The Big Bang Dilemma

[Julie M. Martinez]

The big bang is the causation of our universe. What i want to know is what is outside the big bang before it started. And the infinite regression of questions continue.
If it takes infinite questions to counter an answer which is deemed 'true", then mathematically its takes infinite answers to reply
However the infinite questions put forth will always be borned out immediately from the previous answer(Q:what caused the universe? A: The Big Bang ...Q:What cause the Big Bang?)
Which means the reason of existance is an infinite QnA with the Q always being at the forefront before the answer.
This proves that we are created and engineered by (infinity) to infinitly not know how we are created (Q being always in the forefront)
Anyone with me?

[Dominus]

This is what keeps me faithful. Its impossible, unless you logically believe in eternity as something nature can provide. But this argument is too big for me, for anybody.

[Lex]

There's an old philosophy joke, one variant of which I found on Google:

An English philosopher was visiting India, and was introduced to a holy man. The philosopher asked the Holy Man the nature of the world, and the old man replied, "Oh, the world is a great big ball that sits on the great flat back of the Great World Turtle."

The Englishman of course asked "What does the turtle stand on?"

The seer replied "Why, on the back of an even larger turtle, of course!"

Then the Englishman asked "And what does THIS turtle stand on?"

The old man shook his head and sweetly smiled and said "It is no use, my son; it is turtles all the way down!"

If you think that God gets you out of this conundrum, you may be disapointed, though. What created the Universe? God. What created God? Another God? What created THIS God? Is it Gods all the way down? This is what keeps me skeptical.

[Dominus]

There's an old philosophy joke, one variant of which I found on Google:

An English philosopher was visiting India, and was introduced to a holy man. The philosopher asked the Holy Man the nature of the world, and the old man replied, "Oh, the world is a great big ball that sits on the great flat back of the Great World Turtle."

The Englishman of course asked "What does the turtle stand on?"

The seer replied "Why, on the back of an even larger turtle, of course!"

Then the Englishman asked "And what does THIS turtle stand on?"

The old man shook his head and sweetly smiled and said "It is no use, my son; it is turtles all the way down!"

If you think that God gets you out of this conundrum, you may be disapointed, though. What created the Universe? God. What created God? Another God? What created THIS God? Is it Gods all the way down? This is what keeps me skeptical.

Ah, not so, if you are Christian, the concept of creation is that God creates the universe, but God always existed via the concept of eternity which we as humans can never understand until we die. God was never created, he doesn't have a start or end point. Well that is the Christian theology behind that concept. Where as common atheism theology doesn't allow for an infinite or eternal concept, thus creating a very large problem with the theory.

[Bedell]

It's a long time since I studied this stuff, so don't ask me to explain it, but my understanding of the Christian concept of God is one of necessary being. i.e. if the proposed deity does not necessarily exist of itself then it is not the God Christians worship. In this way an endless causal chain is avoided.

[dlb]

The big bang is the causation of our universe.

Hmmm ... that is a rather definative statement. I have a statement to which I would be interested in hearing your thoughts on:
". . . the big bang theory can boast of no quantitative predictions that have subsequently been validated by observation."
Eric J. Lerner, president of Lawrenceville Plasma Physics

[Lex]

Ah, not so, if you are Christian, the concept of creation is that God creates the universe, but God always existed via the concept of eternity which we as humans can never understand until we die. God was never created, he doesn't have a start or end point. Well that is the Christian theology behind that concept. Where as common atheism theology doesn't allow for an infinite or eternal concept, thus creating a very large problem with the theory.

I understand this theory, but have always had a problem with it. If the Universe needs to have a Creator to exist, why doesn't God need a Creator to exist? Or conversely, if God doesn't need a Creator to exist, why can't the Universe exist without one? It seems to me to be a case of the fallacy of special pleading. And note that this objection doesn't have a problem with the infinite or eternal; it just says that if God can exist eternally, why could not the Universe do so, perhaps in an infinitely regressing cycle of Big Bangs and Big Crunches? That would obviate the need for God as an explanation.

[Bob Manske]

The big bang is the causation of our universe.

Actually, no. Big Bang does not encompass the origin of the universe. It actually investigates the period beginning very shortly after the universe already existed.
There is no, repeat no, current, testable, theory (which is one of the definitions of the word "theory" - it must be testable), pertaining to the actual origin of the universe. And there doesn't seem to be one in sight.
Having said that, there are lots of ideas current about the origin of the universe, and some have gained a following, that is, people who are willing to spend the time and effort to explore those ideas further, but, so far, nothing in the manner of an actual theory.

So it's not just that I'm splitting hairs here. What I'm saying is this: cosmology does not at present have a testable theory - that is: a statement that is comprehensive, plausible, and testable - about the origin of the universe. And from what I've seen, theology doesn't either. Big Bang, to be sure, begins very shortly after the beginning of the universe, but the point is that it describes only a universe that already was here. It has nothing at all to do with theology.

Bob