Sure signs that you're going batshit insane

[Cbarton]

He he he....I've done that. 🙂

Sadistic - I've immersed myself in the study and conceptualizing of a hyper-dimensional universe. In fact, the number of physicists that still adhere to a strict 3-dimensional universe is shrinking rapidly, forming a minority now. Most of the universe and the forces therein simply can't exist in only 3 dimensions. And, just to be nit-picky 'cuz it makes me happy in my black little heart...we don't exist in "the 3rd dimension", we exist simultaneously in all three that we can measure.

Additionally, the "2-dimensional piece of paper" is actually 3-dimensional, it's just that its height (y-axis measurement) while lying flat is very small relative to you as an observer. Relative to a hydrogen atom, it's taller than a million Empire State Buildings.

Wanna try something neat to really make a 2-dimensional, one-sided piece of paper? Take a strip of paper about 10 inches long and maybe an inch wide. On one side, draw a blue line from end to end up the center. On the other, draw a red one. Now, pick up the piece, give it a half-twist and then join the ends together with a piece of tape. You'll see the blue and red lines meet. The paper has only "one side". It's called a Mobius Strip and it's used to demonstrate dimensional perspective. Of course, it's only a visual aid to help get your head around it. At any given point on the strip, you have 3 dimensions, but the strip as a whole could be said to be one-sided, or two dimensional.

Learning is Phun! 🙂

If you want an old look at dealing with multiple dimensions, find and read a copy of the book "Flatland" by Edwin Abbott. He was a mathematician from the days of Pascal, etc. Great insight.

For me and some others, the concept of the dimension of 'time' shows the eternity of God's existence. Think of time as a string that we are walking along. We can only follow the string forward. To God, since He is eternal, the 'string' of our time is suspended/floating in the air and He can look at any part of the string at any time He chooses. He can see all of it at once, whereas all we are able to do is see the part of the string we are on right now, and cannot move backward on it. Rob Bell's DVD "Everything is Spiritual" illustrates it much better than I can describe in text.

 

[Dave2112]

Well, I guess that's one possibility.

Believe it or not, as scientific a person as I am, and as anti-organized-religion as I am, I'm extremely open to the idea of spirituality in combination with science. I guess I'm what you'd call an "open-minded Agnostic". I actually do believe in something that most people would call "God", I just don't try or claim to understand him/her/it/them. The possibility that some sentient being or force beyond our comprehension is responsible for the concepts we cannot understand does cross my mind and I don't throw it to the side outright.

Anything's possible in a multi-dimensional universe. 🙂

 

[PurpleStyle]

As a future astrophysicist, I have to butt in and complain that there's no proof of anything beyond 3-dimensional space. You can't test string theory, just like you can't test for proof of god. It's pointless speculation from a scientific standpoint. I can claim to believe in a diety, lets call it the Invisible Pink Unicorn. I have faith that the unicorn is pink, but I know it's invisible because I can't see. You cannot prove neither of those assumptions are wrong.

Here's the problem. When you get down to the core of everything, saying that you can't "prove" anything, you have to start making assumptions. I only make two assumptions pertaining to science and the universe.

1. We live in a universe.
2. We can learn something about it.

Here is my relevance for assumptions that god/string theory doesn't exist. We can only know what we observe. We have observed evolution (I can link you to peer review literature on "observed speciation" if you'd like 😉 ), We have observed remnants of the big bang (cosmic microwave background radiation shows a distribution of radiation amongst the universe shortly after it was created; it looks quite uniform, check wikipedia and see the WMAP) and we have observed radioactive decay on the earth showing that it's over 4 billion years old (argon-argon dating).

Has anybody witnessed another dimension beyond space-time? Has anybody witnessed a god making a universe? I'm sorry if my post pisses on anybody's parade, but when you start delving into the hypothetical and forgetting to mention that it's hypothetical, people start believing incomplete/false data. That is a danger inherent to things like string theory. The math is sound yes, but there is absolutely no proof of it whatsoever. It's as if I took a random math equation (10 - 5 = 2) and postulated that 5 = 8. The math is sound in that particular context. I apologize if that seems an oversimplified explanation - but that's exactly what it is. 😉

If you're wondering why I'm so buggered about it, it's because I believe in doing things correctly. If you want people to take your "assumptions" about the universe seriously, they have to be put through the rigors of testing at the hands of the scientific community. They are ruthlessly good at separating the wheat from the chaff.

 

[Journia]

I know one thing that Science does state. Things were created. And so, there must have been a creating force behind this creation. And I don't go so far to say things about this creative force, however, some would call it God, Allah, Yahweh, Krishan or Vishnu, or the glying spaghetti monster, I'm just going to say, "The Creator" because whatever it may have been and is, it may have even been an organization of energy, it was still what created everything, and so, "Creator"

 

[PurpleStyle]

I know one thing that Science does state. Things were created. And so, there must have been a creating force behind this creation. And I don't go so far to say things about this creative force, however, some would call it God, Allah, Yahweh, Krishan or Vishnu, or the glying spaghetti monster, I'm just going to say, "The Creator" because whatever it may have been and is, it may have even been an organization of energy, it was still what created everything, and so, "Creator"

Generally, nobody is arguing that there was some form of creative force. If not to create the universe, then to atleast get matter going. But the speculation lies in whether or not that creative force is an intelligent being or not. In that case, I would have to argue that the creative force behind reality is not intelligent. Look at the imperfect society we function in, living on an imperfect world, inside in an imperfect solar system, within an imperfect galaxy, contained in a vastly large but vastly imperfect universe. I would not attribute the horrors of man and seemingly-accidental horrors of nature to an intelligent creator.

My particular belief is the big bang was that creative force. How batshit insane is that? 😉

Here's another batshit insane belief of mine. I fully believe that there is life existing in the universe besides the life on earth. Look at the planets and moons contained within our solar system. There are 2 prime examples of conditions favorable, but not completely favorable to life. You have mars, which contains organic material, and H2O. The atmosphere however is severely lacking. On the other end of the spectrum, you have a moon of Saturn, called Titan. It has a wonderfully thick atmosphere, and organic material, and even liquid on the surface of it. There is rain and vast lakes. However, the rain and lakes are methane/ethane. Mars and Titan both have excellent prebiotic conditions that make me feel very hopeful in the search for extra-terrestrial life, and possible terraforming in the future.

 

[Rox_My_Sox1]

When you know your insane huh? Okay, I'll bite:

#1: If you feel any president with a last name of Bush did an adequate job of running this nation.

#2: If you think there is nothing wrong with Yoda's vocabulary.

 

[Journia]

Great use of Bush, Yoda Grammatical Structure is...

 

[HXCkid]

Hmmm your right from a scientific standpoint i dont think God can be proven to exist. (at least not yet.) but I think from a scientific standpoint it should at least be 50/50, im not saying theres a flying spaghetti monster in the sky, or that a big bearded benevolent guy in a toga is watching us all preparing to chuck thunderbolts at sinners, but I do beleive theirs things in the universe we dont understand but we instinctively know. This gets into a whole big thing about scientific theory, because when its theory its open to debate. Im not big on religion but Purple your concept of "imperfection" in the universe is debatable cause you really dont know what perfect is, nor do I, nor does anyone. If something bad happens to someone its cause and effect but I think the nature of cause effect in that of itself merits the idea that the driving force behind the universe IS intelligent. Basically we dont know if the universe would be shittier or not if things were done differently, its an extremely fragile balancing act if you think about it and its a miracle in that of itself that reality even holds together to such a strict set of specefic laws. The symmetry is too perfect, not too mention the force behind the "third dimension" is the only possible explanation for the big bang, assuming there was nothing before that, then an outside catalyst would have had to have taken an "initiative" and start it off. It just doesnt make sense imo to think that the entire universe is one big accident that happens to work perfectly with an infinitely complex set of rules that I think its humanities job to understand. At the very least theres plenty of evidence of paranormal phenominon in my oppinion, and theres just too much "symmetry" in things for me to disregard the possibility of an intelligent creative force.

 

[PurpleStyle]

First, those rules of the universe are not infinitely complex or perfect at all. They are highly flawed and explained with the four fundamental forces of nature. I don't understand what you're getting at with the symmetry argument. The "symmetry" of space-time? Or the simple symmetry of geometric shapes of stars and planets? The "symmetry" of both is easily explained and destroyed. When you begin delving into the very fast and the very small (special relativity 😉 ) the "symmetry" begins to break down.

There are two ways to create an effect called "time dilation", which is the observed changing of 'time flow'. Time dilation is a phenomenon where one observer's clock notices another's clock is physically ticking slower. This is not BS science fiction, btw. I can cite several experiences of time dilation - including our GPS satellites.

Extremely high-speed velocities, and approaching a black hole (the matter of a hypergiant (star much, much bigger than the sun) with its mass densely packed into an area smaller than the head of a pin.) are ways to cause time dilation.

http://www.astronomy.ohio-state.edu/~pogge/Ast162/Unit5/gps.html

As for the symmetry of objects in space, gravity is the key player in that role. Objects with low mass typically do not have spherical shapes. For example, the Martian moons Phobos and Deimos. On a more grand scale, you have irregular galaxies such as NGC 1427A, Pegasus, and Sagittarius.

The concept behind perfection is simple: without flaws. In this universe, nothing exists without flaw. From an "intelligent creator" standpoint, the universe and it's physical laws are highly flawed. If I was in charge of creating and managing a universe, star formation would be better than 3%. Humanity would also not deal with the environmental atrocities it deals with today.

If I was a being with so-called infinite power and intelligence, I could simply snap my fingers and change all of reality to fit within the scope of my ideas. Star formation would be 100%, of course I would have to feed new matter into all the billions of galaxies to continue creating stars - but this would be a simple task for my infinite might, again just as easy as snapping my fingers. I can speculate relentlessly on how "easy" it would be to make a perfect universe if I was given infinite control and wisdom over the whole of reality itself.

I just had a thought, you know, there is irrefutable proof that the universe is several billion years old. Otherwise, we wouldn't be able to detect this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A1689-zD1
It is approximately 12.8 billion light years away. What that means is, it takes 12.8 billion years for the light from that galaxy to reach us.

 

[HXCkid]

Like i said before, the concept of "imperfection" is really complex, one needs examples. Like for instance, what would be a better way to do things in the universe? If you change one law then they all get altered eventually, you may not think the laws of space and time are complex, (And i heard of time dilation before) but I definetly think they are, every law is interconnected, you need a source to create a chemical reaction, then stimuli, then the effect happens, theres an infinite amount of examples of how one can alter the physical world through manipulation of the natural laws. (What human beings have been doing since the beginning of time.) My point is that all these highly specefic subtle nuanced rules suggest some sort of sentience imo and that "Symmetry" I was talking about was more metaphorical than anything else, I was not being literal since the universe is not literally symetrical but I was referring to the way things work, cause and effect. As an example well bring up the problem that organic matter "dies" and of course "If God was so smart, why do we all die?" well number 1 we dont know if anyone truely "dies" and number 2 if everything that was ever born never died, well the universe not too mention the planet would be a hell of a lot more crowded. (I realize the universe is constantly expanding however) This is just an example though, but lets go further, what if the chemical reactions needed to make a hurricane were suddenly null? Yay no more typhoons and houses torn open like match boxes, but wait now the planets cycle is all fucked up, and things arent getting as much travel. (Pollen, spores etc) And then since the ocean would no doubt be colder plenty of fish would die. (Some would adapt of course) but do you see the point im trying to convey? If the universe is "imperfect" then what is "perfection"?

 

[Dave2112]

Oh, I completely agree that a multi-dimensional universe is pure mathematical speculation at this point. Maybe some do...but I know I've never claimed it as fact. Personally, I do believe it. But able to prove it? No, at least not yet. Things point in that direction, but it's not proof.

And I completely understand your explanation of following the data, and "making the math fit". Equations are only as good as the input.

All of that being said, I still believe it is important to search for those facts...to follow the suppositions that, at the moment, make at least some sense and see where they lead. Many times, we find ourselves scratching our heads and going "Ok, we fucked up somewhere, this isn't working." But, it keeps us looking. That's what makes us human...the never-ending quest for knowledge and understanding.

Many things we accept now, that we know as truth, were at one time specualtion with no proof. But, it doesn't stop us from looking. I think that's the most important thing for any scientifically-minded individual. The ability to accept that the outcome you wanted isn't going to happen. And to try other things. You're gonna be wrong probably a hundred more times that you're gonna be right.

I still stand by my assertion that time doesn't exist, at least not as most people understand it. I've often asked people to prove that it does...and it's harder than one would think. Most people fall back on the claim that clocks measure time, therefore it must exist. Well, anyone who stops and thinks about will realize that all clocks measure is how far the hands move. If you change one of the small gears to a different size, the clock still works, but measures differently. Has time changed? No, only the representation of it by an innacurate clock. Same with digital. Even the guy who runs the department where the atomic clock in Colorado is housed has been quoted as saying "this thing doesn't measure anything, just sets a standard."

 

[Cbarton]

Dave, your thoughts give the concept of infinity and eternity a whole new scope. If ever the opportunity occurs in heaven, my top entry on the "Questions you always wanted to ask God" list is simply, from the aspect of the human knowledge of 'life, the universe, and everything', how close were we to even being correct? I can in my imagination sometimes see Him nodding his head saying, "YES! They finally figured out how (insert theory or concept) works!" or shaking His head and laughing thinking, "When will they ever figure that one out?"

Dave, do you feel (as I do) that some people get so wrapped up in the concept of measuring time that they lose all grasp of the perspective of time? To me, if they suddenly decided that minutes should contain 37 seconds and hours 42 minutes, etc, etc, to me it makes little difference. Solar Calendar? Lunar Calendar? Loony Calendar? Could care less in the long run. My 21 years of marriage and 14 years as a parent are but blips on the screen it feels already. My daughter will be 13 in mere months. The clocks keep ticking, but they are rather meaningless in the total scope of things.

Purple, you are as religiously devoted to your astrophysics as I am to Christ, it seems. To me, the laws of physics matter little. How specifically life happened on this big floating ball of rock and water, how the fabric of space it sits in came to be matters very little. My entire world view is from an eternal perspective. By faith, you believe your M.S.'s and PhD's feeding you their ideas, theorems and 'proofs' and your calculations. By faith, I believe "In the beginning, God..." To me it matters little how He did it. Like the T-shirt says, it may been 'Big Bang" (God said "let there be light and BANG! There was light!). He may have done it in other ways. What does it matter? I know He made it, is in control and that He knows what He is doing. I just sit in awe looking at the stars or the pics from the Hubble and hear the old lyrics from the hymnal "When I in awesome wonder consider all worlds Thy hands have made!"

As per the scientific method, you'll never be able to prove how it happened because there is no way to reproduce it. And that may frustrate you and your colleagues to no end, which only makes them work harder. Which is good. The problem is too many are seeking to prove their answers are correct instead of determining if their questions are correct. To steal a quote from Dr. Stephen Covey, nothing sadder than to see people hack their way through the jungle only to find out they were in the wrong jungle.

 

[Dave2112]

Just so it's been said, 'cuz I've seen this one start this way before...let's all respect each other's beliefs and approaches to the mysteries of the universe. 🙂

Someone once said "Science is just figuring out what God already knows." Might be some truth to that, who knows? Like I said, and I speak only for myself here, I'm fully able to comprehend a universe created by...something sentient. God? Maybe. But maybe not in the way most people think of.

To answer your question, though...yes. I do think people get too wrapped up in measuring time. But, for the purposes of the things we need to do, it's a neccesity. Even if the "thing" we're measuring isn't even there. What you described, the years rolling by faster than you'd like, is exactly how Einstein explained relativity in its simplest terms. He always believed that any physical theory or law should be able to be explained to a child, rather than only by equations. His simplest explanation of time relativity was "If you hold your hand on a hot stove for a second, it seems like an hour. If you talk with a pretty girl for an hour, it seems like a second."

We should never stop looking for answers, though. And even those without degrees or papers hanging on the wall often have a lot of insight and things to share and say, to seek and find. Again to quote Einstein (who was never impressed by degrees), "Wisdom and knowledge are not found in schooling, but by the lifetime pursuit of it." One of my favorite quotes.

So, as we possibly continue this strange topic, hopefully we can remember that faith and science can co-exist. One does not cancel out the other. And that's coming from an Agnostic. 😉

 

[sadi]

He he he....I've done that. 🙂

Sadistic - I've immersed myself in the study and conceptualizing of a hyper-dimensional universe. In fact, the number of physicists that still adhere to a strict 3-dimensional universe is shrinking rapidly, forming a minority now. Most of the universe and the forces therein simply can't exist in only 3 dimensions. And, just to be nit-picky 'cuz it makes me happy in my black little heart...we don't exist in "the 3rd dimension", we exist simultaneously in all three that we can measure.

Additionally, the "2-dimensional piece of paper" is actually 3-dimensional, it's just that its height (y-axis measurement) while lying flat is very small relative to you as an observer. Relative to a hydrogen atom, it's taller than a million Empire State Buildings.

Wanna try something neat to really make a 2-dimensional, one-sided piece of paper? Take a strip of paper about 10 inches long and maybe an inch wide. On one side, draw a blue line from end to end up the center. On the other, draw a red one. Now, pick up the piece, give it a half-twist and then join the ends together with a piece of tape. You'll see the blue and red lines meet. The paper has only "one side". It's called a Mobius Strip and it's used to demonstrate dimensional perspective. Of course, it's only a visual aid to help get your head around it. At any given point on the strip, you have 3 dimensions, but the strip as a whole could be said to be one-sided, or two dimensional.

Learning is Phun! 🙂

Oh, I know paper isn't 2D. Sorry for the misinterpretation but I was trying to use a piece of paper as an example of a strictly two dimensional plane of being incapable for us to witness (let alone accurately) in reality. And yes, I've seen that used as an example before, though I didn't remember the name of what it demonstrated was called. :huh

 

[Rox_My_Sox1]

It is approximately 12.8 billion light years away. What that means is, it takes 12.8 billion years for the light from that galaxy to reach us.

o_0...wow...the sentients in that galaxy must really know how to party...they've had at least 12.8 billion years of practice time! :lol

 

[PurpleStyle]

I still stand by my assertion that time doesn't exist, at least not as most people understand it. I've often asked people to prove that it does...and it's harder than one would think.

I don't need a clock to tell you time exists. Time dilation took care of that for me. I can't help but notice that ""little tidbit"" was completely ignored.

Purple, you are as religiously devoted to your astrophysics as I am to Christ, it seems. To me, the laws of physics matter little. How specifically life happened on this big floating ball of rock and water, how the fabric of space it sits in came to be matters very little. My entire world view is from an eternal perspective. By faith, you believe your M.S.'s and PhD's feeding you their ideas, theorems and 'proofs' and your calculations. By faith, I believe "In the beginning, God..." To me it matters little how He did it. Like the T-shirt says, it may been 'Big Bang" (God said "let there be light and BANG! There was light!). He may have done it in other ways. What does it matter? I know He made it, is in control and that He knows what He is doing. I just sit in awe looking at the stars or the pics from the Hubble and hear the old lyrics from the hymnal "When I in awesome wonder consider all worlds Thy hands have made!"

As per the scientific method, you'll never be able to prove how it happened because there is no way to reproduce it. And that may frustrate you and your colleagues to no end, which only makes them work harder. Which is good. The problem is too many are seeking to prove their answers are correct instead of determining if their questions are correct. To steal a quote from Dr. Stephen Covey, nothing sadder than to see people hack their way through the jungle only to find out they were in the wrong jungle.

I've explained to you several times that I, in fact, do not go by faith. I believe nothing anybody tells me unless I can work out the details for it myself. You seem to be conflating my education for outright believing everything anybody with a PHD tells me.

The fact that you assert that and say that "physics don't matter", and that "I know god did this this and that" is ironic. Ten seconds on wikipedia has found that "Dr" Stephen Covey is a "doctor of religious education". If they exist, I'd absolutely love to read any papers he's published in peer review literature. :lol

It completely matters how the fundamental forces work. There is absolutely no proof of any kind of intelligent being them. It also matters how life began on this rock because understanding the origins of life will give us greater insight into recreating/sustaining life outside of the planet! As I've pointed out in some earlier posts, there are two worlds of particular interest to me: Mars and the moon Titan. These will prove to be excellent testing grounds in the future; if not for the possibility of terra-forming them, at least understanding the prebiotic conditions of a planet with organic material on it.

The sooner we further our grasp on the natural realm, the sooner we can leave this rock once it becomes uninhabitable. Yes, the Earth will not be habitable forever. Seeing as I care about the human race, this matters to me. I would like to aid humanity in saving itself from annihilation because I believe we have the potential to reach far beyond what we have achieved today. This in no way thanks to the christians who burned down libraries, killed witches, and patiently wait for the "rapture" because they believed knowledge is evil/pointless. I am not willing to take the chance of there being a supernatural creator of the universe, because his track record as our supposed keeper is terrible.

I can't help but notice that he also promotes:

-Global infanticide (see Genesis 7:21-23 in your bible 😉 )
-Killing people with sexual fetishes (see Genesis 18 in that same bible 😉 )


I'd like to engage in some 'pointless' quote mining of my own:

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." ~Edmund Burke.

To sum up everything I've said, I stand for the progress of humanity. Religion inhibits it. Under the thumb of religious rule, progress had essentially not existed for thousands of years. We have achieved more since the renaissance and birth of the United States than the whole of humanity had achieved thousands of years beforehand.

Note also that I've never pretended, or ever said that I know, or will ever know how the universe began. I am satisfied with the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation for my belief of the beginning of the universe as the big bang. This is because I understand the CMBR. Before I understood the CMBR, I did not fully believe the big bang. It took my personal quest of furthering my knowledge to uncover that detail. The reason I ""cling"" to my ""beliefs"" so strongly is because they stand on their academic merits. It's frightening to think people give themselves over completely to an idea that has no physical evidence at all.

So, as we possibly continue this strange topic, hopefully we can remember that faith and science can co-exist. One does not cancel out the other. And that's coming from an Agnostic. 😉

That's the kind of answer I'd expect from an agnostic. Faith and applying science to it is a dangerous concoction. An example of that danger is our missing World Trade Center.




-----
JUST FOR FUN, let's propose that god exists and can be explained with science, and that multiple dimensions beyond 3 exist. The idea of a science-explained god would actually require multiple dimensions and universes!

What is god? God, as far as we know from the explanation of christianity, is a supreme supernatural being of infinite power. In order to have infinite power, you must have infinite mass. Thus, the first explanation of god is a failure, because a being of infinite mass and infinite energy would fuse into a star and then collapse into a black holer bigger than the entire imagined "multiverse" that contains every separate universe, thus completely erasing reality and forcing into a singularity. Hey, that's an interesting idea for "before the big bang" 😉.

But let's move on. In order for that god to survive and not destroy the whole of reality itself, he would need a way to channel that inifinte mass into something besides himself. This is where multiple dimensions come into play. God now has an infinite number of space-time matter bridges leaking into the ever-infinite multiple universes that are not our own, for which he channels that infinite mass, thus allowing him to safely exist in our own reality.

This presents us with another problem: space-time matter bridges are inherently unstable and cause the ripping open of space-time and introducing exotic particles into our own universe. This is very very very very bad; because everywhere that god goes in our universe, he is essentially tearing a hole into our space-time and slowly increasing the entropy of the entire universe. This would cause god to destroy our entire solar system the moment he even ventures nearby. :lol

 

[captivatinglitz]

the tungsten needle just exploded my brain... :lol

 

[Dave2112]

I think you're confusing my statement on allowing faith and science to co-exist as being applied to myself. I was speaking mostly of others and the hope that this conversation doesn't become a debate of one versus the other. For myself, I don't rely on faith for anything. I"m simply open to the possibility of an intelligence behind things we don't understand or can't explain. That's why I consider myself an agnostic rather than an atheist. To say emphatically that something exists purely on faith with no desire to even seek proof, knowledge or anything else is pretty empty and easy. BUT...to emphatically state that something DOESN'T exist just because there's no proof yet is just as stubborn. You gotta keep yourself open to all possibilities.

If you guys wanna go head-to-head over "Everything's from God" vs. "Everything's Science", knock yourselves out. Just please leave me out of it. Something I said was quoted as being "the kind of answer I'd expect from an Agnostic". I wasn't giving an answer. Nor do I ever try and shove my approaches down anyone's throat or try and change them or "win them to my side". All I can talk about is how I see things, and claim it as neither right nor wrong. If someone wants to believe everything was breathed into existence by a creator, it doesn't affect me. It won't make me think that way, no matter how much someone might try, but it doesn't bother me. Same with absolute disavowel of an intelligent force. If that's what you think, have at it. Doesn't bother me a bit.

I believe in Balance. Always have. Open mind, open heart and open possibilities. I enjoy the scientific because I can quantify it, it interests me and I'm capable of understanding it...and willing to push it farther, ask questions of it and seek answers. It's not a belief system for me, it's an interest. I have no religion. Note I never used the word. I abhor religion. If you had any clue how much...however, being open to possibilities you can't understand isn't a religion, it's a mindset.

Finally, I didn't "ignore" your explanation of time dilation, I was just stating something I think. Time dilation's a distinct possibility...I just don't think it explains everything and cements time as a reality. You do. That's cool. I wasn't trying to prove anything, therefore I didn't purposely leave anything out. You don't have anything to prove to me, it was never an arguement. Just the fact that people are thinking, looking for things, is good to me. Arguing about it is enough to drive you batshit insane. 🙂

 

[Dave2112]

Addendum. Just purely out of curiosity here, as I don't believe in "God" as explained by Christians or religion in general. But, from a scientific standpoint, something Purple said has got me thinking.

"A god with infinite power would have to have infinite mass."

Why?

The hypothetical "power to alter the outcome" of something, say. A power like that. Or the assumed power that God can hear your thoughts. Shit like that. Why would that require infinite mass?

Again, I'm just curious as to your reasoning, not trying to get into the "god" thing.

 

[Slaver123]

Ever read "Just Six Numbers: The Deep Forces That Shape the Universe" by Martin Rees?

Awesome book. (About various numbers like the gravitational constant etc) this book elegantly shows how the universe MUST be this huge and this ancient to support life.

One of the things that nudged me towards believing in God/Creator again, but not Creationist propoganda at all

 

[Cbarton]

PurpleStyle, I never claimed that Dr. Covey was a PhD in anything dealing with earth or life science. I quoted him from that great "Scientific" tome, "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People" when he separates "Leadership" from "Management". That quote applies to many areas of life when people lose perspective on what they are doing.

And yes, Christianity has created such massive repression, such as The Great Awakening (a world-wide revival that made the Industrial Revolution possible), the end of slavery in Britain and the US (a large majority of the abolitionists in the US came from the Church (the Quakers spearheading the movement), and read the biography of William Wilberforce for how his faith lead his lifelong crusade), and the Civil Rights Movement (oh, I guess that being Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr was just a coincidence?).

Have people used God and Christ for wrong reasons and for selfish gain? Yup?
Have Islamics? Yup.
Buddists, Hindus, or (insert religion here)? Yup.

That's what happens with humans having free will. They do wrong things. I've also seen them do such a thing with science. After all, wasn't Hitler's Nazism and "Master Race" nothing more than a form of the Eugenics Movement? The experiments in the concentration camps by the Germans in WWII on twins? And no, I am not equating astrophysics with Nazism before you fly off the handle. I am pointing out that all areas of life are capable of doing wrong.

Genesis 7 refers to the Noahic flood. Calling that "global infanticide" is a bit off. Man had become totally evil and God chose to wipe the slate clean, starting over with 8 people, Noah, his wife, their sons (Shem, Ham, Japeth), and their wives. Besides, about 90% of all cultures include a global flood in their ancient histories. God and Noah gave people a choice. They chose not to believe and suffered the ultimate result of their mistake.

Genesis 18 and 19 refers to Sodom and Gomorrah. In the ancient texts, those two cities where known for their horrid treatment of any visitors that stayed in those towns. It was called gang-rape. Now, in your view, being gang-raped by men in a strange town until dawn or you were dead may sound like fun to you, but it was an ultimate evil. Gender made no difference to them.
(to any here that are gay, my next few sentences may come off as homo-phobic attacks; they are not intended that way, if I offend, consider this my apology in advance).
After all, why do you think they call it "Sodomy" in the first place? When the angels came to visit Lot and tell them it was time to flee, the rape gang were so enraged that they went after Lot as well before the attackers were struck blind. This was more than a simple fetish, my friend. I have had many discussions with those that are gay here, and we may disagree on many things, but I think we all can agree that the behavior of the men of Sodom was far beyond out of line. To say that God was punishing people for "a simple fetish' is doing exactly what non-believers like you accuse Christians like me of doing, using scripture totally out of context.

I respect your knowledge of astrophysics. Honestly, I do. However, it appears you do not respect my world view. It's OK, I can live with that. I've done it for most of my 4+ decades. But, I will warn you. I have studied the Bible probably for longer than you have been alive and I know it well. I've been a youth leader and a Sunday School teacher. I am a Junior Bible Quiz Quizmaster. If you are going to pluck out verses or chapters, you will be in my area of expertise just as your area of expertise is physics. Tread carefully. Too many have twisted it to their own gain rather than the cause of Christ, and I will do all in my power to prevent that from happening in these forums. I may a voice drying out in the wilderness on this site, but I will not be silent.

 

[juggernaut]

I'm no astrophysicist, nor do I need to be or care to understand any of it. I'm willing to accept that there's a bunch of stuff happening out there I'll never be able to prove. The only thing I'd really like to understand someday is what stops science from accepting faith . I read all this ... information... above and it's funny that people can talk in terms of billions of light years, infinite mass, etc and somehow conceive of all this impossibly immeasurable stuff and totally get behind the theoretical scenarios involving places we can't go, things we can't collect, and energies we can't measure or replicate. Yet when it comes to entertaining the idea of God... it's just too ridiculous.

I don't care to get involved with the discussion here, it's not my bag. But I will say that man creates nothing. We make light from existing elements. We know how to manipulate things we find. We assign names and meaning to things that have always existed for our reasons and methods of understanding them. 6000 years ago, the words telescope, satellite, and physics didn't exist. Our evolution at times has been faster than others, but at the end of the day, man is just digging a little deeper. Did we really invent lasers? No. That form of energy has always existed and we figured out how to harness it. We didn't invent atomic energy, we figured out how to contain and utilize it. And when we find a cure for AIDS some day, it won't be new. The perfect formula for that has always existed, it's just outside our understanding right now and hopefully we find it.

So all this stuff that's just out there waiting to be discovered.... where did it come from? That's the easy question to answer. I find it extremely easy to believe that a God of miracles created it. What I find near impossible to believe is a hypothetical situation involving billions of years and measurement of unreachable space. And as for "religion" , the only thing I really have a hard time grasping is how much every one of us - believer or not - means to God. My nature would be to sink most of you in the same boat, but the same God that placed those stars billions of years away still found time to put me right here. And you.

I don't dismiss science at all. I love it and I'm glad we have it to explain a lot of the world around us. But that's all it does... explain things that already exist in language and terms of our choosing. To God, it's not science. We call it science.

 

[QueenBeeBeeMari]

this is ridiculous guys,you know nobody ever wins an argument on religion.It's not even worth arguing over.

 

[nerdyroc]

i have conversations with myself in the mirror

 

[PurpleStyle]

Everything Dave said

Okie dokie, I want to make something clear. I never said I knew that god didn't exist. I just personally don't believe in one, but most of all I attribute nothing to god. Nor am I trying to make enemies of anybody with my "arguments", so please don't take any of my statements/questions as aggressive.

I also want to make it clear that I wasn't directing everything at you, also obvious I hope. Balance is good and all, but faith is a very dangerous tool. The same could be said about science, obviously, but a world without faith would make science have less need to be dangerous. There would be no religious wars, which, if you dig deep enough, are the roots of just about every war in history. One group of people thinks they are the divine children of their god, and they attack everyone else.

I just don't understand why the universe absolutely has to have a creator when it's clearly capable of accomplishing things like creating/destroying stars, planets and life all on it's own.

Time dilation.... if you don't feel that completely explains and confirms the existence of time, what do you take it to mean then?

As for the god with infinite power; you need something to manifest that power in the physical realm. "Power" is measured by energy output. You can't have infinite energy without infinite mass. When I say "power", I mean the power to violate the first law of thermodynamics and create a universe with matter. The power to bend reality to your will.

Everything Hawk said

I always interpreted Sodom and Gomorrah differently. That's one of my biggest problems with the bible. Is there a single authority (human person or group) on who to trust HOW to interpret it, or....just take the words as the supposed infallible word of god, as many people do? It goes off in so many different directions when you think about how to interpret every, single, passage. Some folks want to portray god as this nice, benevolent being, while others say that he'll forgive you but he's vengeful and not afraid to inflict his wrath on you just to prove a point.

Lastly, I'm all for respecting people's beliefs, but it becomes projected outwardly that it's more than just a belief when statements like "I know this happened" are made. I've never actually said that I had a problem with a god maybe existing. That'd tie up science's loose ends with a pretty bow, but I don't buy it. I have so much trouble believing in a god, as you do not believing in one. In a sense, that would make me seem lost, but I don't feel that way. We'll never agree on this subject, so I have nothing more to argue about. But if you could answer my honest question about bible interpretations, I would appreciate that. That has always confused me.

Everything nerrad said

You have an interesting point. Man does not create anything, per se. We just reshape things and harness them. But this ability gives us great insight into the nature of the universe. We can reshape things, and watch how they effect the natural environment, or vice versa. This makes the universe around us, after several hundred years of scrutinizing, testing and theorizing, quantifiable. This also means that we didn't just arrive at the level of knowledge we possess now. We had to reach it slowly after quite a few setbacks.


But when it comes to impossibly immeasurable, it's sort of a misnomer. "Infinite" is just a number that does not stop counting upward. In a sense, there is no thing that is truly "infinite" because everything began. Thanks to the CMBR I mention so often, we can get a rough estimate (in accordance with our systems of math) of how long ago the universe began. How it began is up to debate. 😉