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Agreed, but apparently the bible is used for moral guidance, why is beyond my understanding.
I just explained that the question makes no sense. It was the Universe itself that expanded, so asking for the coordinates of where it "started" to expand from makes no sense. It didn't expand from anywhere in the Universe - because it WAS the Universe.
But that singularity held the entirety of our Universe, so how can it have started anywhere INSIDE of our Universe?
You should have said that is not a convenient answer for you, for anything. In fact is a perfect answer and about the only one available. I heard a PhD say one time that he rejected "God did it" because it did not allow science to do anything. So what? Reality does not exist to allow scientists something to do. If God did it, he did it whether anyone believes or likes it or not. That is a silly determination. Regardless the reason God is a good or in fact the only known candidate for what created the universe is that philosophers have concluded that before the nature existed (that immediately rule out natural causes, nature can't create its self) only two concepts can possibly exist. Abstract concepts and disembodied minds. Abstract concepts do not create anything. That leaves a disembodied mind. By the laws of cause and effect it is also fairly certain that whatever the cause was had to have almost the exact characteristics given to God 4000 years ago and long before they knew what characteristics a cause needed in order for them to fake it. Convergent confirmation is powerful. That being said, certainly we may some day discover another cause. However as of today God is the only candidate whether that is convenient or not. If you doubt that science conclusion are driven by theological preference please read this:
Exactly and if fact they do. The evidence for purple unicorns is just as great as for multiverses. I conclude God exists using the exact same methods as science does for dark matter and energy. Neither can be detected, however the theorizing of each explains facts known to exist in reality and both concepts are perfect fits for the effects. In fact God is more quantified and more evidenced than dark matter. Yet he is resisted with militant commitment and dark matter is rarely even questioned. Again this is not necessarily directed at you but in general.
There is a huge amount of stuff that a natural explanation is not even eligible to answer. For instance morality. Natural law states what is. Morality is what should be. Evolution can produce survival based preferences it can't provide objective right and wrong. In our context nature is not even a candidate for the universe because it did not exist prior to the universe. In fact nature can't cause anything to exist. The law 2 + 2 = 4 can't produce 4 of anything. If you wait for math to put money in your account you will be bankrupt. If you wait for a natural explanation for nature you will be intellectually bankrupt. Can you even imagine what a small fraction of knowable things we actually know? Almost every major question of existence has no natural explanation possible. What is the meaning of my life? What is the purpose of the universe and humanity? Where are we going? Why does 99% of the world believe murder is wrong even if everyone else disagreed with each individual? Why are over 2000 plus Biblical prophecies accurate in every detail? Why do all cultures believe some supernatural dimension exists? Why is mind greater than matter? Why is there anything at all? Why do we have an abundance of life when no exception to the rule life only comes from life is known? Why do we have absurdly complex information encoded in nature when the only known source of information is mind? etc ad infinitum.
Oh yes science does insert mysteries. Science has become a manufacturing plant for mysteries. However the only mystery that will not be even considered is God. That is very revealing and also predicted in the Bible. God either did or did not create everything. Whether that is convenient, allows science to do science, or whether that is explainable to anyone is irrelevant. Science is as faith based as theology. How can science prove reality did not begin 5 minutes ago with the appearance of age? It presuppposes all kinds of stuff: The Big Bang theory depends on two major assumptions: the universality of physical laws and the cosmological principle. The cosmological principle states that on large scales the Universe is homogeneous and isotropic.
Whether my question made sense or not I want to know where the center is. I do not think the question meaningless and I will explain why below.
The big bang I think was first theorized when it was discovered that everything was flying apart. If I simply traced those trajectories back where do they all intersect? I realize you have some semantical objection to where in a where less void. Let me change the question to this. If I stuck an infinitely long stick along the path everything is headed in, where would they all cross? If this is an impossible task I have no idea why. They most cross somewhere inside our universe. For example the skin of your balloon is expanding in all directions from a point that can be identified even if the balloon popped into existence.
You are not getting it. See the above examples.
I understand big bang cosmology well, I discuss the nature of the universe, time, the ideas that space its self and time began to exist. I know very well what youre saying and why my question is still valid. The balloon has a center even if the balloon is all there is.
It's not that simple. The kind of expansion that the big bang was is not a conventional one - everything is expanding everywhere simultaneously. Again, the link above explains this better.
It's not semantical - when you understand basic big bang cosmology, you understand that the question of "where did the big bang start from?" is as nonsensical as asking "what time is it in the past?"
Again, this is based entirely on a misunderstanding of what the expansion of the Universe actually is. See the link.
You clearly don't understand big bang cosmology well if you're asking questions like "where exactly did the Universe expand from" and "where is the centre of the Universe". These are not questions a person with a basic grasp of cosmology would feel the need to ask.
The balloon is what's called "an analogy" to explain to you how the expansion wasn't FROM a point in our Universe. It's not supposed to be an entirely accurate representation of the cosmological model of the big bang theory.
I looked at the link, and I can at least be satisfied with this ending of this statement from it.
Do you really feel comfortable with everything is expanding away from everything else? There are many things I do not understand but these counterintuitive (almost self-refuting) things that come out the hypothetical realm defy every material instinct a human has. In fact as Hitchenss used to love to point out in every single debate he ever had that Andromeda (I think that's the one) is heading on a collision course for the Milky Way. Galaxies are not coming apart and have centers. I hear the universe is so and so wide all the time. What is half of so and so? They give all kinds and even self-contradicting dimensions to all types of universe related distances and physical locations.
We date the time past events happened all the "time". We even relate location within time. In fact the big bang began at time = 0 in its most common form.
I did. Expansion of any type worthy of the term implies motion. Motion implies trajectory. Trajectories that began in the same place have an intersection.
Apparently not from the quote I supplied from the link. If I asked what is center of morality then that would be meaningless or what is the center of up, or what is the center of music? Asking what is the center of a material reality is anything but meaningless and that is exactly why there are so many sites that deal with it.
I can accept that but how am I supposed to consider a balloon with no center. I am not even sure it is possible to imagine anything truly unknown. I mean that anything that we imagine is made up of things we do know or versions of them. I can't imagine what an unknown primary color looks like. When these guys get to talking about these unknowable things, I at least can't judge them on consistency with what I know to be true. There is nothing like what they describe in our experience to evaluate their claims against. They can literally claim anything they can justify and most of us are left to wonder. I have to evaluate them on trust. Let me post something I found while looking into this.
Your quote-mining is noted.
Except they didn't say that in the link whatsoever. They said that there is no center of the Universe based on the current model of the Big Bang which is consistent with all observations, but that there is still a possibility that this model could be wrong. That's all it said, and to try and extrapolate anything like this from it is entirely dishonest.
It doesn't matter what I'm "comfortable" with. It's about what the facts shows us.
So? What does that have to do with anything that I've said?
Tell you what: why don't you go and write your thesis on Universal cosmology and completely overturn the work of the last hundred years of cosmological research, then go and claim your Nobel prize?
What? So if I ever post a quote I am guilty of something wrong? That statement simply said what I would have taken as a reasonable reply from the start. No one knows. One bad thing about scientists who pride themselves on knowing stuff. They are resistant to admitting if they don't. If I see one say "they have no idea" their stock goes up fast with me.
They said that a center is not something their concept reveals. Fine. It violates about every logical truth I can think of but I do not have the education to argue. I have to decide many of these theoretical claims by trust. I am on the fence but allow they may know very well what they are saying.
I do not consider their claims known facts even if they were true. They are against every logical impulse available to humans. They are in a realm where assumptions and theory reign not fact. Maybe be true, maybe the steady state again and completely wrong. I will await more evidence.
What facts? If a scientist said the sun was made of ice and had as they always do a laundry list of "proofs", I think I would be justified in ignoring him. These aspects of The Big Bang are certainly not that obviously wrong but neither was steady state.
Things are not all flying apart from everything else. They are in fact crashing into each other. Did I misunderstand what you said? By the way the dots on an expanding balloon do not crash into each other either. I think that balloon concept is so inaccurate (even though there may not be anything better) that it is pointless.
What are you talking about now? A center that either exists or does not exist is no threat to anything I believe. I simply wanted to know where it was. In fact the big bang is the most Christian consistent model of the universe known. I believe it. By what strange logic do you perceive the issue is a threat to anything I believe? I would not be mesmerized by scientists even if I held no faith at all. No center, challenges common logic not my faith. Accusations should at least have an application to be of practical value.
You might as well be asking where the edges are on the surface of a sphere.
I have been given a balloon metaphor for this but I did not think it accurate. I have gathered that everything is said to be flying apart from everything else. The analogy is that of dots on the surface of a balloon. However stuff is not doing this all the time. Stuff is crashing into other stuff and bouncing off other stuff and so forth. It was also suggested that the balloon would have no center. I would have to take that on faith because it si irrational to me. I think what is being described if far more similar to a spherical wave. Is that your understanding? If so, why can't the trajectories of the particles riding that wave be plotted backwards? Why does not the universe look like a shell when looked at through a telescope? It looks exactly like things began at some point and are expanding at different rates. More like a bubble full of stuff (smoke for instance) expanding. That does not make their theories wrong but it does make them counterintuitive and in need of sufficient explanation. The balloon was not it. I do not care where the center is and do not care if there is one but logic suggests there should be a point where this small singularity existed. If it no longer exists as a physical space then where do the reverse trajectories of the parts on the shell track back to?
I can see you are your usual sincere self and as usual I have no idea what you are talking about.
