Is God required for the Big Bang? -- ManhattanProject vs. King of Men

[KnightWhoSaysNi]

This thread has been set up for a formal debate between ManhattanProject and King of Men on the following resolution:

"God is required for the 'Big Bang' to have happened."

ManhattanProject will argue for the affirmative and King of Men will oppose. The debate will have three rounds and ManhattanProject will go first according to the parameters (http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showpost.php?p=2186021&postcount=26).

A Peanut Gallery (http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?p=2192811#post2192811) is set up in the Existence of God(s) forum for the rest of us to comment on the debate.

Good luck to both participants!

- NS, FD Moderator

[ManhattanProject]

First, I would like to thank King Of Men for joining me for this unfinished debate.

I would like to start off with why I believe in the Big Bang and evidence for it, despite the fact that we both believe that the Big Bang actually happened.
1. The Second Law of Thermodynamics – The law that states the universe is constantly “winding down� which means it, at some point, had to be wound up.
2. The Expansion of the Universe – In 1929, Edwin Hubble came to the conclusion that, based on the idea of the Doppler Effect on sound, the “red shift� was the result of objects moving away from the earth, causing longer (red) wavelengths.
3. Big Bang Radiation – It started in 1965, when Arno Penzais and Robert Wilson detected strange radiation on their antennas at Bell labs. This discovery turned out to be the afterglow from the Big Bang explosion.
4. The Theory of Relativity – The Theory of Relativity requires time, space, and matter to have an absolute, finite beginning and has been found to be one of the most accurate scientific theories known to man.


Now that that is out of the way, King of Men and I come to our differences. King of Men believes in the Big Bang, but he believes that it came about through Quantum Fluctuations and CP Violations, removing the requirement for an Initiator of any kind. I have studied these and come to these conclusions, Correct me if I am wrong.

Quantum Fluctuation:
A quantum fluctuation is the appearance of equal but opposite particles out of vacuum. A particle of matter and another of antimatter can appear for a moment then quickly meet and annihilate each other.

CP Violation:
In almost all circumstances antimatter seen in a mirror behaves like normal matter. Very occasionally, in the decay of kaons (and perhaps in the decay of B-mesons, though this has not yet been seen), this rule is violated. This is known as CP violation.

Now, I believe that this is possible and logical, but I do not believe that this would be possible without the hand of God. The Big Bang theory has been proven to be very logical, but I would like to ask a few questions before I accept the idea that you have proposed.

A. Every cause has an effect. It is impossible to make something out of nothing.
B. Did time and space exist for matter to reside in?
C. Were the laws of Physics applicable before anything was created?
D. For CP violations to exist, it means there must have been a tangible anti-matter universe that existed, which begs the questions of where it came from.

[King of Men]

Before I start, let me thank comrade ManhattanProject for joining me at a board where it is actually possible to argue without being banned.

Next, let me clear up a few misconceptions in his post, starting with Second Thermodynamics. Although often presented as an absolute law, it is actually a statement about probabilities. If you wait for a sufficiently long time, Second Thermo will be violated on any scale you care to name - right up to the heat-death of the Universe being reversed. Of course, 'sufficiently long time' in this context is rather more than the estimated age of our Universe. Very much more. In fact, the estimated lifespan of the Universe, say about 10^120 years, is a mere blink of the eye relative to the 'sufficiently long time' I speak of here. But that does not matter. In an eventless Universe, what is a bit of time? Second Thermo does not require a 'winding up', for it is an absolute law only on merely galactic timescales.

Second, Einstein's General Relativity. It does not require an absolute beginning to time; this is one possible solution to the equations. In fact, it is a relatively trivial one. The equations of GR are extremely complicated, admitting many different solutions. Einstein himself inserted a cosmic constant to make the Universe steady-state; nor was this mathematically wrong. It's a perfectly acceptable solution to the equations. It just doesn't match what we observe. The start-from-nothing solution occurs if you set some constants to zero, which incidentally makes the equations much simpler to solve, perhaps accounting for its popularity. There's nothing special about it except that it seems to account for observations.

Third, about quantum fluctuations. I made reference to these in an earlier debate, but I did not intend to be understood as saying 'this is what happened'. I was responding to a post in which the conservation of energy was mentioned as a bar to the Big Bang theory, and trying to show one way in which you can get around that. However, I by no means assert that the Universe came to be in this fashion, it's just one possibility. There are some problems with the theory, too : For example, we have not yet found a sufficient amount of CP violation to account for all the matter we see. Not to mention baryon number conservation. But these are problems of not knowing enough about high-energy physics.

Now, the reason I mentioned CP violation as necessary is that, in a quantum fluctuation, equal amounts of matter and antimatter are created. Since the Universe we see today is dominated by matter, the antimatter has to go somewhere. As it happens, certain kinds of matter particles can 'oscillate' into their anti-matter counterparts and vice versa. If anti-matter goes to matter more often than the other way, that is CP violation; and if that happens on a large enough scale, we can account for the imbalance we observe. As a side note, CP violation has recently been observed in the B-meson system.

With that cleared up, I shall respond to the questions, in reverse order :

D. For CP violations to exist, it means there must have been a tangible anti-matter universe that existed, which begs the questions of where it came from.

I am not completely certain I understand what comrade ManhattanProject is asserting here, but I think it's wrong. CP violation is a statement about how certain particles interact. If it is to have meaning except as some Platonic ideal, those particles must exist, true; but there is no requirement for an entire Universe of them. Moreover, if the quantum-fluctuation model I suggested is true, then we had, for a few moments, an antimatter Universe, created right beside our own in a vacuum diagram on the grand scale. Some of it managed to convert into matter, just slightly faster than matter was converting to antimatter; then 99.99999% of both annihilated in a flash of energy. A Big Bang, indeed!

C. Were the laws of Physics applicable before anything was created?

How should I know? Perhaps they were, perhaps not. If not, then both our arguments are going to fail : Mine, because they extrapolate from what is known; and comrade ManhattanProject's, because they - extrapolate from what is known. 'No effects without causes', he asserts; well, that's true in our Universe, but who is to say that it was so before the Big Bang? Not me, certainly.

However, I can say something about just where our knowledge breaks down. At about 10^-42 seconds after the beginning of time, our extrapolations (that is, informed guesses) break down. We just don't know (yet) how matter and energy behaves at such temperatures. That's why we're building ever more powerful accelerators.

B. Did time and space exist for matter to reside in?

Again, who knows? Not me, certainly. The possible methods of creation I've suggested here do rather rely on some kind of time and space existing. However, I do not wish to be misunderstood : I am not bombastically asserting 'This Is The Way It Happened". These are possible paths to what we see today, not ruled out by our current knowledge, and not requiring a Creator. Since I am defending the position that 'The Big Bang does not logically require a Creator', that is all I need to do.

A. Every cause has an effect. It is impossible to make something out of nothing.

Well, that's what I thought until I started studying quantum mechanics. But - and this is the reason I left this question for last - this assertion does not, in any event, bolster the case for the existence of a Creator. For does not the Creator require a cause?

No matter how you twist and turn, there are two possibilities : Either there is an infinite time stretching backwards, or time has a definite edge. In the second case, you have an uncaused causer, namely the beginning of time. In the first case - why, you also have an uncaused causer : the existence of time. If you wish to put the Prime Mover at one further remove, and call it God, fine. But you have not solved the problem of beginnings. Why not cut out the middleman?

We come here to the limits of human understanding. It is hard enough to comprehend our own beginning, our own inevitable end; yet we see it occur around us, every day. How much more difficult, then, to understand the beginnings and endings of time?

Our minds rebel at an infinite existence; but no less so at the thought of a definite beginning, before which there was nothing. Still, there is no third alternative. Choose one, and hang your hat on it; in either case, as I think I've shown, there is no need to postulate a Creator.

It seems to me that the whole of comrade ManhattanProject's position rests on this one statement :

(...) I do not believe that this would be possible without the hand of God.

That is, of course, his choice. But the mere assertion carries no weight of evidence, compels the agreement of no-one. Where is the argument that CP violation cannot occur without a hand guiding it? How has it been shown that an uncaused caused called God is better than one called the big Bang?

Nothing will come of nothing. Speak again.

[ManhattanProject]

Next, let me clear up a few misconceptions in his post, starting with Second Thermodynamics. Although often presented as an absolute law, it is actually a statement about probabilities. If you wait for a sufficiently long time, Second Thermo will be violated on any scale you care to name - right up to the heat-death of the Universe being reversed. Of course, 'sufficiently long time' in this context is rather more than the estimated age of our Universe. Very much more. In fact, the estimated lifespan of the Universe, say about 10^120 years, is a mere blink of the eye relative to the 'sufficiently long time' I speak of here. But that does not matter. In an eventless Universe, what is a bit of time? Second Thermo does not require a 'winding up', for it is an absolute law only on merely galactic timescales.

Where has it been proven that the second LAW of thermodynamics is false?
It aint a law for nothing....
There is no evidence for the second law of thermodynamics to be false. You didnt give any proof of your statemtents

Second, Einstein's General Relativity. It does not require an absolute beginning to time; this is one possible solution to the equations. In fact, it is a relatively trivial one. The equations of GR are extremely complicated, admitting many different solutions. Einstein himself inserted a cosmic constant to make the Universe steady-state; nor was this mathematically wrong. It's a perfectly acceptable solution to the equations. It just doesn't match what we observe. The start-from-nothing solution occurs if you set some constants to zero, which incidentally makes the equations much simpler to solve, perhaps accounting for its popularity. There's nothing special about it except that it seems to account for observations.

Einstein, as you should know, introduced a "fudge factor" into the equations. He divided by zero! How is that perfectly acceptable? Besides, How can there be many answers to the Theory of Relativity if Two men, in 1980, by the names of Russell Hulse and Joseph Taylor were awarded the nobel prize for making the theory of relativity the most accurate theory in the history of science???? It was verified to a trillionth of a percent!

Third, about quantum fluctuations. I made reference to these in an earlier debate, but I did not intend to be understood as saying 'this is what happened'. I was responding to a post in which the conservation of energy was mentioned as a bar to the Big Bang theory, and trying to show one way in which you can get around that. However, I by no means assert that the Universe came to be in this fashion, it's just one possibility. There are some problems with the theory, too : For example, we have not yet found a sufficient amount of CP violation to account for all the matter we see. Not to mention baryon number conservation. But these are problems of not knowing enough about high-energy physics.

Now, the reason I mentioned CP violation as necessary is that, in a quantum fluctuation, equal amounts of matter and antimatter are created. Since the Universe we see today is dominated by matter, the antimatter has to go somewhere. As it happens, certain kinds of matter particles can 'oscillate' into their anti-matter counterparts and vice versa. If anti-matter goes to matter more often than the other way, that is CP violation; and if that happens on a large enough scale, we can account for the imbalance we observe. As a side note, CP violation has recently been observed in the B-meson system.

You dont have to respond to this, Im just gonna give my input about it.

Taken from the Case for a Creator.....

"These subatomic particles the article talks about are called 'virtual particles.' They are theoretical entities, and it's not even clear that they actually exist as opposed to being merely theoretical constructs. However, there's a much more important point to be made about this. You see, these particles, if they are real, do not come out of nothin. THe quantum vacuum is not what most people envision when they think of a vacuum-that is, absolutely nothing. On the contrary, it's a sea of fluctuating energy, an arena of violent activity that has a rich physical structure and can be described by physical laws. These particles are thought to originate by fluctuations of energy in the vacuum.
"So its not an example of something coming out of nothing, or somethign coming into being without a cause. The quantum vacuum and the energy locked up in the vacuum are the cause of these particles. And then, we have to ask, well, what is the origin of the quantum vacuum itself? Where does it come from?"
"You have simple pushed back the issue of creation. Now you've got to account for how this very active ocean of fluctuating energy came into being. Do you see what I'm saying? If quantum physical laws operate within the domain described within quantum physics, you cant legitimately use quantum physics to explain the origin of that domain itself. You need something transdecent thats beyond that domain in order to explain how the entire domain came into being. Suddenly, we're back to the origins question..."

1. Whatever begins to exist, has a cause
2. The Universe had a beginning
3. Therefore, the Universe has a cause


How should I know? Perhaps they were, perhaps not. If not, then both our arguments are going to fail : Mine, because they extrapolate from what is known; and comrade ManhattanProject's, because they - extrapolate from what is known. 'No effects without causes', he asserts; well, that's true in our Universe, but who is to say that it was so before the Big Bang? Not me, certainly.

If there was nothing, how could any laws apply. Besides, my concept of how the earth was created was through God. Mine does not fail.....

Again, who knows? Not me, certainly. The possible methods of creation I've suggested here do rather rely on some kind of time and space existing. However, I do not wish to be misunderstood : I am not bombastically asserting 'This Is The Way It Happened". These are possible paths to what we see today, not ruled out by our current knowledge, and not requiring a Creator. Since I am defending the position that 'The Big Bang does not logically require a Creator', that is all I need to do.

I agree, everything could change tommorow. But thats a bit of a half-hearted answer, no? Your whole theory, to an extent, rides on these questions......

Well, that's what I thought until I started studying quantum mechanics. But - and this is the reason I left this question for last - this assertion does not, in any event, bolster the case for the existence of a Creator. For does not the Creator require a cause?

No matter how you twist and turn, there are two possibilities : Either there is an infinite time stretching backwards, or time has a definite edge. In the second case, you have an uncaused causer, namely the beginning of time. In the first case - why, you also have an uncaused causer : the existence of time. If you wish to put the Prime Mover at one further remove, and call it God, fine. But you have not solved the problem of beginnings. Why not cut out the middleman?

We come here to the limits of human understanding. It is hard enough to comprehend our own beginning, our own inevitable end; yet we see it occur around us, every day. How much more difficult, then, to understand the beginnings and endings of time?

Our minds rebel at an infinite existence; but no less so at the thought of a definite beginning, before which there was nothing. Still, there is no third alternative. Choose one, and hang your hat on it; in either case, as I think I've shown, there is no need to postulate a Creator.


Hey, thats your choice and I will respect it.......I cannot convince you of what you do not want to know.

That is, of course, his choice. But the mere assertion carries no weight of evidence, compels the agreement of no-one. Where is the argument that CP violation cannot occur without a hand guiding it? How has it been shown that an uncaused caused called God is better than one called the big Bang?

I can say the same of yours. Your assertion carries no weight of evidence, compels the agreement of no one. Your assertion has been created to be something, ANYTHING, to try to run from the existence of a God. Why is it so hard to believe that a God loves you? and to answer your last sentence, If a man makes a toy, is he not greater than the toy???




As the title of one my books says, I dont have enough faith to be an atheist......

[King of Men]

Where has it been proven that the second LAW of thermodynamics is false?
It ain't a law for nothing....
There is no evidence for the second law of thermodynamics to be false. You didn't give any proof of your statements.

Indeed, I do not usually provide proofs of what is shown in any undergraduate textbook on statistical physics. For a trivial example of entropy spontaneously decreasing, consider a gas, not necessarily ideal, confined to a rectangular box. Clearly, if all the gas is in the left half, you have less entropy than you do for an even spread, since you could then put a piston in the box and make the gas do work.

Let's start with the gas evenly spread over the box. For any individual molecule, the probability that it is in the left half of the box is 0.5. Let N be the number of molecules. Let's suppose that every second or so, the molecules have collided enough that their distribution is random again; that is, even if you know that molecule X is in the left half of the box at time t, it collides fast enough that the probability is only 50% at time (t+1).

Now, what is the probability that all the molecules will occupy the left side of the box? Clearly it is (0.5)^N. Hence, you expect that if you wait for 2^N seconds, one of those seconds will have the configuration you want, that you can extract work from. Voila, spontaneous entropy loss! To be sure, 2^N is a rather long time for even a gram of gas, since N will be of order Avogadro's number. It helps that you could still extract work if one molecule was on the right side and all the rest on the left, which is N times more likely, and so on; still, your box would fall apart before you got any useful work out of this machine. But that's not relevant to the problem we were discussing, namely the coming into existence of the Universe.

As for why it's called a 'Law', the people who discovered it in the nineteenth century were a bit too eager, and anyway they found it experimentally instead of using the statistical analysis we have nowadays. If it were being discovered today, it would likely be called the Second Approximation of Thermodynamics. As approximations go, it's a pretty good one.


Einstein, as you should know, introduced a "fudge factor" into the equations. He divided by zero! How is that perfectly acceptable? Besides, How can there be many answers to the Theory of Relativity if Two men, in 1980, by the names of Russell Hulse and Joseph Taylor were awarded the nobel prize for making the theory of relativity the most accurate theory in the history of science???? It was verified to a trillionth of a percent!

Einstein most assuredly did not divide by zero, he introduced a cosmic constant. Which, incidentally, turns out to be necessary to explain recent discoveries of dark energy. As for Hulse and Taylor, your facts are wrong. The Nobel was awarded 'for their discovery of a new type of pulsar, a discovery that has opened up new possibilities for the study of gravitation.' You might want to check out what the Nobel Institute (http://nobelprize.org/physics/laureates/1993/illpres/) says before you make assertions like that. The pulsar's behaviour agrees with general relativity to within 0.5%, a far cry from the trillionth of a percent you claimed. I also think you are mixing general and special relativity; the latter is highly tractable and has indeed been verified to extremely high accuracies.

As for how there can be several answers, well, they're just equations, you know. Any second-degree equation has two solutions; Einstein's equations are a bit more complex than that. This (http://archive.ncsa.uiuc.edu/Cyberia/NumRel/mathmine1.html) shows what they become for an object showing axisymmetry, that is, ellipsoids. In the fully general case, there are thousands of terms.




"You have simply pushed back the issue of creation. Now you've got to account for how this very active ocean of fluctuating energy came into being. Do you see what I'm saying?

This is very true, but hardly helps your case, because precisely the same objection applies to God. You haven't responded to this point in my post above, so I'll try again : No matter what you postulate, you're going to have an origins problem. 'God has existed forever' is precisely and exactly logically equivalent to 'the quantum sea has existed forever', as far as explaining the Big Bang is concerned.

Let me gently remind you of what you are trying to accomplish : You are arguing that the Big Bang logically requires a God. Now, we both agree that the Big Bang requires something that has existed forever. (Well, in fact I don't have a problem with the Big Bang appearing from literal nothing, but I'll go that far for the sake of the argument.) But you have yet to show that this 'something' logically needs to be a god, much less the Christian god. At the very least, you need to pick some holes in my suggested paths. In fact, you need to shoot a hole in every theory I can come up with, until I am left with no option but to say, 'You're right, the Big Bang does require a prior consciousness.' I will then instantly convert to gnosticism, because you still won't have convinced me that said consciousness is Yahweh. (Of course, you still won't have proved that a consciousness is required, only that I am too stupid to think of a viable theory that doesn't include one. But that's sufficient for this debate.)


1. Whatever begins to exist, has a cause
2. The Universe had a beginning
3. Therefore, the Universe has a cause


Bad premises, it is not obvious that the Universe had a beginning, and it is not obvious (though a much better induction) that it requires a cause even if it does. The set-of-all-things is different from each of its elements; you cannot reason that it has the same properties. To put it another way : You are saying that because everything inside the Universe has a cause, the Universe must have a cause. That's like saying that because each human is either male or female, humanity must be male or female. It's called the Fallacy of Composition.


If there was nothing, how could any laws apply. Besides, my concept of how the earth was created was through God. Mine does not fail.....

I did not say your concept would fail, I said the reasoning leading you to it would fail.


I agree, everything could change tommorow. But thats a bit of a half-hearted answer, no? Your whole theory, to an extent, rides on these questions......

But unlike you, I don't insist on binding up my whole sense of identity with fallible theories. However, that is in any case not the point I was making. What I was trying to say is that I believe these mechanisms are acceptable based on what we know. For you to prove that God is the only logically possible choice, you need to show that my alternatives are not, in fact, viable, based on current knowledge.

I can say the same of yours. Your assertion carries no weight of evidence, compels the agreement of no one.

But, once again, it does not need to. Our positions are fundamentally asymmetric : You are attempting to show that only one explanation is possible. To disprove such an assertion, I need not convince others that an alternative actually happened, only that it could have happened.

Your assertion has been created to be something, ANYTHING, to try to run from the existence of a God. Why is it so hard to believe that a God loves you? and to answer your last sentence, If a man makes a toy, is he not greater than the toy???

I intended 'better' in the sense of 'logically more satisfying' rather than 'greater, more powerful'. As for the 'God-loves-you' argument, well, it would help if Good Things started happening in my life, as opposed to pie in the sky, by and by. Why do you feel the need for a Big Sky Father to love you? Aren't humans good enough? Perhaps you need to get laid; it's amazing how loved you feel afterwards, if it's done right. But in any case this is hardly an argument in a logical debate.

[KnightWhoSaysNi]

ManhattanProject,

Please note that the time limit to post your concluding statement has expired. The rules permit, however, a grace period that extends your deadline to Mar. 12.

Thank you for your consideration,

- NS, FD Moderator

[ManhattanProject]

.....But that's not relevant to the problem we were discussing, namely the coming into existence of the Universe.

So it is possible to violate the first law, assuming it is true. But still, it would take to long to violate that it would be almost impossible to have any impact on the fact that the universe is constantly running down.

Einstein most assuredly did not divide by zero, he introduced a cosmic constant. Which, incidentally, turns out to be necessary to explain recent discoveries of dark energy. As for Hulse and Taylor, your facts are wrong. The Nobel was awarded 'for their discovery of a new type of pulsar, a discovery that has opened up new possibilities for the study of gravitation.' You might want to check out what the Nobel Institute says before you make assertions like that. The pulsar's behaviour agrees with general relativity to within 0.5%, a far cry from the trillionth of a percent you claimed. I also think you are mixing general and special relativity; the latter is highly tractable and has indeed been verified to extremely high accuracies.

As for how there can be several answers, well, they're just equations, you know. Any second-degree equation has two solutions; Einstein's equations are a bit more complex than that. This shows what they become for an object showing axisymmetry, that is, ellipsoids. In the fully general case, there are thousands of terms.


The SPECIAL theory of relativity:
The Special Theory of Relativity was proved in 1939, after the byproducts of the uncontrolled fisssion of Uranium 235 was observed. The result was two byproducts, strontium and cesium, both together weigh less than the single element of Uranium 235. THe lost mass was converted into energy, thereby validating E=MC^2.

The GENERAL theory of relativity
The General Theory was proven in 1919. Here (http://www.phys.uconn.edu/Seminars/2003Spring/20030221pcl.html)

This is very true, but hardly helps your case, because precisely the same objection applies to God. You haven't responded to this point in my post above, so I'll try again : No matter what you postulate, you're going to have an origins problem. 'God has existed forever' is precisely and exactly logically equivalent to 'the quantum sea has existed forever', as far as explaining the Big Bang is concerned.


It does help my case, because you are at a loss to answer it.....

The same objection does not apply to God. God, if he does exist, has existed forever and is infinite and has the power to create the universe and everything in it. And it is not the same as saying the quantum sea has exsited forever. Because I can say something outside of the universe created it. You have to try to explain how something came from nothing in a closed system.


Let me gently remind you of what you are trying to accomplish : You are arguing that the Big Bang logically requires a God. Now, we both agree that the Big Bang requires something that has existed forever.


I'm glad we both agree on that


(Well, in fact I don't have a problem with the Big Bang appearing from literal nothing, but I'll go that far for the sake of the argument.)


You have no proof of that, because something cannot come from nothing, it is plainly, not possible. And you have yet to show me any evidence that it is.


But you have yet to show that this 'something' logically needs to be a god, much less the Christian god. At the very least, you need to pick some holes in my suggested paths. In fact, you need to shoot a hole in every theory I can come up with, until I am left with no option but to say, 'You're right, the Big Bang does require a prior consciousness.' I will then instantly convert to gnosticism, because you still won't have convinced me that said consciousness is Yahweh. (Of course, you still won't have proved that a consciousness is required, only that I am too stupid to think of a viable theory that doesn't include one. But that's sufficient for this debate.)

There is not much more for me to shoot a hole in. Theres not much more you can say to most of my arguements. Please show me the places that I have not convinced you. Also, If you would like, you can present a theory to me and I will look at it. But I will continue this debate as long as you would like, even outside of this formal debate.


Bad premises, it is not obvious that the Universe had a beginning, and it is not obvious (though a much better induction) that it requires a cause even if it does. The set-of-all-things is different from each of its elements; you cannot reason that it has the same properties.


They are not bad premises. That is completely logical. How can it not be possible that the universe has a beginning??? There is no credible scientific evidence that the universe is infinite!


To put it another way : You are saying that because everything inside the Universe has a cause, the Universe must have a cause. That's like saying that because each human is either male or female, humanity must be male or female. It's called the Fallacy of Composition.


I dont believe that everything in the universe has a cause. I believe that everything in the universe was invented or discovered on principles and ideas that already were in place. Nothing has ever been "created"

I did not say your concept would fail, I said the reasoning leading you to it would fail.

How does the reasoning lead it to fail?

But unlike you, I don't insist on binding up my whole sense of identity with fallible theories. However, that is in any case not the point I was making. What I was trying to say is that I believe these mechanisms are acceptable based on what we know. For you to prove that God is the only logically possible choice, you need to show that my alternatives are not, in fact, viable, based on current knowledge.

How is it fallible? If there are any questions on any subjects besides the Big Bang that you think are "fallible," please, inform me. I will continue to give you evidence for a Creator. Again, you have not showed me any alternatives. Please, show me one.

But, once again, it does not need to. Our positions are fundamentally asymmetric : You are attempting to show that only one explanation is possible. To disprove such an assertion, I need not convince others that an alternative actually happened, only that it could have happened.

Thats true for this debate, but can you say that in real life? I do not need to explain why it compels the arguement of no one, it just does. But you do need to convince someone that it actually happened, if you would like to disprove me, or anyone, for that matter.


I intended 'better' in the sense of 'logically more satisfying' rather than 'greater, more powerful'. As for the 'God-loves-you' argument, well, it would help if Good Things started happening in my life, as opposed to pie in the sky, by and by. Why do you feel the need for a Big Sky Father to love you? Aren't humans good enough? Perhaps you need to get laid; it's amazing how loved you feel afterwards, if it's done right. But in any case this is hardly an argument in a logical debate.


Humans are good, but have you ever met one that has always been there for you? Anyone that is human will fail you. I want someone who will love me for who I am, and love me forever and ever, in eternity. There is love on earth, but none of it is ever satisfying, none of it lasts forever. Once you die, that love will end. Life will move on. But if there is a God, I will continue to be loved by Him, instead of just dying and that being the end, all she wrote. Listen, my life hasnt been great, no ones lives are great. All of our lives suck. But without pain and suffering and sin, would we need a God? No.....In times of pain, I have come so close to God because there has been no where else I can turn.

[KnightWhoSaysNi]

King of Men,

Please note that the time limit to post your concluding statement has expired. The rules permit, however, a grace period that extends your deadline to Mar. 20.

Thank you for your consideration,

- NS, FD Moderator

[King of Men]

Unhappily, this discussion has degenerated into mere assertions. It is rather difficult to respond with any originality to an opponent who seems unable to comprehend arguments already made, or even make any of his own; pray pardon me, therefore, if I repeat myself, and in simpler words at that.

So it is possible to violate the first law, assuming it is true. But still, it would take to long to violate that it would be almost impossible to have any impact on the fact that the universe is constantly running down.

You do not seem to have grasped what I am saying, here. Yes, this Universe will eventually run down. But having done so, it doesn't cease to exist. It lies about waiting for the next large-scale violation of second thermodynamics. It doesn't matter that it takes a long time, except to the human species, and who cares about them?

Let me outline the argument once again : We can assume space-time has existed forever and ever, without cause, amen. Given that, we are going to get an infinite amount of Big Bangs, completely without the intervention of God, Invisible Pink Unicorns, or the Devil's grandmother. Each individual Universe thus created will run down; but so what? We were discussing the origin, not the fate.

The same objection does not apply to God. God, if he does exist, has existed forever and is infinite and has the power to create the universe and everything in it. And it is not the same as saying the quantum sea has exsited forever. Because I can say something outside of the universe created it. You have to try to explain how something came from nothing in a closed system.

Yes, and that's what violations of second thermodynamics are for. I don't know how I can put it any more simply. Consider these statements :

1. God has existed forever, is uncaused and eternal.
2. Space-time has existed forever, is uncaused and eternal.

Whatever you think of the factual accuracy, you must certainly admit they are logically equivalent. We can only decide between them on the basis of other evidence than the existence of the Universe : They both explain precisely the same amount of existence. And, by the way, who created God?

You have no proof of that, because something cannot come from nothing, it is plainly, not possible. And you have yet to show me any evidence that it is.

But I have. That you don't want to hear is not my fault. I'm sorry, but holding hands over ears and going "La-la-la, I can't hear you" is not usually considered good debating technique. There's none so blind, as those who will not see.

They are not bad premises. That is completely logical. How can it not be possible that the universe has a beginning??? There is no credible scientific evidence that the universe is infinite!

Nor, indeed, that it is finite. I didn't say it was impossible, I said it was not logically required. Let me try to explain this one more time : You see that everything around you has a cause and a beginning, and you therefore reason that the Universe must have a cause and a beginning. That's like saying that because a computer program consists of 0s and 1s, it must itself be a zero or a one. Not much would get done if this were true.

I dont believe that everything in the universe has a cause. I believe that everything in the universe was invented or discovered on principles and ideas that already were in place. Nothing has ever been "created".

So the Universe doesn't require a cause either, then? Glad you agree. Remind me why you needed a God, again.

How is it fallible? If there are any questions on any subjects besides the Big Bang that you think are "fallible," please, inform me. I will continue to give you evidence for a Creator. Again, you have not showed me any alternatives. Please, show me one.

I damn well have! You have not even understood, much less objected to, any of the alternatives I showed. Moreover, you have presented precisely zero evidence for a Creator, apart from the 'Universe must have a cause' fallacy, which I have shot down three times.

Humans are good, but have you ever met one that has always been there for you? Anyone that is human will fail you. I want someone who will love me for who I am, and love me forever and ever, in eternity.

Yes, and I want a million dollars and a harem, but that doesn't mean I'm going to get them. This kind of reasoning is usually associated with children. [invective removed - NS]. Moreover, it has absolutely nothing to do with the logical necessity of a god for the Big Bang. Even if you did manage to prove such a necessity, that would in no way prove that the Creator equalled the Christian god.





Let me sum up :

1. There are several ways in which the Universe can have existed forever, to produce what we see now, without the intervention of a God. Comrade ManhattanProject has been unable to find holes in any of the ones I have suggested.

2. Only two arguments have been advanced showing the need for a God : One is the fallacy that everything requires a cause. This is based on induction from within the Universe and cannot be applied to origins. And let me once again point out that "God has existed forever" explains not a jot, tittle, or smidgen more than "The Universe has existed forever". The other is the pseudo-argument that "I need someone to love me", which is special pleading with a vengeance, and rather childish at that. The Universe loves no-one; deal with it.

If comrade ManhattanProject wishes to continue this debate, I will be pleased to do so in a thread in the "Existence of God" forum.

[KnightWhoSaysNi]

The formal debate is now complete. We would like to thank ManhattanProject and King of Men for their participation. Discussion can be continued in the Peanut Gallery.

- NS, FD Moderator