vol VII: Notes
2012
Notes
[Sunday 9 September 2012 - Saturday 15 September 2012]
[Notebook: DB 73 Spring2012]
Sunday 9 September 2012
Monday 10 September 2012
[page 54]
Tuesday 11 September 2012
One of the leading characteristics of modern thought is denial. The forest of conflicting religions and theologies that inhabit the world are tantamount to denying that God and the Universe are one. Not only is this position a fundamental cause of war, it is the foundation of the deep spiritual malaise that inflicts the world.
There is only one solution, to recognise the unity of God ad the world. We need a scientific, evidence based theology if we are
[page 55]
to survive. It is the purpose of this site to take the first steps toward this goal by developing the foundations of natural theology and natural religion.
At present most theologians tacitly accept the existence of two truths, the truth of revelation and the truth of experience, In order to justify this absurd position they must deny our ability to truly know ourselves and our world. This position has a long history and its motivation is more political that scientific.
Wealth, violence, history (Rogan, the Arabs) Rogan
The ancient religions lie like a heavy black cloud on the human spirit, declaring us to be sinners, despising women, disparaging education, camaraderie and fun, serving to maintain the ancient and violent status quo of the enslavement of the poor and weak to the rich and powerful.
The ancient religions all suffer from the same disease -- all are inclined to consider themselves the one true religion worshipping the one true God. This is understandable, since they mostly grew up isolated from one another by great distances and slow travel, but their positions came into conflict when empire builders like the Romans brought them into contact with one another.
Creation means the establishment of orthogonality or independence, science independent of politics, independent judiciary, executive and legislature and so on, all modelled on the creation of independent degrees of freedom in the world.
Wednesday 12 September 2012
[page 56]
Thursday 13 September 2012
One toys with the political side of theology and religion and, given the internet, it may be easy to exploit the historical repression for which the ancient religions have been (often inadvertently) responsible. Instead I must stick to my faith in science and place as much weight as possible on the development of a new evidence based theology and let the politics take care of itself.
Galileo fired the opening shots against religious fundamentalism nearly [four] hundred years ago and the issue is now coming to a head on a global scale in the struggle between the Christian and Islamic fundamentalists of the world. The time has come for the followers of the book of nature to assert their theological hegemony over those who base theur lives on books written by mere mortals.Galileo Galilei - Wikipedia
Rogan page 503: Sayyid Qutb Milestones Qutb
Friday 14 September 2012
Saturday 15 September 2012
The aim of this site is to lift theology out of its sectarian, politically controlled and prescientific infancy and into the light of modern scientific method.
This desire has been motivated by past personal pain, some of which is recorded in these pages, but the task now is to put this past aside and build a new theological model which embraces all people and the whole world and throws a new light on the human condition and suggests new strategies
[page 57]
to bring about the 'kingdom of God so often promises in ancient religious literature.
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Further reading
Books
Click on the "Amazon" link below each book entry to see details of a book (and possibly buy it!)
Aristotle, and (translated by H Tredennick and G Cyril Armstrong), Metaphysics X-XIV, Oeconomica and Magna Moralia, Harvard University Press, ; William Heinemann Ltd. 1977 Introduction III Aristotle's Metaphysical Theory: 'The theory of universal science, as sketched by Plato in The Republic, was unsatisfactory to Aristotle's analytical mind. He felt that there must be a regular system of sciences, each concerned with a different aspect of reality. At the same time it was only reasonable to suppose that there is a supreme science, which is more ultimate, more exact, more truly Wisdom than any of the others. The discussion of this science, Wisdom, Primary Philosophy or Theology, as it is variously called, and of its scope, forms the subject of the Metaphysics. page xxv
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Descartes, Rene, Rules for the direction of the mind: Discourse on the method, Encyclopaedia BritannicaB0006AU8ZG 1955
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Feynman, Richard, Feynman Lectures on Computation, Perseus Publishing 2007 Amazon Editorial Reviews
Book Description
'The famous physicist's timeless lectures on the promise and limitations of computers
When, in 1984-86, Richard P. Feynman gave his famous course on computation at the California Institute of Technology, he asked Tony Hey to adapt his lecture notes into a book. Although led by Feynman, the course also featured, as occasional guest speakers, some of the most brilliant men in science at that time, including Marvin Minsky, Charles Bennett, and John Hopfield. Although the lectures are now thirteen years old, most of the material is timeless and presents a "Feynmanesque" overview of many standard and some not-so-standard topics in computer science such as reversible logic gates and quantum computers.'
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Finke, Roger, and Rodney Stark, The Churching of America 1776 - 2005: Winners and Losers in Our Religious Economy, Rutgers University Press 2005 Amazon book description: 'In The Churching of America, 1776 — 2005, Roger Finke and Rodney Stark once again revolutionize the way we think about religion. Extending the argument that the nation's religious environment acts as a free market economy, this extensively revised and expanded edition offers new research, statistics, and stories that document increased participation in religious groups from Independence through the twenty-first century. Adding to the thorough coverage of "mainline" religious groups, new sections chart the remarkable development and growth of African American churches from the early nineteenth century forward. Finke and Stark show how, like other "upstart sects," these churches competed for adherents and demonstrate how American norms of religious freedom allowed African American churches to construct organizational havens with little outside intervention. This edition also includes new sections on the ethnic religious communities of recent immigrants &mdash stories that echo those told of ethnic religious enclaves in the nineteenth century.'
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Finke, Roger, and Rodney Stark, The Churching of America 1776 - 2005: Winners and Losers in Our Religious Economy, Rutgers University Press 2005 Amazon book description: 'In The Churching of America, 1776–2005, Roger Finke and Rodney Stark once again revolutionize the way we think about religion. Extending the argument that the nation’s religious environment acts as a free market economy, this extensively revised and expanded edition offers new research, statistics, and stories that document increased participation in religious groups from Independence through the twenty-first century. Adding to the thorough coverage of "mainline" religious groups, new sections chart the remarkable development and growth of African American churches from the early nineteenth century forward. Finke and Stark show how, like other "upstart sects," these churches competed for adherents and demonstrate how American norms of religious freedom allowed African American churches to construct organizational havens with little outside intervention. This edition also includes new sections on the ethnic religious communities of recent immigrants—stories that echo those told of ethnic religious enclaves in the nineteenth century.'
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Friedenthal, Richard, Luther, Weidenfeld and Nicholson 1970 Jacket: At midday on 21 October 1517, Luther launched the Reformation by nailing his 'ninety-five theses' against Papal indulgences to the door of the Schlosskirche at Wittenberg. The world has yet to come to terms with the issues he raised. . . . In this new biography Richard Friedenthal portrays the living human figure behind the accretions of pious and hostile legend. . . . Interwoven with the story of Luther's life is an intricate picture of Europe as a whole undergoing the agony of the Reformation, with centuries old beliefs and customs being turned upside-down in a chaos of furious religious controversy, social upheaval and constant clashes between bishops and princelings, imperial troops and mercenaries. . . .'
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Graham, Katharine, Personal History, Alan A Knopf 1997 'Jacket: 'An extraordinarily frank, honest and generous book by one of America's most famous and admired women - a book that is, as its title suggests, both personal and history.'
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Horney, Karen , Self Analysis, 1994 Introduction: 'Professional analytical help ... can scarcely reach everyone whom it is capable of benefiting. It is for this reason that the question of self-analysis has importance. Is has always been regarded as not only valuable but also feasible to "know oneself", but it is possible that the endeavour can be greatly assisted by the discoveries of psychoanalysis. ...
It is the object of this book to raise this question seriously, with all due consideration for the difficulties involved.' (9)
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le Carre, John, The Secret Pilgrim, Random House Value Publishing 1992 Amazon customer review: 'Mr John LeCarre, with Len Deighton, is tops at writing about espionage and he deserves mention in the history of English literature of this century. I have all his books in my personal library. They all denote an insider's knowledge of the espionage world, the right dose of skepticism about human nature, tongue-in-cheek, sense of the plot, mastery of the language, eclecticism. The only flaw may be found in a pervasive melancholy and pessimism: there is never sun in these books, only a uniform and pervasive grayness - but I guess the world he describes is of that colour. However, he is one of the most entertaining writers I ever found and I always look for new production of his whenever I enter a bookstore.' A reader
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Matthew, and Alexander Jones (editor), in The Jerusalem Bible, Darton Longman and Todd 1966 Introduction to the Synoptic Gospels: '[Matthew is] a dramatic account in seven acts of the coming of the kingdom of heaven. 1. The preparation of the kingdom in the person of the child-Messiah. . . . 2. the formal proclamation of the charter of the Kingdom i.e. the Sermon on the Mount 3. The preaching of the kingdom by missionaries 4. The obstacles that the kingdom will meet from men 5. Its embryonic existence ... 6. The crisis . .. which is to prepare the way for the definitive coming of the kingdom . . . 7. The coming itself ... through the Passion and resurrection.'
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Qutb, Sayed, Milestones, Islamic Book Service 2006 Amazon book description: 'The author speaks about the unique Quranic generation, the nature of the Quranic method, the characteristics of Islamic society, jihad in the cause of God, and a Muslim s nationality and his belief among other things.'
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Rogan, Eugene, The Arabs: A history, Basic Books 2011 'In this definitive history of the modern Arab world, award-winning historian Eugene Rogan draws extensively on Arab sources and texts to place the Arab experience in its crucial historical context for the first time. Tracing five centuries of Arab history, Rogan reveals that there was an age when the Arabs set the rules for the rest of the world. Today, however, the Arab world’s sense of subjection to external powers carries vast consequences for both the region and Westerners who attempt to control it.'
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Links
| Aquinas 244 Whether in creatures is necessrily found a trace of the Trinity 'I answer that . . . in all creatures there is found the trace of the Trinity, inasmuch as in every creature are found some things which are necessarily reduced to the divine Persons as to their cause. For every creature subsists in its own being, and has a form, whereby it is determined to a species, and has relation to something else. Therefore as it is a created substance, it represents the cause and principle; and so in that manner it shows the Person of the Father, Who is the "principle from no principle." According as it has a form and species, it represents the Word as the form of the thing made by art is from the conception of the craftsman. According as it has relation of order, it represents the Holy Ghost, inasmuch as He is love, because the order of the effect to something else is from the will of the Creator. . . . ' back |
| Aquinas 256 Whether evil is adequately divided into pain and fault? 'I answer that, Evil, as was said above (3) is the privation of good, which chiefly and of itself consists in perfection and act. Act, however, is twofold; first, and second. The first act is the form and integrity of a thing; the second act is its operation. Therefore evil also is twofold. In one way it occurs by the subtraction of the form, or of any part required for the integrity of the thing, as blindness is an evil, as also it is an evil to be wanting in any member of the body. In another way evil exists by the withdrawal of the due operation, either because it does not exist, or because it has not its due mode and order. But because good in itself is the object of the will, evil, which is the privation of good, is found in a special way in rational creatures which have a will. Therefore the evil which comes from the withdrawal of the form and integrity of the thing, has the nature of a pain; and especially so on the supposition that all things are subject to divine providence and justice, as was shown above (22, 2); for it is of the very nature of a pain to be against the will. But the evil which consists in the subtraction of the due operation in voluntary things has the nature of a fault; for this is imputed to anyone as a fault to fail as regards perfect action, of which he is master by the will. Therefore every evil in voluntary things is to be looked upon as a pain or a fault' back |
| Aquinas 263 Whether angels exist in any great number? '. . . Hence it must be said that the angels, even inasmuch as they are immaterial substances, exist in exceeding great number, far beyond all material multitude. This is what Dionysius says (Coel. Hier. xiv): "There are many blessed armies of the heavenly intelligences, surpassing the weak and limited reckoning of our material numbers." The reason whereof is this, because, since it is the perfection of the universe that God chiefly intends in the creation of things, the more perfect some things are, in so much greater an excess are they created by God. Now, as in bodies such excess is observed in regard to their magnitude, so in things incorporeal is it observed in regard to their multitude. We see, in fact, that incorruptible bodies, exceed corruptible bodies almost incomparably in magnitude; for the entire sphere of things active and passive is something very small in comparison with the heavenly bodies. Hence it is reasonable to conclude that the immaterial substances as it were incomparably exceed material substances as to multitude.' back |
| Aquinas 97 Whether ideas are many? 'I answer that, It must necessarily be held that ideas are many. In proof of which it is to be considered that in every effect the ultimate end is the proper intention of the principal agent, as the order of an army (is the proper intention) of the general. Now the highest good existing in things is the good of the order of the universe, as the Philosopher clearly teaches in Metaph. xii. Therefore the order of the universe is properly intended by God, . . . So, then, it must needs be that in the divine mind there are the proper ideas of all things. Hence Augustine says (Octog. Tri. Quaest. qu. xlvi), "that each thing was created by God according to the idea proper to it," from which it follows that in the divine mind ideas are many. . . . ' back |
| Galileo Galilei - Wikipedia Galileo Galilei - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia 'Galileo Galilei (. . . 15 February 1564 – 8 January 1642), commonly known as Galileo, was an Italian physicist, mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher who played a major role in the Scientific Revolution. His achievements include improvements to the telescope and consequent astronomical observations and support for Copernicanism. Galileo has been called the "father of modern observational astronomy", the "father of modern physics", the "father of science", and "the Father of Modern Science".' back |
| History.com Hotline established between Washington and Moscow 'August 30, 1963
Hotline established between Washington and Moscow
On this day in 1963, John F. Kennedy becomes the first U.S. president to have a direct phone line to the Kremlin in Moscow. The "hotline" was designed to facilitate communication between the president and Soviet premier.' back |
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