Scientists - How was everything created from nothing? (believer, heaven, eternal)

[Katzpur]

Originally Posted by Shiloh1

That's not standard Christian Doctrine...

Of course it's not, but then "standard Christian doctrine" isn't necessarily right. I could provide a reasonable amount of evidence that creation ex nihilo was not believed by the earliest Christians and that it was a later introduction into Christianity.

EDIT: This just begs the question of where did this material come from?

Well, I can't answer that one and am not even going to try. Still, I don't believe God to be any less of a Creator because He used existing matter to create the universe. I find it kind of amusing, actually, how people seem to take such offense at the suggestion that out of chaos, God organized our universe. Personally, I find it to be quite a spectacular feat.

Originally Posted by Katzpur

[/i]LOL. Only God's opinion counts when it comes to who's an "outlier" and who's the real thing.

History counts, so does the book in which ones doctrines derive, and the majority who hold to such beliefs - all of which say that your conception of God and Creation does not fall under 'Christian Doctrine' per-se. As such it is an outlier even if allowed to be part of the possible 'Christian Doctrines.'

My position is just that it's not just science that has the opinion of growing in its knowledge. I don't believe that God suddenly decided to stop talking to humankind some 2000 years ago. I believe He is continuing even today to reveal new truths to us, and that ultimately, when all is said and done, there will be no conflict between religious truths and scientific truths. As a noted scholar of my "outlying" faith once pointed out: The first rule of scholarship [is]: You are never playing with a full deck. You never know how much evidence you may be missing, what it is, or where it is hiding. What counters that and saves the day for scholarship is what I have called the "Gas Law of Learning," namely, that any amount of knowledge, no matter how small, will fill any vacuum of ignorance, no matter how large. He who knows one or two facts can honestly claim to know at least something about a subject, and nobody knows everything. So it is with the schoolmen who make the rules and move the goalposts."

Note: He was not speaking strictly of science, but of religion, too. We don't know everything there is to know about the universe. Scientists don't and neither do theologians.

You can believe what you want - heck even call it what you want - but the idea of creatio ex nihilo is illogical and the idea that God used eternal matter does not explain its origins and makes one wonder what need for God is there if matter is eternally existent? Anyway, your position is different than the OP's so I am not sure why you were seemingly on his side?

Originally Posted by Katzpur

Of course it's not, but then "standard Christian doctrine" isn't necessarily right. I could provide a reasonable amount of evidence that creation ex nihilo was not believed by the earliest Christians and that it was a later introduction into Christianity.

Well, I can't answer that one and am not even going to try. Still, I don't believe God to be any less of a Creator because He used existing matter to create the universe. I find it kind of amusing, actually, how people seem to take such offense at the suggestion that out of chaos, God organized our universe. Personally, I find it to be quite a spectacular feat.

I would agree that the Bible, particularly Genesis 1:1-3, actually does teach matter as already present - whether it was eternal who knows (See the thread I started with that title).

The point is that modern Christianity argues from the position of creatio ex nihilo and then, as the OP does, calls scientists who use the term 'nothing' to explain the Universe as asinine - Ironic don't you think? We can argue all day about what Christianity might have taught or how it changed but the fact is that the majority of those calling themsleves Christians, today, have a certain doctrine from which they argue for their God and his creation.

[sanspeur]

Originally Posted by Katzpur

Of course it's not, but then "standard Christian doctrine" isn't necessarily right. I could provide a reasonable amount of evidence that creation ex nihilo was not believed by the earliest Christians and that it was a later introduction into Christianity.

Well, I can't answer that one and am not even going to try. Still, I don't believe God to be any less of a Creator because He used existing matter to create the universe. I find it kind of amusing, actually, how people seem to take such offense at the suggestion that out of chaos, God organized our universe. Personally, I find it to be quite a spectacular feat.

Oh right, so now god didn't create the universe, he just organized it...

[sanspeur]

Originally Posted by Katzpur

I believe He used the matter that was co-eternal with Him.

What does that even mean?...I think you are just making things up as you post.

[ukrkoz]

I could not keep myself from coming back.

Who says universe begun from nothing? Is it really that hard to remember, that BigBang is nothing but a more or less widely accepted THEORY, just like Darwinism.
It is propagated by many educational institutions and governments. It is propagated by media and science.
But it is nothing but theory. And many of those came about and parished, as "science" is a like a frivolous hippy person - changing its opinions continuously. And its theories.

With that being said, there are plenty of scientists that question it.

Otherwise, if you believe that universe was created from nothing, you defying the most fundamental law of that same universe - law of conservation of energy.
The law of conservation of energy, first formulated in the nineteenth century, is a law of physics. It states that the total amount of energy in an isolated system remains constant over time. The total energy is said to be conserved over time. For an isolated system, this law means that energy can change its location within the system, and that it can change form within the system, for instance chemical energy can become kinetic energy, but that energy can be neither created nor destroyed.
And the law of conservation of mass:
The law of conservation of mass, also known as the principle of mass/matter conservation, states that the mass of an isolated system (closed to all transfers of matter and energy) will remain constant over time. This principle is equivalent to the conservation of energy: when energy or mass is enclosed in a system and none is allowed in or out, its quantity cannot otherwise change over time (hence, its quantity is "conserved" over time). The mass of an isolated system cannot be changed as a result of processes acting inside the system. The law implies that mass can neither be created nor destroyed, although it may be rearranged in space and changed into different types of particles; and that for any chemical process in an isolated system, the mass of the reactants must equal the mass of the products.

With that said, universe could not come out of nothing. There should have been equivalent to this universe somewhere, and in some form, and in some state, that contained this very universe, and should there have been Big Bang, allowed it to manifest itself into what you call now universe.

Appearance of a universe out of nothing can be done only one way - by miracle. Even then, it is still contained in that very miracle plan and design. But then, you simply prove existence of a superior something, capable of exercising that miracle, aka - God. Hence, either universe was there, in some form, BEFORE Big Bang or, God exists. But even if God were to create it, it still did not come from nothing, but was contained in God's WORD. In its WILL, DESIGN, POWER, etc

[mattywo85]

Mass cannot be created nor destroyed, so where did mass come from?

[nana053]

Originally Posted by ukrkoz

I could not keep myself from coming back.

Who says universe begun from nothing? Is it really that hard to remember, that BigBang is nothing but a more or less widely accepted THEORY, just like Darwinism.
It is propagated by many educational institutions and governments. It is propagated by media and science.
But it is nothing but theory. And many of those came about and parished, as "science" is a like a frivolous hippy person - changing its opinions continuously. And its theories.

With that being said, there are plenty of scientists that question it.

Otherwise, if you believe that universe was created from nothing, you defying the most fundamental law of that same universe - law of conservation of energy.
The law of conservation of energy, first formulated in the nineteenth century, is a law of physics. It states that the total amount of energy in an isolated system remains constant over time. The total energy is said to be conserved over time. For an isolated system, this law means that energy can change its location within the system, and that it can change form within the system, for instance chemical energy can become kinetic energy, but that energy can be neither created nor destroyed.
And the law of conservation of mass:
The law of conservation of mass, also known as the principle of mass/matter conservation, states that the mass of an isolated system (closed to all transfers of matter and energy) will remain constant over time. This principle is equivalent to the conservation of energy: when energy or mass is enclosed in a system and none is allowed in or out, its quantity cannot otherwise change over time (hence, its quantity is "conserved" over time). The mass of an isolated system cannot be changed as a result of processes acting inside the system. The law implies that mass can neither be created nor destroyed, although it may be rearranged in space and changed into different types of particles; and that for any chemical process in an isolated system, the mass of the reactants must equal the mass of the products.

With that said, universe could not come out of nothing. There should have been equivalent to this universe somewhere, and in some form, and in some state, that contained this very universe, and should there have been Big Bang, allowed it to manifest itself into what you call now universe.

Appearance of a universe out of nothing can be done only one way - by miracle. Even then, it is still contained in that very miracle plan and design. But then, you simply prove existence of a superior something, capable of exercising that miracle, aka - God. Hence, either universe was there, in some form, BEFORE Big Bang or, God exists. But even if God were to create it, it still did not come from nothing, but was contained in God's WORD. In its WILL, DESIGN, POWER, etc

Much of the problem you have is a misunderstanding of the big bang theory (note there are problems with the theory, but the ones you site are not part of that)

Big Bang for beginners-13: Does the Big Bang theory violate the law of conservation of energy? | Machines Like Us

In any big bang model, one must deal with the problem of 'creation'. This problem has two aspects. One is that the conservation laws of physics forbid the creation of something from nothing. The other is that even if the conservation laws were inapplicable at the moment of creation, there is no apparent reason for such an event to occur.
…
Contrary to widespread belief, such an event need not have violated any of the conventional laws of physics. The laws of physics merely imply that a Universe which appears from nowhere must have certain specific properties. In particular, such a Universe must have a zero net value for all conserved quantities.
…
To indicate how such a creation might have come about, I refer to quantum field theory, in which every phenomenon that could happen in principle actually does happen occasionally in practice, on a statistically random basis. For example, quantum electrodynamics reveals that an electron, positron and photon occasionally emerge spontaneously from a perfect vacuum. When this happens, the three particles exist for a brief time, and then annihilate each other, leaving no trace behind.
…
If it is true that our Universe has a zero net value for all conserved quantities, then it may simply be a fluctuation of the vacuum, the vacuum of some larger space in which our Universe is imbedded. In answer to the question of why it happened, I offer the modest proposal that our Universe is simply one of those things which happen from time to time.

The entire series of articles is archived here:
Big Bang for beginners | Machines Like Us

Originally Posted by ukrkoz

Appearance of a universe out of nothing can be done only one way - by miracle. Even then, it is still contained in that very miracle plan and design. But then, you simply prove existence of a superior something, capable of exercising that miracle, aka - God. Hence, either universe was there, in some form, BEFORE Big Bang or, God exists. But even if God were to create it, it still did not come from nothing, but was contained in God's WORD. In its WILL, DESIGN, POWER, etc

This does not make any sense! Just theological Babbily ****! God's will does nothing until God acts. If God's desire came at some point in the mind of God then what exactly caused the change in his will or nature that compelled him to create given the fact that he was the only thing in existence and the fact that he is unchangable? In other words, the very reason someone acts in the first place is because they are dissatisfied with their present condition - in light of this why would God be dissatisfied with his eternal state compelling him to will that he create a universe and one that is not part of himself? If God's will was from eternity to create the Universe then the Universe itself would have been eternally created. Don't confuse God's attributes with the creation - otherwise you have creatio ex deo and the Universe would be part of and ontologically similar to God - and that is not 'Christian Doctrine.'

Second, how did God act upon nothing, since he alone (including his will and power) exists and create something that is completely ontologically seperate from Him, his will, his power, or word?

There is the cause and the effect - but there is also the means and material.

LOL: My G.O.O.K got corrected to ****.

[Katzpur]

Originally Posted by Shiloh1

History counts, so does the book in which ones doctrines derive, and the majority who hold to such beliefs - all of which say that your conception of God and Creation does not fall under 'Christian Doctrine' per-se. As such it is an outlier even if allowed to be part of the possible 'Christian Doctrines.'

History only counts because it's the winners who write it. I don't care whether my beliefs are accepted by traditional Christianity or not.

You can believe what you want - heck even call it what you want - but the idea of creatio ex nihilo is illogical and the idea that God used eternal matter does not explain its origins and makes one wonder what need for God is there if matter is eternally existent?

The existence of unorganized matter is hardly the same thing as the existence of a functioning universe. Without God, we'd have no universe, just unorganized matter.

Anyway, your position is different than the OP's so I am not sure why you were seemingly on his side?

I wasn't aware that I was on his side or anybody else's. I didn't even get involved in this discussion until someone (you, I think) implied that while science can continually bring new information to the table, religion can't. My point was merely to say that I disagreed with that statement.