Cosmology: Latest theories of everything (Introduction)

by John Kalber, Monday, August 28, 2017, 17:00 (2433 days ago) @ David Turell

Hello David: If I accept (for the purposes of discussion only) that God generated the spark of life, that leaves me with a few questions.
1) Was it life only or was it the whole shebang?
2) In ‘guided’ evolution is the guiding permanent or spasmodic? For example only in fine tuning the brain.
3) If you believe that God was the creator of all this, how did he/she/it do it?
4) If you accept evolution in its present form, do you agree that God, having made it, has no need to interfere at all? Surely it must be perfect.
5) Would that mean that since the very first moment of God’s creation, that the Universe - being wholly ‘His’ work, has been designed to advance only on a Darwinian ‘slowly, slowly’ basis?
6) Does it also mean that – being Almighty – God knows of and is accountable for the all suffering endured by billions of ’His’ creations over billions of years and latterly inflicted on mankind. I note in this concept that although lesser life has no ‘freewill’ ascribed to its behaviour, it parallels our own in merciless killing and self-first intentions.
7) Do you believe in ‘freewill’? If yes, can you explain how mankind can make decisions that are independent of the creator and yet would be already known to ‘Him’ before we are born! An Almighty must inevitably know and fully understand how his creations will think and behave, else he is not all-knowing nor Almighty. If He did not know, he would actually know little (if any) more than a human psychiatrist. Any need to defend 'His' choices suggests that 'His' powers are not ‘Almighty’!
8) Do you limit God’s power? If not 'His' powers are limitless. How do you explain why it has taken 3 or 4 billions of years to arrive at even the earliest proto-humanoid? Was he just arsing around, experimenting until he made a more correct, more finely tuned product – us?
If the Universe he created has experienced one, possibly more Big Bangs, this presents his work as incomplete, inaccurate and in need of total reconstruction! Doesn’t sound likely to me!
9) What actually was so wrong that it was necessary to use his magical powers to reinvent the whole thing?
10) Were I a believer, I would not so insult my God with such banal questions. Such a misfit could not possibly fill the role I would attribute to him if he were capable of making mistakes, let alone bodge ups. What is your position on this?
11) Where do you stand in relation to the criticism that there is no ‘evidence’ of the existence of God?
This next comment may answer Dhw rather than yourself.
One of you wrote that he could not see that atheism, of itself, proved that the Big Bang did not happen - well here’s the why and wherefore. If you accept atheism there can be no God, so - to exist - the Universe must be an unalterable entity, there being nothing ‘else’ to adjust it (other than fairy tales). If you accept the Big Bang, are you saying He may have been messing about with other Universes and we are resident in His latest version?
There can, logically, be no ‘other’ (Superpower) either! It would first be necessary for nature to ‘do the business’ without help. Even if you assume that an intelligence has been formed that can now ‘guide’ nature, it has no place because nature doesn’t need it, because for it to exist 'Mother Nature' must first have given life to Superman and all else!
You say that biology does its work without recourse to a need to engage atoms in its structure of advancing highly complex processes. You state that larger molecules force change upon smaller molecules thus creating a new composite which – of course – can and does produce good, bad, indifferent or fatal results.
Whilst that is true, it needs a closer look. All molecules get that way as the direct result of the earlier atomic changes, not by some conjuring trick.
No atom, no molecule gives way to arbitrary change by force. Only ‘sympathetic’ structures (which may turn out well or badly) will allow a conjunction.
I maintain that the construction of mankind, by 'Mother Nature', fills the gap between the 'natural' and the more complex i.e. artefacts.
Artefacts are things 'Mother Nature' makes by using her newish tool, mankind, to add an intelligence directed mover to her own unconscious, ceaseless efforts to improve outcomes – for she cannot stand still.
Matter is eternal and all possible outcomes are intrinsic in and of its being. Were that not so, nothing would exist. Consequently, ongoing nature cannot be stilled. Automatism is paramount, automatically producing unceasing activity – including us.
I was asked how I feel about LIGO and gravitational waves. There will be more on this. The problem rests in the interpretation of what was seen, much as in the drivel spoken about the so called Higgs thing, a black cat that wasn’t there - but they found it! It doesn’t begin to explain mass. An immensely costly posturing act that has wasted £illions and £illions and an ocean of time! This triviality has been virtually ignored since its acclaimed discovery.