Big Bang

[craigd at control-z.com]

> As I understand it, and I could be wrong, the only difference is 
> that ID proposes "God" as a first cause, whereas traditional 
> science either can't or won't address that (pretty momentous) 
> issue of a first cause. Not that there's anything wrong with 
> that; agnosticism is a refreshingly honest and healthy stance to 
> adopt in the circumstances.

Ran across the following awhile back, thought it rather 
interesting considering the current thread...

Pax et bonum, Craig

IS THERE ANY NEED FOR A FIRST CAUSE?
by Nathaniel Branden

Question: Since everything in the universe requires a cause, must 
not the universe itself have a cause, which is god?

Answer: There are two basic fallacies in this argument. The first 
is the assumption that, if the universe required a casual 
explanation, the positing of a "god" would provide it. To posit 
god as the creator of the universe is only to push the problem 
back one step farther: Who then created god? Was there a still 
earlier god who created the god in question? We are thus led to an 
infinite regress - the very dilemma that the positing of a "god" 
was intended to solve. But if it is argued that no one created 
god, that god does not require a cause, that god has existed 
eternally - then on what grounds is it denied that the universe 
has existed eternally?

It is true that there cannot be an infinite series of antecedent 
causes. But recognition of this fact should lead one to reappraise 
the validity of the initial question, not to attempt to answer it 
by stepping outside the universe into some gratuitously invented 
supernatural dimension.

This leads to the second and more fundamental fallacy in this 
argument: the assumption that the universe as a whole requires a 
casual explanation. It does not. The universe is the total of 
which exists. Within the universe, the emergence of new entities 
can be explained in terms of the actions of entities that already 
exist: The cause of a tree is the seed of the parent tree; the 
cause of a machine is the purposeful reshaping of matter by men. 
All actions presuppose the existence of entities - and all 
emergences of new entities presuppose the existence of entities 
that caused their emergence. All causality presupposes the 
existence of something that acts as a cause. To demand a cause for 
all of existence is to demand a contradiction: if the cause 
exists, it is part of the existence; if it does not exist, it 
cannot be a cause. Nothing does not exist.

Causality presupposes existence; existence does not presuppose 
causality.

There can be no cause "outside" of existence or "anterior" to it. 
The forms of existence may change and evolve, but the fact of 
existence is the irreducible primary at the base of all casual 
chains. Existence - not "god" - is the First Cause.

Just as the concept of a causality applies to events and entities 
within the universe, but no to the universe as a whole - so the 
concept of time applies to events and entities within the 
universe, but no to the universe as a whole. The universe did not 
"begin" - it did not, at some point in time, "spring into being." 
Time is a measurement of motion. Motion presupposes entities that 
move. If nothing existed, there could be no time. Time is "in" the 
universe; the universe is not "in" time.

The man who asks: "Where did existence come from?" or "What caused 
it?" is the man who has never grasped that existence exists. This 
is the mentality of a savage or mystic who regards existence as 
some sort of incomprehensible miracle - and seeks to "explain" it 
by reference to nonexistence.

Existence is all that exists, the nonexistent does not exist; 
there is nothing for existence to have come out of - and nothing 
means nothing. If you are tempted to ask: "What's outside the 
universe?" - recognize that you are asking; "What's outside of 
existence?" and that the idea of "something outside of existence" 
is a contradiction in terms; nothing is outside of existence, and 
"nothing" is not just another kind of "something" - it is nothing. 
Existence exists; you cannot go outside it; you cannot get under 
it, on top of it, or behind it. Existence exists - and only 
existence exists: There is nowhere else to go.