The Mystery of the Universe

[Derek]

Anyone feel as I do? Sometimes I become absolutely dumbfounded by the mystery of the universe. Especially looking at the night sky, photos of galaxies, etc. Just attempting to comprehend how huge the universe is, how many stars there are...it just blows my mind. It sometimes almost overwhelms me.  It's a really freakish thing to ATTEMPT, even in vain, to comprehend the universe and your own existence.

I am a Christian, and sometimes when I try to pray or talk to God I get the same feeling....this unfathomable infinitude of the universe just overwhelms me and I wonder, can the Creator of this amazing, vast universe really hear my voice?  Despite all that I of course believe he can and does. But it's still quite overwhelming.

[gorbee natcase]

And the possibility of parralel universes, and places where physics of earth no longer apply, and if it is getting bigger what is in the space beyond (a rock?) who knows, how can anything be infinate, and where did all the energy for stars come from in the begining (if there was a begining) as energy can not be created or destroyed it can only change form, and what would you find in a black hole. all of a sudden I feel as big and insignificant as an ant on a very large mole hill/AWSOME

[tds]

Anyone feel as I do? Sometimes I become absolutely dumbfounded by the mystery of the universe. Especially looking at the night sky, photos of galaxies, etc. Just attempting to comprehend how huge the universe is, how many stars there are...it just blows my mind. It sometimes almost overwhelms me.  It's a really freakish thing to ATTEMPT, even in vain, to comprehend the universe and your own existence.

I am a Christian, and sometimes when I try to pray or talk to God I get the same feeling....this unfathomable infinitude of the universe just overwhelms me and I wonder, can the Creator of this amazing, vast universe really hear my voice?  Despite all that I of course believe he can and does. But it's still quite overwhelming.

and no one hair of ours may fall off without His permission. wherever we are in this infinate scheme of the universe, God cares about us, our safety, our need. it makes me wonder who we are.

tds *is infinately grateful*

[BoliverAllmon]

it is really something to look at

[Torp]

It's a mystery.  No use trying to make sense of it.

[pianonut]

why?  maybe there's something in it for you?  like salvation?  of course, there's a price.  you have to have a price for something valuable.  God's life for ours - our life lived to His glory.  of course, nobody can be perfect, but at least we can attempt to do the best we can and then leave the rest to Him.  it's really quite amazing to think that of all the planets, this one is the only one that we know of capable of sustaining human life.  and, way beyond that is that He says he knows even how many hairs we have on our heads.  why would he make a statement like that?  to impress us?  no. we're already impressed.  i think it is to realize that He actually cares for us.

when i had children i had no idea how much you could feel (protective) about another person.  now, i see it's similar to God.  we're his children and no matter how good or bad we behave, he cares about all of us.  the prodigal son (told by Christ) means that he'll hold a party for anyone who even just turns around and heads in the other direction.

[Torp]

why?  maybe there's something in it for you?

It's basically a quote from a Jimmy Buffett song.  The implication for me is that I find it more worthwhile to spend my time on things I actually can figure out.  I'm comfortable with not knowing the answer to everything.  And for me, god doesn't answer anything.

He says he knows even how many hairs we have on our heads.  why would he make a statement like that?

I personally don't think he made a statement like that.  I think the writers of the bible made that statement in an effort to aggrandize their god over other god's of the day.  Kind of like when kindergartners tell each other their dad is better than the other kid's because_______(fill in the blank).  Since you believe the bible to contain the infallible word of god, any discussion between us on this point will gain neither of anything, except perhaps more grey hairs for god to account for in his hair inventory records.

when i had children i had no idea how much you could feel (protective) about another person.  now, i see it's similar to God.

The major difference being that when I get mad at my children I don't commit acts of genocide against them and the whole human race.

[pianonut]

sometimes people mistake religion and politics (as one).  but, really, God has His own government which is not biased - since he made all peoples and races.  it is our OWN systems that are biased. 

my children have always played with children of other cultures.  my three year old's best friend is chinese.  my son's best friend is african-american.  they don't see color because my husband and i don't.  everyone can improve the situation by doing something themselves, but often we wait for the government to do something.

i know, you didn't mean that genocide was the only thing separating from love becasue those are two EXTREMES.  i tend to like to be forthright and draw the line before rudeness - even if a person is being rude to me.  if i didn't like what they did, i would still love them as a person.  that's what living together on the planet is about.

[c18cont]

I believe it is important to hold yourself NON-accountable, period,

1-For the time of it all....There is no time, as it is completely arbitrary and un-accountable. It is for OUR convenience only, produced out of fear and misunderstanding of the movement of the heavenly bodies, and the change of the seasons..etc.

2-And space, as it DOES end in human imagination, since we CANNOT concieve of something that doesn't end, in our view...such thought is truly beyond us..even if it MAY end by quantum physics and Plancks constant...

3-For the beginning, as it is another thing that may never have happened..(which would be the case in an oscillating universe....where indeed there is a beginning...)

4-For not knowing if there is an end..as we cannot know that; it is not given to us to have true prescience, or to even use true percipience in matters of the space/time continuum......

5-for sophistry, as we are only able to be what we are, and cannot imagine something far beyond in EITHER direction.

John

[pianonut]

with the Holy Spirit you can be far beyond what you are.  you can have love.  love is much more infinite than the universe because God is love.  i'm not saying you don't already have some - but, just saying that when you have a lot of love for another - you DO hold yourself accountable.  for  sin against God or sin against another human being.  then, when you do sin, you take it to God.  and, you try not to again.  also, you learn that everyone is just as important as you are (social/economic/racial) and you never treat anyone as beneath you.  also, for anyone we should be willing to give our life.  BUT, Jesus Christ is probably the only one that has truly done that.

when a person gets to the end of their life - i don't think they ponder the universe so much as relationships with other people.  we probably let go of our relationships here and reach out toward God depending that His hand will take us to the next place.  probably like our children jumping off of something into our arms.  they don't doubt that we won't catch them - and we do.

[Derek]

I actually feel pity for those who don't enjoy tingling their own spines with the mystery of the universe. It may be more productive in a worldly sense to concentrate on things we CAN figure out, but I think it is spiritually enriching (and extremely fun) to....well not attempt to FIGURE OUT the mystery, but just to let it WASH OVER YOU.  I love to experience that whenever I can...anyone who has not felt this...I feel sorry for them. Not in a condescending way...just in a, MAN, I can't imagine not having experienced that, sort of way.

[pianonut]

yes!  there are really so many things that are out of our control (and things we don't see in our everyday lives) that it's amazing all of us make it to adulthood and then sometimes through adulthood to old age.

my sister-in-law had a freaky experience when visiting her parents a couple of years ago.  she borrowed an old car that had been in the garage and went to town.  going down a hill, she realized the brakes were not functioning and she was coming up to a four lane highway.  with no brakes, she had to pray and just hope she could avoid traffic.  she made it safely to the other side and was surprised at the outcome.  i know lots of people say, well, the chances of this and that....but for me, it's all about prayer.  if you can't control something - try praying about it.  for healing, for comfort, for feeling loved.  there is a warmth to the Holy Spirit because it cares for our well being - and, also tells us through his Word that the angels were made a little lower than us to HELP us.  if we could see that help at times, we might be surprised.

one time, my middle child (daughter) was extremely sick and passed out in the backseat of the car.  she had been throwing up and gagged.  i was on the freeway.  i pulled over to the side (side road offramp) and quickly got out, put her over my knees to clear her airway, and was about to turn her over and try mouth to mouth recessitation, but was also trying to flag down someone to help.  a white pickup truck stopped, and i said, please can you tell me how to get to the hospital.  he said "i'm going there myself for chemotherapy, get in."  and so we got there in record time, she recussitated on the way, and everything worked out.  i remember praying for help - and right after that was when the truck pulled up.  it was amazing to me.

[Skeptopotamus]

hmmm.... I wonder if each universe has its own god?  11 gods.......  if the same god made all 11 universes dont you think he would have talked about it to someone?  I mean even if you're trying to keep it a secret you gotta tell someone!  Studies show that almost all criminals tell someone what crime they did; people cant keep secrets; certainly not 10.  And I mean you guys say god has been here for eternity; he certainly would have told someone by now and it would have been all up in the bible cause it would have been a great story and everyone knows nobody passes up being the first one to tell a big story, and what better place than the bible?  I mean everyone reads it.  Maybe he did but there was a massive conspiracy to cover it up.  Oliver Stone should totally make a movie about it.

[pianonut]

if he's the alpha and omega.  the first and the last.  i don't think there's any greater power than Him.  but, what i don't understand yet, is how can something be.  just BE and not be created?  in our human understanding, something has to be created to BE.  He says I AM THAT I AM.  i thought this was a foreign language that he was speaking at first, but now, i see that He is the one who existed from eternity in all power in all universes that are known and created and there is NO ONE greater.  otherwise, there would have been wars that obliterated our tiny planets as the gods fought amongst themselves.  someday, we'll be out of this universe as we understand it and be able to comprehend what spirit is.  spirit isn't physical.  you CAN't see it.  it exisits, but has it a beginning?  take electricity.  you can't tell where it begins and ends sometimes because the energy just keeps going.  our hearts have a pulse that keeps beating, but how did it begin and why does it end?  must have started with eve - then through whom generations of people were born - one heartbeat to another.  the energy kept flowing, but where did adam and eve's heartbeat get the energy?  from God's first touch.  in that touch - they had the possibility of living FOREVER if they took from the tree of life.  forever is not understandable to us.  God may have understood their temptation to sin, because now, we will be spirit (not physical) when we are ressurrected.  He says that there will be no more tears, no more death, no more pain, no more disease, no blindness, no mental illness, all of these things will be in the past.  it is hard to comprehend, but something that everyone dreams of .  especially peace.  how can something so good be true?  well, i don't really know.  but, i believe it so.  therefore, God gives me peace of mind that all the bad stuff we see now has a reason for being.  the reason was the choice that adam and eve made to eat from the tree of good and evil (to choose for themselves what is good and evil).

we will be able to compare the choices that man has made vs. the laws of God (which are unchangeable).  if one is agreeable to giving up their own will for God's will , it is a much different scenario.  we start seeing light.  just like a piano teacher giving good advice.  we see that they are right.  so, we try what they say more and more.  everything that God says brings a blessing.  if you try it, you find out.  it's like a great experiment.  You can't make Him do anything, but you can ask.  if you ask, (even with a mustard seed of faith) he will not give you a snake for a fish (so to speak).  if you ask for something good, He'll grant it at the right time.  who has a need for magic.  powers.  naw.  God is all powerful.  all magical (to us).  and yet, uses the Word (not as incantation) but as meaningful words for our lives.  There are many things confusing or argued about with other gods.  Satan, on the other hand has many demons he contends with daily.  they are not like the angels, so there is much chaos.  Think of a piano (there's only 88 keys).  if it was dropped from a three story building, there would be a sound of 88 keys played all at once.  chaos.  now, times that by however many demons there are, and you can see why this world is messed up.  people don't normally kill others, write stuff that's not understandable to anyone except psychos, draw pics of headless people, etc., torture, maim, decapitate, terrorize.  this is not God's spirit.  and, if it was man's spirit only, we would be evil beyond understanding.  the evil that is in the world is not only man's doing, but Satan's.  otherwise, why would people worship the occult and ask for help from the demons to know what the future will bring, ask for guidance, and generally rely on 'the stars.'  stars, by the way, is name for angels.  if God made the stars, he can tell your own future just by revealing it within the context of His plan.  if you go out of His plan for your life, you are on a different path.  basically like at a zoo.  you head for the lions cage, open the door, and say, 'here, eat me.'  Satan is going around 'like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.'  the key words are :  who he may!  God does not allow Him to do anything that God has not said he may do.  so, if you pray that satan will not bother you - he can't.  he's limited.  God is the one with the power.   ok.  i'm a nut, too.  but at least i can say what i believe and why i think the universe is better understood by the creator and not the deceiver.

[Torp]

I actually feel pity for those who don't enjoy tingling their own spines with the mystery of the universe. It may be more productive in a worldly sense to concentrate on things we CAN figure out, but I think it is spiritually enriching (and extremely fun) to....well not attempt to FIGURE OUT the mystery, but just to let it WASH OVER YOU.  I love to experience that whenever I can...anyone who has not felt this...I feel sorry for them. Not in a condescending way...just in a, MAN, I can't imagine not having experienced that, sort of way.

Just because I said that I don't feel the need to figure it out never implied that I didn't experience it or otherwise enjoy it.

[Derek]

It seems to me to believe the universe has always been here is a similar leap of faith as to suggest that it was created by God. Both ideas suggest that SOMETHING has always existed, whether that is the universe itself or God is really what we are debating.

If you think about it, both ways of thinking are equally mysterious and hard to accept.

The only reason I think a theist way of seeing the universe is more reasonable is not because it's more reasonable logically, but because it really does seem to have a tremendously powerful positive force in the lives of certain individuals, myself included. Some seem to be able to generate a lot of positive force/thinking in their lives without referring to or believing in a God...and well I can't argue with that, I'm not them.

[c18cont]

Indeed,

We cannot know if it has always been...and we cannot know that there is or isn't a "GOD"..(Here, choose your own....)... or whether this God has always been...Some things are beyond the understanding of mankind...Which many believe is the reason we have a God anyway....    (..."Religion was created by ignorance, and nourished by fear..."  (or something like that...))

Therefore the devout depend upon faith...yes, perhaps blind faith, but then you see..so also does the non-believer..including the most positive atheist that could be...it is all still faith...one kind or the other...

John

[vences5]

It's a mystery.  No use trying to make sense of it.

Einstein?

[Derek]

I guess my favorite aspect of the idea of God is that we're not alone. We aren't just an anomaly on a tiny speck of dust in a mind bogglingly vast universe, there IS intelligence elsewhere in the universe, and it (he) cares about us. I really love that idea. I wouldn't say I NEED the idea, I was an agnostic for years, but I do love it.

[c18cont]

Einstein...He believed very deeply in God   and agnosticism many have been there as well, but we look to these men...:  Also:

Max Planck and Niels Bohr...and moderns as well..including todays' theoretical cosmologists like Robert Dicke and Sir Martin Ryle and of course the ever respected Stephen Hawking...and young stars just beginning to shine...hundreds of them...

They have some of the answers, true...but not all of course, nor is it likely man can ever have the most elusive answers to it all...Hence it must be accepted and built on personal belief, or faith, with each one facing life, and death as well, with his or her own final answers...Has not it always been so?

John

[vences5]

I thought he was was referring to this quote

One may say the eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility- Albert Einstein

 

[c18cont]

I had forgotten that quote, and can't say I really remember it was Einstein...Excellent quote in any event..but the one about religions birth is not his I am sure...

He was a pretty strong believer in God, even adding a quantity to make some of his equations come out to preserve the birth of the universe...as i recall...(?)

John

[timothy42b]

  a white pickup truck stopped, and i said, please can you tell me how to get to the hospital.  he said "i'm going there myself for chemotherapy, get in."  and so we got there in record time, she recussitated on the way, and everything worked out.  i remember praying for help - and right after that was when the truck pulled up.  it was amazing to me.

Amazing, yes.  A miracle, well, that depends.

Science thinks the world runs on predictable physical laws, which are becoming better understood every day.

Magic believes the world runs on an entirely different set of laws, that allow you to influence people and events.  There is no scientific evidence for any of what these people believe, but it doesn't affect their perceived certainty.

Religion believes the world runs on predictable physical laws most of the time, but that occasionally a Supernatural Being intervenes directly and forces a violation of those laws.  Water into wine, dead people rising, etc.  Miracles. 

Was there any supernatural intervention in your good Samaritan story?  Not obviously, but could be.  Miracles by the above definition were common in the distant and unverifiable past, but modern miracles appear to involve known scientific processes like driving a truck.  Here's the problem with it.  If this is a miracle, does that mean God gave somebody cancer, just so he could help your child?  Seems unlikely, and yet holding to the "every hair counted" theory would imply it must be true. 

Einstein did NOT believe in any kind of personal God, and he was VERY distressed about all the stories attributing this type of belief to him.  He believed very generally in a natural order, beauty, and symmetry to the universe, and that's all.  (and he was proven wrong, and lost much credibility within the physics community over this.) 

[c18cont]

Hi timpthy42b, and others interested enough to read this mess...,

I think you may be caught in the def. of god...Einstein did in fact believe in a god who was the creator, and it has been documented in his writings..Whether or not he thought of him as a "him" or a "knowing what I am doing" type of god, is uncertain...Certainly he did not believe in a personal GOD that was watching over him....

When you speak of the order of his belief, you speak in his certainty that there was a "First Cause" or a "Hidden Purpose"...or even a central power...That never said he believed in a God who was an all knowing' all seeing being that watched over mankind...Sorry if my terms muddied the water... as to what I have been taught in school, and in readings...

John Cont

[vences5]

Religion believes the world runs on predictable physical laws most of the time, but that occasionally a Supernatural Being intervenes directly and forces a violation of those laws.  Water into wine, dead people rising, etc.  Miracles. 

I don't really  think He violates the laws. He uses natural laws that we have yet to understand.

[c18cont]

I personally like the idea expressed by vences5 about miracles and the like...

If the idea of curved space and so-called "wormholes" isn't enough to make you believe in either something "bigger", or thus far "undiscovered", you need to read and study more....

John

[prometheus]

I don't think God needs to break his laws of nature. If he exists he would be too smart to put laws he needs to break in place.

[c18cont]

The real truths of our universe are out of our reach,

It is only through "faith" that these determinations can be made, and they then depend upon a series of emotional and subliminal responses from the believer to remains valid in their eye...We can, and will measure many things scientifically, and arrive at some answers if we survive as a race long enough. The evidence suggests, that we won't, and that all this has happened before...

As a result it is not likely we CAN in fact know the origins and dispositions of the universe...We then remain in ignorance...as we cannot survive and develop sufficiently well to make all the required determinations....

None-the-less...it DOES exist, and IS a real and observable phenomenum..so there MUST be a creator...A "First Cause"..(an easy definition often preferred by the scientific mind...)...something had to start it..and had to repeat it etc..etc...

At this point we need to remind ourselves that man CANNOT understand time, beyond observable change..in other words, time is of OUR making only, and subject to OUR desires and purpose...ALSO...We cannot concieve nothing, as, for man, a three demensional creature, the concept of nothing or an "end" is not truly possible, no matter how many times someone claims they can make the concept real...

So we lose...We could not see the reality if it were shown to us in real time...The universe is not only stranger than we imagine...it is stranger than we CAN imagine...We MUST have a god then, to believe in ourselves...

John