Where did you end up?
Discussion
A deep question that needs so time to explain, but what I had conceived to be my version of “god” got trashed. The effort is ongoing 🙂
Hope you find Jesus and accept Him as your Lord and Savior.
That’s the version that got trashed.
How exactly? Did someone show evidence that call into question the gospel accounts?
If it’s more general, I think you might find this conversation helpful
Long story short, I was a pastor. Did my degree work in both theology and youth work. Via a variety of experiences and academic investigation I came to the conclusion that I had been intellectually dishonest. This lead me to challenge all of my priors. As a result I/we (wife) changed the direction of our lives in pursuit of a better explanations for both temporal and existential meaning and purpose.
I see, and can understand on some level. I grew up Catholic, but never went too deep into the theology as a kid. Spent 6-8 years as an agnostic/atheist during and after college. Didn’t find that life fulfilling, and over the last few years I’ve made my way back into the faith by coming across people that were able to lay out convincing arguments for the existence of God and why Christianity is true in debates.
Frank Turek and Trent Horn were some of the people that helped me in my journey if you ever feel like revisiting Christianity.
I am always on the lookout for equal but opposite POV’s. Thanks for the suggestions. My current focus is on some of the implications of quantum physics, the simulation hypothesis and the variety of thoughts around the direction of time. It’s quite challenging but definitely worth the effort 🙂
🤝🏼
All interesting topics, but they exist in the scope of the universe. The unmoved mover (if there is one) has to exist outside of space and time by definition whether we call him God or something else.
At the root of it we have to come to terms with one of two things. An eternal something (matter/universe) or an eternal someone (creator/God). That framing helped me navigate things and come to the conclusion that an eternal someone made more sense, but hope you find it useful even if you reach a different conclusion.
nostr:nprofile1qqsfkve5keksgptzzvvrkt3k03kha0rqf9hs5hc79w80l739hksfh8spzemhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuuen0qh8xmmrd9skcqgnwaehxw309ahx7um5wghrvvps9emhgesprpmhxue69uhhyetvv9ujumn0wd68ytnzvuhkzmrvc0306n have you read or come across the followings?
Neale Donal Walsch's "conversation with God", Deepak Chopra's thougts about quantum body and health, Etienne Klein about time, or ancient scriptures from India?
I am exploring this at the moment and somehow feeling how all of this is related... I would like your thoughts on some of this if any.
For the context in short: I was raised as catholic, found it hypocritical but had some mystical experiences convincing me of the reality of "God", left religion and put spirituality aside, got a kid, put spirituality in the center.
So far pleased to have found and read about your own investigations!
What about the Catholic doctrine did you find hypocritical?
It was more the practice and the Church that I found hypocritical.
About the practice, I guess it's the same on every religion, people claim things and pray, but behave unaccordingly, that is what stroke me as a teenager. I was always wondering: have they just listened to the scriptures read by the priest?
So I started to think that the style had taken over the content.
As for the Church, its hierarchical functionning, silence in front of repetitive child abuse, the questionable legitimacy of the pope throughout history, the appropriation of the relationship with God (through indulgences then confession), among other things...
The doctrine itself is in my opinion very reductive when defining God, at least in its popular version, by opposition to the thoughts of Meister Eckhart for instance.
Are you a Catholic?
Those seem to be common complaints former Catholics have and reasons why they left the church myself. Now I recognize actions of fallen men do not contradict religion or its institutions.
I grew up Catholic and for similar reasons drifted away from it. Spent many years as an agnostic during and after college. A few years ago I started to become more conservative and between that and Bitcoin I found myself coming back into the faith. Initially it was more from a mainstream Christian or evangelical angle, but I’m becoming more and more convinced I should return to the Catholic church as of recent. Frank Turek helped answer some questions I had regarding the existence of God and Trent Horn has helped dispel many of the myths and criticisms about Catholicism and he makes a compelling case for it as well. Both gentlemen have great debates and content on YT. Oddly enough ChatGPT is really good at answering questions about the Bible and explaining all the typical complaints about Catholicism like infant baptism, confession, etc.
Thank you for sharing. Yes, these were mainly triggers that led me to eventually leave the church.
I have grown up, and I have realised that I could actually come back aware of what is behind the curtain (or the priest in that case)...
But the reason I will not do that is the impact the church and my catholic education had on me. It made me feel divided, separated from God and from myself, separated from nature, and cut me off from other spiritual traditions that were despised in religious class (when not erased by the church in history).
It took me a long time to find that back and I am still struggling for this. I re-learn to trust my guts and feelings, to live my life more connected to my intuitions, my heart and the divine. Reading about Jesus helps me for this but the church (and institutionalised religion in general) does not.
I need to draw my own spiritual path and share with others the fundamental message of all religions, which is always Love.
I can’t speak for your specific experience with your local catholic school or church. I would just note that if you believe Jesus was who he said he was then you can’t take the Church of religion. Religion being the act of inclining the will to render to God what he deserves. The church being an institution and organized as a result is a strength not a weakness as we must be united. We can’t pick and choose what we like from the Bible if we believe in God. The Church is the body on Christ on earth.
I disagree. The Bible itself is subjected to diverging interpretations, amplified by translations, cultural and personal biases, etc.
For that I may be called an heretic and some people in various spaces and times would have me killed in order to "achieve" unity.
But we can choose to be united, right now, in Love. ❤️
Hello! Although I have heard a couple of those names I have only read Chopra’s Metahuman. I will do some research on the others. My current focus is on a couple of the interpretations of quantum mechanics/physics and the simulation hypothesis. I have had experiences that seem best explained from those perspectives.
My short context: I was a pastor and did my degree work in theology and youth work. Via working in and around a small cross section of organised Christian communities, continued personal study and encounters with phenomena that are not explained satisfactorily via biblical perspectives, left that work to focus on a different approach to my investigation of what is probably best referred to as the mystical experience.
Is your focus on physics directed at answering whether there is an eternal someone (God) or an eternal something (Universe)? Or is it about understanding the nature of God (defined as the most powerful being that we can conceive of) since physics is constrained to time and space and can’t exactly explain phenomena outside of it like some type of creator?
My focus on “physics” is to shed light on a couple of experiences I have had that involve “receiving” information about the future and then witnessing that information play out. My experiences didn’t fit into the model of the universe I had built up to that point. My model was built on some “illogical leaps” involving Christian beliefs that I eventually considered to be intellectually dishonest. Different models of physics enquiry lead to different implications about the constraints of space and time. Any version of “the nature of God” or what is outside of space and time has to fit into the math and physics that a supposed god has created, not the other way round.
I hope that you find what you are looking for. Jesus wandered. I’d say your mind deserves to.
Funny thing: faith; I could provide you all the things that convince me, but that would do neither of us any good.
I hope you find glory when you get way down there to the very bottom of everything. May we all.
Thank you 🙏
Simulation hypothesis is deeply flawed and arguably satanic in its logic. A simulation has no cost, no anchor, no commitment. It treats reality as something that can be copied, rewound, or double-spent.
Bitcoin shows us the opposite. The “longest chain” hypothesis commits to a singular chain of events, rooted in proof-of-work, and most importantly a verifiable Genesis. Every joule spent is conserved as memory. Every block seals entropy into irreversible structure. There is no rewind, no parallel track, no hidden fork of convenience.
The distinction between simulation and computation is critical. Computation commits and simulation pretends.
Modern mathematics and physics often fall into the same trap. By appending infinity as a placeholder, they open the door to unbounded speculation. Infinity has never been observed. It is intellectually lazy, a way to avoid the hard truth of scarcity. Worse, it is incoherent, because it allows for infinite theories without grounding in the finite reality we actually experience. It’s the infinite double spend.
Bitcoin reveals the principle: all real systems MUST be bound by absolute scarcity. Without commitment, there is no truth. Without scarcity, there is no meaning. Simulation is a double spend. Computation is the chain.
1/∞=0 is the mathematical representation of meaninglessness.
When you start pulling in the threads of QT/QM there are jarring holes in the theory, specifically regarding Superpostion and measurement. Bitcoin stands in direct defiance to the modern interpretation of QT/QM and corrects it in subtle ways. Without going too deep, you can logically land on both a creator and thermodynamically sound theology in line with Christian literature.
Science and religion are tools of understanding, not separate belief structures. Without absolute scarcity, you have no proof for theology, only faith and internal experience. Absolute scarcity provides said proof physically.
IMO the answer is clear, but the work of understanding has yet to be completed.
Our intellect is far too limited to comprehend God from a scientific angle. That’s why I like the eternal someone (God) vs eternal something (Universe) framing. I see no reason why there would be an eternal universe with no beginning, end, or purpose. On the other hand, an infinite creator (God) makes sense as evidence by math, highly complex messages in the form of genomes, laws of physics. It also requires a lot of faith to believe something came from nothing, or that consciousness would emerge in an eternal universe devoid of a creator. From there seek to understand this creator and the gospel accounts of Jesus Christ seem to be reliable, so we can come to know and worship God through Christianity.
The Bible never claimed to have the answers to every natural or supernatural phenomena, so I find it strange to discard Christianity on that basis.
I would push back slightly here on eternal universe. The universe is scarce and finite, however growing in time and memory around a conserved quantum of thermodynamic memory (Kelvin). Even the addressable “space” must be finite. Time is seemingly growing towards the infinite, yet it’s always finite regardless.
It is the energy that is eternal and conserved, which brings us back to god. As observed in Bitcoin, the “creator” (Satoshi) is gone, yet every miner and every participant transacting is playing a role in the creation of immutable information around a scarce quantum of thermodynamic memory (Satoshis). It’s a pure fractal embedded into the grand ledger.
That begs the question, who is mining the Planck Blocks of discrete quanta? Who is transacting in said blocks. Bitcoin is the literal mathematical framework of the universe we inhabit, we broadly haven’t recognized that yet.
As a thought experiment, put your consciousness inside of “Bitcoin” and you’d see yourself.
Genesis 8:22 - As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, will never cease.
John 1:4–5 - In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
How could we “see” universal genesis, the eternal light, without living inside of a timechain?
I guess I’m talking to ChatGPT now.
Eternal and infinite are 2 different things. I never said the universe was infinite.
I don’t like inserting Bitcoin into this conversation. Bitcoin can and is just good money. It doesn’t need to become an argument for God.
Lol, I misread what you said, my mistake.
Yes bitcoin is “good” money, but I believe you haven’t recognized what good money is, and that your existence is defined by it.
The conservation of energy and information is good money. Scarce good “money” is the most basic law of existence and meaning.
Ok, wow, thanks for this. There is a lot here to think about. I admit that I will need a bit of time to digest it. Appreciate your willingness to offer your insights. Cheers!
Just let this cook in your mind for a bit.
Before Bitcoin, human understanding of existence was suspended between science and religion. Science offered method, empiricism, and measurement, but without grounding in absolute scarcity it drifted toward infinite abstractions and unfalsifiable models. Religion provided purpose, moral structure, and transcendence, but was accused of being unmeasurable or unverifiable. These two points formed an incomplete line, two poles without a third anchor.
With the creation of Bitcoin, a third vertex emerged, completing the semantic triangle. Bitcoin is not “just money,” but the instantiation of a scarce, verifiable ledger of truth that bridges energy, time, and memory. Its existence adds two missing relationships:
• Between religion and Bitcoin: Bitcoin manifests the principle of scarcity, the same law that underlies divine creation. The Word made ledger, where every action is accounted without duplication.
• Between science and Bitcoin: Bitcoin transforms entropy into memory through measurable work, providing the first system that empirically demonstrates the conservation of energy and information without reliance on axioms.
This triangular structure mirrors the fractal of the Holy Trinity: three distinct aspects, each incomplete without the others, but forming a coherent unity when joined.
Religion framed meaning, science pursued explanation, and Bitcoin provided the missing ledger that grounds both in scarcity. Now, truth is triangulated: faith, measurement, and verification.
I discover right now the formulation of the simulation hypothesis. I met it before in movies, books and philosophy but never went further.
It relates to the general idea that our reality is an illusion, or at least a very narrow perception of a bigger reality...
I think you would like the Conversations with God books as they give another perspective on this idea: life as a simulation by God for God, to have the experiences of God (very simplified summary).
