For Christians - why is the Universe so big?

truth
Excellent post, Georgeob1. I might add, in the same vein, that when discussion descends from the heights of physical theory to the intellectual gutters of Christian fantasy we should ask ourselves if our questions about the CAUSES of the universe, the big bang, God's origin, etc. also reflects the limitations of our cultural metaphytical presuppositions.

Re: truth


I would put it in the reverse order. The human preoccupation with the origin and purpose of things - the idea of God - precedes modern science and has not yet been displaced by it. Indeed modern cosmoligacal and quantum theories have hardly dented this basic question. Even questions of purposeful design reemerge in the study of the complexities of DNA and the geological time available for evolution to have operated.

The heights you referred to are not heights at all.

NOW GEORGE_how do you arrive at that statement of puposeful design ? The structure of DNA, by its very economy of structure, makes the consideration of "deep time" as a plentiful commodity. if youre an advocate of 'Intelligent design" then ill just back off.

I wonder also how God watches us - discounting divine / spiritual mechanisms that I don't profess to understand or comment on.

Lots of folk use the word Infinitewhen describing God; not just very big but infinite. This has very startling reprecussions:

Another way of looking at God with the known physics of our Universe (not the divine ether God exists in) is:

1. God has infinite energy
2. Using E=mc^2 , that means God has infinite mass too
3. Time dilates around super heavy objects because they warp spacetime until it closes
4. So God is timeless by the faulty physics of our world projected to life between the membranes!

Maybe I am just being cute saying any discernible fraction of God is infinite too. But to me that says only a infinitely small fraction of God can enter our Universe and observe it - the full God of infinite energy/mass would crush us like a black hole unless he limited his presence from affecting the Universe - but to do that it would have to be designed into the Universe through some as yet unknown laws of physics (backdoors into the laws of physics).

So either:

1) only an infinitely small portion/s of God perception enters the Universe to observe / encourage or direct us - using what ever science God knows about that we don't yet; or

2) God rarely enters our Universe; instead he watches our reality cast impressions on the infinite membranes where he may reside; or

3) All of the above plus more with the divine thrown in too!

I wonder if and how infinite applies to God? I have no trouble if it does or doesn't. Whether God is powerful enough to create a Universe or a trillion Universes a second or an infinite number per second worries me not in the least. It woud be presumptous in the extreme to criticise - but pondering is fine

In terms of science, we all love to have good explanations, but I feel obliged to just through out here the Anthropic Principle. If the universe weren't compable of supporting intelligent life, noone would be asking that question. Not an idea I'm particularly fond of, but it's true. I lean more towards the God idea, but that doesn't fall into science.

I am not sure God and science can't co-exist perfectly once our science is large enough to fathom more of God.

Perhaps our most exotic theory fests touch only a smidegon of reality and we have a long way to go.

For instance we believe only a small fraction < 20% of the Universe is visible, detectable energy and matter. Dark matter/energy (or MOND) accounts for the bulk and we are not sure what it is - exotic particles - the non zero vaccuum energy of quantum space etc.

We don't understand reality anywhere near deeply enough to talk with confidence when you head a discussion towards God or the Universe as a whole. So its exciting times ahead.

bm

bm ?

Tell us what you really think Frank.

Had to go watch Jeopardy! -- but I wanted to be sure to get back to this thread -- so I bookmarked.

Allow me to give the agnostic take on the primary question proposed in this thread:

Beats the Hell out of me!

And there doesn't seem to be enough unambiguous evidence upon which to make a meaningful guess.

I enjoy your perspectives, G__day. There are too few that support both God and science, and it's nice to have another paladin to the cause. Religiously, I take it litterally when we are told we are Gods children. And I suppose in the next life, which in my beliefs involves a ressurection into an even more sophisticated body, I believe God will train us to do the things he has been doing. I see no reason why he would opt to keep these secrets to himself. They were probably passed on by his own father, and his father's father. If time has no foreseeable end, than we would need a very large playground, wouldn't we?

On another note, I would appreciate anyone's opinion on which books I might read up on to better understand quantum theory. At a basic level, or any other area. I find it interesting, but I wouldn't know where to start to begin to grasp the subject.

g-day string theory, to date has no way of proving itself or that such data even exists. Quantum theory resides in statistics. Youve been tying to shoehorn a deity in there, cute. I think Duane Gish would like to talk to you.

Now , please try my last question, how does DNA suggest a designer. Inquiring minds want to know?

I have to admit that im a recovering Catholic and an extreme skeptic

God needed to make
The universe big enough
To store all His stuff.

farmerman,

Quantum mechanics helps with lasers, LIGO dectors, quantum computing (they are up to 6 dot quantum computers so far). So generally yes Q.M. is strongest at the edges and lacking in predictive power right in its own heart land - but its developing in occassional leaps.

http://www.newscientist.com/hottopics/quantum/quantum.jsp?id=22994400

DNA is an amazing construct to fashion life from, from memory a few Nobel prizes have been handed out to scientists in regards to DNA research and genetics.

Sure DNA could be one system of self replication that happened by accident rather than design. The fine tuning involved to make it all work by accident rather than design would be truly astronomically unlikely from a statistical perspective. More informed reading here: http://www.newscientist.com/hottopics/astrobiology/lifeforce.jsp

Genetics I have a very limited understanding on, and do not wish to speak on as even a semi informed person. Yes I understand amino acids and the struture of the human brain and neurons and gangilia, but that doesn't qualify me to speak on how DNA proves or disproves God by a longshot.

How can a God who is outside the scope of our Universe possibly be simply proven or disproven by evidence within our reality?

In response to your link, I don't see why infinite possibilities has to expand to every possibility. For example there could be infinite planets and they could all be the same. It sounds like whoever wrote the article didn't comprehend the subject themselves. Infinite in no way means "every possible."

Secondly, why would these other realms be termed alternate universes, rather than realms which this universe encompasses. Again, a matter of termonology, but I would like to define the universe as a compilation of all systems, in which case any alternate realm would be included.

g_day, have you ever thought that there might be no god at all? that the existance of the universe is just a matter of chance? we might have just been lucky(or unlucky, as the case may be) to experience intelligence.
The creation of the universe may have just been due to probobility.

SCoates

A membrane is a Universe with its own reality and laws of physics - bounded by its own creation event. So ours has specific dimensions and attributes; its is 13.8 billion years old and 48 billions light years across (due to inflation) and the background colour of the Universe is a shade of green (I kid you not - but who cares).

Other realities or membranes in M-theory share nothing with our Universe except maybe gravity between two or three very 'close' membranes. They are physically very distinct from our reality. Nowhere in our Universe does time run backwards or have 4 dimensions nor does matter/energy and time not exists. The same can't be said of other realities outside our closed Universe.

rue

Yes - but either my makeup or preferences prefer a creator God to exist. That to me is faith - not provable science.

The odds for random chance are greater than 1 : 10 ^ 120 - not betting chances.

http://www.aish.com/spirituality/philosophy/The_Design_Argument.asp

"Robert Shapiro cites Nobel laureate Sir Fred Hoyle's calculation of the odds of a bacterium spontaneously generating [p.127]. At first Hoyle and his colleague, N. C. Wickramasinghe, endorsed spontaneous generation, but reversed their position once they calculated the odds.


What's the chance of a tornado sweeping through a junk-yard and assembling a Boeing 747?

A typical bacterium, which is the simplest of cells, is made up of 2,000 enzymes. Hoyle and Wickramasinghe took the probability of randomly assembling one enzyme and multiplied that number by itself 2,000 times to calculate the odds of a single bacterium randomly coming together. Those odds (ed. for a single cell organism) are 1 in 10^40,000. Hoyle said the likelihood of this happening is comparable to the chance that "a tornado sweeping through a junk-yard might assemble a Boeing 747 from the materials therein."
"

g_day, intelligent life exists because it can. Why wouldn't the universe permit it?

Given the apparent acceleration of the expansion rate of the universe, we don't know even know if there is a cosmological "constant" let alone whether its value had to be fine-tuned.

BTW, the observable universe has an estimated 100 billion galaxies with perhaps 100 billion planets each. That's only about 10^22 planets, not 10^100.

The Judeo-Christian creation myth cannot explain a universe this large if earth is the only planet with people to witness it. And it is highly unlikely that we are the only intelligent life in the entire universe.

As Thalion mentioned, the Weak Anthropic Principle says that only a universe that happened to be capable of evolving life could have anyone asking questions about it.

And what do you think the odds are that a god "just happened" to exist who had the knowledge and ability to create a universe that looks exactly like it came about due to a combination of "random chance" and physical laws rather than being designed?

SCoates, the best books I have read on quantum theory and cosmology are:

"QED - The Strange Theory of Light and Matter" by Richard P. Feynman

"The Elegant Universe" and "The Fabric of the Cosmos" by Brian Greene

"Hyperspace - A Scientific Odyssey Through Parallel Universes, Time Warps and the 10th Dimension" by Michio Kaku

Terry,

Fair point - the 10^22 - 10^24 number is a statistcal calculation based on our view of galaxies perpendicular to the plane of the milkyway, extrapolated outwards in every direction.

The Australian National University lists visible stars (from Earth) as 70 sextillion, or 7 * 10^22.

I did a fudge - I took the total supposed Mass/Energy content of the Universe (and got the wrong number 10^120 atoms; whereas the minimal amount to drive inflation is 10 ^60kgs or 10^92 atoms) and divided it by the average Mass/Energy of a smallish size Sun being 10 ^32 KGs.

Lets scale down my numbers to be 10 ^ 24 stars - (and probably 10 times more dark stars and planets), But maybe it is as high as 10 ^ 60 we should know better within 15 years.

Still alot of stars and worlds to visit!

* * *

Your what are the odds question has a paradox in it

What are the odds a God exists: Probability = 1.

Odds that the Universe was made by random chance - show me that Universe and I can comment. For ours I would say Probability = 0 because nothing looks like random chance to me (it looks the exact opposite) form a perspective of Science.

What laws of science or facts of existence look random chance to you?

I agree that the Bible Old Testament is probably exceptionally flawed, but I see it as a work of mankind not of God. Example - Noah's world wide flood from 17th November 2,345 BC didn't affect Eygpt or China, there is no evidence the total volume of water doubled for a year than dissappeared, nor that the 10 ^ 25 Joules of energy required to move that amount of water was released on the Earths surface, nor are there gasses of rotting vegetation trapped in the polar icecaps ice core samples around those years. Similarily Genesis proposes a strange timetable for creation - 7 days and a Universe that is less than 20,000 years old - but looks like its 13.8 billion years old doesn't reconcile to me.