Could the Universe have Created Itself?

[inocente]

The other problem is that God is not “a being” or “a person,” but rather Being Itself and Supra Personal. His “knowing” each of us is what makes us who we are. We do not “know him” so much as “are known by him.”

This would mean we have no free-will and don’t even need to exist, since God could have known us and how we’d turn out without creating the universe, particularly a universe so unnecessarily big and so outrageously old.

*I just don’t see this. If the universe “could” in a final sense have created itself, then there is no room, no need, for God. The universe would be entirely self-sufficient because it could potentially exist without God existing. How is deciding the universe is self-sufficient leaving or making room for God? It appears to be shutting the door on the very possibility of God because he would be superfluous, unnecessary and unwanted precisely because we cannot possibly know that the universe could create itself. This is more of a metaphysical declaration at this juncture than a conclusion. *

This is god-of-the-gaps. Science has never discovered unambiguous evidence for God, He is absent from all the equations. To suppose that science will discover evidence in this one case, that this time God will appear in an equation, is an appeal to what we don’t know.

My argument is more simple - proof kills faith. If there has been no empirical eureka up to now, either for or against, then there never will be. Excluding the second coming of course.

But I don’t need to make these arguments anymore, I can just quote the Pope: “Finding God in all things is not an ‘empirical eureka’. When we desire to encounter God, we would like to verify him immediately by an empirical method. But you cannot meet God this way. God is found in the gentle breeze perceived by Elijah. The senses that find God are the ones St. Ignatius called spiritual senses.”

Words like mystery, hidden and ineffable do not entail anything and everything we come up with as statements about God are on equal footing. Christianity 101 does not conclude, “God is unknowable, therefore WHATEVER anyone says about him is as valid as anything else.” It does mean words serve more as pointers towards God than as definitive of him, but it is equally true to say that some words point us away from God and serve to confuse rather than assist in “meeting him.”

Wot, like “Being Itself” and “Supra Personal”?

 

[LogosSokratikos]

I prefer the word “unexplained” to “created.” In order to fully understand the existence of the universe, our quest for a sufficient explanation for why the universe exists or why there is something rather than nothing, legitimately, requires a full and complete accounting. It is not that we are looking specifically for a “murderer” because we have a dead body, but, rather, because we have a dead body we are compelled to look for a “cause of death” that sufficiently explains the dead body. The dead body could not explain itself.

The universe (space, time, matter and energy) does not explain its own existence as a physical entity because its constituent physical components all “began” a finite time ago, so physical, i.e., scientifically quantifiable, explanations cannot serve to sufficiently explain their own coming into existence.

In other words, natural explanations cannot serve to explain their own genesis because natural causes did not predate their own existence. The natural can, then, only be explained by some “supernatural” existent because no natural existents were around to “create” the natural universe.

Your “murdered man” example fails because with the “creation” of the universe, it had to be “premeditated” and thus “murder” because no natural causes were available to “bring about” the “death.” These causes cannot sufficiently explain the universe since they are, in sum total, what it is that requires explanation.

We can’t appeal to the effect in order to explain the effect - that would be begging the question. We can’t accept “the heart stopped beating” as a sufficient reason to explain why the heart stopped beating. The universe cannot have a natural explanation since all of what constitutes “natural” began when the universe did, which is very much the same as claiming that the man died because his heart stopped beating sufficiently explains why the man died.

You, as the coroner, would be laughed off the crime scene, if you insisted that no murder investigation was necessary because the cause of death was (obviously a natural one,) i.e., the victim died because his heart stopped beating - an entirely natural occurrence.

Let’s put it this way: humans used to have no idea how species created themselves, and along came evolutionary biology. Surprise, surprise. This universe may one day be seen as a cabbage evolved in a cabbage patch of universes. Or something else.

There was a time when people thought deities and angels were required to explain each planet and even move them around in the sky. Supernatural entities were hired by the human imagination to do every conceivable thing under and over the sun.

Entities of human fancy have been receding and receding from our minds as explanations of stuff that exist, until what we have right now is a constantly clearer model of god-of-the-gaps, where it is more and more obvious that people stick supernatural entities in the gaps of our knowledge. Gods are the very name of our ignorance. Gods explain nothing, they’re just characters in the stories we tell.

By 1951, Pope Pius XII declared that Lemaître’s theory provided a scientific validation for Creationism and Catholicism. However, Lemaître resented the Pope’s proclamation.[17][18] When Lemaître and Daniel O’Connell, the Pope’s science advisor, tried to persuade the Pope not to mention Creationism publicly anymore, the Pope agreed. He convinced the Pope to stop making proclamations about cosmology.[19] While a devoted Roman Catholic, he was against mixing science with religion.[20]
(source wikipedia)

Father Lemaitre knew very well you cannot stick God in any explanation of the universe, and he was right. It never works.

You folks keep repeating you can’t use Genesis as a scientific theory (I agree: false tales do not work as true theories, and Genesis is wrong as you can get, and not only about creation, but about history too), but you can’t resist the temptation to stick your deity into the events at the beginning of time. Well then, make up your minds. Lemaitre knew better, and it’s only wise to follow the smartest among you and resist the temptation, because 300 or so years of progress in science shows if you stick God anywhere at all you sooner or later discover what you really stuck is your foot in your mouth.

Patience and not mixing deities in the real world of universes and dinosaur bones is a safe way to go.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Father Lemaitre knew very well you cannot stick God in any explanation of the universe, and he was right. It never works.

Carl Sagan in Cosmos, 1980 A.D.

“Ten or twenty billion years ago, something happened – the Big Bang, the event that began our universe…. In that titanic cosmic explosion, the universe began an expansion which has never ceased…. As space stretched, the matter and energy in the universe expanded with it and rapidly cooled. The radiation of the cosmic fireball, which, then as now, filled the universe, moved through the spectrum – from gamma rays to X-rays to ultraviolet light; through the rainbow colors of the visible spectrum; into the infrared and radio regions. The remnants of that fireball, the cosmic background radiation, emanating from all parts of the sky can be detected by radio telescopes today. In the early universe, space was brilliantly illuminated.”

Genesis, 1200 B.C. : “In the beginning God said: ‘Let there be light.’”

As astronomer Robert Jastrow pointed out in God and the Astronomers.

“For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.”

Your history of astronomy leaves something to be desired. When Lemaître cautioned the Pope, that was before the concrete evidence had confirmed the Big Bang. Now that we have all the evidence we need of a Big Bang, there is not the same need for caution.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

So, do I know what happened? No. Do I boast to know what happened? Not either. I decide it’s most reasonable to remain agnostic in a matter which I ignore. Any premature conclusion would be irrational.

The agnostic has made a decision to ignore God. He does so at his own peril.

You should read Pascal.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Wordplay. Saying something like “a created universe necessitates a Creator”, is like asking “We have a murdered man, this shows we need a murderer” before establishing if it was murder, suicide or natural causes. It begs the question.

Reasonable inferences are not wordplay. Wordplay is saying the universe might have created itself. That would be nonsensical wordplay.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

When you say “we”, you mean “you” - we almost got to 1,000 posts on this thread without any sectarianism, then you came along.

I read this post and decided I would not read any more of yours. You do not play nice.

Go play with somebody else.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Let’s put it this way: humans used to have no idea how species created themselves, and along came evolutionary biology. Surprise, surprise. This universe may one day be seen as a cabbage evolved in a cabbage patch of universes. Or something else.

There was a time when people thought deities and angels were required to explain each planet and even move them around in the sky. Supernatural entities were hired by the human imagination to do every conceivable thing under and over the sun.

Entities of human fancy have been receding and receding from our minds as explanations of stuff that exist, until what we have right now is a constantly clearer model of god-of-the-gaps, where it is more and more obvious that people stick supernatural entities in the gaps of our knowledge. Gods are the very name of our ignorance. Gods explain nothing, they’re just characters in the stories we tell.

Father Lemaitre knew very well you cannot stick God in any explanation of the universe, and he was right. It never works.

You folks keep repeating you can’t use Genesis as a scientific theory (I agree: false tales do not work as true theories, and Genesis is wrong as you can get, and not only about creation, but about history too), but you can’t resist the temptation to stick your deity into the events at the beginning of time. Well then, make up your minds. Lemaitre knew better, and it’s only wise to follow the smartest among you and resist the temptation, because 300 or so years of progress in science shows if you stick God anywhere at all you sooner or later discover what you really stuck is your foot in your mouth.

Patience and not mixing deities in the real world of universes and dinosaur bones is a safe way to go.

The pesky little diatribe above - as far as “explaining” anything goes - presents a very enchanting myth in its own right. The problem is that evolutionary biology - as science - has not succeeded in addressing the outstanding issues any more than Genesis did - as anti-myth.

Despite your claim about “species [having] created themselves,” evolutionary biology has not sufficiently explained speciation any more than it has shown or explained abiogenesis.

Certainly, science has honed in on those issues and raised a plethora of newly minted questions, but the clarity to ask questions is not to be confused with having provided complete answers to those questions. There remain huge explanatory “gaps” in evolutionary biology, in cosmology and in physics. Having confidence that these gaps will be overcome is not to be confused with the actual filling of the gaps.

The “god of the gaps” is no more or less a problem for theists than “science of the gaps” is for atheists, though theists have perhaps errantly filled the wrong gaps from time to time. On the other hand, scientists, too, have made similar errors by claiming that “knowledge” filled certain gaps when it merely traversed or placed “detour” or “inconsequential” signs around them.

The gaps remain whether God fills them or, alternatively, misconceived knowledge is used to travel around them. The problem for theists is in errantly identifying a gap as an insurmountable one. On the other hand, the problem for scientism may well be in wrongly assessing the potential of science to fill every gap. As the saying goes, “There are gaps, and there are gaps.”

 

[LogosSokratikos]

Carl Sagan in Cosmos, 1980 A.D.

“Ten or twenty billion years ago, something happened – the Big Bang, the event that began our universe…. In that titanic cosmic explosion, the universe began an expansion which has never ceased…. As space stretched, the matter and energy in the universe expanded with it and rapidly cooled. The radiation of the cosmic fireball, which, then as now, filled the universe, moved through the spectrum – from gamma rays to X-rays to ultraviolet light; through the rainbow colors of the visible spectrum; into the infrared and radio regions. The remnants of that fireball, the cosmic background radiation, emanating from all parts of the sky can be detected by radio telescopes today. In the early universe, space was brilliantly illuminated.”

Genesis, 1200 B.C. : “In the beginning God said: ‘Let there be light.’”

As astronomer Robert Jastrow pointed out in God and the Astronomers.

“For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.”

Your history of astronomy leaves something to be desired. When Lemaître cautioned the Pope, that was before the concrete evidence had confirmed the Big Bang. Now that we have all the evidence we need of a Big Bang, there is not the same need for caution.

Poor reading skills you show. I did not doubt the big bang nor did Lemaitre. Read again.

 

[LogosSokratikos]

The agnostic has made a decision to ignore God. He does so at his own peril.

You should read Pascal.

You ignore Allah at your own peril. According to the Holy Word of Allah in the Qur’an, trinitarian Christians will burn in hell for eternity. You ignore this warning at your own peril.

But you probably don’t lose sleep over this. People tend to ignore their neighbor’s myths.

P.S. What you posted is not a rational argument. It’s extortion. But let me tell you, I am capable of being extorted by reference to genocidal Yahweh as I am of Allah or of Zeus.

 

[LogosSokratikos]

The pesky little diatribe above - as far as “explaining” anything goes - presents a very enchanting myth in its own right. The problem is that evolutionary biology - as science - has not succeeded in addressing the outstanding issues any more than Genesis did - as anti-myth.

Despite your claim about “species [having] created themselves,” evolutionary biology has not sufficiently explained speciation any more than it has shown or explained abiogenesis.

Certainly, science has honed in on those issues and raised a plethora of newly minted questions, but the clarity to ask questions is not to be confused with having provided complete answers to those questions. There remain huge explanatory “gaps” in evolutionary biology, in cosmology and in physics. Having confidence that these gaps will be overcome is not to be confused with the actual filling of the gaps.

The “god of the gaps” is no more or less a problem for theists than “science of the gaps” is for atheists, though theists have perhaps errantly filled the wrong gaps from time to time. On the other hand, scientists, too, have made similar errors by claiming that “knowledge” filled certain gaps when it merely traversed or placed “detour” or “inconsequential” signs around them.

The gaps remain whether God fills them or, alternatively, misconceived knowledge is used to travel around them. The problem for theists is in errantly identifying a gap as an insurmountable one. On the other hand, the problem for scientism may well be in wrongly assessing the potential of science to fill every gap. As the saying goes, “There are gaps, and there are gaps.”

A creationist. How quaint. I don’t debate with people who do not understand and accept what educated people around the world are capable of understanding and acknowledge as evidenced with overkill.

 

[Peter_Plato]

You ignore Allah at your own peril. According to the Holy Word of Allah in the Qur’an, trinitarian Christians will burn in hell for eternity. You ignore this warning at your own peril.

But you probably don’t lose sleep over this. People tend to ignore their neighbor’s myths.

P.S. What you posted is not a rational argument. It’s extortion. But let me tell you, I am capable of being extorted by reference to genocidal Yahweh as I am of Allah or of Zeus.

It is only extortion if untrue or unduly intended to persuade you to accept what is, otherwise, unacceptable.

Unfortunately, for you, perhaps, if entirely true, then it is no more extortion than a “Bridge Out” sign on a road. You could, I guess, insist that such a sign is an extortion because it curtails your right to keep driving on the road, but you do so to your peril.

You might, also, conclude that because you have seen such signs wrongly posted in your past travels, that this one, too, is perniciously false; again, to your peril.

But, of course, you have proven yourself to be a brave soul with all the answers and entirely capable of assessing all mysteries and religious claims, so there seems nothing more to be said on the matter. Happy landings.

 

[Peter_Plato]

A creationist. How quaint. I don’t debate with people who do not understand and accept what educated people around the world are capable of understanding and acknowledge as evidenced with overkill.

A blithe dismissal. How quaint!

Educated people such as this mathematician, perhaps?

 

[Peter_Plato]

A creationist. How quaint. I don’t debate with people who do not understand and accept what educated people around the world are capable of understanding and acknowledge as evidenced with overkill.

What eludes me here is why you even bothered to replace “everyone knows” with “educated people around the world [who] are capable of understanding and acknowledge as evidenced.”

Your sentence would have been just as effective, logically speaking, by merely stating “everyone knows.” It just wouldn’t have tainted your post with the “air of authority” that you surreptitiously smuggled in as a replacement for a compelling argument.

 

[tonyrey]

There is no reason whatsoever to believe God is compelled to redeem His creatures in precisely the same way on every planet…

It is rather presumptuous to think any other form of redemption by God would necessarily be a lesser way. It amounts to imposing limits on divine originality as well as assuming that different ways of redemption cannot all be perfect. My inability to conceive of a more perfect way of redemption is insignificant in view of my finite intelligence and I am content to believe the statement of Jesus in the context of salvation that with God all things are possible…

 

[Charlemagne_III]

You ignore Allah at your own peril. According to the Holy Word of Allah in the Qur’an, trinitarian Christians will burn in hell for eternity. You ignore this warning at your own peril.

But you probably don’t lose sleep over this. People tend to ignore their neighbor’s myths.

P.S. What you posted is not a rational argument. It’s extortion. But let me tell you, I am capable of being extorted by reference to genocidal Yahweh as I am of Allah or of Zeus.

Well, since you have dismissed all gods, if there is a God, you may well be in big trouble. This is not extortion. I am not demanding money. I am suggesting that you are happily oblivious of all warnings on the road to death.

But then, as others have noted, you seem to contain all the wisdom of the universe in your singularly wonderful brain. You know for a fact there is no god, so why worry yourself about any ultimate fate other than that in your own mind you are ultimately doomed to be no more than food for the worms.

What if, after all, there is a God? Do you really want to make an enemy of God?

As the Psalmist put it: “The fool says in his heart there is no God.”

The Muslim God is the God of Abraham. So he is my God too.

 

[tonyrey]

Only Fundamentalists interpret the whole of the Old Testament literally rather than allegorically.

If a certain text is to be interpreted allegorically, it doesn’t give actual information: you sort it out, so the text isn’t telling you what to believe, you are telling the text what to believe. If you cherry-pick what to believe and how to interpret it, then you are not letting the text tell you anything you did not decide to believe to begin with.

 

[tonyrey]

What eludes me here is why you even bothered to replace “everyone knows” with “educated people around the world [who] are capable of understanding and acknowledge as evidenced.”

Your sentence would have been just as effective, logically speaking, by merely stating “everyone knows.” It just wouldn’t have tainted your post with the “air of authority” that you surreptitiously smuggled in as a replacement for a compelling argument.

It is merely an elitist version of the argumentum ad populum.

 

[tonyrey]

So, do I know what happened? No. Do I boast to know what happened? Not either. I decide it’s most reasonable to remain agnostic in a matter which I ignore. Any premature conclusion would be irrational.

It’s irrational to regard oneself as a product of purposeless and meaningless events…

 

[Tomdstone]

The principle of causality pervades the universe.

How do you know it applies to the universe as a whole?

 

[Tomdstone]

The universe did not exist until the Big Bang.

How do you know that the Big Bang was not part of a never ending cycle of expansions and collapses, in which case the universe would have existed before the Big Bang?