The Universe

-JammyDodger- wrote: »

The question I was really asking, well meant to ask, was how can you, as Christians, reconcile the fact that the universe is so vast with the idea of an intimate, personal God. I know it's a somewhat stupid question, and it mightn't make a lot of sense, but it made sense to me before I asked it!

I maintain that there are no stupid questions only stupid answers. Contrived questions not tending toward edification might be construed as a stupid question though, and I'm not suggestion that that is the case here.

Right so how can we, as Christians, reconcile the fact that the universe is so vast with the idea of an intimate and personal God? Well speaking for myself I can only say that I don't have to reconcile the two. My faith is based on the resurrection of Christ from the dead as a fact of history. Once I crossed that hurdle of faith everything else I observe in the universe is just a mere astonishment to be enjoyed, and I do enjoy it, I love the beauty of the world and of the universe. The real joy for me though is that Christ has risen. Anyone who truly believes this as a fact of history is not too much enamored by the rest of creation, amazing and glorious as it is. The promise of eternal life for faith in Him leaves everything else in the shade if you ask me.

stakey wrote: »

Also, if this god is going to play by the rules of physics (would a god not define them as oppossed to adhere to them?)

If God exists then what He does IS the laws of physics.

stakey wrote: »

he'd have to wait 9 billion years to just see the Earth form and another 2.5 billion years to see if this planet would support life as we know it.

Maybe He never noticed the time. Maybe it was like making some cosmic toast while waiting for the kettle to boil for a cosmic cup of tea

stakey wrote: »

This is a far call from the seven days the Book of Genesis claims. The more and more that is discovered about our universe and the development of life within it the more ludicrous tacking any religion on to it looks.

Not so. I love reading up on current scientific discoveries and if anything they are making belief in God a more plausible way to go than anything else, especially in the area of astrophysics. Doesn't mean you have to buy into any religion over it, but if you can believe that that there is a God then the choice is up to you which religion to go with, and as Anthony Flew (ex prominent atheist) says: "Having a charismatic figure like Jesus and a first class intellectual like Paul makes Christianity the one to beat."

Wicknight wrote: »

But that doesn't imply the inflation field also must have an explanation for its creation. It could simply have always existed. This is just speculation of course

I know it is but you see this is the thing. When the theist maintains this view of God, that God is eternal and thus always existed and does not have or need an explanation, the atheist will not accept that, he or she will want an explanation of how God came to be, so until the question 'where did God come from?' is answered they (well some of them anyway) will just flatly refuse to accept His existence based on that. Yet when it comes to a scientific theory being eternal then nobody is allowed to ask how it got there, we as just supposed to accept that it has always existed and thus doesn't need an explanation and that is ok.

MackDeToaster wrote: »

My two cents. The whole purpose of cosmology is to try and determine real beginnings, if there are any.

Yeah and it has already established that the Big Bang model is the best one. The Big Bang model postulates a beginning in the finite past from a nothingness state – a singularity. Now either the universe just popped into existence from nothing and by nothing or it was created by something beyond space and time by a being of unimaginable power. Simple enough options if you ask me, you just have to choose which is the more plausible. That nothing created everything or an eternal being did it.

MackDeToaster wrote: »

To say our universe begins with a complex intelligent creative being is doing the exact opposite of this as, even if it were accepted, it only leads to asking where did this being come from. It leads to the exact same enquiries all over again, only this time substituting 'creative intelligence' for 'universe'.

That’s my point. God by definition is the greatest conceivable being that there can be. Anyone greater than God is therefore God. And of course one can question where God came from but if He exists at all then He is also eternal in nature both in the future and in the past, which means He has no beginning and therefore has no cause.

MackDeToaster wrote: »

Thus far from being a better explanation, far from being an equivalent explanation, far from being even an alternative explanation, it turns out to be no explanation whatsoever.

So that “the universe was created” is not even an option to be mused upon? Even though you don’t know how it got here yet? The possibility that it just might have been contrived by intelligence just cannot have a foot in the door? Is that what you are saying?

MackDeToaster wrote: »

Saying "this complex creative intelligence was always there" is no better and is infact worse, by way of Occams razor, than saying "this simple universe was always there".

Well when Copernicus was postulating his hypotheses about the heliocentricity of the solar system that too did not adhere with Occam’s razor, it was a much more complicated view than the much simpler and more accepted Ptolemaic (geocentric) view and yet the Ptolemaic view was wrong. The Ptolemaic view was a much simpler explanation than Copernicus’ but it was wrong. So much for applying the principle of Occam ’s razor on that one. In any case the explanation “God created it” is a vastly simpler explanation than the more complicated inflationary theory explanation which asks more questions than it answers if one is inclined to ask them.

MackDeToaster wrote: »

Time as we understand it is a dimension and emergent property of the universe we are in, it can be traced back to and ends & begins at the same singularity as all spatial dimensions start at. So, to speculate what happened "before" then, is just like saying "what is North of the North Pole?". It's an utterly meaningless question.

And what pray tell is ‘meaning’ in a meaningless, purposeless, goaless universe?

MackDeToaster wrote: »

As regards coming into existence from nothing, radioactive decay is seemingly uncaused, and we can observe matter appearing and disappearing in a total vaccuum. That doesn't necessarily mean there is a god out there constantly creating and destroying these virtual particles. But just because we don't currently know how this happens doesn't mean an invisible creative personality wins by default.

I’m not saying He does. I would just like a level playing field in the possible explanations competition. I understand when some theists who have no interest in Science just say that “God did and that’s all that matters” is not a very good way to look at it but it might be enough for them. I’m not in that camp, I’m all for probing and exploring and studying the evidence and experimenting etc. because my faith is not based on Science. I can still have my faith and also wonder at the advancements in science. But I also believe that you can’t prove everything by the scientific method. For instance you cannot prove that a rose is beautiful by the scientific method or that Michelangelo’s David is a beautiful work of art and so on. Science has its place and it is a wondrous tool and I for one am all for it but it is limited only to what can be observed by the senses. Theology however is an altogether separate and distinct discipline which needs to be studied using a different method, be they speculative, philosophical or whatever. Cosmology is where the two meet each other because both stake a claim to it, which gives the explanation that “God did it” good reason to be included among the other mostly theoretical explanations in science, and as already said if Occam’s razor is to be applied then the “God did it” explanation wins hands down even though He Himself might be the most complex being imaginable, but the explanation that “God did it” remains the simplest.

Soul Winner wrote: »

Yeah and it has already established that the Big Bang model is the best one. The Big Bang model postulates a beginning in the finite past from a nothingness state – a singularity. Now either the universe just popped into existence from nothing and by nothing or it was created by something beyond space and time by a being of unimaginable power. Simple enough options if you ask me, you just have to choose which is the more plausible. That nothing created everything or an eternal being did it.

Ok, I'll give this a try. Simple options they may appear to be but to be answered they require complex explanations. Firstly, you're going to have to explain what you mean by 'beyond space and time'. By any definition I understand, that's a contraction in terms, i.e. there cannot be anything space and time as, by definition, space and time encompasses everything extant.

Then you'll have to define what you mean by 'nothing'. In physical cosmology, a singularity is not a 'nothing'. The Big Bang model is currently the best supported model alright, and generally refers to the idea that the universe came from an initially hot and possibly infinitely dense condition, the singularity. What it can't and doesn't do is provide any explanation for the initial condition, it only describes the general evolution of the universe from that first instant. Beyond that we currently can't tell what there was, but some hypotheses imply that it is actually possible the universe simply popped into existence. I haven't been keeping up with it in detail, but I believe that some recent findings suggest that the total energy in the universe is zero.

This along with inflation (the Big Bang) suggests that all that is needed is just a tiny bit of energy to get the ball rolling, i.e. a tiny bit of energy in which inflation can begin. The universe can then experience inflationary expansion, but without creating net energy, as the positive energy of the particles of all matter is balanced out by the negative gravitational energy of everything pulling on everything else, hence a zero-energy universe (this is only a very Very simple overview).
The big question then is where did this bit of energy come from ? And the answer to that lies in quantum theory, where particles and antiparticles can spontaneously form and quickly annihilate each other without violating the law of energy conservation. And experiments have proven that these quantum fluctuations do occur everywhere, all the time.

Thus the emergence of complexity from simplicity, precluding the requirement of a complex eternal being. If you want to define god as being simple, e.g. energy or whatever, then feel free, but that's not a personal theistic god or anything which is relevant to us.

Soul Winner wrote: »

So that “the universe was created” is not even an option to be mused upon? Even though you don’t know how it got here yet? The possibility that it just might have been contrived by intelligence just cannot have a foot in the door? Is that what you are saying?

No, it would be utterly stupid and completely irrational to rule it out, but without any evidence whatsoever of this intelligence it's merely an assertion and explains nothing - there is no evidence, no hypothesis, no theory, no model, nothing. The Big Bang and physical cosmology explains the universe as we see it, and in the face of hypotheses which may explain what went before (which as I've already said may in some ways be a meaningless question) and which may be testable, it provides no answers whatsoever and certainly doesn't warrant investigation by science and I fail to see why it should receive any credence.

Soul Winner wrote: »

Well when Copernicus was postulating his hypotheses about the heliocentricity of the solar system that too did not adhere with Occam’s razor, it was a much more complicated view than the much simpler and more accepted Ptolemaic (geocentric) view and yet the Ptolemaic view was wrong. The Ptolemaic view was a much simpler explanation than Copernicus’ but it was wrong. So much for applying the principle of Occam ’s razor on that one.

Yes, but Copernicus had evidence to prove his theory. If he simply came out and stated his view without reproducible experiments and evidence to support it then certainly Occam's Razor would apply and you would be correct, but he didn't.

Soul Winner wrote: »

In any case the explanation “God created it” is a vastly simpler explanation than the more complicated inflationary theory explanation which asks more questions than it answers if one is inclined to ask them.

Once more, I'll have to disagree. "God created it" explains nothing. It's simply saying here's a point in the sand and beyond there you can't go. It's only simpler if you refuse to ask questions

Soul Winner wrote: »

And what pray tell is ‘meaning’ in a meaningless, purposeless, goaless universe?

This is moving away from what I was attempting to illustrate. But if you want an answer, personally and simply put I think the only meaning is what you put on it yourself. But this is a separate topic.

Soul Winner wrote: »

I’m not saying He does. I would just like a level playing field in the possible explanations competition. I understand when some theists who have no interest in Science just say that “God did and that’s all that matters” is not a very good way to look at it but it might be enough for them. I’m not in that camp, I’m all for probing and exploring and studying the evidence and experimenting etc. because my faith is not based on Science. I can still have my faith and also wonder at the advancements in science. But I also believe that you can’t prove everything by the scientific method. For instance you cannot prove that a rose is beautiful by the scientific method or that Michelangelo’s David is a beautiful work of art and so on. Science has its place and it is a wondrous tool and I for one am all for it but it is limited only to what can be observed by the senses. Theology however is an altogether separate and distinct discipline which needs to be studied using a different method, be they speculative, philosophical or whatever.

I agree with you up to this point.

Soul Winner wrote: »

Cosmology is where the two meet each other because both stake a claim to it, which gives the explanation that “God did it” good reason to be included among the other mostly theoretical explanations in science, and as already said if Occam’s razor is to be applied then the “God did it” explanation wins hands down even though He Himself might be the most complex being imaginable, but the explanation that “God did it” remains the simplest.

And this is where we part company once more :pac: This is probably due to semantics and definitions as we have to be very explicit as to what we mean, in this case defining god.

"God did it" is only simple if you define God as being outside the universe. However, that also means that he/she/it has no interaction whatsover with the universe, which to all intents and purposes means god does not exist !

I.e. as soon as something interacts with the universe, it is imposing upon it - that is, it has a measurable affect, which means it's subject to scientific scrutiny. Which means that you're going to have to come up with an explanation for God, otherwise 'god' is just a word that means nothing.

MackDeToaster wrote: »

Ok, I'll give this a try. Simple options they may appear to be but to be answered they require complex explanations.

But I thought Occam’s razor favored the simplest explanation? Inflationary theory is not the simplest explanation, especially when you have to explain how it works which involves understanding a lot of scientific jargon and is still only theoretical an unproven at the end of the day. Whereas “God created it” is still the simplest explanation. How? He spoke it into existence. You don’t need a science degree to understand what that means. So the ‘what’ and the ‘how’ explanations from a theistic view are still the simplest and if one adheres to Occam’s razor as you seem to do, then this explanation wins hands down

MackDeToaster wrote: »

Firstly, you're going to have to explain what you mean by 'beyond space and time'. By any definition I understand, that's a contraction in terms, i.e. there cannot be anything space and time as, by definition, space and time encompasses everything extant.

Space and time encompasses everything in our reality. Just because we cannot see outside our own reality does not mean that there is nothing beyond it in a separate reality possibly called eternity. I know this cannot be tested scientifically but as said earlier, science may never be equipped to test all reality, only what is observable by our limited senses.

MackDeToaster wrote: »

Then you'll have to define what you mean by 'nothing'. In physical cosmology, a singularity is not a 'nothing'.

‘Nothing’ cannot be defined because ‘nothing’ isn’t! As soon as you define ‘nothing’ it becomes something. And yet even Stephen Hawking believes that the Universe just popped into existence from ‘nothing’ without violating the laws of physics. Of course it didn’t, because there was no laws of physics to violate, they were created along with everything else in the beginning. From the earliest initial conditions the Universe already encompassed the laws of physics and all this from nothing and also by nothing. If you are a proponent of the Big Bang theory and you are an atheist then this is the position you must hold. That everything just popped into existence from nothing and by nothing.

MackDeToaster wrote: »

The Big Bang model is currently the best supported model alright, and generally refers to the idea that the universe came from an initially hot and possibly infinitely dense condition, the singularity.

Yes and this infinitude of mass and temperature means it had zero mass, and zero everything else, i.e. ‘nothing’.

MackDeToaster wrote: »

What it can't and doesn't do is provide any explanation for the initial condition, it only describes the general evolution of the universe from that first instant. Beyond that we currently can't tell what there was, but some hypotheses imply that it is actually possible the universe simply popped into existence.

Yes, and Stephen Hawking is one of those people.

MackDeToaster wrote: »

I haven't been keeping up with it in detail, but I believe that some recent findings suggest that the total energy in the universe is zero.

When you measure the positive and negative forces in the universe like the positive and negative charge and put the resulting values side by side then of course it will come out at a ‘0’ value, but that does not mean that there is nothing there. If you weigh two elephants that have the exact same weight say 2 tones each, then obviously they will cancel each other out on the weighing scale but you wouldn’t then turn around and say that because of that there are no elephants on the scales would you? Well that is what this theory is implying, that there is really no universe after all because when all its positive and negative components are balanced together the value comes to zero.

MackDeToaster wrote: »

This along with inflation (the Big Bang) suggests that all that is needed is just a tiny bit of energy to get the ball rolling, i.e. a tiny bit of energy in which inflation can begin. The universe can then experience inflationary expansion, but without creating net energy, as the positive energy of the particles of all matter is balanced out by the negative gravitational energy of everything pulling on everything else, hence a zero-energy universe (this is only a very Very simple overview).

Well there are billions and billions of particles of energy in existence now so why don’t we observe things popping into existing like our universe all the time anymore? Why only our Universe? Why can’t we observe galaxies just popping into existence? Planets, Stars etc?? If all that is needed are tiny bits of energy?

MackDeToaster wrote: »

The big question then is where did this bit of energy come from ? And the answer to that lies in quantum theory, where particles and antiparticles can spontaneously form and quickly annihilate each other without violating the law of energy conservation. And experiments have proven that these quantum fluctuations do occur everywhere, all the time.

Yes but they don’t create universes anymore. Why not? Why do they just annihilate each other all the time instead of creating a new universes or galaxies or stars or something that we have never observed before?

MackDeToaster wrote: »

Thus the emergence of complexity from simplicity, precluding the requirement of a complex eternal being. If you want to define god as being simple, e.g. energy or whatever, then feel free, but that's not a personal theistic god or anything which is relevant to us.

If we define God as comprising of ‘Mind’ with no matter or substance as some theologians do then we would have the simplest of entities that could not only be immaterial but also personal.

MackDeToaster wrote: »

No, it would be utterly stupid and completely irrational to rule it out, but without any evidence whatsoever of this intelligence it's merely an assertion and explains nothing - there is no evidence, no hypothesis, no theory, no model, nothing.

You can only say that there is no evidence only when you set the boundaries of what constitutes evidence. If only scientific evidence falls into this category then maybe it can’t be known scientifically, but I don’t agree that only evidence that complies with the scientific method is the only type of evidence that can be produced in order to conclude that God exists. There are very good reasons and plenty of evidence that show that God exists. The problem with people who don’t want to believe is that they have excluded this evidence as good enough because it is not scientific evidence. It’s like locking yourself into your room and refusing to believe in other rooms because there is no evidence in your room that other rooms exists. Stop limiting yourself to what you can prove whilst locked in your room and try unlocking the door and looking out side. Ok you might have to employ other methods of investigation which only work when your door is unlocked but that doesn’t mean that is in anyway invalid as a method or that it even invalidates your locked door method as sufficient for investigations things locked in your room. Like I said, I don’t need science to have a faith in God, I have that by other means.

MackDeToaster wrote: »

The Big Bang and physical cosmology explains the universe as we see it, and in the face of hypotheses which may explain what went before (which as I've already said may in some ways be a meaningless question) and which may be testable, it provides no answers whatsoever and certainly doesn't warrant investigation by science and I fail to see why it should receive any credence.

Like I said, if we only use the scientific method then we may never find God. Maybe God has so constituted the Universe that He will not allow personal knowledge of Him to come via that route. The God of the Bible at least does not like being tested. From His point of view we are to be tested by Him, not the other way around. In the NT Jesus would not submit to performing miracles by means of proving who He was to anybody, be they ordinary folk, religious leaders or even earthly rulers. All the recorded miracles in the NT came as result of prior faith in Him by the individual(s) for whom the miracle(s) were performed. This might sound like a cop out and it only is one if there truly is no God but if there is a God who created the Universe and Jesus was His primary representative to mankind and was God Himself incarnate then this is the way God works whether we accept it or not.

MackDeToaster wrote: »

Once more, I'll have to disagree. "God created it" explains nothing. It's simply saying here's a point in the sand and beyond there you can't go. It's only simpler if you refuse to ask questions

If God really did create it then as an explanation of how it got here we can’t go any further. If I understand it correctly even now when delving into the microscopic elementary particle world, science can go no further than theoretical naming conventions, quarks, gluons, bosons and so on. The problem with some of them is that their position and velocity cannot be measure simultaneously. When you try measuring the position of certain subatomic particles their velocity changes and vice verse so at the most basic elementary level of reality what we have a sea of pure randomness in behavior, and this randomness is what undergirds all reality as we know it scientifically. Order out of disorder, but how? Same goes on the macro scale. When one encounters the boundaries of the universe itself, there is a point beyond which we cannot go in observational data collecting. It’s like both ends of reality are cut off from a full understanding of our minds, with us sort of stuck in the middle, at least that is how I see it.

MackDeToaster wrote: »

And this is where we part company once more This is probably due to semantics and definitions as we have to be very explicit as to what we mean, in this case defining god.

If there is such a being as God then God would be defined as the greatest conceivable being, anything greater than that, is God.

MackDeToaster wrote: »

"God did it" is only simple if you define God as being outside the universe. However, that also means that he/she/it has no interaction whatsover with the universe, which to all intents and purposes means god does not exist !

Science and Scripture agree on this point, that space and time had a beginning in the finite past. If God really did do it, then obviously He exists outside the universe which had this beginning in order to create it. But I fail to see how you can make the leap that just because He exists outside the universe that He cannot interact with it, especially being a being powerful enough to create the universe in the first place. That would be like saying that a keeper of fish who exists outside his fish tank cannot interact with his fish tank, like cleaning it out and introducing new fish and so on.

MackDeToaster wrote: »

I.e. as soon as something interacts with the universe, it is imposing upon it - that is, it has a measurable affect, which means it's subject to scientific scrutiny. Which means that you're going to have to come up with an explanation for God, otherwise 'god' is just a word that means nothing.

If God exists at all then He is the greatest conceivable being, powerful enough to create a universe plus is not made of the same stuff as the universe i.e. matter, energy etc then surely his interaction with it would not effect it in the same way that say an object made of solid iron the size of a billion billion galaxies would affect it if it was suddenly and instantly added to its composition would affect it, just like how the arm of the fish keeper would affect the behavior of the water in the fish tank and the objects that he touches in it would be affected once he decides to interact with them.

How did I miss this thread? I'll post my two cents here in a bit.

Morbert wrote: »

How did I miss this thread? I'll post my two cents here in a bit.

Can't wait :pac: