People that believe in the Universe

[AlNg]

You know what else doesn’t make sense? that the universe doesn’t follow the universal laws of physics. Those laws say that given its age since the big bang, the rate of accelerated expansion of the universe is still too high and the universe should have torn itself apart and become a soup of particles. Why it hasn’t is a scientific mystery.

I don’t think you can know for sure what happened in the past by looking at the present. We hear cosmologists tell us what happened 13 or 13.7 billion years ago. But are you sure we can trust it.
Let me give you an example. Suppose we know that a glass of water has been sitting on the table for a while. And we know that the temperature of the water is 60 degrees Fahrenheit while the temperature of the room is 70 degrees Fahrenheit. Can you say what was the temperature of the water say 2 hours ago? At first thought, you might say yes, we can apply Newton’s Law of cooling and some information about the temperature 2 minutes ago (or 2 minutes from now) and this will give us the temperature 2 hours ago. But will it? You see 2 hours ago you could have had a glass with only liquid water at a cooler temperature which then became 60 degrees because of the surrounding temperature of the room at 70 degrees. But there is another possibility. And that is that 2 hours ago the liquid water could have been at 90 degrees F but that there were ice cubes in the water which melted and caused the temperature to drop to 60 degrees F. So just knowing that the temperature of the water in the glass is now 60 degrees F is not enough to know what the situation was 2 hours ago. there is more than one scenario which could have occurred. The universal laws of physics, which you are talking about, cannot tell us what was the situation in the glass of water 2 hours ago.

 

[Freddy]

Dan_Defender:

You know what else doesn’t make sense? that the universe doesn’t follow the universal laws of physics. Those laws say that given its age since the big bang, the rate of accelerated expansion of the universe is still too high and the universe should have torn itself apart and become a soup of particles. Why it hasn’t is a scientific mystery.

I don’t think you can know for sure what happened in the past by looking at the present.

We look at the past to see what happened then. You do know we can actually do this, don’t you? Look up at the night sky tonight and you’ll be doing the same.

 

[Vico]

What I mean by the title is essentially I don’t understand how people don’t believe in God but believe the Universe is divine in some way. I’ll hear people say “the Universe wanted it to happen” or things like that and it doesn’t make sense to me.

The idea is New Age.

2.3.4.2. …God?

There is talk of God, but it is not a personal God; the God of which New Age speaks is neither personal nor transcendent. Nor is it the Creator and sustainer of the universe, but an “impersonal energy” immanent in the world, with which it forms a “cosmic unity”: “All is one”. This unity is monistic, pantheistic or, more precisely, panentheistic.

2.3.4.3. …the world?
…
The move from a mechanistic model of classical physics to the “holistic” one of modern atomic and sub-atomic physics, based on the concept of matter as waves or energy rather than particles, is central to much New Age thinking. The universe is an ocean of energy, which is a single whole or a network of links. The energy animating the single organism which is the universe is “spirit”. There is no alterity between God and the world. The world itself is divine and it undergoes an evolutionary process which leads from inert matter to “higher and perfect consciousness”. …

https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/...s/rc_pc_interelg_doc_20030203_new-age_en.html

 

[AlNg]

We look at the past to see what happened then. You do know we can actually do this, don’t you? Look up at the night sky tonight and you’ll be doing the same.

True. But even looking at the furthest galaxy found from the earth puts you at 400 million years after the BB. The nearest galaxy is seen to be about 25,000 light years away with another about 70,000 light years away. i suspect that light is distorted somewhat as it travels from the far reaches of the universe.

 

[Freddy]

Freddy:

We look at the past to see what happened then. You do know we can actually do this, don’t you? Look up at the night sky tonight and you’ll be doing the same.

True.

Indeed it is.