I’m not really sure if I’m asking these questions in a serious way, or just engaging in mental masturbation. But I’m truly curious as to what peoples’ opinions are, and in what direction this thread could take, assuming it survives more than five posts.
If God is omnipresent, are His thought processes (divine synapses?) subject to the limitations of light speed?
Is God composed of the same stuff (electrons, photons, etc.) as the rest of the universe?
If so, was there a God before the Big Bang?
In short – is God subject to the laws of physics? Why or why not?
[ul][1] No because God transcends time and space. How else could He be everywhere at once?
[2] No, not even close.
[3] Yes, but He was lonely.
[4] He is not subject to them, since He is responsible for them. He doesn’t break them, in the same way you do not cheat at solitaire. :o [sup]You don’t, do ya?[/sup]
[sup]That sure felt like I was answering something in IMHO![/sup][/ul]
Wow! A theological debate not questioning the existence of a god.
OK. So you believe there is God, or godZ. In Christian theology, one would be forced to look to the Bible. What does it say?
Genesis 1:1 - “In the beginning, God created the Heavens and the Earth.”
So, before this God of Genesis did something about it, the “Universe” as we know it did not exist. Hence, all thoughts about physical properties of such a Being cannot be answered using the laws governing the artifact “Universe.”
Many other theologies have a creation motif also.
Thus, God exists in His own reality.
Now, if We created God, that’s a whole other set of parameters.
According to Judaism, the answer is no, G-d is not subject to the laws of physics. In fact, this is considered to be a fundamental principle of Judaic belief. G-d is not a physical being.
"For the Great God Beeblebrox said unto the fifty two, ‘Fear not, for my power is infinite’ and He searched into the fathomless depths for the needed 5 of clubs. He laid the card upon the four, and saw that it was good. ‘A miracle!’, cried the fifty two, ‘we shall be delivered unto the promised land’. ‘Behold’, Beeblebrox said unto them, “My Will shall be done, for I’m gonna win this freakin’ game”
Although I’m an atheist, my personal opinion is that if there was a God, he/she would have to be a hands-off sort of deity. As such, my guess is that he/she would have created space-time, set the rules, started it off and then just sat back and watched it run. If there is a soul and afterlife, he/she could harvest the souls as they come out.
Where does this assertion come from? How do we know that spirit is unlike everything else in the universe, and is not made of atoms? (Or more inclusively, particles.)
This is assuming that by “Heaven and Earth”, we mean the universe itself. But it could also mean our planet and the sky above it. That would still be The Beginning, from our point of view. Who’s to say that God didn’t show up some few billion years after the Big Bang?
I have to agree with kniz’s statement above. But this only applies to the ‘god in the sky’. :smack:
When God (or G-d for some of you (??)) comes down to Earth in human form (Jesus, Rama, Krishna, Zoroaster, Buddah, Mohammed) he seems to be subject to the Laws of Physics. Certainly, some of the incarnations of God possessed the ability to do Miracles, but that could be seen more as the bending of physics - and aren’t performed to help Himself, but others. God-Man manifestations seem to be subject to human physical laws (time, aging, physical injury, pain, death, etc). It seems that each incarnation of God experiences pain as part of experiencing the human condition.
In summary, while on Earth, God is subject to physical laws. While in astral form (or whatevery you want to call it) there is no need for Physics (as God doesn’t ‘exist’ in the physical sense in this reality).
As a side note: there is the though in various religions, that God makes up everything. Every bit of matter is made up of ‘God essence’ - bits from the one true soul (God). In this case, physics would apply.
Damn, another side note: the line between God & physics, or the difference between ‘Dark Matter/Energy’ and the will of God holding the entire universe together, is a vague line altogether - but probably a question for another thread. Just keep in mind that fairly quickly physics deveates from the concrete and gets into the metaphysical.
It really is interesting, though, that there are many physical analogies to spiritual metaphor. But truth-bearers (in the formal logic sense) differ fundamentally in a spiritual context than they do in the context of our physical perception. Whereas there is either A or Not A in logical modality, there is either I Accept or I Reject in spiritual morality. Spiritual reality is very much like Schrodinger’s cat: there is nothing actualized until a moral decision has been made.
Melchizedek was without father, mother or ancestry
Enoch did not die.
in GENESIS Chap 5 you will find:
and Enoch was no longer here for God took him and Enoch walked with God.
therefore:
what if God exists outside the space-time continuum of Einsteinian physics? Enoch “walks with God” for an hour and 2000 years pass on earth. Enoch and Melchizedek are the same person but of course noone recognizes Enoch after 2000 years. so Melchizedek wasn’t born and had no ancestry for 2000 years.
see:
THE ULTIMATE FRONTIER by Eklal Kueshana
for a peculiar explanation of what God is composed of. it claims time only applies to the physical plain. it says nothing about Enoch.
THE AQUARIAN GOSPEL OF JESUS THE CHRIST by Levi
claims Enoch, Melchizedek and JC are the Avatar and the same person.
As far a God is concerned, time doesn’t really exist. Time was created, as was space for this reality. We already know that time/space are one entity, woven together. How could one exist without the other? The only logical assumption (and the only way that Creationism and Evolution can co-exist) is if time doesn’t exist for God. How could God have created the world circa 10,000 BC, but somehow we have billions of years of empiracle evidence for history? Only if time doesn’t really exist for God, could both have been accomplished. If you were God, and time doesn’t exist, you could create the world in the snap of your finger, and evolve life all the way up to modern man. As far as this reality (frame of reference in physics terms) is concerned, time has always moved at a constant rate. Which kind of goes back to the original thread and my previous post - everthing must be thought of as relating to this reality, and this reality is continuous. Physics applies in this reality - but not necessarily in the greater “reality” that God exists in.
IMHO, I don’t see why Creationism and Evolution have to be mutually-exclusive.
[sup]That sure felt like I was answering something in IMHO![/sup][/ul]