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Originally Posted by vetrad
Hello all,
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Well, howdy!
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Originally Posted by vetrad
I have a fairly basic question which is hard to answer with certainty, but I appreciate any input. As almost all of us do, at some point, I am curious as to the origins of the universe and what is behind it all. The meaning of life, so to speak.
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That's the reason all of us are here!
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Originally Posted by vetrad
Before I write this, understand, I am thinking about where we are in the perspective of everything, outside our universe. If I were to be able to travel to the edge of the most distant star, what is out there...
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If you were to instantly travel to the edge of the observable universe, you would see exactly what you see currerntly in the vicinity of the Milky Way - with a visible horizon also 15 billion light years away, in all directions - because the universe is an unfolding hypersphere, with the edge being in the
past. A bit of a mind-twister, I know - but the edge of the universe is fifteen billion light years away, from
all points in the universe, simultaneously. You can simply never reach it. Hence, there's nothing "outside" of it that can "pull any strings" inside of it. No "outside" of the universe = no God. If there is a God, or a creator of any kind, he must exist within the fifteen billion light years that you observe all around you. He may very well exist
outside of it, but there is no way for God to interact with the universe in that case, in which case worshipping Him, praying to Him and following Him is pointless - the info simply won't get to Him.
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Originally Posted by vetrad
The pastor discussed time and mentioned that god created time and knows (and created) all. If you apply that to outside our universe, and the physics of time, this makes sense to me based on the BASIC understanding I know.
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Pastors, priests, and the clergy in general, are notoriously bad authorities on matters scientifical. I wouldn't quote them nor mull too much on their insights, or lack thereof, regarding Science in general.
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Originally Posted by vetrad
It seems there could be a man behind the curtain sort of thing.
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As I explained, there is no "curtain" to be behind of. If there is a God, he simply
must be within the 15-billion year horizon of the universe in order to interact with humanity in any way. As a matter of fact, the Bible puts the crucifiction of Christ at around 30AD - give or take a year. That's 1979 years ago that God sent his Son down to Earth, according to the Christians. This, of course, means that God's co-ordinates in space must be somewhere in a sphere with a radius of 1979 light years centered on Earth. Because not even God can outfly light. If God did indeed created everything, he imposed that speed limit on Himself. Can't blame us - it was his bad. But be that as it may, we haven't detected any hint of a "God" or a "Paradise" or any such thing in this tiny corner of the Milky Way (it's more than 20,000 light years to the Galactic centre - God's location must therefore be in our neck of the woods).
Imagining there's a "man behind the curtain" is a perfectly natural feeling - imagining that there's some control and purpose. But if you let go of all those intellectual pretentions and, well,
fear of a purposeless life in a pointless world, then you get to see Life in all its glory for what it is. There's no imaginary boogeymen controlling things - hell, a burning schoolbus should be proof enough. The existence in this world of things like pedophiles (created by God) to completely screw up the lives of young kids (innocent, also created by God, now scarred for life) should be more proof. If there is indeed a creator, then I submit to you that he's a bumbling fool, or evil. The evidence towards that is, at least, clear.
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Originally Posted by vetrad
The concept of life on earth seems almost intentional when you consider our atmosphere, magnetic field, rate of core cooling, distance from the sun, etc.
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Everything on Earth seems to suit humanity down to a "t". So it seems intentional. It seems planned. Until you consider that we've evolved over eons of time to
suit this particular environment.. If we evolved on a planet where our sky was red, and we breathed carbon monoxide, and our blood was green and our oceans vast seas of sulphuric acid, then we would have evolved over time to suit
that, and we would have thought that scenario to be perfectly natural, and a place like Earth to be an inhospitable hell.
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Originally Posted by vetrad
Basically, I am searching for meaning to my life. I am looking for proof that I am a mass of material that occurred by randomness.
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There was no randomness in your birth. Your birth was the result of a chain of events almost 4 billion years long. There are millions and millions of individual events that took place over the last four billion years, that finally resulted in you. What you make with your short tenure on this planet, is entirely up to you. There is no higher calling, there is no higher authority, there is no bigger purpose or reason. You've got this one shot at life, and you better make it count. Because for whatever you do during your stretch on Earth, you will not be punished or rewarded for it afterwards. Morality and moral behaviour is its own reward. You get to pick what floats your boat, and run with it. Immortality is achieved by having kids - your genes go forward. There is nothing more to it than that. But take a moment and appreciate the grandness of it all. You don't need a Creator or any alternative moral authority to be a good person and to live a good life. Attempting to shift the moral responsibilty towards an invisible uber-ghost is cowardice, in the very least. You should take responsibility for your life and actions, and shun these charlatans into the history books, where they belong.
And that's about it. But there's nobody and nothing "behind the curtain".
