(August 14, 2010 at 7:05 pm)fr0d0 Wrote: It seems to support it... God created and it will come to an end. Where do you get your information that the theological observance suggests an infinitely existing universe? In xtian theology God is eternal but the universe (creation) has a definite start and end.I have no idea what you're driving at here frodo? My point is that if the net universe is nothing the claim of theistic philosophy in that you can't get "something from nothing" is blunted. Is your comment in relation to that?
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Something or nothing
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H0ary H0bbit Religious Views: “Never to suffer would never to have been blessed.” - Edgar Allan Poe
No I'm simply saying that the theological observance matches the "net nothing" idea.
To consider your specific question... are you saying that God has to fit inside the universe? (not my understanding of the xtian God) and is therefore impossible because nothingness has to contain no God? (August 14, 2010 at 7:22 pm)fr0d0 Wrote: No I'm simply saying that the theological observance matches the "net nothing" idea.How so? My understanding was that your god created the universe (something) out of nothing, not that the universe was nothing in and of itself. An alternative that god created nothing from nothing would be a shift for Christian philosophy. I am not saying that it couldn't be rationalised, because it probably could. Just that if true it would be the the god concept is morphed yet again to fit available evidence, and that every time the concept shifts it loses credibility and becomes more abstract. 
I can't see how the universe equates to nothing overall. If it does, it's a special type of nothing. Nothing, as conceived by theists, and indeed most atheists, is a lawless absence of matter, time, space, energy, etc., all of which exist. That's not to say that the Cosmological argument succeeds, though. One interesting comment is that true nothing has no laws, and therefore something could arise from that nothing, because, if it couldn't, that would equate to a law. 'Something cannot come from nothing' is a law of the universe that wouldn't apply to lawless nothingness.
'We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart.' H.L. Mencken
'False religion' is the ultimate tautology. 'It is just like man's vanity and impertinence to call an animal dumb because it is dumb to his dull perceptions.' Mark Twain 'I care not much for a man's religion whose dog and cat are not the better for it.' Abraham Lincoln (August 15, 2010 at 6:46 am)The Omnissiunt One Wrote: I can't see how the universe equates to nothing overall. If it does, it's a special type of nothing. Nothing, as conceived by theists, and indeed most atheists, is a lawless absence of matter, time, space, energy, etc., all of which exist. That's not to say that the Cosmological argument succeeds, though. One interesting comment is that true nothing has no laws, and therefore something could arise from that nothing, because, if it couldn't, that would equate to a law. 'Something cannot come from nothing' is a law of the universe that wouldn't apply to lawless nothingness.It clearly depends on the definition of nothing you use. I get you're point. Obviously the cosmological argument is not framed as "why does something exist instead of nothing", but it is commonly restated in that form. But it misses the point. Only something can exist, nothing as you have defined it cannot exist, it is by definition non existence. So a working definition of nothing in the context of the something/nothing question probably amounts to whatever existed just before Planck time at the big bang. We may never know what that was, but it was the universe and if science demonstrates our universes positives and negatives match each other then it's as close as we are going to get to a "nothing". A better question especially in the terms of your definition of nothing, which is a good one, is why is there everything rather than nothing. That of course is a leading question because straight away the supernatural realm is excluded because that question states that the universe is indeed everything and the whole of existence.
H0ary H0bbit Religious Views: “Never to suffer would never to have been blessed.” - Edgar Allan Poe (August 15, 2010 at 6:36 am)Captain Scarlet Wrote:I see. Here's my stance: Christian Philosophy has nothing to say on scientific considerations of the formation or not of the physical universe. Christianity never had any credibility to begin with on that concept/ subject. The God concept doesn't change. It's application changes given a scenario. We are after all applying scientific theory to poetry here.
I understand your point frodo. But developing both your point and mine together would lead us to conclude that traditional arguments for gods existence (partic the cosmological one and design) would be invalid. I am happy with that because I think it's true, but are you?
H0ary H0bbit Religious Views: “Never to suffer would never to have been blessed.” - Edgar Allan Poe
I'm very happy to dismiss both, yes.
 (August 14, 2010 at 6:27 pm)Captain Scarlet Wrote: Cosmologists and physicists have calculated that the amount of matter and energy is matched by the amount of negative equivalents in the universe eg anti matter etc. So it could be that the net universe is nothing rather than something. Whilst there are a whole host of other defeaters for the cosmological argument, wouldn't this observation rather undermine any starting poistion for this argument as there was literally nothing for god to do? A few important points: 1) Matter and Antimatter collisions do not result in 'nothing.' It results in energy. Neither particles are annihilated but rather converted into energy with 100% efficiency. When physicists talk of energy, energy is still considered 'something' and not 'nothing.' More to the point, all of the energy that was created during the big bang is still around in one form or another. 2) There is a laboratory-confirmed study stating that there is a discrepancy between the formation of matter and anti-matter in matter's favor, which is why the universe is not 100% energy intsead of merely being mostly energy. In essence, we now understand why the universe has matter. 3) The estimated total mass-energy of the entire observable universe is 4 x 10^69 joules, not zero. 4) It has never been observed or experimentally confirmed that energy or matter can be created from nothing, nor has it been confirmed that the opposite can happen. Thus, the first law of thermodynamics: energy cannot be created or destroyed; it only changes forms. On another point, the theory of relativity states that matter and energy are equivelent and anti-matter is another kind of matter. In conclusion, you're incorrect on all points.
If today you can take a thing like evolution and make it a crime to teach in the public schools, tomorrow you can make it a crime to teach it in the private schools and next year you can make it a crime to teach it to the hustings or in the church. At the next session you may ban books and the newspapers...
Ignorance and fanaticism are ever busy and need feeding. Always feeding and gloating for more. Today it is the public school teachers; tomorrow the private. The next day the preachers and the lecturers, the magazines, the books, the newspapers. After a while, Your Honor, it is the setting of man against man and creed against creed until with flying banners and beating drums we are marching backward to the glorious ages of the sixteenth centry when bigots lighted fagots to burn the men who dared to bring any intelligence and enlightenment and culture to the human mind. ~Clarence Darrow, at the Scopes Monkey Trial, 1925 Politics is supposed to be the second-oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first. ~Ronald Reagan RE: Something or nothing
August 16, 2010 at 3:03 pm
(This post was last modified: August 16, 2010 at 3:06 pm by Captain Scarlet.)
@darkest. Thank you for the demolition of my premise. I did understand the first 3 of your points before posting. But on an effort to present a simple argument it has ended up as being too simplistic. So perhaps you could help reformulate, the points I am trying to make are:
- the "something exists rather than nothing" argument is invalid as nothing really is non-existence by definition, so to assert this is to say non existence exists - as I think you have stated a vacuum is not nothing as it's a sea of potential energy and particles explained through quantum physics. When thiests use the term nothing it is not clear what they mean and in my formulation I was playing back what effectively amounted to that vaccuum - comparing something with nothing is not only invalid because of the first point but also because it should be why do we have everything rather than nothing. The uni,multi,manyverse is all that there is. - when we look in awe at the whole universe while it is impressive in net terms, there is a lot less than you would expect of course you may take issuUe with these points, I'd appreciate yor view |
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