vol 1: About

Table of contents

page 1:	Vision: We see humanity united in global religious harmony based on scientific theological understanding of the world in which we find ourselves
page 2:	The natural religion project: The purpose of this project is show that there are viable developments of traditional religion. The first step is to restore theology to the mainstream of science and so lay the foundations for religion consistent with ourselves and our world.
page 3:	Religion: Religion, we assume, takers over where biology leaves off to increase the fitness of human groups. Religious unity promotes cooperation and eradicates war. War remains, however, between disparate religious groups, suggesting that the final elimination of war requires global religious harmony
page 4:	Christianity: This site is the work of an dissatisfied Christian who has seen an opportunity to develop Christian ideas of peace and love using the methods and ideas of science.
page 5:	The Roman Catholic Church (RCC): The RCC is a corporation which claims a monopoly on Christianity. In the past it has used torture and murder to enforce its claims. The modern Church is a little more civilized, but it remains a monopolistic and dictatorial anachronism. Here is plays the 'bad guy' role.
page 6:	Science: Science is a method of seeking knowledge which holds that the models of the world we create in our minds can only be trusted if they test good against reality. Scientific models that work better are to be trusted more.
page 7:	Theology: Theology is the science of God, here taken to be the whole. By attempting to embrace the whole human situation, theology hopes to provide a general coordinate system to guide our actions.
page 8:	Problem: The specific problem for theology is the relationship between God and the world, that is between the whole and the parts. We are parts of the whole, and need a reliable theology to see how we fit in.
page 9:	Hypothesis; Our hypothesis is that the whole ('God' and 'the World') can be modelled with a 'transfinite network', a formal structure we imagine as a transfinite number of computing machines ('Turing machines') linked into a communication network.
page 10:	Plan: Our plan is to develop and test this hypothesis, and encourage others to do the same. If we find that the model fits both human experience and traditional notions of God, we can use it to live more securely in our divine milieu.
page 11:	The author A glimpse of the source of this work.

Copyright:

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

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Further reading

Books

Click on the "Amazon" link below each book entry to see details of a book (and possibly buy it!)

Casti, John L, Five Golden Rules: Great Theories of 20th-Century Mathematics - and Why They Matter, John Wiley and Sons 1996 Preface: '[this book] is intended to tell the general reader about mathematics by showcasing five of the finest achievements of the mathematician's art in this [20th] century.' p ix. Treats the Minimax theorem (game theory), the Brouwer Fixed-Point theorem (topology), Morse's theorem (singularity theory), the Halting theorem (theory of computation) and the Simplex method (optimisation theory).  Amazon   back

Catholic Church, Catechism of the Catholic Church: Revised in accordance with the official Latin text promulgated by Pope John Paul II, United States Catholic Conference 2000 Jacket: "This second edition of the Cathechism of the Catholic Church has been revised in accordance with the official Latin text promulgated by Pope John Paul II in 1997. It has been enhanced by the addition of more than 100 pages which include ... An analytical index translated from the Latin text; A glossary of terms; The decree of promulgation of the official Latin text. The first new compendium of Catholic Doctrine in more than 400 years, the Catechism of the Catholic Church stands, in the words of Pope John Paul II, as "a sure norm for teaching the faith" and an 'authentic reference text"."  Amazon   back

Gascoigne, Bamber, The Christians, William Morrow and Company 1977 Amazon review: 'Bamber Gascoigne's irreverant study of the Christians never fails to entertain while at the same time being informative as well as accurate. This study succeeds because of the scrupulous attention that Gascoigne pays to small details, such as when he examines the penitance that monks must pay, while at the same time Gascoigne does not lose sight of the overall historical theme. This study is a must for the non-christian reader interested in the more wordly aspects of the church.' A reader, Oxford, England  Amazon   back

Hawken, Paul, and Amory B. Lovins, L. Hunter Lovins,, Natural Capitalism : Creating the Next Industrial Revolution, Back Bay Books 2000 Traditional capitalism, the authors argue, has always neglected to assign monetary value to its largest stock of capital - namely the natural resources and ecosystem services that make possible all economic activity, and all life. Natural capitalism, in contrast, takes a proper accounting of these costs.'  Amazon   back

Howard , Michael, War and the Liberal Conscience: the George MacAulay Trevelyan Lectures in the University of Cambridge, Temple Smith 1986 Jacket: 'For centuries liberal minded men have been horrified by the pain and waste of war. ... Throughout the whole story runs the continuing contrast between those who hoped to find a single cause for the disease, leading to a lasting cure, and those who understood that, in Professor Howard's words, 'this was a task that needs to be tackled afresh every day of our lives'.'  Amazon   back

Nussbaum, Martha C, Upheavals of Thought: The Intellignece of Emotions, Cambridge University Press 2001 Amazon editorial review: Upheavals of Thought is a big book in every sense of the word. It is a 700-page, deep-thinking, and far-ranging argument that emotions should be central to ethical thinking. From infancy on, we must find our way in the world, but, writes Martha C. Nussbaum, "without the intelligence of emotions, we have little hope." Nussbaum is Ernst Freund Distinguished Professor of Law and Ethics at the University of Chicago and an academic of tremendous scope. Here she immerses the reader in moral philosophy, anthropology, child psychology, music, classical thought, religion, and literature with a likable intelligence that makes her one of the most important thinkers alive today. Upheavals of Thought reminds us that the tangle of human emotions is an aid, not an impediment, and that cold objectivity, without the barometer of emotion, deprives us of our moral compass.' --Eric de Place   Amazon   back

Popper, Karl Raimund, Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge, Routledge and Kegan Paul 1972 Preface: 'The way in which knowledge progresses, and expecially our scientific knowledge, is by unjustified (and unjustifiable) anticipations, by guesses, by tentative solutions to our problems, by conjectures. These conjectures are controlled by criticism; that is, by attempted refutations, which include severely critical tests.' [p viii]   Amazon   back

Spong, John Shelby, Why Christianity Must Change or Die: A Bishop Speaks to Believers in Exile., HarperCollinsPublishers 1998 Jacket: 'Spong demolishes the stifling dogma of traditional Christianity in search of the inner core of truth. It is a courageous, passionate attempt to build a credible theology for a skeptical, scientific age.' Paul Davies.  Amazon   back

Tawney, Richard Henry, Religion and the Rise of Capitalism: A Historical Study, Pelican 1998 Chapter 1: '[The subject of these lectures] is historical. It is the attitude of religious thought in England toward social organisation and economic issues in the period immediately preceding the Reformation and the two centuries which follow it.'   Amazon   back

Wiesethan, Simon L, The Sunflower: On the Possibilities anbd Limits of Forgiveness, Schocken Books 1997 Amazon Editorial Review: 'Author Simon Weisenthal recalls his demoralizing life in a concentration camp and his envy of the dead Germans who have sunflowers marking their graves. ... one day, a dying Nazi soldier asks Weisenthal for forgiveness for his crimes against the Jews. What would you do? This important book and the provocative question it poses is birthing debates, symposiums, and college courses. ... Among the contributors: Sven Alkalaj, Bosnian Ambassador to the U.S., Moshe Bejski, retired justice of the Supreme Court of Israel, Robert McAfee Brown, leading Protestant theologian, Robert Coles, Harvard professor of social ethics and author, The Dalai Lama, Eugene Fisher, National Conference of Catholic Bishops, Matthew Fox, author and leading Episcopalian theologian, Yossi Klein Halevi, Israeli journalist and son of a Holocaust survivor, Arthur Hertzberg, rabbi and author, Theodore Hesburgh, President Emeritus of the University of Notre Dame, Hans Konig, Cardinal of Vienna, Harold Kushner, rabbi and best-selling author, Primo Levi, Italian Holocaust survivor and author, Cynthia Ozick, novelist and essayist, Dennis Prager, author and conservative radio commentator, Dith Pran, photographer and subject of the film "The Killing Fields" about the Cambodian genocide, Albert Speer, German Nazi war criminal and author, Tzvetan Todorov, French literary critic, Harry Wu, Chinese human rights activist.'  Amazon   back