How the Universe Began: Atheist

[cheese_sdc]

I find it interesting that those who say “The Universe couldn’t have come from nothing” don’t apply that logic to God. “God couldn’t have come from nothing!” But It did, didn’t it?

Or did it?

If God can come from nothing, then Something can come from nothing.

That means a universe from nothing is possible.

 

[meltzerboy]

I find it interesting that those who say “The Universe couldn’t have come from nothing” don’t apply that logic to God. “God couldn’t have come from nothing!” But It did, didn’t it?

Or did it?

If God can come from nothing, then Something can come from nothing.

That means a universe from nothing is possible.

However, believers do NOT believe that G-d came from nothing, but rather that G-d ALWAYS existed. G-d does not change in His essence and He transcends time, space, nature, and matter.

 

[ynotzap]

Did scientists ever consider there is another existence than the material one? Did they ever consider their own ability to think, examine, and the ability to use the scientific method. All the concepts they use to reach their conclusions are not material, but spiritual in nature. Spiritual meaning real, not sensed but only understood, a spiritual action of intelligence.
Even when using logic and math they are operating in the spiritual world. They can’t see the forest for the trees. they are so rapped up in the material, the physical for the answers and never transcend to the spiritual. They are looking for a spiritual answer in the material, physical, and in this way they will never find it, Materalism can be such a blinder to the truth. they wind up with theories, no real proof, educated guesses, maybe If it isn’t material it isn’t real.

 

[phil_at_dayboro]

Did scientists ever consider there is another existence than the material one? Did they ever consider their own ability to think, examine, and the ability to use the scientific method. All the concepts they use to reach their conclusions are not material, but spiritual in nature. Spiritual meaning real, not sensed but only understood, a spiritual action of intelligence.
Even when using logic and math they are operating in the spiritual world. They can’t see the forest for the trees. they are so rapped up in the material, the physical for the answers and never transcend to the spiritual. They are looking for a spiritual answer in the material, physical, and in this way they will never find it, Materalism can be such a blinder to the truth. they wind up with theories, no real proof, educated guesses, maybe If it isn’t material it isn’t real.

Their is a lot of stuff we know about,
But their’s a whole lot more stuff we know nothing about…

 

[Jerbear]

I think it’s important for people to keep in mind that atheism does not necessarily mean the absolute rejection of God’s or gods’ existence. Someone who denies the existence of a higher power and says that there is no God is a gnostic atheist, which is what most people tend to think of when they hear the word atheist. However, there are plenty of atheists who are simply not convinced in a higher power, or an agnostic atheist. They do not reject that there could be a God or a higher power but they are simply not convinced and therefore lack belief.

 

[JimG]

Empty space is not nothing. And empty space is certainly not what philosophers and theologians mean when they speak of creation from nothing.

Physicists now can speak of empty space as a quantum foam, in which particle/antiparticle pairs pop into and out of existence. If all the particle / antiparticle pairs cancel each other out, the result might be empty space, but that is not nothing.

No, from a theological perspective, what is meant by God creating the universe from nothing, is that he begins with no pre-existing matter, no energy, space, or time. Nothing. No empty space to work with.

 

[JimG]

I recommend the book The Last Superstition: Answering the New Atheism by Edward Feser. The nature of essentially ordered causal chains requires a God, and not just five billion years ago, but right now to keep things in existence.

I haven’t read the book, but I’ve heard the concept when studying philosophy. It’s one reason that it seems to me to be a mistake to argue that if the universe has a beginning in time—a temporal beginning—such as the Big Bang appears to be, then, and only then does it need a Creator. I don’t believe that’s the case. Even a universe which stretched infinitely into the past and infinitely into the future would require a Creator standing outside of time to create it and maintain it in existence.

 

[DavidFilmer]

I believed in the Big Bang Theory

I’m a (hopefully) faithful Catholic and I firmly believe the BBT. The Church says God created the universe from nothing. The BBT is simply an explanation of how he did it.

It had to do with basically how the laws of physics break down at the subatomic level, meaning that something COULD spontaneously come into existence and, by the idea of probability, if this spontaneous popping-into-existence was happening consistently, it is possible that sooner or later this particle could expand tremendously by some very delicate triggering event.

You have an incomplete understanding of virtual particles. No physicist has ever said that particles can be created (which would violate the Law of Conservation of Matter and Energy, and particles, though very small, are either matter or energy - there’s no third state). The net mass-energy of the universe is constant even at a quantum level. Matter/energy cannot be created or destroyed. If the net mass-energy of the universe is zero, virtual particles could not be created. If we ever figure out what happened in the expansion epoch, it will not be consistent with this idea, because we can already discount it.

It kinda goes into play with the multiverse theory stating that somewhere, every possibility that is a possibility has played itself out. As long as there is infinite time, sooner or later a universe will come to be.

The multiverse idea says that, for each quantum event, a new universe comes into existence for each possible event outcome. That would explain how we wound up with the universe we have, but not how our universe (or any others) came to be created in the first place.

There is a scientific explanation (as of now).

No there’s not. The expansion epoch is still a mystery. The guy that figures it out will win a Nobel Prize, and no such prize has been awarded.

But the idea that there is no other way that the universe could be created…well, it’s not convincing if you have really studied. How would you respond to this?

Everything that exists either created itself, or was created by something else, or was never created (eternal). There are no other possible states. The universe (the one we live in) is obviously not eternal. So either the universe created itself, or something else created it. But it is logically impossible for something to create itself - to do so, it must be simultaneously in a state of potentiality and actuality, and this is an impossibility (because the states are mutually exclusive).

Just because physical laws break down at a quantum level doesn’t mean that impossible things happen at a quantum level. The only remaining possibility is that something else created the universe - something that is not part of the universe.

Right?

 

[thinkandmull]

Aristotle strangely believe that motion and matter always existed. It contradicts his arguments from motion for a First Cause. Arguments for an Eternal Sustainer is a different, more difficult, argument. Not sure you can prove it. I am surprised Aquinas didn’t see this when he discusses it in Summa Contra Gentiles