Synopsis.
This section examines the nature of God, the universal life force, or whatever you choose to call it. It raises the questions how did everything begin.
Physicists, cosmologists and quantum mechanics scientists have answered, or attempted to answer, many of the big questions facing humanity. Who are we? Where did we come from? Where are we going? These are big questions that are currently being answered by great minds. But all the scientists, all of the cosmologists, and all of the quantum physicists can't answer one simple question.
How did it start?
There are those who assume that it is just a cycle that goes on forever. Matter expands, acceleration decreases to zero, everything smashes together again, all over the course of billions of years. It still does and explain how it first started.
There are those who believe that matter spontaneously generates itself. For example, Stephen Hawking, the renowned physicist, believes that matter is spontaneously generated at the edge of space around a black hole. Matter is always generated in pairs of two particles. One particle is drawn into the black hole, one particle is ejected into our universe. What's interesting about this concept is the spontaneous generation of matter. But, where did the black hole come from?
Wherever there are human beings, someone asks the question -- where did we come from? The answer from the physicists is usually, "I don't know." Where there is a knowledge vacuum, mankind has always filled that vacuum with an idea.
Religions
Before the more modern religious beliefs involved, there were a variety of religious systems. There was a belief that we were ruled by planets and stars. There were beliefs that omniscient beings, living in the heavens, controlled by destinies. The earth was flat. Earth was borne on the back of a giant. There were all sorts of manifestations of all sorts of gods. Men always searched for the answer to the question, where did we come from?
There is the biblical version. God always has existed, and always will exist, is all powerful (omnipotent), all knowing (omnicient), and everywhere at once (omnipresent) and created the universe we now live in, in six days. He rested on the seventh day, the Sabbath. Everything you see around you, according to this belief, was the work of one being, who completed it in a week, starting with nothing.
The Bible
There are also those who believe in the Bible's rendition of creation, but believe that the Bible speaks metaphorically, or there wasn't the language at the time the Bible verse was written to express the concept accurately. For example, would someone from ancient Egyptian civilization, in 1000 BC even have the words, the language, even analogies, to explain an automobile, trained, or what about a personal computer or radio or cellular telephone? Things we take for granted would be considered magical by those civilizations.
Similarly, the language of the Bible conveys messages with concepts that were known and understood by people that live 1000 to 2000 years ago. The methods of explanation were limited by human understanding of the time. Some of it is factual, some of it is allegorical (told with fables or stories). The language of the Bible, and the translations through several languages such as Aramaic, Hebrew, Greek and Latin, have made it ultimately more difficult to understand the real meaning behind what people wrote -- even if inspired by God.
Sufficiently advanced technology
Arthur C. Clarke, noted scientist and science-fiction writer, and inventor of the communications satellite, tells us that "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
Was the Bible full of magic, advanced technologies, parables, or something else? These are difficult, if not impossible, questions for modern-day man to answer. The real question is, does it matter? Can enough of the Bible and its messages be understood by modern man?
Which brings us to the second concept. Should we assume that the Bible represents all metaphysical knowledge? Can everything that needs to be said, and all lessons that need to be learned be expressed in a single book? Was that the creator's intentions? Was all new now let's suppose to stop being formed 1500 years ago?
Assuming, for a moment, that there was a creator, it is highly unlikely that communication of knowledge from the deity, were such a deity to exist, would have abruptly ended some 1000 to 1500 years ago. Perhaps, however, people stopped listening. Perhaps, people do not understand the implications of what they have learned. Perhaps, there are some people who still believe that the deity, God, has a message and a purpose for mankind, but the vast majority of mankind does not understand the message or understand the purpose.
We are told, by the monotheistic religions (modern day religions which believe in one God), that the Bible is indeed the word of God. However, they are curiously silent on whether God continues to speak to man, and whether that communication should be written down. Yet, on the other hand, we have the Saints who perform miracles in life, and in the afterlife. It is hard to reconcile the acts of the Saints with the writing of the Bible, or, the writings of the ancient prophets. How are they different?
The nature of a higher power
This we can say with some certainty.
- It is highly unlikely that the universe and all its matter and energy always existed.
- It is unlikely that intelligence, human intelligence, is a mistake of nature -- an accident.
- With the billions of galaxies in the heavens, and billions of stars in each galaxy, and planets circling some percentage of them, it is quite likely that some small percentage of those stars contain life. If the number is one in 1 billion, the number of planets containing life is still astronomical.
Probably, mathematically, we are not alone. Did God choose to send his only begotten son to a minor planet at the edge of the mediocre galaxy, alone? Were we part of a plan to visit all sentient (capable of thinking) life?
Exercises
1. Imagine the absolute nothingness. It's difficult to do. We move about in space, but there was. Time marches forward, yet there is no time. Nothingness, absolute nothingness, is the complete absence of time and dimension.
This
2. Before you have the following terms:
A. Monotheistic
B. Omnipotent
C. Omniscient
D. Omnipresent
E. Allegorical
3. How old is the present Bible?
A. 6000 years
B. Over 2000 years
C. 1000 to 1500 years
Archived at: https://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AZ1nweotz-8MZGNiNHB6YzhfNTloc2o1N2RjdA&hl=en
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