Spiritual/Political/Philosophical Blog on the Nature of Truth and Falsehood and Heaven
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| Sunny Days in Heaven Spiritual/Political/Philosophical Blog on the Nature of Truth and Falsehood and Heaven |
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Friday, April 26, 2002 From the Sublime to the Ridiculous In today's newspaper I read that some scientists are proposing a new theory of the Cosmos - an oscillating universe based on an idea of strings and 'branes' in which the universe expands to almost nothing and then the 'branes' contract everything and strip it all down and then expand to a new universe ad infinitum. No Big Bang (which is another hare-brain scheme), just continual reoccurrence. There are so many absurdities in this that I hardly know where to begin. 1. The Kalam Argument - there is no Actual Inifinity in Reality. This asserts that the concept of infinity in things like numbers and space is simply an example of a balloon. You are always adding to reality but never arriving at infinity. You just keep expanding the balloon - infinity is conceptual and not actual in space and time. 2. The Absurd - If the universe recreates itself endlessly, then anything which is possible must occur. In an infinite number of successive universes, anything which is possible, must happen. And happen again and again no matter how remote the probability. Any chance of 1 in a billion or a googol must occur because all probabilities will eventually occur. For example, if it is possible for me to exist once - then it is possible for me to exist an infinite number of times exactly as I am and all others are at this moment. That means not only will I type this exact sequence of words an infinite number of times prior to this time, but also after this time. That is simply ridiculous. 3. An endless recreating universe would be its own metaphysical being - otherwise, where did it come from since you can never get something from nothing? It had to come from itself, that is, always was and will be. But materialists insist that the Universe has a purpose - to bring Life to pass and for Life to evolve into ever higher, complex structures of being and consciousness (all for the sake of moving molecules of DNA from one point in time to another - and not even exact copies but reformed DNA). That is, the Universe has a Purpose according to scientists and materialists which doesn't require a God to jump start the whole ball of wax. But in an eternally recurring Universe, where is the mind or soul of such a universe that has "Purpose"? Who can locate or find such a thing? If the universe has no purpose, then what is it doing? Where does one locate such things as truth, reason, desire, and life in a universe that is devoid of such things? Note. I once illustrated the Kalam Argument to Steven den Beste at USS Clueless against his atheism. His response was that he'd heard of it before and that he never found it very compelling, and so dismissed it. He didn't mention that he could refute it, but that it didn't persuade him to alter any view. Strange form of reason which can't disprove or refute a fact or truth, but refuses to submit to logic. "I can't disprove your point, but I refuse to accept it. One plus one still equals three in my book!" Furthermore Where do these fellows ever find any proof or evidence that "the universe as we know it is really a surface in a higher-dimensional space" ? This is simply made up out of whole cloth - pure fantasy (not even science fiction). I mean really - a higher dimensional space? That's quite a euphemism for God; and yet they don't want to mean God, but some sort of Other Ultra Reality (which must surely have been begotten by a Greater Ultimate Really - This Is The Last Turtle Reality). I did better reasoning than this when a child with my brother lying on a hilltop at night and talking about infinity and imagining boxes in boxes and realizing that it couldn't be like that - Russian Dolls or turtles all the way down. How do these guys take themselves seriously? They're exactly like Babylonian priests babbling on about which god descended from who and is pushing the sun across the sky. Only they use words like Strings, Branes, Dimensions, Space/Time, Gravity. For Pete's sake, the bloody emperor has no clothes! posted by Mark Butterworth | 2:43 PM | |
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