Atheists: What do you believe is the most powerful force in the universe?
The human mind? Gravity? Energy? Nature?
Just curious. Or do you not even tend to think this way? Why or why not?
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First thing that comes to mind – love
Second thing that comes to mind – hate
And yes, two minds connecting is a close third
Nature, as well
All these forces work in concert. It’s hard to isolate any one thing and say that it’s the most powerful when everything is relative.
Having to choose however, I would choose gravity since it has the most influence over everything in the universe.
As a former atheist: Entropy. It’s not a particular warm and fluffy unifying law, but it’s about as pervasive as you can get.
Electro-magnatism?
Dammit, @ragingloli You beat me to it!
I don’t tend to think of things that way. “Powerful” is a vague term- powerful in what particular way? Gravity, for example, is a tiny, weak foce, but look at what it can do.
it could also be dark energy, since that is the force thought to be responsible for the universe’s accelerating expansion.
@Lupin – I was just coming in here to mention the strong force! Ya beat me!
I gotta’ tell you. I’m finding Fluther to be a pretty strong force. Damn.
I don’t really think that way because it doesn’t matter to my life.
I am a real practical person. Thinking about gravity/nuclear force/etc doesn’t benefit me. I mean sure it’s good to understand, but trying to compare them in terms of relativity really gets me nowhere, gives me no benefit, and thus is a waste of time.
Why does there need to be a most powerful force? What benefit would you personally get from knowing which force is strongest?
literally in the universe…..quasars, black holes, gamma ray bursts etc.
as related to our lives here on earth…....nothing because it doesnt matter.
I’ll defer to the physicists. I have no idea, but whatever it is, it isn’t us, except insofar as we are part of everything.
As a young adult I had many doubts. Somehow the God of my childhood seemed more and more unreal. At the time I thought that perhaps the most powerful force in the universe is the concept of self-replicating organisms (biology was one of my favorite subjects in high school). But then – almost by accident – I got into cosmology and astrophysics and I mentally went back to the time when it all began. I tried to understand how everything evolved long before the first RNA molecules came into existence. I was hooked. For years I read every book I could get my hands on. And the more I learned about the universe the more my doubts were dissipating and I found a new form of faith. But it was about a different God from the one of my childhood. Probably a more abstract form of a higher power. But it was enlightening and very uplifting nonetheless. So today I have a somewhat different view about the most powerful forces of the universe, but since I’m not an atheist I’m not entitled to answer this question. So I will keep it to myself.
My Mother. When she starts laying on the guilt trip. We all come a runnnin’.
@ChazMaz do we have the same mother? ‘cause that’d be awkward
True! But would be nice to see you for the holidays. ;-)
I was going to say the Strong Nuclear Force. To me, this question is kind of irrelevant. There are no “forces” in the context that this question creates.
Outside of a supernova, and black holes. I think conception is a pretty powerfull thing. Having the ability to grow life inside of yourself, and providing nourishment for the unsuspecting life is quite amazing. On the other hand, light is very powerful element.
nature. no other option for me.
The most powerful thing is God or whatever you decide to label it “Love” “Hate” etc. The fact is – there is no Dana only Zool.
@Lupin: Yep, you beat me to it, too. Cheers!
I’m Agnostic, not Atheist. And I would have to say it’s love.
@AstroChuck your wife is the most powerful force in the universe. although i really don’t think I can defy gravity (I’ve been trying for 14 years).
@mbubbles- And I can’t defy my wife of 22 years. I’m even afraid to try.
@Russell_D_SpacePoet . . .Gravity is actually a weak force. Put a paper clip on a flat surface and then hold a refrigerator magnet over the top of it.
The paper clip is drawn off of the surface and onto the magnet. Your refrigerator magnet just proved itself stronger than gravity.
@Blondesjon – But it works over great distances unlike the strong nuclear force. To me the most powerful force in the universe is God playing dice with perfect uncertainty. Otherwise there’d be no shining galaxies, just a collection of black holes or a boring soup of primordial gas.
@mattbrowne . . .Yes! Although I sometimes think his dice are loaded.
@Blondesjon – So our cosmos isn’t a reputable casino after all ;-)
the odds are always in favor of the house
Supermassive Black Holes.
and when they collide with one another :)
@Blondesjon gravity is only weak here, go near a black hole and tell me gravity is weak.
@uberbatman . . .Whatever! I’m not falling for that again.
my pants still don’t fit right
@Blondesjon Gravity creates stars and planets. It’s the force that pulls them together makes them congeal. I think that the only force that may be stronger would be the force that is responsible for the rapid expansion of the universe. There are also ideas that gravity is much stronger in other dimensions. What we actually get may be a watered down version of gravity.
Inertia is about as strong as it gets. It’s tough to imagine all the planets spinning through simple inertia, but take something the size of a planet and get it moving in a vacuum and nothing will stop it short of another planet. Planets, stars, etc do indeed move by way of inertia because they were at one time propelled by galactic sized explosions and have been spinning ever since. There is simply nothing out there to slow them so they keep spinning.
Picture a moving aircraft carrier then take away the water and all the air and all other environmental things including gravity then try to stop it. It’ll just keep going until it hits something bigger..Short of inertia i suppose imagination is pretty darned strong.
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