Pelican Beach, quoting Wikipedia-[ 4 ] David Albert for The New York Times criticizes the book for failing to live up to its title, and criticizes Krauss for dismissing concerns about his use of the term nothing to refer to a quantum vacuum instead of a "philosopher’s or theologian’s idealized 'nothing'" (i.e. instead of having the meaning "not anything"). [ 5 ]"
That's why I warned in my post above that physicists use a different definition of "nothing" vs philosophers and theologians.
But more importantly, since we have absolutely NO examples of "nothing" to point to, and no prior experience with it, then where and when did anyone originally get the idea it COULD even exist as a state?
Sounds ALOT like a questionable premise to allow in one's mind, without any supportive evidence upon which to base acceptance.
Pelican Beach said- Redefining what "nothing" means in order to force a belief is quite a religious exercise. Something (redefining a term to fit their theology) which believers are accused of doing and have done. This is evidence that atheism, for some, is a belief that, like the belief in God, causes the holder to go to whatever lengths necessary to prove their belief even to stretching the truth and redefining commonly understood terms. Yes, "nothing" MUST be redefined because if it is not then the whole house of cards stands on...wait for it...Nothing!
Actually, what happened at the Big Bang has NOTHING to do with MY atheism: zilch.
In fact, prime evidence that played a factor in my being an atheist comes from the Bible, itself, with fatal flaws in theology which seems to be derivative of pre-existing myths of neighboring cultures (if you can read Genesis and NOT have major doubts about the story you're supposed to swallow without question, then you might have just fallen off the turnip truck).
PLUS, as someone who's actually studied evolution and life on the Planet Earth, the evidence is overwhelmingly in favor of a naturally-occurring process that's occurred over INCREDIBLY LONG periods of time.
But back to the Big Bang and the Bible:
"In the beginning" is SORT of close to the scientific concept of the Big Bang (when space and time began, so suggesting time had a beginning, if you read that into it). HOWEVER, questions arise if one considers the time lapse between time beginning 14 BILLION YEARS AGO and the Earth's formation 4.5 BILLION YEARS AGO (i.e. "God created the Heavens and the Earth"). "Houston, we have a problem!", and we're still only in Genesis 1:1! What's 10 BILLION YEARS passing, within a single verse of a single sentence!
And all bets are off as to what happened BEFORE the Big Bang, although honestly, I don't toss and turn at night fretting about the question, since what does it matter? Heck, I dont worry about things that happened yesterday, since that's in the past! The ONLY utility the past has in MY life is to determine what actually WAS, in order to figure out how to best navigate in the present (to avoid encountering misfortune in the future).
So my atheistic Worldview don't hinge on the need to know events that happened 14 BILLION years ago, and even before then. I'm OK with some things that humans may NEVER know (heck, we may never know truths of even recent events eg Woody Allan vs Dylan allegations, how was Kim Jung Un's uncle actually executed, by dogs, machine guns, mortars, etc?). Macht nichts....
Pelican Beach said- As defined in the Wikipedia article, Vacuum State: "In quantum field theory, the vacuum state (also called the vacuum) is the quantum state with the lowest possible energy."
Again, where did this "lowest possible energy" come from? Or are we talking eternal existence here? Really?! Interesting.
I'm perfectly OK with energy/matter always existing, but merely inter-converting and changing states. In fact, it seems ALOT more probable and consistent with the laws of physics to imagine that kind of set-up, since eg carbon atoms do the same: that hamburger patty you ate for lunch is part of food chain, and the carbon atoms "lived" in many other forms on the planet in the past, most recently as the carbon atoms found in the carbohydrate of feed corn, maybe even tracing it's "atomic family history" to appearing in various incarnations back to the dinosaurs, even back to a single-cell organism, etc.
But to postulate the existence of an all-powerful, all-knowing eternal being which has always existed in that steady-state (so not even able to benefit from evolving into that "perfect" state), AND without a creator of its own (which only causes an infinite regression of endless questions, asking who made God's creator)?
You wanna talk about BIGTIME 'special pleading' required for the laws of thermodynamics!
In comparison, evolution requires no exceptions from the law of thermodynamics, since the Earth is an OPEN system, where the driving source of energy for evolution is that bright orb in the sky which you may have heard about, called the Sun? Nuclear reactions occurring in the Sun are the ultimate source of energy for ALL life on Earth.
So what is the driving force behind God, His source of power, such that He warrants an excuse from the laws of thermodynamics?
The Bible says God cannot violate His own moral laws (pay no heed to those genocidal campaigns in Joshua, for one!), but can God demand exception from His own physical laws, too?
So we're at a problem with the God hypothesis and the laws of thermodynamics: God's source of power would have to be INCREDIBLY MASSIVE such that it would be EASILY-DETECTABLE (as our Sun is: don't look at it, or you'll go blind!). Yet oddly enough, there's no detectable evidence of God's source of power, His 'Sun'?
Adam
