The apologia of the cosmos. Evidence of God

[Gadarene]

More spamming!

 

[Elioenai26]

That is obviously not all given that you are, in addition to that, arguing that the cause is of a particular kind (i.e. immaterial, timeless, and so on).

Those attributes are discussable once there is a general consensus on the veracity of the first two premises.

You don't attack the premises of an argument by attacking it's conclusion. This should be common knowledge.

Yes, it does. But that does not mean that the premises are sound.

This is where the focus of our intention should be, and as for my part, is. That is, giving good reasons to think that that two premises are sound.

If we are using an inference to the best explanation to arrive at what some of the properties the said cause must possess, then we would never have arrived at the properties that no known cause possesses (e.g. immateriality).

I have already responded in depth to this objection in a previous post to you.

Or any other deity...

Any other theistic concept of God chiefly.

But you have spent most of the thread speculating exactly that.

No I have not.

Why start another thread? You want us to constrain everyone else's discussion to only those first two premises, while you conjecture well beyond them.

I have stated why several times.

Why not here? It is apparent that your argument is a dualist argument.

Clearly it is not .

Given that you have argued beyond premises (i) and (ii) I don't see the point of constraining our discussion to only those two premises.

If you agree that the premises are sound, we can move to the conclusion.

No, but your argument includes more than the idea that the universe began to exist some finite time ago. It includes assumptions about the nature and metaphysical status of what brought it into existence.

Via logical inferrence to the best explanation.

 

[Elioenai26]

Why must it be any of these things? How can we even attach the word "cause" to it if it possesses none of the properties of things that we ordinarily attach the word "cause" to? If we utilize what is known as an inference to the best explanation, then we never reach the conclusion you want us to reach.

It must be those things because it cannot be logically anything else. I have already addressed this numerous times in previous posts to you and others.

So it comes back to the cause of everything being nothing, no where and no when.

Nothing material spatial or temporal. This is very evident and as long as you presupoose naturalism, you will never accept this argument. In fact, all of your replies are question begging for atheism/naturalism.

Recall earlier, in your conversation with someone else, how you used the word "immaterial" to describe their counterpoint? Juxtapose that with how you are using the word "immaterial" right now and you will notice quite a difference.

It should be evident to you that the word immaterial can have different connotations. One instance is when it is referred to as something that is not composed of matter, the other when it is used to refer to something as not pertinent to a topic or discussion. The context clues offer support in any case of ambiguity.

If it is, as you claim it is, an explanation from what is already known about causes, then yes, it must adhere to the properties of known causes for the explanation to have some force. Otherwise it simply leverages the meaning of the word.

The cause of the universe is an efficient cause. You are the efficient cause of this post. We all are efficient causes and therefore not unlike the efficient cause of the universe in this respect.

That's pretty much the only property your so-called cause possesses - the property of being causally efficacious. However, that would make it somewhat circular. Causes in the real world cause their effects because they act upon them (matter on matter) in a certain way, in space, and across time. Given that your cause apparently exists in a timeless, spaceless and matter-less vacuum, there is nothing about it that would identify it as a cause. And yet you assert that it is still a cause.

Everything about it identifies it as a cause. It caused the universe to come into existence, which in turn, is replete with cause and effect relationships. The Uncaused Cause is therefore the paradigm for all causal relations.

Why not cut the argument short and conclude that the universe must exist necessarily (in some form or another), and not contingently?

Science proves this is simply not tenable nor correspondant to the available data. It would also be question begging for atheism.

That is certainly a much more parsimonious conclusion that going the extra step by postulating alien causes.

Certainly it is not for the above reasons.

But supposing that we accept the notion of some supernatural cause. Why should we conclude that that cause must exist necessarily? Perhaps it too is contingent on some other, as yet unidentified, cause (a super-supernatural cause)? Your argument doesn't tell us why nature must be contingent, nor why the supernatural cause must be necessary. It is a word-play.

Ockham's Razor shaves off any excesses in the purported causal chain and brings us to a necessary being who is uncaused, and unmoved, who is timeless, spaceless, immaterial, and transcendant over all that is natural, for Ockham tells us that we should not unjustifiably multiply causes. Ockham’s Razor tells us not to posit causes beyond necessity. That is to say, we are justified in postulating only such causes as are necessary to explain the effect; any more would be gratuitous. In the case of the universe, Ockham’s Razor shaves away polytheistic explanations of the origin of the universe, since only one transcendent, personal Creator is necessary.

Read more: Time and the Kalam Cosmological Argument | Reasonable Faith​

And if you were to tell me that you have taken my favourite pen and hidden it in no place, at no time, in some immaterial world (if we can even call such emptiness a "world"), that statement would indeed be unintelligible because you would be in the odd position of saying that something is nothing and nothing is something.

It would not correspond to the truth of the matter simply put. I have not the ability to do any of what you just stated. Therefore you would not be unjustified in maintaining that it was unintelligible.

Exactly. Which is why the argument is unintelligible nonsense. It pretends that nothing is really something.

You assumptions are based on the view that "matter is all that there is". You keep saying nothing, nothing, nothing over and over again. I keep saying nothing material. You again say nothing nothing nothing. This is simply begging the question for atheims/materialism/naturalism.

To be an entity possessing causal powers is to be material. To be "immaterial" in relation to anything is to stand in no relation to it whatsoever.

This is your unsubstantiated opinion. Offer some good arguments as to why I, or anyone should accept this. Until you can, this is an opinion.

That doesn't point to the necessity of an agency. It points to the necessity of change.

A change from what to what? You missed the entire point of what I wrote. In order for there to be a temporal effect brought about by a timeless cause, the cause must possess volition. Otherwise, the effect would not be temporal but timeless along with the cause for once the sufficient conditions are given, the effect must be present.

The mind is not immaterial nor is it unembodied. The very notion of an unembodied mind makes no sense except under dualist assumptions.

Once again, this is an unsubstantiated assumption or assertion that begs the question for atheism. Provide some good arguments as to why the traditional dualistic view of humans which has been held for thousands of years should be discarded.

False dichotomy. Personal agents are part of nature.

And you conveniently missed the point again. There can be no natural explanation for the instantiation of the universe, for there was nothing natural prior to it!

 

[Davian]

1. Premise (i) is a fundamental principle of classical metaphysics.
...

3. To attack the first premise is to simply stop doing serious metaphysics.

Classical metaphysics? Serious metaphysics?

You are supporting a faulty premise with an unverifiable crutch.

4. To maintain that the universe could come from nothing, by nothing, for nothing, requires unsubstantiated faith in a completely irrational position.
...

Where have you established that what happened at the instantiation of the cosmos must appear rational to the average person? Is that not who the argument is aimed at?

 

[Elioenai26]

Classical metaphysics? Serious metaphysics?

You are supporting a faulty premise with an unverifiable crutch.

Where have you established that what happened at the instantiation of the cosmos must appear rational to the average person? Is that not who the argument is aimed at?

How is the causal principle faulty?

This is indeed mind boggling that you would seek to attack this premise, when no one can do so without sacrificing their intellectual credibility. One who denies the fact that the causal principle is a universally binding metaphyscial principle that is always verified and never falsified is one who for, all intents and purposes, is interested in being more contrarian than objectively intent on pursuing knowledge.

To maintain that premise one is faulty is simply to do so irrationally and illogically. Nor do non-theistic debators make it a habit, as most have done here, to take this line of argumentation in formal debate. If they do, they do so at the peril of being exposed as one who simply is not being objective.

Metaphysicians as far back as Parmenides have recognized the principle that Being can come only from Being, that something cannot come into being from non-being

What reason is there to think that the universe is an exception to the causal principle, as you seem to want to doggedly maintain, despite evidence ot the contrary. Even Atheist philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer maintained that it is actually a form of an informal fallacy to dismiss the causal principle when you get to the question regarding the universe's cause.

There is this common sentiment echoed by Archaeopteryx and every other atheist here which goes something to the effect that ::

"in an argument about a series of states of the universe which cause each other, the initial state must be treated differently to all subsequent states."

But why? What reason is there to treat such a state as an exception. Indeed, it should be seen that the uncaused arising of an absolutely first state is even more obviously impossible than the uncaused arising of a temporally embedded state. In any case, the burden is on you to justify this exception or it becomes an arbitrary dismissal of the causal principle.

The inductive argument is not that it's mysterious that we don't see causal chains beginning abruptly without antecedents. It's rather that we have uniform empirical evidence that things which begin to exist do have causes—without exception. Besides, there has been no argument given that it is logically impossible in maintaining that the universe has a cause of its beginning.

Read more: Objections to the Causal Principle | Reasonable Faith



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[Wiccan_Child]

A number of your points were ad hominem, patronising, or otherwise superfluous. I excised them for brevity.

1. Premise i) is a fundamental principle of classical metaphysics.

Tenacity is not the same as veracity.

2. Virtual particles do not come into being from nothing. The theories in question have to deal with particles orriginating as a fluctuation of the energy in the quantum vaccum. In physcis a vaccum is a sea of fluctuating energy and violent activity having a physical structure and governed by the laws of physics. To tell lay people that this is an example is something coming from nothing is quite frankly a distortion of these theories and an abuse of science by those who appeal to them. Popular magazines and shows on television inevitably have to appeal to metaphors which are highly misleading and inaccurate to explain highly techinical ideas dealt with in the academic realm.

Being a physicist, I have no need to resort to popular magazines. You're putting the cart before the horse when you say that virtual particles come into existence as a fluctuation in the quantum vacuum exist - they are that fluctuation. The quantum 'foam' exists because these particles continually pop into and out of existence.

To say they're not an example of something from nothing, is the same as saying that the position-momentum uncertainty principle is a mere technological limitation - suffice to say, it's not.

In short, the uncertainty principle says that, for very short periods of time, there can be a very large uncertainty in energy. For sufficiently short periods, this energy uncertainty can become as large as the energy quotient for a particle.

These particles aren't being caused by some pre-existing phenomena, they are genuinely uncaused events. They exist by the sheer fact that they might exist. Because there's nothing to stop them from existing, they do exist. It's akin to the flight of a photon - because there's nothing to stop it from taking every path at once, it does take every path at once. We just see the average path.

4. To maintain that the universe could come from nothing, by nothing, for nothing, requires unsubstantiated faith in a completely irrational position.

I maintain nothing. Rather, I'm dismantling your own argument by pointing out the lack of substantiation for your claims. "We've always believed it to be that way" isn't a very good argument.

5. I have dealt with this alleged position that quantum mechanics can be used to cast a shadow of doubt on the veracity of premise (i) numerous times in the previous fifty pages. I shall refer you to them for further study.

I eagerly await your citations.

4. Imagine a situation in which an actual infinite number of things exist. One of the greatest mathematicians of the 20th century Matthew Hilbert created:

Hilbert's paradox of the Grand Hotel is a mathematical veridical paradox (a non-contradictory speculation that is strongly counter-intuitive) about infinite sets presented by German mathematician David Hilbert. It showed the complete absurdity that would be inherent in something that contained an actual infinite number of things.

No, it did not. Hilbert's Hotel shows the counter-intuitiveness of an actual infinity. Ironically, you cite Wikipedia's initial sentence, but not it's second: "David Hilbert posed this paradox in the 1920s to illustrate the mysterious properties of the infinite." - not, as you assert, the absurdity. The Hotel doesn't stand as a proof by contradiction.

6. Some may argue that an infinite set of numbers can exist, which we have shown above is true, so why cannot an infinite amount of past days have existed? This is simply an argument for an actual infinite on the basis of the possibility of a potential infinite. The first (actual infinite) is a concrete reality, the latter (potential) is merely theoretical. Mathematically, we can indeed conceive of an infinite number of days, but actually we could never live or or traverse an infinite number of days. One is exercised in theory, the other actually. Likewise, you can conceive of an infinite number of points between two bookends on a shelf, but you could not fit an infinite number of books between them. The points are abstract, the books are concrete or actual.

Your retort is to simply repeatedly insist the same a priori assumption: "Mathematically, we can indeed conceive of an infinite number of days, but actually we could never live or or traverse an infinite number of days".

Prove it. Actually, explicitly, demonstrably prove it, here and now.

1. For the aforementioned reasons, saying that an actual infinite number of things cannot exist is far from vacuous. It is substantiated in several lines of argumentation, namely in the untenability of maintaing that the inherent absurdities that accompany an actual infinite number of things are actually possible. We have no evidence, no warrant, philosophical or scientific that would cause us to maintain that an actual infinite number of things does exist. However, we have good arguments both from intuition and philosophy that they do not.

I eagerly await such a list. My position merely has to maintain that it's possible - the onus is on you to prove it's impossible. Lamenting that "[w]e have no evidence, no warrant, philosophical or scientific that would cause us to maintain that an actual infinite number of things does exist" is fallacious.

2. Suffice it to say that you cannot hold up a black hole and say: "Here is an actual infinity".

A black hole is, in layman's terms, a region of spacetime where gravity prevents anything, including light, from escaping. Even if someone were to unsubstantiatingly purport that a black hole qualifies as an "actual infinity", this still does nothing to undercut the argument that the universe came into existence at some point in the distant past which is what premise (ii) of the Kalam argues.

First, it would serve as an example that there exist real quantities in the universe which are infinite, thus serving as an empirical disproof for the a priori assumptions the Kalam argument makes (namely, that we somehow 'couldn't get here' if the past were eternal).

Second, black holes are objects with mass whose gravity is such that their constituent's inherent repulsion is insufficient to stop it from collapsing. One key property of the black hole is density: finite mass occupying zero volume.

1. An infinity of finite steps, is an infinite number of steps regardless of how you word it!

Yes, that's the point. With an eternal universe, we have such an infinity. Arguing that we'd 'never get here' only makes sense if we had to traverse an infinite period with a finite number of finite steps.

2. A finite number of infinitely long steps is rather unintelligible. What is an infinitely long step anyway? How does one make an infinitely long step?

You're thinking too literally.

3. We have shown that the universe is not eternal, but came into existence at some point in the finite past. This argument is supported by at least five lines of scientific argumentation and two lines of philosophical argumentation. I shall refer you to the previous fifty plus pages of this thread for further study.

4. I agree, there would be no beginning in an eternal universe, but the scientific and philosophical evidence clearly shows that the universe is not eternal, but that it came into existence literally out of nothing at some point in the distant past.

I disagree that science suggests anything of the sort. Be careful not to fall into common traps regarding the Big Bang theory.

Expert Testimony

Argumenta ad verecundiam are fallacious. Tsk, tsk.

However, despite myself I have to ask, what does Einstein's quote ("Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind") have to do with the KCA?

 

[Davian]

How is the causal principle faulty?

This is indeed mind boggling that you would seek to attack this premise, when no one can do so without sacrificing their intellectual credibility. One who denies the fact that the causal principle is a universally binding metaphyscial principle that is always verified and never falsified is one who for, all intents and purposes, is interested in being more contrarian than objectively intent on pursuing knowledge.

Where did you establish this "fact" that the causal principle applies specifically to the instantiation of the cosmos?

To maintain that premise one is faulty is simply to do so irrationally and illogically.

Where have you established that what happened at the instantiation of the cosmos must appear rational and logical? Do you know the science behind it, or we still debating with reasonablefaith.org?

Nor do non-theistic debators make it a habit, as most have done here, to take this line of argumentation in formal debate. If they do, they do so at the peril of being exposed as one who simply is not being objective.

Sure, and you chose the KCA because of its 'robustness', not because it works back from the deity that you already believed to exist.

Metaphysicians as far back as Parmenides have recognized the principle that Being can come only from Being, that something cannot come into being from non-being

Have they ever demonstrated the validity of this principle? Can you?

What reason is there to think that the universe is an exception to the causal principle, as you seem to want to doggedly maintain, despite evidence ot the contrary.

What evidence do you have that the causal principle applies specifically to the instantiation of the cosmos?

Even Atheist philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer maintained that it is actually a form of an informal fallacy to dismiss the causal principle when you get to the question regarding the universe's cause.

His opinion.

There is this common sentiment echoed by Archaeopteryx and every other atheist here which goes something to the effect that ::

"in an argument about a series of states of the universe which cause each other, the initial state must be treated differently to all subsequent states."

But why? What reason is there to treat such a state as an exception.

Your question is ill-formed. You are making unverifiable assumptions. I ask, how do we *know* that we can apply our understanding to the instantiation of the cosmos?

Indeed, it should be seen that the uncaused arising of an absolutely first state is even more obviously impossible than the uncaused arising of a temporally embedded state. In any case, the burden is on you to justify this exception or it becomes an arbitrary dismissal of the causal principle.

I have not dismissed it. I have dismissed your unverifiable assumption of what it can be applied to.

The inductive argument is not that it's mysterious that we don't see causal chains beginning abruptly without antecedents. It's rather that we have uniform empirical evidence that things which begin to exist do have causes—without exception.

And what does that have to do with the cosmos itself?

Besides, there has been no argument given that it is logically impossible in maintaining that the universe has a cause of its beginning.

Where have you established that what happened at the instantiation of the cosmos must appear logical?

Read more: Objections to the Causal Principle | Reasonable Faith



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Do you have any science to support your claims? And, no, the quote mines do not count.

 

[Elioenai26]

Being a physicist, I have no need to resort to popular magazines. You're putting the cart before the horse when you say that virtual particles come into existence as a fluctuation in the quantum vacuum exist - they are that fluctuation. The quantum 'foam' exists because these particles continually pop into and out of existence.

To say they're not an example of something from nothing, is the same as saying that the position-momentum uncertainty principle is a mere technological limitation - suffice to say, it's not.

In short, the uncertainty principle says that, for very short periods of time, there can be a very large uncertainty in energy. For sufficiently short periods, this energy uncertainty can become as large as the energy quotient for a particle.

These particles aren't being caused by some pre-existing phenomena, they are genuinely uncaused events. They exist by the sheer fact that they might exist. Because there's nothing to stop them from existing, they do exist. It's akin to the flight of a photon - because there's nothing to stop it from taking every path at once, it does take every path at once. We just see the average path.

These events are not uncaused, and to say that they are is intentionally misleading and dishonest as I have stated before, and will state once more.

The bellow is given to substantiate this position:

The motions of elementary particles described by statistical quantum mechanical laws, even if uncaused, do not constitute an exception to this principle i.e. the causal principle as is utilized in premise (i).

As Quentin Smith himself admits, these considerations "at most tend to show that acausal laws govern the change of condition of particles, such as the change of particle x's position from q1 to q2. They state nothing about the causality or acausality of absolute beginnings, of beginnings of the existence of particles" (p. 50).

But as a counterexample to (i), Smith's use of such vacuum fluctuations is highly misleading (as is yours). For virtual particles do not literally come into existence spontaneously out of nothing. Rather the energy locked up in a vacuum fluctuates spontaneously in such a way as to convert into evanescent particles that return almost immediately to the vacuum.

As John Barrow and Frank Tipler comment, ". . . the modern picture of the quantum vacuum differs radically from the classical and everyday meaning of a vacuum-- nothing. . . . The quantum vacuum (or vacuua, as there can exist many) states . . . are defined simply as local, or global, energy minima (V'(O)= O, V"(O)>O)" ([1986], p. 440).

The microstructure of the quantum vacuum is a sea of continually forming and dissolving particles which borrow energy from the vacuum for their brief existence. A quantum vacuum is thus far from nothing, and vacuum fluctuations do not constitute an exception to the principle that whatever begins to exist has a cause. It therefore seems that Smith (and yourself) have failed to refute premiss (i).

For if an event requires certain physically necessary conditions in order to occur, but these conditions are not jointly sufficient for its occurrence, and the event occurs, then the event is in principle unpredictable, but it could hardly be called uncaused in the relevant sense. In the case of quantum events, there are any number of physically necessary conditions that must obtain for such an event to occur, and yet these conditions are not jointly sufficient for the occurrence of the event. (They are jointly sufficient in the sense that they are all the conditions one needs for the event's occurrence, but they are not sufficient in the sense that they guarantee the occurrence of the event.) The appearance of a particle in a quantum vacuum may thus be said to be spontaneous, but cannot be properly said to be absolutely uncaused, since it has many physically necessary conditions.

Read more: The Caused Beginning of the Universe:[bless and do not curse] A Response to Quentin Smith | Reasonable Faith​

The following is taken from scholarly peer reviewed article: Source: Astrophysics and Space Science 269-270 (1999): 723-740

Vacuum Fluctuation Models​

Cosmologists realized that a physical description of the universe prior to the Planck time would require the introduction of quantum physics in addition to GTR. In 1973 Edward Tryon speculated whether the universe might not be a long-lived virtual particle, whose total energy is zero, born out of the primordial vacuum.30 This seemingly bizarre speculation gave rise to a new generation of cosmogonic theories which we may call Vacuum Fluctuation Models. In such models, it is hypothesized that prior to some inflationary era the Universe-as-a-whole is a primordial vacuum which exists, not in a state of expansion, but eternally in a steady state. Throughout this vacuum sub-atomic energy fluctuations constantly occur, by means of which matter is created and mini-universes are born (Fig. 5).​

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Fig. 5: Vacuum Fluctuation Models. Within the vacuum of the wider Universe, fluctuations occur which grow into mini-universes. Ours is but one of these, and its relative beginning does not imply a beginning for the Universe-as-a-whole. Our expanding universe is but one of an indefinite number of mini-universes conceived within the womb of the greater Universe-as-a-whole.

Thus, the beginning of our universe does not represent an absolute beginning, but merely a change in the eternal, uncaused Universe-as-a-whole.

Vacuum Fluctuation Models did not outlive the decade of the 1980s. Not only were there theoretical problems with the production mechanisms of matter, but these models faced a deep internal incoherence.31 According to such models, it is impossible to specify precisely when and where a fluctuation will occur in the primordial vacuum which will then grow into a universe. Within any finite interval of time there is a positive probability of such a fluctuation occurring at any point in space. Thus, given infinite past time, universes will eventually be spawned at every point in the primordial vacuum, and, as they expand, they will begin to collide and coalesce with one another. Thus, given infinite past time, we should by now be observing an infinitely old universe, not a relatively young one. About the only way to avert the problem would be to postulate an expansion of the primordial vacuum itself; but then we are right back to the absolute origin implied by the Standard Model. According to Isham this problem proved to be "fairly lethal" to Vacuum Fluctuation Models; hence, these models were "jettisoned twenty years ago" and "nothing much" has been done with them since.32​

30 Edward Tryon, "Is the Universe a Vacuum Fluctuation?" Nature 246 (1973): 396-97.
31 See Isham, "Creation of the Universe," pp. 385-87.
32 Christopher Isham, "Space, Time, and Quantum Cosmology," paper presented at the conference "God, Time, and Modern Physics," March 1990; Christopher Isham, "Quantum Cosmology and the Origin of the Universe," lecture presented at the conference "Cosmos and Creation," Cambridge University, 14 July 1994.​

Read more: The Ultimate Question of Origins: God and the Beginning of the Universe | Reasonable Faith​

Read more: The Ultimate Question of Origins: God and the Beginning of the Universe | Reasonable Faith​

Read more: The Caused Beginning of the Universe:[bless and do not curse] A Response to Quentin Smith | Reasonable Faith​

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So you see Wiccan, even if we were to maintain that the coming into existence of quantum particles constitutes a clear instance of something coming into existence uncaused out of nothing, which it does not, it still is not an accepted explanation in modern theoretical cosmological models of the universe.​

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I maintain nothing. Rather, I'm dismantling your own argument by pointing out the lack of substantiation for your claims. "We've always believed it to be that way" isn't a very good argument.

You maintain nothing, and yet you maintain that you are dismantling my arguments.

Where have I said that: "we have always believed it to be that way?" What are you even talking about????

I eagerly await your citations.

No need to wait, just peruse the numerous citations and expert testimony included in the previous posts.

No, it did not. Hilbert's Hotel shows the counter-intuitiveness of an actual infinity. Ironically, you cite Wikipedia's initial sentence, but not it's second: "David Hilbert posed this paradox in the 1920s to illustrate the mysterious properties of the infinite." - not, as you assert, the absurdity. The Hotel doesn't stand as a proof by contradiction.

Ok, and so what.... you maintain that a hotel with an infinite number of guests can exist, or that any other actual thing can be infinite? It is metaphyscially absurd and that was Hilbert's whole point. The mysterious properties of the infinite when applied to actual entities results in absurd situations and circumstances.

And even if an actual infinite number of past days could have existed, which it could'nt have, that still does nothing to defeat the more than five lines of scientific argumentation for the absolute beginning of the universe!

Your retort is to simply repeatedly insist the same a priori assumption: "Mathematically, we can indeed conceive of an infinite number of days, but actually we could never live or or traverse an infinite number of days".

Prove it. Actually, explicitly, demonstrably prove it, here and now.

If you want to maintain that you can traverse an infinite number of days, put your shoes on and start walking. Tell me when you arrive at the end of your journey!

I eagerly await such a list. My position merely has to maintain that it's possible - the onus is on you to prove it's impossible. Lamenting that "[w]e have no evidence, no warrant, philosophical or scientific that would cause us to maintain that an actual infinite number of things does exist" is fallacious.

Once again, who cares?

If you want to maintain, contrary to every other sane person, scientist or layman, that an actual infinite number of things can exist, then do so. Just remember, it takes great faith, more so than what I am willing to place into the preposterous idea.

First, it would serve as an example that there exist real quantities in the universe which are infinite, thus serving as an empirical disproof for the a priori assumptions the Kalam argument makes (namely, that we somehow 'couldn't get here' if the past were eternal).

Second, black holes are objects with mass whose gravity is such that their constituent's inherent repulsion is insufficient to stop it from collapsing. One key property of the black hole is density: finite mass occupying zero volume.


Yes, that's the point. With an eternal universe, we have such an infinity. Arguing that we'd 'never get here' only makes sense if we had to traverse an infinite period with a finite number of finite steps.


You're thinking too literally.


I disagree that science suggests anything of the sort. Be careful not to fall into common traps regarding the Big Bang theory.

Your qualm is with GTR and the Standard Model. Many scientists have qualms with it, mainly because of it's theological implications. Despite their misgivings, it has been the standard cosmological model for well over half a century.

Argumenta ad verecundiam are fallacious. Tsk, tsk.

Too bad you do not understand what that is, and yet use the term anyway.

No where have I said that the KCA is true because scientists believe it to be. Therefore your charge is baseless, and useless. Using expert testimony is inherent in any debate on any position. I will continue using expert testimony, and I suggest you start doing so too if you want your position to have any semblance of credibility.

However, despite myself I have to ask, what does Einstein's quote ("Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind") have to do with the KCA?

It means exactly what it says, and as I have stated before, those quotes are an appendix to my signature.

 

[Davian]

-"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind." -Albert Einstein​

From later in his life (1954): "The word god is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this." - Albert Einstein

Add this one to your list, if you are being objective.

 

[Elioenai26]

Where did you establish this "fact" that the causal principle applies specifically to the instantiation of the cosmos?

Where have you established that what happened at the instantiation of the cosmos must appear rational and logical? Do you know the science behind it, or we still debating with reasonablefaith.org?

Sure, and you chose the KCA because of its 'robustness', not because it works back from the deity that you already believed to exist.

Have they ever demonstrated the validity of this principle? Can you?

What evidence do you have that the causal principle applies specifically to the instantiation of the cosmos?


His opinion.


Your question is ill-formed. You are making unverifiable assumptions. I ask, how do we *know* that we can apply our understanding to the instantiation of the cosmos?

I have not dismissed it. I have dismissed your unverifiable assumption of what it can be applied to.

And what does that have to do with the cosmos itself?

Where have you established that what happened at the instantiation of the cosmos must appear logical?

Do you have any science to support your claims? And, no, the quote mines do not count.

The causal principle is a metaphyscial principle Davian. This is taught in first year philosophy.

The word "metaphysics" derives from the Greek words μετά (metá) ("beyond", "upon" or "after") and φυσικά (physiká) ("physics").

Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world, although the term is not easily defined. Traditionally, metaphysics attempts to answer two basic questions in the broadest possible terms:

1. "What is there?"
2. "What is it like?"

A person who studies metaphysics is called a metaphysicist or a metaphysician.The metaphysician attempts to clarify the fundamental notions by which people understand the world, e.g., existence, objects and their properties, space and time, cause and effect, and possibility. A central branch of metaphysics is ontology, the investigation into the basic categories of being and how they relate to each other. Another central branch of metaphysics is cosmology, the study of the totality of all phenomena within the universe. (Wikipedia)

Therefore, the metaphyscial principle is applicable to all of reality, material or immaterial. That is why it is called metaphysics Davian.

It is not a physical law that is applicable only within the context of the natural world i.e the law of gravity etc. etc.

Therefore, the causal principle is binding and applicable to all of reality. The causal principle states that everything that begins to exist has a cause for it's existence, and since the universe came into existence, it must necessarily have a cause even if it is the universe.

 

[Elioenai26]

From later in his life (1954): "The word god is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this." - Albert Einstein

Add this one to your list, if you are being objective.

I know very well Einstein's views. I also know this in no way contradicts his quote that I use.

Thanks though!

 

[Davian]

Where did you establish this "fact" that the causal principle applies specifically to the instantiation of the cosmos?

Where have you established that what happened at the instantiation of the cosmos must appear rational and logical? Do you know the science behind it, or we still debating with reasonablefaith.org?

Sure, and you chose the KCA because of its 'robustness', not because it works back from the deity that you already believed to exist.

Have they ever demonstrated the validity of this principle? Can you?

What evidence do you have that the causal principle applies specifically to the instantiation of the cosmos?


His opinion.


Your question is ill-formed. You are making unverifiable assumptions. I ask, how do we *know* that we can apply our understanding to the instantiation of the cosmos?

I have not dismissed it. I have dismissed your unverifiable assumption of what it can be applied to.

And what does that have to do with the cosmos itself?

Where have you established that what happened at the instantiation of the cosmos must appear logical?

Do you have any science to support your claims? And, no, the quote mines do not count.

The causal principle is a metaphyscial principle Davian. This is taught in first year philosophy.

The word "metaphysics" derives from the Greek words μετά (metá) ("beyond", "upon" or "after") and φυσικά (physiká) ("physics").

Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world, although the term is not easily defined. Traditionally, metaphysics attempts to answer two basic questions in the broadest possible terms:

1. "What is there?"
2. "What is it like?"

A person who studies metaphysics is called a metaphysicist or a metaphysician.The metaphysician attempts to clarify the fundamental notions by which people understand the world<snip>

Attempts? Did you miss that part?

You did not address my questions.

 

[Elioenai26]

Attempts? Did you miss that part?

You did not address my questions.

I answered every question that has not already been answered in the numerous posts already typed. I shall refer you to them.

 

[The Engineer]

These events are not uncaused, and to say that they are is intentionally misleading and dishonest as I have stated before, and will state once more.

It's not, and I must say, it's very pretentious to claim you know more about quantum physics than an actual physicist.

The bellow is given to substantiate this position:

The motions of elementary particles described by statistical quantum mechanical laws, even if uncaused, do not constitute an exception to this principle i.e. the causal principle as is utilized in premise (i).

We'll see about that.

As Quentin Smith himself admits, these considerations "at most tend to show that acausal laws govern the change of condition of particles, such as the change of particle x's position from q1 to q2. They state nothing about the causality or acausality of absolute beginnings, of beginnings of the existence of particles" (p. 50).

So according to Quentin Smith, spontaneous creation is not supported by quantum physics, but spontaneous change of condition is.

Either way, acausality is supported by quantum physics. The statement, every effect must have had a cause, is incompatible with quantum physics, as the change of condition is as much an effect as the spontaneous creation of particles.

But as a counterexample to (i), Smith's use of such vacuum fluctuations is highly misleading (as is yours). For virtual particles do not literally come into existence spontaneously out of nothing. Rather the energy locked up in a vacuum fluctuates spontaneously in such a way as to convert into evanescent particles that return almost immediately to the vacuum.

That's not an argument. You disagree with Wiccan Child, but you don't provide evidence for your position.

As John Barrow and Frank Tipler comment, ". . . the modern picture of the quantum vacuum differs radically from the classical and everyday meaning of a vacuum-- nothing. . . . The quantum vacuum (or vacuua, as there can exist many) states . . . are defined simply as local, or global, energy minima (V'(O)= O, V"(O)>O)" ([1986], p. 440).

So the quantum vacuum is not nothing, it's an equilibrium, do I understand this correctly?

According to you, this (in this case, relative) equilibrium fluctuates, and particles pop into existence because of that.

According to Wiccan Child, the equilibrium is caused by the particles popping into existence. Considering that Wiccan Child is a physicist, and considering your general unreliability, I'd believe him over you. In the end, I can't make a definite statement, because I'm not a physicist, but what remains is the fact that your position is hardly undisputed.

The microstructure of the quantum vacuum is a sea of continually forming and dissolving particles which borrow energy from the vacuum for their brief existence. A quantum vacuum is thus far from nothing, and vacuum fluctuations do not constitute an exception to the principle that whatever begins to exist has a cause. It therefore seems that Smith (and yourself) have failed to refute premiss (i).

Refuted this before. Quantum physics support acausality, and the possibility that particles just pop into existence still remains.

For if an event requires certain physically necessary conditions in order to occur, but these conditions are not jointly sufficient for its occurrence, and the event occurs, then the event is in principle unpredictable, but it could hardly be called uncaused in the relevant sense. In the case of quantum events, there are any number of physically necessary conditions that must obtain for such an event to occur, and yet these conditions are not jointly sufficient for the occurrence of the event. (They are jointly sufficient in the sense that they are all the conditions one needs for the event's occurrence, but they are not sufficient in the sense that they guarantee the occurrence of the event.) The appearance of a particle in a quantum vacuum may thus be said to be spontaneous, but cannot be properly said to be absolutely uncaused, since it has many physically necessary conditions.

What are those necessary conditions, if I may ask?

Read more: The Caused Beginning of the Universe:[bless and do not curse] A Response to Quentin Smith | Reasonable Faith

Bless and do not curse? How could you put a profanity in that one?

The following is taken from scholarly peer reviewed article: Source: Astrophysics and Space Science 269-270 (1999): 723-740

Could you please link to the original article, not the representation from reasonablefaith?

Vacuum Fluctuation Models

Cosmologists realized that a physical description of the universe prior to the Planck time would require the introduction of quantum physics in addition to GTR. In 1973 Edward Tryon speculated whether the universe might not be a long-lived virtual particle, whose total energy is zero, born out of the primordial vacuum.30 This seemingly bizarre speculation gave rise to a new generation of cosmogonic theories which we may call Vacuum Fluctuation Models. In such models, it is hypothesized that prior to some inflationary era the Universe-as-a-whole is a primordial vacuum which exists, not in a state of expansion, but eternally in a steady state. Throughout this vacuum sub-atomic energy fluctuations constantly occur, by means of which matter is created and mini-universes are born (Fig. 5).​

Okay.

Fig. 5: Vacuum Fluctuation Models. Within the vacuum of the wider Universe, fluctuations occur which grow into mini-universes. Ours is but one of these, and its relative beginning does not imply a beginning for the Universe-as-a-whole. Our expanding universe is but one of an indefinite number of mini-universes conceived within the womb of the greater Universe-as-a-whole.

Point taken.

Thus, the beginning of our universe does not represent an absolute beginning, but merely a change in the eternal, uncaused Universe-as-a-whole.

Point taken.

Vacuum Fluctuation Models did not outlive the decade of the 1980s.
Not only were there theoretical problems with the production mechanisms of matter, but these models faced a deep internal incoherence.31 According to such models, it is impossible to specify precisely when and where a fluctuation will occur in the primordial vacuum which will then grow into a universe. Within any finite interval of time there is a positive probability of such a fluctuation occurring at any point in space. Thus, given infinite past time, universes will eventually be spawned at every point in the primordial vacuum, and, as they expand, they will begin to collide and coalesce with one another. Thus, given infinite past time, we should by now be observing an infinitely old universe, not a relatively young one. About the only way to avert the problem would be to postulate an expansion of the primordial vacuum itself; but then we are right back to the absolute origin implied by the Standard Model. According to Isham this problem proved to be "fairly lethal" to Vacuum Fluctuation Models; hence, these models were "jettisoned twenty years ago" and "nothing much" has been done with them since.32

All this states is that there are problems with the Vacuum Fluctuation Models, not that the models are obsolete.

Furthermore, we don't know what the author said afterwards. For all we know, he could have then defended the Vacuum Fluctuation Models, or sung about dancing cats in the sunshine. Without you posting the whole article, this information is pretty worthless for your position.
​

So you see Wiccan, even if we were to maintain that the coming into existence of quantum particles constitutes a clear instance of something coming into existence uncaused out of nothing, which it does not,​

Apparently, it does.

it still is not an accepted explanation in modern theoretical cosmological models of the universe.

​

Says who? Your out-of-context citation?

You maintain nothing, and yet you maintain that you are dismantling my arguments.

Actually, he did dismantle your argument, and it was pretty impressive, if you ask me.

Where have I said that: "we have always believed it to be that way?" What are you even talking about????

I have better things to do than to look where exactly in your old posts you said it, especially because you have already earned a reputation for your constant attempts to play Minitruth on this forum.

No need to wait, just peruse the numerous citations and expert testimony included in the previous posts.

And again, you demand that another user looks at 50+ pages just to find the one post where you cited a relevant article.

Ok, and so what.... you maintain that a hotel with an infinite number of guests can exist, or that any other actual thing can be infinite? It is metaphyscially absurd and that was Hilbert's whole point. The mysterious properties of the infinite when applied to actual entities results in absurd situations and circumstances.

The analysis from the Wikipedia article:

These cases demonstrate a paradox not in the sense that they demonstrate a logical contradiction, but in the sense that they demonstrate a counter-intuitive result that is provably true: the situations "there is a guest to every room" and "no more guests can be accommodated" are not equivalent when there are infinitely many rooms (an analogous situation is presented in Cantor's diagonal proof).[1]

Nowhere in the entire article does it state that Hilbert intended to disprove the notion of an actual infinity.

And even if an actual infinite number of past days could have existed, which it could'nt have, that still does nothing to defeat the more than five lines of scientific argumentation for the absolute beginning of the universe!

Too bad those five lines were already defeated.

If you want to maintain that you can traverse an infinite number of days, put your shoes on and start walking. Tell me when you arrive at the end of your journey!

If he travels outside time and space, that's entirely possible!

EDIT:
I just realized that there's a good chance no one will get this joke. I have this tendency to make jokes that only I understand. Sorry for that.

What I wanted to say was that a person that uses a timeless, spaceless entity to solve metaphysical problems probably shouldn't use argumenta ad absurdum. But I suggest we talk about this topic once you successfully supported your first premises.

Once again, who cares?

I care. You should care.

If you want to maintain, contrary to every other sane person, scientist or layman, that an actual infinite number of things can exist, then do so.

I can't recall a single scientist maintaining that an actual infinity can't exist. Don't mention Hilbert, this guy sure didn't hold this position, contrary to what you want us to think

Just remember, it takes great faith, more so than what I am willing to place into the preposterous idea.

It doesn't take faith, at all.

Your qualm is with GTR and the Standard Model. Many scientists have qualms with it, mainly because of it's theological implications.

First of all, it would be its, not it's.

Second, theology has nothing to say when it comes to scientific theories.

Despite their misgivings, it has been the standard cosmological model for well over half a century.

So?

Too bad you do not understand what that is, and yet use the term anyway.

How do you support your assumption that Wiccan Child does not understand what an argumentum ad verecundiam is?

No where have I said that the KCA is true because scientists believe it to be. Therefore your charge is baseless, and useless. Using expert testimony is inherent in any debate on any position. I will continue using expert testimony, and I suggest you start doing so too if you want your position to have any semblance of credibility.

His position has more credibility than yours. That's partially because he knows how to use Wikipedia.

Was it just me, or did you actually post dozens of quotes from scientists to support your position, a few pages ago?

It means exactly what it says, and as I have stated before, those quotes are an appendix to my signature.

That's cool.

You know, for a moment I was actually starting to think you know what you're talking about, but I was wrong. That said, your views on dualism are completely unsubstantiated and laughable. Just saying.

 

[Elioenai26]

Thank you The Engineer, for taking your time to reply to these points.

Most of your responses, are simple one or two sentence assertions based on unsubstantiated opinions and views and therefore shall be dismissed as such.

Thank you for participating and partaking in this discussion. I look forward to reading more from you.

 

[Wiccan_Child]

Read more: The Caused Beginning of the Universe:[bless and do not curse] A Response to Quentin Smith | Reasonable Faith

I'm here to debate you, not Craig. If you can't use your own words, then we're done here.

The following is taken from scholarly peer reviewed article: Source: Astrophysics and Space Science 269-270 (1999): 723-740

None of which invalidates my point. Your obsession with Craig and RF has made you argue against something no one is saying.

So you see Wiccan, even if we were to maintain that the coming into existence of quantum particles constitutes a clear instance of something coming into existence uncaused out of nothing, which it does not, it still is not an accepted explanation in modern theoretical cosmological models of the universe.[/quote]Really? OK, fine, we actually have to go through this.

The Kalam argument relies on the a priori assumption that everything that has a beginning, has a cause. Besides this being simply unsubstantiated (despite your insistence to the contrary), quantum mechanics serves as an empirical disproof. If the Kalam argument's foundational premise is wrong, then the conclusion is unsound.

Ok, and so what.... you maintain that a hotel with an infinite number of guests can exist, or that any other actual thing can be infinite? It is metaphyscially absurd and that was Hilbert's whole point. The mysterious properties of the infinite when applied to actual entities results in absurd situations and circumstances.

*sigh* No, it was not. It's designed to show the counter-intuitiveness, not the absurdity, of an actual infinity. The whole point is that, as counter-intuitive as it is, it would work. Thus, it's not absurd. You don't see to know how that word is supposed to be used - again, counter-intuitiveness is not absurdity.

And even if an actual infinite number of past days could have existed, which it could'nt have, that still does nothing to defeat the more than five lines of scientific argumentation for the absolute beginning of the universe!

Five lines I eagerly await.

If you want to maintain that you can traverse an infinite number of days, put your shoes on and start walking. Tell me when you arrive at the end of your journey!

Bingo: a series of finite steps with a discrete beginning. Since that isn't the case with an eternal universe, you betray your a priori assumptions. Once you're able to extract yourself from this unsubstantiated premise, you'll see your error.

Your qualm is with GTR and the Standard Model. Many scientists have qualms with it, mainly because of it's theological implications. Despite their misgivings, it has been the standard cosmological model for well over half a century.

Neither relativity nor the standard model have theological implications.

Thank you The Engineer, for taking your time to reply to these points.

Most of your responses, are simple one or two sentence assertions based on unsubstantiated opinions and views and therefore shall be dismissed as such.

A coward's move.

 

[Davian]

I answered every question that has not already been answered in the numerous posts already typed. I shall refer you to them.

Perhaps you should have stipulated in the OP that you would only address objections that can be addressed by referring to reasonablefaith.org.

You can still do so now. It would save others the time and effort of posting.

 

[Elioenai26]

I'm here to debate you, not Craig. If you can't use your own words, then we're done here.

Ad hominem. It simply does not matter who I use as a reference. What matters is the material and whether or not it is pertinent to the topic. I include citations and references so that I will not be accused of plagiarism.

If you do not want to discuss this subject, feel free to disengage.

Really? OK, fine, we actually have to go through this.

The Kalam argument relies on the a priori assumption that everything that has a beginning, has a cause. Besides this being simply unsubstantiated (despite your insistence to the contrary), quantum mechanics serves as an empirical disproof. If the Kalam argument's foundational premise is wrong, then the conclusion is unsound.​

Its not substantiated?

Let me guess, the universe is a self-replicating physicality that is the exception to the rule, right?

This is question begging for atheim/naturalism and is simply dishonest.​

Five lines I eagerly await.

1. Well for one, thermodynamics implies the universe is not eternal. Even if we had no philosophical arguments or any other scientific evidence, this alone would make it irrational and unreasonable to maintain that the universe was eternal.

Neither relativity nor the standard model have theological implications.

They imply that the universe came into being ex nihilo. So yes, the theological implications are enormous.

Care for any expert corroborating testimony for this? Just refer to the end of the apologia at the beginning of the thread.

A coward's move.

If you say so.

I still love you!

 

[Elioenai26]

Perhaps you should have stipulated in the OP that you would only address objections that can be addressed by referring to reasonablefaith.org.

You can still do so now. It would save others the time and effort of posting.

Who or what I use as references has nothing to do with the veracity of the KCA.

Anything else?

 

[Wiccan_Child]

Ad hominem.

That doesn't mean what you think it means.

1. Well for one, thermodynamics implies the universe is not eternal. Even if we had no philosophical arguments or any other scientific evidence, this alone would make it irrational and unreasonable to maintain that the universe was eternal.

Let's look at your argument for this.

The Second Law of Thermodynamics states among other things, that the universe is running out of usable energy. We experience it everyday when we drive our cars. We put fuel in the tank and as the engine runs, fuel is used. When the fuel runs out the engines shuts off. Unless fuel is put in the tank, the engine will not run. The universe is this way. One day it will run out of energy. Like a flashlight loses its power if left on overnight. Since the universe is using energy that it has, it must have had a beginning, if not, it would have been eternal, but if it had been eternal, it would have run out of usable energy. The second law is tied to the first which states that the total amount of energy in the universe is constant. In other words it has only a finite amount of energy.

The Law of Entropy is associated with this as well. This law states that over time, nature tends to bring things to disorder, not order. Cars rust, trees rot, clothes tear and wear out, human bodies age etc. etc.
If a wound up clock is running down, then someone must have wound it up. Agnostic astronomer Robert Jastrow likens the universe to such a wound up clock. (Robert Jastrow, God and the Astronomers, New York, Norton, 1978, 48)

The Second Law doesn't state that the universe is running out of usable energy, nor that everything tends to become more disordered and chaotic. The Law states that, in a closed system, entropy tends to a maximum. Whether the universe constitutes a thermodynamically closed system, and whether the Law even applies, is an open question. Remember, the Law is a mathematically derived result from a number of premises.

The first law, by contrast, is an empirical observation historically called a 'law'. Many conservations laws have been proposed as a result of tenacious observations, and physics has done nothing if not shown them to be false (e.g., the conservation of parity).

Arthur Eddington understands all to well the implications of this and anyone who would attempt to refute the Second Law when he states:
"The law that entropy always increases, holds, I think, the supreme position among the laws of Nature. If someone points out to you that your pet theory of the universe is in disagreement with Maxwell's equations — then so much the worse for Maxwell's equations. If it is found to be contradicted by observation — well, these experimentalists do bungle things sometimes. But if your theory is found to be against the second law of thermodynamics I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation." (Arthur Eddington, The Nature of the Physical World 1928, chapter 4)

A marvellous quote that once held pride of place in my signature. It carries such weight because it necessarily follows from its premises, and since its premises are so general, it applies pretty much everywhere. Of course, in those circumstances where those premises don't hold, the Second Law doesn't apply, not even in part.

So your attempt to use thermodynamics to prove the universe can't be eternal, relies on little more than a naive understanding of its laws. Simply put, it is unestablished whether the premises that imply the Second Law, hold for the universe at large. For all we know, it could well be an open system in a larger multiverse wherein the First Law doesn't apply.

I'll debunk the rest, while I'm at it.

2. The universe is expanding. The recent discoveries categorized in the "Big Bang" show us that the universe is expanding. Astronomer Edwin Hubble confirmed what astronomer Vesto Melvin Slipher had been researching in the early 1900's. That space itself is expanding is a scientifically proven fact confirmed by atheist British author Anthony Kenny. He wrote: " According to the Big Bang Theory, the whole matter of the universe began to exist at a particular time in the remote past. A proponent of such a theory, at least if he is an atheist, must believe that the matter of the universe came from nothing and by nothing. (Anthony Kenny, The Five Ways: St. Thomas Aquinas' Proofs of God's Existence, New York: Shocken, 1969, 66)

Emphasis mine. This is a common misunderstanding of the theory. In truth, it merely postulates that the universe has been expanding for 13.5 billion years from a tiny, hot, dense state to its current form. Nothing in the theory, nor indeed anything in science, implies that the universe actually began then. Rather, neither quantum mechanics nor general relativity let us probe further beyond it - as good as they are, they simply don't accurately model such high-energy physics, so they don't work under such conditions. Again, one must be careful not to confuse technological or theoretical limitations, with an actual barrier.

It's a pretty common myth, mind you. Outside of theoretical physicists who've studied the theory in depth, it's convenient to think of the Big Bang theory as the 'start' of the universe, just as it's convenient to think of infinity as the 'largest number' or the second law of thermodynamics saying that 'everything decays'. But convenience is all it is.

Most of the confusion arises from physicists' oversimplification of the 'early' universe - indeed, such a phrase would make the layman think that the the Big Bang was the actual start of time. Hawking himself has taken pains to clarify this, saying that we are allow to colloquially call the Big Bang the start of the universe because it may as well be. A car's life 'begins' at the end of the factory line, that's merely a reference to form.

This is a nuance you don't seem to have grasp, Elioenai26. What more proof do you need of the colloquial nature of your 'expert testimony, than quotes like, ""Today scientists generally believe the universe was created in a violent explosion called the Big Bang."

In other words: the universe 'began' inasmuch as its current configuration traces its origins to the start of the Big Bang. But, there's no indication that space, time, and energy only came into existence at that moment.