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Religion/spirituality

Is dark matter God?

(55 Posts)
Galen Sun 05-Apr-15 22:20:44

Having just heard a news article about the Hadron collider being restarted to look for dark matter, and having heard dark matter described as ' the scaffolding that holds the universe together'.
Could this be a search for God?
Just asking.

Maggiemaybe Thu 06-Aug-15 08:51:10

Well, Nellie, Einstein said that the most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious, so I don't think staying curious will do us any harm. smile

feetlebaum Thu 06-Aug-15 07:22:31

I can conceive of no reason, other than wishful thinking, to entertain the idea of an 'afterlife'... as to what it would be like - just like the millions of years before you were born. Which would be fine...

nigglynellie Wed 05-Aug-15 19:51:43

My uncle always promised me that he would let me know what lay the other side of the moon, as he put it. He's been dead for twenty years in September, and I'm still waiting!!! I think I'm going to have to find out for myself - one day!!!

Maggiemaybe Wed 05-Aug-15 18:59:36

When my dad knew he had only days to live, he told me he was at least looking forward to "finding out the answer to the great mystery". It's the 25th anniversary of his death today, and I have often hoped that it was to his liking. smile

nigglynellie Wed 05-Aug-15 10:33:09

Thanks Maggiemaybe. I'm glad I'm straight, if you see what I mean. Those last two lines are so fantastic and completely sums up ones hopes for an afterlife. But I'm still not sure because of course no one can be, and no one ever comes back to tell us.

Maggiemaybe Tue 04-Aug-15 13:36:05

John Gillespie Magee was killed months after he wrote his poem in WW2, aged only 19. I don't know whether Cuthbert Hicks survived his war.

I hope it could be true too.

nigglynellie Tue 04-Aug-15 09:47:39

Oh I see, I obviously got my wires a bit crossed, but even so I think it's very expressive, and I wish (and hope) this could be true. Who knows?!

Maggiemaybe Tue 04-Aug-15 08:41:40

The Blind Man Flies, by WW1 RAF officer Cuthbert Hicks, nigglynellie, ends:

For I have danced the streets of heaven
And touched the face of God.

feetlebaum Tue 04-Aug-15 07:30:56

High Flight

John Gillespie Magee, Jr

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth,
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds, --and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of --Wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air...
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark or even eagle flew --
And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

nigglynellie Mon 03-Aug-15 14:58:28

I remember, ages ago, hearing about a comment made by a pilot in the first World war and him saying that when he soared high into the clouds he felt that he was touching the face of God. I don't know if he survived the war or not, but I think it is a very simple and a moving way of feeling that you might have found God.

Elegran Mon 03-Aug-15 08:27:28

No, it is not a search for God, it is a search for the scaffolding that holds the universe together. When/if that scaffolding is identified, it is possible that those who are looking for God will label it God, but those who just wanted to know how it all works will say that they have found the scaffolding. They won't claim to know who assembled that scaffolding.

Of course the next phase may be an investigation into what factory the scaffolding bits were made in . . .

Anya Mon 03-Aug-15 07:43:28

'Is dark matter god?'

No.

feetlebaum Mon 03-Aug-15 06:52:47

"Could this be a search for God?"

No.

Elegran Sat 11-Jul-15 11:33:31

"Sorry, should have given source - that was from his "Ode on the intimations of immortality from the recollections of earliest childhood"

Elegran Sat 11-Jul-15 11:32:23

Anno Wordsworth wrote a lot of verbose guff, but he caught the wionder of the universe. With you, I am not sure that "God" is a stern old man jealous of his patriarchal status, it is more likely that what we sense is the incredible extent and intricacy of it all, which is beyond the comprehension of narrow sectarianism (and cultism, denominationism, one-truthism and all)

"The rainbow comes and goes,
And lovely is the rose;
The moon doth with delight
Look round her when the heavens are bare;
Waters on a starry night
Are beautiful and fair; 15
The sunshine is a glorious birth;
But yet I know, where'er I go,
That there hath pass'd away a glory from the earth."

"Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home:
Heaven lies about us in our infancy!
Shades of the prison-house begin to close
Upon the growing Boy,
But he beholds the light, and whence it flows,
He sees it in his joy;
The Youth, who daily farther from the east
Must travel, still is Nature's priest,
And by the vision splendid
Is on his way attended;
At length the Man perceives it die away,
And fade into the light of common day."

annodomini Sat 11-Jul-15 10:53:11

And I have felt
A presence .....
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man:
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things.

^Wordsworth
Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey^

Much as I love these lines and can relate to them, I remain a humanist.

rosewhite Sat 11-Jul-15 10:36:32

Hi Greenfinch.
You are correct and one day will see God face to face - it will be Judgement Day - when we all have to look at our life record and explain our mistakes, crimes, etc.
Adam and Eve saw God face to face when He took a walk round the Garden of Eden to chat to them.

soontobe Fri 10-Jul-15 20:44:01

Over and out.
Back to Galen's discussion.

soontobe Fri 10-Jul-15 20:42:30

everyone is everyone.

jinglbellsfrocks Fri 10-Jul-15 20:39:27

confused

jinglbellsfrocks Fri 10-Jul-15 20:39:09

No thank you.

Ana Fri 10-Jul-15 20:36:09

No what?

soontobe Fri 10-Jul-15 20:33:24

No Ana.

mcem Fri 10-Jul-15 20:31:19

Rules me out then if we apply that criterion!!!

Ana Fri 10-Jul-15 20:29:04

But only to certain people who agree with you? hmm