I don't think there are many on the side of an infinite regress, but many do accept a singularity where time itself began that does not necessarily require God. I think arguing for an eternal universe is a losing battle, since the evidence does not support that premise.

I'm not that sold on time itself beginning, but I'll take it over any infinite regress.

What is the evidence that does not support an eternal universe?

That everything we observe seemingly has a cause. The ex-nihilo problem is not easily dismissed.

I'm not saying there haven't been theories to work around it, but Occam's Razor would point to a beginning, whether Bing Bang, or otherwise.

I don't see that as evidence of anything. But beyond that, invoking Occam's Razor to support it seems like a bit of a stretch. These two paradigms have equal explanatory power:

1) The world exists. God made it. God was not made / God is eternal / we of limited intelligence should not expect to understand God.

2) The world exists. The world was not made / the world is eternal / we of limited intelligence should not expect to understand the world.

Edit: but the second one requires one less invented piece to make it work.

No one is arguing for an eternal universe. Only that its one possibility and it being created form scratch is not a slam dunk and proven. To exclude it as a possibility based on today's human knowledge and logic seems like a losing view. Or at least a shortsighted one.

Personally i dont think humans know that much about the universe or the big bang. We haven't been looking at this stuff that long. And i also would not be surprised at all if the true answers would seem illogical to us.

This list is not exhaustive, the Universe could have been created and the cause not be an intelligent being.

The Universe could be eternal, and God could still exist.

What doesn't add up is an infinite regress, because we are forced to ignore how everything works. The Universe is expanding, which points to a singularity. Nothing can be created from nothing. You need to ignore these things to posit an eternal universe. This has nothing to do with trying to make a case for the existence of God, but it makes less sense to assume the Universe always had been, its not what science tells us.

It's shortsighted in that it still doesn't make sense no matter what the answer. Either way we are forced to acknowledge something eternal, which is not consistent with how things work.

Totally agree that whatever the answer is, it's illogical to us. Which is ironic, that the only logical thing, is the illogical.

Imagine a balloon blowing up from the point of view of a speck that lives on the balloon. You may think that it is reasonable for the speck to conclude that the balloon used to be a singularity, but I am not so sure.

Anyway, I don't want to psychoanalyze you, so please forgive me, but I don't think you are actually making any arguments, I think you're just throwing up some argument sounding statements and then filling in the blanks with whatever conclusions you are pushing.

"What doesn't add up is an infinite regress..." Huh? If the universe looks like an infinite regress, why not accept that it is an infinite regress? It gets discussed a great deal, but I am not aware of any philosophical justification for ruling it out. It is mind boggling, but so is (for me) looking at the night sky and contemplating the vast distances between us and the stars -- and yet, they really are very far away, despite my boggled mind!

I'd like to write something more detailed on the problems of appealing to cutting edge models in astrophysics for the purpose of apologetics, but tonight isn't the night.

Im not sure i have to acknowledge something eternal either. Maybe its an non eternal universe with a non eternal God.

I already have, or at least pointed out problems that I see with your approach, none of which you have addressed in any way.

I already have

I already have

I have never used this argument.

.

I havent done this

So what did god create the universe from then?

Okay, agree or disagree? Science points to a Universe with a beginning.

Yeah, that's one possibility, but I don't think it's as likely. I threw out a few other suggestions to show that mrmr's list was not exhaustive, I'm sure there are still other possibilities.

I agree with you, God doesn't make sense, neither view makes sense. As far as I can see, the Universe should not exist.

I think there are models vying for wide-spread acceptance that point to a beginning, and others that do not. But I'm not sure it matters!

Unless you have a hypothesis that can be tested, we don't know if we are right. It isn't like we have "either hypothesis A, or disembodied intelligence" -- we just have a bunch of hypotheses, and we do not know which of them is the best model.

It is so tempting to assign probabilities based on popularity of unproven ideas that I think even Sklansky does it when he says that it is unlikely that a god exists (going from memory on some posts of his from years ago). But there is a difference between knowing the probability that your opponent in poker is holding a winning combination of cards, and speculating about what cards your opponent might have when you see a deck of cards with numbers and symbols on it that you don't recognize. If you don't know the probability space, and you don't have lots of hands to test and analyze, you can guess that your opponent has a pair of purple triangles, but you can't know what the chances of your guess being correct are.

So trying to answer your question succinctly, in the case of whether or not the universe had a beginning in the conventional sense or not, I don't think science knows the answer, and I'm not sure it makes sense to talk about what it is pointing toward.

Re: eternal universes. Penrose's Conformal Cyclic Cosmology is interesting, if maybe not really popular? The book he wrote to try to popularize it is worth a read, I think

While I agree with you in theory, the reason that the Big Bang model is accepted, is because all the science points to a beginning. Of course it could be incorrect, that's not the point.

If you wish to posit another theory, I'm all ears, and I'm more than willing to hear about an eternal universe, but it's disingenuous to claim that the science does not point to it.

Off the top of my head, Hawking's famous lecture makes some succinct points on the subject. This is of course, before his "Grand Design" debacle. It's a quick and interesting read, I recommend it. Notice the part where he ignores what happened before the Big Bang, another reason why the Grand Design was dubious.

I'm only vaguely familiar with this, it strikes me as a dressed-up infinite regress argument. It's just turtles-all-the-way-down, type of theory, no?

I think it's more like "It's just turtles over and over".

The arguments involving the 2nd law of thermodynamics that are made in the book are fascinating though, imo

From a less science-y angle, it's interesting also that there are plenty of cultural precedents for what you're calling "infinite regress", I think you may overstate how difficult the concept is. Think of the rhythm of the seasons and how integral that is (and other similarly periodic occurrences) to a lot of cultures historically.

actually it might be more than you're confusing issues with infinite regression in theories of epistemology, with regard to justification of belief, with other kinds of infinities which are not necessarily problematic in the same way

I'll have to read some of the counter-arguments to the 2nd law, it's really the piece de resistance of a lot of the "beginning" theories.

Still though, I'm unconvinced at first glance. Our natural tendency is to ask where the previous turtle came from.

I don't know much about it, unfortunately. Lawrence Krauss, in his series of talks with William Lane Craig, seems to imply that among top physicists who are making new science, it is undecided.

I don't think you're position is ridiculous, but I still think it is wrong. My understanding is the classic big bang theory breaks down near the big bang, and says nothing about what came before that. Your raising the specter of disingenuity strikes me a bit like saying, sure, we can debate the fine points of the character of Satan, but it is disingenuous to claim that we don't all know he lives in a firey place that is below us. Even though millions of children think that, it doesn't carry any weight once we acknowledge that they are wrong.

It benefits Krauss for his debates with WLC to take that route, since Craig has perfected his argument for God once you grant him a beginning. Not to say it's not credible, but Krauss' intentions are clear there.

Scientific theories don't necessarily preoccupy themselves with "before the big bang", you can see that in the Hawking lecture I linked. I highly recommend that by the way, not for me to win some point or anything, but it's very interesting, it's Hawking after all.

I'm not an expert either, far from it, and perhaps I'm too quick to call people "disingenuous", so I'll take that back. To be honest, I always understood that the Universe was understood to have begun at some point, while mostly ignoring anything "before", because it is understood that there was no "before". Here is where science meets philosophy, and new theories take place, see the Grand Design, which I like to criticize, since most philosophers all took turns shaking their heads at it.

Anyway, there are people here far more knowledgable than me in this area, hopefully they'll chime in as well.

Thanks everyone for your posts.

At this point I am asking everyone to choose between universe has a beginning vs universe has always existed.

I seem to have read that some posters maintain that there are other choices, aside from the two above.

Well, let me read about them again, please.

As soon as we have gotten together all the choices from all you guys, then we will consider which choice is the fact and the rest just fictions.

Okay?

The fact now is that the universe exists.

And we exist.

So, please abstain from much talking over fictions.

Take this fact into serious consideration, namely, the universe exists and it has a history of some 13.8 billion years, that is from the vast majority of scientists who are into facts and not fictions.

Going backward from today do we come to the fact of the beginning and origin of the universe, or to a universe that has always existed: one item has got to be the fact and other other the fiction -- of course there are talkers errh thinkers who will also present their additional fictions errh facts.


See you guys again tomorrow.

Confirmed nut job.

Ahh...you do realize that a group of posters here getting together to decide which of these is "fact" doesn't actually make it fact, right?