Fine, I'll do it: the god of the bible does not exist.

...happy?

and how long was that window?

if it happened, the trip probably took on the order of ones or tens of years if you allow the most likely case to be a direct path with the planets in close orbit.

the tens of millions of years or billion years or whatever just accounts for all the times it could have happened, not that the single event took the entire duration.

The God of the bible / torah / quran do not exist.

This is a very simple concept to understand and grasp.

The definition of the concept of god is not even universal. Some will claim it is a all knowing conscious entity dictating cosmic fate. Some think it is not a conscious entity but a universal power able to bring about our current universe, etc etc.


Theists trying to interpret religious god so they can merge it with our understanding of the universe is doing so out of emotional bias commitment.

You bet I'm happy. And it was so simple. Out of respect you should capitalize the word "god" when referring to the entity mentioned in The Bible. Since you are bound for Hell in any case this is a moot point but I felt compelled to mention it.

I think the argument can be made that the pocket has not shrunk at all, but grown exponentially.

I also don't think you are asking yourself the right question here. That is: what would a universe that God created look like?

It would look like a universe that was imagined. There would be no neat, clear and definable line of causes leading up to it. It would appear as a one-off event, or a spontaneous, singular act. A singularity, perhaps?

You just can't brush off cosmic difficulties and apparent contradictions and attribute them to 'god-of-the-gaps nonsense' when the difficulties are INSURMOUNTABLE. To me, it seems disingenuous.

If it looks like a creative act that could have a non-rational cause, then it just does. The requirements are met because of the insurmountable gaps.

I've also been thinking more about this multiverse superstition that some atheists are latching on to (spurred by the above mentioned evidence). With each additional hypothetical universe, doesn't the probability of God existing increase? I mean, I think the theory is tosh, anyway, as it is just another way of saying "everything exists." If that is so, then God exists. Assume all probable universes and you are going to eventually assume a God-present universe.

Anyway, it's all off the cuff, so I want to get back to my first point: You describe a universe to me, and in your universe, you cannot account for the majority of its mass. I don't see how you can be so bold or confident in your pronouncements. You are only privy to the workings of the visible fringe of the macrocosm.

Only if God is a physical entity of some sort, which is not really the conception of God most theists are working with.

I think it's also technically incorrect to say that multiple worlds implies "everything exists" in the way you seem to mean it, i.e that everything conceivable exists. I don't think that idea of conceivability maps onto the idea of a universal wavefunction in MW. For example, you can conceive of a block of ice in the center of a star, but I'm guessing this does not exist even in the multi-verse.

Why? Even if we assumed intelligence was special and is what evolution strives for, how does that considerably increase the chance for "god"?

Because ice in the center of a star is logically impossible? But is god a logical impossibility?

If this question was asked in a different context, for example that of extra terrestrial intelligence, could you argue that in a manifold universe scenario, where there are an infinite number of universes and possibilities, that it's possible that extra terrestrial life exists? Surely the answer would have to yes, it's possible.

Could you then posit that in the same infinite possibilities, there exists a universe where god does exist, and if that's possible, then could it be this one?

Ice in the middle of a star is not logically impossible: it is physically impossible. A (slightly shaky) rule of thumb is that something that is logically impossible is something you can't picture in your mind, or draw on paper. A married batchelor, or a three sided square etc.

And to develop well named's point a little more, the usual theology insists that God is outside of the universe, and therefore would be outside of the wavefunction of the universe. Many theist (including Dogggg iirc) also claim that God is the first cause "by definition". So even if MW is correct AND there is a possible wavefunction where Yahweh exists, if his existence is due to the MW interpretation then Yahweh, by definition, is not god.

Really this just highlights the problem with erroneously claiming that some attribute or property applies "by definition". IME it's usually just a way of avoiding having to argue for a proposition. I have little doubt that if anyone ends up in heaven chilling with Yahweh, and Yahweh turns out to be a contingent consequence of MW they won't be saying "Well, you can't really be god, mate. Definitions are definitions."

I don't think I believe that God exists "outside" of the universe. I believe that the universe exists within God's creative realm. Or, rather, that the universe exists within God's reach of compassion or love, or what have you.

The link that was supplied was very scarce in information. I just bowed out because it seemed to be the kind of link that one throws up when they want to respond, but not answer.

Also, I'm not so sure that "God" would be the contingent consequence in the aforementioned scenario. I remember Carl Sagan opened up (Cosmos, maybe) one of his books with the statement that: "the universe is all there is, and all there was. and all there ever will be." If there are other universes, then what is a universe, really? It is certainly not all there is, or all there was, and all there ever will be. "All there is," then, is now redefined. You still have to get there. You still need an all-encompassing macrocosm. Which is the point-- that it doesn't matter what you call the first cause, or where you place it-- you still need it.

Quite honestly, I don't see a difference between saying that everything exists and nothing exists. This seems to be the cop out.

I also believe it was Rees and other esteemed scientists who criticized the theory by comparing it to the anthropic principle here.

As to God being the first cause "by definition," I am just saying that God is equal to the prerequisite requirements. The shoe fits. I don't see this as some kind of aversion tactic. The size and scope of the universe implies an illimitable creative force. The universe appears to have began, and it appears to be extraordinarily large and complex. God is as such. He is the most sensible answer.

Also, just because we can get to God through logic, or even through science, does not mean that God is a consequent of logic or science. It is simply a kind of viewing station in which we can appraise the creator.

I don't see how it can be written off as 'complete BS'.

Earlier in the formation of the solar system, impacts were extremely common, the Late Heavy Bombardment happened toward the end of the accretion phase when planetary bodies had already formed. Being smaller (one third of our gravity), Mars would have cooled more rapidly (whilst retaining some protection from cosmic radiation until it almost completely cooled), been more hospitable to life and impacts would have had a greater chance of throwing surface matter into space. Extremophile bacteria can survive in very hostile environments. Cyno-bacteria have survived for over 500 days attached to the exterior of the ISS, exposed to virtual vacuum. It's feasible that bacteria embedded in chunks of crust could survive for much greater periods.

None of this means that life on Earth originated on Mars, but it's a realistic enough a scenario that it can't it be written off as complete BS.

Those aren't mutually exclusive in any way. Personally, I don't mind if you want to believe god is in the universe, outside the universe, or w/e. Doesn't make a difference to me. But things like WLCs Kalam and other philosophical arguments DO rest on God being outside the universe (it's what they mean by god being "outside space and time" and that sort of thing).

I'm not sure what this refers to, so I'm going to ignore it unless you tell me it's important.

He said "the cosmos is all there was" etc. I believe that here the word "cosmos" is doing the same work as your "macrocosm", where "universe" is or could be one particular universe.

Well, I disagree that we need a first cause (that a first cause is necessary) but in any case, that is not the point being argued here. You said that

This would make god a contingent not a necessary being. Standard theology posits that god is a necessary being, and therefore exists in all possible universes. If god pops up in some universes but not others, then god is contingent and not the first cause. Which brings me back to my question: if Yahweh turns out to be a contingent being, is He still God?

I don't follow this.

Those are criticisms of M-Theory, not Many Worlds. But besides, given that Hawking is generally considered the greatest living physicist (and plenty of other esteemed scientists agree with M-Theory) I don't think being able to point to disagreements is particularly compelling. I'd note, though, that I don't understand the ins and outs of M-Theory so I don't believe in it either. I understand MW a lot better, but it still isn't actually my favoured interpretation of quantum mechanics (though the gap is closing). But I'm going to need to hear something more compelling that "but some scientists disagree!" to push me to outright disbelief.

Again, to stay on topic I'll just let a lot of that slide, but it just is the case that to say that "entity X has property Y by definition" is to say that "an entity that does not have property Y is not X". For example, a triangle has 3 sides by definition. If something doesn't have 3 sides it just isn't a triangle. So if you want to argue that god is the first cause by definition you need to concede that a god that is instantiated by a universal wavefunction is not god, even if He rules heaven, sorts out your afterlife, created Earth, hangs out with Jesus etc etc.

That wasn't what was being argued. Hope the previous comments made that clearer. I appreciate that your comment to the effect that "if there are multiverses then god exists in one of them" was a bit of a throwaway comment and isn't in any way the reason you are a theist, so don't feel you have to defend the point to death if you don't want to. I really just wanted to add to what well named was saying; that multiverse theories don't necessarily imply that every conceivable universe exists, and that a god that exists because of a multiverse theory would not be congruent with mainstream theology.

How do we get to god through science?

I'm a little hesitant to try to provide a detailed explanation because I'm fairly sure there are several other posters who are more formally versed in the specific physics, but I'll give it a shot and you can just take it with a grain of salt and keep in mind that I learned some QM from the Feynmen Lectures on Physics, and some from Neal Stephensen novels :P

The important snippet from the wiki for "Universal wavefunction" is this: The universal wave function is the wavefunction or quantum state of the totality of existence, regarded as the "basic physical entity"

We can take "totality of existence" to mean totality of the physical existence to try to make as few assumptions as possible. The wiki language assumes materialism, by which I mean the physics of QM says nothing about existence beyond the physical, so if that's the totality, then materialism.

It's actually easier to talk about quantum states or wavefunctions of much simpler physical systems, for example a system that involves a single photon interacting with an electron. The universal wavefunction is just an extrapolation where the scope of the system is expanded to the entire physical reality. Such an expanded system is entirely unfeasible to actually deal with mathematically, but the idea that it exists in QM is reasonable. In the more common interpretations of QM, the state function is not a physical reality in itself, but its range represents a weighted distribution of possible states of the system at a given set of space-time coordinates. So you evaluate the function at (x, y, z, t) and interpret it as saying there is an A% chance of A1 occuring, a B% chance of B2 occuring, etc etc. The number of possible states and probabilities grows as the complexity of the system you are modeling grows, and so you can imagine that the state function of the entire universe is mind-bogglingly large. When a measurement actually occurs at (x, y, z, t) only one of the possible states is actually observed. This is what is referred to as the "collapse of the wave function", and it is somewhat mysterious as to what counts as a "measurement" and "how" one state is selected out of the possibilities, other than the fact that if you repeat measurements that have similar outcome distributions, you will observe results that statistically match up with that distribution. There are many other subtleties about the collapse of the wave function. A good place to start googling is the Young's Double Slit Electron experiment.

And so, the mysteriousness of the connection between the mathematical description (wavefunction) and the reality we observe has famously caused physicists some consternation (see: Einstein's "God doesn't play dice") and the interpretation from the model to what the underlying reality is "actually" like is interesting. Multiple-worlds resolves the mystery of the wavefunction collapse by simply doing away with it. MW says that the wavefunction represents the actual reality, but we only observe one tiny part of it. For every physical interaction in which there is a multiplicity of possible states according to the wavefunction, there is a "branch" of the cosmos in which that state was selected. Note that MW doesn't have to imply that a new branch is created at each interaction, you can model the MW-cosmos as a kind of giant configuration space of possible physical states, and each individual "branch" represents a path through that space, with paths splitting apart from each other at each interaction.

Hopefully that description is not too incorrect.

Now, you wrote that this is another way of saying "everything [possible] exists" (I'm assuming the word possible but it's helpful and I think doesn't change your meaning). As zumby helpfully pointed out, there's a difference between physical possibility and logical possibility. The kinds of possibilities that are represented by quantum states are possibilities involving collections of fundamental particles with particular masses, electric charges, spins, energy levels and etc etc. Such states are the only possibilities that are made actual in MW. So unless "God" is some collection of such particles, MW does not imply that "God" exists. Such a conception of God is not perhaps immediately self-contradictory, but it is not what most religions have understood God to be, and there would be numerous theological problems. For example, how can such a God be present everywhere or hear all prayers?

I think you are making a mistake to take Carl Sagan's cosmology as a given from a religious perspective. It's correct that under MW the universe is not exactly a "uni"verse any longer, although in another sense it still is a single physical reality (mathematically represented by the single wavefunction), just one that is not very intuitive for us. But the problem is not that, the problem is that when Sagan says the universe is all there is, he is espousing materialism and in general theists are not materialists.

I agree to the extent that if Christians believe there can be rational proofs of the existence of God, then if you were to understand MW as a rational proof of the existence of God, that would be no different. The problem is that MW doesn't function in that way. But the point of what zumby was saying I think is more that a physicalist conception of God would displace God as the ultimate ground of reality. God could not be "fundamental", He would be some physical matter, and the matter itself and the laws that it obeys would be more fundamental, and if you were to surmise that God could break the laws of physics then at that point you've rejected the original assertion that the existence of such a God is implied by MW, since MW in no way implies the existence of matter that does not follow the laws of QM.

I guess this is my point (and ultimate criticism), really. The universe began. The universe will die in a slow heat death. Necessarily, we would look for causes (as it began), but instead, we have proposed a catch-all, which is that explanation is not necessary, because "everything exists." There is no beginning. There are an infinity of beginnings. This is not the only universe. There are an infinite number of universes. I mean, if I am understanding the application correctly, which I am not sure I am.

How many worlds are they proposing?

When I say that "everything exists," I am thinking of physical universes, not hypothetical logical constructs. Since I believe that the existence of the physical universe is itself proof of God existing, then all you need is one physical universe that can only be 'caused' by God, for my purposes. I can see how God might be a contingency if other universes appeared godless, though. I'm not sure how to get around that.

Again, for my purposes, as I do not believe that there can be or is such a thing as a physical universe that exists somehow outside of God's creative realm, I suppose it is moot.