Nothing>God>Everything



Is at least as unlikely as



Nothing>Big Bang>Everything



Either way, you have to start at nothing, or start at everything. One requires a magical being. One requires something that we don't understand any better than a magical being. Just because we don't understand either doesn't disprove the possibility.

 

What does what I said have to do with the Big Crunch Theory? Big Crunch says everything expanded until it stopped, then contracted into one spot. That one spot then blew out again as the Big Bang. That's not what I'm saying. There was only one Big Bang. Before that, everything was contained in one spot. Always. Until the Big Bang... then everything expanded and continues to expand and will always continue to expand.

 

The problem is your brain is stuck thinking about finites. You need to wrap your head around infinite. There was never nothing. There was always everything. Nothing can't exist ever because it's nothing. The magical being always has been and always will be a "placeholder" for those who NEED an explanation before one is available.

 

Ah, I see. You're initial statement sounded more cyclic than that.

The problem is, we have no idea what is beyond the known universe. What ever that is (if anything) could, and likely will, eventually interact with the confines of our universe. That's not going to be pretty either. I don't see us expanding infinitely, everything is pretty much doomed the way I see it. We're all f*cked in the (very, very) long run.







As for the rest of this thread:

The funny thing I find about this entire topic is the idea that just because the big bang has been confirmed, that suddenly makes all religion invalid. No one has said anything about what caused the big bang. Now I'm not saying a magic man in the clouds did it 6000 years ago, far from. But there was a cause. And based on what we know about gravitational singularities, black holes, and now the origin and motion of our universe, the idea of the cyclic universe is out the window. So what caused the big bang? If it was gravitational discharge then there had to be some mass to super-condense prior to expulsion. That also insinuates the likelihood of another universe not too dissimilar in makeup from our own, on to opposite side of that blast. For that matter, how did that matter all become confined in the first place? No black hole (that we know about) is large enough to consume the entire universe. They can't even eat an entire galaxy without having to take a few belch breaks.

There are so many unknowns I see (reasonable) religion being just as plausible as anything else. Well, so long as we can all agree the earth is at least as old as fossil records indicate. SO basically, everyone but Stocker and Whatnot.

Until we can prove without doubt that there is no divine creator, using actual scientific method not just speculation, can we all just agree to leave theology out of the equation and focus on the topic at hand? It's distracting from the actual science.

 

I do believe "sh*t happens" is a valid scientific theory.









Like I said... "placeholder".

 

As I said, lets let both sides leave that argument alone. It tends to just muddy the water and neither side has a valid argument beyond historical document vs. fable. It's all equal bullshit until dis/proven







Actually no, that's not a valid scientific theory; though I do see what you're saying. However mass has to exist, and for the big bang to occur there has to exist a trigger. Something was there prior, nothing is that finite in science. And as stated, like with any other gravitational discharge there are 2 sides to that coin. All of the models perfectly imitate black hole discharge, which means that there is a 2nd universe beyond our own, comprised of the same basic building blocks and stemming from the same point in space/time, moving and expanding at the same rate. If a 2nd universe is this highly plausible, why can there not be many? It seems like the most likely scenario all info given and considered. It's reasonable to presume that eventually we'll all collide in some way. That I cannot imagine will happen peacefully.

 

The mass has always existed, so has all of the energy. Conservation.



There may be multiple universes, but they'll never collide as they will never exist at the same time.

 

I don't necessarily think I can agree to that, seeing current models vs. gravitational discharge we can observe. If there's arguable cause to believe that 2 universes exist sharing the same stem, then I see no reason to believe that more can exist. Though obviously I cannot prove it.



Though if you have plausible proof that only ours exists I'm keen to the discussion.

That's just seems a little short sighted, especially given the history of astronomy. Obviously I'm not suggesting mass/energy generation, I simply see a scenario where the universe, as we've both pointed out, continues to expand. However for the big bang to occur something had to cause the initial compacting. Given that the big crunch is out of the question, I see no other likely scenario given what we know about natural law.

Just for the sake of continued discussion. Not trolling (for once)

 

I believe there is one universe, but see no reason that in the infinite area around the observable universe another big bang could have happened and there could be one, multiple, or infinite places where this took place.

 

There you go, being all linear. Time is not linear. Because of this, there are other universes, they just don't exist at the same time as ours.