The "something can't come from nothing" argument

[1robin]

Do you have a deep understanding of Quantum Theory/String Theory?

I have a familiarity with aspects of them, and I doubt anyone has an deep understanding of any of them. Cosmology was around for thousands of years when Ptolemy was certain the universe was geocentric. I will not trust in either for a bit longer but would probably be at least aware with most subjects you might bring up.

 

[1robin]

Go ahead. But be aware that most scientists, including physicists, are not relativists. So, get ready for a math fight based on relativity

i hate to post links, but you can add them as additional information about my point of view. Maybe the English is better.

Time and the Block Universe
That Mysterious Flow - Scientific American

The latest can be read free of charges by googling the title or by following the link in the former.

Ciao

- viole

I must admit that I felt so intimidated by the thousand dollar terms you used, that I did not wait. Since you agreed I will tell you the consensus, it was that much/all of your terminology was accurate (I had actually been familiar with the concepts but was unfamiliar with your terminology), but none of the conclusions were. A few of them were uncertain but in most cases there was certain denial of your usage of what turned out to be simple concepts. Out of all four of us (1 bach, 2-masters, 1-phd in science) we failed to see any possible conclusion that was even a potential refutation of the bible. I have even seen the same concepts used to fit 15 billion years almost exactly into 5 biblical days (but admittedly very interesting and very speculative stuff was employed). So we all granted your references as pertaining to real and rational concepts but did not feel any of your conclusions were valid or followed, and did not see a conflicting/relevant conclusion even as a potential. The only relevant conclusion we found was the one that manifolds were eternal (the most relevant but the least reasonable). However the conclusion is not based on a true premise. Manifolds are not eternal. They are tools of perception and only exist if higher intelligence does. You had a very solid foundation but unfortunately built everything on top of it out of glass.

"Até amanhã"

 

[Thief]

Are we getting anywhere with this topic?

Anyone care to summarize?

I say...all things came from Something.

 

[Willamena]

I say...all things came from Something.

Things come from nothing every day.

When I see you on a street corner and I lift my hand and wave, that's a wave that didn't exist prior to that moment, and ceases to exist when it's done.

 

[Skwim]

Things come from nothing every day.

When I see you on a street corner and I lift my hand and wave, that's a wave that didn't exist prior to that moment, and ceases to exist when it's done.

I really don't think transient episodes of existence (a momentary wave in this case) quaify as coming from nothing. This one came from a voluntary expression of acknowledgement assisted by volitional muscle movement.

 

[Terrywoodenpic]

The something from nothing argument is specious.
First you need to define Something.
And then define nothing.

both are incredibly hard to define. The best we arrive at is something and nothing that we know about. There is little reason to suppose that the universe was created from anything that makes it up now. The "stuff" that make up God and his environment, out side our universe is probably more than sufficient, to create a universe of universes.

 

[Mycroft]

I have a familiarity with aspects of them, and I doubt anyone has an deep understanding of any of them. Cosmology was around for thousands of years when Ptolemy was certain the universe was geocentric. I will not trust in either for a bit longer but would probably be at least aware with most subjects you might bring up.

Right. So what you're saying, when you say things like "It's the only thing that could explain it!" you're really saying that it's the only thing that could explain it that you know of, because of course you have only a passing familiarity with mechanics and theories that, while only now are being touched upon by experts, are fundamental to understanding the beginning of the universe.

So you don't know that it's the 'only game in town' at all. You're simply convinced it's the only game because you lack understanding of all of the other games in town.

You see yourself and the world around you as solid objects which can be touched and studied and quantified. But they're only solid from your perspective. If you travelled in a ship that was smaller than a Quark, you could fly right through the gaps in people's atoms. Indeed you wouldn't see them as people at all, but infinitely (from your perspective) spanning collections of spherical neuclei orbited by an electron (which would appear as a feint halo around the atom's neucleus). Indeed, quantitively, the physical matter that you're made of is proportionately much less (99.9% less) to the spaces between those atoms and molecules.

So you have come to understand the world not only using limited tools, but entirely from the perspective of a five-foot something human being who can only see/hear/touch/ a very limited portion of the world.

Someone from 1706 might say 'glass is smooth'. I might say 'Do you believe that?' He might say 'Yes! It is smooth! That is the truth! How could it be anything else?' He runs his hand over it to demonstrate its smoothness. From his point of view glass is smooth. He has no other way of knowing it isn't. Until I show him glass under a microscope and he sees that it is in fact an entirely rough surface, but on such a small scale that it feels smooth to us.

However. The idea of 'nothing' is rather outmoded now. We're sure that there was something before the universe, even if it was just a chaos of primordial gasses. Or a black hole. we don't know. Yet the idea that the universe came from absolute nothing is, frankly, a lie made up by christian scribes to magnify the supposed power of God.

 

[McBell]

I say...all things came from Something.

Yes you do.
At least, until you get to god.
Then you sing a completely different tune.

 

[Willamena]

This one came from a voluntary expression of acknowledgement assisted by volitional muscle movement.

That's what it is, not what it "comes from."

 

[viole]

I must admit that I felt so intimidated by the thousand dollar terms you used, that I did not wait. Since you agreed I will tell you the consensus, it was that much/all of your terminology was accurate (I had actually been familiar with the concepts but was unfamiliar with your terminology), but none of the conclusions were. A few of them were uncertain but in most cases there was certain denial of your usage of what turned out to be simple concepts. Out of all four of us (1 bach, 2-masters, 1-phd in science) we failed to see any possible conclusion that was even a potential refutation of the bible. I have even seen the same concepts used to fit 15 billion years almost exactly into 5 biblical days (but admittedly very interesting and very speculative stuff was employed). So we all granted your references as pertaining to real and rational concepts but did not feel any of your conclusions were valid or followed, and did not see a conflicting/relevant conclusion even as a potential. The only relevant conclusion we found was the one that manifolds were eternal (the most relevant but the least reasonable). However the conclusion is not based on a true premise. Manifolds are not eternal. They are tools of perception and only exist if higher intelligence does. You had a very solid foundation but unfortunately built everything on top of it out of glass.

"Até amanhã"

I am not trying to refute the Bible with cosmology and 4-dimensional manifolds. That would be like deploying a thermonuclear device to kill a mosquito.

I am just trying to show how the premises of any cosmological argument to prove causality (from God, Allah, or other natural processes) are inherently flawed. If the Universe is "caused" by any of them, this is for other readons, independent from Kalam. or other sophisms invented during the middle age.

So, if the 4-dimensional block universe is true, as relativity seems to confirm, it is equally true that any causation, begin of existence, birth, death, evolution, expansion of the Universe are physically meaningless concepts.

ciao

- viole

 

[Thief]

Yes you do.
At least, until you get to god.
Then you sing a completely different tune.

Well yes...of course.

Physical reality is a creation.

Spiritual reality would be Something Else.

 

[idav]

Well yes...of course.

Physical reality is a creation.

Spiritual reality would be Something Else.

There is always something else. Just talk of something and leave it af that. God is either something or nonexistent.

 

[Thief]

There is always something else. Just talk of something and leave it af that. God is either something or nonexistent.

God is spirit....so I've heard.

but demonstrating the Spirit (other than His creation) is a bit of a trick.

So how do you describe God?

 

[idav]

So how do you describe God?

Being existence.

 

[s2a]

*yawn*

Let's face it.

If or until we manage (as a species) to attain intergalactic travel, there will always be those that insist that"god" is the divine "cause" of everything.

After 100 billion stars are mapped, and 10 trillion worlds are discovered, over the course of eons...some will still insist that mankind is "god's" purposed work and result.

Otherwise...we must be insignificant and meaningless.

That looks bad in any vanity mirror.

 

[viole]

Time is not part of any natural object. That is unless your confusing reality with the mathematical tools and diagrams used to represent it. Time is notoriously confusing to define but it is best described as duration or the rate of change in a system or of an object. It is not an object its self unless your confusing a manifold with what it actually represents. A manifold is just a clarified graph, just as a graph of a ghost would not make a ghost an actual object nether is time an object because a manifold is.

The rate of change of a system is not time, it is the derivative of the state respect to time. And to say that time is duration is like saying that space is distance, which lead immediately to a circularity.

Timespace can be bent like a rubber sheet. It has curvature. It can be affected by matter and energy in its surroundings or far away. It is an object.

Do you think that non-objects can have a non zero Gaussian curvature?

What is the term "square" doing in there. Time is linear not parabolic. The only way distance is relevant is in a hypothetic or model for convenience. In reality you and they dinosaur have no distance relationship because neither of you existed on the same physical plane. There is natural surface what so ever in which you and the dinosaur both exist. That is not even core relativity to begin with. Relativity has to do with the "appearance" of time from a hypothetical view point, Or relative to another. Nothing about the theory concerns a material plane on which you and any dinosaur actually exist unless you mean the models used for convenience.

According to the B-theory of time, dinasaurs exist as we speak. They are located in timespace at a certain distance from us. And the B-theory (tenseless) fits nicely with relativity (the A-theory does not).

This distance is given by d^2 = t^2 - x^2, where t is the time distance from us (about 65 millions years, converted in meters) and x is the space distance from us (where the earth was at that time in the galaxy).

They belong to our past, but they might belong to the present (or even future) of another equally valid observer in the Universe. To say that they ceased existing is parochial. We cannot have a chat with them, but this is only a geometrical constraint given by the Psudo-Riemannian metric of space time. I cannot causally interfere with most things: that does not entail that they do not exist.

And it is core relativity, since it is an immediate consequence of the special theory of relativity (not to speak of the general one).

You might find it strange that time can be measured in meters. But why? After all we measure distances using (light) years. Since the factor of conversion is a constant, using meters for measuring time, instead of seconds, should be as weird as using kilometers instead of miles for measuring distances.

Your ontological difference between time and space is physically meaningless.

Much of what you said is science but how you use and link it is not. Einstein said his biggest profession mistake is to make a static assumption about the universe. He even invented out of thin air a constant to make the math work out. I don't know in general but I definitely disagree with the quote you attribute to him. He sure did spend a lot of time defining the nature of that illusion.

The cosmological constant introduced by Einstein so that the Universe is not past finite has nothing to do with the block Universe or the Minskonvskian view that space time is a 4-dimensional block in which time and space, taken separately, have no objective meaning.

This particular quote has been written decades after he recognized his "blunder" concerning the cosmological constant, which should provide enogh evidence that the two concepts are not related (unless he was schizophrenic.

The only thing dated about Newton is his assumption that his physics was a totality. His version of time is by far the almost accepted and substantiated ever devised. BTW that would be true or false regardless of who Craig likes, so who Craig likes has nothing to do with anything. It was just a wild and desperate jab that landed nowhere. Tensed time is far more accepted than tens less time. Though I admit that since secularism has come to dominate science all sorts of perfectly crappy theories have become far closer to mainstream. Depending on who your talking in to in that arena morality does not exist, accountability doe snot exist, we were determined to think determinism was true, the universe is two dimensional, multi-dimensional, or infinitely dimensional, the only place could not have come from is the only place it has ever been found, and there is no truth except the truth that it does not exist. Since the 50's science has become its own worst enemy by thinking it's self into imbecility

Oh, the good old adagio of a conspiracy from secular scientists. And what has morality and accountability to do with that?

This is pretty lame. I could symmetrically say that all crap comes from the time when science was not secular and there was a ridicolous theistic agenda in all discoveries of the past.

But this is nonsense. Newton is good for most applications but it fails miserably when you go beyond those cases. That does not in any way diminish Newton's genius. He could not have done any better with what he knew. But now we know that his view of an absolute time ontologically different from space was simply wrong.

It is not a question of secular science; it is a question of evidence that contradicts Newton. Alas, for the creationist's mind, facts can be a nuisance created by pesky atheists

That tensed time is far more accepted is true. My physician and my hair dresser also prefer tensed time. But I do not know many phycists who do. And the majority does not make things any truer, anyway. Relativity was accepted by a couple of people only 100 years ago: did this fact make it false?

Manifolds are not natural entities that exist beyond our creation. I can look back in time and very shortly run out of manifolds, graphs, and symbols, or any other abstract representation. They are no more eternal than my signature. The rest of that paragraph was lost on me. I do not really use Kalam specifically but it just as alive today as it ever was. Not a single point has ever been overturned or even touched except by rhetoric. However even if manifolds were natural objects they would share the same fate as the universe, It's fate is:
Vilenkin’s verdict: “All the evidence we have says that the universe had a beginning.” | Uncommon Descent
It is said that an argument is what convinces reasonable men and a proof is what it takes to convince even an unreasonable man. With the proof now in place, cosmologists can no longer hide behind the possibility of a past-eternal universe. There is no escape: they have to face the problem of a cosmic beginning - See more at: Craig on Vilenkin on Cosmic Origins You do not have access to anything outside the universe that is natural.

What has geodesical incompleteness (aka past-finite universe) to do with a block 4-dimensional eternal Universe?

The earth is north-finite. All geodesics pointing north stop at the north pole. Is the north pole a special point on the two dimensional manifold (sphere) of the earth that requires explanation?

Why should the closure of all time geodesics be a special point on the manifold describing the geometry of space time, then?

And again, according to tensed theory, that point is "still" there.

Ciao

- viole

 

[viole]

It is the only game which given it's existence could without any doubt explain reality in totality. IOW if God exists he would be the ultimate source of reality, even if your other concepts truly existed you would still have al your work left in using them to explain reality as a whole.

What is the only game in town? String theory? Many phisicists believe that.

True, if God existed, He would be the ultimate source of reality (not including Him, if He is real). The problem is the "if".

At the end of the day, we both meet a brute fact about reality. Yours is conscious, mine is not.

That is extremely biased and unfounded. I have never heard even the most virulent of atheist claim that all evidence factors for God have a value of zero. That is hyperbolic non-sense. While it would always be a subjective the value of the evidence certainly has objective value at some level. Four examples: The majority of NT scholars grant the following as historically reliable regardless what their faith is.

1. Jesus appeared in history with an precedent sense of divine authority. (In this context it makes no difference whether he actually had it).
2. That he was crucified by the Romans on a cross.
3. That his tomb was found empty.
4. That even his enemies sincerely believed that they had met him after his death.

These have a virtually consensus concerning historical reliability from the scholar who specialize on them and they are all that is needed to ground faith in the Gospel explanation. The claims made by the bible are so outrageous and fantastic that only their being based on extremely persuasive evidence explains their being believe by 1 out of 3 people (a huge proportion of traditional scholars) and in the face of persecution and death by entire empires. Assigning zero values to biblical evidence is intellectually dishonest.

I agree that Jesus was crucified on a cross. It is difficult to crucify on an electric chair

Yes, and probably it is historically accurate that a King Arthur was a real person and many people saw Elvis alive. That does not entail that Elvis resurrected or Excalibur had objective magical powers.

There is a plethora of mundane explanations for all these things, even if factual. The fact that the historians you mentioned have different faiths seems to confirm that. Would you not believe in the divinity of Jesus if you had factual evidence of Him performing miracles?

I have explained several times why that is not the case. It is merely that life prohibiting universe theoretically vastly (infinitely) out weigh life permitting ones, (that is if you make the ridiculous assumption that nothing can produce something to begin with.

The argument "something from nothing" is moot for a B-theorist like me. Physically, it is ridiculous to believe that the Universe "comes" from anything.

You are still grossly missundertanding my claim. A universe that would permit any theoretically possible life for even a non-second would still have a miniscule chance of actually existing if universe were randomly generated without intention.

You make the assumption that Universes are or can be generated. Again, for B-theorists, this is meaningless.

That was not really an answer.

It is. Relativity has not changed since its inception.

He and Occam were wrong except about speculation. Things should be what they are regardless of complexity. In this case the most simplistic explanation happens to be consistent with the evidence.

Things that explain everything (without evidence) do not explain anything.

For my ancestors, Thor was the only explanation for lightnings. That does not seem to have promoted the ontological status of Thor.

To begin with I have little faith in the appearances of Mary but would not (based on their pervasiveness hold they position they are not true in general, but most specific cases I hold with skepticism. However let's pretend we know that a few are true. Do they make sense to occur in Catholic places? Using only the bible and common sense they certainly do. Signs are given for a purpose. They are not randomly generated and dispersed for political correctness. A type of sign many times has to do with who it given. For example they are mostly earthly things cows, weather, food, etc... They are tailored to be meaningful to those to whom they are given. Another issue is hat God judge's corporately as well as personally. A nation who denies God will not have many signs given at all. IOW there may be good reasons to be skeptical of any one Mary appearance but enough justification to believe they have occurred.

This is tautological. When I was a believer I saw signs of God everywhere. Astrologists see signs of the influence of stars on people everywhere.

It is called confirmation bias.

I would be more impressed to have seen signs of God (e.g. a church with a cross) in pre-columbian America.

99.99999% of Christians have never what you suggest so your example is anything but the best way to explain anything except wishful thinking on the part a tiny group of people. My position on who best illustrates faith is the much larger group that held to their faith in spite of entire empire's persecuting them. At the very least the man who lies down his life for his faith is sincere. Most Christians would instantly be suspicious of a weeping statue and reject it in almost every case. This is not reason, it is propaganda.

Yes, and some are ready to kill themselves and their kids sincerely knowing that a starship hiding behind a comet will take them to heaven, or whatever. And some spend all their savings and face ridicule by believing that the world will end next year.

You call it sincere. I call it deluded. Really deluded people are also sincere, by definition.

People also held their (non Christian) faith under presecution. Think of the Muslims in Bosnia, for instance. Alas, political reasons and metaphisical ones, can become quite entangled, considering that religion can be a badge belief that identifies membership to a cultural group.

I cannot generalize on what has caused faith. There are w huge range of reasons. I can only tell you that for the majority of Christians I know their heritage provided as many reasons to deny faith and resent as accept it. That is why the old saying about preachers kids is so often the case. Familiarity produce contempt and rebellion especially if it requires submission.

What we know is: if you never heard of Jesus, you do not believe in Him. So, when you have a problem, you fall back into what you know, with submission or not.

This is valid for any religion. Or personal relationship with invisible spiritual entities, if you prefer.

There are literally tens or hundreds of millions of cases where a person developed faith in God even though that faith was anything but convenience. Of course there will be more Christians in a Christian nation that has more access to information and is more accepting than a middle east nation where to believe is to risk death but there are far too many Christians in those latter countries to dismiss faith as merely cultural. The most influential Christian nation in history outside the US was a pagan empire before it gave in to faith. The memory of roasting Christians saw the adopting of the same faith by the same people.

Yes, and the roasting of heretics might have favoured Christianity in Europe. We will never know where Christianity would be today without that burned flesh and the threat thereof.

But this is not relevant. The cultural component can be ruled out only if you can show evidence of people having personal relationship with Jesus without having heard of Him from missionaries or whatever other physical channel of communication.

Why is it that the only realm of science that is used to counter the bible the most theoretical and speculative of any? BTW if it is a matter of meters between you and a dinosaur then please paint a line from you to one and take a picture of it. Tensed time is the most intuitive and rational, and no one lives as if it untrue even if they claim it illusory using $100terminology. My perception literal duration is a trustworthy as my perception of anything.

You are confusing distances in time space with possible causal relationships between them. May I suggest to read the first few chapters of "Spacetime physics" by Wheeler, Taylor and co.? No advanced calculus or Riemannian metrics, just some algebra and trigonometry. Best introduction to Special Relativity I know.

However, it is theoretically possible to get a picture of a real dino. A civilization 65 millions light years from us possessing powerful telescopes can do it and send it to us. Alas, we will have to wait an additional 65 millions years

Yes, tensed theory is defnetely more intuitive. But intuitions provide default beliefs that helped us survive in the savannah where predators and food are not subject to significant time distortions or close-to-light speeds. Intuitions are, therefore, adaptive, and not necessarily geared toward truth beliefs that trascend our classical ecosystem.

Ciao

- viole

 

[viole]

This is a good example of one of the worst mistakes made by secular folks. You try and condemn a concept by condemning your understanding of a word translated thousands of years later. If you want to know what X meant then we must try as hard as possible to determine how X intended the word. We need the word first.

The word here is bohuw: It means a waste. Waste implies unsuitability for a purpose, or to not contain the relevant entities given purpose.

The earth was initially void of the entities that it was purposed for nor was it even in a state where it would have allowed those entities to exist.

Why is it always the critic who is least interested in what they criticize?

Maybe. I am not an expert in hebrew.

However, if I remember my sunday classes, this formless earth was created before the stars. Which is absurd, if the cosmology you use for your arguments is correct.

Let me guess: metaphor, symbolism, out of context, spiritual language, or all of them.

It was not an example of anything useless so you will have to try another. It was a perfectly accurate description of what had been true at the time.

I made the assumption that the word of God is true at any time.

So, it was perfectly accurate for someone living in the bronze age knew. Isn't that more likely that they made it up?

I also think that they would have understood that the seasons are caused by the tilt of the earth orbit. They did not know it, that is why it is not in. Not because they would not have understood it. Even a child would understand that.

It is never a scientific text. A text is a manuscript with a purpose. It was never intended to have a scientific purpose. probably because science is so low on the list of what really matters in comparison. Are you asking me how I can judge what is intended literally versus allegorically? However this does not alter the fact the biblically was scientifically correct about a great many very important things like hygiene that scientists were ignorant of even 2oo years ago and hundreds of thousands lost their lives for.

Yes, and collecting in European churches to pray against the plague, probably eased the transmission. God forgot to add that plagues are transmitted by bacteria/rats and not by Jews or witches.

Or the believers did not pay attention. After all, even my doctor writes prescriptions that are not clearer than ancient Hebrew.

Ok interpret the statement that two plus two equals for as being consistent with the fact that 2 + 2 = 27.5 meters.

It is amazing you ask. Almost a miracle.

I saw this formula in an ancient book that I found in a cave in North Sweden a few years ago. I could not make sense of it.

But then I had a vision of Thor dressed like an angel (He had wings and was carryng a big hammer). He told me that book was not supposed to convey scientific or mathematical truths, but only spiritual ones.

The 2s identify the two binities of good and evil. Two half-gods for good and two half-gods for evil. And when they are together, they represent the distance in meters from their original location in a sacred temple long gone.

He also added that humanity is not ready yet for these truths, so it took that book back to Valhalla. Bummer.

Nope but since you cannot lack something you never had he will not suffer because of it.

The first two primates with a soul did not have parents? Does God like to create primates from scratch? What is so special about primates?

It would have been good for about half a million plus in the 1860's who would have survived science had the scientists simply practiced what the Hebrews knew 2500 years ago. Science so far has not saved a single person in the long run in it's entire history but has produced the potential to wipe out all life in existence and the moral insanity to almost have done so more than once. If you looking for hope and goodness you won't find it in an equation. In fact without God there exists no basis for ultimate hope what so ever and goodness is almost meaningless and relative.

Which could naturally motivate people to believe in God, independently from His actual existence. Belief in God could be an ancient adaptation to find reasons to pass genes, who knows?

But this belongs to our infancy. We can live without God without any social inconvenience whatsoever today. I advise to take a holyday to Scandinavia when you have time and see it for yourself.

You have no evidence you can create or destroy consciousness with anything. I and the bible claim that aspects of consciousness can be influenced by other factors so you claim is no threat to either. I am not even sure your statement is valid exactly anyway. You may effect the way consciousness filters or apprehends the external world or your perception of how wit does but without a precise understanding of what it is to begin with claims about changing it are pre-mature. I can change matter with chemicals but I can't make it cease to exist or begin to exist.

This is a bold statement. That we do not know how consciousness emerges, does not entail it does not emerges naturally.

But I agree that it is pre-mature to talk about that, at least scientifically.

Hold the phone there hop-a-long. I have never said anything about consciousness is proven. I only mentioned that the trend in philosophy, etc... as usual seems to be in the biblical direction. Speculative at best but many legendary scholars think this is true. I cannot nor have I claimed to even be able to understand their argument

Trend in phylosophy? You mean Dennett and co.?

Anything I have no choice in believing should be trusted. Suppose I put more than enough pressure on you through whatever manipulation was necessary to force you to believe X is true. If you have taken any military interrogation classes you would know it is a matter of when not if anyone breaks down. There would be no reason to trust what they believed. In fact it is constantly stated "you can't believe him he has to say that". It could very well be that the only deterministic fact that ever existed was the one hat led you to believe it was true. This is merely paradoxical musing but if you want an argument: If determinism was true then it would be unintentional and the state of intentionality does not exist. Why then can I have a question and instantly discover the answer constantly? I doubt determinism would be rational enough to even form a question but even if so it has no interest in a answer and would not constantly be so obliging as to provide both the need and the satisfaction of it constantly for billions of lives.

I don't see how that impact determinism. You seem to be sure that intentionality entails non-determinism when we do not even know if there is a concept of intentionality that trascends the current state of our neurons.

Do you think that if I (or God) had perfect knowledge of the state of your brain, you could surprise us with some unexpected decision?

How would that be self-defeating?

Ciao

- viole

 

[Thief]

*yawn*

Let's face it.

If or until we manage (as a species) to attain intergalactic travel, there will always be those that insist that"god" is the divine "cause" of everything.

After 100 billion stars are mapped, and 10 trillion worlds are discovered, over the course of eons...some will still insist that mankind is "god's" purposed work and result.

Otherwise...we must be insignificant and meaningless.

That looks bad in any vanity mirror.

Current indications are.....we won't be doing any far reaching travel in this form we call human.

We will need to shed this meat.

Spiritual entity appears the only form that can get 'there' .....from 'here'.

 

[1robin]

Things come from nothing every day.

When I see you on a street corner and I lift my hand and wave, that's a wave that didn't exist prior to that moment, and ceases to exist when it's done.

Every single thing about your waving did exist prior to your enacting it except the abstract choice to wave. I think you misunderstand what nothing and existence is in this context. Everything about your waving was composed of something. Nothingness means the lack of being. You did not lack being, your decision did not even lack being, your hand did not lack being, waving did not lack being, and the object did not lack being. Your wave did not begin to exist from nothing but only involved changes to things that already exist. Changing is also a well understood issue but it has no role in what existed before the big bang.