What is it with the creationists who as "do you believe nothing came from 
something?"

Why do they think there's evidence the universe ever didn't exist?

Often creationists will say "matter can neither be created nor destroyed, 
hence God must have created it."

If you don't accept that, but if you instead think there are natural 
situations under which matter can be created, then there's no need for God 
to answer the question "can everything come from nothing".

If you *do* accept that, then there's no reason to believe there was ever 
"nothing" to start with.

Think about the Big Bang, and how we know about it. Stars are spreading 
apart, and the farther away they are, the faster they're moving away. 
Logically following back in time, that means all the stars were squished 
together some billions of years in the past.

Now, if you believe the universe is closed (i.e., has enough matter that 
there's a bounded amount of space), then this means that all matter was 
squished into the minimum amount of space possible. If there were areas 
where it couldn't be squished further, gravity would quickly iron them out. 
  (Indeed, this is the cause for the interest in the details of the 
variations of the background radiation - why is it irregular, if everything 
started out uniformly?) It does *not* mean there was nothing. Instead, it 
means there was *everything*.  The entire universe was uniformly packed as 
absolutely chock full of matter as possible.

If you believe the universe is open (i.e., that space is flat and infinite), 
then following back in time just means that everything comes together into 
an infinitely large infinitely dense universe of matter and energy. Actually 
quite 100% opposite of "nothing". This may seem nonsensical unless you're 
used to dealing with infinitites, but if you imagine stars coming closer 
together and there's always more stars to replace the ones coming in from 
far away, it makes perfect sense, just like there's the same number of even 
integers as there are integers.

In neither case does the Big Bang imply "nothing," any more than a 
demolition of a building implies the rubble came out of "nothing." There's 
no "common sense" reason to believe there was ever a time when there was 
"nothing," and the very idea that there was "time" without "something" is 
nonsensical. After all, if you're going to argue religion based on the Big 
Bang, you ought to be accepting the rest of General Relativity too. As far 
as I know, there's no scientific reason to believe there was ever a time 
when there was "nothing" either.


-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "We'd like you to back-port all the changes in 2.0
    back to version 1.0."
   "We've done that already. We call it 2.0."

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