Shadowy Man

I think that it is precisely this point that has been lost on most laypeople.

Good stuff, Tim.

Autonemesis

Let me, solely for the sake of argument, accept this accusation of yours.

Note that I am ignoring your ignorance of what constitutes a theory in science, and accepting your prosaic use of the word at face value (which is not the same as the technical meaning of the term that we have all been using, except for you).

Nevertheless, if I grant you that we take the Big Bang on faith as much as you take God on faith, So what? How does this help your argument? I don't see that it leads to anywhere but "is not, is so", which is the only kind of argument you seem to know how to make anyway. This "faith-based" argument of yours does not advance your position whatsoever. It is only an attempt to pull us down to your level.

Furthermore, you have tipped your hand. This argument of yours implicitly acknowledges that the faith-based belief is inferior to evidence-based belief. If it weren't so, you would not try to convince us that we must lower our perception of our own beliefs from "based on evidence," to "based on faith" in order to put us on the same level as you. No, instead, you would be arguing that faith is a more reliable path to true belief than is evidence, if that is what you really believed. But you don't really believe that, and so you didn't try to argue for it.

Now you should admit that you've been had - by your own argument. Your amateurish attempts to lob the same stinkers at us that have been lobbed before is fast losing its entertainment value. Come up with something we haven't heard before, will you? I'm bored.

Paul2

That's not what i was saying.


0------------1--------------2-----------3--------------4....

point 0 being big bang
ping 1 the war of 1812
point 2 i was born
point 3 elvis was spotted in reno
point 4 today


do you understand what i was saying now? there is no "before the big bang."

Magus55

Thats my point - the Big Bang came out of nothing. With there being no "before" the Big Bang, the moment the explosion ( or whatever you want to call it ) took place is the instant in which matter just appeared, because if there was no before the Big Bang, there was no matter until that exact instant. So where did the matter come from?

Another question - according to some astronomers and physicists, the Big Bang is illogical because under those conditions, the matter in the universe should be relatively evenly distributed throughout the universe, yet we have clumps of of stars ( galaxies) with enormous gaps of nothing in between them - If all matter spread out from a singular point, it would spread out evenly and not have giant gaping holes in it. Physicists are still pondering that one.

Answerer

How do you define nothing?

Shadowy Man

Actually they aren't. Detailed observations of the angular distribution of fluctuations in the cosmic background radiation, such as those just released by the WMAP satellite, clearly show the seeds for large-scale structure and galaxy formation.

It sounds like you are behind the times. Gotta keep up! Things are moving quickly.

Wyz_sub10

...and even if they were (still pondering "that one"), there is no problem with that.

Science cannot be criticized for being all-answering at any given point in time. There remains much to be discovered, which does not imply that it is undiscoverable.

Autonemesis

Actually, the universe sprang into existence 10^-43 second after the big bang. Matter condensed later.

That's a more or less accurate summary of the situation, and astronomers and cosmologists have recently made great strides towards solving this puzzle by obtaining the results from Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP). Scientific knowledge is tentative, and can be overturned with new discoveries and new observations. WMAP was designed to investigate the observed lumpiness in the cosmic microwave background in unprecedented detail. It strongly supports inflation, the leading theory - I guess it should be Inflation Theory now - to explain the lumpiness.

Magus55

That still doesn't solve the problem of where the matter and energy came from. If there was nothing before the big bang, and the instant it exploded, matter was there , how did the matter get there from nothing?

(And 10^-43 is essentially instantaneous - thats a moot point).

By saying Matter condensed later, are you implying the Big Bang didn't contain matter? Energy is the exertion of power , in order to exert energy that forces the universe into an expanding existance, something in which energy is exerted upon has to be there.

And people think God makes less sense? At least with God since he isn't physical he didn't need to have a beginning and we can say he caused the Universe to exist

Queen of Swords

Originally posted by Magus55
At least with God since he isn't physical he didn't need to have a beginning

Is there some law that says "non-physical things don't need to have a beginning"? Could you provide evidence for this assertion?