Recently in Hunt for Blue February Category

I was laying awake way too early last Sunday morning.  Everything was still asleep, except me.  The worms, the morning birds, even the sun was still asleep.  My brain wandered around a bit as I lay there pretending I was still sleeping like the rest of the world.  And it bumped into something that has been nagging at me.  Memories.

See, memories are, by nature, rooted in the Time characteristic of this great universe of ours.  They are What Was.  They are Historical References.  They are Past.  And they are a huge part of what forms us, what makes us who we are.

Much of our brain is still a big fat mystery to us, though our knowledge about it grows constantly.  But we do already know a lot about how memories are formed and stored.  We're learning more every day about how things like strokes and Alzheimer's disease affect our brains.  And we know with certainty that our memories are stored in our brains.

My brain, in it's wandering around early that morning, jumped from memory to the afterlife.

Let's lay a foundation of assumptions for this little mental walk-about we're on.  Let's assume there is an afterlife.  Let's, further, assume that this afterlife is not within the confines of our current universe.  (So, for example, we're not really allowing for reincarnation or any other "graduating levels of enlightenment" theories in this little discussion.)  And, it may be obvious but just to get it out there, let's assume there is a component to each and every one of us that survives death and is not bound to this universe in which we exist, an Immortal Spirit, if you will.

The thought that snuck up on me as I lay there was that if our memories are all tied up with our physical, bound-to-this-universe bodies, what would remain of the grand and royal Me when my Immortal Spirit roamed onward?  All my memories, all my What Was, that huge part of what made me who I am, would be gone.

I didn't like that thought, nope, not one bit, moot as any thought may be in this doomed brain of mine.

But then I remembered that if my Immortal Spirit was not part of this universe, it is entirely possible that it would have unfettered access to every moment of itself within this universe.  That's even better than my memories.  I could live and live and live a moment again.  In fact I might be doing so right now.

Of course, there are a whole slew of assumptions, maybe's and what-if's thrown in there and jumbled together.  And maybe everything would look different once the sun woke up.

The thing is, there's a lot of truth out there. It's everywhere. It's at the grocery store and the gas station, it's out in the redwood forests and mountain prairies, it's in the music in your car and the shows on your TV. The problem is there are also a whole lot of lies. And they're all in the same places.

So how do you tell them apart? How can you discern that this is truth and that's a lie? How can you know whether or not you are right?

It take diligence. It takes seeking. It takes hunting. It takes work. And even with all that, you still may not be able to tell.

There's been a lot of hype recently about trans-fats and how evil they are. Satan incarnate, as far as your body is concerned. I try not to eat trans-fats. Learning how to spot trans-fats was a project, but once I knew what to look for, it was easy. Actually taking the time when I'm shopping to check the ingredients on the packages, that takes constant vigilance, too; it's work, I say! But now that I've cut trans-fats out of my diet, I can actually taste it when something has them in it.

So lemme summarize all that. To stop eating trans-fats I did this:

• I read reports on trans-fats and learned how to recognize it (ie, what ingredients indicate trans-fats).


• Everytime I bought something, I looked through the ingredient list for trans-fats ingredients. When I found them, I did not get that item.


• Over time, I learned to taste trans-fats.

Right. So now lemme generalize all that. To stop accepting a lie I did this:

• I learned the characteristics of the lie.


• I watched for those characteristics, spotted the lie and rejected it.


• Over time I learned how to spot the lie using other senses as well.

Ok, I think I've taken this to a bit of an extreme now. How about I try to reign it back in to the actual point I was after.

There is truth in the world, in all things. It's mixed in with everything else, and sometimes can be hard to spot, but if you learn to look for it, you can find it. There is truth to religions, too. Every religion, I think, has truth. Perhaps some more than others. Learning about other religions can be very valuable to any persons personal religion.

The trick is to learn to recognize truth.

Modern Christianity does a great job of teaching that anything that is not exactly the same as itself is evil. I strongly believe that that teaching is evil. That teaching promotes xenophobia and intolerance. It incubates fear and leads to irrational hatred.

There is much that Christians can learn from other religions. But many of them are often too afraid that they might accidentally worship the devil if they even pass too close to somebody who is not of exactly the same denomination as themselves.

Fools.

. Topher

Remember how I mentioned that God is an entity outside of this universe in which I exist? No?! Read this entry: Ein Sof. It's very simple really: God (by definition) caused the universe I'm in to exist. Therefore he exists external to it.

There are so many very interesting things about this universe, and how it all works. Some of these things we don't even understand or really even know. Some we understand bits and pieces of. Let's take Time as an example.

In Albert Einstein's Relativity: The Special and General Theory he makes reference to Minkowski's Four-Dimensional Space. This theory describes the world in which we live in terms of a four-dimensional space-time continuum. Wait! Don't run away! It's not so scary as all that. My only point to this is that time is integral to the universe we're in. Time is part of what we define as "reality."

Try this: Think back, in your fertile imagination (What? Your imagination isn't fertile? Hmmm. Well, imagine it is!), way back, all the way back, to the very Beginning of Time. It's a term some people throw about like a knotted sock, but have you ever really thought about it? Now, using that fertile imagination of yours, think back to just before the very Beginning of Time. You have that fixed in your head?

Yeah, but how could there be a before the Beginning of Time? Logically it doesn't make any sense, yet our fertile imaginations draw a picture of it quite sensibly. Time is part of the universe. Time is part of us. Our brains cannot comprehend timelessness. It doesn't make any sense to us.

Using that imagination again, try to imagine that you were able to step completely outside of the universe. I don't know about yours, but my imagination still provides a sense of space and time even when it places me outside of the very definition of those things. You would have no spacial definition since spaciality is part of the universe. You would have no time since time is part of the universe. If you were then able to look at the universe, you would see it as a whole, time included. Of course, the act of looking might be hampered since our sense of sight is based on... well, you understand.

Back to the point. God exists outside the universe. Time is part of the universe. God exists outside of Time. Therefore, the common religious sentiment that "God has always existed and always will exist" is absolutely true, and yet completely misleading.

. Topher


Footnotes:
* If you've never ventured to read Albert Einstein's Relativity: The Special and General Theory (Henry Holt and Company, New York, 1920), I highly recommend it. It's an entertaining read, relatively short (ha ha), and packed with cleverness. It's available online by Bartleby.com here: Relativity: The Special and General Theory.

My current understanding of the nature of God is that he* is an entity outside of this universe in which I exist and by which my comprehension is contained. There are a whole slew of implications in this, and I will talk about some of them in future entries. (Specifically I'm looking forward to talking about implications of timeliness and spacial bounds, implications of manifestations and their inherent restrictions, and implications of vested powers. Oooo!)

My vision of God at this point is very close to the Kabbalistic concept of Ein Sof. Well, ok, my understanding of the Kabbalistic concept of Ein Sof. I admit that I'm not Jewish in any way, shape, or form... as long as you ignore my nose, that is... so my understanding is likely to be warped by my pervasive Pentecostal upbringing, but nevermind that. There are 2 specific aspects that I cling to:

1. The Constant Creation of God: God's interaction with his creation, this universe, is continuous and constant. None of these words are accurate, but they all apply: power, spirit, essense, breath, force. So, I'll make up a word: sbefp. His spefb is constantly being added, injected, inserted to the universe, and is continuously manifesting, in some form or another. Again, there're a whole slew of implications here. Or maybe a slaw.



2. The Transcendence of God: God, by virtue of his constant influential sbefp, God is an underlying presence in everything in and of this universe. That includes me and you (whether you think so or not), my stinky farting dog, the rocks in the back yard, this half-dilapitated apartment with the beautiful hardwood floors that I'm sitting in right now, the ancient lode-stone I'm typing all this on, the sun, the moon, and the attractive-repulsive forces that keep them dancing around in space... everything in and of this universe.
   

And for some reason, the vision of a mist with a white fedora-style hat still persists in my head.

. Topher


Footnotes:
* I always refer to God as a he because it is the default pronoun in English for a person whose sex is unknown or undeterminable. I have tried using the word it instead, but I somehow find that distasteful. After all, I would be offended if I wrote a computer program who referred to me as an it.

I capitalize God because I use it as a name. I don't capitalize pronouns referring to God because I have never found any reason to do such a silly thing.

When I was a teenager, I went to a weekend retreat thingy at a place called Springs of Living Water at Richardson Springs. Or something like that. It's part of YWAM now. Go Loren.

Yeah, anyhow... The cabin counselor guy who was in charge of the cabin I was in asked us during one of our group discussion meetings, "How do you picture God?" Then we went around the world (which was confined to that room right at that moment) and each of us talked for a few minutes. Most of us even answered the question.

When it was his turn to talk, one of the more colorful characters in the group kicked his feet back on his bunk and began to draw out a tale like that story-telling kid in the movie Stand By Me. He had an east coast accent, so read his words like that.

"My world is a bit different than all of yours," he began dramatically. "In my world there are dragons, wise and powerful. In my world the yeti rules the high mountains. In my world vampires and werewolves are real monstrosities.

"I envision God as an old man," he continued in his confident Bostonian accent. We were all enraptured. From the moment he started speaking, he made us all sound like pre-schoolers who still had trouble actually forming complete sentences and talking without mumbling at our feet. "An old man..." he paused for a moment savoring the moment, "in an all white leather suit, with a brim hat, you know, fedora style. In my head, he's always got a cigar in his mouth that he just lit, and a twinkle in his eye like he knows the punch-line. Which I'm pretty sure he does."

The room was silent for a moment before somebody started chuckling softly at the image.

As for me, I have discovered that my vision of God has changed quite a bit over the years. Originally, I had a similar conception, that God was an older man... ok, without the cigar and leathers, though.

In my conception, he was in a large stone throne room with engravings all over the walls and pillars depicting angels and demons doing things that were angelic and demonic. He sat on a large stone throne with armrests up a bunch of large stone steps. The ceiling was not... I mean, there was nothing -- you couldn't see it. As you looked up everything just faded to black.

At some point, I came to the belief that putting God in the form of a man was a severe limitation on him. After all, I'm not any sort of diety, and I feel that it's a limitation on me! So then, the throne room remained in my imagination, and my God became an ever-invasive, ever-present, ever-flowing mist inhabiting the room. Which somehow made me nervous to breath.

At some even later point, I realized that I was still confining God by keeping him in that throne room. How could I do such a thing?

Well, how do you picture God?

. Topher

Ight. So a little foundation.

I grew up in a pentecostal Christian church. I know, I know, what the hell does that mean?! The Pentecost was an event that happened shortly after the crucifixion and ressurection of the Christ. It happened on the fiftieth day after the ressurection. Basically all the former apostles of Christ started doing a bunch of crazy stuff like speaking in tongues and healing people. So a pentecostal church is one who teaches that anybody can do these things, which they call "gifts of the spirit." Read the 2nd and 3rd chapters of Acts.

But I'm not prepared to give you a whole in-depth dissertation on all things pentecostal. Just letting you know where I'm coming from. In short, I grew up with a strong sense of (what I now call) the spirit realm, and a whole lot of things that people called miracles.

Mmm. Nice word that. Miracle. Yeap.

1. An event that appears inexplicable by the laws of nature and so is held to be supernatural in origin or an act of God.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

Another nice word is Magic.

1. The art that purports to control or forecast natural events, effects, or forces by invoking the supernatural.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

But I digress...

There is one particular major difference between my own idiomatic beliefs and that of the current established religious organism which people generally call Chrstianity which I would like to point out right off the bat. Modern Christians (in almost every variation) are very focused on the after-life. They celebrate their own eventual freedom from this "horrible" life and graduation to a blissful eternal life, which they have garnered through their salvation in their acceptance of Jesus as their own personal... uh... with a nod to Depeche Mode Johnny Cash, Christ, quite extensively.

Me, I am much more interested in the life I'm living right now, in discovering how the environment I'm in behaves, and what wonderful things I continuously find all around me. My religion is here and now.

So, to summarize this bit: I grew up Pentecostal, like to put the words miracle and magic as close together as possible, and don't focus on the after-life like most modern Christians do. (nod)

. Topher

Over the years I have often been asked about my beliefs. Why? Well, apparently I seem a bit of an enigma to some people. I'm not. I'm actually very open with just about everything. Perhaps they think this openness is a front for some underlying secret complex agenda involving aliens from other galaxies who look surprisingly like us, and latent supernatural powers laying dormant in us all subtly wreaking havok on our cities and individual humanity?

At any rate, here I will write about my beliefs. Or not. I might write about other peoples beliefs that I find interesting. Or about what if scenarios, you know, like "What if gravity were repellent." Except better.

. Topher