Your Philosophy of Life and the Universe

[Smiley]

This is not a debate. This is a discussion. I just want to see what some people believe...

I don't believe in the Big Bang Theory (at least, the way our school teaches it). It's not like there was nothing, then an explosion, and then everything. If there was nothing, then the time in which there was nothing never existed - think about it. If there were ten million years of nothing, did the time ever really pass? (it also feeds into my non-belief of time, keep reading)

I always believed there was something. There was always a God, obviously, as any God-believer would tell you. It made the first ___, with "___" being the very smallest thing ever, so small that it was actually infinite in size (I know it's hard to fathom. It's hard to fathom anything in my mind.). This infinity stretches out forever and never stops. It is the universe. From this universe came the first hydrogen atom, which, over time, multiplied and split and came together to form new atoms. These created the stars, the galaxies, the planets, and from the planets came the life that we all know. This is my belief in a nutshell.

I don't believe in time, either. Time is just an illusion people created - it is the mapping of the changes of our evolving universe. As day passes to night, we record it in hours and follow a calendar as we grow and improve. The universe is always changing.

When we die, I believe that our soul - my belief of a "soul" being the essence of universe that you personally grow and extend - evolves into something else, such as a flower or another human being. The little changes that organisms make with their soul are often too small to really see, but this is how, over time, things change. One flower is completely different from the one next to it - the difference in them being too astronomical for us to really understand, and therefore we mask it by saying "They're identical." It makes life easier on us.

This is just an intelligent discussion that I thought would be interesting to witness. We all have a theory of our origins - I would like to learn about yours. No one is really wrong on this subject. We are all welcome to share ^_^

[Chris]

I belive that at one time all the matter in the universe was compacted into one single space ad it eventually collasped and thats when the big bang thing come into play. And as a christian I also belive that god did this. But against church teachings i thing god just stood back and let things happen. I mean why else would the world turn out this way? Anyways thats my view.

[Torey]

I don't really know what to believe. Sometimes I believe the universe and living things were created by evolution but sometimes I wonder how such a thing can do something so big. I wonder how the planets can possibly be made, how living things can roam the earth etc. Sometimes I believe in God but my belief in evolution, I think, is much stronger than my belief in God.

I feel the same way as you do about time, Smiley. I didn't really know what I thought about time. I didn't really know how to put it, but yes, it's just an illusion. Who invented clocks and sun-dials? Human's did. I think we just use time because it's convenient for us.

Dying. This is a subject I always find myself thinking of. Not me dying or anything like that, just about the afterlife and what could possibly await us when we do. When someone says "____ finally went" or "____ is no longer with us" or "Now that ____ has gone" I always think to myself, gone where? Where is it they've gone? I believe in reincarnation myself even though I might want to believe something different. I believe it without realising because sometimes I'll say to my mom "Yeah, I can always do it in my second life" or something along those lines.

[ruff152]

Umm..I'm not too sure what I believe. I think I believe that tehre was a God in the begining. He wanted to create Earth and the other planets, so in order to do that, he decided there should be an explosion. So that was where the Big Bang fits in.
As for Adam and Eve, it's a very difficult question. If evolution really occured, and there are many signs that it did, Adam and Eve must have been apes. I'm not too sure, to be honest.
After all those years, people eventually came on the Earth. When people die, I believe their souls go to heaven. I DON'T believe in hell because I think that God loves everybody.

[Princess Ember Mononoke]

Oy... let me get back to this. I can't really explain everything I feel on this subject because a. it's impossible to explain the Infinite with something as finite as words and b. you'd all think that I'm crazy. I'll just start writing in a Word document and see what I can come up with. When I get something I feel comfortable sharing with you, I'll post it here.

[sollunaestrella]

Well, I strongly feel that the Big Bang Theory wasn't right. I mean... it makes no sense. There was nothing; and yet suddenly there was energy and there was an explosion that suddenly created everything, and that's when time began? There must have been nothing for some amount of time, whether it was an infinite amount of time or not. You just can't... not have time. Time may just be an illusion, but it still maps the universe. So how can the nothing before the universe, which existed for no amount of time, have even existed if time does not map it?

Wow, I'm sure I really confused you all. o__O

Anyway... yeah. I don't have a strong opinion on exactly how the world was created or how life began, either. I've heard of Christians with perfectly conventional beliefs who also believe in evolution, and I would be extremely interested in learning how they fit it together. So I don't know the specifics, but I just believe that God did it somehow, and however he did it is fine with me. ^_~

As for the death thing... well, there are things I could say to several of you, but this is not a debate, so I won't....

[Tracy]

I dunno if it's been mentioned, but there's the Christian-scientific theory, that God created the big bang, and everything went from there.

I personally don't really know. The Watch in the Desert theory made me question my beliefs on how everything came to be.

[Oily]

I believe in nothing at all The beginning of life and the end of mine just boggles my mind - I can't get my head round it, and I don't think anyone can. So I just don't think about it. I do wonder if death is like sleep, where you slip into eternal blackness with no memory, and that's vaguely comforting in a way. When I was little, I used to believe Heaven was an endless field of corn under a blue sky, where everyone went and just wandered forever. Now, I just believe in nothing. I live for the present and despite just thinking of endless blackness after death, I'm always incredibly happy ;D Beliefs can be troubling, but uncertainty is never wrong

I am really interested in the Physics I've been learning about supernovas exploding and making our sun though. It sounds right enough. I'm just not sure where the supernovas started from

[Princess Ember Mononoke]

Oy, where should I start?

Okay, let me just start off by saying that my beliefs are... BIG. I mean when I first... SAW them (I didn’t come up with them, nor did anyone tel me - they just revealed themselves to me) i nearly passed out. I crumpled up and started crying from the full force of everything that had just hit me. I cannot convey to you what I experienced. Words just aren’t enough. It’s not really something you can explain, either - even if someone sort of gets it intellectually, there’s a whole world between that and actually understanding it. And I’m not a Sage. I don’t radiate Truth like some people I have been fortunate enough to come across. The best I can do is try to explain it on an intellectual level using metaphors. Since most of us here are writers, I’ll use the Story metaphor.

Think about the characters in a story book. If the author is talented, they can seem very much alive. When you’re caught up in the story, it seems as though the characters are the ones driving what happens. But when you step back, you know that that isn’t the case. The characters don’t even exist in the same sense as we do. They only give the ilusion of being real. In truth, there is only one true entity within the story - the author.

That is the first point - God is the Author. It is the only conscious entity in this universe.

That is the most essential thing. That is the hardest thing to understand. After that, the rest flows logicaly, although there is no logic involved in coming to it. It’s a major shock, and in a moment of Awakening, the mind, the essence of each individual Character tries to resist it. After all, who would want to know that they aren’t real? Of course, that dredges up a lot of questions.

If there is no Ember, who sees through these eyes?

If there is no Ember, where do these thoughts come from?

If there is no Ember, how can there be a me?

If God is the only conscious entity, than who am I?

When you think about it, that last question answers itself.

We here are writers. We know the secret to making characters come alive. Everyone here knows that the only way to make something that you make real is to BECOME it. Our characters don’t really think, we give them thoughts. They don’t really feel, we give them emotions. And yet, somehow, we can feel that they are alive. Most of us here have figured out why. Our characters come to life because we pour the essence of our own lives into them.

This is the second point - We are God’s creations, but we are more than that. We have been given life, consciousness, in the only way that is possible. We see because God looks through our eyes. Thoughts flit through our minds because God thinks for us. We are real in that we have the essence of divinity. Whatever part of us is conscious, that is God. If God is all there is, what else could we be?

As writers, we are united in our distaste for perfection. We have no patience for characters who are too good to be true. As writers and creators of characters, we love our bumblers and clutzes, our mentally-chalenged and our snobs. We love our heroes plagued by moral choices, unsure of what is right and wrong, and sometimes making the wrong decisions. We even love our nastiest villians. We love our charcters FOR, not in spite of their flaws, and they are perfect in their imperfections.

This is the third point - EVERYONE is exactly how they were meant to be, no exceptions.

Another thhing that we as writers cannot stand is sappy, conflictless stories. Happiness gets boring after a while, doesn’t it? Sure, we can be awfully mean to our characters, but it’s alway for a reason. In the end, it’s all for the betterment of the Story.

This is the fourth point - EVERYTHING happens for a reason, no exceptions.

Some of you have brought up time. Here are my thoughts on it. When you pick up a story book, you usually read it front to back. Time passes in a normal matter for both you and the characters in the story. But we as readers could just as easily read the first page, skip to the last, then read the one in the very middle. Nothing would change. The same things would happen. it’s all THERE already, after all! It’s all been planned out and written down, and it doesn’t matter what order it’s read in.

This is the fifth point - Time exists only in context. Outside the cofines of the Story, it is completely irrelevant.

All fantasy writers know the importance of consitency within a fariy tale world.The writer makes the rules for the world, and they have to stick with them. Sure, they’re all-powerful as far as the story goes, and they could make things happen for no reason at all, but why would they want to?

This is the sixth point - God plays by his own rules - most of the time. Sure, It could have zapped into existence two of every living creature at the beginning of time, but that’s just too easy. It probably decided it would be more interesting to use evolution.

I could go on for quite a while, but I think I’ll stop here. This probably seems like a load of crazy and vaguely disturbing nonsense to you, but that’s okay with me.

[Deleted]

Well, I don't know how the Universe was created, but I do believe that there was a big explosion resulting from enormous amounts of energy being compacted together, and due to that the Universe is expanding constantly. But because of gravity, everything will eventually pull itself back together, compact, and explode again.

The biggest questions that haunt me:
What is everything? How did everything come to be? If there is a God, where'd he come from? What is life? What is death?

[mushroom]

Ember, are you saying that God is, unlike us, absolutely real, or just that he's the one who created our universe? Is every single one of us here at the Forum a god as well to a universe that is as real as the one we're living in--in other words, is God just an imperfect, imagined character like we are, and there could be an infinite chain of gods and characters before we get back to absolute reality and the absolute creator? (I'm not trying to pick at you or anything; this is genuine curiosity. I've heard variations on that view before, and it's one of the most...I don't know how to express it exactly, something like intriguing and something like awe-inspiring...ones I know.)

I don't believe that there is a god who has anything to do with living; if there is a god, it's the deists' god. (In other words, a god created the world, but created it to run without outside interference; the creator may or may not still exist.) I assume the physicists and the like know what they're talking about.

I believe that life has whatever meaning you put into it, and that every person has the right to find and live for their own meaning, with the single condition that their actions and words cannot harm or restrict others. A person must be free to try and spread their idea or their meaning, but not to force others into it. I don't know what my overall meaning is going to be yet; right now, it's just to learn and wait.

I also believe in good and evil, but they only exist as they apply to something in particular; an action is good if it helps others and evil if it harms them, and an action that harms others but wasn't meant to isn't as evil as an action meant to harm others. A person is good if he or she generally tries to do what he or she honestly believes is good, but if a person is harming others with his or her idea of good the person still needs to be stopped.

I don't know what happens after death. I'm going to assume that this is all there is: I'm going to go skydiving and scuba diving and mountain-climbing and fall in love and spend a year way out in the Alaskan wilderness and another year in the middle of New York City, and I'm going to be helping people somehow, too. If there's nothing after death, I'll have done what I could in this world, and if there is an afterlife, I won't have to regret a wasted or abused life.

And, very importantly, it all will work out. Not necessarily for individuals, and maybe not even for humans, but if you wait long enough everything passes. That's not an excuse for apathy--if you don't do your part, someone else will have to later, and it might be much harder then--but you don't have to worry so much.

[Smiley]

Wow, Ember... I honestly got chills when I read that. Then my mind took it and ran with it.

God is the creator of the universe, just as an author is the creator of a world when he writes a book or thinks of a story. We, then, as writers, are also creators in our own right - inside of our minds, entire universes, much like our own in that we poured ourself into them, are running and living just as we are living now. And inside their minds are more universes - it's just like when you look at a book cover that has the picture of someone looking at the same book cover with a picture of them looking at the book cover with the picture of them looking at the book cover, and it seems to go on forever. We are inside "God's" mind (I put It in quotations because It has Its own God, someone higher than It.). He is probably living a life right now, just as we are. His mind probably skips around from part to part in his mind, as he develops each character and their lives, making time both irrelevant and nonexistent. It's quite amazing to think it about.

It all makes so much sense to me, now. We are all characters, made up characters, and as you said... perfect in our imperfections, completely as we are meant to be, and everything in our lives happens for a reason that can only be fathomed by God and his mind - the very home we live in.

I'm shaking right now.

I'm not exactly sure if that was the point you were trying to cross; as I said, my mind ran with it in its own direction.

Our universe is a story. All conflicts will eventually be resolved, and new ones will come. New characters come and go within our lifetimes, and we are designed to interact with them in the way that God intended.

This is big.

I used to believe that we could change our lives as we wanted, that we held control of the future - but now I wonder... God invents all of the situations that change us as we age. We feel emotions and have thoughts because It creates them for us.

Time does not exist - and that is why we have memories, why we can go back and lose ourselves during the "time" when we were happy or sad. That is why we have dreams, to take peaks at what is to come. The past and future all exist as the present.

This is so hard to put into words, and probably sounds incredibly cheesy, but I have just thought harder than I have ever thought in my life. Thank you, Ember, for sharing your thoughts.

[Jessica Coconut]

I in turn do not agree with the Big Bang theory, as it clashes with one of the laws of physics. Matter can not be created or destroyed, only changed form.

I think the universe just ... is. We're just here. The planets swirl around a big space of nothingness. They say the universe is currently about 13.9 Billion lightyears from end to end. If it is, what's on the other side? Other dimensions? No one knows. I think it's just a space that goes on forever. That could explain the galaxies moving further apart. There's endless space to be in, so why not be there?

I'm also in favour of my own little theory, that we're all just playthings of a supreme being, or multiple supreme beings. Like a baby's mobile. Not necessarily god, but something, somewhere is watching us, and controlling everything that goes on in the universe, and we don't really exist. Like holograms for someone out there to watch, like a movie.

One thing that I'd like to discuss, still space concerned is black holes. And I must say, my theory is the best one around, not to be boastful.

I think that people are wrong to talk about things being SUCKED INSIDE black holes. They're really just being pulled onto an extremely tiny, dense star. The light being held back, so it can't shine outside the gravitational field. The only time you see it is if you're within it too. With all the stuff being pulled on to it, increases it's gravity. So people get the illusion of stuff just disappearing. That doesn't make any sense, because of the classic "Where does it all go?" question. So. Black holes are really just black stars. Tiny high gravity things, pulling everything towards it and getting stuck.

Meaning of life? Simple. To achieve happiness. I don't know how we were put on earth, or whatever's dictating the Laws of the universe, but either way, I think that's why we're all here. To achieve some kind of happiness. That, or you find out when you die.

At death? You do whatever you want to. You're free to be what you want, live in a "heaven" of your choice, or rest in peace. Yeah, I'm going with the last one. It's just a long sleep. Without dreams. For those wondering, though you may not remember dreaming, you dream every night. It's just a dreamless sleep. Or a forever dreaming sleep. That's more "do whatever you want" one.

[Kiddo]

I believe I am loved by a God that surpasses time and not only created this world but the realms beyond death but is a God whose love is completely uncomprehensible and makes me feel like I'm drifting away on the winds and brings tears to my eyes when he tells me that I am his child.

I believe that nothing else matters except that. I have never bothered to try to understand why I am here, what eternity will be like, or where we came from simply because everytime I do, I'm told that it doesn't matter and that love wipes away any thoughts.

Yeah, that's a really really simplistic view of life and I'm certain people who are more intellectual than I will think I'm an idiot. But it makes me so happy that I cry and I think I'll take that over anything else.

[Chris]

Its nice getting a look at other people's beliefs. I think we all are in an never ending whirlwind of insanity.