Happy Atheist Forum

It seems too often that debates on the existence of God cover outside issues such as the problem of evil, morality, etc. While these things do credit or discredit the possibility of God's existence in some people's minds, they are not even an integral question or close to the best question to ask.

My question for all Atheists concerns our origin, or the Universe's origin. This is something I thought about since I was a kid but I will pose it in its more formal style, entitled the Kalam Cosmological Argument.

This is how it goes:

1. The Universe Exists

2. It either had No Beginning or a Beginning

(Most people agree the Universe had a beginning: Big Bang Singularity, 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, Actual Infinity doesn't exist, Impossible to cross infinity)

3. If it had a Beginning, this Beginning was either Caused or Not Caused.

(Most people agree it was caused. Can you give me five examples of something without a cause?)

4. If it was caused it was caused by a Random Directionless Force (analogy: A tornado going through a lumber yard and forming a mall) or it was caused by a Personal Agent.

Which is more likely?

Now, I would like to hear your take on this. Mine is below.

Personally, I have never understood how proponents of scientism are even given a voice on matters such as creation. Since the 1st law of thermodynamics, or the conservation of energy, says energy can never be created or destroyed: how can science ever explain the original creation of energy?

The traditional theistic belief stands that the original creation of time, space, matter, and energy was done by a agent who exists outside of time and space and has no cause. It is self-existent and self-sustaining. Though it may be hard to imagine from our finite perspective, I do not see any logical alternative.

The traditional theistic belief fails.

Why?  It is not logical.  Really, you need to use reason in any analysis.

It fails because it assumes that you know everything and you do not.  For example, you argue in "4)" that there are only two alternatives.

To assume that you have perfect knowledge and know all of the alternatives is naive and ridiculous.

Firstly, we do not know if there was a beginning.  The big bang theory does not postulate that it was "a beginning" at all.  It says nothing about what or if anything came before the big bang.  Your assumption that "there was a beginning" is wrong.

Secondly, to say that there are only two possibilities for a beginning is ridiculous.  Its like watching the Penn and Teller bullet catching act and arguing that the only two possibilities are that Penn and Teller are capable of catching bullets or that GOD caught the bullets for them. . . . .  Perhaps, there is a third alternative?

The fact that you are too simple to conceive of other alternatives is not a basis upon which to establish logic.

Drop your apologetics class and start taking some astronomy. You'll get a much better idea about these things and you'll talk to professors and students who want to find ways to answer questions instead of ways to defend answers.

You can forget about the Kalam cosmological argument (I'm assuming you just studied or are studying now in your class and haven't gotten to the refutations yet, because there are many). It fails. You don't see any logical alternative because you don't want to. That and you obviously don't have an advanced degree in theoretical astrophysics. Neither do I, but that's neither here nor there.  

It's hard to wrap your head around something like a "beginning" that doesn't have a preceding time associated with it. There was no "before" the universe. Time is a measure of decay. We are steeped in time. We can't think outside of it. Ever try to imagine a tesseract? I mean, really imagine it? You think you can, but you can't. You can't comprehend a four dimensional hypercube because your brain has evolved to think in three dimensions. The questions you're asking are theoretical mindfucks, and  yes, you're partially right in your reasoning: thinking is hard, so since we don't understand how it could have happened (yet), it's easier to assume it was something like us, because, darn it, we're so special and wonderful and perfect beings would definitely be like us!

Which is more likely?

Didn't we had this thread before? Somehow I have got this strange feeling of Déjà Vu  

[youtube:210ourud]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2eUopy9sd8[/youtube:210ourud]

Didn't we had this thread before? Somehow I have got this strange feeling of Déjà Vu  

[youtube:29d6cndv]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2eUopy9sd8[/youtube:29d6cndv]

Simple answer, I don't know how the universe got here but I don't find a reason to assume a god simply due to gaps in my (our) knowledge.

I'm not an atheist, but I'll field this. This is a very old and outdated argument considering modern knowledge, and your formulation of it misuses some modern science.

Quote from: "mbell31"1. The Universe Exists

2. It either had No Beginning or a Beginning

(Most people agree the Universe had a beginning: Big Bang Singularity, 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, Actual Infinity doesn't exist, Impossible to cross infinity)

What most people agree with is irrelevant, big bang cosmology has absolutely nothing to do with whether the universe had a beginning or not. Thermodynamics only applies inside close systems, and cannot be said to apply at the point of the big bang, the singularity you mention at the origin of the big bang is a mathematical singularity. At the point of the singularity none of our physical principles can be said to obtain. There is nothing mathematically, nor logically problematic about infinity existing in actuality. The logical problems only arise when you talk about "reaching" or "crossing" infinity, which implies that infinity is a number that can be counted to, when it is not.

Quote3. If it had a Beginning, this Beginning was either Caused or Not Caused.

Causality holds no meaning outside of time, and time is a product of the big bang, it is illogical to talk about time itself having a cause, as a "cause" is an event that precedes another event in time.  

Quote(Most people agree it was caused. Can you give me five examples of something without a cause?)

It is irrelevant what "most people" think. Also, can you give a single example of something that was caused to come into existence by more than definition alone? Things within the universe merely change, not come into existence. The principle of the conservation of matter and energy suggests that the total amount of matter and energy in the universe is static, and the first law of thermodynamics suggests that matter cannot be created or destroy. Events, reactions, and effects have causes, but "things" do not, they were not caused to exist, they were constructed from pre-existing material, and as far as we are aware, that material existed in some form throughout the entire life of the universe -- so if you are attempting to infer that because things within the universe have causes, that the universe itself must, then your inference is faulty, since things only ever truly change, a proper inference would be that the universe is no difference, and is constructed from pre-existing material, and always existed in some form or another. Though in any case, no matter what the state of affairs of objects within the universe, it would be a compilation fallacy to infer things about the universe based on its individual parts.  

Quote4. If it was caused it was caused by a Random Directionless Force (analogy: A tornado going through a lumber yard and forming a mall) or it was caused by a Personal Agent.

Your analogy is faulty, anything in the universe with a complex structure was not caused directly by the big bang event, but formed over the following 13.7 billion years by various known physical forces and phenomena.

QuoteWhich is more likely?

I assume you are asking which we intuitively feel is more likely. Personally, I must confess to finding the idea that it was a person beyond fantastic, and into the realm of completely non cognisant.

I don't know how the universe started, or even if it started.

I would be interested to know why you think god does not need a beginning, do you have any evidence for him existing outside of time and space (out side of fairy tales), can you even offer a definition of what those two things mean in quantifiable, exact terms? Why do you think it's biblegod that started the universe, and not Odin? Is there any evidence about the universe that makes it more biblegod inspired than Odin inspired, that we can see around us now?

By the way, if you dont know, how god came into existance, or how it is that he exists, I actually have the answer for you ( I have been sitting on it for a while, but I feel like letting it out ).

Quote from: "SSY"By the way, if you dont know, how god came into existance, or how it is that he exists, I actually have the answer for you ( I have been sitting on it for a while, but I feel like letting it out ).

I sense scatological humor...  

I think everyone else has this one tied down.  The Kalam argument is rather weak, for more reasons than are listed here, even.  Google will show you, Mbell.   :lol:

Quote from: "mbell31"It seems too often that debates on the existence of God cover outside issues such as the problem of evil, morality, etc. While these things do credit or discredit the possibility of God's existence in some people's minds, they are not even an integral question or close to the best question to ask.

My question for all Atheists concerns our origin, or the Universe's origin. This is something I thought about since I was a kid but I will pose it in its more formal style, entitled the Kalam Cosmological Argument.

I agree that we are often required to acknowledge human and societal issues and ideals as reason for a god's or creator's existence.  But, I don't think switching the focus to the origins of the Universe is very helpful either because it requires you to accept things as fact that can not be known, and therefore a being waving their finger around creating life purposely or some cosmic boom occurring creating it at random doesn't matter.  When people do bring this up though I wonder, what do creator believers think he/she was doing prior to creating?  Was there nothing and then there was something?  And where did the creator come from?  Is it really reasonable to think that something came from nothing and that something had some kind of power to create other things?  And seriously, why do people care that people are sitting around thinking life happened at random and there is no creator?  Does it make you worry that you might be wrong?  That if people keep poking their nose around and learning and discovering that they'll figure it out and disprove the creator theory?

I don't agree with any of the outlined points or processes you have posed.  I don't think anything was created, either by a being or by random, or by and boom.  I think things are what they are and exist as they exist and it's simply our minds trying to place meaning on time and and existence that is really just a man created fantasy.  It's abstract and beginnings and endings of the universe and life don't really exist.

I read through all the posts and if I ever have a free weekend I will try to make the effort to respond to all parts of them but in general it seems like the theme is a lack of belief in the ability to know truth.

I guess it's easier cast doubt on everything and not question your existence, otherwise you would have to answer to a creator.

I didn't read a single thing refuting the argument. Just a bunch of rhetoric saying it is weak, etc. and why such and such is unlikely.

Please tell me:

Where did matter and energy come from or have they existed forever?

Can you please answer this and not dodge your way around it. Please answer that single question only. Thanks.

Quote from: "mbell31"Where did matter and energy come from or have they existed forever?

They may have existed forever, but what is forever?  Why does it have to come from anywhere?  I didn't see anyone here avoiding the question posed in the OP.  It's just that you are wanting people to say either it happened through a current scientific belief or it happened via a creator.

Not everyone thinks like that, and since you took the time to read through the posts, but not respond to any, and then just reposted the question we were answering throughout the thread is sounds like until a definitve answer is given you are not interested in responding.

I don't think there was a beginning to matter and/or energy.  They've always existed and it's only the human mind that has created a need for a beginning and likewise a need to have an answer to the beginning.

Also, I am not in any form trying to avoid having to answer to a creator.  Since I don't believe their to be a crator, either scientifically or paranormally there is nothing to answer to.  I am simply a ball of energy and matter that happens to have a brain that thinks more complexly than it needs to.

Quote from: "VanReal"

Quote from: "mbell31"Where did matter and energy come from or have they existed forever?

They may have existed forever, but what is forever?  Why does it have to come from anywhere?  I didn't see anyone here avoiding the question posed in the OP.  It's just that you are wanting people to say either it happened through a current scientific belief or it happened via a creator.

Not everyone thinks like that, and since you took the time to read through the posts, but not respond to any, and then just reposted the question we were answering throughout the thread is sounds like until a definitve answer is given you are not interested in responding.

I don't think there was a beginning to matter and/or energy.  They've always existed and it's only the human mind that has created a need for a beginning and likewise a need to have an answer to the beginning.

Also, I am not in any form trying to avoid having to answer to a creator.  Since I don't believe their to be a crator, either scientifically or paranormally there is nothing to answer to.  I am simply a ball of energy and matter that happens to have a brain that thinks more complexly than it needs to.

Thank you for answering my question. Yes, you are right I don't want to respond to meaningless banter until someone gives a definitive answer.

Since you believe there was no beginning, I posed to you these problems with that position:

1. The Hot Big Bang Singularity

-The expansion of the universe
-Extrapolate backward to a beginning point

2. 2nd Law of Thermodynamics

-The universe is "cooling" off. An eventual heat death.
-Thus, there was a past time of maximum energy.
-Things are going to low energy and high disorder.

3. Actual infinities don't exist- see Hilbert's Hotel hypothesis

4. Impossible to "cross" an actual infinity. Infinite number of "past" events.

-If a past casual event hasn't occurred, the present effect cannot have taken place.
-If the past is infinite then we could never get to the present.
-The present is the last member of a series of events, therefore past is finite.
-A beginningless universe has no first "member".

Quote from: "mbell31"I guess it's easier cast doubt on everything and not question your existence, otherwise you would have to answer to a creator.

This is a rather strange thing to say -- which part of your argument even implies a theistic god opposed to a deistic god, let alone outlines what this theistic god wants of us? I won't deny that I don't want a fundamentalist god to be real, but I think it is implausible that if a god existed, they would condemn me for eternal punishment over some of my inconsequential preferences.  

QuoteI didn't read a single thing refuting the argument. Just a bunch of rhetoric saying it is weak, etc. and why such and such is unlikely.

I thought that I addressed every step clearly, and unambiguously. Whether you thought my refutations were correct or not doesn't change the fact that I did address the argument specifically.  

QuotePlease tell me:

Where did matter and energy come from or have they existed forever?

I have no clue. No one does. There are several scientific hypothesis that explain where the universe could have come from, but all are conjecture, none are evident. If I could answer this question I would be receiving my Nobel prize shortly after.  

QuoteCan you please answer this and not dodge your way around it. Please answer that single question only. Thanks.

Do you expect a definitive answer to an unknown? Only a charlatan can offer you that.

Huh?  There can be no actual infinities?  And you back this up the second law of thermodynamics I guess?  And for systems which the law doesn't apply to?  The progression of time, uninterrupted, will be infinite.  The number of points in space is infinite.  The series of natural numbers, though the numbers themselves are finite, is infinite.  And you will have one interesting time explaining how singularities don't bring about infinite spacetime curvature (you will need a quantum theory of gravity to convince me).  Nevermind that the second law of thermodynamics only applies to closed systems in this universe, and possibly not even the universe itelf (as the law applies to closed systems within the universe, not the universe itself).  Also, there could be physics outside the universe that create universes in a random fashion.  M-theory suggests the possibility that this universe was created by the collision of two membranes in an infinite sea of them, the matter and energy being the remaining resonance of that collision.  Quantum theory gives us imaginary time, a second, but real dimension of time, running perpendicular to our progression.  Through this perpendicular time, the Big Bang may actually be an uncaused event (causal events are only visible to us when running in our same dimension of time).  Also, there are models of the Big Bang that have an infinitely long past, and Big Bang Theory does not explicitly call for a finite universe as you would have us believe.   :D

Sorry for the rambling post, I feel really, really woozy right now, can't think too hard.

Quote from: "mbell31"Since you believe there was no beginning, I posed to you these problems with that position:

1. The Hot Big Bang Singularity

-The expansion of the universe
-Extrapolate backward to a beginning point

Again, the Big Bang Singularity theory does not postulate anything regarding a "beginning."

Quote from: "mbell31"2. 2nd Law of Thermodynamics

-The universe is "cooling" off. An eventual heat death.
-Thus, there was a past time of maximum energy.
-Things are going to low energy and high disorder.

What does this have to do with the cost of bread in China?

The current trends in the universe say nothing about whether there was a beginning.

Quote from: "mbell31"Thank you for answering my question. Yes, you are right I don't want to respond to meaningless banter until someone gives a definitive answer.

There was no meaningless bantering in anyone's response to you, I don't think you bothered to read what they were saying.  Several of them found your intital two options flawed from the beginning, maybe that put you off, but nothing was just filling in their posts, I would suggest you read some of them as they were answering the question the best anyone can.

QuoteSince you believe there was no beginning, I posed to you these problems with that position:

1. The Hot Big Bang Singularity

-The expansion of the universe
-Extrapolate backward to a beginning point

2. 2nd Law of Thermodynamics

-The universe is "cooling" off. An eventual heat death.
-Thus, there was a past time of maximum energy.
-Things are going to low energy and high disorder.

3. Actual infinities don't exist- see Hilbert's Hotel hypothesis

4. Impossible to "cross" an actual infinity. Infinite number of "past" events.

-If a past casual event hasn't occurred, the present effect cannot have taken place.
-If the past is infinite then we could never get to the present.
-The present is the last member of a series of events, therefore past is finite.
-A beginningless universe has no first "member".

So I say that there may be no beginning and that I don't have knowledge that there is or there isn't and you post information about there having to be a beginning?    Why does there have to be a beginning?  What proof is there that infinity doesn't exist?  There is no basis for having to choose either a beginning by random or a beginning by creator, they could both very well be wrong.

There may not be a past, a present, and future.  It's hard for us to consider that because we are very consumed with time.

And of course this is all an opinion and feeling as there is no way to say, really only our best guess and even that is a long shot.

There have been several questions posed to you.  Do you intend to answer any of them or just to summarize what people post and either refuse to respond because you deem them irrelevent or choose to ignore their questions and just repost your original position?

sorry it is a little difficult to answer each question/point of five different people or more.

I will do my best when I have the time and energy. Sometimes it feels like an impossible and pointless exercise but I will do my best when the time comes. I will post soon.

Quote from: "mbell31"sorry it is a little difficult to answer each question/point of five different people or more.

I will do my best when I have the time and energy. Sometimes it feels like an impossible and pointless exercise but I will do my best when the time comes. I will post soon.

mbell31, you posted the question, and then you decide you don't have time to read or respond to peoples' well thought out answers and replies? I don't think that's going to cut it here.

In fact, you didn't really want to her answers at all, as you obviously posted only to ask a loaded question, as if it had no good answer from science. The problem is that you don't acknowledge that your premise is faulty to begin with. Instead of responding to Hitsumei's and other peoples' responses, you immediately throw up straw man rebuttals and decide you're not going bother with the answers.

I'll tell you right now and you can consider this a barely friendly warning: do not troll in here, and do not start a topic and then decide you don't have time to follow up with it. We all have lives too, and get very busy. People took the time to respond to what I consider a totally worthless "set-up" question. You weren't about to take any answers seriously. This is your first warning. Do not do this again.

Quote from: "PipeBox"The number of points in space is infinite.

As far as I am aware, this is not the case. It is predicted space has a grainy structure, so you could not divide an inch into a an infinite number of pieces, there is a finite smallness to space. Combined with the finite size of the observable universe, this suggests there are not an infinite number of points in space, at least points that correspond to an actual location.

Edit: the reason most people can't be bothered to offer a full refutation is the same reason they don't bother refuting Pascal's wager. Namley, the wikipedia page lists the refutations clearly for all to see.

Quote from: "McQ"

Quote from: "mbell31"sorry it is a little difficult to answer each question/point of five different people or more.

I will do my best when I have the time and energy. Sometimes it feels like an impossible and pointless exercise but I will do my best when the time comes. I will post soon.

mbell31, you posted the question, and then you decide you don't have time to read or respond to peoples' well thought out answers and replies? I don't think that's going to cut it here.

In fact, you didn't really want to her answers at all, as you obviously posted only to ask a loaded question, as if it had no good answer from science. The problem is that you don't acknowledge that your premise is faulty to begin with. Instead of responding to Hitsumei's and other peoples' responses, you immediately throw up straw man rebuttals and decide you're not going bother with the answers.

I'll tell you right now and you can consider this a barely friendly warning: do not troll in here, and do not start a topic and then decide you don't have time to follow up with it. We all have lives too, and get very busy. People took the time to respond to what I consider a totally worthless "set-up" question. You weren't about to take any answers seriously. This is your first warning. Do not do this again.

Please go back and read my post. I didn't say I wasn't going to answer them I just don't have the time currently. I am typing this with the 10 minutes I have before I have to go to bed, early class tommorow. I will answer this weekend. Put yourself in my shoes- I am going up against the comments of 10 people. You are responding to 1 person.

I once heard someone say (it could well have been here) that asking what existed before the universe is like asking what is north of the north pole.

Quote from: "mbell31"

Quote from: "McQ"

Quote from: "mbell31"sorry it is a little difficult to answer each question/point of five different people or more.

I will do my best when I have the time and energy. Sometimes it feels like an impossible and pointless exercise but I will do my best when the time comes. I will post soon.

mbell31, you posted the question, and then you decide you don't have time to read or respond to peoples' well thought out answers and replies? I don't think that's going to cut it here.

In fact, you didn't really want to her answers at all, as you obviously posted only to ask a loaded question, as if it had no good answer from science. The problem is that you don't acknowledge that your premise is faulty to begin with. Instead of responding to Hitsumei's and other peoples' responses, you immediately throw up straw man rebuttals and decide you're not going bother with the answers.

I'll tell you right now and you can consider this a barely friendly warning: do not troll in here, and do not start a topic and then decide you don't have time to follow up with it. We all have lives too, and get very busy. People took the time to respond to what I consider a totally worthless "set-up" question. You weren't about to take any answers seriously. This is your first warning. Do not do this again.

Please go back and read my post. I didn't say I wasn't going to answer them I just don't have the time currently. I am typing this with the 10 minutes I have before I have to go to bed, early class tommorow. I will answer this weekend. Put yourself in my shoes- I am going up against the comments of 10 people. You are responding to 1 person.

Read your own posts. You also said you wouldn't reply to meaningless banter, and it was correctly pointed out to you that people had been giving you meaningful answers. You either respond to them or not. You said you would not.

And you are incorrect that I am responding to only one person. I am a moderator on this board and have to respond to as many people as I can on any given day. Which means I have to read most, if not all of the threads, including yours. And I do have a life outside of this forum, with a job, a family, and other activities.

If you are only here to bring up loaded questions and not give serious thought to the answers given, then you are here for the wrong reason. You might want to rethink your purpose here, if that is the case. No one is denying you the right to answer in your own time. But if you bring these points up and people reply, you may not dismiss them out of hand because they don't give you the answers you want to hear.

The warning stands. Do not bring up topics if you have no intention of following through with meaningful discussion.

Quote from: "mbell31"Please go back and read my post. I didn't say I wasn't going to answer them I just don't have the time currently. I am typing this with the 10 minutes I have before I have to go to bed, early class tommorow. I will answer this weekend. Put yourself in my shoes- I am going up against the comments of 10 people. You are responding to 1 person.

Ahem... (didn't I say this to someone earlier?) you realize that you started it, right? Don't come to an atheist message board and complain that you're the only one fighting the good fight. It's the nature of the beast.

And yes, we are oh, so beastly.  

Quote from: "mbell31"It seems too often that debates on the existence of God cover outside issues such as the problem of evil, morality, etc. While these things do credit or discredit the possibility of God's existence in some people's minds, they are not even an integral question or close to the best question to ask.

My question for all Atheists concerns our origin, or the Universe's origin. This is something I thought about since I was a kid but I will pose it in its more formal style, entitled the Kalam Cosmological Argument.

This is how it goes:

1. The Universe Exists

2. It either had No Beginning or a Beginning

(Most people agree the Universe had a beginning: Big Bang Singularity, 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, Actual Infinity doesn't exist, Impossible to cross infinity)

3. If it had a Beginning, this Beginning was either Caused or Not Caused.

(Most people agree it was caused. Can you give me five examples of something without a cause?)

4. If it was caused it was caused by a Random Directionless Force (analogy: A tornado going through a lumber yard and forming a mall) or it was caused by a Personal Agent.

Which is more likely?

Now, I would like to hear your take on this. Mine is below.

1: The Big Bang was the beginning of time. "Before the Big Bang" is as meaningless as "colder than zero kelvin" or "below the Earth's core" or "south of the South Pole". The concept of causation is therefore inapplicable to the Big Bang.
1a: Quantum Mechanics is full of causeless events even when preceding time exists.

2: An impersonal force needn't be random and directionless. All planets and stars are round and all snowflakes are hexagonal, for example. To use the tornado analogy, if any two objects that touched to form part of a mall were then inseparable, a mall could be formed if the tornado stayed long enough. For more on this, go here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcAq9bmCeR0).

Quote from: "Nulono"1: The Big Bang was the beginning of time. "Before the Big Bang" is as meaningless as "colder than zero kelvin" or "below the Earth's core" or "south of the South Pole". The concept of causation is therefore inapplicable to the Big Bang.

Not so fast.

I would not go so far as to say that the concept of causation is inapplicable to the big bang theory.  The theory merely proposes that an event happened.  Although, our current understanding is that time/space flowed from a single point.  That does NOT mean that we can say anything about whether or how the big bang was caused.

For example, there is the brane cosmology theory and that interaction between these branes may have caused the big bang.  This is all pie in the sky stuff, but the point remains.  You cannot argue that the concept of causation is inapplicable to the Big Bang.

Quote from: "mbell31"

Quote from: "McQ"

Quote from: "mbell31"sorry it is a little difficult to answer each question/point of five different people or more.

I will do my best when I have the time and energy. Sometimes it feels like an impossible and pointless exercise but I will do my best when the time comes. I will post soon.

mbell31, you posted the question, and then you decide you don't have time to read or respond to peoples' well thought out answers and replies? I don't think that's going to cut it here.

In fact, you didn't really want to her answers at all, as you obviously posted only to ask a loaded question, as if it had no good answer from science. The problem is that you don't acknowledge that your premise is faulty to begin with. Instead of responding to Hitsumei's and other peoples' responses, you immediately throw up straw man rebuttals and decide you're not going bother with the answers.

I'll tell you right now and you can consider this a barely friendly warning: do not troll in here, and do not start a topic and then decide you don't have time to follow up with it. We all have lives too, and get very busy. People took the time to respond to what I consider a totally worthless "set-up" question. You weren't about to take any answers seriously. This is your first warning. Do not do this again.

Please go back and read my post. I didn't say I wasn't going to answer them I just don't have the time currently. I am typing this with the 10 minutes I have before I have to go to bed, early class tommorow. I will answer this weekend. Put yourself in my shoes- I am going up against the comments of 10 people. You are responding to 1 person.

You don't have to respond to me, I did violate the terms of the thread by answering the question. Feel free to ignore my previous posts in this thread.

I understand that it does matter that your respondent be atheistic, as they must subscribe to at least some vague conception of the origin of the universe. It must be some non-agency, and considering western atheistic thought -- although not a demand by the definition of atheism itself -- it must be natural as well, and cannot be supernatural.

Quote from: "BuckeyeInNC"

Quote from: "Nulono"1: The Big Bang was the beginning of time. "Before the Big Bang" is as meaningless as "colder than zero kelvin" or "below the Earth's core" or "south of the South Pole". The concept of causation is therefore inapplicable to the Big Bang.

Not so fast.

I would not go so far as to say that the concept of causation is inapplicable to the big bang theory.  The theory merely proposes that an event happened.  Although, our current understanding is that time/space flowed from a single point.  That does NOT mean that we can say anything about whether or how the big bang was caused.

For example, there is the brane cosmology theory and that interaction between these branes may have caused the big bang.  This is all pie in the sky stuff, but the point remains.  You cannot argue that the concept of causation is inapplicable to the Big Bang.

It holds for as long as you accept big bang cosmology. If you reject big bang cosmology as false, or flawed then it is up in the air, but as long as the big bang theory remains as it currently is, it makes no sense to talk about a cause of the big bang.

Quote from: "SSY"

Quote from: "PipeBox"The number of points in space is infinite.

As far as I am aware, this is not the case. It is predicted space has a grainy structure, so you could not divide an inch into a an infinite number of pieces, there is a finite smallness to space. Combined with the finite size of the observable universe, this suggests there are not an infinite number of points in space, at least points that correspond to an actual location.

There is a point at which you can no longer distinguish other points, but that isn't to say they don't exist.  As it were, 35.1 is still a point inside of 35.  Things just get "foamy" below the plank scale, not infinitesimal.  You can put an infinite number of points in space in the same manner that there is an infinite number of values between 1 and 2.  There just happen to be cardinal values in both space and numbers.  

Quote from: "PipeBox"

Quote from: "SSY"

Quote from: "PipeBox"The number of points in space is infinite.

As far as I am aware, this is not the case. It is predicted space has a grainy structure, so you could not divide an inch into a an infinite number of pieces, there is a finite smallness to space. Combined with the finite size of the observable universe, this suggests there are not an infinite number of points in space, at least points that correspond to an actual location.

There is a point at which you can no longer distinguish other points, but that isn't to say they don't exist.  As it were, 35.1 is still a point inside of 35.  Things just get "foamy" below the plank scale, not infinitesimal.  You can put an infinite number of points in space in the same manner that there is an infinite number of values between 1 and 2.  There just happen to be cardinal values in both space and numbers.  

I fail to see why space must not have a smallest possible unit because there is an infinite amount of real numbers between 1 and 2... I don't see how that follows.

Pipe, you are right that you could divide the space between 2 points into an infinite number of points ( as in, assign an infinite number of co-ordinate pairs to the space between two points). But you could not have a particle exists at all of those points in space.

If you tried to put the centre of a particle ( an infinatley small, point denoting the centre ) on one of these points, you could not do it. There are a certain number of points between two points where particles are allowed to exist. Its not that its too small to be feasible, but that it is physically impossible.

The numbers between 1 and 2 comprise a set, this set is purley a mathematical construct and does not live in our physical universe. The points in space actually have to exist. Assigning each point a co-ordinate is not the same as saying it exists, as the co-ordinate and the point are not actually linked except in our descriptive model ( which again, does not live in the real universe ).

Imagine the universe as a sheet of squared paper or graph papaer. Particles are only allowed on the intersections of lines for instance. Now zoom out, way way out. The travail of a particle will look smooth and continous, but in fact it jerks along from one intersection to another without existing at the points in between.

Wiki probably says it better. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck_length (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck_length)

Space has a smallest measurable unit, predicted at the planck length, but this is already far smaller than our ability to observe.  A quantum theory of gravity may yield a more fundamental unit in space, but it's worth noting that we derive the Planck length from dimensional analysis, and as such, it is mute on numerical factors, which we need further exacting theories to describe, and we already know of effects with less length than a planck length.  The gravitational effect of an electron, which must exist, as it has mass, extends orders of magnitude less than the Planck length.  Of course, we have no quantum theory of gravity, yet, and many hypothesis use the Planck scale as a foundational part of the hypothesis, but I don't think you're bold enough to tell me that electrons do not possess any gravitational force.

What Hitsumei said is right, though, what I said does not logically follow if you are unwilling to describe space as pure geometry.  But space looks a lot like pure geometry, uncertainties of position and distance being the very reason we use a fundamental unit.  It says as much in the "Physical Signifigance" section of the Wiki article on Planck length -- that our ability to measure anything at less than the Planck length is very much in doubt, not doubting that such positions and distances exist.  Indeed, if they did not, you and I would not be able to move, as the Planck length is the distance covered by a photon in the Planck time, and an electron or proton do not move at the speed of light.  Indeed, all movement would be forced to shift in frames.  Time doesn't appear to operate in slices, though, it just gets very hard to tell when it is progressing at all.

Note that nowhere did I claim we could stuff an infinite amount of particles, nor an infinite amount of equal finite spaces, into any given space, only that an infinite number of points may be defined.  Space is foamy, and while you cannot define below a Planck length in distance and position relative to something else and then measure it, you can most certainly center any particle on any point in space.  As it is, experimental inaccuracies prevent us from verifying if that particle is centered on a point less than a Planck distance from some other object (actually experimental inaccuracies prevent us from doing measurements at several magnitudes higher, at the moment, but you understand).  I say again, such points ought to exist if reality actually consists of geometric spatial dimensions.

SSY-
Are you saying that if we had the ability to observe the smallest point of space and say, a particle travelling through those points, the particle instead of appearing to move fluidly through an infinite number of points, it would actually appear to jerk between each smallest point of space?

I'm just trying to understand what you're saying.

Thanks

Quote from: "BadPoison"SSY-
Are you saying that if we had the ability to observe the smallest point of space and say, a particle travelling through those points, the particle instead of appearing to move fluidly through an infinite number of points, it would actually appear to jerk between each smallest point of space?

I'm just trying to understand what you're saying.

Thanks

Pretty much. Though observing it would throw in another monkey wrench.

Think like pixels on a screen.

Quote from: "mbell31"Personally, I have never understood how proponents of scientism are even given a voice on matters such as creation. Since the 1st law of thermodynamics, or the conservation of energy, says energy can never be created or destroyed: how can science ever explain the original creation of energy?

The traditional theistic belief stands that the original creation of time, space, matter, and energy was done by a agent who exists outside of time and space and has no cause. It is self-existent and self-sustaining. Though it may be hard to imagine from our finite perspective, I do not see any logical alternative.

The logical alternative is of course that time, space, matter, and energy were never created, and were themselves uncaused. As per Occam's razor it is a simpler explanation, as it eliminates the need for a hypothetical agent.

Quote from: "mbell31"It seems too often that debates on the existence of God cover outside issues such as the problem of evil, morality, etc. While these things do credit or discredit the possibility of God's existence in some people's minds, they are not even an integral question or close to the best question to ask.

My question for all Atheists concerns our origin, or the Universe's origin. This is something I thought about since I was a kid but I will pose it in its more formal style, entitled the Kalam Cosmological Argument.

This is how it goes:

1. The Universe Exists

2. It either had No Beginning or a Beginning

(Most people agree the Universe had a beginning: Big Bang Singularity, 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, Actual Infinity doesn't exist, Impossible to cross infinity)

The universe, or, more specifically, all the matter and energy that exists today, existed before the big bang, and will continue to exist in the future, albeit in different forms.

Quote from: "mbell31"Personally, I have never understood how proponents of scientism are even given a voice on matters such as creation. Since the 1st law of thermodynamics, or the conservation of energy, says energy can never be created or destroyed: how can science ever explain the original creation of energy?

The traditional theistic belief stands that the original creation of time, space, matter, and energy was done by a agent who exists outside of time and space and has no cause. It is self-existent and self-sustaining. Though it may be hard to imagine from our finite perspective, I do not see any logical alternative.

Science doesn't have to prove the creation of energy because it never happened.  It always existed.

Looks like this turned into a scientific debate about the origin of the universe. Plus, I don't think mbell will be back...

I'm a bit rusty on my astrophysics; haven't kept up with the research, so I can't comment on the most current theory. Does anyone know if Null theory is still in favor?