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Author Topic:   Big Bang Theory Supports a Belief in the Universe Designer or Creator God
DWIII
Member (Idle past 1753 days)
Posts: 72
From: United States
Joined: 06-30-2011


Message 6 of 317 (640020)
11-06-2011 7:44 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by designtheorist
11-06-2011 5:39 PM


designtheorist writes:
The standard cosmology is the universe started with a big bang about 13.7 billion years ago. But many people are under the mistaken idea the big bang is an argument against the existence of God or against the concept of a designer who formed the universe. Not true. While the big bang is not absolute proof of the existence of God or a designer of some type, it is absolutely compatible with the concept of a creator God or Designer.
Simply stated - "If there was a big bang, there has to be a Big Banger."
The better we understand the science behind the big bang, the better we understand how the big bang supports the concept of a pre-existing designer or creator God.
The Law of Conservation of Energy says energy and matter are neither created nor destroyed. This is the most important reason why so many scientists in the 19th and early 20th centuries believed the universe always existed.
Albert Einstein’s theory of General Relativity, published in 1916, led to a revolution in physics, astronomy and cosmology. Using General Relativity, physicists theorized the universe must be expanding. Logically, if the universe is expanding, then it was smaller in the past. If you run the movie backward far enough, then the universe must have had a beginning.
For the sake of argument, I will concede that if the universe had a beginning, then it has existed only for a finite amount of time. However, this is only a one-way implication, and the reverse need not hold. If the universe has existed only for a finite amount of time, it does not imply that it had a beginning. Within the confines of General Relativity (and all evidence shows that GR most definitely holds in our universe), the Big Bang singularity represents only a limit point with respect to physical time, which need not itself have ever physically existed. By way of analogy, if a continuous line segment has its leftmost point removed, there is no such thing as a second-leftmost point lying on that segment to suddenly take the removed point's place. In other words, there need be no first moment in a given finite stretch of time. (If you can't swallow that, please tell me what the smallest positive non-zero real number is.)
Also, saying that the universe has always existed is not the same as saying that the universe has existed for an infinite amount of time. If only a finite amount of time is ultimately available for a universe to exist, utilizing the entirety of that time would legitimately qualify as "always".
So where did all that energy and matter come from?
Given that mass-energy is conserved in a closed system, and that the universe is a closed system by definition, the total mass-energy content of the universe is simply a physical property of the universe which holds during its entire existence. In other words, it doesn't have to come from anywhere, as long as the total amount remains constant.
Before we go any further on this subject, please answer the following questions: Do you accept the statement from physics that "energy can be neither created or destroyed"? Yes, or no? Do you accept that the universe is a closed system? Yes or no? If it isn't a closed system, is mass-energy conserved in the wider system of which the universe is a smaller part? If it isn't ultimately conserved under the design model, what are the specific circumstances (if any) in which the conservation of mass-energy fails?

DWIII

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by designtheorist, posted 11-06-2011 5:39 PM designtheorist has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 20 by designtheorist, posted 11-07-2011 1:42 AM DWIII has replied

  
DWIII
Member (Idle past 1753 days)
Posts: 72
From: United States
Joined: 06-30-2011


Message 48 of 317 (640091)
11-07-2011 9:30 AM
Reply to: Message 20 by designtheorist
11-07-2011 1:42 AM


Re: Reply to DWIII
designtheorist writes:
You write: "(If you can't swallow that, please tell me what the smallest positive non-zero real number is.)" This is a false analogy. There are certain errors in your understanding and/or logic which I think will become plain to you as we discuss the science of the big bang in more detail.
If you really want this conversation to go forward, then please do me the courtesy of pointing out the specific errors in logic which you refer to.
Here, I will lay it all out on the table in formal terms in order to make it easy for you to poke whatever holes you wish in it.
I'm quite sure you would agree with statement #1: "If the universe had a beginning (P), then it has existed for a finite amount of time (Q)"; i.e., P implies Q. You and I agree that the universe has (so far) existed for a finite amount of time. This is the central crux of General Relativity as it is applied to the type of universe which we mutually observe. Therefore, it remains to be established that the universe had a beginning.
Your argument so far hinges on asserting, without proof, statement #2: "If the universe has existed for a finite amount of time (Q), then the universe had a beginning (P)"; i.e., Q implies P. If you think that this naturally follows from the first statement, then you are committing the formal fallacy of affirming the consequent. In other words, given P implies Q, you cannot derive Q implies P.
In fact, I went even further than that; I have given an example of how "not P" ("The universe did not have a beginning") is perfectly consistent with "Q" ("The universe has existed for a finite amount of time") by way of geometric analogy with an open line segment. Also, if you understand anything at all about cosmology, you would have already known that General Relativity simply does not apply at the Big Bang singularity, due to spacetime becoming infinitely curved if you take things back to what you would call "the first moment" of time. If there is no first moment, then there is no beginning, irregardless of whether or not time goes back only yea far.
After you have successfully pointed out the flaws of reasoning in the above, please also answer the four (4) simple basic questions which I put to you:
DWIII writes:
Do you accept the statement from physics that "energy {meaning, of course, the sum total of matter (mass times c^2) and energy} can be neither created or destroyed"? Yes, or no? Do you accept that the universe is a closed system? Yes or no? If it isn't a closed system, is mass-energy conserved in the wider system of which the universe is a smaller part? {Yes or no?} If it isn't ultimately conserved under the design model, what are the specific circumstances (if any) in which the conservation of mass-energy fails?

DWIII

This message is a reply to:
 Message 20 by designtheorist, posted 11-07-2011 1:42 AM designtheorist has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 111 by designtheorist, posted 11-07-2011 10:44 PM DWIII has replied

  
DWIII
Member (Idle past 1753 days)
Posts: 72
From: United States
Joined: 06-30-2011


(4)
Message 53 of 317 (640104)
11-07-2011 10:33 AM
Reply to: Message 49 by designtheorist
11-07-2011 9:40 AM


Re: The science of the big bang
designtheorist writes:
{baseless assertion}
{proof by assertion}
{brown-nosing}
{appeal to authority} {"He won an award!"}
{quote-mine} {quote-mine} {quote-mine}
{appeal to authority} {appeal to popularity} {"He won two awards!!!"}
{quote-mine} {quote-mine}
{baseless assertions}
{"He won an award!"}
{quote-mine}
{"Look at the pretty pictures!"}
{baseless assertion} {quote-mine}
{wishful thinking} {baseless assertion} {demonizing the opposition}
{non-sequitur}

DWIII

This message is a reply to:
 Message 49 by designtheorist, posted 11-07-2011 9:40 AM designtheorist has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 130 by designtheorist, posted 11-07-2011 11:19 PM DWIII has replied

  
DWIII
Member (Idle past 1753 days)
Posts: 72
From: United States
Joined: 06-30-2011


(2)
Message 174 of 317 (640283)
11-08-2011 9:15 AM
Reply to: Message 114 by EWCCC777
11-07-2011 10:48 PM


Re: A being?
EWCCC777 writes:
Right, and if the BB is not free of the burden of proof, how is it any more solid than design theory?
What the flying ***censored*** is "design theory"??? There is no such thing as "design theory" because no such thing has ever been offered as an actual theory in the first place. So-called "design theory" falls way way short of what constitutes theory in science.
Please try to understand just this one little thing: We are not merely saying "design theory" is wrong; we are saying that it is not even wrong(!).
Which is actually kind of beside the
point, because the BB and design theory are not mutually exclusive in my opinion.
Just about everything is potentially compatible with an unfalsifiable hypothesis. This alone renders the tenets of "design theory" absolutely useless as far as science is concerned.

DWIII

This message is a reply to:
 Message 114 by EWCCC777, posted 11-07-2011 10:48 PM EWCCC777 has not replied

  
DWIII
Member (Idle past 1753 days)
Posts: 72
From: United States
Joined: 06-30-2011


Message 184 of 317 (640293)
11-08-2011 10:12 AM
Reply to: Message 130 by designtheorist
11-07-2011 11:19 PM


The joy of mining for Juicy Quotes by Famous Scientists
designtheorist writes:

... {appeal to authority} {"He won an award!"}
{quote-mine} {quote-mine} {quote-mine}
{appeal to authority} {appeal to popularity} {"He won two awards!!!"}
{quote-mine} {quote-mine} ...
Anyone can do what you did in mischaracterizing my argument. Let me pick just the example of your charge of quote mining and appeal to authority.
Do you honestly expect me to think you would present an argument without quoting any support for your statements?
Yes, I honestly expect you to think that I would present an argument without having to leach off of the writings (intended for public consumption by the lowest common denominator) of various scientists-suddenly-turned-philosophers to let them do my arguing for me.
Part of the reason people have a wrong view of the big bang is because they do not understand the science.
The evidence so far indicates that your understanding of the science involved leaves very much to be desired. Thus you resort to the tactic of wowing them with scads of sciency-sounding stuff.
So I quote from famous and Nobel Prize winning physicists to explain the standard cosmology and you claim I am quote mining. That's just ridiculous! Either you don't know what quote mining means or you have no inclination to interact with data and logic which is contrary to your world view. Which is it?
Famous? Nobel-Prize-winning? Is that all that science means to you? If you personally feel inadequate to sufficiently explain it yourself, you would have done much better by referring us to the standard literature, citing actual scientific papers, or even just pointing us in the general direction of a good encyclopedia entry for explaining the deeper details of that which you are trying (but failing) to get across. Authoritative QuotesTM of the type your general ilk pushes tend to be crutches for people who cannot adequately understand and discuss the basic issues for themselves.
And since when are only the famous scientists that you think you agree with right and every other famous scientist wrong? Or perhaps we could just throw sciency-sounding quotes at each other all day??? Sorry, but I have much better things to do with my valuable time.

DWIII

This message is a reply to:
 Message 130 by designtheorist, posted 11-07-2011 11:19 PM designtheorist has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 215 by designtheorist, posted 11-08-2011 10:47 PM DWIII has replied

  
DWIII
Member (Idle past 1753 days)
Posts: 72
From: United States
Joined: 06-30-2011


Message 190 of 317 (640303)
11-08-2011 12:12 PM
Reply to: Message 111 by designtheorist
11-07-2011 10:44 PM


Re: Reply to DWIII
designtheorist writes:
Your argument so far hinges on asserting, without proof, statement #2: "If the universe has existed for a finite amount of time (Q), then the universe had a beginning (P)"
Not true. I never made that argument. The argument I quoted was this:
Whatever begins to exist has a cause. 

The universe began to exist. 

Therefore, the universe has a cause.
Yes, I know, I know, the well-known and done-to-death Kalam. I wasn't referring to that as such, but now that you mention it, I seem to have inadvertently refuted the second premise(!). If you cannot convincingly support that second premise, you have not even gotten your horse out of the starting gate yet.
I also discussed the history of Big Bang Theory from its theoretical origins to the discovery of the cosmic microwave background radiation, which is nearly universally seen as observational evidence of the big bang, the beginning of our spacetime/universe.
I grant you that the Big Bang is essentially the earliest known set of historical events which astronomers/physicists has found evidence of and are currently engaging in active research. Why must this imply a "beginning"? And also very much dumb-downed literature for the unwashed masses has been thrown our way which pretty much say silly things like "In teh beginning, teh Big Bang, like, explodered REAL GOOD!". So what? Have you ever considered digging just a little bit deeper than the dumbed-down literature?
The answers to your questions regarding the conservation of energy would only apply after the big bang and not before. The physical laws of our universe only apply to our universe. You cannot expect them to apply before the universe came into existence.
BEEP!!! USER ERROR DETECTED IN LINE 47: USER ATTEMPTED TO INSERT NEGATIVE TEMPORAL VALUE IN UNIVERSAL SPACETIME MATRIX; THIS APPLICATION WILL NOW BE TERMINATED. BEEP!!! {my apologies!; simply couldn't resist.}
Yes, I agree in the present universe that matter and energy cannot be created or destroyed by or in nature. I accept the universe is a closed system, except, of course, to the creator God or Designer who can do whatever he wants when he wants, but such actions would be miracles because they would violate the natural physical laws.
Special pleading, appeal to miracles, the list grows on...
I am uncertain of your meaning regarding the wider system of which the universe is a smaller part? The conservation of energy would only fail upon the action of the creator God or Designer to create or destroy matter-energy.
The wider system would, of course, be the presumably vast (perhaps infinite) realm in which (1) the creator God or Designer dwells, and of which (2) our mere physical universe would be a tiny insignificant speck. Think of it as the set-theoretic union of all of nature and all of supernature.
Tell me, are there ANY conservation laws which hold in that wider system?

DWIII

This message is a reply to:
 Message 111 by designtheorist, posted 11-07-2011 10:44 PM designtheorist has not replied

  
DWIII
Member (Idle past 1753 days)
Posts: 72
From: United States
Joined: 06-30-2011


Message 245 of 317 (640412)
11-09-2011 9:49 AM
Reply to: Message 215 by designtheorist
11-08-2011 10:47 PM


Re: Reply to DWIII
designtheorist writes:
And since when are only the famous scientists that you think you agree with right and every other famous scientist wrong? Or perhaps we could just throw sciency-sounding quotes at each other all day??? Sorry, but I have much better things to do with my valuable time.
I'm not saying every other scientist is wrong. The scientists I am quoting are describing the standard cosmology, the majority view regarding how the universe began. I thought I made that clear.
Apparently you do not know the difference between describing a scientific theory (which any decent textbook will do, if you would only take the trouble to find some) and philosophizing about it. Sloppy philosophizing is precisely the $elling point of these dumbed-down books in the first place, whether they are pandering to the religious folk (Jastrow et.al.), or pandering to the avowed atheists (Sagan et.al.). Even the superduper-world-famous Stephen Hawking deliberately goes out of his way to exclude virtually all of the mathematics behind the theories from his popular works, simply because he believes that any sort of mathematical formulae would hurt his $ale$ by alienating his intended audience.
There are scientists who proposed lesser known theories and these lesser known theories may turn out to be correct. My argument is that the standard cosmology of the big bang is compatible with and supports the view of a creator God or Designer of the universe.
You seem to want to disagree with me.
Do I detect a note of paranoia? I can't speak for everyone else, but I get the sense that nobody here wants to disagree with you purely for the sake of disagreeing with you. They (and I) would more likely be delighted to take into consideration any rational support whatsoever for your ideas, as opposed to being snowed by what amounts to oodles of lawyer tactics (even if that is not your intent).
If so, you need to find a way to argue that the big bang disproves God created the universe. You're welcome to try.
Would the existence of an eternal (i.e. infinitely extended in time) universe successfully disprove that God created it, more so than the existence of our type of finite-time universe? What a weak pathetic god you believe in; he apparently isn't all-powerful enough to create an infinite universe.

DWIII

This message is a reply to:
 Message 215 by designtheorist, posted 11-08-2011 10:47 PM designtheorist has not replied

  
DWIII
Member (Idle past 1753 days)
Posts: 72
From: United States
Joined: 06-30-2011


Message 257 of 317 (640476)
11-10-2011 4:54 AM
Reply to: Message 225 by designtheorist
11-09-2011 12:57 AM


400 times larger and 400 times further away
designtheorist writes:
That said, what I don't think you could *ever* prove is design with humans as an end goal. When I read Lee Strobel's _The Case for a Creator_ I was dismayed to read some very weak arguments towards the end of the book. I can't remember who he was interviewing (I don't have the book in front of me) however the arguments were dismal. That we are in a position to view eclipses was one particularly strange argument.
I have Strobel's book too. Parts of it were interesting and I found parts of it to be weak. I actually liked the argument regarding the earth being in position to view eclipses. I had never come across that idea before. Strobel was interviewing Guillermo Gonzalez and Jay Wesley Richards. Gonzalez was talking about eclipses. It is a tad coincidental the Sun is 400 times larger than the moon and 400 times further away, making full solar eclipses possible. That does not happen anywhere else in our solar system.
Yes, it is a tad coincidental; why then would it need to be more than a mere coincidence? If you had actually looked into the claim, you would have found out something about the dynamics of the Earth-Moon system; particularly that the moon's orbit is slowly receding from Earth due to the effects of tidal drag. It seems oddly strange that among the Cosmic Designer's intentions in the initial formation of the solar system was to impress our one particular species (Homo sapiens) at this one particular epoch (+/- 5,000,000 years) out of the whole 4,000,000,000 odd years during which time our moon has been continually getting further and further away. Hubris, indeed.
What was most impressive to me were the three discoveries made because of eclipses. If true, it does seem like evidence the Designer arranged for this relationship of Sun and moon so mankind could discover more secrets of the universe. I have not had the time to look into these claims to know for certain they are true, but they are definitely intriguing to me.
Humanity in general is well known to make use of (or even abuse of) all sorts of natural phenomena for his own purposes. The Creator's alleged intentions are a bunch of vacuous irrelevancies, otherwise you may as well also be telling us that God providentially created the marijuana plant so that mankind could take pleasure in getting stoned.
Edited by DWIII, : more appropriate link to Wikipedia

DWIII

This message is a reply to:
 Message 225 by designtheorist, posted 11-09-2011 12:57 AM designtheorist has not replied

  
DWIII
Member (Idle past 1753 days)
Posts: 72
From: United States
Joined: 06-30-2011


(2)
Message 307 of 317 (640583)
11-10-2011 7:34 PM


I think you ought to know I'm feeling very depressed
So here I was expecting a lively debate on the basics of theoretical cosmology (a fascinating subject for me) and how modern findings may or may not impact the oft-venerated Cosmological Argument, with someone who actually knew a little something more about theoretical cosmology (and math and science in general) beyond the typical 10th-grade level. That would have been so kewl, like, totally(!).
But what did we get from Doctor DT instead? The same old same old, quote-mining galore and quote-twisting twaddle, unbridled hero worship of award-winning sciency pontificates, pratts, fallacies beyond belief, unsupported assertions repeated and reiterated like a broken record, patronizing nonresponses, DesignerDidIts, arrogant speechifying, whining, and, for the proverbial icing on the cake, all of that drenched with a dismal failure to deal honestly with perfectly reasonable questions and/or objections, or even to check his sources against the actual science itself. And thus we are treated to 300 plus posts, mostly consisting of valiant but futile attempts to clean up the nearly-continuous flood of DDT-style clutter so that some actual meaningful exchange could take place.
I, for one, am deeply depressed now.
Doctor DT may not be one of your run-of-the-mill creationists, but his uncanny ability to channel the spirit of them would make JZ Knight look like a rank amateur.
Edited by DWIII, : fixed typo

DWIII

  
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