Religion

[Zuu]

stepping back a page, the big bang is probably the most accurate model for the beginning of the universe that we have today. I don't think anyone has said that it is flawless. I'm sort of at the same point, however, so I suppose I'm missing something - we don't have an explanation for how it actually occurred, right?

not that it means it wasn't natural, because it most likely was natural, but if I recall correctly the big bang theory was actually thought up by a Catholic scientist or ... something. I'm not very solid with science history.

 

[Sage Noctowl]

According to the dubious sources of Wikipedia, he was a catholic priest.

 

[Saith]

Just gonna explain why I believe in a deity/ies.

I believe in the Big Bang. I'm certain that it happened. It's either that, or something I'm not smart enough to understand, and I hate it when people use the 'it'sah beyondah the huuuumanah intelllllligenceah' argument, so I'm sticking with the Big Bang.

Anyway, the Big Bang must have been caused by something, it cannot have caused itself. Everything needs a cause, so there must be something that caused but wasn't caused, otherwise there'll be an infinite chain of effects with no cause. That's basically like a rope, the beginning of which you can't see. You know it's hanging down, but it goes so far up that you can't see where it's hooked onto. You just know it's hooked onto something, otherwise it wouldn't be hanging.

So the first cause, the 'unmoved mover', must have caused the Big Bang. Or caused the thing that caused the Big Bang, or as far back as you like.

As to how something could have not been caused, it would be a necessary being. As in, it caused itself, and is therefore infinite.

I don't think the Universe is infinitely old, as I believe in the Big Bang, and so I believe the Universe had a beginning.

It must have been a personal god, as if the Big Bang started due to an impersonal event, such as a force, the univrse would be infinite due to the forces being infinite.

Anyway, wooooooooooords, wall of text, whatever. Sorry about that, but the religion thread in the debating place is dead, and I don't like to necro, sooo~~~

 

[Autumn]

if everything needs a cause, yet you admit to a first cause causing all the other causes, why can't the Big Bang be the first cause?

 

[opaltiger]

Also: time began with the Big Bang. Saying "before the Big Bang" is meaningless. So the concept of a necessary cause for the Big Bang is dubious at best.

I don't understand why the universe can't be infinite and everlasting if a deity can. Surely that makes more sense?

 

[Sage Noctowl]

A random singularity of matter spontaneously exploding before time to create time and space makes just about as much sense to me as the existence of a deity.

 

[opaltiger]

A random singularity of matter spontaneously exploding before time to create time and space makes just about as much sense to me as the existence of a deity.

Anything can be made to sound ridiculous if you phrase it in a ridiculous way, but you're being intellectually dishonest in doing so. We don't know what caused the Big Bang, no. We don't know if it had a cause. But we do know that it happened, which is more than I can say for the existence of a deity.

Unless you're suggesting that it makes as much sense as a deity causing said explosion, in which case I must disagree. This is a simple case of Occam's Razor; proposing a deity as the cause of the Big Bang is entirely superfluous.

 

[Ryan the Terrible]

A random singularity of matter spontaneously exploding before time to create time and space makes just about as much sense to me as the existence of a deity.

Not really, since that seems vaguely possible at the very least. Someone who says "thou shalt not kill" and that we should forgive, and then prescribes we put everyone to death who doesn't believe in him does not.

I don't really know if I think the Big Bang could have happened. I don't have any beliefs as to how the universe started, and I'm not really interesting in it. I just know that the universe is here and I will live in it until my death.

 

[departuresong]

I don't really know if I think the Big Bang could have happened.

It did, whether you "believe" it or not.

 

[Tarvos]

A random singularity of matter spontaneously exploding before time to create time and space makes just about as much sense to me as the existence of a deity.

Quite the contrary. The Big Bang is a matter of physics - something you could perfectly find a way to model mathematically somehow. By what we know about the Big Bang, having an expanding universe created from an infinite singularity of matter would be sensible considering at those circumstances every piece of mass would be repelled from another piece of mass. It makes perfect physical sense to have a Big Bang. And if we can't model it now we could model it in the future, becausse physics almost conclusively tells us that that is what happened (pending further inquiry).

A deity doesn't have a physical reason to exist whatsoever.

 

[Harlequin]

I particularly love how people are saying "religon asks for faith and science asks for proof" as if that means anything. That religion asks solely for faith is the entire point. That is why it cannot be regarded as a source of knowledge and information, and why science is so much more able to explain things about the universe and the natural world. Evolution is fact. Evolution by natural selection is (scientific) theory. Creationism is at best a hypothesis.

Also, NOMA is ridiculous.

Also, please let's apply Occam's Razor. It makes everything significantly less complicated.

 

[Saith]

From what I know of the Big Bang (which I guess isn't that much) is that it was an incredibly dense area inside nothing that exploded to create the universe.
I'm not a physicist, so I can't dispute that, so I have to take it as fact, as I have no information otherwise. And I'm fine with that.
Thing is, though, how did the dense thing explode? If it was gonna explode on its own, it would have done it immediately meaning that the universe would be infinite.
If the universe was infinite, the Big Bang couldn't have happened as that would mean the universe had a beginning, meaning it's not infinite. That's the easiest way to explain?
Infinity, apparantly, is impossible. If you add, subtract, multiply etc to infinity it would still be infinity.
Meaning that if the universe was infinite, there would have been an infinite number of sunsets, an infinite number of wars and an infinite number of decades. There'd be an infinite number of books, and even if you burnt one there would still be an infinite number.
That's obviously impossible, and so the universe can't be infinite.

I hate Occhams Razor, mind. Mainly because, for example, if a door opens on its own, the simplest reason would be that it was 'magic', the actual answer would be that the energy in the wind is applied as a force into the door causing it to react by opening.
Saying that the Big Bang 'just happened' is the same as saying that nine months after sex, a baby just happens.
There is no simple answer for the cause of the Big Bang, but the cause would need to be more powerful than the universe, or powerful enough to cause an explosion of that magnitude (and therefore omnipotent to beings inside of the universe), outside of the universe (and therefore beyond time), it must have a mind (because I've already explained why I don't think it's a force), and therefore we might as well call it a deity.

I don't have a religion in particular, so I'm not saying it has an active interest, or even is aware of us, but I think a deity must exist.

Maybe someone should make a new thread in the debating place, or we should stop debating?

 

[1. Luftballon]

I hate Occhams Razor, mind. Mainly because, for example, if a door opens on its own, the simplest reason would be that it was 'magic', the actual answer would be that the energy in the wind is applied as a force into the door causing it to react by opening.

'magic' is not and explanation. and then you'd have to explain where the magic came from. occam's razor is recursive.

 

[opaltiger]

Thing is, though, how did the dense thing explode? If it was gonna explode on its own, it would have done it immediately meaning that the universe would be infinite.

You're still thinking in terms of time. The word "immediately" is meaningless if there was no time before the Big Bang.

If the universe was infinite, the Big Bang couldn't have happened as that would mean the universe had a beginning, meaning it's not infinite.

The universe existed before the Big Bang. It was simply compressed into a tiny space.

Listen: we have no clue what happened before the Big Bang. That doesn't in any way suggest that a deity is the only logical answer. Your arguments are all based on the supposition that before the Big Bang is something we can comprehend. We can't. The laws of physics began with the Big Bang! You can't talk about something like that meaningfully.

 

[Sage Noctowl]

You're still thinking in terms of time. The word "immediately" is meaningless if there was no time before the Big Bang.



The universe existed before the Big Bang. It was simply compressed into a tiny space.

Listen: we have no clue what happened before the Big Bang. That doesn't in any way suggest that a deity is the only logical answer. Your arguments are all based on the supposition that before the Big Bang is something we can comprehend. We can't. The laws of physics began with the Big Bang! You can't talk about something like that meaningfully.

Let me get this straight.
You just said that there was no time before the big bang, but you said the universe existed before the Big Bang, which would make no sense if nothing could be before the big bang because before represents an amount of time. And if time existed at the beginning of the Big Bang, and the laws of physics were created by the explosion at the beginning of time, there was never a time when the laws of physics existed. So nothing was 'before' the big bang, you can only talk about what existed the first zetaseconds of the big bang. But if the explosion of the big bang created the laws of physics, then we don't need to explain the big bang because it created physics.

Badly worded rebuttal is badly worded

Also, I think a move topic would be better than the creation of a new topic, because we've already got something going here, and if we just created a new topic, argument may still continue in this one.

 

[Autumn]

You just said that there was no time before the big bang, but you said the universe existed before the Big Bang, which would make no sense if nothing could be before the big bang because before represents an amount of time.

I assume the use of "before" was for lack of a non-time-related word.

 

[opaltiger]

Let me get this straight.
You just said that there was no time before the big bang, but you said the universe existed before the Big Bang, which would make no sense if nothing could be before the big bang because before represents an amount of time. And if time existed at the beginning of the Big Bang, and the laws of physics were created by the explosion at the beginning of time, there was never a time when the laws of physics existed. So nothing was 'before' the big bang, you can only talk about what existed the first zetaseconds of the big bang. But if the explosion of the big bang created the laws of physics, then we don't need to explain the big bang because it created physics.

Badly worded rebuttal is badly worded

Also, I think a move topic would be better than the creation of a new topic, because we've already got something going here, and if we just created a new topic, argument may still continue in this one.

I said time as we know it. It's possible to say something existed before the Big Bang in the sense that the Big Bang did not cause the universe to spring into existence. Perhaps time existed in some way - perhaps the laws of physics did, too. My point is that it is utterly meaningless for us to discuss what caused the Big Bang because whatever preceded the Big Bang simply doesn't fit into any framework we currently have.

What I'd like you to explain is how any of this makes a deity necessary. Yes, the Big Bang is an unexplainable event the circumstances of which we know very little about. But none of that requires a deity. This is the same old god of the gaps argument that's been abused since religion first popped up: we don't understand something, therefore it must be the work of a deity. I'd have hoped we could leave that sort of thinking behind.

 

[Saith]

I say deity, but I don't necessarilly mean an 'Almighty God'.
I mean that what caused the Big Bang was sentient and powerful enough to do it.
That, to me, is a deity, I guess.

Also, if there was no time, wouldn't the first thing that happened be immediate or something? As I said, I'm no good with physics, so yeah.

 

[Crazy Linoone]

I say deity, but I don't necessarilly mean an 'Almighty God'.
I mean that what caused the Big Bang was sentient and powerful enough to do it.
That, to me, is a deity, I guess.

Also, if there was no time, wouldn't the first thing that happened be immediate or something? As I said, I'm no good with physics, so yeah.

Same thing. Whether it's Almighty God or the Flying Spaghetti Monster makes no difference whatsoever. Let me try to rephrase opal's question: why is the existence of a sentient and powerful being necessary to explain the Big Bang/whatever came "before" it?

I don't quite understand your second question... Since there is no time, there's no such thing as "immediate", since that portrays a sense of time.

 

[Lucas₇₅₅]

Christian, raised Christian.

That makes me original here, right?