Where Do We Go Next To Develop God's Internal Laws?

I found it interesting that the Pope now agrees with science that the universe was born in a cosmic explosion (Big Bang) some 13.7 billion years ago, which has been expanding since that time.

This is, of course, somewhat different to the Bible's words, but the Catholic Church no longer teaches creationism - the belief that God created the world in six days - and says that the account in the book of Genesis is an allegory for the way God created the world.

An allegory, according to the dictionary, is a story, poem, or picture which can be interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning, typically a moral or political one.

The Pope said that the Big Bang ...

"... doesn't contradict the intervention of a divine Creator, but demands it. The beginning of the world was not 'the work of chaos' but part of a divine plan by the Creator.

Evolution in nature is not inconsistent with the notion of creation, because evolution requires the creation of beings that evolve. God should not be regarded as some sort of 'magician', waving a magic wand. When we read about creation in Genesis, we run the risk of imagining God was a magician, with a magic wand able to do everything. But that is not so. He created human beings and let them develop according to the internal laws that He gave to each one so they would reach fulfilment."

I would just question one thing: If man is created so that we can develop according to internal laws, we as individuals can't do this in one life time. We only have to look around us to see this. So, assuming man is immortal, what happens after our present life is over? Do we come back again - reincarnation - or do we learn the next lessons somewhere else?

Just wondering out loud.

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The Mysterious Dogon People And The Knowledge They Learned From The Fish-Like Aliens

The Discovery Of The Centre Of The Universe

"Ah, but you are the centre of my universe," she whispered - or maybe it was all in my imagination.

Confusingly, I also read that the USA town of Wallace is the centre of the universe:

"On September 25, 2004, Mayor Ron Garitone proclaimed Wallace to be the centre of the Universe. Specifically, a sewer access cover was declared to be the precise location of the center of the Universe. A specially made manhole cover was made to mark the spot. It bears the words "Center of the Universe. Wallace, Idaho." This prompted British comedian and writer Danny Wallace to visit Wallace. He wrote about his visit in the book Danny Wallace and the Centre of the Universe, published in 2006. The event is celebrated on the third Saturday of September." Source: Wikipedia.

But the good news is that in reality we are all the centre of the universe, wherever we happen to live or be visiting. Though, I must admit it makes my head a bit befuddled thinking about it.

The Big Bang that supposedly created our universe - and not to be confused with any other actions of a similar name - didn't start from a single point as we would normally expect. The theory is that it had to happen everywhere at once because, before the Big Bang, space and time did not exist. Therefore there was no single point where it could have started from.

Yes, but how could anything have started from somewhere that didn't exist? And this is where a God usually comes into the equation by many people. But, there again where was God hiding at the time of the Big Bang?

With respect, leaving God to one side, the popular theory about our universe is often likened to an inflating round balloon. As it continuously inflates it creates time and space. This means there is no time and space outside of the universe.

If some spots are drawn on the balloon (let's call them galaxies), and you shrunk yourself down to a minute creature, every way you looked or travelled you would still appear to be at the centre of everything (i.e. the universe).

And weirdly the balloon (universe) continues to expand, creating more time and space, and the point from where it started is everywhere.

Okay, my explanation isn't too special, it's not really my field, so I can understand why lots of people will tell you that: 'In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth'. It's a darn sight easier explanation but, there again ... there are so many questions.

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The Tortoise And The Big Crunch Prior To The End Of The Everything

Image by Jallen on DeviantART

Okay, we've all heard of the Big Bang that describes the early development of the Universe. To quote Wikipedia:

"The Big Bang is the scientific theory that is most consistent with observations of the past and present states of the universe, and it is widely accepted within the scientific community."

But we don't hear so much about the Big Crunch. This is the possible scenario for the ultimate fate of the universe, in which the metric expansion of space eventually reverses and the universe collapses.

In other words the Big Bang switched everything on - and the Big Crunch will switch everything off. It's a sort of cosmic switch that can be turned on or off by ... ah, that's one of the Big Questions.

We all seem to be happy enough with out lot and even the idea of what happens following our death but, by the look of things, we can simply be switched off - maybe even by something or someone's will.

I read one 'theory' that says everything we know is part of a kind of cosmic computer programme that exists in another world outside of our own. We are therefore simply just bits of information - all of us are and everything else as well.

So could we be just 'bits of information' that will be dispensed of so that we are no more? Like some cosmic computer game?

We think we have everything sussed but I wonder if we have.

Stephen Hawking, for example, mentions tortoises in his A Brief History of Time. Okay, a strange thing to write in such a book but here's what he says:

A well-known scientist (such as, say Bertrand Russell) once gave a public lecture on astronomy. He described how the earth orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the centre of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy.

At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said: "What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise."

The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, "What is the tortoise standing on?"

"You're very clever, young man, very clever," said the old lady. "But it's tortoises all the way down!"

And Tortoises or turtles are seen in Mythology!

The World Turtle (also referred to as the, the World-bearing Turtle, or the Divine Turtle) is a mytheme of a giant turtle (or tortoise) supporting or containing the world. The mytheme, which is similar to that of the World Elephant and World Serpent, occurs in Hindu, Chinese, and Native American mythology.

Whether it's the Big Bang, the Big Crunch or Tortoises perhaps finding the answers to our existence is an impossible quest. When we look closely at or into something we can't find the full answer because it turns into something else. A bit as with the Double Split Experiment.

I wrote about the Double Split Experiment: 'Something very odd happens in this experiment. For one thing it illustrates (towards the end) that when we observe things this can change what actually happens.'

Finding answers is like a set of Russian Dolls - you open up one and there's another inside and if you open up that one ...

... maybe, the stereotype little old lady is right: It's tortoises all the way down.

P.S. Sorry, just thinking our loud while at the computer!

Other Posts:
A How Did It All Begin Ramble
Did The God Of The Old Testament Arrive In A Spaceship?
How We Forget Truth And Created A False Reality

The Universe Is Just Like A Dot On A Balloon

I have rambled on at times about how the universe may have possibly began and have asked many questions. What was there before the Big Bang, for instance?

Today in the Daily Mail, on a letters page, there was an answer to one of my questions: What lies beyond the edge of the universe? The answer was from Michael Tempest. See what you think of his take on this:

"This is a question very similar to 'what happened before the universe was created?' And the answer to both is essentially the same: nothing.

However, saying there is nothing beyond the edge of the universe doesn't mean that space is empty - it means the space doesn't exist.

As the universe expands it creates time and space, and the difficulty we have is that the concepts of time and space on a cosmic scale are alien to our domestic experience and we find it difficult to comprehend them.

We on Earth are, at one and the same same time, both at the centre of, and the extremity of, the universe.

This apparently perverse situation is explained by Stephen Hawking using the analogy of an inflated balloon covered in dots. No dot is in the middle of, nor at the edge of, the surface.

The same applies to the universe but with the an extra dimension added. It is quite conceivable that there are multiple universes, but if so, by definition, we'll never know."

Okay, all well and good, but I still can't get my head properly around the idea that there was nothing prior to the so called Big Bang or that there is nothing at the edge of the universe. How can something come from absolutely nothing? I guess this is why God often comes into the equation ... er, but if there was nothing where was God ... does this mean He is nothing too?

Perplexing questions! But, as Xenophanes, suggested - but in different words - How Can Man Imagine A God Who Is Undefinable? I guess one day we will understand, or is that wishful or even delusional thinking?

Other Rambles:
A How Did It All Begin Ramble
Words Of Immortality And The Big Bang

The UFO Which Brought The Raelian Elohim To Earth

Artists impression of UFO seen by Claude Vorilhon founder of Raelian Religion

I've been looking at various religions and beliefs recently and re-discovered the Raelian Religion, which has a link with UFOs and aliens. I had read about this years ago but felt it too much like Erich von Daniken's early works at that time.

So what is the Raelian's slant on religion?

It was founded by Claude Vorilhon a French journalist who claims to have encountered a UFO in 1973.

The UFO landed and he was told by the occupant that they had come to see him. He was taken aboard the craft for six days and messages were dictated to him. These explained how the Genesis in the Bible is an account of how the Elohim created life on Earth.

Artists impression of Elohim and UFO as seen by Claude Vorilhon

Elohim means 'those who came from the sky' but was wrongly translated as God. Elohim is a plural and therefore refers to a multiplicity of extraterrestrial beings. In Genesis 1:26 it states 'Let us make man in our image and likeness'. The important word here being 'our'.

The Elohim divided the 'waters from the waters' with explosions thus creating the first continent. On this they created the animals, vegetation and other life forms. Finally they made man (initially an artificial life form) with use of their advanced knowledge of DNA.

One group of the extraterrestrial creators, called Nephilim in the Bible engaged is sexual relationships with the humans and produced a race of people with superior intelligence. Jesus was created by Mary having sexual union with one of the Elohim.

Claude Vorilhon in 1973

All well and good and in some ways strangely believable but what is Claude Vorilhon's role in all of this. He is known as Rael to his followers and it's his job to prepare humanity for the arrival of the Elohim on earth. It seems they will come in peace but must be received voluntarily by the human race. So a familiar theme here.

The Elohim purpose for coming to Earth will be to establish a new world government.

This government will only be made up of those whose intelligence is 50% higher than the human average.

To welcome the Elohim the Raelian Religion have to establish an Embassy, preferably in Jerusalem - this doesn't sound too easy to do, to say the least.  But once the Elohim arrive they will promote scientific and technological advancement, creating material prosperity and increased leisure for humans - so they will have an enhanced lifestyle.

There is one added bonus for their arrival. They will offer human beings the prospect of immortality. One snag: this will only be offered to those whose actions merit this. Again a familiar pattern.

There is more to the Raelians than this but that's a brief synopsis as I understand it. But one obvious question I wanted to know was: Who created the Elohim? This is the official answer:

"If we believed in God, we might ask, 'Who created God'. If we believed in evolution and the Big Bang we might ask, "Where did this matter and energy come from that created the big-bang?"

For the Elohim, it is the same - they were created by people coming from the sky as were their creators. It's an infinite cycle of life. One day scientists from earth will also go to another planet and populate it."

I found this answer interesting as it's something similar to what I had been wondering myself in my recent post: A How Did It All Begin Ramble.

Strange how questions get answered, but is this the right answer?

There are videos from The Raelian Movement here.

Other Random 67 Not Out Posts:
Words Of Immortality And The Big Bang
Do Some UFOs Program Us To Forget
The Great Spirit Allowed Choctaw To Repopulate The Earth

Words Of Immortality And The Big Bang

Yesterday I rambled on a bit about immortality and the Big Bang and how the universe, as we now know it, may have come about. One of the things that bothered me was where the gases for the Big Bang came from, and what was there prior to the big event happening.

Many others have wondered this too, here are four such quotes about the Big Bang:

"The Big Bang bothers science because it clashes with scientific religion - the religion of cause and effect, the belief that every effect has a cause. Now we find that the biggest effect of all, the birth of the universe, violates this article of faith ... what came before the Big Bang is the most interesting question of all."
~ The director of the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies

"Astronomy leads us to a unique event, a universe which was created out of nothing."
~ Arno Penzias

"There are some questions that scientists can never answer. It may be that the Big Bang happened 12 billion years ago. But why did it happen? How did the particles get there in the first place? What was there before?"
~ Tom Utley

"One may wonder, what came before? If space-time did not exist then, how could everything appear from nothing? Explaining this initial singularity - where and when it all began - still remains the most intractable problem of modern cosmology."
~ Andrei Linde

I also mentioned immortality yesterday so a few quotes on this as well:

"Whence comes the powerful impression that is made upon us by the tomb? Are a few grains of dust deserving of our veneration? Certainly not; we respect the ashes of our ancestors for this reason only - because a secret voice whispers to us that all is not extinguished in them. It is this that confers a sacred character on the funeral ceremony among all the nations of the globe; all are alike persuaded that the sleep, even of the tomb, is not everlasting, and that death is but a glorious transfiguration."
~ François-René de Chateaubriand

"Without a belief in personal immortality, religion surely is like an arch resting on one pillar, like a bridge ending in an abyss."
~ Max Müller

"The human mind cannot be absolutely destroyed with the body, but something of it remains which is eternal. We feel and know by experience that we are eternal."
~ Baruch Spinoza

"Talking to a peasant one day, I suggested to him the hypothesis that there might indeed be a God who governs heaven and earth, a Consciousness or Conscience of the Universe, but that even so it would not be sufficient reason to assume that the soul of every man was immortal in the traditional and concrete sense. And he replied, 'Then what good is God?'"
~ Miguel de Unamuno

"'Tis immortality, 'tis that alone,
Amid life's pains, abasements, emptiness,
The soul can comfort, elevate, and fill.
That only, and that amply this performs."
~ Edward Young

"If I stoop
Into a dark tremendous sea of cloud,
It is but for a time; I press God's lamp
Close to my breast; its splendour soon or late
Will pierce the gloom; I shall emerge one day."
~ Robert Browning

"'Tis true; 'tis certain; man though dead retains
Part of himself; the immortal mind remains."
~ Homer

"The nearer I approach the end, the plainer I hear around me the immortal symphonies of the worlds which invite me. It is marvellous, yet simple."
~ Victor Hugo

Though some of us may believe in immortality I'm sure at times we have our doubts. Tennyson summed up this feeling:

Ah, Christ, that it were possible, For one short hour to see The souls we loved, that they might tell us What and where they be. ~ Alfred Tennyson

Positive Last Words On His Death Bed I have been dying for twenty years, now I am going to live.
~ Jas. Drummond Burns

Further Reading:
The Journey Of Immortality
Could Time And Space Eventually Prove Immortality
Manipulating Time In A Spaceship

A How Did It All Begin Ramble

So how did it all begin? The universe and us, that is. Some will say it was all an act of God, a God who is immortal.

Others tell us of the Big Bang. Though Brian Yanny PhD, a research scientist from Illinois, says the Bang may not have been Big at all! His words:

"Current evidence suggests that, far from being 'big', the whole, vast expanse of space and all the visible galaxies and stars originated in a dense sphere of glowing gas much smaller than a pea."

Yes, but, as I was always asking as a kid: Where did the dense sphere of gas come from? Though I used to ask about 'gases'.

As we know life there is a beginning and an end but only God is immortal, well so the Bible says:

1 Timothy 6:16 - "Who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; who no man hath seen, nor can see: to whom be honour and power ever lasting."

Okay! So those who say they have seen God must be telling porkies, if they believe in the Bible that is.

I've always felt that all of us, no matter how we actually started, will carry on for eternity but again the Bible disagrees, which must mean there is no Heaven or reincarnation.

Ecclesiastes 9:5 "For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing ..."

Ecclesiastes 9:10 "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might, for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest."

So that's not too comforting, is it?

Going back to 'where did it all begin'. I suppose it's because we cannot accept that the beginnings came from nothing, even if pea sized, is why mankind began to believe in a God or Gods. It seemed and seems the only answer.

There has to be some sort of everlasting, immortal universal mind. But, as many have said, man also creates God in his own image - as has been the case right from the earliest of civilisations.

So how did it all begin? I'm not sure. Supposing it was by God, what was He doing prior to creating our universe 14 billion years ago? Was He creating other Universes? Or something completely different?

My gosh, there are a lot of questions and I don't think anyone really knows the answers.

Sorry, if today's post is a bit of a ramble. I was just putting a few thoughts together and had no idea where they would lead.

 Other 67 Not Out Posts:
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