What exactly does evidence for the BB tell us?

[ReligiousNut]

But many astronomers do know for a fact that all mater, space, and time was compressed into an infinitesimal point of singularity, and if the point of singularity existed in this state for enternity past, what caused it to move, since objects in motion remain in motion unless acted upon by an outside force, but if nothing exists outside the singularity how could it have moved, since there is no other force to act upon it?

Take time to think about that.

(topic split from:  http://www.happyatheistforum.com/viewto ... highlight=
-admin)

[Tom62]

My favourite option is number 6. I don't know and I don't care. Please explain me why I should take something that happened billions of years ago so seriously?

[ReligiousNut]

Even though things like the BB don't impact your daily it's still relevant for the explanation of the universe. If you cant explain why events like BB happened when there is clearly evidence of it, how can you claim to know that God doesn't exist. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Why is there something rather than nothing.

[McQ]

Even though things like the BB don't impact your daily it's still relevant for the explanation of the universe. If you cant explain why events like BB happened when there is clearly evidence of it, how can you claim to know that God doesn't exist. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Why is there something rather than nothing.

Why invoke a god just because you currently don't know answers to certain questions? Before people knew what caused diseases, it was "the gods", god, or other deity punishing a person for sin.

Before people knew what made a rainbow appear, the explanation was god. Same for the wind, thunder and lightning, and any other physical phenomena that existed. When people didn't know why, it was convenient to invoke god.

You are trying to do the same thing here, but your lack of knowledge of physics, astronomy and cosmology is causing you to do this. Your questions and your comments aren't even accurate. Take for instance your comment about something causing a singularity to "move", and then badly invoking Newton's First Law (along with a glancing reference to his Third Law). It shows a complete lack of comprehension of not just physics, but of Big Bang cosmology. I suggest studying it from a source outside of the churches, as you will not ever get honest, accurate information on BB Theory there.

Here are some links to help you understand the real science behind BB Theory:

http://www.astronomycafe.net/qadir/acosmbb.html
http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/m_uni.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang

Now, the Wikipedia is not always an accurate source for information, since it can be edited by anyone. However, the references here are accurate and current.

http://www.damtp.cam.ac.uk/user/gr/public/cos_home.html

These links are current, accurate, and most of them speak to all levels of understanding and education, from kids to graduate students, so there's plenty of good information.

Perhaps this thread should be moved into the proper area in the forum as well, since we have moved beyond introductions to a discussion of cosmology.

[Whitney]

I almost split this into three topics since another thing was brought up "how can you claim to know that God doesn't exist."  I don't want to derail a discussion of the BB by going into too much of an explaination of what atheism is an isn't.  Simple clarification, not all atheists, sure there are some, claim to KNOW that no higher power exists.  Lack of evidence may not be evidence of absence but it's certainly a good reason to not hold a belief in something.

If this needs to be discussed further, start a new thread.

[Tom62]

Even though things like the BB don't impact your daily it's still relevant for the explanation of the universe. If you cant explain why events like BB happened when there is clearly evidence of it, how can you claim to know that God doesn't exist.

I have no need to explain the universe. I'm just happy that it is there. There have been many theories about the creation of the universe, some of them just sounds more reasonable to me than the others.

I'm not a cosmologist, which means that you are asking the wrong person to explain the BB to you. The BB is no proof for the existance or non-existance of god. There are christians among you who believe in the BB and God. Finally, I've never claimed that God doesn't exist, I only believe that God doesn't exist.

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Without evidence you cannot proof that something exists. Since I've found 0% evidence that God exists and 0% evidence that God has any influence on planet Earth, why should I bother to believe in something that is so unconvincing?

[Whitney]

Here's something that was brought up on WWGHA when I questioned if it is possible for something to actually exist outside of time and if we can truly define time as anything more than a measurement of movement:

I think most physicists would disagree that time is simply a measurement of something.  Inches measure length, minutes measure time, eg.  Time is one of the dimensiosn of the world we live in, just as are the 'physical dimensions'.  Didn't General Relativity (which we know is not complete yet) say that time started at the big bang and will end at the big crunch?  Therefore, I can see where a god (totally imaginary, mind you) defined as 'eternal' could be said to exist outside of time, since, clearly, eternal also implies existence before the BB and after the BC.  This reminds me of the one and only aspect of atheism that bothers me.  There are so many new things to learn and know, and I think we're coming on to exciting times, and yet I won't be here to experience them.  I know that I won't spend the rest of eternity missing all that - the point is, I miss all that now!

I don't get how any of that dimension stuff works or how they came to determine that they exist.  Isn't the BB just an arbritrary starting point for time since that's the earliest point we have to work with?

I also have problems with time as a dimension and all that other higher dimensional stuff.  But, I believe general relativity equations work very well in the macro world and they allow for time being a dimension like the three we're familiar with.  The BB is not an arbitrary starting point - it's the only starting point that the equations allow for.  Since the equations 'breakdown' (singularities and all), they become meaningless if we try to use them to talk about any dimension, including time, prior to that point.  Hopefully, quantum physics will fix all that someday.

So, for those of you who actually do understand how scientists came to determine dimensions of the universe.  How did they determine them (is there actual evidence of some sort or is it theoretical mathmatics)?  Is it necessary for these equations to be based on the the BB as a starting point, or if we found an earlier starting point to use at a later date (like if we found out our original idea for when the BB occured was wrong) could the equations utilize that instead while not becoming useless?  Are these dimensions thought to be something real or is it more like using a graphing calculator to represent an equation?  

If you have any informative links I could read (or books) which explain this stuff in a way that someone who's not so great in upper maths could understand (I'm pretty decent in math up to calculus and have an understanding of some higher maths related to structural design but just good enough to pass by with average grades...if that helps with understanding what kind of math i'd be able to "get"...quantum is way past my understanding at this point)

[donkeyhoty]

So, for those of you who actually do understand how scientists came to determine dimensions of the universe.  How did they determine them (is there actual evidence of some sort or is it theoretical mathmatics)?  Is it necessary for these equations to be based on the the BB as a starting point, or if we found an earlier starting point to use at a later date (like if we found out our original idea for when the BB occured was wrong) could the equations utilize that instead while not becoming useless?  Are these dimensions thought to be something real or is it more like using a graphing calculator to represent an equation?

Yes, it's all theoretical mathematics and measurements of "stuff" in the universe.  Where stuff can be any number of things based upon the scientists and what they're trying to do.  No, they don't use the big bang as a starting point.  They work backwards to determine if, and when it occurred.

The age of the universe keeps changing, so even the scientists aren't really sure when the big bang occurred.

here's some links with basic stuff, lite(as in easy) equations:

http://www.astro.ubc.ca/people/scott/bbage.html

http://www.interactions.org/cms/?pid=1012086

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v3 ... 399a0.html

hell, even go to wikipedia if you fell like reading a lot: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang

[McQ]

Here's something that was brought up on WWGHA when I questioned if it is possible for something to actually exist outside of time and if we can truly define time as anything more than a measurement of movement:

I think most physicists would disagree that time is simply a measurement of something.  Inches measure length, minutes measure time, eg.  Time is one of the dimensiosn of the world we live in, just as are the 'physical dimensions'.  Didn't General Relativity (which we know is not complete yet) say that time started at the big bang and will end at the big crunch?  Therefore, I can see where a god (totally imaginary, mind you) defined as 'eternal' could be said to exist outside of time, since, clearly, eternal also implies existence before the BB and after the BC.  This reminds me of the one and only aspect of atheism that bothers me.  There are so many new things to learn and know, and I think we're coming on to exciting times, and yet I won't be here to experience them.  I know that I won't spend the rest of eternity missing all that - the point is, I miss all that now!

I don't get how any of that dimension stuff works or how they came to determine that they exist.  Isn't the BB just an arbritrary starting point for time since that's the earliest point we have to work with?

I also have problems with time as a dimension and all that other higher dimensional stuff.  But, I believe general relativity equations work very well in the macro world and they allow for time being a dimension like the three we're familiar with.  The BB is not an arbitrary starting point - it's the only starting point that the equations allow for.  Since the equations 'breakdown' (singularities and all), they become meaningless if we try to use them to talk about any dimension, including time, prior to that point.  Hopefully, quantum physics will fix all that someday.

So, for those of you who actually do understand how scientists came to determine dimensions of the universe.  How did they determine them (is there actual evidence of some sort or is it theoretical mathmatics)?  Is it necessary for these equations to be based on the the BB as a starting point, or if we found an earlier starting point to use at a later date (like if we found out our original idea for when the BB occured was wrong) could the equations utilize that instead while not becoming useless?  Are these dimensions thought to be something real or is it more like using a graphing calculator to represent an equation?  

If you have any informative links I could read (or books) which explain this stuff in a way that someone who's not so great in upper maths could understand (I'm pretty decent in math up to calculus and have an understanding of some higher maths related to structural design but just good enough to pass by with average grades...if that helps with understanding what kind of math i'd be able to "get"...quantum is way past my understanding at this point)

Much of the "distance" and size of objects in the universe are known. Some things better than others, and measurements are being refined all the time.

I just happen to have a site bookmarked on this:

http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/distance.htm

This is a lot of the stuff I learned in college astronomy, but we've learned much more since the early '80s. Hope it's helpful.

[BGMA]

Back to the "what caused the big bang?" question:

I have heard several theories on this, but one of the most intriguing ones is "it just happened", and there's a few guys with some theoretical math that supports this.  In other words, it happened because it *had* to happen, that's just the way the math works.

Others have proposed repeating universe models, others have given "sources" for the big bang materials, both of which are beyond our current math.

There's no reason to assume a made-up god, just because you don't know the answer.  That's on par with assuming tree-spirits and animal-spirits and river-spirits, just because you don't understand botany and biology and water flow dynamics.  Why assume a universe-spirit just becuase you don't yet fully understand astrophysics?  It's basically just animism again.

[ImpaledSkier]

I hate that question...Religious Nut, if you think the answer is God, you're just renaming the question. "What moved God?" Dumb.

[Tom62]

if you change the question "What exactly does evidence for the BB tell us?" to "What exactly does evidence from the Bible Belt tell us?" it suddenly all starts to make sense.

[omen]

But many astronomers do know for a fact that all mater, space, and time was compressed into an infinitesimal point of singularity, and <b> if the point of singularity existed in this state for enternity past,</b> what caused it to move, since objects in motion remain in motion unless acted upon by an outside force, but if nothing exists outside the singularity how could it have moved, since there is no other force to act upon it?

Take time to think about that.

(topic split from:  http://www.happyatheistforum.com/viewto ... highlight=
-admin)

:sighs:   What makes a question pointless?  I know its not exactly beneficial to answer a question with a question, but I feel its needed at this particular time.  So what could make your question completely and utterly pointless?  There should be no dumb questions afterall, and knowledge/information is beneficial by simply knowing it, but how did your train fall of the tracks.

Could have been when you stated something as if science states it?  Perhaps you've made an assumption to correspond with the question, that has nothing to do with "fact".  Maybe, just maybe, in order to make your question intelligible you have to provide a statement beforehand as if it were known and true.

So lets entertain the idea.  Your approaching a first cause arguement, thats what we call it.  You are trying to imply that the first cause could potentially be your evil sky god.  The problem with the first cause arguement that if it was a credible arguement ( which it is not, and I'll address that in abit ) is that you've only established a first "mover".  A mover that starts the universe and from all appearances never interacts with it ever again.  We have a good understanding of how the universe formed, life might have began, and how life developed.  All upon its wonderful little self, pushing your first cause god back like an impotent being thats only purpose in existence is to push a single solitary button.

The problem.  We have zero information as to what existed pre-big bang.  We have reasonable enough info to believe time and space began at that point, but little reason to make conclusions on the other side of the singularity.  We cannot even factually say, there was nothing, or that there was something.  Some scientists are trying to work on this problem to establish new information that might lead us to answers, but that is some time away.  ( Advanced/enormeous super collider in europe I believe )

Now, everytime you use a first cause arguement to establish a prime mover you STILL have to link that prime mover to your evil sky god.  You cannot justifiably use the 2 interchangeably, because you havn't made the arguement for it.  There are thousands of gods in religions going back several thousand years, gods you never heard about, stories that could have occured, jesus's that could have been born and reborn, myths that establish authority over creation/morality/history/existence, essentially anything you can think of.  So which one is right, or is there one that is right.. would be the better question?

That is, if the first cause arguement had weight.

[MrE2Me]

if you change the question "What exactly does evidence for the BB tell us?" to "What exactly does evidence from the Bible Belt tell us?" it suddenly all starts to make sense.

Hehehe, I thought the same exact thing.  

[Huxley]

As I understand it, is it not the case that BB is a definate, historical event?

We have evidence of it, including the background radiation, still measurable today and the predicted and observed 'ripples' at the edge of the expansion measured by George Smoot and team?

What we can surely say is that it pinpoints the beginning of space and time and there is not much we can say beyond that- yet.  As I understand it there are some excellent, predictive, theories about what the state of physics was like before the big bang, but it is going to take a lot more study and computational power to shed light on it.

Even so, what we have is much more satisfying and predictive, enticing everyone in the field into more research. The same cannot be said about Genesis that offers no plausible explanation since the very description and 'proof' of it, defys/ contradicts everything we expect and know about the Universe.