Cosmology: Latest theories of everything (Introduction)

by David Turell , Monday, August 28, 2017, 19:45 (2643 days ago) @ John Kalber

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.

Hi John. You written so much I'll limit myself to your numbered questions.

1) Was it life only or was it the whole shebang?

Whole shebang.

2) In ‘guided’ evolution is the guiding permanent or spasmodic? For example only in fine tuning the brain.

All of evolution

3) If you believe that God was the creator of all this, how did he/she/it do it?

I have no idea

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.

I do not accept that God is pure perfection

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?

God obviously chose to evolve the universe and life.

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.

It's a tradeoff, when He gave us free will, He gave up control of us.

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’!

Yes, and I don't think He anticipates our actions.

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?

He chose to evolve the universe and humans.

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!

We don't know if there was only one or more. It is possible if there were many, each is complete when humans appear.

9) What actually was so wrong that it was necessary to use his magical powers to reinvent the whole thing?

As above, perhaps not wrong.

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?

I am not a believer in the sense you imply. Religions say God is all-powerful, but all knowing in the present and the future may not be the case.

11) Where do you stand in relation to the criticism that there is no ‘evidence’ of the existence of God?

I think He is inferred by what we see in our created reality.

John: 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.

You are confusing the way atoms make molecules. Only molecules do the work of life. Atoms are just building blocks of molecules.

John: Matter is eternal and all possible outcomes are intrinsic in and of its being. Were that not so, nothing would exist.

All matter is a form of energy. They are interchangeable and eternal.