Why did the universe start…

Ooh, look at the 'forbidden' word "impossible" as used below by a philosopher and marketeer of evolutionary ideas/philosophies and fanciful but false stories/myths (who still won't acknowledge that the whole storyline has already been proven impossible to have happened by chance, by accident, spontaneously):

...

Researcher Hubert P. Yockey, who supports the teaching of evolution, goes further. He says: “It is impossible that the origin of life was ‘proteins first.’”5 RNA is required to make proteins, yet proteins are involved in the production of RNA. What if, despite the extremely small odds, both proteins and RNA molecules did appear by chance in the same place at the same time? How likely would it be for them to cooperate to form a self-replicating, self-sustaining type of life? “The probability of this happening by chance (given a random mixture of proteins and RNA) seems astronomically low,” says Dr. Carol Cleland *, a member of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Astrobiology Institute. “Yet,” she continues, “most researchers seem to assume that if they can make sense of the independent production of proteins and RNA under natural primordial conditions, the coordination will somehow take care of itself.” Regarding the current theories of how these building blocks of life could have arisen by chance, she says: “None of them have provided us with a very satisfying story about how this happened.”6 [*: Dr. Cleland is not a creationist. She believes that life arose by chance in some fashion not yet fully understood.]

Belief in spite of the evidence that already shows it to be impossible to have happened by chance (no matter how much time you give it, which is limited to 14-15 billion years as that's the age of the universe, or how many planets there are in the universe; see previous comment from Fred Hoyle and Wickramasinghe under "Is Intelligence Involved?"), and certainly not step-by-step (also discussed before), because of the interdependence of the molecular machinery and systems of machinery involved, including the code that specifies when and how these machines are to be assembled and in what order (remark regarding the footnote there at the end).

Source: QUESTION 1: How Did Life Begin? (The Origin of Life​—Five Questions Worth Asking)

And now I'm getting to the shorter point I initially wanted to make and add to my first comment (the background felt necessary, so you can actually see it in the quotations):

...

Alice, in the tale Through the Looking-​Glass, incredulous at the strange logic of the White Queen, could only laugh. “There’s no use trying,” she said. “One can’t believe impossible things.” The queen responded: “I dare say you haven’t had much practice. When I was your age I did it for half an hour a day. Why sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”

Evolutionists are the White Queens of today. They have had infinite practice in believing impossible things.

As proven by the quotations.

Source: Fraud in Science—The Greatest Fraud of All (Awake!—1990)

Here's another impossibility promoted by Richard Dawkins, Lawrence Krauss and Stephen Hawking concerning the origin of the universe (Lawrence Krauss wrote a book about it called "A Universe from Nothing"):

Full title: "Psychology: Dawkins&Krauss selling the philosophy and contradiction that nothing is something".

Here's Stephen Hawking doing the same (as John Lennox points out):

Full title and context (playlist link):

Psychology: The Art of selling nonsense/contradictions (Prologue: Stephen Hawking's nonsense)

originally posted by: whereislogic
Ooh, look at the 'forbidden' word "impossible" as used below by a philosopher and marketeer of evolutionary ideas/philosophies and fanciful but false stories/myths (who still won't acknowledge that the whole storyline has already been proven impossible to have happened by chance, by accident, spontaneously):

...

Researcher Hubert P. Yockey, who supports the teaching of evolution, goes further. He says: “It is impossible that the origin of life was ‘proteins first.’”5 RNA is required to make proteins, yet proteins are involved in the production of RNA. What if, despite the extremely small odds, both proteins and RNA molecules did appear by chance in the same place at the same time? How likely would it be for them to cooperate to form a self-replicating, self-sustaining type of life? “The probability of this happening by chance (given a random mixture of proteins and RNA) seems astronomically low,” says Dr. Carol Cleland *, a member of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Astrobiology Institute. “Yet,” she continues, “most researchers seem to assume that if they can make sense of the independent production of proteins and RNA under natural primordial conditions, the coordination will somehow take care of itself.” Regarding the current theories of how these building blocks of life could have arisen by chance, she says: “None of them have provided us with a very satisfying story about how this happened.”6 [*: Dr. Cleland is not a creationist. She believes that life arose by chance in some fashion not yet fully understood.]

Belief in spite of the evidence that already shows it to be impossible to have happened by chance (no matter how much time you give it, which is limited to 14-15 billion years as that's the age of the universe, or how many planets there are in the universe; see previous comment from Fred Hoyle and Wickramasinghe under "Is Intelligence Involved?"), and certainly not step-by-step (also discussed before), because of the interdependence of the molecular machinery and systems of machinery involved, including the code that specifies when and how these machines are to be assembled and in what order (remark regarding the footnote there at the end).

Source: QUESTION 1: How Did Life Begin? (The Origin of Life​—Five Questions Worth Asking)

And now I'm getting to the shorter point I initially wanted to make and add to my first comment (the background felt necessary, so you can actually see it in the quotations):

...

Alice, in the tale Through the Looking-​Glass, incredulous at the strange logic of the White Queen, could only laugh. “There’s no use trying,” she said. “One can’t believe impossible things.” The queen responded: “I dare say you haven’t had much practice. When I was your age I did it for half an hour a day. Why sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”

Evolutionists are the White Queens of today. They have had infinite practice in believing impossible things.

As proven by the quotations.

Source: Fraud in Science—The Greatest Fraud of All (Awake!—1990)

Here's another impossibility promoted by Richard Dawkins, Lawrence Krauss and Stephen Hawking concerning the origin of the universe (Lawrence Krauss wrote a book about it called "A Universe from Nothing"):

Full title: "Psychology: Dawkins&Krauss selling the philosophy and contradiction that nothing is something".

Here's Stephen Hawking doing the same (as John Lennox points out):

Full title and context (playlist link):

Psychology: The Art of selling nonsense/contradictions (Prologue: Stephen Hawking's nonsense)

Stephen Hawking's nonsense?
Explain

Are you claiming evolution is nonsense and intelligent design the answer to the question of this thread?

Re : Nothing


Philosophers and scientists do at times use the "nothing" terminology, but this has tendency to be misunderstood just as much as the "God" terminology.

Nothing to me just means dimensionless. It could be a spatial negation, or some might go so far as to claim spatiotemporal negation. It's not an 'absolute' nothingness because if it did happen to be the correct theory than we wouldn't be discussing it right now. It's just one other concept or "absurdity" that transcends our physical universal laws including conventional reason, unless of course one were to choose belief in emergence from a state of complete and utter nothingness where it's just one more absurdity to put on the table.

Some say the universe WAS the beginning of space and time which would put its prior state equal to a spatiotemporal negation, but it seems like there would need to be something else that we are not privy for this "beginning" to be possible; perhaps 'acausal' would be in the ballpark.

Stephen Hawkings' "singularity" could be categorized as nothing. The problem is using these one-word references for something that would be more well served via a definition or explanation, but in a "word" I suppose nothing is just as good as any although it is the explanation that gets to the crux of the matter.

originally posted by: Consvoli
Stephen Hawking's nonsense?
Explain

Please watch the videos before asking an explanation of something that has already been explained and clarified (in the videos; in particular the video whose title you responded to, but the other one is related since it concerns Lawrence Krauss' book A Universe from Nothing and uses the same claims, arguments and contradictory use of the very simple to understand, i.e. unambiguous, word "nothing" concerning the origin of the universe as Stephen Hawking used in his book about the universe: The Grand Design; or in other words, it's the same spiel concerning the misuse of the word "nothing" and attempts to re-define such a simple word and make it more ambiguous*). No need to further demonstrate 2 Timothy 4:3,4.

*:

... This communications revolution has led to information overload, as people are inundated by countless messages from every quarter. Many respond to this pressure by absorbing messages more quickly and accepting them without questioning or analyzing them.

The cunning propagandist loves such shortcuts—especially those that short-circuit rational thought. Propaganda encourages this by agitating the emotions, by exploiting insecurities, by capitalizing on the ambiguity of language, and by bending rules of logic. As history bears out, such tactics can prove all too effective.

And if there is no ambiguity, such as in the case of the word "nothing", some people will try to use their reputation and sophisticated but "empty speeches" (1Tim 6:20) to create some, and convince others that they're on to something, that they have something of value to say about the word "nothing" (one video on youtube is 2 hours long with Richard Dawkins and Lawrence Krauss discussing....nothing; and they are quite good at keeping their audience captivated by talking about nothing for that long, because what they say is 'tickling people's ears', intriguiging their audience, the market they are catering/pandering to, compare 2 Timothy 4:3,4; some clips in the first video are taken from this 2 hour-long video).

Source above: The Manipulation of Information (Awake!—2000) (the page preceding the link in my signature)

Are you claiming evolution is nonsense and intelligent design the answer to the question of this thread?

Try to read my commentary (including those on the previous page in response to CCoburn) without demonstrating 2 Timothy 4:3,4, Matthew 13:13-15, John 8:42-47 (in particular concerning how the word "listen" is used by Jesus, see footnote as quoted before) and Heb 5:11 ("dull in your hearing"). And you will (or should) be able to answer your own question.

Then you are in a better position to properly analyze and consider the evidence presented in my commentary regarding the points that were made. The evidence I presented was focused on the so-called "chemical evolution theory of life" (quoting evolutionary marketeers, philosophers and philosophical naturalists Haldane and Oparin, it is their own term, other self-professed "evolutionists" use it or have used it as well, again, "evolutionists" being their own term with which they identify themselves and their colleagues), as explained in my commentary, 1 of 3 main evolutionary philosophies/ideas and in this case also a proven myth/false story (the other 2 philosophies/ideas being cosmic evolution and biological evolution, all of which are summed up in my term "evolutionary philosophies", and thus in the term "evolution" as used by me, if I used the term on its own, which I often avoid, or when I do, I will make it clear that I'm referring to all 3 main evolutionary philosophies with the term "evolution"; I am not interested how you might wish to use the term "evolution" in response without specification that you might prefer to use the term only to refer to biological evolution, as if the other evolutionary philosophies don't even exist or supposedly have nothing to do with "evolution" as the standard argument goes which I already made a remark about, or how you might feel I should use it to acquiesce to this misleading argument; if you click that videolink, stop the video at 5 minutes, and keep in mind that I'm not a creationist, an adherent of creationism).

I also explained before which one of these 3 concerns the origin of the universe, although I did not focus on it in my subsequent commentary (which was all about introducing the point about White Queens believing in impossibilities at the end; for which the stories promoted concerning the chemical evolution of life is a better example; but the videos with Stephen Hawking, Richard Dawkins and Lawrence Krauss concern the origin of the universe, they too contain evidence regarding the same point about White Queens; there was another point preceding it concerning the belief that anything is possible, if given enough time and a really big universe, keep in mind that according to claims made by astronomers the universe began approx. 14.5-15 billion years ago, so you do not have an unlimited amount of time to give for something to happen in the universe as long as we're talking science, i.e. reality, and not fantasy, such as unsupported fantasies and unverified philosophies/ideas about the multiverse or an eternal universe or an eternal singularity + an oscillating model for the universe, alternating between periods of expansion and collapsion).

I quoted 2 Tim 4:3,4 and John 8:42-47 in my first response to CCoburn. I'll quote the other 2 I mentioned above now (along with another one to introduce Heb 5:11).

Matthew 13:13-15

That is why I speak to them by the use of illustrations; for looking, they look in vain, and hearing, they hear in vain, nor do they get the sense of it. 14 And the prophecy of Isaiah is being fulfilled in their case. It says: ‘You will indeed hear but by no means get the sense of it, and you will indeed look but by no means see. 15 For the heart of this people has grown unreceptive, and with their ears they have heard without response, and they have shut their eyes, so that they might never see with their eyes and hear with their ears and get the sense of it with their hearts and turn back and I heal them.’

“Look out that no one takes you captive by means of the philosophy and empty deception according to human tradition, according to the elementary things of the world and not according to Christ;” “We have much to say about him, and it is difficult to explain, because you have become dull in your hearing. For although by now* [Lit., “in view of the time.”] you should be teachers, you again need someone to teach you from the beginning the elementary things of the sacred pronouncements of God, and you have gone back to needing milk, not solid food. For everyone who continues to feed on milk is unacquainted with the word of righteousness, for he is a young child. But solid food belongs to mature people, to those who through use have their powers of discernment* [Or “their perceptive powers.”] trained to distinguish both right and wrong.” (Col 2:8; Hebrews 5:11-14)

Synonyms for "right" and "wrong" are "true/correct" and "false/incorrect". Of course, the terms right and wrong also carry a moral meaning.

Concerning the topic of the origin of the universe:


Playlist link:

Purposeful Design or Mindless Process? 1 of 2

edit 1: "intriguiging" should be "intriguing"

edit 2: oh, the age of the universe is almost 14 billion years according to astronomers at the moment (13.8). I had 14-15 in my comment first, because I was thinking of 14.8. Some years ago at least, astronomers calculated that the universe may be as much as 15 billion years old. Don't know if these are still around that go that high. But that was besides the point made there: the time available is limited. Unlike some equations I've seen promoted by those promoting certain impossibilities to actually be possible because of the argument I was discussing there, where they will use an infinity factor to represent the amount of time available in their imagination that leads to the slogan and belief that anything is possible (if given enough time and a really big universe, with lots of events and interactions between matter and energy according to how the forces of nature operate as described in the laws of nature; usually this spiel also involves appeals to yet to be discovered laws or forces of nature, more unverified philosophies/ideas, i.e. imagination, philosophy and fantasy, not science/knowledge*; and arguing from fantasy and wishful thinking, which is worse than arguing from ignorance, you're actually playing on people's ignorance, making use of it to promote/market or 'sell' unverified philosophies/ideas, and even unverifiable philosophies/ideas sometimes, or at least a test hasn't been proposed on how to verify them, such as in the case of the multiverse, so-called "String theory", "M-theory" and "the chemical evolution theory of life"; notice the marketing upgrade to the term "theory", giving people the impression that these are so-called "scientific theories", given the context they are presented and promoted in).

*: "science" is a term derived from the Latin scientia meaning "knowledge", "science" and "knowledge" are also still synonyms. Essentially, science/knowledge means familiarity with facts/truths/certainties/realities acquired by personal experience, observation, or study. I.e. it concerns things that are factual/true/certain/absolute/conclusive/correct, without error. (all synonyms where you see a /)

So much for the misleading and false/erronuous slogan: "... there is no such thing as absolute certainty in science ..." (Alexander Vilenkin)

No need to twist the meaning of the term "science" if you haven't made a career out of selling unverified philosophies and/or proven myths/false stories under the marketingbanner "Science" (yes, some philosophers and self-marketeers love adding a capital letter there as well, not always, but quite often; this behaviour is related to the religion of scientism, here's a definition for scientism). And are not marketing yourself as a "scientist" making efficient use of the behaviour described at 2 Tim 4:3,4. Just like Donald Trump does it, minus using the term "scientist" (just mentioning him because he's a good example of someone that is efficient at 'tickling people's ears', telling them what they want to hear, even if it's not true, i.e. a false story, another term used at the end of 2Tim 4:3,4; pushing buttons, catering/pandering to his market, just like any efficient con-artist and snake-oil salesman does it, or an expert propagandist. Biden is pretty good at it too, and so are the other 5 named individiduals mentioned in my previous comment, Stephen Hawking, Richard Dawkins, Lawrence Krauss, Haldane and Oparin). Did you know "scientists" used to refer to themselves and eachother as "natural philosophers"? They changed the term for self-marketing reasons. Because a more latin-based term (the same with "science" which used to be called "natural philosophy") sounds more sophisticated. Especially in a period of time where many unverified philosophies had already been debunked (proven wrong) in the preceding centuries, either by Isaac Newton himself, or those following his advice concerning what he called "experimental philosophy" (which according to some people gave rise to what is now called "modern science").

“Rule I. We are to admit no more causes of natural things than such as are both true and sufficient to explain their appearances.
...
Rule IV. In experimental philosophy we are to look upon propositions collected by general induction from phenomena as accurately or very nearly true, notwithstanding any contrary hypotheses that may be imagined, 'till such time as other phenomena occur, by which they may either be made more accurate, or liable to exceptions,

This rule we must follow, that the argument of induction may not be evaded by hypotheses.” [and certainly not by unverified philosophies or proven myths/false stories, fantasy and imagination]

“As in Mathematicks, so in Natural Philosophy, the Investigation of difficult Things by the Method of Analysis, ought ever to precede the Method of Composition. This Analysis consists in making Experiments and Observations, and in drawing general Conclusions from them by Induction, and admitting of no Objections against the Conclusions, but such as are taken from Experiments, or other certain Truths. For Hypotheses are not to be regarded in experimental Philosophy.”
- Isaac Newton (from Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica)

The Encyclopædia Britannica on inductive reasoning:

"When a person uses a number of established facts to draw a general conclusion, he uses inductive reasoning. THIS IS THE KIND OF LOGIC NORMALLY USED IN THE SCIENCES. ..."

From wikipedia's page for "scientist":

Until the late 19th or early 20th century, scientists were called "natural philosophers" or "men of science".

English philosopher and historian of science William Whewell coined the term scientist in 1833,...

Whewell wrote of "an increasing proclivity of separation and dismemberment" in the sciences; while highly specific terms proliferated—chemist, mathematician, naturalist—the broad term "philosopher" was no longer satisfactory to group together those who pursued science, without the caveats of "natural" or "experimental" philosopher.

I already gave the true reason why they preferred the other term later on (1833 and onwards).

a reply to: whereislogic

I ve watched part of these videos but I can see Hawking's nonsense like you described them. Your very long reply doesn't address any of my questions but it's like you try to say creationism is the answer based on the bible which you site as a credible source.

a reply to: Consvoli

It was not for nothing that I added the remark:

keep in mind that I'm not a creationist, an adherent of creationism

Please don't pin (paint) creationism on me when I spelled that out. It feels like such a demonstration of the Bible texts that I referred to and quoted so far.

You're not 'listening' as Jesus used the word at John 8:42-47 (see footnote), "and it is difficult to explain, because you have become dull in your hearing." (Heb 5:11) 'For while looking, you look in vain, and while hearing, you hear in vain, nor do you get the sense of it. For your heart has grown unreceptive, and with your ears you have heard without response, and you have shut your eyes, so that you might never see with your eyes and hear with your ears and get the sense of it with your heart.' (Matthew 13:13-15) And because I'm not 'tickling your ears' with short slogans and uninformative shorter* comments that everyone is so fond of here given the amount of stars these useless/nonbeneficial comments get. (2 Timothy 4:3,4; *: shorter than mine) I'm not in that business (catering to the market, saying things that will make people like me more or give lots of stars cause they like what they're hearing and don't mind if they are long or so numerous that in the end, it's more text and takes more time to read than my comments in total; I do on average have a bit more to say, explain and elaborate on in a thread, providing examples and evidence as well and not just expressing or promoting popular opinions or slogans without proper evidence to back them up). "Because I, on the other hand, tell you the truth, you do not believe me. If I speak truth, why is it that you do not believe me? The one who is from God listens to the sayings of God. This is why you do not listen, because you are not from God." (John 8:45-47, skipping a bit)

Next time, you may also consider if it is clear from the question you asked in response to me, if your intention is to use the term "evolution" in the same manner that I used the term in connection to the 3 main evolutionary philosophies. And not that you have the intention to change the subject to exclude cosmic evolution, and the chemical evolution of life from the discussion in the future when talking about "evolution" ( a vague term that has even been used to refer to the observation and fact that the descendants of living things may change slightly, an observation that provides no evidence for the philosophy/idea that all living things are descendent from mysterious and unspecified single-celled ancestors, as connected to the term "common descent" or "common ancestry", the idea of what is called "macroevolution" by its promoters, the earlier mentioned observation misleadingly referred to as "microevolution", intended to give the impression that these observations provide evidence for "macroevolution" and that there is little difference between the 2, supposedly both being "evolution", capitalizing on the ambiguity of language concerning the term "evolution", especially when not properly specified or defined by the promoters of all 3 main evolutionary philosophies that I used the term for).

See, I can do (edit: fairly) short comments as well. (the paragraph above I added, it was shorter)

originally posted by: whereislogic
a reply to: Consvoli

It was not for nothing that I added the remark:

keep in mind that I'm not a creationist, an adherent of creationism

Please don't pin creationism on me when I spelled that out. It feels like such a demonstration of the Bible texts that I referred to and quoted so far.

You're not 'listening' as Jesus used the word at John 8:42-47 (see footnote), "and it is difficult to explain, because you have become dull in your hearing." (Heb 5:11) 'For while looking, you look in vain, and while hearing, you hear in vain, nor do you get the sense of it. For your heart has grown unreceptive, and with your ears you have heard without response, and you have shut your eyes, so that you might never see with your eyes and hear with your ears and get the sense of it with your heart.' (Matthew 13:13-15) And because I'm not 'tickling your ears' with short slogans and uninformative shorter* comments that everyone is so fond of here given the amount of stars these useless/nonbeneficial comments get. (2 Timothy 4:3,4; *: shorter than mine) I'm not in that business (catering to the market, saying things that will make people like me more or give lots of stars cause they like what they're hearing and don't mind if they are long or so numerous that in the end, it's more text and takes more time to read than my comments in total; I do on average have a bit more to say, explain and elaborate on in a thread, providing examples and evidence as well and not just expressing or promoting popular opinions or slogans without proper evidence to back them up). "Because I, on the other hand, tell you the truth, you do not believe me. If I speak truth, why is it that you do not believe me? The one who is from God listens to the sayings of God. This is why you do not listen, because you are not from God." (John 8:45-47, skipping a bit)

See, I can do short comments as well.

I don't see the relevance of another long post copy pasted from bible. What is that you think? Don't you have your own opinions on why the universe started?

How Does the Universe Function


That's what this is about. We have some logical tautologies and absurdities to deal with here.

1. Time is ever-flowing. The absurdity is that it never began. We would become lost within an infinite past searching for any beginnings. How can something exist if it was never born?

2. Emergence from nothing(as a spatiotemporal negation). Another absurdity. This would require some unknown primordial(or eternal) anomaly to function acausally.

There is some anomaly that is preventing a dead eternity somehow, and it is not following our conventional laws of logic and reason.

originally posted by: CCoburn
How Does the Universe Function


That's what this is about. We have some logical tautologies and absurdities to deal with here.

1. Time is ever-flowing. The absurdity is that it never began. We would become lost within an infinite past searching for any beginnings. How can something exist if it was never born?

2. Emergence from nothing(as a spatiotemporal negation). Another absurdity. This would require some unknown primordial(or eternal) anomaly to function acausally.

There is some anomaly that is preventing a dead eternity somehow, and it is not following our conventional laws of logic and reason.

Maybe you want to consider that time is a human construct after all.

But your second point isn't correct because the universe didn't emerge from nothing. The existence of the universes doesn't violate cause and effect but something to exist philosophically speaking there must be a violation of this principle somehow.

a reply to: Consvoli

Time isn't a human construct(or concept). As previously stated, time is a name/measurement given to motion and change. I can observe that things move and that things change; that is time.

Time is a cosmological construct.

originally posted by: Consvoli

But your second point isn't correct because the universe didn't emerge from nothing. The existence of the universes doesn't violate cause and effect but something to exist philosophically speaking there must be a violation of this principle somehow.

Taken separately they aren't really "points" they are postulates or propositions. Taken as a whole the "point" is that it is one way or the other as I don't see any other possibility. There are some logical tautologies here such as either time is eternal or it is not eternal.

You say "the universe didn't emerge from nothing", but what is nothing? You can say an empty box contains nothing but we know that technically this isn't true. We can hypothesize as to the true nature of nothing, if there is such a thing, but all we know really is that there is a quantifiable reduction that approaches it that distinguishes it from 'something' enough to make it worthy of such a title, but again, we can't really say precisely and unequivocally what exactly it is.

And why would any such hypothesis of nothing and emergence from it be any less believable than the existence of a bornless thing? Which is basically tantamount to saying that it does and does not exist.

Also, we don't know for certain one way or the other whether or not the universe "violates cause and effect" since an acausal unmoved mover would certainly do that if it were the case.