[QUOTE="Xelasnave.1947, post: 3542175, member: 283952"You cant say that...we dont know past the big bang and therefore we dont know what is possible or unlikely...you can not give any specilation a likely unlikely or highly unlikely.
We just dont know.
The fact is we dont know what was going on at or before the big bang.
So if I speculate the universe cycles or you speculate it came from nothing the fact is we still do not know.[/quote]The "Highly unlikely" refers to the flat universe I mentioned, which will continue to expand ever faster, eventually ripping itself apart (Big Rip scenario). That potentially limits the forward life of the universe. As for infinite in the past, I argue that it is meaningless once you step on or before the Big Bang, precisely because we don't even know if time has meaning at that point. Thus being able to call the universe eternal I see as being highly unlikely... for a flat universe.
Yes that is why I placed this thread in this section...theists speculate in this area and so now do I.☺
You asked atheists to provide arguments in support of the eternal universe... are you expecting something unsupported by science to be convincing?
We know only our universe and the fact is we cant even now tell how big it is...we are confined to the observable universe and it certainly seems there is an outside to our observable universe.
There is, and almost everything currently within our observable universe will eventually move beyond observable range. Unless we assume that it somehow is no longer there, it would be rational to conclude that it would exist even if beyond our observable limit. But if one is of the view that things don't exist if they can not interact with you then I suppose philosophically they wouldn't exist.
Any comment would be speculative but the big bang presumably came from pre existing conditions and perhaps time existed as well...we dont know...we can not even say exactly what the big bang was...all we can determine is an evolement of the universe after things had already started...
Agreed.
Who says meaning can not be found?
If conditions existed before the big bang and that is reasonable to believe that they must have then they would exist in something in which time would pass.
If.
I'm not talking about meaningful with regard our own frame of reference... words have meanings as they relate to it. But if we have no frame of reference, i.e. if we can not pierce the veil and look outside of the universe, we have no frame of reference for such things. And thus all things are simply one guess after another... and ultimately meaningless with regard finding an answer.
If not you must have a creation event were there was nothing before the big bang...
One could argue that all those words are referenced to what happens inside our universe. We have no understanding of what is not within our universe so I am not sure we can say that there must have been a creation event or not. Just because things happen a certain way within the universe is no guide to what may happen without.
In any event if the universe is eternal time would still exist..it is a measure ... so the universe we can teasonably establish has been around for approx 14 billion years and yet measurement of time seems a recent thing... a clock made today will measure time for its life but the life of that clock has no bearing on how long time has been running...
But all we know is that the clock works inside the universe, and we only know it has meaning inside the universe. To extrapolate outside might seem reasonable, but we have no way of confirming. Time as we understand it, or can ever understand it, may only exist within our universe.
We can not answer such a question as all we know is that what we believe that exist in was a product of the big bang in other words our universe...we do not know if we were in anything before or not...we do not know.
I agree. And it is why I consider it meaningless when we have no frame of reference for what is not within our universe.
Speculation past the big bang is speculation...I speculate the universe has always been and cycles thru big bang crunch and big bang...that appeals primarily because that means no creation event is needed...
But it has its own issues to contend with, like the laws of thermodynamics, entropy et al. Also, choosing an idea simply because it does away with something you don't like, when you have no way of confirming your own idea, seems like an inconsistent approach. Certainly some notions may appeal more than others, perhaps on an aesthetic level, but I'd rather say "I don't know" than pin my flag to the mast of something I don't think I can know.
One could speculate as to what went before the big bang and all you come up as decent guesses are two ideas ending in a third... easily..firstly ..there was nothing and the big bang mysteriously started from well nothing...second we can put in a creator or creation event...thirdly an idea that needs no creator or creation event. The choices are to accept that the universe came from nothing demanding an explanation of it crestion event... or we can happily speculate the universe is eternal...
Sure, but if you're looking at it as simply as that then you have 1/3 chance of being right, and more chance of being wrong.
Well if it was indeed a theory that means it is accepted science and if there were/are many theories well then science is saying it agrees else peer review would have destroyed them...if it was thrown out we can find a lead as to why...but if there was a theory and it has not been replaced well science agrees...the universe is eternal.☺
Firat, it's not a theory, it's an idea. It may not even be testable. Plus you need to be wary of assuming that any "theory" is necessarily strictly scientific. String theory is one such "scientific" theory but I am not aware that it is testable. Certain aspects of it may be, but not the whole.
If you can say that you dont know you are indeed a clever human and an honest human.
Honest I'll take. But it doesn't take being clever to say that one doesn't know, only a very little wisdom.
I bet General Relativity would support it but so far it has not been use to test such a model.
That's the thing though... every such notion of whether the universe is eternal or not would have to be supported by GR, or by whatever may ultimately replace GR. So being supported by GR is not proof, or even really evidence, but merely a prerequisite. If it doesn't conform with GR, etc, then it's currently going to struggle.
It really makes sense...
It would seem impossible for the universe to start from nothing therefore there was something before and unless you accept a creation event or you must keep following investigation of pre existing conditions with no limit.
Eternal universe makes sense creation makes no sense... ut we still dont know.t
Making sense may be the aesthetic reason for favouring. But creation makes sense as well, even if the creation event is the colliding of branes (as in M-brane theory). Conscious or deliberate creation, though...