Question for Wade, Gaz, and anyone else who can help...

[_keene]

I have asked these questions to Wade and Gaz in another thread, but then we went off on another direction. When it comes right down to it, I think these questions are at the very core of all of our disagreements. I'd really be curious as to any answers for these questions

Given that we both followed Moroni's promise:
1.) How can it be that we had two such widely different revelations?
2.) How can we assure which revelation is correct?
3.) How can either of us be assured that the revelation we received is no different from auto-suggestion or other psychological effects?

And a couple other questions, for more situations
1.) What of those who receive no revelation? How are they to be assured which revelation, if any, is correct?
2.) How are those who receive no revelation to create a code of ethics or morals to live by?
3.) What of those who receive revelation outside of Moroni's promise?

[_Gazelam]

We went through quite a bit concerning these questions on the other thread, and we left off with you needing to describe for us in detail the revelation you had and the doctrines expressed in it.

Gaz

[_keene]

We went through quite a bit concerning these questions on the other thread, and we left off with you needing to describe for us in detail the revelation you had and the doctrines expressed in it.

Gaz

Yup. They're on page two, and again twice on page 5. I can bring them here if you'd like. I just don't want this particular line of questioning to get derailed again.

Here it is again :)

Keene Maverick's Articles of Faith!

1.) I believe the question or discussion of whether or not God exists has no value, because there are no visible or testable results.

2.) I believe existence is fully infinite, in every possible and impossible definition of the word.

3.) I believe that all of consciousness behaves under a single law (Law in the sense of physics, like gravity, rather than in the sense of a rule you should try to obey. it's one of those laws that works whether you want it to or not.); that law is the Law of Attraction. Simply put, what you choose to be conscious of determines your reality. (for a greater understanding of this law, the two movies I introduce people two are What the Bleep do we Know? and The Secret. Clips from both can be found on Google Video and YouTube. The Secret can be purchased online in downloadable format for 4.99. I highly suggest this to everyone.)

4.) I believe all matter, energy, and consciousness, on a fundamental level, are one. Literally. I tend to call this concept the imagination of God.

5.) I believe the reality you choose to live in is fully your own responsibility. You are responsible for your own happiness, and others are responsible for theirs.

6.) I believe in certain principles and ordinances; First, Accountability for your actions. Second, accountability for your REactions. Third, accountability for your feelings. Fourth, accountability for your thoughts. Fifth, accountability for your situation I believe all of these things (actions, reactions, feelings, thoughts, situation), are controllable EASILY.

7.) I believe in the constant and exponential growth of the evolution of the universe, and of the self.

8.) I believe in a modified eight-circuit model of consciousness, similar to the one defined by Timothy Leary. As part of that model, I believe in the use of Entheogens to bring out each circuit, to explore the abilities of the mind and the spirit, and to bond a closer and more meaningful connection with the Imagination of God.

9.) I believe all people, with faith, dedication, and study, can perform all things, including but not limited to all the gifts of the spirit defined in all scriptures of all faiths.

10.) I believe in the universal language of sacred geometry.

11.) I believe these things have been revealed not only to me, but to all prophets of all religions, all world leaders, shamans, and many generally successful people in varying degrees. I believe these revelations were kept secret, for the sake utilizing their power. Or, because the part about individual accountability and responsibility makes it undesirable to teach those who do not actively seek to learn.

12.) I believe in the power of the mind and of the imagination to reveal, feel, and know the infinite. I believe the imagination is the doorway to the Imagination of God.

13.) I believe that after death, our twisted rope of consciousness unravels, and joins the Imagination of God, bringing with it it's experiences. I believe that for a brief moment, or perhaps for all eternity, we will see and understand all experiences of all matter and energy throughout all time, before we throw ourselves back into the infinite loop, to experience it from yet another, brand new, yet infinitely old angle.

14.) For purely humorous reasons, I believe the universe runs on a Base 13 system of numerics. What is nine times five? Fourty-two. (This is particularly interesting when you begin to study the Mayan's and other old religions obsession with 13.)

15.) I believe that my beliefs may be wrong, and that they should be constantly tested, and changed to fit any and all new evidence.

It goes on and on. But those are the very basic beliefs. What I decide to do based on those beliefs, my code of ethics, goes even deeper.

These things, I feel were revealed to me by the divine infinite. During my studies, I find the hints of these beliefs in every scripture, in every success story, in every motivational tape, in every business book, and in every simple story. If consistency is what decides whether it's true, my beliefs have a much wider range of consistency across many more prophets than those in the judeo-christian faith.

Once again, though, our two beliefs are very dramatically different, and yet they were both revealed to us through Moroni's promise, and both with such a power that we "just knew" that it was a revelation, rather than just emotion. How can we verify which, if any, is correct?

Might I take a go at a possible answer, and see if you agree? If you don't, then we can begin our discussion anew.

My thought is that, since internal revelations are so dramatically different across the populous, there must be an external verifier. I would like to discount scriptures as an external verifier, simply because the prophets who wrote them also had vastly differing revelations among themselves, as I pointed out with Numbers ch. 31.

My suggestion is that the governing laws, those with testable results, would be the best possible external verifier. Gravity, thermodynamics, physics... These are universal, and work whether you believe it or not. I would think this is the best place to start from. And many of my personal beliefs have stemmed from my study into Quantum Physics, Psychology, and Biology.

Would you agree that this external verifier could help us determine which, if any, of our revelations are true? If so, then please elaborate on how your beliefs fit this data. If not, Why, and what other method would you propose we use?

[_Gazelam]

Ha ha, I just caught up on the other thread, sorry.

Will review and answer.

Gaz

[_Gazelam]

1 Moronis promise is a verifiable source. There are others, which I will discuss later.

2 You are right in a sence here. D&C 93:29

29 Man was also in the beginning with God. Intelligence, or the light of truth, was not created or made, neither indeed can be.


3 Your again close to the mark here: D&C 88:38-41

38 And unto every kingdom is given a law; and unto every law there are certain bounds also and conditions.
39 All beings who abide not in those conditions are not justified.
40 For intelligence cleaveth unto intelligence; wisdom receiveth wisdom; truth embraceth truth; virtue loveth virtue; light cleaveth unto light; mercy hath compassion on mercy and claimeth her own; justice continueth its course and claimeth its own; judgment goeth before the face of him who sitteth upon the throne and governeth and executeth all things.
41 He comprehendeth all things, and all things are before him, and all things are round about him; and he is above all things, and in all things, and is through all things, and is round about all things; and all things are by him, and of him, even God, forever and ever.

4 See 2

5 2 Nephi 2:27-29

27 Wherefore, men are free according to the flesh; and all things are given them which are expedient unto man. And they are free to choose liberty and eternal life, through the great Mediator of all men, or to choose captivity and death, according to the captivity and power of the devil; for he seeketh that all men might be miserable like unto himself.
28 And now, my sons, I would that ye should look to the great Mediator, and hearken unto his great commandments; and be faithful unto his words, and choose eternal life, according to the will of his Holy Spirit;
29 And not choose eternal death, according to the will of the flesh and the evil which is therein, which giveth the spirit of the devil power to captivate, to bring you down to hell, that he may reign over you in his own kingdom.

6 see 5


Bedtime... More to come.

[_keene]

1 Moronis promise is a verifiable source. There are others, which I will discuss later.

I didn't say there were no verifiable sources, but only that there are no visible or testable results.

And as for moroni's promise, that's what led us to this conversation in the first place, isn't it?

2 You are right in a sence here. D&C 93:29

29 Man was also in the beginning with God. Intelligence, or the light of truth, was not created or made, neither indeed can be.


3 Your again close to the mark here: D&C 88:38-41

38 And unto every kingdom is given a law; and unto every law there are certain bounds also and conditions.
39 All beings who abide not in those conditions are not justified.
40 For intelligence cleaveth unto intelligence; wisdom receiveth wisdom; truth embraceth truth; virtue loveth virtue; light cleaveth unto light; mercy hath compassion on mercy and claimeth her own; justice continueth its course and claimeth its own; judgment goeth before the face of him who sitteth upon the throne and governeth and executeth all things.
41 He comprehendeth all things, and all things are before him, and all things are round about him; and he is above all things, and in all things, and is through all things, and is round about all things; and all things are by him, and of him, even God, forever and ever.

4 See 2

5 2 Nephi 2:27-29

27 Wherefore, men are free according to the flesh; and all things are given them which are expedient unto man. And they are free to choose liberty and eternal life, through the great Mediator of all men, or to choose captivity and death, according to the captivity and power of the devil; for he seeketh that all men might be miserable like unto himself.
28 And now, my sons, I would that ye should look to the great Mediator, and hearken unto his great commandments; and be faithful unto his words, and choose eternal life, according to the will of his Holy Spirit;
29 And not choose eternal death, according to the will of the flesh and the evil which is therein, which giveth the spirit of the devil power to captivate, to bring you down to hell, that he may reign over you in his own kingdom.

6 see 5


Bedtime... More to come.

I'm not sure I understand what you're trying to say, Gaz. Are these responses to my articles of faith? Although interesting, I don't think it addresses the questions in my first post, and the previous questions I asked you before.

I find it interesting that you're locating scripture that seems to match my statements of faith -- although there is a fundamental difference. My faiths include yours, but yours do not include mine. As a fitting analogy, it's like saying all apples are fruit, but not all fruit are apples.

I would think of my faith as the fruit, and yours as the apple. Although your scriptures are, in a sense, true, they are only a sub-section of what I have included in my faiths. This difference, although it seems small at the moment, leads to some very different conclusions on a broader sense -- hence why we have such strongly differing beliefs on Homosexuality, for example.

And it also brings back one of my earlier questions. How do we know that those particular scriptures are the true ones, over those of any other faith? Before, you said that Moroni's promise led to this answer, but that brings us back to the initial question: How could we have both gotten such different responses from Moroni's promise?

I look forward to hearing from you again.

[_wenglund]

I have asked these questions to Wade and Gaz in another thread, but then we went off on another direction. When it comes right down to it, I think these questions are at the very core of all of our disagreements. I'd really be curious as to any answers for these questions

Given that we both followed Moroni's promise:
1.) How can it be that we had two such widely different revelations?

There are a number of plausable explanations, though none of which may be definitively and externally tested and verified, nor need they be. What is important should be our own personal revelation, and that we each proceed in accordance to what we sincerely believe was revealed to us. In other words, I don't need to account to others what others may or may not have received in the way of revelation. We each need only account to ourselves--particularly since we, ourselves, are the only ones who experienced our own personal revelation.

2.) How can we assure which revelation is correct?

By whether the seed of faith planted by the respective revelations grows and bears fruit that is valued and productive (see Alma 32).

3.) How can either of us be assured that the revelation we received is no different from auto-suggestion or other psychological effects?

In the same way we increase in confidence that our physical sensory perceptions are different from auto-suggestions and other psychological effects: by experiencing both and gradually growing to decipher the differences between the two.

And a couple other questions, for more situations
1.) What of those who receive no revelation? How are they to be assured which revelation, if any, is correct?

...I'm not sure they can be assured, though they may gain at least some confidence through observing the fruit born from the seed of revelation to others.

2.) How are those who receive no revelation to create a code of ethics or morals to live by?

They can use or borrow from revealed ethics and moral, use or borrow from non-revealed ethics or morals, or formulate their own unrevealed ethics and morals. Choices in such cases can be a function of what is valued, what works, and what seem to make the most sense.

3.) What of those who receive revelation outside of Moroni's promise?

I respect them, and wish them all the best in acting upon their personal revelation.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[_keene]

I have asked these questions to Wade and Gaz in another thread, but then we went off on another direction. When it comes right down to it, I think these questions are at the very core of all of our disagreements. I'd really be curious as to any answers for these questions

Given that we both followed Moroni's promise:
1.) How can it be that we had two such widely different revelations?

There are a number of plausable explanations, though none of which may be definitively and externally tested and verified, nor need they be. What is important should be our own personal revelation, and that we each proceed in accordance to what we sincerely believe was revealed to us. In other words, I don't need to account to others what others may or may not have received in the way of revelation. We each need only account to ourselves--particularly since we, ourselves, are the only ones who experienced our own personal revelation.

2.) How can we assure which revelation is correct?

By whether the seed of faith planted by the respective revelations grows and bears fruit that is valued and productive (see Alma 32).

3.) How can either of us be assured that the revelation we received is no different from auto-suggestion or other psychological effects?

In the same way we increase in confidence that our physical sensory perceptions are different from auto-suggestions and other psychological effects: by experiencing both and gradually growing to decipher the differences between the two.

And a couple other questions, for more situations
1.) What of those who receive no revelation? How are they to be assured which revelation, if any, is correct?

...I'm not sure they can be assured, though they may gain at least some confidence through observing the fruit born from the seed of revelation to others.

2.) How are those who receive no revelation to create a code of ethics or morals to live by?

They can use or borrow from revealed ethics and moral, use or borrow from non-revealed ethics or morals, or formulate their own unrevealed ethics and morals. Choices in such cases can be a function of what is valued, what works, and what seem to make the most sense.

3.) What of those who receive revelation outside of Moroni's promise?

I respect them, and wish them all the best in acting upon their personal revelation.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

Thanks Wade. Your response is very appreciated, and [suprisingly] open minded. Although it raises a few more questions...

First off, you say we are to follow our own revelations and code of ethics. What about when these revelations begin to affect people outside of the realm of our revelation? The most obvious example is that of homosexual marriage; in the revelation I received, the freedom of people to get married and define their own life is granted by God. Yet, from what I've read of your posts in the past, your revelation compels you to act in a manner that would deny marriage to homosexuals.

It would seem pertinent, then, that if we are to affect the lives of others, that we should be able to justify it to those we are affecting. If revelation is personal, how can we justify affecting others lives based on that revelation -- ESPECIALLY if their revelation is different?

My second question is on how we can judge the "fruits" of any revelation. How do we determine which "fruits" are good, and which are sub-standard? For example, again, I would consider a homosexual marriage to be a good fruit, whereas you may not. You may consider a full tithe as a good fruit, whereas I may not. It seems a fallacy to judge on the fruits of the revelation, because every revelation will find the fruits it's looking for, by definition. If someone were to be revealed that they should kill children, they would see dead children as fruit of the revelation, proving it true. Can you understand my skepticism in this particular way of judging revelation?

Let me bring it all into context for you... If I were to hold public office, and I were given a bill that would potentially affect your life (by say, limiting the allowed number of children in any given household, completely for the sake of argument...) I'm sure you'd want me to take your revelations in consideration as I vote whether to pass the bill or not. But with so many people having so many different revelations, how do we know which is "good?"

[_wenglund]

Thanks Wade. Your response is very appreciated, and [suprisingly] open minded. Although it raises a few more questions...

First off, you say we are to follow our own revelations and code of ethics. What about when these revelations begin to affect people outside of the realm of our revelation? The most obvious example is that of homosexual marriage; in the revelation I received, the freedom of people to get married and define their own life is granted by God. Yet, from what I've read of your posts in the past, your revelation compels you to act in a manner that would deny marriage to homosexuals.

The same applies to most every belief and code of ethics (whether secular or religious, or the product of revelation or derived from some other means). I may believe that the speed limit for freeways should be 80mph, while other may prefer 55 mhp. I may think a certain area would be best zoned for commercial, while others may prefer residential. I may prefer not to be subjected to second-hand smoke while walking on public sidewalks or at public parks and facilities, while others may think it perfectly okay to smoke in those locations.

In our democracy, these differing beliefs and ethics are worked out through public debate and ultimately it comes down to registering one's preferences through one's vote--that is, as long as it doesn't violate the Constitution.

As long as I and others are able to successfully make the case to the majority of U.S. citizens for legally defining marriage the way it has been defined for a mellenia (between a man and a woman), and for government sanctions to be restricted to the types of familial unions that may best serve the society as a whole (between a man and a woman), and as long as we don't violate any constitutional rights (which we don't), then there shouldn't be any problem. Right?

It would seem pertinent, then, that if we are to affect the lives of others, that we should be able to justify it to those we are affecting. If revelation is personal, how can we justify affecting others lives based on that revelation -- ESPECIALLY if their revelation is different?

I am sure it helps to justify it. But, not always are people convinced by the justifications nor think it justified. As long as the isue is handled constitutionally, that should suffice. Right?

My second question is on how we can judge the "fruits" of any revelation. How do we determine which "fruits" are good, and which are sub-standard? For example, again, I would consider a homosexual marriage to be a good fruit, whereas you may not. You may consider a full tithe as a good fruit, whereas I may not. It seems a fallacy to judge on the fruits of the revelation, because every revelation will find the fruits it's looking for, by definition. If someone were to be revealed that they should kill children, they would see dead children as fruit of the revelation, proving it true. Can you understand my skepticism in this particular way of judging revelation?

That is not exactly what I mean by "fruit". Let's say I employ Moroni 10 and I receive what I firmly believe to be revelation that the Book of Mormon is what it claims to be. That revelation becomes a seed of faith (rather than the fruit of faith) planted in my heart and mind. Through nuturing the seed and growing plant of faith (through study, prayer, and obedience to the precepts of the Book of Mormon), if it bears the fruit of a more enightened, mature, and enriched life, then by that fruit I may have increased confidence that the revelation was true rather than false.

The same is true for secular beliefs. For example, if an authoritative source (be it a teacher or otherwise) reveals to me that Cognitive Behavioral Therapy works, and that seed of faith is planted into my heart and mind. Through nurturing the seed and growing plant of faith (through implementing the principles and practices of CBT), if it bears the fruit of less depression and greater intra-personal and inter-personal functionality, then I may thereby have increased confidence that the revelation was true rather than false. I may experience the opposite were it to be revealed that Freudian psycho-therapy works.

However, as with any paradigm or belief system (secular or religious), as with the nature of the human mind, the means of weighing and measuring and tasting fruit is dependant upon, and biased by, the evaluative tools of the respective paradigms, epistemologies, or belief systems, themselves. In other words, paradigms et. al. are unavoidably, and paradoxically, encasulated, and thus to some degree circular--not that this nominal level of logical fallaciouness is necessary problematic given the lack of viable alternatives and in light of how well they tend to serve our intents and purposes.

Let me bring it all into context for you... If I were to hold public office, and I were given a bill that would potentially affect your life (by say, limiting the allowed number of children in any given household, completely for the sake of argument...) I'm sure you'd want me to take your revelations in consideration as I vote whether to pass the bill or not. But with so many people having so many different revelations, how do we know which is "good?"

Actually, I wouldn't so much want you to take my revelation into consideration, but rather my expressed opinion and the case I may make as it relates to secular governance of our society. But, more importantly, I would want you to consider my vote. If you differ with my expressed opinion, and are not influenced by my vote (both in terms of the previous election and the pending re-election), and the bill is able to pass through the legislature and also pass constitutional muster (which it can't), then I would be obliged to accept that outcome as a citizen of your legislative jurisdiction.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[_Gazelam]

7 You would be right here as well. The nature of the plan of salvation is everlasting growth, ever increaeing order.

Abr. 3:11-12
11 Thus I, Abraham, talked with the Lord, face to face, as one man talketh with another; and he told me of the works which his hands had made;
12 And he said unto me: My son, my son (and his hand was stretched out), behold I will show you all these. And he put his hand upon mine eyes, and I saw those things which his hands had made, which were many; and they multiplied before mine eyes, and I could not see the end thereof.

And those are just the creations of Christ. I should note that there is the possibility that the creations of the Father and Son are counted as one and the same, but nevertheless, the creations are always expanded.

8 Timothy Leary was a drug addled idiot. His declarations have resulted in more pain, death, tragedy, and anguish than the Nazis in World War II. Acid is death.

9 I will concede a little here, and say that some spiritual gifts are innate. I think there will be some judgement in how we used them.

10 I'm a little up in the air concerning sacred geometry. I know that math is considered important, and it brings further understanding in the sence of order. As far as ritual and magic is concerned, I don't think so. But in increaseing understanding of the order of things, then yes. The Drummer from Tool, Daney Carey, is really into this and wrote alot about it on his website.

11 That Prophets, when they are called, are shown a vision of heaven, and of the fullness of the Plan of salvation is testified in numerous places.(1 Nephi 1:6-15) The rest of what you say here I would disagree with. The plan of salvation is taught and instructed in increaeing degree to those who love God and seek to obey his commandments. Those who worship false gods and follow the philosophies of men are not counted in this group.

12 I'll agree with you here. But we can gain the mind of God by obedience to the principles he reveals to us, directing our imagination.

D&C 76:5-10
5 For thus saith the Lord—I, the Lord, am merciful and gracious unto those who fear me, and delight to honor those who serve me in righteousness and in truth unto the end.
6 Great shall be their reward and eternal shall be their glory.
7 And to them will I reveal all mysteries, yea, all the hidden mysteries of my kingdom from days of old, and for ages to come, will I make known unto them the good pleasure of my will concerning all things pertaining to my kingdom.
8 Yea, even the wonders of eternity shall they know, and things to come will I show them, even the things of many generations.
9 And their wisdom shall be great, and their understanding reach to heaven; and before them the wisdom of the wise shall perish, and the understanding of the prudent shall come to naught.
10 For by my Spirit will I enlighten them, and by my power will I make known unto them the secrets of my will—yea, even those things which eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor yet entered into the heart of man.


13 This sounds like some teaching from eastern religions I heard. On my mission I ran into some religions leader in the home of an Indian (as in packistani) family. He rambled on about something similar to this. And he was wrong also.

This belief runs contrary to what all of the prophets have testified concerning the plan of salvation. We are the children of God, and the same sociality that exists among us here wil exist among us there. (D&C 130: 1-2, 20-22)

14 I have no idea what you are talking about here. Is this from "Hitchhikers guide" ?

15 I hope I can assist you in finding new evidence.


Lets look at this evidence:

An excerpt from Hugh Nibleys talk on the Meaning of the Temple:

Left to itself, everything tends to become more and more disorderly, until the final and natural state of things is a completely random distribution of matter. Any kind of order is unnatural, and happens only by chance encounters These events are statistically unlikely and the further combination of molecules into anything as highly organized as a living organism is wildly improbable. Life is a rare and unreasonable thing. [He belabors the point]: Life occurs by chance, and the probability of its occurring and continuing is infinitesimal.2

There is no chance of us being here at all. Furthermore, "the cosmos itself is patternless, being a jumble of random and disordered events."3 It is not just life that is improbable, but the fabric of life itself—matter. The nuclear physicist P. T. Matthews asks,

Why is the proton stable, . . . since this is clearly crucial to the world as we know it? From the atomic point of view, the proton is one of the basic building blocks. Yet from the behavior of the other hadrons, . . . there is no obvious reason why it should not disintegrate into, say, a positive pion and neutrino, which is not forbidden by any conservation law.4

(The only two stable hadrons are the neutron [n0] and the proton [p+]. The neutron has a mean life span of 3 x 103 sec [about 50 minutes]. All other hadrons have mean life spans of from 10–8 to 10–18 seconds). Matthews goes on to explain the factors that determine the stability of the proton: "The rate of decay of any particle depends partly on the strength of the interaction and partly on the 'amount of room' it has into which it can decay."5 To describe what he means by "amount of room," Matthews draws an analogy of a room full of objects: "For every object in the room, there are, of course, vastly many more positions in which it would be considered out of place. When these possibilities for all the objects in the room are multiplied together, the number of untidy or disordered states exceeds the ordered ones by some enormous factor."6

Then he moves into the domain of the second law of thermodynamics and a mathematical description of this concept. Matthews continues, "The logarithm of the number of different states in which a system can be found is called the entropy. Thus the entropy of tidy or ordered states is very much less than that of untidy or disordered ones."7 To give us an idea about the magnitudes of the numbers we are dealing with, he presents the analogy of a deck of cards:

The rate at which numbers build up in the Second Law situation can be illustrated by considering a pack of playing cards. We can define an ordered, or tidy, state to be one in which the cards are arranged by value in successive suits. There are just twenty–four such configurations which arise from the different possible orderings of suits. This is itself a surprisingly large number, but the number of different ways the fifty-two cards can be arranged is about ten thousand million, million, million, million, million, million, million, million (1052). The chance of finding a shuffled pack in an ordered state is the ratio of these two numbers [24/1052].8

Matthews continues:

The relevance of this to our problem is that one may think of a proton at rest as a very highly ordered condition of a certain amount of energy—the rest energy of the proton—which can exist in just one state (strictly two if we allow for two possible orientations of the proton spin). If the proton can decay by any mechanism into two or more lighter particles, these serve to define an alternative condition of the system which is relatively highly disordered, since it can exist with all conceivable orientations. The number of allowed states depends on the relative momentum of the decay products much as the number of points on the circumference of a circle depends on its radius. The decay interaction is the shuffling agent . . . If it exists and operates on a time scale comparable with the age of the universe, then by relentless operation of the Second Law, essentially every proton would by now have decayed into lighter particles . . . Clearly the opposite is the case, and there must be some very exact law which is preventing this from happening.9

Had all the protons decayed, there would be no stable atoms, no elements, no compounds, no earth, no life. When the biologist said that life was wildly improbable, a rare unreasonable event, who would have guessed how improbable it really was? "A human being," writes Matthews, "is at very best, an assembly of chemicals constructed and maintained in a state of fantastically complicated organization of quite unimaginable improbability."10 So improbable that you can't even imagine it. So "wildly improbable" that even to mention it is ridiculous.11 So we have no business being here. That is not the natural order of things. In fact, he says that "the sorting process—the creation of order out of chaos—against the natural flow of physical events is something which is essential to life."12 So the physical scientists and the naturalists agree that if nature has anything to say about it, we wouldn't be here. This is the paradox of which Professor Wald of Harvard says, "The spontaneous generation of a living organism is impossible . . . In this colloquial, practical sense I concede the spontaneous origin of life to be 'impossible.'"13 The chances of our being here are not even to be thought of, yet here we are.

So as I say, in my school days it was fashionable to brush aside Paley's watch argument with a snort of impatience. If you're walking on the beach and find a beautifully made Swiss watch, you should not with Archdeacon Paley conclude that some intelligent mind has produced the watch. It proves nothing of the sort. Finding the watch only proves, quite seriously, that mere chance at work, if given enough time, can indeed produce a fine Swiss watch or anything else. Indeed, when you come right down to it, the fact that Swiss watches exist in a world created and governed entirely by chance proves that blind chance can produce watches. There is no escaping this circular argument, and some people use it. Today Professor Matthews states the same problem more simply:

If, after seeing a room in chaos, it is subsequently found in good order, the sensible inference is not that time is running backwards, but that some intelligent person has been in to tidy it up. If you find the letters of the alphabet ordered on a piece of paper to form a beautiful sonnet, you do not deduce that teams of monkeys have been kept for millions of years strumming on typewriters, but rather that Shakespeare has passed this way.14

But to Professor Huxley or Professor Simpson this is sheer heresy or folly. It was the evolutionist who seriously put forth the claim that an ape strumming on a typewriter for a long enough time could produce, by mere blind chance, all the books in the British Museum, but did any religionist ever express such boundless faith? I don't know any religious person who ever had greater faith than that. Yet serious minds actually believed such an impossibility. They say it is impossible, but then it happens.

Remember, "the decay interaction is the shuffling agent [and] . . . by the relentless operation of the Second Law, essentially every proton would by now have decayed into lighter particles . . . Clearly the opposite is the case." Now "there must be some very exact law which is preventing this from happening."15

Kammerees new law of seriality is in direct opposition to the second law: there is "a force that tends toward symmetry and coherence by bringing like and like together."16 That is a very interesting point. We say that light cleaves unto light, etc. What is that force? Nobody knows. They say it is there because you see it working. Buckminster Fuller calls it syntropy.17 The greatest Soviet astrophysicist today, the Soviets' foremost man in that field, Nikolai Kozyrev, has been working for years on this question. He claims that the second law of thermodynamics is all right, but it doesn't work. Something works against it, something stronger. He says,

Some processes unobserved by mechanics and preventing the death of the world are at work everywhere, maintaining the variety of life. These processes must be similar to biological processes maintaining organic life. Therefore, they may be called vital processes and the life of cosmic bodies or other physical systems can be referred to as vital processes in this sense.18

The article in full can be found here: http://farms.BYU.edu/display.php?table=transcripts&id=58 Please read it in full to see his conclusions and view that tie to this.

God is in control, and the testimony of hundreds of Prophets is available to us in testimony of his presence, and will concerning us his children. You state Keene that there are many spiritual viewpoints, but what you fail to see is that many are false spirits, and the conclusions need to be viewed and compared with what we already know. What makes sence, what is edifying?

More to come....

Gaz