If atheists are right - how come there are so few of them?

Only if it goes back to being nothing in an incredibly short space of time.

 

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Dinosaur. If something didn't come from nothing, than where did it come from? And if you say it came from something else (which is all you can do), I'll ask well where did that something come from? We end up in an endless repetition of questioning where something came from. And you propose that this is a good answer? This is no answer. You simply do not have any theory to explain the existence of matter. My theory at least provides an explanation. It does not require a time when there was nothing. The theory is that the present time is an aspect of nothingness, and therefore you don't need a "prior" time when nothingness existed. It exists now. Of course that seems completely contrary to our senses, since we are in fact alive and witnessing all sorts of phenomena - not nothingness. Nevertheless, matter itself may be an aspect of nothingess. The problem is, we may not really understand nothingness like we think we do. Calling this theory "crackpot" is really stupid. String theory suggests matter is really curled up higher dimension. What is dimension if not empty space? Is string theory "crackpot" too? As Jeff 152 points out, there is a theory that a particle and anti-particle can pop out of the thin blue sky and exist - just because they cancel each other's energy and therefore combined comprise nothing. Is this theory "crackpot"?

 

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John J. Bannan:[/b] This issue seems very simple. There seem to be two logical possibilities.

• There was always something, in which case our current universe resulted from many changes of something into something else.
  
  
• There was nothing that changed into something.

I see examples of the first possibility all the time. Many of the changes can be explained or seem to be explainable, and there is no reason to suppose that all changes have some explanation (I do not believe in magic. Do you?).

There seems to be no reason for believing that nothing can change into something. The quantum vacuum (source of virtual particles) is not described as nothing by the experts, although articles for the lay person sometimes use terminology suggesting that there is nothing there.

I see nothing illogical about an infinite regress of something changing into something else. It seems more reasonable than something resulting from a change in nothing.

Back to semanitics: Nothingness and somethingness are antonyms. A claim that somethinness is some aspect of nothingness is semantic idiocy. You can construct grammatically correct sentences which are nonsense. For example: I wonder if the interior angles of a 4-sided triangle add up to 180 degrees. The syntax of the following might be okay, but the semantics are lunacy.

It is about as sensible as a 5-sided triangle (If 4-sided ones can be talked about, why not 5-sided ones?).

 

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Ah, now we're getting somewhere. Two possibilities: 1) there was always something and 2) nothing that changed into something. You like Number 1, but believe Number 2 is impossible. I think both are possible. However, saying there was always something begs the question of what existed before that which caused the something. This is an endless series of questions which provides no explanation. Number 2 at least provides an explanation. Why is it that option Number 2 is any sillier than option Number 1? It seems just as absurd to me to say that something always existed, as it is to say than something came from nothing. In either case you are dealing with an apparant absurdity. True, there is a difference between Space and a Void. Space has energy fields present which could create the particle/anti-particle pair, which mean that it's not really a Void because there's energy there. But, then under option Number 1, you could ask what caused the energy field? Now, curled up higher dimensional space really does seem to be a Void. After all, what is curled up dimension made of anyway? Nonethless, even assuming some form of energy is responsible for the curled up dimension, that still begs the questions of where that energy came from. Actually, options 1 and 2 really aren't all that different. If nothingness is something, and that created matter - that indeed would be a state without beginning - as nothingness can't have a beginning. The material aspect of nothingness would have always existed - which is the same thing you propose in option number 1. The only real difference between these options is you don't like the idea of matter being the same as nothingness - although you can't explain what matter is or how it originally came into being. There really is no practical difference between these two options, but for some reason you really don't like option Number 2.

 

Both of these options are dependent on time. If the big bang was the beginning of time and space, it makes no sense to talk about what went "before" it.

 

Why would you think the Big Bang was the beginning of space and time? Sure, it may have been the beginning of this Universe - but what about other universes or higher dimensions? You would have to categorically deny the existance of other universes and higher dimensions to believe the Big Bang started all there ever was or ever will be.

 

You can deny them as meaningless content if no such evidence for their existence is observed.

There is no problem with one universe. Why do see one?

 

I don't know, but that's the premise.

 

The problem with only one universe is where did it come from? Probably something similar - like another universe type thing perhaps of a higher dimension - like Brane theory. Of course, if you believe time began with the Big Bang, there is no need to peer beyond the Big Bang to see what caused it. This is a possibility, but rather unsatisfying as it does not explain why the Big Bang?

 

Even if you have several universes, that only defers the question of origin. How did that other universe come about?

 

I'm not claiming the existence of other universes is an answer in and of itself. Obviously, the existence of other universes begs the question of what caused those other universes? This is the problem with option 1.

 

IF you started to really THINK about what the bible says youd no doubt become atheist or at least agnostic yourself,me thinks

I dont say theres no god.there may very well be some,though I DONT believe in IT.
I say theres no xian god aka Jesus who sacrificed himself to himself to save you from some sin that he would have created himself in the first place,
IF he was the creator of ALL.
its just too idiotic an idea and I dont understand how come people cant comprehend this nonsense

 

exactly. i know people are going to say im wrong etc but i think that existence is infinite.

see i dont believe in time as an actual component in reality or existence. therefore i dont think there was a "start" or will ever be an end.

people can obviously feel free to oppose my view and 100% will do because i cant expect people to actualy think i know the answer to the greatest question. but i think its pretty straight forward, my logic is not others logic, and again people will say there is only 1 type of logic, where i think logic is subjective to the observer and one who holds the viewpoint,

if existence was infinite with no start and no end it would solve the philosophical riddle of "how did it all begin" but see humans have a problem with comprehending the reality of "infinity" our minds naturaly lean towards a belief of "start and end" because thats how our mortal minds work, its actualy impossible for our brains to physically comprehend true infinity, but we can comprehend the notion of infinity and explain its meaning,


but to comprehend the meaning of infinity and actualy grasp infinity as reality are 2 different things,


peace.

 

If existence is the result of an aspect of nothingness, then there also would not be an official "start" of anything. Nothingness cannot have an official starting time, either. In other words, infinity is quite at home with nothingness.

 

I haven't read all these pages, but I have a response to the original question:

The topic of this forum is like people of the 8th century asking themselves why the earth would be round when so many think it is flat.