Out of Nothing. What's that mean? (Buddhism, genesis, quote, God)

[rifleman]

Quickly now, I want a definitive explanation of how God created all the universe that we see, including ourselves, quite literally Out of Nothing? (As per the OT)

Or, alternately, why Christians so vehemently argue the errancy of all the modern scientific hypothesizing and subsequent rational scientific research which has generated a very predictive and time-stamped Big Bang Theory, but which, ditto, requires the formation of all that we see but also, obviously...

Out of Nothing.

(NOTE: Our "theory" is so far not yet fully proven (and may never be, since, like the various OT miracles, we cannot re-visit the event, but our ideas are also well on their way to becoming an established theory [viz: "theory" properly defined, not as a colloquial definition of a "wild guess"])
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Where's the difference in the definition of "Nothing"? Is the Christian "Nothing" different than science's "Nothing"? Webster's does not provide for two different "Nothings".

Be honest now, for a change, n'kay guys?

[MysticPhD]

Originally Posted by rifleman

Quickly now, I want a definitive explanation of how God created all the universe that we see, including ourselves, quite literally Out of Nothing? (As per the OT)

Or, alternately, why Christians so vehemently argue that scientific hypothesizing and subsequent rational scientific research has generated a Big Bang Theory, which requires the formation of all that we see but also, obviously...

Out of Nothing.

(Our "theory" is so far unproven, but its is also well on it's way to becoming an established theory [properly defined, not a colloquial definition] the...)

Where's the difference? Is the Christian "Nothing" different than science's "Nothing"? Webster's does not provide for two different "Nothings".

Be honest now, for a change, n'kay guys?

Hi rifle old buddy . . . When you create something in your imagination . . . how do you do that out of nothing?Just saying.

[rifleman]

You know the answer to that one, Mystic old pal: I have an unusually creative mind! Better'n most I'd say!

But my question is not what the inglorious Nothing is, but rather, why it's so vehemently fought over and presented by combative Christians as a reason that the Big Bang could not have happened, but then, they go on to claim that self-same glorious Nothing as exactly what their God made it all out of.

"Insta-Poofy" Creation Powder, available in unlimited but handy family-sized packages down at God's "7-24 Convenience Store"?

So again, are there two different "Nothings? Or the same Nothings? Or are there two different definitions of Nothing per se?

My curiosity consumeth me!

[TaoistDude]

Much ado about nothing. I think that Stephen Hawking would point to something in quantum theory as the answer (surely it will have virtual particles, vacuum energy, and singularities in the answer), but understanding all that is beyond me.

Anyway, there are plenty of hypotheses about how it could all have come to be, but my favorite is that something exists eternally, and brane theory accounts for our universe in a multiverse.

[rifleman]

Brane not being a typo by a brain-less scy-uhn-teestah, BTW folks. Look it up!

Thx, TD, for edging us into the more intellectual side of the discussion.

"The central idea is that the visible, four-dimensional universe is restricted to a brane inside a higher-dimensional space, called the "bulk". If the additional dimensions are compact, then the observed universe contains the extra dimensions, and then no reference to the bulk is appropriate.

In the bulk model, at least some of the extra dimensions are extensive (possibly infinite), and other branes may be moving through this bulk. Interactions with the bulk, and possibly with other branes, can influence our brane and thus introduce effects not seen in more standard cosmological models."

Ouch! My brane hurtz! (Well then stop hitting yourself in the brayn, rflmn™!)

[bulmabriefs144]

Same way the Big Bang happened. There was this universe that for all intents and purposes did not exist, and probably a super-atom (which begs the question of how that existed before stuff exists) that burst apart into atoms that can be used.

Ex nihilo is a concept, but it actually makes far more sense to be matter redistribution than "oh yea, there's nothing, and suddenly there's something." If God were a scientist (Why not? He controls physical laws), this be, rather than creating sugar out of nothing, there's free C H O atoms, let's combine them. In much the same way, before atoms, quarks get built together, then further down whatever makes up quarks is built. When you get to the final part of creation, you just put it together, and the rest is history.

[Miss Hepburn]

I have no idea about science or vehement Christians...I have been to
The Void....Absolute Nothingness, tho.
So Nothing it is like a black blacker than anything imagineable.
And there is No One there...just Pure Consciousness...when I realized that
Consciousness was All There Was and that It was me...and I was absolutely alone...
the shock startled me right out of "There".

Maybe it is not for this crowd....but for the Hindu section.
But, I do know why that Pure Awareness would want to create "another", even if
"He" did have to just imagine an "other".

The profound aloneness was...well, so alone, singular....whew....quite the experience.

I was also shown how creation happened...but this IS for the Hindu section...
I digress....you want science....it did have to do with Light and slowing It down....that's kinda scientific, right? (But Nothingness came before the Light....that's all I know.)

[mordant]

Originally Posted by Miss Hepburn

I have no idea about science or vehement Christians...I have been to
The Void....Absolute Nothingness, tho.
So Nothing it is like a black blacker than anything imagineable.
And there is No One there...just Pure Consciousness...when I realized that
Consciousness was All There Was and that It was me...and I was absolutely alone...
the shock startled me right out of "There".

Maybe it is not for this crowd....but for the Hindu section.
But, I do know why that Pure Awareness would want to create "another", even if
"He" did have to just imagine an "other".

The profound aloneness was...well, so alone, singular....whew....quite the experience.

I was also shown how creation happened...but this IS for the Hindu section...
I digress....you want science....it did have to do with Light and slowing It down....that's kinda scientific, right? (But Nothingness came before the Light....that's all I know.)

Some subspecies of Buddhism teaches, I understand, that at death, everyone gets the opportunity to get off the merry-go-round of existence by being subsumed in the Void, but virtually everyone recoils from it in terror as they move toward it. No one wants the dissolution of self. Until you lose the desire to be a separate consciousness you are condemned to suffer in successive lives.

Were this true I would be encouraged, as I honestly don't feel any attachment to myself such that if I were offered such a proposition I wouldn't take it.

[LuminousTruth]

I think what it means is that nothing is far too illogical to exist, therefore, there is always something.

[whoppers]

Where in Genesis 1 does it claim that God created out of nothing? Where exactly would that be? Creatio ex Nihilio is NOT a teaching found in Genesis. There was preexistent matter before he began to bring order to that chaos.

Just curious!

At the beginning of God's creating of the heavens and the earth,
when the earth was wild and waste,
darkness over the face of Ocean,
rushing-spirit of God hovering over the face of the waters -

God said: Let there be light! And there was light.
(Genesis 1:1-3, SB)

If you read closely, there were chaotic waters, a howling chaotic waste and if you read further on the earth is eventually brought into sight by separating the waters into the waters below and above. There is no "Creation out of nothing" in the Genesis account.