Saccharine Cyanide
One part sweet, two parts poison
@Saccharine Cyanide, well I'm certainly not going to argue with Stephen Hawking and expect to win, but what I lack in knowledge I make up for in bluster and volume so here goes. I must say I like that idea, and it's certainly not one I have heard or have thought of before, but again surely that's just to say that the cause is just outside our limited capacity to understand it.
Wasn't it Hawking himself to proposed that the universe is heading towards a big crunch, that the expansion which at one time seemed endless is slowing as the forces of "gravity" begin to overcome those that came from the creation of the universe (whether you call it god or the big bang, or believe they are one and the same) that sent matter spewing off into the endless vacuum?
Now, we will never know if this is true, any more than we'll get definitive answers to the many questions of god (at least not in any of our lifetimes) but his thinking was that when the universe is pulled back into proximity by those forces the pressure and temperatures will be so great as to cause the next big bang, ending time as we know it and starting a new frame of reference for people to argue about millions of years from now and RpN2.01000000. Who's to say that this isn't a cycle of cause and effect that has happened many times and will happen many more on a timescale that simply is beyond our comprehension?
Oh, and Charleen (tagging not working now for some reason) I'll worship in the flying spaghetti monster before I give up meat.
I actually went and found the documentary where Stephen Hawking describes all that stuff, so you don't have to take my word for it. : P
Hm, I don't actually know. I do know that time isn't infinite, and one day it will stop and everything will cease to exist. I guess there are a lot of theories about how the end of the universe might happen, but it's pretty agreed upon that time will no longer exist, just like it doesn't in a black hole.
My rebuttal is that if the Big Bang was caused by the death of another universe, what about the Big Bang in that universe? And before that? It would have to go back infinitesimally, and that still doesn't really leave any room for the existence of God.
Personally, I kind of hope that God doesn't exist. It's not out of hatred or pessimism or anything like that. I just don't want there to be a higher power that determines my meaning in life. I want to find my own, subjective meaning without worrying about some bigger plan that a god has set out for me. I'm happy to assume that this is my only life to live, too, because it makes every second so much more meaningful and precious.
