Agreed
Don’t agree. The beginning that is the universe that we talk about is the conversion energy to mass and spacetime and all the other stuff like dark matter and energy.
That energy by all means existed and has always existed.
See brane theory and cyclical universe theory.
Some reading if you like
http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/the-start-of-the-universe-with-string-theory.html
If I may interject for a second here, with a reply that is not only off your chosen topic, but also probably much longer than 50 words.
We’re soon reaching an impasse where you’ll decide we’re a bunch of morons, or that you hate us for not listening to you, or that we’re not “open minded”, or some other similar conjecture that saves you some mental discomfort. At that point you may leave in a huff. And that’s OK.
We’ve certainly had worse many times before.
However, as Hermes states, we see this time and again. For some reason Christians think we don’t know any of their arguments, have no idea about the bible, haven’t thought this through, and you think you have just the argument that’ll finally send us into Jesus’ arms.
Only one problem: Most of us were Christians. Studies suggest that on average an Atheist has more knowledge about the bible, and religion in general, than the average Christian. What you have to understand is we know the arguments. We know them backwards and then some, we can defend our views with ease, not only because we encounter these arguments everywhere we look…
…and this is key…
But also because we were converted to atheism because of these very arguments. Stop for a moment and think about this… We considered these arguments so deeply, and so thoroughly, and went through each one so exhaustively… That we finally felt so deeply and utterly convinced that there is no god… that we’re willing to bet eternity on it. That’s a big leap to make. Please appreciate it’s significance.
I believed in heaven once upon a time, when I started to doubt and came across all these arguments I was afraid. Afraid I would be condemning myself to hell for merely thinking about all this. And yet I found arguments so solid, so irrefutable, so utterly logical, that I came to be so convinced that not even the threat of hell could sway me any longer.
We have [b]very good[b] reasons for being atheists. Nothing you’re saying here is new to us. In my opinion, and it’s mine alone, the only person who could learn something out of this thread is you. And we sincerely hope that you do. That you learn we’re not all monsters, that we have thought this atheism thing through a lot, that your arguments are maybe not as irrefutable as you thought they once were.
I don’t think you’ll convert, I don’t think you’ll doubt. But next time you come across one of us, maybe give us a bit more benefit of the doubt. I think you can tell from this thread, we know the arguments for-and-against a lot better than your average church-going Christian.
to add to BM’s post: some of us on this forum have been missionaries or have studied religions (plural) extensively. I have written a book (Moses was a Liar) that took ten years of research. In my personal opinion ALL religions are man-made (history backs this up)…all gods (some 2800 have been created by different civilisations over the millenia), are created in the image of man. I was a Christian too but my research brought me to these conclusions.
Good, sensible post, BM, but I’m beginning to suspect there’s something of a language barrier at play — that is, besides the evident cognitive rigidity (rigor mensus).
Quite so. In fact, there’s a significant difference (almost 5 points out of 32 above the overall average of 16 ≈ 30% relative margin), with other heretics (Jews and Mormons) coming a close second. While those are US figures, it’s reasonable to suppose that they are similarly representative of the major international belief systems for the rest of the globe.
One thing that’s always baffled me is the presumption of unsolicited conversion, as captured in the following quote (with its fitting and punchy riposte).
Still, turning away from the religion one grew up with takes time and effort, and is certainly never easy. My view is that it’s an unhealthy, though kickable, social habit, one that’s not too far removed from smoking, actually.
'Luthon64
Let me just refer you to my statement #1: Science tells us that the universe has a beginning 13.8 billion years ago.
You obviously accept my statement #1.
Therefore you are not being coherent and consistent with your thinking and writing.
Everything in the universe has a beginning because the whole universe has a beginning some 13.8 billion years ago.
No more, please, of incoherency and inconsistency in thinking and in writing.
Don’t bring in anymore about all kinds of irrelevant incoherency and inconsistency like “the weird conditions that abounded just after the origin of the universe, etc., etc., etc., etc.”
Sorry, but I have to continually remind you folks here to have a coherently and consistently working mind in thinking and in writing, even though you might appear to yourselves to be so versatile, but in the whole picture you expose yourselves to incoherent and inconsistent thinking and writing, which is not what your reason and intelligence should be availed of by yourselves.
Susma
I have taken the liberty of highlighting, using a variety of typographic attributes, where your postulates fall apart. In how many more ways must it be said? The fact that a principle holds in the universe cannot, without further persuasive justification, be taken to mean that it also holds outside the universe.
Or do you have a unique perspective, perhaps by having been outside the universe?
'Luthon64
I don’t quite understand how I’m being incoherent and inconsistent just because I find your first statement acceptable, but not the second. The two statements are not logically linked in any way. They are two separate premises. The first is reasonable thanks to the efforts of science (and not theology), while the second is unreasonable because it’s speculation. The reasons as to why the second statement is unreasonable have been supplied several times over, most recently in lucid vermilion letters.
Rigil
Science tells us the universe in its current form started off about 13.8 billion years ago. Nobody knows what happened before that or how that singularity came to be in the first place. Nobody.
The premise is trying to ignore this fact. And inserting god in there is fucking premature at best. It is depressing that in 2014 people still do goddidit instead of looking for real answers.
Because to extrapolate your reasoning for a second, that everything we experience as “beginning”* has a cause and that is significant, every answer for every question we have ever actually solved, has turned out to be, not goddidit it, but a completely and utterly rational and natural explanation. So why will the question “where does the singularity come from?” suddenly have a magical answer???
*beginning ~ not only are the premises bullshit, but we all know there is an equivocation between existing stuff changing and a universe popping ex nillo into existence. Something no one is saying.
Suma is obviously not going to read up the scientific studies. Stuff pops in and out of existence, out of nothing, all the time due to quantum fluctuations. I do not understand it, it’s being said that if you understand quantum mechanics you do not understand quantum mechanics, but I take the scientists word for it. Why? They have evidence. Why not take theologists word for it that god created it all? No evidence.
Because such is the way of the religious. Anything that cannot be explained right that very moment is attributed to some kind of magic. Worse still, every single time it’s is assumed the answer cannot, and will not, be found. And invariably, eventually, it is.
Can’t explain the movement of the sun? A dude in a boat is ferrying it accross the sky!
Can’t explain the earth? The God says it’s on magical pillars, so that must be it!
In every age, at any point, if anybody dared question the “magic” explanation in favour of a “real” explanation, there was (and still is in darker corners of our fledgeling civilisation) quite often literally blood to be spilt.
And it doesn’t seem to matter how many times science consistently trumps the “magic” explanation, people still cling to their stupid “magic” BS all the same… Until their kids come around and eventually go: “Oh, this science explanation of gravity and planetary movement makes way more sense than boat-theory, I guess it’s true… but then how does gravity arise? Now that is clearly only possible through magic!”
It echoes through history in a litany of human arrogance, and it shows no signs of abating.
I suspect our guest Christian theist will soon give up debating with us stupid atheists.
Susma, before you go away: when a contradiction exists (in your mind) check your premises.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence…the onus is on you (not on us) to provide the extraordinary evidence that your Christian God exists…and while you do this, please provide evidence that Jesus walked on this planet (pls humor us and don’t quote the Bible) try to find some verifiable evidence in the annals of history.
On a side note guys
Has anybody read A Manual for Creating Atheists http://www.richarddawkins.net/books/5450
I have not, but it is my one book I want to ready this year.
In any case I wonder if this is not a better way applying the Socratic method to this type of questions
Ha! That’s what you think. The gospel of Albert, at Einstein 19:16, clearly states, “And the Lord puttethed into the universe Spacetime, so that it warpeth in submission to its holy Metric Tensor according to the rule of the Energy-Momentum Tensor, locked in Divine Mutual Influence, just as each commandeth change in the other. And the Lord saw that it was good and warped. And seeing it was a beautiful bit of Tensor Calculus that vexeth physics undergraduates unto eternity, He leftethed it thus.” 
Of course, the real mystery is where all this spacetime and energy-momentum stuff came to exist… >:D
Those who are given to proposing supernatural accounts of observable phenomena really only need to do two things: (1) Adequately substantiate their claims so that they are plausible, and (2) answer the question What does this account usefully or fruitfully explain, what new knowledge° does it add, and what testable predictions does it make?
'Luthon64
°Knowledge defined as “justified and true belief”.
You are again writing many things but not attending to the fact that the universe has a beginning some 13.8 billion years ago.
All the implications therefore are that everything in the universe has a beginning.
Next, from your reason and intelligence and thus your use of logic, you know that anything with a beginning has need of another entity to bring it to existence.
So, what is your problem, be brief and write just not more than 50 words.
Yes, you will say that in re of the two statements from yours truly:
Science tells us that the universe has a beginning 13.8 billion years ago.
Everything with a beginning has a cause.
you want to talk about the status of existence in which status there was no universe yet, or in the status prevailing outside of the status in which status the universe now exists and has a beginning some 13.8 billion years ago, and your point is that in which status where there is no universe yet, or outside the status of existence where there is the universe already, that namely: from your thinking and writing with all such uncalled for vehemence but without any logic whatsoever but all stubborn illogic, you insist that there is no principle of logical thinking that is coherent and consistent with reason and intelligence, scil., that anything with a beginning has a cause.
So, that is your refuge, go outside the universe the one now existing and with a beginning some 13.8 billion years ago, or go to the status in which status there was no universe existing with a beginning some 13.8 billion years ago: and insist that therefore there cannot be or we cannot know about any such rule that anything with a beginning has need of a cause to bring it to existence.
Well, that is your versatility but an abuse of coherency and consistency in thinking and writing: because we are here in the universe which has a beginning some 13.8 billion years ago, we are not outside the universe and we are not in the status of existence in which status of existence the universe had not yet been brought to the beginning of its existence some 13.8 billion years ago.
If you folks want to talk about no rules of logic and nothing at all is of any binding force outside the universe, or in the status of existence in which status the universe had not yet been brought into existence some 13.8 billion years ago – in the time reckoning of the universe itself, then you can all you folks continue on and on and on and on and on and on, but you are still in the universe that has a beginning some 13.8 billion years ago.
So, I will grant you your liberty to talk to your heart’s content, namely, that there is no rule of logic that anything with a beginning has need of a cause to bring it to existence, with your clever qualification that you are talking about that status of existence in which status there was no universe, or in that status of existence outside the status of existence in which status there is the universe, which universe we exist and live and operate in.
So, congratulations, you can talk to your heart’s content, about no such rule is binding in the whole totality of existence, etc., etc., etc., that everything with a beginning has a cause.
But when you take an IQ test, keep in mind that all IQ tests are founded on the existence of the universe which has a beginning some 13.8 billion years ago, and in this universe which has a beginning some 13.8 billion yeas ago, everything inside it has a beginning, and that is because it is a part of the whole universe which has a beginning: every component of it like you and me, and every particle,every field, every force and what have you, have a beginning in the universe that has a beginning some 13.8 billion years ago.
So, go ahead, and talk on and on and on, talk about how there is no logic binding about anything with a beginning has a cause, not in the status of the universe in which status there was no universe yet, or outside the status of existence in which status there is already the universe which has a beginning some 13.8 billion years ago.
You keep on and on talking about that and see if you can get to college by passing the entrance screening, where there are questions founded on your mastery of coherent and consistency in thinking, and you must then keep in mind that the universe has a beginning and everything in it has a beginning, and anything at all with a beginning in this universe just as with the whole universe which has a beginning, has need of a cause to bring it to existence.
That is what I call incoherent and inconsistent thinking, or more correctly, non-thinking or un-thinking: because you are not cohering your mind to the fact of science that the universe has a beginning some 13.8 billion years ago, and therefore anything at all in the universe has a beginning, but you want to win your argument that not so, because there is the status of the universe that is outside the universe, or that there is the status of existence in which status there was no universe yet, and you need not be consistent with your mind, namely, to think and to write always with the knowledge that the universe exists and it has a beginning some 13.8 billion years ago, so everything has a beginning that is in the universe which has a beginning some 13.8 billion years ago.
So, go ahead and see if you can do any science at all, and see if you can say anything at all intelligible to folks with their feet on the solid universe that has a beginning some 13.8 billion years ago, and therefore everything in it has a beginning, just as the whole has a beginning.
Susma
You started this thread with the idea that sceptics and atheists have the wrong idea about your “god” and that you sought to correct that perceived misperception.
So far, all you have managed to do is to display (1) a profoundly wrongheaded idea about what constitutes legitimate reasoning, and (2) an astonishing capacity for metronomic repetition. Neither has advanced your cause here in the least, and both are once again powerfully evident in your latest post.
Oh, and you do write better postmodern than I have seen in a good while. Still, maybe it would be wise if you were to try a different approach because this is very obviously going nowhere.
'Luthon64
You keep on and on talking about that and see if you can get to college by passing the entrance screening, where there are questions founded on your mastery of coherent and consistency in thinking
I don’t need to see, I already did, and passed, and went on to get an Honours Degree in Science, some of my subjects included Physics and Formal Logic. Yeah, I passed an actual university course that was purely about logic. Hell, you could say I make my entire living through applied logic, and I’m pretty damn good at it too, some say at the top of my field.
That’s how I know that what I just said above, has nothing to do with this argument so quit trying to imply we must be stupid if we don’t agree with you.
For someone claiming to have logical abilities better than ours, you sure commit a lot of logical fallacies (that’s a bad thing). Your first was special pleading, now you’re moving into Ad hominem and Proof by assertion (aka argumentum ad nauseum) territory.
So, what is your problem, be brief and write just not more than 50 words.
It has been done repeatedly. Your failure to read with any kind of comprehension is no fault of ours.
Susma, you seem more interested in sarcastically accusing us of poor reasoning rather than answering the questions put to you. I can assure you that it will impress everyone much more if you can provide clear answers to our concerns rather than just calling us idiots, and ignoring the questions, even if they are only of consequence to us. Here, for example, cyghost raised a very good point that relates to your inductive style of proof:
I would love to hear your reply to this. Preferably, also, in less than 50 words.
Rigil
What about a cyclical universe one that recycles itself and is infinite in its cycles, and we just find our selves in a cycle.
Hence we don’t need a cause.
I guess that Steven Hawking’s theories (The Big Bang did not need a God) would not phase you at all Susma. Maybe you should tell us (in less than 50 words) what qualifies you as a scientist, philosopher, religionist etc to question us or stop prattling about things you know nothing of.
M-theory posits that multiple universes are created out of nothing, Hawking explained, with many possible histories and many possible states of existence. In only a few of these states would life be possible, and in fewer still could something like humanity exist. Hawking mentioned that he felt fortunate to be living in this state of existence. - See more at: http://www.space.com/20710-stephen-hawking-god-big-bang.html#sthash.j1KcVJ9g.dpuf
???