Mathematics, the Universe and God
In ancient Egypt they worshiped the Sun God, Ra. Various religions have worshiped the sun. In ancient times they didn't know that the Milky Way galaxy, our home galaxy even existed. They didn't know that stars were actually suns like our sun, and they didn't know until recently that there were other galaxies in the universe, in fact billions of other galaxies each containing billions of stars or suns, assorted black holes, and other junk like asteroids, comets and dust. In addition they didn't know about the existence of sub-atomic particles like quarks until recently. If the ancients had known all this, the tremendous span of dimension from sub-atomic to the dimensions of the universe in space and time (a diameter of some 28 billion light years and 13.7 billion years, respectively), the ancients might well have worshiped the universe itself, the reality of which is beyond anything we possibly can even conceive of. Hence reality itself outstrips anything we possibly could conceive of in all its facets. When you add to this the fact that life exists within the universe, you have something pretty spectacular indeed, a complete miracle outstripping any miracles ever claimed to be such by anyone.
It's amazing how in one age people will claim that something is miraculous when, in a later age, the principles behind it are understood and the miraculous turns into the mundane. For instance, a hundred years ago people gazed into crystal balls and claimed to see things going on in some other locale. Well, today we can gaze into a modern day crystal ball otherwise know as a TV set and see instantaneously scenes that are happening on the other side of the world or even on the moon! The march of science guarantees that the miraculous will become the mundane. Religions have struggled to keep up with reality as the knowledge of it has unfolded. For instance, the Catholic Church did not admit until the 1950s that Galileo was in fact right. The earth does go around the sun. Other religions still haven't admitted that the earth is more than 5000 years old as it says in the Bible while in fact carbon dating has placed it at about 5 billion years old.
I start from the premise that no one really knows certain things like whether or not God really exists, what happens to us after we die, the meaning of life, the meaning of the universe etc. Religions have claimed to know these things, but in essence anything that any religion claims is merely a belief, and a belief can be right or wrong. Anyone, in my opinion, has the right to speculate about any of this stuff, but most people don't because they accept what their religion tells them without question. Why? Because they're afraid if they don't, bad things will happen to them either in this life or the next. However, most, if not all, human progress has been achieved by those who've had the guts to get beyond these fears and ask what might seem to some to be sacrilegious questions. Some like Galileo have been considered to be blasphemous. Organized religions have the power to invoke fear if you don't do what they tell you to do or don't believe what they tell you to believe.
I reserve the right to speculate about the "eternal" questions because I think I have about as much chance of being right about them as anyone else including those who claim to know everything since "God told them it was so." I start with the assumption that there is a God since, if nothing else, the miracle of the existence of the universe, in and of and by itself, would qualify as a God if God were nothing more than that. So I start with the assumption that, much like the ancients who worshiped the sun, the universe itself is worthy of worship if God is in fact nothing more than the sum total of everything that exists in the universe. However, I will in this forum speculate about the nature of God since, if God exists, we might ask what is his or her nature. It's a legitimate question. I will use the pronoun He to refer to God. Hope no one is offended by that.
Now there is speculation and there is speculation. One might ask is there such a thing as intelligent speculation and, if so, what are its parameters. When creative people do science or art or mathematics (here's where the mathematics come in), they always speculate according to their personal values. Einstein said "God does not play dice with men." That was a personal value. Of course, scientists have to subject their theories (or speculations) to experiment before they are proven true or false. Mathematicians just have to have a consistent theory because their work is completely abstract and not subject to experimentation. Scientific values have to do with elegance, simplicity (you can't get more elegant or simpler than E=MC[squared]), and symmetry. So if pre-eminent physicist Stephen Hawking can speculate about what happened before the universe began, why the big bang did or did not represent a singularity, certainly there are criteria that might allow one to speculate about the Nature of God.
The mathematician, Cantor, developed a whole theory about infinity. In fact he proved to the acceptance of other mathematicians that there are many different kinds of infinities. Now most people can't comprehend even one infinity let alone an infinite number of different kinds of infinities. Some of these same sorts of considerations might be able to be used in speculating about God. A lot of the religious ideas about God are anthropomorphic. That is they assume God has human attributes. The ancient Greeks and Romans had many Gods, and they all had human attributes like jealousy, sexual desires, seeking after power and dominance etc. What if God is not anthropomorphic? What if God is more akin to the laws of physics and chemistry than He is to human nature? And if Cantor can speculate and even prove things about something we can have no real grasp of, might we not be able to speculate and even prove some things about God?
Now it has been said that God is all loving, all knowing and all powerful. My personal feeling is that God cannot be both all loving and all powerful because, if he were, he would net let the slaughter of innocents take place, and, as we know from history and from present day news reports, innocents are being slaughtered every day. There are both man made and natural disasters. If God were all powerful, he could tweak things a bit so that disasters could be averted especially for those who are on his good side - those who are evidently very "religious." For instance, why did God let 9/11 happen? Surely, a lot of good people were led to their deaths by madmen. This caused tremendous suffering. Why did God let this happen? This is the question that, in the aftermath of 9/11, all clergymen backed away from because they didn't want to come face to face with the implications. Either God is not all powerful or God is not all loving. Other disasters like the tsunami, Hurricane Katrina, genocides in Darfor and Rwanda, earthquakes in Pakistan and elsewhere leaving thousands homeless etc could prompt the same observation.
My personal opinion is that God is not all powerful. God is not sitting up there manipulating reality, granting favors to those who pray, granting more favors to those who pray harder etc. Jesus said that "the rain falls on both the good and the evil." Nature is what it is and natural disasters can occur for a variety of reasons. It is up to man (pardon the expression) to act in such a way as to prevent or ameliorate natural and man made disasters including the slaughter of innocents. I believe that God has delegated this authority to us. For instance, early warning systems, devised by man, can alert people to earthquakes, tsunamis etc. Evacuations systems, disaster relief etc are man made devices to ameliorate disasters. Man made disasters such as 9/11 can be prevented by providing security systems to protect from such things ever happening again. We learn from disaster and we can take steps to prevent future disasters. The criminal justice system is supposed to provide justice and deterrents when criminals act in such a way as to deprive people of their rights, property or life.
So I think that God is not all powerful. I agree with the Deists to the extent that I think God set up the universe much as a watchmaker makes a watch, wound it up and let it go, subject to the provisions of the laws of nature supplemented by man made laws and subject to the constraints of the design aspects of the universe. What these design aspects are are not entirely clear. Einstein postulated a cosmic constant. The speed of light and other things could have been designed differently. What kind of universe we would be living in even if life were possible at all if some of these design parameters were different is the subject of more hopefully informed speculation by physicists.
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