Was the natural world produced or is it past-infinite?

Let me preface my post by saying what I mean by natural world. By natural world I mean all matter and energy. The reason I use the term natural world instead of universe is because there may be multiple universes or even dimensions containing other universes. The word universe can lead to confusion very quickly.

There are two basic statements that I think all people need to address, especially those who believe that no deities exist or that the existence of deities is improbable (i.e. atheism) . They are:

1. It is false that the natural world always existed.
2. It is true that the natural world always existed.

Statement (2) conflicts with contemporary cosmology and reason. Most scientists believe our universe and even the natural world (as I defined it) had to have a beginning. But don't take my word for it. Watch this 39-minute long lecture about it by the famous physicist Alexander Vilenkin. www.youtube.com...

That being said, how is a past-infinite natural world logically incoherent? It is logically incoherent because if the natural world had always existed, then it follows that there have been an actually infinite number of events or changes. But how could that be? The fact that we live in and observe the present seems to indicate that the series of events or changes prior to the present have already occurred. But if the natural world is past-infinite, that would mean an actually infinite number of events or changes have occurred! Sure, the future and past could be potentially infinite in the sense that new events and changes are constantly being added, but surely the past couldn't be already an actual infinite since we observe the present.

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Statement (1) runs into problems as well. Under atheism, if (1) is true, then that would mean the natural world was produced by nonbeing, literally nothing, or not anything. If this isn't the definition of magic, then I don't know what is. I don't know what else to say about this, except that some try to equivocate nonbeing with a quantum field. A universe produced by a quantum field isn't the same as a universe produced by not anything or nonbeing. And you would still need to ask if the quantum field is past-infinite, which brings you back to the aforementioned contents of this thread.

I will conclude by asking everyone a few questions. Could energy and matter be changeless (to avoid the problems of (2))? Could changeless energy and matter produce anything? Could there be another category of existence that could be changeless (outside of the natural world)? Is it more rational to presume an effect was caused by something than to think an effect just happened, uncaused, or without explanation?

Thank you.

reply to post by Sleepwalk7


These are the kind of questions that just can't really be answered I think. As far as the creationist argument that something can't come from nothing so it HAD to be created by God, well doesn't doesn't that mean God is something too and something can't come from nothing so who created him? It just goes on and on. And for the it's always been here argument so there is no need for a creation, science has proved you wrong, try again.

Originally posted by billy197300
As far as the creationist argument that something can't come from nothing so it HAD to be created by God, well doesn't doesn't that mean God is something too and something can't come from nothing so who created him?

God creating something would be being creating being. Also, I don't know of anyone who defines God as a created being. God is a being who wasn't created and who has always existed (a necessary being).

And for the it's always been here argument so there is no need for a creation, science has proved you wrong, try again.

???

I'm really confused by what you wrote here. I'm well aware of the fact that contemporary cosmology has shown that the natural world most likely had a beginning. That's exactly what I wrote in my original post. Did you miss it?

reply to post by Sleepwalk7


I think I confused myself too, sorry. I think I will leave this discussion to the people that are smarter than me......it hurt my head.

The trick is to try and not get hung up on the idea that time is linear. It's better to think of it more like a color or temperature. Or like a sponge, filled with holes. Some of it goes forward. Some of it goes backward. Some of it goes sideways. Add to that the fact that nothing really exists without somebody or something being conscious of it, and you have a recipe for a universe that is constantly moving and recreating itself in infinite nested loops.

There was no "creator," because that implies that at some point there was nothing, and then there was something. That's not the way time works.

Originally posted by Blue Shift
The trick is to try and not get hung up on the idea that time is linear.

I think of time as change. If there was never change, then there is no time.

Add to that the fact that nothing really exists without somebody or something being conscious of it

I don't see how this follows at all. If nobody knew A existed, then would that mean A doesn't exist? No, it would just mean nobody knows that A exists.

and you have a recipe for a universe that is constantly moving and recreating itself in infinite nested loops.

Well, this flies in the face of contemporary cosmology and reason.

There was no "creator," because that implies that at some point there was nothing

That's incorrect. If there is an eternal creator, then that would mean there was never just nonbeing.