There are some problems with a completely atheistic view of the universe. For starters, how the heck did the universe come into existence in the first place? One of the common answers to this is "the universe didn't come into existence, it has always been here." There is a problem I can see in this argument. If the universe has been around for an infinite length of time, how could we ever get to the present? If you go infinitely far back into the past and then start going forward, you would never reach the present because it is an infinite distance away. Another common answer would be "the universe just came into existence." This doesn't work unless you find some sort or property that the universe has that would allow it to pop into existence. That sort of property, one that would allow something to appear out of nothing, would violate the first (?) law of thermodynamics which states that you can't add matter or energy to a system.
So, the universe being created by itself would violate one of its own rules. This is a problem, especially since it obviously has been created by something. What's a puzzler like myself supposed to do? Theorize some sort of answer, of course! Since the universe doesn't have an infinite past and because it has to have been created by something, I'm going to try to theorize what that something is. Since most cultures call that something God, I'll stick with that name. This isn't the Judeo-Christian God or the Muslim God or any of Hindu's many God's, just a general creator-type being.
The one property of this God that I've got here is that it is what created the universe. What does that mean for God? Well, it means that God isn't constrained by the natural laws of physics, for starters. God doesn't have to worry about adding or subtracting matter or energy from the universe since it can obviously do that already. That means that God's could everywhere at once or even nowhere. Also, time doesn't necessarily have to work with God the way it does with everything else. This makes theorizing about God's behavior really, really difficult.
I'm going to try really hard to post more of my beliefs about the world that really don't jive well with the scientific view. Possible subjects for the future include free will and the source of morality!
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4 comments:
Point uno - you should read the book Calculating God
Point dos - Never visualize the universe coming into being. It has to come into something, but the something is included in the definition of the universe, so there can't be. There. Have I given you a headache? :) Until a couple years ago this was one of my most common "ponder when in bed" issues. I guess either my subconcious found a solution it hasn't told me about, or my mind got annoyed at it.
Point three - "the universe didn't come into existence, it has always been there". This is the scientific equivelant of "It's turtles all the way down."
Nice post.
You've recommended that before. I still want to borrow that short story collection from you so I can pick up this book along with the other and skim through it.
That was one of my points. An atheistic universe, by definition, couldn't just come into existence. Therefore there's something wrong with a purely atheistic view of the universe.
Turtles... what?
Turtles! Like Yurtle the Turtle. You've never heard about the stack of turtles that just keeps on going and going and going down forever?
...well, me neither.
Lexi
This turtles comment is still bugging me.
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