View Poll Results: Can the universe pop into existence without a god's involvement?

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  • Yes, it can.

    43 50.00%
  • Not, it can't.

    18 20.93%
  • Not sure.

    16 18.60%
  • Don't care.

    9 10.47%
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Thread: Did God Create the Universe?

  1. #1

    Default Did God Create the Universe?

    The poll is anonymous.

    Watched this short documentary on Netflix the other day and was quite disappointed by the quality of argumentation. The documentary is voiced by Benedict Cumberbatch and Stephen Hawking's computer and start with a very cool notion: "Although I can not move, and I have to speak through a computer, in my mind, I am free."

    The documentary is, I believe, based on Hawking's latest publications. He tries to explain why there is no need for a god to create the universe in a cause and effect train of thought. The purpose is to provide an alternative. There are more than one "plot holes" but two points stuck:

    A) Big Bang is when time was created. Without time there can not be a god.
    B) The universe was created from nothing as quantum particles can disappear and reappear out of nothing. Hence, no need for a trigger, read god, for Big Bang to happen.

    Honorary Mention C: For universe to exist as a positive energy, there needs to be a negative energy. The documentary sort of explains gravity as that negative energy of every single object exerting a pull on each other.

    So, what's the problem with these points?

    Well, for one thing, I don't see why a god would be tied to concept of time. The idea is that there was no time before Big Bang for a creator to exist. My question, why is there a time requirement? Sure, it's a human concept that we require on our daily lives but we also know that many scientific concepts such as quantum mechanics can exist without what we daily use. To me, it seems like a cop out to require time for a god's existence, a being that seems to be capable of existing at every single point in time simultaneously.

    The other thing is that a single particle popping in and out of space doesn't necessarily back up the creation of a whole universe. The documentary suspiciously spends very little time on explaining it. I'm guessing that the phenomenon referred to in the documentary is quantum fluctuations where particles can pop in for a very short amount of time and then pop out again. How do they extrapolate this to mean that an entire universe worth of energy can be created in a single Planck unit space and that it's not happening in any part of the newly created universe is not explained.

    For the honorary part, the universe is expanding. The gravitational potential energy changes all the time. If this energy makes up the negative energy, how does it translate for the positive side?

    So, what do you think? Are the plot holes merely lost in the attempt to make a documentary out of it? (Assuming you've watched it of course) Or, is scientists themselves try to use cop-out arguments to justify a godless creation?


    This thread could perhaps be more suitable for Athenaeum but it's still about god and perhaps there are more people viewing this thread. Please ignore the extra in the second option in the poll. It should say "No, it can't."
    Last edited by PointOfViewGun; July 18, 2014 at 03:33 PM.
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  2. #2

    Default Re: Did God Create the Universe?

    "God did it" is meaningless. It's not even an explanation, it's simply lazy, and it replaces one mystery with an even bigger one. It tells us nothing more than "a leprechaun did it". If we went by that lazy approach on other questions we still wouldn't have an explanation for lightning, tides, why things fall down etc etc etc. But since we don't, I and pretty much everyone here know more about how the physical world works than all the writers of "holy scriptures" (read: old books) put together. In such matters they were a bunch of ignorant peons, the whole lot of them.
    Despite solid experimental and theoretical evidence that it's on the right track, maybe the Inflation theory is wrong or incomplete, maybe we'll never fully understand the actual beginning, because we're either too dumb, or the physical science necessary simply isn't possible for us to do or whatever. But that does not mean a god did it.

    But ok, let's, just for the sake of argument, say that some sort of supreme being created the universe. So what? A deity created the universe, therefore you shouldn't have sex before marriage, keep your ass pointed away from a specific city when you talk to this being, only eat certain food, only wear certain textiles and whatever other (silly) belief mankind has supposed over the millenia? I mean, seriously?

    Under the stern but loving patronage of Nihil.

  3. #3
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    Default Re: Did God Create the Universe?

    One problem with those points (A&B) is that there's no reason to believe that a god created the universe, because there's no reason to believe a god exists, and so there's nothing to challenge.

    Another problem, having already failed to solve the first, is that the most robust form of theistic apologist will attest that gods do not exist, and instead are the creator of existence while not being in any way subjected to the rules.

    Just a mindless apologist game that depends entirely on the atheist in question forgetting that god's 'existence' isn't to be assumed for the sake of argument because it isn't the apologists position in any case.
    Last edited by Taiji; July 16, 2014 at 07:06 PM.

  4. #4

    Default Re: Did God Create the Universe?

    Quote Originally Posted by Visna View Post
    "God did it" is meaningless. It's not even an explanation, it's simply lazy, and it replaces one mystery with an even bigger one. It tells us nothing more than "a leprechaun did it". If we went by that lazy approach on other questions we still wouldn't have an explanation for lightning, tides, why things fall down etc etc etc. But since we don't, I and pretty much everyone here know more about how the physical world works than all the writers of "holy scriptures" (read: old books) put together. In such matters they were a bunch of ignorant peons, the whole lot of them.
    Despite solid experimental and theoretical evidence that it's on the right track, maybe the Inflation theory is wrong or incomplete, maybe we'll never fully understand the actual beginning, because we're either too dumb, or the physical science necessary simply isn't possible for us to do or whatever. But that does not mean a god did it.

    But ok, let's, just for the sake of argument, say that some sort of supreme being created the universe. So what? A deity created the universe, therefore you shouldn't have sex before marriage, keep your ass pointed away from a specific city when you talk to this being, only eat certain food, only wear certain textiles and whatever other (silly) belief mankind has supposed over the millenia? I mean, seriously?
    Well, it's an explanation. It wouldn't be a lazy one if it wasn't an explanation. I don't know what makes it a lazy one though. Because it sounds simple? To me, it sounds as simple as simply saying that small particles can pop in and pop out so universe could have simply popped into existence. Saying a god created the universe doesn't make you lazy in any way. It doesn't stop you from figuring out the details. By your logic, atheism would be a requirement for scientists of our history but we know that that's not the case.

    People are capable of believing in god without being part of an organized religion. Your jump from a god creating the universe to not having sex before marriage is rather moot and it's nothing more than a logic jump. Is that not lazy?
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  5. #5
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    Default Re: Did God Create the Universe?

    Scientists can do whatever religion they like. There's no problem as long as they understand science: In science god did not create the universe because there's no evidence for god since it doesn't even qualify as a valid hypothesis to investigate with testing. Particles and whatever else can only be said by science to pop into existence when there is enough evidence to support the hypothesis. It's that simple.

    Not forming a sensible hypothesis and not gathering evidence, while purporting to contend with science, would make one appear too lazy or foolish to do the necessary.

    Though there is nothing stopping you from believing there is a god, honesty ought to stop you from claiming it's a scientific belief. So you wouldn't have to stop being whatever you are to be a scientist as well.
    Last edited by Taiji; July 16, 2014 at 07:46 PM.

  6. #6
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    Default Re: Did God Create the Universe?

    I don't think we'll ever be able to wrap our minds around the idea of existence before the Big Bang, let alone be physically able with any level of science and technology to explain the creation of matter itself (since our own fundamental laws of physics states that matter can neither be created nor destroyed, only divided and combined). Therefore, I went with the "not sure" option, because there is no way for us to know with certainty. I tend to avoid or ignore people who speak with great certainty on this issue, whether their argument is that a supreme being created the universe or there is no supreme being at all. How could anyone possibly know that?

    In either case, organized religion is much discredited in my mind by holy texts being contradicted by modern scientific discoveries, but I see no problem in spiritualism or belief in a higher power as a means to cope with the awesome mystery of existence and how we even came to be in the first place.

  7. #7
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    Default Re: Did God Create the Universe?

    Quote Originally Posted by Setekh View Post

    A) Big Bang is when time was created. Without time there can not be a god.
    B) The universe was created from nothing as quantum particles can disappear and reappear out of nothing. Hence, no need for a trigger, read god, for Big Bang to happen.
    Generation of quantum particles require pre-existing energy- a far cry from nothing. The generation of matter in quantum theory is from a vacuum- again a vacuum is a far cry from nothing, a vacuum has energy and tension, it can bend and warp, so it is something, albeit a questionable something.
    Last edited by Stario; July 17, 2014 at 01:16 AM.

  8. #8

    Default Re: Did God Create the Universe?

    Quote Originally Posted by Setekh View Post
    Well, it's an explanation. It wouldn't be a lazy one if it wasn't an explanation. I don't know what makes it a lazy one though. Because it sounds simple? To me, it sounds as simple as simply saying that small particles can pop in and pop out so universe could have simply popped into existence. Saying a god created the universe doesn't make you lazy in any way. It doesn't stop you from figuring out the details. By your logic, atheism would be a requirement for scientists of our history but we know that that's not the case.

    People are capable of believing in god without being part of an organized religion. Your jump from a god creating the universe to not having sex before marriage is rather moot and it's nothing more than a logic jump. Is that not lazy?
    "God did it" is lazy because it explains nothing, all it does is a mystery replacement.

    Back in the good ole' days an alternative to the question could be something like "does a god create lightning?" We always look for explanations for things we don't understand, call it part of the human condition or something. And for much of human history lightning must have been terrifying, I can easily understand why they felt the need to explain it with angry gods for example. But that doesn't make their answer reasonable. And if you asked that question today, the best response you could hope for would be that emberassed laughter, you know, the sort you get when someone has said something really stupid, and you don't quite know how to respond.

    Whether or not religion and science are incompatible, not necessarily. I could know all there is to know about the Atlantic salmon, but that wouldn't prevent me from harboring rediculous ideas about something else. And as long as I kept the idea that, say, babies aren't the result of human reproduction but are delivered by storcks, seperate from my obviously very important science regarding Atlantic salmons, no harm done. The problem arises if I mix the two.

    And sure, people can believe all sorts of things, but I can't help but wonder how many you think are not part of some sort of organised religion and still believe a god created the universe. And even if they do, that doesn't prevent them, or you for that matter, from answering the obvious question, that if a god created the universe, so what?

    Under the stern but loving patronage of Nihil.

  9. #9
    Roma_Victrix's Avatar Call me Ishmael
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    Default Re: Did God Create the Universe?

    Quote Originally Posted by Visna View Post
    And sure, people can believe all sorts of things, but I can't help but wonder how many you think are not part of some sort of organised religion and still believe a god created the universe. And even if they do, that doesn't prevent them, or you for that matter, from answering the obvious question, that if a god created the universe, so what?
    The funny thing about religion is how human-centric it is. In Christianity, for instance, man (i.e. Adam) was created in God's image...women (i.e. Eve) were created by extracting his DNA from the bone marrow of one of his ribs. Lol. From evolutionary biology and archaeological evidence used to piece together the history of life on planet Earth, it has become clear that in the 4.5 billion years that the planet has existed, anatomically modern humans have only been around for about the last 200,000 years of that time span. So if man was created in God's image like our Bronze-Age Jewish holy texts tell us, God sure as hell procrastinated to get around to that point.

    The funny thing is, it doesn't appear that God deemed any of the other planets in our immediate vicinity - our solar system - worthy enough to plant beings that look identical to Him, not even on other solid rock planets like Venus and Mars. Earth is hardly the center of the universe, either, rotating around a star on the fringe or one of many spiral arms of the Milky Way Galaxy. God also saw fit to create billions of other galaxies, each of which have at least several million stars with their own solar systems, and some galaxies literally have trillions of stars.

    Oh, but I'm sure Earth is the only planet that has life on it...surely, with the trillions...no...quadrillions of other planets out there, there couldn't possibly be other life forms. No. We're special. Because God only cares about Earth (which will be swallowed whole by the Sun in its red giant phase about 7 billion years from now).

  10. #10

    Default Re: Did God Create the Universe?

    I can get around the idea that some sort of god created the universe, it doesn't exactly make sense, but then again neither does quantum mechanics in our "Newtonian/Einsteinian" understanding of the world. (However unlike the god idea there is evidence that quantum mechanics is correct.) But that the universe and all within it should be created just so that we, some god's special creatures, could exist is... I can't even find the words, the arrogance involved is simply mindblowing.

    Under the stern but loving patronage of Nihil.

  11. #11
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    Default Re: Did God Create the Universe?

    Quote Originally Posted by Setekh View Post
    Well, for one thing, I don't see why a god would be tied to concept of time. The idea is that there was no time before Big Bang for a creator to exist. My question, why is there a time requirement?
    Without time there is no need for a creator, the sequence of cause and effect breaks down at the moment of the Big-Bang. The question what caused the Big Bang is moot. The current hypothesis being a virtual particle was the Big-Bang, rather than being the cause.

    Sure, it's a human concept that we require on our daily lives but we also know that many scientific concepts such as quantum mechanics can exist without what we daily use. To me, it seems like a cop out to require time for a god's existence, a being that seems to be capable of existing at every single point in time simultaneously.
    As far as I can tell the typical argument for God's existence is that such a being is necessary/essential for the existence of the Universe, so Hawking is showing that, actually God is not a necessary/essential deduction.

    I'm guessing that the phenomenon referred to in the documentary is quantum fluctuations where particles can pop in for a very short amount of time and then pop out again. How do they extrapolate this to mean that an entire universe worth of energy can be created in a single Planck unit space and that it's not happening in any part of the newly created universe is not explained.
    Because the sum total energy of the Universe is hypothesized as being zero.

    For the honorary part, the universe is expanding. The gravitational potential energy changes all the time. If this energy makes up the negative energy, how does it translate for the positive side?
    For this cosmological model to work negative energy and positive energy have to be roughly equal. (It's a leap of faith, not unlike a God) But it's a "plausible" explanation for the formation of the Universe that doesn't include a God, given that the typical argument for God is that God is necessary or essential.
    The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are so certain of themselves, but wiser people are full of doubts.
    -Betrand Russell

  12. #12
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    Default Re: Did God Create the Universe?

    Quote Originally Posted by Visna View Post
    I can get around the idea that some sort of god created the universe, it doesn't exactly make sense, but then again neither does quantum mechanics in our "Newtonian/Einsteinian" understanding of the world. (However unlike the god idea there is evidence that quantum mechanics is correct.) But that the universe and all within it should be created just so that we, some god's special creatures, could exist is... I can't even find the words, the arrogance involved is simply mindblowing.
    It's not arrogance...it's ignorance. Big difference. It would have been arrogance on the part of the ancients to assume this had they also been fully aware of the facts we now take for granted in established earth sciences that allow us such things as radiocarbon dating.

    For instance, in Copernicus's day, the "Heavens" were still imagined to be rotating around a completely stationary Earth in the geocentric model. Aristarchus of Samos was arguing for a heliocentric model of the solar system back in the 3rd century BC (which was still wrong because it assumed the Sun was stationary), yet it took humanity so long to get basic scientific facts straight. Therefore, in my mind, the ancients are excused for their ignorance of how the universe actually operates. However, I don't extend the same exemption to people living today, who should ing know better because the information is right in front of them, every time they establish an Internet connection.

  13. #13
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    Default Re: Did God Create the Universe?

    By the way everyone, the correct answer is "Yes, it can pop into being spontaneously." and the reason why is very easy to understand.

    Basically: What is considered to be possible is everything that has not proven to be impossible.

    And so because we are not able to show that it is impossible for our universe to occur spontaneously we are forced to admit that it is a possibility.

    It's not a matter of choice, instead it's a matter of being right or wrong.

    And Setekh, making your poll ask the opposite question to your thread title, and making each answer ambiguous... I hope that was an accident
    Last edited by Taiji; July 17, 2014 at 06:37 AM.

  14. #14

    Default Re: Did God Create the Universe?

    Quote Originally Posted by Setekh View Post
    A) Big Bang is when time was created. Without time there can not be a god.
    This argument indeed has gaps. However if one were to deduce that the big bang was when time was created, there can not be a "before" the Big Bang - as no time will have passed, which nullifies the question "what came before the Big Bang?"

    Quote Originally Posted by Setekh View Post
    The other thing is that a single particle popping in and out of space doesn't necessarily back up the creation of a whole universe.
    It doesn't definitively prove without a doubt the creation of a whole universe, no. But it does set a precedent - which makes the hypothesis substantially more founded than the alternative.

    Quote Originally Posted by Setekh View Post
    Are the plot holes merely lost in the attempt to make a documentary out of it?
    This is simply a limitation of trying to explain something relatively complex to a large audience that may not grasp the jargon, further exacerbated by the limited time window you have to touch on each topic.
    Quote Originally Posted by Sir Brian de Bois-Guilbert View Post
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  15. #15

    Default Re: Did God Create the Universe?

    Quote Originally Posted by Visna View Post
    "God did it" is lazy because it explains nothing, all it does is a mystery replacement.

    Back in the good ole' days an alternative to the question could be something like "does a god create lightning?" We always look for explanations for things we don't understand, call it part of the human condition or something. And for much of human history lightning must have been terrifying, I can easily understand why they felt the need to explain it with angry gods for example. But that doesn't make their answer reasonable. And if you asked that question today, the best response you could hope for would be that emberassed laughter, you know, the sort you get when someone has said something really stupid, and you don't quite know how to respond.

    Whether or not religion and science are incompatible, not necessarily. I could know all there is to know about the Atlantic salmon, but that wouldn't prevent me from harboring rediculous ideas about something else. And as long as I kept the idea that, say, babies aren't the result of human reproduction but are delivered by storcks, seperate from my obviously very important science regarding Atlantic salmons, no harm done. The problem arises if I mix the two.

    And sure, people can believe all sorts of things, but I can't help but wonder how many you think are not part of some sort of organised religion and still believe a god created the universe. And even if they do, that doesn't prevent them, or you for that matter, from answering the obvious question, that if a god created the universe, so what?
    Well, it does explain how universe was created. It's an explanation whether you like it or not. And, your question of so what is completely pointless, at least in this thread. It's a childish way of responding to any issue. You could pretty much respond to anything the same way. I understand that you're trying to ridicule belief in a god's existence in any way but it can easily be a rational thought. If you see an apple appearing in front of you, and eliminate all possibilities of illusions, you'd think that supernatural forces are in play. It's not because you don't understand it. It's because that's the one alternative capable of accomplishing such a feat. Keep in mind a lot of scientific theories are simply theories, alternatives that are hardly backed up by anything. A lot of that govern how a universe is created and how it works. Yet, you view them with much more confidence while opting to ridicule the idea of a supernatural being responsible of creating something out of nothing. Science deals with things they don't understand the same way.


    Quote Originally Posted by Himster View Post
    Without time there is no need for a creator, the sequence of cause and effect breaks down at the moment of the Big-Bang. The question what caused the Big Bang is moot. The current hypothesis being a virtual particle was the Big-Bang, rather than being the cause.
    Why? Is that not an arbitrary rule? Any being that is capable of creating a universe and setting up its laws is already beyond the concept of cause and effect. It created them in the first place. We humans require time, cause and effect but a being that can exist everywhere at every single moment of time is beyond time. In a way, in a universe where time already exists, a god, that is all-powerful etc etc etc, its lifetime is still a singularity.


    Quote Originally Posted by Himster View Post
    As far as I can tell the typical argument for God's existence is that such a being is necessary/essential for the existence of the Universe, so Hawking is showing that, actually God is not a necessary/essential deduction.
    And he's doing that by making up rules along the way. That's not scientific deduction. That's merely guess working, not much different that what religion does in many ways.


    Quote Originally Posted by Himster View Post
    Because the sum total energy of the Universe is hypothesized as being zero.
    Doesn't address what I said. You're merely reiterating the claim that I was responding to.


    Quote Originally Posted by Himster View Post
    For this cosmological model to work negative energy and positive energy have to be roughly equal. (It's a leap of faith, not unlike a God) But it's a "plausible" explanation for the formation of the Universe that doesn't include a God, given that the typical argument for God is that God is necessary or essential.
    For it to be plausible it requires an explanation on the changes in the universe. There are immense changes in the universe's gravitational potential energy. The universe is still expanding but I doubt there is a difference in the amount of matter in the universe.


    Quote Originally Posted by Lazarus View Post
    This argument indeed has gaps. However if one were to deduce that the big bang was when time was created, there can not be a "before" the Big Bang - as no time will have passed, which nullifies the question "what came before the Big Bang?"
    From a perspective of time, sure, but, as a periodic sense, nope. There is a frame before Big Bang is created. It can be impossible for us to comprehend that frame. There is also the claim of multiple universes. Try to imagine how multiple universes would come to existence in the way described in the documentary.


    Quote Originally Posted by Lazarus View Post
    It doesn't definitively prove without a doubt the creation of a whole universe, no. But it does set a precedent - which makes the hypothesis substantially more founded than the alternative.
    I doubt that it sets a precedent. At least not enough to use it as a legitimate answer. Plus, a lot of it depends solely on one theory, the Uncertainty Principle. I'm guess that as our technology gets better that principle will start to be questioned a lot more. For example, there was a discovery last year where a particle's position and velocity was measured to a degree that was thought to be impossible.


    Quote Originally Posted by Lazarus View Post
    This is simply a limitation of trying to explain something relatively complex to a large audience that may not grasp the jargon, further exacerbated by the limited time window you have to touch on each topic.
    Well, the documentary had 20 minutes of explaining how some scientists in history discovered stuff like Earth revolving around the Sun, etc. So, they sort of did have some time to at least try a short explanation. If you watch the documentary you'll get it.
    Last edited by PointOfViewGun; July 17, 2014 at 12:12 PM.
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    Default Re: Did God Create the Universe?

    Quote Originally Posted by Lazarus View Post
    This argument indeed has gaps. However if one were to deduce that the big bang was when time was created, there can not be a "before" the Big Bang - as no time will have passed, which nullifies the question "what came before the Big Bang?"
    I'll never understand why people think time didn't exist before the Big Bang 14 billion years ago. From what I understand, all matter in the universe (at least that we know of) was condensed into one massively dense point or super object, that exploded like a supernova and shot out in all directions, that same matter expanding and traveling further away from the explosion point to this day. The matter gradually swirled and collided, eventually forming into stars, rock and gas planets, planetoids, moons, and smaller objects like asteroids. Via the Doppler effect, we measure time as the distance from that previously immensely condensed point of matter where the Big Bang was supposed to occur.

    There are many theories about the ultimate fate of the universe as well, the one I find the most intriguing being the Big Crunch or Big Bounce, with the universe expanding and contracting ad infinitum, so that this would certainly not have even been the first Big Bang. It kind of reminds me of continental drift and shifting of the tectonic plates on the surface of the Earth, where the seven continents once formed a massive supercontinent - Pangaea - and a hundred million years from now will collide once more to create another supercontinent.


  17. #17

    Default Re: Did God Create the Universe?

    Quote Originally Posted by Roma_Victrix View Post
    I'll never understand why people think time didn't exist before the Big Bang 14 billion years ago. From what I understand, all matter in the universe (at least that we know of) was condensed into one massively dense point or super object, that exploded like a supernova and shot out in all directions, that same matter expanding and traveling further away from the explosion point to this day. The matter gradually swirled and collided, eventually forming into stars, rock and gas planets, planetoids, moons, and smaller objects like asteroids. Via the Doppler effect, we measure time as the distance from that previously immensely condensed point of matter where the Big Bang was supposed to occur.

    There are many theories about the ultimate fate of the universe as well, the one I find the most intriguing being the Big Crunch or Big Bounce, with the universe expanding and contracting ad infinitum, so that this would certainly not have even been the first Big Bang. It kind of reminds me of continental drift and shifting of the tectonic plates on the surface of the Earth, where the seven continents once formed a massive supercontinent - Pangaea - and a hundred million years from now will collide once more to create another supercontinent.
    The idea of time not existing before Big Bang is that it is tied to matter and space. It's sort of also tied to black holes, another phenomenon that science doesn't really go beyond guessing. The closer you get to a black hole the slower the time will be. As mass increases it curves space and affect time. Reading from a bunch of books on Quantum theory I simply remember this phenomenon as an effect that is only observed by an observer outside the effect area of a black hole but I'm ignoring that in case my memory lets me down. So, toward the beginning of the Big Bang, entire matter or energy of the universe was condensed in a single Planck unit. This means that virtually time stops. Another dilemma there. How can that unit expand with no time is beyond me. And, if matter and space didn't exist before Big Bang then supposedly there is no plane for time to exist.

    What this, of course, ignores is that they have no idea where Big Bang occurred. They don't know if it occurred out of nothing or perhaps it occurred inside an other universe. They don't know.
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    Default Re: Did God Create the Universe?

    Speaking of black holes, I find it fascinating that the center of each galaxy basically has a supermassive black hole. For instance, our Milky Way Galaxy has a single black hole that is 4.3 million times larger than our Sun. The nearby Andromeda Galaxy has an even larger supermassive black hole at its center.

    To give some perspective as to how ing large that is, here's a comparative picture showing the Sun as opposed to the sizes of the planets in our immediate solar system (Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune):


  19. #19

    Default Re: Did God Create the Universe?

    Quote Originally Posted by Roma_Victrix View Post
    It's not arrogance...it's ignorance. Big difference. It would have been arrogance on the part of the ancients to assume this had they also been fully aware of the facts we now take for granted in established earth sciences that allow us such things as radiocarbon dating.

    For instance, in Copernicus's day, the "Heavens" were still imagined to be rotating around a completely stationary Earth in the geocentric model. Aristarchus of Samos was arguing for a heliocentric model of the solar system back in the 3rd century BC (which was still wrong because it assumed the Sun was stationary), yet it took humanity so long to get basic scientific facts straight. Therefore, in my mind, the ancients are excused for their ignorance of how the universe actually operates. However, I don't extend the same exemption to people living today, who should ing know better because the information is right in front of them, every time they establish an Internet connection.
    The old folks are forgiven their ignorance, because, well, they were ignorant. But you can find such nonsense thriving today, look at the whole ID movement. Or religious folks at mass prayer meetings, praying that their legs will grow longer or their earwax will go away etc. As if a god, "the creator of heaven and earth" should give a single flying about our earwax. It's arrogant beyond measure.
    And don't even get me started on creationism.

    Quote Originally Posted by Setekh View Post
    Well, it does explain how universe was created. It's an explanation whether you like it or not. And, your question of so what is completely pointless, at least in this thread. It's a childish way of responding to any issue. You could pretty much respond to anything the same way. I understand that you're trying to ridicule belief in a god's existence in any way but it can easily be a rational thought. If you see an apple appearing in front of you, and eliminate all possibilities of illusions, you'd think that supernatural forces are in play. It's not because you don't understand it. It's because that's the one alternative capable of accomplishing such a feat. Keep in mind a lot of scientific theories are simply theories, alternatives that are hardly backed up by anything. A lot of that govern how a universe is created and how it works. Yet, you view them with much more confidence while opting to ridicule the idea of a supernatural being responsible of creating something out of nothing.
    It's not ridicule, I take it seriously. Heck, I've even admitted that some sort of supreme being creating the universe is possible. It doesn't make any sort of sense, but no matter. Calling counter arguments ridicule is simply a way of dismissing criticism instead of dealing with it. And i think "so what" is perfectly valid, this is the EMM is it not?
    So, for the sake of argument, yeah, a god created the universe. So? What is anyone supposed to do with such information? Worship this being? Shrug and utter an indifferent "ok"? Buy a big telescope and see if we can spot this creator? What?

    A god creating the universe is nothing more than a classic case of god of the gaps. Some aspect of the natural world is not fully understood, therefore obviously something supernatural is behind it. You could ask the same question about how life started, because since it's currently unknown it must have been some omnipotent being who did it. Not only is it lazy, it also implies that gods only operate in the gaps, relegated to eat the scraps from science's table so to speak. It used to be lightning, now it's creation itself or the origin of life for example, but the principle is the same.

    Under the stern but loving patronage of Nihil.

  20. #20

    Default Re: Did God Create the Universe?

    I'm willing to give people the sort of incredulity fallacy of looking at the Universe and thinking there has got to be something "bigger" in charge somehow. I get that.

    What I don't get it going from that inablity to grasp the concept of a non-purposed universe to go to this.....
    Last edited by Tiberios; July 21, 2014 at 05:05 AM. Reason: Censor bypass removed
    "When I die, I want to die peacefully in my sleep, like Fidel Castro, not screaming in terror, like his victims."

    My shameful truth.

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