I Omphaloskepticize, Therefore I Am

OK...I bit, and I'll read it.

I will say this though, I thought you said something about cosmotology, which makes your last line pretty funny.

And I agree. Even though she provides regular fodder, I'd much rather watch a Little AOC parody instead of I need an AOC fix.

Time for some better subject matter.

Thanks

I am the type of person who takes joy in knowing details about subjects that interest me. While the subject of the universe and why/how are we here is something I find interesting, the details hurt my head. I believe there are answers, I just don't know if my current consciousness has the ability to understand it.

There is something comforting in believing that while I don't know or understand now, I will in the afterlife. Or, I won't...

Dave - wouldn't your threshold of "knowing" be the same thing we take issue with liberals about? Don't they also "know" their position to be true, and subsequently act upon it?

Oh, I forgot the other part of your question...

Liberals “knowing” they are right will likely add a fourth to the category: To them, “Know” might be more akin to “feel” or “prefer.”

The dictionary defines "faith" as: "strong belief in God or in the doctrines of a religion, based on spiritual apprehension rather than proof."

If you "know" something to be true, then it is not "faith." It is "knowledge."

The very word faith means a belief without proof. Your faith may be very strong (and it may be correct) but it still does not qualify as what we call "knowledge", by definition.

We are not utilizing the same definition of the word.



I only posted the article because it's interesting what theories are currently being entertained for the origin of the universe. They include equally incoherent and unprovable concepts such as additional dimensions, a beginning of time (before which there was none) and a Big Bang created apparently out of nothing. I remember having circular arguments with Fordama (He who is blessed with Unwavering Certainty) because he has absolute faith - and that's what it is – in those theories while at the same time belittling faith in a Creator......... when in fact both require "faith."

I don't think he ever grasped the nuances.....................Luca.

I think you men are vending man’s definition(s) of Faith which always seems to ignore the spiritual aspect.

Of course, I have faith my wife loves me, or that my car, properly maintained, will get me from Point A to point B... but that is not the faith spoken of in the Bible.

Again, as the Book of Hebrews explains,


You are completely correct in your understanding of faith from our earth-bound perspective.

I am not being critical and trying to not be condescending when I say, that is not the faith of which (I understand) the Bible to speak. It is a different level, if you will.

I have had people tell me, “then you don’t know God exists, you just believe he does.” To which I respond, “uh uh: I know ... with unwavering certainty He exists.”

I should also point out, this faith of which I speak is not something of my own doing. Nothing I’ve perfected over years of testing and trying. This faith, this unwavering certainty, comes from God.,

For Dave,

I know that 2+2 = 4 because I can add them together myself and reach that conclusion. If I subtract 2 from 4, I get an answer of 2. If I add +2 to both side to that equation I’ll wind up with 4. It is therefore proven and I know it’s true. I do not know that E=mc2. People far smarter than I do believe it and can mathematically demonstrate it, and there are in fact nuclear reactors that give evidence for the equation. So I believe strongly - I have great faith - that E = mc2, but I can’t say I know it for a fact.



As regards the sentence "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen":

I have a hard time understanding that using the normal definition of those English words. "Faith" is not a substance, nor is it evidence. For that sentence to make sense you have to utilize a definition of those words contrary to the commonly understood meaning, and so I don’t understand it.



When you say, Dave, that you know something not of an "earth bound perspective" and that the knowledge comes from God, the discussion becomes a bit circular. I am by definition "earth bound", and when you say that you know that there is a God because that knowledge comes from God, it doesn’t leave a lot of room for debate. ……………………………





"Luca, can you summarize what was contained in that article in a way that a 5th grader could understand? I need some type of foundation to start this quest."


Sure, no problem, Bick. Piece of cake. The reason I cited the article is partly because it is so seemingly counterintuitive and beyond the conception of people like you and me. I’m not even sure Wabash could grasp it, other than saying the reason it’s so complicated is because Republicans screwed it up.



You may already know the basic Big Bang idea (which, incidentally, originated from a Belgian Catholic priest/physicist, a fact which amuses me endlessly and which I never fail to mention to my militant atheist/materialist brethren), that some 13+ billion years ago time and energy originated from a singularity that held all the energy in existence. It exploded with a magnitude that defies description and all the energy in the universe was released simultaneously. One would expect that when that energy converted into mass, the gravitational pull of that mass would have recollapsed everything back into a singularity, but there was an unexplained "rapid expansion" of space that spread out the mass and energy of universe so rapidly that gravity could no longer exert enough pull to collapse it. And the universe continues to expand - albeit more slowly - and over time some energy collapsed into quarks and leptons and whatever and then into into hydrogen, which in turn collapsed into stars which ignited under gravitational pressure, creating an enormous number of nuclear furnaces which in turn generated all the other elements of the universe, which then formed galaxies, etc……. I think I have that much right.



The obvious question that Dave and I would ask -"Well, where the hell did the singularity and all that energy come from?" remained unanswered and Hawking’s explanation was that it’s like asking where south is from the South pole, i.e., they simply did not exist prior to the Big Bang. Essentially, you have to dismiss the concept of cause and effect. Without sounding too simplistic, that’s not a terribly satisfying answer.



I don’t understand the competing Hartle theory, even in concept. I think it indicates that the universe does not continuously expand and that at some point it recollapses on itself. I don’t know what the significance of that is supposed to be, but I think it rejects the idea of Hawkings "rapid expansion" shortly after the Big Bang. I think it also implies that the universe may eventually collapse on itself and that maybe there are a series of endlessly recurring Big Bangs, but I don’t know.



Hartle’s initial abstract starts off with "The quantum state of a spatially closed universe can be described by a wave function which is a functional on the geometries of compact 3-manifolds and on the values of the matter fields on these manifolds.”



As Inspector Cluseau once said, “Aha, now we are getting somewhere." You tell me WTF that all means and then we’ll both understand it.



Ultimately, my point was that despite all these exotic theories I don't think they can ever explain where, when or how matter/energy came into existence, and that "We'll never know" how it all started………………………………Luca