Continuing with my first theme on the existence god let me put a question which has baffled me since the time I was a kid. We all have heard stories from our grandparents about the creation of the universe. One of the Hindu mythology talks about the earth/universe being a by-product of the churning of the heavens by the angels and demons to retrieve the elixir of life. Christian mythology talks about Adam and Eve eating the forbidden fruit, to some extent the same story continues in the Islamic story of creation and so forth to other religious beliefs. All these mythologies written so many hundreds of years ago talk of the same thing- the world being created by god, either directly or indirectly.
So the obvious question here is who created god? My granny told me “no one can create the creator! There is no beginning or end for him!” easy answer right? She might have bought that answer. I for sure wouldn’t buy that. So what exactly happened?
Here’s where I learnt about the big bang. The “theory” behind the creation of the universe, one of those theories by the intellectual lot which angers the church. But of course, when we were totally clueless about the story of creation, men like Georges Lemaître have actually helped with their rational thinking. But remember, big bang is still just a theory! It’s just the only one well supported theory we have as of today. So we have no option but to go by this.
Now to think about it big bang tells us that the universe begun as an extremely small and immensely hot and very dense particle (also known as the god particle or the higgs particle) which exploded, cooled and ever since has been expanding. According to experts before this particle there was nothing called space in the cosmos. So where did this particle come from? No one knows. But at-least, the scientists at the CERN tried to understand this much and started creating the Large Hadron Collider or LHC. The LHC tries to simulate a “mini big bang” to see what it was when the god particle exploded. Myself, like many was looking forward to this whole hyped-up experiment. As this was the one event which could try to give explanation on the story of creation.
We all know what has happened with the LHC now. It’s passed as a joke as of now. Within two weeks of its start, a helium leak force stopped the whole experiment. A time for celebration for the theists begins. The helium leak is interpreted as a "Divine intervention" by them. After all they say, “you are a creation of god. Trying to get into his shoes is dangerous”. Well, I maybe a strong believer, but I would surely want the experiment to come out with some answers. One good point I heard from my friend comes to my mind now- “If god really created you do you think he would give you the power to understand him and get into his shoes? Once you understand there’s no point in him being there” nice point.
Anyways, its 1-0 favoring the theists now. Let’s see what science comes up with next! Till then my question of what was the starting point of everything will remain unanswered.
So the obvious question here is who created god? My granny told me “no one can create the creator! There is no beginning or end for him!” easy answer right? She might have bought that answer. I for sure wouldn’t buy that. So what exactly happened?
Here’s where I learnt about the big bang. The “theory” behind the creation of the universe, one of those theories by the intellectual lot which angers the church. But of course, when we were totally clueless about the story of creation, men like Georges Lemaître have actually helped with their rational thinking. But remember, big bang is still just a theory! It’s just the only one well supported theory we have as of today. So we have no option but to go by this.
Now to think about it big bang tells us that the universe begun as an extremely small and immensely hot and very dense particle (also known as the god particle or the higgs particle) which exploded, cooled and ever since has been expanding. According to experts before this particle there was nothing called space in the cosmos. So where did this particle come from? No one knows. But at-least, the scientists at the CERN tried to understand this much and started creating the Large Hadron Collider or LHC. The LHC tries to simulate a “mini big bang” to see what it was when the god particle exploded. Myself, like many was looking forward to this whole hyped-up experiment. As this was the one event which could try to give explanation on the story of creation.
We all know what has happened with the LHC now. It’s passed as a joke as of now. Within two weeks of its start, a helium leak force stopped the whole experiment. A time for celebration for the theists begins. The helium leak is interpreted as a "Divine intervention" by them. After all they say, “you are a creation of god. Trying to get into his shoes is dangerous”. Well, I maybe a strong believer, but I would surely want the experiment to come out with some answers. One good point I heard from my friend comes to my mind now- “If god really created you do you think he would give you the power to understand him and get into his shoes? Once you understand there’s no point in him being there” nice point.
Anyways, its 1-0 favoring the theists now. Let’s see what science comes up with next! Till then my question of what was the starting point of everything will remain unanswered.
Ragav, the study and research you have done on LHC is amazing. Many of us, were wondering what is this LHC is all about and what they were trying to prove. Infact i was not even aware of the process failing. Your article is just a particle of class. Continue this good work. Though i don't converge on the opinion, but i am very impressed with your article
ReplyDeletevathson
Ragav, Really impressive esp “If god really created you do you think he would give you the power to understand him and get into his shoes? Once you understand there’s no point in him being there”.
ReplyDeleteChoosen a really hard theme to write on and yet a theme on which half de volumes existing have been written on. Research also says human brain has a module called de 'God module' which causes one to fear and believe. Though there r many theories supportin de believers n non believers, but de one which really impressed me s "My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute." - Ayn Rand. This removes de doubt as to de need to believe in any forces external to him and believe in himself as de supreme being...
Good to see an atheist participate. But your reply is more apt to my previous post (X=GOD?). So if you can share your thoughts to this post it would be nice. whats the starting point for everything? how did the universe evolve if god did not make it? any thoughts on that?
ReplyDeleteTo reply to your post, thats a nice quote you have given there. But the word "man" there itself shows how subjective the quote is. you cannot generalize that statement. Some men are result oriented. they derive motivation from their achievements. Some need external motivation. Thats why they pray to god, like the students praying before their exams. These are things which have developed over a period of time in the society. You can say its just a state of mind and thrust upon us by society but whatever it may be, it works. People feel better after they pray. This cannot change overnight.
Anyway, please remember, humility helps- always! so whatever you achieve, there is someone above you. so pray to god u surpass them too :)
the fact that you do not know what happened before the big bang does not necessarily mean that there was a god behind it. as you aptly pointed out, who created god? an infinite regression series leading back to the creation of evything that can be created, leads us to the unknown. but it does not mean that you can fill it with a god for an answer. It is just unknown.
ReplyDeleteAnd dude, humility does work, but not to some unknown being. Be modest among the nature of the things, the cosmos, the universe, but be proud that nothing else has teh consciousness that you have. And something that you believe exists does not exist. Just because you feel that it works does not make it real and being a human with consciousness in this scientific age, we cannot and should not accept something as real until it s sufficiently proved. Until then its unknown. Even wearing the same dirty shirt to every exam, or carrying a same pen to the every exam might seem to work wonders, but that does not constitute the truth and you know that. If you think that society has made you think that praying makes you do better, and if it has made you believe that it is true, then it has the same power to make you do well without the prayer. place a confidence in yourself. prayer is the bribery offered to god to make you do better than someone who has prepared and persevered and has the presence of mind better than you. Why would you think an omniscient and a rational god would favor you in front of someone who does his duty better than you? Just because you prayed to him? Think about it.
my previous post was not in direct connection with the topic. Sorry about that.
ReplyDeleteBut the collider is a great initiative from teh scientists. a great step for mankind. dont write it off so easily. and yeah in you style,"pray" for it.
and if you do think that a god is more powerful than you, dont you feel that he would not have a problem in you realising him. after all atheist like me would not exist and there would be more people praying to him and satisfy his ego, which might make belief in him and thus his presence indisputable?
ReplyDeleteambu firstly sorry for the late reply. Iam not coming to the PC these days cos of my exams. after nov19th ill become active.
ReplyDeleteNow for the reply..
Firstly, as usual, your lot never fail to amuse me :) i also agree what created the universe is unknown and as you know i believe it is god. But as you should have understood from my posting, my mind is open to accept if experiments like LHC gives a different answer. (infact LHC can never answer this question as it just tries to recreate moments existing immediately after the big bang and not before it. what happened before is what truly unknown. But atheists, like how you have spoken right now, outright deny the existence of god. You simple say it is unknown but it is not god. I mean... if you do not know what it is, how can you say something is not? what makes you say for sure it is not god? you guys never answer that do you?
Secondly, regarding why god should favour a believer, i never said god will favour a believer. I think you are hinting at my usual phrase before exams "only god should save me". I just got an answer to this from one of my teachers, ill share it with you. See, im not saying god is going to favour me against someone who is better than me just because he is an atheist and im a theist. All im trying to say his he will help me succeed if i put a decent effort, though my inherent capability is weaker than the atheist. The beautiful example for this which i learnt is Rajni Vs Kamal. We know kamal jas a great intellect, he knows in and out of film making and well versed in so many worldly subjects and works like a dog for the movie and his good movies carry SO MUCH meaning that make us look at him in awe and applaud. Now take rajni. What does he have? truly speaking he is not a great looking man, his IQ is much below Kamal's and he is not so technically sound in his own field, film making like kamal. But as soon as he comes and does his antics the whole theater roars! what is it? where did he get that charisma from? in my view applauding at someone technically sound and intellectually awesome is normal. He is great so you applaud. But applauding at someone for just his lighting fast salutes and finger gimmicks is just not comprehendable. Both of them have reached success at its highest peak. One with sheer hard work and intellect. One with hard work, but not much intellect. This is what im trying to say. If you belive and surrender, a little work to the point of your capability is enough to succeed. Infact i can give you a better example involving me and you which just struck me. But i do not know how you will take it. Probably im finding it difficult to talk to the ambu in USA than my best friend who used to waste time chatting with me at bakya fast foods :)
ReplyDeleteThird... you ask how can atheists exist and why would'nt god simply have people like me to satisfy his ego. I do not know how you cannot see the answer! it is so simple. There may be a different answer, but this is my view and my answer. See, you know gamers right. When you and me play Max Payne we play in the "detective" mode. Do you think a gamer would do that? it would be an insult for him. He would play the "hard boiled" mode. God is not a rookie ambu, he is a pro. Lets stick to the popular belief of him creating this world. He'd be bored to death if the world is filled with people like me. After creating the world, running and maintaining it is also his job. Where would he derive his job satisfaction from? only by adding challenges to it. And how to add challenges to his job? By creating athesits! as simple as that! By creating a richard dawkin or a GH hardy, god has a tougher task! which makes his job interesting! There is not fun in making me look at him in awe. I already believe in him. But if god has to make Kamal or richard dawkin believe in him, thats the real challenge for him! Infact he'd be more interested in atheists than the theists. I dont know if you know the story of Vishnu and his dwarka balagargal. Our anscetors themselves have hinted out an answer for this. To give you a short story, incase you are not aware, The two guards of vishnu Jayan and Vijayan were victims of a curse and had to to sent to earth away from vishnu's parkadal. Vishnu gave them two options- either live in earth believing in me and praying to me. But in that case you have to stay away from me for 7 lives, or go to earth and become my enemies and fight me and come back to me after 3 lives. The two guards Jayan and Vijayan chose the latter option as they did not want to be separated from god for a long time. This might be another answer. So probably, atheists are on a faster realisation plane than us :) (what an irony right? :D)
ReplyDeleteFourth, you ask why god doesnt give me the power to realise him. Honestly, i do not know a convincing reply. But im sure once i grow up and attain a better maturity and knowledge ill be able to answer you better. But i can tell you one thing now. God doesnt give me the power to realize him because i think thats what creates an awe. Anything mysterious is automatically beautiful. God is mysterious, hence beautiful. Another view maybe, maybe he did not find the need to make me realize him. He thought, whether you realize me or not im here to protect you, why take the strain. I know how much you shout at your mother. Does she ever say anything back? Im sure few things which you do is totally unacceptable to her. But still she accepts you as you are. That is the beauty of the relationship. Your mother is just a mother for ambarish. When she can show such great traits then god is the ultimate parent da.. imagine how he will be.
ReplyDeleteLastly, I know you are a matured guy and as usual my best pair to have a conversation with, but just as a disclaimer- whatever i said is purely for our discussion. You pointed your view, i pointed out mine. This is how knowledge grows. I did not intend to argue or fight, only if you take it in this spirit i will continue my discussion.
ReplyDeleteHope god blesses all of us :)
Hi Ragav and Ambarish... Interesting Conversation.. :) I would like to join in...ragav ur arguements are good but not strong enough to convince an Atheist. I feel fundamentally the arguments are quite naive... In the sense we are talking about whether God is powerful and satisfying his ego and about y God doesn gimme the power to realise him...
ReplyDeleteRagav I think from a theist and Atheist's point of view this argument may work. See for an Atheist he believes in own ability the most.. He s not evil but just a person infused with positive energy and somehow most atheists I have met have always been extremely talented and capable people.. Fame is not the measure here (rajini and kamal).. Self satisfaction is the key.. who is self actualising is important...
Next from a Theist's perspective... Lord Shiva is referred to as the Mahadev. The God of Gods.. But if have observed during bhajans we say Har har mahadev... This means every human has the power to be a Mahadev.. There is manisfestation of divine in each person.. Also, has Paramacharyar not told us about Aham Brahmasmi... I am Brahmam... This is what I had tried tell earlier too... I don't find any arrogance in this.. Awaiting urs and Ambarish's comments although it has been quite sometime since you have put in these comments...
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