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While I was in the kitchen today, one of the chairs in the dining room fell. The chair is missing a leg anyway and there were books laying on top so it was bound to fall. But still it wasn't my personal interaction that made the chair fall. For some reason this made me think of Steve Hawkin's gravity theory and God was not needed to create the universe. I'm somewhat in the opinion that there was already some type of matter(or energy?) floating around in the beginning and in due time gravity and energy(can't be neither created nor destroyed) took its course and it wasn't a god who caused it. Just like I didn't cause that chair by literally touching it to fall.
Last edited by Chicagoland60426; 01-09-2011 at 04:27 PM..
While I was in the kitchen today, one of the chairs in the dining room fell. The chair is missing a leg anyway and there were books laying on top so it was bound to fall. But still it wasn't my personal interaction that made the chair fall. For some reason this made me think of Steve Hawkin's gravity theory and God was not needed to create the universe. I'm somewhat in the opinion that there was already some type of matter(or energy?) floating around in the beginning and in due time gravity and energy(can't be neither created nor destroyed) took its course and it wasn't a god who caused it. Just like I didn't cause that chair by literally touching it to fall.
Interesting, the most prevalent argument I hear against evolution runs along the lines of "then why aren't the different steps that evolution took, available for us to see today?----Well, they are! They are just in the fossil record, and some of them have not been found yet. One of the hardest of concepts of evolution to understand is that, it takes place against the same time back drop that it took to carve the grand canyon, change over the course of geological time frames
While I was in the kitchen today, one of the chairs in the dining room fell. The chair is missing a leg anyway and there were books laying on top so it was bound to fall. But still it wasn't my personal interaction that made the chair fall. For some reason this made me think of Steve Hawkin's gravity theory and God was not needed to create the universe. I'm somewhat in the opinion that there was already some type of matter(or energy?) floating around in the beginning and in due time gravity and energy(can't be neither created nor destroyed) took its course and it wasn't a god who caused it. Just like I didn't cause that chair by literally touching it to fall.
That's pretty much where we are at. We have moved the argument back from 'where did all the matter come from?' to 'where did all the energy come from?'
The old 'Gap for God' argument remains in a more rarified form that something (read 'Someone') must have made that 'energy' in the first place. On the face of it, nothing really seems to have changed but, when you think of it, postulating a fully developed intelligent invisible creative being to be the producer of next to nothing because we can't think of any other way it could have happened looks a bit ludicrous.
That's pretty much where we are at. We have moved the argument back from 'where did all the matter come from?' to 'where did all the energy come from?'
The old 'Gap for God' argument remains in a more rarified form that something (read 'Someone') must have made that 'energy' in the first place. On the face of it, nothing really seems to have changed but, when you think of it, postulating a fully developed intelligent invisible creative being to be the producer of next to nothing because we can't think of any other way it could have happened looks a bit ludicrous.
Hello there "finis" . . . the ignorance of what energy IS seems to dominate this discussion making irrational and absurd assertions seem reasonable. Energy is VIBRATORY and it propagates at the speed of light . . . but what comprises it vibrates at the square of the speed of light. Everyting that exists is comprised of aggregations of this energy into slower and slower composites (like frequency traffic jams). The point being that all this "stuff" has to vibrate within some "substrate" that is not itself the vibrating baryonic "stuff." That substrate is the universal field and is what I characterize as the consciousness of God . . . much as our own consciousnesses exist within a similar field that contains our "Self" . . . not the one we manifest at this level of existence . . . but our permanent essence we experience as the unconscious. I await your typical impolite and cursory dismissal.
While I was in the kitchen today, one of the chairs in the dining room fell. The chair is missing a leg anyway and there were books laying on top so it was bound to fall. But still it wasn't my personal interaction that made the chair fall. For some reason this made me think of Steve Hawkin's gravity theory and God was not needed to create the universe. I'm somewhat in the opinion that there was already some type of matter(or energy?) floating around in the beginning and in due time gravity and energy(can't be neither created nor destroyed) took its course and it wasn't a god who caused it. Just like I didn't cause that chair by literally touching it to fall.
interesting thought.
i do however get back to the "where did this 'existing' energy come from?" question....which is equally as difficult to answer/understand.
what is fascinating to me, and what bothers me at the same time, is that it is very much likely that i will not live long enough to see this question answered. this is truely a tragedy (for me) when i think about it.
I want to know so badly, the answer to the questions of what (definitively) caused the big bang or what was there before the big bang, etc. and i'm afraid i will never get the chance.
now, if i could be frozen for a couple of thousands of years, then wake up and Woalla!!!!!! answers are right there in the local libraries!
Hello there "finis" . . . the ignorance of what energy IS seems to dominate this discussion making irrational and absurd assertions seem reasonable. Energy is VIBRATORY and it propagates at the speed of light . . . but what comprises it vibrates at the square of the speed of light. Everyting that exists is comprised of aggregations of this energy into slower and slower composites (like frequency traffic jams). The point being that all this "stuff" has to vibrate within some "substrate" that is not itself the vibrating baryonic "stuff." That substrate is the universal field and is what I characterize as the consciousness of God . . . much as our own consciousnesses exist within a similar field that contains our "Self" . . . not the one we manifest at this level of existence . . . but our permanent essence we experience as the unconscious. I await your typical impolite and cursory dismissal.
Mystic, no offense intended, but......ya really gotta quit smokin' that stuff, it will mess your mind up.
Mystic, no offense intended, but......ya really gotta quit smokin' that stuff, it will mess your mind up.
Dusty my atheist brother . . . I know that your sarcasm masks a deeper understanding that you are reluctant to acknowledge because of the past. Your atheism is an understandable refuge from the idiocracy that dominates mainstream religious thought and practices. I enjoy the good-natured ribbing implied in your repartee. You are a man after my own irreverent heart. But for the sake of the lurkers . . . I must remind you yet again that I do not use substances of any kind that would interfere with my brain's normal functioning . . . that includes alcohol.
Hello there "finis" . . . the ignorance of what energy IS seems to dominate this discussion making irrational and absurd assertions seem reasonable. Energy is VIBRATORY and it propagates at the speed of light . . . but what comprises it vibrates at the square of the speed of light. Everyting that exists is comprised of aggregations of this energy into slower and slower composites (like frequency traffic jams). The point being that all this "stuff" has to vibrate within some "substrate" that is not itself the vibrating baryonic "stuff." That substrate is the universal field and is what I characterize as the consciousness of God . . . much as our own consciousnesses exist within a similar field that contains our "Self" . . . not the one we manifest at this level of existence . . . but our permanent essence we experience as the unconscious. I await your typical impolite and cursory dismissal.
Yes yes yes.... but you have yourself admitted that the source of that original primal energy, and of the supposed ultra-intelligence to focus it into visible, potentially understandable physical forms, is equally unprovable. We all, no matter what our positions, go to ground at the exact same event horizon point.
The logical Christian simplistic and convenient argument that "you can't create something from nothing" is oddly dropped, and the debator seeks to be excused, when it's advanced by an atheist. Q: Where DID God come from? His "nothingness" ancestors?
C'mon, admit it, old chum: we all stumble here, and we must therefore all take it on faith when dialing in a pre-BB time frame on the mental DeLorean. You've said so yourself.
At that point it's all a matter of personal faith, and mine just can't run to the supernatural.
(PS: DO ring the GONG if you've heard all this before from me and others. I know I'm getting tired of repeating it, and I also know how you'll just dismiss it.)
Yes yes yes.... but you have yourself admitted that the source of that original primal energy, and of the supposed ultra-intelligence to focus it into visible, potentially understandable physical forms, is equally unprovable. We all, no matter what our positions, go to ground at the exact same event horizon point.
Actually . . . no we don't. You have no Source based on anything that we have evidence actually exists . . . I do.
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The logical Christian simplistic and convenient argument that "you can't create something from nothing" is oddly dropped, and the debator seeks to be excused, when it's advanced by an atheist. Q: Where DID God come from? His "nothingness" ancestors?
C'mon, admit it, old chum: we all stumble here, and we must therefore all take it on faith when dialing in a pre-BB time frame on the mental DeLorean. You've said so yourself.
Sorry old chum . . . the "how everything started" is a non-issue that remains in the "beliefs about" realm . . . until we discover whatever we can about it . . . but the Source of such a wondrous phenomenon as existence definitely exceeds the minimum qualifications as God. The Source is the KNOWN universal field that establishes all the KNOWN structure and parameters of our reality . . . which science relies upon to investigate, measure and KNOW more and more about God's attributes and how our reality functions. Consciousness is a KNOWN existing construct of reality . . . evidenced by our own paltry versions . . . so positing a God consciousness as the basis of the universal field is using a KNOWN construct, There is no "we don't KNOW" about it . . . we just haven't the tech to test every aspect of it YET. There is no similarity between my version and ANY of the non-existent or supposed alternatives . . . especially the insulting and ridiculing ones.
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At that point it's all a matter of personal faith, and mine just can't run to the supernatural.
I have told you repeatedly there is no such thing as the supernatural . . .yet you keep bringing it up. Why is that?
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(PS: DO ring the GONG if you've heard all this before from me and others. I know I'm getting tired of repeating it, and I also know how you'll just dismiss it.)
GONG GONG GONG!!! Try to comprehend what I have said this time, my friend.
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