A Diary was posted earlier on asking questions on subjects like “What is the Universe?”, etc. My response was a little lengthier than the typical “comment”, so I wanted to reframe the question below.
For awhile…
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I have actually given this question a bit of thought, and come to reject conventional thinking about the problem, which is why all the so-called accepted answers just lead off into more unresolved questions, and/or reverting to Centuries-old myth-making.
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Recall that Albert Einstein proved that Time itself was not linear, but in fact curved and flexible. This makes me think that we have to abandon conventional “linear” thinking about the Universe itself.
Recall also, that matter never disappears..but it is simply transformed into something else. For example, water evaporates and appears to be all gone, but really the matter itself still exists (just in a different form).
So therefore these questions about when did the Universe begin, how was it “created”, and such, are all moot, and not the correct approach to the analysis.
The Universe always was and always will be….only the form is changing, and it is changing constantly, (expansion, contraction, etc.).
The matter will never either go away or be “created”, only the form will change.
As for human beings, we are just one more mutation of matter, and an unpleasant one at that. I think human beings are destined to go the way of the Dinosaur — with all the Wars, the mass-violence, the mass-poverty, and all the Environmental damage borne of our own making.
As comedian George Carlin once said, Planet Earth does not need saving. Planet Earth is going to be just fine. It’s human beings that are f**cked.
There is no God.
There is no Universe.
There is no linear Time.
There is no Justice.
There is no Heaven.
There is no “Afterlife”.
There is however an unlimited supply of matter and mutation.
And there surely is Hell, for we see it all around us each and every day
of our tragic lives — and Hell always wins (just ask Dick Cheney, the dead Kennedys, or an oil-soaked pelican).
Now you know the truth, and can put down The Holy Babble, for it is written.