With what little we do actually understand about our Universe, planet, and life, we believe it is all relative to one another. We believe the same elements, energy, laws of physics that apply to holding our Universe together, applies to our planet and down to life itself. The same bacteria in space is similar to that on our planet and within our own genetic makeup. DNA brings this view into proper perspective. And Science has no issue claiming everything relates. Even the theory of Evolution indicates that everything relates.

That seems like a Giant Carbon Footprint that everything is relative to one another. And it brings to focus more on lines of Intelligent Design. Intelligent Design on its own merit indicates a "Purpose." Like the vast continually growing Universe that is related to Galaxies, stars, planets, and even to life itself.

I could definitely agree to this big God not caring if nothing was relative to one another. But even DNA reveals we as humans are only separated by .003%. That is literally just shaking the piss off.

The fact that everything does relate, Universe down to Species, that reveals Thought, Intention, Design. That is more than enough to put God into the position of caring. Even if it was only for the condition of Creation.

I agree, the entire Universe relates to everything.
To assume this has a divine meaning is still merely an assumption.

Ultimately, everything everywhere is composed of matter or energy or a combination.
You are assuming that because matter exists and energy exists it MUST be from some design with a purpose.
This idea translates to the idea that everything has a purpose and exists in some grand design.

I'm saying that matter is a result of forces that combine in a chaotic way and energy is the actual substance in which all matter exists.
We have proven energy exists in matter when we created the atomic bomb.
The stars are a natural example of the cycle of matter to energy back to matter in random chaotic interactions.

Mass causes gravity.
Gravity reacts to mass.
When gravity causes enough mass, energy is released and it all starts over again.
It is a reaction not a divine plan.
The reaction happens all thru the Universe constantly at differing degrees.
The action is chaotic.

However, consider this...
All chaos might possibly have a pattern but we can't fathom that pattern because we do not understand everything, everywhere, everywhen.
Chaos may not even exist.
Everything might have a pattern.
However, until someone knows everything, everywhere, everywhen, we will never actually know.
Only God would know and I admit, I do not know God so I can't assume to know whether there ios a plan to the chaos or not.

But, what does this have to do with the Big Bang?
A condition due to the result of something else?

Consider this...
What we detect is not the state of reality.
If we detect Proxima Centauri (our nearest star not the Sun) at 4.5 light years away, if we were to shoot a laser at that star it will have move 9 light years from where we detected it by the time our laser light reached that spot.

We detected light 4.5 light years away, we shot a laser at the speed of light at that target.
From the time it took for its light to reach our eyes was 4.5 years. Our laser at the speed of light took 4.5 years to reach that spot.
During all that time, Proxima Centauri moved on its natural path.
It is not where we sent our laser. we are off by 9 years.

During that 9 years, any lifeform on a planet in that system has aged 9 years.
We can't see that, all we see is the light from the star.
We have no idea what is going on in that system.

Lets ramp it up.

We detect a star 1,000 light years away.
We still have no idea what is going on in that system but we shoot a laser at it.
We miss that star by 2,000 years.
2,000 years has gone by before the laser we shoot reaches that area and we missed it completely.

Now, ramp that up to 13.7 Billion years.
That star detected by the Hubble Deep Field took 13.7 Billion years to get here. By the time we see it, that star has existed for 13.7 BILLION years.
Or not.
Our Sun will exist a max 12 billion years.
The stars in the Hubble Deep Field are probably long dead.
The fact that we detect their light is insignificant to the current state of reality.

None of that light tells us anything about the reality of life or existence.
All it tells us is at one time, there was a source of light at that particular position in space.
We can't detect some alien's graduation ceremony or their first born or their death.
Just the fact that light left their star at that particular time in that particular place in space as we detect it.

Granted, there is significance in the fact that we can detect such light sources but those light sources alone are actually insignificant in the determination of whether God might exist or not.

I've read that we can detect light from within 3 seconds or so from the Big Bang.
So freaking what?
It fails to explain what actually caused the Big Bang and what transpired during that lapse in accounting?

Even before what initiates what, I am definitely assuming that God and His ways are much more advanced than ours. And what appears to us as chaos, could appear to God as His plan in motion. Technically, anything a God would choose to do could be considered trivial since a God lacks nothing and needs nothing. But ultimately for me, it is DNA that proves God had a personal hand involved.

This statement is directly from the man who was sole responsible for mapping the human DNA structure, Dr. Francis Collins, "It is humbling for me and awe inspiring to realize that we have caught the first glimpse of our own instruction book, previously known only to God."

Just some incredible information provided by Dr. Francis Collins concerning DNA.
DNA in our cells is very similar to an intricate computer program.

What is amazing is that within the tiny space in every cell in your body, this code is three billion letters long!!

To grasp the amount of DNA information in one cell, "a live reading of that code at a rate of three letters per second would take thirty-one years, even if reading continued day and night."
^
That bit of info alone, outside of my Faith in God, reveals He cared about His Creation. He cared enough to program each one of us through Genetics, at the point of cellular molecules, specifically DNA!!

hahahahaha, but it is all fascinating. I think being in the field of Science would be not just challenging, but like an adventure that doesn't stop till you die. It floors me, and why my own studies confirm many in Science are definitely suffering from one or more Psychological Disorders. Because a "Sane Human Being," would gather all of this evidence and just know there is a God!!

I guess I am insane because I gather that so-called evidence I am still unsure.

Consider this.

We know light detected moving away from us is retrograde, in redshift.
The Big Bang is supposedly the beginning of the Universe but we detect no retrograde light.

Something vital is missing from this equation.

If it were the actual beginning, would we not detect light moving away from that start?
The fact that we detect no light moving away indicates we are observing a one-sided view or, more likely, we don't know the whole story.

Why can't we detect light in redshift at 13.8 billion years?
Till that question is answered all bets are off.
Do we have to wait around for another 100,000,000 years to find out?

The Big Bang is a wonderful idea if you are a monkey.

As for God, who freaking knows, make up your own ideas and if you believe them, its good enough for me, whatever gives you peace.
I have my own ideas and they are based on more than assumption.

DNA: deoxyribonucleic acid
Is a chemical acid resulting from chemical compounds that occur naturally in the Universe in different combinations.
DNA alone does not produce life.
There are 'other requirements' including heat, gravity and radiation.
Only when the requirements occur in a specific combination during the right conditions does life occur.

The only correct conditions we are aware of occur on this plane at this time in its evolution. Those conditions in the right circumstances might occur elsewhere in the Universe but we are not privy to those examples so, we think life only occurs here because that is the only example we have to base that assumption.
It could be rather common in the Universe.

The fact that DNA exists is not 'proof' of God but merely proof that a chemical reaction can happen somewhere in the Universe and that it happens on this particular planet.

Like the Big Bang, it is a one-sided assumption.

Here, pay attention, this is important.
I don't need to prove my belief in God.
I am not threatened by others beliefs.
I feel what I feel and it makes sense to me.
I only wonder why your belief is not as strong.
It tells me a bit about your faith in your belief if you need to try to justify your belief in God to the point you would question mine?

We are different people and I understand you believe what you believe yet it seems you can't allow me to believe what I believe?
They we have the issue of going off-topic (the topic is The Big Bang) to try to convince me my beliefs are wrong.
Imagine what others think?
Are we fueling the issue here?

Dude, you don't need to justify your beliefs to me.
Whatever gives you inner peace is okay with me.
If it isn't giving you inner peace, its your decision to explore alternatives.
Just know, I take no offense and require nothing from you.
All I am doing is giving you my own opinion to consider.

Back on the Big Bang....

If the Universe occurred resultant from an explosion (which the Big Bang implies to the layman) you would think we could roll back the clock and detect an origin.
We can't detect an origin.
That tells me there either wasn't a big bang or the idea is an assumption.

If we are existing within an explosion of matter, we should see a directionality in reality, yet, space/matter seems to be erupting all over at differing rates.
Explain that?

I think for the simple fact, that you believe something bigger than the Universe itself created the Universe.. puts you on terms of seeing the whole picture in a "Sane" manner. It's like the "Agnostic," they see the "big picture" but aren't willing to apply terms to it. But deep within themselves, there is a want to believe, even when their mind produces numerous questions they have no answers to.

My point about DNA is that it reveals a structure and design that cannot be the result of "randomness." In fact, even if we followed the Evolutionary Path, we can see where nothing is as specific and defined as DNA itself is. Nothing is as complex. Nothing that "Inherited Traits, "General Genetics," "Natural Selection" could ever produce on the scale so infinite as DNA has been defined to be. It without a doubt, is the result of Intelligent Design!!

I am not justifying, I actually enjoy being able to express my thoughts towards my personal views of Who I believe God is. I feel your views match very closely to what Einstein has claimed, by following what Spinoza defined. So, I am not thrusting my idealisms at you, for that very reason. I am under the impression that if God is big enough to Design how we understand our Universe to be, He is complex enough to even be a part of His own human Creation. Down to the point that He is able to make Himself appear as human, since He does after all, have the schematics He used to Create the human.

I definitely see God from your viewpoint, plus adding my own viewpoint, making what I feel sort of completes some of the "Big Picture Idea" of what and who God is. I feel I could add any trait, skill, profession, characteristic and I am correctly defining God. Even when I make God Personable!!



The Bang:
I go by the KOBE TELESCOPE Experience. Even Krauss, once at ASU, confirmed Atheist, has changed his own views towards the "Bang." Where we once thought the "Bang" was a result of energy, shrinking/expansion, Laws of Physics, and Singularity...now has reversed in the belief we don't know why the "Bang" happened, but as result of the "Bang," we now have energy, Laws of Physics, and Singularity.

So what once was believed to have caused the "Bang," is now believed to be the "result of the Bang!!"

Now we have the "Soup Theory," but everyone in their right mind knows that is fishing expedition that won't give us the correct results. But it does allow the "Atheist" to keep an idea outside of accepting God. And on "Intelligent Design," no one wants to go to the God route, so they claim "Alien."

Well, truth be told, to the "Atheist," God is an Alien!!

All which assumes God has personality which nobody can actually know?
Assuming God is a "Him" is also something nobody could know?
Then there is assuming God shares human reasoning which is barely 1,000 years old in a Universe over 13.7 billion years old?
All this assuming attempts to place God within human understanding.
In all the Universe, why us?


Intelligent design, just like the big bang, is merely a human assumption about something we couldn't possibly understand.

I am going to throw the proverbial monkey wrench at you this time. Basically, it appears that you have no issue believing in a God that created the Universe, you just have a problem with what past humans believed to be as God, including their hand written materials.

You would seem to feel God is (3rd time mentioning this) more on line to what Einstein and Spinoza explained.

I love "Ancient Cultures." I believe we benefit tremendously from previous human beings and how they survived, how they performed their tasks, how they went about trying to advance medical, science, mathematics, philosophy, etc...

In my opinion, one of the greatest "Ancient peoples and Civilizations" were the Greeks. So much of how we live, how we govern, our mottos, our philosophies, our laws were structured from the "Ancient Greek People."

One of the phenomenal habits the Greeks seemed to posses, was to write everything down. They wrote their beliefs down, their deities, their idealisms, their philosophies, their history, they were extremely proud people who believed in documenting what was happening around them at the "current moment."

Something that I love and adore about the "Ancient Greeks," they were noisy to other peoples and their customs, and very opinionated.

But while being noisy and opinionated, they steadily documented even what was happening with the other cultures, their beliefs, their habits. The Greeks made everyone around them a literal "Case Study."

And one of those case studies dealt directly with the Hebrew/Jewish God, specifically the "Real Life Person of Yeshua (Jesus the Christ)."

Not only do the Greeks prove Yeshua (Jesus was Real, not a myth), but they prove that Yeshua performed great miracles, was called God, was crucified, the sun darkened during His Crucifixion, He was buried, and He Resurrected showing proof of the nail marks in His hands and feet, and that the belief in Him spread from generation to generation, Century to Century.

Just 3 examples I am presenting...I have 7 all together (many Greeks wrote about this Yeshua (Jesus) fellow):


Thallus (52 AD)
Thallus is perhaps the earliest secular writer to mention Jesus. Julius Africanus, writing around 221AD does quote Thallus who previously tried to explain away the darkness occurring at Jesus’ crucifixion:

“On the whole world there pressed a most fearful darkness; and the rocks were rent by an earthquake, and many places in Judea and other districts were thrown down. This darkness Thallus, in the third book of his History, calls, as appears to me without reason, an eclipse of the sun.” (Julius Africanus, Chronography, 18:1)


Phlegon (80-140 AD)
In a manner similar to Thallus, Julius Africanus also mentions a historian named Phlegon who wrote a chronicle of history around 140AD. In this history, Phlegon also mentions the darkness surrounding the crucifixion in an effort to explain it:

“Phlegon records that, in the time of Tiberius Caesar, at full moon, there was a full eclipse of the sun from the sixth to the ninth hour.” (Africanus, Chronography, 18:1)

Phlegon is also mentioned by Origen (an early church theologian and scholar, born in Alexandria):

“Now Phlegon, in the thirteenth or fourteenth book, I think, of his Chronicles, not only ascribed to Jesus a knowledge of future events . . . but also testified that the result corresponded to His predictions.” (Origen Against Celsus, Book 2, Chapter 14)

“And with regard to the eclipse in the time of Tiberius Caesar, in whose reign Jesus appears to have been crucified, and the great earthquakes which then took place … ” (Origen Against Celsus, Book 2, Chapter 33)

“Jesus, while alive, was of no assistance to himself, but that he arose after death, and exhibited the marks of his punishment, and showed how his hands had been pierced by nails.” (Origen Against Celsus, Book 2, Chapter 59)


Lucian of Samosata: (115-200 A.D.)
Lucian was a Greek satirist who spoke sarcastically of Christ and Christians, but in the process, he did affirm they were real people and never referred to them as fictional characters:

“The Christians, you know, worship a man to this day—the distinguished personage who introduced their novel rites, and was crucified on that account….You see, these misguided creatures start with the general conviction that they are immortal for all time, which explains the contempt of death and voluntary self-devotion which are so common among them; and then it was impressed on them by their original lawgiver that they are all brothers, from the moment that they are converted, and deny the gods of Greece, and worship the crucified sage, and live after his laws. All this they take quite on faith, with the result that they despise all worldly goods alike, regarding them merely as common property.” (Lucian, The Death of Peregrine. 11-13)

^
These writings were before the Bible ever existed, concerning the New Testament. So, I believe, it's a safe assumption to count these historically correct written documentations as absolute complete fact!! Because later on, from the Apostles and Disciples accounts, they verify what the Greeks wrote and the Greeks verify what Disciples and Apostles wrote.

But the biggest point I wish to make here, is this Yeshua (Jesus) fellow claimed He was the God who did create the Universe and Everything we see n life. He performed miracles that no one has ever been able to repeat or reproduce like walking on the Sea (not a pond or puddle), He spoke to raging storms and rebuked them and the storms just suddenly stopped, people had limbs, ears cut off and He took the limb/ear and spoke and the limb and ear just reattached itself like it was never severed, He allowed the death watch of 4 days in a tomb to end and then by simply speaking to the person dead he was revived after already beginning to decay, and of course, He predicted His own Death and Resurrection.

And the Greeks, atheist to Yeshua (Jesus), non followers and non believers, all wrote about these things that took place in the life of Yeshua (Jesus).

So, just on the account of the Greeks alone, they claim Yeshua (GOD) was personable and in human form.

So just for a moment, let's say these Greeks were accurate and correct in their writings (no reason not to believe them). They alone then, prove God is personable and became human to be with His own Creation. To me, that is just another confirmation of how I see and have been describing my view of God to you!!

This is the crux of the matter. Us humans are incredibly arrogant. Many cannot accept that we are indeed the result of randomness, and Darwin theory explains what happens when nature is left to evolve in its own way over long periods of time.

In order to satisfy the arrogant beliefs of humans that we are so much 'better' than animals we need to invent a God and what better than to use this invention to explain not only the Big Bang but everything else that is beyond our current understanding. In Shakespeare's time it was widely believed that the human body could not possible travel beyond 60mph. Almost every modern car available can travel considerably faster than that, thus proving that a 'belief' of that time was nonsense.

To say that all this is the result of intelligent design is an example of this arrogance. WHY is it the result of intelligent design? It is nothing more than random actions and evolution that we are here and able to discuss these things using our computers to chat with others around the world.

I find that a simpler approach works for me. There is no genuine scientific evidence that could be used as a proof of the existence of some supernatural being. Those religious believers who are scientists are people who think it is a likely explanation, whilst still requiring things beyond our current understanding. Others, like me, accept that while it is a possibility, it is not a likely situation. Before becoming a believer, I will need a great deal more evidence.

I expect that religion will die out as the years go by and we learn to be more humble and accept our place in the order of things.

It is extremely unlikely that we will ever be able to meet and converse with a being from another planet, but if that should ever happen I'm sure we will ask them about their 'belief' systems!

Religion is a comforting thing, especially for the churches here in the UK, full of happy old ladies all confident that because they have been 'good' in their lives they will be rewarded by being allowed to sit at the right hand of their God after they have died. My own belief is that we are advanced animals and when we die, that's it.

One question for you:

How are we arrogant when we are repeating what the very Doctor who mapped DNA claims?


My repetitive posts on DNA correspond to what a SCIENTIST/DOCTOR claims.

Even FORMER RENOWNED ATHEIST British philosopher, Dr. Antony Flew, was a leading spokesperson for atheism, actively involved in debate after debate. However, scientific discoveries within the last 30 years brought him to a conclusion he could not avoid. In a video interview in December 2004 he stated, "Super-intelligence is the only good explanation for the origin of life and the complexity of nature."1 Prominent in his conclusion were the discoveries of DNA. Here's why.

^
This guy is NO LONGER an atheist due to the findings of Dr. Francis Collins, director of the Human Genome Project (that mapped the human DNA structure) !!

I am repeating both of them and especially Dr. Francis Collins.

Ironically, Antony Flew, is from your neck of the woods and was an atheist just like you are. But he saw the scientific discovery and became a believer!!

Look at his comment here:
Just as former atheist Dr. Antony Flew questioned, it is legitimate to ask oneself regarding this three billion letter code instructing the cell...who wrote this script? Who placed this working code, inside the cell? It has to be God.


But as I mentioned already, YOU being a Narcissist does not have the mental capacity to format sound resolutions. So, where Antony Flew was able to see the difference, Your distorted mind is incapable of. You even had a Grandfather who was a preacher and your mental awareness was not able to differentiate anything he was saying. Even your description of his handling the JW's came off as very skewed!!

It is arrogant to believe that there must be more to us (i.e. life after death) when there is no scientific evidence that could prove that. Some scientists are believers but none of them can point to scientifically provable peer-reviewed evidence to support such an idea.

Richard Dawkins claims to pove that there is no God in one of his books. I recommend scientists to read it but admit his 'explanation' for the non-existence of something is a bit beyond my understanding. I can understand evidence for the existence of something but I am such a simple person with a distorted mind, that I find it hard to comprehend how you can 'prove' the 'non-existence' of something.

It is ridiculous to use the argument that because our DNA is so very complicated, only a 'God' could come up with that idea! It is nothing more than the workings of evolution - on such a vast scale that it cannot be understood with the technology we have today. To simply 'give up' the science and say it's so complicated that evolution couldn't do it is just plain silly. You need to broaden your horizons and try to understand the scale involved. Scale is very important in these discussions!

I agree that my mind is distorted and of course I am as stupid as everyone else when it comes to trying to undertstand these things which as of today are beyond our comprehension. Seen from the future, we are all today as people were in the past when they believed that God explains everything they didn't understand.

When the French were cutting off frogs legs they noticed that the legs twitched as they were cut. Today we know the reason and we also know that it is the same phenomenon as lightning. It is electricity, the force we have tamed to do so many wonderful things. The French didn't notice that if you used a knife made of bone or wood the frogs legs did not twitch. It would not have seemed significant. In fact each leg of a frog is at a different potential and a metal knife causes a short circuit, hence the twitch.

There is so much like that which we do not know today and will no doubt learn more about in the future. I read somewhere that half of the human brain is just not used. Why should this be? No doubt we will discover great things, but to give up before science has even found the answer to today's mysterious things is very simplistic. It's what has happened throughout history.

Before Copernicus was excommunicated from the Catholic Church for proving that the earth revolves around the sun and that our solar system is nothing more than a very minor system on the edge of the Milky Way, everyone was so arrogant that they believed the sun was the centre of all that was.

History repeats itself and we will get nowhere if we just accept that there is some sort of divine being that we can blame for everything we don't understand. More and more of things that have been associated with a diving being have been proved to have an explanation that is very ordinary, once we understand it.

Not sure I understand what you are saying about my grandfather. Seems you are trying to twist a simple tale into something complicated. No idea what you could mean by doing that. I was doing nothing more than recounting a tale in which the JWs were trying to 'convert' the man who answered the door by quoting their bible at him. And they didn't like it when he was instantly able to show that the bible is so full of contradictions you can try to 'prove' anthing you like, depending on which bit you quote from. But that is on another thread and off topic for this one.

I once was fascinated with the views of Richard Dawkins. Then I learned he sees a shrink regularly, admits he could suffer from a bit of narcissism, and when he made this claim, "Richard Dawkins Defends 'Mild' Pedophilia, Again and Again..." I knew he was not playing with a full deck of cards, literally a few french fries short of Happy Meal, the elevator did not go all the way to the top...

And now I can see his writings are literally a grouped series of "Delusions."

Which makes me alert of those, who find Richard Dawkins to be credible!!


Try someone else for your example who is not severely mentally twisted!!

LOL?
I have no idea who you are reffing to?
I never met them.

As for the Greeks, one must also account for their interpretations of God.
Again, never witnessed any of it.

While I understand your need to justify your assumptions, I also understand your inability to consider mine.
If your justification give you peace, why do you feel a need to justify your beliefs?

I exist in reality.
I believe the things in which I experience.
Those experiences allow me to form an opinion on how this are/were/will be.
I know I could be wrong.
After-all, its all just my own opinion based on the experiences I personally endure.
If I document my opinions, as I do here, now, it doesn't make my opinion valid.
Only valid to me.

There is a certain understanding one gets when considering the proclaimed truth.
When that truth aligns with reality, its easier to believe.
Problem is, the truths others seem to have never seems to align with the reality I experience.
I sometimes wish it did.
It sure would be much easier but as it is, it never aligns just right?

I wasn't there to witness the big bang.
From the understanding of my fellow human beings, I can understand how it 'could' have happened.
I also experience things in life that works against the status quo.
So as far as I am concerned, there is more to it than humans understand.
While I can accept that unknown, many people can't and need a definite explanation.
This locks them into an assumption.

Human beings have existed merely 2 million years in a Universe over 13.7 billion years old.
Human beings have only been a civilization as a species for less than 1 million years.
There is no way anyone could understand the nature of a vast Universe or any God that might have made it come to pass.

However, even us lowly, infantile humans acknowledged chaos.
Chaos that defines the predisposition of design.

Its easier for me to imagine life is a product of chaos than to think it was intended by some supreme being.
All across the Universe, we witness chaos on a grand scale that permeates the quantum.
Chaos is as fundamental as gravity and time.
It actually gives me inner peace to know there is no grand design in the Universe.
It just makes sense to me and the experiences I have endured.

There are a lot of people looking for a reason why we hurt.
With an intelligent design, we have an answer but, it never fits our circumstances just right.
But, if we understand that the Universe is merely the result of a chain reaction, it gets easier to deal with the hurt we experience.
Intelligent design indicates that everything happens for a reason.
Chaos indicates that things happen because of cause and effect.

Reality just is.
It doesn't care.
Things happen because they happen.
The big bang was a result of something else.
My marriage failed from a result of something else.
I once thought my marriage failed because of something I did but I finally realized it failed because of random chaos.
The same chaos that governs the Universe.
It wasn't till I embraced the reality before me that I found someone just right for me.
I tried forcing it but I failed because I was trying to apply a reasoning that did not align with the chaos.
I had to learn to accept reality and take steps to live within reality.

I have been on the same road to understanding many get stuck on.
I've made the same assumptions about reality.
I found actual inner peace from letting go of my assumptions and accepting reality as it is.
Reality is painful at first.
The longer it is embraced, the easier it gets to accept.

Reality is harsh and unforgiving but it is also truth and unwavering.
The big bang might have happened but why is that so important?
Frankly, I believe the big bang is still happening.
Its not important to the reality I endure as I gain experience during my life.

Fun to speculate but no actual impact on my life experiences.
It is a chain reaction and it could impact my life experiences by relativity but my mind can't operate on that level.
I operate on the here and now.
In the here and now, reality governs my actions.

The Big Bang is still happening as you say. Initially it was violent and kown as 'inflation' similar to blowing up a balloon very fast. The universe is still expanding but much more slowly now, according to the scientists who understand so much more of these things than my 'simple and distorted' mind can comprehend

Isn't this the focus of all religion?

It doesn't matter who you quote.

The ONLY opinion you actually know is true and accurate is your own and if you are not 100% sure, even that is questionable.
To give credence to one but not the other is selective assumption.
The only thing anyone is absolutely sure about is the experiences you endure.
Everything else is hearsay.

Richard Dawkins,
Niel deGrasse Tyson,
Carl Sagan,
Kim Griest,
Albert Einstein,
Stephen Hawking,
All are questionable for many reason but if they tell reality, it doesn't matter.
Reality is whether it is fashionable or not.
It is wrong to make assumptions based on someone elses experience or speculation.

I find issue with each one.
I would never assume they have the answers.
I need to figure that out myself.

Consider this thought:
What if all the other lifeforms on this planet know the reality and our own intelligence is clouding us from an enlightenment that is universal?