The immensity of the universe (The nature of a \'Creator\')

by dhw, Monday, January 18, 2016, 13:05 (3231 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: An article in last week's Guardian reported that “Astronomers have spotted the most powerful supernova in human history. The cosmic explosion was 570bn times brighter than the sun and about 200 times more powerful than a typical supernova, scientists said.” 
It happened last June, about 3.8bn light years away. One single light year = approx. 6,000,000,000,000 miles. Quite apart from the astonishing brilliance of human technology, I have to say once more that this puts the scale of things into perspective. Our solar system is one of billions, and all the time these unimaginably vast bodies are coming and going, and for all we know may have done so and may go on doing so for ever and ever.-DAVID: Supernovas are the means by which the increasing speed of expansion of the universe has been measured. Without supernovas spreading elements required for life around the universe, there would be no life. Remember our universe appears to have had a beginning, but you are quite correct. we have no idea how many beginnings there have been.-Which means we have no idea how many billions of supernovas have been spreading the required elements around the universe during the course of eternity, and yet you have expressed the belief that we are the only life in the universe. Oh, what a waste of all those billions of supernovas and galaxies and solar systems and stars and planets... all created by and containing a single mind set only on producing you and me. Faith does not just move mountains - it moves universes. But who knows? Maybe you are right.
 
dhw: We may all acknowledge that we are mere specks of dust, but do we feel our insignificance deep down? If we do, how is it possible to contemplate even the idea of a single mind encompassing but also occupying this vastness, let alone creating it, let alone controlling it, let alone having some kind of purpose that entails the coming and going of billions of exploding stars and vanishing solar systems, let alone connecting us humans to itself and to all these comings and goings? This is the mind-blowing macrocosmic converse to the microcosmic (but in my view equally potent) argument for life's mind-blowing complexities as a product of design.-DAVID: "I feel the arrival of sentient beings who can unravel the mysteries of the universe and of life is an event just as mind-blowing, and supernovas are a requirement for their existence. Looks planned to me. Note this comment from David Deutsch posted earlier:Sunday, January 17, 2016, 15:24 -Yes, it is mind-blowing. And much of it looks planned. The immensity of the apparently impersonal, never-ending process of cosmic birth and death is also mind-blowing, and the explosion of a solar system (reported a few weeks ago) and of a supernova 3.8 billion multiplied by 6000,000,000,000 miles away doesn't look planned to me, unless you believe your God blows up every supernova in order to start life somewhere else.-DAVID:"It is uncontroversial that the human brain has capabilities that are, in some respects, far superior to those of all other known objects in the cosmos. It is the only kind of object capable of understanding that the cosmos is even there, or why there are infinitely many prime numbers, or that apples fall because of the curvature of space-time, or that obeying its own inborn instincts can be morally wrong, or that it itself exists."-Yes, it is uncontroversial, and I really don't know why so many people keep stating what so many other people keep stating. We are very intelligent animals. I'm afraid that doesn't prove that your God exists, or that he blew up the supernova last June, or that the supernova had to be blown up for our benefit or indeed for any other purpose.