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Cosmos From Nothing?
The Christian Century ^ | June 3, 2015 | Karl W. Giberson

Posted on 06/03/2015 3:46:03 PM PDT by lbryce

Freshman astronomy books typically include a timeline outlining the major events of the universe over the past 13.7 billion years, from the appearance of our universe to the present. Most timelines put a question mark at the very beginning to reflect the incomplete state of our knowledge about how the universe got started. We don’t know what lit the spark that launched the grand adventure of our universe, despite millennia of wondering and decades of intriguing progress.

Remarkably, we know a lot about what happened a fraction of a second after the Big Bang. We have robust theories that have been tested in laboratories like that of the European Organization for Nuclear Research, where the early moments of the universe are simulated in high-energy experiments.

One thing we do know now about that mysterious beginning is that it proceeded according to a precise set of rules. We don’t know whether these rules preexist our universe. We just know that they are there “in the beginning” and that they constrain what can and cannot happen.

These rules are surprisingly simple. One states that a negatively charged particle like an electron can exist only if there is a positively charged particle to balance it, so the total charge is always zero. Another rule states that all particles must have charge of -1, 0, or +1.

Quarks, however, are particles with a fractional charge of -2/3, -1/3, +1/3, or +2/3, but according to another rule of the universe quarks must assemble themselves into larger, composite particles, like protons or neutrons, that have a charge of either 0 or 1. (A proton is composed of two quarks with charges of +2/3 plus one quark with a charge of -1/3, for a net charge of 1.) The simplicity of these rules is mind-boggling.

(Excerpt) Read more at christiancentury.org ...


TOPICS: Astronomy; History
KEYWORDS: belongsinreligion; creation; gos; notasciencetopic; universe
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Reconciling God, Science, the Universe, Our very existence
1 posted on 06/03/2015 3:46:03 PM PDT by lbryce
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To: lbryce

Something from nothing? Where did nothing come from?


2 posted on 06/03/2015 3:52:27 PM PDT by rightwingcrazy
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To: lbryce
“Me, I'm waiting so patiently Lying on the floor I'm just trying to do this jig-saw puzzle Before it rains anymore”

Jagger/Richards

3 posted on 06/03/2015 3:52:45 PM PDT by Vaquero ( Don't pick a fight with an old guy. If he is too old to fight, he'll just kill you.)
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To: lbryce

Beavis: Yeah uh like I uh just had my back turned and heard this big bang and turned around and uh...it was just there...


4 posted on 06/03/2015 3:52:50 PM PDT by jsanders2001
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To: lbryce

Actually, Giberson is reconciling his own deistic puppet god with scientism and his own version of a man-centered universe.


5 posted on 06/03/2015 3:53:31 PM PDT by spirited irish
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To: lbryce

The math is getting smaller than we can test experimentally.


6 posted on 06/03/2015 3:56:24 PM PDT by P.O.E. (Pray for America)
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To: lbryce

Okay the Universe couldn’t come from nothing. So where did God come from?


7 posted on 06/03/2015 3:56:40 PM PDT by lbryce (Obama:Misbegotten, Godforsaken Bastard Offspring of Satan and Medusa)
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To: lbryce

Exodus 3:14: And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you. KJV


8 posted on 06/03/2015 4:05:07 PM PDT by Fungi
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To: rightwingcrazy
Something from nothing? Where did nothing come from?

"We have theories, but aren't really sure."

I'd love for someone to answer how we evolved.

9 posted on 06/03/2015 4:05:08 PM PDT by wastedyears (Knights of Sidonia)
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To: lbryce

The Universe came from something - G-d’s thoughts. As for G-d, He just was, is and will always be. We CANNOT understand that or prove it scientifically, simply accepting that it is so is what is called for.


10 posted on 06/03/2015 4:15:47 PM PDT by Ancesthntr ("The right to buy weapons is the right to be free." A. E. van Vogt)
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To: Ancesthntr

Well said, similar to this: Deut. 29:29: The secret things belong unto the LORD our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law.


11 posted on 06/03/2015 4:20:52 PM PDT by Fungi
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12 posted on 06/03/2015 4:24:30 PM PDT by RedMDer (Keep Free Republic Alive with YOUR Donations!)
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To: lbryce

There was an interesting post some time earlier,

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3267460/posts

...that links the so-called j-invariant in the study of elliptic curves from number theory with quantum gravitation.

One can get into the details for themselves. But it strikes me as odd as to how the Taniyama-Shimura conjecture that all elliptic curves are modular forms, and vice versa, should be what ultimately led Andrew Wiles of Princeton to his proof of Fermat’s Last Theorem that otherwise seems to have no practical applications.

But my head hurts now, and in Wiles immortal words, “I think I’ll stop here.”


13 posted on 06/03/2015 4:24:56 PM PDT by onedoug
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To: lbryce
I hope all the Christians posting scornful remarks to this thread remember that creation ex nihilo, that is from nothing, has been standard Christian doctrine from Apostolic times onward. For those of us who did not follow Luther's abridgement of the canon of Scripture, that is all us Orthodox, Latin, Coptic, Armenian and Assyrian Christians, it's even a Biblical doctrine -- see 2 Maccabees 7:28.
14 posted on 06/03/2015 4:39:40 PM PDT by The_Reader_David (And when they behead your own people in the wars which are to come, then you will know...)
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To: lbryce

The very first sentence of the Bible explains it all very simply,”In the beginning, God created the Heavens and the earth”. In the beginning (TIME) God created the heavens (SPACE)(Space Time if you prefer)and the Earth,(Matter). Space,Time and Matter, the whole enchilada.There it is all wrapped up in one sentence and it has only been within the last 100 years or so since Einstein, that the scientists have come up with the space-time concepts.


15 posted on 06/03/2015 4:53:24 PM PDT by Don Corleone ("Oil the gun..eat the cannoli. Take it to the Mattress.")
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To: The_Reader_David

In Heim’s theory both the metronic seize t and the largest diameter D depend on the age of the universe. The dependence is such that D is expanding and t is contracting, so that D was smaller in the past and t was larger. It stands to reason that at one time in the distant past the surface area of a sphere of diameter D in our 3-dimensional world was equal to the size of t. This instant marks the origin of the universe and of time. The mathematical relation between D and t is not simple, so that 3 different values of D are found to satisfy the criterion that the area of a sphere of diameter D be equal to t at the beginning of time. Evidently, the universe started as trinity of spheres, whose diameters turn out to be (in meters):
D1 = 0.90992 m, D2 = 1.06426 m, D3 = 3.70121 m.
This trinity of spheres has important bearings on the structure of elementary particles. From the first moment on the universe begun to expand, though at a slower rate than is presently predicted on the basis of the red shift of distant galaxis (see the Appendix). Heim’s theory results in a present age of the universe approximately equal to 5.45 ´ 10107 years, and a diameter D of about 6.37 ´ 10109 light years. During most of its existence the universe consisted of an empty metronic lattice, whose metrons kept getting smaller as the universe grew larger. Eventually, metrons became small enough for matter to come into existence. This may have occurred some 15-40 billion (109) years ago, at which time matter was created throughout the volume of the universe. Hence, according to Heim matter did not originate very soon after a “big bang” explosion but more uniformly in scattered “fire-cracker” like bursts, perhaps of galactic proportions. Spontaneous uniform creation of matter, coupled with the partly attractive and partly repulsive force of gravity mentioned in Section 3 resulted in the observed large-scale galactic structure of the universe. Creation of matter continues to this day, though on a very much reduced scale.


16 posted on 06/03/2015 4:59:52 PM PDT by SubMareener (Save us from Quarterly Freepathons! Become a MONTHLY DONOR!)
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To: lbryce

For me it is simple.
God created ...
And it is marvelous. It is far beyond my understanding.
The more I learn, the more I am amazed- and with good reason.


17 posted on 06/03/2015 5:10:35 PM PDT by kinsman redeemer (The real enemy seeks to devour what is good.)
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To: lbryce

“We don’t know what lit the spark that launched the grand adventure of our universe...”

Uh...News Flash...That would be GOD.


18 posted on 06/03/2015 6:01:47 PM PDT by PubliusMM (RKBA; a matter of fact, not opinion. 01-20-2017; I pray we make it that long.)
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To: Ancesthntr
"Nature's Laws are God's thoughts"--Newton.
19 posted on 06/03/2015 6:15:58 PM PDT by hinckley buzzard
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To: rightwingcrazy
Exactly. As if a nothing can exist by default. Like cold or dark are simply the absence of heat or light. Such notions are presumptuous.
20 posted on 06/03/2015 6:56:49 PM PDT by Fry Panny
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