tangointhenight wrote:
We don't know anything about the universe. Whats gravity? Whats life? Why does matter exist? Why does matter behave as it does? Why is their attraction? The list goes on and on.
We cannot dismiss black holes, we cannot dismiss God, we cannot dismiss the flying spaghetti monster. Because we don't know what's out their in the universe. You can sit speculate, extrapolate, theorize, test, experiment. etc, etc. But it all boils down to, I don't know. Even the real scientist don't know. No one knows. The only way to know is to explore the entire universe.
Sorry Tango, your logic is flawed and your attitude defeatist. Your last sentence suggests that if we could physically travel the universe we would know all, but even if we could imperviously travel to, say, the center of the sun, we would still be relying on our senses and perhaps tools, to observe the happenings; and we would still be using our judgement to devise or select satisfactory theories. Just because astronomy is a data poor science, does not mean that we can't form reasonably accurate abstract models, though we must proceed in an extraordinarily cautious manner.
You assert that we cannot
know for certain that there are not black holes, but this is not necessarily true. A scientific theory may be disproven at any time, but can never, by definition, be proven. One compelling way to disprove a theory is to show logical flaws in the definition of the theory itself. In the case of Black Holes, the definition consists of mathematical assertions, which are subject to the rules governing logic and mathematics. If Crothers et al have indeed shown such flaws, then end-of-story, we need go no further. Energetic bursts and other phenomenon we observe will simply require alternate explanations.
If you are trying to defend God from science, I wouldn't worry about it; I think he's quite safe. No matter how much we learn, at some level, our knowledge fails us; be it about the mysteries of the cosmos or whether a random virus will be present at a given place, leading to our demise. We must then, at some level, accept our humbling limitations and have some form of faith that there is a purpose for our living and that we'll fulfill it. God's not about to prove himself to a bunch of atheists, and he doesn't need to prove himself to believers.
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence 
