Just because your imagination is incapable of fathoming a universe absent a creator doesn't mean there HAD to have been a creator. Let's cut the crap though. You're not religious because it suits your cosmological beliefs of how the universe was created. You're using science which disagrees with your viewpoints on creation to justify your existing religious beliefs. A real cosmology event is more concerned with other mysteries than how the universe was created. They look at models that are concerned with seeing if dark matter matches the data they observe through astronomy. Or they're concerned with seeing cosmological models that match the expansion rate we observe in our universe. They're concerned with understanding different epochs of the early universe and running computer simulated models to see if their simulation matches data gathered from astronomy. There's zero concern over whether a creator was present to make this universe, because it's not a credible theory that's taken seriously by the scientific community. It's not done to snub religious folk. It's simply because attaching a creator to the universe teaches you nothing about how the universe was created. It just is an attempt to use scientific data to conform a personal viewpoint. It amazes me how when the solar eclipse happened months ago, scientists were able to predict to the minute when the eclipse was going to happen in your vicinity (if your vicinity was even able to see a full solar eclipse in the first place), and no one doubted this, but when science contradicts your personal viewpoint, time to discard it because your gut is right and science is wrong.
Listen, saying that virtual particles are the new nothing objects that you can make into something does not make your point. My definition of nothing would not include virtual particles. The first place they go wrong is when they use a vacuum to represent their theoretical nothing. I read this article from popular science, and the first paragraph says it better than I could: It is often said that you can't get something for nothing, but a handful of scientists from the University of Michigan would beg to differ. Theoretically speaking, they say, you can conjure particles from a vacuum under the right conditions. All you need is an ultra-high-intensity laser, a particle accelerator, and an open mind about what exactly "nothing" is (hint: it's something). https://www.popsci.com/science/article/2010-12/making-something-nothing-theory-says-matter-can-be-conjured-vacuum
So what is learned from your viewpoint then? How does anyone benefit? This is probably my favorite cosmological religious debate. One is a professional cosmologist and theoretical physicist that made contributions to the LHC and CERN. Another is a professional debater who is out to prove the existence of a deity. I think Mr.Carroll in the following clip shuts down the idea of a religious creator far better than I ever could. So I'll just link that.
My issue with Mr. Carroll's argument is this: that any time a cosmologist or science-based debater is confronted with a sensible argument (like fine-tuning) from a God-centric person, they say, "oh you fundamentally misunderstand science." Or they ridicule the question. At its basic that's what Carroll is doing. By this I mean that it seems to be a big deal for science-based debaters to belittle god-believers and marginalize their opinions as child-like and simplistic. This argument would appeal to those who want to see themselves as sophisticated thinkers, regardless of if the scientist-leaning debater actually makes a point against the view that a creator was present at the beginning of the universe. Dr. Carroll makes the point that theist don't believe in science and God can do what he likes, and has no predictable position. That's not what theist are saying. Dr. Craig was trying to make a point that why did the universe begin 13.8 billion years ago as opposed to some other time and was using science to explain how this violates some of the views that the universe didn't have a beginning. But to hear Mr. Carroll speak about this, he just falls back that God people don't like rigorousness or something in their view of the world. Listen, in the end, people that are hell bent on not including God in a view of the universe, but are perfectly fine with terms like infinity, are not realizing maybe that that term can very nearly equate to what God is. He is to the world what infinity is to math. Almost the same thing. And if the world is a reflection of him, then scientists are putting a face to god everyday with their discoveries.
I personally favor Zeus over the Christian God. Zeus runs around the sky with a lightening bolt in his hand. Is that cool or what?
Physicists hate infinity actually. It's why they go through all these hard to understand mathematics like differential equations to get the closest approximations possible. It generally indicates that a theory has broken down and is no longer useful in providing information when math pulls up infinities. If you want to understand how scientists do their best to come up with the closest approximations over infinity, here you go. Fermilab YT channel is great for all your theoretical physics needs. It's a big reason why scientists are looking for a better theory than General Relativity because of things like singularities on the most extreme cases of physics like black holes. I would think an expert in cosmology that has an intricate understanding of differential equations would have a more fundamental understanding of the science than a professional debater given it's Carroll's level of expertise. He tried to explain why WLC's vocabulary choice was wrong and that apparently went over your head too. Carroll's point that a beginning to the universe does not mean a creator made it, and that evidence of a beginning to the universe is speculative at best right now. Scientists are able to explain the Big Bang up to 10^-37 of a second after it occurred, but not before it. WLC's claim is that yes, he can explain what happened before the first moment in time in the Big Bang. A creator did it. He provided no proof and his best attempts at it were refuted by Mr.Carroll which apparently went over your head. Much like your supporting claim of fine tuning, you ignore that fine tuning is coincidental and not a designing feature of the universe intended for life to form on it. You also ignore that the fine tuning argument for life is only for at best 110 trillion years. Ignoring 10^10^10^56 where not even fundamental particles will exist, ending chemistry, which will be the end of biology, meaning life is not possible. Nevermind all the other arguments Carroll made in favor of naturalism that you didn't even bother to acknowledge. Somehow this turned into a cosmology debate over a dead manipulative psychopath. Talk about thread derail.
I believe in naturalism. I'm not sure where you got that I didn't. I am not trying to refute that gravity exist. But here's the thing, that's not your argument. That's not what we're disagreeing about. What we are disagreeing about is that naturalism or theoretical physics will someday provide a model of how the universe got here that doesn't include God or a Creator or something else. Your assumption seems to be that you are willing to wait and find out what the science says about it. But the thing is is that science doesn't even recognize that type of a question so they'll never be able to find that out. According to your own debater, that type of question doesn't even make sense. So saying that you don't believe in a Creator because the science hasn't shown it to be real, is a little like saying that I don't believe in roller coasters because I've never seen one but you're not willing to go to an amusement park to see one. There is obviously something you have to do on your part and Science is the same way.
The point is, Prison is not fun. It's mind-numbingly boring, You're surrounded by people from the lowest end of the socioeconomic spectrum. As a result, they have less education and lower IQ due to poor nutrition as a child. Their view of life is hand to mouth survival. Then you have the loss of freedom, people telling when to eat, **** and sleep. Violence is pretty low on the list of negatives IMO but there is always the bullying, intimidation and assrape. Prison sucks, whether you're in there for six months, for life or waiting for death. It's not a country club.
Meh, I just think a universe can be made absent a personal designer and evidence seems to support that over a creator. Back in the days when we used to think the Earth was the center of the universe, a lot of the arguments you made about the unknowability of the great beyond was best left to the mysterious all knowing entity in god because our feeble minds can't calculate what's actually out there in space. Except that over the past few hundreds of years we've invented all sorts of radio telescopes that specialize at gathering different light spectrum to do just that. With the discovery of gravitational waves, we're going to invent specialized gravitational telescopes that will peer into astronomical physics that not even light radio telescopes can teach us. It's going to be very exciting times for future generations that get into these fields because I really think we're on the cusp of a lot of wonderful discoveries that will help better piece together how the universe operates and potentially bigger questions like our universal origin.
The irony is, in principle I agree a lot more with What than you, but your argument is far more cohesive and far more logically based. Again, belief and logic do not have to go hand in hand. It's knowledge and logic that should. I do not know God exists, therefore I identify as an agnostic. I would like to believe in a creator, but realize there is evidence that does not confirm that hypothesis. To say with certainty that one or the other is factually correct is where I take issue with a lot of people. There is evidence, for sure, but at the end of the day is light a wave or a particle?
I get what you are saying, but asking for empirical evidence that God exists is like asking a mathematician to plot infinity on a graph. All mathematicians recognize the existence of infinity even if they can't plot it in any meaningful way. How do you begin to search for something that you cannot see feel or touch? And I do think that the law of cause and effect is probably the single most important evidence for the existence of an infinity to infinity being. Everything in this world has a creator. Somebody created it. Don't take that lightly.
The issue is, in your example of why God exists, all we can agree on is that there was a creation event (and even that might be something that others might not agree on). What started that event? I'm not sure. The cyclical behavior of the big bang to expansion of the universe to contraction down to a singularity and then a big bang all over again could also be what is taking place. Maybe that's the way it always has been and there really was no God to begin with. Our human based logic can only surmise so much, and maybe, the answer isn't logical at all (or doesn't fit in the realm of our logic). To that end, that's why I can't ever completely say I know God exists, rather, I would like to believe that one does, but accept the notion that I might be wrong (and if life has taught me anything I probably am).
I'm about halfway through got a little bored with it TBH, but I'll finish watching the season for sure. The Michael J Fox episode as a hitman worked surprisingly well.
Something eventually has to come from nothing. If a creator created this universe who created it? If the super-creator created the (normal) creator was created who then created the super-creator? Eventually you have to reach a creator that wasn't created. This is the same logic that blows a hole in that stupid "the universe is a computer simulation" thing that Silicon Valley types come with from time to time. If nothing can ever exist without a creator then when you trace the line back to the root, you've proven that nothing exists. Something, somewhere, has to exist without a creator unless you are positing some sort of cosmic Möbius strip of creation. The whole "can't prove it doesn't exist so you are wrong" is logically not untrue, but specious. It is the same charlatan's slight of hand where you create an impossible task - set up a near infinite number of conditions and demand that they all be disproved before you will consider the other side. It is an unattainable condition and thus a meaningless obfuscation. I would point out that you can no more provide definitive proof that it does exist, and that would only require a single data point instead of a compendium of all possible conditions.
