Atheism and the existence of peanut butter

[Astreja]

Why cannot the universe itself 'simply exist' with no cause? That is, after all, what you {Klorophyll} are assuming about some deity.

As the Big Bang was the expansion of a hyper-dense singularity, that strongly suggests that something existed prior to the expansion.

And as I see it, unorganized units of matter/energy are a more plausible candidate for "always existed" than a sentient Arabic-speaking spirit-thing that has it in for foreskins and pork products.

[LadyForCamus]

He’s off somewhere furiously googling WLC. That’s how self-evident his god is.

[Angrboda]

[The Architect Of Fate]

[Mister Agenda]

A universe requires a cause, it can't just pop out of nothing.

Even you don't believe there was ever actual nothingness: no matter, no energy, no space, no time, no God. Even Stenger's 'Universe from Nothing' isn't talking about that kind of absolute nothingness. No scientific hypothesis for the origin of the universe starts with 'first, there was absolute nothingness and then there wasn't'.

'Why is there something instead of nothing?' is a philosophical question that can't be answered definitively, but I am satisfied with the answer that absolute nothingness is impossible. Where would it have been with no space? When would it have been with no time? It's one of those questions like 'What's north of the north pole?'.

At any rate, and you've been told this before, no one is claiming the universe just popped out of nothing.

[polymath257]

Why cannot the universe itself 'simply exist' with no cause? That is, after all, what you {Klorophyll} are assuming about some deity.

As the Big Bang was the expansion of a hyper-dense singularity, that strongly suggests that something existed prior to the expansion.

And as I see it, unorganized units of matter/energy are a more plausible candidate for "always existed" than a sentient Arabic-speaking spirit-thing that has it in for foreskins and pork products.  

Except that in the actual Big bang model, time cannot be extended past the singularity. it is literally meaningless (in that model) to talk about 'before the Big Bang'. It is analogous to talking about 'north of the North Pole'.

The problem, of course, is that the BB model is based on general relativity, which is a classical theory. We *know* that quantum mechanics becomes relevant at some point. And all versions of quantum gravity to date suggest *some* sort of smoothing of the singularity and an extension of time infinitely into the past.

[Angrboda]

A universe requires a cause, it can't just pop out of nothing.

Even you don't believe there was ever actual nothingness: no matter, no energy, no space, no time, no God. Even Stenger's 'Universe from Nothing' isn't talking about that kind of absolute nothingness. No scientific hypothesis for the origin of the universe starts with 'first, there was absolute nothingness and then there wasn't'.

'Why is there something instead of nothing?' is a philosophical question that can't be answered definitively, but I am satisfied with the answer that absolute nothingness is impossible. Where would it have been with no space? When would it have been with no time? It's one of those questions like 'What's north of the north pole?'.

At any rate, and you've been told this before, no one is claiming the universe just popped out of nothing.

The question of what came before the universe is a lot like the question about what lies beyond the edge of the universe. If the universe is finite, then surely there must be an edge to the universe, a place where all this stuff ends. But if so, what lies beyond it? The answer seems to be that there is something wrong with the way that we conceive of the question, that there is a conceptual problem in how we think about it. In Kantian terms, space and time are built into our thinking. We perceive things as things in space. We perceive things as existing in time. When we perceive things, space and time structure our perception, rather than being another thing that is perceived. Like a priori truths, the existence of space and time precedes our thinking about any object or thing. We are simply incapable of imagining a lack of space or time as every percept and conception necessarily includes both. So imagining that there must be a something beyond the edge of the universe, or some when that is before the universe, both may simply be invalid artifacts of the limits of our thinking.

[no one]

Want came before the universe?
Cockroaches, and Kieth Richards.

I thought everyone knew that.

[polymath257]

Even you don't believe there was ever actual nothingness: no matter, no energy, no space, no time, no God. Even Stenger's 'Universe from Nothing' isn't talking about that kind of absolute nothingness. No scientific hypothesis for the origin of the universe starts with 'first, there was absolute nothingness and then there wasn't'.

'Why is there something instead of nothing?' is a philosophical question that can't be answered definitively, but I am satisfied with the answer that absolute nothingness is impossible. Where would it have been with no space? When would it have been with no time? It's one of those questions like 'What's north of the north pole?'.

At any rate, and you've been told this before, no one is claiming the universe just popped out of nothing.

The question of what came before the universe is a lot like the question about what lies beyond the edge of the universe.  If the universe is finite, then surely there must be an edge to the universe, a place where all this stuff ends.  But if so, what lies beyond it?  The answer seems to be that there is something wrong with the way that we conceive of the question, that there is a conceptual problem in how we think about it.  In Kantian terms, space and time are built into our thinking.  We perceive things as things in space.  We perceive things as existing in time.  When we perceive things, space and time structure our perception, rather than being another thing that is perceived.  Like a priori truths, the existence of space and time precedes our thinking about any object or thing.  We are simply incapable of imagining a lack of space or time as every percept and conception necessarily includes both.  So imagining that there must be a something beyond the edge of the universe, or some when that is before the universe, both may simply be invalid artifacts of the limits of our thinking.

Kant lived before the development of non-Euclidean geometry and long before the development of General Relativity (which is used for the Big Bang model).

In a curved space, it is quite possible to be finite and NOT have an edge. Think about the *surface* of the earth: there is no edge to fall off of. Instead, the curvature of the Earth brings things around to make a finite area with no edge.

In a similar way, it is perfectly possible to have a finite *volume* with no edge if the three dimensional space is curved in the right way.

Always be skeptical when someone says it is impossible to imagine something. It is usually just an expression of their own lack of imagination.

[Simon Moon]

A universe requires a cause, it can't just pop out of nothing. That's why the concept of God is necessary

Oh, I missed this old canard.

No one here, and not a single scientist claims that the universe popped out of nothing. The way physicists define 'nothing' is not the same way that I believe you are referring to 'nothing', as in; absolute nonexistence.

Existence has always existed. In some form.

Our universe did not come into existence from nonexistence. It just existed in a different form. All that was necessary for the current presentation of the universe, was a change in state from whatever the previous presentation of the universe was.