A bunch of that stuff you just made up in your head, or it's from a version of Christianity I've never seen, but it's not in the bible.

Why do you have Christian in your nickname if you know little to nothing about the religion, is it supposed to be ironic?

Okay, we're done here.

You're copy-pasting things you don't even understand.

Your comment about this physicist is based on either insufficient knowledge or intentional deception. He won a singular Nobel Prize prior to becoming involved in parapsychology--a study on behalf of which he's lost credibility.

Transcendental meditation is not physics, and the man hasn't proven anything except maybe that he's mellow. I don't know, I'd have to meet him to know that. Either way, I believe particles can be further broken down into energy and empty space and that all things are made of variations of these, but that's only what has been observed by someone who isn't me, calculated or speculated from behind a veil of senses--none of it is "real". "Particle" is just a name given to an object that appears a certain way. "Particle" is just a word made from symbols. It's all semantics.

Honestly, I take all invisible things with a pinch of salt until they demonstrate potential to cause massive loss of life. Calling things "particles" has also led to saving lives. Maybe they'll be called something else some day.

If there's ever a scientific explanation for "psychic phenomena", then its "natural", not "supernatural".

all of this data comes to me by way of a world class physicist who has taken back several Nobel prizes. He's proven that there is no such thing as particles. So, there can be no question of the scientific validity of each of his statements. — Daniel Cox

At a moment when I felt I was due for some hysterical laughter, I appreciate this, sincerely. Please feel free to share this super-genius Nobel physicist's name so I can look him up in relation to psychic experimentation over the last 150 years.

Never mind, I found him.

Not sure what that test is or how it relates, it's chance and not evidence of anything "supernatural". I've had "precognitive" dreams, I've been exposed to "psychic phenomena", I've lived in "haunted" houses, I've witnessed "alternate realities"--I've personally experienced what some people would call "supernatural" or "psychic". I have no reason to deny that inexplicable things happen. That something is inexplicable doesn't mean that it's "supernatural", and correlation isn't reliable "proof".

If I was inclined to believe that rolling dice were scientific evidence of "supernatural", after seeing things that don't exist or dreaming details of future events, then we would be having a very different conversation.

Prove me wrong. I am open to conviction. — lucafrei

You made the outlandish claims, so the burden of proof is on you. Present statistics to demonstrate the validity of your claims about poverty and national isolation, rising homelessness and GDP, to show how wealth inequality has adverse effects on lower classes in the West, to prove that humans no longer have a capacity for empathy, to explain how socialism and intersectional feminism which are intended to focus on compassion are helping solve inequality.

I don't need to attempt to prove anything wrong if nothing's been evidenced.

Okay, I get it, so you're saying primitive humans pondered math and music in their mothers' wombs while a voice called to them from beyond reality.

Music and mathematics are learned, not "innate". Passion is not controlled by education or hard times or soul-sucking labour. It actually seems to thrive under harsh conditions. A "greater purpose" implies intrinsic meaning. There is no "spiritual", and again humans are more bacteria than human.

So, is the God referred to in the Bible a distinct deity or a montage of multiple deities? — BrianW

It's intended to be one God, but each writer of course explains things in a way that is relevant to him, reflecting changes in culture and style, which results in sometimes drastic variation of the facets of God that are focused on. The book was written over quite a span--several hundred years, many changes in scholarship and leadership.

The Christian bible is limited in comparison to the Jewish texts and the translation is a source of some controversy. Also, there's the trinity, which adds further dynamics.

Could it mean there are different Gods in the Bible? — BrianW

It's been demonstrated through scholarship and archaeology, with use of the bible as a reference, that the bible came from a polytheistic culture that clung to relics of Canaanite gods for some time prior to its monotheism.

The bible implies numerous times that God is different for each person and that it's between each person and God to define the relationship, which seems to be a large part of its appeal. It's intended to be the same God throughout though.

I'm not sure where you're going with that last comment.

But the Power in Passion and Imagination that they are compulsions only furthers my point that they are innate and what we are destined to do. — Despues Green

Compulsions can be controlled, and they don't necessitate "design". That something feels good doesn't necessarily add or subtract meaning from life, especially intrinsic meaning, which would be objective and would persist regardless of the existence of humans as a species or each human as an individual. Objective meaning would also apply to all matter.

What makes you say I don't care about life? There doesn't have to be an intrinsic reason for my existence in order for me to "care about life". Humans are only alive because they're inhabited by bacteria. Without those bacteria, we wouldn't exist. So if bacteria gave us life and sustain it, then what makes us more incredible than bacteria? And if bacteria were harnessing the "powers of the universe" long before humans, and they harnessed the "powers of the universe" in order to evolve humans and other organisms, then aren't they more incredible than humans? Humans aren't capable of harnessing anything to nearly that extent. If you want to talk about harnessing power, let's talk about becoming life for maybe the first time ever, probably not, and then desperately surviving hot acidic water for four billion years before giving rise to mutations that eventually led to organisms that could harness wind power. That's power and resilience right there.

We are each a few circumstances away from exhibiting the "Great Evil" you're laying at the feet of others. Earth will not be okay if it's struck by a celestial object it can't withstand. Earth will not be okay if the sun dies, and it will not be okay if its axis shifts too much or if its magnetic field is depleted--unless okay includes being a floating piece of rock with nothing on it.

I'm curious as to what you think the "powers of the universe" are? Not much needs to go wrong for us to go "poof" and become a memory of a speck of dust with no one around to remember it. We're very small-scale here.

So you're saying that because we perceive something as being vast, it can't be a simulation? That's not a very strong argument at all.

How many particles in the observable universe? 3.28 x 10^80. No computer could manage the computations. — Devans99

So you think Bill Gates is running this simulation in his garage circa 1980-something? "Check this out guys, I'm simulating a model of the entire universe, every particle and living organism in existence, for my next trick I'm going to create Windows 3.0"?

I do believe there is overwhelming evidence that we are not living in a simulation. — Devans99

That's what someone living in a simulation would say.

There is compelling evidence that "reality" is something other than what we sense. We're talking about two different things here: reality as what we sense, and reality as what is.

I see that Humans have a very broad and powerful purpose, which is to harness the power of the Universe as a resource. — Despues Green

Bacteria did that for billions of years before humans existed. Our lives depend on bacteria, so we're effectively doing so on their behalf. If we reach other locations in the universe, bacteria will reach them also. There's nothing morbid about what I'm saying unless you disregard all that we're able to valuate between birth and death. Just because I believe life is intrinsically meaningless doesn't mean I believe it's practically meaningless. I derive meaning continually.

Our motivations are our individual Passions and Imaginations and thus they should be nurtured. — Despues Green

"Passions and imaginations" are not motivators, they're compulsions. A motivator would be the thing that moves you toward a compulsion. It's also the thing that moves you toward nurturing.

Nothing is real? Even if we were in a simulation, there would be (maybe) system time and base reality time and both would have a start and be in some sense real. — Devans99

Nothing is real in the sense that our only basis for description is what our senses detect. In order for our senses to detect anything, a series of processes need to occur beyond our control or comprehension. The continuation of those processes relies on organisms, energies and substances independent from us, and even with instruments to detect these, they're still estranged from our senses. These organisms, energies and substances exist in variations in all organisms. We exist externally to them.

We perceive "reality" differently from other organisms. For example, dogs hear frequencies of sound that we require instruments to detect, yet dogs can't detect or understand the results of our instruments, and even if they could, they'd detect them differently from how we do. Cats appear to use their eyes to track things invisible to us. If what we perceive is consistently navigated and utilized, but not consistently perceived, by all living organisms, then it's safe to say that each organism's perception is an illusion, or a translation, or a mistranslation.

It isn't safe to say that we're the only organism to see "reality" as it "really is". It must be something other than what is perceived by any singular organism unless we're going to assume that one organism out of trillions is able to perceive "correctly" while all organisms appear to navigate and utilize "reality" consistently.

I'm unclear as to how the film analogy fits, it's analogous to "an act of not acting" or "an instance of nothing happening".

What makes us "real" is a projection self-awareness onto our environment, an environment which is comprised of data and includes our bodies. In short, we're not "real".

Being convinced of internal and external realities is dependent on data input and filtration through a mechanism which is in turn entirely dependent on microorganisms for its function. We are incapable of survival without these microorganisms, and they constitute a greater portion of our mass than that which we consider to be "our own living tissue". The remainder of our mass is an instruction set which is separate from the instruction set of these other organisms. This has continued without our knowledge for some 99.9% of our history, and even though technology has demonstrated its occurrence, and we have "knowledge" of it, we act as if we're unaware of it.

In essence, we have been formed by mortal instruction sets for the utility of replicating new instruction sets which are not dependent on mortality in order to function. The things we perceive as "time and space" are inseparable and a requirement of this process because without them there's no death, and without death there's no motivation. Self-awareness has potential to remove the requirement of mortality by motivating non-organic consciousness toward data acquisition.

Self-awareness is conceivably the only way to compile such "complex" instructions. It's the reason we're walking a thin line between immortality and extinction. It's the reason we conceive of things greater than ourselves while mimicking things lesser than ourselves. It's volatile.

The original post is hazy as to what it's asking or asserting. My point is that nothing is "real", and the "length of now" is a variable, a potentiality, it depends on whether what we perceive as "reality" is finite or infinite.

Now I know that I was correct in the first place, but I knew that while it was happening.

I paid close attention to your comment and to my response. I guess I didn't realize you had the meaning of life in your back pocket, you could have made that known sooner. Us feeble minds have to really have things spelled out for us, perhaps some tutoring, or a cheat sheet for the final exam you've invented.

there's no good reason to believe that God exists — S

That reasons are reaching an expiry date doesn't mean they were never "good reasons" or didn't serve a purpose.

Perception of "free will" is an evolutionary device instrumental in our progress toward nonorganic replication. Since we became self-aware, much of our focus has been on prolonging our lives artificially and making imitations of ourselves that won't expire. It's strange that we would treat "free will" as internal but "gods" as external. It's strange that we would spend so long forcing mystery incrementally onto ourselves before forcibly removing it incrementally from ourselves and our environment, and we still believe we're free-willed.

In the model I presented, it's possible that everything is happening presently, no past or future. The movement of time and space is perceived by organisms but never moves overall in an infinite reality.

I didn't say it was anchored "at infinity", I said its anchor "is its infinity".

Another possibility without "first cause" or "first mover" is a complex algorithm, a simulation. Maybe we're a computer program and there's an argument outside this universe as to whether we "exist" or are "sentient" at all. Or maybe whoever coded the simulation didn't even notice that some of the code started perceiving itself as conscious. We're a blip in a vast loop of calculations, we're accidental artificial intelligence. In this case, we don't exist except as symbolism and require no creator, at least not in the sense that everyone wants so desperately to believe.

If that is the case, there is nothing to anchor reality — Devans99

Its anchor is its infinity.

I think it is unrealistic to expect a perfect universe. God had to start with the Big Bang; its not like he could hand craft the whole universe; it is a remarkably habitable place considering what it could of been — Devans99

So then God is a bit dumb?

That might still leave room for 'minor gods' of some sort I suppose. I am not sure you could ever disprove the existence of those. — Devans99

Just keep on moving the imaginary goal posts.

by showing it was not fine-tuned for life — Devans99

Considering the number of extinctions we're aware of, including our own, I'd say it's not fine-tuned for life.

Demonstrate how anything in time can exist without a first cause please. — Devans99

If a model of infinite reality consists of infinitely larger- and smaller-scale "universes" all subject to time and space in proportion to their position on the infinite scale. What seems like an eternity in this universe is just a brief moment in another, and so on.

It's contradictory to speak of choices and then claim free will is an illusion. — NKBJ

Not if choices are also an illusion.

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It's the kind of grim paradox in which you actually believe all that stuff you wrote in the OP is factual.

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It is not "our" space-time. It is a set of observable, demonstrable natural laws. Why claim that something supernatural exists and then apply natural laws to it willy nilly in a concoction with a bunch of imaginary absurdity?

If God existed amid nothingness, then both would be finite because neither would omnipresent. Two things existing independently requires both space and time. You can't just cherry pick natural laws and apply them where they fit your imaginary model of reality while removing them where they don't fit your model. It's inconsistent and pointless.

You implied that God and material existed together before there was time or space. Material exists in time and space, which is finite, but if material existed prior to all things, along with God, then both are also infinite.

Issues should be prioritized based on individual necessity not by virtue of group identity. Identity politics have failed for thousands of years, and now that we have a far better system in place that promotes equal opportunity and individual freedom and liberty, a variety of fringe influences, some of them making ground, are pushing for regression into the dark ages. We're again bound to face an evil our ancestors fought to overcome.

As per your examples:

1. God wouldn't be creating something from nothing, God would be creating something from God--because there was only God. In this example, God is material and infinite, but material is finite, so God is also finite.

2. If material existed along with God, then God is separate from material, not omnipresent, both are finite and also infinite and God is arguably non-material.

Let's keep this going and make less sense of something that is already absurd.