Christian dogma integrated with cyclic Universe

[andrew.wader]

Na razie wstawię tutaj poniższy mój tekst pt. "Central Christian dogma integrated with the concept of a cyclic Universe", sformułowany jak dotąd jedynie w języku angielskim... i będę patrzał co się będzie działo....
jakkolwiek sądzę, że nic się nie będzie działo...

Abstract

The author argues that each of us should try to improve his worldview so that it will support our ability to understand the world and positively influence our well-being and social relations. Some intellectuals have recently postulated that it is possible to work out coherent and comprehensive philosophical or theological worldviews. Clement Vidal recently presented a concrete proposal of a comprehensive philosophical worldview. It inclined the author of the article to formulate a contribution to a comprehensive theological worldview. He proposes namely to integrate the central Christian dogma with the modern cosmological model of the so-called Cyclic Universe.

Background

Acquiring a supportive, friendly worldview is essential for health and well-being. Having such a set of convictions facilitates the effectiveness of our actions and maintaining good relations with our fellow citizens. Possessing a supporting worldview that gives meaning to one's own life is important not only for specific individuals. If the majority of the citizens of the community have an uplifting, friendly worldview, then the state of public mental health is positive. This facilitates maintaining a good state of public health in a given community.

Until recently, no consideration had been given to the quality of prevalent worldviews. What is more, it was thought that worldviews resulting from upbringing, education and living in a particular society in a dominant ideology are a personal, private matter, which are not subjected to conscious, deliberate transformations.

It was only recently that comparisons of different worldviews began in terms of their consistency, scope and personal utility. A worldview can be religious, scientific or philosophical, however, a particular set of convictions to varying degrees meets the needs of individual people. Some intellectuals have recently postulated that it is possible to work out coherent and comprehensive philosophical or theological worldviews.

I try in this article to first quote the proposed principles for the assessing different types of worldviews and ways to obtain a worldview that is coherent, versatile and supportive. Later, I concentrate on the formulation of a module which may be helpful for the development of an expanded theological worldview, which takes into account contemporary cosmological theories.

How to assess different worldviews and evaluate the weaknesses and strengths of scientific, religious or philosophical worldviews?

Some intellectuals have recently argued that scientific and religious worldviews have specific weaknesses and strengths (Carvalho 2006; Vidal 2014). They maintain that people need a worldview to cooperate with the people surrounding us and to experience the feeling of meaning in our lives. It is therefore necessary to establish a set of criteria and a battery of tests which allow us to asses a particular worldview.

Clement Vidal proposed three kinds of such criteria to evaluate worldviews: objective (consistency, in accordance with science, scope), subjective (subjective consistency, personal utility, emotionality), and intersubjective (intersubjective consistency, collective utility, narrativity).

Subjective consistency exists when the worldview is with accordance with our knowledge and experiences. Personal utility is assured when the worldview promises beneficial personal events. Emotionality happens when the worldview evokes favorably felt emotions. Intersubjective consistency happens when the worldview reduces conflicts between individuals. Collective utility occurs when the worldview facilitates a positive view of one's own life and mobilizes individuals to do what is socially beneficial. The worldview is narrative when it presents its messages in the form of stories.

One can, of course, estimate how our worldview affects our psyche, which is imperfect in terms of the individual criteria listed here. Vidal remarks that “a worldview is more friendly when it fulfills more objective, subjective and intersubjective criteria" (Vidal 2014).

The presently circulating scientific worldviews often do not meet the criteria of personal utility and emotionality. They often do not prevent conflicts between people and do not encourage them to do activities which are socially beneficial.

Vidal and Carvalho argue that it is possible to improve a religious worldview in the way that it becomes more consistent with scientific findings or to develop a scientific worldview in such a manner that it will be completed with subjective and intersubjective perspectives (Carvalho 2006; Vidal 2014).

Vidal and Carvalho are convinced that both possible directions of the indicated ameliorations aim at constructing more comprehensive and coherent worldviews. This leads to two kinds of synthetic worldviews: the “comprehensive theological worldview” or the “comprehensive philosophical worldview” (Carvalho 2006; Vidal 2014).

These two kinds of transformations have a similar aim, however, they use different starting points and a slightly different emphasis on the mentioned criteria. Both kinds of "comprehensive worldviews", however, do not have features of scientific theories. To cover a wide range of issues, they must be speculative, nevertheless, the proposed speculations should be reasonable. They cannot contradict existing scientific knowledge and must constitute a coherent logical inference.

Clement Vidal illustrates his inference proposing his very specific “comprehensive philosophical worldview”. This worldview is in harmony with the contemporary point of view of cosmologists and philosophers who believe that the appearance of human life and consciousness on the cosmic plane was not accidental. Such an assumption leads some contemporary intellectuals to formulate the thesis that, as James Gardner writes: "intelligent life is the architect of the universe" (Harrison 1995; Gardner 2003; Baláz 2005; Smart 2012 Stewart 2010, Vidal 2014).

It just happens that I, the undersigned, published a similar theory presenting the same message... The formulation of this theory is accessible on line .... It can serve also as an example of a “comprehensive philosophical worldview”.

Clement Vidal does not attempt to formulate a "comprehensive theological worldview". He only specifies the known trials of formulating the incipiencies of such theological systems. He mentions the works of Teilhard de Chardin (1959), Whitehead (1930), Dowd (2007) as well as Murphy and Ellis'(1996).

Here, in this article, I would like to propose a certain contribution to the formulation of a "comprehensive theological worldview". This is not a record of a complete system of views, but only a record of the idea of attempting to integrate central Christian dogma with the currently widespread cosmological model of the cyclical Universe (Brockman 2014; Steinhardt 2014; Turo 2014). It should be noted that the assumption that the existence of the Universe occurs cyclically is also necessary to propagate Vidal's above mentioned and briefly discussed "comprehensive philosophical worldview".

Our preliminary attempt to integrate central Christian dogma with the cosmological model of the Cyclic Universe is accomplished in this text by presenting fragments of a novel (Wader, 2009). I believe it to acceptable in the light of Clement Vidal's recommendation that one of the desirable features of the formulated "comprehensive worldview" is its narrativity, i.e. the possibility of presenting a concept in the form of a story.

cdn...

[andrew.wader]

andrew.wader napisał:

> fragments of a novel

Fragments of the novel entitled: Where do we come from, who we are and where we are going - take part in this conference …

Fragment I

[".. I started to remember what I had seen during the TV broadcast. Never before was there such an attempt to explain the causes of human misery. The Pope appealed for God to wake up. He said a few words about it:

"... Lord, why were you silent? Why did you allow this? ... This silence is ... a prayer to the living God, that he would never allow it again ... How many questions arise in this place! One thing always returns: Where was he? God in those days, why was he silent, how could he allow such crimes, this triumph of evil? ... finally, we should persistently, humbly but insistently cry out to God: Awake! Do not forget the man you created! "

I concluded that the reasons to be moved after visiting the remains of the "Factory of Death" are obvious. I remember how I could not come to myself for two days, when I was forced to be here to show Barbara, who came from England at that time ... "] (Salpeter, 2006)

Fragment II

["... ─ And what did Herme show you?

─ We visited Baruch Spinoza at his optician's workshop in the Hague in 1670 and we listened to what he was saying to his friends visiting him. As you know he was a prominent philosopher, but he earned his living by producing lenses.

─ As far as I know, Spinoza received an offer to take the Chair of Philosophy at the University of Heidelberg. He rejected the offer. Nor did he agree to the proposition of King Louis XIV of France, who in exchange for dedicating one of his works to him, was ready give the philosopher a lifetime salary.

─ Herme wanted to know how Spinoza had come up with his idea that everything that exists is God and we are his parts.

─ This is generally known. Spinoza was influenced by ancient pantheistic ideas and, moreover, he studied the works of Giordano Bruno and Maimonides.

─ Herme believes that it is important to remind contemporary modern scientists like Dawkins, Gould, as well as other atheists fighting with creationism, who defend the old, classic version of Darwin's theory of evolution and also the clergy of all monotheistic religions that there is a third metaphysical option and that it is actually simple to explain what the structure of God is.

─ Why is it so important?

─ Because people have to clearly realize what the meaning is of their appearance in this world!

─ I do not know, if it can be derived from the view of this philosopher–optician. His concept is simple. I also still remember from my studies that he thought that there is only one substance that constitutes the basic building block of the universe. This substance must exist by itself and must be primordial in relation to all other creations, it is infinite, it exists spontaneously, it can not be created. It is the cause of all other beings, that is, it is omnipotent. So, it is God.

But, if it is God, then everything that exists is God. Spinoza's famous 14th proposition says: "There is no substance that is not God, and therefore the substance that forms the entire universe and God are completely identical. There is nothing but God, and everything that exists is part of God, it exists in itself: God is identical with nature, matter, and these are just different names for the same basic substance".

─ But, there is a certain difficulty. It is almost impossible to deny the contemporary theories about the so-called The Big Bang which took place 13 billion years ago and which gave birth to this world. The Big Bang theory fits in perfectly with the concept of the Creator.

─ Everything is correct, just remember that Herme's additional assumption is that it was the previous version of the Universe, which caused the Big Bang and the birth of this World. The previous version had more or less the same structure as that of our Universe, just as a mother has more or less the same structure as her child.

─ Well, that's a bit different from Spinoza's ideas, and besides, I do not know if the authority of your Herme is enough for other people to take note.

─ Our amendment to Spinoza's concepts is natural and consistent. Instead of a completely incomprehensible God, existing beyond time and space, we have the previous Universe with a structure known to us.

─ It could be not the previous one but some other ... who created this one!

─ It's almost the same, in any case it is important that we understand who God is. The assumption, that the previous Universe created the present Universe is convenient from the didactic side because then it is possible to say who people are, what the meaning of their appearance is and what their task is.

─ Who are people?

─ The early form of the new Demiurge who will decide to create the next Universe, when it's time!

─ Who is Demiurge, and who is God, what is Demiurge to God?

─ Aldrin, you do not seem to be listening to me carefully. It was already said, or rather Spinoza said who God is. It is nature ... all existing substance. Spinoza claimed that "This substance, whether to call it God or nature, was a completely impersonal force, albeit rational, and more precisely the source of all rationality ..."

─ Modern physicists would say "timeless quantum foam", and someone else would say, that it is the Holy Spirit.

─ Exactly, but somebody has to take advantage of these potentials, and use them to build something specific. Somebody has to make a decision. Only conscious people can make the decision. People are consciousness. Consciousness and its carrier, which is people, did not arise at some stage of the Universe's development by accident and not for an unknown reason. Someone must take matters into their own hands and make a decision about the need to "repack," or if you prefer to initiate a new Big Bang and create a child universe.

─ And you know all this from Herme?

─ These are matters - in fact - generally known, presented by contemporary physicists with very well-known names. In addition, the ancient Hindu have already talked about it, telling stories about Anthropos and Samsara.

─ Christine, but you should admit, however, that the contemporary, overwhelming understanding of these matters is different. Millions of people go to meetings with priests who talk about the personal God, the Father, the creator of the world, who is above time and space but listens to prayers. What's more, this God-father in the past sent his representatives in the form of prophets and even the Messiah. Furthermore, such religious concepts are commonplace, occur in every nation, so something must be there.

─ This can be reconciled and explained, however, a certain concession is necessary and understanding of a few mistakes, which were made.

─ The team, which will program and tune the generation of the new Big Bang will insert many important properties and the necessities that must appear in the new World. The entire evolution of living organisms is forecast. The appearance of people with their awareness is also foreseen. What is more, it is foreseen that their brains will be equipped with a so-called "religious module" so that they would be willing to believe in a personal God. This is needed in the early stages of human development. Later it should only be better understood. What's more, the Far Eastern concepts of karma, samsara are also inscribed in the nature of the world. They make wicked actions not worth it. The more inhumane the group of people yielding power is, the faster the regime will end miserably.

─ But what concessions are necessary and what do you mean by the need to understand the mistakes made? But by the way ... I agree… that karma, but samsara is in other words reincarnation.

[andrew.wader]

andrew.wader napisał:

> andrew.wader napisał:
>
> > III fragments of the novel
─ Demiurge, the creator of this world, is really in a different space and time and does not listen to prayers. He only ensured these regularities of karma perceived by many people and encouraging ethical conduct. The personal God, if we are to look for him somewhere ... this is either the previous Demiurge, which was a highly advanced civilization of the previous Universe, or we can see it in ourselves as the early form of the new Demiurge - however, we are still weak.

─ Well, but what about those prophets and messiahs and observed miracles?

─ The universe is not a simple mechanical system. He is at least as complicated as the human body. As we know, in our body we have three main regulatory systems, namely the nervous system, the endocrine system and the immune system and the local regulation system realized by the so-called cytokines. In our body, apart from biochemical processes, we can distinguish electrical, magnetic and software components, i.e. the level of human psychology. If the universe is an organism, its structure and functions cannot be simpler than analogous mechanisms that we have already seen in our body. We know very little about the organization of the Universe, because for ideological reasons most researchers stubbornly promote the theory that it is almost only a set of solid stones suspended in a cosmic void in which there are only simple physical influences, determined by gravity and rushing radiation. Only a few intellectuals admit that, for example, the miracle of the Sun which was observed on 13 October 1917 in Fatima, was a manifestation of the operation of a highly organized Superior Being.

─So, now, summarize your reasoning for me to understand! Fanatical followers of Islam, trying to enter Sharia wherever they can and for whom strict prohibitions regarding all forms of sensuality are important, claiming that they do so because their God requires them - in the light of Herme's theory - what is it? ... dammit!

─ Exactly ... Someone once in a certain place, began to promote a new religious concept and succeeded. It is know exactly when and where it happened and it has happened several times. Then a meme, a concept, nestles in the heads of a group of people and spreads so much that a certain "critical group" arises. If a fairly large group of people confessing a concept arises, their minds, acting in a synchronous manner, produce a higher order self. Such a self can be called a Super Being. Then this Super Being, this group self "watches over" the matters on which its existence depends. The universe is the whole chain of an ever-standing self. This structure is analogous to the connections existing in the human body.

─ You know Christine, you say interesting things, but I do not know if your arguments will convince anyone. It seems to me that this can again be perceived as puzzled, murky, theoretical, speculative. If someone is stubborn he will insist that God exists above time and space, and that it is impossible to know his structure, he will even say that one should not consider this.

─ If you listened carefully to me, according to Herme it's just that the Constructor... actually acted out of this time and space ...

─ Christine, did you fall in love with this Herme?

─ I listened yesterday carefully to what Pope Benedict XVI said during his visit to the remains of the largest extermination camp ever built. About 1.5 million people were murdered there. Benedict XVI wondered why God was not there and he postulated that we should pray for God to wake up. He also touched on two more issues that deepen this ideological crisis. But this crisis is beneficial for us, because finally we have the opportunity to highlight these interpretational mistakes that I mentioned.

-─ I know what you want to say! In the light of Herme's arguments, it is obvious why God was not there at that time. The constructor of the world, that is the entire great Universe, the previous Universe... possibly... the other one has been left somewhere and it is clear that he is not here. Only some regularities govern here... such as karma.

-─ The fact that the High Church Dignitary called for God to wake up is already something... that is going in the right direction...

-─You mean that the Creator of the world cannot wake up because he is not here, but you can start talking to the already existing new Demiurge?

─ Aldrin, it would be necessary to explain a lot here, but let's return now to the elite conference you are planning, to which only 26 people will be invited. You received an orange envelope. You have the right to invite two people. You said you would invite me, so invite Herme as a second person.

─ After all, as an invited person, you have the right to invite him on your own behalf.

─ Yes, but I would like to invite someone else, also a man!

─ Christine, I'll accommodate you and invite Herme if he will convince me. Ask him come to my office tomorrow. The phone stuck on my desk among newspapers rang loudly. I answered it.

─ Beatrice is here. She parked the car outside the house

─ Cool! "]

Fragment III

["…─ Well, this is this way: Christian religion, in comparison with Judaism and Islam, is highly polytheistic, because God is, as is known, triune, consists of three elements: God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. The most important thing is that we have the Holy Spirit separately, which can be equated with the so-called substance from "Spinoza's 14th proposal", i.e. with the concept that nature, the whole of what we see, including distant galaxies is this "substance - God". God the Father is Demiurge, however, it is necessary to distinguish between the previous Demiurge and the new Demiurge. You, Sir, you know that in our opinion contemporary people are an early version of the newly emerging Demiurge, who will one day "repack" and "start" the new Big Bang. This explains the sense of humanconsciousness appearing in the brains and the essence of the task designed for people living before, living now, and especially for our descendants. There is a problem, however, who the Son of God is. At first, it seemed to us that he was a "redundant theological element." A sentence from the Christian Creed was misleading. As you know, it is said there:

".. homoousios to Patri…" ("... consubstantial with the Father ..."). So, you have to decide whether in the year 1 of our era in Judea the whole Universe appeared - in the sense of Spinoza, or rather only the envoy of Demiurge. If, however, he is the envoy of Demiurge ... which Demiurge, the previous or new?

The previous Demiurge in this universe, however, does not exist, it is not sleeping but it is not here at all! The new Demiurge will appear only in the future. One of the possibilities of solving this metaphysical problem would be that the previous Demiurge predicted the appearance of a person who would represent him and at the same time personify the qualities of the new Demiurge and thus be 'consubstantial' with him. If the Son of God were somehow the personification of the new Demiurge's way of thinking, then he would indeed be 'consubstantial' with the Father.

Of course, such a personage should have the characteristics of very advanced descendants of people, as was predicted by Taihard de Chardin, it should be someone close to the descendants in time of the future Omega Point, but it should be thoroughly human.

Above all, this personage should be gifted with sensuality 'in the image and likeness of people'. This character should also be a benchmark for an active attitude towards the task to be performed. So the message of such a person would be the words: "you have to start thinking, start acting, take care of the fate of this world."

At this moment, however, I could not stand it and I interrupted....

CDN

[andrew.wader]

andrew.wader napisał:

> andrew.wader napisał:
..........................................................................................................
At this moment, however, I could not stand it and I interrupted.

─ Herme, listen! ... but the Son of God was not too sensual and did not speak about any task for people, and besides, this task is determined only for distant future generations.

─ Didn't you read the book "The da Vinci Code" by Dan Brown. 80 million copies were sold, just because it emphasized sensuality, the metaphysical status of women and the importance of the initiation of Hieros Gammos.

─Yes, but the ending of this novel is cloudy, in the end it is not clear what "The da Vinci Code" is and whether someone stores it ... "]

The purpose and meaning of the attempt to formulate an intellectual integration of central Christian dogma with the cosmological concept of the Cyclic Universe.

The goal of formulating a "comprehensive philosophical worldview" and "comprehensive theological worldview" is to remove statements that are contradictory to reality and commonly accepted natural and scientific knowledge from average, widespread worldviews.

As an example of a representative sample of the term "comprehensive philosophical worldview", one may consider the theory of Clement Vidal which assumes a cyclical model of the Universe in which the next version of reality is to a certain extent determined by living beings (Vidal 2014). It removes the difficulties in conceptualizing God, the Creator of theUniverse.

Clement Vidal noticed that a typical, contemporary scientific worldview does not secure (does not provide) the so-called personal utility, emotionality and intersubjective consistency. On the other hand, a Christian religious worldview has such features. Its followers, however, face the so-called Job's dilemma, i.e. the need to explain the sense of unearned suffering. If you are looking for an extreme example, it is the Holocaust. The authentic statements of Pope Benedict XVI quoted above in the fragments of the mentioned novel, uttered after his visit to the remains (museum) of the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp, are a testimony to attempts to deal with this dilemma.

Christine, the protagonist of the quoted novel, argues that the causes of the lack of God's reaction to undeserved suffering are different. She says simply: in this Universe, its creator is simply absent! Therefore, it is not reasonable to hope that the Creator listens to prayers and influences the course of events.

It seems to us, however, that the fanciful, three-parted concept of God preached within Christian doctrine "suits" the modern model of the cosmological cyclical Universe, which continues its development (its transformations) with the participation of people (beings living in it).

Clement Vidal in chapter 8.3.3 (p. 183) of his book entitled "Six Levels of Universe Making" distinguishes possible higher levels of interventions in the properties of "child universes", calling them "Cosmic engineer" and "God player". The assumption of such higher levels of interventions would explain the possibility of a personage embodying the intentions of the Creator of an offspring universe appearing in "descendant universe".

In Christian religious terminology, this figure is the element of "Three Divine Persons". The origin and meaning of this third element of the Holy Trinity is defined within the so-called confession of faith. It is important to know and take into account the fact that the designation of the Son of God has changed somewhat over the centuries. These changes can be traced in encyclopedic entries (Creed, 2018). It is worth reading the English translation of the Nicene Creed in the section related to the Son of God (Nicene Creed, 2018).

The most recent formulation of the Creed was done by Pope Paul VI in 1968 and published as the so-called Motu Proprio (Motu Proprio. Credo of the people of God, 1968). An important formulation of this document is the statement that: "the Son of God … is the Eternal Word, born of the Father before time began, and one in substance with the Father, homoousios to Patri".

The known non-religious, as the psychoanalytic analysis of the essence of this central Christian dogma, was made by Carl Gustav Jung (Jung 1940).

To put it in a nutshell, the personage of God's Son according to C.G. Jung is an archetype to which the first generations of Christians have appealed. This archetype has a specific property because it is based on a personage that links the Creator of the World and therefore a personage existing outside the present time and space, and someone who belongs to the present World. What is more, according to Carl Gustav Jung this archetype also applies to the premonition of the divinity that exists within us. Hence, Jung's theory is in line with our proposal to integrate the concept of the three-person God with modern cosmological models and the feeling that someday people will play an important role in the cosmological plan. The attempt to mentally integrate the concept of God's Son who appeared in the form of a human, with the modern cosmological model of the Cyclic Universe may be the beginning of the formulation of the mentioned "comprehensive theological worldview".

I believe that continuing the development of such a worldview is purposeful and useful for the public mental health domain. The theological view, as we have mentioned, is characterized by a significant personal utility, emotionality and intersubjective consistency, and exceeds in this respect scientific worldviews.

Developing and refining a convincing "comprehensive theological worldview" would raise the potential for impact in the field of counseling, activity in so-called positive psychology and various forms of psychotherapy.

References