(January 9, 2015 at 9:45 pm)bob96 Wrote: ok, good point.

Can some material thing come into *our* universe from nothing without God putting it there?

Your question (and I'm ignoring the God part for now) concerns the physics question of energy conservation. It seems to hold if we ignore the curvature of space. If we allow for spacetime curvature matters are not as simple any more - energy can be converted into spacetime curvature and vice versa, and one can attempt to formulate a quantity which encapsulates the total energy plus curvature energt if you will. It suggests that in an expanding universe, no real particles should pop up out of vacuum or, more generally, existing particles gain energy. However, the origin of the energy (equivalent to matter) we observe now goes back all the way to the earliest moments of the universe where an inflationary epoch is suspected to have occurred. Here, a quantum fluctuation could have produced space with negative energy curature and positive energy content. However, as I've said before, the concept of time and causality becomes fuzzy hereand your everyday intuition that stuff has to come from other stuff does not hold.

I think the most sensible definition for God is hydrogen.

(January 9, 2015 at 9:37 pm)bob96 Wrote:

(January 9, 2015 at 7:55 pm)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote: Do you believe that God 'was always just there'?
Boru

Yes, of course. God is immaterial. Though the question is, how can "some thing", ie. a material object in our universe come from nowhere?

Then another problem is, what did God create the universe from?
If something can't come from nothing, then he must have used something to create the universe. "Speaking" it into existence implies that the universe just 'popped' into existence, from nothing. Which would mean something can come from nothing.

Which is it?

I looked up God in my dictionary, and it just said "exception". How odd.

(January 9, 2015 at 9:37 pm)bob96 Wrote: Yes, of course. God is immaterial.

That is a claim that requires evidence. Got any?

Your unsupported assertion is meaningless.

Quote:Though the question is, how can "some thing", ie. a material object in our universe come from nowhere?

Universe creating pixies that self destructed after they created it, of course. See, I can make unsupported assertions too.

Our universe did not come 'nothing out of nowhere'. Our universe is a change in state from another form.

OP, you want to explain a baby elephant in a room by saying a bigger elephant came in, gave birth to it and then left it there. thus explaining the problem by a bigger even more complex problem. And that's just stupid

(January 10, 2015 at 10:49 am)Simon Moon Wrote: Our universe did not come 'nothing out of nowhere'. Our universe is a change in state from another form.

hmm, misread.. although people here have made that claim.

(January 9, 2015 at 7:33 pm)bob96 Wrote: Imagine an alternate universe which contains a single hydrogen atom. (Lets not include dark matter or other forces in the discussion for the purpose of simplicity.) You could replace the atom with a proton, a neutron, a sub-atomic particle, or a string. The point is, it's real. It can be measured.

Now where did this hydrogen atom come from?
Was it just always there?
Did it spontaneously appear, ie. magically?
Did someone create it?

How did it come into being?

A. We don't know
B. Neither do you

(January 10, 2015 at 9:55 am)robvalue Wrote: There is also a reason why making up an answer is worse than admitting you don't know. If you make one up, and become comfortable with it, you lose the incentive to go and find out the real answer. As well as misleading anyone who relies on you for accurate information.

There may be no real answer yet, but if no one is looking, it won't get found. Hence religion stunting science.

I don't believe religion stunts science. Newton was a Christian.
22% of Nobel Prize winners were Jews. [1] (Even though Jews comprise less than 0.2% of the world's population)
Christians have earned 65.4% of Nobel prizes. [2]

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Jew..._laureates
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chr..._laureates

(January 10, 2015 at 6:08 pm)bob96 Wrote: I don't believe religion stunts science. Newton was a Christian.
22% of Nobel Prize winners were Jews. [1] (Even though Jews comprise less than 0.2% of the world's population)
Christians have earned 65.4% of Nobel prizes. [2]

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Jew..._laureates
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chr..._laureates

So, anything about their faiths that specifically contributed to progress, or are you just saying that what a man does to squander his time, whether it's beating off to barnyard lovin' teens or a god-man on a cross, doesn't inhibit his genius when he decides to apply it to the real world?