Contemplations of reality and God

Unusual Beliefs
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Protons, neutrons, electrons, and photons. The weak force, the strong force, gravity and electromagnetism. These and their potential configurations define what is possible within our realm of existence. They behave in the most bizarre ways when closely inspected, however they are quite reliable to function concretely in the macro arena. They fuse, diffuse, bond, and break all in the chaos of space. They have been doing this for a very long time.

I question the nature of dark matter and dark energy. They have only been discovered indirectly by the means of correcting equations to make them behave more accurately according to real observation. Are they real? Perhaps they are the container of the spirit world, which everyone is so fond of believing in. My sceptical side doesn’t believe in spirits or anything like that. I’m not even sure if I believe in dark matter and energy. It is just one of those mysteries that shows us how little we know about the universe.

Perhaps with enough gravity space itself can be accelerated or have momentum, locally we wouldn’t notice this. Although maybe it would lens and shift the light. Unless light moves freely of the fabric of space time. Gravitational lensing is real and gravity is just a by product of the structure of space time. So maybe this indicates that light doesn’t move freely of space time. Questions, and more questions. I would really like this dark matter/energy quandary to be eliminated. I would prefer a simpler universe, one without spirits and gods and demons.

I believe consciousness is a property of appropriately arranged matter and not some transcendental force. Though in the past I have wondered if thought is somehow being rendered on a large scale across the super structure of space. This doesn’t really seem practical to me any more. Light has to travel such vast distances that any information processing that might be going on would be to slow to sustain the concept of a real time living universe. There is quantum entanglement however, this might show some form of instantaneous connection between vast distances of space on a quantum layer. Perhaps that channel is always partially open.

There is so much left for physics to discover and understand, but for now science does a pretty good job of showing that we live in a godless cosmos. Not denying that the potential is still there, we just have yet to uncover any evidence of creator or superconscious.

I personally have more faith in science and its godless perspective then I have in the possibility of a God. I believe humanity as a whole is still immature and primitive. In the future we wont have a god anymore. Almost everyone will believe in what has been scientifically discovered and documented. It makes me glad. For now however only 15% of the world is atheist. Enjoy your religions while you can.

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Perhaps god is nothingness itself. Nothingness has its own rules of operation. Formless energies taking to form. Perhaps nothing can’t exist only the static of in between nothing and something and we live in a rather stable portion of that static. Time to us seems slow. But maybe from a larger perspective this entire universe takes place in an instant. So much to think about, so many possibilities. Big questions, with no answers only the multitude of potentiality. One must explore the whole thing to perhaps uncover a logical belief system. Perhaps it is so expansive that eventually one must give up a reside in not knowing.

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I have not joined this forum however it appears to be a forum that takes into consideration and encourages the discussion of all religions as well as spiritualism.

http://www.religionforums.org/

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But the thing is those people aren’t very versed in helping people with this condition. I mean I need and old priest and a young priest you know what I mean? After that an incan and Mongolian shaman…lol! Don’t give up buddy

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Thanks barbie 15 char

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In his old age Einstein said…" The more I study science, the more I believe in God."

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I think you’d like Sufism.

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There is not ONE theory about the creation of the universe that can travel back in time, past the primal chaos of an early Earth, to the formation of the Stars themselves, and on back past the (supposed) clouds of gas and dust at the beginnings, and tell us WHAT or WHO was there PRIOR to that very first physical substance and the energies necessary to set that substance in motion. Even the most convinced atheists and those who believe evolution theories cannot give an answer to this.

O and B type stars, which are much larger and hotter than our Sun, are found in clusters together with cooler stars. Assuming an advanced age for all of them, Henry Russel wrote in Astronomy, Vol. 1,Those O and B stars should have been dead for a million years, yet they are present with young ones. O and B type stars have greater gravity and with this spiraling effect, pull things in faster. Yet O and B stars have huge dust clouds surrounding them. If they were very old at all, every particle in close range would have been pulled in by now.
How are these different types of stars all together at once as if they were formed as they are?
Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the Word of God, and that God created the entire universe from nothing. God spoke and it was so. God was the force of intelligent and personal energy present in eternity before there was linear time. He spoke and it was so. These are the irrefutable facts. Now that we see this set forth before us, we have the responsibility to respond to our Creator and to take him at his word.

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Bryan, you actually hit upon the truth when you mention that nothingness has its own rules of operation. God exists outside of time. I don’t know if God is one man or an energy. What I do know is that God is real and He or It is a very powerful yet benevolent force. I don’t need a religion or a book to tell me this, I am speaking from what I have experienced. Perhaps the reason that many people are put off religion is that very often it is the human ego which is being passed off as the mind of God.

God is a fact. Surely it is more of a giant leap to believe that an entire universe suddenly appeared out of nothing with no cause?. A match cannot be lit without striking it first. And who made the match? Just because something is beyond our comprehension does not mean it should be dismissed. That is what faith is for.

Best wishes,
Padster

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I wish people were as interested in philosophy as they are in religion. There is so so much more to learn with philosophy instead of believing hearsay.

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Believing in an intelligent and personal creator-God doesn’t do much deal with the issues you mention about what we can know. It comes with it’s own problems. One thing to believe in some powerful creative energy, a whole different thing to believe that it is intelligent and personal.

‘Through faith we understand…’
Through faith we understand nothing. Through faith we give up the quest to understand. As we accept scripture and dogma etc, we abandon philosophy, which is so much more important in the quest for knowledge and understanding.

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I understand a lot of people have what is called blind faith. Accepting without question what is told to them or what is written. I once did that until I looked deeper…found out things are not always exactly as you have been told (in the religious realm).
So, I have looked at things from a philosophical and scientific angle as well, plus experience I have had and the experiences of others who’ve been close to me that I can validate.
The quest to understand should always be ongoing. You never stop. I do not think it is possible to understand everything of the cosmos in ones lifetime, so the quest should be neverending throughout ones life.
My faith is built not just on what is heard and written, but on validation of things as well. It actually makes for a more solid unshakable foundation of faith.

This here is just a small example. You can expand on this in intricate detail:

What is the best evidence/argument for intelligent design? – From Physics
In physics, the concept of cosmic fine tuning gives further support to the design inference. The concept of cosmic fine tuning relates to a unique property of our universe whereby the physical constants and laws are observed to be balanced on a “razor’s edge” for permitting the emergence of complex life. The degree to which the constants of physics must match precise criteria is such that a number of agnostic scientists have concluded that, indeed, there is some sort of transcendent purpose behind the cosmic arena. British astrophysicist Fred Hoyle writes, “A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a super intellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature. The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question.”

One example of fine tuning is the rate at which the universe expands. This value must be delicately balanced to a precision of one part in 1055. If the universe expanded too quickly, matter would expand too quickly for the formation of stars, planets and galaxies. If the universe expanded too slowly, the universe would quickly collapse before the formation of stars.

Besides that, the ratio of the electromagnetic force to gravity must be finely balanced to a degree of one part in 1040. If this value were to be increased slightly, all stars would be at least 40% more massive than our sun. This would mean that stellar burning would be too brief and too uneven to support complex life. If this value were to be decreased slightly, all stars would be at least 20% less massive than the sun. This would render them incapable of producing heavy elements necessary to sustain life.

What is the best evidence/argument for intelligent design? – From Cosmology
With modern discoveries in the field of cosmology, the concept of a definitive beginning of the cosmos has been demonstrated almost beyond question. The Kalam argument states that

  1. Everything which begins to exist has a cause apart from itself.
  2. The universe began to exist.
  3. Therefore, the universe has a cause apart from itself.

It thus appears from the data that an uncaused first cause exists outside the four dimensions of space and time, which possesses eternal, personal and intelligent qualities in order to possess the capability of intentionally bringing space, matter—and indeed even time itself—into being.

Read more: What is the best evidence/argument for intelligent design? | GotQuestions.org

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I’m glad you don’t have ‘blind faith’. Having grown up in a catholic family, going to catholic schools etc I’ve spent my life surrounded by many people of religious faith. Unfortunately it seems to probably even be more than 90% of those I’ve met who have ‘blind’ faith, who believe what they do simply because that’s what they grew up around.

I think there is legitimate argument to be had about a creator, but the ‘intelligent design’ argument is quite weak as far as either philosophy or science goes. It is neither a well structured logical philosophical argument nor an empirically verifiable scientific theory. It is largely a ‘this feels right’ argument. As an argument, it is worthless.

But regardless of whether there is a creator-God, and whether he is intelligent, there is nothing to suggest that we should believe in specific religions. Jesus and his ‘miracles’ were common place in those days. If we believe his ‘miracles’ (despite the conspicuous lack of evidence), there is no reason to not believe in the miracles of various other people throughout history, when there is jus as much evidence (I.e next to none) that they did ‘miracles’. And yet they taught all sorts of different things that contradict with the teachings of Jesus (or what are claimed to be the teachings of Jesus). There is contradiction in the gospels, and the fact that only four out o many gospel are included in the New testament is worth noting. We have little knowledge about what Jesus really did and taught if he was real.

The other popular one is Muhammad. A bandit and warlord, responsible for plenty of violence, and who claimed to hear the literal word of god via Gabriel. Evidence for this? None whatsoever. He was an unpleasant man who conveniently heard the word of god justifying whatever he decided to do, even saying specifically that Mohammed can do what he wants and not worry about being a ‘sinner’, unlike others.

As far as personal experiences, like ‘hearing the word of God’ and th like, it surprises me that any of us schizophrenics would place that much trust in such an experience as bing real. It always surely makes it easier for us to understand that other people having these experiences might be hallucinating, bearing in mind hallucinations are much more common than mental illness. Interesting how people have religious experiences like that, which can in different cases can be connected to very different and mutually exclusive belief systems

(I’ve been writing on my phone whilst half paying attention to my class so I’ve likely missed out stuff or mixed up what I was talking about at various points)

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As a Muslim, I take very strong offence to what you just wrote about Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him). He was a very influential man and even non-Muslims wrote about his greatness, now you want to run him down like this. The Quran is filled with miracles that show its truth. Prophet Muhammad was a man of exceptional character that treated people (and also women included) with great respect.

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Ideas and ideologues deserve no special protection. They should be open to criticism.

Did Muhammad carry out offensive raids on caravans? Yes
Was Muhammad responsible for killings and executions? Yes
Was he a leader involved in military conflict? Yes

He was a bandit and warlord. If a statement of fact about your ‘prophet’ offends you, that’s your problem not mine.

He was a very influential man and even non-Muslims wrote about his greatness

Being an ‘influential man’ has no bearing on whether he was a good man or not. Plenty of influential men have been terrible people also. Likewise, people writing about your ‘greatness’ doesn’t make you great.

The Quran is filled with miracles that show us its truth

I found it to be mostly full of crap.

Prophet Muhammad was a man of exceptional character that treated people (and also women included) with great respect.

Yeah sure, if you say so.

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The problem with empirical science is that we cannot know that what we perceive is real. Research on how the senses and the brain functions makes it clear that what we see, hear, feel etc is a processed version of the actual sensory experiences. And, as many us are aware, it is quite possible to mislead by those processes. For many of us, the brain tells us that we are sensing things which in actual fact are not real. As an extension of that, how can we know anything that we ‘sense’ is actually real? I think empirical science has an important role to play, but when it comes to deeper questions of reality and the like, I believe philosophy is more important. We can use logic, induction, proof by contradiction and things of that nature to try to have a better understanding of reality, and the so called ‘big questions’, more than we can with science.

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@zenmind
I have been aware of the omissions of some very important books from the Bible for many years. I read them from time to time. the apocrypha and other books, especially the Book of Enoch.
Man (and males especially) decided what was to be canonical and what was not. We know at least some of the other books are valid since they are mentioned by name in the Bible that is accepted as valid, and/or quoted from such as Jude quoting from Enoch 1:9.
I agree many churches do not follow the true teachings of Jesus. One big issue I have is the use of religion for military purposes, and even the ‘founding’ of the USA by religious people who used the doctrine of manifest destiny to nearly wipe out the Native american peoples who were already here. So called Christian puritans and colonists waged war on natives and made statements like "I sent 400 red devils to hell today’, and that God had delivered the ‘enemy’ into their hands after a successful slaughter of mostly the elderly, women, and children.
I do not go to church. I find most i have been in to be divisive, create pet doctrines and rules that are not Jesus teachings, and many become exclusive by thinking their church is the only true church. Some will even go so far as to say all other denominations of Christianity are false and they will go to hell. I know the Catholics have said that about protestants, and protestants have said same about Catholics. Baptists think Pentecostals are deceived and operating with demon spirits by seeking the gifts of the spirit, while Pentecostals say baptists are deceived by denying the gifts of the spirit.
While I believe in the gifts of the spirit, we can easily see the Pentecostals mostly misled by overemphasizing the gift of tongues, misusing it according to scripture teaching, and neglecting the gift of prophecy which we are told to seek after the most…
Needless to say i want nothing to do with any of that confusing nonsense.

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That is what I say about religion. One religion in itself is not as confusing as say trying to determine which one is accurate. They are a product of tradition, traditions that will slowly taper out. The future of mankind will become evermore dominated by atheistic principles.

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i am fed up with religion on this site, its really upsetting me, could you stop talking about it pls

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Yeah I was ranting, but I’m done. In the future I will keep this stuff to myself. Feel free to lock this topic.