We, and creation itself, actualize the possibilities of the God who sustains the world, towards becoming in the world in a fuller, more deeper way. - R.E. Slater
There is urgency in coming to see the world as a web of interrelated processes of which we are integral parts, so that all of our choices and actions have [consequential effects upon] the world around us. - Process Metaphysician Alfred North Whitehead
Kurt Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem says (i) all closed systems are unprovable within themselves and, that (ii) all open systems are rightly understood as incomplete. - R.E. Slater
The most true thing about you is what God has said to you in Christ, "You are My Beloved." - Tripp Fuller
The God among us is the God who refuses to be God without us, so great is God's Love. - Tripp Fuller
According to some Christian outlooks we were made for another world. Perhaps, rather, we were made for this world to recreate, reclaim, redeem, and renew unto God's future aspiration by the power of His Spirit. - R.E. Slater
Our eschatological ethos is to love. To stand with those who are oppressed. To stand against those who are oppressing. It is that simple. Love is our only calling and Christian Hope. - R.E. Slater
Secularization theory has been massively falsified. We don't live in an age of secularity. We live in an age of explosive, pervasive religiosity... an age of religious pluralism. - Peter L. Berger
Exploring the edge of life and faith in a post-everything world. - Todd Littleton
I don't need another reason to believe, your love is all around for me to see. – Anon
Thou art our need; and in giving us more of thyself thou givest us all. - Khalil Gibran, Prayer XXIII
Be careful what you pretend to be. You become what you pretend to be. - Kurt Vonnegut
Religious beliefs, far from being primary, are often shaped and adjusted by our social goals. - Jim Forest
We become who we are by what we believe and can justify. - R.E. Slater
People, even more than things, need to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone. – Anon
Certainly, God's love has made fools of us all. - R.E. Slater
An apocalyptic Christian faith doesn't wait for Jesus to come, but for Jesus to become in our midst. - R.E. Slater
Christian belief in God begins with the cross and resurrection of Jesus, not with rational apologetics. - Eberhard Jüngel, Jürgen Moltmann
Our knowledge of God is through the 'I-Thou' encounter, not in finding God at the end of a syllogism or argument. There is a grave danger in any Christian treatment of God as an object. The God of Jesus Christ and Scripture is irreducibly subject and never made as an object, a force, a power, or a principle that can be manipulated. - Emil Brunner
“Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh” means "I will be that who I have yet to become." - God (Ex 3.14) or, conversely, “I AM who I AM Becoming.”
Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy. - Thomas Merton
The church is God's world-changing social experiment of bringing unlikes and differents to the Eucharist/Communion table to share life with one another as a new kind of family. When this happens, we show to the world what love, justice, peace, reconciliation, and life together is designed by God to be. The church is God's show-and-tell for the world to see how God wants us to live as a blended, global, polypluralistic family united with one will, by one Lord, and baptized by one Spirit. – Anon
The cross that is planted at the heart of the history of the world cannot be uprooted. - Jacques Ellul
The Unity in whose loving presence the universe unfolds is inside each person as a call to welcome the stranger, protect animals and the earth, respect the dignity of each person, think new thoughts, and help bring about ecological civilizations. - John Cobb & Farhan A. Shah
If you board the wrong train it is of no use running along the corridors of the train in the other direction. - Dietrich Bonhoeffer
God's justice is restorative rather than punitive; His discipline is merciful rather than punishing; His power is made perfect in weakness; and His grace is sufficient for all. – Anon
Our little [biblical] systems have their day; they have their day and cease to be. They are but broken lights of Thee, and Thou, O God art more than they. - Alfred Lord Tennyson
We can’t control God; God is uncontrollable. God can’t control us; God’s love is uncontrolling! - Thomas Jay Oord
Life in perspective but always in process... as we are relational beings in process to one another, so life events are in process in relation to each event... as God is to Self, is to world, is to us... like Father, like sons and daughters, like events... life in process yet always in perspective. - R.E. Slater
To promote societal transition to sustainable ways of living and a global society founded on a shared ethical framework which includes respect and care for the community of life, ecological integrity, universal human rights, respect for diversity, economic justice, democracy, and a culture of peace. - The Earth Charter Mission Statement
Christian humanism is the belief that human freedom, individual conscience, and unencumbered rational inquiry are compatible with the practice of Christianity or even intrinsic in its doctrine. It represents a philosophical union of Christian faith and classical humanist principles. - Scott Postma
It is never wise to have a self-appointed religious institution determine a nation's moral code. The opportunities for moral compromise and failure are high; the moral codes and creeds assuredly racist, discriminatory, or subjectively and religiously defined; and the pronouncement of inhumanitarian political objectives quite predictable. - R.E. Slater
God's love must both center and define the Christian faith and all religious or human faiths seeking human and ecological balance in worlds of subtraction, harm, tragedy, and evil. - R.E. Slater
In Whitehead’s process ontology, we can think of the experiential ground of reality as an eternal pulse whereby what is objectively public in one moment becomes subjectively prehended in the next, and whereby the subject that emerges from its feelings then perishes into public expression as an object (or “superject”) aiming for novelty. There is a rhythm of Being between object and subject, not an ontological division. This rhythm powers the creative growth of the universe from one occasion of experience to the next. This is the Whiteheadian mantra: “The many become one and are increased by one.” - Matthew Segall
Without Love there is no Truth. And True Truth is always Loving. There is no dichotomy between these terms but only seamless integration. This is the premier centering focus of a Processual Theology of Love. - R.E. Slater
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Note: Generally I do not respond to commentary. I may read the comments but wish to reserve my time to write (or write from the comments I read). Instead, I'd like to see our community help one another and in the helping encourage and exhort each of us towards Christian love in Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior. - re slater
Thursday, February 24, 2022, has become a day of mourning for the peoples of Ukraine and their brothers and sisters found throughout Crimea, Georgia, Belarus and Eastern Russia as the Communist dictator, Putin, continues his campaigns against the free sovereign states of the former Union of Soviet Russia (USSR) serving as proxy territories to Russia's own imperialist safety and security concerns.
We pray for the free peoples of the Russian empire. For their courage, wisdom, caution, and resistance to the propagandist campaigns of Russian autocracy even as we pray for the unity and community support of the peoples of Russia during another era of manic harm and suffering imposed by the cruel and evil forces found in this unjust world.
Together with the peoples of both the free world as well as all those held under imperialist dictatorships we pray for the peace and protection of loved ones, community and countries unfairly harmed or broken by the wicked of this age. An age which has continued in its agony since man's beginning when in search of power, rule, and wealth - but not for God, love, or the solidarity of one's countrymen.
Lastly, we pray to the God who is everywhere present to use the resources He has to save the innocents of this world - the families of men, women, and children - who cry out for a Savior to help them from their dilemma wrought at the hands of evil men. That God comfort and protect all who seek His help and favour who might bring God's own peace and presence into these horrific times of fear and need.
For our loved Ones,
R.E. Slater
February 24, 2022
Western Russia
A brief history of modern Ukraine - BBC News
Feb 25, 2022
When the Soviet Union collapsed in the 1990s Ukraine was one of the largest new nations to emerge. It held its first elections in 1991.
Bordered by Russia on the east and by Hungary, Poland and Slovakia on the west, politics in Ukraine have always been divided along those looking east towards Russia and those looking to the West.
Putin has said that Ukraine is “ancient Russian soil” but the majority of Ukrainians don’t feel this way, with 68% of Ukrainians in favour of joining the EU.
Let's retrace on maps the first origins of Russia, from the creation of Novgorod during the IXth century, until the end of the Time of Troubles and the beginning of the Romanov dynasty.
Music: Created for Geo History Software: Adobe After Effects
Chapters 00:00 The Varangians 01:15 Kievan Rus’ 02:52 Russian principalities 04:56 Catholic and Mongol threats 06:24 Mongol invasion 08:00 Grand Duchy of Moscow and Lithuania 09:59 Ivan the Terrible 11:43 End of the Rurik Dynasty 12:56 Time of Troubles
A History of Eastern Europe: Ukraine-Russia Crisis
Dec 15, 2016
Wondrium
Taught by Professor Vejas Gabriel Liulevicius, an award-winning professor at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, these 24 insightful lectures offer a sweeping 1,000-year history of Eastern Europe with a particular focus on the region’s modern history. You’ll observe waves of migration and invasion, watch empires rise and fall, witness wars and their deadly consequences—and come away with a comprehensive knowledge of one of the world’s most fascinating places.
This video is episode 23 from the series A History of Eastern Europe, Presented by Vejas Gabriel Liulevicius
This course goes far beyond issues of military and political history. Professor Liulevicius delves deeply into the cultures of this region—the 20 nations that stretch from the Baltic to the Black Seas. You’ll meet the everyday citizens—including artists and writers—who shaped the politics of Eastern Europe, from poets-turned-politicians to proletarian workers who led dissident uprisings. Breathtaking in scope and crucially relevant to today’s world, A History of Eastern Europe is a powerful survey of a diverse region and its people.
00:00 Ukraine Erupts Into Crisis in 2014
02:10 Background to Ukraine-Russia Crisis
07:26 West Vs. East Conflict in Ukrainian History
11:03 A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian
13:52 Ukraine Gains Independence
15:59 Ukraine Becomes Dependent on Russia
18:37 Gains for Ukrainian Reform Lead to Disappointment
22:31 Russian Media Denounces Protesters as Nazis
25:54 Ukraine-Russia Conflict Becomes "New Normal"
"War is ruined time. It is forged for the sake of ego and empire, and it leaves those who put their faith in it forever hungry for more, with an insatiable thirst that is never satisfied, all while those who so desperately want to avoid war instead find themselves weeping for irretrievable pasts and lost futures, wondering how they will endure it all, or if they can endure it all.
"War doesn’t fill the void, it exploits it, exposes it, enlarges it. Violence begets violence, and the world loses count. There is no glory in warfare, only loss, only sorrow. Loss of life for the victims, loss of soul for the perpetrators, and loss of promise and possibility beyond anything we will ever know. War is an incalculable evil that breeds irreparable loss. That nations try to find meaning and purpose in it is a sickness unto death.
"In Dante’s Inferno, there’s a place in hell where despots and warmongers have to acknowledge the traumatic truth of who they are, to come face to face with how much suffering they caused. Only then can they change. But the problem with that is not just that it’s fiction. Even if it were real, by then it is still too late for this world, where the warmongers have already created too many hells on earth. And it does nothing for those in Ukraine, who just want to sleep and just want to live, who just want to be able to step outside and walk down their street. Which shouldn’t be asking too much.
"Justice is always too late for this world, it seems, and I guess sometimes that just grieves me beyond words.
"My heart and prayers are with the people of Ukraine."
Post-Colonialism never really leaves, it just morphs into something else. To be trully committed to freedom one must be willing to give up biases and hatreds and learn a new language of love, respect, and understanding. - re slater
REPORT
What has set the stage for the conflict?
Ukraine was a cornerstone of the Soviet Union until it voted overwhelmingly for independence in a democratic referendum in 1991, a milestone that turned out to be a death knell for the failing superpower.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, NATO pushed eastward, bringing into the fold most of the Eastern European nations that had been in the Communist orbit. In 2004, NATO added the former Soviet Baltic republics Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Four years later, it declared its intention to offer membership to Ukraine some day in the distant future -- crossing a red line for Russia.
Putin sees NATO's expansion as an existential threat, and the prospect of Ukraine joining the Western military alliance a "hostile act" -- a view he invoked in a televised speech on Thursday, saying that Ukraine's aspiration to join the military alliance was a dire threat to Russia.
In interviews and speeches, Putin has previously emphasized his view that Ukraine is part of Russia, culturally, linguistically and politically. While some of the mostly Russian-speaking population in Ukraine's east feel the same, a more nationalist, Ukrainian-speaking population in the west has historically supported greater integration with Europe.
In early 2014, mass protests in the capital Kyiv known as Euromaidan forced out a Russia-friendly president after he refused to sign an EU association agreement. Russia responded by annexing the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea and fomenting a separatist rebellion in Ukraine's east, which seized control of part of the Donbas region. Despite a ceasefire agreement in 2015, the two sides have not seen a stable peace, and the front line has barely moved since. Nearly 14,000 people have died in the conflict, and there are 1.5 million people internally displaced in Ukraine, according to the Ukrainian government.
In the eight years since, Moscow has been accused of engaging in hybrid warfare against Ukraine, using cyberattacks, economic pressure and propaganda to whip up discord. Those tactics have escalated in recent months, and in early February the State Department claimed Putin was preparing a false-flag operation to create "a pretext for an invasion."
What does Putin want?
In a lengthy essay penned in July 2021, Putin referred to Russians and Ukrainians as "one people," and suggested the West had corrupted Ukraine and yanked it out of Russia's orbit through a "forced change of identity."
That type of historical revisionism was on full display in Putin's emotional and grievance-packed address to the nation on Monday announcing his decision to recognize the Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics, while casting doubt on Ukraine's own sovereignty.
But Ukrainians, who in the last three decades have sought to align more closely with Western institutions like the European Union and NATO, have pushed back against the notion that they are little more than the West's "puppet."
In fact, Putin's efforts to bring Ukraine back into Russia's sphere have been met with a backlash, with several recent polls showing that a majority of Ukrainians now favor membership of the US-led transatlantic military alliance.
In December, Putin presented the US and NATO with a list of security demands. Chief among them was a guarantee that Ukraine will never enter NATO and that the alliance rolls back its military footprint in Eastern and Central Europe -- proposals that the US and its allies have repeatedly said are non-starters.
Putin indicated he was not interested in lengthy negotiations on the topic. "It is you who must give us guarantees, and you must do it immediately, right now," he said at his annual news conference late last year. "Are we deploying missiles near the US border? No, we are not. It is the United States that has come to our home with its missiles and is already standing at our doorstep."
High-level talks between the West and Russia wrapped in January without any breakthroughs. The standoff left Europe's leaders to engage in a frenzy of shuttle diplomacy, exploring whether a negotiating channel established between France, Germany, Russia and Ukraine to resolve the conflict in Ukraine's east -- known as the Normandy Format talks -- could provide an avenue for calming the current crisis.
In a news conference with the new German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on February 16, Putin repeated unsubstantiated claims that Ukraine is carrying out a "genocide" against Russian speakers in the Donbas region and called for the conflict to be resolved through the Minsk peace progress -- echoing similar rhetoric that was used as a pretext for annexing Crimea.
But less than a week later, after Russia's upper house of parliament approved the deployment of military forces outside the country on February 22, Putin told reporters that the Minsk agreements "no longer exist," adding: "What is there to implement if we have recognized these two entities?"
The agreements, known as Minsk 1 and Minsk 2 -- which were hammered out in the Belarusian capital in a bid to end a bloody in eastern Ukraine -- have never been fully implemented, with key issues remaining unresolved.
Moscow and Kyiv have long been at odds over key elements of the peace deal, the second of which was inked in 2015 and lays out a plan for reintegrating the two breakaway republics into Ukraine.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky recently stated that he did not like a single point of the Minsk accords, which require dialogue on local elections in the Russian-backed separatist regions and -- although unclear in what sequence -- would also restore the Ukrainian government's control over its eastern borders. Critics say the agreement could give Moscow undue sway over Ukrainian politics.
Putin previously responded in blunt terms by saying that regardless of whether Zelensky likes the plan, it must be implemented. "Like it or don't like it, it's your duty, my beauty," Putin said in a news conference alongside French President Emmanuel Macron. Zelensky, a former comedian and TV star, won a 2019 election in a landslide on promises to end the war in Donbas, but little has changed. Responding to a question about Putin's stark, undiplomatic language, Zelensky responded in Russian, saying bluntly: "We are not his."
- CNN
What does Putin want in Ukraine? The conflict explained
The World Science Festival (WSF) helps to keep the public informed using the standard (or physical) cosmological science of the day as its philosophic foundation. This foundation curiously speaks to the organic processes of the universe without recognizing "the universe as a holistic organism" per se as a process-based metaphysical cosmology would do. Thus, physical science is content to rest on older (Platonic) Enlightenment models describing the universe as (1) a clock-like mechanism with its cause-and-effect laws or, (2) by breaking the universe into its elementary, or reductionary parts, so that when the lowest common denominator is achieved (as is being attempted in quantum strings, quantum loop gravity, or D-Zero particles), then standard metaphysical science is satisfied with its description of the cosmos.
Quantum cosmology is the attempt in theoretical physics to develop a quantum theory of the Universe. This approach attempts to answer open questions of classical physical cosmology, particularly those related to the first phases of the universe.
Classical cosmology is based on Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity (GTR or simply GR) which describes the evolution of the universe very well, as long as you do not approach the [quantum cosmology of the] Big Bang. It is [those aspects of] gravitational singularity and Planck time where relativity theory fails to provide what must be demanded of a final theory of space and time.
Therefore, a theory is needed that integrates the relativity theory [of macro cosmic structures] with the quantum theory [of micro cosmic structures]. Such an approach is attempted for instance with loop quantum cosmology, loop quantum gravity, string theory and causal set theory.
[For instance,] in quantum cosmology, the universe is treated as a wave function instead of classical spacetime.
Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality, the first principles of being, identity and change, space and time, causality, necessity, and possibility. It includes questions about the nature of consciousness and the relationship between mind and matter, between substance and attribute, and between potentiality and actuality. The word "metaphysics" comes from two Greek words that, together, literally mean "after or behind or among [the study of] the natural". It has been suggested that the term might have been coined by a first century CE editor who assembled various small selections of Aristotle's works into the treatise we now know by the name Metaphysics (μετὰ τὰ φυσικά, meta ta physika, lit. 'after the Physics ', another of Aristotle's works).
Metaphysics studies questions related to what it is for something to exist and what types of existence there are. Metaphysics seeks to answer, in an abstract and fully general manner, the questions:
> What is there?
> What is it like?
Topics of metaphysical investigation include existence, objects and their properties, space and time, cause and effect, and possibility. Metaphysics is considered one of the four main branches of philosophy, along with epistemology, logic, and ethics.
Conversely, today's newer metaphysical cosmologies are adopting a complex "organic attitude" of the evolutionary universe resting upon "open and relational" paradigms. Thus and thus, Whitehead's expanding cosmological metaphysic known as Process Philosophy is slowly coming to the forefront of discussions.
Which is also where Process Christians may enter in with their processual theologies of panexistentialism, panrelationalism and panpsychism... all based on process philosophy. On these bases the Christian may assuredly state there is a Creator who works processually, experientially, relationally, and through His Spirit in-and-through all things consciously. This means that for the Christian God we may speak of an ongoing processual creation bourne from a Creator-God who is intimately near his creation as expressed theologically (and philosophically) in terms of relational-experiential-psychical and processual immanence.
And though the older church's classic theism leans heavily upon God's heavenly state of transcendence, this same theism does include God's immanence with his creation. Maybe a little, or maybe a lot, depending on the kind of Christian dogma being followed - though one would wish in equally full amounts (e.g., similar to the idea of Jesus' incarnational Being expressed as fully God and fully human... but not as "half-and-half divine and human" like the skim milk we buy in grocery stores).
It is also important to note that process philosophy and theology requires an upgraded metaphysic. One known as panentheism (not pantheism) which avows divine transcendence beyond creation but which finds God's apartness from creation to be meaningless to all created things. That though divine removal, or ontological separation, may aptly describe God's divine Being it has very little significance to us except to describe God's eternal, immortal Self which speaks to a God who is nonrelational, nonexperiential and nonpsychical to His creation in which God's immanent presence is dearly required within creation.
Hence, process theology leans wholly into the doctrine of divine immanence while upholding to God's wholly Otherness apart from creation. It doesn't deny divine transcendence so much as necessarily admits it while triply underlying divine immanence as the key qualifier for the everywhere-presence of God embedded in-with-and-within His creation. This is the meaning of a process-based panentheism which is therefore unlikepantheism even as it completes the classic theism doctrine of transcendence more realistically while providing a deeper affinity with teleological hope for valuative uplift and wellbeing. Need proof? Search the sublimity of the heavens and earth in communion with one another; or, the Incarnation of Jesus in redemptive uplift of creation; or, the everyday Spirit presence in experiential fellowship with all created things (man, beasts, trees, rocks, seas and wind).
Panentheism emphasizes divine creational immanence as fully as it would transcendence, and yet, immanence is the more meaningful to creation as it tells of a God who is here WITH us, at all times, in all weathers, and in all circumstances, trials, and hardships. Panentheism focuses on the God who is here. Who is meaningfully present with us rather than other-dimensionally apart from us in creational abandonment, separation and withdrawal. A transcendent God is worthless unless this same God never leaves us as His loves promises He would never do (cf, God's covenant with Abram, or Jesus covenant with the world, each offering divinely redemptive presence always).
The divine assurance of immanence means God's Spirit (or psyche, or being, or character) is fully embedded within the DNA of creation which is where the doctrinal approach of processualpanentheism lives and breathes.
Which also means for the process philosopher-theologian who approaches science's "standard (or physical) cosmology" may - if he or she wishes - uplift science's theories towards a metaphysic of relationality (or embeddedness, or immanence) and may then more easily move directly into the realm of process theology to thereby speak to a God of presence, upon whom creation was formed. Whose creation, like the devine godhead, is full of vitality, wellbeing, and consequentially, full of redemptive uplift as both a divine force as well as a divine yearning across an equally free creation created in His free Spirit of will, purpose, and living motion from God's very personage of love (rather than ordered by God via divine fiat as most Christians misunderstand the origin of indeterminate freewill).
Processual Evolution be like...
One last, whether we speak to a standard metaphysical cosmology of mechanism and reductionism, or to a processual metaphysical cosmology full of organic presence to itself and sublime interconnectivity within itself, either metaphysic must necessarily include processual evolutionary science. To say differently is to say God did not form the deeps from the primordial voids of a static creation (Genesis 1.1ff, sic. "creatio continua").
Realizedly, the bible cannot, in itself, per se, convey this modern scientific ideation - or even, philosophic understanding - in its pages even though when reading its Hebraic legends backwards through centuries and centuries of history we read of the ancients reporting through the biblical pages an organic ideation of creation intimately related and interactive with itself. Creation was never seen by ancient civilizations as a static substance but as a highly interactive force intersecting with God's people and the peoples of the world.
For example, one creational event depends subsequently upon other eventuating creational events cascading across themselves like dominoes in dynamic motion. Or, as depicted in the cycles of birth, life, and death moving eternally within the processual halls of time according to the workings of the Spirit. Or, in the Psalmists' declarations of the sun, moon, stars, hills, storms, land and water responding to one another when moved by the embedded Spirit of our Creator-Redeemer.
Processualtheology drips off the biblical page but yet, until Whitehead's recognition and formulation of it as a living "philosophy of organism" we, in our mechanical, reductionary, and binary modern mathematics and sciences, beheld creation quite unlike our ancestral predecessors who described life in terms of the cycles of nature - both the natural and the supernatural found in the commonplace - as either good or bad, holy or evil. And yet, the Native Americans, or even many, if not all Aborigine populations around the world, had in their metaphysical (unscientific) cosmologies recognized either the Creator or creation as part of some deeper meaning to life.
Science is only now recognizing the paucity of its metaphysical cosmology initiated in the Age of the Enlightenment. An enlightenment which had philosophically constructed a Platonic binary of "mind v. matter" metaphysic (sic, via Rene Descartes) structured upon a mechanistic-reductionistic universal cosmological model. The early cosmologist, Hegel, in his day attempted to change this scientific mindset but was overwhelmed by Descartes' metaphysical binary approach. Yet importantly, this perfunctory mindset is changing, evolving, because of science's evolving understanding of a living quantum cosmology and biological evolution. And as it does, process philosophy will be part of this evolving discussion even as it grows and develops over time alongside other, newer, processual philosophies and sciences.
R.E. Slater
February 23, 2022
PS... In the early years of developing this website I use to cover evolution using the newer ideas of theistic evolutionists (I prefer the term "evolutionary creationism," placing the emphasis on the creational processes used by God, the Father of creation). Other terms like "concordist terminology" I saw as a forced liguistic effort of coincidence which satisfied biblical literalists even as I saw literalism as tbe exactly wrong way to read the bible. Moreover, the idea of "complimentarianism" was not helpful either as it was a Christian attempt to subjectively match up the bible with science, thus forcing the ancient pre-scientific mindset to say something it couldn't. And lastly, when coming upon process theology, I saw I could quite easily, and naturally, link Creator, creation, philosophy, science, and modern culture to process thought as explained above. Hence, nowadays, I've abandoned Christianizing evolutionary language altogether. I find it no longer helpful, dated, and straying from a more proper reading of the living God beheld first by the ancients and now residing in our own caretake as God's emissaries.
One last, the doctrine of "ex nihilo creation" is superferlous and not needed.... Quantum cosmology must begin with something, not nothing. Let's convienently call it the primordial biblical "void" and leave it at that. A formless void which earlier this month in a previous article I suggested how a quantum singularity might work without the concept of time between God and its own formless, static, homogenous quantum soup of hot plasmic energy. For process theologians, "creatio continua" is a more prefered quality of panentheism and science than if it were left unqualified and rejected per the ancient Gteeks who theorized about an "ex nihilo" creation erroneously. Which was then copied by the church into its hellenistic creeds and confessions over many centuries later to its scientific detriment and disqualification. - re slater
Space Oddity
by Commander Chris Hadfield on board the International Space Station.
May 12, 2013
Rest in peace, Starman.
A revised version of David Bowie's Space Oddity, recorded by Commander Chris Hadfield on board the International Space Station.
Composition: “SPACE ODDITY” Written by David Bowie Published by Onward Music Limited
* * * * * * * * *
Brian Greene and Leonard Susskind: World Science U
Q+A Session
streamed live on Dec 17, 2020
World Science Festival
Renowned physicist and pioneer of string theory, Leonard Susskind talks with Brian Greene about some of the biggest breakthroughs in physics. Listen to their wide-ranging conversation about the holographic principle, quantum entanglement, wormholes, the Firewall Paradox, and how string theory has allowed for quantum mechanics and gravity to coexist.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to metaphysics:
Metaphysics – traditional branch of philosophy concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world that encompasses it,[1] although the term is not easily defined.[2] Traditionally, metaphysics attempts to answer two basic questions in the broadest possible terms:[3]
What is ultimately there?
What is it like?
Nature of metaphysics
Metaphysics can be described as all of the following:
Branch of philosophy – philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language.[4][5] Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational argument.[6]
Academic discipline – branch of knowledge that is taught and researched at the college or university level. Disciplines are defined (in part), and recognized by the academic journals in which research is published, and the learned societies and academic departments or faculties to which their practitioners belong.
Branches of metaphysics
Cosmology– a central branch of metaphysics, that studies the origin, fundamental structure, nature, and dynamics of the universe.
Physical cosmology– study of the largest-scale structures and dynamics of the Universe and is concerned with fundamental questions about its formation, evolution, and ultimate fate.
Big Bang cosmology (standard) – cosmology based on the Big Bang model of the universe. The Big Bang is a theoretical explosion from which all matter in the universe is alleged to have originated approximately 13.799 ± 0.021billion years ago.
Non-standard cosmology – any physical cosmological model of the universe that has been, or still is, proposed as an alternative to the Big Bang model of standard physical cosmology.
Plasma cosmology – a non-standard cosmology whose central postulate is that the dynamics of ionized gases and plasmas, rather than gravity, play the dominant roles in the formation, development, and evolution of astronomical bodies and large-scale structures in the universe.
Religious cosmology – body of beliefs based on the historical, mythological, religious, and esoteric literature and traditions of creation and eschatology.
Buddhist cosmology – description of the shape and evolution of the Universe according to the Buddhist scriptures and commentaries.
Hindu cosmology – In Hindu cosmology the universe is cyclically created and destroyed. The Hindu literature, such as Vedas, and Puranas, cite the creation of the universe. They describe the aspects of evolution, astronomy, etc.
Jain cosmology – description of the shape and functioning of the physical and metaphysical Universe (loka) and its constituents (such as living beings, matter, space, time etc.) according to Jainism, which includes the canonical Jain texts, commentaries and the writings of the Jain philosopher-monks.
Taoist cosmology – cosmology based on the School of Yin Yang which was headed by Zou Yan (305 BC – 240 BC). The school's tenets harmonized the concepts of the Wu Xing (Five Phases) and yin and yang. In this spirit, the universe is seen as being in a constant process of re-creating itself, as everything that exists is a mere aspect of qi, which, "condensed, becomes life; diluted, it is indefinite potential".
Esoteric cosmology – cosmology that is an intrinsic part of an esoteric or occult system of thought. Esoteric cosmology maps out the universe with planes of existence and consciousness according to a specific worldview usually from a doctrine.
Ontology – a central branch of metaphysics. Ontology is the study of the nature of being, becoming, existence, or reality, as well as the basic categories of being and how they relate to each other. In simpler terms, ontology investigates what there is.
Mereotopology – deals with the relations among wholes, parts, parts of parts, and the boundaries between parts.
Meta-ontology – investigates what we are asking when we ask what there is.
Metametaphysics – branch of metaphysics concerned with the foundations of metaphysics (which is concerned primarily with the foundations of reality). It asks: "Do the questions of metaphysics really have answers? If so, are these answers substantive or just a matter of how we use words? And what is the best procedure for arriving at them—common sense? Conceptual analysis? Or assessing competing hypotheses with quasi-scientific criteria?"
Philosophical theology – branch of theology and metaphysics that uses philosophical methods in developing or analyzing theological concepts.
Natural theology – branch of theology and metaphysics the object of which is the nature of the gods, or of the one supreme God. In monotheistic religions, this principally involves arguments about the attributes or non-attributes of God, and especially the existence of God - arguments which are purely philosophical, and do not involve recourse to any supernatural revelation.
Meditations on First Philosophy[13] (subtitled In which the existence of God and the immortality of the soul are demonstrated) – philosophical treatise by René Descartes first published in 1641 (in Latin). The book is made up of six meditations, in which Descartes first discards all belief in things which are not absolutely certain, and then tries to establish what can be known for sure.
Metaphysics – one of the principal works of Aristotle. The principal subject is "being qua being", or being understood as being. It examines what can be asserted about anything that exists just because of its existence and not because of any special qualities it has.
Philosophical Problems of Space and Time – 1963 book by Adolf Grünbaum, who argues that physical geometry and chronometry are in part matters of convention because continuous physical space and time are metrically amorphous.
The Realms of Being – last major work by Spanish-American philosopherGeorge Santayana. In this work of ontology, he defines four realms of being; The Realm of Essence, The Realm of Matter, The Realm of Truth, and The Realm of Spirit.
The Unreality of Time – best-known philosophical work of the Cambridge idealist J. M. E. McTaggart. McTaggart argues that time is unreal because our descriptions of time are either contradictory, circular, or insufficient.
Metaphysician[14] (also, metaphysicist[15]) – person who studies metaphysics. The metaphysician attempts to clarify the fundamental notions by which people understand the world, e.g., existence, objects and their properties, space and time, cause and effect, and possibility. Listed below are some influential metaphysicians, presented in chronological order:
Parmenides (early 5th century BC) – founder of the Eleatic school of philosophy.
Heraclitus (c. 535 – c. 475 BC) – pre-Socratic Greek philosopher famous for his insistence on ever-present change in the universe, as stated in his famous saying, "No man ever steps in the same river twice".
Plato (424/423 BC – 348/347 BC) – Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, student of Socrates, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Plato's "metaphysics" is understood as Socrates' division of reality into the warring and irreconcilable domains of the material and the spiritual.
Aristotle (384 BC – 322 BC) – Student of Plato. Aristotle's writings were the first to create a comprehensive system of Western philosophy, including metaphysics. Aristotle defines metaphysics as "the knowledge of immaterial being," or of "being in the highest degree of abstraction."
Kapila (?) – Vedic sage credited as one of the founders of the Samkhya school of philosophy. He is prominent in the Bhagavata Purana, which features a theistic version of his Samkhya philosophy.
Plotinus (ca. AD 204/5–270) – major philosopher of the ancient world. In his system of theory there are the three principles: the One, the Intellect, and the Soul.
Duns Scotus (1265 – 1308) – important theologian and philosopher of the High Middle Ages.
Thomas Aquinas (1225 – 1274) – Italian Dominican priest of the Catholic Church, and an immensely influential philosopher and theologian in the tradition of scholasticism.
René Descartes (1596 – 1650) – "Father of Modern Philosophy". Descartes' metaphysical thought is found in his Meditations on First Philosophy (1641) and Principles of Philosophy (1644).
Baruch Spinoza (1632 – 1677) – one of the great rationalists of 17th-century philosophy. He defined "God" as a singular self-subsistent substance, and both matter and thought as attributes of such.
Gottfried Leibniz (1646 – 1716) – Leibniz's best known contribution to metaphysics is his theory of monads, as exposited in Monadologie. According to Leibniz, monads are elementary particles with blurred perception of each other, this theory can be viewed as early version of Many-Minds Quantum Mechanics.
George Berkeley (1685 – 1753) – Anglo-Irish philosopher whose primary achievement was the advancement of a theory he called "immaterialism" (later referred to as "subjective idealism" by others). This theory denies the existence of material substance and instead contends that familiar objects like tables and chairs are only ideas in the minds of perceivers, and as a result cannot exist without being perceived.
David Hume (1711 – 1776) – Scottish philosopher, and one of the most important figures in the history of Western philosophy and the Scottish Enlightenment. He challenged the argument from design in his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (1779).
Immanuel Kant (1724 – 1804) – German philosopher during the end of the 18th Century Enlightenment. Kant's magnum opus, the Critique of Pure Reason (1781), aimed to unite reason with experience to move beyond what he took to be failures of traditional philosophy and metaphysics.
Georg W. F. Hegel (1770 – 1831) – German philosopher, one of the creators of German Idealism. Hegel's thoughts on the person of Jesus Christ stood out from the theologies of the Enlightenment. In his posthumous book, The Christian Religion: Lectures on Philosophy of Religion Part 3, he espouses that, "God is not an abstraction but a concrete God...God, considered in terms of his eternal Idea, has to generate the Son, has to distinguish himself from himself; he is the process of differentiating, namely, love and Spirit".
Isaac Newton (1642 – 1727) – English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist, and theologian, who has been "considered by many to be the greatest and most influential scientist who ever lived." He believed in a rationally immanent world, but he rejected the hylozoism implicit in Leibniz and Baruch Spinoza. The ordered and dynamically informed Universe could be understood, and must be understood, by an active reason.
Arthur Schopenhauer (1788 – 1860) – German philosopher known for his pessimism and philosophical clarity. Schopenhauer's most influential work, The World as Will and Representation, claimed that the world is fundamentally what humans recognize in themselves as their will.
Charles Sanders Peirce (1839 – 1914) – American philosopher, logician, mathematician, and scientist. Peirce divided metaphysics into (1) ontology or general metaphysics, (2) psychical or religious metaphysics, and (3) physical metaphysics.
Henri Bergson (1859 – 1941) – French philosopher, influential especially in the first half of the 20th century. Bergson considered change to be the fundamental nature of reality. He opposed mechanistic views of reality, which claimed that future events could theoretically be calculated given enough data on the present and the past.[16]
Alfred North Whitehead (1861 – 1947) – English mathematician who became a philosopher. He wrote Process and Reality, the book that founded process philosophy, a major contribution to Western metaphysics. The book is famous for its defense of theism, although Whitehead's God differs essentially from the revealed God of Abrahamic religions.
Willard V. O. Quine (1908 – 2000) – American philosopher and logician in the analytic tradition. The problem of non-referring names is an old puzzle in philosophy, which Quine captured eloquently when he wrote, "A curious thing about the ontological problem is its simplicity. It can be put into three Anglo-Saxon monosyllables: 'What is there?' It can be answered, moreover, in a word—'Everything'—and everyone will accept this answer as true."
Gilles Deleuze (1925 – 1995) – French philosopher. In his book Nietzsche and Philosophy (1962), Deleuze posits that reality is a play of forces; in Anti-Oedipus (1972), it is a "body without organs"; and in What Is Philosophy? (1991), it's a "plane of immanence" or "chaosmos".
David Malet Armstrong (1926 - 2014) – Australian philosopher. In metaphysics, Armstrong defends the view that universals exist (although Platonic uninstantiated universals do not exist). Those universals match up with the fundamental particles that science tells us about.
David K. Lewis (1941 – 2001) – American philosopher best known for his controversial modal realist stance: that (i) possible worlds exist, (ii) every possible world is a concrete entity, (iii) any possible world is causally and spatiotemporally isolated from any other possible world, and (iv) our world is among the possible worlds.
^What is it (that is, whatever it is that there is) like? Hall, Ned (2012). "David Lewis's Metaphysics". In Edward N. Zalta (ed.). The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2012 ed.). Center for the Study of Language and Information, Stanford University. Retrieved October 5, 2012.
^Jenny Teichmann and Katherine C. Evans, Philosophy: A Beginner's Guide (Blackwell Publishing, 1999), p. 1: "Philosophy is a study of problems which are ultimate, abstract and very general. These problems are concerned with the nature of existence, knowledge, morality, reason and human purpose."
^A.C. Grayling, Philosophy 1: A Guide through the Subject (Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 1: "The aim of philosophical inquiry is to gain insight into questions about knowledge, truth, reason, reality, meaning, mind, and value."
^Anthony Quinton, in T. Honderich (ed.), The Oxford Companion to Philosophy (Oxford University Press, 1995), p. 666: "Philosophy is rationally critical thinking, of a more or less systematic kind about the general nature of the world (metaphysics or theory of existence), the justification of belief (epistemology or theory of knowledge), and the conduct of life (ethics or theory of value). Each of the three elements in this list has a non-philosophical counterpart, from which it is distinguished by its explicitly rational and critical way of proceeding and by its systematic nature. Everyone has some general conception of the nature of the world in which they live and of their place in it. Metaphysics replaces the unargued assumptions embodied in such a conception with a rational and organized body of beliefs about the world as a whole. Everyone has occasion to doubt and question beliefs, their own or those of others, with more or less success and without any theory of what they are doing. Epistemology seeks by argument to make explicit the rules of correct belief formation. Everyone governs their conduct by directing it to desired or valued ends. Ethics, or moral philosophy, in its most inclusive sense, seeks to articulate, in rationally systematic form, the rules or principles involved."
