Guest Valk0010 Posted April 1, 2012 Share Posted April 1, 2012 I have been reading more indepth about the cosmological argument due to a recent debate I had on this site. I was reading the wiki on the cosmological argument and the stanford encyclopedia of philisophy on the argument. And they said something that I thought was wacky off the wall insane. Between the both of them I got the impression that the with the big bang and if you use the cosmological argument, that asking about what happening before was absurd. And that the argument is only stating that everything needs a cause. Am I nuts to think that, this is sort of sidestepping the point to make a argument work? It seems whatever you believe about the creation of the universe, the singularity, however you want to discuss it. To say there is a cause, you would have to know what caused the cause. Or what was the suitation that brought the cause into existence. Lets say hypothetically you believe in the big bang (I am skeptical of it for a few different reasons), but to ask what caused the big bang, wouldn't it be key to know what happened before it. And if you can't know, why do you have to say its God, rather then just a unknown question? What if what happened before the singularity was totally natural and led to a creation of the universe where we had all the scientific laws we currently know. I dunno help please. I do personally think we are way to far off on physics, to do anything as far as debating religion more then, just disputing arguments from ignorance. But I am still curious. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dhampir Posted April 1, 2012 Share Posted April 1, 2012 It's asserting 2 things: 1 that since everything in the universe appears to have been brought into existence by something preceeding it, that the universe itself must have a. had a beginning, and b. that it had a preceeding cause. 2. That cause must not itself be subject to point 1. that is, that it did not need to be caused-- it is in fact, uncaused. Both premises are faulty for plenty of reasons. First off, that what may be true within the universe, need not be, nor is observably true for the universe itself. Second, even within the universe that everything has a cause is not strictly true, as shown by things like quantum events. Earlier today I heard an excellent argument that I never thought of before: No one thing in the universe directly caused any other one thing in the universe, it was a host of things acting in concert. As for the uncaused cause thing, The argument assumes its conclusion, and is guilty of special pleading. It is never addressed why premise 1 does not apply to premise 2-- why does the one thing that does not need a prior cause, not need it? That's truly where the argument falls apart. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest wester Posted April 1, 2012 Share Posted April 1, 2012 Many people now think that a quantum fluctuation caused an inflaton (particle) or small vacuum to appear which resulted in a giant inflation. Thus the inflaton or the vacuum is the "big bang" or the cause of the big bang. There is no reason to believe that the process was not organic or needed some kind of push, much less a pusher. Is God therefore a quantum fluctuation ? Are all these Churches and Temples just monuments to a random un-probable happening in probability and statistics? What is on the other side of the inflation might be a brane or "mother" substance that exists on a higher dimension and randomly gives birth to universes all the time, and we are swimming in a multiverse of interconnected universes operating in dimensions that we still don't have a clue about. We are connected to our brane, maybe there are many more branes out there and we collide and interact with them in ways we still don't understand. This is a much more developed and interesting theory than what I found when I first started to investigate cosmology in the 1980s, when it was all just a big firecracker explosion with an unknowable "pusher" on the other side I recommend Brian Greene's books. 1999. The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory. 2005. The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality. 2011. The Hidden Reality: Parallel Universes and the Deep Laws of the Cosmos. Cheers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest wester Posted April 1, 2012 Share Posted April 1, 2012 Oh yes - I almost forgot: I lived in Korea 3 years. Take a look at the Korean flag. The interconnected black and white bubbles at the center of their flag represent the interconnection of 2 opposites. When black is at its peak of power and size, it gives birth to white, which grows to displace black, but at its peak, white gives birth to black. You can see it as nothing giving birth to something and vice versa forever. Why is there something instead of nothing? Because nothing naturally gives birth to something and you can't have something without nothing or nothing without something. They are intertwined and interdependent upon each other and one cannot and does not exist without the other. If you don't believe me, go ask your girlfriend, or boyfriend as the case may be. :-) Cheers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ouroboros Posted April 1, 2012 Share Posted April 1, 2012 The argument behind Kalaam, First Cause, and the Cosmological argument is really relating to dualism and the idea of spirits. Put it this way, if every material thing that come into existence have a cause, then the only way the material world came into existence would be through an immaterial things. The only immaterial thing we know of (according to dualists) is the soul/spirit/life-essence. In other words, the only thing that is timeless, non-material, and can be a cause to something, is a spirit. That's what I think is the real underlying (and unspoken) premise of the argument. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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