continued…

Of course, if you have faith in the existence of an Omnipotent Being then you don’t have much further to go to assume that this Being has suspended certain logical connections in order for you to make illogical deductions. Which brings me to another point, namely that, omnipotence and omniscience are not possible if in fact the speed of light is the universal speed limit. Information of any kind (light, radiation, electrical impulses, consciousness) can only travel at a maximum of 186,283 miles per second. Therefore, to gain knowledge of about the happenings of or to affect changes in the entire universe at one time you would have to be everywhere at one time. However, even if you were everywhere at once (or the size of the universe) you would still have to wait for the information in part of yourself to arrive at another part of yourself. You can’t, by definition, be bigger than the universe. The universe is everything that exists, hence the prefix. This issue also turns into bitterly crushing news for those interested in acquiring exact information on everything that has, is or will go on in the universe. While it is true that logical, non-contradictory principles of identity must hold for any part of existence, it is not true that we may be able to experience all of it. There are clearly parts of the universe out of our reach because of time, speed and light cone limitations.

Back to my side issue of psychology for a moment. Faith is specifically defined as belief without knowledge. If on some topic you are in possession of any fact or knowledge you cannot have faith to that degree. For example, if your favorite sports team isn’t playing well you can hope for them to get into the playoffs but you can’t have faith that they will. You know that they exist. Perhaps after they have been eliminated from playoff contention you can have faith that they will somehow win the championship. This simple to understand and apply standard has never stopped people from saying curious things like: “I have faith in science”, “I know for a fact that God exists”, “How can you believe in such nonsense as evolution”, “I think natural selection is God’s way of getting rid of undesirable people” (and people say I’m cynical). What is the motivation behind such statements? Perhaps an easier one to get a crowbar into and pry open is a favorite from many adults I knew when I was a teenager: “How can someone as intelligent as you not believe in God?”