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The Origin of the First Light In the Universe
StartsWithABang writes Before there were planets, galaxies, or even stars in the Universe, there really was light. We see that light, left over today, in the form of the Cosmic Microwave Background, or the remnant glow from the Big Bang. But these photons outnumber the matter in our Universe by more than a-billion-to-one, and are the most numerous thing around. So where did they first come from? Science has the answer.
1. Why would the big bang be unique?
2. Why are there not two big bangs or 2 billion big bangs?
3. Why is the light seen as background radiation not from these OTHER big bangs?
4. Why not simply the glow from the universes out that made its way into our space before us?
5. A trillion universes that existed long enough for the light to reach us, how would they look if not a glow everywhere?
6. If its from *our* big bang, why is it heading towards us when all 'individually' observable stars are heading away from us? Why are these photons not heading away too?
1. What if all matter is made of +ve stuff AND -ve stuff (which is experimentally observed with the electron).
2. What if particles are simply 'stable' assemblies of these two particles. Each a certain stable configuration.
3. Any stable assembly you can make, can have the +ve and -ve swapped to make the inverse particle, the anti-particle.
4. What if light is actually matter
5. What if light is one +ve and one -ve, the smallest combination of these particles.
6. What if the 'photon' as observed is actually just a cloud of these +ve and -ve that is sufficient to promote an electron, since we use electron energy states to detect photons, it follows we couldn't observe partial photons. i.e. in Young Slits the 'photon' goes through *both* slits.
7. What if QM is garbage, no magic time travelling photons, no wibbly wobbly effect over a distance, just photons with an initial spin state, and experiments that filter by 'time the photon was emitted'.
What if our model is wrong? I mean so wrong that crap has been built on crap that now has become a religion, a test of faith, do you believe the equations explain the system, or only predict how the system would look through the limits of the detection mechanism.
What if its become a business, with budgets assigned based on false assumption and jobs that would be lost if the science broke the experiment? Experts that are really priests, when the knowledge changes they are no longer experts but foolish believers.
What if.
It's still better than lies.
Don't fall into the trap. The sky has always been falling on our heads, whether it be foreign invaders, disease, nuclear war, the youth of today, asteroid strike, climate change, alien invasion etc. If one thing is constant throughout history it's that somehow there always seems to be a threat of sudden extinction, and when it's found to be overblown we simply find something else to replace it with. Sure one of them has to be right sooner or later, but worrying about it won't help
Bookmark this: https://www.google.com/maps?output=classic.
That used to be true till the Communists^WTerrorists came along.
We have ALWAYS been at war with Eurasia.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Science isn't supposed to "have answers". The premise of a scientific theory is twofold:
1. It must "work" given certain conditions.
2. It must be able to be proved NOT to work outside of those conditions.
Science says nothing about rights and wrongs, just whether things work or not within certain measurable parameters.
Premise 2 is important. If you can't say what will make your theory break, then it's not clear you're really saying anything at all.
From the penultimate paragraph:
and that is all that there will be left --- according to current theories at any rate!
I thought spacetime started with the big bang and we had no insight into what came before ?
The article says that the fabric of space was expanding and the big bang was an event that got its energy from spots of crumbling spacefabric (bad analogy) ?
Were there 2 big bangs: The one that inflated space and the other one (recombination) that decoupled matter from photons ?
Have you just created an extra "big bang" to be able to explain the question and don't you regress now to the question: Where did spacetime get the energy to begin with ?
BTW, don't dare ask. You know the answer. It is aum all the way. aum sweet aum all the way aum.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Interestingly, according to Genesis God created the earth before he created life. Maybe he has good night vision...
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
Light, not life.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
That's a bit like Bush talking about evolution and intelligent design, and claiming that "we have two theories". They both are theories, but only one is scientific. Same with these two theories about the origin of the universe. When scientific theory is demonstrably false, the theory is revised. When a theory fails to explain certain phenomena, it is refined. Scientific theories are put to the test. In religion, the theory is the test, even it that means denying what is staring you in the face. Or as another one put it: "Science needs to be seen to be believed, while matters of faith need to be believed to be seen".
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
Funny. "based on some old stupid theories" when we have the alternatives of "really old really stupid mythologies".
Your claim "doesn't have the answer" means you have proof it doesn't. Where's that proof? Some stupid old book?
It worked, I have no faith in him what so ever. Frankly he's a right prick. Ooh, lets test those parents faith by giving their new born child some hideously painful cancer. It's ok though because their baby will live forever up in heaven and it's worth it to cause all that pain on the offhand chance one of its parents makes the grade.
I'd be a better god than that jack ass. If he really does exist I want nothing to do with him and given half the chance I'd beat the shit out of him when I saw him.
So where did they first come from? Religion has the answer!
Once you get through high school you'll realize there is no conflict between science and religion. The Big Bang Theory was first postulated by Father Lemaitre; a Roman Catholic priest who was also a physics teacher and cosmologist. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Lemaître
you're a fucking moron.
In the beginning there was nothing. And God said "Let there be light."
And there was still nothing. But you could see it.
Yes, we are all going to die sooner or later, and all civilisations will fail sooner or later (if for no other reason, the cosmos will eventually succumb to entropy). In any case, I'd rather go with later than sooner, and I think worrying about it might help.
I think it's fair to say that some civilisations probably failed due to events that were beyond their ability to predict or prevent, but I think it's also fair to say that other civilisations probably failed due to events that they could have predicted and prevented, if only they'd worried more. Rapanui (Easter Island) and the Roman Empire are a couple of examples of cases that might fall into the latter category.
There are also disasters such as plagues and fires, etc. that have been pretty damaging, but not civilisation ending. In my country, a city was hit by an earthquake a while back, that caused a lot of damage. Building codes are stricter now, because people are more worried about it, and think this might help.
I always wear a seat belt when travelling by car, and in almost every case it's been an unnecessary precaution, and then one day, it wasn't. I've had vaccinations, which were possibly unnecessary, I don't know. My country, like most, has armed forces which spend most of their time /not/ fighting off foreign invaders.
We don't have complete knowledge, so we do risk management. We estimate, or just guess, the probability of an event, it's severity if it did happen, and the costs and benefits of preparations for it, and act accordingly. I think we should, even if the events usually don't happen, because one day, one might.
mass = number of photons * h-bar * frequency / c^2 (IIRC, it's been 15 years...)
Question: Has this mass been considered in all the dark matter estimations?
Wow! What a well articulated response. Your Mom must be proud. Can you proved links and references used to reach your conclusions?
" That's a bit like Bush talking about evolution and intelligent design, and claiming that "we have two theories".
Which Bush? Daddy, GW, Jeb, or the one on Mt Sinai that was burning in front of Moses ?
Yes, and Godwin too.
Any insufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.
Is it me or the article totally bypassed the question of how light and photons come from?
Nice that the author wants to tackle the question, but a "we don't know it yet" would suffice (for the moment). Going to how matter and aardvarks came to be just makes the article longer; though it was interesting, too, it looks like pondering for a moment and then saying "Look, what an interesting bug!".
Belief in God and being part of a religion is different.
Your quoted statement "Science needs to be seen to be believed, while matters of faith need to be believed to be seen." holds no water unfortunately. Thus some of us clear thinkers can observe that 'Science' has many of the characteristics of a religion because it is a belief system. This is especially true when scientific 'fact' can't be seen anymore as we approach the study of macro and micro-cosmic phenomena. It then becomes interpretive rather than experimental.
Your opinion is NOT fact.
Get over yourself--there is more "world" outside of you than you think.
By the Way, Science is a Religion.
They are definitely NOT both theories. Theories, by definition, have supporting evidence and are modified as new evidence is discovered. There is no supporting evidence for so-called "intelligent design"- it is a belief. The layman's misunderstanding of the word "theory" is why the ID idiots have been able to gain as much traction as they have.
With no way of proving this rubbish every little tosser claims a new idea as the truth. What pathetic little creatures you are to believe this rubbish.
And in the beginning all was in darkness and all was with god and the lord your god saith let there be light and there was light.
Nice.
But there were no eyes yet...
So you're saying, Hitler was ethically better than those who refer to him in arguments?
It's not my fault because I didn't create the circumstances and I'm powerless to prevent or cure it. How the hell is it not his fault. He's omniscient and omnipotent. He knows it happens and could stop it yet chooses not to. If you see a child being beaten and killed do you step in and help or do you stand around and watch to see if any of your peers are worthy of your respect.
Is he infinite or is he finite. You can't have it both ways. If he's infinite he's demented, if he's finite he may be worthy of respect or awe but not worship.
Nope, god caused capitalistic anarchism based on ultra free market. This was miss interpreted by the humans and led to large inequalities in the world which caused that a very small part of the world ruled over the majority of the world. And when some group of people wanted to change the status quo, because they worshipped the same god and wanted the same privilege as those who ruled the world, it ended up in WWI. But that was just a misinterpretation of gods will. When one of the groups lost WWI, punishments were invented by the winners, the same people who misinterpreted gods will in the first place. These punishments were not gods will, and led to Hitler, the holocaust and WWII, as a punishment by god for misinterpreting his will.
In the end all conflicts are just misinterpretations of gods will, because god is only good and just and right and omnipotent, and everything that is wrong is a misinterpretation of his will so everything that is bad is caused by the humans. But if you want to find a scapegoat and can't really find one except the group of people you belong to, than just say that you were deceived by the devil.
By the way, if you do not worship that god day in day out, than you are a cause of all evil of the past, the present and the future, so hurry to your local god worshipper's advocate and ask how much you have to donate to his church to be forgiven from this obvious sin.
Maybe he's finite but so big the proportional way of respect or awe is worship?
One can very well be a priest and be atheist. Get real. A special collar is not evidence of some sort of sky deity.
Sentences begin with a capital letter, you fucking dimwitted cuntdrizzle.
Well, I'm a science guy myself, and unfortunately I must say I don't understand science myself any more. I do understand parts of science, but I don't understand the whole of science. It's like you said, a bunch of theories that might or might not be correct, but are religiously defended by some 'proponents of science'. But these proponents often don't understand the theories they are defending, sometimes the 'creator' of the theory even said that it was just a theory that is not right, but it was the best theory to come up with and is correct enough to work with. Often proponents are defending pseudo science while they don't even know it.
The world of science can be divided in: 99% of people who are making a living of science but aren't actual scientist, while the real scientist are are fighting a bureaucracy and are wasting 90% of their time to filling in papers, begging for donations or subsidies, ... instead of doing the scientific work they would like to do.
I still like sciences, but I don't like the current system around science. It seems more about maximizing profit instead of doing actual science. Also the current attitude towards science is that it has to have the potential to make a profit. There is no longer a lot of science in the field of trying to understand the world around us. You can see this when you notice that most people with a science degree go work in the for profit sector, often the financial sector, simply because there is no honour to be gained in the real scientific world. You will end with a huge depth and a job that doesn't pay the bills when you choose to become a real scientist.
But of course, you may not critic science any more, because you get labelled as a religious nut. And the world of science itself is degrading in some sort of religion itself, where some theories are defended by the proponents (often journalist/bloggers/ without any understanding), and everyone with an alternative theory that might or might not be interesting to be studied is burned at the stake (not literately of course, but in the modern world a few tweets of a proponent with a lot of influence is enough to make the scientist with an alternative theory an outcast of science).
Unfortunately I must conclude that the current world of science is not better than the old Catholic view that the scripture is were the science can be found. Real scientist are open to change, and like to discuss different theories. But those around it are not open to change because that would cost money, or would seem to make science just a inconsistent mess that publishes different theories about the same matter: not good to get subsidies or donations from people who lack the understanding.
Godwin's law envoked again
Relax, man. You're railing against a god you don't believe exists. And in any event, it would more likely be a matter of "god" creating a natural matrix in which things happen without his express input. I'm pretty sure god wouldn't be walking around pushing every single button; what would be the purpose of that?
Neither does evolution disprove creationism. People need to just admit they have no idea what's going on and proceed from there.
I don't believe that human life is an accident just as I disbelieve the notion that we're accidentally unique across infinite space. If asteroids deposited the ingredients for life on this planet (and none other :\) then it was according to some sort of plan. Maybe our creator(s) knew what they were creating and decided to do the deed far away from where we could do any real damage.
Maybe our creator(s) is(are) human.
I don't know. But people who feel the need to discredit others beliefs on the whole using science/religion are, in my mind, illegitimate because the answer can't possibly be one OR the other. It must certainly be in both.
1. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. 3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
Matter antimatter annihilation is the reason. During the early stages of the Big Bang, matter and antimatter were created in nearly equal amounts. Electrons and positrons, protons and antiprotons, etc. They annihilate on contact and produce two gamma rays. But due to expansion of the universe the photons lose energy as they are stretched in transit and lose the ability to transform back into particles. Today they are very low energy indeed and roughly one thousand times less energetic.
Thus they are very numerous but make up only a small fraction of the energy in the universe. The ratio of these photons to normal matter essentially is the symmetry breaking that tipped the balance in favor of matter throughout the visible universe. No one knows exactly why it's this ratio, a successful theory could net someone a novel prize.
When population density reached a critical level, people were able to maintain a constant population through constant warfare, village raiding village. This led to the evolution, over time, of fear of space, which gave maximal protection through awareness of constant threats. When civilization came along, the civil protection infrastructure removed the need for fear of space, so then religion came along with the concept of a fear of time (eternity) to exploit the extant fear which would otherwise have evolved away. So now governments sell us insurance against fear of space and religions sell us insurance against fear of eternity.
they want it all ways because they can't see the hypocrisy, double standards, lack of morals/ethics so if its a good thing "god did it" if its a bad thing then its either Satan who did it or "god works in mysterious ways"
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
They both are theories, but only one is scientific
Or rather: one is a scientific theory, the other isn't.
Just outside it a little to the West, actually.
No: it's turtles all the way down.
Because people have free will. Or because this particular universe with its laws and constants is the only viable universe that could exist. Take your pick.
How could he stop it? Take away free will? Step in to physically intervene in that time and place? Should he strike down the perpetrator, or just shield the innocent child from the blows? 24/7 for billions? Take away all consequences?
You would be a pet in a terrarium. And what would be the point of that, for him or you?
It is you that can't have it both ways.
Accepting the notion that one believes in the creation account in Genesis in the first place, I think that the most reasonable conclusion is that it's account is not an entirely exhaustive one.... nor does it need to be. The point of the account is not to merely teach what it might seem to call historical fact, but to acknowledge that God was there right from the very beginning... and that everything that exists does not not by virtue of any of its own characteristics, but only because God apparently willed such things into being. Speaking as one who personally does believe in Bible, I came to the conclusion a long time ago that God probably created dinosaurs on what is referred to in Genesis as the 5th day..
As you say.... you can't have it both ways. Either we are free willed or not...
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
For me, the amazing thing is the parallel between how modern physicists are describing the very beginnings of the universe and the narrative of Genesis written thousands of years ago.
Thinking further on your post...
Have you asked yourself, 'Why would he do this?' What's in it for him?
I have very few opinions on religion or the Creator, but one thing seems clear to me; creating the universe could not have been a trivial task.
And a thing you seem to take for granted; you say, 'he knows it happens'. Are you sure? I know the Presbyterians think so, but I'm asking you. I'm not so sure he's 'up there', looking down on us past his Caucasian beard. Maybe creation took a little more out of him than we thought.
Maybe God is dead. Well, nothing truly dies in this universe, so maybe just really, really spread out. But nevertheless, not in a position to come down here and help us out working miracles.
If that is the case, then it would be doubly important for us to be good.
Scenario:
You exist outside of space and time, in what form I cannot imagine, and decide to create the universe. From your perspective, outside of time, everything in your universe happened at once, start to finish, and also, everything is always constantly happening. You can't just 'be' everywhere at once, since you exist outside the 4 dimensional universe; you already are 'everywhere at once'.
From this perspective, you see the beginning to the finish, end to end, of the entire universe even as you set the parameters for your big bang. 'Miracles' are easily done now; water from rocks, fires, floods; all of it happens in real-time feedback as you're tuning your big bang. A quark here and bit of inflation there, and the events propagate down the timeline from the human observer point of view. And against all odds, a spring happens to escape these rocks, just when a bunch of humans are gathered around wondering about this prophet guy talking about love and stuff.
So that part seems trivial to me. The real question is, why. From my perspective, 'why' is easy; so love can exist (and also so I can exist). But why would He do it? (Her, They, It, ...)
There has to be a payoff in the end. That's the question I'm working on.
Summary: God went bowling to knock some sense into wayward particle clumps.
Table-ized A.I.
Maybe God is not as powerful as he is made out to be. Maybe he can't directly mess in the universe without breaking it and is only responsible for the initial state. Even if it he foresaw the downsides, like the evil, pain, death, etc, maybe he reasoned it was better than the alternative of non-existence for us so he created it as best he could, leaving what tools he could.
Or perhaps we're actually living in the Twilight Zone and God is a 6 year old boy.
Ah, please land the blame where it rightly belongs.
Gospel of John, Chapter 10, verse 10: "The thief (satan/devil) comes only to steal, kill and destroy, but I (Jesus) have come that you may have life to the full."
You can start measuring most of what goes on against this - does it steal, kill or destroy - then it is of darkness, not from God.
Because people have free will. Or because this particular universe with its laws and constants is the only viable universe that could exist. Take your pick.
What does random cancer have to do with free will? Or, if this universe is the only viable universe that could exist, then you're saying that there's no omnipotent god.
You got it right. There are two further issues:
1. This free will includes the will to live WITHOUT God. When living without God, you are subject to the ups and downs in this world. Radiation, mutation, thieves, murderers, tyrants. That is the choice before people.
2. But secondly, if you do live with God and ask him for help, if he doesn't help you right this nanosecond, does that mean he will never help? Why should things need to be fixed based on a human-scale timer? When does the 'not yet' change into the conclusion of 'never?'
The answer is the payoff IS at the end. It is better to have been through something horrible, survived and grew stronger from it than it is to simply have gone through nothing.
Should everything be restored to us in the end, it better suits us to go through the suffering. We are enriched from it. In God's point of view, he is enriched by us going through this together.
if its a bad thing then its either Satan who did it or "god works in mysterious ways"
Isn't that the same thing, since god also created satan, and he's also omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent?
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
If God were to stop it, and supposedly he could, it would mean that he would have to override the consequences of what are supposedly freely willed human decisions, making the very point of giving us free will in the first place moot.
OK then, quick free will/morality test:
1) You see a criminal beating an innocent child to death. You have with you a cell phone, a tazer, and a handgun. Do you intervene? Does your intervention mean the criminal doesn't have free will?
2) You see a criminal beating an innocent child to death. You're omniscient and omnipotent. In particular, you have the ability to teleport to a nearby location in the form of a human owning a cell phone, a tazer, and a handgun. Do you intervene? Does your intervention mean the criminal doesn't have free will?
Bonus question: If someone tries to flap their arms and fly, does their inability to do so impinge on their free will? Conversely, if there were a law of physics that prevented murder, would such a law of physics impinge on a person's free will? If your answers don't match, how do you tell the difference between a law of physics that impinges on free will and a law of physics that doesn't?
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
Oh, and God also said bats were birds.
You realize that you can classify things in many ways, right? A bat is a bird if you call flying things birds.
Or perhaps we're actually living in the Twilight Zone and God is a 6 year old boy.
That is a more plausible scenario than anything any deist or theist religion has cooked up.
If he gave us free will, then why is everything beyond quantum spacefoam deterministic, including the brains of those that supposedly have free will? The thing that is making the choice of free will is itself determined by causation and thus has no choice at all but to do what is dictated by determinism. If everything is within a system of causation, then there is no free will.
If everything is not within a system of causation, then every one of us is capable of literally any omnipotent feat as causation no longer applies. Why has nobody ever noticed we have all the powers of god himself?
That does not even begin to cover the previous point either that god, if he were as boundlessly perceptive and powerful as claimed, could have made a perfect universe of causation or free will without any downsides, negatives, or terrible, immoral acts. Yet we do have an imperfect world, but don't take my word for it:
Is god willing to prevent evil, but not able?
Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing?
Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able, and willing?
Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing?
Then why call him god?
--Epicurus 33 A.D.
> You realize that you can classify things in many ways, right? A bat is a bird if you call flying things birds.
"If you call a tail a leg, does a dog have five legs? No; calling a tail a leg doesn't make it one."
He actually tells you his purpose in the Bible. At Genesis 1:26-28. He wanted man to be in his image and to fill the earth, have in subjection the creatures, and extend the garden he planted in Eden to the entire earth. You can see in the previous verses he got satisfaction out of his work (saw that it was good) and wanted to extend to humans the same thing.
There is a perfectly good non-scientific explanation for the origin of light, but for some reason, many are hesitant to accept it.
If you seriously think about that for even a moment you should realize how inherently self-contradictory that notion is. If there are no down-sides, then in reality, you aren't really free to do anything that is bad for you in the first place, so you don't actually have the capacity to actually act on your so-called free will, defeating the entire point of having any alleged free-will in the first place.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
What you're saying is that God is able to eliminate evil, and he's willing to eliminate evil, he just wants to allow evil to continue for a few thousand years first?
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
So now we all have these xxx-Lite drinks and snacks...
Yes, in that sense, I'm saying God is not omnipotent.
Other limitations of God: He can't 'make' you be good, love someone, or pay your cable on time.
To whom did he say that?
Of course that seems unfair to us, because we don't know what the future holds.... God does. Freeing all of those in the interim from the consequences of evil would be equivalent to God revoking personal responsibility that humans should take for having free will in the first place. It may seem, from a human perspective that perhaps mankind, particularly given their position and ranking in creation, was simply too naive or even simply stupid to deserve to ever have free, given the pain and suffering that it would ultimately cause.... but again, we are not God... God's plan, whether or not we will ever understand it before finally meeting him in person, is righteous, loving, and perfect, and creation in completion will ultimately attest to all of that in a more complete way than anyone can imagine.
If you want no part of that on the allegation that God is somehow immoral, well.... that's your free willed choice, and God isn't going to take that from you.... God still made you eternal, however. and you will still bear the consequences for that choice for all eternity... consequences that God does not impose on anyone artificially, but actually only arise out of being separate from God in the first place. If this seems unfair to you, again, see the point I made above about how in a human perspective, it might seem that man was perhaps too ignorant to deserve this magnitude of responsibility in the first place. God doesn't make mistakes, however... and had a reason for doing this that we simply don't yet have the ability to comprehend.
The notion that we might consider it completely unimaginable to envision how all of the evil in the world that has existed will have ever been somehow worth it all, or that what is apparently unfair to people who must endure a world with evil in it suggests that God is somehow actually malevolent is in truth more of a testament to our own finiteness, not God's.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Funny how that just happens to be the same things the ancient Hebrews wished for themselves, innit?
Well, if you had to choose on moral grounds (as opposed to just siding with the most powerful), which would you rather worship:
1) A beautiful angel of light, reputed to have been instrumental in mankind acquiring morality. However, this entity is less powerful than his rival YAHWEH.
2) A powerful entity self-describing as being vengeful and jealous, reputed to have forbidden mankind from acquiring morality, then cursing them, their descendants, and the entire planet when they did anyways. Also reputed to eternally torture people, and to require a blood sacrifice to forgive even the smallest offense against him. Also reputed to have such a holier-than-thou attitude that he will kill any who look at him. Also reputed to violate people's free will by hardening their hearts, so that he can show off his might.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
I cannot help but notice that you have some errors in your understanding of what the biblical account of the fall of mankind actually was, such as suggesting that man was cursed by god when man was not... only the serpent and the earth were cursed... man was simply punished, and even through this punishment, there was an act of mercy, in allowing man to continue to exist rather than simply striking them down immediately, and a promise that would one day be fulfilled by Jesus, whose death would be sufficient atonement for all transgressions by man, for all time both in the past and the future to come (but although this was sufficient atonement for all sin, and such forgiveness is offered to all of mankind, it cannot remove the consequences of it for those who remain unrepentant because to do so would be to invalidate the point of giving man a free will).
However, the phrasing of your question really only highlights the incomplete understanding that people have of the bigger picture that is God's plan. I can't claim to have all of the answers, but it's certainly not my fault if you are going to endlessly pursue the deluded notion that you think you know more than any God possibly could, so don't try to imply that my inability to address your questions suggests that would make your views necessarily right and mine wrong.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Soooo .... if I understand correctly, the purposes of God, therefore, are to induce and experience suffering.
Not a terribly Buddhist deity.
Also - not a terribly enlightened one, by my count.
All of this anthropomorphic analysis of a deity is both orginally and ultimately useless - it aids you not one wit to understand the "will" of a superpower that does not, on the face of it, have anywhere near the same objectives nor point of view as we mere mortals.
So fuck this theory of "God" and it's arcane anthropogenic "rules" - what do I care and what sot of difference would it make if I did?
God's plan, whether or not we will ever understand it before finally meeting him in person, is righteous, loving, and perfect, and creation in completion will ultimately attest to all of that in a more complete way than anyone can imagine.
Even if we accept that this is true, from what I have seen, most judeo-christian religious denominations are very evil in many respects, and their religious books are filled with immorality. It it far easier for me to believe that most religious people are worshipping "Satan" than it is for me to believe they are worshipping any "God".
People are imperfect... and I don't deny that certainly some heinous atrocities have been committed, and some still are being committed, in the name of religion. Everyone will still ultimately be held accountable, however... and it is certainly more than enough to worry about living one's own life to the best of their ability rather than pointing out how other people might behave.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Ah, that old argument. It's a mystery (in the theological sense), that we can't understand because we aren't God. If we disagree, we're using free will to distance ourselves from God and pay an eternal price.
In other words, the important stuff isn't worth thinking about, since we might come to a conclusion different from what God wanted, and then we would (for unknown but perfectly logical and loving reasons) we'd suffer horribly for eternity. My vision of God is that God doesn't want people to stop thinking, personally, and God just has to deal with people making honest mistakes.
I'm not claiming to know better than God. I'm claiming to be a whole lot smarter and more rational than a great many people who claim to speak for God.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Brain lesions can have a wide variety of effects.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Really? So, what is described by the "day", "night", "morning" and "evening" on the first day? The "vault" or "firmament" that divides the water under it from water above it for the second day? It doesn't seem to me that Genesis matches what, as far as we can tell, is reality any more than any other creation myth.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
God is right... if our reasoning finds that God is wrong, then it is our reasoning that is flawed, even if we do not necessarily understand how. As for the suffering for all eternity, this is only because we were created to *BE* eternal in the first place... and even I would have to to agree with the reasoning that it may not have been particularly fair to give finite beings such as ourselves the responsibility of making decisions whose impact goes far beyond anything in human experience... certainly if human beings were designing artificial creatures for some particular grander purpose than they could understand, it doesn't seem to make any sense... at least to myself, and probably to almost anyone else, to make them last forever if there is any possibility that they will fail to fulfill that purpose.
But i'm not God, and I certainly won't claim to speak for him... I can only say what my experiences have compelled me to believe. And while I am intellectually obligated to acknowledge what seems to me like the remote possibility that I could be mistaken in these views, I find that almost the same argument which could reasonably cause me to doubt them could equally be made for being unsure that anyone else other than oneself even exists. In the end, I think that one's sensibilities and perceptions of reality will eventually draw them inexorably towards a conclusion about it... and one can ultimately only hope that it is the right one.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
You seem to me to be saying things about God that my experiences, and my logic, very strongly contradict. It may be that you're compelled to believe that crap for some reason beyond my understanding, but nobody else has to take it seriously.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Which part? I didn't really have much to say about God in that post.... In the post to which you responded, I was mostly pointing out that even I myself face the same intellectual challenges with wrapping my mind around the notion that God is not somehow malevolent or cruel as anyone else does. The only difference between myself and people who decide that the so-called loving God must be a fiction because of it is that I've come to the conclusion that my own wisdom isn't really going to be sufficient to explain the true nature of God, and I believe that in time, although probably not before I die, I will finally understand how.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
So the question is, why do you believe that? Someone told you so?
Don't you have to rely on your reason to decide whether or not to believe what you are told?