Does God exist?

[questor]

If the sum of your argument is that we cannot prove causality, I agree. If the universe is derived from a big bang and the same elements exist throughout the universe, and everything we can observe has a cause and effect, it would be natural and logical to ASSUME the birth of the universe was caused. If it was not caused, what are the alternatives? If it has always existed, there was not a big bang.

[modest]

Originally Posted by questor

If the sum of your argument is that we cannot prove causality, I agree. If the universe is derived from a big bang and the same elements exist throughout the universe, and everything we can observe has a cause and effect, it would be natural and logical to ASSUME the birth of the universe was caused. If it was not caused, what are the alternatives? If it has always existed, there was not a big bang.

This leads directly to my second objection. If we assume the universe was 'caused' by a 'creator' then we should logically also assume the creator needed causing and that creator needed causing and on and on in an infinite regression.

What this eventually boils down to is the *fact* that there is something and there is not nothing and the *assumption* that this something which we live in needed help getting here from nothing. But, I think this is a bad assumption. It is no better (and I think worse) to assume there was a creator who turned nothing into something rather than something simply being or something coming from nothing with no help.

If you follow this line of reasoning it's rather clear that postulating a creator or a force of creation that existed before our universe doesn't solve the problem we are otherwise perplexed by. All it does is transfer the problem to something else.

While the above makes good sense to me, I have a feeling it reads like gibberish - yet I can think of no better way to say it. So, if it doesn't make sense to you, please read this link:

Turtles all the way down - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

~modest

[questor]

Yes, we have a conundrum. It is logical for me to believe there was a cause for the universe, since everything in it has a cause ( as far as we know). The rest of the riddle is tougher... what caused the cause? Was the cause always there? Does the cause still exist? Does the cause follow physical laws or make physical laws? I have no answer to these questions, but it does make one consider the supernatural. I'm sure many minds have wrestled with these questions. I was an atheist for many years, and I do not believe in the dogma of man-made religions or worship a deity, but I do question how the universe could exist as it is without some supreme intelligence at the wheel.

[Moontanman]

Originally Posted by questor

Yes, we have a conundrum. It is logical for me to believe there was a cause for the universe, since everything in it has a cause ( as far as we know). The rest of the riddle is tougher... what caused the cause? Was the cause always there? Does the cause still exist? Does the cause follow physical laws or make physical laws? I have no answer to these questions, but it does make one consider the supernatural. I'm sure many minds have wrestled with these questions. I was an atheist for many years, and I do not believe in the dogma of man-made religions or worship a deity, but I do question how the universe could exist as it is without some supreme intelligence at the wheel.

And they say M-Theory is just speculation

[questor]

Moon, if you have the answers or a better theory, speak up. What does string theory say about the origin of the universe?

[Moontanman]

Originally Posted by questor

Moon, if you have the answers or a better theory, speak up. What does string theory say about the origin of the universe?

Membrane theory suggests what we see as a big bang was actually a collision between two multidimensional membranes that float in a multi dimensional universe composed of a multidimensional space. Our universe would be a membrane inside this multi-verse. When the two membranes collide the big bang happens every where not at some set point. the force of the collision and resulting release of all the energy contained in the two membranes result in the two membranes being pushed apart until their mutual attraction via gravity causes them to come back together. this process repeats into infinity. Think of our universe as sheet hanging over a clothesline. next to another sheet. they come together, not all at once, but as the wrinkles touch all the matter in each sheet is turned into energy. this causes the illusion of a big bang. once the entire sheet is in contact with the other sheet at all point the two are forced apart only to repeat this ever few hundreds of billions of years.

[goku]

Originally Posted by REASON

Now I could present you with a white piece of candy that I said was vanilla flavored and if you trusted me, you might believe that it was. But when you put it in your mouth and discovered it was actually coconut flavored, would you still believe it tasted like vanilla simply because I said so, and you had trusted me?

point taken.
but what if i had never tasted vanillia?
what if you were not there when life was created, or began?

[questor]

Moon, what is the composition of the membranes? I assume there is mass if we are in the membrane. When the membranes strike each other, how is the energy released? Is it from the collision of Dark matter, or massive bodies in the membrane? If it is from massive bodies such as planets and stars, we are goners on the next collision. How do the membranes maintain their integrity?

[Moontanman]

Originally Posted by questor

Moon, what is the composition of the membranes? I assume there is mass if we are in the membrane. When the membranes strike each other, how is the energy released? Is it from the collision of Dark matter, or massive bodies in the membrane? If it is from massive bodies such as planets and stars, we are goners on the next collision. How do the membranes maintain their integrity?

The Membranes are composed of our four or five or how ever many dimensional universe. From the stand point of a higher dimension our universe would appear as a two dimensional plane appears in our universe. The collision of the membranes is what releases the energy, as they pass through each other all matter is turned into energy. Oh yes we and everything will be gone when the membranes collide. Fortunately this would be a process that takes place over time scales of 1000s of billions of years at least. The membranes are separate universes, gravity pulls them together, energy release pushes them apart. They can be thought of as being too far away to be measured and closer than the width of a proton. Multidimensional space is very difficult to imagine, it is somewhat counter intuitive to say the least. Some theorize that these universes are composed of matter/antimatter pairs and as they contact they annihilate each other. Some think this is not necessary and the act of contact is enough to annihilate them.

[questor]

String theory has not been proved has it? And I would expect that not all mathematical predictions are correct.