Elysian, your inability to grasp simple analogies is absolutely dumbfounding. Excellent use of the straw man fallacy, next time let's focus on the argument.

@Elysian Thebes

I will explain this one more time.

The question of what happened before the Big Bang is meaningless in precisely the same way asking what is north of the North Pole is meaningless. As current theory maintains, spacetime did not exist until the Big Bang, meaning there can be no "before" time. This does not presuppose a God, merely that /nothing/ happened before the Big Bang (nothing /could/ happen). In this light, the Big Bang would be your initial cause. Nothing could have preceded the Big Bang, there was no such thing as time and the laws of physics did not exist. Concluding from this that there is a God is problematic in and of itself: When did he exist, how does he exist, and what is the cause for /his/ existence?

When we reduce the argument to a question of parsimony we find these two positions, either:

A. God created the universe, thus supposing he existed before time, or;

B. The creation of the universe was totally spontaneous.

The position B is the simplest one because it makes only a single unverifiable claim; anything else is superfluous conjecture.

ET,

The prime mover is not necessarily God. It could have been the spaghetti monster, and the spaghetti monster != God. I don't care what philosophers like to name it, it ffing doesn't fit. God is strictly the judeo-christian God and to extend the definition to the prime mover is unacceptable and it's cheating. It does not matter that other cultures have God(s) who are prime movers, it only happens that their God(s) are prime movers. The two are not the same, because for example in Greek mythology the Gods are not prime movers.

Call it the prime mover, and go no further.

Another skeptical consideration is that our inference of the prime mover and it's properties are derived from of our experience of nature. Our experience of nature however is rather insignificant, and therefore we can not be certain if every other part of nature obeys the same physical laws and rules of logic that we have developed from our own experiences. So making these apriori judgments that you are making are hasty generalizations.

A cursory search of YouTube has revealed a lecture given by Stephen Hawking on the origin of the universe. This is part 1 of 5: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFjwXe-pXvM

Edit: Apparently the poster has combined the 5 parts into a playlist, accessible here: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=74184384669CEADB

Ok here's a question for those supporting the idea of Creationism.  Do you honestly think it makes more sense that an intelligent entity of infinite complexity always existed and created the universe than it does that something much much simpler arose spontaneously?  Also make up your minds; if you're going to say that nothing can come from nothing then by your own logic God can't exist because nothing caused it, and don't pull that always existed BS because even if God did always exist you still have something existing without an initial cause.

I think you've made a good point, avo, if I read correctly...

"to say that spacetime did not exist before the big bang is an assumption, an illogical one at that, and a matter of convenience."

You're right. If you discount the uncontested current findings of science. Sure, you can do it without any actual evidence or mathematical support. But then you're probably as nuts as those who claim the earth was created in 6 days. And God created fossils just to [The fmods owned me before I even knew it!] with mankind. 'Cause your god is into that sort of thing.

"you cannot have something out of nothing, movement out of inertia. sorry, can't happen."

Bear in mind that this finding would be true of your God as with science. You have the same problem of lacking a definitive, evidence-backed explanation. Only science can suggest ways most likely for this to have happened without violating physics (projecting back until some point where evidence would be hard to find, seeing as everything was all mashed up). And the opposing position involves God and all kinds of craziness which has no scientific evidence supporting it.

this is to do with the first page,, i havent read through the whole thread.

You can wonder about everything... and speculate, and make assumptions and educated guesses about science and how life might have randomly  formed by chance with the perfect mix of chemicals and conditions.

but the question still remains:

Where did EVERYTHING come from in the first place? where did those chemicals come from.
and the higher being, where was that from?
In our logic, it is impossible for anything to have been there forever..
But also in our logic, it is impossible for things to simply appear from nowhere.

The universe must be there for a reason, and aside from The Lord God, who i do actually beleive in,
I reckon we probably most definitely have something to do with other extra terrestrial beings in our universe somewhere that we just havent found yet.

On a different subject, also to do with our common logic, Its a MUCH more plausible idea that there are aliens out there than that there is a God that is everything that ever has been and ever will be. Beleiving in god is the easy way out, and a solution and even a source of help and many other things for many of us for many different reasons.

i have a question for you evolutionists.... where did the so called chemicals to create life come from? and if you answer that where did that come from. what came first? i believe their is a God and that evolution is bad science. watch expelled.. then tell me that evolution isn't laughable. even the evolusionist top dogs contradict theim selves.

> [RPA] Arocalex wrote:

> Again, there is nothing north of the north pole

there is nothing before the big bang

stating it again doesnt make it true

if you're going to be literal, do it right. he said tell him, not write him...

Anyways, I was reading through these posts about a fortnight ago, and it was very much religion v.s. science, which was very interesting.

I see no reason why these two should conflict, I don't believe they are vying to cover the same ground. As far as cosmology is concerned, the focus of religion emphasises the apparent God-given sanctity of the human condition and our value as intelligent, creative decision-makers, so, its pursuit is in understanding the purpose and relevance of the cosmos, and our place within it. Science deals with the other side of the coin, if you will, as its focus is coming to an understanding about the nature and mechanisms of the universe and humanity. In short, religion is the 'why' and science is the 'how'.

If you're an adamant atheist, then you probably are of the opinion that us having a significance and purpose is but an infalted sense of self-importance, so you can easily do away with the religious side of things and focus of understanding the 'hows' of the universe, and we're all happy

Controversy arises when the two fields creep into each others' territories. For example, when religion attempts to explain the mechanics of the universe (the creation story), and when scientists stick their nose into theology and have a dab at the meaning of life and everything while they've still got their science hats on (obviously they've every right to dream up philosophical explanations to the 'whys' of the universe, but just not in the context of science).

Religious people must put the scriptures into a historical context when they consider "scientific"-esque explanations of things such as how the universe came about. Genesis was put together a looong time ago; it is nothing more than people trying to explain stuff they didn't have the necessary means to do so. However, it does have some metaphorical relevance to religious people, I think