Let's give thanks to the big bang, plus...

It's Thanksgiving Day here in the United States. Almost everybody is into thankfulness, whether sincere or feigned.

Myself, I'm thankful that I was able to get a HP wireless printer working with my wife's new iMac this afternoon. It was touch and go for a while but I finally figured it out.

My philosophical problem, though, is who or what I should offer my thanks to.

This quandary is common to every exclamation of gratitude, including religious ones such as  "Thank you, Jesus" or "Thank you, God." Where the heck do you stop?

I read some reviews of the Photosmart C4780 that pointed me toward the need to download Snow Leopard compatible software from the HP web site. I'm thankful to the people who took the time to share their experience with getting the printer to play nicely with a Mac.

They wouldn't have been able to do this if they hadn't been born.

So I also need to thank their parents. Along with every relative, human, animal, or whatever, along the several billion-year timeline of life's evolution on Earth.

Which wouldn't have been possible if the universe didn't exist, of course. Fourteen billion or so years ago the big bang started everything off. About ten billion years later the Earth formed.

And here we are.

Now, scientifically minded religious believers don't want to stop with thanking the big bang for making everything exist. They assume that God or some other supernatural entity was responsible for the big bang.

(Fundamentalists, of course, don't accept that the big bang and evolution even happened, but that's so crazy I'll ignore them in my thankfulness analysis.)

I get blog comments on this subject fairly frequently. Someone will say, "There had to be something before the big bang, because something can't come from nothing." Well, who says?

The human mind is doing that saying, using human cognition based on human perceptions. Why, though, should we believe that the cosmos operates in accord with the limitations of the human mind?

We're certain about all kinds of things that we shouldn't be. Including who to thank for existence. Such is the central message of Robert Burton's "On Being Certain," a book I like a lot (and blogged about here and here).

Burton is a neurologist. He points out that reason can't be separated from bodily sensations, since "any notion of space -- no matter how abstract -- must be filtered through our bodily perceptions of space. In our mind's eye, emptiness occupies space."

So our notions about the big bang get confused by our perceptual conditioning.

Close your eyes and try envisioning a face. You will see it against some kind of contrasting background, whether it is a neutral color or a vague grayness or blackness. Now try to visualize a perfect vacuum.

Even if I know that a vacuum contains nothing, there is still an "it," a nothingness that must exist within some type of space. My mind serves up a dim empty darkness as it simultaneously tells me that this can't be so. Empty space is a visual non sequitur; there is no visual counterpart of nothingness.

Let's move on to cosmology. Try to visualize the big bang -- a single infinitely dense point that suddenly explodes. To see this object in our mind's eye, we place this dot against some contrasting background.

Most people, when questioned, will offer that they see a dim darkness against which the initial singularity is framed. This problem of borders isn't confined to spatial considerations; time is equally impossible to visualize as either always existing or suddenly beginning.

We see a beginning in contrast to what was present just before the beginning. The cruel irony is that a mind's eye representation of no surrounding space or time occupies some space and suggests a prior time.

To relieve the resulting tensions, we feel compelled to ask a key question shared by science and religion -- what, if anything, was present before the beginning?

However, Burton says, we have no way of knowing whether this question is even meaningful. It could just be a product of our all-too-human way of perceiving things.

So in the end I'm thankful to...mystery.

Because nobody knows what, if anything, is at the end (or beginning) of existence. Our thanks directed toward ultimacy echo into the seeming infinity of time and space, landing nowhere.

Yet maybe also, everywhere.

Whichever or whatever, I'm thankful for being alive and able to ponder the wonder of being able to wonder.

Comments

[Jay]

If you can't give me a color for my question,
then the Big Bang Theory is revealed WRONG to YOU.

Let me make an example:
Imagine you're in a square room of nothingness,
you have a paint brush and a painting board,
lets say you paint this whole board BLACK,
that's the ONLY color you have, Nothing else!
Now tell me how do you get another PAINTING COLOR on the board?
You CAN'T! Am I RIGHT?
IF I'M WRONG, then explain please..

Now if you don't believe in God and don't have faith in God, then tell me where
LIFE came in existance?, if you can't tell me what happened from the beginning,
then all you'll end up doing is keep adding more stuff to the Big Bang.
So your answer to where everything came from would be meaningless if your answer isn't God.
Popular Question will be asked: Where did God come from?
My answer: I don't KNOW where God came from, you have to ask God that question,
I believe and have faith that God is real, so asking me that question is irrelevant.

Do you WANT God to prove his existance to you?
Asking someone "Where God come from?"
is a impossible question to be answered,
you can ask any other christian the same
thing and they'll answer the same way I did,
but just in there way of saying it.

But if you want God to prove his existance to you,
If I tell you this, then you MUST follow it if you want
to KNOW that God exists, or you can do it in your
own way, but it has to be very close to what I've said.

You have to TRUELY MEAN every word you say and not just say it because
you just want to prove that God is real, you MUST mean it and follow it if you
want Him to prove His existance to you, you'll get the idea, but here they are:
1. Have faith in God.
2. Believe in God and that he is real.
3. Believe that God died on the cross for all our
sins so that you can be forgivin everytime you sin.
4. Become a Christian by going to a Christian church
and getting baptized OR keep praying to God and let
God know that you believe in Him, and He is real and
He is your Master, King, Father, any word that you can
think of that has to do with being FIRST.
But DON'T GIVE UP on your belief and faith in God if he doesn't
prove his existance to you, because He will not let you down.

Now when you're praying, God will answer your prayer
instantly OR God will answer your prayer in do time,
because "God will not let us down in our hour of need."

Simple? :)

NOW IF YOU DON'T FOLLOW WHAT I SAID!
Then you never wanted Gods existance
to be proven to you, because I've
given you ideas, just use them ideas
and God will prove his existance to you.

Period.

[Roger]

Jay,

You stated,

"But DON'T GIVE UP on your belief and faith in God if he doesn't prove his existance to you, because He will not let you down."

--Is there an example of where GOD has proven his existance to someone that has had the correct belief and faith in him? For God to be labeled a "him" then there must be some revealed experience of him being a he. I'm guessing from your comment that God can be revealed only by faith/belief and not through a scientific process or method.

[Jay]

Yep, that is exactly what I'm saying,
God will prove his existance to you
If you follow the ideas that I've said,
sometimes It's instant, or it will happen in do
time, no one can bring God to you and say
"Heres God, do you believe in him now?"
It's impossible to do that, God has free will
too, He can do what he wants, just like you
can, so the only WAY to have God prove his
existance to you, then you MUST worship Him
until He does...

And YES, God proved His existance to A LOT of
people, If I tell you what happened to another
person, you won't believe me, right?

So you have to worship God so that He can
prove His existance to YOU, if you tell
someone that He proved His existance to you,
someone will either believe you or NOT, but
YOU would KNOW that God proved his existance to you.

[Roger]

Jay,

You said,

"And YES, God proved His existance to A LOT of people, If I tell you what happened to another person, you won't believe me, right?"

--No, I would not say, I wouldn't believe you. So, tell me what God has done to prove his existeance, based on your experience, and in your own words.

Thanks for a response,
Roger

[Roger]

Jay,

I liked this,

"God will prove his existance to you
If you follow the ideas that I've said,
sometimes It's instant, or it will happen in do time, no one can bring God to you and say "Heres God, do you believe in him now?"
It's impossible to do that, God has free will too, He can do what he wants, just like you can, so the only WAY to have God prove his existance to you, then you MUST worship Him until He does..."

---I'm guessing that it's very important that first, ideas of worshipping are firmly planted in one's Mind. This planting of a seed(idea) must occur first and then grow for the existence of God to grow(to know) in ones Mind. Is this correct? This could explain how the conceptualization of God is grown and nurtured. Where did the idea of worshipping come from? From another person, or what God through his existance told? I'm, not finding fault, you seem to have experienced God's existance.
Thanks for more info,
Roger

[Blogger Brian]

Jay, you don't make any sense. Here's some reasons why...

The universe isn't a paint brush and painting board. The universe (or cosmos) is everything: that's why there's "uni" in the word. You can't stand beside the cosmos and paint it. There is nothing outside the cosmos.

You're assuming, however, that God is indeed outside the cosmos and painted it in various "colors." OK, so who created God? Another God? Then who created that other God?

Since something has to have existed eternally, seemingly, for anything to exist, it makes just as much sense to say that the universe/cosmos has existed eternally than that a God has existed eternally. We know the cosmos exists; we don't know that God exists.

Also, you say that God reveals himself to those who have faith in him. OK. What God? What faith? Buddhist, Islamic, Hindu, Jewish, Christian, Wiccan, Native American, so many other choices. What if God is unlike the deity worshipped by any and all of these religions? What if the Christian God is false, a Devil sort of God, and is fooling people who make the mistake in opening themselves up to him?

Lots of people believe that they've found God. Yogis in India do this all the time, find God. Why should anyone believe that Christianity has the best way of finding God?

I reject Christianity. I reject your capital letters in your comments. I reject your fundamentalism and narrow-mindedness. Aside from those rejections, thanks for visiting my blog and leaving your comments. Even though you don't make any sense, it's nice to get insights into the minds of true believers.

Then I feel even happier than I'm an open-minded agnostic.

[Jay]

Oh, so you're open-minded and I'm not?
Okay, I'll prove I'm open minded.

Answer this question without saying
something A LOT in a whole bunch of
paragraphs for nothing.

Are you telling me that Energy and Matter
created everything because Energy and Matter
can't be created nor destroyed?

Yes or no?

[Blogger Brian]

Jay, what I'm saying is that nothing created everything. Everything always has existed. The cosmos always has existed. Existence always has existed. It just is.

This is a simpler and more satisfying explanation that the religious one: God has always existed and God created the cosmos.

Either way, something has always existed. I say the cosmos, you say God. The cosmos is real. God isn't. So my way of thinking is more believable. But you're welcome to yours. It just doesn't make as much sense.

[Jay]

I must be on the wrong site to be saying this..

Bye..

[1%]

yeah, you're a brainless religious fundamentalist who thinks that mere blind belief actually equals unquestionable proof.

its amazing how people with so little intelligence actually think they have the last word when it comes to truth and the question of god.

[Jay]

One last note...

Everyone does NOT have proof of Gods existance.
No one can prove Him real with evidence.
No one can't prove Him real with evidence.
The only WAY to prove God to yourself,
is to worship God until He answers you.
That's how you make a search God.

That is the only way, and when I say *God*,
I'm talking about God the father, God the
son, God the holy spirit, Jesus, meaning all
in ONE.

So anyone that doesn't believe in God, all
they can talk about is Energy and Matter
pre-existing and Energy and Matter made
everything, who do you worship then?
You worship energy and matter that made the
Big Bang, so saying "Lets give thanks to the
Big Bang" is pretty childish, because you
can't talk to a Big Bang, you never seen a
Big Bang, you weren't there when the Big Bang
did all of that, and you can't worship or
praise and pray to a Big Bang, because you
would be talking to no one, which is sad to
live in a life of believing that a Big Bang
created everything, just because science came
up with the idea, doesn't mean It's true.
When people say "there is no God", you're
contradicting yourself because everyone said
they don't have evidence of God being real,
so you would be talking out of your butt,
so when people say that God doesn't exist,
you're saying "Energy doesn't exist", because
that's what God is, God isn't only Energy,
He is something way more far beyond that.

The only way to know, is to praise and worship
God, until He answers you and that will prove
that God exists, if people can "Thank a Big Bang",
then I don't see anything wrong with thanking God
for everything being here in the first place.

That's all I'm going to say...

Good Bye.

[Roger]

Jay,

What is the existance of God, as God has told to you? No need to talk about the Big Bang stuff. That is a distraction from my question to you. Your worshipping to God has offered an opportunity for God to communicate with you. So, what did he communicate? Reply in your own words. I trust you will be honest, this time. Roger

[Known]

Who put my page as their comments? wtf?
Aye Roger, them comments right there by "Jay" aren't
mines, somebody selected my name off youtube
and put them on here, can you please remove
those, because I don't want people thinking
that I was the one saying this, thanks in advanced.

[Brian Hines]

Known, I deleted the email address and URL that "Jay" included with his comments. I left the comments up because otherwise the responses to Jay by other people wouldn't make sense.