Beliefs About What Caused the Universe (page 16)

jookbeard

welcome Giles, your interaction is deeply appreciated

GG I see now: "--17 times God says that he manipulated space and time to “stretch” out the heavens.--" I did not realize that Perry considered the expansion of space into time** a "manipulation" of creation. Of course, by nature, space has expanded, at times perhaps inflationary, from the singularity to its "present" size. That is why the first light is now the Cosmic Background radiation, redshifted to only a few degrees above 0 degrees Kelvin, a very cold, long wavelength, but still arriving at the 300 000 km/sec clip. If Perry really believes the ~ 14 billion were stretched out of the biblical 6000 years original creative days, he would have still some serious learning to do. Even the wt writers now ascribe the term "eons" to the time between creative milestones.

** I do not think time would have been stretched too, surely the duration of a second was not shorter in the past? or?

prologos

Science has often diminished the perspective of our central position in the cosmos, from Ptolemy to Copernicus to our own Galaxy universe ( 1920s) to now. --just one of billions of other galaxies, Our comparative size, importance has steadily shrunk, so, with the cause of the present universe as a prime target of researchers, the answer might shrink our status further, yet we are the ones asking the questions, have these beliefs. these hypotheses.

Island Man

"Why is there something rather than nothing?"

Maybe it is physically impossible for nothing to exist - for there to ever be absolutely nothing. Maybe existence is the fundamental pillar of reality itself.

JW_Rogue

So let me see if I can get the reasoning straight:

Everything that has a beginning has a cause.

The universe had a beginning.

The universe must have had a cause.

The unknown cause must be God.

The God must be a personal God.

The God must be the one described in Christianity.

The God must have inspired 66 books which are now called the Bible.

It all makes logical sense if you start with what you want to believe and work backwards. Just like JWs do with their doctrines.

JW_Rogue

Maybe it is physically impossible for nothing to exist - for there to ever be absolutely nothing. Maybe existence is the fundamental pillar of reality itself.

Interesting idea, then that would mean that matter or energy has always been around in some form perhaps undergoing cycles of expansion and retraction. Universes dying and being reborn. All speculation of course but still more interesting than having all "the answers" in a little book.

Simon

The reasoning that everything must have a beginning and that for large powerful things that must be god means that god must have a god too. He lives in an even mega-universe that had a beginning created by mega-god.

Of course mega-god and his mega-universe also must have had a beginning too. Ladies and gentlemen, bow down to mega-mega-god!

It's really just a new form of "turtles all the way down" and just as dumb.

Heaven

NASA has so far discovered 12 other planets besides Earth in the habitable zone of stars within the Universe. They say there are many more and I'd agree based on the numbers of estimated stars, solar systems, and galaxies out there. This means that, so far as we know, at least 12 other planets besides ours quite possibly contain life.

How many of these planets actually have Christians on them? I'd wager none, zero, nada, bupkis.

Doubtfully Yours

Hey, while finding out how our universe began, can someone also report on where's Jimmy Hoffa?!

DY

Anders Andersen

This one is for you, Perry

Today I was reminded of a comment I wrote someplace else, responding to someone coming up with the 'a house in the desert must have been designed and built'-analogy:

About that building in the desert...
No doubt you would be confident, without a shadow of a doubt that someone constructed that house, and put the food there.

Who would you think built it?
Camels? Martians? Humans?
Probably you would say the latter.
Why?
Because you know camels can't do that, you have no evidence martians exist, and every similar building you have ever seen was built by humans.

Not so with God as the creator of the universe.
Like with martians, you have no evidence he exists.
And since you have not seen any other universes being created by God, you don't know whether universes are normally created by Gods.
So looking at the universe, you have no reason to assume it was created, and you don't know who did it if it was.

But let's just assume God exists anyway.

If you and I were in that desert and we found that building, we might quickly agree on it's builders being humans.

Evening falls, you are playing some guitar, and I am writing a letter.
When I'm finished, I hand it to you.
The letter states this:
This building we just found, it's awesome. You can see the intelligence of it builders.
There were 15 of them: 9 men and 7 women.
Their leader is called Erwin, he is 162 years old, lives in London, loves garlic and salmon. He hates flowers and cucumbers. Since we should be so grateful to him for building us this awesome shelter, we should thank him by having garlic each breakfast, and destroying all flowers we can find!

Would you believe my claims?
There are contradictions and unlikely claims in the letter.
Also, like you I just got there, wondering about the building. I don't know anything more than you.
The claims are not supported by any evidence.
I think you would not accept my claims.

Well, accepting that the universe has one or more creators is already not supported by evidence.
But claiming all kinds of knowledge about this unseen creator is just foolish.

And yes, in this illustration my letter is any document claiming knowledge about god (Bible, Koran, Book of Mormon, Gilgamesh epos, Ayyur Veda, etc.etc.)
These books all contain claims not supported by any evidence.
Their writers were humans who just got here, wondering about the universe. They didn't know anything more than anyone else.

Since you are dismissing all Holy Books but one, apply the logic you use for dismissing most of them to your own Holy Book.
If you're honest, you'll be surprised what happens.

Beliefs About What Caused the Universe

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