Questions answered by Mr Joseph Vempeny
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What is the meaning of life? |
| Question found in Spirituality In General |
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The Meaning of Life Life is a precious gift – an amazing one. Plant life makes our world a beautiful one. Compare a house with lawn, flower beds, trees to a ‘flat’ in a huge concrete complex! Animal life makes our world ‘alive’. Human life gives meaning to creation. Death is the definite aspect of the mortal life that we share with all the animals. Immortality is the unique aspect of spiritual life, the life of the soul, that we humans only have. Consciousness, that makes us aware of the creation around us and the Creator, conscience, the awareness of good and evil, mind and soul that can communicate with God in praise, worship and intercessions; these are unique to us humans. This life becomes meaningful only when we utilize these spiritual faculties in knowing, loving and serving the Lord which is best accomplished by understanding, loving and serving our fellow beings – the children of God. |
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What existed before "the big bang?" |
| Question found in Science In General |
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It was not an explosion or Big Bang that started off the existence of the universe. Now scientists call it 'singularity'. This singularity originated in a 'vacuum state' according to the string theory. Instead of going in to a mathematical or scientific view of the string theory of the origin let me give a poetic (philosophic?) view of it that could be understood better. It is like this: There always was, there is, and will always be, this 'OCEAN of infinite dimensions'. But it was not water; it was not matter; neither was it 'nothing'. Rather it was the fullness of 'Being". In this ocean often bubbles of matter are generated. But these bubbles are generally very short-lived - may be a very small fraction of a second only. Then one bubble was conceived in this infinite ocean in which for the matter all the relevant physical constants were 'fine tuned to such infinitesimally minute details that it survived the matter-antimatter annihilation. This is the singularity that and expanded and evolved into a universe. This ocean of infinite dimensions is called 'vacuum state' by scientists, 'sunyatha' (emptiness) by Buddhists and 'creator' by poets and philosophers. |
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Why do people believe in a god? |
| Question found in Superstitions |
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Is there scientific proof that God exists?( Page 1 ) The simple, straight answer to this question is an unqualified ‘no’. The reason is that science deals with the physical world, the world of matter and energy, of space and time. Even as we do not refer to the bible for learning how to operate a computer or to repair a T.V set, we do not refer to science to learn about God. Here we refer to philosophy, theology or the holy scriptures of various religions. Still there are many things in science that point to the existence of God. There are many questions in science that have no clear answers yet become simple if you bring in the concept of an omnipotent Creator who very intelligently designed the whole creation. Referring to several unanswered questions in modern cosmology and quantum physics one scientist says; “There is no reason to assume that we humans shall be able to find all answers to such questions. Yet it is interesting to see how far we can proceed in search of answers before we knock against the wall.” According to another one, ‘if we bring in the idea of God to explain the puzzles in science we are passing from the realm of physics into that of religion and we cannot except any more funding for our research’. One of the great cosmologists of today, Allan Guth is more optimistic and says; “We are approaching a scenario for creation compatible with the laws of physics. That raises the question, ‘where do laws of physics come from?’ We are a long way from answering that.” To me a believer the answer is right here, not far. The laws of physics are from God. But a scientist cannot say that. Let me add a few words of explanation here in a historical context regarding the changing attitude of the scientific community and of rationalists towards the questions of the origins and evolution of the universe and of life. Darwin’s views on the evolution of species and the observation that the earth is going round the sun and not the other way round, that earth is just a speck in the immense universe raised questions about the existence of God. Till the beginning of the twentieth century the astronomers believed that the universe, the galaxies and the solar system remained in their fixed positions, that they were always like that and always shall be like that. This scenario could very well do without a creator. It was around this time that someone said that science has all the answers and that we do not have to believe anything that science cannot prove. That position has changed drastically and today the greatest of scientists are still trying to get answers to simple questions on matter, space and time. No one thinks any more that science has all the answers. In 1927 it was observed that the universe is not static but expanding. This meant a definite point of origin for the universe. The concept of creation became relevant. Now the Big Bang hypothesis rules cosmology and at the most recent findings the origin of the universe took place some 13.75 billion years ago. The whole process of cosmic evolution from a tiny fraction of a second after the Big Bang to date is accurately worked out by cosmologists and quantum physicists. But no one has any clue as to how or from where the original matter-energy complex of the Big bang came to be. According to one scientist such questions are left to the poets and philosophers. Recently, however certain scientists have proposed a hypothesis which had no scientific proof at all. According to them something can pop out of nothing. This is called vacuum fluctuation. Before the appearance of our universe there is only a ‘vacuum state’. This is not quite emptiness but a sort of ‘fullness’. They compare this to a beer cauldron from which numerous bubbles pop out. Our universe appeared as one such bubble. It goes on. If we follow the logic carefully we see that here again we are leaving the realm of physics and entering that of metaphysics; because the vacuum state mentioned here sounds very much like the ‘sunyatha’ of Buddhism or an infinite being. Certain observations about the spin of the galaxies in the eighties made the scientists acknowledge the fact that the known forms of matter – matter that make up stars, planets, asteroids as well as the interstellar gases – is not enough to account for the total mass responsible for the observed spin of the galaxies. To explain away this discrepancy they introduced the idea that ‘the required additional mass is provided by something called dark matter’. According to the laws of physics and common sense, the expansion of the universe should be slowing down. In attempts to record this deceleration, two scientists observed in 1998, and later confirmed that instead of decelerating the universe is accelerating. Instead of slowing down the universe is speeding up. To explain this discrepancy they brought in the concept of dark energy. At the latest estimate the universe is made of 73% dark energy, 23% dark mater and 4% ordinary matter. What is dark energy or dark matter? Nobody knows. According to one scientist, “the terms, dark matter and dark energy are expressions of our ignorance.” If science cannot satisfactorily explain what our physical world is made of, how can we expect it to provide answers in the spiritual realm, the realm of God, souls and the like. John Archibald Wheeler is a colleague of Einstein and a name revered by most cosmologists and quantum physicists of today. Now he has come up with this new concept about the composition of the universe. These are his words. “To the question ‘what is the world made of?’ you are likely to come up with the answer, ‘matter and energy’. But I say that the universe is made of information; matter and energy are only incidental.” The following two examples illustrate the concept. 1. In a modern factory a robot can make a car using metals and plastics as raw materials and energy for cutting, welding molding etc. But we know that the robot cannot perform this operation without copious amounts of information programmed into it. 2. In a cell a ribosome can manufacture protein from amino acids using oxidation energy. For this the ribosome should get information from the DNA in the nucleus. The universe and life on earth are systems that work and evolve in a very efficient manner. This means that quite a lot of information had gone into their creation. Could a scientist be more explicit about the role of a Creator in creation? He means that ours is a pre-programmed universe. All the physical laws, all guidelines for evolution were set down and all physical constants fine-tuned at the moment of creation, at time zero on the Big Bang time scale. This reminds me of a phrase from my junior catechism about ‘the Almighty who created everything by a single word, - fiat -, meaning let it be.’ It didn’t take seven days or14 billion years, just one moment, one word. Is this not the ‘word’ or ‘logos’ that Apostle John speaks of in the first verse of the first chapter of his Gospel? The Greek word ‘logos’ could mean, word, idea or even information, I am told. “In the beginning was the word. The word was with God and the word was God…” At the outset I had stated that there could be no scientific proof for the existence of God. But I guess we can consider two sets of facts as proof of the hand of God in creation. The first and foremost is the complexity of life. The scientists at the start of the twenty-first century have no clue as to “How a group of lifeless particles suddenly formed the first living cell.” (Paul Davies). We can’t blame them, as the simplest cell is so complex. Our human body, according to these scientists, has about 100 trillion cells (that is 1 followed by 14 zeroes). Each of these cells has the DNA molecule, differing in composition from tissue to tissue, but each containing about 3 billion letters. (Here the term letter is used to denote one of four nucleotides that form the rungs of DNA ladder). Thus the DNA is called the book of life. But the term book is not apt in this context as there are no books with 3 billion letters in it. It is more like a library of 3000 books each with 1000 pages with 1000 letters for each page. This is the instruction manual for producing a human being. These three billion nucleotides make the thirty thousand or so genes in our cells. A common single celled bacterium has around 1500 genes. The simplest living cell known to scientists contains 480 genes. The scientists and technicians who can build the supersonic passenger jets, or the most sophisticated computers cannot still fathom the mechanism that caused the first living cell to be formed let alone make one. It is here that we can clearly see the hand of God at work. The second, and a very interesting fact is the ‘fine-tuning’ of the physical constants.. The parameters of fine-tuning are many. If one of these, say the mass of electron or the magnitude of the charge on it was ever so slightly – even by a fraction of a million – more or less, the elements like carbon oxygen or the heavier ones, so essential for life, would not have formed. That would mean that there would be no life in the universe. Or again, if the so-called ‘lumps’ in the ‘primordial soup’ soon after creation was slightly larger, the gravity would have made the whole of the existing matter that make up our universe collapse into one giant black hole and that would have been that! No galaxies, no stars, no planets, no life! If these same lumps had been ever so smaller the gravity would not have been sufficient for the matter to coalesce into galaxies and stars! The universe would have been just an ocean of clouds and gases. There are a few other interesting physical constants which if not so fine-tuned – if it were slightly higher or lower - there would have been no universe like ours, no life! And to me, a believer, here is the clear picture of the hand of God at work. These lessons from modern cosmology, quantum physics and biology is very clear proofs for the existence of God. At least I feel so. |
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What is a black hole made of? |
| Question found in Space & Astronomy |
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Black hole is made of matter – such an immense amount of matter that the gravity is so great that nothing, not even light can escape from it. As no light or other forms of radiation are coming from it, it cannot be seen or observed. Its presence is felt by the tremendous gravity that bends light passing through the region where it is present. Most galaxies have black holes usually at the center. It was believed that these black holes originated from the galaxies. Now the view in cosmology is that galaxies originated from these black holes; that in the early period of the universe matter first accreted into huge clusters – black holes. From these black holes galaxies and stars were born. |
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If a black hole does not give any light back then how do experts know it is there? |
| Question found in Space & Astronomy |
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I could add the following to what Mr Ellis had stated. Gravity of heavy cosmic objects bend the light from objects further afield. When you notice marked bending of light in an area where no cosmic object is to be 'seen' due to any of the EMRadiations, you can be sure there is a black hole there. |
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What is the string theory? |
| Question found in Space & Astronomy |
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String theory is an attempt to combine quantum theory with general relativity to reach a grand unified theory (GUT) which had been the dream of scientists for nearly a hundred years. The mathematics of this theory seems to be acceptable to all but still hasn’t passed the stringent scientific tests needed. At the particle level (quantum physics) the theory holds that the smallest particles of matter like electrons, quarks and gluons are made of one-dimensional strings of energy. At the cosmic level (gravity and relativity) it says that our universe is a cross section (in three dimensions or 4) of a grander universe in ten dimensions (11 D according to some). Some compare our universe to a bed sheet hanging on a cloth line, only it has 4 dimensions. There are other bedsheets like this. The origin – the Big Bang – happened when such two collided. The end of our universe shall also be in such a collision that may give rise to another universe. As mentioned at the start, all this have to be proved to be accepted. Scientists were hoping that the string theory had all the answers that we were after. But a great cosmologist said recently that that wont be the case. He said that the frontiers of knowledge will always be receding and we will go on looking for answers to new questions. |
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If I did not ask God for my own creation (to be born), am I, by a sense of justice, bound to serve Him? And is it just to punish people for certain actions (or inactions) dictated by God, if I didn't volunteer to play the "game" in the first place? |
| Question found in Religion & Spirituality In General |
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I do not love or respect my father or mother because they ordered me to do so. I love them because, (1) they made me and (2) they loved me. I consider God as my Father. (Many, especially in India), consider God as their Mother. My relationship to God starts in the form of LOVE. This leads to the realization that all my fellow beings are His children and thus my brothers or sisters. This makes me love them unconditionally. This love leads me to serve them. Not because I am afraid of any punishment for failing in obeying a 'command' but just out of love and fellow feeling. This way I am serving God also. I am not worried about so many rules and the punishments I may incur if I break them. God expects only one thing out of me: LOVE. The Ten Commandments are summarised into two : 'love God ; love your neighbour'. These two are summarised into one word; "LOVE". |
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Trying a fifth time ... How do you explain to youngsters why dinosaurs are not mentioned in the Bible? |
| Question found in Bible Studies |
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1. The Bible is not a comprehensive encyclopedia of the sciences. Bible does not mention even a hundredth or thousandth of animals or plants that live or lived. Not dodos, not platypus. It is the word of God, a book of religion. We refer to Bible for religious or spiritual matters. For detailed knowledge of the material and living world we refer to sciences. 2. The creationists are against the idea of evolution and the evolutionists are against the idea of creation. Sensible people do not belong to either group. They believe that evolution is a continuing act of creation controlled and directed by God. Each are represented by the six days of creation could be millions or billions of years long. Some time along the 5th day among the animals that were created were dinosaurs, later they became extinct. Many other species also have become extinct. 3. On the internet there is a site 'www.vempenysviews.com' In the section on 'long pieces' there is an article 'Adam and Eve'. this may help you further. |
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What is God's name? |
| Question found in Bible Studies |
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| 'God' is just the English name for the Creator. People all over the world address Him in their own language, in their dialects, and there may be many names in the same dialect. God answers to all these names. What is important to remember is that by these thousands of names we address the same creator. It would be wrong to say that Jehovah is God and not Parameswaran. (The word Parameswaran in Sanskrit means the great God) Nor can we say that Eloi is God and not Allah. (The first is Hebrew and the second Arabic.) |
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Who is Jesus? |
| Question found in Religion & Spirituality In General |
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Historically Jesus was a person who lived 2000 years ago in Judea ruled by Rome. Islam teaches that Jesus was one of the prophets and the Holy Quran speaks of virgin birth of Jesus saying that Mary, mother of Jesus conceived by God's power and not by human act. To Christians the fact of virgin birth is enough to believe he is the Son of God. According to the Bible and Christian faith Jesus is the Son of God who came to offer salvation to humanity by his supreme sacrifice of death on the cross. The uniqueness of Jesus lies in the simplicity and the profundity of his teachings. His teachings in the Sermon on the Mount (Gospel of Mathew chapters 5, 6 and 7) forms one of the greatest messages to humanity. This sermon tells us how we can make heaven on earth (establish kingdom of heaven). The means to this are simple - All we need are ; selfless love, contentment or non attachment and absolute trust in God. |
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