First cause of the universe.

[Subduction Zone]

What you're not understanding is, that even if that is the case, that doesn't make your God hypothesis the correct and accurate one. That needs to be demonstrated.

I would say that he does not even have a hypothesis. A proper hypothesis needs to be falsifiable. He only has a WAG.

 

[SkepticThinker]

I would say that he does not even have a hypothesis. A proper hypothesis needs to be falsifiable. He only has a WAG.

Yeah, I guess I was being generous there.

 

[Wildswanderer]

That's a bold comment coming from a lay person to a person with a comprehensive knowledge of the subject.

No one has demonstrated that we know why things work different on the quantum level. If there's some secret knowledge or handshake you need to understand that, they need to tell us laymen about it.

 

[Wildswanderer]

What you're not understanding is, that even if that is the case, that doesn't make your God hypothesis the correct and accurate one. That needs to be demonstrated.

If the current theories are incorrect, it's up for grabs... it's crazy how people on here keep claiming knowledge they don't have... instead they try to pretend their theories are fact.

 

[Wildswanderer]

I would say that he does not even have a hypothesis. A proper hypothesis needs to be falsifiable. He only has a WAG.

Kinda like what we have been given about quantum physics? Oh, right we haven't even been given that...

 

[SkepticThinker]

If the current theories are incorrect, it's up for grabs... it's crazy how people on here keep claiming knowledge they don't have... instead they try to pretend their theories are fact.

You're the one who seems to be claiming knowledge that you don't have. Everyone else is saying "I don't know," because we don't know. What we do know, is that the natural world exists, and we know some things about how it operates.
You are positing something that is supposedly outside that realm, and that you have not demonstrated to even be a possibility in the first place. You don't get to just claim that we don't know so the answer is the thing you like. You still have to show that the thing you like exists and explain the mechanisms involved.

 

[Subduction Zone]

No one has demonstrated that we know why things work different on the quantum level. If there's some secret knowledge or handshake you need to understand that, they need to tell us laymen about it.

Science rarely answers "why". It usually answers "how". So cosmetologists can explain how something happened quite often but not "why".

 

[Subduction Zone]

Kinda like what we have been given about quantum physics? Oh, right we haven't even been given that...

No, quite the opposite. There are all sorts of ideas in quantum physics that are formed as testable hypotheses. You might have to ask a physicist for specifics, but it would be a huge error on your part to assume that they make the same error that you do.

For example the well known double slit experiment demonstrates the wave nature of matter. It could falsify that if matter did not have interference patterns. But what happens when electrons are shot through a double slit:

 

[Wildswanderer]

You're the one who seems to be claiming knowledge that you don't have. Everyone else is saying "I don't know," because we don't know. What we do know, is that the natural world exists, and we know some things about how it operates.
You are positing something that is supposedly outside that realm, and that you have not demonstrated to even be a possibility in the first place. You don't get to just claim that we don't know so the answer is the thing you like. You still have to show that the thing you like exists and explain the mechanisms involved.

Actually I don't. It's just as much a possible explanation as other theories but somehow it can't be included, even though all but about 4 percent of the population believe it's the best explanation.
Weird.

 

[SkepticThinker]

Actually I don't. It's just as much a possible explanation as other theories but somehow it can't be included, even though all but about 4 percent of the population believe it's the best explanation.
Weird.

How did you demonstrate it's a possible explanation?

 

[Wildswanderer]

How did you demonstrate it's a possible explanation?

The existence of the universe is not well explained on atheism. It’s really not explained at all.
The multiverse (if it exists) certainly doesn’t explain the universe. It just makes more universes in need of an explanation. The universe is a contingent entity, filled with contingent entities. Historically, God been seen as a necessary being that would account for the contingency of the universe.
Science would be nonsensical if the universe did not operate by certain laws... but why do these laws exist? Why is there order instead of total chaos? A designer would account for this.
The fine tuning of planet earth and the universe is also evidence for a being behind the curtain
The extreme complexity of our own DNA is evidence for a creative designer also...to suppose that happened accidentally is ridiculous.
The beauty of the universe is also evidence. There's no reason it has to be this way... unless Someone created it deliberately. Billions of people throughout history have experienced God personally. Ignoring all their stories is biased to the extreme and actually quite arrogant of the 4 percenters.

 

[Subduction Zone]

The existence of the universe is not well explained on atheism. It’s really not explained at all.
The multiverse (if it exists) certainly doesn’t explain the universe. It just makes more universes in need of an explanation. The universe is a contingent entity, filled with contingent entities. Historically, God been seen as a necessary being that would account for the contingency of the universe.
Science would be nonsensical if the universe did not operate by certain laws... but why do these laws exist? Why is there order instead of total chaos? A designer would account for this.
The fine tuning of planet earth and the universe is also evidence for a being behind the curtain
The extreme complexity of our own DNA is evidence for a creative designer also...to suppose that happened accidentally is ridiculous.
The beauty of the universe is also evidence. There's no reason it has to be this way... unless Someone created it deliberately. Billions of people throughout history have experienced God personally. Ignoring all their stories is biased to the extreme and actually quite arrogant of the 4 percenters.

Perhaps you mean by science since atheism has nothing to say about the beginning of the universe. And science has explained quite a bit. There is more to be explained yet. The problem is that theism has no explanation at all for the beginning of the universe in comparison.

God did it! Is an even lamer explanation than "Gravity did it". And we have evidence for one but not the other. Can you guess which one?

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

This question is more aimed at atheists. What do you think caused the Big Bang? Like, where did all the matter of the universe come from? If not God, then what?
I have let go of theistic beliefs, but I don’t think I am feeling inclined to become an atheist because I cannot fathom where the universe came from if not God.
What are your thoughts on where the universe comes from / why it exists?

If, as I am told, many people can believe that nothing can come from nothing, then where does God come from?

Oh, well, that's easy, say the religionists -- God is eternal.

Well, what's wrong with supposing that the underlying basis of the universe -- that erupted with the Big Bang, and may have done so many times -- has always existed and is eternal?

And what's worse, we don't need to suppose, as religionists do, that this "necessary existent thing" has intelligence, will, power and all sorts of other attributes. All we need to suppose is that "nothing" is impossible -- that is, that it is necessary that "something" exists, and that something has the potential to "be" in a very few, very simple states -- out of which everything else can happen naturally?

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

You certainly have no better explanation.

That implies that you have an explanation, which is not true.
You have an empty religious assertion. An assertion which has exactly ZERO explanatory power. It lacks EVERY aspect that is required for it to be an "explanation".

It explains nothing.


Also: blatant argument from ignorance.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

If the current theories are incorrect, it's up for grabs... it's crazy how people on here keep claiming knowledge they don't have...

instead they try to pretend their theories are fact.

You are the only one here who is doing that.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Kinda like what we have been given about quantum physics? Oh, right we haven't even been given that...

Without quantum physics, your PC wouldn't boot.

 

[muhammad_isa]

It isn't just *defining* time as being part of the universe. We *know* that time is affected by gravity, for example. It is a dynamical thing that interacts and is interacted upon by things in the universe. So, it becomes part of physics and thereby part of the universe.

It doesn't become part of the universe. It merely explains how we experience it in this universe.

 

[muhammad_isa]

Fair enough, any point at which the universe did not exist, would be a point beyond or without time and space.

No. 'time' is a complex phenomena. It would only be an assumption derived from extrapolation of physical definition to believe such. It becomes a circular argument.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

It doesn't become part of the universe. It merely explains how we experience it in this universe.

No. It's as much part of the universe as the rest of physics of the universe is.
It's part of the very fabric of space-time. Aka, the universe.

In a sense, it's not even "part of the universe" as it is "it IS the universe itself". Space-time.

The universe literally is space plus time.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

No. 'time' is a complex phenomena. It would only be an assumption derived from extrapolation of physical definition to believe such. It becomes a circular argument.

Nope.

Time is as much part of the universe as space itself is.