First Cause

[Bozo Erectus]

I am sorry, I missed that rule.... could you point it out to me?

Is it written on a giant gold tablet, and stored in Alexandria?

Perhaps it is one of Einsteins obscure equations?

Neo, thats one of the most basic aspects of our universe. How could you be as intelligent as I know you are and still not be aware of such a fundamental fact?

 

[Neomega]

But it is expanding, and I believe accelerating its expansion. And unless you believe in miracles, the universe must obey it's own laws. Steady state does not fit with what we know.

So, it couldn't just be in a constant state of acceleration.

Is it entirely impossible it just could have always been expanding?

 

[Neomega]

Neo, thats one of the most basic aspects of our universe. How could you be as intelligent as I know you are and still not be aware of such a fundamental fact?

Prove it. Don't give me this garbage. Prove everything has a beginning and end.

KEEP IN MIND:

Matter can niether be created or destroyed. Neither can energy.

If they cannot be created and destroyed, (which seems pretty logical to me according to my own personal observations), you are now telling me all energy is created and destroyed!???!??

Are you insane?

 

[Birdjaguar]

Oh no, there are tons of questions that weaken my position. I think it would be foolish to think that you have to have answers for everything to be an atheist. I see atheism as "the most satisfactory" position given the limited understanding we have, rather than "the ultimate answer" to everything.
A question is not necessarily interesting because it is difficult. A question could be useful to disprove a position (e.g. to disprove atheism), if we could give a convincing answer to it, but we can't give a convincing asnwer to this question. Questions to which we don't have a convincing answers are uninteresting to me. Of course, there are people (physicists) paid to study this question and other people paid to study other difficult questions for which we have no good answer at the moment and that's good for them; once they have found the answer, they can let me know. If they don't find the answer, that's fine too.

The operable word here is "convincing". By that you seem to mean scientific. You are fully within your rights to limit your choices to the easy path of reason and exclude the other "half" of the human experience. What would you think of the doctor who said that he/she only dealt with the body and its physical symtoms and ignored the emotional life of the patient because it wasn't real?

 

[Aphex_Twin]

Are you insane?

You seem to fail to grasp the validity of his reasoning. Take a look at his name, take a look at his posts and avatar, and roll a joint

 

[Neomega]

regarding singularity

"It is perhaps ironic that, having changed my mind, I am now trying to convince other physicists that there was in fact no singularity at the beginning of the universe."
-Stephen Hawking (A Brief History of Time)

So I guess it's me and Hawking versus all the incredible minds at CFC.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Prove it. Don't give me this garbage. Prove everything has a beginning and end. KEEP IN MIND:

Matter can niether be created or destroyed. Neither can energy.
If they cannot be created and destroyed, (which seems pretty logical to me according to my own personal observations), you are now telling me all energy is created and destroyed!???!??

Are you insane?

He and a lot of other people.

In cosmology, the Big Bang theory is the prevailing scientific theory about the early development and shape of the universe. The central idea is that the observation that galaxies appear to be receding from each other can be combined with the theory of general relativity to extrapolate the conditions of the universe back in time. This leads to the conclusion that as one goes back in time, the universe becomes increasingly hot and dense.

There are a number of consequences to this view. One consequence is that the universe now is very different than the universe in the past or in the future. The Big Bang theory predicts that at some point, the matter in the universe was hot and dense enough to prevent light from flowing freely in space. That this period of the universe would be observable in the form of cosmic background radiation (CBR) was first predicted in the 1940s, and the discovery of such radiation in the 1960s swung most scientific opinion against the Big Bang theory's chief rival, the steady state theory.

Using current physical theories to extrapolate the Hubble expansion of the universe backwards leads to a gravitational singularity, at which all distances become zero and temperatures and pressures become infinite. What this means is unclear, and most physicists believe that this is because of our limited understanding of the laws of physics with regard to this type of situation, and in particular, the lack of a theory of quantum gravity.

 

[Bozo Erectus]

Prove it. Don't give me this garbage. Prove everything has a beginning and end.

KEEP IN MIND:

Matter can niether be created or destroyed. Neither can energy.

If they cannot be created and destroyed, (which seems pretty logical to me according to my own personal observations), you are now telling me all energy is created and destroyed!???!??

Are you insane?

(sigh) Oh Neo, you disapoint me so. Dont you see? Your thought processes are trapped in this universe, you cant escape Ok I'll try: The matter in this universe cannot be created or destroyed within the universe, thats true. However the matter and energy in this universe came into existence with this universe. Matter and energy are the fabric of this universe. Just as they came into being when our universe popped into existence, they'll cease to exist when this universe no longer exists. Isnt it obvious

 

[Birdjaguar]

Steady State Universe:

The steady state theory is model developed in 1949 by Fred Hoyle, Thomas Gold and others as an alternative to the Big Bang theory. Although the model had a large number of supporters among cosmologists in the 1950's and 1960's, the number of supporters decreased markedly in the late 1960's and today it is considered a non-standard cosmology. It is also the basis for another theory known as the quasi-steady state theory which postulates a lot of little big bangs occurring over time.

The steady state theory was developed as a result of theoretical calculations that showed that a static universe was impossible under general relativity and observations by Edwin Hubble that the universe was expanding. The steady state theory asserts that although the universe is expanding, it nevertheless does not change its look over time. For this to work, new matter must be formed to keep the density equal over time.

Because only very little matter needs to be formed, roughly a few hundred atoms of hydrogen in the Milky Way Galaxy each year, it is not a problem of the theory that the forming of matter is not observed directly. Despite violating conservation of mass, the steady state theory had a number of attractive features. Most notably, the theory removes the need for the universe to have a beginning.

Problems with the steady-state theory began to emerge in the late 1960s, when observations apparently supported the idea that the universe was in fact changing: quasars and radio galaxies were found only at large distances (i.e., redshift, and thus, because of the finiteness of the speed of light, in the past) not in closer galaxies. Halton Arp, also since the 1960s, has been taking a different view of the data, claiming that evidence can also point to quasars existing as close as the local Virgo cluster.

For most cosmologists, the refutation of the steady-state theory came with the discovery of the cosmic background radiation in 1965, which was predicted by the big bang theory. Within the steady state theory this background radiation is the result of light from ancient stars which has been scattered by galactic dust. However, this explanation has been unconvincing to most cosmologists as the cosmic microwave background is very smooth, making it difficult to explain how it arose from point sources, and the microwave background shows no evidence of features such as polariziation which are normally associated with scattering.

As of 2004, the big bang theory is the one that the majority of astronomers consider the best approximation to describing the origin of the universe. In most astrophysical publications, the big bang is implicitly accepted and is used as the basis of more complete theories. At the same time, after the unexpected observation of an accelerating universe in the late-1990's, there were efforts to develop quasi-steady state theories, in which there is not a single big bang but rather multiple big bangs over time which create matter.

I'm ready for your evidence of the steady state universe.

 

[Neomega]

He and a lot of other people.

that doesn't prove anything. nothing.

Even big bang starts out with matter, all condensed in one tiny little speck, and going beyond that little tiny speck, the model does not hold up.

Big Bang works as long as there was something existing in the first place. It still did not come from nothing.

Notice Big Bang does not in any way say, that there was nothing, and then a tiny speck of mass, with all of the universes energy and matter encased in side.

So all this stuff still had to exist, before it exploded.

 

[Birdjaguar]

(sigh) Oh Neo, you disapoint me so. Dont you see? Your thought processes are trapped in this universe, you cant escape Ok I'll try: The matter in this universe cannot be created or destroyed within the universe, thats true. However the matter and energy in this universe came into existence with this universe. Matter and energy are the fabric of this universe. Just as they came into being when our universe popped into existence, they'll cease to exist when this universe no longer exists. Isnt it obvious

Bravo

 

[Birdjaguar]

Even big bang starts out with matter, all condensed in one tiny little speck, and going beyond that little tiny speck, the model does not hold up.

Big Bang works as long as there was something existing in the first place. It still did not come from nothing.

Notice Big Bang does not in any way say, that there was nothing, and then a tiny speck of mass, with all of the universes energy and matter encased in side.

So all this stuff still had to exist, before it exploded.

OK I assume you are correct; how come your steady state model doesn't fit the facts. It's kinda like the 6 day creation doesn't fit the facts. Please read DP's post again. He hit the nail on the head.

 

[Neomega]

(sigh) Oh Neo, you disapoint me so. Dont you see? Your thought processes are trapped in this universe, you cant escape Ok I'll try: The matter in this universe cannot be created or destroyed within the universe, thats true. However the matter and energy in this universe came into existence with this universe. Matter and energy are the fabric of this universe. Just as they came into being when our universe popped into existence, they'll cease to exist when this universe no longer exists. Isnt it obvious

And exactly how did you escape this universe, and get a peak of it form some other universe? When did you go on this cosmic journey?

Or perhaps you put stock in physicists who have made this journey, perhaps a great mathemetician has done it?

How can you seriously try and tell me you know about any other kind of universe except the one we are in, and then with a straight face,tell me it more than a bunch of metaphysical tripe!

What universe were you born in? In the one I was born in, I can't walk through walls, I can't destroy or create energy and matter, and I most certainly cannot predict the beginning of time, as I AM MERELY HUMAN!

Anyone else who claims they can, is full of it.

 

[Birdjaguar]

And exactly how did you escape this universe, and get a peak of it form some other universe?

How can you seriously try and tell me you know about any other kind of universe except the one we are in, and then with a straight face,tell me it more than a bunch of metaphysical tripe!

He didn't say anything about "another" universe. He said that our universe exists in finite time and when it came into existence it brought matter and energy and the physical laws with it. He carefully did not speculate on what was around prior to this creation point. Physicists currently are working on a membrane theory of multiple universe that collide to create new ones and conserve the was of physics beyond our universe and our time. It's still very early in that game though.

 

[Neomega]

He didn't say anything about "another" universe. He said that our universe exists in finite time and when it came into existence it brought matter and energy and the physical laws with it. He carefully did not speculate on what was around prior to this creation point. Physicists currently are working on a membrane theory of multiple universe that collide to create new ones and conserve the was of physics beyond our universe and our time. It's still very early in that game though.

Yes, the weak brane theory, to explain all that extra gravity.

And please tell me, how do they know the instant time began?

And exactly what was there before time? Absolute nothingness? A void so deep that even time itself did not move? And once again, where did this unverse come from if nothingness was all that existed?

If time didn't exist, how did our little universe find a spec of time to start growing?

Where did it get this brief moment to come into existance, if there were no moments?

 

[Bozo Erectus]

And exactly how did you escape this universe, and get a peak of it form some other universe? When did you go on this cosmic journey?[/i].

Thats a really long story, and probably not fit for this particular thread. However, Birdjaguar is explaining my POV extremely well (better than me actually), listen to him if your Universal Translator is malfunctioning and you cant grok what I'm saying. Youre such a smart guy, cant you see that science and human logic are finite, because they were born in this universe? I dont know for sure what god is, but I have a pretty good idea of what god isnt: God isnt bound to this universe, or subject to its laws.

 

[Neomega]

And I'll add...

once again, everything we know is based on the laws of the universe, but at the very core, around which everything is built, is the single "uncaused cause", the breaking of these laws just for a brief microsecond, so everything else will work.

Why are you allowed to just once break the laws of the universe, just so it will fit your definition of how it started. Sounds like more deconstructionist theory to me.

Don't claim you know how the universe began if you cannot pinpoint the absolute beginning. Not the few moments afterward. The absolute beginning. If you cannot do this, you cannot be sure if the universe ever began.

Perhaps that tiny bit of mass existed for an eternity before, and inside it was the exact same universe we are experiencing now.

 

[nihilistic]

You are fully within your rights to limit your choices to the easy path of reason and exclude the other "half" of the human experience.

What's wrong guys? Am I the only one here apalled at this pathetic attempt at trolling? How is "reason" easier (since difficulty can only be comparative) to grasp than the alternatives? There are essentially no restrictions for an argument to be religiously viable. You can claim to believe in anything, regardless of its factual basis. For an argument to be "reasonable", it would have to be self-consistent and not be contradictory to all repeatable observations. I don't see how that can be "easier" than blind acceptance.

What would you think of the doctor who said that he/she only dealt with the body and its physical symtoms and ignored the emotional life of the patient because it wasn't real?

Bad example. You seem to forgotten a whole field of science that deals with this: pschology. A better example would be the people who opted for ritualistic mantras over surgery to take care of cancer.

 

[Neomega]

Thats a really long story, and probably not fit for this particular thread. However, Birdjaguar is explaining my POV extremely well (better than me actually), listen to him if your Universal Translator is malfunctioning and you cant grok what I'm saying. Youre such a smart guy, cant you see that science and human logic are finite, because they were born in this universe? I dont know for sure what god is, but I have a pretty good idea of what god isnt: God isnt bound to this universe, or subject to its laws.

So once again, it comes down to some extra-universial force, and belief.

All based on faith.

 

[nihilistic]

However the matter and energy in this universe came into existence with this universe.

You have no evidence of that, especially the part of the claim that states that something "came into existence".