Spiritual Musings on Collapse
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New post up… https://picturingchrist.org/sabbath-testimonial-on-hangovers-and-blessings/
Sabbath Testimonial – On Hangovers and Blessings
Romans1 wrote: 11I long to see you so that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to make you strong— 12that is, that you and I may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith. 13I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that I planned many times to come to you (but have been prevented from doing so until now) in order that I might have a harvest among you, just as I have had among the other Gentiles.
14I am obligated both to Greeks and non-Greeks, both to the wise and the foolish. 15That is why I am so eager to preach the gospel also to you who are at Rome.
16I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. 17For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last,c just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith.”
“Atheists can also know the truth” Anam Thubten, Buddhist Lama
this was my teacher’s comment to my information that my teenage (now 21 y/o) son was an atheist.
I have reflected. My son does not believe in an external god, as so often portrayed, nor do I, nor have I ever.
My upbringing in Christianity gave me always the belief that “god” was inside me, not just watching me, else how could my every thought be known? God, therefore experiences all that I, or we experience.
Much later, I learned that everything existing within and of God, is at odds with at least Catholic theology, but it fits well with Shinto.
I am very serious when I say that it was my search for Jesus’ deeper teachings, which first wore me out (they were not retained), then fortuitously led me to the very active practices of Buddhist meditation, reflection and questioning, with the blessings of Jesus, I feel.
Your mileage may vary….Ashvin said I am more than willing to get into substantive debates there over spiritual issues… and smash the atheist worldview to pieces”
Ha, it is up to you sir to prove the existence of a god, not up to any atheist to prove there is not. The burden is on the believer and that task would prove impossible. All argument is just bullshit until you show that proof.carolsiriusb post=5299 wrote: Alpha Centaurians??
You’re right, they’re called alphas in nature, but in human pyramidal constructs the economists, lawyers, legendary investors might as well be called alpha centaurians. Other names have been tentatively given, but mentioning those names would be stretching it a bit. I have a feeling of being on the verge of a ban for only mentioning this, and if Ash has found a new path to pursue, it might actually be enjoyable for me not to be banned and comment here from time to time.
Babble post=5301 wrote: Ashvin said I am more than willing to get into substantive debates there over spiritual issues… and smash the atheist worldview to pieces”
Ha, it is up to you sir to prove the existence of a god, not up to any atheist to prove there is not. The burden is on the believer and that task would prove impossible. All argument is just bullshit until you show that proof.A lot of the content I add to the video/audio sections of the website will be devoted to apologetics, and what I feel are the best arguments in favor of God’s existence and the truth of Biblical Christianity. I’m also in the process of getting a forum set up, so people can discuss these and other issues. For now, I would recommend you check out William Lane Craig’s lectures/debates about the existence of God (his approach is extremely logical and coherent) – https://www.apologetics315.com/search/label/William%20Lane%20Craig
Monotheism versus monotheism… Father + son + holy spirit = 3
Perhaps the explanation for christianities success is that it bridged polytheism with monotheism. It also parasitized pagan religious dates such as winter soltice (Christmas) and easter ( pagan fertility festival). Ever wonder why bunnies and eggs are symbols of easter. Fertility.Via evolution,
religion keeps adaptations that increase fitness. Religion evolves too. The once previous adaptations that increased fitness previously have
become maladaptive.90+ percent depopulation of the world is the quota for tptb and to create a new world based on the tenants of the georgia guidestones they will destroy old world religious Meems by depopulating the meem carriers. Two birds one stone. WW3 will be the final act. Anti muslim sentiment is at a crescendo across Europe and the anti Muslim propaganda fitting seamlessly with the Iran nuclear issue. All that is needed in the appropriate trigger such as a false flag to garnish complete popular sentiment for war against Iran. China and Russia will be compelled to fight.
I have been reading these comments and decided it is time to say something. First is the PC hate that permeates the internet(and society as a whole)because you are unknown to the victums of your hate you feel justified and empowered in your rightous quest just as the KKK did in lynchings ,burnings,and general terrorism all with the mask of ananimity.
Second, am I the only one that had a history class that taught anything from the French revolution onward. Are the christians to blame for the french and russian revolutions, communist china,cambodia,north korea? Hundreds of millions died in the name of athistic states, is that all forgotten because it fought aginst christians superstitions with enlightenment and science? If history has taught us anything it is that evil people will use any means possible to achieve their ends,whether the cover is christian,science,enlightenment, superior and inferior races it all ends the same.
Lastly,the comment about God thinking of us as mobile dirt, you have it backwards. Those that trust in God are a living soul and precious to him. Those who don’t believe in God but only themselves are the mobil dirt, there is no future just the here and now ,no higher purpose for you are only dirt, no right or wrong for there is no objective truth so Hitler murdering 11 million people is just their idea of making the world a better place for with no God there is no higher law and everyone does what they feel like doing, O what freedom! If you die what difference is there between you and a dog,you were both here for a short time,both return to dirt and forgotten. All you achieved is now in the hands of another but what do you care,why should anyone care if all we are is dirt and time and chance added together.
God is our only hope for an objective truth outside of ourselves and for survival on this earth!Ashvin: I will look at your Picturing Christ blog. However, I wonder how any conscious (i.e. ‘awake’) person can select one spiritual tradition over another as more truthful, except on the basis of personal or family history or tradition. Spiritual traditions point to the same truth. Period. It’s great to acknowledge and follow a spiritual path; I do. Be ‘evangelical’ about that, but not that your chosen tradition is more true than another. ‘Evangelical’ yes; ‘evangelical Christian’ no. You immediately invalidate your claim.
God is our only hope for an objective truth outside of ourselves and for survival on this earth!
Which one?
New post up about the atheistic worldview (summed up by Russel’s quote)…
Finding a Safe Habitation for the Soul
That Man is the product of causes that had no prevision of the end they were achieving; that his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms; that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling, can preserve individual life beyond the grave; that all the labors of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, and that the whole temple of Man’s achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins — all these things, if not quite beyond dispute, are yet so nearly certain that no philosophy which rejects them can hope to stand. Only within the scaffolding of these truths, only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul’s habitation henceforth be safely built.
-Bertrand Russell, A Free Man’s Worship (1903)
Why choose christianity?
If you want to put your faith in an omnipotent and omniscient God, why not go for Islam? They are after all, the only one of the great religions to have a (reasonably) active injunction against usury, the counting of interest.
You are smart, you must have done your homework, so you must know arguments against religions in particular and religion in general. Every one of them is tainted with blood and greed, but the only one to have sustained a nearly global commercial peace for more than a thousand years was Islam. Why choose the only religion that has never stopped proselytizing, never stopped missionary work, never stopped functioning in terms of growth and conquest? Forgive me for being presumptuous, but I really would like to know.lukitas post=5335 wrote: Why choose christianity?
If you want to put your faith in an omnipotent and omniscient God, why not go for Islam? They are after all, the only one of the great religions to have a (reasonably) active injunction against usury, the counting of interest.
You are smart, you must have done your homework, so you must know arguments against religions in particular and religion in general. Every one of them is tainted with blood and greed, but the only one to have sustained a nearly global commercial peace for more than a thousand years was Islam. Why choose the only religion that has never stopped proselytizing, never stopped missionary work, never stopped functioning in terms of growth and conquest? Forgive me for being presumptuous, but I really would like to know.lukitas,
I’m going to answer in general terms here, because I don’t want to make this a thread swamped with Christian apologetics.
Yes, there are many rational and logical reasons to choose one spiritual tradition over another. I believe in objective truth (mostly due to logic and experience), and the fact is that most major traditions make exclusive truth claims about fundamental aspects of reality. To me, that means most of them must be wrong when it comes to those fundamental descriptions. Islam says Jesus was a great human prophet, but not divine, while Christianity says Jesus was the Son of God, and equal to the Father in divine essence. Those are radically different conceptions of this critical historical figure.
What I’m interested in is the truth. I don’t care how much blood was spilled by this or that person practicing this or that religion, unless it is somehow relevant to figuring out the validity of the tradition’s truth claims (usually it isn’t relevant at all). As a poster said above, evil people will find all kinds of ways to do evil things, and that is in fact what Christian natural theology and Biblical revelation would predict. It also doesn’t matter how practically useful the religion in your daily life on Earth, or how good it makes you feel. A lot of false beliefs are practically useful and make us feel good, and I’m only interested in figuring out the truth.
If you want to get into specifics about the truth claims of other religions or worldviews, I would be happy to do that with you on PC or via private communication, if you like. There are a ton of resources out there that can help us determine which metaphysics, which philosophies, which histories, which experiences, etc. are rooted in more objective truth than others.
I’m currently reading Endgame, by Derrick Jensen. What he says about spirituality, as distinct from religion, makes a lot of sense. I think he sees religion as a toxic mimicry of civilisation, particularly with its hierarchies. I would urge people not to confuse spirituality with religion and to seek a different route from religion, if seeking some spirituality in all of this.
From unregistered reader Luis Rivera:
“I am nowhere near your intellectual caliber, but I am another truth-searcher that, after a long and painful pilgrimage, was able to experience and conclude that Jesus is all He said He is. Oh, glorious day when my eyes were opened!
I find painfully ironic that some of the readers were quick to condemn you for agreeing with a “religion”, as if you had not used the capabilities of your mind to reach a reasonable conclusion. Instead of debating on the realm of ideas, they just take a dogmatic position to declare you “mad” or “confused”. Funny thing is that some of them think highly of Christ, but can’t swallow anybody taking His words at heart.
Jesus paints the most accurate picture of the evil inclinations we have in our hearts. Actually, that’s one of the things He came to save us from. Evil in the heart is the reason why these secular utopias never work.
I’ll keep this short, I just wanted to exhort you to continue growing in the Lord, and writing as He gives you wisdom and insight to do. Though many will probably sneer and oppose to what you say, others will hear and the Lord will open their hearts to understand and believe. I’ll pray for that. In the meantime, be a witness of the truth.”
First/last comment here. Been a lurker on here for almost two years now, and want to thank all at Automatic Earth for opening my eyes to some important information. As a self-respecting gay man, however, this is my last visit. I’m just not that into the internet, anyway. Mostly, the evangelical christian thing gives me the creeps, life is short, and I’ve got important prepping/community/spiritual work to do.
Ashvin: beware the unholy alliance between leaders in your church and the MIC, especially the gunning for war with Iran and smokescreen scapegoating (gays, abortion). I’ve been attacked on the streets twice in my life, both during anti-gay political hate campaigns in Oregon, and both times by the children of evangelicals. Christianity is a religion of forgiveness and love.
There is a saying in Macrobiotics/Japanese: Shin Do Fu Ji. Body and earth are not two. In your zeal to save souls, don’t dismiss a care for the earth or the human body. It was exactly that split, I believe, that contributed to ‘christians’ being able to slaughter muslims, native peoples, etc. and destroy the planet for so many centuries, all the while getting away with saying God is on their side. Gay people and abortion doctors didn’t make the mess we’re in.
I thank AE again, and wish you all well, but I’m done with this site. Life is too short to waste time with the haters, including their religious subscribers and apologists. And may God have mercy on all of us, especially self-righteous North Americans with heated homes, cars, computers, and time to typity type all day long.
Peace.
Thanks, but you left me flailing in limbo.
How does the search for truth point to evangelical christianity?
I know as little about The Truth as any other human being, but it has been one of my major hangups for quite a while.
I know my perception of the real is a construct, a simulation made by my brain, using sensory inputs, imagination and a little bit of deduction. Taking into account dreams, misperceptions and false perceptions, acknowledging that The Real exists is already a leap of faith.
Having accepted, as an axiom, the existence of The Real, I need to find out what, outside of my own perception, belongs to that reality. I have to rely on outside sources. Science is a powerful tool, fallible and limited as it is : one cannot always be sure the authors of scientific papers have done their homework, wether they have another agenda than absolute truth, and they may have made mistakes or influenced the outcome in some unknown, unseen manner.
Nonetheless, science is a lot more reliable than history, or the news media. We cannot be sure that Catilina was the perverted bastard Cicero describes : the only witness was his biggest enemy, who was not beyond a spot of histrionics. We don’t know Caligula (or Nero) was as monstrous as described : the describers were political enemies.
We know even less about early christianity. Roman politics was written up by contemporaries, sometimes even protagonists. The closest we can get to Jesus is Three or four letters of St Paul’s, who never even met the man. Mark, Luke, Mathew and John were compiled later, and all of the holy scripture is rife with inclusions, alterations and what can only be described as fakes. St. Peter’s letters are all fakes, the man couldn’t write, and he couldn’t have been very good at Greek.
It would be a lot easier to reconstruct Mohammed’s true words than to do so for Jesus, at least the Qur’an was written down as Mohammed spoke (even though they rearranged his sayings in a rather silly way).
Even so, If you disregard all the ‘doubtful’ material in holy scripture, what remains is powerful and dangerous. What remains is a communist utopia with strong spiritual bent. Maybe one could even deduce a rejection of God as the all-powerful creator : God the Father is the one who is killed in the person of his Son, (who cries out his doubt (disbelief?) at the end : Why hast thou forsaken me?) What remains is the ‘Holy Spirit’ which is what happens when Christians meet in communion, togetherness. God the Creator has taken his hands off his creation; we, ‘the summit of creation’ are the ones tasked with the building of paradise on earth.If that is the sort of truth you are digging for, I can dig it.
Still wonder why you should call yourself evangelical. Such a silly word, like catholic and orthodox, bragging about the ‘authenticity’ and ‘antiquity’ of my particular set of beliefs.Still, if I wanted to join a faith, and my principal preoccupation was The Truth, I would still go for Islam and the Qur’an every time.
lukitas post=5360 wrote: Nonetheless, science is a lot more reliable than history, or the news media. We cannot be sure that Catilina was the perverted bastard Cicero describes : the only witness was his biggest enemy, who was not beyond a spot of histrionics. We don’t know Caligula (or Nero) was as monstrous as described : the describers were political enemies.
We know even less about early christianity. Roman politics was written up by contemporaries, sometimes even protagonists. The closest we can get to Jesus is Three or four letters of St Paul’s, who never even met the man. Mark, Luke, Mathew and John were compiled later, and all of the holy scripture is rife with inclusions, alterations and what can only be described as fakes. St. Peter’s letters are all fakes, the man couldn’t write, and he couldn’t have been very good at Greek.
It would be a lot easier to reconstruct Mohammed’s true words than to do so for Jesus, at least the Qur’an was written down as Mohammed spoke (even though they rearranged his sayings in a rather silly way).
Even so, If you disregard all the ‘doubtful’ material in holy scripture, what remains is powerful and dangerous. What remains is a communist utopia with strong spiritual bent.These are all questions… not facts. They are questions that have been answered to the best abilities of experts in the field. There are obviously difficulties in ascertaining historical truths from human accounts, and history is never 100% certain, but that shouldn’t lead us to “give up” on history or accept the speculative claims of non-experts with an obvious bias or agenda. The only legitimate scholar I know of who comes close to endorsing your claims above is Bart Ehrman, and I can direct you to plenty of resources that undermine his arguments.
(but I’m not sure even he would claim that Paul never believed he met Jesus after the resurrection…)
I’d like to spend some time today talking about what is arguably the most remarkable picture of Christ that we find in all of the Bible (and that’s saying something). This picture also happens to involve an episode of much consternation for both Christians and non-Christians. The former will usually read this chapter in Genesis and think, “wow… I don’t know how I would react if God ever asked me to do something like that…”. The latter will usually read it and think, “wow… that’s the last time I ever read the Old Testament or take the God of the Bible seriously!”
I’m sure you have already guessed that I’m talking about Genesis Chapter 22, when Abraham is given the ultimate test of faith – God asks him to provide his only son, Isaac, as a sacrificial burnt offering.
(more at link above)
Very interesting that you have identified materialism as the cause of the problem. May i ask your nationality? You might be Indian from your name. If that is the case, i would like to suggest you read the Bhagavad-gita. This remarkable book identifies materialism (identification with the self and the material world) as the cause of all misery, and goes on to provide the solution (bhakti-yoga, or devotional service). This rich and deep philosophy cannot be found elsewhere. Interestingly, it is the same spiritual philosophy of the Celts, the original inhabitants of northwestern Europe, and practiced by their high-priests, the Druids. It was the common spiritual philosophy of the Indo-European peoples, stretching from Europe to India. All this wisdom was extinguished with the Roman/Christian invasions of NW Europe. Had this not occurred, we would all be living in peace in harmony with each other and the natural world.
New Post – How the Bible Would Solve the World’s Problems
People in modern cultures like to separate religion and spirituality from other areas of their lives, personal and professional. That is considered the appropriate thing to do, and in some cases it is the legally required thing to do. We always fall back on the notion of “separation of church and state” to justify this attitude, as if that catch-phrase can override the uncomfortable truth that spirituality is needed in every sphere of life, including state policy. The state obviously shouldn’t coerce people into any spiritual beliefs (which is logically impossible), and it shouldn’t have a clear preference for one spiritual tradition over another.
However, this doesn’t mean that anyone is forbidden from using their spiritual beliefs to inform their decisions, including public officials. I would argue that we should incorporate those beliefs into all aspects of our lives and be completely honest about doing so. For some [selfish] reason, people are put off by the notion that the best policies for human society may have already been given to us by a higher power, rather than cleverly worked out by humans themselves; that we are all like little children in need of clear instruction and guidance from our parents, even when we are fully grown. The truth is, though, that this is exactly what we are – dependent beings/societies that would dissolve into nothingness without the sustaining action of God along with His moral truths and guidance…
Problems discussed:
(1) The financial, social and psychological well-being of individuals and communities is being drastically curtailed by excessive levels of private and public debt, and the ever-increasing interest burdens on that debt.
(2) Our societies have become infatuated with market-based consumerism and turned every aspect of our lives into commodities defined by monetary values. This has created a level of socioeconomic inequality that only continues to grow larger and cause severe economic, social and psychological effects within these societies.
(3) Developed societies exhibit a level of consumption and waste that is destroying global ecosystems, such as forests and fisheries, and the ability of those who are less fortunate to survive, as well as depleting energy resources that these societies have made themselves dependent on.
(4) Developed and rapidly developing societies have pushed for industrialization and have sacrificed their ecosystems and environments in the process, leaving current and future generations with contaminated soil, polluted water, polluted air, etc.
(5) In tandem with over-consumption by developed populations, many parts of the world also have a problem with over-population, and therefore the resources necessary for a survival have become extremely strained.
(6) In the last century, human civilization has experienced some of the most horrific conflicts and wars in all of its history, many of which were completely unnecessary. After the advent of weaponry capable of mass destruction, any serious conflict carries with it the potential for disproportionately widespread destruction of life.
(7) The human institutions responsible for enacting and implementing policy have become hopelessly corrupt, responding to elite corporate interests rather than the will of the people.
(8) It is a credible argument that our predicaments go beyond the mere corruption of individual humans pursuing narrow goals, but also encompass active conspiracies between humans at the highest levels to pursue very broad, selfish and destructive goals. I would label the ultimate power behind such conspiracies as the spiritual entity known as Satan, but regardless of what you want to call him or it, it is clear that we find relevant warnings and solutions in the Bible.
Charles Alban post=5399 wrote: Very interesting that you have identified materialism as the cause of the problem.
The existence and perception of a material reality is not inherently the problem, but rather our innate selfish and egoistic response to that reality.
I am aware of Hindu and Buddhist philosophy that views the “Fall” as our perception of a reality external to ourselves, including all material objects and relationships. This philosophy is a very powerful one, but it ultimately does not satisfy the scientific, historical or philosophical evidence, IMO.
For ex., in terms of pure experience and logic, this philosophical tradition would say that loving others is just as “evil” as hating others, because they both presume external relationships. That doesn’t make any sense to me, and goes against my experience and logic.
New Post:
What Happened to the Holy Spirit
It seems that we often hear Christians talking about God the Father or Jesus Christ, the Son of God, but we hear very little about the third person of the Trinity – the Holy Spirit. We almost get the sense that the Holy Spirit is some impersonal force that extends from the first two persons, and that “it” isn’t very important to Christian theology or that “it” isn’t responsible for doing too much in the world. Nothing could be further from the truth, though, as we have received it from the scriptures.
The Holy Spirit is just as much a distinct person as the Father and the Son, and He is central to the Christian faith, theologically and practically. I suspect there are two basic reasons why He has erroneously been marginalized so much among Christians, and specifically Christians living in Western cultures – 1) It is simply harder for people to think of God in terms of three persons that are in relationship with each other, rather than two persons, and 2) Western Christians are very resistant to the idea that God is still very active in the physical world today (much, if not all, of that activity comes from the Holy Spirit).
Dr. Craig Keener has addressed point #2 with meticulous detail in his two-volume (1200 page) book, The Credibility of the New Testament Accounts. He shows us how hundreds of millions of people living today have claimed to experience miracles around the world, and many of these claims are very well-attested and independently verified. It is truly our cultural values and filters in the West that blind us to the reality of God at work today, intervening daily in the lives of His children. I believe it is also clear that we are really talking about the work of the Holy Spirit when we reference miracles or divine providence.
(full post at link above)
New Post:
Picturing God’s Eternal Promise
Posted on October 1, 2012 by Brother of SorrowMany Christians believe that God has promised to eventually restore humanity to their original state in the Garden of Eden, before Adam and Eve disobeyed God’s command at the behest of Satan. While this is a somewhat reasonable interpretation of the Bible, I believe it is incorrect. Instead, I believe the Bible reveals to us something much greater – a brand new creation that will be perfect and will act as a much greater reward to the faithful in Christ than anything Adam or Eve experienced. The reward for innocent humans in Eden was an Earthly paradise, but the reward for redeemed humans will be a heavenly Utopia.
There are many Biblical reasons to believe that the Garden of Eden was less than “perfect”, in the sense that most Christians use that word. When Adam was created by God, he was tasked with working in the Garden and taking care of it, which implies a good deal of physical effort (Genesis 2:15). After the Fall, we see that God tells Eve and Adam that they will experience more pain and more physical effort, which implies that pain and physical work were already present before the Fall (Genesis 3:16-19). Although the level of these physical burdens were relatively small in the paradise of Eden, they still existed and therefore Eden was less than perfect.
Another way in which we can picture this lack of perfection is through the physical laws of the Universe. All of these laws are intimately related to the second law of thermodynamics, which states that the Universe has been in a continuous state of “decay” from its beginning. We find some Biblical support for this law in the Bible, when Paul talks about how “the creation was subjected to futility… because of him who subjected it [God]” and how “the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now” (Romans 8:18-22). These statements seem to imply that the Universe was created with its physical laws in place, including thermodynamic decay, as a part of God’s ultimate purpose (the exposure and redemption of humanity from sin)
(full post at link above)
New Post:
The Thin Line Between Global Collapse and Faith
Posted on October 3, 2012 by Brother of Sorrow
I am pleased to present my first guest post here on Picturing Christ – an article by reader “JT”. His article focuses on one of the most basic questions that inspired me to start this blog in the first place – how do we truly respond to the systemic trials and tribulations that humanity faces in the upcoming decades? There are many blogs and websites dedicated to documenting these predicaments and offering advice on how to prepare for them.
Some of them even venture into questions of spirituality and faith from time to time. My own writings at The Automatic Earth over the last few months regularly touched on these issues. However, I recently started to feel like the constant divide between our Earthly predicaments and my spirituality was much too forced and arbitrary. I had the sense that there was a fundamental flaw in the process of offering insights and advice when they were artificially divorced from spiritual truths.
So, with that in mind, I was very glad to hear that fellow Christian and reader of PC also felt the same way, and decided to put those concerns into writing. As Christians, we cannot hesitate to rely on the word of God when it comes to all spheres of our lives. The fact that we may be talking about economics, finance, geopolitics, energy and environmental issues, psychology, etc. shouldn’t make a bit of difference. All of these issues are inextricably woven into the underlying philosophies of spirituality and faith, and, specifically, the God of the Bible and His word.
We are now living in a world where the structures that have come to dominate human civilization are crumbling. Financial contagion from the global banking crisis has spread to all regions of the world and is destroying economic growth. Tensions between Western nations and those in both the Near and Far East are growing, with several theaters of war already firmly established. Our total reliance on fossil fuels and industrial processes for global economic activity has destroyed our natural ecosystems and warmed our atmosphere to extremely dangerous levels, while also depleting those resources and creating the potential for systemic environmental, economic, political and social collapse.
So, before getting to JT’s excellent article, I would like to offer my own personal (yet brief) opinion on these grave matters of collapse and faith. The trying circumstances and events that confront all of us in the years ahead are exactly those which require us to remain resolute in the unconditional truth and morality of our faith. Jesus tells us that there will come a time in which “many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another… and because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold“. (Matthew 24:10, 12).
I believe that whether we are actually living in that specific time or not is irrelevant, because the underlying lesson applies to all times of tribulation before the second return of Christ. And there is no doubt in my mind that severe tribulations have already started to descend upon us, and that they will only grow more imminent and threatening to humanity over time. Therefore, we must always remember to be on guard and ensure that we are NOT the ones who are falling away from God’s truth, the ones hating each other or the ones watching our love for our fellow humans grow cold.
If our understanding and fear of systemic collapse ever begins to lead us towards such a mindset, then, regardless of whether we are physically prepared for Earthly concerns or not, we must immediately re-orient ourselves back towards our faith in Christ.
That being said, here is JT:
New post on the remarkable intersection of modern science and Christian faith:
The Entire Universe Revolves Around Humanity
Posted on October 7, 2012 by Brother of Sorrow
One of the most common arguments Christians run into from atheist or agnostic skeptics is what I would call “the problem of God’s perfect plan for humanity“. It is related to “the problem of evil” and other similar concerns about the nature of God, but it is also different in very important ways and encompasses a much more broad philosophical and scientific spectrum. Let me illustrate it with a hypothetical dialogue between a Christian and an atheist:
Christian: God allowed evil into the world because He has a plan for humanity, in which we will experience the shortcomings of the imperfect, material world and the seriousness of sin. Through this process, however, we will also be able to experience the immeasurable grace, love and redemption of God through Jesus Christ, and eventually the faithful will be perfected and return to exist in the presence of God.
Atheist: But if God’s ultimate plan is to perfect humanity in such a manner, then why did He decide to go through the whole trouble of allowing evil and suffering into the world. Surely, an omnipotent God could have just created humanity in a perfected state from the beginning, and saved us all the “blunders” of human civilization in between.
Christian: True, He could have… but the plan was much deeper and more loving than that. He wanted to create humanity in His own Image and allow us the capacity for free will and freely chosen faith, trust and love. Our original ancestors exercised their free will in rebellion to God’s wise commands, and therefore we have inherited their sinful spirits throughout succeeding generations. God correctly values the redemption of humanity from corruption more than he values pure, untested innocence.
Atheist: OK, but even if we are assuming all of that is true, why did God have to wait tens of thousands of years before finally providing humanity the ultimate atonement for sin through the incarnate Christ. Why couldn’t He just do all of that a few generations after the Fall? It seems like an omnipotent God could have concluded this whole business of sin, redemption and perfection many years ago.
Now, this may be the point at which many Christians get stuck. Why did God have to wipe out all human beings except Noah and his family with a flood, and then create the nation of Israel to imperfectly carry out His commands and transmit the promised Messianic seed down the generations? Wasn’t all of that a very roundabout process to achieve the final goal of forgiveness and redemption through Christ? I believe the answer to these questions rest in two primary concepts – 1) the unparalleled importance of humanity in all of the Universe, and 2) the inability of humans to fully grasp God’s perfect wisdom.
(full post at link above)
William Lane Craig appears to have debated the existence of God many times. Unfortunately, they are all over two hours and I don’t have time, at present, to check them out. However, I did find an article by him, Does God Exist which I’ve started to read.
He starts off badly, with “three reasons why it makes a big difference whether God exists.”
His first reason is that life is meaningless without God. This is purely an opinion of course and presupposes other questions about God, rather than just existence. It also suggests that those who don’t believe in God must be leading a mundane life, barely making it from one day to the next, which is clearly not true.
His second reason is really just a twist on the first reason, that without God, we must live without hope, hope for deliverance. This presupposes, again, that merely the existence of God means that there is deliverance and also that there is something to be delivered from. Again, it suggests a miserable existence for those who don’t believe in a god.
His third reason is, again, a twist of the first reason; that we can come to know and God and his love personally. Yet again, he assumes that the existence of God means that the type of God William Lane Craig wants to exist is the actual God that does exist.
Having dealt with the absolute necessity that God must exist (i.e. he starts off with the conclusion he is about to “prove”, in order to prime the reader) he launches into the proof. I’ve only read part of the first point but it is again very weak, starting out with misrepresenting the “typical” atheist position (as if there is an atheist position) about the universe. He argues from incredulity that the universe must have had a beginning (though I would think most atheist probably think this anyway, even if the science doesn’t necessarily match up to that) and goes on to make some odd points (“what is infinity minus infinity”) that aren’t really relevant to the topic.
Admittedly, I haven’t read it all yet but if the start is anything to go by, I’m quite surprised you’d point to William Craig Lane as providing a good argument about the existence of God.
TonyPrep post=5641 wrote: William Lane Craig appears to have debated the existence of God many times. Unfortunately, they are all over two hours and I don’t have time, at present, to check them out. However, I did find an article by him, Does God Exist which I’ve started to read.
He starts off badly, with “three reasons why it makes a big difference whether God exists.”
He clearly states these are 3 reasons why people should even care about the existence of God. Are you arguing that, if the Christian God does exist, it would not make difference to peoples’ lives? If not, then why you are even arguing about this part of his article? Your reasons may be different from his, but you both agree that it DOES make a difference.
Having dealt with the absolute necessity that God must exist (i.e. he starts off with the conclusion he is about to “prove”, in order to prime the reader) he launches into the proof.
Nope, not true. As you already know, he started with reasons why the debate even matters, not reasons why God exists. So he is not starting off with the conclusion he intends to prove.
I’ve only read part of the first point but it is again very weak, starting out with misrepresenting the “typical” atheist position (as if there is an atheist position) about the universe. He argues from incredulity that the universe must have had a beginning (though I would think most atheist probably think this anyway, even if the science doesn’t necessarily match up to that) and goes on to make some odd points (“what is infinity minus infinity”) that aren’t really relevant to the topic.
I’m not sure exactly what you are saying here, but all scientists have concluded that the Universe (matter, energy, space and time) must have had a beginning. In fact, Stephen Hawking and Roger Penrose concluded that, if mass exists in the Universe and general relativity reliably predicts gravitational behavior (they do), then the inescapable conclusion is that the dimensions of space and time came into existence at a finite time in the past. I think everyone agrees that this is a radical discovery with radical implications, regardless of whether they are atheists or theists.
The most significant implication is that science can no longer rule out supernatural (or miraculous) causes for material events. Something transcendent of matter, energy, space and time that caused all of that to come into existence is, by definition, supernatural. Therefore, atheists can longer rely on their traditional assumption that scientific, observational evidence in the world can never be explained by supernatural causes, because we know for a fact that the biggest observation of them all, the ENTIRE Universe, was caused by just that.
“He clearly states these are 3 reasons why people should even care about the existence of God. Are you arguing that, if the Christian God does exist, it would not make difference to peoples’ lives?“
No, but Craig is not arguing the reverse; he doesn’t say “Christian God”, he says “God”. In any case, his reasons are really the same reason, stated different ways and presupposes that the lives of everyone are tedious and miserable unless they believe in a (Christian) God. This obviously makes sense to him but to no one else. If one doesn’t believe, then those reasons are not reasons at all.
“Nope, not true. As you already know, he started with reasons why the debate even matters, not reasons why God exists. So he is not starting off with the conclusion he intends to prove.“
In which case, it is badly written because it surely seems that way to me. If I go to read an article titled “Does God Exist”, then why would the reasons (or his reasons) for wanting God to exist matter? Let’s first figure out if God exists and then figure out what that means, either way. In fact, to my mind (I used to be very religious – Christian), the key question is not whether God exists but is God and interventionist God, in any way (e.g. sets rules for our lifestyles or takes direct action in our world).
“I’m not sure exactly what you are saying here, but all scientists have concluded that the Universe (matter, energy, space and time) must have had a beginning.” I don’t think scientists “conclude” in some definitive sense but, this universe, yes. Craig, however, claims that skeptics say that the universe has always been here, which is not true (i.e. it’s not what they claim, generally). He then goes on from that to reason that the universe must have had a begining, i.e. have been created. However, some evolving hypotheses might “conclude” that the universe did not have a beginning but oscillated between collapse and expansion (some calculations show that huge distances are mathematically equivalent to tiny distances, for example).
“The most significant implication is that science can no longer rule out supernatural (or miraculous) causes for material events. Something transcendent of matter, energy, space and time that caused all of that to come into existence is, by definition, supernatural.” I doubt any scientist (or hardly any scientist) would agree with that. Science would always rule out supernatural events because such events would make the world not discoverable (i.e. any single supernatural event would invalidate a bunch of scientific theories because they then couldn’t explain that event). Science could not go on in a world of supernatural events. If you’re saying it can’t rule out a supernatural event only for the “begining” of the universe, then you are kind of agreeing that we don’t have an interventionist God, but something like Loop Quantum Gravity is an example of a way to get past the “beginning” event. Science has also shown spontaneous creation of matter in this universe, including spontaneous creation of space as the universe expands.
“the biggest observation of them all, the ENTIRE Universe, was caused by just that“
The creation of the universe has not been observed and it certainly isn’t known that its beginning (if it had a begining in the way you mean) was caused by some being creating it (and even this would raise the question of what caused that being – God – to come into existence, or was that being “always there”, something Craig finds incredulous for the universe?).
TonyPrep post=5648 wrote: “I’m not sure exactly what you are saying here, but all scientists have concluded that the Universe (matter, energy, space and time) must have had a beginning.” I don’t think scientists “conclude” in some definitive sense but, this universe, yes. Craig, however, claims that skeptics say that the universe has always been here, which is not true (i.e. it’s not what they claim, generally). He then goes on from that to reason that the universe must have had a beginning, i.e. have been created. However, some evolving hypotheses might “conclude” that the universe did not have a beginning but oscillated between collapse and expansion (some calculations show that huge distances are mathematically equivalent to tiny distances, for example).
The skeptics fought big bang cosmology tooth and nail for many decades, because they didn’t want to accept that space, time, matter and energy has a beginning, just as the Bible describes. Some atheists will even admit that was the reason they were so skeptical of BBT. However, in 1992, it basically became impossible to dispute that there was such a beginning. More recently, three astronomers discovered that no model of a Universe with mass and general relativity can get around the need for a transcendent cause to its beginning, including multiverse or oscillatory models (see BGV theorem).
“The most significant implication is that science can no longer rule out supernatural (or miraculous) causes for material events. Something transcendent of matter, energy, space and time that caused all of that to come into existence is, by definition, supernatural.” I doubt any scientist (or hardly any scientist) would agree with that. Science would always rule out supernatural events because such events would make the world not discoverable (i.e. any single supernatural event would invalidate a bunch of scientific theories because they then couldn’t explain that event). Science could not go on in a world of supernatural events. If you’re saying it can’t rule out a supernatural event only for the “begining” of the universe, then you are kind of agreeing that we don’t have an interventionist God, but something like Loop Quantum Gravity is an example of a way to get past the “beginning” event. Science has also shown spontaneous creation of matter in this universe, including spontaneous creation of space as the universe expands.
Plenty of scientists would agree with that… only atheist scientists would still be skeptical. Supernatural events does not mean reality is not discoverable, it simply means that science is limited in its explanatory scope and power, and we must rely on other fields of knowledge to discover a greater extent of reality. However, even supernatural hypotheses can be tested and supported by science. For example, the Biblical hypothesis that life did not originate through natural abiogenesis, but rather it was created very early in Earth’s history in the absence of prebiotics (at just the right time), under relatively hostile conditions, very rapidly and abundantly. If those conditions prove to be true, then the Biblical model gets a lot of support over natural models which have become less and less likely as the scientific evidence mounts.
“the biggest observation of them all, the ENTIRE Universe, was caused by just that“
The creation of the universe has not been observed and it certainly isn’t known that its beginning (if it had a begining in the way you mean) was caused by some being creating it (and even this would raise the question of what caused that being – God – to come into existence, or was that being “always there”, something Craig finds incredulous for the universe?).
Astronomers now have the capability to directly observe the earliest moments of creation by looking out into the Universe. As already stated, we definitely know that space, time, matter and energy came into existence. No one disputes that the Universe could have been eternal, as many naturalists and Eastern theists argued for centuries, it just turns out that it wasn’t. The ultimate cause cannot be a created entity or force, but rather it must be uncreated and eternal. It must be capable of existing completely outside of our spatiotemporal dimensions. The primary question is whether this is some kind of mindless uncreated force, or it is an intelligent designer. I may not get you all the way to the Christian God, but other scientific evidence is capable of doing that (fine-tuning of Universe, origin of life, origin/development of humanity, etc.), and then of course we must look to fields that go beyond scientific reach.
ashvin post=5676 wrote: The skeptics fought big bang cosmology tooth and nail for many decades, because they didn’t want to accept that space, time, matter and energy has a beginning, just as the Bible describes.
I’ve heard this line of argument before but I must say that, as someone who has been interested in science for most of his 58 years, and devoutly religious for about a decade of that, I don’t recall such a fight by sceptics. The so-called Big Bang Theory wasn’t, and isn’t, even a theory. What scientists postulate is a phase of (almost) incredibly rapid expansion. The phrase “big bang” is just some way of visualising the “time” before the inflationary period. Research and hypothesising into that unfathomable period continues (I suspect it will continue for ever).
ashvin post=5676 wrote: However, in 1992, it basically became impossible to dispute that there was such a beginning.
Mmm, although I stopped reading much about the fabric of space and time about 5 years ago, I don’t recall anything definitive about their having to have been a begining; such musings are still the subject of much theorizing and research. But, Craig is reasoning based on the idea that either something (the universe) was infinite, which is scientifically crazy, or that something had a begining and therefore must have been created by something else that was infinite. That is, we get into a loop because, of course, infiniteness is crazy, so the creating something must have had a begining and been created by something that is infinite ….
ashvin post=5676 wrote: Plenty of scientists would agree with that… only atheist scientists would still be skeptical.
Almost all scientists are atheist (or, at lease agnostic), but I feel sure that most scientists would agree that matter does spontaneously get created.
ashvin post=5676 wrote: Supernatural events does not mean reality is not discoverable, it simply means that science is limited in its explanatory scope and power, and we must rely on other fields of knowledge to discover a greater extent of reality. However, even supernatural hypotheses can be tested and supported by science. For example, the Biblical hypothesis that life did not originate through natural abiogenesis, but rather it was created very early in Earth’s history in the absence of prebiotics (at just the right time), under relatively hostile conditions, very rapidly and abundantly. If those conditions prove to be true, then the Biblical model gets a lot of support over natural models which have become less and less likely as the scientific evidence mounts.
I’m not sure what science supports creation of life. There is some interesting research about origins of life at the university of Edinburgh (I think) where life becomes almost inevitable on a warm wet rocky planet, though I doubt we’d ever get to test that hypothesis. Supernatural events can’t be supported by natural science, by definition. If it is supernatural, it has no natural explanation. Consequently, supernatural events and God interventions in our world would make natural science impossible to carry out. But we do carry it out so, currently, there is clearly no evidence of supernatural events.
ashvin post=5676 wrote: Astronomers now have the capability to directly observe the earliest moments of creation by looking out into the Universe. As already stated, we definitely know that space, time, matter and energy came into existence.
You’ve stated that but we certainly don’t definitely know that. What we do think we know is that what we think of as space and time now may have had changing characteristics in the distant past (e.g. the speed of light may have been different in the distant past). Indeed, time is a mysterious property that science continues to debate deeply (e.g. scientific theories don’t distinguish between time going forward and time going backward). I’m not sure what you mean by the “earliest moments of creation” but astronomers can certainly not directly observe anything beyond cosmic background radiation and very early galaxies (as seen in Hubble Ultra Deep Space photos). They cannot directly observe the “earliest” moments of the rapid inflation phase.
ashvin post=5676 wrote: The ultimate cause cannot be a created entity or force, but rather it must be uncreated and eternal. It must be capable of existing completely outside of our spatiotemporal dimensions.
But if it was completely outside then it can’t operate inside. That is, it could only have created the conditions in which the universe was “created” but not actually have created it. Consequently, it would be impossible to determine that something completely outside of our spatiotemporal dimensions had created the conditions for those dimensions to come into existence.
ashvin post=5676 wrote: The primary question is whether this is some kind of mindless uncreated force, or it is an intelligent designer. I may not get you all the way to the Christian God, but other scientific evidence is capable of doing that (fine-tuning of Universe, origin of life, origin/development of humanity, etc.), and then of course we must look to fields that go beyond scientific reach.
Well, I would regard the primary question as being whether this hypothesised being should result in any impact on our day to day lives (and the lives of other species). Is this creator interventionist, does it requires certain behaviours of the creatures it created, that aren’t built in to those creations and, if so, why, and how are those behaviours supposed to be manifested if they were not already built in? A supplementary question might be why is the message of what we’re supposed to do so obscure and out of reach of so many (both in the past and now), why are the messages that are supposed to be there now able to be interpreted in so many different ways?
TonyPrep post=5682 wrote: I’ve heard this line of argument before but I must say that, as someone who has been interested in science for most of his 58 years, and devoutly religious for about a decade of that, I don’t recall such a fight by sceptics. The so-called Big Bang Theory wasn’t, and isn’t, even a theory. What scientists postulate is a phase of (almost) incredibly rapid expansion. The phrase “big bang” is just some way of visualising the “time” before the inflationary period. Research and hypothesising into that unfathomable period continues (I suspect it will continue for ever).
The “big bang” is actually a way of describing how space, time, matter and energy came into existence. There are various models for how it progressed, the “inflationary” model being one of the most popular, but all of them agree that there was a beginning and a continuous accelerating expansion under constant laws of physics.
https://www.reasons.org/articles/a-beginner-s-and-expert-s-guide-to-the-big-bang-sifting-facts-from-fictions
The big bang is NOT a big “bang” as most lay people would comprehend the term. This expression conjures up images of bomb blasts or exploding dynamite. Such a “bang” would yield disorder and destruction. In truth, this “bang” represents an immensely powerful yet carefully planned and controlled release of matter, energy, space, and time within the strict confines of very carefully fine-tuned physical constants and laws which govern their behavior and interactions.4 The power and care this explosion reveals exceeds human potential for design by multiple orders of magnitude.Mmm, although I stopped reading much about the fabric of space and time about 5 years ago, I don’t recall anything definitive about their having to have been a begining; such musings are still the subject of much theorizing and research.
No, that’s what I’m saying… it’s not. No serious astronomer/cosmologist denies this. If you are aware of one, I’d like to hear about it.
Almost all scientists are atheist (or, at lease agnostic), but I feel sure that most scientists would agree that matter does spontaneously get created.
I don’t know where you are getting that from, but there are plenty of theist scientists across the world.
What you are talking about is the casmir effect, in which certain types of matter can be shown to generate from a vacuum (under highly controlled circumstances). That is not at all the same thing as space-time, matter and energy coming from nothing at the beginning of the Universe. A vacuum existing in space and time is not “nothing”.
I’m not sure what science supports creation of life. There is some interesting research about origins of life at the university of Edinburgh (I think) where life becomes almost inevitable on a warm wet rocky planet, though I doubt we’d ever get to test that hypothesis. Supernatural events can’t be supported by natural science, by definition. If it is supernatural, it has no natural explanation. Consequently, supernatural events and God interventions in our world would make natural science impossible to carry out. But we do carry it out so, currently, there is clearly no evidence of supernatural events.
Sorry, you are just completely wrong here. Supernatural aspects of reality can easily interact with natural laws and processes without making “science impossible to carry out”, and hypotheses of supernatural causation can be logically deduced AND scientifically tested (there is a difference between science and “naturalism”). This is exactly what is going on in OOL research, as I showed you. There is no reason to think that a supernatural designer would make the physical Universe fundamentally unpredictable or unstable… in fact, we would expect the exact opposite to be true, and that’s what we find.
ashvin post=5676 wrote: You’ve stated that but we certainly don’t definitely know that. What we do think we know is that what we think of as space and time now may have had changing characteristics in the distant past (e.g. the speed of light may have been different in the distant past).
We know it with just as much certainty as we know that general relativity reliably predicts gravitational behavior. And we also know that the speed of light was not different in the “distant past”… that is the opposite of BBT.
Indeed, time is a mysterious property that science continues to debate deeply (e.g. scientific theories don’t distinguish between time going forward and time going backward). I’m not sure what you mean by the “earliest moments of creation” but astronomers can certainly not directly observe anything beyond cosmic background radiation and very early galaxies (as seen in Hubble Ultra Deep Space photos). They cannot directly observe the “earliest” moments of the rapid inflation phase.
https://www.reasons.org/articles/a-beginner-s-and-expert-s-guide-to-the-big-bang-sifting-facts-from-fictions
The simplest-to-grasp evidence in support of the big bang comes from pictures. With the help of various imaging devices, one can actually enjoy a kind of time-lapse photo of the big bang. The images show the universe in its various “growing up” stages, much as a time-lapse camera captures the opening of a flower, or as a photo album documents the development of a person from birth onward.Such an album is made possible by light (or radiation) travel time. Observing a distant galaxy, for example, some 5 billion light-years distant is equivalent to seeing that galaxy 5 billion years ago, when the light now entering an earth-based telescope began its journey through space. In one sense, astronomers can only capture glimpses of the past, not of the present, as they peer out into space.
Thanks to the Keck and Hubble Space Telescopes, astronomers now have a photo history of the universe that covers nearly 14 billion years. It begins when the universe was only about half a billion years old and follows it to “middle age,” where it yet remains. The sequence of images [images not available online] presents highlights from this cosmic photo album.
But if it was completely outside then it can’t operate inside. That is, it could only have created the conditions in which the universe was “created” but not actually have created it. Consequently, it would be impossible to determine that something completely outside of our spatiotemporal dimensions had created the conditions for those dimensions to come into existence.
No, something can be transcendent of something else yet still interact with it and operate within it. That is called “imminence” in philosophy/theology. You may be right that we can’t determine exactly what created the Universe through science… but that is why we need to use other fields of knowledge.
Ashvin, you really are misrepresenting the science of the early part of the universe but this is hardly the place for such a discussion. I see myself decades ago following a similar tack (though the science wasn’t as developed, of course) until something clicked in me. Perhaps it can be picked up again at a suitable point on your new blog.
Thanks for engaging.
New Post:
Why the Created Universe Will Disappear
In my last article, The Entire Universe Revolves Around Humanity, I pointed out one of the most fascinating aspects of the known material Universe – the fact that it is finely-tuned for the development of advanced life on planet Earth. This fine-tuning is evident at all scales, from the scale of the entire Universe to that of the Milky Way Galaxy, our solar system and planet Earth. Over time, the scientific trend has clearly progressed towards discovering more and more finely-tuned characteristics of the cosmos and our planetary environment that are required for life.
Many of these characteristics are only necessary for the development of intelligent life and civilization, capable of observing and measuring the Universe (humans), rather than more simple life forms. So we are talking about nearly 14 billion years of cosmic development that has managed to create the extremely rare set of circumstances needed for the existence of one species of life in one tiny portion of the Universe at just the right time. A good way to state this “anthropic principle” is that humanity’s existence places severe constraints on the physical constants, structure, and history of the universe, on the Milky Way Galaxy, the solar system, and Earth and its life.
The most astounding fact about this principle, though, is that life and humanity arrived on the scene at the earliest possible time it could have, and that humanity can only survive in a civilized state for about 20-40,000 years. Given the physics of our Universe, the building blocks of life could not have been engineered in giant star furnaces any sooner than they were, and an advanced species with the capacity for civilization would also require billions of years of organic processes by other life forms before it could sustain itself. On top of that, the accelerating expansion of the Universe will make sure that no life will survive for much longer (in geologic time).
(more at link above)
Tprep,
Sure, no problem.
Hey, Ash.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Omega-Point-Multiverse.png
This model provides a non-zero positive chance [converging to 100% probabilty over all universes] that sapient life contained in the multiverse will succeed in constructing an infinitely complex energy/information system which is mathematically indistinguishable from God, which would then generate the multiverse [including all possible paradoxes pertaining to self-generating existence].
There are cosmological configurations in which the percieved accelerated expansion of the visible cosmos is merely an optical illusion. The universe may be expanding at a stable rate but not actually accelerating. The quickening could be a localised artifact caused by the concurrent presence and imminent [absolute deterministic] demise of sensible perception on this planet, providing that there is no other sensible life within the boundary of the observable universe, there are abberations possible in space-time energy density which could produce the observed acceleration effect. The causally decoupled universe beyond the event horizon would then not necessarily be expanding at a quickening pace and may contain life.
Gravity post=5749 wrote: Hey, Ash.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Omega-Point-Multiverse.png
This model provides a non-zero positive chance [converging to 100% probabilty over all universes] that sapient life contained in the multiverse will succeed in constructing an infinitely complex energy/information system which is mathematically indistinguishable from God, which would then generate the multiverse [including all possible paradoxes pertaining to self-generating existence].
Gravity, does this model predict that our current Universe creates itself in the past from the future?
More importantly, is there any way to test this multiverse model?
ashvin post=5750 wrote: Gravity, does this model predict that our current Universe creates itself in the past from the future?
It seems to predict that, especially as Gravity is a recursive algorithm.
Actually, it only predicts that at least one possible inhabited universe will become a source universe in which the process of life produces all other inhabited universes in causal interrelation within a moral multiverse.
It is a formulation of the final anthropic principle, stating that sentient life must necessarily come into existence in at least one possible source universe, and once it comes into existence, such life will never die out, as a function of a pre-destination causality paradox. This process subsequently produces a maximal multiverse of all possible causally interrelated universes originating from a single source universe, by purposeful intent.Any methodology of testing the veracity of this model should require a quantifiable process of consciously forced universe collapse by sentient life using some mechanism such as the posited baryon annihilation, thereby allowing for the theoretical possibility of such life subsisting until the end of time in a given universe, defeating entropic decay. I mentioned this model because it allows for the non-zero possibility that accelerating universe expansion could be forcibly halted and reversed, even within this universe.
If there is only a single possible universe initially, and not yet a multiverse, this initial source universe must contain an irreducible logical paradox to possibly exist by creating itself retroactively.For the multiverse to be a moral agent in this model, sapient life in the source universe must make a conscious moral choice to construct an infinite God system encompassing all possible universes. In the initially godless source universe, moral free will is only a function of the pre-existence of God by means of a pre-destination paradox, but all subsequently caused universes would include free will as a paradox-free function of the resultant God system.
If the omega point is possible as an infinite information/energy system, it must constitute a form of life no less complex than the multiverse it yields, conforming to the knowable mathematical properties of God in any theist conception. This would also seem to require that every universe within the multiverse is a causal function of the same God.
Such notions as the final anthropic principle, relating to the omega point model, may someday prove beyond a doubt that life is important, and that the Bigger Bang is economically viable. Life in the universe would definitely seem less trivial if it could possibly reverse universe expansion and force a cosmogenic collapse of its own accord.Ive reconsidered that logical paradoxes in a source universe cannot extend into multiversal interrelation unless every universe contains the same paradox, the only possible paradox, and that all possible universes are inhabited by sentient life capable of understanding paradoxes in relation to their own existence.
ashvin post=5750 wrote: Gravity, does this model predict that our current Universe creates itself in the past from the future?
I don’t know.
I do prefer to contemplate cosmological models where free will may exist apart from the existence of God, as these models are often less complex and contain fewer paradoxes than those providing free will solely as a function of God.
I consider cosmological models that disallow free will as inviable, it would be useless to be forced or randomly moved to contemplate such models as a function of the pointless deterministic or chaotic universe which they result in.One thing is clear; the omega point multiverse is distinct from other multiverse models because it has a definitive moral or philosophical dimension. Every possible universe resultant from the omega point is causally interrelated by a singular moral heuristic, whereby all possible universes capable of sentient life must allow for free will [as a function of the God system/!]; or all possible universes must contain sentient life and allow for free will [!].
Im not sure if this moral heuristic of multiversal free will is actually intended in the model itself, but it would necessarily be true. This must be why it seems more of a philosophical model rather than a scientific one, even if it were falsifiable.
Other multiverse models allow for causally decoupled verses, inherently existing without moral purpose. Some verses may allow for the random possibility of sentient life, either with or without free will, but most possible universes would be devoid of life. The accidental existence of God in any one universe would not necessitate the existence of the same God in other verses.
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