How do you believe the universe started?

[TIGERassault]

I've just got really interested in this now, especially as I've gotten more tolerant of other religions as of late. So I want to ask you lot a question: how do you believe the universe started? Or, for those of you who believe it was created by a god(s), or those who believe in the Big Bang theory; how did whatever came first come about?

Personally, I believe in a cyclic model. That is, a universe that's infinite and always self-sustaining, didn't 'start' and cannot end. Something similar to the \"big bang-big crunch\" theory (a loop of Big Crunches resulting in Big Bangs; Big Crunches being the opposite of a Big Bang, where the universe compresses into a singularity), only with smaller Bang-Crunches happening that only shape parts of the universe, instead of one big one.
But it does depend on a few things:
1: That time is infinite. Sorta plausable.
2: That there is a way all energy can be converted from one form to another, thus meaning a lack of build-up of entropy. More plausable.
3: That the universe... happened. It's not even partly explainable with time being removed from the equation, but it makes more sense to me than that something came before it.. It's also the reason I believe that the universe has no start or end, rather than just having the more-understandable no end but with a start.

[Krom]

Boom.

Actually I was reading or watching something about what could happen in the dark era (mind bogglingly long time in the future) according to our current understanding. Our theories start to have problems predicting events after the vast majority of matter in the universe has decayed, and things like the laws of physics spontaneously changing can happen. So even without a big crunch, you could get new fresh universes spontaneously exploding into existence just like the big bang theory.

Having our current theories break down starts to make sense because once the universe is broken down into pure energy, concepts like mass or volume lose all meaning.

[Jesus Freak]

God said let it be, and BOOM it happened in an instant.

[Will Robinson]

If you could travel far enough in any direction through our universe you would eventually hit the inside surface of a vacuum jar.

That jar rests on a shelf in the 9th grade science lab with the sticky paper label on the outside that reads: Geoffry Wilcott 9C

He's the kid who finished his experiment on gaseous clouds and the teacher put the jar up on the shelf with all the others.
He got a C+ on the grade because the cloud was rather poorly defined but the jar is sealed pretty well and the universe within should survive until next spring when they clean out the old stuff to get ready for the new school year.

If I knew ratio of time between his world and ours I could tell you when our world will come to an end...

You may pray to Geoffry if it makes you feel better but he's on vacation with his family and he never really liked science class anyway.

[Foil]

LOL! Will, does Geoffry Wilcott's universe reside inside any other universes? Maybe that marble from the end of \"Men In Black\"?

--------------

Back on topic, as a Christian I believe the universe was created by God. I see the incomprehensible vastness of the observable universe, the unimaginable energy of the big bang, and the complexity of life as evidence of that.

[Duper]

Dunno.

don't care.

Doesn't effect who I am or who I will be.

That knowledge is in God's care.

(on a more editorial dissertation)

It's interesting to speculate, but in truth, that's all it ever will be. It might become more esoteric as time goes on, but we will never know with any exacting conclusion. Personally, I get tired of \"science\" touting \"theory\" as \"Axiom\". It happens way too much.

[Bet51987]

I believe that our big bang was an event that spawned our spacetime, or region, of an infinite multiverse which was not part of our big bang. This multiverse is infinite, was there before our BB, and has no \"outside\". Since I'm a multiverse fan I just call that infinite universe the multiverse and our part of it our universe.

So, our universe is just one of many which are constantly being born and die in the multiverse. Read Andre Linde and Michio Kaku, or just think soap bubbles...

Sometimes it gets so complicated I wish I could be like theists and throw away the cosmology books and simply say \"God created it in six days\"...but I can't.

Bee

[Foil]

... theists [who] throw away the cosmology books and simply say "God created it in six days"

Don't lump all us theists together, Bet. It's only the young-Earth crowd that rejects the current cosmological model for their literal six days.

[Firewheel]

God created the universe via the Big Bang. Those who object to the Big Bang on theological grounds are shooting themselves in the foot, because it's of incredible significance that we see the universe began to exist, rather than existing infinitely.

The multiverse hypothesis strikes me as a monumental cop-out, and merely begs the question of where the multiverses and/or their multiverse generator originated. No matter how far back you're going to take it, you have to eventually answer the question of what caused the explanation-of-choice*. The multiverse seems less grounded in science, being totally unobservable and all, and based more on philosophical necessity for those who seek to deny the existence of God at any cost. It's quite amusing to watch those who worship at the altar of science try jump into speculation, though. Bet's description of the multiverse sounds more like a religious belief to me.

*The obvious retort is \"who created God?\", but because God did not begin to exist, He does not need to have a cause. It seems to me that an uncaused God is a far better explanation for the universe than all of time and space, precisely tuned laws, physical constants, and all, simply popped out of nothing for no reason. This is exactly why I would be a theist even if I weren't a Christian.

Unfortunately I'm being killed by schoolwork these days so I'm not sure if I'll be able to keep following the thread or not... I'll try to check back eventually.

[Kilarin]

That jar rests on a shelf in the 9th grade science lab with the sticky paper label on the outside that reads: Geoffry Wilcott 9C

This made my day, possibly my whole week. Thanks!

Those who object to the Big Bang on theological grounds are shooting themselves in the foot, because it's of incredible significance that we see the universe began to exist, rather than existing infinitely.

Exactly! I get very frustrated when I hear a Christian berate the big bang theory. Come on, for thousands of years Jews, Muslims and Christians have been saying, "There was NOTHING, not even space and time, and then God Spoke, and suddenly space, time, and everything else sprang into existence." Duh!

It's only the young-Earth crowd that rejects the current cosmological model for their literal six days.

Actually, young earth creationists cant even all be lumped into the same pile. The kind of Young Earth Creationism I was raised on takes "he made the stars also" from Gen 1:16 to be a parenthetical remark. Just a comment that God also created the stars, not as a statement that
they were created on that day. This is supported by the structure of the chapter. Note:

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

"In the Beginning God created the heaven and the earth" is BEFORE the seven days of creation, as supported by the fact that the earth was already "without form and void" when creation began. Something was here, obviously there was water, but it wasn't a life bearing planet, it was just a lump of rock and water. They, of course, held that the rest of the creation story, the shaping of earth into a planet fit for life, took a literal 7 days.

[Bet51987]

Tiger, if you believe God did it then there's no reason to go any further but if you don't then try here.

http://www.scienceforums.net/forum/show ... t=universe

Also, try posting this question at .com where you may get more plausible answers.

Bee

[Kilarin]

if you believe God did it then there's no reason to go any further but if you don't then try here.

Actually, when it comes to cosmic origins, there's not a lot of difference in the amount of faith required between the Theistic and Naturalistic positions.

Either you have to have Faith that a Deity exists outside of space and time and created the cosmos.

Or, you have to have Faith that the cosmos always existed without a cause.

Or, you have to have Faith that the cosmos sprang into being without a cause.

NONE of these explanations are easy to grasp. Each of them requires that we think of time in a way that our brains is not configured to handle. All of them require a leap of faith.

G. K. Chesterton points out that actually, a belief that there is an intelligence behind the Cosmos has most often led to better science. Not ALWAYS mind you, I freely acknowledge that sometimes religious people have taken the attitude that "God Did It" is the only answer we need and one need look no further.

But actually, MOST of the great science done in the world was done by religious people. A belief that something rational created the Cosmos gives good reason to believe that the universe makes SENSE. That it will have rational rules that we can figure out and understand.

[Sergeant Thorne]

Yeah right, Kilarin, that's like saying that the most free nation in the history of the world was founded largely by Bible-believing Christians.

[Bet51987]

The theistic view is all about faith in a deity who made a decision to create. Since there is no physical proof to substantiate the claim and nothing that can be tested for then the only thing theism has is an assumption. One that simply states that a book written over 2000 years ago is all that is neccessary to convince the masses that God created the universe in six days.

The naturalist simply has faith that the next particle collision will add yet another piece to the larger framework which has been built from other testable experiments. We have done that and continue to do it. We test and retest and sometimes we abandon old theorys for newer and more correct versions but were learning more each day.

The two faiths are extremely different.

And, I can list great people and great scientists who have advanced modern civilization and yet have no belief in a God.

Don't get me wrong. Religion has it's place but not in science.

Bee

[Grendel]

Why, a Flying Spaghetti Monster created the universe of course.

[Sergeant Thorne]

Exactly! I get very frustrated when I hear a Christian berate the big bang theory. Come on, for thousands of years Jews, Muslims and Christians have been saying, "There was NOTHING, not even space and time, and then God Spoke, and suddenly space, time, and everything else sprang into existence." Duh!

Let me throw you a curve and see if you (or anyone else) can appreciate this: Why should God have been limited to any one locality in a 3-dimensional space in his creation? Is the big bang really so plausible, or are you just buckling to a popular theory? What is the number up to now--how many dimensions is our universe conjectured to have? The Bible suggests more than 4 dimensions (I'm not sure how many, just off-hand). Jesus came into a room where all of the windows and doors were shut, after his resurrection.

[Sergeant Thorne]

A gross mischaracterization in the first case, Bettina. The evidence for the God of the Bible is all around us, and in the most minute details, in more than just physical science, that's why the Bible says that people who don't give glory to God as God, but choose to believe something else, will be without excuse. (Romans 1:20)

One of the biggest evidences to me is the resistance to God and his word that I see all around me. You can claim it for this \"enlightened\" generation if you want (humanity \"outgrowing\" religion), but it's been constant in one form or another throughout history.

[Jeff250]

NONE of these explanations are easy to grasp. Each of them requires that we think of time in a way that our brains is not configured to handle. All of them require a leap of faith.

Indeed. The idea of backwards eternity is a difficult concept to come to terms with. It's not clear that multiverses are any better than God in solving this problem, nor is it clear that just saying the "God" word solves the problem either!

Jesus came into a room where all of the windows and doors were shut, after his resurrection.

My understanding of this event is that it was a miracle, thus defying natural law. So to try to read natural law from this event that we already know defied natural law seems misguided!

[Kilarin]

Why should God have been limited to any one locality in a 3-dimensional space in his creation?

If you're referring to the Big Bang, it wasn't located in space. There was no such thing as space or time before the big bang. Space and time came into existence at that moment. Actually, it is more accurate to say the Big Bang was an explosion OF space than IN Space.

Really, the Big Bang theory says EXACTLY what the Bible says. There was nothing, no space, no time, no matter, NOTHING, and then suddenly a universe existed.

Which brings us to:

The theistic view is all about faith in a deity who made a decision to create. Since there is no physical proof to substantiate the claim and nothing that can be tested for then the only thing theism has is an assumption.

There can be no physical proof for ANYTHING that happened "before" the Big Bang. Naturalism and Theism are equal in that regard. Naturalism says the Big Bang happened without a Cause, Theism says the Big Bang HAD a cause.

Science studies the cosmos that came into existence with the Big Bang. Asking Science to tell us what happened "before" the big bang is impossible, because there was no "before", in EITHER theory. Time begins with the Big Bang.

The origin of the cosmos is, by its very nature, a philosophical question, and it takes at least as much faith to believe that the Big Bang was causeless as it does to believe it was caused. Instead of saying that the Theist just moves the mystery one step back from the Big Bang to God, you might as well say that the Naturalist just moves the mystery one step forward, from God to the Big Bang. Either way there is a mystery that completely boggles the Human Mind.

The idea of backwards eternity is a difficult concept to come to terms with. It's not clear that multiverses are any better than God in solving this problem, nor is it clear that just saying the "God" word solves the problem either!

Ah, almost missed your post since I was working on mine at the time. Yes, I agree completely. Origins take faith no matter which path you choose to believe. Thinking about it is fun, but it melts neurons.

[Foil]

The naturalist simply has faith that the next particle collision will add yet another piece to the larger framework which has been built from other testable experiments. We have done that and continue to do it. We test and retest and sometimes we abandon old theorys for newer and more correct versions but were learning more each day.

We should probably clarify the terminology here.

You're describing "methodological naturalism", where one only trusts what is scientifically observable. I'd call that healthy skepticism.

What Kilarin and I have been referring to is the more philosophical or metaphysical naturalism, where one asserts that there is nothing beyond what we can observe; if we can't see/taste/feel/hear it, it can't exist.

It's the latter I have a problem with.

[Kilarin]

We should probably clarify the terminology here

good and very important point. thanks!

[Foil]

Why should God have been limited to any one locality in a 3-dimensional space in his creation?

If your referring to the Big Bang, it wasn't located in space. There was no such thing as space or time before the big bang. Space and time came into existence at that moment. Actually, it is more accurate to say the Big Bang was an explosion OF space than IN Space.

Exactly! We usually picture some kind of vast empty space, and the explosion taking place somewhere within it. However, the mathematics of the model actually show that the space itself is exploding/expanding along with the energy!

[Nightshade]

Believe NOTHING Foil says, Betina...being the religious nut that he is, he'll have you in a burqua in no time flat!

[Foil]

Believe NOTHING Foil says, Betina...being the religious nut that he is, he'll have you in a burqua in no time flat!

??! TB, I can't tell if you're serious, but that was uncalled-for (and completely untrue; in fact, if you knew me, you'd know that I've been outspoken about my feminist views). A burqua... seriously?

----

And besides that, I was talking about physics just now... nothing religious, just cosmological stuff. You know, like the Hubble expansion constant and Einstein's general relativity.

[Kilarin]

he'll have you in a burqua in no time flat!

I'm flying down a long dark tunnel in my souped up pyro. I've got a mega loaded, a hoard of homers, and plasma on the primaries. I am loaded for bear and looking for a nice fat target!

I hit the turbo for a burst of speed and as I round the corner catch the flash of an afterburner ahead of me. RIGHT in my sights! With a grin I let my thumb trigger my mega. Fwoom!, I love the way those things release. It's only a few ship lengths to my targets tailpipe, so I just sit back and relax, waiting for that LOVELY explosion and a drifting shield orb.

But no! My opponent jinks up at JUST the right moment, the mega passes right under them and explodes harmlessly further down the hall. Yikes! In the time it takes me to realize I missed, the enemy ship has done a 360 and is coming right at me! I push every button on my joystick, homers streak through the tunnel and plasma orbs fill the empty spaces between them. But NOTHING hits, the enemy ship dances like a ballerina, twirling and spinning through all of my shots, avoiding each and every one, and ALWAYS moving closer, until it is directly opposite of me.

Our ships are upside down to each other and for one frozen moment in time we are looking directly into each others cockpits. I was expecting a helmet and a breath mask, but no! The enemy pilot is completely swathed in dark fabric, nothing shows but her eyes. Those eyes lock onto mine, and I see death there. Death, and a slight twist at the corners that hints of a terrible grin hiding beneath the thick fabric.

She's only there for a fraction of a second, but the moment seemes to stretch out for eternity, and then shes gone, past me and on down the tunnel. I'm still alive. How, why? I don't know. She never fired a shot. I drift for a moment and try to catch my breath, to recover from the fear of those eyes.

Something small drifts right in front of my nose, I have just enough time to whimper, "Mortar!", and then world is all bright light and the force of concussion. I watch helplessly as SHE afterburns through my debris and collects my shield orb.

Bettina in a Burka. Thanks Thunderbunny. THAT should fuel my nightmares for several weeks...

[MD-1118]

some pretty scary sh!t about Bee

... and I thought I had an overactive imagination...

[Duper]

Believe NOTHING Foil says, Betina...being the religious nut that he is, he'll have you in a burqua in no time flat!

Go outside and breath some air dude. You've been reading too many BS websites.

Kidding or not; that was uncalled for.

[Nightshade]

I thought Foil knew by now how I really am.

As easygoing as Foil is in person, I woulda' pegged him for an athiest.

[Sergeant Thorne]

My understanding of this event is that it was a miracle, thus defying natural law. So to try to read natural law from this event that we already know defied natural law seems misguided!

Your statement seems to betray a sort of fairy-tale notion of miracles (Catholic in origin, I wonder?). If I were trying to read natural law from it I would say that any one of us could do it if we could just figure out how. What I read is that Jesus came into a room without making use of any of our 3 (4?) dimensions. I believe that the power of God is just as real as anything else, not some magic that doesn't allow for explanation. It seems like a perfectly reasonable explanation.

Why should God have been limited to any one locality in a 3-dimensional space in his creation?

If you're referring to the Big Bang, it wasn't located in space. There was no such thing as space or time before the big bang. Space and time came into existence at that moment. Actually, it is more accurate to say the Big Bang was an explosion OF space than IN Space.

My mistake.

Really, the Big Bang theory says EXACTLY what the Bible says. There was nothing, no space, no time, no matter, NOTHING, and then suddenly a universe existed.

The Genesis account seems pretty clear that the celestial bodies were created on the 4th day. That would seem to be very much in contradiction to the big bang theory.

[woodchip]

As with primitive man, Corn Gods and Fertility Gods were ascribe to for a lack of understanding on how things work. We do so yet today.

[Foil]

I thought Foil knew by now how I really am.

If it was intended as a joke, I'm sorry; I just can't tell anymore, man.

As easygoing as Foil is in person, I woulda' pegged him for an athiest.

I am generally easygoing, but I wouldn't have thought you would say so. You're one of only a few people besides my family who has seen me red-hot-angry in person.

--------------

Anyway, can we get back on topic?

[snoopy]

I'd consider the big bang, the development of the earth, and formation of life, etc. to all be a matter of mechanics. I think science is along the right lines on this, and those that disagree based on their interpretation of the Bible need to recognize the overall message of Genesis.

The big bang and the gradual formation of the species both sound like good and plausible explanations for the mechanics of how things worked. I'm not going to hang my hat on them, because I'm sure the scientific theories involved will get further refined, or possibly drastically changed, with time.

Where science ends (which I'd like to think I'm quite neutral about) and philosophy begins, is in the question of causation.

I attribute the cause to God, and I'd say that the Bible's point in describing creation isn't how it happened (I don't think it matters how long at actually took, or if God literally spoke, or whatever else you might infer in terms of mechanics from the text) - what matters is that it happened because God willed it, and caused it.

I take the same view on the origin of the species. It could very well be that the mechanics of the species coming about is exactly as postulated by Darwin, but who's to say that all of those small changes were not directed & caused by God?

It comes down to the assumptions that you start with. Science has started (rightfully so) with the assumption that the only movers & causers are things that can be physically detected, and things that obey the laws of nature. Thus, when you ask science to answer questions like \"how did the universe begin\" it comes up with an answer the involves only physical mover and causers. Thus, it can go as far back as the big bang, and then it can't go further, by definition, because it literally doesn't have anything to work with.

[Sergeant Thorne]

It could very well be that the mechanics of the species coming about is exactly as postulated by Darwin.

No it couldn't, actually. I'll give you two big reasons:

1) Irreducible Complexity--

If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down.

2) Genesis says that God created all living things "according to their kind".

Maybe you need to quit looking at the "overall" and get into some specifics if you're going to deal with the subject.

[Foil]

Thorne, you're making two huge assumptions I don't believe are valid:

1) Irreducible Complexity--

You're assuming there is a species has been proven to have irreducible complexity. While there are a number of cases of unexplained complexity (and these are certainly worth discussing), I have yet to see a proof which precludes any possible explanation.

If you have a rigorous proof using more than the usual anecdotal "scientists don't have an explanation for the development of X, so it must be irreducibly complex", I'd be interested in seeing it.

2) Genesis says that God created all living things "according to their kind".

Here you're making the assumption that the mechanics of creating distinct "kinds" could not have been a developmental process.

Whether God created cats and dogs through the same process, or popped them both into existence completely separately... both of those can be described as creation "according to their kind".

[TIGERassault]

Here's an interesting theory I read: to summarise, apparently, an idea was put forward that gravity acts as the counterbalance to energy, a negative energy if you will. And because of the way quantum mechanics can work, where something can be effected without a cause (and backed by examples), it's possible that that the Very Beginning was caused by nothingness itself splitting, apparently on a large scale (IIRC, it's also theorised that this is supposed to happen with very small packets and such, but chaos theory dictates that as time goes to infinity, the odds of such things happening nearly simultaneously very very close to each other goes to 100%, so it's very plausable.)
One line from it that I did find particularly interesting was where it says "Even in supposedly empty space, virtual particles are continuously appearing and disappearing". Because if that's true, then this theory is very likely indeed.


Oh, and for following up on my first post: I was talking more about the whole universe, not the known universe, when I said there's likely to be multiple big bangs. Because I think the odds of just one single one happening alone, ever, is too small.

If you're referring to the Big Bang, it wasn't located in space. There was no such thing as space or time before the big bang. Space and time came into existence at that moment. Actually, it is more accurate to say the Big Bang was an explosion OF space than IN Space.

Most scientists will say that the Big Bang was the cause of the universe as we know it, and know nothing of before it. The part about space or time also being created is not one of the general beliefs about it.


Also, I agree with what some of the other guys said. Just because sceince as we know it can't prove it doesn't mean that it was made by a god.

[Jeff250]

It seems like a perfectly reasonable explanation.

But not necessarily a probable one. If God could have done it any of an infinite different ways, what can we say about the probability that he did it your one way? I don't see how you can gather so much information about the natural universe from an event that, at one point or another, defied the natural universe.

You're assuming there is a species has been proven to have irreducible complexity.

The other assumption is that irreducibly complex organs could not have evolved through numerous, successive, slight modifications. We can understand how this can happen in general. Wikipedia uses the example of a stone arch--the arch is irreducibly complex, since if we remove one stone, the arch falls apart. Yet we built the arch one stone at a time. However, that is because we built the arch using scaffolding, which is removed when we are finished building the arch.

[Foil]

Here's an interesting theory I read: ...

There are some pretty exotic theories out there, Tiger, but be careful... some of the ones you mentioned are more speculation than real science.

The part about space or time also being created is not one of the general beliefs about it.

Not quite. The structure of spacetime exploding/expanding with the energy of the early universe (rather than out into an empty spacetime) is widely-held and pretty much follows from the mathematics of the current model.

[Foil]

Wikipedia uses the example of a stone arch--the arch is irreducibly complex, since if we remove one stone, the arch falls apart. Yet we built the arch one stone at a time. However, that is because we built the arch using scaffolding, which is removed when we are finished building the arch.

Interesting, I hadn't heard that one before. I'm not sure I buy it, though; the possibility of scaffolding means it's reducible in my book.

[Top Gun]

In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.

There is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened.

That about sums it up.

[Palzon]

Wikipedia uses the example of a stone arch--the arch is irreducibly complex, since if we remove one stone, the arch falls apart. Yet we built the arch one stone at a time. However, that is because we built the arch using scaffolding, which is removed when we are finished building the arch.

Interesting, I hadn't heard that one before. I'm not sure I buy it, though; the possibility of scaffolding means it's reducible in my book.

Actually, Jeff's point is that the scaffolding is an analogy used to prove that it IS reducible. The example Wiki quotes is from Dawkins.