The Great Secret of the Universe: God

Introduction

My last article, Religion and Social Progress, got me thinking about something hard enough that I decided to write about it. By now, you might want to ask if I really believe in God, and why. The answer is “yes,” and I will tell you why.

God and Empiricism

God has taken quite a hit since the beginning of empiricism. Pioneers like Copernicus and Galileo dared to share their observations of the world around us, at their own peril, which threatened the “perfect world” created by the almighty God. Humanity’s imagination of the world has evolved over time. Going way back, the world was some big flat tablet that sat on the back of a turtle. Later imaginings yielded an Earth that was in a fixed position, with the sun, moon and stars in orbit around it. Scientific observation showed that not only did the Earth move, but it was not at the center of the universe at all. It orbited around the sun, which also does not lie at the center of the universe. This took away from the idea that God had created a perfect world for his (former) perfect people so they could execute his perfect will. Indeed, scientific observation has done harm to the idea of an almighty God.

Belief in God has always gone hand-in-hand with some kind of religious authority. At one time the Christian church was a unified entity throughout the world. It was a convenient thing because the church had enough clout to take part in government, and because most people couldn’t read and could only receive Scripture through a priest during a service. People questioned existence not really because they didn’t understand the elements; they questioned their own miserable existences at the mercy of the powerful landowners. They would take every bit of hope they would get from the church, and you better believe the church took advantage of that.

The world began to realize it was simply wrong to cater to the rich and leave the poor to their own destinies. We saw things like compulsory schooling for everyone and labor unions. People no longer had to worry as much. There was room to question what the church had told them, especially since most people could at that point read the Bible on their own. As the world grew into the one we live in now, people became more willing to question authority. They became more willing to challenge the ideas that had been passed on to them from previous generations.

Nowadays, empiricism has shown that there is no need for an almighty creator in order for the universe, and us, to exist. Nothing need come from an architect. We know now that something truly can come from nothing without the intervention from a higher power. Nor does the universe need a conductor to lead the greatest orchestra of all. Many have come to believe that they are the masters of their own destiny.

Consciousness I: Consciousness and the Universe

Now, while the universe doesn’t really need God, I have my own reasons to believe there is one. Where I want to start is with consciousness. “What is consciousness” is an age-old question, and I won’t go very deep here. Consciousness, quite simply is awareness of one’s surroundings combined with self-awareness. With that comes the ability to distinguish one’s self from the environment. At one time it was thought that some kind of supernatural force must be behind this. Since we knew nothing of the brain, it was thought that the mind was some sort of manifestation of a soul that was eternal and could live on outside of the body. Today we know that everything about our personalities, memories and behaviors is controlled by our brains, and that the mind cannot survive without the brain.

Now, this does not really rule out the existence of a soul. It merely means that there is no need for a soul in order to explain consciousness. Some might say that since we don’t have a full grasp on what consciousness is exactly, we can’t rule out the existence of a soul. I would agree with this. However, the mysteries behind the mind and brain are unraveling, and the solutions don’t seem to be going in the “there has to be a soul” direction.

So, there we have it. From a scientific perspective, we don’t need God in order to explain the universe, and we don’t need a soul to explain human consciousness. If we don’t need them, then they are just as good as unicorns and dragons. We can’t really disprove them, but it doesn’t matter whether we do or not.

Consciousness II: The Whole is Greater than the Sum of the Parts

In a world of atoms and big bangs it may look like everything is mechanical in nature, without an ounce of divine guidance. Here is where we go back and look at consciousness again. We know that memories are electrochemically stored in our brain’s cerebral cortex. Habits and behaviors emerge from a combination of these memories and the pathways formed by learning. Emotions and decision making are handled by electrochemical processes within the lobes, and these are influenced by genetics. The entire kit and caboodle is controlled by DNA and the environment. Consciousness requires parts that make up a whole, right? So if there is a God, where are his parts? What makes him up? What enables him to be? Again, all signs point toward the necessity of physical being in order for a mind to exist. We don’t see this physical being. Therefore, he must not exist.

But not so fast. We are accustomed to looking at the universe and thinking of it as mostly emptiness. But that isn’t really true. Space is “stuff.” In fact, it may very well be the most basic form of matter. It has been demonstrated that virtual particles can be pulled from the very fabric of space itself. The entire universe is comprised of a physical material. This means there is no such thing as nothing—there is nowhere we can go where physical material doesn’t exist.

The universe has definite behaviors. There is no DNA behind these behaviors—instead, we have the laws of physics. Galaxies that are millions of light years apart interact through gravity and light. Thermal energy is constantly being moved around. Yes, the universe even has a memory, in the form of background radiation. This background radiation stores the information about the birth of the universe, the Big Bang. Causal connections, similar to neural connections, occur via something called the light cone. (I recommend doing some Google research on the light cone. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask.)

Pretty much any object acts as a computer, in the strictest sense. Objects absorb thermal energy (input), store it, somehow modify it, and then output it. While a rock may not seem like a computer, in the strictest sense, it is. One single rock, although able to store and modify information, may not possess consciousness, but millions of rocks close to each other might, for the same reasons that collections of neurons possess consciousness.

The Quantum Mind

Aristotle once said that the whole is more than the sum of its parts. He was referring to the human being. What he meant was that there was something to human existence beyond the materials we are made of. He very well could have meant the soul, but Bernard Haisch, whom I’ve mentioned before, has his own idea. He suggests that the quantum mechanics of the brain introduce a degree of uncertainty to human thought. Let me clarify this: all particles have some degree of uncertainty as to their momentum or position, but this uncertainty only becomes a big deal when you get down into the subatomic world. When you look at the behavior of an electron, you can’t nail down its position or its direction of motion unless you use some sort of detector, and at that point the electron changes its behavior to act like a normal particle. The reason for this is that a single electron actually occupies many positions and moves in many directions at once, something inconceivable in the macroscopic world. As I’ve stated before, this is something that occurs with all objects, and we can even observe the same effects in atoms that we see in electrons. It so happens that signals jump from neuron to neuron via potassium and sodium atoms. Not only that, a variety of chemicals make their way across the brain, and these chemicals are highly dependent on electron activity. These chemicals have a huge influence on our behavior. There is no escaping the quantumness of the brain. The operations within the brain have a degree of uncertainty that take away from the definite mechanics we might expect. What this means is that we can never fully predict a person’s thoughts or behavior, no matter how well we are observing that person (or his/her brain). There’s always a degree of randomness.

The Great and the Small

So if something as small as a human being possesses consciousness, why not something as grand as the universe? The universe seems limitless in its mystery. The universe is at least as complex as the human brain. It has all the same ingredients for processing and storing information that the human brain does. If the universe has some sort of rudimentary intelligence, it may have a way of distinguishing itself from its environment and therefore be conscious.

Oops… the Environment?

By now you are saying “the universe IS the environment!” Well, to us it is. Theorists have shown that the universe may be one of many. It’s possible that each universe is some kind of “bubble” on some kind of surface of unfathomable dimensions. If that is the case, then other universes are the “environment” from which it might distinguish itself (and assuming that I’m right and the universe possesses consciousness).

Conclusion

We have covered several points of relevance here:

• Empiricism has removed the necessity of God in nature.
• Consciousness is the condition of being aware of the environment, aware of itself, and being able to distinguish itself from the environment.
• Consciousness requires physical mechanisms that support intelligent “thinking.”
• The human brain has these physical mechanisms.
• The universe is so complex that it, too, may have these required mechanisms.
• The brain, and the universe, are affected by quantum processes that add randomness.

· There is (possibly) an environment greater than the universe itself, so the cosmic consciousness has an environment from which it can distinguish itself.

These points show that MAYBE the universe has some kind of unified consciousness of its own. I choose to call that consciousness God. Maybe you don’t. Empiricism has challenged the idea of a God in the traditional sense. I have shown that maybe God exists in a different sense.

I’d be happy to discuss it with any of my readers, whether they agree with me or not. Please comment!

Religion and Social Progress

I won’t gain fans with this article, except maybe for people among the communities where I’m not seeking fans. Not that I write my blog to seek fans. If I really cared about the numbers of people who read my stuff, I would post tabloid stories about Michelle Obama cheating on her husband with aliens, with pictures. Or I would write about sex.

What I have to write about is religion, and here I will use the example of Christianity because I’m far more familiar with it than I am with other faiths. I have no desire to prove or debunk anything. I don’t care what you believe (this would be true whether or not I were a blogger) or don’t believe.

Let me first cite some items from Scripture:

Genesis 1:1- In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

Romans 6:23- For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

John 3:16- For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believeth in him shall not perish but have everlasting life.

Revelation 22:18-19- For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book: And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.

If the Bible is held to be the unalterable word of God, then these words are true no matter what era of history we live in. They cannot be altered to accommodate new social standards or human rights activities. Scripture itself prevents modifications due to modern human interests. The Bible declares itself the truth, which means little unless readers lend themselves toward agreement. It is a self-contained truth. It declares itself an authority. Humans must not change it, take away from it, or modify it, because that is making an untruth out of the truth. If you believe the Bible is the unfailing word of God, you must agree.

These days, we have a better understanding of the world around us, and that includes morality. We believe that we don’t need the kind of guidance we needed at one time. Today, as a population, we understand more about personal liberties and we value them more. We don’t do slavery. Homosexuality has become far more accepted. As a whole, we are more willing to look out for the weak. We know much more about the heavens and about nature. We can explain the world without the need for God or any other supernatural being.

Many members of the religious community have practiced tolerance, which to me means progress. There have been efforts across faiths to connect and understand one another. We now have female clergy. Openly homosexual people are being embraced in many parts of the Christian world. A logical sequence of events has happened in history, leading us to where we are now. I doubt that things could have happened in a much different way.

However, if one places God above all else, and accepts the Bible as the infallible word of God, then all of human progress must take a back seat, and in many cases it needs to be discarded altogether. Scripture describes, in more than one place, homosexuality as an abomination. Women are to be subservient to men, and they shouldn’t speak in church. The Bible preaches violence in a number of areas. When we try to explain it away, we are watering down our own love of the truth.

This is a place where I’m forced to say something positive about Westboro Baptist Church. It’s obvious that they believe in a literal translation of the Bible, and to them there is nothing more important. They believe that all good is of God, and that the only one they need to please is God. They (correctly) say that there is more hate in the Bible than there is love.

When we say “the wages of sin is death,” we might ask how that might be interpreted in our modern society to mean something a bit less savage. But the Bible is quite clear that damnation without salvation means condemnation to Satan’s nation, and that isn’t a nice place. God puts people there without reservation if they are without salvation. Is there breathing room there? Another opinion in the Heavenly court? Well, Genesis 1:1 says God created the heaven and the earth, and it sounds like he was playing for keeps. Scripture has definite expectations, and, if we hold it to be the perfect word of God, we can’t have any expectations of God unless we fulfill Scripture’s expectations.

The point is: know what you believe. Think about it. Read about it. If you are a Christian, read your Bible. If you are a Muslim, read your Koran. If you are Jewish, read your Torah. Then examine your priorities. If you aren’t willing to put your faith before human values, then maybe the faith community isn’t for you at all.

WBC, I’m not your friend. I doubt you concluded that I’m your friend, and I really doubt you’re even reading this. I’m only saying that if everyone prioritized their faith as highly as Fred Phelps did, the entire world would probably be Westboro Baptist Church.

Repost: Knowledge

A repost of an article from my other blog.

I would encourage the reader to peruse a book by Chuck Palahniuk called Choke. Mr. Palahniuk also wrote Fight Club, on which the movie by the same name is based. I won't discuss the plot at length. There is a section that describes the protagonist's experience as a boy walking with his mother and looking at the mountains. The protagonist describes his mother's wish to experience the mountains without the filter of perception. Take a moment to think about that. Read my post titled "The world on a diet" before you go any further, if you haven't already.

We take for granted that the world we absorb through our senses is rock-solid and immutable. We have words for everything. If it exists, it is a noun. If it is some sort of process, it is a verb. We have a slew of adjectives and other parts of speech to spice it up some. The world comes in a variety of shapes, sizes and colors. It is the entire basis for existence.

But this world, and the language that sustains it, is simply the world we can all agree upon. (Believe me, I am not talking about the opinions regarding society-- they are as varied as they come.) It is something that looks more or less the same to everyone and fulfills practical purposes.

A fish swims in the water. A fish is comprised mostly of water. It has no idea what water is, because water is everywhere and there is nothing to contrast it with. We look at fish swimming and see an agent moving freely and independently of its environment. We do this because we perceive the fish's shape and color. Without these perceptions, the fish (which is comprised mostly of water) is more or less like a lump in gravy-- a relatively small variation in the aquatic environment. Yes, it moves, but doesn't a lump in gravy move around when you take a spoon to it?

I had a discussion with someone about the expansion of the universe. The question was asked: what is beyond the edge of the universe? We can come up with plenty of guesses. Every one of those guesses will likely be a flight of fancy. It is about as far removed from our world of understanding as one can get. It was at this point that I developed three classifications in the realm of knowledge:

1. Knowledge that we possess. This is the entire body of scholastic work and/or scientific research accumulated throughout history. Ideally, this would be available to everyone, all of the time.

2. Knowledge we do not possess. This is information about the universe that exists but has not yet been discovered.

3. That which is unknowable. Structures and functions in all of reality need not necessarily have some sort of counterpart in the world of information. The unknowable isn't necessarily hidden-- it simply has no analog that relates to perceived classifications and meaningful language. An example of this is the concept of infinity. We can think long and hard about infinity, but we have no means at all of grasping it. We cannot think in dimensions beyond the four that make up the observable universe. And since all of space and time is a part of our ever-expanding universe, we cannot conceive of what might be beyond its edge. Some things are just totally outside the domain of knowledge and understanding altogether.

For most people, none of this is really a big deal, because they give little attention to knowledge, perception and understanding. With an entire cosmos to explore, they are still concerned with bling, sneakers and iPods!

Repost: The world on a diet

The world is hardly a world without someone to call it such.

I'll totally sidestep the issue of society here-- while society certainly isn't moot, it is not what I wish to address here. We all know that we are connected to the world around us through our senses. So, we have nice little adjectives like round, green, smelly, etc. to describe the world around us. Lo and behold, combine those sensory inputs with higher cognitive functions and we have language. We have history. We have a structured way of looking at the world, identifying each part and taking note of how the parts fit together and how they change over time. We know that the sky is separate from the firmament, and that we are surrounded by air. We have even probed the smallest particles of matter. (Never mind that even with all our advanced technology, we still get hung up on silly things like race, gender and creed). We know the difference between two people.

Try to imagine not having any senses-- somehow or another, you can detect motion around you, the direction of your own locomotion, changes in energy in the environment, etc, without your five senses. How do all the parts appear to you now? You would have to do without the superficial identifying qualities like blue, soft, or hot. Limited to environmental properties such as location, energy levels (heat), velocity... you know, the properties identified in physics, you would not only lose the relative value system that your mind assesses your immediate environment with, you would also lose the notions of separateness and distinctiveness.

Go to the beach on a calm summer morning. Breath in the warm salty air. Watch the seagulls frolic about in the sun soaked blue sky. Hear the waves cresting and crashing on the shore. Then close your eyes and remove all the color from the scene in your mind's eye. See only shapes, and then erase the lines from the shapes. Turn the sounds into simple vibrations in the air around you, then remove the air and replace it with billions of complex particles that respond to the sound vibrations. Rid yourself of the smells and detect only the gaseous molecules carried to your nose from various sources.

Last but certainly not least, rid yourself of blue, sun, ocean, etc... words have no place here.

Just what is it you perceive after all this? The honest answer: nothing. But after training yourself for a while, you may just begin to come up with an approximate image. Mine is a near-blackness everywhere, with subtle and blurred shapes moving about. This world, without the filter of perception, has no distinct parts. The area to my left looks slightly different than the area to my right, but everything is all one large system, and nothing is separate. The seagull is not differentiated from the air; Mr. Bird is but a center of activity in the beach-air-sky system. The air and the seagull are not separate, just elements of a greater whole.

In short, the human tendency to name and categorize everything in the universe is an evolved quality. To really understand the real world, you have to strip away the colors and the smells and the words we have all grown accustomed to and take for granted.

4.5head

The term “forehead” refers to the area of the human face that lies between the eyebrows and the forward area of the scalp. Since the term sounds exactly like “four-head,” people have coined the term “fivehead” to describe a higher-than-average forehead, since five is bigger than four. Numerous celebrities have fiveheads, including Jennifer Garner, Mena Suvari and Christian Slater. Now, one must not call bald people like Patrick Stewart or Ben Kingsley fiveheads, because it is the shape of the face and the head that cause fiveheadedness, not one's hairline natural hairline. I believe that if Patrick Stewart hadn’t lost his hair, he would have only an average forehead. Sorry, but in my book, a receding hairline is not reasonable enough grounds for classification as a fivehead.

It has been said that a normal forehead is one in which you can fit four fingers in between your eyebrows and your hairline. This isn’t a rational standard, though, because of the varying thicknesses of human fingers. I don’t want to measure the height of my forehead with the fingers of an anorexic person, as I might wind up having a six- or a sevenhead. Then again, if George Foreman did the measurement, I might just be a two- or a threehead.

I do have a high forehead, but I don’t consider it to be huge. From my own measurements, I’ve determined that I’m a 4.5 head. Or should I call it fourpointfivehead? That is, 4.5 fingers fit between my eyebrows and my hairline. I do have to point out that my fingers are not all of uniform size. I have unusually fat thumbs and unusually thin pinkies.

When someone comes up with a universal standard, let me know.

Repost: Time Wave Zero and the Love of Ideas

This is something I posted three years ago in my other blog, Concepts and Possibilities. I just feel like it is relevant right now. I'm going to post it again on or around December 21, 2012.

60s aficionados may know the name Terence McKenna. I won't go into a biography here as I don't want to get lost in the details of this fascinating man. Mr. McKenna once devised an idea that the passage of time and events in history are inextricably linked. He used symbols from the Mayan calendar to build a fractal pattern that coincides with periods of disaster throughout Earth's history. He referred to these periods of coincidence as singularities, and these singularities would give way to a phenomenon he called novelty (in which the world basically rebuilds itself until the next singularity). It is a very interesting idea with some scientific merit. I recommend you read up on it when you have some time.

I do not embrace this idea as fact in any way. Whether or not the space-time continuum is actually affected by events in history is a question that leads to much speculation, and I don't have any answers here. But it is an idea with its own merits, its own beauty, one to be savored and kept in the mind until it can mingle with other interesting thoughts to possibly give birth to another beautiful idea.

We live in a polarized society that demands immediate results (that we usually won't fight for ourselves) and has become complacent in its thinking. Say you are a pro-choice individual and a pro-lifer speaks up on his beliefs on the matter. Do you automatically blow those beliefs out of the sky, deeming them completely wrong and without weight because they conflict with your own? If you are a creationist, do you shake your fists at the cosmologists who have developed the Big Bang theory, regarding them as stinking blasphemers?

One of the big hurdles we as a race must overcome is the desire to cast as wrong any idea that comes into conflict with our own. Don't get me wrong... we must take a stand against a great number of things like pedophilia, rampant crime and rising oil prices. But outside of the things that directly harm people, there is a great deal of room for movement. Let our arguments be friendly and our words well-considered. An idea should be enjoyed like a fine wine is, whether you embrace it or not.

From Cynthia, with love (on Facebook)

Another message of "love," this time on Facebook. Minimal editing.

Cynthia M****

Hi

My name is Cynthia,how are you doing? How long have you been on the Site?How has the site treated You?Howmany luck have you gotten so Far?I am New to this...I was on the site as am New to check out the members in it and suddenly before getting far i saw your very attracting look and i was impressed to write you this lines so i can also know you better.If you are also new and Looking for a Serious and a Long term relationship ,Kindly get back to me to see if you are the Right man have been waiting For, I would love to know you better i, think we could & would have lots of fun with each other we could hang out spending time with good stimulating conversation doing all kinds of fun & exciting things as sharing our fantasies together getting to know each other being friends having a real relationship with you, you'll find Im also very flexible as well so lets talk getting our fun with each other started. I hope to hear from u soon via email so we can get to learn more about each other from there,take good care of yourself .

Cynthia

Me

Hi!

Good to meet you. I'm glad you wrote me. The thing is, one of my 5 wives is soon to die of cancer and I need to replace her. I think you would look great wearing her pearl necklace! It's ok, I was getting tired of her anyway. I have been telling her for a long time that I wanted to trade her in for a newer model.

I'm so glad you wrote to me! It is hard for me to make time for a pretty young woman such as yourself but I will try. I work a lot and, you know, having 4 other wives takes up a lot of my time too. But sometimes, we can all do things together, right? Like one big happy family. Plus my other wives are too old to have any more children and I made a bet with my brother than I would manage to have a 20th child. Do you think you could give me one? Better hope it's a boy because if not we will have to keep trying! ;)

Do you have a strong back? I have a corn field and the plowing is getting too hard for my legs to handle. Have you ever worked on a farm before?

Well, get back to me soon-- I can't wait to meet you!

Al

Cynthia M****

Thanks albert,I really appreciate your email...I am feeling reluctant to tell you more about me because i don't know how you re going to feel about it...Maybe i will let you know in my next email .....Can you tell me about yourself ?I hope to hear from you and wouldn't mind if you can write me on my private email .. cynthia_m****4dream@*****.com i hope to hear from you soon.

Cynthia

*Sigh* What country was this one from?