Posted on 09/02/2010 2:40:29 PM PDT by WhatNot
LONDON (Reuters) – God did not create the universe and the "Big Bang" was an inevitable consequence of the laws of physics, the eminent British theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking argues in a new book.
In "The Grand Design," co-authored with U.S. physicist Leonard Mlodinow, Hawking says a new series of theories made a creator of the universe redundant, according to the Times newspaper which published extracts on Thursday.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Try again-there is nothing mistranslated about the verse.
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Bible/Exodus3.html
I think the Jews would know how to translate Hebrew.
LOL! I like it!
I am operating on an etirely different level than you are, my friend.
Jews were often not the ones translating Hebrew.
turned into this:
Evolution was happening...
Yes, I agree.
I will tackle that last assertion, i.e. spatial v temporal dimensionality wrt the beginning ex nihilo.
First, all attempts to obviate a beginning - to construe a physically infinite past - fail when we closely examine the math and physics.
Creation ex nihilo goes to the heart of physical cosmologists. It is seen as a failure to Steinhardt and his cyclic model and to Hawking and his imaginary time model that the physical cosmologist cannot explain the origin of real time.
Infinity past is a necessary "belief" of all atheists but it does not hold up to scrutiny by math or science.
Real time and real space are required for physical causation which is the fundamental necessary element for all physical cosmologies whether multi-verse, ekpyrotic, multi-world or whatever.
Mathematically, the dimension of a space is the minimum number of coordinates (axes) necessary to identify a point within the space.
A space of zero dimensions is a point; one dimension, a line, two dimensions, a plane; three, a cube, etc.
That is the geometry of it. In zero dimensions, the mathematical point is indivisible.
It is not nothing. It is a spatial point. A singularity is not nothing.
In ex nihilo Creation, the dimensions are not merely zero, they are null, dimensions do not exist at all. There is no space and no time. Period.
There is no mathematical point, no volume, no content, no scalar quantities. Ex nihilo doesn’t exist in relationship to anything else; there is no thing.
In an existing physical space, each point (e.g. particle) can be parameterized by a quantity such as mass. The parameter (e.g. a specific quantity within the range of possible quantities) is in effect another descriptor or quasi-dimension that uniquely identifies the point within the space.
Moreover, if the quantity of the parameter changes for a point, then a time dimension is invoked. For example, at one moment the point value is “0” and the next it is “1”.
Wave propagation cannot occur in null dimensions nor can it occur in zero spatial dimensions, a mathematical point; a dimension of time is required for any fluctuation in a parameter value at a point.
Moreover, wave propagation must also have a spatial/temporal relation from cause point to effect point, i.e. physical causation.
For instance “0” at point nt causes “1” at point n+1t+1 which causes "0" at point n+1t+2 etc..
Obviously, physical wave propagation (e.g. big bang/inflationary model) cannot precede space/time and physical causality.
In the absence of time, events cannot occur.
All physical cosmologies require space and time for physical causality. Period.
There is no ex nihilo explanation for the beginning of real space and real time and therefore physical causality.
And because, since the 1960’s forward, measurements of the cosmic microwave background radiation consistently agree that the universe is expanding – that there was a beginning of real space and real time – we know that there was creation ex nihilo. Moving the goalpost back to prior universes does not make that issue go away.
Only God can be the uncaused cause, the first cause, The Creator.
Space, time and physical causation are not properties of God the Creator. They are properties of the Creation. Only God is uncaused.
This will sound strange in light of your essay, but the beginning of the universe of our experience had a 'point of time' beginning. Not a point 'IN' time beginning, a point "OF' time beginning, as commanded by The Great I AM, the Ancient of Days, The Old One.
God's Name is I AM.
Again, from Scripture:
Timelessness rather than eternity (time without end) is the better meditation for God's Name, I AM.
Thank you for your encouragement!
The answer I give when asked if I believe in God is:
“No, but I’m afraid of him.”
You might enjoy Feser's The Last Superstition which is a philosophical work but, for the most part, a lot of fun. More specifically, while he uses Dawkins, et al, as punching bags, he does a good exposition of Aristotelian realism, which touches on your argument.
Specifically, to say a thing can change is to say it has a potentiality. For the potentiality to be made actual (for the possible change to happen) it must be caused by something outside itself.
For, if the potential can be actualized through strictly internal causes, why hasn't it happened already?
A rubber ball can change into an nasty-smelling pile of goo. For that to happen, heat must be applied.
This is not a temporal argument. A 'prior" cause is not necessarily prior in time. A baseball may shatter a window, but that does not mean that FIRST the ball hits the window and THEN it shatters.
It just means that if the window's potential to turn into shards is actualized by something completely intrinsic to the window, how can we find a window that is not already "ensharded?"
Now if there is an infinite regress of causes, no baseball would ever hit the window, because first the kid would have to hit it with a bat, and the kid's muscles would have to work, and the kid would have to ingest breakfast, .... so on forever. In that case, we would never find a shattered window.
(I do wonder if this needs to be recast in light of thinking about infinitesimals, but failing that ...)
So there must be something that actualizes potentials in other things, but which does not change ... that is, which has no potential but is utterly actual. ..the unchanged changer, or, to use the old lingo, the Unmoved Mover. [UM]
This thing, being changeless in every respect implies timelessness. We cannot say "the UM WILL change such and such tomorrow," because that would be a change in the UM's actualizing function. We cannot say "the UM will behold the effect of its actualizing tomorrow and saw other effects yesterday," because such perceptions are also changes. It 'simply' (word of unspeakable power!) beholds and does everything and always.
"My Father is working still."
SOUNDS good. Thx.
Was that natural selection or intelligent design?
Much as I Love beagles, the phrase “intelligent” does not spring to my mind, even if it is followed by “design.”
I must agree. I have owned quiet a few ‘hounds’, and I fine them ‘hard-headed’, but not bright. I have heard of all canines the wolf is the smartest. I have a border collie and he is the smartest dog I have ever had. He thinks.
I ran 100 ewes for a while. I had a BC. Smarter than I am.
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