Fine detail in the gospels: made up or not?

[jeremyp]

In your view, did it have a beginning?

I don’t know. Since time is a property of the Universe, I’m not even sure the question makes sense.

If so, doesn't that mean it must have a cause?

Why?

[jeremyp]

Wrong, the universe could be around forever. The question is though why something and not nothing.

Time is a property of the Universe. The Universe must necessarily have existed as long as there has been time. The question of why something rather than nothing is pretty deep and, so far, unanswered. Claiming the Universe exists because some deity created it doesn’t help because we are left with the question why some god rather than no god?

What is the evidence that it doesn't have a cause, where is the evidence that it ''just is?''

I do not know of any evidence that the Universe doesn’t have a cause, but, likewise you have no evidence that it does have a cause. The situation doesn’t bother me because I don’t try to construct elaborate and ultimately useless proofs of the Christian god based on the premise that the Universe doesn’t have a cause.

And if you argue that something could just be eternal you then have no business asking questions like ''who made God'' or guff talk about infinite regresses.

As long as you recognise that if something can be eternal you have no business claiming that God must have created it.

As a point of information, I have not claimed that the Universe is eternal only that the claim that it had a cause is completely unevidenced.

Atheists end up both hating and appealing to the infinite.

I haven’t seen an atheist appeal to anything on this thread. Can you point out where I or any other atheist has appealed to the infinite?

[Spud]

I don’t know. Since time is a property of the Universe, I’m not even sure the question makes sense.

If it didn't have a beginning, then as the article says, it would be eternal and would have have burnt itself out long ago.

Why?

For the same reason that you can't fully explain our own existence by saying that you were found in a hospital or I was found in a vegetable patch.

[Maeght]

If it didn't have a beginning, then as the article says, it would be eternal and would have have burnt itself out long ago.

On what do you base that assertion?

[Stranger]

If it didn't have a beginning, then as the article says, it would be eternal and would have have burnt itself out long ago.

This is the trouble with relying dishonest creationist propaganda sites. You are treating the problem with a rather quaint Newtonian view of time and then adding the more modern second law of thermodynamics to it until you get an answer you like, while ignoring all the other applicable modern science and, in fact, basic logic.

I've already given an example of how the universe might have a beginning (in the sense that we can only extend the time-like past direction back a finite distance) without requiring a cause (#921). There are others and there are others still that suggest something might indeed be 'eternal'.

The point is not whether any of these are right, the point is that (according to what we know) any of them might be. Hence your 'logic' is undone by counterexamples.

More generally, even if we accepted your assumptions (momentarily), we instantly see that they must be wrong in some respect, because the universe exists and hasn't "burnt itself out". Logically, that is all we can deduce, there is no justification for the god fairy tale.

[SteveH]

I think real scientists argue for a beginning to the universe some fifteen billion years ago in the big bang on the grounds, inter alia, that if it had existed for ever it would have reached a state of maximum entropy ("burnt itself out") long ago - indeed, an infinite amount of time ago.

[floo]

Creationists seem to live in cloud cuckoo land.

[Stranger]

I think real scientists argue for a beginning to the universe some fifteen billion years ago in the big bang on the grounds, inter alia, that if it had existed for ever it would have reached a state of maximum entropy ("burnt itself out") long ago - indeed, an infinite amount of time ago.

There is very little doubt that the universe in its present form emerged from a very hot and dense state with very low entropy* about that long ago.

However, General Relativity (which is the only tested theory we have that seems applicable) suggests a singularity which would represent the start of time itself - so looking for a pre-existing cause is futile. As I said in #921, what the theory describes is a four dimensional manifold with time being just an internal direction within it.

Apart from that, it seems inevitable that how General Relativity relates to Quantum Field Theory is likely to be significant and may alter the view (although see Penrose's Conformal Cyclic Cosmology for another view based on GR). Cosmology is not short of conjectures and potential hypotheses. We don't know enough to be sure but there is no need to give up and say "this is hard to explain, so it must be god-magic" Even if we had no ideas at all, the god fairy tale is still nothing but a baseless guess...

* Calculating the entropy of the universe as a whole is far from straightforward and the low entropy of the big bang is to do with the gravitational degrees of freedom that appear to have been very constrained.

[SteveH]

There is very little doubt that the universe in its present form emerged from a very hot and dense state with very low entropy* about that long ago.

However, General Relativity (which is the only tested theory we have that seems applicable) suggests a singularity which would represent the start of time itself - so looking for a pre-existing cause is futile. As I said in #921, what the theory describes is a four dimensional manifold with time being just an internal direction within it.

Apart from that, it seems inevitable that how General Relativity relates to Quantum Field Theory is likely to be significant and may alter the view (although see Penrose's Conformal Cyclic Cosmology for another view based on GR). Cosmology is not short of conjectures and potential hypotheses. We don't know enough to be sure but there is no need to give up and say "this is hard to explain, so it must be god-magic" Even if we had no ideas at all, the god fairy tale is still nothing but a baseless guess...

* Calculating the entropy of the universe as a whole is far from straightforward and the low entropy of the big bang is to do with the gravitational degrees of freedom that appear to have been very constrained.

That is a very good answer to a completely different point.

[jjohnjil]

Our universe can be likened to a bubble being produced from a kid’s bubble pipe. 

Suppose our Sun was an atom of air inside the bubble and Earth an electron whizzing around our atom. We could observe the other atoms all travelling away from the pipe and calculate how far away the pipe stem was – but that’s all. 

We could then say our bubble began X distance from its beginning but we would have no idea what produced the bubble or anything about the kid or his world.  Neither would we know about all the other bubbles the kid was producing.

Therefore, it isn’t sensible to think there was nothing before the Big Bang. All we can say is, there is no way of knowing.

[Spud]

There is very little doubt that the universe in its present form emerged from a very hot and dense state with very low entropy* about that long ago.

So what heated it up to that very hot and dense state?

[Stranger]

So what heated it up to that very hot and dense state?

I have given a number of possible answers based on what is currently known but actually it's totally irrelevant to any question of the existence of some god - it's up to those people who propose the idea (or any idea) to provide some reason to take it seriously.

You started off with the universe looking like it's designed for life (which it isn't), then it was that order needed explaining but you can't explain an ordered god and now it seems to be down to the ever shrinking god of the gaps.

I will return to my point that a god is (at best) a baseless guess that explains nothing; it just changes the subject of the question. Instead of why this universe exists, it becomes why this god exists.

[Stranger]

That is a very good answer to a completely different point.

Your post mentioned "real scientists" arguing for a beginning to the universe based on entropy. I was pointing out that "real scientists" are divided on the issue - it's an open question. Obviously those proposals that do not propose a finite past time direction need to address the point about entropy but it's not nearly as simple as many people assume.

[floo]

So what heated it up to that very hot and dense state?

One day science may have the answer.

[Spud]

I have given a number of possible answers based on what is currently known but actually it's totally irrelevant to any question of the existence of some god - it's up to those people who propose the idea (or any idea) to provide some reason to take it seriously.

You started off with the universe looking like it's designed for life (which it isn't), then it was that order needed explaining but you can't explain an ordered god and now it seems to be down to the ever shrinking god of the gaps.

I will return to my point that a god is (at best) a baseless guess that explains nothing; it just changes the subject of the question. Instead of why this universe exists, it becomes why this god exists.

God is not a baseless guess, it's an intelligent guess (unless you can explain why you think the universe doesn't look like it's designed for life - the solar system certainly does, and so potentially could many other solar systems be, whether life exists there or not). So the next logical step is to be open to God being a personal God and have a chat with him.

[SteveH]

One day science may have the answer.

You mock believers for brining in God to explain things, but your regular parrot-cry of "One day science may have the answer" amounts to much the same thing.

[Stranger]

God is not a baseless guess, it's an intelligent guess (unless you can explain why the universe doesn't look like it's designed for life - the solar system certainly does, and so potentially could many other solar systems be, whether life exists there or not).

It doesn't look like it's designed for life because almost all of it is inhospitable to life and that bit of it that we know is, appears to be totally insignificant in all other respects. If it was designed for life, you'd expect most of it to be suitable for life, or at the very least, that that part of it that was hospitable for it would be in a significant position within it.

What it looks like is some tiny bits of cosmic dust just happen to fall within the right conditions.

Even if it did look designed for life - any specific notion of a god or gods would still be a baseless guess.

So the next logical step is to be open to God being a personal God and have a chat with him.

There is no next logical step because there hasn't been a first logical step. Even if we leave that aside, if there was a 'personal god' and it had a message to convey to us, why the silly game of hide-and-seek? Why isn't it obvious to everybody? Why do all the many notions of gods look for all the world like baseless, primitive superstitions?

[Stranger]

You mock believers for brining in God to explain things, but your regular parrot-cry of "One day science may have the answer" amounts to much the same thing.

No - admitting that we don't know something (yet) is a far more rational approach than believing some story that is clearly no better than a fanciful guess.

[floo]

You mock believers for brining in God to explain things, but your regular parrot-cry of "One day science may have the answer" amounts to much the same thing.

I am not mocking anyone, unlike you who majors on rudeness.   Without science we wouldn't be where we are today, who knows what we will be discovered in the future as human knowledge progresses, thanks to science. Christianity is a fixed position, it is a belief not evidential, I think it is fair enough to point that out when people state something as a fact on a discussion forum like this.  There is a board on this forum where Christians can state their faith position without expecting it to be debated.

[Owlswing]

You mock believers for brining in God to explain things, but your regular parrot-cry of "One day science may have the answer" amounts to much the same thing.

It is not mockery.

The Christian Church has, at base, remained virtually unchanged for 2,000 years despite all the errors in its 'Book of Rules', aka 'The Bible', that have repeatedly been pointed out (Exodus 22:18 contradicting the Sixth Commandment for one of the minor ones) whilst Science will admit that it does not know everything and continually investigates in order to prove itself correct or to correct any errors or to gain knowledge of what it does not yet know.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

It is not mockery.

The Christian Church has, at base, remained virtually unchanged for 2,000 years despite all the errors in its 'Book of Rules', aka 'The Bible', that have repeatedly been pointed out (Exodus 22:18 contradicting the Sixth Commandment for one of the minor ones) whilst Science will admit that it does not know everything and continually investigates in order to prove itself correct or to correct any errors or to gain knowledge of what it does not yet know.

Stop whingeing and regurgitating the science v. religion schtick. Pllleeeeease.

[floo]

Stop whingeing and regurgitating the science v. religion schtick. Pllleeeeease.

It is you who appears to be whinging with each post you make! Without science we wouldn't be where we are today,  religion is still back in the dark ages.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

It is you who appears to be whinging with each post you make! Without science we wouldn't be where we are today,  religion is still back in the dark ages.

Yeh 1) what have you ever had to do with science?
      2) Thanks to science we have global warming, species extinction and Nuclear weapons.

[Aruntraveller]

Thanks to science we have global warming, species extinction and Nuclear weapons.

Yes and thanks to science we have cures for all sorts of diseases, we have the ability to connect over the internet, we have the ability to heat our homes.

Come on you know better than that argument. Science is neither positive or negative. It is neutral. It is what humans choose to do with science that causes the good and the bad.

[Nearly Sane]

Yes and thanks to science we have cures for all sorts of diseases, we have the ability to connect over the internet, we have the ability to heat our homes.

Come on you know better than that argument. Science is neither positive or negative. It is neutral. It is what humans choose to do with science that causes the good and the bad.

That applies to LR's post as well which was saying we were here because of science which seems to be cherry picking. I think Vlad's position here, and is in line with yours. Either science is neutral or it has to be debited with the bad things as well as credited with  the good.