QuakerInfo.com Forum

[Anthony]

[james]

[james]

[Kiahanie]

[james]

[CelticNorth]

Friends Anthony, James and Kiahanie; those are all very thoughful and insightful posts. What the key point may well turn out to be is that philosophy, science and theology ( both the Old and New Testaments ) possess "creationist" themes. Philosophy, through Plato and the "first cause" arguments; science and the "big-bang" therory; and biblical theology, by a benevolent intellignet creative force who spoke the universe into existence by dvine will. It seems that much of the intelligent design arguments use science to demonsrate that nature and the unvierse have some internal code, or program, which unfolds in a manifest rythem and cycle through time. Perhaps from observing the cosmos and heavens, an end time was fortold, perceived and taken from the movements and changes in the heavens. That we currently see the births of new galaxies and the deaths of stars only confirms that the osbervable cosmos was, perhaps, the template used for theolological creationism. The cosmos, like human life, comes into being and dies, so the sythesis of this in the human mind is a recognition of man's fate and destiny being tied to that of the physiical world, with the mystery of this engima given its voice in spiritual manefestations through religion. That all human hearts and minds have contemplated their place in this great scheme of being and unbeing should serve as a confirmation this is the reason it commands a sense of divinity.

[Kiahanie]

[james]

Isn't that a problem with the equations, Kiahanie? What I've read about this "time's arrow" stuff is very confusing to me, but I think I read that the fact that the equations run as well either way was more a problem than a proof, because events do move in one direction and not the other. Things fall apart, not together. A dropped glass often breaks but never unbreaks.

Of course ecological systems grow in complexity and organization, but only by a great expenditure of energy to fight off entropy, which eventually wins every battle.

(We've gotten more than a bit off-topic here, I see.)
_________________
James Riemermann
www.nontheistfriends.org
www.liberalquakers.org

[Kiahanie]

A problem with the equations? Welll... they don't work when directionality is plugged in.

OTOH, I don't think human logic -including math- was designed to deal with the universe. We developed our emotions, thinking, instinct, reason, etc in an environment and at a very different scale than the universe operates at its extremes. I don't think either mathematics or logic accurately describes how the universe works. At our scale, its Good Enough. But beyond our scale in either direction the math becomes increasingly convoluted and events become increasingly counter-intuitive.

So in that sense, yes, the problem is with the equations, but more generally the problem is that the way we describe reality works OK at our local scale, but increasingly poorly as we move away.

And you are right -we have deserted the thread topic. We can do this discussion some other time, some other place.
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"There is a field out beyond right and wrong. I'll meet you there." --Jellaludin Rumi

[CelticNorth]

I am thinking Hmmmmm, Friend Kiahanie, regarding your proposal that the knowledge and proofs of mathmatics are finite, or that logic and mathmatics have only local applications and understanding. I myself, think that when Einstein formualted E=mc squared and his calculations proved correct, it overthrew something which we held in our Western mind as involitate; that divination, or unlocling of the unknown, can be achieved only through human spiritual endevours and mystic intuitions, historically reserved and thought to be brought on by dreams, oracles, prophecy or astrology from divinely appointed human transmiters. When the atom was "unlocked" and the smallest known particles of the universe held true to mathmatical formulations, it opened a new era for the validation and acceptance of mathematical proofs regarding the nature of the universe. The "Big Bang" theory and relevant mathematical proofs belong to Edwin Hubble, of Hubble Telescope fame, and in much the same way that Darwin's theories of evolution were challenged as being merely "theories', it is pehaps fair and just that the Big Bang also be subjected to the same scrutiny. I think we can rest assured that if 1+1 eqauls 2 in Dubuque, it does so on the other side of the moon- distance thereof irrrelevant.

[Kiahanie]

We really should take this discussion to a different thread.
_________________
"There is a field out beyond right and wrong. I'll meet you there." --Jellaludin Rumi

[CelticNorth]

Getting back to the origin thread, then, it seems that two claims were being made by early Christianity. The first, among the first Jewish "Christians" of the 1st Century, was that Jesus of Nazareth was the fullfillment of the Hebrew prophecy of Messianic expecatancy, and as the 2nd Century progressed, the Trinitarian view became popular claiming Jesus as the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It seems like two, and sometimes more, audiences are being addressed, melding composite attributes to Jesus of Naxareth tomerge variant expectaions and theological positions into a canon, which became crystalized at Nicea in 325.

[Kiahanie]

Good point. There were probably at least 3 strands woven into the "Christ" thread: the "real Jesus," Jewish Messianic expectations, and Greek Gnosticism. Somewhere along the way, Greco-Roman logic tried to make sense of the different ways the Divine was felt and expressed in the original Christian/Jewish community of Jesus followers. The result was the Trinitarian formulations.
_________________
"There is a field out beyond right and wrong. I'll meet you there." --Jellaludin Rumi