Another ‘settled science’ topic is not so settled after all – Big Bang theory questioned

Another ‘settled science’ topic is not so settled after all – Big Bang theory questioned. Yet another shock to the settled science community. We’ll blame it on Bush.

CO2Insanity: Tired of the CO2 BS and all the other BS in the US and the world.

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  • Questions:

    What is the mathematical probability that a (for a lack of a better word) perfect universe could exist out of a RANDOM event? Too many things ended up too perfectly to come from a truly random event in my opinion. That is to say no intelligent planning was involved of any kind led to a perfect universe? What is the mathematical probability of that happening?

    If there is a G-d and HE HAS NO LIMITS in powers and abilities nor wisdom and intelligence, why couldn't He create a new universe, at whatever point in HIS timeline that better suited His wants, that is ancient? Knowing that an ancient universe will be primed and ready to include all that is needed for life and perfection. Why would that be hard to understand?

    Why is randomness and chaos easier to understand than intelligent planning and order?

    If there is no beginning or at "least" an INTELLIGENT ALL-POWERFUL FORCE is not in play, then how is it possible that anything at all happened at any point or for any reason? How does that make ANY sense?

  • The origins of the universe were never settled for THIS Atheist. I've yet to see proof of anything, one way or another. In the absence of factual evidence, I can only have an opinion, not knowledge. And my opinion is that I don't know, and I never will. I'm ok with that.

    • I'm not altogether in disagreement with you.
      Although I believe in a higher power, and have yet to see any proof from the scientific community either for or against that, I am still open to suggestion, pending actual evidence. My main problem is that science has put out so many theories that they themselves have blown full of holes, that I can't trust anything they say.

      • I have a belief system. It's rather simple. I believe I don't know. People who claim to KNOW, one way or another, need to study up on the difference between BELIEF and KNOWLEDGE. I don't begrudge anyone their belief, though.

        Edit: With one exception. If they believe they need to kill me because I don't believe as they do, then I believe in a pre-emptive strike. But no, I won't be going off in a parking lot any time soon.

        • People like myself can claim personal experiences that increases KNOWLEDGE AND BELIEF. The issues is that they are PERSONAL and even if I share it, I cannot provide proof, because they are personal and happened just to me. Unless you believe me to be insane and I didn't have the experiences or that I am a liar and made them up, those experiences helped me to KNOW that there is a G-d. I don't know why He does not do the same with all other people especially people who are agnostic/atheist , but it is what it is. So yes I can say that I KNOW and BELIEF that G-d exists, but certainly I do recognize that I cannot introduce you into my personal experiences and therefore you cannot know what I know and you will chalk it up to belief only.

        • Wait until a woman with hairy armpits driving a Toyota Prius Plug-in zips into the grocery store parking spot you were headed into. Then we will see how even-tempered you are.

  • I'm going to go with relativity as opposed to quantum physics on this one. And I will go back to some basic logic from the middle ages to support my viewpoint:

    You cannot have a universe without a beginning because if there were an infinite number of days in the past, it would be mathematically impossible for the universe to have reached the present. So the universe has a beginning... and when you ponder that beginning you have to face the fact that space-time could not create itself so the Creator has to be something outside, or other than, anything having to do with space-time: God.

    • To build onto this idea:

      It is logically impossible to reconcile the "no beginning" with the idea of entropy and / or thermodynamics

      Given:
      The universe is proceeding from order to disorder over a period of time, T

      The universe has existed for "time without end"

      Therefore:

      The universe has already experienced all possible quantities of time, to include T (and 2x T, and 10x T, and so on)

      The universe should have already terminated in disorder an immeasurable amount of time ago

      You could go with the idea of a cyclic universe, but you're going to have a devil of a time explaining what drives the cycle. Things in a state of change seek an equilibrium, that's a pretty fundamental concept (which I feel some people forget about).

      • "Cyclic universe" - oh man, am I sorry I read this post! Is that ever a can of worms! Suffice it to say, it boils down to the same Q, which you posed: what drives the cycle. And I might add a variant of same, what set it off in the first place. In either case, the answer my friend, lies outside of the laws of the physical universe.

        • I agree. I thought I made it clear in the last sentence of my response that a cyclic universe is not possible.

          • "You could go with the idea of a cyclic universe, but you’re going to have a devil of a time explaining what drives the cycle. Things in a state of change seek an equilibrium, that’s a pretty fundamental concept (which I feel some people forget about)."

            Is that "clearly" stating it's impossible?

            Meh. But be that as it may ...

            I read that as you saying it's unlikely. And maybe it's just because I don't dismiss that possibility. There are a gazillion cycles that seem to be going nowhere in particular, such as the up and down (relative terms, I know), oscillation of the solar system relative to the "plane of rotation" of the galaxy.

            Series of little cycles can comprise a larger cycle, which itself is part of a series of such larger cycles that repeat, and so on, with each larger cycle taking a progressively longer time. IMO it's possible that there is a series of big bangs, expansions, contractions, collapses, big bangs, etc. That does not mean that it goes on indefinitely. It may still be progressing toward an equilibrium, just doing it on a scale of hundreds of billions of years, or trillions.

    • Okay this might get interesting.

      I'm not a particularly religious person. Actually, at most an agnostic. And I tend to agree with you.

      There was a real flaw in the big bang theory. It basically relates to the laws of conservation of mass and energy. It's these laws that dictate that everything that is observed in the universe is an effect of some other cause in this universe. In other words, energy can not be created out of nothing.

      So the nagging Q that would not go away was always "what caused the big bang?"

      sotto voce: My first thought, especially since the linked article does not go into much detail, is that this eternity/no beginning theory comes up due mainly to the lack of an answer to the above Q

      If any physical universe force caused the big bang, wouldn't that necessarily mean that the big bang itself was not the beginning of the universe? And no, you guys (meaning the scientists, not this blog), can't get away with "it just happened, that's all" (which, BTW, has been attempted by some very smart people).

      So if it is not possible that a physical universe "cause" caused the big bang, and if it is not possible that the universe existed for an infinite amount in the past (because whatever factors/elements got us here through this infinite amount of time, must necessarily not contain time, OR, the existence of the universe itself, in whatever form, was outside of or without time*), then for either to be the case, we have to look at factors, events, or causes that are not subject to the laws of said physical universe, or put another way, are not of this physical universe.

      *in such a case, then instead of all the matter and energy being created with a big bang, everything existed, but time itself had to be created. Maybe that happened with a big bang?

      Take it from there as you wish.

      • I just wanna say, helluva post. And you even incorporated an asterisk with a footer note! That's gotta be an IHTM first.

        I suppose the outright atheist would say that whatever caused/created the universe from outside space-time, it doesn't have to be God. Never underestimate the power of denial--you should see the stack of unpaid bills I used to walk past on my way to the golf course.

        The fascinating aspect of this discussion is something your hear from scientists all the time about how scientific knowledge affects their faith, usually phrased something like this: the more you know, the more you believe in God. Here we are, using a quantum physics versus relativity article to start a discussion about the existence of God. How cool is that?

        • Question: Did they explain to you WHY doesn't it have to be necessarily G-d? Because that just sounds crazy to me...

          • First, let me say that just as nothing can exist in the physical universe without a prime cause/mover, this conversation could not continue to exist without you, KQ.

            When discussing religion and politics in casual situations, I am very careful to keep things light, not insult, and allow for an amicable end, sooner rather than later. If I feel it may go ugly, I'll "let" them come to the realization that they really don't know. In other words, bring them closer yo, if not fully to assuming the viewpoint of an agnostic.

            Basically IMO, these are people who are not able to think things through too deeply, can't wrap their minds around, or can't imagine, extremely different concepts, so the easy answer is to reject.

          • Interesting.

            I can spend a good chunk of idle time asking myself questions that are in many cases unanswerable yet at the same time allowing for the immensity of a greater Person/Ultimate Deity. Saying that absolutely there is no greater Person/Ultimate Deity, to me, seems irresponsible. Someone saying they simply don't know is acceptable, but outright rejection is not intelligent IMO.

          • As I've posted to JP above, the problem with most people with whom you would have disagreement on this subject is that their viewpoints are not intellectual in the least. They are going off on a stimulus-response mechanism by which they convince themselves that they are right by trying to make you wrong. In many cases, that takes the form of just plain insults. There's no more point in trying to talk to a person like that than trying to get a robot to do something is not programmed to do.

            The irony of it is that while all I hear from them or from the intellectual academia is how Christianity is bad because it is forcing its morality down everyone else's throat, in my life, I've gotten precious little "pressure" from Christians (my wife is a born-again Christian), while the fundamentalist atheists have made their religion the law of the land.

        • I'm okay with naming that prime cause "God". Regardless of what word you write or what set of sounds emanate from the vocal chords, I don't see how one can deny that there was a prime cause. It would be ... unscientific.

          One could even argue to a materialist or fundamentalist atheist (that's an atheist who isn't satisfied believing what he believes - he's feels compelled to also either a) convince you that YOU are wrong, or b) simply insult you), that "big bang" was just another word for God.

          It's actually quite entertaining to razz those guys with agreeing on the big bang, and then asking what caused it. Ultimately half will insist that we don't know, yet, and the other half will say "it just happened". In the latter case, you simply say to them "oh, so you DO actually believe in God", and watch the mental fuses smoke.

          Where I separate, and I will keep this short, is in the anthropomorphizing of God. There's lots of reasons why, most of which involve placing God at effect point, which is an impossible concept for either a supreme being or a prime cause.

          as for how cool is this?

          Cool enough to copy to a word doc and save!

          • My favorite exchange between atheist and believer came in the now-famous debate between Dawkins and the Archbishop of Canterbury a couple years ago, in which Dawkins, often labelled the most famous atheist in the world, admitted that he was an agnostic because there is a possibility that God exists - totally surprising the moderator by the way - and then later said something few people realized the significance of: he said he thought the origin of life could be explained by an advanced alien culture seeding Planet Earth with genetically engineered organisms. (I don't remember his exact words.) The Archbishop is a believer in Evolution so he didn't jump on this statement like he should have, because what Dawkins was proposing was none other than Intelligent Design, the theory he claims to despise.

            So it turns out the most famous atheist in the world is neither an atheist nor a reliable defender of Darwinism.

          • So... who created the advance Alien Culture and who gave them the mandate and why haven't they checked in? and why wouldn't this Alien Culture be the Heavenly Culture where G-d is the PRIME force?

            Another question: If this is a true advanced alien culture why would they care to create and if they were given a mandate then the Person that gave them the mandate must be far more advanced and they must be terrified of this Person and hence my question who is this Person?

          • I like that.

            Dawkins' theory re: the aliens, applies to life on earth, but is clearly (even to the scientifically untrained), deficient in explaining the origins of life itself (Where did the alien life come from?)

          • For you Darwinism is so obvious it's no great achievement to have thought of it. You say. But I wonder if you don't feel that way because we have all been subjected to a centuries-long propaganda effort on the part of atheistic academics. We are all raised in educations systems that promote Darwinism and laugh at anyone who questions it. The academics viciously protect their paradigm, to the point of absurdity, as a counter-point to God. Forget about the Cambrian Explosion which Darwinists have twisted themselves into pretzels trying to explain, what about the new discoveries about epigenetics? Epigenetics was discovered through clinical observation and experimentation so it's untouchable, but everyone is walking around refusing to look the elephant in the room in the eye: the existence of epigenetics means the end of survival of the fittest, which is the cornerstone of Darwinism. If we can develop a survival trait and pass it on to our offspring, and if we have traits which are passed by other means than by our chromosomes, then WTF is left of Darwinian evolution? It's a dead theory and we're starting from scratch. We're not seeing survival of the fittest, we're seeing survival of the lucky and once they survive they look up, thank God, and get to work developing survival traits they can pass to their offspring. Fat people didn't survive the Ice Age because they were fat. The people who survived got fat because fat keeps you warm which makes surviving the Ice Age easier. It's a huge difference.

            Only the atheists are left defending their dead theory, stubbornly sticking their heads in the sand and pretending they don't hear the bell toll.

          • Exactly. But it's not the inanity of pushing back the origin question to some earlier time on some other planet that delighted me. The funny part is that he stumbled into using an Intelligent Design argument. Yes, Mr. Dawkins, it does seem like much of the genetic code is engineered - THAT'S WHAT WE'VE BEEN TRYING TO TELL YOU.

          • Unfortunately, using the term "intelligent design" is immediately taken as "code word" for God. In some cases, it probably is. But I don't take that as a given. I think that accepting the concept of intelligent design while not accepting (avoidance of the word "rejection" is intentional), an anthropomorphic, "omniscient" God can easily coexist. But one does have to significantly widen, without preset limits, the definition of "intelligent".

            This conversation is difficult on a message board. We need a nice bistro, preferably in that little piece of Heaven known as San Luis Obispo, several bottles of wine, and we can really hash this issue out.

          • "In some cases, it probably is."

            Yes, no doubt. But I don't know why that is used as a hammer to pound on the credibility of IDers. When the people making objections to Darwinism mentioned God they were accused of not being scientific, so they stepped back, said, "Okay, we see your point, using faith in a science context is problematic," and then re-formulated their objections to Darwinism using nothing but objective data, math, and the language of science. NOW the Darwinists attack them for THAT! Because they DON'T mention they believe in God! MAKE UP YOUR MIND, PEOPLE! Either you want them to mention God or you don't -- you can't criticize them both ways.

            And having read many of the papers which question Darwinism, I've found that while many of these people are openly believers in God, many others are not -- they really are IDers because of the scientific evidence (or lack thereof). Not that the regular academic set will ever trust them to be telling the truth.

          • Okay - getting into Darwinism is really going off into another strata of theories. As a theory of evolution, Darwin gives us something to consider. Yes, there is evolutionary "tweaking" going on.

            As a theory of origin of species, Darwin's theories are full of more holes than not even Swiss cheese - more than Jarlsberg. In the history of science, no theory has survived this long as a supposedly scientific theory. They are either confirmed and become scientific law or fact, or they are discarded. In Darwin's case, the theory is still surviving because it has become a religion. For over 150 years, it still survives without scientific confirmation. How is that possible? Because of faith.

            In the case of most so-called atheists, they are not atheists in the sense of anything resembling principles. Principles require thought, analysis, conclusions, more observations, and further thought and application. Most atheists are not really atheists as much as they are "make-wrongers" and insulters.

            I'm no professional in the field of the mind, but I do observe, remember, and analyze. What I have observed is that many people have this weird impulse of trying to make themselves right by making someone else wrong. That can take all sorts of methods, from swearing by Darwinism to talking about motherships. And in many cases for the less educated and less intelligent, it takes the form of insulting.

            As for the "make up your mind, people" comment, that goes back to the ongoing political debate - "the other side" does not have the least bit of a need for intellectual consistency. We call them on hypocrisy all the time, and they look at us like we have two heads.

      • Genesis 1:14 Then God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night, and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years

        Through our solar system time as we know it was created for finite man. There are numerous verses in the Bible about eternity and forever in relation to God. It also teaches about God being a Spirit and being in another realm, or heaven. That with the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. There is so much to know and we have only been given a glimpse of His glory through creation.
        .
        1 Corinthians 13:12
        For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

      • Great now you are gonna piss off another atheist with a gun by confounding him with science that does not fit their narrative. Another Big Bang in the parking lot perhaps?

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