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Wednesday, August 6, 2008

Human-Contingent Universe

I know there have been some posts asking Christians some questions. After watching some episodes of Stargate today, I decided to read some related physics on the episodes regarding the nature of the universe.

In one of these episodes, the fate of mankind hung in the balance (of course). What if we, mankind, wiped ourselves out? Let's say someone engineers some doomsday device which would take out the majority of Earth's population in the initial detonation and the rest would be wiped out within a day.

(This is not a moral question or anything related to the character of God.)
My question is, would God (the one of the Bible) allow this to happen (free will and all)? I would imagine he would, as everything else is allowed to happen (unless doing so would mess up one of his plans that has been cooking for billions of years).

If humans are then entirely killed off, would the universe continue? From what I can surmise, humans are the meaning of the universe (as the universe was created for us) from the Christian's perspective. Would killing the last human also mean destroying the universe?

Or, is there some sort of preset time limit on the universe? So, say that humans are wiped out, would it be another few millenia before God's plan for this universe expires and the next begins?

I hope I explained it well enough, if you need more clarification, I certainly can. It was just something I was wondering what some Christians think of it.

5 comments:

  1. according to hard-line Sapir-worf theorists, the world is dependent on the thoughts of humans. This is a minority group among linguists and others. Borges wrote a little short story on something like this.

    I believe, since you are posting here, that you are referring to creationists. Indeed it would seem that they think everything was created for them.

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  2. "
    (This is not a moral question or anything related to the character of God.)
    My question is, would God (the one of the Bible) allow this to happen (free will and all)? I would imagine he would, as everything else is allowed to happen (unless doing so would mess up one of his plans that has been cooking for billions of years)."

    I think the premise of this is an impossibility in the christian mythos. God has a specific plan, written down in the bible, which cannot be deviated from. Armageddon only happens once, according to them. So, everything you do is part of the plan, everything is already done, so-to-speak, like a computer program that cannot change.

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  3. Here's the thing, though: they insist on a thing called free will. After all, that's how they justify all the things that don't make sense about God and also all the "evil" in the world. As such, I don't think they can disavow free will here. If we have free will to defy God's wishes everywhere else, we should also have the free will and we can terminate every human being.

    And, if we terminate every human being, for those who think the universe exists solely for us, I wonder if the universe would continue to exist, or if it would be destroyed the instant the last human died.

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  4. Hey DI

    I know this is not what you are refferring to, but something I that always fascinated me is how mere observation influences particles, as in the double-slit experiment. I've read some (probaly very few) phsyicists take this to the extreme, in that objects only exist upon 'observation'. Off-topic I know, but interesting I think. Maybe some fundie will read this and go and get their science on.

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  5. Nafa,

    You are referring to quantum wave collapse, and yes, it was a misinterpretation of something Einstein scribbled, called "Spooky action at a distance."

    Discomfort,

    Yeah, I think Free Will is one of the thorns in the side of an omniscient being, but then again, many things are thorns for that type of thinking.

    How can we all be part of God's plan if we have free will?

    That doesn't bother the most hardened fundies though, but for other reasons than logic.

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