A Lighthearted Discussion on the Necessity of a Divine Creator - Part Three

Wow, I have to say, I am genuinely surprised to see you here. I feel like that last entry was kind of like blog-reader kryptonite, but hey! I'm glad you came back. Let's hope I have something interesting and/or informative for you to read. If not, blame Obama.


If you have stumbled in here - lost and scared - from the dark and terrifying back-alley that is the Internet, and have no idea what I'm talking about, then you can just click here or here for parts one and two, respectively, and get caught up.

So, last time I left you all with a black-hole-dense paragraph of convoluted word spaghetti--

Whoa... I didn't even mean to do that! 

What? You didn't catch it? Well, reread that sentence, starting with, 'So, last...' Go ahead, I'll wait...

Well? Still nothing?

Well, if you happened to be out jetting around the galaxy in your spiffy spaceship and you wandered just a bit too close to a black hole, what would happen to you is called 'spaghettification.' which is probably exactly what you're imagining it is

Anyway, I promised to unpack that junkyard-crushed-car-cube of a paragraph, so here we go. I will quote that paragraph here for reference.

Listen, we know with near certainty that the universe is not eternal. For one thing, an infinite regress in time is a factual impossibility. It cannot exist, and, like nothing, does not exist. Therefore, our universe had to begin to exist. That includes time. Space, matter, and time all began to exist simultaneously, because before it existed nothing existed, and again, nothing is – say it with me – no-thing. There was no matter or energy, but there was also no space to put matter and energy, and there was also no time to facilitate the sequential order of events.

You know what? After reading it a few times through, I have realized that it's not really all that packed. There are only a few things going on in the whole thing. But since I made a blood pact promise, I will do the thing I said I would do.

Let's start at the start: "the universe is not eternal." 

If you don't believe this, ring your call button, and Tommy will come back there and hit you over the head with a tack hammer because you are a retard moron. 

(movie quotes from the 90's... am I right? Political correctness was still in its infancy and you could still use the word, 'retard' as an insult in a movie. I guess there's one good thing about political correctness - but JUST ONE, pal!)

If you aren't sure what an infinite regress (a.k.a., the homunculus fallacy) is, go on ahead and Google it. Once you've overloaded your brain with mathematical formulas, drink some Nyquil - the nighttime, sniffling, sneezing, aching, coughing, stuffy-head, fever, so you can rest medicine - and take a nice nap, then come on back here and I'll explain it in terms you and I are familiar with.

How was your nap?

So, an infinite regress, for our purposes here in this layman-written blog, is infinity going backwards. So, if the universe were, in fact, eternal (in the past) there would be an infinite (never-ending) number of days stretching back forever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever... You getting the picture?

This is not possible. It's a factual impossibility, which is why the other name for infinite regress contains the word 'fallacy.' For one thing, if the universe were eternal then an infinite number of days would have already passed before we reached today, which would mean that - thanks to entropy (see previous entries) - all of the usable energy would have already been expended and none of you would be alive to be dozing off while reading this exciting blog post.

Alright, that's about enough for today. I guess I'm following this whole 'unpacking that paragraph' thing through to the bitter end... right? 

Yes, of course I am...

I know, I know. I was just making sure you wanted me to.

Next time: We talk more about 'nothing!'

Until then, peace, love, and a third thing.