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It seems your OP can be distilled into, “we don’t know, therefore, gawd.”
I don’t buy that.
More like something intelligent and powerful created time and space...
Use whatever name you like, I still don’t buy it.
I agree, but also we do know everything had a start. It says so in Genesis chapter 1.
"I agree, but also we do know everything had a start. It says so in Genesis chapter 1."
It also has a talking snake, and magic fruit, and claims everything was created in 6 days, including humans in their current form, despite overwhelming evidence that all life evolved over billions of years, so I'm not sure we can assume it is true without demonstrating proper evidence.
What have you got?
Landon, you wrote, “...we do know everything had a start...”
“WE” know no such thing.
It's an unfalsifiable premise. You're asking a question that encompasses everything, omniscience would be needed to answer it.
It's also inaccurate to assert time has a start, since a start would necessarily only be possible in the sense we understand it within a temporal condition.
"So time having a start, that means it was created. That seems to bring God into the picture?"
No, and no. Time has a point of origin but not a start in the sense we understand it, and in the sense you're using it here. You have simply demonstrated no evidence that time is created, and the insertion of some deity is pure assumption.
Are you even aware that this is a first cause argument called the Kalam cosmological argument?
It's been widely criticised of course, and justifiably so. I sense that someone is a fan of William Lane Craig. His use of the KC argument is woeful. It's also a first cause argument, but not an argument for a deity.
1) We can't say if everything has a cause, as we dont understand everything. So stating every thing has or must have a cause is pure assumption.
2) In every single example we do understand, both the cause and the effect are natural and material, and occur only within the temporal condition of the physical universe. No supernatural cause has ever been evidenced for anything.
3) The point of origin of the universe would necessarily not have been a temporal one, thus to assert the examples we have justify applying the law of cause and effect is inaccurate and pure assumption.
4) Adding an unevidenced deity, using unexplained magical powers, is simply plucking two more assumptions out of thin air.
5) Defining a deity in such a way as to believe it's necessary for this assumed creation, is simply a begging the question fallacy obviously.
6) Any argument claiming these assertions are validated because we have no other explanation is of course just an argumentum ad ignorantiam fallacy. By definition any argument containing such a fallacy cannot rationally be true.
It is a provable premise. For example here is a proof by contradiction that everything has a temporal start:
P1 Assume X has no temporal start
P2 Then start of X is undefined
P3 This means the middle of X is undefined
P4 And the end of X
P5 So X must either not exist or have a temporal start
C1 All things must have a temporal start.
An example would be the weekdays; if you take away Monday, Tuesday ceases to exist, then Wednesday etc... Things without a start don't exist...
Time has a start. The full argument is a follows:
1. Something can’t come from nothing
2. So base reality must have always existed
3. If base reality is permanent it must be timeless (to avoid an actual infinity of time)
4. Also something without a start cannot exist so time must have a start
5. Time was created and exists within this permanent, timeless, base reality
6. So time must be real, permanent and finite
7. Time was created by a powerful and intelligent entity(s).
The Kalam cosmological argument is 'Whatever begins to exist has a cause'. My core argument is 'Everything has a start' (Everything has and end too actually).
So tell me, take away your birth, would you still exist?
@ Sheldon
The falsity is strong in this one OB1.......
You're either barking mad or trolling. I can put it at no more than a 50/50 premise for now.
You've proved nothing, that is axiomatic. You're using vapid word games. The only real question left is do you genuinely believe that guff is valid?
"My core argument is 'Everything has a start' "
And it's a particularly stupid argument, since you have a set of 'everything' in it how exactly did you test this vapid premise?
Even more stupidly you have immediately contradicted yourself with fallacious special pleading argument for your fictional deity. Which you have now claimed both had and did not have a start. Which incidentally you have defined arbitrarily in your argument for its existence, which is a begging the question fallacy.
Did I mention how stupid your argument is? It's not even original at that.
OP: Does everything have a start. "So time having a start, that means it was created. That seems to bring God into the picture?"
It does no such thing. You can not assert a god into existence. Space and time comes into existence at Planck Time as far as we currently know. (the smallest measurement of time that has any meaning, and is equal to 10-43 seconds.) It is at this point physics breaks down. It is at this point the universe as we know it appears to begin to expand. As it expands space, time and matter are formed. That says nothing about were it all came from. (This is your equivocation fallacy. Start, does not address what came before, "ORIGIN.") "Start" says nothing about a god, turtles all the way down, magic universe creating pixies, blue universe creating bunny rabbits, magical leprechauns, or anything else. You do not get to assert an magical creator being before "START." YOU MUST " PROVE IT. " You do not get to explain a mystery with a greater mystery. What was before the "start" of the universe is an "UNKNOWN." It could be a natural process. It could be the multiverse. It could be the back side of a black hole. Almost every possibility science can imagine has more validity than a magical creator being who can waggle his fingers and "POOF" a universe into existence.
START is at planck time. Origin remains unknown.
Your view of time is rather strange; time is a fundamental part of the universe, it has been part of the universe since the beginning; it did not emerge from anything. Consider the speed of light speed limit law, every particle in the universe has always obeyed this law and speed is distance/TIME - IE time was fundamental to the universe from the start.
My proposition is not that God created the universe; it is that the universe was created by something powerful and intelligent.
NO: "The Planck time is the unique combination of the gravitational constant G, the "SPECIAL-RELATIVISTIC" constant c, and the quantum constant ħ, to produce a constant with dimension of time. Because the Planck time comes from dimensional analysis, which ignores "CONSTANT" factors, there is no reason to believe that exactly one unit of Planck time has any special physical significance. Rather, the Planck time represents a ROUGH TIME SCALE at which quantum gravitational effects are likely to become important. This essentially means that whilst smaller units of time can exist, they are so small their effect on our existence is negligible. THE NATURE OF THOSE EFFECTS AND THE EXACT TIME SCALE AT WHICH THEY WOULD OCCUR, would need to be derived from an actual theory of quantum gravity.
The reciprocal of the Planck time, which is Planck frequency, can be interpreted as an upper bound on the frequency of a wave. This follows from the interpretation of the Planck length as a minimal length, and hence a lower bound on the wavelength.
All scientific experiments and human experiences occur over time scales that are dozens of orders of magnitude longer than the Planck time,[4] MAKING ANY EVENTS HAPPENING AT THE PLANCK UNDETECTABLE with current scientific knowledge. As of November 2016, the smallest time interval uncertainty in direct measurements is on the order of 850 zeptoseconds (8.50 × 10−19 seconds)[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck_time
READ A FRIGGING BOOK!
It does not matter what you "ASSERT" created the universe. Choose your myth. YOU STILL HAVE TO PROVE IT. You can not assert it into existence. Blue universe creating Pixies are
powerful and intelligent. So is the Flying Spaghetti Monster. For that matter, I created the universe and you can not prove that I didn't. One magical assertion is just like every other magical assertion. PROVE IT!
Now your just talking in circles about god.
What objective evidence do you have any god exist?
When you prove your god is real, then we can talk about it creating anything.
LOL: So much simpler that all the effort I put in to trying to educate the OP. "You can not imagine a god into existence. Agreeing with "xenoview" PROVE YOUR INTELLIGENT CREATOR EXISTS.
"My proposition is not that God created the universe; it is that the universe was created by something powerful and intelligent."
We've seen enough believers here to say that your going to assert that the "powerful and intelligent" is the christian or muslim god.
"My proposition is not that God created the universe; it is that the universe was by something powerful and intelligent."
A lot of theists come here, you will assert that the "powerful and intelligent" is the christian or muslim god.
No I won't assert that. I'm a deist:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deism
God and logic in harmony...
Even with this more abstract god, you can't say that if the Universe has a start (as you understand it) that its origin is a sentient being. Furthermore, how does your god do it? And i don't want some esoteric verbiage, i want something that can de falsified.
I think you need to read the OP, the whole premise is we can say the universe has a start. If you take away the Big Bang (start) would the universe still exist? No.
God seems to of created time and space; the question is how. If I had to create time and space, I would do so in a computer simulation. So I think it is not unlikely that God created some sort of simulation and we are in that simulation.
I just read the first line. I reread it and for that matter, the conception of the Big Bang as the start is false, it is just the farthest point it time that we can go back (actually it is the planck epoch). The initial singularity, if it ever permitted by the laws of physics, could have been eternal, i don't know and that's it. I do not pretend to have the truth.
"God seems to of created time and space".
Again, it could be an intelligent (not necessary sentient) entity, but it not an absolute necessity. Do you realize that if yo have to do a computer simulation, you have to already exist in some sort of space-time?
What if your God itself is in a computer simulation?...
There must of been a start of time. If you take away the start, the rest does not exist. If you take away Monday, the rest of the week does not exist. Please read the argument again:
1. Something can’t come from nothing
2. So base reality must have always existed
3. Something without a start cannot exist so time must have a start
4. God created Time within this permanent, timeless, base reality
5. So time must be real, permanent and finite
So base reality refers to the top-level of reality, above any computer simulations. There must logically be a top level, and my argument is about that (hence the argument works with or without computer simulations).
"There must of been a start of time."
It seems you have asked a question that you have already assumed the answer to.
How can something exist without a start? Take away your birth, would you exist? Everything, including time, has a start.
If my birth is part of my identity, then you are correct: I cannot exist without my birth.
However, things that are eternal exist without starts if they exist.
Right, so thats an example showing things without a start cannot exist.
Eternal (in time) does not have a start and is contradictory; eternal things can't exist. For example:
- Say you meet an Eternal (in time) being in your Eternal universe
- You notice he is counting
- You ask and he says ‘I’ve always been counting’
- What number is he on?
@Dan Re: "Say you meet an Eternal (in time) being in your Eternal universe
- You notice he is counting
- You ask and he says ‘I’ve always been counting’
- What number is he on?"
Ummmm.... 4!.... No-no-no.... 17!....Nah, that can't be right.... 28, maybe?..... *extending hand palm forward*.... No, don't tell me, don't tell me..... Er, 3?.... *shaking head*... Nope, too obvious. Oh! Got it! Seven hundred twenty six gazillion-trillion three thousand fifty eight billion four hundred six million and three.... four... five.... six... seven.....
Edit to add: Okay, okay! I confess! I cheated and Googled the answer.
"Everything, including time, has a start."
Does your deity have a start? That's called special pleading, and it is the very definition of irrational.
@Dan
You did not reply to my comment #19.
which comment was that?
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