1. imagine if you can an inflating balloon with some dots painted on. As the balloon expands, the dots move outward but they also move apart. As the space itself rapidly expands, the movement of the dots from the centre increases at that rate, but the
effect of the spatial increase is to accentuate their speed
relative to each other. Or raisins in a cake, or air bubbles in bread - the raisins or bubbles don't move much themselves but the stuff around them moves much faster. The area in which these things can exist expands much faster than the things themselves can actually move. But the analogy ends because the balloon, the air, the cake, and the bread are all matter - we're actually talking about space.
it's estimated that in the initial moments of the Big Bang, the rate at which space increased in size may have in an order of several thousand times the speed of light, but the matter within was constrained to the constant speed of light. I know that it seems paradoxical, but in the conditions of a Universe rapidly expanding from an infinitesmal point to about a metre in diameter, paradoxes abound.
of course, it's misleading to talk of outside and inside because the only reference point could ever be inside, there actually being no outside as such. such dimensions are defined by virtue of being in space, in the universe - they wouldn't exist outside and you could never experience it to find out, because you wouldn't exist either. more on this in a sec.
2. you are misinterpreting the use of the term "law" in this sense. Laws of physics are models by which the workings of physical phenomena can be measured and understood. Laws of jurisprudence or religion are social constructs designed to control and inhibit human behaviour. Your conflation of the two is misleading and inaccurate, and from it you're deriving a false conclusion which you're using to support an assumption.
3. you may be thinking of nothingness as more space beyond some sort of wall but with no matter in it, no stars, planets, or dust, just a big black void that you float in. the point is that you can't float in or get into it in any way because it doesn't exist to be got into. it's the absence of anything including dimension even if there are no reference points. you could never even experience it, even assuming that you could get there, because you couldn't exist there for even a fraction of a nano-second, which also wouldn't exist because there'd be no time. All that it's possible for you to experience is inside the sphere of existence which is the universe (a metaphorical sphere, it's actually a twisted funnel shape) Again, very difficult concept to get your head around. It's not like there's some wall or surface there, or some sort of temporary limitation like the sound barrier - it's the limit at where all space, time, and matter can even exist.
4. God's existence can be neither proven or disproven, either case can be postulated, rebutted and defended. it's a pointless argument, and each person finds his answer within a subjective judgement which for believers like me, is faith. I'd say on a purely rhetorical basis, it's easier to deny the existence of God than it is to affirm it, although it depends on your audience - I'd hate to deny the Biblical account of Creation at a fundamentalist meeting in the Mid-West, for example, no matter how many facts I had at my disposal or how right I was - they'd tear me to pieces! I know what i believe, but i would never impose it on other people as being what they should believe and why they're wrong not to (unless you live in Tawakalnistan, in which case people believe whatever i tell them to!
) However it's often fun, always instructive whatever the outcome, and occasionally the right thing to do, to point when someone's supposed faith or rather, the actions that belief may compel them to take, or they think that they're supposed to take, is in grievous error.
It isn't an argument we should really get into, though, because it ALWAYS leads to upset and bother, Loc, you know this of old, even if that's never the intent. Someone always hits back with a nasty argument and it ends up in flames and being locked and people fall out and never speak again. let's not go back there, shall we? it's enough to say that, you're right, no-one has ever disproven the existence of God. Nor proven it either - that's what
faith is all about. What kind of faith would it be if it needed undeniable proof to support it? it wouldn't be faith at all, would it. and faith, i should remind all concerned, is a virtue, and virtues get their value from being exactly what they are, and don't need facts or reason to support their existence, which is seen from the effect they have. Do i need a justification to help a sick or injured person other than it's the right thing to do, or to give money to the poor and needy, other than i might help alleviate their plight? of course I don't, the act in itself is proof of it's value. Similarly, I don't need proof to justify my faith in God and His Angels to myself, the rewards and effects of faith are enough in themselves. I have no need either to impose that on the world around me and use God to find excuses with the way the world is - because that sort of faith is a long wait for a train that doesn't come, and it's a cold comfort for those in need. But faith sustains hope and charity, and these are the noblest of all the virtues, and the greatest of these is faith. So i don't have a great deal of time for people who debate the existence of God or whether their interpretation of Him is the correct one or whether their version of (what they claim to be) His laws when billions are starving or lack the basic stuffs to live and support their families.
(sorry i didn't mean to go on for quite that long!)
Edited by - Tawakalna on 10/4/2007 3:09:32 PM
Edited by - Tawakalna on 10/4/2007 3:22:20 PM
Wed Oct 03, 2007 10:26 am 
and Yes I still exist 