This is a thread about the creation of the universe and everything.

I think this one goes to Doulos, as I think he may be the most willing to look at the idea of the creation of the universe.



Doulos, do you believe the universe had a beginning?

Also, do you believe that anything that has a beginning has a cause?

Sure, the universe that we live in probably "began" in some way. (Though that term has baggage of its own, and doesn't account for any multiverse ideas either)

Yes, things that have a beginning, also have a cause, but only if the concept of time is as we know it now.

Alright.

If the universe has a beginning, then it has a cause.

As an agnostic/atheist, you wouldn't assume natural causes, as natural did not exist before the universe was created. (Natural causes could not exist before natural existed)

So what caused the universe to begin?

One thing we can establish is that there would be no natural causes for the universe.

Not really.

Cause and effect require time for it to happen.  If the universe did not exist, time didn't exist, and therefore cause and effect didn't exist.  Thus, there did not need to be a cause.

If time was also created when the Universe was then I don't see an issue at all.

The very idea of something being 'caused' is dependant on time being the way it is now, and we have no way of knowing if that was the case when the Universe (as we know it) came into being.

You mean the cause was timeless? You shouldn't mean the beginning of the universe was not caused because time did not exist.

Since everything with a beginning does have a cause. Scientifically we know things just don't start without a cause. Like if we were walking down the street and we saw a basketball on the street, we wouldn't ever naturally assume it appeared spontaneously from nothing, we'd assume it was left behind by some kid, or another reasonable explanation. Because of science, we know things with a beginning have cause.

I think we can establish that the cause of the beginning of the universe could not be natural, and must be timeless, since it was before natural and time existed.

Why can't the cause be natural, but in a way that we don't understand in our current understanding of the Universe?  Or our Universe was birthed from a different Universe that has no time and totally different realities etc.

There are so many options out there that could be possible.

I'm also not including ideas based on Quantum theory in which the Universe actually is created out of nothing essentially.

At the end of the day I am no physicist, but many very bright physicists have all sorts of ways to theorize a Universe that comes out of nothing, so I'm not too worried about it.

I think we can establish that time did have a beginning. The universe could not have been here for infinite. What happens to energy and matter over time? 2nd law of thermodynamics says it goes from order to chaos. Over enough time it all breaks down. If the universe has been around for infinite, well then what happens to energy over an infinite of time?

The Universe "as we know it now" had some sort of beginning.  The theories as to what caused it are many - God being one of them that is way way down my list (but will likely always remain a possibility, just an almost infinitely slim one)

Why can't it natural causes? Well if natural did not exist until the universe did, then it was not around until it was created.

Put another way, if natural did not exist, how could it be around to cause itself to exist?

I would agree that it had to start with nothing. Otherwise there wouldn't be a beginning.

If natural did not exist?  I don't even understand what that means.

No, no, and no.

You presuppose linear time existed.  In point of fact, that wasn't the case according to the theories we have as present.  However, I suspect that will go over your head (I know parts of it go over mine) so I'll try a different approach.

I'll counterpropose with a Buddhist example.  The universe exists, has always existed, and always will.  The cycles of expansion and crunch are just endless repetitions of the same event, over and over.  By that standard, the universe never came into being: it just grows and shrinks eternally.
This message was last edited by the player at 06:06, Sun 29 Dec 2013.

Nature, natural causes, the universe is natural.

In other words, if the universe didn't exist, it's not around to be cause of its existence.

Well I know linear time did not exist before time existed. It cannot exist if there was nothing.
sure, except we know 2nd law of thermodynamics proves we would have gone through all of our energy if infinite amount of time had passed.

We do know that infinite time has not passed, and we do know the universe had a beginning. And everything with a beginning has a cause.

Where I ran across this I don't remember, but someone said one of the things that puzzled  astronomers was an appearance that the matter in this universe is not scattered evenly around the center of the middle of the expanding matter.  They said that it seemed there was a plane with a ring of heavier density expanding with the rest.

To me if that was not just an instrument artifact, the most plausible cause would be two accelerating expanding universes outer shells colliding at speed.  Creating this big bang.

You *assume* all three, but cannot prove it.

In point of fact, if we assume the universe is in a constant state of expansion and contraction, it could be that time is indeed infinite (In fact, inside a black hole, time is infinite or nearly so).  We don't know that the universe had a beginning, exactly, we know it started expanding at a certain point but we don't know what happened before that.  It could be simply that the universe simply goes through periods of contractions and expansions naturally.

Alright, let's go through this.

If the universe has been around for infinite time, and energy and matter goes through expansion and contraction, what happens to that energy over time?


Eventually, it would break down.

Now has enough time passed for it to break down then?

If infinite, there's more than enough time to break down, since no matter how many years it takes to break down completely, infinite contains enough years for it to happen already.

So we know the universe has not been around for infinite years, which means it had a beginning.



Now, last part of your comments, assumption that everything with a beginning has a cause. While I can accept it is assumption based on the evidence available, why would you feel not everything with a beginning has a cause? In your city, do you have things popping up from nothing more than I do where I live? Are you saying that universes are special exceptions to this rule of having things appear from nothing? Why assume universes are the exception to the rule?

Well, fine, but then there is some other "form" of natural at the point of creation.

For some they assume a deity was that form.  For others they try and use science to find out what the was since creating what they would consider an imaginary creature (God) seems like the wrong way to go about the problem.  Not knowing how our Universe came into being exactly is not a reason to insert another unprovable and unknowable factor (God) into the equation.

Another form of natural? Wouldn't that mean something not natural?

We can agree that it could not be natural causes if natural was not around though right?

Just to be clear, you're not saying natural existed before natural existed, are you?

We don't know what exactly occurred when the Universe was created, that's all I know.

But we have some clues that are obvious such as a beginning, and that all things with a beginning have a cause. We can agree to that right?

I think we can also agree that natural causes cannot exist before natural exists too, agreeable?

I agree there is a beginning (that seems to be the most likely case for our Universe given where we are at in our knowledge)

I agree that all things that have a beginning have a cause.



This is where there is some clarity needed.  Natural causes, as we know them, would not exist before the Universe was created.

That leaves a whole host of other things that could be possible.

Okay. We have a starting point where we agree.

</quote>

Okay, what could some possibilities be?

I can't understand the science well enough to give you a clear answer.  However I'm intrigued by the ideas that there are really smart people who can give answers to this if you're interested.

Sure, you can present ideas as you like.


Right now, we can agree that the evidence shows that the universe had a beginning, that all things with a beginning have a cause, and that the natural universe as we know it could not cause itself to exist, since it did not exist at the time.

We also know that this cause was timeless, since time did not exist before time existed.

So at the moment, we should be able to agree that the cause was timeless, and not natural.


We should also be able to conclude that time, matter and space are tied to each other. If time did not exist, then neither would matter or space.

Which is how we know that nothing existed before the universe began.

Agreeable?

Yes, the most likely theory is that the Universe had a beginning.
Yes, all things that have a beginning have a cause.

Did the natural universe as it existed cause itself to begin?  The jury is out on this one I believe.  There are some fascinating things in quantum physics that may or may not be true.

Was the cause timeless?  Potentially, though not certainly.  Depends on the answer to the question previously regarding the natural universe creating itself.

Are time, matter and space tied to each other? No idea.  Not smart enough to know the ramifications of such a statement.

So we have lots of unanswered questions that I choose to continue allowing the scientific process to fill in, which you choose to allow God to fill in.

I disagree with a few points of your premise.

Specifically, you seem to be pushing that time and 'natural things' only exist within our universe. But we don't know what's outside of our universe (if anything). Our technology still doesn't let us reach the edge of the universe we're in, to say nothing about what's past that boundary.

There are some hypothesis on what exists 'outside' of our universe, but they're just that, and they're untestable with our current level of technology. I'm happy to discuss branes and strings with anyone with the patience for it. But the point is, 'we just don't know'. This doesn't mean that nothing exists outside of the universe -- or that anything exists outside! We have no way of knowing yet. We're like the ancient Greeks trying to guess what the stars are or how the sun moves across the sky. With no way to test it, everything is just guesswork and good stories.

Fortunately, science as a discipline is not one that is disproven as a whole by not knowing one part. In fact, science is built on being wrong about things and refining our understanding.

Well, deductive logic says something that did not exist wasn't around to cause itself into existence.

If it was around before it was around, that doesn't make much sense.

But I'll leave this for someone else. It looks like this isn't something you want to discuss further.


Same deductive logic as above. Time cannot be around before time is around to cause itself to exist.

The physicists can confirm this. (I suspect other scientists too)

I have been using science to answer these questions. These are principles accepted by all scientists. (Well, I suppose I should say most if you are suggesting that other scientists are saying that time was involved before time existed.)

I appreciate the responses Trust in The Lord.  At the end of the day we truly seem to differ on how we choose to fill the gaps in knowledge.

Well, I am going by the evidence. That does give me a slight advantage here.

I believe the fact that we need to have the discussion seems to indicate that both sides believe they are going by the evidence.

I disagree Doulos. I'm referring to scientific principles which are proven, not theories that are discussed that are not proven.

Time, space, and matter are dependent on each other.

Everything with a beginning has a cause.

The universe cannot be around for infinite.

Disagreeing is your right, though I also believe I am attempting to use evidence.

You're citing the laws of thermodynamics as your evidence.

The problem is, we *know* those laws break down at the point of singularity.

So, we cannot know what happens beyond a certain point, only that time and conservation of energy may not be factors anymore.

For all the help evidence provides when saying "I don't know", I agree.

I know your answer is 'God did it'. However, from a scientific perspective:
1) God isn't testable (or at least, hasn't consented to testing in a scientific manner so far).
2) The theory of God doesn't fit the facts any better than any other theory.
3) The theory of God doesn't answer any questions we might have about physics. In fact, when we've tied God to previous physical events, it actually gave us wrong answers.
4) If we discover some other first cause, say string theory, the Theory of God just adjusts to say "oh yes, well that's the tool that God used", or worse, denies the scientific theory even when the scientific theory results in actual, physical devices which prove it's correct.
5) When scientists discover a first cause and prove their theories correct through testing and observation, the people who said 'the creation of the universe is clear proof of God!' look pretty dumb, doing a great disservice to them and, worse, to God.

I think part of the problem here is we're getting science and religion mixed up. Science has some very specific requirements which religion rarely provides for:
1) The ability to test and observe your ideas
2) The ability to admit you're wrong

This doesn't mean that religion is a bad thing at all! And science does a terrible job and playing religion. My point is only that we need to recognize what falls into the realm of science, and what is in the realm of religion.

How the universe was created is in the realm of science. Why the universe was created is in the realm of religion (and, IMO, the much more interesting of the two questions).

Well, I'm stating the law of thermodynamics is showing why infinite years are not possible for the universe.


You think infinite years is possible, okay, why?

I'm no expert on cosmology, so I can't comment on what may have come before or caused the big bang. There is one thing I'd appreciate people clearing up for me, though: when you say "the universe", what exactly do you mean?

Is it:
1) The event radius of the big bang?
2) A larger realm that contains the cause of the big bang?
3) Everything that exists (including God, if he exists)?

I think the universe most people would talk about are all things that exist in known space.

Some people could mean additional ideas such as multiverses, or perhaps even things such as heaven and hell, or spiritual matters.

But I think with science, most people would limit it to your first idea, the big bang and all it encompasses.

It could include item 3, everything that exists, God included. There's nothing really wrong with 1 or 3, as both uses the same principles/theories.

Well, for one thing, the energy lost to thermodynamics is lost as heat/entropy, diffusing out into space.  It's not lost for good, it's simply unusable by any practical means.  However, the universe doesn't need to "lose" that energy, especially when the laws of time and thermodynamics cease to apply.  So yes, infinite repetitions of expansion and contraction are possible.

Okay, so we agree that the energy is not returned and used at 100% efficiency. But what isn't clear, is why you think that gradual waste is later returned 100% to restart the universe over and over infinite.


With everything going from order to chaos, you're going to need to provide more than just saying "it's okay, ignore the 2nd law, because it's all good."

I'm going to need to see some evidence before I just believe that infinite years makes sense, when science says otherwise.

I would categorize the universe as #1; basically, as far as our telescopes can see, plus a little further. It does NOT include the 'multiverse' or other branes, and so on. I don't know whether God is encompassed in the universe. I assume He is bigger than the universe, otherwise He would be bound by the rules of the universe, and so not truly omnipotent.

TitL brings up a really exciting point. Namely, that black holes and other singularities seem to break a lot of the laws of the universe. Time stops, space stretches and breaks, energy is apparently lost, and so on. I'm about to tuck into bed, but I can talk about this more tomorrow if you'd like. I do a fair bit of amateur studying of things like black holes and twists in time as it directly supports my second job.

Again, you misuse the laws of thermodynamics.  Basically, things progress from a more ordered to less ordered state unless energy is applied.

Energy is never actually "lost" (that would violate conservation), it simply dissipates into uselessness.  In a closed system, energy is never lost, and by our best guess the universe is a closed system.  So, all the energy of the universe is still out there, just hanging around as useless heat.  However, given enough accumulation, that random waste heat can still add up and become a factor.

Look at it this way.  If the universe is a closed system, where would the excess energy dissipate to?  It has to go somewhere.  The answer is that it stays right here in the universe: not a joule is actually lost, it's simply rendered unusable.

At any event, you can't have years without time, and time can be infinite in a singularity (or near enough as to make no appreciable difference)

And that doesn't even take into account the possibility of a multiverse.  Should one exist, then the universe as we know it could be drawing energy from another source, allowing infinite expansion and contraction.

The primary theory for God is based on First Cause, so even the Big Bang needed something to start it.  However, I concede that there are recent scientific discoveries demonstrating how there doesn't necessarily have to be a First Cause.  The next question would be whether God is needed even if he didn't "create" everything.  (Of course, He could always create stuff even if there was no need for it, but the proof of the requirement of God is what is being addressed here.)

I think when we get into this discussion we get hung up on a few points.  Some of them are:

1.  Scientists think of the big bang as a "beginning" of the universe, but not necessarily as the "beginning" of the laws that govern nature.  That's a distinction that can confuse the issue, since are we talking about the "beginning" of the 2nd law of thermodynamics, or just the "beginning" of things which are subject to it?  TitL seems to be talking about both, but its not clear that the laws of physics "started" as such at any point in time (thus requiring a "cause" by the argument).

2.  It is often stated that anything that has a beginning has a cause, but I'm not convinced this is true.  The radioactive decay of a nucleus of one atom into another doesn't seem to have any cause, but instead just happens randomly.  We can make statements about the probability of the decay happening within a given amount of time, but there doesn't seem to be, as far as I know, any event which makes it go off at one particular time.  It just randomly seems to happen at any old time.  Which is very weird to our brains, which deal with reality at a far different scale, where that kind of thing isn't apparent.  But the more we learn about quantum mechanics, the more we realize that some "obvious" things aren't actually true.  And since the "singularity" at the "start" of the big bang would presumably include lots and lots of weird quantum effects, we need to be careful not to misapply "common sense" where it isn't valid.

3.  I think there's always a big leap in "if the universe had a cause, that cause must be the deity my religion follows!"  Why does it have to be a deity at all?  Could something like "the laws of physics" be the "first cause"?  Could "the vacuum?"  Does it have to be a conscious being?

4.  The whole argument that God doesn't need a cause because He's eternal seems like a cop out to me.  If reality requires a cause, surely God does too, no?  It seems only be assertion that God can exist without a cause.  There doesn't seem to be any logical backing to this to me.

Basically, to me, the question is beyond what we can currently test.  That makes it interesting in someways, but less interesting in others.  Each time we build bigger detectors and telescopes and the like, and are able to look back a bit further into the past, I find it fascinating.  But pure speculation without any way to test it doesn't do as much for me.

Obviously, we can't test it.  But most assume the laws of physics are fairly constant, just like math, outside of deity.  I for one don't think those laws were invented but are eternal.  All God does is manipulate them.

But the First Cause argument begs the question of how can something exist at all if nothing created it.  Something would have to have started the ball rolling because not everything could have existed eternally.

I question the First Cause argument, but there is logical comfort in it because it puts the burden of proof on others to demonstrate how something can just "exist" without any outside force exerting pressure to make it "exist".

In reply to Heath (msg # 46):

But doesn't it just shift the question from "how can the universe exist if nothing caused it" to "how can God exist if nothing caused Him?"  It doesn't really seem to answer the question, unless you accept "God did it" as a finally answer to everything.  It doesn't tell us how something can exist without something else to cause it, it just changes the "something" in question.

Your example of things with a beginning not needing a cause is something that turns from one molecule to another? And we know it happens, and we know it will happen, and we have forumla's for determining the decay rate? How is this an example of something beginning without cause?

Did you have a better example of things appearing from nowhere without a reason?

I mean if you saw a soccer ball in the middle of the street, what would you think of the reason for it being there? Spontaneous creation of leather, thread and rubber into that form?

If the universe can pop into existence without cause, why doesn't everything from ice cream to cars to more universes pop into existence without cause all the time?



The reason God isn't a leap is because of the evidence. We can go over it step by step.

The premise is anything with a beginning has a cause.God doesn't have a beginning, and so would not be held to the same premise.

The universe did have a beginning, and since all things with a beginning do have a cause....
I understand you are taking the process one step further than the universe, and that's okay. But just because you have one more question does not mean the universe no longer has a cause for it's beginning.

A nucleus decaying from one thing to some other things.  It's not that it's "coming from nothing," but rather that the event doesn't have a cause.  It seems to be a random event that could happen at any moment with equal probability.


Well, what's the cause?  I don't know of a cause.  Yes we can predict the decay rate of a large sample of a substance, but for any individual nucleus, we can't predict when it's going to decay.  It just randomly does at some unpredictable moment.


Out of nowhere?  Where is "no where?"  We know that "virtual particles" pop in and out of existence all the time, though that's said to come from the "vacuum energy" (which I admit I don't really grasp), so I don't know if that counts as "from nowhere" or not.


No, if I found a soccer ball, I'd assume it had similar origins to all the other soccer balls I've seen.  Having only ever seen one universe, and not knowing for certain where it came from, I can't use the same reasoning.


Good question.  Maybe they do, but just so rarely that we never see them?  Or maybe only whole "universes" pop into existence, rather than man-made bits and pieces?  Or maybe there was a "cause" for the universe popping into existence, but it's something like the laws of physics, or the "vacuum energy" or some phenomenon in another universe, or who knows?  I definitely don't claim to know the answer, and I mistrust anyone who does.  It's a realm of physics well beyond our current understanding (or at very least well beyond mine), and using day-to-day reasoning on quantum problems usually leads to getting the wrong answer.  The universe doesn't actually work like we think it does, once we push it beyond the energy levels and length scales we're used to dealing with.  The assumption "everything that starts has a cause" isn't one I'm ready to make in that kind of domain.


I guess I'd say that if you haven't given the "evidence" as part of the argument, then it is a big leap to those trying to follow it.  If you want to convince people, it's not enough to just feel really confident that you're right.


But what if I said "my premise is that everything that exists has a cause"?  Now it should apply to God too, right?  And the assumption seems just as valid, since you can't give me any example of anything in the world not having a cause, right?  If you saw a soccer ball on the street, you'd expect it to have a cause, right? ;)


But if the explanation doesn't solve our problem (something existing without a cause), then it doesn't actually explain anything, and we should maybe re-examine our assumptions.

Had another thought on this:
If there has never been a time when something didn't exist, did that thing "have a beginning"?

This might matter because cosmologist sometimes say that time didn't exist before the big bang.  That would mean there was never a point in time when the universe didn't exist, because time didn't exist until the universe did (whatever that means).  Which could imply that the universe didn't have a "beginning" as such, since there was never a moment when it didn't exist.  It has existed during all moments.  I'm not sure I'm convinced by the argument, but figured I'd throw it out there to see what people think.

Completely reasonable, and doesn't involve the need to create a new factor (God) to explain origins.

No, because that argument assumes God is bound within the universe, and most (especially Catholics, I believe) do not believe God is part of the created universe.

(I'm speaking a little out of turn here because the LDS belief is more in line with God being eternal and never "creating" anything, but merely shaping things that are eternal and giving them form, so the LDS belief is more in line with the lack of a need for a First Cause, IMHO.)

Quantum foam is spontaneously created. We just see the spontaneous creation of quantum particles and anti-particles, which normally cancel each other out. However, as they don't behave quite the same, we do see macro effects. For example, near black holes the one particle gets caught in the gravity, leaving the other to fly away free, resulting in a radiation 'shadow' for a celestial object that captures all radiation nearby it.

So yes, some things just spontaneously 'appear' with no apparent cause.

Yes, I think that was one of the things I was thinking about above in my original post.  There was another I read about in Scientific American a couple years ago, but it escapes me at the moment.

But it's not random, it even has a prediction timeline saying when a half life is. I understand any one molecule changing from another is less predictable, but it's not random, rather, we just have not seen the cause. I know you understand the difference.



Virtual particles? Couldn't they come up with a better name, like imaginary particles? ;)

So tell me more about virtual particles.

Same reasoning is a good thing. Since we typically don't see that begin to exist without a cause, why assume the universe doesn't have a cause then?

Since this seems like a pretty basic concept, why can't you agree that all things that begin to exist has a cause?

Because of a virtual particle? Because you have a couple possible ideas, that means it's ludicrous to go further with the concept that the universe has a cause?



I can demonstrate that logic is not valid.

If something is the cause of God, then whatever caused God is God, because if something caused God, then it is more powerful than God. God is the most powerful being in existence. Anything less is not God.

Keep in mind, the cause for the universe beginning could also be a previous universe, a multiverse, etc. Certainly it would not be a soccer ball, right?

So if there were a premise we could agree with, would you agree that if atheism is true, then there is no explanation for the universe?

No, that'd be incorrect. That's like saying you cannot play soccer until you know how a soccer ball is manufactured.

If you understand the cause of the universe, but not the cause of the cause of the universe, you still know more than not knowing the cause of the universe.

Circular logic fallacy.  And it doesn't help the discussion, because a god isn't needed for the universe to be eternal or have a start/finish.

Actually, as far as we can tell, it IS random.  That's what I'm getting at.  At the quantum level, things don't happen the same way they do at the scales we're used to.  The rules are very different to what we're used to.  And one of the ways that it appears to be different is that things really are random and unpredictable.  Not in the way that we're used to, where if we just knew a all the starting conditions better we'd be able to better predict the outcome, but it a fundamental way.  You simply cannot tell when an individual nucleus is going to decay.  Not like "we don't know how to tell", but like "the laws of physics seem to say its impossible to know."  It's weird, really.  And people have worked really, really hard to show that it's not that way, but it keeps turning out to be that way.  Its part of why quantum mechanics is so hard to do, because it's so different from what we consider to be common sense.  But it seems that at the quantum level, reality just don't obey commons sense.


Here's the Wiki entry on them.  It's fairly heady stuff, but it's not something I'm making up.  Again, when you look deeply enough into how the universe works, common sense seems to break down.  I don't claim to have a great understanding of it.  I just know enough to know that assuming things work at that level like they do at our scales usually leads to big mistakes.


We don't "typically" see anything about the universe, though.  We've got one example to go one.  I've seen many soccer balls.  I've seen many things inside the universe.  But I've only ever seen one universe (and I haven't seen but a tiny, tiny fraction of it).


Because it's not clear to me that that that is true at these levels.  I've mentioned a couple cases of things that seem to begin "without a cause" already.  And I've pointed out that our common-sense ideas for things like footballs and rocks and trees just don't apply at the quantum (and relativistic) scales.  I'm not necessarily saying that what you say is definitely wrong, just that I'm not ready to make the leap to believing it's true.  I don't know if things can start without a cause or not at the quantum level.  You're sure that they can't, and that's great for you, but I'm guessing you don't understand quantum mechanics all that much better than I do, so your reason for being so sure isn't based on expertise, but just on a strong gut feeling.  I don't have that strong gut feeling.


No, it's just not logical to adopt an assumption as true if we're not actually sure that it IS true.  Your argument depends on this assumption, but I'm not convinced that assumption is true.


Ah, okay, then I can demonstrate the universe doesn't have a cause too then.  See, if something caused the universe, it must be bigger than the universe, but since the universe is the biggest thing there is, nothing could have caused it.  Ta da!  See, it's not very convincing, is it?  It depends on assumptions which you don't share, so it's not going to change your mind.  Likewise, what you said doesn't convince me, because it's just based on your assumptions, which I don't share.


Depends on what you mean by that.  Do you mean that I don't have an explanation?  Sure, I can agree with that.  There are many things I can't explain.  But do you mean that no explanation is possible?  No, I wouldn't agree with that.



But we don't "understand" the cause, you're just trying to logic one into existence to fix an identified problem.  But if that problem isn't solved (ie, something still exists without a cause) then the solution you propose doesn't actually seem correct.


Finally, you might have missed the bit I posted after my other post.  It raised the question of whether something that has existed during every moment of time "has a beginning".  Cosmologists sometimes say that time didn't exist before the big bang, so there was no "before" the big bang.  I'll admit I struggle to wrap my head around what that even means.  But if it's true, the universe perhaps didn't have a beginning at all, since it existed at every moment of time.  There was no time you could look back to and say "Here! At this instant the universe didn't exist, and then a bit later it did!"  Can you provide a firm definition of "has a beginning" that avoids that issue?

Another thought:  You believe that its possible for something to exist without a cause (God).  But this is the ONLY thing for which you feel this is the case, right?  If not, can you give another example of something that exists without a cause?  Because if not, I propose you're stuck in the same jam as the rest of us.  You have to assume that something exists without a cause (and you DO make that assumption).  But you deny us that option.  You don't let us say "well, there's only 1 thing that exists without a cause, and it's the universe itself."  Which makes it seem like we're both stuck by the same issue, to me.

In reply to Tycho (msg # 57):

Coming into this late, and not wanting to scroll back through three pages of posts, may I ask if anybody has brought up Rabbi Isaac Luria's myth of what existed before B'reshit?

And as this is my first post, might as well introduce myself!  I'm your friendly neighborhood dybbuk!  Jewish by birth and practice, and with a degree in Religious Studies.

Nope, that's a new one for us here dybbuk67, at least as far as I know.  Welcome to the discussion!

I hope you'll share Rabbi Luria's story!

In reply to dybbuk67 (msg # 58):

No, never heard of that, do tell!  Will be nice to have fresh perspective for this!

In reply to Tycho (msg # 61):

I am doing this from memory, so bear with me.
First off, a bit about Luria.  He was a 15th-16th century rabbi who settled in Tsfat after the expulsion from Spain.  A brilliant Kabbalist, he died quite young, but his work forms the basis for most of what we think of as modern kabbalistic thought.  (As practiced by Jews, I'm not sure what is the basis for the stuff Madonna et al are practicing.) I will also say right off that my knowledge of Hebrew is very rusty, and wasn't all that good to begin with.

Luria was one of the kabbalists who stated that before b'reshit, ("in the beginning,") there was no place for creation, as God was all there was.  Eyn Sof, litterally "without end."  In order to create the world, God needed to withdraw from an area in order to have room to create.  Sparks of creative energy (nitzuzot) were sent into the new space in some sort of vessel (if memory is correct, they were vessels of light, but its been a few years since my last reading of the story).

When the work of creation was complete, God went to recall the vessels, and this is where something went wrong.  Some have called it sin, others have called it "God's stern judgement," cracked and shattered the vessels.  The nitzuzot, those creative sparks, fell to earth.

Through our actions, those sparks are redeemed, and thus returned to God.  While the Jewish people have a very specific road map (the 615 mitzvot) for how to do so, any person can redeem them through their acts.

I know Kabbalah can be very metaphorical. Do you (or Jews in general) consider that to be a literal reading?

In reply to katisara (msg # 63):

To me, the story has a ring of truth to it, literal or not.
As to Jews on a whole, many would not have even heard that story.  As to those who have, I'd say we'd be safe with the old truism of "two Jews, three opinions" here.

In reply to dybbuk67 (msg # 62):

This sounds to me more like a story with a moral (ie, there's something wrong or faulty with us, and we have to earn our way back into God's good graces), rather than one that tells us much about the details of how the universe got started.  It's more about us (and a little about God, perhaps), than about the universe.  Would you agree with that, or have I missed/misunderstood something important in the story?

In reply to Tycho (msg # 65):

(Sorry...dealing with a hacked bank account issue for the past couple days.  I will be back to discuss more fun stuff like the origin of the world in a day or so.)

In reply to dybbuk67 (msg # 66):

Och, that sounds pretty horrible!  Hope it all gets sorted for you.

Also, no rush on replying to anything I write, I tend to have some days when I'm able to reply quickly to anything, then a few days in a row where I don't have time to post, so don't feel like you need to reply to anything quickly.