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Big Bust Cosmology

On January 29, 2010, In Cosmology, Debates, Religious Arguments, Science, By The Armchair Antichrist

In most or all of the God debates that I have seen there is a common use by the theist side of the Kalam argument reinforced by a reference to the Big Bang Theory. I will not be debunking the Kalam argument here. That can be found in an earlier post. With this post I will be showing you how theist debaters have been misusing science, specifically the Big Bang Theory.

Most erroneously, these theist debaters claim that the Big Bang has been scientifically proven to be an act of creation or at least was the moment of creation. This is not true. What we know conclusively through science is only that the universe was once in a much denser and hotter state and expanded into its current form. The farthest we can get to the ‘beginning’ is the Plank epoch up to 10^–43 seconds after the Big Bang, a period which is still very fuzzy.

All theories about the early universe are speculative at best. This is because without empirical evidence (that will hopefully be found by particle accelerators) the only measure of validity for these theories is internal mathematical consistency. Basically, if the math behind the theory works out then it is a possible explanation of the universe’s cosmogony or ‘beginning’.

There are many of these kinds of theories which are all theoretically possible. Some of them include self-creating universes, universes created from the collision of branes, finite spherical universes with no beginning, the list goes on.

So the question is why do these theist debaters only hold onto an account which allows for a beginning (if only they had the same level of confidence for evolution). Well, this is so that they can argue for a ‘creation’ event and therefore, the existence of God. They will even go as far as to quote mine physicists who believe in opposing theories. This is a perfect example of confirmation bias and the overall close-mindedness of the religious.

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Tagged with: argument • big bang theory • cosmogony • Cosmology • creation • god debate • kalam • particle accelerator • physics • planck epoch • string theory • universe

Time and Time Again

On January 19, 2010, In Cosmology, Science, By The Armchair Antichrist

In a previous philosophy class and in a philosophy class I’m currently in I have encountered people who believe that time is not real. They say it is just something man made. It is merely the measurement of motion. I guess they mean it in the way for example, how 32 768 oscillations of a quartz crystal amounts to one second. But, that is not time similar to how the height of the mercury in a thermometer is not temperature.

Their view of time would necessarily be an absolute one. If time was just an arbitrary measurement it would be the same for everybody and in all parts of the universe. And it would run at the same rate for everyone and in all parts of the universe. To still believe in absolute time in a post-Einsteinian world is unacceptable. If Einstein did not unquestionably show that time is relative to the observer, I don’t know who did.

So, just like how a thermometer measures the average kinetic energy of gas in a certain spot, a clock measures the passage of time in a certain spot. If you were to bring a clock close to a strong gravitational well like a black hole, it would measure time much slower relative to one far away. And if a clock were sped up to close to the speed of light it would also measure time much slower relative to one moving much slower. These effects occur with non-relativistic speeds and with weaker gravitational wells (e.g. Earth) too; they are just too small to be perceptible to us.

Time is just as much a dimension as space is. And everything exists in time as in space. So, just like how space exists even though you may not be inhabiting it at the time, all of time exists which you only experience moment by moment. But, time that you have just experienced does not stop existing. The past, present, and future all exist simultaneously. Time is real. Deal with it.

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Tagged with: absolute • black hole • dimension • einstein • gravitational well • Philosophy • relativistic • space • time

Why is There Something Rather Than Nothing?

On December 29, 2009, In Cosmology, Philosophy, Science, By The Armchair Antichrist

To answer this question we first have to inquire into what “Nothing” is. Heidegger believed it to be something. For example, he saw the desire for Nothing as different from having no desires. But, this treatment of Nothing as something leads to a logical absurdity.

Premise 1: Nothing is better than great sex.
Premise 2: Pizza is better than Nothing.
Conclusion: Pizza is better than great sex.

Nothing is not prior to the Not. Rather, the Not is prior to Nothing. The Not reverses the truth value of statements from true to false and vice versa like a switch. Heidegger wrongly treated Nothing like a substance or a name just because it was a noun in language.

Therefore, Nothing cannot be a state of affairs unless it is compared to something (i.e. Not something). So, logically something has always existed which renders this question meaningless.

This leads us to the next question which is why is this “something” the way it is? Why is the universe ordered in this way? For the answer to this question I turn to the anthropic principle. The anthropic principle basically states that we see the universe the way it is because we exist.

The reason why the Big Bang occurred about 10 billion years ago is because the universe needed to be old enough so that some stars will have completed their evolution to produce the elements out of which living things are made, and young enough so that some stars would still be able to provide energy to sustain life. If this was not the case we would not be here to ask the question.

For better explanations you should turn to the work of cosmologists and physicists who are tirelessly working towards a better understanding of the universe.

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Tagged with: anthropic principle • big bang • cosmologist • heidegger • nothing • physicist • something • substance • universe

A Short Refutation of the Kalam Argument

On October 5, 2009, In Christianity, Cosmology, Creationism, Philosophy, Religious Arguments, By The Armchair Antichrist

This is an argument that pseudo-intellectual theologians like William Lane Craig and others like him have used. And it goes something like this:

Premise 1: Everything that begins to exist has a cause.

Premise 2: The universe began to exist.

Conclusion: Therefore, the universe must have a cause.

Premise 1 is correct to an extent because it seems obvious that everything that begins has a cause. However, the term created would be closer to what these pseudo-intellectuals actually mean. But, really everything that we see created is only a rearrangement of pre-existing atoms, so nothing is actually created. So, yes everything has a cause, but there was no creation because everything already existed to begin with.

Premise 2 is completely wrong. You cannot deduce facts from inside the universe and apply them to the universe as a whole. This is a fallacy of composition. Furthermore, causality itself is a property of the universe that as far as we know only applies to things within the universe. We do not have knowledge of other universes coming into existence so it is not correct to make that assumption.

Since both of the premises are incorrect, logically the conclusion must also be false.

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Tagged with: atoms • causality • creation • pseudo intellectual • theologian • universe • william lane craig

Everything from Nothing?

On September 10, 2009, In Arguments against God, Cosmology, Science, By The Armchair Antichrist

Theists often accuse atheists of believing that the universe came from nothing. I admit that we do not have any good explanation for the universe other than the Big Bang theory which only explains the expansion. But, that is no reason to turn to religious explanations. We shouldn’t even speculate in religious terms because it is not falsifiable and therefore not scientific.

Scientifically speaking it is possible for the universe’s total energy to be zero. The universe would exist in negative and positive parts. Gravity for example, is one of forces associated with the negative. When an object falls from rest (a state of zero energy), it gains kinetic energy as it falls. But, this gain in energy is balanced exactly by a larger gravitational energy as it comes closer to the Earth’s centre, so the sum of the two energies remains zero.

Furthermore, the inflationary theory of the universe tells us that only a small amount of energy was required to start the Big Bang. This small amount of energy can be explained with Quantum theory’s quantum fluctuations which occur when pairs of particles and antiparticles spontaneously form and annihilate eachother. There is a possibility that one of these quantum fluctuations lasted long enough in order to jump start the universe.

This is only a hypothesis, but it uses scientific laws and theories to arrive at it. We will never observe the birth of a universe so this may be the closest we will get to explaining the origin of the universe. So, as you can see theists the universe may have come from nothing. Inserting a god only creates more problems and begs more questions. If you think that “everything came from nothing” is unscientific think again.

Sources:
http://www.astrosociety.org/pubs/mercury/31_02/nothing.html (http://www NULL.astrosociety NULL.org/pubs/mercury/31_02/nothing NULL.html)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ImvlS8PLIo&feature=sub (http://www NULL.youtube NULL.com/watch?v=7ImvlS8PLIo&feature=sub)

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