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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Before time
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PaulTH*
Shipmate
# 320
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Posted
I've been following Professor Stephen Hawking's Grand Design. While he isn't a militent atheist like Richard Dawkins, there is no place for a God in his scheme of things. he says,
" I have no desire to offend anyone of faith but I think science has some more compelling explanation than a Divine Creator."
He goes on to say.
" You can't get to a time before the big bang because there was no before the big bang. We have finally found something that doesn't have a cause because there was no time for a cause to exist in. For me, this means there is no possibility of a Creator because there is no time for a Creator to have existed ."
While I wouldn't want to lock horns with a man of Professor Hawking's intellect, it seems to me that he's missing something vital here. The idea that there was no time or space before the big bang is a difficult concept to grasp for us creatures who live in time and space, but we believe in a transcendent God, who exists eternally outside of time and space, and who created those things for us.
I am enough of a panentheist to also believe that God is immanent, and highly involved in this, His creation, but I can't see how the absence of time before the physical universe came into being at the big bang leads to the idea that "there is no possibility of a creator."
Any thoughts?
[ 03. October 2012, 13:15: Message edited by: Ancient Mariner ]
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Yours in Christ
Paul
Posts: 6387 | From: White Cliffs Country | Registered: May 2001
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Freddy
Shipmate
# 365
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by PaulTH*:
I can't see how the absence of time before the physical universe came into being at the big bang leads to the idea that "there is no possibility of a creator."
I agree.
Since God is almost always conceived of as being outside of time and space the question of what He was doing all day before creation is a non-sequitor.
It is just as easy to posit that God brought time and space into existence as that it happened spontaneously with no cause.
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"Consequently nothing is of greater importance to a person than knowing what the truth is." Swedenborg
Posts: 12845 | From: Bryn Athyn | Registered: Jun 2001
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by PaulTH*:
I am enough of a panentheist to also believe that God is immanent, and highly involved in this, His creation, but I can't see how the absence of time before the physical universe came into being at the big bang leads to the idea that "there is no possibility of a creator."
Any thoughts?
I think you're overstating Hawking's position. It seems to be more along the lines of "there is no necessity of a creator". Just as science doesn't need to posit gravity angels or electron pixies to work, it cannot definitively prove that such entities don't exist.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
I think Augustine makes the same point somewhere, obviously not about the Big Bang! But that there is no time before the creation, since God creates time.
So the question 'what was God doing before he created the universe?' is absurd.
Another demonstration that when scientists move into philosophy, they are in jeopardy.
[ 02. October 2012, 19:43: Message edited by: quetzalcoatl ]
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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PaulTH*
Shipmate
# 320
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Croesos:
I think you're overstating Hawking's position. It seems to be more along the lines of "there is no necessity of a creator".
You may be right, but "no possibility of a creator" is a direct quote from the program I saw.
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Yours in Christ
Paul
Posts: 6387 | From: White Cliffs Country | Registered: May 2001
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
Yes, I've seen the 'no possibility' quote. If he'd put 'necessity' he would have been OK. But some scientists love to start tangling with possibility and probability and so on, and quite often, they fall flat on their face.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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tclune
Shipmate
# 7959
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by PaulTH*:
quote:
Originally posted by Croesos:
I think you're overstating Hawking's position. It seems to be more along the lines of "there is no necessity of a creator".
You may be right, but "no possibility of a creator" is a direct quote from the program I saw.
Folks who are convinced by that silly modal argument for God's existence ascribe to the notion that if God is not necessary then He is not possible. So, at least for some subset of humanity, the notion that God is not necessary is equivalent to His being impossible.
--Tom Clune
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Posts: 8013 | From: Western MA | Registered: Jul 2004
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Mark Betts
Ship's Navigation Light
# 17074
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I think Augustine makes the same point somewhere, obviously not about the Big Bang! But that there is no time before the creation, since God creates time.
So the question 'what was God doing before he created the universe?' is absurd.
Another demonstration that when scientists move into philosophy, they are in jeopardy.
![[Overused]](graemlins/notworthy.gif)
You see, at least we can agree on some things. I think what Augustine has to say is better in fact, because at least he has some sort of answer to what was before time, even though we can never penetrate it (in this life.)
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"We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary."
Posts: 2080 | From: Leicester | Registered: Apr 2012
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by PaulTH*:
"You can't get to a time before the big bang because there was no before the big bang. We have finally found something that doesn't have a cause because there was no time for a cause to exist in. For me, this means there is no possibility of a Creator because there is no time for a Creator to have existed." ... Any thoughts?
Sure. That's dumb as fuck. First, it is a category mistake concerning the Creator, which ignores what is commonly associated with that concept. In particular, that the Creator is eternal and thus by definition not time-bound. Second, he proposes the magical mystery universe, which somehow manages to be one-sided time-bound and existent, and other-sided simply non-existent, without this apparently needing any sort of causal explanation. The problem here is a rudimentary misunderstanding of causation, which ignores the true scope of rational inquiry and focuses simply on physical modelling. But when we ask "why does water run downhill?" we do not primarily inquire about any temporal sequence of cause and effect. We ask about logical causation. The answer is primarily "gravity", not some ordinary differential equations detailing temporal changes. The latter can be a way of expressing the former, but it is the former we are after.
Likewise, when we ask about the origin of the universe, when we ask "how did all this come about?", nothing is gained by the statement "no time-based mathematical answer is available". This does not in the slightest touch the question of causation, logical causation. The universe of Hawking still pops into existence without any reason to do so, and this is just as impossible as any other such suggestion. No credibility is gained merely by pointing out that "popping into existence" is here not referring to any time markers. We do not need time to ask how the heck that universe managed to be when it didn't have to be. The logical question is not answered by the inapplicability of temporal descriptions.
I reckon what we have here is a man who has smoked one too many Copenhangen interpretations. Operate long enough on the principle that unless asked an experimental / observational question, one does not have to answer - as a physicist - and you may just manage to convince yourself that this restriction of the scope of physics is not a sign of intellectual humility but of superiority. Of course, if the world is defined by measurement, then it is not rational to inquire about what one cannot measure. And we definitely cannot measure "what was before the universe". But while a physical scientist may humbly restrict herself to finding relationships between measured quantities, the questions motivating her have never been of this kind, and never will be. Physical scientists share with all of mankind the quest for logical causation, they merely have chosen to restrict their scope in order to make progress.
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by PaulTH*:
You can't get to a time before the big bang because there was no before the big bang. We have finally found something that doesn't have a cause because there was no time for a cause to exist in. For me, this means there is no possibility of a Creator because there is no time for a Creator to have existed.
If a student in my Philosophy of Religion class wrote this on a paper, they'd likely get marked down a letter grade for the paper. What a mindbogglingly ignorant thing to say. As I said elsewhere, he's a brilliant scientist and a miserable philosopher. He should read Tractatus §7 and shut up.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Mark Betts
Ship's Navigation Light
# 17074
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by PaulTH*:
You can't get to a time before the big bang because there was no before the big bang. We have finally found something that doesn't have a cause because there was no time for a cause to exist in. For me, this means there is no possibility of a Creator because there is no time for a Creator to have existed.
Actually, his (Steven Hawking's) statement is complete nonsense. I don't even have to explain why, it's self evident.
[ 03. October 2012, 05:52: Message edited by: Mark Betts ]
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"We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary."
Posts: 2080 | From: Leicester | Registered: Apr 2012
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Galilit
Shipmate
# 16470
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Posted
"And so I saw full surely that before ever God made us, he loved us. And this love was never quenched and never shall be. And in this love he has done all his works, and in this love he has made all things profitable to us, and in this love our life is everlasting. In our making we had beginning, but the love in which he made us was in him from the beginning, in which love we have our beginning"
Julian of Norwich
Does that help?
No physics involved, nor temporal anomalies nor extraordinarily energetic particles...
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She who does Her Son's will in all things can rely on me to do Hers.
Posts: 624 | From: a Galilee far, far away | Registered: Jun 2011
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Mark Betts
Ship's Navigation Light
# 17074
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Galilit:
"And so I saw full surely that before ever God made us, he loved us. And this love was never quenched and never shall be. And in this love he has done all his works, and in this love he has made all things profitable to us, and in this love our life is everlasting. In our making we had beginning, but the love in which he made us was in him from the beginning, in which love we have our beginning"
Julian of Norwich
Does that help?
No physics involved, nor temporal anomalies nor extraordinarily energetic particles...
It's more than a help - it's a welcome relief from all this scientismic psycho-babble.
[ 03. October 2012, 10:31: Message edited by: Mark Betts ]
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"We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary."
Posts: 2080 | From: Leicester | Registered: Apr 2012
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Jengie jon
Semper Reformanda
# 273
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Posted
PaulTH
How does he explain the Church realising there was no time before creation some 900 years earlier? Obviously the non-existence of time before creation does not threaten belief in God. The understanding of the Church on the nature of God's causation is different from the one Hawkings is using. Empirical causation has never really worked when dealing with a transcendant God.
Jengie
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"To violate a persons ability to distinguish fact from fantasy is the epistemological equivalent of rape." Noretta Koertge
Back to my blog
Posts: 20894 | From: city of steel, butterflies and rainbows | Registered: May 2001
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kankucho
Shipmate
# 14318
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Posted
You're right there. Scientismic psycho-babble it certainly isn't. I don't get how it enhances the discussion on time before time though. Could you push it a bit further for the benefit of those of us who don't equate sincere feelings about love and loveliness with that which can be seen full surely?
[edit — Addressed to the last but one post, by Mark Betts]
[ 03. October 2012, 10:56: Message edited by: kankucho ]
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"We are a way for the cosmos to know itself" – Dr. Carl Sagan
Kankucho Bird Blues
Posts: 1262 | From: Kuon-ganjo, E17 | Registered: Nov 2008
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jengie Jon:
PaulTH
How does he explain the Church realising there was no time before creation some 900 years earlier? Obviously the non-existence of time before creation does not threaten belief in God. The understanding of the Church on the nature of God's causation is different from the one Hawkings is using. Empirical causation has never really worked when dealing with a transcendant God.
Jengie
Bingo! And yet, again and again I have been involved in discussions with atheists, where this basic contradiction is ignored. Thus, the demand for 'evidence' seems to be saying that naturalism should provide an explanation of God. Eh?
Prof Dawkins' book TGD is shot through with this misunderstanding, for example, his idea that God must be very very complex. Well, yes, if God is a sort of celestial Brunel, making giraffes and electrons in a shed somewhere.
I'm not sure if this is a genuine misunderstanding, or perhaps total confirmation bias - that some atheists cannot actually conceive of any arguments outside naturalism - or deliberate equivocation. I suppose some atheists simply have the belief that there is only the natural.
It's probably a mixture of all of them. I have given up such debates in the main, as it is so wearisome to keep explaining it.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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kankucho
Shipmate
# 14318
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
...... I suppose some atheists simply have the belief that there is only the natural........
I think that's a fair assessment of all atheists, at least insofar as they reject what is commonly proposed as super-natural. However, some of them might also embrace the notion of cyclic cosmology being a natural phenomenon, and therefore be unperturbed by these sorts of challenges from smirking theists as to the problem of time before time.
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"We are a way for the cosmos to know itself" – Dr. Carl Sagan
Kankucho Bird Blues
Posts: 1262 | From: Kuon-ganjo, E17 | Registered: Nov 2008
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
I think Hawking has changed his mind on this. When he wrote A brief history of time all those years ago - which actually starts with St Augustine - he seemed more agnostic.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by kankucho:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
...... I suppose some atheists simply have the belief that there is only the natural........
I think that's a fair assessment of all atheists, at least insofar as they reject what is commonly proposed as super-natural. However, some of them might also embrace the notion of cyclic cosmology being a natural phenomenon, and therefore be unperturbed by these sorts of challenges from smirking theists as to the problem of time before time.
I ain't smirking. Resigned, really, that most debates with atheists seem to founder on a very basic issue such as this. I don't mean time before time, but that naturalistic arguments are used to describe God/the transcendent. Just incoherent really.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Mark Betts
Ship's Navigation Light
# 17074
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by kankucho:
You're right there. Scientismic psycho-babble it certainly isn't. I don't get how it enhances the discussion on time before time though. Could you push it a bit further for the benefit of those of us who don't equate sincere feelings about love and loveliness with that which can be seen full surely?
[edit — Addressed to the last but one post, by Mark Betts]
It was just my immediate response to a more theological way of looking at things - I didn't expect to be asked to explain it scientifically. Test tubes, probes and white coats are no use for this, you need to understand more about mysticism. I'm no expert, far from it, but you need to let such quotes speak to you, rather than probe, question and analyse them.
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"We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary."
Posts: 2080 | From: Leicester | Registered: Apr 2012
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George Spigot
Outcast
# 253
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Posted
Mark Betts: quote:
Actually, his (Steven Hawking's) statement is complete nonsense. I don't even have to explain why, it's self evident.
Well perhaps you could explain to me how anything can happen outside of time?
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C.S. Lewis's Head is just a tool for the Devil. (And you can quote me on that.) ~
Philip Purser Hallard
http://www.thoughtplay.com/infinitarian/gbsfatb.html
Posts: 1625 | From: Derbyshire - England | Registered: May 2001
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Mark Betts
Ship's Navigation Light
# 17074
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by George Spigot:
Mark Betts: quote:
Actually, his (Steven Hawking's) statement is complete nonsense. I don't even have to explain why, it's self evident.
Well perhaps you could explain to me how anything can happen outside of time?
Really George, others have explained the case far better than I can already. Read back through the thread - especially the people whose views you usually don't like! ![[Biased]](wink.gif)
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"We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary."
Posts: 2080 | From: Leicester | Registered: Apr 2012
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George Spigot
Outcast
# 253
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Posted
Excuse the double post but let me expand on this. Imagine I told you that there was a sphere that contained everything. There was nothing outside this sphere. Now imagine I told you that x is outside that sphere. Unless we radically change the meanng of the words everything and nothing this is obviously an impossible situation.
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C.S. Lewis's Head is just a tool for the Devil. (And you can quote me on that.) ~
Philip Purser Hallard
http://www.thoughtplay.com/infinitarian/gbsfatb.html
Posts: 1625 | From: Derbyshire - England | Registered: May 2001
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Honest Ron Bacardi
Shipmate
# 38
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by George Spigot:
Mark Betts: quote:
Actually, his (Steven Hawking's) statement is complete nonsense. I don't even have to explain why, it's self evident.
Well perhaps you could explain to me how anything can happen outside of time?
Things happening outside of time is actually a philosophical issue within the physics of the big bang theory. Space/time dimensionality only emerges at some point after the inflation has commenced. The sort of terms used are "unfurling", and similar. So whilst time does not come into being in the sense we understand it until after the big bang, it is still there from the moment of the big bang. The fact that it is not immediately unfurled does not preclude the issue of anteriority (i.e. things preceding it, though clearly in a somewhat different sense, as we are effectively mapping the early stages of a universe onto conditions of our own already-existant universe, even though such dimensionality is only a property of the universe in itself.)
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Anglo-Cthulhic
Posts: 4857 | From: the corridors of Pah! | Registered: May 2001
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kankucho
Shipmate
# 14318
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Posted
Mark: I suppose I should really have asked for enhancement from Gallit, who posted the Julian of Norwich quote, rather than you who only uncritically praised it.
Perhaps I do need to understand more about mysticism. If more of us did so, then it would cease to be mysticism and a good number of loincloth-clad layabouts would be out of a spurious job. But, for the time being, claims for mysticism amount to "don't presume to challenge me with your inferior intellect: you need to elevate your consciousness to my unassailable way of thinking".
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"We are a way for the cosmos to know itself" – Dr. Carl Sagan
Kankucho Bird Blues
Posts: 1262 | From: Kuon-ganjo, E17 | Registered: Nov 2008
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George Spigot
Outcast
# 253
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mark Betts:
quote:
Originally posted by George Spigot:
Mark Betts: quote:
Actually, his (Steven Hawking's) statement is complete nonsense. I don't even have to explain why, it's self evident.
Well perhaps you could explain to me how anything can happen outside of time?
Really George, others have explained the case far better than I can already. Read back through the thread - especially the people whose views you usually don't like!
Do you mean the people who say God exists outside of time? How would such a being preform any kind of action? There would be no sequence of events. No before. No now. No after.
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C.S. Lewis's Head is just a tool for the Devil. (And you can quote me on that.) ~
Philip Purser Hallard
http://www.thoughtplay.com/infinitarian/gbsfatb.html
Posts: 1625 | From: Derbyshire - England | Registered: May 2001
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Galilit
Shipmate
# 16470
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Posted
I think it refers to the nature of God as love which is directed to create and to form.
In another portion Julian says:
"From the time it was shown I desired often to know what was our Lord's meaning. And fifteen years after and more, I was answered in inward understanding, saying 'Would you know your Lord's meaning in this? Learn it well. Love was his meaning. Who showed it you? Love. Why did he show you? For love. Hold fast to this, and you shall learn and know more about love, but you will never need to know or understand about anything else for ever and ever.' Thus did I learn that love was our Lord's meaning"
So there doesn't *need* to be "time before time". Before time there was love.
I think Karen Armstrong articulates this in our own day and idiom, but she is not to hand so can't quote her. (I may also be wrongly remembering her; i.e. K.A.)
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She who does Her Son's will in all things can rely on me to do Hers.
Posts: 624 | From: a Galilee far, far away | Registered: Jun 2011
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kankucho
Shipmate
# 14318
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Posted
Respectfully, Galilit, I'm sorry but you've left me better informed, and with a warmer fuzzier feeling inside, but really none the wiser about the pre-dawn of time. The Devil is screaming "Circular!" and "Self-referential!" into my benighted brain.
Can you please bridge the gulf between these quotations and your conclusion that "there doesn't *need* to be "time before time". Before time there was love."?
[ 03. October 2012, 13:53: Message edited by: kankucho ]
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"We are a way for the cosmos to know itself" – Dr. Carl Sagan
Kankucho Bird Blues
Posts: 1262 | From: Kuon-ganjo, E17 | Registered: Nov 2008
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Mark Betts
Ship's Navigation Light
# 17074
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by George Spigot:
Do you mean the people who say God exists outside of time? How would such a being preform any kind of action? There would be no sequence of events. No before. No now. No after.
How do you know God can't "be" outside of time? [I hasten to use the word "exist" because I know I'll be pulled up on it] but if God created time, then He's not bound by it is He? Neither is He subject to scientists with their white coats and microscopes who ARE bound by time.
Why are you so sure that time began by accident?
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"We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary."
Posts: 2080 | From: Leicester | Registered: Apr 2012
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Mark Betts
Ship's Navigation Light
# 17074
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by kankucho:
quote:
Originally posted by Mark Betts:
.....Why are you so sure that time began by accident?
Why are you so sure that time began?
One question at a time please - scientists are already convinced that time began with the Big Bang, so let's stick with that for now.
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"We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary."
Posts: 2080 | From: Leicester | Registered: Apr 2012
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kankucho
Shipmate
# 14318
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Posted
It's integral to the same question. Scientists also take seriously the notion of cyclic cosmology, which I mentioned further up this thread.
Here's a brief taster.
[Added]
The Big Bang that scientific/theological contests get so hung up on is just one of a never-beginning and never-ending Bangs, in a time scenario which is nothing like as linear as we are conditioned to imagine.
[ 03. October 2012, 14:15: Message edited by: kankucho ]
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"We are a way for the cosmos to know itself" – Dr. Carl Sagan
Kankucho Bird Blues
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daronmedway
Shipmate
# 3012
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Posted
Speaking of the Big Bang™ Hawking says "we have finally found something that doesn't have a cause". Good. He thinks that this "something" is an event and Christians think that "something" is God. Although surely it can't be an "event" because events require time. He must be referring the non-eventual moment between no bang and bang.
If he is prepared to posit the theory that the Big Bang™ can have no cause, it's not much of a step for him to agree that "someone" can have no cause.
The issue, I guess, is whether he would be prepared to consider the possibility of "being" before time which, of course, could introduce causality into his equation.
[ 03. October 2012, 14:23: Message edited by: daronmedway ]
Posts: 6976 | From: Southampton | Registered: Jul 2002
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Mark Betts
Ship's Navigation Light
# 17074
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Posted
Maybe there never was a Big Bang - or is that scientific heresy?
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"We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary."
Posts: 2080 | From: Leicester | Registered: Apr 2012
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Galilit
Shipmate
# 16470
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by kankucho:
Can you please bridge the gulf between these quotations and your conclusion that "there doesn't *need* to be "time before time". Before time there was love."?
Before time there was God
Then I would make a quantum leap sideways to the Jewish idea of the "Breaking of the Vessels" ["shvirat ha kaylim" in Hebrew] which is a Big Bang.
Or, if I started from my well-thumbed copy of The Grand Design, perhaps I would say that since the universe is multi-dimensional but some of those dimensions are so tightly curled up that they are not perceivable and so exist only theoretically; then perhaps the Big Bang exploded some dimensions - including time.
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She who does Her Son's will in all things can rely on me to do Hers.
Posts: 624 | From: a Galilee far, far away | Registered: Jun 2011
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Ikkyu
Shipmate
# 15207
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Posted
This article Does the Universe need god? by Sean Carrol is very relevant to the discussion because it clarifies what Hawking meant.
Relevant quote:
quote:
The important point is that we can easily imagine self-contained descriptions of the universe that have an earliest moment of time. There is no logical or metaphysical obstacle to completing the conventional temporal history of the universe by including an atemporal boundary condition at the beginning. Together with the successful post-Big-Bang cosmological model already in our possession, that would constitute a consistent and self-contained description of the history of the universe.
Nothing in the fact that there is a first moment of time, in other words, necessitates that an external something is required to bring the universe about at that moment. As Hawking put it in a celebrated passage:
So long as the universe had a beginning, we could suppose it had a creator. But if the universe is really self-contained, having no boundary or edge, it would have neither beginning nor end, it would simply be. What place, then, for a creator?
This is about the models in which the Universe has a "beginning". There are other models in which the Universe is eternal no beginning to time. Not eternal in the IngoB sense.
And importantly for this discussion,
The Jury is still out about the models.
We don't know which one it is because we don't have a complete quantum gravity theory that we would need to really explain the Big Bang.
So no, scientist have not already decided that time began at the Big Bang.
Posts: 434 | From: Arizona | Registered: Oct 2009
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George Spigot
Outcast
# 253
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Posted
Mark Betts: quote:
How do you know God can't "be" outside of time?
Because the sentence has the word "outside" in it. You might as well say, "I'm going to stop the unstoppable object". Or "Meet me outside the circle that contains everything".
If you want to claim that something exists outside of space/time (everything) then you have to redefine the meaning of the word everything.
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C.S. Lewis's Head is just a tool for the Devil. (And you can quote me on that.) ~
Philip Purser Hallard
http://www.thoughtplay.com/infinitarian/gbsfatb.html
Posts: 1625 | From: Derbyshire - England | Registered: May 2001
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by George Spigot:
If you want to claim that something exists outside of space/time (everything) then you have to redefine the meaning of the word everything.
Christians have always believed God existed outside the world; that means outside the spacetime manifold we call our home. If something is outside of space, it is perforce outside of time and vice versa. WE don't equate "everything" with the world of space and time because we're not materialists. We don't feel beholden to use your definition.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
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Alogon
Cabin boy emeritus
# 5513
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mark Betts:
Maybe there never was a Big Bang - or is that scientific heresy?
If you play according to Hoyle there was no big bang. One of his objections was that the big-bang theory sounded too much like theism to be scientific. Carl Sagan suggested "Big ring" instead of "Big bang"-- that before the big bang another universe had collapsed and then there was another explosion. He used this suggestion as another opportunity to get a dig at the church: for its concept of linear time (apparently totally unappreciative of this concept as a historical precondition of science as we know it). Hinduism, which sees time as circular, had gotten it right, and much earlier. [Earlier?]
I have a question: if it is not valid to think of continuity of time through the Big Bang, then mightn't we just as well think of simultaneous, rather than successive, "multiverses?"
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Patriarchy (n.): A belief in original sin unaccompanied by a belief in God.
Posts: 7808 | From: West Chester PA | Registered: Feb 2004
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George Spigot
Outcast
# 253
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by George Spigot:
If you want to claim that something exists outside of space/time (everything) then you have to redefine the meaning of the word everything.
Christians have always believed God existed outside the world; that means outside the spacetime manifold we call our home. If something is outside of space, it is perforce outside of time and vice versa. WE don't equate "everything" with the world of space and time because we're not materialists. We don't feel beholden to use your definition.
Thanks. I can sort of see where you are coming from now.
The difficulty I have with this concept is that I've always understood the word everything to mean.......well everything.
If during the many debates we have on the ship I responded to a question by saying, "This is how I'm going to define this word I'm using in my argument", how far could I stretch that do you think?
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C.S. Lewis's Head is just a tool for the Devil. (And you can quote me on that.) ~
Philip Purser Hallard
http://www.thoughtplay.com/infinitarian/gbsfatb.html
Posts: 1625 | From: Derbyshire - England | Registered: May 2001
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Ikkyu
Shipmate
# 15207
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Posted
If there is a valid point in what Professor Hawkins says is that there are valid scientific models in which god is not Necessary but are still consistent with everything we observe.
Of course this is no "proof" that God does not exist.
But defining God as something that cannot even in principle be observed, since He/She is Outside both Time and Space,seems to me to be getting close to defining God as something that either does not exist or is totally irrelevant since He/She cannot interact with us.
If on the other hand you want a God that interacts with us, how does that work if He/She is outside of space and time?
Posts: 434 | From: Arizona | Registered: Oct 2009
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Galilit
Shipmate
# 16470
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ikkyu:
.
If on the other hand you want a God that interacts with us, how does that work if He/She is outside of space and time?
'Coz we are less limited by time and space than might be imagined. Especially if/when we pray and meditate and that kind of thing.
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She who does Her Son's will in all things can rely on me to do Hers.
Posts: 624 | From: a Galilee far, far away | Registered: Jun 2011
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Ikkyu
Shipmate
# 15207
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Posted
@ Alogon
The article I posted a link to has a nice discussion of current cosmological models. Hoyle
is not the fashion in current cosmology. His alternative to the Big Bang. Steady state Cosmology failed the observational test. The early Universe is clearly different from what we have now.
The debate is not between those who think there was an earlier stage in which the universe was much denser and Hotter (Big Bang). And those that don't.
That aspect of the Big Bang theory is no longer controversial. The debate lies in alternatives to what happens at the Big Bang. Was there time before the Big Bang? And those won't be settled until we get a theory of quantum gravity.
Posts: 434 | From: Arizona | Registered: Oct 2009
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Jay-Emm
Shipmate
# 11411
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ikkyu:
...
But defining God as something that cannot even in principle be observed, since He/She is Outside both Time and Space,seems to me to be getting close to defining God as something that either does not exist or is totally irrelevant since He/She cannot interact with us.
If on the other hand you want a God that interacts with us, how does that work if He/She is outside of space and time?
From the theistic pov*, that's a bit of a non-sequiter.
It's a bit like saying if you're not wired directly how can you interact with the computer, and the CPU going aha so which bus is he on.
Or perhaps in Sims 5 you can imagine Alex Sim going so where is this mythical Ikkyu, if he's not in the town.
Indeed from the Christian** perspective we insist that God's actions can be observed, partly in the church, more directly but (now) less observable in Jesus in 1stC Palestine, partly ...
But we've never expected to be able to point a telescope at a big rock and go there's a giant old man with a white beard***.
*and pantheistic but in a different way.
**and with slight variations Jewish/Islamic
***cref Solomon's dedication of the Temple
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by George Spigot:
The difficulty I have with this concept is that I've always understood the word everything to mean.......well everything.
That seems fine. The problem comes when you take the extra step and equate that to the material universe. "The space-time continuum we belong to is all there is" is a step beyond "everything is everything." It's essentially saying "God doesn't exist." To go on from that starting point to prove that God doesn't exist is circular.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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kankucho
Shipmate
# 14318
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by George Spigot:
The difficulty I have with this concept is that I've always understood the word everything to mean.......well everything.
That seems fine. The problem comes when you take the extra step and equate that to the material universe. "The space-time continuum we belong to is all there is" is a step beyond "everything is everything." It's essentially saying "God doesn't exist." To go on from that starting point to prove that God doesn't exist is circular.
If there is more to the space-time continuum than is dreamt of in any of our philosophies, then we 'belong' to the hidden bits as well, don't we? If space-time is in fact cyclical and without beginning, then that is the natural circumstance in which Everything® exists.
[ 03. October 2012, 17:43: Message edited by: kankucho ]
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"We are a way for the cosmos to know itself" – Dr. Carl Sagan
Kankucho Bird Blues
Posts: 1262 | From: Kuon-ganjo, E17 | Registered: Nov 2008
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Ikkyu
Shipmate
# 15207
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Posted
@ Jay-Emm
Following your analogy, what about a keyboard? You need to interact physically with computers. If there is no Physical connection you can't.
Where is God's keyboard?
@ Galilit
I have been meditating regularly for around 10 years and have yet to transcend the bonds of Space and Time. Maybe I'm doing it wrong.
I'm with kankucho when he says:
"then that is the natural circumstance in which Everything® exists."
Again you can't eat your cake and have it too. Either God is with us and therefore part of the Natural world, or She/He is not.
Arguments that claim that He/She is outside all space and time whatever that means when it is convenient for your argument and interacting with space and time when that is convenient don't sound very convincing to me.
Posts: 434 | From: Arizona | Registered: Oct 2009
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