Is The Big Bang Really Proof Of Gods Existence?

[murphjos]

I apologise, its hard not to get snappy when your constantly being hit with, “you have no morals”, “you do believe in god deep down, you just reject him because your lost”, “Evolution is lies, and defending it means you are working for satan” etc.

I will try to act more accordingly.

C.D,

Defending evolution is hardly the work of Satan. But twisting men’s reason into using the theory to explain away and deny our creator-God sure sounds like his work. If you are not lost and do not (“deep down”) believe why are you posting here? You certainly have nothing to gain personally by arguing against God. By professing your Independence from “superstitious religion”, especially while trying sway believers, you involuntarily are doing darker work. Satan is real, he wants you believe he (and God) are not. There is also a loving God who created the universe (perhaps from an infinitely dense singularity). He wants you to acknowledge him, love him and receive his love. The fact that your need to profess atheism has brought you into the company of thousands of believers is just one of His small miracles. May his next be the conversion of your heart.

 

[Cecilianus]

On the original question posted in the thread:

1. We know from the Big Bang that the universe is not eternal. It began in a point in time 13.7 billion years ago. Explanations (such as Hawking’s) of the cause before this point in time have to resort to a complex coordinate system; there is no linear regression in time before this point. Ergo, the Catholic doctrine that the world began in a point in time is now known through reason and not only through faith (as it was for Aquinas, for example - although I would also accept the kalam argument against an actual infinite regression in time which they led to this same conclusion).
2. The Big Bang theory indicates that the universe is contingent. We can say nothing of what the laws of the universe were like “before” the Big Bang. Fundamental constants could have been entirely different, including the coupling constants for fundamental interactions - meaning that previous universes (if there were any) could have completely, utterly different.
3. The Big Bang is harmonious with the words of Scripture - God creating light in the beginning, and so forth - but God did not reveal or intend to reveal it through divine inspiration. The verses our Protestant brother posted frankly seemed irrelevant to me. It should be noted that medieval exegeses (most notably, Aquinas’) of Genesis did NOT try to interpret that book literalistically; it was treated as a creation poem and not as literal history. Medieval accounts of the creation of the universe followed the science of the day.
4. The Big Bang unfortunately does not go so far as to prove God, though, only clear the ground for God as an explanation. (God is not the conclusion of scientific proof; the Big Bang and the miracle of Lanciano can point beyond scientific reasoning, but science itself will not carry us there.) Since gravitational potential energy is negative, the total energy of the universe is 0 - and it is possibly, though extremely intellectually unsatisfactory, that the symmetry breaking could have been spontaneous. (But science is grounded on the effort to explain things through causes. There is no effect without a cause, according to Leibniz, and while we have realized that there are many things which seem to be arbitrary - such as the values of fundamental constants - if there IS a reason, we will find it.) The Big Bang could have been the result of a collapse of a previous universe - though how this worked through time is a bit problematic. Finally, close to the beginning of the Big Bang, there was probably no “causality” as we know it today within the universe, though we do not yet have a universally recognized theory of quantum gravity. But the Big Bang certainly makes creatio ex nihilo by God the most rational explanation, and the explanation which we are bound rationally to accept.

 

[Steve_L]

The big bang theory shows that the universe is probably contingent (i.e. does not contain sufficient information to fully explain itself) and, taken together with other theories such as Godel’s incompleteness theorem, shows that there is plenty of room for God in our cosmological speculations. So the answer to your question depends on your definition of “proof.”

 

[Chiral]

William L. Craig is an intelligent person and he writes very well on philosophical topics of his interest (he does have a Ph.D in philosophy). However, I don’t think the big bang can necessarily be seen as the hinge on which God’s existence is proved. The problem is that the big bang might be explained, perhaps in the next couple of decades, by a better scientific theory in physics and cosmology. Science is always changing. To me introducing God just introduces another layer of mystery when science should try to make the principles of nature and the origin of the universe more intelligible to reason. Scientists did not simply throw up their hands and say ‘God did it’ when confronted with difficult scientific questions such as the nature of electromagnetism or particle physics or how to explain the spectra of stars.

Second, the cosmological proof is more subtle than just needing a big bang. It involves complex questions going back to necessity and contingency and also whether each event in the universe requires a cause that is itself sufficient to explain the event or law in question. Philosophers have long disagreed about the nature of the problem and the cosmological proof is not irrefutable, as even Aquinas realised (though he thought along with other proofs it provided a good cumulative case for God’s existence). Even if there is no big bang, the cosmological proof may still have a lot of weight to it in considering seriously if a being such as God exists, and whether he created the universe.

:clapping::clapping:

 

[Chiral]

Provide me one peice of empirical evidence for emotions being anything other than product of our brains.

Provide me one peice of empirical evidence for emotions being anything other than product of our brains.

Provide me one peice of empirical evidence for emotions being anything other than product of our brains.

Provide me one peice of empirical evidence for emotions being anything other than product of our brains.

Sophomore,
The scientific studies you appeal to as “proof” of the reduction of all mental activity to chemical reactions… they have a “statistical significance” factor or “margin of error”, as do all studies in science. Meaning what? The empirical evidence you seek is found in the data itself. Those who performed the experiments to determine the chemicals involved in emotional response were not seeking to establish a material “origin” for emotion, only a physical manifestation thereof. And in the data they collected, variance with regard to the chemical expression of emotion was found.
So the next hypothesis is “Which came first, the physical manifestation or the mental activity? What is the causal relationship?” All data collected so far indicates that individuals are capable of generating chemical responses - mental activity causes chemical manifestation. However, we have been unable to artificially induce emotional states like love and hate - we can make subjects aggressive but not angry, we can induce physical attraction but not emotional desire. If anything, these experiments have served to accentuate the mind-body distinction.
Secondly, humans are far to varied to make such broad proclamations as “science has proved it!” Only a fool would make such a proclamation, never a scientist. This is why I and my colleagues treat “soft”-scientists with a degree of leniency - social science, even when it attempts to use hard physical science to test its hypotheses, never truly employs scientific method…
To conclude, you have no scientific basis for your belief, and MoM’s response demonstrated the rational thought-process which any honest intellect maintaining that position would follow. I know many an atheist who thinks as you do, my father-in-law included (a PhD in applied mathematics and engineering). But he is honest enough to admit his own irrationality - he refuses to accept the possibility of religious truth, but he behaves as others do and shares their “fantasy” because he (admittedly) prefers it to his own world-view. He knows this makes his existence irrational, but he is still humble enough to fear that he might be wrong…

 

[Charles_Darwin]

Sophomore,
The scientific studies you appeal to as “proof” of the reduction of all mental activity to chemical reactions… they have a “statistical significance” factor or “margin of error”, as do all studies in science. Meaning what? The empirical evidence you seek is found in the data itself. Those who performed the experiments to determine the chemicals involved in emotional response were not seeking to establish a material “origin” for emotion, only a physical manifestation thereof. And in the data they collected, variance with regard to the chemical expression of emotion was found.
So the next hypothesis is “Which came first, the physical manifestation or the mental activity? What is the causal relationship?” All data collected so far indicates that individuals are capable of generating chemical responses - mental activity causes chemical manifestation. However, we have been unable to artificially induce emotional states like love and hate - we can make subjects aggressive but not angry, we can induce physical attraction but not emotional desire. If anything, these experiments have served to accentuate the mind-body distinction.
Secondly, humans are far to varied to make such broad proclamations as “science has proved it!” Only a fool would make such a proclamation, never a scientist. This is why I and my colleagues treat “soft”-scientists with a degree of leniency - social science, even when it attempts to use hard physical science to test its hypotheses, never truly employs scientific method…
To conclude, you have no scientific basis for your belief, and MoM’s response demonstrated the rational thought-process which any honest intellect maintaining that position would follow. I know many an atheist who thinks as you do, my father-in-law included (a PhD in applied mathematics and engineering). But he is honest enough to admit his own irrationality - he refuses to accept the possibility of religious truth, but he behaves as others do and shares their “fantasy” because he (admittedly) prefers it to his own world-view. He knows this makes his existence irrational, but he is still humble enough to fear that he might be wrong…

errrr ok …

when have i ever said “science has proved it”?..

now what was you empirical evidence for emotions being linked to anything other than the brain???

 

[WillieWonka]

If the Big Bang hasn’t been proven, how can it prove anything else?

 

[Cecilianus]

If the Big Bang hasn’t been proven, how can it prove anything else?

It has been proven.

 

[Cecilianus]

errrr ok …

when have i ever said “science has proved it”?..

now what was you empirical evidence for emotions being linked to anything other than the brain???

Who said you need empirical evidence for anything to be true? Where’s the empirical evidence for that claim?

Now let me ask you a second question. Where is the empirical evidence that love is “only” the result of chemicals in the brain, that God does not exist, that beauty is purely psychological or subjective (I don’t remember if you said that, but I’ve heard it before), or that man does not have a spiritual component called a soul?

There is no way the empirical method can enlighten us either way regarding these questions. Your line of questioning is not scientific. I say this as a physics major who is doing research and training to be a scientist.

 

[Charles_Darwin]

Who said you need empirical evidence for anything to be true? Where’s the empirical evidence for that claim?

Now let me ask you a second question. Where is the empirical evidence that love is “only” the result of chemicals in the brain, that God does not exist, that beauty is purely psychological or subjective (I don’t remember if you said that, but I’ve heard it before), or that man does not have a spiritual component called a soul?

There is no way the empirical method can enlighten us either way regarding these questions. Your line of questioning is not scientific. I say this as a physics major who is doing research and training to be a scientist.

Ah back to the “we must belive anything we can’t disprove” argument.

“Where is the empirical evidence that love is “only” the result of chemicals in the brain”

I will spell it out for you. I don’t accept claims that are not backed by evidence. So i don’t accept the claims of a soul. I am not saying i can PROVE there is no soul, but i don’t need to. The burden of proof is on the one MAKING the claim.

I claim that your mind is being controlled by invisible green rabbits that live on the dark side of the moon. You can’t dispove my claim, do you believe me?

I find it hard to believe you are a physicist and you don’t understand the scientific method.

 

[Charles_Darwin]

It has been proven.

No it hasn’t, science doesn’t “prove” anything.

 

[JDaniel]

William L. Craig is an intelligent person and he writes very well on philosophical topics of his interest (he does have a Ph.D in philosophy). However, I don’t think the big bang can necessarily be seen as the hinge on which God’s existence is proved. The problem is that the big bang might be explained, perhaps in the next couple of decades, by a better scientific theory in physics and cosmology. Science is always changing.

Greg:

That is a good thing to underpin my understanding of creation and nature on - that science is always changing! :bigyikes:

To me introducing God just introduces another layer of mystery when science should try to make the principles of nature and the origin of the universe more intelligible to reason.

In a way, but, actually God strips out layers of mystery. ESPECIALLY since science is always changing, don’t you think?

Second, the cosmological proof is more subtle than just needing a big bang. It involves complex questions going back to necessity and contingency and also whether each event in the universe requires a cause that is itself sufficient to explain the event or law in question. Philosophers have long disagreed about the nature of the problem and the cosmological proof is not irrefutable, as even Aquinas realised (though he thought along with other proofs it provided a good cumulative case for God’s existence).

I gotta ask you to document or retract. OR, provide refutations of St. Thomas’s ways.

Even if there is no big bang, the cosmological proof may still have a lot of weight to it in considering seriously if a being such as God exists, and whether he created the universe.

No doubt.

Robert Spaemann said that, “Science is the inquiry into conditions. It does not ask what something is, but rather what the conditions are under which it comes about. And it asks this because our knowledge of these conditions empowers us to intervene in the course of things. This type of science is determined by the will to mastery over nature.”

jd

 

[JDaniel]

Charles Darwin;5546306:

That is the ORIGIN of the emotion, knowing the origin of the emotion does NOT change the emotion.

There is some truth in your argument. Truth, goodness, beauty and love are real and valuable now

regardless of the past and future and everything else. Nothing can ever alter the fact that they are the most important things in life. So far so good…

But you weaken your position by attributing the origin of love to chemicals in the brain - and goodness to human convention. (I don’t know how you explain truth.) How can chemicals in the brain produce freedom to choose? And why should human conventions be moral laws that we **must **observe?

I believe moral laws are not human conventions but truths about personality. If we disregard them we harm ourselves far more than others. An extremely selfish person does not control his desires and wants everything for himself. He is doomed to be frustrated and miserable because it is impossible to have everything, or even most things, for ourselves. Regardless of what people believe or whatever society we are in, it is only when we share things with others and forget ourselves that we are liberated from ourselves and experience true happiness.

Tony:

There is one other slight problem. If Love is nothing more than chemical reactions in the brain, how does one explain the myriad of levels of love in us? We love our gf or our wife/husband on a level we cannot compare with any other level of love we experience. Even though we may greatly love our parents and siblings, we have (usually) no hesitation about leaving them for our spouses. Then, there is the level of love of grand parents. Then love of aunts and uncles. I guess that love of cousins is simply less chemical substance cascading across our neurons than for our aunts and uncles? Where does love of friends enter the gradient? What about animals and our cars? Where is money on the schema?

Can all of this be explained by the fact of mere chemical reactions?

jd

 

[JDaniel]

Greg
*
The problem is that the big bang might be explained, perhaps in the next couple of decades, by a better scientific theory in physics and cosmology.*

I’m sure the atheists are praying that will happen!

It’s difficult to see how you can explain away the Big Bang, there is so much evidence … a lot more than for evolution!

I agree. There’s an inordinate amount of evidence for the big bang. The only thing that could possibly offset it is somehow discovering something from the other side of it. But, given the fact that that was some 10 - 20 billion years ago, even that appears to be a rock solid impossibility.

jd

 

[JDaniel]

The big bang does not directly prove that God exists the way we could prove that water is composed of hydrogen and oxygen. However, it enables us to understand the natural contingency of material reality, which in turn tells us that the universe is not eternal and therfore makes room for the existence of a necessary being who brought the universe into existence. By revelation, this being is known to be God.

Exactly.

jd

 

[Cecilianus]

No it hasn’t, science doesn’t “prove” anything.

For all practical purposes, it does. It never provides the complete, self-contained knowledge that metaphysics attempts to provide (or, more accurately, which some probably superficial metaphysicists think they can attain), but there are some things we just know to be true. We could always provide models which are closer approximations, or we could realize that they are special cases which we could generalize, but I can’t think of a tested and proven theory since 1800 that we’ve completely overthrown. (I say “tested and proven” because I don’t think there were any experiments “proving” the existence of the optical ether - it was assumed that it must exist if light is a wave.)

For example, we know that water is composed of two hydrogens and one oxygen, even though we are still making improvements in molecular orbital theory. We’re never going to discover some day that water is H2O2. We really do know the composition of water (and likewise, the composition of hydrogen peroxide - and we’re never going to confuse the two). We really know that Newtonian mechanics is true (under conditions familiar to us). We really know that the world began in a rapid expansion from a state close to (or at) a singularity roughly 13.7 billion years ago (but we’re still debating the inflationary model, for example, which would revise the timing of how it expanded). We’re never going to discover that the world was actually created in 4004 B.C on September 25 at 9 a.m.; that theory has been set aside for ever (as far as science is concerned).

If there have been any paradigm shifts since science got rolling, then I’m wrong - but I can’t think of any. Quantum mechanics includes Newtonian mechanics as a special case. So does special relativity; the equations are the same whether computed through modern or Newtonian ways when we are dealing with big things at slow speeds.

 

[Cecilianus]

Ah back to the “we must belive anything we can’t disprove” argument.

“Where is the empirical evidence that love is “only” the result of chemicals in the brain”

I will spell it out for you. I don’t accept claims that are not backed by evidence. So i don’t accept the claims of a soul. I am not saying i can PROVE there is no soul, but i don’t need to. The burden of proof is on the one MAKING the claim.

I claim that your mind is being controlled by invisible green rabbits that live on the dark side of the moon. You can’t dispove my claim, do you believe me?

I find it hard to believe you are a physicist and you don’t understand the scientific method.

Darwin, I wasn’t making an argument. I was simply refuting your argument. If you are willing to listen to arguments that do not involve quantifiable evidence, then we can present them to you.

Some arguments are purely rational, based on first principles (e.g., the principle of non-contradiction) or mathematics (such as proofs you might find in geometry, philosophical theorems such as Goedel’s Theorem - I believe that Bell’s Theorem also fits into this category, although it’s been a while since I read it and I quite frankly never understood it to begin with ). You do not need empirical evidence for such proofs, and providing it would be out of place (unless they are conceptually difficult to accept, such as Bell’s Theorem).

Some arguments, those made in theology, are based on the datum of Divine Revelation. The only empirical element here was that which led us to accept this revelation to begin with - the miracles and preaching of Jesus and the apostles, the compelling beauty of soul of the saints, and (in my case) the miracle of Lanciano, where the Eucharistic Host was transformed into human heart tissue of blood type AB, and has remained incorrupt for over 1000 years.

Some arguments are made from experience and intuition, where we see a truth directly without groping towards it through step-by-step reasoning. (For example, most of us can directly “see” that 2 + 2 = 4 without having to count on our fingers. Mathematicians can also “see” geometric proofs in this manner, that is, see its truth in one step, whereas most of us have to confirm that the steps have no errors and then have faith that the conclusion must be true.) Phenomenological arguments fall into this category. Regarding love, the soul, and beauty, one simply sees that physical explanations MUST be inadequate to explain them because they are fundamentally spiritual realities and not physical ones. What we mean by “love” and “beauty” is more than the sum total of physical processes involved in these phenomena.

I see beauty - the spiritual phenomenon of beauty - even more strongly and clearly than I see anything with my physical eyes. (I was trained during my teenage years to become a classical pianist, and though my other interests deterred me from going there as a career, I am still a musician.) Physical sight does not bring me to tears the way Wagner’s Ring cycle does - a reaction caused by the intellection of the truth and beauty I see in that work (to take one example from many). I don’t think I can convey this in a way that you could see, but I see it more clearly and directly than I can read values on a graph, meter, or test tube, so I know that it is true and that naturalist reductionism is false.

 

[Charles_Darwin]

For all practical purposes, it does. It never provides the complete, self-contained knowledge that metaphysics attempts to provide (or, more accurately, which some probably superficial metaphysicists think they can attain), but there are some things we just know to be true. We could always provide models which are closer approximations, or we could realize that they are special cases which we could generalize, but I can’t think of a tested and proven theory since 1800 that we’ve completely overthrown. (I say “tested and proven” because I don’t think there were any experiments “proving” the existence of the optical ether - it was assumed that it must exist if light is a wave.)

For example, we know that water is composed of two hydrogens and one oxygen, even though we are still making improvements in molecular orbital theory. We’re never going to discover some day that water is H2O2. We really do know the composition of water (and likewise, the composition of hydrogen peroxide - and we’re never going to confuse the two). We really know that Newtonian mechanics is true (under conditions familiar to us). We really know that the world began in a rapid expansion from a state close to (or at) a singularity roughly 13.7 billion years ago (but we’re still debating the inflationary model, for example, which would revise the timing of how it expanded). We’re never going to discover that the world was actually created in 4004 B.C on September 25 at 9 a.m.; that theory has been set aside for ever (as far as science is concerned).

If there have been any paradigm shifts since science got rolling, then I’m wrong - but I can’t think of any. Quantum mechanics includes Newtonian mechanics as a special case. So does special relativity; the equations are the same whether computed through modern or Newtonian ways when we are dealing with big things at slow speeds.

You don’t have to explain what you ment, i know exactly what you mean. You wont find a bigger advocate of the scientific method than myself. However the fact remains that in science (other than maths) you don’t prove anything.

 

[Charlotte408]

Hey you guys…

So I totally just took an astrology class right, and it drove me nuts!! the whole ‘black hole’ thing…the sun exploding…the universe expanding…its insane…

and one thing that really tripped me out is, ok, so theres this, ring…and they separated matter and antimatter (im pretty sure thats what the particles were, nuerons or something like that) and sent one set one way, and the other set the other way, and when they hit after going around this giant ring it was- a mini bang…they actually re-created the big bang…but…it was mini…lol…

and they said that that one mini bang created enough energy to like, power the US for idk how long…but it was a lot of energy…

has anyone else heard of this?? i’m sure someone has i think ive heard it referenced in another thread…

but i wonder, ok , so they created a ‘mini’ bang…well how come a ‘mini universe’ didnt come out of it? and if we had to ‘create’ it, than someone or something, much larger than ourselves had to create the ‘big’ bang …right???

 

[Charles_Darwin]

Darwin, I wasn’t making an argument. I was simply refuting your argument. If you are willing to listen to arguments that do not involve quantifiable evidence, then we can present them to you.

Some arguments are purely rational, based on first principles (e.g., the principle of non-contradiction) or mathematics (such as proofs you might find in geometry, philosophical theorems such as Goedel’s Theorem - I believe that Bell’s Theorem also fits into this category, although it’s been a while since I read it and I quite frankly never understood it to begin with ). You do not need empirical evidence for such proofs, and providing it would be out of place (unless they are conceptually difficult to accept, such as Bell’s Theorem).

Some arguments, those made in theology, are based on the datum of Divine Revelation. The only empirical element here was that which led us to accept this revelation to begin with - the miracles and preaching of Jesus and the apostles, the compelling beauty of soul of the saints, and (in my case) the miracle of Lanciano, where the Eucharistic Host was transformed into human heart tissue of blood type AB, and has remained incorrupt for over 1000 years.

Some arguments are made from experience and intuition, where we see a truth directly without groping towards it through step-by-step reasoning. (For example, most of us can directly “see” that 2 + 2 = 4 without having to count on our fingers. Mathematicians can also “see” geometric proofs in this manner, that is, see its truth in one step, whereas most of us have to confirm that the steps have no errors and then have faith that the conclusion must be true.) Phenomenological arguments fall into this category. Regarding love, the soul, and beauty, one simply sees that physical explanations MUST be inadequate to explain them because they are fundamentally spiritual realities and not physical ones. What we mean by “love” and “beauty” is more than the sum total of physical processes involved in these phenomena.

I see beauty - the spiritual phenomenon of beauty - even more strongly and clearly than I see anything with my physical eyes. (I was trained during my teenage years to become a classical pianist, and though my other interests deterred me from going there as a career, I am still a musician.) Physical sight does not bring me to tears the way Wagner’s Ring cycle does - a reaction caused by the intellection of the truth and beauty I see in that work (to take one example from many). I don’t think I can convey this in a way that you could see, but I see it more clearly and directly than I can read values on a graph, meter, or test tube, so I know that it is true and that naturalist reductionism is false.

We then it comes down to nothing more than standards of evidence.

“Regarding love, the soul, and beauty, one simply sees that physical explanations MUST be inadequate to explain them because they are fundamentally spiritual realities and not physical ones. What we mean by “love” and “beauty” is more than the sum total of physical processes involved in these phenomena.”

Say i grant you the above (which i don’t) you still have to find evidence for the existence of a god then link that god to these emotions. I put it to you that you are not demanding the same level of evidence for the above that you would for any scientific theory.

Can i ask you a question? You study physics right? How would you explain to me why the planets orbit the sun? Does god make them circle the sun?