Religion

[Pickle123]

hardly intense

and it was due to the phrases lack of nessecity that it was plagiarized (sp?)

[Malefact]

Well! In 18 months of posting I've never stirred up a response like this! Thanks for what everyone has said - I appreciate exploring different perspectives and viewpoints.

Now for my ripostes.

Pooka: I totally agree with what you said about denominational single-mindedness. In my opinion, it's just a step away from the words we keep hearing in the news; terrorism, jihad etc. There is nothing more dangerous than someone who absolutely, firmly and completely believes in something enough to sacrifice anything and anyone. Also, I wouldn't have thought that the Bible contains things that are meant to be taken literally, either. Taking it as a collection of allegories makes much more sense.

There is, of course, a rather interesting slant on the whole affair, too. (And bear in mind that today's Bible has been translated many times, and has been expected to have withstood the subsequent grammar changes, deciphering of idomatic expressions etc.)

The Bible says (in a nutshell) that if you lead a good and honest life you will go to Heaven.

HOWEVER, if EVERYONE leads a good life, according to the principals laid down in the Bible, then surely Earth will BECOME Heaven?

Pickle: Some very good points.

I was originally going to write about God being the universe justifying the supposition that "He" is omnipresent, but in the process of writing that rather drawn-out post, I forgot!  ;D

OK, I'm willing to accept what you said about the writing of the Bible. What I will say is that I have also heard of a text that was intended for inclusion in the Bible that the Church refuses to accept and dismisses as heresy. What this book basically says is that you don't need churches to worship - that the entire universe is the "House of God". This makes perfect sense, really. From a religious standpoint, if God made the universe then surely the entire universe is Holy? As a consequence of this viewpoint, churches suddenly become rather redundant. And considering the vast riches that the Vatican has (I am veering dangerously close to my trademark cynicism here) is it any wonder that they refuse to validate this book?

With respect to the creation of the universe, Archimedes once said "give me a place to stand and I will move the Earth!" referring to his discovery of the power of levers. Where was God standing when "He" created the universe? When you think about this question, remember that "standing" also applies to the fourth dimension as well. Space and time are properties associated with the universe. We don't have any reason to assume that they exist outside the universe.

Btw, if the universe is infinite, it must have infinite energy. However, if there were infinite energy, relativity would become meaningless. Also, scientists have been able to construct a rough image of the universe. It is approximately oval-shaped with an uneven distribution of matter.

[Pickle123]

See this is what happens when people open up and are willing to discuss. we get lengthy really well thought out opinions expressed logicly and coherently (SP?)
sorry if people are now hating this topic but im loving it and there's nothing to stop the knightmare religion planning from continuing.

malefact:

OK, I'm willing to accept what you said about the writing of the Bible. What I will say is that I have also heard of a text that was intended for inclusion in the Bible that the Church refuses to accept and dismisses as heresy. What this book basically says is that you don't need churches to worship - that the entire universe is the "House of God". This makes perfect sense, really. From a religious standpoint, if God made the universe then surely the entire universe is Holy? As a consequence of this viewpoint, churches suddenly become rather redundant. And considering the vast riches that the Vatican has (I am veering dangerously close to my trademark cynicism here) is it any wonder that they refuse to validate this book?

Well i can only speak for the catholic church, and even my knowledge of the inner workings of that is limited, however, the church doesn't actually tell us "churchs" (as in the buildings) are needed for worship.
We have churchs because the jews had temples to worship in and christianity is basicly an extension of judaism (that def. aint the right spelling but what the hey)
The reason people are obliged to go to church is to recieve communion. communion can't only be given in a church but it would be impractical for a preist to try and visit everyone when everyone can just congregate and visit the preist as happens every sunday.
Also worshiping as a community is important but reieving communion is the main reason in the catholic church. Id imagine there are other reasons it's been rejected, possibly it's events don't tally with 4 or 5 other books. *shrug*

With respect to the creation of the universe, Archimedes once said "give me a place to stand and I will move the Earth!" referring to his discovery of the power of levers.

Wasn't it, "give me an immovable place to stand and a long enough lever (unbreakable...but i dont know if he said that) and ill move the earth" anyway...this was just me being pedantic: ignore

Where was God standing when "He" created the universe? When you think about this question, remember that "standing" also applies to the fourth dimension as well. Space and time are properties associated with the universe. We don't have any reason to assume that they exist outside the universe.

assume?....they can't exist outside the universe.
1) for there to be time, there must be space for time to pass in (sounds weird but its the best way to explain it)
2) there can be no "space" (includes matter, vacuum...all of it) outside of the universe because by definition the universe contains everything
3) therefore we can confidently say that no time or space exist outside the universe

about god, well god is above all the rules, he makes them. to bring the example down a scale or two...take BigBrother. bigbrother created the house, put the housemates in it and controls everything that goes on in the house. but they aren't in it...there are somewhere else that the contestants just can't see.

Btw, if the universe is infinite, it must have infinite energy. However, if there were infinite energy, relativity would become meaningless.

however, since all energy isn't in equilibrium everywhere relativity becomes meaningful again

Also, scientists have been able to construct a rough image of the universe. It is approximately oval-shaped with an uneven distribution of matter.

yep...thats a model of the universe. still infinite though and here the thinking behind it.

1) universe by definition contains everything.
2) therefore if we reached the edge of the universe (just say we could) and tried to step beyond it, *WE* would become the edge of the universe. the universe expandas to fit us. therefore it is impossible to reach the end of the universe or go beyond it.
3) something without end is infinite.

the model is simply how far the universe has extended so far.

also...

The Bible says (in a nutshell) that if you lead a good and honest life you will go to Heaven.

HOWEVER, if EVERYONE leads a good life, according to the principals laid down in the Bible, then surely Earth will BECOME Heaven?

Very interesting point, which i never considered before. This is a very valid interpretation of the bible and im not going to say i disagree with that, infact it's possibly one of the best interpretations ive ever heard.

i'd just say...
heaven is meant to be perfect happines, even if everyone is "good", not everyone on earth will be perfectly happy. people will still get ill and die leaving unhappy relatives.
Also Heaven is unending happines and no matter how well peeps behave, we're not immortal.

[Trial_by_Spikes]

A bit heavy.

[Malefact]

Lummee! I'm enjoying this!  :)

People still go to church, though, to pray I'd imagine. My point is that surely they don't need to leave their homes to do that.

Unfortunately, I'm a very bitter person and the idea of coming together as a community is something I don't like. I've never liked "joining in". It's a silly game, anyway!  ;D

With regards to the nature of the universe (!) I must disagree with you. The universe is finite because the universe has a finite age. It is now widely accepted that the universe was created by a "Big Bang". If the universe were infinite in size, it would have had to have been expanding at an infinite speed. This is not so. The speed of the expansion of the universe has been measured, and the boundary of the universe (by "boundary" I mean the outermost material - which, logically, is the material that was first to be blown outwards at the instant of creation) has been imaged.

Now, you say that if we managed to reach the outer boundary of the universe and progress beyond it, we would become the outer boundary and the universe would be infinite. This is wrong. Here is why:

Assuming we could reach the boundary:

We could progress beyond it and therefore extend it (so, technically, we wouldn't actually progress "beyond" it - we would just become a part of it, stretching outwards) but it would still be finite because (a) the boundary is a finite distance from the centre of the universe, as it is perceived (b) since we cannot exceed (or even reach, for that matter) the speed of light, any distance travelled in any amount of time would still mean that the boundary was finite.

However, we cannot reach the boundary. It is far too far away. Light forms part of the boundary and is travelling away from the centre of the universe. Since we cannot reach the speed of light we can never hope to catch up.

Some final food for thought on this; cause and effect is not a one-sided affair.

Btw, wouldn't you get bored in Heaven? Why should there even be a Heaven? Don't you think that it's just wishful thinking because we're afraid of dying and we secretly know that life is pointless and don't want to accept that? Isn't it just a desparate attempt at injecting some meaning into our lives?

Mortality+emotion+will to survive = religion

[Pickle123]

With regards to the nature of the universe (!) I must disagree with you. The universe is finite because the universe has a finite age. It is now widely accepted that the universe was created by a "Big Bang". If the universe were infinite in size, it would have had to have been expanding at an infinite speed. This is not so. The speed of the expansion of the universe has been measured, and the boundary of the universe (by "boundary" I mean the outermost material - which, logically, is the material that was first to be blown outwards at the instant of creation) has been imaged.


We could progress beyond it and therefore extend it (so, technically, we wouldn't actually progress "beyond" it - we would just become a part of it, stretching outwards) but it would still be finite because (a) the boundary is a finite distance from the centre of the universe, as it is perceived (b) since we cannot exceed (or even reach, for that matter) the speed of light, any distance travelled in any amount of time would still mean that the boundary was finite.

the fact that it is measurable is immatierial! i can count forever and ever getting higher and higher and reach numbers to the limit of my knowledge but there are still infinite more!
even if we stopped at the edge of the universe, the fact that if we took another step the universe would readily get larger means it is infinite.

just so we are all sure here, a definition of finite:- has an end..is only "SO" big. With a universe that contains everything, no matter how far you try to go you'll never exit the universe...therefore in-finite.

wouldn't you get bored in Heaven? Why should there even be a Heaven? Don't you think that it's just wishful thinking because we're afraid of dying and we secretly know that life is pointless and don't want to accept that? Isn't it just a desparate attempt at injecting some meaning into our lives?

Perfect happiness not somthing you can get bored of. possibly though, if we want to look at it another way...the absense of emotional attachments could be seen as perfect happiness because we are unaware of anything harmful...etc looked at this way then death itself is perfect happiness because we cease to be...anything really.

[Malefact]

You're confusing what IS with what COULD BE. You're failing to dissociate what the universe consists of already (which is what the universe actually IS) with what you can imagine it could contain. Material Everything is not the same as Imaginative Everything.

If something can be increased it is NOT infinite - all it can do it tend to infinity. For example:

take x=1

x is finite.

x+1 = 2

x has been increased but 2 is still finite.

One of the branches of mathematics I have been studying is called Linear Algebra. In it, we discuss objects called vector spaces. The vector space x belongs to is the set of real numbers. Adding members of that set together yields another member of that set (i.e. another real number) which means that the set is closed under addition. The principal extends to the universe; while it might be true that the universe can be extended to cover infinite amounts of space (but since the top speed is finite, an infinite amount of time would be required to see it through), the fact is that it DOES NOT at the moment nor will it ever be able to.


On a more personal note, though, the absence of emotional attachments can make life simple - but it don't half make it barren, empty and pointless, as I have learned the hard way.

Happiness is merely the pleasure of having a lack of sorrow. The Buddah once said that "life is suffering". Entropy is a terrible thing.

[Velda]

Eek! This theory of the universe thing's way over my head! I do like reading about space and watching TV programmes about it (I watched something which was about the 11th dimension, and I'm a Trekkie too, hehe), but I don't have any idea how big the universe is or how many galaxies and dimensions there are within it.

The laws of physics were just formulated by scientists.  There is no proof that they can't be broken, although we still haven't progressed far enough to say, develop warp engines for space vehicles. But that is because we haven't come up with an idea to do that yet - it needs time (unfortunately, it probably won't be when we're alive).

As for the religious thing - I call myself a Christian because I believe in Jesus but I'm not particularly religious either. I used to go to church years ago (when I was a wee girl), but you don't need to go to church to pray. Some churches twist the Bible's words to suit themselves and then say that God will punish you if you do this/that (yet they say God is good!).

I'm afraid I don't have a very scientific mind so I won't be able to argue with the theories people put across!

[Pickle123]

however, x does not = 1

X itself is a variable...and whatever that variable is you can always add one to it to make it increase. that fact that at the moment it is X doesn't mean that the ability to be (X+1) has been removed. you can make X as large as you like but i can always come along and add 1 to it to have a bigger X. likewise the universe...while it may be measurable in size actually has no limit. (and im not talking about it reaching a certain size then shrinking to the big crunch...what i mean is there are no bounds. infinite in a true sense. this may not be material everything but it isnt imaginative either...it is ACTUAL)


phew...i think we've looking at the universe slightly differently so if you still disagree i reckon we should just agree to disagree

barren empty lives would make no difference to one devoid of emotion. maybe the knightmare religion should strive for "people to be happy NOT at the expense of others" insted of "good".

[Malefact]

Velda: True, but scientists don't just invent laws as they go along. They analyse what there is and try to derive generalised rules. This is where Analysis comes in (one of my areas of study). Basically, it's a term given to a way of thinking that can prove something conclusively. As they stand at the moment, all the major laws in existence tie each other together. If one were to suddenly become wrong, they would all come crashing down with the consequence that, for argument's sake, E=mc^2 would no longer be correct - which is false.

P.S.: I'm also a Trekkie!  ;)  My favourite episodes are the science-y ones, as you may have guessed!

Pickle: Again, you're confusing what the universe currently is/contains with what its supposed limits are (if any).

I can take any finite number and keep adding to it but that does not make that number, nor any number calculated from it, infinite.

I agree that maybe we should agree to disagree on this one! It's been quite fun, really! I've never yet had a religious/existential discussion here before. We should do it again sometime.  ;)

[Pickle123]

oh, im sure we will or even better, we could tag team against some hapless fool

[Emii]

I'm confuzzled...

[Pickle123]

could be worse...you could be "wibbling"

hmmm, i think the knightmare religions leader's should wear the original helmets in the same way as preists wear collars.