₦airaland Forum

plaetton: @Deepsight.

The above cannot be gibberish. It goes to the core of the issue. If god exists, then god is something, and if god is something then something cannot come out of nothing, unless god is nothing, in which case, god does not exist.

It is gibberish. He says that if God is something, then applying the nothing from nothing principle, God must come from something. God is not said to begin - because it is evident within the nothingness equation [0 + 0 = 0], that for anything to exist in reality [the right side of the equation], some quantity must permanently exist on the left side of the equation. Since things exist, and cannot sprout from nothingness, then there is a permanent somethingness - simple.

He also says that ex nihilo nihil fit refutes the existence of God so long as God is something. That is poor reasoning. Are we going to say that same principle refutes the existence of anything that is something? Such as you and I? Can you see how self-contradictory and hopelessly mis-footed his statements are? I really cannot pander to such non-starters.

plaetton: Pls try to answer , is god existing as particle , energy or neither?. If neither, in what form?

In my view, God is the compound of pure intangible energy and the compound of self existent laws.

This is not to say that I subscribe to God being strictly impersonal: for; as someone once powerfully remarked, creation itself reeks of a personal rather than impersonal act. Nevertheless I do not believe that God itself necessarily directly created this universe. Someday humans will create a universe. That does not mean humans and all of reality, have no ultimate origin - which is what God is.

plaetton: We can use use deductive and inductive reasoning to arrive at any pre-determined conclusions that we wish to.

No we cannot.

You are a lawyer , you should know that better than I do. Making a brilliant logical argument in court can win you cases but does it necessarily establish truth?

Yes, that's because as humans we often arrive at wrong conclusions based on falsehoods and errors. This does not mean that if we had applied the proper logic consistently and correctly, we would not have arrived at the truth.

The existence of super-dimensional energy or intelligence only brigs us to more questions and not answers.

I am not talking about extra terrestrial intelligence in the form of aliens. I am referring to the infinite intelligence inherent in the framework of reality itself: which is what God is.

plaetton: What is eternal and how do come to the conclusion that something is eternal? Be honest, isn't the idea of something being eternal just a leap of imagination? Leaving your imagination aside, how can you demonstrate that something is eternal and permanent?

My dear, think about it. Its all so incredibly simple. Ceazar nailed it all in simple words in his post. Let's take it calmly again -

Caezar: You exist. You cannot exist from nothing. Therefore, something existed, prior to you, to have caused you. Nothing that existed prior to you could have existed from nothing. Therefore, from the very beginning [for all eternity], something must have always existed.

This above answers your question as to why we know something must have always existed: i.e: being eternal. For lack of words he interpolated the word "beginning" though, which he should not have. I have modified with the underlined above. But in essence it captures it all; nothing that existed prior to this reality could have come from nothingness, as nothingness cannot bear somethingness. As such the only logical conclusion is a permanent somethingness. It could not logically be otherwise.

What are self-existent things that you speak about? Pls name a few.

Infinite Time

Infinite Space

Numbers

Infinite Mind

Infinite Energy

Again leaving your imagination behind, what is that you know for sure that preceded all things?

The foregoing.

plaetton: But isn't it just too convenient to credit the creation of the physical, mutable universe to a non-physical, immutable god, without any remotely traceable trail or evidence ?

It is logical rather than convenient, given the reasoning 1 - 11 in my penultimate post.

Remember also that there are different kinds of evidence. Deductive and Inductive reasoning also form logical patterns that are evidence. The existence of God is evident by sequential reasoning from the very premise that from nothing comes nothing.

Aside from this, there are zillions of everyday pointers to the glaring fact of super-dimensional energy and intelligence, and it is amazing how foolishly the atheist blinds himself to these.

Lord Babs: I think you are the one losing grasp of the fulcrum of this argument. The problem you're having is this stereotyped scientific hogwash you're enmeshed. My advice: You'd better start thinking in the direction of others, if you want to be near the truth. I'm going to reiterate my position on the status quo. Ex nihilo nihil fit refutes the existence of God, as long as you admit that this 'God' is SOMETHING. On the other hand, we may assume that ex nihilo nihil fit is metaphoric to mean that whatever exists now is nothing because it was conceived by a partial no-thing, which perhaps might eventually lead to nothingness(perhaps an allusion to the End of World, when the universe and its particles will melt into sublime nothingness). And which if another eternal world emerges, it MUST be borne out of a substantive source that can be called SOMETHING: and this would ultimately invalidate ex nihilo nihil fit. But a healthy argument cannot be premised on such hunches or some 'outsourced' prophecies. Hence, based on the available evidence I have here, ex nihilo nihil fit validly refutes the existence of God, except we can admit that this God is NOTHING, which in turn still invalidates the existence of God! Am I screeching?

I was going to respond to this but i honestly can't. It's just plain gibberish. The bolded is just ridiculous. I'M not sure I can sensibly interact with you.

plaetton: Self-existent god is, in real terms, an oxymoron, similar in absurdity to the notion of an infallible pope.
The motive for the notion of an infallible pope was to render him the final arbiter in the formation and interpretation of doctrine. In other words, the last bust stop.
Similarly the notion of a self-existent god is also meant to serves as an imaginary the final bus stop on the question of origin.
It is not answer. It is, in my mind,a convenient copout.

Oh LAWD.

There is neither oxymoron nor cop out. Settle down and listen:

1. Something exists.

2. Something cannot come from nothing.

3. As such, the somethings that exist came from something already existing.

4. Since things exist, then there was always a something because if there was nothing, there would always have remained nothing and never any something.

5. Thus, something eternal and permanent exists.

6. Anything which is eternal and permanent is self-existent.

7. Self existent things are not mutable by reason of their self-existent and permanent nature.

8. Matter is mutable and changeable and therefore not self existent.

9. Ergo, matter is not that which is the permanent self-existent something.

10. Ergo, that which precedes all things is a permanent, self-existent, non material essence.

11. This is what is referred to as God.

No cop out, no paradox, simple and clear philosophical logic.

plaetton: These are the same arguments I have been making to these creationist.
If god can be self-created and self-existent, then why can't the universe also be self-created and self-existent?

Because, for the umpteenth time, the universe is physical and mutable and mutable things cannot logically be self-existent!

How many times do I have to scream this on this forum for it to be grasped by ANYBODY? ? ? ? ? ?

Lord Babs: stop doing follow follow, it will only consolidate your poverty of imagination. Think man! What you probably don't know is that even if you disprove that something can emerge from nothing, it will ultimately invalidate the existence of God, since it must also have emerged from something. And if you succeed in proving that something can come out of nothing, you'll also be faced with another difficulty of identifying that something void of causality, which renders weak the argument for the existence of your so-called self-existent God.

I think you have to sit down and actually study the concepts at play here. So far it's obvious you have no grasp of them.

A little understanding is very dangerous you know.

PhysicsQED: And again, no it does not logically follow that because something is said to be expanding it has to necessarily be expanding into something else. That is just incorrect.

Really? So its expanding into nothingness? Does nothingness exist?

Can you kindly summarize your position into one line or at best a paragraph?

jayriginal: ^^^
Likewise my friend. Shake off your dogma and think.

And think of things like uncaused motion for a physical universe? No thanks. I'll pass.

Assumptions do not make for strong arguments.

Assumptions like the law of cause and effect? O, if that's an assumption, its certainly an assumption I don't mind living with, thanks.

[quote author=Area_boy]I'll go thru them one after the other. have been under the weather lately so haven't had the time or energy to look up NL.[/quote]I certainly wish you a speedy return to speed.

The first problem you have made is reading my post as one part in another. It is important you read it as I have written it and not break it up into bite-size pieces to affirm your ideas.

Oh really? I don't believe I have done so: I have merely shown the incoherence and inconsistency of the notions you bandied about. I should warn you to try not to be as dogmatic about the writings of any scientist in the same way as I warn religious folk not to be dogmatic about their scripture. The simple fact is that not all postulations by all scientists are always right. And in this matter, most postulations so far are outrightly ridiculous and laughable. Some are even frankly illiterate.

I have read a few of your posts about this forum and you come across as quite intelligent. It therefore shocks me that you could have bandied about some of the nonsense that you did in earlier posts on this thread. You should look for a post by MyJoe earlier in this thread where he wrote nothing but simply posted a smiley under a quote from you. THAT quote was as laughable as it gets, mate.

The sad thing is that many people these days imagine that tailing the ideas of every scientist makes them "modern" and "aware" and "intellectually sophisticated". My friend, the only thing that makes anyone intellectually sophisticated is having the guts, originality, brilliance and simplicity to think for himself. Period.

Now let us think for our selves.

1) cause and effect. I explained clearly why I believe this is a false assertion but you rather break it down to meaningless chunks. Again you are making the same mistake I clearly pointed out by asking me if I have ever seen something that happens without a cause?. Its just like creationist asking "well if evolution happened, why isn't it happening today"

No this is not the case because the very fabric of our reality is hardwired in causality. If you would think about it you would see how terribly irrational what you are suggesting is. The laws of motion are very clear and adamant in this respect. We do not see anything that moves that has no impetus. That is as far as it obtains in this physical reality. The universe is physical. It began to expand from a point. Ergo, there was some impetus for that. To suggest that it began to move without impetus or cause, is not only illogical and unscientific, it is outright voodoo.

It amazes me how people who pander to science are willing to abandon plain and simple science in pursuit of dogma.

3) Same problem with not reading my post until the end before making a comment because the reason for this claim is in my post as well. you seem to dodge the direct question of who created the creator when you tackled that section.

I have not dodged the question of who created a creator. I explained in very simple terms that the creator is not said to have a beginning: and as such did not require being created. This is very simple when one follows the reasoning as follows:

1. We know that from nothingness comes nothing

2. We know that things exist

3. As such, for things to exist, something or the other must have always existed.

That is what we refer to as a self-existent thing. In philosophy such are also referred to as necessary as opposed to contingent things. A necessary thing self-exists. I am assuming you are well acquainted with the distinctions here. Necessary or self-existent things are also non-material.

This resolves the problem of the infinite regress which you keep raising. That problem, as far as I am concerned, is only pondered by philosophical babies.

4a) your 4th point puts your "god" in problem, "nothing comes from nothing" think carefully about what you are trying to say here.
4b) *still saying the same thing in another way*

No, as I have explained, there was never any such thing as "nothing". By the very definition of the word, nothing is nothing: it does not exist and has never existed. There has only ever been a permanent self-existent "something."

5) This part is very important because you accept not to know what he means by zero here. I have explained the idea of a flat universe on another post which is by the way the agreed model of our universe. Physicist agree that the total energy of a flat universe is zero. this simply means that all positive forces subtracted from all negative forces will give zero. Acceleration of the universe, energy contained in dark matter (which is what 70% or more of our universe is made of), Gravity and basically every manifestation of energy in the universe neatly cancels out. I really do advice you to read about this yourself and don't take my word for it. Read about the "boomerang project" carried out in Antarctica to prove that our universe is indeed flat.

The overall shape of the universe being flat in no way suggests that its total energy is zero. Nor does the mathematical act of cancelling positive energies against negative negative energies suggest that either. You really even have to ask yourself what negative energy is and see if it has anything whatsoever to do with the precepts at play here.

You and your friends are toying around with nonsensical voodoo. It is nonsensical to suggest that the total energy of the universe is zero: at least not in the dictionary meaning of the word "zero". Used as a specially defined mathematical concept (which has nothing to do with true zero), you can have a field day for all I care: but you must be aware that this has nothing to do with the true meaning of the word zero. The true meaning of the word zero is nothing - and so long as the universe is something, its total energy can never be said to equate true zero.

In fact, as I explained earlier, true zero, being the equivalent of nothingness, does not exist.

So there is no such thing as true zero, ab initio,

Therefore you cannot equate the universe's energy with true zero, because no such thing exists. Zero is nothing.

Just before I leave this point let me just give you food for thought on the idea of the universe being flat. What is flatness really?

Consider these two against one another: Is a sheet of paper flat? Is a mattress flat? When you reflect carefully on these two, you will revise your idea of flatness - especially as regards the idea of flatness as against zero energy.

so when you ask "why is there something rather than nothing" (or however you wana twist that question), Just remember that in quantum mechanics you can always have something from nothing. This is not magic or science fiction it is mathematically proven time after time.

My dear, no such thing has ever been proven anywhere. There are idle and frankly id.oitic speculations by some people intent on proving the nonsensical: and these have NEVER been proven anywhere: nor will ever.

As such, people went to the nonsensical extreme of stating that virtual particles emerge from nothingness in a quantum vacuum. I am a lawyer, and not a physicist, and yet, it took me only the slightest reading to see how nonsensically false that is for it is established that there is no such thing as a perfect vacuum anywhere; these quantum vacuums we speak of actually contain low gaseous pressure, and as such the particles observed do NOT emerge from "nothing".

I advise you to be rigorous if you seek to use these ideas in your discourses. You might impress the feeble, but you certainly won't impress me with less.

6)It is saddening that you term this nonsensical even when there is hard evidence for it,

Please don't tell outright lies. Where is the hard evidence for the universe popping into existence from nothingness?

It's depressing that you cannot see what a silly statement that even is. Nothingness is nothingness: it does not exist ab initio. And yet YOU then claim that the people who make the more sensible claim founded on commonsensical causality - are the ones who are deluded? Whereas you are here advocating pure voodooistic fantasy.

7) I never used particles popping in and out of existence as evidence of anything. Again you break my post down and take them out of context.

Really. Don't lie again. Why on earth did you bring it up then?

when you have problems with your car, you go to the mechanic?
when you are ill, you go to your doctor
when you need legal aid, you go to a lawyer.

Professionals in science/technology are there for a reason. If you wana take what you want a drop what you don't want then be my guest. All i can say is that's no way for progress.

I will be careful not to go to a quack lawyer or mechanic, just as you should be wary of unscientific and dogmatic "scientists".

I just typed in google "boomerang project Antarctica" and this nasa website popped out
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2000/ast27apr_1/

have a look yourself before you term it magic or hogwash.

I have not bothered to look. The premises themselves, even if true, do not bear out any of the illogical conclusions you have tried to arrive at.

Again i've been down with a bad cold n will prolly not be on NL for bit. so I can hardly put up a decent reply. I guess this will do for now.

Take it easy man.

Seriously. This cannot be possible anywhere in the world in 2012. Surely there must be some falsehood somewhere.

caezar: You are running around in circles and discarding the very premises on which you began your thought process. [size=16pt]You exist. You cannot exist from nothing. Therefore, something existed, prior to you, to have caused you. Nothing that existed prior to you could have existed from nothing. Therefore, from the very beginning, something must have always existed.

The fact that you cannot ascribe characteristics to this something is a personal failing and does not invalidate your own existence. Others have already proposed tangible and credible descriptions of what this something was or is.[/size]

GBAM ! ! !

After the bolded in red, I doubt I ever need to make any further argument for the existence of God in my LIFE again!

Just saw these comments from the forbes article -

"I’m sorry, but this was possibly the worst Olympic Opening Ceremonies for the past 50 years. Perhaps the Brits loved it, but the rest of the world was bored to tears. It was also cringe-worthy at times, such as when the men from the Industrial Revolution and 19th century clothes started break-dancing or all the digging and then the kids in their pajamas…just terrible. The way so much of the presentation was pre-taped too was mind-boggling. Really, you couldn’t pull it off live? And then Paul McCartney, who I love and I adore the Beatles, having those lip-sync issues, oh my God. And we thought Ashley Simpson on SNL was bad, this was truly horrific and played to 4 billion viewers around the world. What a horrible, shameful and embarrassing moment for Sir Paul who did not deserve that. He probably shouldn’t lip sync in the first place or have a backing track, but that miscue was just cringe worthy. To be a Beatle and a living legend and getting truly humiliated like that. And to think of Britain’s rich musical history and most of it tonight were just tracks off the records instead of live performances. Why? Jimmy Page was dying to play the Games and instead you use some British rappper? ? ? Especially when rap is uniquely American. The Stones, Bowie, Brian May, Roger Waters, David Gilmour, The Who, Led Zep, all these classic amazing bands would have played in an instant and yet instead all we get are the Arctic Monkeys? I actually like them but I think Danny Boyle could have done better. What about Radiohead or Blur? Even Oasis are far bigger and more important than the Monkeys and I’m sure they would have reunited for this. Can you imagine “Wonderwall” being played in front of 4 billion television viewers? That would have been magical. Stone Roses are already back together but what Danny should have really done is to get The Smiths back together using this as an excuse and have them play “There Is A Light That Never Goes Out” during the lighting of the cauldron. Now THAT would have been something!"

wiegraf: I didn't say there was no cause. I suggested casuality may not have to work intuitively under certain conditions. Any physicists here? There is no time for massless particles, they could travel across the galaxy wearing a magical watch and not a second would have passed to them locally, yes? So, even if casuality is ppossible under such conditions, why do you expect it to work intuitvely. There's some theist online who points out supposing some item had existed forever and said item causes a permament effect, that effect too must have existed forever too. There you go, casuality with a twist.(and I personally can't really see anything that could have existed forever, concepts like numbers I agree with, nothing else has been around forever imo, except if the concept of numbers has some physical effect then...)

I hear you on this. With reference to the bolded, yes, some things may have existed forever, but this universe demonstrably has not. As such, this specific universe cannot be said to be a permanent effect.

And I don't think the nothing theory is nonsense. Matter comes into existense and annihilates itself all the time, even in 'nothing'. One of these collisons resulted in the big bang, or at least that is one of the viable theories. Then again, there might be diffrent 'nothing'. Again, physicists?

Its nonsense. None of this deals with the proper definition of NOTHING: which evisages total nothingness. Such total nothingness could not deliver any somethingness. Please read again the bolded paragraph of the article i posted above.

Was all the stu.pid, daf.t part necessary? Meh

Those ideas are indeed st.upid and d.aft, apologies to whoever holds such notions.

Logicbwoy: lol....running away from the truth? Why not explain how you're not a slave to a discriminatory religion?

Explain how you accept a religion (the bible) that clearly states that atheists are fools and evil? (psalm 14;1)

Foolish, they indeed are, but evil, no, not necessarily. There are good and evil atheists just as indeed there are good and evil theists. Same for foolishness: it exists on both sides of the divide. But of foolish notions, atheism itself is one.

This topic and the claims of Krauss just remind me of some other such scientific quack, much idolized by atheist dolts, who even went so far as to prescribe the properties of "nothingness" and ascribe to it a certain size and even a mathematical ratio, or some other such nonsense.

These things are frankly illiterate.

THE BOOK BY PROFESSOR KRAUSS IS NOTHING BUT TRASH.

I REALLY DON'T KNOW HOW OTHERWISE INTELLIGENT FOLK GET THEMSELVES TO BELIEVE SUCH BALOONEY AND SUCH OBVIOUS QUACKERY, SIMPLY ON ACCOUNT OF AN ANTI-GOD BIAS.

READ! - [AND PLEASE NOTE THE BOLDED]

Lawrence M. Krauss, a well-known cosmologist and prolific popular-science writer, apparently means to announce to the world, in this new book, that the laws of quantum mechanics have in them the makings of a thoroughly scientific and adamantly secular explanation of why there is something rather than nothing. Period. Case closed. End of story. I kid you not. Look at the subtitle. Look at how Richard Dawkins sums it up in his afterword: “Even the last remaining trump card of the theologian, ‘Why is there something rather than nothing?,’ shrivels up before your eyes as you read these pages. If ‘On the Origin of Species’ was biology’s deadliest blow to super­naturalism, we may come to see ‘A Universe From Nothing’ as the equivalent from cosmology. The title means exactly what it says. And what it says is ­devastating.”

A UNIVERSE FROM NOTHING
Why There Is Something Rather Than Nothing
By Lawrence M. Krauss
Illustrated. 202 pp. Free Press. $24.99.
Related

Times Topic: Science and Technology

Well, let’s see. There are lots of different sorts of conversations one might want to have about a claim like that: conversations, say, about what it is to explain something, and about what it is to be a law of nature, and about what it is to be a physical thing. But since the space I have is limited, let me put those niceties aside and try to be quick, and crude, and concrete.

Where, for starters, are the laws of quantum mechanics themselves supposed to have come from? Krauss is more or less upfront, as it turns out, about not having a clue about that. He acknowledges (albeit in a parenthesis, and just a few pages before the end of the book) that every­thing he has been talking about simply takes the basic principles of quantum mechanics for granted. “I have no idea if this notion can be usefully dispensed with,” he writes, “or at least I don’t know of any productive work in this regard.” And what if he did know of some productive work in that regard? What if he were in a position to announce, for instance, that the truth of the quantum-mechanical laws can be traced back to the fact that the world has some other, deeper property X? Wouldn’t we still be in a position to ask why X rather than Y? And is there a last such question? Is there some point at which the possibility of asking any further such questions somehow definitively comes to an end? How would that work? What would that be like?

Never mind. Forget where the laws came from. Have a look instead at what they say. It happens that ever since the scientific revolution of the 17th century, what physics has given us in the way of candidates for the fundamental laws of nature have as a general rule simply taken it for granted that there is, at the bottom of everything, some basic, elementary, eternally persisting, concrete, physical stuff. Newton, for example, took that elementary stuff to consist of material particles. And physicists at the end of the 19th century took that elementary stuff to consist of both material particles and electro­magnetic fields. And so on. And what the fundamental laws of nature are about, and all the fundamental laws of nature are about, and all there is for the fundamental laws of nature to be about, insofar as physics has ever been able to imagine, is how that elementary stuff is arranged. The fundamental laws of nature generally take the form of rules concerning which arrangements of that stuff are physically possible and which aren’t, or rules connecting the arrangements of that elementary stuff at later times to its arrangement at earlier times, or something like that. But the laws have no bearing whatsoever on questions of where the elementary stuff came from, or of why the world should have consisted of the particular elementary stuff it does, as opposed to something else, or to nothing at all.

The fundamental physical laws that Krauss is talking about in “A Universe From Nothing” — the laws of relativistic quantum field theories — are no exception to this. The particular, eternally persisting, elementary physical stuff of the world, according to the standard presentations of relativistic quantum field theories, consists (unsurprisingly) of relativistic quantum fields. And the fundamental laws of this theory take the form of rules concerning which arrangements of those fields are physically possible and which aren’t, and rules connecting the arrangements of those fields at later times to their arrangements at earlier times, and so on — and they have nothing whatsoever to say on the subject of where those fields came from, or of why the world should have consisted of the particular kinds of fields it does, or of why it should have consisted of fields at all, or of why there should have been a world in the first place. Period. Case closed. End of story.

What on earth, then, can Krauss have been thinking? Well, there is, as it happens, an interesting difference between relativistic quantum field theories and every previous serious candidate for a fundamental physical theory of the world. Every previous such theory counted material particles among the concrete, fundamental, eternally persisting elementary physical stuff of the world — and relativistic quantum field theories, interestingly and emphatically and unprecedentedly, do not. According to relativistic quantum field theories, particles are to be understood, rather, as specific arrangements of the fields. Certain ­arrangements of the fields, for instance, correspond to there being 14 particles in the universe, and certain other arrangements correspond to there being 276 particles, and certain other arrangements correspond to there being an infinite number of particles, and certain other arrangements correspond to there being no particles at all. And those last arrangements are referred to, in the jargon of quantum field theories, for obvious reasons, as “vacuum” states. Krauss seems to be thinking that these vacuum states amount to the relativistic-­quantum-field-theoretical version of there not being any physical stuff at all. And he has an argument — or thinks he does — that the laws of relativistic quantum field theories entail that vacuum states are unstable. And that, in a nutshell, is the account he proposes of why there should be something rather than nothing.

[b]But that’s just not right. Relativistic-quantum-field-theoretical vacuum states — no less than giraffes or refrigerators or solar systems — are particular arrangements of elementary physical stuff. The true relativistic-quantum-field-­theoretical equivalent to there not being any physical stuff at all isn’t this or that particular arrangement of the fields — what it is (obviously, and ineluctably, and on the contrary) is the simple absence of the fields! The fact that some arrangements of fields happen to correspond to the existence of particles and some don’t is not a whit more mysterious than the fact that some of the possible arrangements of my fingers happen to correspond to the existence of a fist and some don’t. And the fact that particles can pop in and out of existence, over time, as those fields rearrange themselves, is not a whit more mysterious than the fact that fists can pop in and out of existence, over time, as my fingers rearrange themselves. And none of these poppings — if you look at them aright — amount to anything even remotely in the neighborhood of a creation from nothing.[/b]

Krauss, mind you, has heard this kind of talk before, and it makes him crazy. A century ago, it seems to him, nobody would have made so much as a peep about referring to a stretch of space without any material particles in it as “nothing.” And now that he and his colleagues think they have a way of showing how everything there is could imaginably have emerged from a stretch of space like that, the nut cases are moving the goal posts. He complains that “some philosophers and many theologians define and redefine ‘nothing’ as not being any of the versions of nothing that scientists currently describe,” and that “now, I am told by religious critics that I cannot refer to empty space as ‘nothing,’ but rather as a ‘quantum vacuum,’ to distinguish it from the philosopher’s or theologian’s idealized ‘nothing,’ ” and he does a good deal of railing about “the intellectual bankruptcy of much of theology and some of modern philosophy.” But all there is to say about this, as far as I can see, is that Krauss is dead wrong and his religious and philosophical critics are absolutely right. Who cares what we would or would not have made a peep about a hundred years ago? We were wrong a hundred years ago. We know more now. And if what we formerly took for nothing turns out, on closer examination, to have the makings of protons and neutrons and tables and chairs and planets and solar systems and galaxies and universes in it, then it wasn’t nothing, and it couldn’t have been nothing, in the first place. And the history of science — if we understand it correctly — gives us no hint of how it might be possible to imagine otherwise.

And I guess it ought to be mentioned, quite apart from the question of whether anything Krauss says turns out to be true or false, that the whole business of approaching the struggle with religion as if it were a card game, or a horse race, or some kind of battle of wits, just feels all wrong — or it does, at any rate, to me. When I was growing up, where I was growing up, there was a critique of religion according to which religion was cruel, and a lie, and a mechanism of enslavement, and something full of loathing and contempt for every­thing essentially human. Maybe that was true and maybe it wasn’t, but it had to do with important things — it had to do, that is, with history, and with suffering, and with the hope of a better world — and it seems like a pity, and more than a pity, and worse than a pity, with all that in the back of one’s head, to think that all that gets offered to us now, by guys like these, in books like this, is the pale, small, silly, nerdy accusation that religion is, I don’t know, dumb.

David Albert is a professor of philosophy at Columbia and the author of “Quantum Mechanics and Experience.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/25/books/review/a-universe-from-nothing-by-lawrence-m-krauss.html?_r=1

wiegraf: Before the big bang there wasn't time. Why should casuality work intuitively in such conditions?

O, no time, no space. . . . nothingness. And then suddenly an entire universe slams into existence, without any cause or impetus.

Do you really believe such nonsense?

Honestly I have heard religious people speak nonsense, but I have never heard greater nonsensical foolishness than when atheists try to render the universe uncaused. It is the height of foolishness honestly. To be more precise, d.aft s.tupudity. To be even more precise, dense.

Lord Babs: really? Your parents practically caused you to exist, does that make them self-existent? If they are, then how were they caused? Second, what rule determines your idea of 'self-existence'.

This terrible example simply show's that you have a lot of reading to do on this subject. How could you do this?

[quote author=Area_boy]I will like to add to what you've said and will start off with the false assertion of "cause and effect" theists use to defend themselves.[/quote]How on earth is "cause and effect" a false assertion? ? ? ? ? ? ? Is there no such thing as the law of cause and effect? Is every single event or phenomenon that is observed not preceded by a cause? Have YOU ever seen any uncaused thing in your life?

Cause and effect is what our brain can observe in the world we have right in front of us and can only be used as such.

Is there anything that we know in science that does not come from what our brains observe?

Using cause and effect when the universe didn't exist is a mistake.

On the contrary it is most apt: for if you say that there was anytime when the universe did not exist, then you will be faced with the conundrum of HOW, WHY, AND FROM WHAT did it spring into existence. The truth is that it is the atheist that thereby subscribes to voodooistic fantasy in seeking to deny the very obvious fact of causality.

Problem with that is while saying there must be a force behind creating our universe, we can also imply that there must be a force behind that force and another behind that and that string can extend to infinity (big problem).

No: because it is simple reasoning to see that for anything at all to exist, something or the other must be self existent as we know nothing comes from nothing.

Matter is not self existent as it is mutable: as such something immaterial must be self existent, thus removing the problem of the infinite regress.

One of the books by Professor Laurence Krauss "A universe from nothing", Explains how we have a "flat" universe and with that the total energy of a flat universe is zero.

I don't know what he means by the word zero here, but if he uses that word in its dictionary sense, then he was quite frankly high on the cheapest village ethanol while writing.

with zero total energy, we can easily see how d universe can pop into existence without any cause.

Da.mn! This, my friend, is nonsensical in the extreme. And far worse than the magic you folk accuse religionists of believing in.

Very similar to how particles in a proton pop in and out of existence so fast that we cannot see them but can prove that they pop in and out with mass change in the proton.

Very interesting topic to research further

People who use this as an argument are ignorant of the facts.

Lord Babs: In other words, to say from nothing comes nothing is to say that for something to exist, it must emerge from something.

Exactly. Which is why God exists.

It is noteworthy that this parlance(ex nihilo nihil fit) does not only refute the existence of a supreme deity,

It does not refute the existence of a supreme deity. On the contrary, it affirms it.

or the possibility of something emerging from nothing, but also leads to an infinite question of what creates what?!

For any thing to exist, something or the other must be self existent. As such, that which is self existent must be the cause of that which is not.

Now, most theists, based on the principle of universal causation, do subconsciously argue that things don't just exist without a cause. And as such, for the world or anything to exist, there must be a force behind it, which is called God, who is acclaimed to be revelling in heaven, in his sacred haven, amid hordes of angelic 'body-guards', while pleasurably abandoning us here on earth to suffer.

Please if you want to strictly theological and philosophical discussion on the existence of God, then leave religious notions out of the discussion.

^^^ Ah, well, been waiting for your reply for a few mins but have to run.

Personally I see them as tombs.

Just want to point out to you that you have no conclusive evidence of that so far.

So you are being just as bad as those you accuse, period.

Later, Alien.

Lol, just had an afterthought. . . .isn't funny that the Martian on NL is the most vociferous opponent of the existence of aliens of earth!

Abeg make i go chase money o. Lawyer don turn to trader.

Martian: http://www.catchpenny.org/whybuilt.html
Another reason why Egyptologists believe that pyramids were tombs is because the ancient Egyptian record explicitly states as much. For example, the Papyrus Abbott describes the inspection of "sepulchers of former kings" under Ramesses IX. The pyramid of 17th Dynasty Sobekemsaf II was inspected:


It was found, that the thieves had broken into it by mining work through the base of its pyramid, from the outer chamber of the tomb of the overseer of the granary of King Menkheperre (Thutmose III), L.P.H., Nebamon. The burial-place of the king was found void of its lord, L.P.H., as well as the burial-place of the great king's-wife, Nubkhas, L.P.H., his royal wife; the thieves having laid their hand upon them. The vizier, the nobles, and the inspectors made an examination of it, and the manner in which the thieves had laid their hands upon this king and his royal wife, was ascertained. [Breasted, Ancient Records of Egypt, IV.517]

Much has been made of the fact that of all the pyramids of Egypt that have ever been explored, never once has the mummy of a pharaoh been found within. Mummy parts have been found in pyramids. Such discoveries include part of a mummified foot in the pyramid of Djoser; a right arm, skull fragments, and various other bones in the pyramid of Unas; an arm and shoulder in the pyramid of Teti; fragments of a mummy in the pyramid of Pepi I; mummy wrappings in the pyramid of Pepy II, and charred bones in the pyramid of Amenemhet III. In the center satellite pyramid of Menkaure, Perring and Vyse found a skeleton of a young woman in the sarcophagus within. They also found, in the main pyramid, part of a wooden coffin believed to be Menkaure's along with some mummy fragments. But never has an extant mummy been found in any pyramid, nor have any parts of a mummy been identified with certainty as those of a king. Critics of the pyramid-as-tomb theory claim that such mummy parts, rather than being detritus left after the robbers hacked away the mummies for jewels and gold, represent parts left from intrusive burials made long after the pyramid was built. Burials of this type are common in areas and tombs around the various pyramids.

This is not evidence that they were tombs.

Besides, the extensive finds at the Valley of the Kings and other sites suggests that Egyptians had other ideas for burying their pharoahs, no?

Does it make sense to build such majestic tombs at such staggering cost in labour, resources and time - and then go find a grave elsewhere to bury Kings?

Nap.

So produce ya evidence that they were tombs.

Martian: They were Tombs. Okay? Elaborate Tombs influenced by their superstitious beliefs about the "after life". Go look it up.

There is as yet no evidence of this.

And since you are Mr. Evidence-first, you should produce the evidence before making such firm conclusions, no?

Otherwise you are being every bit as bad as you accuse others of being - arriving at a belief without the evidence.

I know you've wondered why they are empty now, but what do you epect after thousands of years? But you'll rather believe that ancient aliens built them for some "mysterious" reasons.

I never said aliens built them. Humans did, as far as I know.

Well, of course it does, so long as terrible temptations like this still exist in this world -

Martian: Lol, Who are YOU trying to correct. You,. Lmao redeem the Pentecostals.

Let me quote you. " O Pyramids, reveal thy secrets". Did you ever find the secrets?

As far as I know, no modern science has yet definitely uncovered the exact purpose of the pyramids.

It thus remains in order to ask as i did. . . .reveal thy secrets.

O, and before that flies over ya head as well, it was intended as poetic.

So why scoff, thou eternal scoffer?

Logicbwoy: You can compare Sweden and Denmark to Nigeria and USA

Ah, finally a sensible comment. I agree with you here. How did noodles conjure this?

O, it must be the spice.

@ Physics - just saw your responses. Have to jet off to make money now. Will revert exhaustively later in the day.

Thanks and cheers for the time.

jayriginal: Thats because you arent properly acquainted with my friend who thinks the compositional fallacy a good argument makes.

Unfortunately, my guy no go gree. Poster boy of dogmatism.

Frankly, I don't think your discourses or positions are within the scope of this discussion. I also don't think your arguments in the past demonstrate a capacity to discuss anything here.

PhysicsQED: Atheism is the cause of poverty, famine, and illness?

Again, he was totally wrong there. Astonishingly.

So if a religion doesn't explain the origin of the world and the origin of existence it contributes to building a world without hope?

If any thought system suggests nothing about ORIGIN yes, i would say it is somewhat - - - philosophically worthless.