Do you believe in God and why

[Sunmaster]

41 minutes ago, VincentRJ said:

You could then go into more detail, using the best of your language skills, and describe examples of those fundamental changes to your core being, and how such changes have affected you in the present, compared to how you might have behaved or reacted the past, before those core changes took place.

Yes, I could do that again, or you could read my posts during the last year where I did exactly that. ???? Whichever comes first. ???? 

 

44 minutes ago, VincentRJ said:

you could also undergo an fMRI scan of your brain to reveal any unusual activity in certain areas of the brain which might be indicative of 'core changes', and so on.

Lol...a bit too much effort for my taste. How about you just take my word for it? 

[mauGR1]

5 hours ago, Tagged said:

How much do we know about Buddha, and what Buddha really said ? I guess it requires the same questioning as Jesus. Who where they? Did they exists? And is it littarly they who speaking or is it many who made Jesus and Buddhas teaching? 

Very much spot on.

Nobody of us was there physically at those times.

While I'm somehow convinced that both Buddha and the Christ existed, it's rather naive to discuss what did they say and what they didn't. 

I believe it's possible to be very close to the truth without having ever heard a word about  Jesus and Buddha, and even without knowing anything about modern philosophy and science.

[Tagged]

5 minutes ago, mauGR1 said:

Very much spot on.

Nobody of us was there physically at those times.

While I'm somehow convinced that both Buddha and the Christ existed, it's rather naive to discuss what did they say and what they didn't. 

I believe it's possible to be very close to the truth without having ever heard a word about  Jesus and Buddha, and even without knowing anything about modern philosophy and science.

What I can relate to, is all the vikings history we have in Nordic and In England, and the stories and history differences from what side you where on. I know the same goes for 2. www, but there we have at least the numbers and dates correct as we have the people involved. 

 

Myths also relates to more than one christ and more than one buddha who where teaching over decades, centuries and millennium between them, and  and pretty much all of them  had  the same  message of course modified by time and differences in culture. 

[VincentRJ]

4 hours ago, mauGR1 said:

Very much spot on.

Nobody of us was there physically at those times.

While I'm somehow convinced that both Buddha and the Christ existed, it's rather naive to discuss what did they say and what they didn't. 

I believe it's possible to be very close to the truth without having ever heard a word about  Jesus and Buddha, and even without knowing anything about modern philosophy and science.

I agree that what the Buddha and Jesus Christ actually said, has a large degree of uncertainty because neither of them wrote down their own teachings during their life. The Buddha's teaching were carried by memory for many generations before they were eventually written in the language of Pali, which is different to the Buddha's native language.

 

However, because of the uncertainty, it's important to have discussions about what the Buddha probably said. That is not naivety, but is the normal process of scientific enquiry in search of the truth. 

 

You seem to have got it the wrong way round. It would be very naive to accept what certain scriptures claimed the Buddha had said, without discussing and questioning the likelihood that what was written was a reasonably accurate interpretation of what was said.

[mauGR1]

8 hours ago, VincentRJ said:

I agree that what the Buddha and Jesus Christ actually said, has a large degree of uncertainty because neither of them wrote down their own teachings during their life. The Buddha's teaching were carried by memory for many generations before they were eventually written in the language of Pali, which is different to the Buddha's native language.

 

However, because of the uncertainty, it's important to have discussions about what the Buddha probably said. That is not naivety, but is the normal process of scientific enquiry in search of the truth. 

 

You seem to have got it the wrong way round. It would be very naive to accept what certain scriptures claimed the Buddha had said, without discussing and questioning the likelihood that what was written was a reasonably accurate interpretation of what was said.

Yes, I agree with your very reasonable post, but..

..Apparently,  Buddha did not mention God in his speeches, for what we know, yet this is not a fact, because we were not there to listen to him.

.. But I think I heard someone using this "non-fact" as a sort of evidence of the non-existence of God,  which would be quite un-scientific. 

For all we know, there could be other reasons for Buddha not to mention God, my impression is that Buddha, like Jesus too, were in opposition of the superstition which seems to pervade every long established organised religion, especially the adoration of idols , and both were saying instead that God is not an entity outside the limits of one's body, but it's everywhere, outside and inside, in the tiny single atom and in the infinitity of time and space. 

Edited January 17, 2021 by mauGR1
Spelling

[Tagged]

20 minutes ago, mauGR1 said:

Yes, I agree with your very reasonable post, but..

..Apparently,  Buddha did not mention God in his speeches,

Where he came from there is 33 million gods, so I guess he would have talked about gods and not a god? 

[mauGR1]

39 minutes ago, Tagged said:

Where he came from there is 33 million gods, so I guess he would have talked about gods and not a god? 

I am not sure about the 33 millions, but I think i understand what you mean.

I spent quite some time in India, and I'm quite familiar with a few Hindu philosophies,  which apparently sometimes contradict each other.

Personally I think that the "God " word is often misunderstood. 

If God is an omnipervadent consciousness, it would be correct to say that Shiva and Krishna are Gods, the fire and the wind are gods,  you and i are gods, the elephants and the mice too, from the tiny atom to the millions of galaxies. 

Besides that,  I'm convinced that modern humans have put reason and logic above everything else, and that is probably part of our spiritual development, while the ancient humans, before the invention of the script, were gifted with a more instinctive way of thinking. 

[VincentRJ]

12 hours ago, mauGR1 said:

..my impression is that Buddha, like Jesus too, were in opposition of the superstition which seems to pervade every long established organised religion, especially the adoration of idols , and both were saying instead that God is not an entity outside the limits of one's body, but it's everywhere, outside and inside, in the tiny single atom and in the infinity of time and space. 

 

I would consider that to be a reasonable hypothesis if you didn't use the word 'God'. It is reasonable to hypothesize that there are fundamental particles and waves that inhabit every part of space. In other words, there is no 'true' vacuum.

 

A current Astrophysics hypothesis is that 95% of all the matter and energy in the universe in invisible and undetectable. It is called 'Dark Matter and Energy', not God. The term 'God' is a meaningless term from a scientific perspective, because there is no precise definition. Science relies upon the use of precise definitions.

 

The word 'God' would probably win a contest for the most varied, imprecise, and confusing term in the English language. ????
 

[mauGR1]

27 minutes ago, VincentRJ said:

 

I would consider that to be a reasonable hypothesis if you didn't use the word 'God'. It is reasonable to hypothesize that there are fundamental particles and waves that inhabit every part of space. In other words, there is no 'true' vacuum.

 

A current Astrophysics hypothesis is that 95% of all the matter and energy in the universe in invisible and undetectable. It is called 'Dark Matter and Energy', not God. The term 'God' is a meaningless term from a scientific perspective, because there is no precise definition. Science relies upon the use of precise definitions.

 

The word 'God' would probably win a contest for the most varied, imprecise, and confusing term in the English language. ????
 

Indeed it's confusing, and i

can understand why.

I prefer to use other words, like "supreme consciousness " or " intelligent design ".

Well, to be honest,  I think that our major disagreement is that you seem to have an anthropocentric vision of reality, while i  am quite sure that humans are not the highest forms of life, in the visible and the invisible universe. 

[VincentRJ]

13 hours ago, mauGR1 said:

Well, to be honest,  I think that our major disagreement is that you seem to have an anthropocentric vision of reality, while i  am quite sure that humans are not the highest forms of life, in the visible and the invisible universe. 

 

If you define 'anthropocentrism' as a belief that humans are the highest (most intelligent) form of life in the universe, then I'm definitely not anthropocentric. I'm aware of the scientific estimates that there are roughly 100 to 400 billion stars in our own galaxy, the Milky Way, and roughly 125 billion Galaxies in the observable universe. Therefore the number of stars with revolving planets, like our own solar system, is likely to be huge, in the billions if not trillions.

 

How could any rational person actually believe that Homo Sapiens, whose greatest achievement in space-travel is a tiny hop from the Earth to the moon, a mere 384,400 km, is the highest, or most powerful, or most intelligent form of life in the universe, or even in our own Milky Way.

 

Out of those estimated 125 billion galaxies in the universe, the closest galaxy to us, known as the Andromeda galaxy, is 2.5 million light years away. If it's true that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light, and one assumes that there is a super-intelligent form of life in the Andromeda galaxy, that have developed an ability to travel at, say, half the speed of light, then it would take them 5 million years to reach the earth. If such alien creatures were so advanced that they had extended their individual life-span to, say, a thousand years, it would still involve a time-span of 5 thousand generations of those aliens on their spacecraft, before they reached the Earth.

 

To us rationalist, it's not surprising that so far there is no scientific evidence of the existence of a superior alien race in the universe, but it would be very unscientific to actually believe that no such alien creatures exist, considering the enormous size of the universe and the enormous difficulty of travelling such long distances.

[mauGR1]

2 minutes ago, VincentRJ said:

 

If you define 'anthropocentrism' as a belief that humans are the highest (most intelligent) form of life in the universe, then I'm definitely not anthropocentric. I'm aware of the scientific estimates that there are roughly 100 to 400 billion stars in our own galaxy, the Milky Way, and roughly 125 billion Galaxies in the observable universe. Therefore the number of stars with revolving planets, like our own solar system, is likely to be huge, in the billions if not trillions.

 

How could any rational person actually believe that Homo Sapiens, whose greatest achievement in space-travel is a tiny hop from the Earth to the moon, a mere 384,400 km, is the highest, or most powerful, or most intelligent form of life in the universe, or even in our own Milky Way.

 

Out of those estimated 125 billion galaxies in the universe, the closest galaxy to us, known as the Andromeda galaxy, is 2.5 million light years away. If it's true that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light, and one assumes that there is a super-intelligent form of life in the Andromeda galaxy, that have developed an ability to travel at, say, half the speed of light, then it would take them 5 million years to reach the earth. If such alien creatures were so advanced that they had extended their individual life-span to, say, a thousand years, it would still involve a time-span of 5 thousand generations of those aliens on their spacecraft, before they reached the Earth.

 

To us rationalist, it's not surprising that so far there is no scientific evidence of the existence of a superior alien race in the universe, but it would be very unscientific to actually believe that no such alien creatures exist, considering the enormous size of the universe and the enormous difficulty of travelling such long distances.

So the angels of the biblical tales, and the gods of many ancient legends may be visitors from other stars, if not parallel universes.. and probably they are not as primitive as humans who use fossil fuels for travelling in the space.

[Peter Denis]

3 hours ago, mauGR1 said:

So the angels of the biblical tales, and the gods of many ancient legends may be visitors from other stars, if not parallel universes.. and probably they are not as primitive as humans who use fossil fuels for travelling in the space.

Beam me up, Maugy! ????

[Tagged]

1 hour ago, Peter Denis said:

Beam me up, Maugy! ????

If the aliens are following the same pattern as eart humans, they will never reach the lenght of life to leave the planet. We might have been visited by alien spaceships and robots, but any other lifeform alike us? Nope

 

remember god made us like him ????

[mauGR1]

4 hours ago, Peter Denis said:

Beam me up, Maugy! ????

Will is power ????

[VincentRJ]

8 hours ago, mauGR1 said:

So the angels of the biblical tales, and the gods of many ancient legends may be visitors from other stars, if not parallel universes.. and probably they are not as primitive as humans who use fossil fuels for travelling in the space.

Read my post again. Was I not clear that the huge distances involved between our own solar system and other galaxies, where there could likely be life-forms more sophisticated and cleverer than us, make it extremely unlikely that we would ever get a visit from such aliens, unless there is a possibility to travel several times faster than the speed of light?

 

Even the closest star in our own Milky Way galaxy is 4.35 light years away, and it is very unlikely that the closest sun to our sun would just happen to have a planet inhabited by a significantly higher form of life than Homo Sapiens, and could travel at even half the speed of light.

[mauGR1]

11 minutes ago, VincentRJ said:

Read my post again. Was I not clear that the huge distances involved between our own solar system and other galaxies, where there could likely be life-forms more sophisticated and cleverer than us, make it extremely unlikely that we would ever get a visit from such aliens, unless there is a possibility to travel several times faster than the speed of light?

 

Even the closest star in our own Milky Way galaxy is 4.35 light years away, and it is very unlikely that the closest sun to our sun would just happen to have a planet inhabited by a significantly higher form of life than Homo Sapiens, and could travel at even half the speed of light.

I think that there is no remedy for your anthropocentrism, as you insist with calculating distances by human criteria.

If there are more evolved beings in the universe, their knowledge is far beyond anything we can even imagine, and they probably don't give a fig about the speed of light.

 

[Surelynot]

Just now, mauGR1 said:

probably don't give a fig about the speed of light

and this is a priori that underlies the single most successful theory in Physics (after QED)...if they don't give a fig they ain't traveling anywhere. 

[mauGR1]

2 minutes ago, Surelynot said:

and this is a priori that underlies the single most successful theory in Physics (after QED)...if they don't give a fig they ain't traveling anywhere. 

If you say so ...

[VincentRJ]

17 minutes ago, mauGR1 said:

I think that there is no remedy for your anthropocentrism, as you insist with calculating distances by human criteria.

If there are more evolved beings in the universe, their knowledge is far beyond anything we can even imagine, and they probably don't give a fig about the speed of light.

 

I guess you've been watching too many Star Trek movies, like Sunmaster. ????

[mauGR1]

14 minutes ago, VincentRJ said:

 

I guess you've been watching too many Star Trek movies, like Sunmaster. ????

Nope, I barely heard about those movies, but I have some imagination,  and I trust the old Indian rishis when they say that the physical reality, including time and space, is just maya (illusion)

[VincentRJ]

30 minutes ago, mauGR1 said:

Nope, I barely heard about those movies, but I have some imagination,  and I trust the old Indian rishis when they say that the physical reality, including time and space, is just maya (illusion)

Sunmaster's avatar is a character from Star Trek, so I guess that is one of his favourite movies. ????

 

If you believe physical reality, including time and space, is an illusion, then presumably you also believe your computer or iPhone, and everything you've written, is also an illusion. ????

 

[Sunmaster]

1 hour ago, VincentRJ said:

 

I guess you've been watching too many Star Trek movies, like Sunmaster. ????

Pfff
There is no such thing as "too many Star Trek movies". 

[mauGR1]

34 minutes ago, VincentRJ said:

Sunmaster's avatar is a character from Star Trek, so I guess that is one of his favourite movies. ????

 

If you believe physical reality, including time and space, is an illusion, then presumably you also believe your computer or iPhone, and everything you've written, is also an illusion. ????

 

You can presume as much as you like, enjoy your illusions ????

[VincentRJ]

27 minutes ago, mauGR1 said:

You can presume as much as you like, enjoy your illusions ????

Wow! You believe logic and rationality are illusions? ????

[Elad]

According to special relativity "Moving clocks run slowly". So If an astronaut was travelling to our nearest star Alpha Centauri at 90% the speed of light, then the time taken in the astronauts frame of reference would be 2 years.

From an old text book:

 

 

So in theory and without violating the laws of physics, you could travel to the stars, even in human lifetimes, you just need a rocket that travels close the speed of light. Can't see it happening anytime soon though.

 

 Suppose an advanced alien race had the technology that was capable of reaching speeds of 99.999c, then using the same formula for time dilation, the same journey to Alpha Centauri  for the alien would take less than 1 month. It's sort of like travelling faster than light, without exceeding the speed of light and that how the universe works according to Einstein anyway.

  

Most physicists think FTL travel is not possible, because it violates Special Relativity and also implies backwards time travel. Its good for Star Trek, but doesn't seem to fit with reality.  ????

[mauGR1]

8 hours ago, VincentRJ said:

Wow! You believe logic and rationality are illusions? ????

Well, i have some doubts about your interpretation of logic and rationality, but to be fair, i  doubt my own interpretation as well.

I also have serious doubts that the whole universe revolves around the planet earth and the human race ????

[Peter Denis]

15 hours ago, VincentRJ said:

Read my post again. Was I not clear that the huge distances involved between our own solar system and other galaxies, where there could likely be life-forms more sophisticated and cleverer than us, make it extremely unlikely that we would ever get a visit from such aliens, unless there is a possibility to travel several times faster than the speed of light?

 

Even the closest star in our own Milky Way galaxy is 4.35 light years away, and it is very unlikely that the closest sun to our sun would just happen to have a planet inhabited by a significantly higher form of life than Homo Sapiens, and could travel at even half the speed of light.

A small 'thinking out of the box' thought-experiment.

The speed of light is a constraint that seems to limit the options for physical inter-gallactic travel.

But what about 'the speed of thought'?  Obviously that's a nonsensical notion when viewing consciousness as nothing more than 'electro-chemical processes taking place in your brain'. 

But that's exactly the current materialistic 'scientific' outlook.  Scientific between brackets because it refuses to consider non-materialistic phenomena whose very nature makes it difficult or even impossible to measure them physically (a self-fulfilling prophecy, when insisting that the non-physical needs to be evidenced by physical means).

Many mystics have stated that consciousness is instantaneous, which is actually quite 'logical' when embracing the point of view of God as the One consciousness of which we are all part and connected to.  Universal consciousness is outside time and space (which are human constructs), or maybe more correct to state that it over-rides those illusionary time and space constraints.

 

[Tagged]

The real question is "what is time" Aliens might have a different lifespan, different speed of life, and for all we know there might be an backdoor or everything is Just Matrix! 
 

Maybe we should be happy we do not know 

[VincentRJ]

8 hours ago, Elad said:

According to special relativity "Moving clocks run slowly". So If an astronaut was travelling to our nearest star Alpha Centauri at 90% the speed of light, then the time taken in the astronauts frame of reference would be 2 years.

 

So in theory and without violating the laws of physics, you could travel to the stars, even in human lifetimes, you just need a rocket that travels close the speed of light. Can't see it happening anytime soon though.

 

 Suppose an advanced alien race had the technology that was capable of reaching speeds of 99.999c, then using the same formula for time dilation, the same journey to Alpha Centauri  for the alien would take less than 1 month. It's sort of like travelling faster than light, without exceeding the speed of light and that how the universe works according to Einstein anyway.

  

Most physicists think FTL travel is not possible, because it violates Special Relativity and also implies backwards time travel. Its good for Star Trek, but doesn't seem to fit with reality.  ????

 

Good point! I didn't include this factor of 'Time Dilation' in my calculations. However, to be practical, it wouldn't be possible to accelerate to 90% of the speed of light instantaneously or even close to instantaneously. The force exerted by such rapid acceleration would destroy any life. Likewise, there would have to be a gradual deceleration beginning some significant time before reaching the destination. These factors will add to the travel time.

 

The concept of 'time dilation' seems very puzzling, although quite fascinating. If it takes light, say, 4 years to travel from A to B, then it seems completely logical that someone travelling at close to the speed of light, from A to B, would take longer than 4 years, say 5 years, including acceleration and deceleration periods.

 

If I've understood the concept correctly, the alien astronauts after travelling from Alpha Centauri to planet Earth and then back again to their home planet, at say 90% of the speed of light, would observe that they have been away for about 5 years in total, whereas the people back home will observe that the astronauts have been away for about 10 years. The astronauts will have aged less, and will be 5 years younger than their friends who were the same age when the astronauts departed. Amazing! ????

[Surelynot]

9 hours ago, Elad said:

According to special relativity "Moving clocks run slowly". So If an astronaut was travelling to our nearest star Alpha Centauri at 90% the speed of light, then the time taken in the astronauts frame of reference would be 2 years.

From an old text book:

 

 

So in theory and without violating the laws of physics, you could travel to the stars, even in human lifetimes, you just need a rocket that travels close the speed of light. Can't see it happening anytime soon though.

 

 Suppose an advanced alien race had the technology that was capable of reaching speeds of 99.999c, then using the same formula for time dilation, the same journey to Alpha Centauri  for the alien would take less than 1 month. It's sort of like travelling faster than light, without exceeding the speed of light and that how the universe works according to Einstein anyway.

  

Most physicists think FTL travel is not possible, because it violates Special Relativity and also implies backwards time travel. Its good for Star Trek, but doesn't seem to fit with reality.  ????

This is all wrong......it would still take the astronaut 4.7 years to reach Alpha Centauri.....observed from the Earth it would appear that it took two years, but for the astronauts it is still 4.7 years. The astronauts would observe the time that passed on Earth to be 2 years......time passes more slowly for moving clocks is very misleading....time still passes at the same rate for moving clocks....it is the rest of Universe's time that slows when observed by the 'moving clock'.