Deputy Dog (or is it Babalooie?), your reply is chock full of fallacious reasoning. I'll point out a number of examples.
:: So the origin of the Christian God is as mysterious as is the origin of the Big Bang.
: I didn't say: He was a mystery.
I never said you did. This is example (1) of your fallacious reasoning.
: I said: "God had no cause".
That you did. But you fail to realize that the claims that "God has no cause" and "God had no beginning" are exactly the same as the claims that the universe had no cause or had no beginning. This is example (2) of your fallacious reasoning.
: But if you're saying that the universe came from nothing, ...
I didn't say that. This is example (3) of your fallacious reasoning.
: As for the Big Bang
:: According to the physicists who are the keepers of this idea
: Can you name them, because the leading ones, like Stephen Hawking and Neil Turok would not agree with them.
You obviously have no idea what you're talking about. A simple web search turned up the following URL http://pupgg.princeton.edu/www/jh/news/STEINHARDT_TUROK_THEORY.HTML which contains the following statements about Neil Turok's ideas:
A new theory of the universe suggests that space and time may not have begun in a big bang, but may have always existed in an endless cycle of expansion and rebirth... The theory proposes that, in each cycle, the universe refills with hot, dense matter and radiation, which begins a period of expansion and cooling like the one of the standard big bang picture... The new theory provides possible answers to several longstanding problems with the big bang model, which has dominated the field of cosmology for decades. It addresses, for example, the nagging question of what might have triggered or come "before" the beginning of time.
A careful reading of the rest of the report shows that the only difference between Turok's new proposal and the standard model is that it specifically addresses the question of the origin of the Big Bang by claiming that it's part of an endless cycle of oscillations (which harks back in an important way to the old "Steady State" theory) that has no cause, whereas the standard theory explicitly refuses to deal with such issues. At the "moment" of the Big Bang there is no difference between the standard theory and Turok's new one.
What does Turok have to say about these origins questions and religion? The URL http://www.counterbalance.net/transcript/nt-frame.html contains several audio clips of Turok's take on "The Religious Significance of Beginnings Questions". Here's a transcript of one I think is significant:
Personally I don't believe that the beginning of the universe, with understanding the beginning of the universe, will have any significance as far as the question of whether or not a God exists. I think it's just another question in science, and if we can answer it, if we can have a complete mathematical theory of it, that will stand as a scientific theory, just in the same way as the theory of the electron, or any other piece of science stands.
This is example (4) of your fallacious reasoning.
I'll leave it to you to prove you claims about Hawking.
The above material raises the question of what modern physicists are teaching. The following material is from a lecture series at the University of Oregon for the course "Astronomy 123: Galaxies and the Expanding Universe" by Professor James Schombert. The course is designed for non-science majors, so most anyone with a high school education should be able to follow the material. The index page is: http://zebu.uoregon.edu/~js/ast123/index.html .
Lecture 17 concerns the Big Bang and the origins of the universe. I'll reproduce the material that I think is relevant to our discussion. The URL is: http://zebu.uoregon.edu/~js/ast123/lectures/lec17.html
Birth of the Universe:
Physics of the early Universe is at the boundary of astronomy and philosophy since we do not currently have a complete theory that unifies all the fundamental forces of Nature at the moment of Creation. In addition, there is no possibility of linking observation or experimentation of early Universe physics to our theories (i.e. its not possible to `build' another Universe). Our theories are rejected or accepted based on simplicity and aesthetic grounds, plus there power of prediction to later times, rather than an appeal to empirical results. This is a very difference way of doing science from previous centuries of research.
Our physics can explain most of the evolution of the Universe after the Planck time (approximately 10-43 seconds after the Big Bang)... However, events before this time are undefined in our current science and, in particular, we have no solid understanding of the origin of the Universe (i.e. what started or `caused' the Big Bang).
Cosmic Singularity:
One thing is clear in our framing of questions such as `How did the Universe get started?' is that the Universe was self-creating. This is not a statement on a `cause' behind the origin of the Universe, nor is it a statement on a lack of purpose or destiny. It is simply a statement that the Universe was emergent, that the actual of the Universe probably derived from a indeterminate sea of potentiality that we call the quantum vacuum, whose properties may always remain beyond our current understanding.
Quantum Vacuum:
The cosmic singularity, that was the Universe at the beginning of time, is shielded by the lack of any physical observers. But the next level of inquiry is what is the origin of the emergent properties of the Universe, the properties that become the mass of the Universe, its age, its physical constants, etc. The answer appears to be that these properties have their origin as the fluctuations of the quantum vacuum.
The properties of the Universe come from `nothing', where nothing is the quantum vacuum, which is a very different kind of nothing. If we examine a piece of `empty' space we see it is not truly empty, it is filled with spacetime, for example. Spacetime has curvature and structure, and obeys the laws of quantum physics. Thus, it is filled with potential particles, pairs of virtual matter and anti-matter units, and potential properties at the quantum level...
With respect to the origin of the Universe, the quantum vacuum must have been the source of the laws of Nature and the properties that we observe today. How those laws and properties emerge is unknown at this time.
Quantum Fluctuations:
The fact that the Universe exists should not be a surprise in the context of what we know about quantum physics. The uncertainty and unpredictability of the quantum world is manifested in the fact that whatever can happen, does happen (this is often called the principle of totalitarianism, that if a quantum mechanical process is not strictly forbidden, then it must occur).
For example, radioactive decay occurs when two protons and two neutrons (an alpha particle) leap out of an atomic nuclei. Since the positions of the protons and neutrons is governed by the wave function, there is a small, but finite, probability that all four will quantum tunnel outside the nucleus, and therefore escape. The probability of this happening is small, but given enough time (tens of years) it will happen.
The same principles were probably in effect at the time of the Big Bang (although we can not test this hypothesis within our current framework of physics). But as such, the fluctuations in the quantum vacuum effectively guarantee that the Universe would come into existence.
Planck Era
The earliest moments of Creation are where our modern physics breakdown, where `breakdown' means that our theories and laws have no ability to describe or predict the behavior of the early Universe. Our everyday notions of space and time cease to be valid...
The Universe expands from the moment of the Big Bang, but until the Universe reaches the size of the Planck scale, there is no time or space. Time remains undefined, space is compactified. String theory maintains that the Universe had 10 dimensions during the Planck era, which collapses into 4 at the end of the Planck era (think of those extra 6 dimensions as being very, very small hyperspheres inbetween the space between elementary particles, 4 big dimensions and 6 little tiny ones).
During the Planck era, the Universe can be best described as a quantum foam of 10 dimensions containing Planck length sized black holes continuously being created and annihilated with no cause or effect. In other words, try not to think about this era in normal terms.
So, according to the above quoted college professor and keeper of the ideas of physics James Schombert, my earlier statement was precisely correct: "According to the physicists who are the keepers of this idea, nothing caused the Big Bang, either. It's a quantum mechanical notion and has a lot to do with "quantum fluctuations" and Heisenberg's so-called Uncertainty Principle."
Since you disagreed with my statement and have been proved wrong, this is example (5) of your fallacious reasoning.
::: But you're the one with all the answers.
:: A typical Christian answer -- you don't speak truth. I never said or implied anything of the sort. Indeed, I don't even particularly believe that The Big Bang is a good explanation for the origin of the universe, and even if it's a partially decent explanation, it's far from complete.
: What I mean is, you are telling us that you know more about the Christian God than the Christians do.
I never said or implied any such thing. I certainly said that, based on my personal experience, I don't believe that this God exists. So this is example (6) of your fallacious reasoning.
: It sounds like you are saying that if I knew what you know I would stop believing in God.
I said nothing of the kind. This is example (7) of your fallacious reasoning. But I do think that otherwise intelligent people mostly believe in this God for emotional reasons, not logical ones.
: Alan I didn't know you were such a bible scalar.
Actually I'm more of a Bible vector pointing directly away from it. (hint: look up the word "scalar" in a dictionary)
:: Living one's life based on realities that can be observed and/or produce real, observable effects is invariably better than living it based on unrealities such as Santa Clause. Many Christian claims, and ideas found in the Bible, are demonstrably unreal.
: You must mean things like how something came from nothing
I've already shown that modern physics does not teach this, and so your comment is another straw man, and example (8) of your fallacious reasoning. As I've already said, I personally leave open the question of ultimate origins.
: or the spontaneous appearance of life?
No one has any real idea how this came about. Maybe God, maybe "quantum fluctuations", maybe super-intelligent space aliens. No one knows the origin of God, either.
: The scientific explanation of those things by most takes much more faith to believe in, than the bible does.
Yawn. This old chestnut has been dealt with ad nauseum by clear thinkers. Tell me, what takes more faith to believe in? An unintelligent universe that has always existed, or a Supreme Intellect, intelligent and powerful enough to create the universe, that has always existed? Explain your answer.
: Sorry, if believing in something bigger than myself or what I can see, offends you
I guarantee that I don't give a rip one way or another.
:: Unlike many religious people who think they know the mind of the Christian God or some other god.
: I do not make the claim to know the mind of God.
Then you're not much of a Christian, nor do you have any right to tell people about your God.
: I'm just trying to understand what He reveals in His word,
I think you're trying to do a good deal more than that. You want to convert people to your beliefs, no?
: and I don't think His word contains His entire mind.
I didn't know that.
::: Yea, your fallen nature makes you feel good.
:: This comment has nothing to do with this thread, and serves only as a meaningless ad hominem that shows you can't answer the problems I posed.
: Well, I think it has everything to do with this thread.
You need to prove that rather than merely claim it.
: Would you not agree that you (personally) can't choose to believe in God?
No.
AlanF
