NationStates Jolt Archive

There was nothing, and then God created the Universe right?

Let's work with the Big Bang for this one rather than evolution. In order for something to happen, you need a cause. So for this argument, let's work with causality as well. In case you consider time travel conundrums, let's say that any effort to go into the past will result in an entirely new universe being created while the original stays on course rather than disappearing.

The concept of the Big Bang is grounded upon how the universe we live in today is just one created in the infinite timeline in the universe. Because time is infinite, the possibility of our universe being the first one is non-existant (calc, limits, you know how probability becomes negligable when dealing with infinity). So time couldn't have started when the current universe was created.

The bible considers the same argument that's applicable for how there was no first universe. Although it states in Genesis that God created something out of nothing, it is also stated that nothing came before God and that God is everlasting. The argument for stating that any attempt for trying to track time-zero will not be challenged. What will be challenged is where the initial amount of energy came from because there is no natural state of matter that allows energy to be spontaeneously created.

Energy/ Magnetism = Magnetism/ Energy when all the energy in the universe is equal to the amount of matter. Grand Unified Theory (http://www.grandunifiedtheory.org.il/)

This isn't meant to be a huge flame argument, so I'll conclude with Higgs Fields/ Particles and how the calculations for determining our universe's time-zero settle when they are introduced. Refer to this for a brief description (http://www.historyoftheuniverse.com/big_bang.html)

The idea of using Higgs Fields here requires that an outside force caused what happened. The particles here are called W and Z particles (Higgs Bosons which have already in ironically named God Particles) and have no mass nor space what-so-ever. They are pure energy, and when they collided are expected to have created an enormous amount of matter and antimatter (similar to every description of good and evil in the universe ranging from the catholic cataclysm between the Archangel and the Beast to the Daoist concept of Ying-Yang). Gravity depends upon mass for it to take effect, so these Bosons must have had some force that made them crash into each other.
Have another slice of cake will you? (http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,54507,00.html)

For all we know, the God we worship may be some baby just splashing water. He may also be in a bathtub so big that we can't see it. All the space in our universe may be comparable to the relative space betwee sub-atomic particles within an atom.Alternatively, maybe we're just the experiment of some alien race that decided to call themselves God and threw in a bunch of explanations to see what we would do.

Have fun and enjoy!

Start here if you need something to rebuke about that's almost entirely unrelatable (http://www.doesgodexist.org/Phamplets/Mansproof.html)

Science gets crazier every day. I mean, all these "scientists" keep talking about "multiple universes" and "big bangs". Those who say that the universe will always expand, when did the big bang decide to happen? Why did it happen? Was the last crunch the last one? Was there a last crunch? Quit coming up with crazy explainations.

There are people who question how god could have always existed. Well now, how could matter and/or energy always exist? At least one of them had to always have existed in one form or another. I like that stupid atheist argument. It's easy to point out the flaws.

Maybe the universe is god. If the universe makes stuff happen and god makes stuff happen, then maybe they're the same thing. God created us. If I remember correctly, scientists say that we came from universe crap. Heck, we even came from dust when you think about it. Dust and dirt are basicly the same thing(except dust is floatier and has more crap in it). Bacteria(or whatever scientists say came first) came from crap in sea dirt. As creatures became more complex, they took in more dirt and made it into useful crap. Dirt is minerals. We are made out of minerals and other dirt/water related stuff. Heck, we even turn into dirt when we die. Not immediately, but how many people from millenia ago aren't dirt by now?

You leave out one thing: What created God?

And evolution has nothing to do with the origin of life.

Edit: Forget it, I misread the post.

Atheism is the only logical choice. This isnt a flame, Atheism is the only er... "Faith" with no faith in it at all. Unles your a Die-Hard. I dont believe in god simply because there have been no saints or phropets for 500 years.
And the last one was sincerely argueable. sooo lets make that 1000 years

Atheism is the only logical choice. This isnt a flame, Atheism is the only er... "Faith" with no faith in it at all. Unles your a Die-Hard. I dont believe in god simply because there have been no saints or phropets for 500 years.
And the last one was sincerely argueable. sooo lets make that 1000 years

Surely being agnostic is the only logical choice, since it means not making a claim on the existence of something that cannot be [dis]proven?

This isnt an argument that God exists, it's a vague attempt to rationalise the Bible in scientific terms which is frankly impossible. The Bible describes "firmament" that seperates the "waters above" from the "waters below" it rains because (supposedly) windows in the firmament open. It's just silly, and it's not possible to overlay science on it. In addition, Grand Unified Theory has not been verified, and Higgs particles never discovered - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_unified_theory

So time couldn't have started when the current universe was created.
My only complaint against your theory, is this. Time is too subjective. It is based on Earth's relative speed, rotation, et cetera and can seem longer, or shorter, depending on the chemicals in one's brain. People merely invented time. Its a made up unit of measure, like feet, meteres, and whatnot. But it is so important in our daily lives, we have to apply to the cosmose! That, is amazing. We know it took a great deal of time to happen, but the numbers are so astronomical. How can one even pick out a sand in that time, and observe it as we do, say, World War II? Impossible.

But more on my theorizing later....

You left out one thing: What created God?
Um...he didn't...nothing creating God...God's symbol is a circle...he embodies the was, is, and then...in one word He is: omni. He's not a child playing in a bathtub, though it may seem like it, seeing as to how small we are.

Atheism is the only logical choice.
Atheism is a faith like you say! Atheists take logic and reason to as far as it will go, to where human knowledge runs out, and jump! Just like a "leap of faith!" Only, many are too afraid to.

Not sure I see the point of these "whether God created the Universe" arguments. Supposing you prove that something we call "God" created the universe, the only thing that is really proven is that "God" is something that created the universe.

Most religions however make much more elaborate claims about God, eg. that God is loving, all-powerful, all knowing etc. To my mind this is the issue that is worth considering - is there any evidence that such a being exists, and that it takes any interest/role in life on planet Earth.

My conclusion is that there is insufficient evidence on this point. Ironically, here I am in agreement with Christian orthodoxy, which states that God is something we cannot understand, let alone prove, and that we must accept on faith without evidence.

So the real difference between believers and unbelievers is not what proof we see for our positions and what arguments we find convincing (because, let's face it, we choose arguments based on whether they support our positions, and not the other way around), but rather, whether we are capable of believing things on faith.

I used to try to rationalize myself into believing, and would argue as vehemently as any of the creationists here, but eventually gave up, being tired of the guilt and frustration. So now I am happily agnostic.

I just wonder whether all the others here now arguing for the existence of God are also people who can't quite believe without logical proof, and, like me, just not capable of religious faith, ie. believing without seeing.

For someone who believes that they need to be a Believer to be a good person, this is a very threatening prospect, and I wonder if the fear of acknowledging this is what explains how emotional some people's responses become.

You leave out one thing: What created God?

And evolution has nothing to do with the origin of life.

I did.
*wins*

I dont believe in god simply because there have been no saints or phropets for 500 years.
And the last one was sincerely argueable. sooo lets make that 1000 years


pfft you are forgetting me...Im a prophet..gosh :p

Even if we accept that god created the Universe, there's still the question of how it did it. There's a team of scientists, can't remember where, that say that it would be possible for a creator of the Universe, to encode a message in the cosmic background radiation. It would be tremendously complicated of course, but if you can create a Universe what's one more thing?

So, when the resolution of our instruments gets better, perhaps we can see if the background radiation contains a message from god or is just noise.

As to the Big Bang. Yes, it's running into trouble as currently stated as more and more is known about the initial conditions of the Universe. It wouldn't surprise me if a revision or a totally new theory replaces it in the next 15-20 years. That wouldn't mean god did it, though.

It's very nice to come back to this thread 3 hours later and find out that nobody went on an emotional roller-coaster. Thank you everyone for your patience.

The Higgs Particle has not been discovered (response to Praetonia) due to technological constraints, but has been theorized as much as black holes have been. Technically speaking, we haven't ever found a black hole either because you just can't see it. Our only proof of their existences is how we use radio waves to judge the distance of bodies which are attracted to pts. of singularity. We also try to judge the red- and blueshifts of light to figure out their positions, but we've never actually "found" a black hole since we can't prove without a shadow of a doubt that the vaccums are black holes.

A VERY user friendly site for understanding the Standard Model. This is why we're trying to find the Higgs Boson. (http://particleadventure.org/particleadventure/frameless/standard_model.html)
Also, click on the teal link in the original post. It's three years old, but it shows our progress on developing the tools to find the Higgs Boson.

Surely being agnostic is the only logical choice, since it means not making a claim on the existence of something that cannot be [dis]proven?

Agnosticism is the position that knowledge of god is inherently unattainable.

It has absolutely nothing to do with whether you believe that God exists or not (theism vs. atheism). You can be agnostic, but you're STILL either an atheist or a theist. Saying "I don't know if God exists" doesn't change that, and saying "I don't know if I believe that God exists" is just stupid if it's an attempt to claim that as some kind of philosophical position rather than a momentary state of confusion.

Would people please stop presenting agnosticism as an alternative to atheism and theism?

Please?

Do you have any idea how singularities work? The laws that govern the universe as we know it are not applicable within them. Therefore, time is considered "infinite" only because it reaches a singularity point, i.e. a limit. However, it actually does reach the limit, contrary to basic mathmatics, which is what a singularity, or a point in space with infinite mass and no volume, is. In a singularity, time-space does not exist, and therefore time becomes completely absent. It could have been a microsecond or a billion years before the singularity broke down into the "Big Bang", but since time does not exist within the singularity, it becomes moot. To quote Stephen Hawking, the one who proposed and refined this idea:

"Since events before the Big Bang have no observational consequences, one may as well cut them out of the theory, and say that time began at the Big Bang. Events before the Big Bang, are simply not defined, because there's no way one could measure what happened at them. This kind of beginning to the universe, and of time itself, is very different to the beginnings that had been considered earlier. These had to be imposed on the universe by some external agency. There is no dynamical reason why the motion of bodies in the solar system can not be extrapolated back in time, far beyond four thousand and four BC, the date for the creation of the universe, according to the book of Genesis. Thus it would require the direct intervention of God, if the universe began at that date. By contrast, the Big Bang is a beginning that is required by the dynamical laws that govern the universe. It is therefore intrinsic to the universe, and is not imposed on it from outside."

From "The Beginning of Time", by Stephen Hawking

To learn more about the beginning of the universe, read Stephen Hawking's article here: http://www.hawking.org.uk/text/public/bot.html

Yeah, he has actual proof. There was no god.

Just going to reply to a bit about the physics - I like this kind of stuff!


The Higgs Particle has not been discovered (response to Praetonia) due to technological constraints, but has been theorized as much as black holes have been. Technically speaking, we haven't ever found a black hole either because you just can't see it. Our only proof of their existences is how we use radio waves to judge the distance of bodies which are attracted to pts. of singularity. We also try to judge the red- and blueshifts of light to figure out their positions, but we've never actually "found" a black hole since we can't prove without a shadow of a doubt that the vaccums are black holes.

Well, we've "discovered" black holes much more than we have "discovered" Higgs Particles.

A summary of the "discovery" of Black Holes:

1) Einstein's theory of general relativity is created, and is supported by experimental observation.
2) Someone calculates that if General Relativity is true, then these "Black Holes" SHOULD exist. (At this point they haven't been "discovered" yet, just predicted.)
3) Various scientists try to figure out what the properties of these black holes would be, if they actually do exist.
4) Objects that match these predicted properties are found. The most obvious ones are stars who move as if they're in orbit with a very massive object, but there's no visible object right next to them. There's also more easily detectable ones such as when gas is falling into a black hole and thus emits lots of light and radiation.

The Higgs Boson, is currently at the equivalent of step 3. According to the Standard Model, we can figure out what the properties of Higgs Bosons SHOULD be, but we have not yet detected any particles that match these properties. Maybe with better detectors we will.

Your own response provides the grounds for why my suggestion makes sense. Please remember what a Higgs Particle is especially with how it isn't affected by gravity since it has no mass. One of the links in the original post may help if you need a refresher.

So we have the second law of thermodynamics, zero-time of the universe versus zero-time of this universe, and....


"Since events before the Big Bang have no observational consequences, one may as well cut them out of the theory, and say that time began at the Big Bang. Events before the Big Bang, are simply not defined, because there's no way one could measure what happened at them. This kind of beginning to the universe, and of time itself, is very different to the beginnings that had been considered earlier. These had to be imposed on the universe by some external agency. There is no dynamical reason why the motion of bodies in the solar system can not be extrapolated back in time, far beyond four thousand and four BC, the date for the creation of the universe, according to the book of Genesis. Thus it would require the direct intervention of God, if the universe began at that date. By contrast, the Big Bang is a beginning that is required by the dynamical laws that govern the universe. It is therefore intrinsic to the universe, and is not imposed on it from outside."

....to consider.

While time goes by normally in ordinary space, time doesn't apply normally in singularities. All the space around the singularity has time proceed normally, but the time within does not. OK, that's safe. 2nd law of t.d. is how entropy increases as time proceeds. So, entropy increases throughout the space around the universe although there's no mass to be involved. Really, there's no difference so that's safe too. Lastly, events before the big bang of this universe occured cannot be determined since there's an infinite amount of possibilities when considering any form of integration to find any particular solution (easy calc.). Alrite, 's cool. I gotcha.

So let's say some force introduced something to a point of singularity that would cause it to expand rather than suck everything into it (similar to if we threw some machine into a blackhole to make it throw up that managed to last after an infinite duration of time). This complies with the first part of Hawking's statement because anything trying to figure out how it came into being after it was created wouldn't be able to since an infinite amount of possibilities could have caused its existence. The thing still exists, it just doesn't know how it came into existence.

It also complies with the second part because the machine would be of some external agency. Hawking's suggestion is easily acceptable here because it coincides with how internal energy cannot make a system do anything beyond the system's own means. A wheeled platform that has a magnet on the front also has a crane built on it which suspends a magnet by a rope. The platform will move slightly (assuming negligible gravity since the magnetism will have to overcome friction and downward gravity between the wheeled platform and the ground), but only to let the center of magnetism remain balanced

The reference upon the bible is iffy. Although there is a declaration of Earth's origin in time, this part doesn't necessarily have to be interpretted as 4004 normal years. As ever so many prophecies and proverbs are written, some are just bound to happen after so much time. Chinese fortune cookies are my personal favorite for this especially since the technique use for just hiring a bunch of guys to come up with wise sounding statements and printing what the wrote 1000s of times over was in practice since Confucius' time. "Patience is a virtue" isn't universally applicable, but if it's said in enough cases, it's bound to connect to something. Hawking makes a point, but it's more of a sly and comical comment than something of substance for his speech.

The last part of the paragraph is questionable. Everytime the universe is remade, laws and forces are supposed to change and vary due to how all of the energy, magnetism, and matter behaves differently everytime. This is a theory in itself, but is viable. There's no way that everytime the universe was remade that everything took the EXACT same course. Also, we definitely can't sense every dimension of the universe otherwise we would be perfect. Perfection requires an infinite amount of time to develop since it has to start from nothing and can only be determined by the practitioner.

Of course, the previous paragraph revolves around philosophy, but so does the end of the selected quote. Also, time is an infinite dimension. Determining that the Higgs particles cause the big bang is an attempt to figure out what happened at the point of impact, not where the particles came from before it happened.

I think this is enough to start a discussion on whether or not Higgs Bosons are a valid starter. It's certainly not enough to complete it. It would please me (at the least) if there was a response and inquisition upon this answer. It is why we have chosen to use this forum after all. :)

that's not an arguement for god existing, that's an arguement for why the big bang may be flawed

no arguement FOR god exists

Exactly.

It's very nice to come back to this thread 3 hours later and find out that nobody went on an emotional roller-coaster. Thank you everyone for your patience.

The Higgs Particle has not been discovered (response to Praetonia) due to technological constraints, but has been theorized as much as black holes have been. Technically speaking, we haven't ever found a black hole either because you just can't see it. Our only proof of their existences is how we use radio waves to judge the distance of bodies which are attracted to pts. of singularity. We also try to judge the red- and blueshifts of light to figure out their positions, but we've never actually "found" a black hole since we can't prove without a shadow of a doubt that the vaccums are black holes.

A VERY user friendly site for understanding the Standard Model. This is why we're trying to find the Higgs Boson. (http://particleadventure.org/particleadventure/frameless/standard_model.html)
Also, click on the teal link in the original post. It's three years old, but it shows our progress on developing the tools to find the Higgs Boson.
This doesnt mean Higgs Particles and the Standard model are Right, it just means that they might be right. It doesnt matter why we havent found them, it matters that we havent and until we have this is nothing but speculation and hypothesis. We have found things that act like black holes (ie. that admit X-ray emmissions of the sort we would expect black holes to emmit - visible light is not the only measure of proof available) and so they fit the predictions that hypothesies that require their existance make. As far as I am aware, we havent found anything to indicate the existance of Higgs Particles.

Surely being agnostic is the only logical choice, since it means not making a claim on the existence of something that cannot be [dis]proven?
But agnosticism is making a claim about the unkowability of god, and that claim requires proof just as any other does.

Atheism, in it's widest sense, is simply the absence of belief in a deity, not necessarily an assertion of its non-existence. In the absence of convincing evidence, an absence of belief is entirely logical and rational.

The existence of Higgs Particles is the argument for whether or not God exists (what God is isnt' considered). Causality is a given in the opening post which means that there must have been some reason and purpose for why the Higgs Particles collided. If there wasn't an initial will to push the particles together, then it could not have happened in the first place.

The argument for how we have discovered black holes more than Higgs Particles is valid since it says how we have found objects with characteristics of what we're searching for in our search for black holes. Saying that the initial proposition is only an argument against the conception of the Big Bang is not valid because the i.p. does not contradict how the universe expanded from a point of singularity. It only states that Higgs Bosons provided the *umph* needed to get it started rather than how the singularity just spontaneously exploded.

The existence of Higgs Particles is the argument for whether or not God exists (what God is isnt' considered). Causality is a given in the opening post which means that there must have been some reason and purpose for why the Higgs Particles collided. If there wasn't an initial will to push the particles together, then it could not have happened in the first place.
This isn't so. While there may have had to be a reason why the particles collided, I see no grounds for believing that the reason has to involve purpose. As far as we know from evidence, purpose is an attribute of human beings and other sentient animals on our little rock called Earth. It's nothing more than unfounded anthropomorphism to assume that it exists elsewhere, let alone in anything which is not a biological organism with a physical brain. Just because people have purposes, it does not follow that anything else does.

The existence of Higgs Particles is the argument for whether or not God exists (what God is isnt' considered). Causality is a given in the opening post which means that there must have been some reason and purpose for why the Higgs Particles collided. If there wasn't an initial will to push the particles together, then it could not have happened in the first place.
This is the ID argument - "It cant have happened on its own using current theories because of X, therefore God must have done it." This is non-sequintur. It doesnt follow that because we dont know why something happened, God must have done it. God would be one possibility, but as there is no way of explaining the existance of God, how we was capable of making these bosons collide or even why they needed to be pushed together with a purpose in mind rather than doing so for some other, perfectly natural reasons, I see no reason to say that the God explanation is the most likely, or even a reasonable explanation. This doesnt prove that God exists, it proves that we dont know why two particles collided (if they even exist).

Mind that God doesn't mean some being that can do anything at his will in this case. God can be considered as anything that managed to initiate the universe. Like stated earlier, God could be an alien species that just figured out some way to create something out of nothing (figuratively speaking). Maybe heaven is just the stage of life after conventional death. We don't know the truth about either (grounds for the side agnosticism/ atheism argument) . The argument only states that something willed the universe to be created since something caused to to be created.

Atheism is the only logical choice. This isnt a flame, Atheism is the only er... "Faith" with no faith in it at all. Unles your a Die-Hard. I dont believe in god simply because there have been no saints or phropets for 500 years.
And the last one was sincerely argueable. sooo lets make that 1000 years

Five (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Smith%2C_Jr.) hundred (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brigham_Young) years (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Taylor_%281808-1887%29)? I (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilford_Woodruff) think (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorenzo_Snow) I (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_F._Smith) know (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heber_J._Grant) a (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Albert_Smith) few (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_O._McKay) people (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Fielding_Smith) who'd (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_B._Lee) disagree (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spencer_W._Kimball) with (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ezra_Taft_Benson) you (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_W._Hunter) there (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordon_B._Hinckley).

(And (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Smith_III) these (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Madison_Smith) guys (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_Alexander_Smith) as (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Wallace_Smith) well (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wallace_B._Smith), most (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Grant_McMurray) likely (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_M._Veazey))

Doubtless there are others.

[QUOTE=DrunkenDove]You leave out one thing: What created God?QUOTE]

Sorry if other have posted my reply to this, but i haven't got there yet. God is a possible explanation for this continuum, kinda like a reason, not a part. As an example, let's view gravity and a tossed ball. Gravity causes the ball to fall back to earth and is not a part of the ball. But like I said, God is one of many explanations.

This is so ridiculous. As if Judaism (i.e. the belief in a monotheistic god as the Bible wrongly propagates) had anything to do with creating the world. The Bible does not even tell the truth about the specific god it wants to support, so why would anyone assume that the concept of god held by Judaism, Christianity and Islam was compatible or incompatible with the physics of the universe? The perspective those religions have of the universe are extremely limited and should not be used for or against anything in the real world.

To exposite on a point made earlier in this thread (by GhostEmperor)...

There are several arguments against the idea that the big bang requires a creator.

The most straight forward is a simple application of Occam's razor.

Assume two conflicting suggestions:
1: The universe, which we know to exist, just happened.
2: God, a being for which there is no evidence, just happened. God created the universe, which we know to exist.

Occam's Razor dictates that the 'simpler' explanation that fits the facts equally well--that is to say, the former, (which says the same thing as the latter, except with extranious terms and complications, or the use of groundless terms (an unobservable being) removed)--is more likely to be correct.

Until evidence exists against the universe having just happened, or for God existing, the only logical conclusion is that the former is correct.
--

The next is almost as simple, except that it adds the concept of infinite durration, which is applied to many hypotheses-the creator hypothesis, the steady-state hypothesis (which has been thouroughly disproven), the cyclic hypothesis, which I am about to discuss, and one more, which I will discuss later.

This one states that there is an infinite chain of universes going back forever through time.

The idea is that at some point, the universe's attactive forces will cause the universe to cease expanding and begin contracting. It will shrink back into a very small universe, and after a while, it will have a big bang, and reboot. The universal chain has been doing this for ever.

Let's compare this one with the creator hypothesis and apply Occam's Razor.

1: The 'big crunch effect', an effect for which there is little to no evidence, has just been happening forever. A previous instance of the big crunch effect created this universe, which we know to exist.
2: God, a being for which there is no evidence, just happened. God created the universe, which we know to exist.

Both have one unexplained term for which there ought to be evidence. The former has the 'big crunch effect', and the latter has God. The latter is marginally inferior because, while the 'big crunch effect' is unobserved, it is partially based on explained terms: our understanding of how the universe works.

Occam's razor favors the former, but not by much.
--

A third requires a concept of infinite durration and the malliability of time and causuality. This third is the one I think is most likely.

As previously stated, the universe at the time of the Big Bang would be, in its entirety, a singularity. Everything in the universe would be within the event horizon, where, to make a very long explanation very short, time decays to such a degree that the observation of the passing of a second for a hypothetical 'inside observer' would, from the frame of reference of a hypothetical 'outside observer', take all of infinity to pass. This is known, in short, as gravitational time dialation.

Then we go from there to the conclusion that the universe existed forever, but there just wasn't any time to measure forever by until the Big Bang, because until then there wasn't anywhere for an outside observer to check his watch. It existed forever, but that forever was precisely zero seconds long.

The argument only states that something willed the universe to be created since something caused to to be created.
There is no evidence that "will" was required and so the argument is tautology - "Something must have willed this to happen therefore something with a will must have made it happen, ie. intelligence". It proves nothing.

This seems like the type of discussion that only teenagers could find interesting.

My personal opinion is that I do not believe in the Creation Myth of the Big Bang. Nor do I believe that the Atheist identity can logically exist within the pantheistic definition of God.

The only thing science can tell us is that "the Big Bang occurred," it can not be argued on scientific grounds that the "Big Bang created the universe", for all we know, space may extend for trillions and trillions of lightyears and a quadrillion light years out, another Big Bang is occurring.

The Big Bang Creation Myth is nothing more than idiotic dogma from the Catholic Church.

God did not create the universe, God is the universe.

CBF'ed reading 3 pages of the usual aethiest-Theist exchanges and i'll just post my view.

God is a creation of the human imagination and desire for knowing why things happen when there is no logical scientific explaination.

Because of this, got is not a thing that exists in reality, he/she/it (refered hereafter as 'he' for simplicity) only exists in our perception of reality. If I was to take every person who belived in some sort of god and have them killed, god would no longer exist as nobody would belive he exists. Please note that im not advocating this by any means. People have the right to freedom of religeon, expression and speech unless the routinely display they are a retard in public. Like Jack Thompston or Pat Robertson.

The only thing science can tell us is that "the Big Bang occurred,"
This isnt actually true. The Big Bang is only one (albeit the most popular) theory. Among experts in the field, it is by no means unanimous. Kind of funny that you insult the people posting on this thread by saying they are immature, yet your own contribution is factually wrong.

Causality is a given in the opening post which means that there must have been some reason and purpose for why the Higgs Particles collided.

And, there, is where the argument falls apart.

You seek to apply causality to a 'first cause'... which may seem quite logical in a causality-based reality.... but we actually have no reason to suspect that any 'first cause' needs to be constrained by those same rules.

In (allegorical) effect... you are arguing that - since people ALWAYS use pencils to draw their inventions, the pencil must have always existed.

You are applying the rules of 'now', to the point before those rules were 'written'.

And, there, is where the argument falls apart.

You seek to apply causality to a 'first cause'... which may seem quite logical in a causality-based reality.... but we actually have no reason to suspect that any 'first cause' needs to be constrained by those same rules.

In (allegorical) effect... you are arguing that - since people ALWAYS use pencils to draw their inventions, the pencil must have always existed.

You are applying the rules of 'now', to the point before those rules were 'written'.

Exactly why singularity collapse works so much better!

Exactly why singularity collapse works so much better!

Me, I like the idea that we are in a repeating sequence.

Our universe born from the ashes of the previous incarnation...

Is that kind of where you are coming from?

Me, I like the idea that we are in a repeating sequence.

Our universe born from the ashes of the previous incarnation...

Is that kind of where you are coming from?

In a sense, yes. Because our universe will eventually collapse back into a singularity, that singularity will exist for an undefined amount of time (rendering time meaningless) before collapsing in on itself and exploding outward with matter. So yes, the universe will constantly be made and re-made, though space-time will be destroyed each time and no evidence of a previous or future universe will ever be found outside of theoretical science.

In a sense, yes. Because our universe will eventually collapse back into a singularity, that singularity will exist for an undefined amount of time (rendering time meaningless) before collapsing in on itself and exploding outward with matter. So yes, the universe will constantly be made and re-made, though space-time will be destroyed each time and no evidence of a previous or future universe will ever be found outside of theoretical science.

Good. That's pretty much where I was headed.

I arrived at mine independently, through looking at patterns like the similarities between blackholes and quasars.... where did you derive your model.... or was it something you 'learned'? (If so - what source...?)

Good. That's pretty much where I was headed.

I arrived at mine independently, through looking at patterns like the similarities between blackholes and quasars.... where did you derive your model.... or was it something you 'learned'? (If so - what source...?)

Yeah, black holes and quazars... those are (theoretically) two different kinds of singularities that vary from a normal singularity. I learned my stuff from the writings of Stephen Hawking and some of his lectures. Here's the site:

http://www.hawking.org.uk/

Check out some of his lectures; they're friggin' awesome.

Yeah, black holes and quazars... those are (theoretically) two different kinds of singularities that vary from a normal singularity. I learned my stuff from the writings of Stephen Hawking and some of his lectures. Here's the site:

http://www.hawking.org.uk/

Check out some of his lectures; they're friggin' awesome.

I have encountered some Hawking before... and wasn't too unhappy with what I found. I'm not one to sneer at those who pioneer in academia... but I'm not quite willing to hand Hawking his wings and harp yet... :)

But, I'll look it over. Thank you, my friend.

This isnt actually true. The Big Bang is only one (albeit the most popular) theory. Among experts in the field, it is by no means unanimous. Kind of funny that you insult the people posting on this thread by saying they are immature, yet your own contribution is factually wrong.

As a degreed Astrophysicist, I find your comment rather humorous. The Big Bang Theory (with Inflationary modification ala Guth) is the best theory describing "an event" which occurred in the Universe's past and is the only one supported by observational astronomy, from Hubble, to COBE, and every other astronomical device currently in operation. The Big Bang Inflation Event is considered in virtually every corner of the globe to be a scientific fact of history. (Unless of course you'd like to make a YEC argument? Of course, doing so will only result in my laughing you off)

As Hawkings said, HE is imposing the view that time began with the Big Bang. HE is the imposer of the view. It is an illogical view to say that the Universe was created by the Big Bang or by inflation. It can only logically be said that the "Inflationary Big Bang is an event which occurred in the Universe's past"

Furthermore, I didn't insult anyone. That you took offense shows to me, that you're being overly defensive to someone who was "pleased" to find teenagers discussing the things which teenagers should be discussing.

I think you guys are having issues with defining certain words.

"Universe" for instance.

You can not have "multiple" universes. It is a contradiction of terms, an oxymoron, if you will.

You *can* have a "big bang here" and "another big bang" a trillion trillion light years away. But you can't have "multiple universes"

As a degreed Astrophysicist, I find your comment rather humorous. The Big Bang Theory (with Inflationary modification ala Guth) is the best theory describing "an event" which occurred in the Universe's past and is the only one supported by observational astronomy, from Hubble, to COBE, and every other astronomical device currently in operation. The Big Bang Inflation Event is considered in virtually every corner of the globe to be a scientific fact of history. (Unless of course you'd like to make a YEC argument? Of course, doing so will only result in my laughing you off)
Im not talking about young earth rubbish and pseudoscience, I'm talking about seriously alternate theories such as this (http://www.spacedaily.com/news/cosmology-02c.html) proposed by scientists who also have appropriate degrees in the field.

Furthermore, I didn't insult anyone. That you took offense shows to me, that you're being overly defensive to someone who was "pleased" to find teenagers discussing the things which teenagers should be discussing.

This seems like the type of discussion that only teenagers could find interesting.

What you said and what you are retrospectively attempting to claim that you said are two (wildly) different things.

First cuase has been tried before.

Man created god, not the other way around.

Zombie created God! Begone, to the grave from which thou wert dug!

The concept of the Big Bang is grounded upon how the universe we live in today is just one created in the infinite timeline in the universe. Because time is infinite, the possibility of our universe being the first one is non-existant (calc, limits, you know how probability becomes negligable when dealing with infinity). So time couldn't have started when the current universe was created.
I think it did, actually. It doesn't make any sense to me, but it's not an intuitive concept.

The bible considers the same argument that's applicable for how there was no first universe. Although it states in Genesis that God created something out of nothing, it is also stated that nothing came before God and that God is everlasting. The argument for stating that any attempt for trying to track time-zero will not be challenged. What will be challenged is where the initial amount of energy came from because there is no natural state of matter that allows energy to be spontaeneously created.
I don't understand how you arrive at this step.

The idea of using Higgs Fields here requires that an outside force caused what happened. The particles here are called W and Z particles (Higgs Bosons which have already in ironically named God Particles) and have no mass nor space what-so-ever. They are pure energy, and when they collided are expected to have created an enormous amount of matter and antimatter (similar to every description of good and evil in the universe ranging from the catholic cataclysm between the Archangel and the Beast to the Daoist concept of Ying-Yang). Gravity depends upon mass for it to take effect, so these Bosons must have had some force that made them crash into each other.
Have another slice of cake will you? (http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,54507,00.html)
They have been named God Particles, much to the chagrin of physicists. (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/07/science/07essa.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=higgs+particle&st=nyt&oref=slogin) I don't think they have any real religious implication, though.

For all we know, the God we worship may be some baby just splashing water. He may also be in a bathtub so big that we can't see it. All the space in our universe may be comparable to the relative space betwee sub-atomic particles within an atom.Alternatively, maybe we're just the experiment of some alien race that decided to call themselves God and threw in a bunch of explanations to see what we would do.
Maybe, but I don't see how that's related to the rest of the post.
I am more than a little confused by your entire post. Could you explain further?

EDIT: I have sense read more of your posts and...could someone else explain further? Sorry, I just don't understand how you connect Higgs bosons with God.