tergiversant

How would such a worldview (including such a deity) be said to epistemologically explain itself? What exactly requires explaining, and what is the explanation?

Keith Russell

Greetings:

It's possible that I've said something like the following here before, perhaps in this very thread. If so, forgiveness, please. There is a new concept at the end...

As far as the 'something' vs. 'nothing' argument...
If 'universe' means 'all/everything that exists' (which is how I use the word 'universe') then there is no 'other' universe with which to compare this one. There is no way to state that this universe could have been different, no way to say that 'nothing' could have existed instead of the 'something' in which we exist, and of which we are a part.

As to time, 'time' is simply a name human beings have given to our recognition that things change at different rates.

If nothing changed before the Big Bang, how did the Big Bang occur?

(The Big Bang would have been quite a change, agreed?)

Yet, if everything changed at the moment the Big Bang occurred--and at the same rate--'time' wouldn't exist (technically), because change cannot be measured except in comparison with other changes occuring at differing rates.

So, if 'everything' was changing all at once, and at the same rate, 'time' may not have existed right before, during, and/or shortly after the Big Bang, but that in no way means that the Big Bang is an uncaused event...

Keith.