Christian Fundamentalists...

[Robbo]

Great post Pete, I am enjoying this.
The problem with this discussion is that we get hung up on words. Normally language is a powerful thing, but sometimes we reach its limitations, I think this is one of those cases.
For example, I used the words nature. When most people think of nature, I get the feeling they think of some green forest with some fawns prancing around. Sure, this is nature. But so is our whole planet, so is gravity, so is our solar system, so is the horsehead nebula and pretty much everything in existence. Physics in Dutch is called natuurkunde, which sort of translates as the knowledge of nature (not to be confused with biology).
Because of this enormous diversity of both scale and actual physical matter, I think that people's definition of nature is as diverse as people themselves.
Having said that, to me, if a god or creator exists, it is as much part of nature as anything else. Sure, it is much more powerful than pretty much anything else out there, but it created this universe. I think where we differ is that you consider the creator to be outside of this universe, I think it permeates it, is part of it, is everywhere. We just don't know what it is yet.
About the big bang theory, yep, I subscribe to that one, but current thought seems to be that there have been universes before this one and will be after this one. There hasn't been a point when there wasn't a universe. It expands, collapses back in on itself and expands again ad infinitum. This doesn't per se change this discussion though.
It's difficult to stay focused when it comes to these topics, at least for me, because when I start considering things like the universe, my mind tends to wander on the scale of it. I always feel a slight touch of disappointment when reality floods my brain again and I realise how tiny a portion of creation I actually dwell in after having travelled the length of the universe in my head.

I don't think there is any semantic problem going on here Jay, leastwise between myself and you because my understanding of the word nature is much like your own which is quite convenient for obvious reasons.
I don’t mean to sound too pretentious here or anything but I have read quite a lot on quantum mechanics and I make no allusions in pretending to have any great understanding of it; I do however appreciate not only its complexity but also its total detachment from intuition, logic or reasoned expectation.

We can however make use of quantum mechanics even though we do not understand it much like we are able to drive a car and not fully understand how it transforms petrol into controlled motion and direction, leastwise for women that is
My point in bringing up quantum mechanics is that it introduces a line of thinking that can help probe difficult problems of interpretation or understanding.

Perpetual recreation of membrane based universes [M theory] is a relatively new theory that encompasses many mind-bending phenomenon but at its heart is this notion of eternal universal existence, continually creating big bang after big bang, dimension after dimension and so much more.

Our problem is to try and understand all this and at the same time connect it to something we tag as a creator which in your interpretation is itself, leastwise your suggestion implies god cannot survive outside of nature, you believe nature and ‘god’ are inextricably woven.
If my contention is correct then a reasonable conclusion is to suggest God does not need nature to exist; and so our differing positions are now distilled and quite distinct.
But even though there is this difference between us, they could well be integrated …to a point.

I do not deny that God cannot permeate everything we understand as an eternally regenerating cosmos …. After all, if he can create our eternally regenerating cosmos, it’s not that much of a task to think he can abide in it ….. but for one small point .. and that is the understanding of the chronology of events, time in other words.
At this point someone could suggest that if these infinite number of universes and dimensions have been eternally recreating themselves then how can God be said to create them outside of them [hence your interpretation maybes]?

It kinda provokes the question, at which point did he pop in to kick-start the process?
This seems a reasonable doubt to voice but it only seems reasonable because our understanding of everything we know is always framed within time; we cannot ever disassociate ourselves or our mind’s workings from it.

This inability to free ourselves from this explains our misunderstanding [IMHO] of the problem of god and creation.
We are assuming god has a similar relationship and interaction with time as we do; he doesn’t and I would go on to suggest it’s impossible for us to fully understand this concept even though I can frame it.
This seems somewhat hypocritical of me because it looks as though it eventually comes down to me having faith in something I cannot prove, I can merely state the general idea.
And isn’t this what I criticised people for doing in my previous post?
Not really, I haven’t, as far as I know said anything that can be evidentially contradicted and until it has been, my faith can stand.

This flies in the face of those idiots who still think the world is only 6000 years old when there is contradictory evidence to their faith, and so I can easily distinguish their stupidity from my unproven theory having any contradictory evidence…
In no way can I say this is proof of God’s existence [independent of nature], all I have is a belief borne out of a line of thinking that is a little further down that line than those people who still maintain the earth age as 6000 years old.

Quantum mechanics allows us to talk of things outside of our experience or intuition and whilst it has no direct connection to my view of God, it does however influence the process my mind uses to try and appreciate what’s important and relevant.
Since my position assumes a creator outside of time, this then allows us to appreciate there may be just come concepts we will never be able to understand which in an ironic sort of way makes it more convincing for me at least, that god is nature’s creator and not just an integral part of it.
The one question that bugs me is, if he created us and everything else around us, then why doesn’t he wanna communicate in some way?

Religion will always jump in at this point but I really cannot believe god would mediate his intents with mere men when they compile scripts that become the basis of things like the bible.
But God is supposed to ‘work in mysterious ways’ and maybe that’s the answer
My position is a direct derivative of my experiences, knowledge and I suppose for want of a better word, intelligence.
It could easily be, I have just talked the biggest load of hogwash ever and I’d readily concede to anybody who can enlighten me further; I have no allusions to my ignorance and am always willing to learn or be corrected but it’s also pretty cool to discuss such a subject in a paintball forum of all places
Over to you Sir [Jay]!!!

 

[Buddha 3]

Damn you Pete! How am I supposed to reply to all that...

After having read your post, I doubt our belief is actually that much different. Whatever exists outside of time and space as we think we know it, the thing you call god, is part of nature as well. At least, as far as my definition of nature is concerned. If it is a god as such, it is simply the most powerful thing in nature, perhaps Mother Nature herself...

I think that at this point in the discussion, it is important to understand what we define as a god. As soon as people start using the word god, I get the sneaky feeling they are talking about some sentient being, magically creating worlds and life for his own personal entertainment. However, in your case I get the feeling that you do not mean this per se. Your god could be anything, a form of energy that we know nothing of, a bearded geezer, a giant lizard farting out galaxies left and right, or whatever it takes to kickstart universes.
Please correct me if I am wrong, but I think your definition of god is VERY different from whatever you read in the typical holy book. It certainly is not a being that gets off on us worshipping him.

I fully subscribe to what you say about time. After all, it has already been proven that time does not, for lack of a better word, move equally fast everywhere. So a being, or force that can create universes is certainly capable of manipulating time, knowingly or not, in ways we can not even begin to comprehend.

As far as permeating our universe, I think a god, or whatever we decide to call the force of creation, can and does. As well as whatever is outside of our universe. Scientists are after all spending shedloads on trying to locate the godparticle.

So, just so we understand each other better, do you believe god is a sentient creature, or could it be some mindless but tremendous force as well? The latter would certainly explain his lack of interest in what he has created.

PS My posts in this are certainly not intended to convert anybody to believe anything.

 

[Robbo]

Damn you Pete! How am I supposed to reply to all that...
After having read your post, I doubt our belief is actually that much different. Whatever exists outside of time and space as we think we know it, the thing you call god, is part of nature as well. At least, as far as my definition of nature is concerned. If it is a god as such, it is simply the most powerful thing in nature, perhaps Mother Nature herself...
I think that at this point in the discussion, it is important to understand what we define as a god. As soon as people start using the word god, I get the sneaky feeling they are talking about some sentient being, magically creating worlds and life for his own personal entertainment. However, in your case I get the feeling that you do not mean this per se. Your god could be anything, a form of energy that we know nothing of, a bearded geezer, a giant lizard farting out galaxies left and right, or whatever it takes to kickstart universes.
Please correct me if I am wrong, but I think your definition of god is VERY different from whatever you read in the typical holy book. It certainly is not a being that gets off on us worshipping him.
I fully subscribe to what you say about time. After all, it has already been proven that time does not, for lack of a better word, move equally fast everywhere. So a being, or force that can create universes is certainly capable of manipulating time, knowingly or not, in ways we can not even begin to comprehend.
As far as permeating our universe, I think a god, or whatever we decide to call the force of creation, can and does. As well as whatever is outside of our universe. Scientists are after all spending shedloads on trying to locate the godparticle.
So, just so we understand each other better, do you believe god is a sentient creature, or could it be some mindless but tremendous force as well? The latter would certainly explain his lack of interest in what he has created.
PS My posts in this are certainly not intended to convert anybody to believe anything.

Damn you too mate but this is useful for me in that I don’t think I have ever crystallised what I think about god in such a comprehensive way; I doubt everybody will be too interested in this discussion but if they are, it would be nice to think they can take away something positive from it because I can honestly say, I have.
I don’t think, in fact I know, this particular thread has stretched me more than any other I have been involved in. It has also enabled an improvement or rather a distillation of many beliefs and ideas I have had swilling around under my chrome-dome.

This may sound pretentious but it has … The marvellous thing is, I could be wrong regarding a lot of the things I write here; many conclusions could be tainted but I know one thing, some of what I write must be true .. go ask Descartes for proof of that point [I think therefore I am].

To answer your question of what I believe god to be or the role he plays [apologies to the chicks for never referring to god as she but I think god can maybe drive a car round a roundabout without stopping as he approaches it; and on that point alone, he can’t be female].
OK, I might disappoint you here in terms of what I believe god actually is and the role he plays. One of the greatest mistakes we can make is to think of him in a way that reflects ourselves.

The fact I’ve been referring to god as ‘he’ is an example of that and we tend to talk about a god with many human qualities … he’s nothing like us, nothing.
This can be responded to by some religious bigots by pointing to the bible where it says somewhere, we [human race] were made in his image …. That’s just an author’s construct, and it’s been done so as to humanise our idea of god otherwise he would be ‘less approachable’ in terms of prayers etc …

As soon as you move away from that ‘human’ notion of god, you begin to lose faith and the religion loses members for want of a better way of looking at it.
Now, as to the true nature of god, leastwise my opinion of him, I believe he is totally distinct from the infinite number of universes and that includes time; he’s not bound by time or location at all.

For us humans to try and extricate ourselves from temporal thought is impossible and therefore it tells me we have intrinsic limits to what we can think about and therefore understand. I touched upon this with my quantum ‘mechanics’ reference.
The god I think of is capable of anything .. and remember here my ‘anything’ is an infinitesimally small array of acts because the human mind is once again so limited.
In my mind, to regard god as non-sentient is impossible when you consider the complexity of our cosmos.

In our universe, it follows a set of rules that have been so fine-tuned as to be as near complete proof of a sentient god as anything I could ever imagine.
Just to give people an idea of just how fine-tuned this universe is, here are a couple of examples of some critical values are :-
If the ratio of electrons to protons was off by more than 1x10 to the 37th power, we would not exist.

Also, if the expansion rate of the universe wasn’t within a critical value of 1x10 55th power, we would not exist, and the final doozie is, if the universe of the mass wasn’t within limits of 1x10 59th power the cosmos would not exist.

We can’t even begin to appreciate these numbers, it’s crazy thinking to believe these unbelievably fine limits were a construct of a non-sentient being.
It’s a bit like me being asked to believe the creator of the Fujitsu K computer I referred to earlier was by someone who possessed the IQ of an Arsenal supporter .. it just ain’t gonna happen.

I believe god to be sentient, but at this point I come a cropper because I am therefore suggesting there is a sentient creator but we have no connection or emails from him to let us know who he was and if he’s available for a barbecue next Friday.
It’s just not reasonable to think of something creating us to just then go on to ignore us? … so far at least.

This then suggests we were some sort of arbitrary indulgence of creation … which seems ridiculous to me but that might be human arrogance rearing its head in believing a creator could just ignore us after going to all that trouble of creating the cosmos and Tottenham Hotspur etc ….
As for suggesting I believe god to be something very different from the religious gods we are asked to believe in, the sort of god who we are accountable to and pray to etc?

I really want to believe there is such a god of this nature but the only evidence for this type of god are derivatives of man’s creations, scripts, bibles, hieroglyphs etc
The human race needs to believe in life after death which necessitates religion and so this explains the preponderance of beliefs that offer an afterlife if we live a certain way.

I’d love to be a religious man, to swallow all the crap that’s presented and have faith in something that just doesn’t stack up but I’m afraid my mind cannot allow it … it resists it, not from an egotist’s point of view but from a reasoned viewpoint.

Something’s wrong …. very wrong indeed because things ain’t stacking up even in a general form but I can accept this counter-intuitive notion [ref: quantum mechanics] but it leaves a bad taste in my mouth because perhaps it’s the most ludicrous thing of all I’m asking people to believe.
How can I reconcile this whilst still being able to maintain some semblance of integrity?
Maybe the final and terrible irony of this is the very word I ridiculed earlier, ‘faith’.
When the Christian god demands faith as a pre-requisite for the afterlife, perhaps the faith he refers to includes the ability to put logic and reason on the back-burner and just submit yourself to the words of the bible regardless of what science or common-sense suggests …. I hope it’s not that but the alternative to it is something even more distasteful to the human mind, death with no after-life … and so, to be a Christian isn’t a bad way to conduct yourself that’s for sure … a genuine Christian is normally a nice person and the world would most definitely be a better place if there were more of these type people [regardless of any particular religion].

There may be no Christian type god but to live a Christian life even though it might be misguided would make the world a better place, for sure.
God’s apparent lack of presence or contact with us might just be a pre-requisite that allows faith to be adopted which seems so important in a lot of religions … after all, if god was on breakfast news every morning, nobody would doubt him and free will would be extinguished overnight.
God’s disappearing act opens the way for free will and our own decisions to determine our fate ….
After all, even the devil believes in God, we have to act Christian and not just talk religion; hmmm, a troubling thought eh Jay?

 

[Buddha 3]

I get the suspicious feeling you and I are the only ones still reading this thread...

It seems our vision of what has created this universe is not really too different. The main difference I see is the sentient part. You mention god to be disconnected (if you want to call it that) from time and space, existing outside of it, I think it exists within and without. After all, something that powerful can go wherever it pretty much wants.

As for our universe, you call it finetuned, I call it overly complex.
Seriously though, if the theory of countless big bangs having already taken place, meaning this universe of ours has expanded and collapsed a pretty much infinite amount of times already, god was bound to ''get it right'' sooner or later. After all, the numbers you mention are indeed mind boggling, but infinity dwarves even those numbers. But as I said, that's theory.

When following your train of thought, as in assuming god is a sentient thing and has purposefully created the universe, it can be easy to understand why he pays us no mind (as far as we can tell).
As you pointed out, the universe is VERY finetuned, perhaps in constant need of a nudge here and there and little tweaks (well, little on a cosmic scale anyway), so maybe god is just too damn busy to be bothered with a bunch of upstarts that seem to think the sun shines out of their collective asses. I'd be surprised if he noticed us at all...

 

[Missy-Q]

As you pointed out, the universe is VERY finetuned, perhaps in constant need of a nudge here and there and little tweaks (well, little on a cosmic scale anyway), so maybe god is just too damn busy to be bothered with a bunch of upstarts that seem to think the sun shines out of their collective asses. I'd be surprised if he noticed us at all...

God doesn't need to pay us any attention though, he already sent his only (virgin-born) son to die for our sins, remember? Luckily he came right back to life afterwards (phew) and flew up to heaven, where we will all meet him again so long as we be good Christians, tow the line, and eradicate the false religions in an orgy of blood (in His name).

 

[Buddha 3]

I read it differently. Jesus died for our sins, so if we don't sin, he died for nothing. Can't do that to the man...

 

[Cook$]

Jesus died to save us from the sin that his Father (re: himself) originally condemed us to.

 

[Missy-Q]

I read it differently. Jesus died for our sins, so if we don't sin, he died for nothing. Can't do that to the man...

If you think about it, it was unnecessary for him to get staked-out anyway, the catholics can take all sin away at any time, easily, just by saying a few words, so he really didn't need to die at all.

Are we saying that Jesus & his old man didn't know about the Catholics and their get-out-of-jail card? That seems strange, since he would have created them, presumably, and since they are the ones that are ultimately absolving these sins, through their appointed earth-dwelling representatives, or so I have heard...

 

[Robbo]

I'd like to think there are other people reading this but that's probably a remnant from my teaching years in trying to get certain ideas across to people and loving every minute of it all.
Actually though, I quite like this thread if it were only me and you reading it because it's helping me understand things I hadn't necessarily settled on before.

This process is only possible if the other person can not only keep up but can also stimulate further reflection and on those two points alone, you pass with flying colours ... I must make the following point though, I am most certainly not blowing smoke up that big old Dutch ass of yours with the previous comments, you've been a good friend to me in the past and any 'compliments' are borne out of respect and not any need for me to ingratiate myself.

On with the show:- I think we both actually agree on the point of god's location, if indeed we can call it that [location].
I too, think god can exist outside and inside of our multiverse, it's just that I believe he's able to function any damned place he likes and doesn't need the universe to exist. I'm pretty sure there'd be many other of god's creations that we can't even imagine for obvious reasons.

Our minds are so bound by our senses, there will be things that will forever remain unknown.
We live in a three dimensional world, or rather that’s what we can experience and these experiences are against a backdrop of the 4th dimension, time.
To even imagine anything existing outside of time is an utter impossibility for us but nevertheless wholly intriguing.

Anyway, I'm not really agreed on the point the cosmos was the product of some sort of trial and error process or indeed any form of iterative process concerning its creation and recreation.
I think he threw in the seeds and let it unfold as it did which then obviously provokes the question as to why bother???

Our minds necessarily look for answers and reasons that we can attribute to god so we increase our understanding his nature and motives.
But time and again we come up against intellectual brick walls that disable us from making any intellectual progress in terms of any understanding of our existence in this multiverse of ours.
You make mention of god getting it right eventually which of course is predicated on the notion of him having a goal and needing multiple attempts to ‘get it right’.

I think this line of thinking is an emergent property of some physicists believing in universes being created where the tuning isn’t correct and thus does not allow either life to evolve or even allow itself [that particular universe] to continue existing.
That don’t seem right to me because it infers god doesn’t really know what he’s doing in requiring multiple attempts to get it right …. This is just not consistent with an omnipotent and omniscient god that I happen to believe.
I think your view is much like the view denied by Einstein when he remarked, ‘God doesn’t play dice’ .. I don’t think he does either; the multiverse is exactly as he wanted it to be but then for what purpose would it serve him?

If I allow my extremely weak intellect [in the scheme of things] to follow this line of thinking, it then seems logical to me, that he knows full well we are here and more importantly, aware of him.
This triggers the question of why then hasn’t he made contact with us or at least made himself available for texting when you’re feeling a bit down or need a few quid to pay the rent.
It just don’t make sense to me Jay but I think this is because we are once again hostage to our human minds and believe he would work along the same sort of thought processing lines as ours.
All in all mate, once again, it looks very much like we believe the same sorta things regarding god and the cosmos etc with only a very small difference, this doesn’t surprise me at all.
Still, it was fun