I came across this question on Yahoo Answers. Normally I don't answer questions, especially questions I find overwhelmingly idiotic, but this one was intellectually interesting, so I submitted this answer:
First, you posit the existence, which is unproven, of an entity called “god”. I would ask you precisely what you mean by this term. Is it the Judaeo-Christian-Islamic YHWH/Lord God/Allah, the one who created the Universe in six days? Is it one of the many gods of cultures all over earth who created the universe in many different ways? Is it perhaps the “gods” of yet other religious traditions, who either had nothing to do with the creation of the Universe or came into existence after it was created (as the deities in the Hindu pantheon, whom the Rig Veda specifically mentions as being younger than the world)?
Assuming you mean the Judaeo-Christian-Islamic “god”; let us for the purposes of this answer set aside the question of its existence and look at the “creation” of the Universe you ask about.
According to modern astrophysical theory, there was no such thing as “emptiness” before the Universe appeared. When the Universe came into existence at the Big Bang, it encompassed not just matter [including stars (as well as pulsars, quasars, and so on), planets (as well as asteroids, satellites, and meteoroids), dark matter, black holes and perhaps things we have not discovered or posited yet] arranged into galaxies, and energies (inclusive of the full spectrum of radiation, gravity and dark energy) – but even space. Space, which is a closed system curved by gravity, came into existence along with the Universe. It is expanding as the Universe is expanding, because it’s part of the same system as the Universe itself.
Ergo, it’s meaningless to ask if your putative “god”, whether or not it created the Universe, might have been content with emptiness. There was no “emptiness” for it to be content with.
First, you posit the existence, which is unproven, of an entity called “god”. I would ask you precisely what you mean by this term. Is it the Judaeo-Christian-Islamic YHWH/Lord God/Allah, the one who created the Universe in six days? Is it one of the many gods of cultures all over earth who created the universe in many different ways? Is it perhaps the “gods” of yet other religious traditions, who either had nothing to do with the creation of the Universe or came into existence after it was created (as the deities in the Hindu pantheon, whom the Rig Veda specifically mentions as being younger than the world)?
Assuming you mean the Judaeo-Christian-Islamic “god”; let us for the purposes of this answer set aside the question of its existence and look at the “creation” of the Universe you ask about.
According to modern astrophysical theory, there was no such thing as “emptiness” before the Universe appeared. When the Universe came into existence at the Big Bang, it encompassed not just matter [including stars (as well as pulsars, quasars, and so on), planets (as well as asteroids, satellites, and meteoroids), dark matter, black holes and perhaps things we have not discovered or posited yet] arranged into galaxies, and energies (inclusive of the full spectrum of radiation, gravity and dark energy) – but even space. Space, which is a closed system curved by gravity, came into existence along with the Universe. It is expanding as the Universe is expanding, because it’s part of the same system as the Universe itself.
Ergo, it’s meaningless to ask if your putative “god”, whether or not it created the Universe, might have been content with emptiness. There was no “emptiness” for it to be content with.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Full comment moderation is enabled on this site, which means that your comment will only be visible after the blog administrator (in other words, yours truly) approves it. The purpose of this is not to censor dissenting viewpoints; in fact, such viewpoints are welcome, though it may lead to challenges to provide sources and/or acerbic replies (I do not tolerate stupidity).
The purpose of this moderation is to eliminate spam, of which this blog attracts an inordinate amount. Spammers, be warned: it takes me less time to delete your garbage than it takes for you to post it.
Proceed.