As we leave the season when many have celebrated the birth of "The son of G_d", perhaps we might momentarily stop our shopping mall worship ceremonies and ask if "G_d" exists and, if so, who or what he/she/it is.
I believe that science answered that question back at the beginning of the 20th Century and that Albert Einstein and mathematics proved, irrefutably, that there is a precisely quantifiable quantity of energy in the Universe that is even more vast, powerful and awesome than any religion's current definition of G_d ... a quantity of "Force" or "G_d Force" or "Nature" or "Energy" that is so mind-blowing it dwarfs even the grandest conventional imaginations of "the power of G_d".
And, scientifically verifiable and without dispute.
What Einstein figured out represents a Force of such magnitude as to make any thinking person fall to his knees, regardless of the definition ... a Force so vast that not one person, our neighborhood Priest, Imam or Rabbi, Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck or even The Pope himself can truly understand it or credibly say they can explain it.
And yet this new definition of the non-definable (thus the funny way of writing it -- as it cannot be contained within or accurately represented by a three letter word) is actually best represented, with scientific accuracy, in a three letter and one number mathematical formula ... a formula that, appropriately, is the most famous in history.
E=MC2
This most cited and powerful equation is also, ironically, one that causes all of G_d's earthly creation to be seconds away from complete annihilation at any moment in time, as it was the source of the secret of the power of the atom and the development of the atomic bomb.
Here's the E=MC2 math and the Theology, all rolled up into one:
Step One: Add all of the matter on Earth and contained in the rest of G_d's creation, 100 billion galaxies, each with about 100 billion stars,
Step Two: Multiply that amount of Matter by the speed of light,
Step Three: Square that number ...
and then understand that every gram of that incalculable amount of matter has the energy of a Hiroshima nuclear bomb.
A 100 pound human, for example, contains the force of approximately 45,000 Hiroshimas. A 200 pound person over 90,000 and 6.5 billion humans, with an average of 100 pounds of mass, contain over 292 trillion times the force of an atomic bomb. Add other animals, mountains, oceans and the mass of the Earth itself and we have approximately 13 septillion pounds or approximately 6 octillion (6,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000) or 627 atomic bombs worth of force contained in just the Earth itself. Understanding that Earth is a small part of one solar system which is a tiny part of one galaxy which is a tiny part of a Universe estimated to have 100 Billion galaxies, each with 100 Billion such solar systems ... one can quickly begin to comprehend that the quantity of Force/Energy/Power/"G_d" determined by Einstein's tiny formula, E=MC2, is beyond all human comprehension.
E=MC2, scientifically, thus, allows us to define the quantity of Energy in the known Universe. And, if Energy is "G_d", as some believe, or but one of many manifestations or reflections of "G_d" as others may believe, the words, in any spiritual tradition, that "G_d is great" or "G_d is awesome" are almost laughable understatements.
But whatever you call the quantity of Energy or Force in the universe, it is now clear that the ancient depiction of "G_d" as an old White guy with a beard (Santa Claus' brother), does not, in any way, communicate the far more awe-inspiring scientific reality unearthed by Einstein in his 1905 formula.
If we were to mature enough as a species to embrace the scientific "quantification" of the power of the universe as at least one way to begin to approach the definition of "G_d" we would realize that no religion can, with any integrity, manipulate such a definition to its own dogma and practices. Man's ability to understand and appropriate something of this magnitude is like a single plankton cell pretending to explain, or swallow up, or have dominion over all the oceans ... of a billion planets!
So, thanks to Time Magazine's "Man of The 20th Century" and his formula we can begin to appreciate, despite our ego and pride, the insignificance and inadequacy of our understanding of the unfathomable sea of energy that surrounds, and likely, created us.
Einstein, despite his massive intellect, himself surrenders to the unfathomable nature of G_d. He wrote the following in 1932 ...
"The most beautiful and deepest experience a man can have is the sense of the mysterious. It is the underlying principle of religion as well as of all serious endeavour in art and science. He who never had this experience seems to me, if not dead, then at least blind. To sense that behind anything that can be experienced there is a something that our minds cannot grasp, whose beauty and sublimity reaches us only indirectly: this is religiousness. In this sense I am religious. To me it suffices to wonder at these secrets and to attempt humbly to grasp with my mind a mere image of the lofty structure of all there is."
Chris Mooney: Science Rocks -- If Only it Could Catch America's Attention
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One also wonders what happened to the personal side of God. There may be unimaginable explosive power, but infinite power is only one characteristic of this highly personal and loving God. Most religions, especially Christianity and Judaism (and from his use of "G_d" I infer that the author is Jewish) recognize, in addition to infinite power, that God possesses infinite love, infinite patience, infinite goodness, infinite willingness to instruct, and infinitely high expectations -- all of which are better represented by the old, white guy with the beard than by a hydrogen bomb, no matter how large an explosion it could produce.
Still, I do want to thank Mr. Greene for doing all those interesting calculations. He's right, they are impressively large numbers.
Just in passing you should have also noted - that this unknowable god also disproves every religion man has conceived thus far. Ignorance is no excuse for creating a god to explain what you can't.
The first term is the "rest" energy, which a body has just by being there; it's enormous. The second is the kinetic energy you learn about in school. They're both included in (gamma) * mc^2, perfectly.
Energy is the definition of God?
Since energy is a natural entity of the universe, and religion's conception of God is a supernatural being, equating the concept of God with Energy makes no logical or linguistic sense. If something is natural, than it cannot, by definition, be supernatural at the same time.
If we are defining the energy in the universe to be God, then we are actually saying that there is no supernatural entity, ie, no God.
Why don't we just say that and skip all the circular reasoning? Why don't we just say that WE are responsible for the way we behave and for what we do to each other and to the earth? We can dispense with the concept of God altogether.
Incidentally, not terribly germaine to the author's point, but Einstien had no concept of dark matter and dark energy. We don't understand the makeup of these recently discovered entities, but we know they exist based upon their interaction with normal matter and energy. Scientists now theorize that the net energy in the universe is actually close to zero.
So much for the argument that our concept of God should be base upon the unfathomable amount of energy in the universe!
"It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it."
Albert Einstein
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein%27s_religious_views
First of all, he already made a big mistake with step #2, not to mention step #3 (so it doesn't give you much confidence in the rest of the piece).
So what if it's a big number - what's the problem with that?? The density of matter (and energy) in a black hole is essentially (or actually) infinite, so does that mean every black hole = "god"?? Remember, Einstein didn't really believe in quantum mechanics either and had trouble coming up with new discoveries after the age of thirty. That means Einstein didn't have ALL the answers to everything and wasn't infallible (just really good in certain areas of basic physics). And, just because he preferred to believe there could still be a god (and maybe partly because of his strong Jewish identification), doesn't mean he had that right either. Some of his quotes concern provable statements, while some just concern "human feelings" THAT NOW ALSO HAVE SCIENTIFIC EXPLANATIONS (which didn't exist back then). Indeed we can now see images of people having, supposedly, "spiritual experiences" and they don't look much different than people on various drugs, or subjected to electrical brain stimulation. If humans can easily "simulate god" - how real can the concept be? I don't think Einstein would have been too happy with these recent findings and he might even have become an atheist given them (of coarse we will never know).
The point is that the "G_d" that most Christians and Jews and Muslims have (and that causes many of the world's problems) is NOT an anthropomorphic figure with a long white beard, nor a "man" at all. It is a combination of an unfathomable amount of energy and an unfathomable amount of "consciouness". Once we get rid of the 2,000+ year old definitions we can move forward and have intelligent conversations about "G_d", religion and how religions are mostly outdated institutions.
How about some stats to go with that.
Yes, there is lots of information and logic all around - but is that synonymous with thought and consciousness? I think Einstein was identifying with the former "wonder of it all" and "us being here" to perceive it, but not the later concept. But then, unfortunately, we can't ask him, or speak for him anymore, so I will just stick with the simplest and most literal interpretation of what he said, and realizing that even Einstein made mistakes sometimes (though rarely).
http://www.curtismenning.com/ZeroEnergyCalc.htm
You won't see a story about that from Richard Greene, I'm sure... this was a case of someone vigorously pounding a square peg into a round hole.
Do we really know that? Wouldn't that be assuming we know all forms of energy?
How much energy does one electron contain?
It handles the "creator" issue being that there was nothing to create as existence has never NOT existed.
he talks about nothing as an abstract IDEA (theres "nothing" in the cup) but the there can never be nothing, there can be lack of matter, planets, suns, etc etc. but even in empty space THAT IS existence.
nÂobody can prove or disprove that invisible pink unicorns exist...
nÂobody can prove or disprove that the Tooth Fairy exists...
nÂobody can prove or disprove that Santa Claus exists...
nÂobody can prove or disprove that the Easter Bunny exists...
nÂobody can prove or disprove that Russell's Teapot exists...
Etc. You get the idea.
10-20% believe in the other things.
Which category do you fall under?