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The best example of Chrisians is what they do when they make a mistake, and how they react to the mistakes of others. That said, I’m going to go back and look at where Meatros thinks I made a mistake.
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I started out saying you missed Trinopus point, the point wasn’t about what was possible. I was making a comment on which is easier to believe - an elephant on the roof or a body being resurrected. I said an elephant because of what we know. That in order to accept a resurrection we would need more evidence than in the case of the elephant on the roof. I was not saying that it was impossible.
In fact, if you interpret me as supporting Trinopus in saying that it was impossible, the rest of the sentence I wrote (and the one after that) doesn’t make sense. Shoot, I’m not even sure it’s fair to interpret Trinopus as thinking it’s impossible based on what has been presented.
So, I was saying that in order to believe in a resurrection, you’d need a great amount of evidence. In fact, in either case (Aliens or God) you would need a great amount of evidence.
In the bolded portion of the above, you responded saying this:
[QUOTE=ch4rl3s]
Ok. You think you’ve supplied an explanation that aliens could have done it with superior technology… but then you support an opposing claim that human physiology suggests that even aliens wouldn’t be able to do it.
Do you really want to be the guy that supports two opposing claims at the same time?
There is no way I will accept your claim of superior technology when you then go on to support the claim that it’s not possible… So, no explanation yet.
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I did not say human physiology suggested aliens wouldn’t be able to do it. You say I supported that, but I specifically stated that the point wasn’t that it was impossible, meaning the point was something else, something I went on to state about which is easier to believe.
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Post #s for the original discussion.
Trinopus #294
Charles #302
Meatros #304
You’re right that you didn’t say impossible. You appear to, then and now, be saying that it’s highly unlikely… which, to my mind, is not making a case for it You also appear to notice that my statement makes more of a case for aliens than you have. So, I will drop the impossible talk. But, could you show me where you made a case for aliens?
The same argument applies to the Mormon faith…and, in my opinion, it is stronger. The miracles are better attested, the heroism of the faithful in adversity is more inspiring, etc. Yet I do not believe that this is sufficient to bring about my belief.
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You and Meatros both commented on the miracles of Vespasian as being first hand accounts, better attested.
First hand accounts that contribute to their case are better evidence than third hand accounts that contribute to their case. But, first hand accounts that don’t contribute to their case are not better than third hand accounts that contribute to their case.
I pointed out that the Vespasian accounts do not appear to contribute to a miraculous explanation. I pointed out that even taking alien abduction stories at face value didn’t add to Meatros’ case for aliens having resurrected Jesus.
The only part of the Mormon/Joseph Smith story I’m particularly familiar with is the account of him “translating” from golden plates, and I don’t see how it contributes to the case. Joseph Smith wouldn’t translate a passage again when asked, almost as if he wasn’t translating and so couldn’t quote verbatim what he had said on a previous day.
I believe the events depicted for Vespasian and Joseph Smith happened. I don’t see that they make any case for a miraculous event. And, I dont’ see how bringing up “better attested” events that don’t make a case makes your case. Being better attested isn’t enough.
Thank you - my point was that I wasn’t saying it was impossible. That I wasn’t saying two contradictory things. At this point that’s all I am shooting for.
Also, I don’t think I apologized enough. I’m sorry for that mischaracterization.
As this is pertinent to my saying that God would have access to any mechanism aliens would… It just makes sense to me that the guy who creates a universe, and is not bound by it, is likely to know more about it and have more control over it than the guy who is inside it and bound by it’s rules.
As to manifesting… There is a very interesting story on dimensions called Flatland, (Edwin Abbott, 1884.) It’s the tale of a square living in a two dimensional world of polygons who is one day visited by a three dimensional sphere. The sphere can manifest in the 2D plane anywhere he wants, being able to see all of it at once. He can appear inside locked buildings. He is always a sphere, but when he touches the 2D plane, (moving at right angles to every dimension known to the square,) he appears first as a point, then a small circle, then a gradually larger circle, then smaller back down to a point, whereupon he disappears. As a point, or a circle, in the 2D plane, he can act as a natural object in that plane would.
Similarly, an object with four spacial dimensions would intersect our world as a 3D object, and could act naturally in our world.
Or it can alternately cast a 3D shadow on our reality. That would appear immaterial, ghostlike, but the object is still 4 dimensional, and able to interact more naturally, we are just seeing a shadow at the moment. A four dimensional object would encompass every aspect of a three dimensional one and have other miraculous properties besides.
Robert Heinlein also wrote a depiction of moving into a fourth dimension in Stranger in a Strange Land. His hero, (moving at right angles to our reality,) appeared to move farther and farther away without appearing to go anywhere, until he vanished.
Flatland was a fantasy novel that dealt with how humans perceived new ideas, and that passage in Heinlein’s Stranger In A Strange Land about how Mr. Smith made things “disappear” was a bit of fluff used to point out how he was different from other humans. Neither was presented as actual scientific theory-just interesting fiction. Perhaps non-fictional examples would be better suited for your argument?
I would say that the ideas in both Flatland and Stranger in a Strange Land are valid here, as metaphors if nothing else, for how our perceptions are limited by the nature of our cosmos. It is a very commonplace theological idea that God is “outside” of space and time, and can somehow see all of time in one clear panorama of perception, whereas we, being stuck “inside” time, can only see it one slice at a time. The analogy with Flatland is useful for visualizing this.
I do not agree with that theology, but I think that fictional depictions of ideas are entirely valid in discussions of this sort. It’s a little like Empedocles’ classical depiction of God: “The nature of God is a circle of which the center is everywhere and the circumference is nowhere.” It isn’t scientific in any sense whatever; it isn’t even concrete, or well-defined, and some of us might even go so far as to say it’s downright meaningless. But it serves the useful purpose of helping to illustrate the faith held by some people, and, thus, shouldn’t be rejected, only critically analyzed.
I’ll have to tell my former physics professor that you don’t think he should use Flatland as an analogy for how we might visualize extra dimensions. Or for how you would move at right angles to everything we think of as reality. Or make a comment on your belief to the animator the next time I see a video of what a hyper-cube rotating in 4 dimensions would look like intersecting our 3… Do you think they would laugh? Would Heinlein say he made no investigation of scientific matters before he wrote science fiction? Should we tell phyicists to stop trying to imagine extra dimensions, or wondering what extra-dimensional objects interacting with our reality would look like?
Thank you. The analogy of Flatland is useful for physicists who think there might be other dimensions, too. It’s not even mainly a theological idea. I’ve only heard it in scientific settings, never in theological ones… It wasn’t mentioned in one of the recent Brian Greene Nova specials, (there were two: The Elegant Universe, and The Fabric of the Cosmos.) But, there he was, standing outside a representation of our space-time, able to see all of it, explaining what slices of it look like to various observers. (And even time slices aren’t the same for all observers.)
To me, this is a circular argument, since, to date, the claim that a man did return from the dead is, itself, not convincing. A Mormon might say, “If they won’t believe the word of an Angel of God, then what would convince them?” The problem is that the non-Mormon Christian population doesn’t believe that the Book of Mormon is the word of an Angel of God.
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That wasn’t actually my point. The point was that miracles don’t actually convince people; they just get their attention. The point of the passage is: If someone doesn’t believe that the law and the prophets has relevance to their life, someone rising from the dead with the same message won’t convince them either. As demonstrated earlier, someone who isn’t inclined to believe in miracles suggested that Jesus appearing to them could only be a hallucination, and that Paul could only have been hallucinating, etc.
My opinion is that this was solely a political arrangement, and had very little to do with theology.
I also note, with great sadness, that Christians, once in power, were about as nasty as their pagan forebears, engaging in suppression, theocracy, torture, corruption, and all the other ills of one-party statesmanship. If Christian Rome had been pure, clean, glorious, and godly, an argument might be made that it was truly of miraculous inspiration. But it was just about as dirty as anything that came before, or which has come after…
An universal human failing, I trow. Ain’t nobody pure enough to wield power without succumbing to corruption.
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So, we both conclude that Constatine’s conversion and “Christian” Rome wasn’t a triumph of, (or for,) Christianity.
Your ideas and mine are closer than you might think.
As it says, when Jesus returns, the dead in Christ rise first, then all those who are His at His coming. So, every single Christian already has their reward at this point. When the rest of the dead are raised, (non-Christians,) why is there a distinction between those whose name is found written in the book of life and those not? Why did Jesus pardon a sinner on the cross next to Him? It seems that what is necessary is a change of heart and accepting the gift offered. And it seems it’s going to be offered to everyone.
I don’t know - maybe I’m looking at the whole thing wrong. I admit from the outset that my notion of God is strictly non material (which you’ve indicated is not necessarily the case - I think) AND I have problems with the idea that God created the universe from nothing. What I mean is that I find it problematic to say that if something can come from nothing it can be ‘caused’ to come from nothing.
Going from those notions to God interacting within the universe through natural means just doesn’t make sense.
This, of course, could just be problems with my imagination, my notions of what God is, etc.
So putting those aside for a second and strictly going with the notion that God created the universe I can theoretically come up with two scenarios:
God creates the universe in such a way that, through deterministic laws, person X receives resuscitation at time Y. God doesn’t actually have to ‘interact’ with nature in that scenario. This view accords with how I view time (outside of the ‘creation’ aspect).
God is able to go into existence and make changes.
Two is harder for me because of how I view time and reality. I think the block universe view of time make the most sense and in that scenario it’s hard (if not impossible) for me to view God outside of the universe and ‘popping into’ and out of the universe - simply because that view requires presentism, which is negated by the block universe.
Granted, my metaphysics of time could be wrong.
IN ANY EVENT, I concede that it’s logically possible I suppose, I just have a hard time actually grappling with it.
I’m familiar with that book, although I haven’t actually read it.
With both this and flatland, I find I have some problems. I get the general point that you are making, but it’s still not very easy for me to conceptualize these things. They seem to have problems when I really think about them. Now, does this fault lay with me or is it an actual problem? I can’t say at this point - but I would be willing to grant that it’s possible for the sake of discussion since I recognize that I have a wondrous lack of knowledge on some of these thing.
I suppose that I just want to put out there that it’s not absurd to question these things as being easy to understand.
I’ve actually read this book and I completely missed this (or forgot it - I read it years ago) - when he makes his enemies vanish, is he sending them to the fourth dimension?
I don’t know - maybe I’m looking at the whole thing wrong. I admit from the outset that my notion of God is strictly non material (which you’ve indicated is not necessarily the case - I think)…
Going from those notions to God interacting within the universe through natural means just doesn’t make sense.
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And to me, to say that God could create the universe and wouldn’t be able to interact with it doesn’t make sense.
Right now, I’m imagining a researcher who creates an experiment. He’s designed it with the intent of introducing chemicals in different concentrations at different points, (both in terms of time and space.) Introducing a chemical is an “unnatural” event; it comes from outside the experiment. But, the interaction is entirely natural after that. If he sticks his hand into the experiment, introducing it is unnatural, from outside, but the interaction is completely natural. If he has provided a mechanism for stirring a certain point in the solution, even if it’s activated from outside, I would call that a natural interaction… there is a stirring device actually in the experiment, and it’s action is natural.
Wow. Your idea of what would constitute god and the realm he would inhabit is very limited indeed. If he creates a universe, he can’t possibly do what every inventor and researcher here on earth can do: interact with his creation. Aliens would have more knowledge of his creation and more ability to alter it. And… there can’t possibly be the energy in his realm with which to create a universe in the first place. You seem to imagine a “powerful” being with practically no power.
…I’ve seen a theory that the entire universe could have formed from a singularity with a mass of as little as 10 kilos. Do you have trouble imagining that our universe could appear from nothing? The expansion itself causing a decrease in gravitational energy that allowed energy to be available for the creation of more mass, (if I’m remembering correctly.) The reduction of energy in one aspect of the universe freed up energy for creation of mass from “nothing.” Energy transfers from one place to another. Why can’t energy come out of a four dimensional realm to create a three dimensional one?
If I’m understanding your “block universe” correctly… Is it similar to the idea I’ve heard from both theologians and physicists that time and space are all predetermined? The space-time dough ball is set and only our perception seems to move through it? That gives a god a lump of dough to work with at the outset and a good reason to know every thought and the end from the beginning. It gives him every opportunity to fine tune every interaction to see what the outcome would be, and change it until he gets the outcome he wants before he starts our perception running. And he doesn’t have to wait for the perception line at every interaction… he knows every reaction so he knows what he wants to say or do at every point… he can have his voice already recorded in the wind at the given point, or written into a mind, or create an avatar to say it, or have a character in the world say it for him, much as any programmer, or author could.
The universe becomes a giant Rube-Goldberg device. (Not that I have any problems with that.)
I understand that imagining 4 dimensions or all of the time-space block universe at once isn’t an easy concept. I don’t take issue with not having a good grasp of that. I take issue with how little power you grant a “god” to change his creation once he’s created it. You don’t seem to imagine that the power and energy to create the universe existed in the first place… (at least when you’re imagining a god creating it… you seem fine when imagining nothing creating it… it can appear out of nothing, but not someone create it out of nothing? so the issue would be with someone wielding that power?) When you imagine someone wielding that much power, you don’t go on to grant them the ability to do anything else. You grant aliens more power.
With just a moments thought I can state that once you imagine the existence of an extra dimensional being, (without even stopping to think what that really means,) who can create a three dimensional universe… It just makes sensethat he has more power than creatures in that universe, (lesser dimensional,) who can’t even create their own universes yet. I only ask you to take that much thought about it. One second. Who has more power? The creator of a universe or a created being stuck in that universe. Who is likely to know more about how the universe was created and what is possible in that universe? The being who created it, or creatures in that universe? I only ask you to take one second to think on that…
However, if your answer is anything other than “the being with the power to create a universe, the being who created it and knows how it was created… the being who, by creating a universe, would have already demonstrated more power than exists in the universe…” THEN, I EXPECT that you have thought LONG and HARD, have an EXCELLENT grasp of the concepts, and have a good explanation as to why the being with the power to create the universe, the one who knows how it was created, has less power than something he created.
I read it years ago, as well. So, I don’t recall if Heinlein mentioned anything about extra dimensions, specifically. I would have to reread it to check. I just remember reading the depiction of Mr. Smith making things appear and disappear, (including himself,) and thinking, “wow; that’s a perfect description of what it must look like to move in and out of extra dimensions.” And I couldn’t imagine that Heinlein hadn’t intended that.
I can’t do much more here with the theology, which is deeper than I am… But…
Yes, Robert Heinlein intended the “vanishing powers” exhibited by Valentine Michael Smith in “Stranger in a Strange Land” to be “sending objects away into the fourth dimension.” All the observers (cameras, etc.) saw the objects as “going away,” no matter where they (observers) stood. Someone to the east saw the objects “go west.” Someone to the north saw the objects “go south.” Someone above saw the objects “fall away downwards.”
Heinlein also played with this in his (absurd!) short story, “And He Built a Crooked House.” He was good at taking basic philosophical notions and writing illustrative stories around them.
If you ever feel really, really gutsy, his take on solipsism, in “They,” is powerful, stern, haunting, and a bit brutal. His take on time-travel paradoxes, in “All You Zombies” is also brutal, and more than just a bit!
There is nothing at all wrong with using science fiction to explore an idea in real science. H.G. Wells was the master’s master of it. We don’t have to believe in “Cavorite” to use it as the basis of a thought-experiment in General Relativity. Using higher dimensions in theology is also entirely valid (in my opinion.)
After all, “A metaphor is something you talk through to make your voice louder!”
This is what I was trying to say. And it gives me an opportunity to revisit a question I previously skipped, (other questions seeming more pressing at the time.)
Wasn’t Jesus taken “up” into heaven when the disciples saw him ascending into the sky? Doesn’t that put heaven in our reality? Jesus was depicted as standing on a mountain. If his disciples were a step or two below him as he was taken into a fourth dimension, they would see him move up and away.
Why is heaven depicted as “up,” (even by angels who should “know better,”) if it’s actually into a fourth dimension? A three dimensional being standing on a two dimensional plane would naturally think of the third dimension away from the plane as up. Similarly, the natural “up” to a four dimensional being interacting with a three dimensional reality is into the fourth dimension away from the other three.
We just don’t have anywhere near enough information. Maybe Jesus had to move upwards, before changing into a different flight mode entirely. (Like a Harrier jet lifting upward, before going forward faster than the speed of sound.) Who can possibly know?
(Maybe Jesus exited the mundane cosmos in an informational direction, i.e., he “woke up” from the dream we’re all in, or ended a holodeck program. There isn’t any dimensional direction at all associated with that kind of lifting of consciousness. Kinda Zen, eh?)
Possibly for the same reason angels are depicted as having wings. Flight is something wonderful, and the sky is mysterious. Even as late as Dante, the church was using the orbital “spheres of the planets” as a metaphor for heaven.
So, neither of us think this aspect of Jesus appearing to accend up into the sky would invalidate the story. Though that’s a claim I’ve heard, (and what I thought was implied when someone mentioned it previously in the thread.)
Yes. I’ve pondered those ideas as well. But, as you said, we just don’t have enough information. It’s mainly to ponder what it means to enter a reality beyond this one.
If the people saw Jesus body(which was supposed to be human),was sucked up into a place beyond our universe, and at the speed of light he would still be going out into space,unless of sourse the spiritual life is just that one would desolve and become part of the universe. Or it could be a way to explain the fact that Jesus was no longer on earth. I would think his staying on earth would be a lot more proof for a believer or non-believer than saying he went up to Heaven and no one knows where that is supposed to be. He could teach things to people and of course there would be no need for faith,people would know the truth. I fail to see why belief is better than truth!
People think of Heaven as up and Hell as down, but either that would mean Hell was the center of earth. Australia is down from us and we are down to Australia, it seems to be a matter of perception!
Theodore Sturgeon wrote a short story entitled “The Stars are the Styx.” Inspired by this, I wrote a series of stories where “hell” is deep space. (Unpublished, perhaps unpublishable.) Outer space, the center of the earth, some other physical dimension, some other kind of dimension… It probably doesn’t matter…
I also like Milton’s observation, “The mind is its own place and in itself, can make a Heav’n of Hell, a Hell of Heav’n.”
(I have no idea why he used apostrophes to shorten the word!)
Likewise, “One man’s hell is another man’s heaven.” To me, heaven would not be tolerable, as long as I knew that even one soul was suffering in hell.
But, oops!, this is wandering away from the point of the thread; apologies.
They have none. If good evidence existed they would not have any faith, only pragmatic conclusions. They have faith and that’s fine as long as their faith doesn’t make them do horrible things that only make sense in a world where what they believe in is actually true. (like destroying other cultures and forcing Christianity on people)
Scansion. If “heaven” counts as only one stressed syllable (and not, as we ordinarily pronounce it, a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed one), then his meter comes out more smooth. Basically, it’s a kind of book-keeping trick for poets.
