BD's short_Theory_of_“Time”.

Taking up Fractelles friendly challenge to read outside the fundy loop, I indulged msyelf in the absolute luxury of reading chapter 11 of Hawkings work on time.

Now..(out_of_Intensive_care_for_fractured_brain)) taking the foundations of the Illustrious Hawking a step futher, I have decided to introduce my own theory :) naturally, (to borrow the imagery of another eloquent OLO poster) “soaked in humility and clothed in love” (Thanx Pericles)

Dr Hawking concludes his work correctly with a discussion about God. But he rests his conclusion on the apparent inability of science to arrive at any firm result in finding a unifying theory of the universe.

He precedes his mention of God with a listing the following possibilities.

1/ We will find the ultimate theory of everything when we are smart _enuf.
2/ There is no single theory, just many overlapping_theories.
3/ There is no theory of the universe: events cannot be predicted beyond a certain extent but occur in a random and arbitrary manner.

To this, I would add one more.

4/ The inability of man to find a unifying theory is testimony that we are human, not God.

I think we can see that the Universe is held together by very real and predictable forces. It's duration in time surely testifies to this. Does it seem so frail that there is “One” outside it.. holding it together?

WHO said there is no humor in science? I found Hawkings discussion most entertaining. The highlight was his mention of two 'particles' in existence. (spelled differently of course)

1/ Pea Brains. ( P-Brane)
2/ No Brains. ( 0-Brane)

What insight! While he may not have found the 'theory of everything' He has at least described a considerable number of posters on OLO and to some of them, that would include 'myself' :)

PS.. much of my output is a response to “The History of Western Philosophy” by Russell.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Western_Philosophy_(Russell)
It was cited in his Nobel Prize presentation.
It simply confirmed my views.

still in print..why not get a copy :) Or you can borrow mine.

David Palmer: "CJMorgan is where he was last time I met him"

Thanks for noticing, David. Yes, it's a rather pleasant place, bathed in the light of rationality and untroubled by religious paranoia. Occasionally I'm bothered by proselytisers of the Christian variety, but I've developed strategies to deal with them that are mostly quite effective.

Pericles – good. We’ve established these events are historical.

With respect to the hallucination hypothesis it has major problems. Hallucinations are projections of the mind that have the appearance of physical reality - i.e. we can only hallucinate what is already in the mind. But the resurrection appearances of Jesus were completely novel, Jews believed in a resurrection at the end of time not one within history. We know all about it in hindsight because we've had the gospels with us two thousand years, they didn’t nothing like that had ever happened. If they were hallucinations it would have been of Jesus in glory in heaven with the prophets like they were brought up with. The resurrection appearances were to believers and nonbelievers, individuals and groups; how, if they are hallucinations, would everyone see the same thing?

As for vested interests, no serious scholar doubts that the early Christians were at least sincere about their experience of the resurrected Christ, because they all went to their deaths for it. What vested interest, apart from what we read in the Gospels, is their to be a martyr for something known to be fraudulent?

And you wouldn’t have us believe that for this one case only, common sense is reversed and instead of disciples following a leader, a leader is invented so they can follow – to their deaths! Nor is it credible to believe that fact checking didn’t occur back then. Enough knew the facts that if someone tried to write nonsense it would be thrown in the bin. How could the Gospels become authoritative for the early church (at great risk to themselves) unless they knew it was true?

Fractelle,

How is responding to critics of Christianity, ramming the truth down your throat?

Disputation in normal in public debate, this is how humans get to the truth. You knew before hand what this website was. What your complaint sounds like is: “I don’t like religious truth claims, I want to believe whatever I like, Christians should keep their beliefs private, I should be allowed to be public about all this”. We’re not fully conscious of the way we acquire our beliefs, we shouldn’t assume they correspond miraculously with the truth and that we need no rational debate. If you believe the universe is triangular and I think its square we have to argue, with respect and mutual benefit but we must argue. Humans want to know what is really real.

Christians believe we are made in God’s image, things we’re never meant to go bad (our willful disobedience for forbidden fruit creates a lot of jams). We couldn’t help ourselves, it took the King to come and fix it. This rescue made us a new creation, one that can be part of the amazing life lived by the three person King. We just humbly accept the gift. But we’ve gone so bad its not as easy as it should be - to repent is difficult. What we know now is that there is a big party ready for us. We were invited by name by the King of Kings. Imagine a famous Hollywood actor warmly welcoming you to a big party with all the stars. Multiply this by a billion. The excitement and anticipation of this party we can bring into our daily life and preparations. We phone him, get to know him, ask what the party will be like etc. And all as if you were the only invited guest. To get in, you have to look the part, you can’t wear grubby clothes you would feel ashamed. We put on the clothes given to us. And then wait patiently and avoid distractions. It is the only party in town, to stay behind is just silly

Pericles,

"But unless you are able to get past this barrier of "I'm right, he's wrong", there will never be any kind of progress."

Are you saying David is wrong?

I meant to say something yesterday on stevenlmeyer’s comment, the first one in this thread.

--The bad news is that most Christians don't follow Christ's teachings as set out in the Gospels.

--The good news is that most Muslims, in Western countries anyway, don't follow the teachings of the koran. And for that let us gave thanks to whatever deity may exist.

...and I have to say I regretfully agree with his first comment and hope he is right about the second one.

Pericles:

I had no intention of practicing deception by, as you say, slipping proselytising in with worship. In the tradition I come from - Protestant of the Genevan variety – part of worship, ie the offering of our whole life to God as service, includes what we more usually call “witnessing” – you know what I mean, you’ve argued enough with BOAZ_David.

Re your comment regarding the proselytising of Hitchens and Dawkins, there is undoubted truth in what you say – but I would shift the focus – it is their concern that religion has not died out and that more “fundamentalist” versions seem to be advancing that results in their stridency and bad manners, and when you read Sam Harris you find he especially has Islam at the end of his barrel. I am kind of pleased that someone might think we are ramming our religion down their throat because most of us think us Christians are a very wimpish lot (BOAZ_David excepted of course).

BTW, the world will never be "a calm and mild place", with or without religion, human nature goes against us which is why the statement that “religion is the root of all evil” is such utterly asinine troll rhetoric.

I see "A Common Word" more as an opportunity than a challenge, though I think generally Islam poses quite a challenge to the church as for somewhat different reasons I think it is also quite a challenge to Western democracies.