Matt633

This is not about WHO God is. This is about the fact that the universe had to have a supernatural origin.

Premise 1- Everything that had a beginning had a cause.
(Law of Causality- the fundamnetal principle of science. Without the law of causality, science is impossible. In fact Francis Bacon, the father of modern science said, "True knowledge is knowledge by causes" [The New Organon pg 121]. In other words science is the search for causes. That is what scientists do- they try to discover what caused what.

Even the great skeptic David Hume admitted, "I've never asserted so absurd a proposition as that something could arise without a cause." [The Letters of David Hume vol 1 pg 187]

To deny causality is to deny rationality.


Premise 2- The universe had a beginning.

It was 1916 and Albert Einstein did not like where his calculations were leading him. If his theory of general relativity were true, it meant that the universe was not eternal but had a beginning. He wanted the universe to be self existent relying on no outside cause but it appeared the universe was one big effect.


Premise 3- Therefore the universe had a cause.

Robert Jastrow, sits in Edwin Hubble's chair at the Mount Wilson Observatory. He is the founder of Nasa's Goddard Institute of Space Studies. He wrote a book called God and the Astronomers. He is an agnostic. He said:

"Astronomers now find that they have painted themselves into a corner because they have proven, by their own methods, that the world began abruptly, in an act of creation to which you can trace the seeds of every star, every living thing, every planet, everything in the cosmos and on the earth. And they have found that all of this happened as a product of forces, they cannot hope to discover... that there are what I or anyone would call SUPERNATURAL FORCES AT WORK is now, I think, a scientifically proven fact."

The Big Bang was the beginnig point for the entire physical universe. Time, space, and matter came into existence at that point. There was no natural world or natural law prior to the Big Bang. Since a cause cannot come after it's effect, natural forces cannot account for the Big Bang. Therefore, there must be somthing OUTSIDE OF NATURE to do the job. That's exactly what the word SUPERNATURAL means.


Quote:
su·per·nat·u·ral [spər náchərəl]
adj
1. not of natural world: relating or attributed to phenomena that cannot be explained by natural laws

Encarta ® World English Dictionary © & (P) 1998-2004 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

Physicist Paul Davies said, "One may find it easier to believe in an infinite array of universes than in an infinite Deity, but such a belief MUST REST ON FAITH RATHER THAN OBSERVATION."

Do you concur?

molten_dragon

Actually, we really have no idea what existed (if anything) before the big bang. There are theories on it, but none of us will ever know for sure. Therefore, it's impossible to say what caused it, and whether it was a natural process or not.

It's not that there's evidence against your theory, there's just no evidence for it either.

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Joe1991

Nope. The big bang theory is still just that, a theory.

And even if true, that would not mean it didn't happen organically.

The hypothetical corner you paint yourself into is: If a supernatural force (say a "God" for example) created the universe, then what created it?

Tashah

There is nothing explicitly causal to virtual particles.

Event is a much better term than beginning. Such an event does not require a supernatural intervention.

Einstein wanted a flat universe and invented a mathematical fudge factor (the Cosmological Constant) that would allow him to tweak relativity. He later called this his biggest blunder. As it turns out, there is a Cosmological Constant in nature, but not for the aesthetic reasons that Einstein imagined and preferred.

An event/genesis certainly, but not necessarily a “cause” per se.

This is conjecture. Simply because our ability to observe and measure is finite does not imply nor demand that nothing at all existed prior to this epoch. Rather than a beginning, the Big Bang could have been a transition.

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Matt633

But science has proven that time and the universe had a beginning. The laws of nature COULD NOT have existed before time. The laws of nature derive from time. Therefore, whatever existed before time is by very definition- supernatural.

Tsunami

We cannot explain the origins of the universe any better than we could explain the origins of any god that may or may not exist. Not knowing isn't evidence for one side or the other.

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Tashah

There was an expansion event. Whether this event is unique or is part and parcel of a transition is unknown.

Certainly they could have. Not in a universe like our own, but there is no fundamental cosmic law that demands a coupling of physics and time.

Not true. The laws of nature are coupled with time. This synergy does not demand that one is beholden to the other at inception.

Not necessarily true. The best one can say is that whatever existed before the genesis event remains an unknown.

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Manc Skipper

In other words, We don't know yet, so till we do, Goddidit.

Matt633

We do know. Scientists of atheistic and agnostic background have admitted that science has definitively proven that TIME HAD A BEGINNING. We are now able to see deep enough into the universe to see the beginning of time.

It simply does not make sense that nature predated time. I know of no reputable scientist who purports that. Since nature had to exist following the creation of time space and matter via the Big Bang then whatever predated the Big Bang was and is not subject to the laws which it predated. It existed before them and therefore outside of them which is by VERY DEFINITION supernatural.

Now you cannot study via the laws of nature that which is above nature, supernatural.

Here is an agnostic astronomer saying that what I am purpoting in this thread is a scientific fact.

I am not yet saying that this must be Jehovah. Simply that whatever brought time, space and matter into existence via the Big Bang HAD TO BE SUPERNATURAL- HAD TO BE. (and not because Jastrow said so. but because of the definition of the term and its relation to it having predated nature and thus it's laws.)

Tashah

I am a Cosmologist. I study the origin and development of the cosmos for a living. Supernatural infers the metaphysical... so stop the semantical acrobatics.

There are a fair number of different theories on what possibly caused and/or predated the Big Bang event. I strongly suggest that you peruse the subject matter more thoroughly.

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