Big Bang vs. God

Well, ignoring for a moment that "before the Big Bang" might just be meaningless as a reference, you need to first supply a good reason to believe that matter and energy need to "come from" anything at all. In other words, if the Big Bang is not the beginning of the universe (which I don't believe it to be, incidentally), then in order to merit a question such as "where did it all come from?" you should first demonstrate that there exists a legitimate beginning to the real universe and furthermore that it would be meaningful to speak of causes existing outisde of it. It seems to me that anything that exists outside the real universe isn't real.In other other words, you need to support these assertions:

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it was no just simply there. someone had to have put the matter there for it to explode and creat everything. it is sort of like a dommino effect someone has to push the one for anything to happen.

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Why do you expect us to believe these statements? Because you say so?

Right, and I'm not claiming that an occasion of getting "something from nothing" is what happened. Rather, that "something" (matter and energy) has always been. Well, if you think that the Big Bang is an occasion of getting "something from nothing," you'd be wrong. The Big Bang is simply the result of the regression into the past of our observations of an expanding universe. It is a point of infinite density and infintesimal dimension. That's not "nothing." Still, it's probably more important to note that the Big Bang theory is a mathematical model and may differ greatly from the reality. Actually cosmologists are already ahead of you here. You should search the internet for some information about Max Tegmark's Many Worlds Theory, or the Ekpyrotic model as well. Both describe states of the universe "before" the Big Bang.

Just to be nitpicky... Quantum vacuum fluctuations aren't really an instance of "something coming from nothing" either. Instead, they're more evidential of the fact that there's no such thing as a state of true nothingness in reality.I see that you had "nothing" in quotes in your subject line though, so I'm guessing you meant to indicate that it should be qualified somewhat along the same lines as what I've just laid out here.

A little thing I like to call the Conservation Law of Matter and Energy. That and the fact that it appears that its impossible for a true state of nothingness to exist in reality. First of all, according to our best observations there really is no such thing as "empty space." Second, there actually exists a real probability that a rock could spontaneously form out of the sea of quantum potential that permeates space-time, although it's so unlikely that it would be practically impossible to observe. Just as amazingly, there exists a real probability that I will spontaneously teleport through my floor and land on my couch downstairs, though again the odds are highly against it. Well, more and more the persons who are on the cutting edge of cosmological research do NOT accept the old Big Bang model in the terms you've presented it here.

Some comments... This is actually false. Please see The Gorilla Foundation – Conservation Through Communication and learn of the reasoning and complex decision-making abilities of one of our species' closest relatives: the gorilla. As statistical anomalies no, they're not that different. The point that Rrhain and I were making is that these things may be highly improbable, but they're not impossible. Given enough opportunity, they probably will happen -- no magic and no gods required.BTW - I didn't describe teleporting as an "ability." Actually, its probable occurance is a simple consequence of the structure of the universe. I don't have the "ability" of teleportation any more than I have the "ability" of gravity. For example: If I throw a raquetball against a brick wall, there is a small, small probability that it will pass right through the wall to the other side. Not due to any real "ability" on the ball's part, but rather as a consequence of the structure of the interactions between the matter of ball and that of the wall.

A small clarification:I don't want to confuse you overmuch with my terminology, but what I've said thus far isn't totally precise. What I've described is actually a macro example of quantum tunneling, not exactly teleportation. Tunneling is the traversal of a barrier by an actual particle, whereas teleportation is the transference of a particle's properties to another particle in a remote location.Its a rather small hair to split since the point I've made remains the same, but in the interest of accuracy and all, there ya go.[This message has been edited by ::, 12-09-2003]

I'm not so sure of that. Taco did say "Mass is a property of matter," which is correct, but he did NOT say "Matter is a property of mass." As we increase the velocity of some fixed amount of matter, the mass which is a property of the same matter will increase.

Well, you're right the equation doesn't explicitly say that, but it does happen. Material particles are created out of kinetic energy in particle collisions. Basically if you slam two protons together hard enough, you end up with two protons and a neutral pion that is created out of the exchange of kinetic energy in the collision. Check it out. Yeah, obviously, but mass and energy don't really "originate" at all as described by the mass/energy conservation law. Matter, on the other hand, can and does originate from energy.You see, as we increase the velocity of a material particle, its relativistic mass/kinetic energy increases. However, no additional matter is created until it collides with another proton and the energy is transferred.