Notable quotes, excerpts, and profound lines.

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by FlorenceArt

Very nice quote!

The "And who created him" part is one that puzzles me. Not the question in itself, but the fact that nobody seems to care much about it. Of course, if you're an atheist like me, you don't think that question is needed. But if you believe in any kind of creator, it seems to me that this is the question that should hang in blinking neon in front of you every waking minute: if there is a creator, who the hell created it? And who created the creator's creator? And do I want to meet any of those entities?

I thought there were at least three quotes there, but since they were interwoven, I decided to quote the entire passage to give more context.

If a divine creator exists outside of time, there would be no need of the question of who created that creator, but that begs the question of why couldn't the mechanical processes by which the universe came into being exist outside of time? And if they do, why would a creator be necessary? Creator or not, the question remains: why should there be anything at all?

For his part, despite the frequent use of the word "God" in his writings, Hawking remains agnostic on the question of God as commonly understood. When he speaks of "the mind of God," he is usually speaking of the natural laws of physics.

[FlorenceArt]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

If a divine creator exists outside of time, there would be no need of the question of who created that creator...

Well, not the who maybe, but the why, certainly. Supposing we ever come across some proof of the existence of a creator, the next question will be "Why does this being exist?". There is no ultimate answer, there never will be. Each answer we come across generates at least one new question. Arbitrarily stopping the chain of questions at God simply doesn't make sense to me.

[WT Sharpe]

Wasn't Gorgias, in his On Non-Being and Nature, said to have logically demonstrated that nothing exists?

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

.... the question remains: why should there be anything at all?

...

Because of the Matrix.

[beppe]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

Wasn't Gorgias, in his On Non-Being and Nature, said to have logically demonstrated that nothing exists?

My friends you are touching a very interesting subject and in a very open way.

Logic can demonstrate only those propositions that belong to a closed system. It is useful to show as many facets of the closed system that one cares or has the capability to explore. But not a single epsilon outside.

Time, universe, creator, why, all pertain to an open system. Unreachable, not only by logic, but also by any mathematically based theory. This is due to the dimensionality of reality, well beyond our finite capability of collecting information.

There are models of the universe, not much in sympathy within the current ntelligentia, that do not require a beginning, but envision bang(n), expansions, contraction, collapse, bang(n+1), ...

I feel more comfortable with those. They do not evocate who, why, and when is smeared all over.

Likely? unlikely? Who knows.

[WT Sharpe]

.....Who does not see that the same authority which can establish Christianity, in exclusion of all other Religions, may establish with the same ease any particular sect of Christians, in exclusion of all other Sects? that the same authority which can force a citizen to contribute three pence only of his property for the support of any one establishment, may force him to conform to any other establishment in all cases whatsoever?
..........— James Madison (1751 – 1836), fourth President of the United States. "A Memorial and Remonstrance" (1785).

[beppe]

Good morning Tom.
Who was he addressing, the fourth President of the United States?

It is surprising the effect of devaluation over almost 20 centuries, from 30 denari to 3 pence. Only the first digit remains, all alone.

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by beppe

Good morning Tom.
Who was he addressing, the fourth President of the United States?

Great question! It was written in response to a Bill before the Virginia legislature that would have allowed state funds to pay for religious instructors. Madison had little love for those who would entwine Church and State. In that same document, he wrote, "During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity, in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution." This is often taken to mean that he was anti-religion, which he was not. He was opposed to the legal establishment of any one religion such as Christianity by the State such as was common throughout the rest of the Western world at the time. He saw, as did many other of the founders of the United States, that mixing the two, and had been commonplace in Europe for centuries, invariably led to a corruption of religion.

Madison's "Memorial and Remonstrance" is short and can be read in minutes. In you'd care to see those remarks in their greater context; I'm enclosing a copy of it as a text file attachment.

[beppe]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

This is often taken to mean that he was anti-religion, which he was not. He was opposed to the legal establishment of any one religion such as Christianity by the State such as was common throughout the rest of the Western world at the time. He saw, as did many other of the founders of the United States, that mixing the two, and had been commonplace in Europe for centuries, invariably led to a corruption of religion.

Thank you Tom, it will be very interesting to read.

Back on track. In his time, during the French revolution, they executed a large number of royals and nobility, including the renknown Maria Antonietta. His father The Austrian King/emperor, I do not remember what exactly, did not do anything. But when the new rulers of France seized the Church properties, bang there they go all together marching against France. That was the start of the rise of Buonaparte.

The first time that I visited Glasgow, I went on top of a hill to one of the most ancient churches, there. There, the good Scots had the marks of the families above the religious symbols. Not by chance. For me, coming from the churchiest country of all, that was quite a liberating sight.

[BenG]

The beginning of this love is the will to let those we love be perfectly themselves, the resolution not to twist them to fit our image. If in loving them we do not love what they are, but only their potential likeness to ourselves, then we do not love them: we only love the reflection of ourselves we find in them. Can this be Charity?

-- Thomas Merton, Trappist monk and one of the most influential Catholic authors of the 20th century; No Man Is An Island, Chapter 9, "The Measure of Charity".

[HarryT]

Heard in a BBC radio detective drama yesterday:

".... he was a towering intellect; the author of the definitive book on the semicolon."

.

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Heard in a BBC radio detective drama yesterday:

".... he was a towering intellect; the author of the definitive book on the semicolon."

.

Sounds like something Stephen Fry might have written.

[poohbear_nc]

"But something had happened, nothing hung together anymore, all things had spaces, had distances between them, like satellites, attracted to and pushed away at the same instant, and it would take immense willpower to cross these spaces, these distances, much more than I had available, much more than I had the courage to use."

Per Petterson (tr. Charlotte Barslund) - I Curse the River of Time

A wonderful description of loneliness, of distances between human beings, and their inability to connect on any plane.

[WT Sharpe]

You can't make this stuff up. There is a relatively new conservative alternative to Wikipedia called Conservapedia that bills itself as "The Trustworthy Encyclopedia." The following excerpt is from that source. For the record, I don't believe there's a scientist alive who believes that Einstein's General Theory of Relativity is the final word on the way the universe works or that it is a complete theory. It's incompatibility with Quantum Mechanics is hardly a secret, as thousands of books and courses on the subjects of Relativity and Quantum Mechanics make clear; but the idea that General Relativity is a liberal conspiracy is unique to a special mindset.

<><><>

.....The theory of relativity is a mathematical system that allows no exceptions. It is heavily promoted by liberals who like its encouragement of relativism and its tendency to mislead people in how they view the world.[1] Here is a list of 28 counterexamples: any one of them shows that the theory is incorrect.
........ 9. The action-at-a-distance by Jesus, described in John 4:46-54.
..........— From the Conservapedia article, "Counterexamples to Relativity." The FOOTNOTE referenced above reads: "[1] See, e.g., historian Paul Johnson's book about the 20th century, and the article written by liberal law professor Laurence Tribe as allegedly assisted by Barack Obama. Virtually no one who is taught and believes relativity continues to read the Bible, a book that outsells New York Times bestsellers by a hundred-fold."

<><><>

For more on the subject, see the recent article at NewScientist.com entitled "E=mc2? Not on Conservapedia" by Amanda Gefter and Celeste Biever.

[beppe]

Originally Posted by poohbear_nc

"But something had happened, nothing hung together anymore, all things had spaces, had distances between them, like satellites, attracted to and pushed away at the same instant, and it would take immense willpower to cross these spaces, these distances, much more than I had available, much more than I had the courage to use."

Per Petterson (tr. Charlotte Barslund) - I Curse the River of Time

A wonderful description of loneliness, of distances between human beings, and their inability to connect on any plane.

This is very important an touching also, pooh. It is the real existential problem of us postmodern. Or better, the origin of many of our existential problems.

I posted just to say this: This site helps to bridge these distances.