It seems to me that the "bottom line" of such a discussion boils down to whether one tends to feel that energy/matter always existed in one form or another or that a deity (or deities) always existed in one form or another. As far as I'm concerned, I drift in favor of the former largely because we know that energy/matter exists and appears to be ever changing, but we don't know if a deity or deities exist(s).

This position proves nothing of course, nor am I by any means certain that it is correct.

__________________
"The further the spiritual evolution of mankind advances, the more certain it seems to me that the path to genuine religiosity does not lie through the fear of life, and the fear of death, and blind faith, but through striving after rational knowledge."-- Einstein

No it didn't, you're looking at time as if it's some absolute thing.

I understand that there isn't some universal clock somewhere and that we made up seconds, minutes, hours, days, months, years, and so forth to measure time. All because we made up the method of measuring it doesn't mean it doesn't exists. We created yard sticks but that doesn't mean we created length, width, and height. We live in a world of cause and effect and because of that things change. This change we call time. We didn't create the fourth dimension any more than we created the first three.

Before I read this version of the cosmological argument I already took the impossibility of an infinite past as a given. So, when I read his argument I didn't put as much thought into it as I am now. This is the first time I ever had to think it though and come up with a way to explain why I believe it to be an impossibility because this is my first time debating someone on it. So, I've been feeling confused and been having trouble explaining it. Today I cleared my head, thought carefully about it, and I think I have a better way to explain my point.

We both agree that the past has been completely traversed. When we talk about it being traversed we are saying that all past events were once the present before they became the past. In other words, everything in the past happened. We know this to be true because this present moment's existence is dependent upon those past events occurring. Another thing we both agree on is that it is logically possible for there to be an infinite future. So, I'll first explain why I believe that an infinite future can not be traversed and show how that relates to an infinite past not being traversed.

There could be a finite future and there could be an infinite future. When I say a finite future I mean that every future moment will eventually become the present and time will come to an end with no more future because every future moment that becomes the present would subtract moments from the future. So, a finite future is one that will become completely traversed. When I say an infinite future I mean that every future moment can not become the present and time will never come to an end with no more future because every future moment that becomes the present would still have an infinite future after it. So, an infinite future can not be traversed. In other words, a finite future is a traversable future and an infinite future is an untraversable future. So, believing that a finite future can't be traversed and believing that an infinite future can be traversed is believing in contradictions.

The same applies to the past. If it can't be traversed than it is infinite and if it can be traversed than it is finite. Since we know that the past has been traversed we can be certain that it is finite.

"TRAVERSABLE=FINITE,UNTRAVERSABLE=INFINITE!"

__________________
"I fully comprehended the power of the human mind at the exact moment I came to the realization that I'm totally insane and have no idea what I'm talking about."

The conservation of energy/matter was something I thought about earlier today but I couldn't think of exactly how to add it to this conversation. You added it before me. So, Thanks!

I understand where you're coming from but as you know I feel the opposite and believe a deity always existed. I agree that energy/matter exists and appears to be ever changing but I interpret that fact the opposite that you are. Since we can't create it, destroy it, and keep it from changing then it is very reasonable to conclude that energy/matter is immortal and that there is an infinite future unless a God intervenes. In other words, it would take a miracle for energy/matter to be destroyed and it would take a miracle to end time. Since it would take a miracle to take away energy/matter's immortality and to end time then it would also take a miracle to give energy/matter it's immortality and to start time. So, since I believe space/time/energy/matter had a beginning in the finite past, it is reasonable for me to conclude that there is a God.

I agree that my position also proves nothing but the way I understand the facts suggests to me that there is a God. If I subtracted God out of my understanding of the facts then I don't think I could give at least an equally good explanation for the facts.

__________________
"I fully comprehended the power of the human mind at the exact moment I came to the realization that I'm totally insane and have no idea what I'm talking about."

The idea that somehow time started with the Big Bang is probably an over-statement, and many cosmologists themselves exaggerate when they use similar words. It is generally believed that time in the extremely dense black hole that appears to have comprised our entire universe was unbelievably slow by today's standards. However, time probably existed nevertheless. Why?

Most cosmologists that I have read do believe that there was some limited movement of energy within this black hole, and movement is "time". The reason why it is that is because what we call "time" is just sequencing of change. If everything in our universe or multi-verse came to a grinding
halt, time would stop, but it would have to be literally everything. Therefore, any movement in the black hole could hypothetically be measured as time.

Therefore, time existed in all liklihood prior to the Big Bang and, as a matter of fact, one of the things cosmologists are currently working on is the "afterglow" from the BB that may eventually tell us what event(s) actually may have caused our universe to expand out of the black hole.




Ditto. I think both of our postions are treading on terribly thin ice here, which is one of the reasons why I do not conclude there couldn't be a theistic causation for our universe.

What I am going to post next I had posted quite a while back, so I'll repeat it, but on a separate post.

__________________
"The further the spiritual evolution of mankind advances, the more certain it seems to me that the path to genuine religiosity does not lie through the fear of life, and the fear of death, and blind faith, but through striving after rational knowledge."-- Einstein

One of the positions that pushed me over the edge and into non-theistic position was well put forth by the Buddhist monk and former physicist, Matthieu Ricard, who's an advisor to His Holiness the Dalai Lama. When asked why he doesn't believe in a creator-god, here's essentially how he responded.

If there were to be a creator-god, this deity would either have to be an unchanging or changing entity. If this deity is a changing entity, what caused it to change? IOW, things do not appear to change on their own unless something is causing it to change-- simple "cause and effect".

On the other hand, if this creator-god is unchanging, how could it create since creating something intrinsically involves at least some change. If we anthropomorphize this as an example, an artist painting something needs to decide what to paint (change), needs to gather materials (change), needs to reflect on how the materials are to be used (change), and then needs to take actions to make the painting (more change). IOW, all the way down the line, the artist is changing at least a bit with his painting. So, how could a creator-god logically be an unchanging entity, even though the amount of change hypothetically could be miniscule? Any change whatsoever implies some additional force that's at work.

OTOH, if we were to somehow feel that this creator-god caused changed but simply defied the laws of physics by not changing at all, this goes against everything we seemingly experience. Therefore, without objective evidence of at least some type that such a deity exists, why would one abandon that which we do know in order to believe in something we don't know?

__________________
"The further the spiritual evolution of mankind advances, the more certain it seems to me that the path to genuine religiosity does not lie through the fear of life, and the fear of death, and blind faith, but through striving after rational knowledge."-- Einstein

Well, as I already explained, I don't believe in an infinite past. So, it doesn't even matter if the big bang wasn't the start because my reasoning tells me it did start somewhere.

__________________
"I fully comprehended the power of the human mind at the exact moment I came to the realization that I'm totally insane and have no idea what I'm talking about."

What you are overlooking is that if God is unchanging that puts him out side of time. If God created the universe outside of time then he only created the universe in the past from our perspective but from God's unchanging(timeless) perspective he didn't create the universe in the past but is creating the universe. From God's perspective the universe always been there. Their wasn't a time for God when he didn't cause the universe to be. In a way the universe has a beginning but the beginning always existed from God's perspective. I don't think of it as God having this idea to create the universe then making a copy of that idea in his past. I think of the universe as being the idea itself. In other words, the universe is within the mind of God and has always been there because God never thinks of anything new. Another way to think about it is that the universe is part of his omniscience.

__________________
"I fully comprehended the power of the human mind at the exact moment I came to the realization that I'm totally insane and have no idea what I'm talking about."

We did create length, width and height. Just like we created the concept of Euclidean Space and other abstracts. Not everything is causally linked, and if you have read up on the last few decades of quantum mechanical structures, you would know this.

We didn't create the space we occupy, but we visualized it as four dimensions in order to make sense of it. Within our "space/time" continuum, objects occupy space and time, which are merely coordinates that refer to an object in space x,y,z and at point t in time. Like the longitude and latitude of the globe, they are arbitrarily set points in that allow for a frame of reference.

Time doesn't actually exist, it is merely an arbitrary measure that has a set standard (right now based on the properties of Cs atoms) that WE determine arbitrarily. Just like we determine the rules of chess arbitrarily.

No, because that would assume that time began, it would make NO sense at all.

Then when did God start? Sooner or later one seemingly must assume that either God always existed or energy/matter always existed. Even though I certainly am not in a position to know what the actual answer may be, I drift in favor of energy/matter simply because I know that they exist. If one can supply ample evidence that a deity/deities exist, then I'd have to consider the ultimate causation as a toss-up.

But, until then...

__________________
"The further the spiritual evolution of mankind advances, the more certain it seems to me that the path to genuine religiosity does not lie through the fear of life, and the fear of death, and blind faith, but through striving after rational knowledge."-- Einstein