@Krumple,
Quote:How could you even arrive at the concept of a god then? If you can not determine that one exists how the hell would you even consider that one even exists in the first place let alone what properties that god would have?
I arrived at the concept of a God by communicating with Him over many years -- and I do mean Him, not the church, nor people affiliated with the church -- and by simply observing.
In the same way scientists study a black hole, I study the world around us -- not only what is there, but what isn't. I see many patterns emerge, consistent with the existence and in fact active participation of a higher power.
My frustration lies in the fact that He no longer seems to respond to me. In the past, asking Him for a sign often lead to a sign; and believe me, it was beyond looking too far into coincidences. For years this progressed, until finally the signs ceased. The shooting stars referenced in another response (possibly in other topic? I can't remember now) were the last signs I received.
Believe me, I didn't ask for this. I see all that it is for exactly what it is, but again, like black holes... not everything is exactly as it seems, and that is the world in which I operate. The gap between what is known and unknown -- and what many might declare unknowable. But look at the scientific world's best and brightest... they often delved into the realm of the unknowable and returned with an astounding insight into the future.
Quote:This brings me right back to my very simple question. Let's say that I know about an invisible car. You being curious start asking me questions about this invisible car, yet I can't even tell you what color it is, how many seats it has, or if it even has a radio. Yet I still insist that the car is real. How is it that I could determine that the invisible car is real when I can't even determine what the car consists of? All I can say is that the car is real and have absolutely NOTHING else to go on. Doesn't that sound at all insane? I hope you can draw the parallel here to my analogy question.
The problem is that you are unable to point out anything about the car, and an even greater problem is that the general qualities of a car are known to man; God is not. We have no concept of His "physical" qualities, if indeed He has any; therefore, even if we did see Him, or his handiwork, we would not recognize it as such.
By the way, I did some further reading and Einstein believed that electrons (or any wave-particle, which means
any and every known particle, both energy and matter) collapse to a point when observed. That might have been the foundation for my belief that our observation affects energy and matter.
However, I disagree with Einstein. It doesn't collapse to a point... in fact, it's even simpler than that. Try spinning yourself around in circles. Keep track of everything around you and you'll see that nothing appears to move, but lose track and suddenly you're lost in a haze of spiraling objects. Now focus again and you'll see that everything is still there, and that it was merely your perception that blurred.
Now apply that to particles. It works the exact same way. As I stated before, the wave-particle duality is merely a consequence of limited observation -- either you view the whole wave, or you view only one single constituent of it... a particle, which is really just the entire wave focused into a single, observable point.
See, if you think critically about Einstein's theory and some of the theories that followed, you'd see that nature and the universe itself has a clock. However, like the human heartbeat, it's an "internal" clock -- a universal heartbeat. My explanation will fail horribly, I'm sure, but as I understand quantum particles travel as "packets" through a volume and "flicker in and out of existence." The rate of this flicker, then, is somewhat like a "real life refresh rate", and if all of our visual observations rely on it, you might say it's mediated by the photon -- and therefore electromagnetism.
But I really should stop talking. I don't have some large word document accumulating evidence and arguments in favor of my theories, all of this is still knocking around inside my head. To call it inconsistent is redundant, as it is inherently and obviously so.
