How I believe in God | Roger Ebert

I know there cannot be a Last Star, because we know the universe to be curved. At least, that's what mathematicians tell us. I can't form the concept of a curved universe in my mind, but I think I know what they're trying to say. Nor can I imagine one, three, five, many additional dimensions. Nor do I understand the Theory of Relativity. Growing up I used to hear that Einstein was the only man smart enough to understand his own Theory. Now countless people do, but I suspect few have a literal vision of what it means. What they understand, I think, is their mathematical proofs of it. If I'm wrong about this, I'm encouraged.

That the universe may expand indefinitely and die is a concept I can imagine. That all of its matter would cease to exist I cannot imagine. That the universe, as was once thought, expands and contracts indefinitely, one Big Bang collapsing into another one, seemed reasonable enough. But in both models of the universe, what caused the first Big Bang? Or was there a first Big Bang, any more than a Last Number?

If there was a First Cause, was there a First Causer? Or did Big Bangs just happen to happen? Can we name the First Causer "God?" We can name it anything we want. I can name it after myself. It is utterly insignificant what it is called, because we would be giving a name to something that falls outside all categories of thought and must be unknowable and irrelevant to knowledge. So it is a futile enterprise.

Quantum theory is now discussing instantaneous connections between two entangled quantum objects such an electrons. This phenomenon has been observed in laboratory experiments and scientists believe they have proven it takes place. They're not talking about faster than the speed of light. Speed has nothing to do with it. The entangled objects somehow communicate instantaneously at a distance. If that is true, distance has no meaning. Light years have no meaning. Space has no meaning.

In a sense, the entangled objects are not even communicating. They are the same thing. At the "quantum level," and I don't know what that means and cannot visualize it, everything that there is may be actually or theoretically linked. All is one. Sun, moon, stars, rain, you, me, everything. All one. If this is so, then Buddhism must have been a quantum theory all along. No, I am not a Buddhist. I am not a believer, not an atheist, not an agnostic. I am still awake at night, asking how? I am more content with the question than I would be with an answer.

All art is based on Strange Attractors generated by Chaoscope, a Windows program downloadable here. No, I don't believe they're pictures of God. I believe they can't be described in words, which pleases me. All of the art can be enlarged by clicking.

The Big Bang as a fractal:

Renderings of Strange Attractors;

An unexpected pattern: