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I've been very quiet in the theological threads, as I find my opinions on these issues are rather outside of the norm. In my experience, many people feel very threatened by questions about their world-view.
However, this is a very enlightened group. Your knowledge of theology, collectively, is vast. I think I might be ready to explore some questions that I have always thought were interesting. I am often cast in the role of Devil's Advocate (pun intended), so I like to consider all sides of an issue.
Which brings me to my point.
It seems, to me, as though the Universe could exist without the need for a creator. Random chance seems to govern much of it. So, on both sides of the issue: Does the Universe really need a God at all? Why? Why not?
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The universe is governed by laws, not chance. Even if the effects of the those laws are unpredictable.
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It all comes back to the beginning. Science dictates that every action requires a cause. It is logical to conclude that God could start the universe. In other words, an act of God could be the inciting incident of the universe.
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I still say God exists, and finding God is the reason that our universe produces life at all...but I'm still not sure that there can be a beginning to the universe, or an end for that matter.
What if it's just always existed? It could recycle in an infinte loop...there's the big bang, and the universe expands. Eventually the space left in the centre of the ancient explosion is filled with so much anti-matter, that everything starts getting pulled back to the centre. After all matter in the universe meets at that one beginning point, it again explodes in another big bang.
Course that's just all speculation and babble. Posts: 149 | Registered: Aug 2003
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Why can't the universe be eternal? why must the universe have a creator yet the creator just always is and has been?
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"Creation", that is not what I called the Universe. In fact, new theories are in place that postulate that the Universe has always existed.
Using the anology of parents seems a little anthropomorpic.
On the other hand...
An intellegent observer has an effect on quantum events. Perhaps that is what was needed in the first place. In the thread about LDS and the existance of an actual physical being, I thought, why not a being who is not yet born, but will be born in the future, to exist in all times....
As you can see, I entertain many ideas.... Posts: 2506 | Registered: Jul 2003
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There was no first human being. That Adam and Eve story does have meaning, but it's obviously not reality.
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quote: why must the universe have a creator yet the creator just always is and has been?
I don't know the exact specifications of The Creator, Born or Forever, but it appears to me that there is a great and brilliant creative spirit in the Universe.
Life is too complex and symbotic for there not to be.
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No, my conception of the universe does not require any sort of deity.
All of the arguments for the existence of a deity assume that existence requires creation, and that creation requires a creator. Neither of these assumptions can be proven or even strongly suppourted, particularly in light of how little we know about the "beginning" of our universe.
Belief in god is not is based on faith, not logic. And that's fine.
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what if the human species, as a whole, was like a child itself. When humans, as a species hadnt been around long and was still a baby, it needed lots of correcting and punishing and talking to's from the parent (God), but here of late, now that the human species has been around a while, it's an adult (albeit and irresponsible one). So now the parent doesn't poke his head in as often to make sure we're not sticking our fingers in a light socket or something.
Maybe I like cheese.
do you listen to yourself when you talk?
eh i drift in and out.
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quote:The universe is governed by laws, not chance. Even if the effects of the those laws are unpredictable.
yes, but this doesn't necessitate the existence of a supreme being. The universe is governed by laws because if it wasn't, everything would be chaotic and we wouldn't exist because the necessary conditions for life wouldn't have presented themselves in a chaotic universe, therefore not allowing people like us to exist and ask these sort of questions.
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The universe isn't "governed" at all. Certain things behave in certain ways, which are sometimes predictable.
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The universe is not and has not been eternal, the radiation tells us so.
In all honesty I think it was more of the fact that the universe simply exploded after being packed into one point. Internal variations and pressure building up in that single point would have been enough to cause the explosion without a specific, human-based deity. To think of all the other millions of races of life that are probably out there in the universe, the vast amounts of other cultures and intelligence, and then believe a god in the human image, nature and language is correct one seems incredibly arrogant to me. What always got me was that any proof of god was far too specific to not only a narrow margin of time in extremely small regions of only pur planet, but they were incredibly culturally specific to segregated groups of people who then did an excellent job of teaching others and sometimes forcing their beliefs on others.
Sure, the parent-child analogies are nice, but when you think about it, they are quite ridiculous. We are projecting the primary relationship that exists in our culture onto scientific fact in a more than touchy feely way. It is beyond leaps and bounds in assumption.
[ August 22, 2003, 02:16 PM: Message edited by: Duragon C. Mikado ]
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I think the fact that the universe is going to die with a cold, dark whimper rather than collapsing in on itself suggests that there is no god, or if there is, he isn't a loving god Posts: 10886 | Registered: Feb 2000
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I think that believing in a universe without God takes more faith than beliving in one with God. There's more logic and evidence in God's favor.
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Hey Duragon, it's not like the creation of the universe couldn't recycle itself. Ever heard of the big crunch? (and yeah yeah, I know, it's just a theory)
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Oh and Duragon, I better point this out before the wrong impression but yeah, I'm not crazy enough to believe that we were created in his image or anything like that. I figure there has to be tons of life out there, and enough intelligent life to make things interesting.
What would make us special over everything else...
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Seriously though, there are situations in which it is probably worthwhile to posit "no God" like when you are trying to work on a scientific theory or an engineering problem. If you're doing that and you "fudge" by saying "God did it" then it's no longer a scientific explanation.
In other situations, proposing that there is "no God" could be a "neutral" thing in that people of good conscience and intellectual honesty could disagree on God's influence there and not need to come to blows. Our legal system is one example. Or our Federal Government.
Then there are realms of human existence that seem to require proposing a God. Religion, for example. Thoughts of an afterlife. Sure, you could argue there's "no God" and such things don't exist, but what does it buy you? And you can't prove it.
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The Big Crunch isn't going to happen. The expansion of the universe is accelerating, not slowing... i.e., the universe will eventually become to spread out to support life. It will end with a cold, dark whimper.
>> I think that believing in a universe without God takes more faith than beliving in one with God. There's more logic and evidence in God's favor. <<
Really? You think it takes faith to say "I'm not going to believe in god until something happens that causes me to believe in god?"
I have a really hard time with that, and so, I think, would every other agnostic or athiest.
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I agree with twinky, logic is proactive. Until something really comes out of its way to prove a god exists, it isn't there.
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quote:If you're doing that and you "fudge" by saying "God did it" then it's no longer a scientific explanation.
That's tricky though...maybe God is just the reason for why things happen, not how. Of course there's a scientific explanation for everything.
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Even so, even if you bar the "image" thing and just believe in a cosmic god, you would be quite near-alone with that belief. All of the major religions in the world have a god/gods that are almost all depicted as resembling humans, nearly all have human names and human interests, and all of their stories are time and place and culture specific to such narrow attributes that it really makes you wonder at the cosmic potency of such a deity.
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quote:The Big Crunch isn't going to happen. The expansion of the universe is accelerating, not slowing... i.e., the universe will eventually become to spread out to support life. It will end with a cold, dark whimper.
There might not be enough gravity in the centre of our universe to start slowing everything down yet. Maybe the universe is just getting started (relatively speaking).
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Bob, as a I mentioned above, logic is proactive. Who cares if we can't disprove a god? There is no need to disprove god because nothing has come forward to ever have proven its existance in the first place. We don't waste time disproving things that haven't been proven to exist first.
[ August 22, 2003, 02:28 PM: Message edited by: Duragon C. Mikado ]
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>> There might not be enough gravity in the centre of our universe to start slowing everything down yet. Maybe the universe is just getting started (relatively speaking). <<
No, you've misunderstood me. The rate of expansion is increasing. If there were enough mass anywhere in the universe to slow things down, that wouldn't be the case.
Edit:
For example, say the universe was expanding at 100 metres per second last year. This year, it's expanding at 125 m/s. In other words, not only does it keep getting bigger, it keeps getting bigger faster as time goes forward.
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I agree with you about the Big Crunch, twinky, but doesn't the same quantum foam idea temporarily create matter. More space, more foam. I really don't know, and obviously, you are more informed on the subject than I.
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Errgh, this is tough...couldn't that rate of acceleration eventually lower...eventually. There cannot be an infinte acceleration rate. That doesn't make any damn sense.
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I don't know about the universe needing a god, but I think it could benefit from getting a good, solid sponge bath.
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CF, it hasn't been doing that. If there was enough mass to do it, it would already be happening.
Now, if more mass were somehow generated from nothing, that might change things, as eslaine pointed out. But I don't know anything about that
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The rate of acceleration isn't infinite, it's just increasing. I suppose that after infinite time it might become infinite, but life will be impossible in the universe long before that happens
Is the expansion rate of the Universe limited to the speed of light. It's not actually travelling. Information is not being transmitted. Or is it? Posts: 2506 | Registered: Jul 2003
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quote: Bob, as a I mentioned above, logic is proactive. Who cares if we can't disprove a god? There is no need to disprove god because nothing has come forward to ever have proven its existance in the first place. We don't waste time disproving things that haven't been proven to exist first.
That depends on what you will accept as evidence. Doesn't the fact that many civilizations in different places at different times have all worshipped a divine being count as evidence?
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quote:What "why?" There's a difference between "reason for" and "purpose in."
Okay, I defintely will admit to this though; the reason I think everything is the way it is, the purpose and reason for everything, is a matter of faith for me.
I believe that ultimately, everything leads to the search for God. That's what I think NOW though, I've been refining the why of everything for a while now and I still think I'm probably missing something big. I mean, no way am I going to believe that I'm absolutely right.
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Jacare, or it could mean that searching for a greater truth or purpose is instrinsic to human nature. It doesn't necessarily prove the existence of that greater truth.
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I think that the assumption that everything leads to a search for God is an artifact of the human mindset. We just may be wired that way, to try to see a pattern and logic where there is complexity.
Edit: I see tha Sho'nuff has pretty much the same idea! (Great minds think alike!)
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