First Cause

[Fifty]

Before you start typing your post about what a religionist nut I am, I would like to point out that I'm an atheist, and this is just a question out of curiosity.


How do atheists get around the concept of first cause? I was discussing theology with someone recently and they brought that up, and I shamefully couldn't think of a good explanation!

 

[Ovulator]

What exactly do you mean? Like something had to exist to start the big bang?

How do creationists get around the concept of first cause? God just always was? The same logic works for the matter in the universe.

 

[Marla_Singer]

What exactly do you mean? Like something had to exist to start the big bang?

How do creationists get around the concept of first cause? God just always was? The same logic works for the matter in the universe.

Indeed. If God was there, who created Him ? How had he been created ? From where does He come from ?

Moreover, I should add that believing in God and being creationists are two different things. Especially once it deals with the birth of mankind.

 

[Neomega]

I am not sure what first cause is. Many don't believe there was a singularity, some do. Regardless, there are no laws of theworld that says everything must have a beginning and end.

And, even , even, if this point were awarded to a philosopher, (which it cannot be proven, of course), I still am not going to start handing out Chick tracts, giving 10% of my money to a place I go to once a week, and telling everyone Noahs Ark is on top of Mt. Ararat.

 

[Fifty]

Ah I see! Throw the question right back at them. Of course they will say God just "is", at which point I can say, same thing with the universe!!!

So I guess no matter what you believe or don't believe, you believe in infinite regress?

 

[ybbor]

How do creationists get around the concept of first cause? God just always was? The same logic works for the matter in the universe.

God lays outside of time picture a dot (representing God): *

now picture a line representing time. as God (there are squigly lines wround him so the spacing isn't whacked) created time he lies outside of it:


~~~~~~~*~~~~~~~
_____________________

we move along the line from point A to point B:


___._______

to

________.__


God doesn't have to move along that line



*sigh* it works so much better on paper when i don't have to make those squiggly lines

 

[stormbind]

Except that with "the universe just is" they have contradicted themselves, because science has no place for the unexplained... and religion does.

 

[Marla_Singer]

Scientifically speaking, the answer to that question is : we can't know. Indeed, as far as I know, there is absolutely no way to be 100% sure of what was there before the Big Bang.

 

[stormbind]

When I did Physics, pre-Bing Bang was a taboo topic.

 

[Free Enterprise]

Ah I see! Throw the question right back at them. Of course they will say God just "is", at which point I can say, same thing with the universe!!!

So I guess no matter what you believe or don't believe, you believe in infinite regress?

Well, to address the second part of this quote the answer is not really. If God possess a nature that includes being uncaused then there is not infinite regress of events for in fact the chain ends.

The universe cannot really be uncaused. Is it scientific for it to be uncaused? Is it coherent for it to be uncaused? The universe operates under laws that seem to be applicable throughout this place that is called the universe. So it must abide by these rules since it has been seen to enough to be considered a valid paradigm. It, the universe, cannot choose.

 

[Free Enterprise]

and this is just a question out of curiosity.

That is a good thing. This thread will be productive and indeed there is nothing wrong with it.

How do atheists get around the concept of first cause? I was discussing theology with someone recently and they brought that up, and I shamefully couldn't think of a good explanation!

Do not be do not be concerned by this. Now you get to have this thread.

 

[PantheraTigris2]

Besides the book of Genesis (which doesn't go into near enough detail about 'the begining' - IMO for curious minds), and a few small 'hints' Jesus gives in the New Testament (all up to personal interpretation - how deep you want to think), etc... I pretty much get the idea that we just 'aren't meant to know' these kinds of things, at least at this level of existence. Perhaps there's a reason for it (I trust there is). No sense in trying to teach a 1st grader calculus, when he really needs to be mastering basic addition and subtraction first. Granted, it can be interesting, to try and stretch your mind, to capacitate the concepts of the 'calculus' problems from time to time.

But in the end, all we can do is speculate, because we simply don't have the textbook - and the teacher isn't going to give the answers to us yet. Gotta learn basic math first.


p.s. I hate math... but it works for this analogy.

 

[CivCube]

The universe cannot really be uncaused. Is it scientific for it to be? Is it coherent for it to be? The universe operates under laws that seem to be applicable throughout this place that is called the universe. So it must abide by them. It cannot choose.

According to our own limited viewpoints, anyway. We don't know if there are alternatives. Should we assume that there aren't?

 

[nihilistic]

I'll answer it as an atheist/agnostic:

I don't know. Is do not pretend to know. I am also not sure that time and matter "began".

 

[Free Enterprise]

According to our own limited viewpoints, anyway. We don't know if there are alternatives. Should we assume that there aren't?

I would say at least it seems fairly certain that there is something beyond the universe (the events causing the universe would be the evidence). There could be a larger universe type entity (or entities) or another thing (s). I would consider that in a like manner that humans have found that there are things beyond earth there are things beyond the universe. It is reasonable to expect to see or find things out there.

 

[BasketCase]

When I did Physics, pre-Bing Bang was a taboo topic.

Stephen Hawking says this about pre-Big-Bang: there's no point. Since any matter that existed before the Big Bang collapsed into the singularity that existed just before the Big Bang, all information on what that matter looked like before it collapsed has been lost. Forever. There's no way, according to the physics we know, to obtain any information on events that occurred before the Big Bang. So, for all practical purposes, Time began at the Big Bang. Whatever happened before it can never be known, so to us those events might as well never have existed.

 

[Neomega]

The universe cannot really be uncaused. Is it scientific for it to be uncaused? Is it coherent for it to be uncaused? The universe operates under laws that seem to be applicable throughout this place that is called the universe. So it must abide by these rules since it has been seen to enough to be considered a valid paradigm. It, the universe, cannot choose.

What kind of nonsense is this? Do you call this reasoning? It's a bunch of weak assumptions tied together by a weaker conclusion. Bah!

 

[Neomega]

Stephen Hawking says this about pre-Big-Bang: there's no point. Since any matter that existed before the Big Bang collapsed into the singularity that existed just before the Big Bang, all information on what that matter looked like before it collapsed has been lost. Forever. There's no way, according to the physics we know, to obtain any information on events that occurred before the Big Bang. So, for all practical purposes, Time began at the Big Bang. Whatever happened before it can never be known, so to us those events might as well never have existed.

Stephen Hawking says there was no singularity, about 20 years ago.

 

[PantheraTigris2]

I have this crazy hypothesis that the universe is 'breathing' - for lack of a better word - it's currenty expanding (inhaling if you will), gaining momentum... to a certain point (full lung capacity in my analogy), untill it will start contracting (imploding I guess) once again, at an increasing rate - which will ultimately result in all matter being 'sucked' back to the 'center', where another fantastic 'big bang' will occur, and the process will start all over again - with a 'new' universe.

 

[stormbind]

Stephen Hawking says this about pre-Big-Bang: there's no point. Since any matter that existed before the Big Bang collapsed into the singularity that existed just before the Big Bang, all information on what that matter looked like before it collapsed has been lost. Forever. There's no way, according to the physics we know, to obtain any information on events that occurred before the Big Bang. So, for all practical purposes, Time began at the Big Bang. Whatever happened before it can never be known, so to us those events might as well never have existed.

Yup, that's also why there is no point in measuring time before the big bang ... if you could say what was different about 1ns and 1yr before the bing bang, you might extrapolate the cause of it.