The Universe

Soul Winner

Soul Winner wrote: »

Tell that to Mobert who says: “Quantum mechanics is a regime where events are not simply caused by prior events or agents.” Which suggests that we are to believe that it was something after the creation event that caused the creation event?

No, it doesn't suggest that events are caused by something after the event.

How do you know that when you don’t know how it was caused?

Because I know the answer isn't going to be as simple as "God did it. God is eternal, so, we don't have to explain him. And, God is so much greater than ourselves, so we can never know his mind - so there's no point trying to work any of it out."

Eh, I know. Hence my point that people of faiths are perfectly rational to believe what they want to about it.

I don't believe that they're perfectly rational about it all. But, let them believe what they want; their belief in it doesn't make it right.

How do you “KNOW” this?

Because that's just too simple of an answer! It's going to be extremely complex, unbelievably so! And the God explanantion isn't complex at all, see my above Christian dialogue.

So what your suggesting is that we submit our beliefs and adhere to people who openly tell us that they don’t know about the deeper questions of existence? Why on Earth would anyone do that? I’ll stick with Jesus thanks.

Yes. Because we're honest. We're trying to find out the answers. To be brutally honest, if you "stick with Jesus", you'll never find out.

So there’s no such thing as an arrogant scientist/atheist? But wasn’t it the eminent atheist/scientist Peter Atkins who said: “What’s wrong with being arrogant if your right?” Check below, 1 minute 23 seconds in:

Did you deliberately misinterpret me? Did I say anything about individual scientists/atheists being arrogant? No.

I said that religion is arrogant to assume it has the answers at so early a stage.

And as regards to that quote; what on earth is the point of quoting that? If you were arguing with somebody who claimed that the earth is flat, but you maintained that it was round; would you be arrogant in your argument? Yes of course you would! Because you know that you're right. That's what Peter Atkins was refering to.

I disagree. I think if the answer “God did it” is the real answer then the universe is not all that there is, and I for one am glad.

So the universe isn't big enough or great enough for your satisfaction? It isn't beautiful, majestic and awe inspiring enough? Are you living in the same universe that I am?

It might be a beautiful place to behold from our vantage point on earth but it is an extremely hostile place and without God it is meaningless and pointless anyway.

Yes, perhaps it is meaningless and pointless. Why would that matter? Do you need some grand plan and goal for you to feel good about yourself?

It is disinterested in us and has no plan for our ultimate benefit.

Of course it hasn't! It doesn't owe you anything.

And will eventually die in either a very hot or very cold death.

That's the way of the universe. It isn't going to give us a merciful death - why? Because it doesn't owe us anything.

However if God did created it and what He has promised to us is real, then what might be ahead of us in eternity could put the beauty of this universe to shame.

Sounds a bit too fairytaleesque for me. I'm quite happy with the universe that I'm in anyway; there's enough beauty and wonder in it to do me a hundred lifetimes. See my sig.

So if I found out tomorrow that beyond a shadow of a doubt it was proven that God didn’t do it, and that He doesn’t exist, then the real answer to how the universe got here would have little or no relevance to me whatsoever.

Well I don't understand why you're taking part in this debate so. It's possibly the greatest question ever, and if you didn't want to know about it - very well.

It is a violent hostile place full of death and destruction, and you would call finding that out very satisfying would you?

Yes! Because I don't have the mentality of a child who expects the universe to be a loving place. Like I've said numerous times - the universe doesn't owe us anything.

If we are to concede that it was caused then all that’s left to find out is what caused it, and as the cause must be separate from what was caused then the cause must resides outside what was caused and is therefore eternal and powerful enough to cause the universe to come into existence from nothing. My money is on God.

It could very well have caused itself. We just don't know.

But you guys are so fond of citing Occam’s razor all the time, doesn’t it favour the simplest explanation? If so then the “God create everything” explanation wins.

Only when theists refuse to explain God. That's the only reason it wins.

Until relatively recently the science world took it for granted that the universe always existed and never tried to explain how it got here simply because of that. But God who theists claim always existed must explain Him. If God is, then He always was, hence no explanation needed, just like the universe didn’t need one before it was discovered that it actually had a beginning.

Yes and until recently religion presumed the sun orbited the earth. When the authors of the bible we're discussing genesis, I'm sure they would have thought about how to give the greatest effect to the reader. The whole God created it story is far more impressive than the "it was always here" story. I know which one I would of chose.

If God is the correct answer then it won’t be based on what science finds out or doesn’t find out. It’s either true or it’s not true, and if it is true now then it always was true, and if it’s not true now then it was never true.

Yes. And if every person on earth had that attitude we would be living in the stone age.

If we define God as an eternal, personal all powerful being and as such transcends space and time which have themselves a beginning in the big bang, then what else does the discovery that the universe has a beginning from a nothingness state like this point to? It came into existence at a finite point in the past from nothing. Now it either came into existence from nothing and also by nothing hence has no cause which you yourself object to or God (if He exists) created it, God being defined as an eternal, personal all powerful being who transcends space and time. The “from nothing by nothing” answer is absurd in the extreme but yet it is either that or the cause lies elsewhere?

You're just restating your points over and over and over again. You've been saying this for numerous posts, and you've gotten replies.

It certainly doesn't point to an intelligent creator. But you're explanation doesn't do anything. It's just shifting the issue onto God. Now we have to ask the very same questions about God. What created him? I know it's an age old question; but "he's eternal" doesn't cut it. Maybe the singlularity at the beginning was eternal too, no?

ironingbored

PDN wrote: »

Hell is absolute separation from God.

I am fairly separated from God and am just fine. No hell-like symptoms whatsoever.

Zombrex

Soul Winner wrote: »

Nope. But I'm sure I would have believed that it did just like everyone else (including many scientists mind you) before Copernicus and Galileo came along. Do you have a better method of approach than a common sense approach?

Yes, the scientific approach.

"Common sense" has been wrong for pretty much every major discovery in physics in the last 200 years.

Húrin

ironingbored wrote: »

I am fairly separated from God and am just fine. No hell-like symptoms whatsoever.

Not even existential despair?

I imagine that PDN means that such a state would also be a loss of common grace gifts of God to all - for example music, purpose, friendships, cognitive faculties, and life itself.

Húrin

Schuhart wrote: »

Indeed, but isn't the query more about why you say the Universe was the product of that Supreme Being. Could it not be the product of an Intermediate Being, created by that Supreme Being?

It's quite possible. Though from the point of view of an intelligent being within the universe, the Intermediate Being would appear to be the Supreme Being.

Wicknight wrote: »

But I would imagine that Jammy isn't talking about a being at all as we would understand it, but rather some fundamental physical force or energy. Kinda like the stuff they are now talking about in super string theory.

String theory proposes to unite the forces of nature into one force. Does it place this force outside of the universe itself?

Zombrex

Húrin wrote: »

String theory proposes to unite the forces of nature into one force. Does it place this force outside of the universe itself?

yes, in some versions

of course that depends on what one means by "outside" and "universe"

one theory is that what we know as 3D space is a "brane" (as in membrane) connected to another brane through a 4th dimensional space (which we don't experience).

Every few thousand billion years the branes collide causing a big bang effect and the universe as we know it starts over again.

this theory, as crazy as it sounds to the lay person on the street, has been given some evidential support recently, but we are still a long way off from telling if it is actually how reality is.

Morbert

Húrin wrote: »

It's quite possible. Though from the point of view of an intelligent being within the universe, the Intermediate Being would appear to be the Supreme Being.


String theory proposes to unite the forces of nature into one force. Does it place this force outside of the universe itself?

The trouble is it can't really be said that the fundamental laws and forces of the universe are inside or outside the universe. That would be like someone declaring that God's omnipotence is outside/inside God. Laws describe characteristics of the universe, and characteristics aren't really 'outside' or 'inside'. And if our intuitive notion of cause and effect is a characteristic of the universe, instead of some absolute, objective, platonic truth, then it becomes very difficult to formulate questions about forces being inside and outside the universe. Quantum mechanics has already ruffled the feathers of the classical concept of events being wholly 'caused' by prior events. So "What forces are beyond/caused the universe ?" might make as little sense as "What forces are beyond/caused God?". Heck, trying to understand the precise nature of the entire universe might be as futile as a dog trying to understand abstract algebra.