Four Cosmological Displacements

There have been Four Cosmological Displacements:

1) The Copernican theory of the heliocentric universe defended by Galileo. (1600’s). Man was no longer the center of the universe.

2) The discovery that our solar system is not central to the Milky Way galaxy, but located on the periphery; out on a spiral arm. (c. 1900). Man was not even central in his own galaxy.

3) The discovery that our galaxy is only one of a billion galaxies. (c. 1930’s). Man isn’t even central to the universe as a whole.

4) The possibility that there are an infinite number of universes, called a multiverse. Man is insignificant and God is no longer needed.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

If there was another universe or more we couldn't have any evidence of it, could we? But it does stand to reason that there is an infinite VOID beyond our universe into which our universe is expanding.

And while this is philosophical speculation, it's still reasonable to believe that in an infinite VOID there are more universes than our universe, if even one sprang into existence out of nothing (the Big Bang).

We have no way of calculating how many universes there could be with an infinite VOID. But with the potential of an infinite number of universes, the odds that one universe began like ours becomes more and more likely.

And any God who is not in control of each and every single universe that exists, would not be God over it all.

God couldn't even be present in all other universes to know what exists since he would be separated from other universes by the VOID.

Anonymous said...

I just like the nomenclature of the "VOID." Outside our universe is nothing. Does God reside there?

Since the nothing does not have space/time qualities to it, why would you think that another universe couldn't exist?

What if there was another universe that existed beyond ours? Then what? The fact that I cannot help but use space/time indexicals when speaking of this ("beyond") might merely mean that SPACE (as opposed to space inside our universe)could be conceived of as infinite. SPACE would have vast pockects where there is absolutely nothing, and in those vast pockets of nothing it behaves differently.

Genius said...

God has to be beyond time (and space) to function properly as an omipotent god. As such he would be like the void or the greater universe superstructure rather than like an item of our universe like you are assuming.

Of course a god could be a item of the universe and just govern that universe and in that case from our point of view there would be no difference (basicaly the same amount of reason to believe in him or worship him).

You seem to be doing what thet troy guy did by defining god to be the god of everything and using this to prove he exists or doesnt exist.Seems it doesnt help and doesnt have any grounding in logic anyway.

Anonymous said...

I love cosmological arguments.

I'm as die-hard an atheist as I've ever met, but even I can accept deism as a valid world view. It exists along with other world views such as "it's all a giant weather simulation being run in the 26th century by meteorologists testing their theories about global warming" and "it's all just a dream I'm having lying comatose in hospital somewhere" and the smaller matter of "the appearance of biological complexity is the result of a time traveling scientist from the 43rd century who used technology so advanced that we could never detect that it was ever used". All ideas that outside of Occam's Razor I am unable to find really good evidence-based arguments against.

My point being. This whole argument seems more about debunking deism than debunking Christianity. Though I personally find debunking deism to be a bit pointless, you are free to discuss it all you want of course.

There is a bit of a gap between deism and Christianity though and I think that's important to keep in mind.

1. The universe exists
2. The universe thus needs a creator
3. Thus there is a creator (deity)
4. ?
5. And that's why only men can be priests.

See that step 4? That's the gap.

Anonymous said...

Todd Sayre, that was hilarious!

DavidD said...

"But it does stand to reason that there is an infinite VOID beyond our universe into which our universe is expanding."

It may stand to reason, but it's a complete misunderstanding of physics. I wish I could get 5 minutes of freely yelling at a philosopher when he or she says things like this, whatever obscenities come to mind, whatever references to your mother, and how such ignorance enslaves humanity. I'd pay $5 for that. Coming to a mall near you, maybe.

There is no outside of the universe that the universe is expanding into. There is no time before time began. The universe is a four-dimensional stucture that is simply expanding everywhere it exists as space. Any further reality that we don't know of yet involves additional dimensions that may cross ours, giving some potential for a spiritual side to reality or exist as separate universes as the multiverse is seen to be. Both remain speculations. No matter how much a genius someone is who speculates this way, such as Richard Feynman, it is still mere speculation.

That the universe has been found to be so big, though, is indeed a challenge for the traditional view of God. Why so big if all the action is here? Does this God becomes dominant species story pop up regularly on all sorts of planets? I suppose it could. If it does, I have to think it goes better some places than here, or why would God bother?

Anonymous said...

1. If God is Truly a God then why Couldn't he rule everywhere. Whats so hard to believe about that?

2. God Made no metion that I know of involving the galaxy where the earth is the center of the universe. The church made that one up.

3. If God existed before time itself then nothing could create him and he would have always been here.

4. It's illogical to think that nothing could create something like the big bang. God made the big bang happen.