Aristotle, and P H Wickstead and F M Cornford, translators, Physics books V-VIII, Harvard University Press,William Heinemann 1980 Introduction: 'Simplicius tells us that Books I - IV of the Physics were referred to as the books Concerning the Principles, while Books V - VIII were called On Movement. The earlier books have, in fact, defined the things which are subject to movement (the contents of the physical world) and analyzed certain concepts - Time, Place and so forth - which are involved in the occurrence of movement.' Book V is a further introduction to the detailed analysis in Books VI - VIII. Book VI deals with continuity, Book VII is an introductory study for Book VIII, which brings us to the conclusion that all change and motion in the universe are ultimately caused by a Prime Mover which is itself unchanging and unmoved and which has neither magnitude nor parts, but is spiritual and not in space.' 
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Dennett, Daniel C, Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon, Penguin Viking 2006 Jacket: 'In this daring and important new book, DCD seeks to uncover the origins of this remarkable family of phenomena that means so much to so many people, and to discuss why--and how--they have commanded allegiance, become so potent and shaped so many lives so strongly. What are the psychological and cultural soils in which religion first took root? Is it an addiction or a genuine need that we should try to preserve at any cost? Is it the product of blind evolutionary instinct or rational choice? Do those who believe in God have good reasons for doing so? Are people right to say that the best way to live the good life is through religion. In a spirited argument that ranges through biology, history, and psychology, D explores how religion evolved from folk beliefs and how these early "wild" strains of religion were then carefully and consciously domesticated. At the motives of religion's stewards entered this process, such features as secrecy, and systematic invulnerability to disproof emerged. D contends that this protective veneer of mystery needs to be removed so that religions can be better understood, and--more important--he argues that the widespread assumption that they are the necessary foundation of morality can no longer be supported. . . . ' 
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Feynman, Richard, Feynman Lectures on Gravitation, Westview Press 2002 Amazon Editorial Reviews Book Description 'The Feynman Lectures on Gravitation are based on notes prepared during a course on gravitational physics that Richard Feynman taught at Caltech during the 1962-63 academic year. For several years prior to these lectures, Feynman thought long and hard about the fundamental problems in gravitational physics, yet he published very little. These lectures represent a useful record of his viewpoints and some of his insights into gravity and its application to cosmology, superstars, wormholes, and gravitational waves at that particular time. The lectures also contain a number of fascinating digressions and asides on the foundations of physics and other issues. Characteristically, Feynman took an untraditional non-geometric approach to gravitation and general relativity based on the underlying quantum aspects of gravity. Hence, these lectures contain a unique pedagogical account of the development of Einstein's general theory of relativity as the inevitable result of the demand for a self-consistent theory of a massless spin-2 field (the graviton) coupled to the energy-momentum tensor of matter. This approach also demonstrates the intimate and fundamental connection between gauge invariance and the principle of equivalence.' 
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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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Khinchin, Aleksandr Yakovlevich, Mathematical Foundations of Information Theory (translated by P A Silvermann and M D Friedman), Dover 1957 Jacket: 'The first comprehensive introduction to information theory, this book places the work begun by Shannon and continued by McMillan, Feinstein and Khinchin on a rigorous mathematical basis. For the first time, mathematicians, statisticians, physicists, cyberneticists and communications engineers are offered a lucid, comprehensive introduction to this rapidly growing field.' 
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McGrath, Alister E, A Scientific Theology volume II: Reality, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, Grand Rapids, Michigan 2002 Amazon product description: 'This groundbreaking three-volume work by one of the world's best-known theologians is the most extended and systematic exploration of the relation between theology and science ever undertaken. Drawing on both his firsthand experience of scientific research and his vast knowledge of the Christian tradition, Alister McGrath explores how the natural sciences can be used by the Christian faith. This first volume sets out a vision for a "scientific theology" in which the working assumptions of the natural sciences are critically appropriated as a theological resource. It then deals at length with the important status of nature, a concept that has rarely been given the serious consideration it deserves. Responding to the view that the term "nature" is merely a social construct, McGrath gives the concept a proper grounding in the Christian doctrine of creation, exploring in the process the use of natural theology in contemporary Christian thought. A Scientific Theology is certain to become one of the most controversial and exciting theological publications of the decade.' 
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Neruda, Pablo, Selected Poems, Haughton Mifflin 1990 Jacket: 'In a famous essay "On Impure Poetry" Neruda calls for "a poetry as impure as old clothes, as a body with its foodstains and its shame, with wrinkles, observations, dreams, wakefulness, prophesies, declarations of love and hate, stupidities, shocks, idylls, poltical beliefs, negations, doubts, affirmations, and taxes." His poems everywhere manifest his entranced absorption in everything around him, human and natural, in a voice that is loving and scathing as occasion demands. The poems in this volume were selected by Neruda himself, at the instigation of Nathaniel Tarn, the editor.'  
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Agnosticism - Wikipedia, Agnosticism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' Agnosticism is the view that the existence of God, of the divine or the supernatural is unknown or unknowable. Another definition provided is the view that "human reason is incapable of providing sufficient rational grounds to justify either the belief that God exists or the belief that God does not exist." The English biologist Thomas Henry Huxley coined the word agnostic in 1869, and said "It simply means that a man shall not say he knows or believes that which he has no scientific grounds for professing to know or believe." Earlier thinkers, however, had written works that promoted agnostic points of view, such as Sanjaya Belatthaputta, a 5th-century BCE Indian philosopher who expressed agnosticism about any afterlife;n and Protagoras, a 5th-century BCE Greek philosopher who expressed agnosticism about the existence of "the gods" ' back

Andrew Jacobs, Sugary Drink Consumption Plunges in Chile After New Food Law, ' Consumption of sugar-sweetened drinks dropped nearly 25 percent in the 18 months after Chile adopted a raft of regulations that included advertising restrictions on unhealthy foods, bold front-of-package warning labels and a ban on junk food in schools. During the same period, researchers recorded a five percent increase in purchases of bottled water, diet soft drinks and fruit juices without added sugar.' back

Aristotle - Wikipedia, Aristotle - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' Aristotle Greek: Ἀριστοτέλης Aristotélēs, pronounced [aristotélɛːs]; 384 – 322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. He was the founder of the Lyceum and the Peripatetic school of philosophy and Aristotelian tradition. Along with his teacher Plato, he has been called the "Father of Western Philosophy". His writings cover many subjects – including physics, biology, zoology, metaphysics, logic, ethics, aesthetics, poetry, theatre, music, rhetoric, psychology, linguistics, economics, politics and government.' back

Atheism - Wikipedia, Atheism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' Atheism is, in the broadest sense, an absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities. Atheism is contrasted with theism, which, in its most general form, is the belief that at least one deity exists. back

Cantor's paradox - Wikipedia, Cantor's paradox - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'In set theory, Cantor's paradox is derivable from the theorem that there is no greatest cardinal number, so that the collection of "infinite sizes" is itself infinite. The difficulty is handled in axiomatic set theory by declaring that this collection is not a set but a proper class; in von Neumann–Bernays–Gödel set theory it follows from this and the axiom of limitation of size that this proper class must be in bijection with the class of all sets. Thus, not only are there infinitely many infinities, but this infinity is larger than any of the infinities it enumerates.' back

Cantor's theorem - Wikipedia, Cantor's theorem - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' In elementary set theory, Cantor's theorem is a fundamental result which states that, for any set A, the set of all subsets of A (the power set of A, denoted by P(A) ) has a strictly greater cardinality than A itself. For finite sets, Cantor's theorem can be seen to be true by simple enumeration of the number of subsets. Counting the empty set as a subset, a set with n members has a total of 2ⁿ subsets, so that if card (A) = n, then card (P(A)) = 2 ⁿ , and the theorem holds because 2ⁿ > n for all non-negative integers. ' back

Carnot cycle - Wikipedia, Carnot cycle - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'The Carnot cycle is a theoretical thermodynamic cycle proposed by Nicolas Léonard Sadi Carnot in 1824 and expanded by Benoit Paul Émile Clapeyron in the 1830s and 40s. It can be shown that it is the most efficient cycle for converting a given amount of thermal energy into work, or conversely, creating a temperature difference (e.g. refrigeration) by doing a given amount of work.' back

Christopher Hitchens, 'That which can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence', 'Forgotten were the elementary rules of logic, that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence and that what can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence. "Mommie Dearest", Slate, 20 October 2003' back

Deism - Wikipedia, Deism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' Deism (derived from Latin "deus" meaning "god") is the philosophical position that rejects revelation as a source of religious knowledge and asserts that reason and observation of the natural world are sufficient to establish the existence of a Supreme Being or creator of the universe. . . . At least since Thomas Aquinas, Christian thought had recognized two valid sources of religious knowledge: divine revelation and natural reason ("natural theology"). During the Enlightenment, some thinkers continued to accept reason, along with features of the natural world, as a valid source of religious knowledge, but they rejected the validity of revelation. These thinkers were the "deists" and the word "deism" refers to their collective attack on the idea of divine revelation. ' back

Euler-Lagrange equation - Wikipedia, Euler-Lagrange equation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'In calculus of variations, the Euler–Lagrange equation, Euler's equation, or Lagrange's equation although the latter name is ambiguous (see disambiguation page), is a differential equation whose solutions are the functions for which a given functional is stationary. It was developed by Swiss mathematician Leonhard Euler and Italian mathematician Joseph Louis Lagrange in the 1750s' back

Evelyn Waugh - Wikipedia, Evelyn Waugh - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Arthur Evelyn St. John Waugh (28 October 1903 – 10 April 1966), known as Evelyn Waugh, was an English writer of novels, biographies and travel books. He was also a prolific journalist and reviewer. His best-known works include his early satires Decline and Fall (1928) and A Handful of Dust (1934), his novel Brideshead Revisited (1945) and his trilogy of Second World War novels collectively known as Sword of Honour (1952–61). Waugh is widely recognised as one of the great prose stylists of the 20th century.' 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

Fundamental lemma of the calculus of variations - Wikipedia, Fundamental lemma of the calculus of variations - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, I'n mathematics, specifically in the calculus of variations, the fundamental lemma of the calculus of variations states that if the definite integral of the product of a continuous function f(x) and h(x) is zero, for all continuous functions h(x) that vanish at the endpoints of the domain of integration and have their first two derivatives continuous, then f(x)=0.' back

General relativity - Wikipedia, General relativity - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'General relativity or the general theory of relativity is the geometric theory of gravitation published by Albert Einstein in 1916. It is the current description of gravitation in modern physics. General relativity generalises special relativity and Newton's law of universal gravitation, providing a unified description of gravity as a geometric property of space and time, or spacetime. In particular, the curvature of spacetime is directly related to the four-momentum (mass-energy and linear momentum) of whatever matter and radiation are present. The relation is specified by the Einstein field equations, a system of partial differential equations.' back

God becomes the Universe - Wikipedia, God becomes the Universe - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' The belief that God became the Universe is a theological doctrine that has been developed several times historically, and holds that the creator of the universe actually became the universe. Historically, for versions of this theory where God has ceased to exist or to act as a separate and conscious entity, some have used the term pandeism, which combines aspects of pantheism and deism, to refer to such a theology. A similar concept is panentheism, which has the creator become the universe only in part, but remain in some other part transcendent to it, as well. The Hindu texts like the Mandukya Upanishad speaks of the undivided one which became the universe.' back

Greg Miller & Peter F. Mueller, Compromised encryption machines gave CIA window into major human rights abuses in South America, ' South American military dictatorships combined forces in the late 1970s on a continent-wide crackdown they called Operation Condor against perceived threats to their rule. It was part of a broader wave of violence in which nuns and priests were imprisoned, dissidents were tossed out of airplanes and thousands of victims were “disappeared.” To coordinate this brutal campaign, Argentina, Chile and other countries established a secret communications network using encryption machines from a Swiss company called Crypto AG. Crypto was secretly owned by the CIA as part of a decades-long operation with West German intelligence. The U.S. spy agency was, in effect, supplying rigged communications gear to some of South America’s most brutal regimes and, as a result, in unique position to know the extent of their atrocities. ' back

Holland Cotter, How Mexico's Muralists Lit a Fire Under U.S. Artists, ' From floated proposal to finished product, “Vida Americana: Mexican Muralists Remake American Art, 1925-1945” at the Whitney Museum of American Art represents a decade of hard thought and labor, and the effort has paid off. The show is stupendous, and complicated, and lands right on time. Just by existing it accomplishes three vital things. It reshapes a stretch of art history to give credit where credit is due. It suggests that the Whitney is, at last, en route to fully embracing “American Art.” And it offers yet another argument for why the build-the-wall mania that has obsessed this country for the past three-plus years just has to go. Judging by the story told here, we should be actively inviting our southern neighbor northward to enrich our cultural soil.' back

In hoc signo vinces - Wikipedia, In hoc signo vinces - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' "In hoc signo vinces" . . . is a Latin phrase conventionally translated into English as "In this sign thou shalt conquer". The Latin phrase itself renders, rather loosely, the Greek phrase "ἐν τούτῳ νίκα", transliterated as "en toútōi níka" . . . literally meaning "in this, conquer".' back

In Memoriam A.H.H. - Wikipedia, In Memoriam A.H.H. - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, '"In Memoriam A.H.H." is a poem by the British poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson, completed in 1849. It is a requiem for the poet's beloved Cambridge friend Arthur Henry Hallam, who died suddenly of a cerebral haemorrhage in Vienna in 1833. . . . . It is widely considered to be one of the great poems of the 19th century.
Canto 56: Who trusted God was love indeed And love Creation's final law Tho' Nature, red in tooth and claw With ravine, shriek'd against his creed ' back

J P Leahey, The Robertson-Walker Metric, The Robertson-Walker Metric: 'The simplest universe consistent with [special relativity] is one which appears isotropic (the same in all directions) to a set of privileged observers, called co-moving observers because each observer sees the others as moving along with the overall cosmic expansion. ... The existence of three or more such observers places very strong constraints on the possible structure of space-time. ... In such a universe, the interval (space-time separation) between events ("points" in space-time) can be described by the Robertson-Walker metric. By fixing the distances between all points, the metric also defines the geometry of space-time, and, because there is a meaningful cosmic time, the geometry of space at a given time. ...' back

NASA, Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP), 'The Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe is a NASA explorer mission measuring the temperature of the cosmic background radiation with unprecedented accuracy. This map of the remnant heat from the Big Bang provides answers to fundamental questions about the origin and fate of our universe.' back

Nazi Germany - Wikipedia, Nazi Germany - Wikipedia the free encyclopedia, ' Nazi Germany is the common English name for Germany between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party (NSDAP) controlled the country through a dictatorship. Under Hitler's rule, Germany became a totalitarian state where nearly all aspects of life were controlled by the government. The official name of the state was Deutsches Reich (German Reich) until 1943 and Großdeutsches Reich (Greater German Reich) from 1943 to 1945. Nazi Germany is also known as the Third Reich (Drittes Reich), meaning "Third Realm" or "Third Empire", the first two being the Holy Roman Empire (800–1806) and the German Empire (1871–1918). The Nazi regime ended after the Allies defeated Germany in May 1945, ending World War II in Europe.' back

Omega Point - Wikipedia, Omega Point - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' The Omega Point is the belief that everything in the universe is fated to spiral towards a final point of unification. The term was coined by the French Jesuit Catholic priest Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881–1955). Teilhard argued that the Omega Point resembles the Christian Logos, namely Christ, who draws all things into himself, who in the words of the Nicene Creed, is "God from God", "Light from Light", "True God from true God", and "through him all things were made". In the Book of Revelation, Christ describes himself thrice as "the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end". The idea of the Omega Point is developed in later writings, such as those of John David Garcia (1971), Paolo Soleri (1981), Frank Tipler (1994), and David Deutsch (1997). back

Panentheism - Wikipedia, Panentheism - Wikipedia, the free encycloedia, ' Panentheism (meaning "all-in-God", from the Greek πᾶν pân, "all", ἐν en, "in" and Θεός Theós, "God") is the belief that the divine pervades and interpenetrates every part of the universe and also extends beyond space and time. The term was coined by the German philosopher Karl Krause in 1828 to distinguish the ideas of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831) and Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling (1775–1854) about the relation of God and the universe from the supposed pantheism of Baruch Spinoza. Unlike pantheism, which holds that the divine and the universe are identical, panentheism maintains an ontological distinction between the divine and the non-divine and the significance of both.' back

Pantheism - Wikipedia, Pantheism - Wikipedia, ' Pantheism is the belief that reality is identical with divinity, or that all-things compose an all-encompassing, transcendent god. Pantheist belief does not recognize a distinct personal god, anthropomorphic or otherwise, and instead characterizes a broad range of doctrines differing in forms of relationships between reality and divinity.[Pantheistic concepts date back thousands of years, and pantheistic elements have been identified in various religious traditions. The term pantheism was coined by mathematician Joseph Raphson in 1697 and has since been used to describe the beliefs of a variety of people and organizations. Pantheism was popularized in Western culture as a theology and philosophy based on the work of the 17th-century philosopher Baruch Spinoza, particularly his book Ethics. A pantheistic stance was also taken in the 16th century by philosopher and cosmologist Giordano Bruno.' back

Particle Data Group. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, The Particle Adventure, The Particle Data Group of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory presents an award winning interactive tour of quarks, neutrinos, antimatter, extra dimensions, dark matter, accelerators and particle detectors. back

Paul Krugman, Warren, Bloomberg and What Really Matters, ' During the U.S. economy’s greatest generation — the era of rapid, broadly shared growth that followed World War II — Wall Street was a fairly peripheral part of the picture. . . . But that all changed in the 1980s, largely thanks to financial deregulation. Suddenly the big bucks came from buying and selling companies as opposed to running them. . . . There was also an epidemic of financial fraud and racketeering, exemplified by the career of Michael Milken, the junk-bond king Donald Trump just pardoned. And the financial sector itself doubled as a share of the economy, which meant that it was pulling lots of capital and many smart people away from productive activities. For there is no evidence that Wall Street’s mega-expansion made the rest of the economy more efficient. . . . And the runaway growth of finance set the stage for the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. It also made Michael Bloomberg a billionaire. Now, I wasn’t being sarcastic in calling Bloomberg a great businessman. He is. And to his credit, he himself hasn’t, as far as I know, engaged in destructive financial wheeling and dealing. Instead, he got rich by selling equipment to destructive wheeler-dealers.' back

Peter Walker, North Korean human rights abuses recall Nazis, says UN inquiry chair, 'North Korea's leadership is committing systematic and appalling human rights abuses against its own citizens on a scale unparalleled in the modern world, crimes against humanity with strong resemblances to those committed by the Nazis, a United Nations inquiry has concluded. back

S Marc Cohen (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy), Aristotle's Metaphysics, ' 1. The Subject Matter of Aristotle's Metaphysics: Aristotle himself described his subject matter in a variety of ways: as ‘first philosophy’, or ‘the study of being qua being’, or ‘wisdom’, or ‘theology’. A comment on these descriptions will help to clarify Aristotle's topic. In Metaphysics A.1, Aristotle says that “all men suppose what is called wisdom (sophia) to deal with the first causes (aitia ) and the principles (archai) of things” (981b28), and it is these causes and principles that he proposes to study in this work. It is his customary practice to begin an inquiry by reviewing the opinions previously held by others, and that is what he does here, as Book A continues with a history of the thought of his predecessors about causes and principles.' back

Silas R Beane et al, Constaints on the Universe as a Numerical Simulation, 'Abstract Observable consequences of the hypothesis that the observed universe is a numerical simulation performed on a cubic space-time lattice or grid are explored. The simulation scenario is first motivated by extrapolating current trends in computational resource requirements for lattice QCD into the future. Using the historical development of lattice gauge theory technology as a guide, we assume that our universe is an early numerical simulation with unimproved Wilson fermion discretization and investigate potentially-observable consequences. Among the observables that are considered are the muon g − 2 and the current differences between determinations of α, but the most stringent bound on the inverse lattice spacing of the universe, b−1>∼ 1011 GeV, is derived from the high-energy cut off of the cosmic ray spectrum. The numerical simulation scenario could reveal itself in the distributions of the highest energy cosmic rays exhibiting a degree of rotational symmetry breaking that reflects the structure of the underlying lattice.' back

Stan Grant, The High Court has widened the horizon of what it is to be indigenous and belong to Australia, ' The judges confronted emotionally and politically loaded questions of race, history, identity, and crucially, sovereignty. In doing so, they have widened the horizon on what it is to be Indigenous and belong to this land. Justice James Edelman captured the strength of the Aboriginal men's claim: "The sense of identity that ties Aboriginal people to Australia is an underlying fundamental truth that cannot be altered or deemed not to exist by legislation…." Justice Virginia Bell argued too that an Indigenous person cannot be considered alien, because "…an Aboriginal Australian cannot be said to belong to another place".' back

Theism - Wikipedia, Theism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Theism is broadly defined as the belief in the existence of a Supreme Being or deities. In common parlance, or when contrasted with deism, the term often describes the classical conception of God that is found in monotheism (also referred to as classical theism) – or gods found in polytheistic religions—a belief in God or in gods without the rejection of revelation as is characteristic of deism. Atheism is commonly understood as rejection of theism in the broadest sense of theism, i.e. the rejection of belief in God or gods.The claim that the existence of any deity is unknown or unknowable is agnosticism.' back

Trinity - Wikipedia, Trinity - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'The Christian doctrine of the Trinity (from Latin trinitas "triad", from trinus "threefold") defines God as three consubstantial persons, expressions, or hypostases: the Father, the Son (Jesus Christ), and the Holy Spirit; "one God in three persons". The three persons are distinct, yet are one "substance, essence or nature" homoousios). In this context, a "nature" is what one is, while a "person" is who one is.' back

Trish Luker, Indigenous pain and protest written in the history of signatures, ' On 26 May 2017, 250 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people signed the Uluru Statement from the Heart, calling for a First Nations Voice in the Australian Constitution and a Makarrata Commission to supervise a process of agreement making and truth telling between government and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. The statement, written in the centre of a large canvas with paintings that tell the creation stories of the traditional owners of Uluru, the Anangu people, is surrounding by 250 signatures. ' 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

William Mander (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy), Pantheism, ' At its most general, pantheism may be understood positively as the view that God is identical with the cosmos, the view that there exists nothing which is outside of God, or else negatively as the rejection of any view that considers God as distinct from the universe. However, given the complex and contested nature of the concepts involved, there is insufficient consensus among philosophers to permit the construction of any more detailed definition not open to serious objection from some quarter or other.' back