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The Universe Was Created For The Glory Of God



 
 
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  #1  
Old July 3rd 06, 08:07 PM posted to alt.religion.christian.roman-catholic,alt.atheism,alt.messianic,rec.arts.sf.written,sci.space.policy
Sound of Trumpet[_1_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 3
Default The Universe Was Created For The Glory Of God


http://www.markshea.blogspot.com/200...74094513160 2

A reader writes:

Hi Mark,

I like Your publications very much,and always enjoy reading
them.Well,I'm not srictly believer,nor I'm disbeliever.I just say:
"anything is possible" (agnosticism?).

Now,I'd like to point something,that probably not a lot of Christians
and other religious persons think about.

When disscussing eschatology,people usually refer to the end of
sun,or(in far remote perspective) - to the end of the universe
itself.And here I crossed A LOT of literature about this
stuff,including not only comological predictions,but other possible
developments as well.And these other developments,surprisingly,seem to
be discussed much less,then end of the sun or the universe...

Let me start from Owen Gingerich,professor emeritus of Astronomy,STRONG
BELIEVER(as he describes himself).You might read the George Ellis's
book "Far-Future Universe - Eschatology from cosmic perspective".There
is Owen Gingerich's article with a very elegant caption: "Eschatology:
Cosmic versus Human".I think,this caption speaks for itself.Before
reading that article,I already had some knowlege about eschatological
issues(Big Freeze,Big Crunch etc.).But Gingerich's article shaked me to
the core,and made me rethink something.I give You 3 links ,all his
articles:

In all these articles he analyzes the possible future of our
species,namely,Homo Sapiens.You might read these articles in detail,but
I 'll put just few excerpts:

I asked my friend Philip Morrison, an Institute Professor Emeritus at
MIT and an astute observer of the scientific scene, about the prospects
for Homo sapiens. "I would give it about 10 million years," he opined,
and when I pressed him about the basis of his estimate, he replied that
this was a typical lifetime for a complex species. I agreed that
certainly the fossil record shows us that extinction is the name of the
game, and there is no reasonable expectation that humankind would be
exempt.

Here we go: that extinction is the name of the game...no reasonable
expectation that humankind would be exempt Interesting,that it's NOT
coming from an evolutionistic atheist,but from Owen
Gingerich...Furthermo

While ten million years is a fleeting instant compared to the sun's
projected future lifetime of five billion years, it does seem to me
unreasonably long

So to me it is unimaginable that Homo sapiens will still exist on earth
ten million years from now, except perhaps by some remote chance in
zoos or special preserves, a throwback much like Przewalski's horse. It
is not astronomy that gives me this reading, nor even evolutionary
biology and anthropology, but my reflections as a historian and
philosopher of science. I believe it is neither pessimistic nor
optimistic, but simply realistic. Our universe is going to go on for
billions of years without us. Our temporal span is as fleeting as our
spatial position is minuscule.

"neither pessimistic nor optimistic, but simply realistic"
"Our universe is going to go on for billions of years without us"

If homo sapiens are still on earth 10 million years from now, it will
be in zoos or special preserves, as throwbacks much like Przewalski's
horse is today. Evolutionary biology and anthropology give me this
reading, which is neither pessimistic nor optimistic, but realistic.
Cosmological eschatology, with its timescale of many billions of years,
is irrelevant when measured against any reasonable scenario of future
human existence on earth or in the cosmos.

This really made me think...Ok,earth have about 500 million years to
support life...Homo Sapiens - 10 million years AT BEST !

Estimated lifetime of the Univers itself is(oh,boy)10^50 - 10^100
years...If that's true(and all data points out that our range could be
between 50-100 years(overpopulation,earth resources depleeting,global
warming,nuclear,artificial intelligence) to MAXIMUM 10 million...ok,I
personnaly give it 200 miilion)

So,what would pe a point of the Universe,that is "going to go on for
billions of year without us", assuming it was created for us ?

You stated,that G-d will interven to prevent the end of the
universe...but when?When the Universe will begin to show clear signs of
decay?But humanity will probably be gone for trillions of years
then...Owen Gingerich is not alone.Here is Martin Rees:
"There's an unthinking tendency to imagine that humans will be around
in 6 billion years, watching the Sun flare up and die. But the forms of
life and intelligence that have by then emerged would surely be as
different from us as we are from a bacterium."

Seth Shostak:

Then what? Will the machines get rid of us? A machine that dwarfs our
intelligence might regard us as we regard budgies or goldfish:
diverting. Our role as second intellectual fiddle may be to serve as
pets for the sentients in charge.
All of this would be dismaying enough if it were merely a science
fiction story. But I suspect that the first steps will be taken by
mid-century. We could well be the last generation of humans to dominate
Earth.

I could continue,but I think that's enough.So,what is Your opinion.I
used to read from religious folks,that scientists are
ignorant,etc...or,that Bible is the only valid source of
information,and that curious people don't have to read "unnecescary
stuff"..(like Gingerich,Rees etc...But if for a moment we put asides
all dogmas,don't You personally agree with Gingerich and Rees that
eschatological timetables for humans and cosmos don't go together,and
that if G-d would take care about coninuity of the human race,He would
do "New Heaven,and New Earth" pretty soon?Or chances that
overpoupulation and global warming will hit us very high.Besides,no
species lasted more than few million years...

I't would be interesting to hear from you something about that...

Thanks for Your time,

P.S. Do You believe in possibility of space colonization by humans?I
personally doubt...Too many difficulties + outer space is biologically
unwelcome...My be,by our "technological descendants"(what Frank Tipler
and Hans Moravec suggest)

There's a lot here, so let me take things one at a time.

First, a clarifying point. Despite my otherwise typical Evangelical
background, I came to the Catholic faith in the Second Coming quite
late. Despite what some of my Darwinist interlocutors may think, the
fact is that I drank in the enormous age of the universe and the basic
evolutionary narrative with my mother's milk. It is profoundly native
to me to think in precisely the terms you describe: Big Bang, enormous
spans of time, eventual heat death of the cosmos, human history as a
mere fly speck on the Great Wall of China that is the history of the
cosmos, eventual heat death of the universe billions of years after
homo sapiens has snuffed its brief candle of existence.

Becoming Evangelical did nothing to mitigate that view, because the
sect I happened to join had managed (quite anomalously) to reject the
normal Christian belief in the Second Coming and the End of the World.
I was taught instead that the baptism in the Holy Spirit and Pentecost
were the "true" Second Coming and that the idea of Jesus returning on
the Last Day was Christian fantasy. Not knowing any better, I accetped
this--till I began to realize that this was simply not the Faith of the
apostles, nor even of most Christians.

So becoming Catholic required that I actually take a step toward a
deeper faith in the Second Coming, not (as is typical) away from the
thoroughly elaborated (and wrong) Left Behind scenarios to near and
dear to many Protestants.

Why mention all this? To give you your bearings and help you understand
who you are asking about all this stuff. I've never had a big problem
with the notion that the universe is not eternal and that we are most
emphatically not eternal. St. Paul seemed to me to be speaking common
sense when he says that the creation has been subjected to futility.
Whether that futility takes thousands or billions of years to play out
seems to me to be entirely beside the point. The fact is, none of us is
getting out of here alive (though Scripture does say that some will be
alive when the Lord returns).

You write: "When disscussing eschatology,people usually refer to the
end of sun,or(in far remote perspective) - to the end of the universe
itself."

Not that I'm aware of. When discussing *cosmology* they refer to these
things. When discussing eschatology, they usually refer to the coming
of Christ in glory on the Last Day, and to various supernatural and
geopolitical events they expect to see.

Gingerich's speculations about human extinction are, of course, just
that. And I supposed he'd be right if we were not assured by revelation
that Christ is returning to earth and will be seen by human beings both
living and dead. What the details of that unthinkable event will be we
do not know. The Church contents itself with "He will come again in
glory to judge the living and the dead.

You ask: "So,what would pe a point of the Universe,that is "going to go
on for billions of year without us", assuming it was created for us?"

The universe was not created for us. It was created, as all things are,
for the glory of God. We have been given the privileged position of
being stewards and sons, but the whole works is still God's. It existed
for billions of years without us and I see no reason why it can't exist
for billions of years without us again.

But then again, I also see no particular reason why, if he chooses, God
could not bring this particular universe to an end in the next five
seconds. He made the whole thing and it only continues to exist because
God opts to hold it in being. The shocking message of the Second Coming
is that God may very well choose to bring the wole thing to an abrupt
end when it is time for us to enter the New Heavens and the new Earth.
Or only real objection to that is an aesthetic one: the universe is
really big and old, so for some reason it must go on being big and old
all the way to the bitter end of heat death. But the fact is, the
universe has no particular right to exist that trumps God's will. If he
chooses to call a halt, the universe is gone.

Space colonization: Ain't gonna happen. We will build a thriving
metropolis in Antarctica before we build a modest sustainable colony on
Mars. And Mars is about the limit of our spacefaring. We ain't *never*
getting off the earth. And so will eventually die one of our favorite
ersatz eschatons: the infinite proliferation of the human race
throughout the cosmos. We'll stay right here and take our medicine till
Christ returns.

  #2  
Old July 3rd 06, 08:16 PM posted to sci.space.policy
Joe Strout
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 972
Default The Universe Was Created For The Glory Of God

In article .com,
"Sound of Trumpet" wrote:


Space colonization: Ain't gonna happen. We will build a thriving
metropolis in Antarctica before we build a modest sustainable colony on
Mars. And Mars is about the limit of our spacefaring. We ain't *never*
getting off the earth.


Nonsense. *You* ain't never, perhaps. Maybe not me either, though not
for lack of trying. But to suppose that humanity will be forever
Earthbound is just as ridiculous as supposing that Europeans, having
developed ocean vessels, would never venture beyond Europe; or that
heavier-than-air flight would forever be impossible.

Space colonies have been technologically possible for several decades
now. As time marches on, the cost of these technologies goes down, and
the impetus for space settlement (i.e. the need for the vast resources
of space) goes up. It won't be long now before the benefits outweigh
the costs, and shortly thereafter, humanity will be like the proverbial
genie out of the bottle.

Best,
- Joe
  #3  
Old July 3rd 06, 08:42 PM posted to alt.religion.christian.roman-catholic,alt.atheism,alt.messianic,rec.arts.sf.written,sci.space.policy
Wilson Heydt
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 8
Default The Universe Was Created For The Glory Of God

In article .com,
Sound of Trumpet wrote:
"anything is possible" (agnosticism?).


Nope. That's just "gullible".

--
Hal Heydt
Albany, CA

My dime, my opinions.
  #4  
Old July 3rd 06, 09:12 PM posted to alt.religion.christian.roman-catholic,alt.atheism,alt.messianic,rec.arts.sf.written,sci.space.policy
Denis Loubet
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 16
Default The Universe Was Created For The Glory Of God


"Sound of Trumpet" wrote in message
oups.com...

So the god character created the universe to toot its own horn?

That's pathetic.


--
Denis Loubet

http://www.io.com/~dloubet


  #5  
Old July 3rd 06, 10:10 PM posted to alt.religion.christian.roman-catholic,alt.messianic,rec.arts.sf.written,sci.space.policy
JessHC
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 6
Default The Universe Was Created For The Glory Of God


Sound of Trumpet wrote:
http://www.markshea.blogspot.com/200...74094513160 2


It must be a drag, having such a pathetic life that you have to post
this crap to feel better about yourself.

  #6  
Old July 3rd 06, 10:17 PM posted to alt.religion.christian.roman-catholic,alt.atheism,alt.messianic,rec.arts.sf.written,sci.space.policy
Vlad
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 21
Default The Universe Was Created For The Glory Of God

The universe is way over God's head.



--
Since I'm not under oath, anything I say could be inaccurate.

Vlad the Impaler
  #7  
Old July 3rd 06, 10:41 PM posted to alt.religion.christian.roman-catholic,alt.atheism,alt.messianic,rec.arts.sf.written,sci.space.policy
3D Master
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1
Default The Universe Was Created For The Glory Of God

Wait, god did NOT create the universe now? Huh? If it was created for
his glory, that means someone else made for his glory.


3D Master
--
~~~~~
"I've got something to say; it's better to burn out than to fade away!"
- The Kurgan, Highlander

"Give me some sugar, baby!"
- Ashley J. 'Ash' Williams, Army of Darkness
~~~~~

Author of several stories, which can be found he
http://members.chello.nl/~jg.temolder1/
  #8  
Old July 3rd 06, 10:46 PM posted to alt.religion.christian.roman-catholic,alt.atheism,alt.messianic,rec.arts.sf.written,sci.space.policy
Jon Schild
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 10
Default The Universe Was Created For The Glory Of God

Any being that needs to create a whole universe just to have lesser
beings that can worship and glorify him is a pathetic loser that
deserves pity, not glory.


Sound of Trumpet wrote:
http://www.markshea.blogspot.com/200...74094513160 2

A reader writes:

Hi Mark,

I like Your publications very much,and always enjoy reading
them.Well,I'm not srictly believer,nor I'm disbeliever.I just say:
"anything is possible" (agnosticism?).

Now,I'd like to point something,that probably not a lot of Christians
and other religious persons think about.

When disscussing eschatology,people usually refer to the end of
sun,or(in far remote perspective) - to the end of the universe
itself.And here I crossed A LOT of literature about this
stuff,including not only comological predictions,but other possible
developments as well.And these other developments,surprisingly,seem to
be discussed much less,then end of the sun or the universe...

Let me start from Owen Gingerich,professor emeritus of Astronomy,STRONG
BELIEVER(as he describes himself).You might read the George Ellis's
book "Far-Future Universe - Eschatology from cosmic perspective".There
is Owen Gingerich's article with a very elegant caption: "Eschatology:
Cosmic versus Human".I think,this caption speaks for itself.Before
reading that article,I already had some knowlege about eschatological
issues(Big Freeze,Big Crunch etc.).But Gingerich's article shaked me to
the core,and made me rethink something.I give You 3 links ,all his
articles:

In all these articles he analyzes the possible future of our
species,namely,Homo Sapiens.You might read these articles in detail,but
I 'll put just few excerpts:

I asked my friend Philip Morrison, an Institute Professor Emeritus at
MIT and an astute observer of the scientific scene, about the prospects
for Homo sapiens. "I would give it about 10 million years," he opined,
and when I pressed him about the basis of his estimate, he replied that
this was a typical lifetime for a complex species. I agreed that
certainly the fossil record shows us that extinction is the name of the
game, and there is no reasonable expectation that humankind would be
exempt.

Here we go: that extinction is the name of the game...no reasonable
expectation that humankind would be exempt Interesting,that it's NOT
coming from an evolutionistic atheist,but from Owen
Gingerich...Furthermo

While ten million years is a fleeting instant compared to the sun's
projected future lifetime of five billion years, it does seem to me
unreasonably long

So to me it is unimaginable that Homo sapiens will still exist on earth
ten million years from now, except perhaps by some remote chance in
zoos or special preserves, a throwback much like Przewalski's horse. It
is not astronomy that gives me this reading, nor even evolutionary
biology and anthropology, but my reflections as a historian and
philosopher of science. I believe it is neither pessimistic nor
optimistic, but simply realistic. Our universe is going to go on for
billions of years without us. Our temporal span is as fleeting as our
spatial position is minuscule.

"neither pessimistic nor optimistic, but simply realistic"
"Our universe is going to go on for billions of years without us"

If homo sapiens are still on earth 10 million years from now, it will
be in zoos or special preserves, as throwbacks much like Przewalski's
horse is today. Evolutionary biology and anthropology give me this
reading, which is neither pessimistic nor optimistic, but realistic.
Cosmological eschatology, with its timescale of many billions of years,
is irrelevant when measured against any reasonable scenario of future
human existence on earth or in the cosmos.

This really made me think...Ok,earth have about 500 million years to
support life...Homo Sapiens - 10 million years AT BEST !

Estimated lifetime of the Univers itself is(oh,boy)10^50 - 10^100
years...If that's true(and all data points out that our range could be
between 50-100 years(overpopulation,earth resources depleeting,global
warming,nuclear,artificial intelligence) to MAXIMUM 10 million...ok,I
personnaly give it 200 miilion)

So,what would pe a point of the Universe,that is "going to go on for
billions of year without us", assuming it was created for us ?

You stated,that G-d will interven to prevent the end of the
universe...but when?When the Universe will begin to show clear signs of
decay?But humanity will probably be gone for trillions of years
then...Owen Gingerich is not alone.Here is Martin Rees:
"There's an unthinking tendency to imagine that humans will be around
in 6 billion years, watching the Sun flare up and die. But the forms of
life and intelligence that have by then emerged would surely be as
different from us as we are from a bacterium."

Seth Shostak:

Then what? Will the machines get rid of us? A machine that dwarfs our
intelligence might regard us as we regard budgies or goldfish:
diverting. Our role as second intellectual fiddle may be to serve as
pets for the sentients in charge.
All of this would be dismaying enough if it were merely a science
fiction story. But I suspect that the first steps will be taken by
mid-century. We could well be the last generation of humans to dominate
Earth.

I could continue,but I think that's enough.So,what is Your opinion.I
used to read from religious folks,that scientists are
ignorant,etc...or,that Bible is the only valid source of
information,and that curious people don't have to read "unnecescary
stuff"..(like Gingerich,Rees etc...But if for a moment we put asides
all dogmas,don't You personally agree with Gingerich and Rees that
eschatological timetables for humans and cosmos don't go together,and
that if G-d would take care about coninuity of the human race,He would
do "New Heaven,and New Earth" pretty soon?Or chances that
overpoupulation and global warming will hit us very high.Besides,no
species lasted more than few million years...

I't would be interesting to hear from you something about that...

Thanks for Your time,

P.S. Do You believe in possibility of space colonization by humans?I
personally doubt...Too many difficulties + outer space is biologically
unwelcome...My be,by our "technological descendants"(what Frank Tipler
and Hans Moravec suggest)

There's a lot here, so let me take things one at a time.

First, a clarifying point. Despite my otherwise typical Evangelical
background, I came to the Catholic faith in the Second Coming quite
late. Despite what some of my Darwinist interlocutors may think, the
fact is that I drank in the enormous age of the universe and the basic
evolutionary narrative with my mother's milk. It is profoundly native
to me to think in precisely the terms you describe: Big Bang, enormous
spans of time, eventual heat death of the cosmos, human history as a
mere fly speck on the Great Wall of China that is the history of the
cosmos, eventual heat death of the universe billions of years after
homo sapiens has snuffed its brief candle of existence.

Becoming Evangelical did nothing to mitigate that view, because the
sect I happened to join had managed (quite anomalously) to reject the
normal Christian belief in the Second Coming and the End of the World.
I was taught instead that the baptism in the Holy Spirit and Pentecost
were the "true" Second Coming and that the idea of Jesus returning on
the Last Day was Christian fantasy. Not knowing any better, I accetped
this--till I began to realize that this was simply not the Faith of the
apostles, nor even of most Christians.

So becoming Catholic required that I actually take a step toward a
deeper faith in the Second Coming, not (as is typical) away from the
thoroughly elaborated (and wrong) Left Behind scenarios to near and
dear to many Protestants.

Why mention all this? To give you your bearings and help you understand
who you are asking about all this stuff. I've never had a big problem
with the notion that the universe is not eternal and that we are most
emphatically not eternal. St. Paul seemed to me to be speaking common
sense when he says that the creation has been subjected to futility.
Whether that futility takes thousands or billions of years to play out
seems to me to be entirely beside the point. The fact is, none of us is
getting out of here alive (though Scripture does say that some will be
alive when the Lord returns).

You write: "When disscussing eschatology,people usually refer to the
end of sun,or(in far remote perspective) - to the end of the universe
itself."

Not that I'm aware of. When discussing *cosmology* they refer to these
things. When discussing eschatology, they usually refer to the coming
of Christ in glory on the Last Day, and to various supernatural and
geopolitical events they expect to see.

Gingerich's speculations about human extinction are, of course, just
that. And I supposed he'd be right if we were not assured by revelation
that Christ is returning to earth and will be seen by human beings both
living and dead. What the details of that unthinkable event will be we
do not know. The Church contents itself with "He will come again in
glory to judge the living and the dead.

You ask: "So,what would pe a point of the Universe,that is "going to go
on for billions of year without us", assuming it was created for us?"

The universe was not created for us. It was created, as all things are,
for the glory of God. We have been given the privileged position of
being stewards and sons, but the whole works is still God's. It existed
for billions of years without us and I see no reason why it can't exist
for billions of years without us again.

But then again, I also see no particular reason why, if he chooses, God
could not bring this particular universe to an end in the next five
seconds. He made the whole thing and it only continues to exist because
God opts to hold it in being. The shocking message of the Second Coming
is that God may very well choose to bring the wole thing to an abrupt
end when it is time for us to enter the New Heavens and the new Earth.
Or only real objection to that is an aesthetic one: the universe is
really big and old, so for some reason it must go on being big and old
all the way to the bitter end of heat death. But the fact is, the
universe has no particular right to exist that trumps God's will. If he
chooses to call a halt, the universe is gone.

Space colonization: Ain't gonna happen. We will build a thriving
metropolis in Antarctica before we build a modest sustainable colony on
Mars. And Mars is about the limit of our spacefaring. We ain't *never*
getting off the earth. And so will eventually die one of our favorite
ersatz eschatons: the infinite proliferation of the human race
throughout the cosmos. We'll stay right here and take our medicine till
Christ returns.



  #9  
Old July 3rd 06, 11:42 PM posted to alt.religion.christian.roman-catholic,alt.atheism,alt.messianic,rec.arts.sf.written,sci.space.policy
Sea Wasp[_1_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 26
Default The Universe Was Created For The Glory Of God


No, no. It was created so that it would ultimately, after much work
and refinement, produce *ME*.


--
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
Live Journal: http://www.livejournal.com/users/seawasp/

  #10  
Old July 4th 06, 12:04 AM posted to alt.religion.christian.roman-catholic,alt.atheism,alt.messianic,rec.arts.sf.written,sci.space.policy
Douglas Berry
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 71
Default The Universe Was Created For The Glory Of God

What's so funny about peace, love and Sea Wasp
posting the following on Mon, 03
Jul 2006 22:42:13 GMT iin alt.atheism?

No, no. It was created so that it would ultimately, after much work
and refinement, produce *ME*.


Nonsense. The universe was created so that beer could exist, and day
baseball games exist so that we have a place to enjoy beer.
--

Douglas Berry Do the OBVIOUS thing to send e-mail
Atheist #2147, Atheist Vet #5
Jason Gastrich is praying for me on 8 January 2011

"The belief in the Christian god... is an appalling nightmare. I reject
the notion that the whole universe was created by this kind of evil
creature who would create such a thing." - Anthony Flew, March 22, 2005
 




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