Science breakthrough, Atheist Ray!

In physical cosmology, the Big Bang is the scientific theory of how the universe emerged from a tremendously dense and hot state about 13.7 billion years ago. The Big Bang theory is based on the observed Hubble's law redshift of distant galaxies that when taken together with the cosmological principle indicate that space is expanding according to the Friedmann-Lemaître model of general relativity. Extrapolated into the past, these observations show that the universe has expanded from a state in which all the matter and energy in the universe was at an immense temperature and density. Physicists do not widely agree on what happened before this, although general relativity predicts a gravitational singularity (for reporting on some of the more notable speculation on this issue.


So if a Believer is misinformed about the origins of creation, with no empirical evidence for the existence or origin of God. And the Atheist who has another perspective (Not sure what it is) is sure that the believer is wrong. Am I taking crazy pills or is the scientific view theorectical and equally without any empirical evidence. Good mornig Scottnz. So what happend before the bang, and if you don.t know then are using your faith to deduce your answer or is there really no answer or maybe since that's what were left with. In the begining God created the heavens and the earth, oh and by the way he used the Big Bang.

Originally posted by spiritmangr8ness
In physical cosmology, the Big Bang is the scientific theory of how the universe emerged from a tremendously dense and hot state about 13.7 billion years ago. The Big Bang theory is based on the observed Hubble's law redshift of distant galaxies that when taken together with the cosmological principle indicate that space is expanding according to th ...[text shortened]... In the begining God created the heavens and the earth, oh and by the way he used the Big Bang.

The big bang theory is based on more than just red shifted galaxies (although that’s a pretty big hint).
We live on a ball of rock spinning through space surrounded by collections of stars and gas clouds (and an assortment of other stellar bodies). This is not in dispute as you can look up through a telescope (or just with your eyes) and see it. The question is how did it get there. At this point there are two options, one is the steady state theory, which says that the universe is eternal and has been around forever (including everything in it). The other option is that one-way or another the universe had a beginning (options of birth death and then rebirth included here, i.e. big bang big crunch big bang models).
So the first question is how do you know if the universe had a beginning?

To answer this you can ask what would the universe look like if it had a beginning compared to what it would look like if it had been around forever. (Along similar lines to those people evolved in the 'flood' argument, if there was a world wide flood there should be signs in the fossil record, and huge worldwide silt deposits and the like, plus there are of course questions as to where all the water come from or go to). In this case the first really compelling piece of evidence that the universe had a beginning is that the sky gets dark at night. Light as we all know has a finite velocity of around 3*10^8 meters per second, and thus it takes time for light to travel a given distance. If the universe is infinitely old however then light could have travelled any distance and light would reach earth from stars any arbitrary distance away, why is this a problem? Well the light from any given star (reaching earth) will be less and less the farther away you get, but due to the distribution of stars the total amount of light from any given solid angle area of the night sky just keeps going up as you increase the distance at which light can come from, in other words any strait line drawn through space from the earth will eventually land on a star's surface. Thus the sky would be permanently white and the earth’s surface would be burnt to a crisp (in fact under these circumstances the earth would never form). As we can only see a certain distance into space (about 13.7 billion light years) and the sky is dark, this is a fair indicator that the universe hasn't been around forever. So while you keep looking for evidence which will either support contradict or be indifferent to the idea to the question did the universe have a beginning, you know have strong evidence that suggests it does. So the next questions you look at are when? And how? Red shift data showing everything rushing outwards suggests that once everything was much closer together than it was today (in fact running time backwards everything collides) add to that general relativity which has been (and is still being) tested to unbelievable accuracy which basically says that while you can have universes with matter flying apart and universes where it is collapsing together it is damn near impossible to get one in which everything just hangs there. (One molecule out of place would eventually disrupt the entire thing). So our best theory of gravity says you can't have a stable universe that isn't either expanding or contracting, we have evidence which suggests that everything is rushing away from us (which is what you would expect to see inside a big explosion) and the evidence piles up and up and I could write a 2 thousand page book on all the work that has been done on this and still not be finished with the subject. The important point though is that while pretty much all the evidence is happily pointing towards the universe being 'created' about 13.7 billion years ago in a hot dense fireball. The question of why and how are much harder to answer because our best theory’s are currently mutually contradictory. While both quantum mechanics and general relativity are very well tried and tested in there own realms (the subatomic and everyday world around us at low energies for quantum, and huge scale for general relativity) they don’t meet when you try to model the conditions in the early universe in the big bang. This is where we are. Trying to recreate the conditions of the fireball enough to get test data to come up with theories that do work here. There are lots of candidates but we can't currently test them. So from a certain perspective modern cosmology is guess work hunches and personal beliefs, as people try to imagine how the universe works, translate that into maths, make real world predictions and then test them, simply giving up and saying we don't currently know how it works so god must have done it has been done for phenomena we didn't understand for millennia, pretty much all of them are reasonably explained. We just haven't finished yet. So no we don't know what happened 'before' the big bang. We don't have the tools to answer that question yet, but there was a point in the history of man where every question we have answered wasn't, and that it was thought could never be answered.

Originally posted by EcstremeVenom
this is a joke, right?

right?

Originally posted by spiritmangr8ness
In physical cosmology, the Big Bang is the scientific theory of how the universe emerged from a tremendously dense and hot state about 13.7 billion years ago. The Big Bang theory is based on the observed Hubble's law redshift of distant galaxies that when taken together with the cosmological principle indicate that space is expanding according to th ...[text shortened]... In the begining God created the heavens and the earth, oh and by the way he used the Big Bang.

This is the "argument from stupidity" again, I see. The simple fact is that science deals with things that occur within the four-dimensional matix that we call the universe. The big bang was the event which created these four dimensions, one of which is time. As time came into existance at the big bang, the question of "what happened before the big bang?" is a logical absurdity. Even where it a valid question, which it is not, simply saying "well, it MUST have been god then" is again a logical fallacy. You have no proof of the validity of this statement, it's only your opinion.

The problem for us, spirit, is that our brains evolved to deal with things that happen to things roughly our size, and durations lasting seconds, minutes, hours and years. Even decades to some extent. To ask our brains to try and deal with events of 18 billion years ago, is not easy. Furthermore, to ask them to deal with any events that may occur within the absence of time is not possible either. Of course, logic breaks down in the absence of time, since time is required for causality, one thing happening after the previous thing.

Both your question and your response are amateurish at best.

Originally posted by scottishinnz
This is the "argument from stupidity" again, I see. The simple fact is that science deals with things that occur within the four-dimensional matix that we call the universe. The big bang was the event which created these four dimensions, one of which is time. As time came into existance at the big bang, the question of "what happened before the big b ...[text shortened]... after the previous thing.

Both your question and your response are amateurish at best.

I really don't mind the personal insults about the nature of the questions that I pose. But here is what is interesting about your argument to me. Quantum mechanics liquifies your terse opinion about a four dimensional matrix. Your answer could have been simply Maybe or even Possible. The fact of the matter is when you state so emphatically there can be no cause other than what the Newtonian Universe can reveal to you, your argument tends to be void of important facts. For example Math, Physics, Cosmology and Religion where spawned from Philosophy yet in your mind Religion is somehow characterized as foolishness? Your a courious fellow to me!
Your use of the term logical absurdity is clearly an oxymoron. Yet most of what you puport is theory. Not only theory about the origin of the universe but theory about the non existence of a Creator. The point of my diatribe is that you are acting upon your own faith (A GoD Trait)in as much as what you say is the truth about the non-exitence of God! Theory is Theory Scott no matter which side of the argument you are on.

Originally posted by spiritmangr8ness
I really don't mind the personal insults about the nature of the questions that I pose. But here is what is interesting about your argument to me. Quantum mechanics liquifies your terse opinion about a four dimensional matrix. Your answer could have been simply Maybe or even Possible. The fact of the matter is when you state so emphatically there ca ...[text shortened]... he non-exitence of God! Theory is Theory Scott no matter which side of the argument you are on.

Apparently you misunderstand how science works - and my remarks about your questions are not personal, I have merely argued against this point when it was argued far more eloquently.

"Theory", in the traditional scientific sense of the word, denotes a complete description and explanation of certain phenomena. For example, the theory of evolution is a complete description of how new traits and species come into existance through modification by descent. However, laypeople tend to interpret the word "theory" as a mere idea. It is, in most cases, not that at all! Most theories are very well substantiated, by numerous independant investigations by differing individuals. Here is where it gets a bit problematic. It seems the "theoretical" physicists have taken things a little too far. They are bending the usage of the word theory, in my estimation beyond breaking point. For example, string theory is NOT a traditional scientific theory. At best, string theory should be called "string hypothesis", however the proponents of string theory do not call it that, because it is a hypothetical concept. String theory basically says, "if these parts of the universe behave like strings then x, y, z happens". This is all well and good, but until a full explanation is forthcoming, it ain't a theory. The two meanings of the word are NOT interchangable, and much confusion arises as a result. Quantum physics, as you point out, posits an infinite number of dimensions, but of course, cannot show you them, or even detect them in any way, except on a piece of paper. Do not get confused between the two.

At the end of the day, the universe is flying apart. That means it was all much closer together at some point in the past. During a singularity (i.e. pre-BB), not even time exists. Logic breaks down - you cannot open a packing case with the crow bar inside. Likewise, you cannot simply say that "because we don't know" what happened before the BB that it must have been God. I don't know what's inside the box on the table in front of me - must that be God too? By your logic "yes" is the answer to that. Likeiwse, even the question of what happenned before the BB is loaded, because there was no before. There wasn't time for a before to have happenned in.

Originally posted by scottishinnz
Apparently you misunderstand how science works - and my remarks about your questions are not personal, I have merely argued against this point when it was argued far more eloquently.

"Theory", in the traditional scientific sense of the word, denotes a complete description and explanation of certain phenomena. For example, the theory of evolution is ...[text shortened]... se there was no before. There wasn't time for a before to have happenned in.

"At the end of the day, the universe is flying apart. That means it was all much closer together at some point in the past. During a singularity (i.e. pre-BB), not even time exists. Logic breaks down - you cannot open a packing case with the crow bar inside. Likewise, you cannot simply say that "because we don't know" what happened before the BB that it must have been God. I don't know what's inside the box on the table in front of me - must that be God too? By your logic "yes" is the answer to that. Likeiwse, even the question of what happenned before the BB is loaded, because there was no before. There wasn't time for a before to have happenned in."

So let me understand what your're saying here. It is a loaded question because you believe before the BB there was nothing or; you cannot reasonably argue based upon logical or empirical evidence for or against such a creative force such as a God in the classical sense of the definition. It is my observation that most of the time these clever tactics have kept the so-called Believer on the defensive with the unusal and difficult task of attemting to prove the existence of God based upon wide and varied interpretations throughout this forum. However when the alternative view is argued, then I find the range of comments wide and varied. From the merely agnostic temperment to the Atheistic extreme. So through concensus can you Atheist(not personally) mount an adequate argument for the non-existence of a God, that is not predicated on the latter. The argument should be; there is no God because my evidence says...................................



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Originally posted by spiritmangr8ness
"At the end of the day, the universe is flying apart. That means it was all much closer together at some point in the past. During a singularity (i.e. pre-BB), not even time exists. Logic breaks down - you cannot open a packing case with the crow bar inside. Likewise, you cannot simply say that "because we don't know" what happened before the BB tha ...[text shortened]... o God because my evidence says...................................



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Re; nothing pre-BB

Well, if you think you are smarter than Professor Einstein, feel free to re-write relativity.

Hi there. Biologists sometimes, rightly, get annoyed when other scientists, physicist's for example, start trying to explain evolutionary theory to a non scientist from a position of, 'I am a scientist and therefore know exactly how evolution works,' as they often get things wrong. I am occasionally guilty of this myself. Something similar applies to ideas like relativity and string theory from the perspective of being a physicist. String theory does not postulate infinite dimensions (although you are quite right that it is currently only a hypothesis not a theory), numbers such as 10, 11 and 22 dimensions are all possibilities, and there are hopes that the LHC (a new big particle accelerator) might be able to detect the first of these extra dimensions that are postulated in many different competing hypotheses (along with the higgs boson and mini black holes). GR does suggest that both black holes (and the beginning of the universe) contain or were a singularity. However as you approach the conditions GR needs for a singularity you enter the region where quantum effects become important, and as I stated earlier Quantum and GR are mutually incompatible? Which means one or both are almost certainly wrong? There are many physicists who don't think that singularities exist (and there have been several alternatives postulated) but we don't currently have the theories to describe what would happen/happened. Anyway the long and the short is that science can't currently go past these points as our theories currently break down when you hit them. The big bang may have been the creation of time and space, in which case talking about before is meaningless as before requires there to be time for there to be a before in, and for there to be a creator there needs to be not only time for them to exist (so they can do stuff) but space for them to do it in. however that is not the only option, and the TRUTH may not be an option we have thought of yet (why after all should we think we are the 'special' generation that will actually finally answer all these questions?).

Originally posted by googlefudge
Hi there. Biologists sometimes, rightly, get annoyed when other scientists, physicist's for example, start trying to explain evolutionary theory to a non scientist from a position of, 'I am a scientist and therefore know exactly how evolution works,' as they often get things wrong. I am occasionally guilty of this myself. Something similar applies to ide ...[text shortened]... we are the 'special' generation that will actually finally answer all these questions?).

Thanks Google, I must admit to not being a physics specialist (although, you'll note, I did not claim extra dimensions for string theory! I should however have claimed them for "theoretical" physics, instead of wrongly writing quantum). I hope i put the point across adequately however.

I think the state of BB theory is just too premature to make predictions of what there was before the BB but other theories out there do, one saying our whole universe is what we would consider a collapsed star, this theory apparently does away with the need for inflation at the beginning of the BB. This theory also suggests that there is a spin to our whole universe, something BB theory prohibits.
There is some suggestive data in the CBR data some people interpret to say there IS an overall spin to the universe. If so it blows regular BB theory out the window and allows for there to be a 'before' before the BB. It would suggest a far larger universe, maybe an infinite number of universes with holes being punctured in them where a collaping star makes a new universe so there could be any number of universes floating around, each one finite sized, allowing for a truly gigantic number of possible universes to be side by side so to speak.
My personal opinion is there has to have been a 'before' if BB theory is correct anyay, some condition led to the begetting of the BB and maybe for US time began then but that does not mean there are other multidimensional frameworks in which to insert time referances of which our universe would only be one. The BB could be just starting a LOCAL clock.
BTW, all of you, thanks for hijacking my little story thread. I had some plans for it but can't see how I can continue now.

continue anyway it was funny.

News flash! This just in. Reports coming from the middle east are showing millions of defections from the religious ranks. Jews, Muslims, Jehova Witness, Scientologists, all leaving their respective faiths! Reporters on the scene in Tel Aviv are saying Muslims are negotiating with Jewish leaders at the Kenneset and Chrisitan leaders are there as well, an impromtu meeting of the minds of the highest levels. We are waiting to hear what is taking place. Chrisitan Amapour, do you have any word?
Yes Giraldo, People are streaming from the Kenneset now, smiles on everyones faces. Just a minute I will ask a leader I see. Mr Netanyahoo, what just happened?
Well, we all recognized what can happen with this new Agun and we have all decided we need to band together and stop fighting amongst ourselves, Al Quida is in on it too. We are making peace for the first time between us, Jews, Muslims, Christians, Hindu, Shia, Sunni, we are all in total agreement we need to stop fighting each other and devote our efforts to fight this religious scurge that has come over the world. To that end, we are forming a multinational task force to track down the perpetrators of this monstrous attack on religion and we will defeat them and come out even stronger! Ms. Amapour we will not be defeated by these crackpot anti-religious terrorists!
This is Christian Amapour backt to you Giraldo!
Giraldo Rivera in Tel Aviv saying goodnight and it feels good not to have rockets coming down in Haifa and Hezbollah and Hamas have laid down their arms and are greeting their Jewish brothers in this common enemy. More as it unfolds.

Giraldo Rivera again, we have some incredible news. In a collaberation between Muslim and Jewish scientists, they have developed their own version of the Aray gun. This one converts atheists into or back into religious feelings. They have mass produced the gun, called the Rray and have been using it en mass, converting atheists by the millions. There is absolute chaos going on! People zapping each other in the streets, swinging one way, first they are religious, then atheist, religious, atheist, it looks like a matter of the firstest with the mostest. News as it happens.

Well here it is six months later, everyone on earth has been zapped one way and then the other for six grueling months. Christian Amapour, do you have anything new for us?
Yes Giraldo, we have found something new going on. I was zapped myself, feeling first atheist then religous, and back and forth like everyone else. Now something else has happened. Apparently something happened with so many people getting zapped back and forth, there seems to be a third scenerio playing out. Now everyone is agnostic! It seems somebody invented the Abomb! It looks like everyone on earth is agnostic now, and they have stopped zapping each other, no atheists or religious people left! Christian Amapour out.