Big Bang

[TAO]

It doesn't have to be perfectly the same. Whether you fall 5280 ft or 5281 ft  it is still going to hurt when you hit the ground. In terms of mental illness whether you hallucinate about flying pigs or flying elephants it is still a visual hallucination. Whether you think you are Nepolean or Jesus the Christ it is still a delusion of grandeur. 

 

Well then your definition doesn't fit.  You said things need to be 'the same'.  I just showed you they wouldn't be.  Try and find a better definition for insanity.

[Questing Beast]

Never said that either.

 

I always speak of what we know, not some metaphysical realm we do not know.

 

There is a reason we call new observations and new knowledge "discoveries" and put them in their own category.  Perhaps you do not fully understand the difference between epistemology and metaphysics- I have no interest in metaphysics whatsoever.

How is epistemology equipping you with "what we know"? It all looks like religious faith to me. You just have some prejudice toward metaphysics because of what some philosophers have done to it. To me there is no distinction between religious exegesis and metaphysics, when we are pondering the afterlife. How can religious exegesis be epistemology, since we don't know anything but only believe?...

Edited August 27, 2013 by Questing Beast

[mfbukowski]

How is epistemology equipping you with "what we know"? It all looks like religious faith to me. You just have some prejudice toward metaphysics because of what some philosophers have done to it. To me there is no distinction between religious exegesis and metaphysics, when we are pondering the afterlife. How can religious exegesis be epistemology, since we don't know anything but only believe?...

Good point, but the truth is that I practically never talk about the afterlife etc without saying something like "the church teaches...." or at least that is what I think I am saying when I do talk about that sort of thing.

 

All I really "know" is that God has confirmed that I am supposed to follow this path, and that Mormonism coheres perfectly with the philosophical outlook I adopted many years before I found the church.  I feel I can say without hesitation that "I know this church is true" for those reasons alone.

 

Since I was a child I believed that there was a Great Intelligence, not of my own making, which was looking out for me.  That was a perception- not an intellectual construction - I felt it in my heart.  To me that was "God".  God was my Father, that in some sense I "existed" before I came here, and will also after leaving.  I think we are here to become the best humans we can, and to serve others- that is our purpose of life- to develop a community which makes all of mankind one.

 

I think that one should worship these principles and that God is an "Ideal Man" - the best being we can possibly imagine, and that ideal is worthy of "worship".  I think that rituals and symbols bring us closer to that ideal.

 

I think that The Intelligence cares what church or path we should choose and can tell us- and that is exactly what I think personal revelation is.

 

I believed all these things long before I became a Mormon.  To me, these are not "metaphysical" they are ethical beliefs- about what it means to become a better human.  They are feelings I have about the world around me which I have known since I was a child.  They are not metaphysics- they are more like perceptions- something you just know through experience.

 

I don't care if there are 3 degrees of glory or one- but I know that we can become "Idealized" like my Ideal is.  I don't know what "angels" are, but I know that I have been helped by unseen beings, if they were "angels" or "God" doesn't much matter.  I have seen people cured of disease through the power of prayer.

 

All these are direct experiences, like seeing the color red or hearing the sound of a trumpet.  You know what they are when you see/hear them.  They have nothing to do with "causes" or "spirit matter" or "essences" or "substances" or indeed even "truth" - indeed I don't really know what those terms mean, but I know how most use them in sentences.

 

Those are metaphysical terms- I am talking about direct experience of the divine.

 

Big difference.

[Stargazer]

My knowledge is but a thimble in the vast oceans of my ignorance.

 

And so is mine.

[Questing Beast]

Good point, but the truth is that I practically never talk about the afterlife etc without saying something like "the church teaches...." or at least that is what I think I am saying when I do talk about that sort of thing.

 

All I really "know" is that God has confirmed that I am supposed to follow this path, and that Mormonism coheres perfectly with the philosophical outlook I adopted many years before I found the church.  I feel I can say without hesitation that "I know this church is true" for those reasons alone.

 

Since I was a child I believed that there was a Great Intelligence, not of my own making, which was looking out for me.  That was a perception- not an intellectual construction - I felt it in my heart.  To me that was "God".  God was my Father, that in some sense I "existed" before I came here, and will also after leaving.  I think we are here to become the best humans we can, and to serve others- that is our purpose of life- to develop a community which makes all of mankind one.

 

I think that one should worship these principles and that God is an "Ideal Man" - the best being we can possibly imagine, and that ideal is worthy of "worship".  I think that rituals and symbols bring us closer to that ideal.

 

I think that The Intelligence cares what church or path we should choose and can tell us- and that is exactly what I think personal revelation is.

 

I believed all these things long before I became a Mormon.  To me, these are not "metaphysical" they are ethical beliefs- about what it means to become a better human.  They are feelings I have about the world around me which I have known since I was a child.  They are not metaphysics- they are more like perceptions- something you just know through experience.

 

I don't care if there are 3 degrees of glory or one- but I know that we can become "Idealized" like my Ideal is.  I don't know what "angels" are, but I know that I have been helped by unseen beings, if they were "angels" or "God" doesn't much matter.  I have seen people cured of disease through the power of prayer.

 

All these are direct experiences, like seeing the color red or hearing the sound of a trumpet.  You know what they are when you see/hear them.  They have nothing to do with "causes" or "spirit matter" or "essences" or "substances" or indeed even "truth" - indeed I don't really know what those terms mean, but I know how most use them in sentences.

 

Those are metaphysical terms- I am talking about direct experience of the divine.

 

Big difference.

To you, "big difference". To anyone reading your testimony it is all metaphysics not epistemology. "Direct experience of the divine" is utterly personal and singular. You can't begin to share what happened much less show it or repeat it. All you can do is use the symbols to communicate "an experience", real to you, a story to everybody else.

 

It so happens that I too have experienced the divine throughout my life. These occasions are dramatic compared to ordinary experiences. They defy "reality" or the physics of the real world, so-called. They are real and true also. But nobody has ever been able to observe the quality which made those experiences encounters with the divine. The usual reaction of the listener is of the order, "well, those kinds of things do happen, and there is some explanation for them." That is the kind of reaction that Martin Harris, et al. the Witnesses got when they tried to elucidate their experiences with the divine. Nobody was capable of having the spiritual, metaphysical quality of those experiences transmitted by words or expressions. The full reality of those experiences was theirs alone....

Edited August 28, 2013 by Questing Beast

[mfbukowski]

To you, "big difference". To anyone reading your testimony it is all metaphysics not epistemology. "Direct experience of the divine" is utterly personal and singular. You can't begin to share what happened much less show it or repeat it. All you can do is use the symbols to communicate "an experience", real to you, a story to everybody else.

 

It so happens that I too have experienced the divine throughout my life. These occasions are dramatic compared to ordinary experiences. They defy "reality" or the physics of the real world, so-called. They are real and true also. But nobody has ever been able to observe the quality which made those experiences encounters with the divine. The usual reaction of the listener is of the order, "well, those kinds of things do happen, and there is some explanation for them." That is the kind of reaction that Martin Harris, et al. the Witnesses got when they tried to elucidate their experiences with the divine. Nobody was capable of having the spiritual, metaphysical quality of those experiences transmitted by words or expressions. The full reality of those experiences was theirs alone....

Nope.  Not one word of it is metaphysics.    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaphysics

 

 

Metaphysics is a traditional branch of philosophy concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world that encompasses it,^[1] although the term is not easily defined.^[2] Traditionally, metaphysics attempts to answer two basic questions in the broadest possible terms:^[3]

1. What is ultimately there?
2. What is it like?

A person who studies metaphysics is called a metaphysicist ^[4] or a metaphysician.^[5] The metaphysician attempts to clarify the fundamental notions by which people understand the world, e.g., existence, objects and their properties, space and time, cause and effect, and possibility. A central branch of metaphysics is ontology, the investigation into the basic categories of being and how they relate to each other. Another central branch of metaphysics is cosmology, the study of the origin (if it had one), fundamental structure, nature, and dynamics of the universe.

I don't care about any of those things, just what I have experienced for myself, directly.  No theories of being, no explanation for cause and effect, no ontology, no cosmology, no worries about what is "ultimately there" since it is impossible to know that anyway.

 

Just descriptions of personal experience.

 

As I said before, big difference.

[ERayR]

We really have no way of knowing what, if anything, came before the Big Bang. Maybe it was God that said "Let there be light" and it was. Unfortunately science can't posit any God. So we're back to just the Big Bang, and nothing before it.

 

If you see a baseball speeding away from you. It is a reasonable thought that at some time in the past it wasn't speeding away from you. That it had a starting point.

 

Whether there will be a Big Crunch(contraction of the universe) or an very long time expanding universe is dependent on the amount of matter in the universe. All the evidence so far indicates that it will be an very long time expanding universe.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Crunch

We really have no way of knowing the big bang really happened or if the expansion is the result of continued growth.

 

Seeing that we know what propels baseballs in our reality that is a safe assumption.  Not a very apt analogy for the big bang theory as we have absolutly no knowledge of what causes the expansion seen.  We have only biased guesses.

 

I expext that as long as there are intelligences out there looking to move to improved neighborhoods the expansion will continue.

Edited August 28, 2013 by ERayR

[ERayR]

I am ascribing those things that you have said to your imagination. You make a big point that we cannot actually know what reality could be since there is a bigger world than that of our senses. Our machines and inventions have augmented our existing senses and even provided us, through them, with knowledge of the world that our senses cannot even detect. So you are correct to assert that our senses are inadequate to detect the fullness of reality. But to imagine that what we have not as yet discovered is some kind of reality that is contradictory or "other" to the reality we as a species have determined and defined, is not based on anything but imagination. Why discuss this at all, unless you think that this world is not reality? So what if we can't know all of it, and possibly never will know all of it, even as "gods". The entire ball of wax baby was created by "God", not by us. We were placed in the world of humans as human spirits, i.e. sent here as GtF's children. GtF is human because we are, and we are because GtF Is. We can imagine forever how different things might be elsewhere, but in the world of humans we have our reality, and it is increasingly revealed as we learn more about it. A thing does not suddenly exist because we detected it, it was always there, but we didn't know it before....

 

Of course this world is not reality.  It is an interactive test room.

[mfbukowski]

To you, "big difference". To anyone reading your testimony it is all metaphysics not epistemology. "Direct experience of the divine" is utterly personal and singular. You can't begin to share what happened much less show it or repeat it. All you can do is use the symbols to communicate "an experience", real to you, a story to everybody else.

This is perhaps a bit too technical of an article for this board but I found it interesting When I first read it.  http://www.jcrt.org/archives/05.3/fodor.pdf

Religious Experience and the End of Metaphysics is a diverse collection of essays that attempts to understand the human encounter with the divine without recourse to metaphysics.

Using largely continental thinkers as a starting point, it returns the philosophy of religion to the lived, embodied experiences of individual religious traditions. As such, many of the essays have a theological agenda—non-foundational, but theological all the same. This agenda blurs the lines between philosophy and theology, exposing what Hent De Vries has called the “the turn to religion.”

This is the view I am taking.

[thesometimesaint]

We really have no way of knowing the big bang really happened or if the expansion is the result of continued growth.

 

Seeing that we know what propels baseballs in our reality that is a safe assumption.  Not a very apt analogy for the big bang theory as we have absolutly no knowledge of what causes the expansion seen.  We have only biased guesses.

 

I expext that as long as there are intelligences out there looking to move to improved neighborhoods the expansion will continue.

 

That is true of any theory. But the evidence so far points to a Big Bang.

 

Continued growth from what? Something smaller of course. We can trace the Big Bang  to less than trillion of a second from the event.

 

All comparisons fall apart at some point. But they are useful till that point.

 

No doubt that intelligences will seek out better neighborhoods, as better neighborhoods are created. In the mean time we are to make our own neighborhoods better places to live.

[thesometimesaint]

Well then your definition doesn't fit.  You said things need to be 'the same'.  I just showed you they wouldn't be.  Try and find a better definition for insanity.

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

That is a quote from Einstein.

 

A better defintion is found in the DSM 5. A mentall illlness.

Another definition is quibbling with me over the definition of insanity.

[cdowis]

I am ascribing those things that you have said to your imagination. You make a big point that we cannot actually know what reality could be since there is a bigger world than that of our senses.

 

 

"Reality"

I find it interesting when an unbeliever says that God would have to break the law of relativity when he visits the earth or other parts of the universe -- traveling faster than light.

[boulder257]

"Reality"

I find it interesting when an unbeliever says that God would have to break the law of relativity when he visits the earth or other parts of the universe -- traveling faster than light.

 

Unless you believe in an all powerful almighty creator. With that in mind he is not bound by the laws of physics because He, Himself, created them.

[Questing Beast]

Nope.  Not one word of it is metaphysics.    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaphysics

 

I don't care about any of those things, just what I have experienced for myself, directly.  No theories of being, no explanation for cause and effect, no ontology, no cosmology, no worries about what is "ultimately there" since it is impossible to know that anyway.

 

Just descriptions of personal experience.

 

As I said before, big difference.

But it isn't any sort of difference, "really". Each egocentric universe (person) does exactly the same thing for himself. The aggregate equals something, or directs the individual parts back to something. You go on about only personal experience and everything else "is impossible to know anyway". And that is true, as long as you are you forever, effectively the only I AM that there Is. God manifesting. Your reality isn't dependent on anyone else but "God". How "God" reveals the world of humans to you is unique, so metaphysics that attempts to identify and define reality that is agreed upon cannot go into the realm of perceptions any further than the empirical senses. It so happens that in our day we have invented massive upgrade capabilities of observation not available to any previous observers. None of it breaks the "barrier" of egocentricism. We are each individually alone. "God" Is the only possible contact. And there is no indicator that "God" will merge egocenters, humans are not made that way....

[Questing Beast]

"Reality"

I find it interesting when an unbeliever says that God would have to break the law of relativity when he visits the earth or other parts of the universe -- traveling faster than light.

"Thinking is the best way to travel". The Cause of spacetime is outside of it, effectively placing all infinitely added parts to it within the instant spelled NOW. Of course that "breaks the law of relativity", or rather, transcends it. "God" can do whatever "he" wants....

[thesometimesaint]

Unless you believe in an all powerful almighty creator. With that in mind he is not bound by the laws of physics because He, Himself, created them.

 

We don't know what God has the power to do.

[mfbukowski]

Unless you believe in an all powerful almighty creator. With that in mind he is not bound by the laws of physics because He, Himself, created them.

We don't believe in a being who would break his own rules- that is the entire point.  I agree with you that he created them- but he does not break his own commandments, or he would cease to be who he is- God.

 

The creator of laws does not break them.  We even see that when a judge or other human official gets arrested- or when a president gets impeached for breaking the law.

 

It's a pretty basic principle.

 

God has voluntarily limited himself to the laws he has created.  It's called "self-determination", like when you go on a diet or decide not to eat red meat.  But God does not cheat.

[mfbukowski]

"Thinking is the best way to travel". The Cause of spacetime is outside of it, effectively placing all infinitely added parts to it within the instant spelled NOW. Of course that "breaks the law of relativity", or rather, transcends it. "God" can do whatever "he" wants....

Metaphysics. 

[Questing Beast]

We don't know what God has the power to do.

We know that "God" has the power to do anything you can possibly imagine and infinitely more besides. Your finite imagination cannot conceive of impossible things to "God"....

[ERayR]

Continued growth from what? Something smaller of course. We can trace the Big Bang  to less than trillion of a second from the event.

 

 

Continued growth from more and more Intelligences progessing.

[thesometimesaint]

I don't believe God has the power to do anything including logical contradictions. IE; Can God create a rock so heavy that God can't lift it? Nor does he violate his own rules. Unfortunately for us we don't know all of Gods' rules.

[thesometimesaint]

Continued growth from more and more Intelligences progessing.

 

Now just take that in the opposite direction in time.

[The Nehor]

We know that "God" has the power to do anything you can possibly imagine and infinitely more besides. Your finite imagination cannot conceive of impossible things to "God"....

Making a circle a square? Giving a being free will and controlling them? Microwaving a burrito so hot not even He can eat it?

[ERayR]

Unless you believe in an all powerful almighty creator. With that in mind he is not bound by the laws of physics because He, Himself, created them.

 

Maybe he created them or maybe he just found others that supercede what we know and found out how to use them really, really well.

[ERayR]

Now just take that in the opposite direction in time.

 

What?