The "something can't come from nothing" argument

[Sees]

It's a strange way of putting it to say that the universe is 13.77 billion years old... implies there was nothing around before such time. If they are meaning the universe kind of as we know it today, then it is misusing language. Or am I just off in thinking they use universe to = any and everything that exists?

 

[adi2d]

I see Jafa got here at 5;19 and last post at 12;25. 41 posts

What is the record for shortest time/fewest posts getting banned?

It was obvious s/he would get banned. Surprised so quick

 

[Enai de a lukal]

I have seen this argument branded about to somewhat discredit evolution (I am lost as to why persons think this have anything to do with evolution, but that's another story). But I would put it to "creationists" that it is you who are advocating that something indeed came out of nothing. Let's forget the "who created God" question for a while; you (usually) advocate that God created everything..ok.

So here is my question: What did God uses to create the VERY FIRST thing that he created? Wouldn't that FIRST thing had to be created from ....nothing?? For example, if he created dirt first, what did he create that dirt from (since dirt would be the first thing created, there wouldn't be any other "something" around; would there)?

See, your argument that God created everything cannot, in my opinion, work unless you are advocating the "something actually came from nothing."

Well, but God is magic- God gets to break the rules. He's basically like a wizard. On the other hand, God is sort of boring- I prefer to believe that Gandalf created the universe from nothing, since "God did it" and "Gandalf did it" are pretty much the same explanation (in other words, a pseudo-explanation).

 

[shawn001]

It's a strange way of putting it to say that the universe is 13.77 billion years old... implies there was nothing around before such time. If they are meaning the universe kind of as we know it today, then it is misusing language. Or am I just off in thinking they use universe to = any and everything that exists?

Sees, this will help explain it.

First this link

WMAP 1 Year Mission Results Press Release

Then

"A representation of the evolution of the universe over 13.77 billion years. The far left depicts the earliest moment we can now probe, when a period of "inflation" produced a burst of exponential growth in the universe. (Size is depicted by the vertical extent of the grid in this graphic.) For the next several billion years, the expansion of the universe gradually slowed down as the matter in the universe pulled on itself via gravity. More recently, the expansion has begun to speed up again as the repulsive effects of dark energy have come to dominate the expansion of the universe. The afterglow light seen by WMAP was emitted about 375,000 years after inflation and has traversed the universe largely unimpeded since then. The conditions of earlier times are imprinted on this light; it also forms a backlight for later developments of the universe."

Credit: NASA / WMAP Science Team


Timeline of the Universe Image

 

[Sees]

Well, but God is magic- God gets to break the rules. He's basically like a wizard. On the other hand, God is sort of boring- I prefer to believe that Gandalf created the universe from nothing, since "God did it" and "Gandalf did it" are pretty much the same explanation (in other words, a pseudo-explanation).

Love me some Gandalf too :magic:

 

[shawn001]

Since the WMAP satellite was put up over ten years ago, we have also launched and even more precise satellite to detect and take better measurements, called the Planck satellite.

ESA Science & Technology: Multimedia Gallery - Planck

Everything in our universe has evolved from what we know of the beginning to know and is still evolving, including humans.

 

[Sees]

Sees, this will help explain it.

First this link

WMAP 1 Year Mission Results Press Release

Then

"A representation of the evolution of the universe over 13.77 billion years. The far left depicts the earliest moment we can now probe, when a period of "inflation" produced a burst of exponential growth in the universe. (Size is depicted by the vertical extent of the grid in this graphic.) For the next several billion years, the expansion of the universe gradually slowed down as the matter in the universe pulled on itself via gravity. More recently, the expansion has begun to speed up again as the repulsive effects of dark energy have come to dominate the expansion of the universe. The afterglow light seen by WMAP was emitted about 375,000 years after inflation and has traversed the universe largely unimpeded since then. The conditions of earlier times are imprinted on this light; it also forms a backlight for later developments of the universe."

Credit: NASA / WMAP Science Team


Timeline of the Universe Image

It's still strange since big bang doesn't = beginning of universe... the same stuff all the old crazy myths say is that there are cycles, repeated big bangs.

 

[shawn001]

Evidence has ruled out the Big Crunch.

HubbleSite - Dark Energy - Fate of the Universe

That is a picture of the light left over from the big bang. There were no atoms right after the bang they formed later. Do you know what the term nucleosynthesis means?

 

[Sees]

Evidence has ruled out the Big Crunch.

HubbleSite - Dark Energy - Fate of the Universe

That is a picture of the light left over from the big bang. There were no atoms right after the bang they formed later. Do you know what the term nucleosynthesis means?

I wasn't talking about big crunch, which isn't really ruled out...they got no idea how it will happen just that it will happen. Do you really know what the big bang was? These organizations don't. Stage magic singularity isn't logically possible. Ignorance isn't a bad thing but we can't ever pretend it's not what it is.

It's not possible for "science", which has to work with strict materialism, to present anything less than an eternal universe.

 

[Thief]

However you look at it.....there had to be a beginning.

Would that be one particle or two?

I say the singularity, to be truly singular....you can't have a secondary particle.
At the instant of inception of a secondary......infinity is formed.

Check Dr. Kaku's dilemma as he works an equation that ends?....
infinity plus infinity plus infinity............

He then explains, theoretical physicists have a 'problem' with 'infinity'.

Well gee....so much for equations...

 

[Sees]

However you look at it.....there had to be a beginning.

Would that be one particle or two?

I say the singularity, to be truly singular....you can't have a secondary particle.
At the instant of inception of a secondary......infinity is formed.

Check Dr. Kaku's dilemma as he works an equation that ends?....
infinity plus infinity plus infinity............

He then explains, theoretical physicists have a 'problem' with 'infinity'.

Well gee....so much for equations...

I don't see how a true beginning is possible. "Had to be a beginning" is an endless tail-chase. What did the beginning actually begin inside of? Or where? The only thing that does make sense is eternity.

 

[Thief]

I don't see how a true beginning is possible. "Had to be a beginning" is an endless tail-chase. What did the beginning actually begin inside of? Or where? The only thing that does make sense is eternity.

Linear existence.
Science would have you believe all of this.....ALL of it....had a starting point.

Science will take you back to the beginning as far as a grain of sand.
That 'point' they call the singularity is physical for the scientist.
They can't deal with a 'point' that has no equation to it.

Without a point 'b'....numbers don't form.
Without a point 'b'...movement cannot be measured.
Much of the terminology of our reality simply disappears....back into the void.

I believe linear existence can be applied to Spirit as well.
Someone had to be First in mind and heart.
I simply place that Someone as existing before the 'bang'.

If substance first then all of life is subject to the chemistry...and terminal.
And we have no cause or purpose.
Man is then a mystery without resolve.

 

[LuisDantas]

Linear existence.
Science would have you believe all of this.....ALL of it....had a starting point.

Are sure about that?

Because I don't think that is quite true. Science isn't all that likely to make such all-encompassing statements as if it were all-knowing. What is meant by "all of this", for instance?

Maybe you are attempting to read the idea of the Big Bang in a way it is not really meant for?

Do you have, perhaps, a few links about how or why science supposedly says such a thing?

 

[idav]

I believe linear existence can be applied to Spirit as well.
Someone had to be First in mind and heart.
I simply place that Someone as existing before the 'bang'.

If substance first then all of life is subject to the chemistry...and terminal.
And we have no cause or purpose.
Man is then a mystery without resolve.

Thats a duality, self consciousness is something beyond rudimentary awareness. Awareness of the outside comes before the ability to self reflect.

 

[Thief]

Thats a duality, self consciousness is something beyond rudimentary awareness. Awareness of the outside comes before the ability to self reflect.

I believe the statement...'let there be light'.....
synonymous to ...."I AM!"

Before the big bang....what?.....is there to be aware of?

I believe Spirit first.
Therefore the self awareness would not be external.
You would need the declaration....."You ARE!"

 

[Thief]

Are sure about that?

Because I don't think that is quite true. Science isn't all that likely to make such all-encompassing statements as if it were all-knowing. What is meant by "all of this", for instance?

Maybe you are attempting to read the idea of the Big Bang in a way it is not really meant for?

Do you have, perhaps, a few links about how or why science supposedly says such a thing?

Heard the notion first in grade school....decades ago.
Still hear it in science documentaries when the current speakers do the topic....
in the beginning.

No one seems willing to alter t.he notion the universe had a 'singular' starting point.

How about some links of multiple starting points?
The current view of an expanding universe supports the singularity.

 

[ruffen]

I don't see how a true beginning is possible. "Had to be a beginning" is an endless tail-chase. What did the beginning actually begin inside of? Or where? The only thing that does make sense is eternity.

Maybe we should be open to the possibility that the Universe doesn't have to conform to our notion of "making sense", eg. relativity and particle physics.

Edit: But i tend to agree with you - as a beginning will always carry the question of "how did it begin then - what was before the beginning" etc. You rapidly end up with turtles all the way down (ie. infinity) no matter what.

But the problem is that time and space are, according to the theories of relativity, inseparable dimensions. And the expansion of the Universe we observe today due to Big Bang, is not galaxies flying off into space, but spacetime itself expanding. Back to just after the Big Bang when the Universe was the size of, say a soccer ball, it wasn't just all the matter and radiation in the Universe crammed into that size, but spacetime itself. There was no "outside" of that small Universe.

In the same way as space began its existence in the Big Bang, so did time. Therefore there is no "before" the Big Bang. So speaking about cause and effect, temporal sequence of events, whether that sequence is eternal or not, may be a meaningless notion, if time itself has a definitive starting point 13.8 billion years ago. Because that means that although the Universe isn't infinitely old, there has not been a time when it didn't exist.

 

[LuisDantas]

Heard the notion first in grade school....decades ago.
Still hear it in science documentaries when the current speakers do the topic....
in the beginning.

No one seems willing to alter t.he notion the universe had a 'singular' starting point.

What exactly are you talking about here? The concept of the Big Bang, or the notion that we are expected to deal with it as if it were some sort of final answer?

The first is understandable and fair. The second, not so much - and not something I can easily believe was presented as being "what science says".

How about some links of multiple starting points?
The current view of an expanding universe supports the singularity.

Nope, pal. Your claims, your burden of proof.

 

[idav]

I believe the statement...'let there be light'.....
synonymous to ...."I AM!"

Before the big bang....what?.....is there to be aware of?

I believe Spirit first.
Therefore the self awareness would not be external.
You would need the declaration....."You ARE!"

Light, the spectrum we see, and matter didnt form until the universe had been existence for hundreds of thousands of years. If you want to use Genesis with what science says then god evolved to the point of "let there be light". Whatever the case, sounded like a long day when the very light needed for a day to exist was barely becoming.

 

[idav]

In the same way as space began its existence in the Big Bang, so did time. Therefore there is no "before" the Big Bang. So speaking about cause and effect, temporal sequence of events, whether that sequence is eternal or not, may be a meaningless notion, if time itself has a definitive starting point 13.8 billion years ago. Because that means that although the Universe isn't infinitely old, there has not been a time when it didn't exist.

Before time existed as we know and understand it today, time would have just existed differently at the quantum level. The big bang is the beginning of expansion but where was all the stuff before change first occurred and where did it all come from?
Imaginary time - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia