About the universe

Just saw a question. The universe has a finite amount of mass and energy, but infinite, non-boundary of space. In other words, in theory you can travel straight line infinitely in any direction in space without reaching an end point or returning to where you left. The space of the universe is not enclosed.

Faith coaching for priests (pastors, rabbis, imams...)

This is the first in hopefully a series of quick coaching that I am directing toward priests of my faith, the Roman Catholics, but I also of course hope that not only any Christian pastor but also Jewish and Muslim spiritual leaders will find this helpful. The focus will be how priests need to understand and strengthen their own faith while thus at the same time strengthening the faith in the truth for not only their flock but the greater community. The concern being addressed is the way that modern society (both values and supposed "intellect") erode believers' faith, seeming to have "strong arguments," when they are simply wisps in the wind and totally fallacious.

How do I hope you use this material by the way?
1. Understand it yourself and read the scriptures that illuminate the points. I am structuring this series to be a "we believe in the Bible and the word of God" versus the "the Bible's not true and just made up stuff anyway" problem.
2. Discuss it with your friends, family and colleagues and watch for examples of what I speak of in the press.
3. Be more open to, in addition to your pastoral duties, seeking ways to communicate your faith and how you refute (gently but firmly) such arguments, not only in sermons but wherever you find an opportunity (get to know media people, ha).
4. But do not become a media hound. Allow your better understanding to simply permeate outwardly from you. As your faith is strengthened through better understanding of the truth, like osmosis other people will better understand the truth and thus their faith increases.

Here is the coaching point I am covering in this particular blog posting.

1. Recognize modern intellectual hypocrisy and point it out. Do not be intimidated by it because hypocrisy is, of course, the weakest of all foundations for either intellect or spirit. It is not by coincidence that Jesus focused on pointing out the hypocrisy of the religious leaders of his time.

I have selected a very pertinent and popular topic for the hypocrisy example. There is a fascination in modern society, one that is increasingly perverse and warped, with "living forever" or at least extended life to be centuries or more in length. You may not think this is a "hot topic," but priests, you must recognize the undertow of what seems like disconnected interests of moderns. The undertow, this belief that humans can in and of themselves find a way to greatly extend life and even eliminate death, is exhibited in seemingly separate events such as these, which have been going on for decades by the way.

1. Paid for legitimate research into "special techniques" for extending life. Probably the most well known is by scientists who have linked a kind of starvation diet (very low calories) to long life spans of I think some sort of worm.

Now, I am not being critical of proper science that tries to correlate life style and genetics with those who tend to live longer, and then postulate some sort of potential beneficial advice for humans. I am simply pointing out that this is a hot topic for legitimate research.

2. Marginal "popular" research for extending life. This is more dodgy type of research, often fulfilling the researcher's (usually a book selling author with products) life philosophy that long life, even indefinitely long life, is possible.

The most common examples are those who advocate certain diets or food supplements.

3. The dark fascination in the media's science fiction and fantasy genre with life that is very long, both good life but more often a life of "superior oppressive beings" that live forever and oppress the dummies under them.

The Matrix series is an obvious example. While presented as drama and entertainment, two generations of young people have grown up with the thoughts that "maybe" some "eternal or long living evil alien force" is "manipulating humans." A normal person kind of wants to shoot themselves in the head with depression after watching some of this "entertainment." I'm bummed out to the max even thinking about it. But many kids have a constant diet of this type of paranoia and disconnect from reality, that eternity is "possible" but that right now "bad aliens" have it (or maybe "good aliens" can 'offer it.')

4. The vampire genre that is like a cancer among young people today.

Do not mistake that under the sex and drama and teenage angst of these films is the temptation to believe that by drinking blood one lives forever.

See, these are four modern secular examples of the same underlying temptation, which is to 1) seek to extend human life to eternity by totally human means and 2) disbelieve the Bible. Where does the Bible disbelief come into play here? I'm glad that you asked :-) because that is where the hypocrisy lies.

If one wants to truly and truthfully study how human life is extended, and how eternal life is obtained, one must believe the truth that is already documented, which is the Bible.

Point number one:

Genesis 6:3
Then the Lord said: "My spirit shall not remain in man forever, since he is but flesh. His days shall comprise one hundred and twenty years."

Now, modern disbelievers (plus believers weak in faith) need to understand, as you need to understand, one simple point about this passage. The author of the Book of Genesis, Moses, knew what 'scientifically' no one knew yet at the time, which is indeed that the length of human life is capped at one hundred and twenty years (Wikipedia has a great tracking of the "oldest" human beings in various articles, such as the woman who lived to 122 years). This is a really simple example that you must remember yourself and share with others that thousands of years ago God told Moses something that neither Moses or anyone else could have known through scientific means or the power of observation, since people barely made it out of their thirties for most of their existence until the last one hundred years or so. (See my previous blogging about this topic).

So this is where a hypocrite who is fascinated with extending life must agree with a true believer that even if the hypocrite still denies the Bible and God "being real," that the Bible is accurate in this fact. Keep it simple: recognize that God in the Bible tells Moses that humans shall "comprise" (for the most part) be able to expect from within one hundred twenty years for their lifespan, and modern statistics demonstrate that that has been and continues to be true. Agree to agree there that the "Bible got that one right."

Ah, but now the hypocrite will say, "But who is to say that science and human 'genius' and 'development' cannot extend life? We will do it in the laboratory!" That's great, because you do not, as a true believer, disagree that very long life is indeed possible!

Point number two.

Genesis 5
5. The whole lifetime of Adam was nine hundred and thirty years; then he died.
8. The whole lifetime of Seth was nine hundred and twelve years; then he died.
11. The whole lifetime of Enosh was nine hundred and five years; then he died.
14. The whole lifetime of Kenan was nine hundred and ten years; then he died.
17. The whole lifetime of Mahalalel was eight hundred and ninety-five years; then he died.
20. The whole lifetime of Jared was nine hundred and sixty-two years; then he died.
23. The whole lifetime of Enoch was three hundred and sixty-five years.
27. The whole lifetime of Methuselah was nine hundred and sixty-nine years; then he died.
31. The whole lifetime of Lamech was seven hundred and seventy-seven years; then he died.
32. When Noah was five hundred years old, he became the father of Shem, Ham and Japheth.

This whole section of the Bible, Genesis, including Chapter 6 which comes after it is so misunderstood yet it is so simple to understand when one has faith AND logical reasoning. If the Bible were "fiction," then it would be filled with wondrous stories of what those long lived guys were up to during their nine hundred plus years of lifespan! Instead, Moses dutifully recorded what is basically the faith genealogy, such as... they were named this, they had these sons, and they lived this many years. That is hardly the stuff of riveting fictional adventure. If dry elderly Jewish men recorded that someone lived to be 777 years old, then that guy lived to be 777 years old!

So here is the hypocrite's problem. He or she believes that "someday" humans can "overcome death" and live very long lifespans, yet he or she does not want to believe the evidence that you present, in the Bible, that this has indeed already been done! Most scientists are happy when they have valuable data from a time in the past that supports their hypothesis. Hypocrites do not like data that supports even their own ideas, if that data comes from anything associated with God. They fear that if they believe that part of the Bible, then they have to believe the whole "package."

So you can attempt to get such a hypocrite to, like in point one, to agree with you that the very thing they argue is possible is documented in the Bible as having already happened. You'd think they'd be happy to know that some humans did indeed live to be almost one thousand years old, no? ;-)

The reason most hypocrites will resist agreeing that even having Biblical evidence that extremely long life is possible is that 1) they don't want to accept the whole God package, since they'd rather be free to sin, thank you very much and 2) they are looking ahead to disagreeing with you about the reasons for possible long life, so that will be point three.

Point three starts with repeating point one's passage, since that is why I quoted all the ages from Genesis 5, because God now says, basically, that the gift of some having these incredibly long lives is 1) provided by me, God, personally and 2) is going to be taken from you.

Point three:

Genesis 6:3
Then the Lord said: "My spirit shall not remain in man forever, since he is but flesh. His days shall comprise one hundred and twenty years."

Thus God is explaining to human beings two things. One is that the reason that these select people have lived so long is that God's spirit was in them. Read carefully "since he is but flesh." What that means is that God has, like with all the other animals, a limit to how long humans can live because flesh can and will deteriorate and die. God's spirit within certain humans overcomes the falling apart of flesh and keeps the person vital and alive for those many centuries. Remember, the Bible does not say that everyone (such as the wives or all the relatives, or the rest of the community, or other human beings) lived those long lives! It does not say that all human beings lived long lives at all. Rather, specific people are listed, those who have the spirit of God in them and are essential links in the chain of faith history. In other words, God extended the lives of those who handed on the truth of faith and its authoritative knowledge of the one true God from generation to generation. These old guys had the spirit of God in them to provide oral continuity from generation to generation about God, his ways and his will. Remember there was no writing or cave painting or whatever in the generations after Adam and Eve. So God kept each link in the faith chain alive enormous lengths of time due to his Spirit within them so that they can keep the faith alive and well formed in each generation. Thus around the time of Noah is when God starts to warn that he will no longer do this routinely.

Now, I have to go off topic for a moment because anyone who is a hypocrite will force you off topic in Genesis 6 because of the "sons of heaven" who "appeared on earth" and were "heroes of old, the men of renown," sounding all like alien angels and super beings arriving on earth. Not exactly.

We are all adults here so let's try to wear long pants and think like adults. We all know that Adam and Eve were the first parents, but we also know that their kids went and married humans who were around. Every five year old asks in Bible school "If Adam and Eve were the first people, who did their children marry?" Generations of nuns have squirmed about that question, LOL. Adam and Eve were the first faith parents, the first to whom were raised up from the dust because God spoke to them. I know, I know, those of you who don't believe that one of God's tools for creation is evolution are unhappy with me, but you have to read the Bible and believe. Adam and Eve's kids did not marry lions, deer, giraffes or turtles. Adam and Eve's kids married other humans who were around.

Likewise, as the faith grew and generations had fruitful future generations being born, they started bumping into other humans, nonbelievers (since they did not yet know God), those who built early human empires and who had made up mythologies.

Genesis 6:1-3
When men began to multiply on earth and daughters were born to them, the sons of heaven saw how beautiful the daughters of the men were, and so they took for their wives as many of them as they chose. Then the Lord said: "My spirit shall not remain in man forever, since he is but flesh. His days shall comprise on hundred and twenty days."

What is happening here is clear if you just slow down and stay rooted in reality. People began to do pretty good, having many healthy children, and so they expanded, looking for husbands and wives for their growing brood (plus remember, not being in Eden they had to migrate and toil for their daily food). They bumped into marvelous people, calling them, as we do today, "heavenly." I mean, duh! The Bible does not say that flying saucers landed. If they had the Bible would say so, since God has nothing to hide. Notice that God immediately speaks in the now three times I've quoted line about the lifespan of mankind. Why does God explain to Moses (since this was all way before Moses' time, so he got all the information about Genesis directly from God) that the people started intermarrying "heavenly" people and that God was now going to withdraw his life extending spirit? Because now the people had to encounter and intermarry pagans and bring them into the faith. I mean, duh! It is what it is in the context of the times, not what fervid overactive modern imaginations make it to be. You'd understand it quite well if it read like this:

People began to have so many children, plus they had to migrate to find land and food, that they started bumping into some really tough and awesome people. They had some great treasures and incredible inventions! They thought our women were hot and so they eagerly intermarried. God then said, "Well, there you go, be fruitful and multiply. It's up to YOU to now educate the pagans about me, because I'm not going to make these old guys live to be nine hundred years old just to keep the faith alive from generation to generation." As soon as people started intermarrying these awesome heavenly people, other groups of new folks also came along ["the Nephilim appeared on earth" Genesis 4:6] and they explained that they came from the gods Bozo and Fifi who were filled with awesome sword swaggering deeds."

Um, duh, as the believers, the descendants of Adam and Eve, intermarried pagans, their kids eagerly picked up on all the local mythology and hero excitement of the new folks' histories (both real and imagined). So that's why when skeptics snicker that the Bible "includes mythology," well, duh, the people intermarried with people with mythology. Sometimes it just is what it is. And when "sons of heaven" "appeared on earth," that means some presumably God sent awesome dudes and chicks were bumped into that they had never met before around the next mountain range. When people say "appear on earth" they don't mean what moderns mean, which is to drop out of the sky, I mean, duh. People who had never traveled more than ten miles in their whole life consider anyone they met while migrating fifty miles or a few hundred miles away as "appearing" "on earth."

So point number three to make to hypocrites, which is usually a point of genuine confusion for many of the faithful, but also a great red herring for those who have an "alien believing" and "non all powerful God" agenda, is that there is an easily understandable progression of events that follows both what the Bible says and also human nature as we know it. God gave certain faith bearing humans really long lives, but as the human species got fruitful and on their way, God said, "You're on your own now, and you have to encounter nonbelievers and intermarry."

But see, how well did that turn out?

Genesis 6:5, 11-2
When the Lord saw how great was man's wickedness on earth, and how no desire that his heart conceived was ever anything but evil, he regretted that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was grieved...In the eyes of God the earth was corrupt and full of lawlessness...all mortals led depraved lives on earth...

The Bible agrees with human history since it is human history. Believers fell astray all on their own (think of Cain, for example) plus they obviously fell down at bringing the faith to the pagans, and instead, adopted lives of depravity and lawlessness.

I'll leave this important, but a tangent, to our basic purpose of discussing the hypocrisy of the long life interest but denying Biblical evidence, and hope that you better understand that you have to read the Bible in context, how people were in those times and how God spoke to them accordingly. A modern thinks that "heavenly" means from the sky, while an ancient believes "heavenly" means sent by God (and that could be just some hairy pagan sent by God from across the street). "Appeared on earth" means to a modern that it wasn't on the entire globe terra before, and thus came from the sky, while "appeared on earth" to an ancient means "Wow, I just encountered something entirely new."

Point four:

Genesis 9:29
The whole lifetime of Noah was nine hundred fifty years; then he died.

God made clear that he was weaning the faithful away from having very long lived humans who acted as faith links across many generations, and so Noah becomes the last one mentioned in this way. If you read all of Genesis 10 and 11, notice two things. No longer is anyone mentioned as having long lives. Second, the geneologies start to mention the faith fathers having children at ages of twenties and thirties, not the very ancient ages of before.

Genesis 11:25-6
Nahor lived one hundred and nineteen years after the birth of Terah, and he had other sons and daughters. When Terah was seventy years old, he became the father of Abram, Nahor and Haran.

So now a life of 119 years is extraordinary, rather than the nine hundred plus years of life. Right on target of the expected maximum age, based on flesh, not God's spirit, for humans. Nahor is the grandfather of the man who became the Patriarch of the Jewish, Christian and Muslim faiths, Abram (renamed Abraham by God).

Point four, then, to show to your hypocrite friend, is that just as humans are prospering, and presumably eating better and having better hygiene and medicine, the incredibly long lived examples disappear. This is the heart of where your disagreement with hypocrites will be exposed because they will resist knowing that what they want is "possible" but it has already been done, since it is not works of humans that result in incredibly long existences of individual lives, but only the firsthand occupation of that flesh by the Spirit of God, which overcomes while the Spirit is there the inevitability of the limits of human life. Remind them we are not discussing "spirituality" or "holiness," but the actual raw, full Spirit of God keeping them alive, something God has not only said but demonstrated that after Noah he will no longer do.

God promises Abram that his descendants shall be as numerous as stars (Genesis 15:4), not the years of his lifespan, or of anyone else's. But this man obviously was filled with so much grace from the Lord that his body could not help but respond accordingly:

Genesis 25:7-8
The whole span of Abraham's life was one hundred and seventy-five years. Then he breathed his last, dying at a ripe old age, grown old after a full life; and he was taken to his kinsmen. [That means both buried in the family place and also with those who had died before in heaven with God. Jesus confirmed that Abraham is in heaven with God in Luke 16.]

So you have to point out that if the Bible was just self glorifying made up stuff, why would not the longest "made up" life be assigned to the man who was the Patriarch of the three monotheistic religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam? I mean, why would the fictional authors of the fictional Bible assign really long made up ages to men whose names are mentioned only that one or two times and had no great deeds, while Abraham is expected to be characterized as the role model of the God given full life in his service and actual physical presence of "only" 175 years? Because it really is just as it is. Abraham is the example of how the Spirit of God filled this one man, after the others, when God would no longer do this to keep faith guardian continuity, and yet achieves indeed eternal life by being with God after a full life on earth.

As an aside, many Christians totally miss that Jesus in Luke 16 is mentioning by name how the Patriarch Abraham is alive in God in heaven, not asleep: "When the poor man died, he was carried away by angels to the bosom of Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried, and from the netherworld where he was in torment, he raised his eyse and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus at his side...Abraham replied, 'My child, remember that you received what was good during your lifetime while Lazarus likewise received only what was bad; but now he is comforted here, whereas you are tormented..."

Here is the point, the crux of what you must testify to non-believers, but also understand for your own faith. What is the reward for the man who singularly was the great Patriarch, who walked with, served without question, dined with, and advocated on behalf of sinners to God? A full (but not extraordinary) life but eternal life in God, where is he is seen, active, speaking and very real in life in heaven's eternity. So yes, we agree that long life is biologically possible, but not through human deeds in the laboratory.

Point five:
We agree that it is possible to live forever, but not in the laboratory and not because of aliens, but because when the flesh passes believers who have served God will have eternal life with him in the Spirit in heaven.

Hypocrites imagine "storing one's memories and identity" in a computer and then "loading it into another body," and THEY view THAT as a real "possibility," but they think the Bible, which affirms the immortal soul that is "transfered" upon death out of body to either heaven or hell, the spiritual realm, as "fantasy." That is the heart of the hypocrisy. Which is the sound of truth, the believer who has evidence in the Bible of the eternal soul, or someone who wants to become a parts junk yard for people who want to cling to some sort of "life," yet thinks only of earthly memories, personalities and nutty theories of recycled souls to load into some manmade flesh, and what, then, of the real soul, the one and only one given to each person by God for their one and only life? It's just not going to happen, friends. Not only because God has promised that it will not happen, but because life just does not work that way. Eternal life in fake bodies and you can't deal with AIDs? Swine flu? Feeding the starving? Keep a vaccination record for your kids so they don't get diseases that were defeated decades ago? And how about a world of robot ADHD people, with their bipolar and whatever? They don't seem to handle three decades of life well, say nothing of be "ready" for theoretical manmade "eternal life." A society that does not consistently wash their hands for hygiene sure does not have to worry about having eternal life in a body on earth, LOL.

Do you see the fulness of validation and logic for all that is in the Bible? Just as those few patriarchs had actual Spirit of God in them to prolong their life and their witness to their children and the other generations, upon death the faithful enter into the Spirit of God in heaven. On earth God infused each of the long lived patriarchs with his Spirit. In heaven they are alive eternally because they are put into the Spirit. It is only the Spirit that is the source of either eternal life after death, or of extraordinary genuine life on earth, but God has said he will no longer do that and of course that is true. It is up to humans to do the best they can do with having full lives, and allowing their neighbors to have full lives too, and to witness to the faith while they await eternal life that is promised to them in heaven, or eternal punishment if they profane God's gift of human life and thus lose eternal life in bliss.

Kids need to understand that the reality is much more beautiful than the fiction. Why does blood drinking "eternal" vampires seem so romantic? Because they have lost access to the true joys of life, of the type of joy that a man like Abraham had, in true family and kinship and service to God, and yes, decent adventure too.

Dear priests and other friends reading this blog, I hope and pray that you have found this to be helpful in your faith and to support the true faith of those who need it in these modern times.

Bible commentary and faith/reasoning case study

Here is another case study regarding the use of faith and reasoning. This is an important example because I address some of the tremendous errors in both faith and total lack of reasoning based on genuine science that is rife in society today. In this case study I demonstrate how science has explained much of how the human brain and psyche works, and how one particular phenomenon that gives rise to error in Biblical interpretation and even worse, occult practices and beliefs, is actually a natural human neurobiological phenomenon.

There has been some coverage in the press recently of a discovery that was made some years ago regarding the “blind spot” that every human has due to the structure of the eyes. Because of the way that human eyeballs are structured and placed every single person has a blind spot where they literally cannot see any object that is placed there. So why do people not lack vision in reality there? Why do people “see” things that are in the blind spot? Because the human brain evolved so that it uses logic to “fill in the blank” of what it can’t see. So when an object is held in front of a human in the exact blind spot, the person still perceives its existence and “sees” it because the brain keeps memory of what that object looked like when it was not in the blind spot. You can do an Internet search on this for more information.

We also know about “phantom limb” syndrome, where a human who has lost an arm or leg still often has sensation or feeling of it, often with genuine continuing pain. The brain is hardwired to retain memories of how the limbs work and feel, even when they no longer exist. This is another example of how the brain “fills in the blank” (though here it is more of a problem than an aid) where a person still “feels” their arm, quite genuinely, even though the arm is no longer there.

Another example of how science explains how the brain “fills in the blank” is seen when one studies how babies learn. When a baby is first born he or she has strong powers of observation (for example, seeing and recognizing facial expressions after only a few days) but he or she does not yet have the knowledge or experience to understand the context. Babies don’t realize that they are an individual being and that mom and dad are separate human beings until several months have gone by. The brain’s ability to “fill in the blank” is how the baby learns about his or her world in this way. Baby eventually observes that mom and dad are separate beings, and that they still exist even if they cannot be seen. That is why “peek-a-boo” is one of the favorite games of most babies and toddlers! Peek-a-boo is a very life affirming game for babies and children because they are learning to “fill in the blanks,” to trust that a human still exists even though they are temporarily hidden or out of sight.

In a practical way, think about how early humans survived by hunting and gathering. What if the human brain could not “fill in the blanks?” A deer could run behind some trees or rocks and the pursuing hunter would not realize that the deer is “still there” if the brain did not use logic to “fill in the blanks.” But humans are hard wired by their biology, and honed through evolution and individual learning, to comprehend the world, even if one temporarily cannot see an object.

So why am I discussing this in a Biblical context? It seems rather obvious biology when one reads the examples that I’ve given above. That’s good, because indeed, my first point it to explain that the Bible (and the Koran) is given to actual human beings with actual neurobiology that can be explained by science. In this case study I am laying the foundation of what we know and what we are still discovering about human neurobiology so that we can start with what is known and true, and then explore how this knowledge is lacked or skewed in very problematic ways.

First, understand that this neurobiological need and desire by humans to “fill in the blanks” never really turns off. It’s not like humans use this talent only to compensate for the blind spot in their vision, and as babies learn, and to logic their way through situations where some information is hidden. Humans tend to crave “filling in the blanks” and THAT is where there is risk of filling in the blanks with garbage. Let’s first start by looking at perfectly understandable ways of how humans “fill in the blanks” in ways that are not strictly true, but are part of their emotional well-being.

In the most innocent examples, think of a child’s dream. A child may dream, for example, that Santa Claus appeared to them and told them that they are going to get a great present for Christmas. This does not mean that Santa Claus made a spiritual visitation to the child, obviously, as any rational adult understands. The analysis of the dream is that the child wants a good present for Christmas and has some excitement or anxiety about it. So the child has a dream about receiving a good present for Christmas and this is the type of dream that we call a “wish fulfillment” dream. The child’s brain uses a dream to process the excitement or anxiety that the child has about getting something for Christmas. Santa Claus is a “fill in the blank” figure. The desire for a Christmas present-and the accompanying anxiety or excitement-is the “raw material” of the dream. But to smooth out the edges, to make the dream safe and to make it “complete” the child’s unconscious adds the safety figure of Santa Claus. Santa Claus can be trusted and Santa Claus is the one bringing the gift.

I could give more examples but want to just quickly make this point so we can move on. This is why dreams are populated by symbolic figures (Santa Claus, angels, demons, godlike figures, aliens, mythical creatures, the Queen of England, etc). It is not that those figures are actually “making an appearance,” “sending a message” or are even real. Rather the dreamer is dealing with the core contents, the raw materials, of their dream and then embellishing the dream with “fill in the blank” figures to make the dream a more complete and more contextual experience. For example, suppose that a person has a dream that involves a demon. Even though the sequence of the dream may be as follows: 1) demon appears in dream 2) action takes place and dream proceeds and 3) dream concludes with or without some sort of resolution or bottom line the actual sequence of the dream is 1) the unconscious mind has raw material that needs to be processed and so a dream will now take place and 2) because the material is of dubious due to moral or other anxieties a demon is utilized as a “fill in the blank” figure to appropriately categorize the dream for the dreamer.

Therefore, far from a demon being “sent with a message” to the dreamer, the dreamer is having a dream about raw material that is fraught with content that is most appropriately labeled as being in the category of a matter that would be best symbolically expressed by an imaginary demon figure.

Just to make sure that I am being clear in this explanation, let me use a silly example before we move on. Rather, the example is very serious and sad, not silly, but I will show you a realistic explanation and compare it to a totally silly explanation. Suppose that a war veteran has a recurring traumatic dream that involves helicopters. It may or may not be a repeat of an actual war experience that he or she had or witnessed. The repeating motif of the helicopter is a “fill in the blank” object. It symbolizes the context of the raw material of the dream and a genuine dream interpreter can help the individual to understand how the helicopter provides some sort of fill in the blank context for the raw material anxiety of the dream (whatever the point of the actual dream may be). Someone who does not understand the “fill in the blank” neurobiology of the mind and body of the dreamer, on the other hand, might tell the dream that the “spirit guide of helicopters is sending a four bladed messenger from the spiritual junkyard of where all deceased helicopters go.” LOL, I wish I was kidding, but I am not.

Before there was radio, television, cinema and of course computers, video games and “fantasy genre of literature,” despite what moderns think previous generations of humans used to be extremely reality based. Most humans lived in a world that was only one season of bad weather away from starvation, and one day away from an illness or injury that could destroy the breadwinner of a family. Modern humans like to think that previous generations were “superstitious” or “ignorant,” but actually the total reverse is true. Modern humans are totally superstitious and ignorant, while previous generations were totally reality based and fantasy had little or no component in their life.

This is a modern problem due to two reasons. The first reason is that exposure to all the imaginary entertainment material that I listed above has over-stimulated the “fill in the blank” mechanism, turning it from a survival trait and aid into a phenomenon that is actually counter to survival. The “fill in the blank” survival trait is being used by moderns as an actual hindrance to common sense, reality and ultimately survival and thriving in real life. That is due to the second reason which is the pandemic of pride, egomaniacal beliefs and inflated feelings of one’s own importance in the world order and indeed in the spiritual order. Genuine humility is the total antidote against the modern pandemic of egomaniacal “fill in the blank” misuse and distortion.

Because of ignorance, lack of reality and egomaniacal individuals and culture we have a situation where everyone thinks that he or she is a player on some sort of stage of the divine matters of the world. No longer does a child have an innocent dream of an angel appearing and saying something nice: now the family declares the child who has a dream with an angel to be “psychic” and “gifted” with a “messenger.” A mere fifty years ago people still had common sense and would brush off these dreams as interesting but normal, and would just reassure their child accordingly. No one but a handful of nuts would run around thinking their child is divine or that they are some sort of important players in spiritual reality.

Suppose a child today dreamed that she received a purple dress from an angel. Years ago sane and logical parents would realize that the child had a dream about clothes, usually a wish fulfillment type of dream (wanting special clothes or having anxiety about not having nice clothes) and that the angel was simply fill in the blank material to make the dream safe and nice for the child. What would happen today? I wish I was joking but here we go.

The parents, aunts or uncles, grandparents or ‘spiritual directors’ of the child would declare her a “seer” who is being “visited by angels.” They would declare the child (and of course the whole family) as being “special” and “gifted” in “spiritual matters.” They would make the child hypersensitive, and even imbalanced, about her every dream and nutty thought, raising her up to be someone “different” and “in touch with universal forces.” They’d ruin her life and worse they as a whole would walk away from genuine salvation through God, creating, instead, their own false gods and beliefs. But it would not stop there.

If this family had money and influence they would declare “purple” to be “their” color. They would start to reckon that the angel gave their child a purple dress in the dream as a sign that they are special and will be rewarded. The color purple would therefore become their false idol and their tool for inflation and exploitation. They’d build businesses around the color purple and block others from “using” “their” color. So they’d start to make money and power and influence using the concept of purple, concluding that it is their “due” since, after all, an angel “gifted” their little darling with that right and “connection.”

Meanwhile, God had other plans for that girl that the family now totally blocks since they are no longer alert to the guidance of the genuine God through the genuine Holy Spirit. As the old saying goes, when you have a hammer everything looks like a nail. Modern children and adults are now in the belief that every little dream, burp or nutty thought they have is being “spiritually gifted.” I mean, if you think I am joking, do an Internet search on “indigo children.” That is just one example where people have enabled, both individually and through the freak show society, a total lack of understanding of and a humility regarding the reality of the human being and how unreachable the authentically divine is to human beings.

The Bible and the Koran are, of course, the places to “detox” from out of control “fill in the blank” thinking and thus regain a sense of the reality of the human and the divine. So the second part of this particular blog entry is to demonstrate how to combine the scientific neurobiological knowledge that I have pointed you toward with proper understanding of God’s word and revelation, to regain humility and reality and, hopefully, eventually genuine wisdom, not false “spiritual insight.”

People who don’t read and study the entire Bible have developed erroneous stereotypes and beliefs that are kind of a combination of anecdotal cherry picking of Biblical events combined with lack of understanding of actual history and culture of the time, instead of looking through distorted modern filters. To make a joke but a pithy point, it’s like they read the Bible looking for clues about how teenagers in ancient Israel programmed their IPODs. Modern people think that Biblical people (and hence God himself, since he revealed himself to those ancient generations) think and feel like modern people and that’s totally not true.

So to make a specific example, modern people seem to think that Biblical people were “open” to “messages from angels” and this was some sort of honored and common place thing. In fact, the opposite is true. If a family announced that their little darling had a dream of an angel giving her a purple dress and claimed some sort of spiritual gift, they’d get themselves killed, probably by stoning, as a result.

How do we know this is true? Just read the Bible and understand the timeline. God went long times, often for hundreds of years, without saying a single thing or sending a single message to any person or prophet AT ALL. Far from “everyone” being “open” to divine messages, God is often totally silent to absolutely everybody. The Bible offers absolutely no justification for thinking that little Madison or Brittany is receiving a “gifting” of “spiritual insight” from an “angel” or anyone else. People understood that a dream was just a dream. In fact, they were the experts in discerning genuine divine revelation 1) exactly because the genuine thing is so rare and 2) God’s usage of selected prophets was well known.

The obvious proof of how Biblical culture was in reality is clear when you look how Jesus was treated. As soon as people heard that he was not denying being the Son of God they sought to stone him. Jesus was actually the Son of God and performed thousands of miracles to authenticate his representation of God the Father on earth, yet people of his home town sought to push him over a cliff and to stone him. Even with abundant proof there was a reality based resistance by the people of any danger of false prophets and idolatry. Therefore, far from the people of the Bible being “open” to “frequent” “angelic visitation” etc, God demonstrates in his holy scripture how rare such an authentic event is. It is so rare that when the “real deal” of the Messiah came along and performed works that only God himself could provide through Jesus, many viewed Jesus presenting himself as being of the divine as an abomination.

I’ve taught and I repeat again that understanding the Bible means understanding both what is actually said and what, equally important, is NOT said. Only by reading the entire Bible and understanding its complete context can you start to discern not only what takes place in Biblical times, but you start to notice the gaps, the things that simply do not take place. The more you read the entire Bible the more you realize how rare any sort of divine communication between God and humans is in truth. Here is an example of learning from what “did not happen.” We are going to look at some scripture here as one example of the pattern of what actually happens, and does not happen, throughout salvation history. The bottom line is that you will see that a handful of people throughout the ages are called by God at the time when God is ready to use them. Until that time they lead normal lives and they certainly are not “cultivated” to be “spiritually elect.” Let us look at King David.

The first King of Israel, Saul, has become unsuitable in the eyes of the Lord God, so God summons Samuel, the priest who God has designated as the consecrator of kings in His name.

1 Kings 16:1
And the Lord said to Samuel: How long wilt thou mourn for Saul, whom I have rejected from reigning over Israel? Fill thy horn with oil, and come, that I may send thee to Isai the Bethlehemite, for I have provided me a king among his sons.

Samuel obeys God and goes to Bethlehem. When the ancients (the elders of the city) wonder, with some fear, why Samuel has come to their city, Samuel assures them that he is there only to perform a sacrifice to God. Samuel then invites Isai and his sons to attend the sacrifice so that he can look them over and figure out which is the one that God intends to become king. As Samuel is meeting each of the sons of Isai God is speaking to him, giving him general direction.

1 Kings 16:7

And the Lord said to Samuel: Look not on his countenance, nor on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him, nor do I judge according to the look of man, for man seeth those things that appear, but the Lord beholdeth the heart.

Just as an aside, notice that God is teaching not only Samuel but also those in the future who will read his Word in the Bible not to judge each other according to appearances. That is the Biblical foundation for the old adage “Don’t judge a book by its cover,” referring to people, of course. How far has society come from the Lord God’s very instructions! All people seem to do these days is to judge people by their appearances. This is another example of how sinful this society has become, and how vanity has caused humans to do the opposite of what God has told them to do.

Notice too that God is allowing Samuel to discern who the right son is on his own. Obviously God knows who he has in mind, as God, being all knowing, knows everyone even before they are born, and of course what his own Will is regarding those he calls. But God teaches humans how to be the best they can be and how to discern his Will through their own God given wisdom. So God tells Samuel that God has perfect ability to behold the interior of every person’s heart, and God lets Samuel go through the review of each son to discern which is the right one.

1 Kings 16:10-11
Isai therefore brought his seven sons before Samuel, and Samuel said to Isai: The Lord has not chosen anyone of these. And Samuel said to Isai: Are here all thy sons? He answered: There remaineth yet a young one, who keepeth the sheep. And Samuel said to Isai: Send, and fetch him, for we will not sit down till he come hither.

This is where I’d like you to notice not only what happened, but what did not happen. Notice that Isai obviously did not have a clue that any of his sons had a divine mission. Even when Isai is told by Samuel that God has sent him to select one of his sons and to bring them all, you can tell that Isai had not a clue which son it would be. In fact, Isai omits bringing the youngest son, the one who will, it turns out, be the future King.

Do you see where I am going with this commentary? It is obvious that David, along with his brothers and his family, led a perfectly ordinary life with no clue of a “divine calling.” If God did not “cultivate” David with sending him and his family “divine messengers” and “spiritual gifts,” how in the dickens do modern people think that their little Dicks and Janes are receiving “callings” and “psychic giftings” of a divine nature? Such a lack of understanding, scriptural integrity, common sense and humility simply boggles the mind. The scripture must be understood as the perfect Word of God and that includes understanding that God is role modeling reality throughout the Bible, both where it is explicitly stated and where through simply reading what happened (and did not) humans can discern truthful divine reality. The Bible not only does not support the modern delusion of many divine “messages” and “gifts,” it directly refutes it through the rarity of such occurrences throughout the thousands of years of salvation history.

1 Kings 16:12-13

He sent therefore and brought him. Now he was ruddy and beautiful to behold, and of a comely face. And the Lord said: Arise, and anoint him, for this is he. Then Samuel took the horn of oil, and anointed him in the midst of his brethren. And the spirit of the Lord came upon David from that day forward. And Samuel rose up, and went to Ramatha.

A ruddy face means a face that is reddened by the force of the winds from being long hours outdoors. Samuel is not saying that he selected David because of his looks, obviously, as we just read that the Lord advised him not to, and that all the other sons had already been seen and determined not to be the one. Samuel is simply reporting that David was extremely pleasing in his appearance, and that, as many sheepherders are, he had a wind burned face. Samuel had been seated, as he is the honored guest representing the Lord God, and as he sees David God tells him to arise and that David is the one to be consecrated, which Samuel immediately does. And then there is something that you, dear reader, as you read this slowly and with new attention, cannot help but see with clearer eyes: “And the spirit of the Lord came upon David from that day forward.”

David was not “cultivated” or “prepped” with “guides” and “angels” and “spiritual gifting” and so forth. The opposite is true since that is reality: people lead normal lives until the moment that they are, if they are of the rare elect, called by God. Scripture documents that it was only when the totally clueless (in the sense of having no advance warning or “signs” of being “special”) Isai and his sons are presented, and David is selected, that the spirit of God descends onto David “from that day forward.” No “special dreams,” no “indigo children,” no “destiny,” no “angelic guides,” and all the other modern lying hubris that is not only taken for granted today but actually, shockingly, thought to have “biblical justification.” Actually reading the Bible for what it clearly says and demonstrates reveal human and divine reality and the way things really DO work, and how they simply do not.

Throughout the Bible one can learn this lesson that I have presented today: how rare it is that a few people have a consecrated purpose from birth or youth and how when that does happen God himself makes it quite plain when and how it occurs. It does not occur any other way. I’ll leave it to you, since that is the whole point, to read and discern what the Bible is actually illuminating for more examples of what I have shown you today. One hint is to read more about Samuel and how he was first of all coming into being because his mother so desired a son. “Angels” did not “guide” Samuel’s mother to want a son who is destined to spiritual greatness. As usual the reverse is true where it is ordinary human reality that creates the natural sequence of events. Anna so wanted a son that she prayed to God for a son and then promised that if she received a son she would dedicate him to God’s service. There was no “prompting” by supposed divine apparitions about some sort of “spiritual destiny.” Life as put into the natural order by God simply does not work that way, with the exception of Jesus Christ born of the Virgin Mary, and the one who announced him, John the Baptist. Virtually all other callings to service to God occur as they occur and not as some sort of spiritual “gifting,” “karma recycling” or “destiny,” which is actually anti-biblical and anti-reality. This case study of King David is beautiful in its clarity, and now that you have read this you can reread the scripture about the birth and calling of Samuel and understand the proper order of events. I’ve blogged about Samuel and his mother before, so you can reread those with these thoughts in mind too.

I hope that you have found this helpful!

Dragons, dinosaurs, science, faith and fiction

I've been meaning to post this quick piece of information for a while. Who would have thought that so much of my efforts to promote better understanding of God would involve having to teach so much about basic logic and science? I don't mind, but I mind how the schools and lack of genuine education (both secular and faith based) has let these past generations down.

Young people, I know many of you are fascinated by dragons. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. I know that many of you must wonder why dragons are mentioned in many of the world's cultures, if they never existed. Then again, you must be confused why the dragon is an emblem of "good" in Chinese culture, while an emblem of "bad" in the Bible during the Apocalypse. The answer is really very simple and used to be taught in schools. I don't know what is taught in schools anymore instead of simple facts and explanations of human development.

People all around the world believed in dragons because that is what they thought the dinosaur bones that they found were the remains of: it really is as simple as that.

For tens of thousands of years humans, who are perfectly intelligent hunters, who captured and killed even large animals such as mammoths, and who had to fight off attacks in turn by large animals such as the saber toothed tiger and large bears, know very well what sized bones these large animals had when they were killed and skinned.

Thus when they found tremendously huge bones, including what look like wing bones, they had a realistic idea of what size and shape those animals must have been. Thus when they found dinosaur bones they pieced together in their mind what they must have looked like, and came up with images that are dragons. This is why dragons pop up in many cultures, especially those where many dinosaur bones were easily found since they were plentiful. And yes, is not China one of the best spots for finding dinosaur fossils? Imagine how plentiful dinosaur bones were, easily seen on the ground, back before humans just plowed them under, or ignored them.

Far from being ignorant, prehistoric and early humans "lived off the land" and thus had a really good idea of what animals lived around them, how they were constructed (as they butchered a carcass for food and clothing). So dragons were not just the imaginings of dumb primitive people. Nor were they some *insert here appropriate spacey music* some alien or magical beings. Duh! Every generation of ancient people found, in the course of their settlements, dinosaur bones, and marveled at their size and bizarre shapes. Thus they imagined mythical beasts, such as dragons.

This used to be taught in science class. *Sigh*

So the point is to understand that the simple, logical and sane answer is almost always the correct one, especially in an open and well ordered physical universe where it is so easy to observe how life "works" and how humans piece together the facts based on their experiences.

Dragons, therefore, are in a way an amalgamation of whatever the culture observed about dinosaur bones and passed on to their descendants, plus working the dragons into both myths and cultural symbolism. The Israelites, having a personal relationship with God, did not go for excessive animal symbolism, since they did not need to "imagine" the mystical: they were in tough with it. Therefore the dragon (remember, seen by them too only by the "remains" of demised ones, which were dinosaurs) came to be understood as symbolizing the defeated forces of Satan. When God spoke in symbolic terms to his prophets and people, he used the common animals of the time so they could understand the parables: lions, eagles, sheep, goats.

However, compare this to the Chinese. They had a keen interest in ancestors, and venerate the spirits of their ancestors. Thus when they found tremendous numbers of "dragon" remains (dinosaur bones), they worked the idea that these were very ancient and great flying animals into their own lineage. They logically concluded that the emperors and other royalty were descended, at least spiritually, from "dragons." This is also, of course, the origin for the belief in the phoenix. The Chinese observed various types of "dragon" or "phoenix" "remains" (different types of dinosaurs) and quite logically developed theories about what they were like and how they lived.

For example, they might have thought that dinosaur bones found near volcanoes indicated that they were born in flames (the phoenix), while other dinosaur bones that appeared to have wing structures were, of course, the remains of dragons.

It is important to remember that people who live off the land are very intelligent, observant, knowledgeable, and diligent about passing on their discoveries to the next generation. Humans all around the world, including prehistoric humans, do the best they can within a sane and factual world, which is what they lived in.

It is only later humans who delude themselves and cannot understand the difference between thought based on reality and totally crazy fantasies. This is because people are so separate now from reality that they think that "anything can happen" and "anything could have happened." Um, no, not exactly. There have been two billion years of life on this planet (starting with microbes) that have not been "anything goes" and "anything could have happened," but follow real, genuine, factual, not imaginary, prosaic, plodding life rules that really never change. For two billion years animals need: respiration (air exchange), fluids, food, shelter. I mean, duh. They all then reproduce and expire with their species related life spans. Some rot and some leave remains. They can be held, examined and measured, but only in recent years have people had the chemistry and tools to carbon date and otherwise determine history. Ancient people had to use their great powers of observation, their familiarity with predator and prey, and their ability to imagine what an entire animal might have looked like and how it lived, and what it's "purpose" might have been.

Israelites handled "purpose" quite well: all animals are created by God, but some are "clean" for humans and some are "unclean." That is why God's dialogue with humans focuses on the clean animals and how they symbolize, through their traits, parables that humans can understand, such as the loyal sheep contrasted to the stubborn goat.

If the Israelites were Amazonians, for example, perhaps goats and their stubbornness would not have been a useful analogy and God would have instead have compared unbelievers to monkeys, or crocodiles, (but of course they would be unclean, so perhaps God could have used clean but stubborn native animals for the comparison). You get my point, though.

Even scripture (by this I mean monotheistic Abrahamic faiths: Judaism, Christianity, Islam) is hugely practical and reality based. God does not invent mythical animals to explain things to humans; God uses what humans already observe through facts and what they believe based on those facts (such as dragons). Scripture was given to humans who were eminently practical: farmers, hunters and fishermen. Scripture was not given to humans who sit around the campfire making up stuff to tell spooky stories to each other. So people must stop thinking that scripture is "made up" if it seems to have "elements of mythology." Um, no, it is not "mythology." It is based on the real world as humans during that time knew it to be true and deduced as best as they could what they did not know.

For example, scripture recorders had no idea what stars really were (glowing balls of high temperature and pressure gas like the sun), yet stars are mentioned in the Bible in realistic, not mythological, ways and the context is always quite correct. Nothing in scripture is "mythological" or use of "made up" symbolism. Angels are real beings, not symbolic. Goats are real beings, used for milk, food, and fiber, and having certain personality traits they make a useful analogy and parable in scripture, but that is based on their factual and real existence, not modifying their "purpose" or "meaning" on earth.

So it is "OK" to "like dragons." I like them too. But I understand where they "come from," which is ancient humans' attempts to visualize the animals that "left behind" what we know to be dinosaur and other prehistoric animal bones. It's "OK" and even sane and appropriate to enjoy the Chinese symbolism of the dragon, and also to understand to what use the image of the dragon is used in the Bible. There is no conflict, no problem, no "hidden meaning," no "secret alien history," and no "loyalty test" involved in appreciating the intersection of facts and cultural or faith based perspectives that utilize those facts.

Intellectual case study: modern thinking problem

Life could not exist without some expectation of constancy of results. In fact, one could argue that animal and human life is the epitome of achievement of constancy of results. Even the inanimate objects of the universe, such as the stars, require constancy of results to exist, even though they of course have no “expectations” since they are not living, conscious beings. This is very important to understand because moderns have become so disarranged in their thought processes that they need to learn to recognize the meaning of orderliness again.

The universe and life within it does not work according to “rules.” Rules are simply the way that humans express in speech what they have noticed about the constancy of results. The term constancy of results means that similar actions result in similar outcomes and can be repeated with confidence. Gravity is the premiere example of a constancy of result. Gravity is always “on” and everything, whether living or inanimate, experiences the same effect of gravity which is the tendency to move toward the center of the earth. If a child stumbles he or she falls because gravity pulls him or her toward the ground. If a rock breaks from the face of a mountainside, the rock will travel toward the ground, either by falling or rolling until it reaches a point of stability.

How would life exist, or planets even form in the first place, if gravity “worked sometimes” and “did not work other times?” Planets would not exist at all because the material that makes them up could never clump together and stick into a cohesive mass that becomes a stable body of rock and magma. So if there were, just to use this example, a place in the universe where gravity was fickle, and it was “on” sometimes and “not on” other times, a planet or a star could not form there. Obviously the problem would be impossible for humans or other life to exist. Gravity flickering on and off would disrupt all plant life, so that one could not have vegetation grow at all, and thus there would be nothing to eat and no animal life. Shelters could not be built and young animals or human babies could not thrive. In fact, one would have to wonder if the human body could ever have developed as the heart would have had to form a way to pump blood with forces that suddenly change direction as gravity fluctuated. It is thus clear that without the constancy of expectation of gravity that not only would the planets not have developed into solid clumps of matter that hold together, but no life could develop.

The ability of space suited humans to go into space in zero or low gravity conditions does not make the point that gravity is consistent weakened or challenged in any way. In fact it only points out further the constancy of results of gravity, which is that it is present to a greater or lesser degree according to very observable measures of its presence. For example a large planet exerts greater gravity than a smaller one. People can use their powers of observation to learn more about gravity, and when they use a commonly agreed terminology and numerics to describe what they observe they call it “physics” or “rules.” But gravity would “work” and have perfect consistency of results whether humans were around to observe it or not. For example, gravity was obviously “around” before humans were, and we can study how the ancient dinosaurs evolved to cope with the constancy of gravity (such as how did their bodies pump blood to their small heads when they had large bodies? We can observe similar biological adaptation to the absolute constancy of gravity in modern day giraffes).

Therefore, continuing with our example of gravity, a constancy of results, that is, “gravity always works the same way” is essential to 1) the inanimate structures within the universe, such as stars, 2) the biological existence of life forms, both plants and animals, including humans, and 3) the sanity of humans. Humans could not adapt, assuming they would have even come into existence, if, for example, gravity winked on and off every several feet at random places and intervals. It would have been impossible to walk, breathe, eat… any of the actions that require confidence that one’s body has all that it needs to function from moment to moment.

So it’s not like “rules” and supernatural forces “allow” life to exist. Science is the discovery of the facts and how constancy of results explains just about any life or other phenomenon that one experiences or observes. The sun shines and it makes surfaces warm; the sun is hidden and thus surfaces receive less heat. The constancy of results is that stars generate wavelengths that are known as “heat.” Humans can observe and learn how this works, and even invent rules to describe it (the gradations of the thermometer for example). Heat and coolness exist no matter where one goes in the universe because they are part of the basic infrastructure of existence. However, the conditions of coolness or heat, whether it is enough at the right times and places determine if life can arise in those locations. In other words, you may take a thermometer out into the middle of space and it can tell you how absolute cold it is and you know that without protection of a space suit it is “too cold” for a human to exist. That is because it is not that the painted number on the dial of the thermometer has “magic power” and only when it gives the “magic number” is it “OK” to live. The thermometer works because it is a human tool for measuring the constancy of results, which is that the principles of heat and cold are the same everywhere. If you rubbed out the number on the thermometer that said it is like a thousand degrees below zero or something like that and painted on a different number, that it is a nice 80 degrees Fahrenheit, you better not step out of that space suit expecting it to now be warm enough just because you painted different numbers on the thermometer!

The principle of the constancy of results is the origin of the old saying that “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results.” Obviously that is not the definition of insanity, but a pithy old folk saying to describe that there are certain constancies of results that allow life to exist and that it is crazy to expect otherwise.

Suppose that you have a slippery spot in the lobby of your office building and every once in a while someone slips and falls. Sane people recognize that this is a risk that the building management is either willing to live with (and possibly get sued by an injured visitor) or not risk, and therefore they fix that problem spot. There is a whole slew of constancy of results principles at work in that example. First we hat tip our old friend gravity, since gravity both allows walking to even occur, but is also the mechanism by which people fall. Gravity is working just fine, the way it always does, whether you are passing over the slippery spot or not. Second the whole idea of a slippery spot refers to constancy of materials, which is that certain molecular structures allow more or less impeded movement of another surface over them. This is why marble floors that become wet can become very slippery, because there is a constancy of results that water molecules easily insert themselves, clinging to the surface, and then the sole of your shoe, made of other materials such as leather, can more easily glide over the marble and hence perhaps slip. Scientists know why people slip and fall (and it’s not because ghosts push them).

If one starts to believe that one lives in a world where both material science and human behavior are not the result of constancy of results, one rapidly loses perspective and sanity. For example, if building managers in NYC did not recognize that it is a good idea to put mats in the lobby when it is raining or snowing outside so that their lobbies are not so slippery, then we would have a building management and safety problem, one that can be remediated by education and investment. If, however, people start to think that there is no connection between the marble floor, the rain outside, the soles of people’s shoes and their slipping, but instead think that the people “were meant to fall” because “it was their unlucky day,” then we have a real sanity problem.

When humans progress in science they do very well for themselves except for two problems. One is the lapse between science and technology development and morals or ethics, which is something all humans have had to grapple with. The other problem is the perversity of humans which is an almost paranoid self destruction instinct that comes with becoming grandiose. This can be summarized like this: as people learn more science, they start to think that “not” science becomes “more glamorous.” Humans have always been troubled by what psychologists call in certain patients “oppositional defiance disorder.” Humans just want to say “no” all the time because they feel it gives them power. Saying “no” becomes just about the favorite word of many children when they reach the “terrible twos.” A child will say “no” to doing even something he or she wants to do, just to stick it to mommy or daddy. That’s normal and fine and this is how children learn choices and boundaries. However we all know defiant children, teenagers and adults who are defiant to the point of self harm and harm of others. Well, I am using that mental health diagnosis as a parallel to explain to you one of the problems of modern thinking (and faith), which is why I am writing this particular essay.

The Bible explains this in terms of God, where there is the great temptation to say “no” to God, even when it is for one’s own good. Lucifer, the fallen angel, is the obvious example. Well, the desire to say “no” is part of human nature, and a good one when it is part of, as mentioned above, normal childhood and adult development. But there is a very strange and disturbing modern affectation of wanting to say no to mundane, prosaic scientific facts just so that one can indulge in paranoid or self inflating “searches” for the “real” reasons. As recently as fifty years ago humans were eager to learn the scientific facts and principles of constancy and thus engineering and other scientific activities flourished. The motivation of science was not just curiosity but more important to discover ways to improve human life and survivability. However, many modern humans have lost interest in science and reality since they don’t worry about where their next supper comes from. With prosperity has come a lessening of interest in science and reality and it is replaced with 1) an almost entertainment perspective rather than one that is fact finding and 2) research that is agenda driven and niche oriented.

Let’s use the gravity example and I’m going to be a little bit silly with it, but just so you can see the thought process I am describing to you. An entertainment oriented modern might think, “Well, so there is something called ‘gravity.’ But no one can yet describe how it actually works. What if aliens have put invisible Velcro hooks on the bottom of the shoes of the people they like, and that is why gravity works really well on earth?” Scientists used to (and hopefully some still do) “peel the onion” of research, which is to use logic based on facts and sound, defensible observations and suppositions to posit theories and hopefully prove them or not in a step by step basis. So I hope that those scientists who are working to better understand gravity, for example, are still doing so using the scientific method and sound logic that builds upon real facts and discoveries. The problem is that many of the funders of “research” and the consumers of research (corporations, governments and the public) have a lot of that loony “entertainment” thought process, where without any genuine logic or education they have an almost “let’s slap a theory against the wall and see if it sticks because this is fun and crazy” approach. Reality is boring and science is boring because improving human survivability and making genuine advances in humanitarian projects is boring. For example, no one seems to care about affordable latrines and toilets for the billion or so people who don’t have them (and thus there is an environmental crisis of extreme importance) but scads of people want to be the first to give poor children a laptop. Science used to be pursued because it was urgent, important and humanitarian, not because someone got their kicks from it. So you see a crisis in, for example, students majoring in entymology (insects) and plant diseases in the area of food production (read about that crisis of talent in California, for example) but thousands of students want to use computer graphics to design bug shaped alien invaders for the entertainment industry.

When I was growing up one of the favorite wished for toys of children was a microscope. I grew up among the generation of children who all wanted to learn about science and how to save the world. The green movement is an example of where that has gone dreadfully wrong. I’ve written about that before where a genuine science, the conservation of natural resources, has been pre-empted by a very anti-human and anti-life New Age ethos that is illogical and counterproductive in both the long and short run, since it is not based on science tempered with morality. It is based on entertainment and fear tempered by a presumption of ethos.

That leads me quite neatly into the second example, which is agenda driven research. We all know that virtually all research is now funded by people pushing either their commercial product or their personal societal agendas. Research in pharmaceutical drugs and food items has been funded by those who seek to benefit from “good results.” There is nothing wrong with that except when it gets to the point it has today which is that funding of research for the greater good has dried up since the money is directed toward the niches and the more obvious problem of increasingly meaningless individual research projects since each one is funded for one product or purpose and thus is out of context. We see this constantly with the “magic food” research, which hopes to identify those foods that are “best” at some “purpose” such as “fighting cancer.” Ironically the society that claims to be so “holistic” is anything but holistic as it single mindedly pursues one after the other of isolated agenda driven projects and purposes. No one notices the inconsistencies. For example, many people promote, wisely, an “eat your locally grown food” perspective, arguing that it is most natural to eat the types of natural foods that are fresh and common to your area. Yet another group then studies some Amazonian berry for its almost “magic” qualities and pushes it around the world for both nutrition and weight loss. How does that jibe? Do you believe that you should eat what is abundant, fresh and natural in your area? Or do you create an artificial diet that is constructed of the “best” “wonder foods?”

The problem is that humans have forgotten that science and reality are about day to day life. They have developed agenda driven isolationist (regarding the human body) viewpoints that just are erroneous and unsatisfactory from both a nutritional, for example, and a spiritual context. I am almost speechless when I read the anti-meat cow belching and farting global warming “threat” on one hand, but then a total lack of understanding the role that eating meat has had in the survivability and thriving of the human species on the other. I am constantly astounded at the “instant experts” who know nothing about the fields from whose realities they freely draw and distort. Modern humans have fallen into a crisis of compartmentalization.

It is one thing to be a specialist, where one selects, for example, one field of medicine for one’s specialty. However, being a compartmentalizer is something else. A compartmentalizer thinks that he or she is being holistic but is in fact being the opposite of holistic. A compartmentalizer tries to form theories and “realities” about one “thing” at a time. They visualize it as being “above” (hence the holistic delusion) “previous” and “old fashioned” thinking. I saw one of the first warning signs of it with the popularity of “thinking out of the box” riddles and puzzles. The implication is that one solves the riddle or puzzle only by thinking of something really “liberating” that one has “not thought of before.” I had a former intimate friend who loved these riddles and I could not solve a single one of them. Why? A good riddle or joke relies on genuine facts and reality but with a twist. “Out of the box” or “lateral thinking” relies on alternate realities to make their point that one just would not think of logically. Thus logic and facts are made to be seen as insufficient, limiting and inferior, and a truly “open mind” would not be “bound” by “the box” of “old fashioned thinking and assumptions.”

A specialist used to become a very well educated generalist first, who then studies further their specialty and adds that knowledge onto their firm general foundation. A medical specialist, for example, would be first a good general doctor and then gain education and internship in his or her practice. While that may be still the process today the mindset is no longer as systematic. Thus I met around twenty years ago a “female gynecologist” (that holy grail for women self conscious around men) who did not know that a doctor must use a tongue depressor in order to look at a sore throat. (Makes me wonder to this day if she was ever a patient herself, because even lay people know that the muscles force the tongue upward and the doctor must use a depressor to push the tongue down and see the throat and tonsils). To this day I am astonished that a Park Avenue gynecologist was angry at me (yelling that I should “keep my tongue down” when she tried to look at my sore throat and yes, I had to use my finger as a tongue depressor). Even specialists are at risk of modern thinking and lack of education rendering them to be less effective and often erroneous.

Compartmentalizers are even worse than the weakened specialists, however, since they do not attempt to gain the grounding education and experience in the areas in which they pontificate. Sometimes it does done innocently due to the slippery slope of expertise. Thus you have people with degrees in meteorology (the weather) think they are qualified to comment on global climate change. They genuinely do not realize that they need much more education and information from other fields such as paleontology and geology (to better understand the climate of the earth's historic epochs). Modern people are not humble enough to recognize when they have stepped outside of their specialized areas of expertise (and how limited even those may be). But more to the point are those who deliberately present themselves as experts in a modern so called "enlightened" sense. They have come to believe that traditional education and the scientific method of proof, logic and deduction are “unnecessary” and “limiting.” One of the reasons they are so led astray by themselves and each other is that they do not understand the constancy of results.

When compartmentalizers see the “same thing” “happen” twice in row, for example, they believe they have “discovered” a “connection,” rather than recognize that they are part of a sane, normal and ordered world where similar activities yield similar results. For example if someone painted a painting today that looks a lot like one painted by someone five hundred years ago, the modern deluded will wonder if they were “reincarnated” from the previous painter or one of the painters cohorts. I am only slightly exaggerating. Sane humans used to realize that all people are alike, generation after generation, and that given canvas and paint some will paint landscapes, some will paint still life settings, and there will always be people who are inspired by and attracted to the same things using the same techniques. I mean, duh. But a compartmentalizer takes an event totally out of the human context and immediately inflates its own importance (and his or her “power of observation”) to incredible degrees. I've noticed that an astonishing number of people look for some "connections" between the most ordinary of repeatable events, such as two people having the same taste in art, food, books, decor, etc. If two people in a row walk into a magazine shop and buy the same magazine, I swear some people will think that it is an "alien message," a "sign from a deceased loved one" or "a past life experience." It would never occur to them that maybe the first person walked down the street with the magazine visible, and the second person sees it and thinks, "How interesting that cover story looks, I will buy one too." It's called free advertising. Or a plethora of other reasons (a class was just dismissed where that magazine was discussed, or people heard about it on a news show, etc) but usually it is just one of those things: people buy magazines and sometimes people with the same taste walk into a store one after the other. I mean, duh.

I’ve written about this before under my “debunking cults” label, especially in relationship to numbers. I mean, there are only ten digits and there are an infinite number of things that can be measured or counted, yet day after day a large segment of people drive themselves and everyone else crazy over “matching numbers.” I don’t even want to go into the whole astrology and numerology nightmare anymore, as I’ve already written all I have to say on the subject and what a mess it has become. But these are the classic examples of people no longer understanding the constancy of results in a real and factual world and compartmentalizing two events or pieces of information and forcing an “out of the box” connection.

That’s what I meant with my “maybe gravity is caused by aliens putting invisible Velcro on the soles of the shoes of people they like” example. Rather that just plodding along in science discoveries and research, building upon and revising as necessary the theories of before and the established body of facts, compartmentalizers see the universe as a jumble of individual things that are connected in ways that must be contrary to the mainstream belief and reality. Yes, smoking marijuana has been a great factor in this development. The generation that views weed as a creativity enhancer and relaxant did not recognize that by definition weed is also a disconnection from reality. One does not have to ingest weed to be part of the weed mindset, by the way. Even if you yourself do not smoke weed, if you “recognize” that it “enhances creativity” and “relaxes” other people, you are buying into a mindset that is less based on facts and reality within a genuine holistic context and instead, one that is more based on compartmentalizing.

A reality based scientist, for example, would in reply to the creativity claim reply with a dozen ways other than weed to develop one’s creativity. Compartmentalizers buy into the first or second thing that they hear without examining alternatives in a reality based context. A reality based scientist would also reply to the relaxation claim with wise advice to examine the causes of the stress and deal with them rather than trying to mask and cope with weed. Again a compartmentalizer immediately assumes, without even realizing it, that if the weed user says that he or she must use it to relax that their stressful condition and lack of better options is a given.

Lawyers too used to have much in common with fact and reality based scientists, and they also used to have a great appreciation for the constancy of results. However many lawyers are also compartmentalizers for a practical reason “they immediately focus on a tactic that works” and the more unsavory one that we’ve been discussing, stemming from them thinking they are social engineers and “agents of change.” The grandiose thinking of many lawyers is a temptation toward that compartmentalizing that I’ve described, where they have become less wise students of human nature and more enchanted with “noticing two things in a row that must be connected in some metaphysical or social justice way.”

What is frustrating is that once compartmentalized and grandiose thinking takes over it is very hard to make someone aware of it and eradicate it even with proof. For example, suppose a lawyer gets two cases in a row that makes him or her tingle with the thought that these cases “came to him” due to a “greater purpose and truth” and that it has numinous meaning. Suppose I went into a library and found a book written by a lawyer five hundred years ago who had the same types of cases come to him, and he just recorded them and what he did and thought nothing else of it. I would point out that documentation to the modern compartmentalizing lawyer and say, “See, there is nothing strange about the two cases you got, because Giovanni here had a similar set of cases five hundred years ago.” Stuff just happens in human history that is due to constancies of results, in this case, people tend to get in trouble and litigate over the same old issues generation after generation. So against the backdrop of the constancy of human behavior over centuries, even if two really strange cases in a row popped up, looking at the holistic totality of litigation in human history, that would not be so unusual at all. Probably every lawyer in history would have an example in his or her career of two weird similar cases in a row being handled. However, with the mindset I am complaining about and exposing here, even with this proof the odds are that the modern compartmentalizing lawyer, rather than allow him or her self to be deflated back to reality would then claim that he or she is the reincarnated Giovanni, LOL. Not really LOL because it’s scary and not funny.

Those of us of a certain age knew what women through the centuries have known, which is that fads and taste skip a generation. Thus grandchildren tend to have tastes in fashion and décor like their grandmothers, while the mothers would be disapproving. We saw that with some in the hippy generation, where when they had children some of their children wanted more of the tradition of the grandmothers. Nowadays if a child has the same interests as their grandmother, rather than realizing this is the constancy of results, some moderns say “the child is mawmaw reincarnated” or is “channeling granny.” I wish I was joking.

Moderns have parsed and compartmentalized every event and behavior by every person (and even animals), magnifying every minutiae independent of its context. These type of people have become some sort of strange combination of a blender set on “dice” (chopping up everything into small pieces) and “jigsaw puzzle assembler” where they then ignore all previous established realities and look for the “real connections” between the diced pieces of what people are, what they say and what they do. They have driven themselves crazy and also much of society and commerce around them. They would throw TNT around in a public theater and yet tell you if you objected to chill out and not worry because TNT is not really an explosive because “Mars is in an astrology sign that doesn’t favor explosions right now” or that TNT is the number “nine” in “numerology” and therefore nine sounds like the German for no which is “nein” and therefore it is not going to explode. I wish I was joking but I am not. If it did explode and kill a baby they would tell you that the baby must have had their natal Mars in a “bad position.”

What is really scary is that this thinking infects engineering projects and other things that desperately rely on reality and facts based on a sound education and honest use of high quality materials, not on imaginary compartmentalized pseudo-relationships.

The worst that has happened is when like a cyborg these compartmentalized “thinkers” meld their crazy pseudo-relationship seeking to Holy Scriptures. Holy Scripture cannot be understood by compartmentalists. Holy Scripture is meant to be about the holistic constancy human life (both their virtues and their sins) through the ages, since that is what the Bible, specifically, and the Qur’an records. Real people had real babies, grew real crops, fought real wars, had real conversations with God’s messengers, and faced the same problems (and potential results) and sinned the same ways generation after generation. Thus when God gave the Law to the Israelites, even though God gave the Law to them, the human behavior that is referenced is the same constancy of human reality that is everywhere, among all cultures and individuals. This is why the Bible, as every scholar realizes along with all the thoughtful laity, always has two messages in parallel: what happened then and how to apply that to future generations. Thus one can read about a one and only event in the Bible, yet see how it can apply and guide to similar circumstances in the present, remaining fruitful and meaningful for each generation.

Compartmentalizers read parts of the Bible and then look for “the same thing to happen again” and then apply their crazy pseudo-relationship glue to derive some insane “out of the box” linkage in hidden meaning. They don’t recognize that the Bible and the Qur’an (together with the rest of the history of Islam) records natural life events within the steady background of generation after generation of life where there is continual constancy of results. A huge stumbling block for them is their lack of understanding that the Bible records one and only events, but it is meant to be relevant to the continuum of human experience.

I mean, it’s not like the results of a battle, for example, are much different in one century than the next. Oh wait, there’s that one battle where after it was fought gravity suddenly turned off and the aliens applied Velcro hooks to the soles of the losers feet because they felt sorry for them and the bodies might float away while the gravity is off. I wish I was joking about the extent of the lunacy, but I’m not, and if anything I’m understating its insidiousness, its error, its danger, and the great toll it has taken to date on everyone. But let's look at a battle for example. The Bible may record a battle that takes place where God favors one side and that side wins. Someone who uses the Bible properly will try to discern from that example several things 1) why God favored one group over the other 2) guidance about morality or wisdom in the context of the battle event and its aftermath and 3) recognition that conflict is part of the human condition. Thus if nothing else one understands that conflict and its suffering is not new upon any generation, but part of the panoply of the human condition. Compartmentalizers, however, "look" for the battle to "happen again" by expecting repeating and replicable "signs" such as names, numbers, places and so forth. With their slice and dice compartmentalizing they view the Bible as being a bunch of clues, cues and signs about "what will happen next."

For example, far too many people try to take a bad event that happens today and compare it to an event described in Biblical prophecy, such as the Apocalypse, and say, "Is that event or is it not one of the signs of the end?" But here is what they forget. The end is comprised of the same old dreadful human events that have always happened, except when it is really the end there will be no way out and the destruction of the world and the Second Coming will take place. So the error in logic is that people don't realize that many of the events described as tribulations may take place without it being the actual Second Coming and end of days yet. For example, how do people not know that maybe there is a dreadful fulfillment of one of the tribulations in that such an event occurs, but it is not the one that is part of the tribulation itself? The earth might suffer several earthquakes and catastrophes that look like they are the ones described in Revelation, but are simply forerunners. The Bible is not a textbook listing every time that an earthquake or some other disaster might destroy one third of the world's population. So it is not unrealistic to understand that humanity might undergo at their own hands one disaster after the other, seeming to follow the order described in Revelation, yet it is not the actual Apocalypse yet at all.

More to the point, it is entirely possible that God will warn (and is now warning humans) by taking them through their own self inflicated mini versions of the tribulations. The more people war and hate monger for occult reasons the more likely that they will bring down upon themselves continual implications of their presumption, which will be like preliminary seals being broken. History repeats itself because of the constancy of results; humans behave the same way and life has the same continuing risks and also humanity's doubting and ungrateful relationship to God also repeats itself. Thus in modern times, just as in Biblical times, living in a world where there is much goodness, but there is also much need for grace and good behavior, while in a life that is limited and does have perils, it is not a good idea to stick a thumb in God's eye when God is needed more, not less, than ever. That is reality and that is constancy, not the linking together of goofy delusions based on some sort of version of Hollywood Squares.

This is the only generation, these past two, who cannot understand that reality really is exactly as it appears. As former President Bill Clinton said, “It depends on what ‘is’ is.” Only these past two generations have trouble discerning day to day reality that is all around them and that they are part of. That is because, to use that analogy again, they have abandoned real life and used a dicing machine to make little square blocks of everything a human being says, does or even “is.” It is terrifying, not because it scares me personally (disgust and immense pain is more accurate to say), but because I am terrified for the survivability, sanity, ruination and damnation of every man, woman and child.

This generation thinks that if they check the fire extinguisher on one side of the world that they don’t need to check the fire extinguisher on the other side of the world because it all “balances out.”

Understanding God, Chabad's thought of the day

I see in the comments section that people are puzzled by what the Rebbe has said in the today's Chabad Thought of the Day. I'd like to offer some perspective. Here is today's Thought of the Day that is under discussion:


If the cosmos were some giant machine running a procedural program with immaculate precision, G–d’s involvement would be superfluous. But science has long abandoned a mechanical view of the universe. For most of a century, scientists have discussed the basic particles of matter and energy as ideas, without form as we know it.

True, science does not discuss G–d. But it does describe His works. In our times, science has allowed G–d back into the world He envelopes Himself within.

From the wisdom of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Schneerson, of righteous memory; words and condensation by Tzvi Freeman. To order Tzvi's book, "Bringing Heaven Down to Earth, click here.

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In a way you have to read this quote second paragraph first, in order to understand it. Start with the last sentence, which is key to understanding, the part where it says "God back into the world He envelopes Himself within." (By the way, I am not being disrespectful when I use the full form of the word God. That is because I am speaking to Jewish, Christian and Muslim readers, all of whom agree to use the word God, so that is what I do).

God envelopes Himself within the world. What does envelop mean? To envelop is to surround or to wrap oneself within something flexible, like a cloth or a cloud. So if someone wraps a cloak, or a full length veil around himself, that is to envelope oneself. The self remains unchanged within the envelopment. But if one moves one's arm, the enveloping substance must move along with you.

Thus God "wears" the universe, like a cloak, and when God moves, and God moves simply by exerting his will, which means he has an intention that something should happen, the universe moves according to his will, just like that enveloping garment.

God is not the garment, and the garment is not God. It is, however, a sign of God's existence. In my blog posting a few days ago, I quote scripture where God appeared to Moses in accompaniment of a great cloud. God is not the cloud, and the cloud is not God. The cloud remained in a pillar type of form outside of the Meeting Tent to indicate that God was within the tent, meeting with Moses. So there is Biblical example of how forces of nature envelop God, but are not God himself, and simply a sign of his being there. In Kings one can read how other phenomena, such as fire, earthquake and wind can also announce in advance the arrival of God, but God is not the phenomena, nor are they him.

So the Rebbe was making the incredibly insightful observation that as humans learn more and more about science, they can begin to see the folds of God's cloak, so to speak, as they rustle and move around him. This is what the Rebbe meant when he said true science in the modern times have brought a way to describe God back into the world. When God is not actually in physical appearance, as he did with the Patriarchs, humans yearn to be able to see his "reality." Often they imagine something very shallow and false as God's image. The Rebbe was pointing out with great wisdom that the universe is like an enveloping garment or cloak that is the only way humans can comprehend a physical reality of God, by seeing the form. In other words, with microscopes and so forth, humans have moved away from thinking that particles such as atoms are just "building blocks," thus mechanical in structure, and instead, there are mysteries to the movements and even continuity of existence of subatomic particles and other mysterious forces. When science reveals that the universe is filled with movement, rather than just building blocks with energy "on and off switches," science helps believers to comprehend the form of God that is draped within the cloak of the universe, and how it moves when God moves.

Rather than being deliberately mysterious, to the observant, science helps God to reveal more of himself in ways that humans can start to understand, or at the very least, to observe and wonder. This is because remember, God does not need the universe to exist. It is truly like a garment to God and the angels, for they exist outside of the material universe, not at all needing time, matter or energy to exist. That is the true mystery of God, and that cannot be helped, for God's nature is separate from the physical boundaries of the universe. So God is not trying to be mysterious, but a human who exists in time, matter and energy cannot by definition understand the place, heaven, where time, matter and energy do not exist, where souls that achieve heaven reside in God's presence with the angels.

What the Rebbe is pointing out is that lacking direct contact with God at a given time, such as what was graced to Moses, one can see the rustle of the cloak, the movement of the enveloping cloud, and thus have some insight into God manifesting his ongoing will. An example I like to give is when people talk about our sun's warming or cooling cycles. I like to give the gentle joke that it is God adjusting the thermostat. So one can witness two levels of God's manifesting his will through the enveloping cloak of the universe. The first is that it is God's overall and ongoing will that stars are bodies of gases that exist through their ongoing thermonuclear reactions. Thus that is a natural law that is God's will, established when he created the universe. The second is that one can see specific examples of God willing or allowing a particular star, such as our own sun, to gain heat, or cool more quickly, if that is God's will. Thus, when human science progressed beyond the erroneous and misleading "mechanistic" view of science, they opened their eyes to observing motion of the universe, all of which manifests God's overall will (he wills life to exist and for it to follow natural law, for example), but also there are opportunities to see and ponder specific actions within the universe that are God's will at that moment.

I hope that you find this helpful and useful.