Sounds good - in the context of modern Western democracy with a strong rule of law. But that cannot be taken for granted. It is because governments say that slavery is a “sin” that people no longer keep slaves without sanction. It is because governments forbid infanticide that children are not exposed by parents with their own personal ethics. It is because the state imposes the status of minors that rich men cannot indulge in paederasty according to their personal standards. And so on.
Interesting video here by an agnostic historical writer surprised at the lack of continuity between the supposed glories of Greece and Rome and what we take for granted as normal now. Essentially he’s making the same claim as Larry Hurtado is respect of the unrecognised radical ethical challenge of Christianity, and particularly the subversive effect of Paul’s teaching.
Yes, there is. It is the absence of matter, energy, space or time. In other words, nothing is what existed before the ultimate beginning of the universe.
I agree about 99% with you here. Yes, Nelson Rockefeller would have been a good president; however, as Jay Rockefeller said that after Barry Goldwater, Nelson was in the wrong political party. He should have become a liberal Democrat as Jay did. The Republican Party of the 1950 was a liberal party. Even Ike said that a political party did not support the New Deal, it should die. My Grandfather, Duncan Miller, was a liberal Republican and was Chairman of the Bertie County, NC party in 1936. My father became a Democrat in Virginia when he became part of the labor movement, the UAW. What about Bernie Sanders? I did not agree with him on some issues; however, about 90% percent I agreed with him. I believe that public colleges should be paid for by the federal government. When I take a PBS Pew Foundation, I come up as a Rockefeller Republican even though I vote mostly Democratic in Virginia. I did not vote for Donald Trump. I have written a letter to ask Gov. Howard Dean to make another attempt for president. I do not like Southern Republicans now. Most of them are like the late slave master Strom Thurmond of South Carolina. Thanks for writing. In spite of our philosophical differences, I believe we can get along.
I would say nothing existed except for God’s eternity. I am not after having a debate of this issue with either you or Patrick. I am simply stating my theology.
Your last statement here is quite correct. Not all Christians believe the way Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell did.
Billy Graham, for example, was a JFK and LBJ Democrat. American Baptists in the north would not agree with them and many Southern Baptists would reject their view. I do. I am only a Moral Conservative; otherwise, I am a leftist. One cannot put all groups into one shoe box. That would go for your philosophy as well. Liberal Baptists in Portsmouth, Virginia whom I knew well wanted to hire me as a chaplain at Maryview Hospital, a Catholic institution.
Our Universe is best described by an inflationary period that occurred prior to the Big Bang, and the Big Bang is the aftermath of what occurred at the end of inflation. During inflation, the Universe is completely empty. There are no particles, no matter, no photons; just empty space itself. That empty space has a huge amount of energy in it, with the exact amount of energy slightly fluctuating over time. Those quantum fluctuations get stretched to larger scales, while new, small-scale fluctuations are created on top of that.
Inflation came to end randomly, and not in all locations at once. In a relatively small region, perhaps no bigger than a soccer ball, the energy inherent to space gets converted into matter and radiation. The conversion process is relatively fast, taking approximately 10-33 seconds or so, but not instantaneous. As the energy bound up in space itself gets converted into particles, antiparticles, photons and more, the temperature starts to rapidly rise.
Because the amount of energy that gets converted is so large, everything will be moving close to the speed of light. They will all behave as radiation, whether the particles are massless or massive doesn’t matter. This conversion process is known as reheating, and signifies when inflation comes to an end and the stage known as the hot Big Bang begins.
You are describing the model Krauss advocates. He is compelled to hold this position because it is one way to maintain that the universe is, in some sense, eternal. But empty space is not nothing, as you point out. Empty space contains energy. If the universe had an ultimate beginning, then it came into existence in the absence of space.
Under GR, our universe consists of four dimensions, three of space and one of time. All four of these have a finite age. If our universe is the only universe, then the Big Bang was the ultimate beginning. If the multiverse exists, BGV theorem tells us that the multiverse itself had an ultimate beginning - that is, it sprang into existence in the absence of any matter, energy, space or time. Watch Alexander Vilenkin explain it here.
No. I am explaining the inflation theory of how the one observable universe that we live in now is flat and solves the horizon problem. The Planck satellite results confirm inflation.
Not very impressed by Alexander Vilenkin’s “Quantum Creation” of the universe. Right now it seems that the Alan Guth, Andrei Linde, Aleksei Starobinsky model of inflation fits best with the data
But in all inflation models, multiple universes are created from the quantum fluctuations. In Stephen Hawkings last paper he tried to put limits on the number of multiple universes created to a finite number.
I’m familiar with that model but it requires pre-existing space. It doesn’t meet the requirement of an ultimate beginning with no matter, energy, space or time.
no, inflation starts out with no space at all. Then for a finite time (10-33 seconds), space goes from zero to the size of a soccer ball. This space has huge energy in it and converts into particles, antiparticles, photons and more - the start of the big bang. 380,000 years later, the universe looks like this:
We often talk about an “inflationary membrane” that is not located in the “space” of our universe, but it still is something that exists in some notion of “space,” even if it is not like the “space” of our universe.
The fact that we do not have a clear conception or name of this “space” is not an argument that it is, in total fact, nothing.
On this one I am on @Ronald_Cram’s side, even if we struggle to find the right words to describe his point.
If it’s not of profoundly personal import, first and foremost, it’s not of profound public impact and significance until such time.
Unjust societal acts go completely unnoticed by the general public most of the time, and even public miracles are too easily ignored.
Yes, physics has settled on the answers: The electron really is a point particle of zero radius and occupies zero volume in space. With that, now go back to the beginning of inflation when the universe was radius of zero and volume of space was zero. Same physics.
Ahh, the vagaries of a semantic impasse! How curious these mortals be! https://faculty.washington.edu/smcohen/320/Nothingness.html
And now for the answer to all this lingering ennui:
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities— all things have been created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. He is also head of the body, the church; and He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that He Himself will come to have first place in everything. For it was the Father’s good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in Him,and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross; through Him, I say, whether things on earth or things in heaven. And although you were formerly alienated and hostile in mind, engaged in evil deeds, yet He has now reconciled you in His fleshly body through death, in order to present you before Him holy and blameless and beyond reproach—if indeed you continue in the faith firmly established and steadfast, and not moved away from the hope of the gospel that you have heard, which was proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, was made a minister. Colossians 1:15-23 NASB
