Another religious thread of speculation

Mr. Ed said:
For me the confusion lies using the word god. Everyone has an opinion about god but no one can accurately describe god in a fashion that everyone can agree on.
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Isn't that ever the truth. But I think it is even worse than that.

Mr. Ed said:
The best we can do to describe god is our relationship to god or no relationship at all on a personal level.
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That is true and yet even what we understand from our experience cannot be pinned down in simple language. There is a saying that "if you think you understand quantum mechanics, then it is something else you've understood". The same goes for god, if you think you understand god, it is something else you're understanding.

Mr. Ed said:
I change my mind often as I try to make sense of god. I wish i had a firm decisive understanding of god with or without Christianity, in truth I just don't know. It would be comforting to believe as seemingly other people believe, instead I find myself rebelling against Christianity and its concept of reward and punishment based on salvation and sin, heaven, hell and the great divide between sinners and saints. Yet I do not know and that is what bugs me.
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Once you understand that what the non-word "god" represents cannot be captured in any word you can relax. As for Christianity, I never claim to be one and wasn't brought up in it very thoroughly. I believe in something greater but it isn't some special class of being; but whatever it is I believe in that. So I just say I'm a Whateverist. While I am content to skip all that confusion you point to altogether I sometimes wonder what I'm missing out on. Christianity is a tradition that has evolved to address and pass along what this something greater is; as such, it has a longer track record of fitting the need people feel for that relationship.

Mr. Ed said:
What is happiness and contentment for the living except security in knowing one is secure in one's self without doubt? Certainly if I had the solution I would not waste my time seeking answers to questions that have no answers.
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Certainty is beyond our pay grade. Only those who restrict their perception and cognition to a tidy little model of preconceived notions will ever feel as if they "have certainty"; and their claiming to have it will immediately mark them as foolish to those who understand.
 
JustDave said:
I'm not sure what the universe having an edge or not has to do with there being a god.
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The universe is defined as 'all existing matter and space considered as a whole'.
That might seem to mean that the universe is all there is.
But what if there is something outside the universe? If that is the case then the universe would have an end, or a border or an edge or be contained in something.
And *IF* the universe is circular in shape *THEN* (am I wrong here?) it would also have a center. But of course the universe might be any shape.
If there is something outside the universe, it might be a creator. In any case it would be reasonable and good to consider.
 
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MarkD said:
Interestingly the living sciences have yet to have their world turned upside down. There are a few pushing the boundaries out there now but most continue to think of living bodies mechanistically. I’m half way through Phillip Ball’s How Life Works right now and have learned a lot. Great writer for the layman which is what I need.
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I think a turning point might be in the discovery of the original language. I don't know what the hangup or holdup is, maybe they know and are just not telling us.
 
gruntlabor said:
The universe is defined as 'all existing matter and space considered as a whole'.
That might seem to mean that the universe is all there is
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Yes, by definition, the universe is all there is. I suppose you could define it differently, but then we would be arguing semantics.
gruntlabor said:
But what if there is something outside the universe? If that is the case then the universe would have an end, or a border or an edge or be contained in something.
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In this case, I suppose the universe would have to be bigger than itself, but that would be an illogical conclusion using the actual definition, but I do get what you are driving at. I wrote a research paper in Philosophy of Religion class in college where I introduced that same speculation. My paper was all philosophical and stuff, and I got an A- from a professor that gave Cs to 90% of the class, so I was pretty proud of that grade.

Later I decided to use that same approach on a research paper in a science class, but I only got a C-. I even talked to the professor about it, who gave the paper to his partner, who also said it was a C-. The only explanation for that grade I could come up with is the bull$hit doesn't work in science like it does in philosophy or Philosophy of Religion.

gruntlabor said:
And *IF* the universe is circular in shape *THEN* (am I wrong here?) it would also have a center. But of course the universe might be any shape.
If there is something outside the universe, it might be a creator. In any case it would be reasonable and good to consider.
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In my head, I picture the universe as a sphere, because I'm quite sure it is at least 3 dimensional, and I can't easily visualize greater dimensions than three, except when I recall a speech in my high school speech class given by a likeable geek, who posed a 4th dimension that he represented using a three dimensional structure he got from a book titled One Two Three Infinity. Even with his three dimensional visual aid, it still took some serious imagination to grasp the idea.

Now just a couple of years ago, I learned that the visual aid used by my geek classmate actually has a scientific and geometrical name. If you followed Marvel Comics, and its dominance of the Hollywood movie industry a few years ago, you're going to love this. That structure is called a Tesseract, and Marvel made it into the ultimate power source of the Gods and Titans.

You can read about and see images of the geometrical Tesseract with some links that take you a little deeper here:
tesseract - Google Search or:
Just google tesseract.

One more thing. I read and interesting scenario based on actual theoretical physics about what would happen if you reached the edge of the universe and tried to stick your head through the edge to see what was there. Well according to the author, there is no edge, and you couldn't stick your head through it because there is no "there" there to stick your head in. There is no void and there isn't even any "nothing" to put your head in. So you can stop trying to understand it.
 
JustDave said:
Later I decided to use that same approach on a research paper in a science class, but I only got a C-. I even talked to the professor about it, who gave the paper to his partner, who also said it was a C-. The only explanation for that grade I could come up with is the bull$hit doesn't work in science like it does in philosophy or Philosophy of Religion.
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:ROFLMAO:
 
JustDave said:
I read and interesting scenario based on actual theoretical physics about what would happen if you reached the edge of the universe and tried to stick your head through the edge to see what was there. Well according to the author, there is no edge, and you couldn't stick your head through it because there is no "there" there to stick your head in. There is no void and there isn't even any "nothing" to put your head in. So you can stop trying to understand it.
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I'm afraid I have little love for theoretical physics. It throws everything into confusion, gobbledygook for me.
 
gruntlabor said:
I think a turning point might be in the discovery of the original language. I don't know what the hangup or holdup is, maybe they know and are just not telling us.
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I doubt that is possible. Whatever language it may be it is a safe bet it isn't used anywhere in the world today. Language naturally evolves even faster than species so there would have been many branchings from whatever the oldest language may have been.
 
Mr. Ed said:
For me the confusion lies using the word god. Everyone has an opinion about god but no one can accurately describe god in a fashion that everyone can agree on. The best we can do to describe god is our relationship to god or no relationship at all on a personal level.

I change my mind often as I try to make sense of god. I wish i had a firm decisive understanding of god with or without Christianity, in truth I just don't know. It would be comforting to believe as seemingly other people believe, instead I find myself rebelling against Christianity and its concept of reward and punishment based on salvation and sin, heaven, hell and the great divide between sinners and saints. Yet I do not know and that is what bugs me.
What is happiness and contentment for the living except security in knowing one is secure in one's self without doubt? Certainly if I had the solution I would not waste my time seeking answers to questions that have no answers.
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Maybe think of it as Freud's Super Ego instead of a guy in sky. Where do we get our ideas of right and wrong for instance?

Sigmund Freud's superego is the part of the human personality that provides moral standards and controls the id's impulses:

The superego's role is to guide the ego toward moralistic goals, curb the id's unacceptable desires, and promote perfectionistic behavior.
 
gruntlabor said:
Please don't be alluringly coy and cryptic with us, Inept. .....
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* That which is scientifically proven is fact.

* Scientific theory is theory.

Defining or theorizing what the “edge to the universe” might be, is, or is limited to, is as useless as is understanding the meaning of life and I do not share the notion that theory and what is completely unknown can be attributed to God ... and subsequently called fact. Furthermore, the Bible and its derivatives are not references of any importance at all. Call it my personal theory if you like.
 
I sort of think that when God decided to create man he used his knowledge of himself to make the DNA that changed
the Lives of many Monkeys / Apes over time to the now existent human race and its different races. Giving it the freedom
to choose there life decisions and adapt to them.
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MSN
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I don't really believe a lot of the stuff that has been written or passed down as theology / rules / folk lore. A group of people
believe something and make it happen. Then another group kick the door in and change stuff. The greats of the past just
got grunts to kick and get kicked about.
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The way I see it, if he says SOL blow up 7:30 am Nov. 6, 2024, sailor take warning, ya got a few Hours maybe to make your peace.
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Inept said:
... what the “edge to the universe” might be, is, or is limited to, is as useless as is understanding the meaning of life and I do not share the notion that theory and what is completely u t nknown can be attributed to God ... and subsequently called fact. Furthermore, the Bible and its derivatives are not references of any importance at all. Call it my perstonal theory if you like.
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Thank you, Inept. Yes, but theorizing might prove useful if we can be made to understand the theory and if it doesn't conflict with known fact. The question re 'the edge' for me had more to do with possible reality than with the bible or a personal god which I believe is unlikely but not impossible.
 
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JustDave said:
In my head, I picture the universe as a sphere, because I'm quite sure it is at least 3 dimensional, and I can't easily visualize greater dimensions than three, except when I recall a speech in my high school speech class given by a likeable geek, who posed a 4th dimension that he represented using a three dimensional structure he got from a book titled One Two Three Infinity. Even with his three dimensional visual aid, it still took some serious imagination to grasp the idea.
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I understood that the fourth dimension is something like tubes or pipes turned inside out creating new space somehow.
 
spectratg said:
Actually it would be a fourth spatial dimension, at right angles to the three dimensions that we live in. If it exists, we are incapable of perceiving it.
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Yes, there is a great deal we don't perceive, including sound over a specific pitch and movement over a specific speed, but we can prove these things. Maybe we can prove the fourth dimension somehow or maybe in future.
 
If the belief in God were to be put on trial, and the best of the best represented opposing sides, then how do you think the judge would rule? Would he rule for the Plaintiff, claiming that God exists. Would the judge rule that the defense claiming the is no god win? Certainly, the Plaintive would not win for lack of evidence. But it is not clear, because of the testimonies for God existing were so many that the judge considered the weight of people's personal experience. Even though it being anecdotal, it was consistent in many important ways.

So, the judge, after much deliberation, declared that God is not provable, but he also cannot rule that he doesn't. Which is also the way the laws of our land are conducted when the subject is under question. It remains agnostic. Neutral, almost to the point of assigning it to being irrelevant to the decisions.
 
Paco Dennis said:
If the belief in God were to be put on trial, and the best of the best represented opposing sides, then how do you think the judge would rule? Would he rule for the Plaintiff, claiming that God exists. Would the judge rule that the defense claiming the is no god win? Certainly, the Plaintive would not win for lack of evidence. But it is not clear, because of the testimonies for God existing were so many that the judge considered the weight of people's personal experience. Even though it being anecdotal, it was consistent in many important ways.

So, the judge, after much deliberation, declared that God is not provable, but he also cannot rule that he doesn't. Which is also the way the laws of our land are conducted when the subject is under question. It remains agnostic. Neutral, almost to the point of assigning it to being irrelevant to the decisions.
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Insufficient evidence. Case dismissed,
 
Paco Dennis said:
If the belief in God were to be put on trial, and the best of the best represented opposing sides, then how do you think the judge would rule?
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Let's see.
Paco Dennis said:
.... the testimonies for God existing were so many that the judge considered the weight of people's personal experience.
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What "Personal experience"? Not a single shred of evidence nor a single witness.
 

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