Need help with a question a atheist presented

[Tolworth John]

The Big Bang/universe is not my area of expertise in apologetics. What would you reply?

That as most scientists believe in the big bang, it is up to him to provide evidence that they don't as well as a believable explanation for the universe.

 

[RTP76]

So i wanna make sure i answer this throughly. Here’s his questions after we talked about atheist wanting a infinite universe instead of dealing with the Big Bang. Any suggestions on what do actually say. I’m trying to find the polls now.

View attachment 268203

There are logic issues with the universe existing in time/space infinitely (eternal time). Mathematically, if the universe existed infinity ago, then from that imaginary origin (eternity past) today represents eternity (infinity) future.

How much time, say in days, exists between that infinity past and now? Answer --> Infinity.

How, mathematically, could time pass such as to arrive at the present given infinity ago is the imaginary starting point? Answer --> it cannot... there is an infinite number of millennia between now and then, an infinity number of centuries, an infinite number of years, an infinite number of months, etc.... you get the idea. Even if we shaved off a billion years, there's still an infinite amount of time between the imaginary eternity past and today minus 1 billion years.

Being respectful/kind in your response back to the atheist, gently lead them to see the error in their logic that a physical universe that occupies space and time cannot have 'always' existed. Further, there is no data-substantiated evidence demonstrating that universes are created from nothing, by unguided, materialistic processes. Zero data-backed evidence whatsoever. As such, ideas suggesting as much and ideas of the universe always existing are based purely on speculation and logic errors.

Ultimately, while you can present this to them, it is up to them to be willing to see the error in their logic and accept the truth (not just of a universe that was created at a finite point in time), but the existence of a Creator. Our job is to present the truth, God does the rest.

God bless -

 

[Radagast]

There are logic issues with the universe existing in time/space infinitely (eternal time).

A universe existing in time infinitely in the past is theoretically possible (discussions of such a universe go back to Aristotle), but it would need to be an oscillating universe.

 

[The Liturgist]

Ummm, no. God is not in time, but outside of it.
God created time for the sake of man, but God Himself is infinite (not limited) by Time itself.

This is very true. If we say time exists independently of God and is not a creature, we reduce God to a demiurge, similiar to the Mormon misconception that matter was pre-existant and God merely arranged it.

 

[The Barbarian]

A universe existing in time infinitely in the past is theoretically possible (discussions of such a universe go back to Aristotle), but it would need to be an oscillating universe.

Or one in which matter is continuously being created therein.

 

[RTP76]

A universe existing in time infinitely in the past is theoretically possible (discussions of such a universe go back to Aristotle), but it would need to be an oscillating universe.

Yes, this is a good call-out and affirms the speculative nature (and not backed by data-substantiated evidence gathered from scientific observation) of ideas supporting a universe of infinite age.

 

[Radagast]

Or one in which matter is continuously being created therein.

Yeah, if its also infinite in space.

But in local regions that would still need to be stable or repeating an event sequence from elsewhere in space and time.

 

[The Barbarian]

Cosmology makes my head hurt.

 

[Eloy Craft]

Change indicates the existence of God.
Turning the issue around might help.

Even if the universe is infinite, determining a beginning would not theologically change our understanding of God.

 

[stevevw]

So i wanna make sure i answer this throughly. Here’s his questions after we talked about atheist wanting a infinite universe instead of dealing with the Big Bang. Any suggestions on what do actually say. I’m trying to find the polls now.

View attachment 268203

From what I understand in the past scientists thought the universe always existed and it was static. That changed in 1929 when astronomer Edwin Hubble discovered the universe was expanding. This meant there had to be a beginning where everything went back to a single point. For atheists and believers the eternal universe was support that there was no God but for theists the universe having a beginning was support for God.

Some like Lawrence Krauss try to claim that the nothing before the big bang was not really nothing and this can account for the beginning of our universe. But still that nothing is really something and relies on quantum states. Some say that our universe is one of a series of big bangs/inflation which sort of pushes the beginning back but still does not address the initial state of the very first universe.
A Simple Refutation of the "Universe from Nothing" | Evolution News

Now some scientist are going back to the eternal universe because of quantum physics which is suppose to fit in better with uniting relativity with quantum physics by addressing some of the issues the big bang/inflation model had like the horizon, temperature and gravity problems. Still it does not address how that all began. I just think their making it up as they go along lol.
https://phys.org/news/2015-02-big-quantum-equation-universe.html

I think it is what it is. Our universe had a beginning and was created by God. Science cannot account for this and so they come up with ideas that require a lot of fudging and fixing to make fit and this often slips into metaphysics rather than verifiable science. Like string theory it ends up being more speculative and far fetched than proposing a creative agent which I think tends to be a more logical conclusion for how the universe came about.
What is the evidence for/against the existence of God? | Reasonable Faith

 

[Daniel Marsh]

This is the kind of thing it is best to simply ask questions and watch the contradictions arise.

Would an infinite universe require an infinite creator? why or why not?

Have you been everywhere at the same time in this infinite universe to know that it is there?

How do you know that parts of an universe is just moving around to make it look bigger?

What are the top 100 proofs there is an infinite universe?

Are you a Latter Day Saint? aka Mormon?

How do you explain evil? Does evil exist? How do you know?

keep pulling questions out of a hat.

 

[Daniel Marsh]

The Big Bang/universe is not my area of expertise in apologetics. What would you reply?

We were not there when God created everything. We can simply guess how he did it.

 

[joshua 1 9]

atheist wanting a infinite universe

God is infinite so if they want infinite then they are searching to know God. Actually the Bible is infinite. Each and every letter that is used for the Hebrew Bible is infinite. John tells us all the books in the world could not contain what Jesus has done. (John21:25) "If they were all written down, I suppose the whole world could not contain the books that would be written."

 

[joshua 1 9]

Would an infinite universe require an infinite creator?

An infinite universe would require no corruption and no decay. According to the second law of thermodynamics, the amount of entropy in a system must always increase. Assume "The Big Crunch" scenario (the universe will collapse to a singularity). In the big crunch scenario, by definition, there is no universe for the radiation to escape to because the universe itself is collapsing, taking all radiation with it.

 

[joshua 1 9]

We were not there when God created everything. We can simply guess how he did it.

Some people believe we were there: "For He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless in His presence. In love " (Ephesians1:4) We are told that the angels were there: "On what were its foundations laid, or who set its core in place— while the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?" (Job 38:6,7)

 

[Semper-Fi]

I never said God did not create stars, but i do say God did not create a universe where people believe stars are. Stars are exactly where God placed them and in Genesis 1 states they are in the raqia.

There are 3 different Heavens

“Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them” This word heavens refers to two different heavens. (Gen. 2:1)

The first heaven consists of [the Earth’s atmosphere]. The second heaven is the vast reaches of space beyond the atmosphere.

There is also a third heaven: the home of God.
The Apostle Paul saw this “third heaven,”
where God’s throne is, in a vision (ii Cor. 12:1-2).

In Heb. 4:14, the phrase “into the heavens,” should be translated “through the heavens.”

Jesus Christ passed through the first two heavens—Earth’s atmosphere and outer space—as He ascended to the third heaven.

Birds and aircraft fly in the first heaven, the
Earth’s atmosphere [like a canopy or dome],
that separates the 1st and 2nd heavens.

 

[FredVB]

Well, first, talking to people like this is fruitless.

The overwhelming consensus of scientists is that the Big Bang theory is correct (see e.g. here). The Big Bang theory implies that our universe came into being at a time T0 (i.e. that it existed after T0, but not "before," if "before" has any meaning). In that sense it was created. The Big Bang theory says nothing about how our universe came into being.

This. Before there was nothingness. There was no existence. Then there was everything for the universe to become what it is. How is Mystery. That is all they will say. And they will argue with you saying you have no basis to think differently.

 

[RDKirk]

Some people believe we were there: "For He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless in His presence. In love " (Ephesians1:4) We are told that the angels were there: "On what were its foundations laid, or who set its core in place— while the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?" (Job 38:6,7)

Colossians 1 tells us, however, that the spiritual beings and the heavens themselves were also created, so there was a point before them as well.

 

[FredVB]

Colossians 1 tells us, however, that the spiritual beings and the heavens themselves were also created, so there was a point before them as well.

God choosing us though did not involve our own preexistence, but this speaks to God's foreknowledge, as God the essential being of existence has no limits to anything, including God's knowledge, which is then unlimited. God knows all, but this knowledge of us is not the same as other knowledge, which is knowledge about things. There is a word of another knowledge, which we do not have in english, that it is not indicated in translations, the personal knowledge. God knows already those who do come to God in a relationship when they do respond to God in their own lives. So it is that Jesus spoke of others who will be told, "Depart from me, I never knew you." They were never known personally, as they never have the personal relationship with God that people should come to, that since the fall of humanity has been made available through Jesus Christ.

Indeed that there is a time that everything of physical existence began indicates that there was the essential being of existence that made it, this was the Creator, the always existing unlimited one.

 

[RDKirk]

God choosing us though did not involve our own preexistence, but this speaks to God's foreknowledge, as God the essential being of existence has no limits to anything, including God's knowledge, which is then unlimited. God knows all, but this knowledge of us is not the same as other knowledge, which is knowledge about things. There is a word of another knowledge, which we do not have in english, that it is not indicated in translations, the personal knowledge. God knows already those who do come to God in a relationship when they do respond to God in their own lives. So it is that Jesus spoke of others who will be told, "Depart from me, I never knew you." They were never known personally, as they never have the personal relationship with God that people should come to, that since the fall of humanity has been made available through Jesus Christ.

Indeed that there is a time that everything of physical existence began indicates that there was the essential being of existence that made it, this was the Creator, the always existing unlimited one.

Yeah.