Beyond the universe and gods

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Let's imagine someone who has spent their entire lives inside a box. They can measure the length and the width and the height of the box. They can know what is inside the box,
and they can even figure out what the box is made of (in this case, it might be made of wood).

Now, how do they know there is a purpose to their life in the box? They don't. Nor can they say there is no purpose. They don't know if they were placed in the box by someone else, from their very birth,
and wether or not the box has a label printed on it with a "there is a purpose to this, that is [insert whatever purpose there is to place someone in such a box]".

It is the same with the universe. You can't reject God or gods, devils, demons and the like. You don't know if there is anything beyond the universe. You have no reason to believe there is,
surely, but neither do the person living his entire life in a box have any reason to believe there is an entire world beyond that box.

Therefore you cannot say there is a God or a purpose to life, unless you say that is what you BELIEVE.
But neither can you disprove God. You cannot disprove a purpose to our lives. But you can say you DISBELIEVE in it.

That is why I am an agnostic.

Your premise fails on the false assumption that the universe is finite, thus having finite dimensions (length, width, and height).

With an infinite universe such as ours, there can be no measurable boundaries. Without boundaries, there can be nothing beyond them.

To assert a false assumption and then leap to the conclusion that there is or is not a God is to commit a Non-Sequitur fallacy, to say the least.

to be fair, just becouse we haven't found an edge yet doesn't mean there isn't one. if we can only measure for (say) 10 km, there is no way to know if there isn't a border 11 km away from us.

that said, i also count myself as agnostic.
i am not opposed to the idea of a god-like being existing, i just don't believe there is without good reason to do so, and so far, all of our knowledge doesn't require a god.

also, i do not believe that the main gods (bible, qu'ran, tenach and the others) exist, those have pretty much been dismasked as being human-created.

so yeah; a god-like being: sure, why not. god of the christian bible: nope.

Fact: We haven't found the "edge" of the universe.

Conclusion: We haven't found the "edge" of the universe.

The available evidence does not support any claims for or against the existence of any supernatural "gods". Furthermore ...

• Belief and faith are not evidence.
  
• Hearsay and rumor are not evidence.
  
• Myths and legends are not evidence.
  
• Suspicion and doubt are not evidence.
  
• Tradition and doctrine are not evidence.

... and once you have eliminated all of these as "evidence", all that remains is ... what, exactly?

I believe that the universe exists inside a test tube that is being handled and observed by Al Gore.

First scientists don't know if the Universe is infinte or not, only that it's very very very big. Also, even though Earth doesn't have boundaries there is something beyond it, in the same way there can be something beyond the Universe; you just need to consider things beyond the three spatial dimensions.

That's not exactly correct. An infinite universe is easily embedded in the discrete topology, which is mathematically sufficient for boundaries to be defined.

Embedding the universe in a metric space takes a bit more work. I'm suspect it can be done - and that if it can't, that light doesn't exist in the space between universes (since the speed of light seems to be the fundamental vector of the universe, but I might be wrong on that). But depending upon what you mean by 'measurable' boundaries, a topology may well meet the criteria, as it brings with it the concepts of continuity, compactness, and connectedness.

And he is doing it because of manbearpig.

OP, Plato used the metaphor of people living in a cave to make the same point. All they could see was their own shadows on the wall, so they supposed that the shadows must represent the only reality as there was obviously nothing else. So you are in prestigious company!

And there could be boxes inside boxes.

What it really sounds like to me, is that this thread is poking at the debate between rationalism, skepticism, empiricism, and romanticism. Are we actually trying to drive at different theories of knowledge here when we talk about this box and the universe analogy?

that is not what i ment, i wanted to lower statements of an 'infinite' universe, as that cannot be proven true, i didn't mean to imply ainthing about actual existence of it

all that remains is faith; "The church" claims a god exists, therefor needs to deliver proof. so far, all they have given is stories and effects that are also possible without a god.
"Evidence" means that the only possible conclusion is that wnat you are trying to prove. the fact that the road is wet doesn't prove that it was raining just before.

suspicion and doubt are reasons to try and find evidence, the only listed points are reasons to not go search for any.


actually, most evidence from dogma is along the lines of: "well, someone told me that he heared that the road might have been wet last week; therefore it is proven that it was raining last year"

Last edited by izzeme on 12 Nov 2014, 8:38 am, edited 1 time in total.

The thing about this is, theories exist for finite, infinite and other universes.
Whether any of them is true says absolutely nothing about a god or gods.
Also, whether god(s) exist or not is also moot. They effectively don't exist.
The only evidence is anecdotal, but when it comes to that, we have been very creative
in producing an avalanche of anecdotal evidence for many more things than mere deities.

I have already eliminated faith as evidence since, by definition, faith is the firm belief in something for which there is no evidence.

If you want to believe in a bearded sky-daddy who loves you so much that he will set you on fire for thinking impure thoughts, then that is entirely up to you; but it still does not prove that your bearded sky-daddy actually exists anywhere (except in you imagination).

When you map from the domain of "religion" to the domain of "mathematics," the word "faith" translates to "assume" and "belief" to "axiom".

Do you eschew all mathematics, or have you instead devised a non-axiomatic construction thereof? And if the latter, does it incorporate a coherence theory of truth?