Thread: An Alternative Science and Theology: Part I

This is a belief system in progress.

I do not believe that the physical matter of the universe was ever created; neither by God nor by a mysterious Big Bang. I believe it sprung from the larger universe, comprised of dark energy. All the energy that exists has existed for all time. It simply is what exists. Nothing can exist outside of it and energy cannot be added or subtracted from it. I do not, however, believe that living matter can spring from nonliving matter. Life is the real mystery, not the existence of the Universe itself. DNA is coded with an intelligent language that leads to the assumption that some kind of intelligent design was involved. The intelligence that designed and manifested life, I believe is what we refer to as God.

The miracle of life in our visible universe had to be manifested from life in the dark universe, as I do not believe that living things can come from non-living things. In fact, in all our human experience we’ve never seen anything not alive, produce something living. For that reason, I do not believe that God is some mysterious, spiritual being that exists outside of the material world. I believe that God is a living being that exists somewhere in the infinite blackness in our universe, capable of reproducing the most basic building blocks of life. I believe that life was infused into our material universe from the universe we cannot see, and I believe that it began here on this planet, millions (or billions or trillions) of years ago.

Whether we evolved from original bacteria born in the waters of this earth or whether each animal type was designed and inserted here by God is irrelevant to my understanding of both the nature of God and the nature Man. I believe that like God, all living things possess the power of creation, through imagination and procreation. We have the ability to produce and grow biological life and we have the ability to create and reshape the world around us through imagination and reason.

It is through our imaginations that all of our scientific achievements have been born and through which we have learned to conceive of God and the universe around us. Imagination creates the language we use to describe the world in objective terms, easy to communicate in order to create common understanding of the reality within which we find ourselves.

I believe it is our imagination and reason that makes our biological bodies capable of calling forth or manifesting souls, as unique individual personalities that exist outside of the physical, material universe we live in. Our “spirits”, if I can be permitted to use crude terminology, are immortal personalities that come from the dark, unseen world where our world’s creator lives. I assume the immortality of the human soul as I assume the immortality of God, though, it is just as likely, I suppose, that both God and the human soul are finite. This question can only be decided on faith and blind assumption. In fact, it does not really matter to me whether or not we are immortal or finite beings. It doesn’t matter if God is immortal or finite. We cannot know, so we can choose to believe as we wish and, in these matters, we should not confuse belief with truth.

I not so sure there is any such thing as non-living matter. Our inability to recognize the living essence of everything around us is a source of a powerful sense of disconnection and sadness in many people. Many of the religions of the plains indians here in America, for just one example, took a different view of things. Modern western thought on these topics is always based on a stark line of demarcation between living and non-living. Perhaps that is an assumption that should be re-examined by those of us inclined to meditate on such things.

No, the evidence supporting the theory that all the mass of this universe was at one time squeezed into a volume smaller than a proton is pretty solid. You have the Hubble Constant, the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation, the observed constancy of the laws of physics across space and time, the ratio of helium to hydrogen, etc etc etc. No, at one time, this observed universe did not exist. Given that this universe is an open universe, ie, it's not ever going to stop expanding, and it's quite unlikely that it's the product of any of the theoretical cyclic models, all of which require closed universes.

As for life, there's no reason to believe it's not the product of the evolution of chemical complexity driven by the Second Law of Thermodynamics and natural selection, in this case the natural selection inherent in the increase in more effective replicative molecules over the less effective or non-replicative molecules. That we do not know exactly how, at this time, life arose from these chemicals does not justify automatically assuming we're the grandkids of the Magic Sky Pixie. The fact that we do not know the answer at this time establishes only one fact, that we don't know.

Originally Posted by splansing

I not so sure there is any such thing as non-living matter. Our inability to recognize the living essence of everything around us is a source of a powerful sense of disconnection and sadness in many people. Many of the religions of the plains indians here in America, for just one example, took a different view of things. Modern western thought on these topics is always based on a stark line of demarcation between living and non-living. Perhaps that is an assumption that should be re-examined by those of us inclined to meditate on such things.

This is a terrific criticism on my theory. I love it! However, it is quite difficult to prove that non-biological life can produce biological life.

What is life on earth but elements on the earth organized in a particular way and reacting with their environment? As the man said, we are star dust. As another man said, there is nothing new under the sun. Or in the sun, for that matter. Whatever the cause, however it works, quite clearly the inanimate matter that makes up this earth did give rise to what we call life. Some primitive compounds that are the building blocks of life on earth have been synthesized in labs with nothing but a reproduction of the primordial atmosphere, some water, and electricity. Considering that such experiments have only been conducted within the last wink of an eye, historically speaking, it is not unreasonable to suspect that such processes occuring on the earth for millions of years could give rise to the precursers of all of us.

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I'm not suggesting that rocks and people are the same thing, obviously. I am suggesting that consciousness is universal and ubiquitous. That you are not an entity as much as you are an antenna tuned to a certain frequency.

Originally Posted by Burning Giraffe

This is a terrific criticism on my theory. I love it! However, it is quite difficult to prove that non-biological life can produce biological life.

It's even more difficult to prove that magic pixies creatd life.

Wouldn't it just be simpler to assume that life has always existed in one form or another? After all, if a tree falls in the forest and there is nobody there to hear it, is there a forest?

Originally Posted by splansing

Wouldn't it just be simpler to assume that life has always existed in one form or another? After all, if a tree falls in the forest and there is nobody there to hear it, is there a forest?

No. The observed universe did not always exist, and the very early conditions didn't even have atoms, not even simple hydrogen. That pretty closes out the idea that life always existed.

Only if I accept your assumptions regarding what life is. Humans? Obviously not. But I've never seen any proof, or even evidence, that the lowliest wave is any less alive than I am. Sure, I'm more complex. I'm a colony of simpler living things, each cell in my body an organism. At the quantum level, particles go about their business. Are they alive? How the hell should I know? They could be. Consciousness itself may very well be the essence of everything at its finest level. Or maybe it doesn't exist at all. One thing is for certain: a nuts-and-bolts description of what astrophysicists observe in space and theorize on paper is not going to describe the limits of my philosophical and religious meanderings.

Originally Posted by Freedom for All

No. The observed universe did not always exist, and the very early conditions didn't even have atoms, not even simple hydrogen. That pretty closes out the idea that life always existed.

but energy existed before atoms. energy created particles, particles form atoms, atoms form molecules, molecules form life, life has consciousness. So assuming that my conscious comes from energy, why can't it exist in a different form prior to the expansion.