Two babies analogy

[BeRational]

'Where did the universe come from?'... will take us into infinite regress as much as... 'Where did God come from?'.  Both are unanswerable.

But there is a difference. In the former it is all accidental. No Intelligence or purpose involved. In the latter there is purpose and Intelligence involved.  Lot of love and peace and personal comfort also.

I would therefore prefer the second form of Infinite regress to the first one.

I prefer that my beliefs are true, rather than comforting false beliefs.

[torridon]

You're presupposing what 'real insight' is, aren't you?!

We can be pretty sure that genuine insights will not flow from sloppy self referential thinking.

[Sriram]

We can be pretty sure that genuine insights will not flow from sloppy self referential thinking.

You are presupposing lots of things.

[jeremyp]

We know there must be a creator: If there was a point in time when nothing existed (including No Creator), then nothing would exist now, since something cannot come from nothing. And things could not have always existed, because the nature of the universe is that it is using up energy without replacing it, so there would be no energy left.

So for things to come into existence, there must have been a Creator.

Let's pretend that your argument isn't full of holes and accept that this "creator" exist(ed).

How do you get from some creator entity to the Christian god? As far as I can see, there's no requirement that this creator have agency, never mind be the Christian god, only that it is (in our terms) eternal.

[Stranger]

We know there must be a creator: If there was a point in time when nothing existed (including No Creator), then nothing would exist now, since something cannot come from nothing. And things could not have always existed, because the nature of the universe is that it is using up energy without replacing it, so there would be no energy left.

So for things to come into existence, there must have been a Creator.

Wow - so much wrongness in so few words.

Firstly you have a quaintly Newtonian view of time. Secondly, the universe isn't using energy, energy is conserved. You could make an argument from entropy but there are many possibilities around that. Thirdly, (as has already been said) you've just replaced "why the universe?" with "why this creator?". Fourthly, even if we were to accept the analysis (laughable as it is) it just tells us that there is something about existence we don't understand, it doesn't tell us that there is a (god-like) creator. Fifthly, even if there was a god-creator, why would it have anything to do with the (rather obviously human-made) religions?

[Spud]

Why a creator and not just a process.

How do you know there was a time when there was nothing?

Perhaps it is not possible for there to be nothing?

Okay, I think I may have tuned in to your wavelength. Your view is that something has always existed, and that a process has always been acting on it to turn it into what we have now?

The process that formed stars must in my view be different to any process that is occurring now, because we never see new stars appearing, only clouds of material that are assumed to be stellar nurseries. We only observe star death.

That doesn't mean there was a time when there was nothing. Perhaps it isn't important whether there was or wasn't. What we know is that things are moving from a state of order to disorder, and we don't know how they got into that state of order.

But like you said, why not a natural process rather than a creator?

I suggest we must be open to both?

[torridon]

Okay, I think I may have tuned in to your wavelength. Your view is that something has always existed, and that a process has always been acting on it to turn it into what we have now?

The process that formed stars must in my view be different to any process that is occurring now, because we never see new stars appearing, only clouds of material that are assumed to be stellar nurseries. We only observe star death.

That doesn't mean there was a time when there was nothing. Perhaps it isn't important whether there was or wasn't. What we know is that things are moving from a state of order to disorder, and we don't know how they got into that state of order.

But like you said, why not a natural process rather than a creator?

I suggest we must be open to both?

They are not equivalent  - a creator introduces more things to explain than a creatorless situation - you also now need to explain the creator. Where did it come from.  The idea of a being with powers to create universes just springing out of nowhere with no provenance is harder to comprehend than a natural universe.

[Sebastian Toe]

The process that formed stars must in my view be different to any process that is occurring now, because we never see new stars appearing, only clouds of material that are assumed to be stellar nurseries. We only observe star death.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/phys.org/news/2010-06-astronomers-witness-star-born.amp

[Spud]

https://www.google.com/amp/s/phys.org/news/2010-06-astronomers-witness-star-born.amp

Having recently watched a sped-up film of the inhabitants of a rock pool recorded over the course of a day, I can see how it is easy to look at stars and not see them in the context of long periods of time.

Aquatic creatures make for rock pools when the tide goes out, in order to avoid drying out on the beach. They are constantly hunting or being hunted, as opposed to just sitting there as they appear to do (eg starfish).

Similarly, stellar objects are interacting, not just sitting there. Logically this would include being born and dying. However, hypotheses as to how they form within gas clouds rely on the assumption that dark matter is present to provide enough gravity to allow them to collapse:

"Giant clumps of dark matter act like gravitational wells that collect the gas and dust needed for making galaxies. When a mixture of gas and dust falls into a well, it condenses and cools, allowing new stars to form. Eventually enough stars form, and a galaxy is born."

https://tinyurl.com/y6snwck8

[Gordon]

Having recently watched a sped-up film of the inhabitants of a rock pool recorded over the course of a day, I can see how it is easy to look at stars and not see them in the context of long periods of time.

Aquatic creatures make for rock pools when the tide goes out, in order to avoid drying out on the beach. They are constantly hunting or being hunted, as opposed to just sitting there as they appear to do (eg starfish).

Similarly, stellar objects are interacting, not just sitting there. Logically this would include being born and dying. However, hypotheses as to how they form within gas clouds rely on the assumption that dark matter is present to provide enough gravity to allow them to collapse:

"Giant clumps of dark matter act like gravitational wells that collect the gas and dust needed for making galaxies. When a mixture of gas and dust falls into a well, it condenses and cools, allowing new stars to form. Eventually enough stars form, and a galaxy is born."

https://tinyurl.com/y6snwck8

Hooray for dark matter (and rock pools too).