The Physics of God and the Quantum Gravity Theory of Everything

a reply to: Peeple

It's all in the context, framing, and the distinction, which we are still in the process of unpacking.

The cynic has nothing to offer of any value.

It's been a rough 30 generations or whathaveyou since then I'll give you that, but if there's an immovable rock of reason and logic inherent in it, then all that stuff is just kicking against the goads.

You can't use the bad as evidence to disprove the potential efficacy of the good and the hopeful and the optimistic. It doesn't work that way.

A double-bind doesn't unravel.

The joke is still at the expense of all ignorance, at all levels.

The "problem" is freedom
but that is also the basis of the love that doesn't come to condemn or to destroy, but so that, through it, the world might be saved.

You'll note, I hope, that the conversation is continuing and that all is not lost.

Edit to add: It is a participatory eschatology, so it's of no use to point at the sins of the world. What are you doing about it in whatever way however big or small? That's the thing about it, that I think sets Christianity apart. It takes the world as it is, including the sin and evil, while revealing that the way of love is also the way of the cross relative to it, which is set apart from the way of the world, as distinct and unique and extraordinary.

This would then lead to a deep theological discussion about what that entails in terms of the challenge.

Sadly, the church never really got the world out of it, and the church into the world in the way it was intended as a point of transformation, but still the conversation continues and all is not lost.

To better understand what I'm trying to refer to now, I'd highly recommend reading "The Cost of Discipleship" by Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

a reply to: AnkhMorpork

The problem is you try to say big sciency words are proving the existence of god and that god is somewhat a good being hoping to save us all.
Or laughing about how he killed his son and lets us all suffer since a good two millennia as part of some cruel joke he's making for his own entertainment.
I have yet to figure out what is good about that or reason to have hope.

What is god? Let's start with that. Maybe I understand you better, if you could give me your definition?

a reply to: Peeple

That is what a lot of the planet is fighting about right now, the definition of god. I think you are right about the using science terminology to prove god after I read it.

originally posted by: Peeple
a reply to: AnkhMorpork

Or laughing about how he killed his son and lets us all suffer since a good two millennia as part of some cruel joke he's making for his own entertainment.

Peeple, when people bring their accusations against God, they always mention all the suffering. I have to ask.. are you suffering in such a way that you would prefer to never have lived? Let me rephrase, in case I'm not making my point clearly. We can only speak for ourselves, so, speaking from your own perspective, would you have preferred oblivion to this life?

In my opinion, if you would still take life over nothingness, then God has done something right.

In my own personal case, I have suffered, through which I have grown and deepened. I have also experienced great joy, profundity, etc. I have brought another life into the world, despite the horrors that the world could potentially bring because I believe that life itself is (also the Creator of life), essentially, good.

a reply to: Peeple

Among other things, many of which I cannot begin to fathom, God is Love, where Love may be defined as: Love is the will, to give of one's self for the sake of another's spiritual growth and well being.

I think that Love is also the basis and reason why we're here or the reason for the creation with ourselves included, intentionally, and not by some sort of chance happenstance.

We're now speaking across the chasm between atheism and an open-minded consideration of the topic at hand.

You also missed what I was trying to convey regarding the nature of the joke, and have moved the frame of reference to the evil as a cruel joke as if laying that at God's feet (which as I understand it, He even took responsibility for..), but Love, to BE Love, must be free, freely received and freely given. Salvation too is a free gift for which there is nothing we can do, but receive it.

Part of the difficulty is that we didn't really stop to try to deeply consider things from Jesus' POV. We put up a block as if to defend against the only thing that's reasonable in the final analysis. Is that funny/ironic?

You just can't get the joke from that perspective (what about all the evil?), but only in the light of ignorance dispelled. Just because it's still running rampant doesn't mean that what I'm trying to point to isn't still valid as a truth at the heart of the matter or as an immovable rock of reason and logic, and love.

But I can't get into a debate with atheists in this particular thread, which will distract from and ruin the nature of the inquiry which I suppose ought to turn back to the paper offered in the OP, which I still haven't read yet..

I did my best to describe it in terms of a double-bind on ignorance, at all levels. I don't know what more I can offer you.

Best regards,

Ankh

a reply to: zosimov

Yes. Not so much because of my own suffering, but because of the helplessness in face of starvation, traumatised children, sex slaves, what have you and the unfathomable stupidity, pseudo holiness and egotism I am confronted with every day.

a reply to: AnkhMorpork

Then you obviously misunderstood what the paper you posted was saying. It talks about singularity, not some self righteous fluffy feeling you get, if you look in the mirror.

God might be singularity, because he is all knowing and every where at the same time.
God might be love, because that is what makes us living walking talking promoters of hope.
But he can't be both.

Just as fyi, I am not atheist. I believe singularity is real.
And I know love is real, but I would never ask science to prove that. Either you feel it and live it or you don't have it.




But just serious what you promote here is beyond pathetic. Singularity can't have feelings, it is no being. Love is a personal choice. And Jesus died for the mistakes he made.
Because he was mixing up the agape he felt with the singularity in whose name he spoke. Don't worry I don't expect you to understand that.

originally posted by: Peeple
a reply to: zosimov

Yes. Not so much because of my own suffering, but because of the helplessness in face of starvation, traumatised children, sex slaves, what have you and the unfathomable stupidity, pseudo holiness and egotism I am confronted with every day.

I agree that others' suffering is very difficult to fathom, which is why I made it personal-- your own suffering is all you can really fathom or speak for. We've all seen examples of kids who have horrendous diseases and still manage to have a hopeful, beautiful perspective when it comes to life. I'm sure you can also imagine kids who "have it all" in terms of prosperity or wealth who are miserable. This is why I can only truly look at suffering from my own perspective.

originally posted by: AnkhMorpork
a reply to: Denoli

Actually, I'm concerned that I may have blown my assignment and that there's no time to make it all work out just right.

What I want to be is honest and to face reality and the truth as it really is, instead of being self-deluded.

Btw, when you write God as GOD, is there any sort of animosity being expressed? I've come across that before where I mentioned God to someone who did NOT want to hear it, and they wrote it as GOD too.

I think this notion of accountability, not to any person, but to God as a God of truth, justice and love, is very disturbing to many people, myself included.

At the same time, I find that when I go right into my fears head-on, that there's always something infinitely better waiting there, not to trap me, but to show me that I am truly loved, and that at core, I am love, which only freaks me out again because of the degree to which I've failed to really love as I am loved and am love.

But it's good to have a repentant heart and to be broken before God, because in my experience, that's when we experience something of the hand that's capable of wiping away the tears from our eyes and putting a smile back on our face.

I cannot ever resent God for making me a piece of the pie particularly if He's made a provision for my abysmal failures in matters of love and goodness and righteousness.

How to carry this Christian-oriented epiphany into a heavily biased world otoh, is no easy task, especially as a failed Christian who did not answer the call of Grace.

Forgive me Father in Heaven for my sins, and help me to be a light to others so that they too might discover your breathtaking Love, in a Virtue and a Power that expressed itself in apparent weakness and that took us by surprise in the blind spot of our pride and arrogant presumptuousness.

Why hold back just because it's uncomfortable?

why is there so much ego in your philosophy? why would a being of superhuman intelligence have any interest in you or your welfare? what is it about you or any of us that warrants the curiosity or consideration of a supernatural entity? is it our pretentious self-absorbed insistence that we deserve attention? pffft.

originally posted by: TzarChasm

why would a being of superhuman intelligence have any interest in you or your welfare? what is it about you or any of us that warrants the curiosity or consideration of a supernatural entity? is it our pretentious self-absorbed insistence that we deserve attention? pffft.

Why do you think that it wouldn't?

What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him? ~ Psalm 8:4

originally posted by: AnkhMorpork

originally posted by: TzarChasm

why would a being of superhuman intelligence have any interest in you or your welfare? what is it about you or any of us that warrants the curiosity or consideration of a supernatural entity? is it our pretentious self-absorbed insistence that we deserve attention? pffft.

Why do you think that it wouldn't?

What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him? ~ Psalm 8:4

Have you ever stopped in the middle of an expressway to avoid running over an ant?

originally posted by: Peeple

God might be singularity, because he is all knowing and every where at the same time.
God might be love, because that is what makes us living walking talking promoters of hope.
But he can't be both.

Why not?

Just as fyi, I am not atheist. I believe singularity is real.
And I know love is real, but I would never ask science to prove that. Either you feel it and live it or you don't have it.

You may note from my definition of Love, which I obtained from a book called "The Road Less Travelled, A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth" by M.Scott Peck, MD, sets it apart or distinguishes it not as a feeling, but as a choice and an act of the will, to give of and to extend one's self for the sake of another. Sometimes you feel it, sometimes you don't, but the choice to be loving and kind and generous or even to self sacrifice for the sake of love for one's friends is always available.

Jesus has the hallmarks of someone who was a very deep contemplative person in search of an authentic and intimate relationship with the "first father of creation" who he referred to as Abba or Pappa or in modern lexicon, Dad.

He was like a spiritual Einstein of his day and people who knew him when he was growing up were astonished at the source of his wisdom and understanding as if he'd accessed a source of wisdom that by all rights and according to his place that he should not have had. He lived within and from that Love of God, and also experienced a moment of separation from it in his darkest moment.

That he was simply confused and mistaken, or was put to death because of that error, just doesn't seem to fit the context of his teachings, character and source of wisdom, which he was clear to say that it didn't arise from his ego-self but from some other domain.

Why do you seem so upset with my attempt to try to answer your question to the best of my ability, which isn't something that I produced just off the top of my head but was the product of a great deal of work and energy, and suffering, to come up with it?

And why couldn't an all-knowing "singularity" not also be a singularly of Love, and in the case of Jesus, a Love communicated, and even a Love worth dying for if need be?

Why MUST it be impersonal and uncaring or unsympathetic? I don't understand that insistence.

originally posted by: TzarChasm


Have you ever stopped in the middle of an expressway to avoid running over an ant?

I guess your view or paradigm doesn't include the idea of an interpenetrating, informational, cosmological unity, or a holographic universe.

And if we are like an ant, why haven't we been stepped on or run over? So far as yet (touch wood) the whole of it all has been very friendly to us, or we would not be here.

I think that the paradigm you're operating by in terms of relative size might not be meaningful or relevant from the POV of a supreme being.

From that POV the Earth itself is nothing, yet here is this life framed by the whole of which it is an integral part, particularly if the phenomenon of the occurrence of life is significant or of any value.

a reply to: AnkhMorpork

Basically it states that the whole universe is an evolving, interpenetrating, informational matrix that, when it approaches a state of infinite information will produce a "resurrection" at the end of time

How does anything approach a state of *infinite* information...?

Let it marinate, my friend.

originally posted by: MOMof3
Why would God resurrect or store such a failed species? We rape, torture, kill, war, oppress, hate, even children, and kill Hope. There is not going to be a next evolutionary level.

No such force does... a container is formed and a consciousness inhabits it as a baby, and what that baby gets filled with or learns is what nature and we put in there as a world and society.

So how to make a difference? Becomes obvious respect life not the ideas of life unless they benefit more than ones own life... something every human mother knows of course the protection mothers and many fathers want to offer can also become a limitation to how far one goes in it... the same way society can put limitations or offer growth depending on ones choices of interaction or company with in it.

a reply to: AnkhMorpork

Because singularity doesn't pick sides. Simply put. Who would it feel sympathetic for? The bunny that gets eaten or the eagle starving if he doesn't catch the bunny? That just doesn't work.
In case of us humans, whose side should it pick, the ones killing in his name, or the ones killing to bring freedom and democracy? Or the innocent animals being exploited and the planet we destroy or us humans because we think we're special? Do you see the problem?

You can't learn love from a book, love is no decision. Love is self confinement, the will to die so others have it better, the ultimate sacrifice, altruism... Not the hope you will get rewarded with appreciation or heaven or anything. Love is to willingly go to hell for all eternity, to erase your name from history, just for the hope the ones you love or the world might go on another day in happiness.

Jesus is a myth, what we do know about him is, that he was married to a prostitute and legally persecuted because he and his band of revolutionaries questioned the status quo of society in his time. That he was possibly a yogi or a buddhist.

Singularity knows everything is everything there is no room for emotions. Look around you, nature is cruel, the universe is unforgiving, don't fool yourself into believing it would give a damn about a single atom. That doesn't make it any less beautiful or awe inspiring or worthy to be appreciated. It's a miracle you and I have this conversation, are alive and capable of enjoying it.

a reply to: Peeple

When one's purpose becomes to fill out some sort of prophesy it is always an egotistical plot of the dead passed along by the ignorant accepted as ones own purpose or reason for being.

The world has been running on make believe or creative force as reality instead of a tool to manipulate reality in positive growth for a very very long time... somehow it has been kept in a quasi balance and yet genocide after genocide and exploitation in it's care, such a thing is called sh!tting where one eats since we all eat here?

To move forward in peace the mental illness of not being able to separate belief from reality needs to be cured... nothing is wrong with enjoying fiction or creating it for the enjoyment of others... but knowing it is fiction points directly to the purpose... to entertain.

The fiction taken as reality only entertains death and destruction as the inevitable way to perfection if they believe that fiction hard enough or so upset its isn't real try to make it so.

It's like standing on the ground wishing so hard to be superman just so you can fly so is it rational to convince people that you are or is it more rational to build a jet pack?

The sad thing is when people can;t tell the difference.

I know I'm not telling you anything you don't already know... just re-iterating the same thing in another way, so that perhaps more people will "get it" by laying down what they already have as not being useful and actually a cause to pretty much all stress and suffering in the entire world.

Of course that wont stop anyone clinging to it so hard that they will want to bite like a wounded animal that doesn't know or realise many want to help them and also already realize this.

originally posted by: Involutionist
a reply to: AnkhMorpork

Basically it states that the whole universe is an evolving, interpenetrating, informational matrix that, when it approaches a state of infinite information will produce a "resurrection" at the end of time

How does anything approach a state of *infinite* information...?

Let it marinate, my friend.

Still need to read through and study the paper. Had something to do with entropy, but yeah I see what you mean. The totality of everything that is, as the absolute objective reality, already contains "infinite information". How can you get any more information that all the information that's already available.

Will check out the paper in more depth and perhaps make a few observations about it, since we never really did end up talking much about it as I might have gotten a little carried away and went off on a tangent.

Personally, I find the idea of reincarnation on the karmic wheel to be rather problematic in so far as it may represent a type of trap containing the possibility of a devolution, whereby the sins of the father, and/or one's life, and past lives, just keep on piling up without a final resolution in time and history, relegating us to a circle from which there is no escape, since who among us can get completely "clean" in any one lifetime, since we are a product of all the accumulated karmic debt of the past?

Karma in itself is not a punishment from God but is believed to be a force of nature like Newtons Third Law : for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. I think it was Ghandhi that said, morality is transcendental in character. If it were not, you'd be correct, there would be no escape from rebirth. But if you believe we each have a soul then it stands to reason that our moral character must be strengthened by karma eventually resulting in enlightenment.

To escape this predicament, we might very well be in need of salvation in the form of a radical, transformative forgiveness..

Forgiveness for what? For being born, or for acting wrongly in a world that teaches us that war is peace! I think these questions are subordinate to a far bigger question, why are we all alive on a rock called earth, whats the point of it all. A little man in TIbet answered that question for me. He was asked how did you feel when China invaded Tibet, the Dalai Lama answered, very happy. The surprised reporter asked why were you happy? The Dalai Lama answered. how can one truly learn forgiveness without being tested to the extremity. One could fathom from the Dalai Lama remarks that God has sent us to school. Asking for forgiveness is trying to cheat yourself out of the classroom, that's not going to happen.

What a fantasic post, thank you for sharing your thoughts on such subjects.

I'm a Christian, and I was really, really impressed by your open-minded agnosticism coupled with the inquiring mind so clearly chock-full of reasoning power.

To say that you've figured it out, would be an understatement in my opinion. The way you talk about the twin pillars of justice and mercy, the potency of the event at the Cross, the way that even the powers & principalities of the heavens are aware of the work of God - it staggers me that you aren't coming from a place of having been taught from within the esoteric Christian fold.

As a Christian who has always been a staunch supporter of scientific rationalism, and one who struggled silently against the near-moronic interpretations of Genesis that my peers within the faith have blindly clung to & perpetuated, I've really found it difficult at times to reconcile my faith with the evidence of evolution (both of the universe & of life on Earth). This is especially so when I see so many people within my belief system totally disregard said evidence, and cling to a clearly allegoric tale as being somehow indicative of absolute, unquestionalble scientific truth.

Sincerely, I really appreciate the wisdom of your OP, and I would heartily encourage you to begin to feel your way towards a relationship with that High Power which you have recognised intellectually in your quest to unravel the truth. I have a feeling that you will discover that He has been calling you to Himself for a very long time, in part guiding your investigations, and you CAN experience connection to Him - it is the ultimate purpose of our existence, in my humble opinion.

Please feel free to message me if you would like to hear any more about the Christian faith from a scientifically oriented believer. As mentioned I have really had to battle inwardly to overcome the short-sightedness & erroneous beliefs that unfortunately plague the church of Christ. I have been 'born again', and 'spirit filled', but I refused to go along with what were clearly errors in thinking - I had to investigate via extensive reading of obscure authors, before I found enough Truth to realise that there was no need to submit to the pull of the 'crowd' when it comes to matters of origins & science. I have a connection to God, but He does NOT require me to check my rationality at the door of the church. The great errors of 'theologically correlated scientism' will be seen as one of the greatest failings of the corporate church on Earth, when all is said & done - and I have a strong confidence that in the next ten years or so, we will begin to see a revolution in the way that Christians on the whole perceive their relation to nature, to God, and the relation of Scripture to Truth, to both man & God, and that this change will usher in a spiritual revival of immense power, all around the world.

Let us hope that it is so, and that all people can find the powerful freedom from fear, from ignorance, from the fear of TPTB, and all manner of issues which plague our world, as I have, and as many others (sadly often isolated within their congregations) around the world have fought to experience.

originally posted by: BigBrotherDarkness
a reply to: LucianusXVII

What is there existing to become oblivious?

Existence itself.

Life needs no running script to still exist as life if you shed the name and the face identified as a self the knowledge that an ego says is you when many people carry out the same actions as oneself world wide on a daily basis then where is the you even found except by that very attachment to transitory passing things... that are not and cannot ever be a self except for a small amount of time until it splashes back into the cycle... due to that very self identification as not being already oblivion as the self is a shadow on the wall and not the flame... we may wish to add more and more fuel so the flame doesn't go out fearing to lose that shadow on the wall but mistaking order for the chaos it actually is, is the very paradox this world rolls by.

How philosophical. I don't have all the answers, just an inquisitive mind and a willingness to speculate combined with a refusal to believe that any one school of thought is correct about the origins of life and its fate.

Impermanence all of this transitory, temporary and that itself is the only lasting permanence... and the only way to escape it is to detach from those scripts that life is different than any other found despite being attached to the form.

death is only permanent to the form one takes to be ones own when it is simply a container and death isn't permanent to that form or container as it blends right back into nature as a process when not altered by another process... if that wasn't the case there would be stacks of rotting animals in the woods.

life doesn’t stop at form we do; when we mistake it to be the only form our life can be harnessed in... attached through the senses and to the senses forming an ego self based on past pleasant and unpleasant experiences, when no experience can or ever will be the same in limitation that they some how are... how can we have conscious awareness of being another form of life doing such a thing? We can't except through imitation so life outside of this form becomes a mystery.

Stepping through this veil is the experience of the infinite nature of being as there’s no self back there anywhere and there never has been as it is continually arising and continually passing until you try to grab it as something permanent when that's the opposite way to go about experiencing it.

Sure, why not?