The apologia of the cosmos. Evidence of God

[Gadarene]

"Common sense" fails us in a stunning way when it comes to understanding quantum mechanics. I think that we may need far more than "common sense" when dealing with these very uncommon issues.

eudaimonia,

Mark

And in relativity too, and any scientific attempt to explain cosmological origins beyond the Planck time will require a harmonisation of the two - no mean feat.

And yet Craig et al. think they can intuit these problems away to get the answer they already assumed to be so.

 

[Gadarene]

And where have you observed something impersonal bringing something personal into existence Gadarene?

Where did I say that I had?

Do you not know that an impersonal entity does not have volitional capabilities?

Yes. So? You are presuming that volition is required to cause the universe.

I thought you would not have made such a blunder by maintaining something so clearly fallacious!

Says the guy who isn't even aware of his own assumptions.

I'm really not worried by what you consider to be fallacious, Elioenai - identifying such is not your forte.

 

[Archaeopteryx]

I have never in all of my posts spoken of a time before time.

Yes you have, repeatedly.

But something must be timelessly eternal in order to have created time.

And whatever created the universe must also possess several other attributes besides this one.

Now we know this because of looking at what the universe is. It is spatial, hence the creator must be nonspatial. It is material, hence, the creator must be immaterial.

In other words, the creator must be nothing, in no place and at no time.

This of course is a logical and rational inference even if we do not know how to explain "how" this could be.The beauty of it all is that we do not have to be able to know how this entity could be all of these things, but we do know that the evidence warrants such a being exist.

What evidence? So far you've made an argument that appeals to certain principles and violates the principles it appeals to.

Life as we know it, the universe and all that there is cries out that there is a creator, an intelligent Mind behind it all.

Not really.

Science takes us to the point where we must leave her and use other disciplines pertinent to our position to understand how and why things are the way they are.

Science doesn't provide all the answers. Religion provides only non-answers.

Christians maintain that it is far more incredible to believe the universe just spontaneously self-generated itself. It goes against all reason and rationality to maintain this.

But that is exactly what you are claiming. The immaterial is immaterial; that is, it is nothing. And nothing, according to you, is the cause for everything. What's even more bizarre is that you give this nothingness the attributes of personality and intelligence.

We maintain that it is far more reasonable for their to be a Creator who is the Greatest Conceivable Being who created the universe. It is also the most simple explanation for the data.

It's not even an explanation, much less a simple one. Unless one can invoke magic as a "simple explanation" for anything that one doesn't understand.

To maintain anything else requires incredible faith in hypotheses and metaphysical theories which have no scientific or philosophical grounds and which are at best, purely imaginative.

After looking at the evidence you either accept that it is extremely more plausible that God exists as opposed to Him not, or you maintain some other unscientific, ungrounded incoherent hypothesis as to why something exists at all.

If you hold the latter, then in it will be "inspite" of the evidence, not because of it.

It shall be an act of the will to choose an explanation other than God. And that, with no good intellectual reason.

You haven't shown us any of the compelling evidence you keep alluding to.

And to do this would require great faith indeed. In fact it would be akin to you being a believer in scientism.

Or just being a skeptic of unwarranted supernatural claims.

 

[KCfromNC]

Interestingly enough, common sense tells us that the Cause of the universe must be personal not impersonal.

Why?

Because the universe contains personal beings, i.e you, me, and approximately six billion other personal beings. Personal beings are beings which possess, among other things, mind will and emotion.

I don't see how any of this is logical. You've got a bunch of assumptions here that we simply have no reason to accept.

Or to use your logic - the vast majority of the universe is objects which are unconscious. Therefore common sense tells us that whatever created them is unconscious as well. So either this creator is both conscious and unconscious simultaneously, its barely conscious (to match the ratio of conscious to unconscious of what it created) or it's possible for a creator not to share every attribute with something it creates. The latter is the obvious conclusion since we see it all the time. People aren't cars even though they create them, children aren't messes even though they can create them, mountain bikes aren't ER visits even though they can create them, and so on. I'm sure there's an appeal to magical mystery dualism in there somewhere but it's just another in a long list of unreasonable assumptions required for this topic to even exist in the first place.

 

[KCfromNC]

The Big Bang my friend, was not a change of state at all! There was nothing in existence to be changed into prior to the Big Bang.

Proof of this claim?

The Big Bang is not the result of something changing from one form into something else. For all that is, came into existence simultaneously at the Big Bang.

Proof of this claim?

The Law of Causality tells us that because the universe began to exist, then it has a cause.

I'm unaware of the law or the empirical verification of it. Can you provide references to peer reviewed scientific literature on the topic?

The problem many people have in fully appreciating what this means is that they do not understand that before this point of creation, NO matter, NO time, NO space existed. There was nothing natural in existence prior to this point.

So certainly any laws of nature we see here inside the natural universe have no bearing on how the pre-big bang non-universe behaved. For example, there's no reason to assume an alleged Law of Causality would still hold true.

So to speak of something changing into something from something in existence or transforming from one form to another to try and refute the Law of Causality is not even logical.

Good thing no one is doing that.

The only way to disprove the Law of Causality is to show that something could come into existence uncaused, and this is not only impossible to prove, but it is irrational, illogical, and goes contrary to everything we know intuitively about reality.

Nice rhetoric, but it doesn't address my point. That is, if you've just redefined everything in this universe as a change of state rather than events coming into being via causes, how you do get to this law of causality in the first place? In your attempt to hand-wave away examples of uncaused events here in the universe you have removed all of your empirical backing for this law of causality in the first place.

 

[KCfromNC]

And where have you observed something impersonal bringing something personal into existence Gadarene?

Where have you observed something non-human bringing something personal into existence? You haven't. We must therefore conclude that the universe was created by humans.

Or reject this conclusion and your implied one as obviously false.

I know which one I'll choose.

Do you not know that an impersonal entity does not have volitional capabilities?

Relevance?

 

[KCfromNC]

The only logical explanation for the universe is that an immaterial being created it.

This is the only logical, reasonable, rational, supported explanation.

And where have you observed something immaterial bringing something material into existence?

 

[KCfromNC]

The moment the ball was placed on the cushion, the effect was made. That is what the word simultaneous means.

Nope, it happened a finite time afterwards. Forces aren't transmitted infinitely quickly.

Come on, at least get the basic science correct.

 

[Elioenai26]

I will take the winking smiley and the misrepresentation of what I said as you lacking a serious response to my points.

These are your words, and I quote:

"No, the universe could be eternal, with the big bang being only the beginning of the current instantiation of our cosmos. Here, the cosmos is what is inside of the universe. And, this allows for uranium in what could be an eternal universe."

Now, if you maintain that the universe could be eternal, this position would be in contradiction to the scientific evidence to the contrary.

So at best, your statement above, if you maintain that view, would be a pop-metaphysical contradictory explanation. It is a made up explanation that has no grounds scientifically and actually contradicts the scientific and philosophic evidence at our disposal.

 

[Elioenai26]

I don't need to invoke God in my explanation for the universe's origins because I can honestly admit that I do not know how the universe came to be, except that it did. And I am content to let that mystery remain, allowing the cosmologists to figure it out, if it is indeed knowable at all.

Are you saying that we cannot know anything about the origin of the universe?

You seem to think that "God did it" is an intellectually superior explanation to "I don't know". It's not. Your explanation is about as satisfying as saying that it all happened by magic. In fact, your explanation is the same as saying that it happened by magic -- immaterial nothing created material everything.

Saying that a timeless, nonspatial, immaterial, omniscient, omnipotent Creator created the universe is the best logical explanation for the scientific data we have Archaeopteryx.

Now, to my question: how can you speak of a time before the Big Bang given that you've earlier said that time was created at the Big Bang?

In all of my posts, I have never made a reference to, nor stated indirectly or directly, that time existed before time. That is a contradiction.

What I have said is:

Prior to the universe (space, time, matter) coming into existence, there existed a timeless, nonspatial, immaterial Mind with volitional capabilities who chose to create the universe. This act of creation was instantaneous and the effect (the universe) was simultaneous with the Cause's act of creating. Time came into existence the instant the universe was created, for time is a property of the universe.

This means that the universe was purposefully created at a point sometime in the distant past and from that point space-time has been expanding outward ever since. This is science and logic working together to give as a picture of the phenomenon that was observed by no human, but nontheless, actually happened because it's effects are undeniable.

Several comments from scientists regarding this are appropriate. Notice that these comments come mainly from agnostic and atheistic scientists and astronomers. This means that these men should in no way be seen as supporting a Christian view of the origin of the universe because they are Christian. They are not Christian. Having said that, some of their comments are:

From atheistic physicist Stephen Hawking:

"All the evidence seems to indicate, that the universe has not existed forever, but that it had a beginning, about 15 billion years ago. This is probably the most remarkable discovery of modern cosmology. Yet it is now taken for granted." (The Beginning of Time Lecture, Stephen Hawking British Theoretical Physicist and Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.)

From agnostic astronomer Robert Jastrow:

"Recent developments in astronomy have implications that may go beyond their contribution to science itself. In a nutshell, astronomers, studying the Universe through their telescopes, have been forced to the conclusion that the world began suddenly, in a moment of creation, as the product of unknown forces." ( Excerpt from Truth Journal by Professor Robert Jastrow-Ph.D. (1948), from Columbia University; Chief of the Theoretical Division of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (1958-61) and Founder/Director of NASA 's Goddard Institute; Professor of Geophysics at Columbia University; Professor of Space Studies-Earth Sciences at Dartmouth College)

Agnostic astronomer Robert Jastrow confesses: "Now we see how the astronomical evidence supports the biblical view of the origin of the world. The details differ, but the essential elements in the astronomical and biblical accounts of Genesis are the same: the chain of events leading to man commenced suddenly and sharply at a definite moment in time, in a flash of light and energy." (Wikipedia Robert Jastrow)

In an interview Jastrow states: "Astronomers now find they have painted themselves into a corner because they have proven, by their own methods, that the world began abruptly in an act of creation to which you can trace the seeds of every star, every planet, every living thing in this cosmos and on the earth. And they have found that all this happened as a product of forces they cannot hope to discover. That there are what I or anyone would call supernatural forces at work is now, I think, a scientifically proven fact." (Wikipedia Robert Jastrow)

Although Arthur Eddington a contemporary of Einstein found the idea repgunant, he had to admit: "The beginning seems to present insuperable difficulties unless we agree to look on it as frankly supernatural."(Arthur Eddington, The Expanding Universe, New York: Macmillan, 1933, 178)

Why do they maintain that "supernatural forces" were at work? Very simply because the Big Bang was the beginning point of the entire physcial universe. Time, space, and matter came into existence at that point. There was no natural world or natural law prior to! Since a cause cannot come after it's effect (to maintain that it could would be to violate the Law of Causality) nor can an effect be greater than it's cause, natural forces cannot account for the Big Bang. Therefore, it logically and rationally follows that there must be something outside of nature, something that transcends the natural, to be able to accomplish this. That is what supernatural means, above, or beyond the natural.

 

[Elioenai26]

You do it all the time. Last example was your post to Gardarene:
You asked "Have you ever observed this...?" (implying that explanation about the universe must conform with what we observe in the universe), while your own explanation proposes plenty of processes that are not observed in the universe.

I asked:

"And where have you observed something impersonal bringing something personal into existence Gadarene?"

And then I asked:

"Do you not know that an impersonal entity does not have volitional capabilities?"

_____________________________________________________________

With regards to the questions:

The universe must have a cause for it's existence and it must be personal.

We see this in the world all the time.

A watchmaker can decide to make a watch. He has the volitional capacity to choose to make it. He can walk around his shop, take out the trash, clean off his workspace, sweep the floor, or choose to sit down and design a watch and make it.

The watchmaker is a man or a woman who has an intelligent mind and volitional capacity. A watch does'nt make itself.

Now, the explanation for the cause of the universe, far from contradicting what I have just said, agrees completely with it!

How?

The Creator of the universe could have chosen not to create or create. He chose to create. How do we know this? Because we exist! The universe, like a watch is very intricate and complex (I hope no one would be so foolish as to deny this) and like a watch, the universe has at least one main purpose. The watch tells time. What does the universe do? The universe, as science shows, seems to be undeniably fine-tuned for the existence of humans on earth. So we could reasonably say that this is one purpose for it's existence. Notice I said one, not only.

Therefore the Creator creating the universe is in keeping with what we observe in reality. Namely, an intelligent being creating something designed and complex.

Take for example the following questions:

Does a watch bring a Watchmaker into existence? Or could we maintain that a watch makes itself?

Does a C++ programming language bring computer scientist Bjarne Stroustrup into existence? Or would we be rational in saying that C++ brought itself into existence?

Does a Facebook page bring Mark Zuckerberg into existence? Or maybe it just somehow designed itself and projected itself into the internet?

Does the Jeopardy game show bring Merv Griffin into existence?

Does the the great American Novel: Gone With The Wind bring Margaret Mitchell into existence? Or maybe it sat down at the typewritter and typed itself over a period of several years!

Or the Appple Inc., did it bring Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne into existence? Or maybe a tree one day dropped one of it's apples and a nameless computer that desiged itself came along and stumbled upon the apple and said: Ahh! That's it!

Maybe some popcorn popped so much in a microwave one day that Orville Redenbacher was born from one of the kernels!

These questions may be humorous, but they make an important point.
It is absurd to suggest that chaos produces order, that non-intelligence produces intelligence, that impersonal objects could create personal entities and so on and so forth.

Every one of the persons listed above chose to act and were the direct cause of the things they created.

All this has been done multiple times and by multiple posters.
In case you missed it, here´s my request again:

You have to make up your mind whether an explanation concerning the universe must conform with the laws observed within the universe, or whether this is not a requirement for the explanation.

This is an urgent request.Simply answer it, so that we have clarification on which basis you want to discuss explanations. Please answer it soon, directly and straightforward.

Which is it?

An explanation concerning the origin of the universe must be in accordance with what the evidence demands quatona. What does the evidence demand? What entity could cause the universe to exist with all of it's irreducible complexity, and human diversity, and intricate laws, principles, undeniable beauty and wonder?

You keep saying over and over and over again that my explanation for the origin of the universe does not fit with laws observed within the universe.

You can't be speaking of the Causal Principle because it simply states that everything that comes into existence has a cause for it's existence.

You can't be speaking about the Principle of Uniformity because it states that causes in the past work like causes today. How do causes work today? There are two types of causes: intelligent, and non-intelligent. Mount Rushmore is an example of an effect of the first, the Grand Canyon is an example of an effect of the second. The universe either has an intelligent cause or an unintelligent cause. What is more probable? An intelligent cause! Why? Because everything we observe in life tells us that unintelligent causes do not produce intelligent entities, or designed effects. It is akin to saying that an earthquake could have caused the faces on Mount Rushmore to come into existence!!!!

 

[Elioenai26]

Yes. So? You are presuming that volition is required to cause the universe.

I am not presuming it, I am positively saying it. Volition is a necessary requirement for any act of creation especially the universe. Why? Look around you, what are the properties of those who make things?

Did you choose to sit down and type out your post and choose your words in order to convey what you were thinking, or did you just sit down and with robot-esque programming instructions, mechanically type out what you did? Would you not say that your post is your own and that you chose to create it?

In fact, volition with regards to creating something is an attribute that only a personal being has. To decide between two or more options and act on those options to create something is unique to a being with personhood because mind, and emotion are involved along with this volitional capacity.

An artist chooses to create his masterpiece because he can see in his mind and feel in his heart that what he wants to create is worthy of the work involved in creating.

I'm really not worried by what you consider to be fallacious, Elioenai - identifying such is not your forte.

If you do maintain that an impersonal entity could have volitional capacity, then yes this position is fallacious or illogical.

 

[Elioenai26]

I don't see how any of this is logical. You've got a bunch of assumptions here that we simply have no reason to accept.

Are any of the following statements not logical or illogical to you KC:

Chaos cannot produce order.

Nonintelligence cannot produce intelligence.

Impersonal cannot produce personal.

Nonlife cannot produce life

Chance cannot produce intelligence

Or to use your logic - the vast majority of the universe is objects which are unconscious. Therefore common sense tells us that whatever created them is unconscious as well. So either this creator is both conscious and unconscious simultaneously, its barely conscious (to match the ratio of conscious to unconscious of what it created) or it's possible for a creator not to share every attribute with something it creates. The latter is the obvious conclusion since we see it all the time. People aren't cars even though they create them, children aren't messes even though they can create them, mountain bikes aren't ER visits even though they can create them, and so on. I'm sure there's an appeal to magical mystery dualism in there somewhere but it's just another in a long list of unreasonable assumptions required for this topic to even exist in the first place.

Logic and common sense (not just mine but logic in and of itself) tells us that an impersonal entity cannot choose to create anything, let alone a human being with it's complex capacities to include volition, mind, and emotion.

Your analogy is fallacious in that you assume that I have said that a creator must share every attribute with it's creation. I have never once said this. Therefore your whole argument is misguided.

 

[Danyc]

I am not presuming it, I am positively saying it.

A distinction without a difference.

Volition is a necessary requirement for any act of creation especially the universe. Why? Look around you, what are the properties of those who make things?

Your assertion is that volition is necessary for any creation, especially the universe, because some things are created by beings with volition. This is ridiculous. I could just as easily say, as others have pointed out, that because some things required no volition to be created (I.O.W., 99.99% of everything in the universe anyway), it then follows that the creator of the universe must not have had any volition either.

Both arguments are inane.

 

[Elioenai26]

Proof of this claim?

Proof of this claim?

Einstein's work on General Relativity among other scientific evidences. I shall refer you to the first six posts of this thread.

I'm unaware of the law or the empirical verification of it. Can you provide references to peer reviewed scientific literature on the topic?

If you are unaware of the veracity of the Causal Principle, thats ok. You presuppose it whenever you mention the word science, or scientific!

So certainly any laws of nature we see here inside the natural universe have no bearing on how the pre-big bang non-universe behaved. For example, there's no reason to assume an alleged Law of Causality would still hold true.

You statement is self-contradictory. There is no "pre-big bang non-universe"!

Secondly, the Causal Principle simply states that whatever comes into existence has a cause for it's existence. The universe came to be, therefore a cause is required for it's existence. Your mistake is in extrapolating the Causal Principle onto the cause but not realizing that The Cause and the effect were instantaneous and simultaneous in the moment that time was created. The Cause did not act in time and then later on create time. This would be a contradiction. Remember my friend, time came into existence in the instant of creation. There was no time before time. There was no gap from "pre big bang time" to "actual big bang time". In fact the whole sentence is contradictory because it fails to take into account that time itself came into existence in the instant that the big bang occurred.

 

[Davian]

These are your words, and I quote:

"No, the universe could be eternal, with the big bang being only the beginning of the current instantiation of our cosmos. Here, the cosmos is what is inside of the universe. And, this allows for uranium in what could be an eternal universe."

Now, if you maintain that the universe could be eternal, this position would be in contradiction to the scientific evidence to the contrary.

So at best, your statement above, if you maintain that view, would be a pop-metaphysical contradictory explanation. It is a made up explanation that has no grounds scientifically and actually contradicts the scientific and philosophic evidence at our disposal.

How is the big bang theory in contradiction to that evidence?

Are you going to answer that question regarding your agnosticism?

 

[Elioenai26]

Where have you observed something non-human bringing something personal into existence? You haven't. We must therefore conclude that the universe was created by humans.

I have observed that I exist

I am a person.

I am therefore, personal.

The universe (space, time, matter) came into existence at some point in the past.

The above is verified by the scientific community via evidence.

A human could not have caused the universe to exist.

Therefore a non-human caused the universe to exist.

Therefore, a non-human caused something personal (myself) to exist.

 

[Elioenai26]

Nope, it happened a finite time afterwards. Forces aren't transmitted infinitely quickly.

Come on, at least get the basic science correct.

This statement would actually be humorous if it was'nt so juvenile.

How long after the ball was placed on the cushion did the depression form?

The statement: "forces are'nt transmitted infinitely quickly is supported by whom or what law?" Seems to me like you just pulled that one out of the hat!

 

[Elioenai26]

A distinction without a difference.

Your assertion is that volition is necessary for any creation, especially the universe, because some things are created by beings with volition. This is ridiculous. I could just as easily say, as others have pointed out, that because some things required no volition to be created (I.O.W., 99.99% of everything in the universe anyway), it then follows that the creator of the universe must not have had any volition either.

Both arguments are inane.

If the arguments are inane, I challenge you to provide ONE example of an act of creation that does not require volition.

This should be easy for you since the argument is inane.

 

[Danyc]

If the arguments are inane, I challenge you to provide ONE example of an act of creation that does not require volition.

This should be easy for you since the argument is inane.

Okay. The vast majority of everything in he universe. All a result of natural processes without volition. Even me and you.

Then again, I expect you are hugging a definition of the word 'creation' to your breast.