vol 7: Notes
2005
Sunday 3 April
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... to restore theology to the mainstream of science
Notes
[Notebook: DB 57 Language]
[Sunday 3 April 2005 - Saturday 9 April 2005]
Sunday 3 April 2005
[page 105]
Monday 4 April 2005
Back from Adelaide
[page 105]
The Pope is dead. Long live the Pope>
The pope is the CEO and Chairman of the board of the biggest and oldest corporate entity every to exist on our species, the Roman Catholic Church, which claims about a billion adherents, exerts a strict discipline over them and claims that its central ideas have been revealed to it by God and are infallibly true, ie the probability of error is zero.
The suite of 'defined' doctrine is rather weird (ie a product of a somewhat deranged imagination) A straightforward and widely held succinct statement of Christian doctrine is the Apostles Creed.
Is this a diary or an article. A superposition of both, a frequent attempt to find forms of words that satisfactorily capture an idea an element of a theory, that is a dynamically interacting set of ideas (like a car engine) capable of taking on a life of its own (starting and running).
We are built on a mystery. Even if we arrive at a complete explanation of the universe, we must ultimately accept that is is so because it is so. From experiencing this fact, we are led to constructing stories to explain why this is so. Just So Stories. Kipling
INFALLIBILITY. The Roman Catholic Church is circular. We are infallible because we have infallibly defined ourselves o be infallible. To a scientifically minded person, this
[page 106]
[is]an hypothesis to be tested , not an absolute truth to be asserted with fire and sword. Since it became the institutionalized religion of the Roman Empire (in the time of Constantine the Great, Emperor from 306 to 337 ad) the Roman Catholic Church has had a tendency to become more and more normative and less and less responsive to its environment. The general term for this is conservative. The declaration of the doctrine of infallibility by the first Vatican Council was the apogee of this process. Denzinger para 3074
The liberalizing tendency of the second Vatican Council (Pope is first among equals, the bishops) has fallen before a renewed definition of the Papacy by the Pope as an absolute monarchy, Mugabe style.
Gravitation (by definition) is a candidate for the binding of all possible entities into one universe, ie it is a representation of the soul of the universe. The unifying factor. Gravitational communication exists between all entities which may be part of the universe. This, we postulate, is all possible entities, represented in our model as all possible permutations of the elements of some ordered set. The order of a set is a property of its elements. By examination (measurement) either by itself or an outside agent, each element of an ordered set can find its own position in the order.
In one given order. The principle of requisite variety tells us that individual elements of a set can only form themselves into all possible permutations of each element knows its place in a number of permutations, which from the point of view of the element, is
[page 107]
transfinite. In other words (as we might expect) each point in a space carries as much information (entropy) as the space itself., so that the aggregate of points carries more information that the space. But now we reverse the argument, taking all the point sin the old space as one point in a higher space with enough entropy to compress all the information in a subsidiary space onto one point of itself. Such a space is a phase space.
Much of my time is spent creating order, feathering my nest, especially after I have been away for a long time. This work makes me feel happy and secure, a minimum of dirty dishes and not too much dirt on the floor, windows clean enough to let in light and an impression of the outside world. This project is moved by similar feelings, to create some order in my wider world, to suppress its repulsive elements like mass murder, torture and deprivation.
...
The Theology Company is a defence industry contractor. How to defend oneself more cheaply and securely suing theological principles.
Tuesday 5 April 2005
Wednesday 6 April 2005
To me, the most blatant modern exercise of the infallible attitude has been the papal, response to the question: may women be Roman Catholic Priests.
To Christians, theology is a science committed to the acceptance of the body of data contained in the Bible. Attached to this body of data is a received interpretation of its meaning (or a set of such) that constrains the beliefs of the faithful.
Another hard won (long awaited) sentence from the bath. We see the same fanatical theological fundamentalism in the personality of Verwoerd in his construction of the South African system of apartheid between whites and non-whites. The church distinguishes men and not-men - celibacy/chastity. .Sampson pp 119-20
There is a sunny side to this growling cloud of determinism. The sunny picture is described most clearly by the mathematics of quantum mechanics and communication theory. From this we can derive a new foundation for optimism, other than that based on an arbitrary, sometimes loving, sometimes vicious, Father who protects his own and murders the others (Canaanites), although he did murder his own son.
Sampson pp 137-138: '"Diplomats are always looking for glimmers of hope: they have to find a reason for doing nothing" said the Afrikaner commentator Stanley Uys, "so Pretoria has a special department to supply glimmers."'
[page 109]
A ground for optimism. Despite the shonky nature of established religion, scientists, humanists, pragmatists, environmentalists etc are still making steady progress toward healthier humanity.
Thursday 7 April 2005
Friday 8 April 2005
Saturday 9 April 2005
Books
| Denzinger, Henricus, and Adolphus Schoenmetzer, Enchiridion Symbolorum, Definitionum et Declarationum de Rebus Fidei et Morum, Herder 1963 Introduction: 'Dubium non est quin praeter s. Scripturam cuique theologo summe desiderandus sit etiam liber manualis quo contineantur edicta Magisterii ecclesiastici eaque saltem maioris momenti, et quo ope variorim indicum quaerenti aperiantur eorum materiae.' (3) 'There is no doubt that in addition to holy Scripture, every theologian also needs a handbook which contains at least the more important edicts of the Magisterium of the Church, indexed in a way which makes them easy to find.'back |
| Kipling, Rudyard, The Complete Just So Stories, Viking Books 1993 From Booklist: 'Of all the editions of Kipling's stories available, this is surely one of the most splendid. Each page carries either text with a narrow, vertical border of painted geometric figures on the outer edge or a full-page illustration within a wide, richly patterned frame in related jewel-bright hues. The richness of colors in the paintings is heightened by the use of gold throughout the artwork. Handsomely designed and beautifully illustrated, this is a book that children will treasure for its opulent look as well as its opulent language.' Carolyn Phelan Amazon back |
| Sampson, Anthony, Black and Gold: Tycoons, Revolutionaries and Apartheid, Pantheon 1987 Introduction: 'In this book I have tried to trace the erratic relationships between ... two groups of actors in the South African drama -- the international business leaders and the black politicians -- since they first encountered each other a century ago. I try to show how the story developed from both sides, to explore some of the characters and their motivations on the way, and to convey the flavour of each period without hindsight. I do not attempt to analyse with the same closeness the changing attitudes of Afrikaners and their governments, except insofar as they affected the whole climate and legislation of the country. But from 1978, when P W Botha became prime minister, I look at the story in more detail, to try to trace the stages towards the current tragic deadlock, and to show the viewpoint from America and Europe as well as South Africa.' Amazon back |
Click on an "Amazon" link in the booklist at the foot of the page to buy the book, see more details or search for similar items
Related sites:
Concordat Watch
Revealing Vatican attempts to propagate its religion by international treaty
