natural theology

This site is part of the The natural religion project
dedicated to developing and promoting the art of peace.

Contact us: Click to email

Notes

[Notebook: DB 57 Language]

[Sunday 9 January 2005 - Saturday 15 January 2005]

[page 45]

Sunday 9 January 2005

'Emergence' is a product of communication

Monday 10 January 2005

To the authors of 9/11. National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States I like your report, as far as it goes, in seeking to understand why its enemies have been so successful in striking the US. The report focusses on 'Islamic Terrorism'.

page 362: 'But the enemy is not just "terrorism," some generic evil. This vagueness blurs the strategy. The catastrophic threat at this moment in history is more specific. It is the threat posed by <i>Islamist</i> terrorism - especially the al Qaeda network, its affiliates, and its ideology.

'As we mentioned in chapter 2, Usama Bin Ladin and other Islamic terrorist leaders draw on a long tradition of extreme intolerance within one stream of Islam (a minority tradition) from at least Ibn Taimiyyah, through the founders of Wahhabism, through the Muslim Brotherhood, to Sayyid Qutb. That steam is motivated by religion and does not distinguish politics from religion, distorting both.'

The Christians also have intolerant elements among them, not just vis-a-vis internal parties of Christians, but with respect to other religions including Islam, Hindu, Buddhist etc. Over the centuries, the doctrine of secularism has developed to calm religious passion. You may believe what you like, but must also be a socially integrated person when it comes to the practicalities of everyday life, the

[page 60]

physical context within which all living systems exist.

The secularist point of view sees religious conflict as unnecessary once we all begin to see our common humanity and learn to live together for the good life, both for ourselves and for our planet.

SECULAR RELIGION = PHYSICAL RELIGION

The torture and murder of captives is an example of the physical aspect of religion. There is a religious aspect to every war, otherwise people would not be motivated to risk (and lose) their lives in combat. Armstrong

9/11 Commission page 363: You write: 'Terrorism is a tactic used by individuals and organisations to kill and destroy..' You write as though terrorists are the epitome of evil, acting for not reason to destroy lives and property. In a just war, of course, individuals and organisations destroy lives and property for a good reason, to get their own way. All living things are licensed to kill by the imperatives of survival. But may not the terrorists also have a purpose which gives meaning to their actions? And if all acts of violence have meaning, how do we distinguish between terrorism and war? The US has declared war on terrorism while simultaneously and contradictorily claiming that its enemies have

[page 61]

no rights under the conventions of war.

. . .

SECULARISM = METARELIGION ie a set of religions characterized by the common properties of religion.

ALL RELIGIONS SHARE THE SAME PHYSICAL WORLD. Only those acts which change the physical world are of public concern, so a public religion may recognize and perhaps attempt to control them. This understanding and control comes from knowledge of the world we inhabit. Each religion claims to have some special knowledge of this world and so instruct its followers that they may profit by the knowledge of the world passed on to them by their religion.

From a secular point of view, collecting and and interpreting knowledge about the world is the task of science and so a secular religion would be doctrinally a scientific religion.

[page 62]

A scientific religion would differ from traditional religions in two important ways. First, science is mutable. Observations and interpretations of observations are subject to change and we expect that in the long run the scientific community continues to get a better understanding of the overall system we inhabit. The cosmos is our incubator and we can see in some detail how we arose as a consequence of the big bang and the laws of physics and chemistry.

You write 'In short, the United States has to help defeat an ideology, not just a group of people, and we must do so under difficult circumstances. How can the United States and its friends help moderate Muslims combat extremist ideas?' The answer is that the United States must renounce its own extremist ideas, so extreme that it often finds itself taking unilateral action because it is too intolerant to hear all sides of a situation.

The US, like every one of us, must realize the Newtonian law that action and reaction are equal and opposite. Every nation would like unfettered control over other nations, but this is no more stable than a system which makes any group of people slaves to another.

page 394: 'The terrorists have used our open society against us'. But is this not the very point of an open society, that one can air one's grievances in public. If nobody listens, shout louder. And if they turn out to be totally deaf, hit them hard. The US recognizes this principle in retaliating against its

[page 63]

enemies, but fails to see that there are two sides to every question.

page 361 'This pattern has occurred before in American history. The United States faces a sudden crisis and summons a tremendous exertion of national energy. Then, as that surge transforms the landscape, comes a time for reflection and reevaluation.'

We model this as a transient with sudden onset and a rate of decay which measures the rate of 'healing' or 'annealing'

page 362: 'That stream is motivated by religion and does not distinguish politics from religion, distorting both. It is further fed by grievances stressed by Bin Laden and widely felt throughout the Muslim world - against US military presence in the Middle East, policies perceived as anti-Arab and anti-Muslim, and support of Israel.

The same problem (or its mirror image) exists in the US. We must diffuse polarities by 'earthing' them.

'The resentment of America and the West is deep, even among leaders of relatively successful Muslim states.

Do we resent them? We hardly even think of them unless they cut off the oil or perform acts of war. The definition of an act of war is physical: a visible expenditure of life, health, ordnance, fuel etc etc.

All war is terrorism, all terrorism war, ie WAR == TERRORISM fear, awe, death, destruction.

[page 64]

SECULAR religion is not ETERNAL.

Mathematics is the eternal core of secular religion: mathematical theology.

9/11 Commission page 376: 'the simple shortage of experts with sufficient skills'.

page 406: Pearl Harbour: "'Surprise, when it happens to a government, is likely to be a complicated, diffuse, bureaucratic thing. It includes neglect of responsibility, but also responsibility so poorly defined or so ambiguously delegated that action gets lost.'" Wohlstetter page viii

page 416: Intelligence accountability

The non-communication and unilateralism within and between individual agencies with the US parallels the unilateralism of the US on the international scene. The key concept here is 'scale invariance'.

Tuesday 11 January 2005

A letter to the 9/11 Commission.

Wednesday 12 January 2005

Religions our noetic operating system. As such it is not easy to change as I have learnt in my transition from Catholic to natural.

Natural religion is an expansion of the idea of natural = {physics, metaphysics}

Thursday 13 January 2005

A religion of change must show us, among other things, how to change. We assume, with Newton, that all change results from the application of force: this is almost a tautology, of very ancient origin, that nothing changes unless it is moved. Newton founded dynamics by the simple assumption that the force and the rate of change were linearly related, the constant of proportionality being the mass upon which the force is acting, ie F = ma. This relationship, we postulate, holds at all scales down to the quantum of action. In the macroscopic world of pistons, connecting rods and vehicle suspension, Newton's relationship is effectively exact. In the quantum world the three laws of motion still hold, but now the force, mass and acceleration are vectors, not scalars, so that a force of a certain complexity acts upon a mass of a certain complexity to produce changes of a certain complexity. So, for instance, the idea of democracy may slowly penetrate a population (mass) of people and move those people from an authoritarian to a democratic form of social organization.

AUTHORITARIAN to SCIENTIFIC
ARBITRARY to SCIENTIFIC

The force of authority brings down the variety of society, so lessening its ability to deal with environmental change. We are in a transient of rapid change, which, when it interacts with state authoritarianism (maintaining the status quo) is trouble, without a well thought out

[page 66]

agenda for change. The successes (and failures) of colonialism, occupation and independence and the international scene give us some clues.

On the one hand, thee is violent revolutionary change which seldom seems to do anyone any good. On the other hand, planned change can be so slow that it leads to a buildup of forces (as in an earthquake) that can only be resolved by a revolutionary change.

In the middle is a rate of individual change matched to the rate of environmental change, a state of moving at an adequate but safe speed. This state is an ideal balance between the rate of capitalization (ie the rate of long term change) and the rate of consumption (the rate of short term change) In other words, we are optimizing the frequency spectrum of the agent or force for change.

Safe change, like mountaineering, requires some connections be maintained while others are moved. The technique of violent revolution is rather like letting go at all points perhaps as a leap, perhaps as a fall. On the other hand stagnation arises when one cannot move any limb safely. The ability of a climber to move one limb is an example of headroom or redundance. To change successfully and securely, a living system must have sufficient resources to make the change while maintaining normal life.

[page 67]

Friday 14 January 2005

Once we recognize the biological role of religion in mutation and selection, we can begin to see more clearly the spiritual means used by religions to archive their biological ends. Since we share a common biology, it is not surprising that we begin to see similarities (as well as differences) in the religions of the world (Reynolds and Tanner, Reynolds and Tanner) The similarities are the basis for religious union. Similarities are abstractions that form links between concrete entities.

COMMUNICATION = a) SIMILARISATION b) DIFFERENTIATION

In quantum mechanics the fundamental differentiation is between OBSERVED and POSSIBLE.

ACT = OBSERVATION (POINT)
POTENCY = ENTROPY (SPACE)

Countable (quantum) mechanics is controllable. The uncountable cannot be controlled. Countability is relative to the scale of computation.

WORK and PLAY : we often distinguish them, perhaps by their attraction - work is, at least sometimes, repulsive, and so is sought not as an end in itself, but as a path to an end made worthwhile by anticipated gains. Play, on the other hand, is undertaken for its own sake. Of course, some 'play' professionally, and for them the game (tennis etc) may be repulsive, but nevertheless a means to some other end.

[page 68]

BONUM HONESTUM/UTILE Aquinas 30

Free running vs purpose driven ie CAPITALIZATION = SAVING

Survival requires saving to get over the lean periods in a random resource supply - deal with random elements and the predictables will take care of themselves.

MONOPOLY - GRAVITATION - MASS ATTRACTS MASS, INHIBITED ONLY BY CENTRIFUGAL FORCES, IE FORCES DUE TO CURVATURE.

So CAPITAL attracts INCOME which adds to capital.

Saturday 15 January 2005

Related sites

Concordat Watch

Revealing Vatican attempts to propagate its religion by international treaty


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

Armstrong, Karen, Holy War: The Crusades and their impact on today's world, Anchor Books (Random House) 2001 Jacket: 'In 1095, with the tomb of Jesus still in the hands of infidels and the Byzantine empire overrun by Muslim Turks, Pope Urban II summoned Christian warriors to take up the cross and their swords against the Turks and then recover the holy city of Jerusalem from Islam. It was to be the first of the Crusades, a holy war that would focus the power of the European kingdoms against a common enemy. The Crusades became the stuff of romantic legend, but in reality were a series of rabidly savage battles carried out in the name of Christian piety to advance the power of the Western Church. Their legacy of religious violence is felt today as the age old conflict of Christians, Muslims and Jews persists.' 
Amazon
  back

Ford, David, The Modern Theologians : An Introduction to Christian Theology in the Twentieth Century, Blackwell 1997 Preface: 'The main aim of this volume is to introduce the theology of most leading twentieth-century Christian theologians and movements in theology. . . . The contributors are mostly based in Europe of North America and come from a wide range of institutions, denominational backgrounds, and countries. Most are themselves constructively engaged in modern theology, and their purpose has been to produce a scholarly account of their subject and also carry further the theological dialogue in each case.'  
Amazon
  back

National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, The 9/11 Commission Report, W W Norton and Company 2004 Preface: '... Ten Commissoners - five Republicans and five Democrats ... present this report withour dissent. ... Our mandate was sweeping. The law deirected us to investigate "facts and circumstances relating to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, " including those relating to intelligence agencies, law enforcement agencies, diplomacy, immigration issues and border control, the flow of assets to terrorist organisations, commercial aviateion, the role of cogressional oversight and resource allocation, and other areas determined relevant by the Commission. ...' 
Amazon
  back

Reynolds, Vernon, and Ralph Tanner, The Social Ecology of Religion, Oxford University Press 1995 Jacket: 'No society exists in which religion does not play a significant part in the lives of ordinary people. Yet the functions of the world's diverse religions have never been fully described and analyzed, nor has the impact of adherence to those religions on the health and survival of the populations that practice them. . . . this extraordinary text reveals how religions in all parts of the world meet the needs of ordinary people and frequently play an important part in helping them to manage their affairs.' 
Amazon
  back

Wohlstetter, Roberta, Pearl Harbour: Warning and Decision, Stanford University Press 1962 Amazon Customer Review: 'This work is the definitive analysis of the intelligence failures leading up to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. It is not an historical account of the attack, but is rather a concise analysis of the mistakes made by naval intelligence authorities in Hawaii and the U.S. during the months leading up to the attack. The book offers a unique analysis of the attack, and doesn't pull any punches. Human failures are analyzed, as well as bureaucratic failures, which were many. The reader comes away with a better understanding of the attitudes prevelant among intelligence authorities of the time, as well as an insight into their workings. This is not a book for those just beginning their studies of the attack. It is more appropriate for someone who already has a good understanding of the historical timelines of the attack, the Japanese perspective of U.S. military policy at the time, and the military and civilian authorities involved in the attack and their roles. The only negative comment regarding the book is that it offers rather tedious reading at times. But to serious researchers this is more than offset by the volumes of information gleaned from it. This is a "must-have" book for serious Pearl Harbor researchers. Gary W. Roberson (Arlington, VA United States)  
Amazon
  back

Links

Aquinas 30, Summa I, 5, 6: Is goodness divided into the virtuous [honestum] the useful [utile] and the pleasant [delectabile]?, 'I answer that, This division properly concerns human goodness. But if we consider the nature of goodness from a higher and more universal point of view, we shall find that this division properly concerns goodness as such. For everything is good so far as it is desirable, and is a term of the movement of the appetite; the term of whose movement can be seen from a consideration of the movement of a natural body. Now the movement of a natural body is terminated by the end absolutely; and relatively by the means through which it comes to the end, where the movement ceases; so a thing is called a term of movement, so far as it terminates any part of that movement. Now the ultimate term of movement can be taken in two ways, either as the thing itself towards which it tends, e.g. a place or form; or a state of rest in that thing. Thus, in the movement of the appetite, the thing desired that terminates the movement of the appetite relatively, as a means by which something tends towards another, is called the useful; but that sought after as the last thing absolutely terminating the movement of the appetite, as a thing towards which for its own sake the appetite tends, is called the virtuous; for the virtuous is that which is desired for its own sake; but that which terminates the movement of the appetite in the form of rest in the thing desired, is called the pleasant.' back

Ecole Biblique - Wikipedia, Ecole Biblique - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'The École Biblique, strictly the École biblique et archéologique française de Jérusalem, is a French academic establishment in Jerusalem, founded by Dominicans, and specialising in archaeology and Biblical exegesis.' back

Fundamentalism - Wikipedia, Fundamentalism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Fundamentalism is the demand for a strict adherence to orthodox theological doctrines, usually understood as a reaction to Modernist theology. The term was originally coined by its supporters to describe five specific classic theological beliefs of Christianity, and that developed into a Christian fundamentalist movement within the Protestant community of the United States in the early part of the 20th century.' back

Ian Ramsay Centre for Science and Religion, Special Divine Action, ' Is there special divine action in the world, beyond the effects of a first or uncaused cause? If so, what is such action like and how would we know? Are there particular ways of thinking about the world that make such actions probable, possible or impossible? How does contemporary research in philosophy, theology, and science bear on these questions? What tools of scholarship can and should be used? Are there advantages and disadvantages, from the point of view of knowledge and human flourishing, of taking a stance for or against the possibility of special divine action?' back

Quentin McDermott and Peter Cronau, Secret Catholic Church report found parish priest Peter Searson was guity of child sex abuse, despite no charges ever being laid against him, 'A secret Catholic Church report concluded a parish priest was guilty of child sexual abuse, despite no charges ever being laid against him. The internal report of a confidential 1997 investigation into Father Peter Searson, of the outer-Melbourne parish of Doveton, made a finding that "the parish priest had been guilty of sexual abuse", Four Corners has revealed.' back

Second law of thermodynamics - Wikipedia, Second law of thermodynamics - Wikipedia - The free encyclopedia, 'The second law of thermodynamics states that in a natural thermodynamic process, there is an increase in the sum of the entropies of the participating systems. The second law is an empirical finding that has been accepted as an axiom of thermodynamic theory. back

www.naturaltheology.net is maintained by The Theology Company Proprietary Limited ACN 097 887 075 ABN 74 097 887 075 Copyright 2000-2021 © Jeffrey Nicholls