True,,, unless God Created the universe out of Himself , but then that could lead to a pantheistic view of God

It could also lead to a great deal of laughter.  Did God go and get crafty with a rib again?

What were you before your grandmother was  born?

Does the thought you are thinking exist?

Thoughts don't have substance, only the electrical charges in our brains do. That's a cool thought~ Good comparison about before your grandmother was born. We were potential perhaps.

Oui, We greatly enjoyed the show over here. Dear old Stephen Hawking. I always enjoy his questing mind, intelligence and sense of humour. I find it sad that he had to struggle so long with the question of god his whole life, and find the highest possible proof in logic to dispel the myth he was taught as a child. (I mean no offence by that, it is merely my perspective.) But I recall hearing that he was kicked out of his science chair at the university, which had previously been held by Newton and Einstein, for his stepping over the line in regards to god and religion. Good for him I say.

Elanorgold,

I think it is a rule of Cambridge for people in the Lucasian chair to step down when they reach 67.  He turned 67 in 2009, when he stepped down.

That makes more sense to me, as I don't think the British are as anally religious as, say, the US.

"Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? Declare, if thou hast understanding."

So sayeth God to Job

Inanna, Oh, OK. I didn't know that.  But I do think they still don't want untouchable subjects touched in England, though the church's popularity is dropping quickly there.

Good question. Really doesn't answer my question, however. As a Christian, I obviously have a Christian view on the subject. I was hoping for a scientific explanation.

It's kind of like the chicken and the egg analogy, which came first? As "a Christian" you should already believe in this concept of something from nothing since this is what the beginning of Genesis teaches.

OK. One more time. I do believe that God created the universe out of nothing. Creation ex nihilo. That is my belief. I believe in creation ex nihilo. Creation ex nihilo is what I believe. My belief is, is that God created the universe out of nothing. Out of nothing, God created the universe. My belief is, is that God, the creator of the universe, created the universe out of nothing. Creation ex nihilo by God, that's my belief. Yes sir!!!!

Now. What I am hoping to get is what the scientific view is. What is the scientific view of something coming from nothing?  

Exactly how many times will we have to give you the scientific explanation, before you read the scientific explanation?  This is not the first time we've gone over this material, but you seem to be asking for an introduction to it.  Again.

Sometimes, all we have are hypotheses.  But a hypothesis is something people can test - it's something they can work on.  And it's not like we're experts, either.  When people ask about stuff like this, I have to go hunting for information - info that many theists refuse to look for.

If you're happy to fill in your own ignorance with "God did it", no one is going to stop you.  Thankfully, more and more people are less and less impressed with that answer.

Well, smart guy, I have read the scientific explanation(s). There seems to be conflicting theories. I guess what I am asking is what is the BEST explanation? The one that is generally excepted.

Actually, scratch that. Looking back at the posts, Witch and Alex were the only people to give me an intelligent, thought out, rational answer to my question.

no it does not, Genesis teaches Creation from a Creator, God

Geneses 1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth

Christians do not profess to know how God did , only that He is the First cause .

1) God Could have created out of nothing 

or

2) God could have created out of something, that something is Himself 

How God did it we don't know, 

Which, of course, is a self-defeating position. 

really, ok, why is it self-defeating, explain

Are you so fixated on "God" as a first cause, that you can't see the problem with this statement?  "God" is the problem, because while "He is the first cause" neatly (if unbelievably) explains how everything got here, it completely fails to explain how "God" got here.

In thinking you've solved one problem for yourself, you've created another.

The problem with the "First cause" premise is that the user postulates a "rule", that every effect must have a cause, then immediately adds an exception; except God, and then insists that no other exceptions are valid.

This is a classic example of faulty reasoning.

believers  believe that God is the first Uncaused cause,  in other words God is uncreated, 

eternal, always existed , has no beginning and has no end , God always IS:

​Revelation 22:13 I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.

​

Tyson,

any scientific explanation of where universe came from is going to have to correlate 2 of the bestest scientific theories we have -- Quantum Mechanics (which governs the behaviour of the VERY small) & Relativity (which governs the behaviour of everything else).  The big problem is that all attempts so far to correlate the 2 result in ugly infinities and things like that, which scientists generally don't like.  It requires a TOE -- a theory of everything and the only way to have a TOE is to correlate QM with Relativity.

So some scientists resort to pseudoscience, like Hawking's book discussed in the videos above, to try to explain where universe came from.

This web page might help you with your quest for knowledge.

And this one.

However, I would be wary of mixing religious beliefs with the rigors of science -- let the art of religion continue to give meaning and leave the 'complementary facts of universe' to science.

How convenient.  This is exactly the exception that Witch referred to, with, of course, no other exceptions being acceptable.  Other exceptions would be unthinkable.

If you think this sort of reasoning is perfectly acceptable, you are welcome to it.  Others are abandoning it for the ridiculous, self-serving claptrap that it is.

I recall the rabbi asking us to start Bereshit and we started to read aloud. In English, "In the beginning" and then he said "Stop!" and asked, "what does that mean?"

We sat puzzled. Someone said, "it means, in the beginning". He said, "what does in mean? Does it mean at the beginning, the very instant of beginning, near the beginning...? Beginning of what? Beginning of the earth, people, God...?

I do not recall ever being taught creation out of nothing.

Beriah (Creation) means to bring something into being out of a prior state of non-existence. Non-existence does not mean nothing. I was once not born. I am something brought into being out of a prior state of non-existence. It does not mean out of nothing, sperm and egg... but prior I did not exist. Or did I? (hmmm)

Nothing in my faith asks me to check my brain at the door. The faith of my youth taught me that if my faith and science conflict, I need to adjust my faith.  

I can say that early peoples wrote about what they did not know. I can say that they knew nothing. Yet, I feel that I should also look at what they wrote exactly and not fill in blanks or say they said things they never said.

Scripture says "created heaven and earth", but does not say out of what or how. It does not say how God made light, divided the darkness... how there became grass.... Genesis 2 says humans were made of the dust, earth...primodial soup... not out of nothing.

Where do we get "nothing", I wonder.

Thank you for an intelligent and well thought out answer. Also, thanks for the links.
 

Mostly out of blackbelt.

Which is more difficult to grasp:

God did it

or

Before time, an infinitely small infinitely dense something exploded and produced galaxies in hardly any time at all...

....and where did THAT come from?

I'm going with God's vest pocket. You?

Where do babies come from?  Is it the product of a sperm fertilizing an egg, or are they delivered by storks?

Simplistic and conjured-up answers are perfectly fine - when you're at a loss for how to explain a complex thing to a 3-year-old.

it comes down to this 

Christians believe God is the cause, 

atheists believe nothing is the cause

and you call your self reasionable ? 

o my lord 

well since i created nothing as you believe that makes me God, 

snap snap snap

guess not, your still here 

Q.E.D.

V.F.G

No, atheists say, "We don't know."  And we don't.  Neither do you.  You have fantasies about knowing.

no agnostics claim that 

Agnosticism is the view that the truth value of certain claims—especially claims about the existence or non-existence of any deity, but also other religious and metaphysical claims—is unknown or unknowable

​

​are you now claiming agnostic for thy self? cuz if you are, you sure ridicule alot against your unknowing 

in my experience, people who make fun of, use it as a cover up for there ignorance in the topic at hand. like beef, i give you grade A, you master it

​

Let me finish Genesis 1:1

"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters."

“Darkness is Father-Mother; Light is Their Son", says an old Eastern proverb.

Formless, empty and darkness means nothing. The manifested Universe was nothing before it came into existence. There was no form and no matter (earth) to create a Universe which is made of  form and matter. It was empty and devoid of matter. How can the darkness bring light and matter be created out of nothing? This is the conundrum. The mystery of the ages.

I personally believe in a "First Cause". And so do cosmologists in the sense that they believe the Big Bang to be beginning of everything. It had a beginning therefore it had a first cause.

Hinduism says that this Universe is one only of millions and millions that occur. They can only say this because they know of the Law of Analogy, e.g. As above, so below.

thats not how that verse reads Neo , there was something there, the earth, Formless, empty and dark is in reference to the condition of the earth at its being stages of creation

we don't profess to know how God did it 

agreed , but i would say the beginning of creation, to say the beginning of everything would imply God also , God has no beginning 

could be 

Yea, I figured you would say that, but the context in which "earth" is meant, e.g. "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth", implies to me that "earth" is meant to be more than just our planet Earth. To me the world "earth" here could represent all of matter just as easily as it could represent our planet Earth.

In fact, I would like to suggest another alternative to understanding the first few verses of Genesis. They could represent the creation of our planet and the creation of all matter. "As above, so below", says the ancient wisdom. The Law of Analogy could allows us a glimpse into the greater creation by understanding the smaller creation. The Earth was also void and formless before the Solar System burst into being. So was, says the cosmologists, the matter of the Universe.

This is another conundrum. We know that matter was created out the primordial soup of sub-atomic elements that existed in the first few seconds of the Big Bang. Once that matter started to spin and move in space, time was created. There was no time before matter spun itself existence.

And now, everything we know as being "something", that is something in our frame of reference in the Universe, exists in time and space and matter. Nothing, from what we can understand, exists outside of these parameters. Therefore ... (wait for it....)...God must be "Nothing".

Look, in terms of a "first cause", atheism holds no position.  Atheism is not a position about first causes - it's a position on all the deities ever invented.  Atheists will simply tell you there are hypotheses about how the universe began, but we don't know for sure.  There is nothing mutually exclusive between that position, and atheism.

On the subject of any god, atheists simply do not believe.

Be sure not to let any of this sink in, so I can repeat it all yet again on another day.

God is first Cos? To make something out of nothing you require imaginary field ... Complexity of mind ... spacey daemons ... ich Lectic ...

That takes some imagination to get your thoughts about ... then is thought a negative bit of nothing ... like the electron? How does it come across on the other side ... shocking ... a pain of conceiving nothing ... then they say conceiving of nothing would give us a place to put some crazy thoughts and emotions that would just boil as thoughts and emotions don't ... well-coexist ... like co-habitate, or co-sheqah (dark dwelling place of the mind, it's deep) in Hebrew. Now where would nothing have found a place to put this without some silly shenanigans to separate these non entities ... that's A'B'D or Reuben in an old form of ribbing from a point of inside space ... well-folded that no one thinks proper ... so we are told it is not nice to go there even though it is warm, wet and  ... well fecund like bull that's Ur the initial mind ... wee read devil ... chi can cause you to lose all former thoughts ... in an a moor Fuzzy state than you can fantasy ... thank god for the imagination eh ... like a smear of blackness on the page ... mire aesthete? Thus god's just a Shadow on the page that brutes despise ... overly emotional?

It all points down to the point of a bubble, expanding towards a bursting point of whoever conceived of dreaming up this concept of anti matter ... Ephraim of mind in which we fade away ... bier with me it's dark like gui'n ESS. Passes as River Piscon ... in Jinn's is ... spirituality of thought opposing gods in alternate to good common sense ... which mortals seem to be missing as they advance total scroo ups and massive growth on the physical scene as countering thought ... thus all ends up in the end condensing to a beginning in which eclectic particles can accumulate ... Bose Condensate ... Einstein's Dream? It is joke a blast from alien space ... the other's mind ... semi 'nd ... or semi-ole Taurus doc terre in ... where "in" has the alternate meaning of not ... thus defining the absence of in Ur space ... place to put man a shiyr fecundity of a spatial giggle that you can feel like a faint voice ... calling you to the edge of rapture ... one big Black Hole of Sects ... that's divine ... mostly mindless state of eclectic storm ... Dark in the mind of those watching and not participating on their own.

God: clear space of mind? Is that aesthetic ... like devoid?

Negative energy like electrons in space ... the other side of base dimensions ... us? God like 2 negative sides to a square (thinker; out-of-the-box?) Tue halves of mind where Gael "Tue" is death ... like wisdom in Hebrew? What imagination drives the clear space of mind ... primal desire or the ability to conjure it up as chick'n egg syndrome ... gravid to say the least but hoo'dah sae'd that? Making something out of two-less-than-nothings? Surface of T'om and unopened bo'quet of some depth (re-dun-dençe) ... profundity of Lilly eth ... the Shadow bloe Zoom 'n ...

Bottom ... unwound nite ... a dark existense of tale ... like cosheqah living in space? Time is relative to mote 've ... in all probability to the primal 4-sis reciprocal to an upended "V" that is capital light in Greek drama of let Eire ... one must look to the detailing ... co fey ... ß' witching, or secondary to desire on the brae in ... that's Niche! Then who accepts that perspective?

Black Belt conditioned to a point ... that's minor Black Hole ... like convoluted electron ... a bump on the other's ID? Bo ebb's ... when it goes the other way to those used to receiving ... one has to let go sometime ... nothing is ethereal light just carrier like bier ... that supports the Shadow on the page ... yeoman?

God's everything and nothing? How could you go there without being a divine dualist ... Deist? That world is sure to start a fight in a realm where light is only seen in one frequency and not as an energetic 23-powered spectra Ankh (tense) but you cannot tell this to someone who misunderstands the nothing we stand upon ... devoid space ... a mind beyond mortal as defined as intellect by Webster ... IT's way out th'Eire ... do we stand on a thread in indeterminate space or are we suspended from IT ... bean "chi" of time? Such profundity (t'ome) just blows meis away when you get right intuit ...

First there was Omega-odd-desires ... but hoo dah known without a monstrous sole entity ... somewhere's to pud ID ... thus the concept as mind as UR  .. and real men didn't wish to know that ... quantum from the point of minor bubble in the night waters ... shamayim ... frothy to say the least of the production from the high brew'n millar ... crank'n iDahl?

How does a word reside in Levant ine space? Lightly for the beast is fragile as mire Shadow of the fore goan actions ... two faux cups floating in the darkness ... like weird China on the Scie ... an edge of oblivion ... scroo Jed out of thought ... the ultimate lesson think before you jump ... you might become a clear thought elsewhere ... gei sha's Ur ... Lameth ... bobbin through my head in the spin ... that's English with very little point to it other than to confuse the pagans ... so they wouldn't understand the representation of royalty and other forms of tyranny on earth ... just to cause paen of learning in rapture ...

"chi" is quite a blast when E mote'n ... as "E" ... a contrary spark ... le gassy like Saint pedre ... that's no foot sir ... just X-penne dibblin weID ... sometimes they grow where they're not supposed to by brutal law ... manna exterminated ... it is totally unnatural fire! Go figure ...

I could agree with that, but you earlier said, I will quote you  "Formless, empty and darkness means nothing" 

matter is not nothing

 it is the Christians position that God is a timeless, spaceless, eternal body less mind

the finite mind can not understand an infinite mind  , Light does not create itself out of nothing  , nor is Light the opposite of darkness as most believe, it is in fact the absence of , so to be absence of light (energy) , is to be completely void , no time, no space, no atoms, no soup, no  sub atomic particles. But void space  or a black hole is still something. 

PS: a finite mind can not even comprehend  pure nothingness because it does not exist  

Nothing is the utter absence of anything (or any sort of something-ness, if you will) But then by  describing nothing, nothing becomes something? It's something that's describable, and that's not nothing at all. 

 "formless, empty and dark" does not, for me, mean nothing.

It means formless, empty and dark. I doubt anyone would think empty meant nothing. A glass can be empty and is not a nothing, it is still a glass. A room is dark and is still a room.

Formless can mean without definite form, without order or without material existence.

How does earth without definite form (or forming) or earth without order differ from earth without material existence?

My theology does not require me to believe everything was created out of nothing, something without material existence. Hmmm, does "nothing" itself mean "something" without material existence?

I likely am only engagging my own self now.

The first cause argument (Cosmological Argument ) comes down to 2 positions 1) intelligent designer or 2) self creative

Atheist argue   #2 , no intelligent designer, (God)

Creationist argue # 1 Intelligent designer (God)

agnostics don't argue against or for, they simply say , don't know

so if atheisms position is , i don't believe in any deity, that would exclude them from arguing the First Cause cause, yet Famous atheist like : Hitchens,  Dawkins, John Shook, Lewis Wolpert, Hawkings, Victor  Stenger and so on, argue either against or no deity needed for Creation.

that is NOT a position of "atheisms holds no position"  as you clam .

do you think you can find it deep with in you to argue your position towards me and others on this board WITHOUT your smart remarks? 

Neato links!

(InannaWhimsey to Tyson)

I shall contemplate  for a full five minutes on the question"

Is the universe heading towards a Big Freeze, a Big Rip, a Big Crunch or a Big Bounce? I

Big Bounce ... is that like an Echo, Ego ... or shiyr reflection that is transparent to mortals ... TØom-ish Mire ... where to hide the sole reflection ... for God's children didn't wish to know ... out-of-box things ... beyond the institutional ...

If god is a construct of man ... a personification ... is whoa mon a fecund reflection that'll come back at cha ... that's Ur ... the forth coming power that drove Muses out of the highlands ... and Eire thinkers no longer know desire. For proof just look around yah! This dimension is relative hate ... with exceptions (chimera) for the unknown wee IDs ... Thyseal ... the thorny issue in the field ... a complex (imaginary) projection ... like the hand of Desire-Adda ... a slippery thing ... if yah grasp IT you soon release it as if you didn't wish to know the paen of love ... isn't that devilish interpretation, flute, or fey loot to the surrounding sole ... working in the Shadow ... that's profound like TØom in the primary high bruin language of the percolating psyche ... chi'll creep up on yah!

But few believe in the existence of Dark Energy ... thought does coexist with implications ... and mortal wishes not to know these things. In The Bucket List it was stated that well-over 90% of eM (population, paradigm) would rather not know the approach of death if diagnosed ... thus mortals remain stoop ID in general, or corporeal wisdom of exchange of information ... that's done in complete ignorance ... a dark formless void that makes something O'vite ... the quick and the dead coming back at cha for what you didn't know ... imagine it is all just as Torah, filmy noire? Just escape-ism!

That's th's elphe speaking through a medium ... a form of mortal ... but real people don't believe in those either ... as if IT were a mire Taurus ... dirty Bull! Then there is the PHD  (piles, higher and deeper) the deep power of shamayim ... heavenly pool of the imagination (shamayim-ism) where Newton, Galileo, Einstein, Sagan and Hawking drew from the ... well-druid ... best drawn out into a lifetime sos there'd be a surprise at the end.

Ever check out the fringe group ... the strange sole that appeals to you in your wondering ... like buryds on SHOE ... it is a comic strip form of satyr, shadowy literary device ... commonly used to escape gammal-awe ... or is that black law about which we know little of the consequence ... yet we go with it as forced by moor aLs ... the pool overhead when perhaps we should see how we corrupt the pool under ... with all the Pisces contestants. Do you ever question a mortal God? That's personification of the intangible ... ith chiis thy imagination!

Many can't do without ... in instituted state they don't floe well unless over fired ... Looks some different from the Isis Ide ... cool Emma Jin Nation? Mortal gods don't wish mediums to go there they might learn something the upper caste missed ... resolve creations enigmas ... problems with th' aÐ?

Ð 'n ð; have long stories attached ... you probably wouldn't wish to hear as on-goan ... mortals like word condensed ... thus G O D ... gathered circle of deviants in a devilish spatial mode? They're mote I've scene ... look overhead at night not to speak of the mire underneath ... like Ka Mæl spitting imperfect copies ... some imaginary space required as abstract, aesthete ... miss'n lynx ... catatonix? That mortal that doesn't believe in th' aught ... that's nothing but primal desire for sum pin ... paen inna heh stack ... that's chi ... sear 'n desire ...

Man thought he had UR butte mis taken ... his desire waned .. when surrounded by th' aught ... as impression ... once given the goan over ... de mêmè drifted ... followers couldn't find it as Piscine ... kyn dah Ithchii ... fore wondering ... beyond your grasp ... Then the Lord said to Moses. "Stretch our your hand over the scie ..." Exodus 14:26 ... Muses lost something in the realm of desire ... crossing (T) the fringe? Is it a wholesome metaphor ... when you de deuce together ... tete a tete? Some Tae, Tiye or varyed communication required ... the tongues of all peoples ... there must be a flaw in the system ... some don't wish to get ID ...