Reflections... on Illustration Friday - Sacrifice

Reflections on Sacrifice actually started a week before Illustration Friday ( http://www.illustrationfriday.com/ 7/21/06). At Happy Hour that night, one neighbor ask another about the afterlife.

I was hit by the very unpleasant flashbackof when I was "saved" - Born Again as it were, that I might " ...rise in the Rapture to sit with Jesus and The Father in the glorious kingdom of Heaven!". I was 8 and scared into it by horrifying stories of Armegedden.

Before I realized I was really Now, at Happy Hour, I mumbled "Ah Shit". The very dear and disengenuous lady who had queried squeeked pleadingly "Don't be mean". Still peevish with remembering I grumbled "Y'know what? The afterlife is what you make it. This here is what we got. I figure I'll take care of this life and see to the afterlife when I get there."

Which brings me to Feuerbach (whom I recently became acquainted with over a bowl of fine cavendish). Ludwig Feuerbach(1804-1872) professed materialism but did not consider that Philosophy the "reality in it's truth and totality." He did not deny the existence of a Supreme Almighy, but considered the idea of God to be conceived by humanity, in it's physical existence, to help reconcile the questions and contradictions in the physically manifested life that we lead. Read Above Religion here:
http://radicalacademy.com/adiphiloessay58.htm

In a nutshell, Feuerbach believed that strict coherence to a Religion denied (read sacrificed) the sacred nature of feeling the immediateness of this life, this person, this relationship to others and to Nature itself. Ergo, In Ludwig's world, a baptism was divine not because a "holy man of the Church" performed it or blessed the water, but because the water itself was sacred - in it's power to refresh, to cleanse, to slake the thirst etc. it is a gift in and of itself. If I said it thusly: "The Creator is not the Mountain. The Creator is not in the mountain; The mountain is of the Creator, divine for it's material existence alone." I think Feuerbach might agree. If not, I'd invite him to bring out his best pipe tobacco and we'd discuss it.

Faith... the latest recurring theme

Heraclitus

Dictionary Definition:
1. Confident belief in the truth, value, or trustworthiness of a person, idea, or thing.
2. Belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence.
3. Loyalty to a person or thing; allegiance: keeping faith with one's supporters.
4. Often Faith Christianity. The theological virtue defined as secure belief in God and a trusting acceptance of God's will.
5. The body of dogma of a religion: the Muslim faith.
6. A set of principles or beliefs.

Faith is often inextricably linked with Religon and yet, in the As Above view, I find it larger and far more complex.

Recently, I was told the true story of a man who would seem to have nothing going well for him: not health or happiness, not employment, seemingly no close relationships, he even had great concern for the safety and security of his home. Outside that home there was a fire hydrant. The man attached his faith to that hydrant. He believed that whatever happened, the hydrant would be there every morning and in the evening returning from his day, whether all things were goodly or poor - the hydrant would be there. Moreover, it was a physical thing that could be seen and touched. Faith, it would seem, manifests itself around constancy.

What is Constant?

Heraclitus (about 540-480 B.C) says:

All is flux, nothing stays still.

You could not step twice into the same river; for other waters are ever flowing on to you.

Those were some of his observations almost 2,500 yrs ago; The Bible says this:

Ecclesiastes 1:6 The wind goeth toward the south, and turneth about unto the north; it whirleth about continually, and the wind returneth again according to his circuits.

Schoepenhauer: Change alone is eternal, perpetual, immortal.

And last week, Phin sent me this - an article entitled "Scientist Question Nature's Fundamental Laws"

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/060711_science_tuesday.html

The gist of the article being that there may be no such thing as a scientific constant.

I've been thinking lately that if Faith is about constancy, the only faith one can truly hold is a Faith that things will change as in "This too shall pass" . I don't even care to assign any hope to that faith. Will the change be better? Worse? I find that in an evolving Universe, I try to walk the shifts keeping my eyes on the Taoist "Maybe".

Deus Esse Quantum... ( con't)

As to God and Science
In some ways it would seem that God and Science have always been mutually exclusive; Galileo believed that mathematics was the language of The Omniscient and we know what happened to him. Had Newton’s views on God and Jesus been known, he would have lost his Fellowship at Cambridge at the very least – conviction on a charge of heresy is probably a given. Yet upon reflection, it is not Science and God that are irreconcilable – it is Science and Religion.

"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it with religious conviction."

Blaise Pascal

Galileo and Newton are, by no means, alone. Today’s Science and Philosophy, are built on the work of pioneer thinkers who, nonetheless, held a belief in a guiding force, intellect or interconnectedness that is Universal: Heraclitus, Xenophanes, Aristotle, Spinoza, Liebniz, George Washington Carver, Nietzsche, Planck, Einstein, Dirac, and Bohm.

Can the existence of and Infinite Being be proved quantitatively? Can it be disproved?

Perpend: (From http://searchsmb.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid44_gci332247,00.html) "The two major interpretations of quantum theory's implications for the nature of reality are the Copenhagen interpretation and the many-worlds theory. Niels Bohr proposed the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum theory, which asserts that a particle is whatever it is measured to be (for example, a wave or a particle), but that it cannot be assumed to have specific properties, or even to exist, until it is measured. In short, Bohr was saying that objective reality does not exist. This translates to a principle called superposition that claims that while we do not know what the state of any object is, it is actually in all possible states simultaneously, as long as we don't look to check.
To illustrate this theory, we can use the famous and somewhat cruel analogy of Schrodinger's Cat. First, we have a living cat and place it in a thick lead box. At this stage, there is no question that the cat is alive. We then throw in a vial of cyanide and seal the box. We do not know if the cat is alive or if it has broken the cyanide capsule and died. Since we do not know, the cat is both dead and alive, according to quantum law - in a superposition of states. It is only when we break open the box and see what condition the cat is that the superposition is lost, and the cat must be either alive or dead." This is it! We cannot see or measure an Omnipotent ergo; under the superposition principal The Creator is in all possible states simultaneously - read in every where, when and thing possible... Is that not Infinite? This too gives rise to the loosely adjectival definition of quantum as something so infinitesimal (immeasurable) that it is indeed infinite.

"The second interpretation of quantum theory is the many-worlds (or multiverse theory. It holds that as soon as a potential exists for any object to be in any state, the universe of that object transmutes into a series of parallel universes equal to the number of possible states in which that the object can exist, with each universe containing a unique single possible state of that object. Furthermore, there is a mechanism for interaction between these universes that somehow permits all states to be accessible in some way and for all possible states to be affected in some manner. Stephen Hawking and the late Richard Feynman are among the scientists who have expressed a preference for the many-worlds theory." Beautiful! Ergo; as long as there is potential for an Almighty to exist, He/She/It does. It hasn't escaped me that the multiverse theory specifies object. Can we consider something/one that is Infinite an object? If we unify the two interpretations we must. Copenhagen says that if we cannot confirm something's state - it is all states... yes an object being one them. Ah....... but Copenhagen also says that if we cannot measure we cannot assume existance. Oh, but there's that fabulous word potential in multiverse... surely as we cannot prove or disprove, confirm or discredit a God (or moreover, I believe, anyone's notion of what God is or isn't) the potential exists for all possible manifestations or no God at all. Hence if potential exists... all exist simultaneously. One could say Infinitely... or as Shakes would say "It's all one"

I live in a Universe where The Creator can and does, use scientifically calculable means to manifest; there is no proving or disproving. There is only faith.