Quote of the Day: "It Is Like Asking What Is North of the North Pole"

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The universe began from a state of infinite density. . . . Space and time were created in that event and so was all the matter in the universe. It is not meaningful to ask what happened before the Big Bang; it is like asking what is north of the North Pole. Similarly, it is not sensible to ask where the Big Bang took place. The point-universe was not an object isolated in space; it was the entire universe, and so the answer can only be that the Big Bang happened everywhere. -- Richard J. Gott, et.al., "Will the Universe Expand Forever?" Scientific American (March 1976), p. 65.

Or, as the ancient Hebrew sage put it, in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

Quoted by William Lane Craig, here.

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Quote of the Day: "Three Enduring Gaps"

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Arguments from design are not intended to be "proofs". Nor are they arguments from ignorance. They simply draw attention to the three "enduring gaps" that are called out in Genesis chapter one with the word "created".

1: God created the heaven and the earth. This gives us a clue that we won't be able to explain the Big Bang using the tools available to us. Surprise! We can't.

2: God created life. Once again, abiogenesis is a discipline with very little going for it beyond speculation. The more we know about the cellular machinery, the less feasible the speculation becomes.

3: God created man in His own image. Indeed, the more we hear that man is "just" another ape, the more the scaffolding of that argument (i.e., the internet, publishing, podcasts, video, language, etc) defeat it.

-- Doug,  in the Comments section of a blog post, here.

Doug is a Canadian blogger.

Critics dismiss some theistic arguments as "god of the gaps", however, in the case of these three "enduring gaps" -- great phrase, Doug! -- it is not what we don't know, it is what we do know.  Everything that begins to exist must have a sufficient cause and reason -- and the only sufficient explanatory cause for "us" is God.

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Much Ado About Nothing

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Re: shark-jumping Stephen Hawking and the tempest-in-a-teapot-universe made of nothing.

Is it made of nothing, or... is... it... made... of... Nothing??!!

Bwahahaha!

I want to know all there is to know about nothing!

Plus, I want to know, if Stephen Hawking jumps a shark that doesn't exist, does it make a sound?!

Oh, man!

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The Kingdom Strikes Back

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Yesterday, Stephen Hawking gave God a death-blow: "because gravity exists, there is no God!" It's hard to refute an argument like this, I mean, this is a knock-out.

And the disciples thought the death of Christ was a setback!

But now, just when I thought it was time to dismantle the Blog and go fishing, the Kingdom of God strikes back!

John Lennox: As a scientist I'm certain Stephen Hawking is wrong. You can't explain the universe without God

The Archbish: Archbishop of Canterbury hits back after Stephen Hawking insists God did NOT create the universe

And, on the lighter side, this: Hawking Not Needed to Explain His New Book, Says Universe

To sum it up:

There was a man named S. Hawking

Who thought he heard a big knocking

KNOCK! KNOCK! "Who's there?"

"Why, nothing but air!"

An answer disturbing and shocking

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Stephen Hawking Jumps The Shark

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Stephen Hawking jumps the shark:

"Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist"  -- Stephen Hawking.

This is the best that one of the greatest minds on the planet has to offer?  Maybe it gets better if you read everything he said; but this is incoherent on about every possible level.

For starters:

* If there is really and truly nothing, then where does gravity come from?

* Why do natural laws exist at all, and why  are the natural laws what they are as opposed to some other thing?  Why, e.g., is there gravity in the first place, and why does it have the strength it has as opposed to some other strength?

* The terms spontaneous creation and reason are incoherent when used together. If creation was spontaneous, then there may be a cause for the universe but there is no reason for it;  reason becomes an incoherent concept and an absurd quest. Spontaneous generation of the universe may explain how we came to exist, but not why -- because there can be no why under this scenario.

Hawking's comment appears to be nothing more than atheist dogma -- "from nothing, by nothing, for nothing" -- in pseudo-scientific drag.

Stephen's wife, Jane, here.

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Recommended Read™: A Universe Built For Us

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In 2008 Discovery Magazine published Science's Alternative to an Intelligent Creator: the Multiverse Theory. The tag: "Our universe is perfectly tailored for life. That may be the work of God or the result of our universe being one of many."

Tom Gilson deconstructs the article, and the issues involved, here.

A Ball Bounces Recommended Read.™

Enjoy.

Quote of the Day: "Strong Emergence is Uncomfortably Like Magic"

"Although strong emergence is logically possible, it is uncomfortably like magic. How does an irreducible but supervenient downward causal power arise, since by definition it cannot be due to the aggregation of the micro-level potentialities? Such causal powers would be quite unlike anything within our scientific ken. This not only indicates how they will discomfort reasonable forms of materialism. Their mysteriousness will only heighten the traditional worry that emergence entails illegitimately getting something from nothing."-- Bedau 1997 Via Wiki

If we can get a universe from Nothing, we should be able to get emergent properties from the same source.

After all, which is more improbable, a universe from Nothing, or a mere emergence of properties from within this universe? Getting something from nothing is not an anomaly of science, it is the very foundation of Big-Bang science.

[headline corrected]