[aruanan]

Finally I will take you back several hundred years to a philosopher named Leibniz, who asked the pertinent question, "If there is no God, why is there anything at all?"

This is begging the question and involves itself in a contradiction. It is saying, "Something cannot exist without a cause; that cause is God, who exists without a cause."

More on the background radiation thing later. I must have some coffee first.

[Texas Songwriter]

This is begging the question and involves itself in a contradiction. It is saying, "Something cannot exist without a cause; that cause is God, who exists without a cause."

It does not beg the question and is not circular reasoning. Many others have postulated other causes. Even you postulated that energy and matter are being created at the same rate as it is destroyed in your previous post. Others have put forth other explainations as a cause. Of course these postulations have been reasoned to be groundless, as you are apparently wrestling with when you affirm "....who exists without a cause." Physics cannot deal with anything prior to that moment of creation (singularity). We must move into realm of metaphysics (what Aristotle referenced as reality above or beyond physics). So, far from begging the question it, by induction, allows one to use reason and logic to make a rational conclusion...this is what Leibnez did and put the question well and properly, "If there is no God, why is there anything at all?"

Prior to singularity nothing existed...not time, not space, not matter, not energy. No thing. Prior to that moment there was no physical space in which matter to exist, and no time for events to take place. This is why the Leibnezian question is so pertinent to this discussion. What brought all of this universe into existence. It would have had to be timeless and eternal, as well it would have had to be incredibly powerful to bring the universe into existence. It would have had to be personal to had made a decision to bring the universe into existence. Further it would have to be nonspatial (not extended into space, as space did not exist). It would have had to be immaterial as matter did not exist. It would have had to be self-existent. It would have had to be supremely intelligent to have designed the universe. These conclusions are derived from reasoned induction of the findings of scientific studies byEinstein, Hubble, Eddington, Wilson, Penzias, Smoot, NASA (through COBE and WMAP {go to NASA's web site and take a look}). It is noteworthy that these are the same attributes theologans have described in the Jewish/Christian God.

It would be noteworth to quote Jastrow again when he said, "For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the moutains of ignorance, he is about to conquer the highest peaks; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries."