EVIDENCE FOR GOD AND THE COMPLEXITY OF LIFE, SELF & DEATH -
GOD AND DECODING INTELLIGENT DESIGN: EVOLUTION, SPIRIT, SOUL & SELF:
Volumn 1 - EVIDENCE FOR GOD: AND THE COMPLEXITY OF LIFE, BELIEFS, DEATH AND SELF.
Volumn 2 - GOD AND DECODING INTELLIGENT DESIGN: EVOLUTION, SPIRIT, SOUL AND SELF.
For Inquisitors, Believers, Skeptics, Agnostics and Atheists
Knowledge is Power - Informing Beliefs, Values, Attitudes & Behaviours. Because in relation to the universe and life there’s a profound saying. “You Can’t Get Something From Nothing”.
Read the 2 e-books below
Life is short, so live it well, that on your death-bed you have no regrets about the way you have lived life. Otherwise repent to Jesus Christ The Lord and Saviour who died and was murdered on the cross to save the people of the world from their sins.
“Don’t worry about those who concern themselves with predicting the day and date for the end of the world, for all material substances are short lived and temporary. But be conscious and prepared for your own personal imminent physical death when your immortal soul/spirit passes from this world into the next. When your spirit/soul (your essence of Self and Being comprised of personality, emotions, thoughts, feelings, memories etcetera) detaches from your earthly vehicle the body/brain”. At the time of your passing you will face the judgement and spiritual purification of your life on earth, whereby you will be presented before your mind’s eye with a video-tape of your life and proceed to feel any pain you have caused others during your time/life span on planet earth.
Did you know that in the New Testament of the Bible, Jesus Christ said, “The first will come last and the last will come first”, what do you think this means in relation to one’s day to day behaviours and actions?
Did you know that in the New Testament of the Bible, Jesus Christ said, “If you save your life you will lose it and if you lose your life you will save it”, what do you think this means relation to one’s day to day behaviours and actions?
Did you know that the Virgin Mary and the virgin birth of Jesus Christ and His miracles are held in higher spiritual status in the Quran than Muhammad? What do you think this means in how the Quran should be interpreted?
Did you know that the Quran writes about Muhammad as being the sign of warning through words and terror etc. What do you think this means in how the Quran should be interpreted ?
The question begs to be asked if negative attitudes of belief and faith reduces and denigrates the science process into nothing more than a non cause-and-affect, chaotic, and set of random-chance interactions that then cannot claim to be a credible academic discipline with regard to validation of the spirit and atom energy components of this symbiotic and interactive reality etc.
The question, “Does God Exist”, lies herein, explained as the proof, reasons, evidence and logic from the academic disciplines of RELIGION, SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY, HISTORY, PSYCHOLOGY AND THEOLOGY as guiding the evidence to believe in the existence of a God and Creator.
Does God Exist - Proof for God - About Life, Death, Soul & Self
هل الله موجود -- البرهان في سبيل الله -- عن الحياة ، والروح ، والموت والذات
神的存在 - 对上帝的证明 - 关于生命，死亡，灵魂和自我
भगवान के लिए प्रमाण - जीवन, मृत्यु, आत्मा, और सेल्फ के बारे में भगवान का अस्तित्व है
Существует ли Бог - Доказательство для Бога - о жизни, смерти, Душа и Я
The content and subject matter of these two e-books is underpinned by the culmination of twenty+ years of study and research
- at four universities in two countries -
from objective and rational analysis of information from the disciplines of
RELIGION, SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY, HISTORY, PSYCHOLOGY AND THEOLOGY
Herein these e-books discusses and reflects upon God in relation to the meaning of life, spirit, death, heaven, soul, mind, self and consciousness, including the existence of spirit-energy and atom-energy as a major part in human existence
The contents of these e-books counter these frivolous unfounded pseudo-science anti-creation and anti-intelligent design claims through the rational philosophical processes juxtaposition with genuine facts and hypothesis underpinned by objective, rational and ‘spirit-reflective’ analysis of information from all theological, philosophical, historical and scientific research/evidence”.
The information within these two free e-books provide answers to enduring questions relevant in today’s global, cultural, religious, educational, economic, and personal changing living environments.
Volumn 1 - EVIDENCE FOR GOD: AND THE COMPLEXITY OF LIFE, BELIEFS, DEATH AND SELF
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The subjects:
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reincarnation
instincts’?
Bible and Quran erroneous?
from all other spiritual leaders and teachers?
Volumn 2 - GOD AND DECODING INTELLIGENT DESIGN: EVOLUTION, SPIRIT, SOUL AND SELF
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The subjects include:
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religions, traditions and cultures?
If you are pressed for time to fully read musing in total reflection, please browse individual chapters for subject matter that interests you in the moment.
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Volumn 1 - EVIDENCE FOR GOD: AND THE COMPLEXITY OF LIFE, BELIEFS, DEATH AND SELF
Steve Clarke
ISBN 0-473-03715-7
Copyright © Stephen Clark 2009
Across Publishng
Second Revised Edition 2011
Brisbane, Australia
Any comments about the contents of this book please direct to:
CONTENT
Prefaces
The Meaning of Life
The Insult of Blasphemy
The Six Dimensions, Steps, and Degrees to Explain
a Creator’s Infinity and Human Immortality
Passion of the Christ
Have You Ever Asked These Questions
Introduction
CHAPTER
1 In Search of the Creator
We Do Not Believe
Jesus Calls His Apostle Peter, Satan (Devil)
Pope John Paul II Apologies to the World
Separation of Church and State
Many Religions, Churches Faiths and Beliefs
We Want To Believe
2 Evidence of God From
Human Reason, Science and Philosophy
Natural and Super Natural Knowledge
The World is Not as it Appears
Proof of a Creator’s Existence through Reason and Science
Philosophers and Theologians
Aristotle, Plato and Socrates
Providence
Thomas Aquinas’ Five Rational Proofs for God’s Existence
First Proof – Motion
Second Proof- Cause and Effect
Third Proof – Contingent and Necessary Beings
Fourth Proof – A Finite Subordinate Series
Fifth Proof, Proof from Order, Descartes, Locke
Atom-Energy Different from Spirit-Energy
The Soul and Spirit of Self
3 Human Pain and Suffering from Intellectual and Spiritual Confusion
Brief History of Scripture Language
Misinterpretation of Scripture in the Bible
Spiritual Abuse
Human Destruction from Base Instincts, Faiths, Beliefs, Cultures, Politics and Religions
4 Intellectual and Spiritual Confusion Revisited
Principle Factors for Interpretation
Lucifer and, the King James Version of the Bible
Other Holy Scriptures and the Quran (Koran)
More Similarities than Differences between Religions
More about Comparative Religions
5 Truth is Stranger than Fantasy
Did the Creator become Human?
American Astronaut James Erwin
Was Christ’s Coming Foretold?
Who Is Jesus of Nazareth?
Is Jesus Christ Also ‘God’?
Jesus’ Claims of Being the Son of ‘God’
Jesus Christ Rising from the Dead
The Logical, Psychological and Philosophical Strategy
6 Why Did The Creator Become Human?
Humans Are Imperfect
The Incarnation
The Conscious Voice of Self
Atheism
Personal Integrity and Choice
Christ’s Teachings
The Original Ten Commandments
Ten Commandments Relevant but Inadequate
7 The New Commandment of Love
The New Law of Relational Love
Live Life with Relational Love for Self and Others
Judging and Self-righteousness
Philosophy of Love
8 The Creator’s Infinite Mystical
Relational Love/ Compassion
The Creator’s Acceptance
The Affects of Transgressions
The Creator’s Mystical Relational Love
The Creator’s Infinite Compassion and the
Cruel Trick of Death
Christ’s Compassion and Forgiveness
The Metaphor of Hell and Satan
9 Why Pain and Suffering
Mystery of Suffering and Pain
Insight to ‘God’ the Creator
Design, Order and Plan, Cause and Effect
Scripture and Suffering
Puppets on a String
Meaning from Pain
Pain and Relationships
10 Prayer
Dynamics of Prayer
The Meaning of Life in Short
We give meaning to our life because people already exist as we enter the world, and interacting with people and the environment if we can leave this world – when we ‘die’ - a slightly better place than when we entered it, we will have given positive meaning to our life.
Meaning to life - intentionally treating people with goodwill and a generosity of spirit. Interactions with others as being civil, friendly and compassionate as opposed to being unkind and mean spirited.
Ultimately, the meaning of the meaning of the fullness of life can be as simple as or as complex as we will it to be in relation to what we are capable of.
Question:
Is it more meaningful to leave one person happier in the world when we die (pass-over), and no one unhappy, or to leave a hundred people unhappier and a thousand people happier?
Reflect on the above:
Then consider the following:
Ideal behavioural, thoughtful and empathetic intercommunication aspires to intentionally converse and interact with all people we meet in a spirit of good-faith and good-will. Leaving no one worse-off, but many better-off in their personal sense of well-being.
The Universe > From Something or Nothing?
Life > From Creation or Chance?
Christ > Is ‘God’ or Prophet?
The ‘Creator’ > Is ‘God’?
Will We Meet Again
The Insult of Blasphemy
When one person, or a billion people, swear by blaspheming by using the name of 'their' 'God' in private, then that’s their prerogative and their personal 'healthy' relationship with their spiritual 'God'. And their ‘God’ can no doubt understand all that involves the personal relationship between the two of them, and accordingly, deals, accepts and handles such communication as being part of their private and intimate relationship.
But when someone blasphemes in public by using the name of one or a billion peoples’ ‘God’ as a swear word, such as, "Jesus Christ”, “Christ”, “Oh My God” "God", “For God’s Sake”, and indeed the words should they ever be used of “Buddha”, “Yahweh”, “Allah”, “Krishna” including “Muhammad” etc, then the line has been crossed. Whether we believe, or not, in a ‘God’, blaspheming is offensive in snubbing, with disregard to others’ spiritual beliefs and sensitivities.
In this instance, the blasphemer intentionally or unintentionally portrays and executes the attitudes and characteristics of bigotry, ignorance and arrogance relating to others' feelings and as such, be interpreted as contemptuous and disrespectful.
These insults and affronts are ‘discrimination’ on religious, cultural and spiritual grounds, and thus should be decreed as illegal.
Please mind your language in front of others.
Blaspheming against someone’s ‘God’ in the public arena is evidence of the orators and author’s bigotry, ignorance, arrogance, and illiteracy.
The Six Dimensions, Steps, and Degrees to Explain a Creator’s Infinity and Humans’ Immortality
It is important to remember that Spirit Energy exists without the dimensions of Time, Space and Movement. Because spirit-energy can exist without the dimensions and characteristics of time, space and movement, the question, “How can the Creator have always existed?” is not a relevant question to ask when it is asked within in human context in relation to the world.
This is because the meaning of the word ‘always’, can by definition, only be referred to in the context of Time, Space and Movement, which in turn are only related within the context of a universe.
So the question “How can anything have always existed”, can realistically only be asked in the realms of structured atom-energy of the universe – including Black Matter and Dark Energy - with which the world is made, and within the realms and dimensions of Spirit-Energy where time, space and movement is non-existent.
The 6 Steps, Degrees and Dimensions of Life, Existence and Immortality
Step 1 - The two dimensions of Length and Width
Step 2 - The three dimensions of Length, Width and Breadth
Step 3 and 4 - The four dimensions of Time which must include Atom Energy, Space and Movement. The phenomena of ‘time’ is essentially a culmination of movement of structures of atom-energies in relation to other structures of atom-energies in the medium of space.
Step 5 - The five dimensions of the human senses which include Touch, Smell, Sound, Sight and Taste.
Step 6 - The six dimension of Spirit - being Self, Consciousness, Awareness, Thoughts and Feelings. The spirit is the essence of a person and pivot of consciousness, self-awareness, emotion and thought defined not by atom-energy structures but by the energy of spirit.
The 6th Step and Dimension of Spirit is the only dimension that can stand alone on its own without the necessary input and interactions of the other 5 Steps and Dimensions.
In reality these six dimensions are designed and planned intelligently to interact and interface with one another.
But if we reduce the above equation of the six dimensions by one dimension, that one being the fourth dimension of time we immediately exclude structures of atom energies, movement and space.
If we remove these dimensions that define the essence of time and therefore the world as we know it one dimension is retained and that is the dimension of spirit.
And if the dimension of spirit, which by its very essence and characteristics, stands alone and apart from time, space and movement, then we can not ask questions about any Creator or Self that includes within its terms and meaning anything to do with the dimensions and realms of the first 3 dimensions that in part, define structured atom-energies.
Taking these factors into account irrelevant questions to ask would include:
“How could a Creator have always existed”? And, “Who made the ‘Creator”?
All these questions are asked from the point of reference prefaced on the assumption that ‘time’ is an incumbent necessary part of this world of structured atom-energies, space and movement and not an essential ingredient of spirit-energy.
The dimension and essence of spirit exits alone in timeless sovereign integrity, and explains and answers the question, “How can humans exist eternally or be immortal”?
Without the dimension of ‘time’ involved in the essence of the dimension of ‘spirit’ there can only exit the ‘now’, the ‘presence’, the ‘just being’, and the ‘just is’.
THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST
If Christ is ‘God’/ Creator and the Creator exists, then ‘God’ must Will Unconditional Mystical Relational Love towards all Peoples
Perhaps the most decisive and poignant message derived from the “Passion Of The Christ” is that the Creator potentially wills to unconditionally love all peoples, notwithstanding their personal transgressions, or their political, cultural, ethnic and religious persuasions and affiliations, as explicitly exemplified by Christ’s outcry, “Forgive them Father, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23: 34-35). This was an outcry by Jesus Christ on His death cross to the Creator, having been shamed, humiliated, and grievously, mortally and fatally assaulted and wounded. A sublime supplication to the Creator from the Son, after being jeered, insulted, spat upon, punched, beaten, scourged, crowned with thorns, nailed to the cross and speared, such that He was killed by Roman soldiers, Gentiles, Jews, Pagans, Elders, Teachers of the law and the Chief Priest. The crime of torturous ‘physical’ and psychological brutality leading to a person’s suffering and death, no human being deserves, let alone the innocent Christ. Yet, regardless of their behaviour, Christ pleads to the Creator to forgive these perpetrators for their actions that precipitated and procured His death. And if they were not practical partakers in His death, forgiveness for their vicarious and voyeuristic complicity, and their individual and collective transgressions as an outcome of their destructive, obsessive and irrational cultural, political, ethnic and religious beliefs. No, they did not ask their ‘God’, or anyone else to forgive them for their abominably barbaric intentional murderous behaviour. And no, they did not believe in the sacred integrity and dignity of humanity. And no, they did not believe in Christ, either as an innocent human being or as the Son of the Creator. Yet if Christ is the Creator, then ‘God’ forgave them all, if scripture verse is legitimately accurate. Yes, it is credible that the Creator forgave all these people. Killers and accomplices of Christ’s death all forgiven, despite them not believing or seeking forgiveness. If forgiven, it was through the unconditional mystical relational love of Christ, if Christ was/is in fact ‘God’ and if ‘God’ does in fact, exist. “Forgive them Father for they know not what they do”.(Luke 23: 34-35)
Have You Ever Asked These Questions
EVIDENCE FOR GOD: AND THE COMPLEXITY OF LIFE, BELIEFS, DEATH AND SELF explores answers to these existential questions.
.
“Fear neither the uncharted waters of life, nor the uncharted waters of death; so you fear neither life nor death, as you fear neither death nor life”
“Fear not Self living in this world, and fear not Self’s inevitable anatomical death, for Self is not only of anatomical existence but invisible Spirit that exists on forever.”
“Self ought try to never behave in this life - that if anatomical death should unexpectedly visit upon Self tomorrow, or next week etcetera – Self would, on post anatomical death-reflection, remorsefully regret”
“Despite all Self’s human flaws and imperfections, Self ought to completely, totally and deeply accept Self as being OK, but be honestly open to constructive change”
“Self’s life here on earth will be seen as having been far too short upon Self’s post-earth life reflection, to have lived life selfishly”
INTRODUCTION
If you have an aversion to, and limited time to spend reading introductions, the above Content pages of information, will, per Chapter and per Subsection, provide you with all the subjects in this book that have been extensively researched, discussed and grappled with.
The title of this book EVIDENCE FOR GOD: AND THE COMPLEXITY OF LIFE, BELIEFS, DEATH AND SELF is but a description of the starting point to all the information this book endeavours to encompass. The information in this book, which Chapters and their subsections are clearly described under the ‘Contents’ hopes to accomplish the furnishing and exploration of evidence-based knowledge, facts, ideas, theories and insights, which cumulatively provide potential answers to those enduring human existential questions that can dwell, often annoyingly, within Self’s conscious being. In accomplishing such a goal this book breaks old boundaries and hopes to provide informed information. If we can believe that the existence of the universe was created with design, order and purpose, which evidence within this book implies, then the universe did not just come into being from nothing and by random chance, but had to come from something. Therefore, if there is a ‘Creator’ of design, order and purpose then there is also potential immortality.
This book emphasizes the fact that what seemingly appears to be fact, is a perceived illusion. However, this perception of illusion is because we are still to change our mindset and shift it to what we now know it to exist of – and that is energy - from scientific research. When we look around us there is predetermined order, design and purpose everywhere. The Will and Soul of a ‘Creator’ is manifest in subatomic particles, atoms or atom-energy, that not only make up the pages and print of this book but everything in the universe, including inanimate objects (non-life) e.g., stars, galaxies, water, rocks, etcetera, and animate living life, for example, plants, animals, birds, insects and humans etcetera. Only 0.4% of the universe is made of structures with functions made of atom-energy we can observe, with 3.6% made of gases. The other 96 % of the universe is made from an energy that is atom-less, and perhaps more akin to the spirit-energy of the Creator. Physicists call this unknown ‘matter’, ‘dark matter and energy’. The world is not made of what it appears to be made of as it is made of atoms, which are in essence energies without mass. Atoms are defined as electrical and electromagnetic charges, and are measured as electrical volts (eV). Atoms have no weight but feel heavy because of the electromagnetic energy between the larger planet earth attracting smaller parcels of electromagnetic energy.
This tension is what we call gravity, which constructs our perception and experience of weight. Atoms are in essence invisible, but we see because our eye, brain and interpretation are based on the reflection of light wavelengths into our central nervous system via our eyes. If we think about how hydrogen and oxygen make up ice, water and steam-gases, we can understand how everything in the universe possesses different structures and functions even when made with the same atoms, but with different atom configurations.
As the functions of atoms changes e.g., as in the different structures and functions of ice, water, and steam, although made from the same atoms, are but structured differently, as in tightly packed atoms of ice, as opposed to the less-tightly packed atoms of steam-gases. Atoms interact with other atoms of the same (elements), and different atoms (compounds), that make up the universe.
There are only 118 different atoms that together, or combined, make up all that exists in this world. The exception is the Self, which by definition is spirit-energy of consciousness, thoughts, emotions, self-awareness, personality and will, etcetera. References in this book to the word ‘physical’ are defined as atom-energy, referring to all that exists, including the body (anatomy) or the ‘physical’ environment, food and shelter, and all that we observe around us, other than Self and others, which are spirit-energies and include consciousness, thoughts, emotions, self-awareness, personality and will etcetera .
Volume 2 of this series explores these matters in more depth.
This book also explores credible evidence that individual human existence is about living one’s life to its fullest potential whatever that may mean for each individual. Whilst the death – the change in structure and function of atom-energy we all eventually encounter, but often ignore and deny, should not be feared, but celebrated as the natural progression of Self and Self’s intangible, and therefore, invisible consciousness. Self’s invisible consciousness being a part of Self’s spirit, and thus, by definition, immortal living eternally forever.
The information herein is a product of the knowledge ascertained from the mix of perceptions and facts interwoven and interpreted from dedicated and peripheral components and elements of the academic disciplines of Science, Philosophy, Theology and Psychology.
The art of Science consists of the study of subatomic particles that make up atoms, and molecules or atom-energy. This is quantum physics that studies atoms that make up the different structures and functions of the ‘physical’ world, in essence essentially made of atom-energy. The methodology used for scientific work uses systematic and methodical observation and experiment.
Philosophy is about asking and answering questions from a rational and logical point of view about anything and everything that may mean something valuable to someone or everyone.
Theology is the study of different religions, rituals and scripture with their interpretation of ‘God’ and then ‘God’s” relationship with and to Self, others, and the world.
Psychology is the scientific study of the human brain and human behaviour in relation to different mental states of thought and emotion arising from diverse and individual personal experiences. Psychology may also include the study of human awareness and meta-cognition, where Self thinks about what Self is thinking about.
Through the objective and rational analysis of peripheral, vicarious and insightful intrinsic information sourced from the academic disciplines of Science, Philosophy, Theology and Psychology come together to explore unsubstantiated and mythical beliefs, such as the literal interpretation of every word in every verse in all scriptures. This includes the interpretations of ‘Hell’, ‘Satan’, Karma, and Reincarnation, and others, including questionable religious, political and cultural faiths, rules, traditions and practices which are identified, explored and explained as potentially psychologically and spiritually aversive to the human spirit and soul.
The human embracement of such inaccurate and illogical ideologies and beliefs can be seen to the result, which originates from the complex mix of human characteristics. These characteristics have evolved from both human base instincts that influence and vice-versa with the higher quality constructs of consciousness, intellect, cognition, emotion and freewill, which are interactive with the individual’s personal experiences and choices.
The innate human need to arbitrary adhere obediently to particular religious, cultural and/ or political ‘beliefs’ and ‘faiths’ in relation to their laws, rules and practices, is seen in part, to be driven by the need for the individual’s sense of personal security, psychological comfort and personal acceptance. Including the subconscious and conscious crave and desire to manipulate in some way the experienced existence of Self’s anticipated and ‘hoped for’ immortality and therefore the perceived prerequisite and requirement to ‘be right’ and ‘good’ with ‘God’. The above premise can then be exacerbated by innocent ignorance, the quest for what is true and real, personal fear, and individual arrogance and pride. These related thoughts, attitudes, emotions and behaviours can then be subconsciously mixed with the misinterpretation and misapplication of particular secular, cultural and religious policies, laws, rituals and traditions, which are required by Self to be perceived as infallible and ‘true’, and ultimately expressed through thoughts, emotions, values, beliefs, attitudes, behaviours and contents of speech.
The selective human adoption of particular religious, political and cultural beliefs and practices may also manifest because of the synergistic power created by the human psych. A psych created and operated through the higher constructs of personal spiritual, intellectual, cognitive and emotional forces, both consciously and subconsciously, can be manipulated and influenced by base human instincts of greed, power, survival and aggression. Self’s higher constructs of spiritual and psychological abilities and needs then interact with self’s innate primate base instinctive desires potentially resulting in personal spiritual and psychological discomfort and vulnerability. This spiritual and psychological discomfort and vulnerability can lead Self ‘open’ to the possible exposure of irrational and inaccurate beliefs and faiths of particular religious, and political and cultural persuasions with their exclusive rules and practices, procuring an outcome of individual and collective spiritual, psychological, intellectual, emotional and behavioural confusion and abuse.
As a partial defense against the irrational and inaccurate beliefs and faiths of particular religious, political and/ or cultural laws and practices that can precipitate individual and collective human suffering, destruction, turmoil and indecision, the investigative analyse of spiritual literatures is undertaken. The identification and interpretation of contradicting verses in religious scriptures are explored, in particular those verses that have the potential ‘power’ to impact destructively upon human cognitions, emotion, values, attitudes and beliefs, and their subsequent expression through mindsets, behaviours and contents of speech.
Principles for the reinterpretation of religious scriptures are described, which can be applied to other sacred scriptures. How could a loving Creator allow such human suffering? The general theme and message prescribed by the New Testament writings are identified as emphasising the integrity and sacredness of human sovereignty and independence manifest in the invisible and intangible – which therefore can be described as Spirit – constructs of Self. Self in turn is described and defined in part as containing the attributes of human consciousness, personality, freewill, intellect, cognition and emotion, which can be expressed in particular personal beliefs, values, attitudes, behaviours and contents of speech.
The identified general theme and message prescribed by the New Testament scriptures is about practicing the human-to-human expression of compassion and reconciliation. This is essentially about valuing and accepting Self and others ‘where you and they are at’ at a particular moment in time. Particularly with respect to personal imperfections, and others with different and diverse beliefs, values and experiences as ones self. A belief in Christ’s death and resurrection could be potential evidence identified as being credible for the consideration of the reality of human immortality.
Traditional biblical beliefs about creation and the creation of human beings are reconciled with the scientific evidence of evolution, but evolution as an outcome of pre-programmed DNA as opposed to Darwin’s natural selection and chance. This is, the Creator’s willed design and order of creation that allows the development of the human brain to interface and infuse with the invisible, intangible and sublime, yet metaphysical and observable, Self. Self being consciousness, personality, freewill, intellect, cognition and emotion together with personal values, attitudes, and beliefs as an outcome of unique environments and personal experiences, knowledge and choices, which by definition, are not visible, but intangible and invisible, and therefore can only be described and defined as being that of Spirit.
The rationale and logical proofs of Theist-Philosopher’s in relation to rational and logical ‘cognitive’ evidence for the existence of a ‘God’ are discoursed. The ‘miracles’ of creation as discovered and identified by technologies of modern science and articulated as is the wisdom, both spoken and unspoken, emanating from the general theme prescribed and articulated throughout scripture specifically regarding Creator-to-human and human-to-human relational love.
Combining all the above information together may provide the reader with enough resources to contemplate and consider the possibility of the existence of a Creator. An explanation regarding the difficult concept of comprehending that a ‘Creator’ must have always existed if a ‘Creator’ does indeed exist, is also offered. The reality of Parapsychology is exposed by science as being, at best, magical beliefs based on myth, potentially exploiting the spiritually vulnerable and, at worst, encouraging the occurrence of cognitive, emotional and behavioural self-fulfilling prophecies. Self-fulfilling prophecies can prohibit the necessary intellectual and emotional processes of Self’s decision making, that in part, drive Self’s desire to seek informed knowledge, and ultimately, understanding of Self, and the desire for personal change. This mindset relating to ‘predestined fate’ inevitably affects Self’s ability for self-acceptance, procurement of informed knowledge, and the ability to personally choose to voluntary change particular aspects that Self believes needs changing.
The powerful influence generated by personal beliefs and faiths in a particular religion, culture and/ or politics must be considered such that they cannot afford to be beliefs and faiths based on a blind and hysterical mindset and mentality. But beliefs are required to be predicated on an informed, considered, and educated premise so that choices are underpinned by the interaction between Self’s objective informed knowledge mixing and interacting with the reflective introspection of Self’s innate spiritual intuition.
Christ’s examples and teachings relating to living life on earth, His miraculous, resurrection from the dead, together with the miracles of creation, including the intangible components of Self - consciousness, meta-cognition, thoughts, feelings, attitudes and beliefs - may be viewed as events that provide a source of hope for the real possibility for the eternal and immortal existence of Self. So together and addition to the scientific complexity of creation, and the scientific and logical premise that you can’t get ‘something’ (the universe and life) from ‘nothing’, and the existence of the intangible components that make up Self, and the considered belief in Christ’s resurrection, together, have the potential to set the precedence, and be the evidence, for human immortality.
The continuation of Self being the eternal continuation of Self’s experiences of consciousness; the eternal continuation of Self’s intimate thoughts, memories and emotions; the eternal continuation of Self’s relational experiences with others, and the eternal continuation of Self’s individual personality.
CHAPTER 1
IN SEARCH OF THE CREATOR
We Do Not Believe
Jesus Calls His Apostle Peter, Satan (‘the devil’)
Pope John Paul II Apologises to the World
Separation of Church and State
Many Religions, Churches, Faiths and Beliefs
We Want To Believe
We Do Not Believe
We are lying in bed, in the late hours of the night and early hours of the morning. It is pitch black - dead quiet. We can see the stars twinkling at us between the curtains through the window. We may not be on our own, yet we are feeling alone and lonely and somewhat anxious. This is a time when we may feel most vulnerable and fragile, a time when we are most reflective. During a thunderous and wet and windy night when the stillness of the night is shattered, or in the dead quiet of darkness where nothing moves and when we feel we could easily exist alone, then we might imagine the end of the world is near and our personal existence insignificant. Or indeed, it may be during the daytime as the Sun shines down upon us and the breeze blows on our face, or the rain drops fall on our head, whichever the environmental situation may be, our cognitions and emotions could engage into overdrive as we start thinking, contemplating and wondering;
What are we doing here?
Where have we come from?
Where are we going?
Is there a Supreme Being?
Is there an afterlife?
Is there immortality?
It is not the first time we've thought these thoughts and it won't be the last, we know that! For these questions are very significant to us. Upon reflection, from time to time these thoughts and questions seem to obsess our mind and appear to constitute the inner most essence, core, spirit, and personality of our being. These irritating thoughts continue to nag at us from within until we learn to either deny or ignore them, or achieve some semblance of cognitive rationality and sense of cognitive equilibrium towards these incessantly hounding questions we might feel need to be answered.
We may have heard about other people’s belief and faith in a particular ‘God’, which we may or may not believe in or understand. We may be atheist or we may be agnostic and we may believe that the person they call Jesus Christ being the Son of the Creator is but a figment of someone else’s overzealous and fanciful imagination. We might also compromise our existential inquisitiveness by entertaining the idea of there being some sort of ‘power’ out there, or some kind of Super Natural Supreme Being. Or we may even be enthusiastically spiritual or keenly religious. But we may still, albeit subconsciously or consciously, continue to question the unknown, the unseen, the invisible, especially when our defense mechanisms (fanaticism or denial) slip and our intellectual and emotional coping mechanisms self-destruct letting our guard down and, the thoughts of the super natural, and spiritual, in.
Jesus Calls His Apostle Peter, Satan (‘the devil’)
We cannot help question the purpose and meaning of life here on Earth, and the possibility of Self’s personal mortality (eternal death), or Self’s personal immortality (infinite life). We know others think these same intrusive thoughts. Our friends and acquaintances seem to be asking these same questions when they can no longer hide their thoughts and feelings about their interest in this “deep and meaningful” subject. There is no doubt that there are many different people in many different churches, in many different denominations, in many different religions, and in many different cultures and politics doing many good things, but people, by definition, are both imperfect and intellectual, and thus, open to the choice of manipulating human base instincts. People are the ministers, administrators and actors of their particular churches, religions and cultures/ ideologies. Human indiscretions and infallibility is evident within religions, churches and political ideologies, in the depths and breadths of their bureaucracy, administration and ministry. An excellent example of human imperfection in relation to the authority, management and administration of organized religions is evident when Christ speaks to His followers and His apostle Simon who He renamed Peter:
”And I tell you that you are Peter (Peter meaning rock) and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades (or hell) will not overcome it (or not prove stronger than it)”.
(Matthew 16:18)
Perhaps Christ was not promising this ‘church’ would be infallible or perfect, but rather that it would not succumb totally and eternally to absolute evil beliefs and behaviours. Jesus Christ chose an imperfect human being to be the foundation upon which to build His ‘church’ here on Earth. Jesus Christ chose, His apostle Peter, to be the rock on which to build His church. Christ chose His apostle Peter, Peter a person who seriously betrayed Him, and denying any knowledge of Him whilst running for His life.
In the gospels of Mark and Matthew we read:
“Immediately a rooster crowed. Then Peter remembered the word Jesus had spoken, “Before the rooster crows, you will disown me three times.” And he went outside and wept bitterly.”
(Mark 13: 35; 14: 30, 68, 72; Matthew 26:34-75)
Indeed, Jesus chose the imperfect apostle Peter to be the foundation of his church. Indeed, Christ chose Peter, a person who Jesus Himself had publicly rebuked and called ‘Satan’. The word Satan has the meaning today which is akin to the meaning of the words Devil and Prince of Darkness.
As we read in Mark 8:31-33; and Matthew 16:23:
“And when Jesus predicted His death He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that He must be killed and after three days rise again. He spoke plainly about this, and Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him. But when Jesus turned and looked at His disciples, He rebuked Peter. “Get behind me, Satan!” He said. “You do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men”.
This unique and fascinating story about the apostle Peter (the rock) being called Satan by Jesus is potentially symbolic and analogous to human individual imperfections per se, and institutionalised religions’ and churches’ sometimes questionable maladaptive, incompetent and corrupt practices and administrations betraying, denying and ignoring Christ’s teachings, examples and messages. Ideas relating to the meaning of the word ‘Satan’ used by Christ toward Peter, and the meaning of the word ‘Hell’, are discussed in a later Chapter.
Before we continue our discussion and exploration of human and human-to-human imperfections I would like to share with the reader a true story of an extraordinary example of a heart warming and hope producing act of across cultural and religious altruism within ‘across’ cultural and religious belligerence, indifference and hatred. In Jenin, on the West Bank, Palestine, the family of a Palestinian boy killed by Israeli troops have donated his organs for transplants in Israel, expressing hope the life-saving gesture would bring peace. Soldiers shot 13-year-old Ahmad al-Khatib in a raid on the West Bank city of Jenin in November 2005. The army claimed troops mistook the boy’s toy gun for a real weapon. He died of his wounds in hospital. After consulting Muslim authorities, his family decided to give Ahmad’s organs to six Israelis awaiting transplants. “We are doing it for humane purposes and for the sake of the world’s children and the children of this country,” said Ahmad’s father, ‘When I donated my son’s organs I did not say for a Jewish child, an Arab child, Muslim or Christian.” Hospital officials said the Israelis who received Ahmad’s lungs, kidneys and liver included several Jews. A member of Israel’s Bedouin Arab minority, 12-year-old Samach Riad was given the boy’s heart. “They changed her heart and now everything is good,” said Riad’s father, Gabdan. “I hope peace will come, that, thanks to the Palestinian family.” (Source, Press report)
Pope John Paul II Apologises to the World
This unique and incredible story about the apostle Peter (‘the rock’) being called Satan by Christ may represent the reality of human imperfection in relation to the sometimes, questionable practices of organised religion. It is credibly symbolic of the recognition of human imperfection that Peter was chosen as leader of Christ’s church, notwithstanding Peter’s personal gross misjudgements and indiscretions of betrayal and denial, and Jesus’ rebuking him for these indiscretions by calling him ‘Satan’. This story about this particular part of Peter’s relationship with Christ is a good example of the potential abundance of Christ’s infinite compassion and mystical relational love notwithstanding personal human imperfections and transgressions.
A poignant example of the culture of inherent human imperfection and subsequent spiritual abuse within churches has been highlighted by Pope John Paul II 1920-2005, who on the 14th of March 2000 courageously honestly apologised to the world for the past ‘sins’ of the 2000 year old Catholic Church. Pope John Paul II 2005 head of the Catholic Church for 26 years 1978-2005, justly recognised and acknowledged the past wrongs committed by the Catholic Church over the centuries against, Jews, Muslims, Women, Indigenous People and Heretics. Pope John Paul II in this brave apologetic address to the world, dare it be said should we be struck down by God’s wrath, has in essence admitted to transgressions that in reality equate to cheating, stealing, discrimination, torture and murder, administered and authorised by various imperfect Popes over the centuries. This candid admittance by Pope John Paul II to these authorised ‘church abuses’ pontificated from the Vatican provide evidence of the potentiality for enormous diabolical behaviours and their subsequent destructive outcomes, initiating and occurring within the kernel of organized religions.
These have been reprehensible behaviours with disastrous outcomes propagated by spiritual and psychological abuse directed by certain people in authoritative ‘spiritual’ positions, in often, powerful organised religious institutions as a manifestation of human pride, obsessed self-ego, personal arrogance and spiritual ignorance. But it should also be noted that the spiritual motto of Pope John Paul II was, “equality of humankind, brothers and sisters in the One God, together redeemed in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ”. The universal importance of these words spoken by John Paul II begin with, “the equality of humankind as brothers and sisters” which surely no one can deny as being true. The words “in the One God” may strike a strong cord with most believers. The words “together redeemed in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ”, are believed by most Christians, and if in fact a reality will undoubtedly apply to all people whether they are believers or not.
Of course, the best predictor of future human behaviour is relevant past human behaviour, so unfortunately there is no guarantee that spiritual abuses will not reoccur in the future. But personal and institutional acknowledgement and awareness of such orchestrated damaging behaviour stemming from both religious and spiritual ignorance and arrogance by the spiritually powerful (those in positions of religious authority) towards the spiritually vulnerable (those searching and seeking spiritual guidance and direction). Is the first step in preventing the repetition of such catastrophic and destructive beliefs, behaviours and contents of speech, that have been given ‘power’, ‘life’ and ‘justification’ in through ‘God’s’ name.
Separation of Church and State
Pope John Paul II, because of the traumatic experiences he suffered as a young man in Nazi occupied Poland during World War II, and his eminent spiritual and administrative position as Pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church, was a major contributor to initiating and maintaining the destabilisation of Communism in Eastern Europe in the early 1980s. Pope John Paul II was the catalyst that orchestrated the significant political change from the National policy of authoritative oppression to the policy of political Self Determination. This major political transition from communism to democracy, was implicitly and explicitly legitimated through his encouragement and support of the Solidarity Movement in Poland. With its demands for a Government that primarily and predominantly would endorse representatives from cities that would represent the people based on their particular values, this is, democratic voting and democratic politics. Where democracy implies justice and justice manifests itself from the possession within of a sense of fairness, which in turn invokes human behaviour directed toward the betterment of the community.
The impact on people from ideologies that promote the non-separation of religions and faiths and Government and State political agendas impacts destructively on the psych of the people who are by virtue of ‘corrupt’ and biased enforced laws, required to adhere to religious theologies, beliefs and faiths as important components of political ideologies. This is because, particular religious beliefs imposed on a people is as personally damaging as particular political ideologies imposed on a people. The imposition of religions and non-democratic political ideologies on communities, nations and countries through the centuries has often been practiced, and indeed, been the norm rather than the exception. Without the separation of Church and State (democratic) there is the potential for both religious dogma and practices and non-democratic political regimes, as part of their political or religious agendas, to enforce and impose particular ideologies, philosophies and religious beliefs and practices on their people. So necessarily, there is an imperative need and requirement for the separation of Religions and Governments. Governments through their democratic representative administrators and legislators - who must be genuinely representative of the people expressed through the political system of democracy - philosophically, theologically, spiritually and ideologically dignify human existence through the expression of self-determination. Human beings possess the higher transcendent qualities manifest in the characteristics of personal sovereignty, independence and freewill, and as such, by definition, have the right to self-determination.
Religious institutions by definition, are religions’ churches, mosques and temples etcetera, being the wooden and concrete structures and frameworks within and from which worshippers learn, practice and apply their beliefs and faiths are organised institutions that promote, teach and administer the doctrines and dogma of particular faiths and beliefs for ‘believing’ individuals and communities. We can also surmise optimism that a person’s particular ‘spiritual beliefs’ are personally very personal, intimate and private experiences, which are necessarily, ‘spiritual beliefs’ that have been voluntarily adopted, chosen and accepted by a particular individual without undue duress or coercion. So a person’s belief in a particular religion, can be considered to be necessarily expressed as a personal, private and spiritually intimate relational experience between themselves and their ‘God’. However, and on the other hand, communities, cities and countries are inhabited with people who are unique, independent, and sovereign human individuals with freewill. Thus, communities, cities, and countries are inhabited with people who, by their intrinsic right of being human, have diverse spiritual beliefs, faiths and religions. We can anticipate the problematic implications arising if communities, cities and countries are not democratically governed, but administered by political ideological systems that endorse the imposition of particular religions and ‘spiritual’ beliefs and faiths. Indeed, the right to express personal and individual sovereignty, independence and freewill in relation to one’s spiritual philosophy and political philosophy would be oppressed from the imposition and enforcement of alternative political and spiritual ideologies and beliefs. We have all historically, or in real time, experienced or witnessed the negative damaging outcomes, where for example, Communism, Marxism, Socialism, Fascism, Protestantism, Catholicism, Judaism and Islam etcetera, are both the political and religious criteria that become arbitrary and inflexible powerful non-democratic machines used to govern a particular population with coercion
So something as intimately personal and important to humans as their individual and diverse beliefs and faiths in relation to their spirituality, ideology, religion and politics can never be denied or oppressed if the successful administering and acceptance of policies and legislation to a particular community, city, state, country and nation is to be achieved. But there will never be a perfect political system where everyone is totally satisfied, obtaining all they want in terms of their personal religious, spiritual and political beliefs because everyone is different. However, the political system described as Democracy, if administered fairly and justly, will ensure that everyone gets a vote in who governs a country, and in how it is run. And on planet Earth the political practice of democracy allows all to vote and be represented to some degree. As the potential representatives who receive the majority of votes represent and administer the ideological, religious, cultural philosophical and political policies of each individual. But democracy also represents the expression for political responsibility and accountability, which is assessed at the end of a government’s term and which assessment results the outcome of new representative incumbents resulting from the next democratic election.
The other given about the separation of religion and state politics is that governments and their policies do not interfere in the intimate, private and personal spiritual beliefs of individuals. However, it is possible that the existence, or non-existence of a candidate’s personal spiritual and/ or religious beliefs, and those of other elected politicians may affect their persona, values and attitudes and thus perceived to contribute to legislation, policies and interpersonal diplomacy thus influencing who will vote for them. This is unless of course the representatives’ personal existence or non-existence of spiritual and/ or religious beliefs and persona, attitudes and values are cast aside to appease any detractors to ensure longevity of their political encumbrance.
Many Religions, Churches, Faiths and Beliefs
If we explore the question of God’s existence from the perspective of a non-believer’s advocate, then we have no choice other than to reflect on the following. That those who believe, genuinely proclaim their undying faith and belief in a ‘Saviour’ and a ‘God,’ but when asked for evidence of God’s existence they rattle off Scripture verses that support their particular belief system as their considered but spontaneous response to such questions, as if well trained parrots or computer programs. We have listened to their personal stories of faith, how they may frequent church once a week, how their prayers were answered, how they were ‘slain’ in the spirit, and how they pay a tithe every week towards the promotion of ‘God’s’ work. We do understand the spiritual need for humans to understand themselves in relation to the world and creation. This is a personal need, which may be, alleviated, from the sense of belonging to a particular religious organization. We understand such a personal need driving personal fervor, and we admire such dedication. But we have sometimes experienced, and thus perceive, such personal religious activities as involuntary compliances to sometimes misguided authoritative directives that are perhaps genuine, but which can be based on innocent ignorance, or tainted with covert agendas. Not least, some spiritual activities may be influenced by the need and desire for the commercial and financial development of a ‘corner assembly’ at the expense of the followers’ expected and sincere guidance for spiritual, intellectual and emotional stimulation from the education through informed knowledge encompassed with the embodiment of a sense of unconditional relational charity and compassion.
No one has ever proposed to ever having seen ‘God’. And often there has never been offered any tangible proof, evidence or experience of such an existence. These statements may be over-generalizations reminiscing sentiments of cynicism, but these can be the sensitised thoughts of people brought about by personal feelings derived from their experiences of the past. This is how we sometimes think and feel about what we have experienced in our search for answers from those who believe and preach to us ‘with faith’, in their ‘God’. Others who are searching for answers have articulated similar thoughts and share similar feelings because of their ‘spiritual’ experiences.
However, we believe thus far that we are reasonably realistic and objective in our observations, especially where the human temporal interacts with transcendence as these observations are based on personal experience and subsequent intra-personal and retrospective reflections. We have also seen the destruction, the damage, the pain, the carnage and the suffering caused by those who claim ‘God’ and ‘Allah’ etcetera, as their King, who claim Jesus as their Saviour, and who claim Mohammed as their Prophet.
We have seen the wars, the fights, the greed, the killings, the judgments, the self-righteousness, the abuse, and the hypocrisy perpetrated by those who proclaim a belief, faith and love for ‘their’ ‘God’. How can we then contradict with such incongruence our rational sensibilities, by believing in the existence of a ‘God’, the existence of a loving ‘God’, when the living proof radiating from many of our believing and preaching fellow humans manifests as contaminating fear, arrogance, violence and hypocrisy. Why then, should we believe in a ‘God’ that we cannot prove to be real, that we cannot personally see, hear, or physically touch and whose worshipers, through the centuries, have been shown to have contradicting, distorted and corrupt spiritual agendas and motives? Or the destruction of other human beings has been explained away and excused as necessary for the preservation of the ‘right and true’ Religion, the ‘right and true’ Faith, and the ‘right and true’ ‘God’. We do not believe in a ‘God’ because we cannot see ‘Him’ or experience any proof of ‘Him’ or the goodness emanating from many of those who believe in ‘Him’. So we ask them, "Where's the proof"? “Where’s the Evidence”?
We have been told by ‘zealots’ and fanatics, stories of prophets and ‘holy’ teachers, who purport to hold the answers to our inner most private questions about the meaning and reason for our birth and life here on Earth. We have read in magazines and newspaper articles. We have studied literature in the Bible. We have viewed on television documentaries and the news, we have listened to Mullahs in Mosques, and Rabbis in Synagogues, and Buddhist monks in Temples, and we have heard from preachers in the pulpits and in churches about the many prophets and wise men who founded the many different Religions of the world. We have heard them postulate their Religion as the one, right, only, and true Religion, Faith and Church that represents the real and true laws and ways of the real and true ‘God’.
We have also heard from priests and ministers about the historical, crucified, and risen Christ, the Son of God who was born 2,000 years ago. But we have heard these proclamations from church and religious leaders, the people who hold spiritual authority over the spiritually vulnerable, the people who themselves have been seen in the past to be sometimes blasphemous, abusive and hypocritical. We do not have a problem with humans being imperfect because imperfection is a part of the human condition. But what does upset us is the fact that these religious teachers and leaders, with the power of spiritual authority, may tell their ‘flock’ to do one thing while they themselves do another with an air of spiritual superiority. They preach to their congregation that this is God’s word and subtly signal the message, “woe betide those who stray from God’s word.”
Church and religious leaders have told us to have faith, to have faith in God, as God’s words are written in the Bible, or in the Qu’ran, etcetera, for all to see and read. And God’s words are true. God’s word is unchanging, and God’s word is timeless and infallible. But we are intelligent beings and the term ‘faith in God’s word’ in this context represents a blind and hysterical acceptance of something/anything transcendent without being tempered by the measures of rational knowledge, innate spiritual intuition and/or intellectual understanding. We are a conscious, unique, independent and sovereign people with the ability to learn and reason, think and choose, and this human request to have the utmost faith in “God’s written words”, written and espoused by those who are human and thus imperfect, can be offensive to our sensibilities. We have seen over the centuries the obsession with human destruction and damage perpetrated by those humans against other humans, and who, either have an unquestioning and emphatic ‘faith’, or who have no faith. So we want to know the reality of the truth about God’s existence and if God exists, we want to ask, “Who is ‘God’ and what are God’s words for humankind”?
People who adhere to different denominations based on the religious faith of Christianity, including Baptists, Anglicans, Catholics, Lutherans, Greek and Russian Orthodox, Mormons, Presbyterians, Methodists, Uniting, Episcopalians and Jehovah Witnesses, etcetera, have informed us that God’s word is in the Bible. They have told us that God’s word is ‘The Bible’, both in the Old and New Testaments. But these words or scripture of ‘God’ in the bible are often invariably all interpreted differently by them. People who adhere to the religious faith of Islam, including the Shi’ite and Sunni factions have informed us, that God’s words, are written in the Qu’ran. People who adhere to the religious faith of Judaism have informed us that God’s word is written in the ‘laws’ of the Hebrew Bible, or the Torah (Pentateuch) being the first five books of the Old Testament. People of the Buddhist faith inform us that karma is the way and Nirvana is the destination.
People of the Hindu faith tell us to follow the cast system and lay our allegiance to the spirits and chief gods of Brahma, Vishnu (Krishna is said to be the incarnation of the god Vishnu), and Siva (Creator, Preserver and Destroyer), and to follow the ancient writings of the Vedas. Hinduism has no founder originating from the rituals, beliefs, and cultures of the tribal inhabitants of India. Buddhism has a founder, Guatama Buddha, who lived about 500 BC.
There is enough historical and contemporary evidence to believe in the suggestion that all the different Holy Books of Scripture, most likely without a question of doubt, do not contain the absolute words of the divine Creator/God. Although these scriptures have been eloquently written, they have in reality, been penned by humans. But many people believe that the words in these ‘holy’ books are the actual and absolute words of God. But although penned by humans, it is not absolutely inconceivable that some of these words have not been in some way inspired by the transcendent spirit of the Creator.
We Want to Believe
As we will investigate and discuss in the next chapter, the Bible although expressing literary elegance, has literature often permeated with contradictions, paradoxes, irony, variations and sentiments expressed through stories that are intermingled with the messages of love and forgiveness and the messages of violence and aggression. In reality, the Bible is not a literary work described as an expression of consistency and uniformity. The words and literature of the Bible, have been constructed from the real and imaginative stories experienced by many different peoples influenced by their beliefs and faiths from many different cultures over time. So these authoritative instructions from church leaders to follow God’s word is not good enough for us, it is not good enough for our intellect and our sensibilities. We need more information, much more.
These postulated beliefs about the meaning of God’s words are too abstract, too invisible, too open to hearsay, too open to abuse and too open to grandstanding. This is because the policies, laws and regulations of the institutions of the world, including all religious institutions, are designed, decided, and implemented by humans, who are in essence, inherently imperfect and fallible.
But of course, we want to believe in a Supreme Being, in an afterlife, we want to believe in immortality. Who would not want to believe in their own eternally infinite immortality? But we want to believe in the truth and not man made writings and interpretations of the truth. We want to know the truth, we want to know and understand the essence and reason behind any belief in a Supreme Being who supposedly personifies the Truth, Transcendence and Immortality. We want to see this God! We want to meet this God! We want to touch this God! We may have never personally experienced God’s presence, God’s grace and God’s touch in our lives and until we do experience this we would be naive and foolish to invest and immerse all our vulnerability, all our emotions, all our spirituality, all our consciousness into such an entity. We want to know God personally. We want proof and evidence of the Creator’s existence! We want evidence based information about the Creator, because if the Creator exists then Self and Self’s family, relatives and friends have a potential chance of immortality and thus the potential chance to exist eternally forever.
CHAPTER 2
EVIDENCE OF GOD
FROM HUMAN REASON, SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY
Natural and Super Natural Knowledge
The World is Not as it Appears
Proof of a Creator’s Existence through Reason and Science
Philosophers and Theologians
Aristotle, Plato and Socrates
Providence
Thomas Aquinas’s Five Rational Proofs for God’s Existence
First Proof – Motion
Second Proof- Cause and Effect
Third Proof – Contingent and Necessary Beings
Fourth Proof – A Finite Subordinate Series
Fifth Proof - Perfection
Proof from Order, Descartes, Locke
Atom-Energy Different from Spirit-Energy
The Soul and Spirit of Self
Natural and Super-Natural Knowledge
It’s now appropriate we begin the next chapter by making a distinction between the disciplines of scientific astronomy that describe and give access to the ‘miracles’ of the universe rather than the popular and fashionable cult of the unscientific disciplines of astrology and parapsychology. We now explore the evidence of the existence of a ‘Creator’ from rational and logical philosophical thought
The following chapters will explore the misinterpretation of Scripture, the magnitude and intricacies of the universe and creation and the blind beliefs based wholly on faith and myth, but we will first explore what theist philosophers have said, and how they have used intellectual rationale to provide evidence, from creation, that some form of Supernatural Being must most likely exist.
In this chapter, we will explore the evidence that helps to prove the possibility of God’s existence through the miracles of creation and natural revelation, which relates to, and is provided by humankind’s power and ability to reason by way of their intellectual mind. The conscious intellect provides humans with the ability to contemplate and reflect upon information received and process this information in a rational and logical manner, potentially manifest in productive insight and understanding.
We are all aware of the concept that an infant does not possess the ‘brain-power’ and the maturity of emotion and cognition from experience to discern and put language to much of anything that goes on in their lives, being dependent on the parent(s) teaching and direction to behave and think in adaptive ways. But as we mature into adolescence and onto adulthood there are two particular ways or processes in which humans can discover and acquire the necessary information regarding existential questions such as the questions this book wishes to explore answers to. To revise, the word ‘existential’ herein means, one’s sense of psychological and spiritual well-being as an outcome of self-reflection and introspection with regard to one’s sense of identity. Which encompasses consciousness, thoughts, feelings and emotions in relation to Self’s personality, values, beliefs and attitudes including Self’s sense of personal value and esteem as a product of Self’s sense of intrinsic existence and inherent purpose in relation to Self’s existence in this world and potentially beyond.
Notwithstanding the presupposition imposed by many, including ministers, pastors, priests, and imams, etcetera, different faiths and beliefs that assume the understanding of such existential mysteries coming as a of prayer and the conscious fostering of the development of a personal faith, it is suggested that the two imperative vehicles required regarding the acquisition of existential knowledge, includes, firstly, natural revelation. That is, the existential information revealed through the miracles of the Universe and Creation processed by human intellect and reason. And secondly, the existential information revealed through super natural revelation, that is, the information revealed through careful interpretation of Scripture and the potential reality of the story in Scripture about the examples and teachings of the person Jesus, who said He was the incarnation of ‘God’.
As it has been said through the centuries by politicians, poets and philosophers, “knowledge is power”. In existential terms, this ‘power’ is acquired from the acquisition of personal knowledge from information, which includes a sophisticated sense of personal understanding through the gift of reason. This newly found personal understanding and awareness from information gathered can invoke a personal and intimate sense of existential belief experienced as emphatic and irrefutable, and which, could overshadow the concept of an arbitrary belief conceived from that construct, faith. This inner belief and knowledge that can supersede belief from the construct called faith becomes a real personal experience from which emanates an intimate awareness of the power of Self’s Spirit and Soul. This experience of a personal and intimate spiritual knowledge can ultimately protect and immune one against arbitrary and intended spiritual abuse caused by the belief of the vulnerable relating to myths, fallacies and untruths told by the ‘powerful’. This inner spiritual awareness from knowledge can also strengthen individuals from the pain of the battle wounds of life, to rise above this pain, allowing the gift of life to be lived more fully.
We will now discuss information revealed and expressed to us through the minds of wise philosophers. Through the gift of human reason and intellect manifest in the reasoning of these philosophers, we may discover a new perspective for thinking about natural evidence that can rationalise the possibility of a Creator as the source of creation and builder of the universe.
In later chapters, we will discuss in detail information that may help to give answers to existential questions based on Super Natural revelation sourced primarily through the contemporary interpretation of ancient Scripture. But for now, we will concentrate on the answers that the greatest philosophers of ancient time, and some would say all time, have revealed to us. Whilst keeping in mind however, that we will better succeed in the task of answering these existential questions when we are able to, through intellect and innate intuitive and discerning wisdom, combine, assimilate and integrate all of the information revealed in all its different disciplines and forms and from all its diverse sources.
The World is Not as it Appears
The world is not made of what it appears to be made of as it is made of atoms, which are in essence energies without mass. Atoms are defined as electrical and electromagnetic charges, and are measured as electrical volts (eV). Atoms have no weight but feel heavy because of the electromagnetic energy between the larger planet earth attracting smaller parcels of electromagnetic energy.
This tension is what we call gravity, which constructs our perception and experience of weight. Atoms are in essence invisible, but we see because our eye, brain and interpretation are based on the reflection of light wave–lengths into our central nervous system via our eyes. If we think about how hydrogen and oxygen make up ice, water and steam-gases, we can understand how everything in the universe possesses different structures and functions even when made with the same atoms, but with different atom configurations.
As the functions of atoms changes e.g., as in the different structures and functions of ice, water, and steam, although made from the same atoms, are but structured differently, as in tightly packed atoms of ice, as opposed to the less-tightly packed atoms of steam-gases. Atoms interact with other atoms of the same (elements), and different atoms (compounds), that make up the universe.
There are only 118 different atoms that together, or combined, make up all that exists in this world. The exception is the Self, which by definition is spirit-energy of consciousness, thoughts, emotions, self-awareness, personality and will, etcetera. References in this book to the word ‘physical’ are defined as atom-energy, referring to all that exists, including the body (anatomy) or the ‘physical’ environment, food and shelter, and all that we observe around us, other than Self and others, which are spirit-energies and include consciousness, thoughts, emotions, self-awareness, personality and will etcetera .
Proof of a Creator’s Existence through Reason and Science
In terms of science, science has brought us along way in understanding the world as we observe and know it today. But science still can't deconstruct, define or describe the unique essence of energy making up 96 per cent of the universe that scientists term as dark energy and black matter. The other 4 per cent of the world and universe is that part of the universe and world we observe and see and consists of atoms, and wave-lengths of energies categorised by scientists as being within what has been called the electromagnetic spectrum.
So 4 per cent of the world and universe exits of atoms and electromagnetic wave-lengths emanating into the universe as a result of the complex interactions of atom-energies. Both atoms and electromagnetic wave-lengths, essentially and in essence, have been scientifically deconstructed to be shown as consisting of different forms of interacting energies. This energy is different determined by their unique strengths, motions, positive, negative or neutral charges, their ability to interact with other forms of atoms, their structure and functions and their visibility and weight. Furthermore, it must be emphasised that when scientists talk about atoms being in essence, energy, they are defining and measuring energy in electrical voltage (eV). Atoms and their energies are electrical charges.
I believe we have rational thought and we have science to help us understand the world. Rational thought suggests something cannot come, or be made, or exist from nothing. Science also suggests something cannot come from nothing. Something cannot come, or be made, or exist from nothing, no?
Science suggests what we observe in the world, including all that makes up the world such as the environment, buildings and flora and fauna etcetera, is made of atoms, and atoms are made of complex interacting forms of electrical energy. Science suggests that before the existence of what we term the Big Bang, there was nothing. But there needed to exist as a requirement of such energy that constitutes the Big Bang not only energy but energy with intelligence that initiated the design, plan and order for energy to pre-determinedly evolve into the world as we understand and experience it today.
Indeed before the Big Bang there was nothing except and other than cannot be scientifically defined or reconstructed, or even for some, rationally thought. But there had to exist a mysterious, an other form of unique energy that always was without the need for something to create it and which possesses intelligence.
Intelligence is required of this unique energy for the existence of the organised universe and world as we know and experience it today. That without intelligence the universe and world could not mathematically statistically exist. Indeed, this is the measure of intelligence required over and above that of random chance, to design and plan, as could the capability of a tornado restructuring the material and contents of a junkyard into a high-rise building, or Jumbo jet, not to mention the complex existence of flora and fauna.
If we rationally follow this line of thought through to its inevitable end then reason and science suggest some other form of energy with intelligence created these first forms of energy that make up the atoms that make up the universe no? What would you call this unique other form of energy that must have intelligence and must have always existed?
For further information about subatomic and atom energies, and how the spirit and soul exist in symbiosis, can be read in, GOD AND DECODING INTELLIGENT DESIGN: EVOLUTION, SPIRIT, SOUL AND SELF (Vol. 2).
Philosophers and Theologians
The great philosophers Aristotle, Plato and Socrates and the famous theologians Augustine and Anselm employed their acutely developed faculties of reason and logic to try to understand cognitively and intellectually the possibility of the existence of a Creator and Supreme Being from the evidence of natural revelation. Indeed, a rationale from the evidence of creation created by the mystical relational love of a ‘God’ that human and their hearts, minds and soul so desired to believe, predicated on human innate spirituality.
Aristotle, Plato and Socrates
The Greek philosopher Aristotle (300 BC) held God to be the supreme intelligence, supreme mind and subsistent thought who is eternally engaged in the contemplation of His own reality. Aristotle said that the proper object of God’s being is that of truth. And because God is supreme intelligence, the proper object of His supreme intelligence can only be truth. Therefore, God is the proper object of his own intellect.
Plato (350 BC) thought of God as the supreme good. He was able to reflect in the terms of; “I see ‘good’ about me”. He was not speaking of moral good but just good: Trees for example are good in terms of providing wood for burning and building. Fruit trees are good for producing food, etcetera..
The Greek philosopher Socrates (400 BC), reflecting on the visible universe, inferred that God exists as a providence, that is, as a provider, responsible for all those things in the world that cater for human needs.
Providence
Now that we have had a little taste of the thoughts of philosophers and before we go further let's listen to the Acts of the Apostles (100 AD) regarding this matter of providence:
"Since the God who made the world and everything in it is Himself Lord of Heaven and earth, He does not make His home in shrines made by human hands. Nor is He dependent on anything that human hands can do for Him. Since He can never be in need of anything, on the contrary, it is He who gives everything, including life and breath to everyone". (Acts of the Apostles 17:24)
Therefore, ‘God’ may be identified and described as a provider. God may have made everything for human kind! It has been said that God is responsible for all those things in the world that cater for human needs, for example; Oxygen for our lungs - the Earth has four layers of decreasing amounts of air to the height of 500 miles, a digestive tract for our food, a blood circulation system to remove and replenish wastes. It is conceivable the Universe exists as a means to an end. The Universe’s creation and existence a means to an end, being that for living life, and for human’s to live. For instance, had the planet Earth been 1.5 per cent (i.e. approx 130,000 miles or half the distance from the Earth to the Moon) closer to the Sun its atmosphere would have a greenhouse effect with a surface temperature of 400C night and day where absolutely nothing could grow or survive this extreme heat. On the other hand, had Earth been 1.5 per cent further away from the Sun it would be frozen in a permanent ice age like Mars where again nothing could grow or survive this extreme cold. A graphic example to illustrate this principle is that of the North and South poles which are essentially uninhabitable because of their intense cold from inadequate exposure to the Sun’s rays. Further, in the distance of a few thousand kilometers, we can experience heat of 45 degrees Celsius in the Australian desert, it being close to the equator the closest point on Earth to the Sun, and minus 30 degrees Celsius in the South Pole, the Earth’s longest distance from the Sun.
Moreover, if the original explosion of the universe had not occurred with exactly the right balance of expansive force and gravitation, but instead had been weaker, the expanding universe would have fallen back on itself almost immediately, before the miracle of predetermined evolution could weave its web of magic. Had this initial expansion force been a fraction stronger, cosmic atom-energy would have blown apart so rapidly that galaxies could not have formed. So, there had to be Some Substance, or Something, or Someone, or Some-Super Natural Being which could provide such substance to exist with such preciseness to enable creation to form, develop and evolve as it has. And that Substance, Something, Someone, Super Natural Being, we may decide to call the Creator, or ‘God’, or ‘that which nothing greater can be thought’, for what else, for who else could create something from nothing, or create something from its Self.
Astrophysicists have now ascertained, by calculating the velocity of radio waves and colour of the light spectrum i.e., red = moving away and blue = moving towards (called the Doppler affect) transmitted from the furthest galaxies and received by satellite dishes that the ‘big bang’ occurred about 13.7 billion years ago. Further, they are also able to determine that the galaxies and universe continue to expand at an accelerating rate. By calculating the measurement of gravity required for this accelerating expansion there does not seem to exist enough atom-energy, such as the atoms of gases, dust, planets and stars, etcetera. Only 4% of the universe is made from atom-energy that we observe. From the measurements of gravitational forces there must also exist energy, which scientists cannot detect and has been called ‘dark matter’ spread between atom-energy like stars and ‘dark energy’, which consists of 23% of the universe. The other 73% of the universe that exists between that which we observe as atom-energy and drives the accelerating expansion of the universe, is explained by the existence of what has been called ‘dark energy’. This is the existence of massive amounts of energy created at the time of the ‘big bang’ and which might better be described as the Creator’s spirit-energy of the ‘Word’.
Thomas Aquinas’s Five Rational Proofs for God’s Existence
Thomas Aquinas (13th century AD) described in his own words proof of the existence of God’s existence in terms of; Motion; Cause and Effect; ‘Contingent’ and ‘Necessary’ Beings; Finite Subordinate Series and Perfection. Which alone, have the potential to prove the existence of God from human reason. Let us now have a look in more detail at these proofs.
First Proof - Motion
We are certain, because it is evident to our senses, that in the world some things are in motion. It is equally clear to us that whatever is in motion was moved by something else. If a thing is at rest, it will never move until something else moves it. When a thing is at rest, it is only potentially in motion. Motion occurs when something potentially in motion is moved and is then actually in motion; motion is the transformation of potentiality into actuality. Imagine a series of dominoes standing next to each other. When they are set up in a row, it can be said they are all potentially in motion, though actually at rest. Consider a particular domino. Its potentiality is that it will not move until it is knocked over by the one next to it. It will move only if it is moved by something actually moving.
From this fact, Aquinas drew the general conclusion that nothing can be transformed from a state of potentiality by something that is also in a mere state of potentiality. A domino can not be knocked over by another domino that is standing still. Potentiality means the absence of something and is therefore nothing; for this reason, potential motion in the neighbouring domino cannot move the next one because it is nothing, and you cannot derive motion from non-motion.
As Aquinas says, "nothing can be transformed from potentiality to actuality, except by something in the state of actuality." What is actually at rest cannot be simultaneously in motion. This means that the particular domino cannot be simultaneously the thing that is moved and also the mover. Something potentially in motion cannot move itself. Whatever is moved must be moved by another. Each domino could become a mover, only after it had been moved by the one prior to it.
Here we come to Aquinas' decisive point: if we are to account for motion, we cannot do so by going back in an infinite regress. If we must say about each mover in this series, that it in turn was moved by a prior mover, we would never discover the source of motion. Even if such a series went back infinitely, each one would still be only potential, and from that, no actual motion could ever emerge. The fact is, however, that there is motion. There must be a Mover, which is able to move things but which does not itself have to be moved, and this, says Aquinas, "everyone understands to be God".
Second Proof – Cause and Effect
We experience various kinds of effects, and in every case we assign a cause to each effect. The cause of the statue is the work of the sculptor. If we took away the activity of the sculptor, we should not have the effect, the statue. But there is an order of causes; the parents of the sculptor are his cause. Workers in the quarry are the cause of this particular piece of marble’s availability to the sculptor. There is, in short, an intricate order of causes traceable in a series. Such a series of causes is demanded because no event can be its own cause; the sculptor does not cause himself, and the statue does not cause itself. A cause is prior to an effect. Nothing, then, can be prior to itself; hence, events demand a prior cause. Each prior cause must itself have its own cause, as parents must have their own parents. But it is impossible to go backward to infinity, because all the causes in the series depend upon a first cause that has made all the other causes to be actual causes. There must then be a first cause "to which everyone gives the name of God".
Third Proof - Contingent and Necessary Beings
The material universe he says is made up of contingent beings. All the trees, birds, water in the sea, clouds scudding across the sky and humans, are all contingent beings. That means they could exist, or could not exist. The trees out there need not have grown until someone planted them. They did not appear of their own volition. If our Mother and Father had not met, we would not be. Once upon a time, we were not.
We did not will Self to be. The whole material universe is contingent. They exist now but their non-existence is a possibility. Say you have a litter of newly born kittens. There was once upon a time when they were not, then they were; and one day they will not be and they will not exist. If all that exists is contingent, then in fact nothing can now exist because there is a principle that states; anything that can not be, must necessarily once not have been and must necessarily cease to be, unless there is something out there that keeps them going. A 'contingent being' in existence is contingent upon certain things, happenings, for its existence, so that being need not have been there.
But if there was a time when nothing existed then nothing could start to be and even now, there would be nothing in existence, "because that which does not exist begins to exist only through something already existing". But since our experience clearly shows that things do exist, this must mean that not all beings are contingent. So we have to get out of the visible system, to come to a being, which is necessary as opposed to contingent, a necessary being who supports the contingent beings, and maintains them in existence. If every single unit, every speck of sand and dust is contingent, and they didn't just appear of their own volition, by their own native power, then nowhere in this visible universe is there an adequate explanation of this activity, which we call existing. So we have to come ultimately to a necessary being that requires no other being to account for His existence. A power that possesses existence of its very own Self, a supreme being we may call God!
The Philosopher, Saint Anselm of Canterbury (1033-1109), held a similar argument to Augustine, when he said, "Everything that exists, exists either through something or through nothing. Obviously, it cannot come out of nothing. You can't get something from nothing. To say that it is caused by something else could mean that things cause each other, which is also absurd. There must therefore be one thing that alone is from itself and that causes all other things to be, and this is God."
Fourth Proof – A Finite "Subordinate Series"
Reason tells us that it must be impossible to have an infinite 'subordinate series' of units. For example, a parrot on a hat, the hat on someone's head, the head on a person, the person on a deck, the deck on a boat which is on the sea, which is on the planet Earth, which is in the solar system, which is in the Milky Way, which is moving in space among other galaxies etcetera. Each unit is immediately dependent on the unit before it. Take the hat away and the parrot falls. The parrot is there because of the hat. Take the boat away and the man sinks, take the galaxy away and the solar system is disordered. But as long as all is maintained, we have a series called subordinate.
A unit depends on the thing before it, before it, and before it, etcetera. Knock out any one of these and everything after it fails, falls, shifts or changes. It is impossible to have an infinite 'subordinate series' because the whole series is dependent on the unit before it. Take the whole series; imagine if you can, that it is infinitive. This whole series is made up of units, which are dependent upon the unit before it, which means that the whole series is dependent. Because the whole series is dependent, there has to be some being somewhere who itself is independent and maintains the whole series. That being we call God.
Fifth Proof - Perfection
Thomas Aquinas saw that the visible universe was composed of beings that are limited in perfection. There are more and less beautiful roses; more and less good fast drivers; more and less, good pole-vaulters, etcetera. These are certain degrees, more and less of perfection. If there is limited perfection anywhere, it has to be ascribed to something that has perfection in an unlimited way. And that perfection we may call God.
Proof from ‘Order’
Let's now look at the proof of 'order' first developed by the Greek philosopher, Anaxagoras (5th Century BC). So God created order. All natural beings whether living or non-living have to be ordered and programmed. They have the characteristic of an ordered means to a certain determined end. They have to depend on an intelligent cause for their program. If we plant a bean it will grow into a beanstalk. A quail with chicks runs away from a hunter. It doesn't intelligently assess a hunter and say this is a hunter with good aim with a loaded gun whose bullets will kill quails. No. The quail reacts exactly as if it's been programmed. It does an intelligent thing. It eludes the hunter. It has not got intelligence, so somewhere there is an intelligence that programmed the quail. Likewise, our lungs don't say “let's breathe,” or our ears “let's hear”. The human eye and all that is behind it, all the way to the brain, is made up of various components, all of which are organized to this end; that the possessor see. They are not inserted in the skull as a counter-weight for the back of the head or to make the face agreeable. They are there to make the face and the person who owns it, see. All these things; these innumerable parts and elements that go to make the eye and all that is associated with it, like the optic nerve etcetera, and that part of the brain that is involved in the activity; all of these diverse elements come together to one end: to permit the seer to see. This indicates that somewhere around there is an intelligence that organized all these diverse elements to this one end - to make the sense of sight possible.
Here is another example of order: There is so much information in the DNA within one living cell, if you wrote it all out, it would fill 1,700 volumes of the Encyclopedia Britannica or fill 10,000 miles of computer printout. What's more, the nucleus of every cell in a person’s body contains the same unique DNA for that individual being, that is, the same information. Yet the cell knows somehow that it has to reproduce a cell that will become part of an eye or a toe, a gut or a muscle, etcetera. How does it know which page to read out of all the information? It has been ordered, and programmed by some intelligence.
This ordering of means to an end is characteristic of all natural bodies whether living or non-living. Those trees out there, they suck up water from the ground, they take various nutrients from the ground and turn it all into a tree. Here we have a program so organized to produce a certain end that in another few hundred years there will be a completely different generation of trees doing exactly the same thing. This reveals intelligence. Intelligence isn't in the tree so it's got to be in someone who is organizing the means to the end. The existence of order around us and in us requires an intelligent cause to account for it because it is still striving towards its goal, its end! All of this indicates that we are not alone in the universe. Our intelligence is not the only intelligence around nor is our intelligence of a particularly high order in comparison, that is, with the intelligence we see organized things around us. We are the subject of organization to and for a particular end. In our case, the supreme end is eternal life with that intelligence, that is, eternal life with the Creator.
The ancient prophet Isaiah in 750 BC (Isaiah 45:18) said:
"Yes, thus say Yahweh,
Creator of the heavens,
Who is God,
Who formed the earth and made it,
Who set it firm,
Created in it no chaos,
But a place to be lived in."
Descartes
Descartes (17th Century AD) says, "Our reason tells us that something cannot be derived from nothing and also that the more perfect cannot be a consequence of the less perfect. Our ideas possess different degrees of reality. It is manifest by natural light that there must be at least as much reality in the cause as in the effect. By the name God, I understand a substance which is infinite, independent, all-knowing, all-powerful and by which I myself and everything else have been created. How can I, a finite substance, produce the idea of an infinite substance? Indeed how could I know that I am finite unless I could compare myself with the idea of a perfect being." For these reasons Descartes concludes that, since ideas have causes, and since the cause must have at least as much reality as the effect and since he is finite and imperfect, it must be that the cause of his idea of a perfect and infinite being comes from outside himself from a perfect being who exists, and that is God!
Locke
Locke (17th Century). His proof begins with an intuition of one's own existence. Since ‘nothing’ cannot produce something, and since man is aware that he had a beginning, he must have been produced by something else. If there is not some external being, the problem simply regresses indefinitely. Therefore, something external must exist, and this is God. Furthermore, not only does God produce that which has a beginning, but He also produces it as the kind of being that it is. Again, there are created beings that have intelligence and the capacity to love.
Hence, God must be intelligent and loving and, therefore a personal being. So through the events of Providence, Motion, Cause and Effect, Contingent and Necessary Beings, Subordinate Series, Perfection, Order and Something from Nothing, we may have formulated from this evidence through personal reason and logic a strengthened consideration to there possibly being in existence some Super Natural Being for creation to exist itself.
Atom-Energy Different from Spirit-Energy
The Soul and Spirit of Self
A Caterpillar Transforms into a Butterfly – But with a Different Brain and Same Memory. New research has identified that the caterpillar’s brain dissolves when it transforms into a butterfly, but the transformed butterfly retains the laboratory-conditioned behaviours of the caterpillar in terms of being aversive to the memory of a particular scent.
When humans create or build non-living atom-energy structures such as artefacts, artwork, or a culinary dish etcetera, we use not only the non-living structures of atom-energies in the form of building materials, paint brushes, paint, and cooking utensils, harvest food and cutlery etcetera, but also living structures of atom-energies in the form of human hands, body/anatomy and brain etcetera. When humans create, we also use the non-atom spirit-energies of thought, will, belief, ideas, images and design, order, plan and then the execution of these as the goals. These processes are encapsulated within Self and expressed as a manifestation of Self’s soul and spirit.
Self, being the creator of these creations must by definition then leave part of their Self, being the will, design and creation of the artefact etcetera, and thus Self as and in part of the creation, but with an independent and sovereign standing. Thus the Self’s creation is a part of the likeness and image of Self’, as a function of Self’s soul and spirit. The soul and spirit now residing within the creation is a part of Self and retained as soul and spirit-energy, being the blue-prints and ‘finger-prints’ of the designer, planner and doer of the artefact and creation.
This multi-dimensional process of creation is perhaps a simple analogy of that described as ‘being made in the likeness and image of the Creator’. The artist’s creations of structures of atom-energy (paintings, houses, etcetera) did not come into being by themselves. But required essentially as a major contribution for production, both the structural atom-energy of body, hands and brain etcetera, but also the spirit-energy of the characteristics of Self in thought, will, design, plan and execution, which must be the spirit and soul energy of Self.
Now if someone else recreates what we have created, then that person too, will use both the atom-energy of their body and the spirit-energy of themselves. But in recreating what has already been created there will need to used similar structures of atom-energy as in body parts, and use of spirit-energy as in the unique thought, design, order, plan and will to execute that which has been previously created and brought forth from consciousness.
Self’s creations of artefacts from soul and spirit energy, and thus in a sense being part of Self, can perhaps be a reverse analogy of the existence of atom-energy structures created from the existence of subatomic particles brought forth by a Creator’s thought, design and will, manifesting in the Big Bang, including the existence of other forms of energies.
These energies include the energies of atom-energy, electromagnetic energy, dark-energy, dark-matter and spirit-energy, all designed and planned with thought, design and will of a Creator and thus have within them a part of their Creator as does Self’s creation has a part of Self, but with an independent and sovereign standing.
As the chemical formations and interactions that initiated the beginnings of life through complex interactions of particular atom-energy structures developed over time, so the evolved atom-energies of life increased from one cell to trillions of cells and with them, so the spirit and soul as a manifestation of the signature of the designer.
The human brain has developed larger and more complex in humans than in any other species. This development of the human brain gives humans the ability to think, plan and do all the intellectual, emotional and behavioural things humans can do.
Thinking and emotions are part of the spirit-energy of consciousness being part-and-parcel of Self. Spirit-energy cannot be objectively measured, and captured as atom-energy can. We may consider the essence and existence of Self to be a divinely inspired outcome from predetermined design and order of the Spirit/Word.
So we may be able to say, that through the energy of ‘The Word’, was brought forth and embedded the Soul and Spirit in the different energies within the universe including the soul and spirit of life and Self.
Humans’ Spirit and Soul may be inherited and passed on from species to species, from generation to generation, through the soul and spirit-energies dwelling particularly within all living existence, as the defining divine signature of the ‘word’ of creation.
The energies of Soul and Spirit may also exist within, yet on a unique dimension or plane, or exist parallel to, or in symbiosis to the atom-energy structure of DNA. Atom-energy makes up the structure and function of the brain, which is the vehicle for the interactions and existence of the spirit-energies of Self.
CHAPTER 3
HUMAN PAIN AND SUFFERING FROM INTELLECTUAL AND SPIRITUAL CONFUSION
Brief History of Scripture’s Language
Misinterpretation of Scripture in the Bible
Spiritual Abuse
Human Destruction from Base Instincts, Faiths, Beliefs, Cultures, Politics and Religions
Brief History of Scripture’s Language
Now that we have read from some of the greatest philosophers and theologians of all time we will now look at the importance of language and the spoken word and how it affects our understanding of the world we live in and accordingly our beliefs.
Language is a human verbal tool developed and evolved over many centuries for the use of human communication. For over three millennia, Hebrew has been both the literary religious and secular language of the Jewish people. Hebrew is a Semitic tongue, and was spoken during the period of the migration of the Patriarchs into Palestine remaining the language of the Jews throughout most of the Old Testament period. In the period post Old Testament the Hebrew language gradually gave way to Aramaic as the spoken language for day-to-day communication, but Hebrew continued throughout the centuries to serve as the language of ritual and prayer.
Most of the Old Testament texts were originally, written in Hebrew, and were derived from oral traditions as far back as 1000 BC. But the younger books of Ezra and Daniel were written in 165 BC in Aramaic. The language of the people of Palestine shifted from Hebrew to Aramaic sometime around 500 B.C. Therefore, Christ probably spoke in Aramaic as did his disciples and contemporaries.
Over the centuries, the perceived messages of Christ spread throughout Palestine, Syria and Mesopotamia in this Semitic Aramaic tongue. However, between the 4th century BC and 4th century AD, Hellenistic Greek, also known as Koine Greek, was the most widely spread language of the times due to the empire of Alexander the Great. It eventually absorbed all local dialects and became the standard language of the times. The New Testament (the 4 Gospels, the Letters of St. Paul and St. Peter, and the Apocalypse of St. John) then was collated and written in this Koine Greek, but was later translated into Latin around 380 AD.
Misinterpretation of Scripture in the Bible
As we continue the search for life’s meaning, and evidence of a Creator’s existence, we may understand that whether we like it or not, rightly and wrongly, warts and all, the values, beliefs, perceptions, perspectives, laws and policies, to some extent, adopted by Western Civilisation have been framed, shaped and driven by Christian philosophy. A Christian philosophy being the thoughts, ideas and beliefs evolved over the last 2000 years and based primarily on the New Testament of the Bible. Christian influence in the world started with the measure of universal Time reinvented, with the splitting of Time into two, becoming “Before Christ” BC and “After Christ” AD. Furthermore, Western Civilisation has over the last 2000 years, been on a roller coaster of both constructive development and destruction. It is therefore important that we deconstruct and reinvestigate the misinterpretation of scripture in relation to its construction and interpretation. The Bible being the primary premise of Christian thought, beliefs and philosophy. We discover that the many different meanings given to Biblical scripture can be, attributed to the many biblical verses, which are differently interpreted by both religious institutions and individuals. So a more conservative and ‘safer’ way to read any Holy Scripture is to read it with an informed spirit and rational and open mind and heart.
We will discuss the meaning and interpretation of controversial verses in the Bible, and learn what biblical scholars and academics say about how we can, as individuals and organisations, alternatively read and interpret such complex ambiguous writings in ‘Sacred Scripture’. Information on biblical construction and interpretation is important because the Bible is said to be the most wonderful and genius of all literatures. The most widely read book in the world, handed down from ancient history through the millenniums potentially wielding an aura of psycho-spiritual information to the reader. Without a doubt, if read in context, the New and Old Testaments of the Bible furnish one with the acquisition of a rich source of historical, cultural and spiritual information.
Those Biblical scholars who have studied the construction of Sacred Scripture say that its contents need to be interpreted carefully. Even though the Bible is said to be inspired by God, that is, by spiritual inspiration and quality breathed into humans to give a proper understanding of God’s intent and purpose (Job 32:8), it’s obvious to all that the Bible did not fall to Earth directly from heaven from ‘God’. But, rather, is made up of human words and writings representing the perceived ‘words’ and ‘meanings’ of ‘God’ by humans who believe they know what truths come from ‘God’. Although some writings are surely, inspired by the spirit of ‘God’, we begin to realize that we must not confuse the two different origins of the two different ‘words’ in the Bible. That is, the ‘words’ originating from the personal agendas and perceptions of humans mixed with the ‘words’ originating from the inspiration of ‘God’. The Bible may indeed be considered to originate from the confusing combination and mix of the above two origins. Nor must we be tempted to just arbitrarily separate out these words, but instead seek and identify those words and verses that are definitely gross contradictions, in turn discovering the central theme written within scripture and ultimately the purpose and meaning of the Creator’s message. Perhaps then can we define the divine message from the Creator’s ‘inspired’ words, appreciating the mystical message and its meaning when interpreted within the appropriate literary genre and within its particular cultural and religious contexts.
God’s actual words spoken through Christ, are perhaps hidden and camouflaged through inspired human words that attempt to describe the true story of the Creator’s mystical relational love. If Jesus Christ was the Son of the Creator, then the Creator has spoken words of great wisdom on this planet. Although Christ did not write any words His time on earth was communicated through speech to others before being written and immortalised by His followers. If Christ is ‘God’ then the Creator has lived and spoken great wisdom on planet Earth. Christ’s words being initially transmitted and communicated orally to others, because His disciples and followers did not follow Him around with a pen and note pad jotting down His every move and articulation.
Instead Christ’s articulated wisdom was recorded, sometimes years and decades after His resurrection and ascension, and therefore unlikely to have been written verbatim. However, many recordings written about Christ’s thoughts and actions can be, considered to convey reasonably accurate messages and teachings intended for humankind if they are interpreted with care. There have been many erroneous and potentially damaging attempts at interpreting ‘sacred scripture’ when taken out of context visa verse for verse rather than thought as a general theme and message.
During Christ’s time on earth He wrote nothing down with pen on paper or chisel on rock. There is good reason why Christ did not immortalise His miracles, examples and teachings by writing down his thoughts and instructions on some permanent material and manner.
This intentional omission was for good reason, and that was His determined intention and strategy to emphasise the fact humans are imperfect but sovereign and independent beings that we are. Indeed to emphasise that we are beings imperfect, who make mistakes and because of such human characteristics that which they hear, interpret and write down must be assessed carefully, but all the same, is open to flaws and fallibility. For this reason alone that which has been written about the Christ requires to be attended to with the main focus on the grand general theme and message of the written discourse of His Story.
Furthermore and in addition to the above explanations, Christ respected the sovereignty, independence, individuality and free choice as human gifts. In essence giving them the freedom to interpret His life on earth, expressing it their unique way and in turn giving credibility to the special-ness gifted to humankind notwithstanding that such interpretation of His life and word would be less than perfect verbatim, but perfectly imperfect if understood within his point of reference.
For instance, Grant Jeffrey tries to prove the legitimacy of every word the Bible as being that written and inspired by God, in his book The Signature of God. He attempts to do this by purporting to having identified a Bible code that reveals future historical events, by finding words such as ‘Hitler’ and the ‘September 11th World Trade Tower Attack’ in the letters of a particular sequence of words in the Bible. The scientific academic discipline of Statistics would propose that if one has enough words (as there are in the Bible) to work with, one can generate through a computer program any number of preconceived words from a particular letter from a sequence of words. The more words one has to work with as a resource, the greater the chance and probability of creating a particular word or phrase, and in this instance, the suggestion that God has inscribed in the Bible a covert and subliminal secret code. This suggestion is akin to suggesting that God validates the predisposition of predestination in the course of every human action and event. Of course, this is an absurd depiction of ‘God’, because if every human action was predestined then the gift of freewill and choice may as well be redundant.
The idea that human belief, behaviour and speech are predestined is an aberration to the invisible constructs of human intellect, freewill and choice. The acts of human freewill and choice are transcendent characteristics that allow humans voluntarily to choose their actions, behaviours, and speech, congruent with their experiences and personality. Self’s personality predicated, in part, on particularly chosen beliefs, values, attitudes, ideals and experiences. If everything people did was predestined then people could chose destructive behaviours without conscience, because they could justify these behaviours by saying, “Well if I do such and such a ‘thing’ it is okay because God already knew I was going to do it because it is predestined and so therefore out of my control”. This mindset can only be considered to be extremely dangerous and damaging to the dignity of human personal determination, and an aberration to the Creator’s purpose for the uniqueness of Self’s personality manifest through the independence and sovereignty of Self’s dignity, autonomy and freewill, and as such, Self’s Spirit.
Moreover, it is conceivable that in a complex divine and mysterious way, the Creator chooses not to know. If we had died at a very early age but God were to know what we would have done with our free will had we lived, then He would be justified in allowing us the experience of the process of purification for any transgressions that we may have committed had we lived. If this is the case then we would perhaps have to reflect on and experience the pain we would have inflicted on and caused others despite being materially innocent. If God chose to know everything that we humans will do with their lives then freewill, by definition, cannot be free. Human consciousness, thought and emotion, freewill, intellect and discernment, etcetera, provide categorical evidence that the Creator has created humans as beings with the integrity for personal independence and individual sovereignty. The creator then can not be perceived to have created humans as beings who live lives that have been preplanned, preprogrammed, pre-mapped or predestined. If the Creator chose to know each person’s future activities, including Self’s thoughts, emotions and behaviours etcetera, then this knowledge, by definition, would amount to human beings being in essence, pre-preprogrammed and predestined freaks of creation. The Creator perhaps chooses not to know how a person lives their everyday life and chooses not to intervene in the day-to-day activities of a person’s life, unless of course that person wishes to specifically relate to and communicate with their Creator.
To understand the writings of the Bible more fully we need and want to know when, how, why, to whom, and by whom the different books and gospels of the Bible were written. Through our exhaustive research, we find that there are many contradictions, variations and inconsistencies between and within the different forms and styles of literature, and in particular, messages from verses written in the Bible. For instance, there are two entirely and possibly three, different stories about how humankind and the universe were created.
The first story of creation described in Genesis 1:1-31 and Genesis 2:1-4, and the second story of creation described in Genesis 2:5-23. These creation stories were, first shared verbally, between individuals and communities, who brought them down through the ages in both written and verbal forms. These creation stories were, expressed orally through story telling by the people of the time, to help explain their creation, life experiences, and personal existence on Earth. The Hebrew Scriptures (the Old Testament) in the Bible were eventually documented in writing by the ‘first authors’ so they could be remembered and communicated to others.
The first story of creation in Genesis (Genesis 1:1-31; 2:1-4) explains how humans, both male and female, were made in God’s image and likeness on the sixth day, being after the Universe, Sun, Moon (lights), and trees and animals were created in the first five days. This version describes how these creations and creatures were, brought into existence within a timeframe of six days, and God saw that it was good. And on the seventh day, ‘God’ rested.
The second version and different story of creation in Genesis (Genesis 2:5-23) explains how Adam, which translated to its original Hebrew means man, was created first and placed in paradise of The Garden of Eden. This story tells how Adam was, created first, before the trees, water and animals, and then placed in ‘The Garden of Eden’. It then describes how Eve, a generic name for life itself, and the personification of motherhood, was created from a rib of Adam. This version of creation has humans created before all the other creations of water, trees and animals, etcetera, of the Earth, which is in direct contradiction and opposition to the first story of creation in Genesis.
Also this second story of creation does not describe a timeframe of six days for the Creator’s creation of creation. It also describes how Eve ate from the tree of life and knowledge of good and evil, in the centre of the garden - and not from an apple from an apple tree - and how from that moment onwards humankind suffered from the consequences brought about by the choice made by Eve. A third, but brief version of creation, also described in Genesis reads:
“When God created man, he made him in the likeness of God. He created them male and female and blessed them. And when they were created, he called them man. When Adam had lived 130 years, he had a son in his own likeness, in his own image; and he named him Seth. After Seth was born, Adam lived 800 years and had other sons and daughters. Altogether, Adam lived 930 years, and then he died”.
(Genesis 5:1-5)
The evidence provided and described in the book of Genesis by these three different versions about how ‘God’ created the universe and life suggest a single author with differing views or several authors and as such the identification of serious contradictions about the concepts and stories regarding creation and indeed the authorship and written construction of the Bible. Instead of being read as the absolute words of ‘God’ these stories need to be read as the different ideas and interpretations of different people (writers) written at different times as representing how they think ‘God’ could have created humans, the world, and universe. So these particular stories about creation must not and cannot be read literally as literal texts and words coming directly from ‘God’ if the integrity of the meaning of the words and verses in the Bible are to be maintained. Although the words used by authors to describe the creation of the universe and life in the book of Genesis may have been originally written for literal interpretation they are more likely to be words to be interpreted in the metaphor genre. A metaphor is a figure of speech in which a term or phrase is applied to something to which it is not literally applicable in order to suggest some form, or type of semblance. To interpret these words as actually written in the metaphor genre makes for a more sensible and realistic read as explained by New Testament scripture itself.
In 2 Peter we read:
“One thing you must never forget my friends is that with the Lord, a day can mean a thousand years and a thousand years is like a day.”
(2 Peter 3:8)
The fact that ancient Scripture uses a word in Genesis that translates to the English word ‘day’ to describe and explain the time frame it took ‘God’ to create the universe is interesting in its self. The writers of Genesis have used a human word describing human experience, and as such, words used in the metaphor genre to describe the creation of creation. The human (English) word ‘day’ describes the behaviour of the Earth in relation to the Sun where it takes 24 hours (humans’ measure for time) for the earth to revolve once on its axis, giving us a period of darkness and a period of light, which we term ‘one full day’. The word ‘day’ then, describes a particular phenomena related to time, movement, objects and space in the universe and essentially only exists within this context. Prior to the creation of the universe the reality of a ‘day’ including time and space did not need to exist. Therefore, the Creator who created the reality of what we describe as a ‘day’, and who created time, movement, objects and space, did not need to require or possess as a prerequisite, time, movement, objects and space, as humans know and experience these realities today. These are realities which, in part, give us light and dark, and which we term night and day. The word ‘day’ is a human word humans use to explain and describe a particular phenomenon of creation itself.
So we cannot necessarily reduce and deconstruct the Creator’s work as depicted in Genesis, to a specific ‘time frame’ of days, or capture and interpret the reality of God’s creation upon the literal reading of a passage or verse in the Bible. There are many varied forms and styles of literature in the different books of the Bible. For instance, in the Old Testament there are the stories of the histories of the chosen people, a story about the beginning of God’s personal relationship with those made in His likeness and image – human beings - and the story of His love and intended purpose for them to live life fully in a just and sustainable society.
The Bible consists of interpretations of the people’s sacrifice to God and their rules and laws to live by, their plights, their kings, their wisdom writings, their stories about suffering and their exaltations to God. We read about these in the stories of the Old Testament and in the Psalms and we read about their prophecies for the future in Daniel, Isaiah, and the Prophets.
As we move our investigative attention to the New Testament, we notice a dramatic and significant change of theological and psychological pace and direction. We read stories in the New Testament about the good news for humankind and about God’s unconditional mystical relational love for humankind. We read about the teachings and commandments of Christ and about ‘God’s’ new laws of relational love, charity, hope and compassion. We read about the ‘acts’ of the apostles and the letters they wrote and carried to their communities. We also read verses that contradict and are incongruent to this new message of relational love, providing further evidence for the need for cautious interpretation as being the words articulated by human experience and thus human interpretation to a significant event.
Spiritual Abuse
From researched information into the interpretation of biblical Scripture, we find that we need to be careful in how we read and interpret both the Old and New Testaments of the Bible. Many Biblical writings are in a style that they require to reading with an open mind, spirit and heart. Much of Sacred Scripture needs to be interpreted from a metaphorical and allegorical literary perspective than from a literal literary perspective if we are to derive from this work its full sense of meaning and purpose. Indeed, people’s past and current inaccurate interpretations of Scripture have caused much physical and psychological harm in and throughout the world in relation to people’s individual and collective lives. There has been much spiritual and psychological damage caused as an outcome of the misinterpretation of Scripture and the resulting instructions, rules and laws espoused and interpreted by the vices of arrogance and ignorance of the ‘spiritually and religiously powerful’ directed towards and demanded from the spiritually vulnerable.
All humans are spiritually vulnerable or conscious because human spirituality is an essential component of humans being human beings. All humans are spiritually, and psychologically vulnerable because, firstly, humans have been created, by a Creator, a Spiritual Supreme Being, and thus are created and infused with an independent and sovereign spirit by virtue of their creation. Secondly, humans have been endowed with the possession of the invisible spirit of consciousness, self-awareness, discernment, intellect, cognition and emotion, etcetera, and thus can reflect on their own inevitable physical death, and therefore on their own mortality. Humans can also reflect on the possibility of the death and cessation of Self and Self’s consciousness and personality. But in contrast to this, humans also have the capability to contemplate concepts such as the eternal, infinite and immortal existence of Self ,and all that entails the invisible Self, as opposed to the physical body within which the invisible/spiritual Self resides. Because of this intimate reflective ability of humans to contemplate Self’s potential immortality, people are spiritually vulnerable, and as such, open to possible spiritual abuse by those in positions of ‘spiritual power’. Spiritual power defined in terms of perceived and expressed religious knowledge and authority.
Over many centuries, many different churches, from many different denominations, have interpreted verses of Scripture in many different ways, and mean many different things. These many interpretations by many churches create many laws and rules designed for compliance by believers. Directing believers in what to believe in, what to do, and what not to believe and what not do. Particularly in terms of what is ‘spiritually’ ‘right’ and ‘good’ and what is ‘spiritually’ ‘wrong’ and ‘bad’ in relation to one’s thoughts, feelings, values, attitudes and subsequent behaviours and content of speech. This in turn potentially underpins the measure of the perceived quality of one’s ‘spiritual’ standing with ‘God’, and thus one’s perceived spiritual state in relation to one’s potential transition from the physical death of Self to Self’s transcendence to personal immortality.
Because of the psychological power, that can be wielded over people because of their given and innate spiritual needs, and therefore, their spiritual vulnerability, religions and churches and their administrators need to read and interpret Scripture prudently, within the literal genre and cultural context it was written, and in light of when and why it was written. For example, the 38 parables about Christ as described in the New Testament were stories told by Him or about Him at an appropriate and particular time and context for an immediate purpose (Collins, 1984). But, which can have profound messages for people today because they can be applied for the benefit of all people in every age. So it would not be prudent and accurate if these biblical stories were interpreted literally on a word for word basis as they perhaps were originally written in the metaphor genre tens of hundreds of years ago. But these verses can be, if interpreted carefully and therefore fully understood in relation to their original context, applied as a message for today’s circumstances, purposes and important issues. Many people recognise that various parables in the bible have been written in the metaphor genre as an intended way to explain a particular teaching.
For instance in Thessalonians we read:
“For you yourselves know full well that the day of the Lord will come just like a thief in the night”. (Thessalonians 5:2)
Some will understand that the following phrase; “The day of the Lord will come,” as a metaphor. That time being one’s own personal physical death and subsequent spiritual ascension. Others may understand it to mean the actual second coming of Christ to Earth, and others may understand the it to be synonymous with Christ plucking one from Earth and into Heaven, whilst still physically alive. And the phrase, “just like a thief at night” may be reasonably understood to mean that one’s physical death will more than likely come unexpectedly;
The following verses written in the New Testament are harsh and ambiguous with an apparent emphasis for the motivation of obedience through the incitation of fear by way of the threat of eternal damnation in hell. These particular verses may have been written originally for literal interpretation. However they may also have been written at a time and in a culture where they were intended to be interpreted within a genre that expresses messages through deeper metaphorical and allegorical (figurative and symbolic) meanings. However, this latter possibility is perhaps being too kind, but we could suggest the jury is still out on these theoretical possibilities. Although, the use of the principles for scripture interpretation will provide a clearer idea of the complexity involved for such interpretations, and in turn, a picture that is clearer and closer to the reality.
For example, we read in the Gospel of Mark:
“If your hand causes you to sin cut it off. It is better for you to enter life maimed than with two hands to go into hell, where the fire never goes out.”
(Mark 9:43)
Again, in Mark’s gospel, we read:
“And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell”.
(Mark 9:47)
In the Old Testament of Hebrew scriptures, some writings were written to explain human experiences such as in the story of creation in Genesis and the story about the incongruence of sin and pain and suffering in relation to Job’s reality of leading a ‘good’ life. But perhaps other scripture verses were intended to be, and still are, interpreted literally;
As in Exodus, we read:
“And if any mischief follow, then you shall give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.”
(Exodus 21: 23-25)
Leviticus says:
“Breath for breath, eye for eye, tooth for tooth; as he has caused blemish in a man, so shall it be done to him again.”
(Leviticus 24:20)
Deuteronomy states:
“And your eye shall not pity; but life shall go for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth and hand for hand, foot for foot.”
(Deuteronomy 19:2)
But in stark contradiction to these messages inciting fear, pain and suffering through the infliction of physical maiming and the command for revenge and equitable retribution, we read in the gospel of Matthew Jesus’ definitive redefining of past religious rules and laws espoused throughout the writings of the Old Testament;
We read in the Gospel of Matthew:
“You have heard what has been said, an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth, but I say to you, that you resist not evil, but who so ever shall smite thee on the right cheek turn to him the other also.”
(Matthew 5:38)
We also read in Matthew:
“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbour and hate your enemy’ (Leviticus 19:18). But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”
(Matthew 5:43-44)
These New Testament messages provide evidence that many ancient religious scripture instructions and commandments are based on the barbaric laws, rules and behaviours of a particular culture, of a particular people, at a particular time in history. We can appreciate that these ancient rules and laws are clearly not humane, compassionate, or sensible practices in today’s society, or in the context of Jesus’ new law of mystical relational love. Many of these scripture verses at the time of their writing were probably written with the intention for literal interpretation, but through Christ’s reinterpretation carry within them evidence of antiquated scripture construction. Many of these verses need to be completely overhauled or reinterpreted as Jesus explained, imploring the need for urgent change of the interpretation to the ancient laws and rituals of scripture that fall short of the new message of mystical relational love and compassion. To arbitrarily interpret the meaning of these verses in a literal context is negligent and erroneous amounting to the reception of potentially dangerous, abject and destructive information for Self and others. Furthermore, in Biblical scripture there are sadly 15 references to hell and 59 references to punishment.
But, as the apostle John states:
“There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love”.
(1John 4:18)
As discussed later, it is incomprehensible and inconceivable that in the divine Will, Desire and Mind of the Creator, there exists concepts, realities and entities that relate to the spiritual, physical and psychological pain and suffering of people through the generation of fear expressed by the threat of the potential reality of infinite punishment and damnation. And, the eternity of flames from the fires of hell.
Human Destruction from Base Instincts, ‘Faiths’, ‘Beliefs’, Cultures, Politics and Religions
It would be helpful to define the meaning of the above words. Base Instincts are all those ‘primitive’ behaviours performed by animals and primates, and humans. Base instincts, come from the origins of human evolution and were originally designed for survival, and include, aggression, fear (fight and flight), territory dominance, control and power. We observe the behavioural dynamics of ‘the pecking order’ in many species- sex drive and the survival needs of food, water and shelter. For instance power, dominance and control over territory and subjects is prevalent in the animal kingdom where even in a chicken pen chooks will gang up together and peck the weakest chicken to death. The emotions of anger and fear are related to the fight or flee response and originate from the primitive part of the brain called the amygdale. Therefore these base behaviours have been adopted by humans as a result of predetermined and preprogrammed evolution passed down through the genetics of DNA, but prevail to impact negatively on humanity through their continued expression and therefore conditioning, within parent-child relationships and, in turn, whole communities. But these primal base instincts also include the seemingly counterintuitive need for many species of animals, including humans, to be social, to live and belong in colonies and/or groups. This need for some species, including humans, to be social, living together in close proximity and the need to belong to the same species group can facilitate and exacerbate the expression of the negative characteristics of base instincts. Base instincts less dormant in humans manifesting negatively as destructive manipulations of power, control, aggression, fear and sex drive. The idea of the predetermination of the creation of human evolution is fully discussed in another.
The meaning of the word culture can be defined as particular personal experiences brought about by people adhering to a particular set of beliefs, attitudes, values and behaviours which are possessed, promulgated, nurtured and grown within and by a group of people living, working, playing and/or worshiping together. The dynamics of Culture are everywhere, including within a communities of people in any family, office, company, church, organisation, and/or political party with confined or unconfined boundaries and may extend nationally and internationally. The meaning of the word Faith on the other hand, can be complex, but put simply, can be defined as a deep-seated personal belief that may or may not conceptually represent a blind acceptance of the transcendent without a rational foundation of knowledge and intellectual understanding of the subject matter. And which can be driven by a personal innate spiritual need to transcendently belong. Faith can be an unquestioning, substantiated or unsubstantiated belief in anything of perceived importance to do with someone or something. Faith can be an inner ‘spiritual’ belief initiated and maintained by informed or misinformed innate spiritual intuition. The construct of human faith can often be initiated and maintained through informed and/ or misinformed tradition’s, practice’s, law’s and rule’s of particular cultures and religions.
Sadly, we experience elements of systematic barbarism in particular cultures, political regimes, ideologies, traditions and religions operating to this day. These often uncompromising individual and group acts of aggression and violence towards other humans can be understood as being driven by what may be termed as inherent and intrinsic human psycho-spiritual dynamics and principles. Therefore, in essence the blame for these contemporary human acts of abuse and violence cannot be seated solely at the foot of the ignorant and erroneous misinterpretation of particular ‘Holy Scriptures’. This abuse is part and parcel of an insidious and pervasive human mentality that is a result and outcome of human beings’ innate need to adhere to particular ‘faiths’, ‘beliefs’, cultures, personal attitudes and/ or politics, which will potentially provide a perceived sense of personal well-being and security. The need to adhere to a particular faith and belief is also predicated on human beings’ innate ‘spiritual’ desire and quest to aspire to and achieve that which is true and right driven by the Self’s need for potential immortality.
This is in essence an innate human need to psychologically aspire to the achievement of that which is perceived and believed to be ‘absolutely right’ and that which is perceived and believed to be ‘absolutely true’. These aspirations and desires to achieve and embrace that which is ‘true’ and ‘right’ are often driven by and expressed through ancient or neo religious practices and beliefs, cultural and/ or political teachings and traditional rituals and practices. The practices, beliefs and faiths one may be drawn towards, may in essence, be primarily irrational and founded on ignorance, with the power and control dynamics of a system that has originated from the depths and mix of complex human experiences.
The innate human need to adhere obediently to arbitrary, religious, cultural and political ‘beliefs’ and ‘faiths’, is in part, driven by the need for a sense of psychological security. This is exacerbated by innocent ignorance, a sincere quest for truth, personal fear, and the misinterpretation, and then application, of particular secular and religious policies, laws, rituals, traditions and scriptures, which are by definition, fallible, but which may be perceived as, but are definitely not, perfect or infallible. The personal selective conscious, subconscious and/ or arbitrary adoption of spiritual, political and/or cultural beliefs and practices may manifest through the synergy of a powerful psychological dynamic created by the mix and interaction of spiritual, intellectual and emotional desires manipulated by needs produced from base physical and psychological instincts. These particular mixes, interactions and manipulations result in a potential powder keg of personal vulnerability leading Self to the possible exposure of irrational beliefs and faiths that result in spiritual, intellectual, emotional and behavioural confusion, and the possibility of interpersonal abuse. Moreover, these beliefs and faiths can be adopted and widely disseminated without questioning the origins, reasons and affects of such beliefs, and their corresponding outcomes on Self and others.
We have seen examples of systematic and nonsystematic physical, psychological and spiritual abuse in many cultures and societies as an outcome of perpetrators ignorance, arrogance, fear, paranoia and hatred exacerbating the hysterically blind following of misinformation and propaganda that affirms one’s beliefs, thoughts and feelings manifest from the mix of one’s intellect, cognitions and emotions interacting with one’s base desires. The interaction of base desires and instincts in association with one’s personal choices, environment and/or experiences can produce thoughts, feelings, attitudes, values and beliefs that facilitate particular behaviours and content of speech that manifest in a actions such as, violence, discrimination, hatred and barbarism within and between individuals and groups. Furthermore, human-to-human atrocities can stem from the addition of the aforementioned added to a plural basis of personal ignorance, arrogance, pride, fear, vengeance, paranoia, and anger as a manifestation of the interaction between base instincts and the advanced intellectual and emotional capabilities to manipulate these base instincts. Such an interactive recipe can result in the choice of a particular course of action with diabolical repercussions.
Past and present cultural, political, and religious beliefs, faiths and experiences may also contribute to an individual’s or group’s chosen course of behaviour and mode of operation. Some examples of human-to-human psychological and physical violence through ignorant and arbitrary cultural, political, and religious beliefs, practices and behaviours humans have cruelly perpetrated on one another include:
Colonialism
Catholics and Protestants, and Muslim Shi’ites and Sunnis
‘whites’ and ‘blacks’.
Human beings, by nature, are creatures who have the potential to be misinformed, and ‘pumped’ with their own importance, consequently displaying destructive attitudes of pride, ignorance and arrogance, which often overlay and/or are overlaid with negative feelings and thoughts, such as fear, paranoia and revenge. These less than constructive human characteristics weaken an individual’s ability to make informed, independent, and constructive choices, allowing for the impression and persuasion by people and events that promise a sense of perceived personal gain, at others’ expense, because of individual selfishness and greed, and political, cultural and religious ideologies, beliefs and practices. But there are more complex and sinister interplays affecting destructive human psycho-spiritual behaviour.
It may be that destructive human behaviour and contents of speech are a result of the culmination of the intertwining of inflexible distorted and irrational cultural, political and religious traditions, beliefs, ideologies and practices mixed together with primal base instincts. These ‘true’ beliefs are generated by questionable beliefs, attitudes, and faiths as an outcome of past and present experiences and the quest to achieve psycho-personal gratuitous benefits and gains. These personal human dynamics may in turn be exacerbated and fermented by perceived and/or real ‘wounded’ sentiments and egos, and the distorted and perverted quest for personal benefits and security, juxtaposition with the desire for retribution and/or to be ‘right’ with ‘God’ and/or ‘powerful others’.
This ultimately achieves a perceived sense of maintaining or creating Self’s ego in terms of pride, power and control. These distorted human mindsets can result in feelings, thoughts and attitudes that manifest in anger, fear, paranoia, revenge and oppression towards others with outcomes of obsessive violence, racism, discrimination, oppression and abuse, to achieve personally perceived individual and collective ‘important’ goals manifest in personally perceived individual and collective personal satisfaction.
These are outcomes that we have seen in humankinds’ sometimes, diabolical thoughts, feelings, values, beliefs and attitudes resulting in coward and abusive behaviours and contents of speech towards others by both individuals and communities. These behaviours of abuse may be explained by the act of being driven by political, cultural and/or multi mass-slaughters, genocide, and psychological and spiritual abuse, oppressing and destroying the fragile, the vulnerable, and the innocent religious ignorance, arrogance and bias, often manifesting in widespread.
Such examples of hysterical, cowardly, senseless and mindless motivated acts of violence, genocide and oppression in the world, have perpetrated over hundreds and hundreds of centuries. As the tribes and armies of particular countries have attacked the tribes and armies of other countries to take over executive control, and become the power. Moreover, people of different religions have formed armies to attack and kill people of other religious persuasions.
The philosophical and political ideology, culture and behaviour of many European countries, in the early and late centuries, was driven by their desire for power, greed and security, believed achievable through the growth of their Empires through indiscriminate acts of annexation and colonisation. World War I (1914-1918), in part, began with the large number of people living in Bosnia-Herzegovina unhappy with Austrian rule, and favouring union with Serbia, whilst achieving independence from Austro-Hungary. At the beginning of the 20th Century, Germany was one of the most powerful countries in the World, economically, industrially and militarily. The German government announces its full support for Austro-Hungary if it decides to take reprisals against Serbia.
Russia promises that it will help Serbia if attacked by Austro-Hungary. Austro-Hungary declares war on Serbia. Russia mobilizes its armed forces in support of Serbia. This includes the sending of troops to its borders with Germany and Austro-Hungary. Germany declares war on Russia. Germany declares war on France. And Germany invades neutral Belgium. Great Britain then declares war on Germany. But senior political and military people before, during and after wars are renowned for making senseless, unintelligent and irrational decisions, including the ability to implement benign bilateral interpersonal relations in regard to human-to-human diplomacy, mediation and negotiation at individual, national and international levels.
For instance, to pick one event during World War I, New Zealand’s defense chief Air Marshall Bruce Ferguson, on the 90th anniversary of ANZAC, alludes to Winston Churchill and his Senior military Officers, both English and Australian, demonstrating gross incompetence and ignorance in their misguided and ill-informed decision to invade Turkey at Gallipoli. Indiscriminately sending brave and courageous young soldiers to their death, as if lambs to their slaughter. Brave and courageous young men, trained to kill and trained to be killed, as in the ‘Battle of the Neck’, where wave after wave of (150) men without ammunition and armed only with bayonets, were ordered to charge the Turks. Only to be cut-down and shredded by machine gun fire just a few yards from their trench to die a meaningless and hopeless sacrificial death.
And in World War II (1939-1945), where the people of Germany and its ‘professional dignitaries’, yes professionals, including both men and women who were supposedly highly educated with attributes of knowledge, honesty and ethics, such as, Scientists, Politicians, Journalists, Medical Doctors, Nurses, Lawyers, Judges, Psychologists, Teachers, Ministers, Priests and Psychiatrists, etcetera, supported Hitler’s Nazi Party. These ‘professionals’ supported the Fascist ideologically driven extermination of six million Jews in death camps, Auschwitz, etcetera, and millions of the mentally ill, disabled and homosexuals, through either their implicit silence, or explicit contribution to Hitler’s regime. A regime that desired to ultimately implement, firstly, a universal ‘purity of race’ defined by the personally perceived meaning of the indefinable abstract adjective words ‘beauty’ and ‘perfection’, and secondly, territorial dominance of the world.
In may 2005, at an opening speech in Moscow, celebrating the 60th anniversary of Nazi Germany’s defeat, the president of the United States of America, George Bush, admitted that allowing the soviet domination of eastern Europe was ‘one of the greatest wrongs of history’. This ‘mistake’ was ratified by the 1945 Yalta Agreement, and signed by Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill and Josef Stalin. This agreement followed in the ‘unjust tradition’ of war pacts that carved up continents, leaving millions oppressed. The Yalta accord gave Stalin control of Eastern Europe delivering millions of people into communist domination. The philosophical ideology behind Britain and Americas’ support for Russian domination of Eastern Europe – the soviet annexation and harsh occupation of the Baltic countries after the war continued for almost 50 years, until the downfall of communism - after World War II, appeased and excused tyranny, and sacrificed freedom, in pursuit of stability and security for particular countries. President Bush said, “We have learned our lesson: no one’s liberty is expendable. In the long run, our security and true stability depend on the freedom of others”, and “Once again when powerful governments negotiated, the freedom of small nations became expendable”, and “The interests of all nations can only be served by the growth of freedom that leads to prosperity and peace”.
The Yalta agreement is another sad and unfortunate example of the damaging effects that authoritative and non-democratic policies, imposed by the politically powerful, can have on the lives of ordinary human beings. These are authoritative and non-democratic policies, that are driven and underpinned by ‘secular’ ideologies that embrace activities that quench their need for ‘power’ and security. At the expense of other nations’ ‘power’ and security, as opposed to the embracement of genuine democratic policies underpinned by a universal concern for all humans. A universal concern for all humans as unique and valuable beings, who, intrinsically deserve by right of their humanity the dignity of independence/ autonomy and sovereign integrity that should embody and encompass personal political and spiritual self determination. The psychotic aberrations and abominations of depraved human-to-human oppression also include:
Meanwhile, and in addition, the Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian War between 1991 and 1995 represented religious, cultural and ‘nationalistic’ oppression by Serbia towards other states after the dissolution of the Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia. Serbia attempted to increase borders for a new federal state for Serbs, by incorporating territory taken from two of the other states, Bosnia and Croatia. This aggressive annexation was, countered by Bosnia and Croatia, from which Serbia sought to ‘steal’ territory, both of which, along with two other states, Slovenia and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, attempted to protect their territorial integrity, and establish their independence. Croatia, with their territory under Serb control, attempted to seize territory from Bosnia in the course of the conflict.
This aggressive terrorism was the central theme of the conflict, which had war theatres in Slovenia, Croatia, and Bosnia. The conflict to establish new borders lasted ten days in Slovenia, but Croatia and Bosnia were subject to a protracted Serbian attack, administered and controlled by the communist Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic. This entailed the killing, terrorisation, and expulsion of non-Serbs in order to create new Serbian territories. More than 200,000 innocent people were, slaughtered in this gratuitous genocide. One of the most repugnant and abhorrent acts of terrorism and ‘ethnic cleansing’ in the four years of conflict occurred towards the end of the war near Srebrenica. In July 1995 the Bosnian Serb army, dominated by the Christian Orthodox Bosnian Serb leader, Radovan Karadzic, and General Ratko Mladić overcame the Srebrenica “safe area” guarded by the united Nations peace keeping forces, expelling over 40,000 Muslims, whilst at the same time cold bloodedly murdering 8 thousand Muslim men of military age.
Human-to-human violence and oppression also includes individual as well as collective person-to-person manipulation and exploitation, such as domestic violence; physical, sexual, spiritual and emotional abuse; workplace and school bullying; police, civil, political, private and corporate corruption and fraud; organized crime (e.g. the mafia) and outlaw gangs. These types of aberrant human-to-human behaviours can include despicable activities where corrupt members of Governments can and do, in some countries, siphon off public wealth and aid into personal and private bank accounts. Where police corruption manifests itself when police officers commissioned as ‘upstanding’ members of the community choose to abuse the extensive powers bestowed upon them by the public’s representative (Government) to endorse and enforce legislated law. Where, in police corruption, the end seems to justify the means. The ‘means’ defined firstly, as personal voyeurism, illegal activity, complicity, duplicity, obtaining information, and the general abuse of their use of power.
The ‘end’ defined as the number of ‘successful’ prosecutions, or personal financial gain, or drug use or individual addiction to power broking. Such a distorted philosophical mindset necessarily drives behaviour that entails police interacting with the public and ‘alleged criminals’ at the expense of judicial, transparent and natural justice – through the unethical and illegal process of ‘wheeling and dealing’. For example, police corruption manifests itself when particular police officers choose to use ‘drug addicts’ as ‘unofficial’ police informers, or choose to use ‘working girls’ as ‘unofficial’ police informers. This procures an outcome that indirectly and implicitly, but ‘officially’, encourages that individual addicted to drugs to use drugs, or indirectly and implicitly ‘officially’ encourages that individual working in the sex industry to continue to ‘work’, or indirectly and implicitly ‘officially’ encourages whoever else to continue doing whatever else.
Police officers have been found guilty and been convicted of planting ‘evidence’, drug pushing, sexual assault, physical assault and murder. Of course, many police officers in many countries around the world are honourable individuals imbibed and imbued with integrity. But there are more than a few who undoubtedly become obsessed with the abundant powers bestowed upon them, believing and acting as though they are above the law and as a consequence, have no qualms about breaking the law that they have been specifically inaugurated and commissioned to uphold. This results in the destruction of lives.
Furthermore, individual corruption can also be defined in terms of ‘professionals’ living distorted and twisted lives, because their behaviour is ‘dollar’ driven and driven by all that the ‘dollar’ promises. For example, tobacco companies continue to manufacture, promote and sell cigarettes to fellow humans despite their intrinsic knowledge relating to the danger and harm to human health caused by nicotine etcetera. Where ‘professionals’, those people in the community who are supposedly highly educated, with the assumed attributes of honesty, common sense, and ethics, such as, Psychiatrists, Psychologists and Lawyers have been known to write dubious and questionable reports and assessments about a particular individual geared toward the specific agenda of their fee paying client. These ‘professionals’ interact with and assess a particular client in a way that is inherently influenced and biased toward the particular agenda of those individuals or organisations that have commissioned such ‘professional’ interaction, and who will remunerate them for this ‘professional’ interpersonal assessment and communication. Professional medical doctors and nurses have been found guilty and convicted of murdering their patients.
Also corrupt outlaw gangs may encourage ‘prospects’ (potential gang members) to commit horrific crimes against individuals, such as bashing and rape, as the process for their initiation and ‘right of passage’ to gang membership and the ownership of club ‘colours’ and ‘patches’.
These examples of human-to-human cruelty and aggression include regular people hurting their families and others, together demonstrating how easily it is for human beings, both male and female, to continue with depraved and barbaric practices towards one another. And which behaviours are explained or justified by an individual’s particular adversarial upbringing or particular attitudes based on their unquestioning faith and belief to particular cultures, politics, traditions and/ or religions. These are personal choices made albeit choices often based on ignorance and misinformation, or choices deliberately made without mitigating factors.
These are evil and corrupt acts predicated on personal and communal arrogance, pride, power and greed. These acts are often ‘rationally justified’ and implemented through ideologies that are psuedo-sanitised and psychologically camouflaged through a personal need to belong and commit – albeit irrational and distorted - loyally to individual or tribal, or national subjective beliefs to particular cultures, politics, traditions, rituals and/ or religions. These irrational and distorted mindsets manifest in destructive behaviours and contents of speech without the intellectual foundation of logic, reason, thought, and emotion, to the injustice, pain and injury inevitably suffered by others. This is in spite of the destructiveness and amount of pain and suffering these acts of physical and psychological violence bear upon fellow human beings.
Such practices seem predicated on personally destructive experiences and/ or compliance to authoritative religious texts and literature, and/ or compliance to traditions and rituals, or compliance to powerful political figures from which personal loyalties and beliefs towards such cultures and bureaucracies ferment a deep-seated attitude of arrogant exclusiveness, and perhaps, the fear of abandonment for noncompliance. Compliances of this nature result in base ‘tribal’ and ‘gang like’ mentalities because of the unquestioning and irrational adherence to particular faiths and beliefs that consequently result in destructive behaviours and contents of speech through individual and/or collective human-to-human policies of human psychological and physical oppression and violence.
Inhumane political ideologies and nationalistic loyalties and practices, are underscored by ‘distorted’ and ‘irrational’ attitudes, values and beliefs formulated as a result of acute knee-jerk, and/ or extreme and chronic psychological reactions driven by base instincts and selfish ego driven desires as a way of manipulating and controlling particular civilian climes and situations for gratuitous personal benefit. Of course, these destructive practices are a consequence of coming from the self-absorbed perspective of a secular and sectarian ego, rather than from a starting point and reference of relational love, charity, reconciliation and compassion, being the driving force and rationale of this book’s discourse. Nonetheless, the human-to-human experience of inter-relational hate and destruction, resulting from individual and collective traits of fear, arrogance, pride, power and greed, is an indefensible excuse.
But without going over board and throwing the baby out with the bath water, ‘appropriate’ political, cultural and religious beliefs can sometimes be the building blocks of society’s healthy psyche, and positives may flow from history including, constructive ancient traditions, and rituals. But valuable lessons can also be learnt from the many past and current disastrous mistakes made by humans from destructive behaviours and speech driven by the base instincts of ignorance, arrogance, self-obsession, self-absorption and the personal possession of irrational and destructive ideologies, beliefs and faiths. Indiscriminate beliefs in questionable ideologies of particular cultures, politics, traditions and religions can impose psychological influence over subjects through the ingestion, imposition and/ or embracement of regulations, rituals, values, attitudes and faiths regardless of their intrinsic integrity, commonsense and rationale.
These beliefs, in turn, through their specific criteria for personal admission, can often promote within the psyche the need for regimental and arbitrary psychological oppression and aggression because of their insanely orientated attitudes and behaviours inevitably experienced as destructive to societies, groups and individuals. These beliefs and behaviours can often be a result of conscious and/ or subconscious brainwashing influenced by those who advertently or inadvertently promote, propagate and teach these cultural, political and religious traditions, beliefs and practices that can either be transmitted from one generation to the next or evolve ‘in situ’. And which, are adopted through personal fear and/or arrogance because of the need for a personal sense of security and power and/or a personal faith and belief that gives meaning to one’s life. These diverse cultural, political and religious faiths and traditions are exacerbated and perpetuated by the followers’ and members’ psychological, communal and spiritual need and desire to dutifully adhere to the code of their specific cultural, political and/ or religious practice as an expression of implicit and explicit spiritual, political and cultural commitment, zeal and dedication.
These ‘dutiful’ behaviours and beliefs can be emotionally, and cognitively justified, through the psychological need for a fanatical belief in one’s faith, politics and culture. This is, the psychological need of being faithful to one’s faith, politics and culture and the unwavering and intrinsic desire of a fervent and uncompromising belief in one’s faith, politics and culture as the prerequisite for being a dutiful and ‘good’ follower, and thus as such, an admired person. That is, a personal belief and faith in a particular politics, religion and/ or culture, which is considered to be the only ‘true’ and ‘right’ one, and as such, is deeply ingrained in the spiritual and intellectual psyche compatible with being a ‘belonged and needed loyal member and person.’
Some thoughts and feelings going through an individuals mind with such subjective belief’s relating to these personal self-needs, may include, ideas and words that represent sentiments, like: “If I am faithful to the laws and rules - regardless of any negative impact on others - of my culture, politics and/or religion. And am dedicated to ‘believing’ in ‘this’ culture, politics and/or religion, which I ‘know’ and ‘believe’ to be both ‘true’ and ‘right’, and a means to my end. “Then I will be filled with pride and admired and accepted by the authorities, peers and/or ‘God’, as a loyal and dedicated subject. Therefore, I will be an ‘important’, ‘powerful’ and ‘good’ person, giving me a sense of personal fulfillment and meaning to my life. I will also continue to be a valued member of my particular ‘faith believing’ community in relation to this particular culture, politics and/or religion, and therefore, a faithful, valued and important individual belonging to such an ‘important’ and ‘powerful’ entity.”
It is because of the potential damage engendered by the psyche generated from an unquestioning faith and belief in the rules, rituals and laws of cultures, politics and religions, that it becomes understandably imperative that we consider believing in ideas and values underpinned by unbiased and soundly informed logical and rational foundations of knowledge and information. This is, informed knowledge about an important subject, which has been, or will be, intellectually synthesised and integrated with an informed, reflective, introspective, intuitive and discerning intellect and spirit of goodwill. A particular mindset based on a sound, logical and rational foundation integrated with a reflective, discerning and intuitive spirit will result in constructive thoughts, feelings and behaviours towards Self and others. These expressed articulations are not about excluding every facet from all ‘faiths,’ ‘politics’, religions and ‘cultures’ from the complex mix that manufacture human attitudes, values and beliefs and subsequent behaviours and speech content. But are intended to highlight the potential dangers of human base instincts and selfish needs manifest in attitudes of exclusiveness, ignorance, arrogance and pride, at the expense of personal commonsense and humility, at the cost of human suffering and pain.
Psychological and physical pain and suffering will occur because other very important components and information are not included in the mix that precede an individuals propensity for potentially treacherously disastrous thoughts, feelings, values, attitudes and beliefs and subsequent behaviours and content of speech. As an outcome of constructive, rational, unbiased and evidence based information, interactively mixed with a reflective, introspective discerning and intuitive spirit, human beliefs, behaviours and speech, will potentially impact in a positive way through constructive personal thoughts, feelings, attitudes and values that are characterised as selfless as opposed to selfish.
As discussed, a spiritual, intellectual, logical, rational and appropriate foundation and measure for one’s thoughts, feelings, values, attitudes, beliefs and actions can arguably be based on the principles derived from informed knowledge, spiritual intuitive discernment and freewill, manifest as personal integrity, reason, honesty, relational love, compassion and charity. Rather than being based on that which has the destructive and debilitating, polarising and dichotomizing affects and outcomes from thoughts, feelings, values, attitudes, behaviours and speech that are based on base instincts and the personal selfish needs and requirements to be right and proud and not ‘wrong’ or ‘insignificant’ and therefore possession of a perceived sense of security.
If we are ‘right’, then we are ‘good’, with a potential sense of smugness and personal power, but everyone else must therefore be potentially wrong and therefore potentially bad. If everyone else is wrong and bad then this will inevitably lead to personal feelings, thoughts, behaviours and speech that reflect the attitudes, values and beliefs reminiscent of self-righteousness, judgment, pride and hypocrisy and ultimately, discrimination and hatred towards those who are perceived to be different and therefore ‘bad’ and ‘wrong’. Perhaps we may possess the mindset that if we are not ‘right’ and therefore ‘good’, then we must be wrong and the meaning of wrong within this context may be identified and defined as being ‘bad’, this is, the opposite to the meaning of ‘good’, thus potentially leading to personal feelings of perceived inadequacy, inferiority and low sense of self-worth.
But hey, in reality all humans are imperfect and so fall short of the ideal of perfection. But through the personal act of riding the ‘high moral ground’ or thinking that one is ‘holier than thou’, such conscious intellectual and emotional attitudes and beliefs and subsequent behaviours and speech exemplify confirmation of human personal imperfection. So as we may understand, we are talking about personal and conscious attitudes, behaviours and speech, which are determined by individual and/or collective beliefs, values, and faiths, determined by personal needs and which are either fundamentally and radically rational and constructive, or which are fundamentally and radically irrational and destructive to Self and others.
CHAPTER 4
INTELLECTUAL AND SPIRITUAL CONFUSION REVISITED
Principle Factors for Interpretation
Lucifer and the King James Version of the Bible
Other Holy Scriptures and the Qu’ran (Koran)
More Similarities than Differences between Religions
More about Comparative Religious Beliefs
Principle Factors for Interpretation
So then, when reading literature from within the Bible, it would be helpful to be familiar and aware of five principle factors pertaining to the interpretation of scripture. Without such informed knowledge regarding the construction, origins and editing of ancient scripture we could adversely interpret Scripture, and thus, the cognitive and affective influence it may hold. We could unknowingly distort, through misinterpretation, the meanings of the words in the text of the verses, and consequently, the interpretation and understanding of the semantics of scripture, in both the Old and New Testaments.
To add to the mix of confusion relating to scripture interpretation, keep in mind that today there are at least thirteen different versions of the Bible. These different versions of the Bible have their own individual literary nuances, which are evident in every Chapter. These different Bibles include, for example, the American Standard Version, New American Standard, New Living Translation, Contemporary English Version, King James Version, New King James Version, Revised Standard Version, New Revised Standard, The Darby Translation, Hebrew Names Version and The Latin Vulgate.
Unfortunately the misguided and inaccurate interpretation and misinterpretation of such powerfully influential writings as the various Holy Scriptures, such as the Bible and Qu’ran etcetera, will inevitably - specifically for many individuals, and generally for many communities, both nationally and internationally - determine the way Self thinks and feels about Self. And the way Self thinks and feels about others, and in turn, the content of Self’s values, attitudes, beliefs and behaviours ultimately resulting in the manner in which Self treats Self and Self treats others, and thus the manner in which others treat Self.
The five principle factors for interpretation of scripture include:
(1) The attempt and need to grasp with present day experiences taking into consideration unique cultural contexts, the original meanings of the Hebrew and Greek words in verses written many hundreds and thousands of years ago. And a decision made whether to extrapolate and apply these meanings or not to present day problems, contexts and issues.
(2) The ability to decipher and identify the accuracy of the corresponding meanings of the Hebrew and Greek words when they have been translated into ‘equivalent’ English words, or the words of another language, is critical in the understanding of Scripture. For example, today we have a natural tendency to read the word “church” as if it referred to the reality we know by that word today. That is, as the prayerful community in a highly structured, organized and institutionalised Religion of a particular belief and faith. Yet, the reality in Peter and Paul’s time, when Paul speaks about the word “church,” was rather different from its meaning today. In Peter and Paul’s era there was the ritualistic and formal Holy Temple of Jerusalem and the followers of the Jewish splinter group ‘The Jesus Movement’. This movement identified with the behaviour of people gathering informally to dialogue and discuss their everyday experiences and spiritual beliefs, achievements, future plans and goals, in order to disseminate the phenomenal message of the Messiah.
The list of these ‘theological’ words interpreted differently today is long and some translators try to avoid the difficulty by using other synonyms. For example, the word “community” would, be used, instead of the word “church”. The word “church,” in Paul’s time was not a Christian invention, but a common word used in the Greek world at that time with a specific secular meaning. Those people who first heard Paul’s letters, read to them, would have been aware that a common secular word was being used with new connotations. Yet today when we hear the word “church”, we hear it in its pure contemporary meaning and are probably unaware of its original secular connections.
(3) The need to be aware of the degree of accuracy that the original authors, editors and redactors of Christ’s life had in remembering Christ’s living reality, and the degree of accuracy in their interpretation of what Jesus really said and did. Furthermore, we need to be aware of the possible inaccuracies subsequent editors may have incurred whilst interpreting original written sources.
(4) The need to be mindful of asking Self the question; is the text which was originally written in the metaphor genre being read by Self as intended, that is, metaphorically rather than literally? And is text that was originally written in the literal genre being read in today’s context rather than the context in which it was originally written?
(5) What was deemed, as ‘the law’ and ‘good and right’ more than 2,000 years ago in terms of the Old Testament and in some verses of the New Testament, may not be necessarily right or good, appropriate, humane and practical today. Because of the scientific, cultural, ethical and technological changes within society, and the continual development and refinement of beliefs, values and morals through the progression of intellectual, emotional and social evolution, the process of hermeneutics in relation to the interpretation of Scripture is about reinterpreting ancient Scripture within a contemplative, spiritual and contemporary context. This is, reinterpreting literal or metaphorical messages from antiquity into messages that are relevant for today. Christ Himself totally overhauled and redefined many of the ancient scriptures and replaced them with messages that relate to the invocation of unconditional relational love, compassion and reconciliation to be practiced between all peoples. This imperative message from Christ of unconditional relational love, compassion and reconciliation, is by definition, a message that is universal and timeless and can be expressed and performed by individuals regardless of cultural and religious contexts and which interpretation is immune from the ages and generations including today’s ‘modernity’ and ‘contemporary’ society.
Here are two more interesting and ambiguous verses that require our special attention to decipher their deeper and metaphorical or literal meaning:
In the gospel of Matthew we read:
“If the miracles performed on you had been performed on Sodom it would be in existence today. On the judgment day God will show more mercy to Sodom than to you,”
(Matthew 11:22-24)
Again in Matthew we read:
“It is harder for a rich man to go to heaven than a camel to fit through the eye of a needle, impossible for man but for God everything is possible.”
(Matthew 19:24-26)
At a deeper underlying and metaphorical level of meaning, perhaps the author of these two verses is emphasising the power of the Creator’s ability to mystically relate with all peoples through divine unconditional love, no matter whatever their past, present or future personal experiences. Whatever their past, present or future personal situations and circumstances may be.
Lucifer and the King James Version of the Bible
The ease with which Biblical Scripture can be misinterpreted, is exemplified by the historical evolution of biblical literature in relation to the literal mistranslation and transmutation of the word “Lucifer”. Most of us would acknowledge that the meaning of the word “Lucifer” relates to and is just another word used for the words Satan, Devil and Prince of Darkness and the meaning these words represent, which themselves, are words, that have also been misrepresented and misinterpreted. However, the word “Lucifer” makes its appearance only in the King James Version of the Old Testament of the Bible, in the book of Isaiah Chapter 14 Verse 12. If you search the web site, www.biblegateway.com you will find that all the other Bible versions of Isaiah 14:12 use the words, King of Babylonia, or Morning Star, Shining Star, or Day Star, instead of the word “Lucifer”.
The King James Version of Isaiah 14:12, reads:
"How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations"!
(Isaiah 14:12)
A scholar at the library of the Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati says that in the original Hebrew text, the fourteenth Chapter of Isaiah is not about a fallen angel by name or by reference, who fell to become the ruler of hell, but is about a fallen Babylonian king, who during his lifetime had persecuted the children of Israel. Isaiah then, in the original Hebrew language, is using a word that means a bright light, and metaphorically represents and illustrates the apparent power of the Babylonian king, but a power, which then faded. In the Hebrew text (language), the expression used to describe the Babylonian king before his death is Helal, son of Shahar, which translates to "Day star son of the Dawn."
The word “Lucifer” is a Latin name, which in Roman astronomy was the name given to the morning star that we now call Venus, also from Latin. This ‘morning star’ appears in the heavens just before dawn, heralding the rising sun. The name “Lucifer” derives from the Latin term ‘lucem ferre’, bringer or bearer of light.
The scholars who were authorised by King James I to translate the Bible into current English, did not use the original Hebrew texts, but used versions translated from Hebrew into Latin by St. Jerome and called the Latin Vulgate Bible (4th Century). Jerome had translated correctly the Hebrew word for, "Day star, son of the Dawn," as "Lucifer," because in Latin at that time, "Lucifer" was the word used for what we now call the planet Venus, which was/is observed, as a morning star. The word “Lucifer”, was not equated with the word Satan until after Jerome’s translation, which was then misinterpreted. So, Jerome wasn't in error, but later Christian (and Mormon) translations were in equating "Lucifer" with "Satan". So over the centuries a metamorphosis (transformation or transmutation) has taken place and the word “Lucifer”, the ‘morning star’, has now become synonymous for a ‘disobedient angel’ that has been cast out of heaven to rule eternally in hell.
Theologians, writers, and poets have taken this misinterpretation of the word “Lucifer” and transformed it into the mythical story and erroneous ‘doctrine’ of ‘The Fall’. So now, the word “Lucifer”, means the same as the misinterpreted meanings of the words Satan, Devil, and Prince of Darkness. Subsequent christian scholars and scribes, writing in the Latin, which was used at that time by the Church, have intentionally, or unintentionally decided for themselves that this story is about a fallen angel. But this creature the “Fallen Angel” is not even mentioned in the original Hebrew text, but nonetheless has ‘conveniently’ been given the name "Lucifer". However, only the King James Version now still uses the word “Lucifer” in the text of Isaiah 14:12.
Other Holy Scriptures and the Qu’ran (Koran)
Importantly, some of these same guiding principles that would allow us to read and interpret the verses of Scripture in the Bible with increased accuracy and clarity would also apply to the readings and interpretation of the writings of other ancient ‘Holy Scriptures’ in existence today. These ‘Holy Scriptures’ have been written with their contextual stories, laws and rules that provide the foundational impetus for the intellectual, behavioural and emotional climate of a believing people that can fertilise the seeds of innate spiritual desires and needs, and the attitudinal climate that incubates and nurtures the ongoing culture, theology and philosophy of a people. These beliefs and behaviors, in turn, continue to drive many of the diverse religions and faiths existing in the world experienced and lived by humans today. And so similar to the influence Christianity has had on the western world so Islam has impacted on Eastern Civilisation over the last 1300 years in relation to the values, beliefs, perceptions, perspectives, laws and policies that have been framed, shaped and driven by Islamic philosophy based on Muhammad and the Koran.
The Qu’ran (Koran) is the holy book of Islam, which was/ is said to been revealed to Mohammed in 616 AD through an angel called Jibra’el (Gabriel). Mohammed was born in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, and revered as a Middle Eastern Arabic prophet. Muhammad traveled extensively and, is very likely to have been familiar with the city of Jerusalem, as well as both the Old and New Testament writings of the Bible. Indeed, the Aramaic language was widely used between Jerusalem and Saudi Arabia in those times, just as the three wise men (or kings, or magi as they were also known) spoke the same language as Jesus, but came from Babylon (now known as Iraqi) in the East. To put the writing date of the Qu’ran into perspective, the Qu’ran was penned about 400 years after the collation of the writings of the New Testament Gospels and Letters, and many more centuries after the writing of the Old Testament.
The contents of the Qu’ran are said to been given to Muhammad through the revelation of an angel called Jibra’el. The Qu’ran consists of 114 Chapters or Suras, and has striking literary similarities and semantic resemblances to both the Old and New Testaments of the Bible, although the Qu’ran is a smaller book. In light of this knowledge, it is perhaps not surprising that Abraham of the Old Testament is the focus of attention in Sura 14 of the Qu’ran. Also, Jesus’ mother, Mary (Miriam) of the New Testament is addressed 33 times in the Qu’ran. The Qu’ran also is remarkably comparable to the Bible in that it relies heavily on an emphasis and preoccupation of violence, punishment and hell as a threatening lever for the driving motivational force to instill a particular belief and subsequent reform, conformation and obedience. The Qu’ran comprises of 114 chapters, which within are 97 verses dedicated to the threat of hell and 171 verses dedicated to the potential experience and threat of punishment.
For example in Chapter (Sura) 2 Verse 206, we read:
“And when it is said to him, guard against the punishment of Allah; pride carries him off to sin, therefore hell is sufficient for him; and certainly it is an evil resting place.”
In Sura 3 Verse 12 we read:
“Say to those who disbelieve: You shall be vanquished, and driven together to hell; and evil is the resting-place.”
Sura 3 Verse 77:
“(As for) those who take a small price for the covenant of Allah and their own oaths-- surely they shall have no portion in the hereafter, and Allah will not speak to them, nor will He look upon them on the day of resurrection nor will He purify them, and they shall have a painful chastisement”.
Sura 3 Verse 86:
“How shall Allah guide a people who disbelieved after their believing and (after) they had borne witness that the Apostle was true and clear arguments had come to them; and Allah does not guide…the…unjust…people”.
Sura 3 Verse 90:
“Surely, those who disbelieve after their believing, then increase in unbelief, their repentance shall not be accepted, and these are they that…go…astray”.
Sura 3 Verse 91:
“Surely, those who disbelieve and die while they are unbelievers, the earth full of gold shall not be accepted from one of them, though he should offer to ransom himself with it, these it is who shall have a painful chastisement, and they shall have no helpers”.
Sura 3 Verse 162:
“Is then he who follows the pleasure of Allah like him who has made himself deserving of displeasure from Allah, and his abode is hell; and it is an evil destination”.
Sura 3 Verses 196-197 we read:
“(As for) those who disbelieve, surely neither their wealth nor their children shall avail them in the least against Allah; and these are the inmates of the fire; therein they shall abide. A little enjoyment and they shall have a punishment.”
In Sura 4 Verse 93, we read:
“And whoever kills a believer intentionally, his punishment is hell; he shall abide in it, and Allah
will send His wrath on him and curse him and prepare for him a painful chastisement.”
In Sura 4 Verse 121, we read:
“These are they whose abode is hell, and they shall not find any refuge from it.”
In Sura 4 Verse 169:
“Except the path of hell, to abide in it for ever, and this is easy to Allah.”
In Sura 7 Verse 4, we read:
“And how many a town that we destroyed so our punishment came to it by night, or while they
slept at midday.”
Sura 7 Verse 41 reads:
“They shall have a bed of hell-fire and from above them coverings of it; and thus do we reward
the unjust.”
Sura 8 Verse 50:
“And had you seen when the angels will cause to die those who disbelieve, smiting their faces and
their backs, and saying: Taste the punishment of burning.”
Sura 9 Verse 6 reads:
“Allah has promised the hypocritical men and the hypocritical women and the unbelievers the fire
of hell to abide therein; it is enough for them; and Allah has cursed them and they shall have
lasting punishment.”
In Sura 3 Verse 67 we read:
“Ibrahim (Abraham) was not a Jew, nor a Christian, but he was (an) upright (man), a Muslim, and he was not one of the polytheists”
Sura 3 Verse 85 reads:
“If anyone desires a religion other than Islam, never will it be accepted of him; and in the Hereafter he will be in the ranks of those who have lost all spiritual good”.
Sura 5 Verse 51:
“O you who believe! do not take the Jews and the Christians for friends; they are friends of each other; and whoever amongst you takes them for a friend, then surely he is one of them; surely Allah does not guide the unjust people”.
Sura 5 Verse 72:
“They do blaspheme who say: "Allah is Christ the son of Mary." But said Christ: "O Children of Israel! Worship Allah, my Lord and your Lord". Whoever joins other gods with Allah - Allah will forbid him the GARDEN, and the Fire will be his abode”.
Sura 9 Verse 30:
“And the Jews say: Uzair is the son of Allah; and the Christians say: The Messiah is the son of Allah; these are the words of their mouths; they imitate the saying of those who disbelieved before; may Allah destroy them; how they are turned away”!
To the ‘faith’ believing reader, these ‘holy’ scripture verses contain literature that appear to consist of a complement of specific words and statements dictating harsh and vitriolic sentiments that threaten ‘physical’ violence, including the ultimate punishment, eternal hell. The collation and collaboration of these frightening verses, are obviously calculated to inflict the inducement of maximum fear on the believer, enforcing strict adherence and obedience to the rules and laws of these particular religious faiths. These intimidating verses of laws and rules are used to induce the manipulation of specific behaviours by using the leverage of personal fear from the threats of ‘physical’ violence and spiritual damnation.
Indeed, the threat of calculated punishment and hell towards those followers, believers and nonbelievers who do not comply with or are not obedient to the structured framework of ‘spiritual’ regulations required by the particular faiths of these religions. Of course this intimidating and threatening ‘physical’ and spiritual modus of operandi to achieve specific and particular behaviours in relation to the compliance and obedience to the dogma and creeds of religions and their ‘spiritual’ leaders occurs in many other beliefs, faiths and religions. But in contradistinction to the above verses, the following writing illustrates a more benign and constructive message.
But again, in stark contrast to the above potentially belligerent, judgemental and counter constructive religious scripture messages, we have a more user-friendly verse that attempts to describe a ‘God’ that ‘is loving’ towards believers of different faiths and religions:
Sura 3 Verse 89:
“Except those who repent after that and amend, then surely Allah is…Forgiving…Merciful”.
Sura 3 Verse 129:
“And whatever is in the heavens and whatever is in the earth is Allah's; He forgives whom He pleases and chastises whom He pleases; and Allah is Forgiving, Merciful”.
Sura 3 Verse 134 reads:
“Those who spend (benevolently) in ease as well as in straitness, and those who restrain (their) anger and pardon men; and Allah loves the doers of good (to others)”
Sura 2 Verse 62, which reads:
“Surely those who believe, and those who are Jews, and the Christians, and the Sabians, whoever believes in Allah and the Last day and does good, they shall have their reward from their Lord, and there is no fear for them, nor shall they grieve”.
In the next example we have several verses alluding to Mary as being the virgin mother of the Messiah (the anointed one):
Sura 3 Verses 42-47:
“And when the angels said: O Marium! surely Allah has chosen you and purified you and chosen you above the women of the world. When the angels said: O Marium, surely Allah gives you good news with a Word from Him (of one) whose name is the Messiah, Isa son of Marium, worthy of regard in this world and the hereafter and of those who are made near (to Allah). She said: My Lord! When shall there be a son (born) to I me, and man has not touched me? He said: Even so, Allah creates what He pleases; when He has decreed a matter, He only says to it, Be, and it is”.
The following verses, with similarity to the Old Testament of the Bible, describe the time it took Allah (God, Creator) to create the Universe:
Sura 7 Verse 54:
“Surely your guardian-Lord is Allah. Who created the heavens and the earth in six periods of time”.
Sura 10 Verse 3:
“Verily your Lord is Allah, who created the heavens and the earth in six periods”.
Sura 11 Verse 7:
“He it is Who created the heavens and the earth in six periods”.
These verses are, in general, further evidence of the spiritual literary contradictions of holy scriptures and the need to interpret positively scripture as a whole.
Misinterpretation of such verses can easily turn to weapons creating potential damage by eliciting negative misinformation from the literal interpretation of ‘holy’ and ‘sacred’ writings. These verses clearly indicate an illustration of the incongruent and contradictory nature of the messages conveyed in such scripture and allude to the possession of similarities in relation to other scriptures, including those of the Bible.
We will explore how this seemingly gratuitous extravagant emphasis on violence, punishment and hell in both the Bible and the Qu’ran, and also implicitly advocated through the notions and concepts of ‘Karma’ and ‘Reincarnation’, can never ever be attributed to being the messages and words that come from the mind and will of a Creator. From a creator who is mystical, creative, intelligent, unconditionally loving, compassionate and merciful.
Moreover, to attribute the threat of such potential realities as ‘physical’ and psychological violence, and such spiritual images as eternal punishment and damnation in Hell with Satan, to ‘God’, to the Creator, will, by association, unjustly and unfairly portray ‘God’ the Creator as a vindictive, angry, belligerent and violent Super Natural Being. This would reduce the Super Natural Being to a Creator and ‘God’ who’s quality of mystical relational love with the created is solely defined in essence by a value that is predicated on the quantity and quality of human ‘goodness’ and/ or ‘badness’. That is in turn, judged and measured by the notion and concept of being ‘right’ and/ or ‘wrong’. Such portrayal of the Creator can only produce in humans a mindset and mentality that incites human-to-human ‘physical’, psychological and spiritual violence and abuse that ultimately manifests in the real expression of personal prejudice, judgment, fear, disharmony, arrogance, pride and violence.
Nevertheless, the interpretation of Scripture verses, will never be entirely satisfactorily completed. New experiences and challenges at every stage of our generational and human lifecycle of experience will inevitably bring to light new insights and meanings about the value, need and reason for Sacred Scripture in the world. Thus, there will be new and evolving interpretations and meanings in Scripture to grapple with, to internalize and appropriately apply to our experiences as we continue to evolve and grow individually as human beings and collectively as a community, nation and international world.
More Similarities than Differences between Religions
We have discussed many contradictions with religions and differences between religions. There are many more core and intrinsic similarities between all the religions, than there are inherent differences. Personally, I think it is helpful to acknowledge and celebrate the similarities between and within religions because this builds the sense and experience of cohesiveness, which brings humans closer together rather than alienating them and making enemies of them. This religious ‘sameness’ and inclusiveness will demonstrate our ‘brotherhood’ and ‘sisterhood’ for each other as human beings who carry the need for personal goals such as the requirement for self-improvement and immortality of the Self – that is to eternally exist after one’s anatomical death. So lets discuss the similarities and differences between religions.
Firstly, in Christian religion, its founder, Jesus Christ, was the only ‘person’ who claimed to be the Son of God observed and described to have performed many miracles, including raising the anatomical dead back to life again. The 2000 year old ‘Catholic Church’ is said to have been the first ‘Christian’ church with its succeeding denominations of Christian churches splitting from Catholic genesis. The Christian churches or Christian denominations that split from the first church were initiated, administered and ministered by imperfect humans. But all these imperfect humans with negative innate traits to transgress, be selfish, greedy and exploit others may still provide to all humanity, believers or not, Christian or not, contributions to peoples of the world.
The universal contributions to the world, by these groups of ‘religious’ people, may be described in the following way. Over the months, decades, centuries, and millenniums of time and space, the imperfect - Christian religion - has connected with the perfect – Christ. Christian religions with their association to Christ, have over the past 2000 years, connected the imperfect with perfect. So the Universal Christian Churches have connected in an imperfect way the person they are founded upon and revere - Jesus Christ the Son of God. The Christian churches contribute to communities and society, because although being imperfect, their continued presence and existence in the world connect the experience of all past, present and future humans with the memory of The Christ. But sadly, for many, the memory of Christ and Christ’s teachings have been misinterpreted and distorted causing disharmony and bloodshed throughout the ages. But overlaying disharmony and bloodshed, Christian churches have, over the past 2000 years connected in a spiritually memorial and practical fashion, Christ, with people living in the past, present and future, whether conscious or a unaware of this connection. On top of these connections, it must be remembered that Christ was born, died, rose and ascended, for all peoples of the world, past, present and future.
So, through Christ, the ‘conscious spiritual infinite’ has celestially and transcendently been connected with the ‘physical’ finite. Christians will proclaim that the eternal, infinite, immortal, unique, independent and sovereign Creator who always was and who always will be, has now been consciously and transcendently connected in a ‘spiritual-relational way’ with the infinite, immortal, unique, independent and sovereign created entity of the human being. So Christ’s historically earthly, and present heavenly presence, now in a spiritually-material fashion, disseminates his perfect and intrinsic essence of compassion, mercy, justice and forgiveness towards the potentiality of compassion, mercy, justice and forgiveness that human beings will follow and so act towards one another.
Now we must be mindful, without prejudice or favour, without arrogance or pride, the Christian church must take its place alongside and with all religions of the world. Religions, that by definition and practice, all deliver their own brand of particular rituals, beliefs and traditions but which have very similar goals. These are the human goals that anticipate and hope to achieve, as a destination, the personal experience of self-improvement, peace, happiness and immortality. These are goals that unquestionably humans admit and confess to desiring as an innate and intrinsic personal happening. Indeed, these are the experiences that all humans anticipate and desire to occur at anatomical death. That is, that their consciousness, self and personhood, with all that these comprise, will live immortally and infinitely even though their physical body dies. These desires would be generic for most if not all humans no matter race, creed or colour.
Moreover, within the barrow of diverse religions there include multiple denominations of Christians, Buddhists, Hindus, and Muslims, all with varying forms, degrees and extremities of beliefs etc. These diverse religions, through their own unique experiences, traditions, rituals, faiths and beliefs are commutatively, ultimately directed towards understanding more deeply the idea and reality about the existence and nature of a Supreme Being juxtaposed with living life, and life after death. This is, after anatomical death, when the structure and functions of the atom-energy of the body dies (changes in form, structure and function), the person continues onwards with their consciousness, memory, experiences and awareness, in another place, and in another dimension to the universe as we now know it.
Of course, the various religions of the world use different rituals, traditions, beliefs and ideas to encapsulate the transcendent concept universally imbibed by humans to understand themselves, life, the universe, and life after death. This process of transcendent understanding undertaken is often kick started and propelled along by the ingestion of the material content from the different religions which people fervently belong to. As described, most religions ascribe to similar goals. These are personal universal goals that relate to understanding the complexities and unknown’s of immortality and the continued consciousness of Self, including achieving personal improvements in all the aspects that make up the Self. An example of such personal improvements would include the expression of platonic love, reconciliation and compassion in day–to-day interpersonal communications and interactions with each another.
Most religions have a ‘spiritual’ modus operandi of personally working through one’s challenges in this world and improving Self through discovering and then acknowledging personal strengths and weaknesses and benignly adjusting and changing as required for self-improvement. Most religions adhere to the belief that in the next world we will experience a personal sense of infinite and perfect wellbeing, happiness and satisfaction after reflecting on our actions, thoughts and feelings that we have expressed negatively towards others in life on earth. Reflecting on our responses and actions towards other human’s perse, and their feelings and thoughts will define our past interactions with others, and any pain we have caused we will experience allowing us to acknowledge and lament on our behaviour and its consequences. We thus become more aware and conscious of ourselves as unique individual sovereign beings, who have the ability to improve ourselves. And this is a form of spiritual personal purging and ‘purification’.
So there are many similarities between the different religions and their ultimate goals. However there are many differences in the ritualistic, ideological, philosophical, and theological aspects and elements that make up the ‘machinery’ of the different religions.
Although there are the commonalities between religions that describe the definition of most religions perse, this does not mean that religions have not become tainted, or contaminated or institutionalised over time. Just as there are theological and practical distortions and contaminations etc., and extremes, cults and spin offs in the broader ‘Christian’ church, there are also ‘extremist’, ‘cult’ and ‘spin offs’ in other religions that distort their intrinsic and unique ability to find and experience the essence of truth they so desire. Of course there is absolute Truth and personal ‘Truth’, both are elusive entities, but personal Truth may be described as being the personal consciousness and awareness that ultimately leads to ones personal understanding of Self, perse, both independently and dependently in relation to the Supreme Being.
Moreover, not only are there many similarities between religions, there are also many diverse and different ways that religious institutions go about achieving their universal goals of self improvement and understanding and achieving immortality. For example, many non-Christian religions believe in the process called reincarnation - in all of its different forms – said to achieve personal purification and enlightenment through ‘good works’ and meditation. Followers of different forms of reincarnation believe that purification of the Self is achieved either here on earth, or in the ‘other world’. Reincarnation is believed by some to be a ‘spiritual’ vehicle, that allows a person who anatomically dies, to come back to earth as some kind of plant, animal, or human situated in a ‘better’ or ‘worse’ status, dependant on the quality of their past life in terms of being and doing ‘good’ or ‘bad’.
Most religions that adhere to reincarnation as a form of purification use the concept of ‘karma’ as being the punishment or reward for the ‘good’ or ‘bad’ behaviours, thus being a natural ‘cause and effect’ way or transcendent spiritual machinery being the motivation for improving Self. This is, experiencing a higher or lower level of consciousness. So if one has lead a ‘bad’ previous or present life a person will be punished, and on the other hand, one will be rewarded for living a ‘good’ life. One of the downsides of the belief in karma is that it is open to abuse. That is, it is ok to abuse those who are poor, disabled, or disadvantaged because their punishment is ‘deserved’ and because they have lived a ‘bad’ life in the past or present life. On the other hand, these believers ‘look up’ to those who are healthy, rich and successful as being their rewards for living a ‘good’ life in the previous and present one. We do not have to be rocket scientists to realise that these associations made between a person’s existing status in life and their ‘good’ or ‘bad’ behaviour in the past or present life are not necessarily absolutely connected.
It is ignorant to believe that everything ‘bad’ that happens to a person, can with certainty, be relegated to the ‘bin of punishment’, for a particular ‘set’ or singular ‘bad’ acts. For example, you surely cannot arbitrarily and judgementally relegate to the ‘bin of punishment’ the person who gets terminally ill, or who dies from cancer, or who killed by a drunk driver, or whose business collapses, or who loses their job, or the child who dies from drowning, or run over, or the child who was harmed by their parents. These tragic acts, by themselves, and independently, by their very nature, explain and describe how such tragic events cannot be blamed to have been caused by an individuals ‘bad’ behaviour. Sadly, this is the concept, ideology and philosophy that defines the meaning of karma.
Within this belief system of reincarnation, destructive judgements of others are often made justifiable because of the belief in reincarnation that karma drives and dictates to whom or what one comes back to earth as. And one comes back to earth to experience a higher or lower status and consciousness depending on their past or present behaviour being, ‘good’ or bad’. Karma is the concept within the system of reincarnation that evaluates and dictates when and how you will die, and to what you will return to earth as. If you have transgressed in your past life, it is believed that you will come back to earth with a lower status and consciousness, and if having attained certain level of enlightenment one will return to earth with higher level of status and consciousness. The ‘entity of karma’ determines whether you will return to earth ‘punished’, or ‘rewarded’. The idea of ‘punishment’ in Karma is about ‘the purification’ of the person who has lived a previous ‘bad life’, and through the ‘cleansing’ of punishment, becomes a better person.
Other religions have other concepts believed transcendently designed to achieve the human goals of self-purification and immortality. Christians – rightly or wrongly – believe in the transcendent entities of hell and purgatory that allow Self, the person, to reflect on both their individual level of virtuous contributions whilst living in the world, as well as their degree of indiscretions, and by doing so, more fully attaining awareness of their potential as sovereign, independent and unique beings. Of course, those who believe in a ‘hell’ would say that you are there to suffer in pain forever. On the other hand some followers of Christianity would describe purgatory as being the spiritual process that invokes the purification and purging of transgressions through personal Self reflection, increased awareness, and as a result of this, Self improvement. And who wouldn’t want to be a better person in the presence of the Supreme Being and all our friends, and relatives etc., who have also passed to the ‘other side’. For many religions this ability to purify self occurs after anatomical death, as Self remains on the ‘other side’ rather than travelling back and forth to and from earth as in reincarnation. So the goals of personal purification in terms of becoming a ‘better person’, and achieving personal immortality of consciousness, etc., are indeed the central goals that most religions have in common.
Similarities in religions also, sadly, include an appalling record in human rights, ethics and moral violations. It is an abomination to the word of God and Allah, and to sovereign spiritual human beings, that there exits forms of human violations in the name of religion, Allah, and God. These horrific human violations in the name of religious and cultural rituals, include the depraved acts of female circumcision and bashings that exist in many parts of Africa (Somalia), India and Pakistan, etc and often practised in the name of Hinduism and Islam. Human aberrations in the name of religion and culture also include the diabolical acts of ‘honour killings’ which occurs when females are mercilessly killed by their families for perceived acts of ‘dishonouring their families’ through ‘infidelity’, and dowry issues. ‘Honour killings’ and circumcision are acts driven by religious and cultural rituals normally enforced by male dominance and which also manifest in the general oppression of women throughout the world. Christianity has not been immune from such abominations either.
Abominable acts carried out under the name of religion also include the murderous suicide bombings that we often see used as the weapons of choice in Islam’s Jihad. ‘Jihad’ is the name Muslims use for the potential and real wars Islam wages against any culture and religion in the world that is not Islam. Different religions, cultures and ideologies throughout the world can be viewed as a threat to Islam disseminating their beliefs and practices worldwide. All these religious abominations, are, sadly, current today, but it is hoped that spiritual commonsense and awareness, guided by a conscious spiritual truth from meditation and informed knowledge will prevail throughout the globe, blowing away hate and disharmony and imbibing a new tide of peace, inclusiveness and harmony across humanity.
These flawed distortions and aberrations within religions are often not the original ‘criteria’ and ‘rules’ of a belief system or religion that you have decided to belong to. This is, a belief system that has undoubtedly evolved through time and so may have originated with ‘contaminations’ or evolved with distortions – as does a Chinese whisper. So you experience the current beliefs and ideologies but you may also have the luxury of learning about the legitimate history of the Faith to that to which you have decided to belong to, thus giving you more informed knowledge and understanding of the origins and evolutions of the religion and belief system you have chosen to belong. But distortions and contaminations of any original ‘truths’ may have evolved slowly within the different cultures and traditions that encompass a religion. Sometimes the original rules, principles, and criteria forming the basis and framework of a religion or belief system may be the result of the activities of a ‘prophet’, or charismatic person which activities may include personal pride, opportunism and the need for personal power. They may have also, in part, have been plagiarised from other ancient religions and belief systems.
Because of the inadequacies and imperfections of belief systems – because, by definition, humans are imperfect at remembering and interpreting - ones belief in a particular faith and religion should not be an absolute belief in all that is written and spoken about that particular religion. And definitely, ones beliefs should not hang on the personal feeling that one’s belief is perfectly ‘right’ or ‘good’. Or a belief that is about being personally proud, arrogant or having a sense of exclusiveness about their religion with regard to other religions. Because having an attitude that ones religion is the perfect and ‘right’ religion automatically puts other religions in the position of being ‘wrong’, evil, and or ‘bad’. So ones beliefs should also include celebrating one’s awareness that all religions are vehicles for worshipping and understanding Self and Self in relation to the universe and Creator, including understanding more the invisible spiritual intricacies and dynamics of Self and Self’s consciousness and awareness. Including acknowledging self’s strengths and inevitably any weaknesses that need adjusting, changing and working on in relation to Self towards Self and others in the world.
More about Comparative Religious Beliefs
The word Karma is an ancient word meaning ‘for the fruits of.action’. In Hinduism, Karma is often about retribution, vengeance, punishment or reward. The pure meaning of Karma simply deals with what is. Karma is an extension of natural universal acts. The effects of karma potentially experienced are also believed to be mitigated by actions, and are not necessarily fateful. This means that a particular action now, does not bind you to some particular, pre-determined future experiences or reactions; it is not a simple, one-to-one correspondence of reward/ punishment or an ‘eye for an eye. Because Hinduism originated from the culture and tribes of ancient Indian peoples, the meaning of words such as karma have been given interpretations with more menacing and self-serving meanings.
In general, religious and cultural terms the effects of deeds, actively create past, present and future experiences. This makes one responsible for one’s own life, and the pain and joy it may bring to others. Of course, this is a limited simplistic concept of life lived because life is lived in very complex ways, often dictated by the environment, family, community and government interventions that may dramatically stifle one’s choices.
However, in the religion of Buddhism there is no outside intervention from God as there is with Hinduism. In Buddhism most types of karmas, with good or bad results, will keep one within the wheel of ‘sansara’- the cycle of reincarnation – other actions conceived will produce ‘seeds’ that sprout into the appropriate result that liberates one to nirvana. The idea of karma is related to the personal motivation behind an action. When full enlightenment is achieved, or when one becomes a ‘Buddha’ one is not influenced or controlled by the notion of reincarnation, but achieves nirvana or a state of perfect wellbeing where reincarnation ceases to be.
Nirvana is a mode of being free from what are called personal defilements of lust, anger, ill will, aversion, greed, jealousy, conceit, hatred, fear, sensual desire, obsession, passion, irritation, distraction, vengeance, depression, anxiety, worry, doubt, restlessness and clinging to the body etc. of which there are different levels and degrees. But meditation through the process of jhana is about auditing such personal defilements through internal investigation, analysing, and experiencing and understanding the true nature of each defilement through applied and directed thought, sustained thought, neutral feeling and one-pointedness achieved through instigating the fixation of the mind on the meditation object to eliminate and reduce the defilements. Higher attainments in the scale of concentration and consciousness include the dimension of the infinity of space, infinity of consciousness, dimension of nothingness and the dimension of neither perception nor non-perception.
Over time these meditations eventuate in a state of great inner peace and contentment, and one which is of “the highest happiness”, Enlightenment and Nirvana. That is, not a sense-based happiness but an enduring transcendental happiness of the highest spiritual attainment. It is one of ‘deathlessness’ and calmness attained through Enlightenment. Nirvana is the domain of the True Self. This is, a state constituting the attainment of what is “Eternal, the Self, Bliss, and the Pure”.
Enlightenment dissolves the causes that keep beings forever wandering through realms of desire and form. This concept in terms of Christian beliefs would compare with an individual moving through, after anatomical death, to the cleansing place they call purgatory and in heaven with spiritual bliss. Described simply, depending on one’s degree of virtuous living on earth will determine the level of ‘pain’ experienced through one’s self-reflection when one ‘passes over’. If one has lived a virtuous life this is akin to becoming pure and thus a ‘Buddha’, and so, closer to the experience of enlightenment and the Creator.
But Buddhists believe in the ‘purity’ and contentment of self as the ultimate goal and immortality as being not to far removed from Christian belief. The author believes these entities and elements are inherently interwoven. So as with most religions, different terms describe different paths to self improvement and immortality, but which paths ultimately all lead to the same destination. Indeed in Hindu passage – Rig Veda 1. 164. 46c, it states, “The truth is one the wise call it by many names”. On the other hand, the Hindu sect of Vaishnava believes that spiritual liberation can only be obtained through submission to God in the form of Vishnu.
Moreover, Buddhism understands karma as an inherent principle of cause and effect manifest from the actions of the individual without the intervention of a Supernatural Being. Most Christian and Western religions understand God dispensing the deserved reward or punishment when Self passes to the “other side”. This reward and punishment concept from God, is, however, becoming obsolete in terms of the new generation of thought where one’s Self reflects on one’s life both in ‘this’ world and after anatomical death resulting in one experiencing the happiness or pain one has produced for others on earth.
This reflective experience then is either more or less congruent or incongruent with the knowledge of Truth of ‘God’s’ unconditional love, and determines one’s required degree and need for self-improvement.. Other Christians believe in the earthly cause and effect response – ‘what you sow you shall reap’ – but which is qualified by the commandments of the behaviours of ‘compassion and forgiveness’. This is in addition, as discussed above, to Self reflecting on one’s life regarding both transgressive and virtuous behaviours, and learning from any pain and suffering caused or pleasure and respect given to others.
In Christian, Western and Eastern religions the religious and spiritual purpose, destination, and goals are similar where the ultimate desire and goals are to reach a state of perfection and spiritual deathlessness. Immortality and eternity means that after death the individual does not age, does not die, and does not perish. So religions ultimately carry the same goals with different paths and this is no less truer for those belief systems that contain elements of extremism, which by definition, means their path is corrupt and distorted and open to abuse.
But belief in a religion or no religion does not exclude one from the fruits of desire and goals of self-improvement, happiness and immortality. But one gains internal conscious and unconscious knowledge from the information disseminated through people and the media regarding the beliefs, structures and frameworks of different religions.
Indeed, many Hindus venerate scriptures of other religions because it is believed that the ‘One Divinity’ can reveal itself in infinite ways. Of Hinduism the experience of divinity is the only thing that can give self true peace, happiness and salvation from suffering and ignorance. Many have heard of the pop culture ‘Yoga’, but Yoga in Hinduism describes Yoga as the different methods to achieve the spiritual goal of life.
For example:
The religion of Hindu believes reincarnation continues between a pleasant and unpleasant rebirth until over the cause of time a person sufficiently purifies the mind and intellect to attain the goal of life which is to experience the highest truth about God. Reincarnation is called Samsara according to the Vedic texts. This is, being bound to the cycle of repeated birth and death through numerous lifetimes. The soul is immortal, while the body is subject to birth and death. A person desires to be reborn because he/she wants to enjoy worldly pleasures.
Hinduism teaches that worldly pleasures can never bring deep, lasting happiness or peace. Once a person realises their own divine nature, realises that the true self is the immortal soul rather than the body or the ego, all desires for the pleasures of the world vanish. This breaks the cycle of reincarnation and thus one attains the state of Nirvana. Hindu practice seeks to increase a person’s awareness of the divinity that is present everywhere and in everything. The more a devotee can think holy thoughts, the sooner he/she can purify his or her mind. Seeing the Supreme Being in firstly in one thing and then another.
CHAPTER 5
TRUTH IS STRANGER
THAN FANTASY
Did the Creator become Human?
American Astronaut James Erwin
Was Christ’s Coming Foretold?
Who Is Jesus of Nazareth?
Is Jesus Christ Also ‘God’?
Jesus’ Claims of Being the Son of ‘God’
Jesus Christ Rising from the Dead
The Logical, Psychological and Philosophical Strategy
Did the Creator become Human?
We have in part so far discussed information revealed to us by way of Natural Revelation. This is information from human reason and intellect in relation to the deduction of knowledge from the scientific knowledge regarding the entities of the universe. From logical and rational deduction from this information, we may now be increasing further the contemplation of the incredible and amazing features of creation. For those of us that have been cautiously skeptical we may possibly be starting to consider in believing that a Creator may need to exist for life its self to exist. But has this Creator personally revealed Himself to human kind here on this planet through supernatural revelation? Amazingly, the evidence suggests that the answer to this question maybe yes. The Creator has possibly revealed Himself through the incarnation, by becoming a human, by becoming a man, a man called Jesus Christ. Christ is the Greek word for “the anointed one” and Messiah is the Hebrew word for “the anointed one”. Based on historical evidence, the person called Jesus of Nazareth really did exist about 2000 years ago. If we can believe that a Creator created the universe then we could believe that this Creator could also come to Earth in the form of a human or any other form for that matter. If we can cognitively and emotionally accept the historical facts about the possibility of the person Jesus Christ, truly existing. And if we can cognitively and emotionally relate to the notion that a Creator of the universe would find nothing IT willed impossible. Then it would be true to say, that any perceived discrepancy, and the only potential ambiguity and question remaining today, regarding the person Jesus Christ, would be about whether He really was/ is the Son of ‘God’, that is, the Son of the Creator. So the defining question is whether or not Jesus Christ really is ‘God’ incarnate”. Instead of questioning whether the person Jesus Christ actually did or did not exist.
It is said that Jesus Christ was and still is both fully and completely human, and fully and completely Divine. It is said that the Creator came into this world as a human being, one of us, for humans to see Him experience first hand, human consciousness of emotions, thoughts and relationships. The Creator came into this world to demonstrate solidarity with the reality and sacredness of human dignity and sovereignty and the human experiences of sadness, happiness, fear, joy, grief and death. The Creator came into this world to show us the power of interpersonal relational love, compassion and reconciliation. He came into 'our' human world to show and inform us of whom He, the Creator, really is, and to make aware and inform us of the potentially destructive nature of human base instincts associated with gratuitous damaging choices made by humans as a result their freewill. He came into this world to declare His desire for an interpersonal relationship. He came into this world to pay the dues for all humans, to pay debts incurred through the human imperfect condition, to fully, and perfectly, justify all peoples in the Divine eyes, heart and soul of the Creator. For all have transgressed and fallen short of the glory of ‘God’ thereby the necessity of opening up the Creator’s kingdom to all the peoples of the world. The Creator came to planet Earth so that humans could experience the resurrection and thus confidence in their personal eternity and immortality.
Secular scholars and historians agree unequivocally on the existence of Jesus Christ of Nazareth nearly 2,000 years ago as an historical figure, a historical fact of those early times. It is contemporary knowledge that Jesus Christ existed as a historical figure, equally as much as it is known other famous historical and ancient figures existed, including Buddha, Socrates, Plato, Pontius Pilot, Constantine, Augustine and Mohammed, to mention only a few famous and colourful figures from the past. Famous people from the past, whose contributions and influences to the world have been carried down to us through the ages, through history and through the centuries of time.
Secular historical evidence of the existence of Jesus Christ includes; Cornelius Tacitus the Roman Historian who was Governor of Asia Minor in 112AD described the Emperor Nero’s persecution of Christians in Rome, “Christus, from whom they got their name had been executed by sentence of the prosecutor Pontius Pilate when Tiberius was Emperor”. Dr. Steve Kumar looks at the historical figure of Jesus from another perspective in his book, Answering the Counterfeit (1992). The fact is, how could Jesus have even been a great moral teacher or prophet let alone the Son of God if he was lying about the nature of his true being? If the man they called Jesus of Nazareth was wrong on the most pivotal and crucial area of his life he could hardly have been a great moral teacher and prophet and all the writings of the Gospels would be pointless. Indeed, if Jesus Christ wasn’t in fact the Son of God as purported by his disciples that he claimed to be, he must have been either a liar or intellectually and/or psychologically ‘challenged’. Thus, the entire writings of the New Testament would be fanciful and based on fiction. Furthermore, if the disciples, writers, and authors, of the New Testament had lied, or been misquoted, or mistaken, about what Jesus had said and taught with regard to being the Son of God, then the entire New Testament and the two thousand year old Christian movement, with its billion followers, would be based on nothing but error and folly.
These statements and concepts provide us with a significant and profound intellectual quandary. Is it not true that we must either believe that Jesus of Nazareth had to be a liar or intellectually or psychologically disabled or he was misquoted or his disciples lied about what he said or we must believe that Jesus must have been the Son of God. That is, Jesus Christ did rise from the dead, and was and is God, and God was and is Jesus Christ?
The American Astronaut James Erwin
The American astronaut James Erwin, who was one of the first humans to travel deep into outer space, and set foot on the moon said, on his return to Earth, and after seeing creation from a new perspective. "The greatest event in history was not when man was able to travel deep into outer space and walk on the moon, but when God Himself walked on this Earth." This is a profound statement from one with the opportunity to view the earth and universe objectively from the depths of outer space. We may discover that we too could find that statement difficult to disagree with as we continue to explore the reality of God becoming man through the historical figure Jesus Christ – God incarnate.
Jesus Christ is the name of a man who most people on Earth have heard of. We may have all heard about Jesus Christ even if only through the cursing of His name from someone’s mouth and lips, or we have heard of Him through the media, or from friends and relations about the festive celebration of Christmas and Easter.
Was Christ’s Coming Foretold?
Interestingly enough it appears that some of the ‘prophets’ and writers of the Old Testament may have foretold, through the gifts of spiritual insight, the coming of God, the coming of the Messiah in future times through and as a human being, centuries before the actual event of the birth of Jesus Christ.
Verses in the Old Testament that foretold Christ’s coming, include Isaiah 53: 1-12:
“Like a sapling he grew up in front of us,
Like a root in arid ground.
Without beauty, without majesty (we saw him),
No looks to attract our eyes;
A thing despised and rejected by men,
A man of sorrows and familiar with suffering,
A man to make people screen their faces;
He was despised and we took no account of him.
And yet ours were the sufferings he bore,
Ours the sorrows he carried.
But we, we thought of him as someone punished,
Struck by God, and brought low.
Yet he was pierced through for our faults,
Crushed for our sins,
On him lies a punishment that brings us peace,
And through his wounds, we are healed.
We had gone astray like sheep,
Each taking his own way,
And Yahweh burdened him,
With the sin of all of us,
Harshly dealt with, he bore it humbly,
He never opened his mouth,
Like a lamb that is led to the slaughter-house,
Like a sheep that is dumb before its Shearer
Never opening its mouth,
By force and by law he was taken,
Would anyone plead his cause?
Yes, he was torn away from the land of the living,
For our faults struck down in death.
They gave him a grave with the wicked,
A tomb with the rich,
Though he had done no wrong
And there had been no perjury in his mouth.
Yahweh has been pleased to crush him with suffering.
If he offers his life in atonement,
He shall see his heirs,
He shall have a long life,
And through Him what Yahweh wishes will be done.
His soul’s anguish over
He shall see the light and be content.
By his sufferings shall my servant justify many,
Taking their faults on himself,
Hence, I will grant whole hordes for his tribute,
He shall divide the spoil with the mighty,
For surrendering himself to death,
And letting himself be taken for a sinner,
While he was bearing the faults of many,
And praying all the time for sinners.”
And Isaiah 7: 4 reads:
“The Lord Himself, therefore,
Will give you a sign,
It is this: the maiden is with child,
And will soon give birth to a son whom she will call, Immanuel."
Isaiah 9: 5-6 says:
“For there is a child born for us,
A son given to us,
And dominion is laid on His shoulders,
And this is the name they give Him,
Wonder-Counsellor, Mighty-God,
Eternal-Father, Prince-of-Peace,
Wide is His dominion,
In a peace that has no end."
Isaiah 42: 1-4 states:
"Here is my servant whom I have chosen my beloved,
The favourite of my soul, I will endow Him with my spirit,
And He will proclaim the true faith to the nations,
He will not brawl or shout,
Nor will anyone hear His voice in the street,
He will not break the crushed seed,
Nor put out the smoldering wick
Till He has led the truth to victory,
In His name the nations will put their hope."
Also including:
Malachi 3; Isaiah 62:11
Zechariah 9:9; Psalms 110:1
Zechariah 11: 12-17; Psalms 2:1-12
Micah 5:2-5; Daniel 9:25
Daniel 7:13; 14: 27
Who Is Jesus of Nazareth?
Who was Jesus Christ? Who is the historical Jesus of Nazareth? Who is the Jesus as the written facts of ancient history would allow us to understand. In a third rate and subjected nation to the Roman Empire, Jesus of Nazareth, later known as Jesus Christ, was born a Judean or Jew of a Jewish virgin peasant woman called Mary. However, over the centuries Jews have acquired a new identity as Jewish people. It is written that Jesus was born in Bethlehem - where King David was born 1000 years earlier - in a stable of hay surrounded by animals, in the territory of Judea, which was then occupied by the Romans. Although some biblical scholars say Jesus was more likely born in Nazareth rather than Bethlehem, which was a creation to fulfill the legacy and lineage of King David. His father was also a Judean and a carpenter called Joseph, who was embarrassed by Mary’s pre-marriage illegitimate pregnancy, often called the ‘The Immaculate Conception’. Hey, if a supreme intelligent being can create the universe and infuse humans with consciousness, cognition and emotion, and Jesus raised the dead to life, then ‘God the Creator/Father’ could equally as easily and believably infuse Mary’s womb with the ‘Son Of God’ – No? But Joseph stood by Mary and rather than comply with the law and have her stoned to death, he married her. Jesus’ family questioned the legitimacy of His work being that of a Messiah, as He did not outwardly portray the behaviour and characteristics of a King, a messiah who could save the world, and as the oldest son He was not readily available to help support the family which was the custom at that time.
At twelve years of age Jesus preached in the Jewish Temple, which was the focal point for economics, trade, politics and religion. He chastised them for abusing His Father’s house. Jesus never had any money or owned any property and He was without formal education never holding any office or position of influence. He never wrote a book and never traveled further than a long walk from his place of birth. He trained as a carpenter and was seen to be a student of Hebrew Scriptures, but also wandered around Jerusalem and Galilee teaching Judean priests and the people about the new laws of God. To disseminate His messages He told intriguing and sophisticated parables and performed miracles, raising dead people to life. He loved the company of others, but also enjoyed the moments when he preferred to be alone. He enjoyed eating food and drinking, and the fellowship of others, and he wanted other people to enjoy these things to.
He was a friend and advocate of the poor and hungry (Luke 14:12), of the unemployed (Matt 20:9), of the widow and the orphan (Matt 23:4). He knew the cure for human misery, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart and you will find rest for your souls” (Matt 11:28). And he knew too that the folk most likely to come to Him and hear His message and find their fullness and satisfaction were those who had nowhere to go and no one to love or care for them, those with an open heart and mind and those without debilitating arrogance and pride. “Blessed are the poor, ye that hunger now, ye that weep now” (Luke 6:20-21). They were ‘blessed’ because their human condition raised no obstacles between themselves and the kingdom of ‘God’ and the message of Jesus. But He was ‘there’ for all peoples both sinner and saint alike.
He performed many miracles of which 37 were recorded in the Bible, from the changing of water into wine at Cana, walking on water, feeding of the 5,000 with a few loaves and fishes, to the raising of Lazarus from the dead (John 11:14-43). Christ was made known to not only the general population, but also to the authorities, through the witnessing and reporting of the miracles performed by him. These miracles included the miracle of the raising of Lazarus back to life and the blatant turning over of the ‘money changers’ tables in the Temple (people had to pay for ‘holy tokens’ to enter and pray in the Temple). These activities, along with Jesus’ claim of being ‘King of the Jews’ exposed Him as a significant risk and threat to the status and authority of the Temple’s Chief (High) Priest.
“Meanwhile Jesus stood before the governor, and the governor asked him, “Are you the king of the Jews?” “Yes, it is as you say,” Jesus replied”.
(Matthew 27:11; Mark 15:2; Luke 23:5)
At the young age of 33, Jesus was condemned to death by the High Priest Caphias and the Roman prosecutor Pontius Pilate. He was killed because He was seen as a threat to the traditions and way of life of the elders, chief priests, and teachers of the law (Mark 8:31-33). He was murdered because He was seen as a threat to their culture, their beliefs, and their values. He was killed as if a lamb to the slaughter because He chose to be. He was annihilated because He was believed a threat to the political and religious agenda’s, power and practices, and the privileged, comfortable and secure status. He was exterminated because He talked of being a new King, but a king of the Kingdom heaven, and not a king of this world. He was kicked and punched He was scourged and whipped. He was ‘crowned’ with large thorns. He was verbally insulted and spat upon. He was ‘forced’ to carry His cross whilst physically incapacitated. His hands and feet nailed to a wooden cross. He had given to Him vinegar to ‘quench’ His thirst. Then He was speared in His ‘side’ to prove, through the pouring of water and blood, that the last breath of life was extinguished from Him. He suffered a lonely, humiliating and brutal death at the hands of His enemies.
But He forgave those who remained silent thereby allowing His death, He forgave those who instigated His death, and He forgave those who carried out His death. And three days after His burial in the tomb He rose from the depths of darkness. He rose from the dead. He rose above the shackles of the world’s transgressions. He rose above the ‘physical’ and emotional pain of His suffering. He rose above the emotional, spiritual and intellectual anguish of the world. He rose for all humans. He suffered His death and rose to life as the Creator’s payment for the faults and transgressions of all the people’s of the world. He rose above all human imperfections potentially nullifying their effect in relation to their spiritual disparity between the Perfect and the imperfect, between the Creator and the created, between the divine and the human. He suffered death and rose to life opening the way for all people to follow Him in an eternity of intellectual, emotional and spiritual existence.
After His death and resurrection thousands of the followers of Christ were, killed, murdered and martyred for their undying conviction and belief in Christ as the Son of the Creator. The followers of the Jesus Movement murdered without a hint of provocation. They themselves did not commit the murder of non-believers. His miracles and examples, His proclamations and assertions about being the Son of God, about being the True God, has impressed upon human kind so deeply that today about a third of the world’s inhabitants strive to live by his teachings and example.
Indeed, the very fact that a man called Jesus Christ came to live and express Himself on Earth in this meek, humble, fragile and vulnerable manner, while also portraying extraordinary, virtuous, miraculous and divine characteristics must undeniably place its own categorical seal of authenticity on the origins and content of His proclamations, assertions, examples and teachings. If any human being was planning God’s entry, via another human being, into this world, seeking to radically change and revolutionize the way participants of the human race identify with themselves and others. They surely would not have planned it, executed it, reported it, and written about it, after the fact, in a way that exhibits such an outward and explicit display of seeming variation and contradiction, simplicity, openness, naivety, insecurity and fragility.
Is Jesus Christ Also ‘God’?
Importantly, there are three unique reasons why pure Christianity – without imperfect human intervention - is so very different from all other religions, including Judaism, Hinduism, Islam and Buddhism. There are three unique reasons why the historical person Jesus Christ can be intellectually and spiritually set apart from all other spiritual and religious leaders of the world, such as Buddha, Vishnu, Mohammed and Confucius. They include, Jesus’ Claims to being the Son of ‘God’, Jesus Christ Rising from the Dead and The Logical, Psychological and Philosophical Strategy.
The first reason is because:
Jesus’ Claims of Being the Son of God
Jesus Christ’s claims to being the Son of ‘God’ and therefore ‘God’ Incarnate are claims manifest in the proclamations by the authors of the Gospels in the New Testament of the Bible, and therefore are a major theme:
He was the light of the world (John 8:12)
He was the bread of life (John 6:35)
He could judge the world (John 5:25-29)
He was sinless (John 8:46)
He was the truth (John 14:6)
He could forgive sins (Matt 9:1-8)
He could give eternal life (John 3:16)
He could answer prayer (John 14:13)
He had all authority (Matt 28:18)
He was worthy of worship (Matt 14:33)
He was the object of faith (John 8:24)
He and the Father were one (John 10:30)
To believe in Him was to believe in God (John 12:44; 14:1)
To see Him was to see God (John 12:45; 14:9)
To receive Him was to receive God (Mark 9:37)
To know Him was to know God (John 8:19; 14:7)
And:
Jesus Christ is the unique Son of God.
(John 1:14; 3:16-18)
He is co-equal and co-eternal with the Father and the
Holy Spirit.
(John 1:1)
He has no beginning or end.
(Revelations 22:13)
He is the eternal God and Creator of all things
(John 1:3; Col. 1: 15,16,17; John 20:28; 1 Timothy. 2:5; 3:16; Phil. 2:6-7; Isaiah. 9:6; John. 10:30; 14:7-9).
He had two natures, one divine and the other human.
(Isaiah 9:6; John 1:1, 23; 5:18, 23; John 8:58; John 12:37-41; 17:5; 20:28; Heb. 1:1-12; 13:8; Rev. 22:13, Isaiah. 7:14; 9:6; Phil. 2:8-11; Rom. 9:5).
The Bible teaches that there is only one God.
(Ex. 20:2-3; Isaiah. 42:8; 45:5).
Although there is only one God, and there can be only one God, it is believed by some, that God may exist in three forms, indeed He could exist in any type and number of forms He chooses to. He may exist as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
(Matt. 3:16-17; Matt 28:19 John 14:26; 15:26; 1 Cor 12:3-6; 2 Cor. 13:4 Eph. 2:18; Eph 3:1-5, 14-17)
Further antidotal evidence written suggests that Christ was indeed the Creator and therefore different from all other great teachers and prophets revered by humankind:
(Hebrews 1:1-2)
(1 Timothy 2:5)
(Acts 4:12)
(Hebrews 13:8)
(John 1:14)
(John 20:30-31)
(Romans. 9:5)
(2 Peter. 1:1)
(John 1:1-2)
(John. 1:18)
(John. 20:28)
Still there is antidotal evidence and overt theme trailing throughout the gospels that the man called Christ was God, and God is Christ, and therefore different from all other great teachers and prophets:
(Matthew. 8:2; 9:18; 14:33; 15:25 and 28:9-17).
(Matthew. 2:11)
(Matthew. 8:2)
believe”, and He worshipped Him.
(John 9:38)
(Matthew. 14:33)
(Matthew. 28:17)
(Hebrews. 1:1-8)
The authors of the Bible also gave Him the highest honour due only to God:
“He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. By Him, all things were created, things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by Him, and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him, all things hold together. And He is the head of the body, or the church, He is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy”. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in Him, and through Him, to reconcile to Himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through His blood shed on the cross”.
(Colossians 1:15-20)
The second reason why the man Jesus Christ should be considered as set apart from all other teachers and prophets is because of the historically authentic possibility of:
Jesus Christ Rising from the Dead
Some epidemiological and philosophical evidence suggesting that Jesus Christ rose from the dead includes:
1. Centuries before the event of Christ’s Resurrection this miracle was foretold in Daniel 12:1-4 as Luke writes:
“This is what is written. The Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day.”
(Luke 24: 46)
“They will kill Him and after three days he will rise again.”
(Mark 9: 31)
2. Christ Himself predicted that He would die and rise to life again:
“When Jesus predicted His death He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that He must be killed and after three days rise again. He spoke plainly about this, and Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him. But when Jesus turned and looked at His disciples, He rebuked Peter”. “Get behind me, Satan!” He said. “You do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men”.
(Mark 8:31-33; Matthew 16:23)
“On the third day he will rise again.”
(Luke 18: 33)
“He is not here; he has risen. Remember how He told you while He was still with you in Galilee.”
(Luke 24: 6)
“We remember that while he was still alive that deceiver said; after 3 days I will rise again.”
(Matthew 27: 63)
“But after I have risen I will go ahead of you into Galilee”.
(Matthew 26: 32)
3. He could not have risen from the dead if He wasn't ‘God’.
4. If He was ‘God’, He could have risen from the dead.
Three major historical facts support the authenticity of the story of the resurrection: The empty tomb; the appearance of Christ; and The origins of the Jesus Movement and the Christian Faith
1. The empty tomb
The Roman guards saw the empty tomb; the Jews never denied it; and six of Jesus' disciples saw it:
“You are looking for Jesus of Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid Him.”
(Mark 16: 6; Matt 28:1, Luke 24:1-12 and John 20:1-10)
2. The appearance of Christ
The historical facts demonstrate that after His death and resurrection, Jesus was seen, alive, by His believers, by His skeptics, and by His enemies. Importantly, after rising from the dead, Jesus was reported first seen alive by women, by the women who had followed Him everywhere. The gospels report and record Jesus first seen by Mary, Jesus’ mother, by Mary Magdalene, and by the mother of James who was also Mary. Mark 16:1-9 reads, “After he had risen on the first day of the week He first appeared to Mary Magdalene, from whom He had cast out seven demons.” This is significant in itself. Because these women, these females, who first saw Jesus’ empty grave and tomb, were a people living in the Jewish historical culture of the times, which possessed, sadly, patriarchal traditions where women, especially those unmarried, were always the least believed, were always the most vulnerable, were always the worst treated, and were always the least respected.
It is significant that Mary Magdalene was one of the first to see the empty tomb and the first person who Jesus appeared to. This is because of her previous reputation and encounter with Jesus, where it is said that He had cast out seven demons from her. She therefore had a less than reputable standing within the Jewish community. If the story in the New Testament about Jesus Christ’s resurrection was fabricated by the disciples, authors and writers, it is highly unlikely and improbable that Judean women, and in particular, Mary Magdalene, would have been officially reported as being the first to have seen this phenomena. This miraculous world-changing event, as is the rising to life from death of the crucified, buried and ‘dead’ Jesus Christ.
“Later Jesus appeared to the Eleven as they were eating; he rebuked them for their lack of faith and their stubborn refusal to believe those who had seen Him after he had risen”.
(Mark 16: 14)
“It is true. The Lord has risen and has appeared to Simon whom Jesus called Peter” – Peter meaning “the rock.”
(Luke 24: 34) Including: (Matthew 28:9-20; Mark 16:9-20; Luke 24:13-49; John 20:11-31; 21:1-23)
After Christ’s death the apostles would have been very afraid of also being persecuted by Caphias, the Chief Priest of the Temple, and by the Roman Soldiers, so it must have been some extraordinary experience that gave them the courage to claim they had seen and talked to the ‘risen’ Jesus.
“With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and much grace was upon them all”.
(Acts 4:33)
Through belief in the event and experience of Christ’s resurrection, people need no longer fear their own individual ‘physical’ death. Through belief in the event of the Christ’s resurrection and ascension (John 3:13; 20:17), humans can conceive that life and life’s experiences are not rehearsals to be wasted or abused. They are not rehearsals for another life here on Earth, they are not rehearsals for something else or for something ‘more real’ than this life, but they are intrinsically the real deal. They are real experiences to be celebrated and treated as serious, sacred and joyous. Life and life’s experiences are to be celebrated, the humorous and joyful, and the sad and painful times as opportunities for improved self-awareness of Self, and Self’s strengths and weaknesses for personal challenge and growth, and which experiences will be remembered for eternity. Through belief in the event of the resurrection of Christ, death of the human body (change in structure and functions of atom-energy) can be recognized and valued as the final step, and ultimate transition, of one’s ‘physical’ and spiritual journey of life here on Earth. This is prior to entering the next life, the life of the after life, the life of the spirit without the ‘physical’.
3. The origins of the Jesus Movement and the Christian Faith
“After his suffering, He gave many convincing proofs that He was alive. He appeared to them over a period of forty days”.
(Acts 1:3)
Christianity came into being because the disciples had also been there to see that Jesus had risen from the dead. The resurrection of Christ brought life and courage to the disappointed and disillusioned disciples. It was because of the message "He Is Risen" that the Christian movement spread miraculously across the impenetrable and formidable Roman Empire, continuing to significantly influence human behaviour throughout the world today. For example, the Roman citizen, fanatical Jew, and zealous Christian persecutor Saul, who was also called Paul, after having personally encountered ‘God’ through hearing the Voice ,and seeing the Light of the risen Christ. And having being blinded and then having his sight restored, converted to Christianity and traveled to numerous cities sharing Jesus’ teachings and the story of the miracle of the resurrection (Acts 9:1-22).
Although the seeds of Christ’s reality have been sowed and fertilized we can still observe that the beliefs and practices of organized Christianity and other institutionalized religions has impacted and influenced the world in a distorted and corrupt fashion, causing significant suffering to both followers of Christianity, other faiths and non-followers alike. Humans have, over the centuries, in part through misguided loyalty, arrogance and ignorance institutionalized, hijacked and power played the intrinsic essence of Christ’s’ sublime spirituality and supreme authority manifest in His teachings, examples, life, death and resurrection. Jesus, a radical and revolutionary divine authority through which God intended to disseminate the essence of His Being of unconditional relational compassion and reconciliation and to provide substantial and unequivocal evidence for the continuation of human immortal life after ‘physical’ death. For there is no greater sacrifice than to lay down one’s life for another; there is no greater miracle than to rise to life from death, and there is no greater source of hope for human immortality than the reality of Christ’s resurrection.
“They came out of the tombs and went into the holy city and appeared to many people.”
(Matthew 27: 52-54)
As the “Acts of the Apostles” affirms: In about the year AD 30 in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost, Peter made a proclamation to the Jewish pilgrims gathered together for the festival:
“Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs which God did through Him in your midst ... this Jesus you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. But God raised Him up ... and of that, we are all witnesses. Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this which you see and hear ... God has made Him both Lord and Christ”.
(Acts 2: 22-34)
Those who heard Him asked what they had to do:
“Repent and be baptised every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” Three thousand were baptised at that time and the church was born.
(Acts 2:37-41)
The third reason why the man called Jesus Christ may be considered to be the Son of God, and therefore set apart from all other teachers and prophets, is because:
The Logical, Psychological and Philosophical Strategy
Think about it. From a logical-psycho-philosophical perspective, the true reality of Christ’s life can be broken into two parts. The first part is, the actual reality of Christ, the real experience of Christ, who Christ actually was, and what Christ actually did. The second part, is how Christ was actually perceived by His followers, and how they spoke about Him, related to Him, experienced Him, talked about Him, and wrote about Him. The reality and experience of Christ, and who Christ really was, was not expected, or accepted by the Judeans at that time. Indeed, the Jewish religion is still waiting for the coming of the Messiah. Christ was not expected, but He existed. Christ did not write pages of parables, rules and instructions about how to behave, because His mission involved the people around Him, and all the peoples of the world. His mission involved the experience of interpersonal relations culminating in His death for humankinds’ imperfections, and in His resurrection for humankinds’ immortality.
The authors of the gospels could have instigated and espoused individually, or colluded and conspired collectively, the origins and contents of Christ’s teachings and parables written in the Gospels, by annunciating that they had been received directly from ‘God’ or God’s angel. But the scripture verses and parables of the gospels and letters in the New Testament were written decades after the experience of the reality of the living Christ. The apostles who knew and followed Christ or people who knew and followed the apostles of Christ wrote the gospels and letters of the New Testament decades after the event of Christ. The gospels were not records of events written verbatim, but are recollections and memories of the events and messages, teachings and examples from Jesus Christ. The gospels were not written down or recorded, in the first one, or two decades after His death. So this was not the power that drove the first followers of Christ. It was the actual experience of Christ’s life that drove the early Christians to live life with relational love, reconciliation/ forgiveness and compassion, to teach this and then to write and record this about Him.
So who was the real Christ that is portrayed in the gospels? Is the Christ in the gospels the real Christ? Now, they were expecting a Messiah, but not this particular Messiah, so they could have written any spin about Christ they wanted to, but they did not. The writers of the gospels could have put any spin on Christ’s life at that time and it would have been about who and what they were expecting. Or it would have been a story that would influence and compliment their particular agendas in the culture of their time. Indeed, individual’s personal experiences and the accuracy of individual’s memories may contribute to the fact that there are some significant contradictions within the stories of the gospels. But, you don’t ever write and record the life and teachings of an ordinary person, but of a charismatic person, a person who has perhaps performed miracles that only the Creator could perform.
You cannot write about phenomenal events decades after the fact with credibility to influence present and future readers, without there being something extraordinary, without there being something credible, without there being elements of truth to them. You write about someone special, indeed you write about someone special decades after their death, because the person and events were/are extraordinary special. You write about them to the best of your ability, remembering and recording their real life and their teachings from the oral stories told by that special person’s disciples and apostles and/or their followers. The real experience of Christ was so dramatic and so powerful at the time, that alone, it was enough to inspire a major shift in many Jew and Gentile’s belief’s, and consequently, their behaviours. Indeed, Christ’s life created a new form of Judaism, a Judeo-Christian belief and way of life based on His life and teachings.
If the man they called Jesus Christ, who without a doubt existed 2000 years ago, was a phony. But the writers of the gospels wanted to portray Him as God’s messenger and deceive the populace and people of the community that He was the Son of God, the easiest and most convincing way to gain the peoples’ trust and support at that time would surely have been to write a spin about the power of His ‘physical’ might. Through His coercive powers, political might and military savvy. Indeed, sell the idea of Judean superiority, and promote and conspire military rule and victory over the Romans to convince the people that Christ was God. Because this is what the Judeans were expecting. They were expecting a Messiah to be a King in the linage of King David, to rule and lead the people to political, religious and territorial victory.
These factitious stories would perhaps deceivingly convince and sell the idea to the people of not only the content of the message, but also the source of the message. But those people who had not witnessed, or could not remember the real experience of Jesus could only accept such deception, such a factitious spin. This could have been a deceptive fictitious story written many decades and centuries after Christ’s death and recorded as a historical fraud. But it could not be a story written while people still remembered Christ. It could not be a fraudulent story of deception to be then, credibly accepted, whilst written only a few years and decades after Christ’s death.
Of course Christ the Son of the Creator could have presented Himself in this way, conjure Himself as an instant King and create an army out of thin air to crush a powerful empire if He had willed to. But this was not His way. This was not His message. But He did, indeed, perform equally astounding and astonishing miracles. Yet He did not have the need or desire to write down a single word, or wear a robe and crown, or sit on a throne, except when He forced to do so during His abuse and humiliation, just before His death. He did not need to kill or murder a single person. He didn’t need to command a great army, but instead, Christ said He was the Son of God, He said He was the God incarnate, and He performed many miracles that only a Supreme Being could perform. He was eloquent and charismatic, but from a human perspective He willed not to be materially coercive, nor did He will to be militarily or politically savvy. Christ did not need to be that which was expected of Him, but instead He performed absolute and divine miracles.
The articulation of His message was eloquently divine, inspiring a new way of living in the world, a new way of viewing the world. Christ was divinely intelligent, compassionate and humble. Christ was all these things, but the authors of the early gospels (as opposed to the much later Gnostic gospels), could have been inane enough to spin any story they wished about Christ to propagate their own particular agendas and personal interests. But they didn’t because they would have been words without credibility, words without endurance, words without transparency, words without evidence, words without substance, words without truth, words without justice and words without foundation. Indeed they would have been words that could only appeal to human base instincts and needs, human ignorance, and human arrogance.
Regarding what the writers of the gospels said Jesus had said. The authors could write that Jesus said He was ‘God’, and Jesus could say to the people that He was ‘God’, and hope everyone else is gullible and crazy enough to believe them. Or they can say and write about the truth, about what Jesus really said and did. That He had performed incredible miracles and said He was God, and back up their claims with their real experience of Christ. From all accounts, from all perspectives and from all results and purpose, Christ did in fact display and execute such supernatural wonders, from the raising of the dead to His own resurrection and ascension. These are miracles that potentially can give much hope to the existence of one’s personal immortality. For the event of an eternal afterlife to those who can believe in Christ’s resurrection.
We can also explore the legitimacy of Jesus of Nazareth being the Son of God by looking at the gospels from another perspective, by placing our minds inside the minds of the New Testament writers, the witnesses and disciples of Jesus Christ as authors of the New Testament. It is obvious that the writers of the gospels could not have fraudulently fabricated, ‘set-up’ and conspired an interaction between themselves and ‘God’ so as to influence a change in their politically oppressive environment, by recording in pen a ‘phenomena’ of the coming of ‘God’ to Earth in the guise of a human. Because we can visualise and experience history through the psychological and intellectual rationale of logic, that this would have been strategically impossible.
The fact that the early Christians were driven solely by the real experience of Christ’s life and not by the written word - as the gospels and epistles were non-existent at this time - is verification that Christ’s life and relationships with humans preceded any written word. Indeed the early Christian movement began to exist gradually juxtaposition with the written words as they began and continued to be written. The writings of the gospels and letters by the apostles are a fertile and rich source of information about the life and teachings of Jesus, the activities of the apostles, the first Christians and the dawning of the early Christian church. The uniquely creative literary structure of these gospels and letters of the New Testament expose the necessary technical and personal dynamic processes required to drive and promote a legitimate way of life, and belief system followed with universal impact. By all accounts, the sequence of events, the type of events, and the process of events throughout Jesus’ life. The birth of the Christian Movement, and the subsequent evangelism culminating in the written words of the gospels, must be considered unequivocal proof justifying serious consideration for a belief in the amazing phenomenon of the life of Jesus, as being authentic and legitimate.
The writers of the gospels probably had no idea what they had written about Christ, would be revered, studied, and followed by millions and millions of people for more than 2000 years. And this is perhaps one of the reasons why they have written what they have written and in the style and context they have written in. These Gospels were written by a people writing about their personal experiences about Christ and Christ’s followers and the memories and stories they had of Christ and His followers. The Gospels were written for a particular people, at a particular moment in time, which in retrospective reflection allows these writings to be considered authentic and believable.
Yes, they may have exaggerated and embellished certain events, and they may have not remembered everything with total clarity, but the stories of Christ are unique and special, being an eloquent blend of contradistinction between the ordinary and the extraordinary. And if we were writing the gospels ourselves as deceptive and fraudulent works of literature, recording the life of a person who claimed to be the Son of God, to be used to motivate in a particular way a certain community. Or engineered to be handed down through the centuries to be read by a future people, surely we wouldn’t have written them in the particular, unique and special manner we know them to have been written.
The authors would surely not have written about God’s coming in such a superfluously glib and somewhat contradictory and diverse fashion, but would have coordinated and streamlined their writings within and between themselves. But the messages and writings are not streamlined within and between the authors and writers of the four gospels, because perhaps this really was not a fraudulent and fabricated event that was ‘set-up’ and conspired for self gratification and benefit, but a real event written by different witnesses, in different times, and from different perspectives. The authoritative collators of the New Testament gospels surely would not have had John’s ‘left of field’ gospel included together with the more consistent gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke’s. John’s is a gospel written, in comparison to the others, with a different imagery, genre and style. But they did, because perhaps God’s message can also be delivered and expressed in a diverse, mystical and lateral literary style through the eloquence of imagery as an alternative perspective reflecting the Creator’s message.
If fraud, deceit, conspiracy, collusion and personal agendas were the impetus for the motivation of the writers’ writing the gospels then we can perhaps be assured that the authors surely would not have chosen a fragile and vulnerable ‘human’ baby, an infant, as the representation and personification of ‘God’s’ visit to Earth. They would instead surely have prescribed a Powerful, Majestic and Kingly figurehead as ‘God’. Or they would have had themselves receiving God’s messages from above. But they didn’t prescribe a ‘powerful’ king as their political and religious saviour, or proclaim their writings were messages from God above, but they wrote about a baby, because perhaps this baby really was the Son of the Creator. Perhaps baby Jesus really was ‘God’ Incarnate.
The authors surely would not have written the Son of God coming to Earth as a human baby, but surely as a fully-grown adult, but they did, because perhaps the Creator really did come as an infant human being. The authors would surely not have said and recorded that God’s Son had come to Earth in human form instead of God coming in a spiritual and Godly form. But they did write that Jesus said He was the Son of ‘God’, because perhaps the Creator really did come to Earth as a human being and Jesus really was the Son of ‘God’. The authors surely would not have written the Son of God was born into a human family comprising of Mary (the Virgin Mary) and Joseph and with four brothers or cousins, James, Joseph, Simon and Jude (Mark 6:3). Instead have Him existing independently without a father, mother and brothers, but they did, because perhaps the Creator really did want to be born into a human family with parents and siblings as a gesture of solidarity with humanity.
The authors surely would not have written that the Son of God was born in a manger in a stable (although Luke’s gospel describes this as a house) with farm animals, but have Him born in a Palace fit for kings, but they did, because perhaps He really was born (from a human perspective) without pomp, ceremony, style and prestige. The authors surely would not have written that the Son of God was the impetus for Herod’s diabolical slaughter of the innocent infants in his search for the King of ‘kings’ who he perceived would derail his own personal status and kingship. Instead surely the authors would have had Him saving the infants, or better still, not have had them killed at all, but they did, because perhaps this whole story is really true and Herod really did kill the innocent infants. And perhaps God really does not interfere with the freedom of human choice, responsibility and decision making, no matter how evil the action may be. And perhaps the Creator does hold the sovereignty of human integrity, responsibility, and personal accountability of freewill as sacred. And perhaps it really was not yet baby Jesus’ time to teach or work miracles or perform out of the normal context of the human developmental process.
The authors surely would not have written that the Son of God was born into poverty, but have Him born with riches and wealth, but they did, because perhaps he really was born poor and without earthly and material resources. The authors surely would not have identified Jesus as riding upon a donkey and walking in the dust, but have Him being carried upon a splendid golden throne, winged by angels, but they did, because perhaps he really did live and lead a very poor, humble and simple life. Interestingly, Jesus’ donkey ride also fulfilled ancient scripture prophecy alluding to the coming of the Messiah (Zechariah 9:9). The authors would surely not have had the Son of the Creator writing no words of wisdom at all, but instead, have Him writing all of the gospels. But they didn’t, because perhaps Christ Jesus really didn’t write anything, but intended His teachings, life and words to be recorded and interpreted through the sovereign determination and experience of human beings – through human personality, spirit, intellect, emotion and freewill – expressed and interpreted through human hands and minds.
The authors surely would not have written that the Son of God had befriended the tax collector and the ‘possessed’ and promiscuous women, but instead, have them condemned, whilst having Jesus accompanying and fraternizing with the upper class, priests and aristocrats. But they did, because perhaps Jesus really did have a radical and revolutionary mission to fulfil and message to give, and perhaps He really did relate to and connect with everyone, no matter who they were, and no matter how they behaved, or what position in society they held. The authors surely would have had the Son of God ‘physically’ crushing the oppressive authority of the Romans and their Empire, but they didn’t, because perhaps Jesus really was the Creator with a special purpose, with a special message to annunciate, a message of compassion and charity, to be expressed freely through personal choice.
The authors of the gospels and letters recorded in the New Testament surely would not have had the Son of God’s own family, mother, father and brothers, question His credibility and authenticity as the Messiah, as the Creator’s Son. Jesus Christ was the Messiah who shocked and upset His Mother and Father when He was ‘lost’ whilst He was preaching in the Temple. Jesus was the Messiah who they thought would be an earthly King, a king who would crush the Roman Empire, bringing wealth and authority to Judea. But the authors in their writings about Jesus contradicted these expectations about the Son of God, because perhaps Jesus wasn’t about bringing instant authority and wealth to humanity, but instead, really did have the Creator’s uniquely divine mission to undertake and complete, which was directly opposite to His family’s and followers’ expectations. The authors of the New Testament surely wouldn’t have written that Jesus had contradicted many scripture verses in the Old Testament, but they did, because perhaps Jesus really did contradict these ‘Holy Scriptures’ and verses, because perhaps they really did contain literary content based on humans’ genuine but flawed interpretation of the Divine Will and Desire of the Creator. For instance, the authors would surely not have written that the Son of God overrode Moses’ laws on punishment, such as the stoning to death of the adulterer. But they did, because perhaps Jesus really did overthrow and revise the rules and laws of the Old Testament which advocates the corporal punishment for ‘sins’, and replaced them with the psychological virtues of relational love, compassion and reconciliation.
The authors surely would not have written that the ‘Son of God’ was betrayed by His own disciples, but have Him being treated loyally and respectfully and with honour. But they did, because perhaps Jesus’ love and trust really was betrayed and slighted by His human friends, by His followers and by His apostles, because by definition of the human condition, all humans are imperfect. For instance, the apostle Peter betrayed Jesus three times by denying any knowledge of Him because of his personal fear of violence. And the authors would surely not have written that Jesus had to rebuke Peter and then have Him calling Peter Satan, but they did, because perhaps Peter was an imperfect human being, whilst Jesus also redefined the meaning of the word Satan/Devil. The authors surely would not have had the Son of God proven to be ‘physically’ vulnerable manifest by ‘physical’ beatings and the brutal murder He suffered at the hands of the Romans, but instead have Him overpowering and overthrowing the Romans. But they did, because perhaps the Creator really did intend to be truly human, and thus ‘physically’ and psychologically vulnerable through the pain and shame of being abused and bashed by human beings. The authors surely would not have had the Son of God suffering ‘physical’ and psychological abuse by the Romans, elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, but have Him commanding and demanding their respect and loyalty. But they did, because perhaps He really was disrespected, misunderstood, feared and insulted by human beings, and commanding and demanding their respect was not the divine message to be enunciated through the Creator’s life on Earth.
The authors of the gospels and letters surely would not have had the Son of God being humiliated, spat upon, bashed, crowned with thorns, speared and nailed to the cross, but instead, have Him rising above this quagmire of abuse in strength and might, slaying his nemesis and exhibiting powers of strength, splendour and majesty. But they did, because perhaps He really was treated worse than an animal by frightened humans and squashed like an ant because His message was about the inadequacies of human nature, behaviour, faith and belief, expressed through the humanness of His ‘physical’ death, and through the divinity of His spiritual resurrection. The authors surely would not have had the Son of God slaughtered on the cross, but have Him ruling Judea and the world, with the authority and power of a mighty King. But they did, because perhaps He really was crucified and killed by ordinary men, killed by human beings, to show that He doesn’t need to succumb and retaliate to the ‘physical’ might, power and oppression of base human instincts. But rather, teach by the influence of examples of human-to-human unconditional relational love, compassion and reconciliation, manifest as an outcome of Self’s informed consciousness of Self’s thoughts and emotions manifest through Self’s attitudes, values, beliefs and behaviours manifest through the sovereignty and dignity and of Self’s freewill. The authors surely would not have recorded women as being the first to sight Christ’s empty tomb, and the risen Christ, but have Him first seen by His male apostles. But they did, because perhaps women really did see Him first having risen from the dead, giving further credibility as to truth of the stories about Christ in the gospels, whilst also emphasising women’s equality.
As has been suggested, instead of Christ’s disciples and their witnesses having written the gospels, the authors surely would have had Christ as the writer of the Scriptures and verses in the Gospels and New Testament, but they didn’t, because perhaps Christ really did will and desire to write nothing. And the authors surely would have had just one writer of the gospels who would then write consistently and without contradiction and variation. But they didn’t, because perhaps there really were numerous writers who didn’t consciously streamline and coordinate their scripts, because perhaps there really were many valid and sovereign witnesses with varying personal experiences, accounts and perspectives to the life of Jesus Christ. The authors surely would have just written down scripts and messages saying they received them from God above or God’s angel, but they didn’t, because perhaps they really didn’t receive any messages from the transcendent God above, but wrote from their own personal experiences of the teachings, messages and examples of Christ.
The authors and disciples surely would have said that Jesus was the author of the New Testament. But they didn’t, because perhaps Christ really had no intention of writing, but rather, teaching by example, whilst respecting the disciples’ and followers’ individual, personal and spiritual sovereignty, dignity and independence. By allowing them the intellectual, emotional and spiritual freedom to interpret, perceive and understand the divine meaning of His coming, the divine meaning of His life, and the divine meaning of His resurrection and ascension. The authors of the New Testament surely would have embellished and exaggerated Christ’s coming and going in the phenomena of an ‘ideal’ state of wondrous hype and thunderous glory, without controversy or dilemma. But they didn’t, because perhaps they couldn’t, because perhaps Christ really didn’t come in that way, but instead, came in His own unassuming, unpretentious, unique, loving, gentle, humble, special, but yet divine and revolutionary, radical, sophisticated, complex and mysterious way.
And so the authors wrote and recorded the life and story of a man who lived perhaps more simply and poorly than most. Yet who also performed the most unbelievable miracles, whilst promoting and teaching knowledge about the higher transcendent qualities and characteristics of compassion, charity, reconciliation and relational love. Inspiring humans to choose intellectual, cognitive, emotional and behavioural actions and content of speech that contribute towards the construction of constructive and positive intra-personal and inter-personal relations and communications. The ubiquitous incredulous literary genre and style of the gospels in the New Testament, with their somewhat psychological, paradoxical and incongruent content must lead us to consider that the writers of the gospels about Jesus Christ were either, at best, comedians, or at worst, irrational and crazy. Or that there is indeed an uncanny and divine truth within this seemingly chaotic and diverse, but wonderful and miraculous story, that perhaps only the divine will of the Creator could truly orchestrate. That only the divine will of the Creator could choreography through use of the sovereign, yet imperfect hands and minds of humans.
And we must not forget that throughout the centuries throughout the world, the Creator has perhaps allowed miracles – only those legitimate phenomena that have been scientifically tested and validated as authentic - to occur in different forms and in different parts of the world. Especially the miracle of the stigmata of Padre Pio, 1887-1968, who for fifty years manifest the bleeding and open wounds of Christ, and where upon his death, these wounds completely vanished. These are perhaps contemporary miracles validating the reality of the event of the crucifixion and resurrection occurring over 2000 years ago, reminding humans of the humility and compassion of Christ, and the potential reality of human immortality. Finally, it would surely have been more credible, more dramatic, and more sensational for readers of the gospels, if the authors had written that Saul who became (Saint) Paul had believed in the risen Christ with an unquestioning and categorical faith without having to first hear and ‘see’ being visually blinded – for three days - by Christ’s words and glory. But the authors wrote that Saul had to see and hear the risen Christ in His spiritual light before he could believe in Him, and thus a spiritual and physical ‘see’ to believe faith.
As the New Testament Letter testifies:
“But Saul began to destroy the church. Going from house to house, he dragged off men and women and put them in prison. As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” The men travelling with Saul stood speechless; they heard the sound but did not see anyone. Saul got up from the ground, but when he opened his eyes he could see nothing. So they led him by the hand into Damascus”.
(Acts 8: 3; Acts 9: 1-8)
Similarly, it would have been far more credible if the authors of the gospels had Thomas believing in the risen Christ without him first having to see and touch Christ’s wounds. But they didn’t record in writing, the apostle Thomas having an unquestioning faith in the risen Christ. Because although Thomas personally knew Jesus before His death, Thomas was as sceptical as any person would have been, and did not believe with unfettered faith in the risen Christ, without first having to see with his own eyes, the evidence of Christ’s wounds (John 20:26-28). Many of us perhaps can strongly relate to Saul and Thomas’s sceptical spiritual/intellectual dilemma regarding the need for concrete evidence before allowing one’s self to believe in the possibility of a mighty and wondrous miracle, such as the resurrection of the Christ.
Perhaps it is a spiritually transcendent statement endorsing this unique, wondrous and incredulous story of the experiences of Jesus Christ who claimed to be the Son of God, that today, about a third of the world’s population strive to live by the teachings and examples of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. These people struggle to live in the Spirit of His unconditional and universal charity, hope, reconciliation and compassion. Therefore, it is surely imperative for these people who follow in the footsteps of Christ, that life is lived with an accepting, non-judgmental and non-righteous attitude, both towards Self, and others. This means in practice, respecting with dignity all peoples, including those who call themselves atheist, or those who have no belief, by treating others with compassion, acceptance and dignity as valuable and unique human beings. This accepting, non-judgmental and non-righteous psychological mindset and attitude towards others includes extending to acknowledging other’s religions and diverse beliefs in the Creator as valid ways of knowing ‘God’. No one can have an absolute monopoly of ‘understanding’ about the realities of ‘God’ the Creator. A God, ‘that nothing greater can be thought’. This is because the Creator must be, by definition, far too Awesome, far too ‘Omnipotent’, far too Magnificent, far too Complex, far too ‘Benevolent’, far too ‘Omniscient’ and far too ‘?????’, for human minds to accurately and comprehensively conceptualise with a clear, absolute and transparent image and definition. Even a fleeting image of the defining realities of such a Being would surely be impossible to be fully expressed in human words, feelings and thoughts which could unequivocally, categorically and transparently describe the absolute true character, nature and essence of such a Supernatural Divine Master as the Creator of the Universe.
It is understandable that humans therefore, can only pigeon hole and imprison the Reality of ‘God’ in the confines of human intellect and understanding. Authentic and genuine Christians who try and follow the examples of Jesus – the word Christian being a name which meaning has been misinterpreted, because it has been tainted over the centuries by blatant and inadvertent misuse by those in positions of religious authority and power - will respect and celebrate the sovereignty and integrity of human independence and dignity. Manifest in human spiritual diversity and understanding, as displayed through the beliefs of those who make up the many denominations of Christianity, in those who journey the way of the Hindu, in those who follow the path of Buddha, in their sisters and brothers of Islam, and in the Jewish People from whose roots the Christian tradition arose.
When we as human beings can see through and beyond the psychological obstacles created by human tradition, ritualism, fanaticism, illusion, politics, misinformation and pride. And when we can see through and beyond the psychological obstacles of the human attitude of “having to be right or wrong”, and the human mindset of “being good or bad” within any religion, belief and culture. We can then consciously and advertently gaze into the real, authentic and genuine heart and spirituality of a people who ultimately want to understand, ‘that which nothing greater can be thought’. Christians can acknowledge and respect with dignity a people who have different beliefs, a people who also strive to satisfy their inner intellectual and spiritual thirst and hunger for the absolute truth, for human justice, human immortality, and belief in a Creator or ‘God’. The Creator, a Being that would perhaps be to far removed from that which human thought could conceptualise if not for the existence of Jesus Christ, if indeed we can spiritually, emotionally and intellectually consider Jesus Christ to be the Son of ‘God’.
It could be said, that through the spiritual, emotional and intellectual knowledge and understanding of the life of Jesus, God’s unconditional and universal relational love, compassion, justice and reconciliation can be manifestly expressed in the relational love Self receives when someone cares, values and accepts Self. That the Creator’s unconditional and universal relational love, compassion, reconciliation and justice can be manifestly expressed in the love Self gives to others as defined when Self takes time to understand, value and accept others as unique and special beings. That the Creator’s unconditional and universal relational love, compassion, reconciliation and justice can be manifestly expressed in the love that enables Self to overcome and celebrate the potential barriers and obstacles of intellectual, psychological and spiritual diversity that has the propensity to intellectually, psychologically and spiritually separate human beings from one another.
CHAPTER 6
WHY DID THE CREATOR BECOME HUMAN?
Humans Are Imperfect
The Incarnation
The Conscious Voice of Self
Atheism
Personal Integrity and Choice
Christ’s Teachings
The Original Ten Commandments
The Ten Commandments Very Relevant but Inadequate
Humans Are Imperfect
We are all aware of at least some of the defects in our personalities, the flaws in our character and the imperfections in our behaviours. We are often aware of the inclination to do less than good, the indiscretions we sometimes chose to perform at times when we offend and hurt others with our offensive attitudes and behaviours, from which results and derives as an outcome, personal and emotional pain and anguish. But our ‘sinfulness’, in part, is a condition of being human, because we were made both with personal autonomy, intellect and consciousness, with the capacity to act and behave in anyway we choose as well as being made from the process of evolution whereby we inherit some of the characteristics of human origins, this is, the characteristics of primates. But humans sometimes and in other cases often, abuse the high quality constructs of freewill, intellect and autonomy. We only need to look around at the suffering caused to people, by people, from people thinking, feeling, behaving and speaking less than constructively towards others. The Creator knows this suffering caused by people to people, for if He made humans, He must know of human weaknesses and imperfections. And this is an excellent reason why the Creator may have sent and gave His only Son, Jesus Christ, to the human race by which through His examples and teachings humans are more conscious and made aware of their imperfections and indiscretions that cause Self and others intra-personal and interpersonal suffering and anguish. The Christ may be considered to be the example from the Creator given to humans so that humans may have a credible and observable Supernatural and Transcendent measure or ‘yard stick’ for human thoughts, feelings, attitudes, behaviours and speech. That human beings may have a divine ‘measure’ for personal ‘goodness’, a ‘goodness’ which function is one of a healthy and wholesome intra-personal and interpersonal relationship with Self and others. The Christ, a transcendent earthly ‘vehicle’, for humans to potentially come to know and understand, the reality of who and what the Creator is all about.
The Incarnation
If we believe in the possibility of Jesus Christ being the Son of God then we will consider believing that ‘God’ has offered up to all the people of the world, offered up to everyone in the world, past, present, and future, the ultimate Sacrifice. Christ is the ultimate sacrifice of ‘God’ Himself as the Due Justice paid for humans’ debts manifest in imperfections, faults and transgressions that may have been committed against self, and others. This offering and sacrifice of ‘God’ to human beings through Jesus Christ, this offering and sacrifice of ‘God’ the Christ, could ensure the wholesale salvation of all the peoples of the world.
So through Jesus Christ, the God incarnate, it could be considered that God intended to:
* Buy humans’ immortality with His personal body, blood, suffering and humility.
* Prove His unconditional mystical relational love and compassion for every single person in the world, past, present and future.
* Say, there is a better way to live life; there is a productive and constructive way to live life, a way to live life that is defined by interpersonal compassion and reconciliation for and between Self and others.
* Say, “Hey, what about a personal relationship, can we be cognitively and emotionally intimate, can the Creator and the created, be friends?”
* Say, it's never too late; it's never too late to be reconciled between Self, others and the Creator, for anything and everything ever committed that’s compromised ‘good’, that's compromised the spiritual integrity, sovereignty and personhood of Self and others. To reconcile for any ‘physical’ and emotional suffering and pain incurred by Self and experienced by Self and others as a result of Self’s indiscretions compromising of the manipulation of base instincts through personal choices.
* Say, “Can I will walk with you, and you with me, through the imperfect valley of tears and anguish; through the mountains of pleasure and smiles; through the weakness of the seas of despair and tribulations”. Through such spiritual inter-relational experiences with the Creator may come strength and satisfaction manifest in personal contentment in having lived life to its fullest potential in relation to compassion and acceptance for Self and others.
Human Beings, who have evolved from animal, primate mammals, are able to choose their behaviour. Humankind, masters of themselves, an independent people, with the gifts of intellect, choice and freewill to do as they see fit. Humans, a people who may choose to embrace, follow and live by the above sentiments of a transcendent human/ ‘God’ interrelationship, because:
“Go and tell my brethren”
(Matthew 28:10; John 20:17)
“We love Him because He first loved us”.
(1 John 4:19)
(John 15:15; Jas 1:25 2:12; Rom 8:15)
(2 Peter 1:4)
The Conscious Voice of Self
It perhaps should be brought to our attention an experience that we all may have known. Yet, is an experience intimate and personal and sometimes uncomfortable, and that is the sense or feeling that somebody is dictating to one from within, and saying, “You should not use this means for that purpose or pursue that particular goal or behaviour.” Yes, one of those quiet little voices of the conscience that talks to us within. We may rationalize to Self that something is okay or that it is good, but it doesn't and will not totally silence what we call the voice of spiritual truth within us. It is said that every person born into this world is illuminated and affected in one way or another by the light of spiritual truth within (John 1:9).
We all have this gift of voice, this noise of our conscience and spirit within our being. Through this quiet voice of consciousness, this voice of and within Self, we can make choices and decisions about our actions and behaviours, about our thoughts, emotions, values, attitudes and beliefs. We can choose to, or not to listen to that voice which may be based on the spirit of truth, to that which may be based on goodness, and to that which may be based on fairness and justice. We can choose to, or not to do that which Self’s heart and mind believes may be constructive, or that which Self’s heart and mind believes is destructive. In most cases, the choices and decisions Self makes and decides to act upon are Self’s to make.
But perhaps we can keep in mind the potential spiritual support that might be available:
"Yet in fact He is not far from any of us, since it is in Him that we live and move and exist."
(Acts 17: 28)
But if we constantly resist this internal voice of conscience, this private voice whom some would say is the prompting of Self’s Spirit, Self may eventually reach a state where Self chooses to be impervious to the voice of truth and its promptings and what it is trying to say to Self. The consequences from the decision not to listen but to deny this voice of conscience may include the prospect of eventually becoming immune and numb, incapable of feeling, hearing, and responding to it, choosing to deny its presence. We may therefore eventually become oblivious to what the Creator is trying to convey, we may become oblivious to the promptings of the inner spirit, which drives Self’s conscience to seek out that which is good, true and just encapsulated by compassion and reconciliation.
It is not that the Creator has stopped wanting to talk and relate to Self, it is perhaps that Self may find it difficult to connect with the Creator because of past experiences and the potential pride manifest in Self’s attributes and integrity of independence and sovereignty. Self may be ignoring the possibility of the Creator’s existence, thereby denying Self the opportunity to experience personal and private reflection in relation to Self’s relationship with Self and hence Self’s relationship with the Creator. It could be said that the invisible door has been slowly closing for such a long time that the door through which the Creator emanates may become rusty and cannot easily be opened without some extra incentive and personally intended application.
Self-absorption as opposed to self-reflection may possibly, through involuntary ignorance or blatant will, become the product of the manifestation of pride and arrogance manifest in indiscrete base acts, which hurt Self, and others. This process may result in living a life of self-centeredness, and gratuitous selfishness, and as a spiritual and psychological consequence, possibly harmful to Self’s inner being and others as a product of the aftermath. These particular attitudes may directly cause discriminate and indiscriminate human-to-human pain and suffering. Relief through personal acceptance, compassion and reconciliation may prevail when Self is able to decide to choose to disabuse Self’s denial of Self’s intrinsic spiritual existence, imbibing the independent and sovereign Self to live life that effectively flows outwards from within as a result of Self consciously ‘centering’ Self.
The deliberate transformation of Self by choosing to listen within Self’s center may act as if it were magic, changing every aspect of one’s being, thereby enabling Self to live life in harmony with Self and Self’s brothers and sisters in a spirit of compassion, acceptance and reconciliation and thus, in truth, peace, love, joy and happiness.
Atheism
Agnostic is a word defined by an individual’s non-belief in a ‘God’s’ existence, because that individual believes that there is not the evidence available to prove in the Creator’s existence. But surely if one does not study and read appropriate information then one cannot learn and will never acquire enough information necessary to consider the possibility of ‘God’s’ existence.
The word Atheism is a term often used to describe those who choose not believe in the possibility of a “God,” a belief they choose based on the principles generated by their personal attitude and values from the information they have acquired. This stance about not believing in a Creator and labeled as Atheism may be based on misinformation and one being uninformed of all the necessary evidence required by an individual to make such an informed decision, which may otherwise lead one to consider the possibilities of the Creator’s existence. This particular mindset and stance may be based on the false perception of one’s personal and individual autonomy being exaggerated to the point of believing one is denied and has had extracted, extinguished and nullified one’s personal independence and sovereignty by belief in a Creator. Logically speaking, this position of requiring total intellectual and emotional independence is understandable, and indeed, such attributes as consciousness, intellect and emotion can allow individuals to believe in and experience their personal sense of being and uniqueness, which by definition may be a very private and intimate affair.
A Creator of invisible constructs such as consciousness, intellect, emotion and freewill surely respects the integrity and sovereignty of each individual, enabling a person to think and feel, and allowing an individual to possess personality, values and attitudes as characteristics of Self and Self’s being and Self being Self. But we are also social beings and require others for comfort and support. And we are beings who are ‘physically’ and psychologically dependant in some way or another, on creation, including, the air we breathe, the water we drink and the food we eat, for our existence. And we are spiritual beings who can reflect within as we think and feel about how we think and feel.
But inevitably, human bodies of atom-energy are, through design, order and plan, programmed to ‘die’ or more accurately, change their structure and functions as we have experienced them. The sacredness of being human involves believing and thinking as one wishes without the burden of the Creator’s coercive influence or threat of wrath. Indeed, humans are entitled to expect their individual rights but as adults are also accountable and responsible for their actions and the subsequent consequences associated with these actions. But perhaps all peoples need to be cognizant of having an open mind and heart to listen to and contemplate fully all the information in relation to such transcendent possibilities. Some people may harbour a personal resentment against the possibility of a Creator formed from the idea of such an incredible Power, Force or Spirit necessary to create humankind and the universe. This stance may also provide the motivation for one to seek out the available evidence for the existence of such a Creator and ‘God’. To acknowledge and consider the possibility of the existence of a Creator is in no way to oppose or deny the sovereignty and independence of Self or human kind. Since the essence of human dignity is grounded in and brought to perfection in a loving Creator who loves unconditionally and universally, and who, by nature, is essentially intrinsically and substantially all ‘good’ and perfect. A Creator, who indeed, may exist and love regardless of whether we like it or not, and who may exist and love whether we believe or not.
Personal Integrity and Choice
The ability gifted to humans to reason and choose, and therefore, to be able to make decisions, and to act freely in a certain way, or to not act in a certain way in the things they do, think and say, has the potential to shape the development of human character and personality. And, therefore, the personal experiences of Self and others for better or worse. This freedom to act and to do so is a force for our personal growth and maturity in dignity, truth, love, forgiveness and goodness and hence a force shaping our personal well-being. The spiritual and personal growth we can achieve is ultimately perfected and magnified when enacted and expressed in the direction of ‘God’, who is the essence of all love and truth.
Humans are social creatures made to enjoy community with our fellows, and we are spiritual creatures made to enjoy community with God. Until the day comes when we can enjoy community in fullness with our fellows and enjoy community with ‘God’, our experience of the world may not be fully complete, or fully satisfied, but only partial. As humans we were made to “long” for real justice, real truth and real love. Self cannot but advocate Self searching for the true meaning of Self’s life - which discovery will be satisfying - if Self is not in any personal spiritual, intellectual and emotional denial of the sacredness of Self’s human sovereignty.
Our desires can be boundless as we yearn for the love and truth that can fill the feelings we sometimes may experience of the emptiness and limitless wanting of our hearts and minds. These feelings we may have experienced, that we may have felt about our human limitations and human brokenness are perhaps the symptoms of the need and desire in our hearts and lives for a sense of relationship with others and the absolute ‘God’. We have within our being a taste for the infinitive, a taste for divinity, a taste for justice, a taste for mercy, a taste for love and a taste for compassion, which when filled will go towards satisfying our need for personal wholeness.
The philosopher and theologian Augustine (4th century AD) eloquently described this phenomenon when he said:
"We are restless beings who cannot rest except in the one who made us".
However, this reflection, although potentially true, may seem slightly simplistic as it may ignore the sovereignty, integrity uniqueness and the potential sacredness of personal freewill and independence created within the being of each human. Also, by adding to the mix the true and wonderful relationships we can experience with others may be our console and highlight the sacred experience of relating to the spirit of another person, and in turn, connecting with the Creator through the spirit of the other as made in the image of the Creator. The faculty of Self’s free will and choice to choose a particular action has the potential to be a very powerful force. These faculties give Self the capability to both love and/ or hate and destroy other human beings. We only need to look on the state of the world to realise this with wholesale emotional ‘psychological’ devastation and ‘physical’ annihilation from acts causing human-to-human suffering through people’s choices to perpetrate acts of war, greed, hatred, prejudice, cruelty, and murder etc. These are some of the atrocities and abominations perpetrated by human beings against their brothers and sisters.
Christ’s Teachings
So what are the possible answers to rectifying and healing the irrational and painful devastation humans have created and perpetrated for and against one another. We humans need information and resources, we need to be educated, we need to be fully informed about our spiritual heritage our spiritual makeup and how our actions, thoughts and feelings can have catastrophic consequences for Self, and others. In this way, through education, it is hoped that we can make measured and considered decisions and choices based on all the relevant material and facts so as to best behave in a way that is in keeping with the master blue print of our inherent spirit and essence and ultimately, that for which we were intended and made for.
The application of the above principles and concepts undoubtedly incorporate and intertwine all the spiritual and psychological areas of our personal lives and the personal lives of others. Such a ‘God’ knows the importance of human knowledge about these facts, of course, and to this end Jesus Christ, His examples and His teachings, are the resulting outcome. These examples and teachings exemplified and espoused by Jesus Christ, are the principles and values expressed as a main theme throughout the New Testament, but also based on the refinement and re-development of the original Ten Commandments in the Old Testament. So as a measure against destroying Self and each other, and as a guide to real truth, real love, real mercy, real justice and real compassion, improving on, reflecting on, and practicing living life with unconditional love, as is described and expressed within the messages, teachings and letters witnessed throughout the New Testament, can be behaviour aspired to.
The Original Ten Commandments
The historical biblical Ten Commandments written in the bible said to have been given to Moses from ‘God’ on Mount Sinai were useful behavioural and moral guidelines and rules for the people of the time, who did not have any ‘divine’ code to live by. And which without question were and are still considered to be good morals and rules for personal guidance promoting better behaviour and living for humans.
The Ten Commandments read:
1. You shall have no false gods except me.
2. You shall not bow down to or serve any carved image or any
likeness of anything in heaven or on earth.
3. You shall not utter the name of Yahweh your God or misuse
it.
4. Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy.
5. Honour your father and your mother.
6. You shall not kill, maim or injure.
7. You shall not commit adultery.
8. You shall not steal.
9. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbour.
10. You shall not covet your neighbours wife, husband or anything that is his.
These commandments are in the following verses of both Testaments.
(Matthew 5:20-48; 19:16-22; Mark 10:1-31; Exodus 20: 1-21; Deuteronomy 5: 1-22)
The Ten Commandments Very Relevant but Inadequate
However, some would say and commonsense would dictate that these ancient moral rules, although generally excellent guidelines to live by, if read and interpreted literally with absolute faith, will be deemed today to be inevitably inflexible, narrow and flawed in their specificity. If these commandments are interpreted literally with little room for movement rather than being interpreted with room for interpretational nuances, like the inflexible analogy ‘of embracing the concrete inflexible colours of black and white’ rather than the opposing analogy, ‘embracing the shades of colours of all the colours of the rainbow’, then problems of scripture interpretation will undoubtedly decrease. Dare it be also said, that these ancient ‘imperative’ moral rules and laws are of course very relevant today underpinning moral behaviour, but inadequate as being the perfect spiritual guidelines and boundaries safeguarding against the manifold complex transgressions committed by Self against Self’s neighbour that we too often see and experience in today’s world.
Furthermore, these prohibited activities prescribed in the Ten Commandments are in many circumstances considered too narrow for many situations in many different countries today, and therefore, are behaviours that are possibly even justifiable and legitimate as being the lesser of two evils in some circumstances. For instance, some parents, sadly, abuse their children and so the commandment to do good and not sin, ‘to honour your mother and father,’ could not only exacerbate further abuse, but indeed destroy ‘God’s’ credibility in the eyes of those who are and have been harmed. In many countries, citizens are dying from starvation, or killed and murdered by militia and supporters of dictators and tyrants. And so, for people in these cultures, when it involves the taking of another’s’ life for self-preservation and self-defense, or stealing food for survival against starvation, we cannot surely and automatically say, “you have stolen and so have committed a grave sin” or, “you have killed someone and therefore committed a mortal sin”. So it could be justifiable to break Moses’ commandments and laws under certain circumstances.
These laws show how an absolute faith and belief in Sacred Scripture and the absolute unwavering compliance of these rules may inevitably lead to further ‘physical’ and psychological harm, compromising psycho-spiritual health, and ultimately, the murderous killing of humans. Only the Creator knows the full and total circumstances of any one person’s situation, who might perform certain behaviours, and so only this Supreme Being can judge such a persons behaviour absolutely. It could be suggested that to amend the anomalies of the commandments in the Old Testament, God in His infinite Wisdom, through Jesus Christ, became the architect, author and example of the new commandment, the new law of the world, the new law of love. In the next chapter, we will investigate the meaning of this new law of the ‘Creator’, this new law of love.
CHAPTER 7
THE NEW COMMANDMENT
OF LOVE
The New Law of Relational Love
Live Life with Relational Love for Self and Others
Judging and Self-righteousness
Philosophy of Love
The New Law of Relational Love
Let us again front the reality of life and death. Living life as a human would mean nothing in the end if, when all is done and finished, life has been lived without love for Self and others. If life is lived without the experience of value, respect, compassion and acceptance, etc., for Self and others, life itself may be deemed to be experienced as worthless, and in reality, wasted. There is nothing more important in the world, in the universe, than the experience of human love, charity and compassion and the subsequent enduring health of spiritual and psychological well being that flows from the ‘relational love’ experience. It is a universal truth that these attributes and virtues of the higher transcendent qualities of relational charity, reconciliation and compassion, can provide personal satisfaction in terms of meaning, vision and hope to Self’s life and existence.
The importance of the value of love is endorsed and verified when Jesus Christ summarised, overhauled and redefined the above historic Ten Commandments and rules of the Old Testament, into two major and imperative concepts. The term ‘concept’ is used here, firstly because the word ‘commandment’ encourages the notion of ‘rightness’ and ‘wrongness’, and this could never have been the true intention. Real love is about freedom and choice. Real love is intrinsically unconditional and is predicated on the essence of Life and Creation itself, and not on any notion of ‘rightness’ or ‘wrongness’. The notion of being ‘right’ and therefore not ‘wrong’ creates a psychological and spiritual polarization, which has the propensity to perpetuate attitudinal psychological compartments within Self and others which are labeled by a particular belief, as ‘good’ and/or ‘bad’. This can propel an inner drive in Self for goodness and perfection, which becomes distorted because it becomes a need for goodness and perfection at any cost, and ultimately, necessitates the elimination of all that is considered and perceived as bad and imperfect. This inner need to do and be good, perfect and right at all costs, necessitates the desire to eliminate badness and imperfections in others, which in turn, risks personal thoughts, feelings, values, attitudes and behaviours that can be obsessive, compulsive and destructive such as thoughts, feelings, values, attitudes, beliefs and acts that include discrimination, aggression and hatred. This mindset and behaviour-set inevitably destroys the ability for one to experience and practice true love, which by definition, is not based on right or wrong, pride or arrogance, but on understanding, compassion and unconditional love.
The attitude of needing to ‘be right’ is dangerous one as it comes with exacerbating consequences. If we have a need to ‘be right’ in terms of a spiritual and religious context, it is because we believe that only if we are ‘right’ are we then good enough to live eternally with God. And so our belief systems, our religion, has to be the ‘right one’, and everyone else’s therefore must be inherently bad and/or wrong. These destructive ‘true’ and ‘right’ belief systems are then compounded and intensified by thoughts of exclusiveness and thus quickly develop into attitudes, feelings and behaviours that are characterized by hate, fanaticism, fear and anger, which are the antithesis and antipathy of compassion, acceptance and unconditional love. Secondly, the meaning of the word ‘concept’ in the statement ‘the concept of love’ gives the connotation of love being a choice or option, and so ultimately, an attitude, belief and behaviour that no one can ever be forced into or coerced by. Because the act of love is indeed not love if one is threatened by anyone in anyway, to love.
To love is a choice. To love is an option. If the act of love originated in any other way other than by virtue of choice or option, then love would essentially mean nothing, and mean anything else but love. Conscious emotions, cognitions and behaviours to love provide the essence and ingredients of the love that is transmitted by the ‘lover’ and received by the loved. This experience of love can become the most powerful spiritual energy in the universe. This energy of love experienced between peoples, is never forgotten, but always remembered. It never disappears, but always exists, in minds and hearts and has the spiritual characteristics of transcending all time, all places and all spaces. These new and overriding commandments (concepts) of love for the Creator, and love for Self, and others, from Christ, undoubtedly may resonate as an inner song within the innate spirit, and in fact, and in principle, mirror each other. Because the image of the Creator is in all of us, and because, it has been said, whatever we do or say to others’ we do and say it to the Creator. For we are all made from and by the Creator so the Creator is in all. These commandments read, firstly:
1. “First, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and with all your mind and with all your strength.”
(Matthew 22:37)
This is the first of the two great commandments given to people from God through Jesus Christ. This is a commandment to love the Creator. But we can only really love the Creator if we know what the Creator stands for, and we can only really love the Creator if we understand that the Creator has first loved us. God has first loved us, firstly, through the creation of creation and human existence and immortality, and secondly, through the Creator’s Son’s birth, life, death and resurrection. Our experience of the Creator’s love may be direct. That is, through belief in the knowledge of creation, and belief in the knowledge of the Creator’s Son’s birth, life, death and resurrection, or indirect, that is, through the loving relationships we may have experienced from others who reflect the Creator’s love and who appreciate and accept our uniqueness, experiencing the Creator’s image and likeness within us.
It behooves the author to explain that this commandment (concept) to love the Creator must be an act of free choice made out of personal and intimate knowledge and understanding. Just as the Creator respects the sacredness and dignity of human integrity and sovereignty through the gifts of consciousness, free-will and personal and private thoughts and emotions, so knowing and loving the Creator needs to be an act of genuine choice made out of a personal and intimate spiritual knowledge and understanding. This does not entitle anyone to be condescending or judgmental towards those who choose not to know the Creator. Relating with and knowing the Creator is a uniquely personal and intimate experience between Self and The Other. A relationship formed by intimately personal experiences, awareness and understanding.
Secondly:
2. “You shall love your neighbour as yourself.”
(Matthew 22:39)
This is such a powerful commandment or concept and must be considered a wonderfully constructive component of the new law of relational love and compassion. This commandment states and emphatically requires all of us to love others as we love Self, to do unto others, as we would have them do unto us. This commandment assumes therefore that we need to love Self in such a ‘good enough’ way – good enough way, for no one is perfect - that we are able to also love others in an equally ‘good enough’ way. This commandment therefore requires us to love Self so that we can, in turn, love others, thus love others as Self loves Self.
This commandment, which encourages Self to love others as Self loves Self, implies that if Self doesn’t love Self ‘well enough’ - because Self needs to love others as Self loves Self - then Self won’t love others ‘well enough’. Indeed, we could say that Self is required to love others as Self loves Self, and thus Self, should love Self so that Self can love others. And when Self loves Self with the psychological characteristics of a good sense of self-worth, self-identity and self-esteem, Self would also want others to love Self with the same quality of love. When Self loves, accepts and respects Self, Self would also appreciate others to treat Self with this same respect, acceptance and dignity. So, this commandment asks Self to treat Self with love, respect and acceptance, so that Self can, in turn, treat others with the same attitude of respect, love, acceptance and dignity.
So Self is asked to love others as Self loves Self, and so the more Self loves Self, the more Self is able to love others, so the more others can then love themselves, and in turn, love, respect and accept others. The more Self loves Self, and the more others love Self, the more Self would want to love Self and others. Consistent psychological research has proven this human behavioural phenomenon to be credible. This may be explained by Self needing to realistically and genuinely love Self before Self can realistically and genuinely love others. Self cannot realistically and genuinely love another whilst hating and/or not loving Self. Self might think they can love others and not love Self but this would be a distortion of the true definition of love. This is because the subjective and perceived degree and depth, quantity and quality - described as characteristics - of the love Self has for Self, whether experienced and expressed implicitly and/or explicitly, definitively defines for Self what love is per se. Therefore, the characteristics that comprise the definition of love Self has for Self are the only characteristics available to Self for Self to love others by.
How can Self, love others if Self does not love, accept and respect Self first? Indeed, if Self dislikes Self, Self will consequently dislike others, disliking others as Self dislikes Self. If Self dislikes and can’t love, accept or respect Self, Self will not really expect others to treat Self with love, acceptance and respect, neither will Self be inclined to treat others with love, acceptance and respect that Self is unable to experience from Self or others. If Self cannot love, accept and respect Self with Self’s own imperfections how can Self then navigate a 360 degree turn and love, accept and respect others with all their imperfections? Would it not be psychologically and practically impossible?
The power of the behaviour and act of loving and accepting Self is based on psychological rationale that to love, respect and accept Self with all of Self’s own personal limitations, weaknesses and imperfections will in turn allow Self permission to love, respect and accept others with all their personal limitations, weaknesses and imperfections. If Self cannot accept Self’s imperfections, weaknesses and limitations, it will be impossible to accept the limitations, weaknesses and imperfections of others. In addition to knowing the rationale of the cause and effects of the characteristics of loving or not loving, respect and acceptance for Self and others is also the notion that if Self loves and accepts Self with all of Self’s personal limitations, weaknesses, and imperfections Self possesses, then Self can become positively motivated toward change. This is, opposed to not being motivated at making the desired and/or necessary changes to improve Self’s personal limitations, weaknesses, and imperfections. If Self cannot love and accept Self with all Self’s imperfections, weaknesses and limitations, Self will find it almost impossible to muster the psychological energy and strength required for the personal motivation to materially improve on Self’s imperfections, weaknesses and limitations. So to improve the love and acceptance for Self and others, Self needs first, to love Self with all of Self’s imperfections, weaknesses and limitations.
This new divine decree or concept or advice regarding relational love can be defined as putting into practice through self’s constructs of cognition, emotion and behaviour the acts of compassion and reconciliation for Self and others. So this divine ‘advice’ states that we need to love, forgive and accept Self first so that we are able to move towards the process of loving, accepting and forgiving others. Importantly however, this law does not state that we have to like everyone, everywhere, and then have them live on our doorstep, but rather, to harbour and center within Self, a sense of value, respect, acceptance and peace towards Self, so that Self may sense the same value, respect, acceptance and peace towards others. However, if we can’t forgive others because of perhaps the enormous abuse others may have subjected us to, and perpetrated upon us, whether it be in the present and/or past, we can instead, try and forgive Self for not being able to forgive others. For whether the truth is ‘good’ or ‘bad’, Self’s personal truth will set Self, free. This sense of personal and dignified freedom may possibly eventually allow Self the forgiveness of others for Self’s personal sense of closure.
This attitude of intra-personal forgiveness and acceptance for Self will help facilitate the stemming of bitterness towards Self, and in turn, towards others, whilst encouraging spiritual and psychological healing within, that will also enhance Self’s ability to heal and grieve at the loss of personal justice and dignity. This may in turn prohibit any feelings of shame and guilt brought about and by any acts of intentional abuse and destructiveness towards Self by others. So Self needs to give Self the dignity Self deserves under particular circumstances and forgive Self for not being ready, able or having the capacity and resources within, to forgive others. These psychological mindsets may help Self to make the necessary choices needed to forgive others and thus take back Self’s personal sense of control and power that has been taken. In turn, this personal action of forgiveness to Self and others will allow Self to move on with Self’s life, without the repercussions of becoming psychologically disempowered, disenfranchised and maligned, with the possibility of carrying the acquired and compounding painful experiences into new relationships, events and situations. This will allow the spirit of goodwill and peace to flow within and through Self, and allow Self to come to accept any offending perpetrator as being spiritually and/or psychologically sick/unwell. It will also allow Self to move on with Self’s life, allowing the possibility of Self to increase the love, respect, acceptance and dignity for Self, so that Self can continue to treat others constructively as Self treats Self.
This concept or commandment, to love, is perhaps the most important behaviour for people to embrace and live their lives by. Upon this law of love for Self and others, shall, by its intrinsic definition, hinge and underpin the consciousness of thoughts, emotions, values, attitudes, beliefs and speech and behaviours towards Self and others.
As the author’s of these scriptures prudently reflects:
“On these two commandments should hang all future spiritual laws and the agenda and directives of the prophets.”
(Matthew 22:37-40; Romans 12:9-21; 1 Corinthians)
Live Life with Relational Love for Self and Others
This new law of Mystical Relational Love is described, emphasised and confirmed, in ‘The Letter to Romans’, which reads:
“If you love your fellow then you have carried out your obligations. All the commandments: You shall not commit adultery, you shall not kill, you shall not steal, you shall not covet, and so on, are summed up in this single command: You must love your neighbour as yourself. Love is the one thing that cannot hurt your neighbour; that is why it is the answer to every one of the commandments”.
(Romans 13:8-10)
Jesus also says in John’s Gospel:
“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you: abide in my love”.
(John 15:9-12)
“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you”.
(John 13:34)
So we are to behave in a certain way, in a way that does not hurt the inner spirit of feelings and thoughts of others. But as we have discussed above, this love must go further, for to love others as ourselves, we first need to love Self, so that Self may have the psychological and spiritual depth and strength to love others. So the more we love Self the more we will be able to, and be inclined to love others, thus living the Creator’s new law of love. By living life in and with an attitude of love, respect and acceptance, Self will also learn to experience self-acceptance and self-respect, self-love and self-forgiveness. Self will experience Self as a unique and special Being with the attributes of personal freewill, independence, sovereignty and dignity. Self also needs to be gentle on Self, particularly in the areas of self-judgment and self-incrimination, whilst restraining Self’s temptations for feelings of personal pride, arrogance and self-righteousness.
Through actively living life in the way of relational love for Self and others, Self will be enriched through the reciprocation of this intra-love of self-acceptance and kindness for Self, because Self can then give this acceptance and kindness to others, and in return, others will give acceptance and kindness to Self. Self’s and others’ personal happiness and sense of peace, will be initiated and sustained through relational love, charity and, compassion. From this interpersonal relational love of charity and compassion comes the warm inner psychological sense, cognition and feeling of spiritual well-being for Self and other Self’s which could be considered to be the Creator’s ultimate intention for all peoples.
The Apostle Paul has provided an eloquent and incomparable depiction of charity in his letter to the Corinthians:
“If I have all the eloquence of men or of angels, but speak without love, I am simply a gong booming or a cymbal clashing. If I have the gift of prophecy, understanding all the mysteries there are, and knowing everything, and if I have faith in all its fullness, to move mountains, but without love, then I am nothing at all. If I give away, all that I possess, piece by piece, and if I even let them take my body to burn it, but am without love, it will do me no good whatever. Love is always patient and kind; it is never jealous; love is never boastful or conceited; it is never rude or selfish; it does not take offence, and is not resentful. Love takes no pleasure in other people’s sins but delights in the truth; it is always ready to excuse, to trust, to hope, and to endure whatever comes. And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love”.
(1 Corinthians 13:1-13)
Incidentally, the above passage of verses is a good example of the diversity of language nuances used experienced in Bibles of different denominations. The different Bibles use slightly different words to describe and convey what Paul had said in 1 Corinthians 13:1-13.
Christ died out of love for us, while we were still “enemies.” Jesus asks us to love as He does, to make ourselves the neighbour of those farthest away, to love the most vulnerable, as if they are Christ, Himself (Matthew 5:44; 25:40, 45 and Mark 9:37). And so, the duty of making oneself a neighbour to others in active service becomes even more crucial when it involves the disadvantaged, the vulnerable, the lonely and the weak, in whatever area and capacity this may manifest.
“As you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.”
(Matthew 25:31-46 and Mark 12:28-34)
The Creator of the universe has been termed as being akin to the analogy of both a ‘Father’ and ‘Mother’ to all peoples. But this description of the Creator is perhaps inaccurate, condescending and superficial, ‘pigeon holing’ and genderising that which nothing greater can be thought. Human fathers and mothers are by definition imperfect but have been created in the Creator’s image and therefore, although imperfect, independent and sovereign beings. If God is the creator of humanity and God creates with the will and purpose of divinity, then humanity has likely, been made in the image of this Creator. Humans made in the image of the Creator that may be defined by Self’s experience of the invisible spiritual personal constructs of consciousness, personality, freewill, intellect, cognitions and emotions. Just as the information in the genes (genetics) of parents creating new life transfer to their offspring, so their child is partially created in their image, and so the partial mirror and reflection of their ‘physical’ and psychological parents. The parents will always be there for their ‘child’, and will usually feel deeply for their child’s well-being, safety and happiness. When children are in pain so normally their parents are also in pain.
However, the child will grow and develop into an adult, becoming its own sovereign and independent person, but, will usually, always still be loved by its parents. If humanity is made in the image of God then humanity partially mirrors and reflects God’s spirituality and personality as a manifestation of the Creator’s existence and love. Just as parents hate to see their children hurt one another, so the Creator, who must deeply care for and love each individual, is offended and pained when people do not treat each other with dignity, love and respect. So when we hurt or love another we are hurting or loving the Creator in whose image we are made. Respecting with dignity the lowly, the lonely, the poor, the hungry, the sad, the abused, and the victimized etc., is particularly poignant because these are often individuals without a personal sense of security, without a personal sense of high self-esteem, and therefore more vulnerable to the dynamics of interpersonal relationships, particularly with those who possess the balance of power.
So this same duty to love others as we love Self extends to all peoples who are more vulnerable than Self, including those who think, believe and/or act differently to Self. This love for others needs to extend to those with different religions and cultures, and those with different creeds and faiths, and those with different ethnic backgrounds. At the end of the day, we are all humans who have evolved from primates and the animal species. We may have slightly different hair and skin colours, different organs, different functions, and abilities and different beliefs, attitudes and values, etc., but importantly, we all clearly share the extraordinary gifts of consciousness, thought, emotion and speech. We are all vulnerable and sensitive – manifest through our conscious emotions and cognitions - to the way other people think, feel, and talk about us, and act towards us. We also share in common, the ability to choose how to behave towards people and the ability to build personal relationships with Self, others and the Creator if we so choose. We all share in common, through these gifts of consciousness, feelings, thoughts and speech, the ability to develop constructive relationships and thus the potential to invoke personal well-being and the sense of peace for others and Self.
The teachings of Christ go so far as to require the forgiveness of offences. However, we need to forgive Self before we can possibly forgive others. We need to learn to forgive Self as a conscious act of the heart and soul, least we grow bitter and twisted and angry from the tainting of the spirit, inducing the interpersonal toxins of vindictiveness, vengeance and hatred. Forgiveness is a choice Self makes and not the product of the waving of a magic wand. Forgiveness is a choice Self makes from the mind, heart and soul. Forgiveness of Self also prevents Self from carrying the debilitating thoughts and emotions of guilt and shame, anger and bitterness, which could prohibit Self from further personal growth and from productive and caring interpersonal relationships.
Christ throughout His life extended the examples of the behaviours of love and compassion, being that of the New Law, to all people, enemies or not, whether the conflict and tension is underpinned by spiritual, ‘physical’, or emotional misunderstanding and differences. This does not mean we have to ‘wine and dine’ those who have offended us, or have them live on our doorstep, but means the ability to forgive others, in due course, thus extending the personal and private energy of inner peace, mercy and compassion to those who are less informed or psychologically and/or spiritually incapacitated. This inner sense and attitude of peace and acceptance of Self towards others will help create a more comfortable spiritual and psychological cushion between Self and those by whom we have been hurt. Giving the psychological space, climate and time required for healing and the time to allow others a chance to choose to reconcile, by apologizing with genuine contrition, if this is at all possible for them.
This inner sense of self-acceptance and forgiveness may enable one to live in the space of inner peace with Self, and therefore with others. This may reduce the build up of personal psychological, spiritual, cognitive, and emotional tension and stress. Stress and tension activates hormonal and biochemical toxins such as, corticosteroids and adrenaline in the body, which in turn, suppresses the functions of the immune system. This further increases stress and tension within Self, building greater psychological and physiological barriers preventing the development of constructive relationships and limiting the potential personal experience of inner peace, harmony and well-being.
The letter to Romans states:
“Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited. Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. If it is possible, as far as it depends upon you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay”, says the Lord”.
(Romans 12:16-19)
We read in 1 Peter:
“And so to reiterate to all of you, live in harmony with one another, be sympathetic, love as brothers and sisters, and be compassionate and humble. Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult, but with blessing, because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing”.
(1 Peter 3:8-9)
Judging and Self-righteousness
Can we refrain from arbitrarily judging others as we have all transgressed and fallen short of the Creator’s intrinsic and absolute perfection, grace and, mercy. As humans, we are limited in fully understanding the love, grace and mercy of the omnipotent Creator. We are limited in knowing what the omnipotent Creator knows. Therefore, it makes sense, only the Creator has the power, love and knowledge to make judgments about another person, about other human beings. Only the Creator knows the full truth and circumstance about any one particular situation. It makes sense then that we don’t fall into the trap of self-righteousness and judgment, but take care of the “log” in our own eye, rather than worry about the speck in another’s eye (Matthew 7:3-5), so to speak.
So with the new law of relational love comes the law of, “not judging.” If we are to love others as Self loves Self, there is no room for us to commit arbitrary intellectual and discriminatory judgments about others, or allow to committing Self, to having feelings of self-righteousness. Value judgments are the personal and cognitive decisions made by Self about others and are based on the limited (or incomprehensive) information we have about a particular subject matter. The information we may possess about another person is always only partial to all the facts of that particular subject. It is a known fact that in criminal court cases innocent people have been convicted for crimes they did not commit and others have been found not guilty for crimes they did commit. As humans, we will never fully know or understand all the complexities of the circumstances that go towards driving another’s behaviour, only the Creator can truly know all these facts, and so only the Creator can judge absolutely. For instance, from a human perspective, we know creation to be in part, both perfect and imperfect, but therefore must be extremely complex to comprehend. But creation must be perfect, because if we believe God created creation, and if ‘God’ is perfect, then creation must be the outcome of the Creator’s perfect design, order and plan. But creation could also be said by humans to be imperfect, because we have all seen the destructive and painful suffering caused by the anomalies and extremes of creation in nature, and humankind. So to humanely reconcile the anomaly between creations characteristics of ‘perfection’ and ‘imperfection’, we could say that creation is perfectly imperfect or imperfectly perfect, for creation has been created by the Perfect One.
We have seen the destructive affects of Volcanoes, Tsunamis, Tornadoes and Floods that occur because of the Creator’s specific design and order of the planet. Where the Creator has desired, planned and willed the order and design of the Universe, Galaxy, Solar System and planet Earth. Where the earth’s inner crust consists of magma (boiling molten rock) and powerful Tectonic Plates, which continually slide and move in tension against each other until resistance becomes so strong that something gives, causing land and under sea earthquakes and as a consequence, tsunamis and volcanoes that destroy life and humans. The Creator has willed the design and order of creation whereby every so often asteroids randomly zero in on Earth penetrating the atmosphere with the potential to create widespread destruction of life and humans. Sharks, Snakes and Crocodiles, etc., have been willed and desired by the Creator, creatures that give much pleasure and joy to people, but which also have the potential to kill and maim people. And don’t forget, people maim and kill people too. We have seen the Creator’s mysterious anomaly of creation in nature in the sickness of disease such as cancers, viruses and bacteria indiscriminately destroying the body and life of human beings. We have observed the human pain of Creator’s creation of nature whereby babies are born with intellectual and ‘physical’ disabilities.
We can also begin to understand the complexity and ‘anomaly’ of the Creator’s creation of humans when we acknowledge that an individual can be born as “Intersex”, whereby a baby’s genitals are neither clearly male nor female. Indeed, the biological sex of humans at conception is neither male nor female, until the complex mix of chromosomes and sex hormones activate soon after conception and during pregnancy. Exposure to sex hormones in the early months after birth is linked to gender identity. Many different biological conditions can cause intersex. Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia (CAH) is another condition where the baby’s adrenal glands overproduce a male hormone before birth, causing ‘virilisation’ of the genitalia and making a girl look like a boy. It is also possible to have the chromosomes of one gender, but the genitals of another; or a child may be born with both male and female genitals. That is, the ovaries and sometimes vagina of a female, in addition to the penis of a male. The medical description for this condition is termed hermaphrodite. Sadly people with intersex can be negatively affected in many psychological ways by others’ harsh and discriminate judgments. If the Creator can allow it possible for humans to be conceived and born with such diversity then what gives humans’ the right to detrimentally question this difference. So the Creator does not have a neat, tidy and ‘perfect’ archetype and template for human physiology and mindset. And so is not diversity and difference good? It must be ‘good’. It is ‘good’. And if the Creator creates such diversity, albeit physically temporary through Supreme intelligent design and order, cannot anything be possible?
An individual with both male and female sex organs will tend to be bio-psychologically inclined to think and feel like one gender or the other, think and feel like a male or female, but which one? And so this person may be gender identity confused, or may desire to live as either a male or female, and may be attracted to who knows what gender? But who is capable of judging this person’s gender transition or sexual preference as right or wrong, or good or bad? This way the Creator has chosen through the particular design and order of creation, - what some people may consider anomalies – the potentialities and possibilities of the characteristics of nature and humans.
Research has also discovered that during the development of the fetus in the womb unborn babies are subjected to different degrees of testosterone and estrogen. These are the hormones that ultimately influence the degree to which these individuals may feel psychologically inclined and predisposed to behave and think in either a feminine or masculine manner and to which gender they may be attracted. However, some people consider themselves to be psychologically the opposite gender to their bio-physical anatomy including genitalia. The word ‘trans gender’ describes a person who in essence, psychologically, intellectually and emotionally, identifies themselves to the gender opposite to their biological physiology. Transgender occurs equally in both biological males and females. Trans gender can be caused by factors such as the deviation of critically timed hormonal releases – sometimes caused by stress - during pregnancy, or the presence of hormone mimicking chemicals present during a critical development phase of fetal development. New research has shown that a part of the brain is dedicated to the attribution of both feminine and masculine traits and characteristics that contribute to their ‘balance’ in each individual. But at the end of the day the psychological characteristics of gender are identified and defined by bio-chemistry, physiology and socialisation. Research has shown that up to the age of five children both male and female genders exhibit remarkably similar characteristics and behaviours.
New research published in the Journal of Endocrinology (2004), found anatomical differences between the brains of rams that prefer other males to rams that prefer ewes. The part of the brain that controls sexual behaviour was smaller in rams that preferred other males than in rams that preferred ewes. Thus, sexual preference is in part determined biologically in animals and possibly also in humans. Studies showed that about 8 per cent of domestic rams display preferences for other rams. Same sex attractions are also widespread across many different animal species. Another study observed a group of cows in a confined space over an extended period, were also likely to be ‘attracted’ to each other. This same sex attraction was attributed to the stress experienced from enclosed confinement. So God’s creation of life must be either ‘imperfect’ and ok, or perfectly imperfect and still ok. But humans are not in the all-knowing position to make arbitrary value judgments, or any personal accusations and judgments about anybody, or anybody’s particular situation, because only the Creator has the divine and transcendent ability to know all of anyone’s circumstances.
We have also seen the reality of human life where some people are brought up in an environment of love and others in an environment of abuse, and still others are brought up somewhere within this inter-relational continuum, which undoubtedly interplays on future behaviour. New research has just discovered that there is a resilience gene. This gene they call 5-HTTT - depending on its length - can influence a person’s reaction to traumatic events in terms of a more positive or more negative stress response. And there is research that indicates that people with schizophrenia have a gene that prevents the normal growth of the myelin sheath that is designed to insulate cerebrum neurons from short-circuiting, disrupting the ‘normal’ process for processing thoughts and feelings. New research by Vaughan Carr, scientific director of the Neuroscience Institute of Schizophrenia and Allied Disorders, comprising a team of Australian and international researchers studying the brains of people with schizophrenia have identified a thinner outer layer of grey matter compared with people who do not have this mental illness. This brain tissue loss occurring in people with schizophrenia directly links to impaired brain function, thought processing, and the abnormal thinking they may experience. Their impaired thought processes and an inability to problem solve was directly linked to the reduced grey matter thickness and the reduced activity of the affected part of the brain. Interestingly, new cognitive therapy methods and concepts, suggest that the steadfast delusions some people experience with mental illness are modifiable with Cognitive Behaviour therapy, being on a continuum with the inflexible and deeply entrenched political and religious beliefs, many ‘regular’ people hold. And the experience of psychosis in the mentally ill can be related to ‘normal’ experiences regarding the intensity or irrationality of beliefs in ‘regular’ individuals (Chadwick, Birchwood & Trower, 1997).
. Here are some examples of how the origins and reasons for human behaviour can not be explained simply, but are often the result of complex events and the interaction between nature, nurture, human genes, hormones and neurotransmitters, including the psychological outcomes related to the experiences of trauma often associated through nature and nurture. But it should be noted that the effects of nature and nurture are not irreversible in terms of their final destiny for human behaviour, but can be modified through the power of an individual’s desire and will to choose an alternative path. It makes sense that only the Creator can ultimately and perfectly judge the actions, thoughts and feelings of another human being, as only the Creator has the ability to choose to know comprehensively the total and absolute situation and circumstance of anyone required to make absolutely just and true value judgments.
Self-righteousness may be interpreted as the feelings and cognitions that generate the sense and notion that we are ‘right’ and everyone else should be ‘right’ in the same way that we are ‘right’. If others are not right like we are, then they must be wrong and therefore bad. This attitude and spirit of judgment towards others, this sense of self-righteousness, is often based on an inner sense of personal pride, self-importance and arrogance that we posses, and which also may be exacerbated and triggered by personal ignorance and personal fear of the unknown and so, a fear of Self, others, the world and the Creator. In light of this information, we could make it our business to choose not to judge others. This notion of not judging others, is emphatically stated in the teachings in Matthew 7:1-5 and the metaphorical parables of Matthew in Chapter 13, and Mark 4: 24.
Including the writings in Romans 14:1-12, with its very powerful message, espousing:
“If a person’s faith is not strong enough, welcome him all the same without starting an argument. People range from those who believe they may eat any sort of meat to those whose faith is so weak they dare not eat anything except vegetables. Meat-eaters must not despise the scrupulous. On the other hand, the scrupulous must not condemn those who feel free to eat anything they choose, since God has welcomed them. It is not for you to condemn someone else’s servant: whether he stands or falls it is his own master’s business; he will stand, you may be sure, because the Lord has power to make him stand. If one man keeps certain days as holier than others, and another considers all days to be equally holy, each must be left free to hold his own opinion. The one who observes special days does so in honour of the Lord. The one who eats meat also does so in honour of the Lord, since he gives thanks to God; but then the man who abstains does that too in honour of the Lord, and so he also gives God thanks. The life and death of each of us has its influence on others; if we live, we live for the Lord; and if we die, we die for the Lord, so that alive or dead we belong to the Lord. This explains why Christ both died, and came to life. It was so that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the brother who treat him with contempt, as some of you have done. We shall all have to stand before the judgment seat of God; as Scripture says; “By my life - it is the Lord who speaks - every knee shall bend before me, and every tongue shall praise God. It is to God, therefore, that each of us must give an account of him or herself.”
(Romans 14:1-12)
So can we all learn to accept and love Self so that we may love and accept others? Can we learn to be forgiving and merciful without a hint of judgment or self-righteousness towards Self so that we may act in a spirit of good-will towards others? Without the insight of Christ’s examples and teachings and without the will to be sweet spirited as opposed to mean spirited, humans may behave ignorantly and arrogantly, cowardly and fearfully. Giving in to their own selfish desires, ignoring their destructive behaviours and/or behave with intellectual, spiritual and emotional harm towards others under the pretext and illusion of being and doing ‘good’ from participating in self-righteous behaviours and value judgments, in turn increasing one’s sense of perceived but distorted sense of self-esteem and self-worth.
Through the informed knowledge of that which is necessarily required of Self, and with the will to succeed and live a balanced, generous and compassionate life. And with the addition of spiritual strength emanating from intuitive reflective spiritual discernment, we can surely carry Self up the gold laden, but steep obstacle ridden path of relational love, hope and charity manifesting in love for Self and neighbour. Acts of charity are one of the greatest contributions humans can make to society. Charity respects others’ rights. Charity, by definition, requires the practice of responsibility, accountability, justice and compassion. Charity alone can make humans capable of all else. Charity inspires a life of integrity, a life of self-respect, a life of self-giving and a life of self-loving, which by definition, cannot but manifest in any other way than a life that radiates respect, reconciliation, acceptance and compassion for Self and others.
In Christ’s words: Will You Gain or Lose Your Life?
“Whoever seeks to gain his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it’.
(Luke 17:33, Mat 10:38-39 and Mark 8:34-37)
In this verse, it is possible that Christ is talking about how we might want to save ourselves in this life by acquiring ‘physical’ comforts and a life experienced as blissful through the acquisition of material goods and positions of ‘status’, often acquired at the expense of more vulnerable others.
On the other hand, the idea of losing one’s life a metaphor when generous and selfless towards others at one’s own personal and material expense, and in the process, gaining a sense of personal, emotional and spiritual satisfaction attained through the acts of selfless charity and compassion towards others.
However, if we decide to pursue emotional, ‘physical’, spiritual and intellectual selfishness and destruction against others creating sadness and depression for the sake of satisfying our material well being by way of selfishness, self-absorption and self-centeredness, we will, in the process, feed and massage pride and arrogance only to regret later when undertaking personal self-reflection.
This drive for material extravagance and status will not only make selves unhappy but will never quench our inner thirst for spiritual and personal fulfillment and the equilibrium of sense of peace and personal well-being.
This base instinct for the need to gain our life on earth denies the presence of spirit and to that which will live eternally. We will lose our life on this earth because our selfishness is ego-centric and often results at the expense of others’ rights and dignity.
So we diminish not only our own dignity and that of others, but also our emotional, intellectual and spiritual awareness. We lose the ability to become and be the best person we can, whilst making life uncomfortable for others whilst living on this earth.
Thus, is it not wiser to lose material selfishness but to gain your personal integrity and dignity here and in the moment?
Philosophy of Relational Love/ Compassion
If the Creator exists and Christ is the Creator/God then Jesus’ mystical relational love is a reflection of God’s mystical relational love and therefore the ultimate epitome of love. Jesus’ examples, teachings and behaviour must be then the personification of pure and perfect mystical relational love. This is a perfect love, which humans strive to attain, strive to emulate, strive to give and strive to receive. But although it does exist, a perfect love that is unconditional is as elusive as the pot of gold at the rainbow’s end, because humans are, by definition, imperfect. So what does it mean to love? Love, love, love, what makes the world go round is love. The word love and its meaning can have flowery and superficial connotations.
So what is love? Does the meaning of love include intimate ‘physical’ acts mixed with the associated cognitive and emotional responses that we may relate to and term romance, or relate to and term lust, or relate to and term friendship, or can love be a combination of these. Can the meaning of the word ‘love’ be distorted and corruptly perceived through interrelational misuse and abuse? Does pure unconditional love exist? Has Self ever experienced the phenomena of the thoughts and feelings that Self would imagine would relate to the characteristics of unconditional love, maybe even within a dream? Has Self ever experienced what they envisaged to be unconditional love, from another human being? What are the cognitions and emotions experienced as an outcome of unconditional love? Is the level of love from a personal pet, such as a dog may provide its owner, unconditional? So are there different levels of love given and received? Are there different levels of unconditional love? The meaning of the word love can have many different meanings for different people as a consequent to the mix and interaction of the unique Self’s higher constructs interplaying with the unique Self’s past and present experiences. So in human terms the meaning and definition of the word love is complex and varied. Love for Self and others can mean having value, dignity, respect, compassion and acceptance, etc.
What is it to love another with a perfect and unconditional love, experienced towards the ‘perfect’ end of the ‘love’ continuum? What does it mean to love Self and others? Unconditional love like forgiveness does not come naturally. But is essentially learnt and expressed by way of consciousness, through cognitive, emotional, speech and behaviour choices. Love may be defined as choosing to help another person attain something they need, albeit companionship, respect, encouragement or informed information. Love is choosing to support others in growing to their potential without expecting anything in return. Loving others is the reverse and opposite of hate and indifference. Rather than consciously seeking to destroy another, the one who loves is working with the principles of compassion and hope to foster the development of friendship, goodwill and wellbeing with and within another. In this definition, love is an act of the will just as hate and indifference are acts of the will. Consciously loving others helps to keep the act of indifference in its rightful perspective. Loving others allows healing to occur as a manifestation of the feelings of personal dignity, esteem and wholeness. Love for others can lead to a deeper understanding of the spirit of ‘God’, as we are spiritual brothers and sisters connected to the spirit of the Creator. Unconditional love, experienced as a sense of inner contentment and peace.
There are at least three substantial components to the definition of the act of love. The first could be the personal skills needed in helping others to grow to their potential. The one who loves is required to love unconditionally, without judgment or the need for self-gratification. The one who loves needs to consider the psychological assets and strengths of the other and determine how best to foster another’s potential through self-empowerment. Sometimes this is achieved by teaching some form of skill and mastery, and at other times by listening quietly as the other seeks to find Self. At still other times, it may mean setting limits and boundaries as the other ventures down a possible path of mindless personal destruction. With each step in this process, the one who loves continues with the personal growth in their own life and is careful not to be domineering or oppressive, but to act as a catalyst in helping the other seek their goals.
The second component requires that the one who loves must expect nothing in return. In this time and age for self-gratification, this may be difficult. The one who loves is there only to facilitate and enable the other. Personal efforts are given freely to the other with no strings attached and without reservation. It would be rewarding if reciprocity occurred but often it does not and is not the motivation for one’s love. Nothing can be expected in return from the other except for the satisfaction of knowing and experiencing that one is giving unconditionally of Self.
The final component concerns the ‘physical’ and psychological well-being of those in relationships. A toxic relationship, where either party is being ‘physically’ harmed, verbally denigrated, and where personal growth and needs are neglected, is not a caring and loving relationship. One is required to try to love one’s neighbour as one loves one’s Self. And so the person who loves cannot neglect their own personal needs necessary for one to love one’s Self. Abusive relationships obviously do not meet the basic characteristics for love, of safety, health, and well-being, and such relationships require psychological and spiritual support through therapy or should not continue. In such cases, discontinuing the toxic relationship may be the most caring thing to do, as the presence of a relationship without love fosters the encouragement of human pain and misery, and inter-relational acts considered malevolent, destroying the very growth expected from a loving relationship. True love results in increased personal growth and self-esteem, and not the reverse.
A graphic example of these negative dynamics of the love-relationship, where the one who wants to love is stifled and thwarted to act, may be encountered in the forms of destructive behaviours and relationships associated to those described by the term Domestic Violence of ‘physical’, sexual and psychological abuse and ‘battered wife (partner or husband) syndrome’. Where the woman or man, is physically, and/or emotionally harmed, and yet, is unable to leave such an abusive relationship. The inability to leave an abusive relationship can be complex and may involve a number of different reasons. The reasons that prohibit the harmed (abused) leaving the perpetrator are many. And include a distorted and false sense of “love” for the abuser, or that the victim is to blame, or an intense fear of the abuser to inflict grievous bodily harm, or a lack of confidence in the judicial system and/or a need for financial security. And a real but distorted sense and need for “emotional” security as a by-product of feelings of loneliness from isolation and oppression.
The same could be said for people in co-dependant relationships, where a person is subconsciously activated because of their feelings of worthlessness, low self-esteem and emptiness, which feelings are reduced, temporarily, by the sense of being needed and wanted. This need to feel wanted often prevents the leaving of a toxic relationship. And the cycle of pain through relational destruction can also perpetuate through the threat and reality of ‘physical’, financial and emotional abuse. Genuine concern for the welfare of others is an abstract concept, but becomes tangible and meaningful in selflessly specific interactions with individuals. In seeking to love people, we make the concept/abstract a reality. We eschew potential loneliness and indifference that comes from alienation and ‘cut off’ from others. Remember, if people do not always remember what you said or did to them, they will always remember how you made them feel.
Can we, through individual and collective free-will, choose to live in peace, kindness, compassion and reconciliation with one-another? Can we rise above the quagmire of destructive selfishness, and move towards the higher transcendent characteristics, constructs and qualities defining unconditional relational love? Can we behave in the ways of the Way, and the truths of the Truth, and the life of the Life? This is, can we live by the behaviours and attributes that epitomize the person called Jesus Christ, the person who claimed to be the Son of God? Jesus Christ, the person who, by definition, is the Creator, if the Creator did indeed become the divine and human person called Jesus Christ.
CHAPTER 8
THE CREATOR”S INFINITE MYSTICAL RELATIONAL LOVE and COMPASSION
The Creator’s Acceptance
The Affects of Transgressions
The Creator’s Mystical Relational Love
The Creator’s Infinite Compassion and the Cruel Trick of ‘Physical’ Death
Christ’s Love and Forgiveness
The Myth and Metaphor of Hell and Satan
The Creator’s Acceptance
If God created humankind and the Creator’s desire for humans is for humans to love others as one loves one’s Self, then surely the Creator also wants people to live a full and free life that encapsulates and encourages such sentiments of psychological goodwill and well-being. When we were younger, when we were growing up, we all experienced less than constructive or more constructive defining moments, and ‘good enough’ or ‘not good enough’ experiences from pivotal and significant others in our lives. Some of us, through these defining experiences and examples from significant others, may have been subliminally or personally informed that the Creator cannot and does not exist. Others may have been informed with an attitude of indifference, that the Creator may or may not exist, and yet others, informed that the Creator is loving and merciful. Yet, others, may have learnt the Creator is a very strict judge, and we will have to account for every idle word and every transgression or fault committed. We may have been taught to pray, “Our Father who art in Heaven ...etc.,” and actually look upon the Creator as a loving and merciful Father. Others may picture God as a dictator or tyrant, who sits on His thrown in Heaven with an adding machine, doing nothing all day but totaling up sins and offences. We may think He is impatiently waiting for the day when we will come before Judgment, where He will show the black record of faults, so that He may cast us into Hell with Satan.
Past personal experiences for a particular individual colour and shape one’s ideas and beliefs about what is real or perceived to be real, or not real, about a particular subject matter. But Self’s consciousness, intellect, cognition, emotion and freewill are the spiritual precursors for modifying such beliefs, interacting with informed knowledge and an innate intuitive and discerning spirit.
But such fearful images of a Creator surely cannot be a true picture of God. Yes, we can conceive that the Creator is Just, Powerful, Wise and Majestic, but the overall theme of the Scriptures when interpreted in context declares that His mercies are huge and of an indescribable magnitude. As the following scripture rightly says, and in support of the general theme of love, compassion and forgiveness expressed in verses in both the New and Old Testaments:
"Thy mercy is great above the Heaven”.
(Psalms 107:5)
“The Lord is sweet to all and his tender mercies are above all His works”.
(Psalms 144:9)
As we have explored in the above chapters, about the miracles of the Universe, which are indeed magnificent and almost incomprehensible to imagine, so perhaps the Creator’s compassion and love may be as enormously vast and as equally magnificent and incomprehensible. Often ‘good enough’ parents will overlook, forgive and forget, much their child may do that is wrong, whilst still loving them notwithstanding their faults. If ‘good enough’ human parents can be understanding and accepting, cannot the Creator be far more accepting and understanding? For who has instilled in humans the innate gifts of consciousness, freewill, intellect, cognition and emotion, the attributes required for acceptance, understanding, compassion, mercy and justice, but the Creator.
As Scripture interestingly states:
“God is light, in Him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with Him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth. But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, His Son, purifies us from all sin. If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”
(I John 1:5-9)
It is said that the Creator’s compassion and understanding are as infinite as the Spirit is infinite. If Self acknowledges Self’s shortcomings and imperfections, weaknesses and limitations, Self is naming and claiming these, and in so doing, casting aside Self’s pride and arrogance and opening the way for personal change. To change something considered maladaptive and undesirable within Self it is critical that it be named. When Self names and acknowledges Self’s imperfections, weaknesses and limitations Self can then claim them. When imperfections, weaknesses and limitations are both named and claimed it is then that they can be changed. As an analogy, if there is something we do not like about our house, but can’t pin point what it is, then we can’t do anything about it. But upon reflection, if we understand that it’s the colour of the paint in the rooms that is annoying us, we can then decide to choose to change the colour that is not suitable, because we have understood, acknowledged and named that which needs changing.
But although we may consider ‘God’ to exist as the Creator of the universe, Self needs to be mindful that just as children grow up and leave their patents and become independent, so do humans. As conscious, intellectual, emotional and spiritual individuals, humans develop and mature, and become independent. That is, the Creator’s will and love has created humans to be unique beings, to be individuals with unique personality, but with this independence comes accountability and responsibility as the defining essence of the gift to humans of human integrity, dignity and sovereignty. It is also conceivable that the Creator allows individuals the choice and right to or not to enter, into any particular personal relationship with Him, without the fear or threat of any impending retribution or punishment.
In the parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11), the father always loved the son regardless of the son’s actions and relationship with his father. The father acknowledged the son’s independence and integrity, but was always open to the prospect of the son renewing a positive relationship between them. Jesus teaches us that the Creator is also an unconditionally loving ‘Father’, always waiting for a voluntary return. Jesus also tells us in the parable of the lost sheep (Matt 18:12), that it gives the Creator more happiness at that particular moment to find just one who strays than do the others that have not strayed. This does not mean we need to stray to command a relationship with the Creator, but rather, perhaps illustrates the power of the Creator’s will and desire for a voluntary but private and intimate relationship, whilst respecting the integrity and sovereignty of all peoples’ individual rights as independent beings.
Once we have named and acknowledged imperfections, weaknesses and limitations and recognized their capabilities for inter-relational destruction, thus providing the chance to choose to change, we need not be over scrupulous and persevering, constantly worrying about the past. All human transgressions can be forgiven, cast aside as far as the East is from the West, because of, and by, the Creator’s infinite mystical relational compassion. We can believe that all human indiscretions are obliterated from the Creator’s mind vanishing in the blood and humility of Christ’s suffering and death. If the Creator forgets human imperfections, why should Self be so hard on Self by constantly recalling such imperfections, perhaps perpetuating residual feelings and thoughts of shame and guilt as a consequence of self’s flaws? Let us not doubt the Creator’s mercy.
As Scripture again reminds us:
“I will not remember thy sins”
(Isaiah 43:25)
Also:
“You, Lord, are compassionate and gracious slow to anger and abounding in love. You do not treat me as my sins deserve or repay me according to my iniquities. As far as the East is from the West, so far have you removed my transgressions from me.”
(Psalms 103:8-12)
Isaiah, prophesying about Jesus Christ, says:
“He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives, to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve, to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of his splendour”.
(Isaiah 61:1-3)
The Hebrew Scriptures also remind us that God is:
“Compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. He does not treat us as our sins deserve”. (Psalms 103:8-10)
If a child is afraid of his/ her parents, he/ she will not trust them nor will s/he confide in them his/ her feelings, thoughts, problems, concerns, anxieties and hopes. He or she may live under the same roof, but will grow emotionally apart from his/ her parents without a loving, happy and intimate relationship. Such an interpersonal relationship is not the normal definition and prerequisite for a child’s healthy psychological and spiritual well-being and development. The child out of fear, frustration and anger may run away from home, destroying this unique foundation of healthy interpersonal familial relations required for the development of personal psychological adaptation and identity.
If Self is afraid of the Creator, Self will not recognise the Creator’s intrinsic ability to understand the Creator’s creation, nor will Self consider contemplating the communication of Self’s thoughts, desires, strengths, weaknesses and problems to ‘that which nothing greater can be thought’. Self may be independently living in this world, but Self may potentially live without consciousness of voluntary spiritual intimacy, and thus, productive spiritual awareness and personal self-reflection. Instead, Self may consciously and voluntarily transgress ‘goodness’, thrusting Self into an existence of unhappiness and discontentment. Alternatively, Self can genuinely love and accept Self and others notwithstanding self’s and others imperfections, weaknesses and limitations, because Self can appreciate and understand Self to be intrinsically precious, sovereign and unique. Self can genuinely love Self and others and in so doing, love Self and the Creator, because the Creator is in Self and in others. But this love for Self and others will not be a love that emanates from the fear of any anticipated or impending punishment and retribution or an eternity in Hell that may be unleashed upon a Self that does not love. But Self can potentially love Self and others because the Creator has first loved Self and others without conditions. Self can love Self and others based on the freedom of choice, being a function of freewill, and not out of a belief and faith predicated on fear, being a function of coercion and punishment. The act of love that arises out of fear is but an involuntary love, a token love, and essentially, inherently meaningless. However, although to love out of fear may prevent others from being hurt, and so may be considered better than not loving at all, it has the tendency to prohibit the personal and spiritual growth necessary for Self to live a full life, to live an authentic and satisfying life through the act of loving voluntarily.
Affects of Transgressions
Words used in a religious context such as ‘sin’, ‘transgression’, ‘bad’, ‘evil’, ‘wrong’, ‘less than good’, ‘imperfect’ and ‘maladaptive’ have been misused and abused for centuries, by implying arbitrary spiritual judgments and coercion that conjure up fear, so manipulating religious beliefs and behaviours of obedience of the ‘spiritually’ vulnerable by the ‘spiritually’ powerful. But the author has chosen to use these particular words in this book to emphasise and describe human behaviours that may be defined as the thoughts, feelings, attitudes and behaviours that in some real or perceived way psychologically and physically hurt another human being, including one’s Self.
Evidence of hurting Self may be experienced when we feel uncomfortable from an inner personal sense of guilt and shame manifest from the negative consequences that result as a reaction to transgressing the intended purpose of the ‘physical’, spiritual and moral laws, plan and design of the Creator’s universe. The psychological symptoms from doing less than good through such activities as expressing and articulating unkind thoughts, feelings and behaviours, described by the meanings of words such as malice, hypocrisy, deceit, envy, anger, hatred, jealousy and slander etcetera. (Titus 3:3, 1 Peter 2:1) can often manifest as the experience of guilt and shame and an inner feeling and sense of psychological pain. The maladaptive behaviours which people may choose to ‘act out’ can be destructive to both Self and others, as they are materially incongruent to God’s design, order and plan, and therefore the Creators desire and will for humans made as beings in His image. We have probably all committed in our life transgressions against others, such as, discord, jealousy, rage, selfish ambition, dissensions and envy” etc., (Galatians 5:19-21). These can be normal human thoughts and emotions, but how they are acted upon or contained, will impact directly on the way others are affected. From such inner most thoughts, feelings and behaviours, both antagonist and protagonist can testify to having experienced negative spiritual and psychological consequences, which have the potential to impact destructively on both party’s ability to enjoy life to the full. All people deserve, as a right, to be special, unique and precious who can live life to the full, whatever this may mean to the individual. We are human beings with the higher transcendent qualities and characteristics to consciously think, reflect and feel about our behaviours, attitudes and experiences, which are personally shaped and formed through Self’s sense of personhood and spiritual and psychological self-image.
The affects of, ‘less than good’ behaviours, perpetrated by people upon people, can have far reaching ramifications for both the perpetrator and the victim. Just like the domino effect, it only takes one domino, to affect an infinite number of other dominos. And we can imagine the impact of our actions when illustrated by the analogy of the increasingly widening ripples of water occurring from the result of one stone being thrown into a calm and serene pool. And the massive tsunami generated from an under water earthquake. So maladaptive behaviours, which we may choose to execute on Self and others have many destructive qualities and have the potential to affect many people, including Self, those we encounter, and the people who we and they, may in turn, come into contact with.
Why is the devastating impact of transgression so insidious and pervasive? Because ‘sin’, expressed as less than good, being that which is hurtful and painful behaviour from one person to the other, formed from the consciousness of free will and choice, promotes the festering of a sense of inner worthlessness, shame and guilt in the victim. Feelings of the victim may include feelings of self-inadequacy, discord, and disquiet. These are experienced, because less than good behaviours from the one to the other are acts of spiritual abomination and incongruence, distorting the rightful and proper functioning of one’s intrinsic essence of being, spirit and humanness as the higher transcendent qualities and characteristics from whom humans were made, and for which they are intended.
These transgressions against Self are an affront and aberration to the truth of the soul, and to the truth of the spirit manifest in conscious cognitions, feelings and emotions, and have the potential to adversely change Self’s nature, identity and personality. This less than useful alteration to our cognitive, spiritual and emotional functioning can subsequently change one’s behaviour in an escalation and cyclical process. Acting negatively onto not only the personality and spirit of Self, but onto the personality and spirit of the individuals who Self comes into contact with, and so in turn, the individuals the other comes into contact with. This ricocheting and domino affect occurs with dramatic, reverberating, and adverse repercussions for Self and others.
This negative psychological process may ultimately have a strong influential impact on the way Self views Self, and others, and can affect the future manner in which we live and act out our lives here on Earth. This spiraling negative process from the perpetrator to the victim, from Self to the other, from within one to another, will accordingly affect and impact heavily upon the spirit and psyche of all involved. Hence, it is a fundamental and imperative need and requirement for all humans to do good things to others in the spirit of love and generosity. To do good things to others starting from the very important child-parent relationships we all experience, and which are a necessary part for the healthy psychological development into adulthood and throughout life. Although infancy and childhood are the initial and originating building blocks for an individual’s personal and spiritual well-being, we need to remember that it is never too late for anyone to start loving others and/or to start loving others more such is the power of love.
The affects on us of transgressing can potentially reduce Self to personal and spiritual incompetence in the situations and activities that encompass our life which may require us to act in a diligent and dignified manner. Ongoing acts of “doing less than good”, can precipitate, pre-empt and predispose Self into acts of further transgressions against Self and others as we become desensitized from the perpetuating destructiveness. The escalation of negative behaviour in turn may drive one to desire endorphin producing activities of promiscuity, drugs and alcohol as defenses and aides to help block and numb the painful feelings of guilt, shame, worthlessness and hopelessness, brought about by doing to others that which was not intended. These psychological pseudo aids and defense mechanisms may occur in not only the transgressor but also the transgressed as the victim’s way of pain reduction creating further complex issues and problems.
These pseudo aids and defense mechanisms are, needless to say, compensatory indulgences inappropriately used to facilitate self-healing. These activities may initially help filter and numb the unpleasant and depressing feelings and thoughts brought about by the experience of emotional pain in both the transgressor and transgressed. But they are really only a temporary and superficial solution to the internal spiritual and psychological pain being experienced by one as a result of doing that to others which one is not ideally made to do. So the root causes and sources of any internal spiritual and psychological pain manifest in the feelings of hopelessness, worthlessness, guilt, grief and helplessness needs to be addressed within the realms of inter-personal and intra-personal relationships.
Our indiscretions and transgressions against Self and others may cause us to lose our sense of Self, lose our sense of dignity, lose our sense of worth, lose our sense of reality, and lose our sense of appreciation of Self and others, as unique and special beings. In short, our sense of spirit and psych may become distorted, disorientated and confused until we counter and stabilize by living life with compassion. This is, living life for which humans were ultimately made, ‘perfectly’ achieved through living life with compassion for Self and others. This does not mean that we should, or can be perfect, as it is impossible to be perfect in an imperfect world. But it means to live life to our fullest potential, as best we can, with whatever resources we have, including the giving of dignity, respect and encouragement to all people for their betterment, whilst, also continuing to strive for self-betterment. Perhaps this, in reality, is all that is required. In this way, we can potentially will to live life to the full in harmony with Self and others.
The Creator’s Mystical Relational Love/ Compassion
Christ offers a solution to the problem of human imperfection, limitations and weaknesses that may transpire into interpersonal destructive transgressions. He removes the burden of human guilt and shame. He reverses and changes despair into hope, and He provides the spiritual and psychological power to live a victorious life. Importantly, we do not need to burden, overwhelm, and demoralize ourselves with the concept of a world that Self may perceive to be dominated, controlled and powered by acts of evil, or believe in a supernatural being of absolute evil (Satan/devil). As victory over all these ‘evils’ including, “world malevolence”, has already been achieved through Christ’s life, suffering, death and resurrection. The salvation of the world, has been guaranteed by, and through, Christ’s death and resurrection.
(Rom 6:4, 4:25, Eph 2:4-5, 1Pt 1:3)
God’s love for the world:
“For God so loved the world that He sent his only begotten son.”
(John 3:16)
God’s ultimate sacrifice:
“And greater love than this no man has, that he lay down his life for his friends”.
(John 15:12)
So the Creator perceives and experiences all humans as His friends, His children, His sisters and brothers. With a love such as this, is there any reason to be afraid of the Creator/ ‘God’, to be afraid of punishment, to be afraid of evil? With a love such as this is there any reason to believe in and/or be afraid of the concept of a super natural being of absolute evil.
Let us remember why we humans can truly love:
“We love Him because He first loved us”.
(1 John 4:19)
So if we choose to relate to the Creator it would be helpful if we understood who the Real ‘God’ really is so that we can relate to what the Creator in essence means and represents, rather than relate to the Creator because we are scared and fear Him. ‘God’ the Creator never intended retributive and threatening ultimatums towards “sinners” in which non-compliance to His laws would result in the excruciatingly painful and eternal destiny of Hell with Satan, which many people may believe, where the pain of fire burns forever. We love because Christ’s teachings, examples, and life on Earth were given to us for our benefit. God’s teachings, examples, and life on earth through Jesus are something good for us to copy, follow, achieve and aspire to. We love because of love, and out of knowledge that this loving life of Jesus shows us THE WAY, THE TRUTH and THE LIFE. We need not despair, for God knows our weakness and human frailty. ‘God’ knows that the times in which we live are ‘peppered’ with the obstacles of human selfishness, hatred, and pride, as they were in His time. He knows how difficult it is to do, that which is ‘good’.
For it is said:
“He knows our frame; He remembers that we are dust”.
{Psalms 102:14}
The Creator knows and ‘understands’ all of these things. Perhaps all the Creator wants and asks of human beings is to make every effort to avoid hurting others, and emulate in trust, His mercy and compassion, as exemplified and taught by Christ.
The Creator’s Infinite Compassion and the Cruel Trick of ‘Physical’ Death
Is it conceivably possible that the Creator who has brought forth billions of Galaxies and trillions of Stars; who has created animals that are programmed to kill - to eat - to live, where animals kill animals, humans kill animals and sadly humans kill humans, is a Creator we should unnecessarily fear? To digress, this necessity for animals to kill - to eat - to live, design of creation, which has been used as an argument to question ‘God’s’ motive and the general definition of an all loving and all good Creator is more complex than it at first appears to be. We see pictures of writhing and screaming animals in their death as they kill each other for the food they need to live, as they fight and kill each other to protect their territory and young. But we tend to project our own human experience and imagination of pain and suffering onto these animals, perhaps unnecessarily embellishing the pain that these animals may experience in death. It is widely known that human females, when giving birth, experience much pain, but do animals giving birth experience similar pain without the constructs of consciousness, self-awareness, meta-cognition, thought, and emotion? Some research suggests that possessing the construct of mind increases the experience and awareness of pain. So we really do not know the extent of an animals experience of pain, but we do know that mammals are designed with the hormone adrenaline and the polypeptide opiate endorphin, which are natural ‘physical’ pain relievers blocking pain receptors in the brain.
In humans when extreme threats of personal harm are perceived, neurons in the brain release endorphins, which then inhibit the release of the pain-signaling neurotransmitter called substance P. This results in pain signals being ‘blocked’ from reaching the higher ‘levels’ of the brain. Thus, soldiers who are severely wounded in battle, may not actually feel any pain until they are safely out of the battlefield situation and in the hospital many hours later. In such a situation, the brain’s powerful painkillers are activated to prevent pain signals interfering with escaping from the severe threat. ‘Physical’ and emotional pain is also a protector factor in that it rings the warning bells that something is not right or healthy ‘physically’ and/or emotionally with us. We may often try to understand creation from a human perspective and intellect, but the Creators’ intellect by definition and virtue of creation is that which nothing greater can be thought. This is not to deny human suffering and minimize pain humans can experience, but this is perhaps how the Creator has designed humans with the capability and purpose to experience life through both extremes of ‘physical’ and emotional pain and ‘physical’ and emotional pleasure.
Is it conceivable that a ‘Power’ who has designed nature with killer floods, killer earthquakes, killer tsunamis, killer volcanoes, killer bacteria and cancers, and killer illnesses. And a ‘God’ who has also orchestrated the intrinsic and intricate complexity of humans through evolution, with consciousness, cognitions, emotions and freewill. And who has designed humans with such a short lifespan from birth to death – although each hour and day of this short life can feel as if it’s eternal if we are bored, depressed or stressed – is a ‘Force’ that people should unduly worry and angst about at the contemplation of their own death? And at the time of their own physical death? Is it conceivably possible that a Creator who created life, and humans that experience the living of life. And a Creator who created physical death, the cruel trick of death, a death without which humans have any natural power and control over, the human physical death, a horrendous tragedy that ends an individual’s ‘physical’ life here on Earth. The end of an individual’s life through death is the cause of much human grief and psychological pain and suffering among relatives and friends. Human death, a death that invokes the horrifying prospective of the possible inevitable transition into the unknown world of the ‘afterlife’ is the architect of a Creator who would not possess unconditional love? Is the architect of a Creator who would not have infinite compassion, and judge infinitely justly? The Creator of human sickness, pain, suffering and death, a ‘God’ who made such human experience, would be a Creator who would not be infinitely sympathetic?
Is it conceivably possible that a Creator who created human consciousness and as such the ability to anticipate the reality of one’s own eventual ‘physical’ death as being frightening through contemplation of the unknown of one’s personal death and the death of those we know and love. The death of the body, an inevitable reality for everyone in which no human has any say, authority, power or command over, would or could infinitely condemn humans for their imperfections? Is it conceivably possible that a Creator, who, through the creation of human ‘physical’ death has forsaken the ultimate ‘physical’ earthly independence of a human being. A ‘God’ who has through design, order and plan, created the limited and mortal ‘physical’ existence of every creature and individual on this planet, and as such, has potentially and indirectly been the catalyst for human distraught through emotional and cognitive suffering of Self and others, would look malevolently upon inevitable human imperfections and vulnerability?
Is it conceivably possible then, that this Creator, having created and designed a complex mysterious human existence, could then turn around and be meticulously petty and strict towards those who have fallen short of perfection and the glory of the Creator? No, No, No, this image of such a petty, strict and vindictive Super Natural Being is not conceivably possible in and to this mind. It is more likely that in life, and in the afterlife, we will be far harder on ourselves and critical, than anyone else will, including ‘God’.
We may have personally experienced the tremendous loss and grief from a loved one’s death, a loved one gone forever, as if an extinct dinosaur. But having said this, the cruel frightening and scary thought and anticipation experienced by many contemplating one’s own death, or a friend’s death, is of course mightily mitigated by one’s belief in the reality of a Creator. In the belief in the reality of a Creator, because something can’t be made from nothing, and in the reality of an intelligent, benign and spiritual ‘God’, because human consciousness, emotion and cognition are, by definition, something uniquely and transcendently wondrous and mystical that cannot be visibly seen, and yet cannot be made from nothing. The fear of one’s own death can be mitigated by the informed belief of the reality of Jesus Christ as the Son of the Creator, because the Creator also allowed His Son to suffer and ‘physically’ die. So the Creator’s creation of human immortality may inevitably be expressed and experienced in the reality of the Son’s Resurrection.
The resurrection of Christ allows the belief, and represents the phenomena, that Self, that is, individual human consciousness, personality, spirit and soul – and thoughts, emotions, attitudes, values, beliefs, behaviours - can never die, can never be extinguished, but will live on forever. The fear of one’s own death is mightily mitigated in the belief in the reality of one’s real but invisible essence of one’s being, because the Self’s personality, spirit and soul can only be definitively and infinitely experienced and expressed as an invisible entity, a spiritual invisible entity, providing evidence for the possibility of one’s immortality. Which together with the evidence of the Creator’s creation and Self’s inherently intrinsic value and uniqueness as a sovereign and sacred person, provide the conceivable possibility of the reality of Self’s immortality. To further support and consolidate the viewpoint of the Creator’s infinite compassion is may be evident in the following evidence. We read in the New Testament that one day the ‘pious’ Pharisees brought to Jesus a woman taken in adultery, waiting to hear Him say that she should be stoned to death as the law commanded.
But Jesus said:
“If any one of you is without sin (no degree of severity mentioned), let him/her be the first to throw a stone at her”.
(John 8:7)
Christ’s comments suggested to the Pharisees that their hidden sins of pride, arrogance and self-righteousness were just as significantly debilitating as the woman’s sin of adultery. Christ’s response to the woman was quite gentle. He didn’t say to her, “Aha! These men caught you in the act. You know what the Law says about adultery. Confess what you’ve done, you wicked woman”.
Rather, He turned to her with compassion, and asked:
“Has no-one accused thee?” When she replied, “No-one, Lord”, He answered, “Then neither will I accuse thee. Go now and leave your life of sin.”
(John 8:11)
Another woman who was known for her ‘promiscuous’ lifestyle received similar caring, non-judgmental and compassionate treatment from Jesus Christ. Although Christ knew that the woman at the Well had had five husbands and was living at that time with a man she had not married, the Lord did not act shocked, and He didn’t shame or condemn her. Instead, he shifted the emphasis from her sin to the living water of the new life that He could give her. In Christ’s non-judgmental and compassionate love, this woman was able to change. She found her individual personal identity, purpose, and worth. She found truth, love, hope and peace. In Christ, she found forgiveness and compassion for all her faults. In Christ she found happiness, fulfillment and meaning to life, which she had been so desperately searching for.
These wonderful parables about Jesus’ understanding and compassion, and His relationship with vulnerable humans as expressed through the messages and comments made to these women, as recorded in the New Testament can be extrapolated to the male gender, and other races and cultures. Therefore, these teachings are equally relevant to all peoples living on this Earth, including males who may be arrogant and proud and/ or vulnerable and desperate. And didn’t Jesus tell His disciples that they must forgive the transgressions made against them seven times seventy?
The disciple Peter asked Jesus:
“Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me, up to seven times?” And Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times”.
(Matt. 18:21-22)
It could perhaps be deduced and implied from Peter’s encounter with Jesus that Jesus’ reply should be interpreted metaphorically and that Jesus would forgive transgressions and indiscretions a million x million if we asked Him, wouldn’t He? It could be considered then that Christ’s/ God’s mercy towards humans is infinite. His mercy then is greater than the greatness of the miracles of creation. His mercy is as great as “that which nothing greater can be thought”.
Christ’s Mystical Relational Love and Compassion
The general theme of love described throughout the New Testament comes to us in stories of Jesus’ mystical relational love, compassion and reconciliation (forgiveness) for those He lived with, and came into contact with, during His time on Earth. He forgave His close disciple Peter, for denying any knowledge of Him three times and He forgave the other apostles for running away. He extended His relational love and compassion to the woman at the Well who had had five husbands and was at the time living with another man in an unmarried state.
In the Gospel of James (2: 25-26) we read how James, the brother of Jesus, extends the hand of reconciliation to Rahab who was sometimes promiscous:
“In the same way, was not even Rahab, the prostitute, considered righteous for what she did when she gave lodging to the spies and sent them off in a different direction? As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead”. (James 2:25-26)
The word ‘prostitute’ is overly derogative because it is often used with the meaning to label, define and measure an individuals personal identity, self-worth and sense of being, rather than used to describe a person’s particular behaviour, a behaviour which is no different in value to the particular behaviour of a ‘client’.
In terms of infinite compassion for humans, Christ asked the Father to forgive those who killed Him:
“Forgive them Father for they know not what they do”.
(Luke 23: 34-35)
Perhaps the most decisive and poignant message derived from the “Passion Of The Christ” is that the Creator potentially wills to unconditionally love all peoples notwithstanding their personal transgressions, or their political, cultural, ethnic and religious persuasions and affiliations as explicitly exemplified by Jesus Christ’s outcry, “Forgive them Father, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23: 34-35).
This was an outcry to the Creator by Jesus Christ on His death cross, having been psychologically humiliated and ‘physically’ abused. A sublime supplication to the Creator from the Son after being jeered, insulted, spat upon, punched, beaten, scourged, crowned with thorns, nailed to the cross and speared, such that He was fatally wounded by Roman soldiers, Gentiles, Jews, Pagans, Elders, Teachers of the law and Chief Priests. The crime of torturous ‘physical’ and psychological brutality leading to a person’s suffering and death, no human being deserves, let alone the innocent Christ. Yet, regardless of their behaviour, Christ pleads to the Creator to forgive these perpetrators for the actions that precipitated His murder. And if they were not practical partakers in His death, forgiveness for their vicarious and voyeuristic complicity including both individual and collective transgressions as an outcome of their destructive, obsessive and irrational cultural, political, ethnic and religious beliefs.
No, they did not ask their ‘God’, or anyone else to forgive them, for their abominable barbaric behaviours. And no, they did not believe in the sacredness and dignity of humanity. They did not believe in Christ as an innocent human, or Christ as the Son of the Creator. Yet the Creator forgave them. Yes, by all accounts we can acknowledge the fact and believe that the Creator forgave all these people. They were forgiven despite them not believing, and they were forgiven despite them not asking to be reconciled. We can rest assured that the Creator forgave all of them through and because of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.
“Forgive them Father for they know not what they do”.
(Luke 23: 34-35)
Vulnerable human beings may find encouragement, solace and inspiration within the meaning of the following wonderful and beautiful verse of 1 Corinthians 1:27-31. But perhaps the sentiments and messages within this verse and others are also very relevant to those individuals in society who are overwhelmingly self-absorbed and self-obsessed manifest in the characteristics of selfishness, greed, arrogance and pride. All humans are imperfect, with personal limitations and weaknesses. But it is those personal imperfections, limitations, and weaknesses, that contribute to humans psychologically and ‘physically’ harming and hurting others, and which requires urgent personal attention.
1 Corinthians 1:27-31, reads:
“God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise. God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things and the things that are not, to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before Him. It is because of Him that you are in Christ Jesus…Let him who boasts boast in the Lord”.
In Psalm 51: 1-7, we read the prayer of forgiveness and joy of David after he had committed adultery with Bathsheba:
“Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love, according to your great compassion, blot out my transgressions wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin”.
We too may choose at some point of time in life to reconcile with the understanding and merciful Creator, by privately acknowledging in humility, and with remorse, Self’s personal acts of transgressions and imperfections, as David did.
We read in Psalm 103:2-4 about David’s proclamation:
“Praise the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits, who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion”.
The ‘God’ or Creator we have explored and possibly discovered this far, must be possibly considered from all the available evidence, a ‘God’ that possesses the attributes and characteristics of an unconditional mystical relational love, mercy and compassion of reconciliation, and not a ‘God’ motivated by revenge, hate and retribution.
The thief Dismas, turning to Jesus on the cross, said:
“Lord, remember me when thou shoult come into thy kingdom” and Jesus responded: “This day thou shoult be with me in paradise”.
(Luke 23: 39-43)
The Myth and Metaphor of Hell and Satan
We read a rather frightening message in a verse written in the Gospel of Mathew:
“The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in him. But I tell you that men will have to give account on the day-of-judgment for every careless word they have spoken. For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned.”
(Mathew 12:35-37)
So where does the reality of the concepts of Hell and Satan fit into the real world and universe? Where does the reality of the concepts of Hell and Satan fit into the spiritual world? How does peoples’ belief in Hell and Satan fit into the story of the unconditional mystical relational love, intelligence and power of a Creator? Hell is described as eternal post-death punishment. In Christian and Islam theology, Hell is an eternal place of punishment, but Judaism does not propose such a punishment as the word Hell only appears in the New Testament. In Buddhism and Hinduism, hell is considered a transitory stage in the journey of the soul.
But in contrast to the place called hell, in Christian, Jewish and Muslim theology ‘Satan’ and ‘Devil’ are the names given to that concept traditionally said to be the supreme spirit of evil, the supreme spirit of the anti-God/ or Christ. Essentially then, the meanings of the words ‘Hell’ and ‘Satan’ become juxtaposed, or symbiotic, just as ‘a pea in a pod’. We imagine a Devil called Satan in a place of pain called Hell, and Satan the Devil, who has the flexibility and powers of the Creator/ or ‘God’.
Perhaps in our minds we are able to reduce the power of the human meaning of the word Satan to that of the meaning given to the word Satan by Jesus, when He called the apostle Peter, Satan. If Satan was in fact an eternal and supreme spiritual reality, it is most unlikely that Christ would have used such language on any human being, let alone on His apostle Peter. Peter the imperfect ‘rock’, upon whom Christ wished to build His church.
“But when Jesus turned and looked at His disciples, He rebuked Peter. “Get behind me, Satan!” He said. “You do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men”.
(Mark 8:31-33; Matthew 16:23)
Yes, Jesus called Peter, Satan. If Satan actually existed as some eternal and infinite evil supreme super natural spiritual being, it is inconceivable that the extremely influential Christ would have labelled, branded, maligned and aligned Peter by associating and stigmatising him with such a dire and horrendous entity. Furthermore, considering the fact that the word Satan is written 15 times in the Old Testament, particularly in the book of Job where Job explores his afflictions with regard to his relationship with God. So we are unsure what meaning the apostles drew from the word Satan. The people of that time feared far more God’s wrath and punishment, which to them comprised of the existence of an eternal Hell. Their fear of Hell essentially being a place where one would burn forever in the flames of a fire that would never extinguish with a spirit called Satan, rather than fearing alone, a spiritual being, called Satan. So if the meaning of the word Satan didn’t unduly concern them, God’s ability to throw them into Hell to be eternally burnt forever, by fire, did. From this powerful scripture verse we may extrapolate the meaning of the word ‘Satan’ to being a metaphor for acts of human indulgences, imperfections and indiscretions.
Moreover, if Christ was/is truly the Creator, then His crucifixion, death and resurrection has not and cannot have been in vain. But rather, has been unequivocally and categorically without a whisper of doubt, transcended all transgressions, winning victory over all that which may have been perceived as originating from any super natural and supreme evil being. We may consider believing that the events pertaining to the sacrifice and resurrection of Christ have opened the gates of ‘heaven’ for all peoples, regardless of their imperfections, regardless of their beliefs and regardless of their attitudes.
Finally, it is surely intellectually and spiritually inconceivable that an all-good, all-powerful and, all-knowing Super Natural Being that we may term ‘God’, or the Creator, the Creator of all that exists, and is ‘that which nothing greater can be thought’, can create and allow to exist such an entity as, His absolute antithesis. Can allow to exist an intrinsically eternally evil Super Natural Being that has limitless and unrestrained evil powers and influence. Yes, another Super Natural Being, but a Being who is in essence, intrinsically and inherently evil. A Being who is the direct opposite, converse and reverse to all that which the Creator stands for. A Creator, who by definition, has an unfettered and uncompromising transcendent influence and power over all that Is, over all that exists, and over everything that ever was, and over everything that ever will be. It is also surely intellectually and spiritually inconceivable that an all-good, all-powerful and all-knowing Super Natural Being, being the Creator of all that exists, and is ‘that which nothing greater can be thought’, can create, and allow to exist, such an entity as a place called Hell. A place called Hell, a word meaning a horrific place where the flames never go out, where the fires burn the skin and body forever, and where the spiritual pain continues unbearably forever.
So we can consider that there can be no place in Self’s thoughts for a place called Hell, and there can be no place in Self’s thoughts for a supreme evil spirit called Satan. In the authors mind, the conventional and traditional beliefs and conceptual meanings of ‘Hell’ and ‘Satan’ in terms of the eternal punishment of fire, and the super natural power of the ‘devil’, is not spiritually, intellectually and/or rationally conceivable.
With the above sentiments in mind, and with information espoused by philosophers and theologians together with Self’s innate consciousness, common sense, and a reflective introspective and intuitive spirit. And with the knowledge from the gifted mediums and afterlife channelers, John Edwards, and George Anderson of New York, and which the film The Sixth Sense (1999) was based, and whose credibility has been tested at Universities. We can consider permitting ourselves to believe that any judgment in the next world is not one where we are banished to isolation, to suffer forever in the fires of a Hell, with a devil, called Satan. But any such judgments and purification required are rather more likely to be of the dimension of a conscious emotional and spiritual experience whereby Self personally, through emotions and thoughts, experiences any ‘physical’ or psychological distress, trauma and pain Self may have inflicted on others. Such a consciously purifying process, and most likely, cognitive and emotionally ‘painful’ experience, may be voluntary in accordance with the dignity and sacredness of Self as an independent and sovereign Being. A voluntary process of personal ‘purification’, where Self well no doubt choose to acknowledge past transgressions and repair any damaged interpersonal relationships, for the enhancement of Self’s conscious and personal satisfaction, self-awareness and self-improvement.
The idea and image of a ‘Hell’ and ‘Satan’ may indeed be a metaphor that adequately expresses the evil of the horrors and pain inflicted through the choice of behaviours visited upon humans by humans. But spirits called Satan (the devil) and places called Hell could be said to be essentially biblical metaphors to describe humans’ choice to behave evilly. Words like Hell and Satan, have been given literal meanings, creating myths invented and given credibility and life through their misinterpretation by preachers’ over-zealous interpretation of the stories in the Bible. These stories have given power and authority to the writers and the priests as they describe how God’s anger from human disobedience, and sin, will be expressed in harsh and unforgiving punishments. Therefore, these threats of eternal psychological ‘afterlife’ pain inflicted by a Creator should not be taken seriously. To the authors mind the human concepts of Hell and Satan do not, and have never existed, for ‘God’ is Absolute Mystical Relational Love. ‘God’ is Superior and ‘God’ is Greater than having to rely on and resort to “scare tactics” to enforce and coerce a specific line of human behaviour from the threat, and subsequent fear, of Self’s personal eternal damnation authorised by the Creator. Sure, humans can behave selfishly, destructively and even, “evilly,” but God does not send people to an eternal place called Hell with a spirit called Satan.
Apart from being a biblical or religious metaphor turned myth, rationally the concept of hell does not fit into the character of a ‘God’ we that we could understand and relate to or would even want to know. Further, the idea of Hell is, by definition, conceivably simplistic, gratuitous and convenient as a spiritual ‘tool’ used for spiritual abuse and the oppression of Self. The concepts of Hell and Satan are spiritual ‘tools’ that can, have been and are, used as leverage for personal compliance and conformation to cultures, cults and religions. If the eternal fires of Hell did exist, all people would intellectually, spiritually and emotionally suffer, if indeed Hell was a reality, because if a son, daughter, sister, brother, wife, husband, partner or friend were to be eternally punished in the fires of Hell, wouldn’t this also represent eternal excruciating pain for everyone relationally connected.
However, having said this, instead of being sent to Hell send ourselves to a place of “just purification” - through our actions on Earth - where we experience temporarily, the ‘physical’, cognitive and emotional pain and suffering we have inflicted upon others. Although, there may possibly be a position or place, after death, away from the love and light of the Creator for those who wish to remain isolated, proud, arrogant and full of their own self-importance. There may be people who wish to go to a place without the good, a place without the truth, a place without the mystical relational love of the Creator. But if this stubbornness and arrogance exists it can only possibly be conceived as being short term and temporary, until the unconditional mystical relational love, compassion and light of the Creator is experienced, and thus, personally desired and willed by Self though free choice.
However, the beginning of the afterlife may also be the time and place to have the chance and experience to change and shape aspects of Self’s personality from what one was, to what one wants or wishes to be, in light of experiencing first hand the reality of the Creator. If we have been partially selfish and destructive, we will understand what our potential may have been. We may more fully realize and understand how we could have behaved differently to Self and others. We will see and understand what our true potential could have been, and this understanding will be personally challenging in itself. We will ask ourselves, “Why, why, why did I feel, think and behave like “that” towards “this” person,” and “Why, why, why didn’t I feel, think and behave like “this” towards “that” person”.
So Self should never, without reflection and thought, do anything - if ‘physical’ death should unexpectedly visit upon Self tomorrow or in the next week – Self would regret. After Self’s ‘physical’ death previous selfish and inconsiderate behaviours may be now exponentially experienced by Self’s Self, because these past experiences will incongruently contrast strongly with the mystical relational love inherent in the experience of life on the “other side”. The “other side” being the personal real time experience for Self must also include experiencing that which must be inherently fulfilling and satisfying regarding intra-personal and interpersonal relationships between Spirits. But the spiritual difference between what Self was and what “is now” (in the afterlife) may necessitate the need for Self to be personally ‘purified’ proportional and parallel to any anguish and pain that may have been caused by Self to others. This personal experience of Self’s self-reflection and assessment will most likely be embraced warmly as a function of the essence of creation through the internalization of the informed experience of the reality of the Creator. This may in turn, allow Self to become consciously authentic, but without changing the intrinsic dignity and essence of Self, Self’s sovereignty and Self’s personality, but for the better.
But it is never too late in this world to change, to have a change of heart, to have a change of attitude, to change Self’s perceptions about Self and how Self treats others. Realistically, if we wait till we ‘pass over’ to change (if we need to), it may take longer and be more painful in the next world, than it would on Earth, to work through Self’s personal transgressions, such as pride, arrogance and selfishness, etc. It may take “eons” - only the Creator truly knows - in the worst cases of abuse to others, to reconcile one’s spiritual and personal attitudes that enable the Self’s spirit, soul, and personality the chance to choose to partake in personal reflection and thus, self-awareness and personal ‘purification’. The Other Side, a place of personal consciousness, where Self grows is in ‘tune’ with the ‘tune’ of the Creator’s kingdom. The Other Side, a place that amplifies Self’s personal consciousness, for the capacity to acknowledge the true spirit of relational love and compassion over and above a personal spirit of selfishness, meanness and ill will.
Believe it or not, being in this ‘world’ on this Earth may be the best place to come to terms with Self, to work through Self’s deficits and shortcomings, to learn to do ‘good’, to be kind, and be compassionate towards others. This is because this world can be so difficult to live in with its many challenges and stressors. But changing Self in this world is perhaps also more rewarding, because we have not yet seen the Absolute Truth, we have not yet seen the Absolute Light of the Creator. We have not yet seen the Creator face to face and at first hand. Nevertheless, whichever ‘side’ we’re on, Heaven or Earth, it must be considered that the Creator still gives us the chance to change, grow and reconcile with Self and others, which likely, everyone desires, not withstanding that desire may possibly be subconscious, deeply hidden and/or resistant. But the choice to change, the chance to change to do better, the decision to change to improve, is always one’s own to make. Christ’s life portraying His teachings of compassion and forgiveness, was not driven by force or coercion, to compel others to comply with Him. But based on mystical relational love and understanding as the motivation for voluntary personal change. We have evolved with a brain that allows us to experience the gift of consciousness, intellect, emotion, freewill and choice. Enabling us to contemplate the existence of a Creator and voluntarily behave as we choose to.
We are now able to make the decision to love Self and others, because we have been loved. Perhaps because we are loved, firstly, by the Creator through the creation of the universe and creation of the existence of the sacredness, dignity and sovereignty of human existence, and secondly, mystically relationally loved by Christ Jesus’ (Son of the Creator) birth, life, death and resurrection. Through the existence of Christ’s birth, life, death and resurrection we have the potential to experience knowledge of the Way, the Truth, and the Life, being that which is unconditional compassionate, and being that which gives hope and confidence in Self’s immortality. Through Christ’s sacrifices, miracles, examples and teachings we can perhaps understand more fully the way, the truth, and the life of living life to the full. Through Christ’s life we can perhaps experience the essence and meaning of the words ‘unconditional love’ as a reflection of the mystical relational compassion of the Creator. Through Christ’s miracles, examples and teachings, we can perhaps experience the Creator’s mystical love for Self, so that Self in turn can love Self and others, so that others can also love themselves and so, others. Because they have first been loved by Someone and/or by someone.
CHAPTER 9
WHY PAIN AND SUFFERING?
Mystery of Suffering and Pain
Insight to ‘God’ the Creator
Order and Design Cause and Effect
Scripture and Suffering
Puppets on a String
Meaning from Pain
Pain and Relationships
Mystery of Suffering and Pain
In light of the above information in which has been discussed the description and concepts of ‘God’, which may have allowed the intellectual and spiritual experience to internalize in some small way ‘God’s’ incredible and fathomless love and forgiveness for humankind, it now seems appropriate to explore the reason and meaning of the perceived contradiction of human suffering. This investigation into suffering may thus help to disabuse the frequently held notion that the two verbs, “His love,” and “our suffering,” are irrational and contradictory in terms and diametrically opposed in meaning.
So then, how do we answer this age-old existential question about the reason and meaning of suffering? Is there a rational answer to why humans experience pain or is it a mystery, and/ or the Creator’s idea of a sick joke or weird sense of humour? We are surely mystified and often shocked by the magnitude of suffering, pain and tragedy experienced by humans in this world. We are justifiably mystified, by the incongruence associated with the concept of a loving God, a benevolent Creator who seems to allow painful human experiences of suffering. Human suffering from horrendous barbaric and bloody wars, including World War II, where alone, up to 70 million people were killed, many of them civilians, but soldiers too. Soldiers, who are trained to kill, and who are trained to be killed are human beings too. We are psychologically distraught, by ‘life taking’ killer famines, devastating floods, and catastrophic diseases, such as the Spanish Flu, which killed up to 40 million people. We are psychologically devastated, by the human destruction from killer earthquakes and tsunamis. We are psychologically mortified, by atrocious and indiscriminate acts of violence, rape, murder, robbery, despot dictators, corporate and individual fraud and involuntary accidents, which all prevail without any evidence of God’s intervention or concern.
And why would a loving God, allow also to exist, inter-relational and intra-relational pride, arrogance and violence, personal greed and selfish gratification, arbitrary sexual abuse and ethnic and racial discrimination and cleansing. Why would God allow all the pain and grief that accompanies such impropriety? Indeed, we could go on and on, describing the acts and events that cause pain and suffering to humans on this planet. The suffering in the world caused by people to people may rightly stifle and/ or contradict our belief in the existence of a ‘God’, let alone our belief in the existence of a loving ‘God’.
But as humans in search for the truth, and who may believe in the possibility of the existence of a God, we want to know why this God allows people to suffer such psychological trauma, such emotional and physical agony and grief.
It is interesting to note, that if we have decided we do not believe in a ‘God’ for what ever reason, or because of the dilemma of the contradiction of a “loving God” in relation to human pain and suffering we may, or may not, have the problem regarding the question of the existence of a ‘God’. Because this belief in a ‘God’, may be predicated on the belief of a ‘God’ who is by nature or by divine reason indifferent to human suffering. But if we do not believe in a ‘God’ solely because of our incomprehension to the existence of human suffering, we would not now have the need for this question about a ‘loving God’ allowing human suffering. Now that we do not believe in a ‘God’, we have no Creator to blame and who could we be angry at?
If there were no Creator, no Designer, and no intrinsic Order of and in the world, life would be nothing more than a random collection of meaningless events and fate that just happens. There may be no such thing as the concept of fairness, no such concept as truth, and no such thing as a sense of love and compassion, or goodness and badness. There would be no absolute values and no ultimate purpose to life and living. Life may be a futile existence without reason and ultimate purpose. We could not feel angry or bitter at a non-existent ‘God’. We would live life as if we will live forever, forgetting that every day may be our last. Or we may live life as if it were our last day. We may behave in a way that would gain us as much as we could get, to satisfy our desires, needs and wants, bringing us pleasure, despite such behaviour being at the expense of others, whilst disregarding the negative affects of our gratuitous actions upon others. And when we are eventually dead and buried, or cremated, that would be the end. There would be nothing more and nothing less, for there would be nothing else. There would be no consciousness, personality, thought or emotion. No accountability or responsibility would be expected or required. There would be no experience of love, no spark of light, no feeling of spirit, no memory of life, no experience of past, present or future, there would be absolutely nothing and no existence at all
But we are human beings with invisible, but real consciousness, thoughts and emotions and may believe that we (spirit and personality) were made in the image and likeness of the one who created. We want to believe in the ability to possess these unique and innate qualities and characteristics with their specific higher transcendent purposes as the core and essence of Self’s unique and special consciousness, awareness and being. Therefore, we want to believe in a ‘God’ and Creator, we want to believe in a ‘God’ and Creator of truth, justice, mercy, love and eternal immortality. So as part of our informed journey to finding evidence of God’s existence we seek a rational answer to this cognitive dilemma caused by the incongruent and contradicting concept of a “loving God’ as creator, and the pain and suffering experienced by the created. We too will experience pain and suffering at some point in our lives and we want rational and sensible answers that are compatible with our belief in the possibility of a fair, just, caring and loving ‘God’ and Creator.
Insight to ‘God’ the Creator
But unfortunately, it is true. Thousands and thousands of people die every year through the natural disasters of floods, volcano eruptions, earthquakes, tsunamis, accidents, diseases and illnesses. Millions of people die every year through malnourishment and starvation. Hundreds of thousands of people die ever year from wars, genocide, ethnic and religious cleansing and arbitrary violence. Yes, millions of people die in one-way or another, through the voluntary hands of humans, or through the design and order of God’s creation of the Universe, Solar System and planet Earth. Human beings are, as is all creation, including the universe, designed and ordered to have a temporary, limited, and finite ‘physical’ life. We will all die sooner, or later. People leave the face of this Earth, leaving their friends, relatives, and families to mourn and grieve the trauma and distress of their death, and their physical extinction from this planet. ‘Physical’ death is visited upon humans indiscriminately. ‘Physical’ death can ‘cut’ people down at any time, in any place causing devastating sadness, grief and trauma to friends and family. But remember the universe is made from atoms which consist themselves of subatomic particles of energy. All existence is made from atom-energy, which when our body ‘dies’ means that the atoms are restructuring their energy resulting in a change in their intrinsic function.
Can we gain insight to ‘God’ from suffering and pain? If we believe in a ‘God,’ in a Creator, as the provider and designer of life, then we can rightfully blame the Creator, placing the event of death right at the feet of ‘God’. So how can we reconcile ‘God’ with love and creation, with the trauma, suffering, pain and tragedy of abuse, suffering and death? Perhaps we can reconcile ‘God’ and these events by asking about what inferences can be made from the perceived incongruity of ‘God’ and the experience of grief and pain, of life and death, of living and dying, of existing and not existing, of being alive one minute and dead the next. Perhaps we can infer from the diabolical harm towards children and humans from acts of rape, violence and murder, the Creator does not intervene in human choice, and human freewill, no mater how sick, evil and depraved these actions are, no matter how much pain and suffering is caused by these human choices. From this mysterious relational experience between ‘God’ and humans, perhaps we can anticipate ‘God’s being, God’s truth, God’s essence and God’s will in the potentiality of the sacredness and integrity of human independence, freewill and sovereignty that has been bestowed on humankind.
Perhaps we can infer from the reality of human ‘physical’ death that human life, by design and order, is relatively short within the context of the timeframe of creation, the planets, solar system and universe. We can infer that generally, although we perceive life and humans to be precious, ‘physical’ death is inevitable and often comes unexpectedly causing much distress and sadness. We can infer from the inevitability of human ‘physical’ death that life on Earth, was not designed intended to be a permanent and infinite state but temporary and relatively short. We can infer that the Creator’s intentions are often not the same as ours, and the Creator’s ways are often not our ways.
It could be said that most people, given the opportunity, given a comfortable and satisfying life, would much rather live longer, perhaps live life forever without growing old, without getting sick, without ever dying, driven by the fear of ‘physical’ death, the fear of the unknown, and the fear of the loss and cessation of consciousness and Self. But this is obviously not the Creator’s idea, will, or design and order of creation, and perhaps through belief in the birth, death and resurrection of Christ, we too can have some significant insight into the ‘mind’ of ‘that which nothing greater can be thought’. Through the acknowledgment and awareness of the design and order of creation, and the reality of Christ’s resurrection, we may perceive the possibility of the immortality of Self and therefore, Self’s consciousness and personality, as the defining reason for human creation. And from this insight, allow Self to unshackle the burdensome chains of personal fear driven by misinformation and innocent ignorance manifest through Self’s thoughts and emotions regarding personal annihilation, obliteration and disintegration.
So at face value, from a human perspective, we may also infer from the event of human ‘physical’ death, where humans are born, build a life and then grow old and die, that the Creator is unkind, malicious, unjust and irrational. But if we can delve a little deeper into the Creator’s mind, if you will, into Gods intentions of design, order and plan, we may come to realize that conception, birth, life and death is really just the beginning of Self and Self’s conscious existence. We may come to appreciate that it is only the ‘physical’ body that grows old and dies, and not the invisible spirit, a spirit characterised by Self’s consciousness, awareness, thoughts, emotions and personality. We may have personally experienced that our invisible spirit never grows old in relation to our chronological demographic age, but always feels younger, but it may become depressed or tired, and the spirit can undoubtedly mature with knowledge through the time of life’s experiences, but is yet, also immortal whose existence is eternal and will live/ exist forever on.
The concept and idea of the immortal invisible spirit’s life after ‘physical’ death may be supported by not only the evidence depicted in the events of Christ and His ‘physical’ death and spiritual resurrection, but by the definition of spirit, and personality, etcetera. The Creator Himself allowed His Son to experience ‘physical’ death and the pain, suffering and humiliation inflicted by others, but not to personally and spiritually perish. Christ’s invisible and immortal consciousness, spirit and personality rose from death, rose from the dead, a spirit and personality embodied by a glorified body. This may give us hope and optimism of the existence of a life after ‘physical’ death if we so choose to consider in the reality of such an experience.
Design, Order and Plan,
Cause and Effect
When we go in search for the answer to the question of ‘God’ in relation to pain and suffering, we come to realise that because the world was created with the phenomena of design, order and plan, there is a result and reaction for every action and a consequence for every deed and behaviour. The affect of this design, order and plan of creation is primarily the cause of the natural tragedies and disasters we experience in catastrophes such as diseases, epidemics, floods, earthquakes, tsunamis and volcano eruptions. However, there is not a lot we can do about natural disasters that cause catastrophic havoc and chaos, suffering and death. Although through science, we are slowly gaining the upper hand through control, prevention and intervention with new remedies, resources, medicines, ideas and concepts, and the improved ability to pre-warn of impending disasters and diseases and advanced strategies to immunize against these.
The design, order and plan of creation, is primarily the cause of, and the reason why ‘human made’ suffering has such an influential psychological impact on people. Indeed, not only do the consequences of the dynamics of creation influence the ‘physical’ world of atom-energy with all the “acts of God” we experience with their particular repercussions, but the consequences of a world created with “design, order and plan” also carry through to the metaphysical and spiritual world in terms of our psychological well-being and interaction with others. But there is one big difference; natural disasters that cause pain, suffering and death, are usually involuntary and uncontrollable. They are not relationally vindictive or malicious. Whilst, human behaviours causing pain, suffering, and death, are more often voluntary and controllable acts that are relationally vindictive and essentially personal. Once we humans choose a certain course of action or behaviour the principles of cause and effect take over at will with regard to the suffering of others caused by such behaviours.
We are either directly or indirectly responsible for the course of actions we decide to embark on and therefore responsible for the consequences of harm or well-being that inevitably result from these ‘human made’ actions of doing good, or less than good, to others. So as people with freewill and choice we control and have power over our actions and therefore the ability to cause happiness or unhappiness for Self and others. This is, we have the capability to cause hurt in another person, who like us, has a fundamental essence to their being, an essence, which consists of consciousness, thoughts, and feelings. It has been said that “hurt people”, “hurt” people – because they live the way they have learnt - but although this may explain some peoples’ maladaptive actions it is in no way an acceptable excuse to justify the continuation of an escalating spiral of human destruction and devastation.
We need to take hold of our senses and with the support of others, pursue counseling if need be, and be determined to choose, that which is good for Self and others. Otherwise, we will surely feel less than ‘good’ within, and experience the pain and suffering inflicted by us upon others as part of our personal purification when in the next world of the afterlife. As an alternative to the chaos caused from the destruction of others, let us instead choose to learn to love others. Can we learn to love Self so that we can love others? Because loving others is predicated on loving Self and loving others is about others loving us, and others. If we have never been loved and so can’t love Self or others, perhaps we can begin to think about loving because the Creator has loved us first.
‘God’ loved us first, firstly, by creating creation and creating the existence of human beings with consciousness, and secondly, by creating their immortality evident through the birth, life, death, resurrection and ascension of the Son of ‘God’. Perhaps we can love Self and others because without love there is nothing. Without love, life is nothing. Without love, would there be anything left in life, but sadness, isolation and despair. Perhaps we can love because we can relate to Christ as the Son of God, and therefore to His teachings. Because as Jesus said, “What you do to the least of these my brethren (sisters and brothers) you do to me”. So everything we do to another person, whether it be based on kindness, hatred or indifference, whether it produces pain or joy, we are in fact doing it to the Creator, because, we are all made through and by God, in the Creator’s image and likeness of soul and spirit.
Scripture and Suffering
Christ says in the Gospels that natural tragedies including disabilities also show the power and majesty of God and are in themselves not a result of transgressing or doing less than good. Christ also uses pain and suffering to emphasise the reality of human spiritual existence.
When the disciples asked Jesus why a certain man was blind, Jesus answered:
“So that the power of God’s work can be displayed in him and not because he or his family has sinned”.
(John 9:3)
We often see in those with disabilities the gift to strengthen their other senses that compensate for those that are of little use. Disabilities can encourage people to excel in areas where others haven’t dared to explore. So God’s gift to humans is diverse, none of us are the same, we are all unique, different and imperfect, and all have our own personal journey to travel in this life, to do the best (with the support of others) we can with what we have been given. In the Gospel of Luke we read about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with that of their sacrifices and where Christ said:
“Do you suppose these Galileans who suffered like that were greater sinners than any other Galilean? They were not I tell you, no, but unless you repent you will all perish as they did.”
(Luke 13:1-5)
Although this statement seems to be a very harsh one if read literally, Jesus Christ is perhaps saying in a metaphorical way that unrepentant sinners will suffer in a way that humans perceive death as being painful. The human perception of death, the experience of ‘physical’, intellectual and emotional suffering, envisaged to be perhaps experienced at one’s death. And so, this perceived experience of pain at death may be revisited as a response to doing harm to others, and include, in the next life, the propensity to experience for ourselves, the pain we have caused others to suffer.
When the tower in Siloam fell on 18 innocent people killing them, Jesus said to His disciples; “Do you suppose that they were more guilty than all the other people living in Jerusalem? They were not I tell you, but unless you repent you will all perish as they did”. This verse seems to carry a similar message to the above aforementioned teaching. Here we could also interpret that Jesus recognizes, by inference, that the ‘physical’ suffering caused through disabilities and death is not a punishment for any fault or ‘wrong-doing’. Jesus is espousing that there is another ‘life’ to consider, other than the visible and tangible ‘life’ we encounter and experience. A spiritual-psychological life manifest through consciousness, personality, intellect, and emotions, and impacted upon by the imposition of others’ behaviours. An inferred subtle message may also be that there is life after ‘physical’ death where people will continue to live in a spiritual state of immortal eternity, as opposed to existing in this present earthly state.
The same sentiments about there not being a correlation between suffering imposed by God because of ‘sin’ are told in the Old Testament’s story of Job, which protests against the belief at the time that prosperity was a sign of God’s favour for good living, and that trouble and adversity were the sign of God’s judgment upon bad living. However, as we have perhaps discovered on our journey in the quest for information, transgressions against others and Self create their own pain and suffering, because of the laws of cause and effect that are affiliated to the unique design, order and plan of the Creator in this world.
Puppets on a String
But why doesn’t the Creator intervene and prevent the horrific and painful accidents and tragedies originating from both natural disasters and voluntary human behaviours in our daily lives? Firstly, there appears to be no concrete evidence to suggest that God intervenes in any way on a daily basis to prevent suffering in the world. There is enough evidence to entertain the possibility that ‘God’ created the universe, and created it for a specific purpose by His will, and through His “word”, designed, ordered and planed through cause and effect. And the outcome of the dynamics of the process creating the characteristics of evolution, including, consciousness, personality, free will, together with the possibility of the Incarnation, and thus, the resurrection.
These phenomena must be, in and by themselves, sufficient evidence for the answers, as they have been considered by ‘God’ to be the ultimate and necessary intervention required by the Creator for humanity. Without the threat and reality of pain and suffering, we may live life in total comfort, in utopia, without the need for developing our strengths and acknowledging our weaknesses with regard to interpersonal relationships, or even the need to develop interpersonal relationships, or the activity of intra personal self-awareness, and retrospective and real time personal reflection.
Further, without knowledge of the resurrection we would perhaps be unable to conceive the possibility of an immortal afterlife. Apart from humans being conscious and independent individuals, as opposed to animals or robots, would there be any other way humans could experience emotions of pain and suffering, thereby appreciating also, the cognitions and emotions of joy and happiness? Would humans ever be able to grow and develop as conscious, spiritual, emotional and cognitive beings made for greater things, than existing as inert biological entities living life in this world, without pain and suffering?
If the Creator intervened in our daily lives, interfering with those gifts of consciousness, cognition and emotion, would there be any need for the ability of our being to make choices and for humans to possess the power and freedom of free will and choice? Without consciousness, cognition, emotion and freewill, wouldn’t we be incapacitated as if puppets and plastic dolls that are unable to learn from experiences, that have no feeling, that have no sense of Self? We would be inanimate, as good as dead, unable to appreciate Self and life, unable to learn and grow from Self’s and others’ mistakes. Without these ‘gifts’ of freewill and choice, of consciousness, we would be living in a vacuum, a static equilibrium, unable to think or feel, unaware of any feelings, pleasant or painful, unable to choose not to inflict suffering on others and unable to choose to do good to others. We would be unable to exercise the higher transcendent virtues and qualities of goodness through the characteristics of relational love, reconciliation and compassion. We would be individuals who could not enter into beneficial, productive and significant relationships with others, including Self, and the Creator.
However, much suffering could be avoided if it wasn’t for human vices, vices of greed, hatred, jealously, selfishness, arrogance, and pride. Ultimately, sadly, it is men’s and women’s ability and desire to choose wrong and evil over ‘goodness’ that perpetuates much of humankind’s suffering. Evidence may suggest that ‘God’, through Jesus Christ, has taught us what ‘God’ is like and what He wants us to be like, as people made in His image and likeness, made with ‘His’ transcendent qualities and attributes.
Meaning from Pain
No matter how you look at it, meaning cannot come from the pain and grief suffered through the knowledge of children and loved one’s, being abused and murdered, except for the realization that humans have the ability to treat other humans in ways that are far worse than the ways animals treat each other. And that humans have an inner strength that they realise they never possessed. However, in less traumatic experiences of suffering there may come meaning. In the parable about the blind man, Jesus shows that suffering can provide new perspectives on life in the way we look at the world and ourselves. Without life’s contrasts and challenges there would be the risk of living in an emotional and intellectual vacuum, a plane of spiritual boredom without the opportunity for personal development.
If we had never seen or experienced disabilities in Self or others, like sickness, it is likely that we would not appreciate the gift of health. If we had never experienced blindness in others we would never know the existence of the ability of those who are blind to deal with the pain and inconvenience of not seeing, their courage and tenacity, and their ability to compensate through the heightening of other senses. We would be unable to appreciate in those with disabilities the ability to live in courage and bravery rising, above and beyond, their adversity. If we had never experienced or seen hunger, we would not appreciate a satisfying meal and the gift of food and water on the table. If we had never been ‘physically’ or emotionally sick we would not understand or appreciate our health and the gift of a healthy mind and body and the realization that humans are materially and in essence fragile and vulnerable with a ‘use by date’, so to speak. If we had never been lonely, perhaps we would never appreciate the companionship and friendship of others and the need for others’ support thereby realizing the fact that we are social beings. If we have never had a “bad” day, we would not appreciate a ‘good’ day and the contrasting difference between the two contributing to personal and psychological well-being.
It seems that perhaps we can only appreciate the wonders of creation and the Creator because of our personal perception of the world from the experience of all the contrasts, challenges, joys and pain it has offered and dealt to us. We can only really comprehend others’ pain if we have ourselves, also experienced pain, and through this adverse experience, we can acquire the virtue of compassion. As survivors of suffering, we become wounded healers, as our own suffering brings forth compassion. Through the experience of pain comes the ability to radiate genuine empathy, support, love and friendship to the sick, aged, helpless, lonely, depressed, oppressed and exploited, just as Jesus did 2000 years ago. Just as Christ still does today, through the spirit of His followers and the individual and collective behaviours and attitudes of love they disseminate.
Suffering and pain also sharpen our awareness of happiness. We are much more joyous about the things we regain that were lost than if they had never been lost. It is with special joy that we hear how the lost sheep is brought home upon the exultant shepherd’s shoulders. And when the storm tosses the sailors from side to side and threatens to wreck the ship, all are pale with the threat of death. But as the sky grows clear and the sea calms all are much more wild and ecstatic with exultation than they were before the fear. When a friend is sick and his/her pulse threatens danger; all who want him/her to be better feel as if they shared his/her sickness. He/she begins to recover, though he/she cannot yet walk as strongly as before there is more joy than there was when he/she was still well and could walk properly. We have seen this emotion in the story of him who had been dead, and brought back to life. We have seen it in the story of him who had been lost, and found. So we could say that perhaps, universally the greater the experience of pain potentially the greater the experience of joy.
A New Zealand woman, and film producer, who was viciously attacked and beaten by an intruder in her home, says that suffering and pain can be likened to the pearl syndrome. When an oyster incurs an irritant, like from a piece of sand, it turns it into something beautiful, a pearl. She says that when bad things happen, we have to take hold of them and turn them into something that is the reverse of what they are. Otherwise, Self may not move forward but become depressed or bitter and twisted. Instead, Self needs to attempt to move forward by turning bad experiences into good experiences and not dwell on things past, but on Self’s ability to be creative, artistic, industrious or simply ‘just being’ with extreme personal challenges. Through pain and tragedy comes the ability to acknowledge the gift of life, comparing the contrast of pain with the gift of potential joy and happiness expressed through the gift of human emotion and intellect that can identify the differentiation of thoughts and feelings about good and bad experiences. Negative things happen, but we could die tomorrow, so we should concentrate on the positive things.
Heather Gemmen, 33, in her book Startling Beauty, tells of her horrific, filthy, petrifying ordeal at being savagely raped in the dark with a knife at her neck by an intruder in her own bed, while her husband was out at an evening meeting. But the rape had left her pregnant and a morning-after pill she had taken on hospital advice had not worked. Although Heather is fervently anti-abortion, she could not tolerate the thought of having her violator’s baby. Her husband wanted her to have a termination and, after days of agonising, she agreed. Privately, she could not bear the thought of killing the innocent by-product of a terrible crime. In desperation she tried to find parents who would adopt the baby, but the thought of another couple carrying away her own flesh and blood brought the lightening-bolt realisation that she had to keep the baby. The value in the decision to keep the baby is, underpinned by the fact that, because Heather’s attacker was black and she is white, Rachael is of mixed race. Heather describes Rachael’s existence as having a healing power. She wants other victims (survivors) of rape to know that rape need not be the end of their life; that beauty can come from ugliness. Rachael says to her mother, ‘I’m so sad about what that man did to you’, and Heather says, ‘Yes, it is sad, but I’m so glad I have you’.
It is a paradoxical enigma that these real human life experiences are evidence that perhaps it is very possible that good things can come from bad/ evil things, that good can be made from bad/ evil, and that something bad and evil can be turned and become something good.
Pain and Relationships
David Watson an English preacher, healer and cancer victim, says, that in suffering maybe God is trying to tell us something, perhaps trying to give us a chance to get our lives in order, to consider new perimeters and horizons, to grow and develop and make adjustments, to put wronged relationships right, to put our house in order.
Mary Magdalene is a good example of how one’s personality and psychological well-being of ‘physical’ and emotional torment can be changed, reinvented and redefined through the love and support of others who have a genuine and unconditional concern. Her psycho-spirituality was ‘crippled’ by the possession of seven ‘demons’ which were cast out by Jesus (Luke 8:2). Although the meaning of the word “demons” is most likely a metaphor, or misunderstanding by the writers in relation to perhaps depression or a defense mechanism resulting from the distress from being chastised, discounted, persecuted and minimized, because of her standing as an unmarried woman in the culture of the community of those times. Another example of psycho-spiritual change is from the Samaritan woman at the Well (John 4:7-42) who had lived with many husbands and men, and who may have been a slave to the devotion of false intimacy.
In Jesus, however, she found a new dimension to life, a potential dimension that was dormant while her limited human Self struggled for personal and spiritual ‘love’ by fulfilling her immediate emotional and ‘physical’ needs through spontaneous and superficial carnal encounters. But through her encounter with Jesus, her perception and experience of love, trust, compassion and genuine relationship, exceeded that experienced by her from the instant pleasure and satisfaction that she endeavoured to procure from the act of repetitive superficial ‘physical’ intimate encounters. It may be that her experience of true love and trust from the One who loved her first was far more inspiring, rewarding and meaningful. The love she experienced from this interrelationship with Jesus was significant enough to be internalised and processed within, fostering a personal, emotional, intellectual and spiritual sensitivity that realized and quenched her thirst of that which she had been seeking in ‘physical’ encounters and of that which she was intended and made.
This spiritual and relational experience of love sourced through her interpersonal relationship with the perfect love and compassion of Jesus, was the basis upon which she was able to recognize and identify within, a sense of inner peace and joy. From the interaction of Jesus’ mystical relational love, acceptance, compassion and forgiveness for her and all that she outwardly represented to Him, she was able to instill in herself the desire and ability to attain the higher transcendent qualities and virtues required for peaceful living. The experience of this authentic relationship between herself and Jesus fostered within her the ability and need to feel worthy, confident and independent, thus building her sense of dignity and self-esteem. Further, from this experience with Jesus, she identified within herself a new sense of integrity and an increase in her capacity to love, accept and forgive herself, and others. She also found within, a spirit of genuine intimacy, warmth and care, for Self and others. These newly found virtues of doing that for which she was made replaced the debilitating spiritual characteristics of guilt and shame generated from the residue of past experiences. Of course, these personal experiences of transformation from these women’s personal encounters with Jesus obviously would apply to men as well.
No matter how you look at it, you cannot extract an ounce of good from the blatant abuse and murder of children and humans. The only thing we learn from these abominations is the realization of how bad humans can treat other humans, acting worse than the animals they evolved from. However, in many instances of tragedy and trauma good can come from bad, and so a depth of personality and sense and awareness of spirituality can come from pain and suffering. This is because pain and suffering can emanate the process that drives the strengthening of attitudes characterised by courage and integrity, and as a result, growth of the spirit, which allows the discovery of new perspectives on living life that may include the psychological characteristics of compassion and reconciliation.
Pain and suffering can have the potential to transform personal arrogance and pride into humility and emotional and spiritual integrity. From the perceived sense of personal meaninglessness and psychological frustration from the experience of pain comes the desire to search for an answer to alleviate the state of spiritual and ‘physical’ trauma and alienation. Ultimately, the inevitable transformations arising from that which is ‘less than good’ and that which is painful, has the propensity to transform into personal development and spiritual refinement, strengthening a loving relationship with others and perhaps also with “that which nothing greater can be thought”. The power of belief, and having an authentic relationship with the Creator is illustrated by Augustine, when he says of his pain:
“My best friend died and my heart was black with grief. The things we had done together were shear torment without him, my eyes were restless looking for him, but he was not there. I hated all places because he was not in them. But blessed and happy is the man that loves thee, O God, and his friend that dwell in thee, for he alone loses none that is dear to him if all are dear in God who is never lost,” (Sheed & Ward, 1978, page 53).
Without the unique and specific dimensions that activate one’s personal spiritual resources for a belief and hope in an eternal immortal after life, particular problems of our existence related to our existence here on earth could fill us with despair. Indiscriminant pain, suffering and death in this world could easily be experienced as infinitely and desperately tragic if there were ultimately a final and definitive cessation of Self and Self’s consciousness at the point of ‘physical’ death. Pain and suffering in this world would be unbearable if there was an arbitrary termination of all emotions and thoughts, an arbitrary termination of Self and Self’s consciousness and personality when ‘physically’ dead and buried. Our response to pain, suffering, and death could be exacerbated by, the thought and concept of a meaningless and temporal life without immortality. And with which particular perception, we would perhaps be impelled to savor the pleasures of the world, and to save ourselves, at the expense of the consideration of others, together with all the imbibed pride, arrogance and selfishness needed to achieve such ego-centered goals. Sadly, resulting from wanting to save Self in this life, possessing all the perceived material pleasures of this world, the end would come justify the means; and human beings would become used and abused as the tools and the means to attain such a materially desired end.
But perhaps we do believe in a Supernatural Being, a ‘God’, a Creator, and so with this belief perhaps come a belief in a life of hope, a life of meaning and a life of purpose. Needless to say, humans were not made to be used as a means towards an end, but are perhaps beings made in the image and likeness of ‘God’ who possess the gifts of reason, emotion, and free-will as a function of the dignity bestowed them. All people therefore, have the natural right to be recognised as unique, free, and independent beings, with the integrity to be both responsible and accountable juxtaposing individual rights. So it makes good sense that all humans owe to one another a duty of respect and care through acceptance, respect and non-judgement with regard to each other’s personal differences and individuality, including cultures and beliefs. Rather than being fearful and threatened by the differences and diversities in and of others, choose to personally celebrate and embrace any differences by interacting with others in and with ‘love’ and compassion and thus subsequently honouring and respecting the sacred integrity of every individual. Choosing to live in ‘love’ and compassion towards others, perhaps in the same way Christ 2000 years taught, exemplified through His flawless teachings and examples as recorded, sometimes less than flawlessly, and read in the Bible. And choosing to live with others with a sentiment and mindset guided and framed by ‘love’ and compassion as exemplified by Christ first mystically relationally loving humans. Indeed choosing to live life by living with ‘love’ and compassion for not only others, but for Self, as the Creator may well have communicated by the following sentiments; “Doing to others as you would have them do to you”, and, “Love others as you love yourself”, and, “Love others as I have loved you”.
Indeed, the centering of Self, where Self looks and reflects within Self’s consciousness, personality, attitudes and values, with self-pride, acceptance and love, notwithstanding self’s ability for imperfection, but instead embracing imperfections as being the inevitable part of the human condition from having evolved from primate. But also acknowledging Self’s ability as a unique intelligent and autonomous being to choose to improve on Self’s thoughts and emotions, and thus, Self’s attitudes, values and behaviours as a manifestation of being an intrinsically feeling thinking person with freewill and choice. So that ultimately, when we perceive other people, when we perceive other human beings with Self’s consciousness, with Self’s eyes, with Self’s emotions, with Self’s thoughts, and with Self’s ‘heart’. And when Self looks into another’s eyes. When Self looks at them externally, and perceives others as mere superficial veneers. Or when Self looks at their existence through Self’s frame of reference, rather than Self internalizing, projecting and overlaying these personally perceived attitudes, values and judgments onto how Self feels and thinks others should be and exist in relation to Self, can Self look without Self’s judgmental, expectant, preconceived mind’s eye. But look beyond a person’s particular shaped body, or particular looking face, or particular position or status, or particular culture, or particular gender, or particular religion, or particular race, or particular skin colour, or particular ethnicity, as is expressed and exhibited in life. But instead, whilst being respectively mindful of the potential impact of these many varied experiences upon people, acknowledging the potentially intrinsic relevance such experiences may have had on an individual. Look instead at another, through, above, and beyond these multi diverse differences in others, by way of the deliberately chosen, honed and developed attributes of Self’s intrinsic Spirit of goodwill, patience and kindness.
Can Self look transcendently at and through others without personal judgment, look transcendently at and through people with different attributes and experiences? Can Self look with Self’s mind, spirit, emotion and intellect, through and at people with understanding and compassion. Can Self look with Self’s mind, spirit, emotion and intellect, through and at the real Person, the real Personality, the real Spirit, and the real Soul within an individual’s ‘physical’ exterior and perceive the real Person, the real Personality, the real Spirit, and the real Soul notwithstanding an individual’s personal experience and personality and subsequent expression of? Yet, can Self also celebrate, embrace and acknowledge the unique differences in others as being the partial essence, identity and integrity that makes another and is thus, by definition, inherently personally sacred.
Can we perceive other human beings as being real Spirits with real thoughts and real feelings as a consequence of their humanness, and being, being in part ‘that for which they were intended and made’, being in part the ultimate outcome of the process of an individual’s evolution as a manifestation of the “word” of the Creator?
And finally, if one’s life one day turns upside down, and the pain becomes unbearable, and when there seems no more hope, and when one feels unloved and seems to have lost control, when one just wants to lie down, give up and die. Maybe we can help prevent such pain and suffering, maybe we can help prevent the addictive crutches to life being the crutches of life that are perceived to lessen the sometimes painful experiences of life. Maybe we can help Self by not being too embarrassed or ashamed of asking for help and obtaining genuine support from the community, family and friends. For everybody needs somebody sometime who is essentially genuine, honest and trusting. Maybe Self can let Self meditate and reflect upon Self by listening to Self’s thoughts and emotions within the consciousness of Self’s Spirit, Soul, ‘Heart’ and ‘Mind’ thus effectively consciously centring on the reality of Self’s consciousness in relation to Self’s Personality and sense of Being whilst intrinsically accepting and affirming Self as Ok.
If we have enough information to believe in a Creator, and believe in the Christ, perhaps we can self-advocate by understanding and feeling the genuine relational love and compassion that the Creator incarnate - the Christ – gave personally to humans and perennially continues to do so, day to day, moment to moment and second to second. So that Self can both ‘love’ and accept Self and others, without any overburdening feelings and thoughts of guilt or shame brought about by Self’s limitations and imperfections as a human. But instead, strive to continue to both improve as a person and ‘love’ and accept Self and others as Self would want and wants to experience being accepted and loved and/ or has experienced being accepted and loved.
The author hopes that by sharing this extensive research, material, information, and the subsequent insights and perceptions, this may provide, in some way, considered guiding evidence and rationale, both through the uncharted waters of life, and the uncharted waters of ‘physical’ death - the change in structure and function of our atom-energy. And possibly provide some guiding evidence and rationale to the possibility of a Creator’s existence, and some guiding evidence and rationale to the possibility of the existence of the Creator’s Incarnation, and some guiding evidence and rationale to the possibility for the existence of a Being, a Being which is ‘that which nothing greater can be thought’.
However, ultimately, life on earth and ‘physical’ death, presents Self with the undeniably unequivocal cognitive and emotional mysteries that includes questions around the uncharted waters of the imminent and very real experience of Self’s future life and ‘physical’ death – change in structure and functions of our atom-energy we call a body or anatomy. Finally, this book will close with a few thoughts and ideas on the dynamics of prayer.
CHAPTER 10
PRAYER
Dynamics of Prayer
Dynamics of Prayer
It is perhaps appropriate to end this book with a final Chapter on the dynamics of prayer. Prayer is the name used to describe the event of a human’s communication with a Supernatural Being, Creator or ‘God’. Prayer is a private, personal and intimate internal interaction and communication between the realities of two spirits, this is, between the created and the Creator. There are numerous types of prayer expressed in all shapes, forms, languages and sizes. Prayer can be vocal, silent, or loud, or expressed in quiet meditation through thoughts, feelings and imagery. Prayer can be conducted individually, or within a group, or through community that encourages a sense of spiritual, intellectual, emotional and ‘physical’ belonging, solidarity and friendship.
Prayer may be personal, intimate and creative, yet also focused on the structured and traditional prayers, as when one reflects and meditates on the ‘Lord’s Prayer’; which reads:
“Our Father, in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as in heaven. Give us our daily bread. Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For the kingdom, the Power, and the glory are yours, now and forever”.
(Matthew 6: 9-13)
Prayer, in part, may be defined by the characteristics of individuals who think and feel for those strangers, friends and relatives who have lived on earth and died, celebrating their existence and remembering and acknowledging their life here on earth being unique and special, however ‘bland’ or ‘successful’ they and others may describe it.
Prayer may involve the celebration in remembrance of Christ’s Last Supper. While they were eating, Jesus took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying:
“Take and eat; this is my body.” Then he took the cup, gave thanks and offered it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you. This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins”.
(Matthew 26:26-28; Mark 14:12-25; Luke 22:7-20)
Prayers can consist of requests to ‘God’ for anything and everything. Personal requests from the divine may be relatively frivolous, or more serious, or used to worship, to give thanks, or to invoke individual, communal and/or international peace and harmony. Perhaps prayer is the personal intellectual and emotional sense that allows the acceptance of being responsible and accountable for one’s actions, thoughts and feelings, whilst acknowledging the Creator’s respect for human integrity, independence and sovereignty manifest in the creation of human consciousness, intellect, emotion, personality and freewill. Therefore, prayer may include one’s most intimate, private and innermost thoughts and feelings manifest and expressed through one’s unique personality, freewill and life experiences. Perhaps prayer is about meditating and reflecting on life, Self and relational love. Where reflective prayer may enhance Self’s acknowledgment of Self, life and relational love experiences through Self’s personal self-awareness, self-consciousness and sense of responsibility and accountability. Where Self meditates with an intuitive reflective spirit on Self’s past experiences learning about Self in conjunction with informed information. Where perhaps prayer may be about being personally reflective, encouraging personal ‘growth’ through self-awareness of Self’s strengths and weaknesses and the challenges that arise out of Self’s motivation and practice towards personal improvement. Personal improvement acquiesced from personal awareness of Self’s characteristics and personality.
Prayer may be simply living life where life is love, and love is life, where everything living is loved, and everything loved is living, because it is infused with and contains the Word, the Soul and the Spirit of that, which may be considered absolute LOVE. Perhaps prayer is synonymous with having ‘faith’ and ‘trust’ in the nature of creation, where creation, is created, with a particular nature and where, this nature is the particular creation of the Creator. Trust and faith in the Creator’s nature and characteristics of creation where the Creator gives birth to life, yet who also dictates death – or when one’s atom-energy will change in structure and function which humans term ‘physical’ life. But who also may be considered to be the master architect, intentionally endowing the creation of human life with the construct of Spirit. The Spirit of Self, where Self can never die, but exists forever in immortality.
Perhaps prayer is a conscious belief in the nature of life, whereby life’s nature in essence, is the product of creation’s evolution and evolution process of creation is the willed and desired design and order of the Creator. Prayer, a belief in the particular nature of life and creation; whereby the particular nature of life and creation is a reality, a reality made by the Creator from the creation and evolution of sub atomic particles. Sub atomic particles, which at their very origins could not have been made from nothing, but by something transcendent, something that can possibly be defined as, ‘that which nothing greater can be thought’, something that we may wish to call a Super Natural Being or ‘God’.
Perhaps prayer is about life and about relational love, where living life is about loving and loving is about living life, and where both living life and relational love are constructive because they are about learning about Self. Where Self is conscious with the ability to be self-aware of Self’s strengths and weaknesses. Living life with intra-personal and interpersonal relational love where Self can give Self permission for self-acceptance for Self and others. Where Self can aspire to the goals that are personally constructive including intra-personal and interpersonal reconciliation, patience and tolerance.
Prayer is perhaps about learning to accept Self’s imperfections in Self, in others, in those that are ‘physically’, emotionally and intellectually challenged and disabled, and in those that are maligned, disenfranchised and marginalized. Because the Creator mystically loved, and mystically loves, mystically valued, and mystically values, all peoples equally. So we too, through this example and information, may decide and choose to become voluntarily sensitized to the flight of those who are disadvantaged. So that we too, may decide and choose to celebrate voluntarily the diverseness of those who are different, and those who aspire to different beliefs, values, cultures and religions.
Perhaps prayer is about the belief in Self, a belief that there is a time in everyone’s life where one reaches a point of cognitive, emotional and spiritual awareness. Where one reaches a psychological precipice, or the edge of a psychological cliff, where Self decides and chooses to make decisions and choices that will make everything that was ever bad or wrong in one’s past, now good and right. And the positive philosophy that relates to the idea that where one who has made a wrong decision in life, one can decide to make that wrong decision right. Where there are particular moments in life that one decides to put one’s past life’s indiscretions in the past, so as to be forgotten and not remembered, to start again, to move on, to start from the beginning and to start life afresh.
It has been the author’s personal experience and the experience of others that prayer is almost never answered in the way that is expected or hoped. Therefore prayer has often been considered to be a waste of time, or without efficacy, or it has been considered that ‘God’ does not listen, or that ‘God’ does not want to help, or that ‘God’ does not exist. People pray but still eventually ‘physically’ die, people pray, but still succumb to cancer, people pray but still die from natural disasters. So perhaps prayer is not so much about personal ‘physical’ well-being as it is about cognitive and emotional well-being, and as such, being that of the invisible and spiritual. It has been the author’s experience that acknowledging the possibility of a Creator’s existence, and the possibility of the Creator’s relationship with Self, in times of adversity and joy, has the potential effect of instilling a significant sense of personal inner strength and courage - albeit ever so subtle - over the fear and vulnerability of the specific moment. Imagining, meditating, and reflecting on the mystical relational love of the Creator can give one the strength to change things that one has control over, and come to terms with any changes that may instill anxiety, and help one to accept that which cannot be changed, but which is nevertheless causing grief and consternation. The content of the Serenity Prayer seems to reflect this experience, so for some, may be considered an appropriate form of prayer or meditation. The Serenity Prayer reads; “God give me the strength and serenity to accept the things I can’t change, the courage to change the things I can change, and the wisdom to know the difference”.
New psychological research in relation to the effects of prayer, has found that thinking good things about another person, meditating or praying over someone who is sick does not have a statistically significant effect for increasing the speed of recovery from illness, or heart surgery, etcetera. If these results are repeated and the studies shown to be methodologically valid and reliable, then perhaps prayer can not influence in some way the intensity and direction of some human events. Many people will attest to the power of prayer and this may be individually so, but at the end of the day, ‘God’ has the final call about what will happen. The Creator predominantly does not choose to intervene in any specific way in natural disasters, accidents and illnesses. Hey, this is how the universe is created, it has been created temporarily, it is not permanent. Just as the sun will eventually burn out of fuel, so the human body ages and eventually dies. However, the jury is still out on the power of prayer and its influence on the body and mind and the interface between body and soul, mind, spirit, intellect, emotion and personality. But, ultimately, prayer is an inherently personal interaction and communication between Self and who Self perceives Self’s Creator or Higher Power to be. Perhaps prayer is not only what one would think prayer to obviously be, but is also the particular mode in which Self lives one’s life in terms of benign and compassionate thoughts, emotions, behaviours and contents of speech, directed as being that of the truth manifest between the interface of Self’s freewill, personality and Will of the ‘Creator’. Maybe it is possible that prayer has the ability to communicate with another’s spirit and soul, either directly through, for example, spiritual energy of the spirit, or indirectly via the Creator.
Perhaps prayer could be considered to include both explicitly and implicitly reflecting upon Self’s experiences and knowledge of Self in relation to Self, others and the world in terms of Self’s personal weaknesses and strengths, and thus, personal acceptance and improvement. Prayer may constitute living life to its fullest potential, living life in relational acceptance, compassion and reconciliation and living life in interpersonal peace. Perhaps prayer is having the knowledge that gives the confidence, faith and belief that we are, notwithstanding our imperfections, OK. Knowing that although imperfect, we are acceptable, and that happiness flows from within, all things being equal - i.e. you are not dying from emotional or ‘physical’ pain - and that happiness is not a product of material assets, but of meaningful relationships whilst also striving for betterment. Perhaps prayer is appreciating the miracle of creation admiring the beauty of a flower, or the sacredness of humanity, where the miracle of human evolution and the miracle of creation, with all its imperfections, were necessarily, designed, ordered, and planned ‘perfectly’ by the ‘Perfect One’. Where the ‘imperfections’ (defined by human perspective and perception) of creation have been designed so ‘perfectly’ that it would be more mathematically probable for a Jumbo Jet airliner to be built by random chance from a whirlwind winding over the debris of a junk yard than it would be for the universe to be created indiscriminately, from chance or chaos.
Perhaps prayer is contemplating the idea that human ‘physical’ death, rather than being shocking, traumatic and terminal, is in fact the Creator’s perfect ending to the miracle of ‘physical’ (atom-energy) human existence through the design and order of creation, evolution and nature, this is, in fact the beginning of Self’s transcendent transition into the next life. The particular nature of creation being the mechanics of creation for the transformation of human ‘physical’ life from the ‘physical’ world of human existence, to the spiritual, angelic and ‘*****’ world of the human Spirit, as only the Creator truly understands and knows. Perhaps prayer is a personal reflection of the knowledge and understanding of the miracle of the creation of humankind through evolution, and the endowment of Self’s transcendent immortal consciousness and personality, being uniquely sacred and sovereign, and which, by definition, can never die. Perhaps prayer is about faith, not a blind mindless hysterical faith, but an informed and educated faith underpinned by the interaction between objective knowledge and spiritual intuition. Perhaps prayer is contemplating the notion that it is as easy, or as hard to believe in the miracle of ‘God’, a Creator, as it is to believe in the miracle of the existence of creation and the miracle of the existence of human beings.
Perhaps prayer is the spiritual and intellectual energy that allows the wisdom and understanding that ‘God’, the Creator, could never bring forth such life, such sacredness, such complexity, such wonder as defined by the unique and special characteristics of human beings. Human beings who have been created with the incredible capabilities of consciousness, thought, emotion, intellect, personality, spirit and freewill, who have attitudes and values and who experience personally unique thoughts and feelings such as relational love, happiness, sadness, joy and anger, etc. Including the trials and tribulations of relationships, and the positive and negative experience of friendships, whilst living on a round green, brown, and blue ‘rock’ in space, where they were born, where they will live, and where they will die. To just be forgotten, to grow old, to get sick, and die, to just be wasted, forever to exist no longer. With all individual human personal experiences vanishing to the gasses of the cosmic atmosphere in the universe, and the unique and individual human intellectual, cognitive and emotional existence of experience just ceasing to exist when the ‘physical’ body dies, and the universe finally extinguishes, its self to exist no longer.
Perhaps prayer is the inner spiritual reflection that drives the discernment of a particular faith that instills the comprehension to conceptualise the profound magnificence of the Creator of the universe. Thereby allowing the extrapolation of this conceptualisation of such Mystery and Complexity, and such Might and Power to the reality of ‘God’ the Creator, which albeit only in part, can be defined by Self, but nevertheless can be defined. Prayer, a considered faith, that allows the comprehension of insight to internalize an image of ‘God’ the Creator that would allow ‘His’ Son to ‘physically’ die on a cross in emotional and intellectual anguish, embarrassment, humiliation and pain. And as such, incur the ultimate degradation from the human race as the ultimate sacrifice for the payment of all dues owed by all humans. Prayer, perhaps a considered discerning and intuitive faith that allows the comprehension of the resurrection of Christ as being the ultimate miracle that has the potential to provide the ultimate source of hope for all humankind. And for setting the precedence for human immortality, culminating in:
embody the continuation of Self, Self in essence being Spirit
A Simple Prayer When Times Are Tough
You know where we are at Lord.
You know we are broken and can’t handle this anymore.
You know the pain and grief we are suffering.
You know our depression, our desperation, our despair.
You know our hopelessness, frustration and confusion.
You know we need the weight off our shoulders.
You made us as an autonomous being and we now need you to share in this burden.
You know we need your help.
You know we need the help of those who give your love unselfishly to others.
You know it is hard enough to know you God.
You know it is hard enough to believe in you God
You know we need to experience your love, today, right now, You know we need the love of others, others that can love us because they have first been loved by you.
You know that God, you know us!
You know everything!
You know you can help us carry on and live life the best way we can with the support and help of friends, family and the community.
You know we need to love and forgive Self, and others.
You know we need to live in love, in peace, and in harmony.
Another Simple Prayer
That we too Lord,
because you first loved us,
may become witnesses to others,
witnesses to the Spirit , to the Word and to Jesus
witnesses of Faith, of Hope and of Love
witnesses to others through our entire life,
witnesses to all those we meet,
witnesses throughout the new millennium and beyond.
Finally, I would like to share with you a collection of philosophical and spiritual Phrases, Poems and Lyrics from a variety of (unknown) authors discovered over the years and which for me have been somewhat thought provoking and emotionally stimulating.
Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.
But do this with gentleness and respect.
1 Peter 3:15
The Rev Dr Norman Vincent Peale author of the best selling book The Power of Positive Thinking when asked, “What is a successful person?” said, reiterating his teachings of a lifetime. “A successful person is one who is well organized, who has some purpose in life, who is master of himself, who has self control, who has direction and who has love in his heart. I believe Christianity can make that kind of person.
The Golden Rule of Love
Is
Kindness in the home
Honesty in business
Courtesy in society
Pity towards the unfortunate
Help towards the weak
Resistance towards the wicked
Forgiveness towards the penitent
Congratulations towards the fortunate
It is a
Human responsibility to give this love
and a
Human right to receive this love
For every dream that fades away,
A new one grows.
For every star that falls to earth,
A new one glows.
For every receding tide,
Bright seashells on the sand are left behind.
For every sun that sets,
There’s a sunrise.
For every song that ends,
There continues sweet refrains.
For every joy that passes,
Something beautiful remains.
And in a land we cannot see,
There’s a place of hope,
And a place of love,
It’s called eternity.
Friendship is a priceless gift,
That cannot be bought or sold,
But its value is far greater
Than a mountain made of gold.
For gold is cold and lifeless,
It can neither see nor hear,
And in the time of trouble,
It is powerless to cheer.
It has no ears to listen,
No heart to understand,
It cannot bring you comfort
Or reach out a helping hand.
So when you ask God for a gift,
Be thankful if he sends,
No diamonds, pearls or riches,
But the love of real true friends.
The heart in its hardest trials,
Can gain the purest joy of all.
And from the lips that have
tasted sadness,
The sweetest songs may fall.
For peace comes after suffering,
And love is the reward of pain.
So after earth comes heaven,
And out of loss comes gain.
When the night has been too lonely
And the road has been too long,
And you think that love is only
For the lucky and the strong,
Just remember in the winter
Far beneath the bitter snows,
Lies the seed that with the sun’s love
In the spring, becomes a rose.
Life is but a stopping place,
A pause in what’s to be,
A resting place along the road,
To sweet eternity.
We all have different journeys,
Different paths along the way,
We all were meant to learn some things,
But never meant to stay.
Our destination is a place,
Far greater than we know,
For some the journey’s quicker,
For some the journey’s slow.
And when the journey finally ends,
We’ll claim a great reward,
And find an everlasting peace,
Together with the Lord.
Life is eternal
And love is immortal
And death is only a horizon
And a horizon is nothing
Save the limit of our sight.
Look to this day, for it is life,
For yesterday is already a dream
And tomorrow is only a vision.
But today, well lived,
Makes every yesterday a dream of happiness,
And every tomorrow a vision of hope.
AUTHOR
I would like to share with you the motivation and inspiration for this writing besides that which I have already expressed in the aforementioned forward. Although growing up in a loving ‘Christian’ family and environment, the realization occurred after leaving school at 17, hitchhiking around New Zealand solo – on the road for months - at 17, and then joining the NZ Prison Service at 21, that philosophical and scientific knowledge desired about proof of God’s existence was wanting in addition to my existing faith. Around the age of 20 there was an inquisitive and innate desire to learn more about “faith” and ‘God’. And how such a belief may be clarified, justified and strengthened. The existing belief in faith I had at the time did not seem to inspire any particular incentive to improve myself dramatically as a person. The notion of not ‘growing’ as a person was supported somewhat by activities which did not reflect, in particular, any attitude or intention for personal betterment, at least as much as perhaps one could have expected and wished for. My personal belief was that this spiritual inertia was the result of a lack of fundamental knowledge and understanding of the transcendent reality of the Supreme Being in relation to Self and therefore a corresponding lukewarm and superficial relationship with the Creator. This seemed to be the predominant and determining factor for this essentially intellectually and emotionally static and limited spiritual day-to-day existence. Upon reflection, an intellectual and informational vacuum could more than likely have been the cause for this so-called spiritual ambivalence. I decided that more facts and information that would provide evidence to underpin an understanding for the reasons, purpose and meaning of life and existence of a ‘God’ and Creator were required. To resolve this informational drought and spiritual vacuum I perceived myself to have I deemed it necessary to become a student of Theology and Psychology as the basis for the first step in the search for the answers to these enduring existential questions. It is now my pleasure to share this information and personal insight. May living your daily life of trials and tribulations be interspersed with inspiration, vision, hope, peace, love, warmth, courage, joy and happiness.
Stephen Clark B.Theol Grad Dip Soc Sci B.Psych. (Hons)
Prayer of Apology
‘God’, through Jesus, you are the perfect and ultimate identifier, counter and collector of all an individual’s – no matter what status, power and position they hold - life of behaviours, thoughts and emotions towards Self and others. These behaviours, thoughts and emotions involve any rubbish regarding individual’s illegal acts, and the rubbish of human acts that intentionally and unintentionally hurt others in one way or another.
Supreme Being, You are also the Perfect One that enables every human being, beings that will inevitably and eventually enter the ‘other-side’, travelling to another dimension - to reflect on their past life of behaviours, thoughts and emotions that have been both productive and harmless, and destructive and harmful, to others whilst living life on earth.
You are the Perfect overseer of this personal self-reflection and self-judgement, so that perfect justice is perfectly served by Self through the increase in self-acknowledgment and awareness of both destructive and productive behaviours, thoughts and emotions manifest in apologetic reconciliation, where appropriate, and expressed through an overall improvement of Spirit - consciousness, attitude, esteem and knowledge - being a satisfactory outcome.
I reflect every night on all past behaviours, thoughts and emotions in my life that have selfishly or unintentionally hurt others, and apologise to these people through you, ‘God’, and your Son, Jesus Christ. These frequent and personal reflections and acts of apology are carried out in the full awareness that no human action is greater or more powerful than that which is through You – The Supreme and Super Natural Being.
Amen
Back Cover Pictures
The Milky Way
The Milky Way is only one galaxy of about 100 billion galaxies in the universe. The Milky Way is the galaxy within which human beings reside. There are over 100 billion stars in the Milky Way, the Sun being one of those stars. The Milky Way is so vast that light, traveling at the speed of light, takes not 10 years, not 100 years, not 1,000 years, but 100,000 light years to traverse it!
The Star Betlegeux and the Sun
This picture demonstrates the enormous and immense size of some of the stars in the Galaxy of the Milky Way and Universe. This star is a super-giant called “Betlegeux” situated in the Orion Sword. Betlegeux has a diameter of 220 million miles and its size is seen here in relation to the Sun’s diameter of 1 million miles. The Sun has a diameter of 1 million miles and the Earth has a diameter of just 8 thousand miles.
Planet Earth
The American astronaut James Erwin, said after viewing the Earth, the Moon, and the Galaxy simultaneously, as his spacecraft traveled back to Earth between the depths of outer space and the Moon, that he had just seen the world as ‘God’ sees it, and that ‘God’ must love humans very much.
Snow Geese
Here is an example of one of the Creator’s beautiful living creations. See how they use the snow as a blanket to keep themselves warm. The swans (Snow Geese) of Hokkaido in northern Japan, are born in Siberia, but migrate every year to their island sanctuary in Japan, when the Russian winter becomes too severe.
The Rainbow
The Rainbow is an amazing reality exemplifying the wonderful and complex creations in the universe. The Rainbow, throughout time, has been regarded as magical and capturing the imagination of all peoples. We have the saying synonymous with the paradoxical enigma of such existence, “The pot of gold at the end of the Rainbow”. Perhaps the colours of the rainbow are symbolic and analogous to the beauty, strength and synergy of human diversity, illustrated by the electromagnetic spectrum, which creates light from its many diverse colours.
Steve Clarke
2011
Bibliography
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We Don’t Die New York 1988
Anderson, George Berkley Group
We’re Not Forgotten New York 1992
Barlow, D. H., & Pacific Grove CA
Durand, M. V. Brooks/Cole
Abnormal Psychology 2005 (4th Ed)
Chadwick, Birchwood John Wiley
& Trower. and Sons
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delusions voices and paranoia.
Charpentieur, E. SCM Press Limited
How to Read the Old Testament 1981
Charpentier, F. SCM Press Limited
How to Read the New Testament 1981
Collins Harper Collins
Paperback Encyclopedia Publishers 1995
Comby, J. SCM Press Limited
How to Read Church History 1985
Copelston, F. Doubleday & Co
History of Philosophy New York 1961-65
Darwin, Charles Oxford University
The Descent of Man and Press
Selection in Relation to Sex 1979
Dow James, M.A. (Rev) William, Collins & Sons
Dictionary of the Bible 1984
Ford, Adam Oxford University
God, Universe, Man & Science 1985
Gilson, E. Victer Gollance Ltd.
The Christian Philosophy London
of St Thomas Aquinas 1957
Harey, Peter
Consciousness Mysticism in The Routledge,1995
Discourses of the Buddha.
In Karel Werner. Ed; The Yogi and
The Mystic; Studies in Indian and
Comparative Mysticism
Kolb, B., & Whisher, I New York
Fundamentals of Human Worth Publishers
Neuropsychology 2003 (5th Ed.)
Kumar, S. Dr. Foundation for Life
Answering the Counterfeit Mocking Bird 1992
Lodish and Berk et al. W. H. Freeman and Co.
Molecular Cell Biology New York 2004
Moody, R. Dr. Bantam Doubleday Bell
Life after Life New York
The Light Beyond 1988
Moore, P. Mitchell Beazley
The Astronomy Encyclopedia Publishers 1987
Meuli, P. Rev. Fr. PhD. Saldomi Publishing
Hortus Conclusus - 1990
The Enclosed Garden
Myers, D. G. McGrath-Hill
Social Psychology USA 2005
Strobel, N. McGraw-Hill
Astronomy Notes USA 2004
Weiten, W. Belmont California
Psychology: Themes Wadsworth Inc
and Variations 2004 (6th Ed.)
Wikipedia Encyclopedia World Wide Web
VOLUME 2
Volumn 2 - GOD AND DECODING INTELLIGENT DESIGN: EVOLUTION, SPIRIT, SOUL AND SELF
Steve Clarke
ISBN 0-473-03715-7
Copyright © S. Clark 2009
Across Publishing
Second Revised Edition 2011
Brisbane, Australia
Any comments about the contents of this book please direct to:
CONTENT
Preface
Volume 2
Have You Ever Asked These Questions
Does Intelligent Design Drive The Process Of Evolution
Introduction
CHAPTER
1 The Mix of Theology, Philosophy,
Psychology and Science
Information from the Mix of Academic Disciplines
Meaning of the word ‘Creator’
Meaning of the word ‘Transgression’
Meaning of the word ‘Love’
Meaning of the words ‘The Word’, ‘Self’, ‘Spirit’, and ‘Soul’
Putting it all Together
The Uncharted Waters of Life, and ‘Physical’ Death
2 Who Are We
Early Life Experiences
Absorption of Stimuli
Power of the Mind to Believe as True in Fantasy and Fact
Language and Speech
Informed Knowledge
Self, Consciousness and Freewill
3 Science, Evidence, Beliefs and Myths
No Scientific Evidence
The Discipline of Psychology, Investigates Parapsychology
Belief, Memory and Cognition
In Conflict With Reality
4 Miracles of the Universe
Creation as Scientific Evidence
Humans Are Fragile
Light, Stars and Galaxies
Termination of the Sun, Life and Time
Black Holes
5 Proof of a Creator’s Existence from
Subatomic, Quantum & Nano Physics
Only 118 Natural Elements in the Known Universe
Atoms, Cells, Genes and DNA
Meaning of ‘The Word’, Soul and, Spirit
The Brain, Neurons, Neurotransmitters, and Self
How Could ‘God’ Have Always Existed?
6 The Miracle of Evolution
We Continue Our Search
In a Nut Shell
Have We Forgotten
Genetics and Evolution
Evolution of Humans
More about Evolution
Reconciliation between Science and Scripture
But Different
CERN, Antimatter, Stephen Hawking, and Chance
Design, Order and Plan, Cause and Effect
Self, Consciousness, Cognition, Emotion and Speech
Human Personality, Spirit and Soul
Attributes for Personal Growth
Charles Darwin and the Last Word
8 Atoms of Structures & Spirit Energy of Self
The World is Not as it Appears
Proof of a Creator’s Existence through Reason and
Science
Atom-Energy, Spirit-Energy and the Soul of Self
Amazing Attributes of Atoms
Subatomic Energies of Atom-Energy
Einstein’s ‘Theory of Relativity’ (E = mc2)
A ‘Creator’ of Atom-Energy and Spirit-Energy
DNA – The Building Blocks of Life
Light, Photons, Atoms, and Subatomic Energies
The Big Bang in the Scheme of Things
9 Interactions of Atoms, Soul and Spirit of Life
Life as both Atom and Spirit Energy
Electromagnetic Charges and Complex Subatomic Interactions
Matter and Mass is but Atom Energy
Atom-Energies with Structures and Functions, and Spirit-
Energy
Non-Living Atom-Energy Evolves into Living Atom-Energies
Atoms, Soul and Spirit are all Different Energies
Atom-Energy of Living Cells and Spirit-Energy of People
The Atom-Energies of Non-Life into the Atom-Energy of Life
with Spirit-Energy
The Differences and Interactions of Atom-Energy and Spirit-
Energy
A Shift in Personal Mindset
10 The ‘Word’. Soul and Spirit
The Need for the ‘Word’, Soul, and Spirit
Energy from Nothing
Changing DNA of Atom-Energy Through Spiritual Energy
Made in the Likeness and Image of the ‘Creator’
The Interaction and Disconnection between Atom-Energy and
Spirit-Energy
The Interactions of Atom-Energy Structures with Spirit-Energy
Creator’s Soul and Spirit Lies within the Creation
The Fingerprints of Soul and Spirit
in both the Non-Living and
Spirit-Energies
Atom-Energy and the Spirit-Energy of Self
First and Second Laws of Thermodynamics
What Does the Word Atom Mean?
11 Humans Interface with Different Energies
The Human Interface between Atom-energy
and Spirit-energy
Interaction of Subatomic Energies and Self
The Infusion/Impregnation of Atom-energy
and Spirit-energy with Soul
Human’s Interpretation of Atom-energy
Nuclear Fusion
How We Live
The Fertilised Seeds of Spirit and Soul Infused
at the Time of Creation
Achieving New Personal Characteristics and Behaviours
Soul and Spirit of Life
Giving Meaning to Life
12 Human Personality, Intellect, Reason
And Freewill
Visible Body, Invisible Mind
Conflict between Body and Spirit
13 Intellectual and Spiritual Confusion Revisited
Human Suffering from the Misinterpretation of Scripture
Gnostism, Apocrypha and, ‘The Da Vinci Code’
The Evolution of Scripture Interpretation
The Human Spiritual Journey
14 ‘Physical’ and Spiritual Worlds
Visible and Invisible Worlds
Think Of Absolutely Nothing
Humankind Made in the Creator’s Image and Likeness
Why Do We Exist
Learning from Experience
Humans Potential for Relational ‘Love’
Possibility of Life after Death
Possibility of Multiple Worlds
Living the Gift of Life to the Full
Never Too Late
The Sanskrit Proverb
AXILLARY
Do You Know Who I have Become
Rainbow
Back Cover Pictures
Contents in Volume 1
Bibliography
References to Chapter 3
Have You Ever Asked These Questions
religions, traditions and cultures?
This book, GOD AND DECODING INTELLIGENT DESIGN: EVOLUTION, SPIRIT, SOUL AND SELF explores answers to these existential questions.
Does Intelligent Design Drive the Process of Evolution?
The answers to the questions about the origins of the existence of life, and the universe, are not solely answered from the perspective of the academic disciplines from science without the inclusion of and in conjunction with philosophy.
Why?... Because you can’t make anything, including life and the universe from nothing, which such thought processes derive from the components we call philosophy.
The question “Does Life and Universe exist as a result of the bio-chemical mechanisms that relate to the scientific theory of evolution”?….must also be asked and include questions structured and asked from the perspective of the academic discipline of philosophy:
Thus, we now have the question, “have the bio-chemical machinations of evolution from which Life and Universe continue to process and exist initiated from the origins of Intelligent Design”?
To answer questions relating to the existence of life and the universe there necessitates the incorporation of theories that include both the academic discipline of science, “The Theory of Evolution” and the academic discipline of Philosophy, “The Possibility of Intelligent Design”.
Without Intelligent Design there would be no existence and so neither would there be the process of evolution.
This is, to incorporate the questions that emanate forth from the scientific theory of evolution with the questions that emanate forth from the philosophical theory of intelligent design as an intelligent process to answer the questions relating to the existence, maintenance and sustainability of life and the universe.
These interacting hypotheses require discussion and contemplation between people in all science classes at every levels of education if students are to obtain a bona fide and broad educational base and perspective to theories and possibilities that ask questions about life and the universe.
INTRODUCTION
If you have an aversion to, and limited time to spend reading introductions, the above Content pages of information, will, per Chapter and per Subsection, provide you with all the subjects in this book extensively researched and discussed.
The title of this book GOD AND DECODING INTELLIGENT DESIGN: EVOLUTION, SPIRIT, SOUL AND SELF is but a description of the starting point to all the information this book endeavours to encompass. The information in this book, which Chapters and their subsections are clearly described under the ‘Contents’ hopes to accomplish the furnishing and exploration of evidence-based knowledge, facts, ideas, theories and insights, which cumulatively provide potential answers to those enduring human existential questions that can dwell, often annoyingly, within Self’s conscious being. In accomplishing such a goal, this book breaks old boundaries and hopes to provide informed information. If we can believe that the existence of the universe was created with design, order, and purpose. The evidence within this book implies that the universe did not just come into being from nothing and by random chance, but it had to come from something. Therefore, if there is a ‘Creator’ of design, order and purpose then there is also potential immortality, as opposed to something coming from nothing with no design, order or purpose.
This book emphasizes the fact that what seemingly appears to be fact, is a perceived illusion. However, this perception of illusion is because we are still to change our mindset and shift it to what we now know it to exist of – and that is energy - from scientific research. When we look around us there is predetermined order, design and purpose everywhere. The Will and Soul of a ‘Creator’ is manifest in subatomic particles, atoms or atom-energy, that not only make up the pages and print of this book but everything in the universe, including inanimate objects (non-life) e.g., stars, galaxies, water, rocks, etcetera, and animate living life, for example, plants, animals, birds, insects and humans etcetera. Only 0.4% of the universe is made of structures with functions made of atom-energy we observe, such as stars, with 3.6% made of gaseous atom-energy. The other 96 % of the universe is made from an energy that is atom-less, and perhaps more akin to the spirit-energy of the Creator. Physicists call this unknown ‘matter’ ‘dark matter and energy’. The world is not made of what it appears to be made of as it is made of atoms, which are in essence energies without mass. Atoms are defined as electrical and electromagnetic charges, and are measured as electrical volts (eV). Atoms have no weight but feel heavy because of the electromagnetic energy between the larger planet earth attracting smaller parcels of electromagnetic energy.
This tension is what we call gravity, which constructs our perception and experience of weight. Atoms are in essence invisible, but we see because our eye, brain and interpretation are based on the reflection of light wave–lengths into our central nervous system via our eyes. If we think about how hydrogen and oxygen make up ice, water and steam-gases, we can understand how everything in the universe possesses different structures and functions even when made with the same atoms, but with different atom configurations.
As the functions of atoms changes e.g., as in the different structures and functions of ice, water, and steam, although made from the same atoms, are but structured differently, as in tightly packed atoms of ice, as opposed to the less-tightly packed atoms of steam-gases. Atoms interact with other atoms of the same (elements), and different atoms (compounds), that make up the universe.
There are only 118 different atoms that together, or combined, make up all that exists in this world. The exception is the Self, which by definition is spirit-energy of consciousness, thoughts, emotions, self-awareness, personality and will, etcetera. References in this book to the word ‘physical’ are defined as atom-energy, referring to all that exists, including the body (anatomy) or the ‘physical’ environment, food and shelter, and all that we observe around us, other than Self and others, which are spirit-energies and include consciousness, thoughts, emotions, self-awareness, personality and will etcetera .
These matters are explored more deeply in the Chapters.
This book also explores credible evidence that individual human existence is about living one’s life to its fullest potential whatever that may mean for each individual. Whilst the death – the change in structure and function of atom-energy we all eventually encounter, but often ignore and deny, should not be feared, but celebrated as the natural progression of Self and Self’s intangible, and therefore, invisible consciousness. Self’s invisible consciousness being a part of Self’s spirit, and thus, by definition, immortal living eternally forever.
The information herein is a product of the knowledge ascertained from the mix of perceptions and facts interwoven and interpreted from dedicated and peripheral components and elements of the academic disciplines of Science, Philosophy, Theology and Psychology.
The art of Science consists of the study of subatomic particles that make up atoms, and molecules or atom-energy. This is quantum physics that studies atoms that make up the different structures and functions of the ‘physical’ world, in essence essentially made of atom-energy. The methodology used for scientific work uses systematic and methodical observation and experiment.
Philosophy is about asking and answering questions from a rational and logical point of view about anything and everything that may mean something valuable to someone or everyone.
Theology is the study of different religions, rituals and scripture with their interpretation of ‘God’ and then ‘God’s relationship with and to Self, others, and the world.
Psychology is the scientific study of the human brain and human behaviour in relation to different mental states of thought and emotion arising from diverse and individual personal experiences. Psychology may also include the study of human awareness and meta-cognition, where Self thinks about what Self is thinking about.
Through the objective and rational analysis of peripheral, vicarious and insightful intrinsic information sourced from the academic disciplines of Science, Philosophy, Theology and Psychology come together to explore unsubstantiated and mythical beliefs, such as the literal interpretation of every word in every verse in all scriptures. This includes the research based exploration of parapsychology and astrology as being potentially psychologically and spiritually adversive to the human spirit and soul.
The human embracement of such inaccurate and illogical ideologies and beliefs can be seen to the result, which originates from the complex mix of human characteristics. These characteristics have evolved from both human base instincts that influence and vice-versa with the higher quality constructs of consciousness, intellect, cognition, emotion and freewill, which are interactive with the individual’s personal experiences and choices.
The innate human need to arbitrary adhere obediently to particular religious, cultural and/ or political ‘beliefs’ and ‘faiths’ in relation to their laws, rules and practices, is seen in part, to be driven by the need for the individual’s sense of personal security, psychological comfort and personal acceptance. Including the subconscious and conscious crave and desire to manipulate in some way the experienced existence of Self’s anticipated and ‘hoped for’ immortality and therefore the perceived prerequisite and requirement to ‘be right’ and ‘good’ with ‘God’. The above premise can then be exacerbated by innocent ignorance, the quest for what is true and real, personal fear, and individual arrogance and pride. These related thoughts, attitudes, emotions and behaviours can then be subconsciously mixed with the misinterpretation and misapplication of particular secular, cultural and religious policies, laws, rituals and traditions, which are required by Self to be perceived as infallible and ‘true’, and ultimately expressed through thoughts, emotions, values, beliefs, attitudes, behaviours and contents of speech.
The selective human adoption of particular religious, political and cultural beliefs and practices may also manifest because of the synergistic power created by the human psych. A psych created and operated through the higher constructs of personal spiritual, intellectual, cognitive and emotional forces, both consciously and subconsciously, can be manipulated and influenced by base human instincts of greed, power, survival and aggression. Self’s higher constructs of spiritual and psychological abilities and needs then interact with Self’s innate primate base instinctive desires potentially resulting in personal spiritual and psychological discomfort and vulnerability. This spiritual and psychological discomfort and vulnerability can lead Self ‘open’ to the possible exposure of irrational and inaccurate beliefs and faiths of particular religious, and political and cultural persuasions with their exclusive rules and practices, procuring an outcome of individual and collective spiritual, psychological, intellectual, emotional and behavioural confusion and abuse.
As a partial defense against the irrational and inaccurate beliefs and faiths of particular religious, political and/ or cultural laws and practices that can precipitate individual and collective human suffering, destruction, turmoil and indecision, the investigative analyse of spiritual literatures is undertaken. The identification and interpretation of contradicting verses in religious scriptures are explored, in particular those verses that have the potential ‘power’ to impact destructively upon human cognitions, emotion, values, attitudes and beliefs, and their subsequent expression through mindsets, behaviours and contents of speech.
Principles for the reinterpretation of religious scriptures are described, which can be applied to other sacred scriptures. How could a loving Creator allow such human suffering? The general theme and message prescribed by the New Testament writings are identified as emphasising the integrity and sacredness of human sovereignty and independence manifest in the invisible and intangible – which therefore can be described as Spirit – constructs of Self. Self in turn is described and defined in part as containing the attributes of human consciousness, personality, freewill, intellect, cognition and emotion, which can be expressed in particular personal beliefs, values, attitudes, behaviours and contents of speech.
The identified general theme and message prescribed by the New Testament scriptures is about practicing the human-to-human expression of compassion and reconciliation. This is essentially about valuing and accepting Self and others ‘where you and they are at’ at a particular moment in time. Particularly with respect to personal imperfections, and others with different and diverse beliefs, values and experiences as ones Self. A belief in Christ’s death and resurrection could be potential evidence identified as being credible for the consideration of the reality of human immortality.
Traditional biblical beliefs about creation and the creation of human beings are reconciled with the scientific evidence of evolution, but evolution as an outcome of pre-programmed DNA as opposed to Darwin’s natural selection and chance. This is, the Creator’s willed design and order of creation that allows the development of the human brain to interface and infuse with the invisible, intangible and sublime, yet metaphysical and observable, Self. Self being consciousness, personality, freewill, intellect, cognition and emotion together with personal values, attitudes, and beliefs as an outcome of unique environments and personal experiences, knowledge and choices, which by definition, are not visible, but intangible and invisible, and therefore can only be described and defined as being that of Spirit.
The rationale and logical proofs of Theist-Philosopher’s in relation to rational and logical ‘cognitive’ evidence for the existence of a ‘God’ are discoursed. The ‘miracles’ of creation as discovered and identified by technologies of modern science and articulated as is the wisdom, both spoken and unspoken, emanating from the general theme prescribed and articulated throughout scripture specifically regarding Creator-to-human and human-to-human relational love.
Combining all the above information together may provide the reader with enough resources to contemplate and consider the possibility of the existence of a Creator. An explanation regarding the difficult concept of comprehending that a ‘Creator’ must have always existed if a ‘Creator’ does indeed exist, is also offered. The reality of Parapsychology is exposed by science as being, at best, magical beliefs based on myth, potentially exploiting the spiritually vulnerable and, at worst, encouraging the occurrence of cognitive, emotional and behavioural self-fulfilling prophecies. Self-fulfilling prophecies can prohibit the necessary intellectual and emotional processes of Self’s decision making, that in part, drive Self’s desire to seek informed knowledge, and ultimately, understanding of Self, and the desire for personal change. This mindset relating to ‘predestined fate’ inevitably affects Self’s ability for self-acceptance, procurement of informed knowledge, and the ability to personally choose to voluntary change particular aspects that Self believes needs changing.
The powerful influence generated by personal beliefs and faiths in a particular religion, culture and/ or politics must be considered such that they cannot afford to be beliefs and faiths based on a blind and hysterical mindset and mentality. But beliefs are required to be predicated on an informed, considered, and educated premise so that choices are underpinned by the interaction between Self’s objective informed knowledge mixing and interacting with the reflective introspection of Self’s innate spiritual intuition.
Christ’s examples and teachings relating to living life on earth, His miraculous, resurrection from the dead, together with the miracles of creation, including the intangible components of Self - consciousness, meta-cognition, thoughts, feelings, attitudes and beliefs - may be viewed as events that provide a source of hope for the real possibility for the eternal and immortal existence of Self. So together and addition to the scientific complexity of creation, and the scientific and logical premise that you can’t get ‘something’ (the universe and life) from ‘nothing’, and the existence of the intangible components that make up Self, and the considered belief in Christ’s resurrection, together, have the potential to set the precedence, and be the evidence, for human immortality.
The continuation of Self being the eternal continuation of Self’s experiences of consciousness; the eternal continuation of Self’s intimate thoughts, memories and emotions; the eternal continuation of Self’s relational experiences with others, and the eternal continuation of Self’s individual personality.
CHAPTER 1
THE MIX OF THEOLOGY, PHILOSOPHY, PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENCE
Information from the Mix of Academic Disciplines
Meaning of the Word ‘Creator’
Meaning of the Word ‘Transgression’
Meaning of the Word ‘Love’
The Words ‘Self’’, ‘Spirit’, ‘The Word’, and ‘Soul’
Putting it all Together
The Uncharted Waters of Life and Death
Information from the Mix of Academic Disciplines
The information shared in this book endeavours to instil through the academic disciplines and theories of theological, psychological, philosophical, and scientific paradigms informed information and knowledge pertaining to the understanding of Self and Self’s Spirit in relation to others, the world and a Creator. This understanding founded on rational and logical thought processes formed from evident based information within and from the peripheral knowledge ascertained from the academic disciplines of Theology, Philosophy, Psychology and Science. Such knowledge and information underpinned by the synthesis of the facts and theories produced from research and integrated with the Self’s reflective, introspective, intuitive and discerning spirit. That is, considered existential information for the personal motivation that drives Self’s (human) behaviour and contents of speech, rather than the personal motivation that is drawn from mass hysteria, or based simply on the personal convenience of fictional beliefs and myths driven by historical rituals and traditions of ‘powerful’ and ‘dynamic’ cultures and religions. Herein, the word ‘existential’ means Self’s sense of psychological and spiritual well-being as an outcome of self-reflection and introspection with regard to Self’s sense of identity as an immortal being. Self’s sense of identity and personality encompass consciousness, thoughts, feelings and emotions, and particular values, beliefs and attitudes, including Self’s sense of personal value and esteem as a product of Self’s sense of intrinsic existence and inherent purpose in relation to Self’s existence in this world and beyond.
Arbitrary emotive and faith driven beliefs have the propensity to encourage and stimulate significant destructive human attitudes that often manifest in diabolically oppressive human-to-human anatomical and psychological behaviours and contents of speech. This destructive human oppression and aggression expressed between individuals through the psychological mechanisms of emotional and anatomical abuse and harm. And, also expressed collectively in society and between groups, manifest through tribal, sectarian, national and international behaviours of extreme and irrational politics and/or religious fundamentalism within destructive cultures and traditions that culminate in human-to-human anatomical, psychological and spiritual destruction, because of psychological and anatomical acts of repression, oppression and tyranny.
The author has taken special and particular care to write objectively with the intent and purpose to investigate these subjects from a rational and ‘value free’ perspective, this being an unbiased, just, sensitive, respectful, fair and non-judgmental method of transmitting and disseminating such information. In particular, this writing hopes to explain some possible answers to existential questions, shedding light on the possibilities of the mysteries of the universe, creation and human life and immortality. This exploration includes those essentially necessarily deep and perennial mysterious and partly unanswered universal questions about particular universal truths, which can tend to gnaw away at our most vulnerable senses. This is, Self’s particular thoughts and emotions that undoubtedly have the ability to underpin and determine Self’s personal sense of worth and value, and the degree to which Self consciously experiences Self, and thus Self’s spiritual and personal self-awareness and being. Such personal awareness, or lack of, can have the potential to manifest a ‘rule’ for measuring one’s sense of self-worth and shaping one’s sense of personal identity. Lack of knowledge (epistemology) and the misunderstanding of important universal principles, by definition, may disrupt and undermine the fragile senses and feelings of Self’s inner being of peace, having the potential to foster an element of personal disquiet. The contents of this book cross many multifaceted subjects that are related to Self, others and the world and the potential possibility for the existence of a Creator and human immortality. This is, the possibility for the existence of a Creator, who may be defined as both a Spirit and, a human, through incarnation. If Christ is in fact ‘God’ and if ‘God’ does in fact exist
The objective and analytical investigation of Scripture in the Old and New Testaments of the Bible is undertaken. The deconstruction and reconstruction, and subsequent re-interpretation of biblical literature executed. Some of these same principles used to reinterpret particular verses in biblical Scripture are also applicable to other Holy Scriptures such as Islam’s Qu’ran (Koran). Contradictions from opposing scripture verses in the bible are identified as having meanings that are, by definition, conducive to misinterpretation. Such misinterpretation of particular scripture verses can carry a psychological power that may potentially impose and promote staunch institutionalised and religious fundamentalism and extremism, whilst stealing intended spiritual messages about human relational love, forgiveness, compassion and immortality.
In addition, evidence for the legitimacy of Christ’s claims as being the authentic Son of the Creator are extensively explored. And evidence for the prescribed meanings of particular Scripture verses are, when interpreted in context, identified as being compatible with the ‘general thematic teaching’ expressed throughout scripture for human-to-human relational understanding, forgiveness, and compassion. The exposure and identification of this general theme within Scripture of human relational understanding, love, forgiveness and compassion, and the academic, historical and rational processes of the interpretation of ancient text, both explicitly and implicitly, contribute towards the possibility of declaring Jesus Christ as the Creator (God) Incarnate. Including human relational understanding, acceptance, and charity for Self and others, as being alone the fundamental criteria of the Creator’s new message for all peoples to live. Indeed, we may consider the notion that the world will know that Self is ‘loved’ by the way Self ‘loves’ Self and others, including those with different and diverse values, attitudes, faiths and beliefs. For the new message, ‘To Love’, is nothing less, but the Number One and Number Two imperative messages (Commandments or laws) espoused in scripture by Christ, whom we may also come to consider, was/ is the authentic Son of the Creator. The problem with the words ‘commandment’ and ‘law’ suggest the requirement of a behavior that is driven by fear, coercion and threat, and thus involuntary. Such involuntary driven behaviours are in essence, spiritually and psychologically self-limiting. So for the purpose of this book, the words ‘commandment’ and ‘law’, regarding ‘relational love’, can be interchanged with ‘the new law’ or ‘imperative message’.
From the discourse of the ‘five rational (logical) proofs’ of the great Philosopher and Theologian Thomas Aquinas, in addition to the scientific description of the miracles of creation, ‘God's’ existence, power and mystical relational love are assured to be at least, seriously considered.
Parapsychology, including Astrology, is exposed by science as being at best, no more than personal fun and entertainment from the sense of invoked ‘magic’, and at worst, serious beliefs based on myth and superstition being the shams that have the potential to shamefully exploit the spiritually vulnerable. This is not to deny that there are many people who have experienced in some way or another forms of spiritual connections with the ‘other side’, but few people have the gift to involuntarily, but legitimately, connect with people from the ‘other side’ on behalf of others, and whose credibility has been authenticated through the tests of science.
So through the objective, critical and unbiased analysis of factually derived information from the academic disciplines of Science, Philosophy, Theology and Psychology, traditional human existential questions, superstitions and myths regarding Parapsychology, ‘God’, Creation, Evolution, Reincarnation, Karma, Heaven, Hell and Satan, and the meaning of life are explored in both Volume 1 and Volume 2 of this series. The distorted and fundamental interpretation of biblical scripture is exposed through methodical deconstruction and reconstruction. The creation and existence of the universe and humans is surely mysterious and miraculous, so considered the premeditated design, order, and plan of a ‘Creator’. However, the process of evolution, being the dynamics that matures and changes creation per se, is defined by many as a procedure based purely on random chance. But evolving creation can also be explained as a miracle predetermined and predestined by a ‘Creator’ from which the world, life, and humans have transcendently evolved. And so science and biblical scripture is reconciled between the traditional incongruence of biblical verses in the book of Genesis and scientific evidence. Through the investigation of the miracles of creation and the universe, we may come to understand evolution as more than the outcome of natural selection and chance, but that creation must include the possibility of the component of DNA pre-programming. DNA pre-programming being the Creator’s planned design, order and process for the creation of Self and development of Self’s consciousness, freewill and personality with the ability to think, feel and speak about Self’s values, attitudes, behaviours and beliefs,. The creation of these conscious human invisible spiritual/psychological constructs can be viewed as the transcendent characteristics that allow humans to possess the ‘unique’, ‘sacred’ and ‘spiritual’ attributes of the integrity and dignity of independence, sovereignty and freewill. Indeed, these are the higher transcendent qualities that allow humans the capability for developing significant and meaningful relationships with Self and others. The ideal characteristics for human relationships then, will be defined as being experienced as relationally benign, accepting and compassionate.
As an outcome of the information acquired herein, from extensive research and insight, it may be possible to believe that human suffering and pain is not a punishment from any Supreme Being. That the meaning of life is about living life as a gift to the fullest with compassion and acceptance for Self and others. That it is possible to consider the reality of a ‘Creator’; and the reality of Christ as being the Son of ‘God’. That humans have evolved from primate animals through pre-programmed DNA as the Creator’s intended plan for humans to possess the gifts of consciousness, freewill, cognition, emotion and speech, and as an outcome of these gifts, Self’s spirit and individual personality. That ‘evidence based’ knowledge about Self provides Self with information that allows serious consideration of the possibility that spiritual life after anatomical death does in fact exist.
Considering the limitations of human intellect and existence, which by nature, defines Self’s ability to comprehend the depths and breadths of these universal mysteries, the prospective answers to these profound existential questions may become surprisingly clear as they are contemplated through Self’s spiritual and intellectual dimensions of consciousness.
The information espoused through this manuscript, intends to at least, attempt to share and inform the reader of the extensive research on these existential concepts, which may culminate as a new positive outcome in the phenomena - if not already achieved - to “live the gift of life to the fullest in unconditional acceptance and compassion for Self and others.” To live the gift of life to its fullest, because once we are anatomy dead we cannot ‘come back’ for another go or chance. The author has experienced, as might the reader, a challenging but increased sense of personal peace and well-being accomplished as an outcome of the digestion and internalization of this information. And through the intuitive and internal cognitive and emotional interactive psychological and spiritual reflective processes that can occur within Self. In addition to and in conjunction with Self’s conscious honest self-reflection of the intimate, private and personal ideas, images, feelings, beliefs, attitudes, values and, subsequent behaviours and contents of speech relating to these considerations. The consequences of the information absorbed from these internal processes through Self’s informed reflective intuitive spirit may have the ultimate capacity for some to inspire and motivate the aspirations of Self towards a new, exciting, and invigorating or just an accepting, psycho-spiritual journey on planet earth. Living the challenging and sometimes difficult life of life, with the potential but positive traits of selflessness and transcendent unconditional acceptance and compassion for Self and others.
In the final analysis, GOD AND DECODING INTELLIGENT DESIGN: EVOLUTION, SPIRIT, SOUL AND SELF was not written with the specific purpose and intention of affecting any arbitrary or blatant change in the reader’s beliefs, attitudes, values, behaviours or contents of speech. Nor is it the intention for this reflective discourse to be disrespectful to any peoples in particular or to any peoples specifically. But to refer by the writer to all peoples with an attitude and behaviour that is guided by a sense of dignity and respect for and toward people without any subjective hint and objective content culminating from personal prejudice or value judgments. But through the transmission of factual and objective information, and yes, sometimes subjective experience and insight too, this discourse hopes to provoke the stimulation of procedural and considered possibilities through the willed acts of Self’s consciousness, thoughts, emotions, values, attitudes and beliefs and subsequent behaviours and contents of speech. This is, personal psycho-spiritual stimulation in relation to the significant aforementioned personal, spiritual and existential matters relating to Self and Others, and if one so decides the possible or inevitable existence of such an Entity or Being, ‘a Creator’. This discourse hopes also to provoke the stimulation of procedural and considered possibilities through the will of Self’s consciousness, thoughts and emotions in relation to personal values, attitudes and beliefs, particularly regarding unconditional acceptance and relational compassion including the reality of the meaning of life and possibility of the existence of human immortality.
Again, considering the defining nature of both the limitations and potentials of human consciousness and intelligence, the ability to grasp some understanding of this informed exploration to the answers of these profound existential questions and some comprehension to their depths and breadths in relation to the integrity of Self’s spiritual, intellectual and emotional capabilities, may come surprisingly easily.
The Word ‘Creator’
The information espoused in GOD AND DECODING INTELLIGENT DESIGN: EVOLUTION, SPIRIT, SOUL AND SELF, endeavours to explore answers to those very human and enduring existential questions that seem to dwell often and annoyingly within our being, manifesting as conceptualisations in personal consciousness, thoughts, and emotions. The word ‘Creator’ in this book is synonymous with ‘Super Natural Being’, ‘God’, and ‘Intelligent Designer’. The word ‘Creator’ used in this book has often been utilised as an alternative to the word ‘God’. This is because the meaning of the word ‘God’ has through the centuries, been often contaminated by both organised religions and individuals in relation to spiritual and psychological misuse and abuse resulting in both misinterpretation and confusion. The word ‘God’ and ‘Creator’ have inverted commas, because the word ‘God’ over the centuries has had many different meanings for many different people experienced as both positive and negative. The perceived meaning of the word ‘God’ has often been the catalyst and justification for the human expression of interpersonal, interracial and international anatomical and psychological oppression, abuse and violence. And the meaning of the word ‘Creator’ denotes at least, the possibility of the existence or non existence of such an entity, and at most, has a meaning that denotes an entity that has a very individual personal and intimate relationship to and with the reader.
The meaning of the word ‘Father’ may have difficulties for readers in terms of the potential authoritative connotations it may portray, perhaps conjuring experiences of less than pleasant thoughts and feelings relating to past and present parent-child relations. Moreover, the word ‘Father’, for some, may be gender biased, and therefore sexist, whilst also inadvertently ascribing the Creator as having the gender of a male. This is a human depiction of ‘God’, as the Creator can be neither male nor female because ‘God’ is, and has, always been Spirit. However, for all intents and purposes, the use in this book of the meaning of the words ‘God’ and ‘Father’ may be deemed as being interchangeable with the meaning of the word ‘Creator’.
The Word ‘Transgression’ or ‘Sin’
Other potentially powerful words used in a religious and spiritual context, such as ‘sin’, ‘transgression’, ‘bad’, ‘evil’, ‘wrong’, ‘less than good’, ‘imperfect’, ‘indiscretions’ and ‘maladaptive’ have also been misused and abused by religions and individuals throughout the centuries. The meanings of the above words have in the past, been used in abusive terms by the ‘spiritually powerful’. This is, by those in religious positions of authority but who are sometimes spiritually ignorant, to invoke psychological coercion through arbitrary personal and spiritual judgments. This inevitably conjures up fear, thus manipulating personal religious beliefs, behaviours and speech through by the need for obedience and compliance of the ‘spiritually vulnerable’ to particular religious and cultural practices, laws and rituals. But the author has chosen to use the above words that convey these different meanings and nuances of human behaviour to emphasis and describe behaviours and speech that may manifest as a product of Self’s conscious and/ or subconscious human thoughts, feelings, attitudes, values and beliefs. And that these psycho-spiritual constructs, together, interact in a particular way to precipitate some real or perceived psychological, spiritual and/or anatomical pain and suffering to others and one’s self.
The Word ‘Love’
Love, love, love, what makes the world go round is love. The word ‘love’ is perhaps one of the most frequently used words by humans, and has been expressed and received by people in multiple ways, in movies, theatre, books, songs and real life. People have personally experienced and expressed the meaning of the word ‘love’ in both a positive, and negative, and deep and shallow, archetypes. It is not surprising then that the word love can often produce cognitive and emotional connotations that have a positive and/or negative meaning, including that which is flowery, insipid and superficial. So what is love? Does love relate to loving Self as well as loving others? Is the act of loving the same as ‘being in love’, and the same as unconditional love? Does the meaning of the word ‘love’ for humans include, intimate ‘physical’ acts mixed with the associated cognitive and emotional experiences and responses that we may relate to and term romance, or relate to and term lust, or relate to and term friendship. Or can the meaning of the word ‘love’ be interpreted as being a single and/ or combination of these above ideas and interpretations. The defining characteristics of the interacting behaviour of ‘love’ between friends, or between parents and siblings, or between romantic partners are obviously very different in terms of the interactive relational, cognitive, emotional and ‘physical’ inputs and outputs experienced by these different ‘love’ behaviours. Can the meaning of the word ‘love’ be distorted, corruptly perceived, and include interrelation misuse and abuse? Does and can a ‘pure’ unconditional platonic ‘love’ exist between individuals? Or can and does only a non-platonic romantic ‘love’ exist between individuals? Does the concept of the term ‘being in love’ per se, even exist as either singularly a platonic or non-platonic relationship, or a mix of both these two relational dynamics? Does and can the experience and expression of ‘love’ exist and mean different things at different times to different people?
Has Self ever experienced the phenomena in reality of the thoughts, feelings and behaviours that Self would imagine would relate to the characteristics of both an unconditional platonic relational love and an unconditional romantic relational love, or of ‘being in love’, maybe even within a personal private ‘spiritual’ moment, or even within a dream, or perhaps in real life? Has Self in reality ever experienced what Self envisages to be unconditional relational platonic or romantic love with another, or to be ‘in (platonic or romantic) love’ with another? What are the cognitions, emotions and behaviours experienced as an outcome of unconditionally platonically or romantically loving another, or being unconditionally platonically or romantically, loved by another? Are particular personal characteristics required to be exhibited by another for Self to unconditionally platonically or romantically love another, or to platonically or romantically ‘be in love’ with another, and if so, what are these personal characteristics and traits of personality?
Is the level of received and expressed love from and between an individual and their personal pet, such as a dog or cat, a form of unconditional platonic love? Many would say yes. Is some platonic and/or romantic love between individuals, conditional, that is, a love which is predicated on some particular conditional activity or behaviour for one to love and be loved by another? So people experience different forms and levels of platonic and/ or romantic love that is given, expressed and received. People experience different forms and degrees of platonic or romantic love described as unconditional or indeed conditional relational love, because everyone has different personalities and different experiences, and thus, everyone is different, individual and unique.
So the meaning of the word ‘love’ can have many different forms and meanings for people as a consequence of the mix and interactions of the unique Self interplaying with the unique Self’s experiences with others and the world. Therefore, in human terms, the meaning and definition of the word ‘love’ can be complicated and varied.
However, for the purposes of this book, the meaning of the word ‘love’ for Self and others will mean the same as and be interchangeable with the meanings of;
And the word ‘love’ herein dose not include the love that has a meaning that relates in any way to human ‘anatomical lust’, ‘physical’ intimacy, or an anatomical/physical and sexual attraction. The meaning of the word ‘love’ in relation to the Creator’s potential love for the created is obviously far more complex. For the purpose of this book, the meaning of the Creator’s potential love for the created will mean the same as, and be interchangeable with, the meaning of the term ‘mystical unconditional relational love’. The Creator’s potential mystical or mysterious unconditional relational love for the created is indeed a phenomena that is partially experienced within aspects of human love, such as the intellectual, emotional and spiritual unconditional love of a platonic love experienced between individuals. This is, a ‘love’ primarily based on intellectual, emotional and spiritual sense of interpersonal interactions. This is a love that is unconditional and compassionate, a love open to intellectual, emotional and spiritual interpersonal reconciliation. But the Creator’s mystical unconditional relational love for the created must be for humans, by definition, not absolutely and transparently comprehensible. However, as we investigate the possibility of the authenticity of Christ as being the Son of the Creator, the Creator’s love for the created may become clearer. But clearer within the boundaries and confinements of human limitations.
Meaning of ‘The Word’ ‘Self’, ‘Spirit’, and ‘Soul’
The Word ‘The Word’
Moreover, for the purpose of the information espoused in this book, the meaning of the word ‘The Word’ may be defined in part, as that part of the mystical Creator that initiated the energy and the design and order of the creation of the universe. The ‘Word’ then may be defined and expressed by that contribution to the universe’s complex biochemical structure and pre-programmed DNA that enables the creation and maintenance of the universe and life. Which includes the galaxies in space, life, and the process of evolution of life it self through the pre-programming of DNA initiated by the Will and Desire of a ‘Creator’. The event of the initial production of the amount of energy required to create the universe has been termed by scientists as ‘The Big Bang’. The energy required to initiate and sustain such an event as the ‘Big Bang’ may be partially explained by Albert Einstein’s equation E = mc2. This is, E = mc2, where Energy (E) is light and heat, being part of the electromagnetic spectrum, transforms into mass (m) being atom-energy at rest, and converted at the speed of light squared (c2). The velocity of light is the fastest entity known to exist in the universe and to square such a speed is both naturally - by design - and humanly, impossible, and thus an understanding that is incomprehensible to humans. But describes the potential energy releasable within a structured atom when it is split and importantly the amount of unstructured energy required to create the structured atom of energy. To understand the equation we must remember we are dealing with a very large number only, which is incidentally the same as the speed of light squared. However, it could be that ‘The Word’ is unequivocally required as a necessity to initiate the existence of the amount of Energy needed for the occurrence of such an event as the ‘Big Bang’ and the subsequent process. Vast amounts of Energy therefore have transformed into what we term mass, or structured atom-energies we also call elements such as Gold and hydrogen etcetera.
The Word ‘Self’
The word ‘Self’ is ubiquitous in this book because the information in this book is essentially about increasing and improving the knowledge and awareness of the experience of Self in relation to Others, the World, and a Creator, if one so decides a Creator exists. So what is Self? In this book the word Self may also be interchangeable with the words ‘we’, ‘one’s’, ‘one’s self’, ‘our self’, ‘our’, ‘ourselves’ being intrinsic essence of human consciousness and personality. The meaning of the word Self includes the invisible, intangible and spiritual constructs of consciousness and personality manifest in an individuals particular and unique pattern of cognition, emotion, behaviour and contents of speech. Which, in turn, are both a result and manifestation of an individual’s particular self-awareness, intellect, sense of values, attitudes and beliefs. So the meaning of the word Self means You, You are Self, and You are You, and Self is Being, and You are Being, and Being is Existing, and You are Self Being and Existing. Self is not Self’s anatomical and visible big toe, or foot, or leg, or torso, or arms, or hands, or face, or head, or brain, or body. These are the anatomical ‘physical’ visible and tangible parts of Self, which Self resides in. But Self is in essence, and in reality, invisible and intangible. Self cannot be ‘physically’ touched or seen, yet Self is aware of Self and Being.
Self includes Self’s consciousness, where ‘consciousness’ is about being conscious of Self and Being, and Self is about being conscious of Being, and being conscious of being conscious. Consciousness is having a sense of Self and a feeling of Being, of knowing and being aware of Self’s personality, intellect, cognitions, emotions, values, attitudes and beliefs in relation to others and the world. Self is also about having a history of narrative, a story, made up of a continuous flow of experiences expressed through the consciousness of thoughts, feelings, behaviours, attitudes, values and beliefs produced from the personal interpretation of the personal interaction between Self and the dynamic stimuli of others and the environment.
Consciousness is self-awareness about how it feels to be Self. Consciousness, Self and Being, are by definition, invisible and intangible to the human eye and touch as is the concept of personality. An illustration of a broad definition of the meaning of the word ‘human personality’ is presented in the following flow chart, but not necessarily in this particular serial order. Individual genetics (nature) and human experiences (nurture) can be described in the narrative of words with personal meaning of thoughts and feelings and freewill to choose decisions based on values, beliefs and attitudes culminating in particular behaviours, contents of speech, habits, and personal characteristics.
Today, scientists, neurosurgeons and medical doctors have achieved amazing advances in medicine, medical techniques and bio-technology, and the use of high powered electronic instruments, such as, PET, CAT and fMRI scans. These scans can scan the brain and measure an individual’s degree of cerebral blood flow and electrical impulse activity, but no scientist, neurosurgeon, or medical doctor has ever been able to detect, let alone dissect such phenomena as Self’s consciousness, cognition and emotion regarding a particular encounter Self has experienced.
No scientist, neurosurgeon, or medical doctor has ever been able to detect, let alone dissect, such phenomena as Self’s personality and, Self’s personal experiences and, Self’s unique attitudes, values, beliefs and faiths regarding a particular matter pertinent to Self, whether it be in the past or whether it be in the present. And we can say with some conviction and certainty that scientists will never be able to detect and/ or dissect the constructs of Self because these entities must be considered to be, from personal experience and logical and natural definition, constructs that are both invisible and intangible, and so which only can be defined, described and considered as Spirit. The entity and construct of Self’s personal consciousness and personality, can therefore be definitively described and defined as being a Being of Spirit. Self can be considered as Spirit, because the constructs of Self are invisible and intangible to the eye. But Self can also be considered to initially have been made in and of the image of the Creator’s Spirit. But which Spirit of Self, including consciousness and freewill, is nonetheless created to originate, become, and be maintained as an infinitely definitive, independent, autonomous and unique personality and identity.
The Word ‘Spirit’
‘Spirit’ is that particular existence, which is not ‘physical’, but which is invisible, and intangible. The entity and construct of Self’s personal consciousness and personality is Spirit because it is neither ‘physical’, nor visible, or tangible. Self is a Spirit because Self’s consciousness and personality is by definition and experience, both invisible and intangible. Self can also be considered to initially been made in and of the image of the Creator’s Spirit, which is by definition neither ‘physical’ nor visible. But which such Spirit of Self is nonetheless created as an original Being to become and be maintained as an infinitely definitive, sovereign, independent, autonomous and unique identity.
Furthermore, as discussed later, the Spirit is expressed through the integrity of Self and Self’s consciousness and personality as that which never ages or grows old, as that which is invisible, as that which is timeless, as that which is spaceless and as that which is immortal and continues to live on forever in infinity and eternity.
The Word ‘Soul’
The meaning of the word ‘Soul’ may be considered defined as being that part of the mystical Creator that both directly, and by proxy, creates, maintains and sustains the inherent design and order of all that encapsulates every component that comprises the creation of the integrity of life itself. Soul therefore resides in creation, which includes all that can be experienced by Self to exist as life in the world. This includes the intrinsic existence of all visible and invisible creation, and the living and growing creation defined as alive, being, and life. And includes the dynamics of biochemical materials and the physics and pre-programmed interactions that propel the evolution of the universe and living life as being the particular and unique manifestation of the Desire and Will of the ‘Creator’. The Soul then is the rachitic and artist part of the ‘Creator’ that the ‘Creator’ wills to exist as an artist of pictures leaves their will ‘thought-patterns’ within their art-work produced. So the ‘Creator’s’ creation is inextricably linked to the created, because through the process of creation the soul is infused into and with that which is created. So the Soul exists in all creation as an invisible but real connection of will, thought and action between the created and the Creator.
Back to the Meaning of the Word ‘Self’
So Self, by logical and natural definition, may be considered to credibly comprise the transcendent components of the mystical Creator that consist of ‘The Word’, ‘Soul’ and ‘Spirit’. But just as a new born babe becomes an adult, and so independent in and of its own right, so Self develops through the powerful synergy of the transcendent interactions and additives of the mystical entities of that described by ‘The Word’, ‘Soul’ and ‘Spirit’. The word ‘synergy’ means a powerful and dynamic experience/response and process whereby the impact of all the parts of the different constructs come together to interact as a whole, and which response is far greater than the parts of the constructs added together.
So Self comes into both anatomical and spiritual existence with the potential to develop into a complete, unique, independent and sovereign being. As an outcome of the phenomenon of the predetermined, pre-programmed process of human evolution and the very real, but invisible, entities of Self’s Being and Self’s Consciousness, Self can realistically consider the important concept and attitude of personal self-acceptance. Self may also accept the reality of the transcendent processes for the birth of Self from ‘physical’ birth and the potential refinement of Self and Self’s personality as being the intrinsically inherent and inextricably intentional components of what it means for Self to be both anatomical and spiritual as the terms that define human beings being human.
Putting It All Together
So, human consciousness is part of that unique but invisible entity and construct that makes us human. Invisible human consciousness interfaces with the ‘physical’ neurons, neurotransmitters and electrical impulses of the physical human brain (atom-energy) whilst here on earth. The complexity of the human brain allows consciousness and personality and so Self, which in turn enables the invisible constructs and attributes which allow humans to think, think about thinking, feel, plan, process complex information, and choose what to think, believe, behave and speak. As a manifestation of pre-programmed DNA, the human brain is larger than the brain of primates’ from which it evolved. But how did a ‘physical’ brain come to exist with the constructs of invisible consciousness? Or how did invisible consciousness come to exist within a ‘physical’ brain (atom-energy)? As all things exist as a manifestation of the Creator (Word, Spirit and Soul), then all living things, by virtue of their creation, exist within the essence of The Word, Spirit and Soul. Soul considered as that essence within the entity of life that mystically connects the created with the creator by virtue and fact of the created being a creation of the Creator, and thus, infused and fused with the Creator.
Because of pre-programmed DNA, the human brain has evolved as a superior and complex biological entity to the primate brain. As an analogy, a shark’s brain is the size of a tennis ball, its function is entirely dedicated to smell, smelling food, and picking up the electrical signals from the muscles of prospective prey. However, the evolved human brain is now a more refined living biological catalyst enabling the Soul of the created to interface more completely and complexly with the Created. The Soul, being that essence and part of the created resulting from being, created by the Creator. The concept of the Soul explains the transcendent connection with the Creator.
Now, because of a more complex, larger human brain, the human Soul can now exist more fully and completely as being part of the essence and image of the Creator (Word, Spirit and Soul), so now includes consciousness and freewill, and the other invisible constructs of thought, attitude, memory, planing, emotion, belief, speech and behaviour. So Self’s invisible, but observable, consciousness, personality, freewill, meta-cognition, emotion, attitude, belief, behaviour and content of speech perse, is not a derivative or creation of the ‘physical’ brain but derives as a consequent of the Creator (the Word, Spirit and Soul) creating creation, which by definition must be created within the essence, attributes and parts of the Creator. Just as a painting or sculpture is an expression and manifestation of the essence, attributes and parts of the painter and sculptor.
The Uncharted Waters of Life and Death
We perhaps genuinely believe that we have never heard in the answers given by others to our questions, the unambiguous, categorical, unfettered, evidence-based and potentially legitimate information to the existential questions we have asked. And require answering, regarding what information is necessary to guide ourselves through the yet uncharted waters of both life and death. We have heard interesting and fascinating stories and gleaned such information from the experiences of many great religions, cultures, leaders and teachers. We have read about the wonders of creation and the universe, and we ourselves, have experienced our own unique reality of life. Moreover, we have heard of and experienced the simultaneous splitting of history and time into two within the Christian Western worlds; brought about by the birth of the man they called Jesus Christ. We have heard of and experienced the splitting of history and time into BC and AD, - Before Christ and, After Christ. We have heard that Christ’s followers today number at least one third of the world’s population, believing that Christ is the Son of the Creator/God. We have heard of Christ’s simple but profound teachings of mystical relational love and compassion and the amazing and astounding miracles purported to been performed by Him. And we know the Bible has been documented to been read by more people than any other book.
The astounding proclamations made about and by the man they call Jesus Christ. Who claimed that He was the Son of God, together with the miracles He is purported to have performed, including His resurrection and ascension (John 3:13; 20:17), deserve, by virtue of their potential authenticity and impending merit to become the catalyst and basis for part of the investigative and driving force of this book’s inquiry.
With the informed knowledge and theories acquired from the academic disciplines of Theology, Psychology, Philosophy, and Science investigating the authenticity and legitimacy of the contents of both the Old and New Testaments of the Bible. The Bibles central figure Christ, together with the ‘miracles’ of creation and the concepts of Self, become the starting points, impetus, and terms of reference for the content herein. Thus providing through lateral inquiry and thought provocation, potential answers to those perennial existential questions we may possess about Self and Life, the existence of a Creator, and ultimately, the existence of personal immortality.
Ultimately, Self’s unique personal understanding of the complexity of these transcendent concepts through the internalisation of considered and informed information herein, may be in itself both empowering, enlightening and liberating.
CHAPTER 2
WHO ARE WE
Early Life Experiences
Absorption of Stimuli
Power of the Mind to Believe as True in both Fantasy and Fact
Language and Speech
Informed Knowledge
Self, Consciousness and Freewill
Early Life Experiences
The necessity for acquired information on the above subjects is imperative, as humans are a fragile, vulnerable and sensitive people. Yet, who possess invisible constructs that include consciousness, thoughts, feelings, attitudes, values and beliefs that result in both positive behaviours and contents of speech, and negative behaviours and contents of speech. These human constructs are exhibited in personal traits and actions such as kindness, charity, compassion, and acceptance, etcetera, and alternatively, in aggression, selfishness, greed and prejudice, etcetera. It is a scientific fact supported by evidence from empirical psychological research that humans are consciously, cognitively, emotionally and behaviourally influenced and shaped both positively and negatively through the stimuli they absorb from others and the environment they live. For example, because of early child ‘nurturing’ or ‘attachment’ interactive experiences, or lack of ‘nurturing’ or ‘attachment’ interactive experiences, Self inevitably responds in a psychologically healthy or unhealthy manner to Self and others. This healthy or unhealthy psychological interaction towards Self and others, in turn, has the potential to impact on the world in a neutral, constructive, or destructive fashion. Self’s individual identity, idea, and sense of Self is formed through the process of construction beginning in the early childhood years. Self’s identity is then, in essence, determined by a balance of positive interactive attachment experiences (care and closeness), as opposed to negative interactive experiences of neglect and abandonment, and positive interactive autonomous experiences (independence and self-definition), as opposed to negative interactive experiences of enmeshment and attack. These positive and or negative interactive experiences are predominantly experienced from parents, caregivers and significant others, being the interactions which are fundamental to a person’s psych in terms of constructing a sense of Self that is both valued and authentic. The valued and authentic sense of Self are constructed by the Self, from positive interactive experiences that are voluntarily absorbed as opposed to the negative interactive experiences that are involuntarily imposed. A sense of a valued and authentic Self is an intrinsic human need and passion. For example, when we envy others we tend to stifle their spontaneity, when we criticise others we can crush their enthusiasm, and when we fail to affirm others, we may stunt their capacity to love. The development of the personality of Self involves at least two dynamically related motivations:
1. Relatedness (attachment) is the capacity to establish increasingly mature and mutually satisfying interpersonal relationships.
2. Self-definition (autonomy) is the development of a consolidated, realistic, essentially positive, differentiated and integrated self-identity.
These two motivations are contingent on each other, and evolve together, that is, in order to attach closely to another person, one risks temporarily sacrificing autonomy, whereas to develop and explore one’s autonomy and self-definition, one must separate from an attachment figure.
The disruption to the integrity of the sense of Self can be a core component and reason for many psychological and mental illnesses. It is likely that humans genetically inherit potential vulnerabilities towards personal experiences such as, anxiety, paranoia and depression, etcetera, and that their positive and/or negative interactive experiences serve to maintain, enhance or diminish these individual propensities. Early childhood relationships have a profound impact and for the majority of patients it is here that the origins of their problems lie. For people with psychological disabilities or disorders great importance is placed on the rediscovery and reconstruction of a dynamic sense of Self as being part of the process for rehabilitation. One’s personal awareness of Self is a component that people with psychological disabilities often describe and see as a core factor in the factor and process of both their illness and their change (Chadwick, Birchwood & Trower, 1997).
As human beings, we have an extraordinary drive to seek, establish and maintain intimacy with other human beings, and yet, there are many who have been so psychologically hurt, burnt and damaged they become conditioned to withdraw from any social interaction. They cannot trust other people as an outcome of their personal negative interactive experiences, although within they are pining for trusting, honest and caring social interactions. As children growing up individuals face two major fears, the fear of attack, and the fear of abandonment, and these two fears are the two greatest vulnerabilities in both adolescent and adult interrelationships. Many people fear being psychologically controlled or violated if they get too close to someone, or psychologically abandoned if they get too far away from someone.
True friendship and psychological intimacy is about finding a balance and understanding that there is a time and place for being psychologically close to someone, and a time and place for psychological space from someone. However, children who grow up with a message from one or more parent, or significant other(s), that they are unloved, unwanted or a burden, will more than likely believe this message, blaming themselves for this negative interactive experience and not their parents. These destructive messages experienced from early childhood can become negative characteristics in relation to how they perceive themselves in terms of their self-value and self-identity. These destructive messages can also become a major part of the content of the script of their personal self-talk. As adults, these people may crave from others the acceptance and compassion they never received, but when they receive this attention, there is the possibility that they will withdraw and/ or push it away. Because psychologically, Self believes that Self does not deserve to be accepted or cared for, or cannot bear the pain of potential betrayal, thus perpetuating the pain of abandonment or enmeshment. Unloved, misunderstood, unaccepted and hurt people, feel unloved, misunderstood, unaccepted and hurt, and as a consequence, the propensity to psychologically withdraw from the world with the potential to hurt Self and others.
So, Self learns to love others and Self, initially and primarily as infants, internalizing the things done and said to Self as scripts of cognitive and emotional tapes that Self listens to, day in and day out. How Self’s significant other(s) in Self’s younger years responds to Self through their gestures, facial expressions, attitudes and vocalizations, determines what these scripts and cognitive and emotional tapes will say to Self. We listen to, reflect on, and believe these internal psychological tapes of internalized thoughts and emotions, which continue to subliminally and subconsciously inform us about the responses of ‘significant others’ towards Self. These internal subconscious psychological descriptions of Self to Self, may take a on a negative form where Self feels detached, unhappy and anxious from the sense of not being valued or accepted. Or these descriptive scripts may take on a more positive form where Self feels happy and joyful from the sense of being valued and accepted.
Ultimately, this sense within Self of being valued and accepted, or not valued and accepted, as an outcome of the quantity and quality of value and acceptance shown to Self in early relationships, develops through cognitive and emotional internalization and rumination, into particular psychological and physiological responses. Until the full consequences of these psychological processes are realised in Self’s psych as Self journeys throughout life. Self views Self and the world from birth to death, through the psychological prism and filter of Self’s personal life experiences, which can certainly be changed through the choice of conscious effort. Self’s early life experiences have the potential to create both good and positive, and or bad and negative feelings and thoughts about how Self perceives Self in terms of these early interactions of either having security and safety, or not having security and safety from and with one’s caregiver. These positive or negative experiences are processed and internalized within Self to be carried through the world within Self as a source of comfort, or otherwise. But remember, ultimately we are all the authors and artists of our own destiny, and therefore require a sense of personal responsibility within for our behaviours.
As a child develops and grows in age, the brain develops as does the brain’s capabilities and processing powers, including understanding, perception, vocabulary and language skills. A young child’s brain is a work in process until adolescents. As a child’s language skills increase so they can name and articulate more clearly personal experiences. So increases the understanding, knowledge, and awareness, of the appropriateness of reality of past inter-relational experiences, particularly in relation to positive, and/or negative interactions regarding trust, acceptance, harm and betrayal, etcetera.
So the internalization of these early life experiences, and how they make Self think and feel about Self, and others, consequently affect how Self continues to perceive Self and others. The importance of early childhood nurturing and experiences cannot be underestimated, evident in the outcome of people, who as infants, have been abandoned, abused and/or left for dead. For example, two infants, children of chronically drug-addicted parents and literally abandoned had to live outside by themselves, only to be ‘cared for’ by their pet domesticated dogs. This is the sad story of Oxana Malaya and Edik of the Ukraine. When the children were found years later they could not speak any words but only growl and bark like the dogs that had ‘looked after’ them, providing them with the protection of their warmth, dog food and shelter. These children having lived with dogs for a number of years had no concept of self-awareness, or empathy for others, and could not speak a word, or eat with cutlery. Like most intra-personal (within a person) and interpersonal (between persons) skills such as, self-awareness, empathy and general knowledge, humans need to learn and be taught this information from others.
In another sad case of gross neglect, Sujit Kumar a Fijian, was caged in a chicken coop living with chickens until the age of eight and imprinted to the degree that he pecked food from the ground, folded both arms at the elbow into ‘wings’, and slept in a roosting position. He spent the next 22 years tied to a wall in an old persons’ home, until discovered by a qualified behavioural therapist. Now after a number of years he is learning to run, climb, eat with utensils, sleep prostrate, use a toilet, and interact with people, but will probably never learn speech as the neurological window to speak closes at the age of three as do the pathways for attention, perception, memory, motor control and modulating emotion.
As said, we live what we learn. We live what we know. We live what we experience. We live what we learn through the knowledge and experience of others, but which maybe maladaptive, bogus, and/ or inaccurate, or on the other hand, adaptive, factual and accurate, or a mixture of both factual knowledge and ‘knowledge’ tainted by ignorance and mythology. Ultimately, we live what we learn, by choosing what information and knowledge we decide is ‘right’ and ‘right’ for us.
The positive and/or negative feelings and thoughts from past experiences continue to be internalised and introjected into Self and projected onto others, culminating in a love, acceptance or disdain for Self, others, and the world. This love, acceptance or disdain etcetera, for Self and others may eventuate into a possible belief or disbelief and/or an understanding or disdain for the Creator. If Self has experienced understanding, compassion and acceptance for Self from others, then Self can love and accept Self, and Self can love and accept others, and Self can appreciate the experience of ‘love’ and ‘acceptance’ itself. If Self can understand the Creator to be the spiritual personification of unconditional love, understanding, compassion and acceptance, then Self has the potential to also understand and accept the potential characteristics of a potential Creator. If Self and others choose to consider in the belief that they are made in the image of the Creator, and Self can value and accept Self and others, then Self and others can value and accept Self and others as unique and special beings potentially made in the image of the Creator.
But if a Creator is suppose to be the ultimate and universal symbol and expression of truth, acceptance, compassion and love. Then a Creator, that is, or was, or should have been, the experience and essence of compassion, acceptance, love and truth, as culture and religion has taught and Self will wish to acknowledge can, through personal suffering and cognitive and emotional pain from negative interpersonal interactions become the object, representation and symbol for all that is distorted, incongruent, ‘evil’ and corrupt. Which such experiences are personally and collectively experienced in the world, yesterday, today and tomorrow
So within Self’s mindset, it may be that ‘God’ cannot possibly be considered to exist, or on the other hand, ‘God’ may exist but become the object, representation and symbol for all that is and has been psychologically and spiritually experienced by an individual a ‘God’ that is abominable.
Absorption of Stimuli
Every millisecond of the day we are absorbing millions of sensations from information predominantly through hearing, sight, and touch from immediate stimuli (information) in the environment. This stimuli or information is information acquired from both interpersonal and non-interpersonal sources, which includes Self’s experiences with people in relation to their comments and behaviours, etcetera, or from the environment such as a beach or mountain etc., or from the texts of books, etc. The stimuli and information absorbed from these sources formulates personal understanding through the processes within the faculties of the brain. Specifically, in the pre-frontal and frontal cortex of the cerebrum, which is used in thought processing, planning and making sense of Self in the world from all the information gathered from these different sources. Most of the information and stimuli from these sources, particularly information from personal relations and interactions, are assimilated into existing knowledge and encoded and expressed in human memory manifest in the individuals’ thoughts and feelings, positive and/or negative, with regard to the personal real, or perceived experience from this information. Encoding of information and stimuli occurs through neurological reconnections of the neuron’s synapses in the cerebrum as they automatically analyse, synthesise and assimilate information from newly experienced stimuli in relation to past experienced stimuli. These personal experiences of stimuli include both real and perceived interpersonal relations and events.
The individual’s unchanged, new, or transformed feelings and thoughts, regarding the culmination of stimuli generated by this process contribute to the manifestation of thoughts and emotions experienced throughout the continuum of experiences described as pleasant, indifferent, or unpleasant. These particular feelings and thoughts from new experiences of stimuli from others, and the environment can interact and compound with the feelings and thoughts from past stimuli, eventually culminating into personal experiences of how Self thinks, feels, behaves and speaks to and about Self and others in the present and future. How Self evaluates and perceives this ‘new’ and existing information from the stimuli of implicit and/or explicit personal interactions and the environment will be dependant on Self’s previous memories of experiences from personal interactions, including stimuli from the sources of social, spiritual, cultural, educational and familial inputs. This natural but complex interactive process of absorption, integration and assimilation of past and present stimuli and information from interpersonal experiences can precipitate a significant psychological cycle of ‘cause and effect’ regarding Self’s personal and interpersonal life.
Interestingly, this process is the mechanism that drives the notion that past experiences of stimuli and information cannot often be remembered as truly accurate and a fact of absolute reality, but are reconstructed in light of the quality of present memories of past stimuli, information and events that are integrated and assimilated with the continuous experiences of new information. Ultimately, the culmination of past and present perceived good/positive, indifferent and/or bad/negative thoughts and feelings formed from the experience of the stimuli of information will partly determine Self’s personality and beliefs, values and attitudes, and subsequent behaviours and speech to Self and towards others. So the Self’s conscious and subconscious absorption of experience from interpersonal and non-interpersonal stimuli and information will influence Self’s thoughts and feelings and values, attitudes and beliefs, and behaviours and speech. Ultimately, such behaviours and contents of speech can impact upon Self’s feelings, emotions, values, attitudes and beliefs, and vice-versa. This process in turn creates a dynamic and complex web of interactive responses and experiences, which may be both conscious and subconscious.
Power of the Mind to Believe as True in both Fantasy and Fact
The power of the human mind in terms of belief is twofold. Firstly, the mind has the power to believe in anything the subject person chooses or wants to believe in, at either a subconscious (towards ‘involuntary’) and/ or conscious level (towards ‘voluntary’). Human content of belief can manifest regardless of whether the object of belief is real, unreal, rational, irrational, true, false, fact, fiction, and regardless of whether it exists or does not exist. Secondly, the power of the mind in relation to a person’s belief system has power of dramatically changing conscious and subconscious thoughts, emotions, attitudes, values, behaviours and contents of speech and physiology. For example, we believe and think we see a snake lying between the trees in the shadows of the night, but which belief is incorrect because what we believe and think to be a snake is in fact actually a twig. We will, through this false belief, then think of our safety and feel frightened, and either, move away from it, or attempt to kill it. But with these false beliefs come real thoughts of danger and real feelings of fear and the body’s physiology and physiological functions will be altered and affected as, the heart beat races, the breathing quickens, blood moves to the periphery, the skin perspires and the pupils dilate, all because of the false belief in thinking the twig is a snake.
Witch Doctors (Witches) both male and female exist in many cultures including Africa. Witches cast verbal curses upon their people, where they inform the recipient that they are under a curse for their indiscretions and will become sick and die. Surely enough, the person cursed becomes very sick and often dies because of their belief in the Witch Doctors’ powers to punish and destroy those who have transgressed the laws and rituals of this culture. In Latin America, a sub-human pre-civilised behavioural interaction called “susto” is utilised to harm people, where the individual then becomes the object of black magic, or witchcraft, and cursed to die. In other cultures, this sinister influential belief and practice is termed “evil eye”, where the resulting psychological/ cultural belief and fright can be fatal. In Haiti, there is the phenomenon of Voodoo death. The suggested sentence of death by these “medicine men” and ‘witches’ may create an intolerable autonomic arousal in the subject who has little ability to cope because there is no social support for them through being ostracised. The continual experience of these anxiety based symptoms, which include insomnia, irritability and phobias, and the somatic symptoms of sweating and increased heart rate, ultimately leads to the damage of the individuals internal organs and death.
The power of human belief has credible scientific proof through the phenomena of the placebo affect. A placebo is a pill made of sugar or some other substance, such as coloured water, that is therapeutically inert with no therapeutic chemical, biological or physiological interaction what so ever. But miraculously, this placebo does have an effect on humans. An effect based entirely on an individual’s or groups’ personal need or desire to belief. Such a belief it could be suggested, is evidence of the Self’s powerful mind to believe in anything Self chooses to, even if that belief is based on pure fantasy. The power of the mind to believe in whatever it wants to, is illustrated clearly by the need for pharmaceutical companies to extensively research, study and test new drugs for their authentic efficacy. When new drugs are tested, two groups of participants are required. One group is administered a placebo or sugar pill and the other group, the new drug under investigation. The two groups do not know which pill they will receive, but anticipate the possibility of their pill being the new drug. Considerable and consistent scientific experiment and research has proven that there will be a 30 per cent success rate in the group that receives the placebo. This is, 30 per cent of people in the placebo group get well just because of their belief that they could have received the new drug and their belief that the new drug could be effective. So the new drug being tested, must at least produce a statistically significant efficacy rate of over 30 per cent to take into account the placebo affect.
The therapy Homeopathy, extensively researched for therapeutic qualities has consistently resulted in nil statistically significant proof of efficacy. In fact, the ‘potions’ used in Homeopathy are so diluted they contain not a single molecule of the original substance. This is akin to putting an eye drop of a particular substance into the ocean and stirring it. But people believe they feel better and may indeed become better entirely through the power of the mind to believe they have received treatment that will cure them. The cure in this case is through the placebo affect. The art of Hypnosis and the act of Brainwashing also have an influencing affect on people’s beliefs, thoughts and feelings by way of the principle of the placebo affect.
Therefore, it must be critical that we receive all the pertinent and credible facts about important subjects that affect how we live in the world, rather than just trusting, believing and relying on unsubstantiated, false and misleading information that results in an arbitrary and misinformed belief manifest in part as a function of the power of the mind. We need to acquire sound, evidence-based and informed knowledge on topics such as the meaning of creation, life, and death including the intimate aspects of how Self lives life in the world as this has the potential to impact heavily upon how we interpret experiences involving Self, others and the world, and consequently how and what Self believes about Self.
Therefore we need to be told not parts of the ‘story of life and creation’, or bits and pieces of the story about ‘God and the Bible’, or particular human biases and personal agendas about these existential subjects, but we need to be told everything possibly available about such important subjects. We need to know the history about the construction of literature in the Bible, information about creation and the universe and the scientific evidence regarding human evolution. We need to consider the integrity of rational logic used by Philosophers, about research from Scientific and Psychological studies and about Theological theories. It is helpful to understand as much as possible about anything that may affect us emotionally, intellectually and spiritually.
It is impossible for the information gathered from a single academic discipline to answer with a degree of clarity such existential questions. We need to explore, digest, integrate, internalize and discern evidence-based information and logical theories from a wide cross section of academic disciplines so that we are more fully informed and thus aware of the facts, ideas and theories regarding all the enduring and perennial existential questions that Self may have about the mysteries of Creation, Life, Death and ‘God’.
Language and Speech
The words ‘language’ and ‘speech’ can be interchangeable, but for the purposes of this book, it may be considered that language is the biological mechanics constructed of the vocalizations of specific sounds and symbols that give meaning to communication through the activity of speech. The mechanics of language communicate through not only speech but also the written word and ‘sign language’. Bio-evolutionists tell us that language is a human attribute that raises us above the animals. Animals do communicate with each other, but at a very basic yet, real level. Language is mystical and spiritual as it expresses and articulates both perceptions and realities that are unable to be seen by the eye or touched by the hand. Language expresses and articulates personal experiences from both within the silences and secrets of the mind, and vocal articulation from the noise of the mouth.
Language through speech and the written word expresses and articulates things imagined, it expresses and articulates things thought and felt, it articulates values, beliefs, attitudes and behaviours, both benign and malignant. Language is the most important tool used by people in any culture to live life. The language used in this book is important because it is the tool used to transfer and deliver information to the reader through the written word. Language can be is formed from written symbols called words and gives meaning to human experience. Language develops and evolves through communities over many centuries, and learnt by individuals from infancy. Again, speech comprises of language made from the specific sounds and vocalizations we call words. Words are the sounds and vocalizations that create speech and/ or writings, and are, in essence, the symbols used to describe reality and/or perceived reality of an individual’s experience of the world.
The vehicle for the thoughts and ideas of any book is its writing. Writing is in essence, language, and language is the form of communication originating from thoughts, feelings, attitudes, values, beliefs and experiences humans have about interactions with Self, others, and the world. The communication of language can be and expressed through many human forms and modes, including verbal speech, sign language, and written symbols and letters. Language advocates the integration of the stimuli of the experience of personal perceptions and realities, which are absorbed through the senses and processed in the brain, manifesting in the individual as personal thoughts and feelings, and ultimately, as personal attitudes, values, beliefs, behaviours and content of speech. Writing systems today with alphabetical vowels nd consonants were preceded by proto-writing, systems of ideographic (pictures) and/or early mnemonic symbols e.g 11111.
The best known examples of these are: The Jiahu Script - symbols on tortoise shells in Jiahu about 6600 BC; the Vinca Script – symbols on Tartaria Tablets about 4500 BC; and the early Indus Script about 3500 BC
The Egyptian Hierogryphics are generally considered the earliest writing systems emerging out of their ancestral proto-literate symbol systems from 3400–3200 BC with the earliest coherent texts used from about 2600 BC..
The Chinese Script was likely developed independently of Middle Eastern scripts, around 1600 BC, as many writing systems originated independentedly influenced by culture and geography.
It is thought that the first alphabetic writing appeared around 2000 BC, as a representation of language developed for Semitic (Arabic speaking) slaves in Egypt by Egyptians. Most other alphabets in the world today either descended from this one innovation or were directly inspired by its design.
So in this book of language comprised of words, (named “English”, which evolved from the languages of many cultures and countries over many centuries) and the meaning these words symbolise, it hopes to communicate to the reader informed information from the experiences of human reality and perceived reality.
This book hopes to transfer to the reader informed information from history and the academic disciplines of science, philosophy, theology and psychology, the ideologies, concepts and theories relevant to humans and humans living life in the world. This information in turn, may then be personally processed and interpreted through personal consciousness and self-awareness and the mix and interaction of Self’s intellect, cognitions and emotions with the personal and intimate experiences of Self. Human cognitions and emotions are the inner most thoughts and feelings that silently articulate and describe human (Self’s) experience in relation to others and the world manifest in attitudes, values, beliefs, behaviours and the contents of speech expressed in the language of a particular people in a particular culture. Without speech and language it would be impossible to name and reflect on personal experiences. Without naming and reflecting on personal experiences, it would be difficult to claim them, and without claiming them, it would be difficult to change them, if so desired.
Informed Knowledge
After acquiring personal knowledge – not being presumptuous as this may already have been personally achieved - from new information about these existential issues, Self may digest and process this information, personally cross-referencing it with the conscience and private language of Self’s Self. Listening to this inner voice of informed language may enhance Self’s ability to make sense of past experiences and to enable appropriate decisions and choices to be made in the present and future, so intensifying Self’s sense of personal worth, peace and well-being. Such a personal mindset may empower Self to make informed judgments and heightened choices in relation to the interaction between Self and others, including the internalization of adaptive and rational interpretation of Self’s experiences from the stimuli of others and the world.
If we decide to believe in a Creator and thus, in the Creator’s miracle of creation, then we may also believe that we were made in the image and likeness of the Creator, endowed with the powers of Consciousness, Discernment, Free Will and Choice, embodied and expressed within the spirit of Self’s personality. As an alternative to not understanding and believing in the possibility of a Creator, or Soul, or Spirit, or Immortality, we may be subconsciously disabled and incapacitated in making measured and balanced decisions for Self and maybe others, now and in the future, ultimately affecting and determining Self’s and other’s psychological and spiritual well-being.
And so to this end, Who Am I and Who is Self, is about the possibility of the existence of a Supernatural Being that people may choose to call ‘Creator’, ‘Father’, ‘God’, ‘Yahweh’ or ‘Allah’, or any other name given by people to such a mysterious entity. This book is about ‘The Power’ and ‘The Mystical Relational Love’ that we can believe this Super Natural Being possesses if we choose to decide to believe in the existence of such a Being. This book is about the possibility of the existence of a CREATOR, or ‘GOD’, or “That Which Nothing Greater Can Be Thought,” or that which is Omniscient (all knowing), that which is Omnipotent (all powerful), that which is Benevolent (all good), and the fathomless and undying unconditional mystical relational love that such a Creator may and/or must possess. This book is about the possibilities of the existence of a Creator and about how such a Creator may desire, through mystical relational love, to voluntary persuade a change in particular hardened beliefs and attitudes and thus the transformation of particular human transgressions, faults, deficits and indiscretions manifest in maladaptive thoughts, feelings, behaviours and contents of speech. This is, a personal and voluntary metamorphosis of maladaptive beliefs and attitudes, into benign, positive and constructive beliefs and attitudes that can be realistically achieved with a sense of satisfaction through personal practice and mastery. This book is about Self’s conscious thoughts, feelings, attitudes, values, beliefs manifest in behaviours and contents of speech that build productive and caring relationships, whilst simultaneously casting hedonistic and selfish relationship destroying indulgences into oblivion, indeed casting them, ‘As Far As The East Is From The West’.
There is the probability that the Creator can persuade humans to perform such personal transitions when humans can consider, through informed knowledge, a potential understanding of the design, order, plan and Will of the Creator’s creation of humans. A potential understanding acquired firstly, through informed knowledge of Creation, and secondly, through informed knowledge in the possible reality of the Creator’s possible incarnation through Jesus Christ. If Christ is the Creator incarnate, then Christ’s Body, Blood, Dignity, Humanity, Humility and Divinity, may seriously considered to have been shed for all peoples, because by definition, a Creator must have an unconditional mystical relational love for the created, and thus, all of humans.
“Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall be white as cotton”. (Isaiah 1:18)
The information herein is about exploring and naming ‘God’s story’ and Self’s ‘personal story’ through words and narration, which hopes to beckon and reshape the personal and intimate world of Self and others into conscious awareness. Such awareness of Self may facilitate the transforming, blending, and centering within, the integration of the stories between Self and the Creator, thereby identifying the authentic Self with the understanding and knowledge about who Self really is in relation to Self’s personal independence, uniqueness, sovereignty and dignity. This information hopes to enable Self to walk easier through the life of the Creator’s mysterious world. Perhaps also enabling Self to name Self as good and true, and view Self with dignity, tenderness and wonderment as a sovereign and independent spiritual being. A Being that lives consciously or unconsciously within the Creator’s great story of gratuitous mystical relational ‘love’, but which ultimately culminates in personal anatomical death, and perhaps also in personal psycho-spiritual immortality. The possibility of an immortal psycho-spiritual Self potentially may give Self the impetus and the catalyst to seek, find and experience the personal and relational happiness and peace within a wider context that Self obviously desires and deserves.
Any acquired personal transformation is facilitated through internalization, integration, absorption and synthesis of the existence of the desirable higher transcendent qualities created and intended for humans, including the virtues of love, joy, peace, patience, tolerance, kindness, compassion, reconciliation and gentleness as proscribed throughout the gospels, such as, Galatians Chapter 5 Verses 22-23, (which can also be written as Galatians 5:22-23). These are the perhaps the attributes for Self to live a true and authentic life, bringing inner peace, which is predicated on an “in-to-outward” activity, which radiates the above virtues to others from within, rather than a materialistic, selfish and deceptive “out-to-inward” activity. These ‘activities’ try to achieve inner happiness through greed and self-gratification at the expense of others’ happiness and joy. Such unjust and unfair behaviours towards Self and others ultimately bring internal emptiness, sadness and pain to those who practice these indulgences as well to those who are unfortunate recipients of such misguided actions.
Self, Consciousness and Freewill
The concept of Self includes, Self’s interests, passions, skills, values, beliefs, attitudes, judgments and aspirations, etcetera. manifest in Self’s individual thoughts, emotions, behaviours and contents of speech. Self’s experiences include a complex mix of conscious and subconscious composite and assorted thoughts and feelings, sometimes pleasant and sometimes unpleasant, sometimes painful and sometimes joyful, public and private personal interactive and inter-relational experiences with others, who are by definition, other Selfs. Consciousness is about Self’s awareness of Self and Self’s awareness of Self’s consciousness and Self’s being. Consciousness is awareness of Self’s thoughts, emotions and behaviours and Self’s values, beliefs, attitudes and aspirations. Freewill is about Self’s personal freedom to will the desire of Self’s personal and interpersonal activities through Self’s voluntary choice. Freewill is about Self being free to will the desire of Self’s activities, behaviours and speech predicated upon Self choosing particular thoughts, emotions, values, beliefs, attitudes and aspirations, etcetera. We could go so far as to say that Self in relation to Self’s Freewill has the potential to choose, control, influence, impact and manipulate the contents of Self’s thoughts, the contents of Self’s feelings and emotions, the contents of Self’s values, attitudes and beliefs, and the contents of Self’s behaviour and contents of speech. And thus, the contents of Self’s being and personality.
This work hopes to impact, if has not already been achieved, on the personal integrity of the reader’s unique and individual sense of authentic Self, Spirit and Personhood. Inspiring within, a thirst for personal acceptance, value, compassion and reconciliation for Self and others, and consequently, a sense of contentment from an understanding of the potential purpose and meaning for and of human life and existence. The personal process of exploration, discovery and explanation through conscious cognitive, emotional and intellectual faculties imbibing the cross-disciplines of Theology, Psychology, Science and Philosophy, is perhaps the initial criteria required for informed personal knowledge. This is, an understanding that allows humans as unique and special beings to make informed personal decisions and choices about who and what they are, what they want to be, and about what they wish to do, and about where they wish to go with their life. Indeed, the contents of this book hope to disseminate informed information, which can then be internalized and therefore psychologically crystallised through the spiritual dynamics of individual and/ or collective consciousness, intellect, cognition and emotion that are the essence of humankind existing in this chaotic and complex world experienced as, “living life on Earth”.
CHAPTER 3
SCIENCE, EVIDENCE, BELIEFS AND MYTHS
No Scientific Evidence for Astrology
The Discipline of Psychology Investigates Parapsychology
Belief, Memory and Cognition
In Conflict With Reality
Beliefs and Faith
The fact that the subject matter in this chapter in particular may appear unusual to add generally to the mix of this book’s contents will hopefully be a clearly understood purpose by chapter’s end. It should also be noted that this is not about a ‘witch-hunt’ vilifying those who support, follow and/ or practice the different sectors of Future Telling, and Astrology but an objective, logical, and scientific exploration and deconstruction of such parapsychology. This investigation seeks to advance the rational understanding of a subject that is powerfully emotive and more often than not carries with it pseudo transcendent expectations underpinned by the social conditioning of superstitions and myths, and unfounded traditional, cultural beliefs and faiths.
Just as it can be extremely dangerous to our psychological well-being to believe in the literal interpretation of Scripture’s meaning, manifest in the misinterpretation of Scripture. So it is also unhealthy for our psyche to naively believe the information given by those who proclaim themselves to possess some supernatural insight or knowledge about the future of an individual’s personal life. In this chapter, we will look at the inherent flaw and fallacy of parapsychology including Astrology, Tarot Card Reading and Extra Sensory Perception (ESP). It is important that we explore and discuss the potential abuse to people by practitioners of these popular cults, because as spiritual beings we seek answers to existential questions and thus remain potentially vulnerable to those who claim to possess the supernatural abilities to see and read into the future. It is the author’s belief that the majority of practitioners of parapsychology provide false hope and information to others about their future either from misguided ignorance from misinformation or as a means to seek self-gratuitous fame and fortune. However, the author also believes that a few people, have been specially gifted to give specific service to humankind in providing evidence of the afterlife. Afterlife channelors, or mediums, such as George Anderson, and John Edwards, seriously considered to authentically possessing these supernatural gifts. These two potentially gifted people, have been scientifically tested at universities, and until further evidence suggests otherwise, they can maybe given the benefit of any absolute skepticism and doubt. Based on the current evidence it is possible that they do possess these transcendent skills for the service of others, to receive information from people who have died and crossed over to the ‘other side’, as tangible proof of the continuation of life after death, for Self’s immortality.
No Scientific Evidence for Astrology
Adam Ford (1985) the astrophysicist, along with many other influential astronomers and scientists say regarding horoscopes, “Astrology is a good example of a theory or cluster of theories, which seem to avoid the reality of their falsification at all costs. The claim that the fortune of each of us lies in the stars is purported by followers and practitioners of parapsychology to be empirical (experienced reality) but is, in scientific and real terms, pseudo-science. A basic proposition put forward by such people is that birth signs influence our day-to-day experiences and personal characteristics and that the stars rule all facets of our life. Many well-educated people are still unclear about the distinction between the science of Astronomy and the art of Astrology, and more columns in journals and newspapers are devoted to 'what your stars foretell' about you today, than at any time in the past.”
Although, some research has gone into testing the link between birth dates and professions with interesting results. It appears, for instance, that university teachers are more likely to be born in May than in any other month and that people in top jobs tend to have birthdays in the spring than in the autumn. A close inspection of sun-sign astrology, however, does little to back the claims that our destinies can be ‘read’ in the stars. Although, seasonal or climatic factors may provide the scientific basis for explaining the trends just mentioned, more rationally and satisfactorily.
The usual vague way of testing a daily horoscope is to accept those predictions that seem to support our own experiences, and to forget about all the others we cannot relate. It is remarkably easy to read a description of a Capricorn character, and to assent to all those general elements that seem to suit the character in question. This then becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. However, a theory supported by such a selective use of evidence deserves to be superstition rather than science.
But the biggest piece of evasion of falsification in astrology is quite interesting. The fundamental foundations of birth sign Astrology have shifted to such an extent that the whole edifice of astrology should have come tumbling down long ago. When the rules of astrology were laid down over two thousand years ago, a fixed point of reference was the spring equinox. The spring (or vernal) equinox is that time in the year when the Sun in its apparent path across the sky (in fact the Earth travels around the Sun) crosses the celestial equator from south to north and the days and nights are of equal time/ length. The celestial equator is an imaginary sphere above the Earth’s equator. The location in the heavens where this happens is known as the first point of Aries, because it used to lay in the constellation of Aries the Ram. Modern day astrologers still take this to be so despite the fact that due to a phenomenon called the “precession of the equinoxes” the first point of Aries has moved backwards into the constellation of Pisces the Fish.
Every Sun sign is nowadays a whole constellation out of step, and increasing to two constellations out of step as we move into and through the 21st Century. This is because the Earth's axis is not steady but is subject to a slow wobble, just as a spinning top while spinning will also begin to sway drunkenly as it moves around the floor. The Earth's axis takes 26,000 years to complete one ‘drunken’ sweep. The result is that every couple of thousand years the point where the ecliptic crosses the celestial equator slips back a constellation.
In other words, because of this recently discovered wobble, the Earth’s speed as it orbits the Sun is slower than originally predicted. So the Earth takes a month longer every 2,000 years to orbit around the Sun. Every 2000 years then the constellation seen in the night sky in a particular month is now the constellation (group of stars in the sky) before that of the constellation calculated when the foundations of birth sign astrology were laid down more than 2,000 years ago, named by the astrology and birth signs we know them today. This change to the association between a particular month and a particular constellation happens not suddenly but slowly over 2000 years. Also the earth never passes through a constellation in exactly a month, but sometimes half a month longer or shorter. So to define astrology and birth signs by the months of the calendar is scientifically and factually erroneous. So because the speed of the Earth is slowing down as it orbits the Sun, the Earth is at a different point in the sky every calendar month than it was 2000 years ago. So everyone who thinks he or she is an Aries is now today really an Aquarian, and Virgos are really Cancers, Leos are really Geminies, and Cancers are really Tauruses, and so on. Astrology is thus, stuck with an old time-table, and blissfully ignores this major shift in the sky in relation to the Earth passing particular constellations at any given time during the year.
Dr. Jacqueline Mitton of the Royal Astronomical Society also confirms that stargazers have been using the wrong dates for the Sun passing through the constellations of the Zodiac. This is the line of the Earth in relation to the Sun as the Earth orbits the Sun. The ‘star dates’ used in astrology today were formed about 2,000 years ago by Greek and Roman astronomers who named the Zodiac signs after the mythical gods of those times. They divided the year up into roughly twelve equal chunks still used to this day by astrologers for their predictions.
Dr. Mitton also describes how astronomers have now discovered a thirteenth constellation in the Zodiac called Ophiuchur ‘the god of healing’. But importantly, because the constellations cover areas of varying sizes the Sun’s time in each constellation differs and so the Sun moves through the sign of Scorpio in just seven days, which makes a-nonsense of the monthly ‘star signs’. It spends much more than a month under Virgo, Taurus and Pisces. At the beginning of this century, the International Astronomical Union agreed on an exact position for each constellation, used by all the world’s scientists. But, says Dr. Mitton, astrologers ignored this and stuck to traditional ‘Sun signs’ for analyzing people’s character and predicting the future. So if you add the problem of the inconsistency in the differing lengths of time the Sun’s line with the Earth is in each constellation, with the factual scientific account of the “precession of the equinoxes” you have an unsystematic and changing zodiac system undermining the scientific credibility and importance given to people’s birth signs. If you look at where the Sun is when you were born you will find it’s in a different constellation from the one the astrologers say it is in. So then, Dr. Mitton, 46, born on July 10 and once a Cancer, said to be cautious, home loving and introverted became a Gemini in the 20th Century and so is now impatient, enthusiastic, and butterfly-minded. But, now in the 21st Century, is slowly changing, if she lived over the next 2000 years, to the ‘Star’ sign of Taurus. She goes on to say, “Astrology is pretty unscientific. It is a brand of the entertainment industry. I just wish people wouldn’t confuse it with science and take it so seriously”.
D. Myer’s book, Social Psychology (1993), provides us with some of the latest information concerning the scientific research on astrology: “It’s important to realise that some popular claims about biological rhythms are not supported by empirical data. Particularly, there is no measure or data proven that allows anyone to make predictions about fluctuations in an individual’s mood, or intellectual, emotional, social or caring ability based on their birth date. In other words, the biorhythm advice given about individuals’ future, and found in newspaper columns, and elsewhere, is pseudoscientific nonsense without any empirical basis (Palmer, 1982). Nothing that researchers have found lends any credibility to the speculation of links between birthdays and biorhythms.”
With all this scientific information coming to the fore, astrologers are realizing they are fighting a loosing battle with such emphatic scientific information. We hear recently that Senior Astrologers faced with this evidence now claim and acknowledge that astrology is not scientific or based on science, but that astrology is but a way for people to indulge in a little mystery and magic. Bravo, perhaps now we are hearing some common sense from those that practice, preach and administer a branch of entertainment called astrology.
The Discipline of Psychology Investigates Parapsychology
David Marks (1986) in his article, ‘Investigating the Paranormal’, writes, “Few fields of inquiry capture the attention of the public as much as the paranormal. Newspapers, books, films and television have all cashed in and promoted it. Yet, after millennia of experience and more than a century of controlled investigation since the founding in 1882 of the Society of Psychological Research, the paranormal remains as controversial as ever. While credence in parapsychology including extrasensory perception (ESP) and precognition appears to be widespread, parapsychology has failed to produce a single repeatable demonstration of its supposed and purported supernatural abilities. In the face of such a dearth of hard evidence how can such widespread belief in the paranormal be accounted for?”
The Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the paranormal (CSICOP), was established in 1976, with the aim of increasing the quality of scientific investigations into the paranormal by constructive criticism and the exposure of invalid or fraudulent claims. Over this 10-year period an inordinate amount of fraud, error and incompetence in paranormal investigations, have been brought to light. But pseudo-sciences are unfortunately, remarkably stable, and tradition-bound and their presence on the edges of science can be, sadly, expected indefinitely.
Here are some descriptions and examples of effects which until recently were claimed to be produced by the paranormal but which can now be explained from within orthodox science. They include:
The failure of paranormal investigators to produce a single repeatable effect despite 100 years of published research is a serious matter. The ‘hoped for’ results described in reports, have never been repeated, or replicated, in scientifically controlled environments. The most systematically investigated area is undoubtedly parapsychology. This field is professionally organised, with its own associations of accredited members and journals. Since 1969, the Parapsychology Association has been an affiliated division of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. On the surface, the research sophistication of many parapsychologists seems to be as high as that of other professional researchers. The University of Edinburgh now has its own Koestler Chair of Parapsychology. Yet parapsychology is unique in that it remains permanently in search for a reliable finding. In spite of the long history of error, fraud and negative results, the practitioners remain confident that a positive result, will one day be obtained.
How close are we to a repeatable paranormal finding? Examination of the literature suggests, not very close at all. In systematic reviews of Para psychological experiments, C. Akers (13) and R. Hyman (14) have independently come to the same conclusion: that the research methods and evidence are too weak to establish the existence of a paranormal phenomenon.
Belief, Memory and Cognition
Human memory, cognition and thought processes are achieved through a complex array of cognitive processes including the processes of ‘expectancy’ or ‘mental set’ driven by ‘internal cognitive working models’ or ‘scripts’ developed over a life time, which provide the framework within which Self organises new experience. So human cognition is not a simple ‘copying’, or ‘right or wrong’ process of reality, but entails a constructive ‘striving for’ or ‘effort after meaning’ to personal experiences. What we experience is often more a confirmation of a deep inner and personal belief than a matter of plain fact. Beliefs in essence are not ‘updated’ automatically by available evidence, but have an active life of their own and fight tenaciously for their own survival. Beliefs evolve from our past and shape and form our identity, describing and driving who we think we are! They tell us what to read, what to listen to, who to trust and how to rationalise contrary information. (4, 5, 57)
A further problem regarding the truth of belief is that when we are exposed to relevant information that contradicts Self’s beliefs, our opinions and beliefs, are reviewed and revised, at less than optimal levels. We cognitively act conservatively within a confirmation bias that congruently affirms what we need to believe in relation to personal requirements and experiences. We look at information in a biased and selective way so that it will agree with or fulfill our individual expectations thus becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. In a recent ‘ESP’ demonstration to a class of 226 psychology students, David Marks presented as an exercise in observation, five mentalist tricks, consisting of:
manner
Although at no time did he claim to be psychic, 90 per cent of the class stated that David Marks had demonstrated psychic ability. When the results from subjects who had been previously classified as either ‘believers’ or ‘skeptics’ were analysed separately, 79 per cent of believers thought at least three of the five effects were psychic compared with only 43 per cent of skeptics.
Naturally, we often encounter information that is unexpected or ambiguous. In such instances, there is a second line of defense of the data being selectively perceived, or even misperceived, so that it still appears to support our beliefs by ‘subjective validation’. Human beings never behave randomly. Our experiences contain many culturally shared elements, such that particular items are associated with particular verbal contexts. This causes associative networks to be set up and a tendency towards non-random, stereotypical responses even when there is freedom to choose.
So then, what factors differentiate believer from skeptic? Psychologists down the ages have puzzled over the question of what motivates different world-views and the so-called will to believe. Research conducted by J. Waugh, used Kelly’s personal construct theory. In this framework, people vary in the quality and extent of their investigatory procedures, so that while some may be working to establish an ordered and meaningful world for themselves but which is not necessarily highly predictable or readily explained, others may be content that they already have all the necessary explanatory constructs to live life fruitfully and with meaning.
In Conflict with Reality
The following chapters will indirectly explore in part the reasons, which provide a clearer understanding why future telling and all its categories are in conflict with the Creator’s design and order of creation and the Creators Will for human’s to possess integrity of independence and sovereignty manifest in consciousness, intellect, cognition and emotions, etcetera, and ultimately, freewill. A belief in parapsychology, fortune and future telling, belief in the ability to predict the future, and a belief that all experiences should be considered as fate, can significantly compromise and distort human behaviour and contents of speech as outcomes of personal attitudes, values and beliefs, and therefore, the future personal applications of Self living life in two significant ways.
Firstly, through belief in sectors of parapsychology being viewed as credible viable sources of esoteric knowledge regarding one’s fate, any intuitive intuition, any spark of innate spirituality, and any belief in a ‘Power’, ‘Supreme Being’ or ‘Creator’ originating from outside one’s terms of reference, no matter how fragile or seemingly insignificant, can be inadvertently snuffed out or redirected. To the worship, belief and adherence of ‘man made gods’ and ‘systems’ that purport to quench human thirst for answers to existential questions the human spirit possess to desire. A belief in parapsychology has the propensity to encourage the instigation and misdirection of intellect and cognitions, and attitudes and behaviours of Self, instead of searching for the answers to these existential questions through the journey of personal discovery, and the process of the investigation of knowledge underpinned by consciousness, intellect and rational logic and reason. With all the personal, emotional and spiritual challenges and intellectual growth this may entail, whilst learning about Self and Self’s strengths and weaknesses.
Secondly, parapsychology, including astrology, future and fortune telling can encourage and propagate the belief that all experiences are predestined (predestination) and/ or predicated on arbitrary fate, such as being accidentally or willfully hit by a truck, which may or may not have been under the control of the person injured and the driver of the truck. If we wish to walk in front of a truck this is a choice we make and we will be hit, so this incident for the walker is predicated on choice and not fate, but for the driver this can be considered ‘bad luck’ rather than fate which is a word that means one’s destiny or predestination. If the driver wishes to, or chooses to drive into us this is a choice the driver makes, and we will be hit and run over. But this event is ‘bad luck’ for the pedestrian, rather than the individual’s predetermination and predestination. A persons belief in fortune telling then, can by definition, severely limit a person’s potential scope for future personal development and change, for an attitude of hope, and for a belief in the ability to change one’s circumstances in any way one might wish to. This is because if Self believes in fate and future telling Self will become drawn into a type of self-fulfilling prophecy, because Self believes that Self has no control over any interaction with life and so lives to the label of Self’s belief regarding one’s fate based future.
Thus, this ‘easy fix’ for disregarding transcendent and informed information seriously limits the potential power of Self’ - spirit/soul - by diminishing the use of the inherent gifts of consciousness, intellect, reason and choice. This limited use of these intellectual and spiritual attributes has the capability of reducing human kind’s worth to nothing more animate than artificially battery powered toys or computer operated robots. Consciousness, intellect, reason and freewill/ choice, facilitate and make possible the ability to control one’s life and experience the disciplines of moral and ethical responsibility, accountability and discernment. This in turn allows for the virtues of love, compassion and reconciliation to operate, by choice, in relationships with Self and others.
CHAPTER 4
MIRACLES OF THE UNIVERSE
Creation as Scientific Evidence
Humans are Fragile
Light, Stars and Galaxies
Termination of the Sun, Life and Earth
Black Holes
Creation as Scientific Evidence
We have discussed people’s irrational motivations and destructive, thoughts, feelings and attitudes in relation to their faith, culture, politics and religion and subsequent behaviours and speech. We have explored examples of diabolical beliefs and practices with regard to the interpretation and misinterpretation of Scripture. Such information may be a resource for the reasons why we can or cannot choose to believe in the existence of a Super Natural Being, or be the catalyst for a personal understanding of the possibility for the existence of a Creator. We have explored the flawed ways people can misinterpret Scripture in the Bible and other spiritual writings, and discussed how misinterpreted Scriptures can be dangerous and therefore require reinterpretation. We have explored the power of the mind in relation to believing in particular ‘beliefs’ that are not substantiated by evidence-based proof. Pertinent to this exploration is perhaps the inferred question as to whether or not we can believe in entities that we cannot see or touch? And does the Bible and other ‘Holy’/spiritual writings, present laudable evidence of having been actually written by the Creator, or if not, provide credible evidence that a Creator may exist, or provide information about interpersonal relationships and life credible enough to be adopted? The idea of these explorations is to leave the answers to these questions up to the integrity of the intellectual and spiritual discretion of the reader.
Next on our journey in the search for proof of a God’s existence we shall explore the ‘miracles’ from the paradigm of academic science with regard to the creation of the universe. This is, the exploration of the material universe that has come into existence, in the quest to ascertain whether there is enough visible and scientific evidence in the world to support the belief in a Super Natural Being. Indeed, science itself, states that you cannot create something from nothing.
And in the following chapter we will be exploring proof of the Creator’s existence from the evidence provided by rational and logical reasoning predicated on the ideas that are based on human experience of the universe and the intrinsic logical reality that also states that ‘something can not be made to exist from nothing’.
Humans are Fragile
Now back to the science of the miracles of the universe and creation. We humans have been around in existence for less than 0.2 per cent of the time that life has existed on this Earth. Humans average a life span of about 75 years for males and 80 years for females being the current conservative calculation from the developed first worlds, although it has increased by 3 months every year for the past 160 years. In comparison, our Solar System, that is, the Sun, Moon, and Planets were, created 4.5 billion (4500 million) years ago. The universe in its entirety began, according to modern astrophysicists, about 13.7 billion (13,700 million) years ago from a mega explosion, or as Darwinians describe it, from the “big bang”. The ‘big bang’ is the word then used to describe the initiation of the beginning of creation of the universe. But before the ‘big bang’ happened it is considered by some that there was nothing and because it is irrational that something can be made from nothing then there must have been something greater to initiate such an event.
Before the ‘big bang’ science also states that there was nothing in terms of matter or existence as we know and experience it. There was no space, no time and no matter. Indeed, it is difficult to comprehend this particular dimension of production of existence because if there was something before the ‘nothing’ that must have initiated the ‘big bang’ then that something must be some form of Super Natural Being.
And as only 4 % of the universe is made of atoms, 96 % is yet to be known, but could be considered the energy of the ‘Word’, Soul and Spirit. Physicists call this unknown ‘matter’ ‘dark matter and energy’. So what did actually happened during and after the ‘big bang’. A billionth (nano) of a second after the ‘big bang’ both particles of matter (atom-energy) and antimatter (reverse charged atom-energies) rushed around in all directions causing tremendous heat. These we call subatomic particles. At that time, there existed an almost equal amount of matter and antimatter, which collided and destroyed one another creating pure energy. Because matter exceeded antimatter by one part per billion the ‘matter’ universe was able to exist. As the universe cooled and expanded, common particles began to form called baryons containing photons, neutrinos, electrons and quarks. As the universe cooled, further composite particles of protons and neutrons called hadrons formed. Then lighter particles of electrons, neutrinos and photons called leptons were able to join the protons and neutrons of hadrons, which together became the atoms that make up the structure and functions of atom-energy today.
After one to three minutes had passed after the ‘big’ bang’ and creation of the universe protons and neutrons began to react with each other to form deuterium, a heavy isotope of hydrogen with one proton and one neutron. This hydrogen then collected another neutron to form tritium and after this reaction the addition of another proton which produced a helium nucleus. There was now one helium nucleus for every ten protons. After further cooling, these excess protons would capture an electron to create common hydrogen. Massive gas soups would then form, their intense heat and gravity the ingredients to form stars. From there on, the universe contains about one helium atom for every ten hydrogen atoms.
Under intense pressure and heat, hydrogen fuse and compress into helium atoms creating energy, heat and light. When hydrogen runs out, and no longer fused into helium, another chemical reaction occurs as the star explodes into a supernova, before extinction, where the heat is so tremendous other chemical reactions occur where heavier elements form, one by one, such as oxygen (O), carbon (C), uranium and gold (AU) etcetera. Iron is the last element created, and because it is the heaviest, it is unable to react in fusion. So the supernova now without any source of ‘fuel’ self destructs exploding and scattering its subatomic particles and then collapsing into iron and gases that make up new stars and planets. The universe then continued to spread outwards from the force of this initial burst of creation/energy into what we now know to be the universe of stars and galaxies. Today stars in galaxies undergo these same processes of rebirth.
After billions of years this material and energy has slowly cooled and slowed down so that today astrophysicists can pick up radio waves and signals coming in from all directions of the Universe. This includes the ‘radio signal maps’ of this energy just 350,000 years after the ‘big bang’. In human psycho-spiritual terms, it is easy to forget how the hidden secrets of the Creator’s power and strength may miraculously manifest in the visible universe. For instance, sound travels at 760 miles per hour, but light travels at an incredible 186,000 miles per second or 600 million miles per hour – that is, 1.25 seconds to flash to the moon and 8.5 minutes to travel 93 million miles from the Sun to our own garden planet. In one second, light can travel around the world seven times. In one year, light travels (which equates to one light year) 6 million x million miles. That is 6,000,000,000,000 miles. Light energy, is made up of electromagnetic energy, which consists of wavelengths of particles (photons), which move in waves with particles called photons. Light is one of the quickest phenomena in the natural universe.
Alongside the miracle of light energy is our very own brain, which is the most complex component of creation in the known universe. The brain can filter out 100 sensations and stimuli from 100 million sensations and stimuli a second. These stimuli are, received in the reticular formation of the brain, from sensory receptors like the eye (visual), ears (auditory) and touch (body-kinesthetic). This stimuli is subsequently processed in the frontal lobes and cortex of the brain. The outcome of this process is the provision of the information that tells Self who we are and what we are to others and the world, and thus how we identify Self in relation to others. The brain could also be the central interface between the body and the personality/spirit, between the visible and the invisible, between the ‘physical’ and the spiritual. All these concepts are discussed in a later Chapter.
Yet, we sometimes forget how dependant we are on these magical creations. For instance, we can only survive 7 weeks without food and only 7-8 days without water, even fewer days depending on our health and the environment, before our organs start to dysfunction, pack up and die. In the same way, we can only survive for two or three minutes without oxygen before our brain and body suffocate and die.
It is easy to forget these wonders of the universe that create and sustain humans and indeed impact on who and what we are, just as it was for the ancient Romans. St Paul reminded them to look at creation for proof of God's existence:
"For what can be known about God is perfectly plain to them since God Himself has made it plain. Ever since God created the world His everlasting power and deity, however invisible, have been there for mind to see in the things He has made".
(Romans 1:19-20)
Light, Stars and Galaxies
Today we have the privilege of being informed, and enlightened about creation, and the complexities of the mechanisms of the Universe. Biochemical scientists and Astrophysicists have never been able to tell us so much about the universe as they can today. They now know that there are more stars in the universe than there are grains of sand on all the beaches in the world. They tell us that looking at the night sky is like looking into the past. When looking up at the stars, we will see, depending on how far they are away and how many years their light takes to reach us, some as they were in the 12th century, others as they were in the 6th century, and others with the help of powerful radio telescopes, as they were 13,700 million years ago. This is long before our solar system was formed, our Sun and planet formed from the dense gas and dust of a nebula. Scientists tell us that there are over 100 billion stars in our galaxy, the Milky Way, and it is so vast that light takes not 10 years, not 100 years, not 10,000 years, but 200,000 years to traverse it. Out nearest star, apart from the sun, is Alpha Centuri, a distant 4.3 light years away, or alternatively, 24,000,000,000,000 miles from Earth. There are also about 100 billion galaxies in the universe, which continue to expand from one another. The furthermost galaxies continue to expand at 90 per cent the speed of light. It is believed the galaxies will continue to expand until the galaxies and their stars are disseminated so greatly they cease to exist but in their smallest atomic particles, which too will eventually decompose, corrupt and disappear.
That is not all, our planet is moving around the sun at 30km/second (72,000 miles per hour), taking 365.256 days to complete one orbit, giving the calendar year. And the Earth is tilted on its axis by just over 23 degrees from the vertical, giving the four seasons of Summer, Autumn, Winter and Spring. The Sun does not rise in the East, as it stays still in relation to us, but instead the Earth spins around its self from West to East, at 1,000 miles per hour every twenty-four hours giving us the illusion that the Sun is moving. As the Earth spins around itself - taking 24 hours to complete one rotation - it gives us night and day. The Sun and Planets of our solar system, together, are moving around the center of the Milky Way at 30 km/second, taking 240 million years to complete one orbit. The Milky Way is also on the move, taking us with it and moving towards a remote cluster of galaxies at 600 km/second. Indeed, we are involuntary space travelers - the room we go to sleep in tonight has moved millions of miles from where it was in the universe this morning when we woke up.
Scientists tell us that when nuclear fusion occurs within stars and the Sun, neutrinos - subatomic changeless mass-less particles - are produced. They are so unaffected by other atom-energies that they can move through dense objects including the Earth and pass out the other side. As we lie in bed day or night billions of neutrinos from the Sun, flash through the Earth, through our bodies, and back out into space at the speed of light. Neutrinos take 8 minutes to each us from the centre of the sun. Space is a place with movement of atom-energies, which is the constituent of time. Space consists of the atom-energies of structures we name as ‘dust particles’ and gases, including hydrogen and nitrogen. Stars are entities with dense atom-energy centers with nuclear atomic activities – hydrogen fusing into helium – producing energy of intense heat, gases and, light. Light photons generated from this hydrogen nuclear fusion takes a million years to reach earth, because light photon particles bounce off other atoms as they travel through from the centre of the Sun. The Sun is a Star and stars can be incomprehensibly large. A star called Beetlegeux situated in the Orion Sword is a super-giant at 220 million miles in diameter. It is big enough to swallow up the entire size of the Earth’s orbit around the Sun. It also has the energy equal to 15,000 Suns.
No wonder it has been said that the possibility of the Earth and Universe with its design, order and plan being created by random chance, is about as mathematically probable as a Jumbo Jet airliner being built by a tornado sweeping through the debris of a junk yard.
Three thousand years ago the ancient poets were so inspired by the night sky and creation they were compelled to write about a ‘Creator’:
Psalm 8 reads: (1,000 BC.)
"I look up at your heaven, made by your fingers
At the moon and stars you set in place
Ah, what is man that you should spare a thought for him
The Son of Man that you should care for him
Yet you have made him little less than a god
You have crowned him with glory and splendour
Made him lord over the work of your hands
Set all things under his feet
Sheep and oxen, all these
Yes wild animals too
Birds in the air, fish in the sea
Traveling the pith of the ocean
Yahweh our Lord
How great your name throughout the earth!"
Termination of the Sun, Life and Earth
The Sun is losing four million tons of mass every second, as hydrogen atoms are fused and compressed into helium atoms at over 14 million degrees Celsius. This process forms energy, heat and light from which we are able to survive on Earth. A grain of sand this hot would cook a person 110 miles away. At 1 million miles in diameter, the Sun is twice as large as the size of the Moon's orbit around our Earth, and in comparison, planet Earth has a diameter of only 8,000 miles. The Sun also has a ‘use by date’. It is estimated that the Sun can only exist for another 5,000 million years before it will burn out. Although our world may continue for thousands and possibly millions of years before the Sun burns itself out, it is very possible that the Earth will radically change in some way or form in the positive or negative at sometime in the future.
For example, Earth could dramatically change through the impact of an asteroid collision, which has already occurred 250 million and 65 million years ago respectively, destroying 95 per cent of life on Earth including the Dinosaurs. Or the Earth could drastically and irreversibly change through the consequences of an environmental or natural disaster, or through chemical or nuclear war. It is perhaps prudent never to forget, as we journey through life going about our daily business, nothing in this world lasts forever, and nothing in this world can be ‘guaranteed’ except for the fact of the inevitability of our individual death. For physical death is an integral part of the cycle of life, in general, and human life, in particular. In deed, we have all been ‘sentenced’ to anatomical death. Human life on this Earth is just a stepping-stone to perhaps an immortal spiritual life in an eternal world. For none of our bodies leave this planet in their original structure, form with function of the body, but for invisible consciousness of Self and personality, this may be an entirely different story.
The universe and the solar system were always only a temporary creation, albeit seeming long term in human understanding and human’s individual time-frame from minute to minute, day to day and year to year, until death. As the second law of thermo dynamics states, “All energies in the universe are in a continual process of changing.” Apart from this law emphasizing the fact that everything that has been created in this universe and is thus, made of some form of atom-energy and therefore cannot exist forever unchanged. This law is very salient today with both the chronic and acute depletion of the world’s resources. The energy of the universe is a closed system, and in essence, is neither gained, nor lost. Resources of energy with planet earth will inevitably will ultimately dissipate and disseminate into the atmosphere as the remnants of changed energy.
One thing is sure, we are all going to anatomically die in one way and at some time or another. As it has often been said and all are aware, if not in denial, none of us get out of here ‘physically’ alive. We can with almost certainty, guarantee that the end of our own life will be within the next 100 years with our anatomical death, and much sooner depending on our individual age and health. Incidentally, those who believe in Christ, and are familiar with the concept of the term “The Second Coming of Christ”, need to be aware that the coming of Christ will most likely be manifest in the form of their own individual death, and ‘going to Christ’. And, therefore, much sooner for individual’s than is often contemplated and depicted by this phrase. The reality of ‘The Coming of Christ’, may more than likely be explained by one’s own personal anatomical death, and be more accurately described by the term ‘Going to Christ/ ‘God’.
It is ironic that as the Sun slowly burns out to close on it’s lifespan of 10,000 million years - remember it has already been burning for 4,500 million years - humans awaken as the electromagnetic rays of the Sun burst down on the breaking dawn of human spiritual and intellectual awareness. The Earth’s “use by date” – for nothing that is physical and tangible and visible lasts forever - we know is another 5,000 million years, because the Sun’s fuel will burn up and the ‘remains’ will explode engulfing and destroying all its planets and the solar system, including planet Earth. However, it is necessarily inconceivable in the context of environmental destruction, that natural influences and human-to-human violence, will render the Earth’s “use by date” of 5,000 million years unattainable. But if the Sun does miraculously reach its “use by date” it will have burnt out of fuel, explode – destroying the solar system - and inevitably become a cloud of dust and gas eventually to combine with cosmic material to create another star through gravitational forces, pressure and heat from nuclear fusion.
The Sun contains more than 99 % of the total mass of the Solar System (Jupiter containing most of the rest). The Sun is often said to be an "ordinary" star because there are many others similar to it. However, there are mostly smaller stars than larger ones, the Sun being in the top 10% by mass. The median size of stars in the Milky Way is probably less than half the mass of the Sun.
The Sun creates solar energy deep within its core. In the core of the Sun the temperature is an incredible 15,000,000° C, and the pressure is 340 billion times the Earth's air pressure at sea level, and so intense, that nuclear reaction or fusion takes place. This reaction causes hydrogen nuclei (four protons) to fuse together to form a helium nucleus (one alpha particle). So this intense heat and pressure turns hydrogen atoms into helium atoms. The helium nucleus (alpha particle) is about 0.7 percent less massive than the hydrogen nuclei (four protons). The difference in mass is expelled as energy, carried to the surface of the Sun through a process known as convection, and released as light and heat. Energy generated in the Sun's core takes a million years to reach its surface. Every second, 700 million tons of hydrogen gases become helium through nuclear fusion, and in the process, 5 million tons of pure energy released. When helium atoms, are no longer sustainable, other atoms start to form, such as Oxygen, Carbon, Gold, Uranium, and eventually Iron, until all the elements of the universe are again manufactured.
At the end of its life the Sun will start to fuse helium into the heavier elements such as iron and begin to swell. Ultimately, the sun will grow so large it will swallow up the Earth. After a billion years Earth will then become a Red Giant. This Red Giant will then suddenly collapse because of its immense gravity, into a very small compact body known as a White Dwarf. White Dwarfs are made of atoms of different elements, which are then broken and packed so tightly together that an amount the size of an eggcup would weigh 50 tons. When a larger Sun/Star burns out it is termed a supernova. It explodes and shrinks by gravity so quickly that the atoms are broken up and fused together so tightly they form neutrons. A Neutron Star is so dense a pinhead would weigh more than a million tons! The energy released in one of these supernovas is so great that for several weeks the star shines with the brilliance of a billion of our Suns or more. As stated earlier the heat generated from these supernovas is so great that heavy elements from the chemical reactions of this nuclear fusion, such as gold and uranium, are produced. So the gold in every wedding ring was produced and manufactured in the heat of the fires of a supernova. For nowhere else in the universe is the temperature hot enough for such a chemical reaction to occur.
Black Holes
Black Holes are a mysterious cosmic phenomenon, and have divulged till now little of their form and activity. Astral-physicists now believe they have discovered a black hole 15 million light years away. A black hole is created when a larger star called a Super Giant, such as Betlegeux, which is much heavier and bigger than one that explodes into a supernova, uses up all its fuel and then collapses suddenly and violently from its gravitational force without the physics to explode as a supernova. As the star’s cosmic material collapses and shrinks from its immense gravity the escape velocity of material entering the center of this cosmic wonder becomes greater than 186,000 miles per second - the speed of light - so that not even light escapes from its gravitational force and becomes a black hole.
This collapsed star’s gravitational energy pulls into it, surrounding cosmic atom-energy and its ‘event horizon’ results from the recycled atom-energies, now vapourised, escape at the speed of light. So this is the Black Hole created from considerable gravity and now sucks in any cosmic material susceptible to its atom-less force, which may be more akin to the spirit-energy of the ‘Word’, as being part if not all of ‘dark matter’ and ‘dark energy’. Once material is pulled into its gravitational force, it too becomes part of the infinite hole, but rather than disappearing forever, it slowly seeps away as unrecognizable, deformed and vapourised atoms at the ‘event horizon’. A black hole recently discovered is 300 light years in diameter. A black hole exists at the center of every galaxy. The Milky Way’s black hole has a mass 300 million times greater than that of the Sun. (Strobel, 2004)
So there we have some of the scientific miracles of the universe that can be both emotionally daunting and intellectually fascinating. Indeed, this information invokes concepts and dimensions that are incredibly interesting, yet, difficult to comprehend from a human perspective. The miracles of the Universe can indeed be described as just that, miracles, and poignantly demonstrate the possibility of the existence of the Majesty and Might of a Supernatural Being and Creator.
The miracles of the Universe have the potential to give us valuable insight into the sheer power and intellect of such a creative, artistic and industrious being. The marvels of the Universe may indicate an extraordinary and complex existence, with all the thought and feeling that would be necessary to conceive and create such a vast and ongoing entity with such exquisite design, order and planning.
CHAPTER 5
PROOF OF THE CREATOR’S EXISTENCE FROM SUBATOMIC, QUANTUM & NANO PHYSICS
Only 118 Natural Elements in the Known Universe
Atoms, Cells, Genes and DNA
Meaning of ‘The Word’, Soul and, Spirit
The Brain, Neurons, Neurotransmitters and Self
How Could ‘God’ Have Always Existed?
Only 118 Natural Elements in the Known Universe
Contributing a contemporary perspective to this mix of rationale, philosophy and science may add credibility and potency to their significance as evidence for the consideration that creation, by definition, requires as a necessity to exist, the existence of a Creator or Super Natural Being in some form or status. All these rational, philosophical and scientific modes of thought of perceiving the world, such as, the paradigms of Providence, Motion, Cause and Effect, Contingent and Necessary Beings, Subordinate Series, Perfection, Order, and You can not get Something from Nothing, can be experienced in the phenomena reality. Science has determined that there only 95 Elements making and producing all that exists in nature and the universe. Elements are substances that are ‘pure’ in that they consist of the same atoms which combine together to form molecules, such as, Oxygen, or Carbon, etcetera. So Oxygen atoms combine to form Oxygen and different atoms of elements, for example, Hydrogen and Oxygen atoms, combine (as compounds) in a complex chemical reaction to form water molecules (H2O).
There are only 95 elements that singularly or, in combination build everything and anything that exists in the known universe. The combination of the same or different atoms of these elements combine to form either inanimate objects/realities which are nonliving and non-growing, for example, rocks, sand, water and air, etcetera, or animate objects/realities which are living and growing, for example, bacteria, plants, animals and humans etcetera. However, there are realities that can be considered to have not been constructed from the atoms of these elements, such as the invisible, but real constructs of Self, consciousness, cognition, emotion, attitudes, values, beliefs, and personality etcetera, which we can refer to as Spirit.
We may accept that there is some difficulty in understanding the complexity of the creation of atoms, which are comprised of subatomic particles made up of the nucleus, neutrons, protons and electrons as the building blocks of all the elements. But the different structures and functions of atom-energy – and non-atom spiritual energy - can not just appear from nothing and just appear from nowhere. Atoms are the building blocks of human cells, DNA and genes and similarly cannot just suddenly appear in their intricate forms and structures without there being some form of transcendent design and order. Atoms and their subatomic particles do not just appear like a rabbit out of a hat, out of ‘thin air’, or exist and evolve from nothing, out of nowhere.
So these complex and sophisticated forms of existence called atoms that make up the complex elements that make up the entire natural, but complex materials and substances and living things that exist in the universe, must have been created themselves by something other than themselves. They must be created other than from nothing and nowhere for themselves to exist. Furthermore, they must have been created by something that does not require these same atoms or elements, for itself to exist. Indeed, there must be something that possesses something else, besides atoms and elements, for it self to exist, and therefore for atoms and elements to exist. Atoms must have been created by something greater than atoms for atoms to exist, perhaps something that requires nothing else to exist but its Self to exist, whatever that may be.
So there must be Something, Someone, Something Miraculous, Something Extraordinary, Something Invisible, Something Incredible, Something Wondrous, Something Magical, Something Awesome, Something ‘Impossible’ and Something *****, for the atoms of the elements that make up all that exists in creation and nature to exist. And we might speculate that this Something ‘*****’ is what we might refer to as the Creator. And that this Creator comprises, in part, ‘The Word’, the Soul, Self, and Spirit, including the invisible constructs of consciousness, cognitions, attitudes, values, emotions and personality, etcetera. Invisible constructs as being the phenomena that are invisible, and that do not consist of atoms that make up the 118 elements that everything else natural in the known universe and world consist of as necessary to exist.
Atoms, Cells, Genes and DNA
When we look around us there is predetermined order, design and purpose everywhere. Subatomic particles of atoms or atom-energy not only make up the pages and print of this book but everything in the universe, including inanimate objects (non-life) e.g., stars, galaxies, water, rocks, etcetera, and animate living life, for example, plants, animals, birds, insects and humans etcetera. Atoms, in essence, are but energies without mass (because measured in eV - electrical volts), weight (because electromagnetic energy between the earth attracts smaller parcels of electromagnetic energy giving gravity) and visibility (because we see the visible light wave–lengths that are reflected by particular atoms). Further explanation of these seemingly counterintuitive facts will be discussed further on. If we think about how hydrogen and oxygen make up ice, water and steam-gases we can understand how everything in the universe possesses different structures and functions even when made with the same atoms. As the energy of atoms changes e.g., as in the different structures and functions of ice, water, and steam, made from the same atoms, but structured differently, tightly packed atoms (ice) as opposed to less-tightly packed (steam-gases) - and so more volatile. Atoms interact with other atoms both similar (elements) and different (compounds) to make up the universe and the world we experience.
There are only 118 different atoms that together or combined make up 4 % of the world, 96 % being energy unknowen but more probably akin to the energy of the ‘Word’. Self, which by definition is also non-atom energy of Spirit (spirit-energy) - consciousness, thoughts, emotions, self-awareness, personality and will etcetera. Reference to the word ‘physical’ (in essence, atom-energy) in this book can refer to the body (anatomy) or the ‘physical’ environment - food, shelter, life and all that we observe around us (atom-energy) - except for Self-Spirit and the Spirit of others which is non-atom energy.
The sub-atomic particles of atoms include electrons, neutrons and protons that make up atoms, being the building blocks of elements, and are, therefore, the building blocks of cells. Cells are made of a complex combination of atoms of particular elements. A cell is the smallest unit of independent existence. A cell is a discrete, membrane-based portion of living atom-energy. All living matter (atom-energies) consists of one or more cells. Living bacteria and amoeba (yeast and protozoa) consist of a single cell, whereas living humans are made of trillions of cells. Within each cells’ nucleus exists the ribosomes that carry out the protein synthesis which are the materials used to produce genes – that exist within the DNA - that in combination, combine to form the blueprint that is represented and expressed as hereditary material. Chromosomes are the structures in a cell’s nucleus that carry the genes. Each chromosome consists of one long strand of a complex bio-chemical substance called Deoxyribo Nucleic Acid (DNA).
There are 46 chromosomes or strands of DNA in a normal human cell and approximately 27,000 different genes in each chromosome or strand of DNA. One gene may contain up to 2 million nucleotide strands made up of a sugar group (deoxyribose), a phosphate group, and one of four purine bases. The order of the bases along each of these millions of nucleotide strands in each gene gives the gene its genetic code. But the human genome (DNA/ genetic system) is now believed to contain 3.2 billion "letters" or “base pairs” within its DNA and which previously was called “junk DNA”. So only 1.2 per cent of this long genetic code represents genes, being the bits of DNA called nucleotides, which are the programs designed to order the manufacture of proteins for specific body parts and organs. The body is, both made up of proteins, and manufactures these proteins that make up the body. So these genetic nucleotides are the building blocks that make up life and all living things. The chromosomes are comprised of strands called DNA, which house the genes, which are the hereditary genetics that program the development of all the individual features and characteristics that distinguish all living things from each other, including the differences within and between humans. DNA house the genes that are in every living cell, and this genetic material is the blueprint and program which creates the features and characteristics that make up trees, plants, bacteria, insects, animals and humans etcetera. The genes in every cell consist of all the programs necessary to create all the parts of a living thing, such as the lips, eyes, skin, lungs, teeth, organs, blood, bones, stomach, bowel, hands, feet, legs, arms and face etcetera, which come together to form a particular animal or human being etcetera. So all the cells in the body contain a full set of genes, but in each cell type in the body only some of these genes are active or turned on. For example, liver cells produce proteins that produce the liver organ, which are not produced in the kidney cells that produce the kidney organ, and vice-versa, and so on.
However, because only 1.2 per cent of this long genetic code in DNA represents genes, the other 98.8 per cent of genetic material traditionally dismissed as "junk DNA" with little or no function, has been discovered by Australian researchers to also contain thousands of small stretches of DNA that have been frozen in time for up to 400 million years. These bits of DNA are exactly the same in people, mice and rats, which means that against all odds, not a single "letter" of DNA in these stretches of DNA has changed over millions of years of evolution. "Nobody expected it. We were totally surprised," said John Mattick of the Institute for Molecular Bioscience at the University of Queensland. He said his team believed the frozen bits were part of a sophisticated "instruction manual" for assembling complex organisms, "a hidden layer of information that is required to specify the precise placement of the trillions of cells in a human being". It could be suggested that the discovery of large percentages of DNA remaining unchanged over millions of years and the small percentage of DNA that has “evolved” or changed, provides evidence supporting the theory of not only the predetermined design and order of DNA material and its function, but also the intentional preprogramming of DNA material and its function..
Meaning of ‘The Word’, Soul and, Spirit
The sub-atomic particles of atoms then are the smallest building blocks of existence, both inanimate and animate such as living plants and animals, whereby plants made from atoms of specific elements need the fuel of minerals to grow and animals made up of atoms of specific elements need the fuel of plants and animals to grow. Atoms are the energy with structure and function that build the ‘physical’ part of plants, trees, animals and human beings, etcetera. But on there own volition, fuel or no fuel, atoms of elements cannot create and sustain living life such as a pulsating, breathing, thinking and feeling human being, or any other living thing. Consider that an original Super Natural Being was required to create the sub atomic particles that make up atoms, which in turn, make up structures and functions, which in turn, make up living cells. Consider predetermined design and order as a requirement for such complex chemical reactions and evolution itself, to take place, for creation and life itself to exist. An invisible entity called the ‘Soul’ considered a necessity, being that part of the Will and Desire of the mystical ‘Creator’ that maintains and sustains creation, evolving creation and life. The Soul, in essence a part of the Creator, is by definition infused into creation and life at the beginning of creation and time, to sustain and maintain life expressed in and through the life of living creation. Just as the consciousness of an artist is infused into artwork so consciousness of the ‘Creator is fused into the created.
In addition to the invisible ‘Soul’, there must exist an invisible entity that we may choose to call ‘The Word’. The Word being that part of the Will and Desire of a mystical ‘Creator’ that was required to initiate the existence of creation for creation to exist, and the design and order of creation subsequently evolving to produce both inanimate realities and animate realities. Scientists term the birth and beginning of creation as ‘The Big Bang’. So a Super Natural Being provided ‘The Word’, Spirit, and ‘Soul’ that is required for Self, and life itself, to exist. The Word initiates creation and life, the Soul connects creation to the Creator, and the Spirit constitutes the integrity and essence of the individual. Self’s invisible consciousness, and Self’s invisible attributes of cognition, emotion and freewill exist as Spirit. Self is therefore ‘Spirit’, which in turn allows Self to become Self and function as a human being, a Being made akin to that of the spiritual Creator. So Self, although being an independent and sovereign Being, has within, parts of the Creator described as the ‘Word’, ‘Soul’ and ‘Spirit’.
The Brain, Neurons, Neurotransmitters and Self
We may decide now through logic and reason that material objects cannot be made from nothing and need to be made from something, because you cannot obtain something from nothing, because nothing produces nothing. But what about the things and constructs that we know exist, but which we cannot see or hold, but which can only be experienced? For instance, thoughts and feelings we all possess, but cannot be defined or described as being either material or visible objects. The brain is the bio-chemical mechanism for areas of human experiences, such as language, cognition, vision, sound, and planning, etcetera. But, there are no neurons, or neural networks, or white and grey matter, or cerebrum cells, or electrical pulses, or neurotransmitters (for e.g., serotonin, dopamine, adrenaline, GABBA and glutamate), that can be labeled, or identified with, or which represent one’s specific thoughts or feelings about something or anything specifically.
There are specific areas of the brain that process information sourced from the stimuli of the environment, such as sound, movement and sight, etcetera, including personal experiences with regard to joy, happiness, pleasure, depression, anger and pain, etcetera. But there are no parts of the brain, and there are no neurons, and there are no neurotransmitters that represent the specific and personal thoughts and feelings Self experiences about any specific or particular reality experienced. For example, the image of say, a tree lined and snow covered mountain, or a cool bubbling gently flowing stream, or a dry hot sandy beach, or an ancient dinosaur, or a grey coloured big-eared elephant. Or of Self, or of Self’s particular personal beliefs, or of Self’s particular personal goals, or of Self’s particular self-esteem, or of Self’s particular interests or passions in a particular activity or hobby, or of Self’s intimate feelings and thoughts about a particular relationship, etcetera, etcetera.
So, some of the characteristics of Self, such as consciousness, personality, thoughts, values, beliefs, attitudes and emotions, etcetera, could be described as being invisible, and thus Spirit, created without material substances such as the sub atomic particles that make up atoms that make up the the structures and functions that we experience, observe and exist. Reason and logic may suggest that such entities like consciousness, cognition and emotion lean more toward the spiritual than the ‘physical’, lean more toward the metaphysical and the transcendent than the earthly and the temporal. Just as it’s inconceivable to create something physical from nothing, so it must also be inconceivable to create something spiritual and invisible from nothing. So it must be therefore inconceivable for consciousness, thoughts and emotions, etcetera, to exist without there somewhere, being that which must have created such entities. And we can go further and suggest that the Creator of such invisible entities and constructs must itself, possess the ability to express and create the idea, the image, the reality and the experience of such an entity, to be itself the master architect of such phenomena for such phenomena to exist.
In previous chapters, we have gathered knowledge from the mix of the academic disciplines of philosophy and science. Together with human logic manifest in intellectual and cognitive reasoning and rationale in the attempt to prove through the evidence of the reality of creation that SOMETHING must have created creation and the universe for it to exist as we know it today. Because no one exits in known existence that can produce something from nothing. The contributions of Science, Philosophy and Theology may be considered to provide us with such cognitive evidence channeled through the logic of our intellect and combined with a reflective, introspective, discerning and intuitive spirit, that a Supreme Being, a Creator, might necessarily be needed as an existence for anything and everything else in the Universe to exist.
It could be said that this proposed evidence from logic and reasoning processes, which always needs to be considered and contemplated through and within a reflective introspective intuitive spirit, is an alternative path underpinning the justification for the beliefs, faiths and values humans may have about the answers they come to possess for those personal existential questions. This particular path of thought and contemplation towards a personal faith, categorized as a form of cognitive logical reasoning supported and internalized by a reflective, introspective, intuitive and discerning spirit, must be considered to be a legitimate alternative to just having a belief underpinned by arbitrary ‘faith’. And could indeed constructively compliment the personal belief we acquire from that spiritual construct called “faith” (which may be misinformed or informed) thus shaping the direction and quality of the content to the answers we acquire about the questions we may have to these personal existential questions.
How Could ‘God’ Have Always Existed?
But before we move along to the next chapter regarding the exploration of the miracle of evolution. It is perhaps a very relevant time - if we are, through logic and reason, contemplating the idea that a Creator must potentially exist - to explore that very nauseating question relating to the necessary belief, that if the Creator exists, that creator ‘must have always existed’. Because by definition, creation itself exists through the act of creation, that is, being created. Indeed, the fact that a Creator must have always existed is a huge question that can understandably limit the depth and breadth of human ‘belief’, because this question increases the complexity of the necessary information required to understand and believe in the existence of a Creator.
If we can decide that a Creator must exist for creation to exist, then we are left with other questions. Who really is the Creator/ God? What really is the Creator/ God? But questions such as, “how did the Creator/ ‘God’ come to be” and “how could the Creator/ ‘God’ have always been” and “how could anything exist forever”, are concepts in consciousness that belie a clear and transparent answer. Of course these questions are very relevant, but naturally, difficult to answer. But it must be considered that the Creator, by definition, could not have had a beginning. The Creator, by definition, could not have come into being. If the Creator had a beginning, or came into being, the ‘Creator’, by definition, could not be the Creator, but be also the created.
But to comprehend the concept ‘to have always been’, and ‘to have always existed’ is undoubtedly beyond the reality of humans’ and Self’s experience, as everything experienced by Self has been created, or has been made. Everything existing in relation to the Universe, by definition, exists as atom-energies, and this Existence as we know it has a Beginning, a Past, a Present, and a Future, which if contemplated equates to the concept of Time. Together with the concept of Time we can explore these questions with the notion of Self’s experience of Self’s invisible consciousness, cognition, emotion and personality etcetera, and thus, Self’s Spirit. The Self’s invisible constructs that make up Self’s Spirit, which by definition, are not tangible or physical. It is with these veins of reference in mind that we may partly explore the above seemingly incomprehensible questions.
If we and the universe, and thus existence and creation didn’t exist, we obviously could not ask such a complex question, because there would be no Self to ask a question and no universe to ask a question about. But before we were born we didn’t exist, and perhaps upon this particular reflection this is as close to the comprehension of the concept of the meaning of the word ‘nothing’ we will ever experience. But we now know through Self’s consciousness and intellect that we have experienced life on Earth in both past and present tense, and we are aware through scientific and natural information that the Universe has been in existence for about 13.5 billion years before we were born, before our personal entry into this world. And so we know that something - being the universe, life and creation - existed before Self existed. The question, “How can or will anything exist forever”, is again, perhaps better understood through reflection of Self’s personal experience of Self’s invisible ‘spiritual’ constructs of the consciousness of Self and Self’s personal invisible thoughts and feelings etcetera. Because now that Self has been born and is alive in this world, Self may now feel as if Self could exist and live forever. Indeed, it may seem as if we have always existed, if we do not acknowledge the fact that we know we did not experience the existence of Self and life before Self’s birth. But now that we do exist, and we are conscious of Self and of Self’s experiences, etcetera, asking the question about the existence of a Creator is relevant because we may understand that something can’t be created or produced from nothing.
But if we now consider that creation with its complex design and order must have come into existence not from nothing, but from something. That creation possibly exists because of a Supreme Natural Being that exists without itself needing assistance to exist. That exists of itself and that itself has not been created. But which may be humanly defined as containing some of the characteristics relating to unimaginable, inconceivable and incomprehensible abundant forms of Intellect, Force, Power, Mystical Relational Love and Energy, we may now ask the question, “How could this Creator have always been”? “How could there be an existence, a something that always existed, without itself having to be created first for itself to first exist? How could this Creator have always been, and how could this Creator always be?
Of course these are questions shaped and formed by humans from human experience relating to the design and order of creation, the universe life as we know and understand them through personal experience. This human experience of the design and order of the universe and everything in it (creation) includes the concepts of the realities of Existence (atom-energy), which by definition, must have a Beginning, Past, Present, and Future and thus exists within and through the reality we choose to call ‘Time’.
Time, time, time, what is Time? Time is considered an elusive concept that can possibly be defined as being relative to both physical objects and movement (atom-energies). The existence of physical objects or matter (atom-energies) are characterised with a beginning, past, present, and future, which particular existence is experienced through the continuum of what we term ‘time’. In addition, the reality of the interaction between ‘physical’ objects in relation to movement crystallises the human meaning and definition of the entity of Time. Physical objects are tangible, and mostly observable to the human eye and powerful telescopes and microscopes, and include the contents of space (which includes spirit-energy) and physical life, termed scientifically as different structures with functions of atom-energies. But this matter, these physical objects, which are in fact structures and functions of atom-energy, cannot exist without movement. The interaction between all of these subatomic particles, different atom-energies of different structures and functions move in different ways characterised, defined and overarched, in part, by the umbrella of what we call ‘Movement’. Without movement there is no ‘Time’. The meaning of the word ‘Time’ is a concept encompassing motion, with a beginning, past, present, and future, of all objects and matter or structures with functions of atom-energy in existence.
A simple example of the interaction of atom-energies, and movement that produces time, is where human time, in essence, is based on planet Earth spinning once on its own axis. And in relation to the sun’s rays of light on planet Earth as it spins a full turn, giving us one day and one night, which we define as being 24 hours. We then break each hour up into 60 minutes and each minute up into 60 seconds. One revolution of the planet Earth around the Sun gives us what we term one year. And in one year the Earth spins on its own axis 365.256 times giving us 365 days and nights. But if we lived on the planet Pluto, one year would be 249 times longer than an Earth year, because it takes 249 Earth years for Pluto to orbit the Sun once. And one day/ night on Pluto would be over 6 times longer than an Earth day/ night, because it takes Pluto 6.387 times longer to spin once on its own axis. We see that Time is relative to the interaction between specific structure and functions of atom-energies (physical objects) in relation to specific movements.
If we can then represent these experiences of Existence of the atom-energy of the universe as an equation, then Existence of atom-energy of the universe not including spirit-energy requires as a prerequisite to exist => a Beginning, Past, Present, and Future, and Motion, which = Time. If we delete the component of the human experience, concept and reality of Time from this equation, then there could not exist the entities of Motion, Beginning, Past, Present, and Future, neither could there exist structures and functions of atom-energy being the universe as we observe it. So if Time is deleted from this equation for Existence, therefore no longer existing, then neither would the entities of the ‘physical’ universe (atom-energies) existing in the Time of Motion, Beginning, Past, Present, and Future.
However, there may be something else in addition. We may be left with something that is spiritual, something more akin to the reality of Time of the Present, the Now, and the Moment. We may still be left with something that is more akin to that which is not ‘physical’ or intrinsically part of the ‘physical’ universe, but left with something that is invisible and spiritual as experienced by the Self and Self’s consciousness and the conscious Self’s invisible constructs of Self’s being, thoughts, emotions attitudes, beliefs and personality.
Some of us may have experienced the psychological/ spiritual phenomena, where we have gone back after many years to a familiar place. Or we meet again a particular person we have known maybe, two, five, ten, fifteen or twenty years in the past, but where the Time between the Past and the Now (Present) seems to have collapsed, seems to have folded within itself. Where this present experience of meeting a particular past experience seemingly becomes the Present, the Now, and the Moment. Where Self may have the experience of thinking and feeling (invisible constructs) that Self has never been away that many years, has never been away so long, let alone a single day. Where everything appears to be the same and unchanged. It is as if Time has stood still, as if Time did not exist. It is as if there was no such entity as Time, but just the Present, and the Now, and the Moment.
Moreover, we may have experienced the personal awareness that Self is conscious of Self feeling and thinking (invisible constructs) much younger than Self’s chronological age. Although Self acquires experiences and knowledge, Self per se does not age, wear out, and die (change structure and function of its atom-energy) anatomical body does. These phenomenon may be explained in terms of the Self - Self being Spirit - experiencing that which does not include the components relating to the equation for Existence of the ‘physical’ universe, and thus does not include the component of Time (ageing). Although Self was created and exists encapsulated within a ‘physical’ body and had a Beginning, and the components of Existence and Beginning are part of the equation that comprises Time, Self and Self’s invisible consciousness and personality etcetera, and thus Self’s Spirit, may now need not to include the experience of Existence in relation to Time and thus ageing.
If we can understand one’s Self, and thus one’s Spirit, to be essentially intangible and invisible, we may not have such a problem with the question ‘has always existed’ or ‘will exist for ever’. Because now that Self consists of the invisible constructs of consciousness, intellect, emotion and personality, etcetera, Self can relate somewhat to the idea of Self being in essence, a Spirit, which can potentially exist without Time, and thus exist forever. And if Self and Self’s invisible consciousness and personality, and thus Self’s Spirit, is in part, made in the mirror, reflection and image of the Creator’s Spirit, and the entity of Time does not now necessarily exist for Self, then Time also does not necessarily exist for the Creator. Time may not necessarily exist for the Creator who created movement and therefore the existence of atom-energy, and therefore time, as defined in human terms. Thus it is conceivable to comprehend in principle, a partial answer to the question regarding the Creator ‘having always existed’ and ‘will exist forever’.
So perhaps these questions need not only be constructed, formed, asked and answered in relation to the ‘physical’ human experience of Creation and Time, but in relation to Self’s possible experience of Spirit, and thus, Timelessness. Obviously Self is not an identical replication of the Creator, as Self was created with a ‘physical’ body thus experiencing Time, but may be created in the image of the Creator as Spirit (non-atom spiritual energy) and thus experiences Timelessness as an expression and characteristic of the Spirit. Although Self was made with invisible consciousness, and the constructs of independence, personal sovereignty and freewill, Self had a Beginning, whereas the Creator must need not require, as a prerequisite, for itself to exist the entity of a ‘physical’ or spiritual Beginning. Because Beginning is related to, and is part of the equation of the creation of Existence of atom-energies of the ‘physical’ universe of Objects of Motion, and thus Time. And if the Creator created the Existence of the universe in relation to atom-energies, must encompass Motion, Beginning, Past, Present, and Future, and thus Time, then the Creator does not require, as a necessity, these components for itself to exist, or to Be.
If then the Creator need not exist in relation to the equation of Existence defined by terms of the universe, and therefore does not exist in relation to Beginning, Past, Present, Future and Motion and Time, but just Exists, then perhaps the Creator Exists as a Spirit. The Creator exits as a Spirit in the Now, in the Present, and in the Moment. We can perhaps then relate to and perceive the Creator as a Spirit that is and is being. If we can understand the Creator as Is and as Being without imposing upon the Creator the human experiences of Existence in terms of the Universe and thus Beginning, Past, Future, Motion and Time, then the Spirit’s/ Creator’s existence may not require any of these components for itself to exist.
The realities of the human experience of Beginning and Time, are by definition, part of the equation of ‘Physical’ Existence in relation to the Universe. So without imposing upon the Creator the realities of Time and Beginning, etcetera, but envisaging the Creator as being Spirit (that just exists as Is and Being), and therefore not requiring the need to be ‘physically’ created, then it is conceivable that the Creator had and has no Beginning, or End, or Time. But always was, always has been, and always will be. So if the Spirit is Timeless and has no End and the Creator is Spirit, and is by definition, greater than the Self’s Spirit, then Timelessness for the Creator could be defined as having neither a Beginning nor End. Moreover, if the Creator created not only the visible universe but also the invisible constructs of Self, that by definition can be characterised as the invisible constructs of Spirit, then Self may now also possess the characteristics of timelessness and infinity.
CHAPTER 6
THE MIRACLE OF EVOLUTION
We Continue Our Search
In a Nut shell
Have We Forgotten
Genetics of Evolution
More about Evolution
Predetermined Evolution of Humans
Reconciliation Between Science and Scripture
We Continue Our Search
We continue our search, perhaps armed with a new awareness and insight for interpretation of Scripture, and knowledge that our belief systems based on informed evidence and logical reasoning and a reflective introspective intuitive spirit, rather than from a belief based on misinformation, innocent ignorance, and arbitrary blind faith. We may also acknowledge that the inconcise literal interpretation of Scripture in which we may base its meaning, can potentially be a significantly dangerous way of interpretation, affecting how Self may interact with Self and others. But which verses can also be liberating manifest within imbedded truths exposed through their appropriate metaphorical, literal and contextual interpretation, and continual reinterpretation in the light of new personal experiences and knowledge. This may allow for the better interpretation of scripture meanings, unraveling deeper literary and metaphorical meanings and ‘truths’ emanating from the mix between the interaction of new scripture meanings with the Self’s intellect, experiences and reflective spiritual intuition.
We continue the search for the answers to our existential questions in the miracles of predetermined creation and evolution. We realize that the literal interpretation of Scripture verses has prohibited those who advocate such a method of interpretation as the basis for their beliefs from being able to reconcile the process of scientifically proven evolution as a significant component of the Creator’s intended and predetermined plan for the refinement and development of nature in general, and humans in particular. The Biblical stories of Creation identifies the Universe as being made in three different ways, including the ‘six day story’ of creation and the Adam and Eve story as the beginning of creation and humankind.
The appropriate contextual and metaphorical interpretation of Scripture can replace the perceived reality of pure literal interpretation of Scripture, allowing for the reconciliation of the scientific evidence of creation with Scripture’s stories of creation with regard to the predetermination of creation through evolution originating with the ‘big bang’ or ‘the Word’. We may now also be armed with insight into how reason formed from intellect, formed from informed information and the inner drive of Self’s innate, intuitive, reflective and discerning spirit can create the provocation of such personally intimate and private existential thoughts. Through natural instinct of human inquisitiveness derived from Self’s sense of spirituality we continue the search for transparent and significant answers to these questions.
In a Nut Shell
The universe as we know it came into existence about 13 billion years ago. Our solar system (planets revolving around the sun) was created through the extraordinary enormous and complex cosmic interactions 4.5 billion (4,500 million) years ago. Planet Earth was covered thick in ice until about 500 million years ago, when existing sea creatures provided through breath expulsion, enough carbon dioxide to create an atmosphere that kept the warmth of the sun in, allowing the ice to melt. This warming of the Earth enabled the proliferation of numerous species to live and survive in a period called the Cambrian Explosion. So simple ‘life’ first existed in the sea as simple cells such as bacteria and the amoeba 3 billion years ago. The first animal was the sea sponge existing about 570 million years ago and essentially has continued to live and exist without further changes to its bio-physiological internal or external design and function. This is, sponges have not evolved over millions of years. The first hunting animal with movement and a head and tail was a sea animal similar to the flat worm first existing 540 million years ago. The flat worm it seems, has also been designed and ordered to adapt to thousands of different environments without much internal or external change to their bio-anatomical design and function. But in total contrast to these examples of ‘non-evolution’, humans have branched off from specific primates as a result of the particular design and order of their genetic DNA. This process of human evolution we may describe as a form of customised or pre-programmed genetic ‘evolution’ from a specific and predetermined species of primate called Apes. But Apes themselves have continued over millions of years to exist as Apes, as do monkeys, chimpanzees and gorillas.
These primates continue to retain the integrity of their original biological and functional characteristics, which must be totally unexpected because of the expectation of change as a manifestation of the process of evolution. The evidence provided by these living species illustrates the finality of the process of evolution as apposed to the infinity of the process of evolution for perennial changes in ‘physical’ and functional characteristics as a need to accommodate to diverse environments through physiological adaptation and the retention of the fittest. So the definition of process relating to evolution could be said to be structured, discriminate, limited and ordered rather than global, disorganised, arbitrary and indiscriminate. Therefore a greater power may be at play here in the process of any evolution than just a species adapting to the environment through the random chance of accidental mutations of genes that create physiological and functional changes that by chance become strengths out-surviving the same species with physiological and functional weaknesses. This greater power, may be understood, as being the creation and predetermination of the design and order of DNA that has been, in essence, pre-programmed by a Creator.
Have We Forgotten
We may have perhaps been a little complacent in our respect for things natural. We may have forgotten to appreciate and admire the wonders of creation. We may have forgotten the miracle of pro-creation, humans as co-creators sharing with the Creator in the creation of humankind. We may have forgotten the miracle of life, the wonder of an egg and sperm fusing to start the life of another human being. We may have forgotten the miracles of our body, how intricate, fragile, vulnerable and complex they are. We may have forgotten the power of our minds, how we can understand through our intellect, how we can visualise, imagine, reason, perceive, reflect, judge, remember, make decisions, plan, organize, solve problems and choose that which we desire, whether it has beneficial or malevolent consequences for Self and others. We may not be conscious of it, but our consciousness, thoughts and emotions are invisible, transcending time and space, flashing within and before us, almost instantly, faster than the speed of light. Because can we not think a thought about an image, of say, an apple and orange simultaneously?
We may have forgotten how insignificant our own time frame here on Earth is – living up to 100 years - in relation to the cosmic clock of time. To put our individual human existence into perspective, a scrubby looking creosote bush in the Arizona Desert has been in existence for 11,000 years, or 9000 years BC, slowly spreading itself outwards, century by century. It has survived through the whole period of human history from the building of the first villages at the end of the last ice age, up to the age of technology that put humankind into outer space. It has survived the rise and fall of all the great empires on Earth. It has survived the hundreds of millions of brutal human deaths over the last centuries from the hands of human-to-human violence. So the evolution of human ‘civilisation’ is spanned by the life of one scrawny slow-growing shrub (Ford, 1985).
So we humans stand as newly awakened creatures in comparison to other life, both living and extinct. Sharks have been hunting the oceans for 350 million years with little change to their anatomy. Cockroaches have been scrambling around southern England for 300 million years with little ‘physical’ change to their anatomy. Sharks and Cockroaches are perhaps an example of evolution whereby further mutations of their Genes are not considered adaptive in their present environment, and their preprogrammed DNA have been fully realized, so they cease to evolve further in any dramatic way.
Predetermined Evolution of Humans
Now, categorical evidence provided by science over the last decades has shown that without little doubt modern humans (Homo sapiens) have only been on this Earth for about the last 180,000 years. There is arguably enough proof to profess that humans have evolved and branched off from the animal species, from mammals, from the Great Apes, from a distinct and separate linage of common ancestor of the Chimpanzee between 4 and 6 million years ago, into what and who humans are today.
True to all bona fide scientific and methodological research, the pursuit for truth continues through the search for new evidence of human evolution and origins of human existence, which will help clarify, qualify, quantify and further develop existing understanding from knowledge already discovered in the quest for information regarding the origins of human beings. To date, the latest evidence from archaeologists is that modern humans existed as long ago as 120,000 years. Discoveries of fossils indicate that human species branched off from a common ancestor with the Ape. As early humans evolved through genetic modification through preprogrammed DNA, and adaptation to a new environment, the human brain evolved into what we have today, containing over 100 billion neurons and more than 100 trillion synaptic connections between neurons each connecting to thousands of other neurons. Modern man’s brain has a capacity of about 2000cc (cubic centre meters), which is more than twice the size of a chimpanzee, which is capable of only simple reasoning and without the capability for speech. Sixty thousand years ago, modern humans are said to have left Africa and traveled throughout the continents. Cave carvings and artwork recently found in Western Australia, signify that humans have been in Australia (indigenous Australian Aborigines) as early as forty thousand years ago.
Although early Homo Sapiens had the same brain capacity as contemporary humans they had fewer neural connections, but were able to solve complex problems, make decisions and reasoning, whereas other primates have only limited brain capacity for more simple instinctual tasks such as hunting, eating, procreating and sleeping. Biological, scientific and archaeological evidence is slowly proving the theory that all living things have descended from amalgamations of single biological cells, and so, from an original common ancestor. Humankind has originated from the beginnings of life shared with all the other creatures we share with in life.
Genetics and Evolution
Genetic scientists in their research of the genes in DNA, the building blocks of life, have shown that genes, which program the biological cells in biological life to be either a heart, lung, eye, mouth or leg etcetera, in the offspring of animals and plants contribute to the presence of ‘throwbacks’, adaptations and mutations as the basis for natural selection. Natural selection is the process whereby mutations of genes result in minute structural and functional (‘physical’) changes in an animal or plant over hundreds of centuries, and the best or fittest of these changes in the animal or plant survive in that particular environment. The creatures with these changes, which best fit the environment, tend to breed more and live longer, which together or singularly produce changes and variations within a species over time, and which cumulative processes we may term ‘evolution’.
However, this theory of the evolution of creation and human beings from natural selection has been preconceived as a definition that implies that the process of evolution is no more than the affects of random chance, and as such, the product of an accident or mistake that has become adaptive. But it is practicably and theoretically impossible for random chance to create such diversity, such beauty and such complexity as the creation of all that lives that we experience today. Indeed, it would be as mathematically probable for a Jumbo Jet airliner to be built by random chance from a tornado sweeping through the debris of a junk yard than it would be for the random chance of natural selection to be the sole impetus behind the evolution of creation. In fact, any mutations and adaptations of DNA that shape and drive the existence of complex life, must be considered to be, at least in part, strong evidence for the existence of a supreme being.
Because the complex changes of genes within DNA strands required to create the entire process of evolution of all the different forms of life on Earth, simply as a result of chance adaptations to the environment, is a far too simplistic explanation for it to be credible. The DNA ‘blue prints’ of such adaptations must be considered as being part of the design and order of creation and must have always been in existence, at least within a Creator’s imagination and ability to will such creation. As rational intellect decrees, you cannot get something from nothing. As we may understand, nothing can only ‘produce’ nothing, just as something can only be produced by and from something.
The idea of natural selection and thus, random chance, solely driving evolution is intellectually unsustainable and must incorporate and include the theory that evolution must include, in its process, the predisposition of predetermined DNA. That is, the possibility that DNA has been previously pre-programmed. The idea that DNA has, as a pre requisite for complex change has been preprogrammed, is surely far more intellectually and rationally palatable. If DNA has been preprogrammed to drive evolution of creation, then it must be considered, at the very least, to be some great intelligence as the designer, orderer, and planner of such complexity. To this end then, evolution per se, considered as predetermined creation and life, being the product of predestined design, order and plan of creation and life. Whereby specific DNA have been pre-programmed in advance, and whereby genes have also been pre-programmed to mutate, adapt and change to particular environments, and then, through predetermined natural selection of the fittest, survive.
Although, evolution may at the least be a combination of these two mechanisms, of preprogrammed DNA, and natural selection, both requiring as a prerequisite, intelligence, and design and order, to exist. In fact, it is intellectually plausible that the mechanisms of natural selection could only be associated with the adaptations specifically observed in the changes and variations within a particular species. We may experience these adaptations in say, the many different types of cockroaches and sharks that exist, but which overall, have changed little in 400 million years. There are many different types of sharks and cockroaches, but essentially 400 million years ago they biologically achieved their preprogrammed destination, accept for small changes through adaptation and natural selection. They have reached their preprogrammed biological goal. Preprogrammed DNA, per se, on the other hand, is perhaps the impetus behind complex evolution manifest in the dramatic changes necessary for the evolution of one species into another species.
Different skin colours, facial features and characteristics that we notice in diverse cultures through out the world are perhaps the results of genetic changes through adaptation to various climates and environments. Reproduction within specific communities and populations tends to concentrate the specific adaptation of genes to produce similarities of ‘physical’ characteristics within communities, not to mention possible similarities in culture, traditions and beliefs. So the varied and complex mechanisms of evolution are the building blocks for similarities within species, as well as the differences between species.
Anthropologists believe that the different races of humankind arose from a single parental population branching from a common ancestor that dispersed from Africa about 80,000 years ago, having then, become rapidly differentiated through the concentration of gene pools that we observe in today's diverse races. Again it should be emphasized that it is intrinsically simplistic and naïve to believe that ‘throwbacks’, adaptations and mutations, as the forming basis for natural selection, are the only biological components that drive the changes in a species to create different and diverse animals and creatures. It is far too intellectually limiting to believe the concept that the unique biological complexity of the evolution of different species, can be attributed solely to the chance of natural selection as defined by mutations and adaptations, and survival of the fittest.
For instance, the complex differences to the human brain from other mammals cannot be attributed to the mechanisms of ‘random chance’ to mutate biological genes that conveniently adapt to a particular environment and then proliferate as a result of survival of the fittest and which entire process is neatly termed ‘natural selection’. The intricate biology that allows sperm whales to dive without breath deep into the depths of the ocean, and the intricate changes in biology that allows the hibernation of frogs and polar bears in winter, and the biological diversity between species cannot be just attributed to natural selection, without there being some other important factor(s) and component(s). Similarly, the existence of the Cambrian Explosion is the period where many different species of life came into existence 500 million years ago, simultaneously in many different parts of the world, and during a relatively short period. And because these creatures from the Cambrian Explosion formed one of each of the 35 body plans that all existing living creatures are now based. This diverse, complex, and simultaneous existence cannot possibly be attributed singularly, to the process called natural selection but is due to pre-designed DNA affected upon the increase in oxygen at the time through prolific plant life converting carbon dioxide into oxygen. The extra mysterious biological component that drives the complex changes in living nature, and witnessed over time may plausibly explained by the existence of pre-programmed DNA. This is, DNA has been pre-programmed to become the blue prints and engines of the design and order of life. DNA created necessarily by a Supreme Being, Spirit, and Intelligence for the dramatic changes witnessed within and between species over time, and through particular environmental circumstances, designed to be ‘controlled’ and maintained by the cause and effect of nature. Just as the genes within DNA are preprogrammed to form an eye, or a liver, or a kidney, etcetera, so too may the genes within DNA be pre-programmed to evolve into different species. This intelligent and complex pre-programming of life through the building blocks of DNA, could be attributed to the premeditated and intentional design, order and plan of a Creator.
Dr Francis Collins, co-author of the new analysis by the international group that decoded the human genome says that it takes the same number of genes to make a human as it does to make a small flowering plant, that is, about 25,000 genes. And a small flowering plant in the mustard family, the Arabidopsis, has 27,000 genes. But human complexity derives out of what specifically these genes have been pre-programmed to do, such as the enlarged human brain. Apart from the necessary transcendent design and order required for the complex bio-chemical reactions of creation to take place. The addition of invisible human consciousness, personality, thought, emotion, values, attitudes and beliefs, etcetera, (Spirit and Soul), must also surely be required as an additional component added above and beyond to that of the complex equation of atoms (atom-energy) of the structure and function of living cells, genetics and DNA that help make up life. The concepts of a Spirit and Soul must be necessary to explain Self’s complexity, specifically in terms of Self’s invisible constructs of consciousness, individual personality, and all that comprises Self that emanates from and into Self.
So it could be suggested that a Creator or ‘God’ has waited millions and millions of years, in human terms, for the pre-designed and pre-ordered development of the evolution of creation to bring forth human beings with personality, spirit and freewill. The Creator has perhaps Willed the design and order of creation infusing creation with a Soul to initiate and maintain the genetic and evolutionary pre-programming of DNA as the process for the human species to eventually branch off from a common ancestor and develop into the remarkable beings that humans are. We are humans with a larger and more complex brain than our predecessors who are now capable of executing the functions that can express life and personal experiences through the processes of consciousness, thought, emotion and speech. This exceptional and extraordinary shift in the development of the brain allows humans the function to think, feel and speak. As a result of thinking, feeling and speaking, humans are able to make choices and decisions in how they think, feel, behave and talk. These human abilities are the prerequisites that underpin the building of deeper and closer relationships with Self and others. These human abilities of relationship building are perhaps what the Creator has planned as the ultimate purpose for creation through predetermined evolution. The creation of Self, the creation of humans, a people who are capable of choosing to communicate and relate with themselves and each other, as being the ultimate function of creation, as being the ultimate function of their existence.
More about Evolution
The questions asked about those ‘missing links,’ describing the continuity of evolution of modern humans from other mammals and primates such as Apes, have now all but been answered. But Paleontologists, Archeologists and Anthropologists still continue the search to slowly and surely piece together significant new discoveries that support the theory of evolution (predetermined) as a solid mechanism for understanding the miracle of the creation of human kind.
To give added weight to the ingenuity, complexity and magnificence of the Creator through the process of predetermined evolution, as opposed to the belief that God instantly created all living things in six days, scientists and philosophers are (possibly unwittingly) answering and understanding some intriguing questions regarding the development of humans and the refinement of creation from the evolutionary process. They are for instance questions and answers such as:
This is probably not the final word on the evolving lineage of human beings, as we know Self today. New discoveries are being continually unearthed, and Self and other humans, continue to grow in knowledge and awareness, and so consciously, as conscious, intellectual, cognitive, emotional and spiritual beings.
Reconciliation Between Science and Scripture
The belief in scientific information and evidence regarding creation is possibly somewhat converse and contrast to the belief in the creation story of Biblical Scripture. The scientific information of evolution could disprove the theory humans were created instantly, by a ‘God’, at the beginning of time, as many may still believe as being literal biblical truth. But this flawed biblical theory manifest in scripture, that women and men were created instantly by ‘God’ should not be mistaken as evidence for the non existence of a Creator and ‘God’. From the plausible belief proposed and drawn from contemporary evidence, supporting the idea of pre-programmed evolution. And the hypothesis that the beginning of creation and the beginning of the universe was in the form of an initial and instant explosion or ‘big bang’, comes the possibility that the mega explosion originated from “The Word” of a supremely intelligent Creator or ‘God’. This idea of evolution as being the origins of creation and humans would thus support the theory about creation as expressed generally in the Bible by the authors of the Old Testament. As we have read and understand from Philosophers, “you can’t get something from nothing,” so it is plausible that there might be one ‘Power’, one ‘Being’, or one ‘Intelligence’ that instigated through desire, word, thought and will, this first explosion or ‘big bang’, and the subsequent design and order of evolutionary creation. This concept of a Supreme Being we may wish to call ‘God’ or the Creator.
Furthermore, if we follow this thought process through in a rational fashion to its logical end, it is perhaps not too difficult to surmise that the ‘Big Bang’ and the evolution of creation is an outcome of “The Word” and “Spirit”. “The Word” and “Spirit” being the essential and necessary integral ‘components’ and ‘ingredients’ for the Will and Desire to formulate such design, plan and order, and subsequent development of the universe’s creation. It is a fact of science and the premise of rational and intellectual logic that you cannot get something from nothing. It is very probable that the scientific and philosophical concept of ‘nothing’ cannot exist if something, anything, exists, this being the fundamental criteria or the possible existence of a Creator. Indeed, a Creator who if does exist must have existed always, and must have always been.
CHAPTER 7
HUMAN ATOMS AND SPIRIT ENERGIES SIMILAR BUT DIFFERENT
CERN, Antimatter, Stephen Hawkings, and Chance
Design and Order, Cause and Effect
Self, Consciousness, Cognition, Emotion and Speech
Human Personality, Spirit and Soul
Attributes for Personal Growth
Charles Darwin and, the Last Word
CERN, Antimatter, Stephen Hawkings, and Chance
We have explored and discussed probable theories with regard to the reality of the design and order of creation, human evolution, and the necessary complexity of such planed existence. To add to the mix of creation as necessarily complex, let us now investigate the reality of the opposite of atom-energy (being a electric charge), and that is antimatter, the inverted charge of atom-energies, but also being an intrinsic and necessary, yet mystical part of creation.
Antimatter really does exist. Cosmic rays are a natural source of antiparticles. In 1932, Carl Anderson a young professor at the California Institute of Technology was studying showers of cosmic particles in a cloud chamber and saw a track left by "something positively charged, but with the same mass as an electron". After nearly one year of effort and observation, he decided the tracks were actually anti-electrons, each produced alongside an electron from the impact of cosmic rays in the cloud chamber. He called the anti-electron a ‘positron’ because of its positive charge. So the electron's antimatter counterpart is called a positron and has an opposite charge to the electron. Cosmic rays are arriving from all directions, but many are ‘thrown’ into space by supernovae, the huge explosions from dying stars. Cosmic rays hitting the outer atmosphere of earth are mainly fast-moving, high-energy protons, and as they hurtle towards the Earth they collide with atoms in the air. Some of this collision energy reappears as new pairs of particles and antiparticles – being atom-energy. In October 1955, Serge discovered a negative proton or antiproton. The common proton has an antimatter counterpart called the antiproton. It has the same mass but an opposite charge to the proton. So these antiparticles, positrons (positive or anti-electrons) and antiprotons (negative proton) bind together as anti-atoms, being the basic units of antimatter.
So antimatter is a fundamental particle of regular atom-energy, but with its electrical charges reversed. Antimatter particles are produced from ultra high-speed collisions between subatomic particles. Within the solar systems’ Sun, flares of energy accelerate colliding with slower moving particles in the Sun's atmosphere, resulting in the production of antimatter. So antimatter is created and annihilated immediately in stars every day, including our sun. The Sun is in fact an antimatter factory. When a high-energy proton in a solar flare collides with carbon (C) it forms a type of nitrogen (N) that has too many protons relative to its number of neutrons. This makes the nitrogen’s nucleus unstable and a positron emits to stabilize the atom. But positrons don't last long, when they hit an electron they annihilate and produce energy as a product. For this reason, there is little antimatter around at any given time. However, antimatter is around us all the time, although in minute amounts.
Interestingly, antimatter particles can be produced in ultra high-speed collisions between subatomic energies in a manufactured vacuum. But we are still talking about the necessary existence of a vacuum and the particles within a vacuum, which already exist and therefore must be defined as something, and something cannot be produced from nothing. So we have again the same issue arising of a Creator being necessary to create that ‘something’ and so scientists are working with that which has already been created. A vacuum may be considered to be mass less, but by definition, needs to be contained within that which exists itself for the vacuum to exist. CERN (The European Center for Nuclear Research) is the world's largest particle physics research center. Scientists at CERN use giant machines - particle accelerators and detectors - to study the smallest particles in the universe.
At CERN, they produce the antimatter of the hydrogen atom because Hydrogen is the simplest atom, made of just one proton and one electron combined together. Hydrogen atoms make up three quarters of our universe. To build the anti-matter of a hydrogen atom they trap an antiproton and get a positron to stick to it. Contrary to an accelerator, the Low Energy Antiproton Ring (LEAR) actually slows down antiprotons. Physicists are now working on forcing a positron (or anti-electron) to stick to an antiproton to make an anti-hydrogen atom, a real antimatter atom.
CERN's large accelerator resides 100 meters underground along the French/Swiss border located just outside of Geneva. CERN can produce 50 million antiprotons about once a minute, making a few hundred anti-hydrogen atoms, and expressed in less than a billionth of a gram per year. Antimatter is difficult to produce. All the antiprotons produced at CERN during one year would supply enough energy to turn on a 100-watt light bulb for 3 seconds. The efficiency of the ‘antimatter energy production’ process would be 0.00000001%. The steam or diesel engine is millions of times more efficient.
CERN’s new Large Hadron Collider (LHC) Cannot and Will Never Disprove the Need for a ‘Creator’. Will science ever have the proof that will require ‘believers’ to question the existence of a ‘Creator’? You don’t need to be a ‘rocket scientist’ to answer that question. It has been said that the possibility of the Universe, with its design, order and intelligence being created by random chance, is as mathematically statistically probable as a Jumbo Jet airliner being built by a tornado sweeping through a junk yard.
The $11 billion Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in CERN Switzerland will send beams of protons around a 27 Km underground chamber to smash into each other and hopefully recreate, on a nano of a fraction of the scale of the big Bang a nano of the fraction of the heat and energy of the Big Bang. But this will never provide evidence against the existence of a ‘Creator’ or ‘God’, because the ‘rocket scientists’ have conveniently ignored one piece of vital rational and scientific information. And that is something can never be created from nothing. Therefore, the protons of energy used to smash into one another are, as a prerequisite for their existence, made from something.
We may call this ‘something’ a ‘Creator’. And if as a result of this experiment, smaller subatomic energies are discovered, these also by logic of reason and scientific evidence, will not, and cannot, be the proof from evidence that something can be created from nothing. All that exists, exists as a result of intentional and intelligent ‘creation’….no? Will science ever have the proof that will require Believers to question the existence of a ‘Creator’? You wouldn’t need to be a ‘rocket scientist to answer that question would you.
Light, per se, is a very interesting entity and part of creation. Light consists of Photons, which have both wave and particle like characteristics. Max Planck proposed that each light wave must come in a little packet he called a "quantum": In this way light was not just a wave, or just a particle, but a bit of both, existing as both carriers of energy and light. But the photons of energy and light have no charge and do not contain inside objects that are charged. So light and energy photons cannot be distinguished from an anti-photons. Photons and anti-photons are therefore the same thing.
Interestingly, matter and antimatter are identical. Looking at an object means seeing the photons (energy and light) coming from that object; however, photons come from both matter and antimatter. If there were a distant galaxy made out of antimatter, you could not distinguish it from a matter galaxy just by seeing the light from it. If indeed there is a difference between matter and antimatter, it is very small. Matter and antimatter are so similar that sound waves created from vibrations of matter or antimatter would be the same. An antimatter guitar or violin would sound the same as a matter one. Gravitational forces depend on the energy of an object in relation to another object, and since matter and antimatter both have positive energy, gravitation acts on them in the same way. This means that an object made of matter and one made of antimatter would both stand on the floor.
Scientists theorise that in the first seconds after the ‘Big Bang’ there was no matter, just subatomic energies (possibly created by The Word or Spirit). As the universe expanded and cooled, particles of regular matter and antimatter formed in almost equal amounts. They suggest a theory that a slightly higher percentage of regular matter developed - perhaps just one part in a million - for unknown reasons, and that was the requirement needed for regular matter to win over antimatter in the structure of the cosmos. When the matter and antimatter came into contact they annihilated leaving the residual matter to form the current universe.
The quantum physicist, Stephen Hawkings, cavalierly theorises that the ‘Big Bang’ could have originally initiated through the law of random uncertainty (Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle). Whereby the sub atomic particles of atoms being electrons, protons and neutrons and their anti-particles, which consist of positively charged electrons called positrons, and negatively charged protons called antiprotons, and termed anti-matter, are formed by chance. When antimatter particles collide with matter particles, the result is total annihilation with the production of energy as a result. But nothing can be formed by chance and from nothing, but only from something and the design and order of that something. So not only is the concept of chance an irrational idea, but the non-scientific concept of chance being the impetus for producing any form of material, by definition, is grossly negligent and incomprehensible. This is because the concept and definition of the word ‘chance’ can only equate to circumstances, possibilities and opportunities that can only relate to that which already exists, and so cannot relate to the creation of creation’s existence.
Counter intuitively in relation to chance, CERN designed to recreate miniatures of creation seconds after the ‘Big Bang’ needs one million dollars of energy every month to recreate the collision of particles with antiparticles in a vacuum contained in a long circular tube. So CERN can only attempt to recreate creation seconds after the ‘Big Bang’. This attempt at recreation not only requires a vacuum, which needs to be contained within a material container, but also requires massive amounts of energy for the particles to collide. So energy already created from power is required, and a container already created from material is required, and particles already created from matter are required to replicate a miniature form of post-creation seconds after the ‘Big Bang’. Of course, the ‘Big Bang’ can never be replicated by humans because humans cannot make something out of nothing, and ‘having’ that ‘something’ is a requirement of the existence of the ‘Big Bang’ and creation.
So it is likely to be probable that some form of Creator is the necessary singularity required to provide the energy, to create the ‘Big Bang’, to create subatomic energy, to create the universe and all that it. A Creator needed to provide the particles and antiparticles pre-required to initiate creation (atom-energies) from vast amounts of energy instantly for the creation of the ‘Big Bang’ and creation itself to exist.
Design, Order and Plan, Cause and Effect
As we take the time to look around us, we can see evolution in its minutest form in all living things, in the developmental process from conception and birth through to death. We see it in all things in creation preprogrammed to evolve from an initial origin with an end towards a goal and purpose as part of their design, order and plan. We have all experienced this sense of order and design. These are the laws of the universe. These are the physical (atom-energy) and metaphysical laws (non-atom-energy) that also influence the way we behave, think and feel and the consequences overarched by the umbrella of preprogrammed evolution and what we may call ‘cause and effect’. We are all physically and psycho-spiritually internally sensitive to outside stimuli, both physical, and mental/spiritual. How we, and others, choose to react to both internal and external physical, psycho-spiritual stimuli will affect the outcome of our daily lives, and the daily lives of others. Because as the third law of thermodynamics states, “for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction; for every effect a cause”, and so for every decision and behaviour there is a consequence. Indeed, in this world governed by cause and effect, we cannot escape the inevitable results and consequences of our own actions.
Incidentally, and importantly, scientists underpin the basis and principles of their scientific research and studies on the theoretical assumption that these laws of design and order, and cause and effect, must exist. Scientists’ work originates from rational theories that endeavour to search out, define, and describe these hypothetical laws in controlled and methodological studies and then explaining them in human ‘scientific’ terms. How much more complicated and sophisticated creation is then, that it has not yet been fully explained and discovered, with its complex design and order, and cause and effect, from which the world developed and continues to develop precipitating the continued evolution of nature and human life.
Self, Consciousness, Cognition, Emotion, and Speech
So we humans have evolved from a particular animal species and have evolved possessing the abstract constructs of invisible consciousness, cognition, emotion and speech, which characteristics set us apart from all other forms of life. Where ‘consciousness’ is about being conscious of Self’s Self and Being, and Self is about being conscious of Being and being conscious. Consciousness is having a sense of Self and Being, of knowing the difference between Self and the world around. Self is also about having a history of narrative made up of continuos flow of experience expressed through consciousness of thoughts, images and sounds. Consciousness is awareness about how it feels to be Self. Consciousness, Self and Being, are by definition, invisible.
No scientist, neurosurgeon or medical doctor has ever been able to detect, let alone dissect such phenomena as Self and Self’s consciousness, personality and being in terms of present and past thoughts, feelings, attitudes and beliefs about a particular personal experience Self may have encountered. This is because Self and Self’s consciousness, personality and being including present and past thoughts, feelings, attitudes and beliefs about Self’s personal experience are intrinsically and essentially invisible and intangible constructs, and thus, may only be defined as Spirit. As an outcome of the phenomenon of these predetermined pre-programmed evolutionary, but invisible entities, of Self’s consciousness, personality and being, we come to understand the reality, development and refinement of an individual’s personality, spirit and soul as being the inherently integral and intentional components of what it means for Self to be Self. And for Self to be human, which by definition, must include both the ‘physical’ body, and spiritual personality.
Consciousness of thoughts (cognitions) and emotions (feelings include both emotional and somatic sensations), are a phenomena and essence of the experience of Self, and Self in the world, that drives and shapes Self’s personality, and in turn, the way Self relates and interacts with Self and the world. Invisible consciousness, thoughts and emotions involve the highly complex interactions and connections between the ‘physical’ and visible neurons, bio-chemical neurotransmitters, electrical impulses of the brain, and the individual’s invisible spirit/personality shaped by both personal choices and voluntary and involuntary life experiences. Speech is also an amazing quality that humans exclusively possess, and allows the creation of sounds or vocalizations named and developed as language, and which comprise of the words (sounds) that symbolize the conscious thoughts and emotions from Self’s experiences of interacting with stimuli in the world. The words or sounds that are expressed through speech and/ or writing are in essence the tools used to describe reality and/or perceived reality of an individual’s experience of the world. Language advocates the integration within conscious Self of the stimuli of the experience of reality for the individual.
Language allows consciousness, self-awareness, reflection and planning. Language decodes the stimuli of experience of the real world and environment and of the transcendent, for example, others’ perceptions, thoughts, feelings and behaviours, which stimuli are absorbed through the individuals senses (sight, sound, and touch) and the interpretational processes between the interface of invisible consciousness and the ‘physical’ brain, manifesting as conscious and sometimes subconscious, thoughts, feelings, and behaviours. Human beings through this process are an example and result of the most sophisticated form of creation, the most complex form of evolution. No other creature in nature has evolved so rapidly in such a short space of time and in such an intrinsic and complex way as humans have.
Surprisingly, as we have noted, many creatures have changed little over 300 million years, but on the other hand, sadly, millions of species are instead extinct, and in fact, 98 per cent of all creatures that ever existed are now extinct. We humans have progressed and evolved miraculously quickly without parallel and precedence with any other animal in the last 120,000 years or so. Interestingly, Anthropologist’s tests on primates show that chimpanzees have only a 1.24 per cent difference in DNA to humans, and gorillas have a 1.62 per cent difference in DNA to humans, and a 1.62 per cent difference in DNA to the chimpanzee, making the chimpanzee the closest living relative to the human and not the gorilla. The DNA of the gorilla, chimpanzee and human, all differ from the orangutan by approximately 3.1 per cent, which makes the gorilla and chimpanzee biologically closer to humans than they are to the orangutan, or any other primate. But primates although having similar DNA to humans making apes and other primates anatomically very similar with their biological organs such as skin, heart, lungs, brain, arms, legs, eyes, nose, ears, mouth, torso, hips, spine and body functions etcetera, they are differentiated from humans by remaining in their intellectual, cognitive and emotional ‘primitive’ primate unchanged state.
The difference between humans and other primates regarding the time-frame of their rate and state of evolution and diversity of brain complexity perhaps graphically illustrates the possibility that the Creator’s plan is different for each and every one of these creatures that inhabit the earth. And that each creature on earth, on this planet, is diverse, unique, extraordinary and special, being pre-programmed for not only anatomical differences but also for their specific reasons and purposes.
Human Personality, Spirit and, Soul
No scientist, neurosurgeon, or medical doctor, with all their high tech scanners and X-rays, have ever detected or dissected a specific thought or feeling, such as a particular person’s personal experience and perception in relation to say, ‘a beautiful sunset’. Or a specific personal feeling and thought, such as the angst, embarrassment and/ or fear in relation to say the rejection or disapproval from a prospective or current employer, or the joy and jubilation as a potential personal response to the approval, adulation and respect given to Self by a particular person. No neuroscientist or surgeon will ever be able to detect or dissect a specific personal attitude and belief such as the sense of Self’s generosity, humility or choice to be nonjudgmental. Or perhaps Self’s personal sense of belief to be arrogant, dominating, self-obsessed and selfish emanating from the personal belief in one’s self-importance, sense of superiority and over inflated ego. Or a specific belief that carries with it the thoughts and feelings that Self would be much happier and important when Self purchases Self’s ‘dream car’. Or a specific personal value that carries with it the thoughts, feelings and behaviours relating to the use or non use of illicit drugs. Or a specific personal emotion, thought and behaviour such as the specific emotions, thoughts and behaviours experienced and/ or expressed when Self says ‘goodbye’ to a close friend leaving on a long journey, or leaving forever.
No scientist, neurosurgeon, or medical doctor, has ever viewed or detected a specific unique individual’s personal thought, emotion, attitude, value, belief and/ or experience regarding an experienced particular event by using any of the following hi-tech instruments; a powerful microscope; X-Ray; Positron Emission Tomography (PET); Steady State Topography (SST); or Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI). Steady State Topography (SST) measures electrical activity in the brain, and is able to track some of the faster changes occurring in the brain which fMRI misses. Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) works by using powerful rotating magnets that move hydrogen atoms which can then be X rayed to obtain an overall picture through hundreds of ‘picture slices’ of the brain. Positron Emission Tomography (PET) works by actually producing antimatter for scanning ‘activated’ parts of the brain. In the use of Positron Emission Tomography (PET) fleeting particles of antimatter i.e., positrons (the antiparticle of electrons) come from the decay of radioactive nuclei incorporated in a special fluid injected into the patient. The positrons then annihilate with electrons in nearby atoms and the energy emerges as two gamma-rays that shoot off in opposite directions. By recording several of the gamma-rays’ points of origin, an image of the brain can then be produced
Although scientists using these instruments can indicate where the electrical impulses, oxygen activity and neurotransmitter activities occur during cognition, emotion, speech, sound and movement etcetera, in different parts of the brain. This is the extent of their ability. It could be suggested then that the white and grey matter comprising the components of the brain are merely the neural-bio-chemical pathways and mechanical vehicles by which consciousness, emotions and cognitions function and operate in the ‘physical’ world. There is an intellectual and scientific incongruence between the visibility of the residual mechanical operations of the cognitive and emotional activities, etcetera, in the brain, and the inability for these cognitions and emotions, etcetera, to be actually visible and tangibly touched. This intellectual and scientific incongruence and anomaly, may be explained by the idea that these thoughts, emotions, values, attitudes, decisions, judgments, plans, personal experiences and behaviours, etcetera, but which indeed exist, are actually invisible.
If Self exists and entities of Self such as, consciousness, cognition, emotion and personality, etcetera, are invisible to the eye’s of science, but nevertheless known to exist, then perhaps these constructs are integral components of what we might term an individual’s Personality, Spirit and Soul. We could further suggest that the raison d’etre behind the invisibility of Self’s consciousness, thoughts and emotions, etcetera, is that they are not constructed from any earthly material that we experience, but are constructed from supernatural substances, which may be termed ‘spiritual.’ So we could suggest there is a complex interface between the ‘physical’ aspects of Self’s brain and the spiritual invisible components of Self. This is, the complex interface between the ‘physical’ and spiritual at the point of ‘physical’ death, disconnect, or more precisely, their anatomical (anatomy) energy changes in structure and functions. As human beings age, the body grows older and the body becomes weakened, less healthy, and eventually dies. But before the body’s death, it is known that people often suffer from diseases of memory loss and forgetfulness. So the body and the brain and all of its components age, and become less efficient. But it could be said that the spirit and personality do not grow old as such, but change and develop through personal choices and life experiences. Perhaps this is the reason why people often still feel ‘young at heart’ despite their ‘physical’ and chronological age.
The spirit/ personality remains young despite one’s chronological age, although one’s (Self’s) awareness of Self as a particular person will more than likely change through personal choices, life’s experiences and acquired knowledge. We also know the power of thoughts and emotions in relation to their effects on the body, because for every thought and emotion, there is a corresponding physiological reaction, taking place. For instance, if we are emotionally and/or cognitively stressed or frightened about something, our heartbeat, blood pressure, skin conductance (sweat) and breathing all increase as a physiological reaction of the ‘physical’ anatomy to invisible thoughts and feelings which are non-atom spiritual energies. These are the same scientific principles upon which lie detectors operate.
We know that an individual’s personality embodies certain intangible thoughts, emotions, values, attitudes and beliefs, etcetera, and so we may envision the concept of personality to be invisible and therefore essentially spirit. Added into the complex mix of an individual’s personality are constructs such as attitudes, beliefs and values, which are all essentially invisible to the detection of modern science and therefore possibly explained as also being part of the spirit and invisible personality. At the time of a person’s death, that is, when the body dies and the brain is dead, there is no sign of the existence of life or consciousness, and no signs of the existence of cognitions or emotions or personality. Only the body remains, the remains of the body in its dead state, without life, and therefore without personality or spirit and soul. For the Person, Spirit and Soul have now disconnected from the organic brain and moved on, passing over to the ‘other side’.
As mentioned, the meaning of the word ‘Soul’ is the part of the mystical Creator that maintains and sustains creation, evolution and life. The Soul being a part of the Creator that necessarily impregnates all that the Creator creates. The word Soul is used here because Soul and Life are considered synonymous as Soul can be said to be the spiritual and transcendent Will that maintains and sustains creation and biological life. And the Self is defined as Spirit, and Spirit as Self and Person, being that which includes Soul from created in and of the image of the Creator. However, whereby each individual person consists of their own unique Soul and Spirit, and so by definition of being human, has the capability to execute personal choice, being imbibed with personal sovereignty, integrity, uniqueness and autonomy.
It could be then that the individual person with cognitions, emotions, attitudes and beliefs etcetera, that exist interfaced within the body/brain, and through acts of meta-cognition which can be observed and communicated, will at ‘physical’ death no longer exist as an interface. At ‘physical’ death, the person will have departed their body as the brain, being the ‘physical’ vehicle on Earth for a person to exist as a conscious person now no longer exists as the interface between the body and the invisible spirit. At this time, the interface between the invisible and visible, between cognitions, emotions, personality and spirit, and the physical brain have been detached and disconnected. It could be very possible that the personality and spirit of consciousness, cognitions, emotions, attitudes, values, beliefs and personal experiences are then, spontaneously released from the ‘physical’ brain at death, but continue to live and exist in another world, in another realm, and in another dimension to the earthly one.
Attributes for Personal Growth
Human beings are creatures with many unique attributes for personal growth. Humans are capable of, through the power of the activities of their cerebrum neurons and neural-biochemical transmitters and in conjunction with the interface between consciousness, personality, spirit and soul, expressing themselves through the communication vehicles of writing and speech, the extent of their thoughts and feelings. These thoughts and feelings include experiences such as, anger, joy, love, happiness and sadness, which we have all experienced resulting from interacting in and with others and the world in which we live.
Humans are in essence people defined by their humanity and personhood. Humans are people who, through the synergy of the interface between the bio-chemical neurotransmitters of the cerebrum, and the transcendent characteristics of consciousness, freewill, intellect, meta-cognition and memory, possess the complex functions of self-awareness, introspection, reflection, contemplation, reasoning, decision-making, problem solving, planning and perception. From these unique human abilities, we are able to form attitudes, beliefs, and values that can redefine and reshape our personality, and thus, manifest as present and new thoughts and feelings, and in turn, the behaviours and contents of speech we exhibit.
Now can we get somewhat real? Let us be honest, notwithstanding the difficulty humans may have in swallowing their pride, but instead consider accepting the scientific evidence that humans have originated and evolved from primates. And rather than viewing this information as an affront to human dignity, consider that human evolution from primates is perhaps a reality and thus liberating information. Human evolution from primates is information that advocates some explanation and understanding of atrocious human behaviours, but which can never justify such behaviour, but invokes human accountability when adding it to the mix of human consciousness, intellect, thought, emotion and freewill. Humans’ therefore, have the ability to either manipulate their base animal instincts of control, power, fear, aggression and sex drive etcetera, to their advantage and at other’s expense, on the one hand, and on the other hand, to override these base instincts through the proper function of the gifts of consciousness, intellect, cognition, emotion and freewill. Choosing instead particular actions and behaviours that will be constructive for Self and others, and congruent with Self’s informed values, attitudes and beliefs imbibed by Self, and thus part of Self’s personality.
These spiritual (non-tangible, invisible to the eye) constructs thereby enable human beings to rise over and above base human (animal) instincts as an outcome of the human evolutionary process, which evolution provides the invisible constructs of consciousness, emotion and cognition, intellect and freewill thus allowing Self to develop values, attitudes, beliefs and personality. Yes, we humans could be said to be ‘little gods’ with spirit, intellect and freewill, but who live within ‘animal’ bodies with inherent ‘animal’ instincts, but who have the power of choice to either act out much worse than animals, or to act above and beyond the base instincts of the animals we evolved from and have stewardship over. So perhaps we were made in both the image being the Word, Spirit, and Soul of the Creator, as well as from atom-energies created by the ‘Creator’, “made in the image and likeness of the ‘Creator” and ‘to dust we shall return’. Self is possibly made in the image of the Creator that allows for the intangible constructs of consciousness, emotion and cognition, attitudes, values and personality to exist, which cannot be visibly seen, but inter-personally experienced.
These ‘spiritual’ constructs provide the possibility for Self to choose constructive or destructive behavioural options that are chosen following the subsequent anticipation and conceptualisation of the feelings and thoughts that may arise and be generated - being precursor thought processes to a particular behaviour - as a result of contemplating a particular action. And these ‘spiritual’ constructs provide the possibility for Self to then decide to choose, or not to choose, to embark in a particular direction, or on a particular behaviour.
These ideas of human evolution from primates furnish some transparency into peoples’ sometimes despicable and undignified activities towards Self and others. These are the abhorrent base human acts resulting from the choice to manipulate intellectual and emotional experiences which manifest as intellectual, emotional and behavioural perversions against Self and others. These are human activities often culminating in destructive and diabolical behavioural perversions as an outcome of choosing base acts of iniquity and malevolence over and above the choice of transcendent goodness. The term ‘goodness’ used in this context can be defined as the chosen acts of compassion, love, forgiveness and charity expressed towards Self and other fellow human beings. Human to human destructiveness, debauchery and depravity is sadly, illustrated by the behaviours of individual and group base acts of abuse, sexual and physical abuse, emotional, fiscal and spiritual, and corruption, racism and discrimination etcetera, visited upon humans by humans.
Included, are base acts of absolute arrogance, cowardliness, violence, aggression and hatred, exemplified by perpetrators of ‘physical’ and emotional abuse and terrorism. Tyrannical dictators like Adolph Hitler have committed unspeakable and reprehensible crimes and offences against humanity. These are the abhorrent base human acts resulting from the personal choice to mix the desire to manipulate human base instincts, expressed through base thoughts, feelings, behaviours and content of speech, with the higher human constructs of intellect, cognition and emotion. This will in turn, inevitably manifest as intellectual, cognitive and emotional perversions, and therefore, diabolically perverted behavious and contents of speech towards others. The diabolical synergistic outcome of such manipulation of this mix, has unfortunately and sadly been observed in many real life performances, which examples have been depicted in movies, such as those acted by Anthony Hopkins who plays a human eating human and killing deviant in the films Silence of the Lambs, and Hannibal.
However, we are likely as humans, to be at the dawn of human evolution in terms of future psychological/spiritual abilities to surpass and surmount the influences of human base instincts. Base instincts including the seven deadly sins will have less influence on human behaviour as the ability to make constructive positive choices on particular forms of behaviour likely approached more diverse and sophisticated skills. This in turn will invoke personal choices, because of evolutionary circumstances, less driven by surmounted base instincts, which in the past have influenced environmental conditions and human cultures, and more by voluntary choices and needs of complexity.
Charles Darwin and, the Last Word
Charles Darwin's famous and controversial theory of evolution and penned within, The Origin of the Species and, the Descent of Man and Selection in relation to Sex, is formulated and based on the idea that all species have a common ancestor. Which, have then evolved from the slime and primordial soup of a shallow pond, or lake, over immense time through natural selection of the fittest. As discussed earlier, this theory may be a gratuitously simplistic explanation. A theory based solely on the behaviour of random chance for the creation of complex and diverse life and humankind. The scientific explanation of evolution put forward by Darwin is perhaps too simplistic to explain completely the origins of humankind, for in reality and biochemical real terms evolution is an extremely sophisticated manipulation of nature resulting in the creation of life in the world as we see it today. But evolution, through science, has still not explained the creation of invisible consciousness, thought and emotion. As noted previously, the idea of life as we know and view it today, originating and evolving from the conception and development of a single biological cell, is extremely complex and difficult to comprehend, but maybe better understood through the notion of DNA pre-programming.
Today scientists are mapping the human genes in DNA. And in some cases are able to reengineer certain genes. Genes are the blueprints of creation and the mechanism for change and evolution. But scientists are light years away from being able to demonstrate or duplicate life as it exists today by reproducing life from its origins, from the cell of a micro-organism living in a primordial pond being the basis for the existence of life and humans today, although it could be said that evolution, in essence, has been scientifically proven.
If complex life as we know it today, such as all the different animals, birds, and humans, etcetera, evolved from the single cell of a micro-organism within the proverbial slimy pond. And which micro-organisms in turn, evolved from the chemicals, substances and materials generated from the beginning of creation, from the collision of particles, from the ‘Big Bang’. Then we cannot exclude and ignore the fact that a Supreme Creator and Designer was required as a necessary prior condition and prerequisite for the creation of creation’s original point of conception, evolution and the process of evolution through the pre-programming of DNA. For as natural law states and reason confirms, “something can not be made from nothing.” A. H. Strong, the president of Rocheston Theological Seminary, wrote in his systematic theology (1885), "We grant the principle of creation by way of evolution as a possibility, as we would regard it as the method of divine design and intelligence, but also whose intervention is necessary for the creation of the human soul, spirit and personality.”
Unfortunately in the past, evolution has often been sold, oversold, misunderstood and marketed as an alternative and opposition to the obvious majesty, mystery and awesome power required by the gentle and mighty hand of the Supernatural Being who has created such a paradoxical enigma we call Creation and the Universe.
Whatever, and however, Darwin's theory has been interpreted, and intended to imply in the past, it could never conceivably succeed in opposing and discrediting the possibility that a Supernatural Being, or a ‘God’, is the Creator and Designer behind all things visible and invisible. We could say that this evidence of evolutionary creation strengthens the possibility of there being a ‘God’, and if this ‘God’ is the possible original instigator of the beginning of creation, and evolution, then this ‘God’ would have, in this instance the first and last word about everything to do with creation the universe and life. For as science and Scripture allude to; ‘God’ and the Creator is perhaps:
(Future).
CHAPTER 8
ATOMS OF STRUCTURES AND SPIRIT ENERGY of SELF
The World is Not as it Appears
Proof of a Creator’s Existence through Reason and Science
Atom-Energy, Spirit-Energy and the Soul of Self
Amazing Attributes of Atoms
Subatomic Energies of Atom-Energy
Einstein’s ‘Theory of Relativity’ (E = mc2)
A ‘Creator’ of Atom-Energy and Spirit-Energy
DNA – The Building Blocks of Life
Light, Photons, Atoms, and Subatomic Energies
The Big Bang in the Scheme of Things
The World is Not as it Appears
Structure of atom-energy are in essence expressed scientifically in the following ways 1) interaction with other atom-energies - gravity, 2) ability to reflect light-waves, 3) measured as electric voltage (eV) and electromagnetism, 4) the change in atom-energy structures with functions for eg., ice > water > steam and vice-versa. But spirit-energy is unique form of energy that in essence is not affected by gravity, light-waves or electromagnetic energy and spirit-energy does not possess atom-energy structure but maintains its integrity. Integrity as a spirit-being with personality, consciousness, awareness, thought, emotions, independence, sovereignty, and will.
The world is not made of what it appears as it is made of atoms, which are in essence energies without mass. Atoms are defined as electrical and electromagnetic charges, and are measured as electrical volts (eV). Atoms have no weight but feel heavy because of the electromagnetic energy between the larger planet earth attracting smaller parcels of electromagnetic energy.
This tension is what we call gravity, which constructs our perception and experience of weight. Atoms are in essence invisible, but we see because our eye, brain and interpretation are based on the reflection of light wave–lengths into our central nervous system via our eyes. If we think about how hydrogen and oxygen make up ice, water and steam-gases, we can understand how everything in the universe possesses different structures and functions even when made with the same atoms, but with different atom configurations.
As the functions of atoms changes e.g., as in the different structures and functions of ice, water, and steam, although made from the same atoms, are but structured differently, as in tightly packed atoms of ice, as opposed to the less-tightly packed atoms of steam-gases. Atoms interact with other atoms of the same (elements), and different atoms (compounds), that make up the universe.
There are only 118 different atoms that together, or combined, make up all that exists in this world. The exception is the Self, which by definition is spirit-energy of consciousness, thoughts, emotions, self-awareness, personality and will, etc. References in this book to the word ‘physical’ are defined as atom-energy, referring to all that exists, including the body (anatomy) or the ‘physical’ environment, food and shelter, and all that we observe around us, other than Self and others, which are spirit-energies and include consciousness, thoughts, emotions, self-awareness, personality and will etc .
Proof of a Creator’s Existence through Reason and Science
In terms of science, science has brought us along way in understanding the world as we observe and know it today. But science still can't deconstruct, define or describe the unique essence of energy making up 96 per cent of the universe that scientists term as dark energy and black matter. The other 4 per cent of the world and universe is that part of the universe and world we observe and see and consists of atoms, and wave-lengths of energies categorised by scientists as being within what has been called the electromagnetic spectrum.
So 4 per cent of the world and universe exits of atoms and electromagnetic wave-lengths emanating into the universe as a result of the complex interactions of atom-energies. Both atoms and electromagnetic wave-lengths, essentially and in essence, have been scientifically deconstructed to be shown as consisting of different forms of interacting energies. This energy is different determined by their unique strengths, motions, positive, negative or neutral charges, their ability to interact with other forms of atoms, their structure and functions and their visibility and weight. Furthermore, it must be emphasised that when scientists talk about atoms being in essence, energy, they are defining and measuring energy in electrical voltage (eV). Atoms and their energies are electrical charges.
I believe we have rational thought including science to help us understand the world. Rational thought suggests something cannot come, or be made, or exist from nothing. Science till now states that something cannot be made, or created from nothing. Something, anything cannot be created or produced or exist from nothing, no?
Science suggests what we observe in the world, including all that makes up the world such as the environment, buildings and flora and fauna etc are made of atoms, and atoms are made of complex interacting forms of electrical energy. Reason and Science suggests that before the existence of what we term the Big Bang, there was nothing. But there needed to exist as a requirement of such energy forming the Big Bang, not only another unique energy, but energy with intelligence that initiated design, plan and order for atom-energy to pre-determinedly evolve into the world as we understand and experience it today.
Indeed before the Big Bang there was nothing except for and other than that that cannot be scientifically defined or reconstructed, or even for some, rationally thought. But there had to exist a mysterious, another form of unique energy, that always was, without the need for it to be created by something and which also possesses intelligence.
Intelligence is required of this unique energy for the existence of the organised universe and world as we know and experience it today. That without intelligence the universe and world as we experience it would mathematically be impossible to exist through random chance. Indeed, this is the measure of intelligence required over and above that of random chance, as in the designing and planing of the capability of a tornado restructuring the material and contents of a junkyard, into say, a high-rise building, Jumbo jet, and flora and fauna.
If we rationally follow this line of thought through to its inevitable conclusive reasoning backed up by science would strongly suggest some other form of energy with intelligence created these first forms of subatomic energies that make up the atoms that make up the universe. What would you call this unique form of energy that must have intelligence and that must have always existed?
Atom-Energy, Spirit-Energy and the Soul of Self
A Caterpillar Transforms into a Butterfly – But with a Different Brain and Same Memory. New research has identified that the caterpillar’s brain dissolves when it transforms into a butterfly, but the transformed butterfly retains the laboratory-conditioned behaviours of the caterpillar in terms of being aversive to the memory of a particular scent.
When humans create or build non-living atom-energy structures such as artefacts, artwork, or a culinary dish etc we use not only the non-living structures of atom-energies in the form of building materials, paint brushes, paint, and cooking utensils, harvest food and cutlery etc but also living structures of atom-energies in the form of human hands, body/anatomy and brain etc. When humans create, we also use the non-atom spirit-energies of thought, will, belief, ideas, images and design, order, plan and then the execution of these as the goals. These processes are encapsulated within Self and expressed as a manifestation of Self’s soul and spirit.
Self, being the creator of these creations must by definition then leave part of their Self, being the will, design and creation of the artefact etc, and thus Self as and in part of the creation, but with an independent and sovereign standing. Thus the Self’s creation is a part of the likeness and image of Self’, as a function of Self’s soul and spirit. The soul and spirit now residing within the creation is a part of Self and retained as soul and spirit-energy, being the blue-prints and ‘finger-prints’ of the designer, planner and doer of the artefact and creation.
This multi-dimensional process of creation is perhaps a simple analogy of that described as ‘being made in the likeness and image of the Creator’. The artist’s creations of structures of atom-energy (paintings, houses, etc) did not come into being by themselves. But required essentially as a major contribution for production, both the structural atom-energy of body, hands and brain etc, but also the spirit-energy of the characteristics of Self in thought, will, design, plan and execution, which must be the spirit and soul energy of Self.
Now if someone else recreates what we have created, then that person too, will use both the atom-energy of their body and the spirit-energy of themselves. But in recreating what has already been created there will need to used similar structures of atom-energy as in body parts, and use of spirit-energy as in the unique thought, design, order, plan and will to execute that which has been previously created and brought forth from consciousness.
Self’s creations of artefacts from soul and spirit energy, and thus in a sense being part of Self, can perhaps be a reverse analogy of the existence of atom-energy structures created from the existence of subatomic particles brought forth by a Creator’s thought, design and will, manifesting in the Big Bang, including the existence of other forms of energies.
These energies include the energies of atom-energy, electromagnetic energy, dark-energy, dark-matter and spirit-energy, all designed and planned with thought, design and will of a Creator and thus have within them a part of their Creator as does Self’s creation has a part of Self, but with an independent and sovereign standing.
As the chemical formations and interactions that initiated the beginnings of life through complex interactions of particular atom-energy structures developed over time, so the evolved atom-energies of life increased from one cell to trillions of cells and with them, so the spirit and soul as a manifestation of the signature of the designer.
The human brain has developed larger and more complex in humans than in any other species. This development of the human brain gives humans the ability to think, plan and do all the intellectual, emotional and behavioural things humans can do.
Thinking and emotions are part of the spirit-energy of consciousness being part-and-parcel of Self. Spirit-energy cannot be objectively measured, and captured as atom-energy can. We may consider the essence and existence of Self to be a divinely inspired outcome from predetermined design and order of the Spirit/Word.
So we may be able to say, that through the energy of ‘The Word’, was brought forth and embedded the Soul and Spirit in the different energies within the universe including the soul and spirit of life and Self.
Humans’ Spirit and Soul may be inherited and passed on from species to species, from generation to generation, through the soul and spirit-energies dwelling particularly within all living existence, as the defining divine signature of the ‘word’ of creation.
The energies of Soul and Spirit may also exist within, yet on a unique dimension or plane, or exist parallel to, or in symbiosis to the atom-energy structure of DNA. Atom-energy makes up the structure and function of the brain, which is the vehicle for the interactions and existence of the spirit-energies of Self.
All that exists in the universe is made of what we call atoms of which there are only 115 different variations. These variations we call elements, such as oxygen, hydrogen, helium, gold, and uranium etc. These elements can combine to form other variations of ‘matter’ such as hydrogen and oxygen, which by way of complex interactions, forms what we call water. The atoms that make up the 115 elements are only different and only vary in the number of protons and neutrons that exist in the nucleus and, the number of electrons orbiting the nucleus, other than this, atoms are identical. But the variations in these atoms determine the strength and power of their electromagnetic energy and field and thus the properties and interactive characteristics they possess.
So the entire universe is made of atoms or the subatomic particles of atoms and their complex interactive combinations. Atoms are made of subatomic particles of electrons and a nucleus of protons and neutrons. The electrons orbit the outside of the nucleus and interact with electrons of other atoms. These complex interactions bond both similar and different atoms together to construct molecules and in turn other existing structures. An atom is a very small electromagnetic charge created by the interaction of positive charged proton(s) and neutral neutrons in the nucleus in combination with the negative charged orbiting electrons.
So the only difference between different forms of ‘matter’ is the number of protons, neutrons and electrons in the atoms that make up a particular entity. The parts of atoms or subatomic particles of atoms are identical i.e. the gluons, quarks and leptons that make up the protons, neutrons and the electrons of atoms. The only difference between solids, liquids and gasses is the way the atoms are structured and bound together, as for example in ice, water and, steam.
The ‘mass’ of an atom is its electromagnetic energy and is measured in electrical voltage (eV). The energy that atoms consist of is very small. A typical human cell contains about 100 trillion atoms, but together, these atoms form the parts of’ both inorganic or non-life and organic or living life.
Amazing Attributes of Atoms
Atoms consist of neutrons, protons, and electrons and, are in fact invisible, weightless and mass less, although some physicists are still searching for the ‘Higs’ factor, or that gives us the ability to ‘see it’. This confound is similar to the universe existing of 4 per cent atom-energy, and 96 per cent unknown non-atom-energy (that keeps galaxies in formation and accelerates the expansion of the universe. These, as yet, unidentified energies are very possibly those of the ‘Word’, or spirit-energy, but which scientists are still searching. But many know that the atom is total energy and we perceive atom structures in the way we do because of the complex interface between atom structures and qualities and spirit-energy. The characteristics of atoms are understood and described more easily when we observe the characteristics of the structure we call ice, as in frozen water. Everyone would agree that ice is made of water. However, in the structure and function of ice the hydrogen and oxygen molecules are densely packed. Ice, water and steam are made of the same two atoms at the same ratio, of 2 parts Hydrogen to every 1 part of Oxygen. But in comparison to the atom-energy structure of ice, water and steam have the same atoms that are less tightly packed, and so form atom-energy structures with functions that are different to that of ice.
Ice when heated becomes water, water when heated becomes steam and gases, but all are constructed of the same atoms and molecules of hydrogen and oxygen, but with different configurations of the same two atom-elements or energies. All ‘matter’ has the ability to change structure and functions under the correct circumstances, as evidenced by ice when it melts into water and when boiled into steam. When it comes to solid structures such as ice and water, as apposed to gas, we in fact only perceive to be ‘touching’ and ‘seeing’ such structures of ‘matter’ because the atoms are dense enough that specific wavelengths of light reflect off these different structures made from different atoms.
The human ‘touching’ and subsequent perceived ‘feeling’ of a particular structure can be accounted for by the electromagnetic energy created by the atoms of a structure interacting with the electromagnetic energy generated by the atoms of our skin and nerves that send electromagnetic impulses to our brain (atom-energy) and mind, intellect, (spirit-energy) to be interpreted. The brain is the organic vehicle (atom-energy) that interacts with the mind (spirit-energy) to allow us (spirit-energy) to function in the world and interact with it. So the atom-energy from the atoms of our skin and nerves (made of mainly carbon atoms) can ‘feel’ structures of ‘matter’ (atom-energy) through electromagnetic interactions of electromagnetic energies that travel the nervous system and then analysed and interpreted by Self (spirit-energy).
Subatomic Energies of Atom-Energy
Subatomic particles of atom-energy that make up living and non-living structures consist of two groups of charges i.e. quarks and leptons. Quarks make up neutrons and protons. There are two types of quarks, the Up Quark and the Down Quark. The Up Quark has a fractional charge of +2/3 and the Down Quark has a fractional charge of -1/3. A proton is made of two Up Quarks and one Down Quark giving it a positive charge of +1. The neutron contains one Up Quark (+2/3) and two Down Quarks (-1/3) giving it a neutral charge of zero.
Quarks are the subatomic particles that form protons and neutrons and Leptons are the subatomic particles that form electrons. At the instance of the Big Bang there was voluminous plasma made from these subatomic energies. Atoms of different structures give form and a particular function to an existence, which humans experience through the purposely designed interface of the characteristics of human anatomy (atom-energy) and human spirit-energy, which are not made of atoms but are what we will describe as Self, consciousness, awareness, person and spirit.
Einstein’s ‘Theory of Relativity’ (E = mc2)
Einstein’s ‘theory of relativity’ infers that Matter and Energy are essentially the same entities rather than intrinsically different as some may perceive his equation may suggest. For instance, if we heat wood (carbon atoms) with enough energy, the atom carbons will increase in vibration and a complex chemical interaction will pursue eventuating in fire. The atom-energy of the original structure and function of wood will then convert into other forms of energy being specific structures and functions with unique characteristics, such as ash, gases and the photon energy of heat and light. Einstein’s equation identifies that energy and mass both consist of subatomic particles and emit electromagnetic energy.
Albert Einstein reasoned that energy was equivalent to the mass-energy equivalence formula, E = mc2, where 1 kg = 89.876 PJ). But the weight of atom-energy is produced by the interaction of the electromagnetic field of a smaller ‘body’ with the electromagnetic field of a larger ‘body’ (planet earth). Mass is factually energy configured as a particular structure with function, consisting of electrical charge/voltage (eV). Electrical voltage (eV) is ambiguous in its description as a unit of mass in subatomic particle energy and atom-energy physics.
Indeed some physicists are still looking for that part of the atom that gives it the ‘mass’ factor (‘Higs’ factor) as they find it hard to believe that everything is alone, energy. But they are coming to believe in their own scientific results as they have come no closer to finding this ‘Higs’ factor or ‘God’ component. Can’t they except the possibility that ‘God’ is about different forms of energy including atom, spirit and ‘dark’ energy.
A ‘Creator’ of Atom-Energy and Spirit-Energy
Because it is humanly inconceivable that no one can create something (anything), from absolutely nothing, it is rational and logical to think and believe that therefore there must exist, another form of energy apart from that which already exists. An Energy or Force that always was, and always will be, an energy that does not require, for its self to exist, subatomic particles, but instead creates the structure and function of subatomic energies.
The Energy that creates atom-energy will be necessarily an Energy that is atom-less. This is, the energy of a ‘Higher Power’ and the genesis of the origin of the Universe. This is a form of energy that does not require the need for atom-energy to exist, but however, created the formation, design and order of creation, and the evolution of and processes of the complex interactions necessary to produce the atom-energies of structures with their functions that make-up the world as we understand it exists today.
Rationally, it is feasible that a ‘mysterious’ form of Energy has created atom-energy and photons of electromagnetic energy by Willing such design and order. Human energy with consciousness and awareness, etc as characteristics of the Self are forms of energy, which are without the structures of atoms or photons, but designed to interact with atom-energies whilst maintaining the uniqueness of their own atom-less but spirit-energy integrity. It is feasible that the spirit-energy of Self be considered to be more in keeping and akin to the image and likeness of the energy of the original ‘Creator’, ‘Word’ and ‘Higher Power’.
To personally come to terms with the make-up of the world as being atom-energy structures with functions and mind/person spirit-energies a shift in mindset is probably required similar to that when the believed ‘flat planet’ was discovered to be a ‘the round planet’ (earth).
If Self can be understood to be made of non-atoms but spirit-energy, then this acceptance will most likely involve a state of psychological change and mind-shift. And a mindset change will probably be necessary to view and perceive the world from the perspective of atom-energy rather than ‘matter’ and mass, but from different atom-energies with their particular structures and functions. Humans consist of much more than just the sum of their atom-energy anatomical structures with features. Humans are often guilty of using a person’s physical features as being the ‘bona fide’ evidence required to hang our first impressions and judgements upon. But rather, observing the body as atom-energy structures with functions, and the person and Self existing as the non-atom Spirit-energy.
Rather than relating to a person in respect of your judgement towards their body you may perceive as being attractive or unattractive, skinny or large, and old or young, alternatively view people as not only a body, but charges of tightly packed atoms. These atom-energies create particular structures with functions, and then to view people as consisting not of atom-energies but spirit-energies that can on earth, through divine design, interact with the atom-energies of the world. Because we are made from atom-energy - electromagnetic charges of energy – which are mass-less, invisible and weightless,
The challenge is not to judge or criticise someone incumbent upon how they appear anatomically. But instead, to make a shift in mindset so that Self’s perception lies beyond the normal and traditional, instead understands and communicates with people in terms of them being persons of spirit-energy. It is now easier to view Self as a person of spirit existing more akin to existing in the likeness and image of the ‘Creator’ (spirit-energy).
Here is an example of how we might view the world from one made of atom-energy. The construct of our hands is made from the energy of trillions of tightly packed Carbon atoms with its particular structure and functions. Atoms generate an electromagnetic charge and field. Now if we hold ice in our hand it feels solid, because ice is made of frozen water consisting of hydrogen and oxygen (H2O), which are atoms/molecules tightly configured. We perceive ice as feeling solid because of the interaction between the tightly configured atom-energies that make up our skin and nerves, which interact with the atom-energy that produces the structures and functions of ice. The atom-energy formed as structures of skin and nerves send electromagnetic impulses of that which it interacts with, to the brain (atom-energy), whereby the Self made of non-atom spirit-energy is designed to interface with the atom-energy of the brain, and all of its complex neural connections and accompanying processes.
If we apply energy to ice in the form of heat the ice melts into a liquid we call water, this occurs because the atoms become less tightly configured and so more flexible or volatile. The feeling we perceive when our hand is in the water now feels different to feeling ice. We can feel the splash and swish of the water, and swirl the water around, because the atoms are now less-tightly-packed together in the liquid form, and ice presents with a different structure and function.
If we apply more energy to water in the form of heat, other structures and functions will exist in the form of steam and gases. The atom-energy of steam and gases cannot be felt or held by human hands, because the atoms are less-tightly configured and have changed their structure and function.
Considering the above information of the configuration of atom-energy and their different structures and functions, we may now shift our mind-set and begin to observe and appreciate the world in this particular way. The way we observe and experience the structures of the world, e.g. apple trees, orange tress, mountains and fauna etc, may now be perceived and appreciated with a magical and miraculous expression. The world is structures with functions that the spirit-energy of human mind is able to, through design, naturally interact with primarily through the human senses of sight, touch, sound and taste processed by parts of the cerebrum and interpreted by the non-atom spiritual-energy of the Self. The non-atom spiritual-energy of Self is capable of perceiving and interpreting atom-energy as having definition, structure, size, colour, shape and utility.
So there is the ability for the atom-less spirit-energy of the human mind to interpret observations of stimuli from senses (atom-energy) through consciousness of Self with the assistance of the bio-chemical structures and functions of the processes of the brain. This entire interaction between the atom-energy of anatomy and the non-atom spirit-energy of Self is the result of the divine design and order of DNA which is pre-determined and pre-programmed. DNA manifests itself in all living life and humans have genetically evolved to possess a larger more complex brain that allow the exhibition of higher quality characteristics such as, and most importantly a redefining and elaborate formation of the seed of the Spirit that has originated at the beginning of time, or the ‘word’.
This ‘seed’ of the spirit is ‘fertilised’ and maturated through the evolution of DNA in conjunction with a more complex brain to enable the existence of an independent, unique, special and sovereign human being with consciousness, and free-will. And because of divine design and order a person has the ability for their spirit of consciousness to interact with structures of atom-energy, perceiving and interpreting not only other spirit-energies that dwells and makes another person, but atom-energies of definition, size, colour, shapes and utility.
If ‘matter’ is, in essence, electrical charges of atom-energy and, by nature, are mass-less, invisible and weightless, then the atom-less energy of Self’s Spirit and Soul can intuitively be understood to be mass-less, invisible and weightless, but having the extra characteristics of consciousness etc which never grow old, can never die, but lives on eternally. Self exists in essence as Spirit, Soul and Consciousness and eternally maintaining its integrity.
Atom-energy structures and functions eventually transform into other forms of energy such as a burning log changes to the structure and functions of heat, light and ash. A similar process will apply to all structures as they eventually evolve in structure and function such as the decomposition of an animal, etc. But the spirit-energy of Self surely maintains integrity and sovereignty in the form of consciousness, self-awareness, thought, emotion, behaviour and experiences of an individual.
The non-atom spirit-energy of the Self cannot be measured or captured electrically or magnetically, but interacts with the atom-energy of the anatomical brain, where this ability of Self to interact with the world is conceived at their own conception as an individuals’ inheritance from his or her parents and ultimately, the ‘word’. And when the atom-less-energy of Self (spirit) is released from its interface with the atom-energy of the brain with its structures and functions, the Self, Spirit and Soul being spirit-energy that cannot be measured by scientists and cannot decompose or change form, continues to exist as Self into definitive eternity.
DNA – The Building Blocks of Life
Everything in the world is made of subatomic particle-energy, including life cells that grow into the structure, form, and function of their design. The DNA of a cell as is the cell and everything is made of atoms with the structure and functions with which they have been designed, in this case, genes incumbent within linear chromosomes. There are about 3 billion base pairs of genes of DNA arranged within 46 strands of chromosomes in each cell in the anatomy. Genes transmit genetic hereditary information from parent to offspring.
It takes about 100 trillion atoms to form the nucleus of one human cell. Chromosomes if stretched out,, would form a very thin thread about 2m long. Genes made of DNA instruct the building of cells of skin, hair, eyes, lips and so on, of a particular organism, as a particular structure with particular functions.
Light, Photons, Atoms, and Subatomic Energies
In physics a ‘quantum’ is an entity of energy or subatomic particle that is indivisible. For instance, a photon, being a unit of light, is a ‘light quantum’ with similarities to an electron. Photons of light driven at speed into another atom, forms an electron and positron (antimatter of an electron) and annihilates a photon of light.
The photon is the elementary particle and unit of energy responsible for the electromagnetic spectrum of energy such as microwaves, radio waves, light waves, gamma rays and ultraviolet and radiation, etc. All matter emits atom-energy and electromagnetic fields. In the presence of ‘matter’ or more correctly, atom-energy, this electromagnetic energy of photons (of different wave-lengths) can be absorbed and reflected – depending on the wave-length of the visible light - by a particular structure and function of particular atom-energies creating what we perceive to be different colours which gives definition and recognition of a particular structure of atom-energy.
In fact, the atom-energy or atoms of structures are colourless and invisible for the fact that they are designed to absorb and reflect different ‘visible-light’ wave-lengths from the electromagnetic spectrum. This reflection and absorption of different photon-energies of light waves by atom-energy structures gives it what we perceive to be colour. The human eye, brain and ultimately consciousness, have been designed to interact together with other atom-energies for the spirit-energy of Self to experience the world. So the human perception of colour, including pitch black and white objects (total reflection of all light wave-lengths) allows the differentiation of their structure (shape), size and utility (function).
The Big Bang in the Scheme of Things
A billionth of a second after the beginnings of the universe, manifest as the Big Bang, ‘space’ existed and expanded. And a millionth of a second after the Big Bang, a plasma of subatomic particles (quarks etc.) and free-floating electrons (leptons) evolved into existence. After a hundred odd seconds quarks came together to form particles called protons and neutrons, and some of the protons and nearly all of the neutrons gathered into bunches of nuclei containing 2 protons and 2 neutrons.
About 400,000 years after the Big Bang, when the cosmic temperature had dropped it then became cool enough for nuclei to capture electrons from ionized atoms in the plasma.
Each subatomic nucleus captured 2 electrons to form a helium atom, and each remaining proton in the subatomic plasma captured a single electron to form a hydrogen atom. The first atoms or atom-energies – the building blocks of matter - had been born. Atoms of hydrogen and helium formed abundantly. Hydrogen today makes up about 92% of the atoms in the universe, helium makes up 7%, and all other atom-energies (elements) make up less than 1%. These atoms, through the gravity of electromagnetic energy pulled together to form the beginnings of stars.
Hydrogen under intense heat and pressure is the initial fuel of stars. Within the nuclear process that formed helium from hydrogen, heavier elements were formed through the process of stellar nucleosynthesis (nuclear fission) and supernova nucleosynthesis when the star had burnt out of fuel, the star’s process changed form.
The formation of planets, like earth, were and still are formed from the process of supernova nucleosynthesis, which is the process of creating new atom structures from the breakdown remnants of previous atom structures, such as when a star blows apart when its fuel burns out.
CHAPTER 9
INTERACTIONS OF ATOMS, SOUL AND SPIRIT OF LIFE
Life as both Atom and Spirit Energy
Electromagnetic Charges and Complex Subatomic Interactions
Matter and Mass is but Atom Energy
Atom-Energies with Structures and Functions, and Spirit-Energy
Non-Living Atom-Energy Evolves into Living Atom-Energies
Atoms, Soul and Spirit are all Different Energies
Atom-Energy of Living Cells and Spirit-Energy of People
The Atom-Energies of Non-Life into the Atom-Energy of Life with Spirit-Energy
The Differences and Interactions of Atom-Energy and Spirit-Energy
A Shift in Personal Mindset
Life as both Atom and Spirit Energy
Life, defined as atom-energy evolving into the structure and function of life cells defined by that, which can reproduce its self through the complex interactions from information transmitted by DNA and genes from a pre-existing living cell into a particular structure with functions transformed from the atom-energy into other structures with functions. Changes occur in the structure of atom-energy through the evolution of cell DNA (predetermined and designed) over millions of years produced a variety of species.
Life, per se, is defined as the ability of life-cells - atom-energies - to absorb other atom-energies through complex atom interactions that metabolise energy to produce ‘movement’ and ‘work’ such as growth and reproduction. One of the more perplexing questions in this process, is how did life-energy emerge from non-life or inorganic energy?
The sun that our solar system orbits (planets) was formed 5 billion years ago, whilst 3.7 billion years ago microscopic life in the form of single cellular amoeba’s began to evolve. Logic and science drives the belief that evolution, in all aspects, be considered as a fore-planned design and order of a ‘Creator’ as the architect for non-life energies to evolve through complex atom-energy interactions, into life energies. All of the structures with functions of atom-energies exist in the universe as necessary to produce, firstly, simple forms of life, and then more complex forms of life – humans - through pre-determined processes manifest as evolution.
The fact that scientists can’t repeat the creation of life energy from non-life energy in the laboratory, alludes to the fact that begetting life from non-life is a result of extremely complex interactions of atom-energy structures (chemical elements) that have been pre-programmed by some ‘divine’ design and order. These interactions initially evolved from the Big Bang, and the fires and furnaces of stars and supernova. These nuclear reactions within supernovas’ are the catalysts for the beginning of life through complex subatomic interactions as the process that turns the structure and function of the atom-energies of non-life into the structure and functions of the atom-energies of life.
Life-cells consist of the structure and function of atom-energies of DNA and genes, made from the structure and functions of the atom-energies/molecules of proteins and amino acids. Life exists in many forms, from the simplest bacteria and viruses, to human beings who inherit their characteristics from their parental origins, and originally as a new species branching off from the Ape family.
Humans inherit their physical characteristics (height, colour, facial features, etc), and personal psychological (spiritual-energies) temperaments and traits i.e. introversion – shy, or extroversion – outgoing, – from the combined genes of both their parents. Humans, with their developed larger more complex brains are able to possess qualities that exhibit higher functions and the ability to experience and be conscious of spiritual relationships and transcendence. This is a different form of energy not constructed from the energy of atoms but exists from the spirit-energy of consciousness, personality and self-awareness through Self.
Spirit-energy has been designed to interact with the structures and functions of the atom-energy, which includes the brain (atom-energy) as a vehicle to allow the ‘spiritual meta-cognitive abilities, ‘to think about thinking’, including possessing the abilities of self-awareness, consciousness, and make independent choices, all things being equal.
Electromagnetic Charges and Complex Subatomic Interactions
V. I. Lenin proposed to define ‘matter’ as the objective reality, which is given in our senses and is reflected by them. ‘Matter’ is a word we use to call everything we observe, but in reality consists of atoms, which are in essence, electrical volts made from the energy of neutrons and protons with orbiting electrons. An electromagnetic field is created by the movement of electrons around its nucleus oscillating at right-angles to electron energy. An electric charge formed from the movement of electrons produces electromagnetic fields, which interact with other atoms, hence, exists gravity. The energy of atoms interacting produces new structures with functions
Matter is atoms or atom-energy of structures with functions, but without the ability to absorb visible light wavelengths would be invisible to the human eye and thus unobservable. When we walk across the floor, we pick up extra electrons, which discharge when we touch a door handle or something electrically conductive. These extra electrons are released and we call ‘static electricity’ as the extra electrons we have ‘picked up’ jump to another conductive structure.
Humans have believed that matter is mass, but science instructs us that matter is in reality atom-energy, and can be better explained when we describe atom-energy structures changing as in ice atoms that can transform into water and into steam, with heat-energy. The electro-volt (eV) is a unit to measure or quantify ‘mass’, but is in fact the measurement of the atom essence defined as energy (AAAS Science Journal, 2006). The idea of matter being mass is a misnomer, because in reality and in essence it is but energy, atom-energy. So structures with functions are atom-energies and so, by definition, are mass-less, invisible and weightless.
Matter we describe as having weight, but in reality matter is energy (atom-energy), which by definition, is weightless. We describe matter as having weight because structures of atom-energy feel ‘heavy’. But matter or structures of atom-energy only feel they are ‘heavy’ or they have weight, because of the pull of the greater atom-energy or electromagnetic forces of planet earth. These interactions are electromagnetic gravitational forces that give a structure its force in electric voltage (eV), which we reinterpret and perceive as being ‘weight’, which we call kilogram force.
The energy charge of 1,000 Kg (1 ton) of concrete interacting with the gravitational force of the larger charge of planet earth gives the smaller mass its perceived weight. In reality, the ‘ton’ of concrete is weightless, evidenced when we observe it if it breaks through the earths’ gravitational forces into the outer atmosphere and on into space. In cosmic space there is no longer a larger electrical force like planet earth to draw its energy upon the structure, and thus the ‘ton’ of concrete floats randomly and weightlessly in space. Although it may be influenced by the gravitational forces of the Sun.
So the idea and perception that structures of atom-energy have what we describe as weight is an illusion, as quantum physics expose the reality of atomic electromagnetic energy.
Matter and Mass is but Atom Energy
All creation in the universe – besides human consciousness and base instincts, which are more akin to being of spirit and ‘soulful’ consist of energy other than that from atoms. Otherwise, creation in the universe is energy brought about by atoms. As we have discussed atom-energy changes in structure and function as we observe with (H2O) were tightly packed atoms (atom-energy) form the structure and function of ice, ice that you can walk on and skate on. Changes occur with the addition of heat-energy where ice changes structure to the structure and functions of liquid water, which is of course consists of less tightly configured atoms. The application of the energy of heat activates the ice’s atoms so that their energy becomes less stable loosening the binding of their atom configuration and changing the structure and function of ice into the structure and form of liquid water (H2O).
Liquid water has the structure with functions that we can push our fingers into, swim in, and drink. Again, if more energy in the form of heat is applied to liquid, steam and gases (vaporised water) are produced, where the atoms are held together more loosely, becoming more volatile and random. We can clearly observe the structure and functions of ice, and water, as the wavelengths of light are absorbed and reflected into and from the atom-energies of these different structures and functions of H2O. But we cannot see or observe the vaporised water as it changes into the structures and functions of steam and then gas, because the atoms and their atom-energy have become too dispersed for photons of light wavelengths to be noticeably absorbed and reflected.
All atoms act in a similar manner. For instance, if we apply energy (heat) to the solid atom-energy of Carbon atoms, such as in the structure and function of wood, the atomic structure, function, and nature of wood, changes into different structures, including atoms and atom-energies of carbon ash, heat, gases and the energy of light photons. The vibration of atoms increases their volatility and can combust into the structure and function of photons of light and heat and gases (flames).
Where does the atom-energy of all the different structures and functions that we observe and experience in the world originally come from? In addition to this question we can ask where does the non-atom energy of Self’s spirit and consciousness originally come from? Subatomic particles of energy bind to form different structures with functions, from non-living structures, to living structures, including the body or anatomy of Self, and importantly, embodied within these atom-energy creations exist spirit energies, more akin to the ‘Word’ and as such, allowing the potential existence of the Self with consciousness.
Of course it is practically and rationally impossible, to get anything in the universe from absolutely nothing. Logically thinking there must have been some other form of energy that has always existed. Just as there are different energies such as atom, photon and spirit energies, there are also the unknown ‘dark energies’ that make up 96 % of the universe and more akin to the spirit-energy including the energy of the ‘word’. There needs to be another form of Energy in existence, that exits more covertly, but which emanates from the same source. This is the same source of energy to which the existence of atom-energy (body) and spirit-energy (Self) can be attributed to, which may be defined and described as a ‘Creator’ and/or ‘Supreme Being’.
Atom-Energies with Structures and Functions, and Spirit-Energy
Matter in essence expresses itself as an electromagnetic charge, invisible, mass-less and weightless, atoms which only differ from element to element, because of their different number of neutrons, protons and electrons. Neutrons, protons and electrons, and atoms themselves, are otherwise identical except for the difference in the number of these subatomic particles. Subatomic particles of atoms like their neutrons, protons and electrons are made from different forms of energy in terms of their behaviour, movement, strength and quantity of charge, and so the way atoms are designed to interact with other atoms particles and atoms.
Matter is energy expressed in different structures with different functions. Subatomic particles of photon-energy can be expressed as electromagnetic energy with different wave-lengths and frequencies within the electromagnetic spectrum. Certain wave-lengths in the spectrum are designed as visible light for the human eye, brain and consciousness to interpret the world made of structures of atom-energy. Subatomic particles of energy expressed as invisible wave-lengths within the electromagnetic spectrum are defined as heat and radiation, such as radio waves, gamma rays and ultra-violet wave lengths etc.
What we consider as solids, liquids and vapours are atoms of energy manifesting themselves in different forms as different structures with different functions. Visible light as it is absorbed or reflected in relation to atom structures allows humans to differentiate between the different structure and functions of atom energy. These differences include both non-living and living structures with their particular functions. As humans with consciousness and awareness we have the ability to learn about and evaluate different structures and their functions.
Non-Living Atom-Energy Evolves into Living Atom-Energies
Elements made of atom-energy over billions of years through complex interactions within the nuclear reactors of stars – as the design and order of pre-programmed evolution – are the catalyst for the creation of the atom-energies of all that exits in the universe, the solar system, planet earth, and oceans.
The atom-energies of structures continue to evolve with complex interactions and together with the interactions of energy from the electromagnetic spectrum of energy as photons of visible light, have produced structures of atom-energies in the form of bio-chemical cells for the purposes of living life. Living cells of life have the functional ability to ‘take in’ energy (fuel) and independently grow and multiply. Life has evolved from an original singular cell created through predetermined design and order from atom-energy structures of non-life to the many species of life that have, to date, survived today including those that have become extinct.
Atoms, Soul and Spirit are all Different Energies
It could be suggested that in the beginning there was the ‘Word’ - a form of unique energy - that initiated the plasma of electrons and quarks (protons and neutrons) and electromagnetic energies emanating from atom energies created during the event we call the Big Bang. If a unique form of spirit-energy we may call the ‘Word’, created atom-energy, and the predetermined evolution of atom-energy structures, then it is also plausible that this Supreme energy or ‘Word’ has itself spread throughout the universe as different forms of spirit energy, including atom, and invisible ‘dark’ energy that makes up 96% of the universe’s energy.
The atom-energy of both living and non-living structures are the artefacts of the ‘Creator’ and so possess Soul because of their creation. There are different forms of energies in the universe, atom-energy of both inorganic structures (e.g., rocks) and organic structures (e.g., cells) and also include the energy of Self, personality and consciousness, considered to be spirit-energy, and understood to contain a higher level of Soul and quality of function. We use trees for wood and animals for food but we respect human beings as spirit and therefore sacred.
Structures of atom-energies will eventually cease to exist as these energies dissipate and deconstruct into the smaller subatomic particles. As part of this scenario the sun of our solar system will burn out of fuel and explode in nuclear fission engulfing all planets until it contracts to non-reactive iron. The atom-energies that constitute the universe will continue to defy gravity and expand, ultimately making the universe a materially unviable place of energy for human consumption and accommodation.
The non-atom-energies we call spirit-energy created by the ‘Word’, the Soul and Spirit of life and Self, have been created to be independent, unique, and sovereign maintaining their integrity continuing onwards, unchanging, infinitely, immortally and eternally.
Atom-Energy of Living Cells and Spirit-Energy of People
The DNA within living cells is organised into structures called chromosomes, a helix structure. The chromosome is a single large molecule of DNA in a cell (deoxyribonucleic acid) which contains many genes produced from nucleotide (a particular structure with function - we call amino acid or protein - sequences.
Coded instructions of genes within the DNA of each cell make up all the characteristics of a human being. Human cells have one set of 23 chromosomes from each parent, totalling 46 single linear nuclear chromosomes. Every cell has this DNA except for red-blood cells.
Our DNA is 98% identical to that of the chimpanzee (ape family). This small difference in DNA between humans and chimpanzees begins to ask and answer questions regarding the nature of evolution, and the probable pre-existence of DNA programming, which ultimately directs and instructs complex significant changes in a species. Changes between species can be measured in percentages of DNA differences. These phenomenal changes from one species to another are practically and rationally beyond the bounds of the simple interpretation of Darwin’s theory of evolution. We can understand this when we observe humans having branched off from the ape family, when yet there has been no significant changes or evolutionary characteristics within chimpanzees over millions of years.
Darwin evolution is defined as changes in DNA caused by the idea of ‘survival of the fittest’. Darwin described the mutations and adaptations of genes occurring in DNA to survive to allow a particular species to survive in a changing environment. But evolution as an outcome of mutations and adaptations in DNA to allow survival in environments cannot explain how a particular species, say the chimpanzee, can remain unchanged over millions of years, whilst another species, humans, has been predetermined to genetically branch-off from the chimpanzee.
A genetic branching-off of humans from the species of chimpanzee that supposedly replaces chimpanzees in the interests of its survival, but which species (chimpanzee) exists mostly unchanged today. A rationale method of thinking to make sense of the significant branching-off of one species from another is the possibility, or probability, that DNA has been pre-programmed and predestined to evolve at a pre-determined time and place at a specific cosmic time-frame.
The 46 chromosomes in each cell are formed of millions of genes. Genes are segments of DNA of nucleotides that carry genetic information arranged as 4 letters, A, C, G, and T. Between humans, DNA differs by only 0.2%. There is 6 feet of DNA in each cell and parts of this DNA consist of genes that each carry the instructions to make any organ in the body, but are switched to make up a particular organ. If one of these letters (complex proteins) that make up a gene is out of sequence, or place, then the individual may be born with some particular ability or disability.
Genes are inherited from our parents and are the ‘blueprint’ that determines our height, hair and eye colour, physique, temperament and facial features etc. These are the ‘physical’ or atom-energy structures distinguishing us apart from one another. Inherited genes produce billions of possible combinations to allow each individual to possess a unique set of characteristics as a basis for their physique (atom-energy) and personality (spirit-energy) to develop as a unique being. These characteristics may include the propensity to be introvert (shy), or extrovert (outgoing), etc. Characteristics of personality are parts that make up Self and so are spiritual or spirit-energy (non atom-energy) and cannot be detected and scrutinised under any scientific tool.
For instance, the brain circuits and pathways of billions of neurons in the brain, and their bio-chemical transmitters like dopamine and serotonin (atom-energy), are designed to interface and interact with the Self (spirit-energy), whilst the spirit of Self exists in the world of atom-energy. For example, too little dopamine and serotonin, and the Self can become more prone to depression. The amounts of dopamine and serotonin produced in the (CNF) Central Nervous System, will be determined by the instructions transmitted by their unique DNA. Electron microscopes and scans will never detect the unique feelings and thoughts of an individual, as they are a form of energy that is spirit rather than atom-energy. However, the brain’s bio-chemical transmitters and hormones, can be measured and observed in their area of activity because they are atom-energy structures. Self’s personality (spirit-energy) can also be influenced by the particular nature of the genes (atom-energy) in cerebral construction, such as when some one has a disability.
Humans have evolved with the largest and most diverse brain of all the species, and as such have the capability of possessing and utilising a higher level of intelligence, self-consciousness and freewill. Importantly though, these higher quality facets in humans give them their unique ability to overcome or change any part of their personality they wish to change or develop.
The Atom-Energies of Non-Life into the Atom-Energy of Life with Spirit-Energy
How did atom-energies of only bare rock, water and non-living inanimate structures and functions etc evolve further to produce the atom-energies of living life its self. And how did the atom-energy of non-life, form bacteria, viruses and one-cell amoebae, to then evolve into multiple cell bacteria’s, viruses, plants, insects, animals, chimpanzees and humans?
Does the broad structure and function of atom ‘life’ also include energy we may call Soul and Spirit-energy, being different forms of energy to that of atom-energy? But never-the-less being compatible.
Life is defined as atom-energy structures and functions that can absorb energy, or fuel, allowing that structure to develop, mature and multiply. Pre-meditated pre-programmed design and order of evolution has changed and morphed the structure and function of non-life atom-energy into the structures and functions of the atom-energy of life. Life includes the structure and function of the atom-energy of life-cells and their DNA, with genes that transmit potential characteristics of the parents to their ‘offspring’.
Over billions of years chimpanzees (apes) have evolved with larger more complex brains than their predecessors, enabling them to form higher-level instincts and intellect, where these animals are able to utilise ‘primitive’ forms of tools (sticks of wood) to help them catch food, insects and fruit, etc. Other living creatures also have high levels of instinct and intelligence, such as dolphins, cats, birds and dogs, and so on.
Many animals are able to give and receive affection, and enjoy human company, which may be closer to spiritual-energy rather than atom-energy. Other animals have been designed to remain unevolved as being more ‘primitive’, such as the Tasmanian devil, most insects, cockroaches, sharks and crocodiles etc, that haven’t changed over millions of years, still exhibiting, more often than not, antisocial and base instinct-like tendencies.
Humans, through the design and order of predetermined evolution, have evolved with complex DNA increasing the size of their brain, and thus, the capability of the brain to perform and provide the human spiritual function of consciousness, and meta-cognition - to think and reflect about what they are thinking. Thus evolves a conscious thinking human being and a Self that is in essence, an integral, sovereign, unique and independent ‘mover’ – all things being equal, in terms of cerebral challenges and environmental limitations. Consciousness allows Self to think about what we are thinking about, and the will to choose how we think, feel, behave and act. This in essence is the non-atom structure of the human Spirit.
Structures of atom-energy are visible because the both absorb various waves lengths of visible light whilst also reflecting different wave-lengths of visible light. The reflected wave-lengths of light are what our eyes, retina and brain and Self interpret as a particular colour giving the structure 3-dimensional shape and form. Super sensitive electronic detectors can measure the electromagnetic output of atom-energies. On the other hand, thoughts, feelings and behaviours are entwined with personal spiritual experiences, which cannot be captured and measured by science, as they exist as spirit-energy as opposed to atom-energy structures and functions including photons of electromagnetic energy. But the spirit-energy of Self is designed to interface with the structures and functions of atom-energy. Self’s body/anatomy is a structure with functions of atom-energy utilised by Self – spirit-energy - here on earth.
The Differences and Interactions of Atom-Energy and Spirit-Energy
How can our bodies (atom-energy) and Self (spirit-energy) interact with each other? When we touch and place our finger onto another atom-energy structure, we are placing our finger, made of carbon atom-energy, onto the atom-energy of another structure. Atoms or atom-energy are made of subatomic particle energies of protons, neutrons and electrons, which in atom form are tightly bound together, producing electrical charges of energy. So the atom-energy of a particular structure can connect or interact with the atom-energy of another structure, or the same structure if we are touching one human finger to another human finger.
Different structures of atom-energy are made from different atom-energy elements and so have different electrical charges and electromagnetic energy. Structures, both non-living and living, comprise of in essence, the energy of atoms, which by definition possess no colour - when they do not or cannot reflect photons of visible light of particular wave-lengths - e.g. in the darkness of night, defining structures inherently invisible. Structures of atom-energy are also weightless. A ton of concrete would be floating around in space if it were not for the influence of the atom-energy pull of planet earth, the sun and the solar system. So what we may personally perceive to be the reality of our experience in this world is in fact not what it appears to be.
Our experiences of the world is brought about by an interaction of the subatomic workings of the structures we call the brain with the ability of the non-atom spirit-energy of the Self to make conscious interpretations. Atom-energies are structures of stimuli ‘taken-in’ by the five senses of sound, sight, touch, smell, and taste, and relayed to the brain for Self’s spirit-energy to interpret and make personal sense of. What we understand to be seemingly the reality of what we experience of the world, in terms of atom-energy structures with functions, may require a major shift in mindset and conscious perception.
Such an interpretation of the world will require a significant mind-shift. A degree in mind-shift in out-look as would have been required with the discovery of the earth being round instead of flat, and the stars not literally the lights of heaven, but the burning balls of nuclear fires atom-energy many light years away.
Opposite to the structure and function of atom-energy as observed in the universe, the essence of Self and consciousness of the human being is a spiritual-energy with function rather than the structure of atom-energy. The spirit-energy of Self, is of course, designed to interact with the structures and functions of atom-energy, whilst Self exists as a unique, sovereign, willed, and independent being, but with the designed capacity to interact and interface with the structures and functions of atom-energies. The atom-energy of the brain is the designed vehicle for the atom-less energy of the conscious Self of spirit-energy to exist and function on earth.
Self simply defined as spirit, consciousness and will, etc, surely must be, in philosophical, theological and scientific paradigms, described as being a unique form of energy with unique properties and characteristics perhaps much more akin to that which created the energy brought forth to create the Big Bang, and so the universe and life. So the spirit-energy of Self could be more akin to being made in and of, or similar to, the ‘likeness and image’ of the ‘Creator’. But which is uniquely imbibed with the essence of definitive integrity, sovereignty, independence, and free-will whilst possessing the characteristics of immortality.
A Shift in Personal Mindset
This information about structures and functions of atom-energy cognitively and spiritually internalised may be a new way for people to absorb and perceive all that exists in the world, including other human beings. As previously aired, this new way of looking at the world if you choose to do so, will unequivocally require a willed and intentional shift in the person’s mindset and perception of the universe.
A necessary change and shift in mindset would be similar to the change and shift needed to believe and acknowledge a change of thinking from the illusional belief of a flat planet to believing – through scientific evidence – the planet to be round. This would not have been an insignificant shift in mindset for people of that time by any means, from moving from the illusion of a belief in a flat planet to acknowledging the reality of the planet being round. Rather than perceiving what we observe and experience everyday, such as solids, liquids and gases etc, at ‘face value’, but rather understanding them as structures with functions of different atom-energies with the qualities and characteristics atoms possess. This change in mindset will also include the manner in which we view human beings as not only structures of atom-energy, but more importantly, individuals that by definition, function and exist as beings possessing the energy of Spirit and Soul
Intellectually perceiving that the structures we observe and experience are that of atom-energies, which are in essence, invisible, mass-less and weightless, but with electromagnetic and interactive properties, will ultimately allow the viewing of the world from this unique understanding and perspective. This change in human mindset and shift in perception involves a new understanding of Self, with functional dimensions that include, consciousness, personality and freewill etc, which are ‘spiritual’ energies, rather than atom-energies, but which all the same, can interface with atom-energies.
The structure and functions of atom-energies, at any one moment, may change, for example, when the structure of atom-energy in the form of the body changes in ‘death’ and consequently decomposes but remains in existence restructured and with new functions. But non-atom energy, or more correctly, the spirit-energy of Self, maintains its sovereign integrity, continuing immortally onwards throughout eternal infinity.
We are able to differentiate the differences between two significant attributes of the human species, the structure and function of anatomy (atom-energy), and the part, which is spirit-energy of the unique Self, with consciousness, encompassing mind of thoughts, feelings and will. These spiritual attributes are used for Self, in interface with the atom-energy of the brain, to function and experience, perceive and interpret stimuli in the environment as well as interact with the spirit-energies of other people. Self and Self’s consciousness etc is a spiritual energy made without atoms. This is, atom-less energy and as such, a spirit-energy that maintains its specific human sovereign integrity and identity, eternally and without loss of energy.
CHAPTER 10
THE ‘WORD’, SOUL AND SPIRIT
The Need for the ‘Word’, Soul, and Spirit
Energy from Nothing
Changing DNA of Atom-Energy Through Spiritual Energy
Made in the Likeness and Image of the ‘Creator’
The Interaction and Disconnection between Atom-Energy and Spirit-Energy
The Interactions of Atom-Energy Structures with Spirit-Energy
Creator’s Soul and Spirit Lies within the Creation
The Fingerprints of Soul and Spirit in both the Non-Living and Spirit-Energies
Atom-Energy and the Spirit-Energy of Self
First and Second Laws of Thermodynamics
What Does the Word Atom Mean?
The Need for the ‘Word’, Soul, and Spirit
The word ‘Word’, as we read it in the Book of Genesis of the Bible, could be interpreted as meaning the intentional Will of a Force, Supreme Being, Supernatural Being, ‘God’, ‘Allah’, or whatever name or symbol tagged to the potential entity of a ‘Power’ we ascribe to as being the potential ‘Creator’ of the Big Bang. And as such, the creation of the universe, life and human beings.
The creation of the Universe, being that which consists of Space, Time, Atom-energy, Photons of light, and the Electromagnetic fields, generated by these omnipotent energies, also include the energy of Spirit and Soul. This is the creation of a universe that when its parts are scientifically deconstructed, it is so unbelievably and incomprehensibly complex, that rationally and scientifically it would be remiss to think that such a universe could not have come into being by itself - created from nothing. There is one scientific law most of us will not argue with and that is, it is impossible to get ‘something’ from nothing. The Big Bang requires as necessary, some form of deliberate, yet incomprehensible, omnipotent intentional Will or Power to come into being.
The different of atoms of structures are identical except for the composition of their different number of protons, neutrons and electrons. Atoms interact with one another to form the various chemical and bio-chemical molecules of compounds (made of different atoms) and elements (made of same atoms) of which the structures of the universe consist.
We may well ask about the processes of the executive Will and Thought initiating from and through some form of Creator that has produced the complex entities of Energy, Time, Space, and atom-energy structures including Self’s Soul and Spirit. Scientists have undertaken research with the 118 different atoms (elements) to recreate the design and order of the process of evolution to create atom-energy structures and life. But they have conceded to the realisation that it would require the incomprehensible complex bio-chemical inter and intra-interactions, inevitably necessary to create all components and structures of the structures and functions in the universe, both non-life (inanimate-inorganic) and life (animate-organic) which they are nable to scientifically repeat.
Energy from Nothing
We continue to ask the question, how can Subatomic particles, Energy, Time, Space, Energy, Self, Soul and Spirit not existing before the Big Bang, then instantly, in less than a nanosecond come into existence from nothing? Into existence in a nanosecond because science can verify the time of the beginning of the Big Bang by identifying and measuring the electromagnetic radiation, through the Doppler effect, measuring the radiation from atom-energy as being 13.7 billion years ago. So before the universe was there nothing?
Interestingly, Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity E = mc2 might be a clue that alludes to answering some of the enduring and timeless questions regarding the make-up of universe as atom-energy. But which equation does not account for the existence of spirit-energy. Einstein’s equation E = mc2, and its inverse m = E divided by c2, is ambiguous in that mass, matter and energy are incontrovertibly different forms of energies, some from atom-energies. Atom-energies differentiate from the spirit energy of Self, Spirit, and Soul by their essences and functions.
A ‘Creator’, through voluntary willed thoughtful intention, brought forth both forms of energies, atom-energy structures with functions, and spiritual-energies, whereby the essence of atom-energy is manifest in structure and functions of and in the universe, spirit-energies manifest as the spirit and soul of Self.
The Soul and Spirit of Self, an energy emanating forth from that made in the image and likeness of the spiritual-energy of the ‘Word’ and Being of the ‘Creator’. This energy, by definition of divine will and existence is an energy that does not ‘break down’ in structure as atom-energy inevitably is designed to do. As atom-energy structures eventually change they ultimately dissipate and become diluted whereby their atom-energy ceases to be of any specific obvious utility to human consumption and usage.
The ‘Special Energy’ of the ‘Word’ - Will and Thought - manifests its self a new at the initiation and within the Energy of the Big Bang. So in essence, the universe possesses qualities and characteristics of Soul, as being manifest in the intentions and ‘products’ of the ‘Creator’. This initial plasma of subatomic particles of energy has over millions of years through complex atom-energy interactions and nuclear fusion and fission, formed into the atom-energy of the structures with functions we identify with in the universe today. These are the atom-energies of structures with functions that have ‘evolved’, from the beginning of the universe, from a divine idea, image, vision, thought, will and goal of the ‘creator’.
The atom-energy of non-life structures with functions over billions of years have evolved into the atom-energies of life. Life defined as a structure and form of atom-energy with soul and spirit including base instincts that can grow, move, work, and reproduce. With humans, we observe that the atom-energy of the anatomy allows Self to reproduce both atom-energies of anatomy and spirit-energies of unique, sovereign, and independent beings. This is, the spiritual-energy of life itself being the individual spirit of Self, and other Self’s that comprise of spirit and soul as an outcome of the product of the divine ‘word’. The ‘Word’ was ‘that’ which designed, ordered and pre-programmed subatomic particles which some evolved, through pre-programming, into life cells with DNA - being the ‘new’ catalyst for the process of advanced evolution for the formation of traits and characteristics in flora, fauna and humans.
Humans possess a combination of about 5,000 characteristics inherited from their parents. The multitude of possible interactions of these characteristics makes for a unique human being. Human personal characteristics partly define how we think, feel and behave, and are by definition, spirit-energies – they can’t be captured in a laboratory and deconstructed into subatomic particles – because they are arguably in essence a conjunct of the complex Self’s soul and spirit. Individually we are totally unique beings compared to those who have existed before us, those who exist now, and to those who will exist after us. Individually we are uniquely special beings who need to internalise this positive spiritual characteristic and quality.
Changing DNA of Atom-Energy Through Spiritual Energy
Not only are physical features transferred from parents to offspring, but also the invisible constructs of non-atom spirit-energy, being the individuals non-atom ‘traits’ and ‘characteristics’, such as a persons’ unique and particular temperament. When we talk about personal ‘characteristics’ and ‘traits’ we are talking about temperaments or facets of individuals’ personalties, for example, the characteristic of extroversion (outgoing personality), or those who experience the characteristic of introversion (shy-withdrawn personality), or who those with characteristics some degree of extroversion and introversion.
We are born with billions of neural connections, circuits and pathways in the brain, of which many are pruned if considered unused or unnecessary. Through use and inherited bias particular connections remain and become part of the brain’s ‘hard wiring’. Hereditary factors include any abnormalities or the balance and quantity and function of particular neural transmitters and hormones that influence a person’s ‘particular characteristics. This favouring of particular characteristics is a result of a person’s specifically inherited unique neural networks and amounts of neural transmitters and hormones. Environmental and parental nurturing and responses can also have an effect on conditioning and reprogramming of a person’s thought patterns, emotions and behaviours. The good news is that a person who has had a negative message written on the slate of who they are or recorded on the tape of who they are has the spiritual-energy to manipulate and reprogram these traits, through self belief and positive messages because they are not set in concrete.
We have also inherited through pre-programmed design and order of the ‘Word’ spiritual-energy passed on from person to person, from conception, and through the soul of life. This spirit of consciousness can be understood to be a different for of energy to atom-energy but which is transmitted through life, and cells and DNA. This existence of spirit-energy may go some way toward understanding the ‘re-birthing’ from species to species, and of human spiritual-energies of self-awareness, consciousness, and all things being equal, independence, freewill of choice. Spiritual energies are the intrinsic essence of Self, and can inevitably, if the individual is determined to, override and change Self’s inherited traits and learnt behaviours that influence any considered undesirable thoughts and behaviours. Personal traits and learnt attitudes and behaviours can be formed through a person’s ability to choose and decide a direction of action as being the catalyst to think and behave differently.
Cerebral neural connections and pathways are pruned or developed. It is a case of ‘use it and loose it’, or don’t use it and create new neural connections and pathways that ‘hard-wire’ particular chosen positive thoughts and behaviours. So a person who is shy can become more outgoing if practised, and a person who is outgoing can become reserved if these alternative behaviours are practised. New neural connections grow and new pathways and circuits develop as the individual behaves and thinks differently.
Just because a person has inherited a particular trait or characteristic does not mean they are ‘stuck’ in behaving or thinking in a particular way. They have the intrinsic power of personal spiritual-energy of Self to potentially change some atom-energy genetically inherited cerebrum configurations of neural connections.
It is not an irrational cognisant leap to contemplate that the non-atom spiritual-energy of the ‘Word’, which brought forth the atom-energy of the Big Bang, also brought forth spiritual-energy that we may describe as being in part, the essence of Self, Soul and Spirit. The Creator that brought forth atom-energy manifest in the plasma of subatomic particles as a result of the Big Bang, also by definition of the ‘Creator’s’ creation, must have transmitted to creation, a spiritual essence of its divine Self through Will, Thought, design and order in the form of Soul and Spirit.
Made in the Likeness and Image of the ‘Creator’
When humans create a product of atom-energy, say in the structure, form and function of art or architecture, such cannot exist without the input of both atom-energy of anatomy but more importantly the input of spirit-energy of Self in the form of Self’s will, thought and activation of movement and behaviour. Likewise, when we produce another human-being through procreation, we not only pass on atom-energy through sperm, eggs and the embryo, but through design and order, we provide the impetus for humans to possess the capacity to inherit the energy of spirit as being inherently the essence of the characteristics of a human being evolved from the beginning of time. This is the spiritual-energy of Self, which by definition and logic, must consist of that which is a part of, but in sovereignty, of the energy of the first Soul and Spirit.
Humans’ non atom-energy being the spiritual-energy defined as the sovereign and independent Self, Soul and Spirit that exists, but resembles the potential image and likeness of a ‘Supreme Being’ or the infinite and immortal ‘Word’ emanating from the divine spiritual-energy of the ‘original’ Will and Thought of creation.
Soul and Spirit, the spiritual-energy - the ‘core’ and ‘essence’ - of that, which is embodied within the structure and function life’s atom-energy. This is energy both atom based and spirit based derived from the divine Energy of the ‘Word’/‘Creator’. From the soul of life or life’s soul comes forth the existence and expression of the human Spirit as a culmination and pinnacle of billions of years of evolution driven by the pre-programmed, planned, and designed intentions, will and spirit of the Creator. A significant part of the reproduction of human atom-energy, and with it, spiritual-energy, we can pinpoint as being that of the existence of evolved DNA. The existence of living atom-energy begets the embodiment and the existence of the spiritual-energy of Self’s consciousness manifest as a spiritual individual, and sovereign being.
Human beings function with spirit because of the evolution of highly complex and sophisticated atom-energies of brain components designed to interface with the infinite immortal Self, allowing the non-atom spiritual-energy of Self to uniquely exist. Human spiritual-energy exists in harmony, all things being equal, with the structure and function of human ‘physical’ atom-energies. Brains - fuelled by the atom-energy of glucose converted from the atom-energy of carbohydrates and proteins, which with the bio-chemical structure and function of hormones and neurotransmitters create electrical impulses that travel through trillions of neural inter-connections and pathways interfacing with the non-atom spirit- energy Self.
This allows the existence of humans to possess consciousness and self-awareness (non-atom spiritual-energy) and self-determining characteristic of free-will to live a life and exist with the integrity and sovereignty humanness that commands a Being with dignity and the expression of personal choices and independence, all things being equal.
So we can surmise that there are two types of energy, non-atom spiritual-energy that always was, and always existed, and that always will exist, and the energy of atoms in the form of structures and functions design, plan and pre-programming at the beginning of time.
The omnipotent and eternal spiritual-energy from which the Big Bang initiated, as a manifestation of the ‘Word’, is spiritual-energy creating atom-energy and the capability of spiritual-energy to interact with the various structures and functions of atom-energy.
The Interaction and Disconnection between Atom-Energy and Spirit-Energy
Human Beings attribute their existence to both forms of energy, atom- energy and spiritual-energy. Atom-energy makes up the structure and function of the human body, and brain and non-atom spirit-energy is the energy of Self being Spirit and Soul that, from rational perspective and common sense, is energy made in the ‘likeness and image’ of the ‘Creator’. This form of energy, spiritual-energy allows us as humans, to be individuals with consciousness and self-awareness and with the ability to think about what we are thinking about (meta-cognition). The spirit-energy of Self gives Self the ability to reflect upon one’s thoughts, emotions and behaviours, to the extent that they can view these experiences of thought from different perspectives, and therefore give them alternative meanings. The intra-respective Self can contemplate for themselves changing and a different future of goals, options and outcomes. The spirit-energy of Self interacts with the structures and functions of atom-energy that make up what we term the brain and central nervous system. The atom-energy of the bio-chemical elements of the brain and nervous system are designed to be capable of interacting with the spirit-energy of Self, consciousness, will, and thought etc.
The non-atom spiritual-energy of Self allows humans as spirit and soul, to maintain a personal spiritual integrity as sovereign individuals which spirit possesses the characteristics and qualities to live forever, infinitely, and eternally as immortal beings. The Self’s spirit-energy maintains its sovereignty and integrity and independence eternally though created from the spirit-energy that is omnipotent and ‘always was’, the ‘Creator’. The ‘Creator’ of which we speak, is the divine spirit-energy which created the various structures and functions of atom-energies in the universe, and from which complex interactions and evolution, willed and guided by divine design and order, formed non-life, Life, the Soul and Spirit of Self.
This non-atom spirit-energy of Self is similar to the ‘Creator’s non-atom spiritual-energy, which nonetheless interacts with the structures and functions made from atom-energy, but from which spiritual-energy also maintains the sovereignty and integrity of its non-atom spirit Self. The structures and functions of atom-energy changes over time, as ice changes to liquid water and vice versa and eventually the structure and function of living anatomy decomposes or changes to ash and gasses (cremation) or compost (bury). Self’s non-atom spiritual-energy comprising of Consciousness, Spirit and Soul, etc, then separates, departs through being disconnected from the changing (‘at death’) of these atom-energy structures with functions, but spirit of Self continues to exist indefinitely forever as a sovereign, independent and unique person and being.
The Interactions of Atom-Energy Structures with Spirit-Energy
Subatomic particles and components of atoms, and atoms themselves, are in essence, invisible, weightless and mass-less. Atoms consist of the complex interaction of different forms of electrical charges of energy of subatomic particles. Atom energies generate electromagnetic energy and fields from the structures and functions of atom-energy formed from the compilations of tightly bound atoms into molecules to produce structures and functions of complex atom-energies. Smaller structures and functions of atom-energy include things like specks of dust, or dead skin (carbon atom-energy) etc. Interestingly, a speck of dust or a skin cell consists of about 3 billion atoms of energy. These atoms become a conglomerate of energy, which we perceive and identify as specks of dust or, in larger quantities, the structure and functions of skin and bone made from the atom-energy of the structure and function of carbon.
So we can see with our eyes, and touch with our fingers, structures of atom-energy. But we can only visibly ‘see’ these atom structures because certain wavelengths of light (photons), being part of the electromagnetic spectrum, are reflected by the trillions of closely compacted atoms of a particular structure whilst other wave-lengths of light are absorbed by them. Which wavelengths of visible light are reflected from a structure of atom-energy will determine the colour we perceive the structure to be, as a combination of the interaction of the designed atom-energy structure and function of our eyes, optical nerve, and cerebral (brain) etc, which then interact with the spirit-energy of Self and Self’s consciousness and awareness, and hence, perception.
The atom structures we perceive to be ‘black’ are in fact atom-energies that absorb all the different wavelengths of visible light, or at night of course are unable to reflect any wave lengths of light. Atom-energy structures we perceive to be ‘white’ are atoms that reflect all the wave- lengths of visible light. Atom structures we perceive to be coloured, absorb and reflect different combinations of light wave-lengths. So without the electromagnetic wave lengths of visible light being reflected and/or absorbed by structures of atom-energies, and without human ability to interact atom-energies of eye and brain with these structures, and without the spirit-energies of consciousness for interpretation, all atom structures would be invisible and unable to be differentiated from each other by both humans and other animals.
Human brains are the earthly vehicles that enable us to interact with the spirit-energies of Self. The bio-chemical structures of the human brain enable the spirit-energy of Self to experience the ‘touch’ of atom-energy structures. This is because trillions of atoms come together, to form enough atom-energy or charge, and interact with our atom-energy structures of, for example, the hand, skin, nerves, brain, neurotransmitters and electrical impulses, etc, and to then be perceived as a structure with function by the spirit-energy of Self.
We experience the sensation of ‘touch’ because the atom-energy from one structure interacts with that of another structure, our finger and hand etc. This creates electromagnetic fields that cause electrical impulses to travel via the atom-energy of nerve cells to that part of the atom-energy of the brain, which enables the spirit of Self. to interpret and ‘judge’ this experience.
Think of the atom-energy structure of your finger (carbon atoms structured as a finger) touching the atom-energy structures of ice and water. Everyone will perceive the ‘touch’ of structures with different nuances determined by past and present psychological experiences processed in the brain, and interpreted as specific information by your spirit-energy of consciousness.
The structures of atom-energy are also weightless. Structures made from atoms have no weight, they are weightless, but we perceive these structures to have weight, because it is, in human worldly terms ‘heavy’, because energy is needed to ‘pick-it-up’ or ‘lift it’, and also because these structures gravitate towards the ground. But atom-energy structures are in fact weightless. What makes atom structures feel heavy, or fall to earth is the gravitational pull, or the electromagnetic atom-energy of one larger structure (earth), enacting upon another smaller structure of atom-energy.
The fact or evidence that atom structures are weightless are noticed by observing structures of atom-energies in space. Once atom structures escape the electromagnetic atom-energy gravitation of planet earth, smaller structures of atom-energy become weightless and float in space more or less at random.
Structures made from atoms are, in essence electrical charges that bind together to form structures with different functions, such as we observe in ice, water, steam. Atom-energy structures are colourless (invisible without light), mass-less (measured in electrical volts, eV) and weightless (without gravitational electromagnetic forces). So to this end, what we perceive and experience structures with function of atom-energy to be, through our atom-energy senses and then spirit-energy consciousness, are in fact not what we may have originally perceived them to be.
Because of this new information regarding atom-energy structuring the world, a major shift in mind-set will probably need to take place. We can, as we think about, reflect upon, talk about, observe, and view the world, look the world and people with a new found mindset, gleaned from new scientific information. This change and shift in individuals’ thinking about how and what the world is made, will inevitably become after time, involuntary and second nature in thought of mind.
This new mindset is accomplished by practising and learning to remember to view the structures of the world as being that made from atom-energy and interacting with the spirit-energy of Self. A similar shift in mind set must have been adopted by individuals from ancient civilisation, who at one time thought the planet was flat, but through new evidential information needed to dramatically adjust their ‘non negotiable and grid-iron perception’ of the world they walked on, from one that was flat, to one which is round.
In the same way, post-modern individuals need to think of all things in the world as being, in essence, invisible, mass-less, and weightless structures with functions made from various atom-energies. This continued change in mindset will significantly impact upon the way we view the world, Self, and others.
Self’s spirit-energy of consciousness etc, is released from atom-energy structure at the time of the change in atom-energy structure of the anatomy i.e. ‘death’. At this time spirit-energy of Self ceases to interact with the atom-energy of the human structure and function of body, including the brain, when these structures can no longer retain their integrity of structure and function, but ‘break-down’ or ‘decompose’, in turn diffusing to other forms of atom-energy e.g. ashes, heat, light and gasses, if the body is cremated. Then the spirit-energy of Self is now disconnected, becoming unattached and set free from its earthly atom-energy interface. But spirit-energy of Self retains its integrity as a unique, sovereign, and independent human essence of soul and spirit.
Creator’s Soul and Spirit Lies within the Creation
When humans create or build structure, architecture, artwork, or a culinary dish etc, we use not only the non-living structures of atom-energies in the form of cooking utensils and cutlery, but living structures of atom-energies in the form of human hands, body/anatomy and brain etc. When humans create, we also use the non-atom spirit-energies of thought, will, belief, ideas, images and design, order, plan and execution of these as the goals.
This process is encapsulated within Self and expressed as a manifestation of Self’s soul and spirit. Self, being the creator of these creations must then leave part of their Self’ being, the will, design and creation of Self and thus part of Self but in an independent and sovereign standing. Thus their creation is a part of the likeness and image of their Being as a function of their soul and spirit. The soul and spirit of the creations part of Self is retained as soul and spirit-energy, akin to blue-prints and ‘finger-prints’ of the Self, the designer, planner and doer of the art and creation.
This multi-dimensional process of creation is a simple analogy of that described as ‘being made in the likeness and image of the Creator’. The artist’s creations of structures of atom-energy (paintings, houses, etc) did not come into being by themselves, but required essentially as a major contribution for production, both the structural atom-energy of body and the spirit-energy of the characteristics of Self and Self’s spirit and soul.
Now if someone else recreates what we have created, then that person too, will use both the atom-energy of their body and the spirit-energy of themselves. But in recreating what has already been created, they will need to use similar structures of atom-energy as in body parts, and use of spirit-energy as in the unique design, order and plan of that which is created ascertained from consciousness, thoughts, feelings and free-will etc. This can be an analogy for the mystery of both the atom-energy structures created from the existence of subatomic particles, brought forth in the form of the Big Bang by a ‘Creator’, and the existence of other forms of energies, including atom-energy, electromagnetic energy, dark-energy, dark-matter and spirit-energy, all designed and planned with thought and will.
The Fingerprints of Soul and Spirit in both the Non-Living and Spirit-Energies
Over time both atom-energy and spirit-energy evolved by way of the predetermined pre-programmed complex interactions of various atoms, and the evolution of non-living structures of atom-energy into living structures of atom-energy, such as life cells with DNA. This evolution of non-life into life enabled the already existing essence of spirit and soul (spirit-energy) - being the ‘fingerprints’ and part of the ‘Creator’s’ will - to infuse into, and interface with the structures and functions of atom-energy (anatomy).
The spirit-energy uses the atom-energy of anatomy (brain, etc) as a vehicle in this world, as designed, ordered, and planed, to exist and live until the atom-energy of anatomy changes in structure and function enabling the spirit-energy of Self to continue onwards in Self’s journey of Self. Self being that which possesses and maintains integrity and sovereignty of the individual Self with characteristics of consciousness, thoughts, feelings, will and personality, galvanised as the essence of Being and perhaps akin to ‘the likeness and image of the Creator’.
The ability for atom-energy and spirit-energy to interact is in itself, mysterious. This may leave an array of imaginative possibilities of spirit dynamics open to interpretation because of individuals’ unique and sovereign personal experience and perspective from living in the world impacted by informed knowledge. Now consideration of the existence of both the atom-energy of structures and their functions, and the spirit-energy of Self may be contemplated in terms of atom-energy and spirit-energy being diverse and different forms of energy, with different interacting functions. Remember both energies are invisible, mass-less and weightless. But with different properties and characteristics. Atom-energy is able to interact with light-waves to make visible, and gravity to give weight, whilst spirit-energy is the essence of Self, and includes all the characteristics of spirit.
Having said this, it must be remembered that atoms are in themselves energy but we label this energy by naming them with words such as ‘subatomic particles’, nucleus, neutrons, protons and electrons. Atoms are energy made from the will of the ‘Creator’, but with properties, as mentioned above, that uniquely differentiate them from spirit-energy and spirit-energy from atom-energy.
Atom-Energy and the Spirit-Energy of Self
The structures and functions of atom-energy are what we incorrectly call ‘mass’. Atom-energy structures called or known as ‘mass’ are ‘simply’ the same entity as identified and measured in and as electrical volts (eV). The definition of energy in terms of sub-atomic and atom-energy legitimately allows us to surmise the genuine possibility that the Energy needed to initiate the Big Bang is manifestly different from sub-atomic and atom-energy that make up the world, but is nevertheless a form of energy that atom-energy transpires and births. The creator and initiator of such energy is in itself unique.
The ‘Creator’s energy is made of divine unique forms of energies including atom-energy and spirit-energy, enabling, through will, the formation of the beginning and essence of the universe and that eventuated, over time, as structures and functions of atom-energy and the spirit-energy of Self. We can describe spirit-energy as that energy that must have always been, akin to and described in the Book of Genesis that which is ‘made in the likeness and image of the creator and coming into existence through ‘The Word’, but for human beings is designed as the essence of individual spirit-self sovereign integrity.
As discussed above, atom-energy ultimately changes in its structure and functions, slowly reconstructing into different forms of atom-energy, as in ice restructures into water and the body to ash. But the Spirit-energy of Self and Self’s soul and spirit do not change form, but retain their sovereignty and integrity, and continue onwards indefinitely and infinitely. Scientists can measure and capture the electro-volts of atom-energy of structures with functions, which is contrary to the characteristics of spirit-energy of consciousness, thoughts, emotions and the experiences of interpersonal relationships.
Interestingly, if all the sun’s power could be focused on one spot, there still wouldn’t be enough photon-energy, electromagnetism, light waves and heat, to make an ounce of atom-energy structure. This is because photon-energy consists of a different configuration of energy from subatomic particles, but with unique characteristics. This electromagnetic-energy is the E (energy) in Einstein’s famous equation. It is much easier to produce the photons of light-waves and the electromagnetic-energy defined in the electromagnetic spectrum from atom-energy structures than the reverse as in creating atom-energy structures from electromagnetic energy. Atom-energy especially when the atom is split, has within it enormous energy, but electromagnetic-energy derives from atom-energy interactions and are more likely unable to produce even minute quantities of atom-energy structures. And hence, the unique energy of the ‘Creator’ is something special and to behold as we observe that which is all energy before us.
First and Second Laws of Thermodynamics
The first law of thermodynamics equates to the fact that the amount of energy in the universe never changes in quantity, but the second law of thermodynamics is the fact that structures and functions of atom-energy and electromagnetic spectrum-energy (heat, light, radiation, etc.) change in functions as their atom-energy structure restructure. For example, ash, gases, heat and light from a burning log, or cremation, are residues of particular atom-energy structures with functions that restructure and change in function. Some of this energy will ultimately join the plasma of nebulas energy in the universe, to be dragged, by gravitation, into black holes, or become part of atomic furnaces that is the mechanism for the birth of new stars and galaxies.
The sun will burn itself out within 4.5 billion years, and the universe will continue to expand until it no longer retains its integrity as we know it, expanding outwards as the continuation of force of energy from the initial Big Bang.
An incomprehensible unimaginable enormous amount of energy was required to produce the beginnings of the universe that formed many energies of which we some to be the energy of heat, photons and subatomic particles. These together formed atom-energies of structures with functions through the complex chemical processes, that eventually ‘fertilised’ the required ‘seeds’ to in parallel, and in conjunction with the design of evolution, form both the structures and functions of non-life, and eventually life.
I can’t emphasise enough it seems, that the structure and function of atom-energies of the human body breaks down as atom-energies restructure into other structures with different functions decomposing into other forms of structures of atom-energies, through age or illness etc. However, the spirit-energy of Self, and Self’s Soul and Spirit maintain their integrity, independence and sovereignty infinitely forever.
What Does the Word Atom Mean?
The English word ‘atom’ and electromagnetic spectrum of energy are vocal sounds we consciously produce to describe and label what humans experience. The problem with labelling structures and ‘things’ in the universe creates a psychological situation where we cannot consciously internalise the reality of such an entity, as say, an atom. We forget, or don’t understand that atom is a word that in reality means ‘just’ pure energy, made of different forms of energy, and with different strengths, weaknesses, electrical charges and with complex working interactions.
Individual human experiences become personally meaningful by way of spirit-energy of consciousness, thoughts and feelings. The interaction of atom-energy-stimuli (structures and functions) and spirit-energy of personally perceived experiences and interpretations of, come together through the processes that interface between the atom-energy of cerebral neural connections and Self’s spirit-energy.
CHAPTER 11
HUMANS INTERFACE WITH DIFFERENT ENERGIES
The Human Interface between Atom-energy and Spirit-energy
Interaction of Subatomic Energies and Self
The Infusion/Impregnation of Atom-energy and Spirit-energy with Soul
Human’s Interpretation of Atom-energy
Nuclear Fusion
How We Live
The Fertilised Seeds of Spirit and Soul Infused at the Time of Creation
Achieving New Personal Characteristics and Behaviours
Soul and Spirit of Life
Giving Meaning to Life
The Human Interface between Atom-energy and Spirit-energy
Some people are ‘colour-blind’ because of the specific design of their eye, optical receptors, nerves and/or cerebral functioning. Humans are able to visually ‘see’ atom-energy structures in the world, of which structures can be observed as possessing different characteristics, but which are also perceived uniquely by a particular individual’s interpretation. Humans interpret atom-energy structures and functions through contrasts of observed differentiations of features, functions and facts (science) of a structure. Colour of structures – created from reflection of different light-wave lengths – allows the observation of structures through their functions and characteristics. Different atom-energies of structures reflect different wavelengths of light-energy (electromagnetic spectrum includes photons) that then gives Self the ability to differentiate and interpret different atom-energy structures with functions.
So our eyes, brain, and cerebral neurons, etc, in conjunction with our spirit-energy of Self and our intelligence and consciousness, etc, are designed as if dove-tailed, to interface with atom-energy to enable the experiences and interpretation of different structures with their different functions. So there is a designed, ordered and intrinsically necessary connection between atom-energy structures (human 5 senses) and spirit-energy for Self to interact with and become aware of the world and indeed Self. But past experiences, knowledge, and thought processes, together with unsubstantiated beliefs, ignorance and prejudices can rightly or wrongly create misinformed and incredulous interpretations of the world and Self.
As humans once believed the earth to be flat, and then through the indisputable scientific evidence of fact, to be not flat but round in shape, people at that time needed to change their perception and mindset in relation to themselves and to planet earth in which they lived.
Similarly, but uniquely, we humans are not what we may pre-judge or preconceive ourselves to be, but are made up of both the structures and functions of atom-energy – our body - and the reality and function of spirit-energy - manifest as Self. The reality of the spirit-energy of Self is embodied in the structure and function of atom-energies that consist of the parts and organs of the body. Self’ uniquely maintains personal integrity and sovereignty of spirit allowing personal uniqueness and hopefully appreciated by others who have a sense of openness and a connection to others who are also spirit. The ability to perceive the world, Self, and others with an ‘open-mind’ and will positively affect our interpersonal relationships and understanding of ourselves and discerning the reality of Self in relation to others.
Interaction of Subatomic Energies and Self
All atom-energy structures in the universe emit electromagnetic charges/fields of energy resulting from their construction of subatomic particles interacting with each other. The sun converts four hydrogen atoms into one helium atom through the process of atomic nuclear fusion. This emits the by-product of energy in the form of heat and light, plus subatomic particles called neutrinos with energy that is weak enough for them to pass through all structures including planets and people. Because of the neutrinos weak energy, there isn’t enough electromagnetic charge to interact with the atom-energies of other structures.
The 118 elements that exist as described in the periodic table are designed so that they, by themselves, or combined, make up all atom-energy structures in the universe. This design represents the requirement of a complex ‘jigsaw’ whereby atom-energy particular structures interact with the atom-energy of other structures to make new atom-energy structures that also can interact with the spirit-energy of the Person/Self/Spirit.
The Infusion/Impregnation of Atom-energy and Spirit-energy with Soul
From the very beginning of time - the Big Bang – spirit-energy of the ‘Creator’/Spirit that initiated atom-energy of creation, with design and an evolutionary plan, has also, through desire and will, initiated impregnating creation with the spirit-energy of the ‘Creators’ conscious, Spirit as a guiding blue-print. Evolving structures of atom-energies proceed, over time, to their ultimate pre-programmed fullness and desired goal. As mentioned a few times already, the unique structures of atom-energies created by the various configurations and bonding of different atom-energies are able to interact inextricably with Self’s spirit-energy as a manifestation of the design and order brought forth from the ‘Word’, Thought, and Will of the ‘Creator’.
An example of how the structures with functions of atom-energies interact with the structures and functions - through design and order - of other atom-energy structures is made evident in the existence of various atom-energy structures, such as non-life structures, and the evolution of living structures. Whereby the atom-energy of living structures exists as a design and order of evolution, and creates within this living structure of atom-energy, the existence of the spirit-energy of spirit and soul. We observe soul in all structures of atom-energy because they are energies created even experienced in simple structures, such as in rocks and sand and more complex forms, if you will, of living atom-energies that exist in fauna (animals) and flora (plants) together with spirit and soul as a manifestation of the divine architect. Living fauna and flora possess characters of creation manifest as soul as blue print for their essence.
Evolution may be an example of what has been termed morphing, or Sci-Fi ‘shape-shifting’ with interactions of atom-energy structures and spirit-energies that have occurred over millions of years. The structures formed from particular ‘atoms’ have been designed to evolve by way of pre-programmed soul imbibed instructions’ and ‘blue-prints’ encapsulated within the process of evolution machinations. Therein lies the essence and entity of Soul within creation both in atom-energy and spirit-energy.
The universe at its conception impregnated with Soul. Soul as being that part of the ‘Creator’ enshrined in creation, akin to a mother connected to her baby and vice versa, and an artist to his, or her, art. Here we have the coming together of the interactive symbiosis of both structural-functional atom-energies and sovereign spirit soulful-energies. These two different energies are salient and evident in not only instinctual behaviours, but consciously considered thoughts and behaviours that emanate from the different levels of life. And in humans where spirit encompasses consciousness at a higher order and quality, with greater potential and expectations.
Human’s Interpretation of Atom-energy
Human eyes through lenses and retina take in differences in colour and definition via the different lengths of light-waves received, and converted into electrical impulses that then travel the optical nerve and ending at the occipital lobe in the brain. The occipital lobe detects the different wavelengths of light converted into electrical pulsating charges. These charges are then interpreted by Self, consciousness and awareness with a point of reference to present and past, and deduced and induced information (spirit-energy) by interfacing with the vehicle of the brain’s billions of neural inter-connections (atom-energy). Individuals process information learning to interpret contrasts and shapes of atom-energy structures and their functions in relation to individual’s personal experiences.
A good analogy regarding how differently we might perceive the world after we understand quantum physics information are perhaps those times when we shake someone’s hand (atom-energy). We are observing and perceiving that we are greeting a person (spirit-energy) through interaction of atom-energies, being the interaction of the structure and function of the atom-energy body in a particular cultural, social and religious context (spirit-energy).
This is one example of where atom-energies and spirit-energies meet and interact. The greeting of two people through the shaking of hands is a coming-together of 2 peoples’ atom-energy of the structure and function of skin consisting of hydrogen, oxygen and carbon atoms including the coming together of their spirits. This is two beings, two souls/spirits consciously greeting and interacting with one another.
Atom-energy structures and functions, for example, ice-to-water-to-steam structures and functions and spirit-energies of Self, are without what is generally named and perceived as being the entity of mass. Both energies of atom-energy and spirit-energy are for different reasons, invisible and weightless. Atom-energies need the interaction of visible light electromagnetic wave-lengths to give the ability of the perception to be ‘seen’ and, the interactions of the atom-energies of planet earth (gravity) to give the sensation and perception of weight. Whilst spirit-energy being Self and consciousness, etc, are invisible to the eye, and weightless because spirit-energy is different energy to that of atom-energy, being perhaps more akin to the energy of that made in the likeness and image of the ‘Creator’.
Nuclear Fusion
Nuclear fusion is the process whereby subatomic particles of atoms come together with such speed heavier nuclei are created through the exchange of subatomic particles. This fusion of nuclei releases atom-energies of different structures with functions. Considerable energy is required to force subatomic nuclei of atom-energies to fuse. Fusion of lighter nuclei, say hydrogen atoms, creates larger charges and electromagnetic energies, and new structures with functions like helium - plus one free neutron and enormous amounts of energy – are produced through this nuclear process.
This massive release of extra energy creates an exothermic process that produces a self-sustaining inter atom-energy reaction. This process creates new atom-energy structures with functions which are a crucial part of ‘stellar nucleo-synthesis’. When the fusion of these atom-energy structures are no longer sustainable, the fusion of nuclei that is heavier than iron or nickel absorbs so much energy that nuclear fission occurs. Nuclear fission, being the splitting of the atom nuclei, and which only takes place in the extremely high-energy conditions of supernova explosions where structures with functions (elements) like gold are produced (M. Oliphant & H. Bethe, 1932-1942).
How We Live
At the basic level of life and human life, we live what we learn and learn what we live. This is, we live life the way we know how to, and how we have been taught and brought up. If we had lived in a tenth century Viking community (Norway) we would no doubt become individuals who were Viking-like in nature, and in thought and behaviour i.e. behaving and thinking as belligerent war mongers. If we were brought up as children in a family that for generations lived by ‘the sword’ so to speak, or who have behaved illegally, or spent time in prison etc, we would most likely follow in these same footsteps, cause this is what we have learnt. It would be difficult to break the chains of these familial traditions and we would be less likely to change the accompanying thought dynamics and consequential behavioural processes in the way we live life. But through human spirit-energies, being the catalyst and drive for personal consciousness and awareness, and with the will to change, we need not be slaves to our past life, but change for the best.
The universe consists of subatomic particles of energy that culminate as different atoms with specific number of neutrons, protons and electrons. But there also exists the spirit-energies derived in the origin of the Creator’s Will and Soul, which ‘hover’ around on another dimension from the factors of time and space as the dimension for subatomic particles to exist and the evolution of atom-energy structures and functions over time. Whilst an individual’s presence is defined in the transcendent essence of the spirit, soul and being of Self.
The Fertilised Seeds of Spirit and Soul Infused at the Time of Creation
The pre-programmed design of the dynamics and machinations of evolution over billions of years has produced atom-energy structures of non-life and these have evolved through design and order into atom-energy structures we define as life or living. Only a small percentage of a species of life exist today as most species are extinct, or have evolved through pre-programmed DNA into species unrecognisable to their predecessors. However, cockroaches, sharks and lung-fish are a few of the creatures that have not changed characteristics in more than 400 million years as a consequence of the designed characteristics of their predetermined pre-programmed DNA.
Today we have the Chimpanzee that has evolved over billions of years from other descendants. The Chimpanzee, part of the ape family, have a higher order and quality of intellect and personality than their descendants and other less complex species like ants for instance. They have base instincts, but have evolved as having less complex internal programs for instincts and designed to behave in higher intellectual and complex ways. The chimpanzee can use tools to gather food, and can recognise the image of their face in the mirror. May be other animals can to such as budgies, dogs and cats.
Chimpanzees have evolved with a higher order and quality of intelligence. Pre-programmed DNA has allowed creatures to evolve in complexity. Homo-erectus and homo-sapiens have definitively branched off from the species of the ape family as a unique species in their own right. Human beings have definitively branched off and evolved from the ape family over millions of years, whilst chimpanzees have remained unchanged. Chimpanzees and many other animals have reached their pre-programmed designed evolutionary goal as that particular species. But humans have evolved to possess a heightened sense of Self, and with a consciousness and awareness of Self, that all began from the simple beginnings and genesis from the first ‘simple’ cells of life having evolved from the initiation of the Big Bang and then the complex interactions of non-life atom-energies into lesser and more complex forms of life.
The atom-life energies of structures with functions we describe as being alive – flora and fauna - are designed to interact with the atom-energies of structures like anatomy, with the spirit or soul-energies, that range from our base senses and instincts, to those with also a higher order of intellect and consciousness.
Atom-energies and spirit/soul-energies are planned to interconnect with one another, like a hand fits a glove, a dove fits a tail, jigsaw pieces fit a puzzle, and a key fits a lock. Atom-energies and photons defined in the electromagnetic spectrum have interacted with soul and spirit energies from the very beginning of time, from the first conscious and intended ‘word’ for design and ordered creation.
The essence of the Soul and seeds of the Spirit have been instilled and disseminated throughout the universe as a manifestation of the predetermined design and order of the Will, and in turn, the processes of evolution,, firstly, as expressed in the atom-energy structures and functions of non-living inorganic structures such as rocks and sand etc. Secondly, in the spirit-energies of living organic structures as a manifestation of the expression of non-atom animal base-instincts, and their higher orders of intelligence and consciousness as can be observed and identified in dogs, birds, mammals and humans etc.
The Soul and Spirit of the Will of the architect permeates and transcends throughout the universe and all of creation. The intrinsic essence of the Word, Will, Soul and Spirit is viewed as the predetermined divine blue-print and architect of creation’s design and existence. As such, the predetermined existence of subatomic-energy interactions over time and through the transcendent medium and catalyst of evolution seeding the intrinsic dissemination, as the definition of willed creation, of the higher-order spirit-energies of lower levels of base instincts and the higher levels of intelligence etc. These we observe to different degrees in the beings of dogs, dolphins, cats, monkeys, birds, and whales etc, and humans.
Humans being are at the apex of this hierarchy of intelligence and consciousness as a result of their pre-designed larger and more complex brains allowing the development of Self and so the existence of a conscious identity and being, and absolute sovereignty of a spirit and soul. From the beginning through designed evolution became and came into existence the maturation and fertilisation of the seeds from the ‘word’ of the beginnings of human consciousness, self-awareness, personality, free-will and spirit.
This results as a consequence of the pre-ordered complex chemical interactions of atom-energies with their structures and non-life functions that ‘evolved’, as it were, into the atom-energy structures with the functions of life. With the designed functions that allowed the ‘word’, soul and spirit to begin their unique, sovereign existence and free-will, journeying through reproductive activities as part of the function of pre-programmed creation.
As the chemical formations and interactions that initiated the beginnings of life - through complex interactions of particular atom-energy structures developed over time, so the evolved atom-energies of life increased from one cell to trillions of cells and with them, so the spirit and soul as a manifestation of the signature of the designer.
The human brain has developed larger and more complex in humans than in any other species. This development of the human brain gives humans the ability to think, plan and do all the intellectual, emotional and behavioural things humans can do.
Thinking and emotions are part of the spirit-energy of consciousness being part-and-parcel of Self. Spirit-energy cannot be objectively measured, and captured as atom-energy can. We may consider the essence and existence of Self to be a divinely inspired outcome from predetermined design and order of the Spirit/Word. So we may be able to say, that through the energy of ‘The Word’, was brought forth and embedded the Soul and Spirit in the different energies within the universe including life and the soul and spirit of Self.
Animals have limited intelligence compared to humans, who have evolved through the pre-programming of DNA to encompass and execute all the amazing things humans are innately capable of accomplishing. This includes the ability for self-determination, which is manifest in a real and personal sense of independence, sovereignty and freewill being part of the integrity of Self, all things being equal.
Humans’ Spirit and Soul may be inherited and passed on from species to species, from generation to generation, through the soul and spirit-energies dwelling particularly within all living existence, as the defining divine signature of the ‘word’ of creation. The energies of Soul and Spirit may also exist within, yet on a unique dimension or plane, or exist parallel to, or in symbiosis to the atom-energy structure of DNA. Atom-energy makes up the structure and function of the brain, which is the vehicle for the interactions and existence of the spirit-energies of Self on earth.
Achieving New Personal Characteristics and Behaviours
It is imperative to acknowledge that although we – Self, Spirit – have come into being through Thought, Will, Word, and Soul, as the source of our design etc and over billions of years, the existence of humans (self) possessing higher qualities of spirit-energy. These include intelligence, self-awareness, free-will, and consciousness, whilst maintaining integrity and uniqueness of sovereignty, and independence, now exist in the world. We are beings that because of and through the Word, possess both the structures of atom-energy and the mystic of spirit-energies. Both atom-energies and spirit-energies are different forms of energies that originate from creation and thus are energies from the ‘Creator’ and exist in kinship mirroring the likeness and image of the ‘Word’.
Humans generally live life the way they have been taught, and a person’s ability to freely choose a particular line of emotion and thought is often tempered and influenced by the positive or negative developmental and learning experiences developmentally learnt through environmental experiences, often at an early age. This includes specific and generalised ‘modes of operations’ regarding our thoughts, emotions, behaviours, beliefs, attitudes and self-esteem as a response to and affect to all facets of life, including relationships, politics, culture, traditions and rites relating to religious faiths etc which impact on Self, and others.
If Self’s ‘mode of operation’ is in reality harmful to Self and others, then one’s goal of achievement could be about the aspiration of bettering ones self through knowledge, understanding and practice, culminating in self-improvement to all facets of ones behaviour. The ambition for personal well-being and a cantering of the inner-self is the catalyst towards making changes and adjustments to ones not so positive behaviours and thought patterns and can be achieved through Self’s spirit of self awareness, consciousness, and intelligence and motivation to choose how one desires to be, to plan, and to execute. .
Soul and Spirit of Life
Thought and Will of the ‘Creator’ manifests in the atom-energy and spirit-energy of the structure and function of the universe and all that exists within as a consequence of the Word’s application through will and thought. Spirit-energy is a form of energy that rather than being of structure with functions, has no structure with functions as such, as does atom-energy, but is that energy of spirit without atom-energy but is in essence the spirit of Self. These are, there are different forms of energy that are brought forth and exist as the will of the One, the One that created creation, being the One that always was.
Giving Meaning to Life
Because people already exist in the world, we can make a decisive effort and decision to leave this world, when our time is up, a slightly better place than it was when we entered it. If everything we do and say to people during our life-time leaves them a little happier, a little more positive, then we have given meaning to our life.
We can give meaning to our life by making others’ life a little more pleasant by behaving between the activities of the continuum of wellbeing - from openness to kindness - rather than behaving negatively, leaving people we meet a little less happier, by interacting with a spirit of meanness - from rude-indifference to belligerence and abuse.
These opposing behaviours and attitudes exhibited will have a ripple affect, whereby each person you encounter positively will be ever so slightly ‘moved’ with an improved sense of wellbeing, and which experience will project and transfer positive feelings, through positive vibes, to others. Positive or negative ripple or wave effects will continue to spread outwards and afar, until your time here on earth is up and you have been successful giving meaning to your life.
Through the Word, - Thought and Will of the ‘Creator’ – the subatomic plasma of subatomic energy came into existence, in essence, driven by the design, order and blueprint for the outcome of evolution of the universe. The blueprint for universe and life emanates from Soul ‘Creator’ and so is necessarily exists as Spirit and Soul in the essence of the universe.
Design and order of universe expressed through complex evolution has predetermined that the atom-energy that form structures with functions of inorganic ‘matter’ interact to form the atom-energy of structures and functions to, over time form organic life. So non-life atom-energy inevitably evolves through predetermined design and order to complexly interact to form molecular structures and functions to form the atom-energies of life. This is a phenomenal conversion from the atom-energies of non-life interacting to morph into the atom-energies expressed in the structures and forms of life.
The atom-energy of molecules that form life include as necessary the atom-energies that posses the structures and functions, for their beginnings, DNA and genes necessary for the existence of life. Because both energies of non-life structures and energies of living structures are in essence a product of the original artist or Creator, then all forms of energies have within them part of that original artist or creator we can define as Soul and Spirit, but not in exactly similar forms.
Life has been designed to evolve from the atom-elements of non-life into the smallest of single-cellular amoeba, into insects and ants etc with the ability to behave instinctively and with intelligence and then into animals with structures and functions of forms of higher order intelligence, example birds, dogs, dolphins, and monkeys etc. Ultimately evolving, through the process of an evolutionary ‘branching off’’ into humans. Humans possess the most complex of brains with parts dedicated to complex activities and facilitate the experience of the Self and Spirit of consciousness, self-awareness, freewill, and personality. Ultimately the characteristics of sovereignty, independence, and uniqueness are a part of Self and Self’s Being.
CHAPTER 12
HUMAN PERSONALITY, INTELLECT,
REASON AND FREEWILL
Visible Body, Invisible Mind
Conflict between Body and Spirit
Visible Body, Invisible Mind
So what does all this mean? Where do we go from here? What should we think and do now? You might well ask. We may now have decided that we have a better understanding of things of the spirit, of things invisible and immortal and maybe even considering the possibility that the Creator might exist. We may be considering the possibility of the Creator revealing Himself to us through Jesus Christ, and that humans are made in the Creator’s image, not as humanoid robots akin to computers and machines, but as spirits possessing a soul expressed through Self’s consciousness, personality, intellect, thoughts, values, attitudes and feelings. Can we argue against the premise that we humans are essentially invisible and intangible spirits, with an intellect to learn with, logic and reason to understand with, free will to exercise choice with, and emotions to feel with?
The human brain is said to be the most complex entity in the known universe. But the human brain essentially consists of grey and white matter. Grey matter being the neurons or cells of the brain of which there are approximately 100 billion, and white matter being the nerves or axons that interconnect the cells to each other. And within these neurons and axons exist bio-chemical neurotransmitters and neural-hormones. So everything a human does, or can do, it would seem is predicated upon the anatomical atom-energy of neurons, axons, bio-chemicals and neurotransmitters that exist within the human brain. Each brain cell or neuron, through its nerves can connect to thousands of other cells, allowing the bio-chemical mechanics and interactions of the brain to operate with the assistance of trillions of neural connections. The brains cells communicate with each other through electrical signals produced by the interplay of different bio-chemicals such as, chloride, potassium and sodium, which create both the electric voltages carried along the axons, and the greater or lesser positive or negative charges that are required. These greater or lesser electrical charges facilitate the movement and amount of neurotransmitters such as, serotonin, dopamine, adrenaline, GABBA and glutamate, between neurons. The transmission of neurotransmitters between neurons creates the facilitation of further electrical charges to a greater or lesser degree in the next neuron, administering a greater or lesser amount of neurotransmitter between neurons, thus determining a particular activity. For instance it is an electrical charge through axons and between neurons that causes a muscle to contract, thus facilitating human body movement.
But the complexity of this bio-chemical physiological reaction is evident when we understand that a thought or desire to want to move a muscle, etcetera, is required to initiate the automatic transmission of the electrical signal that originates in the motor cortex that travels from neuron to neuron, and finally to the muscle. Furthermore, Self’s consciousness and personal, private and intimate thoughts, emotions, values and attitudes etcetera also require on/in this physical world, the physical vehicle of cerebral electrical signals to operate. But the creation of Self’s thoughts, emotions, values, attitudes, desires, beliefs, self-awareness, consciousness, free-will and personal choices etcetera, are enormously more complex than the transmission of a few million electrical signals driven by neurotransmitters travelling along nerves that interconnect thousands and thousands of neurons. There is something occurring here that is far more complex than this ‘physical’ ‘brain’ (atom-energy) that can be detected and dissected by scientists. There is something invisible, something intangible, perhaps something spiritual and transcendent (spirit-energy) existing juxtaposition the functions of the brain, such as invisible personal constructs and entities as Self and Self’s self-awareness, consciousness, thoughts, emotions, values, attitudes, desires, beliefs, free-will, and personality.
The brain (cerebrum) is part of the human anatomy and the bio-chemical vehicle for the faculties and functions of sight, hearing, touch, movement, and speech, etcetera, to operate from, including the intangible entities of the personality such as attitudes and beliefs, being a function of thoughts and emotions, being a function of experiences and the freedom of choice. These invisible human psychological constructs of thoughts and emotions, and attitudes and beliefs are not visible and cannot be touched or dissected as they are spirit-energy. And spirit-energy interfaces with the structures of atom-energy on earth. For instance, we can consciously instruct our hand to move around and wave about through the interaction of our thoughts, free will and choice with the vehicle of the biochemical anatomical parts in the brain, which include the nerves, neurons and chemical neural-transmitters. But nothing happens, our hand doesn’t move, until we execute our free will, through the intellect of our thoughts, for parts of the anatomy to behave in a particular and willed manner. The Self’s desire and will thus engages the brain’s neurotransmitters into action, which send electrical impulses and signals to the muscles, which in turn operate the hand, or any other part of the body, making it behave and operate in any way we wish it to, controlled by the confines of our ‘physical’ ability of course.
As the body is considered by some to be the temple of the spirit, and the eyes, the windows of the soul, so the condition of the soul and the personality may be reflected and made visible in and through our actions, words and behaviours. And through the expressions on our face, which may depict for example, the love, joy, hate, and/or sorrow that Self may be experiencing for Self and others. The psychological phenomena “depersonalisation”, whereby the Self feels as if it is leaving the body, may better be explained through the meanings of the words ‘detachment’ or disconnection between the body and the spirit. The phenomena of depersonalisation may be a natural experience of the spirit coming away from the body, occurring whilst Self is still ‘physically’ alive. Perhaps this is an earthly experience of the detachment of the Self/Spirit from the body, as it might well do at the time of Self’s ‘physical’ death.
The eyes have often been termed as being the windows of/to the Soul. The reason why the eyes are said to be the windows of the soul may be rationalized by the exercise of closing, or opening the eyes, and being able to sense Self’s being/consciousness, Self’s personality, Self’s thoughts, Self’s emotions and Self’s values, beliefs and attitudes. Through this exercise, Self may experience Self residing in and coming from within this ‘physical’ area directly behind the eyes. Perhaps then, this is part of the anatomy in which the Self as spirit, soul and personality exist and reside whilst the Self’s body remains alive on earth. And at the death Self’s ‘physical’ body, this is perhaps where the complex ‘physical’ and transcendent interface between the Self’s body and the Self’s Self/ Spirit cease to exist, disconnect, depart and go their separate ways. It may be prudent at this stage to attempt to make a distinction between Self’s personality and Self’s spirit (terms described and explained earlier) and Self’s soul. As we have discussed, Self’s personality is perhaps Self’s overt modus operandi, as experienced in the Self’s intra-personal and interpersonal relationships. Which are in turn driven and shaped by the complex interaction of the interface between Self’s brain and Self’s invisible thoughts, feelings, beliefs, attitudes and values etcetera, an outcome of Self’s personal life experiences, and personal choices made.
The Self’s personality may be described as spiritual, as it is not tangible, whilst driving the quality of relationships with Self and others through values, attitudes, beliefs, thoughts, emotions and behaviours. The Self’s soul on the other hand, although also intangible, could be said to be the spark or seed of life its self infused in Self/ creation and life by the Creator from the beginning of time. The Soul could be a ‘spiritual spark’ that produces, sustains and, maintains ‘life’ in all its forms, and so may be defined as being that from which nature and creation originate. The Soul then, may be considered the necessary and intrinsic, irreversible and undeniable entity, which creates, maintains and sustains the transcendent and mysterious interrelationship between the Creator and all that has been created. And so the soul could be the spiritual spark or foundation of the essence of life upon which all the characteristics of life and creation are based and which interact and intercede with and between the Creator.
The reality of the intrinsic human essence and condition of Self’s consciousness and personality (spirit) has been potentially supported by many philosophers, including the American Psychologist Carl Rodgers who believe that human beings are unique in that they are capable of personal growth. Rising above their basic instincts and ‘physical’ anchors, through the exercise and execution of their invisible, but real, spiritual powers. This ability for humans to consciously choose some particular path or action provides us with the ability to develop our intellectual talents, spiritual aspirations, and emotional needs, to develop all of these higher transcendent qualities that, by definition, are based on and expressed through the metaphysical and spiritual. These are dimensions and qualities, which affect how and what we think, how and what we feel, and how and what we do, and which ultimately, significantly manipulates and influences how Self views Self, others, and the world. Furthermore, every invisible thought and feeling we have and experience affects us in a ‘physical’ way and affect our health. For example, if we are psychologically relaxed or stressed can produce a decrease, or increase of the heart rate, fast or slow breathing, high or low skin conductance, changes in hormones and neural bio-chemical transmitters, and high or low blood pressure.
Scientists, through the evidence of consistent results from extensive research, are also aware of the psychological impact of delicate neurotransmitter imbalances even though minute, which can affect the human brains interaction with Self’s thought processing. For instance, organic brain damage, or the digestion of legal drugs such as alcohol, or illegal drugs such as heroin, cocaine, marijuana and amphetamines, etcetera, can drastically change the normal balance, quality and quantity of neurotransmitters. This abnormal imbalance of the neurotransmitters can severely affect in different ways, - i.e., depression, psychosis, and mania, etcetera - the regular functioning of the interacting interface between the Self’s brain and Self’s invisible constructs of consciousness, thought and emotion, and thus Self’s personal psychological well being.
Conflict between Body and Spirit
Human consciousness, mind, thoughts, emotions and personality, are not tangible, and they are not ‘physical’ parts of the anatomy like the brain that can be seen, touched, dissected, or surgically operated on. They are essentially in essence, intangible and invisible as if likened to a Spirit. Although the invisible transcendent Spirit and ‘physical’ brain that together encompass the embodiment of Self’s personality, thoughts, emotions, values, beliefs, attitudes and behaviours and which can influence and affect the condition of Self’s physiological and psychological well-being. This physiological and psychological well-being is dependant in part, on the characteristics of Self’s Spirit/Personality and ‘physical’ brain, through which the Self operates whilst still entrapped and attached to the body. We can consider that this is how the Creator has made humans beings and, “it is good”. So we learn through experience to ‘grow’ and ‘develop’ in the best way we know how with the resources and knowledge we possess, with the desire to refine and hone Self’s self-awareness and consciousness in relation to Self’s Spirit and thus, thoughts, feelings, values, attitudes, beliefs and behaviours culminating in Self’s personhood and personality. The personal goal is to experience the feelings of inner psychological and spiritual peace by first embracing a personal attitude of self-acceptance for being human, for being humanly imperfect, for being imperfect per se. Self’s attitude of personal self-acceptance is paramount and imperative, regardless of the degree and level of one’s personal human imperfections. This attitude of self-acceptance, in essence will alone increase Self’s sense of psychological and spiritual well-being. Whilst this attitude of self-acceptance will also dramatically contribute to and enhance the process regarding one’s will and desire to endeavour to become the best person one can potentially become with the resources one has such as personal support and informed knowledge. These simple transcendent activities ultimately, undoubtedly create an increased sense of personal satisfaction and achievement, which will have positive and constructive reverberating consequences for Self and others.
The scientist Charles Darwin, who documented evolution per se, as a credible form of human development, admitted that humankind is the only potential “moral” animal who is actually self-conscious and capable of self-examination and internal reflection through the faculties of reason, memory, hindsight, foresight and perception. These faculties necessarily advocate Self to formulate Self’s thoughts, ideas, attitudes, beliefs and values from all Self’s many experiences with Self and others and, which fundamentally enable and determine Self capable of making appropriate decisions and judgments for self. These are the necessary decisions and judgments by which Self discerns how Self will think, feel, act and behave towards Self and others.
The philosopher and theologian Thomas Aquinas conceived of the idea that the soul was in tension with its physical embodiment. The Self then, with its soul, personality and spirit, is in conflict and tension with the interactive characteristics of the needs and desires of Self’s Spirit, which include the needs and desires of self’s primal base instincts. Conflict and tension arise in the interaction between the part of the Self’s soul, spirit and personality, seeking intellectual, emotional and spiritual stimulation and fulfillment in relation to transcendent ascendancy, and the part, being driven by base instincts, manifest in the particular psychological and ‘physical’ components such as aggression, power, fear, sex drive and need for food, water and shelter. So there is perhaps the necessary personal discomfort that arises between the need to express and experience personal transcendent spirituality and the need to express and experience personal temporal ‘physical’ intimacy, but which may also include the embarrassment of inevitable bodily functions.
However, having achieved the one part of these personal goals, which maybe experienced as superficial and temporary, to satisfy Self’s personal ‘physical’ needs, we may experience the transcendent reality of never being fully satisfied. Indeed, this personal dissatisfaction may drive Self to necessarily always require more, requiring more of something else. Requiring more of something in the realms of something spiritual, something interpersonal and something intellectual, but we may never be completely satisfied. But never being completely satisfied can be burdensome and incongruent for the requirement to self-acceptance. This psycho-spiritual hole we may or may not sometimes experience, this potential sense of emptiness within may have a positive outcome in motivating and inspiring Self towards personal transcendent ascendancy in opposition to the personal dimensions of base instincts. This process of personal transcendent ascendancy of Self and Self’s Spirit may include the improved understanding and expression of intra and interpersonal thoughts and feelings that encompass the values and attitudes that drive behaviours and speech relating to a spirit of charity, compassion and reconciliation, etcetera. As opposed to thoughts and feelings that encompass the values and attitudes that drive behaviours and speech that are related to mean spiritedness.
To counteract these potential personal base ‘wants’ Self needs to seek out informed knowledge and understanding about Self, others and the world thus quenching the psycho-spiritual thirst for positive and constructive intra and interpersonal relationships construed as necessary through the essence of Self’s Being, being motivated by ‘that for which humans were made and intended’. But the Creator made humans with both a ‘physical’ body (biochemical evolution of atom-energy) and an invisible Spirit (consciousness and personality etcetera) and so it must be OK, it must be ‘good’ especially if the Spirit has control over destructive base instincts.
We are social beings made with a remarkably complex (but finite) body, but which includes particular body functions that can be embarrassing for Self and others at times. A characteristic of the body’s makeup is the sex drive, which Self may be indifferent towards or may experience as good, or maybe just Ok. Self may experience the act of sex within an intimately loving relationship as far more enjoyable than casual sex. Sex, sex, everywhere there is the promotion and image of the sex act through image and innuendo, but which is not necessarily a behaviour to personally fulfil Self in a satisfying and meaningful way. Researchers studying the human sex drive have stated that about 70 per cent of men have a high sex drive as opposed to about 30 per cent of women. This difference in sex drive, between men and women, is perhaps due the difference in both psychological and biological make-up in relation to the act of sex between the genders. Where the sex drive of males is predicated on the biology of the manufacture of semen and thus the ‘urge’ to relieve, as opposed on the other hand to the sex drive of females, which is predicated more on psychological constructs such as fertility, hormones, mood, intimacy and self-esteem.
New research now purports that the contraceptive ‘pill’ has the side affect of considerable diminishing female libido. So the different biological, hormonal, neurological and psychological differences between men and women contribute to this imbalance, which can often cause relationship difficulties. But ultimately it can be suggested that if a relationship has the ingredients of compatible spiritual, emotional and intellectual goals, the chemistry of ‘physical’ attraction (in the eye of the beholder), and the compatibility of personal interests, passions, and hobbies, then the imbalance of the partners’ sex drive would not unduly affect the quality and intimacy of the relationship. However, such interpersonal chemistry may inevitably enhance the desire for ‘physical’ and/ or sexual intimacy as an adjunct to spiritual, intellectual and emotional intimacy.
But without sex as an outcome of the sex drive derived and evolved from primate base instincts there would be no offspring, there would be no babies, there would be no people, there would be no communities, there would be no relationships and there would be no challenges. And some people may say, “Well that would be better than having all the human suffering and destruction we may experience today”. But the Creator made humans with the potential for consciousness of Self and Self’s spirit and personality. The Creator made humans with advanced and refined constructs as intellect, cognition and emotion to facilitate the development of values, attitudes and beliefs derived from knowledge and information, expressed through behaviour and speech. But which spiritual/ psychological constructs may be also driven by and manipulated by primitive base instincts that if left unchecked have the power for enormous human suffering and destruction.
Behaviours and speech relating to the realities of compassion, charity and reconciliation that we personally may - or may not - have a need to experience, could be considered to be part of the proper function of the Self and thus part of Self’s Spirit. However, if the Self and the Self’s Spirit and Personality is overwhelmed by the desires of base instincts, in any of its many forms, but which are only temporally satisfying, the Self may eventually revolt against itself in some way and search for self-acceptance manifest in a sense of internal psychological and spiritual well-being. Indeed, one of the primary goals in this mortal and temporal life perhaps is to balance and synchronise the conflict, tension and discomfort between the desires of the multi dimensional characteristics of the spirit and the desires of the multi dimensional characteristics of base instincts. Such a consciously considered constructive equilibrium, between the base instincts and the higher constructs of Self’s Spirit will allow Self to operate in congruent harmony with Self. Which potentially produces a heightened sense of satisfaction through personal achievement from the synergy created from the personal choice to express and exhibit positive and constructive behaviours and speech thus enhancing intra and interpersonal relations and subsequently spiritual and psychological well-being for Self and others. Indeed a psychological and spiritual synergy experienced in the manifestation of positive and constructive interpersonal actions and speech.
CHAPTER 13
INTELLECTUAL AND SPIRITUAL CONFUSION REVISITED
Human Suffering from the Misinterpretation of Scripture
Gnostism, Apocrypha and, ‘The Da Vinci Code’
Evolution of Scripture Interpretation
The Human Spiritual Journey
Human Suffering from the Misinterpretation of Scripture
Biblical verses, are believed by many people, to have literal meanings that come directly from ‘God’. Others may believe that biblical verses have meanings based on the culture, faith, beliefs, politics and religion of the people at the time of their writing. But these verses may also be seen to have deeper and more profound allegorical and metaphorical meanings also based on the culture, faith, spirituality and religion of the time. Today we continue to ascertain what the verses of Scripture originally intended to mean at the time of their writing, and whether or not these meanings may be reapplied and reinterpreted today in an evolving world that is very different and supposedly more ‘civilised’ and developed than the world of the past. All the same, we live in a ‘contemporary’ world with many different and complex problems from those that characterized the important issues of ancient times past. Surely then we need to be diligently cautious how we interpret particular statements and verses like that written in Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians with its implied message of anger and resentment of the Jews.
This letter reads:
“In suffering the same treatment from your own countrymen as they suffered from the Jews, the people who put the Lord Jesus to death and the prophets, have been persecuting us, and acting in a way that cannot please God and makes them the enemies of the whole human race.”
(1Thessalonians 2:14-16)
The literal interpretation and personal application of this particular verse could and has had diabolical consequences in encouraging thoughts, behaviours and speech of anti-Semitism in those that read this verse literarily and at face value. Such potential beliefs, behaviours and speech can be the outcome of believing in the literal meaning of every word in these verses encouraging perpetrators to transgress against Christ’s example of unconditional relational love and compassion for Self and others. Such attitudes, behaviours and speech regarding the judgment and discrimination of others contravene the human natural law of justice, respect and dignity relating to human diversity. These sorts of embellished self-serving and gratuitous writings potentially foster the harbouring within minds and hearts, of prejudice and hatred towards others. The literal interpretation of verses like this, are obviously dangerous with the potential to cause strife, suffering and pain in individuals, communities and the wider international community. Another example of the destructive powers of interpreting biblical verses literally and which can be used to wield spiritual power and spiritual abuse over the more spiritually vulnerable by those who hold the balance of ‘spiritual power’ via their ‘distinguished’ and ‘esteemed’ religious status and position in the community are illustrated in particular verses in the New Testament.
In the Gospel of John we read:
“Assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” And, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter the kingdom of God,” and, “He who believes in Him is not condemned, but he who does not believe is condemned already because he has not believed in the only begotten Son of God.” (John 3:1-21)
In the Gospel of Matthew we read:
“You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to hell”?
(Matthew 23:33)
In the Gospels of Mark, Matthew and Luke we read:
“Whoever says evil things against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven”.
(Mark 3:28; Matthew 12:30-32; Luke 11:14-23)
The words in these particular verses, and there are others, must surely represent and symbolize the most frightening and threatening commands and demands by ‘God’ for those people who take seriously to heart and mind the literal interpretation of such verses as encouraged and read by their spiritual leaders.
The messages in these verses are surely nothing but shocking psycho-spiritual threats intended towards those people of the time – depending on the interpretation - and those people now, who read the Bible and interpret each word literally. To interpret verses like these with a transcendent clarity and understanding, we need to take into account, firstly, the angle of the author’s personal agenda and intention for the recording. Secondly, the validity and accuracy of the author’s personal interpretation of the acquired information, or event. Thirdly, is the accuracy of the information received by the author. Fourthly, is the author’s degree of personal knowledge or participation in the actual event. Fifthly, the time frame between what was originally said by Christ, or witness(es), and when it was written, and sixthly, the potential changes made from the original writing through ‘word’ or ‘oral’ transmission and misinterpretation, and therefore, inaccurate editing.
With regard to the verses in the Gospels of Mark 3:28; Matthew 12:30-32 and Luke 11:14-23 described above, firstly, humans cannot know absolutely who and what the Holy Spirit is, and thus, cannot, however hard they may try, say with absolute intention, absolute evil things against that which they don’t know absolutely. Secondly, whatever ‘evil’ things any person may say against the Holy Spirit - a Spirit who is definitely not psycho-spiritually ‘precious’ or fragile - is not going to affect one iota, the power, ego and magnificence of such a Mighty Spiritual Being. And thirdly, there is enough scriptural evidence in biblical verses to prove that the Creator does not have any desire, will, or intention, what so ever, to coerce or force people to behave in any particular way by threatening them with condemnation and damnation of Hell. Rather, the Creator has the intention, will, and power of mystical relational love and compassion, regarding all transgressions and indiscretions made by humans. The above ideas are, explored more fully in a later Chapter.
Now here are some contradistinctive biblical verses that contradict and contrast with the above verses, and which the author believes are far more constructive and in tune with the New Testament’s general and predominant theme of the Creator’s message of unconditional relational love and compassion. Verses describing the Creator’s unconditional mystical relational love for all humankind include:
In the Gospel of John we read:
“You make judgments in a purely human way I pass judgment on no one.”
(John 8:15)
We read in John:
“If any one hears my message and does not obey it, I will not judge him.”
(John 12:47)
Again in John we read:
“For God sent His Son into the world to save it, not judge it.”
(John 3:17)
In Luke we read:
“You do not know what kind of spirit you are; for the Son of Man did not come to destroy men’s lives but to save them.
(Luke 9:51-56)
In John we also read:
“Here is the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.”
(John 1:29-30)
Again in John:
“I have come that you may have life and have it to the full.”
(John 10:10)
In 1 Peter we read:
“For Christ died for sins once, for all the righteous and for the unrighteous, to bring you to God.”
(1 Peter 3:18a)
In Acts we read:
“God has accepted His death as the complete payment for our sins.”
(Acts 1:3)
In Romans we read:
“While we were still sinners, Christ died for us”.
(Romans 5:8)
In Luke we read:
“Forgive them Father for they know not what they do”.
(Luke 23: 34-35)
John also states:
“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this that he lay down his life for his friends.
(John 15; 9-13)
And:
“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
(John 13:34-35)
In Matthew we read:
“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbour and hate your enemy’ (Leviticus 19:18). But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”
(Matthew 5:43-44)
These are surely exciting and liberating unequivocal messages of hope, forgiveness and mystical relational love and compassion for all people. These messages emphasise and inform us that the Creator has a mysterious unconditional mystical relational love for all peoples. Acquiring unencumbered victory over everything defined, considered, thought and described to be spiritual emptiness and spiritual darkness. The Creator has acquired unencumbered victory over all that which emanates consequence of the human acts manifest as diabolical perversions from human imperfections that negatively affect Self and others. These are messages suggesting that the stormy black clouds of evil human acts that overshadow the world more often than not will never absolutely prevail in the total destruction of humanity, this is, Self, Spirit and Soul. These are messages suggesting that all have been saved through the spiritual and ‘physical’ body and blood, and the spiritual, intellectual and emotional anguish and humiliation of Christ’s (the Creator’s) sacrifice, regardless of whether they are believers or not. This is, all have been totally redeemed through the Creator’s sacrificial anatomical and spiritual suffering and humiliation. That is, the Creator, through the Creator’s incarnate Son Christ, having been abused, humiliated, and killed by the created, has paid for the inherent debts of humankind and thus human’s accessible entry to ‘heaven’, but not at the negation of personal accountability and self reflection.
As we have discussed, biblical Scriptures from both Testaments were written by a people and for a people in a particular age, time and context and are best read and interpreted in terms of the written genre, culture, ancient practices and circumstances they were intended for at the specific time and era.
For example, in the book of Deuteronomy we read about ‘modesty in brawls’:
“When two men are fighting together, if the wife of one intervenes to protect her husband from the other by the private parts, you should cut her hand off and show no pity.”
(Deuteronomy 25:11-12)
Obviously today, this kind of response would be insane, immoral and criminal, and as such, can never, be read literally as an instruction. As Dr Kumar (1992) rightly states, no one in their right mind would think that God is a cosmic chicken with wings and feathers because a Psalm says:
“He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shoult thou trust.”
(Psalm 91:4)
Again, in Exodus we read about the brutal ancient cultural rules and laws of the religious:
“Anyone who strikes his father or mother must die.”
(Exodus 2:1; 2:15-17)
Similarly, in Exodus 35:2, we read that if you work on the Sabbath you shall be put to death. In Leviticus 21:20 we read that you shall not approach the Alter of God if you have a defect in your eye. In Leviticus 19:27 we read that it is forbidden to have the hair trimmed around your temple. In Leviticus 24:10 we read that the whole town will stone to death those that blaspheme or have an adulterous affair, and Leviticus 20:14 states that those that sleep with their in-laws will burn to death. Jesus’ teachings in the New Testament definitively redefine through His divine articulated contradictions many of the ancient rules, laws and teachings expressed throughout the Old Testament. As clearly stated by Matthew, this is not the intention or purpose for the Creator’s creation for unique, independent and sovereign human existence, as Christ’s teachings and examples for unconditional relational love and compassion reveal.
“You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you. “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbour and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect”. (Matthew 5:38-48)
It is hoped that modern society and cultures generally recognize and acknowledge this today. The early Christian philosopher and theologian Saint Augustine - born in North Africa in 354 A.D. and died there in 430 - was himself repelled by the Bible’s literary style and anthropomorphism (ascribing human words and actions as being those of God’s) and quickly abandoned the venture of Scripture study (Confessions 3.4.7-8). This was until (Saint) Ambrose gave him the idea of the spiritual, moral and metaphorical interpretations necessary for the reading of Scripture.
The gospels in the New Testament are a complex web of often re-translated and edited stories written by the apostles or their immediate friends from their own experiences and from additional sources, both oral and written. The Gospel of Matthew is believed to have been written between 70–100 AD, Mark between 68-73 AD, Luke between 80-100 AD, and John between 90-110 AD. These gospels were originally written in, Hebrew, Aramaic and/or Hellenistic Greek. And because these gospels were written for particular communities of the time, they have Jewish, Greek, Hellenistic or Christian perspectives depending on for whom they were written and by whom they were written.
For example the, Gospel of Matthew, was written for the Jewish Christian Community of Palestine and so Matthew’s writings contain many quotes from Old Testament verses. This Gospel, written in Greek was, received as the authentic word in the Church from the beginning. There is nothing in the book to show that it is a translation, though Matthew wrote mainly for the Jews, they were, everywhere, familiar with the Greek language. The Gospel of Mark itself is anonymous, but as early as Papias in the early 2nd century the author of this gospel text was believed to be Mark. Mark was a disciple of Peter and is said to have recorded the Apostle's oral discourses. According to tradition Mark would have had abundant opportunities to obtain information from Peter and other apostles about Jesus and his ministry. The Gospel of Mark is a Hellenistic gospel, written primarily for an audience of Greek-speaking residents of the Roman Empire.
Traditionally, Christians believe that Luke wrote under the direction, if not at the dictation, of Paul. Consequently the tradition is that this Gospel was written when Luke may have been at Caesarea in attendance on Paul, who was then a prisoner. The oldest complete manuscript of the Gospel of Luke is in Greek and Latin versions on facing pages. The Gospel of John gives far more focus in his work to the mystical relation of the Son to the Father. As a Gospel writer, he essentially developed the concept of the Trinity, while the Synoptic Gospels - Matthew, Mark and Luke - had focused less directly on Jesus as the Son of God. John makes direct claims about Jesus being the only Son of God, in favour of Jesus being the Son of Man. The gospel also focuses on the relation of the Redeemer to believers; the announcement of the Holy Ghost as the Comforter (‘Paraclete’ in Greek), and the prominence of love as an element in the Christian character. Unlike the synoptic Gospels, some readers have recognized elements of Gnosticism in the Gospel of John. However, it is not, generally recognised as being a "Gnostic Gospel".
So, today, in the Twenty First Century, many verses need to be read and interpreted carefully with a focused mindset relating to the written genre and cultural context, and often, as a thematic whole, rather than with the mentality of narrow interpretation in a literal, word for word modus operandi. They need to be read generally, and broadly, with an insight and notion for seeking a common thread and theme so that readers may more fully appreciate their true literary metaphorical and ‘spiritual’ meaning. A spiritual meaning that paints the truest possible picture of Christ’s life, teachings and purpose while on this planet. If we read the Gospels in this way, as a spiritual message with a divine main theme we will clearly see that Christ’s birth, life, death and resurrection are predominantly about His enduring love, mercy and forgiveness for all who live on this planet and for all who have lived and will live on this Earth and in this world.
Misinterpretation of Scripture is not a new phenomenon and there were many discussions across the possible meanings of the words written about Christ by others over the following centuries. Since Christ’s death his followers discussed and argued, often, and with much enthusiasm and some bitterness, not only the meanings of His words, but which writings were actually valid as His very words. There were many weird, ridiculous and fanciful spins written about Christ, such as Gnostism, written by many people, with many different agendas, with many different perspectives, who wanted to be a part of the Christ action, so to speak.
Gnostism, Apocrypha and, “The Da Vinci Code”
Gnostism was one of those litaray genres and ways of thinking that consisted of secretive and complex enlightenment and knowledge. The word Gnosticism comes from the Greek for ‘knowing’. The gnostics believed that there was a bad god who made the world and a good god who sends an emissary so they can ascend to heaven. But the obscurity, multiplicity, and confusion of Gnostic systems defy a clear and rational definition. Gnosticism is said to require secret information that is available only to initiates. In some Gnostic views salvation comes through "a secret knowledge" that Jesus is the Christ and those who understand his true nature are saved, and those who don't, "stand condemned already". Other Gnostic veiws were defined by a "people who knew", and their knowledge at once constituted them as a superior class of being, whose present and future status was essentially different from that of those who, for whatever reason, did not know about such secret knowledge. They held matter to be a deterioration of the spirit, and the whole universe a depravation of the Deity. They taught that the ultimate end of all being was to be the overcoming of the grossness of matter (atom-energy) and the return to the Parent-Spirit, which they held as inaugurated by the appearance of a God-sent Saviour.
The word Apocrypha is a word that itself is based on a Greek word and means hidden or secret. The Apocrypha Gospels are religious writings concealed or hidden because their origin was often unknown, or their authority and authorship was spurious or doubtful. But because of their obscure and dubious origin, as opposed to their material transparency, they are rejected as inspired, authentic or authoritative. Therefore, many of the Apocrypha gospels were excluded from the Christian canon, because they were written at a much later date, and therefore, less likely to be credible and trustworthy as bona fide texts.
The book, The Da Vinci Code, written by Dan Brown, is obviously a fun and popular fictional novel in part, satiring such existing questionable and frivolous Gnostic beliefs and Apocrypha writings that proliferated in the centuries after Christ’s death. In 1945, a peasant farmer in Nag Hammadi, on the west bank of the River Nile, discovered a collection of 13 ancient manuscripts containing Gnostic scriptures and commentaries. They are believed to been written in the 3rd century, although the actual manuscripts found are copies of these originals made in the 4th century. The gospels accepted for the New Testament was decided in 367AD, at which time there were more than twenty. However, the number of books reduced over time leaving the four gospels we now read in the New Testament. The Gnostic Gospels discovered at Nag Hammadi are copies of some of those discarded books including the Gospel of Mary Magdalene and the Gospel of Philip.
These Gospels, because of their latter authorship, are more likely to record inaccurate interpretations of the history of Christ. Moreover, these gospels were found many centuries after their actual writing, and as such, were not preserved, but subject to major deterioration allowing only limited insight into their literal contents. This makes for precarious ‘scatter reading’ between the holes and mould of the ancient papyrus. This age related papyrus disintegration also contributes to the possibility for prospective major misinterpretations and inaccuracies in any impending interpretations.
Wesley W. Isenberg says about The Gospel of Philip (The Nag Hammadi Library in English, p. 141): Because of the contents, the eccentric arrangement, and the literary types exhibited, it is likely that The Gospel of Philip is a collection of excerpts mainly from a Christian Gnostic sacramental catechesis.
The credibility of Gnostic thinking and literature is extremely questionable as they were not open and transparent writings intended to transmit informed knowledge about Christ, but instead were initiated to represent the secretive knowledge of a covert society. In addition to these latter gospels being found in a state of material corrosion, Gnostic epistemology can mutate like a ‘Chinese Whisper’, where an original and sometimes complex, but insignificant word or phrase, is initiated by one person and then whispered individually to and through a number of other people. But the greater the time it takes to receive the original message, and the more complex the original message was, and the more people the message was relayed through, the more likely it is that the initial message becomes unintentionally or intentionally perverted and distorted. The end message then becomes a deviation and misnomer of its original and intended meaning, notwithstanding the probability and possibility of the original message itself being potentially a perversion and distortion of the truth.
A latter form of Gnosticism was Catharism, a mystical offshoot of conventional Christianity. The Cathars’ faith was a complex one, which denied the divinity of Jesus Christ and rejected His resurrection. They also venerated Mary Magdalene as the wife of Jesus. There is no evidence in ancient writings, including the Apocrypha Gospel of Mary Magdalene that supports this belief, but the Apocrypha Gospel of Philip, if you can read between the holes in the papyrus, may read, that Jesus kissed Mary on the mouth. But if this cavalier guess is correct it could be a metaphor for the transmission of information, but definitely not even flimsy evidence for even the possibility of Christ having a sexual relationship with Mary. Incidentally, Mary Magdalene was the woman possessed by seven demons, which may have been a metaphor for an illness or epilepsy, but over the centuries’ she has been incorrectly labelled as having once been a prostitute. This rumour about Mary Magdalene having once been a prostitute is believed to been sown by Pope Gregory the Great (6th century) during one of his homilies. It is thought that Pope Gregory has confused Mary Magdalene with the women at the Well, or with the women who dried his feet who by conjecture was considered immoral. We must remember that as humans we are all imperfect, and as such, none of us has the authority to pass judgement on another. As Christ spoke in a parable ‘let he who is without sin throw the first stone’.
Whilst we are touching on the subject of the act of prostitution, the author feels implored to digress and explore some diverse ideas around certain beliefs and attitudes pertaining to this sometimes controversial and provocative subject matter. To this end it should be emphasised that the word ‘prostitute’ is a derogative ‘label’ and ‘stigma loaded’ word, that has for centuries carried with it a particular meaning that signifies a certain value judgement towards particular people and their particular behaviour. This is, the word ‘prostitute’ is used to both quantitatively and qualitatively define and label in a negative direction, an individual’s personal identity, value, self-worth and, personality, rather than properly used to describe an individuals particular behaviour. Indeed, the word ‘prostitute’, is a word used only to describe a particular component of a person’s behaviour. The word ‘prostitute’, should ever, only be used to describe a particular part of an individual’s behaviour, at a particular moment in time in that person’s life. All things being equal, in terms of the participants agendas, not including desire for revenge, entrapment, or ‘physical’ and/ or emotional abuse by either party, the act and behaviour of prostitution is a behaviour which must be considered as being both undifferentiated and neither morally ‘worse’ or ‘better’ than the ‘clients’ particular behaviour in the same act. Lets not get hung up on tradition and faiths. Everyone sells something of themselves every day. Humans exist through the services they sell to others wether it be corrupt intellectual information, over priced cars and vehicles, over priced legal advice, and over priced groceries and takeaways etcetera. Let us not single out be judgemental, and discriminate against any particular group.
However, this is not to suggest that the base instinctual sexual behaviour of either party need be encouraged as being ok, but that arbitrary indiscriminate sexual acts should necessarily be unreservedly considered before accepted as being ok and then acted upon. The qualification of the above statement is justified by the focus of the sexual act between ‘consenting adults’ accentuating and amplifying sexual interactions between two people that are based solely on and at the level of primal sexual physical base instincts. A behaviour between two people, that is solely based and focused on the sexual act of anatomical intimacy for ‘pleasure’, company, and/ or money, or whatever else, can only negate, distract, minimise, and divert the participant’s awareness and attention away from the rewarding positive, interpersonal relational interactions, that incorporate the higher components of human relations and friendship. Indeed, these are the higher components of human relations and friendship, based on the higher human constructs of intellectual, emotional and spiritual interconnectedness. But lets remember that there are seven equally negative behaviours, not only lust but greed, avarice, jealousy and theft, etcetera.
Meanwhile, Dan Brown, per se, and through his book The Da Vinci Code, suggests that Jesus Christ was just a man, gifted and great, but totally human, his divinity a fiction fostered by the church to bolster its authority. In fact, it is the fear generated from the threats of eternal punishment and damnation of Hell with Satan, written in the gospels and indoctrinated by Christian religions, that has been used as the leverage for obedience, compliance and adherence to ‘infallible’ religious authority, and not the story of Jesus’ compassion, miracles and resurrection. Moreover, the authors and writers of the Gospels in the New Testament of the Bible have been transparent and honest in their recordings of the accounts relating to all aspects of Christ’s life. The evidence of the transparent and honestly written recordings by these authors’ is manifest in the often seemingly incredulous, ridiculous and counterintuitive descriptions they make in relation to Christ’s 3 years of ministry, before, during and after his death. These are contents of the Gospels that contain the sometimes, seemingly incredulous, ridiculous, and counterintuitive descriptions of the events and experiences that Christ’s life encompassed. And that by virtue of their official recording, it cannot be defied that the authors clearly wouldn’t have hesitated to include in the Gospels, any particular event relating to Christ, had it been perceived and experienced as real, true and factual. Such transparency would occur in despite of the fact that any event pertaining to Christ may have been, or might be perceived as being considered as eccentric, extraordinary, ordinary or even damaging. And this transparency would undoubtedly include such events as the speculative marriage of Jesus Christ to Mary Magdalene and any conception and birth of any baby.
The story in the book The Da Vinci Code is based on the members of the Prior of Sion who had the objective to preserve secret information on the genealogy of the bloodline of Jesus Christ, produced by His supposed fathering of His supposed daughter Sarah who He supposedly sired with His supposed wife, Mary Magdalene. Sarah supposedly had descendants in the fifth century who supposedly intermarried with French royalty to form the now vanished Merovingian dynasty of kings. This secret genealogy of the bloodline of Christ, was supposedly recorded in the “Dossier Secrets”, which was anomalously left in a Parisian Museum. But indeed there is lack of even flimsy evidence to substantiate the claims in The Da Vinci Code regarding a secret brotherhood of men called the Prior of Sion that supposedly included the artist Leonardo Da Vinci.
The mysterious brotherhood, the “Priory of Sion” has supposedly handed down from one generation to another the ‘secrets’ of Christ’s marriage. These ‘secrets’ and ‘hidden messages’ are concealed in a series of clues hidden in paintings of the Renaissance artist Leonardo Da Vinci, specifically in his masterpiece, The Last Super. Leonardo Da Vinci, himself is, alleged to have been a former grand master of the Priory of Sion. Proof of this is lacking. Indeed, the priory’s documented existence dates only to 1956 when Pierre Plantard registered it with the French authorities as an organization to promote low-cost housing. Plantard, was exposed later as a forger and fantasist and had a court conviction for corrupting minors. Brown tells readers that the priory is a real organisation founded in 1099 and that secret documents found in Paris’s Bibliotheque Nationale reveal that its members have included Leonardo, scientist Isaac Newton, novelist Victor Hugo and the painter, Botticelli.
Of course, Leonardo Da Vinci’s painting, The Last Supper, is his personal interpretation of Christ’s last supper. The painting of The Last Supper described in Dan Brown's book, was created on the refectory wall of the Santa Maria Della Grazie, in Milan. The painting of the The Last Supper measures 9.1 metres long by 4.3 metres high taking Leonardo Da Vinci three years to complete. The picture illustrates Christ sitting at the centre of a long table with his disciples each side. Of course this painting is Da Vinci’s personal interpretation regarding Christ’s last supper, but controversially shows an effeminate figure, possibly John who was often portrayed as an effeminate man to Christ’s left (looking at the painting). This is a painting that Brown suggests holds secrete codes and messages in relation to Jesus’ and Mary’s supposed intimate and sexual relationship. However, the painting of The Last Supper, has undergone massive restoration work since its creation and is unlikely to be an exact replication of the original work. Moreover, who knows what is/ was in the mind of an artist when they paint their interpretation of any particular subject matter. So the problem here is that all paintings and human creations are personal interpretations or abstracts of how the ‘artist’ perceives the subject matter.
Paintings are the artists’ perceptions of the artists’ subject matter, or are intentional or unintentional embellishments or distortions of their perceptions of the subject matter. The subject matter of any artist, may be based on the desire or need to convey and present to others and themselves their personal ideas, fantasies, creativity and imagination, or perceived reality of a particular past, present and/ or impending event. And of course different people can always see different meanings, images and forms in the same painting and/ or indeed any ‘man’ made creation.
Extensive investigations into the authenticity of the existence of a brotherhood called the Prior of Sion, categorically assures that it was, and is, non-existent. The rigorous examination of the literary nuances and genre of the information recorded in the “Dossier Secrets” emphatically advises that it is nothing but an elaborate hoax.
Dan Brown’s central message could be defined as, being, “almost everything our fathers taught us about Christ is false”, and insists that his book is based on historical foundations that are fact. But generalised statements such as these are, by definition, overly and exorbitantly extravagant and frivolous. Statements such as these are unsubstantiated opinions without factual or rational evidence, which are based on nothing more than fanciful imagination, but indeed make for interesting reading.
Reading fiction is fun, but when fiction is portrayed as fact, fiction becomes at best, a distortion of the truth, and at worst, an absolute misrepresentation of the truth, and thus a lie. With the constitution of freedom of speech exudes personal opinions that are not only propagated by personal agendas, personal motivations and personal ignorance, but also propagated by personal pride and arrogance. The use of sentiments such as “almost everything our fathers taught us” is both a condescending and inaccurate statement. ‘Father’ is a word, which carries with it, condescending connotations relating to subservience and obedience. The writers of the gospels are our peers rather than our ‘fathers’. The writers of the gospels are our peers, and as such are imperfect humans like us, but who had the privilege of meeting Christ and/or His apostles and witnesses, but who had the additional responsibility of recording and sharing His life with others.
Finally, for this fictional novel to include Christ, it obviously cannot be of much interest, if Christ was just a normal human being, rather than the Son of the Creator, and thus, Jesus should not be the pivotal character for such a thriller. The fact is, sex, marriage and children are normal human activities, and as such, rather boring. However, people do love to read about controversy, secrets, codes, conspiracy theories and mysteries, especially if they are associated with the One who claimed to be ‘God’, with the One who performed astounding miracles, and with the One who rose from the dead. To write a fictional novel around this One is to use this One for kudos, as this One is the One who perhaps is and has experienced a life that can be, in part, described by that saying, ‘truth is stranger than fantasy’.
Evolution of Scripture Interpretation
Today, followers of Christ are beginning to realise the importance regarding acts of unity, friendship and love. Accordingly, accordingly, many followers are working ecumenically towards a more uniform and commonsense approach to Scripture interpretation that is essential for harmony and the progressive unification between and within churches and denominations, both Christian and non-Christian based. But it would be unrealistic to ever expect a unanimous, complete and perfect understanding of Scripture interpretation. However, there can be healthy discussions and outcomes from diversity and Christ’s immediate followers and apostles did not get it ‘right’ much of the time.
The early Christians kept developing their interpretation of theology through continual discussions, disagreements and convened Councils. With the changing contemporary issues experienced today and as the world strives to become more civilized and developed, we realise that the understanding and application of the moral and spiritual principles stated in Scripture need to be continually developed, refined and rearticulated through time in light of continuing demands and challenges that the evolving world continues to throw up. For example, we will not find in the Bible any specific moral codes prohibiting slavery, which the so-called ‘developing’ and ‘civilized’ world has unfortunately encouraged over the last few hundred years. Instead, in Ephesians 6:5-7 we read, how slaves are instructed to obey their masters. But if the new law of relational love and compassion of, “doing to others as you would have them do to you” (which we will discuss later), had been acknowledged and adhered to by the societal perpetrators of these activities this abominable treatment and abuse from slavery by one human against another might have been prevented. Incidentally, Pope John Paul II apologised on behalf of the Church (and Christians) for turning their back on the millions of African people who through mistreatment by slavery endured great suffering and premature death throughout the centuries.
This exploration of Scripture interpretation may be acutely considered by some fundamentalists and others to be at worst, heretical and blasphemous, and at best, somewhat atypical and non-traditional, although it is essentially an objective, considered, practical and realistic academic approach. This measured and researched approach to Scripture interpretation is an especially poignant, realistic and pragmatic procedure reflecting the conception, written genre, cultural context and progression of ancient religious writings. We will continue to use these tools of interpretation for reading and understanding Scripture in the search for the fragility of human origins and delicate spiritual dimensions, and in so doing, perhaps learn more about primary human instincts, attitudes, goals, desires, needs, rights and responsibilities both psychologically and spiritually.
The Human Spiritual Journey
As humans, selfishness, greed, arrogance and pride put aside, we are by virtue of our make-up ultimately striving for personal improvement and betterment on both an intellectual and spiritual plane. The idea of attaining intellectual and spiritual perfection is impossible but nonetheless such a vision guides and draws us towards and up the path of self-improvement and personal achievement. Having said this, it is psychologically and spiritually important for us not to personally carry the burdens of the requirements of perfection, as described, prescribed, and portrayed, in the interpretation of aspects of Scripture. In particular, this notion relates in origin to the well-known and famous story in Genesis of the Bible, of Adam and Eve’s “fall from grace.” Having once been perfect in ‘The Garden of Eden’ and then having permanently fallen from grace through imperfection, it is impossible for us to regain that unblemished status and state of perfect perfection we may now feel we need to strive towards. To try and endure the harsh personal strive towards the practically impossible steep psychological slope and spiritual climb back up the slippery ladder of illusionary perfection to re-attain that, which is written we were once said to have owned and been.
To personally strive towards the impossible ideas and images of behaviours identified by the meaning of the word ‘perfection’ as described before “the fall” of Adam and Eve can be nothing but psychologically and spiritually torturous. This is, to strive towards the imaginary place believed to have once been and lived, without the obstacles characterized by the human condition of potential imperfection that essentially encompasses the reality of Self and Self being human, the reality of Self’s humanness and the reality of humanity per se, which humans, by nature, can rationally be defined. It is important, as psycho/ spiritual human beings, that we can start our personal and spiritual journey afresh as newly born babes in the world. Rather than having to carry upon our shoulders the horrendous burden of the depressing story of Adam and Eve’s ‘roller coaster’ behaviour from perfection to imperfection, from hero to zero, and the subsequent predicament of life riddled with pain as a just consequence for such ‘inhuman’ impetuous and instinctive behaviour. By reading Scripture in a real, authentic, and meaningful way, we can perhaps view the story of Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden metaphorically if as an ideal archetype to achieve. An ideal archetype, to strive towards, mediated through the fog of human imperfection and experience, as an ideal ahead on the horizon, as a place to aspire and perhaps one day achieve. A place driven and permeated with relational love to move towards rather moving past and behind, as if a bridge burning never to be extinguished nor rebuilt, but only to be gazed at in the rear view mirror as just a vision, something special and unique that was once, but which will never again be. Adam and Eve’s Garden of Eden, perhaps just a place to be after anatomical death, a place we may call heaven or paradise, for Self as Spirit to reside.
Our desire for self-improvement may then be seen in a more realistic and achievable light. Instead of starting on the back-foot with the burden of having once been perfect and playing catch up, we can now start from scratch, from the beginning, albeit with the human condition of potential sinfulness and imperfection. We can aspire to climb the ‘rocky’ mountains and overcome these obstacles and move towards the goodness of love and forgiveness for Self and others as being the spiritual and psychological implements to use to achieve our goals. To then, ultimately savor the glowing and warm consciousness of emotions and sensations that our personal mastery over these spiritual and psychological accomplishments and achievements will invoke within us.
This realistic notion of humankind originating from a base of imperfection compliments and supports the scientific evidence - explored later - describing humans having evolved directly from the animal world of Apes. Humans therefore carry within them, through genetic inheritance, animal instincts such as fear, control, aggression, sex drive and the need for food, water and shelter, but also through the spiritual and transcendent nature of predetermined evolution, humans carry with them the acquired invisible constructs of consciousness, intellect, cognition, emotion, personality and freewill. The invisible constructs of Self’s consciousness, intellect, emotion and cognition can either develop through choice and/or environment into particular attitudes, values and beliefs that shape a personality manifest as depraved and perverted ‘animal like’ behaviours. Or these spiritual constructs can instead again through personal choice or the mix of personal choice and environment set humans apart from the animal kingdom with thoughts, emotions, values, attitudes and behaviours that resemble an increased sense of awareness in terms of a personally ‘civil’, spiritual and moral accountable behaviour towards Self and others.
CHAPTER 14
‘PHYSICAL’ AND SPIRITUAL WORLDS
Visible and Invisible Worlds
Think of Absolutely Nothing
Humankind in the Creator’s Image and Likeness
Why Do We Exist
Learning from Experience
Humans Potential for Relational ‘Love’
Possibility of Life after Death
Possibility of Multiple Worlds
Living the Gift of Life to the Full
Never Too Late
The Sanskrit Proverb (Veda)
Visible and Invisible Worlds
Having come this far in the existential search, we may have found some questions answered. We may have decided to consider that through natural revelation in science and creation and in human reason and logic combined with a reflective introspective discerning intuitive spirit, that a ‘God’ or Creator, might indeed exist. We now might want to know why we were created in the first place, the purpose for our lives in this world, and why we would deserve eternal life in a place called ‘heaven’. Heaven, a place were infinite and unparalleled knowledge, compassion and happiness may preside.
As we read on remember the term physical and tangible is a term used that we know refers to the structures of atom-energy. And that the non-physical refers to non-atom spirit-energy. Both are forms of energy, but different in their unique ways. Let us look at the two dimensions of reality. Firstly, the finite ‘physical’, tangible, mortal of the structured atom-energy world we live in as categorized by the existence of our ‘physical’ body and the visible world around us including atom-energies that we cannot see, such as gases. The physical world of which the body and brain are apart embodies the infinite and invisible spirit and personality, which encapsulates and processes consciously, cognitively and emotionally the experiences of both the visible and invisible worlds around us. Secondly, the infinite, spiritual, immortal, intangible, and personal world of consciousness, thoughts and emotions, attitudes and belief’s that we can't touch or see, but which we vividly experience as inherently and intrinsically a part of Self’s Being, interacting and responding to the world, and which also informs Self of who and what Self is. This also includes that small little voice and the voices we hear inside, which we talk to and which talk to us, which talk to our unique being and personhood. These voices within Self, within our being are the voices of Self’s Self, of Self’s conscience and spirit, which we listen to and argue with as we reflect on our experiences and consider the decisions we might make from the available choices we may have.
To understand the finite and mortal world of ‘physical’ creation and the infinite immortal world of the spiritual creation it would be helpful to identify and distinguish between these two dimensions of reality. There is a distinction between the finite and seen visual worlds of existence, which we experience, and the infinite and unseen invisible world of existence, that we also experience. The distinction between the atom-energies of the ‘physical’ as apposed to the world of spirit-energy helps us to understand the complexity of the spiritual Self that exists, through the interaction and interface of both atom structures and spirit-energy. We need to mentally separate and individually explore and reflect on these two dimensions. These dimensions both coexist and function with, and in, Self and each of us simultaneously and symbiotically, until the day comes when the invisible personality and spirit are released from the atom-energy structure of the brain at the ‘death’ or restructuring of atom-energy of the ‘physical’ body.
Think of Absolutely Nothing
If we think back to before the ‘big bang’, when time, the universe, and space were not. When and where there was no material existence, it would seem logical to think that there must have been nothing, that absolutely nothing ever existed before the ‘big bang’ and subsequent evolution of the universe. But if there had always been nothing before the ‘big bang’ then there could never ever be now something. However, and indeed, the meaning of the word ‘nothing’ is a difficult concept to imagine, to imagine absolutely nothing, to imagine the thought of no time, no ‘physical’ entity, no universe, no dark mass of space, no vacuum and no particles, to think of nothing and therefore to think of no existence whatsoever. Indeed, do we even know what nothing is? Do we even know how to define nothing? Is the reality of nothing even possible because there is indeed something? Now that we experience something, could there ever, ever, have been nothing? Can the meaning of the word ‘nothing,’ be defined as a verb, adjective or noun? We can do nothing, but we are still doing something. We may be sometimes described and judged by others as worthless and of ‘nothing’, but we are still very much something. However, is and was there ever, ‘absolutely nothing’? Before we were born we were nothing, but still something existed for us to be born. Can we comprehend the concept of there being ‘absolutely nothing’ having ever existed? And if nothing did ever exist, would this in fact be, by definition, the nature of something? Or wouldn’t this be the nature of something? Can nothing be something? Is it true that nothing, per se, meaning absolutely nothing, could ever exist, or could not ever exist?
This ‘nothing’ is a difficult concept to think about or imagine, because being alive in this world and therefore experiencing something other than nothing, experiencing existence itself, and existence in Self and others, defies Self to then think of nothing as a reality. The reality of ‘Something’ is defined as either ‘physical’ or invisible thought. When Self is asleep and unconscious this may be thinking about nothing although science suggests brain waves exist whilst still one is unconsciously asleep. Self perhaps cannot think of nothing while Self is indeed conscious and therefore thinking of something. This is, Self thinking about nothing is Self thinking about something, because ‘nothing’ does not exist in terms of conscious thought. So is it even possible for Self to conceive of a material or spiritual reality that is nothing? These mental conceptualisations of nothing must somewhat contradict and frustrate the idea and image we may have had about there ever being in existence ‘nothing’. Nothing, Nothing, Nothing. Can the concept of Nothing, even be defined as existing, as an existence? The concept of the word nothing, generated by the meaning of the word nothing to this mind is one which is impossible to comprehend and even grapple with.
The intrinsic difficulty in thinking about the concept and reality of nothing may be in part due to the reality that there has always been something. Indeed, due to the possibility of the reality that in fact there has always been something in existence. The reality of this something may not be conceivably conceptualised in terms of the ‘something’ that Self experiences in this world, but instead, the reality of a something that always was. And the reality of a something that always will be. So the fact that we cannot clearly define and comprehend the reality of the meaning of what is represented by the word ‘nothing’ before the Universe, as we know it, was created, may be because there has always been a something. Because perhaps there has always been in existence something, or a ‘something’, or perhaps there has never been a time and place where nothing existed.
Of course, from a human perspective ‘nothing’ must mean no time, no space and no place, because time, space and place is defined by humans, as something. But if we could think of ‘nothing’ and fully comprehend and rationalize the meaning of this word in the context of human life and the beginning of creation, then it must be easier to think and believe that there must have been always something. There could at no time ever been a nothing for the something to exist, which humans experience as their reality, because something cannot be produced from nothing. The reality of the something that existed before the reality of human experience and creation, may understandably conceivably be, conceptualized and experienced as incomprehensible. The something that existed before the reality of human experience and creation, may be explained by the existence of a Creator, or a ‘God’. If we could scientifically and conceptually comprehend that a nothing could exist before the reality of human experience and creation, we could then conceive a reality without a Creator or a ‘God’, because if there was at sometime, nothing, then there would be no need for the reality of the existence of a Creator or a ‘God’. But because we cannot think of ‘nothing,’ and something cannot come from nothing then this ‘something’ may be the partial existence and definition of the profile and personality of a Creator or a ‘God’.
So if there was nothing prior to the existence of human beings being a reality of the existence of the Universe, if nothing existed before creation, how then could the universe be created, how could creation be created, how could humans exist, how could existence exist itself? If nothing existed before the reality of creation, if there was absolutely a nothing before the something, if there was absolutely nothing before creation, then indeed, would it not make sense that there could be no ‘existence’ as we know it today? But as we experience with Self’s eyes, with Self’s senses, and Self’s intellect, the reality of Self and the reality of creation, perhaps we are experiencing the results and outcome of creation from the Creator. That is, a Creator who has created ‘physical’ atom-energy dimensions born to exist from without, a place where time and space exist as a ‘physical’ frame to place within the atom-energy of creation, including a human body that embodies the spirit and personality of Self.
But as we've learnt through science, this created universe must be finite, it must have an end, we ourselves have a ‘physical’ end, where we die through accident or illness or through old age. We have read about the discovery in science, where the Sun will ‘blow up’, disintegrating by its own volition, on its ‘use by date,’ after burning all its fuel, without further heat and energy, in about 5,000 million years time. These are characteristics of the scientific laws of nature.
Perhaps herein also lays a paradoxical enigma that limits human ability to believe in the existence of a ‘God’, and one of the obstacles to a categorical, or even conditional belief, in the existence of a Creator or ‘God’. That is, the seemingly obvious contradiction to the laws of nature as we know them today. For the very existence of a ‘God’ to exist, who cannot be defined by the laws of nature as we know them to be, must be defined as something out side the laws of nature, perhaps defined as an invisible spirit, immortal and infinite. Yes, the Creator, the designer and manufacturer of a finite material world, but also the designer and manufacturer of an invisible intangible spiritual world of consciousness, thought and emotion, is likely a Creator who must always have been infinite for these entities to exist. Yes, a Creator who is infinite yet, who created something finite, whilst also being and creating something infinite. But if Self and Self’s consciousness and personality, and thoughts and emotions, etcetera, can be considered to be invisible and intangible and thus, spirit, immortal and infinite, then Self may understand the possibility of how a Creator may also be invisible, spiritual, eternal and immortal.
Indeed there may be some truth in a ‘God’, in a Creator, who has been spoken of by theologians and philosophers as, “that which nothing greater can be thought”, and who is omnipotent (all powerful), omniscient (all knowing) and benevolent (all good). For it is argued, but difficult to mentally conceptualize, and thus conceive, that there must be neither nothing before ‘God’, nor nothing after ‘God’, because ‘God’ always was, and always will be. As ‘God’ has also been spoken of throughout time, as the Alpha and Omega, as the Beginning and the End, as the First and the Last, and as the Was, the Is and the Will Be.
Humankind in the Creator’s Image and Likeness
It is a likely possibility that the Creator became human through the birth or incarnation of His son, Jesus Christ. That God, in part, became human to save the world from itself and to teach humans how to live, to prove ancient Scripture correct and, to prove that humans, were made in the Creator’s image and likeness. Thus to be made in God’s image is also to believe that we are spirit, infinite and immortal. This concept can potentially be explained by the reality of Self’s invisible consciousness, cognitions, emotions and personality. These we experience but can’t visibly see. And through these invisible and intangible constructs of spirit and consciousness there is the potential for Self, being made with the characteristics of intrinsic personal integrity, manifest as a conscious, independent and sovereign being, to also be immortal. Self, a conscious, independent and sovereign being who lives forever, who lives eternally, between, without and within the genesis and essence of the Creator’s mystical relational love.
So if we were to ask Self the question, “What’s at the end of the universe as we know it” but to only answer, “a wall, or a dark place, or a space, or an infinite vacuum or nothing”. Would we not be answering without any conviction whatsoever, would we not be answering a question with a question? But the reality of this matter, is that before the Universe existed there was no Earth, no movement, no time, and no space as humans understand these terms in the universe. There was absolutely nothing in the terms and definitions of what we humans perceive to experience here in this world. Indeed, it is difficult to conceive that there was nothing before the Universe, just as it is difficult to conceptualise that the universe does not continue forever, because perhaps there has to be something before the Universe, and because perhaps nothing ‘physical’ can continue and exist forever, particularly in its present atom-energy state and beyond.
Nothing physical, ‘physical’ defined as the structure and functions of atom-energy we see in different forms around us and being that which makes up the universe, by the rules of nature, will not exist forever. Since the beginning of the ‘Big Bang’, since the conception of the universe, the universe has been evolving within itself, whilst also expanding outwards. So humans naturally, try and imagine the concept of the notion that the universe can expand indefinitely, and that for the universe to expand indefinitely then the universe must be infinite, continuing outwards in all directions forever and ever. But before the universe’s conception there was nothing but, say the dimension of the Spirit world. If the created universe is expanding outwards at this very moment in time, what then is it expanding into, if before the creation of the universe there was nothing? Is there a moving wall between the world of the created universe and the world of the Creator/ Spirit, a ‘wall’ of time and space that is pushed outwards as the universe expands? This image of a moving wall between the two different worlds or dimensions of the universe and the Creator’s/ Spirit world could be a useful metaphor in describing the reality of the l world in relation to the possibility of the existence of an alternative spirit world. And we could go even further and say there is no wall, no wall but instead, the alternative dimensions of both ‘physical’ and spiritual worlds, together interactive and interwoven. One within the other and vice versa as the Spirit of Self and Consciousness use interactively the vehicle of the brain to exist on this planet, in this world and universe.
The something, that existed before the universe was created, is perhaps something we may call the Creator and the Creator’s/ God’s ‘world’, and all that entails the Creator’s world. And if the Creator’s world can then be intellectually considered to have always been, then God’s world can then also be intellectually considered to always be. Indeed, God’s world could be a multi-dimensional, multi-level world where the Earth’s ‘dead humans’ now continue to still exist as humans, as a culmination of Self’s immortal Self, Bing, Spirit and Personality, experiencing the acceptance, compassion and magnificence of the Creator and the personalities and relationships of other Self’s and each other. In earthly terms perhaps being in God’s world means being able to pass through ‘physical’ objects made of atom-energy, and move at speeds greater than thought or light. So in the world that we know exists from experience, there is space and time, space and time with length, depth and breadth, an existence made up of atom-energy but also spirit-energy. Where structures and functions of atom-energy, like the human body are able to encapsulate and embody the invisible constructs of Self of thoughts and emotions, values, attitudes and personalities, being the atom-less spirit-energy of humans. The world of the structure and functions of atom-energy where the Self’s spirit can reside, grow, experience and exist, until the Self’s body – atom-energy - is spent through its change in structure and function and the unique independent sovereignty of the Self’s consciousness and personality sent unfettered to its next destination and place of living.
Thus, there structures and functions of atom-energy, and the invisible atom-less spiritual-energy of the soul, the spirit and the personality, with its thoughts, feelings, desires and self-awareness that we cannot see yet experience. These invisible human entities of Self could be said to be part of the constructs of the spiritual world of humans, reflecting in essence, the image – albeit invisible - of the Creator. So there is the infinite, invisible and immortal world that perhaps always has been and always will be, and the visible, finite and material world of atom-energy we are born into. And so it could be said that the universe, the material world of time and space, which the body, personality and spirit live in, is suspended like a fish within a fish bowl, within a room within a house, within a galaxy within a universe, all within another dimension, another invisible world. Another world and dimension synonymous with our experience of Self and consciousness.
Consciousness, the soul and spirit, the ability to possess invisible thoughts and emotions the Self and humans experience, have transcended from another world, created from another dimension, but now exist on Earth as if within a sub world, situated within a larger and incredibly different invisible dimension as that world belonging to the Creator. Our emotions and thoughts, our spirit and soul live within a visible world, but also exist in a world without tangible confines and definition, a metaphysical world where spiritual osmosis and percolation between the created and the Creator prevails as a matter of natural course. So there is the infinite invisible spiritual world that exists both within and beyond the ‘physical’ and visible world - the essence of our being - and there is the finite, visible and ‘physical’ world that we, being spirit and body exist within. Both worlds created by the Creator where one exists within the Creator’s invisible infinite world. Where together one’s ‘physical’ anatomy/body and invisible spirit and personality reside. It seems that humans are from, and exist, because of the integration and combination of both ‘physical’ and spiritual worlds, being divinely designed and ordered. We exist now, we exist today, we exist as both body and soul from the two dimensions of reality from the infinite, invisible and spiritual, to the finite, visible and physical.
Why Do We Exist?
How can we answer these questions, ‘why do we exist, why were we made and what is the purpose of life’? How can we understand and explain the reality of humans to be created and so to exist, to live here on Earth from conception through to adulthood, to experience the pain of suffering, and the joy of happiness, and then to finally die. Perhaps we can answer this difficult question with another philosophical question. Suppose we now decide that we believe in a ‘God’, in a ‘God’ that created all that exists within the universe. Now suppose if the Creator had willed us to be with Him, to be in heaven instantly, from the time of our conception, to be in paradise, to be in a place overflowing with the indescribable feelings of unconditional mystical relational love, happiness, mercy and compassion. Could He then say to us, “Now enjoy My Fellowship, My Relationship, My Energy, My Mystical Relational Love, My Forgiveness, My Knowledge, and My Happiness”, with us feeling and knowing that we knew anything about what a loving relationship required and represented. Or knowing the trials and tribulations of relationships, or knowing what relational love and forgiveness was, or indeed even knowing who we were, let alone feeling as if we deserved such a place of paradise. Or us knowing and being conscious of anything about feelings such as the emotional pain of anger, or the emotional happiness of joy that we experience through our response to the stimulation of our cognitions and emotions from the stimulus of living life in the world? Or of Self knowing anything about Self knowing Self as a unique, independent and sovereign Being. No, we would not have a knowledge and understanding of Self, or of relationships, or of love and forgiveness, nor hate, deceit, greed, selfishness, anguish and anger or the trials, tribulations and joys of personal achievements and relationships.
We would be emotionally and spiritually unaware, immature, bankrupt and barren to the power of our thoughts, feelings and behaviours. We would be emotionally and spiritually unaware of how these experiences can impact on Self and others and of the power of the thoughts, feelings and behaviours chosen by individuals, groups, communities and countries that men’s and women’s happiness or suffering are often predicated on.
Learning from Experience
By living this sometimes difficult and harsh life on Earth in the best possible way we can learn to grow emotionally and cognitively, to develop skills and shape our personality, acknowledging our weaknesses improving on them and building upon our strengths. We can learn, to consciously experience the feelings and thoughts of love, anger, and anxiety, etcetera. We can learn from failures, mistakes, successes and tribulations and from sorrows, joys and indeed all of the conscious emotions and cognitions that humans encounter within the dynamics of living life. We can learn to survive the days that are not so good, gaining inner strength from this survival, learning to enjoy more the days that are better. If we are destructive against Self and others, we can turn this around by learning to choose to apologize to others, and we can choose to forgive others’ whilst accepting ours and others’ imperfections. From the mental stress of antagonism and ill will towards others we can learn to become a more generous spirit manifest in choosing the path of compassion and reconciliation. From the more difficult experiences in life that we encounter we can learn to accept the ‘good’ times as well as the not so good. We can learn from the destructive powers of our actions and behaviours, emotions and thoughts to be responsible and accountable in our relationships with Self and others.
After encountering the myriad of painful and joyful experiences and, when our time here on Earth was over, could we then ask, ask…? When our earthly ‘physical’ existence is extinguished and the time for the next life begins, when the time to meet the Maker face to face, spirit to spirit, and when meeting ‘God’ in His world is imminent, could we then ask:
“What is this place of paradise”?
And not know and understand it.
“What is this place of beauty”?
And not know and understand it.
“What is this place of happiness and joy”?
And not know and understand it.
“What is this place of mercy and justice”?
And not know and understand it.
“What is this place of love and forgiveness”?
And not know and understand it.
“What is this place of kindness and compassion?”
And not know and understand it.
“What is this place of friendship in relationships?”
And not know and understand it.
Could we then turn and ask:
“How can we exist in a place of paradise such as this despite human imperfections” and not answer and be told, “Yes”?
And could we ask not knowing the answer to:
“Are we unique, independent, self-determining, discerning and sovereign beings with free will and choice”? And not be ignorant, but know and understand when we’ve experienced in our lives on Earth, moments and times of accountability and responsibility or lack of, for our personal actions, decisions and behaviours.
Humans Potential for Relational ‘Love’
Indeed, we would now be emotionally and intellectually adequate to appreciate, through Self’s conscious self-awareness, the joys and sufferings of life and relationships. We would be so much more able to appreciate the possible wonders of paradise and the potential unconditional acceptance and compassion of the Creator. And don’t be too worried, don’t beat up on yourself if you feel you have consciously and voluntarily or involuntarily chosen to do harm or wrong to Self and others, because this is where the Creator’s mercy and justice - through the life and death of Christ - takes precedence over all else. It is the author’s emphatic and unequivocal belief that there comes a time in everyone’s life where we all have a chance to make amends in this life, to start afresh, to put behind us any suffering we have caused others, to move on and begin a new life in relational acceptance, love, compassion and reconciliation. Maybe that time is right, right now, at this very moment. But also for people who for some reason are unable to make the real changes, that are unable to live in and with relational love, compassion and reconciliation, so there will be a time when everyone has a chance to make amends when face to face with ‘God’ the Creator.
These personal amendments in the next life, are possibly conducted through the processes of spiritual and personal purification and refinement, which may essentially include and involve Self’s assessment and reflection on and of Self’s life. This personal purification process the author believes, is in part, about consciously experiencing any ‘physical’ or emotional pain we have caused others to suffer, and which allows us to become real, authentic and better persons, this is, improved spirits/personalities. For we are a people defined by the conscious awareness of our personality, spirit and soul manifest as an expression of our particular thoughts, emotions and actions.
However, and more importantly, it is not so much a question of whether we deserve to live in an ‘after life- in ‘heaven’ and ‘paradise’ - or not, but rather, perhaps a fact that we were made for both this world and an after life.
The meaning of the word love in relation to the Creator’s potential love for the created is obviously complex. The meaning of the Creator’s ‘love’ for the created may be described better through the terms ‘mystical’ or ‘mysterious relational love’. The Creator’s potential mystical or mysterious relational love for the created is indeed a phenomenon that is partially experienced within aspects of human love, but which must be, by definition, for humans, not unequivocally and transparently comprehensible.
For the Creator is mysterious, but through the life of Christ the ‘Creator’ may in part, be described as the essence of unconditional relational love. Yes, the Creator’s relational Love may be unconditional. This is, the Creator may exhibit and express relational love without conditions. That is, ‘God’ does not love, per se, because one has or has not thought, felt and behaved in this particular way, or in that particular way. You may be wondering how God’s love can be unconditional if the Creator doesn’t receive our love back in return, and/or if we choose to transgress against Self and others through the infliction of the burden of pain imposed from a personal attitude of vitriol, vindictiveness, destructiveness and hatred.
This interesting concept whereby the Creator’s love for the transgressor is still unconditional can best be explained by the terms “unilateral” and “bilateral” relationships between the Creator and Self. For the people in the world who don’t know the Creator, who don’t understand the creator, who transgress against the Creator’s creation, who have never heard of the Creator, then the Creator’s relational love for them is what is termed unilateral relational love. That is, one-way unconditional relational love from the Creator to them. But the Creator’s relational presence, compassion and acceptance for and over them, is highly significant. However, a relationship that is two-way, that is, some kind of personal intimate, private and transcendent relationship between the Creator and Self, and Self and the Creator, has the capacity for mysterious refinement and development.
This two-way relationship may grow and develop between two beings, between two spirits, between the Creator and Self as Self chooses to respond to and reciprocate the Creator’s relationship for and with Self. This potential and voluntary inter-relationship between God and humans turns God’s unilateral love for humans into a two-way relationship between the Creator and the created. The Self, the created, a being created with consciousness, with sovereign independence, with personality, with uniqueness and with freewill, and so a voluntary relationship between the Creator and the created may be established and termed a bilateral relationship.
This bilateral relationship is a relationship between the Creator and the created. This bilateral relationship may sometimes be based on, and expressed, through anger, disbelief and frustration, etcetera. Or this relationship may sometimes be based on, and expressed, through mystical relational love, understanding, acceptance and respect. This intimate and mysterious relationship between the Creator and the created, is expressed and identified by and through thoughts, emotions, behaviours and contents of speech, that do not control, coerce or suffocate the one, or the other. This is a relationship that is alive, real and voluntary, a relationship driven by informed knowledge, freewill, choice and trust, rather than a relationship driven by fear or the threat of punishment and/or hell.
Possibility of Life after Death
Perhaps we can now begin to comprehend a concept of the meaning of the word heaven, a place for us of joyful paradise in eternity. The fact that we have been brought into this world, and are able to reflect on our Self, and Self’s experiences in this amazing world with all its miracles and wonders, perhaps allows us to conceive and logically reason that it is possible to also imagine experiencing another amazing world. Experiencing another unbelievable phenomena of the personality, spirit and soul, a place of immortality, a place of infinity, a place in paradise where we, spirit and personality, reside when our body (anatomy) dies. The ‘physical’ body is the structure with functions that has allowed us to live and interact in the ‘physical’ world, which also includes interacting with the non-atom spiritual energy of others. Yes an after-life. We might say, but it’s natural living in this world and it would be ridiculous to believe in another world and life such as an ‘after life’. But we are individually special and unique beings, with consciousness, intellect, thoughts, freewill and emotions, and look where we live, on this temporary and relatively fickle planet called Earth. Is living on this planet we call Earth, is living on a suspended round rock ball only 8 thousand miles in diameter, 24 thousand miles in circumference, with a stratosphere of only 25 miles before space begins, covered in water, grass, vegetation, mountains, sand, buildings and people, floating around the depths of inner and outer space, really that natural? Does this scenario of reality even make sense, or have we just become conditioned, familiar and used to it, perhaps even taking it for granted?
If we were to close our eyes and imagine we did not exist. If we were to close our eyes and imagine we had not yet been born, as was the actual case a few years ago, before we were born. And then imagine that we were to suddenly exist, to suddenly appear today in modernity, as adults, to perceive the stars, moon, sun, trees, grass, mountains, sea, lakes, animals, horses, elephants, swans and other people, etcetera, wouldn’t we be absolutely amazed, astounded, bewildered, and shocked at the sight and vision before our eyes? Perhaps we have forgotten, or never realized or never had time to reflect and think about how miraculous and incredible creation is. Is it so incomprehensible? Is it so ‘wacky’? Is it so incredulous? Is it so ridiculous to believe in the possibility of a God, in the possibility of a Creator, and an eternal after life?
Possibility of Multiple Worlds
Is there more than one world? Are there more worlds than the world we live in? Have we experienced other worlds other than the one we live in? Is there another world when we die? In exposing such acrobatic difficulties of the intellectual and cognizant mind we can perhaps open the minds eye to the possibility of another world existing, a world of infinity, and immortality, and the existence of an afterlife, a life after death. The possibility of multiple worlds is exemplified, when we contemplate in reflective retrospection the ‘worlds’ we already know that have, do, and do not exist. We know of the world before we were conceived, the world of darkness, unconsciousness and nonexistence, a world were we could not conceive the existence of another world. We know of these ‘worlds’ because we know now that at some time we did not exist. We know of the world that did not exist before we were born. We know of the world of the womb, the ‘world’ of anatomical embryonic growth prior to the world we now live in, a world of the womb were we could not conceive of the existence of another world that we now live in. We know of the world we now exist, the world of consciousness, emotions and thoughts, of behaviours and actions, a world where it is also mentally taxing to conceive of the existence of any another world. I would like to share with you another thought provoking analogy by an unknown author, which again graphically reflects the need to overcome the obstacles and difficulties we may have in thinking and imagining anything else other than the concept of the real time experience of our existence in this world. And alludes to the possibilities of the existence of other dimensions other than the one we experience in the here and now.
Once upon a time twin girls, were conceived in the same womb. Seconds, minutes, hours passed as the two dormant lives developed. The spark of life glowed until it fanned fire with the formation of their embryonic brains. With their developing and simple brains came feeling, and with feelings, perception of surroundings, of each other and of Self and when they perceived the life of each other and their own life, they knew that life was good. And they laughed and rejoiced: the one saying, "Lucky are we to have been conceived and to have this world ", and the other chiming, blessed the Mother who gave us this life and each other". Each budded and grew arms and fingers, lean legs and stubby toes. They stretched their lungs, churned and turned in their newfound world.
They explored their world, and in it found the life cord that gave them life from the precious Mother’s blood. So they sang "How great is the love of the Mother that she shares all she has with us! And they were pleased and satisfied with their lot. Weeks passed into months, and with the advent of each new month, they noticed a change in each other and each began to see change in herself. "We are changing ", said the one, "What does it mean?" "It means", replied the other, "that we are drawing near to birth". An unsettling chill crept over the two, and they both feared, for they knew that birth meant leaving their entire world behind. Said the one, "Were it up to me I would live here forever.” “We must be born", said the other. "It has happened to all others who were here. "For indeed there was evidence of life there before, as the Mother had borne others. "But might not there be a life after birth"? "How can there be life after birth", cried the one, "do we not shed our life cord and also the blood tissues? And have you ever talked to one that has been born? Has anyone ever re-entered the womb after birth? No"! She fell into despair, and in her despair she moaned, "If the purpose of conception and all our growth is that it be ended in birth, then truly our life is absurd. Resigned to despair, the one stabbed the darkness with her unseeing eyes and as she clutched her precious life cord to her chest said, "If this is so, and life is absurd, then there really can be no Mother." "But there is a Mother, protested the other. Who else gave us nourishment and our world?" "We get our own nourishment, and our world has always been here. And if there is a Mother, where is she? Have you ever seen her? Does she ever talk to you? No! We invented the Mother because it satisfied a need in us. It made us feel secure and happy”.
Thus while one raved and despaired, the other resigned herself to birth, and placed her trust in the hands of the Mother. But together they feared what they did not know. Hours ached into days, and days fell into weeks. It came to pass that they were born into light. They coughed out fluid and gasped their first breath of dry air, and when they were sure that they had been born, they opened their eyes. Seeing for the first time, they found themselves cradled in the warm love of the Mother! They lay open-mouthed, awe-struck before the great beauty and truth they could not hoped to have known.
Living the Gift of Life to the Full
While we’re thinking and reflecting on this thought provoking and intellectual analogy of the possibility of other world’s existing other than the one we experience now and in real time, it might be wise and prudent for us to take hold of our senses and contemplate the following. Think about it, if we were now dead, if we had now left this Earth and had passed over to the other side, and it was now possible that we are able to judge and reflect on our earthly existence from a heavenly perspective, as we may well do when our time on Earth does come to a close. Would we be proud and satisfied with all we had accomplished or not accomplished, would we be proud and satisfied of our choices, beliefs and decisions we had made or not made? Would we be proud of the way we had informed Self about important issues? Would we have wished we had done things differently, changed particular behaviours and changed particular feelings and thoughts about Self and others?
On this sobering thought on the possible future thoughts and feelings Self may have if Self reflects upon Self’s past thoughts, feelings and behaviours of Self by collapsing time when and if Self does pass to the other side. And, assess and decides that Self has not lived life as well as Self feels Self could have lived, now is Self’s chance to change these things, if Self so wishes and desires to do so. Now is our chance to live the gift of life the best way we know how, to do the best we can with what we have, to live life to our fullest potential whatever this may mean to us. Life is indeed a gift. Life is the gift of awareness and consciousness of Self. Life is the gift of living. Life is the gift of potential knowledge and potential love, and no matter what our place in life is, life gives the privilege of challenges and self-awareness of Self’s strengths and weaknesses.
So living the gift of life to the full may include the virtues of living life with love, value, respect and acceptance of and for Self, so that Self may love, value, respect and accept others as Self loves, values, respects and accepts Self. Living life to the full may include defining riches and wealth as part of the equation that does not include material and monetary possessions, but rather, defined as personal peace manifest through self acceptance, respect and compassion for Self and others. Consistent research provides evidence that one’s sense and perception of ‘real’ personal happiness is not related to, or predicated upon, one’s occupational, financial, or material status. But that one’s happiness is dependant upon one’s inner sense of peace.
Living the gift of life to the full may mean enjoying whoever, or whatever you are, enjoying the moment, enjoying the here and now, enjoying whatever you are doing, wherever you are, whomever you are with. Living life to the full is about having time to sit quietly, time to meditate and reflect, and time to be quiet and peaceful or listening to the voice within. Living life to the full may also incorporate doing whatever is meaningful to Self, whatever is fun for Self, as driven by Self’s unique passions, skills, talents, gifts and personality. Whether our intrinsic personal interests, desires, talents, gifts, skills and passions, as expressed in the hobbies and employment we choose. Whether it includes working in the parks, or on the roads, on building sites, at universities, as a home keeper, or in the hospitals, etcetera; if we are doing these with a generous, accepting and selfless disposition, as opposed to an arrogant, judgmental and selfish attitude at another’s’ expense, we are surely living life to the fullest.
Although it should also be said and noted, that there should be no hierarchy of occupational, athletic, financial, religious or academic importance, prowess or status, that relates to a persons’ intrinsic self-value and self-worth as a uniquely special being. Unfortunately, in many cultures and religions one’s personal worth, self-esteem, self-value, integrity and inherent identity seems perceived to be predicated on one’s particular occupational, athletic, financial, religious or academic position and status in society. Whereas the truth of the matter is that just being human should just be enough to be perceived as being unique and special. That just being, just existing, just being and existing as a person, is essentially in itself, grounds for Self and others to treat Self with a genuine sense and practice of worth, value, acceptance and dignity.
Of course, all humans are imperfect with personal limitations, vulnerabilities and weaknesses and Psychological research suggests there is evidence that few people would satisfy all the criteria for being ‘normal’. The spectrum of behaviours ranging from what seems completely normal to what is abnormal is present in almost everyone. But we should never be lulled into a false sense of personal security and self worth - that potentially exacerbates the maladaptive attitudes of pride and arrogance, and thus, inevitable abuse of others - because we might hold a perceived privileged, distinguished and/ or powerful status, role or position in a particular community or society.
A study at the University of Surrey showed many senior managers and executives, other ‘professionals’ not being excluded, outscore mental patients on histrionic (over dramatic in reaction or behaviour) or narcissistic (excessive self-admiration and self-centredness) behaviours and compulsive personalities. The study’s researcher, Dr Katarina Fritzon, said these results were consistent with an earlier Canadian study that suggests the notion of the “successful” or ‘high functioning psychopath’ described as a personality disorder and characterised by antisocial behaviours. Who are without a sense of guilt and empathy or feelings for others, but masterful in charming and manipulation, and who can function unrecognised in society, and often holding positions of power, indeed thriving in ‘high-powered’ professions, such as Company Elected Officers CEO’s and law enforcement officers for instance.
In living life to the full we are learning about Self, Self’s weaknesses and Self’s strengths, developing as thinking, feeling and behaving spiritual beings. Whilst, also contributing something valuable, however small it may be, however insignificant it may seem, to the quality of life for Self and others, at home, in society and in the community in which we live and participate.
Living life to the full can be totally justified by, just doing to others, as you would have them do to you. Live and let live. In living life to the full we are living life with vision and therefore hope, for where there is vision and hope, there is life. In living life to the full we are mastering and overcoming particular challenges, however insignificant they may seem. For example, we may experience tremendous satisfaction in learning a new skill, or achieving a particular goal, or learning to live with a disability, or the pain of illness, or learning to master personal problems. These are the experiences of life, which can potentially give Self a sense of fulfillment, satisfaction, meaning and purpose to living life. You see, there is no specific, concrete and divine criteria for personal satisfaction and personal success, for each person, each individual is unique and special in their own right, in their own right, dignity and value as a human being.
When our time is up on this Earth, and we leave our dead bodies for the next world, we will most likely comprehensively reflect on the long or short, but temporary life, we have lived on this Earth. We will likely reflect on and assess the constructive and/or destructive personal thoughts, feelings, attitudes, values, behaviours and content of speech that we have contributed. And the measure we will use to ascertain and assess the personal success and the personal difference we have made on Earth will definitely not be based on how much money we have earned, or on what occupational status we have achieved, or on how many material possessions we have accumulated. The measure we will use to ascertain and assess the personal success and difference we have made on Earth, will most likely be based simply, on how well we have treated others. Has Self’s personal pursuit of Self’s passions, interests, aspirations, goals and achievements, whatever they may be, been mobilized and activated and/or completed and accomplished at the expense of the inferior quality and quantity of Self’s treatment of others. Have we treated others as well as we ourselves would want to be treated? Ultimately, in living life to the full, we will be treating others as we ourselves would want to be treated, and as such, we are doing that for which we are intended. We are doing that for which we were made, and that is to learn to choose to be more compassionate towards others, including Self.
Never Too Late
But no one, not even the Creator, expects or requires perfection, as it’s impossible to be perfect in an imperfect world. However, is it too much to ask and expect for Self to love and accept Self and others, to love and accept all our human brothers and sisters whilst still on this planet? To have compassion for and accept Self and others before it’s too late, before the body dies and the spirit leaves this Earth. We need to know we only have this one life, this one chance to live life here on Earth. Christ says, “Death comes like a thief at night” and the Chinese proverb states, “It is already later than you think”. Indeed, life on Earth is not a rehearsal, but the real deal for each individual, life on Earth is an individual’s one and only chance to live life as a human being encapsulated in a ‘physical’ body. Indeed, we do not need to be rocket scientists to understand that in general we never know when, where, or how we will ‘physically’ depart from this earthly existence. There are many reports of unremarkable and remarkable experiences of patients who have been, pronounced clinically dead. These patients who have been termed ‘clinically dead’ have either experienced absolutely nothing whilst unconscious to those who have experienced what is called Near Death Experiences. The term ‘clinically dead’ is a medical term that describes a patient who is not dead but is unconscious, and being kept alive through the assistance of a life support machine. But the term ‘clinically dead’ is deceptive, as the patient who is ‘clinically dead’ is not actually dead but only unconscious, with a brain that is still alive and living. The brain is not dead in these ‘clinically dead’ cases, because once the brain does actually die through the lack of oxygen and nutrients carried by the blood supply no amount of resuscitation will revive that person’s body. They are now more than ‘clinically dead’, they are now actually dead, without the hope of any medical revival.
Doctor Raymond Moody author of “Life after Life” (1975, 1988), said after interviewing thousands of people from unrelated cultures and countries purporting to have experienced near death experiences their stories of their “near death experiences” (NDE) were very similar which included experiences of viewing bright shafts of light, and unconditional love and compassion. They also describe how dramatically they have changed their lives after their amazing experience of experiencing the Creator’s unconditional love and the sheer joy and happiness that the experience of the after life brought to them. Whilst patients who are ‘clinically dead’ and been given the gift of viewing the “other-side” and learning from this experience. These people believe that apart from personal awareness and knowledge, relational love, compassion and reconciliation in relation to Self, and others, are the most important assets and qualities that can be accumulated here on Earth and taken with them when they finally leave their bodies and depart earth, passing over to the next world/life.
I would like to share with you a selection of prose written in 400 AD by Bishop Eusebius. He expresses eloquently his awe and struggle in coming to terms with the mysteries of life on Earth and the concept of eternity.
“What we call the present escapes more quickly then we can pronounce its name. It is not possible to grasp this time as the present. We either await the future, or look to the past, for the present forever slipping away is gone from us as quickly as we think of it. Thus eternity in its fullness cannot endure subjection to mortal reason, but refuses such slavery.”
“The periods of eternity are ageless and undying, its beginning and extent cannot be perceived by human reason, nor can its central point be grasped. It does not allow those who would wish to do so to seize with enquiring minds its present duration. With greater reason, neither the future nor the past can be comprehended, for one does not exist and has already passed by, while the other is not yet at hand and therefore does not yet exist.”
“The maker of earth has restricted the steadfast course of eternity by the four seasons of the year, ending the season of winter with the coming of spring and with equally matched balance marking the beginning of each annual cycle. He then crowns the eternal progress of time with the fruitfulness of spring and to that adds the heat of summer. He allows it a period of rest from labour and refreshes it with the season of autumn. Finally he changes the season by the onslaught of winter rains, bringing it as shining and sleek as an imperial steed refreshed by plentiful showers, to the porticoes of spring.”
The Sanskrit Proverb (Veda)
Look to this day,
For it is life,
The very life of life,
In its brief course lies all,
The realities and verities of existence,
The bliss of growth,
The splendour of action,
The glory of power,
For yesterday is but a dream,
And tomorrow is only a vision,
But today, well lived,
Makes every yesterday a dream of happiness,
And every tomorrow a vision of hope,
Look well, therefore, to this day.
This must be informed and eloquent advice for living life to the full.
Now let us summarize and recap on what we have explored and discussed up to this point. We may have once not
”believed,” not necessarily from not wanting to belief, but maybe because of the perceived less than truthful information which has been espoused. Often tainted by the credibility of those who purport to “know” ‘The Force’ and ‘The Power’ that we may understand as the Creator, and whom is named and labeled by many by the English word, “God”. We may now have gained an insight into the complex writings and different perspectives on the interpretations and misinterpretations of the writings of Biblical Scripture and their meanings. We have explored and discussed the possibility of the existence of a Creator through the revelation of the many scientific “miracles” of creation in the universe.
We have explored and discussed the possibility of the existence of a ‘God’ through revelation of the gifts of reasoning and logical processing from some of the greatest philosophers. And which reasoning abilities and gifts, we all possess. We have walked in the cognitive footsteps of their logic, and learnt how these philosophers have rationalized the necessity for a Supreme Being, Power, Force and/ or Creator to exist, for creation and the universe itself to exist and perennially perpetuate until extinguished. And we have discussed the concepts of the temporary world of the ‘physical’, and the eternal ‘world’ or dimensions of the spiritual and transcendent world as a basis and foundation for human beings’ reason for existence as the ultimate meaning of earthly life, living life to the full with the strong possibility of an immortal afterlife.
The Creator’s possible relationship with human beings, and how this relationship may have manifest its self in love and compassion exemplified through the Creator’s incarnate (made human) Son, Jesus Christ. The person called Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth who existed 2000 years ago and, believed to have taught human beings who God really is, and how He wishes humans to live life in the world today, hopefully is something we will continue to consider and reflect upon as we travel the journey of life in this world.
Do You Know Who I Have Become?
Do you know who I am?
You know who I am!
This is who I am
I am the person smelt from the fires of value judgements
I am the person forged by the hammers of criticism and barbs from imperfect beings
I am the person tempered by both heat and frosts of loneliness
I am the person galvanised from the trenches of wretchedness and desolation
I am the person strengthened from the pain and suffering of heartbreak
I am the person morphed from the transition of victim to survivor to hero
I am the person formed and moulded within the magical vastness of the cosmos
I am the person shaped and steered by an understanding of that which has always been, and always will be
I am the person who has become a social individual, and independent and sovereign being
I am the person who has learnt to live by their own truth
I am the person who fears not humankind or ‘physical’ death
I am the person trying to make a difference by doing things for the right reasons and be true to myself
.
THE RAINBOW
The complex and ‘scientific’ mechanisms of physics that facilitate and make possible the ‘colours’ of the Rainbow are classic examples of the magnificence and mystery of creation with its characteristics of design, order, plan diversity, and cause and effect. The Rainbow experience is a prime example of the notion behind the saying; “Things aren’t always as they seem.” We see the colours of the Rainbow reaching across the sky from one earthly point to the other and we perhaps wonder how this can be. Contemporary scientific research can now explain many wonders that were once a mystery. The reasons behind the colours that we see in the rainbow are described here. Raindrops, as they fall, act as tiny prisms, refracting (bending) and diffracting (separating) the light shining through them into long and short wavelengths of photons that in turn reveal the true essence of white light (electromagnetic energy) as different colours.
We see the world in colour, everything has colour. However, the perception that every object has a colour is an illusion as colour, per se, is not a quality or an attribute of any material or object. But colours of objects are caused by the different wavelengths of light that can be reflected by that particular material making up the object. The different colours of the Rainbow are the result of different sizes of wavelengths of light that can only reflect at certain angles as the sunlight shines through the raindrop. The remaining wavelengths of light that are unable to be reflected by that matter are absorbed by it and so unable to be registered as a stimulus on the retina - at the back of the eye - and processed by the optical area of the brain as a colour. The perception of colour, therefore, is created by electromagnetic energy made up of wavelengths of massless particles called photons, which are reflected by a particular material and perceived by us to be a particular colour such as red, green or blue, etc, upon the waves registration on the retina. The nerves in the retina turn these photons into electrical impulses, and subsequently, the neurological process in the brain, and the ultimate interpretation by Self. In this way we are able to see the different colours that make up light as expressed in the Rainbow, when the different light waves are reflected or mirrored back to on the raindrop’s inner surface through the physics of refraction and diffraction.
The rainbow’s “arc” is produced by the angle of the Sun’s electromagnetic visible wave-lengths entering the raindrop. Each band of colour occurs at a particular angle. For instance, we see the red band because all the points of the arc, measure about 420 from the line formed by the Sun’s rays on the raindrop while the other colours occur at angles less than 420 from the Sun’s rays. So the beautiful impression of the colours and forms caused by light passing through raindrops which we call the Rainbow and experienced in our skies, is perhaps a minute expression of the complexity and majesty of the design, order and substance of creation that combine physics and chemicals to make up the reality of the Universe as we understand it.
Back Cover Pictures
The Milky Way
The Milky Way is only one galaxy of about 100 billion galaxies in the universe. The Milky Way is the galaxy within which human beings reside. There are over 100 billion stars in the Milky Way, the Sun being one of those stars. The Milky Way is so vast that light, traveling at the speed of light, takes not 10 years, not 100 years, not 1,000 years, but 200,000 light years to traverse it!
The Star Betlegeux and the Sun
This picture demonstrates the enormous and immense size of some of the stars in the Galaxy of the Milky Way and Universe. This star is a super-giant called “Betlegeux” situated in the Orion Sword. Betlegeux has a diameter of 220 million miles and its size is seen here in relation to the Sun’s diameter of 1 million miles. The Sun has a diameter of 1 million miles and the Earth has a diameter of just 8 thousand miles.
Planet Earth
The American astronaut James Erwin, said after viewing the Earth, the Moon, and the Galaxy simultaneously, as his spacecraft traveled back to Earth between the depths of outer space and the Moon, that he had just seen the world as ‘God’ sees it, and that ‘God’ must love humans very much.
Snow Geese
Here is an example of one of the Creator’s beautiful living creations. The swans (Snow Geese) of Hokkaido in northern Japan, are born in Siberia, but migrate every year to their island sanctuary in Japan, when the Russian winter becomes too severe. They are covered in a snow blanket to keep themselves warm
The Rainbow
The Rainbow is an amazing reality exemplifying the wonderful and complex creations in the universe. The Rainbow, throughout time, has been regarded as magical and capturing the imagination of all peoples. We have the saying synonymous with the paradoxical enigma of such existence, “The pot of gold at the end of the Rainbow”. Perhaps the colours of the rainbow are symbolic and analogous to the beauty, strength and synergy of human diversity, illustrated by the electromagnetic spectrum, which creates light from its many diverse colours.
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Steve Clarke
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