RE: Where did the universe come from? Atheistic origin science has no answer.
October 21, 2013 at 4:48 pm
(This post was last modified: October 21, 2013 at 4:57 pm by MindForgedManacle.)
So, there's a lot of theistic bullshit abounding, so my treatment of general claims will be terse, because I'll also be outlining a general picture of how on the worldview of a metaphysical naturalist and atheist, the origin and development of the universe can be plausibly explained.
First things first, the ancient Hebrew were originally polytheists. The god 'Yahweh' was not their principle god until nearly the time of Parmenides, that is around 600 B.C. Before that, Yahweh was merely one among the Hebrews pantheon of gods, and wasn't even the chief god, but their war god. Their chief god was 'El Elyon' their sky god (also known as El Shaddai, their mountain god) and was the husband of their fertility goddess Asherah. El Elyon would later sort of be fused with Yahweh by their descendants and become their chief god, although they didn't become monotheistic until later still. They were what you might call monolateral polytheists for some time (maybe until they had been waylayed by the Babylonians). They were very much polytheistic, and this is undisputed in the scholarship on the subject, unless such disputes come from Bible nuts.
Now, on my worldview as a metaphysical naturalist and an atheist, here is a general outline of a plausible explanation for the universe's existence and such:
Causally prior (not temporally) to 13.81 billion years ago, the universe existed in a tenseless state as a 4-dimensional (at least) 'block' of spacetime. This is what is known as the B-theory of time within the philosophy of time, which takes a static view on the nature of time and thus the past and future both exist. It has good support from the physics, specifically from quantum mechanics and Einstein's Special Relativity. Time 'began' with the inflation of the universe and this event we call the 'Big Bang. Whatever exactly it was that expanded isn't certain and may in fact be empirically unknowable due to the scale involved. I would cast my lot with the camp that views the conclusion of a singularity just being a mathematical object and actually showing flaws in the relevant theories, which we already know is the case. The problem is General Relativity breaks down at that scale, and we need a sound theory of quantum gravity to harmonize quantum mechanics with GR in order to have a shot at accurately describing whatever the heck it was.
From there on, science seems to have a rather good picture, aside from abiogenesis, though its support has been frowing well, and it has some plausible accounts of it. I myself like Dr. Szostak's (not sure about that spelling) possible account of abiogenesis.
Biological evolution is very well supported on all sorts of fronts. The theory of gradualism is very tight and well supported, and accounts for punctuated equilibrium from what I can tell, in addition to huge support from genetics and fossil evidence.
So atheists are actually very well supported I think.
First things first, the ancient Hebrew were originally polytheists. The god 'Yahweh' was not their principle god until nearly the time of Parmenides, that is around 600 B.C. Before that, Yahweh was merely one among the Hebrews pantheon of gods, and wasn't even the chief god, but their war god. Their chief god was 'El Elyon' their sky god (also known as El Shaddai, their mountain god) and was the husband of their fertility goddess Asherah. El Elyon would later sort of be fused with Yahweh by their descendants and become their chief god, although they didn't become monotheistic until later still. They were what you might call monolateral polytheists for some time (maybe until they had been waylayed by the Babylonians). They were very much polytheistic, and this is undisputed in the scholarship on the subject, unless such disputes come from Bible nuts.
Now, on my worldview as a metaphysical naturalist and an atheist, here is a general outline of a plausible explanation for the universe's existence and such:
Causally prior (not temporally) to 13.81 billion years ago, the universe existed in a tenseless state as a 4-dimensional (at least) 'block' of spacetime. This is what is known as the B-theory of time within the philosophy of time, which takes a static view on the nature of time and thus the past and future both exist. It has good support from the physics, specifically from quantum mechanics and Einstein's Special Relativity. Time 'began' with the inflation of the universe and this event we call the 'Big Bang. Whatever exactly it was that expanded isn't certain and may in fact be empirically unknowable due to the scale involved. I would cast my lot with the camp that views the conclusion of a singularity just being a mathematical object and actually showing flaws in the relevant theories, which we already know is the case. The problem is General Relativity breaks down at that scale, and we need a sound theory of quantum gravity to harmonize quantum mechanics with GR in order to have a shot at accurately describing whatever the heck it was.
From there on, science seems to have a rather good picture, aside from abiogenesis, though its support has been frowing well, and it has some plausible accounts of it. I myself like Dr. Szostak's (not sure about that spelling) possible account of abiogenesis.
Biological evolution is very well supported on all sorts of fronts. The theory of gradualism is very tight and well supported, and accounts for punctuated equilibrium from what I can tell, in addition to huge support from genetics and fossil evidence.
So atheists are actually very well supported I think.
