Beginnings

[genkaus]

Also please keep in mind that science has proven that the universe did in fact have a beginning.

Has it now? I must have missed the memo.

Three leading cosmologists, Arvin Borde, Alan Guth, and Alexander Vilenkin, were able to prove that any universe which has, on average, been expanding throughout its history cannot be infinite in the past but must have a past space-time boundary.

What makes their proof so powerful is that it holds regardless of the physical description of the universe prior to the Planck time.

The Borde-Guth-Vilenkin theorem is independent of any physical description of that moment. Their theorem implies that even if our universe is just a tiny part of a so-called “multiverse” composed of many universes, the multiverse must have an absolute beginning.

Vilenkin is blunt about the implications:

It is said that an argument is what convinces reasonable men and a proof is what it takes to convince even an unreasonable man. With the proof now in place, cosmologists can no longer hide behind the possibility of a past-eternal universe. There is no escape, they have to face the problem of a cosmic beginning (Many Worlds in One [New York: Hill and Wang, 2006], p.176).

I'm reminded of a quote from this very website. One that, I think, was actually addressed to you.

"Does William Craig approve of you going through his underwear drawer and using the most stained sample?"

Here's a comprehensive rebuttal of your argument.

http://debunkingwlc.wordpress.com/2010/0...-vilenkin/

As is apparent, you didn't even use your own words, but copied directly from Craig's own argument. Here's a section from the page:

Whenever William Lane Craig is forced to retreat from his use of the Standard Big Bang model, he will often cite a paper by Arvind Borde, Alan Guth, and Alexander Vilenkin:

…three leading cosmologists, Arvin Borde, Alan Guth, and Alexander Vilenkin, were able to prove that any universe which has, on average, been expanding throughout its history cannot be infinite in the past but must have a past space-time boundary.

-W.L Craig “Contemporary Cosmology and the Beginning of the Universe”

The 2003 Borde-Guth-Vilenkin paper (pdf) shows that “almost all” inflationary models of the universe (as opposed to Dr. Craig’s “any universe”) will reach a boundary in the past – meaning our universe probably doesn’t exist infinitely into the past.

Dr. Craig seems to interpret this information as “the universe definitely began to exist” although that is a bit presumptuous. For example, this theorem doesn’t rule out Stephen Hawking’s no-boundary proposal which states that time may be finite without any real boundary (just like a sphere is finite in surface area while it has no “beginning”).