natural theology

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Notes

Sunday 15 March 2020 - Saturday 21 March 2020

[Notebook: DB 84 Pam's Book]

[page 203]

Sunday 15 March 2020

Crotty Chapter 1: What Really is Religion?

page 2: 'I understand culture to mean the total shared way of life of any given Homo sapiens group. . . . Culture is a human fiction. . . . In short, cultures exist primarily in the mind. Robert Crotty: The Christian Survivor: How Roman Christianity Defeated Its Early Competitors

page 4: Moderate cultural relativism. Pinker: Language is an instinct. Steven Pinker: The Language Instinct

page 5: The need for order.

page 6: Culture and religion: Religion is a transcultural human universal.

page 7; 'As a reference point, writing could be used to stabilize large populations'. 'Religious adherents work toward common goals and can eschew self interest.'

page 8: 'At this point of the potential disintegration of a secular cultural world there is an urgent need for religious culture.'

page 11: 'Ultimacy in itself is the ultimate focussing of all things.'

page 12: Central phenomenon of any religion is its religious experience.

page 13: 'Whether the sacred story is ultimately true is of no importance. What is important is the religious experience the sacred story has generated.'

page 14: 'Myth is a metaphorical story that is intended to convey the most profound spiritual truth, a truth that cannot be communicated in everyday language [but maybe in music].'

page 20: 'The role of religious succession cannot be emphasized too much.'

page 34: Literary Jesus, Historical Jesus, Biblical Jesus - there was certainly a Historical Jesus.

page 50: 'Pietas defined religiosity for the Romans, the interior devotion to the gods, Roman religious experience.' Religio and cultus were simply rituals that maintained peace between the people and the Gods.

disciplina, gravitas, constantia, virtu, eusebia, dignitas, auctoritas 'This was the social world into which Christianity would flourish.'

page 51: Traditional Roman religion focussed on the supernatural, the numen. lares (ancestors), penates (household spirits) vesta (hearth)

[page 203]

Crotty page 52: Emperor worship based on genius, the spark of divinity. Rome moves East. 64 BCE Pompey ousts Tigranes 1.

page 55: Romans make Herod the Great king of Judea in 40 BCE and occupy Jerusalem for him in 37.

page 57: 'What is clear is that Christianity was born into a Roman world.

page 59: 'Conceding that our knowledge of the Jewish background is very limited, we have also to admit that we know virtually nothing about Jesus . . . What we do know is that Jesus provided a stimulus for a number of Jesus-movement groups . . . One of these would survive, Roman Christianity, and the others would flourish and then be subsumed and die out. . . . This process is very much like human evolution . . . Can the forerunner communities that preceded Roman Christianity be also reconstructed [like the evolutionary history of Homo sapiens]?

page 60: 'What follows is an attempt to do just that.'

page 72: James, Peter and Stephen were early Christian leaders. They were not telling the same story. Far from it. There were also other leaders, such as Paul and John. We will deal with both in due course.'

page 73: 'The Jesus-movement group in Rome was a very different story.

page 74: "Somewhere amidst the Jewish synagogues of Rome, Roman Christianity took it rise.'

[page 205]

Crotty page 77: 'The fact was that Christians in Rome no longer identified with Jews after the mid 50s CE. Between that time and the middle of the third century the Jesus-movement in Rome consolidated . . . The Roman Jesus movement had become the Christian Church in the West.

page 81: I Clement: 'This reinforcement of traditional authority by Clement is the first clear statement advocating a self perpetuating Church leadership in Christianity.'

page 86: 'We are here close to the basic building blocks of Roman Christianity. The Christians, forced by circumstances, . . . to leave the synagogues, established house-churches as substitutes . . . Because of the Roman concept of familia, authority was vested in an episcopos . . . The most important would have been the episcopos claiming succession to Peter. He was the Apostolos.

page 93: 'The historical likelihood is that Peter never came to Rome and naturally, was never buried there. . . . Presumably Peter and his group remained in Antioch,'

page 96: 'Who first underwent a vicarious sacrifice: The Jewish Isaac or the Christian Jesus defined as the New Isaac?'

page 97: The text [Gn 22:1-14] centres on the testing of Abraham.

page 100: 'The covenant, in Near Eastern society, meant that

[page 206]

between the High God as patron deity and the community there was a contract that regulated land possession and the treatment of those outside the community.

Crotty page 101: 'In short the Abraham complex in Genesis 11-25 is an alternative account of the acquisition of the land [controlled by the High God] by an 'Israel', an immigrant group which had arrived in the 'eretz and now inserted itself into the sacred narrative of the land.'

page 109: ' . . . there is growing emphasis [in post-biblical Christian literature] on the parallel between the sacrifice of Jesus and the sacrifice of Isaac.'

Parallel with Mithraism: Mithras slew the primordial bull in a sacrificial act and released his blood. From the blood primeval life began. Mithraism - Wikipedia

page 111: 'The conclusion from this survey is that at the time when the Christians interpreted Jesus' death as a blood sacrifice, they used the typology of Isaac to explain that God the Father allowed that blood sacrifice to eventuate.'

page 112: 'Christianity had inherited a new Isaac.' The Roman Christian literary tradition had by now the skeleton of the Nicene Creed - The Roman Christian Myth. Nicene Creed - Wikipedia

page 115: 'The Roman traditions would have been placed into written form by the Gospel of Mark . . . the heart of Roman Christianity.'

page 117: Roman history based on documentation [rather than oral].

page 118: Gospels in final form well into C2 CE.

[page 207}

Crotty page 119: '[The] . . . key theological issue in Roman Tradition . . . was that Jesus was willingly sacrificed by his Father. . . . It established a new covenant to replace the jaded covenant between Israel and Yahweh. Yahweh - Wikipedia

page 128; Nine Roman traditions.

page 124: 'good news' evangelion

page 125: Tradition 1: Jewish forerunner John; Jesus baptism; testing in wilderness;
Tradition 2: New Isaac, Messiah for Jews and gentiles;
page 154: Tradition 3: Entry into Jerusalem;
page 162: Tradition 4: Eschatological sermon;
page 168: Tradition 5: Messiah is anointed and has last meal;
page 174: Tradition 6: Prayer in Gethsemane - examination of Jesus' mind;
page 177: Tradition 7: Trials: Jewish Hierarchy and Roman administration;
page 182: Tradition 8: Crucifixion, death and burial - fulfilment texts;
page 189: Tradition 9: Empty tomb.

page 192: The Gospel of Mark ends with the women overcome by awe: 16:8 "So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror (tromos) and amazement (ekstasis) had seized them; and they spoke nothing to anyone, for they were afraid (phobos."

'Normal fear is not being described here. It is religious awe.'

page 194: 'The Jesus-movement in Rome adjusted to the [Roman] cultural form.

[page 208]

Acceptance of patriarchy made it a virtue. Sexual ethics became much more rigid than in the common Roman household, and more rigid than in Judaism.'

Crotty page 196: 'Roman Christianity is now stabilized by a formal and authoritative written text, although on its fringes, even in the capital, an enemy was lurking - Christian Gnosticism.

page 198: Christian Gnosticism: Nag Hammadi texts 350-400 CE. Nag Hammadi library - Wikipedia

page 199: Contents of the text explain why they were hidden: Their Jesus is very much contrary to the canonical Jesus.

page 201: Christian gnostics descended from Jewish gnostics seeking new saviour. They would be effectively wiped out (but never completely eradicated) by the Roman military in the fourth century CE.

page 202: 'By the time of Constantine in the fourth century CE, Gnostic teaching was seen as an abject corruption of the valid teaching of Jesus.'

' . . . the Christian Gnostic Myth (like all of Gnosticism) stressed the need for gnosis, a special knowledge, experience or illumination . . . reserved for the chosen few.'

page 203: The Monad → emanations; Father → Mother → Child: autogenes, monogenes, logos, word.

page 204: Demiurge, the defective god who created the world and humanity. Jesus a manifestation of god could act in the world.

[page 209]

Crotty page 213: 'One thing must be made clear. Palestinian Christianity had sparked Roman Christianity. But thereafter it did not have any lasting influence on it. In fact, the influence went the other way. Roman Christianity swamped both Palestinian Christianity and Gnostic Christianity.' With military help?

page 218: Hadrian rebuilt Jerusalem (Aelia Capitolina) after 130 CE and Roman, non Jewish Christians moved to the rebuilt city.

page 219: Roman Christian move East would affect many forms of the Jesus movement there.

page 223: Acts is the first Church Story, the forerunner of the definitive early Christian history of Eusebius and his forerunners in the time of Constantine. Eusebius - Wikipedia, Constantine the Great and Christianity - Wikipedia

page 224: 'Acts presented Paul as another Jesus.'

page 226: 'Its purpose is to demonstrate how Paul inherited the mantle as leader of Christianity.

page 229: "Do the Galatians want Jesus or circumcision? They cannot have both?"

page 233: 'We have no evidence that Paul's communities practised anything like the Roman Eucharist.'

page 238: 'I Corinthians began life as a Gnostic discourse,' cf. 2:6 sqq.

page 243: '[Paul] has had a gnostic apokalypsis'

page 250: 'Gnostic Christians in Rome were Paul's prime audience in Rome.'

[page 210]

Crotty page 255; 'The only conclusion can be that Paul was a Gnostic leader whose influence and teaching were later rewritten by Roman Christians.

page 260: 'Literary Paul is definitely not a Gnostic, but a fully integrated member of the Roman Christian Church.

Historical Paul, constructed by 'historians'.

page 264; 'In short, Paul was a Gnostic who endeavoured unsuccessfully to make overtures with other Jesus-movement groups.'

page 266: Biblical Paul.

page 269: John of Patmos maybe worked on

page 271: The Book of Revelation

page 277: John's Gospel: '. . . called the "Spiritual Gospel" because of the beauty and expansiveness of its discourse.'

page 278: 'My hypothesis is the the Gospel of John, in an earlier form, was a compilation of Gnostic texts. See Crotty 2016. Crotty: Jesus, His Mother, Her Sister Mary and Mary Magdalene: The Gnostic Background to the Gospel of John

page 285: Independent Gnostic Treatises: The hymn of the Word [John 1:1 sqq.]

page 290: Roman Christians going East extensively amended the Gnostic compendium to yield the Roman Gospel of John.

page 295: Mathew was almost certainly written in a Palestinian setting.

[page 211]

Crotty page 297: Antioch is a strong possibility for Matthew's community.

page 303; Luke: By the time of Luke it seems that Jerusalem had been destroyed and the Jewish people were largely dispersed around the mediterranean, say 120 CE.

Monday 16 March 2020

Crotty page 309: 'The only immediate way to examine the impact of Roman Christianity on other forms of Christianity is to examine some of the early Christian literature that usually escapes our attention.'

page 351: 'The ultimate success of Roman Christianity needs to be acknowledged and its repercussions in modern times acknowledged.'

page 335; Constantine had been dismayed that his new Christian territories were ideologically split over the debate [about the nature of Jesus himself] (led mainly by Arius, an elder in Alexandria). Arius claimed that Jesus was only human, although he was the best human ever and could be called god-like but he was not divine.

page 339: 'Constantine's use of Christianity as a mediator for social stability and organization in the Empire and his own eventual 'conversion' to Christianity should not have been so unexpected. He believed that he had come to power through his support of the Christian Jesus . . . '

Decree in 314 CE: Our purpose is to grant to Christians and to all others full authority to follow whatever worship each one has desired, so that whatever divinity dwells in heaven may be benevolent and propitious to us, and to all placed under our authority. Edict of Milan - Wikipedia

[page 212]

One of the beauties of the cosmological divinity is that it is governed by discernible laws of nature so that instead of having to beg and pray for it to be benevolent toward us we merely have to use the laws to implement the technology that we need to save ourselves.

Crotty page 340: 'Soon bishops became civil servants. They were given rights to rule, to judge, to apportion food supply.'

'Constantine saw himself as the Vicar of God, establishing finally the Reign of God by means of the Roman empire,' A role [eventually] usurped by the popes.

Tuesday 17 March 2020

Hawking and Ellis [from page 202. Friday 13 March] page 11 2.1 Manifolds Hawking & Ellis: The Large Scale Structure of Space-Time

page 11: Cr = r times continuously differentiable. C no bound on r eg infinite polynomial.

'A Cr n-dimensional manifold M is a set M together with a Cr atlas {Ua , Φa}, a collection of charts (Ua , Φa) where the Ua are subsets of M and the Φa are one-one maps of the corresponding Ua to open sets in Rn such that;
1. The Ua cover M, ie M = ⋃aUa; and
2. If UaUb is non-empty, then the map Φa o Φb-1: Φb(UaUb) → Φa(UaUb) is a Cr map of an open subset of Rn to an open subset of Rn.

[page 233]

Misner, Thorne and Wheeler Misner, Thorne & Wheeler: Gravitation

MTW page 51: Attempt to define a vector at a point like a gradient at a point by the limit used in calculus, which depends on space-time being continuous. How do we define a vector in a quantized world? The same problem arises in Hilbert space.

page 56: 'a 1-form is a liner real valued function of vectors ie a linear machine which takes in a vector and puts out a real number.'

page 57: 'the output of 1 form σ when vector u is inserted is 'the value of σ on u'.

page 59: the gradient df of f is a one form.

We may take it as read that the formation of a black hole is a consequence of a sufficiently large concentration of mass as predicted by the general theory and that the coalescence of the geodesics of all the particles in a closed region of space leads to a singularity. Hawking and Ellis surmise that the big bang is an instance of this process in reverse. There appear to be a number of difficulties here. The first is that black holes appear to be very durable and decay very slowly by quantum processes that might last longer than any conceivable age of the universe. Black hole thermodynamics - Wikipedia

The second is that the initial singularity may be considered to be a point with no structure outside the space-time manifold to which the general theory applies. The question, therefore, is how does an entity with no structure create structure from, effectively, nothing. Given the old adage ex nihilo nihil fit, it would seem that we ned ideas outside the current realm of physics to

[page 214]

explain how this happens [maybe we can invoke mathematical fixed point theory if it can be argued that the initial singularity fulfils the hypotheses of some fixed point proof]. The fundamental problem from the physical point of view is the conservation of energy. Black holes do not destroy energy [or electric charge or angular momentum]. They retain their mass as demonstrated by the fact that masses can be seen orbiting them outside their event horizon, and if they did in fact destroy energy, we can imagine them becoming massless and so no longer trapping themselves in a singularity, so to speak. A consequence of this is that the singularity, if it exists, may be considered to have zero size and a huge amount of energy packed at infinite density and consequently at infinite temperature.

The initial singularity presents similar problem since it might be considered to have the energy of the universe at an infinitesimal point. It therefore becomes necessary to deal with the energy problem first, and one common answer is that the universe has zero energy insofar as the sum of its kinetic and potential energy may be zero. We the have to explain how kinetic and potential energy may be differentiated in the initial singularity and what sets the system off to crate the big bang.

There may be a clue in geometrodynamics, the mathematical approach to describing the large scale structure of the universe used explicitly in Misner et al and less so by Hawking and Ellis. Speaking as Aristotelians we might say that form describes but does not cause [ie a form is not an agent] Aristotle saw this as a defect with Plato's forms - they do not motivate and so he invented the first unmoved mover which is pure act [entelcheia or energeia]. So in the past I have explored the idea that pure act, which has the dimensions of angular momentum

[page 215]

may be able to exist in a structureless system without causing any problems of infinity. We see this in electrons and other particles which are considered to have spin but no size . . .. So we will be looking for some quantum mechanical insight into the relationship between fundamental particles and the initial singularity, and so to bed. There lies the beginning of scientific theology.

I have thought about this for a long time and have produced a number of hypothetical stories, reproduced in naturaltheology.net, scientific-theology.com and theologyco.com and refined the problem down to a single question - where does gravitational potential come from? It seems that the general theory cannot explain it because [the origin of potential] antedates the general theory epoch of the emergence of the universe, so I am looking for a new story to build on the notion that we start with pure act, time emerges to give energy and time, energy bifurcates into potential and kinetic, which is in some way related to the emergence of space-time, and then we can invoke mathematical consistency to connect the special and general theories of relativity, but where did the velocity of light and the electric field come from [and, it seems, since there is no potential in inertial space, gravitational potential requires the existence of at least two independent inertial geodesics accelerating with respect to one another]?. First, it seems, we really need an explanation of gravitational field which is obviously very closely connected to action and energy. Round and round, but whatever emerges will have to be in some way circular because the universe is effectively closed.

All these problems and many more form the content of lust-4-life, and the problems give us a clue in the sense that they are questions demanding answers and therefore creating the potential whose gradient forces us toward finding answers, Aristotle's desire for knowledge.

[page 216]

Here is where creation saves. The coronavirus demands an answer, which scientists and administrators are trying to create, and when it comes in the form of a vaccine, social distance, paid sick leave and all the other coping mechanisms, we shall be saved, provided we can put all our creative ideas into action.

Life is a flow, punctuated with problems, small and great [every step forward, even those as small as a quantum of action, is the solution to a problem; the emission of an electron and the discovery of the general theory of relativity (by both the universe and Einstein) are formally identical processes].

Wednesday 18 March 2020

Pinker page 20: Darwin: 'language ability is "an instinctive tendency to acquire an art." Steven Pinker: The Language Instinct [link above]

page 23: Chomsky: ' "The language each person acquires is a rich and complex construction hopelessly underconstrained by the fragmentary evidence available [to the child]. Nevertheless individuals in a speech community have developed essentially the same language. This fact can be explained only on the assumption that these individuals employ highly restrictive principles that guide the construction of grammar." '

An application of the principle of requisite variety. Applied to the emergence of the universe is shows the unity of the universal structure is a product of its origin being restricted to a single initial singularity.

page 25: New Guinea; 26: No mute tribe has ever been discovered.

page 28: Weinreich: ' "a language is a dialect with an army and a navy".'

page 33: Bickerton: 'a pidgin can be converted into a full complex

[page 217]

language in one fell swoop: all it takes is for a group of children to be exposed to the pidgin at the age when they acquire their mother tongue.'

Pinker page 39: 'Extraordinary acts of creation by children [occur] every time a child learns his or her mother tongue.'

page 45: 'If language is an instinct it should have an identifiable seat on the brain, and perhaps with a special set of genes that help wire it into place.' ? Heyes pp 169-96. Cecilia Heyes: Cognitive Gadgets: The Cultural Evolution of Thinking

page 55: Newspeak: effective insofar as thought is dependent on words.

page 58: 'As we shall see in this chapter, there is no scientific evidence that languages drastically shape their speakers' ways of thinking.' ie they do not constrain thought like though constrains language.

page 73: 'Turing . . . made the idea of symbolic representation scientifically respectable.

etc etc.

Lust for Life - Irving Stone Nonesuch London 1954. Irving Stone; Lust for Life, Vincent van Gogh - Wikipedia

Thursday 19 March 2020

Estia shuts down visitors.

Stone Book 1: The Borinage - the struggle for life in the Belgian coal mines 1879-80.

Gravitation the crown (apogee? culmination? perfection? completion?) of classical physics. It can take us no further and we must turn to quantum mechanics for the next step. Gravity

[page 218]

is the classical frame for quantum reality, the continuum which is modulated to give us the world.

Friday 20 March 2020

Crotty 2016 Robert Crotty: Jesus, His Mother, Her Sister Mary and Mary Magdalene: The Gnostic Background to the Gospel of John [ref link above]

Crotty page 3: 'It must be stated that this book is not written from the viewpoint of the Christian Church . . . '

page 7: 'To what extent can the study of the Bible be described as an historical search? . . . second . . . did religion fall from the heavens? Or is it an explicable phenomenon within the ambit of human development?'

page 9: Religion and culture.

page 10: He repeats: "At this point, where secular culture cannot cope, there is an urgent need for something more - a religious culture.' Assuming, of course that there are things like war, plague, earthquake, tsunami beyond the reach of secular culture. Not really. So Ultimacy, which, to me, is not stronger than death,

pages 10-17: repetition of 2017 (or vice versa) Robert Crotty (2017) : The Christian Survivor: How Roman Christianity Defeated Its Early Competitors [ref link above]

page 19: Jewish background [source] of Christianity.

page 21: Literary forms of the Jewish Bible: Myth, legend, fable, poetry, wisdom and sometimes history,

page 22: So: Literary Israel / Historical Israel /

[page 219]

Crotty page 27: Intersection of Literary and Historical Israel. Liteary Israel C6 → C2 BCE. Before the Persian and Greek periods. 539: Perians took over Babylonians.

page 29: Persian immigrants to Jerusalem established new High God, Yahweh. 'What was the origin of the High God? Temple:

page 30: 'Royalty and temple administration combined as joint controllers of Ancient Near Eastern society.' ' A temple was in ancient times not solely a religious foundation. I was an institution that linked landowners and the official temple personnel with the ruling elite.'

' . . . Persia had a strategic policy that included . . . either the building or restoration of temples . . . and finally the establishment of law codes considered to have been provided by the temple deity.'

'If this "people of the land" wanted to be part of Yehud or the new Judah under the High God Yahweh, they must agree to the new definition of god, society and ethnicity.

page 33: Hellenization C4 BCE - belligerent introduction of Greek culture.

page 34: Hasmoneans. Hasmonean dynasty - Wikipedia

page 37: From Judaism there emerged a new religion, a sect of Judaism which would eventually be called Christianity.'

[page 219]

My interest in this history stems from my desire to create a new religion with a cosmic God. I am no prophetic preacher with coals of fire in my mouth [Isaiah 6:6] but a mild mannered writer with a few ideas that seem good and need documentation, which is what I am doing here, imitating a Persian scribe without royal military backing.

Crotty page 38: So we are back to Literary Jesus again. It is heartening to see how much Crotty repeats himself in his books, as I do in my websites.

page 40: Quelle. Jesus-movements. Q source - Wikipedia

page 47: Multiple Jesus-movements - see Crotty 2017.

page 62: Christian Gnosticism.

page 63: Plato: 'True knowledge consists of the mental apprehension of the unchanging Forms.' All material things, including humans have derived ultimately from The One [the Form of Goodness].

This all sounds a bit like my plan for the emergence of the Universe from the initial singularity. Initial singularity - Wikipedia

'. . . aided by the divinity, humans can passively become the recipients of gnosis and find reunion with The One, with God.'

page 64; 'The Logos for Platonists was the invisible principle that permeated all reality.' → Hellenization → Plato → Jewish Proto-Gnosticism.

Saturday 21 March 2020

The fundamental errors and contradictions in Christianity mean that hypocrisy is in effect built in.

Where does love come from? Where does lust come from? Where does gravity come from? What is the source of potential? Why does the world go round? and finally why do I and so many other people want to answer these questions and many like them, that is, where does curiosity come from? Darwin gave us an easy answer to lust. Because life is short all species that could not reproduce fast enough (for whatever reason) have died out, and since reproduction is no easy matter it requires powerful motivation to get going, the lust for life [and thinking more generally, we might conclude that the origin of potential was a random event which, because of its tendency to reproduce itself, has propagated itself through the universe at all levels in all circumstances]

Matter is the carrier of information because it is quantized in waves. Why quantization? Why potential? Quantization enables counting, which enables statistical mechanics, which explains potential. Kerson Huang; Statistical Mechanics

Back to Crotty:

The Gnostic story is an hypothesis about the nature of the world which touched on enough points of human experience to give it a certain amount of credibility in a time of stress:

Crotty page 71; 'The religious structure of Judaism was under stress as is revealed in its literature. It was being manipulated as a religious population sought contact with Ultimacy. It is only at this point that we can understand Jewish Gnosticism . . . The Dead Sea Scrolls give evidence of this, . . . ' Dead Sea Scrolls - Wikipedia

[page 222]

From a marketing point of view I need to shape my theological trilogy as a new approach to cosmological "Ultimacy" which will solve all our problems through science, ie scientifically realistic dreams of future 'salvation' through evidence based action.

Crotty page 71: '. . . In some parts the Scrolls relate their own symbolic universe. It was based on dualism; Light and Darkness, Truth and Lie, Spirit and Flesh. This religio-cultural world was ruled by Darkness and Lie. The Ruler of the World was the Angel of Darkness, also known as the Devil. This is Gnostic language derived from the Hellenistic way of thinking being applied to Jewish thought.'

page 72: Conclusion; '. . . the trend toward immediate union was basically widespread in human thought, the contention that the human intellect can make direct contact with the Infinite . . . ' Beatific vision - Wikipedia

Christian Gnostics: 'there were rival successors to Jesus. . . . They were the Christian Gnostics.' Crotty 2107 pp 196 sqq.

Aristotle effectively refuted Gnosticism when he noted that Plato's forms are not efficient causes: we need the unmoved mover for that. In my piture the unmoved mover is potential, the spirit that drives thr world, dynamics translate as the lust for life. So it remains good to root modern theology in Book XII of thr Metaphysics as Aquinas did. In a way the most fortunate disaster in my life was to join the Dominicans and meet Thomas. Aristotle: Metaphysics, Book XII, vii, 1072b3 sqq, Unmoved mover - Wikipedia

[page 223]

. . .

Crotty page 72 (cont): 'There was never anything like a recognisable and single "Gnostic Jesus-movement".' [at least according to the available sources]

page 74: Nag Hammadi

page 75: Nag Hammadi themes:
Alternative myths of Creation and Salvation
Gnostic Teachings
Gnostic liturgies
The Feminine Divine Principle
Gnostic Apostolic Writings
Sayings and Deeds of Jesus
Other

page 76: Gospel of Mary; Gospel of Judas Gospel of Mary - Wikipedia, Gospel of Judas - Wikipedia

page 77: 'Where there are parallels between Christian Scripture and Gnostic text direct dependence of one on the other should never be an automatic conclusion.'

page 78: 'Christian Gnosticism seems to have flourished mostly among hermits and ascetic monks living an austere life in desert regions, particularly in Egypt. . . . They were regarded by many of the Roman Church group in particular as The Enemy. Wiped out by Roman military C4 CE (Crotty 2017 p 201).

[page 224]

Crotty page 79: 'It is true that Christian Gnostics became the losers. They succumbed to the superior political (and military) power of the mainstream Roman Church.'

page 80: Gnosis: direct illumination given to the chosen few. Wrong!

page 81: 'Trimorphic Protennoia' Trimorphic Protennoia - Wikipedia

page 82: Sophia → emanation of the Demiurge. Sophia (Gnosticism) - Wikipedia, Demiurge - Wikipedia

page 83: 'Creation of humanity and the material world . . . was a mistake of cosmic proportions.'

Apocalypse of John Apocalyptic literature - Wikipedia

page 84: 'The divine Jesus came into this world to deliver the saving experience of gnosis, but why>'

page 86: '. . . the Gnostic Jesus did not have a human beginning (conception and birth) or a human end (death).' Eternally Platonic

page 87: The Apocalypse of Peter Gnostic Apocalypse of Peter - Wikipedia

page 91: Gnostic Salvation: 'The true Gnostic became Another Jesus and really understood the divine mysteries and thus found redemption even before death.' In the Thomas / Dionysius picture, God is omnino simplex and so there is nothing to understand. The fundamental ancient error is that there can be

[page 225]

knowledge / information without mattter (quantization, symbolization). Aquinas, Summa, I, 3, 7: Is God altogether simple?

Crotty page 92: Gnostic Creed and exegesis → to page 104.

page 104: 'We now turn to the major Jesus-movement group, Roman Christianity.' (Crotty 2017)

page 119: 'The period of Constantine saw the triumph of Roman Christianity. He gave it official imperial representation, and considered himself to be its centre'. Roman Christianity has continued to expand by military violence ever since, Crusades, British Empire, US Empire, and now its end times are coming, brought down by science and globalization, not to mention the transcendent stupidity of the imperial powers (Diamond). Christopher Tyerman: The World of the Crusades, Jared Diamond; Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies

page 123: Paul. (Crotty 2017 page 224 sqq:. A gnostic rewritten by the Romans.

page 142: 'The Historical Paul was a Gnostic.'

page 144: John of Patmos: Book of Revelation

page 147: '. . . is a Christian apocalyptic. It belongs to a literary genre that uses symbols to pass judgement on world events and foretell events that will occur in the future.'

page 149: '. . . Western Asia Minor was a hive of Gnostic activity during the first century CE.

page 255: 'What will now follow is an analysis of the structure and interpretation of the Gospel of John.

[page 226]

Crotty page 156: '. . . John's discourse is largely symbolic.'

page 159: Seven independent Gnostic treatises.

page 206: 'The seven separate Gnostic treatises would have circulated as individual catechetical pieces to instruct beginners in the Gnostic Jesus.'

The Book of Seven Signs: 'these [signs] are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God.'

page 209: Chiastic structure of the seven signs:

1 A. Cana and the Mother (2:1-12)
2 B. The cure of the official's son (4:43-54)
3 C. The cure of the crippled man 5:1-18
4 D. Feeding the 5000 6:1-34
5 C1.Cure of the blind man 9:1-4, 10:19-21
6 B1. Raising Lazarus 11:1-57
7 A1. The Cross and the Mother 19:26-30

Conclusion of the Signs 20:3--31

page 211: 'In fact the Wedding was that of Jesus, and he was the Bridegroom.

page 217: Sophie, the Mother, is presented as the Bride.

[Jesus] turns water into wine and those who are pneumatikoi can understand. The wine is gnosis; abundance of wine is the sign that gnosis is now about to be made available to the believers.

page 219; Second sign: The restoration of life and the notion of resurrection are closely aligned in Gnostic thought.

[page 227]

Crotty page 221: The cripple and the blind man. 'These are not physical ailments, they are the ailments of those who do not have gnosis.'

page 223: The 5000

page 335: John's central sign, the hub of the other signs, is that Jesus has come to provide this Bread, gnosis or the new Manna to the peaople, the Fish. They are the new people of Five and Twelve, the People of the Father.'

page 226: Blind Man

page 229: Lazarus

page 235: The Cross and the Mother. 236: 'The culmination of the Book of Seven Signs is this scene at the foot of the cross.

page 237: 'The original text would have run "Meanwhile, standing near the cross of Jesus were his Mother, her sister Mary and Mary Magdalene".'

page 241: 'The Corruptible Sophia has been rehabilitated, the evil in the World has been conquered, the Archons no longer have power, the pneumatikoi have access to gnosis.'

'The book of the Seven Signs is a separate Gnostic 'gospel'. It begins in the first sign with the cosmic problem of the Mother, Sophia, who has brought disorder into the world and now requires rehabilitation. Then Jesus in the following five signs reveals himself as the centre of Gnostic expectation. Finally, in the seventh sign, Jesus reveals that the work has been completed.'

A tour de exegesis.

[page 228]

Crotty page 242: The Fourteen Gnostic Discourses.

page 332: A Final Summary of the growth of the Gospel of John.

page 335: The three synoptics were all Roman gospels.

page 337: The human individual has a need for order. To make sense of the Universe, self and others the individual within a group requires a direction, a purpose, a basic meaning. All individual activity takes place in the contest of a cultural 'world' of meaning . . . The group members, committed to a culture's constructed world, makes sense of human existence through it.

page 339; ' [The Palestinian Gnostics] Fleeing persecution . . . brought with them their gnostic beliefs, texts and practices. But these, in the new situation, had to be adapted. The Gnostic belief system would have been adapted to the point where both Gnostics and Roman Churches felt comfortable.'

page 341: 'Based on the historical reconstruction above, we are now able, at long last, to present the Gospel of John with its component parts from the Gnostic Tradition and the expansions, corrections and added traditions from the Roman Jesus Tradition.s This was the gospel accepted by Rome as the canonical gospel.

page 349: Texts were created by communities. Communities changed and interpretations changed and combined. Texts changed accordingly.

[page 229]

Crotty page 352: 'The Gnosticism of John's gospel was muted and overwritten by the Roman tradition. That is the basis of the hypothesis underlying this book [adding to the endless Christian in house debate about the true nature of Jesus, which has precious little relevance to the modern post-Christian world].

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Further reading

Books

Crombie, A C, The History of Science from Augustine to Galileo, Dover Publications 1996 Amazon customer review: 'This is a very widely encompassing account of the evolution and development of science through history. The considerations of the sociopolitical and philosophical climates pertaining to the times gives the reader a basis of understanding why science progressed as it did. The account is very well organised and lucid, although it fails in some aspects to consider the contributions of the Far Eastern civilizations. It makes a very valuable contribution to help appreciate acutely the value of those who contributed to science's development.' A Customer  
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Crotty (2016), Robert, Jesus, His Mother, Her Sister Mary and Mary Magdalene: The Gnostic Background to the Gospel of John, David Lovell Publishing 2016 ' The Gospel of John has always been a difficult book to interpret. The differences between John and the Synoptics have always been a stumbling block for students. There have been rather simplistic attempts at exegesis: Jesus changed water into wine at Cana because he did not want the bridegroom ridiculed; he washed the feet of the disciples as an act of humility; he brought Mary and John together as mother and son at the foot of the cross because he wanted his mother cared for in her old age. This book takes up these problems. It demonstrates that the present text has followed a long and tortured journey from Jewish Gnosticism to a Christian Gnostic compendium, later extensively edited by Roman Christianity. The result is a surprising re-reading. The book throws light on a different Jesus to the canonical one (he is not human), a different Mother (she is Sophia, a divine emanation), a different Sister Mary (she is Eve), a different Mary Magdalene (she is the Beloved Disciple), a new Judas (he is not a betrayer and was the first to receive the Gnostic Eucharist) and a festering confrontation between Peter and the Beloved Disciple. The Roman Christians disagreed on all these interpretations and heavily edited the gospel in order to silence its Gnostic statement. This book will show how the gospel of John should be read at the present time to take account of this complex tradition history. 
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Crotty (2017), Robert, The Christian Survivor: How Roman Christianity Defeated Its Early Competitors, Springer 2017 ' The book puts the current interest in historical Jesus research into a proper historical context, highlighting Gnosticism’s lasting influence on early Christianity and making the provocative claim that nearly all Christian Churches are in some way descended from Roman Christianity. Breaking with the accepted wisdom of Christianity’s origins, the revised history it puts forward challenges the assumptions of Church and secular historians, biblical critics and general readers alike, with profound repercussions for scholarship, belief and practice. About the Author Robert Brian Crotty is the Emeritus Professor of Religion and Education at the University of South Australia. He has been a Visiting Scholar at the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies, Oxford University, and a Visiting Fellow at the Woolf Institute, Cambridge University. Professor Crotty was educated in Australia, Rome and Jerusalem. He has research degrees in Ancient History, Education, Christian Theology and Biblical Studies. He is an Élève Titulaire of the École Biblique in Jerusalem. In Rome and Jerusalem, he studied under some of the great scholars of early Christianity, including Ignace de la Potterie, Marie-Émile Boismard and Pierre Benoit and studied Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, Latin and Syriac in order to further his intimate understanding of biblical texts. He has authored or edited some 33 books, multiple book chapters and journal articles in the areas of Theology, Biblical Studies and World Religions.' 
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Diamond, Jared, Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies, W W Norton and Co 1997 'Diamond's book is complex and a bit overwhelming. But the thesis he methodically puts forth—examining the "positive feedback loop" of farming, then domestication, then population density, then innovation, and on and on—makes sense. Written without favor, Guns, Germs, and Steel is good global history.' Amazon.com 
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Feynman, Richard P et al, The Feynman Lectures on Physics (volume 2) , Addison Wesley 1964  
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Hawking, Steven W, and G F R Ellis, The Large Scale Structure of Space-Time, Cambridge UP 1975 Preface: Einstein's General Theory of Relativity . . . leads to two remarkable predictions about the universe: first that the final fate of massive stars is to collapse behind an event horizon to form a 'black hole' which will contain a singularity; and secondly that there is a singularity in our past which constitutes, in some sense, a beginning to our universe. Our discussion is principally aimed at developing these two results.' 
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Heyes, Cecilia, Cognitive Gadgets: The Cultural Evolution of Thinking, Belknap Press: Harvard University Press 2018 “Cecilia Heyes presents a new hypothesis to explain the one feature that distinguishes Homo sapiens from all other species: the mind. Through lucid, compelling writing, this masterly exegesis proposes that the key features of the human mind, termed ‘cognitive gadgets,’ are the products of cultural rather than genetic evolution. It will stimulate its readers to think deeply, as Heyes has done, about what it means to be human.”―Lord John Krebs, University of Oxford 
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Huang, Kerson, Statistical Mechanics, John Wiley 1987 'Preface: ... The purpose of this book is to teach statistical mechanics as an integral part of theoretical physics, a discipline that aims to describe all natural phenomena on the basis of a single unifying theory. This theory, at present, is quantum mechanics. . . . Before the subject of statistical mechanics proper is presented, a brief but self contained discussion of thermodynamics and the classical kinetic theory of gases is given. The order of this development is imperative, from a pedagogical point of view, for two reasons. First, thermodynamics has successfully described a large part of macroscopic experience, which is the concern of statistical mechanics. It has done so not on the basis of molecular dynamics but on the basis of a few simple and intuitive postulates stated in everyday terms. If we first familiarize ourselves with thermodynamics, the task of statistical mechanics reduces to the explanation of thermodynamics. Second, the classical kinetic theory of gases is the only known special case in which thermodynamics can be derived nearly from first principles, ie, molecular dynamics. A study of this special case will help us to understand why statistical mechanics works.' 
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Lonergan, Bernard J F, Insight: A Study of Human Understanding (Collected Works of Bernard Lonergan : Volume 3), University of Toronto Press 1992 '. . . Bernard Lonergan's masterwork. Its aim is nothing less than insight into insight itself, an understanding of understanding' 
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Misner, Charles W, and Kip S Thorne, John Archibald Wheeler, Gravitation, Freeman 1973 Jacket: 'Einstein's description of gravitation as curvature of spacetime led directly to that greatest of all predictions of his theory, that the universe itself is dynamic. Physics still has far to go to come to terms with this amazing fact and what it means for man and his relation to the universe. John Archibald Wheeler. . . . this is a book on Einstein's theory of gravity. . . . ' 
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Pinker, Steven, The Language Instinct, Penguin 2008 'A three-year-old toddler is "a grammatical genius"--master of most constructions, obeying adult rules of language. To Pinker, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology psycholinguist, the explanation for this miracle is that language is an instinct, an evolutionary adaptation that is partly "hard-wired" into the brain and partly learned. In this exciting synthesis--an entertaining, totally accessible study that will regale language lovers and challenge professionals in many disciplines--Pinker builds a bridge between "innatists" like MIT linguist Noam Chomsky, who hold that infants are biologically programmed for language, and "social interactionists" who contend that they acquire it largely from the environment. If Pinker is right, the origins of language go much further back than 30,000 years ago (the date most commonly given in textbooks)--perhaps to Homo habilis , who lived 2.5 million years ago, or even eons earlier. Peppered with mind-stretching language exercises, the narrative first unravels how babies learn to talk and how people make sense of speech. Professor and co-director of MIT's Center for Cognitive Science, Pinker demolishes linguistic determinism, which holds that differences among languages cause marked differences in the thoughts of their speakers. He then follows neurolinguists in their quest for language centers in the brain and for genes that might help build brain circuits controlling grammar and speech. Pinker also argues that claims for chimpanzees' acquisition of language (via symbols or American Sign Language) are vastly exaggerated and rest on skimpy data. Finally, he takes delightful swipes at "language mavens" like William Safire and Richard Lederer, accusing them of rigidity and of grossly underestimating the average person's language skills. Pinker's book is a beautiful hymn to the infinite creative potential of language.' Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. 
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Stone, Irving, Lust for Life, Plume 1984 Amazon book desciption: 'LUST FOR LIFE is a fictionalized biography of the Dutch painter, Vincent Van Gogh and is based primarily on Van Gogh's three volumes of letters to his brother, Theo. Van Gogh was a violent, clumsy and passionate man who was driven to the extremity of exhaustion by his fervor to get life -- the essence of it -- into paint. Irving Stone treats the artist with great compassion and gives us a portrait that is sympathetic but fair.' 
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Streater, Raymond F, and Arthur S Wightman, PCT, Spin, Statistics and All That, Princeton University Press 2005 Amazon product description: ' PCT, Spin and Statistics, and All That is the classic summary of and introduction to the achievements of Axiomatic Quantum Field Theory. This theory gives precise mathematical responses to questions like: What is a quantized field? What are the physically indispensable attributes of a quantized field? Furthermore, Axiomatic Field Theory shows that a number of physically important predictions of quantum field theory are mathematical consequences of the axioms. Here Raymond Streater and Arthur Wightman treat only results that can be rigorously proved, and these are presented in an elegant style that makes them available to a broad range of physics and theoretical mathematics.' 
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Tyerman, Christopher, The World of the Crusades, Yale UP 2019 ' Throughout the Middle Ages crusading was justified by religious ideology, but the resulting military campaigns were fueled by concrete objectives: land, resources, power, reputation. Crusaders amassed possessions of all sorts, from castles to reliquaries. Campaigns required material funds and equipment, while conquests produced bureaucracies, taxation, economic exploitation, and commercial regulation. Wealth sustained the Crusades while material objects, from weaponry and military technology to carpentry and shipping, conditioned them. This lavishly illustrated volume considers the material trappings of crusading wars and the objects that memorialized them, in architecture, sculpture, jewelry, painting, and manuscripts. Christopher Tyerman's incorporation of the physical and visual remains of crusading enriches our understanding of how the crusaders themselves articulated their mission, how they viewed their place in the world, and how they related to the cultures they derived from and preyed upon..' 
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Wigner, Eugene, Symmetries and Reflections: Scientific Essays , MIT Press 1970 Jacket: 'This volume contains some of Professor Wigner's more popular papers which, in their diversity of subject and clarity of style, reflect the author's deep analytical powers and the remarkable scope of his interests. Included are articles on the nature of physical symmetry, invariance and conservation principles, the structure of solid bodies and of the compound nucleus, the theory of nuclear fission, the effects of radiation on solids, and the epistemological problems of quantum mechanics. Other articles deal with the story of the first man-made nuclear chain reaction, the long term prospects of nuclear energy, the problems of Big Science, and the role of mathematics in the natural sciences. In addition, the book contains statements of Wigner's convictions and beliefs as well as memoirs of his friends Enrico Fermi and John von Neumann. Eugene P. Wigner is one of the architects of the atomic age. He worked with Enrco Fermi at the Metallurgical Laboratory of the University of Chicago at the beginning of the Manhattan Project, and he has gone on to receive the highest honours that science and his country can bestow, including the Nobel Prize for physics, the Max Planck Medal, the Enrico Fermi Award and the Atoms for Peace Award. '. 
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Links

Alex Preve, The US is complicit in Saudi atrocities in Yemen, ' Five years after the start of the war, the US continues to support a Saudi-led coalition accused of war crimes.' back

Apocalyptic literature - Wikipedia, Apocalyptic literature - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' Apocalyptic literature is a genre of prophetical writing that developed in post-Exilic Jewish culture and was popular among millennialist early Christians. Apocalypse (ἀποκάλυψις) is a Greek word meaning "revelation", "an unveiling or unfolding of things not previously known and which could not be known apart from the unveiling"] As a genre, apocalyptic literature details the authors' visions of the end times as revealed by an angel or other heavenly messenger. The apocalyptic literature of Judaism and Christianity embraces a considerable period, from the centuries following the Babylonian exile down to the close of the Middle Ages.' back

Aquinas 113, Summa I, 18, 3: Is life properly attributed to God?, Life is in the highest degree properly in God. In proof of which it must be considered that since a thing is said to live in so far as it operates of itself and not as moved by another, the more perfectly this power is found in anything, the more perfect is the life of that thing. ' back

Aquinas 161, Whether any procession in God can be called generation?, 'I answer that, The procession of the Word in God is called generation. . . . the procession of the Word in God is generation; for He proceeds by way of intelligible action, which is a vital operation:--from a conjoined principle (as above described):--by way of similitude, inasmuch as the concept of the intellect is a likeness of the object conceived:--and exists in the same nature, because in God the act of understanding and His existence are the same, as shown above (14, 4). Hence the procession of the Word in God is called generation; and the Word Himself proceeding is called the Son.' back

Aquinas, Summa, I, 27, 2, Whether any procession in God can be called generation?, 'I answer that, The procession of the Word in God is called generation. . . . the procession of the Word in God is generation; for He proceeds by way of intelligible action, which is a vital operation:--from a conjoined principle (as above described):--by way of similitude, inasmuch as the concept of the intellect is a likeness of the object conceived:--and exists in the same nature, because in God the act of understanding and His existence are the same, as shown above (14, 4). Hence the procession of the Word in God is called generation; and the Word Himself proceeding is called the Son.' back

Aquinas, Summa, I, 3, 7, Is God altogether simple?, 'I answer that, The absolute simplicity of God may be shown in many ways. First, from the previous articles of this question. For there is neither composition of quantitative parts in God, since He is not a body; nor composition of matter and form; nor does His nature differ from His "suppositum"; nor His essence from His existence; neither is there in Him composition of genus and difference, nor of subject and accident. Therefore, it is clear that God is nowise composite, but is altogether simple. . . . ' back

Aristotle, Metaphysics, Book XII, vii, 'But since there is something which moves while itself unmoved, existing actually, this can in no way be otherwise than as it is. For motion in space is the first of the kinds of change, and motion in a circle the first kind of spatial motion; and this the first mover produces. The first mover, then, exists of necessity; and in so far as it exists by necessity, its mode of being is good, and it is in this sense a first principle.' 1072b3 sqq back

Beatific vision - Wikipedia, Beatific vision - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'In Christian theology, the beatific vision (Latin: visio beatifica) is the ultimate direct self communication of God to the individual person. A person possessing the beatific vision reaches, as a member of redeemed humanity in the communion of saints, perfect salvation in its entirety, i.e. heaven. The notion of vision stresses the intellectual component of salvation, though it encompasses the whole of human experience of joy, happiness coming from seeing God finally face to face and not imperfectly through faith. (1 Cor 13:11–12). It is related to the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox belief in theosis, and is seen in most – if not all – church denominations as the reward for Christians in the afterlife.' back

Beth Cameron, I ran the White House pandemic office. Trump closed it, ' When President Trump took office in 2017, the White House’s National Security Council Directorate for Global Health Security and Biodefense survived the transition intact. Its mission was the same as when I was asked to lead the office, established after the Ebola epidemic of 2014: to do everything possible within the vast powers and resources of the U.S. government to prepare for the next disease outbreak and prevent it from becoming an epidemic or pandemic. One year later, I was mystified when the White House dissolved the office, leaving the country less prepared for pandemics like covid-19.' back

Black hole thermodynamics - Wikipedia, Black hole thermodynamics - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'In physics, black hole thermodynamics is the area of study that seeks to reconcile the laws of thermodynamics with the existence of black hole event horizons. Much as the study of the statistical mechanics of black body radiation led to the advent of the theory of quantum mechanics, the effort to understand the statistical mechanics of black holes has had a deep impact upon the understanding of quantum gravity, leading to the formulation of the holographic principle.' back

Cade Metz, Pixar Pioneers Win $1 Million Turing Award, ' On Wednesday, the Association for Computing Machinery, the world’s largest society of computing professionals, said Dr. Hanrahan and Dr. Catmull would receive this year’s Turing Award for their work on three-dimensional computer graphics. Often called the Nobel Prize of computing, the Turing Award comes with a $1 million prize, which will be split by the two pioneers of what is often called C.G.I., or computer-generated imagery.' back

Constantine the Great and Christianity - Wikipedia, Constantine the Great and Christianity - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' During the reign of the Roman Emperor Constantine the Great (AD 306–337), Christianity began to transition to the dominant religion of the Roman Empire. Historians remain uncertain about Constantine's reasons for favoring Christianity, and theologians and historians have often argued about which form of early Christianity he subscribed to. . . . Constantine's decision to cease the persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire was a turning point for early Christianity, sometimes referred to as the Triumph of the Church, the Peace of the Church or the Constantinian shift. In 313, Constantine and Licinius issued the Edict of Milan decriminalizing Christian worship. The emperor became a great patron of the Church and set a precedent for the position of the Christian emperor within the Church and raised the notions of orthodoxy, Christendom, ecumenical councils, and the state church of the Roman Empire declared by edict in 380. He is revered as a saint and is apostolos in the Eastern Orthodox Church, Oriental Orthodox Church, and various Eastern Catholic Churches for his example as a "Christian monarch”.' back

David E. Sanger, Eric Lipton, Eileen Sullivan & Michael Crowley, Before Virus Outbreak, a Cascade of Warnings Went Unheeded, ' WASHINGTON — The outbreak of the respiratory virus began in China and was quickly spread around the world by air travelers, who ran high fevers. In the United States, it was first detected in Chicago, and 47 days later, the World Health Organization declared a pandemic. By then it was too late: 110 million Americans were expected to become ill, leading to 7.7 million hospitalized and 586,000 dead. That scenario, code-named “Crimson Contagion,” was simulated by the Trump administration’s Department of Health and Human Services in a series of exercises that ran from last January to August. The simulation’s sobering results — contained in a draft report dated October 2019 that has not previously been reported — drove home just how underfunded, underprepared and uncoordinated the federal government would be for a life-or-death battle with a virus for which no treatment existed.' back

Dead Sea Scrolls - Wikipedia, Dead Sea Scrolls - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' The Dead Sea Scrolls (also Qumran Caves Scrolls) are ancient Jewish religious manuscripts found in the Qumran Caves in the Judaean Desert, near Ein Feshkha on the northern shore of the Dead Sea in the West Bank, Palestine. Scholarly consensus dates these scrolls from the last three centuries BCE and the first century CE. The texts have great historical, religious, and linguistic significance because they include the second-oldest known surviving manuscripts of works later included in the Hebrew Bible canon, along with deuterocanonical and extra-biblical manuscripts which preserve evidence of the diversity of religious thought in late Second Temple Judaism.' back

Demiurge - Wikipedia, Demiurge - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, In the Platonic, Neopythagorean, Middle Platonic, and Neoplatonic schools of philosophy, the demiurge is an artisan-like figure responsible for fashioning and maintaining the physical universe. The Gnostics adopted the term "demiurge".. . . The word "demiurge" is an English word derived from demiurgus, a Latinised form of the Greek δημιουργός or dēmiurgós. It was originally a common noun meaning "craftsman" or "artisan", but gradually came to mean "producer", and eventually "creator".' back

Edict of Milan - Wikipedia, Edict of Milan - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'The Edict of Milan was the February 313 AD agreement to treat Christians benevolently within the Roman Empire. Western Roman Emperor Constantine I, and Licinius, who controlled the Balkans, met in Milan and among other things, agreed to change policies towards Christians following the Edict of Toleration by Galerius issued 2 years earlier in Serdica. The Edict of Milan gave Christianity a legal status, but did not make Christianity the official religion of the Roman empire.' back

Electromagnetic force - Wikipedia, Electromagnetic force - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'In physics, the electromagnetic force is the force that the electromagnetic field exerts on electrically charged particles. It is the electromagnetic force that holds electrons and protons together in atoms, and which hold atoms together to make molecules. The electromagnetic force operates via the exchange of messenger particles called photons and virtual photons. The exchange of messenger particles between bodies acts to create the perceptual force whereby instead of just pushing or pulling particles apart, the exchange changes the character of the particles that swap them.' back

Emily Brennan, Barbara Harris, First Woman Ordained an Episcopal Bishop, Dies at 89, ' The Rt. Rev. Barbara C. Harris, who was the first woman to be ordained a bishop in the Episcopal Church of the United States — indeed, in its parent body, the worldwide Anglican Communion — an election that caused a furor among conservatives, died on Friday in Lincoln, Mass., outside Boston. She was 89. . . . An African-American, she went on to challenge the Episcopal hierarchy to open its doors wider to women as well as to black and gay people.' back

Eusebius - Wikipedia, Eusebius - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' Eusebius of Caesarea (Greek: Εὐσέβιος τῆς Καισαρείας, AD 260/265 – 339/340), . . . was a historian of Christianity, exegete, and Christian polemicist. He became the bishop of Caesarea Maritima about 314 AD. Together with Pamphilus, he was a scholar of the Biblical canon and is regarded as one of the most learned Christians of his time. . . . Although Eusebius' works are regarded as giving insight into the history of the early church, he was not without prejudice, especially in regard to the Jews, for while "Eusebius indeed blames the Jews for the crucifixion of Jesus, but he nevertheless also states that forgiveness can be granted even for this sin and that the Jews can receive salvation." Nor can his works be trusted to be from subjectivism, for some scholars believe that "Eusebius is a notoriously unreliable historian, and so anything he reports should be critically scrutinized." ' back

First Epistle of Clement - Wikipedia, First Epistle of Clement - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' The First Epistle of Clement (Ancient Greek: Κλήμεντος πρὸς Κορινθίους, . . .) is a letter addressed to the Christians in the city of Corinth. The letter was composed at some time between AD 70 and AD 140, most likely around 96. It ranks with Didache as one of the earliest—if not the earliest—of extant Christian documents outside the canonical New Testament.' back

Fixed point theorem - Wikipedia, Fixed point theorem - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'In mathematics, a fixed point theorem is a result saying that a function F will have at least one fixed point (a point x for which F(x) = x), under some conditions on F that can be stated in general terms. Results of this kind are amongst the most generally useful in mathematics. The Banach fixed point theorem gives a general criterion guaranteeing that, if it is satisfied, the procedure of iterating a function yields a fixed point. By contrast, the Brouwer fixed point theorem is a non-constructive result: it says that any continuous function from the closed unit ball in n-dimensional Euclidean space to itself must have a fixed point, but it doesn't describe how to find the fixed point (See also Sperner's lemma).' back

Freeman Dyson - Wikipedia, Freeman Dyson - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Freeman John Dyson FRS (born December 15, 1923) is a British-born American theoretical physicist and mathematician, famous for his work in quantum field theory, solid-state physics, and nuclear engineering. He is a practising Christian, as well as a lifelong opponent of nationalism and a proponent of nuclear disarmament and international cooperation. Dyson is a member of the Board of Sponsors of The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.' back

Genius - Wikipedia, Genius - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'A genius is a person who displays exceptional superior intellectual ability, creativity, or originality, typically to a degree that is associated with the achievement of new advances in a domain of knowledge. A scholar in many subjects or a scholar in a single subject may be referred to as a genius. There is no scientifically precise definition of genius, and the question of whether the notion itself has any real meaning has long been a subject of debate, although psychologists are converging on a definition that emphasizes creativity and eminent achievement.' back

Gluon - Wikipedia, Gluon - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Gluons (glue and the suffix -on) are elementary particles that cause quarks to interact, and are indirectly responsible for the binding of protons and neutrons together in atomic nuclei. In technical terms, they are vector gauge bosons that mediate strong color charge interactions of quarks in quantum chromodynamics (QCD). Unlike the electric charge neutral photon of quantum electrodynamics (QED), gluons themselves carry color charge and therefore participate in the strong interaction in addition to mediating it. The gluon has the ability to do this as it carries the color charge and so interacts with itself, making QCD significantly harder to analyze than QED.' back

Gnostic Apocalypse of Peter - Wikipedia, Gnostic Apocalypse of Peter - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' The Gnostic Apocalypse of Peter is a text found amongst the Nag Hammadi library, and part of the New Testament apocrypha. Like the vast majority of texts in the Nag Hammadi collection, it is heavily Gnostic. It was probably written around 100-200 AD. Since the only known copy is written in Coptic, it is also known as the Coptic Apocalypse of Peter. The text takes Gnostic interpretations of the crucifixion to the extreme, picturing Jesus as laughing and warning against people who cleave to the name of a dead man, thinking they shall become pure. Like some of the rarer Gnostic writings, this one also doubts the established Crucifixion story which places Jesus on the cross.' back

Gospel of Judas - Wikipedia, Gospel of Judas - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' The Gospel of Judas is a Gnostic gospel. The content of consists of conversations between Jesus and Judas Iscariot. Given that it includes late 2nd century theology, it is thought to have been composed in the 2nd century by Gnostic Christians, rather than the historic Judas himself. . . . In contrast to the canonical gospels, which paint Judas as a betrayer who delivered Jesus to the authorities for crucifixion in exchange for money, the Gospel of Judas portrays Judas's actions as done in obedience to instructions given to him by Jesus of Nazareth. It asserts that the other disciples had not learned the true Gospel, which Jesus taught only to Judas Iscariot, the sole follower belonging to the "holy generation" among the disciples.' back

Gospel of Mary - Wikipedia, Gospel of Mary - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'The Gospel of Mary is an apocryphal book discovered in 1896 in a 5th-century papyrus codex. The codex Papyrus Berolinensis 8502 was purchased in Cairo by German scholar Karl Reinhardt. . . . Papyrus Berolinensis 8502, also known as the Akhmim Codex, also contains the Apocryphon of John, the Sophia of Jesus Christ, and a summary of the Act of Peter. All four works contained in the manuscript are written in Sahidic in the Subakhmimic dialect.' back

Hasmonean dynasty - Wikipedia, Hasmonean dynasty - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' The Hasmonean dynasty . . . was a ruling dynasty of Judea and surrounding regions during classical antiquity. Between c. 140 and c. 116 BCE the dynasty ruled Judea semi-autonomously from the Seleucids. From 110 BCE, with the Seleucid Empire disintegrating, the dynasty became fully independent, expanded into the neighbouring regions of Samaria, Galilee, Iturea, Perea, and Idumea, and took the title "basileus". Some modern scholars refer to this period as an independent kingdom of Israel.' back

Hawking Radiation - Wikipedia, Hawking Radiation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' Hawking radiation is black-body radiation that is predicted to be released by black holes, due to quantum effects near the black hole event horizon. It is named after the theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking, who provided a theoretical argument for its existence in 1974. Hawking radiation reduces the mass and rotational energy of black holes and is therefore also known as black hole evaporation. Because of this, black holes that do not gain mass through other means are expected to shrink and ultimately vanish. As the radiation temperature is inversely proportional to the black hole's mass, micro black holes are predicted to be larger emitters of radiation than more massive black holes and should thus shrink and dissipate faster.' back

Initial singularity - Wikipedia, Initial singularity - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'The initial singularity was the gravitational singularity of infinite density thought to have contained all of the mass and spacetime of the Universe before quantum fluctuations caused it to rapidly expand in the Big Bang and subsequent inflation, creating the present-day Universe.' back

John Pickrell, the curious case of Mongolia's missing dinosaur fossil and how it made itd way home , ' Unearthed by poachers in the 2000s, the Halszkaraptor escuilliei is a unlike anything seen before Having changed hands a number of times across continents, it is finally ready to return ' back

Joseph maguire, Hohn Brennan, Michael Leiter, Matthew G. Olsen, Nicholas Rasmussen, Andrew Liepman, Geoffrey Oconnel, Michar V. Hayden & James Clapper, Former intelligence chiefs: Trump's removal of experts is deeply destructive of our nation's safety, ' The United States — and the world — faces a historic threat to its health, well-being and economy. The global covid-19 pandemic challenges all of us: the public, cities, states and, of course, the federal government. But as we collectively fight this deadly disease, the intelligence institutions that help protect us all from current and future threats are also under attack from an insidious enemy: domestic politics. We cannot let the covid-19 pandemic be a cover for the deeply destructive path being pursued by the Trump administration.' back

Julian Schwinger - Wikipedia, Julian Schwinger - Wikipedia, 'Julian Seymour Schwinger (February 12, 1918 – July 16, 1994) was an American theoretical physicist. He is best known for his work on the theory of quantum electrodynamics, in particular for developing a relativistically invariant perturbation theory, and for renormalizing QED to one loop order.' back

Kenneth Chang, Abel Prize in Mathematics Shared by 2 Trailblazers of Probability and Dynamics, ' Two mathematicians who showed how an underappreciated branch of the field could be employed to solve important problems share this year’s Abel Prize, the mathematics equivalent of a Nobel. The winners are Hillel Furstenberg, 84, of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and Gregory Margulis, 74, of Yale University. Both are retired professors. The citation for the prize, awarded by the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, lauds the two mathematicians “for pioneering the use of methods from probability and dynamics in group theory, number theory and combinatorics.” ' back

Maggie Haberman & Noah Weiland, Inside the Coronavirus Response: A Case Study in thr White House Under Trump, ' Senior aides battling one another for turf, and advisers protecting their own standing. A president who is racked by indecision and quick to blame others and who views events through the lens of how the news media covers them. A pervasive distrust of career government professionals, and disregard for their recommendations. And a powerful son-in-law whom aides fear crossing, but who is among the few people the president trusts.' back

Mithraism - Wikipedia, Mithraism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' Numerous archaeological finds, including meeting places, monuments and artifacts, have contributed to modern knowledge about Mithraism throughout the Roman Empire. The iconic scenes of Mithras show him being born from a rock, slaughtering a bull, and sharing a banquet with the god Sol (the Sun). About 420 sites have yielded materials related to the cult. Among the items found are about 1000 inscriptions, 700 examples of the bull-killing scene (tauroctony), and about 400 other monuments. It has been estimated that there would have been at least 680 mithraea in Rome. No written narratives or theology from the religion survive; limited information can be derived from the inscriptions and brief or passing references in Greek and Latin literature. Interpretation of the physical evidence remains problematic and contested.' back

Nag Hammadi library - Wikipedia, Nag Hammadi library - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' The Nag Hammadi library (also known as the "Chenoboskion Manuscripts" and the "Gnostic Gospels"[a]) is a collection of early Christian and Gnostic texts discovered near the Upper Egyptian town of Nag Hammadi in 1945. Thirteen leather-bound papyrus codices buried in a sealed jar were found by a local farmer named Muhammed al-Samman. The writings in these codices comprise 52 mostly Gnostic treatises, but they also include three works belonging to the Corpus Hermeticum and a partial translation/alteration of Plato's Republic. ' back

Newtons Laws of Motion - Wikipedia, Newton's Laws of Motion - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Newton's laws of motion are three physical laws that together laid the foundation for classical mechanics. They describe the relationship between a body and the forces acting upon it, and its motion in response to said forces. . . . The three laws of motion were first compiled by Isaac Newton in his Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy), first published in 1687' back

Nicene Creed - Wikipedia, Nicene Creed - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'The Nicene Creed (Greek: Σύμβολον τῆς Νίκαιας, Latin: Symbolum Nicaenum) is the profession of faith or creed that is most widely used in Christian liturgy. It forms the mainstream definition of Christianity for most Christians. It is called Nicene because, in its original form, it was adopted in the city of Nicaea (present day Iznik in Turkey) by the first ecumenical council, which met there in the year 325. The Nicene Creed has been normative for the Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Church of the East, the Oriental Orthodox churches, the Anglican Communion, and the great majority of Protestant denominations.' back

Noether's theorem - Wikipedia, Noether's theorem - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Noether's (first) theorem states that any differentiable symmetry of the action of a physical system has a corresponding conservation law. The theorem was proved by German mathematician Emmy Noether in 1915 and published in 1918. The action of a physical system is the integral over time of a Lagrangian function (which may or may not be an integral over space of a Lagrangian density function), from which the system's behavior can be determined by the principle of least action.' back

Norbert Rumiano, Black Hole Thermodynamics, back

Paul Daley, Truganini's story has always been told as tragedy. She was much more than that, ' Cassandra Pybus pushes the historiographical boundary on Truganini. She does a profound service to the complex life of this remarkable woman with her new biography, Truganini: Journey Through the Apocalypse. Pybus ventures beyond the tragic trope that has defined Truganini, the sadness surrounding her death and the horror of the exhumation and display of her remains by the Royal Society of Tasmania. Advertisement This was part of Truganini’s life and postmortem, of course. But Pybus brings so much more of Truganini’s experience to the page. She gives us her story of survival and at times unimaginable physical endurance in what Pybus aptly describes as an apocalypse (Ria Warrawah – the intangible force of evil unleashed with European arrival – to Truganini’s Nuenonne people) that descended upon the first Tasmanians post-invasion.' back

Perri Klaas, M.D., Coronavirus Vaccine Dreams, ' In 1955, when the first clinical trials showed that Jonas Salk’s new polio vaccine was “safe, effective and potent,” it was front-page headline, above-the-fold news. The New York Times offered this: SALK POLIO VACCINE PROVES SUCCESS; MILLIONS WILL BE IMMUNIZED SOON; CITY SCHOOLS BEGIN SHOTS APRIL 25. “It was a remarkable moment when an entire nation breathed a sigh of relief that this hideous childhood disease could be prevented,” said David Oshinsky, a professor of medicine at N.Y.U. Langone Health, and the author of “Polio: An American Story.” “When that announcement was made, church bells chimed, factory whistles went off, adults ran into the street and began hugging each other.” ' back

Q source - Wikipedia, Q source - Wikipedia, the free encyclopeida, ' The Q source (also called Q document, Q Gospel, or Q from German: Quelle, meaning "source") is a hypothetical written collection of primarily Jesus' sayings (logia). Q is part of the common material found in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke but not in the Gospel of Mark. According to this hypothesis, this material was drawn from the early Church's oral tradition.' back

Quark - Wikipedia, Quark - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Quarks . . . are a type of elementary particle and major constituents of matter. They combine to form composite particles called hadrons, the most well-known of which are protons and neutrons. They are the only particles in the Standard Model to experience the strong force, and thereby the only particles to experience all four fundamental forces, which are also known as fundamental interactions.' back

Richard Feynman - Wikipedia, Richard Feynman - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Richard Phillips Feynman (IPA: /?fa?nm?n/; May 11, 1918 – February 15, 1988) was an American physicist known for the path integral formulation of quantum mechanics, the theory of quantum electrodynamics and the physics of the superfluidity of supercooled liquid helium, as well as work in particle physics (he proposed the parton model). For his contributions to the development of quantum electrodynamics, Feynman was a joint recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1965, together with Julian Schwinger and Sin-Itiro Tomonaga.' back

Safi Bahcall, The History of Pfizer and Penicillin, the Lessons for Coronavirus, 'Stories of battlefield heroism during World War II are well known. Lesser known, but relevant for today’s fight against the novel coronavirus, is the story of Pfizer’s Jasper Kane and John McKeen. Kane and McKeen pioneered the mass production of penicillin. Their breakthrough, together with others made by scientists and engineers at the nation’s industrial labs, helped reduce the death rate from diseases in the U.S. military to 0.6 per 1,000 in World War II from 14.1 per 1,000 in World War I. That 96% reduction translated into 200,000 lives spared.' back

Shi Jiangtao, Clash of the titans: how the coronavirus became the new China - US battleground, ' As the deadly coronavirus continues to cut a swathe around the world, inflicting a devastating human and economic cost, one thing has remained constant: the belligerent superpower wrangling between Beijing and Washington. Hit hard by the pandemic, both countries have effectively been in a national emergency, looking to cut travel links and isolate themselves from the coronavirus. But instead of leading the world in the face of a global public health threat that has already killed more than 6,000 people, they are locked in great power competition, determined to view each other through a lens of conspiracy theories and hostility.' back

Sin-Itiro Tomonaga - Wikipedia, Sin-Itiro Tomonaga - Wikipedia, 'Sin-Itiro Tomonaga or Shin'ichir? Tomonaga (íTomonaga Shin'ichir, March 31, 1906 – July 8, 1979) was a Japanese physicist, influential in the development of quantum electrodynamics, work for which he was jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1965 along with Richard Feynman and Julian Schwinger. back

Sophia (Gnosticism) - Wikipedia, Sophia (Gnosticism) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' In Gnosticism, Sophia is a feminine figure, analogous to the human soul but also simultaneously one of the feminine aspects of God. Gnostics held that she was the syzygy (female twin divine Aeon) of Jesus (i.e. the Bride of Christ), and Holy Spirit of the Trinity. She is occasionally referred to by the Hebrew equivalent of Achamōth (Ἀχαμώθ, Hebrew: חכמה‎ chokhmah) and as Prunikos (Προύνικος). In the Nag Hammadi texts, Sophia is the lowest Aeon, or anthropic expression of the emanation of the light of God. She is considered to have fallen from grace in some way, in so doing creating or helping to create the material world. ' back

Stress-energy tensor - Wikipedia, Stress-energy tensor - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'The stress-energy tensor (sometimes stress-energy-momentum tensor) is a tensor quantity in physics that describes the density and flux of energy and momentum in spacetime, generalizing the stress tensor of Newtonian physics. It is an attribute of matter, radiation, and non-gravitational force fields. The stress-energy tensor is the source of the gravitational field in the Einstein field equations of general relativity, just as mass is the source of such a field in Newtonian gravity.' back

Strong interaction - Wikipedia, Strong interaction - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'The strong nuclear force holds most ordinary matter together because it confines quarks into hadron particles such as the proton and neutron. In addition, the strong force binds neutrons and protons to create atomic nuclei. Most of the mass of a common proton or neutron is the result of the strong force field energy; the individual quarks provide only about 1% of the mass of a proton.' back

Trimorphic Protennoia - Wikipedia, Trimorphic Protennoia - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' The Trimorphic Protennoia is a Sethian Gnostic text from the New Testament apocrypha. The only surviving copy comes from the Nag Hammadi library (Codex XIII). I [am] the Thought of the Father, Protennoia, that is, Barbelo, the perfect Glory, and the immeasurable Invisible One who is hidden. I am the Image of the Invisible Spirit, and it is through me that the All took shape, and (I am) the Mother (as well as) the Light which she appointed as Virgin, she who is called 'Meirothea', the incomprehensible Womb, the unrestrainable and immeasurable Voice.' back

Unmoved mover - Wikipedia, Unmoved mover - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' The unmoved mover (Ancient Greek: ὃ οὐ κινούμενον κινεῖ, romanized: ho ou kinoúmenon kineî, lit. 'that which moves without being moved'] or prime mover (Latin: primum movens) is a concept advanced by Aristotle as a primary cause (or first uncaused cause) or "mover" of all the motion in the universe. As is implicit in the name, the unmoved mover moves other things, but is not itself moved by any prior action. In Book 12 (Greek: Λ) of his Metaphysics, Aristotle describes the unmoved mover as being perfectly beautiful, indivisible, and contemplating only the perfect contemplation: self-contemplation. He equates this concept also with the active intellect. This Aristotelian concept had its roots in cosmological speculations of the earliest Greek pre-Socratic philosophers and became highly influential and widely drawn upon in medieval philosophy and theology. St. Thomas Aquinas, for example, elaborated on the unmoved mover in the Quinque viae. ' back

Vincent van Gogh - Wikipedia, Vincent van Gogh - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' Vincent Willem van Gogh (Dutch: 30 March 1853 – 29 July 1890) was a Dutch post-impressionist painter who is among the most famous and influential figures in the history of Western art. In just over a decade, he created about 2,100 artworks, including around 860 oil paintings, most of which date from the last two years of his life. They include landscapes, still lifes, portraits and self-portraits, and are characterised by bold colours and dramatic, impulsive and expressive brushwork that contributed to the foundations of modern art. He was not commercially successful, and his suicide at 37 came after years of mental illness and poverty. back

Ward-Takahashi Identity - Wikipedia, Ward-Takahashi Identity - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'In quantum field theory, a Ward-Takahashi identity is an identity between correlation functions that follows from the global or gauged symmetries of the theory, and which remains valid after renormalization. . . . The Ward-Takahashi identity is a quantum version of the classical Noether's theorem, and any symmetries in a quantum field theory can lead to an equation of motion for correlation functions.' back

Yahweh - Wikipedia, Yahweh - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, Yahweh (Hebrew: יהוה‎) was the national god of the Iron Age kingdoms of Israel (Samaria) and Judah. His exact origins are disputed, although they reach back to the early Iron Age and even the Late Bronze his name may have begun as an epithet of El, head of the Bronze Age Canaanite pantheon, but the earliest plausible mentions are in Egyptian texts that place him among the nomads of the southern Transjordan' back

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