescope capable of seeing to the very center of the universe and proving the Theory once and for all.

In short, the Big Bang Theory will be far easier to prove or disprove than any understanding of something we might call god.