Beyond God

Walking In with a Guitar Case

2008-08-01T06:01:00.001-07:00

On a Sunday morning in 2008 July, in at least two Unitarian Universalist churches in this country, a man walked into the church with a guitar case in his hand.

At one of these churches, Greg Greenway walked in with a guitar case, and during the service, he pulled a guitar out of the case and started whacking away at it with his plastic-tipped fingers, producing inspiring music for us, such as "The Color Yellow", and "On the Side of Love".

At another one, Jim David Atkisson walked in with a guitar case, and during the service, he pulled a shotgun out of the case and started firing away at the congregants with his trigger-pulling finger, wounding several people and killing some, such as Greg McKendry and Linda Kraeger. His actions halted the service and brought in the police. It also scared and scarred the congregation, who tried to make sense out of the killings.

One of these churches had a service that encountered life. One of these churches had a service that encountered death.

We can say that perhaps Greenway was on the side of love, or in this case life. But earlier, Dave Atkisson played good music out of his guitar, including duets with his wife at the time, one of which was recorded in 1996 for SUUSI. What made him trade the guitar for the shotgun? That's one of the mysteries of life. It may have had something to do with his wife. It may have had something to do with hatred for liberals, but then why did he go to a church noted for liberal values? Did he feel discontent because his wife left him after he became angry at her? Did liberals represent his former wife to him?

Greenway also has his peeves, as indicated in his song "I Love Everybody", that is, except his ex-girl friends, most Republicans (the other side of "Liberals") and the state of Missouri. But he expressed his feelings to these with his guitar. What makes one person express feelings about girl friends, Republicans and Missourians with his guitar and another express his feelings about girl friends, liberals, and Tennesseans with his shotgun? Is it desperation? Is it feelings about life? Or about girl friends, liberals, Republicans and so forth?

That's a mystery. We choose to follow life the best we can, hoping that we find the way of life, like Greenway, and not the way of death, like Atkisson.

Just Who Is the Enemy Anyway?

2008-07-09T18:00:00.001-07:00

Today I heard of an atheist soldier, Army Spc. Jeremy Hall, who has sued the Department of Defense and other military elements, saying that the Army discriminates against those who believe in God; in fact, those who are not Christian. Spc. Hall was a devout Baptist, believing in what the Bible says; that is, until he started reading the Bible. That caused him to realize that the Bible is merely the story of a people (the Israelites) and of Jesus, and not anything like the word of God. So he stopped believing in God.

He continued to serve in Iraq, along with his comrades, where they faced several enemies, mainly insurgents who ambush Americans and Iraqis and booby-trap the roads with improvised explosive devices (IEDs). But the actions of his comrades probably made him wonder just who was the enemy anyway. In particular, he was made to sit somewhere else because he would not pray at the dinner table. After one attack in which he was nearly killed, he was asked, "Now do you believe in Jesus?" If I were him, I would have answered, "Well, maybe I believe that there is no god but God, and that Muhammad is his prophet." The point is that his buddy was trying to force one set of beliefs on him. There are also other sets of belief, and there is non-belief.

I worked for the Army for over 20 years, and in those years I found plenty of instances of religious preference or discrimination. My workplace held prayer breakfasts, for instance. Many events had Christian invocations before them, and high-ranking officers use "God" in their email signatures. And there is that old phrase, "There are no atheists in foxholes." That reminds me of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad last year at Harvard when he said in Iran there are no homosexuals. Spc. Hall was one such atheist - not in a foxhole but clearly in a place where he could get killed.

Now the insurgents who the Army is fighting against in Iraq are even worse - they are trying to force Muslim beliefs on the people over there. So they are no friends. But as I have just said, Spc. Hall is not only fighting insurgents, he is fighting another enemy as well - religious discrimination within his own ranks.

Religion on Cliffhanger

2008-03-31T16:31:00.001-07:00

It has come to my attention that my companion blog Cliffhanger, which deals with Peak Oil and related problems of the world today, has attracted a lot of religious interest, with seven comments, including some of my own. So I am transferring that discussion here, to Beyond God, since Cliffhanger discusses Peak Oil and related problems, not the existence of God or how Satan came to be.

The discussion related from my posting on Cliffhanger what I believe are the five biggest problems today (to that I can now add the subprime mortgage and credit crisis). Number 4 of these was Mainline Religions, in which I maintained that people invoke a God to deal with their problems instead of trying to solve them themselves, and that they justify all kinds of mayhem in the name of God (i.e., their God). One of the posts says that God did not create Satan. That's a contradiction. We are given that God created everything. Therefore, he created Satan. It is this type of contradiction that leads me to believe that there is no God. One could even argue that God is Satan as follows: God created everything. Therefore, he created Satan. Creation of an evil entity (e.g., Hitler of Auschwitz) is itself an evil act. Therefore, God is evil. God is the Supreme Being; so he therefore is the Supreme Being of Evil, so God is Satan. But the next step would say that since God created Satan, therefore God created God, which is impossible - nothing can create itself. The whole idea of a supreme Being like this is therefore refuted, and that is why I don't believe in a God.

The only way God could make sense, is to say that, since nothing is conceivable unless it comes under God or God created it (because of God's omnipresence and omnipotence), therefore, everything comes under God. But since God results in everything, therefore, God is Everything. So theories of Everything, including physical theories and Ken Wilber's books, are really works about God. However, I don't even believe that this God exists. This is because I believe in the Beyond Theory: There is something beyond anything you name. Anything has something beyond it. That rules out Everything, as there would have to be something beyond it. And that is the reason I named this blog Beyond God.

Incidentally, if you want to find out about the Bible, instead of just quoting it to prove your point, try Rev. Miles' Bible classes at the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Richmond. She tells us not just what is in the Bible but what motivated the characters and the authors of the Bible's many stories.

Easter Lunacy

2008-03-22T06:03:00.000-07:00

This year is remarkable. The Christian holiday of Easter comes the earliest that it will come in our lifetimes - on March 23. It last came this early in 1913, and will not be this early again until 2160. Why is Easter so early? And why does it move around the calendar like it does? When I was a child, I looked at a calendar of 1953 and found Easter in the first week of April. So the next year I expected it again in the first week of April, but found by surprise that it was two weeks later, on April 18.

It is because Easter is based on the Moon as well as the Sun. The date of Easter is based on Passover, which occurs in the first Jewish month of the spring, on Nisan 15, the date of the full moon. It was decided to put Easter as the first Sunday past the first full moon after the March equinox. Instead of basing it directly on the Jewish calendar, for example, the first Sunday on or after Nisan 15, a new algorithm was developed, involving creating a mathematical model of the Moon called the Paschal full moon, and saying that Easter is the Sunday after that (if it is on Sunday, it's the next Sunday). The calculation of this moon involves calculating the Golden Number and the epact; the details can be found, for example, at Web Exhibits.

Since Easter is based on the Moon, one would expect a lot of lunacy with respect to this celebration. And sure enough there is. The very idea of holding Easter on a date that jumps from year to year in the calendar that we use in our everyday life can cause considerable disruption. This year, it is so early that it impinged on St. Patrick's Day. Most places celebrated it as usual, but the Catholic Church saw fit not to celebrate it because of it being in holy week. In many places it is cold this early, and some places may have weather more suitable for Christmas. Stores usually use holidays to promote their items, but there is no really good holiday between this year's Easter and Mother's Day this year, and April Fool's Day and Tax Day (April 15) just won't do.

Further, there is a lot of nonsense on the web about Easter. For example, in the Monticello, Indiana, Herald Journal, there appears this excerpt from Jerry Whybrew:

He said to them, "It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority." Acts 1:7 Apparently, Easter day falls this year earlier than it has since 1913. It will be 2060 before it falls this early again. This is a very early Easter. Probably, if most of us would have our own way, we would move Easter later a few weeks when it would be a little warmer, flowers would be budding, and spring would be in full swing. But we aren't in control, and God has a purpose and a time for each and every event and situation in life. We can never expect to out-guess God. Life begins and life ends, and God is in control.

First of all, this person doesn't have control of his life. God does. The danger with supposing the existence of such a God is that the role of God could be filled by an actual person, and when it is, it is usually filled by a dictator. Next, he also says the date of Easter is one of those things we can't control. Not so. It is human beings, at the Nicene Council and other places that decided on the golden number-epact rule for Easter. There is nothing magical about it, and it doesn't even coincide with the Jewish feast of Passover or the actual full Moon. It can be as much as two days off from the real Moon, and this year, with Easter on March 23, Passover is April 19-26. And finally, he got the date of Easter in 2060 wrong. It is April 18 that year. Maybe he meant 2160, when Easter once again is March 23. There is an earlier possible date, which requires an epact which cannot occur this century: March 22. Next time it's that early is 2285.

More lunacy occurs in Newsbeat, from BBC. According to this article, "Easter always comes on the Sunday after the first full moon after the first day of spring." In a general sense, that is true. But really the rule should read "Easter comes on the Sunday after the first Paschal full moon after March 21." The equinox does not always occur on March 21. This year it was on the 20th. And the Paschal full moon, the one determined by the mathematical model, is March 22 this year, but the real full moon occurred on March 21. Further, the article says, "Easter will not come this early again for approximately another 220 years." That means in the year 2228. True, Easter is March 23 that year. But it is also on March 23 in 2160.

Where is there some sense on the Internet about Easter? Maybe in USA Today. That article does have the correct rule for Easter, but not the algorithm for computing it. Further, it explains the difference between the Paschal full moon and the real astronomical one. The Easter rule fixes the equinox on March 21, when for the next few decades, it will be March 20, or earlier. Using the astronomical full moon, Easter should be on March 28 in 2038, since the full moon is the 21st, and the equinox is on the 20th. But the Paschal full moon is on April 18 instead, since the previous mathematical full moon is March 20; it is off by a day. So Easter that year is on April 25, the latest possible.

This article also says that the Moon is never full. No, I don't think that is correct. There is a time of full moon, when the Moon is opposite the Sun and the lit portion stops increasing and starts decreasing. This may be altered by lunar terrain, but there has to be a turning point.

So celebrate Easter, on this early date. Maybe the date of Easter will be changed; there was a movement to do so in 1963, perhaps to the second Sunday in April. But remember that it can be changed. God does not determine Easter for us, we do.

Jesus and the Devil: Brothers?

2007-12-13T17:25:00.001-08:00

The latest flap I have heard among the candidates is Mike Huckabee's comment about what Mormons believe about Jesus and the Devil:

Don't Mormons believe that Jesus and the devil are brothers?

Mitt Romney, the Mormon candidate, replied "attacking someone's religion is really going too far." This caused a hullabaloo among the media and Republicans, and eventually Rev. Huckabee was forced to apologize for making the statement.

But are they brothers? Here is what the Mormon church says about it:

We believe, as other Christians believe and as Paul wrote, that God is the father of all," a spokeswoman for the LDS church, Kim Farah, told the AP. "That means that all beings were created by God and are his spirit children. Christ, on the other hand, was the only begotten in the flesh and we worship him as the son of God and the savior of mankind. Satan is the exact opposite of who Christ is and what he stands for."

So let's go to the definition of "brother". As I see it, brothers are humans (and non-human beings) that have a common parent, either a father or a mother or both. What do we see here? God is the father of all. That would certainly make Jesus and the Devil brothers. In fact, it makes all of us brothers, even women. It does not say so, but I would certainly take it from this passage that Satan was a son of God. Since both Jesus and Satan are sons of God, Jesus and Satan are brothers.

I don't see what all the hoopla is about. From the Christians I know, it seems that Christians in general believe that God is the father of all. This makes the statement "Jesus and Satan are brothers" a trite tautology. So I don't see what all it's all about. To me this whole episode discredits both Huckabee and Romney and turns the Republican Presidential race into a three-ring circus. Huckabee was not attacking Romney's religion; he was just stating what his religion says. But it seems that Huckabee was trying to make a big deal of it. In that sense, he was hyping to the media.

But take another look at the religions of both Huckabee and Romney. Their beliefs imply that God is Satan! Here is the proof: God created everything, so God created Satan. Satan is evil. Creation of an evil entity is itself an evil act (for example, Hitler creating Auschwitz). Therefore, God is evil. Since God is the Supreme Being, he is the Supreme Being of Evil. Therefore, God is Satan. But let anyone in the Presidential race try to say that. But it's what their religions imply.

We can go one step further. God created Satan. God is Satan. Therefore, God created himself, which is a contradiction. Nothing can create itself. That says that all this is make-believe, that there is no God or Satan, and that if Jesus existed, he was a human being just like the rest of us.

It's best if the political candidates keep God, Satan, and Jesus out of their campaigns.

The God Index

2007-10-06T11:32:00.001-07:00

The 2008 Presidential Campaign is heating up, with over 20 candidates. Naturally I want objective ways to rate the candidates, and sifting through their pro-themselves rhetoric can be tedious. A way around this is to use Google to rate the candidates. One facetious way of rating it is the Idiot Index, by counting the number of web pages throughout the Web that contain the phrase "candidate is an idiot". Hillary Clinton tops that one. More details can be found at J. Clifford's blog and at my brother blog, Beyond Opinion. (You may have to scroll down to get the story.)

But there are more meaningful ways of rating the candidates. Our First Amendment prescribes that there shall be no establishment of religion. I feel that every time the President, Vice President, or any candidate for these positions mentions words like "God", "Jesus", "salvation" and the like, he or she establishes a religion in our government. So a measure of the worthiness of a candidate is to measure how many times he talks about God or is associated with God. CNN claims to do it with their "God-o-Meter", pronounced as if it were the odometer of a car. But I don't know where they get their index from. Hence my God Index.

Here is how to compute the God Index of a candidate. Google for "candidate god" and call this quantityg. Google for "candidate" and call this numbert. Then the God Index I is defined by:

I = t/g

It is the reciprocal of the percent of pages that refer to the candidate that also refer to God. I take the reciprocal so that those candidates least associated with religion and God get the highest scores. The lowest God Index is 1, and represents the case of a candidate who can't get a web page up there with his name on it without having God in it. An index of 2 means half the pages that refer to the candidate refer to God, an index of 5 means that one-fifth or 20% of the pages that refer to the candidate refer to God and so forth.

The results are below. They show some interesting things. McCain, Romney, and Giuliani, the top Republican contenders, show low God indices, meaning that they talk about God and religion a lot. This I feel is the case from seeing them in the media. The index says that Ron Paul is much better, with a God Index over 6, the highest of any of the candidates. However, I heard Ron Paul refer to God a lot as well, so I am not sure how that index came about; maybe there's been a lot of talk about Ron Paul. He has a tendency to come up way out in front of the other Republicans in any measure that relies on the Internet for its data. To me the biggest disappointment is seeing Barack Obama come out as the Goddiest of the candidates. About 70% of the pages that contain "Barack Obama" also contain "God". I would be fearful that he would start a state religion. Up to now I have regarded him as my number 1 candidate, but maybe I will consider Richardson and Edwards now as well. Fred Thompson, the most Republican of the candidates it seems, scores unexpectedly high, and so does Independent Mike Bloomberg, so if it is Obama vs Romney vs Bloomberg, I may vote for Bloomberg. Here is the complete standings:

CAND	HWGOD	HITS	INDEX	PARTY
Paul	1800000	11800000	6.55	Republican
Thompson	1540000	9280000	6.03	Republican
Bloomberg	398000	2267000	5.70	Independent
Gravel	359000	1610000	4.48	Democrat
Edwards	1740000	7800000	4.48	Democrat
Dodd	421000	1740000	4.13	Democrat
Tancredo	515000	1910000	3.71	Republican
Hunter	480000	1760000	3.67	Republican
Biden	776000	2726000	3.51	Democrat
Brownback	532000	1840000	3.46	Republican
Huckabee	629000	1970000	3.13	Republican
Kucinich	701000	1990000	2.84	Democrat
Clinton	2060000	5450000	2.65	Democrat
Richardson	730000	1840000	2.52	Democrat
Keyes	324000	723000	2.23	Republican
Giuliani	1310000	2200000	1.68	Republican
Romney	1540000	2400000	1.56	Republican
McCain	1680000	2320000	1.38	Republican
Obama	1930000	2510000	1.30	Democrat

100,000 Gullible Visitors

2007-07-29T18:50:00.001-07:00

Recently a Creation Museum opened up near Petersburg, Kentucky, portraying how life developed the way that creationists and intelligent-designers see it. In the two months it has been open, the museum has had 100,000 visitors, or about 1600 per day. It is packing the parking lots and making for long lines. What is going on here? A huge herd of lemmings galloping on their way to an abyss of falsity?

It is amazing how many people are fooled by this creation scam. The creationists have taken an allegorical myth out of the Bible and made it into what they believe is fact. There is absolutely no evidence for their thesis. The Bible is not evidence. Instead the evidence found on this planet, including radioactive rocks, fossils, and structural similarities of organisms, point strongly to evolution of life forms out of lesser forms. I don't understand why the propagandists for creationism and intelligent design spout out their mistruths. It reminds me of the violent spouting of Islamic mullahs in the Middle East. At least the creation sort does not cause violent outbursts like the Islamic sort does.

The biggest danger is if this many people are fooled into believing this creation malarkey, they can be fooled by much more dangerous idolatries, such as those coming from Hitler's mouth against the Russians, Jews, and blacks. It's time we question those in authority, especially those in our churches.

The 56 Principle Paths

2007-05-29T16:58:00.001-07:00

I am a member of the Unitarian Universalist religion, which has no official creed but does suggest 7 principles. They are:

1. The inherent worth and dignity of every person.
2. Justice, equity, and compassion in human relations.
3. Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations.
4. A free and responsible search for truth and meaning.
5. The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large.
6. The goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all.
7. Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.

A little long-winded, but I feel these are worthy principles to live by. If you want something briefer, try the Buddhist eightfold paths:

1. The Right View
2. The Right Intention
3. The Right Speech
4. The Right Action
5. The right Livelihood
6. The Right Effort
7. The Right Mindfulness
8. The Right Concentration

I think I follow these paths to a certain extent. I talk about what I believe in (3), intend to act on it (2 and 4), live according to my beliefs (5) and so forth. I think I would feel at home in a Buddhist environment, to a certain extent. But what I find interesting is what happens if you combine the 7 Principles with the 8 Paths. You get 7*8 or 56 Principle Paths (and yes, principle is spelled correctly for I am referring to one of UU's 7 statements). For example, Principle Path 4-7 is "The right action for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part." This means urging people to respect the environment in their actions - buy fluorescent bulbs, put caps on carbon dioxide emissions and so forth. Principle Path 3-4 is "The right speech for a free and responsible search for truth and meaning.", which means speaking the truth, walking the walk after talking the talk and so forth. You may try seeing what maxims of life you can get out of these Principle Paths. For your interest, here are all 56 of them:

1,The Right View of The inherent worth and dignity of every person.
2,The Right Intention of The inherent worth and dignity of every person.
3,The Right Speech of The inherent worth and dignity of every person.
4,The Right Action of The inherent worth and dignity of every person.
5,The Right Livelihood of The inherent worth and dignity of every person.
6,The Right Effort of The inherent worth and dignity of every person.
7,The Right Mindfulness of The inherent worth and dignity of every person.
8,The Right Concentration of The inherent worth and dignity of every person.
9,The Right View of Justice, equity and compassion in human relations.
10,The Right Intention of Justice, equity and compassion in human relations.
11,The Right Speech of Justice, equity and compassion in human relations.
12,The Right Action of Justice, equity and compassion in human relations.
13,The Right Livelihood of Justice, equity and compassion in human relations.
14,The Right Effort of Justice, equity and compassion in human relations.
15,The Right Mindfulness of Justice, equity and compassion in human relations.
16,The Right Concentration of Justice, equity and compassion in human relations.
17,The Right View of Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations.
18,The Right Intention of Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations.
19,The Right Speech of Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations.
20,The Right Action of Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations.
21,The Right Livelihood of Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations.
22,The Right Effort of Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations.
23,The Right Mindfulness of Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations.
24,The Right Concentration of Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations.
25,The Right View of a free and responsible search for truth and meaning.
26,The Right Intention of a free and responsible search for truth and meaning.
27,The Right Speech of a free and responsible search for truth and meaning.
28,The Right Action of a free and responsible search for truth and meaning.
29,The Right Livelihood of a free and responsible search for truth and meaning.
30,The Right Effort of a free and responsible search for truth and meaning.
31,The Right Mindfulness of a free and responsible search for truth and meaning.
32,The Right Concentration of a free and responsible search for truth and meaning.
33,The Right View of The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large.
34,The Right Intention of The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large.
35,The Right Speech of The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large.
36,The Right Action of The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large.
37,The Right Livelihood of The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large.
38,The Right Effort of The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large.
39,The Right Mindfulness of The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large.
40,The Right Concentration of The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large.
41,The Right View of The goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all.
42,The Right Intention of The goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all.
43,The Right Speech of The goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all.
44,The Right Action of The goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all.
45,The Right Livelihood of The goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all.
46,The Right Effort of The goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all.
47,The Right Mindfulness of The goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all.
48,The Right Concentration of The goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all.
49,The Right View of Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.
50,The Right Intention of Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.
51,The Right Speech of Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.
52,The Right Action of Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.
53,The Right Livelihood of Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.
54,The Right Effort of Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.
55,The Right Mindfulness of Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.
56,The Right Concentration of Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.

The Pope and the Muslims

2006-09-15T07:37:00.000-07:00

First it was Salmon Rushdie and his "Satanic Verses". Then it was who could have been a wife of Mohammad (in Nigeria). Then the Danish cartoons. Muslims erupt against these and call for death against the perpetrators. They don't seem to know about freedom of speech and are willing to make death threats in the name of their religion.

Now it's the Pope. According to Reuters:

The Pope on Tuesday repeated criticism of the Prophet Mohammad by the 14th century Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Palaeologus, who said everything Mohammad brought was evil "such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached".

The Muslims have responded in the same way as to Rushdie, the Nigerian writer, and the Danish cartoonists. They have condemned the Pope's remarks and are linking the Pope to Zionism. They accuse the Pope of bringing back the Crusades.

I say they are both right. I don't think everything that Mohammad said was "evil", but if he commanded the spread of his faith by sword, that is not a peace-loving command. And the Pope should talk, coming from a religion that massacred the Muslims in the Crusades. Both are pots calling the kettle black.

However, I think that discord and violence should not be spread around. The Pope and Muslim leaders should be talking about making peace in the world and solving its problems, such as global warming and peak oil. Everyone should be doing this. What I am afraid of is that this means we need to turn our back on both Islam and Christianity. If this is what it takes, that is what we should do.

Gödel's Proof of the Existence of God

2006-08-29T18:40:00.000-07:00

This summer I gave a workshop on "Mathematics and Religion", and among the items I covered was a rather arcane and strange proof of the existence of God by Kurt Gödel, the mathematician who proved that a mathematical theory which includes number theory can never be complete, and it will never prove by itself that it does not contain contradictions. His argument is this: God is that entity that has all positive properties. Existence is a positive property. Therefore, God has existence; he exists. Another version was presented by Anselm centuries ago: if there is a God, it is a necessary truth that he exists; in other words, "God exists" is like 2+2 = 4 instead of like "blue jays have feathers". It is conceivable that a world could exist that has a God in it. Therefore, God must exist in all worlds.

I will make an analogy to demonstrate that Gödel's argument is fallacious. Let's take instead a young man seeking a female partner. He has preferences; he prefers women who like Vangelis over those that prefer Van Halen; he prefers Unitarian Universalists over Methodists, and so forth. So he defines properties of women. He says that a property P of women is Athena-positive if he prefers women who have property P over those that don't. This relation has some properties of its own: If a property P is Athena-positive, then not-P is not Athena-positive and vice versa. The conjunction P1 and P2 and … and Pn of a bunch of Athena-positive properties is itself an Athena-positive property, because he clearly wants his woman to have all these properties. In other words, Athena-positive defines on the set of properties something mathematicians call an ultrafilter.

He now defines Athena (he picks this goddess because he admires her properties a lot) to be that woman who has all Athena-positive properties. He now thinks about whether such a woman exists. He notes that existence is a property. For example, Brooke Shields satisfies the property but Scarlett O'Hara does not. Further, he notes it's an Athena-positive property, because he would rather have a real woman to date and be able to relate with than a figment of his imagination. Since Athena is defined as that woman who has all Athena-positive properties, and since existence is an Athena-positive property, he concludes that Athena exists. "Well dagnabit", he says. "If indeed she does exist, why hasn’t she dropped me a line?"

He is also looking for a job. He has preferences; for example, he would rather be an actor than a janitor. So he defines properties of jobs. He says that a property P of jobs is Calling-positive if he prefers jobs which have property P over those that don't. Like with Athena-positive properties, Calling-positive properties form an ultrafilter. He defines his Calling as being that job that has all Calling-positive properties. Since he would rather have a job that exists instead of one that doesn't exist (and therefore provides him no money), existence is a Calling-positive property. Since the Calling is defined as that job that has all Calling-positive properties, and since existence is Calling-positive, he concludes that his Calling, his ideal job, really does exist. "If so, I would like the company with that job opening to contact me immediately.", he thinks.

Do you notice the problem with both of these ideals? The problem is that you can define Athena to be a woman with all Athena-positive properties. That does not necessarily mean she exists. Even if existence is an Athena-positive property, all that we have shown is that all Athenas that exist and have all Athena-positive properties exist. That does not necessarily mean that one exists. Saying that existence is a certain type of property does not mean that one exists. The same holds true with his Calling.

And the same holds true with Gödel's argument. All that Gödel proved was that all Gods with all positive properties that exist, exist. He has not shown that one necessarily exists. For if he did, all of us would be in perfect marriages and in ideal jobs. A look into the homes and offices of people in our society will reveal that that is emphatically not the case.

Da Vinci Code: Hype vs Ban

2006-05-14T20:13:00.000-07:00

A new movie has come out: The Da Vinci Code. This is based on a book by the same name. The name makes me think of scientific theories; in particular, the mathematics of cryptography. This is because Lenonardo Da Vinci was both an artist and and a scientist, having tried to design a flying machine. Indeed, code has something to do with it, but it also concerns Jesus Christ. Huh?? It seems that there is a code that tells something about who Jesus was. Both the book and the movie explain this.

Should I see the movie? There has been so much media hype about both the book and the movie that my initial answer was no. Then I found that several entities were banning the movie, telling people not to show it and forbidding its showing. These include the Catholic Church, Jordan, the Faeroe Islands, and possibly the Philippines. That changed my feeling about the movie. Any book or movie that is banned somewhere, especially for sexual or religious reasons, is a book worth reading or a movie worth seeing, just simply to defy the ban. So should I see it?

I heard it is a book that offers an alternate story of Jesus. It says that Jesus married Mary Magdalene, and that he had children, who had children, forming a long line of genealogy into today, and that people who are descended from Jesus keep it a secret, supposedly through something called the Da Vinci Code. To me the idea of Jesus marrying and having children is more believable than that he was the son of some deity such as God or Jehovah. Now it seems like a defiance of the Christian religion, making it even more worthy to see.

Then I found out it is all probably fiction. In truth we will never know the true story of Jesus, whether he married Mary Magdalene, had children, caused "miracles" to happen, was crucified, or even if he existed to begin with! The Christian religion makes a big, BIG, infinitely big unwarranted assumption when they say that Jesus was the son of God or was God. And I find that likewise, and unfortunately, the movie makes unwarranted assumptions as well, including his marriage and children.

Since the movie is fiction, based maybe loosely on some facts, I did not give it much credence or thought. Indeed, the hypermedia probably have really blown this movie out of proportion. It is media hype versus religious dogmatism. In my view, religious dogmatism is worse, so I will want to see the movie. But I will regard it as fun, not as a witness to a documentary.

There's No Such Thing as Karma

2006-03-25T19:02:00.000-08:00

Recently I attended a class which analyzed The Wizard of Oz from a Zen perspective. One of the first things the class mentioned was that Dorothy brought a lot of her pain on herself. She really didn't want Uncle Harry and Aunt Em because she wanted her own mother, although she would not say this to herself. Instead, she unconsciously gets back at them by letting her dog Toto go into Miss Gulch's yard and cause Miss Gulch to complain to her uncle and aunt, even to the extent of demanding the dog so it can be sent to the pound. So when the dog comes back, she abandons her home and runs away. According to the class and book we were working from, she had bad karma, and all this was coming back on her. Two other sayings explain it. "What goes around, comes around", and "when the chickens come home to roost". Another one is that what you do comes back on you threefold - a favorite with neo-pagans.

I then had the thought that there was no such thing as karma. Indeed, this is not how the universe works. Because you offended someone, supposedly you get it back somehow in a non-promotion or some other misfortune. But in the real world, events happen as they happen, and usually randomly. They don't try to get "even" with someone. They just simply happen, and sometimes when you make a misdeed, misfortune follows, and sometimes good times or a windfall happens instead. It's just the way things work.

A book from the Bible bears this out: Job. Job has all kinds of misfortune, so he feels he must have done wrong deeds, that he must have sinned. His friends all explain in some way the same thing back at him. But in the final chapters, as God improbably comes out of the wilderness as a whirlwind, he explains to Job that he was the one who made the universe and asks Job if he can make the sheep bear lambs or change the course of the stars. In other words, God works as God works, regardless of what humankind says about him, regardless of any theories about retribution for sin.

Perhaps it's just that when misfortunes happen, as they do from time to time, we blame ourselves for it. But usually there's no one to blame, not even the stars.

Zen and Buddhism have a lot going for them, but this is one place where they go awry - there just isn't any such thing as karma.

Dimanche Gras

2006-02-27T13:20:00.000-08:00

What did the minister do at your service yesterday (2006 February 26)? Did he or she proclaim the glories of God and maybe of Christ, or did the minister have some inspiring words to say? Did your service include New Orleans jazz? My service did. The minister (who by the way is a Blogger) led a service containing a lot of New Orleans jazz and even some dancing. It was a celebration.

Just two days before Mardi Gras, my church held a Dimanche Gras! That's right, Fat Sunday. It may have been a Unitarian Universalist service, but yesterday it was a service in the New Orleans religion (see my previous blog). It was a celebration. The service started off with a jazz funeral, then progressed to a poem or two, and then to a rousing playing by the Chez Roue Orchette band of "Down By the Riverside". Then it continued with a homily and concluded with "Liza Jane" and a dance number, and many of us danced in the aisles and near the podium.

As I said before, New Orleans will come back because New Orleans is a religion, and Mardi Gras and its other festivals are its services. I see that the real Mardi Gras is being held this year, despite the ruin that Hurricane Katrina caused that city. (The service at my church was dedicated to the victims and survivors of that storm.) It is a religion. It is a celebration. I know, because I saw such a celebration yesterday at my church.

I may very well go there next year to attend a mathematics convention, so I see it a positive sign that Mardi Gras is being held again. Long live New Orleans!

Destruction of a Religion

2005-09-04T17:58:00.000-07:00

One week ago today a hurricane roared into the Gulf Coast and flooded New Orleans, destroying much of what is in it and creating a serious diaspora problem in this country. One and a half months ago, I attended the Southeast Unitarian Universalist Summer Institute (SUUSI) and heard a theme talk by the Rev. Melanie Morel Sullivan on a proposed marriage of Boston and New Orleans. By Boston she meant the Unitarian Universalist religion. This implies that New Orleans is also a religion. Destruction of property is bad enough; destruction of a religion would be severely damaging to the spirit of this country as a whole. So was a religion destroyed last week in this country?

According to Rev. Sullivan, the spirit of Unitarian-Universalism is embodied in a good New Orleans jazz band. According to her, the people fulfill themselves as musicians in such a band, and the group play together to produce a song of harmony and joy. Such jazz bands played regularly in New Orleans, helping to give its flavor. According to Rev. Sullivan, New Orleans represents a deep love of life's pleasures, including food, dance, and celebration. These celebrations are frequent, and people come out to participate in these ceremonies. These indeed represent a religion, since religion is the celebration of life. New Orleans is also diverse, and welcomes all groups and persuasions, like a good religion does. And New Orleans spends all kinds of money in its festivals. Come to think of it, New Orleans is a year-long SUUSI, something that all of us need. Indeed, New Orleans is a way of life. New Orleans is a religion.

So it is sad to think that it is now all gone. The waters came in and drowned the houses, drowned the jazz bands, drowned the festivals. They are having to empty the city, and a cleanup may take a year or two. Further, the people left there are living a life of hell - something that is entirely antithetical to the New Orleans spirit. So is it all gone?

A black man came up to a news reporter and said that this thing about all the people left in New Orleans being black is nonsense - that there are whites, Vietnamese, and other nationalities suffering, too, and that even this is diverse. I saw on a news clip a person left in New Orleans walking up an interstate with a tuba in his hands. The jazz is still there. I even heard people playing "When the Saints come Marching In". So maybe New Orleans is coming back. This is because no flood waters, no hurricane-force winds, no day after day of little help, can destroy a religion.

The city of New Orleans is destroyed. The religion of New Orleans is still alive and as vibrant as ever. And because of this, New Orleans the city will be coming back soon, for no one can destroy the Spirit of New Orleans.

Bible 4: Noah and the Flood

2005-07-31T19:11:00.000-07:00

The next thing that appears after Cain and Abel in Genesis is a chronicle of the descendents of Seth, and these include many men who are stated to live long lifetimes, such as 600, 700 or even 969 years in the case of Methuselah. Even Noah is stated to be 500 years old. How do people get so old? I think it is a matter of units. I notice that one descendent lived only 65 years. None, it seemed, lived between 100 and 400 years old. So I think when Methuselah's age is given as 969, it is 969 moons, not years. That means he was 78 years 4 months when he died. Many people live longer than that. My mother has reached the age of 1000. Even I am 729 and hope to live to at least a thousand. Moons, that is.

But that's just number figuring. The next big tale is that of Noah and the Flood. Apparently God was not happy with his creation. So he told Noah that he was going to go back to the drawing board. He was going to wipe everyone out and start all over again. He chose Noah and his family because he felt that they were the only good ones. So Noah built an ark with two of every creature, and it rained for 40 days and nights. The entire Earth was flooded with water, and everyone else died. Afterwards, the ship came arest on Mount Ararat and when Noah sent out a dove, God responded with a rainbow, now a symbol of apology.

The story has numerous holes in it. For you fundamentalists who really think this happened, consider this. 40 days and nights of continuous rain would not flood the planet. That would require 29,000 feet of rain (height of Mt Everest), that would mean 7,250 inches of rain each day! Noah would have had a time getting all the millions of species aboard his boat, and he would have had to bring plants aboard as well. A flood of the entire planet is improbable. There is just not enough water there. The earth would have to be flattened for this to occur.

But did a flood of some kind occur in the past? You bet it did. Boy did it ever flood. Consider that the Earth was in an Ice Age 20,000 years ago. All that ice melted and it flooded all over the world. There must have been some humongous floods back then, and some did not go away, such as Lake Ontario, Chesapeake Bay and coastal Florida. The biggest kahunah of the floods must have been the one that created the Mediterranean and Black Seas, which are separated from the Atlantic Ocean by the Straits of Gibraltar. So yes it did flood, and flood it did big. It's my feeling that these huge floods and tales of them over the ages resulted in the Noah and Flood legend.

And how about the rainbow? The ancients must have noticed that after a rainstorm, a rainbow appears, as though the heavens were feeling sorry for having stormed at the Earthlings. It appears in the eastern sky, where the rain is departing, while the sun is low in the west. The sun shines across the sky and is reflected off all those droplets of water and forms the rainbow. These occur in the evening; that is the time it normally storms. But rainbows can appear before storms as well. In the morning they can appear in the west, where a rainstorm is approaching.

And how about the story? I do not think it is a good one. It shows God as the Evil One, as Satan as you will, taking it out on humans because they don't behave right. How can you expect humans to behave right if their God doesn't? He apologized afterwards, but that is no comfort to those who were wiped out. Actually, I feel it was humans' best attempt to rationalize an event of nature they had no control over.

Bible Series 3: The Murder of Cain

2005-07-05T16:00:00.000-07:00

The next major story in Genesis is that of the murder of Cain by Abel. This story is so short that it can fit on a sheet of paper. But it does have a definite plot. Cain tilled the ground; he was a farmer. Abel had a flock of sheep. Both offered to God, but God had no respect for Cain's offering. So Cain killed Abel. God asked where he was. When he found out, he forbade anyone from punishing Cain and made him farm for the rest of life. From that point on, he had a series of descendants; perhaps a dynasty.

There is something wrong with this story. First of all, it seems that not only was Cain involved in the death of Abel, but so was God, for favoring Cain. The world's first discrimination, according to Genesis, was by God Almighty Himself. Next, see what happens to Cain. He does not get punishment that some would say he deserved. Instead, he continued with his way of life and even had progeny. This starts the theme of the wicked being favored in the world, a theme that is revisited in Job. The one good thing in this sordid story was that God forbade Cain from being punished, thus becoming the world's first proponent of abolition of the death penalty, a theme that occurs in the New Testament with Jesus.

A story that somewhat resembles this one is Shakespeare's Macbeth, which involves a king killing someone to maintain his kingdom. Eventually things get worse and worse for him until he is overthrown and killed by his enemies. This differs from the Cain and Abel story, because Cain does not meet any clearcut downfall like this.

Since many people view discrimination as evil, one can view this story as a collusion between God and Satan against the people of the world, a theme that also occurs in Job. It brings up the triple paradox of God being good, God being almighty, and the existence of evil, and in this story, the second and third are true, but not the first. So in general this is a rather strange story, and I hope this story is not the cause of much discrimination, be it racial, religious, or anything else, in the world.

Bible Series: Eve confronts the world's first shysters

2005-06-26T17:08:00.000-07:00

The first real myth in the Bible that contains human elements is that of Adam and Eve. In this myth, God creates Man, and then he creates Woman out of part of Man. The man and woman then live in a place called the Garden of Eden. There they have a good life, although not too exciting. They have most of what they want. They then confront two beings who want to distract them and get them to do their bidding.

The first was God. He threatened Adam and Eve. He said that you can partake of any of the food in the garden, but you may not partake of the Tree of Knowledge, as if you do so then you will die. The fruit there did look tempting. I don't know whether they were apples or not. Somehow the idea has gotten to be that if a tree bears fruit, then that fruit must be apples. But for the sake of argument, let's call them apples. Naturally Adam and Eve were fearful of God because he made the threat and because he was the one who created them.

Shortly after this, Adam and Eve encountered the other shyster, the Serpent. The Serpent made the grandiose claim that if you eat the fruit, you will attain knowledge of the world, and will therefore be like gods. Now that really seemed appealing. But they remembered that God warned them not to do that or they will die. For some reason, they never confronted the Serpent with God's word.

So what were Adam and Eve to do? Eve must have thought that the main effect of eating the fruit is gaining knowledge of the world. She was leading a comfortable life, but she did not really understand it at all. She felt she needed the understanding to be able to lead a decent life. She knew that God threatened her with death, but that really did not matter much to her. She was going to die, anyway, being a mortal human, although not right away. As far as the Serpent's claim was concerned, she felt that there was no way she could be God of a realm that she really did not understand now. She felt that both God and the Serpent were a pair of conniving shysters. So which should she select?

Neither. She made up her own mind. She felt that she needed to know about this world in order to live in it. So she ignored what God said, ignored what the Serpent said, made her own decision, and partook of the fruit. And so did Adam, but it was Eve who did so first, and feminists can use this as an argument that the myth suggests that female is the superior sex. God retaliated by throwing her and Adam out of Eden, but there wasn't much more that he could do, outside of destroying what he created.

Since then humans have used the knowledge to their advantage, according to the myth and future Bible stories.

There are other shyster myths in world culture. One of these is the Quileute myth about Tuscobuk, a medicine man who was the youngest of six brothers. One day the other five brothers went up a stream to catch elk. They ran into a smooth-talking man who said that he would scare up an elk for them to shoot. But first he looked at the brothers' arrows. He said they were no good and that his arrows were better, knowing fully well that they were made of flexible salal, and so were worthless. But the brothers believed him. So they traded arrows. The man disappeared into the woods. Shortly after that, an elk came out of the woods. The brothers began shooting away at the elk, but the arrows bounced off. The elk charged them all and killed them.

After a while, Tuscobuk got worried about his brothers. So he went upstream, and met the same shyster. Again he wanted Tuscobuk to trade arrows, but he knoew fully well, with tehe knowledge of a medicine man, that the man's arrows were worthless. He said that he would stick with his arrows. After a while, the man left, and once again the elk appeared. Tuscobuk shot four arrows at him and injured him severely. The elk charged, resulting in a ferocious wrestling match in which Tuscobuk eventually killed the elk. He then put the elk's skin in the sky, in a place which the Greeks and Romans call Cassiopeia.

The tales of Adam and Eve, and of Tuscobuk, and also of the Lorelei and Sirens, remind us of the people in the world who lie to us to get what they want from us. They are all over the place. There are not that many Gods. You don't get far by threatening people. But there are some who do that, saying that, for example, if you have an unregistered gun, you get five years. Most of the shysters we meet in our society are Serpents. They are all over the place, these positive inducers. There are spammers, telemarketers, government spokespeople who tell only what the people want to hear, political candidates who do the same thing, car salesmen and repair people, and so forth. The prevalence of these Serpents are one reason why people, including myself, have lost trust in institutions in our society.

Another way of reading the myth is to say that it represented a golden age - that of Eden. A similar golden age appears in Greek and Roman myth as the Age of the Titans. But to me we need to live our lives the best we can, instead of searching for an age that has long gone.

Instead, to me, this myth reminds us of the flim-flam artists in our life and remind us to be vigilant of their enticements and remind us to make our own decisions no matter what any God or Serpent may say.

Bible Series: Creation

2005-06-19T17:33:00.000-07:00

Today, by happenstance, the minister at my Unitarian-Universalist church gave a sermon on Creation, the subject of the beginning of the Bible in Genesis 1. She told the original Hebrew version of the creation, and remarked that there are two versions of creation in Genesis. The one she wrote gave a six-part synopsis of how the world came to be. The six parts are:

1. Separate light from the darkness.
2. Form the sky.
3. Form the oceans.
4. Form the Sun and the Moon
5. Bring about birds, fish, and other lower creatures
6. Form mammals and humans.

And then the seventh part, or day, was one of rest. Our minister pointed out that at each step of the way, God saw that it was Good.

Why is this at the beginning of the Bible? It is because people the world over have wondered where they come from. There are creation stories from all of the cultures of the world. Here are some samples of creation, in my paraphrasing:

In the beginning there was Chaos. And then Gaia, the Mother Earth, came into being. She soon bore a son, Father Sky, also known as Uranus (pronounced your Anne Us). And then Gaia and Uranus came together to form the Titans: Cronus, Rhea, Tethys, Atlas and a few others. The Titans soon took over the world, but then their ruler, Cronus, soon ate his children by himself and Rhea, except for Zeus, brought up by two baby-sitters. When Zeus grew, he forced his father to regurgitate his children, resulting in a war between the Titans and the Olympians. Zeus and the Olympians defeated the Titans and threw them into Tartarus. (Greek myth)

In the beginning the earth and sky were dark, but they were connected. The gods formed the earth and sky and put light into it, and placed creatures of all sorts and humans in the Lower Existence. Black God set forth to create the Upper existence. With a pouch of stars, he carefully put on the Upper Existence the Star that Never Moves, The Man and Woman who revolved around the Star that Never Moves in their hogan, and several other constellations. All the Gods congratulated him for this work except Coyote. Coyote was determined to show the others how to create the night sky. Coyote took all the remaining stars and scattered them throughout the heavens, and then he took one last bright one and made the South Coyote Star out of it. Earth and sky then separated. And that is why there are a few well-ordered constellations and a chaos of scattered stars in our night sky. (Navajo Creation)

In the beginning, the gods got together and agreed to form an Earth with people. Bright Star, a lovely princess with the weather and the animals as her allies, did not want to do this, as it would involve mating with Great Star. But nevertheless Great Star chased her across the sky and created a child with her, which they then placed on the earth, a girl who met a boy, the son of Sun and Moon. And that is how humans originated. (Skidi Pawnee myth)

As you can see, ancient cultures tend to anthropomorphize the Creation, and Christianity and Judaism even say that humans were created to look like God. With rational analysis, the scientific story was brought out. This is just as much a myth or metaphor as any of the other stories, but there is evidence to back at least some of it:

In the beginning - well, we don't know about that exact moment. A fraction of a second later, an incredibly hot fireball of high mass expanded with extraordinary speed. The white hot universe cooled to red-hot and then went dark as hydrogen and helium were created. Then hundreds of millions of years later, the material coagulated to form hot stars and the Universe saw Second Light. The stars formed into galaxies and started to expand. A supernova exploded in a galaxy, causing a mass to coagulate into stars. One of these became the Sun, and blobs nearby became the planets, including Earth. Early volcanism helped form the oceans. Collision with another planet formed the Moon. Life came into being on the Earth, and it developed more and more complex forms, including invertebrates, fish, amphibians, reptiles, dinosaurs (including birds), and mammals (including humans). Mammals developed intelligence and dominated the planet.

There is some similarity to other stories, especially the Genesis one. The Genesis story seems like a good metaphor of the creation and development of our world, although it does not reflect the light-dark-light cycle that we know from science took place. However, it cannot be said to have literally taken place. Those who support such theories as intelligent design and creation are supposing that events of incredibly low probability took place, such as the creation of an intelligent designer. Evolution is what actually happened, and the Biblical creation, and to a lesser extent the other creation stories, can be thought of as a metaphor for the evolutionary processes that shaped this world.

Next: Adam and Eve: Female Intelligence Confronts Two Shysters.

The Beyond Philosophy

2005-06-12T19:19:00.000-07:00

I have decided to expand my blog collection, so that I have one for each day of the week. The other blogs I have are Blogtrek, which shall be my Friday blog, and Beyond Opinion, which shall be my Saturday blog. This blog, Beyond God, will highlight religious-related items.

In this particular blog, I shall explain my philosophy of life and the ultimate. Briefly, there isn't an ultimate. No matter where you go, or what you do, or what kind of ultimate entity you can construct, one can always go beyond it. I get this philosophy from my main interest and expertise, mathematics, where one sees beyond all the time. For example, there is no greatest integer; given a number, I can always add one to it. This is true even of infinite numbers, the ones Georg Cantor defined over a century ago. The set of all finite numbers is infinite, the set of all countable ordinal numbers is uncountable, and the set of all cardinal numbers accessible through limits and taking the set of the previous cardinal is inaccessible, and so forth.

I apply this in other realms as well. For example, there is an afterlife, for death can't end everything; there is something beyond death, but we have absolutely no idea what's there. There is a supernatural but there is no way we can access it. If a medium at a seance were to actually bring up the voice of a long dead person, that voice would be natural, not supernatural.

And there is no God, or at least no God we can access. For if there were, we could go beyond it; for example, we could inquire who or what created God. Maybe it was Supergod. But then we would have to ask about who created Supergod, and so forth to infinity, and more than that, up through Cantor's ordinal numbers as well. This is what the Taoist saying was all about: the Tao that can be accessed is not the real Tao. For once you mention God, you have taken it down to your level, and you have something less than God.

So no matter what you think or come up with, we can always go beyond. And that is why I name this blog Beyond God.