A
Case for Chaos
Edited 2-1-2018
Added final thoughts
3-4-2018
A Case for Chaos
1.Case for chaos as opposed to a case for the
creator.
2.Papua new guinea.
3.Question authority
4.Learning to observe
5.The aquarium
6.Prayer. What do we ask for? What prayers are answered.
7.That’s God’s will. The answer to every
question.
8.What is a “soul”? Do animals
have souls?
9.Are we the most intelligent species on the
planet, simply because we have the power to destroy any other species?
A Case for Chaos
Recently,
I viewed a documentary film, titled “Case for a Creator”. It
contained several credible arguments that allow science and theology to exist
in peace. One of the basic requirements for this coexistence is that we accept
present knowledge as complete, and infallible. We think we have a basic
understanding of the universe, when, we are unable to see past our own galaxy in
one direction. We think we can estimate the total mass of the universe, with an
already flawed view in at least one direction, simply by adding zeros to an
estimated number. After a few calculations, we find there is more matter
present than we are able to account for, and there seems to be no explanation
for that. We named that, “Dark Matter”.
Even
though we use it, we don’t understand how electricity works, despite all
our hi tech creations, and we
don’t understand how gravity works, or whether gravity is the same
mechanism that prevents rapidly spinning electrons from leaving their
respective atoms, provided that atoms are truly constructed in this way. There
are so many things that we don’t understand, and, yet, you can ask 95
percent of the people on this planet to explain God, or the lack of One, and everyone has an explanation of their very own, that
they believe to be true, beyond a shadow of a doubt.
Papua,
New Guinea
When I
was a young boy, National Geographic did an article on some people, previously,
undiscovered, in an isolated jungle, in Papua, New Guinea.
When we
first discovered them, they were naked, and lived very much the way we imagine
that cave men lived, hunting, and gathering. They were unaware that there were
any other people on the planet, and unaware that they were inhabitants of a planet. Killing other humans was a way
of life, and determined who controlled any given territory. Most importantly,
for this discussion, they were unaware that there was a creator.
Today,
the children, and children’s children have cell phones, and Dallas Cowboy
T-shirts. They have been introduced to Christianity, and other beliefs and,
these beliefs were accepted or rejected, based on the cognitive process that
goes on in every brain. We are similar in many ways, but the difference in our
cognitive processes, from one individual to another, will not allow agreement.
I believe that being curious about a creator is not a natural curiosity.
We are drilled from birth that there is a god, and He expects certain things
from us. God is something different in each of the different cultures that I
have encountered, in my travels. I have seen organizations with small
followings, that believe that they are saved, and everyone else on the earth is
condemned. How arrogant! The point I want to make here is that everyone thinks
that they are right. This brings up the next topic.
The
Brain
Every
living thing has an organ that controls every function of itself. In larger
organisms, it is readily identifiable, and is called “the brain”.
As humans, we consider our brains to be the most intelligent of any species. We
are, as yet, unable to measure intelligence, as it presents itself in many
ways. Some people classified as “idiot” have powers of observation,
and certain capabilities which we are unable to understand. Savant is the word
used along with “idiot”. We are able to detect activity in the brain
in the form of electrical signals. We think the electrical signals are what
drive every function, but we don’t know where the signals originate, or
if they are even a necessary part of the cognitive process, or a byproduct. We
are capable of measuring things we can detect, but there are new things
becoming detectable, every day, and each new discovery usually contradicts
something we previously accepted as fact.
Researchers
can’t make up their minds if one glass of wine, or ten cups of coffee,
every day, is good for you, or not. We say certain things that we indulge in
shorten our lives, but the longest lived folks we know, indulged in those very
things. Case in point: The press interviewed a man 108 years of age. He
attributed his longevity to as many as twelve cigars a day,
and a shot of whiskey in his coffee. I don’t recommend it for everyone,
but some folks can get away with that. The point being that we are different in
ways we don’t yet understand.
Question
Authority
I was
raised by a military man who proved by physical force that what he said was
infallible. I was taught in school that the things that I read in my textbooks
were correct, without question. I joined the military during the Viet Nam war,
and was taught to do as instructed, no questions asked. When I got out of the
military, and was able to question things, with no dire consequences, I went
completely overboard, and I began to question everything. As a child, Santa
Claus and the Easter Bunny were very real to me. When I was old enough, the
idea of worship was presented to me. There was evidence of Santa Claus. He
always ate the cookies and drank the milk I left for him. The Easter Bunny
always left a basket for each child, and paused to lay eggs in the yard. And
the proof for God was “the Holy Bible” (King James Version). Santa
and Peter Cottontail let me down, but everyone continued to insist that God
existed. We prayed to God, and God answered our prayers. ?????
The Aquarium
For
many years of my life, I have maintained an aquasphere
of one type or another. I have raised fish with varying degrees of success. I
have always wondered if my fish were aware of me as omnipotent. They are
certainly aware of me as a provider, with control over life and death. They,
however, are unaware of what is taking place on the other side of the room. We
humans are in a similar situation. The one big difference is that there is no
apparent benefactor. The most horrible things imaginable happen, every day. We
are reliant on ourselves, and each other, to provide the necessities of life,
much like the fish in the wild. God will not provide, with no effort on
our part!
A
friend of mine from my childhood is amused by this apparent lack of a
benefactor. He says that God continues to hide Himself from both the wise and
the foolish. Our mothers belonged to the same religious organization. We were
raised, believing in God, and accepting what we were taught as the
“truth”. From our childhood, we went our separate ways. We were
exposed to drastically different classes of people. I had the opportunity to
travel around the world, and have seen the dregs of humanity in every corner of
the earth. Each one of these corners is a different fish tank, with the
majority of the occupants, unaware of the outside of the tank. I see the earth
itself as a fish tank. We are unable to see far enough to know if there are, in
fact, any other fish tanks.
Learning to
Observe
As I
grew up, I realized that there were a tremendous number of people that use the
bible as their source of guidance. But not all of them agreed about very much
of anything. Opinions varied to the degree where different bibles were created
to satisfy the needs of dissidents. Latter day saviors appeared, and before we
knew it, our beliefs were being challenged. Allah emerged, and Buddha, and,
cows became sacred, and Ganesh, the elephant reincarnation of one of
India’s most important gods is worshipped by more people than there are
Christians, aside from Catholics. The most populous Christian faith would be
Catholic. They are always in trouble, but nobody seems to mind. They created
their own bible, and chose to worship Jesus’ mother, Mary.
Even
though China is the most densely populated country, there are a variety of
religions practiced. The recently most popular religion is the worship of
“Mazu”, the goddess of the sea. There are
probably more Mazu worshippers than there are
Christians, but a count is made difficult by the communist ruling party. The
communist party would prefer to have their leader worshipped, but, they do
allow the half dozen religions to flourish, due to rebellious resistance. These
numbers change regularly. To see an up to date estimate, see http://www.petesmemories.com/religpop.html
As I
write, The “History Channel” is airing a series called
“Secrets of the Bible”. It reveals a text, known as the Apocrypha. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apocrypha) It is another version of the
Bible, plus or minus a few writings, which were considered “too
radical” and were not included by the group of scholars, which decided
the final content of the Bible. The book of Enoch was not included, the
content, it was decided was too farfetched. Enoch wrote that God is helpful to
mankind. The Gnostics, advocates of the Apocrypha, utilize the lost books of
Phillip, and Thomas, whose writings were considered heresy by authorities.
Majority Rules
We
allow the majority to rule in our society. Does that mean that the religion
with the most people in it is right? This is where that brain of ours starts
complicating things. Among Christians, the Catholics have the most worshippers, There are mostly Christians in both North and
South America, among them, mostly Catholics of one form or another. But the
majority of earth’s population doesn’t think of the gods as
creators, but more as deities that protect, such as the Chinese Goddess of the
sea, who is the protector of sailors and fishermen, and folks that depend on
the sea. We call this “idolatry”, and the “King James
Version” frowns upon idolatry. The government is communist, and advocates
atheism.
It’s
hard to tell how Catholics feel about idolatry, but the worship of Mary
vigorously waves a red flag.
If the
majority rules, then we are short one creator. One in five humans, on this
earth, is Chinese. There are Christians and other religions present in China,
but the majority are atheist. India, the second most populated country,
worships Ganesh, the elephant.
So far
this discussion has talked about “God”, and worship. There has been
no discussion on a creator, or Supreme Being. Is it possible for there to be a
creator that doesn’t require us to worship him (her, it?). This
“God” would allow everyone to “do their own thing”.
Christians
have ancient manuscripts, explaining how the earth was formed, and populated,
and re-populated after the great flood. It talks about an angry, jealous God
that seems, to me, anxious to punish for all eternity. I am convinced that man
fashioned God in his own image. All we have are writings of man, and I, more
than anyone, am aware of the fallibility of man. Add to that the fact that all
of those manuscripts required translation, and the translators had great
difficulty agreeing on the meaning of things. That probably doesn’t
account for evolution in a language. Take for example the word
“gay”. Fifty years ago it was an innocuous word, meaning happy.
Today it has a different meaning. Our language has evolved to a point where it
is difficult for a foreigner to understand our spoken language.
Final thoughts
A
final thought;
I
am acquainted with many people that accept the bible, without question. I present to
you, if we were born to Islam, would the Koran be as easy to accept? I have no interest in
comparing two writings which have doubtful validity. I just wonder why you
would believe one and not the other.
I hope you will find my
observations interesting. I resist discussing religion and politics, as it
appears to ruffle feathers. Just like everyone else, I truly believe that I am
right. I just happen to believe very differently than everyone I know. I
believe there are more possibilities than most people are willing to admit when
it comes to the subject of creation. To me, most humans have varying degrees of
tunnel vision. It is difficult to remember just how narrow my vision was. I
remember occasionally paying attention to my peripheral vision, but not focusing
on it. It wasn’t until I learned to do that could I see past the things
being placed in front of me by narrow minded people. This opened up my world,
and had a big effect on my attitude. I could compare it to the relief expressed
by someone who has found Jesus. It is comforting to me to believe that if there
is a creator, He might not require us to worship Him. I think He would let us
know, if He did.
As an alternative to a
creator, it has been suggested that we were planted on earth by alien species.
I have been asked, “Who created the aliens?”, and I ask you,
“Who created the creator?”. There seems to
be no beginning or end. I have entertained the idea that our visible universe
with all of the visible galaxies may be cells in the thumbnail of some infinitely
gigantic organism.
I enjoy watching a zoom of
Mandelbrot sets. It allows me to imagine infinity. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-PwNlkozR8 This is a
zoom out. You will find others that zoom in, appearing to approach infinitely
small. I also love google earth. You can zoom out from an auto in your
driveway, until the earth appears the size of a baseball. It gives a rough idea
of how small we are, in the scheme of things. But, in order to feel even
smaller, we can look at this amazing photo taken by one of our spacecraft. It
is the earth in a beam of light, taken far beyond earth’s orbit. Dust in
the wind! https://youtu.be/tH2w6Oxx0kQ
You can read his words at http://www.thinkartificial.org/aesthetics/the-pale-blue-dot/
I will include them here. Very
interesting thoughts, worthy of your attention!
That’s
here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you
know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out
their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident
religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every
hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and
peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child,
inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every
“superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and
sinner in the history of our species lived there — on a mote of dust
suspended in a sunbeam.
The
Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of
blood spilled by all those generals and emperors, so that, in glory and
triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think
of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel
on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent
their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent
their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined
self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the
Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light.
Our
planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity,
in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to
save us from ourselves. The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor
life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species
could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the
Earth is where we make our stand. It has been said that astronomy is a humbling
and character building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of
the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me,
it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to
preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.
In memory of Carl Sagan. His moment of being continues to inspire.
When we look back at ourselves
from, let’s say, the Andromeda galaxy, our entire solar system becomes
too small to imagine, let alone, see. Our greatest endeavor seems to be to
spread our afflicted species throughout the universe. If there is a God, I
seriously doubt that He would allow us to do that. We are so hopelessly flawed
that it is hard to imagine that a creator, with such awesome power, would fail
so miserably with our design. There are very few good things to be said about
human beings. We are cruel to other species, and each other. We even have
trouble treating our own family members with the common decency they deserve.
We argue with one another about our religious beliefs. but, fail to practice
what we preach. Anything that man has a hand in needs to be met with scrutiny.
With all of our “technology”, we still have trouble “getting
things right”!
I don’t expect my
question to ever be answered, I only wish to leave you with a thought: Does
what we believe depend on what we were raised with, and what part of the world
we come from??? If we can overcome this stigma, the universe has a lot to
offer, if we will only accept!
Both sides, now
As you
can see, religions are purely matters of opinion. The strongest believers, it
seems to me, to be the ones familiar with their own point of view, and no
others. Once people start seeing both sides of the issue, opinions begin to change.
It would be foolish of me to think that my opinion would be anything other than
that, an opinion. I do not have a
mission in life to bring everyone to my way of thinking. Being allowed to think
anything we like, correct or not, is one of the greatest freedoms known to
mankind. I do have a mission in life. It is, and has always been, to present as
many sides to an issue as I am able to find. I urge you to watch “A Case
for a Creator”. I also urge you to watch a production named
”Religulous”. It is a creation of
Bill Maher. If you are offended by strong language, then I would not recommend
that you try to see this. If you are offended by strong language, you have
probably already made up your mind.
Be sure to see;
There
are endless sources of study, and like my friend says, If
there is a God, he continues to hide Himself from the foolish and the wise. Men
have spent lifetimes trying to prove, one way or another, if there is a God.
There is no evidence, one way or another, only the writings of man.
Here
are two writings. (Productions, actually.) It is not
accurate to call them “opposing views”, but they both ask the kind
of questions that must be answered, if there is a conclusion to be drawn.
A case for a creator. A video is available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYLHxcqJmoM
Religulous.
A video is available at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZpREDn4NFA
I
recommend that you purchase both videos, and watch them together, in order to
achieve the full effect of the opposing views,
End
Apocrypha
Books
included had backing
Book
of enoch too farfetched god is helpful to mankind
Gnostics
lost books phillip Thomas
incongruent ruled heresy destroyed by authorities baptism ruled unnecessary
different form of Christianity merges other religions 1896 discovered gospel of
mary magdeline testimony of
truth serpent is hero for revealing knowledge god had wife Asherah
purged from Hebrew embraced by gnostics
Abram’s
wife birthed Isaac Ishmael, servent’s son was
exiled descendent was Mohammed, Islam’s connection to Abraham
Wise and Foolish
2-14-2018 9:18 AM
Hi Terry - It was
great to catch up with you yesterday. Let's try hard to not lose touch.
You mentioned
something I said about the Wise and Foolish and I had to go back and research
what the Bible said about that topic. I found the quote in Mathew Chapter
11 and verse 25 which reads:
25At that time Jesus said, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and
earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and
revealed them to little children. 26Yes, Father, for this is what you were pleased to
do.
The context was Jesus
had performed miracles but some people still did not believe him. He did
miracles to prove he was sent by God the Father, but that was not enough for
some to believe. "These things" appear to be simple truths about
"who" Jesus was and what was the message he was
conveying.
Regards,
Craig Lyon