Do You Need The Universe To Have Had A Beginning?

Many if not all human societies have origin myths and they differ greatly.

Several years ago a San Francisco-born-and-raised woman told me she is a materialist.

An hour ago a woman who was raised a Jehovah Witness and has left that faith told me the Big Bang story grew from a human need for a beginning. I agreed.

Can you wholeheartedly accept that the universe had no beginning, that it has always existed?

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Tom Sarbeck on December 4, 2016 at 5:49am

There is a contest for most logical thing. It's between believing there is no such evidence and saying you've seen no such evidence.

Beliefs tend to follow the proffered rewards.

Permalink Reply by Tom Sarbeck on December 7, 2016 at 2:37am

Bob, the Bang's fatal flaw remained a flaw for decades. It was the idea that the mass of the entire universe once occupied an infinitely small, infinitely hot space.

Only mathematicians can play with infinity. It's beyond the reach of physicists.

And how did the Bangers "fix" that flaw?

A la Browning, let me count the ways.

Permalink Reply by TJ on December 8, 2016 at 6:32pm

Being an atheist doesn't mean I think anything per se about anything else, except that I don't believe that there are gods.

It doesn't mean I believe in Evolution, Gravity, or Free Health Care, etc.

It also doesn't mean that I have opinions about the Big Bang, or not.

Again, there is a difference between the belief in the possibility of unicorns and leprechauns, for which there is NO evidence, and, the OPINION that, based upon what I have learned so far (evidence), that the current expansion scenario leads to condensation and a new bang.

Evidence is not proof of course, but you keep confusing things with zero evidence, with things with at least some evidence.

You then treat them as equivalent choices...with an equal chance of outcome, etc.

That is misleading at best, if accidental, and dishonest at worst, if on purpose.

If you do this sort of thing accidentally, I hope you have peers correct your relevant work in your profession before embarrassment/damage, etc.

If you do this sort of thing as a means of trying to argue a particular agenda, then you are being dishonest.

Shame on you Dr, Bob...as this is not the first time pointing this behavior out to you.

And

The MOST LOGICAL thing is, that DUE TO the infinite time and space involved, TO assume that most of the universe is not observable.

IE: No matter how much of infinite space we DO observe, statistically, it would be an insignificant fraction of the REST of the infinite space.

We barely have a shot at the KNOWN Universe, and that is stretching the current limits of observation already, and, with the edges receding at faster than light speed, that light will never get here TO observe.

I also consider the odds that in an infinite amount of time, and, with the properties of spacetime we know of, there is no compelling argument to theorize that what we are experiencing COULD NOT have happened before....or, COULD NOT happen again.

Only a person who's tendency to think the world was just for them, and we are the center of the universe and god's special snowflake...would PRECLUDE the possibility if not the likelihood of other bangs.

Permalink Reply by Davis Goodman on May 19, 2017 at 6:58am

@Bob: The Big Bang was a singular phenomenon

That's a pretty confient wreckless claim for someone cautioning us on the probability of there being a Big Bang and to not make hasty conclusions.

@Bob: any other conclusion is embracing the existence of the unprovable doG

Well the website has had a notable lack of stupid moronic statements this year. I suppose we ought to fill up the quota.

Permalink Reply by Davis Goodman on May 19, 2017 at 7:02am

I thought you were an atheist. Isn't the most logical thing to believe there's no such thing as an unknown, unobservable universe?

STOP STRAWMANNING ATHEISM DR. BOB. This is a form of trolling. Don't do it again.

Permalink Reply by Pope Beanie on May 19, 2017 at 3:59am

"...a woman who was raised a Jehovah Witness and has left that faith told me the Big Bang story grew from a human need for a beginning. I agreed."

What's interesting to me is the human need to deny an ending. And creation stories still assume that some higher power or agent existed before our human beginning, strongly inferring (imo) that an eternity has always existed, and always will.

Meanhile, scientific explanations become more credible when empirical evidence is consistently gatherable and consistent with scientific predictions.

Given: Two trains traveling in opposite directions (away from each other) at 3/4 light speed. Their seperation speed (relative to each other) is 1-1/2 times the speed of light. A passenger decides he'd rather be on the other train, so he jumps into an escape pod, turns around 180 degrees and heads the same direction as the other train.

Let's say our universe is not expanding. Can he reach the other train if he can never go faster than light speed?

Sure can, but only if he changed his mind within some odd billions of years after both trains left the station, AND his spaceship can go faster than 3/4 light speed. The problem is when he changes his mind too late... unless (say) eternity exists, and there's no such thing as "too late".

It's easier just to say "we'll never know", or "God knows". Anyway... we may never know, because maybe it's "too late" to ever discover evidence of what actually happened so many billions of years ago.

Here's the important part about trying to understand how our universe may have begun, or may exist in eternity: It's not so much about who's got the right theory, but what all we can discover while trying to figure it out. Gravity waves, Higgs Boson, asteroids heading our way, climate science (e.g. on other earth-like planets), magnetic pole reversals, possible other life forms. Clean nuclear energy, especially fusion; solar energy and communications among remote villages.

Big Bang, EU, whatever... the biggest decisions in science spending are about how to discover the most useful, and then the most fascinating. Cosmology meshes with nuclear energy and particle research.

Meanwhile, let's send the Trumps, Bannons, and Mercers to Mars.

Permalink Reply by Tom Sarbeck on May 19, 2017 at 5:30am

Yeah, Beanie, fantasy is fun but when you run out of money the fantasy ends.

When the Congress stops giving the Bangers taxpayer money?

That's what the EUers want, some of the taxpayer money.

Permalink Reply by Davis Goodman on May 19, 2017 at 6:48am

If I can except eternity as a possibility, I don't understand why there absolutely MUST be a limit on time in the other direction. An endless cycle of big bangs and big crunches? Why not? Something else? Why not?