Useful refresher in the age of worry over Boltzmann brains:
See also: Copernicus, you are not going to believe who is using your name. Or how.
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31 Replies to “Reasonable Faith on the fine-tuning of the universe”
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As to the imagined ‘universe generator’ at the 4:15 minute mark of the video.,,, Although the multiverse itself is imagined to be an infinite number of parallel universes that occupy every conceivable ‘naturalistic’ possibility for a universe, exactly where does the imagined ‘universe generator’ itself reside and what is it made of? In order to create just our universe, the imagined ‘universe generator’ cannot be made of mass-energy, nor can it reside in space-time, since the imagined ‘universe generator’ created those things. Paul Davies puts the problem like this,,,
Even Austin Hughes, who is an evolutionary biologist of all occupations, can see the shell game atheists are playing with the imagined ‘universe generator’,,,
And should not the fact that Theism has postulated all along that the universe was created by a Being who is not limited by space-time matter-energy count for something?
Verse and Music:
of note to ‘higher dimensions’ above the space-time matter-energy of this universe:
Although we have no evidence of infinite parallel universes of the multiverse variety, or of the quantum many worlds variety, we do have evidence of ‘higher dimensions’ above this universe as is postulated in Theism.
In fact, both of our best mathematical descriptions for the universe, General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics are both ‘higher dimensional’ in their formulation:
Moreover, it is interesting to note that math, even higher dimensional math, is ‘incomplete’,,,
The four dimensional Riemann space that General Relativity is based upon is fascinating to contemplate. In four dimensional Riemann space any particular 3D spot in the universe is to be considered just as ‘center of the universe’ as any other particular spot in the universe is to be considered ‘center of the universe’,,,
The centrality found for any 3D place in the universe is because the universe is a 4D expanding hypersphere, analogous in 3D to the surface of an expanding balloon. All points on the surface are moving away from each other, and every point is central, if that’s where you live.
I find the best way to get this ‘centrality of the Earth in the universe” point across is to visualize it first hand. Thus I reference the first few minutes of this following video to clearly get this ‘centrality in the universe’ point across:
This discovery for the 4-dimensional space-time of General Relativity is just fascinating to think about,, for how is it possible that every place can be central in the universe?
One way to get a handle on how this is possible is to visualize what it would be like to be in a higher dimension,,,
Moreover, we also have evidence for a higher dimension from Special Relativity. Please note the 3:22 minute mark of the following video, when the 3-Dimensional world ‘folds and collapses’ into a tunnel shape around the direction of travel as a ‘hypothetical’ observer moves towards the ‘higher dimension’ of the speed of light.
Moreover, we have evidence that time acts in a fundamentally different way in this higher dimension,,
Interestingly, we have ‘observational’ evidence from Near Death Experiences that verifies our scientific evidence for higher dimensions:
Of related interest to this higher heavenly dimension above this one, it is interesting to note that the 2-dimensional surface of the Shroud of Turin has 3-Dimensional holographic information encoded on it:
Verse and Music:
For what it’s worth I’m a witness to higher dimensions. Years ago I had a vision in which I had a conversation with the transfigured Christ. I was sleeping and I found myself in a darkened room. The walls, floor, and ceiling were black and nondescript. Then Jesus appeared. His head was so bright that I couldn’t look at him. So I looked down to floor. He approached me and we had a very brief a conversation. All the while I could sense his divine power and love. The conversation ended and in a instant I was back in my bed in my physical body. It was no dream. It was too clear, and too easy to remember. In a dream you have fussy images that are partially complete. The vision was as real as everyday reality. I have been very fortunate. I never question my faith. I know the reality of higher dimensions through my experience.
Peter, from my perspective, its worth is beyond measurement.
Thank you for your witness.
Do you remember what Jesus said? What was the gist of the conversation?
Ditto DK at 5 Peter
DK and BA77 – you seem very willing to accept Peter’s testimony of witnessing a higher dimension without question. It’s possible Peter’s experience may be quite valid, but given the extraordinary nature of it, I’d been at this point wanting to ask quite a few questions, and attempting to understand the context, setting, background etc. Do you know Peter personally, have you met him? Do you just take his word for it because it fits your own ideology?
If Peter’s witness was of Krishna, or Buddha, or the angel moroni, what would have been your reaction?
Well roding, although my testimony is not as dramatic as Peter’s, I too have seen the ‘miraculous’ in my life. A ‘miraculous’ event where Jesus was unquestionably ‘there for me’, i.e. ‘spoke to me’, at a very low point in my life. In fact, I’ve seen numerous ‘small’ miracles since that time in my life as well as in other people’s lives.
As well, my older and younger brothers have both had experiences with Christ that were much more dramatic than mine. And although I could envision my younger brother being given to fancy in such matters, my older brother is nothing like that, but is one of the most fine, upstanding, responsible, ‘down to earth’, people I know. The soberness to which my older brother conducts his life, and to which he personally gave his testimony to me, left no doubt in me that his testimony is truthful and sincere.
So while I still would like to know more details of exactly what happened to Peter, and the circumstances under which it happened, I know that what happened to him is ‘not out of the norm’ for a Christian, and I have no reason to doubt the sincerity of his testimony at this time,
I know, especially dealing with Darwinists, that not everything people say on thee internet is true (DUH!), and sometimes, especially with Darwinists, what people say can sometimes be purposely misleading, but in regards to Peter’s testimony I have very good reasons to believe that his testimony has a high probability of being trustworthy.
A few related notes:
Mother Teresa was a nun whom I consider to have ‘walked in miracles’. At the 19:00 minute mark of the following video you can catch a glimpse of the remarkable trust in God that this little woman of giant faith constantly walked in during her missionary work to the poorest of the poor:
Verses and Music:
Yes, I remember the vision like it was yesterday. It happened over twenty years ago. I had left the church at the time. I was not thinking of religion at all.
In my vision I was in the darkened room. On the other side of the room was a pedestal about 1 meter high. On the pedestal was a gem about 1/3 of a meter in circumference. It was shaped like the top of a diamond on its top and bottom. There was no point like the bottom of a diamond to be set into a ring. It just sat on the pedestal. It emitted a bright light blue light. It was divinely beautiful. There are no earthly comparisons.
Jesus appeared on my right hand side in front of me. He approached. That was when I tried to look him in the face but had to look away. The radiance emitting from his face was too bright. He was wearing a robe so that his radiance came only from his face and hands.
After stopping about normal distance people keep in a conversation he said to me: ‘I can show you more, but you have to leave.’ I looked once more at the gem. Its beauty, and the glow was stronger than ever. I felt a beauty that was beyond anything you could feel on earth. I pondered Jesus’ question. Should I see more? Jesus didn’t explain what the light was. I thought it was the essence of God himself because nothing could be so beautiful. I thought if I left this world I would obviously die. That would hurt the ones I love very much. I decided that I couldn’t hurt my loved ones, regardless of whatever experience I was giving up. As soon as I decided not to see more the vision was over and I was back in my bed.
BA77, thank you for sharing a bit about your personal experiences, that’s interesting. And Peter, thank you for sharing more details about your experience. Self-reports are always fascinating (of all religions).
BA77 – you seem to spend an extraordinary time posting here. Do you consider this your ministry or something? I’m imagining you don’t have a day job!
roding, my ‘day job’ allows me more time on the internet than most people would have.
As to ‘ministry’, I consider ministry to be working with the homeless and poor and such as that. I consider defending the Theistic position on the internet to be just plain good common sense, although I’m sure a few atheists would rather I not spend so much time doing that, and have been told as much.
Working with poor and homeless is a great ministry! It’s up to you how much time you spend on the Internet. I wonder how many people (especially atheists) change their worldview because of what they read on the Internet?
To be honest I don’t usually read your posts because there are so many of them and they are usually links to elsewhere. But on this occasion you addressed me personally so that was different.
“I wonder how many people (especially atheists) change their worldview because of what they read on the Internet?”
I know a few,,,
“To be honest I don’t usually read your posts”
Neither do I usually read yours. Nothing personal, there is just so much of interest on the internet it is impossible to keep up with everything (unless you are God of course, without which there would be no world much less a world wide web) 🙂
I am actually a longtime lurker who just registered here for the purpose of chiming in on this back and forth about BA77’s comments. Personally, i have found BA77’s comments to be extremely profitable in many ways, and they are often as much, if not more, of an attraction to me than the post they are attached to. I’m quite sure that many other lurkers feel the same way I do.
For those times when one has the time and inclination to go deeper on a given topic, BA77 is always there with an incredibly helpful post giving lots of great additional information, laid out in a helpful way and with links to back up his assertions. I have actually been quite amazed at BA77’s gift for synthesizing these topics in such a helpful way. His posts are the guided tours of a master librarian, arranging explorations of a topic in ways the card catalog can simply cannot match.
Sure, one doesn’t always have to jump down those rabbit holes, but it is an enormously valuable thing that these guided tours are there for times when one wants them to be. So on behalf of all who have benefited from your posts, BA77, I offer a sincere and hearty thank you. Keep it up. Many are reading.
UD Editors add: BA77 is a priceless resource for this site, and we are grateful for his work.
I’m curious, have you observed a conversion take place on any of the sites you visit? Would be interesting to read the threads. Are there some sites where it happens more than others? I don’t think it’s happened at UD but there I suppose technically it’s not supposed to be a religious site!
and roding why do you ask? Are you considering becoming a Theist because of the evidence like the world’s most prominent atheist Anthony Flew did? if not, what is your specific ‘reason’, since you have no scientific evidence, for not believing?
“I now believe that the universe was brought into existence by an infinite intelligence. I believe that the universe’s intricate laws manifest what scientists have called the Mind of God. I believe that life and reproduction originate in a divine Source. Why do I believe this, given that I expounded and defended atheism for more than a half century? The short answer is this: this is the world picture, as I see it, that has emerged from modern science.”
Anthony Flew – world’s leading intellectual atheist for most of his adult life until a few years shortly before his death
The Case for a Creator – Lee Strobel (Nov. 25, 2012) – video
http://www.saddleback.com/mc/m/ee32d/
“It may seem bizarre, but in my opinion science offers a surer path to God than religion … science has actually advanced to the point where what were formerly religious questions can be seriously tackled”,,
Paul Davies, God and the New Physics, Penguin, 1983, p. ix
I’m always open to the idea of being a theist. I’m also fascinated by people’s conversion stories, particularly if they occurred on the Internet. So curiosity is my main reason.
BA77, with regard to your first few paragraphs of your #8, in answer to Roding’s #7, I wonder if you would be inclined to summarise it as follows:
The supernatural is more real – I’m not speaking metaphorically – to people who have experienced it with any force (in fact always felt as sublimely personally-addressed, whether a ridiculous coincidence(s) or a vision or both), than the day-to-day world they live in.
There is something about the way in which such a person relates his/her story, Roding, that also rings true. False ones are just as easily identified, as much through the context and nature of the communication as anything, but they are surprisingly rare. They don’t come from the heart. Even in many of the great classics of literature, it is, I think, usually the author’s heart that speaks to us, and rings true.
I’ve always believed mystical experiences were far more common than we are given to understand by the media, so I found it very gratifying to see the ever-growing abundance of accounts of mystical NDE experiences on YouTube, etc, incidentally, of a much more stunningly visual, paradisial kind than most waking ones, I believe.
Love and beauty seem two sides of the same coin, and you not only see the beauty and feel the love, your eyes feel both as though physically with your eyes(!) – which sounds mad.
Like Jung, I don’t believe God exists. I know he does. But if I have any lingering, irrational doubt it is not about his existence, but the notion that such sublime glimpses of heavenly beauty as we can be granted here in this life could be experienced never-endingly, forever and ever!!!! That’s sometimes I find difficult to get my head round when I ponder it.
The “ISness” of God is why I believe. He IS, and there is nothing without Him. Not “nothing” in Stephen Hawking’s woefully misguided “nothing”, but NOTHING.
I don’t agree with everything written by Dr. Ed Feser (he doesn’t care much for ID, for example), but he has provided some fantastic insight into the nature of God, such as I allude to above.
roding, as to intellectual evidence for God, there is more than enough, and then some, to satisfy the curious mind that God is really real. But I think you may be looking for something deeper, a evidence of the heart if you will, a personal ‘touch’ from God, and if you are, besides Axel’s excellent post at 21, I can only echo the ‘seek and ye shall find’ refrain of the Bible,,
along that note;
Have You Experienced Jesus – Episode 8 – video
Excerpt: At the 6:40 minute mark of this video, Kay Sorenson a former Las Vegas Singer at the age of 46 had an amazing born again experience
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNcXkMxQjDU&feature=player_detailpage#t=400s
semi OT: podcast: Dr. Bill Demsbki: Being As Communion
http://www.discovery.org/multi.....more-26371
John West sits down with Mathematician and Philosopher Dr. Bill Dembski to discuss his new book Being as Communion: A Metaphysics of Information. Dr. Dembski describes his book as “trying…to make sense of the world if matter is not the most fundamental thing, but information is.” Tune in to this fascinating discussion about our understanding of information, and how it can transform our view of the world.
My original question was about knowing of accounts of conversions that have occurred directly because of interaction on sits like this where these topics have occurred. You said you knew of a few (#14) , so would be very interested in exploring these. I’d like to see and understand the thought/mind processes atheists went through as part of their conversion experience.
Well roding, I don’t have the e-mails saved, and wouldn’t share them with you if I did save them, but I received a few e- mails testifying to their (i.e. atheists) conversion from reading UD and other related ID material, i.e. books videos, etc…
And I am not sure who all on UD use to be atheistic and who all use to merely believe in evolution, but almost everyone on UD has believed in Darwinian evolution to one extent or another at some time in the past before becoming familiar with the evidence for ID.
GilDodgen, who use to post quite regularly on UD, comes readily to mind as someone who is quite open in stating that he came from a fairly strong atheistic background and converted to Christianity after becoming familiar with the scientific evidence for ID,,,
If anyone else on UD wants to share their personal story with you that is their personal business, and I certainly don’t want to put anyone on the spot who doesn’t want to be there,,
DD@15, I echo your comments, I stop by to read comments by BA77 and have been tremendously blessed by the posts of BA77 and others like him. 🙂
UD Editors add: BA77 is a priceless resource for this site, and we are grateful for his work.
I admit to not reading any of it. #1 the extreme volume of it where I have to scroll, and scroll, and scroll to get to the next post, puts it like, if I’m going to read it where do you start? And #2 because of the extreme volume I’m suspicious of the motive behind it. I have an evangelical sister and brother-in-law, and he especially is very rigid. Because of my knowledge of mental health and its relationship with non-ordinary states of consciousness, he thinks I have wasted my life exploring the subject and actually taking part. And wrote a 50 page explanation for me why there is only one way, and that way is why he doesn’t believe in spiritual progress or advancement. Yes you read that right. I can point to one of their church members who cannot work and cannot climb the steps to the church, because of obesity. She did it his way and in the last 3 years has gained another 100 pounds.
So BA’s volume reminds me of those 50 pages. Now saying this I have noticed one or two other people admitting to being a fan of his. So I have nothing to say about the relevancy of any of it but I did click one of his links one time and it was interesting.
I appreciate the votes of confidence from the, ahem, ‘fans’ who find my posts interesting, and the honesty of critics who find them boring.
roding, as to the overall subject, I hope that their chiming in on the subject brought a little bit of clarity for you on the topic.
If I may offer one more opinion,,, for me the evidence for Intelligent Design is simply overwhelming to the point of ridiculousness (for example ‘a brain that is far more complex than the entire internet combined),,, and yet, as you note, relatively few people change their minds based on the scientific evidence that is presented on these blogs.,,, so that tells me that it must be more of a ‘heart problem’ than it is a ‘head problem’. i.e. for some inexplicable reason, people fervently desire that ID was not true and that a nihilistic existence was true.,,
Verse and Music:
Roding:
I never really had a ‘conversion’ experience, but I did have a period of my life where I decided that I needed to investigate the evidence and evaluate things for myself. The thing is, I didn’t do most of it by actually debating with people, but by reading the debates and discussions by other people. I strongly suspect that people that are re-evaluating what they believe won’t tend to take part in such threads. After all, they’re in the middle of deciding. Which side would they even argue for?
As a result, any conversions that happen as a result of these threads are not likely to be recorded in the threads themselves, and may in fact happen well after the thread has ‘died’. I know that when I was investigating I read a lot archived discussions that hadn’t been commented on in months or even years.
Roding:
BTW, I stumbled upon this account of an athiest’s conversion to christianity recently. It might be of interest to you.
http://www.undergroundthomist......theist.pdf