Light looked down and saw the darkness.
“I will go there” said Light.
Peace looked down and saw war.
“I will go there” said Peace.
Love looked down and saw hatred.
“I will go there” said Love
So he
the Lord of Light
the Prince of Peace
the King of Love
came down and crept in beside us.

John Bell Scottish poet and musician and Church of Scotland clergyman

Quote by Richard Leonard S.J. in his book Why Bother Praying.

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News and Views

Whilst there may be many laws in a country run by a democratically elected government, which any one individual or group might wish to see changed or repealed. I don’t think that breaking them is a sensible option particularly when you announce an intention to continue doing it.
Everyone should be grateful that we are free to criticize what we disagree with. However to challenge laws by breaking them, seldom has any effect other than to hit the headlines briefly. In this case of Derryn Hinch’s prosecution there are many better places to spend $100,000 even if Mr Hinch by using media power, prefers not ”to render unto Caesar” who probably cares little whether he gets the cash or supports who is seen as a criminal with 50 days board and lodging.

Oh Well!

You were invited to dwell on this excerpt

Wisdom 13:1-9

Naturally stupid are all men who have not known God
and who, from the good things that are seen, have not been able to discover Him-who-is,
or, by studying the works, have failed to recognise the Artificer.
Fire however, or wind, or the swift air,
the sphere of the stars, impetuous water, heaven’s lamps,
are what they have held to be the gods who govern the world.
If, charmed by their beauty, they have taken things for gods,
let them know how much the Lord of these excels them,
since the very Author of beauty has created them.
And if they have been impressed by their power and energy,
let them deduce from these how much mightier is he that has formed them,
since through the grandeur and beauty of the creatures
we may, by analogy, contemplate their Author.
Small blame, however, attaches to these men,
for perhaps they only go astray
in their search for God and their eagerness to find him;
living among his works, they strive to comprehend them
and fall victim to appearances, seeing so much beauty.
Even so, they are not to be excused:
if they are capable of acquiring enough knowledge
to be able to investigate the world,
how have they been so slow to find its Master?

One interesting response was…!

I am not an agnostic, they are merely god fearing atheists.
You may think I need help when you believe in a book that contains talking animals, wizards, witches, demons, sticks that turn into snakes, people walking on water, food falling from the sky and all sorts of magical absurd stories. I don’t think I am the one who is stupid or that needs help.

This correspondent misses the point that it contains a concise message for everyone to examine closely it’s relevance in their own lifetime .
We know today that a Christian life is well defined and no worse for the those writings of an earlier time in expectation of the Messiah, which Jesus Christ fulfilled to the letter.

UNBELIEVABLE!

BUT WHERE,WHEN AND HOW WAS IT TAKEN? E=MC²!

Religion & Science

A much needed take for all

http://www.reformjudaism.org/science-religion-better-world

National Geographic Magazine

The standard of photography in this monthly magazine is well known but in this month’s (October) ‘The Photography Issue’ it excels itself, covering matters of world importance which demand our attention. I can do no more than encourage everyone to read it. It is usually available for casual reading in most public libraries.
The price of precious metals and how they bankroll violence.
Meltdown. How glaciers are melting before our eyes.
How race is no longer a matter of black or white.
Life in the closed society of N.Korea.
Building the Ark. How zoos must choose popular animals or endangered ones.

Another Letter from the late Elder Vinchee to Philosoffer

NOTHINGNESS ONWARDS

Please share with me a moment of spiritual joy by imagining that in your world there exists no nought or zero.

Where and who then, would you be today?
Would you be nowhere and nobody?…………… Believe me you would!

Starting at the beginning you would not be reading this. ‘Good’ you say. Well I can take that, for unlike you I have no bones that sticks and stones… etc..!
But just in case you need to ask why, let me tell you that it is because it was typed and transmitted on and through the web, which relies on the zero as a life force for its very being.

No zero would mean no negative and no positive, for each requires a starting point when it ceases to be one or the other doesn’t it?
So no electricity? No boiling point! and no mathematics!
Alright! You and I know that this is hypothetical nonsense because the laws of Physics were established at the moment the Universe came into being. They became naturally related to planet Earth when its matter was becoming a conglomerate.
Yet the route to the discovery of those laws was no easy path and is still far from complete. Take it from one who knows.
The problems they pose are due entirely to the entry of homo (and mulier) sapiens into the scheme of things and result from his or her propensity to ask the question ‘why’, as they face the unfolding conundrums of their existence.
No doubt in some cave at some time a domesticated hunter-gatherer may have asked of her outdoors!
“For how long should I cook this brontosaurus leg love?”
Well you have come a long way since then.
Archimedes is always saying to me and the others, how embarrassed he feels about having said ‘Eureka’ as though it were the last word in scientific discovery.
I tell him to relax as there are already at least 1,420,000 web pages on earth to be found by anyone just googling that one word!
Although there were many theoretical mathematicians from the earliest times of human reasoning,it was only about two thousand years ago out of the approximate thirteen billion before, that the zero was brought into mathematics and humankind was able in consequence to crash into deeper areas of knowledge and understanding.
So keep at it the rewards will be enormous.
To end on a lighter note some of you might wonder how we already here deal with eternity. Well we debate little things like the following:
Suppose one of you wants to run the length of a racetrack but there are an infinite number of gods with the following intentions: the first god intends to paralyze the runner if he reaches the halfway mark; the second intends to paralyze him if he reaches the quarter mark; the third if he reaches the one-eighth mark; and so on. Now he cannot even start running for to do so would violate the intentions of an infinite number of gods. However, it is not clear why he cannot start running, for until he does, no god has actually paralyzed him.

INFINITY WHERE WILL IT END?

INFINITY WHERE WILL IT END!

Letter From the late Elder Vinchee to Philosoffer

Professor Terry Clark, with his research team at Sussex University, is working to develop quantum circuits that will replace the microchip. Success will allow the construction of computers which might become as powerful as the universe and machinery that will operate a million times faster than anything physicists currently dream of. All of this may be made possible by a Squid! (Superconducting Quantum Interference Device)
If you are able to imagine a computer that will calculate at the speed of light you may be able to guess at the discoveries which could follow.

The Professor explains: “We know in principle what this quantum technology could do, but not in practice. If it works, the jump will be like that from the abacus directly to the electronic computer.”

From our resting point here I am allowed to tell you patronizingly that the infinity of the universe is not only in its magnitude but in its reducible features also.
All of us here who in our temporal existence were enthralled with scientific matters now thrill at the speed with which those now engaged in their life’s work in the field are making progress.

It may be strange for you but it is necessary, that you should know that the nature of your free will is such that the actual uses to which you will put all your acquired knowledge is hidden from us here. All we know is the potential of it. In this way your discoveries are an intrinsic part of our everlasting joy.

Forgive me for reminding you of your limited understanding of quantum mechanics on earth contained to the known particles reaching you there, or which may be collected in space by the limited means available to you. Your knowledge has a long way to go yet!

I told you not so long ago about slow glass with a capability to reduce the speed of light by a factor of a billion or so. There has been quite a bit of interest in that and although I know some of you readers would like a simpler explanation the following is the best I can do at present without giving anything away so here goes:-

Light is tuned to resonance with some atoms which should absorb the light. With the use of some clever atomic physics however, a beam instead puts the atoms into a state in which they cannot absorb the light.
The slow speed of light is the time it takes for the atomic state to propagate through the cloud of atoms which are in a Bose-Einstein Condensate which is an extremely dense low temperature collection of atoms.

It may not be long before your researchers will achieve a breakthrough in the continuing experimentation which will produce startling results so watch this space.

I have so much to write to you about but it will have to wait as I have to attend a Heavenly banquet now and they seem to go on forever!

Aquinas Yesterday,Today and Tomorrow

Matthew Fox a Dominican priest in his book Sheer Joy has conversations with Thomas Aquinas on Creation Spirituality
On p417, Aquinas maintains that it is evident that legal justice stands foremost among all the moral virtues, because the common good transcends the individual good of one person.
He explains that the common good comprises many things because the community of the state is composed of many persons and its good is procured by many actions.
The common good of the state cannot flourish unless citizens are virtuous, at least those whose business it is to govern.
The proper act of justice is nothing else than to render to each one what is their own which is to say, that which is due to them according to equality of proportion.

Multiverses an anthology of fairytales?

All this talk of multiverses should not assume that the laws of physics apply equally on them all. If they don’t then it is not true for physicists to say as heard on tv, such things as. “we could be having this very conversation/interview on an infinite number of places in an infinite number of universes.” That assumes that multiverses are identical to ours.
However if the speeds of light or sound or gravity are different,the whole of life if it exists anywhere in them, will be very different. An argument for their existence explains that they are in dimensions different from ours. That alone argues against a parallel life does it not?
Whilst I do not have the knowledge to argue the physics too deeply, the need to move into this rarified field is sometimes posited on the grounds that if proven, it will be a major step if not the final link,towards the unified theory. It seems though that if these multiverses exist and are of an unknown number then until they are quantified and the answers to practical difficulties are forthcoming, there are more questions to be answered first on this minuscule planet even before our own universe can be fully understood.
Perhaps even thinking about it puts us too far ahead of ourselves.