How to transit from the concept of God to the existence of God

[CandideWest]

I didn’t say that it was impossible. To say nothing is not a “real entity” does not mean that it is senseless or incoherent to talk about (say) a time at which nothing (philosopher’s sense) existed. It means that “nothing exists” can’t be analyzed as “there is a being/state (nothing) which exists”, and must instead be analyzed as “it is not the case that there is a being which exists”. I said that that such an analysis is not contradictory in the way that married bachelors and square circles are.

(Notwithstanding the fact that (Ex)(Fx v ~Fx) can always be derived by the law of excluded middle. But most logicians seem to regard this as a weakness of standard quantified logic. The fact that some logicians, who needless to say had no theological commitments, have made free logics that are as ontologically neutral as possible seems to show that there is nothing illogical or nonsensical about conceiving of “nothing” as the negation of all existential propositions.)

I agree, there is nothing nonsensical about conceiving a nothing in this way.

BUT it is nonsensical to claim such a condition could actually obtain. So it is nonsensical to ask how to get to a universe from that (impossible) condition.

As long as we keep this notion of nothing in the realm of philosophy then we can do as we like with it. Where people go wrong is when they start to try to get to any physical reality FROM that impossible state.

I don’t think that nothing is actually possible, since I believe that God is necessary. But I don’t find it conceptually incoherent.

Ok, so we are in violent agreement that “nothing” is not possible. I’m always happy to take agreement where we can in discussion.

 

[CandideWest]

Truth is, we don’t even have to go historical to show that there are in all likelihood today more people who have no use for God committing more heinous crimes than ever before in the history of the world.

You seem to be under some serious misapprehension here. I was talking about horrors committed explicitly BECAUSE OF peoples beliefs in various gods.

If you want to start talking about horrors committed by people who happen to have some given position on religion then we’ll be here all day without saying anything relevant, even if we just picked the Christian ones.

Again, I was asked why I care so much. The answer is because there are horrors being committed every day directly because of peoples mistaken beliefs about some god concept. You have to agree with this even if you think it’s just OTHER religions in which people are doing these and that the atrocities performed due to belief in the god concept you hold are justified.

I do not hear of people out there committing horrors in the name of atheism. Indeed such a position would be absurd. Atheism is only the absence of a particular belief, so it cannot in itself inform any actions.

I ask you whom you are more afraid of when you are walking down the street: the Bible toting Christian or the knife wielding alley slug who never saw the inside of a Church?

…Who (if you happen to be in the USA) is also statistically very likely to be a Christian. So you’re asking which if be more afraid of, a Christian with a book or a Christian with a knife? In an immediate sense probably the Christian with the knife.

See here’s the problem you’ve tried to dress up a situation such that people will have to side with your position. But doing so has made your position absurd.

If you said “you’re walking down a street, who would you be more worried about meeting, a Christian or an atheist” I’d say “a Christian”. And in many of the places I’ve travelled to around the world the more religious a person is, the more dangerous they are.

Yes, you can hate a God you believe does not exist … if that God really exists!

No, you still can’t. You cannot direct any emotion against something which you do not believe to exist. If you really struggle with understanding thus, try loving Bigfoot or hating the Loch Ness monster. Etc.

And no atheist can prove that God does not exist. So that certainty is dead in the water.

Sure, we can’t prove the non-existence of any gods, or ghosts, or alien abductions, or Bigfoot, or the Loch Ness monster, or fairies, or Father Christmas, or any other millions of concepts for which there is no evidence. We simply reject all these claims.

As Bishop Fulton Sheen said, the atheist is a person without any invisible means of support.

True enough, we rely on real support, from the real universe. I’m happy with that position.

 

[delmo]

I’m not a physicist nor have I studied the subject in depth so this could be completely inaccurate and a horrible point, but here goes:

Before the Big Bang, the universe would have been just some really condensed spec of stuff, right? Even if we assume that this “spec” always existed, doesn’t that still leave us with the whole “what caused it to start expanding” question? There’s the whole “an object at rest tends to stay at rest” thing. I was under the impression that this is why certain leading physicists, such as Hawkings, are beginning to push the multiverse theory. They claim that forces from other universes around ours could have been what caused our Big Bang to happen. But that results in the same problem, just pushing it farther back. Eventually we would get to the first universe which has an unexplained cause as well. You eventually need an uncaused cause, something many people believe to be God.

 

[CandideWest]

Who exactly is studying/working on the source of quantum theory pre-universe? What are their findings?

Er, I don’t know of any off the top of my head, but I never said I did. To remind you, you said

“where did the laws of quantum theory come from?”

And I said that is being worked on. Trying to understand why quantum mechanics is the way it is has been an active area of research by quantum physicists since the beginning of the theory. And it the major reason it’s so contentious. Einstein believed there were underlying non-probabilistic laws, it turned out he was wrong.

1. It is one thing to say particles pop in/out of existence via pre-existing energies

You’ve misunderstood it’s not some pre-existing energies which particles come into existence from, it’s nothing - (the real “nothing” - no mass or energy etc) as opposed to the impossible philosophical state.

while extrapolating universes with all its intelligence to pop in/out of existence is another. Where is your science to support universes popping in/out of existence?

The leading one at the moment is Lawrence Krauss’ “a universe from nothing” model. There is a very accessible talk on youtube about it if you don’t want to go read the actual papers / book.

1. You have only managed kicked the bucket further down the street.

No, it isn’t because it’s getting you from nothing to a universe. If this turns out to be correct then we’ll understand the origin of the universe.

Philosophers can then spend the rest of time arguing about where “nothing” came from. And theists can spend the rest of time claiming that god is necessary in order to create “nothing”.

Meanwhile scientists will answer other questions.

The rest of your post was based on the understanding that we were engaged in a bucket kicking exercise. So I’ll leave off replying to that.

 

[CandideWest]

I did not see that post of yours earlier.

Okay, please react to these two questions:

1. We agree that we have got to have concurrence on the concepts of words we use in our communication? yes or no.

In general I’d say yes, because I like clarity. But there are exceptions. For example when people are debating the meaning of a term they don’t need to agree on the meaning of the term before they can start the discussion. That would be silly.

1. What is the most important information on the concept of God among Christian theists?

Depends which theists, some say gods moral status, some say omnipotence, some say being creator, some say “love” others “truth”, others “existence”… Etc.

I have no way to work out which, if any of these opinions are correct. Which do you think is the most important?

We will go later on to work together to concur on what we must understand together on the meaning of the word transit and also on the word nothing.
KingCoil

Why not propose what you mean by these things and we can discuss. You seem to be seeking agreement on some use of terms without suggesting any use of those terms.

We aren’t really gonna get anywhere this way.

 

[ThinkingSapien]

Before the Big Bang, the universe would have been just some really condensed spec of stuff, right?

It could be said to have also been that during the earliest phases of the Big Bang. Though generally discussions about before the Big Bang seem to be more speculative and less supported with evidence. You’ll find a lot of thoughts on what was going on before then, some of those thoughts include God(s), some don’t.

Even if we assume that this “spec” always existed, doesn’t that still leave us with the whole “what caused it to start expanding” question? There’s the whole “an object at rest tends to stay at rest” thing.

I don’t think that Newtonian mechanics helps much here. They tend to work over a limited scale of speeds, sizes, masses, so on.

 

[hasantas]

That’s the laws of thermodynamics, you need to check out the “Zero Energy universe” Google will help. Also if you can get them I would recommend

“A Universe from Nothing”. Astronomical Society of the Pacific. 10 March 2010. by Alexei V. Filippenko and Jay M. Pasachoff

Edward P. Tryon, “Is the Universe a Vacuum Fluctuation?”, Nature, vol. 246, p.396–397, 1973.

The zero energy model made a number of predictions and subsequent measurements have shown these to be accurate to an extremely high degree of precision.

The total negative and positive energy of universe is zero. So there isn’t a universe in actuality and universe emerged from nothing and fundamentally we are nothing! And so universe and everything spontaneously can occur without any cause from out. I think you intent me to get that conclusions from what you refer me. But ı reached other.

The negative and positive energies can transform into and balance each other but never being zero(but theoretical is possible). Every particle has an antiparticle. When these particles crash in each other they do not dissolve at all but get into a different dimension which called vacuum energy or quantumic vacuum fluctuation which you call nothing. Than nothing is not nothing in actually but a secret dimension of energy which physicists cannot define its’s structure at all. Anyhow scientists assume that particles emerge from remains energy of virtual particles and that cause a lack of energy from vacuum(nothing) energy.

At here ı want to ask that where did vacuum come from and how did vacuum occur? So you see everything has a begining and endeavour to prove that the matter and energy is eternal or can occur spontaneously is useless.

Ofcourse you can presume countless Big Bangs or eternal vacuum energies. But matter can not go eternal there must be a limit as locatinal and timely where a deity, timeless, placeless effect and that is God. Otherwise this lineage and series will never finish which is impossible.

 

[ThinkingSapien]

Why not propose what you mean by these things and we can discuss. You seem to be seeking agreement on some use of terms without suggesting any use of those terms.

We aren’t really gonna get anywhere this way.

This isn’t the first incarnation of this thread. The previous ones:

• How to prove something for example God to exist in objective reality.
• Does anything exist? First, clarify the concept, then look for the thing, the object…
• Creator and operator of the universe, what’s wrong with this concept of God?
• God is known by intelligent thinking on logic and facts.
• Experimenting on God (or religion) – silly, concur first on the concept of God.

Scrapping information out of those threads this seems to be the entirety of what has been proposed so far.

• God created the Universe
• God Operates the Universe.
• God is not machine like.

The third attribute was shared after some one pointed out that leaving the god-concept defined as “The creator of the Universe” also allows impersonal forces to match this concept.

I’ve got concerns that a detailed concept description might not come up. I look forward to being shown to be wrong here. It looks that a lot of the questions in the previous threads for getting more information were ignored.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Sure, we can’t prove the non-existence of any gods, or ghosts, or alien abductions, or Bigfoot, or the Loch Ness monster, or fairies, or Father Christmas, or any other millions of concepts for which there is no evidence. We simply reject all these claims.

The non-existence of Ghosts, Aliens, Bigfoot, Fairies, or the Loch Ness monster are not relevant to this discussion. Whether or not they exist will not impact the fate of the atheist’s immortal soul. Denying the existence of God is not at all the moral or intellectual equivalent of denying the existence of Fairies. Surely you are old enough to know this?

And why are you so absolutely certain there is no God? And what if you’re dead wrong?

You said this: “If you said “you’re walking down a street, who would you be more worried about meeting, a Christian or an atheist” I’d say “a Christian”. And in many of the places I’ve travelled to around the world the more religious a person is, the more dangerous they are.”

Clearly you have no conception of what I am talking about: you have twisted my words beyond recognition. So I guess you’re not really into a serious discussion. To hear you talk, all atheists must be better than all Christians … not one knife-wielding slug who never saw the inside of a church among them.

And then, think, if you will, not just about the atheists who are criminals (as there are Christian criminals who fail to live up to the Christian gospel, but at least know they have failed), but also about all those hundreds of wonderful atheist organizations that feed the hungry, clothe the poor, tend to the sick, give alms to the poor. Think about all those atheists who sacrifice their entire lives to partake of good works for others.

When you can get me a list of those hundreds of atheist organizations and individuals who do these things, we can talk again. I suspect we won’t be talking again.

 

[CandideWest]

.
Para 2 By whose authority is philosophy excluded from studying and making judgements about the physical world?

You misunderstand. It isn’t excluded from it, philosophers can talk about the real world all they like, but it makes no sense to complain that physicists cannot reach our universe from a philosophical concept which could not have preceded the universe.

We don’t expect physicists to tell us whether or not god could make a rock so heavy he couldn’t lift it. In the same way we shouldn’t expect them to tell us how the universe could come from an impossible condition.

That isn’t a failing of physics, it’s just not a question which is relevant to physics.

And it does seem that some scientists are concerned about the orgins of the universe,

Of course, because that IS a question for physicists.

Krauss seems to have been ( R.I.P. )

Are you saying Lawrence Krauss is dead? I hadn’t heard, I’ve just been looking around the internet and can’t find and news about this.

Para. 3 Simply stating that the material universe cannot explain its own existence by the very fact that it is physical. It is not simply a " bald fact. "

No, it is a bald assertion. For example rejecting the possibility of the universe being cyclical without justification. Or being caused by nothing etc.

And even if we grant, for the sake of argument, that it existed eternally, it would still have to have had an eternal creation in time from nothing.

??? Are you saying that even things which have existed eternally require something to create them? If so why?

Para 4. The universe and every thing in it is contingent, it may be or it may not be,

How do you know that?

but since it is, it must have a cause outside of itself.

And how do you get to here from there? Especially the “outside itself” part. This again seems to be bald assertion.

Also, everything in the universe has a limited existence, it is limited in itself and every thing in it is limited in existence.

How do you know that?

That which is limited in existence must have its existence caused by that which has existence to give. That is some of the evidence.

And how do you know this? Why do you think things need some existence giver and what evidence are you talking about?

This just seems to be a string of unsupported assertions.

Para 5 How can you reject it and believe what Krauss has written? You are contradicting yourself.

Firstly I don’t “believe” Lawrence Krauss’ model of the universe. I don’t have sufficient evidence to believe it to be true. But he has demonstrated that it is possible.

Secondly there is nothing in the model which requires some derivative of matter to have existed eternally. So although I acknowledge that it’s possible that some derivative of matter existed eternally I still reject the assumption that such a thing is true.

Para 6 Oh, I agee. Nothing does nothing. The point is that the material universe did not make itself, even if it existed eternally. It would still have had to have been created from nothing and only God can do that.

Now that depends, if you are talking about a physicists nothing then Lawrence Krauss has demonstrated that you don’t need a god to get from there to here.

If you are talking about a philosophers nothing then that couldn’t exist for a god to do anything to it.

Either way it appears your assertion is incorrect.

Para 6 Nope, there was none, God is timeless, he is always ** Now **.

How do you know that?

Para 7 All correct except the physicist’s " nothing " ( not all physicists mind you just a few ideologues ). I it is not nothing. Krauss’ universe had no absolute beginning, it was being eternally created.

No, there is no eternal “before” the start. You start with a physicists nothing - no matter, no energy, no time etc. and you get to a universe from there. There is no need for some eternal creation process in the non-existent time period.

Para 8 Ours is no myth.

I know you believe that, as of course all those who held those other creation myths believe that THEIR story isn’t a myth but an explanation of what happened. Those people of course would consider YOUR story a myth.

But if you want to cast aspersions I would certainly call Krauss’ a myth, a clever one designed to entrap those who regard themselves or wish to be regarded as sophisticated.

It’s not a myth, it’s a model. It may or may not be true, but it is possible. So far we don’t have any way to test it to find out if it is true, until we can do that we cannot be justified in believing it to be true.

Para 9 Nonesense, it is nothing but highly imaginative science fiction. It did not happen and could not have. But the children follow any pied piper, if he is clever enough and promises liberation.

Ok, if you have established that it’s impossible then demonstrate this to be the case, get your material peer reviewed and published. You could be in line for a Nobel prize.

Para 10 Abiogenesis has been disproven I believe.

Incorrect, we have demonstrated it is possible. We don’t yet know how it actually happened, but we know some ways it COULD have happened. Because we have demonstrated them in a lab.

And of course, even if true, it would have occurred from a previously existing matter. But this is not what we are talking about when speaking of the appearance of the universe or its very existence.

Of course, I was just using abiogenesis as an example where we have ways I which something COULD have happened but don’t know which DID happen. We are in the same position regarding the origin of the universe. That was the point.

 

[ericc]

Er, I don’t know of any off the top of my head, but I never said I did. To remind you, you said

“where did the laws of quantum theory come from?”

And I said that is being worked on. Trying to understand why quantum mechanics is the way it is has been an active area of research by quantum physicists since the beginning of the theory. And it the major reason it’s so contentious. Einstein believed there were underlying non-probabilistic laws, it turned out he was wrong.

You quoted quantum theory pre-universe “is being studied”. Since you quoted that, you must know someone who is doing it, otherwise, it make no sense for you to say it and not knowing anyone who is doing it. I have not found anyone yet who has published quantum theory PRE-universe. Hence my interest as I have read that existing laws of physics as we currently know does not apply at the Big Bang. If that statement is true, then it is difficult to see how post-universe quantum laws can apply to the PRE-universe. And if quantum laws PRE-universe are an unknown entity, then Lawrence Krauss is applying post-universe quantum laws to pre-universe conditions. How scientific can that be? Anyone can do projections/extrapolations/guessing to support their pet theories. Without observable data, that is pseudo science at best. Science that is not observable, repeatable, is not science.

You’ve misunderstood it’s not some pre-existing energies which particles come into existence from, it’s nothing - (the real “nothing” - no mass or energy etc) as opposed to the impossible philosophical state.

The leading one at the moment is Lawrence Krauss’ “a universe from nothing” model. There is a very accessible talk on youtube about it if you don’t want to go read the actual papers / book.

No you are wrong. Krauss admits that his “nothing” wasn’t really nothing nothing.

" it would be disingenuous to suggest that empty space endowed with energy…is really nothing".

William Lane Craig’s debate with him pointed out that Krauss definition of nothing wasn’t really a true nothing.

Craig pointed out that Krauss at various times said these:

"There are a variety of forms of nothing, they all have various definitions."
"The laws of quantum mechanics tells us that nothing is unstable."
"Nothing weighs something."
"Nothing is almost everything."

Are you sure of your real “nothing” statement?

Luke Barnes sums it up this way:

Particles can appear from no-particles, not from nothing. The underlying field is always there. A state with zero energy is not nothing. There must first be a thing before we can measure its energy, even if the number we get is zero. A physical state with no space or time, however strange, is still not thereby nothing. A universe with laws that vary from place to place and time to time is clearly not the same as one with no laws at all. It just makes the laws more complicated.

As far as I have read, those pro quantum vacuum folks have not come out and state categorically that the quantum vacuum is a true nothing. My kicking the bucket down the street statement still stands.

 

[CandideWest]

The total negative and positive energy of universe is zero. So there isn’t a universe in actuality and universe emerged from nothing and fundamentally we are nothing!

Er, no. 1 is not equal to zero just because 1 and -1 together equal zero.

At here ı want to ask that where did vacuum come from and how did vacuum occur? So you see everything has a begining and endeavour to prove that the matter and energy is eternal or can occur spontaneously is useless.

Are you trying to ask where nothing comes from under this model?

I don’t know, but I think once you get to the point of looking for the origin of nothing you may be chasing the absurd.

Ofcourse you can presume countless Big Bangs or eternal vacuum energies. But matter can not go eternal there must be a limit as locatinal and timely where a deity, timeless, placeless effect and that is God. Otherwise this lineage and series will never finish which is impossible.

You appear to be trying to assert that an infinite regress is impossible here. If so, why do you believe this to be the case?

 

[Linusthe2nd]

You quoted quantum theory pre-universe “is being studied”. Since you quoted that, you must know someone who is doing it, otherwise, it make no sense for you to say it and not knowing anyone who is doing it. I have not found anyone yet who has published quantum theory PRE-universe. Hence my interest as I have read that existing laws of physics as we currently know does not apply at the Big Bang. If that statement is true, then it is difficult to see how post-universe quantum laws can apply to the PRE-universe. And if quantum laws PRE-universe are an unknown entity, then Lawrence Krauss is applying post-universe quantum laws to pre-universe conditions. How scientific can that be? Anyone can do projections/extrapolations/guessing to support their pet theories. Without observable data, that is pseudo science at best. Science that is not observable, repeatable, is not science.

No you are wrong. Krauss admits that his “nothing” wasn’t really nothing nothing.

" it would be disingenuous to suggest that empty space endowed with energy…is really nothing".

William Lane Craig’s debate with him pointed out that Krauss definition of nothing wasn’t really a true nothing.

Craig pointed out that Krauss at various times said these:

"There are a variety of forms of nothing, they all have various definitions."
"The laws of quantum mechanics tells us that nothing is unstable."
"Nothing weighs something."
"Nothing is almost everything."

Are you sure of your real “nothing” statement?

Luke Barnes sums it up this way:

Particles can appear from no-particles, not from nothing. The underlying field is always there. A state with zero energy is not nothing. There must first be a thing before we can measure its energy, even if the number we get is zero. A physical state with no space or time, however strange, is still not thereby nothing. A universe with laws that vary from place to place and time to time is clearly not the same as one with no laws at all. It just makes the laws more complicated.

As far as I have read, those pro quantum vacuum folks have not come out and state categorically that the quantum vacuum is a true nothing. My kicking the bucket down the street statement still stands.

Good response. The fact is that " nothing " is the contrary of " something. " Now this " something " may be a vacuum, utterly empty space, ( neither of which make any sense ) or some derivative of matter ( waves, quantum fluctuations - whatever that is ). " Nothing " is the exact contrary of this or a similar condition. In other words, it does not and cannot exist. When we say “…nothing comes from nothing…,” we simply mean that the universe cannot, either " pop " into existence on its own, or exist eternally, without a cause outside itself. Either condition is inchoherent, contrary to reason.

In short, there is no " before " to the existence of this universe. It either existed forever, or now exsists. In either case, its existence depends on a cause outside itself. If the universe does not exist, then only God exists, not " nothing. ".And if, for the sake of argument, the universe has always existed, then God, who is outside the universe, is continually and eternally creating it, sustaining it, and guiding it to its proper end. There is either only God, or there is God and the universe, there is no " nothing, "

The phrase “…nihil ex nihilo fit…” means simply that God is creating or created the universe out of no prior existing matter. Faith tells us that God has always existed and that he created the universe out of no prior existing matter ( not even the kind that Krauss imagined ). He did not create it out of nothing, as though nothing were some vague kind of something. It is a metaphore describing God’s act of creation out of no prior existing matter. It can, certainly, mean a period when no physical matter existed, but that is not its primary meaning.

Fr. John A. Weisheipl, in his book, Nature and Motion in the Middle Ages says that Gallileo was so taken with the notion of " nothing, " that he was positively obsessed with it. As many on this forum have been and continue to be.

Linus2nd

 

[CandideWest]

The non-existence of Ghosts, Aliens, Bigfoot, Fairies, or the Loch Ness monster are not relevant to this discussion. Whether or not they exist will not impact the fate of the atheist’s immortal soul.

Really? How did you determine that those apparently non-existent things have no impact on my “soul” (whatever that is) but that this other apparently non-existent thing DOES have an impact on my “soul”.

Denying the existence of God is not at all the moral or intellectual equivalent of denying the existence of Fairies. Surely you are old enough to know this?

I reject claims about gods for the same reason I reject claims about fairies. The lack of justification for either belief.

And why are you so absolutely certain there is no God?

I’m not “absolutely certain” that there are no gods. In the same way that I’m not “absolutely certain” there are are no pixies. But I have no reason to believe either exist, so I reject those claims.

And what if you’re dead wrong?

If I someday find evidence that I’m wrong about any of the above views (say I am presented with adequate evidence for some god concept or the loch ness monster), then I will change my position accordingly. Simple as that.

Clearly you have no conception of what I am talking about: you have twisted my words beyond recognition.

Well, yes. You tried to set up a absurd hypothetical to try to force me into an answer which you could then misconstrue into showing that “atheists are bad”. I declined to play that childish game.

So I guess you’re not really into a serious discussion. To hear you talk, all atheists must be better than all Christians … not one knife-wielding slug who never saw the inside of a church among them.

Of course not, there are bad people amongst every group of people. That’s why I don’t address the actions people of different religious opinions perform but focus on the actions people perform explicitly BECAUSE OF their religious beliefs.

Yet again, that is why I care about people’s religious beliefs, because of the terrible things that people are doing in the world right now because of those beliefs.

I don’t know why you keep seeming to want to talk about my answer to this question but talking about all this stuff which is nothing to do with my answer to this question.

I’m sure you aren’t so utterly unaware of what’s going on in the world around you to have failed to notice the list of wars, persecution, bigotry, mutilation and terrorism which is going on out there RIGHT NOW because of people’s religious beliefs. Are you?

Assuming that you are not then surely out understand why someone who doesn’t believe in any gods would still take an interest in peoples claims about gods. Don’t you?

That was the question I was answering.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

You misunderstand. It isn’t excluded from it, philosophers can talk about the real world all they like, but it makes no sense to complain that physicists cannot reach our universe from a philosophical concept which could not have preceded the universe.

We don’t expect physicists to tell us whether or not god could make a rock so heavy he couldn’t lift it. In the same way we shouldn’t expect them to tell us how the universe could come from an impossible condition.

That isn’t a failing of physics, it’s just not a question which is relevant to physics.

Of course, because that IS a question for physicists.

Are you saying Lawrence Krauss is dead? I hadn’t heard, I’ve just been looking around the internet and can’t find and news about this.

No, it is a bald assertion. For example rejecting the possibility of the universe being cyclical without justification. Or being caused by nothing etc.

??? Are you saying that even things which have existed eternally require something to create them? If so why?

How do you know that?

And how do you get to here from there? Especially the “outside itself” part. This again seems to be bald assertion.

How do you know that?

And how do you know this? Why do you think things need some existence giver and what evidence are you talking about?

This just seems to be a string of unsupported assertions.

Firstly I don’t “believe” Lawrence Krauss’ model of the universe. I don’t have sufficient evidence to believe it to be true. But he has demonstrated that it is possible.

Secondly there is nothing in the model which requires some derivative of matter to have existed eternally. So although I acknowledge that it’s possible that some derivative of matter existed eternally I still reject the assumption that such a thing is true.

Now that depends, if you are talking about a physicists nothing then Lawrence Krauss has demonstrated that you don’t need a god to get from there to here.

If you are talking about a philosophers nothing then that couldn’t exist for a god to do anything to it.

Either way it appears your assertion is incorrect.

How do you know that?

No, there is no eternal “before” the start. You start with a physicists nothing - no matter, no energy, no time etc. and you get to a universe from there. There is no need for some eternal creation process in the non-existent time period.

I know you believe that, as of course all those who held those other creation myths believe that THEIR story isn’t a myth but an explanation of what happened. Those people of course would consider YOUR story a myth.

It’s not a myth, it’s a model. It may or may not be true, but it is possible. So far we don’t have any way to test it to find out if it is true, until we can do that we cannot be justified in believing it to be true.

Ok, if you have established that it’s impossible then demonstrate this to be the case, get your material peer reviewed and published. You could be in line for a Nobel prize.

Incorrect, we have demonstrated it is possible. We don’t yet know how it actually happened, but we know some ways it COULD have happened. Because we have demonstrated them in a lab.

Of course, I was just using abiogenesis as an example where we have ways I which something COULD have happened but don’t know which DID happen. We are in the same position regarding the origin of the universe. That was the point.

To all of which I would respond as you have; no, no, no, prove it, prove it prove it, how do you know, how do you know, how do you know.

I thought Krauss was deceased, I may have had him confused with someone else.

Linus2nd

 

[CandideWest]

You quoted quantum theory pre-universe “is being studied”.

I did nothing of the sort. Neither your question nor my reply mention anything about “pre-universe”.

You asked about why quantum mechanics is the way it is. I explained that we don’t know yet but it’s being researched. It’s been a topic of research for many years, as I’m sure you’re aware since you seem to have done some research on the topic.

So let’s not go pretending people said things they didn’t eh?

No you are wrong. Krauss admits that his “nothing” wasn’t really nothing nothing.

It’s not a philosophical nothing, you’re right. But since a philosophical nothing cannot exist, I don’t care about getting to a universe from one. Why would I? I don’t suppose Dr Krauss does either.

Are you sure of your real “nothing” statement?

What “nothing” statement? That a philosophical nothing cannot exist? Or that physicists use the term “nothing” to mean a different thing to what philosophers mean?

Luke Barnes sums it up this way:

Particles can appear from no-particles, not from nothing. The underlying field is always there. A state with zero energy is not nothing. There must first be a thing before we can measure its energy, even if the number we get is zero. A physical state with no space or time, however strange, is still not thereby nothing. A universe with laws that vary from place to place and time to time is clearly not the same as one with no laws at all. It just makes the laws more complicated.

Sure, as I said, a physicists use the term nothing to refer to an existent state with no mass, no energy… Etc. it’s not the same as a philosophical “nothing” because that state (by definition) cannot exist. Physicists don’t need to show you can get from an impossible state to a universe, because there couldn’t have ever been that impossible state to work from.

As far as I have read, those pro quantum vacuum folks have not come out and state categorically that the quantum vacuum is a true nothing. My kicking the bucket down the street statement still stands.

Ok, as I said, if physicists are able to get to the point where we understand how the universe came into being from a physicists nothing, the philosophers can then argue forever about where this nothing came from, and theists can claim that their god is necessary in order to create nothing.

I think at that point I will simply leave them to it.

 

[CandideWest]

To all of which I would respond as you have; no, no, no, prove it, prove it prove it, how do you know, how do you know, how do you know.

I suppose you could, but it would be pretty nonsensical to ask someone to “prove” their request that you support a bald assertion.

If you can support your assertions, why not do so? If you can’t, why do you make them?

I thought Krauss was deceased, I may have had him confused with someone else.

Linus2nd

Not as far as I’m aware, he was certainly alive last I checked.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

I suppose you could, but it would be pretty nonsensical to ask someone to “prove” their request that you support a bald assertion.

If you can support your assertions, why not do so? If you can’t, why do you make them?

Not as far as I’m aware, he was certainly alive last I checked.

I’ve already stated my case clear enough for objective observers. And these, passing by in the " cloud, " can judge for themselves. My intention is never to " convert " the objectors but to encourage the observers. You appear to have an ax to grind and this is a way for you to do it. That’s fine, but I’m not going to play " round robbin " endlessly to satisfy that particular end. I may tune in on something else later, but always with the same purpose…

Linus2nd

 

[KingCoil]

Dear Candide, thanks for your reply.

Originally Posted by KingCoil
I did not see that post of yours earlier.

On [sub]*[/sub] Depends which theists:

Dear Candide, I am talking about information you have on the concepts of God among Christians, which concept is the most important; you say that you used to be a Christian, tell me what information you have or please write down in your reply next: the first verse of Genesis, and also the first sentence of the Apostles’ Creed.

KingCoil

 

[CandideWest]

I’ve already stated my case clear enough for objective observers. And these, passing by in the " cloud, " can judge for themselves.

Ok, well in that case - a quick message to anyone passing in the “cloud” if you are in fact able to support the assertions on which Linus’ argument rely I’d be interested if you could let me know how. Thanks.

My intention is never to " convert " the objectors but to encourage the observers. You appear to have an ax to grind and this is a way for you to do it. That’s fine, but I’m not going to play " round robbin " endlessly to satisfy that particular end. I may tune in on something else later, but always with the same purpose…

Linus2nd

No problem, all the best then.