Worldviews - Turtles all the way down
Joe Carter has a great summary of the beliefs of an evangelical christian. Although some may disagree with some of the calvinist beliefs, I think this is more of a lack of clarification of what those beliefs really mean. It is definitely worth checking out.

Joe starts with an interesting illustration that is worth looking at from Stephen Hawkings 'A Brief History of Time'

He described how the earth orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the centre of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy.

At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said: "What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise."

The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, "What is the tortoise standing on?"

"You're very clever, young man, very clever," said the old lady. "But it's turtles all the way down."

There are actually quite a few pages in that same book that seek to show why big bang is not a belief on par with turtles going all the way down. Stephen Hawking never really comes to a clear conclusion as to why it isn't.

The belief that the universe has a beginning creates the question as to what caused the universe. Which brings us back to the Kalam Cosmological Argument. I.e. There must be an uncaused cause, and this cause must not have a beginning (so at to not require a cause). This is why theism, or deism is much better as the default belief, as other worldviews continue to have the problem of turtles all the way down.
- posted by Alan Grey @ Tuesday, September 13, 2005