Remember I've posted in this blog before about irony? Well, here's another example.
On Tuesday, September 9, CERN got all huffy and self congratulatory as they flip the switch to test their apparatus that will "find the God particle" and "look back into time to moments after the universe's creation at the Big Bang."
On Thursday, September 11 a Max Planck astrophysicist falls to his death changing lenses on his MAGIC telescope.
Truth is stranger than fiction. Condolences to his family. Some of my former best friends are astronomers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florian_Goebel
Showing posts with label CERN. Show all posts
Showing posts with label CERN. Show all posts
Saturday, September 13, 2008
Analogy to better understand God as creator
About my previous post, here is an analogy to help understand when I explain that Genesis 1:1 "In the beginning" refers to God's creation of time itself as a precursor and prelude to creating matter and energy.
Suppose you are the only person on an unpopulated continent that stretches for thousands of miles in all directions, and you decide to plant a garden and build a house. You are a perfectionist, though, and not a slob, plus you understand that the garden must be of the highest quality since someday others will depend on it.
(Remember, this is an analogy and not a fantasy and science fiction "hint" about "aliens.")
Thus, in order to architect your garden and house, you survey the land and select the location. You place a pole into the ground from which you will make all your measurements.
That pole is "the beginning." That is how a human can understand God's need to create "time" (the understanding of and ability to experience a sequence of events).
Thus, God's first creation IS the "first day." What God creates during the first day is actually secondary after the reality that God first had to create a system by which both inert and organic matter (life) can be comprised of matter and energy, which are snapshots of sequential activities that allow existence, growth and change.
So just as the analogy person sets the pole and all his measurements will build off of that pole, God sets the pole of establishing a beginning of time, and all subsequent events, such as the creation and growth of the universe, are measured off of that pole.
Someone could one day study the analogy person's process of building the garden and home, tracing it back to the placement of the first "pole." But that process would give no additional insight into how the person did their surveying or indeed where the analogy person even came from. That can only be obtained by actually asking the analogy person.
Thus, astrophysicists and other scientists can only trace matter, energy and time back to the "beginning of time." This, however, gives no insight into God and "where God comes from" himself, and only gives further glory to God's creative power. Scientists can only trace back to the placement of the "first pole" (the first moment of the Big Bang), which is the beginning of "time," but scientists know no further about God than what everyone, including the "uneducated" faithful, know from God's own explanation to them in the scriptures.
I hope you find this analogy helpful to understanding.
Suppose you are the only person on an unpopulated continent that stretches for thousands of miles in all directions, and you decide to plant a garden and build a house. You are a perfectionist, though, and not a slob, plus you understand that the garden must be of the highest quality since someday others will depend on it.
(Remember, this is an analogy and not a fantasy and science fiction "hint" about "aliens.")
Thus, in order to architect your garden and house, you survey the land and select the location. You place a pole into the ground from which you will make all your measurements.
That pole is "the beginning." That is how a human can understand God's need to create "time" (the understanding of and ability to experience a sequence of events).
Thus, God's first creation IS the "first day." What God creates during the first day is actually secondary after the reality that God first had to create a system by which both inert and organic matter (life) can be comprised of matter and energy, which are snapshots of sequential activities that allow existence, growth and change.
So just as the analogy person sets the pole and all his measurements will build off of that pole, God sets the pole of establishing a beginning of time, and all subsequent events, such as the creation and growth of the universe, are measured off of that pole.
Someone could one day study the analogy person's process of building the garden and home, tracing it back to the placement of the first "pole." But that process would give no additional insight into how the person did their surveying or indeed where the analogy person even came from. That can only be obtained by actually asking the analogy person.
Thus, astrophysicists and other scientists can only trace matter, energy and time back to the "beginning of time." This, however, gives no insight into God and "where God comes from" himself, and only gives further glory to God's creative power. Scientists can only trace back to the placement of the "first pole" (the first moment of the Big Bang), which is the beginning of "time," but scientists know no further about God than what everyone, including the "uneducated" faithful, know from God's own explanation to them in the scriptures.
I hope you find this analogy helpful to understanding.
Reminder: God's first "work" was "inventing" time
Genesis 1:1
In the beginning God (prepared, formed, fashioned, and) created the heavens and the earth.
(Amplified Bible).
"In the beginning" means that God invented the infrastructure of "time" within which all else he subsequently creates (the universe) will abide. Thus God, who has no boundaries of time (God is more than "eternal," God is truly timeless) invents a "starting point," which is "the beginning," so that a realm (the universe) will exist that consists of a series of sequential events. That is what makes the universe totally separate from God's true abode, heaven, where there is no time, as in no sequence of events, and event dependent substances, such as matter and energy.
Thus, even when there was no universe (before the Big Bang) there was God and his realm. God's "will" can be thought of as his initiative to create matter and events that can be experienced and perceived by his created beings, such as angels and humans. God's existence and will (also known as the Holy Spirit) are separate in existence and being from matter, energy or time and being timeless "always have been" separate and all forms of reality are subordinate to God's fullness of nature in his timeless abode.
In the beginning God (prepared, formed, fashioned, and) created the heavens and the earth.
(Amplified Bible).
"In the beginning" means that God invented the infrastructure of "time" within which all else he subsequently creates (the universe) will abide. Thus God, who has no boundaries of time (God is more than "eternal," God is truly timeless) invents a "starting point," which is "the beginning," so that a realm (the universe) will exist that consists of a series of sequential events. That is what makes the universe totally separate from God's true abode, heaven, where there is no time, as in no sequence of events, and event dependent substances, such as matter and energy.
Thus, even when there was no universe (before the Big Bang) there was God and his realm. God's "will" can be thought of as his initiative to create matter and events that can be experienced and perceived by his created beings, such as angels and humans. God's existence and will (also known as the Holy Spirit) are separate in existence and being from matter, energy or time and being timeless "always have been" separate and all forms of reality are subordinate to God's fullness of nature in his timeless abode.
Rabbis and Sheik comment about "God particle"
I completely agree with them and they are correct.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1221142453281&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
snip
Why rabbis are unfazed by the quest for the 'God particle'
By MATTHEW WAGNER
"To reveal the power of the act of creation to flesh and blood is impossible," according to Midrash Raba, a compilation of allegorical teachings and homilies written by Jewish sages 1,500 years ago.
"Therefore, the Bible text, 'In the beginning God created' is worded vaguely," the text continues.
Notwithstanding this warning of the Midrash, however, a group of scientists conducting the biggest particle physics experiment in history is currently trying to do the seemingly impossible: reveal the secret of the origin of the universe.
These scientists have gathered in Geneva to use a Large Hadron Collider in an attempt to recreate the conditions that existed at the time of the Big Bang. Ideally, their experiments are supposed to help scientists put together a final theory that explains the origins of existence. They are looking for something laymen and journalists call the "God particle."
The knee-jerk reaction to such an experiment is that people of faith should start getting nervous. As theoretical physicist and Nobel laureate Steven Weinberg at the University of Texas at Austin put it in an interview with Newsweek, "If we put together something like a final theory in which all the forces and the particles are explained and that theory also throws light on the origin of the Big Bang and gives us a consistent picture of cosmology, there will be a little less for religion to explain."
But religious leaders in the Holy Land were surprisingly sanguine about the experiment.
Rabbi David Rosen, director of the American Jewish Committee's Department of Interreligious Affairs, said the experiments going on now in Switzerland are no challenge to faith, rather the opposite is true.
"Maimonides [1135-1204] said that the more we understand about the universe the more we can appreciate God's creation," said Rosen. "It actually strengthens the religious person's faith to understand more profoundly God's intelligent design.
"And while science might describe how something came about, it will never explain why."
Rabbi MK Avraham Ravitz (United Torah Judaism) agreed with Rosen that science would enhance, not undermine, Judaism.
"Scientists might reach a better understanding of the source of creation, but there will always be a need for an explanation of what brought about that source, what directed it all," he said.
Sheikh Abdul Salem Mansra, head of the Supreme Council of Suffis in the Holy Land, was a little more reserved about support for unbridled scientific inquiry.
"True science is never a contradiction to Islam," said Mansra. "Because true science gives us more knowledge about God and since God gave us the Koran there cannot be a contradiction.
"Anything that does contradict the Koran is false."
Father Michael McGarry, director of the Tantur Ecumenical Institute in Jerusalem, said there was no field of science that was problematic from a religious perspective.
"To study these subjects - biology, bioethics, chemistry, geology, medicine, physics - is to investigate God," McGarry said.
If religious leaders agree there are no boundaries to scientific exploration, why does the Midrash state that it is "impossible to reveal the power of the creation"?
Rabbi Avraham Yitzhak Kook, the first Ashkenazi chief rabbi of Israel, in a letter to a young student, explained that scientific discoveries advance at the pace of the man's development.
"The many ways and means of creation that will be discovered in the coming tens of thousands of years which will add to our knowledge of God's glory will still fall short of the full truth," he wrote.
There will always be a deficit to man's knowledge, wrote Kook, because God is infinite while man is finite.
***
Here's another reason why understanding the mechanics of the Big Bang yields no insight into God's true nature, but is just another set of details about how God performed his work of creation of the universe.
God in his "abode" (heaven) exists outside of the universe of matter, energy and time itself. As I've explained before, God and heaven are not comprised of particles, energy or even sequences of events in "time" that can be measured or observed at all. So one cannot see a "God particle" because God is not within any particle and God does not inhabit "time," which is a sequence of events. Thus a particle, no matter how small or mysterious, even if it is the source of the phenomenon of "mass" is not insight into God himself (or where souls go when they leave the body at death) because a particle is still "of the world," which is matter, energy and having motion and age, thus a sequence of events known as "time."
Meanwhile, however, humans do continue to accumulate "knowledge" about the physical world that far outstrips their morals and wisdom. THAT should be everyone's deep concern, as it is and has been for the Catholic Church and the Popes, who have consistently warned about that grave danger.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1221142453281&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
snip
Why rabbis are unfazed by the quest for the 'God particle'
By MATTHEW WAGNER
"To reveal the power of the act of creation to flesh and blood is impossible," according to Midrash Raba, a compilation of allegorical teachings and homilies written by Jewish sages 1,500 years ago.
"Therefore, the Bible text, 'In the beginning God created' is worded vaguely," the text continues.
Notwithstanding this warning of the Midrash, however, a group of scientists conducting the biggest particle physics experiment in history is currently trying to do the seemingly impossible: reveal the secret of the origin of the universe.
These scientists have gathered in Geneva to use a Large Hadron Collider in an attempt to recreate the conditions that existed at the time of the Big Bang. Ideally, their experiments are supposed to help scientists put together a final theory that explains the origins of existence. They are looking for something laymen and journalists call the "God particle."
The knee-jerk reaction to such an experiment is that people of faith should start getting nervous. As theoretical physicist and Nobel laureate Steven Weinberg at the University of Texas at Austin put it in an interview with Newsweek, "If we put together something like a final theory in which all the forces and the particles are explained and that theory also throws light on the origin of the Big Bang and gives us a consistent picture of cosmology, there will be a little less for religion to explain."
But religious leaders in the Holy Land were surprisingly sanguine about the experiment.
Rabbi David Rosen, director of the American Jewish Committee's Department of Interreligious Affairs, said the experiments going on now in Switzerland are no challenge to faith, rather the opposite is true.
"Maimonides [1135-1204] said that the more we understand about the universe the more we can appreciate God's creation," said Rosen. "It actually strengthens the religious person's faith to understand more profoundly God's intelligent design.
"And while science might describe how something came about, it will never explain why."
Rabbi MK Avraham Ravitz (United Torah Judaism) agreed with Rosen that science would enhance, not undermine, Judaism.
"Scientists might reach a better understanding of the source of creation, but there will always be a need for an explanation of what brought about that source, what directed it all," he said.
Sheikh Abdul Salem Mansra, head of the Supreme Council of Suffis in the Holy Land, was a little more reserved about support for unbridled scientific inquiry.
"True science is never a contradiction to Islam," said Mansra. "Because true science gives us more knowledge about God and since God gave us the Koran there cannot be a contradiction.
"Anything that does contradict the Koran is false."
Father Michael McGarry, director of the Tantur Ecumenical Institute in Jerusalem, said there was no field of science that was problematic from a religious perspective.
"To study these subjects - biology, bioethics, chemistry, geology, medicine, physics - is to investigate God," McGarry said.
If religious leaders agree there are no boundaries to scientific exploration, why does the Midrash state that it is "impossible to reveal the power of the creation"?
Rabbi Avraham Yitzhak Kook, the first Ashkenazi chief rabbi of Israel, in a letter to a young student, explained that scientific discoveries advance at the pace of the man's development.
"The many ways and means of creation that will be discovered in the coming tens of thousands of years which will add to our knowledge of God's glory will still fall short of the full truth," he wrote.
There will always be a deficit to man's knowledge, wrote Kook, because God is infinite while man is finite.
***
Here's another reason why understanding the mechanics of the Big Bang yields no insight into God's true nature, but is just another set of details about how God performed his work of creation of the universe.
God in his "abode" (heaven) exists outside of the universe of matter, energy and time itself. As I've explained before, God and heaven are not comprised of particles, energy or even sequences of events in "time" that can be measured or observed at all. So one cannot see a "God particle" because God is not within any particle and God does not inhabit "time," which is a sequence of events. Thus a particle, no matter how small or mysterious, even if it is the source of the phenomenon of "mass" is not insight into God himself (or where souls go when they leave the body at death) because a particle is still "of the world," which is matter, energy and having motion and age, thus a sequence of events known as "time."
Meanwhile, however, humans do continue to accumulate "knowledge" about the physical world that far outstrips their morals and wisdom. THAT should be everyone's deep concern, as it is and has been for the Catholic Church and the Popes, who have consistently warned about that grave danger.
Sunday, September 7, 2008
I am annoyed at billions spent on CERN work
I cannot believe that billions has been spent on a physicists' underground romper room while millions are suffering in poverty and hardship. I cannot believe that people in Haiti are going without food or clean water for five days in a row and with no help in sight, yet billions have been spent on this idiotic project. I cannot believe that humans barely understand the implications of the vast science they have already "discovered," yet they "need" to invest billions more, rather than using what they already know to help others and end suffering from lack of basic needs. Gosh, am I annoyed by this.
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