What he’s asking is where did it all come from. If you say the entire universe came from one exploding mass the size of a baseball, where did that baseball-sized mass come from and why did it explode? What do you call that original cause?
On his show, Bill always drew criticism for calling his religion of Catholicism a philosophy. I think his view is more like Deism as was many of USA’s founders. God is how we refer to that original cause and now you’re on your own. Don’t ask that cause for help. You’ve been given something and the rest is up to you.
What’s silly is saying people who wonder that question are silly, yet countless philosophers far smarter than most have philosophized about it for thousands of years. You can say it doesn’t matter, that you’d rather not consider the question, and that’s fine. But some people are deeper thinkers.
If you have the answer, mankind will either be eternally grateful or all commit suicide.
@epic @themactep@fosstodon.org
> where did that baseball-sized mass come from
As you formulated it, this *is* a valid question, but O'Reilly is *not* asking it.
How I see it, he's using a valid question from a viewer to apparently discredit the very concept that anything can be explained by science and force him into Deist reductionism.
In case of your question is "we don't know, yet". A hundred of years ago we didn't know a whole ton of things about the universe either, that we know today.
I used to watch Fox News and especially O'Reilly when it was on. This is just his personality, as you know. He tries to mediate, I think, between deep thinkers and the common man, and he oversimplifies. I can't defend him, but I appreciate him coming on to answer what were obvious comments on what he had said.
Science explains the *how*, but not the *why*, not even for what many consider the most simple things. For example, science can explain *how*, when you eat something, it becomes you in four to six hours. Science cannot yet say *why* that happens. I don't see how it ever will. The system works. Critters eat plants and each other and absorb the parts they need. What they discard out the other end is nutrients for the plants. Out of poop things grow, often beautiful things. The plants create oxygen which critters use, who they create carbon dioxide, nitrogen, etc., which the plants use.
One can ask *why* or one can say they don't care *why*, but saying people are silly for wondering why is silly itself.
@epic @themactep@fosstodon.org
The fundamental question is how do you define "why"? There simply may not be any deep and fundamental reason for most things other than law of physics combined with probability. I don't feel any discomfort without knowing all these "whys", quite they opposite, they open a whole lot of fields for exploration.
That's for scientists and philosophers. Some of the general public will say it simply doesn't matter. Others will adopt a philosophy, just as I wholeheartedly accepted that the moon came from a giant asteroid hitting the Earth. Done. I'm good. If the scientists and philosophers come up with a good "why" for anything, I'll listen, but up until now they don't have any answers.😀
It's 2:30 am for me and it's time to retire. Nice to meet you. I'm sure we'll speak again.