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Could God and Light be the same thing?

Benj96 May 18, 2022 at 14:32 5275 views 30 comments
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.

Comments (30)

Art48 May 18, 2022 at 15:04 #697038
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 May 18, 2022 at 15:31 #697046
Reply to Benj96 If you've got to deify a physical entity, there's none greater than that other "g": Gravity.
Deleted User May 18, 2022 at 16:29 #697083
Quoting Benj96
Light and god have always been very interlinked in the spiritual or religious sense.


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 May 18, 2022 at 16:34 #697088
Quoting ZzzoneiroCosm
Incidentally, Lucifer ... is both Prince of Darkness and Bringer of Light.

:fire:
SpaceDweller May 18, 2022 at 16:41 #697097
Reply to Benj96
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 May 18, 2022 at 18:35 #697138
Quoting Benj96
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.


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.

Quoting Benj96
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.


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



Hillary May 18, 2022 at 19:10 #697149
Quoting Benj96
Einstein predicted that two highly energetic photons colliding and losing energy rapidly should produce some matter (an electron)


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 May 18, 2022 at 19:15 #697151
Quoting SpaceDweller
Furthermore light can not create anything


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 May 18, 2022 at 19:18 #697152
Quoting T Clark
Sorry to be a nitpicker, but this is not the reason light slows down in different media.


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 May 18, 2022 at 22:19 #697249
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 May 18, 2022 at 22:27 #697251
Quoting Tobias
In the dark we do not see anything. darkness is dangerous, light is good,


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 May 18, 2022 at 22:28 #697252
Quoting Hillary
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.


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 May 18, 2022 at 22:31 #697253
Quoting Tobias
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.


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 May 18, 2022 at 22:36 #697254
Quoting Hillary
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.


Well than the bat gods be sound... (I do advice you to refrain from eating more mushrooms).
Hillary May 18, 2022 at 22:39 #697255
Quoting Tobias
Well than the bat gods be sound... (I do advice you to refrain from eating more mushrooms).


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 May 18, 2022 at 23:30 #697272
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 May 18, 2022 at 23:49 #697280
Quoting ZzzoneiroCosm
Lucifer - that perennially mortifying, theologically disconcerting - and hence well-glossed-over - morsel of god - is both Prince of Darkness and Bringer of Light


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 May 18, 2022 at 23:51 #697281
Quoting jgill
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.


It's that why a match is called a lucifer?
Benj96 May 19, 2022 at 06:42 #697393
Quoting ZzzoneiroCosm
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.


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 May 19, 2022 at 06:47 #697398
Quoting Hillary
Gods are non-physical eternal


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

Quoting Hillary
could we use light as a metaphor maybe?


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 May 19, 2022 at 06:50 #697400
Quoting Tobias
However, the old German is right, pure light is pure nothingness because it does not bear any contrast within itself.


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 May 19, 2022 at 06:52 #697402
Quoting Benj96
Well I was pouring out how light is also non-physical (massless) and eternal (cannot be created or destroyed)


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 May 19, 2022 at 06:52 #697403
Quoting 180 Proof
If you've got to deify a physical entity, there's none greater than that other "g": Gravity.


Okay I’m listening haha. Can you explain more about why you see gravity as a superior candidate?
180 Proof May 19, 2022 at 18:51 #697811
Reply to Benj96 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 May 22, 2022 at 06:44 #698949
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 May 22, 2022 at 06:54 #698950
Quoting 180 Proof
?@Benj96 If you've got to deify a physical entity, there's none greater than that other "g": Gravity.


...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 May 22, 2022 at 07:13 #698952
Reply to Banno :clap: :smirk:
SpaceDweller May 22, 2022 at 07:49 #698960
Quoting ZzzoneiroCosm
Incidentally, Lucifer ... is both Prince of Darkness and Bringer of Light.


Wrong, Lucifer was the bringer of light but become prince of darkness.
Lucifer never was both.
Isaiah 14:12-15
Deleted User May 22, 2022 at 13:23 #699081
Reply to SpaceDweller

"Oh lucifer, son of the morning!"




Just so lovely and brilliant. A breathtaking poet, Isaiah. :fire: :heart: :fire:




Deleted User May 22, 2022 at 13:50 #699088
Just call me angel of the morning, angel!