Board index ‹ Creation and Evolution

[Pea Brain]

If God can exist without being created, then the universe can too.

Simple idea to religious people. You already accept that God exists even though he is uncreated. So why don’t you believe that the universe can exist without being created? You are accepting principally that something can be there without being created, so why add God?

[jimwalton]

The issue is not whether God or the universe can exist without being created, but whether it does. What matters here is not totally possibility, but rather reality. Current scientific thought is that the universe had a beginning and necessarily so. Olbers's Paradox shows that either the universe is not infinite in size or it's not infinite in time. Multiple lines of evidence point to the conclusion that our universe is roughly 14 billion years old and that it had a beginning. The Big Bang model of cosmology shows that all matter-energy in the universe, space, and time initially began in one point (having zero spatial and zero temporal extension). The real question is not whether the universe could possibly exist if it were uncreated (that's a philosophy of science question, not science at all), but whether it is uncreated. If science and math show us that it is not, your question is moot.

[Small Bell]

> Current scientific thought is that the universe had a beginning and necessarily so.

This is not true. The current scientific stance on whether the local spacetime/local universe had a beginning is - we don't know. There are hypotheses on both sides.

> Olbers's Paradox shows that either the universe is not infinite in size or it's not infinite in time. Multiple lines of evidence point to the conclusion that our universe is roughly 14 billion years old and that it had a beginning.

Not infinite in time is not the same as having a beginning.

[Angst Street]

> Olbers's Paradox shows that either the universe is not infinite in size or it's not infinite in time.

Olbers' Paradox is about how the light of infinite stars across infinite time would cause the sky to be filled with light. In particular, the paradox is about stars, not about the universe. Surely Olbers' paradox is resolved by the Big Bang simply because stars and starlight started after the Big Bang. The paradox does not show that the universe also started at the Big Bang; it is beyond the limits of current science for us to know what may or may not have come before the Big Bang.

[Gordon Lightfoot]

This is an excellent case of limiting scope of your argument specifically to damage the opponent without applying the same rules to yourself.

Just because science doesn't know what caused or comprised the big bang, it doesn't mean they speculate that nothing existed before it, merely that time and space as it currently is did not appear to exist.

If your answer to that cause is god, that's fine, but it's no better an answer than "the universe existing as another unspecified state".

[jimwalton]

What science theorizes is that before the Big Bang there was no space, no time, and no matter. That's a speculation that nothing existed.

> If your answer to that cause is god, that's fine, but it's no better an answer than "the universe existing as another unspecified state".

I have not answered the question of causal mechanism, but rather only said that if the universe had a beginning, the question about the universe potentially not needing a cause is moot.

[Choo Choo Train]

> Current scientific thought is that the universe had a beginning and necessarily so.

There's no scientific consensus on the point.

> Olbers's Paradox shows that either the universe is not infinite in size

The consensus is the observable universe is not infinite in size.

> or it's not infinite in time.

The consensus is the observable universe is not infinite in time, with the caveat that affect or even the existence of time becomes uncertain in current models at the extremes of past history.

> Multiple lines of evidence point to the conclusion that our universe is roughly 14 billion years

Multiple lines of evidence point to the conclusion that our universe has been expanding for roughly 14 billion years.

> and that it had a beginning.

The current models based on current evidence fail as a point that would be considered "a beginning" is approached, so there is no compelling evidence as to whether or not there was a beginning to our observable universe.

> The Big Bang model of cosmology shows that all matter-energy in the universe, space, and time initially began in one point (having zero spatial and zero temporal extension).

Zero spatial and zero temporal extension is a prediction of general relativity (GR) which virtually all physicists agree fails at the quantum level which would have been the state of the universe at the time GR predicts the universe as a zero dimensional point with infinite mass and temperature. GR is almost certainly wrong under those conditions.

> The real question is not whether the universe could possibly exist if it were uncreated (that's a philosophy of science question, not science at all)

You have to answer that question before you can answer the next question...

> but whether it is uncreated.

Indeed. And science has yet to resolve this question.

> If science and math show us that it is not, your question is moot.

Science findings can always be challenged, so no question is ever completely moot. But, the evidence can be so overwhelming as to render the implied consequence of a question so implausible that it may not be justifiable to spend much effort trying to prove the question's inference is correct.

That's not the situation here, however.

[Dude]

> Current scientific thought is that the universe had a beginning and necessarily so

Not really, no.

> Olbers's Paradox shows that either the universe is not infinite in size or it's not infinite in time.

Olber's paradox applies to an eternal, static universe. It does not apply to the universe we know we inhabit.

> The Big Bang model of cosmology shows that all matter-energy in the universe, space, and time initially began in one point (having zero spatial and zero temporal extension).

Incorrect.

[Gordon Lightfoot]

To say your understanding of the big bang theory is flawed may be a bit generous. Firstly, science most certainly does not state that there was nothing before the big bang, they definitely claim there was something, and that something was an infinitely dense point of matter. Space and time, as they currently exist anyhow, are the things postulated not to have existed.

Something happened that caused the infinitely dense matter to expand. Nowhere have I seen anyone claim that nothing existed before the BB.

[Guest]

You all may think this is crazy, but what if God created an empty space to "contain" the universe, then just created hydrogen and the laws of physics (specifically, gravity) and sat back to watch? In time, the hydrogen forms stars which live and die, thereby creating all the elements we have, as well as huge clusters of stars (galaxies) and stars with habitable planets, eventually leading to life, evolution and self-aware life all throughout the universe. Since all of that life was ultimately created by God, that life is all imperfect (sinners). I believe that God sent His Son, Jesus Christ to ALL of those lifeforms, all throughout the universe. And, it would make sense that Jesus Christ appeared to those various life forms "in their image" as He did for us. Why not? God can do anything He wants, so why not save all of His creations? I don't for one second believe that we humans are all there is. Does the Bible explicitly state that we are all there is? I haven't found it yet.