(November 8, 2012 at 1:19 am)SpecUVdust Wrote: Godchild-
So... You believe a snake talked.

He's a parselmouth.

Read between the lines Cato. We are part of the universe. We owe it to ourselves to discover ourselves. Think of the universe as willy wonkas Choco factory. I'm a Charlie. Any violets are doomed, period.

(November 8, 2012 at 12:26 am)SpecUVdust Wrote: So you say "what then caused the universe?" Well, you cannot have only "nothing." Also, you cannot have only "something." Therefore, you can deduce that to have nothing you must also have something. Without "something", the term "nothing" makes no sense and vice versa. So there has always been a combo of both stuff and no stuff. We can see this as the vast majority of the universe contains nothing(empty space).
So imagine all the black holes in the universe over the course of time swallow all their neighbors, then each other one by one until you have one black hole containing the entire universe minus one spec of dust. This black hole is unstable and near its threshold of being to weak(even gravitationally) to hold together matter of this magnitude. So suddenly, boom, Big Bang. The process then begins all over again.
Again, this theory is to help you people realize that there are ways to explain the universe at large without ever needing "divine guidance." You are a human brain, equal in importance to the cosmos itself. Do not delude and humble yourself with iron-age fairy tales.

Yes, a cyclic model is the best hope (the only hope that I can think of) for atheists to counter the first cause argument. However, to date there's no accepted model. All proposed have serious flaws.

(November 8, 2012 at 9:23 am)John V Wrote: Yes, a cyclic model is the best hope (the only hope that I can think of) for atheists to counter the first cause argument. However, to date there's no accepted model. All proposed have serious flaws.

Aye, all.... including the god model.

Pica gets it. Cudos

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*poca

(November 8, 2012 at 9:23 am)John V Wrote: Yes, a cyclic model is the best hope (the only hope that I can think of) for atheists to counter the first cause argument.

"If everything must have a cause, then God must have a cause. If there can be anything without a cause, it may just as well be the world as God, so that there cannot be any validity in that argument." - Bertrand Russell

(November 8, 2012 at 1:15 pm)DoubtVsFaith Wrote: "If everything must have a cause, then God must have a cause. If there can be anything without a cause, it may just as well be the world as God, so that there cannot be any validity in that argument." - Bertrand Russell

What did Bertrand think about entropy and the heat death of the universe? If the universe will eventually reach heat death and it has existed eternally, it would already have reached heat death, and we wouldn't be having this discussion. That's why a cyclic model is desired. It allows for an eternal universe, but with an apparent beginning from our perspective.

If the universe has always existed, why would that mean that it would have already died out by now?

There has always been something because non-existence can't ever have existed and the only alternative to non-existence is existence. There always will be something because non-existence won't ever exist. What science has determined to be the "heat-death" of the universe is not the same as non-existence: non-existence by definition never could have been existent, never is existent, and never will be existent. The idea of non-existence existing is analogous to the idea of a married bachelor existing. I.e: It's a logical contradiction.

So, since existence has always existed because non-existence, the only alternative, never can exist, by definition, why would we need God?

(November 8, 2012 at 2:41 pm)DoubtVsFaith Wrote: If the universe has always existed, why would that mean that it would have already died out by now?

Entropy. Heat evens out in time. Given infinite time (i.e. eternal existence), the heat would have evened out.

An alternative way to look at it is that something that has always existed doesn't have a beginning or an age. Mainstream science believes that the universe has a beginning (the big bang) and an age (14 billion years, or whatever it is currently). Therefore, it hasn't existed eternally.

If you say that the universe existed as a singularity eternally before the big bang, the problem is that there's no reason for the big bang. An eternally stable singularity is, well, eternally stable.

So, a cyclic universe is the best answer. As noted, though, so far no cyclic models work out.

Existence is eternal but that doesn't mean that we've already experienced an eternity of existence and therefore we must have already experienced a heat death...

Since existence is eternal then there's always more time to go... so it could be ages before the heat death.

And sorry but the entire concept of there ever being non-existence doesn't make sense. Non-existence can't be anything, non-existence is nothing, non-existence can't exist.