Problems with this section (Agnosticism)

by Frank Paris , Wednesday, November 25, 2009, 23:05 (5476 days ago) @ George Jelliss

'If you look back in the threads you will find we discussed this question quite extensively before you came along. I was referring to the idea, based on quantum theory, that the universe began as a "fluctuation in the void". The physicist Victor J. Stenger favours this view.'-I've seen entire books written on "nothingness." I got 3/4 through one myself. Insofar as it actually did talk about nothingness, nothing was actually said. -I find it peculiar that anyone (scientist or not) would attribute any activity at all to nothing. In that case, the "nothing" they're talking about must in some sense be "something." -Something like a "fluxuation in the void" is not the same thing as saying a "fluxuation of nothingness." The "void" in this case is just something that doesn't contain anything we know about. It is empty of all the phenomena in our science. But if it can "fluxuate" obviously whatever the void is, isn't just nothing.-I'm reminded of the Biblical concept of "chaos." One version of the creation story is that God formed the universe out of "chaos," but "chaos" is never really defined. Griffin discusses this and accepts that version of the creation story. He leaves the word undefined as well, but in the process attempts to show that ideas that the universe was created out of "nothing" are unbiblical and that these ideas were an invention that took place long after the death of Jesus.-Personally, I think the concept of a pre-existing "chaos" that existed eternally before our universe is a form of Dualism, where two independent "substances" always existed, God and chaos, and at some time (or times) God can give form to chaos. -I've always had trouble with dualistic cosmologies. I can't help wondering how two completely independent "realms" that have always been and presumably always will be can manage to interact if they truly are independent of each other. Maybe it's my limited imagination, but I can't help asking, who or what gave rise to the dualism? Whatever gave rise to it, that is what is primordial, and whatever it is escapes dualism.