My personal view is somewhat polemic among alot of my friends (from whom I receive raised eyebrows and mocking tones)
First, there are a few principles that I must outline.
1. Everything has a cause - nothing simply 'happens' for no reason. If you drop your beer, it will hit the floor because you are no longer holding the cup and gravity pulls it down. You caused it to fall by letting go.....but since it's beer, I'll assume it was by accident.
2. Aside from splitting atoms, one cannot destroy matter (although, some physicists don't know if it's even then actually destroyed, maybe just broken down into its constitute parts). You can change it, but not destroy it. If you have one pizza and cut it, you have two half pizzas (one half for me, I assume). When you and I eat the pizza, our bodies convert the pizza's matter into stuff we use to maintain our flabby bodies.
3. As matter cannot be destroyed, neither can it be created. To be sure, we can take existing things, change them in some way, and produce a brand new thing. But we cannot gain in actual material.
Side note, I realised upon their typing that these three premises conform to Newtonian beliefs quite conveniently
4. Time is linear, it is a river with a spectacularly strong current. (the Einsteinian view that if one can go fast enough he can slow down the relative progression of time doesn't really apply here.....you still end up in the same river heading in the same direction)
The Universe
I buy into the idea of a "Big Bang" creating the universe. There is plenty of solid evidence that indicates such an event billions of years ago caused our universe to rapidly expand.
BUT - Into what are we expanding, where is the matter coming from, and, most importantly, what caused this to happen in the first place?
This is where I get into the polemic. In the modern, secular world, the very mention of 'God' or 'religion' carries with it the stigma of naïveté and ignorance. However, if the fundamental rules that govern the universe (let's call them Newton's Laws.....except for #4, that's what they are) are to be believed, then there must have been some catalyst that got the ball rolling. A big bang can't just happen in a state of nothingness exists. There would have been nothing to blow up.
So, it leads to the conclusion that something started this grand puzzle we call the universe. I choose to call it God...not necessarily 'God' in the Judeo-Christian sense, although a case can be made for it. You can call it whatever makes you feel good.
Of course, this brings up the question, since nothing can simply exist, of how did the God a write of get there to start the universe. That, my friends, I have neither the time nor the mental capicity to speculate on.
What do you believe? You really don't have to be as long-winded as me....except I know some people will...
glares at LooseCannon
PS- Feel free to rebut my hypothesis, I won't be offended. I promise!
First, there are a few principles that I must outline.
1. Everything has a cause - nothing simply 'happens' for no reason. If you drop your beer, it will hit the floor because you are no longer holding the cup and gravity pulls it down. You caused it to fall by letting go.....but since it's beer, I'll assume it was by accident.
2. Aside from splitting atoms, one cannot destroy matter (although, some physicists don't know if it's even then actually destroyed, maybe just broken down into its constitute parts). You can change it, but not destroy it. If you have one pizza and cut it, you have two half pizzas (one half for me, I assume). When you and I eat the pizza, our bodies convert the pizza's matter into stuff we use to maintain our flabby bodies.
3. As matter cannot be destroyed, neither can it be created. To be sure, we can take existing things, change them in some way, and produce a brand new thing. But we cannot gain in actual material.
Side note, I realised upon their typing that these three premises conform to Newtonian beliefs quite conveniently
4. Time is linear, it is a river with a spectacularly strong current. (the Einsteinian view that if one can go fast enough he can slow down the relative progression of time doesn't really apply here.....you still end up in the same river heading in the same direction)
The Universe
I buy into the idea of a "Big Bang" creating the universe. There is plenty of solid evidence that indicates such an event billions of years ago caused our universe to rapidly expand.
BUT - Into what are we expanding, where is the matter coming from, and, most importantly, what caused this to happen in the first place?
This is where I get into the polemic. In the modern, secular world, the very mention of 'God' or 'religion' carries with it the stigma of naïveté and ignorance. However, if the fundamental rules that govern the universe (let's call them Newton's Laws.....except for #4, that's what they are) are to be believed, then there must have been some catalyst that got the ball rolling. A big bang can't just happen in a state of nothingness exists. There would have been nothing to blow up.
So, it leads to the conclusion that something started this grand puzzle we call the universe. I choose to call it God...not necessarily 'God' in the Judeo-Christian sense, although a case can be made for it. You can call it whatever makes you feel good.
Of course, this brings up the question, since nothing can simply exist, of how did the God a write of get there to start the universe. That, my friends, I have neither the time nor the mental capicity to speculate on.
What do you believe? You really don't have to be as long-winded as me....except I know some people will...
glares at LooseCannon
PS- Feel free to rebut my hypothesis, I won't be offended. I promise!