Looking for an equivelant

Diceicle

Hi

I'll try to explain myself as best I can. I'm looking to find out what the equivelent would be for an entity to construct this vast universe only to plop his prized creation (us) on a tiny tiny planet in the corner somewhere.

The way I see it is, the universe is at least 156 billion light years wide (and growing), we're a planet close to a star amongst litterly hundreds of billions of other stars and planets, so to believe that we are special is a bit rich in a universe so humongus. The equivelance I'm looking for is this, would an entity constructing a universe 156 billion light years wide in which to house us not be a little excessive? Would it be the same as using a plot of land the size of China to put an ant farm?

A bit of an odd question I know but any helpful input is appreciated.

18AD

As the saying goes:
Too much of a good thing.

Slan.
AD.

Diceicle

indeed, thanks for that contribution.

Zillah

You mean "Its like building a superdome thats ten billion miles wide for a colony of bacteria" sort of thing? Why?


Anyway, I've never actually found it to be a particularily convincing argument. Human beings have existed for about a million years in one form or another. Our descendents could be exploring the universe for another hundred million years after we're dead for all we know. Perhaps God in his infinite wisdom realised that we'd get bored of just one galaxy very quickly. Why, our population could barely exceed eighty four trillion trillion in the milkyway!

With billions of galaxies to explore and expand into, perhaps God was ensuring the long term adventures of our star creating, blackhole bowling, God-like super-children.

calahans

Zillah wrote: »

Anyway, I've never actually found it to be a particularily convincing argument. Human beings have existed for about a million years in one form or another. Our descendents could be exploring the universe for another hundred million years after we're dead for all we know. Perhaps God in his infinite wisdom realised that we'd get bored of just one galaxy very quickly. Why, our population could barely exceed eighty four trillion trillion in the milkyway!

With billions of galaxies to explore and expand into, perhaps God was ensuring the long term adventures of our star creating, blackhole bowling, God-like super-children.

Agreed. The size of the universe does not preclude there being a God.

Dades

calahans wrote: »

Agreed. The size of the universe does not preclude there being a God.

Unless of course you believe in an impending "Judgement Day", thereby precluding our spreading beyond earth.

In which case, to paraphrase Carl Sagan, the universe would be an awful waste of space.

stereoroid

calahans wrote: »

Agreed. The size of the universe does not preclude there being a God.

Well, the standard-model Judeo-Christian god is omnipresent, meaning that he is everywhere in the universe - that's what we are told. Since we don't see that god here, what does that mean? Is he everywhere but here? :rolleyes:

I assume you got that 156 billion l.y. figure from space.com, so I'll work with that, though other sources give a smaller figure (93-94 billion l.y.).

At 300,000 kilometres per light second, that works out to 1.48E+024 km. (E+024 = times 10 to the power of 24.)
The Earth is 12756.2 km across, so the ratio of Universe-to-Earth comes out at: 1.16E+020. So, if the universe was as big as the Earth, the Earth would be... 1.10E-016 km, 1.10E-013 metres, or 1.10E-010 millimetres.

That's small. A hydrogen atom is about 2.5E-011 m across , or about 250 times bigger than the kind of size we're talking about. Anyone fancy having a go with something bigger, say... the Solar System?

Diceicle

calahans wrote: »

Agreed. The size of the universe does not preclude there being a God.

True but it does make it seem highly improbable.

calahans

stereoroid wrote: »

Well, the standard-model Judeo-Christian god is omnipresent, meaning that he is everywhere in the universe - that's what we are told. Since we don't see that god here, what does that mean? Is he everywhere but here? :rolleyes:

In the standard-model Judeo-Christian version of God he is not visible, therefore we don't see that god here.

stereoroid wrote: »

I assume you got that 156 billion l.y. figure from space.com, so I'll work with that, though other sources give a smaller figure (93-94 billion l.y.).

At 300,000 kilometres per light year, that works out to 4.68E+016 km. (E+016 = times 10^16)
The Earth is 12756.2 km across, so the ratio of Universe-to-Earth comes out at: 3.67E+012. So, if the universe was as big as the Earth, the Earth would be... 3.48E-009 km, or 3.48E-006 metres: about 3.5 microns in diameter. That's about the size of a bacterium e.g Anthrax is about 6x1 microns.

So, imagine the planet Earth with a single bacterium on it... that's how alone we would be.

Thats a light second actually...its bigger again

stereoroid

calahans wrote: »

In the standard-model Judeo-Christian version of God he is not visible, therefore we don't see that god here.

You're taking "see" a bit too literally. Maybe I should have said "sense" or "detect", or something. You'd think that would be a reasonable expectation, or are we supposed to do science without detecting or measuring anything? (Yes, that is sarcasm.)

calahans wrote: »

Thats a light second actually...its bigger again

Ouch! I've gone back and edited my earlier post, and I see it's not really possible to practical to use the Earth as the benchmark, since we get in to subatomic dimensions that people can't relate to. Why not have a go yourself? It's basic maths with a spreadsheet.

Zillah

Diceicle wrote: »

True but it does make it seem highly improbable.

No it doesn't, not in the slightest. The only relevant point here is the one Dades raised, that is if there is an impending apocalypse. Without that in their beliefs, as I explained above, a titanic universe is perfectly consistent with the existence of an omnipotent deity.


There are lots of other reasons why the existence of God is absurdly unlikely though.