I’ve often found here and elsewhere that the big bang theory is somehow evidence of a creator. To be fair, many scientists (including Hoyle, who coined the term “big bang” derisively) objected to the idea that the universe ever “began” for precisely this reason (or at least something similar). The origins of the infamous cosmological constant began with Einstein’s attempt to make the universe static rather than having originated.
So let’s grant, for the sake of argument, that the universe isn’t eternal (as basically all physics suggests). Here’s a problem with the “then necessarily god created it” argument that is based upon the idea of a “first cause” or the idea that there are no uncaused events or that everything must have a cause and so on: In all of these arguments, it is assumed that cause is some (rather simplistic, naïve) “linear” processes whereby we can assert that causes MUST precede effects.
With this EXTREMELY minimal causal assumption (causes precede effects) we cannot say anything about the “cause” of the universe. The SAME PHYSICS which suggest the universe is not eternal but originated with the big bang suggests that time’s origins are the same: the big bang. The point is this:
If causes precede effect, then there is no time in which ANYTHING could have PRECEDED the big bang, because there was no TIME for such a process to “happen”. In short, no “cause” can precede an “effect” when there is no “time” for it to precede in.
So whatever evidence the big bang may be for “god” or deism or whatever, it can’t be based on arguments from causality.
Universal time began with the big bang -the initiation of the universe. If something preceded the big bang, there would be an external reference for time.
It seems to me that the big bang contained too much information to be the very beginning of all things -and that overall time began before the big bang -with the most simple initial interaction of the one thing that could become everything.
Does physics suggest that the universe is eternal -or composed of that which is eternal, but changing?
The universe is certainly not in one state eternally -so "the universe" essentially has a different definition with every change of state.
If the big bang was the very beginning of everything, then it has always been -but changed.
Perhaps it is only a portion of all that is and has always been in different states.
If something else preceded it and was the first event or interaction, then it would have always been, but changed -or time would not be applicable as it would be the reference for overall time.
I do not see that it is true that a process needs time to happen, so much as time needs processes. If that which became everything did not interact, there would be no reference for time -time is an effect of interaction, and a measure of relative interaction.
To say that something is eternal does not necessarily mean it did not have a beginning -as it -being the very reference for time -"always" existed. There would be no "before that."
Or -perhaps somehow -looking backward in time is just like looking forward in time, but in the opposite direction. Perhaps it just seems illogical because we began to be aware at a specific point in what we call "time". I'unno.