atrahasis

oooop! here we come again.....

To be frank, this is the most embrassing cosmic question ever asked.......ask anyone, hawking,einstein,penrose e.t.c and all of them will start telling you about blackholes, T=0(Time was equals to 0), nothing does not exist... and so forth but though i'm no expert i will tell you that.....to start with assume the non-existence of time.....think of the universe as starting with very very very minute...........[truncated]

for more go here:<a href="http://www.superstringtheory.com/cosmo/cosmo4.html" target="_blank">here</a>

best
--XISUTHROS--

[ November 14, 2002: Message edited by: Xisuthros ]</p>

atrahasis

I wonder whether thats based on reason!!!if its not you just committed a fallacy oops!
Can you show how ingorant this article is?

Nobody has perfectly answered this question and yet you stand there and claim that "That sounds like an ignorant article"


argumentum ad populum fallacy
--Appealing to the Gallery--.........

1. Most people approve of X (have favorable emotions towards X).
2. Therefore X is true.

[ November 14, 2002: Message edited by: Xisuthros ]</p>

Oxymoron

Er... my point was that however many billions of years old the universe is (still a matter for some debate, I understand), it's quite an achievement for us to be able to model it at all.

crocodile deathroll

"Nothingness" would of been such an unstable equilibrium that there was nothing to prevent "Everything" from happening.

So you would not of required a God to create the universe instead a God would have needed to be in readiness to prevent it.

As it happen He was never around so

Oxymoron

I see no embarrassment in not currently being able to answer this question. Stopping to think about the scale of the problem (a very very very big and complex universe) and the entity trying to understand it (an ape creature with a brain and body evolved to hunt mammoths and wildebeest), I fail to see the humiliation.

Everyone wants answers to The Big Questions and they want them now or at least in their lifetime. Sorry boys and girls, chances are that ain't gonna happen. Theists just believe any old BS because basically they just can't live with a universe which they don't understand. We should try to avoid that trap, and be happy with our partial knowledge, the glimpse we get of this universe for maybe 80 years - an unimaginably small amount of time relative to the age of the Earth, even.

I'm not suggesting smugness or complacency - quite the opposite. But when theists start trying to lever the "cracks" of current scientific knowledge of our universe open, it pays to have some humility.

Ms. Siv

"Dodging" is certainly not the right word. If there is no information on any particular subject or no conclusive evidence for any (scientific) theorising ... then any debate on the topic is mere speculation.
While its perfectly healthy to contemplate these questions and try to find the answers, if possible ... its silly to prematurely conclude on anything.

Neither time nor space existed before the BB ... so technically, the question - What existed before the BB - makes no sense (as someone else pointed out).

As for the other claim of "something" having to exist before the BB because " something cannot come out of nothing " ... well our human interpretations of "something" and "nothing" are very limited indeed.
Its silly to try and conceptualise time or space not existing etc. We'll just have to go with what the equations (evidence) says. Our brains evolved for very limited things ... and certainly not to contemplate BB and its causes (if any exist).

- Sivakami.

[ November 14, 2002: Message edited by: Sivakami S ]</p>

atrahasis

OxymoronI see no embarrassment in not currently being able to answer this question. Stopping to think about the scale of the problem (a very very very big and complex universe) and the entity trying to understand it (an ape creature with a brain and body evolved to hunt mammoths and wildebeest), I fail to see the humiliation.


Xisuthros:OOOh unto those who have eyes and cannot see....guess..*


Oxymoron:Everyone wants answers to The Big Questions and they want them now or at least in their lifetime. Sorry boys and girls, chances are that ain't gonna happen. Theists just believe any old BS because basically they just can't live with a universe which they don't understand. We should try to avoid that trap, and be happy with our partial knowledge, the glimpse we get of this universe for maybe 80 years - an unimaginably small amount of time relative to the age of the Earth, even.

Xisuthros:If everybody thought like you, we would still be in stone age......

Those who lived at that time[stone age] may be also thought that understanding the earth was next to impossible.....so if you are afraid of thinkin, just shut your cand** and chill.

--Have an explosive life will you --

best
Xisuthros

[ November 14, 2002: Message edited by: Xisuthros ]</p>

Agricola Senior

Not only theists, but great majority of atheists can't live with a universe they don't understand.
People are seeking consolation,comfort and safety - not truth.

[ November 14, 2002: Message edited by: Agricola Senior ]</p>

Willy Wonka

If my original post *had* a point it was that existance itself is a mystery which currently no-one can solve, whether theist or atheist.

Theories about how matter can exist spontaneously do not answer the question (though admittedly come close) because you still require the laws of Physics (in some form, whether different from everyday Physics), and an initial state (of nothingness). Thus it is still 'something' becoming 'something'.

You may argue that when I put the argument in this form it is by definition unsolvable, you'd probably be right.

But that was the point - I get annoyed when I hear on TV or read science articles that strongly imply that the whole problem of existance itself has been solved.

Wyz_sub10

I think his point was that although the article states it is nonsense to hold that position, most cosmologists do not hold that position. Therefore, the article is ignorant as to the position most cosmologists hold.

Only relevant if the "gallery" is composed of those unfamiliar with the subject.

If 99% of cardiologists agreed that procedure 'a' was much more effective than procedure 'b' when performing open-heart surgery, would it be a fallacy to conclude that procedure 'a' was indeed more effective?

I don't know exactly what "understanding the earth" means, but if you mean the working of the planet, then for them it was. What evidence do you have that those living in the stone age understood such things? Certainly nothing from subsequent history until the ancient Chinese and Greeks.

I believe Oxymoron's point was that such understanding happens over time as new evidence is obtained. Therefore, not all answers can be obtained right here, right now. But many do not understand *why* we have these limitations. Time will hopefully remove these limitations. I don't think he is saying that it is a question not worth answering.

Please don't try to portray your ramblings and insults as "thinking".