[General Battuta]

One very serious and very scary concern currently circulating in the scientific community (particularly cosmology) is the notion that some vital information we need to understand the universe may already be behind an event horizon. 

Rly? How long ago did we pass this event horizon? Millions of years?

It's a purely speculative notion. The scary thing is simply that the possibility exists.

[Herra Tohtori]

Rly? How long ago did we pass this event horizon? Millions of years?

Not that kind of event horizon. We're not the ones moving here, and neither is any other point of reference in the universe. It's just that other points of reference seem to move further from us because the amount of space between them increases due to some currently unknown reason (speculated to be dark energy, cosmological constant or dragons).

The one Battuta refers to is the distance where the expansion rate of the universe exceeds velocity of light in vacuum (ie. between point P and us, space is generated at a rate large enough to prevent photons from point P to ever get any closer to us). That's the cosmological event horizon and, if current data is accurate and the expansion is accelerating, is only going to come closer and closer to us.

Of course, because of simultaneity problems with photons, our observations have a lot of lag, and we are actually observing photons that started their journey from point P relatively soon after the Big Bang. We will be able to continue observations of these early objects up until certain threshold where their radiation basically red shifts to blend into the cosmic background radiation. If we could keep our instruments fixed on a certain target about to pass "beyond" the event horizon, we would simply observe the wavelength of those photons to approach infinite, until we wouldn't receive any new photons from it at all from it.

[Mobius]

Religion, belief - What you believe and why

Nature, because it's so much better.

[Kosh]

Religion, belief - What you believe and why

Nature, because it's so much better.

[Topgun]

meh at this thread. 99% of everyone here is an atheist, no need to make a thread for that.
Anyway, Im a Christian, sort of, not the kind you guys are used to anyways.

[iamzack]

Pretty sure every Christian thinks they are that special kind of Christian.

[Bobboau]

because I never answered the question, I beleive in Physical Evidence And Reasoned Logic.

[rhettro]

I feel constrained to point out that every time you read a book, or a forum post, and use a TV remote you are making this statement more stupid.

I had no idea my statement would elicit such a strong response.  Certainly mankind is in its infancy, and we have a lot to learn and collectively we will learn a great deal more. But the fact that we continue to learn doesn't make my point invalid.  Consider this, there is a macro universe that because of the speed of light we can only observe galaxies that are so many light years away, we can't observe the stuff that is beyond that.  We can make educated guesses about it, but they are just guesses, no real knowledge.  On the reverse side, on the micro level we can really see things like electrons, we can take a beam of electrons and shine them on things larger than electrons and see them, or light with a supercollider, we can speed up atoms and smash them into metal spheres and observe the trails the particles leave behind and then guess about there make up.  But our size and the resolution that our senses operate in limit our ability to observe things smaller than sub atomic particles.  We have scientific modeling of those particles and we make assumptions, but that can tell us only so much.  Add in our mortality and that means we only have a small window of opportunity to learn these things and then it's gone.  That's true of a single person, that's true of mankind.

[Topgun]

Pretty sure every Christian thinks they are that special kind of Christian.

I don't celebrate Christmas or Easter and I refuse to call any religious leader by any title whether I agree with them or not.
I don't believe in hell, or the immortality of the soul, and I don't believe the earth was made in six days.

I wouldn't say I am mainstream.

[iamzack]

oh, so youre a christian in the way that i'm a lutheran. i see.

[Nemesis6]

Pretty sure every Christian thinks they are that special kind of Christian.

I don't celebrate Christmas or Easter and I refuse to call any religious leader by any title whether I agree with them or not.
I don't believe in hell, or the immortality of the soul, and I don't believe the earth was made in six days.

I wouldn't say I am mainstream.

Any particular reason you have thrown those concepts and holidays overboard?

[NGTM-1R]

I gotta say, you throw out the immortality of the soul and I'm not sure you can even consider yourself Abrahamic anymore.

[Marcov]

Catholics?

Also, it seems that most Born-Again Christians are naturally more old-fashioned than their counterparts.

[Mongoose]

Catholics?

Um...not really.  Pretty sure we believe in that too.

Not that I've made any secret of it before, but I was raised Roman Catholic, and I continue to practice the faith as an adult.  It's something that's simply always made sense to me, something that's always felt right, and I've found attending Mass every week to deliver a sense of peace and fulfillment that nothing else in my life provides.  I have my degree in the sciences, and I've looked upon that pursuit much as the old Renaissance masters did, as a way of grasping even the smallest portion of God's handiwork.  Moving beyond the tenets of my own specific faith, I've always found an anthropocentric view of the universe, the idea that those cosmological constants which enable us to exist were set as such so that we might one day come into being to marvel at that universe, to be a fundamentally fascinating and appealing one.  I believe there is a greater purpose to each of our lives, even if we aren't able to grasp it ourselves, and I believe that humanity has the potential to achieve great good if we can bring ourselves to embrace that purpose and fulfill the birthright our Creator gave us.  And though my physical body is little more than a tiny flash of light in the great sea of the universe, I believe that the true essence that is me will outlast it, though what comes afterwards is far beyond my own comprehension.

So...yeah.  That's sort of where I'm coming from.

[karajorma]

Pretty sure every Christian thinks they are that special kind of Christian.

I don't celebrate Christmas or Easter and I refuse to call any religious leader by any title whether I agree with them or not.
I don't believe in hell, or the immortality of the soul, and I don't believe the earth was made in six days.

I wouldn't say I am mainstream.

I don't see how you can be Christian once you get rid of immortality of the soul to be honest.

[Aardwolf]

I find this notion of "souls" amusing.

[newman]

Isn't the whole original purpose of religion to give us some peace of mind by suggesting there's something beyond death, beyond the physical? That even after the body dies, the soul continues forever? It's a story mankind's been telling itself for millenia so that it can accept the inevitable more easily. Get rid of the immortality of the soul and you get rid of one of the basic building blocks of almost every organized religion out there.. If you don't believe in that you may as well call yourself an atheist. The rest of the stuff is just a catalyst

[Mongoose]

There are some religions, particularly of the older polytheistic variety, that didn't exactly present all that pleasant of a picture of the afterlife.  Oblivion might have seemed a comforting alternative.

[Topgun]

Pretty sure every Christian thinks they are that special kind of Christian.

I don't celebrate Christmas or Easter and I refuse to call any religious leader by any title whether I agree with them or not.
I don't believe in hell, or the immortality of the soul, and I don't believe the earth was made in six days.

I wouldn't say I am mainstream.

I don't see how you can be Christian once you get rid of immortality of the soul to be honest.

Try to find the words "immortal soul" next to each other in the Bible.

*Hint. You can't.

The doctrine of the immortal soul was created long after the Bible was written.

There is no dichotomy of body and soul in the Old Testament. The Israelite saw things concretely, in their totality, aand thus he considered men as persons and not as composites. The term nepes, though translated by our word soul, neveer means soul as disticnt from the body or the individual person.... the term [psy-ke] is the New testament word corresponding with nepes. it can mean the principle of life, life itself, or the living being

= New Catholic Encyclopedia.

The Christian concept of a spiritual soul created by God and infused into the body at conception to make man a living whole is the fruit of a long development in Christian philosophy. Only with Origen [died c. 254 C.E.] in the East and St. Augustine [died c. 430C.E.] in the West was the soul established as a spiritual substance and a philosophical concept formed of its nature... His doctrine  ..... owed much to Neoplatoism

I could go on.

[Topgun]

Isn't the whole original purpose of religion to give us some peace of mind by suggesting there's something beyond death, beyond the physical? That even after the body dies, the soul continues forever? It's a story mankind's been telling itself for millenia so that it can accept the inevitable more easily. Get rid of the immortality of the soul and you get rid of one of the basic building blocks of almost every organized religion out there.. If you don't believe in that you may as well call yourself an atheist. The rest of the stuff is just a catalyst

I only have faith in what the Bible says (which is nothing like what they preach at churches). I also use reason and logic, but in these things I do not put my faith.

I believe in a hope of resurrection, as promised in the Bible, but I do not believe in an immortal soul.