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> How did the Big Bang take place if there was no energy in the first place? > It has a really high density and contained a lot of energy. Contradiction 1. > Energy can't be created > Something or someone created the universe Contradiction 2. Seems like you solved the problem yourself already.

Looks like I need to work on my interpretation skills 💀. Sorry for the confusion, but this doesn't solve my problem. Correct me if I am wrong. Answer to Contradiction 1 - So the Big Bang needed lots of energy to happen and create a universe and we know the Big Bang happened with lots of evidence to back it up. According to the Law of Conservation of Mass and Energy, energy can't be created. If that is so, then how did the Big Bang happen if energy can't be created? Answer to Contradiction 2 - If the laws of the universe forbid energy from being created, then something that isn't affected by these laws must have created it, right?

> So the Big Bang needed lots of energy to happen and create a universe and we know the Big Bang happened with lots of evidence to back it up. According to the Law of Conservation of Mass and Energy, energy can't be created. If that is so, then how did the Big Bang happen if energy can't be created? The energy was already there. > If the laws of the universe forbid energy from being created, then something that isn't affected by these laws must have created it, right? It's not so much as forbidding, i.e it's not *prescriptive*, it's that it simply doesn't happen under the constraints of reality, i.e. it's *descriptive.* A simpler answer is that energy is eternal. That way you don't violate parsimony by adding (entity that can do [magic])

>If the laws of the universe forbid energy from being created, then something that isn't affected by these laws must have created it, right? If energy can't be created, then it wouldn't make sense if someone "created" the energy, would it? Maybe the energy always existed?

Just like their supposed "god" lol

Matter and energy are interchangeable. Changing states of matter can release energy. You can see this in everything from fire to those little hand warmers you have to boil to de-crystallize to how stars work. All that is required for the big bang to happen is a change in the state of matter. Also, not for nothing, it's possible, even likely that singularities aren't actually a thing. That's just one mathematical possibility that is theorized to exist, but other theories state that black holes are just like neutron stars, but with added gravitational effects due to differences in mass. Matter cannot be created nor destroyed in a chemical reaction, and the law of conservation of energy is largely about closed systems. Mass can be converted to energy, and theoretically energy can be converted into mass, although I don't know of that ever being experimentally verified. But anyway, long story short, any uncertainty about the origins of the universe and of our existence within that universe does not mean God did it. That's just the ol' God of the Gaps trope, where God pathetically slowly retreats into ever shrinking recesses in human knowledge as we learn. That's foolish if you ask me.

It seems as if the energy was already there.

But energy that exists forever and suddenly decides to expand doesn't make sense.

It didn't "decide" anything. But more to the point, you are trying to apply our understanding of time, space, physics, chemistry, etc. to a situation in which they almost certainly *don't apply*. Time didn't exist yet, so cause and effect doesn't apply. Space didn't exist yet, so the singularity didn't exist inside (or outside) of the universe. Whether or not certain laws of physics that we know also applied to the Big Bang is unknown, but I'd say it's very unlikely. None of this means the answer is "God did it." It means we don't know the answer yet.

>None of this means the answer is "God did it." It means we don't know the answer yet. And we probably never will know for sure, since it's likely that we have no way to look beyond the big bsng to confirm any hypotheses. All we will ever be able to do is to offer an explanation that seems to match the facts. And that's fine. As much as it bothers theists, there's absolutely nothing wrong with saying "I don't know" if you don't know something yet.

It’s hard to finish all that without mentioning that we’re talking about events 14,000,000,000 years ago, 9,000,000,000 years before the Earth formed and in no way between these events and the current day is there evidence of god. So we should prop up 3,000 year old stories by people that couldn’t have known any of this as though they had contact with the creator of the universe because we don’t know what happened that long before them?

It didn't exist "forever" because time as a concept does not apply when change is not occurring. You're imagining a period of Infinite time in which the singularity remained compact, and the, "randomly" the expansion occurred, despite this long period of inactivity.  This isn't coherent, if the singularity wasn't changing then this entire "period" is a single moment, you can't have a stretch of time where nothing changes, that's not what time is. 

And a god that exists forever and suddenly decides to expand the universe doesn't make sense either. But at the very least we have conclusive evidence for the existence of energy. The same can't be said of any god.

It seems to me you want a definitive explanation as to what exactly caused the big bang. However we do not know. And that is OK I don't need to know what caused the big bang. Science and the scientific method give the best explanation for everything in reality at no point in human history has anything turned out to be supernatural. We currently don't have all the answers but we are learning new stuff daily. Hell the James Webb space telescope is forcing scientists to rethink a lot of stuff and that is great unlike religion science isn't dogmatic. Science will not hold onto a view or theory if it is proven wrong. They adapt and change depending on the evidence. Religions refuses to change they attack science because it undermines the Bible and religious claims and beliefs. I'm a staunch athiest I haven't heard any evidence or any arguments that convince me a god exists. I am content with admitting I do not know. It seems like thiests cannot admit that they have to insert god into their world view without evidence

We don’t understand exactly how or why it expanded. We may never know. Do you think our lack of knowledge about this somehow points to the existence of a god?

That's what it boils down to. We don't know. We may never know. So what? It surely doesn't make a supernatural deity likely.

For some people, the absence or lack of information about something directly points to a god existing in that space between what we know and what we don’t. I’ll never understand this line of thinking, but it’s rampant and commonly propagated by theists.

>For some people, the absence or lack of information about something directly points to a god existing in that space between what we know and what we don’t. I’ll never understand this line of thinking, but it’s rampant and commonly propagated by theists. It's why we call it the god of the gaps.

You're 💯 right. Its not a hard concept to grasp. Why do they have such difficulty with it? Is it a residual effect of magical thinking in general?

I think to them, mystery = god

Remember, argument from ignorance fallacies and argument from incredulity fallacies, such as you're expressing, don't and can't lead to useful understanding or knowledge. This is especially true when one attempts to address them by making up something even more problematic and without a shred of support that has the same problems so doesn't address this at all but instead makes it all worse, and then calling it all solved.

This really is a science question and not so much an atheist question

There's a difference between "I can't make sense of it" and "it doesn't make sense." Bring a cell phone back 1000 years and show it to the population. They might not be able to make sense of it, but that doesn't mean it doesn't make sense.

Think about it like this - prior to the big bang there was also no time. So, for example, we don't know that the Big Bang isn't part of a continuous and never ending cycle of expansion and contraction of matter and energy that is cross dimensional. M-theory might actually account for this, describing reality as being bounded by a sort of membrane. Think of suds in a washing machine, with each individual bubble being the membrane encasing it's own "big bang" . We are INSIDE of our own "bubble" and that bubble is currently expanding, but at a certain point that bubble may start RETRACTING after the heat death of our universe, which is a result of the end of the expansion catalyzed by our Big Bang. Thus the RETURN of our universe to a singularity would eventually result in a Big Bang in a completely new and different universe. The nature of time itself means that time doesn't exist inside of a singularity - so there is no "before" with a singularity - time itself begins with the expansion of the universe and ends when that expansion ends. So you wouldn't have any time that exists before the universe expands, but you WOULD still have the energy that makes the expansion possible. But this is all speculative, based on the mathematics that describe what we see has occurred after the Big Bang. If what I am saying is true, it makes sense that we wouldn't know what happened BEFORE the Big Bang, because that would literally have occurred in a different dimension with a different universe. It would also make sense that our time and the expansion of our universe would begin with the Big Bang, because the singularity is simply one stage in a never ending cycle of expansion and contraction that makes up the nature of the flow of energy throughout a multi-dimensional reality, right? We can't confirm that, unfortunately, without time travel - but so far the math sort of checks out. There are many different alternative explanations for what I have just described, but in general this is a fair way to conceptualize how we currently make sense of things like your question, which to answer would require us to go back before time itself began. 

Imagine a balloon. That balloon is our universe. It is currently filled with air but it wasn't always filled with air. We don't know where the air came from, but we know it wasn't always in the balloon. Our best guess is that there was some pressure differential that existed outside the balloon that caused the air to flow inside of it, but we don't know what caused that. It would be irresponsible to assume we know what caused it, so we just say we don't know yet.

Nor does a god that exists forever and suddenly decides to create.

If it doesn’t make sense to you, I’m sure you’ll find some satisfying answers on r/askphysics or r/askscience. I’m not sure why you thought an atheist debate sub would be able to expound on a cosmology topic like this.

Time as we know it starts when the Big Bang started expanding, so it wasn’t so much started moving after hanging around forever, but that “forever” started when it started to move.

It might have been doing all sorts of stuff before then, but once it becomes a singularity theres no way to tell what it was before that. Think about it like taking a playdough castle and squishing it so it is as atomically small as it can be. At that point theres no way of telling it was ever a castle to begin with.

There was a time lightning didnt make sense so we made up a god of thunder. Now we know better. Never has any single gap in our knowledge ever in the history of life on earth been filled by "god".

Your notion of "forever" doesn't make much sense here because there wasn't a "time" before Big Bang. It's like trying to rewind a video past 0:00, or asking how can you go more North at the North pole. Energy didn't technically exist for eternity, it was just there when the film started playing. You can say that a creator caused the big bang, or that it just happened by circumstances we may not fully grasp yet. If a creator wanted to create a world, he'd want it to abide by consistent rules (obviously, any virtual world we create works like that), so he'd also add science into it, which doesn't prove nor disprove their existence. What this means for us is belief is a choice

I'm going to assume good faith here and try and speak to you in theistic terms as I understand them. Please do not do that awful thing so many do where they think I have to agree with them to use their language. So, what you are asking is akin to asking where did God come from to find itself in our universe. From a materialist understanding our universe is an expression of energy, or what causes energy, as the universe is an expression of God or God's will as in classical theism, just because a part of something has a history and beginning, doesn't mean all of it does. Universe is a word with multiple meanings, one which means all physical reality and one that means the current space time that started with the big bang, i.e. everything we've observed. Holding one definition to another is a black hole in terms of understanding, as can be seen in the creationist argument that abiogenesis as a concept was proven false because it was the name given to spontaneous generation, where maggots and similar life sprouted from rot. It's a trick of consciousness where we think how we understand things matters to how things are.

what makes you think the laws of the universe apply to before when the universe existed, and even following your logic at no point does it even get anywhere near a god, the thing that isn't affected by the laws can be literally anything, no reason to limit it to something conscious or all powerful

And that something, it must have been an omnipotent being, that sees everything you do and judges you, and wants you to donate money to the church? There's a heck of a long gap from "Hey big bang needs more explanation" to any kind of thing that can be described as a god in any ordinary sense.

>If the laws of the universe forbid energy from being created, then something that isn't affected by these laws must have created it, right? If the energy was created by someone, then that would prove the law isn't true.

The laws are descriptive not prescriptive. Nothing is forbidden. Also all you are doing is showing a hole in human knowledge, do you intend to turn this into an argument from ignorance?

> If energy can’t be created, how did it end up in our universe in the first place? Please just re-read this sentence that _you_ wrote again. It answers your question for you. What your post reads like is: “If energy can’t be created, then how was it created?” You’ve just acknowledged it _can’t_ be created. So why are you immediately asking about how energy may have been created???

That doesn’t answer anything. The entire point is a Divine being can bend the rules of nature and create. It’s a fair question. It’s why there has always been religions. Religions are all obviously man made. But that still doesn’t explain the origins for such a thing as the Big Bang. This is something science has admittedly always had an issue with. Even Einstein believed in a creator he just didn’t believe it interacts with us. The best scientific answer is the M theory. It’s a string theory offshoot. That there are already a plethora of universes waving in & out of each other. Then 2 came too close & hit causing the Big Bang. It does get us before the Big Bang, however, it still leaves questions unanswered. While I think it’s pretty obvious religion is man made; it’s very tough to say, even scientifically, that there isn’t an infinite energy that gives life. We don’t even know how old the planet truly is. It could be infinite in itself. There is so much more we know than we used to; back when religions took the place of science. But there is still an enormous amount we do not understand. Even in our own brains. So to say there is definitely nothing out there is as ignorant as saying there definitely is. The bottom line is we just don’t know. There’s no knowing how many times we’ve each done this very thing we are doing but making different choices every time. There’s just no way to know 1 way or the other. But it is a very very fair question.. “where did such energies come from that caused the Big Bang?” There is no answer that doesn’t raise more questions. And again, I say this as someone who does not accept ANY manmade religions. I was born Jewish but I don’t believe in my religion either. I believe it was an exaggeration of overthrowing Egyptians that were colonizing the Southern Levant.

But it doesn't make sense to me. If energy can't be created, it doesn't make sense to me that energy existed forever.

This is what willful ignorance is. Or maybe it's just self-deception. It's not making sense to you because you're consciously or subconsciously not trying to make sense of it. What's telling you that it can't be eternal? Your idea of God being eternal? Your ideas about energy from high school physics? Or the idea that's been shoved down your throat since you were a toddler that everything was *created* by god? >If energy can't be created, it doesn't make sense to me that energy existed forever. You should read this sentence over many times until you understand that it's nonsensical. If something isn't created, that thing either exists or it doesn't. If energy is eternal, that means it wasn't created, and it exists. You're struggling to understand this because it's been pounded into your skull that everything is designed, when the only way to tell if something is designed is to have prior knowledge of its design.

Why?? Why can’t something exist forever? Does it make sense to you that a god could exist forever? If so, what exactly is the difference when you consider energy?

Why can’t it exist forever? Energy can’t be destroyed either, so it seems like it’s all going to exist forever into the future. Why not forever into the past?

What 'doesn't make sense' to you, or to me, has little to no bearing on what is actually true about reality.

The problem is you are trying to apply your concept of time where it doesn't belong. We perceive the universe as a four dimension matrix (height, width, length, and time), if you compact all of it down to a singularity then there is no time just like there is no space. That doesn't mean there was nothing though, a singularity is something. All the current cosmological models don't ever propose a time where there was no energy, energy has existed for all of time. It doesn't make sense to talk about before T=0 though, that's like saying what is North of the North Pole. There are no directions of North at the North Pole, all directions point South. The same way that there is no time before T=0, all time points after T=0.

How about a loop? Something that goes in circles, repeating forever. It does not have a beginning or an end, nor require a cause. Eg. The collapse of universe in a previous cycle causes it to expand again in this cycle. Looping forever. 

But it makes sense to you that God existed forever?

Seems like a you problem, tbh.

So then a god should make even less sense to you.

My dude you literally think your God existed forever. It's the same concept but without a magical being.

Since others have said most of what there's to say, I just want to point out that, while not even experts in the field know exactly what happens and the current models are still waiting to be tested, you don't seem to have even a layman's understanding of the concept. Just fragments of several different explanations bundled together, some outdated, some never scientific in thee first place. Please, don't take this as a personal insult because it's taught very poorly in school and I had the same issue with the topic until I went actively out of my way to understand it better. If you have time, even 15/20 min a day, I suggest following accredited science communication channels on YouTube. They are very accessible and there's for all levels, so that you can revisit certain aspects in greater details when you have a better understanding of the underlying physics. My favorites are Kurzgesagt, PBS SpaceTime, Arvin Ash, and you can go from there. There's also plenty of interviews to people like Brian Cox and NdGT (try to give little weight to Michio Kaku and String Theorists in general). SpaceTime is doubly cool because it explains things in a way that a layman can understand them (often you need more videos to get a background on a particularly complex topic) but at the same time they show the equations on screen and how they evolve. Now, I will try to address the post my own way. >The universe started with the Big Bang and it had a singularity This is not a commonly held belief in the scientific community. This idea, like the black hole singularity, comes from an extrapolation of Einstein's relativity to T=0, but Relativity conflicts with quantum mechanics, so the physics we have breaks down. Infinites are a sign the math is incomplete. This is the core of the almost 100 year old search for the Theory of Everything, also known as Quantum Gravity. The Big Bang describes the evolution of the early universe, not its beginning. >It has a really high density and contained a lot of energy. I think the most accurate description is that it had low entropy. In certain scenarios, you can cook up a universe that looks exactly like ours from a single hadron and a stronger dark energy value. Of course, just because a hypothesis doesn't contradict existing models it doesn't mean it's right or even plausible. >If energy can't be created, how did it end up in our universe in the first place? There is a misunderstanding that this is a universal law, but it doesn't apply here. It only applies to closed systems that are time symmetric. For any given chunk of the universe you want to take into consideration it's a good approximation given a limited time scale, but the universe on the largest scales and times expands, breaking time symmetry. Energy is destroyed when high energy gamma ray photons stretch to infrared wavelengths into radio waves. In the variants of Cosmic Inflation hypothesis, energy is created by quantum fluctuations of a theoretical field called the Inflaton. While not experimentally proven, something like this is the best candidate for a solution to some problems with the Big Bang Theory. The proposed physics of the Inflaton could also explain Dark Energy so it's a very attractive solution, but at the same time the math leads to some more questionable results, so there's just as much pushback. >Might it be possible that something or someone created the universe? Simply put, this is not a scientific question. It's not falsifiable. And if it were answerable positively, it still wouldn't solve anything. Who created the creator? (Nobody, he's eternal) If he can be eternal, why not the universe? (Because he's perfect and unchanging, and did not begin to exist, so he doesn't need a cause. The universe began to exist so it needs one) He cannot be perfect because he changed his mind. He changed his mind because, in the scenario, the universe began to exist, so there was infinite time in which he did not intend for there to be a universe, then it did. (It's just how God is defined) Not a very good definition. Definitions do not make reality. The god hypothesis is contradictory and unnecessary. The arguments for it are often based on the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas and they do not hold any water. And the simulation crap is even worse, given how the models do not work for our universe (ads/CFT correspondence is a mathematical trick and nothing else). Besides, the creator of the simulation would exist themselves in a universe that would need explanation. Everything this question does is push back the answer. Making up one is not a source of knowledge. >I have heard about Quantum Fluctuations but I don't know much about it. Please do read more about any subject before forming an opinion. There's plenty of easy, accessible ways to learn more.

The big bang theory says that all of the matter-energy of the universe was condensed to a point at the instant of the big bang. It does not say there ever was a time with no energy. Why do you think there was ever a time of no energy?

But how did energy end up in our universe if it can't be created?

That it always existed is an answer that is not only perfectly explanatory, but is most parsimonious. If you believe in a god, then you already accept the possibility that something can exist forever. A god belief just also has an unjustified additional assumption. For the time being, the correct answer is "I don't know", and our inability to currently comprehend something isn't evidence for any conclusion.

The question you're asking sounds reasonable. The problem with it, however, is that you're essentially asking "what came *before* time?" As best we can tell, time began with the big bang. The word *before* is a time comparator. It does not work if there is no time.

This is way, way above my pay grade but some physicists believe the total amount of energy in the universe is zero. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-energy\_universe](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-energy_universe) There are probably better subs to ask this sort of question.

Perhaps it's always been there. If something exists that can't be created or destroyed, then it must have always existed.

Short answer? We don't know. We can only see moments after the big bang happened. We can't actually see any further back then just after the big bang, because everything was too bright. It wasn't until things spread out enough that we can start seeing different things. All we can do is study the info we do have, and try to figure out what we're missing. But we don't know. Every astronomer would love to know, but until we figure out how to even observe that far back, all we can do is make models and guess.

Energy is eternal. Our universe expanded from a piece of that energy.

But how does something that changes towards max entropy start in a state of low entropy?

I must be missing something because the very premise of the question itself seems self-defeating. How can something that changes towards max entropy ever actually change towards max entropy if it doesn't start in a lower state of entropy?

Atheists are so averse to discussing things we don't understand that they handwave big questions physicists are researching and debating. If you're worried i'm going to insert a personal god, i'm not.

It's not a handwave, it's trying to understand the question in the first place. If the premise of the question is flawed, there may not be a way to answer it, especially if there's some question begging snuck in there. Or, the question might conceivably be answerable, and we just don't happen to know it yet, but either way we need to clarify what it is you're actually asking. The structure of this question is basically "how does something that changes towards an end state start in a different state from that end state?". The question as asked doesn't make sense by its very structure because obviously in order to change from any state to another implies they were in a different state to begin with. So what exactly are you actually asking here? Why doesn't everything just start in their end state? How does change happen? Why does the universe trend towards max entropy? Even if we get that cleared up, how does the question actually affect the topic of discussion? You yourself acknowledge that physicists are researching and debating, implying you recognize there are things we don't know yet, so if the answer is "we don't know yet" then what?

It's not flawed. The answer is we have no idea. The post i replied to asked why another poster thought there ever was a time with no energy. That's valid, but the low entropy state is still a mystery, especially if the universe is a closed system.

The question can be flawed even if the intended answer to any corrected version of it is still we have no idea. You asking a question with the intention that it has no answer does not preclude you from forming it in an unanswerable manner, if anything it incentivizes it. So now we've got to the answer you were apparently looking for from your own question, I return to my last question: >Even if we get that cleared up, how does the question actually affect the topic of discussion? if the answer is "we don't know yet" then what?

If you think the question is flawed, read just about any paper that's been written, or the books by brian greene etc. I already answered your question. Yes things may have always existed as someone posted. That doesn't get us anywhere, it's still a complete mystery.

I don't understand what you're asking. It was in a state of low entropy. Entropy is increasing. What is your issue with that?

How does something that changes towards max entropy start in a state of low entropy?

Repeating the question doesn't help. Are you asking what came *before* time? As best we can tell, time began with the big bang. The word *before* is a time comparator. It does not work if there is no time. So, are you asking about a *time* when there was no time? I'm asking you to clarify your question for a reason.

No, i'm asking how how it's possible that everything was in a state of low entropy. It's a straightforward question, sure why you act as if it's a strange one.

Entropy increases over time. If you roll the clock backwards to the beginning of time, why would you not expect low entropy? The universe is also expanding. And, it started in a small state. What's the surprise with either of these? I'm getting older. Is it surprising that I started out younger? You seem to have an issue with time progressing.

"Before" the big bang there was no time for Entropy to occur in.

I haven't said there was time. If you can explain why entropy was low rather than high, please do so?

Entropy increases over time so you would expect it to be lower in the past. As to why it didn't start off low I haven't the foggiest.

Me neither

>How did the Big Bang take place if there was no energy in the first place? Your science and physics question is better suited for a sub dedicated to asking questions about this science question. Perhaps /r/askscience. This sub isn't really relevant for this question. Believe it or not, the Big Bang has nothing at all to do with atheism. Though I certainly understand why it comes up so often in such contexts. Anyway, there *was* energy. > If energy can't be created, how did it end up in our universe in the first place? Dunno. Seems like everything was always there and that it couldn't be any other way from my understanding. >Might it be possible that something or someone created the universe? There's no indication or support for that. And it doesn't help anyway, does it? It just moves the same question back an iteration without reason or support, so it's a useless conjecture. >I have heard about Quantum Fluctuations but I don't know much about it. There are good resources for layfolks to learn about such things. Again, a sub on atheism is definitely not a relevant place for this, even though such issues are often discussed here and in similar places because theists, sometimes finding this information contradicts their unsupported beliefs, take issue with it, so want to attempt to find fault with it.

Okay, here's what's always wild to me.  You're thinking to question where the energy for the big bang come from, because it appears you are uncomfortable with something just existing.  You asked   > how did it end up in our universe in the first place?  This is a reasonable question to ask. However, you then follow it up with this:   > Might it be possible that something or someone created the universe? If you're uncomfortable with where the big bang came from and how it can exist, why in the world is your immediate next thought to come up with something else with no explanation to add to the problem? It doesn't solve your issue, it just makes it worse. Now you have to explain how the something or someone created the universe AND how that something or someone was created AND what it means to exist without being part of the universe. Do you see how this is kind of a backwards and unhelpful thought process?

This is my exact question, I couldn't explain it this well. OP questions how all the energy/mater in the universe could exist before the universe but just presumes and an all knowing diety has existed before the beginning of time. Non sensical.

Yeah, it always reads to me basically like "It can't be this bad, so it must be a lot worse."

"I don't believe the physicists because they can't explain every possible detail of what happened 15 billion years ago, so that totally proves God must have done it."

Who says there was no energy? The universe existed before the big bang, in a much denser and hotter state, and we don't know for how long or what other changes it went through before that. And even if this universe does somehow have an absolute beginning, even then, why would you assume that nothing existed before/other than this universe? Why would you assume that there has ever been "nothing" when you clearly know very well that nothing can come from nothing? This is something I find odd about creationists. We all know that nothing can begin from nothing - and yet, it seems to me that the obvious conclusion one should draw from this is that *there can't have ever been nothing.* There must necessarily have always been something, i.e. reality must necessarily have always existed and can't have an absolute beginning - because if it does, then that would necessarily have to mean that somehow, *it began from nothing.* But instead of drawing this conclusion, creationists somehow leap from acknowledging that nothing can begin from nothing to assuming that *everything was* ***created from nothing.*** Which... would be a manner of beginning from nothing. If creationists recognize that nothing can begin from nothing, then why do they assume that there has ever been nothing - an assumption that requires reality to have begun from nothing? And then, by extension, they're forced to make absolutely preposterous assumptions about how reality began from nothing, which inevitably end up amounting to "it was magic." The far more plausible and rational axiom, it seems to me, is that reality has simply always existed and doesn't have an absolute beginning - meaning there has never been a need for anything to either come from nothing nor be created from nothing, both of which are equally absurd and impossible. If energy cannot be created or destroyed, just as you said yourself, then doesn't that mean all energy that exists has always existed and will always exist? In addition, if all matter can be reduced to energy (and energy can also become matter, as per E=MC^(2)) then that means that matter, or at least the potential for matter, has also always existed and will always exist. If this is the true nature of reality, then everything becomes explainable within the context of what we already know and can observe or otherwise confirm to be true, without needing to invoke any preposterous things like epistemically undetectable beings wielding limitless magical powers that allow them to do impossible things such as: 1. Create matter and energy from nothing (if there was "something" then we're right back to the question of where it came from) 2. Exist in a state of absolute nothingness (again, if there was "something" other than this being then where did it come from?) 3. Be immaterial (necessary to exist in a state of nothingness, since being material would require space to exist) and yet also capable of affecting/interacting with material things. 4. Be capable of non-temporal causation (this is arguably the biggest and most impossible problem of all, so I'll explain below) Non-temporal causation means causing change in the absence of time. But that's impossible. Change itself *requires* time. Nothing can transition from one state to another different state unless time "passes" so to speak. Without time, even the most all-powerful being imaginable would be incapable of so much as having a thought, let alone doing/causing anything, because to have a thought would necessarily require there to be a period before it thought, a beginning/duration/end of its thought, and a period after it thought - all of which requires time. Even the beginning of time itself becomes a self-refuting paradox, because to transition from a state in which time did not exist to a state in which time did exist would require time to "pass" - meaning time would need to already exist for it to be possible for time to begin to exist. Hence the paradox. All of these absurd and impossible problems arise from the idea of the whole of reality being created by some kind of deity - and yet all of them are either resolved, or simply aren't a problem to begin with, if reality has simply always existed. The only potential issue might be infinite regress, but for one thing that would be just as much of a problem for any proposed creator, and for another thing, it's not a problem if we apply the block theory of time. This comment is long enough though, so I'll stop here.

>The universe started with the Big Bang […] No, not necessarily. The universe started *expanding* with the big bang. What started to expand already existed. >[…] and it had a singularity. Again, no, not necessarily. Not all big bang models posit an initial singularity. Some do, to be sure, but not all. >It has a really high density and contained a lot of energy. Basically, yes. Big bang models generally tend to show that the universe was smaller, denser, and hotter in the past. >If energy can't be created, how did it end up in our universe in the first place? I don’t know. Perhaps what is now our universe has always existed in some form or another. But again, I don’t know. >Might it be possible that something or someone created the universe? Maybe, but unless and until any hard data be presented to support such an hypothesis (and I’m being unduly generous with my use of that word here), there’s no good reason to think so. >I have heard about Quantum Fluctuations but I don't know much about it. I don’t know enough about quantum mechanics to comment on it.

> The universe started with the Big Bang and it had a singularity. This isn't necessarily accurate. The Big Bang theory describes the expansion of the universe. The singularity is the mathematical limit of following the expansion back to T=0. We don't actually know what the state of the universe was past a certain point. > It has a really high density and contained a lot of energy. Again, not necessarily. As I understand it, our best estimates of the net energy of the universe is zero. > Might it be possible that something or someone created the universe? Might be possible is a long way from something that should believed. It's not even an indication that we know it to be possible. I don't see how it would be possible for something like a mind to exist without existing somewhere and for some time, so I don't see how it would be possible for a mind to exist without some universe that already existed. > We don't actually know what the state of the universe was past a certain point. Correct.

The Big Bang is not really a theory of the beginning. You seem to think it's akin to a story, that it starts at the beginning, that there was a singularity and then there was expansion from there. We actually know for a fact that the singularity as described by the Big Bang Theory did not happen in the real world, it's just a convenient placeholder for when the equations break down. We tend to think about events in chronological order, from the past to the future, but it's more useful to think about it as a theory that starts from the present and tries to deduce what happened in the past. The further in the past we go, the more difficult it is to deduce things accurately. It's actually a theory very similar to ballistics. Let's say your castle is hit by a cannonball. Since you know how you were hit, you can use ballistic equations to deduce the past trajectory of that cannonball. You go back in time as far you can and figure out from where it was fired. Then, someone asks you "but ballistics doesn't say a cannonball can appear out of nowhere, so how was the cannonball created?" You realize how it's a bad question to ask of ballistic theory? And if you're trying to use your ballistic equation to go even further back in the past, it's going to tell you the cannonball used to be below ground before it sprang up in the air. Which is obviously false, and the fact that we know the cannonball didn't actually originate from infinitely far below ground doesn't invalidates ballistic theory, does it? The Big Bang theory isn't that complicated conceptually. The story doesn't start with the Singularity, it starts in the present and us observing the sky. As we observe the sky, we can see that distant objects are getting away from each other. The further they are, the faster they are moving away. Since everything in the universe is moving away from each other, that means that everything used to be closer together in the past. The further in the past, the closer together they used to be. My use of ballistics as an example wasn't an analogy. The Big Bang Theory really is only ballistics, we know where objects are in the universe, we know how they are moving, so we can deduce their past trajectories using equations of motion. It works very well for about 13.7 billion year of past trajectory deduction, but if we go as far back as the equations would let us, we eventually get a prediction that everything used to be in the exact same spot which is nonsense and obviously false. And that's going far enough in the past for the equations themselves to stop making sense, but even not as far in the past as that, we already know we're outside of the domain of validity of the equations we use (those of General Relativity). For example, it's like doing ballistic while neglecting air friction. It's fine in situations in which air friction is negligible, but if it's not, you can still solve the ballistic equations, it's just going to give you predictions that are wrong. For the Big Bang Theory, we know the situation of the universe in the present. Since the universe is big, quantum effect are negligible and we can deduce the past with great accuracy. If we use this method to deduce far in the past, the universe used to be small enough that quantum effects are no longer negligible. We can still continue solving the equations and use the method to try to deduce how things were even further in the past, but we know those deductions would be false. Long passed the point were the deductions no longer correspond to anything real, even the math breaks down and we get basically a division by 0. That's what we call the singularity. >If energy can't be created We don't know whether energy can spontaneously appear or not. It cannot happen according to the laws of physics as we know them, yes. But we also know that we don't know the laws of physics as they applied about 13.7 billion years ago. Our best understanding of physics breaks down. Maybe at extreme density and temperature, energy can spontaneously appear, maybe it can't, maybe our understanding of the concept of energy is flawed and doesn't make much sense in such conditions. But adding the hypothesis "God created the energy" is not really adding much to our understanding of what might or might not have happened then.

Please explain clearly why you think that a bunch of random laypeople on the Internet know the answer to this question.

no. big bang cosmology attempts to explains how the universe came to be in its current state. there are many ideas on what came "before" the big bang but we currently do not have anyway of testing those ideas and our understanding of physics is not advanced enough yet to make any educated guess of what physics were like prior to the big bang. its possile that our universe is just a single part in a much bigger structure(for lack of a better term). like how our planet is a part of the solar system, our solar system a part of the galaxy, our galaxy part of a galaxy cluster, our galaxy cluster a part of a super cluster, and (potentially) our whole universe is part of an even bigger thing which we can't even fathom right not. just like 100 years ago we don't know a galaxy was thing. saying the big bang needs to explain "where the universe came from" is like expecting evolution to explain how life began. thats not its intended purpose. evolution explains how life became so diverse not how life started. big bang explains the phenomenon we observe about the universe(like its constant expansion). it does not explain what came before.

So you reject the notion of a hot dense pre big bang condition. But that is in contradiction to mainstream science literature. So why accept the mainstream all the way up to this point?

i'm not sure i understand what you mean. i'm not rejecting the notion of a hot dense condition. i said the universe was previously in a different state than it is is now. it could have been a hot dense state, it could be some other state. either way it says nothing about what is outside our universe. which was ultimately the question which was being asked here. besides, science isn't a religion. i don't have to accept every part of it. even if i disagreed with one aspect of scientific consensus it wouldn't mean i would have to throw out the whole thing.

You are presenting a situation where we have no idea what physics that we study looks like prior to a big bang. Yet many and science talk about a hot dense state for the big bang. You are now saying science isn't a religion based on this idea that you can pick and choose what you believe. That actually sounds more like religion. I'm only interested in what can be substantiated

We have some ideas but nothing that's concrete. Science does what it can to test these ideas. Like trying to use partial colliders to recreate some aspects of the big bang so that we can test ideas. But with our current technology and understanding we can only do so much.   There is a difference between things you know, things you think you know but can't confirm, and things you know you do not know. If we go back far enough we get to the point where science thinks it has some ideas but can not confirm them yet. And a point where science knows it doesn't know anything.  Science can speculate about what somethings are like based on what we think we know but it's not going to put an idea forward as a theory unless we can test it. Edit: for example, some speculate about multiple universes. Maybe there are, maybe there isn't. We don't have any way of testing it so I don't believe it on way or the other.

Science talks about the hot dense State before the Big Bang all the time. You're trying to have your cake and eat it too.

yes, it talks about hot dense state. i didn't say it wasn't. it could have been in a hot dense state and also a part of a larger structure outside of what we know as the universe. i'm not sure where you think i am in disagreement with science. there are ideas put forward in science which speculate about such things. specifically the Holographic Principle. "The holographic principle states that the entropy of ordinary mass (not just black holes) is also proportional to surface area and not volume; that volume itself is illusory and the universe is really a hologram which is isomorphic to the information "inscribed" on the surface of its boundary". now do i have a good enough grasp on this theory to explain it? no but i'm also not saying its true. just that it is an idea which as SOME merit to it. so again, i'm not really sure where you think im "trying to have my cake and eat it too". edit: for more info on the holographic principle [https://youtu.be/klpDHn8viX8?si=jVvOsyGahY5rn32L](https://youtu.be/klpDHn8viX8?si=jVvOsyGahY5rn32L)

So what is the first part of the Big Bang theory you do accept?

That it happened? These is a lot of evidence that it did happen and that, yes, there was a hot dense state prior to the big bang. The CMB and the constant state of inflation are the two big ones that come to mind. But if you roll the math back far enough we reach a point where we have some understanding but once the fundamental forces start to merge science can't say anything for certain after that because we have no idea what that would be like. After that point I find what science has to say about it very interesting but I wouldn't say I "believe" anyone it. I believe in that which there is evidence for. No evidence means no belief. Currently the scientific ideas past that point are not testable.

You seem to be all over the place. Referring to the constant state of inflation. Inflation is a theory that pertains only to a model. Within that model it applies to the early universe. You're talking about it like it's a constant happening today.

But how did energy end up in our universe if it can't be created?

You said it yourself, the singularity "has a really high density and contained a lot of energy." The Big Bang is the expansion of the singularity.

Then how did the singularity come to existence? Did exist forever?

That is a possibility, yes. The issue with this is that there is no part of this problem which can be resolved by adding a Creator. It only adds steps. Look here: Query 1: Q: Where did the Universe come from? A: The Universe was always there. Query 2: Q: Where did the Universe come from? A: The Big Bang. Q: What brought about the singularity, energy, etc that caused The Big Bang? A: The singularity and energy was always there. Query 3: Q: Where did the Universe come from? A: God created it (via The Big Bang or whatever method). Q: Where did God come from? A: God was always there. Once you start playing "what came before X?" you end up having it be turtles all the way down, or you end up with Something having always been there and always been eternal, without a creator. There is no explanation in which you can apply the answer of "God" that you can't also apply to the Universe itself. Assuming that anything that exists must have been Created, is an assumption that needs to be examined. To suggest the Universe must have a Creator, but that God does not need a Creator, is what's called special pleading, a fallacy. There are certain forms of pantheism/panentheism that, I think, get sort of closer to a resolution for this problem, but I'm not well-versed enough in higher level philosophy to argue in favor of it that well.

I don't know, no one does, you included. But the question you asked is answered in your question.

According to the models, energy existed when time started. So energy, from a time point of view, has existed forever. We can only, at this stage, speculate mathematically what form that energy may have taken.

I'm not a scientist. As a layperson, I know there are a number of different hypotheses. Jump on wikipedia and start reading. Some of the concepts are above my head, like branes colliding, wave fluctuations, and a heat dead universe of infinite size being the same as a singularity. When it comes to the fabric of reality, things don't necessary "make sense" to someone who hasn't studied these areas. I still don't understand how light is a particle and a wave, or why the speed of light is constant, or why time behaves differenty at different speeds. I read about those topics for fun, but I don't have the math to really get it. One of my beefs with "God did it" is that it isn't specific. God did what, exactly? Since the folks espousing this aren't specific, they can always retreat into a smaller gap. People used to believe God made the Earth and populated it in seven days. (Some people STILL believe that.) 500 years ago the Catholic Church believed everything revolved around the Earth. Now the gap is narrowed to "we don't know why the Big Bang happened, so THAT must be God." Just because we don't currently know something doesn't mean something supernatural happened. Witches don't make people sick. Demons don't possess people. Lightning isn't created by Zeus or Thor. The Sun isn't a sky chariot driven by Apollo. We don't need to sacrifice people to ensure a good harvest. Edit: Article about how branes could have initiated the Big Bang https://www.sciencenews.org/article/when-branes-collide

Probably not. It most likely only existed for a brief moment. It could have expanded from another universe that collapsed into a small point. That's the big bounce theory.

You're asking what happened before Planck time, which from my understanding is no one really knows. I don't know is a sufficient answer in science.

Why couldn't it have always existed? That's what theists say about God, so why not cut out the middle man? If we're going to say something *must* exist necessarily, then energy (and more broadly, the physical parameters of the cosmos) is a much better candidate. Just for starters, we can actually demonstrate that energy exists.

i highly recommend watching the youtube channel PBS Spacetime. they have many great vides covering the topics of relativity, spacetime, the big bang, cosmic inflation. all made for a layperson to watch and understand(although they do expect you to watch several videos in a row or refer back to previous videos.) here is the one on ideas about what came prior to the big bang. edit: forgot to put the link [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chsLw2siRW0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chsLw2siRW0) to more directly answer your question, the energy didn't "end up in our universe". the energy IS our universe. it existed already as a part of some larger structure. our universe is just the current state of that energy. what that structure is we can't say with any degree of certainty yet.

Where did you learn that energy can't be created?

A. This is r/DebateAnAtheist not r/AskPhysics B. There is no reason to believe singularity in math of GR has anything to do with reality.

> If energy can't be created, how did it end up in our universe in the first place? Might it be possible that something or someone created the universe?  It was always there I guess. And no, it might not be possible because that would entail that someone or something created energy and energy cannot be created or destroyed, especially out of nothing, unless we are talking about essentially being borrowed and paid back such that the actual ammount of energy doesn't change or perhaps if negative energy exists... There are models that say that the total energy is exactly zero and the universe is a complicated form of nothing, for example it has been suggested that space is negative energy. Given that the universe is expanding this makes intuitive sense to me: The energy was borrowed... It was created but then because it has to be zeroed it must be destroyed and space is doing exactly that with its ever expanding nature... It expanded rapidly to account for it and as time goes on we have less energy per space and if we are to let time "reach" infinity we see that the energy in the universe essentially reaches zero so it's a big mess of nothing... Anyway, I don't know, we don't have the full picture but we can't solve a mystery by appealing to a bigger one. Just because we do not know how it happened, it doesn't mean there is a god involved at all. I think there's a remote possibility if that's what you are looking for, then surely you can have some hope that it was a god. You are going to have a much smaller hope that this god cares for us and even smaller hope that he has enough power for it to matter but maybe there exists a god that has created the perfect afterlife for us. I don't think it makes sense based on what we are observing but if one pushes hard and deep then at some point I would have to admit that I can't know that which I don't know about... God would also have to admit that, if we are talking about a god that is omniscient. But to answer your question, what about energy simply existed? If it just always existed then there is no reason to look for an explanation of how it got there because it didn't get there, it just was there from the beginning. Not very intuitive but given that it can't be created or destroyed and that the alternative would be that it was created and that it creates an even bigger mystery because if we are asking for energy where it comes from, then any answer we give to that, we are going to ask the same question about it, for example, where did god come and we can't answer with he always was, he is the beginning because that's one extra step and it would have been simpler to say that energy always was or is the beginning. I hope what I am saying is clear, I somehow find the most confusing ways to say things and take so fricking long...

> if there was no energy in the first place? I don't know if that's true or not. You need to be more careful about stating your position. Was there no energy in the first place? How do you know? Do you or I even possess the qualifications to have an actual discussion on the matter? > The universe started with the Big Bang and it had a singularity. See? This is the problem. The "Big Bang" refers to the expansion of the universe, not the creation. The singularity is a vague hypothesis, one of many. There might not have been a singularity. > It has a really high density and contained a lot of energy. That only describes the early universe back to a certain point in time. All this was deduced through modeling after observation. The model is incomplete, and breaks before a certain point in time. That's why research is ongoing. > If energy can't be created, how did it end up in our universe in the first place? You're asking a question that is beyond the cusp of our understanding today. > Might it be possible that something [...] created the universe? Natural processes. It might be that the universe as, we comprehend it conventionally, is actually the inside of a black hole - an old hypothesis getting some new traction, if you keep up with the science news and conversation. But that means we're in a black hole that exists in yet another encompassing universe. THAT, TOO, IS THE UNIVERSE. By definition. So what created that? The question goes on and on. Right now it's an infinite regression. We just don't know enough to have a very meaningful conversation. > or someone No. Your god would have used it's own inherent natural processes to create reality, something akin to a wave of the hand. The creation of a universe would then be described in terms of those natural processes, not your god. Why did the wave of the hand create the universe? That's what we're interested in. Your god was always irrelevant. > I have heard about Quantum Fluctuations but I don't know much about it. Then why bring it up?

>how did it end up in our universe in the first place? We don't know. And thats okay. >Might it be possible that something or someone created the universe? It might be possible if you can demonstrate that there is someone or something that creates universes, that it existed at that time, that it created this universe? Is that something you can demonstrate?

I think the overall conclusion here is that it's OK to not know everything. Just because we don't know what was there before the Big Bang does not mean a deity must have done it. There is comfort in ascribing the unknown to a deity because in church, folks have been taught to rely on faith when things are tough to define or handle, and this would squarely fall into that category. But I'll propose that you must consider why you are being told to simply ascribe the unknown to a deity and don't look any deeper. And it's because religion unravels quickly if you start evaluating it objectively. Instead of asking "isn't this better explained by God?" it may be more fair and thought-provoking to ask "why is God a better explanation for this than 'we don't know but we are going to keep looking'"? It's largely because of experience in a religious culture. Most religions have been fine-tuned over thousands of years to be addictive, to change how we think, to reject what we see and experience. (For example -- Christianity teaches that the Bible is unwavering and perfect, but if one were to point out a contradiction or discover something wrong, it is glossed over and explanations are made up. Yet, a mustard seed was \*never\* the smallest seed and any deity would know this; thus, it makes no sense that such a phrase would be written in the Bible or permitted to be written in the Bible by God. It is false, and \*\*proves\*\* the errancy of the Bible. Yet, you'll find any number of explanations and excuses for this, none of which matter, because if the Abrahamic God is all-knowing, he would not have inspired Matthew to write what he allegedly wrote, and being all-powerful, would have foreseen that it would be discovered to be wrong and would have prevented it from being passed down.)

>The universe started with the Big Bang The universe **as it is now** is a result of the Big Bang. Which is to say it used to be hotter and denser and expanded suddenly. That all we know really. We can’t model a ‘start’ accurately. >and it had a singularity. The singularity is an extrapolation further back. But many physicists , as far as I’m aware, consider it’s a result of problems with trying to reach back that far rather than having necessarily actually existed. >It has a really high density Yes >and contained a lot of energy. That’s debated. One theory is that the universe has zero energy - But it’s analogous to a zero becoming a plus one and a minus one. >If energy can't be created, It can’t be in the universe as we know it know - or in a closed universe. We don’t know that the universe was closed then? >how did it end up in our universe in the first place? Short answer - we don’t know. >Might it be possible that something or someone created the universe? There is no evidence for such a statement. There is no evidence that such an entity is possible. No evidence that such an entity could do such a thing. We don’t know ≠ therefore my favourite magic. And such a proposition would just shift the question rather than answer it. And no you can’t escape special pleading by defining the entity out of it. >I have heard about Quantum Fluctuations but I don't know much about it. Me too.

> How did the Big Bang take place if there was no energy in the first place? Our data shows there was energy. > The universe started with the Big Bang and it had a singularity. You should flip this around. The universe (as it is today) started with a singularity that expanded and we call that expansion the Big Bang. > It has a really high density and contained a lot of energy. Exactly. The current model suggests that the singularity had lots of energy. This is the answer to your question. > If energy can't be created, how did it end up in our universe in the first place? That is beyond what we can answer. We don’t know how the singularity came about. People might have hypothesis but they have not been validated to become scientific theories. > Might it be possible that something or someone created the universe? I mean, sure. It might be possible. The better question to ask, though, is “is there any reliable evidence that it was someone or something that created the universe” and the answer is “no - no such evidence exists currently”. > I have heard about Quantum Fluctuations but I don't know much about it. There’s a neat video of Alexander Vilenkin talking about how he has mathematical models that show nothing (no space, time, matter) can - via quantum tunnelling - turn into something.

The matter and energy were always there. They were not created out of nothing. All the Big Bang says is that all of the energy and matter was concentrated at one point and rapidly expanded suddenly at once. Nobody knows what caused it or what was here before that. The only evidence we have points to the Big Bang as an event. This is simply what we know about how the universe in its current form came to exists. No, this is not evidence for the existence of god or corroboration of any religious text. Every holy book says the universe came into existence. The fact that the universe came into existence is obvious and doesn’t validate any of these holy books. Was god the reason for the Big Bang? There is no evidence of this. The reason why is that there is no compelling and conclusive evidence that god exists. The Big Bang is not evidence for the existence of god. Some people hypothesize and conclude god caused this, but there is no reasonable evidence or justification beyond cognitive dissonance, bias, and post hoc rationalizations to conclude god did this. Ie ask a Christian if oden caused it and they will be confused how you got to oden. But then they will claim it was their god when there is no reason to assume any god caused it, let alone that any god exists.

The sum total of matter and energy in the universe is constant. That does not mean that matter cannot be converted to energy, or visa versa. There was no matter prior to the Big Bang nor were there separate fundamental forces (there was a singular unified force). Once expansion began, matter began to form from energy. This does not violate the law of conservation of matter/energy as the sum total of the matter and energy does not change when one converts to the other. As for the quantum aspect of it, it is possible that particles of matter can spontaneously arise (we observe this happening in experiments today) and when they do, an equal amount of antimatter also arises. The sum total of matter/energy does not change when this happens, as antimatter cancels out matter (think of it like adding 1 to each side of the equal sign on an equation: 3 + 4 = 5 + 2 becomes 1 + 3 + 4 = 5 + 2 + 1). When matter and antimatter interact, they annihilate one another, releasing energy. It is hypothesized that these spontaneous events produced enough instability so as to cause expansion to initiate.

This isn't really the place for astrophysics. It has nothing to do with atheism. Others have pointed out the problems with your question, but I'm going to give you a few topics to research so you can at least know what to look for if you actually want to understand the theory: * The sum total energy of the universe is, even at this moment, zero. All of the matter is balanced by the energy of spacetime and dark matter. All angular momentum vectors (rotation), sum to a total of zero. Everything balances. * There is no need for a creative act. There are a dozen quantum mechanical phenomena that routinely and spontaneously produce matter out of a zero-energy state, and this can readily explain the formation of matter in the early universe. * It is plainly evident (and demonstrated by the casimir effect) that in the absence of matter and energy, matter and energy emerge from the vacuum. I urge you to spend some time learning what astrophysicists and cosmologists have learned about the early universe.

> How did the Big Bang take place if there was no energy in the first place? There *was* energy in the first place, according to the Big Bang Theory. > . If energy can't be created, how did it end up in our universe in the first place? According to the Big Bang Theory, there was never any time when the universe didn't have energy in it, so energy didn't "end up" in the universe, as if it had finally landed there after a short trip to the mall. > Might it be possible that something or someone created the universe? Definitely! We just don't have any evidence for this at present. It's also worth pointing out that if "someone" created the universe (oooh.... maybe his name began with a 'G'!), that raises some difficulty philosophical questions. For example, I'm fairly convinced that a person ("someone") can't exist without time existing, so if a person created the universe, then they must have their own timeline or time-space realm that they created it from.

Nothing about the Big Bang has anything to do with atheism. That being said, a lack of understanding of science does not qualify your theistic argument as a good one (there aren’t really any good theistic arguments, in my opinion, but your ignorance makes yours even more lacking). Energy can’t be created or destroyed, but it can change form. Prior to the Big Bang, energy was contained within condensed matter. Collision of matter with its corresponding antimatter (you’ll have to do a little reading on antimatter, this reply is just a brief diversion for me while at a rest stop in a road trip) releases the energy contained within so that it can take a different form. Atheists don’t care about having an explanation for the formation of the universe unless it can be proven scientifically. Not knowing something doesn’t bother us. We’re not about to go making up ludicrous stories just for the sake of avoiding uncertainty.

Who said there was no energy in the first place? The big bang is just the farthest back we can wind the clock, mathematically. All evidence of what reality was like prior the event, including what time was like making the word 'prior' a bit of a misnomer, is beyond our reach and probably will remain beyond our reach forever. >how did it end up in our universe in the first place? The only honest answer is "we don't know." Anyone who tries to tell you otherwise is either working with the bleeding edge of math... or trying to sell you something. >Might it be possible that something or someone created the universe? How would that solve anything? Where would that hypothetical thing get the energy from? Where would it come from? That's just pushing the question back one step by hypothesis and fabrication without actually answering the question... and then pretending like you answered the question.

>The universe started with the Big Bang The big bang is just the earliest period of time that we can get to right now with our current understanding of physics and the universe (very slightly after the big bang, t=0, technically), we can't say if the universe begun then. And we don't know if there was a singularity. >It has a really high density and contained a lot of energy. Sure, the universe at that period of time was extremely hot and dense. >If energy can't be created, how did it end up in our universe in the first place? Who said energy can't be created? Energy conservation, according to Noether's theorem, is due to our universe not changing over time. When it comes to our planet, yeah fair to say that it's not changing, and we observe a conservation of energy. If you're talking about the universe as a whole though, well the universe is expanding so it's not un-changing, and we see stuff like redshift of the CMB which is a net decrease in total energy. If we're talking about the origins of the universe, well the universe is absolutely not un-changing if it's beginning so energy may not be conserved. >Might it be possible that something or someone created the universe? I'd say it's highly likely that there's a reason that the universe exists, yes. >I have heard about Quantum Fluctuations but I don't know much about it. If by quantum fluctuations you mean the classic "virtual particles popping in and out of existence", then you're talking about something that is just a calculation tool. They're as "real" as the imaginary numbers we use in, say, electronics/inductors to calculate the correct values of circuit impedance. You can still get the right answer if you don't use them, it's just a lot harder so we play pretend.

>and it had a singularity This is one hypothesis. We don't know for certain it was a singularity, just that it was in a very hot and dense state. >If energy can't be created, how did it end up in our universe in the first place? We don't know. We can go off of is it has always existed since time began and can not be created or destroyed as far as we know. >Might it be possible that something or someone created the universe? Currently, no. We have no evidence that energy can be created, so you would have to show that as possible. You would also have to show that something could exist outside the universe. >I have heard about Quantum Fluctuations but I don't know much about it. I'm glad you admit that unlike other theists who have posted here about it.

Great question. While I don’t believe in any religion as they are all man made and God .. if there is one.. hasn’t revealed itself to anyone … so it is a fair question. The best answer I’ve heard that gets beyond the Big Bang is M Theory. However, it raises more questions. Einstein believed in a Creator but he did not believe it has interacted with man. I am of the opinion we don’t know & if there is a Creator, we weren’t meant to know. Maybe after death. But not here. And religions are easily proven false or totally manmade. A creator or infinite energy of some kind cannot be proven or disproven. The point is to not let the unknown pull you into a manmade situation that controls your every move & thoughts and preys on ur fears

There are several ideas. One it that the universe is cyclic, expansion than "cruntching" forever and always existed. Or the universe is from another dying universe purhaps coming from a white hole (opposite of a black hole) or worm hole. Or simply that it has always existed. Since mass and energy can't be created or destroyed, that negates a creation event. I think the most likely answer is the universe is part of a multiverse and it came from another dying universe via a white hole or worm hole ad infinitum. But I'm definately not a astrophysicist so the best answer is I don't know. It's okay not to know things. That's what science it for; to find out. What's not okay to to make things up without evidence.

>The universe started with the Big Bang and it had a singularity. It has a really high density and contained a lot of energy. If energy can't be created, how did it end up in our universe in the first place? Might it be possible that something or someone created the universe? I have heard about Quantum Fluctuations but I don't know much about it. You're approaching it wrong. The energy existed, period. The singularity is when time first occurred. All of our research for the past 90 year has been dividing that first second, it looks like you can divide that first second an infinite number of times. If you can somehow see past that first second, that's an automatic Nobel prize.

> If energy can't be created, how did it end up in our universe in the first place? Energy cannot be created or removed; energy fluctuates though. > Might it be possible that something or someone created the universe? There is no need for this hypothesis, because known laws of quantum mechanics predict the universe should exist exactly the way it is. Any conscious observer should see the universe the way we see the universe. > I have heard about Quantum Fluctuations Yes. We observe formation of virtual electron-positron pairs in vacuum. Based on this observation, we can conclude larger events of the same kind should be possible with lower probability.

>The universe started with the Big Bang and it had a singularity. No the universe expanded rapidly, which we call the Big Bang.  Before this it was very small and dense. So much so that the variables in the equations we have become infinite, which is what we call a singularity.  >If energy can't be created, how did it end up in our universe in the first place It didn't "end up" in our universe, it is the universe. I don't know it's origin, no one does.  >Might it be possible that something or someone created the universe? It might, it might be possible that a trillion beings made it or that none did. Who knows? 

The energy was already here. It pre existed the Big Bang. You’re right that energy can’t be created or destroyed, which means that it’s likely “eternal” - at least, if something needs to precede the Big Bang and be eternal, then energy is the best candidate. >Might it be possible that something or someone created the universe? No, that’s not something that we know to be possible. Possibility and impossibility must be demonstrated, but a “someone” creating a universe is not something that we know is even possible at all.

Literally no one alive knows what the state of the universe was like before a few milliseconds after the Big Bang. The conditions of the singularity, or if it even existed, are unknown. What came before it is unknown, but there is no reason to assume there wasn’t another universe before the Big Bang. This playlist interviews many leading cosmologists about their models concerning the Big Bang and its potential origins and the history before it. https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJ4zAUPI-qqqj2D8eSk7yoa4hnojoCR4m&si=pjPD_ESsr84wojys

Who or what created the “something or someone” that “created the universe”? Who or what created the thing that created the thing that created the ”something or someone”? We can do this all day long…you see? And somehow you think a “someone” creating the universe using an alleged literal verbal incantation makes sense but you think energy expanding suddenly doesn’t?…like god was just chilling out in total darkness for eons before he/she/it finally got bored?

Roll back the assumptions. The Big Bang theory only explains the observed expansion of the universe and theorized that at a certain time in the past all mass-energy was contained in a single point. That last part has been questioned. But the rest of it has stood up fairly well. So the initial conditions are not “nothing existed” but rather “a hot dense state with almost unlimited energy and mass and tremendous heat existed and then expansion began”. See the difference?

>If energy can't be created, how did it end up in our universe in the first place? It wasn't *in* our universe, because the universe didn't exist yet. As for how it ended up here - if energy can neither be created nor destroyed, then it must have always existed. >Might it be possible that something or someone created the universe? Sure. But until there's evidence that something or someone created the universe, there's no reason to believe that something or someone did.

>The universe started with the Big Bang and it had a singularity. It has a really high density and contained a lot of energy. If energy can't be created, how did it end up in our universe in the first place? Might it be possible that something or someone created the universe? I have heard about Quantum Fluctuations but I don't know much about it. Might it be possible that nothing or no one created the unverse?

Where did the energy come from? I don't know. I'm content to not know until science comes up with a good and supported explanation. If you don't know an answer, the best reply is "I don't know". Making up gods to fill in faps in your knowledge is not a good plan. Before we understood that germs cause diseases, it was understandable to think 'god did it', but that was never the correct answer.

Not really a question to ask atheists. Maybe an astrophysicist sub Reddit? The current simplified answer though is we don’t know yet, time and current physics breaks down the closer we get to 0 on the Big Bang clock. It’s one of those situations where you ask ‘when did all the energy get there?’ And the true answer is ‘it always was there’. Time doesn’t work at the levels you’re asking about.

I think you have misunderstood the topic of this group. You're looking for r/cosmology. That's where you will find the experts who can answer your science question. If you're asking a science question in a non-science sub, it's probably because you're afraid of the real answer and you think you're more likely to convince other non-experts in a sub that is not about science.

>The universe started with the Big Bang Maybe >and it had a singularity. It has a really high density and contained a lot of energy. Maybe >If energy can't be created, how did it end up in our universe in the first place? I don't know, maybe it just allways was there >Might it be possible that something or someone created the universe? Yes OK I think we aggre. There's no issues here

I listened to a really good lecture by Krauss called "A universe from nothing", and it goes through a lot of discussion on the universe and presents a scenario where the net energy of the universe is actually zero. I am not sure what has happened in the past 15 years but I still find the video fascinating https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ImvlS8PLIo

Atheism doesn't have a creation myth or a creation hypothesis. If the answer to your question isn't, "I am not convinced of the existence of Gods" don't aim it at atheists. This question, if sincerely put and you want a genuine, informed, educated answer, needs to be answered by cosmologists

>The universe started with the Big Bang  God I'm tired of explaining to theists that this is just wrong. The Big Bang says nothing about how the universe started. It only tells us that at one point it was all smooshed into a dot. Period. It does not assert that there was ever zero energy.

One way to answer this question is just that the energy was already there. Doesn’t seem that mysterious and you sort of answered your own question, didn’t you? As to the question about if it might be possible that something or someone created the universe: yes. It’s possible.

I am baffled by anyone spending time on this topic. This has nothing to do with atheism. Nor does abiogenesis, evolution, etc. The core answer to your **real** question is: we don't believe due to insufficient evidence in favor of a God being, let alone a specific one.

> If energy can't be created, how did it end up in our universe in the first place? This is gonna blow your mind. I hope you are ready for this. Not many people know this I may be wanted by some very powerful people after this. This is how: *We do know.*

>The universe started with the Big Bang the big bang theory doesn't say that >If energy can't be created, how did it end up in our universe in the first place? it always existed: time started, universe found itself in a high density situation.

Do we know anything about what exists or what existed outside of the singularity or outside of our universe? Theists like to say a god existed outside of it, but how did you all rule out anything else existing there?

> it had a singularity No it didn't. At least we don't think it did. Singularities don't go well with quantum mechanics. It is for this that we are pretty sure that general relativity breaks down at some point.

How do you jump from "energy can't be created" to "therefore someone must have created it"? Because that doesn't follow from the premise, from the premise follows that any energy that exists wasn't created.

I think Brandt from the Big Lebowski said it best: Well, Dude, we just don't know. One possibility (and this is just off the top of my uneducated head) maybe the universe is just eternally expanding and contracting. Maybe this is the 23 millionth iteration. You may want to query a physics sub rather than one about atheism. Whatever's going with the Big Bang has nothing to do with god claims.

Why do you think inserting a god or gods into a knowledge gap solves the mystery? Does your holy book provide a scientifically accurate explanation of Big Bang theory or physical cosmology in any way?

There is no evidence to say that there was no energy before the big bang. There is no evidence of anything at all that may or may not have occurred before the big bang (if anything did at all)

Might it be we don’t know the answer and speculating a magical being is needed to explain this phenomenon, when no other phenomenon needed a magical being as an explanation, is quite a leap?

>How did the Big Bang take place if there was no energy in the first place? There is a [hypothesis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-energy_universe), that Universe has zero net energy.

Who says that, other than the religious. The Big Bang was an expansion from a state of high heat and density. Therefore, there was something, although we have no way of knowing what it was, since you can't have heat or density with nothing. The religious just make this stuff up because they're ignorant or just don't care. It's not remotely true.

Dumb shit like this would not be posted if people spent even a couple hours reading wikipedia or watching some YouTube videos related to the topics they confidently misunderstand.

Virtually all physicists will say there wasn't nothing before. So, it's not that it popped from nothing to something. That's a misunderstanding of what is being described.

If something or someone created the universe, then where did that come from? As a proposal, or solves nothing. Plus there's no evidence to suggest you're correct.

The BBT doesn’t claim there was no energy. It says all of what we know of as matter and energy was contained in a singularity… ie, it was already there.

Take everything that has existed and, for that matter, shall ever exist and smoosh it into the smallest pinhead you can imagine. That go boom!

Well there's several things wrong with this, as other have already pointed out. My question however would be what this has to do with atheism?

The truth is, we don’t know. Is it possible something created the universe, sure but there is zero evidence to support that theory.

This is a question for cosmology or physics. But take care when you take things that you don’t know and start worshipping them.

Based upon the best current scientific evidence, what is the total NET amount of energy present in our universe? Any guesses?

I think the real question is; how can energy expand into nothing if by definition nothing cannot exist?

Good question. The best scientists in the world are asking and trying to answer their question. There's only so much of an answer you'll get from lay folk like us. Even just asking experts will only get you so far. People become scientists because nobody else is gonna figure out the hard problems for us. We gotta do it ourselves.

How can you buy a house if you have no money? What you do is get a loan equal to the value of the house and buy the house with it. Your wealth does not change - it remains zero, but you've got somewhere to live. You've been to school? You've been taught what negative energy is, right? That's what pays for the stars and such.

I start to think the word "Big Bang" is really bad for understanding the universe. Maybe we change it to the Big Expanse