Are religions manmade and natural or supernaturally based?

"Since time ..." or "If time ..."?The logical conjecture that we all learned in high school, "Time and space began with the big bang," is, in fact, just that: conjecture. Our present models cannot go there so there is no way to know this is fact.This conjecture has not gone by way of the dinosaur yet, has not been falsified, so it still has some validity as a logical speculation. But, today, it exists in the field as just one of many competing conjectures. Hawking may be a really big brain but he is not beyond challenge.There may have been both a T-minus and a spatial extent prior to what we call the inflationary/big bang. And, unlike the singularity we all like to point to with no real mathematical or theoretical justification, some of these others have some strong (speculative) math behind them. The "brane world" hypothesis stemming from M-theory and the "quantum fluctuation" hypothesis from QFT are two of many such conjectures out there to compete with both our beloved standard singularity and ICANT's totally bogus "could only have been supernatural" speculations as the start of our inflationary/big bang cosmology.We need to quit citing spacetime's origin in the big bang as catechism. There is viable logic in other directions and still too much we do not know.What's north of the north pole?We don't know.We don't know that the concept is viable.We, also, don't know that it is not.Edited by AZPaul3, : No reason given.Edited by AZPaul3, : boo-boosEdited by AZPaul3, : No reason given.

No, it does not. The processes that brought about what we refer to as our universe could well have been quite natural. We just don't know what they are ... yet. Or, it could happen quite naturally without any supernatural. Or, it could happen quite naturally without any supernatural. Or, it could happen quite naturally without any supernatural. And water has to be in order for a pond to exist. All we know at this time is that this universe as we see it has to exist because we are here experiencing it. We do not know if anything else is required to exist to have started it or to keep it going. We don't know. We don't know. We don't know if this universe expanding into something is a viable concept. Here's a brain fart for you. We don't know if what we see as expansion isn't really everything getting really really small around us. It would look the same from our perspective wouldn't it. So who's to say it isn't the same size? Who's to say our perspective is the reality? If everything is shrinking around us how could we tell the difference from an expansion? Wrap your mind around that one. We don't know. No, it does not. The processes that brought about what we refer to as our universe could well have been quite natural. We just don't know what they are ... yet.Edited by AZPaul3, : No reason given.

No, your supernatural is not required.You may want to put forward your supernatural as an hypothesis to answer a question we still have open but there are other hypotheses that also answer that question without any supernatural.Your supernatural is not a requirement.To take it further, why should anyone entertain a supernatural hypothesis to answer our ignorance in this question when such invocations have always been so disastrously wrong every other time put forward?I would think that given the history of religious philosophy this species has experienced, filling this gap in our knowledge, invoking your god in this shadow of our ignorance where no one can see, would be the last thing you would attempt.What is it with religionists always equating our ignorance with their gods?Is your god the ultimate, infinite and perfect purveyor of universal ignorance?I could agree with that.

In your proposal, how does this supernatural power supply all the necessary energy to form our universe? Where does your supernatural power get this energy? How did this energy manifest into the inflationary/big bang?You don't know. Aside from your belief, your desire that it be so, you have no physics models grounded in mathematics upon which to base your speculations. We don't have any solution ... yet. We don't know. My two favorite scenarios for this universe are the quantum fluctuation and the brane world collision. Even though speculative, both have solid mathematical models based upon first principles in known physics behind them. Both models, according to their math, are capable of producing the enormous energy required to feed the inflationary/big bang. The question remains whether those models are correct reflections of reality. We don't know.You base your speculation on nothing other than your desire. Anyone can propose anything on that basis. The intellectual tragedy is insisting on presenting these desires as the reality in the face of ignorance.To have any efficacy, even in speculation, there must be a model that is mathematically complete and consistent as well as based on known physics or their logical extensions.Having voiced my favorites here I am wiling to wager a small sum that when/if an effective, evidenced, model is finally achieved, that theory will be so strange as to make QFT look tame. One thing we have learned these past few hundred years is that this universe is more absurd than we can ever hope to imagine.Edited by AZPaul3, : No reason given.Edited by AZPaul3, : No reason given.

No, they don't. They just naturally emerge from the workings of the universe. That's how we humans developed those laws. We watched the universe repeat something time and again then we developed a mathematical model of what we saw. After some refinement we could use the model to predict the action that was about to happen. It didn't. We did. But why the universe acts this way or that is another one of those we-don't-know questions.Keep in mind that deep dark scientific secret of tentativity. No matter how accurate our models may be they are only approximations pending further information. These things did not come to us written in some sacred text somewhere. They are based on human observations and are still open to modification. When the electrons and quarks froze out of the enormous energies in the very early universe why did they condense out at the energies they did? Why did they take on the quantum values and properties they did? Almost everything else in this universe fell into being from these. Some property of the initial energy we have yet to discover?From there we see the repeated patterns. We build our mathematical models based upon these patterns and our "laws of physics" come into being.We cannot build new models for areas we cannot observe or areas where our present models are not effective.There are areas in the early universe, and prior, we cannot see and where our present models are not effective. We have no laws for these areas ... yet. We do not know what happened or how. We are ignorant of these processes. That's your cue to bring in your great god of all human ignorance. There ya go. Program complete.

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This negative energy can balance the positive energy needed to create matter ...

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He is speaking of the quantum fluctuation where energy erupts into a universe. The energy needs to be balanced with an equal negative energy. Space is that negative energy. Since gravity is the geometry of space ...Without gravity the positive energy cannot be balanced and the quantum fluctuation can not occur. The Quantum Fluctuation produces both the energy necessary for creating a universe and the space in which it exists. From nothing.As brilliant as he may be, Hawking suffers from the same shortcomings in communication with the lay person as most other scientists. He knows what he is talking about. The science literate know what he is talking about. The less knowledgeable may misinterpret the meaning and the creationist will latch onto the literal juxtaposition of his words without any consideration of any underlying meaning.He is not saying that gravity existed before the universe or caused the universe to manifest. He, like the rest of us, does not know what might cause, if anything, a quantum fluctuation to occur. Someone with an agenda might hear a scientist talk about the Uncertainty Principle making a quantum fluctuation possible then arguing that scientists say QFT exists outside the universe.Hawking may not have given the extreme pedantic detail he could have, but he is innocent of being stupid. He is not saying that gravity alone caused the universe to come into being.Edited by AZPaul3, : No reason given.Edited by AZPaul3, : clarity?Edited by AZPaul3, : One more add + title

From memory I thought it was quite clear, but that may just be me. Right now I do not have chapter and verse to relay as my copy is out with a friend. One reads so many of these things they all meld together absent to actual text. If I recall correctly they did go into some detail about quantum theory and, specifically, the uncertainty principle as the justification for the existence of quantum fluctuations and virtual particle pairs and etc., like that. The same discussion as Greene, Randall and Krauss in their various books. Thus the scientists' communication problems. If one lays a foundation here and neglects to repeat himself 6 pages or 6 chapters later from where a quote is taken, who's fault is the miscommunication?Everyone's.

The M-theory/BraneWorld speculations have nothing to do with closing in on T=0. They involve a totally different perspective.Strictly embedded in the rigors of the mathematics from start to finish, the mathematics in M-theory can resolve into thin slices called branes through a multi-dimensional space-time. Branes can manifest with 2, 3, 4, or more spatial dimensions. The hypothesis is that this universe we all know and love is a 3-brane embedded in the tapestry of a far larger space-time with an infinite number of slices, brane worlds, each with an n number of spatial dimensions.Further, the math shows that these different brane worlds, the different slices of space time, may be only millimeters (or less) away from each other and that they move, actually flutter like a series of flags, across the larger space time in which they are embedded.So the question naturally arises, what would happen if two neighboring branes touch, collide, bang into each other, encroach on each others personal space? Again, strictly embedded in the rigors of the mathematics from start to finish, we have an answer.Leaving aside the speculative hypotheses for the moment, our present theory, inflationary/big bang, takes the present expanding universe that we see and reverses the flow of time to find out what this universe was, what it looked like, in the past. And yet again, strictly embedded in the rigors of the mathematics from start to finish, we get close but we do not get all the way back to T=0.If we start from, say T=10^-44, 1 Planck time, and move forward, we can see the our universe unfold, inflate then do its bang thing, condense electrons and quarks from the energy fields, watch protons form, watch H and He form, watch the last scattering of the CMB, watch stars and galaxies and planets and people form.What is interesting about the brane world collision speculation, and yet again, strictly embedded in the rigors of the mathematics from start to finish, we see an enormous exchange of energy between the branes, both ways (wrap your head around that one), that results in ...
wait for it ...
exactly what we see in the inflationary/big bang.So, yes, some scientists theorize multiple dimensions because the math shows the possibility, and observation does not yet confound it and it has nothing to do with T=10^-40 or before.Edited by AZPaul3, : No reason given.Edited by AZPaul3, : No reason given.Edited by AZPaul3, : No reason given.Edited by AZPaul3, : OK , I quit.

I do. Just to see (confirm) where the guy's head is at.The ones immediately above show animals doing things that GIA would label as good as opposed to evil to counter Admin's ruling that those labels apply to humans, not inanimate objects. He had to find something, anything, to save his contention that a three-legged table is evil. So, for GIA, animals are inanimate objects, just like three-legged tables, that can demonstrate good v evil.The thought process is interesting to me. He has to be right even if he has to go totally bonkers to prove it. Fail.The ones in his OP on "Should Canada and the U.S. tolerate an intolerant Islam?"are also interesting for the insight into his mind. He had a Pat Buchanan video to support his contention that Muslims are evil religious bigots. When I pointed out that Buchanan is a top religious bigot himself GIA pulled it down and in its place put up a video of Charles Murray the even more bigoted "scientific" racist.GIA seems to have a penchant for the opinions of bigots. Or, he just finds someone saying something he likes and doesn't bother to vet the source. Either way, the arguments he is trying to make fail under the weight of his errant sources.For me, the way the mind seems to work, what intellect, if any, is behind the argument, is told not just in the words but in the evidence one tries to bring in for the argument's support. I know it's just me but i find such things fascinating. So, yeah, I watch the vids. Edited by AZPaul3, : cleanup

ORThere was a natural mechanism, of which we are presently unaware, that caused the universe to come into existence. The possibility that natural mechanisms, of which we are unaware, existed prior to this universe.Why do you keep neglecting this possibility?At the present time all our knowledge, our models of the universe, indicate that time and space existed at about T+10^-30. Prior to that we are ignorant.If you are going to speculate about prior to this time you are not limited to only your two possibilities.

No. That would mean the apple would follow the curvature of spacetime created by the mass of the Earth. To your view it would appear as the apple falling to the ground. Like the apple, above, the path through warped and curved spacetime will cause massive bodies to move towards each other.There is an old classic analogy for visualizing this. Put a bowling ball in the middle of a trampoline. The fabric of the trampoline will curve under the bowl ball. Now roll a baseball onto the trampoline. The baseball makes it's own dent in the fabric of the trampoline but much less than the bowling ball. The baseball will follow the curved bent fabric created by the bowling ball right to the bowling ball the same way the apple falling from your hand is following the curvature of spacetime toward the earth. The difference between the trampoline fabric and the spacetime fabric is that spacetime stretches in every direction and will curve from every direction toward the massive body.That movement of massive bodies toward each other, following the curvature of the bent spacetime fabric, is what we call the force of gravity.Edited by AZPaul3, : No reason given.