In The Beginning

[4gold]

The Big Bang theory was a phenomenal breakthrough, because it slowed the predominant atheist thought that the universe had always existed. In Bertrand Russell's Why I am not a Christian, he says, "There is no reason why the world could not have come into being without a cause; nor, on the other hand, is there any reason why it should not have always existed. There is no reason to suppose that the world had a beginning at all. The idea that things must have a beginning is really due to the poverty of our imagination."

The scientific discovery of a beginning to our universe shifted the same question back a step: Was our beginning part of a larger picture with no beginning? MIT professor Alan Guth proposed the theory of Eternal Inflation, which attempts to explain the expanding universe in the larger context of multiple universes. But even the theory of Eternal Inflation has a beginning. It is called eternal, because it has no end. As Guth notes, "The question of whether the universe had a beginning is discussed but not definitively answered. It appears likely, however, that eternally inflating universes do require a beginning. "

A "beginning" brings some deep theological dilemmas with it. A beginning must have a cause. No matter how far back you shift the question, the beginning must have a "first cause", and not just that, but an uncaused cause.

While the science is not settled about a beginning, these questions assume that future science does not discover a way the universe could have always existed.

My questions for debate are:

How does a beginning influence your (non)beliefs?

Science requires materialism. Questions outside of materialism are outside the realm of science. Can an uncaused cause be explained by science, or is it necessarily a question outside of science?

Do you believe the universe has always existed, despite what science has so far shown? If so, why?

What do you believe sired the singularity?

[JoelWildtree]

Again, you are wrong. There is no 'atheistic position that the universe always existed' The only atheistic position there is that are are not god/gods.

There are atheists who believe in an absolute beginning and not an infinite past? I've never heard of that before. What do they say is the cause of that beginning?

You're twisting the words a bit here, maybe unintentionally. When talking about the Universe, I think most people (theists and atheists alike) believe that the universe did have a beginning. This Universe, the one we live in, began. Scientists refer to the fractions of a second before the Big Bang as "the beginning", Creationists refer to the story in Genesis as "the beginning". What scientists speculate is the cause of that "beginning" is of little importance to the position that an atheist does not believe in God, because there is no logical reason to suppose the "cause" was supernatural in origin rather than just "currently unknown".

[4gold]

You're twisting the words a bit here, maybe unintentionally. When talking about the Universe, I think most people (theists and atheists alike) believe that the universe did have a beginning. This Universe, the one we live in, began. Scientists refer to the fractions of a second before the Big Bang as "the beginning", Creationists refer to the story in Genesis as "the beginning". What scientists speculate is the cause of that "beginning" is of little importance to the position that an atheist does not believe in God, because there is no logical reason to suppose the "cause" was supernatural in origin rather than just "currently unknown".

An atheist must believe that the cause of this universe was natural. And then they must believe whatever caused that cause was natural. And then they must believe that whatever caused that cause that caused the cause was natural. And this goes on ad infinitum.

So if we go back into the past, the Creationist believes there must be a First Cause, while the atheist must believe the causes go back infinitely and that there was no first cause.

Agree?

[Furrowed Brow]

You're twisting the words a bit here, maybe unintentionally. When talking about the Universe, I think most people (theists and atheists alike) believe that the universe did have a beginning. This Universe, the one we live in, began. Scientists refer to the fractions of a second before the Big Bang as "the beginning", Creationists refer to the story in Genesis as "the beginning". What scientists speculate is the cause of that "beginning" is of little importance to the position that an atheist does not believe in God, because there is no logical reason to suppose the "cause" was supernatural in origin rather than just "currently unknown".

An atheist must believe that the cause of this universe was natural. And then they must believe whatever caused that cause was natural. And then they must believe that whatever caused that cause that caused the cause was natural. And this goes on ad infinitum.

So if we go back into the past, the Creationist believes there must be a First Cause, while the atheist must believe the causes go back infinitely and that there was no first cause.

Agree?

I'd disagree. I'm an atheist who has a tendency to think the universe is finite and orginated out of literally nothing. But that is another argument. As for first causes - you might care to get stuck in here

[Goat]

You're twisting the words a bit here, maybe unintentionally. When talking about the Universe, I think most people (theists and atheists alike) believe that the universe did have a beginning. This Universe, the one we live in, began. Scientists refer to the fractions of a second before the Big Bang as "the beginning", Creationists refer to the story in Genesis as "the beginning". What scientists speculate is the cause of that "beginning" is of little importance to the position that an atheist does not believe in God, because there is no logical reason to suppose the "cause" was supernatural in origin rather than just "currently unknown".

An atheist must believe that the cause of this universe was natural. And then they must believe whatever caused that cause was natural. And then they must believe that whatever caused that cause that caused the cause was natural. And this goes on ad infinitum.

So if we go back into the past, the Creationist believes there must be a First Cause, while the atheist must believe the causes go back infinitely and that there was no first cause.

Agree?

No. Not at all. All the atheist would have to believe is that there can be uncaused events.

[JoelWildtree]

An atheist must ... x4

An atheist must only not believe in the existence of a deity to be classified as an atheist.

An atheist must believe that the cause of this universe was natural.
And then they must believe whatever caused that cause was natural. And then they must believe that whatever caused that cause that caused the cause was natural. And this goes on ad infinitum.

Could the cause of this Universe could be outside of our "nature" and yet be the result of some restrictive nature of its own, which may be the product of yet another underlying nature? Could there be at some level a completely fundamental and uncaused "nature" by which other "natures" could emerge and develop more complex properties and further spawn other "natures"? Would this foundation level be infinite in the sense than nothing else had to cause it, that it existed of itself? If there is a level by which the regress is cut off, would that level be of simplicity or complexity? Can something complex exist uncaused or can only something fundamental and simple exist uncaused?

So if we go back into the past, the Creationist believes there must be a First Cause, while the atheist must believe the causes go back infinitely and that there was no first cause.

Agree?

Creationists [often] believe with undue certainty that there must be a first cause that was in itself somehow perfect and spectacularly complex and even intelligent and creative. The atheist usually admits that he/she does not know, and that his/her beliefs are speculation based only on what we currently know.

[byofrcs]

.....

My questions for debate are:

How does a beginning influence your (non)beliefs?

Science requires materialism. Questions outside of materialism are outside the realm of science. Can an uncaused cause be explained by science, or is it necessarily a question outside of science?

Do you believe the universe has always existed, despite what science has so far shown? If so, why?

What do you believe sired the singularity?

The beginning doesn't influence my nonbeliefs, plus the other questions are

I see Gods or no-God as the hypothesis. Without evidence for God/s then the no-God is held.

Given no-God then is there a valid cosmogony (note the spelling) ? I feel yes, in that I feel that the creation was a very simple process using the reasoning that if we consider the structure in which our universe resides to be inherently unstable then "god" simply need do nothing for the universe (or universes) to form.

You can do this yourself with a inverted pendulum; it is when you do nothing that it falls. Can't get more simple than nothing as a prime cause, except what is the nature of the "inverted pendulum" ?

The idea of a first cause is compelling but what I can't get my head around is why the first cause has to be such a complex entity when Plato and Aristotle gave us the idea of prime mover. I go the other way to simpler and simpler concepts from which we build up complexity.

If we look at zero-point energy (demonstrable with the Casimir effect) then we can reduce the energy at absolute zero for an atomic system to ½hν (half time plank constant times frequency) and this value is also directly related to the cosmological constant.

So if frequency is non-zero then we have energy. I propose that the prime mover is simply a non-zero "frequency". That certainly gives us energy and from energy we get matter and so on. So where does this non-zero frequency come from ? That's cosmogony (note spelling) and I don't profess to have ideas on everything except that I could envisage a cosmogony in which the prime mover is feedback between two "points" of the "simplest" causal structure.

In our universe we have the well known Lorentzian manifold to represent 4 dimensional spacetime. I'm guessing that the dimensions grow as subatomic particles have grown to atoms so going back in time to the zero time in our Universe we would see the reverse of creation and see how matter breaks down to its building blocks so why not break down manifolds to their building blocks ? We would be left with an irreducibly simple tensor field or "point" manifold. My only claim that this would have any credence is that the anisotropy of the Universe points to "noise" in the system at zero time rather than say a nicely ordered bose condensate.

So many systems in nature use small building blocks to create larger ones why not the infinitesimally small (or rather simple) be the prime cause ? Though this echoed in traditional Christianity by claims that God is "simple" the rest of the Christian claims spoil the effect by adding unnecessary complexity.

[MrWhy]

My questions for debate are:

How does a beginning influence your (non)beliefs?

Science requires materialism. Questions outside of materialism are outside the realm of science. Can an uncaused cause be explained by science, or is it necessarily a question outside of science?

If there was a beginning, it's a complete mystery to us. To propose there is an uncaused cause, like a creator god, is to replace one unexplained mystery with a bigger unexplained mystery. I don't know if this fallacy has an accepted name, but I call it the greater unknown fallacy. It is clearly a piece of fallacious reasoning. If we are going to speculate then I choose to conjecture that the universe has always existed in some form. A timeless spaceless form? Prior to the BB, the form may have been something we have no evidence, or even a hypothesis for, unless the hypothetical singularity has no dimension and no time.

Do you believe the universe has always existed, despite what science has so far shown? If so, why?

What do you believe sired the singularity?

Is there a problem with “cause” being associated with time, in that the cause of an event had to precede the event in time. Time is supposed to be in integral property of the universe and is an inseparable from space. So was there a "before" the BB? If there was no “before”, how do we discuss the BB cause? This line of thought always leads me to the possiblilty that we are missing something essential to solve this question. What we are missing may not be just information or research. It may be fundamental capacity. Like your pet dog or cat does not have the capacity to understand daylight savings time, and there's nothing that can overcome that limitation. We also may have capacity limits. Why should we harbor the idea that we have the mental capacity to understand everything? There was no time in our evolution where we needed that ability, so why would it exist, except perhaps as an artifact of other capacities.

We may need to consider that we can only use the time (cause and effect) concept when discussing events after the BB. Time, cause, and effect may be meaningless ideas outside of that domain. This does mess with our thinking, but is this evidence of that fundamental limitation in capacity?

I believe there's some speculation, and a lot of wishful thinking.

[HughDP]

An atheist must believe that the cause of this universe was natural. And then they must believe whatever caused that cause was natural. And then they must believe that whatever caused that cause that caused the cause was natural. And this goes on ad infinitum.

So if we go back into the past, the Creationist believes there must be a First Cause, while the atheist must believe the causes go back infinitely and that there was no first cause.

Agree?

No. The Creationist (generally) chooses to believe that there must be a first cause and then makes the illogical assumption that said first cause must be God (I say 'illogical' in the mathematical sense because if one did prove a first cause was necessary, it simply proves a first cause was necessary and says nothing about the nature of that first cause, which is a separate question).

The atheist may or may not believe in a first cause but does not believe that any God had a hand in things either way.