As an anthropologist who was picketed by the Fish Club on the way to teach my first physical anthro class in 1970, I've been dealing with these kinds of questions for years, I've heard all the fatuous arguments and needn't list them here. [read any of Michael Shermer's books if you need that]
So, I'll just a few quick quips as a shut'em retort.
Q.How did something come from nothing? A. Where did god come from. I suppose the universe likely come from the same place but we can SEE the early stages of the universe. Ain't no one seen god yet.
Q: If humans descended from monkeys, howcum we still got monkeys? A. If we didn't have monkeys, we wouldn't have theists.
Q: But, isn't evolution just a 'theory?" A: Yep. A damn good one at that, as verifiable as gravity. You don't believe in Gravity?
Q: The bible, especially the King James Version, is the inspired word of god. A: No shit? You mean he wrote or did some jamoke who just thought god was talking to him and wrote down what he thought sounded good to him?
Q: How do you explain biblical prophecy? A. What's to explain? Historical studies have shown time and time again, these handy prophecies that came about were written after the fact. Also, how many prophecies have been made that never turned out?
Q: I have a personal experience with Jesus. A: Hey, no big deal. Charkie, my roommate at Berkeley used to talk to Jesus twice a week when he was dropping acid.
Q: Biblical archaeologists have found proof of the bible. A: Not quite. What they have established is that the early Israelites never were in Egypt as slaves, there was no exodus, these early Israelites were also henotheists who believed their god, El, the sky god in the Canaanite pantheon was not the only god around--he was just THEIR god, there are at least 5 to 7 differing sources to the Hebrew bible and the Hebrews didn't become monotheists until they were influenced by the Zoroastrian Persians during their tenure in Mesopotamia after the destruction of the first temple by the Babylonians, 387 BCE.
Hey, we could go on and on. But, I thought this might getcha started.
Cheers,
Frank
the old cranky guy in Sac
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Good but 2 points we never descended from monkeys thats a theist slander designed so they can say 'why are there still monkeys.' We share a common genetic ancestor that is extinct.
Theory has a different meaning in science to the common usage refer to notjustatheory.com for more info.
Just watched Stephen Hawkins did god create the universe and he actually proved he didnt.
The biggest problem people have with the big bang is you cant get something from nothing.
Thats actually wrong on the subatomic level matter is created all the time. And heres the important part when the big bang happened the universe was subatomic!
There was no time, the density and mass acted like a black hole there was no time before the universe expanded no time for a god to do anything.
Finally we know from the natural laws everything has an equal opposite. All the matter and energy produced in the big bang created negative energy and we discovered that energy is spread through space.
By the way if a god was created an exact opposite would also have been created. Now thats not the devil the bible says satan was created when god made angels.
Lawrence Krauss gives a good explanation of how something can come from nothing and we also have the Higg's boson that appears and disappears, supposedly from nothing. Hawkins says time started at the big bang, but we can't see the big bang, we can only see what happened some time after the expansion. Time as we know it may have started at the big bang, but I'm with you, it's almost impossible for the human mind to conceive that something can come from nothing, so I believe that there was time, matter and energy before the bang and I'm not so sure that the bang isn't a reoccurring pulse that happens again and again throughout eternity, although IIRC some particle and astronomical physicists think that the expansion will not end and reverse. My hypothesis requires expansion and reversal of the expansion back to a singular point that triggers the expansion once again. These reoccurring bangs might have more than 50 billion years lapse in between them. I'm not sure that there aren't big bangs going on constantly outside of our viewable universe either.
Theres a recurring big bang theory that dosent require the crunch. Brian cox explained but it was too long ago what with my memory aphasia.
Something about potential left when the last bits of matter and energy fade out.
May also have to do with the constant creation and destruction of anti hydrogen and hydrogen apparently they don't always destroy each other.
He thinks there could actually be a fully functional galaxy made entirely of anti matter. But just a wild hypothesis.
Damn silly mistake and im his biggest fan argh.
Regarding your first point, to answer the question with another question without firstly answering the question posed commits the red-herring fallacy.
Secondly, timelessness entails absolute changelessness. If you do not exist within time, then there is no time for you to change.
God is timeless and, therefore, cannot change. To come into or go out of existence is change, so God can neither come into nor go out of existence, which means He has existed ceaselessly, or eternally.
Ah but your god changed, deny the ot god and the nt god are not different go on try it.
I love this whole What Happened Before the Big Bang? question - it absolutely blows my mind. The longer I ponder on it, the greater my sense of unreality and mild panic! The problem isn't how, it's WHY?
Why should there be a universe?
I can accept the whole subatomic interactions causing a cataclysmic eruption of matter; I can accept the 'no time prior' hypothesis, the 'endless loop' hypothesis, the 'we're inside a black hole' hypothesis and any of the others INCLUDING even the 'an intelligence did it' one (though that opens a whole can of worms I won't shake out here).
But what slightly freaks me out is trying to understand in what 'medium' did all this take place? WHY was there anything existent or non-existent, if that's your cuppa, before the birth of our current universe? If I imagine an infinite, timeless, nothingness from which burst forth these subatomic blips one day..... WHY should that happen? Why should anything at all be there in order to generate these blips? Why was the blank canvas there in the first place?
Oh my giddy aunt! What if there wasn't? Maybe there ISN'T? Aaargh!
Ha ha ha!
Incidentally, though the 'an intelligence did it' hypothesis absolutely does not need to connect to any of the gods, it amuses me how often the religious throw in the "well if the laws of physics had been off even by a fraction, the universe would have collapsed instantly - therefore God" apologetic, and consider it an un-trumpable argument against the universe arriving by cosmic accident.
Well that's simple... how do we know it DIDN'T fizzle out a gazillion times before the mathematics balanced out correctly?
Why are we assuming randomness at all, there might be random things but on the grand scale and on the micro scale there is evidence of incredible order.
We go around the sun every year and don't go randomly about in the universe randomly.
Our atoms agree with each other to be us. They don't go wondering about randomly.
So assuming disorder is wrong
Assuming complete order is wrong
Assuming that; order or disorder = god, is also wrong.
Assuming anything without evidence is wrong.
Thus theist are wrong because they are assuming without evidence, not because they are right or wrong about the universe.
Very simple concept that should put theist into hibernation.
@Shock of God: You've rather shot yourself in the foot with that argument, fella, as you're dead right - without the passage of time, nothing at all will change. That means no process; specifically for this argument, no thought process, no making the decision or even taking the action of waving an ethereal hand and saying "hocus pocus" to get the universe going.
If you exist outside of time, you existing a state of complete stasis. Your god would be as much use as a brick. Except that a brick would need the passage of time in order to exist, or how else would its electrons orbit their nuclei?