A while back a friend of mine who reads this stuff asked if I was trying to start a new religion. It made me think about what the question really means.
There are a few "major" religions and hundreds or more "minor" ones around the world. Each major religion at least is divided into several subdivisions from "orthodox," to "protestant," to "progressive." Those are divided into different subdivisions, often by region, led by people with different interpretations of the main religion. Each of those sub-sub-divisions are practiced somewhat differently within each parish, church, synagogue, temple or whatever, depending on the thoughts and ideals of the spiritual leader. Within that are individuals and families of attendees who come from different upbringings whose core beliefs and practices vary from that of the local spiritual leader in the church they have elected to feel a part of.
Even those who profess to be the most devoutly orthodox often differ widely on the interpretation of the rituals and underpinnings of that religion. The Catholic Cardinals, about as high up in that organization as you can get, are followers of different versions of that religion. Apparently the new Pope is the first from the Jesuit group of religiously orthodox Catholics. One would think that if there was one religion that the followers of the oldest christian-based one would have complete agreement at the very top.
Then of course, the majority of the population, at least in the US, are irregular attendees at any church and have wildly divergent beliefs based on their own thoughts on the world. Almost 1 in 5 who answered the question admit that they follow no religion at all. Among that majority of Americans are atheists, agnostics, non-deists, deists, and a whole host of others who either do not believe in any god, are not sure if they do or do not, or could care less either way and never really think about it. I think most of us have "religions" or spiritual beliefs that change significantly through our lives based on things we read, things that happen to us, people we meet, ideas shared and significant moments that make us evaluate our lives.
So, when asked "am I trying to start another religion" with my weird thoughts on things, the answer is, I suppose so, yes. Mine.
Just like you have created your own belief system (even a determined lack of belief is a belief system). I am sure that yours is something that you are comfortable with and makes you feel good about your life day to day and within the grander scheme of things. And I don't expect you to believe ANYTHING I write, just as I expect you will not mind that I don't take as "gospel" anything you or anyone else has to say on the subject.
That being said, perhaps we can all learn from one another a bit more from time to time about the mysteries of life. I am listening and interested!!
Saturday, April 13, 2013
Friday, April 5, 2013
Death
I suppose that following Easter is a good time to talk about death. As far as that subject goes, Easter is about the brightest moment for death in human history. Death intrigues me. It is counter to everything in nature. But, you say, every living thing dies. Ahhh, but does it?
One of the most basic concepts in nature is infinity. It is a concept that is very hard for most of us to get our heads around because we live in a finite world with walls and . . . well death. But in nature everything is forever.
Space is infinite. It never ends. There are no walls out there and if there were, there would be more space on the other side or the wall would have to be infinitely deep. Even though we cannot see it, space is infinite.
Space is infinite in the other direction as well. Every part of one small thing is made of still smaller things. Chihuahuas are made of molecules, which are made of atoms, which are made of neutrons, protons and electrons, which are made of quarks and other sub-atomic particles, which, scientists with very good eyes have discovered, are made of even smaller things. Actually that stuff is largely theoretical in that its existence is mathematical and proof involves smashing really tiny things together at nearly light speed in a super-collider in Europe (which I think is a fine place for it should anything go very poorly). The resulting collision creates these ridiculously tiny things for a nearly immeasurable instant in time. Nearly immeasurable, but not immeasurable, and so scientists can measure what happens in that instant. Pretty cool really.
At the ridiculously small sub-sub atomic level, things appear to behave rather weirdly. This is where we find things actng by the not yet close to being understood "rules" of Quantum Mechanics. Anti-matter and matter seem to inter-relate rather than annihilate. Particles seem to fly right through others without any effect whatsoever. Some seem to disappear and re-appear, though we cannot tell what exactly is happening. They may of course still be there, just not in a form we can detect. All those odd little particles, however, are composed of even tinier particles that, if we could figure those out, would likely help explain the erratic behavior of the ones we can detect, well so long as we could understand the behavior of the even tinier particles that they are made of. Infinity.
Time is infinite in both ways. There was no beginning and there will be no end of time. Even if there was a Big Bang, everything in that tiny dense thing existed before it went Bang. The Big Bang was not a beginning, it was a moment in time that led to our current status. Perhaps eventually everything will coalesce again and the Big Bang will happen again.
Numbers are infinite in both ways. You can count in positive and negative numbers and you will never reach the end. Fractions are infinite. Every number can be halved again and again. Every segment of a line marked by two points has an infinite number of points between them, no matter how close they are to one another. The decimals following Pi go one forever. The same is true of other natural numbers.
There are the long understood rules, if you will, that matter and energy cannot be destroyed. It can only transform between those two states or into other types of matter or energy. The amount we "started" with, at the Big Bang, is precisely the same amount we have today, had before the Big Bang AND will have throughout infinity into the future.
When a body dies, it decays, changes into dirt, is taken in by the roots of a plant, eaten by a herbivore, which in turn is eaten by a carnivore, which then has babies, and the cycle starts all over again through infinity. Or the organic matter is crushed over time and turned to coal or oil or diamonds and a pretty girl wears it until she dies and turns to dirt as her heirs fight over it. Regardless, the body parts' parts do not go away. Things change, but nothing changes.
As avid readers of my work know (all 3 of you), I consider the body to be a machine. It is a miraculous machine, but a machine nonetheless. Without an operator, like your car or this computer, it would just lie there lifeless - dead. I consider the operator to be our soul. I consider that to be a real thing. An energy perhaps with which we are not yet familiar. It seems to have mass because in repeated studies, when someone dies, within an instant of death one loses a small amount of measurable and unexplainable weight that is in excess of that exhaled or excreted upon death. This was first discovered over 100 years ago.
I have postulated that God is the connection of all of our souls to all others. The metaphorical spiritual Internet. The reason we can be guided to do the right thing by this "God" is that all of our souls drive the overall process toward universal harmony. We want balance. That is also a natural driver in nature and of the universe. For every action there is an equal an opposite reaction - balance. Crazy things happen when things are out of balance. Out in space, those are often terribly dangerous things. We create bombs, for example, by intentionally knocking volatile things out of balance causing a violent reaction. After the explosion, however, everything returns to balance. A new state of balance, but balance nonetheless. Nature wants things to be in harmony with one another.
When we do things that we know in our hearts are wrong, we are stepping or acting outside of the drive toward universal harmony. That is the essence of free will. We can violate the harmony of all things, and we do it all the time.
I generally believe that animals and anything truly living (not just animate but alive) has a soul. I think that most animals, excluding probably apes, porpoises and other more evolved creatures, cannot operate outside the harmony. They can only do the right thing. We call this instinct. We take advantage of this in training, repelling and hunting animals for our benefit and have for years. Perhaps that is evidence those animals have no soul, but are in reality just machines, but they can't read this so I don't really care about them . . .
So when death happens, the machine dies due to heart failure, cancer, a smashing by a bus, worn out parts or whatever. The matter and energy in the body transform eventually into dirt and heat, etc, and exist forever. The soul, it seems to me, also then must be infinite. It is, in my opinion, some undiscovered energy with mass. It is a real measurable thing, not a weird undefined magical spirit thing. It is what connects us to everyone else and into the harmony of all souls. (Just an aside, as physicists try to create the "Theory of Everything" if they leave this soul thing out, they will never get there.)
The soul, in my way of seeing things, is like everything else in nature; it continues on into infinity. That is the natural way of things. Balance and infinity. Harmony.
One of the most basic concepts in nature is infinity. It is a concept that is very hard for most of us to get our heads around because we live in a finite world with walls and . . . well death. But in nature everything is forever.
Space is infinite. It never ends. There are no walls out there and if there were, there would be more space on the other side or the wall would have to be infinitely deep. Even though we cannot see it, space is infinite.
Space is infinite in the other direction as well. Every part of one small thing is made of still smaller things. Chihuahuas are made of molecules, which are made of atoms, which are made of neutrons, protons and electrons, which are made of quarks and other sub-atomic particles, which, scientists with very good eyes have discovered, are made of even smaller things. Actually that stuff is largely theoretical in that its existence is mathematical and proof involves smashing really tiny things together at nearly light speed in a super-collider in Europe (which I think is a fine place for it should anything go very poorly). The resulting collision creates these ridiculously tiny things for a nearly immeasurable instant in time. Nearly immeasurable, but not immeasurable, and so scientists can measure what happens in that instant. Pretty cool really.
At the ridiculously small sub-sub atomic level, things appear to behave rather weirdly. This is where we find things actng by the not yet close to being understood "rules" of Quantum Mechanics. Anti-matter and matter seem to inter-relate rather than annihilate. Particles seem to fly right through others without any effect whatsoever. Some seem to disappear and re-appear, though we cannot tell what exactly is happening. They may of course still be there, just not in a form we can detect. All those odd little particles, however, are composed of even tinier particles that, if we could figure those out, would likely help explain the erratic behavior of the ones we can detect, well so long as we could understand the behavior of the even tinier particles that they are made of. Infinity.
Time is infinite in both ways. There was no beginning and there will be no end of time. Even if there was a Big Bang, everything in that tiny dense thing existed before it went Bang. The Big Bang was not a beginning, it was a moment in time that led to our current status. Perhaps eventually everything will coalesce again and the Big Bang will happen again.
Numbers are infinite in both ways. You can count in positive and negative numbers and you will never reach the end. Fractions are infinite. Every number can be halved again and again. Every segment of a line marked by two points has an infinite number of points between them, no matter how close they are to one another. The decimals following Pi go one forever. The same is true of other natural numbers.
There are the long understood rules, if you will, that matter and energy cannot be destroyed. It can only transform between those two states or into other types of matter or energy. The amount we "started" with, at the Big Bang, is precisely the same amount we have today, had before the Big Bang AND will have throughout infinity into the future.
When a body dies, it decays, changes into dirt, is taken in by the roots of a plant, eaten by a herbivore, which in turn is eaten by a carnivore, which then has babies, and the cycle starts all over again through infinity. Or the organic matter is crushed over time and turned to coal or oil or diamonds and a pretty girl wears it until she dies and turns to dirt as her heirs fight over it. Regardless, the body parts' parts do not go away. Things change, but nothing changes.
As avid readers of my work know (all 3 of you), I consider the body to be a machine. It is a miraculous machine, but a machine nonetheless. Without an operator, like your car or this computer, it would just lie there lifeless - dead. I consider the operator to be our soul. I consider that to be a real thing. An energy perhaps with which we are not yet familiar. It seems to have mass because in repeated studies, when someone dies, within an instant of death one loses a small amount of measurable and unexplainable weight that is in excess of that exhaled or excreted upon death. This was first discovered over 100 years ago.
I have postulated that God is the connection of all of our souls to all others. The metaphorical spiritual Internet. The reason we can be guided to do the right thing by this "God" is that all of our souls drive the overall process toward universal harmony. We want balance. That is also a natural driver in nature and of the universe. For every action there is an equal an opposite reaction - balance. Crazy things happen when things are out of balance. Out in space, those are often terribly dangerous things. We create bombs, for example, by intentionally knocking volatile things out of balance causing a violent reaction. After the explosion, however, everything returns to balance. A new state of balance, but balance nonetheless. Nature wants things to be in harmony with one another.
When we do things that we know in our hearts are wrong, we are stepping or acting outside of the drive toward universal harmony. That is the essence of free will. We can violate the harmony of all things, and we do it all the time.
I generally believe that animals and anything truly living (not just animate but alive) has a soul. I think that most animals, excluding probably apes, porpoises and other more evolved creatures, cannot operate outside the harmony. They can only do the right thing. We call this instinct. We take advantage of this in training, repelling and hunting animals for our benefit and have for years. Perhaps that is evidence those animals have no soul, but are in reality just machines, but they can't read this so I don't really care about them . . .
So when death happens, the machine dies due to heart failure, cancer, a smashing by a bus, worn out parts or whatever. The matter and energy in the body transform eventually into dirt and heat, etc, and exist forever. The soul, it seems to me, also then must be infinite. It is, in my opinion, some undiscovered energy with mass. It is a real measurable thing, not a weird undefined magical spirit thing. It is what connects us to everyone else and into the harmony of all souls. (Just an aside, as physicists try to create the "Theory of Everything" if they leave this soul thing out, they will never get there.)
The soul, in my way of seeing things, is like everything else in nature; it continues on into infinity. That is the natural way of things. Balance and infinity. Harmony.
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