Volume I: About
page 1:
Vision
The dream behind this site is to move theology out of its sectarian, politically controlled and prescientific infancy into the light of modern scientific method.
This desire is motivated by past personal pain, some of which is recorded in these pages. The task now, however, is to put this past aside and build a new theological model which embraces all people and the whole world.
The traditional Christian life aims
for the vision of God 'face to face'. Thomas Aquinas calls this
final perfect state of human existence beatitude. Aquinas 608. For Christians, the vision of God comes after death.
If the Universe is divine, however, we experience God in life.
Every thought, word, feeling, action, every experience, is experience
of God. This God appears to us not only as peace, love, pleasure and security, heavenly bliss, but also as war, murder, rape and famine.
If the Universe is divine, theology can become a real science. Since the Universe is one, the scientific method will gradually unify theology as it has unified the other sciences, physics, chemistry, biology and so on. Once we all agree on our theological foundations, the conflicts arising from theological differences will be reduced and the task of living peacefully on Earth greatly simplified.
Our vision then is a theology of humane survival and a religion to
match. Many others have this vision. Ours is simply a small
contribution to a tide of opinion which may raise global levels of
human cooperation to the point where war can no longer be seen as
necessary and we are all prepared to help one another in times of difficulty.
(revised 13 July 2014)
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Copyright:
You may copy this material freely provided only that you quote fairly and provide a link (or reference) to your source.
Further reading
Books
Click on the "Amazon" link below each book entry to see details of a book (and possibly buy it!)
| Denzinger, Henricus, and Adolphus Schoenmetzer, Enchiridion Symbolorum, Definitionum et Declarationum de Rebus Fidei et Morum, Herder 1963 Introduction: 'Dubium non est quin praeter s. Scripturam cuique theologo summe desiderandus sit etiam liber manualis quo contineantur edicta Magisterii ecclesiastici eaque saltem maioris momenti, et quo ope variorim indicum quaerenti aperiantur eorum materiae.' (3)
'There is no doubt that in addition to holy Scripture, every theologian also needs a handbook which contains at least the more important edicts of the Magisterium of the Church, indexed in a way which makes them easy to find.'back |
Khinchin, A I, Mathematical Foundations of Information Theory (translated by P A Silvermann and M D Friedman), Dover 1957 Jacket: 'The first comprehensive introduction to information theory, this book places the work begun by Shannon and continued by McMillan, Feinstein and Khinchin on a rigorous mathematical basis. For the first time, mathematicians, statisticians, physicists, cyberneticists and communications engineers are offered a lucid, comprehensive introduction to this rapidly growing field.'
Amazon
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McGregor, Richard, The Party: The Secret World of China's Communist Rulers, Harper 2010 Amazon editorial review: From Publishers Weekly
'McGregor, a journalist at the Financial Times, begins his revelatory and scrupulously reported book with a provocative comparison between China™s Communist Party and the Vatican for their shared cultures of secrecy, pervasive influence, and impenetrability. The author pulls back the curtain on the Party to consider its influence over the industrial economy, military, and local governments. McGregor describes a system operating on a Leninist blueprint and deeply at odds with Western standards of management and transparency. Corruption and the tension between decentralization and national control are recurring themes--and are highlighted in the Party™s handling of the disturbing Sanlu case, in which thousands of babies were poisoned by contaminated milk powder. McGregor makes a clear and convincing case that the 1989 backlash against the Party, inexorable globalization, and technological innovations in communication have made it incumbent on the Party to evolve, and this smart, authoritative book provides valuable insight into how it has--and has not--met the challenge. '
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Amazon
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Links
| Aquinas 608 Summa II I q3 a 8: Whether man's happiness consists in the vision of the divine essence 'I answer that, Final and perfect happiness can consist in nothing else than the vision of the Divine Essence. To make this clear, two points must be observed. First, that man is not perfectly happy, so long as something remains for him to desire and seek: ... If therefore the human intellect, knowing the essence of some created effect, knows no more of God than "that He is"; the perfection of that intellect does not yet reach simply the First Cause, but there remains in it the natural desire to seek the cause. Wherefore it is not yet perfectly happy. Consequently, for perfect happiness the intellect needs to reach the very Essence of the First Cause. And thus it will have its perfection through union with God as with that object, in which alone man's happiness consists, as stated above (this question articles 1, 7; q 2, a 8). back |
| Australian Government | Department of Immigration and Citizenship Five fundamental freedoms 'Australians are free, within the bounds of the law, to say or write what we think privately or publicly, about the government, or about any topic. We do not censor the media and may criticise the government without fear of arrest. Free speech comes from facts, not rumours, and the intention must be constructive, not to do harm. There are laws to protect a person's good name and integrity against false information. There are laws against saying or writing things to incite hatred against others because of their culture, ethnicity or background. Freedom of speech is not an excuse to harm others.' back |
| Claude Shannon Communication in the Presence of Noise 'A method is developed for representing any communication system geometrically. Messages and the corresponding signals are points in two “function spaces,” and the modulation process is a mapping of one space into the other. Using this representation, a number of results in communication theory are deduced concerning expansion and compression of bandwidth and the threshold effect. Formulas are found for the maximum rate of transmission of binary digits over a system when the signal is perturbed by various types of noise. Some of the properties of “ideal” systems which transmit at this maximum rate are discussed. The equivalent number of binary digits per second for certain information sources is calculated.' back |
| Infallibility - Wikipedia Infallibility - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia 'Infallibility, from Latin origin ('in', not + 'fallere', to deceive), is a term with a variety of meanings related to knowing truth with certainty.' back |
| Mortal sin - Wikipedia Mortal sin - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia 'Mortal sins ((Latin) peccata mortalia) are in the theology of some, but not all Christian denominations wrongful acts that condemn a person to Hell after death. These sins are considered "mortal" because they constitute a rupture in a person's link to God's saving grace: the person's soul becomes "dead", not merely weakened. A mortal sin does not usually mean a sin that cannot be repented; even after a mortal sin there is a chance for repentance.' back |
| Pain - Wikipedia Pain - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia 'Pain is an unpleasant sensation often caused by intense or damaging stimuli such as stubbing a toe, burning a finger, putting iodine on a cut, and bumping the "funny bone."[1]
It motivates withdrawal from damaging or potentially damaging situations, protection of a damaged body part while it heals, and avoidance of similar experiences in the future.' back |
| Suffering - Wikipedia Suffering - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia 'Suffering, or pain in a broad sense, is an individual's basic affective experience of unpleasantness and aversion associated with harm or threat of harm. Suffering may be qualified as physical or mental. It may come in all degrees of intensity, from mild to intolerable. Factors of duration and frequency of occurrence usually compound that of intensity. Attitudes toward suffering may vary widely, in the sufferer or other people, according to how much it is regarded as avoidable or unavoidable, useful or useless, deserved or undeserved. back |
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