The End of the Universe

"
The definition of what is considered "Evil" otherwise may differ according to point of view. In the Western world, some philosophers reject the idea of evil. Plato, for example, argued that that which we call Evil is merely ignorance and that which we call good is merely that which everyone desires. Those who assert a more universal code of ethics view Plato's definition as one based merely on situation and based on ethics or values.
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From Wikipedia

If there was a God as you believe and if had created everything and represents good, why does he have to fight anyway. Its almost like, if i'm root and i have a virus in my box that tries to corrupt files, why would i just let mr.virus run free. I would zap it with my celestial powers ( i.e #rm -f devil.virus ) ;-)!.

I do not believe in "innate evil" as that implies predestination.

Just as people are born with physical defects, people are born with mental defects. Some of these are incapable of distinguishing between good or bad (as defined by their social majority).

Most of these people never get into a position for this to be a particular problem. Others need a trigger (Brady & Hindley or the boys in the Bolger case) such as someone with a similar psychological defect.

Others chose the dark side.............for political or monetary reasons?

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And don't you think that's happening?
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Are you referring to George Bush ? ;-)

Our creator (insert the title for your personal belief here) gave us the capability of reasoning right from wrong. We were also given the power to act on one or the other.

If you get a group of people that have synergy, the collective good or evil will be huge. If you have good people that are willing to do nothing about the evil then the collective evil will become even larger.

The concept of a "devil" gives people to easy an excuse to justify their own evil. "It was too much temptation" "The devil made me do it" etc, etc etc

Humans don't need a "devil" to do wrong, we are quite capable of doing it on our own.

PacketThurst, Wikipedia is not the ultimate in defining anything, it's just somebody else's opinion.

Your second point is a very deep question and it requires - well - possibly more than this thread would tolerate to go down such a road. Briefly though, I'm challenged all the time with this sort of thing. "If there was a God, why did he allow all these wars, why did he not stop a tsunami from killing thousands of people, and why did he make the mosquito?"

Briefly, where's the evidence that "God" did these things? A lot of the disasters that befall us are of our own making, since we were given free will and haven't always used it wisely. Secondly, you're assuming God is in control and I've already given my views on that.

And thirdly, people have to be given the chance to make mistakes before they can come to believe that there is one way to follow. Let me give an example. Suppose a teacher has a pupil who thinks they can solve a mathematical problem better than the way the teacher is showing them. What would a good teacher do? Tell the pupil to shut up and do it his way? Or allow that pupil to demonstrate his beliefs and attempt to do it his way? Only by doing that could the rest of the class be confident that the teacher was the one with the knowledge, the one in control. (Of course this assumes the teacher's knowledge and methods are sound!)

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The concept of a "devil" gives people to easy an excuse to justify their own evil. "It was too much temptation" "The devil made me do it" etc, etc etc

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Like I said before, his great masterstroke was to convince the world he doesn't exist. So his insidious evil influence continues because nobody acknowledges it for what it is.

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PacketThurst, Wikipedia is not the ultimate in defining anything, it's just somebody else's opinion.
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i just took a portion of wikipedia's description of "evil" which conformed to my view. I was feeling too lazy, thats all. Infact, the wikipedia description contains your view too.


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Your second point is a very deep question and it requires - well - possibly more than this thread would tolerate to go down such a road. Briefly though, I'm challenged all the time with this sort of thing. "If there was a God, why did he allow all these wars, why did he not stop a tsunami from killing thousands of people, and why did he make the mosquito?"

Briefly, where's the evidence that "God" did these things? A lot of the disasters that befall us are of our own making, since we were given free will and haven't always used it wisely. Secondly, you're assuming God is in control and I've already given my views on that.
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I never said God did these things. You say that he's given people free will. But what about the innocent children that suffer in the world. Is it because of their actions out of free will that led them to suffering ?


Your third point makes no sense when you compare it with God. What does God want us to learn anyway?. As i told earlier, God is just an "idea". Its a funny thing to see that in all the major religions, you can win the support of God by just praising him. C'mon if he really is the creator, why should he be such so childish ?. Religions are so full of contradictions. For example, the old testament talks about not having sex with anyone related to you by blood. I wonder how Adam,Eve and their offsprings managed to create an another generation !.



Now, the Devil is God's making. God=root, devil=luser . So if the devil is running free, it must be God's plan. So respect Devil ;-) ...

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Originally Posted by PacketThirst

I never said God did these things. You say that he's given people free will. But what about the innocent children that suffer in the world. Is it because of their actions out of free will that led them to suffering ?

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No, it's due to the evil influence of the Devil who you refuse to acknowlege :), instead heaping the blame on God.

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Your third point makes no sense when you compare it with God. What does God want us to learn anyway?.

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God wants us to learn to do his will .... and one day live in a paradise world. But I'm not really expecting my point to make much sense unless someone is prepared to go into it a lot more, and by implication, actually study what's in the bible, which I accept is a bit much here.

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Now, the Devil is God's making. God=root, devil=luser . So if the devil is running free, it must be God's plan. So respect Devil ;-) ...

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I don't follow why it must be God's plan, but yes respect forces of evil, or the devil, whatever you want to call it because it's a powerful force capable of destroying the world. I concede God is allowing it to happen, allowing "free reign" until Armageddon ... but you're drawing me into stuff I never meant to get into.

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No, it's due to the evil influence of the Devil who you refuse to acknowlege , instead heaping the blame on God.
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You are not getting my point. If God represented virtues, he would protect the innocent. How many infants and children have died terrible deaths?. They didn't even get a chance to use their "free will". Will they reach heaven according to your beliefs?.


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God wants us to learn to do his will .... and one day live in a paradise world
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So thats what its all about...eh ?. A place where there is no pain and where you can do all the things that you ever wanted to do. Doesn't that concept suck ?. What's the fun in being happy all the time?. If you believe that paradise really exists, why my friend do you try so hard in life?. The fact that youv'e joined AO itself shows that you want to learn and become a better geek in life. What's the point ?. If i believed in paradise, i would just go around slacking and sleeping.


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Religions are so full of contradictions. For example, the old testament talks about not having sex with anyone related to you by blood. I wonder how Adam,Eve and their offsprings managed to create an another generation !.
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How would you explain this one ?

moira: I'd really recommend you to try meditating sometime. It opens up a new sense of awareness in you. I've heard people around me (who are Christians to the core) say that meditation is evil and satanic. I hope your views are not similar to theirs. Besides, isn't it fun to try something new?. I assure you that if you do it right, you'll be able to think out of the box !

PacketThirst,

I can only speak from a Roman Catholic viewpoint, personally, but meditation is core to Christianity.

What do Monks and Nuns do (as in religious orders)?????

"Meditation" is actually a methodology rather than a doctrine, faith, belief, or whatever??

For us ordinary types we have "retreats", which is where you take a few days out to contemplate spiritual things, and "missions" where a few experts come in and you devote a couple of hours to religious matters each day.

The only problem that I could see would be if people mistook the means (meditation) for the end (spirituality)?

Just my thoughts :halo:

Nihil: meditation is ofcourse the means. But the kind of meditation that happens in religions is quite different... The sole purpose of religious meditation is to please God. But true meditation has no purpose other than to tune oneself into actual reality.

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Originally Posted by PacketThirst

You are not getting my point. If God represented virtues, he would protect the innocent. How many infants and children have died terrible deaths?. They didn't even get a chance to use their "free will". Will they reach heaven according to your beliefs?.

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No, you're not getting my point. I've already tried to explain why a) terrible wickedness happens on this earth and b) tried to get you to check your assumptions that God is in a position to do something about the evil that exists at this moment, or indeed that it would be in his interests to do so.

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Originally Posted by PacketThirst

God wants us to learn to do his will .... and one day live in a paradise world

So thats what its all about...eh ?. A place where there is no pain and where you can do all the things that you ever wanted to do. Doesn't that concept suck ?. What's the fun in being happy all the time?. If you believe that paradise really exists, why my friend do you try so hard in life?.

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So your idea of paradise is slacking and sleeping, lol? Well, it isn't mine! I'd like a world where we didn't have wars, disease, poverty and this "me, me, me" culture! This desire for instant gratification and damn the consequences and damn everybody else is not a nice world to live in, but believing what I do, it isn't surprising that it's happening now either.

So you embrace the idea of illness and getting old and sick and dying. I don't. I don't want to die, I'm frightened of dying and I personally don't believe anyone who says different.

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Religions are so full of contradictions. For example, the old testament talks about not having sex with anyone related to you by blood. I wonder how Adam,Eve and their offsprings managed to create an another generation !

How would you explain this one ?

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I'd have to look at what you were quoting from the Old Testament, PacketThirst. To be honest, I think this discussion has just about gone as far as it can go without diving off at a complete tangent. It's great to find someone at least open to thoughts and suggestions and concepts that most people are sadly closed off to. They don't have any interest or wonderment and awe at the mindbloggling questions that I think we should all be asking. But I seriously question how much more we're going to achieve here before it develops into an off topic flame war.

and now for something completely different, a man with three buttocks.

Moira: I am not you and obviously my concept of heaven is totally different from yours. My concept of heaven is living with my girl and a pc (with Internet ofcourse) on a nice little cottage at a river side. You sound like a beauty pageant finalist when you talk about heaven...lol !. I do agree that we are deviating from the point here. Thank you for your compliments about my open thoughts. Now if God really exists, let him shower you with all blessings and shove a pine tree up my buttocks for my ignorance.

greygnome: Interesting to hear that gnome's have three buttocks. Are they grey too?

Hmmmm?

Three buttocked gnomes?

Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and George Bush

There are your three buttocks?

:D:cool:

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Originally Posted by Moira

Exactly nihil. And dmorgan, by definition if something "starts" it has to "finish". Think about it - and not just in terms of the universe. Show me one single thing that starts and doesn't finish.

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Energizer Bunny.

From the looks of things this thread LOL

light? Time? energy? The powers of your diety of choice? Or is it like what happens when an unstopplable object meets an unmovable object? That lazer on Real Genius? The Street Fighter series?

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Originally Posted by fourdc

From the looks of things this thread LOL

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LOL. PacketThirst, am I right in assuming your heaven wouldn't include mothers in law? :)

OK, your question about incest being expressly forbidden by God (in the Mosaic law, roughly 1500 BCE) and the seeming contradiction that for man to multiply then "incest" must have been commonplace when man first inhabited the earth.

I'm assuming your Old Testament reading was Leviticus, verse 18? Anyway, I'm not arguing with the reference. Nor can you deny that Cain married one of his sisters and Abram (In Genesis) married his half sister. Clearly, if man's purpose on the earth was to multiply then this sort of thing had to happen.

I'm not expecting you to accept what I say now, this is just what I believe (and others who interpret the Bible in a like minded way and have faith in it) and I'm sorry if it's hard to swallow. Man was created free from sin, and in a sinless world, there would be no problem with multiplying from other perfect men and women. However, as everyone knows the story, Eve ate from the forbidden fruit and Adam followed suit and they became tainted with sin and evil crept into mankind. Even after this event, we were not such an imperfect race that sexual relations between close relatives would have caused the genetic problems that inbreeding now does.

However, in Leviticus God told Moses that incestuous relationships were forbidden, and indeed religious or not, most people accept that today it would be wrong from the genetic point of view if nothing else.

So the answer to your question in a nutshell is, yes relationships with family members were fine in the days following Adam and Eve, but that was not the case post Mosaic law.

And PacketThirst, you're clearly not ignorant! I'm not so bigotted that I diss anyone who happens not to agree with me :) in fact it's refreshing to come across people who are willing to question our origins and purpose in the universe, the worst kind of people are those too apathetic to even care. FYI, your idea of heaven sounds not too far removed from mine, I'd have my computer and the internet there certainly :)

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Originally Posted by PacketThirst

Nihil: meditation is ofcourse the means. But the kind of meditation that happens in religions is quite different... The sole purpose of religious meditation is to please God. But true meditation has no purpose other than to tune oneself into actual reality.

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Actually I think that you mean prayer and contemplation. Meditation is a means to self awareness in my book.

:)

Ok u say end of the universe exists. But dont u think that the scientists claim universe to be oval and weigh around 10^55-10^57. so i think enbd of an oval shaped thing????????? If u can give us the link so that we can clear our doubts.

I still think that it boils down to terminology. Unfortunately a lot of our media can be quite inaccurate when describing scientific concepts.

I believe that they are actually referring to the perimeter of the Universe.

As far as I am aware, we have no instrumentation capable of detecting such a thing, so I suspect that it is some sort of clever mathematical extrapolation?

In most of the literature I have read, the "end" of the Universe generally refers to its "death" :)

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Originally Posted by nihil

In most of the literature I have read, the "end" of the Universe generally refers to its "death" :)

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But there is a much nicer restaurant at the "other end" of the universe...:thumbsup: going my way....

Hi...



Considering the Universe is expanding faster than the speed of light we have no known way to ever observe it based on current understanding. But I hear there is a nice restaurant at the end.

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I repeat, show me something in life that starts but doesn't end. By giving an event a start, by definition you're making it finite.

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Recycle is an ugly word when applied to a being. Let me explain. If I am born, I am beginning my adventure using particles that were created during the so called Big Bangerama. As Carl Sagan put it, we are all "star stuff". When you observe my passing you formulate an end of my life - a closure. But I do not wink from existence. I decay and oddly enough some of my particles go into the soil and plant matter surrounding me. Another rabbit could eat the carrot that absorbed my nutritive energy and a fox could eat Mr. Winkles the rabbit. Passing part of him to her offspring.

If the fox is not quick enough, Mr. Winkles may wonder into a yard one day and become stew for a young pregnant woman. A stew containing billions upon billion of particles from an almost infinite source. And the child inside her takes those building blocks to create a new sentient being. There is no end. There is no beginning but one. One that is, we can observe. And our reality has base in what we detect or predict.

There are solid theories for example that predict, through observation and mathematics, that there is no end to our solitary universe. But either prediction, closed universe or infinite universe spells d.i.s.a.s.t.e.r.

On one end we retract to the beginning and die. One would assume time, a dimension of a continuum may reverse? Perhaps causing another Big Bowling Alley of another reality and another perception of time. On the other end, particles continue to drift apart in all directions eventually ceasing to exist through observation. That is; we get so far apart we can no longer see anything but emptiness. A black void with no observable cues to contemplate reality outside of thought.

This discussion took a turn but I focused on the idea of it's original intent.

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I'm not expecting you to accept what I say now, this is just what I believe (and others who interpret the Bible in a like minded way and have faith in it) and I'm sorry if it's hard to swallow. Man was created free from sin, and in a sinless world, there would be no problem with multiplying from other perfect men and women. However, as everyone knows the story, Eve ate from the forbidden fruit and Adam followed suit and they became tainted with sin and evil crept into mankind. Even after this event, we were not such an imperfect race that sexual relations between close relatives would have caused the genetic problems that inbreeding now does.

However, in Leviticus God told Moses that incestuous relationships were forbidden, and indeed religious or not, most people accept that today it would be wrong from the genetic point of view if nothing else.

So the answer to your question in a nutshell is, yes relationships with family members were fine in the days following Adam and Eve, but that was not the case post Mosaic law.

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Good thing God changed his mind !. And yeah... no "in laws" in heaven !

Nihil: Hmm ... yeah its self awareness. Its when you realize that there is no difference between the self and everything else. I really don't know the way they teach meditation in Churches. I guessed it would involve pleasing God. After all, Isn't Christianity all about pleasing God and getting a free trip to heaven ? :-)

OK PacketThirst, I will attempt to explain. You average (non-cleric/minister) Christian will indulge in:

1. Private prayers.
2. Family prayers.
3. Collective prayers. This is usually in a church or chapel with other members of the congregation. Although there are "prayer groups" as well.
4. Contemplation. This involves reading the scriptures, theological works, the lives of the saints and so on. In this category I would also put bible study groups, retreats and missions.

Actual meditation one would only expect to be "taught" in monasteries and training establishments for clerics. From my limited discussions with people of far eastern religions it is very similar. It is about bettering self awareness, rather than pleasing God. After all, the Bhuddists don't even have a clear concept of an all powerful deity? They do not seem to consider it to be that important.

Christians are supposed to please God by the way they live their lives.

Christianity seems more focused on sin. And the absolvation of it. Is that even a word? ;) We are all born with sin and only through salvation and acceptance of god, not necessarily pleasing him, do we achieve enlightenment.

Islam and the revelation of Muha'ahamed (my own spelling) are more about pleasing god. It seems also the old testament and teaching of Moses was about pleasing god. Doing things to earn favor.

Hi RoadClosed I think that the word you were looking for is "absolution" (forgiveness).

I do agree that there is a similarity between the Prophets Mohammed and Moses. They were both lawgivers. Jesus on the other hand, was following on after Moses, so had a different message.

Christians go to a shop and buy a Bible, that contains the Old Testament and New Testament.

To find the Islamic equivalents of the later teaching you have to look around a bit. After the Holy Qu'ran itself, I believe that the next most authentic sources of Islam are the Hadith of Al-Bukhari and Al-Moslem. There are numerous other Hadith and many theology books. I even have one on Islamic economics and banking ;)

Well Muha'Ahamed was also following on after Moses. And after Christ. At it's most simplistic. God had many prophets but only Muha'Ahamed kept the true word and thus no more were necessary. Big Mo gets the last word. ;)

He even stated that Moses and Jesus where great prophets but the word was lost over time. So god tried again by contacting Mohammed, who is never more than a mortal man. Thus their is not church or formal structure of a congregation like Christianity. The Quran doesn't say as much compared to other books like the gospels. So it's the Hadith and other writings that make up most of modern Islam using the Quran as a guide. And these writing were witness testimony to what others heard Big MO say. Or direct witness of his actions. When someone says their father told his father that he saw muha'ahamed ... walk to a lake and pray..., they have tried their best to track the entire chain of knowledge. Scoring each one for validity. That is kind of what the Hadith is. Since Mo was "pure" meaning god would not talk to an unclean being, it is then the desire of Islam to imitate him and his actions.

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Originally Posted by tapu

Ok u say end of the universe exists. But dont u think that the scientists claim universe to be oval and weigh around 10^55-10^57. so i think enbd of an oval shaped thing????????? If u can give us the link so that we can clear our doubts.

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I'm trying to find this link as we speak ... ah, here's something:

http://www.space.com/scienceastronom...ay_040524.html

I think nihil raised a good point when he said that we may all have different ideas as to what the "end" implies. Do we mean perimeter, or end as in time?

I know the "free trip to heaven" was meant in a frivolous way, but I believe that it can have benefits here and now. Basically, if you live by the ten commandments in life, you don't go far wrong. I'm not saying I do, I hasten to add :) but I'd rather be surrounded by pleasantness if possible.

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Do we mean perimeter, or end as in time?

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Those cannot be separated. The end of time signifies the boundary of the perimeter and the permiter signifies the end of time. Time is dimension of space and with no permiter there is no advance of space, thus no time.

Okay, here is the Straight dope on the big guy, well the little guy anyway's;)

Levity is alway's welcome in any universe...:D

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I'm trying to find this link as we speak ... ah, here's something:

http://www.space.com/scienceastronom...ay_040524.html

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That is a very interesting article. Have to admit I don't understand the whole detailed picture of how they came up with the number that the universe could be 156 Billion light years wide. I get the basis of it however like most of what we know about the universe it comes from extrapolating data from peering into the past via background radiation and perceived expansion rate today.

It is also interesting that according to the author's observation of cosmic background microwaves, there is no evidence of a finite universe as predicted. It doesn't rule out a finite universe, it just adds more support to an infinite universe. Given that the universe is only about 13 billion years old and light from the big bang is already 78 billion light years from our position, and given that recent observations of galaxies indicate another accelerated expansion, I lean toward infinite.

At any rate, according to our perception and our perception a billion years from now, any theory is infinite.

The concept that we know as "time" is simply a product of the big bang. Much as electro-magnetism and gravity.

I am not quite sure where you got this information on American researchers finding the "end of the universe"
Can you give more details on this or perhaps cite a source?

Hi

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The concept that we know as "time" is simply a product of the big bang. Much as electro-magnetism and gravity.

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Now, that's an ...interesting claim. Could you elaborate on this?

Translated to an illustration, this claim corresponds to the following:
"The concept of 'longitude' (having in mind a GPS) is a product of a car.
Much as the internal working of a combustion engine and the abrasion
of the tire."

RoadClosed, this is for you :)

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Considering the Universe is expanding faster than the speed of light

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...how the universe could possibly expand faster than the speed of light?

Cheers :D

time is not a part of reality. It is just an idea that we have come up with. Time is the product of human beings not the big bang !

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time is not a part of reality. It is just an idea that we have come up with. Time is the product of human beings not the big bang !

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Every thing is a product of reality through human observation. Including time. Time does not exist by itself. It exists in relation to 3 dimensional space. It is a dimension of a single continuum. Something we humans call space time.

Time as we make it started with the big bang. If we cease to exist tomorrow, time will still exist to an observer somewhere else. Not to us. Not to our reality but that does not mean it ceases to exist. Time was here before man. Man named it.

Whoah sorry for the double post didn't see the other posts.

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The concept that we know as "time" is simply a product of the big bang. Much as electro-magnetism and gravity.

I am not quite sure where you got this information on American researchers finding the "end of the universe"
Can you give more details on this or perhaps cite a source?

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Yes time is a product of the big bang. It is influenced by gravity "force" in classical physics. In fact one could say the opposite and be more accurate. Gravity is but a curvature of space and with that time. Without space or time there could be no gravity. Moira cited the source a few post back.

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...how the universe could possibly expand faster than the speed of light?

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The answer is literally under your nose and in between your atoms.... space.

And the expansion of it's emptiness. Space (not the normal view of space as a medium for space pirates, klingons and the Final Fontier) expands faster than light. Many times faster. And the limitations on the general and special theories of relativity are related to a local observation or frame of reference. So galaxies can "move" away from us at slow local speeds but appear to be moving faster than light because the space in between us is expanding much "faster" than light.

We will reach a point where the distance of a object is further than the time light can take to burn an image in our retinas. And it will cease to exist in our frame of reference and thus our reality. Even though we will know it was there ... and IS there as long as someone can remember. We would only guess as to where it could be however so we cannot know for sure and thus have no concrete reality of it's whereabouts.

//EDIT ... and that was a provoked question ;)

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Originally Posted by PacketThirst

time is not a part of reality. It is just an idea that we have come up with. Time is the product of human beings not the big bang !

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Exactly. And I'd be interested to know the theory behind the universe expanding at a rate faster than the speed of light. Surely matter can only travel at the speed of light, or it's defying basic physics?

It is not the matter moving at the speed of light. It is the space between them. Man didn't dream up time. He only became aware of it. As he became aware of depth or length. But I would't argue that it couldn't be a way for man to visualize or observe what is happening in his reality. Before Einstein man was only aware of the idea of a logical mechanical universe. The theory of relativity changed man's "reality" into on of relative terms. Terms that included time as not just a perception of passing but of dimension that influences reality.

The cup on your desk is not stationary. It is in a constant state of acceleration. It has dimension to you and dimension to space and time. And you frame of reference to the cup is the only one that matters you you although you are influenced my the particles that make up it's existance, the people that decided it was a cup and the notion from those who told.