"natural theology > notes > 2016

vol VII: Notes

2016

Notes

Sunday 20 March 2016 - Saturday 26 March 2016

[Notebook: DB 80: Cosmic plumbing]

[page 45]

Sunday 20 March 2016

What am I thinking? It is hard to know. At the survival level all is good: good food, accommodation, all the children and grandchildren doing well, but dissatisfied with myself and not sure why. Aristotle says we are political animals, and it seems that the politics is not just between us but also within us, different elements of the internal process wanting to move in different directions and leading to internal tension, cognitive dissonance. This dissonance seems to be a reflection of the world around me, and at its simplest the difference seems to lie between those in positions of power who are empowered by the traditional violent past and those weaker ones who are struggling for a more peaceful and inclusive society. This conflict is embodied in my theological struggle between the authoritarian rubbish preached by the Catholic Church and the realities of life that we observe in a world whose creative power is maximized by implementing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the charter of maximum human entropy. Of course, I would like to be an authority and have people listen to me and buy my books, and the root of my dissatisfaction probably lies here. Will my view that the Universe is divine every make any headway? The only way to find out is to keep going, developing and documenting the idea to the best of my ability., hoping that the investment will eventually ay off, both in money and self esteem. United Nations

So: source of my dissatisfaction is that I have not had the effect on the theological world I had hoped for.

[page 46]

Oliver Wendell Holmes (1927): 'Taxes are what we pay for civilized society.' Quote Investigator

. . .

Roland de Vaux De Vaux: Ancient Israel

Monday 21 March 2016

One can guess that the psychological trauma caused to children sexually abused by the Catholic clergy was greatly increased and repressed by the non stop Catholic emphasis that sexuality and sensuality are dirty secrets, not to be talked about. In retrospect I feel that one of my major motivations for joining a religious order was the need to supererogate to overcome my realization that I was an incorrigible masturbator otherwise doomed to an eternity of pain in hell. Fortunately for me this was an unsatisfactory attitude and motivation masquerading as a vocation so I found it easy to object to the ludicrous aspects of Catholic dogma once I had an opportunity to study them closely and the experience has motivated me ever since to seek alternative foundations for theology and religion. David Heyd: Supererogation

Am I enjoying my segment of space-time? My subset of the universal process? My act of life? My life? Yes. My principal regret at this stage is that I have not been able to export more of my good fortune to others, but perhaps that will come in the long run.

[page 47]

Tuesday 22 March 2016

Agarwal et alFixed Point Theory and Applications Agarwal

Natural theology - scientific theology - secular theology.

Wednesday 23 March 2016

Comment to Commonweal

Here we have revealed the sick and violent heart of the Christian God. Although this god is held to be omnipotent, omniscient, benevolent and prudent, it allegedly crippled its newly created world and destroyed the inner harmony of human life when the first people exercised their creative curiosity and ate some tasty looking fruit. Then (according to the Christian story) to get over this insult to its monumental ego, this god arranged for its own child to be cruelly murdered by the Roman forces occupying Jerusalem. Rutledge writes “it is in the crucifixion that the nature of God is truly revealed.” Not the nature of the true god, which is identical with the universe, but the nature of the Christian God, a direct descendent of the murdering emperors of Rome, a god whose principal church condones the wholesale rape of children, a god whose religion claims that we are all defective sinners. We can only thank the true god that Christianity is a dying force in the more intelligent and evidence based reaches of the Earth. Unfortunately this does not include the violent Christian regimes that occupy the United States, who have spent trillions in my lifetime in their vicious crusades against unbelievers. Robert P Imbelli: Review of Understanding the Death of jesus Christ

Thursday 24 March 2016

The Higgs boson is claimed to be the source of mass. What does this mean to me? I am an infinitesimal lightweight in the theological world, a remote outsider. How can I put on some mass and move toward the mainstream? The answer always seems to be the same - create a plausible story coupling myself to the reality of the Universe, so press on.

This book is a work of fiction, but I would like to think that its factual background is at least as reliable as the facts recounted in the Bible, which is also a work of fiction manufactured by many authors over a thousand years of writing and who knows how much oral tradition preceded the writings.

Friday 25 March 2016

Saturday 26 March 2016

The era of ancient religions is coming to a close.

[page 48]

Despite their literary and cultural significance, we can no longer run the world on fairy tales and myths, but must get real, and the first step toward reality [is to respect our scientific discoveries about our place in the Universe].

Edelman: Happiness of Pursuit - What neuroscience can tell us about the good life. Edelman

A computer is not creative; a computer network is, due to the random timing and effect of interrupts.

For some reason my dominant image of a perfect process is women making love, pure pleasure without the competitive male overtones.

There is nothing I would like better, though I am a man, to be a woman making love with another woman. Before my monastic days I just wanted to wrestle with my mates, but after a few mariages I decided that I wanted to be a woman with the libido I already have. To a fair degree, gender is not determined by genotype.

You may copy this material freely provided only that you quote fairly and provide a link (or reference) to your source.

Please click here to buy a copy of this book and support this project

Agarwal, Ravi P., and Maria Meehan & Donal O'Regan, Fixed Point Theory and Applications, Cambridge University Press 2009 'This book provides a clear exposition of the flourishing field of fixed point theory. Starting form the basics of Banach's contraction theorem, most main results and techniques are ceveloped. . . . The theory is applied to many areas of current interest in analysis. . . . '
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De Vaux, Roland, Ancient Israel: Its Life and Institutions, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. 1961, 1997 'Considered by many to be a modern classic, Ancient Israel offers a fascinating, full-scale reconstruction of the social and religious life of Israel in Old Testament times. Drawing principally on the text of the Old Testament itself, as well as from archaeological evidence and information gathered from the historical study of Israel's neighbors, de Vaux first provides an extensive introduction to the nomadic nature of life in ancient Israel and then traces in detail the developments of Israel's most important institutions --family, civil, military, and religious --and their influence on the nation's life and history.'
Amazon back

Edelman, Shimon, The Happiness of Pursuit: What Neuroscience Can Teach Us About the Good Life, Basic books 2012 Jacket: ' "The anceint injunction to 'Know thyself' gets a lively update in Shimon Edelman's eclectic examination of 'knowing' and 'self' through the lends of twenty-first century cognitive science. Its human to wonder thoughtfully through real and imaginary landscapes, learning as we go—this is happiness, embodied in Edelman's witty odyssey, which provkes the very pleasures it describes.' Dan Lloyd, Brownell Professor of Philosophy, Trinity College
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le Carre, John, A Small Town in Germany, Putnam 1968 Editorial review: 'A man is missing. Harting, refugee background, a Junior Something in the British Embassy in Bonn. Gone with him are forty-three files, all of them Confidential or above. It is vital that the Germans do not learn that Harting is missing, nor that there's been a leak. With radical students and neo-Nazis rioting and critical negotiations under way in Brussels, the timing could not be worse -- and that's probably not an accident. Alan Turner, London's security officer, is sent to Bonn to find the missing man and files as Germany's past, present, and future threaten to collide in a nightmare of violence.'
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Papers

Walther, Philip, et al, "Experimental one-way quantum computing", Nature, 434, 7030, 10 March 2005, page 169-176. 'Standard quantum computing is based on sequences of unitary quantum logic gates that process qubits. The one-way quantum computer proposed by Raussendorf and Briegel is entirely different. It has changed our understanding of the requirements for quantum computation and more generally how we think about quantum physics. This new model requires qubits to be initialised in a highly entangled cluster states. From this point on the computation proceeds by a sequence of single-qubit measurements with classical feedforward of their outcomes. Because of the essential role of measurement, a one-way computer is irreversible. In the one-way quantum computer, the order and choices of measurements determine the algorithm computed. We have experimentally realised four-qubit cluster states encoded into the polarisation state of four photons. We characterise the quantum state by implementing experimental four-qubit quantum state tomography. Using this cluster state, we demonstrate the feasibility of one-way quantum computing through a univeral set of one- and two-qubit operations. Finally, our implementation of Grover's search algorithm demonstrates that one-way computation is ideally suited for such tasks. '. back

Links

Consilium for Implementing the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Comme le Prevoit—On the Translation of Liturgical Texts For Celebrations With A Congregation (1969), ' The purpose of liturgical translations is to proclaim the message of salvation to believers and to express the prayer of the Church to the Lord: "Liturgical translations have become . . . the voice of the Church" (address of Paul VI to participants in the congress on translations of liturgical texts, 10 November 1965).[e] To achieve this end, it is not sufficient that a liturgical translation merely reproduce the expressions and ideas of the original text. Rather it must faithfully communicate to a given people, and in their own language, that which the Church by means of this given text originally intended to communicate to another people in another time. A faithful translation, therefore, cannot be judged on the basis of individual words: the total context of this specific act of communication must be kept in mind, as well as the literary form proper to the respective language.' back

David Heyd, Supererogation (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy), 'Supererogation is the technical term for the class of actions that go “beyond the call of duty.” Roughly speaking, supererogatory acts are morally good although not (strictly) required. Although common discourse in most cultures allows for such acts and often attaches special value to them, ethical theories have only rarely discussed this category of actions directly and systematically. A conspicuous exception is the Roman Catholic tradition, which gave rise to the concept of supererogation, and the virulent attacks on it by Lutherans and Calvinists.' back

Ellen P Goodman, Big pharma, tobaco, tech - how the first amendment is being abused, 'The first amendment to the US constitution – guarantor of freedom of speech and of the press, as well as the freedom of religion and assembly – is a sacred creed to many Americans. For most of its history, it was understood principally as a guardian of individual liberty and a protector of public discourse. Increasingly, and not accidentally, the business community is using the first amendment to block economic regulation.' back

Gaston Cjillier and Ernesto Seman, What Obama Shouold Know About Macri's Argentina, 'An acknowledgment of the malign role the United States played in the early years of the dictatorship is welcome, if overdue. But to ignore the red flags on human rights raised by the recent actions of Argentina’s new ruling party is a worrying reminder of that legacy. For Mr. Macri, Mr. Obama’s visit is already an endorsement.' back

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel - Wikipedia, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (German pronunciation: [ˈɡeɔʁk ˈvɪlhɛlm ˈfʁiːdʁɪç ˈheːɡəl]) (August 27, 1770 – November 14, 1831) was a German philosopher, one of the creators of German Idealism. His historicist and idealist account of reality as a whole revolutionized European philosophy and was an important precursor to Continental philosophy and Marxism.' back

H. Pat Brennan and Michele Johnson, Caught For The First Time: The Early Flash of an Exploding Star, 'The brilliant flash of an exploding star’s shockwave—what astronomers call the “shock breakout”—has been captured for the first time in the optical wavelength or visible light by NASA's planet-hunter, the Kepler space telescope.' back

June Hirschfield Davis and Jonathan Gilbert, Obama Declares a New Partnership After Talks With Argentine Leader, 'Mr. Obama, whose visit coincides with the 40th anniversary on Thursday of the 1976 coup that began the “dirty war” in Argentina, formally announced that the United States would declassify troves of secret military and intelligence documents that could shed light on the atrocities of that era. On Thursday, he will visit a riverside memorial park here that honors thousands of people associated with leftist ideology who were systematically kidnapped and murdered during the dictatorship, a gesture toward human rights activists who were infuriated by the timing of his visit.' back

Magnetic refrigeration - Wikipedia, Magnetic refrigeration - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Magnetic refrigeration is a cooling technology based on the magnetocaloric effect. This technique can be used to attain extremely low temperatures, as well as the ranges used in common refrigerators. Compared to traditional gas-compression refrigeration, magnetic refrigeration is safer, quieter, more compact, has a higher cooling efficiency, and is more environmentally friendly because it does not use harmful, ozone-depleting coolant gases.' back

Mark 12:10, Bible, King James Version, And have ye not read this scripture; The stone which the builders rejected is become the head of the corner: (Refers to Psalm 118:22) back

Michael Corkery, As Coal's Future Grows Murkier, Banks Pull Financing, '“There are always going to be periods of boom and bust,” said Chiza Vitta, a metals and mining analyst with the credit rating firm Standard & Poor’s. “But what is happening in coal is a downward shift that is permanent.” On Wednesday the world’s largest private-sector coal company, Peabody Energy, said that it might have to file for bankruptcy protection, following a path already taken by three of the nation’s other large coal companies.' back

National Academy of Social Insurance, National Academy of Social Insurance, 'NASI is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization made up of the nation’s leading experts on social insurance. Its mission is to advance solutions to challenges facing the nation by increasing public understanding of how social insurance contributes to economic security.' back

Peter Wehner, The Man the Founder Feared, 'The founders, knowing history and human nature, took great care to devise a system that would prevent demagogues and those with authoritarian tendencies from rising up in America. That system has been extraordinarily successful. We have never before faced the prospect of a political strongman becoming president. Until now.' back

Quote Investigator, Taxes Are What We Pay for Civilized Society, 'Quote Investigator: In 1927 in the court case of Compañía General de Tabacos de Filipinas v. Collector of Internal Revenue a dissenting opinion was written by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. that included the following phrase. . . . "It is true, as indicated in the last cited case, that every exaction of money for an act is a discouragement to the extent of the payment required, but that which in its immediacy is a discouragement may be part of an encouragement when seen in its organic connection with the whole. Taxes are what we pay for civilized society, including the chance to insure." ' back

Robert Mickens, Letter from Rome: Auto-referential Filters of Defense, 'The pandemic of clergy sex abuse of children and adolescents has not abated. But you wouldn’t know that by reading some of the statements coming out of the Holy See Press Office lately. You’d think the Church has already rounded the corner on this issue and all it needs to do now is continue reinforcing a basically sound program and various protocols it’s implemented over the past several years.' back

Robert P Imbelli, 'The Crucifixion", Review of Fleming Rutlege: Understanding the Death of Jesus Christ
'In her remarkable (indeed, monumental) new work, Rutledge . . .diagnoses the deepest need of the world . . . ) as its often inchoate longing for redemption. . . . [She argues that “the crucifixion is the touchstone of Christian authenticity, the unique feature by which everything else, including the Resurrection, is given its true significance.” . . . “it is in the crucifixion that the nature of God is truly revealed.” ' back

Sebastian Anthony, GE develops high-tech fridge magnets that could save billions of dollarsin energy costs, 'At the heart of GE’s new refrigeration technology is the magnetocaloric effect. The magnetocaloric effect, like vapor-compression refrigeration (the method used in all modern cars, fridges, etc.) was discovered a very long time ago, but there have always been large barriers preventing its commercial adoption. Basically, some metals get warmer when exposed to a magnetic field, and then cool down again when the magnet is removed. By doing this repeatedly, you can create a heat pump that moves thermal energy from one place and deposits it elsewhere.' back

Warwick Smith, The Coalition has boxed itself into a ridiculous corner on tax, 'Per Capita's annual tax surveys have repeatedly revealed that Australians do not feel overtaxed and are willing to pay higher taxes for things they think are important, like education and healthcare. Indeed, we are a relatively low-taxing economy by OECD standards.' back

Wikileaks.org, Wikileaks - Wikileaks, 'WikiLeaks is a non-profit media organization dedicated to bringing important news and information to the public. We provide an innovative, secure and anonymous way for independent sources around the world to leak information to our journalists. We publish material of ethical, political and historical significance while keeping the identity of our sources anonymous, thus providing a universal way for the revealing of suppressed and censored injustices.' back