Religious Wars are born out of the BELIEF in Separation.

[surreptitious57]

If the universe has made you exist and if existence is bad and we are striving to return to the tranquility of non
existence then it means we are swimming upstream fighting what the universe is doing to us

Entropy is very slowly killing the universe and virtually everything within it too including us
We are therefore not swimming upstream but instead letting nature do what it wants to do

[surreptitious57]

I could not have known whether you were male or female

You really should have because you have been here for six years

[Immanuel Can]

If the universe has made you exist and if existence is bad and we are striving to return to the tranquility of non
existence then it means we are swimming upstream fighting what the universe is doing to us

Entropy is very slowly killing the universe and virtually everything within it too including us
We are therefore not swimming upstream but instead letting nature do what it wants to do

I agree, but you and I share the belief that time is linear, obviously. Entropy is just one of the various ways we know this. Other things, like the expansion of the universe, also make it scientifically certain.

But Hinduism does not believe that. It assumes the universe is eternal and cyclical...that time is circular. And we can't blame them for making this mistake; they did not have the science to tell them otherwise. But nowadays, we all should know better.

So yes, we are not actually "swimming upstream." But if Hinduism, or any of the various transcendental, cyclical religious views were true, then we would have to be.

[Immanuel Can]

I could not have known whether you were male or female

You really should have because you have been here for six years

I try not to sex-stereotype. I deliberately try to avoid knowing who's female and who's male on this site, since it's not really relevant. I would suggest it's ad hominem to make that part of the equation. So I don't. I'd rather deal with ideas, not personalities. So I neither make insults nor react to them when they're made against me. That's all deliberate on my part.

But if somebody outright tells me -- or worse, if they get all sexist and say, "Well, you're only saying that because you're a man," or something like that, then I can't help but know. And then, it's not me but they who have made it relevant to their argument. So sometimes I can't help knowing, even if I don't care.

[surreptitious57]

But Hinduism does not believe that . It assumes the universe is eternal and cyclical ... that time is circular ...
And we cannot blame them for making this mistake - they did not have the science to tell them otherwise

The most common hypothesis in cosmology today is a that of a new universe being born when the old one dies

[Immanuel Can]

If the end of you happens it is not a good thing . You might say it is not a bad thing too since you are gone . But it is certainly not a desirable state You are not going to enjoy it . You are not going to be at peace . You are going not to exist at all

Why is the end of you not a good thing ? Why cannot it be a desirable state ?

Because Nirvana is the state of non-being. Its only commendable feature is that suffering ends. But then, so does your existence.

Why cannot peace come with the end of suffering ? Is death not the end of suffering ?

It creates the same problem: the best thing you get is that you get nothing at all. Suffering ends, but you don't even know it. You no longer exist. So there's no "me" or "you" to experience any "peace."

Did you suffer before you were conceived ? Did you suffer after you were conceived ?

I'm not sure of the implications of the question, actually. How could one know the answer to the first one, unless you believed in some sort of discarnate pre-existence?

Which of these would you prefer - to exist and suffer or not to exist and not to suffer ?

Well, why are those the only two choices? Wouldn't you prefer to exist, and yet not to suffer?

Wouldn't anyone?

[Immanuel Can]

Finally it requires there to be an eternal universe . Scientifically we already know that is not true

Existence is not conditional on the universe - it is a state independent of any physical limitation

Not "existence requires." The "it" in my statement was transcendental religion. Reread it that way.

Transcendental religion requires an eternal universe, because it requires the eternal existence of both the material and the spiritual. One cannot exist without the other, because if "all" is collapsed into "one," then distinction ceases to be possible, and so no "thing" can be said to "exist" anymore.

Picture it this way: imagine everything -- you, me, computers, air, the world, the cosmos -- everything were suddenly transformed, and made out of nothing but water. What would "exist" then? Everything would be just one big bath of sameness, with no distinction, boundaries or barriers of any kind. All would be "water," sloshing around in..."more water." Nothing would have distinct identity, or any separateness from anything else. There would be no specific "thing" to see or experience. There would, in fact, be no-things.

This is an actual analogy from Buddhism. They like to compare Nirvana to a drop of water dissipating in the ocean. Or to a candle flame being blown out, so no one can say it was ever even there. That's their "heaven." That's all one gets.

Now, that's complex. And it's counterintuitive to the Western mind, which is conditioned to linear time. It's also (obviously) not scientific. I'm just telling you what Hinduism thinks. I'm not telling you I believe it. I don't.

[Immanuel Can]

But Hinduism does not believe that . It assumes the universe is eternal and cyclical ... that time is circular ...
And we cannot blame them for making this mistake - they did not have the science to tell them otherwise

The most common hypothesis in cosmology today is a that of a new universe being born when the old one dies

Are you speaking of "the Multiverse Hypothesis"? If so, it's not quite what that hypothesis says. It says universes are not connected, and that they don't "wait" for one to die for another to exist. The mysterious "multiverse generator," whatever the heck that is, just keeps chugging away.

But the Multiverse Hypothesis itself is highly problematic -- it's actually linear, rationally incoherent, and absolutely undemonstrable empirically, by its own terms. So I think we can pack that one off. It's just the best wild guessing anybody's currently got for how to avoid the God hypothesis.

[surreptitious57]

Are you speaking of the Multiverse Hypothesis

No I am speaking of the Big Crunch where the Universe recollapses within itself and is reborn all over again
The Multiverse hypothesis is different Universes all existing simultaneously which is something else entirely

[Immanuel Can]

Are you speaking of the Multiverse Hypothesis

No I am speaking of the Big Crunch

Oh. That's scientifically impossible. It's a dead theory.

The matter in the universe has already vastly exceeded escape velocity, and no known force in the universe would be even close to sufficient to "collapse" it. We know that the universe is expanding...we can see and measure it by things like the red shift effect. And you can objectively see that the vastness of space dwarfs the amount of matter and, say, gravitational power of any object in it. So that's just not going to happen.

[surreptitious57]

A Big Crunch is most definitely scientifically possible if dark energy dilutes to negative density as it will cause the Universe to collapse back within itself to the size it was at the point of the Big Bang nearly I4 billion years ago . However there is no empirical way to determine how the Universe is going to die as there will be nobody to observe it when it does happen - regardless of what form it will actually take - so it is entirely academic

[Immanuel Can]

A Big Crunch is most definitely scientifically possible if dark energy dilutes to negative density as it will cause the Universe to collapse back within itself to the size it was at the point of the Big Bang nearly I4 billion years ago .

This amounts to saying, "If a force we don't currently detect, and which we know nothing at all about, suddenly appears, then the means to re-collapse the universe will also appear."

I suppose one can't argue with that. "If wishes were horses, "as the old saying goes, "beggars would ride."

However there is no empirical way to determine how the Universe is going to die as there will be nobody to observe it when it does happen - regardless of what form it will actually take - so it is entirely academic

It's not merely a problem of observation, though: the problem is that we have no known force anywhere near strong enough that it can do the job you're saying the universe will do.

[surreptitious57]

the problem is that we have no known force anywhere near strong enough that it can do the job you are saying the universe will do

This event will happen at least a quintillion [ billion x billion ] years from now when we have no idea what will happen
The Universe now is therefore incredibly young indeed compared to the age that it will be when it does eventually die

At the moment we can only account for a mere 4 per cent of observable reality - the other 96 per cent is a virtual mystery to us
And so if this is how much we know NOW we have no real idea what the end of the Universe will be like - despite all speculation

[Immanuel Can]

the problem is that we have no known force anywhere near strong enough that it can do the job you are saying the universe will do

This event will happen at least a quintillion [ billion x billion ] years from now when we have no idea what will happen
The Universe now is therefore incredibly young indeed compared to the age that it will be when it does eventually die

That makes the problem for the Big Crunch much, much worse. The universe is expanding...and if it's already impossible to find a force capable of "crunching" it, just imagine how bad that problem will be in a quintillion years.

In a quintillion years, we're going to need such a force that we cannot even imagine it, let alone locate anything that fits the bill now.

So I would bet against it. Maybe such a force will suddenly appear...but it's (literally) astronomically improbable; and whatever it was, it would have to be quite literally the size of God to do that job.

If God doesn't exist, there's no way there's a Big Crunch coming, then.

[surreptitious57]

Scientific knowledge other than that arrived at through falsification or disproof is always going to be provisional
So we can only speculate or hypothesise based on pre existing knowledge because that is a limitation of science