| From: Albert | 28/10/99
9:05:31 |
| Subject: God | post id:
3088 |
| Is there a god and if there is
how old is he? | |
| From: steve(primus) | 28/10/99
9:22:18 |
| Subject: re: God | post id:
3090 |
| If there is a god, why do you
presume that it is a "he"? | |
| From: Albert | 28/10/99
9:40:27 |
| Subject: re: God | post id:
3093 |
| Oh,sorry I didn't mean anything
by that (calling it he),I don't know why I wrote that, maybe it was
because the name God for we also have the name Goddess,but my questions
still apply. | |
| From: steve(primus) | 28/10/99
10:25:48 |
| Subject: re: God | post id:
3102 |
15 billion years minus a few minutes... | |
| From: steve(primus) | 28/10/99
10:37:32 |
| Subject: re: God | post id:
3104 |
| Which god are you talking about
Chris? The god of the Jews would be 5 or 6000 years old. The god of the
Christians has his 2000th birthday next year, the god of Islam is about
1500 years old, and for the gods of the fundamentalist bigots in the USA
we can blame Martin Luther for the origins but some are very young having
been created recently for tax purposes. Then there are all the dead ones,
or effectively dead - Ba'al, Zeus, Wotan, Jupiter etc etc. If your god is eternal then it would have to precede the big bang and still be there after the big crunch or whatever. But there are so many gods, all of which are eternal, that it must have been pretty crowded before the big bang. At least it answers the question "what is the universe expanding into?" One could always claim "a plethora of gods". | |
| From: Guesty | 28/10/99
10:51:22 |
| Subject: re: God | post id:
3111 |
I'm talking about the one true God. Shehe is logically precluded from creating and then interacting with the same universe. Since evidence of God's existence surrounds us (;o) I am forced to accept that Heshe came into existence a few minutes after the big bang, rather than the week before (as most B-thumpers usually proclaim). By the way, Herhis name is Cyril. (I'm told). | |
| From: Guesty | 28/10/99
11:33:15 |
| Subject: re: God | post id:
3142 |
| In regards to your theory as to
when "god" came into existance.Firstly, ask what is "god" is it the mass
sub conscience and when we die we become part of this sub conscience due
to the fact that we are beings made from energy and energy cannot be
destroyed once created only changed.So to answer the question re: god wait
and see | |
| From: Alan | 28/10/99
18:07:15 |
| Subject: re: God | post id:
3320 |
| If God was a female, wouldn't she
a goddess rather than a God? Mind you I'm an atheist so I couldn't care
less. | |
| From: Cam | 29/10/99
1:47:41 |
| Subject: re: God | post id:
3466 |
| Shehe is logically precluded from
creating and then interacting with the same universe. Can we have a law or a set of laws that describe this? If there aren't any, make some up! | |
| From: Dr. Ed G (Avatar) | 29/10/99
3:02:53 |
| Subject: re: God | post id:
3475 |
| Just though I'd add this snipet
from William S. Burroughs which provides minor departure from the usual
direction of "Does God exist" debates... "Consider the One God Universe: OGU. The spirit recoils in horror from such a deadly impasse. He is all-powerful and all-knowing. Because He can do everything, He can do nothing, since the act of doing demands opposition. He knows everything so there is nothing for him to learn. He can't go anywhere since He is already $%#*%* everywhere, like cow%*$# in Calcutta. The OGU is a pre-recorded universe of which He is the recorder. It's a flat, thermodynamic universe, since it has no friction by definition. So he invents friction and conflict, pain, fear, sickness, famine, war, old age, Death. His OGU is running down like an old clock..." | |
| From: damo | 29/10/99
10:21:17 |
| Subject: re: God | post id:
3518 |
Sure. The universe is causally bound, ie space and time are bound within the universe. If god creates the universe, then god causes the universe (which is a problem in itself - how do you cause something that is causally bound?*) Let's instead say god exists "before" the universe. Now this statement doesn't make a lot of sense since time doesn't linearly recede back past the big bang. The only other way to interpret this is to say god exists outside the bound time of the universe. But nothing outside the universe can interact with the universe because of it being causally bound. So god exists outside the universe and makes it** and then never interacts with it again, or god exists inside the universe but then can't have created it. Chris * The outlet here is that our understanding of causation is not necessarily complete. It doesn't seem to obey the same rules at the quantum scale. Of course the creation scientists are quite aware of this and use it as definitive proof that mainstream science is hogwash and god does whatever he/she likes. That is, in the end, the ultimate religious answer - god has a get out of gaol free card: she/he is not falsifiable. However I find it hard to reconcile an unknowable god with a knowable universe. If god can just do whatever he/she likes and bugger the laws of physics, then how come we can come to know the laws of physics? (Apart from the obvious "Only God knows, we must trust His wisdom" mantra). Sure we don't know everything, but we know a hell of a lot and there isn't really a reason why we should anything at all (paraphrasing Albert E). ** There are two possibilities here that I can think of. One - god doesn't have his/her own pocket of space-time, just exists "outside". This god creates the universe accidentally (shall we say "randomly"?) and probably doesn't even notice. Presto! - quantum physics is born. The other possibility is that god does exist in another pocket of space-time - another universe. This universe may have spawned as a daughter universe of the other. If the mechanism of spawning is a black hole in the mother universe (now causally separate) then our "god" is revealed as either (a)a dead star, (b)a galactic core or even (c)some mad particle physicist(s) working in an accelerator the size of our solar system who got too drunk at the lab christmas party and wanted to show off a huge collision to some girls/guys that they were hoping to get into bed. Which really puts the whole worship - and in particular celibacy - thing in perspective! Especially since none of the above possibilities are even aware of us at all! | |
| From: damo | 29/10/99
14:41:13 |
| Subject: re: God | post id:
3578 |
| Hi all, we can only answer this for ourselves. And as thinking people, we should not be swayed/intimidated into a line of thought by others. However, the universe is a construct of at least 15 (?) dimensions. Is there no capability of a consciousness of the universe to exist within the n-dimensional planes of some of these 15 dimensions. Can we actually measure the path of a photon as it travels past a gravitational potential well in the fabric of space time. We can measure the gravitational effect of it slowing, and apparently consider its path from its source to our observational platform. Where does it go when it slows down, that C is an apparent universal constant. Likely travels along a path interacting with other dimensions of the universe we can not perceive. (But some can imagine) God as a construct may be a level of control of some over others, it may be a expression of a consciousness we need to touch to develop an enlightened view of how to treat each other. Personally, I think that a god exists and has existed from time before the 'Big Bang' (when we as thinking beings perceived time to begin for 'our' universe. The God wrote the laws of physics for behaviour of things, and then set up a universe and allowed Evolution (Indeed, likely commanded evolution) to see whether someone or something (someone is good enough, as non thinking sentients have not mastered QM as a species, yet) developed to make use of the laws of nature. People can argue over the existence of gods and to the usefulness of gods to a species, but with knowledge being advanced day by day, with much of it pointing to the thought, 'gee this universe is a beautiful entity' maybe the gods we seek is just the consciousness of the universe and we seek understanding of the universe so to be more illumined ourselves. Paul | |
| From: damo | 29/10/99
17:59:47 |
| Subject: re: God | post id:
3637 |
| steve you were refering to prophets right? islam and christianity have the same god, different names and islam and another prophet | |
| From: Matt | 29/10/99
19:31:19 |
| Subject: re: God | post id:
3651 |
| I am coming from basically the
same position as Dr Paul, but for the unbelievers are there any
suggestions as to what is unrefutable scientific "evidence" for the
existence of God. For example some suggest that Gödel's theorem is one -
ie the inconsistency or imcompleteness implies that there is a God.
| |
| From: Matt | 29/10/99
19:31:57 |
| Subject: re: God | post id:
3652 |
| I am coming from basically the
same position as Dr Paul, but for the unbelievers are there any
suggestions as to what is unrefutable scientific "evidence" for the
existence of God. For example some suggest that Gödel's theorem is one -
ie the inconsistency or imcompleteness implies that there is a God. Or likewise - can anyone prove there isn't a God? | |
| From: Artos | 30/10/99
3:46:42 |
| Subject: re: God | post id:
3694 |
| However,
the universe is a construct of at least 15 (?)
dimensions. Prove it. | |
| From: Artos | 30/10/99
14:13:02 |
| Subject: re: God | post id:
3729 |
| Or likewise -
can anyone prove there isn't a God? No, but if you believed in everything whose non-existence cannot be strictly proven, you would wind up believing a lot of mutually contradictory things. e.g. It can't be proven that it is not true that commiting murder will make you go to hell. On the other hand, it can't be proven that it is not true that commiting murder will make you go to heaven. How can we whittle down this endless list of things to believe. One way is to require evidence. | |
| From: Artos | 31/10/99
14:37:53 |
| Subject: re: God | post id:
3898 |
| Who can say whence came the
Universe? Who here will proclaim whence came the Cosmos, whence came Creation? The Gods know not, they came after the Creation; therefore, who will proclaim whence came the Universe? Only He knows, He who surveys it all from the lofty Sky - or, perhaps, He knows not. - Bhagavad Gita | |
| From: Jim | 2/11/99
16:51:11 |
| Subject: re: God | post id:
4331 |
| Hi all, thinking on this thread, hmmm..... we are a selfish lot all right. I can not prove what I am about to say as neither the physics nor the technology is present, and maybe never will be. How do we define the 'universe'. What we think we can perceive. What is beyond the universe? What we can not get to. The Universe may or may not be unfolding around itself, but what is the arguement that the sector of the (as it has been placed in another thread) Omniverse is not one small part of an object OF space that is far larger. The Big Bang (as it is called) would be then a local (to 'our' universal space/time frame of reference) event. This would make the n-dimensional polypiped that is the omniverse much larger. We seem to be taking for granted the only space or phenomena occurring in the n-dimensional polypiped are our own. Maybe some of us need to be more humble and consider that although we are a lonely (at present) planet in the big vast voice of our space/time frame of reference, maybe our space/time frame of reference is just one part of something MUCH larger and more n-dimensional, into which we expand. What we see behind the apparent leading edge of the Big Bang remnant is just our mixing into other parts. Just two cents worth of Species humility Paul | |