Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Dylan Sloboda on December 23, 2011 at 6:02pm

origin of the universe

I'm not sure if this link uses a session specific URL. If it does not work then it would be my blog on here title The Origin of the Universe

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Permalink Reply by Ceci on December 23, 2011 at 9:24am

i'm sorry guy but this is not a good point.
why do you believe that the beginning
of everything was (a) god?
do you have any evidence about it?
i'm not claiming anything, while you are doing it, so YOU must convince me
 that  your belief is right, not me.

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Permalink Reply by Gustaf D on December 23, 2011 at 10:10am

Quantum Physics sais something can come out of nothing doesn't it? 

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Permalink Reply by Tex on December 23, 2011 at 10:53am

Its amazing to me that"believers", have no problem believing in an all powerful god that has always existed and had no creator, yet they have a hard time imagining that the universe may have come from the big bang. 

I have to ask you "what is that about"? Is this where you throw common sense, logic and rational thinking out the window in order to hang on to your "Faith"? Why would you even consider jumping to the conclusion of a god, simply because we don't have the answers yet? Fear maybe?

Science may not have all the answers (YET), but at least their working on them.

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Permalink Reply by Mo Trauen on December 23, 2011 at 10:54am

First, you must understand that the origin of the universe is a separate question from the existence of god.  One can be agnostic with regard to the first and still be atheist with regard to the second.  Assuming they are a single question is proof of circular reasoning on some level.

Second, your reasoning is exactly the same used by primitive man to reach the conclusion that the Earth must be flat and held up by a god.  They had no idea how it could be otherwise because their everyday experience on Earth told them it was impossible.  What they (and you) didn't understand is that they were extrapolating their experience to a situation that was completely different and completely alien to them.  What they (and you) didn't understand was they were not just comparing apples to oranges, they were comparing apples to airplanes.  Please read the essay at this link:

http://goodatheistarguments.blogspot.com/2010/09/believers-ask-well...

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Permalink Reply by lacontrabasse on December 23, 2011 at 11:32am

Nobody can know what happened before the Planck time, before the Big Bang.  The concept of ' before ' may be inappropriate.

However, the Creator of the Universe has sent us a message.  Is this the God you were hoping for?

See  ' God says sorry ' .

http://youtu.be/Sa6jvdsXUZI

Have a cool Yule!

 

 

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Permalink Reply by Lewal on December 23, 2011 at 11:35am

For most of our species' existence, we believed that we were the center of the universe. It was only fairly recently that we realized we're a bi-product of it. What if the very implication that matter requires a beginning is a result of your perceptual bias towards the universe, a reflection of the human ego? "You" have an observable beginning and end, therefore somehow all of existence must as well? You are not an accurate representation of the universe. You are a bi-product of one of its phases. Have some humility.

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Permalink Reply by Lewal on December 23, 2011 at 11:38am

Also delicious Oreos.

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Permalink Reply by Colleen on December 23, 2011 at 12:53pm

"In science, the burden of proof falls upon the claimant; and the more extraordinary a claim, the heavier is the burden of proof demanded."  - Marcello Truzzi

With that in mind, perhaps we can agree that the post is more of a thought experiment than an assertion of truth.  So setting science and reason aside, let's do it.  Say that once upon a time there was nothing, and then suddenly something that simply came to be; and let's say that this something was the starting point for everything that we know and have yet to know.  Let's say even that we as humans come to know of this thing and agree to call this thing god. 

What then?  Is this thing still present or has it faded away?  How do you know if this thing still affects what is happening to us and our tiny world?  How do you know if this thing was directly the creator of all or just the first domino that tipped?  If it was just simply the starting point, then of what consequence is it to say that you believe in it?  Forgive me, but I still fail to see why, if this were in any way true, I should then adhere to faith, religion, and theism.

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Permalink Reply by Rick on December 23, 2011 at 2:50pm

If you’re unable to accept the state of nothingness as a plausible beginning to our universe, yet you wish us to accept your god hypothesis, then we can simply apply your question to this hypothesis and ask: what created your god and what created that and so on.

 

But, we don’t even need to go as far as to even evoke a god to address the question.  Science tells us that “nothing” is the most unstable state in the universe and that “something” is more likely (statistically speaking) than “nothing.” So, the fact that we have something rather than nothing is really unremarkable and is what one would expect.

 

I think the most important thing to note is that you’ve asked us to prove your point wrong without first being able to prove that your belief is correct or even remotely plausible. Provide us the evidence that we need to even consider your point, otherwise why would anyone waste their time and effort attempting to prove it wrong?

 

Lastly, “god did it” is not an acceptable place-holder for questions for which we do not currently hold the answer. History has shown that such questions have been replaced by knowledge, thus “I don’t know” is a more logical place-holder than “god did it.”

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Permalink Reply by Steve on December 23, 2011 at 4:26pm

It's turtles all the way down

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Permalink Reply by Skepticlese on December 23, 2011 at 4:12pm

Isaac,

I think I've had the chance to look at most of the replies and I won't belabor the scientific arguments--many much smarter and more capable than I have already made those. So I'll skip the physics and head right for its meta counterpart, since your argument is easily traced to Aristotle's "first cause" or "unmoved mover."

I should add, though, that modern metaphysics, I argue, isn't "static" and as we learn new scientific truths, this can inform our philosophical thinking--since it often opens up possibilities that we had not considered before simply because we had no frame of reference with which to consider them--so what to Aristole (or Aquinas) might have seemed the natually logical conclusion no longer holds water, or space, for that matter, with our added knowledge of how the universe actually works. Aristotle assumed a perfect being for the "wholeness and orderliness" in the world as he knew it. The physics, however, we know today, informs us of other possibilities (even the possibility of something seemingly simpler causing something seemingly more complex--the creation of a universe from a singularity, for example). This notion, by the way, isn't all that unusual in the natural world--just look at the development of a seemingly simple single-celled embryo into a seemingly more complex, thinking human being.

With that background, your assertion that the "cause" of the universe was a god contains a huge leap in logic that does not follow from your premises. As I understand it (and accepting, for sake of argument, your assumption that there must be, as a metaphysical cosmologist might call it, a "first cause") your syllogism is this: There was a "thing" that caused the universe to exist. That thing must have existed without being caused by anything else. Therefore that thing was a god.

When broken down like this, you can immediately see the premises do not lead logically (or exclusively) to a god/creator unless by "god" you mean anything that exists without having been itself created by anything else, which I doubt is your meaning. Nothing in the premises indicate that the "thing" that created the universe must have any powers (particulary, deity-like powers, let alone "perfect" powers). Moreover, there is nothing in the premises that excludes other non-god "things" from creating the universe or that there must be only ONE such "thing." How do you know that multiple things didn't get together to create the universe? Or how do we know that the thing's only ability is to make a single singularlity that randomly kick starts a universe with random properties? Indeed, for all we know, the thing could simply be the scatological remnants of a pink unicorn and that, as a reult, all the known universe is contained within a giant pink unicorn fart (my preferred explanation of "The Big Bang," by the way).

I argue that even is one assumes a "first cause" nothing about that "first cause" can be ultimately known other than it's mere existence and any notion of "god" as that first cause is therefore a fallacy.

All you philosphers out there feel free to point out my philosophical inadequacies.

--Skepticlese

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