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To: Hank Kerchief

re: “Since there cannot be “non-existence” how could existence have a beginning.”

How do you know that there cannot be “non-existence”? Second, I’m sure you are aware that the universe is expanding, growing older and ultimately will run down. A universe that is expanding throughout its history has to have had a beginning. Check out Arvind Borde, Alan Guth, and Alexander Vilenkin on this topic (just google them and you’ll come up with stuff about them).

Also, the second law of thermodynamics implies an ultimate “heat death” of the universe - that is, given enough time, all the energy in the universe will spread itself out evenly thourghout the universe. The universe will become a featureless soup in which no life is possible. It will be at a state of equilibrium, in which the temperature and pressure are the same everywhere.

If the universe if infinite, as you say, then why, if the universe has existed forever, is it not now in a state of equilibrium? Given infinite past time, it should by now already be in a state of heat death/equilibrium.

The truth is the universe is in a state of disequalibrium, where energy is still available to be used and the universe still has an orderly structure. This implies a finite universe - because it has not yet run down.

As to “life”, even Darwinian evolutionists would say that life had to have a beginning some where. Just because a gum-ball machine has gum-balls in it today doesn’t mean it’s always had gum-balls. Somebody had to make the gum-balls in the first place.


49 posted on 05/09/2010 7:38:00 PM PDT by Nevadan
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To: Nevadan

“How do you know that there cannot be ‘non-existence’?”

I know you do not realize what you’ve asked, but truly it is like asking, “how do you know you cannot be at home and in Zimbabwe at the same time?” (assuming my home is not in Zimbabwe, which, thankfully, it isn’t).

To say, “there is non-existence,” has no meaning, and in fact, is self-contradictory. It is like saying something can be true and not true at the same time. To say something “is” means, that it exists. To say “non-existence is,” is identical to saying, “non-existence exists.”

The pseudo-concept, “non-existence” or “nothingness” is the invention of certain philosophers, like Hegel, and theologians, like Augustine and Aquinas. (You will not find the concept in the Bible, by the way.)

The concept is a, “floating abstraction,” which is an idea taken out of the context of its true meaning and treated as though it had meaning without connection to anything. One can ask, “what’s in that box,” and the correct answer can be “nothing,” if the box happens to be empty. So, we can say a box is “empty,” meaning what is in it is nothing. But there cannot be just “nothingness” or “emptiness,” because there must first be something to be empty.

Hank


77 posted on 05/10/2010 9:09:01 AM PDT by Hank Kerchief
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