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Bringing you atheist articles and building active godless communities takes hundreds of hours and resources each month. If you find any joy or stimulation at Atheist Republic, please consider becoming a Supporting Member with a recurring monthly donation of your choosing, between a cup of tea and a good dinner.
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1. Before the big bang there was no space, time, or matter? (It makes no sense to talk about "before" the big bang. Physics breaks down at Planck time. We can not move beyond it. Time and space occur as the universe begins to expand. At the point of expansion of the universe (The Big Bang). The Big Bang is not a theory of the origin of the universe. It is a theory of the expansion of the universe. As such it is a fact according to all we know. The Big Bang says nothing at all about where the universe came from or what was before. Talking about "before" makes no sense. Furthermore, the eternal universe has not been ruled out.
2. The big bang is the beginning of the universe? (The beginning of the universe as we know it. You must still contend with the cosmos. It is the beginning of our current understanding of the universe. When you say "beginning" you do not get to move to "ultimate cause." The universe began as a singularity or hot dense mass. No one can move beyond this point. Physics breaks down at the singularity. Nothing more can be said.
3. The singularity is before the big bang? It was infinitely hot and dense? What was infinitely hot and dense? (No idea at all why it must be infinitely anything. No reason at all the singularity can not be a part of the big bang. Physics breaks down at Planck Time. 'NO ONE KNOWS' This is the distinction between atheists and theists. Atheists are completely comfortable with the idea, "We don't yet know." and theists want to plug in their "God of the gaps." Atheists are still looking for answers while the theists assert everything happened by an all powerful magical being inserted at the beginning of everything. If the actual cause of the universe is ever discovered, and even if that cause is a god, it will be discovered by atheists who are the only ones actually looking.
4. Do we really know what was before the big bang? I know there are some ideas, but isn't it most accurate to say no one knows?
(You already asked this question. It does not make sense to talk about "before the big bang."
5. During the early expansion, did it expand faster than the speed of light? (The universe was born with the Big Bang as an unimaginably hot, dense point. When the universe was just 10-34 of a second or so old — that is, a hundredth of a billionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a second in age — it experienced an incredible burst of expansion known as inflation, in which space itself expanded faster than the speed of light. During this period, the universe doubled in size at least 90 times, going from subatomic-sized to golf-ball-sized almost instantaneously.) https://www.space.com/52-the-expanding-universe-from-the-big-bang-to-tod...
6. Why is that that we could not reach the end of the universe, even if we could travel faster than the speed of light?.
Thanks. (You need be a lot more specific. The observable universe, the cosmos? How fast anything is moving is not actually a factor. An interesting and related question would be: “Having got there, how would we know we’d arrived?” We have no idea at all what may or may not exist outside our contemporary universe. A fundamental flaw in the question here is a reliance on a Newtonian, 3 dimensional, view of space. Einstein's reality impinges upon a Newtonian world … such as Relativity, the Red-Shifting Universe, and so forth. For example, a given universe may be finite in space-time, but infinite in its projection onto a Newtonian frame of reference.
Physicists often use a balloon analogy to explain the expansion of the universe. The universe in the analogy is resting on the surface of a balloon and expanding in all directions at all times. Were you to try to get to the edge of the universe, you would only travel along the edge of the balloon. You could travel for an infinite amount of time and only end up back where you started from. You are stuck in three dimensional time and space and that is what you see, you see it regardless of what is actually there. Have you seen the story of "Flatland?" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zO1y-Tm8dSI
FINALLY: There is absolutely no reason what so ever to come onto an atheist site and ask questions about cosmology. I think we have a few cosmologists on the site but why in the hell would atheists know anything at all about the origins of the universe? Atheists are people that do not believe in god or gods. The fact that you have no evidence at all for the existence of a god is quite enough to suspend belief. No one needs the mystery of cosmology as evidence for the non-existence of gods.
@ Cognostic
@ Nyarlathotep
@ CyberLN
Cog- I understand your suspicion that I will try and turn this into a theistic argument, but that is not my intent. I have had questions about the subject for a long time that I have not been able to find the answers. It seemed like some people here could answer some of my questions, so I asked. If I am out if line asking physics questions on AR, I will stop.
To all 3 - Space can expand faster than the speed of light, but nothing can travel faster that the speed of light within space? I have always had a hard time understanding what space is.
What is information - matter, light?
Why if you could travel faster than the universe is expanding would you come back to your starting point? Is it circular?
How did time "begin" at the big bang? Sounds contradictory to me. On the same line, how did space and matter begin at the big bang? Matter came from energy?
If I am out of line, I will apologize, cease and desist.
The geometry of the universe is often modeled as an n-sphere, where n = 3. Incidentally, a 1-sphere is a circle, so your guess about being circular isn't that far off.
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Basically yeah. That is how it is done in laboratories anyway.
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Information is kind of a mathematical notion, often described in bits, just like how computers use binary. The amount of information in a system is the minimum number of yes/no (or 0 and 1) questions you need to answer to completely describe the system in question (to fully specify its microscopic state). Again, your guess about light isn't that far off. Photons are perhaps the most obvious way information travels. When a baseball is approaching you during a baseball game, the photons that are bouncing off the ball and colliding with your eyes, deliver information about the ball's location and velocity. With some practice you can predict where the ball will be when it is near you and try to catch it. If you try it without bouncing photons off the ball (in the dark), you won't receive this information and won't even know the ball is coming.
@ Nyarlathotep
Thanks for the information, it helps.
There is another reason why you could not reach the "end" of the universe. Even if somehow you could travel many times the speed of light, and traveled in a "strait" line, realize "a perfectly" straight line is impossible. Even if you had highly sophisticated equipment that error corrected for any deviation of the course, steering mechanisms that self repair etc etc, eventually those systems are going to fail.
Also you would need something preferably a super bright galaxy at the "edge" of the universe to navigate by. Eventually that guiding point will be far enough away you can not use it as a reference point. Eventually the steering mechanisms will fail by .00000001 percent, and you will begin to loop back. It may be trillions upon trillions of light years but, given enough time and distance, you will end up circling back to where you get closer to the known universe instead of further away. And this all assumes speeds much greater than lightspeed and technology so far beyond anything humans have today it is very possible the tech is actually impossible to be accurate to a trillionth of a trillionth of a degree, which is what would be necessary to not loop back far sooner/faster.
Additionally this super bright galaxy acting as a reference point will eventually be lost simply due to the fact that you were traveling many times the speed of light, without a reference point direction change is inevitable in short order, only when you eventually wandered aimlessly closer to that super bright galaxy reference point again would a computer or a human even know it "strayed" off course. Or, if we not going many billions of times faster than the speed of light, that guiding point of light could be lost or move position greatly simply due to the passage of time.
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▮I am an atheist that always likes a good debate
▮Please include @LogicFTW for responses to me
▮Tips on forum use. ▮ A.R. Member since 2016.
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Sir your Grammar and your Punctuation is Horrible if not Completely Broken. If you're gonna make a Statement do it in the Correct way, you seem to be talking seriously yet you don't even care about the Order of your Sentences.
Several forum members have already made excellent points, so I'll just add one more point. We don't begin with rank speculation and then try to determine what laws might apply. We begin by observing reality about us and identify patterns which, expressed mathematically, may possibly constitute laws. After much testing and more detailed observations with highly precise instruments, we arrive at some of the laws of nature.
Those laws are what we know best about our universe. They have been tested under extreme conditions by many highly trained people at various times, tests eventually using incredibly accurate equipment. Hence, these laws of nature should not lightly be tossed aside. The usual idea of God violates so many of these principles that we have to stop and ask why God belief should even be considered. It appears that everything we "know" about God is either rank speculation, usually by theologians, or based on sources or claims no no reputable investigator would ever touch. Faced with a choice between rank speculation and well tested principles, it would be sheer folly to throw away what we know best by test!
The Big Bang, on the other hand, not only has strong, supporting evidence but it is not in an obvious train wreck with the laws of nature, those things we know best by test. As was noted, the Big Bang is not a creation story from nothing; it traces the universe back to a tiny, super-hot, expanding point which is the basis for our time and space. What caused it, if there was a "cause?" Stay tuned. Cosmologists are working on it and they have some interesting ideas.
Finally, as I have posted on other threads, the idea that the universe (in a greater sense as a possible multiverse) must have impossibly come from nothing (if it wasn't created in some way) is based on the unwarranted assumption that "nothing" is the natural starting point. Is "nothing" even meaningful in connection with reality? Is there any actual reason to think that such an abstract concept even applies to reality? Perhaps, the most "nothing" that can ever be achieved by reality is some concoction of energy and vacuum subject to the laws of quantum mechanics, a restless, seething energy capable of starting universes. Hence, a universe that had a beginning might well have come from "nothing," the only "nothing" that reality knows of, without any contradictions. As viewed from the point of view of the abstract concept of "nothing," it would be a case of the universe (in some form) always existing, for reality could never be less than its own "nothing." The problem of infinite regress becomes an artificial sectioning of a continuous reality that must always exist!
You guys are talking about grammar and run on sentences? instead of what i am actually explaining. You guys are pointing at all the flaws in my post when i know there substance there and reason that is overpowered buy the human nature of being right which i try not to have bias opinions on any thing but this is like explaining evolution to a religious person or science in general to a religious person they are to caught up in being right that you wouldn't know what right was if it fell in your lap and i right like this on purpose because i dont care we are on the fucking internet and one of you guys is absolutely wrong about me i make bold statements and i have evidence to prove everything but i also could be very much wrong but i highly doubt that which just makes me confident
The problem is that you haven't backed up anything with this elusive evidence. I don't care about your grammar or your sentence structure. I use Grammarly, which you can download for free. I care about content. You made a bold assumption but you didn't back it up. All you did is complain that we collectively can't grasp YOUR theory. You have to PROVE YOUR theory, not just make a statement over and over.
The problem with poor writing skills is that it damages your ability to express yourself to the outside world. It's something to work on, not to make light of.
You can understand the grammar but you choose not to if someone told you a guaranteed way to make a billion dollars would grammar actually but what he is actually explaining but if you truly cant understand then i understand but if your choosing not to understand based on grammar then i don't get it
What the hell is it we are supposed to be understanding?
All i have been explaining is there are similarities between science and the god theory
and my point to this thread was to say that instead of having conversations with religious people full of disagreements i found things that in both opinions that they have in common and on the athiest side yall dont agree so far but and i think you guys are quick to reply instead of actually thinking about the concept you can disagree all you want but in reality you agree opinions dont have nothing to do with the truth
I answered that claim in my first two posts.
They would both have no creator that is a similarity weather gou like or not that is facts logic and reason if you dont agree your not a critical thinker
One was an event . The other a myth. They have little in common.
See your being bias and not thinking critically just how you judge religious people of not thinking critically on evolution the big bang and science in general the same applies here you said one is a event and one is an myth that is another topic and not the point of this thread but what i said in the post was facts
The nonreality of god rebuts your claim that god would result in physical laws. The Big Bang resulted in physical laws that can be measured. God results in nothing but silly people endlessly pressing the issue. If human beings all perished tonight god would die also. The rest of the universe and its laws would not miss a beat ( or us ).
Andrewcgs:
If you study grammar, your thought processes will become clearer, more focused, and more disciplined. You will then be able to express your thoughts more lucidly and more convincingly. I honestly can't understand a lot of what you are saying. And that's a pity.
I believe I understand the original point that Andrewcgs was trying to make.
In reference to both the origins of the big bang as well as the origin of god, he stated that "what those 2 concepts have in common is they don't have creators they are self created".
He is correct in the sense that both concepts claim to be the causeless cause of the known universe in that neither can be afforded a satisfactory explanation for the theory of their existence.
I believe his intent was that this fact could be used as a point of commonality with which to engage in rational dialogue between theists and atheists.
From RETARDED comments to More Retarded Comments. Please demonstrate how anything in this entire universe is "Self Created." Who told you the "Big Bang" was the origin of anything but our current universe? Do you know what the "Big Bang is?"
The big bang is not a cosmological event. It is a moment in time when the Universe began to expand. What is beyond Planck Time no one knows. You can not get past a "singularity" so how in the hell do you get to an origin? You are creating an equivocation fallacy with the word origin. The universe had a beginning ( an expansion) from a singularity. GOD HAS NOTHING. IT IS A FABRICATED IDEA AND NOTHING MORE.
"In short, questions about events that were before or outside the Universe are not currently scientific questions, and likely never will be." http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/about-us/102-the-universe/cosmology-and...
YOUR GOD HAS NO EXISTENCE. The big bang is not the universe. It is the expansion of the universe. All matter was condensed into a singularity and then the matter began to expand. (Big Bang). Please state any scientific fact you have for the existence of your God. All current scientific models support the Big Bang. THERE IS "NOTHING RATIONAL" IN THE COMPARISON OF BIG BANG COSMOLOGY AND ANY VERSION OF GOD AT ALL.
Thank you i couldn't say it better myself that is the core of what i am trying to say that was 1 out of 2 of my original points maybe your words might spark others to a better understanding
I understood . I also disagreed.
@ZERO: And there is a reason you are ZERO. That would be the score you would receive on your science exam. "False Analogy" 101.
Andrewcgs, I hope you can use the truth of your observation to engage in productive dialogue with both theists and atheists.
Remember to avoid biting on the bait of captious comments and always remain rational, coherent, kind and humble. :) Best Wishes.
That would mean that you are bias and not a critical thinker at least on certain things or you dont understand the concept of commonality because that is and absolute it is undeniable that is a common trait they both dont have creators i am not talking myths and events right now and whats funny is i had this same conversation with someone who believes in god and they said it was impossible for something to come from nothing and its was the same stance you are taking just on the other side and there is the silver lining
You seem to be saying that a god and the physical universe are same because neither has a creator. In my above statements I explained that the theories for the Big Bang do not assert the universe came from nothing. They assert the universe had a physical cause. There is no commonality with a myth for which no physical evidence exists. Also if your god with no creator coexists with our universe ( which has no creator ) then what does god do for a living?
Are you going to address the criticism that the big bang theory has nothing to do with creation (or creation from nothing)?
I don't believe Andrewcgs intended to suggest that the two share similarity, only commonality of concept in that both concepts claim to be the causeless cause of the known universe in that neither can be afforded a satisfactory explanation for the theory of their existence. Conceptual commonality is not predicated upon functional similarity.
Again , no one is claiming the big bang had a causeless cause. I think we are understanding his assertion but thanks for the help.
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