Saturday 14 May 2016

Summary of four worldviews: 4. Christianity

Note to all fellow followers of Christ. I have no formal theological training but this represents my best understanding of Christian essentials at this stage in my journey since the Holy Spirit entered while writing the first few chapters of 2077:Knights of Peace, around 2009.. The whole Christian world seems to be going through a reformation. Humility is essential and God forgive us if we depart from this.


CHRISTIANITY:  reality is generated from outside space-time by a  Creator with attributes of personhood reflected in humanity regardless of gender, race, culture, creed or family relationship. At a critical stage in history God became incarnate in humanity as Jesus Christ, saving us all  from despair, fear, uncertainty and injustice with the promise of eternal life in God's healing love.

 Creation of universe: by a God having the attributes of personhood through the Word (Christ the Son), culminating in human beings, with both male and female reflecting the image of God.

Duration of material universe : finite, ending in heat death due to the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. Alternatively it could flip into a different state due to the decay of some as yet undiscovered elementary particle sustaining the whole cosmos (I  believe a few theoretical physicists are working on this concept). God has  an endpoint in view.

Future of whole universe: heat death  according to 2nd Law of Thermodynamics but with 'a new heaven and a new earth,'  free of suffering for those who seek righteousness. There will also be a dark realm for those not seeking righteousness at a deep level and who therefore God cannot reach. The more we do God's will the less painful will be the journey for humanity as a whole. .

Afterlife:  eternal love and fulfillment in God's new heaven and new earth , or self inflicted hell (see below).
Basis for universal morality: yes, with absolute goodness flowing out of the creative love generated by the Holy Trinity of Father, Son and  Spirit, the Triune God (three in one).  To prevent social breakdown God has implanted a conscience into all humans through general grace but this is not sufficient to allow the achievement of God's long term  plan, which depends on a certain number accepting the Grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Love of God and the Fellowship of the Holy Spirit.  The more people do this, i.e. become true righteous Christians, the more easily and painlessly will God 's goal be  reached.

Hope for individual:  assurance that there is an afterlife which is good and that our conscience directs us in whatever direction God wants us to go (righteousness) in order to fulfill his long term plan. For those who God has been made known through Christ this is the only way. Of those who have not been shown the way of Christ (e.g. those born BC), the naturally righteous will reach Christ by some other route known only to God the Father. Submitting to Christ also liberates us  from the crushing burden of guilt so that we can more easily be righteous.
Fears of individual: illness, pain,  accidents, poverty, natural disasters.  Fear of loss of friends and relatives. Fear of a bad eternal afterlife if we fail to be righteous and free of pride. However, Christ saves us from all these fears if we have faith in Him, with the help of the Holy Spirit, because all is put right at the end of time for those in Christ's love.

Free will:  Yes. We are continually presented with the choice of whether or not to act righteously at the deepest level (e.g. to love our enemy, tell the truth or refuse to cheat), even when  sure we will not be found out or will be shunned or punished by our peers. Because so few do this the progression of history is fraught with suffering and injustice but in the end 'all will be harvest' for those who rest in Christ.

Social order: yes, providing we do God's will, so that all the institutions can operate smoothly as the people are able to trust one another in Christ. The turbulence and evil of history to date testifies to the rarity of true Christians even in so called Christian countries and instituion . Cities, nations, and possibly groups of nations, are probably instrumental entities in God's plan.

Justice: arbitrarily dispensed in this life because of human sin, which quantum entanglement, epigenetics and chaos theory (butterfly effect etc.)  suggests could ripple across large distances and between generations.We can suffer the  consequences of other people's sins or the collective sins of nations. But all is put right through the death and resurrection of Christ.
 
Truth:  Yes, the Truth of Christ in all dimensions of reality - spiritual and physical.  Belief in Truth, i.e. in Christ, sets us free. We are saved from darkness and ignorance.

Science and technology: Thrives, because  laws have been built into God's created order, reflecting the Truth of Christ. Intelligence could be  a basic property of all nature, biological and even physical. The business of scientists  is to uncover the laws and attributes of nature since we have been given curiosity and the desire to ever improve our material well being. The laws of nature revealed to us by our god-given search for Truth are descriptions of the created order which increase our wonder at God's power and majesty. 


John Sears
author

reach me at
cosmik.jo@gmail.com

Tuesday 10 May 2016

Summary of four worldviews: 3. Deism

DEISM:  the universe was created in a Big Bang and set in motion by God, who chooses not to, or is unable to  intervene in its progression under the physical laws, and perhaps moral laws, that God has imparted.

 Creation of universe: God

Duration of universe : finite

Future of universe: heat death  according to 2nd Law of Thermodynamics

Afterlife:  unknown, good or bad. 

Basis for universal morality: yes, providing this was part of God's intent, i..e assuming God decided to imbue humans with a conscience. No proof or guidance of how we should view or treat each other beyond what we feel this conscience (if the Deist God implanted it) tells us.

Hope for individual: all depends on luck, how well you are able to use the abilities you have been dealt and how well you are able to exploit others. Hope, but with no assurance, that there is an afterlife which is good and that our conscience directs us in whatever direction God wants us to go.

Fears of individual: illness, accidents, poverty, natural disasters.  Fear of loss of friends and relatives. Fear of a bad eternal afterlife.

Free will:  Yes, if God has imbued humans with a conscience.

Social order: yes, providing God has imbued us with a conscience which is compatible with it. No guidance from God on what form  government should take, e.g. tyranny or democracy. Any dictator can invoke this ultimate God to justify his actions.

Justice: arbitrarily dispensed in this life. Could be corrected in the afterlife (if there is one)  but  nobody knows what God expects or even if God expects anything at all of us. Justice could be just a social construct.
 
Truth:  Yes in science but could just be a social construct anywhere else. 

Science and technology: Yes, because the laws have been built into God's created order. Intelligence could be  a basic property. Our business is to uncover the laws and attributes of nature since we have been given curiosity and the desire to ever improve our material well being.


John Sears
author

reach me at
cosmik.jo@gmail.com

Sunday 8 May 2016

Summary of four worldviews: 2. Spiritual atheism

SPIRITUAL ATHEISM:  reality is a  meaningless mixture of  natural and supernatural experiences.

 Creation of universe: it was not created.

Duration of universe : eternal, since it was not created.

Future of universe: eternal and without overall direction or purpose.

Afterlife:  unknown, good or bad. 

Basis for universal morality: none. Depends on your own whim, your social environment, your ancestors, or whatever some particular demon,  ghost, 'angel' etc.  happens to tell you.

Hope for individual: all depends on luck, how well you are able to use the abilities you have been dealt and how well you are able to exploit others or whatever magic your  spirit, 'guardian angel',  etc. decides to offer you. Hope is only a state of mind.

Fears of individual: illness, accidents, poverty, natural disasters.  Fear of loss of friends and relatives. Fear of evil spirits, ghosts, vampires, witches, extraterrestrials etc. and afterlife.

Free will:  Yes.

Social order: only sustainable in the long term by despotism since without it there will be chaos.Usually turns into a totalitarian regime with  worship of some kind of demigod (e.g. Hitler rose to power in a regime where Christianity was despised and belief in the occult was growing if not widespread.)

Justice: purely a relativist  construct  in a meaningless reality, unless perhaps the spirit world has its own moral absolutes which have always existed.

Truth: no absolute truth to aim for. What we call truth is that which works, and that depends on who is in power or on messages from the spirit world.

Science and technology: would not exist since under spiritual atheism it  has little to do with truth. There is no reason to expect order in the laws of the universe and so no impetus to look for them. (Materialist atheists still expect underlying order out of habit but there are already signs of this failing, e.g. model dependent realism and irrational cosmological models designed to circumvent the reality of the Big Bang space-time singularity.)

Being written are summaries on deism and Christianity.
see also
Summary of four worldviews: 1. Materialist atheism

John Sears
author

reach me at
cosmik.jo@gmail.com

Saturday 7 May 2016

Summary of four worldviews: 1. Materialist atheism

This is also known as scientism (as opposed to science)


MATERIALIST ATHEISM:  reality is purely atoms and energy arranged according to mathematically describable laws with consciousness an accidental by-product without any meaning

 Creation of universe: it was not created.

Duration of universe : eternal, since it was not created. This contradicts the Big Bang model  for creation of space-time-energy-matter ex nihilo 13.8 billion years ago

Future of universe: ultimately total disorder. This follows from the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics.

Afterlife:  none, since life is merely an epiphenomenon associated with special arrangements of matter & energy. It is asserted that no other mode  of conscious experience can exist.

Basis for universal morality: none. Only human laws to go by. These tend to be those by which the greatest number of people flourish but the definition of ‘flourish’ differs (e.g. Nazism vs Communism vs Capitalism) In effect power decides, i.e.  might is right. Any assertion by a materialist atheist that any human or social act is morally better than any other contradicts the foundational belief in conscious thought as an accident..

Hope for individual: all depends on luck, how well you are able to use the abilities you have been dealt and how well you are able to exploit others. Hope is only a state of mind.

Fears of individual: illness, accidents and natural disasters.  Fear of loss of friends and relatives. No fear of one’s own death except possible deathbed illusions of hell etc.  but ultimately there is just total oblivion.

Free will: none. All is determined by physical laws, from the atomic to the macroscopic.All decisions are illusory as is the concept of culpability and responsibility. 

Social order: only sustainable in the long term by despotism since without it there will be chaos.

Justice: purely a social construct  in a meaningless reality.

Truth: no absolute truth to aim for. What we call truth is that which works , and that depends on who is in power or on observations to date.  Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle, Quantum Entanglement and Goedel’s Theorem  of Undecidability  dictate that the realiity discoverable by science is finite.

Science and technology: will decline as faith in hidden order disappears and truth is regarded as an illusion

Being written are summaries on spiritual atheism, deism and Christianity.
John Sears
author

reach me at
cosmik.jo@gmail.com