If you think about it, GOD is unfathomable.....

So many people associate with god and understand God according to their world view, their education, and their personality.
Whoa! Big shocker there. haha
And many of the truly God fearing seeking folk know that God is not understandable, so they trust according to their faith.
Another shocker.

I made this thread to discuss how truly infinite the Universe likely is. And how we will never have the capacity to understand, know, view, feel, or even speculate on its true infiniteness.
But this thread is gonna speculate anyway.

Our knowledge of the infinitely small continues, and never ends. Until the Atom Theory, which is recent history, the universe was assumed to be made up of Air, Water, Earth. Then came the atom. Then came quantum theory. Then came quarks. Then came string theory. Then came brane theory.
Our knowledge of the heavens has changed dramatically each decade since the renaissance.

What if:
The universe is multi-laterally infinite?
I don't just mean infinite in size. I mean infinite in dimensions, smallness, largeness, expanse.
What I mean:
Dimensions: infinite layers of being, all stacked on top one another
Smallness: It doesnt stop with string theory, or the God particle, it keeps getting smaller and never ends.
Largeness: Think of it like this; we live on a planet that is a quark inside an atom inside a super giant rock, on a planet that is yet again a quark inside an atom of another being, etc.
Expanse: The stars and galaxies just never end. There is no edge of the Universe.

To have a universe so multi-layered and never ending, who's to say there are not more extravagant versions of life.
Maybe our visible universe is literally a millisecond within the cell of the body of a being so large we would never have the tiniest clue of our plight in his/hers/its life.

In this infinite universe controlled by God, what is Jesus really?
Besides the son of God, his annointed ruler of humankind, what is Jesus in the scheme of an eternal and infinite universe.

Just an idea I have that is bouncing around in my head with lots of ideas.
I think its true that we just do not have the capacity in any way to understand the true awesomeness of God.

a reply to: FingerMan

Indeed, indeed. What if? and who's to say. We can crayon color this book with infinate cleaverness and still not come anywhere near the lines.

a reply to: TerryMcGuire
True. But the same thing could have been said to anyone in the past who thought there was more to reality than earth/air/water.
A disussion like this, imo, is not in vain.

My understanding of the universe, religion, politics has greatly increased with the knowledge explosion of the recent decades. And maturity had nothing to do with them.

The Matrix is just an okay movie by my standards, but it was an absolute ground breaking movie in other ways. It opened our minds to other realities.
So many other examples could be given to show how our understanding of the universe has changed.
This will continue.

I'm just wondering if that could happen in a thread?

"God" in it's infinitely inadequate human term, is completely unknowable. It is by definition the creator of all things. There is more space between the earth and the nearest star than we can even comprehend. We can put a number on it, like we can with most things, but we don't really think in such terms on a daily basis.

Such terms are nothing to God. Literally a pittance of an afterthought. We are talking about a universe so vast we have barely started to comprehend it in the last 100 years, after millions of years of evolution (if you believe one narrative).

No. God is incomprehensible in terms of what His mind contains, His plans are, or His boundary is. Limitless.

When men can understand the fabric of the universe fully, or traverse it at will, then they can speculate as to the existence of it's creator and do so with authority. They are but chicks chirping in the nest, for now.

You've taken a step towards understanding the second main principle of Jainism; non-absolutism (anēkāntavāda).

To quote directly from the WiKi Oracle:

Anekāntavāda emphasizes the principles of pluralism (multiplicity of viewpoints) and to the notion that truth and reality are perceived differently from diverse points of view, no single one of which is complete.

God in this sense becomes an abstraction. If we identify God with the absolute creation, then we must admit that we don't understand God since we don't understand the Universe (dark energy plus dark matter constitute 95.1% of the total mass–energy content of the universe, and we don't understand what it is or how it works).

Instead of choosing one interpretation of God, build one's ego around it, then pit your self against other interpretations of God (Jihad), the Jain faith chose to use all interpretations of God and knowledge of the Universe together to better understand us and the creation.

It's the oldest practiced religion in the world, it has been around in India for at least 4000 years. It seems like we've lost some of the wits our ancestors had.

If you want to find God, just look in the mirror

Each human is an expression of the infinite, having unique experiences all for the fun of it

Any further analyzing is just the mind trying to figure out something it never could .... oh and the mind is the divine, too, just playing the role of acting confused

Two hundred years ago if someone would have started talking about quarks, atoms, god particles, and molecules, they would have shunned you or locked you up. People would have said not to talk nonsense, that is not important. They would have told you to go work in the garden or feed the livestock or milk the cow. They would have said it is important to learn to cook and prepare for things. That would have been important to most people.

Now many have BSed us into believing these minute particles are extremely important. In essence, it is just knowledge with little practical use for most people. It still matters more to have food on the table and a roof over your head when it's raining just like two hundred years ago. If I was starving, I would rather have knowledge about how to hunt, fish, and grow veggies than about advanced science or religion. Now remember, religions do teach that we should take care of others of their religion in the event of emergencies, science does not teach that.

What is god, I do not know. Maybe he is just what the universe is made of. Maybe god is the spirit of everything. They didn't really have a word for the universe/multiverse back long ago.

a reply to: FingerMan

I enjoyed your description - it certainly is a mystery, this whole appearance!

We might also ask why do we assume that the Divine actually created all of this, as though the Divine Reality is some kind of great and all-powerful "Other".

It is also no "shocker" that we would think in these terms - that a Creator-God exists as some kind of "Super Daddy". Such notions are based in mankind's need for a sense of security in this vast mysterious expanse. In other words, these ideas are rooted in our early life needs for the protection parents should provide their children.

The notion of a separate, great "Other" Creator-God is a myth, rooted in our fear-based assumption that we are also separate, independent entities over against all others and objects. No such independence is the case in reality - we are totally dependent on, not separate from, this vast expanse we call life.

The Divine is indivisible, and therefore not separate from anything or anyone whatsoever. What could exist outside of Reality?

The Divine also is not the cause of all this appearance. The Divine Reality is acausal - that is, Reality has no cause-and-effect relationship to all arising. And still, the Divine is also not separate from any of it. It is all conscious light-energy, and we arise as modifications of and in the Divine. Truly unfathomable by the mind!

With this recognition comes the understanding that no one is separate from the Divine. And various statements by Jesus that he and the FAther are one and that we are one in him, etc., begin to make a lot more sense.

Think about Jesus' second great commandment as another example of our inherent non-separation from all others in the Divine. "Love your neighbor as oneself": You can only do that if you assume you are not separate from your neighbor, but are all appearing in the non-separate Divine Reality.

Yes, the Divine is unfathomable, and we must also recognize that our notions of God as some great Creator are attempts to contain Him in the only manner our usual separative mode of thinking tends to allow for - as some graat "Other", separate from us as the presumed knowing subject.

Thank you for this thread.

The Savior said: "He Who Is is ineffable. No principle knew him, no authority, no subjection, nor any creature from the foundation of the world until now, except he alone, and anyone to whom he wants to make revelation through him who is from First Light. From now on, I am the Great Savior. For he is immortal and eternal. Now he is eternal, having no birth; for everyone who has birth will perish. He is unbegotten, having no beginning; for everyone who has a beginning has an end. Since no one rules over him, he has no name; for whoever has a name is the creation of another."

(BG 84, 13-17 adds: He is unnameable. He has no human form; for whoever has human form is the creation of another).

"And he has a semblance of his own - not like what you have seen and received, but a strange semblance that surpasses all things and is better than the universe. It looks to every side and sees itself from itself. Since it is infinite, he is ever incomprehensible. He is imperishable and has no likeness (to anything). He is unchanging good. He is faultless. He is eternal. He is blessed. While he is not known, he ever knows himself. He is immeasurable. He is untraceable. He is perfect, having no defect. He is imperishability blessed. He is called 'Father of the Universe'".

Yes, He is.

It is ironic to me that Stephen Hawking titled one his books "The Grand Design". Look up the word design in a dictionary.

The "bigness" of the universe/multiverse and the strangeness of quantum physics causes some, for some reason, to think that the idea of God is obsolete. We all seem so relatively physically small, after all, and the universe so strange. We cannot understand God because he is just smarter than we are. Nevertheless, he tells each of us to seek him "with all our hearts".

Someone said that God is a comforting myth. Comforting? Or a knife that cuts two ways? If God is a comfort, then why is the western world running away from him? The Bible says that if we have hope for this present life only, then we (Christians) are of all people the most miserable (e.g., extremely unhappy). Would I like to die and cease to exist forever? Definitely!

It's just more complicated than that. God made everything for us to observe. But what he holds most dear is what we humans all want, for we are made in his image. He wants to be loved. The 1st and greatest commandment: "Love the Lord with all your HEART..."

a reply to: ThinkingMom
I like what you said about love.

Also, I am probably the person you are referring to when you said "Someone said that God is a comforting myth."

The Creator-God idea is a myth based on our need for an all-protecting father, but I hope you understand that I was not saying that God does not exist.

God is unconditional conscious light and love - and Jesus clearly understood this when he gave his two great commandments. He said to love God altogether with the whole being, body-mind, heart and one's neighbor as oneself. That is a real in-life daily practice, a real ordeal to turn to God each day that way! You seem to understand this, and that is very very good.

Many people think that somehow just believing in God will get them to heaven when they die - that is all based in the Creator-God mythology and does comfort many. It is this revision by Paul that caused the essence of Jesus' original message to be greatly forgotten - in favor of Paul's easy salvation message, which helped to build up the numbers in the early Christian movement.

Any god that would keep letting all the sick vile sadistic # we see daily go on, isn't anyone I want to follow. I think we need to practice personal responsibility instead of religion.

a reply to: LOSTinAMERICA
How can you have good without bad; clean without dirty; kindness without cruelty.
The creator is the source of it all.
I wonder if the creator is as much satisfied with one side of the equation as it is the other?
We are certainly attached to one side. All of our perceptions are based in that reality.

The ugliness of our existence is the death of much life; often in a very cruel manner.

This for me begs question. Absolutely, positively, even without invoking the purpose of god, there is purpose. There is purpose to everything.
A blissfully satisfied cow is butchered mid-life. Its' purpose was the perpetuation of life. But its' purpose has not ended. In what form does it carry on? Does it remain a single source, or does it merge with another?
Is there an end point where it all accumulates?
Is it recycled endlessly?

My gut, our gut, our instincts tell us there is purpose. Instincts being only memories passed along from generation to generation, I wonder if this is a memory implanted from the creator.

We know there is an end purpose. We know there is something mysterious, grandiose, purposeful on the other side of the fence. We just can't remember what it is.
Or as this thread suggest with its many posts, it is incomprehensable to us in this form.

Just another thought.

About ten years ago I came to the conclusion that angels were not what I used to think of them. Our culture had classified angels as mythical winged creatures invisible to the eye.

But taking a candid look at scripture, and realizing there is no heaven in the clouds, you can only come to the conclusion that angels are actually aliens from another planet.

Jesus was taken to another planet. Mary was impregnated with Jesus via artificial insemination.

Do these aliens have a similar history to us? Are they original creations? Do they know just a little more than we do, knowing even more how infinitely inconsequential the extinction of any species would be in the grand scheme of things.

The main passages of the bible that took me in the direction of wonderment were John in the book of Revelation.

As John was taken to a heavenly place, he encountered the chamber of 24 elders, and two beasts.
John wept profusely. He knew that our species was not worthy in the least to exist alongside these beings.
But then he saw and remembered Jesus. The one example, the one leader that would salvage our species from annihilation.

Jesus being Gods' anointed one to salvage our species, are there other beings of similar status?

Those passages from the book of Revelation are the earliest craziest sci-fi passages ever written.

To me, this is a counsel/government of eternal beings of different realms of reality.

But for John to try and describe what he saw is like taking John to 2015 and asking him to describe what he saw from our current existence. He wouldn't be able to explain it very well.

a reply to: DeadSeraph
Great post!

a reply to: FingerMan


You and I are trying to catch a stationary bus. Before we can reach the bus we must both reach the half way point. So now we have gone half way. Yet still before we can reach the bus we must again go half way. We will always have to go at least half of the distance from the our current location to the location of the bus. Yet since the possible number of half way points is infinite we should never reach the bus.

This is a form of Zeno's paradox. You can see that what should occur based on logic does not as when you reach for your key board to respond you will reach the keys.

We do not observe infinities in nature.

You say you made this thread to discuss how truly infinite the Universe likely is. Time is not infinite. Nor is space.

Astronomers and physicists have a good understanding of the development of the universe back until it was about 10^-34 seconds. At time= 10^-43 seconds general relativity breaksdown. Space and time as we know them began at 10-43 seconds. This universe that we observe is not infinite. We know that.

We can extend my example about a stationary bus to your idea about an infinite regression and progression of universes stacked upon each other. If the number of regressions and progressions are infinite(just like the number of half way points between us and the stationary bus) how do we arrive to the present universe? Once we arrive at the present universe the progression ceases to be infinite. What evidence do you have that we can progress past the point in time in which we currently exist.

I would posit that the universe is most likely virtual. Anytime you boot up a video game from the perspective of the virtual world its creation is from an influx of information from nothing. Virtual worlds have a maximum speed at which they can process information. According to special relativity, the speed of light is the maximum speed at which all matter and information in the universe can travel. Again if the infinities could exist in nature the maximum speed at which information can travel should be infinite as the number of possibilities should be infinite. This is not what we observe. If the world was virtual we would expect to see that there is a maximum speed and that is exactly what we find. The expansion of space means that new space is being added all the time. We call the cause of this dark energy and dark matter, but we haven't discovered any particles that cause the addition of space. In a virtual world a new processing point by definition receives input but gives no output. The addition of space is a new processing point and therefore a virtual reality predicts the addition of space would output no particles. If a particle is found this theory will either need to be trashed or reworked based on the influx of new information. I can give many parallels between the way a virtual world operates and the way this universe operates. These are only a few.

The closer you get to the speed of light the slower time goes for you. So if you get to the speed of light time basically stops (Think of the quick silver scene in Xmen). So if at the speed of light time stops. It seems to me faster than the speed of light would take you backwards. I don't see any way of going theoretically going forward in time, which again seems to give rise to the idea that the universe is finite and not infinite.

a reply to: ServantOfTheLamb

Um.. I'll just reply to a couple of your points.
First off, you think you can prove there is not an infinity. You think we understand the universe at its berth. You think you know the true speed of light. You think you know the absolutes and laws of nature.
I would not suppose this. Theories are called theories until they are exploded by a new theory.
Newton was heralded til the age of Einstein. Big bang theory is slowly being replaced with Brane theory.
100 years from now, who knows how many "theories" we will have exhausted.

It is true that we will never witness an infinity, as that is impossible. Your argument there is no infinity is weird, then you bring in virtual worlds?
I'll speak to the virtual world. I wouldn't disagree this is a virtual world. I would however throw a zinger in there and say it might be an infinite virtual world stacked on top of multiple virtual worlds, all connected, never ending in size, expanse, etc.
And God is simply the consciousness through which these endless virtual worlds are computed.


Blows the mind.

a reply to: FingerMan

First off, you think you can prove there is not an infinity.

No. I said we don't observe infinities in nature.

You think we understand the universe at its berth.

No I think we know a great deal about what happened about 10^-32 seconds after its birth.

You think you know the true speed of light. You think you know the absolutes and laws of nature.

Heard of Special relativity? What do you mean by absolutes?

I wouldn't disagree this is a virtual world.

Virtual worlds are not infinite. From the perspective of a virtual world its creation is an influx of information from nothing. It has a creation point. So if you concede that this world is virtual you must also concede that it had a creation point and therefore this world is not infinite.

a reply to: FingerMan
INCONCEIVABLE!!!!!!