The Physics of God and the Quantum Gravity Theory of Everything

[joeninety]

Well if it is all total crap to you - then fine, but here's an attempt to explain the best estimate that we have for the age of the universe.

We can measure the distance of galaxies, and how galaxies are moving. Galaxies are not staying still in space, nor are they moving randomly. Some galaxies are moving towards their neighbours, attracted by their mutual gravity. But the biggest pattern seen is that galaxies are moving apart from one another. This motion is not all at the same speed; instead it follows a pattern where galaxies that are further apart are moving more quickly.
This pattern indicates the whole universe is expanding. We can see every portion of the universe moving away from us from our view point on Earth. This does not make the centre of the expansion – there would be the same view from anyway in space
We detect a galaxy’s motion by looking at its light spectrum. When a galaxy is moving by the expansion of space, its light waves are stretched out, making it appear redder (the famous red shift). The change in the galaxy’s color is called the red shift, and can be used to calculate its velocity. From the measurements of many galaxies, we can accurately measure the expansion rate of the universe as a whole.
The age of universe can be determined by imagining what the universe looked like in the past, “rewinding” the expansion. In the past the galaxies must have been closer together, and in the very distant past they would have been packed together in a tiny point. If we assume that the expansion rate is constant over time, the age for the universe as a whole is about 10 billion years. However, astronomers have been working over the last 20 years to determine how the expansion rate changes with time. We now know that early in the universe the expansion slowed down, but now it is speeding up. Using careful measurements of this change in expansion rate, the age of the universe is now estimated to be 13.7 ± 0.13 billion years.



Not an infinity in sight.

Riiiigght so what is beyond the edge of expansion?????

Come to think of it how do you create something from absolutely zilch, correct me if I am wrong is that then magic or is it simply impossible??????

[joeninety]

. Infinity is a cop out. that's why they are called theories.

No one can prove how old the universe is, just as no one can prove that god does or does not exist

Are we not Gods in our own right to the life we create in laboratories, to the things we build whilst all other life on this planet fails to grasp or comprehend our capabilities.

As this is so, how arrogant it is to not see, that our view of an even bigger picture might be just as obscured

How do you explain the preciseness of this universe then.

How do you create something from absolutely zilch??????

Infinity is logical, the problem is getting your tongue to engage in tasting such a notion.
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Evie this bad boys just for you, and good luck with everything xxx

[TSBootyLondon]

Oh I don't know! just when I think there is a god someone goes and write a bad bloody review! lol

[sukumvit boy]

There are no peer reviewed papers in any respected journals (that I know of) claiming to demonstrate the non-existence of God. On the other hand, there are no such papers (that I know of published after the nineteenth century) claiming to use the hypothesis that God exists to explain a physical, chemical or biological phenomenon. On the third hand, there are quite a number of ordained reverends, priests, preachers, bishops etc. who professionally endorse the claim of God's existence and even talk to Him. On the fourth hand, many of them (despite the fact they they all talk to God) disagree about what God says, thinks and intends for us to do. If you actually have the four hands required to follow this nonsense, you're probably the god Kali.

Some physicists and mathematicians would quip that one would need four hands for all the "hand-waving" required in purported explanations for the existence of god.
Nicely laid out though ,Trish.
Martin also did a great job of succinctly explaining our current understanding or the history of the universe.
The level of intelligence and erudition found on this forum never ceases to astound me.
I'm an atheist and a Buddhist.
I'm currently watching "The God Delusion Debate" on DVD that a colleague lent me. The debate is between Richard Dawkins ,author of "The God Delusion" and John Lennox , a mathematician and cosmologist (and a Christian). Well done and worth watching.
http://www.fixed-point.org/index.php...-lennox-debate

[joeninety]

Oh I don't know! just when I think there is a god someone goes and write a bad bloody review! lol

Don't lose faith Bella.......That was just the Devil making a brief appearance

[joeninety]

Some physicists and mathematicians would quip that one would need four hands for all the "hand-waving" required in purported explanations for the existence of god.
Nicely laid out though ,Trish.
Martin also did a great job of succinctly explaining our current understanding or the history of the universe.
The level of intelligence and erudition found on this forum never ceases to astound me.
I'm an atheist and a Buddhist.
I'm currently watching "The God Delusion Debate" on DVD that a colleague lent me. The debate is between Richard Dawkins ,author of "The God Delusion" and John Lennox , a mathematician and cosmologist (and a Christian). Well done and worth watching.
http://www.fixed-point.org/index.php...-lennox-debate

Dorkins is a plonk his God Delusion book is just that "his delusion" as he raps on about the Christians lack of proof about the existence of god not once does he actually provide evidence to the contrary, even though he claims he will.

Anyone who reveres this little man from no where and regards his twaddle as engrossing is sadly as deluded as he is, about the nature of this reality and our existence.


The religion of Aethism is as ridiculous as the rest of them.........Although I have to say I am partial to a bit of Buddism

[trish]

In a way, Martin, you draw attention to a core issue in communications that has been debated over the years, by Habermas, Rawls, and others: it isn't so much the epistemological question: how do we know what we know? but questions such as: how do we communicate with each other, and why does language not automatically solve differences once the rules of language have been agreed upon?

Somehow it doesn’t seem all that paradoxical that language doesn’t automatically solve differences. Language allows us to clearly describe alternative possibilities and express our disagreements. The fact that differences in knowledge claims flourish even among those who share a language seems at first blush to demonstrate that we weigh evidence differently, that we are not all aware of the same evidence, that we have learned different frameworks and backgrounds for processing and developing ideas etc. These seem to be epistemological issues.

One of the issues which I doubt the arcane theologians in your link discuss, is the relationship of Christianity to the politics of democracy, and how western democracy has taken concepts of equality, justice, fairness, and particularly tolerance and obligation from Christianity which may not exist in other religious discourses. ... To cut a long argument short: secular humanists in the west have co-opted Christian ideals into many of their arguments on tolerance, equality and democracy. This doesn't make them closet Christians who should own up and admit their believe in God, but it does offer a more subtle relationship between believers and unbelievers.

I think this is definitely right. I can testify anecdotally that many of the values I hold dear (compassion, charity, tolerance, caring...to name a few) are values that were earnestly taught to me and all the children who went to the Methodist Sunday School I attended. I’m an atheist today. I’m not saying I never would have never developed the values I have today without my early Sunday school exposure; but the fact of the matter is those experiences were in my case formative. (One thing that I find somewhat disheartening today is the rise of the warrior Christ image, who rides like Gandalf the wizard and wields the sword of righteousness. This image is absolutely foreign to the teachings I remember as a child.)

[trish]

I'm an atheist and a Buddhist.
I'm currently watching "The God Delusion Debate" on DVD that a colleague lent me. The debate is between Richard Dawkins ,author of "The God Delusion" and John Lennox , a mathematician and cosmologist (and a Christian). Well done and worth watching.
http://www.fixed-point.org/index.php...-lennox-debate

Thanks for the recommendation. I can't remember in which thread, but I think I mentioned somewhere here at hungangels that I can sympathize with what I call Unicyclic Buddhism: 1) Instead of many reincarnations, there is only one cycle. 2) At the end we all achieve nothingness; i.e. freedom from existence. 3) Karma is just the tendency to reap the consequences of our past actions for good or ill.

[trish]

Riiiigght so what is beyond the edge of expansion?????

There is no edge of the expansion. The key concept is non-euclidean geometry. Maybe the toy model I describe in post #149 can help. http://www.hungangels.com/vboard/sho...&postcount=249

Come to think of it how do you create something from absolutely zilch, correct me if I am wrong is that then magic or is it simply impossible??????

It is a mistake to think of the Big Bang as an explanation of how the universe came to be. It is simply a model of the expansion. The models were an unexpected benefit of Einstein's theory of gravity. After Schwarzchild found a solution to the Einstein equations that describe the gravitational effects around a spherical star (confirming Einstein's cruder calculation of the advance of the perihelion of Mercury and the bending of star light by the Sun), Friedman and Lemaitre discovered solutions that seems to describe expanding or contracting universes. At about the same time Hubble was collecting evidence that on average the galaxies of the universe were racing away from each other at rates that increased somewhat linearly with their distances from one another. This fit exactly with the expanding solutions found by the theorists. As Martin so neatly demonstrated, expansion entails a finite age. The models are mathematically insistent on it. Gamow and his student Alpher used the work of Friedman, Lemaitre, Hubble and others to calculate the rate of production of light elements in the early universe. Their predicted table of abundances was later confirmed. They also predicted the residual cosmic microwave background radiation of a temperature of around three degrees Kelvin. That too was later discovered. The spectrum of the background was found to fit exactly the predictions of Gamow and Alpher. Gamow was something of a practical joker and he thought it would be funny to include Hans Bethe as a co-author of his paper with Alpher. So the paper appeared as authored by Alpher, Betha, Gamow. Back to the point: None of the originators of the big bang theory attempted to explain the origin or the existence or the creation of the universe. What they discovered and described was that the universe had a finite age and was expanding. These results are reasonably definitive.

There are people today who do write theoretical papers which modify the big bang equations and make stabs at explaining the existence of the universe. It is a project so far without a consensus. They will tell you up front that results are tenuous, speculative, fun to think about but not definitive.

[martin48]

Always thought as an atheist to take a theology degree and just disagree with everything. Should be an easy course as they have just one set text.

That's what I get for not being specific...I meant "refereed scientific journals." Nevertheless, good find. A refereed paper in a professional journal of theology purporting ... purporting... what the fuck is it purporting?? Damn professional jargon and making words mean what you want them to mean!!

I have a very good friend and colleague who is in fact a theologian and she sometimes invites me to sit in on informal discussions with her colleagues. I give it a valiant effort but usually I have no idea what they're talking about.