This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.
Millions of Evangelical Christians Want to Start WWIII to Speed the "Second Coming" ... and Atheist Neocons are Using Religion
MILLIONS OF EVANGELICAL CHRISTIANS WANT TO START WORLD WAR III ... TO SPEED UP THE SECOND COMING
The Founding Fathers weren't particularly anti-Islam.
But millions of Americans believe that Christ will not come again until Israel wipes out its competitors and there is widespread war in the Middle East. Some of these folks want to start a huge fire of war and death and destruction, so that Jesus comes quickly.
According to French President Chirac, Bush told him that the Iraq war was needed to bring on the apocalypse:
In Genesis and Ezekiel Gog and Magog are forces of the Apocalypse who are prophesied to come out of the north and destroy Israel unless stopped. The Book of Revelation took up the Old Testament prophesy:
“And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, And shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them.”
Bush believed the time had now come for that battle, telling Chirac:
“This confrontation is willed by God, who wants to use this conflict to erase his people’s enemies before a New Age begins”…
There can be little doubt now that President Bush’s reason for launching the war in Iraq was, for him, fundamentally religious. He was driven by his belief that the attack on Saddam’s Iraq was the fulfilment of a Biblical prophesy in which he had been chosen to serve as the instrument of the Lord.
And British Prime Minister Tony Blair long-time mentor, advisor and confidante said:
“Tony’s Christian faith is part of him, down to his cotton socks. He believed strongly at the time, that intervention in Kosovo, Sierra Leone – Iraq too – was all part of the Christian battle; good should triumph over evil, making lives better.”
Mr Burton, who was often described as Mr Blair’s mentor, says that his religion gave him a “total belief in what’s right and what’s wrong”, leading him to see the so-called War on Terror as “a moral cause”…
Anti-war campaigners criticised remarks Mr Blair made in 2006, suggesting that the decision to go to war in Iraq would ultimately be judged by God.
Bill Moyers reports that the organization Christians United for Israel - led by highly-influential Pastor John C. Hagee - is a universal call to all Christians to help factions in Israel fund the Jewish settlements, throw out all the Palestinians and lobby for a pre-emptive invasion of Iran. All to bring Russia into a war against us causing World War III followed by Armageddon, the Second Coming and The Rapture. See this and this.
This all revolves around what is called Dispensationalism. So popular is Dispensationalism that Tim LaHaye's Left Behind series has sold 65 million copies. Dispensationalists include the following mega-pastors and their churches:
They are supported by politicians such as:
- Texas Senator John Cronyn
- Former House Minority Whip Roy Blunt
- Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay
- And others
Dr. Timothy Webber - an evangelical Christian who has served as a teacher of church history and the history of American religion at Denver Seminary and Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Vice-President at Northern Baptist Theological Seminary in Lombard, IL, and President of Memphis Theological Seminary in Tennessee - notes:
In a recent Time/CNN poll, more than one-third of Americans said that since the terrorist attacks of 9/11, they have been thinking more about how current events might be leading to the end of the world.
While only 36 percent of all Americans believe that the Bible is God's Word and should be taken literally, 59 percent say they believe that events predicted in the Book of Revelation will come to pass. Almost one out of four Americans believes that 9/11 was predicted in the Bible, and nearly one in five believes that he or she will live long enough to see the end of the world. Even more significant for this study, over one-third of those Americans who support Israel report that they do so because they believe the Bible teaches that the Jews must possess their own country in the Holy Land before Jesus can return.
Millions of Americans believe that the Bible predicts the future and that we are living in the last days. Their beliefs are rooted in dispensationalism, a particular way of understanding the Bible's prophetic passages, especially those in Daniel and Ezekiel in the Old Testament and the Book of Revelation in the New Testament. They make up about one-third of America's 40 or 50 million evangelical Christians and believe that the nation of Israel will play a central role in the unfolding of end-times events. In the last part of the 20th century, dispensationalist evangelicals become Israel's best friends-an alliance that has made a serious geopolitical difference.
***
Starting in the 1970s, dispensationalists broke into the popular culture with runaway best-sellers, and a well-networked political campaign to promote and protect the interests of Israel. Since the mid-1990s, tens of millions of people who have never seen a prophetic chart or listened to a sermon on the second coming have read one or more novels in the Left Behind series, which has become the most effective disseminator of dispensationalist ideas ever.
***
During the early 1980s the Israeli Ministry of Tourism recruited evangelical religious leaders for free "familiarization" tours. In time, hundreds of evangelical pastors got free trips to the Holy Land. The purpose of such promotional tours was to enable people of even limited influence to experience Israel for themselves and be shown how they might bring their own tour group to Israel. The Ministry of Tourism was interested in more than tourist dollars: here was a way of building a solid corps of non-Jewish supporters for Israel in the United States by bringing large numbers of evangelicals to hear and see Israel's story for themselves. The strategy caught on.
***
Shortly after the Six-Day War, elements within the Israeli government saw the potential power of the evangelical subculture and began to mobilize it as a base of support that could influence American foreign policy. The Israeli government sent Yona Malachy of its Department of Religious Affairs to the United States to study American fundamentalism and its potential as an ally of Israel. Malachy was warmly received by fundamentalists and was able to influence some of them to issue strong pro-Israeli manifestos. By the mid-1980s, there was a discernible shift in the Israeli political strategy. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the Jewish state's major lobbying group in Washington, D.C., started re-aligning itself with the American political right-wing, including Christian conservatives. Israel's timing was perfect. It began working seriously with American dispensationalists at the precise moment that American fundamentalists and evangelicals were discovering their political voice.
***
Probably the largest pro-Israel organization of its kind is the National Unity Coalition for Israel, which was founded by a Jewish woman who learned how to get dispensationalist support. NUCI opposes "the establishment of a Palestinian state within the borders of Israel."
***
In their commitment to keep Israel strong and moving in directions prophesied by the Bible, dispensationalists are supporting some of the most dangerous elements in Israeli society. They do so because such political and religious elements seem to conform to dispensationalist beliefs about what is coming next for Israel. By lending their support-both financial and spiritual-to such groups, dispensationalists are helping the future they envision come to pass.
***
Dispensationalists believe that the Temple is coming too; and their convictions have led them to support the aims and actions of what most Israelis believe are the most dangerous right-wing elements in their society, people whose views make any compromise necessary for lasting peace impossible. Such sentiments do not matter to the believers in Bible prophecy, for whom the outcome of the quarrelsome issue of the Temple Mount has already been determined by God.
Since the end of the Six-Day War, then, dispensationalists have increasingly moved from observers to participant-observers. They have acted consistently with their convictions about the coming Last Days in ways that make their prophecies appear to be self-fulfilling.
***
As Paul Boyer has pointed out, dispensationalism has effectively conditioned millions of Americans to be somewhat passive about the future and provided them with lenses through which to understand world events. Thanks to the sometimes changing perspectives of their Bible teachers, dispensationalists are certain that trouble in the Middle East is inevitable, that nations will war against nations, and that the time is coming when millions of people will die as a result of nuclear war, the persecution of Antichrist, or as a result of divine judgment. Striving for peace in the Middle East is a hopeless pursuit with no chance of success.
***
For the dispensational community, the future is determined. The Bible's prophecies are being fulfilled with amazing accuracy and rapidity. They do not believe that the Road Map will-or should-succeed. According to the prophetic texts, partitioning is not in Israel's future, even if the creation of a Palestinian state is the best chance for peace in the region. Peace is nowhere prophesied for the Middle East, until Jesus comes and brings it himself. The worse thing that the United States, the European Union, Russia, and the United Nations can do is force Israel to give up land for a peace that will never materialize this side of the second coming. Anyone who pushes for peace in such a manner is ignoring or defying God's plan for the end of the age.
***
It seems clear that dispensationalism is on a roll, that its followers feel they are riding the wave of history into the shore of God's final plan. Why should they climb back into the stands when being on the field of play is so much more fun and apparently so beneficial to the game's outcome? As [one dispensationalist group's] advertisement read, "Don't just read about prophecy when you can be part of it."
ATHEIST WAR HAWKS MANIPULATE BELIEVERS TO BEAT THE DRUMS OF WAR
Leo Strauss is the father of the Neo-Conservative movement, including many leaders of the current administration.
Indeed, many of the main neocon players - including Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Stephen Cambone, Elliot Abrams, and Adam Shulsky - were students of Strauss at the University of Chicago, where he taught for many years.
The people pushing for war against Iran are the same neocons who pushed for war against Iraq. See this and this. (They planned both wars at least 20 years ago.) For example, Shulsky was the director of the Office of Special Plans - the Pentagon unit responsible for selling false intelligence regarding Iraq’s weapons of mass. He is now a member of the equivalent organization targeting Iran: the Iranian Directorate.
Strauss, born in Germany, was an admirer of Nazi philosophers and of Machiavelli. Strauss believed that a stable political order required an external threat and that if an external threat did not exist, one should be manufactured. Specifically, Strauss thought that:
A political order can be stable only if it is united by an external threat . . . . Following Machiavelli, he maintained that if no external threat exists then one has to be manufactured
(the quote is by one of Strauss' main biographers).
Indeed, Stauss used the analogy of Gulliver's Travels to show what a Neocon-run society would look like:
"When Lilliput [the town] was on fire, Gulliver urinated over the city, including the palace. In so doing, he saved all of Lilliput from catastrophe, but the Lilliputians were outraged and appalled by such a show of disrespect." (this quote also from the same biographer)
Moreover, Strauss said:
Only a great fool would call the new political science diabolic . . . Nevertheless one may say of it that it fiddles while Rome burns. It is excused by two facts: it does not know that it fiddles, and it does not know that Rome burns.
So Strauss seems to have advocated governments letting terrorizing catastrophes happen on one's own soil to one's own people -- of "pissing" on one's own people, to use his Gulliver's travel analogy. And he advocates that government's should pretend that they did not know about such acts of mayhem: to intentionally "not know" that Rome is burning. He advocates messing with one's own people in order to save them from some "catastophe" (perhaps to justify military efforts to monopolize middle eastern oil to keep it away from our real threat -- an increasingly-powerful China?).
What does this have to do with religion?
Strauss taught that religion should be used as a way to manipulate people to achieve the aims of the leaders. But that the leaders themselves need not believe in religion.
As Wikipedia notes:
In the late 1990s Irving Kristol and other writers in neoconservative magazines began touting anti-Darwinist views, in support of intelligent design. Since these neoconservatives were largely of secular backgrounds, a few commentators have speculated that this – along with support for religion generally – may have been a case of a "noble lie", intended to protect public morality, or even tactical politics, to attract religious supporters.
So is it any surprise that the folks who planned war against Iraq and Iran at least 20 years ago are pushing religious disinformation to stir up the evangelical community?
Conservative Christians were the biggest backers of the Iraq war. And the Neocons are catering to them to try to back them into war with Iran, as well.
I've recently seen a swarm of spam claiming that all Muslims are evil, that they want to take over the world and establish a Muslim caliphate, and that they want to nuke Iran. They misquote Muslims and use false statements to try to stir up religious hatred.
They are simply promoting the Straussian playbook: stir up religious sentiment - even if you are personally an atheist - to create and demonize an "enemy", so as to promote war ...
NOT A PROBLEM WITH A PARTICULAR RELIGION ... BUT OF IMMATURITY
Most Americans confuse Zionism and Judaism. But many devout Jews are against Zionism, and Zionists can be Christian.
And as I've repeatedly noted, fundamentalist Jews, Christians, Muslims and Hindus are all very much alike, and often willing to use violence to spread their ideology ... while more spiritually mature Jews, Christians, Muslims and Hindus are all much more tolerant and peaceful than their evangelical brothers:
As Christian writer and psychiatrist M. Scott Peck explained, there are different stages of spiritual maturity. Fundamentalism – whether it be Muslim, Christian, Jewish or Hindu fundamentalism – is an immature stage of development. There are peaceful, contemplative Muslim sects – think the poet Rumi the poet and Sufis – and violent sects, just as there are contemplative Christian orders and violent Christian groups (and peaceful and violent atheists).
While there are certainly some Arab terrorists, Islam cannot be blamed for their barbaric murderous actions, just as Christianity cannot be blamed for the Norwegian Christian terrorist - Anders Behring Breivik's actions. University of Chicago professor Robert A. Pape – who specializes in international security affairs – points out:
Extensive research into the causes of suicide terrorism proves Islam isn’t to blame — the root of the problem is foreign military occupations.
The 9/11 hijackers used cocaine and drank alcohol, slept with prostitutes and attended strip clubs … but they did not worship at any mosque. See this, this, this, this, this, this, this, and this. So they were not really Muslims.
And even atheists like Stalin can be terrorists, or at least genocidal maniacs.
Indeed, all religions teach compassion, love and the Golden Rule. Likewise, atheism teaches respect for the individual, the most good for the most people, and helping everyone reach their human potential.
Some within each philosophy follow these teachings, and others want to kill everyone who doesn't agree with them. The issue is not really the label of this religion or that, but of maturity and true spirituality and compassion.
Postscript 1: Neoliberals and Neoconservatives are very similar in many ways. And because Neocons are not conservative, nothing in this post is meant to criticize conservatism.
Postscript 2: Most evangelicals are not dispensationalists, and so do not want to bring on armageddon.
»
- advertisements -
Give these agitators for WW3 & Armageddon an AK47 and a one-way ticket to Jerusalem, let's see just how much faith they really have...
Always thought a Bush vs Bin Laden cage fight would have been the way forward on settling this whole my religion is better than yours fudimetalist nonsense. Set it in Jerusalem, pay per view etc, the whole nine yards. Proceeds go to the local area. Everyone one wins. :P Ok so Bush would have the beatdown of his life, but would have been quality viewing.
Would make a buncha money but it wouldn't settle a damn thing! Bush n Osama are just puppets.
Absolutely. This whole thing is about the petrodollar. Power and money. Nothing new.
The voices in my head command me to murder my enemy! And so he was elected president. Isn't the act of war proof enough that there is no God.
Grown adults still believing in 2000 year old fairy tales about super heros that live in the clouds? Really?
You mean like life forms from other planets that travel in shiney saucers that you have never seen? Have any photo's of Socrates in your wallet?
First, as for the "problem" of theodicy (you mentioned it in respect to war), if you're asking the question, you're coming at it from the wrong angle. The idea that God would be or not be based up on how much we find this world to our liking is absurd on it's face, or at the very least involves some presuppositions about God that are popular in everyday discourse and perhaps folk religion but not in any sophisticated theological system. Likewise the idea of deity you present; nobody but little children believe in "superheroes who live in the clouds." Your attempt to make people of faith seem foolish by means of reductio ad absurdum really makes you seem like the ignorant one. Read Meister Eckhart or Augustin or Barth or Luther (preferably in German), or if you want to get really far out in left field, Johannes Scotus Eriguena. Or pick a chapter at random from Phillip Schaff's History of the Christian Church (1890s, available online), and try and look at the context a litte bit, the bigger picture ... these are not stupid or foolish people, an they occupied their considerable intellects with tackling questions of a metaphysical and spiritual bent because these questions need tackling. But not only is it intellectual and literary history of your culture that you so casually mock, there is something beyond the physical, and there is a spiritual world beyond our physical world, this is simply the truth. It seems invariably any time there's a discussion about such things online, it brings out the aggressive antitheists, who for sheer vileness of their bigotry outflank the white supremacists, the anti-Semites, and all the other usual suspects ... and, of course, in our society, mocking God is perfectly acceptable, while God forbid that you might mock a designated minority group. See, the thing is ... God does not need your faith, your obedience, your worship, or even your respect, to remain God, and the spiritual and metaphysical realities that are ever a part of human life, whether you thumb your nose at them or not, don't need you to believe in them either to keep flowing onward. And all of us really do have a spiritual nature. Really. And the level of venom that is raised in some people by the discussion of spiritual things can only suggest to me that those people are afflicted spiritually with great darkness, so afflicted that the mere mention of God or Christ sends you into disproportionate rage that is impossible to account for in rational terms.
There's this one issue... is "God" intervening or not?
If the game was already pre-set, then that would mean that nothing that anyone here could do could alter the outcome. Which also means that one is predestined to be "saved" or, not.
This angle is kind of thrown off track a bit if humans really do have "free will."
And on the other hand we'd be operating on a it's-made-up-as-we-go plan. Meaning, "God" CAN intervene. If this be the case then any merciful god would, I'd think, look to protect EVERYONE. This is what I do as caretaker of MY animals.
Yeah, I'm quite certain that you can recite all kinds of details from all sorts of books (and variants), but some things ARE binary (and cannot be BOTH).
When viewed in the context of authoritarian rule/power it fits quite nicely for many here on earth, gives them the "right" to rule over others.
Matters not, really. There IS one certainty, and that's that the earth will once again cycle into a glacial period, god or no god: and the remaining humans will start anew in their quest to discover why they survived, looking to attribute it to their being true followers of <insert here>. Mother Nature bats last, this is no conjecture, it's etched into the earth itself.
Seer, let's not forget you're looking at it from a human's relative perspective, rather than an Eternity's absolute perspective, which is a totally different proposition.
i.e. to your quote; not if Eternity understands that you also are a integral expression of the same Eternity, and can not ever really be actually harmed, lost, weakened or diminished any more than physical Eternity can be, via any transient event, sequence, or dynamic.
Rationally that would be absolutely the case.
So why intervene?
Especially if there's a valid purpose or process to our particular relative human-perspective response to stress and mortality, and the rest of it.
What if Eternity is fully aware, but can't intervene without creating bigger problems for others?
What's 'fair' mean if assisting you harms another via some sequence you can't foresee but Eternity can?
It is natural to think that after Nagasaki people lingered for days with no skin, at all, just exposed meat, and no potential assistance or remedies, and died horribly and oh so painfully.
But can we ever grasp or presume what's ABSOLUTELY important with respect to Eternity's processes including human ones?
We can run around endlessly in circles but there really is not any final answer to anything via a self-referenctial verbal tail-chase.
I'd hope we've learned something lasting about human experience though, and learn to behave better.
For is not the brutal suffering inflicted on another, transposed on to us as this form of mental anguish?
Isn't that motivating us to reflect on better and more intelligent behaviours and actions?
When has learning critical lessons ever been anything other than extremely painful?
The greatest lessons I've learned completely gutted me, again and again.
And I don't need your insane schizo God. I am not created in his image. I do not need his salvation.
I was not born guilty and in need of redemption from your depraved God.
Lastly I do not worship a God that has 'chosen ones'
Religious vs. Spiritual perception of reality:
http://youtu.be/Xbjzujo1Qx8
Guilt Sin and Blame:
http://youtu.be/NXR2iNFDxHE
Not In His Image by John Lamb Lash
search it...
This pretty much explains why I don't feel the need for 'salvation' or 'redemption' from some off planet 'God' deity(click the link in first paragraph on "salvationism as well):
I stopped reading when the feminist propaganda started, and was quite irked I read that far. That was definitely not on the mind of the 2nd (or other) century gnostics, but rather in some modern day Women's Studies department.
The gnostics were about a masculine feminine balance. The modern world is imbalanced.
The masculine dominated redeemer complex is in charge, it can be seen in your own words in your response.
yet another wonderful post - so many newer ones here, pity the thread is ending as Sunday trading takes over the "news" - I'd love to see these thoughts and some others above, responded to by others. . .
but anyhow, YES, what is missing is "wisdom" and a balance of energies, as the world has become too lopsided in the cruel, punishing, vengeful arts of "masculinity" as evidenced by their imaginings of the Father Gods they claim to worship. . . where is the wisdom, the altruism, the love & forgiveness. . the Grace? out of balance, tipping points.
the Redeemer Complex does much to explain the absence of the gentle, of the respect for life. . . because the Mother is what holds life, brings life into being-ness - and the Mother, as Gaia, as Nature, is so obviously being subjected to the "rape" archetype - one of Control, and Power over - even as cultures become more debased, as sexuality moves from the sacred to the profane. . . look at how FatherMilitary desires to "control the weather" (female/Mother/Nature)in order to starve and punish "enemies" - it cannot give life, only take it, seek to control it.
until people balance this energy, internal and externalised, they will not be whole, and will not see Truths, only their small part of "perspective" a limited mind offers.
Agreed. +1
Peace be upon you, friend.
I think you both would appreciate the book Not In His Image by John Lamb Lash.
It is from Lash's website(metahistory.org) that I quoted the Redeemer Complex explanation...
Psalm 14:1
The fool says in his heart, "There is no God."
Proverbs 1:7
The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and discipline.
Many people choose not to believe in God (as is their right, of course, and nobody should ever be coerced), but few people openly shake their fist in His face with such hatred as you do. I can only imagine how depressing a life of such suffocating cynicism must be.
Hacked Economy said:
"but few people openly shake their fist in His face with such hatred as you do."
I was simply stating my current thought process regarding God/religion, are you projecting your own hatreds?
excerpt from: http://www.metahistory.org/gnostique/archonfiles/ETDeception.php
These 'there is no God' folks remind me of my dear significant other. "People who believe in God are fools..." blah, blah, blah, and yet he BELIEVES in politicians but only the ones with a "D" after their name. He worships the Hopey-Changey One. Talk about a fool.
EDIT: Ah, a down arrow! Honey is that you? Couldn't be cuz you'd never try to learn anything that might burst your libtard bubble, lol.
So, if one doesn't "believe" in there being a "god" that makes one a "liberal?" Fuck me! I guess I'm the only one in the world who isn't!
I guess that I could see your "ex" leaving you because of your poor logic.
AND NO, I don't vote "D" or "hopey" or, anything else for that matter.
"So, if one doesn't "believe" in there being a "god" that makes one a "liberal?" ~ I wouldn't know and that's not what I said. You're mind reading skills suck.
As for him leaving me, well, he's had almost 7 years to do it and hasn't quite got around to it yet. As for my logic I have plenty. Of course, you can barely read and comprehend what another person is saying. You've responded to me twice here and both times you demonstrated that you don't understand my thoughts on this. Instead you come up with some stupid shit that reflects your thoughts and try to pin it on me. I get the feeling your one of those guys that gets off bullying women so he can feel like a real man. Fuck you? No way. You probably sweat alot and cum real fast. I got better things to do.
Admit it. Magical sky santa is silly
" there is something beyond the physical, and there is a spiritual world beyond our physical world, this is simply the truth."
So let's examine that statement.
1. There is something beyond the physical.
Wrong. You cannot know. It's a guess at best.
2. There is a spiritual world beyond our physical world.
Wrong again. Another guess.
3. This is simply the truth.
Wrong. Two wrongs don't make a right!
While many share the belief in afterlife, no one can know with certainty. You can be brainwashed into believing these "facts", but it is simply another persons opinion and not fact or truth.
And if you postulate a god, then it is reasonable to assume there are two gods, right? And if there are two, there could be 100s or millions. Or there is none. That is possible too.
Peoples beliefs are one thing, but those claiming certain truths is another. And to assume one is afflicted with darkness when they disagree? Another truth?
You are correct. Belief in God is a matter of faith. One cannot know that he exists. Conversely, one cannot know that he does not exist. Atheism is as much a religion as Christanity, Islam etc. interesting world we live in, isn't it?
"Faith is something that you believe that nobody in his right mind would believe. "-- credits: Archie Bunker
Without faith, it is impossible to please God. (Hebrews 11:6)
can you explain to me why the universe, you know the one we see in the sky and supposidly has a limited distribution, exists.
The universe was created from a random quantum fluctuation. Even in a vacuum there is still energy. Particles come into existence and then self annihilate constantly. We happen to live in a universe where the four fundamental forces in nature are set in such a way to allow stars to form and create solar systems where evolution can begin to take place. Nothing special about it. Over the course of infinite time eventually you're gonna roll those four dice enough times where that perfect ratio is reached. There's a high likelihood that there are other universes that have been created in much the same way. Most of those will just evaporate into themselves. Some probably still exist right next to ours but with wildly different outcomes.
I have a question for you. There are trillions and trillions of stars in billions of galaxies throughout the universe. There are more stars in the universe than grains of sand on earth. How can any person believe that this was all created just for us? To me it sounds a little arrogant. Is there life on other planets? If so does god give them a Jesus to save them as well?
Remember we're talking about the entire universe being started from a particle smaller than an atom. For some reason something like that coming into existence on its own is inconceivable to some but they have no problem assuming that a god which would be extremely complex being came into existence in of itself.
theabyss11 - a couple of points;
1) You say the universe is infinite, then you almost immediately claim it had a beginning?
This isn't rational
2) You say it is endless, therefore logically there is no 'outside' to infinity, yet you claim there may have been 'other' comparable universes prior, or perhaps even concurrently?
That's irrational, and also baseless.
3) You talk about terms like a 'quantum fluctuation' as though it is intelligible to you, and you can understand it, and that it is actually so.
This is irrational.
4) You talk of four separate and distinct 'forces' (and I'll just remind you here that you have not the faintest clue of what a force actually is) when your irrational quantum-fluctuation starter paradigm asserts there was just one 'force' at the beginning.
This is irrational
5) You presume other grand cosmic probabilistic cosmogenic 'cycles' have occurred, with other outcomes, which implies they must somehow have ended in collapse, or else in kinetic wind-down, via infinite dispersal between 'particles'. Well how did we come to be in the very same eternity of existence then, with these other theoretical cycles, of the same infinity, that you have theoretically bought into? If you have literally zero evidence for any of this, then what has that to do with what you present as a Science-based viewpoint of eternity?
This is quite irrational
6) You say of the operation of eternity that there's, "Nothing special about it", meaning nothing special about the fact of our anthropic observing of this 'version' of infinity. If there's nothing special about it, then would you care to ponder why an endless physical infinity exists, given it has no particular reason to do so? It doesn't have to be here ... and yet it is! ... and both writer and reader are integral and inseparable expressions of it ... it's not like we can just pop outside for a smoke .. there are no exits, and there is no outside of an eterity, and it lacks for nothing, it is complete as it is. "Nothing special" eh?
This verges right up to and includes daft.
7) Why do persons like you (whom I gather are rather young and excitably gullible and a bit dull) seem intent on robbing yourself, but not just yourself, but also the rest of humanity, of this extraordinary grandeur or beauty, of the very fact of it all, via a lot of irrational and baseless quasi-science trivia and technical claptrap that you literally don't understand, let alone seem able or inclined to question?
It's not intelligent.
--
Wouldn't it just be easier to admit you don't know about anything at all, with any certainty, and try a bit harder to learn and perhaps discover and allow humility to grow into the grand wonder that's available to you and the rest of us, in a very special time and opportunity, in our part of the weird and inexplicable bigness?
Just saying mate
1. I didn't say the universe was infinite. Only that time was. For our universe time began at the big bang. Space and time are intertwined according to Einstein so before the big bang occurred time for us was at zero. When I talk about infinite time I'm talking about in the multiverse. This is where all the different universes exist.
2. Same as above
3. Where a random particle comes into existence in of itself without self annihilating.
4. Sure I do brotha...Gravity, Strong Nuclear Force, Weak Nuclear Force, and Electromagnetism. Look it up. I can't help you don't know what ur talking about.
5. You have no idea what I'm talking about do you. Before you enter a debate against someone you should really try to understand the point that the other person is making. I'll get you started. First learn a little bit about Quantum Physics, then String Theory, then M-Theory. Once again your own ignorance has tripped you up cause you just don't understand what you are talking about.
6. You can't have zero energy without having infinite mass (I believe that's what it is). E=mc2 brotha
7. I am young...25 actually. But the lack of basic knowledge in your replies (four fundamental forces) I would guess I've spent countless more hours reading about and contemplating the universe than you have. I've probably read more scientific papers, watched more programs about it on tv, and read more books published on this subject than you've even came close to reading in whatever amount of time you've been around. Why? Because I enjoy it.
"I don't know everything about how the universe formed. Nobody does, even the most brilliant people in the world don't know all the details. We're starting to get a clearer picture though.
"and try a bit harder to learn and perhaps discover and allow humility to grow into the grand wonder that's available to you and the rest of us, in a very special time and opportunity, in our part of the weird and inexplicable bigness?"
I try too. I suppose you don't take your own advice.
oh please! ... you wish to abstractly pretend there's a limit to infinity!
That is completely irrational.
Anything you expound from that perspective is irrational nonsense.
In other words, you're fully mentally pre-occupied by errant nonsense.
Which is not at all an uncommon feature among highly-educated physicists, especially those of a cosmological bent.
But you're real problem is much deeper than belief in superficial and irrational 'science' theory trivia, it's the incapacity to frankly perceive this, and candidly admit it to yourself, and learn something actual.
You're adrift in a ocean of bullshit that's pretending to be rational, objective, scientific; and you console yourself with a garland of mere erudite knowledge?
Please excuse my giggling.
I threw you a sail, mast, ropes, a rudder, and a compass.
From there, you'll have to work it out yourself.
PS: I have vastly more experience in science disciplines than you, you're saying nothing new to me, indeed, it's all very stale and painfully predictable ... but at least you are trying.
Our universe is not infinite! When have I said this?
Hiding behind all the insults you send my way is a petulant child who is trying so very hard to appear smarter on the internet than he really is. So sad.
You can claim that you have more knowledge all you want. You can say that what I'm saying is stale (even though you didn't know the four fundamental forces while still saying I didn't know what I was talking about) and so far beneath you. But I can tell from the quality of your responses that you don't even know enough about the subject to give good, rational objections to what I'm saying...and there are good objections.
1) Again, you seek to pretend that 'infinite' as 'time' is somehow separated from and impervious to finite 'universe'.
This is beyond irrational.
2) You wish to insist it's logically valid to treat 'universe', plus a separated 'time', as bounded objective abstracts, rather than as the irrepressible and irresistible subjective actuality that's surrounding you in the most in-your-face tangible physical expression.
That is ... what it is.
--
You're still pissing-on about "four fundamental forces", like some nerdy spotted school-boy with a boner who just found the next year's science textbook and its answer sheet in the back? If you're 25 I was writing about the four fundamental forces and their unification issues long before you were even born spotty.
Are you always this laughably petty and doltish regarding the mere flotsam and jetsam of 'science' trivia as a crapulous pissing-contest? You're obviously terribly insecure about your 'knowledge', or rather, not even your knowledge; it's just the reflected shine from someone else's cerebral skid-mark. Typical propensities of an undeveloped mind.
Developing your own capacities is still a long way off for you, but if as you say, you enjoy what you're doing, and by all means continue. I just hope you'll eventually discover that you've turned into a dim-witted bonehead in the process, and then try to figure it out yourself.
That is compassion.
mmmmmm. . . beginner mind. . . *grins*
it is fear of no boundaries, no fences, no rules that prevents people from pursuing THAT truth. . .
lovely post.
haha...okay then. Lets have a test in cosmology and physics and see who comes out on top.
Tell you what. I'll give you a nice shiny Silver eagle if you can list for me all the states of matter in the universe. Thats not hard right? That goes for element too. No peaking. If you do I will never know, but you will know inside yourself that you couldn't do it and thats all that matters to me.
awww, petal, bless!
you can have the gold star, I'll concede that your mind has memorised way more information than mine, and I surely hope someone is paying you well for this.
the naming of things isolates them in the mind - this thing is not that thing - lots of little mental fences to defend as knowledge - and that's swell, I know it makes many happy to amass these details - I'm just not one of them.
I've spent many years taking down the enforced corralling of my thoughts, and I'm very partial to the wide open spaces that need no defense, seek no recognition from anyOne, compete for no awards. I may not like much of what I see in the world, and I may even write about my opinions - but in the end, I know in my bones that consciousness is all there is.
my volley, a question tossed back to you: where do you locate your Self in your being? is it behind your eyes, in your mind? where IS it? where are YOU located in you? who sees? who knows what is seen?
agreed. laws of thermodynamics. simple. more on how that could work at this link:
http://physics.sdrodrian.com/
I'd just like to know where that fluctuation came from.
Maybe a new religion should be started.. “Fluctuationism” ??
Oh, it exists already but it falls under the broader atheist or secularist categories.
I wonder if the physicists' "Equation of everything" will describe the necessity of its own reality, and thereby create itself. Would that be God? Or perhaps all equations are as real as any other. For example, prime numbers are inherently prime even if there is no computer to determine they are prime. Surely, some mathematical structures are complex enough to contain sentient observers. These observers would perceive themselves as living in a real universe with real physics.
Maybe there are an infinite number of universes, all purely mathematical and all equally real. Anything that can happen does happen, and it happens an infinite number of times. Most universes do not contain sentient observers, but there are an infinite number that do. As an infinitely small subset of this infinity, there are an infinite number of universes in which the quantum fluctuations produced something only slightly different from Earth. So all the Tarantino films are real, for example. And when you die, an infinite number of copies of you survive somewhere else.
You understand what I'm talking about.
The universe is nothing but math. Look at the way that a tree branches out and then compare it to the blood vessals branching out through your body and tell me that it isn't the same formula.
Indeed. The Universe itself can also be seen as a giant branching tree of quantum possibilities. This "World Tree", which connects us to the heavens and the past to future, is actually a giant, timeless mathematical structure. It certainly contains sentient observers (us). If it is sentient as a whole and can collapse its own wavefunction and control its own branching, then it could qualify as God. If the universe is cyclical and it brings all its branches back together again, like blood vessels returning to the heart at the Big Bang/Big Crunch, then it could also qualify as God. God might be controlling the branching of this reality from a throne in the Big Crunch, where the converging universes would reach their highest levels of self-organization and creative power. He is the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End.
The end of this year will be a major fork in the Tree. More to follow on collapsing wavefunctions and our victory conditions.
no
I always get a charge out the so-called "secular" and/or "atheist" perspective that highlights randomchance as the source of our being. Truly what an unreasonable faith in freak luck! Nevertheless, I dare say it's actually a more reasonable conjecture to posit the "religious" perspective that a divine Author is the source of our great fortune to be in just the right universe, in just the right place, in just the right time to have this discussion. Funny how those who tout being the paragon of reason in this day and age are the most unreasonable when it comes to the question of God.
To be unreasonable in describing a tale of existence would require a singular viewpoint and be closed minded to any other possibilities.
It's good that you are more accepting of different outcomes than the other guy of certain truths. While you lean more toward divine intervention, you do leave the possibility for something else, however freakishly unlikely.
Historical references from the bible are important in understanding our past, but I am reasonable certain that the selective tales of magic, existence and afterlife, described 2000 years ago, by men, are less likely reality than they are fantasy.
If we accept that a god can will itself into existence, surely billions of gods could do this too. They are gods, after-all. And just because they created all the galaxies and universes, doesn't mean they created a special kingdom for us to live in when we pass. I suppose it is possible, but considering it is a story made up by man, I would reasonably conclude it as unlikely.
Like it or not the universe is ruled by probability and chance. To each possible outcome there is a given probability. Roll the dice enough times and all probabilities will be expressed. You say that since we are fortunate enough to live in this universe that it means a creator must have been at the dials adjusting everything just right for us to exist. I believe that we are extremely fortunate, but that in another universe where those dials are set differently we wouldn't have existed anyway. In this universe the dials were set right. But we are just an expression of that, it wasn't created for us. Its like saying the trees in the Serengeti are perfectly created for a giraffes neck when in reality the opposite is true.
The universe is just too big, too interesting, and too complex for god to exist as theists describe it. To believe that the sum of all the knowledge that we will ever obtain was given to us in the bronze age before we even discovered that the earth revolved around the sun is just so...boring.
breath of fresh air in a so far stale thread.
religions that believe in a FatherGod are for immature, childish minds that need a Daddy to hold their hands in the world - a Daddy that has rules, rewards, punishments, laws - it's just like never leaving the family nest, carrying the patriarch in your mind, for your whole life, rebelling, repenting, guilt, rage - it's all there.
I don't like your Daddy, and I'm sick to death of you children electing your "brothers and sisters" into government to continue the Dysfunctional Family Syndrome, making even more rules and laws, all to coddle your immature little egos with structures - like training wheels for your bikes - LET IT GO PEOPLE.
GROW UP.
When I first read Genesis I had this chilling feeling that we are a species born of incest, since I don't see anywhere where Cain or Abel went over to the neighboring garden to find a prom date or a bride. Now that I am older, and see the condition the world is in, I guess the Bible is correct after all, and we are the product of inbreeding.
Had I been God, I wouldn't have taken Sunday off, but rather tossed out a few eligible maidens.
theabyss11 said:
I agree with you: the universe is just too big, too interesting, and too complex for God to exist as theists describe it. Anyone claiming to have The Universal Truth® is either delusional or is trying to lead you down a primrose path.
The universe is also too big, interesting, and complex for human science to explain to any significant degree, and that is due to the limitations of our physical existence. Advanced physics and mathematics have reasonably posited the existence of seven, eight, or even more than nine dimensions to the universe, and even the existence of multiple universes, but we are three-dimensional creatures who cannot wrap our monkey minds around a visualisation and comprehension of more than three physical dimensions.
I believe the arguments between the religious and the non-religious arise from a lack of understanding of the definitions of religion and science. Religion is an explanation or understanding of our existence based on faith, a belief that does not depend upon evidence. Science is an explanation or understanding of our existence based on evidence and excludes the realm of the supernatural.
A religious person seeking scientific confirmation of any of their beliefs is doing nothing more than demonstrating a lack of faith. If one has faith, confirmation is not needed. Likewise, a non-religious person trying to invalidate religious faith scientifically is doing nothing more than demonstrating a belief in religion as a valid scientific theory. In the realm of science, the highest attainable level for explaining anything is the scientific theory, and scientific theories by definition are falsifiable.
Cathartes Aura then said:
Watch your soapbox, friend. You're painting with a rather broad brush. Belief in a supreme being or creator is not equivalent to belief in a hand-holding sky daddy. You're also smart enough to know that when someone makes a statement like, "all [arbitrary grouping of people] are [arbitrary characteristic]," they've likely just boarded the fast train to fallacy. I would imagine a supreme being as an entity which transcends gender. Nevertheless, people tend to assign genders to things, even inanimate objects such as ships. Indeed, some languages (e.g., German) assign a masculine, feminine, or neuter gender to all nouns, so you should not be surprised that this has been done with God. Also, you have to concede that, fair or not, this has generally been a man's world for thousands of years, so the assignment of a masculine gender to God is not surprising.
If that's your way of saying that it's not a good idea to mix politics and religion, then I agree. Each has a corrupting influence on the other. The reason is simple: those who seek to mix the two are motivated by a desire for power. I'm sure you can think of many instances of religion corrupting politics. Some of the best examples, in my opinion, of politics corrupting religion would be the Councils of Carthage and Nicea. They turned Christianity into a politicized hierarchical structure and established countless crazy laws, doctrines, and procedures. In doing so, they completely lost sight of the teachings of Christ, which can basically be summed up as love your neighbor, help each other out, and don't be an asshole.
Christ also said that it was wrong to force your beliefs on others, and that the best method of persuasion is to lead an exemplary life by following his teachings. Those so-called Christians that try to force their views on others, especially if attempting to do so via politics, are hypocrites. Christ said many things about hypocrites, none favorable.
@TheFourthStooge-ing:
your friendly chastising of my opinions of "FatherGod" believers does of course take into consideration the more thoughtful believers of God religions
which is nice, but this isn't what Religion is being used for nowadays, is it? IF folks were imagining a being that transcends gender, we'd not have that being calling for endless wars on people that don't look like the imagined God(s), and we wouldn't have infinite numbers of churches with their variant imaginings of God either - I've yet to encounter any folks calling themselves "Christian" who imagine their god "gender" free (for clarity, I'll just say that I use male & female as sex-type polarities, even though I know they are NOT absolutes in humans - and "gender" as man & woman, the assigned characteristics that allow for cultural recognition of sex-type - gender being a cultural construct which is variable) - all Christians identify with a MaleGod, and the majority refer to him as a Father - with many moods, benevolent, angry, jealous, etc. IF there were more sex parity, ie, females deified, then more of the characteristics assigned to "women" would be evident in the beliefs - compassion, charity (without a need for conversion or tithe), nurturing, etc.
not surprising, and in fact inevitable - the word Patriarchy is rule of the Father, and that's what we've laboured under for all of recorded HISstory. none of which has much compassion in the story, but lots, and LOTS of wars, rape & pillaging - every culture, every decade, round the world, all under the watchful eye of the FatherGod(s).
and of course, since we are living a time of questioning the religionists in politics, this is an important subject for many of us
it is obscene to force people to live under a FatherGod archetype that they do not have any affinity for, to force people to adhere to strictures that impact their being, their body even, when those rules have no resonance for them - that's TYRANNY of the most basic kind, it messes with folks integrity because they must present a "certain acceptable face" to be seen as compliant, and it compromises their personal truth to live lies.
if people want to elect the Godly to office, they need to understand there will be endless cultural friction, because friction is what is needed to GROW (up). I believe government has gotten away with this growing police state because religionists love rules, it's what Church does, it creates "commandments" for the people to organise themselves around - this is where the minds are trained to slavery.
I don't have a problem at all with the mystics of any religion - those who seek a quiet, contemplative life in order to know the God of their choosing - Rumi, Hafiz, Hildegard von Bingen, many others - I love their works, because I understand what they speak of, a wisdom transcending specifics(gender, "god") - it's the RuleMakerGods, and those who use their god's robes to hid under & speak through like the curtain obscuring with Wizard of Oz, these I have no respect for, and will not tolerate in my life.
there is coming a huge rebellion against the structures that have contained us for centuries - these structures originate in minds, of course, but their manifested reality in government, religion, etc. - have been outgrown, and need razing, the fields need burning back. and a fallow period, before new seeds can be nurtured again.
that being said - peace.
*repost*
We're sorry. The person you are trying to reach isn't at home right now. Don't bother to leave a message. Brrrrrrrrrppppppppp.