A very strange universe

[Justin_Swanton]

Has anyone picked up on the fact that there is something distinctly odd about the universe inasmuch as one considers it as created by God. From the point of view of humanity one can say two things about it: it is incredibly vast and incredibly hostile to life.

1. Incredibly vast. Why create such a big universe? To impress us with God’s power? But the world by itself does that. We don’t need to know about groups of galaxies to believe in God’s omnipotence. So the universe is not made primarily to impress us.
2. Incredibly hostile to human life. With the exception of an extremely narrow band on planet earth extending about 6 km up and 4 km down, life cannot survive in the universe. You would die in space in seconds, a little slower on Mars, quicker on Venus or any of the gas giants, instantaneously if too close to any sun. Even if there are habitable oases on other planets (not proven), we cannot reach them. The universe is not made for us.

Why then did God make it the way it is?

I’m looking for sources to any in-depth thinking on the subject. I have a little theory of my own but would like to hear what others think. Thank you!

 

[JRKH]

Well - I don’t have any “in depth” theories or ideas on the matter…but if you are interested in my :twocents:…

1. I figure that God has given us enough of his Creation - sufficient to both our needs and His design for us.
2. If we seek to do His will here - that is to Love and love perfectly - then we will likely be kept plenty busy.
3. The rest of the matter is for him to deal with…

Not profound…But oh well…

Peace
James

 

[Alberti_Devoveo]

1. I am thoroughly impressed with the Universe. Two of the reasons I chose my career in astrophysics is due to its beauty and incredible size.
2. This ignores terraforming or biodomes. It is possible that we could build a large structure on the Moon or even Mars to support life.

 

[Garry_Jamison]

Why did God make it the way it is? This is one of the greatest questions of our existence and can be applied to all aspects of life as we know it. Since God was able to create such complex and wonderful things, why are they the way they are?

I don’t think that we have the ability to understand. Science and Religion have always been at odds yet they both end at the same unanswerable question. Where did that come from? Humans can not comprehend something coming from nothing. We can tell you everything about chickens, but neither science nor religion can tell you which came first. Science tells us it was a big bang. But where did those first atoms come from and why were they being compressed in nothingness and caused to explode? Religion tells us that God created the universe and humans in His image. But where did God come from and why was he in a position to create a universe? If he exists alone, how is that even possible? How did he come to exist?

If there was “nothing” and then all of this “something” was created, then why is gravity as heavy as it is? Why does the spectrum of light make trees green instead of orange, and why is the universe so hostile?

 

[colmywaykurtz]

not[/I]

made for us.

I don’t have time for an in-depth post here, but I could just say that we simply don’t KNOW that it’s NOT made for us. We don’t know what the future holds. It could be that a way to travel great distances through space exists that we haven’t discovered yet. We simply don’t know yet.

 

[Bradski]

There is something called the observable universe. Not to go into details, but suffice to say that there are areas of the universe that are unobservable and will for ever, literally remain so.

That is, we can never see what is there, contact it in any way, derive any information from it. Yet we know it is there. In fact, some of the observable universe is, as you are reading this, moving from what we could see to what we can never see.

There is, consequently, a small rock sitting in the shadow of a tiny crater on an airless moon orbiting a barren world in an average solar system lit by a dying sun in the outer limits of a pathetically boring galaxy which is part of the universe which was, literally, part of an existence that was forever separated from that which would become our existence.

If you can tell me what purpose that rock serves, then you will have described a reason for the universe.

That small rock has as much meaning as you do.

 

[seagal]

I don’t know if the universe was created for us, but I am absolutely sure that Earth was. If you read Lee Strobel’s book Case for a Creator you’ll see just how incredibly rare such a planet is in the vastness of the universe. Here’s a taste

 

[ThinkingSapien]

1. This ignores terraforming or biodomes. It is possible that we could build a large structure on the Moon or even Mars to support life.

I’ve been having some conversations with my friends about that. One of the things that concerns us is being exposed to significantly more cosmic and solar radiation on bodies with weaker magnetic fields and weaker ionospheres. Wouldn’t that be a valid concern for colonizing the moon or Mars?

 

[dchezik]

Has anyone picked up on the fact that there is something distinctly odd about the universe inasmuch as one considers it as created by God. From the point of view of humanity one can say two things about it: it is incredibly vast and incredibly hostile to life. [Whoa! Just some places are incredibly hostile to [our form] of life.]

1. Incredibly vast. Why create such a big universe? To impress us with God’s power? But the world by itself does that. We don’t need to know about groups of galaxies to believe in God’s omnipotence. So the universe is not made primarily to impress us. Agreed!
2. Incredibly hostile to human life. With the exception of an extremely narrow band on planet earth extending about 6 km up and 4 km down, life cannot survive in the universe. You would die in space in seconds, a little slower on Mars, quicker on Venus or any of the gas giants, instantaneously if too close to any sun. Even if there are habitable oases on other planets (not proven), we cannot reach them. The universe is not made for us.

Why then did God make it the way it is?

I’m looking for sources to any in-depth thinking on the subject. I have a little theory of my own but would like to hear what others think. Thank you!

[You may want to read Stephen Hawking’s *A Brief History of Time, Carl Sagan’s The Varieties of Scientific Experience, The Dragons of Eden, Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors

This notion of inferring a purpose in the creation goes clear back and before to when the moons of Jupiter were first discovered and the famous astronomer Johannes Kepler inferred “with the highest confidence” that “those moons were made, not for us, but the inhabitants of Jupiter.”

I think as humans, we strive desperately to make sense of things - to attribute purpose to objects and phenomena. If it happens, it must be for a reason, a purpose, something to make [our] life meaningful. This is why we think the earth and the heavens and the galaxies were made for us, as the only known entity that can appreciate them (as we gaze in wonderment from our exalted position at the center of the universe. ha, ha.)

But I think science, and especially theoretical physics, calls that into question. This why I think Hawking claimed in a recent book that he had done away with the need for God. He thought he had explained the universe without using God to fill in the gaps. (He may have been a little premature.)

Stephen Weinberg once famously said: “…the more the universe seems comprehensible the more it seems pointless.” (pbs.org/faithandreason/transcript/wein-frame.html)

Myself, I subscribe to the Anthropic Principle: If the universe hadn’t been made I wouldn’t be writing this!

Now, what’s your theory?

 

[GEddie]

Has anyone picked up on the fact that there is something distinctly odd about the universe inasmuch as one considers it as created by God. From the point of view of humanity one can say two things about it: it is incredibly vast and incredibly hostile to life.

1. Incredibly vast. Why create such a big universe? To impress us with God’s power? But the world by itself does that. We don’t need to know about groups of galaxies to believe in God’s omnipotence. So the universe is not made primarily to impress us.
2. Incredibly hostile to human life. With the exception of an extremely narrow band on planet earth extending about 6 km up and 4 km down, life cannot survive in the universe. You would die in space in seconds, a little slower on Mars, quicker on Venus or any of the gas giants, instantaneously if too close to any sun. Even if there are habitable oases on other planets (not proven), we cannot reach them. The universe is not made for us.

Why then did God make it the way it is?

I’m looking for sources to any in-depth thinking on the subject. I have a little theory of my own but would like to hear what others think. Thank you!

1. In eternal life, we will be able to explore all of that vastness.
2. True, but we won’t be spending eternity in these rather flimsy bodies; what we know as the human body is only the mold for a powerful, everlasting body (the pneumatikon soma) which will be immune to death or entropy. Just the thing for space travel!

ICXC NIKA

 

[cornbread_r2]

…]

1. This ignores terraforming or biodomes. It is possible that we could build a large structure on the Moon or even Mars to support life.

If you designed such a system, would you replicate Earth’s system, complete with animal-on-animal predation?

 

[XiWang717]

Has anyone picked up on the fact that there is something distinctly odd about the universe inasmuch as one considers it as created by God. From the point of view of humanity one can say two things about it: it is incredibly vast and incredibly hostile to life.

1. Incredibly vast. Why create such a big universe? To impress us with God’s power? But the world by itself does that. We don’t need to know about groups of galaxies to believe in God’s omnipotence. So the universe is not made primarily to impress us.
2. Incredibly hostile to human life. With the exception of an extremely narrow band on planet earth extending about 6 km up and 4 km down, life cannot survive in the universe. You would die in space in seconds, a little slower on Mars, quicker on Venus or any of the gas giants, instantaneously if too close to any sun. Even if there are habitable oases on other planets (not proven), we cannot reach them. The universe is not made for us.

Why then did God make it the way it is?

I’m looking for sources to any in-depth thinking on the subject. I have a little theory of my own but would like to hear what others think. Thank you!

Strange is this creation indeed…but that which is most strange serves often to inspire the greatest marvels. Perhaps Earth is as it is because it was meant to be so, a unique jewel in the Creator’s crown. And perhaps the cosmos are vast because elsewhere, life may yet lurk, and I believe that all life, no matter how foreign, comes from God. Some schools of thoughts even propose this existence is naught more than a grand cosmic experiment in its own right…

 

[GEddie]

I’ve been having some conversations with my friends about that. One of the things that concerns us is being exposed to significantly more cosmic and solar radiation on bodies with weaker magnetic fields and weaker ionospheres. Wouldn’t that be a valid concern for colonizing the moon or Mars?

A valid concern, but one we know how to solve.

The unknown issues are more troubling. Could human beings procreate without the moon’s gravity overhead to govern biological clocks? Could we find out before people try to live out life up there?

ICXC NIKA

 

[JRKH]

If you designed such a system, would you replicate Earth’s system, complete with animal-on-animal predation?

If I designed a system as large intricate and complex at the universe and eternity etc, I might very well, “replicate Earth’s system, complete with animal-on-animal predation”. I would be in the position of knowing the why and wherefore of such a design.

As it is, I am not in such a position.

Peace
James

 

[Bobby_Jim]

Perhaps God has something else in mind for the rest of the Universe? And yet that doesn’t diminish his unique love for you, or the singular event of the Incaranation of the second person of the Trinity, here on Earth.

In the first two books of his “Space Trilogy”, CS Lewis offers some imaginitive & fantastical speculations on this topic. I think this was a big problem for the early moderns, the feeling of insignificance in a vast and hostile universe, leading to angst and existential despair.

 

[Al_Moritz]

Has anyone picked up on the fact that there is something distinctly odd about the universe inasmuch as one considers it as created by God. From the point of view of humanity one can say two things about it: it is incredibly vast and incredibly hostile to life.

1. Incredibly vast. Why create such a big universe? To impress us with God’s power? But the world by itself does that. We don’t need to know about groups of galaxies to believe in God’s omnipotence. So the universe is not made primarily to impress us.

I have written about this extensively here:

home.earthlink.net/~almoritz/scientist-belief-god.htm

1. Incredibly hostile to human life. With the exception of an extremely narrow band on planet earth extending about 6 km up and 4 km down, life cannot survive in the universe. You would die in space in seconds, a little slower on Mars, quicker on Venus or any of the gas giants, instantaneously if too close to any sun. Even if there are habitable oases on other planets (not proven), we cannot reach them. The universe is not made for us.

Why then did God make it the way it is?

I’m looking for sources to any in-depth thinking on the subject. I have a little theory of my own but would like to hear what others think. Thank you!

I have written about that second point in section 1.2 here:

home.earthlink.net/~almoritz/cosmological-arguments-god.htm

But in order to fully understand the argument(s) in section 1.2, you may want to read the preceding text as well.

 

[Moontown_Rabbit]

1. True, but we won’t be spending eternity in these rather flimsy bodies; what we know as the human body is only the mold for a powerful, everlasting body (the pneumatikon soma) which will be immune to death or entropy. Just the thing for space travel!

ICXC NIKA

 

[Justin_Swanton]

1. This ignores terraforming or biodomes. It is possible that we could build a large structure on the Moon or even Mars to support life.

I’ve looked into that. Given the technology we have, we simply lack by a huge margin the resources necessary to build sizeable colonies in space, much less terraform planets.

Take the ISS. It cost something like US$150 billion, and yet it has the living space of a small flat. It can accommodate 6 people in quite cramped conditions, with minimal ablution facilities, basic food preparation, no luxuries and one domed porthole to look out of (take a look at the walk-through tour on youtube).

The big problem is getting payloads into orbit. Rocket power technology - like powered flight - is pretty much where it was in the 60’s - it’s no cheaper now to launch a capsule into space then it was 50 years ago. I believe a Soyez launch costs about US$100 million (a Shuttle launch cost US$500 million). As long as things stay like this we are not going to colonise space.

What about developing superior technology? Over the last 50 years scientific research has deepened tenfold our understanding of physics and the laws that govern matter, but has not come up with a cheap and easy way of getting into space and staying alive once up there. It seems to be a basic thing: there are only so many ways of flying in the atmosphere, and all the scientific research does not make atmospheric flight any cheaper and easier, just perhaps a little faster and safer. Ditto for space travel.

There seems to be a limit to the human manipulation of matter and physical laws: the more profound that manipulation is, the more difficult and expensive it becomes. Two brothers using odds and bobs could build the first flying machine, but it takes a whole government research project with hundreds of staff and millions of dollars to build the first atomic reactor. There simply isn’t an alternative to rocket power in order to get into orbit, and it is horrendously expensive.

BTW I had a look at the space elevator concept, but the incredibly long bands (50 000km length) that would be required would be vulnerable to damage by meteorites and other fast flying debris - there is no answer to that objection.

I think it an inescapable conclusion that there is natural limit to human control over nature, and it is a limit that precludes getting off the earth in numbers, though a couple of us might make a visit to Mars. Space is for a few heavily financed explorers, not for mankind as a whole.

 

[Nimzovik]

There is something called the observable universe. Not to go into details, but suffice to say that there are areas of the universe that are unobservable and will for ever, literally remain so.

That is, we can never see what is there, contact it in any way, derive any information from it. Yet we know it is there. In fact, some of the observable universe is, as you are reading this, moving from what we could see to what we can never see.

There is, consequently, a small rock sitting in the shadow of a tiny crater on an airless moon orbiting a barren world in an average solar system lit by a dying sun in the outer limits of a pathetically boring galaxy which is part of the universe which was, literally, part of an existence that was forever separated from that which would become our existence.

If you can tell me what purpose that rock serves, then you will have described a reason for the universe.

That small rock has as much meaning as you do.

Shades of the ‘Quantum Activist’ and ‘What the ____ Do We Know?’

I observe, I then collapse the wave function. Therefore I cause degrees/variations of existence to be manifest.

So?

Who observed the Multiverse?

Hint: It was not me.

This is meaningful to me…

 

[cornbread_r2]

If I designed a system as large intricate and complex at the universe and eternity etc, I might very well, “replicate Earth’s system, complete with animal-on-animal predation”. I would be in the position of knowing the why and wherefore of such a design.

As it is, I am not in such a position.

Peace
James

I apologize for being unclear. I wasn’t referring to designing a whole universe with an eternity etc., just a terraform system good enough to allow humans to live elsewhere. It seems to me that such a system wouldn’t necessarily require animal-on-animal predation. If it’s possible for a human-designed, human-sustaining system to function without animal-on-animal predation, I wonder why such a feature was deemed necessary by the intelligent designer that some claim is responsible for Earth’s system.