The Universe Is a Miracle

[fudgetusk]

Fact: No scientist has explained how the universe came into being.

There are only two options.

1. It came from nothing.
2. It always existed.

Scientists admit that the first option is impossible. It defies logic.

The second option also defies logic. Some believe in it still. They believe the past is infinite.

Yet you cannot cross an infinite amount of time or distance. And for the PRESENT to exist then the universe would have had to cross an infinite amount of time to get to now.

The two options are illogical. Therefore the universe came about illogically. A miracle.

Some will say "God made it". I do not include this option as it does not solve the problem. We then have to ask how God came about. Like the universe there are only two options, the same options as I list above.

So one miracle happened, so why not others?

 

[Dave-W]

OR - the logic system itself is flawed.

 

[Hieronymus]

Fact: No scientist has explained how the universe came into being.

There are only two options.

OBVIOUSLY there are 3 options...
I mean, come on, you're on a Christian forum for crying out loud...

1. It came from nothing.
2. It always existed.

3. GOD created it (it came from GOD who by definition always exists / existed / will exist).

Some will say "God made it". I do not include this option as it does not solve the problem.

Of course it solves the problem. It's the best explanation to boot.
But the "peers" won't have that, of course, and that's why you won't consider it either...
It seems "freethinkers" are not free to think this..

We then have to ask how God came about. Like the universe there are only two options, the same options as I list above.

No.
I'll give you another angle of approach:
Original / First Cause(r)
The original cause can by definition not be caused, or it would not be the original / first cause.

So why does anything exist at all?

 

[Jon Osterman]

Fact: No scientist has explained how the universe came into being.

This is true. But to be fair scientists do not attempt to answer this question. The Big Bang Model is not a model of creation itsel. The BB model just says that a very long time ago the universe is very hot and dense and then expanded and cooled. There is no mechanism in it to explain (or attempt to explain) how the universe came to be in such a state. The logical expectation is to think that going back further and further the universe gets hotter and denser, but then we move into physical realms that we have no experimental data for and cannot say anything about. As we build higher and higher enedy colliders we get a little more understanding and a little further back, but still not the the actual creation event itself (if there is one).

There are only two options.

1. It came from nothing.
2. It always existed.

Both of these show a misunderstanding of the concept of time. You are using the word "always" because you have the reasonable belief that time is a backdrop to the creation process. (This is reasonable because it is true for everything you have ever experienced.) But in circumstances where there is very high energy density (like the Big Bang) time is affected by the energy density too. This is in the theory of General Relativity already but will become even weirder (and less understood) further and further back as we will then need Quantum Gravity.

If you are going to explain the creation of the universe, you also have to explain the creation of time itself. And in that context you can probably see yourself why your two options doen't make a lot of sense.

Scientists admit that the first option is impossible. It defies logic.

This is not true. In fact, this is brobably the majority belief among cosmologists. Notice that I say "belief" because it is only a belief since we have no evidence that it "came from nothing", but it is certainly possible for there to be a finite boundary to time, beyond which (going back) there is no more time coordinate.

The second option also defies logic. Some believe in it still. They believe the past is infinite.

Yet you cannot cross an infinite amount of time or distance. And for the PRESENT to exist then the universe would have had to cross an infinite amount of time to get to now.

This is also wrong. There is absolutely no issue with an infinite time in the past or an infinite time in the future. I presume you have no problem with an infinite spatial universe, and since time is another dimension, there is mathematically little difference between infinite space and infinite time.

I think the issue you are having here is your human causal requirement for an "arrow of time". By that I mean that sceintists still don't really understand why humans (and other animals) percieve time as flowing and sequential. We appear to be moving through a four dimensional manifold, always in (roughtly) the same direction. (I say roughly because Special Relativity tells us that the time direction shifts very slightly when we move relative to one another.) If we understood why the arrow of time is as it is, then we might agree that an infinite universe is impossible, but we are certainly not at the point of making that claim with current understanding.

The two options are illogical. Therefore the universe came about illogically. A miracle.

Some will say "God made it". I do not include this option as it does not solve the problem. We then have to ask how God came about. Like the universe there are only two options, the same options as I list above.

So one miracle happened, so why not others?

But despite all that, you come to the correct conclusion. The universe is indeed a miracle! I think most sceintists would agree.

 

[dqhall]

Fact: No scientist has explained how the universe came into being.

There are only two options.

1. It came from nothing.
2. It always existed.

Scientists admit that the first option is impossible. It defies logic.

The second option also defies logic. Some believe in it still. They believe the past is infinite.

Yet you cannot cross an infinite amount of time or distance. And for the PRESENT to exist then the universe would have had to cross an infinite amount of time to get to now.

The two options are illogical. Therefore the universe came about illogically. A miracle.

Some will say "God made it". I do not include this option as it does not solve the problem. We then have to ask how God came about. Like the universe there are only two options, the same options as I list above.

So one miracle happened, so why not others?

God brought about change over the course of billions of years. It did not go from nothing to the emergence of mankind in six days. This week a news article was published about the discovery of the oldest marine animal fossil. It shaped like a ray. It lived more than half a billion years ago.
Earliest animal fossils are identified

God is still creating. We see it in technological advances.

 

[Ophiolite]

There are only two options.

1. It came from nothing.
2. It always existed.

Before I can agree or disagree, or remain on the fence, I need your definitions of "nothing" and "always". I need rigorous definitions, not colloquial expressions, or a referral to "a dictionary".

If you understand why I am asking then you will understand, on reflection, why your logic is flawed. If not, I probably can't make further contribution to your thread.

 

[eleos1954]

Fact: No scientist has explained how the universe came into being.

There are only two options.

1. It came from nothing.
2. It always existed.

Scientists admit that the first option is impossible. It defies logic.

The second option also defies logic. Some believe in it still. They believe the past is infinite.

Yet you cannot cross an infinite amount of time or distance. And for the PRESENT to exist then the universe would have had to cross an infinite amount of time to get to now.

The two options are illogical. Therefore the universe came about illogically. A miracle.

Some will say "God made it". I do not include this option as it does not solve the problem. We then have to ask how God came about. Like the universe there are only two options, the same options as I list above.

So one miracle happened, so why not others?

I don't think the human mind can really fully comprehend eternity (unending time).
Supernatural: (of a manifestation or event) attributed to some force beyond scientific understanding or the laws of nature. We will know when the Lord comes back ;o)

 

[Justatruthseeker]

Fact: No scientist has explained how the universe came into being.

There are only two options.

1. It came from nothing.
2. It always existed.

Scientists admit that the first option is impossible. It defies logic.

The second option also defies logic. Some believe in it still. They believe the past is infinite.

Yet you cannot cross an infinite amount of time or distance. And for the PRESENT to exist then the universe would have had to cross an infinite amount of time to get to now.

The two options are illogical. Therefore the universe came about illogically. A miracle.

Some will say "God made it". I do not include this option as it does not solve the problem. We then have to ask how God came about. Like the universe there are only two options, the same options as I list above.

So one miracle happened, so why not others?

How did God come about? He's the only thing science admits never had a beginning and will never have an ending. God is Energy/Mind/Thought.....

Energy - Wikipedia

"Energy is a conserved quantity; the law of conservation of energy states that energy can be converted in form, but not created or destroyed."

Conservation of energy - Wikipedia

"This law means that energy can neither be created nor destroyed; rather, it can only be transformed or transferred from one form to another."

Accept science, don't run from the third option which science itself proclaims as the only viable choice.... There exists a being of pure thought, who created the universe from Himself and also at the same time resides in everything, and all will go back to Him at the end.

Romans 1:20 "For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse."

Don't ignore that everything did not always exist or come from nothing. It came from God who is Energy/Mind and has always existed. Even the science you profess to follow tries to tell you this, even if they then deny God....

Don't blame the astronomers who can not conceive of how the universe could be created from a being of Energy/Mind, because they ignore that possibility, even when their own science admits this is the only possibility. No miracles needed, just that you accept science.... The science is valid, it is the interpretation of science that is where the flaw originates....

 

[Justatruthseeker]

So one miracle happened, so why not others?

See post above.

What miracle????

God, who is Energy/Mind simply transformed part of Himself to make the universe, exactly as science declares is the only possibility.

"This law means that energy can neither be created nor destroyed; rather, it can only be transformed or transferred from one form to another."

There is nothing miraculous in the scientific process of energy conversion to matter, nor to transferring it to create life from "dust".

It's only miraculous because those who do not want to admit to God choose to use those magic words so they have an excuse.....

Creation requires no miracles. Miracles are only needed by those who refuse to accept creation....

 

[Jon Osterman]

God, who is Energy/Mind

What does that even mean? I don't think you know, but you are welcome to try and explain it to us.

 

[Smidlee]

Fact: No scientist has explained how the universe came into being.

There are only two options.

1. It came from nothing.
2. It always existed.

There is a third option
3. It was created just as an artist paints a picture or as a programmer creates a video game. It's appear it came out of nowhere when it came from a mind.
Thus mind is the greater reality. Mind over matter.
I never saw a game developed by no one or a book without an author

 

[SelfSim]

There is a third option
3. It was created just as an artist paints a picture or as a programmer creates a video game. It's appear it came out of nowhere when it came from a mind.
Thus mind is the greater reality. Mind over matter.

.. or the mind creates the meaning of the term 'reality' .. or in other words it takes a mind to conceive of what 'reality' actually is. In the absence of any type of mind .. there is no evidence of reality (or existence) and therefore when our (modern) minds think about the origin of the universe they inevitably conclude the universe magically popped into reality (ie: the mind concludes 'it was miraculous'). Science never explicitly assumes minds were around 13.8 billion years ago, but there is abundant evidence that they weren't. The outcome of this is that yet again, there is no evidence of any reality existing independently of the mind at the same time.

'Matter' also has no meaning in the absence of a mind, so I think its inconsistent to imply a hierarchy of 'mind over matter' and that a mind somehow has access to some sort of 'greater' reality(?)

 

[Brightmoon]

I have a habit of not mixing science with theology because if I do, religion becomes ignorant and or superstitious . Since I’m not an atheist, I don’t want to equate God with superstitious ideas and ignorance about natural phenomena. I’m comfortable with Goddidit. I’m not comfortable with most forms of creationism because they leave out relevant details and most creationist organizations do practice some form of disinformation aka deliberate misinformation

So for me the Big Bang is a natural phenomena and I don’t know how it happened. Goddidit is what I believe,it’s not what I can confirm

 

[Justatruthseeker]

.. or the mind creates the meaning of the term 'reality' .. or in other words it takes a mind to conceive of what 'reality' actually is. In the absence of any type of mind .. there is no evidence of reality (or existence) and therefore when our (modern) minds think about the origin of the universe they inevitably conclude the universe magically popped into reality (ie: the mind concludes 'it was miraculous'). Science never explicitly assumes minds were around 13.8 billion years ago, but there is abundant evidence that they weren't. The outcome of this is that yet again, there is no evidence of any reality existing independently of the mind at the same time.

'Matter' also has no meaning in the absence of a mind, so I think its inconsistent to imply a hierarchy of 'mind over matter' and that a mind somehow has access to some sort of 'greater' reality(?)

The universe exists weather you "believe" it does or not. It would exist whether we were conscious or not. An amoeba can't reason, yet the earth still exists for it. The only thing different if man did not exist is there would be no one around to make up fantasies of Big Bangs from nothing, for no reason....

The only Mind in existence in the beginning was God, who IS Mind....

 

[SelfSim]

The universe exists weather you "believe" it does or not.

The idea that the universe exists independently of a mind (not just mine) is pure belief as there is no test which can definitively decouple the mind's influence from such a test. Realism is a philosophically held belief.

Oh .. and what you say entirely depends on what you mean by 'exists' (and that meaning was bestowed upon ye by other human minds).

It would exist whether we were conscious or not. An amoeba can't reason, yet the earth still exists for it.

And tell me .. did 'an amoeba' tell you its called an 'amoeba'? How about 'the earth' did it tell you its name? .. No? .. ok then where did what we mean by 'amoeba', 'the earth', 'conscious' and 'exists' come from, eh?

'Exist' is what we choose it to mean. Science defines it by producing objective test results .. which is precisely why there is no evidence that some mind independent some kind of reality exists independently from the minds perceiving of and carrying out those objective tests. (Ie: eg I've never heard of an amoeba doing science .. Have you?)

The only thing different if man did not exist is there would be no one around to make up fantasies of Big Bangs from nothing, for no reason....

.. and all of what you mean by that just came from your mind!
And its your own personal belief, what's more! (More like a delusion for you .. as the overwhelming evidence of your illogical drivel continues to accumulate).
What (I think) you mean by 'Big Bangs from nothing' is an inference taken from objective observational and theoretical test data .. ie: there is plenty of reasoning involved in it .. (unlike your beliefs about it)

The only Mind in existence in the beginning was God, who IS Mind....

So your meaning of 'God', (in this case .. a pure belief), is 'Mind' then .. yawn!

 

[Shemjaza]

I don't think it's reasonable to disregard "Always existed" as illogical, but accept an explanation that has "always existed" as one of its attributes.

 

[Jon Osterman]

It's not my fault you don't understand what makes thoughts possible.

Why Does the Brain Need So Much Power?

Electricity in the Brain

These links have nothing to do with your claim that "God is Energy/Mind". Are you going to construct a supporting argument, or continue to spout unsupported nonsense?

 

[DogmaHunter]

Fact: No scientist has explained how the universe came into being.

There are only two options.

1. It came from nothing.
2. It always existed.

Neat, a false dichotomy. No doubt, set up specifically only to end up with your religious doctrine of choice after passing through a few fallacies like appealing to ignorance, false analogy and argument from incredulity.

Scientists admit that the first option is impossible. It defies logic.

Do they? When did this happen?
Especially in light of a few relatively recent science books like "A universe from nothing".

The second option also defies logic. Some believe in it still. They believe the past is infinite.

To be honest, the second is absolutely correct.
You see, "always" refers to a period of TIME. And time, is a dimension of the universe. It's called space-time.

So for as long as there was a universe, it has had a time dimension. Can't have a universe without time and can't have time without a universe (or at least, for all we know...)

So really, it is very correct to say that "the universe has always existed". Because, take any point in time and there is a universe there. Remove the universe = remove time itself.

Yes, space-time had a beginning. The beginning of the universe = the beginning of time.
So yes, the universe has "always" existed.

Yet you cannot cross an infinite amount of time or distance.

But nevertheless, if you have an infinite string of events.... While there is no "beginning or end", the arrow of time still moves through series of events. An infinite amount of them, sure, but they still happen. Why can't this moment right now, not be one of them?

So really, that statement of yours isn't really an argument.
But it doesn't matter, since the consensus at this point is that time isn't infinite in the past. It started some 13.7 billion years ago. Together with the universe - being a part of it et al, as explained previously.

And for the PRESENT to exist then the universe would have had to cross an infinite amount of time to get to now.

That makes no sense.
You make it sound as if when you have an infinite amount of events, then no event ever happens. That off course is not true.

But more importantly, it's irrelevant, because time doesn't seem to stretch infinitly in the past. So let's not even go there.

The two options are illogical. Therefore the universe came about illogically. A miracle.

Or maybe, just maybe, it came about some other way that your limited puny human (uneducated?) brain can't come up with at this time?

Also, considering how mega-weird things like quantum mechanics are to our human brains that have evolved to only deal with sub-light speeds and macroscopic objects.... I'ld say that whatever the true mechanism was that produced the universe - it is bound to be seen as ultra mega weird by our brains.

As Krauss likes to say: Our brains evolved to avoid getting eaten by lions on the African savannah... not to understand quantum mechanics or unravel the mysteries of the early universe.

Some will say "God made it". I do not include this option as it does not solve the problem

Well, at least there's that I guess...

We then have to ask how God came about.

And where this god is, and how one can support the statement, why one would even propose such a thing, how one concluded that this god did anything at all, etc etc etc.

Like the universe there are only two options, the same options as I list above.
So one miracle happened, so why not others?

You haven't established that a miracle occured.
At best, you've identified something you didn't understand and then just screamed "MIRACLE".

In fact, you haven't even defined what you mean by "miracle" and how it is usefull or meaningfull to use that word in this context.


In fact...... it kind of sounds that what you really mean by it is simply "i don't know".

 

[DogmaHunter]

OBVIOUSLY there are 3 options...
I mean, come on, you're on a Christian forum for crying out loud...3. GOD created it (it came from GOD who by definition always exists / existed / will exist).

In that case....

4. allah created it
5. shiva created it
6. extra-dimensional aliens from the eternal universe, created it
7. there's no such thing as a finite universe because what we observe is really just what the matrix is showing us
8. whatever your imagination can produce next

Of course it solves the problem.

Then so do options 4, 5, 6, 7 and whatever your imagination can come up with for 8,9,10,....

It's the best explanation to boot.

Assertions just assert, they don't explain.

But the "peers" won't have that, of course, and that's why you won't consider it either...
It seems "freethinkers" are not free to think this..No.

Freethinkers are free to think. So are scientists.
However, they are not free to just make stuff up and present it as Truth.

I'll give you another angle of approach:
Original / First Cause(r)
The original cause can by definition not be caused, or it would not be the original / first cause.

Causality is a temporal phenomena of the universe. You can't invoke it in a context where the universe doesn't exist.

And arbitrary definitions, special pleading fallacies and semantics will not win the point here.

So why does anything exist at all?

I don't know.


See how that works? Honesty, it's a nice thing, isn't it?

 

[Justatruthseeker]

This is true. But to be fair scientists do not attempt to answer this question. The Big Bang Model is not a model of creation itsel. The BB model just says that a very long time ago the universe is very hot and dense and then expanded and cooled. There is no mechanism in it to explain (or attempt to explain) how the universe came to be in such a state. The logical expectation is to think that going back further and further the universe gets hotter and denser, but then we move into physical realms that we have no experimental data for and cannot say anything about. As we build higher and higher enedy colliders we get a little more understanding and a little further back, but still not the the actual creation event itself (if there is one).



Both of these show a misunderstanding of the concept of time. You are using the word "always" because you have the reasonable belief that time is a backdrop to the creation process. (This is reasonable because it is true for everything you have ever experienced.) But in circumstances where there is very high energy density (like the Big Bang) time is affected by the energy density too. This is in the theory of General Relativity already but will become even weirder (and less understood) further and further back as we will then need Quantum Gravity.

If you are going to explain the creation of the universe, you also have to explain the creation of time itself. And in that context you can probably see yourself why your two options doen't make a lot of sense.



This is not true. In fact, this is brobably the majority belief among cosmologists. Notice that I say "belief" because it is only a belief since we have no evidence that it "came from nothing", but it is certainly possible for there to be a finite boundary to time, beyond which (going back) there is no more time coordinate.



This is also wrong. There is absolutely no issue with an infinite time in the past or an infinite time in the future. I presume you have no problem with an infinite spatial universe, and since time is another dimension, there is mathematically little difference between infinite space and infinite time.

I think the issue you are having here is your human causal requirement for an "arrow of time". By that I mean that sceintists still don't really understand why humans (and other animals) percieve time as flowing and sequential. We appear to be moving through a four dimensional manifold, always in (roughtly) the same direction. (I say roughly because Special Relativity tells us that the time direction shifts very slightly when we move relative to one another.) If we understood why the arrow of time is as it is, then we might agree that an infinite universe is impossible, but we are certainly not at the point of making that claim with current understanding.



But despite all that, you come to the correct conclusion. The universe is indeed a miracle! I think most sceintists would agree.

Time is not a dimension. It is a second measurement of movement. Without material things, time has no meaning.

It is a second distance measurement to confirm the first.

This is proven mathematically very easily. You can not divide two unrelated things. That is you can not divide meters by feet, gallons by quarts, etc without first converting one to the other. Only if two things are directly related and equal in meaning can division be done.

The formula d/t requires no conversion from one to another. They are the exact same thing, distance.

Whether the distance the earth revolves around its axis to return to the same point, the distance it travels to orbit the sun, the distance of a pendulum swing, the distance a hand on a clock moves, or the distance between the crests of electromagnetic waves as a cesium atom decays.

There is no pseudoscience of another dimension called time. It is simply a second distance measurement to confirm the first distance measurement.