To all believers on this site...

[appolose]

ManusJustus said:

Tispower1 said:

Overwhelming evidence for the 'Big Bang' has given us evidence that the universe did in fact have a start.

Somehow came into being without a cause, or was caused by something that was uncaused.

Christians don't claim to have physically seen God, surely the best way of convincing people to follow a lie would be to tell them you saw something?

Three statements I find issues with:

1. The fact that there was a Big Bang doesn't mean that the universe started with the Big Bang.  The Big Bang was a huge explosion of energy from a single point in space, but that doesnt mean that space-time and physical laws did not exist before this explosion.  Have you heard the idea of an oscillating unvierse?  Where energy is condensed to a single point, expands due to physical forces, then collapses back in itself to repeat the process.  Have you heard of the idea of nil energy?  Where the total amount of energy in the unvierse is zero with positive and negative energies being seperated (think of the equation 1-1=0).  The underlying point here is that we cant see past the Big Bang (to the best of our knowledge), so its only an assumption that the universe started at this point in time.

2. So you suggest that God came into being without cause, but you insist that everything else must have a cause?

3. Christians have made such claims.  One of the biggest points in Christianity is that God came to Earth in the form of Jesus, or however you interpret this complicated monotheistic relationship.  Thats not to mention other stories of seeing or being in contact with God, such as Moses and the burning bush (a great example regarding your above point) or regular people who claim to have an experience with angels or God.

(notwithstanding, the objections of sqrl)

1.  The problem with an oscillating universe is that such a case would mean an infinite amount of time has passed for us to have reached this point in time, as the oscillating universe idea avoids the problem of a beginning.  An infinite amount of time cannot be transversed, so I find the idea to be unsubstantiated.

2.  The idea that God exists without cause can work; He is outside of time, and thus could "always have" existed, so he never actually came into being.

 EDIT: Ah, Tispower's responded already.

Feel free to ignore this post, then.