To all believers on this site...

[appolose]

ManusJustus said:

Tispower1 said:

1. What about energy loss/entropy, surely eventually the universe would stop expanding, plus I seem to remember my physics teacher telling us that the rate at which the universe is expanding atm is increasing, which definately wouldn't fit with that theory, though unfortunately I have no idea what the source was on that! :(

2. According to atheistic beliefs the material universe is all there is, Christianity plus I'm sure other religions (!) accept that what there is around us isn't all there is, it isn't that weird to have a God who doesn't need a cause as he works outside of the constraints of a purely physical universe.

3. I was referring to many things people may make up nowadays. However, Jesus is a moot point given that even non-Christian primary sources from the period indicate he existed, rather than historical records (ie not stories/myths etc) indicating say Unicorns exist in modern times.

I'll try to comment on both posts.

1. If the universe stopped expanding it would collapse upon itself, perhaps eventually resulting in another Big Bang.  That is true, scientists believe the universe is actually accelerating away from each other, which would mean an repulsive force our the universe (Dark Energy?) or an attractive force outside of our universe.

Why cant time be infinite?  Are you suggesting that time will not go on forever, regardless of the shape that our universe is in?  I have more concern with infinite energy (omnipotent being) which would violate the laws the physics, not to mention that such a source would have an infinitely strong gravitational attraction.  I'm leaving out mention of the spiritual realm because, like other examples, there is no way to know if it exists and what properties it has.

2. But religious assumptions of a supernatural being outside of the physical realm is just that, assumptions.  Humans desire to understand the world around them, for the same reason (in my opinion) ancient humans created religion we create theories today about concepts we dont have a grasp of.  Dark energy, dark matter, accelerating universe, before the Big Bang, are concepts that we are not able to grasp with today's technology.  Hopefully, one day will we understand these phenomena, but it seems that the trend has always been science over religious belief, and thats not to mention some other silly scientific ideas too.

3. Jesus existing and Jesus being the son of God (or a manifestation of God, how this fits within monotheism confuses me) are two different things.  We also know that Mohammed and pharoah gods existed, for comparison's sake we have a lot more about them than Jesus.

 

No, I'm suggesting that the oscillating universe idea implies that an infinite amount of time has already passed, which is impossible.  I'm not saying that time couldn't keep going, I'm saying that we can't have crossed an infinite period of time.