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Could you link to some article on this I could read?
Not when they are virtual particle pairs; they appear and they vanish in such a short time that their energy content falls under the uncertainty principle.
As for the larger universe; such things as the expansion of the universe have a NEGATIVE energy content. According to some theories, the net energy of the universe is zero.
The quantum field is energy, and it doesn’t require a beginning.
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Stuff does come out of nothing all the time.
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If your sky god is “uncreated” and eternal, then so is the quantum field. So is the multiverse. If those things need a beginning, then so does your sorceror.
Is it possible the quantum field is conscious?
No, they don’t. It’s grossly inaccurate to say that these particles are created out of nothing. As cosmological physicists John Barrow and Frank Tipler themselves emphasized,
“. . the modern picture of the quantum vacuum differs radically from the classical and everyday meaning of a vacuum-- nothing. . . . The quantum vacuum (or vacuua, as there can exist many) states . . . are defined simply as local, or global, energy minima (V’(O)= O, V”(O)>O)" ([1986], p. 440). The microstructure of the quantum vacuum is a sea of continually forming and dissolving particles which borrow energy from the vacuum for their brief existence. A quantum vacuum is thus far from nothing, and vacuum fluctuations do not constitute an exception to the principle that whatever begins to exist has a cause. (The Cosmological Anthropic Principle. (1986). Oxford: Clarendon Press.)
Both Barrow and Tipler were themselves atheists when they made this statement, although Tipler has since become a theist.
I measure complexity in terms of the number of steps required, or in this case the number of miracles. As to why this is more likely, that’s the point of Occam’s Razor. Given equal hypotheses, the one which requires the fewer steps is the more likely.
But figure that in the observable reality view, we have one miracle:
- The universe pops into existence.
In the Judeo-Christian view, we have two (or three) miracles:
- An intelligent being pops into existence.
- He has the power of creation. (optional miracle)
- He makes the Universe pop into existence.
So that’s two or three times more complex than the observable reality view.
But, in fact that’s only in the terms of if we isolate this one aspect of Christianity off (i.e. the creation of the universe.) In truth, we should include several more miracles. The whole gamut should run something like this:
- An intelligent being pops into existence.
- He has the power of creation.
- He creates a plane of existence for himself to reside in, which we will call the Afterlide.
- He makes the Universe pop into existence, after having done a lot of research and pondering to decide to create quantum particles, atoms, and molecules which he can either guide or leave alone to mix and mash with one another to create various interesting things. He does make sure that in his design there is no way to detect the Afterlife from the Universe though.
- Regardless of whether he guides or doesn’t guide the movement and combination of these fundamental building blocks, he does have some way of guaranteeing that at some point a single one of the billions of planets in the universe will grow into amoeba which will grow into fish and then into monkeys and eventually into a form similar in some way to a form He finds to be ideal (i.e. human.)
- He now creates a magical thing called a “soul” that he imbues any mish-mash of quantum particles that have happened to have formed into a human form with. Similarly to the Afterlife, there is no way to detect a “soul” from the Universe.
- And this is important for him, because he needs these humans to experience free choice. And free choice is important because he needs to see whether their souls end up on his side of the Afterlife after the particles making up the humans expire to be munched up by worm-shaped particle mashes.
- However, this being who created the Universe, who came up with quantum physics, radioactivity, gravity, electromagnetic force, E=MC2, and all these other fundamental laws all inside his head and then create a Universe that used all of those to such success as to guarantee the end result of humanity, He has no way to directly communicate with his creations. His first attempt becomes so mired down with extraneous information that the silly things think they’re supposed to stone people to death for sticking their pee-pee in someone else’s poo-poo.
- So this great being who was able to plan for evolution to create intelligent life trillions of years before it ever occurred, even though he conceivably had the full power to just create human life as it is from day one, this great being hasn’t the direct ability to communicate with his creations so he embeds his God Sperm into a human woman. The baby grows up and delivers the message of this infinitely wise and brilliant creator, exactly as was intended. And yet life continues to suck on the planet with little to no change, with no great change in moral behavior in terms war making, theft, charity, or slavery.
So besides postulating the miracles of God’s creation, optionally God’s creative abilities, the Universe’s creation, the Afterlife’s creation, and the Soul’s creation for a total of five times the number of basic miracles, Christianity is also postulating an infinitely powerful and intelligent being who for ineffable reasons can’t talk to his creations and for ineffable reasons can’t seem to make any real changes that seem to accomplish what he says he wants, and further what his reason for wanting to accomplish this is similarly ineffable. Why does God need to create human beings with free choice just to see whether they end up on his side after they die?
If God’s selling point is his ineffability, then he’s massively successful. The number of leaps of logic and miracles to explain him, existence, and all the other trimmings that go along with Christianity is frankly massive. You’ve got this big system of gearwork hidden behind reality that all operates to some ineffable goal. That’s pretty well the definition of adding needless complexity to your hypothesis.
Why on Earth would I find that roundabout and massively loopy explanation of the universe to be more likely than “shit happened”?
This is a meaningless point since the quantum field does not depend on the structure of the universe to exist. Whether you want to call it “nothing” or not, what matters is that universes can come out of it, and that it doesn’t need a beginning.
Again, us not knowing how stuff got here doesn’t mean stuff can’t exist without a god, just like you not being able to tell us how an intelligent being has always existed doesn’t mean He doesn’t.
No, folks on a message board not having the answer to a very difficult question does not mean “therefore the something at the beginning was God”, especially since your violating your own condition by not explaining how He got here.
I don’t know. I doubt it. No neurons.
An objection that has no relevance to the subject at hand – namely, whether something can come from nothing.
Whether it’s “nothing” or not is completely relevant! You specifically said that particles appear out of nothing all the time, appealing to fluctuations in the quantum field. The quantum field is not “nothing” by any stretch of the imagination, so that argument fails. Your response is nothing more than bluster and outrage.
Bluster and outrage? Where did you see either of those?
Getting into an argument over the current state of physics knowledge is somewhat pointless to the discussion at any rate. In either the religious or non-religious model, you’re likely accepting the physics explanation.* It’s just a question of whether there is a deity who planned and set the whole thing into motion. So either way, like I said, the physics explanation is the same regardless of what your personal level of understanding of it may be. I personally wouldn’t venture to debate the various minutiae of physics knowledge and hypotheses since I’m not a physicist, but I more certainly wouldn’t feel it to be a particularly pointfull debate in the current thread.
- Unless you’re a Creationist
How do yuu know that God acted on Newton anymore than the woman who killed all her children because she said God told her to, to save their souls?
How could you prove that God acted on anyone?
Newton believed it was God when it most likely was his own inner self.
I know people who made great changes in their life by stop believing in a God and became atheist or agnostic. A couple I know even became better persons because they believe they were now responsible for their lives and to help others for this was the only life they had.
Monavis
Currently, we can’t know but it always seemed to me that whatever science discovered would have to be taken into consideration with any spiritual view if we’re concerned about the truth setting us free.
Quantum theory, mechanics, and filed theory is over my head but from what I’ve read some of it suggests an a real explanation of what has been religious myth and teaching. Specifically, the oneness spoken of in various religions.
All just speculation on my part.
Ask the Albigensians. Oh, wait, you can’t - they were slaughtered by the Catholic Church for daring to believe something different.
You might also try asking the thousands of people killed or tortured by the Inquistion as well.
Since they are all dead, you might try asking Salman Rushdie, who has been condemned to death by Islam. And read the Koran, which demands that followers of Islam kill infidels. Here’s a good summary:
What I said was about religions in general. But Christianity’s hands are bloody as well. Go research the Albigensians and the people tortured and murdered by the Inquisition.
Not to defend the Albigensian Crusade, but the Albigensians were not necessarily just a bunch of harmless dissidents but Manichean dualists who may well have practiced ritual suicide, euthanasia, abortion & buggery to rid themselves of accursed evil Jehovah-created material existence. The Catholics were right in principle to oppose that heresy, but horribly sinfully wrong in how they set about it. Although it could be said that the Catholics gave the Albigensians exactly what they wanted.
Acceptance of the Catholic Church was indeed fairly well mandatory. That’s what excommunication was. They might not have killed you, but you were put on the official “unwanted” list for everyone in town.
I’ll also note that ITR Champion’s phrasing is rather suspect. Similarly to how he pointed out that Scandinavia appeared to convert to Christianity without being formally conquered, in the face of the whole of the rest of Europe having been done so, I find it interesting for him to single out “(Most of) The Middle Ages”, meaning the time after Rome fell and stopped protecting the church and the church had to begin to assert its own new power. That’s like saying that humans can be shown to be unable to jump because out of a hundred 6 month old babies most of them were never once spotted getting up on both hind legs and leaping.
None of those sounds all that bad, frankly. Sinful by the standards of the church to be certain, but the latter two are currently fully legal in the US and the other two are only iffy. (Maybe you mean ritual suicide as something along the lines of ritual sacrifice, but I suspect it means something more like a formal method of committing suicide, which is something I would support in modern day.)
On the other hand, there were groups of Catholics who practiced regular torture of others and flagellation. The latter of those two can be considered to be self-choice just as much as suicide might be, but there’s not much excuse for the former.
Here’s what you said: "vast majority of religious traditions were based on the concept of “it is better to believe in God as we preach it, because we’ll kill you otherwise”.
At this point you have four options:
- Provide evidence that the “vast majority” of religious people did what you claim.
- Admit that you were wrong.
- Fail to respond to this post.
I’ve already researched them and found that most of what atheists say about them is wrong. But since you’re so researched why don’t you answer this question: Which is greater, the number killed by the Spanish Inquisition in its entire existence, or the number killed by atheists during an average day of the twentieth century?