We don't, but there's no evidence for that so there's no point in believing it. We don't know the origin of the universe, or what came before the Big Bang. It's all just scientific theory that is changing as we learn more. That's how it is supposed to work. Believing in a creator leaves little room for additional evidence to change your opinion.
DGroot, we don’t know if the big bang was initiated by a deity. But we also don’t see any evidence that it was. All we know is that the evidence points to the big bang happening. We have an understanding of what happened all the way up to a tiny fraction of a second after the big bang (I think it’s around 10^-30 seconds after the big bang is the earliest we have any understanding of). Anything before that, we really don’t know. So yes, it is technically possible that a deity, or aliens, or John Wick started the big bang, but we have no evidence for it and no reason to just blindly assert it.
Of course there are holes in the theory, more pieces of evidence we need to fine tune and further describe it. But just like with Evolution, Gravity, or Plate Tectonics, not having the complete picture doesn’t mean we can’t make strong conclusions, especially when each piece of new evidence seems to further support the theory.
Saying there's no way for the big bang to occur naturally is definitely a gap...just because we don't specifically know what sort of quantum event "initiated" it, doesn't mean that's evidence of a creator
It’s actually in yours. There is no gap. It exists only in your head. Nowhere have I argued we do not know. We can in fact know that evidence of the Big Bang is evidence of a creator.
So like I said, the gap is in your head. Now it’s also between what you can prove and what you’re certain of. The psychology term appropriate for that situation is “delusion”.
Whatever begins to exist has a cause. The universe began to exist so the universe has a cause. Unintelligent, necessary causes create necessarily. The universe was created with contingency (which is why it is not on a constant state of beginning). Therefore the cause of the universe was either necessary and intelligent, or contingent. A contingent cause only removes the problem by one degree, so an intelligent necessary cause capable of choosing to create once is required. The Big Bang requires a creator. QED.
Whenever I press you for specifics, your argument turns out to be all gap. Mine is sound. Your inability to understand this changes nothing, it just proves you are out of your depth. Your accusations ring hollow. It’s clear you’re making excuses, and it’s clear that the Big Bang could not have occurred naturally.
Doopy, we have evidence that the big bang occurred. Whether or not it try happened naturally (that is, whether or not a deity pulled the trigger that set it off) is something we simply don’t know, but that’s no reason to just assume a deity did it.
“Doopy, we have evidence that the big bang occurred. Whether or not it try happened naturally (that is, whether or not a deity pulled the trigger that set it off) is something we simply don’t know, but that’s no reason to just assume a deity did it.”
Nor is there a reason to assume a deity did not. Which is why I bothered to present a sound argument instead of assuming. That’s something neither of you did.
Doopy, yes I know what naturalism of the gaps is, and frankly it’s a silly thing. Because, for the most part naturalism is the closest thing that we have to a null hypothesis when talking about things like the big bang. It is the rejection of supernaturalism and the mystical and the idea that things just happen. What makes naturalism of the gods all the sillier of a counter is that we have natural explanations for just about everything else, so it does make some amount of sense to assume there is one for the big bang too. With the god of the gaps, part of what makes it a fallacy is that the users of it are saying “we have explanations for everything else, except this one thing, so this must be the one thing that breaks the naturalist pattern and required a god.” It doesn’t make sense and doesn’t follow the pattern we see.
But also, note that I have acknowledged that it is indeed possible that the big bang was done supernaturally, but I also am saying that we have no reason to shoehorn supernaturalism in without just reason. For me, I’m personally comfortable settling on “I don’t know.”
“Doopy, yes I know what naturalism of the gaps is, and frankly it’s a silly thing.”
Then why engage in it?
“Because, for the most part naturalism is the closest thing that we have to a null hypothesis when talking about things like the big bang.”
No closer than creation by a deity. You’re just giving your own ideas preferential treatment and then trying to win by default.
“we have natural explanations for just about everything else, so it does make some amount of sense to assume there is one for the big bang too.”
That is an invalid argument, though.
“With the god of the gaps, part of what makes it a fallacy is that the users of it are saying ‘we have explanations for everything else, except this one thing, so this must be the one thing that breaks the naturalist pattern and required a god.’”
No, what makes it a fallacy is that the argument is invalid.
“But also, note that I have acknowledged that it is indeed possible that the big bang was done supernaturally, but I also am saying that we have no reason to shoehorn supernaturalism in without just reason.”
Aside from the fact that it’s no more shoehorning than to shoehorn naturalism in, I have actually provided just reason.
“For me, I’m personally comfortable settling on ‘I don’t know.’”
Settling on “I don’t know” in the face of a sound argument is just as stupid, dishonest, and wrong as settling on “I know” in the absence of one.
Whatever begins to exist has a cause. The universe began to exist so the universe has a cause. Unintelligent, necessary causes create necessarily. The universe was created with contingency (which is why it is not on a constant state of beginning). Therefore the cause of the universe was either necessary and intelligent, or contingent. A contingent cause only removes the problem by one degree, so an intelligent necessary cause capable of choosing to create once is required. The Big Bang requires a creator. QED.
We don’t know, and that’s okay. There is no evidence of what the universe was before the bang, only predictions and educated guesses. It’s likely that we’ll never know for certain,
The leading idea, I believe, is the super dense singularity that contained all of the energy in the universe. But, once again, it’s not something we can know, at least not with our current tools. Our understanding of physics breaks down a fraction of a fraction of a second after the bang, and general relativity equations give infinities for answers.
This universe was most likely created by a big bang, preceded by a period of inflation. At least as far as the current state of scientific understanding goes. There may or may not have been a creator, however that is not a testable hypothesis. So it is a matter of faith rather than a matter of science.
The quick quick version is this: a computer is asked to solve the problem of entropy. In order to continue solving this issue the computer evolves over billions of years. Humanity is long dead...these computers have become something else. They absorb the power of suns and get larger and larger. Gathering power and speaking with each other. In the end...there are very few of these entities left. They have gathered and absorbed everything in the universe. When there were only two left one gives up and the one absorbs the other. It is the only single thing in the universe. No stars, no matter, nothing surrounds it. Notime because there is nothing to contrast itself with to be time. Surrounded by nothing and seeing only darkness it says, "Let there be light." And explodes...
Ah yes, the “everything came from nothing” people come out to say “there’s no evidence for a creator” when their breathing self-conscious existence and the intentional design of things like the solar system act like a big giant clock.
There is no testable evidence for a creator. Science relies on ideas that can be measured or tested. A creator outside the universe cannot be tested, so it is not part of scientific explanations.
There is a simple rule called Occam’s Razor. If two explanations work, the simpler one is preferred. A universe that follows natural laws is simpler than one that also requires an unseen creator.
Some people still believe a creator started everything, especially before the Big Bang. Science does not confirm or rule that out. It just sticks to what can be tested.
Bottom line, a creator is not proven impossible. It is just not needed to explain how the universe works.
String theory can’t be measured but many scientists believe in it.
No matter how you try to look at the universe much of it is still a mystery. As Carl Sagan famously said, “Not only is the universe stranger than we imagine, it’s stranger than we can imagine”.
Occam’s Razor is about cutting extra assumptions, not adding a cosmic project manager. Natural processes already explain how complexity builds from simple beginnings. Bringing in an outside intelligence just creates more questions than answers. It is like solving a puzzle by adding extra pieces that do not fit.
Einstein was more of a determinist and a naturalist. He found the universe's "comprehensibility" to be a miracle in itself, but he didn't credit that miracle to a conscious designer.
"The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honorable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish." Albert Einstein, 1954, The God Letter, less than 1 year before his death.
But by all means, cowboy, do tell us all about Einstein and how he believed in a creator… 🤣
There is no evidence that Einstein ever believed in a creator god. Einstein did say he believed in the god of Spinoza, which would make him, at most, a pantheist.
All right. Here goes. We have tried more recipes to make the primordial soup than there are for Big Mac sauce. We plop in all the ingredients and.....nada. just sits there being all soupy.
Then we give it a "stir" and...
ZAP! POW! ZING! ABRACADABRA! ⚡SHAZAM⚡
There's suddenly life swimming around in that tomato bisque!
I don't know if there's some all knowing, all seeing dude or not...or if it's a bunch of pasty big eyed guys zipping around in a saucer. BUT it seems to me if we have created life dozens of time but can't get it to self start, the theory most supported by scientific data is somebody/something kick started it here.
What scientific data supports something/someone creating it? How can we assume that if we can’t even define what this something/someone would be? To say “oh something must have created the universe” does nothing to justify conceptualizing what that is. It’s such a huge leap in logic to say an entity created it simply because it simply seems logical one must have existed.
You mix flour water oil then bake it. What comes out isn't bread, but instead a flat pancakey thing.
Someone tells you to add yeast, but you firmly believe yeast isn't necessary, so you try again and again and again but you keep getting the same pancakey thing.
So you try messing with the ratios and trying different types of oil. It changes, but it still isn't a loaf of bread.
So you finally add yeast.
BAM! you have bread.
Instead of saying "yeast is necessary," you say "we can do this without yeast. We just need to try more heat, and mess with the mix more. But we're getting close!" So you try a thousand more times without yeast and a few more with yeast.
Every time you add yeast you're successful. Everytime you don't, you're not.
Sooner or later, you will probably begin to doubt your belief that yeast is not necessary.
The creation of life is kind of like this. We have tried thousands of times and have perfected the recipe for life to begin.
The problem is, it will only begin if we manipulate the recipe. In every attempt where we're successful, an outside manipulation by an intelligent being is a necessary component. But because we fully and totally believe there isn't intelligent life beyond humans, we discount that required ingredient.
The craziest part for me is that if you read Genesis but strip away the supernatural, what you have left is a fairly basic description of terra forming. Something we have groups of scientists actively planning on doing on mars.
My argument isn't that God or Gods exist as described in any religion. It is that until we figure out how to create life without intelligent design, we should probably consider that the results and data from every attempt suggests it may be necessary.
Shazam, I think that disregards the absolutely absurd scope of the universe. You mentioned occam's razor above but I think its misapplied. The simplest solution is that the formation of life is incredibly rare but happened by chance. There are hundreds of billions to trillions if galaxies, most if those galaxies have billions of stars, and most of those stars have a couple planets in orbit. The chance might be 1/100,000,000,000,000,000 and that would still leave millions of chances for it to occur
I guess it comes down to whether you believe life sentient life exists outside our planet, and whether the probability of their visiting here is greater or lower than the probability of spontaneous combustion.
However, if extraterrestrial sentient life is found to have visited or is currently visiting our planet, then we have to assume intelligent design until proven otherwise.
I mean, there's nothing in creation myth that we could not achieve now or in the best future. If sentient extraterrestrial life is shown to exist, the most likely scenario is that is how life began.
You’re still basing this all on what sounds logical to you. That logic doesn’t justify the existence of some entity creating the universe. That’s a massive leap in conclusion just because it seems logical. The truth is likely something that our brains can’t even rationalize.
I think its most likely that out of the roughly octillion planets around, everything finally fell together in the right way. Even if there is other life out there, they had to come around somehow too. To say that if aliens exist they must have created us only pushes the exact same question on to them. But regardless, while i think its most probable that life spontaneously fell into place, I cannot presume to know that for certain. I doubt we'll ever have real "proof" in my lifetime.
Well, we never know for sure when applying the scientific method. We have to examine the data from repeatable research design. From that we're going to draw a probability of X and the probability of the posterior of X occuring. Whichever probability is greater is the one we'll assume is correct until data suggests otherwise.
@every planet engineered. Not necessarily. We can't simply say the primordial soup that would need to exist on a different planet to create life must be the same as the PS on this planet.
All life here is carbon based and has dna/rna. It's not hard to imagine carbon swapped for silicon, an element we haven't encountered, or carbon based but from an environment where the intervention needed here occurs there spontaneously.
I have to point out again though that for me, this isn't a belief Q. It's a straight up baysian stats problem. The current pretest probability for spontaneous life is currently zero. The pretest prob for life with human intervention is greater than zero. I have no idea what the probability is of intelligent life outside the earth, or the prob that intelligent life has visited earth. If that is higher than the prob that spontaneous life can happen without intelligent intervention, then that is the theory that should dominate.
I don't presume, and with the exception of the probability that primordial soup will generate spontaneous life is currently zero, all others are estimates. That includes the probability that the primordial soup that has been developed is inaccurate btw.
As far as "where did those aliens come from" goes, it doesn't really matter to this discussion. Let's say an extraterrestrial lifeform came into existence via spontaneous generation, and then travelled to the Earth and began terra forming it.
Their spontaneous generation vs intelligent design creation in no way impacts the subsequent intelligent design of life on Earth. Or am I misunderstanding something?
Then you would have to explain what came before the creator. If you want to say the creator always existed, why can’t I assume that about the materials of the universe instead?
No I wouldn’t. And the answer is: because supernatural power makes far more sense than matter appearing out of nowhere, unless you don’t believe in the laws of physics.
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