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| God had no beginning. At least that is the traditional mantra. God is the prime mover, the first cause and only cause without a cause. That sounds reasonable... until you start to ask what happened before the universe was made, because then you have to deal with the absurdity of eternity. Eternity isn't just a one way street. Sure, it will go on forever after us, but it has already gone on forever before us! In the last frame, I cozied up close to the Young Earth Creationists' start date, because I think they have the most accurate date for the start of everything, Biblically speaking of course. But the absurdity is not lost even if we rejoin the more-progressive Christians who accept a Big-Bang beginning at roughly 13.77 billion years ago, because God would have existed long before that by definition, like forever. Any way you look at it, we have existed for a trivially insignificant amount of time compared to God. It is the hubris of humanity to think that, if there is a god, we are the most important beings in that god's world. After all, what is the likelihood that throughout the eternity before us that we are the only ones? Those who believe that aliens have visited this planet often cite the possibilities if another planet developed life a mere one million years before the earth did. Likewise, who is to say that a god who could create a universe from nothing didn't already create many universes long before the fuse was lit on our big banging ball? |
Saturday, February 9, 2013
Before the Beginning - Holy Mackerel!
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I love the thought that God had created universes before us. I actually really like the idea of a tinkerer God, we are just a petri dish in his cosmic laboratory.
ReplyDeleteThanks Hausdorff. :-) If there is a god making universes, that seems like it would be the more likely scenario to me.
ReplyDeleteAs best as we can tell, real knowledge comes from experience. In order for a god to create anything, you'd think that there would be a learning curve, and that likely many experiments did not work out so well. You know that Christian "fine tuning" argument? How do you think everything could have gotten so "fine tuned" in the first place without knowledge of what works and what doesn't work? Where did not knowledge come from? "It was always there" seems like even more of a cop-out to me than just having an eternal god.
ha, I never thought about that. The argument for a God through fine tuning is, in a way, an argument for a God created multiverse
DeleteI love the Holy Mackerel! (is this your first one? If not, sorry I missed the others. The bread rocks)
ReplyDeleteI agree. I'm not sure if anything lasts forever, but an intelligence surely doesn't...at least without going mad. Also worth noting, this eternal boredom is waiting for us in the afterlife apparently.
Thanks Grundy! This is only the second Holy Mackerel!. The first one I did last year around Thanksgiving, discussing that New Heart believers are allegedly going to get upon resurrection.
ReplyDeleteNo kidding about the "going mad" thing! Nobody ever seems to preach about what God was doing before we were here, but I think it's actually a pretty important consideration in light of all eternity! :-)
In every fantasy and sci-fi story I've read about immortality, the immortal is miserable.
DeleteThat's a good point grundy, although it makes me wonder if that just makes a more compelling story. I'm trying to think of counterexamples. Of course anything will be mere hundreds or thousands of years, nothing in comparison to infinite time God was around.
DeleteLet's see, there's Hob Gadling from Sandman. He was asked every 100 years if he wanted to die yet, always said no. Of course lucifer from the vertigo comic, he had his ups and downs but overall seemed like a reasonably happy guy.
There was another guy from Sandman (I think), he was a God thousands of years ago, but when he was losing his followers Sandman(?) told him he had to adjust to survive and he did. As I recall he was generally happy, but was only around for a very short time.
Oh hey! what about Q from Star Trek:TNG? He certainly wasn't miserable. He's a proper type of immortal too.
And what about the guy from "the man from earth"? He had his problems but wasn't miserable.
That's all that comes to mind off the top of my head.
Technically, I never "read" Star Trek, so my comment still stands. As much of a comics fan I am, I've never read Sandman.
DeleteIs Dr. Manhattan immortal? Maybe, he didn't seem happy about it, but at least accepting. And I suppose Superman's Mr. Mxyzptlk is like Q...I guess my comment doesn't stand.
Regarding Q, Hausdorff he wasn't the only being in the Q Continuum. That probably made eternity a little more palatable. :-)
DeleteI think Grundy is mostly right in what I remember, too. Often eternal characters are miserable.
Perhaps the happiest eternal characters seem to be those who get to mess with the other beings in "creation." Maybe that says a lot about God... ;-)
I thought about this idea a lot when I was reading the Anne Rice vampire novels. She talked about how most people couldn't handle being immortal, most vampires wind up killing themselves at some point. I always thought I would handle it better than most of her characters and just wondered if she was depressed herself all the time. Ultimately though, I think it just is easier to write.
DeleteHa, it may be just easier to write about terminal characters, Haudorff. :-) I'd like to think that I could live a happier eternity as well. I could easily go for at least another 100 years, no problem.
DeleteNice Mackeral and cartooning -- I'm impressed.
ReplyDeleteEternity must suck. Why would anyone want it?
Thanks Sabio! I hope to some more throughout the year.
ReplyDeleteIt's hard to wrap the human noodle around the concept of eternity. I mean, I have a love of learning, and I've had a pretty good life overall, so it seems like a desirable thing to me. But imagining an eternity of emptiness which existed before God made anything... that would really suck! :-)
I love the Holy Mackerel comic. It's funny, and it points out the absurdity of God living all complete-in-himself until he decided to create the world one morning. Oddly, I find a cosmic mackerel more appealing than a bearded old man in the sky. Maybe I'm just weird.
ReplyDeleteThe absurdity of God living in eternity brings up another question for me. The Biblical God is an emotionally needy being who demands absolute obedience and adoration. In Scripture, when he doesn't get his ego stroked, heads start flying. Was God emotionally needy in the vast eternity leading up to the creation of humankind? Did he just sit around for googolplex years thinking, "I'm lonely! I FEEL UNLOVED!"?
Thanks Ahab! Glad you like my most glorious fish!
ReplyDeleteGood point about the loneliness angle. I'm not entirely sure, but I think the Soundgarden song "Zero Chance" off of the "Down on the Upside" album suggested this as well. There's one verse where it goes "why doesn't anyone believe in loneliness / stand up and everyone will see your holiness." That wasn't the inspiration for this comic, but it certainly did come to me when I read your comment. :-)