AMMITSMIAWM Theory

there are some interesting hypothetical cosmologies out there....such as the universe being an infinite series of "big bangs" followed by a "big crunch" that compresses and compresses and compresses then explodes back into another "big bang", ad infinitum. I rather like that view, even if I don't grasp the physics behind it.

"What happened before time" is simply a semantically meaningless question. The relativity of Space-Time is some pretty mind-bending stuff, very mentally hard to get a handle on, unless you're a physicist (and I'm not).

Since I tend to be of an extistentialist bent, I sometimes imagine Multiverses, with a new multiverse being created with every choice, action, etc, we make....some realities we get the new job, other realities we don't, etc. But I think that's probably just wishful thinking and illusory. Probably the universe is a lot more deterministic and human choice remains a mystery...or is probably an illusion, albeit a necessary one for the sustaining of a sense of morality and moral responsibility and civilization, much like the sense of self, which is almost certainly a fictional construct, but no less vitally useful and important for being thus.

anyway....more later, perhaps.

I can't even get past the title of a D'Souza raving anymore, let alone respond to it.

"Please don't beat Teddy." - Teddy, Night of the Seagulls

Part of the definition of the monotheistic God is that this being is independent of cause; this being is uncaused. So to ask 'But what caused God?' is asking 'What caused the uncaused?'. It doesnt make sense to the theist, and so there is a 'failure to communicate.'

I think the atheist has to refute (not 'has to' has to, but you get my drift) the theistic idea of God (the uncaused) and not a strawman version of him (the caused being). But to argue, 'I dont believe in an uncaused cause' isnt quite satisfying as a refutation.

Alright I think most of us here think that our universe and ourselves arose from a natural process and not through the intervention of some sort of supreme intelligence. So I am wondering if anybody else struggles with questions like:

Is this the only universe? If as I heard about (and don't pretend to understand) the universe began as some sort of intersection of 'branes' then where did these 'branes' come from? Are there more of them? If time began with the Big Bang then what was before time? If the universe is expanding then what is it expanding into? (I've never been able to conceptualize that). There is one thought which I find particularly troubling. If the event that created our universe is not unique and if time is truly endless in the sense that universes like ours are being spawned continually and will do so forever then that means that this may very well not be the first time that I have existed and may not be the last either. Given an infinite amount of time anything possible, no matter how unlikely, will occur. I am just curious if anyone else is haunted by these kinds of questions or if nobody gives it any thought, due to the likelihood that such questions will not be answerable in our time.