This has probably been asked before, but..

Seaneh wrote: »

my understanding of the big bang is this.

there was an infinately dense molecule that exploded with an immerueable force and that caused the beginning of time.

No, despite it's name the Big Bang wasn't an explosion as such. Spacetime itself rapidly expanded, so there wasn't any space for the universe to explode into. It was also not an "infinitely small molecule", in fact we can't be sure what existed at time zero, but in the earliest moment we can reliably extrapolate, it was an immensely compacted point of matter. Molecules came later.

Seaneh wrote: »

Now even if it's a expand/retract universe and it's happened 734,976,231,092 times and this is the nth beginning of time, there has to be a starting point because.

a) Matter (energy/mass) cannot be created destoryed only changed and

But if there were no time prior to the big bang then the laws of conservation of matter and energy don't actually apply. They both were in existence at time zero and continued.

Seaneh wrote: »

b) nothing can happen of itself, there has to be a catalyst, cause and effect.

If time came into existence at the moment of the Big Bang then any cause is not a cause as we understand it. There could be no "before the Big Bang" any more then there could, to paraphrase Hawking, be any place north of the north pole.

Seaneh wrote: »

Even if you don't believe in the Jeudo-Chrsitianic view of a creator or whatever, you have to admit it's as possible that something caused the beginning of time (this "time") than the impossibility that Matter (energy/mass) came from nowhere and caused something of unobservable force without a catalyst.

Possible yes. I don't think anyone is claiming it to be impossible.

Seaneh wrote: »

I believe that the universe is roughly 14billion years old by the way.

I believe that humans have been around for a couple of hundred thousand years.

I also believe in God, I believe in Christ and I don't see how any of these belifes have to be exclusive of eachother as most athiests seem to believe.

I also think it's hilarious how Athiests will use a piece of scripture to try and trip up a christian in debate and then turn around and tell the same chirsitan that scripture cant be trusted/isnt accurate/aplicable in the same debate when it suits the christians arguement.

Last part was OT but worth throwing out there.

I don't see many atheists pointing to the Big Bang as a reason to dismiss Christianity in general. Creationism, yes. But I think most atheists dismiss Christianity on logical grounds, whether you agree with those or not.

Lovethinking wrote: »

The Big Bang has not been verified scientifically, neither has evolution.

Honestly, we wouldn't be building on these things if they hadn't already been verified scientifically. We're not in the business of chasing our tails. I suspect you've just misunderstood what we mean by "theory". What most people mean when they say "I have a theory", would be called an hypothesis by scientists. A testable idea.

When we call evolution and inflation "theories", we don't mean that in the colloquial sense. We mean that they are models which connect the known facts together cohesively via scientific laws and thus predict unknown facts. So evolution is based on the observed fact of evolution in the fossil record (that being that organisms vary over time), along with facts gathered from living organisms, genetic record and laboratory experimentation. These facts are then explained by laws such as the law of natural selection and the laws of mutation and inheritance. Those laws allow us to make predictions (like: "hey there should be a reptile with birdlike features A, B and C at level X in the fossil record, let's go digging- oh there it is"). The same can be said of inflation theory. We have some facts (eg. galaxies show Doppler shifting which means they're moving apart at an accelerating rate) and we build a model (extrapolate back in time and all of the galaxies come to a single point) which then, if correct, should allow us to make predictions (galaxy A at location B and distance C should be at stage D of formation and show Doppler shift E). If that prediction works every time then our theory is good.

Evolution and inflation have both predicted a great many facts and at times they've undergonemodification because of unexpected data. Both could hypothetically be falsified (disproven) by countless kinds of observations, but this has just never occurred. So the core theories remain. We're very very sure of them.

Seaneh wrote: »

Still means that matter existed before zerotime and came from nowhere, no matter how your phrase it.

No, nothing exists before zero time. Which is not to say that there was a distinct nothing there out of which stuff came. There just wasn't a before for a thing or a nothing to exist within. Matter existed at time zero.

Seaneh wrote: »

seems just as much of a cop out as "I dont need proof, I have faith to me

Doesn't actually explain anything though, does it? It smiply means you really don't know. and I'm not attacking that at all, there is no way you could ever know, just as there is no way I will ever sprout wings and learn to fly.

Well I think it would be fair to say that with regard to the big bang there is a lot we don't know. But that's not really an expression of faith, is it? Faith requires an assumption of some positive knowledge. Whereas I'm saying that we don't know what existed right at time zero, and we don't know if anything can exist outside of that in space, time or any other sense. That lack of knowledge allows us to say only "we don't know" and nothing more. We can hypothesise and hopefully test, so perhaps some day we'll have more answers.

Seaneh wrote: »

Thank you, but some Athiests will gawff at people of faith and try to imply that we are all mindless idiots because we believe in something that we cant explain that happens to be a God rather than believeing in the thing they cant explain which happens to be nothing.

All we believe in is what we've observed. What exactly it is remains open to investigation. To assume a thing is something in a vacuum of testable knowledge only makes sense if you intend to test that assumption and discard it if it is found lacking.

Seaneh wrote: »

I really don't see that "Logic" though...
And I have no problems talking about this stuff with rational people such as yourself, and I honestly don't care if you ever believe in God, but some people are so bloody full of sh!te it's amazing.

Well perhaps my previous comment there might shed a little light on the matter for you. I'm not personally interested in proselytising to religious people except where they directly contradict established facts and I gather that you're not interested in clinging to dogma if it is contradicted by your observations and logic, so I think perhaps we're tending towards the same point from different sides.

That or it's 2:30 am and my brain is broken.

robindch wrote: »

No, it's far more subtle than that. See innumerable other posts which explain this in detail. Or read a book on the topic.

Serious question here:

This topic comes up every few days. A christian says "You guys think the universe popped into existence out of nothing? That's daft!" Somebody familiar with BB Theory says, "No, that's not what BB says. Instead, BB says that <fill in complex explanation involving creation of time, before which time has no meaning or something similar>".

Why can't most christians remember this? Even if one doesn't recall the fine detail, I would have thought it was easy to remember that the simplistic notion that the universe "popped into being out of nothing" is wrong?

Yeah, since we're expected not to do the Leviticus gag-reel due to the "fulfilled covenant" explanation, I think it'd be nice if we could put "nothing created everything" canard to rest.

Seaneh wrote: »

And really, we have a point when we ask "If not God, then where the feck did it come from?".

In fairness I think you're not comparing like with like. If I ask you what created the universe you'd presumably say God did it. Maybe you'd be a bit more honest than that and say "I'm not going to act like I know the answer, as I don't and never will and can't" (to paraphrase your last post slightly) you might then continue with "however my hypothesis is that the God I believe in did it". This would be an answer I might not agree with, but I would respect it.

You might be curious what I think and ask me the same question. I might answer with something like: "I'm not going to act like I know the answer, as I don't, maybe it is unknowable". Unlike you I don't like telling people what they can or can not ever know, or what humanity can or can not ever know. To early man the sun rising every morning was probably something they thought they could never understand.

If you asked me what I believe created the universe I'd answer "a naturalistic process".

Comparing our answers to the same question is comparing like with like. We could get into a debate on if both answers are as probable, but that's a debate for another day.

My point is that the who/what question is not the same as the how question.
Asking someone to explain the naturalistic process which may have created the universe is like me asking you to explain how God created the universe. You could quote the Book of Genesis, but I would expect something that is slightly more consistent with reality. So if you think that current scientific theories on the origin of the Universe don't hold under your scrutiny try applying the same level of scepticism to your answer to the how (not the who/what) question.

I highly recomend this video. I would love to hear what you think of it:

liah wrote: »

...I can't find it.

A common argument against the big bang theory and various other similar theories that Christians often present in favour of God is the idea that it's incredibly hard to believe that the universe just popped into existence from absolutely nothing.

This begs the question: where did God come from? And if your answer is "God has just always existed, for eternity" then why is it impossible for you to believe that the universe could have done the same?

Infinity and eternity and the beginnings of the universe are things that will forever be beyond human comprehension, I think. I just fail to see how it's a valid argument to think that the universe coming into existence randomly, or having just "always been," is hard to believe, but a God coming into existence randomly, or having just "always been," isn't.

Can someone clear this up for me? I don't know how it works, because in my view it's the same thing, but I'm probably missing something vital, which is why I'm asking you.

Cosmological arguments for the existence of God are common. They are also ineffective (despite the enthusiasm of people like William Lain Craig).

We can describe approximately 13 billion years of the history of the universe with our current level of physics. But we cannot assert that the universe began 13 billion years ago, or that the big bang truly was a singularity, or that the universe must have a 'beginning', or that the universe must have an external cause if it has a beginning. All of these assertions involve implicit assumptions that aren't terribly compelling.

PDN wrote: »

They might not be compelling to you, but they are compelling for millions of people.

To most of us it just looks as if, in order to get around the cosmological argument, that some folks have invented a notion that nothing needed to exist before time began. It comes across as a bit of debating sleight of hand where 'counter-inutitive' really means 'nonsensical' and we're expected to believe a load of old tosh because some guys in white coats say, "You can't understand all this, but trust us because we're scientists."

Who has said "You can't understand all this, but trust us because we're scientists."? When does 'counter-intuitive' really mean 'nonsensical'? Who expects you to believe a load of old tosh (and what tosh are you referring to)? What 'notion' are you referring to, and how is it related to anything I said?

To be honest, your first paragraph sounds entirely irrelevant to what I said. But I will give you the benefit of the doubt and ask for an explanation.

I don't see a scientist as being any more inherently trustworthy than a priest. I'm not going to trust either of them just because of the positiion they hold, and they need to argue their case a lot more clearly and convincingly if they want me to believe it.

Again, you are being terribly vague. The topic is, specifically, the cosmological argument, not simply the world views of scientists and priests. Do you accept that, on average, a cosmologist will be more informed about cosmology than a priest? Much of what I will eventually say about the cosmological argument will be informed by the work of cosmologists. My intention will not be to disprove God, or to argue that he does not exist, but to demonstrate why the cosmological argument is misguided, and ultimately wrong. I can't do that if you find cosmology an untrustworthy field.

It is certainly not reasonable for atheists to say to Christians "Remember this because we've told you before" when the people who are doing the telling are extremely biased and we've caught them out telling porkie pies on numerous occasions on subjects where we do have the knowledge to catch them out.

To understand why the cosmological argument is wrong, you only need to understand some cosmology and physics. You don't need to hear it from atheists, as there are several good science books out there.

If, on the other hand, you are implying that any information I present will be inherently untrustworthy because I am biased and might tell porky pies, then let me know now, so that I don't have to waste my time.

PDN wrote: »

They might not be compelling to you, but they are compelling for millions of people.

To most of us it just looks as if, in order to get around the cosmological argument, that some folks have invented a notion that nothing needed to exist before time began. It comes across as a bit of debating sleight of hand where 'counter-inutitive' really means 'nonsensical' and we're expected to believe a load of old tosh because some guys in white coats say, "You can't understand all this, but trust us because we're scientists."

I'm not sure if anyone is asserting that nothing really did exist outside of the big bang or the observable universe (there is some research ongoing in both fields), but rather suggesting that it simply isn't required based on what we know at the moment. As for the "trust us, we're scientists" argument, nothing could be further from what science is all about. And a considerable effort has been made by scientists at the interface with the mainstream to explain these difficult concepts so that they are not being accepted on the basis of authority.

The authoritarian view of science is not being pushed by scientists, but by rather credulous (or bizarrely dismissive) media coverage of science, as written by journalists. Every week, we're subjected to yet another chunk of science (universe explained, cure for cancer found, vaccines melt your brain), to be accepted as fact without question and entirely free of any evidence or reference to the research itself. The assumption being that you guys are either not interested in "the science bit" or won't be able to understand it. Both assumptions are crap.

PDN wrote: »

I don't see a scientist as being any more inherently trustworthy than a priest. I'm not going to trust either of them just because of the positiion they hold, and they need to argue their case a lot more clearly and convincingly if they want me to believe it.

I totally agree with your position on scientists, we must never be authority figures. But make sure that the arguments you are reading are indeed the arguments being made by scientists. That means you can pretty much ignore the news media and a sizeable chunk of popular science books.

PDN wrote: »

It is certainly not reasonable for atheists to say to Christians "Remember this because we've told you before" when the people who are doing the telling are extremely biased and we've caught them out telling porkie pies on numerous occasions on subjects where we do have the knowledge to catch them out.

Not sure what you're referring to with this...