Sabine Hossenfelder argues that the multiverse is “no better than God”

_{Denyse O'Leary

August 1, 2021

Intelligent Design, Multiverse, theism}

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It’s not just theists who have problems with the multiverse. Sabine Hossenfelder explains her reservations.
The Big Conversation is a video series from Unbelievable? featuring world-class thinkers across the religious and non-religious community. Exploring science, faith, philosophy and what it means to be human. The Big Conversation is produced by Premier in partnership with John Templeton Foundation.
Luke Barnes, “The Multiverse is no better than God” at The Big Conversation (July 31, 2021)

Here’s the full version, with over 2700 comments:

Many physicists have pointed out the extraordinary ‘fine tuning’ of the physical laws of the universe that have allowed life to develop within the cosmos.
Luke Barnes believes it gives evidence for a designer behind the cosmos, whereas Sabine Hossenfelder disagrees, questioning whether we can even speak of ‘fine tuning’ as a phenomenon.
Luke Barnes, “The fine tuning of the Universe: Was the cosmos made for us?” at The Big Conversation (July 31, 2021)

See also: Sabine Hossenfelder: Is math real? Hossenfelder: The physicists who believe in this argue that unobservable universes are real because they are in their math. But just because you have math for something doesn’t mean it’s real. You can just assume it’s real, but this is unnecessary to describe what we observe and therefore unscientific.

Comments

AD @358:
WJM have you read any Robert Lanza?
No, I've only read what's available on Amazon about his books. I've never read his actual books though.William J Murray_{August 17, 2021
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Querius
This type of behavior refutes the assertion that “objective reality” exists only in the mind, which I believe is a rash conclusion.
Agreed, and thanks for that explanation which was very helpful. I just came across this excerpt from "A Sense of Self: Memory, the Brain, and Who We Are" ...
The brain’s exposure to physical reality initiates its ability to gather, organize, and remember. Renowned neuroscientists like Oliver Sacks are beginning to examine the truth of this capacity with experimentation. In his article “To See and Not See,” Sacks discusses a man who, after nearly a lifetime of blindness, grows able to see. The world wasn’t immediately familiar to him, though; rather, he had to accustom himself to it as if it was the site of some alien planet, rather than a home he’d inhabited his entire life. Studies like this prove that to get a foothold in the world, the brain must first ingest it, taking it in, churning it up, and hopefully turning it into something that resembles its environment.
I had not heard of that experiment before but it would seem to refute the idea again that there is no external reality and everything is mind. Someone could say that the "universal mind just created the impression that eyes actually see an external world, so that when you're blind you don't see the idea of the external world, then when you see (which you don't really see but are just made to think that you see) then you have to adjust your mind." But that is convoluted at best and doesn't make sense as I see it. Why have eyes at all if your mind is just being implanted with ideas? Then, when you're blind and can see again, why would it be a struggle to adjust to the external world if it never existed anyway? The idea that matter is not little clumps of stuff but rather energy and information and even that consciousness affects reality does not require that there is no external world.Silver Asiatic_{August 16, 2021
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I agree with Silver Asiatic @359. I noticed that Dr. Marcella made similar slips in his book, but wisely refrained from either making or avoiding philosophical conclusions. That "things" can exist as perturbations in a field or exist outside space-time, doesn't mean that everything is an illusion in our minds. Such a conclusion is non-scientific. To the points that Kairosfocus made in 354 about Marcella's quotes, I agree. However, the wave nature of light seems to be a mathematical probability wave. This is something that might someday be confirmed or falsified with a super sensitive gravity detector. I also agree that Marcella should not have concluded that "things" outside of space-time are causeless and are completely random. As I mentioned before, Chaos Theory resides somewhere between determinism and randomness. Furthermore, as "things" scale up, they become more and more deterministic. This is also an attribute of Chaos Theory. Here's one way to look at it . . . Print a color copy of the Mandelbrot Set and affix it to a dart board. Try to hit the center black area. As you move away from the dartboard, the dart will land more and more on random colors, but as you move closer to the target, you can usually pick the color you want to hit. This type of behavior refutes the assertion that "objective reality" exists only in the mind, which I believe is a rash conclusion. -QQuerius_{August 16, 2021
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As much as we would like it to be otherwise, there is no objective reality on the atomic level. Atoms are not just tiny things that happen to exist in microscopic space-time. They do not obey the principles of separability and locality, and quantum events truly do occur for no reason.
Can we see the contradiction expressed in language here? There is no objective reality. Atoms do not obey various principles, instead they act for no reason. The term "they" in that last sentence, contradicts the claim that there is no objective reality. Far beyond that, to claim that something occurs for "no reason" is to claim omnipotence at the level of God the creator of all things. Again, randomness is not a cause. Nothing occurs without a cause, at least ultimately given that all things must come into existence from something that pre-existed them.Silver Asiatic_{August 16, 2021
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WJM have you read any Robert Lanza?AnimatedDust_{August 16, 2021
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WJM This is because reality is not an objective phenomena;
Then none of your statements are objective ... and everything subjective has no relevance for the truth. ;) Stop stepping on the rake because always hit you in the face.Sandy_{August 16, 2021
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This quote is probably outside of a greater context, but:
As much as we would like it to be otherwise, there is no objective reality on the atomic level. Atoms are not just tiny things that happen to exist in microscopic space-time. They do not obey the principles of separability and locality, and quantum events truly do occur for no reason.
Perhaps the wider context of the book makes it clear that those events do not occur for any innate physical or energetic reason, but to proceed as if it did not: This is what happens when a person first starts trying to reconcile the evidence from quantum physics research with the normal patterns of their mind, both in the conception of reality and in how to talk about it If there is no objective reality in the quantum world itself, what does it mean to say a "quantum event" occurs? What would you even be talking about? This is because reality is not an objective phenomena; it is subjective and, in the case of what we call the physical world, transpersonal. Reality exists in the subjective experience of those observing. The only quantum events that occur, occur in our subjective experiences, and we already know the reason why those events occur: they occur in our experience because of the nature of our observation. People are just so patterned to think that "reality" means "objective reality," they cannot think clearly about all of this. Kastrup and others have the same problem. The concept of an "objective world independent of mind" is a very powerful and deep subconscious program and shreds attempts like this to explain it or characterize it. They keep using terms, without caveats, that cannot apply. Reality is primarily a personal experience, secondarily (as a subset of personal experience) a transpersonal experience. We have our "reality situation" exactly reversed, or upside-down, in the way we normally think about it. "Objective reality" can only exist in mind in the form of self-evident or necessarily true statements. I call this things "experiential unavoidables." The are recognized as necessarily true for all possible conscious beings having any kind of comprehensible experience.William J Murray_{August 16, 2021
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F/N, Perhaps, we should consider whether we asked our parents for consent for our conception. Then let us consider the estimate that there is conception about 1 in 200 acts of intercourse. I would think on the whole, the ethically reasonable response is to be grateful for the gift of life and such nurture and guidance as was provided, imperfect though such inevitably is. Then, extend to how a child is a bundle of possibilities, opening up new worlds that turn on the blessing of freedom, including thought, creativity, love, good. However, these require wisdom and imply other choices as also possible, given freedom. Of course, we must consider the disadvantaged, physically, mentally, emotionally and linked requirements of unconditional love. And more. Then, extend to God as super parent of all of humanity. Contrast, resentment towards parents and the disciplinary aspects of nurture. Blend in the social psychology of cognitive dissonance and defence mechanisms such as projection to the resented other. So, out of the fog swims a disturbing thought, our guilt speaks, and its echoes lie in our complaints. KFkairosfocus_{August 15, 2021
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Q, to claim there is no objective reality at microscopic, atomic level is a bit of a poorly phrased statement. What may be better is to say that while observations and the math speak for themselves, what they point to is utterly unlike what we are used to at macro level. A good example is the wave-particle duality noted a century ago; think interference effects with particles and the photoelectric effect with light known since 200 years ago to be a wave -- with interference phenomena key to that. Entanglement is again a strange effect, especially when macro separation is large scale. However, the micro level acts collectively to sustain the macro -- often, classical -- level we are familiar with. What we struggle with is to make conceptual sense, e.g. the whimsical wavicle etc. KF PS: Wiki may help:
Quantum mechanics allows the calculation of properties and behaviour of physical systems. It is typically applied to microscopic systems: molecules, atoms and sub-atomic particles. It has been demonstrated to hold for complex molecules with thousands of atoms,[4] but its application to human beings raises philosophical problems, such as Wigner's friend, and its application to the universe as a whole remains speculative.[5] Predictions of quantum mechanics have been verified experimentally to an extremely high degree of accuracy.[note 1] A fundamental feature of the theory is that it usually cannot predict with certainty what will happen, but only give probabilities. Mathematically, a probability is found by taking the square of the absolute value of a complex number, known as a probability amplitude. This is known as the Born rule, named after physicist Max Born. For example, a quantum particle like an electron can be described by a wave function, which associates to each point in space a probability amplitude. Applying the Born rule to these amplitudes gives a probability density function for the position that the electron will be found to have when an experiment is performed to measure it. This is the best the theory can do; it cannot say for certain where the electron will be found. The Schrödinger equation relates the collection of probability amplitudes that pertain to one moment of time to the collection of probability amplitudes that pertain to another. One consequence of the mathematical rules of quantum mechanics is a tradeoff in predictability between different measurable quantities. The most famous form of this uncertainty principle says that no matter how a quantum particle is prepared or how carefully experiments upon it are arranged, it is impossible to have a precise prediction for a measurement of its position and also at the same time for a measurement of its momentum. Another consequence of the mathematical rules of quantum mechanics is the phenomenon of quantum interference, which is often illustrated with the double-slit experiment. In the basic version of this experiment, a coherent light source, such as a laser beam, illuminates a plate pierced by two parallel slits, and the light passing through the slits is observed on a screen behind the plate.[6]:102–111[2]:1.1–1.8 The wave nature of light causes the light waves passing through the two slits to interfere, producing bright and dark bands on the screen – a result that would not be expected if light consisted of classical particles.[6] However, the light is always found to be absorbed at the screen at discrete points, as individual particles rather than waves; the interference pattern appears via the varying density of these particle hits on the screen. Furthermore, versions of the experiment that include detectors at the slits find that each detected photon passes through one slit (as would a classical particle), and not through both slits (as would a wave).[6]:109[7][8] However, such experiments demonstrate that particles do not form the interference pattern if one detects which slit they pass through. Other atomic-scale entities, such as electrons, are found to exhibit the same behavior when fired towards a double slit.[2] This behavior is known as wave-particle duality. Another counter-intuitive phenomenon predicted by quantum mechanics is quantum tunnelling: a particle that goes up against a potential barrier can cross it, even if its kinetic energy is smaller than the maximum of the potential.[9] In classical mechanics this particle would be trapped. Quantum tunnelling has several important consequences, enabling radioactive decay, nuclear fusion in stars, and applications such as scanning tunnelling microscopy and the tunnel diode.[10] When quantum systems interact, the result can be the creation of quantum entanglement: their properties become so intertwined that a description of the whole solely in terms of the individual parts is no longer possible. Erwin Schrödinger called entanglement "...the characteristic trait of quantum mechanics, the one that enforces its entire departure from classical lines of thought".[11] Quantum entanglement enables the counter-intuitive properties of quantum pseudo-telepathy, and can be a valuable resource in communication protocols, such as quantum key distribution and superdense coding.[12] Contrary to popular misconception, entanglement does not allow sending signals faster than light, as demonstrated by the no-communication theorem.[12] Another possibility opened by entanglement is testing for "hidden variables", hypothetical properties more fundamental than the quantities addressed in quantum theory itself, knowledge of which would allow more exact predictions than quantum theory can provide. A collection of results, most significantly Bell's theorem, have demonstrated that broad classes of such hidden-variable theories are in fact incompatible with quantum physics. According to Bell's theorem, if nature actually operates in accord with any theory of local hidden variables, then the results of a Bell test will be constrained in a particular, quantifiable way. Many Bell tests have been performed, using entangled particles, and they have shown results incompatible with the constraints imposed by local hidden variables.[13][14] It is not possible to present these concepts in more than a superficial way without introducing the actual mathematics involved; understanding quantum mechanics requires not only manipulating complex numbers, but also linear algebra, differential equations, group theory, and other more advanced subjects
Here, there be dragons and bug-bears. Shrug. We just have to accept that Mathematics is capable of expositing the logic of structure and quantity regarding micro phenomena, and that such may not correspond well with our imaginations shaped by macro scale experiences. For me, the probability cloud illustrations of electronic orbitals in atoms were an eye opener, setting aside the sun-planets rings taught in 3rd or 4th form. Then came energy bands required for solid state phenomena with electronic devices. For example, transistors, diodes and light emitting diodes. Lasers too. The old saying was, shut up and calculate. To which we add, observation rules (not expectations).kairosfocus_{August 15, 2021
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AnimatedDust,
You can’t make this stuff up.
No, you can't. And it's not just because they didn't watch daytime TV, either. -QQuerius_{August 15, 2021
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Beautifully stated, Q. Those Bronze Age goat farmers had quite an imagination to come up with verbiage like that. You can't make this stuff up. :)AnimatedDust_{August 15, 2021
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AnimatedDust @347, Great insights! I agree that there are many places where there's imagery and symbolism between different parts of the Bible. It's there in plain sight, but easy to miss or misunderstand. There is an analogue to how physicists and cosmologists struggle to try to find an answer to the question, "Why is there something rather than nothing?" They still chase Materialism when even the basic building blocks of reality turn out not to be real themselves. I just finished Thomas Marcella's excellent book, Quantum Physics and the Loss of Reality (2018). He 's a nuclear physicist and retired professor from UMass. In it, he makes no attempt to force quantum mechanics into classical physics. He just lets patterns emerge as simply as possible without a philosophical agenda. I respect that! Dr. Marcella writes that electrons are not real in the same sense that a baseball is real. They emerge from entanglement. For example on page 198, he states the following:
But quantum things do not exist in space-time. They are not 'separated' and there is no 'distance' between them in the entangled whole.

As much as we would like it to be otherwise, there is no objective reality on the atomic level. Atoms are not just tiny things that happen to exist in microscopic space-time. They do not obey the principles of separability and locality, and quantum events truly do occur for no reason.
So, if our universe fundamentally emerges from an existence outside of space-time, it destroys Materialism and Determinism, and obviates the need for a quasi-religious retreat into the Multiverse as Sabine Hossenfelder noted. This also reminds me of what the Apostle Paul wrote in a more general sense about Jesus Christ:
The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.- Colossians 1:15-20 (NIV)
-QQuerius_{August 15, 2021
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WJM if God created me, God could not have asked me for my consent.
:) To talk about "your consent" is to imply that God hasn't wanted for you the best possible good. When you imply obviously wrong things your worldviews will be fascinatingly wrong .Lieutenant Commander Data_{August 15, 2021
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Hey, the quoting worked. :)AnimatedDust_{August 15, 2021
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WJM @ 342:
I think you’re projecting other people’s arguments and perspectives onto me. I live in constant, wondrous appreciation and gratitude. I have no complaints about the way this world is – I love it and enjoy it immensely.
I think that's a fair accusation. I agree.
No, it’s a simple, trivially true statement: if God created me, God could not have asked me for my consent. You may not like this phrasing, but under Christianity it is true nonetheless. Stating a simple truth doesn’t indicate I’m rebelling against anything.
I didn't mean "state of rebellion" as something afflicting you alone. I meant it in the collective, though your inference is understandable. I don't write as carefully here as I would in an opinion piece for publication, and that's on me. State of rebellion is another way of describing the fall, or our fallen nature, collectively. God has his reasons for creating a world with divine hiddenness, and I suspect that if you had the full picture at this point, you'd likely not even consider the thought of having been created without your consent. But it sets the stage for free will, and to decide what choices we want to make in life to that end. What we do here matters.
Then there is the issue of my own personal, physical, fully conscious experiences of the afterlife, and the confirming experiences of that afterlife world by other people. Am I supposed to ignore all that? Why would I dismiss ongoing, fulfilling, loving, wondrous personal, first-hand experience and confirming experiences from other people I fully trust? Why would I ever do that? Would you?
Absolutely not. I am fascinated by your experiences, and the mechanics of how you make that happen. I am still unclear as to how you do so.AnimatedDust_{August 15, 2021
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Q, the things that emerge from the texts are amazing. If there ever was a God, and we have some sense of what we think he should be, Jesus Christ fits the bill perfectly. In a world where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, with no justice for most, (Haiti earthquake this weekend, anyone?) Jesus declares: The first among you will be last, and the last will be the first. I'm a fan. That means the people who live off landfills in Guatemala might have a higher place in heaven than me? Who am I to argue otherwise? That shows a divine justice, that would put things to right, in the end. I want a God who is capable of all that I observe, and yet demonstrates such humility, that he washes the feet of sinful people, as a gesture of how low he is willing to place himself in the pecking order. Rock bottom, by the author of life itself, even unto death for a species that has rejected him, even though often, they know not what they do. Only one figure in human history was so completely counter-cultural, (Love your enemies), and challenged everyone, everywhere to think of things differently. Most people don't realize how tightly interwoven the Bible is. For example, how the convenant ritual described in Genesis 15 between Abraham and God is a direct reference to Jesus Christ, HUNDREDS of years later. And how much Revelation is a consistent exposition of the OT. Fascinating. And for anyone questioning it all, I never recommend just reading the Bible, without substantial scholarly assistance. You miss too much, and judge through the lens of the current cultural moment, and interpret incorrectly. Happy Sunday. :)AnimatedDust_{August 15, 2021
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AD, use blockquote html tags, with angle brackets and the slash for close tags. KFkairosfocus_{August 14, 2021
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AnimatedDust @341, My feelings and experiences exactly! As I look into different translations including the Septuagint, the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Syriac Peshitta, and other ancient biblical documents, I'm astounded at the profound wisdom and insights that emerge! Rather than "play church" as a nominal Christian, I'm determined to live it authentically. The result has been deep peace and joy, blessings, and a hope beyond my temporary physical death. How awesome is that! -QQuerius_{August 14, 2021
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AD: Go here: https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/html-blockquote-tag/ Scroll down to where it says "Syntax" in bold.William J Murray_{August 14, 2021
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Thank you for your reply WJM. Can someone clue in the clueless on how to produce the quotes of others in replies, as is so often done here?AnimatedDust_{August 14, 2021
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AD, I take all of your criticisms in #339 as constructive and from a friendly and respectful perspective.
For WJM, it seems like in many ways, he can’t think of good reasons why God operates the way he does. ... We give the most powerful intellect in existence zero credit for having the slightest clue for how humans might best flourish, while we are not of a mind to even give him credit for our being here typing on computers while bitching about what a screw up he is, in the first place. Move along, no miracles to see here…
I think you're projecting other people's arguments and perspectives onto me. I live in constant, wondrous appreciation and gratitude. I have no complaints about the way this world is - I love it and enjoy it immensely. To be clear, God under MRT is perfectly understandable to me. It is the God proposed in Christianity that I find baffling, but not because I find that God reprehensible or awful or anything like that for creating this particular world. I'm just talking about the logic involved in some of the fundamental claims that don't require any deep understanding of apologetics or internal reasoning. For example, the idea that at some point God chose to create one particular space-time universe. I can't make logical sense out of that concept not because I disagree with the particular one that proposed version of God chose, but rather the states and "process" or "sequence" that claim entails in principle.
For you to characterize things as you do, with the summation that you were created without your consent, is a reflection of the state of rebellion.
No, it's a simple, trivially true statement: if God created me, God could not have asked me for my consent. You may not like this phrasing, but under Christianity it is true nonetheless. Stating a simple truth doesn't indicate I'm rebelling against anything.
Would you have preferred to erase your existence, and never know the love of Irene? Would that have been better?
That depends on what comes after this life. Never existing at all would be preferable to me than bearing an eternity with the knowledge that she is forever lost to me.
Go spend time watching YouTube videos of NDEs.
I've spent decades researching NDE information in many forms. I'm well aware of that information. I presented links to some of it in that other thread - you know, the one where BA77's argument was not that all NDEs reflected a Christian afterlife, but rather his argument was that Christian NDE's were "far better" than non-Christian NDEs. You and he can ignore the evidence for non-Christian NDEs if you wish, and I don't have a problem with that, but the evidence exists all the same. Then there is the issue of my own personal, physical, fully conscious experiences of the afterlife, and the confirming experiences of that afterlife world by other people. Am I supposed to ignore all that? Why would I dismiss ongoing, fulfilling, loving, wondrous personal, first-hand experience and confirming experiences from other people I fully trust? Why would I ever do that? Would you?William J Murray_{August 14, 2021
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Thanks, Q, that's nice to hear. I am so often in awe of the intellects here, I sometimes feel like a misfit. But you're right about honest and open, that's me. It wasn't always, but it is now. I do battle from time to time on Facebook with atheists. I did so, more five years ago, and it's exhausting. I feel like the poster child for Dunning Kruger effect, but these are questions that take a lifetime of study. We tend to prefer our Christianity in small doses in the West. An hour on Sundays, and that $%$#% preacher better wrap it up! I am now inconsistent in formal worship attendance, but most of my fulfillment comes from study and reading. IRT is the best new thing to come along in a while. The intransigence of the atheistic scientism community that we are all mud to Mozart is really frustrating and getting old. As an aside, regarding NDEs, the people who describe seeing the heavenly realm all talk about the inadequacy of speech to convey the majesty. One really captured me recently. Nothing was dead there! Think about that. We can't look anywhere in nature and not see death. Whether it be rotting road kill on the highway, or dead leaves at the base of a tree. So true. What does it look like where there is NO death? Fascinating stuff.AnimatedDust_{August 14, 2021
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Thank you AnimatedDust @339, Very nicely summarized with great insights! I enjoy conversations with people who are sincere and open, willing to consider different values and viewpoints, or who bring significant information into a conversation. But people who become disingenuous, recite popular but baseless assertions, or hand out "homework assignments" to others that they then automatically reject, are simply a waste of precious time in my opinion. -QQuerius_{August 14, 2021
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SA at 332. Excellent. One of the entailments of a fallen nature is confusion, and things like frustrated thinking, error, and blind spots. It's far more than just evil. Our first impulses are most often harmful and wrong. The fallen nature is real. Young children never have to be taught to lie, cheat, or steal. They must be taught the opposite. Hmmm. I sense a blind spot in WJM's thinking with regard to what Christianity really is in his mind. That's why they're called blind spots. I am very impressed with his words and arguments, his perfect English composition and near flawless grammar and spelling, his reasoning and how he argues it. The intellect is giant. And without formal higher education. Impressive! Truly a gift. SA is right that all you could ever want is there, and with Him. You just don't clearly know that yet. The veil that you're under now, is a by-product of free will, and the ability to refuse. For you to characterize things as you do, with the summation that you were created without your consent, is a reflection of the state of rebellion. Would you have preferred to erase your existence, and never know the love of Irene? Would that have been better? One of the most frequent occurrences in fallacious thinking, I believe, occurs unconsciously. We don't even realize we do it. Happens all the time. It goes something like this: Because I can't think of a good reason for X, that means there can't be one. I see it a lot in uneducated criticism by the public in judging police uses of force. Justified force often looks VERY similar to unjustified force. And people very often judge that, consult their moral compass, and think, because I can't think of a good reason why that cop did X to that citizen, that means there can't be one. And then they are met with information that they had no idea about, or some element of the law they were unaware of, and the scenario suddenly looks completely different. For WJM, it seems like in many ways, he can't think of good reasons why God operates the way he does. What is getting him to that judgmental latitude and longitude? I can't think of a good reason to create people without their consent, have them live miserable short lives often in squalor, with no justice for most, and if they don't pick right before they die, they get extended to that existence for eternity. We give the most powerful intellect in existence zero credit for having the slightest clue for how humans might best flourish, while we are not of a mind to even give him credit for our being here typing on computers while bitching about what a screw up he is, in the first place. Move along, no miracles to see here... And as such, can't he can't envision satisfactory reasons for God to do what he does, or not. Given the limited vantage point of his perspective, that's a pretty hubristic way to be. (I don't mean that personally but that everyone suffers from this to an extent.) A humble approach acknowledges our inadequacy, our position in the created order, and says, I am not the center of my universe, despite my propensity to be. You are, and every breath I take is solely as a result of your having allowed it. I thank you for that, and ask for your forgiveness for my lack of appreciation for that. Maybe bend a rhetorical knee to the intellect that put together this whole show, and admit, I don't know everything. I really don't know anything, but I want you to reveal yourself to me, if you exist. If you (WJM) asked with a pure heart, and a mind open to the possibility, even without moving your lips, you might be surprised what happens. (This paragraph reads to me like I am taking you to task, personally WJM, and I am not. This is for everyone, an amalgamation of Western First World attitudes about the creator over everything.) Go spend time watching YouTube videos of NDEs. BA77 has done a magnificent job of finding some of the best ones. The remarkable consistency, the overwhelming beauty, love, sense of no longer being time, seeing dead loved ones, and NO ONE ever prefers to come back, given their druthers. The ones that do are sometimes told, you have work left to do, or your time has not yet come. Others don't want to leave family yet. Many of them are baloney, too. Lots of hucksters out there. Many have had direct conversations with Christ. Face to face. Mary Neal, an orthopaedic surgeon is one. He told her that her oldest son would die when he was 19. The NDE was a few years beforehand. It came to pass. Fascinating story. She was underwater for more than 30 minutes. She suffers no lingering debilitation, cognitive or otherwise. Coincidence? I think not. You've spent time elucidating that not all NDEs are Christian. Could be. Seems like that might also be a desire that your preference also be true. The wish is the father of the assertion? That'll do for now. I hope you're enjoying your Saturday, all.AnimatedDust_{August 14, 2021
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Jack, who is no longer with us
Unfortunately there are reincarnations on UD. Maybe there should be a way of having people like Jack and Karen who appeared before him, argue on an anti-Christianity thread. They will soon disappear from such a thread. But then some of the eternally hopeful here will go there and try to reason with them. I find it interesting that Jack invoked DaveScot as an ideal moderator. How did he know about what it was like back then. Aside: I liked Dave a lot. He got me unbanned by Dembski.jerry_{August 14, 2021
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My apologies as I did not know that you had already taken out the trash.ET_{August 14, 2021
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ET, there is no need to further excoriate Jack, who is no longer with us. KFkairosfocus_{August 14, 2021
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It's OK that Jack makes himself the fool and an imbecile. Why does Jack think that its ignorance is an argument?ET_{August 14, 2021
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AD said:
At the risk of sounding like a universalist, I would say, maybe. Just like anyone who’s never heard of Christianity, or infants or children, they’re all going–I think it’s possible for this loving God, if he is who he claims to be, knows every thought and every heart, I would trust that he knows who wants what, perfectly, and therefore, maybe so.
Jerry said:
They could. I believe some forms of Christianity have not ruled this out.
If that is the case (if it turns out this form(s) Christianity is all that is necessary to enter heaven,) then I will be judged the same way my loved ones have been and/or will be judged - by the content and quality of my heart, not the specifics of my beliefs. I'm entirely good with that. If my loved ones and I are separated for eternity, then it really doesn't matter where I end up, because it will be an eternity of suffering either way.William J Murray_{August 14, 2021
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are the ones I love who have never believed in Christianity going to heaven?
In the Catholic Faith, a person is judged by the level of knowledge and moral responsibility they have. The billions of people who never even heard of Christianity cannot be condemned on that basis. Even those who heard of it but had incorrect knowledge will be seen in the light of their sincerity and commitment to the Good - in other words, how they responded to their conscience. So the idea that all of those people will not go to heaven is not supported.Silver Asiatic_{August 14, 2021
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