Ernie: Genesis 1 may well describe the beginnings of this world, and existence from our world's perspective, but beyond that ? Anyway, how about Wisdom of Solomon 9 : 9 ? Wisdom, personified as a Goddess in everything but name, was present with God at the Creation. But it is not the Creation account of Genesis, rather we get an ongoing Creation since, to refer to Wis Sol 7 : 17 where there are said to be epochs of elements, and 19 : 19 where we get land animals that took to the sea and swimming things that in their time took to the land, viz, Darwin in a Biblical version. Wisdom, the Shekinah, co-exists with the Lord and is eternal. She also continually renews Creation at the Lord's behest. Which, in my mind, doesn't contradict genesis, but "fleshes it out." Thus the question remains -unless, somehow, Wis Sol doesn't count and isn't even in the Bible even though it has been in the text since there was a text. BTW, the Apocrypha was part of all Bibles until the era of King James. Not sure why it was deleted in that time but I do not know of any justification for the removal. One suggestion is that this made it more practical to print the Bible, less pages, but I'm not convinced by this theory. Here's the problem. The universe is essential to God -or in my way of thinking God / Goddess. Indeed, creation ( lower case ) is likewise essential. Therefore creation is also eternal even if, obviously, there are local Creations and local declines and endings. There is also a basic metaphysical problem. To express it as a tautology, existence exists. Nothingness is incomprehensible because if nothing was ever "real" in the past, the actual state of things, then nothing new could ever arise. Creation ex nihilo makes zero sense. Or only makes sense to someone like Loyola who said he believed Because it is absurd. Alas, that kind of logic is mad hatter, Alice in Wonderland logic, and can allow for anything at all, including the most elaborate "Oriental fantasies." Clearly that won't do, not if the reason which Paul extols in Romans 1 is meaningful. So, for me, until proven otherwise, the universe is a mixture, not a blend, which may well be at different stages in different places, granted that the places may be separated by 20 billion years, or 50 billion years for all anyone can now say, and must ( must ) always exist. The places may also, in cases, be "in" another dimension-- or 3 dimensional universes ( actually sub-universes, like our's ) may , for reasons now mysterious, become transformed into, say, 4 dimensional phenomena, or "God knows what." But "The Universe" always exists. Creation is continuous. So, looks to me like a new and much more complex version of Steady State is called for. But not Hoyle's original formulation, not by a stretch, since we need to account for not only the 15 billion light years we can currently "see," but for an infinite number of light years in every direction. Not one to think small, I remain your humble interlocutor, Wilhelm ======================================================
In a message dated 4/5/2010 10:12:57 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time, [email protected] writes: Hi Billy, On Apr 5, 2010, at 8:57 PM, [email protected] wrote: > How about Steady State Mark II ? > > There was an astronomer named Opik, I think, who postulated > an "oscillating universe" once upon a time, way back in the Hoyle era. > Maybe it merits a second look. Oh, it has periodically been in fashion (no pun intended). The problem is that: a) the universe turned out to be a tremendously efficient radiator -- it generates enormous entropy, so it doesn't 'bounce'; it can't keep oscillating b) if anything, the expansion of the universe appears to be *increasing*, not decreasing (due to something called 'negative energy'). So, I don't know of any sort of a steady state that is at all consistent with the experimental evidence. And I did actually take a course or two on this in college, and the evidence for "a" Big Bang has only gotten stronger (even if the details are still fuzzy). > My thoughts for now, for what they may be worth, perhaps > next to nothing. :-) > But I gotta tell you, what has always attracted me to Hoyle despite > all the evidence in favor of Gamow has been a question : > How can there not be a universe ? Ever. Um, Genesis 1:1? -- Ernie P. > > Billy > _______________________________________________ Centroids mailing list: [email protected] http://radicalcentrism.com/mailman/listinfo/centroids_radicalcentrism.com Archives at http://radicalcentrism.org/pipermail/centroids_radicalcentrism.com/
_______________________________________________ Centroids mailing list: [email protected] http://radicalcentrism.com/mailman/listinfo/centroids_radicalcentrism.com Archives at http://radicalcentrism.org/pipermail/centroids_radicalcentrism.com/
