Listen to Matt, he knows what's what.

http://profmattstrassler.com/articles-an...inflation/

http://profmattstrassler.com/articles-an...inflation/

Somehow, science wise, apologetics seems deliberately stuck in the physics and cosmology of 1960. I'll go around debunk the grossest misconceptions about Cosmology forever. But there is *so* much nonsense about it floating around the web, the current state of the art somehow hasn't found it's way into the mind of the public.

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmic...rciwf32bIU

(February 3, 2016 at 8:06 pm)Minimalist Wrote:

Quote: Kid:  "He's god."

Once you realize that this is their answer to virtually any difficulty it becomes much easier to stop taking them seriously and just have fun with them.

(February 3, 2016 at 8:25 pm)dyresand Wrote:

(February 3, 2016 at 8:07 pm)Catholic_Lady Wrote: What way is that?

CL nothing is an unstable equilibrium this is where quantum mechanics kicks in an you get something from nothing.

I do not know, I am not a physicist. Perhaps you should ask one?

(February 6, 2016 at 2:26 pm)God of Mr. Hanky Wrote:

(February 6, 2016 at 1:26 pm)alpha male Wrote: Oscillating models have been proposed, but observations don't support them. At this point, the evidence indicates that the universe had a start, it's headed toward heat death, and then that's that.

And still your theistic ideas cannot, nor will they ever be lifted out of the hole you dig for them with the infinite regress fallacy. If the existence of anything must have a beginning, then so must everything, no exceptions for your god.

I haven't argued that anything that exists must have a beginning. I noted that the evidence indicates that this universe had a beginning.

(February 7, 2016 at 2:31 am)Alex K Wrote:

(February 5, 2016 at 11:25 am)alpha male Wrote: He may not have presented it well, but his point is valid. 

If I allow that an eternally existing god is possible, then yes, I must allow that an eternally existing universe is also possible. If the evidence indicated that the universe has existed eternally, or back when we didn't have evidence one way or another on that question, your counter argument was fine. But, now that the evidence indicates that the universe has a beginning, that counter argument no longer holds.

1.No, the evidence doesn't really show that. The evidence suggests something like inflation in the early phase, and no one knows what was at the beginning of that.
2. Even if it did have a temporal beginning as seen from inside, it would not present a paradox of creation ex nihilo

That's ad hoc and disingenuous. If I asked how old the universe, I'd get an answer of whatever number of billions of years is currently correct. No one would say we don't know.

Fortunately Aquinas's 5 ways do not depend on a specific cosmological model. All that matters is that reality is intelligible. Physics is a second order discipline contingent on philosophical first principles known by observation.

(February 9, 2016 at 9:52 am)alpha male Wrote:

(February 7, 2016 at 2:31 am)Alex K Wrote: 1.No, the evidence doesn't really show that. The evidence suggests something like inflation in the early phase, and no one knows what was at the beginning of that.
2. Even if it did have a temporal beginning as seen from inside, it would not present a paradox of creation ex nihilo

That's ad hoc and disingenuous. If I asked how old the universe, I'd get an answer of whatever number of billions of years is currently correct. No one would say we don't know.

That's not disingenuous, that's subtlety: it depends entirely on what you mean by age of the universe.

- 13.7 billion years ago, all the energy in the universe was in a super dense hot plasma and the atoms we consist of were first formed from that energy as everything cooled. It therefore makes sense to say that the universe as we know it got started then.

- If you then ask, "but did time itself begin back then?" every serious scientist should tell you 'Well, I dunno, but do you want to hear my guess? Also, it is not clear what time and space mean in these extreme conditions'

(February 9, 2016 at 9:52 am)alpha male Wrote:

(February 7, 2016 at 2:31 am)Alex K Wrote: 1.No, the evidence doesn't really show that. The evidence suggests something like inflation in the early phase, and no one knows what was at the beginning of that.
2. Even if it did have a temporal beginning as seen from inside, it would not present a paradox of creation ex nihilo

That's ad hoc and disingenuous. If I asked how old the universe, I'd get an answer of whatever number of billions of years is currently correct. No one would say we don't know.

You are just another straw-man blowing, sociopathic punk! Scientists make their most logical conclusions according to the data which they have, when it seems to make logical sense that they know something within a range of accuracy, and even when they are wrong they are closer to the truth than any theosphist asshole. If your version of the truth on something which at this point cannot be directly experienced by anyone is absolute, then the only truth of that is that it's absolutely wrong!

(February 9, 2016 at 9:57 am)ChadWooters Wrote: Fortunately Aquinas's 5 ways do not depend on a specific cosmological model. All that matters is that reality is intelligible. Physics is a second order discipline contingent on philosophical first principles known by observation.

Formally, my physics education never went past the high school level, but I can tell you for certain that no philosophy was discussed in that class at all, and that it was most certainly based on math-first principles.

Keep on pontificating, and see how much respect it garners you!

(February 9, 2016 at 9:57 am)ChadWooters Wrote: Fortunately Aquinas's 5 ways do not depend on a specific cosmological model. All that matters is that reality is intelligible. Physics is a second order discipline contingent on philosophical first principles known by observation.

I think you overestimate the power of philosophy to say something about reality without considering the physics behind the words you use. As soon as you use concepts such as a "mover" in your philosophical argument and then talk about its properties, it doesn't seem to be a hierarchy any more where physics is secondary.
You keep waving those five ways around. Can you give an example of an argument they make that says something about reality without relying on physics?

God of Mr. Hanky Wrote:

alpha male Wrote:That's ad hoc and disingenuous. If I asked how old the universe, I'd get an answer of whatever number of billions of years is currently correct. No one would say we don't know.

You are just another straw-man blowing, sociopathic punk! Scientists make their most logical conclusions according to the data which they have, when it seems to make logical sense that they know something within a range of accuracy, and even when they are wrong they are closer to the truth than any theosphist asshole. If your version of the truth on something which at this point cannot be directly experienced by anyone is absolute, then the only truth of that is that it's absolutely wrong!

Is the sociopathic part in reference to some other post?