• Benj96
    2.2k
    Light and god have always been very interlinked in the spiritual or religious sense. Light being a symbol of illumination, knowledge, beauty, all pervading, all revealing and similarly darkness being heavily associated with evil, sin, ignorance, the unknown.

    But I want to talk about the physics of light - a very peculiar phenomenon indeed.
    Light has no position in space, as it is massless. It occupies no volume. A photon regardless of how energetic it is (gamma rays or infrared) always travels at the speed of light in a vacuum and is thus heavily woven into the idea of time as Einstein highlighted with his equation E=mc2. It appears to slow down through material but individual photons do not slow down their path is just riddled with bouncing around off material before exiting. You cannot see any light passing by you unless it is deflected into your eyes, when light doesn’t come into contact with an object, it’s as if it Isn’t there. When it does interact with objects it imparts colour, form, texture, some much detail about something that would otherwise be invisible, would others be total blackness.

    At the speed of light, time has no duration, and distance is no object. The beginning and the end of lights journey is essentially instantaneous from that massless reference point. This is barely even conceivable - the Big Bang, all of existence of the universe, the end (if/ whatever that may be) all occurring in a spontaneous moment for a photon.

    Not only is light linked with time by Einstein’s equation but also with mass. And this with dimension/ space as you cannot have one without the other. Einstein predicted that two highly energetic photons colliding and losing energy rapidly should produce some matter (an electron) and some anti-matter (a positron) and this was proven at CERN by physicists.
    We’ve seen matter turned into light energy - think if combustion, nuclear explosions etc. But to turn light into matter was much more difficult however physics permits it and experiments proved it.

    Because light is energy it cannot be created or destroyed, can only transform - into matter for example.
    To tie it into the many concepts regarding god. Light seems to be a timeless, non physical, creator of the material (physical) world that hurtles through the universe faster than anything else can, reaching all corners (omnipresence), being all degrees of energy on the electromagnetic spectrum (omnipotence) and carrying with it the content of all information - the fastest exchanger of information between point A and B, the fundamental warmth and brightness required for a planet to sustain sentient beings.

    I don’t know about all peoples descriptions of a possible god but to me the mere physical properties of light or any energy for that matter puts it top of the list of my personal contenders.
  • Art48
    459
    I see where you're coming from but if God is physical light then God is absent in a dark room.
    I think you're on the right track. Here's a PDF you may like.
    https://adamford.com/NTheo/NewTheology.pdf
  • 180 Proof
    14.1k
    If you've got to deify a physical entity, there's none greater than that other "g": Gravity.
  • Deletedmemberzc
    2.5k
    Light and god have always been very interlinked in the spiritual or religious sense.Benj96

    If god is anything material - and if god is anything like his cosmos - god is the perfect sacred commingling of darkness and light. In the bizarre mythology of William Blake - perhaps the solitary mystic genius of 18th and 19th Century England - the Marriage of Heaven and Hell.

    Incidentally, Lucifer - that perennially mortifying, theologically disconcerting - and hence well-glossed-over - morsel of god - is both Prince of Darkness and Bringer of Light.
  • 180 Proof
    14.1k
    Incidentally, Lucifer ... is both Prince of Darkness and Bringer of Light.ZzzoneiroCosm
    :fire:
  • SpaceDweller
    503

    God is creator of all things
    Light is energy and thus created
    Therefore God cannot be light

    Furthermore light can not create anything
  • T Clark
    13k
    I don’t know about all peoples descriptions of a possible god but to me the mere physical properties of light or any energy for that matter puts it top of the list of my personal contenders.Benj96

    You've listed a lot of the properties of light. It's an impressive list, but I don't see what it has to do with God.

    It appears to slow down through material but individual photons do not slow down their path is just riddled with bouncing around off material before exiting.Benj96

    Sorry to be a nitpicker, but this is not the reason light slows down in different media. Here's a really good explanation.

  • Hillary
    1.9k
    Einstein predicted that two highly energetic photons colliding and losing energy rapidly should produce some matter (an electron)Benj96

    This is not how it actually works in quantum field theory. And it was not Einstein who predicted it. He didn't know about anti particles.
  • Hillary
    1.9k
    Furthermore light can not create anythingSpaceDweller

    Light couples to the virtual electron field ,(vacuum bubbles). If the photon has enough energy it can turn a virtual electron bubble into a real electron and positron. There is nothing created or annihilated, or absorbed or emitted. The real photon goes virtual, the virtual electron goes real.
  • Hillary
    1.9k
    Sorry to be a nitpicker, but this is not the reason light slows down in different media.T Clark

    Sorry to nitpick again, but it could be seen that way. Photons get delayed by turning real, virtual, real, virtual, etc. But there are more explanations, even in the classical domain. Varying permitivities and permeabilities and all that.
  • Tobias
    984
    According to Hegel in the Zoroastrian vision God and light were the same. He speaks of 'Lichtwesen', a figure totally unarticulated, only present as light. (As a beginning point, this stage is crucial in Hegel, as everything tends to return there, but in more concrete form, that is another discussion though) I think you do not need any science to see why light is immediately appealing as a candidate for God-like status. In the dark we do not see anything. darkness is dangerous, light is good, it is warming, creating. However, the old German is right, pure light is pure nothingness because it does not bear any contrast within itself.

  • Hillary
    1.9k
    In the dark we do not see anything. darkness is dangerous, light is good,Tobias

    That doesn't apply to the night creatures on the planets. Why should gods have no form and be light? The bat-gods would disagree.
  • Tobias
    984
    That doesn't apply to the night creatures on the planets. Why should gods have no form and be light? The bat-gods would disagree.Hillary

    Bats do not believe in God at least not as far as we know. We believe in God and so picture him in our own terms.
  • Hillary
    1.9k
    Bats do not believe in God at least not as far as we know. We believe in God and so picture him in our own terms.Tobias

    Why should they believe in gods? If the eternal heavenly gods created the temporary material universe in their image, bats do enough to just live and please the bat gods. Like we live to entertain the people gods.
  • Tobias
    984
    Why should they believe in gods? If the eternal heavenly gods created the temporary material universe in their image, bats do enough to just live and please the bat gods. Like we live to entertain the people gids.Hillary

    Well than the bat gods be sound... (I do advice you to refrain from eating more mushrooms).
  • Hillary
    1.9k
    Well than the bat gods be sound... (I do advice you to refrain from eating more mushrooms).Tobias

    The bat gods sounds? Why not just bats in heaven? Why would there be only One God living there as light? Talking bout mushrooms... It's a pity you can't buy them anymore! Man, did I see and hear colored spaghetti!
  • Hillary
    1.9k
    How can gods and light be the same thing. Gods are non-physical eternal being in an eternal heaven. If the initiated the universe to let temporary divine material life evolve in as a temporary reflection of that heavenly life, could we use light as a metaphor maybe?
  • jgill
    3.6k
    Lucifer - that perennially mortifying, theologically disconcerting - and hence well-glossed-over - morsel of god - is both Prince of Darkness and Bringer of LightZzzoneiroCosm

    It's speculated the the Jews of the time period of Nebuchadnezzar sarcastically referred to him as "Lucifer", one who thought so highly of himself that the sun rose because of him: the Bringer of Light.

    At which point Lucifer became synonymous with Satan is possibly a mystery.
  • Hillary
    1.9k
    It's speculated the the Jews of the time period of Nebuchadnezzar sarcastically referred to him as "Lucifer", one who thought so highly of himself that the sun rose because of him: the Bringer of Light.jgill

    It's that why a match is called a lucifer?
  • Benj96
    2.2k
    If god is anything material - and if god is anything like his cosmos - god is the perfect sacred commingling of darkness and light. In the bizarre mythology of William Blake - perhaps the solitary mystic genius of 18th and 19th Century England - the Marriage of Heaven and Hell.ZzzoneiroCosm

    True is guess it would be a sort of yin yang, positive negative, light dark thing. You can’t really have one without the other and if “god” is all things it must be both
  • Benj96
    2.2k
    Gods are non-physical eternalHillary

    Well I was pouring out how light is also non-physical (massless) and eternal (cannot be created or destroyed)

    could we use light as a metaphor maybe?Hillary

    Yeah why not. There are a few parallels. Perhaps they couldn’t be the same thing but maybe some phenomena have more god-like properties than others. I would say the properties of light are so strikingly bizarre that some of these parts of physics like the idea of indestructibility, timelessness, etc are worthy of awe. They seem so strange and impossible yet they are. And mathematically proven too.
  • Benj96
    2.2k
    However, the old German is right, pure light is pure nothingness because it does not bear any contrast within itself.Tobias

    Yes this was sort of along my line of thinking also. Lights properties are impressive and seem almost otherworldly yet it is present everywhere- in plain sight so to speak hehe
  • Hillary
    1.9k
    Well I was pouring out how light is also non-physical (massless) and eternal (cannot be created or destroyed)Benj96

    But that holds for all particles. They are either real or virtual and mass and pure energy (light or gluons) are interchangeable. A real photon can get virtual again and excite a virtual electron to real (which gives seemingly two particles, an electron and a positron). The comparison with light is adequate though. Light has different colors and shapes. Holograms!
  • Benj96
    2.2k
    If you've got to deify a physical entity, there's none greater than that other "g": Gravity.180 Proof

    Okay I’m listening haha. Can you explain more about why you see gravity as a superior candidate?
  • 180 Proof
    14.1k
    Gravity instantiates physical analogues of "omnipotence" (re: nucleogenesis, cosmogenesis), "omnipresence" (re: spacetime) and "omniscience" (e.g. black hole entropy, CMBR) which none of the other fundamental forces compare to functionally in either magnitude or scope. On the other hand, "light" – EM field – is subject to warping of spacetime (e.g. black holes, gravitational lensing, etc) and so the C constant may be conceived of as a "lesser god" in comparison to the G constant (which is so great and powerful but also too elusive to be accounted for (yet) by the current Standard Model as the key to every candidate so far for a "ToE" (e.g. M-theory, LQG, twistor theory, path-integral QG)). :nerd:
  • MAYAEL
    239
    I'm assuming your talking about the Christian God which in that case no because Lucifer was the light holder chick that like all hoes got pissed and God was the one that threw shade first which is why and commemoration for that first time event all pimps throw shade on crazy ass hoes
  • Banno
    23.3k
    @Benj96 If you've got to deify a physical entity, there's none greater than that other "g": Gravity.180 Proof

    ...but of course, we do not have to deify anything. We can just admit that we don't know.

    If nothing else it would save space on this forum.
  • 180 Proof
    14.1k
    :clap: :smirk:
  • SpaceDweller
    503
    Incidentally, Lucifer ... is both Prince of Darkness and Bringer of Light.ZzzoneiroCosm

    Wrong, Lucifer was the bringer of light but become prince of darkness.
    Lucifer never was both.
    Isaiah 14:12-15
  • Deletedmemberzc
    2.5k


    "Oh lucifer, son of the morning!"




    Just so lovely and brilliant. A breathtaking poet, Isaiah. :fire: :heart: :fire:
  • Deletedmemberzc
    2.5k
    Just call me angel of the morning, angel!


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