I’m a curious person like all of you, but frankly, I’m sick of hearing about it.
If God almighty came down tomorrow and told us exactly how it happened, how would that change your life right now? I don’t see it making a difference in mine.
I’d owe Pascal $5.
C’mon. Wouldn’t you want to give a big howdy to those cosmic grad students who probably did it. I bet they got no better than a C on the job also.
Seriously, I’d like to know because I got a big curious.
Yeah I know, but once you knew, what would you do? It’d be kind of anti-climactic don’t you think? I imagine a lot of us would probably go “Oh.” and just sit in stunned silence for a while. Then get up to take a leak.
IMO you are approaching the question from exactly the wrong direction. To show what I mean consider applying the same approach to other issues.
If God almighty came down tomorrow and told us that disease is caused by evil spirits, how would that change your life right now? I don’t see it making a difference in mine.
If God almighty came down tomorrow and told us that all matter is composed of little Lego blocks, how would that change your life right now? I don’t see it making a difference in mine.
If God almighty came down tomorrow and told us that the Earth is flat, how would that change your life right now? I don’t see it making a difference in mine.
As you can see that sort of approach isn’t particularly helpful when considering the importance of a point of science. If God comes down and tells us that science has the answer already then of course it changes nothing. And if God comes down and tells us that science has the answers all wrong then we need to ask ourselves why all the technology based on the scientific principles still work. But those are just more questions. So long as technology does work then of course it won’t effect the lives of anyone not employed as a researcher in those fields. However the fact that we can say that about the cause of disease or shape of the planet as much as about the origin of the universe highlights the weakness of your method of analysis.
And the method is weak because you are assuming the importance of these things lies solely in knowing the root cause, rather than in the application of that knowledge. We know that isn’t the case. If God had told us that disease is caused by evil spirits then we could never have invented antibiotics or vaccinations, if God had told us that the Erath was flat then satellite communication would have been impossible and if God had told us that matter is made of Lego blocks then most electronics would have been impossible. All those things have affect your life in massive ways every single day.
And this is also the importance of the origin of the universe. The issue isn’t whether the root cause is important, the issue is whether knowledge of the root cause can be applied to important technologies. And in that sense it may be the single most important questioning the history of history.
Simply asking how your life today would change if we knew the answer is as pointless and invalid as someone in 1900 asking what difference it would make to their life what matter is made of. Or someone in 1800 asking what difference it will make to them what causes disease. Just like you and the origin of the universe those questions had no relevance to their lives. But the answers to those questions changed their world. And in exactly the same way the exact cause of the origin of the universe will probably change the world of the future.
I am sure some scientists could put the info to use. To them, it would be like mommy telling them how babies are made. Something to play witht hemselves about until they get old enough to “experiment”.
Depends on what the answer is. Say we are one of a number of branes. Could we translate ourselves to them? Perhaps it would tell us something about the structure of matter that would help us manipulate it, or even extract energy from it. I agree, that if it doesn’t affect the voting on American Idol the average Joe don’t give a crap, but progress doesn’t come from the average Joe.
IMHO, the creationists chose a completely random issue to rally around. It is not even a generally Christian issue; the Pope in Rome, for instance, has declared : " that evolution is more then a theory" which is generally taken to mean: " Evolution can very well be the way God made the world, so stop fighting it." . So if the Catholics don’t seem to make creationsim a basic tenet of their faith, why would the creationists?
I don’t think it would change my life right now but it very well might change my life in a couple years if we knew how the universe was created. If we knew how it was created we’d probably end up with a full TOE, ‘Theory of Everything’, pretty quickly. With a full TOE who knows what new kinds of stuff we could come up with.
Plus, it’d be cool to know.
Slee
Uhhh, because they aint Catholic? If a well proven and accepted theory was found, even Catholics would fit (manipulate) it into their belief system.
Yes, it could have an enormous impact on your life.
The discovery of exactly how the universe came into being would be a massive breakthrough in our quest to understand (and manipulate) the forces (force?) of Nature. This could well lead in short order to a new fusion process, almost unlimited power for next-to-nothing.
That’s just for starters.
And, of course, there’s the obvious retort.
If the Greek Pre-Socratic philosophers, Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes, etc hadn’t started asking questions like what’s everything made of, where does it all come from, why are things this way and not that way, we wouldn’t be sitting at our computers typing these posts, we wouldn’t be driving to work, nor flying through the air, nor putting men on the Moon.
I’m sure there were those at the time who said to them, “What’s the point of these questions? Why don’t you go and do something useful?”
Fortunately they ignored those people and continued to ask the questions on which Western science was built.
.No, but most creationists suggest that theirs is, of should be, a Christian point of view. I’ve seldom heard one of them say: *" Evolution is bunk, and that is my firm Lutheran Wisconsin Evangelical Synod Brethren belief. Members of the Methodist Evangelica Church may disagree, though, and as for the other 60 churches you find in the yellow pages, well, you’d have to ask them personally." *
I don’t understand, could you explain what you mean here?
If God told us how the Universe was created, that might make a personal difference to everybody . . . Remember, from the Christian POV, this is not a purely intellectual/scientific/academic question. It has personal moral and spiritual relevance to everybody. The Creation story – including the sin of Adam and Eve, and the Original Sin we all inherit because of it – is central to Christ’s role as sin-redeemer. If there’s no Original Sin, who needs Christ?
Because even without the Adam and Eve story, once we evolved to conceive of abstract ideas like right and wrong, we became accountable for the choices we made.
Except that it’s not the same approach. In fact, it’s some of the worst analogics I’ve ever seen. The OP does not posit God saying anything at all ridiculous about mystical underpinnings of the universe, but rather revealing the actual way the universe came about. Lego blocks and evil spirits are in no way analogous to anything the OP said.
How would God go about proving he’s actually God? I’m sure a lot of people whose views on the origins of the universe didn’t match up with what he told us would raise the question of whether or not it was really God. And then that just becomes a matter of faith.
But it does mean that not all humans are born with Original Sin, so in theory a non-Christian who made only good choices could go to heaven. Some Christian sects (often the same ones that have issues with evolution) have a problem with that point of view.
Rigamarole, I’m with you on this. While I completely appreciate science and the quest for knowledge, in the end I really couldn’t care less how the universe was created, why we’re here or pretty much any of the ‘great’ questions. Not to say that I don’t pursue knowledge just for the sake of knowing it but, there are somethings that just fail to peak my interest.
Uhmm…I think people are missing the obvious here…
If God came down to Earth and told us how the Universe was created would it make a difference in my life?
Hell yes! Not that I know how the Universe was created but that GOD came down here and had a talk with me (everyone)!
I’d say that would indeed be pretty awesome and life affecting.
I think if God himself or herself came down to earth today, I’d have him/her explain a hell of a lot of things before asking him/her about the birth of the universe. Like why do little babies die and why do good people suffer while the iniquitous go free. Stuff like that. He got some ‘splainin’ to do.
mm