Let me see if I can get this straight once and for all.:
.
This is what I believe.
1)The Big Bang occured and it created time, and space.
2)The Big Bang did need a cause in order to get started.
3)Not everything needs a cause, only things that "exist" need a cause.
4)Since the Big Bang created time and space, then "time" also needs a cause. It goes back to the Bang, but two entities were created at once-time and space.
5)The universe has a beginning-The Bang Initiated It- The expansion of the universe declares a singular point( Big Bang).
Why I believe the universe started at some point?
Since an infinite past would involve an actual infinite number of events, then the past can't be infinite.
Imagine I had an infinite number of rocks in my posession, and that I wanted to give you some. In fact, I gave you an infinite number of rocks. One way I could do that would be to give you the entire pile of rocks.
One way I could do that would be to give you the entire pile of rocks. In that case I would have zero rocks left for myself. Another way to do it would be to give you all the odd numbered rocks. Then I would still have an infinity left over for myself, and you would have infinite too.
You would have just as many as I would-and in fact, each of us would have just as many as I would-and, in fact, and, in fact, each of us would have just as many as I originally had before we divided into odd and even (emphasise on the basis of infinite) or I can give you all the rocks numbered four and higher.
That way you would have an infinite of rocks, but I only have three. These illustrations demonstrate that the return of an actual infinite number of things leans to contradictory results.
Example:
1) I give all rocks = infinity minus infinity = 0
2) I give all odd number rocks = infinity minus infinity = infinity.
3) I gave all four and greater = infinity minus infinity = three
The Idea of an actual infinite is just conceptual mathmaticians can deal with infinity quantities and infinite numbers in the conceptual realm.
However- and heres the point, its not descriptive of what can happen in the real world. You can't have an infinite numbers of events in the past.
Substitute past events for rocks and you can see the absurdities that would result. So the universe can't have an infinite number of events in the past, it must have had a beginning.
This message has been edited by NOTHINGNESS, 08-06-2004 08:47 PM