A True Miracle.

[Smorb]

What happened before the Big Bang? We don't know. Here's what we do know.

A fraction of a millisecond after the big bang, a spherical and very slightly bumpy mass of what will be come the entire universe expanded at incredible rates. After years of expansion the small incredibly dense mass that exploded in the big bang had turned to very small particles of dust, and after many more years started to congeal into larger and larger particles. Millions of years pass and small particles turn into stars and galaxies. First Generation stars were made of primarily Hydrogen as well as small amounts of Helium. As the hydrogen is consumed, heavier atoms are made. Helium, Carbon, Oxygen and so on are produced inside the star by a process called nucleosynthesis.

Some stars are massive and the eventual center of the star will be comprised almost completely of Iron. After a star has consumed all of its resources, it dies. Some stars shrink in on themselves multiplying their density many times, and turn into dead chunks of Iron. Some stars die in a massive explosion spewing their heavier elements into space to reform into planets and stars and the cycle repeats itself.

Some planets will be lucky enough to be infused with this rich combination of Hydrogen, Oxygen, Carbon, Nitrogen as well as many many other elements produced in the stars during their long life. Some of these planets will form near a new star, and be close enough to receive crucial amounts of radiation required to start certain chemical reactions. Some of these planets may even be fortunate enough to produce extremely unlikely strings of complex molecules called proteins.

When enough proteins are formed and can arrange in a most outstanding pattern, they can make what we call life. Cells start to emerge, with the capability and resources to replicate themselves into extremely simple forms of life, made of one single Cell. These single cell organisms can then after millions of more years replicate and advance to multi-cellular organisms. These organisms can start to replicate and diversify to create an ecosystem of plants and animals, given the correct circumstances on the planet and its surrounding area.

When these plants and animals start to interact with each other, they start multiplying at extremely fast rates and a form of natural selection takes place where organisms with beneficial qualities survive to replicate more than those with none of those traits. Small organisms with specialized cells to receive light and send a signal to the primitive nervous system of the organism. They may start to thrive because of a genetic abnormality which allows them to receive primitive awarenesses of their immediate environment. The clusters of light sensitive cells after many generations of successful natural selection start to concave, creating a better surface to receive light data. After many more generations this may or may not turn into what we call an Eye.

Similar feats of genetic accomplishment start to emerge everywhere creating magnificent specimens of diversity. Eyes, Tails, Wings, Feathers, Fur, Thick Skin, Thick Skulls, Feet, Horns.. the list goes on and on.

One Generation after another, animals become smarter, they learn to adapt better to their environment and pass that knowledge to their kin. Eventually one species has arrived on this planet, capable of intelligence that has never been seen elsewhere. This species grows exponentially faster, with highly specialized brains able to tackle hard problems and with the capacity as well as the means, for spoken language.

We are born. Long ago, before there was mention of a God. Before anybody knew what the internet was, or what an amazing accomplishment the computer would be for our species.

We have an extremely long heritage on this planet, and the concept of Gods are relatively new. When we started to explore our world, we wanted easy, clean cut explanations of why things occurred the way we saw them. Gods were an easy explanation and appealed to our innate fascination with the supernatural.

Egyptian Gods.
Roman Gods.
Greek Gods.
Aztec Gods.

All Gone.

Someday I hope we can add Jewish, Christian and Muslim Gods to the list of Mythical creatures along with Zeus, Poseidon and Thor. We have evolved our methods of research past a need to explain thunder and lightning by ascribing it to a being capable of wielding amazing power with his hands.

Why do we still need these explanations for our world? We have better. Science has provided us with answers and questions that I feel are way better and much more interesting than a simple deity who spares for our affection.

I guess my question for debate is directed towards religious people.

Why is this not enough for you? It seems obvious from an outside stance that there is no need for your deity here. There are wondrous and magnificent things occurring everyday in the universe, and nothing I have read about religion has ever evoked even a glimmer of interest for me. Do we not have better explanations for the world now than we did living in the deserts of the fertile crescent? Is it not morally bankrupt to base a life on two thousand year old superstition and incomplete answers?

thanks for listening,

-Dan

[Nick_A]

Dan

Why is this not enough for you? It seems obvious from an outside stance that there is no need for your deity here. There are wondrous and magnificent things occurring everyday in the universe, and nothing I have read about religion has ever evoked even a glimmer of interest for me. Do we not have better explanations for the world now than we did living in the deserts of the fertile crescent? Is it not morally bankrupt to base a life on two thousand year old superstition and incomplete answers?

Good questions Dan.

For me, science explains the workings of God's will manifesting as the results of the interactions of universal laws. The universe is a process and what manifests are lawful results of this process that has its source as God's will. Creation is a machine and the machine does its work mechanically. I agree with the value of science since it reveals God's will.

A human being is dual natured. He has both a mechanical animal part arising and evolving from the ground and the seed of consciousness that involved into him from higher consciousness.

We can understand the mechanics of God's will but our potential for conscious evolution attracts us to God's love as the source of meaning not supplied by knowledge of God's will. In short, we know science but don't know what it is all for. Who am I? Where do I belong? Is there purpose to existence beyond the secular? All these questions require efforts of understanding that necessitate a quality of knowledge that requires inner empiricism acquired through the development of PERSPECTIVE as opposed to scientific knowledge. A balanced human being IMO desires knowledge and also the ability for perspective. A balanced person then is capable of putting knowledge into a balanced perspective that approaches wisdom. Such people are very rare IMO.

"The danger is not lest the soul should doubt whether there is any bread, but lest, by a lie, it should persuade itself that it is not hungry." Simone Weil

When you ask: "Why is this not enough for you?" it implies that the ideal human being is the one who has so suppressed his soul that it no longer hungers for living conscious meaning and connection with the higher, but has become closed and no longer hungry and just a representative of a collective Plato defined as the "Great Beast" from which it draws meaning and purpose.

It is quite right IMO to observe the amount of imagination that corrupts the soul's search for meaning but that is not to deny the need for meaning but rather how to cope with imagination. Unfortunately our technological environment encourages imagination an fantasy by creating artificial desires. The true searcher has to get beyond both fantasy and ridicule. But for them it is worth the effort. I don't know if you can understand this but this need is something that I respect. It is not everyone that can pursue the pearl of great worth for the sake of genuine understanding when so much is against them.


You speak of the big bang theory but suppose it is just a part of a cycle? Then there is no beginning just like a circle doesn't have a beginning or end. The ancients called this cycle the breath of Brahma

[Smorb]

Thanks for the reply, I was beginning to think nobody would try lol.

First of all, I want to address some of your ideas.

For me, science explains the workings of God's will

I highlight the word "Me" because its important. I don't think this is how you feel, I think this is how you were told how to feel by church leaders, parents etc. I think that as science has evolved, religion has had to answer it with new explanations. As such, those rebuttals are handed down to generations of kids who grow up just thinking that its the truth because it was given to them by people entrusted with their intellectual maturity.

Your reply was pretty much exactly as I suspected it would be, from hundreds of conversation with theists in the past, and they all use the same argument to support their ideas, with no regard to logic or reason. Just regurgitate what my pastor taught me, that's the answer.

Try and think outside your comfort zone. Think about it as a whole. Is the universe not more exciting when you think of it as something not designed or created for our benefit? I mean, if the universe was created for us, and god loves us so much, why is there so much death, hate and destruction visited upon this earth every minute of every day? does he not love us all equally? does he not love you in your house and computer with internet and food just as much as he loves the hundred thousand people going to die this year from AIDS in Africa, or the 3year old who's mother JUST died right now from starvation?

I couldn't sleep at night if I thought for a minute that there was a malevolent being watching over this earth and designing such a death trap, hoping for our love. I say enough of that. If he's up there he certainly isn't worth any praise.

I challenge you to give me ONE example of something he supposedly did in your life to improve your situation, which makes him worthy of any of your respect. just one.

There are so many more interesting questions on the world. Whether there is a god who designed, planned and now enjoys watching the great majority of his "children" suffering while they make bland attempts to worship him.

There just has to be something more interesting than that.

Try uncanning your response from what you have been taught and try to explain why you hold your world view the way you do. Reconcile it with what you see in the real world.

Give me one good reason why Christianity makes more sense because it is true, rather than Christianity exists because it was a really good story thousands of years ago. Your reason must also not be related to Christianity, for thats a self fulfilling prophecy. "Christianity is true because the bible tells me so." BS nobody buys that, and you shouldn't either.

The ancients called this cycle the breath of Brahma

Sorry, but if history has proved anything its that ancient peoples didn't understand a lot of what was going on around us. Flat earth, Earth centered universe... all propagated under the veil of Religion. Oops.. time to fix our religion so we don't look like we're full of shit again. Doesn't impress me.

[Nick_A]

Hi Smorb

I'll reply superficially now and will be gone tomorrow only to return Monday. The, if the site remains fixed we can continue. You don't seem compelled to generate the usual nastiness so perhaps we can get some place with mutual respect.

First of all I view human understanding as relative in quality. Religion is also relative in quality corresponding with humanities relative understanding. I break these levels of down much like is done as exoteric (learned beliefs) esoteric (conscious attempts at inner empiricism or to "know thyself") and transcendent (conscious experiential understanding of the essence of religion.)

I've never been the type to swallow it whole so to speak so education was a mixed blessing. I learned after a while that when Jean Shepherd said that "there are two kinds of people, the punctuators and the rest of us" I saw that I was one of the rest of us. In my case it was necessary also to swim upstream like the salmon, to make any sense of existence. So I'm open to anything and take no refuge in developing a closed mind.

I agree that the universe is not created for our benefit. Our purpose is to serve universal purpose rather than it to serve us. The universe is a living machine that serves a universal purpose. Higher consciousness just has to get it started and it functions on its own. As a believer in Christianity, I do not accept the Hebrew personal God and consider this concept one which has denied understanding. Christianity is a way of profiting from the inevitable. Simone Weil describes it well:

"The tremendous greatness of Christianity comes from the fact that it does not seek a supernatural remedy against suffering but a supernatural use of suffering." Simone Weil

The quality of human being itself creates our life. Because we are as we are, everything is as it is. Christianity is a means to change what we are.

So God has nothing to do with the happenings on earth. Jesus tried to explain this but few believe it and insist God can be bribed.

Luke 13:

1Now there were some present at that time who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. 2Jesus answered, "Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? 3I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish. 4Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them—do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? 5I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish."

Towers will fall and kill people. It is the way of nature. God is not involved. Christianity offers a way through re-birth to escape from blind earthly existence.

Give me one good reason why Christianity makes more sense because it is true, rather than Christianity exists because it was a really good story thousands of years ago. Your reason must also not be related to Christianity, for thats a self fulfilling prophecy. "Christianity is true because the bible tells me so." BS nobody buys that, and you shouldn't either.

I could only do it intellectually beginning from the concept of God as both one and three. All of creation is based on this.

Emotionally you would have to experience the Holy spirit to begin to appreciate the scale of emotional quality or for example the difference between animal love and divine love.

Sorry, but if history has proved anything its that ancient peoples didn't understand a lot of what was going on around us. Flat earth, Earth centered universe... all propagated under the veil of Religion. Oops.. time to fix our religion so we don't look like we're full of xxxx again. Doesn't impress me.

If I could show you in what way the earth is considered flat and the center, would that change your mind? It would require learning to conceptualize in a new way.

[Smorb]

I wont post too much, I want to give you the opportunity to complete your thoughts on the last post, but I wanted to direct you more to the original idea of the post I first made.

You seem like an intelligent and well spoken person. I want to bring you back for a second to the meaning behind my original post.

After all that we have, as a civilization learned, why do we need to maintain the notion that there is something outside of our universe? Anything supernatural outside of our scope of understanding does not have a place anymore. There is very little on earth that occurs that we can not explain, and if our history has taught us anything, it is that we can explain it without the use of invoking the supernatural realm.

I know what you are thinking, right now you are probably thinking that I have missed your fundamental argument that there is more than meets the eye in our life. There are things that we can not understand, and things that we are not meant to understand.

here is a quote from Simone Weil.

Culture is an instrument wielded by teachers to manufacture teachers, who, in their turn, will manufacture still more teachers. - Simone Weil

So, is it nor morally bankrupt and foolish to manufacture teachers who will categorically deny reason and logic in favor of the supernatural and wondrous?

I agree that materialism and other forms of tangible realities are also morally and spiritually empty, but there are forms of meditation and ways of thinking without thought that is without a supernatural leader or cult philosophy behind it, which we can attain higher consciousness. Do we need to believe that Mary was a virgin to attain them? Nope. How important is it that we convert everyone we meet to Christianity to attain that kind of spiritual power? Not important.

Spirituality and consciousness should be a personal journey and not dictated by those in power who would dogmatise and confuse the masses. I maintain that modern religious activity is self-serving (by that I mean the church and not its followers) and misleading.

[byofrcs]

........

The quality of human being itself creates our life. Because we are as we are, everything is as it is. Christianity is a means to change what we are.

It certainly did. Christianity is a business. It got one ruler at the end of the Roman Empire and then wholesale overlaid temples and places of reverence of older religions with its own constructions.

It maintained its rule through murdering, imprisoning or exiling any who objected to doctrine, acquiring lands, tithes and rulers. It took over 800 years for this to happen throughout Europe (Scandinavia being the last area to fall under in the late 11th and 12th centuries). It then took 400 years for the first major schism to form in Christianity with the rise of the protestant movement and then another 400 years with the Enlightenment for Christianity to be challenged by the reason of science. During the 20th century Christianity was slowly disestablished from the ruling of nation states.

The process is still going on. Eventually it will be as dust as all cultures eventually turn to dust.

......
So God has nothing to do with the happenings on earth. Jesus tried to explain this but few believe it and insist God can be bribed.

Luke 13:

1Now there were some present at that time who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. 2Jesus answered, "Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? 3I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish. 4Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them—do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? 5I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish."

Towers will fall and kill people. It is the way of nature. God is not involved. Christianity offers a way through re-birth to escape from blind earthly existence.

The problem is that there is no contemporaneous records of Jesus Christ. At best I feel that there may have been a humanist magician who to present his message to the Jews in a way they could understand had to wrap the message in the mythology of the Jews.

The original message has been perverted into "Christianity".

Give me one good reason why Christianity makes more sense because it is true, rather than Christianity exists because it was a really good story thousands of years ago. Your reason must also not be related to Christianity, for thats a self fulfilling prophecy. "Christianity is true because the bible tells me so." BS nobody buys that, and you shouldn't either.

I could only do it intellectually beginning from the concept of God as both one and three. All of creation is based on this.

That sounds like nonsense because it makes little sense. Intellectually I could start with no God nor any Trinity but a simplest causal structure and all creation can start from this. It has no love, no knowledge, no purpose but is a vibration in a field. You can measure this with the Casimir effect. From the start of this universe so many years ago up until today is truely a fantastic journey but their isn't any revelation from any Religion that has revealed these wonders but Science and humanities own investigations. The evidence of your God is as absent as any God.

Emotionally you would have to experience the Holy spirit to begin to appreciate the scale of emotional quality or for example the difference between animal love and divine love.

Christianity mentions love a lot. Humans, and a few other animals, have the ability to love. The neuro-chemistry it is a powerful driver and promoter of affinity between two people and within groups. Christianity has hijacked this powerful human emotion and perverted it for its own use.

The ecstasy of the Holy Spirit is this human emotion. There is no evidence of divine love other than in dogma of Christians. From the first day you are born Christianity denigrates humanity with accusations of an intrinsic and original Sin.

When will Christians stop undermining human nature and taking away our love ?

[Nick_A]

Smorb

After all that we have, as a civilization learned, why do we need to maintain the notion that there is something outside of our universe? Anything supernatural outside of our scope of understanding does not have a place anymore. There is very little on earth that occurs that we can not explain, and if our history has taught us anything, it is that we can explain it without the use of invoking the supernatural realm.

I believe that Man is in a unique position within our universe. Man serves as the connection between mechanical evolution and conscious evolution. Many atheists readily accept mechanical evolution but for some reason are not open to its passage into conscious evolution. Evolution can only progress so far mechanically and then in begins to involute back from where it arose. This of course means that higher consciousness permeates our universe and consciousness is consciously connected making it natural for higher consciousness to support and aid conscious evolution or the evolution of the perspective of wholeness that reconciles mechanical evolution .

We can readily observe in ourselves how consciousness comes and goes. we have moment of self awareness but usually our life is just lived in a series of reactions. Though gradations and quality of consciousness is obvious, the idea that it is an evolutionary quality is hard to grasp because we believe we already have it. We don't experience the human condition described as "psychological sleep' in one form or another as in Plato's cave analogy or the Buddhist parable of the Burning House.

I maintain that there is a natural striving for this conscious contact with higher consciousness which is often translated into forms of idolatry which seem absurd to you. I believe thought that there is objective reality behind subjective idolatry.

If having a computer mind satisfies your inner need for '"meaning" you are like many others. My interest is in the human perspective that includes the knowledge of the heart and the conscious awareness of our connection to higher consciousness that is experienced during our own moments of self awareness.

I seriously maintain that simone Weil is accurate when she says that:

"Humanism was not wrong in thinking that truth, beauty, liberty, and equality are of infinite value, but in thinking that man can get them for himself without grace."

The point here is that we can explain a lot of things but we are incapable of putting our knowledge into a human perspective. Our knowledge both kills and cures. It can for example lead to wars and it is quite obvious that awakened humanity would be incapable of something so absurd. But we repeat them because of the human condition of psychological sleep. The point here is even though we've learned a great deal, what do we understand? What can sleeping humanity really understand regardless of what it knows?

Many people would agree that the striving to awaken doesn't have a place anymore. I disagree and maintain that though there are only a few that understand the necessity of awakening and becoming aware of what for many could be considered supernatural, is essential for Man's survival and evolution.

I know what you are thinking, right now you are probably thinking that I have missed your fundamental argument that there is more than meets the eye in our life. There are things that we can not understand, and things that we are not meant to understand.

We are meant to understand but to do so requires awakening to the reality of the human condition and human potential as a part of universal purpose. But doing so requires first becoming aware of the hold imagination has on us and that requires efforts at inner empiricism which people would rather avoid in favor of arguing.

Quote:
Culture is an instrument wielded by teachers to manufacture teachers, who, in their turn, will manufacture still more teachers. - Simone Weil

So, is it nor morally bankrupt and foolish to manufacture teachers who will categorically deny reason and logic in favor of the supernatural and wondrous?

You've missed the idea. I'll put it into context:

"Weil lamented that education had become no more than "an instrument manipulated by teachers for manufacturing more teachers, who in their turn will manufacture more teachers." rather than a guide to getting out of the cave."

"The difference between more or less intelligent men is like the difference between criminals condemned to life imprisonment in smaller or larger cells. The intelligent man who is proud of his intelligence is like a condemned man who is proud of his large cell.

Simone is referring to becoming aware of the prison of the human condition which teachers avoid as dictated by their superiors. It is not a knock on science but a lament as to the loss of respect for human perspective.within a universal context that connects higher consciousness with the mechanics of the world.

I agree that materialism and other forms of tangible realities are also morally and spiritually empty, but there are forms of meditation and ways of thinking without thought that is without a supernatural leader or cult philosophy behind it, which we can attain higher consciousness. Do we need to believe that Mary was a virgin to attain them? Nope. How important is it that we convert everyone we meet to Christianity to attain that kind of spiritual power? Not important.

Agreed. But the trouble is that it is normally the explorations of la la land. People meditate and then kill each other.

Understanding the virgin birth would require a knowledge of alchemy as well as the connections between levels of reality so why bother with it? Only a very few would be interested enough The best that could be experienced from contemplation is the .awareness of our nothingness in relation to human potential. Then the idea of leaving the cave would not appear so absurd.

Spirituality and consciousness should be a personal journey and not dictated by those in power who would dogmatise and confuse the masses. I maintain that modern religious activity is self-serving (by that I mean the church and not its followers) and misleading.

What we call spirituality and consciousness is overwhelmingly flights of fantasy which often causes more harm than good. Yet I am part of a minority that believes in conscious evolution. Imagination is what begins in the absence of consciousness so I cannot indulge in la la land.

We agree that modern religious activity has mixed results and their value connected to societal values rather than awakening which raises the question of how religion can benefit society. The essence of religion which is its contribution to awakening, I believe is essential for a free society but the question is if it is possible to introduce it into the domain of the "Great Beast" whose survival depends upon the dominance of imagination

[QED]

Emotionally you would have to experience the Holy spirit to begin to appreciate the scale of emotional quality or for example the difference between animal love and divine love.

I must dig out a study I recently heard reported on in which the "divine kind of love" was unambiguously identified. I hope to get back here with the details later.