Beginnings

[overlord fombax]

Pretending we have an answer to this question is the dumbest thing we could possibly do for scientific progress.

[downbeatplumb]

If all of science was proved untrue there would still be no evidence FOR god.

I was an atheist long before I had any knowledge of evolution etc.

[Simon Moon]

Oh bloody hell!

Not another god of the gaps argument...

[Mystic]

Science at most can prove the existence of a Creator. It cannot prove "God" as in the ultimate being, neither can it prove a god exists as in any being worthy of worship.

Although the proof of a Creator would make it more likely "God" exists, there is a lot of people whom simply believe in a "higher power" without believing it to be God, and not knowing what it is at all.

That said, the question, had nothing to do with that. It was simply what explanation do Atheists feel is the best for beginning of the universe.

At that, I'm curious as well. How did time begin? Did universe ever exist without time and is that even possible?

Of course not having an answer to these questions doesn't prove the existence of an intelligent creator, just as not having the answers to the problem of evil doesn't disprove God.

[downbeatplumb]

Science at most can prove the existence of a Creator. It cannot prove "God" as in the ultimate being, neither can it prove a god exists as in any being worthy of worship.

Although the proof of a Creator would make it more likely "God" exists, there is a lot of people whom simply believe in a "higher power" without believing it to be God, and not knowing what it is at all.

That said, the question, had nothing to do with that. It was simply what explanation do Atheists feel is the best for beginning of the universe.

At that, I'm curious as well. How did time begin? Did universe ever exist without time and is that even possible?

Of course not having an answer to these questions doesn't prove the existence of an intelligent creator, just as not having the answers to the problem of evil doesn't disprove God.

Did the universe had an initial beginning or does it destroy and re-create itself on a regular basis.
Was time created at the big bang or was there already space to expand into.
I don't know, our technology is not sufficiently advanced to answer these question fully yet. The answers cannot all be known so soon after throwing off the blinkers of religion, be patient young padowan and let the science catch up.

[Mystic]

Did the universe had an initial beginning or does it destroy and re-create itself on a regular basis.

I wouldn't know about it myself, but it seems the people in the field are now saying, that even with a destroying/re-creating itself universe, it must have a beginning, or the universe would never be in the state it is now, rather everything would be dark, etc...I don't know the exact science behind it, but this is what the experts are saying. Of course, perhaps, they don't know for sure, but it seems the science is pointing to a beginning.

The answers cannot all be known so soon after throwing off the blinkers of religion, be patient young padowan and let the science catch up.

[downbeatplumb]

Unfortunately what you would need to get rid of any evidence of what was before is a really big explosion.

[overlord fombax]

Of course not having an answer to these questions doesn't prove the existence of an intelligent creator, just as not having the answers to the problem of evil doesn't disprove God.

The answers we do have, though, point us farther and farther away from a Yahweh as described in the Bible. And the unanswered problem of evil may not disprove God, but it does suggest that the Biblical god is nearly impossible to honestly worship.

[JDS]

Christians get a lot of "guff" for trying to explain the beginning of the universe.

It got me to thinking, what would be your explanation for the beginnings of the universe?

Given that atheism is true, how did this universe begin?

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

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 don't know what predated the big bang, but that doesn't mean that I make stuff up or believe that God must have done it. I understand the Universe is expanding, as shown by the galaxies getting further apart from one another, and we can rewind things to get an age of the universe as something like 13.7 billion years. I think that one day we will understand more, and it won't have anything to do with a God. Maybe as we gain understanding of black holes, we will have a better idea of what started the big bang.