| Subject: Time... is on my side (yes it is) |
Author:
Ben
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Date Posted: 06/ 8/05 1:10pm
In reply to:
Wade A. Tisthammer
's message, "Ben’s “Who Made God?” web page." on 04/20/05 12:52pm
>
>Since something cannot arise spontaneously from
>nothing, then we know that there must be something or
>things that have always existed.
>
>First I must commend you for acknowledging ex
>nihilo nhil fit. However, I must point out that
>the last half of your sentence is a non
>sequitur.
I don't think so. We see stuff. We know that stuff can't come from non-stuff, so the only other option is that stuff in some form or other has always been around.
>My own belief is that the universe has existed for a
>finite period of time, say 15-20 billion years, and
>that an outside agency transcending space-time created
>the universe. This agency I believe to be God. Under
>my worldview, God exists outside time. Outside
>of time there would be no change, only being and
>nonbeing. While the concept of a timeless entity may
>seem weird, it is not logically impossible.
Fine. Then maybe there was some matter that existed "outside time," and then some of it sort of exploded into time at some point. Either way, I think it's creating something out of thin air to say that God or anything else exists "outside time." We have no reference point to know what that means... people just say it because it's a convenient way around the idea of "Who Created God?" Sure, everything has to have a beginning... except God. It's awfully convenient, and since there is no empirical evidence for it, I find no reason to believe it over any other theory created out of thin air.
>Why resort to it in the first place? An infinite past
>is metaphysically impossible. The details why are for
>another thread (I’ll post it later), but for now let
>me say it has something to do with being able to
>completely traverse an infinite region via successive
>finite steps (quick example: count 1, 2, 3, 4…you’ll
>never reach “infinity”).
Actually, a universe that cycles through itself in a circle makes more sense to me than some entity existing "outside time." It's at least logical to think of a universe that starts over again and again, each time making a circle back to its original point.
The problem you're having with envisioning infinity is simple: you're thinking of it as a line. Think of it as a circle, and your problem is solved.
>
>Scientists dealing with string theory have proposed
>the idea that the universe (or universes) might be in
>some sort of infinite loop which has no beginning or
>end.
>
>Nonetheless, the big-bang theory and the current age
>of the universe are overwhelmingly accepted. String
>theory is interesting but has weak experimental
>support and has issues with falsifiability.
The current age of the universe would not in any way violate what I'm saying. Of course I agree that the age of our _current_ universe is about 15 billion years. And I agree that the Big Bang is the best explanation we have of how our _current_ universe started. But in a scenario where the whole process is circular, the universe would have had an infinite amount of such beginnings in the past... or you could say the same beginning over and over again.
To play my own devil's advocate, the most recent research on the expansion of the universe says that the universe will never collapse into itself again... it will continue expanding and getting colder and darker forever... kind of a bleak picture. But anyway, that would seem to violate the idea of a universe that collapses into itself and begins again in a circular fashion.
>
>Another possibility is that someone out there created
>the universe. However, and this is crucial to my
>argument, this entity, if it exists, could not have
>had a beginning either, since something cannot arise
>from nothing.
>
>
>Quite correct.
>
>
>This is the Christian concept of God, always existing,
>perhaps even “existing outside time,” whatever that
>means. But, as the title of my article states, we
>come to the question “who made God?” Since everything
>we know has a beginning, when did God begin? I always
>find it very interesting that when I suggest that
>maybe the universe and the matter in it has just
>always existed, many Christians will scoff at this
>idea. But if I then say that perhaps God has always
>existed, this idea seems perfectly rational to them.
>
>
>Not to me. God being atemporally timeless is
>different from God existing for an infinite period of
>time. In any infinite past (theistic or not) time
>would have to traverse an impenetrable infinite
>distance to reach the present.
Well, then matter could just as easily be "atemporally timeless," and again, I can observe matter, and I can't observe God, so I must logically think that if I have to think that something exists outside time (whatever that means), it must be something I can see rather than something I have to believe in by faith.
So it just changes my argument a little to say that perhaps matter exists outside time somewhere, and through some process enters into time and causes universes to come and go. Either way, making the jump to a supreme being is a huge, unwarranted jump.
Thank you for responding to my article. No one seems to have paid much attention to it. I'm no philosopher, but I do sometimes dabble in the foundational aspects of philosophy and metaphysics, just as I suppose every thinking human must from time to time.
Ben
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