Question, is god local or universal?

[snooper2]

Do religous folks believe everything we can see, including stars six million light years away, were done by god. Or is he just a local dude that focused on our planet/solar system?

[RegieRocker]

1. You can't be serious?

I mean really now.....

[demwing]

4. Are you surprised by that question

in the Religion group?

I mean really now....

[RegieRocker]

16. To answer your question then...

If there is a GOD it would be beyond anyone's scope of comprehension. That is the problem with both atheists and theists. They lack the understanding that GOD is beyond their comprehension. You CAN'T know what GOD thinks or wants. No one solution fits all instances. Life is complex. So are it's solutions. This is where we fail miserably. It's being unveiled now. How we deal with it and if we progress to understand these complexities remain to be seen. To answer your question: Neither and both. It's an unanswerable question.

[Animal Chin]

2. That's really depends

on an individual's faith, belief and understanding of god.

That said, I think that most "religious folks" would probably answer "universal."

[tama]

3. Yes :)

[bluerum]

5. Agreed. No wait.... maybe. No. No. Can't be. Well, yeah, yeah I suppose. Could very well be.

Yep. It's a definite maybe.

[mr blur]

6. Depends whether or not you think the Universe is only 6,000 years old.

If you do then 6 million light years is impossible.

Of course, if you're a "Progressive" christian with "other ways of knowing", then I suppose anything's possible.

[cbayer]

10. Yes, because progressive christians are clearly your enemy and share nothing in

common with you.

(I would use the sarcasm thingy, but I'm not sure this is not an accurate statement at this point).

[TreasonousBastard]

7. Fundamentalists try to skirt around the question, but...

many of us don't attempt to define God in such a way. We're getting away from the idea of the anthropomorphic God fundies of many religions have turned to. It's become as obsolete as idol worship or thaat crew on Mt. Olympus.

One Quaker theologian considers God to be not so much an entity as a universal intelligence-- perhaps the logic, or mathematics, that goes with the primal physics that holds the universe together.

The problem with that thinking is that it sounds like an excuse to keep God important in a universe that's constantly shrinking God. We've dealt with the god-of-the-gaps arguments, but still haven't found ways to make God relevant in a cosmos of trillions of galaxies. It was a lot easier when we were the center of the universe.

[trotsky]

8. "We're getting away from the idea of the anthropomorphic God"

What exactly does that mean?

If a large majority of Americans still believes in the idea of an anthropomophic god, can we truly be said to be "getting away" from it? Just curious as to what you mean by that terminology.

[TreasonousBastard]

11. It's a big world, and even Americans are...

not buying the big guy in the sky in such great numbers. Mainstream more liberal churches are downplaying that, and even downplaying much of the Jesus mythology. Not that they have deleted it from their teachings, or outright deny any of it, but just not emphasizing it so much. I doubt many church members can even explain their idea of what God is aside from some catechism quotes. Many clergy, either-- you can get a DD from a reputable source and become an ordained minister even if you don't agree with biblical theology.

Many Americans seem to hold on to beliefs learned in childhood, but not very strongly, or deeply. We don't even go to church as often as we like to claim-- we say 50% of us attend church regularly, but a new survey that asks you where you were on Sunday morning notes that it's really less than 25%.

So, you hear a lot about it from TV preachers and politicians but that's a lot of noise, not necessarily reality.

[trotsky]

12. Surveys back me up.

What I hear you saying is basically how you think things are.

There is a big disconnect happening.

[cbayer]

9. Depends where you are, I guess.

For example, he had the apartment over mine in Manhattan for a while. All that noise, all the time drove me crazy. Phone never stopped ringing and what a bad temper.

So, at that time, I would have definitely said local.

[muriel_volestrangler]

13. And, for those who believe in a universal God, is it limited by the speed of light? (nt)

[Silent3]

14. Ask Mitt Romney n/t

[MineralMan]

15. To which deity do you refer?

And in what time period? You do not provide enough information for an answer to your question. That you use the lower case, when referring to a "god," it could be any deity to which you refer.

Please be more specific and someone will be happy to answer, I'm sure.

[snooper2]

17. why does it matter, do you believe in god?

a supernatural supreme being?

How do she/he/it do it? hundreds of billions of galaxies, HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS...

Walking on water is one thing but creating all of that matter...doesn't that seem a little..impossible?

[trotsky]

18. That's why gods were invented.

To "explain" things we didn't understand.

[cbayer]

19. To me, the whole concept of the hundreds of billions of galaxies seems impossible,

so I imagine anything is possible.

[snooper2]

20. It's not a concept though, it's a fact..

We can see them, we can measure them, we can analyze them...

[cbayer]

21. If they are infinite, which I believe they are, we can not.

Whenever we think we have found the edge, we will be wrong.

[muriel_volestrangler]

25. That's interesting; scientific consensus is that it's not infinite

So your belief that there are infinite numbers of galaxies, which would seem to come from you, is nevertheless some you find hard to believe.

[cbayer]

26. Actually, I don't agree that there is consensus at all.

And I can find no such consensus in a search, but would be glad to review it.

How can anyone say with conviction where the galaxies end? It's much like the religious debate.

[muriel_volestrangler]

29. Consensus is that there was a Big Bang

with finite size and mass after that, which is why we talk about 'expansion'. So, unless there has been an event at which either size of mass became infinite, then they must still be finite. Mustn't they?

[cbayer]

31. But was there a single Big Bang that created the galaxies as we know them,

or could there have been others?

This is clearly not my level of expertise by any stretch of the imagination, so I may need to defer to you.

It just doesn't seem logical to me that we could claim that there is a limit here.

[muriel_volestrangler]

33. OK, there could be an infinite number of universes, in some models,

as far as I can tell, but the others wouldn't be reachable or contiguous with ours. In that sense, there could be an infinite number of galaxies, I suppose (though with other universes, I think there isn't the implication that all contain galaxies. But an infinite number of them would still mean an infinite number of universes that do contain them. I think.)

[cbayer]

35. Lol, my head is spinning!

Which is why I find the concept of infinity unimaginable.

[trotsky]

36. "I can't understand it, therefore maybe gods."

Obviously!

[MineralMan]

41. There is that.

It's a good way to deal with stuff that's difficult to comprehend. Heck, that's why we have religions, really, I believe.

The more we learn, the less necessary they are, I suppose. At some point, some people say, "Well, I can't understand everything, but that's OK. I don't need to assign some supernatural explanation to it. I can just say I don't understand it and accept my own limitations."

Figuring that one out is the key to the whole thing, it seems to me. For example, I do not understand string theory very well at all. It's not my field, and there's no reason I need to understand it. It appears that some people do understand it, though, so that's a good thing. I keep trying from time to time, but I do get bogged down in the math.

[MineralMan]

30. Oh, actually there is consensus about that.

You are simply not aware of it. Cosmology is a difficult subject, as is the mathematics of very large numbers.

If you don't have the time to explore that, then it's probably easiest not to think about it at all.

But our universe is finite. There is consensus about that. The question is whether or not it is part of some larger expanse, one universe of an unfathomable number of universes. That's possible, but almost impossible to conceptualize.

There is no edge. There are beginnings, but no edge. The farther you look out into the universe, the closer you come to seeing the beginning, not the edge.

[cbayer]

32. You are so freaking condescending. I regret responding to you at all.

[MineralMan]

34. I'm just providing information, cbayer.

Sorry. I won't bother to do that any longer.

[trotsky]

37. Pointing out things you don't know isn't condescending.

Though it is interesting the consistent reaction you have when your ignorance on a particular issue is revealed. Instant attack on the person trying to explain something to you. That's unfortunate and not conducive to discussion or learning from each other at all - which you claim to support. I guess your actions reveal a different motivation than what your words claim.

[MineralMan]

40. But it can feel condescending, I suppose.

I'm not sure that's the same thing, but the result ends up being the same, it seems.

The reality is that not everyone has the knowledge that others have. Comprehending very large numbers and being able to conceptualize abstractions like infinity isn't all that common.

My intention was not to be condescending. It was to explain something in a way that it could be comprehended. Unfortunately, that did not work, for some reason or another, and my intention was misunderstood. Too bad, really.

[beam me up scottie]

45. trotsky's right, it's not you.

[MineralMan]

46. Thanks. I suppose I'm on ignore now.

Again.

[beam me up scottie]

47. LMAO!

Bad MM!

[MineralMan]

28. There is no edge.

That's a human construct. We cannot even see the extent of our own universe, and the light that we can measure that appears to be near the outer limits of our universe, is billions of years old. Nothing we can see from here that is that old even exists any longer, no doubt. We aren't seeing the thing. We're seeing light that is billions of years old that originated at a location where there is now nothing at all, in all likelihood.

Thinking about the universe and our experience of it is not a casual thing. It has little to do with what exists today, but with a history of billions of years. We're not seeing things, really. We're seeing the passage of time.

So, there is no edge. None at all. There is a bubble that we happen to occupy at this point in time. Since we have no way to look at the extent of that bubble, except as it existed some multiple billions of years ago, we're not seeing anything that is currently real. We are seeing the past. Even the sun, which is part of our own solar system is far enough away that what we see if we look at it through a proper filter is actually the sun as it was about eight minutes ago. For all we know, it might have exploded just now, and we won't know about that for a few minutes yet. The light from the nearest star besides the sun was generated about 8 years ago, and is just now arriving here. You are seeing the state of that star eight years ago, not its current state. We can see light from stars billions of light years away from our position. That light was created that many years ago, and those stars and galaxies probably do not exist any longer or have changed radically.

We see things and think they're real right now, but once you look off this planet, you're not seeing things as they are, but as they were. The farther away something you see is, the further back in time you are looking. It's a difficult concept, but one worth putting some thought into.

[MineralMan]

23. Why does it seem impossible.

Do you have trouble with the concept of hundreds of billions of dollars? Just pick a number and keep adding 1 to it. It's easy enough to imagine, really.

[cbayer]

24. I think that by definition, infinity is difficult to imagine...

otherwise, it wouldn't be infinity.

[MineralMan]

27. Infinity and hundreds of billions are

very different.

In reality, there is no number large enough to represent infinity, since you can always add 1 to any number to increase it. Infinity is more a concept than a real thing. Infinity is always larger than you can imagine, since anything you can imagine can be increased as easily as adding 1 to it.

If you think of it as a concept, rather than as a number, it's accessible. At least it was for me, when I actually thought about it at about age 12. It's an awe-inspiring concept, to be sure, but it is accessible through thinking about it.

Infinity does't really exist. You mentioned difficulty with 100s of billions, when referring to galaxies in this universe. Well, the typical human body contains 7*10E27 atoms. Written out, that's 7,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. That is 7 billions of billions of billions, and that's just one person. There are roughly 7 billion human beings on the planet Earth, each with that many atoms making up their bodies. The number of atoms that make up the earth itself is a far, far larger number.

And yet, you can see a person quite easily. The number of atoms contained in that person is irrelevant, really. It's beyond our ability to count within our lifetimes.

So, if you keep expanding your thinking beyond the number of atoms in a human body to encompass the solar system, then our galaxy, etc., the concept of infinity becomes somewhat clearer. It is not a number at all, but a concept of unfathomable numbers.

And yet, you can go outside on a clear night, and look at part of the universe. See that, not the numbers involved. Infinity is fun, but approaching infinity in numerical terms isn't really something humans are capable of. Instead, we have to expand our thinking about what infinity represents, rather than numbers. It's a great mental exercise, and one I recommend highly for keeping yourself awake at night.

[trotsky]

38. I believe that a good intro to calculus is the best way to get a "feel" for infinity.

Limits, etc. Studying the equation 1/x, for instance. As x increases, it will never be zero, but it will *approach* zero. Looking at infinity that way - not as an actual thing but what its implications are - can make sense.

[MineralMan]

39. And, as x decreases the result approaches infinity.

x can never reach zero while providing a real result, but the result gets closer to infinity as it does. Same thing. The divide by zero error when programming is not all that uncommon for beginners who don't understand limits.

A very good example of how to think about it. Many people are scared of calculus, though, and have difficulties with math in general.

The ability to conceptualize extremely large numbers isn't something everyone has. In fact it's fairly rare.

[trotsky]

42. I wonder if cbayer has taken any higher math.

Maybe that would help explain her difficulty (bordering on hostility) trying to accept what someone else is trying to tell her.

[MineralMan]

43. I have no idea. I ended my math education after the second

semester of differential equations. That was all I would need in the engineering field I thought I was entering. I ended up going in a completely different direction, and have really lost my understanding of differential equations over the years from not making use of it in any way.

It's of no importance to me, and I know that others use that and even more arcane mathematics in their work. When it's possible, I try to understand things for which I cannot do the math. Sometimes I can, and sometimes I end up not being able to fully understand what someone else understands well. And there it is. In the 21st century it's really impossible to be an actual polymath, no matter how you try. I figured that out in my 20s, and haven't really looked back. I learn what appeals to me, and leave the rest for others. I was born too late, I think. Had I been born in the 12th century, there was less knowledge to absorb. Today, it's way past what one person can learn. Way past.

I do know one thing. I'm never going to even start discussing imaginary and complex numbers here in this group.

[beam me up scottie]

48. What an interesting and informative post.

If you're not a teacher you should be.

Thank you.

[MineralMan]

22. Nope. I'm a strong atheist.

I don't, and can't, believe that any sort of supernatural entities exist. When someone uses the lower-case "god" I always ask which one that person has in mind.

[cleanhippie]

44. C. None of the above.

There probably is no god, local or universal.