@Soup (concerning the whole universe debate a couple pages back): The assumptions that I was making were based on the idea that the universe continues infinitely and linearly in all directions, and that its contents were expanding outwards due to the propulsion from the original Big Bang.
What Danielsangeo and Burbinator are arguing is what I’ve heard called the “raisin cake model” of the universe. Namely, if you whip up a cake batter with raisins in it and put it in the oven, then the raisins will move away from each other and expand outward from their original positions. The raisin cake is, in this case, everything, and the raisins are galaxies, planets, whatever. They expand because the medium they’re in is expanding. There is nothing outside the raisin cake. In fact, “nothing” isn’t a strong enough word; there is only the raisin cake.
There’s a lot of evidence behind this theory, and it makes a lot of really interesting observations about the possible nature of gravity and space. I was first introduced to a lot of it when I read the wikipedia page on black holes a couple years back.
I still don’t believe in the breathing universe, though. What you have to realize is that the methods I described that were used to disprove it might sound illegitimate when I summarize them, but that’s because I’m recalling the basic outline of them from a class I took a year ago now. The guy doing the lecturing and proving, on the other hand, was an astrophysicist at an accredited university.
I had my only personal miracle, which I won’t describe in detail. Basically my life was going to shit, and a very simple event - a rose blooming, as a matter of fact - made me feel as though I had been reached out to. It was enough to keep me from cutting myself, which is where I was headed, and picked me back up and allowed me to forgive the people responsible, one of whom has become a really good friend of mine.
I’m not an irrational person, and I’ve never been easily swayed towards illogical thought. I am well aware that it’s human nature to become vulnerable to religion and the idea of a higher power in difficult times (in fact, I used it as an argument for atheism beforehand). But what I felt was enough to convince me, and if you ever feel it, I expect it will be enough to convince you, too.
