Evangelical Paper Embraces Posibility Of Multiverse

[Joshpantera]

This is great, once they start to appreciate the multiverse they become open to the Aleph, and then they might begin to consider God as just an infinite force that powers existence and soon they will realize the redundancy of the need for a deity to explain the Universe.

 

Exactly.

[bornagainathiest]

Hey Ficino!

 

Well, they do say that great minds think alike. (Who are 'they'? Only 'they' know! )

 

Ok, I opted for Hebrews 11, but in retrospect Colossians 1:15-20 might have sufficed too.

 

BAA, I was groping toward something like what you express much more clearly.

 

But let's say that sophisticated Christians adopt a position like what you lay out above. I think they'll want to insist on, as you put it, an eternal Multiverse needing a creator. Otherwise, the hypothesis that there is a god won't do any work.

 

So if they give up on God's being the first cause when "first" denotes temporality, they will have to fall back on claims that God is the first cause in some other way - that, perhaps, God exists necessarily, and the Multiverse, though past- and future-eternal, exists in some contingent, derivative way. They can still get away with limiting Genesis 1-3 to our present universe.

 

This makes me think that the notions of necessary vs. contingent existence need to be unpacked. My suspicion is that a strong case can be made for the view that the set of things that exist "necessarily" is coextensive with the set of things that exist "omni-eternally" (i.e. back into past and into future). So the result may be that the property "necessary" doesn't do anything for "existence" that can't also be done by, say, "eternal." So the God postulate will turn out not to do any work. But I haven't worked this out.

 

Yes, indeed.

Contingency and Necessity are where it's at, Ficino.

However, I'm not your man, when it comes to these things. That meta-physician (heal thyself, Crandaddy!) I had dealings with at Christianforums would be the one to unpack these things for you. Why don't you 'Explore Christianity' and see if Crandaddy takes the bait? Here's some useful tips, if you do go down that road.

 

1.

Don't make the dialog into a debate... that's a big no-no. The Christian mods do not want anything as dangerous (i.e., faith-challenging) as a debate on their home turf. So keep asking questions, rather than calling what any Christian says into question. That way, you'll be killing two birds with one stone - you'll allay any suspicions they've got about you and you'll also be getting them to explain exactly what it is that they mean. That's how you can get Crandaddy and his brethren to unpack contingency and neccessity for you, ok?

 

2.

Don't let on that you're an Ex-Christian or that you're not looking to become one. That's a quick way to get yourself banned. Instead, play your hand like someone who's interested in becoming a Christian and who's 'Exploring' it before committing themselves.

 

3.

Keep things polite and respectful, even if bullied by some Christians to accept what they insist is the 'truth'. The advantage of doing this is that you make them look bad. Don't stop them from openly display their bad spiritual fruit. Other people will be lurking and looking in and if these silent observers are thinking about becoming Christians, what they see might save them from making the biggest mistake of their lives. Do the lurkers a favor, Ficino and let your decency show these Christian hypocrites up for what they really are.

 

Thanks,

 

BAA

[bornagainathiest]

Hello again Josh!

 

^ That's exactly where they would take it.

 

And it depends on which way we choose to go with it. If we grant the existence of both a supernatural and natural then the omnipresence argument applies. Either God is everywhere present or not, that means present in the supernatural and natural or not omnipresent, only partially present isn't omnipresent if we grant that reality is not only all of the natural cosmos that we can perceive, but also this supernatural realm of God and the angels too which makes for one total and complete view of reality - natural and supernatural one.

 

That's where we question how God can be omnipresent and yet NOT the whole of existence itself. This ought to be hashed out before ever turning to the multiverse to extend the implications of God's omnipresent to a new cosmological model.

 

But after hashing that out, if it doesn't make sense to call God omnipresent and not follow through with it and see the God as existence itself, everywhere present in every realm that exists, then the same applies to the multiverse. And that's essentially where the paper on the multiverse was headed. Quote pantheist sources and then Christian sources that venture close to pantheism. Here's another quote from a Christian source:

 

http://www.katapi.or...ianFaith/IV.htm

III. Transcendence and Immanence an Antinomy

The Transcendence and Immanence of God are what is called an "antinomy",

a pair of necessary truths, which must be held together, and yet, which appear to contradict each other.

There are several such antinomies in Christian doctrine:

God is Three and God is One;

Jesus Christ is both God and Man;

God is omnipotent, yet man has free will.

Truth appears to consist of a balance of apparent opposites.

To emphasize either side and neglect the other is to fall into serious error.

To believe in God's transcendence and to neglect His immanence is to fall into Deism.

To believe in His immanence and to neglect His transcendence is to fall into Pantheism.

History shows that either course has disastrous effects on human conduct.

This is a good example of some Christian not having any idea what he's talking about. Pantheism means "All is God" which is, by definition, and all encompassing statement. Everything immanent and everything transcendent taken as whole, as the full scope of existence, is a type of Pantheism some call Panentheism. In short, he just stated that God has to be everywhere both in creation and transcendent, which, is of course making God the realm of existence itself infused into every part of the realm. That stale mates religious dogma and leads down the path of breaking fundamentalism down to rubbish.

 

The real problem here comes from having an eternal material realm with no boundary, and then claiming that beyond that eternal material realm is another realm that we can't see or think about. There's no beyond something eternal and infinite. It goes on forever and ever without end. If the material realm gets plugged into that endless slot then the supernatural gets pushed out of it, for rational thinkers. There's no room left in existence for a supernatural realm when the natural cosmos goes on forever without end. So while we could toy around and grant them a supernatural realm as if there could be such a thing as beyond an endless existence spanning all possible dimensions both visible and invisible, it doesn't add up under close investigation.

 

But the stubborn will remain stubborn, I know.

 

My only objective is airing out the debates to where the believer side is made to look foolish enough to where onlookers can possibly catch the logic leaping and special pleading and decide which is more likely.

 

Agreed, Josh.

 

In fact I knew that I was using the fallacy of special pleading, even as I was writing to you yesterday.

 

Of course I wasn't doing this to try your patience. No, instead I was following the specifications of your earlier query and trying to map out where I thought the next twist in Christian apology might take us. Also, since Craig's KCA is nothing BUT special pleading, it's hardly surprising that my effort echoed his, is it? After all, Christian apologetics isn't about earnestly expounding the truth, is it? Nope. It's all about 'confirming' what they want to be true... and if they have to mess with the facts and with logic to do that, so be it.

 

As you say, they will remain stubborn.

 

But John Adams had something to say about things stubborn.

 

"Facts are stubborn things, and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, our desires, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence."

 

Thanks,

 

BAA.

[bornagainathiest]

Therefore, you cannot apply natural logic and natural reason to anything supernatural. The supernatural is, by definition, beyond the understanding, logic and reason of us humans.

 

It's this kind of thinking that has me seeing double and cross-eyed. So far as I can make out, the Christians making these arguments about the supernatural are human. Anyone disagrees please provide the evidence. So if they are human, how do they presume to know so much about the supernatural as to make the statements they do about it and God, etc.?

 

Ah... but wait, RS!

Didn't you know that the supernatural interacted with the natural, long ago, in the Middle East? And it's all recorded for us... in the Bible? That's how the Christians can be so sure.

 

They don't anymore than does the atheist.

 

Oh yes they do!

That's what it means to be a Christian. It means knowing a LOT more than any atheist. Which feels soooooo good!

 

If their statements sounded wise beyond belief, one might attribute it to a cosmic wisdom or God, but it sounds more like desperadoes grasping at straws to make their God come out on top of an impossible situation.

 

Umm....

...if their statements were wise beyond belief, how could our limited natural minds comprehend these supernaturally-wise statements? Can your oh-so-limited human mind comprehend how Craig's 'timeless' and 'spaceless' time and space, can somehow come 'before' the Big Bang? No?

 

 

 

In other words, it sounds like something humans would say when they've got their backs up against solid walls and perhaps a gun to their heads with the demand that they come out with proof for the impossible--or die.

 

Not sure I'm making sense.

 

I'm reading you loud and clear, RS. I suspect the other folk here are too... so don't worry about it.

 

Thanks,

 

BAA.

[bornagainathiest]

This is great, once they start to appreciate the multiverse they become open to the Aleph, and then they might begin to consider God as just an infinite force that powers existence and soon they will realize the redundancy of the need for a deity to explain the Universe.

 

An interesting thought. Sometimes intelligence is attributed to disbelief in Christianity, and part of this is not that believing Christianity requires a lower capacity for learning per sae, but that more intelligent people will be able to understand the science that the ignorant blindly speak against, and also it allows them to comprehend all the things that Christians presume must be because of God.

 

I remember what it's like being a layperson with only a Grade 8 education and hearing these convincing arguments from both sides. But having no way of checking out what's what

Something I had a problem with when I was practicing Christianity because that means the pastor can feed them any lie, and it's just not an honest way to communicate a message, no matter how much you believe it to be true.

 

With all due respect Falemon, I beg to differ.

 

I strongly suspect that once Christians wake up to the potential damage a Multiverse can do to their cherished beliefs, most of them will revile, abhor and deny it - just as they already do with Evolution. Only a very small minority will try and adapt Christianity to cope with a Multiverse. Even then, as our musings in this thread have indicated, trying to do that is impossible.

 

In other words... SNAFU!.

.

.

 

 

Now, another highly relevant consideration (about the future of Christianity) is just what kind of Multiverse is discovered. So far in this thread, we haven't really discussed this. Yet, I contend that since not all Multiverses are the same, we might like to explore what the possibilities are. Doing this might give us further insights into how the Christians will face up to this threat.

 

Anyone interested?

 

BAA

[falemon]

Don't underestimate the creativity of the self deceived

 

I'll probably post more when I get back or tomorrow morning.

[Joshpantera]

a-temporal assertions about God

 

There's something even more in-depth to discuss which I encountered a while back @ the Joseph Campbell forums which opened my eyes to the ultimate reference of the God metaphor, the a-temporal meaning of God in close view.

 

The conversation was were one poster named Ruiz took on the moderation and admin about the idea that God as transcendent simply refers to what was before the BB and what we're expanding out into now, as the transcendent realm of God beyond the reach of science and so on. People were talking about transcendent energy consciousness and what may lay beyond the universe as an advanced way of talking about God and suggesting that atheists like Richard Dawkins are off base by calling spiritual people "deluded." Some of the people in the mix being sophisticated and well educated liberal Christians and some former Christians turned Buddhist.

 

This is how the argument (based on very specific lectures from Campbell) unfolded:

 

Ruiz wrote: "According to the essay [site Administration] your description regarding 'consciousness' is not the 'metaphysical insight' but it's 'vehicle'. The metaphysical insight is the one I state above regarding the One and the Multiple.

 

Let me explain:

 

Here is the formula used by Joseph Campbell for interpreting Mythic images and philosophies that are alluding to a metaphysical insight.

 

Formula:

 

the relationship of ( a ) to ( b ) perfectly resembles that of ( c ) to (x), where (x) represents a quantity that is not only unknown but absolutely unknowable - which is to say, transcendent.

 

Example:

 

As many ( a ) proceed from one ( b ) so does the universe ( c ) from God (x)

 

Joseph Campbell:

 

"But the term (x), it must be insisted, remains absolutely unknown and unknowable. Oneness can no more be a quality of this (x) than can Love or Reason. Hence, as Kant declared, it is only by 'analogy' that we speak of Love or Reason, Unity, or even Being, as of God.

 

More examples:

 

as Earth Maker (one) is related to the things drawn from his body (many)

 

as All-Father (one) is related to the creatures that he has begotten (many)

 

as Brahma (one) is related to the visions of his meditation (many)

 

as occludded light (one) to it's refractions (many)

 

as a spider (one) to its web (many)

 

so is God (the mystery of existence) related to creation (the one and the many)

 

We are basically using analogy poetically in reference to the mystery of existence knowing full well it's only an analogical suggestion "not a fact".

 

Your use of the term "consciousness" was a red flag suggesting you didn't go far enough.

 

If you had said that you were speaking metaphorically or more correctly using analogy knowing full well that the empirical world and it's cause is a complete mystery then I couldn't have said anything.

 

Martin if you reread the essay "Primitive Man as Metaphysician" I would greatly love to get your reaction to it. It mentions the Indian metaphysical system of the Vedanta, which purports to be a translation of the metaphorical imagery of Brahminical myths into abstract philosophical terms. One of those philosophical terms is "consciousness" from which I believe you got your notion.

 

Bodhi_Bliss, if you read this I would greatly appreciate your take on Joseph Campbell's essay.

 

I think this essay may throw light on the issue we are having regarding Richard Dawkins and his claim that many spiritual minded people are deluded.

 

As Joseph Campbell students shouldn't we relax and admit that ultimately the empirical world and it's cause is a big mystery. No amount of analogy however profound is going to change that fact.

 

If we are aware of what we are doing poetically then we can better address the Richard Dawkins type of people in the world. Otherwise we come across as fundamentalists."

Wow!!!

 

Who here followed that?

 

That's about as sophisticated as a God concept will allow for, it goes past any concept given. These guys were arguing that Richard Dawkins is off base for rejecting the more advance ideas about God - like consciousness - and Ruiz schooled every last one them by using their own standard of metaphysics by pointing out that the "mystery of existence" is NOT a thing, it's not literally an energy from just beyond some imagined barrier, it's not literally any type of consciousness whatsoever including eternal consciousness, even in the Hindu sense of it. It's all analogy for the mystery that eludes our mind.

 

Every one of those terms for God are temporal oriented, they are things that we can think of and imagine with our minds. We can conceptualize things like an eternal energy consciousness full of love or a being of any type. None of that reaches the depth that transcendent is meant to convey though. So even "consciousness" is but the vehicle and a place holder concept for the actual mystery of existence that goes beyond any concept.

 

And if "spiritual" people get off thinking that it is in reference to a particular consciousness or energy then they are indeed "deluded."

 

Everything in existence, is grounded in a complete mystery to the mind. We have no way of understanding how or why existence itself has just mysteriously always existed in some way but there's no other way around it. The Primacy of Consciousness doesn't even explain it because the question remains, why does any consciousness of any type even exist in the first place, eternal, primary, or otherwise?

 

These terms attached to various levels of God belief are at best a metaphor for the real mystery ingrained into the existence of anything whatsoever that is suggested to exist. That's where the mythological God terms can lead the initiate to the experience of the deep mystery of your own being and existence. All the way down to the absolute ultimate mystery of the realm of existence itself, which finally can not be in reference to a being, or deity, or mind, or any other description whatsoever. That's how you tangle with the a-temporal arguments and I highly doubt that any Christians would really care to follow the implications of their own assertion down the rabbit hole that far. I've witnessed complete shut downs with theists over this very topic.

 

The mystery underlying the very existence of the one and the many, is the depth we must travel.

 

And it can not be asserted to be a deity, energy, mind, or anything else that be thought of and spoken about. All dogmatic and fundamentalist assertions are cut off at the ankle and Babylon comes crashing down. There's no reason to rail against atheists and freethinkers because the creator is not about a being or deity in the first place. Lack of belief in literal existence of mythological deities does nothing to touch the absolute mystery factor which is ingrained into the whole of existence. The actual God reference is way deeper than any of it. Divinity, in this sense, is omnipresent. It's radiant in all things, bar none. The references to the supernatural are non-literal symbols oriented to deep mystery, not a literal realm just outside of the natural.

 

After I caught on to this, the meaning of the first function of a traditional mythology which is the mystical / religious function, I began to correct the way I had formerly perceived "God" and "Transcendence."

 

Previously I had been among those not catching the actual meaning of the mystery of the metaphor, even while taking the screen name "tat tvam asi" which means "your are that" in sanskrit. I kind of understood the general idea but I didn't completely understand what "that" is in reference to in the sense of the great unknown. After finally catching it during the debate with Ruiz and then expanding on what I'd learned at that point from the debate, Ruiz came back at me with a nice post:

 

Ruiz wrote: "Hi Everybody!

 

I decided to see what my fellow associates were up to and discovered this thread of discussion!

 

tat tvam asi, I can tell from your posts that you really understood the Joseph Campbell message I was trying to convey.

 

You not only understood it well but are having a field day with it's consequences. I am learning from you!!!

 

I wish more associates fully comprehended the principle. I can tell from reading many posts that though the idea is simple once you understand it, it requires a certain amount of effort. Not too many people fully comprehend it. It is subtle!

 

It's also difficult to convey to others especially those who like to give "God" traits.

 

The principle is also the key to understanding all of Joseph Campbell's work. It opens up the world of mythology and religion and helps us understand the role of science.

 

So what is this great principle?

 

All existence is grounded in "deep mystery." All of us are mystery beings!

Joseph Campbell wants us to realize that. All the metaphors for "God" are pointing to this one great realization.

 

Science can never penetrate the mystery of being. So tat tvam asi answers Richard Dawkins very well.

 

Our experience of the mystery of ourselves doesn't come easy that is why we have all these myths and rites that aim to help us have such an experience.

 

So what does such an experience do for us?

 

It centers us! It stops us from running after this God or that God. We stop intellectualizing and trying to give God traits.

 

As tat tvam asi said we just sit still and experience it; experience our connection to it. We are that mystery we seek.

 

As Joseph Campbell so wisely said. If your metaphor for "God" is not putting you in touch with the mystery that you "are" then you think it's a lie.

 

tat tvam asi, it's interesting that you chose such an appropriate name. It's almost as if it was your goal all along. In my opinion you have arrived!

 

"Thou Art That" is the ultimate realization!

 

Tat, your undergraduate studies in Joseph Campbell are over! How about a Masters program in Joseph Campbell?

And with that I conquered the first function of a traditional mythology and religion and then moved down the line to the second function which is the cosmological and I began learning about how the 2nd function is meant to point back at the first. The observable universe and the cosmic order observed in the heavens is grounded in the mystery of the metaphor. And then I went on to learn how it extends into the sociological and pedagogical functions as well. It was the most important aspect to realize because it applies across the board.

 

This whole ordeal has been called the leave taken of God for God or the God above the God - God the ethnic symbol to God the mystery underlying mere existence itself.

 

And I would assume that this is the maximum height that any sophisticated liberal Christians could possibly ever achieve with respect to God. But in the process they become heretical and apostate to conservative Christians. And we're no longer dealing with Monotheism at this point of investigating in-depth the a-temporal transcendent because we've moved on to Pantheism and Panentheism at the full depth of exploring the assertion. And here's the real kicker, we're down to atheism too because a proper God belief turns out to be the lack of belief in the literal existence of the deity symbols which can only serve as metaphors at best with regards to the a-temporal transcendent meaning of the reference. The divine, the spiritual, the supernatural, a-temporal, transcendent, all of it nothing more than descriptive ways of referring to the great unknown, often presented in personified format.

 

It's not about trying to find a border in which to transcend the multiverse on this deeper level of applying God to the new expanded infinite and eternal realm, it's simply about seeing through to the radiance of deep mystery all throughout the whole of it.

 

And traditional Christianity looses it's deity conceptualization in the process of trying to attach God to the multiverse as a-temporal...

[R. S. Martin]

Therefore, you cannot apply natural logic and natural reason to anything supernatural. The supernatural is, by definition, beyond the understanding, logic and reason of us humans.

 

It's this kind of thinking that has me seeing double and cross-eyed. So far as I can make out, the Christians making these arguments about the supernatural are human. Anyone disagrees please provide the evidence. So if they are human, how do they presume to know so much about the supernatural as to make the statements they do about it and God, etc.?

 

Ah... but wait, RS!

Didn't you know that the supernatural interacted with the natural, long ago, in the Middle East? And it's all recorded for us... in the Bible? That's how the Christians can be so sure.

 

They don't anymore than does the atheist.

 

Oh yes they do!

That's what it means to be a Christian. It means knowing a LOT more than any atheist. Which feels soooooo good!

 

If their statements sounded wise beyond belief, one might attribute it to a cosmic wisdom or God, but it sounds more like desperadoes grasping at straws to make their God come out on top of an impossible situation.

 

Umm....

...if their statements were wise beyond belief, how could our limited natural minds comprehend these supernaturally-wise statements? Can your oh-so-limited human mind comprehend how Craig's 'timeless' and 'spaceless' time and space, can somehow come 'before' the Big Bang? No?

 

 

You see, it's like this. This Dr. Rev. Craig is a human being. To this day he fails to provide evidence for his claims for the supposed supernatural-human encounter in the Middle East two thousand years ago. The long ago and far away are never above suspicion. For this reason, we are right in demanding evidence beyond four or five separate accounts in an ancient text patched together by believers in this supposed divine encounter. So if I am incapable of comprehending Craig's gibberish it may be the case that it really does defy logic and reality, both natural and supernatural. The fact of the matter is that I'm quite capable of comprehending his messages. The problem in accepting it as truth is my own need for personal and intellectual integrity.

 

 

In other words, it sounds like something humans would say when they've got their backs up against solid walls and perhaps a gun to their heads with the demand that they come out with proof for the impossible--or die.

 

Not sure I'm making sense.

 

I'm reading you loud and clear, RS. I suspect the other folk here are too... so don't worry about it.

 

Thanks,

 

BAA.

 

Thanks.

[bornagainathiest]

You see, it's like this. This Dr. Rev. Craig is a human being. To this day he fails to provide evidence for his claims for the supposed supernatural-human encounter in the Middle East two thousand years ago. The long ago and far away are never above suspicion. For this reason, we are right in demanding evidence beyond four or five separate accounts in an ancient text patched together by believers in this supposed divine encounter. So if I am incapable of comprehending Craig's gibberish it may be the case that it really does defy logic and reality, both natural and supernatural. The fact of the matter is that I'm quite capable of comprehending his messages. The problem in accepting it as truth is my own need for personal and intellectual integrity.

 

RS, I'll respond to your post with three things.

 

First, do you know what's truly, killingly ironic about the words, 'long, long ago and far, far away' in the context of our recent posts.?

The answer is this.

The very same Christians who believe that these 2,000 year old, impossible-to-verify, supernatural events are historic fact are the very same people who will not accept the present-day, testable and verifiable scientific data for a 13.72 billion year-old universe.

Why? Because the Big Bang event is so 'long, long ago and far, far away' that the scientists can't possibly know what they're talking about!

Oy Vey!

 

.

.

.

Second, don't you realize that your selfish, self-centered, self-serving intellectual integrity is going to get you killed?

Killed... as in the Second Death. (see Revelation 20:11-15)

If you want to be certain of avoiding that fate, you'll sacrifice your precious intellectual integrity and submit to God, like all the other humble and obedient sheeple Christians.

Capiche?

.

.

 

 

Lastly...

 

Yep. Comm check good! We're on the same wavelength, alright!

 

Thanks,

 

BAA.

[bornagainathiest]

Very interesting post, Josh!

 

(I'll have to come back to your post and re-read it when I have time to contemplate it at leisure. Especially the Ruiz dialog.)

 

For what it's worth, I'm already quite comfortable with the notion that a multiverse is an impersonal and indifferent 'thing'.

I'm also coming round (by slow degrees) from my ultra-hard core brand of reductionist Atheism to giving the 'mysterious' and the 'spiritual' some serious consideration. Am I deluded in doing this? Not that I can see. Becoming less strident and militant, perhaps. Becoming more mellow and open-minded, possibly. Time will tell.

 

Anyway, as you say, the Christians just cannot give up on their personal and humanocentric deity.

Will they succeed in trying to reconcile this kind of God with a multiverse? The answer is Yes, if your definition of 'success' means playing fast-and-loose with the data, monkeying around with the logic of the argument and then losing your soul (intellectual integrity) in the process.

 

Thanks,

 

BAA

[R. S. Martin]

Josh, I read that now. I don't pretend to fully understand all of it but I can see what you mean about no boundary. However, it seems to me that you are blurring the lines of philosophical metaphor and physical reality. Existence is an abstract term for the state of being. Discussion of the state of being belongs in philosophy. Philosophy overlaps with theology/religion and psychology. In other words, it is theory, ideas, concepts and not physical reality or matter. I am of the understanding that multiverse is physical reality of a similar type to our universe.

 

I am also of the impression that multiverse fills all that is, i.e. all of existence. However, humans are limited creatures with limitless imaginations that do have boundaries. Oceans, too, at one time were thought to be limitless. At one time not so long ago our universe was thought to be all that is. Having since the sixties in my own lifetime seen so many revisions and explosions of the human knowledge base, I am deprived of the luxury of forecasting what can be known or discovered about reality/existence in future centuries, or even in the next few decades.

 

Mystery, for me, is something to be explored, learned, discovered, intellectually conquered, solved and understood. There will always be things I don't know and this gives me hope, meaning to my life. I once had learned all there was to know in my world. It was a most depressing world to be in and unlivable. I cannot and will not embrace mystery for its own sake. I am comfortable with it being "out there" and with not knowing all there is to know. As stated, that allows me to keep on learning, which gives my life meaning.

 

Perhaps you and I mean different things by the term "mystery." Perhaps you mean the feeling of overwhelming awe one experiences in the presence of powerful natural phenomena, ranging from beautiful sunsets and animals in the wild to raging storms and great mountains. I think some people call this feeling God. Lots of terms have been used by humans to designate, describe, and express it. Much has been written, sung, and painted.

[R. S. Martin]

You see, it's like this. This Dr. Rev. Craig is a human being. To this day he fails to provide evidence for his claims for the supposed supernatural-human encounter in the Middle East two thousand years ago. The long ago and far away are never above suspicion. For this reason, we are right in demanding evidence beyond four or five separate accounts in an ancient text patched together by believers in this supposed divine encounter. So if I am incapable of comprehending Craig's gibberish it may be the case that it really does defy logic and reality, both natural and supernatural. The fact of the matter is that I'm quite capable of comprehending his messages. The problem in accepting it as truth is my own need for personal and intellectual integrity.

 

RS, I'll respond to your post with three things.

 

First, do you know what's truly, killingly ironic about the words, 'long, long ago and far, far away' in the context of our recent posts.?

The answer is this.

The very same Christians who believe that these 2,000 year old, impossible-to-verify, supernatural events are historic fact are the very same people who will not accept the present-day, testable and verifiable scientific data for a 13.72 billion year-old universe.

Why? Because the Big Bang event is so 'long, long ago and far, far away' that the scientists can't possibly know what they're talking about!

Oy Vey!

 

Thanks for the ammunition, Bud.

 

Second, don't you realize that your selfish, self-centered, self-serving intellectual integrity is going to get you killed?

Killed... as in the Second Death. (see Revelation 20:11-15)

If you want to be certain of avoiding that fate, you'll sacrifice your precious intellectual integrity and submit to God, like all the other humble and obedient sheeple Christians.

Capiche?

 

Hey BAA,

 

What language are you using? I have to look up all these words just to understand what you're saying.

 

Anyway, this may be as good a time as any to mention that your initials always come across to me as the bleating of a sheep (Baa-baa black sheep...). Like a true born-againer, you omit half of my "integrity" argument--the part about personal integrity. "To thine own self be true" and all that. But maybe that's not in the Christian Bible. What is in the Christian Bible is this: all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death (Rev. 21:8).

 

So if I'm going to be "killed" anyway, I might as well live with a clear conscience before I die the first time, right?

 

Besides, I did check out that there is no "second death" before I risked this thing.

 

Lastly...

 

Yep. Comm check good! We're on the same wavelength, alright!

 

Thanks,

 

BAA.

 

I take back what I said above. You're no sheeple. "A" is for Atheist.

 

BAA to Josh:

 

Anyway, as you say, the Christians just cannot give up on their personal and humanocentric deity.

Will they succeed in trying to reconcile this kind of God with a multiverse? The answer is Yes, if your definition of 'success' means playing fast-and-loose with the data, monkeying around with the logic of the argument and then losing your soul (intellectual integrity) in the process.

 

Yep, I am on the same wave-length as a person who equates "intellectual integrity" with "soul" in this context.

 

As for humanocentric deity. It comes across as idolatry, which is also condemned in that list of sins in Rev. 21:8. It also comes across as selfish and arrogant. I'm sure if I looked hard enough in the Bible, I could also find a list of condemned sins with those items. Believing in a God when we have no evidence for him comes across as morally wrong.

 

So the Christians will say, "But you don't believe the Bible!"

 

Wrong.

 

I believe the things in the Bible that happen to be correct. It is correct that one should be kind to others, that one should speak truthfully, that one should be humble, etc. There are practical reasons for this other than an abstract and unprovable "second death."

[bornagainathiest]

Attaboy, RS!

 

Fyi...

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oy_vey

 

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/capiche

 

When I want to be sarcastic about Christian beliefs or Christians in general, I spice my up my posts like this. As you'll have realized by now RS, it's not directed at you personally. The target in my sights are the sheeple.

 

Cheers,

 

Born Again Athiest

 

(I followed by E, so that there's no God in my handle, either)

[bornagainathiest]

Hey Josh!

 

Panenetheism! Over at Christianforums.com

 

http://www.christian...com/t7696293-8/

 

Ignore the OP and look only at post #72, by Easy G (G 2), ok?

 

Enjoy!

 

BAA.

[R. S. Martin]

BAA, sorry for misspelling your name.

 

For those of you interested in what Christian scholars are doing in cosmology and science...

 

I'm subscribed to a journal called Theology and Science from the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences (that's two separate links). This seems to come out of a school called Graduate Theological Union (batch of schools). It's heady stuff and probably wasted money, given that I don't get around to reading it. Anyway, today I got a letter from Founder and Director of CTNS Robert John Russell with a one-line PS attached asking for money. Also a form and envelop making it really convenient to donate. He probably earns a donation with all the news he packs into the main body of the letter.

 

On Sept. 14 this year he launched a book by title Time in Eternity in which he talks about the "creative mutual interaction" (CMI) of science and theology. He says he "brings together the theology of Wolfehart Pannenberg, the theology of eschatology, and the physics of relativity and Big Bang cosmology." In case this means anything to anyone, he also says "It includes a new flowing-time interpretation of relativity (against the nemesis, the timeless 'block universe' interpretation of relativity beloved of physicists and philosophers of physics) inspired by Pannenberg's work on eternity and divine omnipresence (which I first reworked in light of physics)."

 

...I don't know what I'm talking about but I saw words in there like universe and cosmology. He says he's been working on this book for twelve years so I don't know whether or not he touches on the multiverse concept. He also lists courses offered at his school but I'll let you look them up yourself if you're interested.

 

EDITED: I missed part of the quote.

[Joshpantera]

[Joshpantera]

^ As you can see above, this would make God the infinite space serving as the void between individual bubble universes like own when applied to the multiverse. The diagram would have to be refined to show infinite universes cascading off into the distance with God as the area outside of each universe which is also inside each of them as well.

 

This amounts to concluding that God is everything that "space" is because space is eternal, invisible because it's transparent, it's the majority of volume of each atom "within" and the majority of volume without in the macro world extending past any one given bubble universe. All of the verses he pulled about God's omnipresence conform to this general trend as well.

There is one God who is father of all, over all, through all and within all

—Eph. 4.6

 

In this case space is the realm of existence and it immediately infuses God into every possible level of existence simultaneously from micro to macro. The mystery of the very existence of space is absolute, the very same as the mystery of the existence of a God with no beginning, so the more in-depth transcendent doctrines I already disclosed apply in that way too. The main point is that the transcendent is simply the mystery of the great unknownm, not any "thing" in particular aside from a philosophical issue. As long as we don't know why exist even exists in the first place, the great unknown will remain through every cosmological model that can not address that deep of a question. But an appeal to that kind of a God is an abstract appeal and it carries no weight for political motivation about "God." It's the death of fundamentalism and passing any type of judgement whatsoever.

 

But then the question about God presented as the area outside of our universe (and every universe according to the multiverse) becomes, so is eternal space really a "God," or just existence in general?

 

- Why should we personify existence and call it "He" as if it were a male, or even "she" as if it were a female even?

 

- Does existence favor one aspect of itself over any other?

 

- Does existence either create or destroy itself at any time, or merely transform from one form to another endlessly as energy - which is what the creation of the universe amounts to as per Bubble universes arising from pre-existing source material?

 

- If existence can not favor one aspect of itself over any other, then why suggest a chosen few or special revelation to any one religion?

 

- What does good verses evil mean when God is simply the existence of both?

 

- What does original sin mean in a panentheistic context, if anything at all?

 

- How do you keep western religious institutions running when the common people realize that the God they seek to know in seeking the God of their religion is already within them, and there is no need for a middle man religious institution to find favor with the God who's already within them?

 

- Who exactly speaks for the God who is simply everyone and everything, if not everyone that ever speaks anything at all?

 

- Including those who lack belief in God and call it a primitive concept used to enslave peoples minds?

 

- Everyone must speak for God if God is everywhere and in everything (omnipresent), right?