Why Assume Only One Solution.?

[modeller]

Why do Abrahamic theists assume there is only a single creator.?

We all know for every effect there is a cause but why do these theists and some scientists assume a single cause ?

Put it this way the universe was caused by X which they say equals God.

But what if X = a+b+c+d+e+f+g .........................and in any combination. This would allow a combination of Gods which would be just as valid an assumption as the assumption of a single deity.

[jake-the-peg]

Ah well I wouldn't agree with that modeller - because that assumes a time before the big bang and where did that time come from?!?

Jim

Are you suggesting that an atomic decay has a cause?

My point is that QM is based on the notion that quantum level events are statistical - they are not 'caused' by some other event in a Newtonian manner.

And that these tiny subatomic events with no cause can influence macroscopic phenomina

[jim360]

It's a looser interpretation of the word "cause", I think -- the cause of atomic decay is certainly not Newtonian, but QM doesn't quite destroy cause and effect completely.

[LazyGun]

Not sure I am getting the point of this question. Are we positing a bunch of gods labouring together to create the universe and earth and all of creation - rather like the irish navvies digging the canals - or are we saying a sequence of events could have led to it all, of which god was a part?

If the latter - why should we assume any role for a god? If the former - Is not a muitliplicity of ogds even more improbable than a single creator?

I am probably missing something......

[modeller]

LG No you are not missing anything in the question.
Why do the the theists always assume a single creator , full stop. ?
There is no reason to make that assumption. . If as they claim there is a god why insist of only one. Every theist I have spoken to makes the same claim.
I suspect they do so because it is easier to build legends , rules and regulations around a single entity rather than around many.

I suspect that there are scientists who may also like the idea of a single event because it avoids the problem of time and space before the big bang.

[jim360]

Well, for starters they don't always assume a single God -- examples beign the plentiful gods of Greek and Roman or Norse tradition, or Hinduism today.

As for your insistence about time "before the Big Bang"... that's oo complicated to answer in AB, but in summary no-one knows what came before, if anything, and it's likely to remain that way for some time yet. Reasons being, that we first have to understand the event itself fully -- and an event so powerful could easily have acted as some sort of "cosmic rubber", wiping out all evidence of what came before. In which case it would do well enough to assume that there was no before.

[naomi24]

Jim, //Well, for starters they don't always assume a single God -- examples beign the plentiful gods of Greek and Roman or Norse tradition, or Hinduism today.//

The OP specifically mentions the Abrahamic religions. None of the above fall into that category.

[modeller]

jim // In which case it would do well enough to assume that there was no before. //
True scientists don't 'assume' from nothing , they only propose a hypothesis when there is some limited evidence as a starting point.
Therefore there has to be something to start with and if there is something . That something had to be present before the BB and that something is my X which may = a+b+..................................My gut reaction is that X is the collapse of a previous universe which was formed in the same way and..................
I know it's an old theory and interestingly it is the basis of the Nordic theology.Starting and finishing at Armageddon..........................

[jake-the-peg]

//True scientists don't 'assume' from nothing , they only propose a hypothesis when there is some limited evidence as a starting point.

Therefore there has to be something to start with //

No this is a false conclusion

We have evidence that things come from nothing - virtual particles

There is quite a bit of evidence for these

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_particle#Manifestations


I think despite it all you are stuck in a 19th century view of science with a big bang as en explosion into an infinite Universe that has always existed and where time is nice and linear, where things don't pop in and out of existence and where electrons are little billiard balls orbiting round and around solid nuclei?

You have that 'clockwork' deterministic view and you're not moving on from it?

Am I close?

It's what we teach kids up to 16 or so and its what people thought up to about 1900 or so and it works pretty well for bowling balls and rockets and apples etc.

But when you try and apply it to atoms and neutron stars and the big bang it just falls apart

You can't try to apply the physics of the kitchen and the road to things that big and that energetic

You need to get your head around quantum mechanics and relativity - I know the concepts sound crazy - everybody thinks that when they first meet with it - I think I hated my physics teacher for a month - I thought I had a great view of how the Universe worked and I had to start again and take on crazy ideas like time slowing and electrons tunneling through barriers.

I often think it's a bit like a fish that's spent its life learning about weeds and frogs and what makes sense and another fish talking about a universe where there is no water and things are very heavy and things that fly though it..

Intuition fails when that intuition is developed in limited circumstances and you try to apply it to extreme conditions.

[jim360]

So he did, Naomi -- I misread.

[modeller]

I have read your link and others but I am always left with one problem .
For a virtual particle to exist it requires the presense of actual particles.
In which case the virtual particle did not come from nothing.

I found this link interesting .
. http://profmattstrassler.com/articles-and-posts/particle-physics-basics/virtual-particles-what-are-they/

[Old_Geezer]

Why assume that there isn't more than a single creator ? Does there need to be more than one cause of everything ? Where is the justfication of claiming a+b+c+d+e+f+g is equally valid if there is nothing to show that is needed ? Difficult enough to account for one diety always existing without needing an army of them.

Anyway any religion has to choose one of the options and so the founder opted for the one since that was what seemed right to them. Perhaps because it was the one and only creator that spoke to them ;-) A particular religion has to believe something, not claim anything is possible because they don't know.

I don't see that the question is particularly valid. The answer is, "Why not ?"

[Old_Geezer]

Abrahamic religions by definiton stem fro the same source so one is asking why one particular religion holds one particular view. Because it's difficult to reconcile two opposing views and so that was what was decided on at the start. That other religions hold different views is hardly surprising. Maybe we should question why they hold the beliefs they do too.

[jim360]

modeller -- search "vacuum bubbles".

[jim360]

Hah. Unfortunately the name my lecturer used doesn't seem to be in universal use for what I was wanting it to mean. So here's my own explanation, I hope it will be clear but no guarantees.

Feynman diagrams of the sort you have probably seen all over the place are not just pretty pictures, but are calculational tools designed to represent clearly some complicated mathematical expressions. There are rules that tell you which diagrams you can and cannot draw. Using these rules it is possible for any theory you like to be able to draw diagrams that satisfy the rules perfectly, but have no "loose ends". These are the diagrams I refer to as "vacuum bubbles" and there is an infinite set of them. Such diagrams, anyway, represent a process where, for example, an electron and position pair appear spontaneously, emitting a photon as they do so, and then travel forward in spacetime before annihilating each other while reabsorbing the photon. In the meantime these particles too can emit and re-absorb yet more particle pair, and so on and so on...

Such diagrams are completely legal and form what is known as the "true vacuum". In order to be able to do anything with this background of constant activity you need to be able to isolate that activity and push it to one side, and there are tools which allow you to do so. The point, though, is that you don't even need any external particles for this to happen -- the activity is always there, and has to emerge for a consistent field theory.

[jomifl]

particles may appear to pop into existence from nowhere or nothing, but that may be because we cannot detect the something or somewhere from which and whence they came. In practical terms that might as well be nothing or nowhere, but we cannot know that any more than we can prove the existence of god(s).
If god existed on a quantum level he might exist and not exist simulaneously in any quantity.....or not.

[jim360]

We can know. The existence of such particles is a proven consequence of the mathematical formulation of the laws of nature; and such laws are experimentally confirmed to a stupendously high degree of accuracy.

[modeller]

I thought I would have another look at TED and see what it had to say .
Here is the link and there is also the text and comments which add to the video.
http://www.ted.com/talks/brian_greene_why_is_our_universe_fine_tuned_for_life.html