Jesus, As A Matter Of Fact

*Authors Note: This post is in its larval state, dear Readers, but we won’t wait for a mountable Imago. We’re going to leave it up in plain view and watch the metamorphosis together.  What we should notice first is growth, segment on segment. We’ll keep the temperature constant, if we can. We’ll note when the color changes.  As to wings, dear friends, we can only pray…

First things first. We may be at the end. Of human life on this planet. Human life as it is today,  in its untenable extremes of wealth and poverty, safety and terror, flourishing and utter desolation. Can a single reality hold both Syria and Silicon Valley in its parameters and be tenable for human minds? No wonder the explosion of belief, from former atheists in large part, in the idea of a Simulated Universe.  (Much more on the Universe as Simulation to follow)

How did we get to this state, Brothers and Sisters? How did we wander so far from Eden that we’ve lost, not only its memory, but its promise?

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Time to introduce our look into the Universe as Simulation hypothesis. This is the darling of the materialists, the agnostics and atheists, who have found in its exotic math and mindset a succor they would not allow themselves to find in spiritual discipline. With the single exception of Sam Harris, I can’t think of a public atheist who is interested in “awareness”, in its broadest spiritual sense. The vast majority of public atheists fall into the Dawkins, Dennett, Hawking, Krauss, et al, category. Spirituality is complete bunk. Only scientific proof matters in determining reality.

Which is why the fascination with the Simulation theory is so telling.

Let me share some dialog from the 2016 Issac Asimov Memorial Debate held at the Museum of Natural History.  It is a followup to the 2011 IAMD.  Three hours on YouTube to change your world view. Seriously. Neil deGrasse Tyson publicly changed his position from atheist to agnostic following these debates. He posts about the spat he had with Wikipedia editors who kept changing his status back to atheist, truly a weird experience to be corrected by strangers regarding your beliefs.

You’ll recognize  Neil deGrasse Tyson and Jim Gates if you follow mainstream media, these are the folks called on to explain the math we can’t do.

Here are some points on the video discussing the implications behind the math.

27.44 Gates: if the simulation theory is valid…then we open the door to eternal life and resurrection…things formally discussed in the realm of religion

47:00 Gates: to the non-scientist…an acceptance of the simulation hypothesis as an accurate view of our universe is equivalent…to the notion of a deity…I don’t think for non-scientists you can make that distinction…

48:01 Tyson: so if there is a programmer who is philosophically equivalent to a Creator, and you can’t observe them, they are just outside the realm of science.

Notice that last bit please. Take a moment. If we are living in a simulation, then there is a programmer. If there is a programmer, then that entity is outside the realm of science.

Quite the pickle. How do materialists rationalize this astounding possibility with their pathological avoidance of the notion of God? Simple; they posit an advanced, alien race that has programmed our universe, probably for their own amusement.

All the while of course, taking this reality very seriously indeed. The implication that we may be living in a simulation doesn’t stop the materialists from worrying about what seem to be real 3-D dangers to our world, the most ironic being the threat that we will create an AI we can’t control!

We are living in a simulation in which we create a simulation that enslaves us.

To the materialist mindset, that is a much more rational explanation of reality than a living God. The math doesn’t give them an out, there has to be a Programmer. So they make the Programmer into their own image, with very human motivations.

Back to Jim Gates’ bomb shell…to the notion of a deity…I don’t think for non-scientists you can make that distinction…

That is the finding, deep in the most esoteric math of physics, that made avid atheist Neil deGrasse Tyson step back into the cooler shade of agnostic reflection.

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Can I tell you a secret that isn’t?

I am in way, way over my head.

I simply don’t have the brainpower to evaluate the competing scientific truth claims that dominate our view of the world.  I can’t do the math.  So the heated informed discussions about the relative merits of String Theory vs Simulation vs Multiverse, by minds that can find their way in the runic equations, emerge in my brain as mesmerizing  gobbledygook.  Being a dutiful Westerner, I accept the scientific method, broadly speaking, as the final arbiter of the material universe. But the current theoretical models of reality aren’t readily measured; in fact most can’t be subjected to definitive experiment at all.

So we, the 99.999% of us that can’t evaluate the findings of theoretical physicists, are forced to accept their work on faith. Yes, faith. The High Priests of Math, the supreme order of the religion, issue decrees of fact as if a unified body, but the squabbles inside the temple can be deafening.

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Yet it’s all just a Google search away. Maybe it’s an age thing. Growing up in the 1960’s, if you wanted to know about something in depth, you had one channel. Go to the library. Find a spot for your stuff. Notebooks, pens and pencils, drinks in a closed container, snacks, in bad weather bulky clothes and boots. Some folks couldn’t get a thing done unless they lugged their banged up Underwood along. Must’ve been the Fugs decal.

Books, maps, encyclopedia, periodicals all arranged in stacks, cataloged on indexed cards. Very orderly, with a comforting sense that your answer was there, systematically arranged, and lacked nothing but your hours of labor to discover. There were accepted authorities to cite who weren’t trolled by illiterate haters. Most critically, you didn’t type your keywords into a search engine, instantly rewarded. You might have to wait outside the windowed break room for the reference librarian to finish her Virginia Slim and Sanka, adjust her pencil skirt with a brisk, two–handed tug and twist, as she made a lady-like trip to the loo. Or so I seem to recall with pubescent clarity that began my love of libraries.

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So, Jesus as a matter of fact? Not much that’s come so far has an apologetic feel. Lots of confident diction about subject matter too deep for me.

Patience Grasshopper.

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We’re a little under 1300 words into this post, so maybe it’s time to lift a lid. This is not really a blog post, it’s a book in progress.

I fuss with it daily, but without a destination in view. At times it seems like the only tools I have are ski poles in a flood. That’s not exactly it, but we’ll tinker with that image later.

That’s the routine. Add a section, groom and prune. The sections are the parts separated by ten of these *.

Why bother? Virtually no one is reading this blog,  aside from Muslims attracted to the Letter to Islam post, and they don’t comment. I take their non comment as a sincere compliment, but folks without that ax to grind don’t stop by the stall.

Why I bother is in John: You will know the Truth, and the Truth shall set you free. 

 

Love God with all your mind. 

In this world, today. Make sense of the impossibly vast, crushingly dense, information fog in this world, and find it’s orientation towards a Designer. And do it every day, as long as you have the strength to try.

That, my friends, is not the Ice Bucket Challenge.

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How can the Supernatural Christ be true? Naturally.

Are we high functioning apes or special needs bees?

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