I agree. That just seemed like If A Tree Falls In The Forest And No One Is Around To Hear it Does It Make A Sound logic to me.
Likewise, I put forward the concept that if gonzomax is correct, then nothing has length, breadth or height, since we assign measurements to such objects. If that is the case, then nothing truly exists since it would be infinitely small. If life does not exist, neither does the universe.
So a finite age for the universe implies that there is a God? Sure sounds like the logical fallacy of non-sequitur. As point of fact, scientists believe that the universe is just under 14 billion years old. What that has to do with God’s existence escapes me unless one associates God with the Big Bang.
This is simply a non-sequitur. What it claims is that since an infinite amount of time from now never comes, it’s impossible for there to be an infinite amount of time before now. One does not follow from the other. The argument seems to conflate something that has no end (infinity) with a known point in time (now). Indeed, the argument seems to claim that if time extends to infinity, then no particular point in time can exist. This is absurd - it’s like saying that since the integers extend to infinity in both directions, that the number seven doesn’t exist because we would never reach it if we started counting from negative infinity.
The argument also has nothing to do with atheism, which is simply the belief that there is no God. It is not necessary to believe in any particular theory of the origin of the universe to disbelieve in God.
And that is where your analogy fails - we DON’T start counting from negative infinity. Numbers don’t pass as time does. If I ask “what time is it?” you can give me an answer. If I ask “what number is it?” that has no sensible answer.
Olber’s Paradox is the name.
To extend what Chronos said, by open or closed, I’m talking about the overall curvature of space. See Wikipedia entries Shape of the universe. Current evidence points to an open universe and thus an infinite amount of matter/energy.
You may be conflating the observable universe with the entire universe. The observable universe is finite. We cannot directly measure the size of the entire universe, but through measurements of the matter-energy density and curvature.
Only by mans definition. We defined it into existence.
Did you say meaning.? What pray tell is required for something to have meaning?
I will help you. A definer and an observer.
Hey, I’m willing to believe in a God who created the Universe as we know it about 6,000 years ago, and he made it 4 billion years old, and planted all the evidence of evolution or adaptation or whatever they’re calling it these days.
I loves me a God with a sense of humor.
That’s the equivalent of arguing that the Earth can’t be a million years old because my house would never have lasted a million years.
The universe might be infinite and have always existed. That doesn’t mean that the individual stars in the universe have always existed.
The main error in this type of thinking is that “God must exist” is an alternative explanation if there is something we don’t understand (more specifically, on average, something science does not currently explain).
All you have concluded is that there are some things for which we have no current explanation. But labeling a putative alternative “God” doesn’t God’s existence–that is to say, it doesn’t prove any sort of Supernatural anything. You have simply given the new label of “God” to the concept “We Don’t Know.”
Given the track record of things attributed in the past to the supernatural that are now explained, it doesn’t seem like a very robust “proof.”
I must disagree.
Even given that individual stars have a finite lifespan, if there have been stars burning in the observable universe for an infinite amount of time up to this point, then there must be an metric buttload of photons flying about from all those previous stars.
Therefore, no matter what direction an observer could look in from Earth, there would be sufficient numbers of photons reaching the observer to make the sky appear as solid light, excepting the shadows of a few close dust clouds.
Pardon me while I stretch further from the OP’s point to argue for consideration of an intriguing thought about cosmology.
IF we live in a single “Goldilocks” universe that emerged from the swiss cheese “multiverse,” then we live in an evolutionary universe. Meaning, we (life) exist in a universe that provided all the right physical variables for the formations we see, the formations that allowed life to emerge.
Well, if that’s true, than other emergent universes may be slightly “off” from ours, with the physical constants just a little different. Many of them wouldn’t be able to support the formations and structures we have, but even if they did, life itself might be unable to arise.
But what’s most interesting to me is that this evolutionary system increases the possiblity of “Matrix”-like scenarios. In a multiverse that spawns a presumed infinite number of universes, than an infinite number of outcomes become likely. Not just those that exist in universes sharing our physical constraints (Nazis win World War II! Leonard Nimoy has a goatee!), but also universes that don’t share our precise physical constraints.
Which is a long-winded way towards saying that, in multiverse theory, the likelihood of a God-like supreme being existing within an emergent universe increases to 1. In an infinite evolution, once it’s possible, it’s likely, given enough time.
Of course, none of this proves the existence of a God in our universe. Personally, as an atheist, I see no need to invent a higher power to explain what we can already observe. And if life already is like the Matrix, and all of this has been created for us to observe, well then, I just hope the system never crashes ;-).
True. That’s why I added the static-universe assumption. Der Trihs’s link explains the idea better than me, including:
Even if certain individual stars haven’t always existed, as long as stars in general have always existed and have done so at roughly equal densities everywhere in the universe, then every point in the sky should be as bright as the surface of a star. But obviously, you could do away with the static, unchanging universe assumption and an infinite universe would be workable.
But that would require the present incarnation of the universe, with stars and light and energy and whatnot, to have a finite age and a beginning, which is exactly what Leaffan is arguing against.
Time is a dimension in space-time. We also measure other dimensions with man-made constructs, but that doesn’t mean that the dimensions are purely conceptual.
This is like saying that if we die off, length, width, and height die with us.
The question “how many have we counted?” does have a sensible answer. That’s what we would normally ask in idiomatic English. Phrasing the question oddly does not invalidate the concept.
Of course we don’t start counting from negative infinity. We don’t usually count or measure most things from infinity. This doesn’t mean the analogy is invalid. Nor does the fact that “numbers don’t pass as time does” make it invalid, either, since it’s the act of counting that is similar to time passing. The numbers themselves don’t do anything.
Again, to boil down the original argument - it says that nothing could have been infinitely long ago, since no point in time (including now) could have been reached from then. But there is no logical requirement that any point in time be reachable.
And to restate what may be a more central point - there is nothing in atheism that requires a belief that the universe is infinitely old.
Why is that not a logical requirement?
It’s like opening a new checking account, and you need to start the numbering at check 1,000, because nobody’ll take checks below 1,000 for arcanely stupid reasons. You don’t need to have check #200, or check #1, there’s no logical requirement for it.
But numbers don’t count by themselves. You have to start the count. And when counting numbers, you can start the count anywhere you please - at zero, one, or -34 if you like. Time is different - it is already flowing, you don’t start it off by yourself. If there is an infinity of past time you have no option but to start the “count” of time at negative infinity. And from there you can never reach the present.
No. Atheism, as it is most commonly used, is a lack of belief in gods and, by extension, the supernatural. Not believing in something is in no way similar to believing it doesn’t exist.