For those of you who, like Phil, have pondered the imponderable regarding energies and God, I think you'll enjoy the following:

electromagnetism is not God, nor God's immanence, but it is a provident means for us to have some conception of the nature of that immanence. I hold that it should be considered as such by any theology that seeks to interpret nature. from The Wonder and Sacredness of Nature's Physical Undercurrent: Lawrence Fagg

Metanexus: Views 2003.02.14 2201 words
Today's columnist Lawrence Fagg observes: "In Romans 1:20 of the Christian Bible Paul tells us: 'Ever since the creation of the world His invisible nature, namely, His eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made.' Among the multitude of things that have been made, Paul was undoubtedly affected by the cornucopia of plant and animal life that graces this planet. Butterflies, sunflowers, rabbits, palm trees, and deer all testify to the fecundity and rich diversity of this life."

And we, human beings, are part of this "rich diversity of life". But being part of this "rich diversity" is not enough to determine our role(s) within it.

"Some seven years ago," writes Fagg, "it struck me, as a physicist, how beneath this prolific diversity was a myriad of electromagnetic phenomena. Knowing that the electromagnetic force activates all of chemistry and biology, I realized that this force has been vital in the evolution of, and ultimately underlies, all of earthly nature from rocks to plants and animals, including humans and their brains."

We are, it seems, electromagnetic creatures, like all which lies around us. Read on to explore what this might mean.

Today's columnist, Lawrence Fagg, is a Research Professor of Nuclear Physics (retired) at the Catholic University of America (CUA) in Washington, DC. A graduate of the U.S. Military Academy, he has Masters Degrees in physics from the Universities of Maryland and Illinois and a PhD. in physics from Johns Hopkins University as well as an M.A. in religion from George Washington University. A Fellow of the American Physical Society, his professional career was spent mostly at the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) and CUA, where he performed experiments in nuclear physics using particle accelerators in the US, Holland, and Germany. In 1974-5 he was Acting Director of the NRL Accelerator. This work resulted in the publication of some 65 papers in refereed journals, two monographs reviewing his field, and chapters in four edited books.

He is also an Academic Fellow and former Vice-President of the Institute on Religion in an Age of Science and the author of some 20 publications in science and religion, including articles in journals and edited books as well as three books: "Two Faces of Time", "The Becoming of Time: Integrating Physical and Religious Time", and "Electromagnetism and the Sacred: at the Frontier of Spirit and Matter". He has lectured on the relevance of electromagnetism in theologies dealing with nature and on parallel time concepts in modern physics and the major world religions in the US, Canada, Germany, Italy, Holland, Denmark, Poland and China.

--Stacey E. Ake

Subject: The Wonder and Sacredness of Nature's Physical Undercurrent From: Lawrence Fagg Email: <lfagg@shentel.net>

In Romans 1:20 of the Christian Bible Paul tells us: "Ever since the creation of the world His invisible nature, namely, His eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made."

Among the multitude of things that have been made, Paul was undoubtedly affected by the cornucopia of plant and animal life that graces this planet. Butterflies, sunflowers, rabbits, palm trees, and deer all testify to the fecundity and rich diversity of this life.

Some seven years ago it struck me, as a physicist, how beneath this prolific diversity was a myriad of electromagnetic phenomena. Knowing that the electromagnetic force activates all of chemistry and biology, I realized that this force has been vital in the evolution of, and ultimately underlies, all of earthly nature from rocks to plants and animals, including humans and their brains.

It was then that I thought how this unceasing, invisible electromagnetic activity was a beautiful way of getting a spiritual glimpse at what the indwelling or immanence of God might be like. I sensed it as an engaging, evocative pointer to that immanence, and as such could be thought of as a physical analog to God's inner presence. Thus I was inspired to write a book describing these thoughts: "Electromagnetism and the Sacred: at the Frontier of Spirit and Matter."

In reflecting now on what I wrote in the book and the questions it poses, I feel that there is one especially wonder-provoking question. How is it that four simple properties of electromagnetic radiation can combine with such minute sensitivity to make physically possible the presence of everything on earth, animate and inanimate, including our consciousness? These properties characterize not only the photons of visible or detectable radiation, but also the unobservable photons that quantum electrodynamics tells us transmits the electromagnetic force. Each of these properties displays inexhaustible variety due to its capacity to vary through a continuous range.

Specifically, they are intensity (or strength), wavelength or frequency, phase, and polarization. Intensity can vary by any tiny amount from the most subtle, animating the neural system of a fruit fly, to that energizing a huge power transformer. Wavelengths can be fine-tuned with incredible precision over a virtually infinite spectrum extending from the longest of radio waves to the shortest of astonishingly energetic gamma rays from outer space. Two waves can be in or out of phase so that they mutually reinforce or cancel, respectively, with all possible relative phases in between, no matter how incrementally different. Finally, a wave can be polarized like the light waves that have filtered through your sunglasses and can be varied in polarization by an infinitesimal amount over the entire range of possible angles.

How these four basic properties can be orchestrated to provide the physical basis for the incredible richness of nature and of human life and interaction on this earth is to me the most awesome and profound question. As a physicist I can understand how two hydrogen atoms and an oxygen atom can combine to form a water molecule, and how water molecules can agglomerate to create the exquisite hexagonal symmetry of a snow flake. But understanding the principles of the marvelous organizing action that utilizes these innumerable quantum electrodynamic "tools" as agents to fashion the creatures of this earth, I believe, is a challenge that will be with us far into the indefinite future.

These tools have been used in life's entire evolutionary process from the assembly of molecules to form first, bacteria cells, then the host of plant and animal species, and finally humans and their consciousness. Each breakthrough to a higher level of complexity was carried out as the result of incessant probing and testing by a multitude of these tools, restlessly and unremittingly experimenting in search of a higher level of complexity or organization.

So it is today that the primary physical basis for our life and consciousness depends on these tools. Their extreme subtlety is quantified in experiments in microbiology, which show that voltage gradients as low as one ten millionth of a volt per centimeter and frequencies between 0 and 100 cycles per second are involved in the interaction between cells in living creatures. All plant and animal life is bathed in, and interacts with, a sea of such very low frequency radiation that envelopes the earth. This is independent of the radiation superimposed by technology.

However, our life today is involved with electromagnetic phenomena to a far greater degree than this. Virtually all of modern technology depends on electromagnetic interactions for its operation. This is so from the precisely focused laser beams for eye surgery to the massive motor generators furnishing electric power for our homes. Indeed our increasingly intimate interaction with our technology (cell phones, computers, robotic devices, organ implants, etc.) suggests that it will be a vital adjunct to our future evolution. In effect, we are already co-creators of it.

Furthermore we are almost entirely dependent on electromagnetism and its radiation for our knowledge of the microscopic and cosmologic worlds. There is no quantum measurement that does not need some electromagnetic interaction for its accomplishment. Essentially all of our information of the cosmos is transmitted to us via some part of the electromagnetic radiation spectrum. Even the observations based on neutrino and gravitational wave detection use electromagnetic technology to effect a measurement.

Clearly one could continue indefinitely giving examples of how universal electromagnetism and its radiation are in our internal and external experience. For no other phenomenon of physical nature so totally and intimately permeates and affects our lives and our world, providing the means by which we can in turn sense the sacred in all of earthly nature. This vibrant indwelling in nature is given testimony in writings of mystics and in scriptures from Saint Francis of Assisi and Jalal adin Rumi in the West to Lao Tzu in the Tao te Ching in the East. I find one of its most beautiful expressions in two lines of Wordsworth:

"In gentleness of heart; with gentle handTouch - for there is a spirit in the woods."

Moreover, a central feature of physical nature is light, which is electromagnetic radiation. Light has served as a primary medium for the spirituality of men and women since the dawn of human consciousness. It has been an essential component in the creation myths of cultures worldwide. It has been the principal focus for the spirituality expressed in rituals of religions throughout the world for millennia. Theologians from Saint Augustine and Joannes Philoponus to Robert Grosseteste have pondered and contemplated on its spiritual significance, giving us penetrating, and in some cases remarkably predictive, insights.

It is this abiding reverence for nature, this perception of its being spiritually imbued that prompts me to posit that the ubiquity of electromagnetic phenomena on earth is an evident and compelling analog for the ubiquity of God's immanence. But I need to emphasize that electromagnetism is not God, nor God's immanence, but it is a provident means for us to have some conception of the nature of that immanence. I hold that it should be considered as such by any theology that seeks to interpret nature.

In forwarding this view I readily acknowledge that the other three physical forces, the weak, nuclear, and gravitational, can arguably also be considered as reasonable analogs for divine immanence. For example, it is the nuclear force that provides the vast majority of mass to all of matter and hence affords us a sense of substance and tangibility and so could be considered as a metaphor for divine inherence. Even more convincing is the gravitational force that provides the mutual attraction between every mass in the universe, however infinitesimal.

Even so, although each has a vital function in making possible our existence, none of these three forces can compare with the versatility, diversity, and scope of the electromagnetic force in providing the physical basis for the awesome plethora of creations on this earth, including us. Throughout evolution it is has played this special role virtually independent of the relatively passive and inanimate background role played by the other forces.

Some who are more physics-oriented may wonder about the fact there is what is known as the electroweak theory that received its first strong experimental support about twenty years ago. This theory jointly describes the electromagnetic and weak forces from about one billionth of a second after the big bang, when they were indistinguishable, to today, when they behave quite differently. So today the weak part of the electroweak force cannot do any of the wondrous things the electromagnetic part can do that I describe here.

These wondrous things, these indispensable undergirding phenomena, do not seem to be considered very much in the science-religion dialogue in recent years. Most of this dialogue has understandably drawn on the biological sciences: evolutionary biology, zoology, anthropology, neurology, and studies of the brain and consciousness etc. But in our passionate search for a deeper understanding of the wonders of complexity, perhaps it might worthwhile to take a backward glance at the physical instruments that are used in achieving this complexity. Should we entirely take for granted the necessary in our devout quest for the sufficient?

These physical instruments, these electrodynamic phenomena, place limits on, and help define the nature of, the complexity we seek to comprehend. They provide the prerequisite physical grounding for all living complexity. To understand more clearly the nature of this grounding, let us reflect on the fact that we and all living nature are carbon-based species. So let us consider the carbon atom. 99.97% of its mass is concentrated in the nucleus at its center and occupies some one trillionth of its volume; the rest of the volume consists of six electrons of very small mass and trillions of force-carrying photons that keep the electrons in their orbits.

Therefore there is a vast array of electrodynamic phenomena that fills the overwhelming majority of the world's space, so that we ourselves are immersed in an ocean of electromagnetic events; in fact we are part of the ocean. This helps me see these electromagnetic phenomena as constituting the furthest frontier of the physical realm probing with its sensitive tendrils into the unknown gap between that realm and the realm of the conscious and spiritual. Thus, it plays an unique role in our unending search for a fuller cohesion of the whole continuum of existence from the material to the spiritual.

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This topic deserves its own forum, let alone thread. One of my first thoughts on all this was something in response to how we might know or characterize God from our physical world. Electromagnetism seems a good choice. As is commonly thought of God, it is everywhere. It pervades all things, gives them life and sustenance. It's invisible, yet powerful. Etc., etc. And yet this electromagnetism stuff is rationed out in finite, limited, quantum amounts. God and limited don't seem too compatible. Just a thought.

Each breakthrough to a higher level of complexity was carried out as the result of incessant probing and testing by a multitude of these tools, restlessly and unremittingly experimenting in search of a higher level of complexity or organization.

That's such a wonderful sentence, thought and reality. If one looks at the "motivation" behind all the energy in the universe you would think simply expressing itself in something like a supernova would be enough. Wow. That's creation. That's power. That's magnificence. But instead all this power does some much more subtle things. It almost has to tone down its power, balance it, and distribute it just right so that more complex things can arise. Whatever is behind the energy of the universe, the author uses a quite nice word when he says the energy is "probing." One would just assume that all that energy would be like a sledgehammer in its subtlety. But it does probe and does form higher, if quite delicate, levels of complexity. For me his sentence provided some new insights.

Even so, although each has a vital function in making possible our existence, none of these three forces can compare with the versatility, diversity, and scope of the electromagnetic force in providing the physical basis for the awesome plethora of creations on this earth, including us.

Here I wonder if the author is anthropomorphizing a little too much. Whether electromagnetism or, say, superstrings they are each pretty foreign to our everyday personal experience. I would tend not to choose one over the other as more elemental.

Therefore there is a vast array of electrodynamic phenomena that fills the overwhelming majority of the world's space, so that we ourselves are immersed in an ocean of electromagnetic events; in fact we are part of the ocean.

I KNOW that we � our bodies � are mostly empty space. But this author has such a way with words that, again, some new insights come. We think of ourselves as physical beings with solid bodies but it is just an illusion. Or rather, or "solidness" is simply electromagnetic repulsion. (Some of you repulse me more than others.)

There's just so much in that great article, JB, that the quotes I pulled out are neither the most interesting nor most important. But any journey starts with the first step.

Yes, I agree with Brad. Great article, JB. Depending on how the discussion develops, I just might move it to the Christianity Today forum, where you can help to moderate. It may prove useful for understanding spiritual emergencies, however.

I've often thought that the Eastern notions of chi, ki, prana (all the same thing, imo) were largely about electromagnetism. They call it bio-electricity, but there's no such kind of special electricity, as we know. I've also thought of the kundalini process in terms of the intensification of electromagnetism and alternations in its patterns of flow. It may well be that this all has something to do with activating dormant parts of the brain, or of creating new patterns of interaction between parts of the brain. I have a strong inuition about the latter based on my own ongoing experience.

The author's point about e-m providing an analogue for understanding the pervasiveness of divine presence is well-taken. And I agree, of course, that it's only an analogue. Electromagnetism is created energy and as Brad noted, there is a limitation factor. God could not be electromagnetism for we know there are other forces that exist besides e-m, and these are also created. Furthermore, e-m is totally impersonal, while God is profoundly Personal, meaning that God possesses intelligence and will just as surely as we do--much moreso, we can surmise.

What's gets really interesting is to reflect on the interaction between e-m and thought. I think thought shapes patterns of e-m activity both within the body and beyond. E-m could very well be understood as the medium in and through which our thoughts influence one another--even how prayer is answered, to a certain extent. This dynamic interaction between intelligence and will (espessed in thought) with e-m might help us understand something of God's ongoing creative influence, for we believe in the Judeo-Christian tradition that God continues to be involved in the creation. Could is be that God's thoughts and will exert influence on us via light/elecromagnetism, especially when we are in a mode of openness and consent to influence from God? I believe so.

I've been concerned for some time about the e-m environment we're creating on this planet. Our brains are literally inundated with all sorts of e-m influences that simply weren't there a hundred years ago. What are the consequences of this? Are they more good than bad? I don't have a clue, here, but I suspect the issue is highly relevant.

Brad and Phil, thanks for your substantive replies, which also waxed poetic. Yes, this thread could constitute a forum. As I am moreso focused on the War deliberations, I could not do this thread justice, presently. But, again, Brad, I can tell you were profoundly moved and seriously engaged by this piece. I already knew how very much up Phil's alley it was. Assuredly, given your perspectives, Phil and Brad, as so wonderfully set out in your replies, this is indeed a thread that will be ripe and fruitful, sooner than later.

Thanks so very much. GREAT RESPONSES!

pax,
jb

As I am moreso focused on the War deliberations�

I also want to get back to this. It's difficult though because it's so big that it's tough to get the mind around it. As Phil mentioned, I wonder what the effect is of all the extraneous EM from radio, TV, power lines, etc. But then again, if you remember that our bodies are being penetrated [takes sip of coke, wipes brow dry] by billions of neutrinos every second (perhaps not in JB's case - he's pretty dense) it might not be such a big deal. But then again, neutrinos apparently don't interact with us. But surely, having quite an electrical system of our own, all this other stuff could.

From the article: Some seven years ago it struck me, as a physicist, how beneath this prolific diversity was a myriad of electromagnetic phenomena. Knowing that the electromagnetic force activates all of chemistry and biology, I realized that this force has been vital in the evolution of, and ultimately underlies, all of earthly nature from rocks to plants and animals, including humans and their brains.

I understand the basics of thermodynamics. Things tend toward disorder (entropy), etc. Now, God has often been used to explain the complexity of life since it seems to defy this law. But it doesn't because entropy is an attribute of the overall system and does not mean that small pockets can not become more ordered. But I've read stuff about how cells can communicate even when separated by a pane of glass. There's information there. There's energy going into that system but with direction. It's like life is motivated to live (duh!). But I mean on the most basic levels. DNA is quite complex. Surely a long, slow process of evolution from the simpler to the more complex is not in dispute. But could it really ever happen without some "motivation" other than just plain, simple (or so we think) electromagnetic energy? This isn't the clock suggests a clock maker argument. I'm talking about the fact that entropy has such a huge pull on things (just look at your garage or tool shed) that even slightly ordered systems should (one would think) tend to break down on their own. Even if they didn't and they became even a little more well-ordered, the odds are at some point (at least in my theorizing) that things would break down. There needs to be some subtle push, some subtle, shall we say, probing. Given that electrons seem to have a mind of their own I wouldn't think it too outrageous to suggest that chemistry alone doesn't explain chemistry or that what chemistry is is not understood beyond the confines of materialism.

quote:

Biochemist Michael Behe answers that the blind watchmaker thesis is a relic of a nineteenth-century science which lacked the understanding of biological mechanisms that recent advances in molecular biology have provided. The biologists who established the still-dominant Darwinian orthodoxy thought of the cell as an undifferentiated blob of "protoplasm." Like a child imagining he might construct an airplane out of cardboard boxes and pieces of wood, they could blithely propose materialist evolutionary scenarios for biological systems because they had no idea of how those systems actually work. The organism (and especially the cell) was to them a "black box"-a machine that does wonderful things by some mechanism nobody knows.

Behe explains that biochemists are now able to explore part of the insides of that black box, and what they find inside is "irreducible complexity." A system is irreducibly complex if it is "composed of several well-matched, interacting parts that contribute to the basic function, wherein the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning." Life at the molecular level is replete with such systems, and biochemists do not even attempt to explain how any one of them could have come into existence by the Darwinian mechanism. The result of biochemical investigation of cellular mechanisms, according to Behe, "is a loud, clear, piercing cry of 'Design!'" Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution. By Michael Behe Reviewed by Phillip E. Johnson

I'm searching for another reference by Behe.

pax,
jb

A system is irreducibly complex if it is "composed of several well-matched, interacting parts that contribute to the basic function, wherein the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning."

Wow. This science is way outside of my realm but that sentence just hit me like a two-by-four. I hate to get all mystical and infer a bunch of stuff simply because of a lack of further scientific research, but one wonders if some elemental principles are being discovered here. That is, that it's just not a case of us saying everything is made out of fire, water, wind and earth (is that right?) as they did before they knew any better.

Stephen C. Meyer, who did his doctoral work in the history and philosophy of science at Cambridge University, is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Whitworth College and Senior Research Fellow at the Discovery Institute in Seattle. DNA and Other Designs

quote:

[C]hemical evolutionary theory is now known to be riddled with difficulties; and Miller�s work is understood by the origin�of�life research community itself to have little if any relevance to explaining how amino acids�let alone proteins or living cells�actually could have arisen on the early earth.

When Miller conducted his experiment, he presupposed that the earth�s atmosphere was composed of a mixture of what chemists call "reducing gases" such as methane, ammonia, and hydrogen. He also assumed that the earth�s atmosphere contained virtually no free oxygen. In the years following Miller�s experiment, however, new geochemical evidence made it clear that the assumptions that Oparin and Miller had made about the early atmosphere could not be justified.

Instead, evidence strongly suggested that neutral gases�not methane, ammonia, and hydrogen�predominated in the early atmosphere. Moreover, a number of geochemical studies showed that significant amounts of free oxygen were also present even before the advent of plant life, probably as the result of volcanic outgassing and the photodissociation of water vapor. In a chemically neutral atmosphere, reactions among atmospheric gases will not readily take place. Moreover, even a small amount of atmospheric oxygen will quench the production of biological building blocks and cause any biomolecules otherwise present to degrade rapidly.

pax,
jb

Well -- the thread has un-kundalini-ed and I suppose can be moved now, Phil I know this is old hat to you but Brad and I are enjoying our metaphysical sandbox

There are four known elementary forces in nature, the strong and weak nuclear forces, electromagnetism and gravity (three, really, if you narrow it down with the electro-weak). About 90% or so of the "stuff" in the universe is unknown to us. It used to be thought that most of it was dark matter (WIMPS). Now it is considered that dark matter is just a drop in the bucket and something called dark energy makes up most of the missing stuff. We know stuff is missing because of the extra matter needed to account for the rotation of galaxies and the extra energy needed to account for the rate of the expansion of the universe (there appears to be a positive pressure, much like Einstein's cosmological constant � empty space itself exerts a force).

On the particle front we have quarks and leptons. Quarks (6 different kinds) make up protons and neutrons and other exotic particles. Leptons (6 different kinds, one of which is the electron) make up the rest of the particles. And with a little help from a website, each of the elementary forces has a boson to carry the force (a quantum at a time):

The gluon mediates the strong force;
The photon carries the electromagnetic force;
The W and Z bosons represent the weak force; they introduce different types of decays.
[And presumably the graviton carries the gravitational force if memory serves.]

So far, all of the particles appear to be irreducible (or at least we don't have the powerful enough particle accelerators to find anything smaller yet). The forces are assumed to be able to be combined into one (Grand Unified Theory, or GUT).

That's the background to put electromagnetism into context. Scientists speculate that entirely new particles might be needed to account for the dark matter. I'm not sure what they're thinking about the dark energy. But in all these forces and particles it's so easy to think of them as lifeless things even though WE are made of them. Does it seem like something is missing or are we just not familiar with the more intimate details and attributes of what we call a "force" or a "particle." Is there more to them than meets the eye or are there other unseen forces that account for things such as the mind, feelings, creativity or thought?

"unkundalini-ed" For some reason my built-in spell-check is having a problem with that one.

-------

I might move it; I don't know. There's a value to metaphysical understanding when it comes to integrating kundalini.

Without changing the topic and flow, here, I'd like to also introduce the idea of DNA as a transmitter of electromagnetism and possibly even other forces. Don Beck (whom I've mentioned in other contexts) and his work with spiral dynamics has mentioned DNA research which shows that that individuals and their environment have an energetic relationship going on which activates different aspects of DNA through time. He mentioned "recalibrating one's DNA" as part of what happens when a transformation of consciousness is taking place. I get the image of DNA as a kind of transceiver, here. Any of you know much about that?

In a chemically neutral atmosphere, reactions among atmospheric gases will not readily take place. Moreover, even a small amount of atmospheric oxygen will quench the production of biological building blocks and cause any biomolecules otherwise present to degrade rapidly.

Yeah, oxygen is a real killer. In fact there's a great fossil record of a time when (all perhaps) algae was anaerobic and basically killed itself off over millions if not billions of years as the byproduct it produced, oxygen, accumulated in the atmosphere to such an extent the it not longer readily dissolved into the air. It sounds like, if true, the early oxygen theory could support life beginning near the thermal vents deep in the ocean.

He mentioned "recalibrating one's DNA" as part of what happens when a transformation of consciousness is taking place. I get the image of DNA as a kind of transceiver, here.

Perhaps at some point you get to the irreducibility thing. Something tells the DNA (or RNA, whatever) to unwind. Back up a step and you say it's an accumulation of certain enzymes in a cell or something. Back up further. How did they accumulate and what other elements (perhaps things that disperse the enzymes) are in play that affect the starting process of cellular division? Our moods and thoughts (stress, joy, whatever) clearly do affect our health and our ability to heal. How could our mental state NOT affect DNA is some way? And does all that so-called junk in the DNA have any hidden function? There is just so much of it. Perhaps electromagnetism interacts with this stuff.

Any of you know much about that?

Not really. LOL. But I don't mind making stuff up as I go along.

Our moods and thoughts (stress, joy, whatever) clearly do affect our health and our ability to heal. How could our mental state NOT affect DNA is some way?

Here's a real zinger for you about people with Multiple Personality Disorder:
"Different personalities exhibit different speech patterns, mannerisms, attitudes, thoughts, and gender. Alters may differ in allergies, handedness, eyeglass prescription or even the presence/absence of diabetes. " Some alters are allergic to penicillin or certain foods, whereas the host personality is not. "8 "
see: http://www.religioustolerance.org/mpd_did2.htm

It's pretty clear that different states of consciousness interact with DNA in different ways to produce different physiological patterns. There seems to be an analogy, here, with the way computer software and operating system interact with machine language and, ultimately, the processor. Makes sense?

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Edit: keeping this in mind, it seems not so far-fetched at all to affirm what Christianity has about the first humans endowed with a spiritual soul: that they were immortal, and free from illness. With the Fall--the misuse of freedom and a distortion of that state of original justice, innocence, and wellness--came a distortion in consciousness which brought illness and mortality.

Just a little side-track!

That's amazing, Phil. I didn't know that. I hope to follow that link when I get some time.

As an aside: I�m fascinated by the concept of Dark Matter. We don�t know by any stretch of the imagination all that there is to know about the universe, about physics. But some things seem to be rather well understood: matter and energy. On the microscopic level we aim for greater and greater detail and it requires us to throw more and more energy into the experiments and we can�t always. But on the macroscopic level, even Einstein�s discoveries didn�t make much difference for describing how the whole universe works when compared to Newton. None of the really weird quantum effects seem to make a bit of difference on the larger scales (with a notable exception being the possible existence of dark energy and possibly the inflation of the early universe).

So I�ve always scratched my head a bit at the notion of dark matter. We apparently just can not see a WHOLE bunch of matter that is in and around galaxies. But it�s supposed to be their or else the galaxies wouldn�t rotate at the speed that they do. Yet at the same time we don�t know of any particles that can account for this �missing mass�. Nothing on the books now works. One perhaps gains a bit of mass here from the neutrino and maybe a bit more there from some exotic particle that is theorized. But it�s all so inelegant. It alls seems so forced and strained.

Enter this discussion. When I first heard about dark matter I wondered if there was some VERY small attribute of gravity that made it either slightly weaker or stronger over very great distances. Rather than inventing something new it seemed a case where we might need to take a second look at something that already existed. But this entire discussion (and others around SP) about not getting one�s mind stuck completely in materialistic philosophies and thus needlessly limiting one�s imagination leads me to believe that perhaps some of the answers could lie in integrating some of the stuff in JB and Phil�s minds.

If life has some kind of extra propensity to organize because of some type of motivation or will then that could very well imply some type of �will force�. Imagine a force in the universe that supplied a VERY slight pressure or energy that was conducive to creating organized systems. Would not this same energy apply also to galaxies? Could it be that there is no missing matter but instead there is a missing force?