The Physics of God

[CraigD]

In a previous theology thread, Boerseun rather novelly applied scientific estimation to the question of the existence of God

Originally Posted by Boerseun

So, it boils down to Standard Theory is right and God doesn't exist, or God exist but is a liar and not omnipotent, the latest in a long list of weak and failed deities in human history.
…
Religion is bunk. All we need are some scientists with balls to simply apply Standard Theory and say so.

Though I applaud this approach, and personally believe these conclusions to be correct, I think this particular chain of reason errs both scientifically and theologically in the proposition

Originally Posted by Boerseun

Hence, if God is omnipotent, we should be able to detect an object of practically infinite mass somewhere in a radius of 6,000 light years from Earth.

Whoever suggested that God necessarily has infinite mass-energy?

Rather than try to trot out theological or scientific literature, I’d like to provide an example from science fiction of scientific proof of the practical existence of what a reasonable person would call “God”. In the last two books of Arthur C Clarke and Gentry Lee’s the “Rama” series, “Garden of …” and “… Revealed”, the authors present the theory, supported by extensive fictional evidence that the current universe was engineered by very one or more very advanced intelligences in order to maximize the appearance of intelligent life. Although advanced beyond the detailed comprehension of any intelligent being present in the novels, these engineers were finite in mass-energy, and far from omnipotent, capable of making subtle, “fine tuning” adjustment to the early universe (according to the novels, the universe is gravitationally closed, allowing information to be passed between big crunch/bounce/bang cycles), and either initiate or influence beings who initiate huge (The Rama spacecraft, one of many, masses about kg) engineering projects, but not simply “will” worlds and beings into existence, per usual religious creation stories.

Is not a not all-powerful, but merely sufficiently powerful, “God”, as depicted in these stories, compatible with scientific theory?

[Buffy]

Originally Posted by CraigD

Whoever suggested that God necessarily has infinite mass-energy?

Basically this conclusion flows from the theological notion (recently discussed in this forum here) that "Nothing is greater than God."

This statement is obviously--at least to the non-believer--intended to show that God is worthy of being the sole recipient of our worship, and in order to be true in the simplistic sense, ends up needing to be applied to all measurable senses that man can relate to/imagine.

Thus from a mathematical/physics perspective, any countable dimension must be assigned at least an Aleph-null infinity value.

I think!

Originally Posted by CraigD

Is not a not all-powerful, but merely sufficiently powerful, “God”, as depicted in these stories, compatible with scientific theory?

This is traditionally the problem that the early mono-theists had with the notion that Gods were merely "super-human": God cannot be "perfection" if she suffers from human foibles. Most Christian interpretations of the Bible even have problems with the Old Testament lines about God calling herself "a Jealous God" or "a Wrathful God," and if anything try to rationalize them away.

I think it just boils down to anything finite being emotionally unsatisfying, and while a finite God might be plenty in a closed Universe (God could be countably larger than the entire state definition of every Planck-interval in the entire history of the universe and still be finite!), its still easy to imagine something *greater*, and if you can *imagine* something greater than God, then shouldn't you really be worshiping that?

Beyond the Infinite,
Buffy

[Boerseun]

Well, I agree with the Rama-idea, that's quite fitting with Standard Theory.

However, the concept of an "Omnipotent" God, comes from the Bible itself. The Bible claims omnipotency. And omnipotency requires infinite energy, or at least energy equal to the mass of the universe, not so? And that will constitute one helluva big black hole somewhere in the vicinity of Earth, at least within a radius of 6,000 light years (but that, then, will invalidate the entire New Testament - that'll require a black hole within 2,000 light years)

That not being the case, means that:

God might exist, but is not omnipotent.
The fact that the Bible says He is omnipotent, constitutes an error (or a lie, whatever your convictions)
The fact that we have undeniably proved the Bible to contain at least one error (a fundamental one at that, a serious error that cuts right to the core of Christianity), cast doubt on everything else contained in the Good Book.

[Buffy]

Well, being fond of the various multi-verse theories, I don't have a problem from a scientific stand point saying that she's not *in* the universe, so doesn't need to be finite in order to fit somewhere inside or be a super-massive black hole or whatever.

I'm not sure that "omnipotency" does require "infinite" power though. If God were larger than the entire universe, it would stand to reason that there could be a finite power that could "have absolute power or authority" (Online Etymology Dictionary) although almost all definitions of "omnipotent" use the phrase "having unlimited power" which is clearly "infinite" in sense. I'm just not sure its possible from a scientific point of view to say that "unlimited"--in the sense of "anything that could be conceived could be done" requires "infinite" power in a finite Universe.

OTOH, if God is "outside" the Universe, then she is not necessarily finite or bounded as the Universe is, so could be "infinite" in some dimension, so I don't think this is grounds for picking out a "contradiction."

The only completely consistent people are dead,
Buffy

[Inter.spem.et.metum]

But wasn't the Bible written at a stage where humans were not advanced enough to understand even the most simple scietific truths? So wouldn't it be illogical to criticize such claims, being as those who wrote them weren't in the position to make any other claim?

[InfiniteNow]

Originally Posted by Inter.spem.et.metum

But wasn't the Bible written at a stage where humans were not advanced enough to understand even the most simple scietific truths?

No. It was not. Which makes your next claim...

Originally Posted by Inter.spem.et.metum

So wouldn't it be illogical to criticize such claims, being as those who wrote them weren't in the position to make any other claim?

...rooted in a false premise:



Science is not about truth, it's about method.

[Inter.spem.et.metum]

Yes. It was. Although I do admit to a bit of overstatement, but not much.

[Buffy]

Originally Posted by Inter.spem.et.metum

Yes. It was. Although I do admit to a bit of overstatement, but not much.

When do you think the Bible was written?

Do you require knowledge of quantum mechanics in order to qualify as being beyond "the most simple scietific truths"?

Define your terms,
Buffy

[CraigD]

Originally Posted by Inter.spem.et.metum

But wasn't the Bible written at a stage where humans were not advanced enough to understand even the most simple scietific truths?

The answer to this question depend very much in the answer to this one

Originally Posted by Buffy

When do you think the Bible was written?

For at least the past couple of centuries, a very socially, emotionally, and politically charged question.

If we take the most widely accepted secular historic theory, the Documentary or JEDP hypothesis, the earliest parts of the Bible were written between roughly 950 and 400 BC.

We can choose a specific scientific truth and compare its history to this one. For example, the spheroid shape (or, in some cases, an incorrect belief in a cylindrical shape) of the Earth was believe by post 100 BC Greek historians to have been known as early as the 700s BC. This belief, reasonable enough, was based on the assumption that sailors noticed that they could sail past the horizon. Although difficult to document (due to being nearly prehistoric) such sailing was almost certainly occurring regularly among cultures such as the Phoenicians by 1200 BC, well prior to the first writings of the Bible.

Knowledge in the ancient world was more geographically isolated than in the modern. It’s reasonable to speculate that the 1st Millennium BC writers of the earliest parts of the Bible wouldn’t have written factual details most of their readers believed to be false. Although the Bible doesn’t describe the shape of the earth in lengthy, unambiguous detail, biblical scholars often point to Isaiah 40:22 as one such verse.

Originally Posted by Isaiah 40 (King James version)

It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in:

Although some argue that “circle of the earth” should be taken to mean “sphere of the earth”, and hold that this verse is evidence that the Bible thus correctly describes Earth’s spheroid shape, most credible scholars believe that the KJV translation is accurate, and describes the earth as a flat disk, with the heavens (stars, etc.) draped over it like a tent. By the previous sentence’s reasoning, then, the earliest readers of the early texts that would be compiled into the Torah and the Old Testament of the Bible, were not among the people of that time who had knowledge of the curvature of the Earth’s surface – that is, they did not commonly sail more than a couple of kilometers offshore.

IMHO, the original texts that came to be collected in the Bible reflected their author’s best knowledge of their world. Had these texts been written by Phoenicians, the equivalent of Isaiah 40:22 would have been very different, reflecting their greater knowledge of geography.

Originally Posted by Inter.spem.et.metum

So wouldn't it be illogical to criticize such claims, being as those who wrote them weren't in the position to make any other claim?

I think not.

Although it’s discourteous and unproductive to criticize the author of a text for making an error they could not reasonably avoid, it’s necessary – and logical - to the scientific process to criticize claims shown to be false, regardless of the knowledge of the claims’ authors.

Although we commonly consider writing to be an unequivocally positive product of civilization, an argument can be made that, with regards to religious traditions, it is not. Prior to their writing, oral religious traditions were likely much more flexible, able to incorporate scientific discovery. With the invention of religious literature, religious literalism becomes possible. The net effect of religious literalism on human culture and civilization is, IMHO, negative.

[rockytriton]

You can't really say when "the bible" was written, it's several books written hundreds of years apart from each other. The first books were generally written by a jew a few thousand years ago in order to give himself some kind of divine authority over his people and to divinely justify the murdering of women and children to take over the lands of the people who already lived in his "promised" land. Or it was written by a prophet and God actually wanted them to slaughter women and children. You decide.