Georges LeMaitre was religious. So what?
99% of all scientists were religious back then, including Einstein who believed that the stochastic nature of quantum-mechanics wasn't arbitrary but guided by some predetermined fate: "God doesn't roll dice."

For another thing, you missed the point of the article.

So now we have our minds divided into halves; two dissociated personalities.

On the positive side? This freed Science from Religious interference. But on the negative: it also turned religion into an unreal mental or "spiritual" fantasy, dissociated from all physical material facts.

Last edited Thu Apr 24, 2014, 12:51 PM - Edit history (1)

a mind that can explore the cognitive rational, the emotive relational, the intuitive creative, and the empirical sensate is a healthy mind.

Being able to hold in consciousness both subjective meanings and objective truths is not a mental defect but rather one hallmark of a mature and quite individuated psyche.

Science answers one set of questions. Religion and philosophy answer quite another. Even an atheist or anti-theist has a philosophy of life and finding meaning in experiences no matter how subjective or universal. Most are humanists. Others are Buddhists. Still others find one that partakes of even religious moral structures minus the need for a God or Gods. I don't need Jesus in my life to know the negative consequences for myself and others if I lie, cheat, steal, or murder, do I?

Then you have cognitive conflict.

What if it's important? Your 1) religion says don't go to the hospital, but rely on faith-healing. But 2) science says go to an MD right away.

In such cases, you have to either modify your religion, or your science; or ignore one or the other.

So one minute you are one person; the next, another. Carried far enough? My current hypothesis is that this is one root cause of Multiple Personality Disorder.

For me, the story of "Dr." Jeckyl and Mr. Hyde, is a paradigmatic model for the kind of split personalities that can result from conflicting value systems. Like 1) the partitioned religious self - vs. 2) the rest of yourself; your other self.

Some individuals claim to be able to smoothly, maturely change from one to the other. But I'm looking at cases where the transition is anything but smooth. As the cognitive dissonance adds up.

from someone definitely not trained in the field.

The OP is about Georges Lemaître and the Big Bang Theory. You reply suggests yet again a mental defect in a religious believer's mind.

As usual, when called on it, you dig your hole deeper.

Georges Lemaître was not suffering from 'cognitive dissonance', MPD, or a 'Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde' mental syndrome.

QUOTE: " The Belgian cosmologist himself didn’t see his scientific work as directly linked to his religious faith. In fact, he had a very strong reason for separating the two:

'As far as I can see, such a theory remains entirely outside any metaphysical or religious question. It leaves the materialist free to deny any transcendental Being… For the believer, it removes any attempt at familiarity with God.'

http://www.webpronews.com/big-bang-theory-actually-has-religious-roots-2014-04"


You don't see any problem with a priest "removing any attempt at" knowing God well? And denying any transcendent being?

No problems like say, hypocrisy, inconsistency?

Being two-faced to the point of .... almost a double personality?

and psycho-babble, can you?

Religious questions are not answered by science. Scientific questions are not answered by religion.

Now let's provide the full quote and see if it actually doesn't fit your usual agenda:

As far as I see, such a theory [of the primeval atom] remains entirely outside any metaphysical or religious question. It leaves the materialist free to deny any transcendental Being. He may keep, for the bottom of space-time, the same attitude of mind he has been able to adopt for events occurring in non-singular places in space-time. For the believer, it removes any attempt to familiarity with God, as were Laplace's chiquenaude or Jeans' finger. It is consonant with the wording of Isaiah speaking of the 'Hidden God' hidden even in the beginning of the universe ... Science has not to surrender in face of the Universe and when Pascal tries to infer the existence of God from the supposed infinitude of Nature, we may think that he is looking in the wrong direction.

Now you have a "transcendent" that makes no contact with the material world. And therefore? Cannot be said to have created the material universe. And does not address half of our lives; the material half.

One classic philosophical objection to your (apparently transcendent) religion: How after all does an immaterial transcendence ... interface with your own partially material life at all?

In fact, your wholly transcendent religion can only be seen as irrelevant to much of our life.

So you have at most, a half-relevant religion.

Read the quote again. It actually fits the Western dualistic philosophical mindset quite well. Is the mind separate from the brain? Is the brain separate from the mind? What contains them both?

Or religion.

It then asserts that it is precisely because of this partition, that neither side should be offended. Each has its own separate sphere; with no conflict therefore.

Your own question - what contains them both - this quote does not unequivocally answer.

So yes, the statement is dualistic. Which is what I am objecting to: the splitting of our minds into two dissociated halves.

What DOES contain them both? Possibly the mind or brain? Possibly. But I don't see the quote above saying that; instead it remains with Partition. Dualistic. Non-overlapping magisteria.

Or in other words? With a brain or mind ... split into two dissociated halves.

ADDENDUM: We might hope that belief in a "Big Bang" would be acceptable to both. Specifically the author seems to think it will satisfy the religious mind, by giving us a wholly inscrutable origin. Yet religious minds are rarely really satisfied with a WHOLLY inscrutable god. They want a god who now and then gives orders; and now and then says something definite, after all. A wholly inscrutable god, explains nothing to us; it cannot make sense; and therefore cannot "give meaning." Indeed, it is the opposite of giving meaning; it tells us we cannot arrive at any fixed meaning at all.

It answers mysteries with more made up mysteries.

If not for you, that's cool

Religions provide for many a framework of myth and culturally specific rituals that provide meaning and context for the unanswerable mysteries.

Some take them literally. Others do not.

Some do not require nor want religion to provide a possible answer. Others do so.

To ignore that religion has provided answers of meaning and purpose for billions of humans for all of our recorded history is to willfully ignore reality. It continues to do so today.

This is not about 'proof'.

This is about meaning. Can you prove that I derive meaning and purpose from performing my profession as a psychotherapist?

Show me the science that will provide your proof.

I will wait.

Especially, most notions of religion involve a god who, in the process of telling us what the universe is about (meaning), is said to explicitly "prove" that he knows and does it all. By working physical miracles; even "all" and "whatever" we "ask." But then we find his proofs seem to fail.

IN such a case, this means that your "meaning" is strictly a comforting interior delusion. And though it might provide temporary comfort, the same as believing a white lie? The problem is that the "meaning" you have will fail in key situations. And its supports are proven false.

Heroin no doubt makes us feel good; we get a comforting feeling inside ourselves. But there are problems with going for comfortable opium dreams. Which turn out to be false, even fatal, in the physical world outside our autistic/spiritual self delusion.

what is discussed by 'meaning', 'purpose' 'proof' and 'empiricism'.

Please go research elsewhere. I tire of the back and forth with you.

Or it is a subjective sense. That somehow your life makes sense; it has "meaning."

But is that feeling correct? Or just a comforting delusion? How do you know your comfortable feeling, is not just a subjective delusion? To find out, we need to look for material proofs.

We live not just in our subjective minds, but also in the external material world. What if your subjective "meaning" does not seem to relate to - and is even fatal in - external reality?

the solipsism & radical skepticism of your subjective mind with an external seemingly material world?

Bertrand Russell said it best so I will quote him:

“Skepticism, while logically impeccable, is psychologically impossible, and there is an element of frivolous insincerity in any philosophy which pretends to accept it.”

The scientific mind is not so skeptical in this sense; it asserts that the physical material world exists, and is important.

It is therefore ironically not the scientific mind that is most skeptical, and therefore more lost in its own mental subjectivity and mental delusion; it is the religious mind.

Much of PHILOSOPHY is "skeptical" regarding the external world; but much of SCIENCE is not that skeptical after all.

He was just saying he thought the laws of the universe were deterministic rather than incorporating a random element.

Einstein could be said to have been religious only to the extent that he might have worshipped "the universe" as being really awesome. Call him a deist if you really want to. He made his opinion of the types of religion that believe in personal deities like God rather clear in his writings.

For example (my emphasis):

"A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, of the manifestations of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty, which are only accessible to our reason in their most elementary forms — it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute the truly religious attitude; in this sense, and in this alone, I am a deeply religious man. I cannot conceive of a God who rewards and punishes his creatures, or has a will of the type of which we are conscious in ourselves. An individual who should survive his physical death is also beyond my comprehension, nor do I wish it otherwise; such notions are for the fears or absurd egoism of feeble souls. Enough for me the mystery of the eternity of life, and the inkling of the marvelous structure of reality, together with the single-hearted endeavour to comprehend a portion, be it never so tiny, of the reason that manifests itself in nature.

He was not a deist, but a pantheist, god as a metaphor for the natural order of the universe. Anybody claiming that Einstein was religious is merely blowing smoke rings. He was no such thing.

When Einstein invoked "god" he meant nature. Nothing more.

I know you tend to view faith a little too positively but this is weak even for you.

Spinoza an atheist/agnostic, did his this influence his abilities as a lens maker?

Was Bertrand Russell's atheism an influence on his mathematical work?

Was Turing's homosexuality an influence on his code breaking?

FFS

For some reason you have chosen to hype an article that is based on an obviously dubious premise.

You are an intelligent person so the only reason for your bias seems to be your uncritical regard for people of faith and those who put forward unfounded, in fact almost dishonest, puff pieces in favour of faith.

As I posted upthread - and as the article (but not the headline) - points out, it is about the misconception often bandied about that a person's religious views preclude maintaining a scientific view.

Do you agree or disagree with that?

In the meantime I'll disregard your unfounded, in fact almost dishonest, opinion of why you think I posted it.

Maybe if you had not used the OP title that you did it would have helped. This forum is not Latest Breaking News so you are not required to use the dubious headline from WPN. If the headline had been "The Religious Roots of the Concept of Mass Extinction," or "The Religious Roots of Hominid Paleontology" would you expect no push back?. For the first you could cite Carl Froede who has a Baccalaureate in Geology and for the second Teilhard de Chardin.

I gave counterexamples where similar headlines written with the different prejudices would attract ridicule. I did not think that I needed to make the point more explicit but as you have ignored those examples here goes

"The Agnostic Roots of Lens Grinding"
The Atheist Roots of the Principia Mathematica," to which I might add "The Atheist Roots of Pacifism"
Lastly and most OTT, "The Homosexual Roots of Computing Theory,"

Few say religion interferes with the ability to be a scientist but many would say it interferes with maintaining scientific perception to a greater or lesser extent. The fact that many religious people practised science is neither here nor there because for many people in the 19th and 20th access to and the funding of higher education was via religious groups.

After all, someone might question my motive if I changed it.

Say the article had made racist claims instead of theological ones, would you still have used a racist headline?

The headline is rubbish - but your prejudices do not allow you to see that.

Please note that I have not specified that you follow that faith personally nor have I identified any particular faith. That said you do seem to promote the Roman Catholic branch of Christianity to the excess.

By the way you have still avoided replying about both the idiocy implied in the headline and whether your claim about always using the headline would still apply if that headline had identified a specific race as being in the "roots" of any given scientific theory.

Euphemism has got the better of you.

By the way you have still avoided the subject of the article preferring prattle about its headline.

As to the substance of the article - I did make that clear but to restate it for the benefit of anyone who may be obtuse or deliberately obfuscating the matter.

(a) Bertrand Russell's atheism as a root of the pacifist movement, or
(b) the Jesuit training of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin S.J. as a root of hominid paleontology or
(c) the sexual preferences of Alan Turing as being a root the mathematical foundations of computing?

This response demonstrates the pitiful level to which you are reduced in that you cannot describe to what your "Indeed" and "How so" refer. You cannot even clarify the meaning of what, on their own, are meaningless ejaculations. However I suspect you labour under the delusion that favouritism is not a display of prejudice, sorry but it is. The little old lady who puts up a sign saying "no blacks, no Irish" is displaying favouritism towards preferred social and racial groups.

Now back to the real problem - your inability to formulate answers to the simple questions I put forward. Let me put those questions in place again, perhaps it will stimulate you to pray for guidance - if all else fails.

1) The "Religion" forum is not the Latest Breaking News forum, hence there is no requirement for a source headline to be quoted as the thread title, why did you do so when even a cursory examination of the basis for this article shows it to be dubious?

2) Would your claim about always using the headline would still apply if that headline had identified a specific race as being in the "roots" of any given scientific theory?

3) Would you also support a headlines citing;

(a) Bertrand Russell's atheism as a root of the pacifist movement, or
(b) the Jesuit training of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin S.J. as a root of hominid paleontology or
(c) the sexual preferences of Alan Turing as being a root the mathematical foundations of computing?

If you are stating I am prejudiced, state it very clearly and very precisely. Don't hide behind cowardly, weasely words. Go on.

Are you actually that stupid to say that posting the title of an article is equivalent to a "no blacks, no Irish" sign? What the fuck is wrong with you?

I told you a dozen posts ago: "Let me know if you want to discuss the article or each other. Your choice." Your choice is obvious.

Let's go, intaglio. You now have my full attention. I am now at "the pitiful level to which you are reduced" of actually giving you the attention you so dearly crave.

Let's go.

but some things are about you. There were no weasel words I stated very precisely that you, personally, are prejudiced in favour of your particular formulation of religion; I did not say that you were racially prejudiced only that you are religiously prejudiced. Note also that in question (2) used previously and copied below I have implicitly assumed you are not a racist.

I did not even imply that you were racially prejudiced nor I did not say that the article title was equivalent to a "no blacks, no irish" that sign. The use of that was to show, by using an example of undeniable prejudice, how your favouritism demonstrates your personal prejudiced in respect of religion. You attempting to make an example into a claim that you are racially prejudiced is setting up a straw man and so distracting from my opinion of your OP and the article, an opinion which I have stated with reasoning.

To assist you to understand that I will re-state, yet again, my opinion of the article

As to the rest of your post, didn't read it. Thanks for the effort though.

That your assumptions about prejudice referring to racism were wrong.

No acknowledgement that I did include a criticism if the article.

And, as observed, no replies to the questions asked. In case you missed them here they are again:

After all, "not everything is about you". You should learn that lesson.

And can't be bothered to read a detailed post after laying down the gauntlet: "you now have my full attention...let's go."

Intellectual cowardice.

You feel free to discuss the headline with him. I've spent more than enough time on this stupid diversion.

Pouting? I don't think that word means what you think it means.

And, of course, "stupid diversion," when you're the one who pushed for deeper drill down in said diversion.

Giving up and declaring victory. Nice tactic.

Nevertheless, he perseverated on the headline, and me.

There is no victory to declare when dealing with stupid.

Yes, Lemaitre was a soldier, a scientist and a Catholic priest. Yes, he was very involved in the development of the Big Bang theory, as were a number of other scientists. That's supposed to mean the Big Bang has "religious roots"??? I don't think so...

From Wikipedia, Big Bang:

After a classical education at a Jesuit secondary school (Collège du Sacré-Coeur, Charleroi), Lemaître began studying civil engineering at the Université catholique de Louvain at the age of 17. In 1914, he interrupted his studies to serve as an artillery officer in the Belgian army for the duration of World War I. At the end of hostilities, he received the Belgian War Cross with palms.

After the war, he studied physics and mathematics, and began to prepare for the priesthood. He obtained his doctorate in 1920 with a thesis entitled l'Approximation des fonctions de plusieurs variables réelles (Approximation of functions of several real variables), written under the direction of Charles de la Vallée-Poussin. He was ordained a priest in 1923.

In 1923, he became a graduate student in astronomy at the University of Cambridge, spending a year at St Edmund's House (now St Edmund's College, Cambridge). He worked with Arthur Eddington who initiated him into modern cosmology, stellar astronomy, and numerical analysis. He spent the following year at Harvard College Observatory in Cambridge, Massachusetts with Harlow Shapley, who had just gained a name for his work on nebulae, and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he registered for the doctorate in sciences.

In 1925, on his return to Belgium, he became a part-time lecturer at the Université catholique de Louvain. He then began the report which would bring him international fame, published in 1927 in the Annales de la Société Scientifique de Bruxelles (Annals of the Scientific Society of Brussels), under the title "Un Univers homogène de masse constante et de rayon croissant rendant compte de la vitesse radiale des nébuleuses extragalactiques" ("A homogeneous Universe of constant mass and growing radius accounting for the radial velocity of extragalactic nebulae"). In this report, he presented his new idea of an expanding Universe (he also derived Hubble's law and provided the first observational estimation of the Hubble constant) but not yet that of the primeval atom. Instead, the initial state was taken as Einstein's own finite-size static universe model. The paper had little impact because the journal in which it was published was not widely read by astronomers outside of Belgium ; Lemaître translated his article into English in 1931 with the help of Arthur Eddington but the part of it pertaining to the estimation of the "Hubble constant" is not translated in the 1931 paper, for reasons that have never been properly explained.

At this time, Einstein, while not taking exception to the mathematics of Lemaître's theory, refused to accept the idea of an expanding universe; Lemaître recalled him commenting "Vos calculs sont corrects, mais votre physique est abominable" ("Your calculations are correct, but your physics is atrocious.&quot The same year, Lemaître returned to MIT to present his doctoral thesis on The gravitational field in a fluid sphere of uniform invariant density according to the theory of relativity. Upon obtaining the PhD, he was named ordinary professor at the Catholic University of Louvain.

In 1930, Eddington published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society a long commentary on Lemaître's 1927 article, in which he described the latter as a "brilliant solution" to the outstanding problems of cosmology. The original paper was published in an abbreviated English translation in 1931, along with a sequel by Lemaître responding to Eddington's comments. Lemaître was then invited to London in order to take part in a meeting of the British Association on the relation between the physical Universe and spirituality. There he proposed that the Universe expanded from an initial point, which he called the "Primeval Atom" and developed in a report published in Nature. Lemaître himself also described his theory as "the Cosmic Egg exploding at the moment of the creation"; it became better known as the "Big Bang theory," a pejorative term coined during a BBC radio broadcast by Fred Hoyle who was an obstinate proponent of the steady state universe, even until his death in 2001.

If you assume a Creator, it actually explains the "eternal" part quite well, since if you're proposing a non-material being, and space and, more importantly, time, are a product of the material world, and didn't exist until after the first moments of the Big Bang, what you've got is a being that exists outside of time. And space, of course.
Now these days they're proposing multiple universes, and that's even more interesting.

and it certainly is consistent.

One thing I learned the last time this came up is that some scientists at the time were reluctant to consider the big bang theory because it had a religious "feel" (and there was a priest involved). It now seems ironic that this fear of appearing religious inhibited what they would consider as a possibility.

You can come along to any scientific finding or theory, look upon all the hard work and knowledge discovery that generations of scientists have laid down... and then lazily tack on "...Because God Made It That Way".



But it contributes nothing. It imparts no additional understanding. It confers no knowledge. It provides for no path forward that could lead to the discovery of additional understanding or knowledge.


It is just assigning credit to the magic superbeing of your preference because the religious inevitably want to assign it credit for everything for some reason.

Based on observation of many many people. Like you for instance. Right here. In this thread.


Did your declaration that you think God caused the Big Bang come attached to any additional insight into the processes involved in causing it that saying it was God that was responsible somehow imparted? No? Sure looks like a no.

Was any pathway of investigation that might lead to any additional knowledge about the Big Bang opened up by introducing this claim of credit going to God for the event? No again?


Did saying you think God did it confer ONE SINGLE IOTA of actual additional knowledge or understanding or anything else other than the assigning of credit that you just performed?



No?



By all means tell me what purpose tacking on "....because God made it that way" to the Big Bang serves besides fulfilling your need to give God credit for things. Do enlighten me.

Your just going to shoot my thoughts down so why bother?

...I expected you to be able to come up with.

If you would like to be more courteous and respectful to me in the future I will be glad to give you my thoughts but as for now have a pleasant evening.

...that you have the answers and just refuse to share them cause I'm a meanie.

You're just ever so convincing. Everyone totally believes you. Really.

...enabling this kind of behavior is nothing for anyone to be thankful for.

...even though that's difficult to believe.


A challenge is made for you to provide any kind of explanation or justification that a position you have taken has any value or worth or represents any kind of contribution to the subject at hand, and rather than doing so your response is, effectively, "I don't wanna and you can't make me!"


You might as well have been stamping your feet and then stormed out and slammed the door in a huff while you were at it.

If a God did exist, the big bang could have been a method used by that being. I'm not arguing for that existence, just saying that science points to the BBT as a logical explanation. That's all I'm saying.

Do the religious want to claim everything comes down to a deity? Of course. It's what they do. Since neither you, I, nor anyone can know for sure, that's why I refer to myself as agnostic rather than atheist, because, let's admit, there are mysteries surrounding the universe that none of us is likely to know, ever.

Could there be a god? Could there have been a baseball game on another planet or galaxy, where a kid knocked one out of the park and it became Earth? Not likely, IMO, but I can't say for sure, just like everyone else.

Don't get me wrong, I have lots of problems with religion, especially when it's organized and out to punish others based on their illusions of what 'god' said to them, cuz he always hates the same people the "prophet" hate, and most of the time prophets are merely after profits.

Sounds to me like you're stomping your feet, demanding an answer no one can provide. Chill a little.

to discussing the content of the OP.

...the last time I tried discussing the content of an op with you you proceeded to deny the op existed. Not terribly eager to burn my energy on a second exercise in futility.

And FYI, critiquing a statement made by a poster is not launching a "meta attack" on them. It's referred to as discussion.

If everyone is saying you have a tail, you might want to turn around an take a look.

Haven't seen you around for awhile. Hope all is well.

...that four people in a discussion forum has now come to constitute "everyone".

I don't poke my head in here much, because inevitably I end up banging my head against walls like this. But yes, all is well.

they just represent the four people that responded to you.

Sometimes the walls we bang our heads against are of our own making.

That's probably way too much metaphor at this point. Sorry.

Glad you are well.

...is not required, seeing as things don't disappear off the internet as soon as you're finished reading them and the entire exchange is still sitting there.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1218&pid=123748

From that linked exchange...

Me: Point out study findings don't support headline.

You: Declare you'll stick with the study and not the "talking points"

Me: Point out I'm talking about what's in the study.

You: Tell me to post a link backing up what I'm saying.

Me: Point out that YOUR link backs up what I'm saying.

You: Pointlessly quote what I originally stated.

Me: Point out... AGAIN... that the data supporting what I originally stated is IN YOUR OWN LINK IN THE OP.

You: DECLARE THAT A LINK SUPPORTING MY STATEMENT DOES NOT EXIST. Despite having had it pointed out to you multiple times that said link is in your OP. Thus making the claim that your OP doesn't exist

But yes, the link does speak for itself... that being the reason I posted it when you started denying reality.

No, it really, really doesn't need a paraphrase.

I'm the one that provided that link, and for exactly the reason that you could pull all of this hand waving denial you wanted and people can still just go see it.

I thanked you for posting the link. Don't blame if you don't know what that did.

When it's time to put up or shut up... along comes the non answer avoiding the entire question.

Feel free to just run along now, you're not getting any more responses from me. For the record this is a perfect illustration of why I pointed out at the beginning that I did NOT want to waste my energy on another round of futility by engaging with you.

The scientists who discovered what we know about the BB didn't set it off. Ascribing that to a creator god neither picks their pockets, breaks their legs nor takes away from their accomplishments.

Going through the simple exercise of pointing out a few semi obvious facts does not require me to be frothing at the mouth behind my keyboard.

This time, if I might make a suggestion, paying some level of attention to how the words are strung together into sentences and what those sentences actually say.

Forget that the bible said nothing about "the big bang" and claimed the earth existed before the sun. I guess "god made it that way" too. Unbelievable we're hearing this kind of stuff in 2014.

Why should I believe something without having a reason to? I'll stick with Occam's Razor on that one.

You can believe what you want and I will believe what I want.

You asked what was wrong with it, I gave my opinion about it. Maybe I misunderstood what you were saying.

and you are certainly not the only one to hold it.

In fact some people have thought this might be the crux of where religion and science meet.

I don't have an opinion on whether that might have any basis for hanging one's hat on, but it's an interesting POV.

And since we haven't a clue what happened or was happening before the big bang, your take on it is just as valid as anyone else's.

I wish some people could except others have different opinions.

Personally, I hold much the same view (although I believe that god initiated the first Big Bang because I also believe in the cyclical universe model). That's a perfectly reasonable opinion. Problem is, we can't test for it. You and I might be right, we might not but there's no way for us to ever know.

It either implies a deism, though--or a rejection of the science that demonstrates that it happened in the first place.

You seem to be hung up on first cause. If you believe that there had to be some being in existence to initiate creation, then why do you not also believe there had to be something in existence to create the creator? Welcome to an infinite regress.

If there had to be a first cause, why couldn't that first cause be the big bang, without god?

Energy appears and disappears out of nowhere in the quantum world, but we only know that because we can see the traces of the activity, not the activity itself.

Modern physics doesn't have a concept of "nothing," but that concept doesn't involve god filling some nothingness vacuum.

According to the most commonly accepted interpretation of quantum mechanics, individual subatomic particles can behave in unpredictable ways and there are numerous random, uncaused events. (Cit: Richard Morris. Achilles in the Quantum World).

"nowhere"?

And what is "where?" The concept of multiverses sort of complicates matters, does it not?

In any case, "where" is incidental - a result, not a cause.

Hence, "whence".

You may be stepping into "stupid diversion" territory now.

"Not God created the world out of nothingness, but Nothingness is continuously giving birth to both God and the world". (Han Marie Stiekema, 1981)

As someone once said, "nothingness" is unstable."

It is a mystery.

Saying GOD created the universe still leaves the question "so what created God"?

To say that he "just is," or is the uncreated first cause, really doesn't tell us anything comprehensible or useful.

It will be hard to answer but I will try.

But for the record I do not know what created God.

You are slaying me, Justin.

Sounds like the scale of the Universe made him reconsidered the more personal, intimate God that many Christians believe in.