All organisms contain a mixture of ordinary carbon, C-12 (this, along with C-13, does not decay) and radioactive carbon, C-14. Ninety-nine point nine nine nine, nine nine nine, nine nine nine, nine nine nine percent (99.999,999,999,999%) of carbon in the body of an organism is C-12; only less than a pittance are C-13 and C-14. However, all animals, plants and germs, whilst they are alive have a nearly constant amount of radioactive carbon because the metabolic process of the biosphere cycles the C-14 causing it to enter and leave the bodies of organisms at almost a constant rate.
Radioactive carbon, C-14, is always decaying. Its half-life is
5000 years (actually, it is closer to 5730, give or take a few years). C-14 is often used to figure out how long ago since an animal died.
Let's say the amount of C-14 in a living sample is 4000lbs, then the half-life principle says after 5000 years only a half remains; 2000lbs. (Please note three things about the above weights: For one thing, They are EXAGGERATED. For another, these lbs are WILDLY EXAGGERATED; and , thirdly, these numbers are VERY WILDLY EXAGGERATED). Let me also point out that, for every sample containing one trillion carbon atoms, only ONE will be a C-14 atom. The rest, nine hundred and ninety-nine billion, nine hundred and ninety-nine million, nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine (999,999,999,999) are almost all C-12 atoms with two or three C-13 atoms (this is NOT AN EXAGGERATION).
This means that every living organism almost always have roughly the same amount of radioactive carbon in their bodies.
When an organism dies it stops taking in new C-14 and starts to lose what it has at almost a constant rate of one half every 5000 years. Each radioactive element has a very specific decay rate called the "half-life". For example, if the half-life of an element is 10 years then if you originally had 100lbs of it, then after ten years had passed you would find only one half, 50lbs, remained; half of it had decayed over the ten years. After another ten years only 25lbs remain; after another ten years only twelve and half pounds remain, after another ten years. . . well, you get my drift.
So, you find the dead body of one of your ancestors' pet, "Unicorn", and the amount of radioactive carbon it contains is "250lb". Now, let us compare the C-14 content of our dead animal with the C-14 content of a living animal, an elephant say. An elephant as well as all other living animals and plants have the same C-14 content. Your pet amoeba, Daisy, has the same amount of C-14 as your most cherished hibiscus plant, Gretchen Hibiscus, "4000lbs". You get an elephant containing "4000lbs" of radioactive carbon and compare it with Unicorn's, which is 250lbs. When Unicorn was alive his C-14 content was "4000lb". How many 5000-year half-life passed before the C-14 in the dead body decayed to 250lb?
living organisms, for example all elephants alive today, have a C-14 content of "4000lb":
1st 5000-years [half of 4000lb is left]= 2000lb
2nd 5000-years [half of 2000lb]= 1000lb
3rd 5000-years = 500lb
4th 5000-years = 250lb. . . .
So you get 4 half-life, each of 5000-years. The total number of years since the animal died is 4 * 5000years = 20,000years.
Your long lost inherited pet, Unicorn, died 20,000 years ago.
If you trip over your favorite long dead cousin, Manny D. Neanderthal, on the lawn and you measured his C-14 to be "125lb", then Manny died 20,000 + 5000 = 25,000years ago. However, if you found Jimmy Hoffa buried in your backyard you would have a very very difficult time carbon dating when he died (Cheat:35years ago). You are going to have to be as patient as a saint and wait around for about another four thousand nine hundred and fifty years until half the C-14 in his dead body decays (assuming he is dead). You might as well re-inter Jimmy and leave him be.; However, if Jimmy Hoffa is alive and well somewhere (not!), then his C-14 content is the same as yours and mine, and Tiny Tim's (when he was alive).
I kid you about Jimmy (and I miss Tiny Tim). The point is that only very old samples (more than a 1000years old) can be dated accurately.
The Young Earth Creationist will insist that the Earth is only six thousand years old. However this does not make much sense, to sensible people. With C-14 dating, scientists have been able to age fossilized animals and plants back to more than sixty thousand years. I say to this creationist, SHOW ME THE MONEY: Disprove that the half-life of radioactive carbon is much less than 5730 years.
The radioactive decay rate, that is, the half-life of radioactive elements, is a physical property of those elements. Nothing in the universe may influence the half-life of a given radioactive element.
What is five plus two equal to?
If you didn't know, it is equal to seven.
Is 5+2=7 in Newark, New Jersey? (Yes.)
Is 5+2=7 on the Moon? (say yes)
How about at the center of the earth? (put answer here)
Come rain or shine, earthquakes and hurricanes, supernovas and black holes, five plus two is equal to seven.
Is the half-life of C-14 found in the Amazon Jungle different than in the Fiji Islands, different on top of Mount Everest, different at the bottom of the oceans or different than it is deep inside the Sun?
It does not matter where you find C-14 its radioactive decay rate measured in half-life is close to 5730 years.
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
OBJECTIVITY
Objectivity properly relates the mental object in the mind to its source, the material objects in the material physical world.
Objectivity states that the material object is the original and the mental object is its copy.
Subjectivity states that the mental object is the original and the physical object is its copy.
Objectivity in principle allows you to accurately relate objective experiences in the physical world with the subjective impressions they make on the mind.
If I watch you pour strawberry syrup in a glass, I can copy that experience and pour strawberry syrup in a glass too.
If you are thinking (silently): "I am imagining pouring strawberry syrup in a glass" I cannot copy the experiences in your (silent) thoughts.
A belief is an assumption that is (usually) verbally stated. For example: "If I drop a heavy and a light stone at the same time the heavy one will reach the ground before the light one”
The question is: How would you test this belief to see whether it is a true belief or a mistaken belief?
Perform an objective test: Do what Galileo did. Climb to the top of The Leaning Tower of Pisa in Rome and drop both stones together. You could perform a subjective test: Ask an authority figure what he THINKS will happen.
I am partial to the objective test, formally known as
THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD; it goes like this:
CONJECTURE
(A belief; maybe true maybe false): "Troy stole my Barbie Doll".
PREDICTION “I bet if you dust Barbie for fingerprints they will be his".
EXPERIMENTAL
APPARATUS/DATA A computer with many different fingerprints including Troy’s and the fingerprints found on Barbie.
PEER REVIEW
(Expert fingerprint technicians): Each expert independently reproduces the experiment exactly.
EXPERIMENTAL FINDING Almost all the experts report that the fingerprints found on Barbie match troy's fingerprints.
CONCLUSION The belief: “Troy stole my Barbie Doll" is a belief that most experts agree is not a false belief.
Here is the point I am trying to make: Consequences come with disregarding the effects of the physical world and its objective rules of engagement; some are minor but some can be very very painful.
If you go to Pathmark and pick up grocery worth a $100 and only give the cashier $10 you will learn quickly that you are fooling yourself; you were lied to. Either way you might be very disappointed or feel like a fool before the judging world.
How can you be sure which theory is true to reality?
"$10 = $4 + $6”
OR
"$100 = $4 + $6"
By employing an objective test:
Go to Pathmark and pick up a chicken priced $6 and a gallon of milk priced $4. Give the cashier a $100 bill. If you reckon that $6 + $4 = $10, in your mind you are expecting to get $90 in change. If she reckons $6 +$4 = $100, then in her mind she owes you no change.
If two very different theories make the same claim they both cannot be true.
You need to apply an objective test to decide which is the true belief.
So you pin one of the two theories on an object in the real world that everyone agrees is real and true:
Everyone accepts that the only theory that fits the object we agree is true and real is the theory
"$10 = $4 + $6"
Replay the shopping experience:
DAD "Pardon me, Ma'am. Shouldn't I be getting back $90 in change?"
LINDSEY "Are you sure? Let me see: $4 + $6 = $100. You gave me a $100 bill. That's correct. Thank you. Pathmark appreciates you choosing us. Come again. NEXT!”
DAD "Do you have a copy of the stone with the standard theory carved into it?"
LINDSEY "I have it right here, dad"
DAD "Here is my copy. Compare both"
LINDSEY "Both copies are carved with "$10 = $4 + $6". Sir, I apologize. Please forgive me, dad. Here is your $90 in change"
The objective experience of The Scientific Method is the best objective test there is, so far, to most accurately determine the truthfulness and reality of our beliefs. Each of us has our own subjective theories. Most of the time it is usually the ones that match up closely with our real experiences in the physical world outside of our minds that are true and real beliefs.
The experimentalist, Galileo Galilei, was correct: both stones will reach the ground at the same time, disproving the untried, untested "common sense" mistaken belief that the heavy stone reaches the ground before the light one
You can see where this is going:
RELIGION versus SCIENCE
Here is the problem: Religion has no objective tests to demonstrate whether or not it is a true and real belief; believers are commanded not to put it to any test whatsoever. One who believes is deemed to have committed a deadly sin if he aspires to gain knowledge of the whole world and condemn his only soul to roasting in everlasting hellfire for eternity. A believer must take the birth and continued existence of the world wholly on unquestioned FAITH. Every word in The Holy Bible is beyond reproach and critique. Not even reading between the lines is permissible, and it is blasphemy, and it is heresy to speak, depict, or portray The Holy Scriptures in any way that contradicts the canonized orthodoxy enshrined in it. Believers must close their minds to the Devil inspired satanically curious minds of unbelievers. Mere mortals, believers and unbelievers, are born into sin. Only by believing in Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior can we rid ourselves of sin and be worthy of the grace of God. Surely it is not too much for God to demand that believers better pray and praise him all the days of their lives, and God-fearingly dare not entertain one iota of doubt in accepting the fact of the world as an act of miraculous creation by GOD, by God!!
You can see clearly that this kind of dogma is unapproachable!
Here is some . . .
CHRISTIAN HISTORY
The monotheistic religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam have their roots in Gnosticism, and Gnosticism has its roots in ancient Egyptian Paganism. The monotheistic religions above go back thousands of years. Islam originated about one thousand four hundred years ago. The history of Christianity goes back a little over two thousand years ago. Gnosticism goes back about another five hundred years. Judaism was founded about six hundred years prior to this, and Egyptian polytheistic Paganism stretches way back another four thousand years. An important and popular center piece of the old dead Egyptian Paganism is the mythology of the god-man, Osiris. The mythical narrative is that Osiris is the son of Geb, the Earth god, one of many Egyptian gods. Osiris is a spiritual being transformed into flesh and entered the carnate world as the human baby of a young virgin. He is the god-man predestined to save this evil-infested devil run-down Earth through his own self-sacrifice. Osiris, persuaded by his father, presents himself as the son of god, and god incarnate. In the mythological tales he performed miracles like raising the dead, exorcising evil spirits, and other uncountable miraculous feats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Wait a minute this story sounds awfully familiar. Yes. It is similar to the Jesus allegorical narratives. It is the Osiris myth adapted to Jewish/Christian cultural tastes and sensibilities. Jesus too performed miracles like raising the dead, exorcising evil spirits, restoring sight to the congenitally blind, attended to lepers, forgave prostitutes and feeding a multitude of more than ten thousand followers with just one handful of fish and seven loaves of bread. He even walked on water and calmed stormy seas and other uncountable miraculous feats. This body of allegorical myths was originally crafted as an epic teaching story by the Gnostic Jews who resided in Greece. This epic drama is a wisdom-rich myth. The Gnostic Jews could not sell this mythology to their Jewish brethren but they noticed that the Gentiles, former pagans, were sold on it. What happened was that these Gentile early Christian sects took it to heart, and believed it to be the literal truth. For Christians, Gentiles, this myth-dogma book is:"The Gospel Truth".
A schism developed between the Gnostic Christians and the Literalist Christians. The Literalist Christians canonized their favorite Gospels that they borrowed from the Gnostics, calling the other Gnostic gospels they disliked, dangerous heresies. Emperor Constantine adopted Christianity in a failed attempt to unify his crumbling empire, but in so doing the first Christian Church fathers held great defacto power. They founded The Roman Catholic Church as the first organized monotheistic state religion. They wielded this awesome Roman power and thoroughly annihilated all the Gnostic movements. The historical records that have been found showed the Gnostic Jews setting the Egyptian Osiris-myth turned Jesus-story within actual historical Roman Empire times:
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jesus’ followers turned out to be thankless ingrates and betrayers, as expected. The final drama would be the arrest, trial and sentence of Jesus for treason for claiming to be "King of the Jews”. This was a death sentence because for the Roman Empire, of which Judea was a part, this kind of talk could mean he is setting himself up as a ruler, and, maybe, plotting to overthrow the Emperor of Rome, Augustus Caesar. However, things were going as planned. Jesus and his father concocted a plot to setup one of his very close followers. Judas was to be the fall guy. In line with the hatched plot, Judas "betrayed" his master to the roman soldiers. Jesus was eventually sentenced to death. He was viciously beaten and tortured while bearing his cross. Jesus was nailed to it and crucified dead.
Judas was blamed for his master's persecution, torture and crucifixion. The poor guy was made into a pariah, hounded and harassed wherever he went. He was sworn to secrecy by Jesus and his father so he had to keep his mouth shut. The pressure and guilt became too much and he hung himself.
Don't get too queasy however. This was all foretold by the prophets, being already predicted in early Jewish folklore and written down in The Old Testament. Jesus had to be martyred. Judas Iscariot could not refuse to conspire against his beloved master. This was the only way to save the souls of humanity, you see. However there was a happy ending. Jesus rose from the dead after three days and ascended, enveloped in the whitest of white light, accompanied by angels and headed home to heaven.
This was not the end of the story. Alas, there was good news and bad news for his followers but worst news for unbelievers. Jesus would return in the "end times" and mete out a final judgment. The good news was that billions of believers would join him in the "Kingdom of heaven". The bad news was that there was only vacancy for exactly 144000 believing Jewish followers; the rest of the millions of Jews, good and bad, are going to hell (presumably to exact vengeance on "Adolf Hitler &The Nazis", disguised as a rock band). The worst news was that, as regards to nonbelievers, there was no appeal, no pardon from his father, and no mitigating extenuating circumstances. Why? Because for two thousand years you knew this was coming and because ignorance of the details of Armageddon is no excuse. If you which to preview the epic final battle between good and evil, it behooves you to revisit Revelations, the last book of The New Testament . . .
Is the story of Jesus and his father a mythical moral compilation of teaching narratives as admitted to by the Gnostics? Is the belief in Jesus and God a true belief that is not objectively testable by the scientific method? Objective historians have pored over the historical records of the times Jesus was supposed to have walked the Earth. Historians have yet to uncover any credible evidence of a historical Jesus. Seeing no evidence for a real Jesus in real history, rational thinkers won't buy into the argument that the biblical Jesus is a true belief. However, when they peeled away the thick mythical skin, they found timeless truths rich in wisdom. But they are not able to convince the true believers that they are worshiping the colorful mythical skin and not discovering the rich essence hidden inside.
How do you win an argument with a person who refuses to look at the historical data, that will not countenance the scientific theories that embodies the data when they strongly believe that if they "betray their faith" as their god admonishes them not to, their "souls will roast forever in hell". The great concern is that they feel so threatened that they have virtually declared war on rational thinking and learning, and brazenly declare that they will succeed in imposing this two thousand year old dogma on all of humanity.
We have to engage the debate and win over the upcoming generations to rational education including the historical true beliefs. If unreasoning, unreasonable and intolerant "true believers" succeed as they boast they will, then the furtherance of civilization itself is seriously threatened.
A world ignorant of its history could be condemned to repeat the past. Remember the Dark Ages? This is the era when Christendom took defacto control of the remnants of the crumbled Roman Empire. Their laws were based on a literal reading of the Bible and they mercilessly applied it to whoever they branded transgressors and dangerous heretics. While they ruled with an absolute iron fist, they burned most of the intellectual treasures along with the burning on the stake of almost all the "heretical" intellectuals of the era. This went on from the 5th century through the 15th century. The iron rule of Christendom stifled scientific inquiry, learning and thinking and destroyed western scientific culture for a thousand years. If it’s any consolation, western civilization was able to salvage some of its losses that were preserved by Arabic, Chinese and Indian civilizations.
Western civilization has rebuilt its scientific and advanced technological culture. Will reason and objectivity prevail to preserve and continue building the storehouse of irreplaceable cultural treasures? . . .
Objectivity states that the material object is the original and the mental object is its copy.
Subjectivity states that the mental object is the original and the physical object is its copy.
Objectivity in principle allows you to accurately relate objective experiences in the physical world with the subjective impressions they make on the mind.
If I watch you pour strawberry syrup in a glass, I can copy that experience and pour strawberry syrup in a glass too.
If you are thinking (silently): "I am imagining pouring strawberry syrup in a glass" I cannot copy the experiences in your (silent) thoughts.
A belief is an assumption that is (usually) verbally stated. For example: "If I drop a heavy and a light stone at the same time the heavy one will reach the ground before the light one”
The question is: How would you test this belief to see whether it is a true belief or a mistaken belief?
Perform an objective test: Do what Galileo did. Climb to the top of The Leaning Tower of Pisa in Rome and drop both stones together. You could perform a subjective test: Ask an authority figure what he THINKS will happen.
I am partial to the objective test, formally known as
THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD; it goes like this:
CONJECTURE
(A belief; maybe true maybe false): "Troy stole my Barbie Doll".
PREDICTION “I bet if you dust Barbie for fingerprints they will be his".
EXPERIMENTAL
APPARATUS/DATA A computer with many different fingerprints including Troy’s and the fingerprints found on Barbie.
PEER REVIEW
(Expert fingerprint technicians): Each expert independently reproduces the experiment exactly.
EXPERIMENTAL FINDING Almost all the experts report that the fingerprints found on Barbie match troy's fingerprints.
CONCLUSION The belief: “Troy stole my Barbie Doll" is a belief that most experts agree is not a false belief.
Here is the point I am trying to make: Consequences come with disregarding the effects of the physical world and its objective rules of engagement; some are minor but some can be very very painful.
If you go to Pathmark and pick up grocery worth a $100 and only give the cashier $10 you will learn quickly that you are fooling yourself; you were lied to. Either way you might be very disappointed or feel like a fool before the judging world.
How can you be sure which theory is true to reality?
"$10 = $4 + $6”
OR
"$100 = $4 + $6"
By employing an objective test:
Go to Pathmark and pick up a chicken priced $6 and a gallon of milk priced $4. Give the cashier a $100 bill. If you reckon that $6 + $4 = $10, in your mind you are expecting to get $90 in change. If she reckons $6 +$4 = $100, then in her mind she owes you no change.
If two very different theories make the same claim they both cannot be true.
You need to apply an objective test to decide which is the true belief.
So you pin one of the two theories on an object in the real world that everyone agrees is real and true:
Everyone accepts that the only theory that fits the object we agree is true and real is the theory
"$10 = $4 + $6"
Replay the shopping experience:
DAD "Pardon me, Ma'am. Shouldn't I be getting back $90 in change?"
LINDSEY "Are you sure? Let me see: $4 + $6 = $100. You gave me a $100 bill. That's correct. Thank you. Pathmark appreciates you choosing us. Come again. NEXT!”
DAD "Do you have a copy of the stone with the standard theory carved into it?"
LINDSEY "I have it right here, dad"
DAD "Here is my copy. Compare both"
LINDSEY "Both copies are carved with "$10 = $4 + $6". Sir, I apologize. Please forgive me, dad. Here is your $90 in change"
The objective experience of The Scientific Method is the best objective test there is, so far, to most accurately determine the truthfulness and reality of our beliefs. Each of us has our own subjective theories. Most of the time it is usually the ones that match up closely with our real experiences in the physical world outside of our minds that are true and real beliefs.
The experimentalist, Galileo Galilei, was correct: both stones will reach the ground at the same time, disproving the untried, untested "common sense" mistaken belief that the heavy stone reaches the ground before the light one
You can see where this is going:
RELIGION versus SCIENCE
Here is the problem: Religion has no objective tests to demonstrate whether or not it is a true and real belief; believers are commanded not to put it to any test whatsoever. One who believes is deemed to have committed a deadly sin if he aspires to gain knowledge of the whole world and condemn his only soul to roasting in everlasting hellfire for eternity. A believer must take the birth and continued existence of the world wholly on unquestioned FAITH. Every word in The Holy Bible is beyond reproach and critique. Not even reading between the lines is permissible, and it is blasphemy, and it is heresy to speak, depict, or portray The Holy Scriptures in any way that contradicts the canonized orthodoxy enshrined in it. Believers must close their minds to the Devil inspired satanically curious minds of unbelievers. Mere mortals, believers and unbelievers, are born into sin. Only by believing in Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior can we rid ourselves of sin and be worthy of the grace of God. Surely it is not too much for God to demand that believers better pray and praise him all the days of their lives, and God-fearingly dare not entertain one iota of doubt in accepting the fact of the world as an act of miraculous creation by GOD, by God!!
You can see clearly that this kind of dogma is unapproachable!
Here is some . . .
CHRISTIAN HISTORY
The monotheistic religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam have their roots in Gnosticism, and Gnosticism has its roots in ancient Egyptian Paganism. The monotheistic religions above go back thousands of years. Islam originated about one thousand four hundred years ago. The history of Christianity goes back a little over two thousand years ago. Gnosticism goes back about another five hundred years. Judaism was founded about six hundred years prior to this, and Egyptian polytheistic Paganism stretches way back another four thousand years. An important and popular center piece of the old dead Egyptian Paganism is the mythology of the god-man, Osiris. The mythical narrative is that Osiris is the son of Geb, the Earth god, one of many Egyptian gods. Osiris is a spiritual being transformed into flesh and entered the carnate world as the human baby of a young virgin. He is the god-man predestined to save this evil-infested devil run-down Earth through his own self-sacrifice. Osiris, persuaded by his father, presents himself as the son of god, and god incarnate. In the mythological tales he performed miracles like raising the dead, exorcising evil spirits, and other uncountable miraculous feats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Wait a minute this story sounds awfully familiar. Yes. It is similar to the Jesus allegorical narratives. It is the Osiris myth adapted to Jewish/Christian cultural tastes and sensibilities. Jesus too performed miracles like raising the dead, exorcising evil spirits, restoring sight to the congenitally blind, attended to lepers, forgave prostitutes and feeding a multitude of more than ten thousand followers with just one handful of fish and seven loaves of bread. He even walked on water and calmed stormy seas and other uncountable miraculous feats. This body of allegorical myths was originally crafted as an epic teaching story by the Gnostic Jews who resided in Greece. This epic drama is a wisdom-rich myth. The Gnostic Jews could not sell this mythology to their Jewish brethren but they noticed that the Gentiles, former pagans, were sold on it. What happened was that these Gentile early Christian sects took it to heart, and believed it to be the literal truth. For Christians, Gentiles, this myth-dogma book is:"The Gospel Truth".
A schism developed between the Gnostic Christians and the Literalist Christians. The Literalist Christians canonized their favorite Gospels that they borrowed from the Gnostics, calling the other Gnostic gospels they disliked, dangerous heresies. Emperor Constantine adopted Christianity in a failed attempt to unify his crumbling empire, but in so doing the first Christian Church fathers held great defacto power. They founded The Roman Catholic Church as the first organized monotheistic state religion. They wielded this awesome Roman power and thoroughly annihilated all the Gnostic movements. The historical records that have been found showed the Gnostic Jews setting the Egyptian Osiris-myth turned Jesus-story within actual historical Roman Empire times:
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jesus’ followers turned out to be thankless ingrates and betrayers, as expected. The final drama would be the arrest, trial and sentence of Jesus for treason for claiming to be "King of the Jews”. This was a death sentence because for the Roman Empire, of which Judea was a part, this kind of talk could mean he is setting himself up as a ruler, and, maybe, plotting to overthrow the Emperor of Rome, Augustus Caesar. However, things were going as planned. Jesus and his father concocted a plot to setup one of his very close followers. Judas was to be the fall guy. In line with the hatched plot, Judas "betrayed" his master to the roman soldiers. Jesus was eventually sentenced to death. He was viciously beaten and tortured while bearing his cross. Jesus was nailed to it and crucified dead.
Judas was blamed for his master's persecution, torture and crucifixion. The poor guy was made into a pariah, hounded and harassed wherever he went. He was sworn to secrecy by Jesus and his father so he had to keep his mouth shut. The pressure and guilt became too much and he hung himself.
Don't get too queasy however. This was all foretold by the prophets, being already predicted in early Jewish folklore and written down in The Old Testament. Jesus had to be martyred. Judas Iscariot could not refuse to conspire against his beloved master. This was the only way to save the souls of humanity, you see. However there was a happy ending. Jesus rose from the dead after three days and ascended, enveloped in the whitest of white light, accompanied by angels and headed home to heaven.
This was not the end of the story. Alas, there was good news and bad news for his followers but worst news for unbelievers. Jesus would return in the "end times" and mete out a final judgment. The good news was that billions of believers would join him in the "Kingdom of heaven". The bad news was that there was only vacancy for exactly 144000 believing Jewish followers; the rest of the millions of Jews, good and bad, are going to hell (presumably to exact vengeance on "Adolf Hitler &The Nazis", disguised as a rock band). The worst news was that, as regards to nonbelievers, there was no appeal, no pardon from his father, and no mitigating extenuating circumstances. Why? Because for two thousand years you knew this was coming and because ignorance of the details of Armageddon is no excuse. If you which to preview the epic final battle between good and evil, it behooves you to revisit Revelations, the last book of The New Testament . . .
Is the story of Jesus and his father a mythical moral compilation of teaching narratives as admitted to by the Gnostics? Is the belief in Jesus and God a true belief that is not objectively testable by the scientific method? Objective historians have pored over the historical records of the times Jesus was supposed to have walked the Earth. Historians have yet to uncover any credible evidence of a historical Jesus. Seeing no evidence for a real Jesus in real history, rational thinkers won't buy into the argument that the biblical Jesus is a true belief. However, when they peeled away the thick mythical skin, they found timeless truths rich in wisdom. But they are not able to convince the true believers that they are worshiping the colorful mythical skin and not discovering the rich essence hidden inside.
How do you win an argument with a person who refuses to look at the historical data, that will not countenance the scientific theories that embodies the data when they strongly believe that if they "betray their faith" as their god admonishes them not to, their "souls will roast forever in hell". The great concern is that they feel so threatened that they have virtually declared war on rational thinking and learning, and brazenly declare that they will succeed in imposing this two thousand year old dogma on all of humanity.
We have to engage the debate and win over the upcoming generations to rational education including the historical true beliefs. If unreasoning, unreasonable and intolerant "true believers" succeed as they boast they will, then the furtherance of civilization itself is seriously threatened.
A world ignorant of its history could be condemned to repeat the past. Remember the Dark Ages? This is the era when Christendom took defacto control of the remnants of the crumbled Roman Empire. Their laws were based on a literal reading of the Bible and they mercilessly applied it to whoever they branded transgressors and dangerous heretics. While they ruled with an absolute iron fist, they burned most of the intellectual treasures along with the burning on the stake of almost all the "heretical" intellectuals of the era. This went on from the 5th century through the 15th century. The iron rule of Christendom stifled scientific inquiry, learning and thinking and destroyed western scientific culture for a thousand years. If it’s any consolation, western civilization was able to salvage some of its losses that were preserved by Arabic, Chinese and Indian civilizations.
Western civilization has rebuilt its scientific and advanced technological culture. Will reason and objectivity prevail to preserve and continue building the storehouse of irreplaceable cultural treasures? . . .
FSM
In the beginning was Spaghetti. And Spaghetti was with FSM. And Spaghetti was FSM.
From the void He created the firmament. The highest most firmaments He called Spaghetti Heaven. The lower most firmaments he called Meatball Earth.
He created man in His image and poured pasta sauce in him and made man a living spaghetti and meatball sandwich.
The man was perfection but he was lonely. So it came to pass that, while PastAdam slept, FSM took half of one of his meatballs and made EvaLinguini.
It came to pass that the seeds of PastAdam and EvaLinguini lived in iniquity and abandoned FSM. He was so upset he wanted to drown them all in thick tomato sauce.
His son, Pas Tafari, spoke up. He volunteered to go to meatball Earth and straighten things out.
FSM, said "OK. I am giving those meatheads one last chance"
So, as baby Pas laid in a cow shed covered in spaghetti, meatball and sh...
He almost changed his mind and wanted to get back to Spaghetti Heaven ASAP.
Pas Tafari was very impressive. He exorcised demons. He cured the sick. He fed a multitude of tens of thousands with just six meatballs and a small dish of Alfredo Linguini.
He walked on a sea of spaghetti sauce, only falling in once. Luckily no one was around to witness the embarrassment.
His most impressive miracle that made him, “The Man," was raising a large bowl of spaghetti and meatball from the dead of six months of staleness.
From that day onward his disciples were called "Pastafarians". It was they who spread The Gospels of Pas Tafari and The Holy Book of Pastafarianism far and wide.
After Pas Tafari was martyred in a pot of two hundred degrees boiling tomato sauce, he gave up the gig and went home for a long vacation. But he warned humanity "I'll be back, Jack", adding that "Whothsoever believeth in me, eateth spaghettith and meatballeth everyday and believe faithfully, without question, in FSM and Pastafarianism, will for certain be invited to Spaghetti Heaven to play Scrabble and Backgammon for eternity with FSM"
The end of days is nigh. Look for these signs and prepare thyselves for "The Apocalypse Now," which should not be confused with the movie of the same name.
The best sign is this: When the world was filled with pirates there was no global warming.
What is the biggest issue facing Meatball Earth today? Yes. Global Warming. Do I lie?
Have ye seen any pirates around here? No, ye say? The last one I saw was in "Pirates of the Caribbean". Yes the Broadway musical.
Verily, verily I say unto ye. FSM took back almost all of His pirates and this has caused Global Warming (and the scant few pirates He left in Somalia are raising Cain on the high seas).
I say ye, there is going to be screaming and much gnashing of teeth, but, worse still, there will be a great paucity of spaghetti and meatball all throughout the world. Repent now or all ye fates is to drown in oceans and oceans and oceans and oceans of pasta sauce. . .
Note: Please email your prayers to FlyingSpaghettiMonster@FSM.hell
Have a nice day.
From the void He created the firmament. The highest most firmaments He called Spaghetti Heaven. The lower most firmaments he called Meatball Earth.
He created man in His image and poured pasta sauce in him and made man a living spaghetti and meatball sandwich.
The man was perfection but he was lonely. So it came to pass that, while PastAdam slept, FSM took half of one of his meatballs and made EvaLinguini.
It came to pass that the seeds of PastAdam and EvaLinguini lived in iniquity and abandoned FSM. He was so upset he wanted to drown them all in thick tomato sauce.
His son, Pas Tafari, spoke up. He volunteered to go to meatball Earth and straighten things out.
FSM, said "OK. I am giving those meatheads one last chance"
So, as baby Pas laid in a cow shed covered in spaghetti, meatball and sh...
He almost changed his mind and wanted to get back to Spaghetti Heaven ASAP.
Pas Tafari was very impressive. He exorcised demons. He cured the sick. He fed a multitude of tens of thousands with just six meatballs and a small dish of Alfredo Linguini.
He walked on a sea of spaghetti sauce, only falling in once. Luckily no one was around to witness the embarrassment.
His most impressive miracle that made him, “The Man," was raising a large bowl of spaghetti and meatball from the dead of six months of staleness.
From that day onward his disciples were called "Pastafarians". It was they who spread The Gospels of Pas Tafari and The Holy Book of Pastafarianism far and wide.
After Pas Tafari was martyred in a pot of two hundred degrees boiling tomato sauce, he gave up the gig and went home for a long vacation. But he warned humanity "I'll be back, Jack", adding that "Whothsoever believeth in me, eateth spaghettith and meatballeth everyday and believe faithfully, without question, in FSM and Pastafarianism, will for certain be invited to Spaghetti Heaven to play Scrabble and Backgammon for eternity with FSM"
The end of days is nigh. Look for these signs and prepare thyselves for "The Apocalypse Now," which should not be confused with the movie of the same name.
The best sign is this: When the world was filled with pirates there was no global warming.
What is the biggest issue facing Meatball Earth today? Yes. Global Warming. Do I lie?
Have ye seen any pirates around here? No, ye say? The last one I saw was in "Pirates of the Caribbean". Yes the Broadway musical.
Verily, verily I say unto ye. FSM took back almost all of His pirates and this has caused Global Warming (and the scant few pirates He left in Somalia are raising Cain on the high seas).
I say ye, there is going to be screaming and much gnashing of teeth, but, worse still, there will be a great paucity of spaghetti and meatball all throughout the world. Repent now or all ye fates is to drown in oceans and oceans and oceans and oceans of pasta sauce. . .
Note: Please email your prayers to FlyingSpaghettiMonster@FSM.hell
Have a nice day.
I AM IN MY WORLD
You are just a single cell with great promise and you are growing and changing every day. Look at you now; you are a zygote
and you continue to develop. Ah my embryo: look at your funny face, your dark curious eyes and your mysterious angelic smile. I feel so attached to you, my child. Calm down now, little fetus, I cannot sleep with you rolling around. And stop sucking your thumb so loudly!
BABY! BABY!! JOY TO THE WORLD!!!
I came into my world weighing just over six pounds and six ounces. I was shocked by a sudden bright white light, a cold chill and searing pain in my behind. I must have cried like a baby for about fifteen minutes but while I layed on my mother's stomach the sound of her beating heart was a comforting familiar sound. This place is very different from my previous home. My stay in my home was short lived, about eight months. At the time I was in my blue heaven. I wanted for nothing; it was warm and melodious all the time and I simply floated in my own gentle ocean and dreamt the sweetest dreams. If I had my way I could have lived in my "Garden of Eden" for eternity and a day. I swear I did not do anything to deserve being rudely evicted from my heaven! I tried very hard to resist the intermittent pushing and shoving, and I almost overcame the last push I felt in the putuckus but some great force kept pulling on me and pulling on me. I cried "Let go off me! Who are you?" but the great beast's huge hands just kept pulling on my head relentlessly!
Anyways, things have gotten a whole lot better around here. As time goes on I miss my blue heaven less and less. I could easily get used to this. My servants are always there for me. In fact they downright spoil me! They say they can't help themselves because I am so darn cute and cuddly (This is true). All this hugging and kissing has got to stop! (I really don't mind. If truth be told, I can't get enough).I want for nothing. But I must admit I can be fussy. They feed me at least six times a day with snacks in between. I do get gassy but they pretend not to notice. If I get too fat I will know who to blame. I enjoy back rubs, massages, sauna baths and I have my own personal tanning room. My very kindly handmaidens sing and rock me to sleep gently. Only after I am well rested do they dare awaken me (I need my beauty sleep).What can I say; I am the center of their world. They wait on me hand and foot. Each one excitedly waits his or her turn to please me. They are growing on me. I am so overjoyed. My people love me. I love my servants!
and you continue to develop. Ah my embryo: look at your funny face, your dark curious eyes and your mysterious angelic smile. I feel so attached to you, my child. Calm down now, little fetus, I cannot sleep with you rolling around. And stop sucking your thumb so loudly!
BABY! BABY!! JOY TO THE WORLD!!!
I came into my world weighing just over six pounds and six ounces. I was shocked by a sudden bright white light, a cold chill and searing pain in my behind. I must have cried like a baby for about fifteen minutes but while I layed on my mother's stomach the sound of her beating heart was a comforting familiar sound. This place is very different from my previous home. My stay in my home was short lived, about eight months. At the time I was in my blue heaven. I wanted for nothing; it was warm and melodious all the time and I simply floated in my own gentle ocean and dreamt the sweetest dreams. If I had my way I could have lived in my "Garden of Eden" for eternity and a day. I swear I did not do anything to deserve being rudely evicted from my heaven! I tried very hard to resist the intermittent pushing and shoving, and I almost overcame the last push I felt in the putuckus but some great force kept pulling on me and pulling on me. I cried "Let go off me! Who are you?" but the great beast's huge hands just kept pulling on my head relentlessly!
Anyways, things have gotten a whole lot better around here. As time goes on I miss my blue heaven less and less. I could easily get used to this. My servants are always there for me. In fact they downright spoil me! They say they can't help themselves because I am so darn cute and cuddly (This is true). All this hugging and kissing has got to stop! (I really don't mind. If truth be told, I can't get enough).I want for nothing. But I must admit I can be fussy. They feed me at least six times a day with snacks in between. I do get gassy but they pretend not to notice. If I get too fat I will know who to blame. I enjoy back rubs, massages, sauna baths and I have my own personal tanning room. My very kindly handmaidens sing and rock me to sleep gently. Only after I am well rested do they dare awaken me (I need my beauty sleep).What can I say; I am the center of their world. They wait on me hand and foot. Each one excitedly waits his or her turn to please me. They are growing on me. I am so overjoyed. My people love me. I love my servants!
REALITY
Reality, objective and subjective, is an evolving dynamic network of unique individualities. Everything is deeply connected with everything else.
Staying connected with each other is the optimal means by which each of us can achieve our ultimate purpose of letting each's individuality shine as brightly as is possible.
Each of us is a unique expression of the one common essence. You and I are inextricably and deeply embedded in this ONE reality. Each of us is but a teaspoon of water that emerged from the same waters. Each of us is but a particularly shaped container containing a scoop of this same waters. So it is no wonder that we have so much in common with each other.
ONENESS does not only mean we have a common identity, it also means each of us is especially unique. We are one in the sense that each of us arose from the same source. We are one in the sense that each of us is connected to the ONE source. Yes, we are ONE with the source that we emerged from but we rose up from the ONE by each of us taking our own special historical path. To fulfill our special unique destiny, our purpose in life, we have to experience all that each of us have to offer to each of us in our particular individual way. Your experiences are not a clone of the experiences of others. You take those experiences to express your own personal and unique individuality through it. When you express your unique self through an experience you partake of, you can lay claim to it and make it uniquely yours.
The more you disconnect from the whole unbroken piece of cloth that is reality, the weaker you become as an individuality, and the quicker you become impoverished in body, mind and spirit. A baby is pre-primed ready. The world is pre-primed ready. Ready for what? Ready to experience each other. As the child emerges from the womb he breathes in oxygen deeply. Why was he born with lungs? In the anticipation of air in the world. Why is a baby fish born with gills? In anticipation of a water world. The world pre-primed itself expecting the baby. The baby pre-primed itself expecting to be welcomed into the world. The baby is a new chance for the world to be the best it can be in all possible ways. For the baby the world is an evolving world of continuing new and more exciting experiences. The experiences of the baby in the world and the experiences of the world expressing itself uniquely through the baby are deeply satisfying for both. It is a win win.
A poor innocent babe born with a weak heart became disconnected from the wholeness in one way or the other: a defective gene, exposure to harmful drugs while developing in the womb. Because of the defective genes or congenital poisons, there is a mismatch, a disconnect between it and its world. Its pre-priming is below optimal. The world was pre-primed to receive an optimal heart. Both baby and the world are sadly disappointed by the disconnect. The world has a more difficult time nurturing the baby's heart back to optimal health and weeps for the child. The child falls behind in reaching its mile stones of development. But both the child and the world have much reserves that can be tapped into. The baby and the world can reconnect.
When we reconnect more and more with our world we can recover. When we disconnect more and more we hardly ever make it on our own. To become the best that you can be stay connected. It is good for you and good for the rest of us.
Staying connected with each other is the optimal means by which each of us can achieve our ultimate purpose of letting each's individuality shine as brightly as is possible.
Each of us is a unique expression of the one common essence. You and I are inextricably and deeply embedded in this ONE reality. Each of us is but a teaspoon of water that emerged from the same waters. Each of us is but a particularly shaped container containing a scoop of this same waters. So it is no wonder that we have so much in common with each other.
ONENESS does not only mean we have a common identity, it also means each of us is especially unique. We are one in the sense that each of us arose from the same source. We are one in the sense that each of us is connected to the ONE source. Yes, we are ONE with the source that we emerged from but we rose up from the ONE by each of us taking our own special historical path. To fulfill our special unique destiny, our purpose in life, we have to experience all that each of us have to offer to each of us in our particular individual way. Your experiences are not a clone of the experiences of others. You take those experiences to express your own personal and unique individuality through it. When you express your unique self through an experience you partake of, you can lay claim to it and make it uniquely yours.
The more you disconnect from the whole unbroken piece of cloth that is reality, the weaker you become as an individuality, and the quicker you become impoverished in body, mind and spirit. A baby is pre-primed ready. The world is pre-primed ready. Ready for what? Ready to experience each other. As the child emerges from the womb he breathes in oxygen deeply. Why was he born with lungs? In the anticipation of air in the world. Why is a baby fish born with gills? In anticipation of a water world. The world pre-primed itself expecting the baby. The baby pre-primed itself expecting to be welcomed into the world. The baby is a new chance for the world to be the best it can be in all possible ways. For the baby the world is an evolving world of continuing new and more exciting experiences. The experiences of the baby in the world and the experiences of the world expressing itself uniquely through the baby are deeply satisfying for both. It is a win win.
A poor innocent babe born with a weak heart became disconnected from the wholeness in one way or the other: a defective gene, exposure to harmful drugs while developing in the womb. Because of the defective genes or congenital poisons, there is a mismatch, a disconnect between it and its world. Its pre-priming is below optimal. The world was pre-primed to receive an optimal heart. Both baby and the world are sadly disappointed by the disconnect. The world has a more difficult time nurturing the baby's heart back to optimal health and weeps for the child. The child falls behind in reaching its mile stones of development. But both the child and the world have much reserves that can be tapped into. The baby and the world can reconnect.
When we reconnect more and more with our world we can recover. When we disconnect more and more we hardly ever make it on our own. To become the best that you can be stay connected. It is good for you and good for the rest of us.
BIRTH AND EVOLUTION OF A UNIVERSE_COSMIC MICROWAVE BACKGROUND
Imagine sitting on the beach looking out at the ocean. You suddenly notice a beach ball floating on the water. The beach ball suddenly swells to the size of a hot air balloon filled with hot gas. The hot gas suddenly turns into hot sand (QUARKS & ELECTRONS). Then most of the sand disappears (becoming PHOTONS) but now the balloon is filled with super hot sand (quarks and electrons) and the super heat (super hot photons) inside the super hot balloon causes it to continue to swell up faster and faster. The super hot sand cools some and clumps together and turns into a larger ball of very hot granules (PROTONS & NEUTRONS) filling up the balloon. The balloon continues its expansion a little slower. The granules clump together into small pebbles (HYDROGEN ATOMS, mostly), and now the growing balloon continues to swell, filled up with a hot ball of pebbles.
As it swells bigger, the balloon gradually becomes transparent and you can now see a mixture of boulders (STARS), gigantic boulders (SUPER-GIANT STARS)and monster giant boulders (GALAXIES) filling up the humongously large but cooler balloon. The balloon is now much lighter than air. The weight of the various hot and cold stuff now filling it up initially slows down the balloon’s expansion but as the warm stuff thins out this "hot air balloon" becomes lighter and lighter.
The tension in the skin of the balloon is called THE COSMOLOGICAL CONSTANT. The cosmological constant, as its name implies, is a built-in constant repulsive force intrinsic to the balloon. It works to prevent its deflation and collapse. This tension in its skin and the heat of the hot stuff in it cause the hot balloon's continued expansion. The weight of the stuff in it (known as THE FORCE OF GRAVITY) is an opposing attractive tension trying to shrink and crush the balloon. However, the force of gravity gets weaker and weaker as the stuff in the humongous balloon thins out. The increasing expansion begins slow at first, until a point is reached in which the balloon begins to quickly expand under the relentless repulsive tension of the cosmological constant.
The original beach ball floating on the ocean (the Megaverse) near the shores is just one of a great many beach balls floating on the ocean. In fact the ocean is filled up with beach balls of various sizes covering the surface of the ocean out to the horizon. There might be more beach balls of various sizes (in this “Multiverse”) than you can see, but, because they may be beyond the horizon (beyond the boundary of your universe), you are not able to see them from where you are stretched out on your beach chair.
If you go for a swim in the ocean and dive under the water you will see that the ocean water is filled up with tiny little bubbles of gas. Bubbles of gas appear, pop and disappear. Bubbles in the water are always appearing and disappearing. Once in a blue moon a really big bubble will appear and suddenly appear on the surface of the ocean. It grows as big as a beach ball and floats on the ocean. More beach balls pop up on the surface. Some of them pop and disappear. Other beach ball size bubbles will suddenly swell and get heavier. Suddenly the beach ball swells to the size of a hot air balloon filled with hot gas. The hot gas suddenly turns into hot sand . . .
Let us properly translate the above metaphor into the language of cosmology.
Cosmologists looking out in the universe through The Hubble Space Telescope are like you sitting on the beach looking out at the ocean. After looking deep into the cosmos they see a spherical ball of light suddenly appear out of seemingly nowhere. They observe this spherical ball of light expanding rapidly. If the ball of light was initially as big as a beach ball, after a tiny fraction of a thousandth of a nanosecond it was as big as the solar system! If you compare the huge hot air balloon to the solar system, then the solar system is filled with hot gas.
As the solar system sized universe continues to rapidly swell up, the hot gas cools a little and congeals into quarks, antiquarks, electrons and positrons. (This is the hot sand in the beach scene). When quarks and antiquarks collide they disappear leaving pure photon energy; when electrons and positrons collide they disappear turning into pure photons. As the photon energy fills up the young universe the left over quarks and electrons are superheated and the heat of the super hot photons drive it to swell more and more humongously. As the universe expands the left over quarks start to stick together creating protons and neutrons. This is equivalent to the very hot granules in the story.
A hydrogen atom is a proton with an electron stuck to it. The earliest atoms that formed were mostly these pebbles. When protons and neutrons clump together they form a helium nucleus containing two protons and two neutrons; two electron stuck to this clump is a helium atom. More than ninety-nine percent of the atoms in this original congealing cloud are hydrogen and helium atoms. The universe’s contents are mostly hydrogen and helium atoms but there are extremely tiny amounts of Lithium and Beryllium atoms in the mix (relatively speaking). The huge spherical cloud of mostly hydrogen atoms is very cold and heavy, and the hydrogen atoms in the middle of the cold heavy mass of hydrogen atom cloud are under tremendous pressure. This extreme pressure squeezes the hydrogen atoms together and this crushing gravitational fusion of hydrogen gas (known as thermonuclear fusion) turns into stars.
The "boulders" and "gigantic boulders" we talked about in the story represent the birth of small stars and big stars. As this fusion process continues more and more stars are born and they group together in large collections called galaxies. The monster giant boulders? Galaxies! The universe is still expanding but now it is expanding very slowly because the gravitational attraction of the galaxies is slowing down the expansion more and more. However over time (billions of years) the distance between the galaxies is so wide that the force of gravity becomes very very very weak. The “membrane" of the balloon is equivalent to the space-time fabric skin of the universe. As I mentioned, there is a constant tension in the membrane of the balloon that is trying to make it swell also. Similarly there is a tension in the space-time fabric skin of the universe. This constant tension of stretch is called The Cosmological Constant. The gravitational attraction of the material stuff inside the universe is now too weak to resist this tension and so the expansion of the universe is no longer slowing down but is instead swiftly speeding up.
The source of our universe is a large reservoir of quantum fluctuations of very tiny quantum sized space-time bubbles. These bubbles appear and disappear at random all the time. The bubbles have vacuum energy, or inflation energy, stored within the membrane of its space-time fabric. The constant energy tension provides the bubble's repulsive force but the surrounding ocean of quantum fluctuations resist this repulsive tendency.
Every so often a bubble, by pure chance, finds a path of least resistance and begins to rise. As it does so it begins to inflate and the decreasing density may get it to the ocean's surface where it floats. With no resistance the inflation energy of energetic inflatons seeps into the bubble's cavity. As the bubble inflates, the inflatons congeal and transforms into quarks, antiquarks, electrons and antielectrons that fill up the ballooning bubble.
As a result of this early physics a billion antiquarks and a billion and one quarks annihilate each other, and a billion hot energetic photons are created leaving one quark in a billion. The same fate meets the antielectrons, leaving one electron out of a billion and creating a billion more hot energetic photons. The super heating by the ocean of photons continues the expansion of the humongous quickly expanding bubble. The relative trace amounts of quarks cool more and more and quarks begin to stick together forming protons and neutrons. Protons are long-lived (many, many billions and billions of years). Neutrons start to disintegrate into protons unless they partner up with protons within ten and half minutes!
Single protons are the most numerous. A good portion of these protons and neutrons stick together to form proton-neutron clumps.Then a large portion of these proton-neutron bits stick together to form clumps of 2-proton/2-neutron clumps called a HELIUM NUCLEUS. When a single electron sticks to a single proton a hydrogen atom is born. When two electrons stick to a helium nucleus a helium atom is born.
After this bit of early chemistry takes place the huge cloud of atoms is mainly hydrogen and helium, and tiny traces of lithium and beryllium atoms. Lithium is a 3-proton/3-neutron/3-electron pebble. Beryllium is a 4-proton/4-neutron/4-electron pebble. This congealing ball consists of seventy-five percent hydrogen atoms, less than twenty-five percent helium atoms and a relatively very tiny trace (less than 1%)of lithium and beryllium atoms.
The stupendously bloated expanding universe is becoming transparent as the photons fly off en mass from the huge cloud of mainly cooled hydrogen atoms. This super cooled mass initially containing only a bulk of hydrogen and helium, and trace amounts of lithium and beryllium get increasingly heavier under the crushing force of gravity until the bulk of hydrogen atoms in the center of the cloud begin to fuse together to create the first stars that shine from the photon energy released by the fusion of hydrogen atoms. The physics of the process of nuclear fusion squeezes hydrogen atoms together, first producing more helium and eventually manufacturing more lithium and beryllium, and eventually all the heavier elements found in the periodic table.
The "Love-Child"
of the so-called BIG BANG birth of the universe was that original congealing mass of quarks and electrons bathing in its amniotic fluid of an ocean of photons. This beautiful neonate came out of The Big Bang glowing brightly. The baby universe laid in its crib dressed up in brightly colored garments. When we flip through "The Photo Album of My Wonder Years", that is, when we look out deeply into the past of the 13.7 billion year old universe, we can see its baby pictures.
The earliest snap shots of the baby universe is called The COSMIC MICROWAVE BACKGROUND.
The vast majority of stars in the universe are later generation stars of normal size like our Sun that can burn bright for ten billion years. Stars collect into a variety of large herds called galaxies, like the Milky Way.
Galaxies collect into clusters
and super clusters.
A few million of the hundreds of billions of stars that make up a galaxy are super giants,
like Polaris and super red giants, like Betelgeuse. Earlier generation giants like Polaris live fast and die young (two to three million years). However, these original giant stars are the "cooking pots" of the heavier elements in the universe. Except for the first elements (hydrogen, helium, lithium and beryllium) created by The Big Bang birth of the universe, the rest of the hundred or so other heavier elements are cooked up in these first generation giant stars, which can be two to a million times the mass of the Sun.
When super giants
like the red giant, Betelgeuse
and the blue giant, Regulus
eventually explode
in a tremendous rage called a SUPERNOVA, they spew all their manufactured elements into the surrounding clouds of hydrogen. The new later generation stars that form from this cloud incorporate the mountains of seeds of these "newly minted" hundred or so different elements. Piles of element seeds (Phosphorous, Hydrogen, Oxygen, Nitrogen, Iodine, Carbon, Sulfur, Nickle, Lead, Platinum, Gold, etc)) that are not locked up in the new sun clump together and revolve around the star. The biggest pieces grow bigger by gravitationally attracting and collecting the smaller clumps
This process of accretion in a star system creates the orbiting planets, like in our SOLAR SYSTEM: The rocky planets
Mercury, Venus, our home planet the Earth and Mars; the gas giant planets
Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune; and the diminutive ice-dwarf planets Pluto, Ceres and Eris.
From an original flock of thousands or so original protoplanets in the solar system, only about ten survived after the feeding frenzy. However, Between Mars and Jupiter is a wall of thousands of chunks of smaller pieces of rocks called the Asteroid Belt.
And just outside of the dwarf planets Pluto and Eris is a belt made up of a mix of tens of thousands of asteroids and rubble-piles of large snow ball-ices (COMETS) called the Kuiper Belt.
And way beyond this belt is a cloud of tens of billions of comets called the Oort Cloud,
forming the outermost spherical boundary of our solar system.
Planets
provide a haven for chemistry to continue to take place. Hydrogen, Oxygen, Nitrogen, CO2 and Methane gases, and Carbon, Sulfur, Iron, Lead and Uranium solids, and liquids like H2O have better "chemistry" with one another rooming closer together within smaller, cozier, "tents" like the EARTH
as compared to being scattered far and wide in the great expanse of outer space. Under the friendlier earthy conditions, carbon compounds like hydrocarbons and carbohydrates, and nitrogen compounds like amino acids and nucleic acids find it easier to soup together and intimately fraternize under these better and stabler chemical conditions.
Nucleic acids form long chains known as RIBONUCLEIC ACIDS and DEOXY-RIBONUCLEIC ACIDS (RNA & DNA). Of the billions upon billions of different types of stable molecules that form within the Earth's chemical haven, only these two types of molecules happen to posses the ability to copy themselves. DNA is a gigantically long chain of nucleic acid molecules that only resides in each of our cell's NUCLEUS. It contains the information of how to organize and link up AMINO ACID molecules into long chains called PROTEINS. RNA is the other chain of nucleic acids. Compared to the gigantically long DNA, RNA
is short. RNA copies the DNA-stored information of how to make the protein insulin, for example.
RNA takes this information out of the cell nucleus to the sites of protein manufacture. These sites of protein synthesis, called RIBOSOMES, reside outside in the cell's CYTOPLASM. The ribosomes read the RNA blueprint copy of how to organize amino acids into the particular long amino acid chain called hemoglobin, for example, a vital protein needed to transport oxygen that the mitochondria uses to meet our ATP energy needs.
As science pieces together the jigsaw puzzle of data gathered from observations, research and experimentation, the conception, birth and evolution of our life friendly universe is becoming clearer. It appears to be a natural history and logical progression that is tangible through rational perception. There is no inexplicable mystery. It does appear to be a miracle at first glance but the apparent miracle is an illusion. If you very patiently pore through the scientific data and research literature, the logic and history of reality explains itself.
As it swells bigger, the balloon gradually becomes transparent and you can now see a mixture of boulders (STARS), gigantic boulders (SUPER-GIANT STARS)and monster giant boulders (GALAXIES) filling up the humongously large but cooler balloon. The balloon is now much lighter than air. The weight of the various hot and cold stuff now filling it up initially slows down the balloon’s expansion but as the warm stuff thins out this "hot air balloon" becomes lighter and lighter.
The tension in the skin of the balloon is called THE COSMOLOGICAL CONSTANT. The cosmological constant, as its name implies, is a built-in constant repulsive force intrinsic to the balloon. It works to prevent its deflation and collapse. This tension in its skin and the heat of the hot stuff in it cause the hot balloon's continued expansion. The weight of the stuff in it (known as THE FORCE OF GRAVITY) is an opposing attractive tension trying to shrink and crush the balloon. However, the force of gravity gets weaker and weaker as the stuff in the humongous balloon thins out. The increasing expansion begins slow at first, until a point is reached in which the balloon begins to quickly expand under the relentless repulsive tension of the cosmological constant.
The original beach ball floating on the ocean (the Megaverse) near the shores is just one of a great many beach balls floating on the ocean. In fact the ocean is filled up with beach balls of various sizes covering the surface of the ocean out to the horizon. There might be more beach balls of various sizes (in this “Multiverse”) than you can see, but, because they may be beyond the horizon (beyond the boundary of your universe), you are not able to see them from where you are stretched out on your beach chair.
If you go for a swim in the ocean and dive under the water you will see that the ocean water is filled up with tiny little bubbles of gas. Bubbles of gas appear, pop and disappear. Bubbles in the water are always appearing and disappearing. Once in a blue moon a really big bubble will appear and suddenly appear on the surface of the ocean. It grows as big as a beach ball and floats on the ocean. More beach balls pop up on the surface. Some of them pop and disappear. Other beach ball size bubbles will suddenly swell and get heavier. Suddenly the beach ball swells to the size of a hot air balloon filled with hot gas. The hot gas suddenly turns into hot sand . . .
Let us properly translate the above metaphor into the language of cosmology.
Cosmologists looking out in the universe through The Hubble Space Telescope are like you sitting on the beach looking out at the ocean. After looking deep into the cosmos they see a spherical ball of light suddenly appear out of seemingly nowhere. They observe this spherical ball of light expanding rapidly. If the ball of light was initially as big as a beach ball, after a tiny fraction of a thousandth of a nanosecond it was as big as the solar system! If you compare the huge hot air balloon to the solar system, then the solar system is filled with hot gas.
As the solar system sized universe continues to rapidly swell up, the hot gas cools a little and congeals into quarks, antiquarks, electrons and positrons. (This is the hot sand in the beach scene). When quarks and antiquarks collide they disappear leaving pure photon energy; when electrons and positrons collide they disappear turning into pure photons. As the photon energy fills up the young universe the left over quarks and electrons are superheated and the heat of the super hot photons drive it to swell more and more humongously. As the universe expands the left over quarks start to stick together creating protons and neutrons. This is equivalent to the very hot granules in the story.
A hydrogen atom is a proton with an electron stuck to it. The earliest atoms that formed were mostly these pebbles. When protons and neutrons clump together they form a helium nucleus containing two protons and two neutrons; two electron stuck to this clump is a helium atom. More than ninety-nine percent of the atoms in this original congealing cloud are hydrogen and helium atoms. The universe’s contents are mostly hydrogen and helium atoms but there are extremely tiny amounts of Lithium and Beryllium atoms in the mix (relatively speaking). The huge spherical cloud of mostly hydrogen atoms is very cold and heavy, and the hydrogen atoms in the middle of the cold heavy mass of hydrogen atom cloud are under tremendous pressure. This extreme pressure squeezes the hydrogen atoms together and this crushing gravitational fusion of hydrogen gas (known as thermonuclear fusion) turns into stars.
The "boulders" and "gigantic boulders" we talked about in the story represent the birth of small stars and big stars. As this fusion process continues more and more stars are born and they group together in large collections called galaxies. The monster giant boulders? Galaxies! The universe is still expanding but now it is expanding very slowly because the gravitational attraction of the galaxies is slowing down the expansion more and more. However over time (billions of years) the distance between the galaxies is so wide that the force of gravity becomes very very very weak. The “membrane" of the balloon is equivalent to the space-time fabric skin of the universe. As I mentioned, there is a constant tension in the membrane of the balloon that is trying to make it swell also. Similarly there is a tension in the space-time fabric skin of the universe. This constant tension of stretch is called The Cosmological Constant. The gravitational attraction of the material stuff inside the universe is now too weak to resist this tension and so the expansion of the universe is no longer slowing down but is instead swiftly speeding up.
The source of our universe is a large reservoir of quantum fluctuations of very tiny quantum sized space-time bubbles. These bubbles appear and disappear at random all the time. The bubbles have vacuum energy, or inflation energy, stored within the membrane of its space-time fabric. The constant energy tension provides the bubble's repulsive force but the surrounding ocean of quantum fluctuations resist this repulsive tendency.
Every so often a bubble, by pure chance, finds a path of least resistance and begins to rise. As it does so it begins to inflate and the decreasing density may get it to the ocean's surface where it floats. With no resistance the inflation energy of energetic inflatons seeps into the bubble's cavity. As the bubble inflates, the inflatons congeal and transforms into quarks, antiquarks, electrons and antielectrons that fill up the ballooning bubble.
As a result of this early physics a billion antiquarks and a billion and one quarks annihilate each other, and a billion hot energetic photons are created leaving one quark in a billion. The same fate meets the antielectrons, leaving one electron out of a billion and creating a billion more hot energetic photons. The super heating by the ocean of photons continues the expansion of the humongous quickly expanding bubble. The relative trace amounts of quarks cool more and more and quarks begin to stick together forming protons and neutrons. Protons are long-lived (many, many billions and billions of years). Neutrons start to disintegrate into protons unless they partner up with protons within ten and half minutes!
Single protons are the most numerous. A good portion of these protons and neutrons stick together to form proton-neutron clumps.Then a large portion of these proton-neutron bits stick together to form clumps of 2-proton/2-neutron clumps called a HELIUM NUCLEUS. When a single electron sticks to a single proton a hydrogen atom is born. When two electrons stick to a helium nucleus a helium atom is born.
After this bit of early chemistry takes place the huge cloud of atoms is mainly hydrogen and helium, and tiny traces of lithium and beryllium atoms. Lithium is a 3-proton/3-neutron/3-electron pebble. Beryllium is a 4-proton/4-neutron/4-electron pebble. This congealing ball consists of seventy-five percent hydrogen atoms, less than twenty-five percent helium atoms and a relatively very tiny trace (less than 1%)of lithium and beryllium atoms.
The stupendously bloated expanding universe is becoming transparent as the photons fly off en mass from the huge cloud of mainly cooled hydrogen atoms. This super cooled mass initially containing only a bulk of hydrogen and helium, and trace amounts of lithium and beryllium get increasingly heavier under the crushing force of gravity until the bulk of hydrogen atoms in the center of the cloud begin to fuse together to create the first stars that shine from the photon energy released by the fusion of hydrogen atoms. The physics of the process of nuclear fusion squeezes hydrogen atoms together, first producing more helium and eventually manufacturing more lithium and beryllium, and eventually all the heavier elements found in the periodic table.
The "Love-Child"
The vast majority of stars in the universe are later generation stars of normal size like our Sun that can burn bright for ten billion years. Stars collect into a variety of large herds called galaxies, like the Milky Way.
When super giants
This process of accretion in a star system creates the orbiting planets, like in our SOLAR SYSTEM: The rocky planets
Planets
Nucleic acids form long chains known as RIBONUCLEIC ACIDS and DEOXY-RIBONUCLEIC ACIDS (RNA & DNA). Of the billions upon billions of different types of stable molecules that form within the Earth's chemical haven, only these two types of molecules happen to posses the ability to copy themselves. DNA is a gigantically long chain of nucleic acid molecules that only resides in each of our cell's NUCLEUS. It contains the information of how to organize and link up AMINO ACID molecules into long chains called PROTEINS. RNA is the other chain of nucleic acids. Compared to the gigantically long DNA, RNA
RNA takes this information out of the cell nucleus to the sites of protein manufacture. These sites of protein synthesis, called RIBOSOMES, reside outside in the cell's CYTOPLASM. The ribosomes read the RNA blueprint copy of how to organize amino acids into the particular long amino acid chain called hemoglobin, for example, a vital protein needed to transport oxygen that the mitochondria uses to meet our ATP energy needs.
As science pieces together the jigsaw puzzle of data gathered from observations, research and experimentation, the conception, birth and evolution of our life friendly universe is becoming clearer. It appears to be a natural history and logical progression that is tangible through rational perception. There is no inexplicable mystery. It does appear to be a miracle at first glance but the apparent miracle is an illusion. If you very patiently pore through the scientific data and research literature, the logic and history of reality explains itself.
PHILOSOPHICAL PROSE: KNOW THYSELF
The whole witnesses itself self-generating itself. What it was yesterday and what it will be tomorrow shapes what it is becoming today. The whole renews itself continuously (infinitely?) through transforming its parts in the process of birth, life and death. The whole remains itself as it experiences through all its parts. Each part contributes to the total experience of the whole. Each part is a unique expression of the whole. As the part lives its experiences it can only maintain its integrity by being one with the whole.
If you look back on your life you remember being in kindergarten. You gradually became self aware as you watched yourself grow up into an adult, naturally, through your own self expression. How your life is today is being shaped by how you lived your life yesterday and how you plan to live your life tomorrow. Lively Little Yolly is self-renewed into Youthful Young Yolanda. Yolanda is preparing herself to become Mrs. Yolanda Yorkshire. The child becomes a young lady and the young lady prepares herself to be an adult. You feel your mind expanding and your body transforming. All through your life experiences you continually change, but it does not change who you know you are and who you know you are not. But you ask yourself "Who am I?"
I am not you, I am not him nor her; I am me. My heart pumps, circulating oxygenated nutrient blood to my whole body, and I feel empty without my heart. Am I my heart? If not, who am I? My brain orchestrates and coordinates the functioning of all my organ systems. My brain is essential to my mind and body. Am I my brain? If not, who am I? My mind ponders and wanders. I day dream and wonder about my life and this existence. Without my mind I am not me. Am I somewhere in my mind? If so where am I? I know I need every part of me to be whole, to be all that I am.
I look at you and you ask me: "Who are you?" I enjoy listening to you wax poetically about the dance, dinner and movie you enjoyed last evening. I myself stuffed my face with some delicious oxtail and rice and peas, laughed myself to tears watching "Sex and The City" at the movies and partied all night long last night. We both think it is great to be alive, love life and have fun. . . but what is life about and who is this "I" who is enjoying it?
Who I am today was as a result of my personal journey through life up to this point in time and space. What personal journey I start today to arrive at some future time and space depends on my inner fortitude, the goals I set for myself, and the will, desire and needs in my life, here and now. Today. But, as much as I have free will, I could not get here without you; we both got here by supporting each other. I might need you more than you need me now but you needed me more yesterday and we are going to need each other to see us through.
I see myself in my parents. My mother sees herself in my grandmother. My grandmother sees herself in my mother and my mother sees herself in me.
I have my father's strong will, my mother's love and my grandmother's wisdom. I carry their values in me and with me, and endeavor to pass them on to you. The part of me that is me that I discovered in my life’s journey is special and unique. The part of me that I was born with was entrusted to me from my parents, my grandmother and her parents. I exist because my parents were successful in life. I am here because my grandmother did not give up on my mother and she did not give up on me. I will not give up on myself. I have to succeed so you will succeed. Our ancestors dared to continue on in the face of adversity, pain, death and destruction. We stand tall today because we are aloft on their broad shoulders. We have our freer wills, we have richer independent lives and a brighter individual future because they were there for us and continue to live in each of us.
So who am I and who are you I? I am me, and you are you. But we are deeply connected. You are a unique individual made up of a unique set of contributions provided by each of us in one way or another. As you live your unique personal life you put your own personal stamp on each contribution and make them your own. You learn from me but you don’t clone my experiences. You express what you observe in your own personal way. You have to make your life in your own way but you shouldn’t just live for yourself. You have to balance your wants, desires and needs with those of your family, friends and neighbors. It is not only the proper thing to do but your life experiences will be richer for it. Be mindful that you are a part of something, that you are not just yourself. If you are just only selfish and do not share or do not do your part to help maintain the upkeep of you family your life will be poorer for it. When you play your part to help take care of your world and our world, not only will all our children be better for it, but it is a little better because you are in it. I have to both live for my benefit and for the benefit of the world because the world lives in me. You, me, and we are deeply connected. We belong. I am a unique expression of the world. You are a unique expression of the world. We are the world.
I am typing on my desktop PC with the help of my right middle finger. When each part of me does what each does best, I can serve myself and all of me well. My mind says, 'Middle Finger on my Right Hand, 'M', I, we, need you now; and I reply, matter-of-factly, 'And, mind, without you, I, along with M, would be less than what we are right now.'
I woke up yesterday realizing that I am. I am a unity of my brain, heart and mind, etc. I embrace Lindsey, Ashley, Jason, Winny, my mother; my granddad, "Daddy"; uncle Vernie, Keithy, Freddy, Howie, Chester, my auntie Cherry, my many cousins and the rest of my family; and all my friends. My brain allows the different parts of me to talk to each other. My warm beating heart fuels my body. My mind reminds me that Linny and Ash warms my heart, that I love my wife and my mom, Daddy and each one of my uncles, auntie Cherry and each of my cousins; that I have good friends in Jack and Linda. I see now that each contributes to making me the better person that I am today. I would hasten to add that, maybe, I have made a little difference in the quality of the lives of each. As we grow together we are becoming more than the sum of each of us.
I am thinking I am waking up more. Right now I am more awake than yesterday and if I stay focused I will be more awake tomorrow. As I sit right here I am transforming. I say " I am one hundred percent me" and as I speak these words what I was a moment ago is changing, becoming what I will be in the next moments. I am always becoming one hundred percent me but I never quite get there. Which is good because I am never perfect even though I strive for perfection.
I am that is. I am Charley at this moment in this place. A moment ago I was a little less me. I continue to be at this moment but more so. A moment from now I will be Charley but richer in body, mind and spirit. I am that is, and I can only experience this moment. I will continue to be through self transformation of all of my infinite parts. If each part of me does what each part does best I will continue to be and continue to change for eternity.
I am that is. I am Sycamore Tree this second on Earth. Two thousand years ago I was not Sycamore Tree but I was contained in the seed of whom and what I am now. I am Sycamore Tree at this moment. A thousand years from now I will not be Sycamore Tree; I will have transformed as my experiences continue to transform me. Through experience I am knowing myself more and more, becoming more aware. I know myself: I am that is.
There is a mystery here. The mystery was, is and will continue to be solved. For all eternity. At one moment at a time. And it is always only partially solvable.
Right now all I can say is that the mystery is awake. Before it was awake it was asleep. The Mystery awoke to indecision, struggling with questions and answers. It found answers but in so doing the mystery begat more questions and answers. Sometimes it had more answers than questions, and at other times it had more questions than answers to ponder. The Mystery, now in motion with questions and answers, and, trying to decide to go up or down, went both Up and Down in time and space. As it went up in time and space, down was just behind it and up was just ahead. The mystery was moving here, there and everywhere in space and time. Its negative energy and its inertia slowed it down but the mystery is also imbued with positive energy and never stopped its onward progressive march through space and time. The mystery continues its stroll through space and time as a particle, as well as a wave, and as me. . .
I was born some years ago. At that time there were questions and answers about my eventual fate. I became aware of myself and my family. I only knew at that time that I was looking into my mother's eyes. She did not know who I was or why I was here, or what was going to happen next. But she loved me and I felt safe. At that time I had questions and answers and I became curiouser and curiouser. . .
I looked into your eyes and I felt I had purpose in my life again. I belong to you, and you are my beloved. I am in love and it feels good. It sure feels right to feel good! Together we make our journey. Sometimes I get lost on the way but the light of your love puts me back on track. I am thankful for you. I want you to benefit from my experience and spare you from not making the mistakes I did, but even so you can only grow by making your own mistakes. I get upset with you but it is only because I know life can be bitter-sweet. You get pissed off at me but it's only because you know the world can be a dangerous place to live in. When you get lost, know that I will come looking to find you. If I get lost I will be reaching out for you. When you mess up or do wrong I will eventually come around to forgiving you. I don't want to hurt you but when I do I beg your forgiveness. There isn't pleasure without pain. Hate tries to harden the heart but love melts it again. We shouldn't be afraid to love because of hate, because love will always be around to dissolve hate.
OK. Enough with the poetry.
Here is the logical answer. If you pick a part a whole body, removing all its parts, it does not exist. Consider your body. . .
The ear hears. The eye sees. The nose smells. The tongue tastes and the skin feels touch. I have ears to hear, eyes to see, a nose to smell with and a tongue to taste with. But who or where am "I"? If you take away my heart, my kidney, my feet . . . if you remove every part of me, cell by cell, I no longer exist. The truth is that a little of me lives in each one of my cells but I am greater than the sum of my parts. "I", am the essence living in every part of me. Without me none of the cells of my body even have a purpose.
I started off life as a single cell. Then I was two cells, then four. . .
"I" was a single cell. This cell copied itself. Then there were two. Where am "I"? Am I THE first cell, IN the copied cell or am "I" both cells, or am "I" in both cells? Look at a baby. The baby is an organization of about a trillion cells. Is the baby made of cells or is what it IS in each of its cells? Consider a baby from conception to birth. If you go backward in time the WHOLE baby shrinks to a WHOLE fetus. The WHOLE fetus shrinks to the size of the small WHOLE embryo. The WHOLE embryo shrinks to the smaller size of a WHOLE zygote. Finally the WHOLE zygote shrinks to the smallest size the baby can be: ONE WHOLE cell. Reverse time and the whole baby would shrink back into a whole cell. A cell is the smallest part of a baby. If you do not watch the cell under a microscope but only with your naked eye you see a cell “swelling up" into a zygote. The zygote swells into an embryo. It grows into a fetus, and the fetus, at birth, becomes a baby.
The baby is, essentially, a program. The genetic program is the information of how to make another human being. This information, this essence, is in every one of your cells. Each cell is a unique expression of the genetic programming. 3.85 billion years ago or so, a simple cell emerged on this life-friendly Earth. This original emergent cell contained a wonderful genetic code of information made up of 64 genetic letters. Each organism is a different book written using this genetic alphabet. You are a unique expression of this code. There were a great many more books written over the eons of time. Only a scant few survived. Homo sapiens are a special book. The Chimpanzee book is a special book. The Sycamore Tree is a special book, the. . .
EXISTENCE is information, a code, a program. Each thing in existence contains this code (the mystery is that we are yet to find this code). Each thing is a unique expression of this program of existence. This code is the "I" of existence. "I" am in everything and "I" is everyone.
Let us begin with the human genome and journey our way back to the genetic code and beyond and see how far back we can go.
Each of your parents contains half the information of how to make you. The unity of the two information halves is you. As the two halves come together you are now "live". The cell that is you is alive as soon as the information halves unite and become a unique expression; YOU. This alive cell contains its whole essence (the genetic program). As the program "runs" this is you developing: This cell matures and become an embryo. The embryo matures and turns into a zygote. The next stages follow in order: Fetus, neonate/newborn, infant, toddler, etc. Each stage is generated out of the previous stage. The information of how to make a human being is already pre-programmed when the two half-programs unite to become a unique essence; MY PROGRAM, YOUR PROGRAM and HIS & HER PROGRAMS are unique expressions of the genetic code. Each of us is a unique copy composed using this first and only sixty-four letter original program.
This sixty-four letter alphabet/genetic code is the birth right of every organism; from a virus, to a bacterium; from a blade of grass to an elephant. Each genomic recipe (each species) is written using this and only this alphabet. The unsolved mystery is this: From what did this living information emerge? Was this life-information pre-programmed into the universe? Are human beings a winning jackpot of a cosmic lottery? In The Mega Millions lottery you have a very very very slim chance of hitting the jackpot. You say "A hundred million to one odds? I can never win so why should I even bother". But as they say 'You have to be in it to win it'. The chances of the guy who is not in it is zero. The chance of you getting lucky if you only have one ticket is at least one (one is not nothing!). The thing about The Mega Millions is that SOMEONE ALWAYS WINS! Suppose there are actually gazillions of universes. If this is the case it should not be a surprise that a few just happen to have life-programs. I mean, if you have numbers from one to virtually near infinity, it is no surprise to find the number 999,125,300,123 or 0.000,125,634 etc. Is it impossible for a few universes to have life-giving properties? The odds might be billions of times higher than The Mega Millions but if almost all possible universes exist there is an actual chance of being in one that is life producing. If there are googols upon googols of universes (see M-Theory) then there must be at least a few universes that are life-friendly. Actually, there is at least one, ours. If this were not true I could not be here talking about it! Of course, the eight hundred pound gorilla in the room is the near impossibility of proving that we are part of a so-called "Megaverse". But then there is a real lottery called The Mega Millions. Hey, you never know. . .
More poetry:
Each being has a purpose. Personally, I think the purpose of human beings is to give the universe consciousness so it can know itself. Personally, I feel if humanity continues to be destructive to the good life-friendly Earth we shall perish, becoming a forgotten blip that was once a promise that was unfulfilled. . .
You have left The Twilight Zone. . .
You have arrived at your destination. . .
You have awakened to GNOSIS. . .
US (in a nutshell)
You scoop up a heap of clay from the earth and pull it to pieces. You mold the pieces into head, beaks, torso, legs and wings and you have the likeness of a bird in clay. Where did this simulated bird come from? It emerged from the Earth as bits of clay. These bits were molded into body parts, and the put together body parts are the bird. If the bird disappears all its parts disappear. Without each body part the bird is incomplete but as you add body parts the bird is completed. Why does a bird have wings and we don’t? The bird actually evolved from a particular dinosaur species of reptiles. This particular species had the ability to jump-and-glide from tree branch to tree branch. Its off springs became better at it. Further descendants became more adept. Descendants millions of years hence became successful masters of the art of flying and wouldn't live any other way, so gliding structures morphed into wings over evolutionary time.
We human beings evolved from a particular ape species of mammals. Humans and chimpanzees have a common ape-like ancestor. The ancestors of chimps stayed in the forest jungle trees. The ancestors of humans either climbed down or were pushed from their jungle tree "Garden of Eden" and they were forced to take their chances in the grassy African savannahs. They had to compete with hyenas, lions and tigers and other beasts specialized with dagger claws and butcher knife-like teeth; these awesome predators ran like the wind. We did not stand a chance in direct competition. Those early "human" ancestors who could stand on two legs freed up their forelimbs to carry scavenged food back to the camp. Those who stayed on all fours could not always see these dangerous beasts coming until it was too late. They slowly got better at walking and carrying stuff. They could pick up a stone and throw it, scaring off threats. They could use a stick to knock dead helpless small animals, and when the hyenas and buzzards finished stuffing themselves full, they would use their free hands to grab bits and pieces of meat and steal away into the night. As millions of years went on our ancestors evolved a bigger brain. Standing tall on two legs they dexterously applied the tools they invented with their free hands guided by bigger and bigger brains. Up until about thirty thousand years ago, our ancestors had to compete with other ape-men: A. robustus, H. erectus and Neanderthals. None of our ape-men cousins survived to the present; the second most successful, Homo neanderthalensis, faded into extinction about thirty thousand years ago. H. sapiens sapiens, human beings, us, are the only descendants remaining. Homo sapiens is the most awesome predator in history. Our very advanced technological culture has transformed us from ape-men to brainy tool wielding men, and, compared to any other species on Earth, we are a highly advanced super species.
This is where we stand; the most powerful and awesome organism on Earth at anytime in the History of this planet. Will we survive? Or will Homo sapiens sapiens exit stage left like Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, the last of our cousins, and fade away into history? How much longer will mother earth tolerate our ravaging, despoiling and poisoning of her body? How much longer will we continue to rape mother with impunity? There are very serious consequences for ignoring our deep connections and deep dependence on mother. Mother is who gave us birth and on whom we depend on every second of every minute of every day. She is the source. If she withholds her sustenance for a split second we start to die in the next second. If we continue to destroy her ozone layer we will be fried to death by UV “fire”. Don’t take heed and continue to ignore the calls by our science to stop Global Warming, and the twenty five percent of dry land we live on will be reclaimed by her ocean waters. If we continue to prepare for war and ignore the calls for peace, and continue to stock pile WMD’s then MAD is guaranteed (Mutually Assured Destruction). When we remain indifferent who are we hurting but ourselves. We ignore our infinite connections with mother earth only to our peril.
We can only attain the fullness of our humanity and avoid self-destruction by being consciously aware of our inseparable vital organic connection with mother earth. You emerged from the earth and you remain embedded and wedded to mother. You continue to be vital because you are anchored in her and sustained by her. You are a unique expression of mother earth. Do not take her quiet, timeless and often unspoken wisdom for naivete. Stop taking mother for granted. Wake up to this truth. Become consciously aware of the connectedness of being and begin the journey to know thyself.
If you look back on your life you remember being in kindergarten. You gradually became self aware as you watched yourself grow up into an adult, naturally, through your own self expression. How your life is today is being shaped by how you lived your life yesterday and how you plan to live your life tomorrow. Lively Little Yolly is self-renewed into Youthful Young Yolanda. Yolanda is preparing herself to become Mrs. Yolanda Yorkshire. The child becomes a young lady and the young lady prepares herself to be an adult. You feel your mind expanding and your body transforming. All through your life experiences you continually change, but it does not change who you know you are and who you know you are not. But you ask yourself "Who am I?"
I am not you, I am not him nor her; I am me. My heart pumps, circulating oxygenated nutrient blood to my whole body, and I feel empty without my heart. Am I my heart? If not, who am I? My brain orchestrates and coordinates the functioning of all my organ systems. My brain is essential to my mind and body. Am I my brain? If not, who am I? My mind ponders and wanders. I day dream and wonder about my life and this existence. Without my mind I am not me. Am I somewhere in my mind? If so where am I? I know I need every part of me to be whole, to be all that I am.
I look at you and you ask me: "Who are you?" I enjoy listening to you wax poetically about the dance, dinner and movie you enjoyed last evening. I myself stuffed my face with some delicious oxtail and rice and peas, laughed myself to tears watching "Sex and The City" at the movies and partied all night long last night. We both think it is great to be alive, love life and have fun. . . but what is life about and who is this "I" who is enjoying it?
Who I am today was as a result of my personal journey through life up to this point in time and space. What personal journey I start today to arrive at some future time and space depends on my inner fortitude, the goals I set for myself, and the will, desire and needs in my life, here and now. Today. But, as much as I have free will, I could not get here without you; we both got here by supporting each other. I might need you more than you need me now but you needed me more yesterday and we are going to need each other to see us through.
I see myself in my parents. My mother sees herself in my grandmother. My grandmother sees herself in my mother and my mother sees herself in me.
I have my father's strong will, my mother's love and my grandmother's wisdom. I carry their values in me and with me, and endeavor to pass them on to you. The part of me that is me that I discovered in my life’s journey is special and unique. The part of me that I was born with was entrusted to me from my parents, my grandmother and her parents. I exist because my parents were successful in life. I am here because my grandmother did not give up on my mother and she did not give up on me. I will not give up on myself. I have to succeed so you will succeed. Our ancestors dared to continue on in the face of adversity, pain, death and destruction. We stand tall today because we are aloft on their broad shoulders. We have our freer wills, we have richer independent lives and a brighter individual future because they were there for us and continue to live in each of us.
So who am I and who are you I? I am me, and you are you. But we are deeply connected. You are a unique individual made up of a unique set of contributions provided by each of us in one way or another. As you live your unique personal life you put your own personal stamp on each contribution and make them your own. You learn from me but you don’t clone my experiences. You express what you observe in your own personal way. You have to make your life in your own way but you shouldn’t just live for yourself. You have to balance your wants, desires and needs with those of your family, friends and neighbors. It is not only the proper thing to do but your life experiences will be richer for it. Be mindful that you are a part of something, that you are not just yourself. If you are just only selfish and do not share or do not do your part to help maintain the upkeep of you family your life will be poorer for it. When you play your part to help take care of your world and our world, not only will all our children be better for it, but it is a little better because you are in it. I have to both live for my benefit and for the benefit of the world because the world lives in me. You, me, and we are deeply connected. We belong. I am a unique expression of the world. You are a unique expression of the world. We are the world.
I am typing on my desktop PC with the help of my right middle finger. When each part of me does what each does best, I can serve myself and all of me well. My mind says, 'Middle Finger on my Right Hand, 'M', I, we, need you now; and I reply, matter-of-factly, 'And, mind, without you, I, along with M, would be less than what we are right now.'
I woke up yesterday realizing that I am. I am a unity of my brain, heart and mind, etc. I embrace Lindsey, Ashley, Jason, Winny, my mother; my granddad, "Daddy"; uncle Vernie, Keithy, Freddy, Howie, Chester, my auntie Cherry, my many cousins and the rest of my family; and all my friends. My brain allows the different parts of me to talk to each other. My warm beating heart fuels my body. My mind reminds me that Linny and Ash warms my heart, that I love my wife and my mom, Daddy and each one of my uncles, auntie Cherry and each of my cousins; that I have good friends in Jack and Linda. I see now that each contributes to making me the better person that I am today. I would hasten to add that, maybe, I have made a little difference in the quality of the lives of each. As we grow together we are becoming more than the sum of each of us.
I am thinking I am waking up more. Right now I am more awake than yesterday and if I stay focused I will be more awake tomorrow. As I sit right here I am transforming. I say " I am one hundred percent me" and as I speak these words what I was a moment ago is changing, becoming what I will be in the next moments. I am always becoming one hundred percent me but I never quite get there. Which is good because I am never perfect even though I strive for perfection.
I am that is. I am Charley at this moment in this place. A moment ago I was a little less me. I continue to be at this moment but more so. A moment from now I will be Charley but richer in body, mind and spirit. I am that is, and I can only experience this moment. I will continue to be through self transformation of all of my infinite parts. If each part of me does what each part does best I will continue to be and continue to change for eternity.
I am that is. I am Sycamore Tree this second on Earth. Two thousand years ago I was not Sycamore Tree but I was contained in the seed of whom and what I am now. I am Sycamore Tree at this moment. A thousand years from now I will not be Sycamore Tree; I will have transformed as my experiences continue to transform me. Through experience I am knowing myself more and more, becoming more aware. I know myself: I am that is.
There is a mystery here. The mystery was, is and will continue to be solved. For all eternity. At one moment at a time. And it is always only partially solvable.
Right now all I can say is that the mystery is awake. Before it was awake it was asleep. The Mystery awoke to indecision, struggling with questions and answers. It found answers but in so doing the mystery begat more questions and answers. Sometimes it had more answers than questions, and at other times it had more questions than answers to ponder. The Mystery, now in motion with questions and answers, and, trying to decide to go up or down, went both Up and Down in time and space. As it went up in time and space, down was just behind it and up was just ahead. The mystery was moving here, there and everywhere in space and time. Its negative energy and its inertia slowed it down but the mystery is also imbued with positive energy and never stopped its onward progressive march through space and time. The mystery continues its stroll through space and time as a particle, as well as a wave, and as me. . .
I was born some years ago. At that time there were questions and answers about my eventual fate. I became aware of myself and my family. I only knew at that time that I was looking into my mother's eyes. She did not know who I was or why I was here, or what was going to happen next. But she loved me and I felt safe. At that time I had questions and answers and I became curiouser and curiouser. . .
I looked into your eyes and I felt I had purpose in my life again. I belong to you, and you are my beloved. I am in love and it feels good. It sure feels right to feel good! Together we make our journey. Sometimes I get lost on the way but the light of your love puts me back on track. I am thankful for you. I want you to benefit from my experience and spare you from not making the mistakes I did, but even so you can only grow by making your own mistakes. I get upset with you but it is only because I know life can be bitter-sweet. You get pissed off at me but it's only because you know the world can be a dangerous place to live in. When you get lost, know that I will come looking to find you. If I get lost I will be reaching out for you. When you mess up or do wrong I will eventually come around to forgiving you. I don't want to hurt you but when I do I beg your forgiveness. There isn't pleasure without pain. Hate tries to harden the heart but love melts it again. We shouldn't be afraid to love because of hate, because love will always be around to dissolve hate.
OK. Enough with the poetry.
Here is the logical answer. If you pick a part a whole body, removing all its parts, it does not exist. Consider your body. . .
The ear hears. The eye sees. The nose smells. The tongue tastes and the skin feels touch. I have ears to hear, eyes to see, a nose to smell with and a tongue to taste with. But who or where am "I"? If you take away my heart, my kidney, my feet . . . if you remove every part of me, cell by cell, I no longer exist. The truth is that a little of me lives in each one of my cells but I am greater than the sum of my parts. "I", am the essence living in every part of me. Without me none of the cells of my body even have a purpose.
I started off life as a single cell. Then I was two cells, then four. . .
"I" was a single cell. This cell copied itself. Then there were two. Where am "I"? Am I THE first cell, IN the copied cell or am "I" both cells, or am "I" in both cells? Look at a baby. The baby is an organization of about a trillion cells. Is the baby made of cells or is what it IS in each of its cells? Consider a baby from conception to birth. If you go backward in time the WHOLE baby shrinks to a WHOLE fetus. The WHOLE fetus shrinks to the size of the small WHOLE embryo. The WHOLE embryo shrinks to the smaller size of a WHOLE zygote. Finally the WHOLE zygote shrinks to the smallest size the baby can be: ONE WHOLE cell. Reverse time and the whole baby would shrink back into a whole cell. A cell is the smallest part of a baby. If you do not watch the cell under a microscope but only with your naked eye you see a cell “swelling up" into a zygote. The zygote swells into an embryo. It grows into a fetus, and the fetus, at birth, becomes a baby.
The baby is, essentially, a program. The genetic program is the information of how to make another human being. This information, this essence, is in every one of your cells. Each cell is a unique expression of the genetic programming. 3.85 billion years ago or so, a simple cell emerged on this life-friendly Earth. This original emergent cell contained a wonderful genetic code of information made up of 64 genetic letters. Each organism is a different book written using this genetic alphabet. You are a unique expression of this code. There were a great many more books written over the eons of time. Only a scant few survived. Homo sapiens are a special book. The Chimpanzee book is a special book. The Sycamore Tree is a special book, the. . .
EXISTENCE is information, a code, a program. Each thing in existence contains this code (the mystery is that we are yet to find this code). Each thing is a unique expression of this program of existence. This code is the "I" of existence. "I" am in everything and "I" is everyone.
Let us begin with the human genome and journey our way back to the genetic code and beyond and see how far back we can go.
Each of your parents contains half the information of how to make you. The unity of the two information halves is you. As the two halves come together you are now "live". The cell that is you is alive as soon as the information halves unite and become a unique expression; YOU. This alive cell contains its whole essence (the genetic program). As the program "runs" this is you developing: This cell matures and become an embryo. The embryo matures and turns into a zygote. The next stages follow in order: Fetus, neonate/newborn, infant, toddler, etc. Each stage is generated out of the previous stage. The information of how to make a human being is already pre-programmed when the two half-programs unite to become a unique essence; MY PROGRAM, YOUR PROGRAM and HIS & HER PROGRAMS are unique expressions of the genetic code. Each of us is a unique copy composed using this first and only sixty-four letter original program.
This sixty-four letter alphabet/genetic code is the birth right of every organism; from a virus, to a bacterium; from a blade of grass to an elephant. Each genomic recipe (each species) is written using this and only this alphabet. The unsolved mystery is this: From what did this living information emerge? Was this life-information pre-programmed into the universe? Are human beings a winning jackpot of a cosmic lottery? In The Mega Millions lottery you have a very very very slim chance of hitting the jackpot. You say "A hundred million to one odds? I can never win so why should I even bother". But as they say 'You have to be in it to win it'. The chances of the guy who is not in it is zero. The chance of you getting lucky if you only have one ticket is at least one (one is not nothing!). The thing about The Mega Millions is that SOMEONE ALWAYS WINS! Suppose there are actually gazillions of universes. If this is the case it should not be a surprise that a few just happen to have life-programs. I mean, if you have numbers from one to virtually near infinity, it is no surprise to find the number 999,125,300,123 or 0.000,125,634 etc. Is it impossible for a few universes to have life-giving properties? The odds might be billions of times higher than The Mega Millions but if almost all possible universes exist there is an actual chance of being in one that is life producing. If there are googols upon googols of universes (see M-Theory) then there must be at least a few universes that are life-friendly. Actually, there is at least one, ours. If this were not true I could not be here talking about it! Of course, the eight hundred pound gorilla in the room is the near impossibility of proving that we are part of a so-called "Megaverse". But then there is a real lottery called The Mega Millions. Hey, you never know. . .
More poetry:
Each being has a purpose. Personally, I think the purpose of human beings is to give the universe consciousness so it can know itself. Personally, I feel if humanity continues to be destructive to the good life-friendly Earth we shall perish, becoming a forgotten blip that was once a promise that was unfulfilled. . .
You have left The Twilight Zone. . .
You have arrived at your destination. . .
You have awakened to GNOSIS. . .
US (in a nutshell)
You scoop up a heap of clay from the earth and pull it to pieces. You mold the pieces into head, beaks, torso, legs and wings and you have the likeness of a bird in clay. Where did this simulated bird come from? It emerged from the Earth as bits of clay. These bits were molded into body parts, and the put together body parts are the bird. If the bird disappears all its parts disappear. Without each body part the bird is incomplete but as you add body parts the bird is completed. Why does a bird have wings and we don’t? The bird actually evolved from a particular dinosaur species of reptiles. This particular species had the ability to jump-and-glide from tree branch to tree branch. Its off springs became better at it. Further descendants became more adept. Descendants millions of years hence became successful masters of the art of flying and wouldn't live any other way, so gliding structures morphed into wings over evolutionary time.
We human beings evolved from a particular ape species of mammals. Humans and chimpanzees have a common ape-like ancestor. The ancestors of chimps stayed in the forest jungle trees. The ancestors of humans either climbed down or were pushed from their jungle tree "Garden of Eden" and they were forced to take their chances in the grassy African savannahs. They had to compete with hyenas, lions and tigers and other beasts specialized with dagger claws and butcher knife-like teeth; these awesome predators ran like the wind. We did not stand a chance in direct competition. Those early "human" ancestors who could stand on two legs freed up their forelimbs to carry scavenged food back to the camp. Those who stayed on all fours could not always see these dangerous beasts coming until it was too late. They slowly got better at walking and carrying stuff. They could pick up a stone and throw it, scaring off threats. They could use a stick to knock dead helpless small animals, and when the hyenas and buzzards finished stuffing themselves full, they would use their free hands to grab bits and pieces of meat and steal away into the night. As millions of years went on our ancestors evolved a bigger brain. Standing tall on two legs they dexterously applied the tools they invented with their free hands guided by bigger and bigger brains. Up until about thirty thousand years ago, our ancestors had to compete with other ape-men: A. robustus, H. erectus and Neanderthals. None of our ape-men cousins survived to the present; the second most successful, Homo neanderthalensis, faded into extinction about thirty thousand years ago. H. sapiens sapiens, human beings, us, are the only descendants remaining. Homo sapiens is the most awesome predator in history. Our very advanced technological culture has transformed us from ape-men to brainy tool wielding men, and, compared to any other species on Earth, we are a highly advanced super species.
This is where we stand; the most powerful and awesome organism on Earth at anytime in the History of this planet. Will we survive? Or will Homo sapiens sapiens exit stage left like Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, the last of our cousins, and fade away into history? How much longer will mother earth tolerate our ravaging, despoiling and poisoning of her body? How much longer will we continue to rape mother with impunity? There are very serious consequences for ignoring our deep connections and deep dependence on mother. Mother is who gave us birth and on whom we depend on every second of every minute of every day. She is the source. If she withholds her sustenance for a split second we start to die in the next second. If we continue to destroy her ozone layer we will be fried to death by UV “fire”. Don’t take heed and continue to ignore the calls by our science to stop Global Warming, and the twenty five percent of dry land we live on will be reclaimed by her ocean waters. If we continue to prepare for war and ignore the calls for peace, and continue to stock pile WMD’s then MAD is guaranteed (Mutually Assured Destruction). When we remain indifferent who are we hurting but ourselves. We ignore our infinite connections with mother earth only to our peril.
We can only attain the fullness of our humanity and avoid self-destruction by being consciously aware of our inseparable vital organic connection with mother earth. You emerged from the earth and you remain embedded and wedded to mother. You continue to be vital because you are anchored in her and sustained by her. You are a unique expression of mother earth. Do not take her quiet, timeless and often unspoken wisdom for naivete. Stop taking mother for granted. Wake up to this truth. Become consciously aware of the connectedness of being and begin the journey to know thyself.
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