The universe needs a creator, therefore God exists - part 2

== Response == "Nothing" - Let us agree that Con's use of "nothing" is not compatible with the two premises, and this issue is moot. Multiverse - Con seems to think that a multiverse would falsify the claim "the universe needs a creator." Not at all. As I said last round, a multiverse merely pushes the question back - we must now ask what caused the universe that caused our universe. Since the hypothesis does not specify WHICH universe we are discussing, assuming a multiverse, then we can easily apply "the universe" to mean "the first universe in the multiverse." A multiverse does not allow Con to escape the First Cause question. Next, Con says that we can traverse an infinite series of events by saying "the multiverse, which was created by a multi-multiverse, created by a multi-multimultiverse and so on." This is an obvious tautology of the "turtles all the way down" variety. Saying the multiverse was created by a multiverse is simply going in a circle. This reality is only possible in B Theory time, which is seemingly what this whole debate boils down to. I will continue to maintain that A Theory time is more likely to be true than B Theory time, which I will get to later. Luminiferous ether - I am not advocating for a luminiferous ether in the original sense, apologies if I did not make that clear. That was certainly discarded after the M-M experiment. But let us both agree that we are talking in a theoretical realm here - neither of us can provide solid proof for one side or the other. That is why I appeal to which explanation is most likely to be true, and requires less extravagant postulating. What I am advocating is an aether in the sense of a yet undetectable, ultimate time or reference frame. Such an aether would preserve the reality of time as opposed to dismissing it as an illusion of human consciousness. Con says Relativity makes an aether unnecessary, but I think it is quite the other way around. I think Einstein stops too short - we observe time dilation, and therefore Einstein declares "time is not real." Contrarily, on the Lorentzian model, we observe time dilation, and say "something isn't right here, we must still be missing something." As I said, this is exactly what has happened with the widely accepted Dark Matter hypothesis. Instead of concluding "gravity must not be real" they said "we must be missing something" - hence the undetectable, unobserved Dark Matter. So when we're talking time, I believe it is infinitely more likely to assume we are missing something than to say time isn't real. Con protests that the Lorentz's aether is an "unnecessary attempt to explain several things" but I counter that Einstein makes no attempt to explain anything at all - he merely says it doesn't exist. The bottom line: General and Special relativity and spacetime DO explain what we observe in reality. But Lorentzian Ether Theory EQUALLY explains it - so much so that the two theories are mathematically indistinguishable. So the question we must ask is this - is it more likely that time is an illusion, or that time is real? I do not believe we have sufficient evidence to suggest that time is an illusion, and therefore I favor Lorentz. Train experiment - I wonder if Con even fully read my explanation on this. Both observers are demonstrably NOT equally right. The observer on the train can time when he saw each flash, measure the distance the train travelled between those flashes, and calculate using the equation c=d/t that the bolts did, in fact, strike at the same time (t) and conclude his observation is mistaken. Math proves that both observers are not right. As far as causes and the illusion of time, at this point we are merely repeating ourselves, only louder and more strenuously. I will conclude with this - extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. The claim that, contrary to universal observation and perception, time is an illusion is quite extraordinary, and I see no extraordinary evidence to support it any more than I see evidence to believe we all live in the Matrix. A Theory time is the status quo, and I have not seen enough evidence to overturn it in this debate. == Conclusion == It is far more likely that the universe had a finite beginning for the following reasons: - The Vilenkin Theorem proves, mathematically, that the universe must have a finite beginning. - Our consciousness is not consistent with a B Theory model. We have many past memories, but cannot see the future. This is impossible if the past and future are equally real, as they are under B Theory. - Time travel is logically impossible. - Our consciousness universally detects that time actually does pass. We are thankful for a headache that goes away, because the pain is now in the past and thus no longer real. This would not be the case in B Theory, since the past is equally real and thus, our headache would still exist. - If we cannot trust that our own consciousness accurately detects reality, then we cannot trust any scientific discovery. Am I real? Do the people around me actually exist? Is this the matrix? Is Earth's gravity really pulling me toward it? Do you and I see different reds? These conclusions are absurd, and we have no evidence for them. We must trust our consciousness to make any scientific progress, and our consciousness tells us that time actually passes. Note - thanks for a fun debate, and well done! This will be my final round, I'm going out of town for the rest of the week so if you respond to this round (which you are welcome to do), I will not be able to respond. Good job and thanks again.