Dear John

Thank you for your encouraging words.

I posted this answer also on my thread, but now you will know thet I reacted.

Of course the what we call BB , a something from nothing , is not my favorite explanation of reality ether, you are right when yoy say that a dynamic universe without a zero point is more understandable as a deterministic ad infinitum till zero. It is...

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Dear John

Thank you for your encouraging words.

I posted this answer also on my thread, but now you will know thet I reacted.

Of course the what we call BB , a something from nothing , is not my favorite explanation of reality ether, you are right when yoy say that a dynamic universe without a zero point is more understandable as a deterministic ad infinitum till zero. It is nice to think of the heartbeat of the universe, the only thing is that this comparison has one default , there is a beginning and an end to the heartbeat but just because of the fact that we humans see ourselves as causal and so mortal. Once we leave the causality that is the origin of the arrow of time we are FREE.

You mention a very important thought : “The present seems to move from the Past to the Future, it is actually changing the future int the past” of course this is pure logic, because “every future” will be a “past”. Which means in my perception that ALL possible FUTURES are available in TS as Pasts, so future memory , so available as a future past in our time/life lines. Your energy coupling in this perception is something I have to think about, but when we are regarding e=mc2 , and in this way trying to achieve that our reality is non destructible, so real real and not just a thought or a creation of our consciousness, then I am tended towards the thought that this energy/mass problem is also only a deduction to try to explain our reality (one of the infinity).

Each human being has a “bubble of awareness” as you are citing. Indeed this bubble is referring to my SSS, the Subjective Simultaneity Sphere ( see http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1370 “The Consciousness Connection”. You see consciousness as an energy I see it as a field that is like a catalyst for the mergence of excitations of the matter field, but both views are a form of “energy”.

And indeed John, people are explain everything with data that they receive from their bubble of awareness, which in his turn is limited by the horizon of his observations, once we thought that the earth was at the center of all, but for those people it was “real”, now we think that our bubble was inflated (BICEP) but we are only still observing a little part of the whole shabang, like people before us. Imagine the heartbeat of your universe but then expanded to an infinite amount of bubbles...beautifull isn’t it ?

Wilhelmus

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Dear John,

I appreciate both your paper and your beautiful reply. I mostly agree with you and what you say made me stop for a little while in my job, walk out and start considering your concepts, one by one, under the trees of a park. The result of those thoughts are expressed in the following lines.

Basic sciences have shown, from their very beginning, the greatest interest to...

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Dear John,

I appreciate both your paper and your beautiful reply. I mostly agree with you and what you say made me stop for a little while in my job, walk out and start considering your concepts, one by one, under the trees of a park. The result of those thoughts are expressed in the following lines.

Basic sciences have shown, from their very beginning, the greatest interest to understand the world as well as the laws governing it. They have assumed again and again that knowing reality and predicting its behavior, both aspects are the same thing. Nobody doubts, even building on such oversimplified basis, that sciences have provided numerous and overwhelming examples of their validity; one can find at the present time that most scientists uncritically accept that the initially unavoidable assumptions, made in order to go straight ahead in research, those assumptions are in fact the immovable principles for the functioning of the world. The initial breath of fresh air that signified the birth of science, quickly vitiated and today prevents us from seeing with new eyes the complexity of the world, of human beings and their becoming. Science has betrayed her own consciousness.

This is why it is absolutely necessary to review, with a critical sight, what we mean by knowing, by doing and by knowing what to do. Hence the false choice between theory and praxis, forgetting that every theory finds its justification in experience; abstraction, as the explanation of reality by means of the impossible, the search of universals as an extension of the strictly local, towards the global, and its summit, action, developing a response ability for our movements at the interior of existence, all that needs the resources of humans. And, on their side, humans mustn’t be alienated by a science being stubborn about considering the world as if we weren’t there! I think it should be quite the contrary, namely, as science is one of the main achievements of human thought, provided she ennobles man and makes him living with responsibility.

The “antidote” to prevent the inability in considering men as integral part of the stuff developed by sciences, a spiritual blindness, is the implementation of an integrating discourse without leaving anything outside which concerns humans. The old disjunctive between the ideal and what actually happens in the flowing of time, between necessity and contingence, between universal and particular, puts the solution not at the decision point, but at the enriching fusion of both branches. That’s the way the universal particular and the particular universal emerge as the solution to the contingence of the laws of nature. Reality manifests as a play of contingence, Yes, man can take himself into account while knowing and describing the world by fusing the contraries, in a never ending and never complete hug, because whatever is touched by human beings turns into an enigma, as he is himself one.

What can we do? Even though science is not the only possible answer, she certainly is a privileged path so to structure the human intellect; this is so because of the direct projection of the structure of human intellect that mathematics actually is. In other words, science, which is a product of human mind, goes back to man in order to draw him once more. Nonetheless, this is not a consistent lie undistinguishable from truth; it rather is the helicoidal construction, which cannot go on a straight line, since straight lines are the product of induction, which hardly fits into natural thought, unless mathematics becomes integrated to the structure of the spirit.

Concluding, sciences shall accept that the only possibility for them to keep their consciousness intact is… being willing to change (i.e. to inspect their basic assumptions) whenever is necessary. Like seeing is the function of view, believing is the function of childhood, and only children know that the horizon, even it looks like a border line, is the mark of the beginning of the invisible. From the horizon as the limit of knowledge (Kant), up to that treat with things, fixing the horizon (Zubiri), passing by a construction of a vital horizon (Ortega y Gasset), human beings surely roam through their lives thinking, acting, dreaming…Capable of the highest ideals, as well as the worst nightmares, man will always be a god while he dreams, but a beggar while he thinks (Hölderlin).

Best regards,

Alex

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Dear John,

I thank you very much for your openness of thinking. As I already told you, I completely agree with you and I celebrate that you like to watch from a distance: open spaces are essential to have an idea of the entire landscape. So, after that, you deserve that I widely open my heart to you in a matter as fundamental as time is. But before that I must prevent you that, as it seems...

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Dear John,

I thank you very much for your openness of thinking. As I already told you, I completely agree with you and I celebrate that you like to watch from a distance: open spaces are essential to have an idea of the entire landscape. So, after that, you deserve that I widely open my heart to you in a matter as fundamental as time is. But before that I must prevent you that, as it seems to me is your case, I am not a draft animal, I mean that I usually don't react after whiplashes, on the contrary I frequently resist: I have payed a high price for my freedom in thinking, and I'm sure you know quite well what I'm talking about. I am convinced that a construction of scientific knowledge without taking into account that science is nothing without scientists who, before being scientists, are humans, is a ridiculous, irresponsible, absurd and even monstrous and grotesque task.

We often mistake considering time as equivalent to duration. Starting with the works of Galileo, the isomorphism between time and the line of the real numbers, stablished once and for all that instants in time are points on a straight line. This, of course, banishes us from the whole panorama of the description of nature. That is a consequence of pretending that things are as they are independently of our presence or absence from the cosmic stage. Certainly not, and quantum mechanics, dipping in the same deterministic point of view, still had to recognize that the observer was there for a reason, and he couldn't be innocuous in knowing reality, whilst measurements are on the way.

Well, that is the reason why I've been thinking since almost thirty years ago, when I talked a lot with my supervisor in the PhD in physics, Professor Prigogine, that all this story about multi-dimensional, multi-cosmic, "reality" is nothing but a projection of our deterministic brains. In fact, all we know, all we experience about reality is always past: we cannot see the present, we usually suffer it, one way or another. So the things, in one occasion I said to Prigogine, "well Professor, then there exists only one dimension, namely, TIME, and what we actually call SPACE is nothing but the trace of time, this is to say, past". Professor Prigogine looked pensive after my statement; few minutes later he said that my idea looked a little bit extreme, however I might be right since I was young... I am not young any more, but I still think the same. The only way one can dip into the present is dying. Time is not duration and that is why practically all the equations of physics are perfectly indifferent about the sign of "t": if you change t by -t you will get exactly the same result in all the differential expressions based upon classical mechanics. Even Schrödinger's equation is deterministic, of course, as well as the mathematical characterization of Boltzmann's theorem. That is why time cannot be either a parameter nor a fourth dimension: it's got to be some sort of "operator", comparable with momentum, position and total energy (hamiltonian) operators. Only then Heisenberg's uncertainty relations will have a real meaning.

So, speaking frankly, I think we have really missed the mark from the very beginning (i.e. more than four centuries ago!). The amazing thing is that we have said few things not so stupid. But it is time now to rethink the role of mankind in the generation of knowledge. Self confidence is a good thing as far as it doesn't lead us to be arrogant: you say well, our knowledges and movements in the cosmos are so "viscous", slow, clumsy, naive, that we should be extremely careful about the range of our achievements. In the scope of time, past is space already done (faith, oblivion), future is space not yet done (hope, ignorance) and present is time itself (love, knowledge). Forgive my pseudo-theological allusions, but what I want to say is that we should take seriously all human nature, not just the part that suits me.

I am sorry, dear John, for I've been too long in my reply but, I feel good "talking" with you by this means. As a matter of fact, besides the contest, which is pretty interesting, the "colateral effect" of these communications among the different authors is the best part of it. Thanks for your patience and I hope all this be of some usefulness.

Best wishes.

Alex

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Your first three paragraphs hit the nail on the head. The outline also has one problem – I think the solution cannot be intellectually comprehended by a vast number of intelligent people. The vast numbers need comprehend only how to function within the solution. The solution must increase the complexity of society.

I like to think my paper presents a possible method to the Tower of Babel...

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Your first three paragraphs hit the nail on the head. The outline also has one problem – I think the solution cannot be intellectually comprehended by a vast number of intelligent people. The vast numbers need comprehend only how to function within the solution. The solution must increase the complexity of society.

I like to think my paper presents a possible method to the Tower of Babel syndrome.

I offer some suggestions on a view of money. Milton Friedman’s Free to Choose is a good reference. There is a difference between money and currency. Currency is the medium of exchange. Its advantage is people can trade for useful goods without having to possess the useful thing the other wants. Currency can be hard (gold or gold redeemable, etc.) or paper (backed by government fiat). Money can be currency or actual goods one trader wants such as in barter transactions. The US dollar is by government fiat and backed by force of arms. Therefore, the dollar is subject to government’s fickle nature. The government is responsible for the vicissitudes to which you allude. Of course, the government wants to blame someone else. Banks and financial institutions must act as government desires. Otherwise, the government by force of arms will shut them down. Wealth can be stored by holding the useful items. Other ways of dealing with government currency crash are moving the money, people voting with their feet, preparing such as the doomsday preppers, etc. The more recent innovation of the bitcoin offers a way to a type of currency set by the market and not by the government. The bitcoin is enjoying some popularity but the world governments are disadvantaged and, therefore, will probably take a hard line against it. Also, the government has taken a regulatory line against barter and cash transactions, which easily avoids taxes (another form of money).

Today, religion seems to not include science. Indeed, when a tidbit of the universe becomes science, it ceases to be religion. However, science still fails to define morals to run a society. My paper offers a way around this. So, religion and science must coexist for mankind to advance.

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Hi John,

Your essay shows deep thought about our current human condition. Although you say some may be offended, it is better to question and correct rather than wait for disaster. Your comments on the need for balance between opposing forces is right on. Society depends on meeting the needs of people and we can expect conflict as more people with powerful communication tools start to...

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Hi John,

Your essay shows deep thought about our current human condition. Although you say some may be offended, it is better to question and correct rather than wait for disaster. Your comments on the need for balance between opposing forces is right on. Society depends on meeting the needs of people and we can expect conflict as more people with powerful communication tools start to suffer in-balances. You are right, the original concepts and functions of our institutions have indeed been corrupted. Government and banking are intended to serve. They work well when people know and care for each other, but as you point out money is no longer an exchange medium. It is an end unto itself and a symbol of power. Community bankers used to know people and lending was an exchange of trust to help people. Originally government didn’t even have the power to tax because that was not its primary purpose. Representatives used to represent but they lost contact and see us as a vote to get to keep their jobs.

Thanks for reading and commenting on my essay. I see some small differences in our thoughts but we totally agree on information and energy being two sides of the same coin. I proved (at least to myself) that information and energy are fundamentally related. The June 2012 essay is now: Barbee, Gene H., A Top-Down Approach to Fundamental Interactions, FQXi essay, June 2012 and vixra:1307.0082 revised Mar 2014. Also, I also proved to myself that life is a consequence of quantum mechanics operating in an information based reality. That essay is now: Barbee, Gene H., Life from Information, vixra:1311.0124v1, FQXi 2013 essay contest.

We think a little differently in the following regard: I view the laws of nature as information transitions and energy as the result so I tend to believe that information is pre-eminent. I believe in creation from zero energy (a flat cosmology demands this). Several authors, one being Charles Seife, have made the statement “the universe appears to be a giant thought”. I tend to agree but I also agree with your thoughts about absolute knowledge. If she exists, can’t she just be a devine friend?

If you have time: Barbee, Gene H., On the Source of the Gravitational Constant at the Low Energy Scale, vixra:1307.0085, revised Feb 2014. Prespacetime Journal Vol. 5 No. 3 March 2014.

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Dear John!

I liked your essay. It inevitably conveys essential well-formed thoughts which regard and can attract the interest of a broader audience. Your longer comments also are sympathetic for me, due to those also informatively express your wide-scale interest, knowledge and wisdom inside.

I welcome too, your mentioning the top-down bottom up 'logic', due to it is vital to...

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Dear John!

I liked your essay. It inevitably conveys essential well-formed thoughts which regard and can attract the interest of a broader audience. Your longer comments also are sympathetic for me, due to those also informatively express your wide-scale interest, knowledge and wisdom inside.

I welcome too, your mentioning the top-down bottom up 'logic', due to it is vital to understand also for the complexity of energy/information transfer in an organism either realized and may be controlled voluntary, consciously or operating only behind naturally balanced.

(Because I'm an IT expert therefore, this topdown problem much times turns up. When I was a young student in the University I had a heavy debate with my programmer teacher and I questioned: - How should be one able to sketch a plan of a program structurally well organized from top if he has nothing information which kind of basic elements are at his disposal from which he needs then build/write a concrete program? He answered me, that is not necessary to know when planning. I couldn't then agree, so I got fail '1'. Now, I can partially agree theoretically, due to a discretion of my insufficient information given in my question. I did not put there that clause - ... if I were the planner and the programmer in one.) I think, my teacher was partially right in his theoretical statement, and I failed my question. However I think, the fact remains that much problems are raised by this theoretical truth making which have been waving yet in the religious, political, scientific systems for governing successful group organizations. Surely, there need to be stratum of knowledge which ones should have to have to do their works at their proper places, not only for their self-interest but for a broader scale of goods and those works are can be structurally shared even so being been co-working. I think, a planner or leader need to know as much about the bottom up working of the system as how one be able to make a successful guiding plan from top to bottom. Otherwise one can plan system/systems which should work only from top to bottom governed albeit worked out by well-thought out planning systems somehow independent from or completely subordinating the bottom, so probably never fulfilling both can be balanced.

You also mentioned my favourite viewpoint written in my essay pointing a comparison between a societal organization and a biological working of a human body.

I think, this similitude as a Universal model is vital finally (or as a renewed starting point)to recognize, however that is also very essential to apprehend and re-consider: - What are our cells pays to each other for their co-working to keep a whole organism healthy? What if when a group of cells or some individual cells not in their right place try to gain dominion over a whole complex?

At the moment albeit we should be at the start line to recognize the UNIVERSAL model, however until we do not apprehend that too, it is not a right goal (at least beyond reason to achieve ) to overcome ourselves! That is beyond reason to overcome a Universally and unconditionally given well-working, self-sustaining NATURE.

All what any religious message could convey - The LIFE, THE EXISTENCE IS UNCONDITIONALLY GIVEN AND IMMORTAL! NOT ONLY THE SPIRITUAL BEINGNESS, THE FORMLESS SELF IS IMMORTAL, BUT THE WELL BALANCED NATURAL PHYSICALLY ARRANGED NATURE from its bottom to top IS IMMORTAL! At which apex can be the UNIVERSAL NATURALLY ORGANISED MAN, who is able to recognize, apprehend himself, and can keep governed his existence from top to bottom well balanced! IT NEED NOT TO BE PROVED only EXPERIENCED!

The questions are not WHO is or WHO are the GODs! Whether he/she has male or female characteristic. Some religious interpretations really can be outdated and sometimes seriously goal oriented. But the real message behind unequivocal for every one of us!

As Aristotle ever said, and I can agree - THE GOD is - the self-thinking thoughts what ability is inherently and also unconditionally given for the MAN!

The utmost WISE one needs only to know - WHAT HE/SHE DOESN'T WANT TO KNOW and WHY!

So, I agree, and liked! "...So if God is in charge, she apparently dosnʼt want to know everything..."

I agree with you also the essential statements you exert such as are:

"..Information is dynamically complex and complexity tends to become unstable beyond a certain level.."

"..We frequently build out levels of complexity and then struggle to maintain them and manage their consequences..."

However, I should be in disagreement with you some of your statements or at least the deduction you made, concerning the 'Absolute', 'Void has no form' and

'We are fundamentally linear creatures.'

"..So knowledge is a function of the detail .." I think, depending on how one conceptualize the details. But, in that meaning the Absolute - as the unconditional existence itself - doesn't depends on the details those (I agree) '..lost for the absolute.."

"..The void has no form. Sorry Plato.."

I have some questions for you to test and answer for yourself:

Can you think on - nothing, no think, no thing, no signal, no noise - in the meantime you are inhabiting a form of your physical body? Try it! What can you sense, see when you contemplate the void? What does this experience mean for you?

"..We are fundamentally linear creatures.." "..we are linear, object oriented thinkers, .."

We are fundamentally NOT a linear creatures! Just you wrote much about the time flowing back and forth from past to future and backward too, and how " ..individual organisms die and pass on their genetic code.."

Our present consciousness is conditioned to think that or so! I tried to give some mentioning in my essay - independently from our absolute existence -

We are fundamentally not living in time! Our present consciousness however need to some pre / post processing not to act and react just-in time. However how much it can be artificially delayed and over loaded our natural electric body circuits or that can be substituted with some kind of else basic material... s it in question yet, I think running by some kind of experiments?

"...while the larger reality is one of balance and process.." to understand where is the optimal boundary for us to know, what and why, and how to use it well. I hope at least, this is so, truly. :)

Best of all,

Valeria

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Dear John,

I read your paper and found some of your economic concepts to be very good for someone not expert in that field. I also found your concept of the dichotomy of energy and information pretty good.

I must admit, however that I found your description of the nature of God to be lacking. It appears that you either don’t have a good understanding of what is meant by those who...

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Dear John,

I read your paper and found some of your economic concepts to be very good for someone not expert in that field. I also found your concept of the dichotomy of energy and information pretty good.

I must admit, however that I found your description of the nature of God to be lacking. It appears that you either don’t have a good understanding of what is meant by those who might say that God is an all-knowing absolute being or you have purposely chosen to use a different meaning for the word absolute than they would intend when using that term. You chose the meaning of absolute zero in an attempt to portray God as cold and distant and as zero or empty of all ability, etc. Those that believe in God would, on the other hand, intend it to mean that God is complete in himself, whole in himself, independent from all others, existing independent of all other causes, unlimited by any external power or control, pure, free from imperfection, perfect, supreme, the independent unrestricted, unlimited, and perfect being. All of the above are also meanings of the word absolute and would give a completely different understanding of God’s nature. Of course, it could be that you never came in contact with any believer in God so that you could enquire of him about the meaning of absolute that he would intend if he used that phrase and never looked it up in a dictionary, but may have heard of absolute zero, so that is all you had to work with. I hope that is the case because I have found that those who purposely attempt to misinterpret other’s sayings to attempt to belittle or make fun of them or their beliefs, as an attempt to discredit those beliefs so they can replace those beliefs with their own propaganda beliefs generally do so because they lack a reasonable logical argument to support their own beliefs. Your interpretation of all-knowing is also lacking. First you treat God as though he is just a man and subject to all of man’s limitations. If God created the universe, he is much more than the total of all men who have ever and will ever have lived. Before he made the universe he would plan it out and in so doing he would generate all of the information concerning it and its construction. His plans could have included the complete paths and interactions of all sub-energy, energy, and matter particles from the beginning of the universe to its end. This would give him complete knowledge of all things that would ever happen in the universe. Man might have to eliminate all that is meaningless because of his limited perspective of the universe, but since God generated it completely, he would positively know all things concerning it. He would not have to worry about any noise to eliminate. As an example, there are a multitude of possible ingredients that could be included in a recipe and those included could need to be added in certain ways and orders in order for the resulting meal to come out right. Someone who sees the meal, but does not know the recipe might have to try many things and eliminate all that don’t work until he finally has eliminated all things that don’t go in the recipe to finally get it right, but if you create the recipe, you know what goes into it and how to add all of those things in the way that makes it to come out right. You don’t even have to consider all of the other possible ingredients that are not part of the recipe (the noise). To actually know the complete recipe of how to make the universe would be a good thing for one who could contain it all without it being overwhelming to him. If he could design and build the universe, he could also contain its information. Moreover, if your concept that too much information overloads the circuits on which information depends in man, then as man increases in knowledge he would be moving toward the condition of being absolute all-knowing and the end of that pursuit would be attaining a state of knowing nothing. If man started with no knowledge and will end with no knowledge, but has presently gained some knowledge, then the process would likely start at zero, increase to some maximum amount of attained knowledge and then decrease to zero again. It would in that case be best for man to stop trying to gain any more knowledge at the maximum knowledge point to avoid losing it all. The problem is that man might not be able to determine when that point is reached, so he might lose most of it before he noticed that it was being lost. Maybe according to your theory man should immediately stop trying to gain any more knowledge in case that midpoint has already been passed. Wow, I didn’t realize how easy it is to generate nonsensical theories. Of course, I guess it is easier if you start with nonsensical premises. The real answer to the problem that you mention for man is that each person does not have to know and understand all of the information that has been obtained by man. When you have many people, each one can specialize in one area of knowledge and go deep into that narrow part of the total knowledge pie. The larger the number of people, the larger can be the total amount of obtained knowledge. Also, bigger and more powerful machines can store all of the information and retrieve the needed parts of it for man when it is required. This may not be as esthetically pleasing to a man as it would be to be able to personally know all of the obtained information, but the society as a whole can still function well and courses in basic structuring can be made available to any that desire to take them and then they can proceed to more advanced levels in areas of their interest, so it’s not that bad. There would also be the need for information combiners that would have less detailed understandings of the small specialized areas, but would be able to combine information from many of them for specific purposes, etc.

I do like your understanding that the physical need to deal with adversity is a source of character and spiritual growth or strength. You understand at least part of the reason that God allows people to suffer. I find it amazing that so many people in this world make themselves suffer greatly for many years just to try to win an Olympic medal or some other small unimportant thing in the overall scheme of things and then ask why an all-powerful and all-good God would allow people to suffer adversity, when he uses it to prepare them for eternal life in him.

There are other things that could be mentioned also, but this comment is getting large, so I will stop here.

Sincerely,

Paul B.

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Dear John,

Of course, as you say, you can make your own private definition of a word, but I have found that it is usually best to invent a new word or phrase if you need to communicate some new concept rather than trying to apply a new meaning to an existing word because it is less confusing to readers who may from their past experience think that you mean one of the existing meanings of...

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Dear John,

Of course, as you say, you can make your own private definition of a word, but I have found that it is usually best to invent a new word or phrase if you need to communicate some new concept rather than trying to apply a new meaning to an existing word because it is less confusing to readers who may from their past experience think that you mean one of the existing meanings of that word and thereby misunderstand what you are saying. You seem to be using the word absolute to represent all things and only all things. You also seem to believe that all things somehow cancel each other out to basically equal zero or nothing. In fact, if you look at the definition of the word absolute you see that it mainly implies the maximum extreme condition of something, not necessarily all things. You are right that zero is a maximum extreme of real quantity with infinity at the other extreme end. Of course, if you weigh and balance out zero with infinity as you describe to be needed in your paper, it doesn’t seem that zero would necessarily be the balance point between the two opposite or conflicting extremes.

To be fair, you do mention the universal state of the absolute and say that it would be a condition of overwhelmingly basic simplicity. Of course, we live in the absolute universe, we should, therefore, live in this state or condition of absolute simplicity that you mention where all conflicts are balanced out, there is neither good nor bad, up or down, inside or outside, etc. In reality things don’t work that way though. If in the universe all up’s and all down’s balanced and canceled out as you seem to be saying, we would not see any up’s or down’s in the universe, but that is not what we see. You might say that all of them cancel each other out on a complete universal scale, but don’t at the small scale that we can observe, but the full universal absolute knowledge of all up’s and down’s would not just include knowledge of the universal balance, it would also include knowledge of all of the individual up’s and down’s and the details of each one of them such as their locations in the universe and how far up or down they are, etc. The true absolute being would not only know the absolute generalization of all things, he would also know all of the details of each and every thing in existence from the smallest to the largest. After all, he would need to know all of these things in order to be able to come to the absolute conclusion that they really do balance out (that is if they really do). The universal absolute being would, therefore, not only need to know all of the balance points between the extremes of every type and the extremes of each and every thing, he would also have to know the state or condition(s) of each and every type or thing that generates those balance points. This would also all be necessary for him to be able to create the universe in the first place. Every detail about everything at all scales of all variables would have to be known including how they all relate to and interact with each other. Contrary to your belief that he would know nothing, he would actually have to know all the details of all things in order to have been able to have created the universe.

It looks to me that you began with the assumption that God does not exist in the form of an intelligent being that could plan, design, and create the universe without any real logical reason for taking that position. Once that belief is established it becomes necessary to somehow explain how the universe came into being as it is. The current problem with this concept is that observational information shows that the universe did not always exist, but had a beginning or creation and will also have an end. Various cyclical theories have been proposed, but the question remains as to what caused the beginning of the first cycle and since the end of one cycle destroys all information from that cycle, it is not possible from within any given cycle to prove that any other cycles have ever existed. Thus, it can only be considered an unprovable hypothesis or a blind faith belief. There is the problem of how the universe was generated from nothing and if something existed before it, what was it and what created that thing? Again that information is not accessible and, therefore, only another unprovable hypothesis. Moreover, it does not make much sense to believe that all of the complexity of structure that is present in the universe just happened by probability because that probability would have needed to be great enough to start from nothing and generate all things in existence at least within about the 14.5 billion years or so that man currently believes to have passed from the beginning of the universe. The size of the universe and the limited speed of light can make it difficult to envision how some complex structures could have been generated. One example is that since its formation the earth could have only made about 35 revolutions around the galaxy. Even if it and the galaxy had been formed immediately 14.5 billion years ago, it could have only made about 115 revolutions around the galaxy. This means that all of the complex structure of the outer parts of galaxies would have to have been formed in very few revolutions of the galaxy around its center.

More importantly and much harder to justify is that all of the complexity of life on this planet would have to have first begun and then to have generated all existing life forms and all forms that once existed, but have now gone extinct within 4.5 billion years, which is the belief of how old this planet is. No one knows how the first creature could have been formed without being created by an intelligent being since the universe other than living creatures, which would not have existed before the first living creature was formed, actively works to destroy complex high potential energy structures such as DNA and large Protein based molecular machines, etc. necessary to produce even simple living creatures. The probability that all of the complex structures necessary to even build a simple living creature would first be all formed in one place and then somehow be joined together in such a way as to produce a living creature before any were destroyed by entropy is just too small to be a practical belief. The biggest problem with explaining the complexity of life is that if one assumes that it is due to evolution caused by transcription errors during DNA copying with the good results being selected by natural selection, and a probability time between each positive change is chosen that is short enough so that all different living creatures could have been developed by the present time, we should be seeing major evolutionary changes taking place all around us in most current living creatures. This is because in the beginning there would have been only one creature of one type and positive changes would have to be often enough with the relatively small number of creatures that would exist in early times to produce adequate good changes to generate new types of creatures. As the number of different creatures and the number of each type of living creature increased in the earth, the rate of evolution would increase because the larger number of creatures would generate a larger number of good transcription errors. With the great multitude of many types of living creatures today (including 7 billion of man) we should be seeing large numbers of changes each year, but that doesn’t happen. A good demonstration example of this principal is atomic decay. If you look at an atom that has a 1 billion year half-life, you could expect to wait 1 billion years to have a good chance to see it decay, but if you look at 1 billion such atoms at once, you could have a good chance of seeing one atom decay per year. I have found that often only one side of a problem or a solution to a problem is looked at. Usually it is the side that supports a desired belief, but often there is another side that can show that what looks good when only looked at from the preferred side can be seen to not be practical when one looks at the whole picture. Of course, those who strongly desire to believe that there is no intelligent God who created the universe (usually because they desire to be god themselves) are still free to believe it against all probability by blind faith. I can have compassion for them because I once was an agnostic for about 22 years. My desire to know the truth about the universe compelled me to change that belief as new scientific information became available that showed it to be just too improbable that it could have arrived at its current complex, but stable state by chance happenings. The thing that finally caused me to believe in an intelligent God was that after I gained access to scientific information that no man on this planet knew about, I opened up and read some of the Christian scriptures and found that it had been recorded in the scriptures more than 2 thousand years ago. The scriptures could not have been made by man because much of the observational data that would allow some of those concepts to be thought of and developed has only come to be available to man in about the last 100 years and some is still not observationally available to man except that it is recorded in the scriptures.

For your information, a temperature of absolute zero is not actually a state of no energy or action whatsoever as you have in your paper. It is the point at which there is no molecular motion for all practical purposes, but electrons are still moving around in the molecules’ atoms (generally at their lowest energy levels) and still even going between atoms in the molecules to maintain the chemical bonds. The motions of the particles in the nucleus are still taking place and all the motions in the matter particles are still continuing. Sub-energy flow motions are also still taking place. So you can see that many actions are still going on at absolute zero. Matter can even radiate energy photons and matter particles at absolute zero. If you lower a sample of fissionable matter to absolute zero, atoms in it will still decay into lighter atoms and radiate energy photons and/or matter particles in the process. Motion is the true basic energy and as you can see there is still much motion present at absolute zero. I hope this is of help to you.

Sincerely,

Paul B.

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Dear John,

Sorry to hear about your loss of your father when you were earlier in life than happens to many. Was your monotheist background Christian or some other? Was your father’s the same as yours? We both share something that I have found to be very common among those who either leave or distance themselves from God. It usually happens due to some traumatic or very negative...

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Dear John,

Sorry to hear about your loss of your father when you were earlier in life than happens to many. Was your monotheist background Christian or some other? Was your father’s the same as yours? We both share something that I have found to be very common among those who either leave or distance themselves from God. It usually happens due to some traumatic or very negative experience. In my case I went to a parochial school that taught about God, but did not actually have the students read the scriptures. As a result I had been told that if I had a need, I should pray to God and he would help me. I assumed that meant he would give me what I asked for. I was only about 9 or 10 years old at that time, so I didn’t think to try to read the scriptures by myself. When my parents got separated it was a very traumatic experience to me, so I prayed to God and asked him to bring them back together again. They actually did come back together for about a year during which my youngest brother was born, but then they got divorced, and even though I asked God to bring them together again he didn’t do it. This caused me to doubt whether he existed or not. Looking back it seems like it would have been best to go to the scriptures and read them for evidence of God’s existence, but that did not come to my mind at that time. Instead I went to science because I had always wanted to know how the world worked and I thought that I could look for evidence of God’s existence there. In science it was the time of the steady state universe belief and living cells were considered to be bags containing protoplasm and cytoplasm and some strange unknown life force. If the universe always existed and life was that simple, it seemed that evolution (which was then as is now the popular belief of how all living creatures came into existence) made sense, so I tended to believe it.

As science advanced over the years and it became apparent that the universe had a beginning and was, therefore, created and living creatures were extremely complicated in structure, evolution made much less sense. During that time I gained access to scientific information that was not known by man that explains things like the causes for the various outcomes that are generated by matter particle interactions and explains the specific cause for the specific probability that each outcome will occur as it does, etc. This required that the universe would be structured in certain ways. By that time there had been adequate advancement in particle physics so that when I looked to see if that structure was evident I found that the available observational data supported that structure as existing. I found it interesting that man had completely ignored it.

That brings me to the second thing we share. I have noticed that the age range of 30 to 35 seems to be a period when people either leave or come to God in larger numbers than at other ages, at least in my experience. I was about 33 years old when I decided one night that it would be interesting to read some of the scriptures to see if they made any sense. I opened them to the last book because I had found that the end of a book often gives a good idea of what the book is about. I read the book of the Revelation of Jesus Christ and to my surprise the structure of the universe that I had found to be necessary to explain things was already recorded in the scriptures. Next I started to read them from the beginning and found the same thing in the beginning of the book of Genesis. I could have considered it just a coincidence, but it looked too much like God had slowly prepared me over the years and gave me the information just at the time that the experimental observational data was there to support it and then he led me to open and read the scriptures just at the right time when I had gained and confirmed the information that would allow me to see and understand these things to show me that he exists and has the power and ability to make all these things work together with perfect timing. That plus the fact that the scriptures had been written over 2 thousand years earlier proved to me that they could not have been created by man because at that time man had none of the scientific information to allow anyone to be able to know of these structural details of the universe. Since then as I have read the complete scriptures, I have found much other information about things in this world and our lives in it about which science has only recently found the confirmation of their positive aspects, such as the use of olive oil, which has been recently found to have a good cholesterol balance of HDL to LDL compared to most of the oils that are currently most used by man for food production. Another example is the mention that in the beginning man was given to eat the fruits of tress and their nuts and again recent scientific findings show many benefits of eating these foods, etc. God tells us how we should live our lives in respect to him and others and recent scientific findings have shown that those who follow these ways tend to live longer, healthier, and happier lives than those who don’t.

Although all of these things and others make for many confirmations that the scriptures were not created by man because man did not possess the supporting information at the time they were written, what I find most interesting is that in them God tells us why he made the universe and what part we have in his creation. It turns out that God is a Spirit and he is making a body for himself to live in. He made this creation to be the place where he is making his body. It is his body manufacturing plant, so to speak. His body is to fulfill all that he desires of it and is being made to last without end, so it is important to him that it be made to be perfect in all aspects. We have been given by him the ability to choose one of two possible overall choices that determines our place in his creation. We can either chose him in the way that he has provided for us to do in which case we are made to be members or parts of his body or choose someone or something else in which case he uses those who make this choice as part of the machinery he uses to produce his body members. Of course, once his body members have all been made, he will have no more need or use for this creation or the machinery that is part of it that was used to produce that body, so all of his motion that he used to make it will be reclaimed by him and it will thus be destroyed in the process. His body members, on the other hand, will be transferred to a new and better permanent creation and he will eternally live in them there.

Most other religions that I have looked at treat God as an impersonal and usually unintelligent force, as a vindictive dictator for whom man must continually sacrifice, or as a weak and desperate being who created us only so he could become man’s servant or slave to give man anything that he desires and expects nothing from man in return. I find these concepts of God unrealistic and based on man’s weaknesses and imperfections. Those who believe in a force type of God usually think that man will somehow learn to use that force and that man will essentially then become God. These people actually think of the one who created the universe as something less than a man to be controlled and used by man. Those who think of God as an evil dictator also think of God as if he was just a man and they realize that if a man had the power to create the universe and them, he would surely use that power to mistreat those under him in power. Those who think of God as their servant also desire to Be God themselves. They desire to completely reverse the relationship that God as our creator actually deserves. Only in the Christian scriptures is God shown to be an intelligent being who made this universe and us in it for his own reasonable and rational purpose, but his purpose shows that he loves man enough to create him and take the long period of time with man that is necessary to prepare him to become his perfect eternal body. Although it is not a perfect image because we are not perfect, the closest image that we have to this is the relationship that our spirit has with our own body. Our spirit generates all of our intents or purposes that we desire to fulfill. It will generally not have an intent that would be harmful to our body, but those that will be good for and pleasurable to both our spirit and our body. When our body members have needs they either send out signals to other body parts to directly fulfill them or send them out to our spirit through our soul which generates thoughts that our spirit can understand and then our spirit generates an intent to fulfill that need and sends it to our soul where thoughts are generated that our body members can understand. These thoughts are sent to our body members that can generate that which is necessary to fulfill the needs and those that can transport that which is needed to the member(s) that need it. Those body members then take care of the need. The body members give to each other according to the needs of each part and according to the thoughts sent to them by the soul. The soul sits in the middle as the mediator between the body and the spirit. It translates the messages from the body and sends the result to the spirit and it translates the messages from the spirit and sends them to the body. This is an image in the world that God has given us of our relationship with him. God is the Spirit, Christ Jesus is the mediator between God and man and man is his body. The reason that we are not perfect images of God is that in this world where God is teaching us how we are to behave so that we can all live together without end and not destroy one another and so that our lives can be joyful and fulfilling for all of us and also for God, he gives us examples of what happens when we behave contrary to what he teaches us. We, therefor, have examples like cancer, etc. that show what happens when body members either don’t do what they need to do or try to take more than they need for themselves at the expense of other members, etc. He also gives us examples of what it would be like if he were to not love us as he does and instead would treat us badly or destroy us, such as body mutilations and suicide, etc. These examples generally are not pleasant to us, but are necessary in this life so we can see and learn why God asks us to do the things that he does and so we can fully realize just how bad the result would be if we don’t do according to his will, since his will is what will work to allow us all to have life and have it more abundantly in continual love for one another without end in the world to come after this world is destroyed. This is just a short summary and there is so much to understand and I would like to keep going, but I don’t want to give too much at a time because I have found in my life that if I receive too much all at once, I tend to lose concentration and then miss much of what is given, so I will stop for now. If there are any special questions or things that you need answered let me know and I will try to answer them. I don’t claim to know everything myself yet though.

Sincerely,

Paul B.

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John,

I see that you too appreciate that we must first ask about the nature of things and not just pose suggestions in a vacuum. It is true that energy and information are related: just consider the Shannon entropy, and the various attempts to correlated gravity to entropy etc, and the connection of information/gravity/thermodynamics in the black hole information paradox. Thermodynamics...

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John,

I see that you too appreciate that we must first ask about the nature of things and not just pose suggestions in a vacuum. It is true that energy and information are related: just consider the Shannon entropy, and the various attempts to correlated gravity to entropy etc, and the connection of information/gravity/thermodynamics in the black hole information paradox. Thermodynamics seems more and more analogous to more and more things, something Prigogine got started with an idea of entropty being more fundamental than a mere derivative of classical ensemble statistics. We can go back to Erwin Schrödinger and "negentropy" (or "syntropy") in his 1944 popular-science book What is Life? But it is all controversial and unclear, not yet a "well developed theory."

Your pinballing around is somewhat like my own . Your speculation about God and the fundamental nature of consciousness reminds me of my own proposal that consciousness (the basic feeling of existence) derives from the fundamentals of existence rather than complex cognitive appreciations. I think you noticed that yourself, implied in your comments (I appreciate your interest.) You wrote:

So if God is in charge, she apparently doesn't want to know everything. Possibly a more reasonable theological proposition is the spiritual absolute would be the essence of awareness and beingness, from which we rise, not an ideal form from which we fell. In a sense, a spiritual energy, rather than the intellectual forms it manifests.

That is very similar to my stating as follows:

...Well, suppose that a mind really works like a computer. That means, all it does is describable in terms of math. If that is so, then its operations don't depend on whether MUH [Tegmark's Mathematical Universe Hypothesis - math abstractions are literally all that exist, there is no "esse" fleshing out some possible model worlds, and not others] is true or not. All your brain could know is the abstractions represented by its computational activity. The same computations happen anyway in either a purely abstract sense, or in a world that is "made of math", as would happen in a special material world. Mathematics is defined and operates only on its own ideals, even though it seems to us to represent "realness" and not just pure form. Hence there would be no way for your brain to detect its substantive existence in a material world that was not just an abstract model world. ...

If we know that we and our world are "really real" and not just mathematical structures, our minds must intimately connect to the ground of being that constitutes the universe. Otherwise, brain processes would not be able to access that fundamental fact and reality - they would operate "above" (perhaps "below" is a better metaphor) that level and not be able to have awareness of it. That means that consciousness and "being" are the same essence, as the great mystics have experienced. Sentio ergo sum - I feel, therefore I am.

(In other words, "the essence of awareness and beingness" are indeed the same and not a dichotomy, and at heart expressed as "spiritual energy" rather than "intellectual forms.")

As for practical proposals, I agree that we need to re assess and reform our monetary system. It's just too precarious and bubble-prone. Money is surely the sociological expression of something which is both data and "work performing" as a dynamic enabler. You have some ideas in that vein worth considering, have you compared notes with Stefan Weckbach and Harlan Swyers?

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Dear John,

When you said “one day I just had this great yawning sense that any such essence would be so far beyond any reality I could comprehend, it left me disoriented and I couldn't shake it. I thought you were saying that you thought God was so beyond your comprehension and disconnected from your reality that you felt disconnected or distant from him in your relationship with him and...

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Dear John,

When you said “one day I just had this great yawning sense that any such essence would be so far beyond any reality I could comprehend, it left me disoriented and I couldn't shake it. I thought you were saying that you thought God was so beyond your comprehension and disconnected from your reality that you felt disconnected or distant from him in your relationship with him and that was somehow different from how you felt before that time. I may have misinterpreted that, however.

You are right I do have some basic boxes that separate some from others, but they are not boxes that I created. They are the boxes that God created. As an example, God has set up the choices we must make and the things we must do to become members of his body and be joined to him to have the close relationship with him where he shows us what he is doing and helps us to do likewise to please him and so we can actively grow in our knowledge of him and what he is doing in this world and why he is doing it that brings us into agreement with him as we more and more see his love and care for us, so we then learn how to love him and others also and have a desire to help others to also get that relationship. God explains these boxes in the scriptures (Holy Bible New Testament). As an example, no one can come to God the Father except by his son Jesus Christ and to be saved (become a member of God’s body) it is necessary to receive and believe in Christ (Must believe that The Father sent him into the world to die for us so that we could have our sins forgiven and be reconciled and restored to a good relationship with God and that he did die for us and was buried and later resurrected as a witness to us that God the Father actually sent him and that he has the power to also raise us up and he was then received up to God to dwell with him until his enemies are brought down to earth.) (Must repent from our sins and ask God to forgive them and believe that they are forgiven.) (Must receive him as our Lord and Savior and believe that his words are actually God the Father’s words that he gave through his son Jesus Christ.), etc.

God is the one who is the true center of all things because he made all things and existed before all other things. He does, however, tell us about his body, so he does put us in the center of the conversation in some places in the scriptures. I can’t claim to be very important among the members of his body. I am sure that many others have been given more important positions in the body than I will likely have. So far it seems that I mostly get the hard cases to deal with, but that may be because I was one of them. If I have a ministry it is to those in the scientific community because of the information that God has given to me in that area, but a large percentage of that community is currently devoted atheists or those who believe that they are God or will somehow evolve to be God, etc. For the most part very few have even understood and accepted any of the scientific information that has been presented, which could result in great advancements for man and these things are very much based on observations that could be checked out. All that is necessary is to develop the math to support it. How much harder would it be to convince those who have committed much of their lives to developing quantum physics based theories and evolution based concepts to explain creation and the development of living creatures, etc. that God exists and made all things. So I am not likely to be one of those who convert thousands to God in a day or anything like that. If I work for many years and only one is saved by all that labor, I would consider it time well spent, however. Of course, I would like to believe that many will see and receive and believe and be saved and also that the scientific principles that are presented will be received and put to use by man in the right way so as to make life better for all those who are still living here in this world. In the long run it is up to God how he uses me in those respects and others, however. I have come to the conclusion that the work that God gives us to do, such as teaching the Gospel to others, is as much if not more for our learning and growth as it is for those who are taught by us. After all, God could certainly do a better job of it himself, if he desired to do so. He often uses our interactions with others to show us things about him and his works. As an example, in my conversation with you I mentioned that my parents were divorced and I also talked about how important it is to God that his body be perfect (lacking nothing), but I didn’t tell you that the reason that my parents got divorced was mostly due to money problems. My father worked switching cars for the railroad and made good money at it. Then he got his hand caught between two cars and it had to be cut off. After that he got a job in a cement plant that paid less, but it was still enough for us to get by on. Then he got a finger on his other hand caught in a machine and lost it. After that he could only get a job as a night watchman and could not make enough for us to keep up with our bills. I had never thought of it before, but it all came together to me when I was writing my previous comment to you that God was showing me, by my actually having to live through it, how important even a small loss of a part of the body is. The hand is not the most important part of the body, but it made the difference between a good life and a just getting by life. The loss of that one more finger, which is even a smaller body part made the difference between getting by and suffering from lack of necessary things. I have seen that many times God uses things that happen to us in life to instruct us about him and what he is doing and why he is doing it and what he wants us to do, etc. To me it shows his control over the creation. He allowed things to happen to me when I was young that were not pleasant to me at the time knowing that I would not understand them at that time, so I would go through the whole process of questioning his existence and searching for that answer. Then he showed me both sides of the argument and gave me the information that I needed to make the proper decision. Next he allowed me to read the scriptures and see that information already recorded in his scriptures over two thousand years earlier to finally convince me of his existence. Then he showed me why he created the universe and what my part is in it in the scriptures. One of the things he gives us to do while we are still in this world is to preach the Gospel to others. In the process of that preaching he shows me things that he has done in my life and what they were done for as noted above. All of these things and many more that he has done, show me God’s power to work all of these things together over thousands of years and bring them all together at the right times to accomplish reaching out to me to give me knowledge of him and slowly bring me to him as that knowledge worked in me to allow me to see his love for me that he would do all of these things for me. Of course, I have seen these types of things worked in the lives of others also so, I can’t claim that God’s love is only for me, but is for all that seek him and truly desire to know him enough to take the time to search him out in the scriptures. There are also many things built into the structure of the creation and into each of our lives that also show us many things about him if we take the time to observe them. It shows God’s great power in that he can work all of these kinds of things in the lives of each of us to teach us about him and what he has made us for and to demonstrate his love for us. It is true that God knows what we will ask him before we actually ask him, but at the same time he says ask and you shall receive. He desires to have a loving relationship with each of us and coming to him and asking things in prayer to him is just the beginning of that relationship. As that relationship grows and there is a real desire in us to truly know him and to be pleasing to him we begin to ask him to show us what he is doing and when he shows us we begin to act in accordance with what he is doing. The relationship progresses from asking him for things to please us to asking him to use us to please him as our love for him grows. The end result is him and us all working together as one, which is what a spirit and its body are meant to do. This world is the beginning preparation for that end result in the world to come. It will continue in the thousand year reign of Christ later in this world. Then we will be ready for the fullness of that relationship in the world to come. You are right that God does not need to worry about you or any of us for that matter, which to me all the more shows us his love for us in that he does worry and care for each of us even when we rebel or sin against him. He didn’t wait for all of us to repent or turn away from sinning before he sent his son into the world to die for us so we could be saved and live. He did that when we were still sinning to show his love and caring for us. You must be extremely intelligent and in complete control of all of your actions to always figure out what you had to do and always do it. I have found that I often don’t know what to do in many situations in life and need help to gain that knowledge. This meant that before I knew God I often did the wrong thing. I am not just talking about doing things that are wrong or evil in God’s sight, although I sometimes did so, but I am also talking about making choices that resulted in things not giving me the results that I desired even in things that God does not say that what I did was wrong. Of course, before I had read the scriptures I did not even know whether the things that I did were against God’s will for me to do or not. It sounds to me like you had some of the same kinds of results. There are a couple of things that I have observed both in myself and also in others concerning things working for us. When God first showed himself to me in the scriptures I went through a time when things did not go very well. I am not sure whether it was meant as a time of trial for me to see if I would continue with him or whether it was Satan tempting me to try to keep me from going to God (That happened to Jesus after he was baptized to begin his ministry), but If one continues with God this time passes. The next problem that I had was that after I had read the scriptures and knew God’s will, I tried to do according to his will and not sin. Every time I thought that I had finally overcome sin, though, it seemed that I was tempted in some way and always failed and did the wrong thing. This was very frustrating to me until God gave me understanding of the places in the scriptures that say that God promises to come into me and dwell in me and make me perfect and raise up my mortal body to do his will. I found that the problem was that I had taken that on to do it myself, but it is not something that I can do myself. I have since found that God can do it though so, you are right that when we give up on the idea that we are going to do things and go with the flow of letting God show us what to do and then doing it with him doing it through us, things work much better and life is much easier and more pleasant also.

God has given each of us specific gifts of abilities and ways of looking at the world so, I have come to accept that I am sometimes limited in some ways compared to some others and also some others are sometimes limited compared to me. It is not that one is better than the other it is just that God has different things for each of us to do that, therefore, require different skills than others. I have always desired to know everything as completely as I can (my wife says that I always have to do everything the hard way), so I desire to understand both the network and the nodes. I have found that you really can’t separate the nodes from the network because we live in a world of nested networks. The nodes are generally just composed of smaller level networks and the nodes in that smaller level network are usually just still smaller level networks, etc. As an example, in your example the nodes would be you, the horse, and the ground and the network would be the paths and the motions that are transferred from the ground to the horse and then to you over those paths due to the interactions involved. But if you look at one of the nodes, let’s say yourself, you find that you are another network composed of nodes of various organs that are connected to each other over the various network paths in your body. If you look at one of those nodes such as your heart, you find that it again is a network of cells that are connected together over their network paths. Again, if you look at a cell which is a node in that network, you find that it is another network composed of nodes of small protein based machines and memory storage devices such as DNA, etc. networked together. There are still lower level networks with the lowest level being composed of basic motions, but I’m sure you get the idea. This hierarchical structure in which subassemblies often perform functions that are abstract to the overall function of the system are signs of an intelligent source of the structure. Man’s devices often exhibit this type of structure. I don’t ride horses very much, but if I did I would want to feel the motions of the particles in the ground transferred all the way up through all of those networks in the ground to the horse and through all of the networks in the horse to me and then through all of the networks in me to the place in me that gives me the feeling of it. That is when my mind is freed from the bubble when it is all there to see including all those things that can hurt and all of the paths to avoid them.

You are right that some television preacher’s version of religion can’t save you unless it is also God’s version. I wouldn’t buy the plastic Jesus. It can’t save you and God doesn’t like idol worship. It is always best to go to the source to get what you need to be saved and have life and have it more abundantly. I always, therefore, recommend going directly to the scriptures to get the information directly from God. God tells us that comparing ourselves among ourselves is unwise so, if we desire to compare ourselves with someone else it should be with God and compared to God we are all naïve and misinformed. Any small variations between any one of us and another one are, therefore, insignificant and unimportant. He does say though that in the world to come we will know even as we are known, so there is hope. God created evil and made us subject to it in this world so, we would learn just how bad and destructive it is and how dependent we are on him to make us to be able to do good and not evil. This is part of our instruction in this world to make us ready for the world to come. There will be no evil in the world to come because we will have learned to overcome it because God will live in us and we will live in him as one. The concept that there must always be both good and evil primarily comes from some eastern religions and is an error. The concept that when there are two opposite possibilities they must somehow both exist together in balance or shift back and forth between the extremes in cycles is not universally valid. As an example, there is matter and its opposite antimatter, but our world is composed of matter and we don’t see it shifting back and forth between being composed of matter and antimatter either. I hope I can be of help to you in some small way in your preparation. As I mentioned above God has already used our conversation to give me an understanding of why I had to go through some unpleasant experiences when I was young. That kind of thing is not uncommon at least to me when sharing things concerning God with others. It is all part of the training experience.

Sincerely,

Paul B.

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Dear John

Your article, filled with analogies and allegories, was pleasant to read. Wars and guns are certainly manifestations of a disease conditioned by non-living virus, build and led by infected, self-destructive cells. Money (non-value) flow is one of the circulatory mechanism of spreading and maintaining the infection. Without reproductive mechanism of a living cell, virus is a frigid...

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Dear John

Your article, filled with analogies and allegories, was pleasant to read. Wars and guns are certainly manifestations of a disease conditioned by non-living virus, build and led by infected, self-destructive cells. Money (non-value) flow is one of the circulatory mechanism of spreading and maintaining the infection. Without reproductive mechanism of a living cell, virus is a frigid information, unable to replicate itself. Planted and maintained delusion is the most fertile ground at which virus can flourish. By mastering the ability to recognise and block such non-living intruder, life immunizes, reinforces and evolves itself. Only life can procreate, organise, maintain and evolve life. Life borrows life to a virus for only as long as it takes to decode it. Hence, the virus can be considered as Tanatos, sculpting Eros. The next evolutionary step in sculpting life of our shared, accelerating space-time orbit is in recognition of a malicious virus tricking our immune system by calling itself "Humanity". Did you notice that all living necessities, like sexual, reproductive parts of our body, or natural, like natural food and healing plants... is stigmatized and controlled by "them"? On the other hand, all which is unnecessary, artificial, unhealthy, lethal and non-alive is favoured by "them". "They" arbitrarily invent and execute their irrelevant, local legislations falsifying them as laws. "Altruistically", it is always "in the name of progress, in the name of democracy, in the name of god, in the name of humanity, in the name of our children... bla, bla..." Well, who the "bad word for sexual activity" are them, and in the name of whom...? It is of course always infected "I Am (not)" in the name of "I Am (not)" ...

As concerning your analogy of information and energy processing divisions of human body, each of us is as well consisted of two to three kilograms of bacteria... This symbiotic structure evolved into cooperation and self-organised necessity, rather than combat, domination and competition. "I am" is the only power holder over "I am not". And what makes "I am not" being blind to the simple truth that the "All mighty" is in fact "I am" is non-alive, frigid and useless information contradicting life.

Regards

andrej

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Dear John,

I don’t believe in being a centrist just for the sake of being a centrist either. I go where the evidence leads me. Sometimes that can be to the center of something and sometimes it can be at the outer extreme or anywhere in between. When it comes to God I hung back for over 22 years while I observed the evidence on both sides. When the weight of that evidence...

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Dear John,

I don’t believe in being a centrist just for the sake of being a centrist either. I go where the evidence leads me. Sometimes that can be to the center of something and sometimes it can be at the outer extreme or anywhere in between. When it comes to God I hung back for over 22 years while I observed the evidence on both sides. When the weight of that evidence overwhelmingly tilted in favor of God’s existence I went where it led me and have found that it only has pointed more strongly in that direction since then. I do agree that there are those who you might find at the center of the group of believers that tend to get carried away and make up their own rules and traditions, etc. that are not in accordance with God’s will and teachings. This is made clear in the scriptures even during Jesus’ ministry in that Jesus had to point out errors in the teachings of the Scribes and Pharisees, who were at the center of the Jew’s religion at the time. The one place that I am sort of a centrist is that, as you say, God is at the center of all things and if you want to be joined to him you have to come to him at the center also. I have found that God desires to have a relationship with us that is closer than any that we can have with each other in this world. It is closer than the relationship of marriage between a man and a woman, which is an image of God’s relationship with man when both the man and his wife are perfect, because that relationship is limited in that a man and his wife do not share their thoughts or even their experiences and feelings internally with each other, but God shares his thoughts, feelings, and experiences with us and, of course he can always share in our thoughts feelings, and experiences. I have not seen that he offers to have a permanent fringe or distant relationship with him because he made us to be close to him as members or parts of his body. He has, however, built in a degree of separation between us and him in that he has placed Jesus Christ as the mediator between himself and us. This seems to be mainly because his intents, thoughts and ways are well beyond our ability to understand directly, so he has placed Jesus Christ in the middle to translate his intents, thoughts, and ways into a form that we can understand, etc. There is, therefore, that amount of separation from him (the center). He made things in a similar way in our relationship with the natural world. We cannot connect directly to matter structures and observe their internal information directly, but must observe them through the mediator of energy and sub-energy interactions, etc. If this works ok for someone in this world, he probably will find a relationship with God acceptable also. The natural world cannot love us and care for us as God does though.

Although you could look at God’s relationship with man as totalitarian, in that he has ultimate power and control over us, his rule over us is not like that of man’s totalitarian governments that are based on satisfying the lusts, greed, desire to forcefully use and misuse subjects for his gain at their expense. Since God is the source of all things, he does not need to take resources from his subjects. Instead he is the one that provides all resources to them. To be high in God’s kingdom does not mean that you will be in charge of taking resources from the people to supply the needs and desires of the king, but that you will be in charge of distributing resources that come from God to the people. God’s kingdom is based on his love for us in that he created us to be joined to him as members of his body and he demonstrated that love to us by greatly suffering for us, so that he could save us from death and give us eternal life in him. This is one case in which the bodies only pile up in those who do not come to him at the center. He does give everyone that choice, though.

I agree. God has perfectly balanced all things in him.

You are right. Many men have made up stories that are not according to god’s word and have misled many. God does give examples in the scriptures from the lives of people (both the good and the evil) to demonstrate how he has made the world to work and what kinds of results can be expected by either going according to his will and working in line with the way he designed the world to work or, on the other hand, going against his will by working against the way the world was made to properly work. Of course, God does not need to use theories because he knows all things concerning the universe, since he made it. There are some things in the scriptures that are presented in what would usually be considered very abstract forms. I have found that at least a large number of them appear that way because they tell us about things that man has not yet come to understand. As man’s understanding increases their meanings become clear. Those who don’t have the background information to understand them tend to either read them and then ignore them or try to apply meanings to them according to their current level of understanding. I go to the type of forum that God leads me to at any given time. I have found that both truth and error can be found at any type of forum. Only God’s word can be counted on.

Sincerely,

Paul B.

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Dear John,

I am sorry that it has taken me so long to get back to you. Several things came up that required my attention, but at the moment I am back.

I am trying to understand your point of view, but you are right that I have apparently jumped to some conclusions that appear to not be accurate based on some of the things that you said. Let me start from the beginning with those...

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Dear John,

I am sorry that it has taken me so long to get back to you. Several things came up that required my attention, but at the moment I am back.

I am trying to understand your point of view, but you are right that I have apparently jumped to some conclusions that appear to not be accurate based on some of the things that you said. Let me start from the beginning with those things that seem the most clear to me about your point of view and you can correct me if I am wrong in any of them.

1. It appears that you believe that God exists.

2. It seems that you believe that he is so great in comparison to us that we have no hope of ever comprehending and understanding him.

3. You come from a Christian background and you seem to like and possibly accept some parts of the scriptures because you say that you like the trinity concept that is presented there.

4. One place that I apparently made an error is that I assumed (based on item 3 above) that you believe the scriptures to be God’s communication to man telling us about him, his creation, and how we fit into it all. It now appears to me that you don’t believe the scriptures to be God’s word because you say that you do not accept the concept of a top down paternal deity when it is clear in the scriptures that God desires us to consider him to be our Father. As an example, when the disciples asked Jesus how they should pray he told them to start their prayer with “Our Father which art in heaven”. You appear to believe that the scriptures were just made by men with the purpose of controlling other men to get them to do what they want them to do. If that is your belief, I can understand it because when I was an agnostic I came to the conclusion that I would not be able to determine whether or not the scriptures are actually God’s communication to man. That is probably the main reason that I did not read them during that 22 year period when I was trying to determine if God existed or not. Instead I looked for indications of his existence in the structure of the world through science. In the beginning the prevalent established scientific concepts seemed to support the belief that God did not exist, but over time they gave way to other prevailing scientific concepts that made the alternative possibilities less and less likely and the existence of God more and more likely. When I received scientific information that no man on this planet knows about, much about the structure of the universe became apparent to me. Like most in such circumstances I began to think that I was really great to have come to understand so much that others had not been able to accomplish. I did not consider that I was just being prepared by God to be able to see that the scriptures could not have been made by men, because it contained this information that man still did not know and certainly could not have known 2000 years ago when they were written. Because the evidence that has been provided to me that the scriptures are God’s purposeful communication to us about him, his creation, and our place in all of it is so great, I can no longer reasonably deny or even doubt it. I, therefore, must accept all of it to be God’s message to me, so if he says in it that he desires me to call him my Father because he has adopted me to be one of his sons, I rejoice in that he loves me enough to be that way with me and not me only, but all that are his. I do not worry about him being over me in a top down relationship because as my creator and because he is so much greater than me, he deserves that position and I trust him to not mistreat me, but to use that position to work all things for my good as he promises to do.

5. It appears to me that you have not found such things in the scriptures that would convince you that they are truly God’s word. If you believe that God does exist and is great beyond our comprehension, do you believe that we are just something that he happened to make for no real purpose or that he just doesn’t desire for us to know our purpose in his creation? Of course, you could believe that he has shown to us his purpose for making us in some other way in the creation. If that is the case, how do you believe he has done that and what do you believe our purpose is? That is about as far as I can go without more information from you so I will close for now.

Sincerely,

Paul B.

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Dear John,

Thank you for your more detailed description of your beliefs concerning God. I think that you somewhat underestimate me. I just needed adequate information to understand your point of view. This is because I have found that there are many different definitions that are applied to the same words and phrases by different men. If someone says that he believes in God the most...

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Dear John,

Thank you for your more detailed description of your beliefs concerning God. I think that you somewhat underestimate me. I just needed adequate information to understand your point of view. This is because I have found that there are many different definitions that are applied to the same words and phrases by different men. If someone says that he believes in God the most prevalent definitions would mean belief in a being that would be worthy to be worshiped or served, generally with the belief that God would at least in some way relate positively in some way back to the person that worships him or at least would be less likely to treat him negatively. Generally a belief that God is only the sum of all the myths that men have made up about God to comfort themselves or to have less fear in times of trouble, etc. would not be considered a belief in God by most people. This belief would generally be considered more a part of atheist religion (belief that there is no true God) as part of its doctrine to explain away why so many people all around the world believe in the existence of God as some form of being.

I can understand that concept because as I mentioned we both have similar backgrounds in some ways. We were both brought up in more or less Christian homes to some degree. I believe yours may have actually been more so than mine because I was brought up in that environment until my parents were divorced when I was about 10 years old. That environment pretty much ended at about that time and was after that mostly a neutral environment without much family influence in either direction. Of course, over time I did discuss the subject with some who believed in God and some who did not believe in him, but I found their arguments lacking on both sides both in detail and in logical reasoning. During those 22 years that I was searching to see if there was adequate evidence to come to a conclusion as to whether God existed or not I was mostly informed by scientific observation, both of my own and that of others. I also saw that there were many different religions both in the past and also in the present that portrayed God in vastly different ways. It became apparent to me that at most only one of these religions could be true and it was possible, of course that none of them were true. At the same time the fact that so many different people believed in God in one way or another as a living being suggested that either man had needs that he could not meet and was falling back on that belief for comfort, etc. or that God really does exist and made man to have a relationship with him, which caused man to try to fill that relationship need that had been built into man’s structure with a belief in him even when they could not have the true relationship with him. The fact that a large number of men would have to be in the group that did not have a true relationship with him in order to allow for the creation of all of the false religions and all of their followers meant that the way of obtaining the true relationship with God would have to be restricted by conditions that would exclude most people from obtaining that relationship. The other possibility was that they all were wrong and God did not exist at all. I found that both of these possibilities existed, but I did not have adequate evidence to determine which was true, so I withheld judgment and continued to look for more evidence as to whether God did exist or not. It appears to me that you came to the conclusion that God does not actually exist as an intelligent being who created the world or even as a living being at all. If I am right about that, how did you come to this conclusion? What evidence did you see that convinced you that God does not exist as a real living being? Whether God really does exist as the creator of the world who has chosen to communicate with us to tell us about him, his creation, and our purpose in it in the scriptures or not is the important understanding to gain because if he does, although all of the things that you mention in your reasoning about why each of the gods were believed to be as they were might apply to all of the others, the things recorded in the scriptures are as they are because they actually tell us about how God actually is, how his creation actually works, and what his purpose for us actually is, etc. We should, therefore, first look at the evidence for and against God’s existence as a living being who created the world, etc. I have already provided to you some of the evidence that has convinced me that God does exist as a living being as mentioned above, so I will wait for your evidence to the contrary before I go any farther.

I see that you have a real and strong aversion to the concept of top down authority. Did something happen in your life associated with this type of authority to make you believe this way? You did mention that you rebelled in your earlier years. Did that and the results of it have anything to do with the establishment of that belief or was it based more on external observations, etc.? I have found that top down authority is built into the structure of the world and can be a great positive influence when used properly, of course, like most other things it can be used wrongly to create negative results. As an example, when we are born into this world we all experience the top down authority relationship with our parents. Because at birth we are all completely helpless none of us would survive for very long without this relationship. As we grow and begin to be able to interact with the external world, we would not likely survive long without obeying the top down authority commands of our parents to not play in the street and not get into a car with a stranger, etc. Even though we do not yet have an adequate understanding of how the world works to justify it, it is common around the age of 12 to 14 years old to begin to have a strong desire to be free to do what we want to do in the world. At the same time we are driven by hormones as a result of puberty to fulfill desires that can easily result in very detrimental outcomes that can negatively affect our lives for many years to come if allowed to be fulfilled. Although it is not usually appreciated at the time, strong top down authority during this time can be of great value to children in this time of life. Of course, it is best if a positive relationship between the parents and their children has been cultivated during previous years, so that the children have come to respect their parent’s guidance and can, therefore, accept it during this time without rebelling against it, thus preventing the negative outcomes that would result from that rebellion. I have found that children in this age group talk about having freedom, but this freedom does not extend to actually having to take care of their own needs, etc. It is usually around the age of 19 to 21 when the children are truly set free to make their way in the world and they find out how much work is involved in it, and they tend to see how much work their parents had to do to take care of them while at the same time trying to keep them from rebellion to prevent them from having to suffer its negative consequences, that they begin to come out of rebelling. This time can sometimes be delayed somewhat by college attendance, etc., however. Top down authority can be very useful in situations that involve very complex structuring because the greater the number and complexity of decisions that need to be made the more difficult it becomes to get bottom up agreement of all involved as to the best decision to make in each circumstance. I do agree with you that top down authority can result in very negative results when used improperly, however. Similar results can also occur when bottom up authority is used improperly (mob rule). These things are tools and all tools can be used for good or evil resulting in the corresponding output results.

I find the use of the concepts of objective verses subjective to be greatly misunderstood by most people. The term objective normally refers to an object or thing as it actually exists in reality while the term subjective means the subject that is generated by the mind such as thoughts and concepts, etc. This would mean that E=mc2 would be subjective in nature because it does not exist as an object in the real world, but is instead an abstract concept made by the mind of man to express a relationship between real objects. Your coffee, keyboard, and fingers would be real world objects and, therefore, would be objective. You could, of course say that you don’t actually experience these objects, but only the images of them that are received by your mind from interactions of photons with those objects and then further interaction of the same photons with sensors that are parts of your eyes. You could then say that your mind interprets these interactions and, therefore, you are only seeing subjective information produced by your mind. Looking at it in this way everything would have to be considered subjective to us because we would have no way to directly observe the real world objects. The other way that people sometimes think of objective and subjective is: that which can be obtained by deduction is objective and that which can be obtained by induction is subjective. Induction is usually considered to be less surely known because it is obtained from information obtained from a finite number of observations, so it is always possible that the next observation would prove it to be wrong, while deduction is achieved by a closed loop of logical reasoning from that which is positively known to that which is not presently known to gain an understanding of the unknown. Induction does have the problem mentioned above of lack of certainty. Deduction is harder to understand. You could consider E=mc2 as deductive because all of the elements are defined and their possible interactions are defined according to logical rules that have been made by the person who made the formula. Since a man has created the formula and made all of the rules concerning it, all of the possible outcomes can be known with surety because they are all defined in its structure and the associated rules that describe it. Of course this does not mean that it in any way conforms to reality. The only way that this can be confirmed is by making many observations and subjectively reason that if they all agree with the formula, the formula must be true to reality. The use of subjective reasoning in this proof makes the result uncertain, however, because if another observation had been made it may have not agreed with the previous observations because of some unknown variable that might only come into play under very uncommon circumstances that no one was aware of up to that point. The end result of all of this is that there is always a degree of uncertainty concerning our knowledge of objects that exist in reality except those things that we completely create ourselves in our minds and these things are of very limited use to us if we don’t connect them to reality. In the above example, you can positively know all things about the formula E=mc2 as long as you do not try to connect the E with real world energy or the m with real world mass or the c with the real world speed of light, but if you do so, you can never know for sure that the formula is then completely accurate because you can only access this information by subjective observation. Scientists often think that because the formula that they made is objective in nature it is more certain than that which is obtained by observation, but they often don’t see that when they connect it to reality it loses that certainty and if it is not connected to reality it is practically useless. As long as you restrict your statements to the outcomes of current observations and all of those observations agree with the statements, both subjective and objective arguments that completely agree with the observations can be considered completely accurate within the scope of the available observational data. Subjective experiences are not always more detailed than objective observations. You could set up a simple subjective observation of a voltage meter’s output while you turned a variable resister in a circuit while you were in a dark room to limit the detail of your experience and at the same time you could observe a very complex objective math formula that would contain more detail than the subjective observation.

To me it is not really important by what process man might have come to the conclusion that God was a father figure if god did not really exist because it would not really be true and, therefore, would be irrelevant. On the other hand if God does exist, then he is the way that he is, so man’s belief of him as a father figure is only applicable if he really is a father figure in his relationship with us. Even then it is not important because man came to that conclusion, but because he is really a father figure to us by his nature. The real important determination to be made is, therefore, whether God actually exists and if so what is his nature and how does he choose to relate to us.

The argument that Jesus’s death and resurrection was derived from year gods makes very little sense because these year gods died each year and were reborn the next year to create a continuous repetitive cycle, but Jesus died only once like the rest of us. He was then resurrected the same year and will never die again. At most this would only be one half of an additional cycle, but he was not reborn to start life all over again, but was raised from the dead fully grown as he was when he died on the cross. He then ascended up to the Father high above the highest heaven with eternal life.

That God has 3 parts (The father, The Son, and the Holy Ghost and these three are one is no great mystery. He made man in his image and man is, therefore, also made of 3 parts (a spirit, a soul, and a body). The spirit generates our intents or purposes for us to accomplish. The soul translates those intents into thoughts that our body can understand and our body carries out the actions in accordance with those thoughts to perform the intents of the spirit.

Some men three thousand years ago may have had some brilliant insights compared to the level of knowledge of most during that time, but many of today’s scientific concepts could not have been envisioned by any of them because they had not yet developed the ability to make the equipment that would allow them to make the observations that would allow them to conceive the possible existence of such things as the structure of sub-energy particles, energy photons or matter particles or that they are all composed of basic motions. The observational information that would allow man to understand that all things that we can observe are composed of basic motions has only been available to man for less than 100 years and man has so far mainly ignored that data. The scriptures also contain much more advanced information than these things some of which cannot currently be disclosed to man in this world because it is not yet time for it to be known. Other things such as the existence of multiple fifth vector structural levels can be mentioned, but cannot be given in much detail at this time. I would not be in the position to have obtained all of the information that I currently have if I was not able to look beyond all of man’s and other’s political and ideological viewpoints and prejudices, etc. both past and present. The social and cultural ties may be what give the false religions their strength to affect the people to get them to believe in those religions, but it is God himself who gives the strength to those who seek him to find and believe in him and his Word. You are right that in the long run it is not the printed book that is most important. It is the light of God in us that gives us to be able to work with him to do his will and to also work with him to bring his light to others. The book gives us the information that allows us to get that relationship with God.

If it is just the result of men and men’s works then it is of little value if any value at all. Why would I consider a god composed of men’s works of any value to be worshiped when I am also a man and also not worthy to be worshiped. A spiritual essence that is profoundly elemental and not an ideal, but like light without a filter sounds a lot like religions that consider god to just be some unintelligent force that we could learn to control to get it to do what we want it to do like in Star Wars. Such a god would just be a tool that could be used either for good or for evil (the light side or the dark side) and could, therefore, not make man any better or help him to overcome his inherent weaknesses that cause him to do things in such a way as to ultimately destroy himself and possibly the whole planet in the process. It would only be able to magnify man’s current condition to accomplish larger scale results that were in line with man’s current condition. Those who were evil would still do evil things and ultimately advanced scientific knowledge could allow one such person to do a terrorist act that would destroy everything for man.

This does not even consider any who are more powerful than man (let’s say a fourth vector civilization) who would desire to displace man from this planet, etc. Even if some fifth vector civilization that is more powerful than them will protect man from them because they have an interest of gain from relations with man, such a relationship could not be counted on in the long term. The word has it that before they consider man to be ready to be joined to them a seventh vector source will open up the fifth vector to man. The response of those from the fifth vector will be to force advancement control over the minds of those who are not yet ready. They will suffer greatly and even desire to die, but will not be allowed to do so. This will take about 5 months. Only those who are already prepared will escape this suffering (those I call true Christians). In the long run man will only be safe if the one at the top desires to protect him because he can control all of the others. This last part is well beyond man’s believability quotient, but others might take note and act in a way so as to be productive and thus be judged favorably and receive positive rather than negative results. If you desire, you can consider this last part as a SYFI moment or maybe future history.

Sincerely,

Paul B.

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Hi John,

I just skimmed, fairly thoroughly, your essay (I want to rad certain essay but am running short of time). I'm sorry it took me so long. I really liked it. First I liked the fact that your eschewed an abstract -- this fits in with the general tone of your essay. Also interesting bio.

Your essay focuses most one the current monetary/financial system and its inherent...

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Hi John,

I just skimmed, fairly thoroughly, your essay (I want to rad certain essay but am running short of time). I'm sorry it took me so long. I really liked it. First I liked the fact that your eschewed an abstract -- this fits in with the general tone of your essay. Also interesting bio.

Your essay focuses most one the current monetary/financial system and its inherent inequities. I like the analog to a circulatory system and the idea that we are heading for a coronary. My only question is there anything really to be done about the financial system? It seems that humans have made strides in science, medicine, even political systems (you talk about individually run governments, monarchies, giving way to institutional governments which are public trusts). However, (and I may be wrong) even though the forms of the economic institutions have changed over human history they (always?) tend to end with an insane concentration of wealth in a few hands, abuse of this wealth and then some revolution/upheaval. OK this is grossly simplified but still the question is "Has there been any really progress change in economic systems over the course of human history? By the way this is an honest and not a rhetorical questions since history of economics is very far from my field.

One of the most persistent myths of at least the US economy is the trickle down idea. This "theory" is used to justify the concentration of large amounts of wealth into a few hands. In this regard you may find of interest (or may have already seen) the *banned* TED talk. From the website the description reads:

"Around a year ago TED banned Nick Hanauer‘s talk named ‘Rich People Don’t Create Jobs‘. The talk was deemed too ‘political’ and was never put online. However, after word got out, a large number of people signed a petition and demanded the rights to view it. TED reluctantly published Nick’s talk which you are able to view right here:"

You can find this talk now easily by doing a Google search. In it Hanauer compares trickle down ideas to the old Ptolemaic system of the Universe -- simply wrong.

You make the statement on page 1. "First and foremost, this situation has to be addressed in a way that can be intellectually comprehended by vast numbers of normally intelligent people," and you mention that lying out such a basic description may irritate "professional interest". Exactly! Whenever some expert gives you some jumbled/jargony explanation whose end is to get you to part with some of your money or resources, you can bet that this is just nonsense hidden by technical sounding language. I've heard (I need to find a reliable source but the story is too good not to repeat) that Wall Street Investment Houses would hire mathematicians and physicists to come up with impenetrable (to someone without a math/physics background) mathematical formulas which they would trot out to their clients to show them that they were a serious science driven firm, when in fact the formulas were useless for anything except for separating the client from their money.

One minor critic -- you say "because the energy is apparently conserved, but the information surely is not". In physics terms (specifically) black holes which are evaporating via Hawking radiation the question of whether information is conserved or not is hotly debates -- with a slight edge to information being conserved. I know this is not what you meant by information (at least I think it isn't) but BHs are my research area so I couldn't resist putting in a technical criticism :-).

Anyway best of luck with this contest,

Doug

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Dear John,

I can understand the editing. Although my replies can be long they would be much longer if I tried to cover in detail every possible response that I consider to all of the points that you mention. You made this reply shorter than some others, so I will try to do the same to make it easier for you to respond adequately.

You mention that “but the fact remains that Jesus...

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Dear John,

I can understand the editing. Although my replies can be long they would be much longer if I tried to cover in detail every possible response that I consider to all of the points that you mention. You made this reply shorter than some others, so I will try to do the same to make it easier for you to respond adequately.

You mention that “but the fact remains that Jesus was attempting to push the reset button on the Jewish God and this was fairly firmly acknowledged at the time. That is why it is called "God the Father and God the Son," not God the Spirit and God the Soul.” I was not trying to say that God used the terms God the Spirit and God the Soul in referring to himself. What I was pointing out is that God says that he made man in his image and man is composed of three parts, a spirit a soul and a body and that because man is made in the image of God these three parts are an image or likeness to the three parts of God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. As an example, talking about God the Father in the scriptures it says, “God is a Spirit and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. This shows that the spirit in man is an image of God the Father who is a Spirit. It also shows that the only way that a man can worship (serve) God the Father is to do it in his spirit. The spirit is the part that generates the intents or purposes to act on. It is the beginning and initiating power that is required to start any purposeful action. This means that to worship God the Father a man’s intents or purposes must be the same as God the Father’s intents. To put it another way, to worship or serve God the Father, the man must intend to do that which God the Father intends for him to do. There is a joining of the two spirits to accomplish the same actions. There is a certain way for this joining to be accomplished and certain conditions must be met first. These are given in the scriptures. The man’s soul takes the intents of the spirit and generates thoughts to carry out those intents. The thoughts are sent to the man’s body and the body converts them into actions that accomplish the intents of the man’s spirit. The soul is, therefore, the mediator between the man’s spirit and his body. In the scriptures, God says that the Son is the only mediator between him and man. The Son, therefore, receives the Father’s intents and generates the thoughts that man can understand and sends them to the man. The man then receives those thoughts from the Son and acts in accordance with them to carry out God the Father’s intents. The soul in man is, therefore, an image of the Son and the man’s body is the image of the Holy Ghost. An image is never as good or complete in all ways as the original source that it is an image of. This means that man cannot be equal to God, but he is formed in a way that is similar and gives us an insight into God’s form. I am not concerned with the meanings that men apply to God. My concern is what God says about himself in the scriptures. I believe that God is capable of keeping his promises such as when Jesus said “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall never pass away.” I, therefore, believe that God has kept the meanings in his Word intact, so that it has not been changed by men to mean different from what he originally intended it to mean and I can, therefore, trust that it is true. I do, however, understand that you probably do not believe this way because you would have to believe in God as a living being with the power and intent to do these things. If you look at the scriptures as only a work of man, it would not be reasonable from your perspective to believe that anything in it could be sure to be as it is said to be in the scriptures because man does not have the ability to make it so. To me the fact that the scriptures contain so many prophesies that have come to pass and many that are happening now in the present, etc. is another indication that they are not the work of man because man does not have the power to make them happen.

Again, I can see why you might believe this since you don’t believe that there is actually a God who could keep the academics from modifying his message to us, but since the evidence is that there is such a God that concept only applies to the false gods and not the true God. You still have not given me any real evidence that the true God does not exist. You have only given stories or fables based on the assumption that God does not exist other than in the form of fables or as man’s imaginary creation. On the other hand, I have already given you some evidence that he does exist.

I am glad that you are happy with your current situation in life. I to have found it good to give up being the boss, but to me it is to give it up to God because he can always make the right decisions and lead me in the right direction to make things work out for good.

I cannot see how you consider that the concept that God is intelligent to the degree that he is able to create, control, and maintain the universe to cause it to yield the results that he desires to fulfill his purpose for creating it is in any way looking at God as though he is a mere man, since man is not intelligent enough to do any of these things. You are right that his intelligence is only one property of him of many that he possesses and it does help him to be able to rightly divide and make judgments as necessary to fulfill his will, but I do not consider that to be his only attribute, but it is an important one. Without it he would not have been able to have planned, designed, and determined the best way to create the universe. Of course, I can see why you would not consider it something you would consider important because you have jumped to the conclusion that god is only a collection of myths and stories and has no real abilities. You, therefore, fit your conception of the nature of god to agree with the god that you assume to exist. One problem with the conception of good or bad being what is beneficial or detrimental to the greatest number of people is that it can then be used by the majority to justify mistreating any minority group that they define. As an example, there are currently people in this world who believe that the world population should only be about 300,000,000 people. Using this logic some of these people could justify killing about 6,700,000,000 people because they might say that even though this would mean killing most of the people alive at this time, in the long term future there would be a total of more people who would live than that amount and they would say that the lives of all those future people would be better. Of course, you could bet that the ones that were not killed would be the rich and powerful people who would really be doing it because they would think they would have more as a result of it. It would not really work that way, but greed and the desire for power can easily blind people and cause them to do stupid destructive things. For man to kill is wrong because God reserves the times of a person’s birth and death to his determination because he knows the best time for each of us to be born and to die.

God created both good and evil in order to allow us to be able to have free choice. The choices that are the right ones that work for good are the good ones and the ones that end in bad results are the bad or evil ones. He tells us to make the good ones and not the bad ones, but he allows us to make the bad ones, so we can see and learn how bad they are. This is all part of our training, so we will learn that God leads us in the right direction to go in all things and we can learn to trust him to do so. There are 2 ways to get this understanding. One is to do both evil and good and get the results first hand or you can look at the results of other’s actions (the stories) and learn that way. I have found that the most pleasant experience is to do the good and get those results directly and look at the results of others who do evil and learn about those results from the stories or accounts of those others.

First, God is as he is and I only try to determine how that is by the evidence that I observe about him. I cannot impose any highest ideal on him. His highest ideal is what he makes it to be as the most important part of his being. I mention intelligence here for 2 reasons. First, it is necessary for him to possess great intelligence to have created the universe and the evidence is that he did that. Second, those who don’t believe in God’s existence as the one who created the universe generally try in one way or another to define away that as being an attribute of God, so they can then say that he could not have done it. You are right that intelligence is an ability that can be used as a tool that in this case God used for the purpose of creating the universe, so he can use it to make a body for himself. I believe that this is a good purpose and that he will accomplish his goal and that it will work for good for him and all who become members of his body. The problem with Adam and Eve is that they desired to have knowledge that they were not at that time prepared to properly use. That is why God commanded them to not access it at that time.

In a lot of things the middle place or to do things in moderation can be the best course of action, but when it comes to God that is the worst place to be. Jesus says that he would have you to be either hot or cold to him, but if you are lukewarm (in the middle) he will spew (spit) you out of his mouth. He says that those who try to stay in the middle are wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked. He counsels such to buy of him gold tried in the fire, that they may be rich (this comes from doing right even when you have to suffer to do it), and white raiment (the righteousness of the saints), that they may be clothed, so that the shame of their nakedness does not appear, and anoint their eyes with eye-salve, that they may see (an image of going to and being anointed by Jesus (God’s Word to get understanding)). Jesus says that as many as he loves he rebukes and chastens and says to, therefore, be zealous and repent from being lukewarm. He then says that he stands at the door and knocks and if any man hears his voice and opens the door he will come into him and they will sup (share their lives) with each other. He then says that to him that overcomes he will grant to sit with him in his throne even as he also overcame and is set down with his Father in his throne. Although I did not understand that I was this way to God when I was an agnostic and, therefore, in the middle between belief and unbelief, I have since then found that compared to how life can be with God in Christ it was a pretty good description of me at that time. It is evident that God desires to have this relationship with us in that he says that he stands at the door and knocks and is ready to come into the man that hears him and opens the door and desires to sup with him and when the man has overcome his problem of being in the middle he even offers to share his throne with him.

I agree that it is best to not be herded around by men, but it is good to be one of God’s sheep and be herded by him to learn from him to know what is best to do in any situation. You can’t get any larger context than God. This comment is still turning out kind of big, but it is still smaller than the last one.

Sincerely,

Paul B.

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