God, the thread

[98v6]

ALso consider that our whole universe could be an atom on the fingernail of some giant "thing" and tat it wil all end when it statrts to bite it's nails. [/QB]

Untrue, because the word universe is a collective term used to define everything. If there were boundaries to it, it wouldn't be the universe because it wouldn't include all of reality.

[ReodDai]

Not to mention there are older religions then all those practiced today ;)

[ReodDai]

Yea technically the Universe is all matter and energy regarded as a whole.

[98v6]

Originally posted by wannabe:
I believe that actions like the Crusades and the current Muslim fundamentalist movement come not from religion, but from the bastardization thereof, and from social conditions that lead to anger. I think that at best we have to acknowledge that people in general, whether religious or not, are capable of great evil. I simply believe that, excluding situations such as the Crusades, a religious person can more likely be counted on to do what can be objectively qualified as "good." You state that you inherently know right from wrong, but how do you know? What external source do you have to prove that? It's also illogical to assume that humans inherently know right from wrong. Young children have to be taught not to hit, to share, etc. Morality is not inherent, it is learned.

Morality is learned... There ya go, BINGO! This makes the case for moral relativism, because there are cannibals in Africa, dog-eaters in China, barroom brawls in England and scores of other excercises like the sexual activity of Japanese men that are ALL totally against the strict, christian moral code that is prevalent here in America. You have also proven with this statement that you don't have to have religion to have morality! So you can learn the morals that fit in with your culture AND be an atheist and work out fine?

Also, your bias to see that a religious person will typically do what's "good" seems to me to be illogical and unfounded. I do believe that a majority of prisoners in jails are Christian, but that majority only relfects the Christian majority among America's population.

[3.4 [deployed]]

You have to think outside the box. NASA keeps claiming that the universe is expanding still, which means it does have boudries, they're just a ways out from here, and that's providing one can fully comprehend the size of the universe's present size.

[ReodDai]

Universe can have boundries but regardless of how it changes or what is spawned it is still defined as "All energy and matter" ;) Thus nothing can exist outside of the universe, unless it is neither matter or energy.

[3.4 [deployed]]

Originally posted by ReodDai:
Universe can have boundries but regardless of how it changes or what is spawned it is still defined as "All energy and matter" ;) Thus nothing can exist outside of the universe, unless it is neither matter or energy.

or a higher being [img]graemlins/stickpoke.gif[/img] ;)

[98v6]

Originally posted by 3.4 [deployed]:
You have to think outside the box. NASA keeps claiming that the universe is expanding still, which means it does have boudries, they're just a ways out from here, and that's providing one can fully comprehend the size of the universe's present size.

When I say infinite space and time, instead of infinite space, this sort of thing is what I mean. Perhaps there is a cycle wherein all matter is condensed and expanded, who knows? Perhaps reality has more than one dimension and as one dimension grows, the other shrinks. Time is at least a full half of what makes it infinite, because the cycle can happen forever, and that can mean that the reality that is the universe will have an infinite number of dice rolls to play out on it's dime sized surface. Think about space and time as mutually beneficient: if you have infinite time, you can't not have infinite space because for the time to exist it has to exist somewhere. It's the same the opposite way too.

[ReodDai]

If the higher being isn't made up of matter or energy then it could exist outside of the universe lol. If it was consisted of matter or energy it would be inside the universe. There is no if ands or buts about this. This is fact lol not speculation. The term universe has been defined.

[3.4 [deployed]]

and speaking of the universe:

THE UNIVERSE:
4. Population


It is known that there are an infinite number of worlds, simply because there is an infinite amount of space for them. However, not every one of them is inhabited. Therefore, there must be a finite number of inhabited worlds. Any finite number divided by infinity is as near to nothing as makes no odds, so the average population of all the planets in the Universe can be said to be zero. From this it follows that the population of the whole Universe is also zero, and that any people you may meet from time to time are merely the products of a deranged imagination.


--The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

[ReodDai]

That has many flaws. Just because their is infinite space doesn't mean the space has to be filled with something.
Also the average population of a planet in the universe would not be zero it would be approaching zero however but never able to reach it. Another flaw.
Lastly just because the average population of the planets is zero(even though I already proved that isn't right) doesn't mean the total population of the universe would be zero. It would still be a sum off all inhabited planets.
That book is comical at best man lol.

[ReodDai]

The resurrection lol.

[98v6]

update rofl... i just talked to one of my friends. Word on the street is that an infinite universe might be impossible, at least in terms of time. There is a lot of time, but at one point all matter was condensed into the size of a pencil point and due to entropy at one point there became not enough energy to hold it all together. so it exploded, and the particles are accelerating as they fly outward because the forces holding them together, already too weak to bind them, diminish with time and distance which in essence causes acceleration because the same amount of force is being restricted less and less.

So, basically everything will spread out and out at an increasing rate of speed until entropy causes all matter to deteriorate into pretty much useless, structureless goop. After that, nobody knows, and i'm not saying this means the universe isn't infinite, but it looks a LOT less likely that it is from that perspective.

[RallyRed 98]

some theoretical physicists think that the universe's expansion was the result of a former universe's collapse... our concept of time is based off of the universe traveling "out" so one has to imagine that the universe is also capable of collapsing, meaning (potentially, accepting the no boundary clause) that time goes backwards compared to what we know. hawking was always talking about glasses falling up and reintegrating themselves and remembering facts from the future.

this argument is especially compelling to me when one considers anti-matter (the mirror image of our universe) and that the laws of science are not compelled by the "past" or "future," they simply exist.

i find it entirely believable that g-d (not jewish, but respectful at least ;) ) could have decided that the universe would start in a highly disordered state and end completely ordered (though it would take some "time" since there are many more disordered outcomes than there are ordered outcomes). the difficulty in accepting a highly disordered original state is that it completely rules out the "big bang" theory, or requires thought exceeding its capacity; it also makes our concept of "order" and "disorder" come into question... to even ask this very question we must eat consume energy in an organized form called food and release it in a more disordered state called heat, which points in the direction of an organized ---> disorganized state.

whenever i start to think of all this, i want to blow an old model up with a firecracker so i know that i have some significance... lol

[Timbo1969]

Originally posted by 98v6:
]Aha! You have fallen into my trap. Just because you can say that we might not be able to comprehend this being, does that give me a logical reason to believe in him? No, it puts a tiny shadow of doubt into anyone's case who says it can be proven that he does not exist. I don't believe he exists, but i'm not gonna tell anybody else what to think.

Also, contemplate this: If religion is from God, then where did false religions come from? Man, trying to imitate the holy one? Doesn't make sense, becauseif there was one holy religion, everyone who got the idea for religion would follow that one. But, we have lots of different religions, so the best explanation is that it comes from man, and evolved in many different places.

I don't see where I have fallen into any trap. You are trying to apply scientific logic to something that isn't scientific. Religion of any sort is based on faith, not scientific study. The fact that science still has yet to disprove completely Creationism is fact enough to believe. I dare say science will never completely disprove it. It is in the nature of mankind to seek his/her creator. They attempt this in many ways, this is proven world wide. There is one fact that does linger though, we won't know the complete truth til we meet God.