how can we best explain our existence ?

[Godlovesyou]

Victus wrote

That is, the existance of the universe doesn't need a cause.

why is then in your opinion something, rather than nothing ?

[Demigod79]

Godlovesyou wrote

why is then in your opinion something, rather than nothing ?

I think his point was that you cannot apply cause and effect to the birth of the universe. Time is needed to cause something and time did not exist before the universe came into being. The common mistake theists make is that they extend time all the way back to a creator God, but Einstein proved that time is linked to space (thus cause and effect relationships can only apply after the universe came into being, never before). Therefore, the statement that something "caused" the universe to exist doesn't make sense (you might as well ask what the sound of red is).

The big bang had to have been something that was not caused. Time does not apply outside of it and certainly doesn't apply to an outside creator (a timeless God, by definition, cannot cause anything to happen).

[Sternwallow]

Godlovesyou wrote

how can nothing be unstable, if it is the absence of any thing ?

It is unstable because it is unbalanced and it spontaneously collapses into stuff, non-nothingness. This is the quantum foam, stuff appearing where nothing state fails.

You may have heard the question "why is there something rather than nothing?". The simple answer is that something, not nothing, is the default or natural state. Nothingness is incapable of sustaining itself for long periods.

You (and I) imagine that the universe consists of a LOT!!! of stuff so it must have required tremendous effort to create. It turns out that the sum of the energy in the universe (including the energy bound up in particles and the negative energy) is dead-on zero.

The creator or cause of the universe that you so ardently seek, may be as feeble as the heat from a single match or even less. Therefore, even if there was a "cause" for the universe, that cause does not need to be either powerful or intelligent. Need I mention that it would not have any sort of personality or person-hood?

How can all of this have come from nothing? All of this is nothing that has temporarily decomposed.

[Philboid Studge]

Godlovesyou wrote

well, if you are have not the ability to think logically and reasonably, i cannot help you. Your vocabulary doesnt help your case either. You deserve my simpathy.

Hey god boy, if you can't communicate in English you should ask mommy to help you look up some of the bigger words (such as "simpathy")

There's been a zillion stabs at the cosmological argument in here, my little friend. All of them, like yours, depend on special pleading. Since you fancy yourself a logician you can look up what that means (or, if mum has opposable thumbs, you can ask her to do it).

[ghoulslime]

Godlovesyou wrote

I disagree on the simple basis that from absolutely nothing, nothing derives. Therefore, something or someone must have caused the universe.

And what caused your magically delicious imaginary friend to exist, blood drinker?

[Kate]

I have a question: Why has this godtard not answered the "religion" question on its profile? Is it embarrassed? Seems like all this goddidit shit is bravado, since it won't own its preferred flavor of godflesh.
Perhaps distracted by the grape-flavored windows?

[ghoulslime]

Godlovesyou wrote

how can we best explain our existence ?

...by collecting, testing, and amassing factual data to explain it, instead of making shit up so that we can feel good about our fuzzy Christmas stockings hanging up in hopes that Father Christmas will fill them with sugarplums!

[ghoulslime]

Philboid Studge wrote

Hey god boy, if you can't communicate in English you should ask mommy to help you look up some of the bigger words (such as "simpathy")

There's been a zillion stabs at the cosmological argument in here, my little friend. All of them, like yours, depend on special pleading. Since you fancy yourself a logician you can look up what that means (or, if mum has opposable thumbs, you can ask her to do it).

He skooled you darn good, Phil! Butt at least he was simpathetic to your plight!

[Sternwallow]

Godlovesyou wrote

well, if you are have not the ability to think logically and reasonably, i cannot help you. Your vocabulary doesnt help your case either. You deserve my simpathy.

You have not even begun to substantiate your assertion: "From absolutely nothing, nothing derives."

It is not logical any more than its presumed corollary that there is no thing that can disappear completely. We know enough physics to observe nothingness turning into somethingness and some things returning to nothingness all the time and all around us. The former is the quantum foam and the latter we call annihilation.

You seem to need to tighten your grasp on logic and reason and add a dash more of knowledge.

(I could have improved the elegance and effectiveness and efficiency of that last sentence by simply saying "You're retarded". I refrained out of sympathy for your limited and self-limiting vocabulary.)

If you do not understand the vocabulary then your ability to comprehend what was written would indeed be compromised. The solution is not to restrain the vocabulary but for you to expand yours just as you would learn the jargon of any new discipline before offering criticism of it. To converse with adults, you need to understand and apply their language.

If you do understand it then the intended communication has been accomplished and not hindered at all.

[ghoulslime]

Kate wrote

I have a question: Why has this godtard not answered the "religion" question on its profile? Is it embarrassed? Seems like all this goddidit shit is bravado, since it won't own its preferred flavor of godflesh.
Perhaps distracted by the grape-flavored windows?

I think he must have been keeping it up his sleeve for the grand finale, da dum, I have a magical unicorn moment.

[Victus]

Godlovesyou wrote

why is then in your opinion something, rather than nothing ?

I don't think you get it. Based on physics, our current understanding is that the universe is probably uncaused, in the sense that nothing could come "before time" so as to cause it. Asking me for the cause, and by extension why the universe exists, is non-sensical based on our existing understanding of the universe.

[Sternwallow]

Kate wrote

I have a question: Why has this godtard not answered the "religion" question on its profile? Is it embarrassed? Seems like all this goddidit shit is bravado, since it won't own its preferred flavor of godflesh.
Perhaps distracted by the grape-flavored windows?

Assuming this (presumed) person does not, in fact, ride the short bus, I take the chosen username, on this clearly labeled atheist forum, to be deliberately provocative.

I have a fervent faith, of truly Hellish proportions, revealed to me by all of the spirits that might possibly have ever existed, that God doesn't love anyone but Himself. You must respect my cherished belief system, my devout faith. And you must take my sincere word for it that it is my devout faith. And you must believe the truth of my revelation because I believe it so sincerely and I tell you about it so convincingly.

On this absolute revealed truth, "GODLOVESYOU" is duty-bound to modify his blasphemous username.

[Sternwallow]

ghoulslime wrote

He skooled you darn good, Phil! Butt at least he was simpathetic to your plight!

Careful! He didn't say he was simpathetic[sic], only that someone deserved his sympathy and that suggests that he intended to withhold the deserved sympathy out of some kind of spite.

[Sternwallow]

Victus wrote

I don't think you get it. Based on physics, our current understanding is that the universe is probably uncaused, in the sense that nothing could come "before time" so as to cause it. Asking me for the cause, and by extension why the universe exists, is non-sensical based on our existing understanding of the universe.

As I have written, the premise of a first cause fails even if time did stretch back before the BB. The notion that some god was that first cause is a non-starter, completely unsupported.

[Godlovesyou]

Demigod79 wrote

I think his point was that you cannot apply cause and effect to the birth of the universe. Time is needed to cause something and time did not exist before the universe came into being. The common mistake theists make is that they extend time all the way back to a creator God, but Einstein proved that time is linked to space (thus cause and effect relationships can only apply after the universe came into being, never before). Therefore, the statement that something "caused" the universe to exist doesn't make sense (you might as well ask what the sound of red is).

The notion of some probability of something's coming out of nothing seems incoherent. Why just any and everything cannot or does not come to exist uncaused therefore ? how could nothing control the universe coming to be ?
Your scenario is fantastic and incredible. if originally absolutely nothing existed, then why should it be spacetime that springs spontaneously out of nothing, rather than, say, rabbits , or ferraris ? There were not even physical laws existing to control the outcome of the universe. So you seem not to have a plausible argument on hand. From absolutely no thing, nothing derives.
That seems to me more rational and reasonable. The universe could not have caused itself, since it did not exist. To believe, the universe was cause and effect of itself all at once makes therefore no sense .

The big bang had to have been something that was not caused. Time does not apply outside of it and certainly doesn't apply to an outside creator (a timeless God, by definition, cannot cause anything to happen).

Why not ? God could have had the will to cause the universe, and bring it into existence, all at once, without time-intervall. God could exist timelessly without the universe with a timeless intention to create a universe with a beginning. He could exercise his power, and time as a result would come into existence, along with the universe, and God would enter into time. It all happens at once. That is a scenario that makes most sense to me.