Does God Exist?
It's Definition Dependent
July 25, 2005
I was thinking again today about Fritjof Capra and his book The Tao of Physics . I was also thinking about Hinduism and the belief that all life is Maya ; an illusion. Much of what I am going to talk about has been explained in The Tao of Physics and in another of Fritjof Capra's books called The Turning Point. Nonetheless, I feel the urge to opine.
Whether God exists or not purely depends on one's definition of God in the first place. In my view, (in accordance with my definition of God), God does exist. I will set out to prove that from the Scientific viewpoint God does exist; but God's existence truly hinges upon definition.
Let's start by examining what we know about reality (at least what we think we know). We know that the Universe consists of matter and energy. Einstein taught us that matter and energy are the same thing but just in different forms with the ever so famous equation E = mc2 . E being energy, matter being m, and c being the speed of light, we can see that if we take matter and move it at the speed of light squared (which is SUPER fast!) it becomes energy. The converse is also true, that is to say that m = E/c2.
For those of you curious the Speed of Light in a vacuum is 186,282.4 miles per second and is constant.
Aside: There have been some recent experiments where researchers have actually trapped light and slowed it down.....that is a discussion for a later date.
Now, getting back to matter and energy being the same thing but just in different forms and the illusion of reality (Maya)...
Let's take a look at the atom. It is generally excepted that reality is made up of groups of molecules which in turn are made up of atoms.
Atoms are in turn made up of protons (+ charge), neutrons (neutral charge), and electrons (- charge). Atoms consist of a nucleus (protons and neutrons) and electrons surrounding the nucleus.
But let's paint the picture here. In doing so, I may be borrowing analogies first described by Fritjof Capra.
Imagine an Atom to be the size of the earth; the nucleus would be about the size of a bowl of cherries. The electrons would be like tiny grains of sand in the atmosphere orbiting the bowl of cherries.
What makes up the atom then? Mostly empty space!
Further, electrons can exist as both a particle and a wave. Light also has this dualistic property where light can be characterized as either a particle (photon) or wave.
To top it all off, electrons only have a tendency to exist. They exist as probabilities. We cannot say exactly where the electron is but we can calculate probablility of where it likely is.
Electrons are moving around so fast they create an electromagnetic field. Think of a tiny particle moving around so fast it creates a big smear. This would be the electromagnetic field.
What makes objects hard then? We all know from playing with magnets that like charges repel (negative to negative or positive to positive). These magnetic fields generated by the electrons carry a negative charge. Thus when the fields come in contact with one another, they repel, giving the sensation of something being solid.
Tap your finger on your desk. Feel how solid it is? It really isn't. Your desk and you are mostly made up of empty space. But the electromagnetic fields generated by the electrons around the atoms repel each other making things seem solid.
Now, back to my whole purpose of this post. Scientists now think that if you took all of the matter and energy in the entire Universe and pack it all together, it would be about the size of a basketball! That is to say, if you took all the nuclei (matter mostly consists of atomic nuclei)from every atom in the entire Universe, along with all the energy and packed them as tight as you could in one lump, the whole Universe would be about the size of a basketball.
It's this basketball sized lump of matter that existed at the momment of the big bang. As this lump of matter spread out in all directions at the speed of light, the Universe was created.
By my definition, God is the Universe. God was that basketball sized lump of matter. Everything sprang forth from God. With that definition, we can look at everything in our Universe as all being aspects of one central thing. This gets back to Hinduism with the concept of the whole Universe being Brahma. Hinduism also has tenets that suggest Brahma expands and contracts. Each expansion and contraction is a single day to Brahama...it takes about 12 billion years or so.
Scientists also think the Universe is expanding and wonder if there will be a "big crunch"; a day when the Universe once again collapses into itself...has it done it before? How many times.
We can also see that, consistent with the Hindu concept of Maya, most of life is illusiory. That is, reality is made up of mostly empty space. Reality is also transient. It's made up mostly by these electromagnetic fields generated by electrons that only have a tendency to exist in the first place. In that sense, the whole world is just an elaborate illusion; a hologram created by matter and energy (light).
Whether you believe in God or not take heart...whether you believe in the afterlife or not...find solice in the concept that YOU WILL ALWAYS BE A PART OF THIS UNIVERSE. Whether you will be conscious of it or not is another story. Energy can neither be created or destroyed. What energy makes up the Universe now will always make up the Universe.
Unless ofcourse the Laws of Thermodynamics end up being disproven down the road; that is a whole 'nother subject...
Take a look at the analogy of Schroedinger's Cat . This leads into topics for future discusion such as the infinite multiverse Universe where an infinite number of parallel Universes exist such that every possibility, imagined or unimagined, exists in this sort of shroedinger's cat state waiting for the observer to open the door.
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