Tuesday, August 14, 2007

My Dangerous Idea



I'm laying in the grass in our backyard. Noah's next to me, making humming noises as he drives his little hot wheel around. The sun is shinning it's warm, late afternoon glow, the wind is just blowing enough that the trees whisper. I can see the sky, blue and illuminated, the giant old pine tree, the maples and oaks. In the midst of such natural perfection, the cliche' feeling of something greater and divine takes over. Science, a supernatural God? I am but a tiny speck.

Then I thought about the cycle of life. How the branches of a tree both grown longer, but also stem out as they age. How even the tree dies eventually. I thought about the heat of this summer, the hot, sticky, stifling days. How it must have been nothing compared to the Paleozoic era at times. And even though millions of years ago, this yard was stuck in a tropical heat, at some point, it had also been under miles of ice.

I saw the grass, the tree, the ants, the squirrels, we humans as tiny, blinking points on a graph. A visual representation in my mind to make sense of it all. We blink in when we are born and out when we die. Blink, blink , blink all over the world, like little strobe lights. I thought about the earth, it ever changing, extinguishing all life with ice and asteroid, rebuilding again. A regular,medium sized blip, blip blip on my graph. Someday, like all planets and stars, moons and sun, our home with be gone. Incinerated? Pulled by gravity into the super back hole at the center of the Milky Way? How ever it Will play out, it will happen. A large, boom, boom, boom, on the my graph, as each celestial body ceases to exist.

So you can imagines trillions and trillions of tiny, almost imperceptible blinks, going at the speed of light, surrounded by the regular and plentiful blips of life on this planet being extinguished and growing back. Then everything negated by some giants booms as the earth disappears for good. These same booms for any other inhabited planet out there.

So it seems to be the natural order that from sub-atomic particles blinking in and out as they do, so go we. So does life on this planet, so does simply our planet. Solar systems disintegrate also....then I wonder must the universe too? I think it does. If everything else has a birth, a destruction, a re-birth, then so would the universe.

If the universe goes then would a new science come about with a new universe, a new set of rules?

Here's my dangerous idea
: If one day far far into the future, our universe ended, as it entailed all that existed, would God also end? If a new universe came about, would a new God be revealed? Birth, destruction, re-birth. I think nature and the working of the universe makes quite a strong point for re-incarnation.

9 comments:

Laura said...

Wow Lauren, that's some deep thinking. You've got the wheels in my head turning, that's for sure. You presented a very strong case.

Jeremy said...

Energy is neither created nor destroyed.

The law of conservation.

Lauren said...

Laura- Glad I got you thinking, although I know that you already think all the time!

Jeremy- I forgot about the law of conservation....energy can only be change from one form to another. Ok, so if everything is a cycle, let's say the physicality of the tree dies, but not the energy, we just think the tree dies. A new tree grows when old transfered energy enters it. Same cycle for everything on our plant, same situation I would guess for the plants themselves and the universe. Thanks Jeremy, I think that even better supports my reincarnation theory, but Actually, I don't know what it says for the God ideas.

Jeremy said...

What is, will always be, just not in the same form.

As for the God stuff, well, there you have thousands of years of philosophic debate - assuming there is no God, well, then the answer is easy, but if there is a God... well, that's a head scratcher.

Personally, my beliefs on that were that the Romans and Greeks had Gods, and today we consider it mythology... could it be that the idea of God evolves as humankind evolves?

Great, now my brain is all working.

Lauren said...

Jeremy, you are pure genius! What a thought about the Romans and the Greeks and the evolution of God. Now you made me think! I think you're right. ;)

Jeremy said...

I spent some time on the 'net reading up on this, and there are some interesting theories out there.

Most interesting is the belief that "God" is a philosophical sense, that is, there is no "being" but that the term "God" refers to the essential substance/principals of Nature. With that being said, my original statement that nothing is created nor destroyed supports the idea that if there is a God, they would always exist, no matter how they changed forms since it embodies the very principles of Nature.

Lauren said...

Jeremy, I think we are on the same wave-length. I feel your vibe man. No, seriously, I might really agree with that theory. I have been searching for about a year and a half now, to see if God really does exist and if so, what is he/she/it like. I've combed the Internet, read countless books, texts, watch documentaries, went out and meet lots of people from different backgrounds, attended some meetings,meditated,hung out with nature,learned all about science and great thinker's philosophies. Time and time again, from every corner of belief and science, it comes back to humans trying to answer all the questions we can't and are frightened about. Every God representation has elements of "inner" energy and spirit, which also ties into nature, the natural flow of life and energy. I know it can sound a bit granola, but the sad truth is, we are all ONE, but for many, religion obscures that fact. God being a philosophical sense could easily translate to my personal beliefs of an inner God and connection in each of us.

Thanks for that point of view Jeremy. It's nice that you aren't afraid to share. I was for a long time, but it feels good to openly talk. I'm so afraid of offending people.

One last thing. My "dangerous idea". I didn't particularly think that if the universe disappeared so would what is "God". I just wanted to get people thinking. Although, if merely on our planet humans where gone, then I think perhaps there would be no physical matter, with no consciousness and therefore no conscious thought to think up a God. Unless on the flip side (as I hope and think is the true answer) we have consciousness regardless of having a physical form or not. Hence there would always be thought and a dynamic with a God Concept. Wow, it can go in circles. Fun stuff though! Thanks a bunch for your input.

"God is a concept by which we measure our pain."-John Lennon

Nate said...

Interesting thoughts Lauren, however, they are predicated on the supposition that God is dependent or somehow bound/associated with the concepts of time and matter that govern our Universe. If one believed that God CREATED matter and time, and thus was not BOUND BY it but more or less an outside observer who interacts with it, the steady state, expansion or destruction would not impact God. A God that was not bound by the dimensions that we are would be able to interact with humanity and the rest of the universe in ways we cannot begin to comprehend. It would also mean that the creation and potential destruction of the Universe would be observable simultaneously from his position outside of time and matter.

From a strictly scientific point of view, I agree with Jeremy's statements about the conservation of energy

Assuming the scientific observations are correct and the theories based on the assumptions are also correct that the Universe is in a state of expansion it's more likely that the Universe will continue to expand in perpetuity and become an increasingly cold and empty space. Populated by clumps of stars with their hangers-on planets and the like. I have heard some people espouse a contraction theory, however, the redshift observations and the fact that the effect of gravity is essentially the collective mass of the two bodies multiplied by each other times the gravitational constant divided by the distance that separates them squared.

Basically this means that as distance increases, the pull of gravity decreases at a faster rate. Thus, the likelihood that the universe will collapse would require our understanding of Gravity to change....

Lauren said...

Hey Nate, thanks for joining the conversation!

I don't believe that God created matter and time, and thus is not bound by it. I think God in the "personal God" sense (The modern God who gets involved) is/was created by our consciousness,our societies,our desire for answers to questions that humans can't answer, by our fears. If we were not around to need or think such a God, would there be a one?

The dilemma for me is that I believe that human consciousness does go on after death, but it makes me still wonder, would or would not the consciousness be destroyed if the universe was. That said, I'd like to trust your theory that we will just expand, not implode. I mean, who wants the universe to disappear? Not me.

I'm with you on agreeing with Jeremy's statements about the conservation of energy. I think personally that it helps to support the case for reincarnation.

I was just thinking about a lot of things.