Autonemesis

You know, I think I could actually convert to that religion and proselytize for it... all within reason, of course.

Shadowy Man

I guess my point was that we don't know that the universe necessarily had a beginning, so the discussion of the cause might be premature.

We have a theory called the Big Bang that describes what the universe was like billions of years ago. We can extrapolate the expansion of the universe back to some kind of spatial singularity, but one should keep in mind that it is an extrapolation of a theory. We don't really know what the state of the universe was before the time of last scattering and are trying to understand it through its imprint on the cosmic background fluctuation. However, most cosmologists will probably admit that our laws of physics will break down for the extreme conditions that the theory implies for the "early" universe.

The universe may be temporally infinite, even if it is currently in an expanding phase. My expertise is not cosmology, but it does appear to me that the concept of T=0 is still theoretical and not factual.

MadMordigan

Both "who was the second Frenchman to say McDonald's" and "where did the universe come from" have equal bearing on my life. That is to say, none whatsoever.

I'm stealing this one.

Peregrine

I used to hang onto the "first cause" argument until I realized that it is just a "god in the gaps" argument.

"I think it's much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong." Richard Feynman

[ September 18, 2002: Message edited by: Peregrine ]</p>

Stephen T-B

How about this:
If it is correct that spacetime is contingent upon a universe, even if it’s only the size of a pin head, then there can be nothing “before” that pin-head universe came into being. No space. No time. No space for a god to exist in, and anyway, no time in which such a god might plan Creation.
This idea of Nothing and then BANG! Something is impossible to comprehend because nothing in our experience prepares us for the possibility of an event occurring which does not have a precursor. Our minds are constrained within the parameters set by Cause and Effect. There is always a Before and After, in that sequence because we only perceive Time as progressing from the Was to the Now and on to the Will Be.
This could simply be a limitation consequent upon the fact that we are three-dimensional creatures. So, faced by the incomprehensible, we attempt to make it comprehensible by giving ourself a Creator God.
And then we say: We cannot understand this God because it is incomprehensible.
But that doesn’t help much because we are no better at coping with an incomprehensible god than we are of coping with an incomprehensible Nothingness, so god helps us out with revelations about itself imparted to individual human beings (for whom, let’s not forget - it is essentially incomprehensible.)
This would be OK but we’ve only their word for it that the “revelation” they’re sharing with us comes from god and isn’t a product of their own imaginings. And for the very reason that the revelations vary and are ambiguous and sometimes contradictory, there is no universal agreement as to what this god actually is and how it requires us to behave.
We’ve gained gods and acquired confusion.
Personally, I like the idea that Nothingness is an impossibility and that there was, therefore, no Beginning. We are, I want to think, part of a continuum and that our universe is but a minuscule element of an infinitely complex system and that there may be an infinite number of other Stephen T-Bs, and that at least some of them are sitting at an iMac typing, as I shall be in a moment “WOW!”

NOGO

If you find a watch on the street you may, ask why made it? But do you really want to know where all the material came from. You assume that it was there before the watch was assembled.

We have this naive impression that things only move if something "living" makes them move. So we look up at the night sky and ask what makes the moon move? Ultimately this kind of question leads us back to the start of the universe and ask who kicked the first piece of matter into movement?

We have trouble believing that matter and energy can do things on their own. We fall back on "there has to be some intelligence ..."

But life and intelligence all come from dead matter. So the problem is that our view of matter is wrong. Matter is not dead and incapable of doing things.

Matter/Energy are indestructable. According to the law Energy cannot be created nor destroyed. So there is no need for a cause. The same quantity of energy exists as it always existed. We can transform it and that is what gives us the notion of cause and effect.

Steven Carr

Ask them if their free will decisions must have a cause. If they concede that things can begin to exist without being caused, then that might help you.

Walter_Mitty

Frosty, you may want to check out this <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wnet/hawking/html/home.html" target="_blank">LINK.</a>

(click on "Universes")

It's basically Hawking made PBS friendly!

butswana

StephenT-B says:
This would be OK but we’ve only their word for it that the “revelation” they’re sharing with us comes from god and isn’t a product of their own imaginings.

Regarding "revelation", in "The Age of Reason" Thomas Paine says that is is only revelation to one person. To everyone else it is heresay.

doubtingt

This arguement from theist is meaningless.
If you believe that all things need a cause,
then there is no such thing as a first cause, because anything you would call a first cause (including God) would need a first cause.
If you do not believe that everything needs a cause, then anything you can think of can be a
first cause, because its existence does not need
and explanation.