Logically does God exist?

[wazoo]

(putting on his "angry-godless-heathen-scientist hat" for a moment - this is not meant to be an attack on anyone's deeply personal religious beliefs, but in case that is offensive to some, please stop here - it can only make you angry. If you do choose to read this very long post, please accept the fact that I write this as an excerise for myself as well as to tell my views to others. I find it is valuable to practice writing to increasee your skills of communication and use them in other things in life - such as explaining things to children who ask or convincing employees to accept a new policy. Part of this writing is for me and NONE of it is aimed at any specific person or belief system. It was also a good way to waste away the last 45 minutes at work before I can leave to pick up my copy of Madden 2005!!!)

The world is never going to "end". I loved George Carlin's take on this entire issue (be it "millenium madness" or global warming" or the like) when he plainly said: "The world ain't going anywhere.....WE are!"

At some point, in the distant future, the Earth will meet one of the following fates:

1) an entropy death - whereby the universe has expanded to its limits and all stars have burned out their fusion reactions to the point of the universe collapsing on itself as a kind of giant black hole - or possibly a series of black holes or a cold, lifeless abyss with essentially nothingness as its defining characteristic.

2) consumption by an expanding Sun - which will grow to more than the size of the current orbital path of Mars before eventually collapsing back on itself as it consumes the available elements of Hydrogen and elium that allow for the nuclear reactions which currently provide the Earth with the necessary energy to maintain our little Blue Dot.

3) destruction by extrastellar collisions - whether an asteroid or a comet, an impact with an object of sufficient size could concievably destroy the entire plaent in a cataclismic explosion. If you were going to fear anything, this would be the one thing that can conceivably happen in any of our lifetimes or our children's lifetimes. There is the potential that right now, there is an object moving through the universe that will one day find its path directly in the path of the Earth and will destroy the planet entirely. Despite movies such as "Armageddon" and "Deep Impact" or the like, there is literally nothing we could do to stop it withour current technology, yet we do not spend time or resources to chance that fact. Instead we argue and fight and disagree and (again metaphorically speaking) "Fiddle while Rome burns".

4) an unknown, and possibly unknowable, end.

I think the skeptic in me would have to go with number 4.

The human race is far more likely to be extinct than it is for the planet to "end". Through out the history of the planet, there have been many mass-extinctions that have wiped out nearly all-life on the Earth at one time or another - asteroid impacts, ice-ages, plate tectonic shifts in the positions of the continents. None of these earlier events has been prophicized - unless you hold the viewpoint that the Old Testament of the Bible is literal truth and want to say that the story of Noah's flood was truly a GLOBAL flood and in actuality encompasses all of these historically diveregent events as a single event. To literally believe that - not allegorically or symbolically, but literally word-for-word - I believe it is necessary to discount all of modern science in Biology, Chemistry and Physics as completely false. Carbon-14 dating is frequently attacked as inconsistent or unreliable by many kinds of religious zealots - in particular, those who do not agree with what the data tells us. In many cases they dispute the age of the Earth to fit their particular literal interpretation of the Bible, claiming the universe is a mere 5,000 years old.

Why do I so vehemently reject this notion? Beccause the science that these findings are based upon is beyond reproach without resorting to miracles or supernatural intervention - the kind that of course could only come from one particular viewpoint of or interpretation of "God". Elements decay at predictable rates - which can be indepentantly calculated by a Muslim or Hindi or Jew or Christain with the appropriate knowledge. The speed of light in a vacuum can be confirmed by a Roman Catholic or a Baptist or a Lutheran or a Unitarian. There is no special "knowledge" of scripture required, no warping of reality to bend and twist it to a single holy interpretation. Anyone, regardless of where they were born and what traditions they were raised under is capable of confirming these things for themselves. This is what separates "prophetic fulfillment" from scientific theory". It is the ability to divorce one's self from personal beliefs to indepentantly arrive at a common conclusion.

I defy anyone who firmly believes their "prophecy" was fulfilled to find a member of an opposing religious viewpoint to agree with them on aspects of the alleged fulfillment. In contrast to that, I can demonstrate to anyone that water will freeze at 32 degrees Farenheit and it doesn't matter if you believe as I do or not. Admittedly, this is a narrow example, and a full blown exploration of this can and has taken up 500+ page novels, but the point is only this : narrowly focused predictions of the endtimes - such as those found in the book of Revelations - do not lend themselves to this kind of standard of evidence. They must be believed as a corellary to an all ready established set of beliefs before they can be accepted and "fulfilled".

Metaphorically speaking, we may be living in "end times", but that would be far more likely caused by human intolerence and hatred coupled with greed and fear - through war or nuclear discharges or terrorist attacks precipitating a world-wide conflict of cultures or corporate interests destorying the ecosphere leading to catastrophic climate changes, famine and diseases yet unknown to humans - than by any kind of deity smiting the populous to literally fulfill prophecy. Prophetic interpretations are just that - interpretations. I am am completely unaware of a single instance where the future was accurately "fortold" or "revealed" to the level of detail that would convince me of anything other than in SOMEONE ELSE"S OPINION the prophecy was fulfilled. By detail, I mean specifics, not vague generalities that can be seen as two very different things by people of different belief systems.

I would submit that if someone were to tabulate all of the "the-world-is-going-to-end-on xyz-date" claims that have been given through human history, it would be a very long list of unfulfilled (obviously) fakes, frauds, mistakes, and down-right delusions. I don't care if people want to sit in their homes and await the "judgement" or if they want to wear tinfoil on their heads to increase the signal from the mothership that will inform them of the correct location to be in for the "arrival" or if they want to condemn all "unbelievers" to an eternity of damnation and hellfire for having the audacity to not openly profess belief in a supposedly all-good and all-loving godhead who is coming to judge us all and destroy his failed creation. This is not relevant to me on a daily basis and as long as their beliefs do not impinge on my personal freedoms or the freedoms of others with different views, I have no problem with it. It is only when they venture outside of the realm of personal belief to the realm of inducing panic in the public or actively persecuting those who would oppose their beliefs that Id raw the line.

No one must believe as I do for me to be happy, but anyone forcing others to believe as they do makes me very unhappy.

I have no bone to pick with deeply spiritual or even religious people. To my way of thinking, their opinions and beliefs are every bit as valid and important as my own. I believe it possible to be both religious and spiritual and do it in a way that is not detrimential to others who do not share those beliefs. Unfortunately, we do not live in a world where such a viewpoint is popular or accepted. Tolerance towards opposing viewpoints - be they in religion or politics - has reacehd a very nasty place in both America and the world at large. We have terrorists whose sole function in life is to erradicate and destroy those who would not believe as they do or worship as they do or surpress their own people as they would. We fight global wars on terror to prevent such things from becoming widespread and part and parcel of life in America, or on Earth in general. We fight to preserve the ability of someone like me to take 45 minutes of my life and express a viewpoint that to some might seem heretical at worst and ill-informed at best. We do not all agree on all things, and never will, but we should be able to disagree without the need to erradicate opposition of any kind.

(if you got this far, I hope the views expressed here at least gave you some entertainment, because it probably took a while to read this far down.... )

the world's not going to end then Im pretty sure its not supposed to be the end of the world. People believe that then we will go into a photon belt and it will efect us on mayn levels. Like all electronics will be fried and all this so it will be a new civilization, but ive also heard that its supposed to like change your conciousness to a higher level. But thats just what I read in books like the pleadian agenda. I took it with a grain of salt.

Anyway the mayans were awesome sky watchers and they based these on winter soltices thats why it would end on the weird date (cuz its a winter soltice). and im pretty sure the calander was an equation not a carving...

[beowulf]

Great posting, I enjoyed it and it made good sense.

[wazoo]

thanks,it really made me think during work... lol

[blazer2004]

hehe we will see what happens after we die