Ship of Fools: In the beginning ...

Thread: In the beginning ... Board: Purgatory / Ship of Fools.

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Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :

... as I have a penchant for stuffing everything in to the one thing as a good monist would, I'll take it out of Pandora's box one at a time.

Is it rational, sound, orthodox, simple to propose that {trans-,meta-} x {eternal,infinite}, immaterial, non-{spatial,dimensional,temporal}, immutable, impassible, ineffable God created just this one finite universe?

(And let's not pretend that the ever so 'initial' quantum indeterminacy of entropy and causality make the beginning of it moot shall we?)

Any more than it's rational to suggest that in a practically infinite universe He created just one sapient species to incarnate with. Whooops! There goes the monism again.

Posted by anteater (# 11435) on :

A monist called Martin debated
If God had just one world created
But if there are more
Let's say seventy four
Then monism's surely outdated

OK I know, but can you do better? I couldn't get 'bullshit' to scan.

Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on :

Does a bereshit in the woods? [Big Grin]

Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :

First class both.

Sooooo, Anteater, my little myrmecophage, my form maybe, but not my content. Infinite and eternal is simpler than one.

[ 02. October 2017, 19:02: Message edited by: Martin60 ]

Posted by SusanDoris (# 12618) on :

Can I have a go?!

In the beginning,
atmospheres thinning,
solar winds blew them away.
Earth was just right for
Life 'cos of hot core-
Let's find another ... one day.

Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :

Nice. We almost certainly will, despite needing an Earth sized detector to match Cassini's look back at Earth; I don't know if it detected our biogenic oxygen or even our water vapour. They're there regardless. Other Earths. That's absolutely certain. We are there.

Have we always been?

Everywhere?

Or did God 'wait' for meta-eternity to make just one universe?

Posted by Ian Climacus (# 944) on :

I often wonder if other universes have existed. If other self-aware beings have been, or are, in existence.

But then I get terribly confused. And wonder how a being can be infinite. And what time is. And realise I have no idea. So I move on to something like making a cup of coffee.

I admire people who can ponder these things

Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on :

Ever wonder if we've been only told part of the whole story because if we got an inkling of what was really going on it'd blow our minds?

Just me?

Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :

Och no.

While your percolating Ian: infinity exists in God. He non-spatially, un-dimensionally encompasses it, without extent. If it exists. Which is the question. If He isn't, then infinity is a certainty with eternity. Even if they exist within a non-sentient ground of being without extent.

There are at least seven and a half billion living self aware beings on this practically infinitesimally insignificant world even in this one universe of 10^26 worlds; sapience is universal. That's a fact as good as any other. Is it eternal?

If it isn't, then that certainly makes God ineffably strange.

Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :

YOU'RE!!! Shoot me in the face somebody!

Posted by anteater (# 11435) on :

As is clearly exegetable from my rhyme . . . My point is.

If your a monist, why is any importance attached to any numerable aspect of reality (aka to some: unreality)?

You may as well worry about how many ants there are in the world?

Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :

The One embraces either one or infinite universes. The latter is simplest. But not mainstream. Like the fact of many incarnations in our galaxy alone.

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

quote:
Originally posted by anteater:
As is clearly exegetable from my rhyme . . . My point is.

If your a monist, why is any importance attached to any numerable aspect of reality (aka to some: unreality)?

You may as well worry about how many ants there are in the world?

Fascinating stuff. I know quite a few monists, mainly of a Buddhist persuasion, and hence not theists, but they are a rum lot, since everything is the One, therefore in a sense, everything is equally valuable, or not. But even not is valuable, or not.

I must say, this used to make me dizzy, and then one day, I realized that dizziness was a grand thing, or not. Hello, is there anyone here?

The solution is to shift from the great Undifferentiated, to the great Differentiated, or more mundanely, from emptiness to non-emptiness.

[ 04. October 2017, 18:33: Message edited by: quetzalcoatl ]

Posted by W Hyatt (# 14250) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
The One embraces either one or infinite universes. The latter is simplest. But not mainstream. Like the fact of many incarnations in our galaxy alone.

OK, I'll bite: what leads you to conclude that many incarnations is a fact? Is it that a single incarnation seems irrational to you? Hasn't quantum physics established the notion that facts can be irrational?

Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :

QM is perfectly rational. It's the most astounding product of human rationality and it maps to reality every time. The universe is perfectly amenable to rational inquiry.

So I don't know any irrational facts.

Rationality:

There is no rational, i.e. spiritually sound, sane reason to believe that we are the only sapient species in the 10^24 star visible universe.

That would be practically infinitely strange.

So what spiritually sound reason is there for believing that none of the other sapient species whose existence is more certain than tomorrow's sunrise, as much a fact as yesterday's, hosted an incarnation of the divine? That any didn't?

We exist therefore they do, God incarnated as one of us, therefore He did as one of them.

A lone particular is infinitely stranger than an infinite variety of a type. Sapient species and their incarnates and, by extension, universes.

Hence this thread.

Reality, QM, God, universes, sapience, incarnation are all consistent. Rational.

To believe otherwise, isn't.

[ 04. October 2017, 23:19: Message edited by: Martin60 ]

Posted by Demas (# 24) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
The universe is perfectly amenable to rational inquiry

Ooh look, a statement of faith.

Posted by sharkshooter (# 1589) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
...

There is no rational, i.e. spiritually sound, sane reason to believe that we are the only sapient species in the 10^24 star visible universe.
...

Given that there are no facts and is no evidence to support the contrary, would not the rational conclusion be that we are alone?

Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :

By what definition of rational? By what process of rationality?

That the sun didn't rise this morning? Or whether pigs have wings?

Posted by Golden Key (# 1468) on :

quote:
Originally posted by sharkshooter:

quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
...

There is no rational, i.e. spiritually sound, sane reason to believe that we are the only sapient species in the 10^24 star visible universe.
...
Given that there are no facts and is no evidence to support the contrary, would not the rational conclusion be that we are alone?

Or, simply, "we don't know"? It's accurate, and you don't have to tie your brain in knots.

Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :

I can't hear you with my head where it is. So you aren't real.

Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Demas:

quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
The universe is perfectly amenable to rational inquiry
Ooh look, a statement of faith.

No faith is required for such a fully falsifiable fact. And faith is warranted, rewarded by the rationality of the Kalam Cosmological Argument, but that's another thread.

Posted by W Hyatt (# 14250) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
QM is perfectly rational. It's the most astounding product of human rationality and it maps to reality every time. The universe is perfectly amenable to rational inquiry.

So I don't know any irrational facts.

Rationality:

There is no rational, i.e. spiritually sound, sane reason to believe that we are the only sapient species in the 10^24 star visible universe.

That would be practically infinitely strange.

So what spiritually sound reason is there for believing that none of the other sapient species whose existence is more certain than tomorrow's sunrise, as much a fact as yesterday's, hosted an incarnation of the divine? That any didn't?

We exist therefore they do, God incarnated as one of us, therefore He did as one of them.

A lone particular is infinitely stranger than an infinite variety of a type. Sapient species and their incarnates and, by extension, universes.

Hence this thread.

Reality, QM, God, universes, sapience, incarnation are all consistent. Rational.

To believe otherwise, isn't.

Yes, I'm perfectly willing to assume we're not the only planet with sapient species.

However, I would think that God would incarnate multiple times if and only if the second incarnation achieved something that the first did not. So our rationality in believing in multiple incarnations or a single incarnation depends on what we believe God achieved through incarnation. I suspect that's where you and I differ.

Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :

Good man. So what did our incarnation achieve for the practically infinite sapients in our rationally infinitesimal universe?

Posted by W Hyatt (# 14250) on :

An upgrade from a connection to God mediated by angels to a connection that is direct, immediate, and personal.

Posted by no prophet's flag is set so... (# 15560) on :

An example of how to behave and of some principles to live by. If you want to avoid supernatural explanations.

Posted by Demas (# 24) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:

quote:
Originally posted by Demas:

quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
The universe is perfectly amenable to rational inquiry
Ooh look, a statement of faith.
No faith is required for such a fully falsifiable fact.

How do you falsify the proposition that the universe is perfectly amendable to rational inquiry? The best you can say is that so far, rational inquiry has helped us see patterns in the universe that seem incredibly pervasive, and that we can describe those patterns in astoundingly simple mathematics such as F=ma.

Posted by balaam (# 4543) on :

And if there's life on other planets
Then I'm sure that He must know
And He's been there once already
And has died to save their souls

(From UFO by Larry Norman)

Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Demas:

quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:

quote:
Originally posted by Demas:

quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
The universe is perfectly amenable to rational inquiry
Ooh look, a statement of faith.
No faith is required for such a fully falsifiable fact.
How do you falsify the proposition that the universe is perfectly amendable to rational inquiry? The best you can say is that so far, rational inquiry has helped us see patterns in the universe that seem incredibly pervasive, and that we can describe those patterns in astoundingly simple mathematics such as F=ma.

Yeah, that. We have NEVER observed a fail. Of things like the theorized Pauli Exclusion Principle which could have been falsified by our observation of novas. When stars run out of fuel they gravitationally collapse with velocities accelerating to approaching the speed of light. Until the PEP kicks in. And they stop. Instantly. And go in to violent reverse. They bounce. If the PEP didn't apply they'd keep on going for a while.

How long do we keep this meaningless dispositional rhetoric up?

All stuff behaves rationally amenably except in its origination.

Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :

quote:
Originally posted by W Hyatt:
An upgrade from a connection to God mediated by angels to a connection that is direct, immediate, and personal.

How's that going for you? For humanity? And how would the teeming sapient species, reasonably myriads in our galaxy alone, let alone the trillion other galaxies in our rationally infinitesimal universe in the middle of eternities of them cognitively benefit from our minority unquantifiably subjective experience?

Can you join up the dots please?

Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :

quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
An example of how to behave and of some principles to live by. If you want to avoid supernatural explanations.

How did that benefit the majority of humanity and the myriad sapient species in our galaxy etc, etc, etc ... etc?

Posted by Moo (# 107) on :

quote:
Originally posted by balaam:
And if there's life on other planets
Then I'm sure that He must know
And He's been there once already
And has died to save their souls

(From UFO by Larry Norman)

This assumes that life on other planets is fallen.

Moo

Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :

That assumes that it is here.

Posted by no prophet's flag is set so... (# 15560) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:

quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
An example of how to behave and of some principles to live by. If you want to avoid supernatural explanations.
How did that benefit the majority of humanity and the myriad sapient species in our galaxy etc, etc, etc ... etc?

Not relevant. Humanity's story is the one on this planet. There are many many mansions. The point of the universe and galaxies, and the entire universe is not for the benefit of humanity, nor for the benefit of other sentient life forms as they may exist. We are like leaves falling in the autumn. The leaves are not the point of the tree, nor is the earth from which they grow the point of the earth. The universe is for the glory of God, not for our's nor any other life-form. It's not Rock-a-bye-baby nor Jesus Loves Me, it's rocks and stones (and stars and galaxies) which sing. Oh that we would listen to the melody! the not so secret song which perhaps David knew.

Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :

I agree completely.

But W Hyatt was suggesting otherwise.

And we are the glory of God.

If He were alone, would anybody hear?

Posted by Eutychus (# 3081) on :

Do you watch the mountain goat give birth, Martin?

Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :

[Smile]

Believe me, that's be good enough for me. Even when it isn't.

But we've GOT to do grown up theology for this postmodern world.

Posted by W Hyatt (# 14250) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:

quote:
Originally posted by W Hyatt:
An upgrade from a connection to God mediated by angels to a connection that is direct, immediate, and personal.
How's that going for you? For humanity? And how would the teeming sapient species, reasonably myriads in our galaxy alone, let alone the trillion other galaxies in our rationally infinitesimal universe in the middle of eternities of them cognitively benefit from our minority unquantifiably subjective experience?

Can you join up the dots please?

You seem to be assuming that the direct effect of the incarnation is limited to our subjective experience - are you? If so, why?

And how would the number of other populated planets make any difference, whether it's one or a whole bunch?

In Christ, God created a new way to relate to us and for us to relate to God. As long as that applies to all of creation, the incarnation is a cosmological event rather than a local one, and a single instance is sufficient.

Subjectively, I'd say it's going very well for me and for humanity - we are free to choose our relationship with God, and God seems to be managing to convince us collectively to slowly improve things over time. How would you say it's going?

If you'd like me to join up more dots than that, you'll have to fill me in on what they are. Otherwise, I don't understand enough about your point of view to explain my own to you.

Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :

quote:
Originally posted by W Hyatt:

quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:

quote:
Originally posted by W Hyatt:
[qb] An upgrade from a connection to God mediated by angels to a connection that is direct, immediate, and personal.
How's that going for you? For humanity? And how would the teeming sapient species, reasonably myriads in our galaxy alone, let alone the trillion other galaxies in our rationally infinitesimal universe in the middle of eternities of them cognitively benefit from our minority unquantifiably subjective experience?

Can you join up the dots please?
You seem to be assuming that the direct effect of the incarnation is limited to our subjective experience - are you? If so, why?

What else is there? That's an open question.

quote:

And how would the number of other populated planets make any difference, whether it's one or a whole bunch?

To what? Apart from to their minority subjective experience.

quote:

In Christ, God created a new way to relate to us and for us to relate to God. As long as that applies to all of creation, the incarnation is a cosmological event rather than a local one, and a single instance is sufficient.

So, those that transcended in a galaxy an infinity far away in a universe an eternity ago were saved in our bloke Jesus? And those that will be transcended in a galaxy an infinity far away in a universe an eternity to come?

quote:

Subjectively, I'd say it's going very well for me and for humanity - we are free to choose our relationship with God, and God seems to be managing to convince us collectively to slowly improve things over time. How would you say it's going?

I'm glad it's going very well uniquely for you. And that it's going very well for Syria and Iraq and the Yemen and Las Vegas and Nigeria and Mexico and Russia and India and China and Pakistan and Indonesia and the UK and Catalonia and Spain for their choices. Soon it couldn't go better for the DPRK and USA due to their choices I'm sure.

quote:

If you'd like me to join up more dots than that, you'll have to fill me in on what they are. Otherwise, I don't understand enough about your point of view to explain my own to you.

No you couldn't.

Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :

Oooh, and another thing, while we're dealing with there being the utter strangeness of one off random members of a set without the rest of the set ever existing, much like a single Wellington boot being the only footwear ever, how does this subjective, minority new way that we have obtain for the practically infinite species that had no incarnation?

Can you join up those dots please? Or have I risibly misunderstood and in fact couldn't possibly understand? Like you have to be born Roman Catholic to know that God is rationally obvious from creation?

[ 07. October 2017, 11:53: Message edited by: Martin60 ]

Posted by W Hyatt (# 14250) on :

So what do you make of the idea of the Resurrection - is Jesus of Nazareth dead and gone? Or he is alive and well? Where is he? Is he constrained to the planet he was born on, still subject to the laws of physics?

Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :

quote:
Originally posted by W Hyatt:
So what do you make of the idea of the Resurrection - is Jesus of Nazareth dead and gone? Or he is alive and well? Where is he? Is he constrained to the planet he was born on, still subject to the laws of physics?

Excellent questions with no answers. We’ll each find out, one way or another, when we die.

Posted by rolyn (# 16840) on :

quote:
Originally posted by W Hyatt:
So what do you make of the idea of the Resurrection - is Jesus of Nazareth dead and gone? Or he is alive and well? Where is he? Is he constrained to the planet he was born on, still subject to the laws of physics?

Pretty much down to what we believe, because believing isn’t thinking.
If it was the whole Jesus thing wouldn’t work, well not for me anyway.

Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:

quote:
Originally posted by W Hyatt:
So what do you make of the idea of the Resurrection - is Jesus of Nazareth dead and gone? Or he is alive and well? Where is he? Is he constrained to the planet he was born on, still subject to the laws of physics?
Excellent questions with no answers. We’ll each find out, one way or another, when we die.

Of course there are answers. There have been at least since the Church Fathers, like Origen and of course one can see the same answers, which are in the questions, the reaching out, the yearning, of Job, David, Jesus, John, Paul.

The questions automatically, existentially generate the answers, as they have from Augustine through Aquinas and Pascal to Kierkegaard, Barth, Tillich.

W Hyatt wouldn't be asking his latest ones unless he'd already been confronted by the answers in and to the question of the OP.

Saying we don't know is like saying we don't do politics. We choose not to know. The answers stare us in the face. Like the need for universal social justice. And we all have to look away to one degree or another.

Jesus of Nazareth ascended to the Father. At whose right hand He sits. The physics is only in the metaphors.

On the second planet of star HD 138573 in Serpens evolution did its work over a billion years earlier than here. It wasn't Jesus of Nazareth that ascended to the Father there. That idea might have been radical when C.S. Lewis began to explore it over 70 years ago, how can it be now?

quote:
"The supposed threat is clearly directed against the doctrine of the Incarnation, the belief that God of God "for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven and was ... made man. Why for us men more than others? If we find ourselves to be but one among a million races, scattered through a million spheres, how can we, without absurd arrogance, believe ourselves to have been uniquely favored?"

"Religion and Rocketry" from The World's Last Night, 1958

a necessary development, in the light of rapidly developing cosmology in the person of Fred Hoyle, on from his 1943 Perelandra,

quote:
...if he were not the ransom, Another would be. Yet nothing was ever repeated. Not a second crucifixion: perhaps - who knows - not even a second Incarnation... some act of even more appalling love, some glory of yet deeper humility. For he had seen already how the pattern grows... the small external evil which Satan had done in Malacandra was only as a line: the deeper evil he had done in Earth was as a square: if Venus fell, her evil would be a cube - her Redemption beyond conceiving.

I can't be arissed at this point to drill down what Jack 'concluded' in the turbulent stream, but he was well aware of the 'problem'.

And yes, I do think God has to be local. Everywhere. It's called immanence isn't it? Fractally, perichoretically, transcendentally so. I don't think my sore foot features in all of His grounding. Nor two hundred thousand years of humanity.

We infinitely understate Him. And infinitely overstate ourselves.

[ 08. October 2017, 10:51: Message edited by: Martin60 ]

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