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God is not dead
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No it doesn't.
No one is doubting the event of the Big Bang. What we are saying is that your assertion that something before the Big Bang must have caused it to happen is unfounded.
Time itself appears to have originated at the Big Bang. "Before" the Big Bang is therefore largely a meaningless concept, like "north of north"
I disagree. Like I pointed out to Mark there are even scientists who are asking about what was there before the big bang so why can’t I? If time, space and matter all start to begin to exist at the moment of the big bang then at some point there was nothing at all, unless you want to postulate that there was in fact something, but that would go against what is practically universally accepted in the scientific world today, that at some point there was nothing.As is the concept of causality, something happening before something else that leads to that something else, applied to the Big Bang itself. How can you have "before" time (outside of Disney). If time itself originated at the Big Bang then there is no before the Big Bang.
That is my point. How can there be something before everything begins to exist? You can’t, so that means there was in fact nothing and from that nothingness everything began to exist. If everything began to exists in the finite past and before that there was nothing then how can everything have come from nothing?"God" does not answer that question. You are left with the question how can God make something from nothing, to which you have no answer beyond saying he is all powerful and can do anything he wants, which isn't actually an explanation it is just an excuse to stop asking the questions.
Here how the New Testament puts it:
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.” John 1:1-5
“In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe.” Hebrews 1:1-2
The New Testament calls Jesus the speaking agent through whom God created the universe. The Word of God if you like. Of the same essence as “The God” but separate and distinct from The God who spoke and nothing became everything. That is how the New Testament describes it and to people back then that is all they needed to know but even today that is remarkably consistent with big bang cosmology. From nothing. Until science can show us that this is not how it happened then we are on safe ground with this view. Not so with the likes of Hinduism which believes that the universe itself is eternal which as the big bang model proves is false.But again there is no evidence that the Big Bang "came from nothing". We have no idea what the Big Bang came from or even if such a concept of coming from something can be applied to the Big Bang.
Therein lies the mystery.Well aside from the fact that that statement is wrong (there are 4 known fundamental forces in the universe that your 26 constants are derived from, and the universe would look approx the same if you changed 1 of them significantly)
Which one could you change “significantly” and still have a similar universe?your assertion assumes that "life as we know it" was some sort of goal rather than simply a product of this universe.
It was (or is one of them) if God did it. If God didn’t do it then yeah, sure it is just a product of the universe and not a goal.There is no evidence for that, and as pointed out the universe does not appear to be at all well tuned for "life as we know it".
No Wick it is fine tuned to permit life, what remains to be answered is how or who fine tuned it?You are also ignoring life as we don't know it, any form of life that could have emerged if the forces were different.
Life as we don’t know it????? How will we ever find that? Think about it. How do we know that rocks aren’t life that we don’t know it? We don’t. Nor can we know it. As soon as we know it then it is just life as we know it again. To get hung up on life as we don’t know it would mean that we will be forever be hung up and therefore makes scientific endeavor futile, because as soon as we find life as we don’t know it, it becomes life as we know it too but even then there will still be life as we don’t know it. Science deals with what we do and can know not what we don’t and can’t know. You can’ hide in this little unverifiable niche when it suits you Wick.But even if this particular universe was quite unlikely (it was by the way, but not for the reasons you are putting forward),that still doesn't imply that it was created for a purpose. This is known as the Antropic Principle
The only way that it wasn’t created for a purpose is if nobody or nothing purposed it. If nobody or nothing purposed it then yeah sure of course it has no purpose, granted. Now you tell me that the universe was quite unlikely but not for the reason I put forward. But how can you be so sure? I know you don’t believe it but that is not the same as knowing it to be so, and if you don’t know then how you can say that the reasons I put forward are wrong? Just say you don’t believe them to be right instead of arbitrarily branding them so as if it were a scientific fact.Any universe like ours will produce life like us. It is not really surprising then that we find ourselves in a universe like we do.
You don’t know that either.Quite the opposite in fact. The idea that the entire universe was created so that we could evolve on a tiny planet in a totally average corner of a totally average galaxy in a totally average galaxy cluster is rather ridiculous.
How do you know that what you call average is not the optimal location in the universe? It has something going for it at least. We live here don’t we? What we do know is that this average cluster, galaxy, planet are just right for what we call life and you cannot get away from that. Until we find a way for the universe to produce life in whatever form we can discern then we have a right to call our average patch of sky prime real estate.It would be like a grain of sand one day thinking that the entire solar system, and the billions of years before it existed, was created to sustain its own existence.
Assuming that things like that could occur to a grain of sand then I don’t see why that grain of sand should think otherwise, why should it? If you contend that the universe has no cause and no purpose then why can’t the grain of sand have this opinion of itself? Are you going to tell it the real reason for the universe in which t finds itself in order that you may sway it from its deluded state? But wouldn’t that presuppose on your part that you think the universe has got a bigger reason other than what the grain of sand thinks? Gotcha!!!
And what has size got to do with it anyway. If you buy a very expensive engagement ring for your girlfriend and you bring it home to your house, does the size of your house diminish the value of the ring or does the ring hold the same inside the house as it did outside the house? The size of the universe shouldn’t have any baring on the value we place in ourselves even if we are deluded. What else are we to do in a meaningless and purposeless universe?Well no, that is the point.
Particles can be "created" or influenced in the future, throwing the notion of locality and causality on its head.
Explain please.That isn't really true. Sub atomic particles can spring out of apparently nothing (known as zero point energy) and this has been observed.
Where has this been observed?Well no. Science works by modeling what is behind the door.
Yes of course, until it can open it. Then it proceeds to the next closed door behind which they will also start out modeling what’s there until that door is open and so on.You did, you said that the Big Bang theory says that the universe sprung from "nothing" and that this was triggered by some cause.
Yes I said that the big bang theory postulates a beginning but I never said that the big bang theory postulates a cause. I said that myself.No, you are missing the point. It isn't that you are asking questions. It is that there is a flaw in your question.
There’ only a flaw in my questions if you don’t like or know the answers.What is north of the north pole?
Polaris. The North star.Such questions are meaningless.
“What is meaning”? Could also be construed as a meaningless question to someone who contends that the universe itself is meaningless and therefore everything in it including us and all our questions.It isn't that we don't know the answer, it is that the question doesn't make sense.
There is no such thing as stupid questions just stupid answers.It isn't that we are left wondering what lies north of north pole without ever knowing the answer, it is that the concept of north of north is meaningless. There isn't an answer to that question beyond saying that the question doesn't make sense.
And that you simply do not know what is north of north.Asking what is north of north is meaningless.
But not what caused the big bang.Asking what happened before time is equally meaningless. Without time itself there is no before, there is no after. Asking what caused time to exist is equally meaningless because cause implies an action in the past triggering an action in the present. But there is no past without time. There is no present.
You are spinning yourself into a dizzy Wick. Time began to exists at some finite time in the past. There is probably no “before” that as we would measure it with time because there was no time but there could have been an “always was and is and will be” at that point and still is and ever will be even after the universe is no more.What is NORTH OF NORTH!
More NORTH!If causality might not even apply inside our own universe there is little reason to assert that it must apply to the universe itself.
Just because there is no observable cause does not mean that there is no actual cause. Imagine a grain of sand thinking that it was uncaused?How can something cause time to exist. For a cause you need time to already exist. Causality is something that happens on an already existing time line. Something at point A on the time line caused something at point B on the time line.
So you admit that time began to exist and that everything in time that begins to exist has a cause but because there was no time before time then that means that real time doesn’t need a cause? How does that follow logically? I would say that it doesn’t need a cause in time but outside of time. If there is an outside of time dimension then isn’t it conceivable that time as we know it could have been caused from that? If not, why not? I know, because it presupposes a creator of time from nothing and we can’t have that now can we?Certainly. But you are making assertions about how it must be, the universe must have had a cause (a cause to which you assign your own particular deity).
I could be wrong about the deity but not about it having a cause. Again how can everything thing in this universe, matter energy space and time have come from absolutely nothing at all? Like I said I might be wrong about who but I think it is more logical to assign something as the cause instead of nothing.No. Matter is made up of particles. Specifically particles that are interacting with the Higgs field in a certain fashion (theoretical at the moment this is what the Large Hedron Collider is attempting to demonstrate)
I know, can’t wait for the results.All matter is made up of particles but not all particles make up matter. And scientists are discovering that matter appears to be simply a state that some particles can find themselves in. In reality (again theoretical but all signs point in this direction) energy is what everything is made up of.
Great.So no, the "super particle" would not be matter.
What then?Indeed. And "reaffirming" every other religion that believed the universe had a beginning, which is most of them.
And they were right all along weren’t they?Again that isn't true. Particles appear out of "nothing" in our own universe. Of course that brings one on to how we define "nothing", which is a very interesting question a bit like how we define "space". But again the point is that the universe does not behave the way our intuition would like it to. For all intensive purposes something can come from nothing.
I agree, we even have proof, the universe came from nothing.Besides, how does God make something out of nothing?
According to the Bible He just speaks and nothing becomes everything. Which is why we are exhorted daily to act in faith on what He SAYS not on what He does. If what we see is just temporal and what He says is eternal then it is better to act on what He says rather than on the things we see because they will perish eventually.You don't have an answer for that, you just say he can because he is God. He uses magic. Which is pointless. You are simply defining yourself out of a problem.
Magic? Never said anything about magic. I’ll tell you what’s magic shall I? Everything coming into existence from nothing and not caused by anything. That my friend is magic.0 -
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Soul Winner wrote: »No Wick it is fine tuned to permit life, what remains to be answered is how or who fine tuned it?
WHAT is so difficult to grasp about CHANCE? Is it easier if you imagine billions and billions, in fact: an infinite number of universes, all having their own constants? Because that would make it quite likely that at least one of these universes has the constants that ours has! So what exactly don't you understand about this universe simply by chance having the constants life needs?
Even if there is only one universe, namely ours - are you seriously suggesting that because something is not very likely, it cannot be/happen unless some God makes it so??
As for what is north of north...:Polaris. The North star. (...) More NORTH!
We are talking about this planet of ours. To ask what is north of the northpole makes no sense whatsoever as the northpole is the absolute north by its very definition. You might as well ask what is more dead than dead, or what is more empty than vacuum. It makes NO SENSE.
But the best part is this:According to the Bible He just speaks and nothing becomes everything.
Followed by this:Magic? Never said anything about magic.
:rolleyes:
Bring on J. K. Rowling, I say. At least her books aren't riddled with contradictions.
All hail Harry Potter! He gave his life to safe us from He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named! And thus, he lived! 0 -
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