Ignorance and the Bible

Feel free to give convincing evidence there was something before the Big Bang.

The universe had a definite starting point at 13.7 billion years ago, and the Guth-Vilenkin theorem demonstrates that an expanding universe has to have a definite spacetime boundary in the past - aka, it can't be infinitely old.

There was nothing before the Big Bang, and even if one speculates about a multiverse, there has to be an origin point.
The Big Bang was the reaction to Satan's failed rebellion
 
Grace is Christianity 101
So is an omniscient god who knows all, including the future.

You avoided the point about your god’s “plan”. Either he has one or he doesn’t. If he has one, changing his mind to optionally extend Grace is problematic. If Grace is in his “plan”, it was pre-ordained and isn’t really Grace. He knew it was coming all along.

Christians have to perform so many theological gymnastics to solve the problems they create. The Trinity, however, is the most egregious example.
 
Right, it doesn't prove how the universe originated.

It proves that there had to be a spacetime boundary condition in the past, but it makes no statement on how everything originated.

However you slice it, there seems to have been an origin point.

Nothing is literally nothing. No time, no energy, no space, no dimension, no physical laws.


The bottom line is from the perspective of the atheist and the physical materialist, a lawfully ordered universe blinked into existence from inanimate nothingness and random chance.

That is as big a miracle as anything in the New Testament.


This is an article by Aleksandr Valenkin, one of the authors of the theorem

The answer to the question, “Did the universe have a beginning?” is, “It probably did.” We have no viable models of an eternal universe. The BGV theorem gives us reason to believe that such models simply cannot be constructed.
When physicists or theologians ask me about the BGV theorem, I am happy to oblige. But my own view is that the theorem does not tell us anything about the existence of God. A deep mystery remains. The laws of physics that describe the quantum creation of the universe also describe its evolution. This seems to suggest that they have some independent existence.
What exactly this means, we don’t know.
- Aleksandr Valenkin

BSing your way with buzzwords won't work, Sybil.
 
So is an omniscient god who knows all, including the future.

You avoided the point about your god’s “plan”. Either he has one or he doesn’t. If he has one, changing his mind to optionally extend Grace is problematic. If Grace is in his “plan”, it was pre-ordained and isn’t really Grace. He knew it was coming all along.

Christians have to perform so many theological gymnastics to solve the problems they create. The Trinity, however, is the most egregious example.
You're confusing organized religion with a personal relationship with Jesus through the Holy Spirit
 
You're confusing organized religion with a personal relationship with Jesus through the Holy Spirit

Without organization how does one avoid simply making up a god to suit one's own preferences?

“I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires.”

― Susan B. Anthony
 
Without organization how does one avoid simply making up a god to suit one's own preferences?

“I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires.”

― Susan B. Anthony
Which explains why so many atheists belong to atheist organizations. :)

 
BSing your way with buzzwords won't work, Sybil.
Not my words.
The words of theoretical physicist Aleksandr Valenkin, one of the authors of the BGV theorem.

The answer to the question, “Did the universe have a beginning?” is, “It probably did.” We have no viable models of an eternal universe. The BGV theorem gives us reason to believe that such models simply cannot be constructed.
Aleksandr Valenkin
That leaves a question for atheists like you, and agnostics like me: how could a lawfully ordered and finely-tuned universe blink into existence by inanimate random chance?

"But my own view is that the theorem does not tell us anything about the existence of God. But a deep mystery remains."
Aleksandr Valenkin
 
The Big Bang was the reaction to Satan's failed rebellion
Unconvincing. I don't see anything about Satan in Genesis 1.

I prefer physics.

But at the level of poetry and metaphor, the description of the universe's beginning in both Genesis 1/2 and in the Daodejing is actually pretty decent.
 
Huh, not familiar with any atheist "organizations". Thanks for the link.
Another reason why I know you are young. You're more than welcome. :)

FWIW, I used to be on a Brit atheist forum "Secular Cafe". Even as an agnostic, I tended to piss off the handful atheists who were jerking each other off on the forum. It was interesting but eventually collapsed. It appears it's now on Facebook.

 
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