Strange thought

[ayoub]

Thinking of relativity and the speed of light...

A clever creationist could spin that God is everywhere because He travels at the speed of light...

Although, if it was suggested, I'm sure Einstein would turn in his grave...

Comments

[thermalsatsuma.livejournal.com]

I would say the opposite is true. If god is limited by the speed of light, then quite clearly he can't be everywhere at the same time because of the communications lag. If somebody is on a spaceship travelling at close to the speed of light then any prayers or responses to prayers will not reach the deity in question in a timely manner, and indeed will be doppler shifted in frequency. Likewise, close to a black hole no information can pass the event horizon which would include prayers. Therefore god can't possibly be omnipotent, and therefore is rubbish.

Hah! Einstein wins!

[ayoub.livejournal.com]

What if God is light?

Lightspeed is relative... It will always go at whatever speed you're going plus c :D

[thermalsatsuma.livejournal.com]

Light speed is not relative, it's a universal constant. There is no luminiferous ether, as Michaelson and Morley demonstrated with their experiments.

Imagine being on a moving spaceship and shining a torch ahead of you. The photons leave the torch at the speed of light, regardless of how fast the ship is moving or the direction you shine the torch. To an observer in a stationary frame of reference the light from the torch will be shifted to red or blue depending on the direction of travel in the same way the sound is doppler shifted. As the ship approaches the speed of light, the stationary observer will appear to see time slow down on the train as the light takes more time to reach him.

This is the well known time dilation effect (where you could fly to alpha centauri at near light speed, turn around and come back and find that more time has passed on Earth than on your spaceship, and also that monkeys have taken over). This has been demonstrated experimentally by flying atomic clocks into space and back again. Einstein's genius was to predict these effects purely theoretically with special and general relativity, and they have all been proved to be correct.

[ayoub.livejournal.com]

Poor choice of words...

Light moves at c relative to any point :D

I incorporated the time dilation effect into a sci-fi story I wrote when I was 11 :D

[chiropteraclan.livejournal.com]

And then I would say that the God(s) is/are everywhere because they are us and we are them (and yes, I know that is grammatically incorrect, but it sounds weird when I say in a grammatically correct way).

[ayoub.livejournal.com]

Have you read "God's Debris?"

I think you'll like it :D

[chiropteraclan.livejournal.com]

I haven't read it....another one for my very large and growing pile of books to be read eh? :D

[lostincandyrain.livejournal.com]

God does not travel at the speed of light (well He might, but that's only part of the explination of how He is everywhere at once). Rather, He exists everywhere because he exists in 4 dimensions rather than our three (His fourth quite possibly being time, which we can perceive, but not manipulate, or He could exist in even more dimensions, ones we don't have the capacity to even really imagine).

Read Flatland (http://books.google.com/books?id=R6E0AAAAMAAJ&dq=flatland+a+romance+in+many+dimensions&pg=PP1&ots=B8Q4Cq_jqw&sig=ZdxkyOxlmP8usKSy0aAZRCaxqYY&prev=http://www.google.com/search%3Fclient%3Dsafari%26rls%3Den%26q%3DFlatland%2Ba%2Bromance%2Bin%2Bmany%2Bdimensions%26ie%3DUTF-8%26oe%3DUTF-8&sa=X&oi=print&ct=title&cad=one-book-with-thumbnail#PPA11,M1) and you'll understand.

;)

[ayoub.livejournal.com]

My first thought was that God is the TARDIS... :P

I'll take a read though :D

[donnickcottage.livejournal.com]

A clever creationist would claim God is everywhere because He is; and if Einstein wanted to spin in his grave, more power to him.

[ayoub.livejournal.com]

In my admittedly limited reading of creationist science, I must say I haven't found a clever one... :P

But then, it wouldn't be called "faith" if there was empirical evidence...

[donnickcottage.livejournal.com]

Yea, a creationist wouldn't use science at all. If it was within the realm of human understanding, how important could it be?

[mighty-rontor.livejournal.com]

I don't know about that. I've heard that some of the greatest minds in science are rather religious.

[ayoub.livejournal.com]

Einstein stated that he was a deeply religious non-believer

So yeah, religious, but likely not a believer in creationism :D

[amante-donne.livejournal.com]

and that he also looks like the silver surfer becuase that is how he travels AT the speed of light :)

[ayoub.livejournal.com]

LMAO!

[saare-snowqueen.livejournal.com]

Most Christian theorists posit that God is everywhere, not because he travels at the speed of light but because he is everything and thus in and at everything.

[ayoub.livejournal.com]

But what are the mechanics of that? Is God strange particles?

It's a good thing to posit, and believe it or not, I believe in God, but I would really like to see some proof :D

[thermalsatsuma.livejournal.com]

How can you believe in anything without seeing proof first? How do you choose one unsubstantiated belief over another one? Why not believe in Jehovah or Odin or the Flying Spaghetti Monster? Without proof, all are equally likely (or unlikely).

[ayoub.livejournal.com]

Faith is called faith because it doesn't require proof :D

I will add the caveat that I am more spiritual than religious... I take religious texts with a pinch of salt... always...

[thermalsatsuma.livejournal.com]

The question I always come back to though, is how do you pick one faith over another? If it's not too personal a question, how did you arrive at your faith rather than any other? Is it the family tradition that you were raised in or did something convince you of it?

[ayoub.livejournal.com]

I was raised into it...

But it's evolved into a spiritual sense of a single entity :D

Imagine the single point of the tenth dimension as an intelligent entity... :D

[xjenavivex.livejournal.com]

time is not linear

[ayoub.livejournal.com]

:D

And now we're moving away from Einstein's theories...

But I agree, time is not linear... String theory is much better at explaining some of the mysteries of the universe :)

[xjenavivex.livejournal.com]

hey i dont like upsetting al

[ayoub.livejournal.com]

I think, if Al were alive today, he'd be working with string theory too :D

He was a seeker of truth :)

[thermalsatsuma.livejournal.com]

I find the stuff with the eleven dimensions rather mind blowing though ... :-)

[ayoub.livejournal.com]

It's tough to visualise!

[thermalsatsuma.livejournal.com]

You've just reminded me of this (http://tenthdimension.com/) which does a good job of visualising higher dimensions.

[ayoub.livejournal.com]

That's pretty cool :D