If god created the universe, what was he doing for the infinite amount of time before the creation of the universe? I understand that time did not exist prior to the big bang, yet something did happen, and a happening must take place in time. So, what was god doing for the infinite amount of time prior to his "creation"?
I invite theists and atheists both to offer ideas. This should be fun!:)
PS, I'm really not familiar with spacetime conditions as they were prior to the moment of the big bang, so feel free to correct any of my assertions. As I do not believe in God, I do not think he/she/it was doing anything.
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You have pitched one right in the wheel house Nyar. They know so much about the Big Bang that it isn't even funny.
Does anyone know about time stopping at a certain point of the very earliest stages of the big bang? Is this true?
I discussed several times about, before the big bang and this universe as we know it, any and all rules of the universe we can toss out. Everything, (or nothing,) played by a different rule set, or none at all. Perhaps the universe expands and contracts and redoes the big bang over and over again, never starts, never ends? We do not know, and we may never know.
Anyways if their was an entity, lets call it god to keep it simple, that lived before the universe, created the universe, like you you said: time would have no meaning to him. This "god" would not get bored, would not get impatient, it would just be, kind of like a rock. Just supposedly a really powerful rock that can do lots of incredible things. So the most logical argument I think would be "god" did absolutely nothing.
So points for this god idea? the nearly 14 billion years before us humans in this universe? The infinite amount of time actually makes sense when god is outside of time, and never gets bored, never impatient, and just is, and just does what god does?
... eh maybe, I suppose that is a point for a "god" argument.
...BUT! if you want to give points for the credibility of this god idea using that, you must consider the rest of what would make up this "god" entity that has always existed, for infinite amount of time. It would most certainly not be human like. Sure this god idea may live infinite time, and therefore, time has no meaning to this god, but also all the other human traits the bible and religious people pin on god go away to.
God would not be wrathful, god would not be good, god would not care what we did, god would not care about "free will" god would not care what we did with his creation. God would not care about creation, God would not care if people believed him or not. God would not care that the followers converted others to his cause, or that a "devil" rose up. God would not have a "son." Everything the supposed god did in the various holy books and religions, god would not care about one way or another at all if god was truly timeless and all powerful. God would not do all this for company or to amuse him self. All the bibles constructs of god puts mortal human traits on an entity that is supposedly all powerful and timeless.
You can not have it both ways, you can not make god timeless and all powerful and then give him human properties. God would not create a "heaven" to be closer to him, or make living some sort of "test." These are all human traits of people living very mortal lives. With all these "god" ideas created back in the bronze age (and earlier!) where human life was a whole lot more perilous and mysterious then it is today.
Lets put it another way. How much does the human change when you start to give the human, even a tiny fraction of god like properties that we observed among our selves. We humans are physically and mentally fully developed by the time we are 25. Yet, even fully functioning and healthy members of us that are 75 act very differently then 25 year old, pretty much across the board. If a human lived to 1000 in full health do you think that person would act very human anymore? I certainly do not think so, that person would probably not even be considered a human like the rest of us anymore.
How do humans act when they have nothing and are on the edge of starvation near constantly and have no security? Like those that live in the poorest regions of Sahara Africa? Compare that to: how do multi millionaires or billionaires live, that have much, much! more power over their own fate and others? How do psychopath humans act, that have little to no empathy for others? Imagine a multi billionaire psychopath that has no empathy for others, and is amazing health for his, say 75 year age, and you begin to approach just a tiny fraction of a human just beginning to approach god like qualities.
LogicForTW,
There's no objective way to measure the age of the universe. The 14 billion year age is simply a figure some guys pulled out of their butts. It impresses the average person because the average person doesn't know anything about cosmic space. Heck, the "smart guys" still don't know for sure how many planets are in this solar system.
The just shy of 14 billion years figure was not: "a figure some guys pulled out of their butts." But is based on the available evidence we have so far on the age of the universe, it could very well be wrong. (Most likely in terms of much longer, not much shorter.) The evidence that the earth is around 4-5 billion years old is very compelling, lots of evidence.
The figure that the earth/universe is only in the "thousands" of years old, is an example of: " a figure some guys pulled out of their butts." Based on zero evidence today.
I like this topic as I've asked this myself.
Space and time are one - spacetime. I'm unfamiliar with the calculations of the forces a seconds after the Big Bang but it's said that Spacetime started at the Big Bang.
God, who is needs to be outside of the universe and space and time to create it, is not bound by space or time. He lives outside of time and sees it all in a single instant.
So what was he doing during the infinite time before the big bang? Well, there was no time before the Big Bang. And time as we understand it doesn't apply to God. He doesn't have a ticking clock, what he has is everything that ever was, is happening and will be.
Its a complicated mess, but I'll try to lay it out a little bit.
First a little background:
Our world is described by 2 theoretical frameworks: Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity.
Quantum Mechanics:
There is no model for the force of gravity on particles in quantum mechanics; but luckily in most situations in particle physics the contributions from gravity is extremely negligible; and therefore it is treated as 0.
General Relativity:
There is no model for the "non-gravity" forces between particles in general relativity; but luckily in most situations in cosmology the contribution from these forces is extremely negligible; and therefore they are treated as 0.
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The big bang theory is a theory that describes the universe's homogeneous and isotropic evolution of a hot, dense, plasma. I know that is a mouth full, it basically means: the big bang theory is a mathematical model that shows how a uniform blob of hot gas will expand over time. This model is derived from general relativity.
When you run the model backwards, the gas becomes more and more compressed, and hotter and hotter. At some point, general relativity is inadequate to describe this gas because the "non-gravity" forces between the particles become more and more important the more you compress this gas. So we should just switch to quantum mechanics; but that doesn't work either as the blob gets smaller and smaller the effects of gravity become more and more important as well! Currently there is no know solution to this problem (there are tantalizing clues, but it is still very much up in the air). Making it impossible to run the model backwards beyond a certain point to answer your questions.
If however you say damn the torpedoes and naively continue to run the model backwards; willfully ignoring the considerable "non-gravity" forces between the particles; you reach a singularity and an event sometimes confusingly called called the big bang.
To recap, the big bang theory ironically does NOT describe the "big bang event". It describes the expansion of a hot gas that already existed. Remember this when the theists try to tell you that the big bang theory proves the universe came into existence (or had a starting point, or was created; their claims vary). It does no such thing.
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So sadly no, Freefromgod, I can't answer your questions. But what I can tell you is that currently no one else can either; and hopefully I've given you some insight into why no one else can. And why you should be skeptical of anyone who tries.
You make a great teacher, Nyar.
This is great! Thanks for this info. I've got a question. Where does space and time come from? I've heard it was said that space can expand at a rate greater than the speed of light. And seconds after the Big Bang, space had a rapid expansion.
Please correct me if I'm wrong. Thanks!
Space and time were already in existence at the start of the big bang theory (along with the plasma).
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Yes it can (edit: if you mean the distance between two points can grow faster than the speed of light). A simpler example: imagine a cartoon world that consists of toy train track constructed entirely out of 1 foot long straight track pieces. In this word, once every second a new piece of track is inserted between every existing track piece. You could mark two locations say 5 feet apart on the track then ask how quickly they are separating.
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I'm guessing you are talking about the theory of inflation; which is a theory that models the universe before the standard big bang theory (kind of like a prequel), during a period when the universe was doubling is size very quickly (pretty much by anyone's standards).
Inflation theory provides a model which describes an extremely tiny universe with an exotic type of material in it, which evolves to a state where it is filled with plasma undergoing a homogeneous and isotropic expansion. Or in other words: the end of inflation produces the starting point of the big bang theory (which is why it is kind of like a prequel).
Time comes from the movement of subatomic particles. If they didn't move then there would be no such thing as time.
Yeah, but you could have just as easily said the opposite: if there was no time, the particles couldn't move!
Most if not all religions have a creation story. So how do we determine which god or gods created the universe? I personally don't believe any god created the universe or the earth. Science may never know what happen to start the big bang, religion doesn't know either.
xenoview,
The big bang theory is simply a theory of creation cooked up by a Catholic priest. If you really think about it and use what little you know about cosmic space you will realize that it's BS. The closest thing to a big bang is when a star goes super nova but even that doesn't fit the Big Bang theory.
See I told you you put this right in Nyar's wheelhouse!
Nyar - thank you for the fantastic post!
Great posts! Thanks a lot. It is very confusing, but just because I don't understand it, I don't need to jump to the supernatural and say god created the universe. I'm ok with not knowing.
There has been a lot of 'god of the gaps' arguments on here of late
1 second of human brain activity takes 82,944 K computer processors for full 40 minutes of biological brain processing time. And all data that we glorified about the universe were processed by computers which we worshiped.
I am merely trying to understand the size of the universe by looking at voyager spacecraft that was launched in 1977. In 2 weeks time it would have been running for 40 years with the average speed of 55 000 kph. You may dispute the speed, as bit less or bit more it won't make any different because after such long time it just barely left the solar system. As at July 2017 it was at over than 21 billion kilometers from the sun.
And our sun is just one out of 200 billion suns in this galaxy alone, out of more than 100 billion galaxys known so far.
"And We did not create the heaven and earth and that in between them for play" (21:16)
Rejecting the cause of creation is really does not really matter because we all be dead long before this gigantic universe.
It's kind of an apples and oranges comparison.
For example: how many human brains does it take to simulate the computational ability of just one of those CPU cores (for say 1 second)? Surely it would take millions. That is because simulations are incredibly inefficient. So comparing the two systems is kind of crazy. It would be like asking how fast a horse can swim across the ocean; or how fast a dolphin can pull a wagon down main street; then using those results to declare which animal is faster.
zwalja
You worship computers? That will make your god mad at you.
You probably have not heard that an Englishman defeated a computer processing power more than 20 fold of power. But than again he was not an ordinary street guy.
Color me skeptical.
Er, what?
'Time' (as an observable artifact of spacetime) is only a means of describing relationships between entities in three-dimensional space. There does seem to be a link between the energy levels of the universe and the number of dimensions present (theoretically at least).
At the begining there was uniform zero energy so there would have been zero dimonsions, therefore there would have been no spacetime and subsequently no time.
If there was a god in the begining he wouldn't have had to worry about killing time as it wouldn't have existed.
WD
What is the difference between uniform zero energy and zero energy.
Ok, here's a question: if there was no time at that point, how did an event such as the big bang happen? An event has to take place in spacetime, otherwise where else would it take place? I'm not arguing against any current understanding, I am just interested in knowing.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't spacetime a human concept? What if we have it all wrong about spacetime.
Is it? We know we have space and we know things actually travel through that space. Two objects traveling at different speeds will arrive at the same location at different times. What that time is may be a construction, but time itself isn't, at least that's my understanding. It definitely could be wrong.
The origin of 85 percent of gravity in the universe is unknown, but the Big Bang theory is the best we have so far.
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