What are the odds of God existing?

These aren't mutually exclusive. It is possible you can have a temporally infinite universe (always existing) and still have a creator. Conversely, you can have a temporally finite universe that isn't created (or at least there is no known physical objection to it yet).

"temporally" - pertaining to time, as opposed to
"spatially" - pertaining to spaceperhaps confused with"temporarily" - not for all time.This message has been edited by cavediver, 04-28-2006 09:17 AM

I agree, but is the reason for believing in God simply based upon a perceived necessity for a creator?This message has been edited by cavediver, 04-28-2006 09:03 AM

No, not necessarily. The time-line you are imagining as ordering causality is integral to the universe. The universe just is, whether that internal time-line is infinite or finite.

Will get back to this, I promise...

Yes it is

True Probably true, but who said it "came into existence"? I am not postulating that anything did happen. Probably true, but when was there ever nothing? What does "always" mean?Time is a feature of our universe. It is not something to which the universe adheres.If t=0 is the earliest time in our universe, this does not mean the universe was created at this point. It just means that there is a place where t=0. It is no big deal.This message has been edited by cavediver, 04-28-2006 12:24 PM

I think this is sloppy language.What I am talking about is a universe that only has a finite time dimension. Under the Big Bang, we have an earliest time of about 14 billion years ago. The universe never "came into existence" because there was never a time it didn't exist. It just exists. There was never a nothing and then a something.The universe is to all intents and purposes four-dimensional... it is our restricted three-dimensional perspective that makes us think that the Big Bang is a "beginning" and requires a "cause". The Big Bang is a beginning to the universe in the same way the South Pole is a beginning to the Earth (i.e. it isn't) It is just a (four-dimensional) point in a universe that just is.

I didn't think I had yet But you're welcome anyway!I do have quite a bit more to say on your own questions...This message has been edited by cavediver, 04-28-2006 12:49 PM

Yes, that's exactly how to do it. Our understanding of space-time, General Relativity, pushes us towards this view. Well no, it doesn't. But it does show the equality between the eternal universe and the non-eternal universe. Neither need creators; both can have creators. Certainly not meaningless, but as I first noted, your 1) and 2) are not mutually exclusive. It comes from regarding time as some over-arching absolute framework within which us and the universe exist. Not surprising given that we have only known different for the past 101 years, and even then only in advanced physics/mathematics...

You got it. We've got it all sewn up, we just don't tend to tell anyone. Send me 50 quid though I'll let you know God's real name Seriously though - it's the other way round. By reaslising that time doesn't appear to be this all-embracing framework, we are left with even bigger puzzles... why does the universe seem to have a different concept of time to us? What does it mean for us to "move through time". Why does this dynamic element of existence exist at all?The universe is simple, it's our place in the universe which confuses the hell out of me Take a look at GDR's post Message 146. I will laying in here soon, probably dragging Sidelined with me as his questions touch deeply on this stuff.

Sorry to be a downer on this, but despite many misguided opinions to the contrary, none of that stuff has any relevance to "something from nothing" and an "uncaused universe". It is all physics that is nicely and totally contained within an existant universe.This message has been edited by cavediver, 04-28-2006 06:12 PM

They are merely fluctuations in the quantum fields that permeate all of space-time. "Virtual particle" fluctuations don't meet the requirements of being the fluctuations that we call "real particles".To suggest the universe appeared from "nothing" in a similar manner to virtual particles is to pre-suppose some quantum field of the universe. This is quite possible... but it is not "nothing".

Yes, exactly. Though the nature of the "something larger" could be VERY different from our understanding of what constitutes "reality"... Platonic realm anyone?

My third alternative is that the universe does not have an infinte past, but still never "came into being" as you put it. You are still applying too much of a naive (or perhaps unintentionally dogmatic) understanding of time.My fourth is that a universe with no "origin" (has an infinite past) can also have a creator. If this creator is outside our particular time, then his point of creation is unlikely to be representable by a single point of time on our time-dimension. Surely we are part of Nature? Via our conciousness, Nature is one total being. If not, what do you define as the delimiter of our individual conciousnesses? Our physical bodies?