I always pick up books about quantum physics if God is in the title, but I never understand them. Even though I find quantum physics fascToo Confusing
I always pick up books about quantum physics if God is in the title, but I never understand them. Even though I find quantum physics fascinating, it is still a waste of time, as if I should be doing something else. Here is a little of what I got out of the God thing:
Einstein believed in a God, but not a personal God. Just a creator. He wrote a letter that went up for auction after he died. In 2018 it went for 2.6 million dollars. Einstein stated, “There are two kinds of Gods. First, there is the personal God. The God that you pray to, the God of the Bible who spites the Philistines and awards the believers. He did not believe in that kind of God. He believed in the God of Spinoza, that is, the God of order in a Universe, that is beautiful, simple, and elegant.” This God was not personal.
Next, the author quotes from St. Thomas Aquinas. While the author is an agnostic, he feels “we still need “to confront St Thomas Aquinas’ proof that there must be a first mover. In other words, where did everything come from?” And then as he is trying to answer this question, he loses me again. I had an atheist tell me that gravity created everything. I wanted to say, “What created gravity.” But he would have said, “It was always there.” And I would have said, “That is what they say about God.”...more
I don’t have much to say about this book because it was an audio, and when I listen to a book, I don’t take nA Very Scary Book: Just the Push I Needed
I don’t have much to say about this book because it was an audio, and when I listen to a book, I don’t take notes, nor can I underline them. I can’t see to take notes anyway. Well, This book is very scientific, but If you don’t care for science, then this book will put you to sleep, but the author thinks it is great if the book does just that for, at least, you can fall to sleep. I used my audio books every night to get to sleep, plus a sleeping pill. But if you are on sleeping pills, you might notice side effects, if not, wait, they will come in time. I quit Ambien two years ago and was given Lunesta. I thought that it worked fine, but I didn’t realize that my fatigue was caused by them until the doctor upped my dosage. I could hardly stay awake all day, and then after a few days on them my muscles felt weak. I looked up the side effects because now I was beginning to suspect Lunesta because I was even more tired. Well, the muscle weakness can also be a side effect. I picked up this book. Sleeping pills do not give you the proper sleep, and proper sleep is needed for good health.
I cut back on the sleeping med, and my legs felt stronger. I took antihistamines to help me sleep, to help me get off Lunesta. I ordered Melatonin from Life Extension to help me, but the author had already said that it was a placebo. Well, it seems to work, probably because I believe I need a pill to help me sleep. As a result of getting off Lunesta I am energetic, and my leg muscles no longer feel weak. I still listen to a book at night.
For proper Rem sleep you need to go to bed early. So, I have made 8 p.m. my bedtime, and by doing this I don’t listen to the news, which can keep me up all night. My belief now is that I can listen to it early in the day, and then I can be upset all day, and then by night time I am so worn out from the worry that I will fall to sleep. Now, I don;’t recall if the author mentioned listening to the news and not being able to fall to sleep, but it can be true in my case, yet I can also fall to sleep listening to the news.
So, if you are having problems sleeping, this is the best book to read. Once you realize that your health depends upon it, you will take action. I had found that I kept telling myself that I can’t sleep, without a sleeping pill, and that is what was keeping me awake. Of course, as I said, I am now taking Melatonin, and I am sure that I am replacing my fear not being able to sleep without a pill to taking it. It is time to begin using a better mantra, “I can get to sleep easily.”
Years ago, I was diagnosed with EBV (Epstein Barr Virus). I never knew if it even existed. The doctor gave me B-12 shots for my extreme fatigue. They worked for a while. Then my friend’s boy friend who worked at Lawrence Lab in La Jolla, who was also a scientist, found an article line about it. The woman who wrote the article gave a list of things she did to cure herself. One of the items was juicing. I zeroed in on the juicing and bought a book on it. One of the formulas for using was for the immune system or something like that, so I bought a Champion Juicer and the ingredients: 5 carrots, 2 ribs of celery, 1 clove of garlic, and a hand full of parsley. The parsley will kill the smell of garlic on your breath, but it is also a blood purifier. I had a glass of this juice daily, and while it tasted terrible, I drank it anyway. In a week I was finally sleeping, and within a month my fatigue was gone. That was in the days when I would have never thought to take a sleeping pill. It was then that I got into eating a 80-percent raw food diet and lost a lot of weight. Then I grew tired of the diet and stopped even juicing. Well, I finally began juicing again, just three days ago. I eat a piece of toasted sour dough bread with butter and garlic just for a treat for having to drink that horrible stuff. Time will tell. Note: All raw juices need to be taken within 5 minutes because as soon as a vegetable is juiced it begins losing enzymes, and it is those that are healing to the body....more
Fracking is already going on in the Arctic. Need I say more? Not really, but I will. If they haven’t begun already, they are also planningBleak Future
Fracking is already going on in the Arctic. Need I say more? Not really, but I will. If they haven’t begun already, they are also planning to drill for oil.
I often feel that it is a waste of time trying to save our planet and all living things on it, because no matter how hard people try, greed takes over. Furthermore, this is not the kind of book to be reading right now when everything else in America is falling apart.
A Buddhist would just say, “Nothing is permanent, and earths are coming into existence and being destroyed all the time.” In essence, do not think about it. But I do think about it, and I do not wish to bury my head under the sand. Anyway, if I am not thinking about the wildlife in the arctic, I am thinking about the America’s political situation.
So, I just know that you all do not want to hear what is hap...more
I don't remember much about this book since I read it years ago. Just that pesticides and other chemicals had destroyed this rancher's land as well asI don't remember much about this book since I read it years ago. Just that pesticides and other chemicals had destroyed this rancher's land as well as his health. he then became an activist and a vegan. ...more
I have been drawn to books o Quantum mechanics for years, that is, when they speak of God. Most physicists would debunk this book, and others like it,I have been drawn to books o Quantum mechanics for years, that is, when they speak of God. Most physicists would debunk this book, and others like it, but the yogis have picked up on the new physics because it touches upon what they believe is the nature of reality. It is what they have been telling us for years, and that is this: “We are all One,” just as the Prominent quantum physicist Schoenrodinger has said. when he stated, “There is only One Consciousness.” These yogis also believe that this is what Christ meant when he said, “I am the Father are One.”
One other physicist had said that the universe was created though thought. I like how the aborigines of Australia believe that it was sung into existence. The Hindus believe also that that first there was Lord Brahma, and when Brahma stirred, the universe came into existence. I used to attend the Vedanta Society, a Hindu group, and they once had a man come to give a lecture at our temple. I wrote about it in my review of “The Tao of Physics”, so, I will add this from that review:
“I listened again to DeLuca’s lecture to see what I remembered, and to write this in my review as it say, this is why I love quantum physics, even though I don’t understand it.
He began by stating that: ’“All things are temporary manifestations of God.’ Then he mentioned the great physicist, Schodinger and Deepak Chopra’s book, Quantum Healing. Chopra had said that that the molecules that are in us today can be in a tree or another person tomorrow, and the molecules that were in the moon a month ago could be in us today. He stated that this is not figuratively but literally. But much of this was lost on me, but the idea of our molecules flowing in and out of our body was fascinating.
DeLuca, like Capra, spent a some time on comparing quantum physicists with the Upanishads, but Capra also compared it to what Buddha had said about the nature of reality. While I could see what they both were talking about, I was not so sure that it could be applied in such a way because what the Buddha and the Upanishads had said were too vague to me.
Then DeLuca quoted from another quantum physicist, Max Planck:
“I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness.’” Since then, as I said, I have been trying to read books that connect quantum physicists to God. But because I never studied physics, much less quantum mechanics, I don’t know what I am reading, and so I pick out what I understand. I believe that this author, who is not a physicist, has done the same. He rather did the job for me, but I will still read then.
Then I read the Tao Te Ching, and the first verse says:
“The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao. The name that can be named is not the eternal name. The nameless is the beginning of heaven and eartn. The named is the mother of ten thousand things.”
I feel that the Tao that cannot be told means that you cannot know the mind of God, so when religions claim that God is thi or that, they are actually projecting their own personality onto this God. his. And that is their downfall, the beginning of the suffering that they can cause to mankind. I do believe that the mystics were correct when they experience God as Love, but that, too, is the Tao that cannot be told, or at least I think it is. And that opens up a new can of worms, such as, “If God is Love then why does he permit suffering? I have no answer for that and neither does any religions. I am just not satisfied with any of their answers. We just can’t really know, and so I just came to the conclusion that I had to let it go.
The author of this book also went into describing NDE. I used to love reading them, but I have lost a lot of interest in reding them. While he is busy refuting the scientists, he makes the mistake, as I see it, of talking about NDE of hell and not rejecting them. There is no such thing as a hell. The belief was created by man. And if you are to believe the bible, most people are going there because it states that the gate is narrow for those who believe, and wide is the gate that leads to destruction”. (My paraphrase.) Yet, those who record NDE say that very few go to hell.
While I believe in life after death, I believe that the NDE evolve. First, you experience death as you expect it to be for you. But I have no proof of this. And while “The Tibetan Book of the Dead” says this much, I don’t believe its conclusions either. I don’t believe in anything coming from Tibetan teachings, even though this one comes from the Bon religion. I just think that hell and karma were creations of man and came into being in later years. I recall reading in Strong Exhaustive Bible Concordance which is based on the King James version of the bible, that hell which is the translation of sheol and hades, means, “The common grave of mankind.” Even the teaching of karma came into the Upanishads at at a later date. You won’t find it in the early teachings. And over time its meaning evolved, and when it was westernized, well, it evolved even more.
Basically, I just wish that the author had left out NDE. As they are contaminated by man’s belief systems. Even mystics add to their experiences as according to their faith. For I believe that you cannot experience God as Love and continue to believe in a religion that also teaches that God is a God of judgment. If God’s love is unconditional, as the bible says,, then how can the bible then put conditions on it? At least many mystics say that we are all saved, and yet, I would say, “There is no such thing.as having to be saved.”
I wukk end my review here because I realize that I could go on and on, because my experience with religions has caused me to rant and rave. But wait, maybe God has a split personality, after all, we live in duality, so maybe God is both love and hate. See, I can’t help myself, so in ending I will shout, “Get out, get out, you demons of confusion and rants.” ...more
I have had this book in my possession off and on over the years, ever since I worked for the author, Fritjof Capra, when I lived in Berkeley in the laI have had this book in my possession off and on over the years, ever since I worked for the author, Fritjof Capra, when I lived in Berkeley in the late 70s. I only knew then that he was a physicist, not realizing that there was such a thing as quantum physics, which I was not introduced to until 2000.
Fritjof was a really interesting person, that is, what I knew about him, which wasn’t much since I was only his housekeeper. Cleaning homes was how I got through college.
Seeing his home, I realized that I got the job because I advertised myself as being meticulous. Fritjof was meticulous. And I loved his house. It was a brown shingled one on a street in Berkeley. It was obvious that he loved nature. His hardwood floors were covered with grass mats that were not easy to clean because you had to vacuum under them as dirt fell into the holes in the design. He had photos on the wall of John Lennon and Yoko Ono, then of his doing Tai Chi. On one of his tables he had the I Ching and a book titled How to Meditate. I borrowed the latter book and read it. He gave me a stack of Brain/Mind Bulletins that I loved and wish now that I had kept. I went out and bought my own copy of The Tao of Physics, read the first chapter and decided it was not any book that I could understand. I now see that I was correct.
As to meditation, I took TM back then, paid $350 for it, which I now realize was a ripoff, and I never used it. Still, the few times I had, but only when with my teacher, my mind expanded somewhat, and I found that peaceful, but I also found it interesting that there was another state of consciousness.
I joined the Vedanta Society in early 2000s, and a man named Dave DeLuca came to the temple in San Diego and gave a lecture on The Four Yugas. He had a section in it where he talked about Quantum Physics. Much like Capra’s book, he used the teachings of Quantum theory as a way to compare it with Hinduism. I liked his lecture so much that obtained his lecture and still have it. It wasn’t the comparison to Hinduism that I liked, but the way physicists saw the nature of reality. (I didn’t last in Vedanta, but that is another story.)
I listened again to DeLuca’s lecture to see what I remembered, and to write this in my review as it say, this is why I love quantum physics, even though I don’t understand it.
He began with saying, “All things are temporary manifestations of God.” Then he mentioned the great physicist, Schodinger and Deepak Chopra’s book, Quantum Healing. Chopra had said that that the molecules that are in us today can be in a tree or another person tomorrow, and the molecules that were in the moon a month ago could be in us today. He stated that this is not figuratively but literally. But much of this was lost on me, but the idea of our molecules flowing in and out of our body was fascinating.
DeLuca, like Capra, spent a somee time on comparing quantum physics with the Upanishads, but Capra also compared it to what Buddha had said about the nature of reality. While I could see what they both were talking about, I was not so sure that it could be applied in such a way because what the Buddha and the Upanishads had said were too vague to me.
Then DeLuca quoted from another quantum physicist, Max Planck:
“I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness.”
So what did I get out of reading Capra? Not much. He had some chapters on Hinduism and Buddhism that I understood since I had been in both religions. I saw where he was coming from in regards to his comparisons. But then Capra brought up a vague notion of karma, and I, personally, do not believe in karma. Perhaps the way he sees karma is not the way that it was taught to me by these religions, which end up sounding much like Christianity in that if you do what is wrong you will end up in some hell, and yes, Buddhism and Hinduism both have hells. I think the idea of karma developed over time, as it was not mentioned in the early Vedas that I am aware of, as I had looked, and when it finally was, it was vague. Then one day, a new Upanishad is written and, well, th ere is hell in all its glory. I
I also really liked what Schodinger said about Consciousness: “There is no framework where we find consciousness in the plural.” And this, to me, says what the Upanishads have said about the nature of reality, “All is one,” and this is what some who have meditated have experienced— a oneness with all....more
Ron Rosenbaum, author of "Explaining Hitler," is now trying to explain evil. It seems to me that neither of these subjects can be explained and every Ron Rosenbaum, author of "Explaining Hitler," is now trying to explain evil. It seems to me that neither of these subjects can be explained and everyone has tried.
He is writing this book in light of the new science that claims there is a neurological explanation for evil, but if we were to accept this, it would take away free will and the belief that evil exists. And this is why he wants to save the belief that evil exists.
For years psychologists have said that the sociopath is born a sociopath, There is a theory out there that "if a person lacks a conscience, then he/she "cannot choose evil without violating a conscience that tells them they're doing evil." To see where he goes with this you would have to read the book, as it isn't an easy read. And he doesn't go into the new science that neuroscientists are getting into that show how your brain is wired to do good or evil. But you can Google "Evil, brain imaging," and you find all the research that he only touches on, or read the book: Behave.
The question Rosenbaum comes back to is this: "Did Hitler know that he was doing evil?" And, "Can we call Hitler evil if he believed that what he was doing was good?" Or my own question, "If a brain scan of a psychopath shows that a certain part of a person's brain seems to be misfiring, is this person still evil when he/she commits a heinous crime?
Neuroscientist Michael Koenigs said, "But even when psychopaths know that what they’re doing is a crime, that doesn’t mean they’re in control of their behavior when they offend.”
But can you change that wiring, like in this old Indian saying:
"One evening an old Cherokee Indian told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people. He said, ‘My son, the battle is between two ‘wolves’ inside us all. One is Evil. It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.
The other is good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith.’
The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather: ‘Which wolf wins?’
The old Cherokee simply replied, ‘The one you feed.’"
Nothing ever gets settled in this book, but I did like the philosophy of one man that he quotes by first leading into his belief system by saying,
"How can you believe in an all-powerful and all-loving God who also permits so much suffering and evil in the world? I can't hope to summarize adequately Polkinghorne's thought and its place in the history of theodicy. Here is what he argues:
'The key idea is to understand an evolutionary world as a creation that is allowed to make itself. God neither produced a ready-made world nor imposed upon its history an eternally determined rigid forum. Instead the process of the universe is that of a continuously unfolding creativity, a kind of improvisation in which creates participle together with their creator. Such a world of freely developing fertility is a great good but it is a necessary cost.' " Evil and suffering is that necessary cost.
It is interesting what Polkinghorne says here in regards to the problem of evil:
"The well-known free will defense in relation to moral evil asserts that a world with a possibility of sinful people is better than one with perfectly programmed machines. The tale of human evil is such that one cannot make that assertion without a quiver, but I believe that it is true nevertheless. I have added to it the free-process defense, that a world allowed to make itself is better than a puppet theatre with a Cosmic Tyrant. I think that these two defenses are opposite sides of the same coin, that our nature is inextricably linked with that of the physical world which has given us birth."
I was reading Bill Bryson's book, "Neither Here Nor There: Travels in Europe," and he was reading "The Black Death" by Philip Ziegler and commenting oI was reading Bill Bryson's book, "Neither Here Nor There: Travels in Europe," and he was reading "The Black Death" by Philip Ziegler and commenting on it, so I thought maybe he had the better idea, so I got this free book on kindle and began reading it instead.
I have heard about the black plague since my teenage years or was it in college? I remember once being mesmerized by a college professor's speech on the subject. Even he was mesmerized by it since his class wasn't "Black Plague 101." It could have been the English class where we had to read Camus' book. "The Plague." I remember his telling us that it could happen again. Well, it has in a small way, because last year there were 14 cases in the U.S. with 4 people dying, and every year we have a few cases of it. Not much to worry about.
Bill Bryson talked about something I had never heard about: Back in the 1300s Italy had rain for over 6 months, flooding the land by turning it into swamps, killing crops, causing famine, disease, death and later earthquakes, and then right after that the black plague.
Sounds like the end times, and yes, people thought just that. They believed that people were dying due to their sins, and that after they died God would send them to a burning hell. I didn't realize that God believed in double jeopardy, but they did. They even blamed the Jews for poisoning them because the Jews lived in ghettos and didn't contact it. They could just as easily have thought that the Jews were favored by God, but no, instead they began killing the Jews, actually wiping them out in large numbers. People are often as scary, if not more so, than the diseases that are contacted. They are just as scary today because when AIDS showed up it was because, again, God was punishing the sinners, who would then die and go to hell. And some gays and lesbians have been murdered just like the Jews during the plague. These murders went up 11 percent in 2014. But AIDS isn't the only modern disease that has been attributed to God's punishment. Ebola, for example, is another one.
I was surprised to learn how many times in history the black plague has shown up, and that the first time it caused between 75 to 100 million deaths. This was painfully scary to the people dying back then, and the world came to a stop for those 4 years or so.
I remember after my professor brought the subject up I would see rats in San Francisco and realize that one could get bitten by a flea carrying the disease and then pass it on. And actually back in the early 1900s S.F. did have the plague due to the rats--some that came over here on ships. They just love crawling up those mooring lines. Also, you don't want to know how many sewer rats they have in S.F. or in other cities, and now the drought and even constructions work is stirring them up in San Francisvo. Like my professor said, "We need more cats."
Now if you want to know what this character below has to do with the black death, you have to read this book:
[image] "no snow, now ice" by photographer Patty Waymire, National Geographic
Every part of the earth is sacred to my people. Every shining pine needle[image] "no snow, now ice" by photographer Patty Waymire, National Geographic
Every part of the earth is sacred to my people. Every shining pine needle, every sandy shore, every mist in the dark woods, every meadow, every humming insect. All are holy in the memory and experience of my people. ~~Chief Seattle
When I was a child my favorite books were the Golden Nature Guides about insects, birds, sea shells, and so on. I learned many insect names, as well as those of the butterflies and other animals. I also remember seeing so many different varieties of wildlife back then. Little did I know then that in later years I would look for the birds, butterflies and insects of my youth and not see many of them. I jump for joy when I see a praying mantis, an inch worm, or a walking stick. We are losing our bees, and I seldom see those either. If we lose them all we lose our fruits and other plants that need pollinated. China has to hand pollinate now. The only butterfly I see here are black swallowtails. What happened to the buckeye, the yellow swallowtail, and all the others?
This year I learned that black swallowtails love fennel, so I was given some fennel to plant in hope that it would draw more of them to my garden. One day I saw two caterpillars on it, and they had eaten all the fennel, As I was watching them, they crawled off to look for more food. Not finding any, they crawled back onto the fennel. I called a friend who asked me to bring the caterpillars over to her house. She put them in a jar with fennel where she could keep them safe from the birds. They made cocoons, hatched and flew off. Why do we even have to do this? What happened?
Little did I know back in my youth that we would be losing wild life. There is so much we didn’t know back then, but then I remember my 8th grade teacher, Mr. Bailey, telling us about the book "Silent Spring" by Rachel Carson, about a time when we would not be hearing song birds and other sounds of nature. No one listened then; they still don't listen. When it is silent they will listen and not hear a thing.
Like "Silent Spring" this book was written as another warning, and it won the Pulitzer Prize. It is easy to understand and at times it is enjoyable, that is, if you like reading about nature.
Did you know that there is a flower that ants live inside of, and that the flower allows them to live there because the ants kill other insects that may try to harm it? Did you know that there are such things as antbutterflies that swarm around army ants, and that they live off the droppings of the antbirds that also swarm around the flower?
I love reading that kind of information, but then again, we are that sixth extinction that she writes about. It is sad to see what we are doing to this planet and to learn that many species are dying daily. My brother once said, "We don't deserve this planet." How true.
The author said some things that made me feel a little better but not by much. She mentioned that during the last extinctions new life forms evolved. New life forms sound encouraging, but who wants to lose what we have now?
I often think of how much we have Junked out this earth. I wonder if it will die, or if something will happen that will save it. When I read this next paragraph I thought of how nice it would be to have all of our Junk reduced to the size of a cigarette paper. The author mentioned a scientist, Professor Jan Zalasiewicz, who "is convinced that even a moderately competent stratigrapher will, at the distance of a hundred million years or so, be able to tell that something extraordinary happened at the moment in time that counts for us as today. This is the case even though a hundred million years from now, all that we consider to be the great works of man—the sculptures and the libraries, the monuments and the museums, the cities and the factories—will be compressed into a layer of sediment not much thicker than a cigarette paper.”
Other quotes: “Though it might be nice to imagine there once was a time when man lived in harmony with nature, it’s not clear that he ever really did.”
“Under business as usual, by mid-century things are looking rather grim,” he told me a few hours after I had arrived at One Tree. We were sitting at a beat-up picnic table, looking out over the heartbreaking blue of the Coral Sea. The island’s large and boisterous population of terns was screaming in the background. Atmospheric scientist Ken Caldeira paused: “I mean, they’re looking grim already.”
“Having freed ourselves from the constraints of evolution, humans nevertheless remain dependent on the earth’s biological and geochemical systems. By disrupting these systems—cutting down tropical rainforests, altering the composition of the atmosphere, acidifying the oceans—we’re putting our own survival in danger.”
“Ninety percent of all species on earth had been eliminated.”
“According to the UN Environment Programme, the Earth is in the midst of a mass extinction of life. Scientists estimate that 150-200 species of plant, insect, bird and mammal become extinct every 24 hours. This is nearly 1,000 times the "natural" or "background" rate and, say many biologists, is greater than anything the world has experienced since the vanishing of the dinosaurs nearly 65m years ago. Around 15% of mammal species and 11% of bird species are classified as threatened with extinction.” ~~John Vidal, environment editor
Loading...
