Science 'versus' God?

[austintorn@aol.com]

Let us change the subject, for it’s time to talk about Australia in order to gain an understanding of Graybeard. I flew there once on an assignment with Bill Bryson. I first became suspicious when I lost an entire day of existence as I crossed the International Date Line.

DOWN UNDER

Australia is mostly empty, moreso than an atom, and is very far away from everywhere. It has only 18 million people. The constellations are upside down and the seasons are back to front. It has no sports of interest. The only good things are that its people are very friendly, the sun always shines, and the beer is cold. It is the only country that is also a continent that is also the world’s largest island and the only one that began as a prison. Graybeard has a lot of original sin because all of his ancestors were criminals.

The cities are all on the coast since the interior is a boundless wasteland about half the size of outer space. Some amateurs once set off an atomic bomb in the Great Victoria Desert of Western Australia and no one even noticed it for four years. Nor did anyone notice the world’s greatest monolith, Ayers Rock, until about a hundred years ago.

Of the world’s ten most poisonous snakes, all are Australian. Five of its creatures are the most lethal of their type in the world. Even a fluffy caterpillar can kill you. Some seashells are venomous. Every ocean current carries you far out to sea. They even lost a prime minister, Harold Holt, who was merely strolling along the beach. He stepped into the surf and was never seen or heard from again.

Australia is very old and nothing has changed there for 60 million years. Thus, one may find the oldest fossils on earth. Even the first faint signs of life can be seen—the earliest animal tracks ever. It seems, though, that its creatures evolved by misreading the evolution manual. They don’t run or lope or canter, but bounce across the landscape like a ball. There is even a fish that can climb trees and some crustaceans so large that one could climb inside their shells. Eighty percent of all that lives in Australia, plant and animal, lives nowhere else. A third of all species is still unknown to science.

Australia is the driest, flattest, hottest, most desiccated, infertile, and climatically aggressive of all the inhabited continents. It is so hot there that recently the air caught on fire, again. The place is so inert that even the soil is a fossil. On the up side, they have 20% of the world’s slot machines to serve less than 1% of the world’s population.

As about equal to finding a live triceratops, the Nothomyrmecia— proto ants—were found alive, although nothing like it had existed on earth for a hundred million years. They are living relics from a time when ants were evolving from wasps. So, does Graybeard know his evolutionary stuff? Yes, indeed, plus some of those ants were on his back porch. They are now extinct.

I flew back to Los Angeles from Australia, getting there, in time and date, even before I left, which was hardly soon enough. Let us all say a prayer for Graybeard.

Now, don't get me talking about Canada.

[Mikal]

Now there's a chuckle to end my day...Canada is turning out the lights...work tomorrow in the hell hole....the pressure cooker...I stay sane through laughter....heh..heh..heh...

Mikal

[austintorn@aol.com]

One time I drove back from Chicago to New York by entering Canada from Detroit into Windsor, then getting out as soon as I could at Viagra Falls, a fun place for vacationing foreigners to leave money.

When they say that the glaciers retreated, they only mean that they went back up into Canada, where they sit atop the forgotten land in which few are cold because so many are frozen. Since it is all ice, everyone only plays hockey all day, at least when they can blow-torch their ice-covered igloo cars into opening. Canada has only one super highway; it goes east and west and as close to the US as it possibly can. It doesn’t even have railings, for there is nothing to run into if you go off the road. So, anyway, Canada is only really only about a width of ten miles that is barely habitable just above the US, a suburb really.

They have only one baseball team that is going nowhere since they are really all hockey players. The police still ride horses there, but this is actually a step up from a moose. Sears is their biggest industry, mostly selling really heavy fur coats made from polar bear fur. Mikal works in men’s clothes. She drank Canada dry in her spare time, but now drinks only ice tea. She used to eat Eskimo pies, but is no longer a cannibal. All their restaurants are called Tim’s Donuts. Canada is really even smaller than it looks, for a part of France called Quebec is in it but is not really with it. Every US map I’ve ever seen ends at Canada, just showing it as a bit of a blank gray area that probably doesn’t really exist. When Henry Hudson discovered the frigid Hudson Bay, his men were so mad at him that they put him off in a small rowboat.

Mikal lives at the end of Lake Ontario, a prime spot since it gets an extra lake effect snow of two feet more than the average of five feet. June is still a winter month there, but one only needs two coats then. One time it got up to 80 degrees F there on a mid-summer day and everyone became sweating and boiling and so they all ran around with naked eyes. Even the Yukon, which is really a secret part of Alaska, has better weather than Ontario. Their power goes off more than goes on. The only place worse is Antarctica. So, to help Mikal, let us apply some science in the form of some secret zapping rays from the North pole that will melt all the ice and flood Canada ten feet under.

What’s the big news from Canada? They don’t have any.

[Mikal]

Well thanks sweetie for the delightful morning chuckle!

Are you sure you want to put me in the land down under?? I'm not sure the Gregster would be happy about that....


Mikal

[Mohan.C]

What is the Uncaused Mover
That Was Around Forever?

Could a Mind, such as we see in humans, have been around forever? No, of course not, for it is an already defined and very complex composite system.

We don't see a mind. Mind is a concept which refers to something instinctual-ly more powerful than the brain...

Ok, then, how about the fully formed cells and molecules of which the brain is made? No, still ordered and complex.

Well, if they really were fully formed, I don't see no reason for evolution. We might just as well stop evolving.

What about an atom or even its smaller constituents of? No, not even, for these parts, as small as they are, have a complete definition of particular properties. These parts have a specific order: a size, spin, energy, etc., and a timely ‘when’, a specific ‘where’, and even how many.

Has quantum mechanics been disproved or something?
Can we know the 'when', 'where and 'how many' at the exact same time?

If they had been ‘forever’, then there could have been no first place for them to have been so particularly and specifically defined; therefore, the realm of the causeless must be one of no definition at all—none whatsoever—an utter and complete shambles of disorder, called merely ‘potential’ or ‘possibility’—that is, a lawless, ‘anything goes’ realm that precedes real form and its movement and laws, and perhaps even time. Such, indeed, is what we see of the virtual particles arbitrarily arising from the quantum domain, as also in geiger counters randomly beeping, all indeterminate and random happenings of disorder.

I agree with the 'potential' and 'possibility' concept. But, still we don't know when whatever was created, how it was created?

So, while order always needs cause beneath it, disorder does not. In fact, an ultimate composite complexity such as mind, not to mention an infinite mind, falls way at the other end of the spectrum; for now, our brains are the most!

Our brains are more like well tamed computers. If there had been no unpredictability in them. Probably there would not have been any dreams. Unless they were also programmed beforehand.

All springs from the uncaused disorder,
Vibrating forth these particulate songs of reality,
For which all complex composites then form.

How do they form? Why do they evolve, are they just bored? Does something drive them to be better? If it was disorder at first and order now. Then what exactly is entropy doing, trying to contradict what you are saying?

The Cause, Just Because

Some theists say: By all appearances, life’s chemistry looks like the product of a Creator. A nontheist might respond: Life is but a tiny spec compared to that of the Creator’s. By all appearances, then, to be consistent in demanding cause, God’s much higher life all the more looks like the product of a another, Much Higher Creator. But, no, it might then be said by the theist, some Lives need no cause. OK, fine, thus the infinitely simpler life of the universe needs no cause, then, all the more.

So, we see that these kinds of mere ‘pronouncements’ attempt to halt all further inquiry—such as ‘God did it’ indeed may do so for theists; whereas, in science inquiry is ever welcome in the search for answers beyond ‘case closed’ just because.

Theists are not really religious people or spiritually enlightened or whatever they call them. They just preach blindly trying to find faith. They are not trying to find answers. They have accepted the fact that they are just not good enough to find answers. None, here are theists in my opinion. Everybody here is trying to find something even if they are following something, they are doing it to find something that leads the whole pack.
Theists also follow and they don't do that to find what's leading. They just do that because they don't know anything else to do. I am not saying they are stupid. I am saying they are ignorant. And I seriously believe it was never their choice.

[Mohan.C]

[quote=austintorn@aol.com;91148]

— Mind/Consciousness is Heaven —

Mind is the ultimate of all there is
It is the universe—billions of years
Of primordial material—complex.
So, what more could human beings want?

Understanding...

Of Cause the First

Whatever is eternal and is so well defined
Could never be as so, for it was never defined
In the first place, for that there never was
To define all that it forever did and does.

I guess it really is impossible to define god. Since, we expect him to be defined at a specific location, with specific powers and so many other specific details.
And, what amazes me is that we still believe in a probabilistic universe, where nothing is specific. Everything is relative.
I think it is unfair that we apply different laws for different concepts depending on our beliefs.
And doing all this we try to define the absolute.
And the more wonderful thing for me is that I don't even believe in god. Not the usual walking- talking god anyway.
May be there is something absolute, just may be... may be.... There's a probability!

[austintorn@aol.com]

To the Ends of the Universe

I took a road trip through the universe recently, smoking some pot and playing the radio loud. Holy-moly, there’s nothing holy there. In fact, it’s a very uncongenial place for life. I’d much rather be in Australia. 96% of it was useless dark energy and dark matter. The rest was mostly rocks gases and dust. Dangerous radiation zapped all over the place. And it was fricken freezing! Oh, what I would have given to be in Canada. Whatever designed the universe certainly didn’t have life in mind. It even took evolution billions of years to fine-tune us to the ‘accommodating’ earth. Then we nearly got wiped out by huge disasters right and left, even once going back down to a population of just 2000.

I saw the graveyards of stars and some stellar nurseries, too. All kinds of energy swirled about aimlessly—when it wasn’t exploding and wreaking havoc. I stopped to eat at the restaurant at the end of the universe, but it had no atmosphere, plus all the food was microwaved, by the CMBR.

What a wasteland of a wilderness of wilds of a whole bunch of crap that nearly goes on forever in every direction. This was as far of a place unsuited for life that there ever could be.

I’m back, thank my lucky stars, noting that 14 billion years after the initial chaos, here we are, having beaten the odds. Well, someone had to! We won the universal lottery jackpot. Oh cripes, here comes a humonguous asteroid! Darn, all that luck for nothing. Double ‘00’ has come up. It was only a matter of time.

[melanie]

I’m back, thank my lucky stars, noting that 14 billion years after the initial chaos, here we are, having beaten the odds.

Well, someone had to! We won the universal lottery jackpot.

Oh cripes, here comes a humonguous asteroid! Darn, all that luck for nothing.

Double ‘00’ has come up.

It was only a matter of time.

Rather like a nightly dream? ... last night in my dream i won the lottery jackpot, wow what a feeling, then i 'woke-up'
darn! doh!

They all agreed.

The mathematical data proved,beyond a doubt, that there was indeed a third planet from the sun...
but nobody had been able to spot it in there telescopes.


--Quote Source:

There was no non-existent, and there was no existent at that time
There was neither mid-space nor Heaven beyond.
What stirred? and whose control? Was there water?
The abyss was deep.

Neither death nor deathlessness was there then.
There was no sign of night or day
That One breathed without wind through its independent power.
There was nothing other than it.
Darkenss was there, hidden by more darkness in the beginning.

A signless ocean was everything there.
The potential that was hidden by emptiness -- that One was born by the power of heat.
Desire evolved then, which was the first seed of thought.
Searching in their hearts through inspired thoughts,
Sages found the connection of the existent in the non-existent.

Their cord was stretched cross-wise.
Was there something above? Something below?
Were there powers of insemination and powers of expansion?
Was independence below, offering above? Or was it?

Who really knows? Who shall here proclaim it -
whence things came to be, whence this creation.
Even the Gods are on this side, along with the creation of this world.
So then who does know whence it came to be?

But he who is its overseer in the highest heaven
He surely knows?
Or if he does not know..?
END

[austintorn@aol.com]

The Amazing TOE

I Am the Solar System of Planets and Salty Chemicals
(May the all-knowing ancients forgive me)

I have been proved to be the spectacular and magnificent splendor from the Sun, Mercury, Venus, the Earth and the Moon, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto, plus a few asteroids and hemorrhoids. This took 26 years.

The Sun (Leo) is my bright heart shining and beating life into my body, its contagion of radiant reverberations felt everywhere, within and without—a thousand radioactive emotions of hydrogen bombs pulsing away every second, not to mention the spinal cable TV network that reaches out to the boobs as their tube, and the very thymus of our ultimate Thyness, as well as the cell phone salt Magnesium Phosphate. This is found from the edge of ancient prehistory right up through all recorded historical documents and beyond.

My lungs and nerve system of my entire thoracic region including my arms and hands and the cell salt potassium chloride are of the smokeless clouds of Mercury (Gemini). Smokers are from Venus. Mercury (when in Virgo) is my tiny spinning and barren brain, the remaining very nervous system of old and the cell salt, potassium sulphate. We know this from sacred writings, preserved manuscripts and philosophical documentations handed down and thrown out and hen retrieved.

My 5 physical senses are Venus (Taurus), all of them directed toward sexy love and passion, as well as my thyroid gland and my parathyroids, being the cell salt sulphur of sodium. Venus (Libra) is my kidneys, skin, veins and the cell salt sodium phosphate. This is from the history of world religion, the history of spirituality and an examination of the cultural background of the ancient civilizations and their time of great medical insight.

My invisible soul of the Invisible Beyond uses the Earth, the physical body, as its vehicle to experience life. These deeply astrological and astronomical ideas were entrenched and flourished in the culture of our ancient ancestors much like seaweed and mold.

My alimentary canal goes to the moon (Cancer) and is the cell salt calcium fluoride. There was evidence of this discipline of thought from cave Iconography at the edge of prehistory, at the edge of the flat Earth, in the philosophical thought systems of those silly times, in sacred thought systems like the Kabala as well as in modern medical textbooks used by alchemists and witches.

The mountains of Mars (Aries) are the bone structure of my thick head, as well as my adrenal system and are the cell salt potassium phosphate. All are found in the stone temples, in sacred writings, in the recorded history of the ancient Mystery Schools that no one could ever find, engravings in burial grounds and tombs, stone pyramids, in Egypt’s Giza necropolis and in cultural pottery and artifacts retrieved from numerous archeological digs by people whose careers were in ruins.

Jupiter (Sagittarius) is my liver, my fat Buddha belly, and the pituitary gland and the cell salt silica. This was an art of a highly skilled civilization; this was a way of life, a symbolic system to understand oneself, one’s psychology, nature and relationship between mind, body, spirit, soul and relationship to the Solar system or the solar plexus.

Saturn (Capricorn) is my gallbladder, rear end, spleen, cells in bones and skin and is the cell salt calcium phosphate. These are the fine loose threads of connection that linked all systems of thought, especially the ancient Kabala considered the Tree of Life from which nuts fall.

Uranus (Aquarius) is the circulatory system, the execratory system, the pineal gland and is the cell salt sodium chloride and smells like rotten eggs. Everything was connected, the ancient thought system of Tarot, Poker, Rummy, the ancient thought system of Runes and itunes, and the initiation tradition hidden in the ancient Mystery Elementary Schools within their cultures and societies and crazy cults.

Neptune (Pisces) is my nosy mucus membrane in the oral cavity of the big mouth, and knows all; it acts on the thalamus and is the cell salt ferrum phosphate. This was a symbolic language which allowed the ancient philosophers and High Priests to discuss their sacred truths and initiation practices outside the awareness of what they considered the nosy common mass of society or the uninitiated.

Finally the good part:
Pluto (Scorpio) is the underworld of my underwear—my sex glands, sex organs, and the formation of cells in the body and is the cell salt calcium sulphate. All of this is what starkly stood out.

Transcendence is a biological mystery since it isn’t true and is the non-miracle within the human body and consciousness. All this antique ancient stuff goes on and on, anon, into structures of thought that are seemingly endlessly posted.

Hence, the phrase… That’s me, a bag of chemicals, for the Solar system is within me and I am in the Solar system.

[austintorn@aol.com]

Ha, the ancients didn’t know anything beyond the solar system, much less about the planets beyond the naked eye which were only discovered relatively recently!

So, onto the galaxy…

Space gives me room to realize that the Earth couldn’t be farther out in space, alone, it rolling along, unknown. The stars of space beckon, warm and welcome, the fires of home—those ancient lights piercing the depths of time.

Look at the stars in the depths of the night;
Hold the flames in your mind, keeping them bright.
Their power flows, energizing you from
The eternal charger—you see the light!

The stars are my mind, for I am ever inspired by a thousand ideas beckoning from afar that wink in my mind’s meadows like fireflies; they stab the darkness of naught with their light, for my eyes ever catch these stars like fireflies in a jar to make the lamp that burns the night away. Eternity’s running-lights—the bright stars—are the gleam in my eyes. My smile’s light is of a distant sun from long ago.

From Heaven’s stars came my dust eterne. I was born of stardust and then nourished by the sunlight that filled my living cup with so many wonders of delight, for Time’s seas nurtured me and thee in turn. From time, death, and dust I thus became, and so by this, thus, and that I must return.

Star light is the origin of my being, the source of my matter, energy—everything; It’s my radiant ‘soul’, my self-winding mainspring. Soul to soul, it said to me, “I’m the light, thy spirit’s sight, a beauty bold and bright, an inspiration come from darkest night; you’re a newborn star aglow with insight.”

Oh thee, of thine, whence came this life of mine?
I wish thee to thank for this living wine.
Oh Nature, Father Time, Guiding Star—
Thanks for throwing me this earthly lifeline.