God and the vastness of the universe

Sergeant Thorne · Post by **Sergeant Thorne** » Thu Mar 05, 2009 1:13 am

The Jack Daniel's theory of the universe?

flip · Post by **flip** » Thu Mar 05, 2009 1:41 am

Colossians 1:17

He himself existed before anything else did, and he holds all things together.

And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.

He may not be so far off Thorne. In the Bible it says God is light and we've established nothing can travel faster than light. No one knows what mass or energy God consists of, but I see that verse I quoted above alluding to something like that. That He is all things and everything consists by him. (Heh I kinda felt like cancer when I thought that).

One thing I'm sure of though, He is also a person, no matter what He consists of.

woodchip · Post by **woodchip** » Thu Mar 05, 2009 8:19 am

Kinda sounds like the Gaia concept writ large.

Spidey · Post by **Spidey** » Thu Mar 05, 2009 8:46 am

Yea…what a silly concept, the idea that God is in us and we are in God, not like the one that has God as a bearded old magician in the clouds.

CUDA · Post by **CUDA** » Thu Mar 05, 2009 9:34 am

Websters wrote:Omnipresence

Om`ni*pres"ence\\, n. [Cf. F. omnipr['e]sence.] Presence in every place at the same time; unbounded or universal presence; ubiquity.

Websters wrote:u⋅biq⋅ui⋅ty /yuˈbɪkwɪti/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [yoo-bik-wi-tee] Show IPA
–noun 1. the state or capacity of being everywhere, esp. at the same time; omnipresence

Foil · Post by **Foil** » Thu Mar 05, 2009 10:21 am

Bet51987 wrote:No, I said that the bible is centered around the earth and that God, Jesus, Adam, Eve, humanity, every story in the bible, all pertains to earth which, to me, makes the remaining universe pointless in the biblical sense. So, it really isn't that subjective to me.

Okay, understood. (Although I disagree that it all pertains to Earth; I'd say it all pertains to God, which means restricting its meaning to a location is space isn't applicable.)

Bet51987 (emphasis Foil's) wrote:...if the builder told me he built a beautiful park with waterfalls on the opposite side of the world that I can never get to, it would have no value to me. So when God created earth for humankind what was the point of all those parks that I can never get to...

I understand you saying that a park you can never see or visit has no value to you personally; that's perfectly reasonable. But it still leaves my question... why should its lack of meaning for you, or even for humanity in general, imply it has no value at all, even to its creator?

From your analogy: If I were that builder, I'd probably be a little miffed if I told someone about a beautiful park I had enjoyed building, and they responded, "I'll never see it, so it's pointless and you had no reason to build it." They don't know anything about the park, or whether I love building parks, or how much it means to me; so how could they say that?

From something real: I occasionally sit down and pluck around on my guitar or sing when I'm alone. If I don't repeat those tunes for anyone else, does that mean they were pointless?

Unless I misunderstand you, that's exactly what you're saying - that the unobserved universe is pointless, because we haven't seen it.

Sergeant Thorne · Post by **Sergeant Thorne** » Thu Mar 05, 2009 10:22 am

Capm wrote:Another part of the theory is that God is as much a result of the creation of the universe as the creation of the universe was a result of God.

Which leads to the conclusion that God IS the universe... you gotta think about that one a while.

anyway, it was a thought with no real imperical evidence, it just made sense one night.

flip wrote:He may not be so far off Thorne.

It's far enough for me. Props on possibly not coming up with the polar opposite of reality one night, though, I guess.

Capm wrote:We surmised that this phenomenons event horizon, should it have a physical or metaphysical presence would explain why humans cannot look at the face of God without going blind, since you would be looking at everything and nothing in the universe at once.

Going blind? In the Old Testament people expected to die. 1st Timothy says that God dwells in unapproachable light.

1 Timothy 6 wrote:16 who alone has immortality, dwelling in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see, to whom be honor and everlasting power. Amen.

Of Jesus it says

Colossians 1 wrote:15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.

Foil · Post by **Foil** » Thu Mar 05, 2009 10:42 am

Back to some quick physics:

AlphaDoG wrote:Did Albert mean that nothing can go faster than the speed of light, or did he mean nothing can go beyond the speed of light squared?

The 'speed limit' (which is indeed c, not c^2) doesn't come from the famous "E=mc^2" equation. That equation describes the relationship between energy and mass with no motion involved. The equation is much more complex when you include relative speeds.

It's really a strange thing to try to imagine, but suffice it to say that what Bettina was hinting at is that time is far from constant when you get to near-c relative speeds, which is why speeds don't 'add up' the way it seems like they should.

If I'm running 10mph, and throw a ball forward at 10mph, someone standing still sees it going roughly 20mph, right? Ah, but velocities don't add like that when you get near c; you never can get a relative speed over that limit, from any perspective.

CUDA · Post by **CUDA** » Thu Mar 05, 2009 11:12 am

you guys are WRONG. don't you ever watch Star Trek?!?!?!

WARP FACTOR 9 Mr. Sulu

flip · Post by **flip** » Thu Mar 05, 2009 11:54 am

The Bible says God is everywhere at once, knows all things, he spoke out of a burning bush, and led the Israelite's as a pillar of fire at night and a pillar of cloud during the day. That to me means he can take many forms yet his nature never changes.

Duper · Post by **Duper** » Thu Mar 05, 2009 11:56 am

lol Cuda, that's a different dynamic.
Warp, as used in star trek is a functioning theory, (though not applied obviously)but removes said object from normal space. (I'm sure you know that)

flip · Post by **flip** » Thu Mar 05, 2009 12:07 pm

And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.

Let me put this in more practical terms so you can at least know what I read this verse. I was up about 70 feet framing a roof. I had to hang over the edge and trust that the rafter I was leaning against wouldn't break. Well A wash of fear came over me when this thing started creaking and that verse popped in my head. This was years ago. The idea and comfort I got from that verse was that that rafter could not break unless God allowed it, because everything is held together by Him on a molecular level. I don't agree with Capm's theories directly, but I think it is in the right direction.

CUDA · Post by **CUDA** » Thu Mar 05, 2009 12:10 pm

Duper wrote:lol Cuda, that's a different dynamic.
Warp, as used in star trek is a functioning theory, (though not applied obviously)but removes said object from normal space. (I'm sure you know that)

SHHHHHHHH

Duper · Post by **Duper** » Thu Mar 05, 2009 1:38 pm

CUDA wrote:
Duper wrote:lol Cuda, that's a different dynamic.
Warp, as used in star trek is a functioning theory, (though not applied obviously)but removes said object from normal space. (I'm sure you know that)

SHHHHHHHH

ooh oh... sorry!

Drakona · Post by **Drakona** » Thu Mar 05, 2009 2:29 pm

Well, the silly response is that the question is a non-sequitur. If humanity never interacts with or sees something, we'll never know it exists. Dark matter doesn't count, see, because we know about it. So, all those things we don't know we don't know about? Why did God create them? We don't know that he did. We don't know about them.

Moving in the serious direction, one line of argument from the intelligent design folks is that the earth is designed to encourage science. I'll give a couple of examples to give you a feel for the style of argument. They say that most planets don't have solar eclipses as exact as ours--the size of our moon is just right. That's lucky for us, since total solar eclipses give unique opportunities to study the sun. As another example, they say that the earth's position in the Milky Way -- backwater, away from the denser clusters of stars -- is both rare and uniquely excellent for granting us a good view of the wider cosmos. And so on. The argument is that you can tell the earth is designed to encourage, not just life, but actual scientific discovery. Now, whether those arguments are valid is another discussion, but if you find them persuasive, then you can go beyond speculating on the original question--you can actually answer it. You have evidence that God set up the universe so that we would explore and discover. In that case, its vastness and secret depths are clearly not bugs, but features.

But the most serious answer is this one: God created the world, and us in it. We then naturally presume he created it entirely for us and criticize him for wasting resources on the task? I'd say that says more about us than him. It says we can't see beyond our own skin, on a couple different levels.

Neo · Post by **Neo** » Thu Mar 05, 2009 3:37 pm

This is the only thing I'm going to say, because this thread is entirely too long.

Why does every creation/evolution post have to spawn an \"endless\" thread? x_x I only made it near the end of page 3 and that took forever.

Anyway, what I'm going to say is this: Einstein concluded that c is a universal speed limit because an object's length is proportional to one divided by the square root of c squared minus its speed v squared. If the velocity were the speed of light, then its length would be zero. If the velocity were greater than light, then its length would be complex. Einstein neglected complex numbers (among other things

) in his theories. For those of you saying that EM waves have mass, electromagnetic waves would never be able to reach the speed c if they did have mass, because according to what was previously said, an infinite amount of energy is required for matter to reach the speed c. Saying c is a speed limit is like saying that an EM \"wave packet\" doesn't have any magnetism. The wave function of a photon is a complex function (Ψ = E + i B). The imaginary part of this function has the magnetic field in it. So saying that length can't be complex is like saying a wave function (or any other quantity) can't be complex.

AlphaDoG · Post by **AlphaDoG** » Thu Mar 05, 2009 3:56 pm

Neo wrote:This is the only thing I'm going to say, because this thread is entirely too long. Why does every creation/evolution post have to spawn an "endless" thread? x_x I only made it near the end of page 3 and that took forever.

Log in more often perhaps?

Foil · Post by **Foil** » Thu Mar 05, 2009 4:11 pm

Drakona wrote:Well, the silly response is that the question is a non-sequitur. If humanity never interacts with or sees something, we'll never know it exists. Dark matter doesn't count, see, because we know about it. So, all those things we don't know we don't know about? Why did God create them? We don't know that he did. We don't know about them.

Lol, you're right. I should have phrased the question differently; of course we can't know if there is more to the universe than we know. (That said, I think it's generally a reasonable assumption that there is more than the currently-observed universe.)

Duper · Post by **Duper** » Thu Mar 05, 2009 6:12 pm

Foil wrote:
Drakona wrote:Well, the silly response is that the question is a non-sequitur. If humanity never interacts with or sees something, we'll never know it exists. Dark matter doesn't count, see, because we know about it. So, all those things we don't know we don't know about? Why did God create them? We don't know that he did. We don't know about them.
Lol, you're right. I should have phrased the question differently; of course we can't know if there is more to the universe than we know. (That said, I think it's generally a reasonable assumption that there is more than the currently-observed universe.)

Hmm..

that's kinda of like imagining colors we've never seen before. ... not variations of ones that exist, but entirely Different ones. That thought always stretches me a bit.

Spidey · Post by **Spidey** » Thu Mar 05, 2009 6:54 pm

Neo, the argument that EM “waves” have mass has never been made here, it’s particles that are in issue.

And I am willing to concede the issue, if someone can explain how a particle can exist with no mass, that being…it doesn’t actually exist at all. But we know that anything that has mass, also has weight, and is effected by gravity, and it has been found that light is in fact bent by gravity.

So if its not a particle, then fine I can go with that.

Particle,
PHYSICS: object with finite mass: a minute body that is considered to have finite mass but negligible size.
Encarta ® World English Dictionary © & (P) 1998-2005 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

Bet51987 · Post by **Bet51987** » Thu Mar 05, 2009 8:20 pm

Foil wrote:
Bet51987 wrote:No, I said that the bible is centered around the earth and that God, Jesus, Adam, Eve, humanity, every story in the bible, all pertains to earth which, to me, makes the remaining universe pointless in the biblical sense. So, it really isn't that subjective to me.
Okay, understood. (Although I disagree that it all pertains to Earth; I'd say it all pertains to God, which means restricting its meaning to a location is space isn't applicable.)

Bet51987 (emphasis Foil's) wrote:...if the builder told me he built a beautiful park with waterfalls on the opposite side of the world that I can never get to, it would have no value to me. So when God created earth for humankind what was the point of all those parks that I can never get to...
I understand you saying that a park you can never see or visit has no value to you personally; that's perfectly reasonable. But it still leaves my question... why should its lack of meaning for you, or even for humanity in general, imply it has no value at all, even to its creator?

From your analogy: If I were that builder, I'd probably be a little miffed if I told someone about a beautiful park I had enjoyed building, and they responded, "I'll never see it, so it's pointless and you had no reason to build it." They don't know anything about the park, or whether I love building parks, or how much it means to me; so how could they say that?

From something real: I occasionally sit down and pluck around on my guitar or sing when I'm alone. If I don't repeat those tunes for anyone else, does that mean they were pointless?

Unless I misunderstand you, that's exactly what you're saying - that the unobserved universe is pointless, because we haven't seen it.

You're not misunderstanding me but it's not about seeing it...it's about reaching it.... which makes it pointless.

I sing along with tapes of Charlotte Church all the time so I understand the personal satisfaction you get with your guitar. In that respect It's not pointless to you and I. But I also believe you would not turn away or make it purposely impossible for someone who wanted to listen to you. I sometimes play those tapes at church when no one is around just to practice in that acoustic environment but I wouldn't lock theh doors or stop if someone came in.

So, in the scientific sense, the vastness of the universe is pointless to me because we are stuck in our local area but at least I can understand why. But, in the biblical sense, and after reading the bible, that vastness makes no sense at all for a bible that's dedicated to saving your soul.

Bee

AlphaDoG · Post by **AlphaDoG** » Thu Mar 05, 2009 8:30 pm

Spidey wrote:
And I am willing to concede the issue, if someone can explain how a particle can exist with no mass, that being…it doesn’t actually exist at all. But we know that anything that has mass, also has weight, and is effected by gravity, and it has been found that light is in fact bent by gravity.

So if its not a particle, then fine I can go with that.

x2

Duper · Post by **Duper** » Thu Mar 05, 2009 9:14 pm

didn't you guys take physics? That's easy. It's called a photon. A particle that acts as a wave that has no real mass. It has relative mass but that's not the same thing.

AlphaDoG · Post by **AlphaDoG** » Thu Mar 05, 2009 9:22 pm

The only thing a DoG knows about physics entails holes.

Spidey · Post by **Spidey** » Thu Mar 05, 2009 10:24 pm

Thanks Duper, now would mind adding something new.

Duper · Post by **Duper** » Thu Mar 05, 2009 10:47 pm

\"there's nothing new under the sun.\" (or beyond it for that matter.

;D

PS. Thanks Drak. That's a neat site. I've heard of the book, but I didn't know there was a site.

Honestly Spidey, I don't get fussed over it all any more. It's not important to me; or at least in so much where it involves my faith. For me, it's like Cuda said, it's there because the Lord created it and called it good. It's beautiful and amazing. Like This picture of the Sombrero Galaxy. At it's core is a MASSIVE black hole. The amount of energy that is being kicked out is staggering. Now, the bible dind't say boo about such things but they are there and awesome. I have no explanation for these things (although there are plenty of solid theories) but that doesn't bother me. People intent on spitting on the face of my God does.

Spidey · Post by **Spidey** » Fri Mar 06, 2009 12:41 am

Nevermind…I was referring to how something can exist without having any substance.

You could at least have said it’s like the hole in a donut, but that would make it a wave…

So just nevermind, since I doubt all the physics degrees in the world can explain it.

Duper · Post by **Duper** » Fri Mar 06, 2009 1:29 am

lmao .. ok.

I TOTALLY missed your point. (obviously)

dissent · Post by **dissent** » Fri Mar 06, 2009 10:24 am

Spidey, Duper,

are we still talking about \"Wave-Particle Duality\"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wave-particle_duality

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/mod1.html

http://physics.about.com/od/lightoptics ... rticle.htm

http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/phys ... s/ekspong/

Foil · Post by **Foil** » Fri Mar 06, 2009 10:57 am

Bet51987 wrote:You're not misunderstanding me but it's not about seeing it...it's about reaching it.... which makes it pointless.

Okay, I think I'm starting to see your perspective - you're asking, "why would a God who desires a relationship with humanity intentionally restrict our ability to visit areas of his creation?" Is that about right?

Hm, that's somewhat different than asking "why create more than strictly necessary?". I'll have to think about it, it's a good question.

Spidey wrote:I was referring to how something can exist without having any substance.

Ah, it's a common confusion when relativistic physics suddenly doesn't fit the typical "mass = stuff / substance" perspective.

Think about it this way, Spidey: in physics, mass is technically a measure of interaction with force and time (i.e. the "m" in Newton's f=ma). It's not a measure of 'substance', except in a non-rigorous sense, because we have no way to measure 'substance'; we can only measure via forces. Of course, the 'substance' understanding is what fits with our usual experience, and it still works well for non-relativistic things.

Here's where things start to differ from our experience: when we look at things moving at or near c (photons, EM waves, etc.), the "mass" variable in Einstein's relativistic equations shows up in multiple places.

That's what's going on here - according to Special Relativity, "mass" is actually two different measures, a "rest mass" and a "relativistic mass".

First, there's the "rest mass", which is the variable corresponding to the classic idea we're familiar with; it holds the mass value in local (non-moving) frames of reference.

But then there is also a "relativistic mass" term that shows up when motion is involved; it's not intuitive, but it's there nonetheless. Essentially, this is the term that measures the change in mass (the ratio of force and acceleration) when approaching c. Yep, there is actually a mass change which occurs with relative speed! Weird, but it's true.

So, back to your question, photons do have mass (and thus interact with forces like gravity)... but it's all relativistic. For a photon, the "rest mass" is zero. That's a direct result of the equations (as Neo posted), and there's some experimental support for it as well.

VonVulcan · Post by **VonVulcan** » Sat Mar 07, 2009 5:24 pm

Duper wrote: Like This picture of the Sombrero Galaxy. At it's core is a MASSIVE black hole.

Did you happen to watch the discovery channel this week? If I understood it correctly, they now believe there is a Super Massive Black Hole in the center of every galaxy. Including ours. It was a fascinating episode.

Duper · Post by **Duper** » Mon Mar 09, 2009 1:03 am

Nope, missed that. Been out of town all weekend, but I did know that. They have found a few that are exception to that, but those are mostly very old galaxies or ones that have collided with others. (\"old galaxie\" ...weird term concidering \"most\" were supposed have come into exsistance at the same time... more or less.

Duper · Post by **Duper** » Tue Mar 10, 2009 5:36 pm

Foil wrote:I came across the following in another thread, and was intrigued by it:

Question, paraphrased wrote:If God created humanity, what purpose does the vastness of the universe serve? Why create beautiful planets and stars impossible for anyone to ever see, much less reach?

I can't believe I missed this answer in all this. duh.

For His Glory. Period.

sheesh.

CUDA · Post by **CUDA** » Tue Mar 10, 2009 6:09 pm

Duper wrote:
Foil wrote:I came across the following in another thread, and was intrigued by it:

Question, paraphrased wrote:If God created humanity, what purpose does the vastness of the universe serve? Why create beautiful planets and stars impossible for anyone to ever see, much less reach?

I can't believe I missed this answer in all this. duh.

For His Glory. Period.

sheesh.

WELL HELL Duper, state the obvious and ruin a perfectly good thread

Duper · Post by **Duper** » Tue Mar 10, 2009 6:10 pm

Jesus was good at doing that at elder meetings.

Spidey · Post by **Spidey** » Tue Mar 10, 2009 6:11 pm

Can I have God's cell phone number...please

Duper · Post by **Duper** » Tue Mar 10, 2009 6:21 pm

sure. 1-800-on-your-knees

(or one knee if you have a leg missing.

)

Spidey · Post by **Spidey** » Tue Mar 10, 2009 6:25 pm

It's busy.

Foil · Post by **Foil** » Tue Mar 10, 2009 7:22 pm

Duper wrote:I can't believe I missed this answer in all this. duh.

For His Glory. Period.

Interesting - my small group at church just went through a course that talked about creation and human purpose being God-centered. Good stuff.

With that said, I'm not sure I get your point.

I believe the universe we can see speaks to God's glory, and I believe God enjoys creating whatever else might be out there... but how could something no one ever sees evoke glory? I thought glory always came from someone not the creator.

Duper · Post by **Duper** » Tue Mar 10, 2009 7:32 pm

or praise can be His glory. Anything that testifies of God is for His Glory. but don't get hung up on semantics.

God and the vastness of the universe

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