What convinced you the universe alone is all that exists?

[ToddNotTodd]

I don't think there are too many people who define the universe as "everything that exists". The universe is the matter, energy and spacetime that formed out of the big bang, from whatever existed prior to the big bang. Whatever exists within our big bubble of spacetime, that's the universe. A multiverse would include any parallel universes that might exist. A lot of people like the term "omniverse", which would include just about everything that might exist, maybe.

Personally, I'm a skeptic. I can only be convinced of my own existence. How much of existence is contained within our universe, I couldn't begin to speculate.

Actually, I know a lot of people that use that definition. Maybe it’s a regional thing.

 

[ToddNotTodd]

"Basic logic" sounds rather painfully vague and ambiguous.

I’m sure for some people, all statements are vague and ambiguous.

 

[cvanwey]

Your feelings?

Dogmatic assumption? <-- Whether yours, or someone else's?

Belief in the myth of Conflict Thesis?

Something else?

Or, is the conclusion part of a larger step-by-step process that you can explain in clear detail without being painfully vague and ambiguous?

Have you asked cosmologists this/these question(s)? And if so, what was their answer(s)? And furthermore, was their answer(s) to your own personal satisfaction?

I myself do not know if the 'universe', whether it be singular or a multiverse, is all that exists? If we should come to find out something exists outside the 'universe', then what?

The reason I chimed in here, is that I'm fairly certain your interest is in the direct response from current non-believers of your claimed God, yes?

 

[Bradskii]

From there, confidence levels are commensurate with the evidence.

I'm going with this. In regard to everything. I can't actually see any other way of determining one's belief in anything. You are presented with evidence, you reject it or accept it (or weight it as you will towards one or the other) and you therefore become more or less convinced in regard to the matter in hand.

The more evidence you accept as being valid for any given proposal, the greater your confidence in it. The more evidence that you reject, the less confident you are.

Can you be 100% certain one way or the other? Not really...

 

[Amoranemix]

At a very young age I was convinced through sensory input that something exists. Later I discovered that everything that exists was called the universe. Naturally I concluded that the universe exists.

As the known world kept growing, the definition of universe became vague, as not necessarily everything in it may be included. It can even be as small as just the observable universe, a puny 93 billion light-years across.

However, there is likely space and matter beyond that. These days many scientists even hypothesise a multiverse, consisting of many universes similar to our own. There may also be time before the Big Bang, a part of reality that could also be considered extra-universal,
or a universe may succeed this one.

I don't know of anything else there could be, but I am not convinced there is nothing else.

I think base reality had no intelligent creator... I think its creator could be a Big Bang.

Where'd the Big Bang come from? What caused it? After all, it is illogical at least two ways to say it caused itself.[1] 1 It would have to first exist to cause itself. 2 It was specific in its parts --not homogenous. It was not random, since through cause-and-effect it resulted in every particular thing we see nowadays. (There is no such thing as 'random' anyway, nor 'chance'. The terms only mean, "I don't know.")

[1] I doubt it is illogical in even one way. How are these points you present supposed to make something creating itself be illogical ?

I cannot accept a 'god' who is merely super-human. God has to be omnipotent.

Indeed. It is humans who decide the nature of God. God is an opinion.

Mine, yours, everyone's .... we're all in this together.

Wrong. I'm claiming an exclusively theistic reality. Yours is exclusively secular. And what's worse is that you presuppose it without evidence.

You are mistaken. You assumed that reality and atheist reality are the same.

So tell me again how one ascertains whether your god/s exist in reality, or just in your head.

Via proof and evidence. Deductive logic is bivalent algebra; therefore proof. It is in-fact so basic that you're literally without excuse.

I have heard rumours of the existence of such proof and have witnessed attempts at presenting such proof, but I have yet to observe such proof.

 

[Mark Quayle]

MQ: Where'd the Big Bang come from? What caused it? After all, it is illogical at least two ways to say it caused itself.[1] 1 It would have to first exist to cause itself. 2 It was specific in its parts --not homogenous. It was not random, since through cause-and-effect it resulted in every particular thing we see nowadays. (There is no such thing as 'random' anyway, nor 'chance'. The terms only mean, "I don't know.")

[1] I doubt it is illogical in even one way. How are these points you present supposed to make something creating itself be illogical ?

My points don't make something illogical. They are or they are not illogical on their own. You have a strange way of seeing reality. (1) A thing cannot cause itself to exist. It is self-contradictory, because a non-existent thing cannot cause. It cannot spontaneously begin to exist. That is nonsense. (2) A thing that exists, is either first cause, or was caused. The 'infinitesimal speck' from which the BB proceeded was mechanical fact, and on top of everything else one might say about it, bears the evidences of being acted upon or produced (created) with purpose/ design since it obviously resulted in specificity and not homogeneity. There is no more reason to say specificity results by chance or randomness, than there is to say that chance or randomness can cause anything. This too is self-contradictory.

Indeed. It is humans who decide the nature of God. God is an opinion.

If God exists, God is not an opinion. Are you one of those who likes the foggy notion that there are many truths?

But I thought atheists are not supposed to believe there is no God, but rather to fail to believe there is a God. Here you are positing the notion that there is no actual God.

You are mistaken. You assumed that reality and atheist reality are the same.

There is only one reality.

 

[Bradskii]

It cannot spontaneously begin to exist. That is nonsense. (2) A thing that exists, is either first cause, or was caused.

I think that what you mean is that we have no examples of something spontaneously begining to exist. And the universe could be eternal and cyclic and so woukdn't require a begining. Kinda difficult to imagine. But then, so are so many things in physics and cosmology.

 

[Mark Quayle]

I think that what you mean is that we have no examples of something spontaneously begining to exist. And the universe could be eternal and cyclic and so woukdn't require a begining. Kinda difficult to imagine. But then, so are so many things in physics and cosmology.

You are describing infinite regression of cause. Difficult to imagine? Difficult to swallow. In fact, a bit indigestible. 'Repugnant', one might say.

 

[Bradskii]

You are describing infinite regression of cause. Difficult to imagine? Difficult to swallow. In fact, a bit indigestible. 'Repugnant', one might say.

One universe doesn't cause the next in the sense that it implies a linear regression. The conformal cyclic universe theory, by it's very nature, avoids an infinite regression. But is eternal nevertheless.

Imagine a balloon expanding to it's fullest extent and then reducing to it's original state. And then expanding again. It's initial state becomes the reason it expands again. Rinse and repeat. It's the same thing happening each time, not a sequence you could follow back in time because time starts anew.

The conformal cyclic universe is the other side of the same cosmology coin. Instead of expanding and then returning to it's original state, the universe keeps expanding. And ends up (please don't ask me to show the maths) in the original condition. Rinse and repeat.

Did it happen like this? Good grief, I wouldn't know. But please include it in your list of possible means.

 

[Mark Quayle]

One universe doesn't cause the next in the sense that it implies a linear regression. The conformal cyclic universe theory, by it's very nature, avoids an infinite regression. But is eternal nevertheless.

Imagine a balloon expanding to it's fullest extent and then reducing to it's original state. And then expanding again. It's initial state becomes the reason it expands again. Rinse and repeat. It's the same thing happening each time, not a sequence you could follow back in time because time starts anew.

The conformal cyclic universe is the other side of the same cosmology coin. Instead of expanding and then returning to it's original state, the universe keeps expanding. And ends up (please don't ask me to show the maths) in the original condition. Rinse and repeat.

Did it happen like this? Good grief, I wouldn't know. But please include it in your list of possible means.

Yes, I understand what is described here.

As soon as I heard it mentioned, I thought it made more sense than simply, "there was an infinitesimal speck". One reason it always made sense to me is the fact that the "big bang" was not homogeneous, but particular, in its results. I don't believe in 'chance' nor 'random'.

Yet you are still left with the same problem: if the cycle did not start at some point, if the force/matter/principle/whatever was always here, you are still into infinite regression.

 

[Bradskii]

Yes, I understand what is described here.

As soon as I heard it mentioned, I thought it made more sense than simply, "there was an infinitesimal speck". One reason it always made sense to me is the fact that the "big bang" was not homogeneous, but particular, in its results. I don't believe in 'chance' nor 'random'.

Yet you are still left with the same problem: if the cycle did not start at some point, if the force/matter/principle/whatever was always here, you are still into infinite regression.

It's only particular, Mark, if you work backwards to see how we got here. But it doesn't work the other way. You might say you lost the empire because you lost the war. And lost the war because you lost a battle. And lost that because of one skirmish. And lost that because of a lost shoe on a horse. But can you say that for the want of a nail an empire was lost?

And if something has always been, there is, by that very fact, no infinite regression. And yeah, I can't imagine that either. But our minds aren't built to conceptualise such matters. They evolved to judge the arc of a thrown spear or the distance to a water source. We can't even mentally picture a quantity higher than 9 (using a 3 x 3 grid). So there's fat chance of really understanding what a billion means. And none of formulating an idea of infinity.

Let's just say that the people who use high end maths and physics to work out what could be possible are not simply making things up to annoy you. And let's include their possibilities in with yours. I think that's the honest thing to do. And it doesn't exclude God anyway.

 

[Paulomycin]

I’m sure for some people, all statements are vague and ambiguous.

"Basic logic" is either an inductive or deductive process. Not vague intuition. Can you further illustrate that process to demonstrate that you actually know what you're talking about?

Or. . .you could just stall some more, and make this look even more awkward.

 

[Paulomycin]

Have you asked cosmologists this/these question(s)? And if so, what was their answer(s)? And furthermore, was their answer(s) to your own personal satisfaction?

So you're appealing to an academic institution like a secular papacy? You believe them because they said so.

The reason I chimed in here, is that I'm fairly certain your interest is in the direct response from current non-believers of your claimed God, yes?

I'm fairly certain there's no need to read-into my OP any further than what I am certain I stated word-for-word.

 

[JohnClay]

@Paulomycin

Hi what did you think about my posts?

 

[Bradskii]

I'm fairly certain there's no need to read-into my OP any further than what I am certain I stated word-for-word.

That the question doesn't-apply to the Christians here doesn't imply that it's for-the-atheists. It's a given.

 

[Paulomycin]

You are mistaken. You assumed that reality and atheist reality are the same.

HitchSlap claimed they are the same. I'm claiming an exclusively theistic reality. Yours is exclusively secular. And what's worse is that you presuppose it without evidence.

I have heard rumours of the existence of such proof and have witnessed attempts at presenting such proof, but I have yet to observe such proof.

Because your confirmation bias won't allow it. I understand. Proof is objective; persuasion is subjective.

 

[Paulomycin]

It's a given.

That, "The universe alone is all that exists" is an assumed given?

 

[Bradskii]

That, "The universe alone is all that exists" is an assumed given?

I can't believe that you didn't understand my post. Honestly. I just can't.

 

[Paulomycin]

I can't believe that you didn't understand my post. Honestly. I just can't.

Maybe it was all the double-negatives.

 

[Bradskii]

Maybe it was all the double-negatives.

There were only two negatives in total. I still refuse to believe you can't read a simply constructed sentence. Maybe-the dashes confused-you...