As I've been talking with people about the universe and religion, for quite some time now, this question keeps popping up. People always go to the same arguments. They use the "Kalam Cosmological Argument" as stated by William Lane Craig, or they refer to Lawrence Krauss and his "Universe from nothing". But should they? And how do they know those people are right? Well, there are several things to look at.
Universal semantics
Semantics are important. They prevent misunderstanding. When we all agree on what words and phrases mean, then we can understand eachother better and we can determine which viewpoints are the most logical. Why do I bring this up? Well... Quite simply due to the phrasing of the question. What is meant by "Universe" and what is meant by "beginning"?
This needs to be determined first. Looking at what we can observe and what we can't observe, we can not actually objectively verify if our Universe or that which we call our universe started to exist. We can however determine that the Universe over time has changed. So, we can definitely say that "the universe, as we know it, has a beginning".
It may have existed prior, in a different shape or different state of being, but it also may not have existed prior at all. By phrasing it as "the universe as we know it, has a beginning" you would cover all options, instead of just one. In my opinion, making it the more accurate way of phrasing it.
If we assume the "big bang" to be the starting point, that still doesnt explain what existed prior to the big bang, only what happend after this event. I might compare it to the "industrial revolution". Basically industries already existed, the industrial revolution just sped up the technological advances that were being made.
In this example the industries are the universe and the industrial revolution are the big bang. Looking back at history, the industries as we know them, find their origin in the industrial revolution. Perhaps its a crappy comparisson, but it works for me...
Does the Universe have an actual beginning
Many people seem to think that the "Big Bang Theory" explains that the universe did not exist, then came in to existence and started to expand. To my knowledge this is incorrect. And even the image I used in this article shows this.
Big Bang describes the change of the Universe after it's "beginning", similar to how "the Theory of Evolution" describes how life changed after it's beginning. Abiogenesis describes the origin of life and is a whole different thing than evolution is.
The same would be true for the Big Bang Theory. We can not see past the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation. The image shows expansion from the CMBR onwards to now. This is what the Bang Theory explains. Expansion. The birth of the universe is a whole different thing.
What happend prior to Big Bang is unknown. there are ideas about, hypothesis, all based on science, sure. But do we actually know? the answer is "No, we don't". I've shown people clips of Professor Brian Cox explaining that we do not know wether or not the Universe actually has a beginning or that it is eternal and previously had some other state.
One of those explanations was given by him, in an interview with Joe Rogan. Which was reason for one skeptic to dismiss it right away, saying something like "I don't take anything regarding Joe Rogan seriously", totally disregarding the actual statements made by Professor Cox.
Does the Universe have a beginning? It might have, it might not have. We, in our lifetimes may never know. I'm fine with that, how about you?
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