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Faith1960
Guest
Are there even any cosmologists or physicists who believe the universe came from nothing? I’ve been Googling off and on for 2 days and can’t find one.
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Richca
Guest
Are cosmologists or physicists smarter than the Holy Spirit who is God and who inspired the Sacred Scriptures and who leads the Catholic Church to all truth?
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Faith1960
Guest
I believe God gave them their amazing intelligence to help us learn a thing or two.
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oldcelt
Guest
It may take some time, but the Church has shown itself to be quite realistic when it comes to science. All the while they remain cautious while their own scientists work on the question.
It is one of the points that I have always admired about the Church. They do not hold science as an enemy (though the past was a bit less rosy) or ignore new knowledge once it has been confirmed to a reasonable degree.
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dmwessel
Guest
These are really good questions.
I think that most scientists think it had something to do with antimatter:
exploratorium.edu/origins/cern/ideas/antimatter.html
We know that God initially created everything, but then Adam forfeited the creation to Satan [who is the “god of this world” (2 Cor. 4:4)] when they ate from the tree.
So then the present universe is a corrupted form of the original creation. The Bible refers to the universe as “the veil/curtain”.
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dmwessel
Guest
I agree, they are amazing to figure out these things.
However, I’m sure that Solomon was able to figure out these things too because God gave him wisdom and the people of the time were astonished at his knowledge. Too, it appears that the ancients knew a lot more than we give them credit for as many of the theories today are based on previously existing knowledge.
We are as advanced as we are today simply because we have been building on the knowledge of others since the beginning of time.
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dmwessel
Guest
Richca, if your premise is correct (that the Holy Spirit is smarter) then technically Christians should be figuring out these things but, we know that the reality is that most often it’s the secularists (non-believers: atheists, agnostics) that are telling the Christians how it all works.
Which, under your summation, brings only one conclusion; Christians are not hearing from the Holy Spirit but secular scientists are.
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edwest2
Guest
That would be a generalization. Generalizations are usually inaccurate. Leading scientists have abandoned God.
stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/news/file002.html
The other issue is the media. Too many people don’t understand that it has an anti-Christian bias in general, but that was not always true.
Peace,
Ed
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Anselm33
Guest
It was a Catholic monk, Abbe LeMaitre, who (along with a Russian mathematician Friedmann) first proposed the solution of the General Relativity equations from a discontinuity at the origin, in the 1920’s…so much for “Christians not hearing from the Holy Spirit”.
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Anselm33
Guest
I don’t believe it is true that leading scientists have abandoned God. The non-believers make the most noise and are the ones picked up by the popular media (which is fashionably atheistic), but see “Are all great scientists atheists” for a list of Nobel Prize winners and other famous scientists who are believers.
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kbachler
Guest
There are multiple forms of the big bang theory that deal with the first few micro-seconds and even up to and immediately preceding time 0.
The original form was that there was a very small singularity which expanded. This original version has some flaws in that it doesn’t explain the current size of the universe nor does it explain how the entire universe has the same laws of physics and similar matter distribution. The diameter of the universe today is estimated at 92 billion light years - but since the universe is only 13.8 billion years old, this presents a problem - it appears that a significant amount of the matter would have to be moving faster than the speed of light.
An alternative was the theory of inflation, where at or shortly after the initial expansion, the universe expanded at a rate faster than the speed of light. As the universe had not yet cooled, and was not like it is today in terms of matter, energy, and current laws (photons - light particles - did not exist yet for example) this rate of expansion was physically possible. This would have occurred microseconds after big bang.
Other questions are where the initial singularity came from. There is a theory that our universe is a “brane” in a universe of branes. There are variants of this theory but for a 3 dimensional oversimplified analogy, think of sheets of paper hanging next to each other. Each sheet is a brane. If two sheets touch, matter and energy from one brane could flow into the other.
There is some limited evidence that our universe might consist of as many as 11 dimensions, only 4 of which can be experienced directly by us because the others are curled up tightly. (Think of twisted cable viewed from a distance. It appears to be only one-dimensional - length, even though its 3 dimensional.) This evidence is mainly that it explains why gravity is weaker than the other fundamental forces of nature. (Even with an entire planet pulling on it - I can lift a pencil!)
There is also some limited evidence that the galaxies in our universe may be moving in such a way that indicates a gravitational attraction from somewhere else (perhaps another dimension or outside our universe.)
Another theory involves what are called (in mathematics) homogeneous solutions. Math problems often have an infinite number of solutions, but we ignore what are called “trivial” solutions that are homogeneous solutions.
So for example we all know that 2+2=4. But we also know that 2 + 2 = 4 +a +b + c, so long as a +b +c =0 a could be 5, b 2 and c -7, or any other sets of numbers (or functions of numbers) so long as they add to 0.
So assume the universe at the beginning is 0 - nothing. But its nothing in the sense that its a homogeneous solution, perhaps of a near infinite number of terms:
x1 + x2 + x3 +x4 +…xn =0
Now suppose something (who know what) occurs so that - for an instant - the balance between those terms is interrupted. The result is that you’d end up with SOMETHING from literally NOTHING, because only one - perhaps infinitely small - term is left out. In other words, the universe could come from nothing not by adding something - but rather by subtracting something.
Fun stuff, but likely a long time before we have more definitive answers.
The original form was that there was a very small singularity which expanded. This original version has some flaws in that it doesn’t explain the current size of the universe nor does it explain how the entire universe has the same laws of physics and similar matter distribution. The diameter of the universe today is estimated at 92 billion light years - but since the universe is only 13.8 billion years old, this presents a problem - it appears that a significant amount of the matter would have to be moving faster than the speed of light.
An alternative was the theory of inflation, where at or shortly after the initial expansion, the universe expanded at a rate faster than the speed of light. As the universe had not yet cooled, and was not like it is today in terms of matter, energy, and current laws (photons - light particles - did not exist yet for example) this rate of expansion was physically possible. This would have occurred microseconds after big bang.
Other questions are where the initial singularity came from. There is a theory that our universe is a “brane” in a universe of branes. There are variants of this theory but for a 3 dimensional oversimplified analogy, think of sheets of paper hanging next to each other. Each sheet is a brane. If two sheets touch, matter and energy from one brane could flow into the other.
There is some limited evidence that our universe might consist of as many as 11 dimensions, only 4 of which can be experienced directly by us because the others are curled up tightly. (Think of twisted cable viewed from a distance. It appears to be only one-dimensional - length, even though its 3 dimensional.) This evidence is mainly that it explains why gravity is weaker than the other fundamental forces of nature. (Even with an entire planet pulling on it - I can lift a pencil!)
There is also some limited evidence that the galaxies in our universe may be moving in such a way that indicates a gravitational attraction from somewhere else (perhaps another dimension or outside our universe.)
Another theory involves what are called (in mathematics) homogeneous solutions. Math problems often have an infinite number of solutions, but we ignore what are called “trivial” solutions that are homogeneous solutions.
So for example we all know that 2+2=4. But we also know that 2 + 2 = 4 +a +b + c, so long as a +b +c =0 a could be 5, b 2 and c -7, or any other sets of numbers (or functions of numbers) so long as they add to 0.
So assume the universe at the beginning is 0 - nothing. But its nothing in the sense that its a homogeneous solution, perhaps of a near infinite number of terms:
x1 + x2 + x3 +x4 +…xn =0
Now suppose something (who know what) occurs so that - for an instant - the balance between those terms is interrupted. The result is that you’d end up with SOMETHING from literally NOTHING, because only one - perhaps infinitely small - term is left out. In other words, the universe could come from nothing not by adding something - but rather by subtracting something.
Fun stuff, but likely a long time before we have more definitive answers.
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Anselm33
Guest
There are many cosmologists and physicists who believe the Universe originated creatio ex nihilo, came from nothing. See “Are all great scientists atheists”. Do a Google search on George F.R. Ellis, a cosmologist who received the Templeton Prize. The Catholic Church has a tradition of sponsoring science; there is a Vatican Observatory. John Paul II called a series of conferences for scientists, philosophers and theologian on understanding Divine Intervention through the laws of nature. These have been published by Notre Dame Press. See CTNS-books (CTNS is “Center for Theology and Natural Science”, headed by John Russell, who collaborated with astronomers at the Vatican Observatory in sponsoring the conferences). If you click on one of the books (Quantum Mechanics, Quantum Cosmology, Mind… etc.) Chapter headings will appear on the right which you can click on and read.
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dmwessel
Guest
That’s true the media is biased but it’s deserving. For example, instead of telling them that God created this world (which He did but was subsequently changed by Satan as he became the “god of this world”), explain it from Plato’s viewpoint: that God cannot be the creator of this reality because if He was it would be perfect as He is.
Instead by making God the creator of it, you make him the originator of cruelty, suffering, disease, wide-spread famine, etc., etc. etc. And then to add insult to injury, you expect people to embrace such a God.
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dmwessel
Guest
All I am saying is that they didn’t need the Holy Spirit to discover such, otherwise non-believers would not be able to figure out these things. Friedmann used mathematics to figure out these things,
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dmwessel
Guest
The Catholic church is certainly very open to science now. The problem that I see, is that their Bible must often conform to it, while in other ways being opposed to science (use of condoms), which to me is a huge discrepancy.
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Anselm33
Guest
I’d be gratified if you could show me what there is in the basic laws of science that says condoms should be used. Speaking as a physicist, I’ll tell you that science has nothing to do with moral values. It’s outside the system. The Catholic Church maintains as a moral position, and I thought this was a reasonable position even before I converted, that intercourse is for the sake of procreation and nothing should be done to inhibit that natural end.
When science is misused for political and social ends (Communists–Lysenko, Hitler–medical experiments on humans, Leftists–global warming and environmental nonsense, Racists–Margaret Sanger–selective breeding, abortion, euthanasia) it is no longer science.
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Barbara_Ann_Bau
Guest
Wow I knew Hot Point was and old company but not that old. Sorry my bad pun demon just got out
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dmwessel
Guest
ditto - show me where it says they should not be used
that’s my point - why does religion get involved at all then? Why is science important to the Vatican?
When religion is misused for political and social ends - it’s no longer fulfilling its mandate. Now granted, I like Pope Francis, but many of the other Popes - clearly politically motivated.
It’s not anyone’s fault really; if you put people in a corporate system (top on down), there are few who are not changed in some way. Therefore, religion is a political system, not a Biblical one.
But I’m way off topic.
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Anselm33
Guest
The point is, which you’ve evidently missed, that science should be subservient to moral considerations. You don’t do freezing experiments on twins, as the Nazis did in concentration camps, to determine how the human body reacts. Science has nothing to say about morality. Rather science should be constrained by moral and ethical considerations.
But the above has nothing to do with the issue of contraception. The doctrines of the Catholic Church proclaim that life is sacred, so that contraceptives which are abortifacients kill. Moreover, sexual intercourse is for the purpose of procreation, so that nothing should be done to bar that function. You did not address those issues. If you disagree, that’s your privilege, but don’t bring up science to justify those opinions.
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dmwessel
Guest
Hitler had no morals whatsoever and so to hold him up as an example is a poor comparison.
Many scientists are restrained by morals and ethics; people don’t have to be Catholic to possess those traits.
I brought up contraception because it was a good example where science and logic would have beat out the RCC churches no condom policy, instead today you have millions of children in Africa that lost their parents to aids. I suppose you consider that a good alternative?
You say science in the hands of the supposedly immoral is wrong but yet somehow the RCC is free from all vice - prior and very recent history paints an altogether different picture.
Again, “power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely”.
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