Saturday, April 24, 2010

 

Aliens free from original sin?


In an interview entitled "Aliens Are My Brother", granted to L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper, Father Gabriel Funes, director of the Vatican Observatory, stated: "In my opinion this possibility (of life on other planets) exists"; "intelligent beings, created by God may exist in outer space" and "some aliens could even be free from original sin" concluding "there could be (other beings) who remained in full friendship with their creator". And on 5 March 2009, Jesuit Brother Guy Consolmagno, another astronomer working at the Vatican Observatory, told the BBC, in relation to the search for Earth-like worlds about to be embarked upon by the Kepler Space telescope, that "we Jesuits are actively involved in the search for Earth-like planets. The idea that there could be other intelligent creatures made by God in a relationship with God is not contrary to traditional Judeo-Christian thought. The Bible has many references to, or descriptions of, non-human intelligent beings; after all, that's what angels are. Our cousins on other planets may even have their own salvation story – including other examples of the incarnation of the second person of the Trinity. We are open to whatever the Universe has for us." Source: Stephen Law.

Wednesday, September 30, 2009

 

Evolution shirts banned: violates religious neutrality


Evolution tee shirts banned for violating religious neutrality. Tee shirts showing a sequence of human evolution that culminated in a trumpet player -- banned.

Monday, August 31, 2009

 

Fractal Temples


Man creates fractal temples to commune with fractal gods.

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

 

Is There a Hell?


Is There a Hell? Surprising Observations About the Near-Death Experience.

Thursday, June 11, 2009

 

OCD, religion, Martin Luther, St. Ignatius, God


OCD, religion, Martin Luther, St. Ignatius, God.

Sunday, May 24, 2009

 

Parallel Universes, Alien Religions and Carl Jung: An Interview With Clifford Pickover


Parallel Universes, Alien Religions and Carl Jung: An Interview With Clifford Pickover

Sunday, April 26, 2009

 

The Loom of God


Mathematics is the loom upon which God weaves the fabric of the universe. Book information here.

Thursday, March 19, 2009

 

Fun With the Bible Code


Fun With the Bible Code. Homemade Biblical prophecies made easy.

Saturday, February 21, 2009

 

God's omnipotence


"It is the final proof of God's omnipotence that he need not exist in order to save us." - Peter De Vries, The Mackerel Plaza

Saturday, January 17, 2009

 

Reports of beings from other worlds


"People afflicted with certain eye diseases give similar reports of beings from parallel universes."

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

 

No St. Paul?


Some historians say that if there was no St. Paul, there would be no Christianity today. Do you agree?

Monday, November 10, 2008

 

Bones of Jesus?


If archeologists discovered the bones of Jesus, thereby disproving the notion of physical Ascension to heaven, what percentage of Church authorities might prefer to suppress this information rather than have it become widely known?

Friday, October 03, 2008

 

Names of God in Judaism


In Judaism, to show the sacredness of the names of God, and as a means of showing respect and reverence for them, the scribes of sacred texts took pause before copying them, and used terms of reverence so as to keep the true name of God concealed. The numerous names of God have been a source of debate amongst biblical scholars. More information here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_God_in_Judaism

Friday, September 12, 2008

 

Who wrote the Bible?


Judith Hayes wonders, "Who wrote the Bible?"

Friday, August 15, 2008

 

Whare are the "Ten Commandments" in the Bible?


Judith Hayes says that there are no "Ten Commandments" anywhere in the Bible.



Monday, July 14, 2008

 

God


If you could change places with God for a day, what would be your first act as God?

Monday, June 16, 2008

 

The singularity will give you eternal life


"I read a few years ago in The Atlantic of an impending 'death shortage,' an unfortunate consequence of technological advancements that would turn 70 year olds into early-career professionals. These people—we people—would still die; it was just going to take a lot longer to happen.


But leafing through back issues of Wired last night, I came across an article about a technology prodigy trying to buy eternal life. Not the kind paid for with the blood of a lamb, but the kind that could be achieved here on earth if you were to download your brain to your laptop. You just have to live long enough." For more information, click here.



Friday, May 16, 2008

 

Karen Armstrong


"People want to be religious, says scholar Karen Armstrong; we should act to help make religion a force for harmony. She asks us to help her build a Charter for Compassion -- to help restore the Golden Rule. See the TED video.



Wednesday, April 09, 2008

 

God creating the universe via computer


God creating the universe via computer



Friday, March 07, 2008

 

Scientology stands a chance


Jean E. Rosenfeld writes: "Scientology is a new religion, and unlike most, it may become an established religion whether the rest of us like it or not. All religions have origin myths, and all religions keep secrets from the uninitiated. If a nonbeliever were to tell the origin myth of Christianity, it would sound no less fantastic than the Thetan myth of L. Ron Hubbard." More information here.

Wednesday, February 06, 2008

 

A Summary of All Religions in One Chart


The ReligionFacts "Big Religion Chart" summarizes all the complexities of religions and belief systems into tiny little boxes on a single, quick-reference comparison chart!

Sunday, January 06, 2008

 

Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why

"Those who call the King James Version of the Bible the unerring word of God have a slight problem. The New Testament of the KJV (as the King James Version is usually referred) was translated into English from a version of the Greek New Testament that had been collected from twelfth-century copies by Erasmus. Where Erasmus couldn't find Greek manuscripts, he translated to Greek from the Latin Vulgate (which itself had been translated from Greek back in the fourth century). Here the problem splits into two problems. First, Jesus spoke Aramaic --- his actual words, never recorded, were only rendered in Greek in the original gospels." Complete review here.

Sunday, December 09, 2007

 

"Ten Weird Religous Practices"

"Most religions have one or two unusual practices or devices but occasionally you find one which is just completely weird. This list contains ten of the more unusual things found in modern religions"

Sunday, November 11, 2007

 

Atheist Filmmaker Issues ‘Blasphemy Challenge’

The "War on Christmas" is an absurd fantasy of the Religious Right. But it doesn’t have to be. If Brian Flemming has his way, we’ll get a real War on Christmas, complete with atheistic shock troops (called “Rational Responders”) confronting believers with the non-logic of their dearest religious beliefs. His “Rational Response Squad” is encouraging young people to take The Blasphemy Challenge — to commit blasphemy and post the results on YouTube. More info here.

Thursday, October 11, 2007

 

Sam Harris, Atheism, and Beyond

Sam Harris speaks on atheism, mysticism, and the quest for transcendence.

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

 

DNA is the Word of God

Is DNA the word of God? More info here:
http://www.futurehi.net/archives/000851.html

Sunday, August 12, 2007

 

Construct Noah's Ark now


Construct Noah's Ark now.

Saturday, July 07, 2007

 

Biblical Truth

Penn and Teller discuss Biblical truth, as they see it.

Thursday, June 07, 2007

 

A new look at atheism



In this new look at atheism, the viewer is asked to consdier if atheisim is really so bad for American and the world.

Saturday, May 12, 2007

 

Important question?

Michael, God’s warrior angel from the Bible and Koran, floats with feathered wings into your home and asks, "What is the most important question I can ask humanity and what is the best possible answer you can give?" What is the safest reply you can give? Be careful -- your everlasting life hangs in the balance.

Thursday, April 12, 2007

 

The Official Religious Affiliation Page

A collection of statistics showing the religious affiliation of every U.S. president, of the 100 most influential people in history, of the U.S congress.... and much more.

Wednesday, March 07, 2007

 

A Dictionary of Sex in the Bible


The biblical Hebrews, given God's commandment to "be fruitful and multiply" (Gen. 1:28), had what Drorah O'Donnell Setel has alliteratively called a "preoccupation with procreation." That's why many of the stories and other passages in the Bible involve sex, and why many of these, unheard of in sermons and Sunday school lessons, remain little known among laity.

The purpose of And Adam Knew Eve is to inform as well as hopefully to entertain, by gathering from the biblical text all sexually related stories, concepts, and laws, and presenting them, concisely but with attention to context, in convenient dictionary form. Sexually related material comprises overall such a significant portion of scripture that some knowledge of it is essential both in appreciating the Bible as a whole and in understanding the difference in attitude toward sex to be found between the Old and New Testaments. (More....)


Tuesday, February 13, 2007

 

Evidence for God


In this web page, a young woman discuss the Evidence for God.

Sunday, January 14, 2007

 

The Geography of Faith


See five thousand years of faith in 90 seconds.

Friday, December 08, 2006

 

Religious Affiliation of History's 100 Most Influential People


Have you ever wondered what were the religious beliefs and affiliations of History's 100 Most Influential People?

On this web page, we find a list of influential figures from Michael H. Hart's book, "The 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential Persons in History." We also see people's religions.

Wednesday, November 08, 2006

 

How to build a religion (and then watch it fade)


According to Seth Godin, The New York Times recently had a piece about Zoroastrians. The religion is fading, almost certainly to extinction. After more than 3,000 years, one of the most important monotheistic religions is going to go away. We can learn an important lesson about ideaviruses from religions, because they are in many ways the original (and longest-lasting) examples of the genre. Godin gives readers an idea on how to build a relgion that spreads.

"According to the Times, the Zoroastrians are fading away because they believe being good is just about enough and didn't build enough of the elements of an ideavirus into their culture. As they traveled the world, their attitude and hard work rewarded them with success and the ability to mix with other cultures. As a result, they were successful as a people but a failure as a long-term growing religion. It's a fascinating choice, isn't it?"

More information here.

Friday, October 13, 2006

 

300 Proofs of God’s Existence

Which of these 300 Proofs of God’s Existence do you like best?

Wednesday, September 27, 2006

 

Richard Dawkins Video: The God Delusion


Clinton Richard Dawkins is an eminent British ethologist, evolutionary theorist, and popular science writer at Oxford University. Dawkins first came to prominence with his 1976 book The Selfish Gene which popularised the gene-centric view of evolution and introduced the term meme into the lexicon, thereby helping to found the field of memetics. What do you think of this video in which he talks about the "God Delusion"?

Sunday, August 20, 2006

 

Sam Harris Says Science & God Book is Meaningless Drivel


In this essay, the bestselling secularist author of The End of Faith delivers a scathing review of The Language of God, a new book by Human Genome Project head Francis Collins that attempts to demonstrate a harmony between science and evangelical Christianity.

Sam Harris says: "Francis Collins—physical chemist, medical geneticist and head of the Human Genome Project—has written a book entitled The Language of God. In it, he attempts to demonstrate that there is “a consistent and profoundly satisfying harmony” between 21st-century science and evangelical Christianity. To say that he fails at his task does not quite get at the inadequacy of his efforts. He fails the way a surgeon would fail if he attempted to operate using only his toes. His failure is predictable, spectacular and vile. The Language of God reads like a hoax text, and the knowledge that it is not a hoax should be disturbing to anyone who cares about the future of intellectual and political discourse in the United States."


Tuesday, August 01, 2006

 

Deicide: can one kill a God?


The Wikipedia has an entire entry on killing God (deicide) in both religion and fiction. Do you like it?

The question of who is responsible for the execution of Jesus has both historical and theological components. Historical analyses of Jesus' death have generally assigned responsibility to either the Jewish leadership in Palestine or the Roman government in Palestine. Theological analyses of who is responsible for Jesus' death have included all humanity through their sinfulness or God (for the benefit of people in general).

Friday, July 14, 2006

 

Wikipedia's List of God in Fiction

The folks at the Wikipedia are starting to create a chronological list of appearances of God in fiction, where "appearance" is defined as a physical or mental manifestation either clearly identified as God (that is, not merely a miraculous or supernatural phenomenon) or for which independent claims have been made that God is depicted (excluding metaphor).

Monday, June 26, 2006

 

Why Steven Hawking's Cosmology Precludes a Creator


This paper suggests that "one can predict everything in the universe solely from physical laws. Thus, the long-standing 'first cause' problem in cosmology has been dispelled." This cosmology has eliminated the need to postulate an originating cause of the universe's beginning. Stephen Hawking has famously said "there is no place for a Creator." The author shows that the very explanation of the universe offered by quantum cosmology implies that quantum cosmology is logically incompatible with theism, and a quantum God does not exist.

Friday, June 02, 2006

 

God hates squid


In this article, a famous biologist makes the bold assertion that "God hates squid." Some creationists go so far as to say that octopuses and even giant squid could be considered "nonliving" creatures, and their articles explain why.

Thursday, May 11, 2006

 

Guide to Kosher Machines


A guide to kosher machines. Sabbath law prohibits Jews from performing actions that cause a direct reaction; that would qualify as forbidden work. But indirect reactions are kosher. In Hebrew, this concept is called the gramma. There are two types of grammas. Say you hit a light switch, but it doesn't come on immediately - that's a time delay, a time gramma. There's also a gramma of mechanical indirectness, like a Rube Goldberg contraption in which a mouse turns a wheel that swings a hammer that turns a key that launches a rocket. You can't claim the mouse actually launches the rocket.

Saturday, April 29, 2006

 

Bible says that there is no afterlife

Ecclesiastes 9:5 precludes an afterlife: "For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten." Another translation: "For the living know that they shall die: but the dead are not conscious, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten."

Tuesday, April 25, 2006

 

Can an Atheist Believe in the Afterlife?


In this interesting article, an atheist suggest that the "Self" is part of all mobile organisms: it is rudimentary in most, consisting of the ability of the organism to orient itself in its environment and usually to distinguish itself from what is not itself and friend from foe. More complex organisms evolved a full array of senses and balance. The conscious awareness evolved from the rudimentary to the complex because it enhanced our prospects for survival. The most complex organisms have the ability to foresee their own death and to ponder what happened to a loved one who has died. Neanderthal burial sites, complete with flowers, have been discovered; Contrast this with the fact that by the time a goldfish swims from one end of the tank to the other, it has forgotten that there is a glass wall there! A goldfish's awareness, though sufficient to keep it alive, is nonetheless quite dim compared to ours. But in all cases, the awareness is a process that is established by the nervous system and vanishes into non-existence upon the destruction of that nervous system. Read more.

Tuesday, April 11, 2006

 

Religion in the year 2200

Meditation alters brain patterns in ways that are likely permanent, and key parts of the brain actually get thicker through the meditative practice. Most likely, contemplation of the Bible, angels, and heaven sculpt our brains in profound ways. Sir John Marks Templeton said, "All that we have learned is still tiny compared to what is still yet to be discovered if we search for it." What will religion, prayer, and meditation be like 200 years from now?

Saturday, April 01, 2006

 

Did Jesus want his message to spread in a clear manner?


If Jesus had wanted his message to spread in an undistorted fashion, why did he not write down his message?

In other words, if one reason he had come was to reveal the will of God, why did Jesus seemingly fail to commit his revelations to writing during his lifetime, and with his own hand. Instead, it appears that he left this important task to "anonymous writers" (and later redactors) who may have made a sufficient number of mistakes and written a sufficient number of contradictory facts and ideas in their accounts to divide Christians for centuries to come.

Couldn't Jesus have written down his message in a clear manner? If he did, why don't the gospels tell us of his writings?


Wednesday, March 29, 2006

 

On the existence of Jesus

Of what aspects of the life of Jesus may we be certain? Stephen Spignesi's "The Odd Index" lists sixteen crucified saviors other than Jesus Christ. Examples of Christ legends appear to predate Christianity. Note that:

More discussion can be found here and here.


Thursday, March 23, 2006

 

A Scientist Reflects on Religious Belief

Famous astronmer Dr. Sandage was born of Jewish background, but at age 60 became a Christian. He responded to the question, "Can a person be a scientist and a Christian?", with "Yes. As I said before, the world is too complicated in all its parts and interconnections to be due to chance alone." Read his essay here.

Thursday, March 16, 2006

 

Free Will and an Omniscient God

Most Christian and Islamic sects believe in an omniscient God who knows every future event. If this is true, can our will be truly free? And if we do not have free will, then how could we be morally responsible? Why would God punish us if we were bad, as he does throughout the Old Testament.

Theologians like Maimonides (Moses ben Maimon, 1135-1204), St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430) and St. Thomas Aquinas (1224-1274) believed that God is outside of time and can see all history at once. It is from our own limited perspective that we are making choices. But still, they are choices. However, if an omniscient God sees all time at once, does the future exist even now for him, and do you think our decisions are truly free?

Monday, March 06, 2006

 

Images of Heaven

I typed Heaven into Google and found this image by Sven Geier. He calls it "Heaven 2005." Can you find other images of heaven that you prefer?

Saturday, February 25, 2006

 

Martin Gardner's God

Martin Gardner (born 1914, Tulsa, Oklahoma) is an American recreational mathematician, magician, skeptic, and author of the long-running but now discontinued "Mathematical Games" column in Scientific American.

While critical of organized religions, Gardner believes in God, claiming that this belief cannot be confirmed or disconfirmed by reason. At the same time, he is skeptical of claims that God has communicated with human beings through spoken or telepathic revelation or through miracles in the natural world.

Martin Gardner's philosophy may be summarised as follows: There is nothing supernatural, and nothing in human reason or visible in the world to compel people to believe in God. The mystery of existence is enchanting, but a belief in The Old One comes from faith without evidence. However, with faith and prayer people can find greater happiness than without. If there is an afterlife, the loving Old One is real. [To an atheist] "the universe is the most exquisite masterpiece ever constructed by nobody", from G. K. Chesterton, is one of Martin's favorite quotes.

Gardner says in Skeptical Inquirer, "Shortly before he died, Carl Sagan wrote to say he had reread my Whys of a Philosophical Scrivener and was it fair to say that I believed in God solely because it made me "feel good." I replied that this was exactly right, though the emotion was deeper than the way one feels good after three drinks. It is a way of escaping from a deep-seated despair. "

Source 1, Source 2

Tuesday, February 21, 2006

 

On the Nature of Satan


Many of you may picture the devil as ruler of hell, inflicting physical and mental pain on others. But this portrayal of the devil is nowhere in the Bible. In the Bible, the devil is just another captive.

Jews and Christians refer to the devil as Satan, a fallen and arrogant angel. In parts of the Old Testament, Satan is not God’s enemy but rather a challenger or accuser. The word devil comes from the Greek diabolos, meaning "slanderer," or "accuser." The word Satan is the English transliteration of a Hebrew word for "adversary" in the Old Testament.


In the Old Testament, Satan gambles with God about the faith of Job. Later, in the New Testament, Satan becomes the "prince of devils" and has names such as Lucifer (the fallen angel of Light), Belial (lawless), or Beelzebub (Lord of Flies):

All the people were astonished and said, "Could this be the Son of David?" But when the Pharisees heard this, they said, "It is only by Beelzebub, the prince of demons, that this fellow drives out demons." (Matthew 12:24-27) What harmony is there between Christ and Belial ? What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? (2 Corinthians 6:15-16)


For Christians, Satan’s job is to tempt man to commit immoral acts. Moselms believe in Iblis, the personal name for the devil. They also call him ash-Shaytan, which means the demon. In the Koran, God tells Iblis to bow in front of Adam, the first human. Iblis refuses.

Seven Old Testament books and every New Testament writer refers to Satan. In the Middle ages, theologians debated about how a supernatural being like Satan could exist in a universe governed by an omniscient, omnibenevolent, omnipotent God. Many came to believe that Satan was not an actual being but a symbol of evil.


Thursday, February 16, 2006

 

Noah's Ark

Could Noah have placed all the animals on the ark? In this article, the authors note that it is "important to take the size of animals into account when considering how much space they would occupy because the greatest number of species occurs in the smallest animals. Woodmorappe performed such an analysis and came to the conclusion that the animals would take up 47% of the ark. In addition, he determines that about 10% of the ark was needed for food (compacted to take as little space as possible) and 9.4% for water (assuming no evaporation or wastage). At least 25% of the space would have been needed for corridors and bracing. Thus, increasing the quantity of animals by more than about 5% would overload the ark."

Saturday, February 11, 2006

 

Why Being an Atheist is Reasonable

"Many orthodox people speak as though it were the business of sceptics to disprove received dogmas rather than of dogmatists to prove them. This is, of course, a mistake.

If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time." -- Bertrand Russell

 

Why Religion is Not Always A Great Thing

"According the United Nations’ Human Development Report (2005), the most atheistic societies--countries like Norway, Iceland, Australia, Canada, Sweden, Switzerland, Belgium, Japan, the Netherlands, Denmark and the United Kingdom—are actually the healthiest, as indicated by measures of life expectancy, adult literacy, per capita income, educational attainment, gender equality, homicide rate and infant mortality. Conversely, the 50 nations now ranked lowest by the U.N. in terms of human development are unwaveringly religious." -- Sam Harris

Read more

Tuesday, February 07, 2006

 

Nine Angelic Ranks

Angels are mentioned in the Bible over 270 times. Through history, humans have wondered how these heavenly beings are supposed to be organized. Around 500 A.D., the theologian pseudo-Dionysius developed a hierarchy of nine angelic ranks ordered by their perceived closeness to God and thus to omniscience. The names are all in the Bible:

First comes God. Next come:
1. Seraphim
2. Cherubim
3. Thrones
4. Dominions
5. Virtues
6. Powers
7. Principalities
8. Archangels
9. Angels
Who in the heck is this pseudo-Dionysius fellow? Scholars believe he was a Syrian monk. Known only by his pseudonym, he wrote numerous Greek treatises that blended Christian theology and mysticism. Pseudo-Dionysius believed that God was essentially unknowable.

Thursday, February 02, 2006

 

Mathematics and God

Perhaps the most unusual argument for evidence of God has come from mathematics. Some have suggested that the compact formula ei*pi + 1 = 0 is surely proof of a Creator and have called this formula "God’s formula." Edward Kasner and James Newman in Mathematics and the Imagination note, "We can only reproduce the equation and not stop to inquire into its implications. It appeals equally to the mystic, the scientists, the mathematician." This formula of Leonhard Euler (1707-1783) unites the five most important symbols of mathematics: 1, 0, pi, e and i (the square root of minus one). This union was regarded as mystic union containing representatives from each branch of the mathematical tree: arithmetic is represented by 0 and 1, algebra by the symbol i, geometry by pi, and analysis by the transcendental e. Harvard mathematician Benjamin Pierce said about the formula, "That is surely true, it is absolutely paradoxical; we cannot understand it, and we don't know what it means, but we have proved it, and therefore we know it must be the truth." Mathematics certainly says more in fewer "words" than any other science. David Eugene Smith in A History of Mathematics in America Before 1900 wrote, "The formula, ei*pi + 1 = 0 expressed a world of thought, of truth, of poetry, and of the religious spirit ‘God eternally geometrizes.’"

Monday, January 30, 2006

 

Whom did Cain Marry?

Adam and Eve had Cain and Abel as children. Abel is killed, leaving only Cain. Whom did Cain marry?

Biblical apologists have interesting explanations for Cain’s wife. (A biblical "apologist" is one who ardently defends the integrity of the Bible.) They suggest that people in the book of Genesis lived exceptionally long lives -- many hundreds of years. If this is accepted, there could be millions of people on Earth by the time Cain looks for a wife. Even if Cain and his wife were closely related from a genetic standpoint, the marriage would not have been sinful because the command against marrying close relatives did not appear until Moses’s day. For example, Abraham married his half-sister.

Friday, January 27, 2006

 

Patent Granted for Jewish Switch Cover

Jonathan Whitman receives patent 6,974,925 for a Jewish Sabbath Switch Cover that prevents Jews from accidentally turning on lights during the Sabbath, when it is forbidden for Jews to do so. The cover mounts with adhesive film. The Sabbath Switch Cover can be used to selectively disable or enable the internal lighting system of most major kitchen appliances in order to assist in keeping the Jewish Sabbath and Holidays, and it is easily manufactured, inexpensive to produce and purchase, and convenient to apply and use.

Tuesday, January 24, 2006

 

The Implications of Frozen Brains on the Afterlife


In the 1950s, hamster brains were partially frozen and revived by British researcher Audrey Smith. If hamster brains can function after being frozen, why can’t ours? In the 1960s, Japanese researcher Isamu Suda froze cat brains for a month and then thawed them. Some brain activity persisted. But what if there is an afterlife? If we can someday freeze a human brain and then revive the person in a 1000 years, did that person already experience the afterlife while his brain was lifeless? I discuss this and similar questions in Sex, Drugs, Einstein and Elves.

Monday, January 23, 2006

 

Make you believe that I am God?

On a cool Autumn night, you are gazing up at the sky when a being suddenly appears and asks, "What can I do to make you believe that I am God?" What is your answer?

Here are some responses I received. More responses are in my book The Paradox of God.


Saturday, January 21, 2006

 

What can we know of God?

What can we mere humans, with our limited three-pound mass of brain truly understand about a being who may be timeless, higher-dimensional, and all-knowing? Followers of the Koran have often suggested that because God has no cause or temporal dimension, there is absolutely nothing we can say about Him. Our brains are not up to the task. The philosopher Bahya ibn Pakudah (d. 1080) believed that the only people who had a hope of understanding God were the prophets and philosophers. Everyone else was simply "worshiping a projection of himself." Similarly, Muslim thinker Abu Hamidal-Ghazzali (1058-1111) thought that only special people, like mystics and prophets, could get a glimpse of God; nevertheless, most ordinary folk should not deny the existence of God -- a blind man should not deny the rainbow's existence simply because he cannot appreciate it.

Thursday, January 19, 2006

 

Life after death?

Do you believe in life after death? Why?

Tuesday, January 17, 2006

 

Religion and science

Cartoonist shows how the dinosaurs were destroyed by a large asteroid.

Sunday, January 15, 2006

 

Do-It-Yourself Deity

In an attempt to resolve any disagreement surrounding the meaning of the word "God", we assemble a special team of "metaphysical engineers" who have devised a new computer-modelling virtual environment in which to test the plausibility of different conceptions of God.

Thursday, January 12, 2006

 

Rebuild a "Third Temple"?


Dr. J. Randall Price says that the most volatile 35 acres on Earth are those comprising a rectangular platform in East Jerusalem, known as the Temple Mount, on which the ancient Jewish Temple once stood. Both the Old Testament and the New Testament togeth­er affirm that a new Temple will once again occupy this platform as part of God's end time program for the Nation of Israel."
  1. Do you think The "Third Temple" In Jerusalem will ever be built?
  2. Would you like it to be built?
  3. Could it be built without physically disturbing the Muslim Dome of the Rock?
  4. What political and sociological events would ensue should Israel built the Third Temple -- even if it did not physically disturb the Muslim Dome of the Rock?

Tuesday, January 10, 2006

 

Mystery ice cream design and God

Burger King is recalling its ice-cream cones that have a swirly design that offends some Muslims. The design on the lid apparently looks like the word ‘Allah’ in Arabic. One customer said the design was “sacreligious”. Burger King says, “As a result of feedback our supplier is amending the design.” The Muslim Council of Britain responded: “We commend the sensitive and prompt action to prevent any hurt being caused to the religious sensibilities of others.”

Sunday, January 08, 2006

 

What is your favorite alternate religion?

What is your favorite alternate religion?

Friday, January 06, 2006

 

Science must destroy religion?

Sam Harris writes, "Most people believe that the Creator of the universe wrote (or dictated) one of their books. Unfortunately, there are many books that pretend to divine authorship, and each makes incompatible claims about how we all must live. Despite the ecumenical efforts of many well-intentioned people, these irreconcilable religious commitments still inspire an appalling amount of human conflict." The full story contains 100s of reader comments.

Wednesday, January 04, 2006

 

Cosmic mindmaps of Christian doctrine

Books and charts by Clarence Larkin have been extremely helpful to Christians since they were first published over 75 years ago. They have passed into the public domain and we are making some of the charts available here as an aid to Bible study. Larkin's mind-shattering charts are well thought out and Scriptually sound. Some of the more detailed are books in themselves. Here is his map of the heavens as an example.

Monday, January 02, 2006

 

Philip K. Dick, God, and time

Writer Philip K. Dick says, "God does not see time as we do; i.e. for him there is no past nor present nor future. Let us imagine a situation in which God decides to intervene into our space-time world; i.e. break through from his timeless realm into human history. He can as easily break through into what for us is the past as he can break through into what for us is the present or future. God, to bring about the Last Judgment, need not limit the event to our present or future; he can breach our past -- in other words, change our past history; he can cause it to have happened already. And this would be true for any change he wished to make, large or small. I submit to you that such alterations, the creation or selection of such so-called ‘alternate presents,’ is continually taking place."

Read more: http://www.greylodge.org/occultreview/glor_010/dick_world.htm

Saturday, December 31, 2005

 

Jesus tomb patent


U.S. 4,866,863. Man receives patent for a religious shrine, in particular a miniature replica of the Garden Tomb in Jerusalem as described in the New Testament of the bible. In a modification, the top cover of the shrine can be raised by a mechanism activated by rolling the round stone at the entrance into an open position.

Thursday, December 29, 2005

 

Message in the sky

The authors of this technical paper argue that the cosmic microwave background (CMB) provides a remarkable opportunity for the Creator of the universe to have sent a message to its occupants, using known physics. The medium for the Godly message is unique. They elaborate on this observation, noting that the message requires careful adjustment of the fundamental Lagrangian, but no direct intervention in the subsequent evolution of the universe.

Read more: http://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0510102


Tuesday, December 27, 2005

 

Patent received for Jesus doll


U.S. Patent 6,007,404: A soft-bodied doll bearing a resemblance to a caricature of Jesus. The doll includes a voice simulator for phrases from Jesus' ministry. A responsible adult can use the Jesus doll to teach young children about Jesus' historic life. The doll includes an actuator for the voice simulator contained within a body portion of doll which may be manually activated to speak one or more of these phrases. Separate voice simulators may be used with a switch permitting the supervising adult to transition the doll from use with a young child to one who is capable of understanding Jesus' teachings when the child's mental faculties dictate.

Monday, December 26, 2005

 

Human immortality and God consciousness

William James discusses the notion of human immortality in conjunction with theories of brain dynamics and the transmission of consciousness. James challenges the materialistic position of his day, namely, the positivistic belief that our brains are the source of consciousness. For James, the rays of consciousness infuse all forms of life and matter.An Infinite Mind lies buried in all phenomenal experience. This wider Consciousness is capable of holding all perspectives in of time and space.

Read more: http://godconsciousness.com/humanimmortality.php

Sunday, December 25, 2005

 

Scientist explains why we believe in God

Is God is nothing more than an attempt to explain order and good fortune by those who do not understand the mathematics of chance, the principles of self-organizing systems, or the psychology of the human mind? The author recalls asking one of his collaborators, who is a deeply religious man, how he felt about having demonstrated that people can misattribute the products of their own minds to powerful external agents. He said, "I feel fine. After all, God doesn't want us to confuse our miracles with his."

Read more: http://edge.org/3rd_culture/gilbert05/gilbert05_index.html

Saturday, December 24, 2005

 

Guide to the Gods

Welcome to Godchecker - your Guide to the Gods. We have more Gods than you can shake a stick at. Godchecker's Mythology Encyclopedia currently features almost 2,700 deities.Browse the pantheons of the world, explore ancient myths, and discover Gods of everything from Fertility to Fluff with the fully searchable Holy Database Of All Known Gods.

Read more: http://www.godchecker.com/


Friday, December 23, 2005

 

Which religion?

Which religion do you feel is "closest to the truth"?

Wednesday, December 21, 2005

 

Christians ate psychedelic snails to see God

The presence of psychedelic mushroom illustrations in an Italian basilica indicates that some early Christian religious rites involved the ingestion of hallucinogenic substances facilitating mystic ecstasy. Were these ecstatic techniques a common heritage of all early Christian churches or were they practiced only within some heretic groups of Christians?

Read more: http://people.etnoteam.it/maiocchi/fabbro.htm

 

Dinosaurs and the Bible


"The Bible tells us that God created all of the land animals on the sixth day of creation. As dinosaurs were land animals, they must have been made on this day, alongside Adam and Eve, who were also created on Day Six (Genesis 1:24-31)... The Bible makes it plain that dinosaurs and people must have lived together. Actually, as we will soon see, there is a lot of evidence for this."

Read more: http://www.answersingenesis.org/Docs/2.asp

Tuesday, December 20, 2005

 

A grid of stars?

Many years ago, I wrote a science-fiction story about an astronomer named Kalinda. While gazing out into space using a powerful telescope, she saw the most startling arrangement of stars beyond the constellation Canis Major. She immediately picked up her phone and called her friend, a Dr. Carl Sagan, for advice and counsel. Both Kalinda and Sagan were stumped by the peculiar arrangement.

What Kalinda discovered with her new, powerful telescope was a perfectly arranged array of stars in the shape of a cubical grid. About ten stars formed each edge of the cube.

To confirm her initial observations, she decided to use the Hubble Space Telescope’s camera to more clearly resolve the star grid, which was located some seven billion light years from Earth. Because peering at distant stars is like looking back in time, the images revealed a star grid that existed when the universe was 60 percent of its current age.

If our scientists today discovered such a grid of stars, how do you think it would affect society and current scientific thinking? Would the artifact have religions repercussions? How would you react? Image what a similar arrangement might have had on the writers of the Bible if the arrangement were visible to the naked eye.

Monday, December 19, 2005

 

Children, death & immortality

"A group of children who were tested on death comprehension reflected on what it might be like to be dead with references to 'sleeping,' feeling 'peaceful,' or simply 'being very dizzy....' Younger children are more likely to attribute mental states to a a dead agent than are older children.... It seems that the default cognitive stance is reasoning that human minds are immortal..." -- Jesse Bering in John Brockman's "What We Believe But Cannot Prove"

Sunday, December 18, 2005

 

Can God seem cruel?

Does it bother you that both the Jewish and Christian God and his righteous followers sometime seem to have exhibited cruelty from both a historical and Biblical context? For example, God told Saul to attack the Amalekites and destroy them completely -- "men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep...." God also tells us we must kill the disobedient child or the person who does not follow the Sabbath.

How do today's Protestants feel when they realize that Martin Luther said that the Jews are a "serpent's brood" and "one should burn down their synagogues and destroy them"? Why does St. Aquinas tell us we should kill people for errors in belief? Although the ten commandments forbid murder, the Old Testament appears to contain numerous murders by God or aided by God in which "innocent" women and children are killed. I discuss these matters further here, but how do you deal with such weighty and emotional topics?

Saturday, December 17, 2005

 

God and intelligent design

If God is everywhere, then why is God so hard to perceive? One could imagine a God who would be more like a Chairman Mao or a Comrade Stalin. This God would have designed a universe with photographs of himself hung everywhere in nature. We would be compelled to believe in the existence of this God, because everywhere we turned with our microscopes, telescopes, and other devices, there would be both the evidence for his existence and of course also the secret police to enforce our acknowledgment.

Of course, science is yet to find an unequivocal "made by God" label attached to nature.

Read more:
http://www.metanexus.net/metanexus_online/show_article.asp?9284

Friday, December 16, 2005

 

Who were the Biblical "Watchers"?

The Book of Enoch tells the story of how 200 rebel angels, or Watchers, decided to transgress the heavenly laws and ‘descend’ on to the plains and take wives from among mortal kind. The Watchers realize the implications of their transgressions, for they agree to swear an oath to the effect that their leader Shemyaza would take the blame if the whole ill-fated venture went terribly wrong.

One of their number, a leader named Azazel, is said to have "taught men to make swords. Other Watchers revealed to humans the knowledge of more scientific arts, such as astronomy. Far more disturbing is Kasdeja, who is said to have shown "the children of men all the wicked smitings of spirits and demons, and the smitings of the embryo in the womb, that it may pass away". In other words he taught women how to abort babies.

Read more:
http://ufo.whipnet.org/creation/fallen.race/index.html
(Similar stories at: http://www.pagenews.info)

Thursday, December 15, 2005

 

A gift from God

God gives you the ability to change certain physical properties of your bedroom windows. As a result, you are able either to gaze out and watch biblical events as they actually happened, or gaze out and watch the world in the year 3000. Which do you choose?

Wednesday, December 14, 2005

 

Star Trek, religion, and beyond

What are to make of the God and religion of Gene Roddenberry, the legendary creator of Star Trek? He studied law, then switched to aeronautical engineering and trained as a pilot. In 1941 he volunteered for the US Army Air Corps, and won medals for bombing missions from Guadalcanal. After the war he became a pilot for Pan Am. After seeing television for the first time, he decided to become a TV writer, but when he found no openings, he joined the Los Angeles Police Department and rose to sergeant. He wrote TV scripts in his spare time, then went freelance.

Read more:
http://members.aol.com/heraklit1/startrek.htm

Tuesday, December 13, 2005

 

Science, God & Robert Sawyer

Stephen Jay Gould called science and religion "nonoverlapping magisteria," insisting that some things are properly matters of science and others are only considered as questions of faith. Archie Bunker did say one thing that SF-author Robert Sawyer agrees with: "You want to know what faith is? Faith is when you believe something nobody in their right mind would believe — that's what faith is!"

So Gould's dichotomy, filtered by Bunker's definition, leaves us with an untenable position: some questions are best answered by science, and other questions can only be addressed if you're willing to consider the irrational.

Sawyer flat-out rejects that. He's convinced that science is the only legitimate way of knowing. Not received wisdom from putative holy texts. Not mystical insight. Science.

Read more:
http://www.sfwriter.com/cgborder.htm

Monday, December 12, 2005

 

God and calculus?

Woman writes paper titled "God and Calculus."

In the paper we find: "Calculus is one of the subjects being taught for higher mathematics in high schools and colleges. The purpose of this paper is to show how to use calculus in our relationship with God. I will employ parallelism and contrast to teach the values with the hope that through teaching calculus the teacher can bring his/her students closer to God."

Read more:
http://www.aiias.edu/ict/vol_27/27cc_225-239.htm

Sunday, December 11, 2005

 

Which universe?

Consider two universes. Universe Omega is a universe in which God does not exist, but the inhabitants of the universe believe God exists. Universe Upsilon is a universe in which God does exist, but no inhabitant believes God exists. In which universe would you prefer to live? In which universe do you think most people would prefer to live?

Saturday, December 10, 2005

 

Psychedelic Depictions of Christ

Which depiction of Jesus Christ do you find more interesting? Which would you prefer to display on you living room wall?

Highway Christ in The Day by Dyala Janke
http://www.erowid.org/culture/show_image.php?i=art/artists_j/janke_dayla_highwaychristintheday.jpg

Jesus by Danny Gomez
http://www.erowid.org/culture/show_image.php?i=art/artists_g/gomez_danny_jesus.jpg

Friday, December 09, 2005

 

What was God doing before the Big Bang?

What was God doing before he created the world? The philosopher and writer (and later saint) Augustine posed the question in his "Confessions" in the fourth century, and then came up with a strikingly modern answer: before God created the world there was no time and thus no "before." To paraphrase Gertrude Stein, there was no "then" then. Until recently no one could attend a lecture on astronomy and ask the modern version of Augustine's question -- "What happened before the Big Bang?" -- without receiving the same frustrating answer, courtesy of Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity, which describes how matter and energy bend space and time.

Read More:
http://www2.gol.com/users/coynerhm/before_the_big_bang_there_was__.htm

Thursday, December 08, 2005

 

Surrounded by the unseen

"One of the reasons why religions seem irrelevant today is that many of us no longer have the sense that we are surrounded by the unseen." -- Karen Armstrong, A History of God

Do you like this quote and find it to be meaningful?


Wednesday, December 07, 2005

 

Peacock gods are everywhere

The Yezidi people of a small Middle Eastern religion worship a pre-Islamic peacock god with links to Mithraism and Zoroastrianism. Peacock gods are everywhere.

Read more:

http://www.ziarah.net/peacock.html
http://tinyurl.com/d9hsz
http://www.sohailagallery.com/peacock.html

Tuesday, December 06, 2005

 

How to see God

Stare at the three dots in the center of the image (below) for 30 seconds then focus on the white space to the right. While staring at the white space, blink a few times. What do you see? Many see a startling, lifelike, and detailed image of Jesus.


Monday, December 05, 2005

 

God and The Simpsons

The Religious Life of an Animated Sitcom. In this article, historian Dr. Gerry Bowler catalogues reference to God and religion in the Simpsons. The Simpsons is a cartoon satire that disarms the viewer and encourages a slightly askew but ultimately clearer look at the world. Despite the show's continued popularity critics have been many, particularly among the religious. Presidents seeking to court the religious right, preachers from their pulpits and defenders of traditional family values have all attacked The Simpsons. The author examines how God and religion are treated on the show and why the reputation of the show amongst the faithful is so poor.

Read more:
http://www.snpp.com/other/papers/gb.paper.html

Sunday, December 04, 2005

 

67% chance that God exists

A scientist has calculated that there is a 67% chance that God exists. Dr Stephen Unwin has used a 200-year-old formula to calculate the probability of the existence of an omnipotent being. Bayes' Theory is usually used to work out the likelihood of events, such as nuclear power failure, by balancing the various factors that could affect a situation.

http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/sciences/story/0,12243,1164894,00.html

Saturday, December 03, 2005

 

Design your own God

In an attempt to resolve any disagreement surrounding the meaning of the word "God," a team of "metaphysical engineers" have devised a new computer-modelling virtual environment in which to test the plausibility of different conceptions of God.

Here's how it works. You are invited to select attributes that you believe God must have. Metaphysical engineers will then model this conception of God to check out its plausibility.

Read more:
http://www.philosophersnet.com/games/whatisgod.htm


Friday, December 02, 2005

 

God, Epilepsy, and Jesus

"Gwen Tighe thought her child was Jesus. Temporal lobe epilepsy unites us with God"

Controversial new research suggests that whether we believe in a God may not just be a matter of free will. Scientists now believe there may be physical differences in the brains of ardent believers. Inspiration for this work has come from a group of patients who have a brain disorder called temporal lobe epilepsy. In a minority of patients, this condition induces bizarre religious hallucinations - something that patient Rudi Affolter has experienced vividly.

Read more:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/2865009.stm


 

Nephilim, Angels, and Neanderthals

Nephilim A few days ago in Godlorica, we discussed the "Bridegroom of Blood" story -- the most mysterious tale in the Bible. The second most enigmatic story deals with the Nephilim in Genesis 6:1-4. In Genesis 6:2 we find that the "sons of God saw that daughters of men were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose." Scholars speculate that the "sons of god" might have been angels who took wives from the daughters of humans. The offspring of these angel-human marriages, were the Nephilim, the "heros that were of old, warriors of renown." The Nephilim are mentioned only once again in the Hebrew scriptures, and the word also literally translates to "the fallen ones." The Nephilim had superhuman powers. Notice that they should have been destroyed in the great Flood, but we do find them in Canaan during the time of Moses, according to the book of Numbers.

Some have speculated that the strange Biblical reference to Nephilim may represent a deep, past, collective memory of the time when Neanderthals coexisted with Homo sapiens. We know that Neanderthals inhabited Europe and the Middle East during the late Pleistocene Epoch, about 100,000 to 30,000 years ago. The Neanderthals were the first hominids to intentionally bury their dead, and they had larger brain cases than modern humans. Examination of skeletal remains indicates that Neanderthals were a physically powerful and war-scarred race. While controversial, some researchers suggest that the Nephilim might refer to either Neanderthals or strongly muscled but possibly sterile hybrids produced by the mating of Neanderthals and Homo sapiens. Even today, scientists do not fully understand the Neanderthal's evolutionary origin and final fading from the world scene.


Thursday, December 01, 2005

 

Images of God and His prophets

Artistic renditions of God and His prophets range from beautiful to haunting to downright scary. Are images of God meant to uplift the spirit or inspire a sense of awe? When does an artist cross the realm from terror into horror? See for example the following works:

Mary and the Seven Sorrows:
http://georgekrause.com/santos/1.htm
Jesus Christ:
http://georgekrause.com/santos/6.htm

What interesting images of God or other higher beings have you found on the web?

 

Was the God of Moses a praying mantis?

What is the desired reaction of an author who asks a question, "Was Jehovah a praying mantis being?" Joe Lewels is not kidding. He frames his question in a context of mysteries about why God would not reveal his frightening countenance to his chosen ones like Moses. He points out that a sect called the Mandaeans believed that the physical world was created and ruled over by a Lord of Darkness variously known as Snake, Dragon, Monster, and Giant.

Read more:
http://www.reall.org/newsletter/v07/n05/graying-mantis.html

Wednesday, November 30, 2005

 

A question from God

God says, "I will give all humans the ability to turn water into wine and stones into bread, if you request it?" Do you request it? What are the ecological and geopolitical ramifications?

You may share your answer by selecting the "comments" link below.

 

The Bridegroom of Blood

To me, the "Bridegroom of Blood" story is the most mysterious tale in the Bible. God tells Moses that he must go back to Egypt to lead his people out of slavery. As Moses and his family journey to Egypt, it seems that God tries to kill him. One translation reads

"On the way, at a place where they spent the night, the Lord met Moses and tried to kill him. But Zipporah, his wife, took a flint and cut off her son's foreskin and touched his feet with it, and said 'Truly you are a bridegroom of blood to me!' So he let him alone. It was then she said, 'A bridegroom of blood by circumcision.'"

Whom is God trying to kill? Why? What is a "bridegroom of blood?" Biblical scholar and author Kenneth Davis suggests that circumcision was believed to ward off demonic attack. Because Moses was presumably not circumcised, the smearing of the blood on him may have protected him as well. Others suggest that Moses' wife wasn't fond of the Hebrew rite of circumcision and had resisted it. This passage might have referred to Moses contacting an incapacitating disease that almost killed him, leaving his wife to do what was necessary. One scholar says that this episode is so difficult to understand because the biblical narrator no longer knew its real meaning. It seems to be a fragment of a once independent tradition and exhibits archaic features, such as representing Yahweh as a kind of hostile night demon, and the use of a flint knife for circumcision.

Tuesday, November 29, 2005

 

A question from God

God comes before you and says, "I will give humans one of the following gifts. You decide. I will give everyone unlimited money, unlimited energy, or unlimited information."

You may share your answer by selecting the "comments" link below.

 

Patent application for "Resurrection burial tomb"

Godlorica frequently touches on topics relating to the afterlife. Reverend Daniel Robert Izzo has submitted U.S. Patent Application 20050027316, "Resurrection burial tomb," a novel means to revive a dead person's body from the grave. In the patent application, we find: "an artificial womb and a container with fluid having a crystal radio crown and antenna that connects to a radio and energy devices; wherein the deceased person is prevented from decay within said container and where energy is obtained from the radio crown that oscillates into the deceased person's nerves and brain... wherein part of the dead person's bone is converted into a microprocessor and computer."

Here is Figure 22 from the patent application:
http://sprott.physics.wisc.edu/pickover/muscle-robot.jpg

Read more:
http://tinyurl.com/9q8bf

 

A skeptic's view of God

Is God is nothing more than an attempt to explain order and good fortune by those who do not understand the mathematics of chance, the principles of self-organizing systems, or the psychology of the human mind? For as long as pollsters have been asking the question, roughly 90% of Americans have been claiming to believe in God, and a sizable majority believes that God takes a personal interest in their lives and intervenes to help them. When President Bush said, "God told me to strike at al Qaeda and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did," most Americans were not alarmed to learn that their leader was receiving orders that no one else could hear. America is an unusually religious nation, but even in the world's least religious nations the majority of people claim to believe in God.

Read more:
http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/gilbert05/gilbert05_index.html

 

Could God be detected by gravitational waves?

Frank Lee believes that gravitational waves may provide "a wealth of information about the Kingdom of God." He uses an analogy with light. Our eyes use visible light to see things. At night, when there is no visible light, soldiers may use infrared to see enemy's activities. In hospitals, x-ray is commonly used to see possible symptoms inside our body. Electromagnetic waves (e.g. light photons) are confined in our braneworld, which is a 3-D sub-universe embedded in a 10-D bulk universe. If God is some intelligent life who lives outside our braneworld, it is impossible for us to see Him by electromagnetic waves. Furthermore, the matter that constitutes the Kingdom of God does not interact with photons. Therefore, even if God enters into our braneworld, He still cannot be detected by electromagnetic waves. Lee concludes that the only possible way to see the Kingdom of God is by gravitational waves (gravitons), which also travel at the speed of light.

Read more:
http://tinyurl.com/8ruh3

Monday, November 28, 2005

 

God's Debris: free e-book

Get your free e-book version of God’s Debris in pdf format.
Why is it Free? Frankly, this is the hardest book in the world to market. When it first came out in hardcover, booksellers couldn’t decide if it was fiction or nonfiction. Was it philosophy or religion? It’s a religion/science book written by a cartoonist, using hypnosis techniques in the writing. It’s a thought experiment. It’s unlike anything you’ve ever read. How do you sell something that can’t be explained? Imagine that you meet a very old man who knows literally everything. Imagine that he explains for you the great mysteries of life—quantum physics, evolution, God, gravity, light, psychic phenomenon, and probability—in a way so simple, so novel, and so compelling that it all fits together and makes perfect sense.

Read More:
http://www.andrewsmcmeel.com/godsdebris/

 

Building a universe that doesn't fall apart

Many modern novelists, philosophers, madmen, and provocateurs deeply believe that time is not what we think it to be. Novelist Philip K. Dick, for example, suggested that time on Earth has stopped in the year 50 A.D., and he gives concrete reasons for his theory in his breathtaking essay "How to Build A Universe That Doesn’t Fall Apart Two Days Later." In short, he believes that our world today is not taking place in the 21st century, and we are deceived and live in a counterfeit reality lodged in a spacetime pocket in 50 A.D. He writes:
My theory is this: time is not real.... Despite all the change we see, a specific permanent landscape underlies the world of change: and this invisible underlying landscape is that of the Bible; it, specifically, is the period immediately following the death and resurrection of Christ; it is, in other words, the time period of the Book of Acts.... [There is] internal evidence that another reality, an unchanging one, exactly as Parmenides and Plato suspected, underlies the visible phenomenal world of change... and we can cut through to it.... Thousands of years pass, but the world of the Bible is concealed beneath it, still there and still real.


To Dick, the Bible is a literally real but veiled landscape, never changing but usually hidden from our sight. Although Dick realizes that modern scientists would scoff at his seemingly insane assertions, he promotes his odd world view as a useful metaphor for the difficulties human have when trying to comprehend reality. Pre-Socratic Greek philosopher Heraclitus wrote, "The nature of things is in the habit of concealing itself."

Read more:
http://tinyurl.com/8jsrj


 

Mysterious entity: "The Aphex Face"

Researcher discovers "The Aphex Face," a mysterious entity, in a spectrograph (visualization of the sound spectrum)....

For several years, people have wondered about the mystical significance of the "Aphex Face," a haunting image found in an acoustical analysis of sound. Some called it a "hidden demon face" and gave it a religious significance. Others said it was somehow intentionally embedded in the sound as a prank. You can see the face for yourself here:
http://sprott.physics.wisc.edu/pickover/pc/aphex_face.jpg
And you can read about the explanation for the face here:
http://www.bastwood.com/aphex.php


Sunday, November 27, 2005

 

Patent for game that models heaven and hell

United States Patent Application
20050212207

Edward Gilhooly patents a "game board apparatus" having a game board horizontally divided into two sectors representing heaven and hell. The start position is at the bottom of the hell and the finish winning position is situated at the top of the heaven. The players use playing pieces to traverse spaces in the heaven and hell sectors, the amount of advancement being dictated by indicia provided on decks of question cards and answer cards.

Read more:
http://tinyurl.com/dbkk5

 

Do space aliens have souls?

Do space aliens have souls? Inquiring minds can check Jesuit's book.

Galaxy-gazing scientists surely wonder about what kind of impact finding life or intelligent beings on another planet would have on the world. But what sort of effect would it have on Catholic beliefs? Would Christian theology be rocked to the core if science someday found a distant orb teeming with little green men, women or other intelligent forms of alien life? Would the church send missionaries to spread the Gospel to aliens? Could aliens even be baptized? Or would they have had their own version of Jesus and have already experienced his universal or galactic plan of salvation? Curious Catholics need not be space buffs to want answers to these questions and others when they pick up a 48-page booklet by a Vatican astronomer.

Read more:
Carol Glatz, Catholic News Service, Vatican City
http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/0506301.htm

 

On the Fast Track to "The Rapture"

Increasing natural disasters are raising the rapture index, leading some Christians to believe the Second Coming is near. Whether you see earthquakes, hurricanes and tsunamis as natural disasters or acts of God, this has been a bad year for the world and a good one for the rapture index. The index, a feature on the Web site http://www.raptureready.com/, is a measure of how quickly the world is careening toward the Second Coming of Christ. On a good day, it claims 15,000 hits.

Read more:
Nancy Haught, Religion News Service
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/178/story_17894_1.html

 

Noah's Ark: A Feasibility Study

We must get another idea out of our heads also, which is thinking about the ark as a floating "zoo". The more appropriate analogy is that of modern intensive livestock confinement, where animals are raised in the minimum possible space with the maximum amount of labor saving devices employed. The ark was not intended to be an enjoyable experience for the animals (or the people!). It was, rather, a temporary captivity in which the only thing to be achieved was simply survival in reasonable health. There are many things that are doable for one year with survival as the only goal, that could not be sustained for a long period of time. The three main ingredients for survival are 1) a place to stay, 2) sufficient food, and 3) sufficient water. Woodmorappe has calculated how much of the ark was needed to support each of these. A little less than one-half of the floor space was needed at a minimum to house the animals. Food in the form of hay, dried fruit, dried meat, and dried fish occupied up to 12% of the ark volume. Most of the food was hay, compressed or possibly pelletized to take up less space.
Read more:
http://emporium.turnpike.net/C/cs/ark/index.htm

 

Intelligent Design

Victor Stenger says: The odds against DNA assembling by chance are 10^(40,000) to one [according to Fred Hoyle, Evolution from Space,1981]. This is true, but highly misleading. DNA did not assemble purely by chance. It assembled by a combination of chance and the laws of physics. Without the laws of physics as we know them, life on earth as we know it would not have evolved in the short span of six billion years. The nuclear force was needed to bind protons and neutrons in the nuclei of atoms; electromagnetism was needed to keep atoms and molecules together; and gravity was needed to keep the resulting ingredients for life stuck to the surface of the earth.

Read more:
http://skepdic.com/intelligentdesign.html

 

Dreams and the Near-Death Experience

A connection to the afterlife

Mellen-Thomas Benedict has some wonderful insights about dreams and the near-death experience he had. He states, "When I recovered, I was very surprised and yet very awed about what had happened to me. At first all the memory of the trip that I have now was not there. I kept slipping out of this world and kept asking, "Am I alive?" This world seemed more like a dream than that one. Within three days, I was feeling normal again, clearer, yet different than I had ever felt in my life. My memory of the journey came back later ... What happens when we dream? We are multi-dimensional beings. We can access that through lucid dreaming. In fact, this universe is God's dream.

Read more :
http://www.near-death.com/dreams.html

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