Atheists, where did the universe come from?

[Willamena]

I guess it is part of the reason I asked atheists. Since atheists generally assume there is no God, though there is no such proof, why wouldn't it be easy to assume the universe has a starting point? But here we got everyone who says the idea of God is absurd and then that the logical idea that the universe has a starting point has no basis at all - it's absurd.

If you don't believe in God, then the one has nothing to do with the other.

 

[PruePhillip]

Wow, did you miss the point. The point is that there are those people who feel that, because there is life, their environment was made to support it.

No, I did not miss the point.
Life can exist in sulfuric acid for instance, that acid wasn't
put there for the sake of that organism - the organism
adapted to the acid.
Life could exist in the upper atmosphere of a star for
instance. The star isn't there for the life, but the life
for the star's opportunity.

My point is that the cartoon is limited in its scope. There
are simply universes that life could never emerge within.
And the range of "life universes" from all the possible
physical values is still quite small, even tiny.

Do you think life could emerge in a one second universe
as it collapses back on itself after the Big Bang?

 

[Shad]

I suggest you obtain a dictionary and learn the definitions of atheist and agnostic.

You missed the gist of the discussion you are responding to, not the safety of aircraft, but the nature of faith.

The BB is remarkably like the Genesis account in many ways

What you see to believe or not to believe is irrelevant to me.

Yes it is at least until you start reading both... then...

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

If your question cannot be answered yet why assume that a god created it?

Why assume anything else ?

Because there is simply no objective reason to do so.

In fact, it seems entirely silly to assume that the universe is so big and complex and wonderful that it could not possibly have created itself, and then to invent out of thin air something that is even more big and complex and wonderful to have done the job. I struggle to see how believers can be so stubbornly blind to that obvious error in reasoning.

 

[Willamena]

No, I did not miss the point.
Life can exist in sulfuric acid for instance, that acid wasn't
put there for the sake of that organism - the organism
adapted to the acid.
Life could exist in the upper atmosphere of a star for
instance. The star isn't there for the life, but the life
for the star's opportunity.

My point is that the cartoon is limited in its scope. There
are simply universes that life could never emerge within.
And the range of "life universes" from all the possible
physical values is still quite small, even tiny.

Do you think life could emerge in a one second universe
as it collapses back on itself after the Big Bang?

The cartoon's scope is just what it is, and just what it needs to be: there are those people who genuinely believe that the environment was put here to serve the organism.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

No, I did not miss the point.
Life can exist in sulfuric acid for instance, that acid wasn't
put there for the sake of that organism - the organism
adapted to the acid.
Life could exist in the upper atmosphere of a star for
instance. The star isn't there for the life, but the life
for the star's opportunity.

My point is that the cartoon is limited in its scope. There
are simply universes that life could never emerge within.
And the range of "life universes" from all the possible
physical values is still quite small, even tiny.

Do you think life could emerge in a one second universe
as it collapses back on itself after the Big Bang?

Not answering for Willamena...but just want to say, what's wrong with "I don't know, so how do you?"

 

[PruePhillip]

Not answering for Willamena...but just want to say, what's wrong with "I don't know, so how do you?"

I raised various points - not sure which one you refer to.

 

[PruePhillip]

The cartoon's scope is just what it is, and just what it needs to be: there are those people who genuinely believe that the environment was put here to serve the organism.

Yeah, I get your point
It's tricky, far trickier than you realize.

People challenged the bible re Copernicus and the center of the universe
being the earth.
But... the bible never said we are the center, and Einstein said we are the
center because the observer is paramount.

And someone said sunlight is not a miracle, it's just photons from the sun.
It can also be said that sunlight IS a miracle, when you really think about
being here and enjoying it as the earth slowly rotates to avoid us cooking
on one side.

It's just two ways of looking at it. How do you know the environment wasn't
put here for us? You can't prove it wasn't.

 

[Willamena]

Yeah, I get your point
It's tricky, far trickier than you realize.

People challenged the bible re Copernicus and the center of the universe
being the earth.
But... the bible never said we are the center, and Einstein said we are the
center because the observer is paramount.

And someone said sunlight is not a miracle, it's just photons from the sun.
It can also be said that sunlight IS a miracle, when you really think about
being here and enjoying it as the earth slowly rotates to avoid us cooking
on one side.

It's just two ways of looking at it. How do you know the environment wasn't
put here for us? You can't prove it wasn't.

It's just two ways of looking at it. But only one of them is conventionally acceptable science, which is why the other makes for good humour.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

I raised various points - not sure which one you refer to.

No, in fact you really only raised one point...in what circumstances could life exist, or not exist. And so far, the answer must still remain, "I don't know." (Right here on Earth, of course, with the science that we presently know, the answer is more curtailed, but we've been being surprised over and over again at discovering life where we didn't think it might exist.)

 

[shmogie]

Because there is simply no objective reason to do so.

In fact, it seems entirely silly to assume that the universe is so big and complex and wonderful that it could not possibly have created itself, and then to invent out of thin air something that is even more big and complex and wonderful to have done the job. I struggle to see how believers can be so stubbornly blind to that obvious error in reasoning.

You are kidding, right ? The universe created itself is a reasonable proposition, but God created it is not.

There is no error in reasoning, or logic.

When you tell me what the what the first cause of creation was, how it came about, and the natural properties of it, what the alleged singularity is, I will tell you where God came from and how He created the universe.

Saying the universe created itself is a grasp of very thin air as well.

 

[shmogie]

Agnostic dates no further than the man who coined the term: Thomas Henry Huxley in 1869. It has nothing to do with the Christian Gnostics. It was coined on gnostos, meaning "to know."

Ah, I didn´t know that, thank you. The gnostics also were named based on the word gnostos

 

[PruePhillip]

No, in fact you really only raised one point...in what circumstances could life exist, or not exist. And so far, the answer must still remain, "I don't know." (Right here on Earth, of course, with the science that we presently know, the answer is more curtailed, but we've been being surprised over and over again at discovering life where we didn't think it might exist.)

Correct. Science is a way of approaching truths about our world
but whatever is discovered is often not the last word.
For all we know life could exist on the surface of the sun as a
plasma. I could image aliens arriving on earth as big a tadpoles,
bringing their water with them.
The problem is that we still can't agree on what life is. And we
don't know much about alien environments.
But, we hold that life adapts to an existing environment. It can
change that environment somewhat - but an environment will
not of its own accord adapt for the sake of a future organism.

 

[shmogie]

Because there is simply no objective reason to do so.

In fact, it seems entirely silly to assume that the universe is so big and complex and wonderful that it could not possibly have created itself, and then to invent out of thin air something that is even more big and complex and wonderful to have done the job. I struggle to see how believers can be so stubbornly blind to that obvious error in reasoning.

There is no reason to believe either

Yet, you happily leave unanswered the very obvious corollary for me: There can only be two theories of God, either something created God, or God created itself.

But of course, you don't do that...you simply make a completely unwarranted exception in this one particular case. An exception you make for nothing else. And yet, I have to point out to you, that you can try, and try, and try and try again, and you will never bring me one single piece of evidence that there is an intelligence that existed without or before or in the absence of anything at all, that for some really bizarre reason...in an endless, formless, existence-less existence, suddenly felt the need to make a whole bunch of troublesome something that it would very shortly get angry at and try to kill off everybody in it. Can you provide an epistemological justification for that belief?

Your first premise is wrong. Before the BB theory, science held to the solid state universe, that it always was and always would be. Science, held that belief, the agency by which you believe all questions can be answered. So, if science could believe that about the universe, what evidence do you have that the same cannot be attributed to God ?

You are speculating about how God existed before the universe. Where do you get your information, about that ? The Bible begins at creation, so that can be your source, did you get that from a Christian ? They have no knowledge of that either. I think you just made it up.

The Bible does describe God as an intelligent being of pure light/energy, no matter involved apparently.

You have no evidence to bring to the table regarding the cause of the big bang, yet you probably believe it occurred.

The universe exists, doesn;t it ?

Anything that begins, will end. The universe will end. Scientifically, all the energy will cease to exist, all the stars will die, all life will die, nothing will be left but stone cold dead rocks drifting further and further away from one another in total darkness. Pretty damn cruel

You will be dead, all memory of you will be dead. Your life will have had absolutely no meaning, the same for every human that will have existed.

Seems to me that God offers a much better deal than your self created universe.

 

[shmogie]

But you see, you don't necessarily have to get to the absolute end of anything to establish some knowledge about it. You don't need to get to the end of a calculation for Pi to know that it is irrational and never, ever ends. You can know that there is no largest prime number using some pretty trivial reasoning (known to Euclid over 2,3 years ago, for example).

Therefore, although I do not make any such claim, it is certainly possible that as the universe has been, and is, expanding, it has also left traces of the means and mechanics of that expansion way back here, where we still have access to them, and may find a way to interpret them.

And therefore my claim stands, that you have claimed to know something about the future that you cannot know.

The scientific evidence is that the universe began expanding at creation and has never stopped. Further, the universe is expanding at a faster and faster rate

Everything we have, is inside the universe, there is nothing in the universe that was outside the universe before the universe existed.

Therefore, anything inside the universe can have no evidentiary value of what is outside the universe.

Scientifically it is and will remain a guessing game.

I know that at no time in the future will you be able to breathe underwater without mechanical support. If it happens, please tell us about it in this forum.

That is for example why they talk about "Darwinism"..

What does Darwin have to do with this discussion ?

Although the universe did evolve, hmmmmmmm

 

[PruePhillip]

The Bible does describe God as an intelligent being of pure light/energy, no matter involved apparently.

I wouldn't say the God of the Judaeo Christian bible is light or energy.
Both those things are physical and were created with the Big Bang.
Asking the question "Who created God" is disingenuous because God
exists outside of all things made. We cannot comprehend that to even
ask the question, let alone the answer.
There are things we can't grasp even now about our world, like what
is a place without the fabric of space and time. So let's not try and
figure out God's realm, outside of time and space.
The Book of Revelation speaks to this - no more time: how can you
exist outside of time! No more sea. No more sun. Interesting isn't it.

 

[We Never Know]

Creation by God or the BBT. Pick which appeals to you. It's like picking your favorite colour.
Creation by God and the BBT are both beliefs. Fact is we don't know how everything started but the BBT theory makes more since scientifically with what we naturally try to understsnd. Neither can be shown correct or false and each had to have a cause unless you also believe in uncaused things.
Truth is we don't know what started it all off but we continually try to figure it out.

 

[shmogie]

I wouldn't say the God of the Judaeo Christian bible is light or energy.
Both those things are physical and were created with the Big Bang.
Asking the question "Who created God" is disingenuous because God
exists outside of all things made. We cannot comprehend that to even
ask the question, let alone the answer.
There are things we can't grasp even now about our world, like what
is a place without the fabric of space and time. So let's not try and
figure out God's realm, outside of time and space.
The Book of Revelation speaks to this - no more time: how can you
exist outside of time! No more sea. No more sun. Interesting isn't it.

Yes, quite interesting.

From my reading of the Bible, I find God described as light, from which I extrapolate energy.

The description may be based upon the writers perception of what is being described, but there it is

 

[PruePhillip]

Yes, quite interesting.

From my reading of the Bible, I find God described as light, from which I extrapolate energy.

The description may be based upon the writers perception of what is being described, but there it is

I see what you mean. God is light - it has many meanings.
It's about seeing, having eyes opened, exposing things etc..

 

[David T]

What problem??

Not surprising.