Sam Kneller's Blog, page 48

Sacred books–There are Many–Will the Real Sacred Book Stand up Please

Sacred Books or ‘Holy Books’ are purported to be inspired by ‘outside influences’ with reference to divine sources.

There are many Sacred Books. How are we going to decide which is the ONE–if there is one–to plunge into for answers?

Sacred Books are where we turn to pursue a study of Theology (the words relating to god or God). If you have happened onto this post I suggest you read the short theology post first … to see why we’re even broaching this subject.

(Origin of the Universe chapter 2.1)

Sacred Books are historic writings generally penned by men or women to whom their content was revealed. Often the origin of the writings is worshipped as god or God. These writings represent the foundation of knowledge, wisdom and revelation from this divine source regarding the past, present and future. They prone and teach a way of thought and actions and are often the basis for a society of followers applying principles to organize their daily lives individually and collectively.

Often times a single such Sacred Book is interpreted in various different ways giving rise to different groups sometimes called religions, or sects–meaning a ‘section of (the whole)’. The term ‘sect’ can have a negative and even hostile connotation.

The key to sacred books is that their inspiration comes from an ‘outside source’–something beyond human capacity and human reason. The idea being that, whatever the source, their knowledge and wisdom are SUPERIOR to that of man. Hence, these sacred writings contain information that is more useful to mankind than what mankind itself can develop, investigate or imagine.

As we know, there is much controversy not only with regard to these books but also their ‘authors.’ Who and what are these ‘higher powers.’ There are dozens of these purported sacred books.

Non-exhaustive list of sacred books with their respective followers

Apocrypha: Gospel of Thomas
Ayyavazhi: The Akilattirattu Ammanai and Arul Nool
Buddhism: The Tripiṭaka and the Dhammapada
Christianity: The Christian Bible especially the New Testament and the Gospels, Sacred Tradition
Confucianism: The Analects of Confucius, also the I Ching
Epicureanism, Principal Doctrines
Hinduism: Shruti (Vedas, including the Rigveda; also Aranyakas, Brahmanas, Upanishads, Bhagavad Gita, Mahābhārata, Ramayana); Panchatantra
Islam: The Qur’an, also Hadith and the Sunnah
Judaism: The Hebrew Bible (Tanakh = Torah, Nevi’im, and Ketuvim), the Talmud, which includes Pirkei Avot
Mormonism: Book of Mormon, Pearl of Great Price, Doctrine and Covenants
Satanism: The Satanic Bible
Sikhism: The Guru Granth Sahib and the Dasam Granth Sahib
Taoism: The Dao de jing, also Chuang Tzu, and the I Ching

So how are we going to decide which is the ONE–if there is one–to plunge into for answers?

I originally thought I’d do a ‘comparative’ revealing what various sacred books said about the same subject like: soul, death, war, salvation, heaven …’ I ended up deciding against this because it would be my interpretation of what these books revealed about these subjects. Another aspect is that there are so many conflicting approaches to the same texts that it’s impossible to be impartial. I’m not an expert on religions and certainly not on comparative religion. If this approach interests you, you can dive into some major concepts from this base.

Identifying the Sacred Book

Well, if you had a group of 100 people, how would you identify which one is the person you’re looking for?

You’d be looking for evidence, proof, you’d be looking for identifying signs. For instance if you know the person you’re looking for is male you’re down to 50 people, has brown eyes … then you’ve eliminated another 20 people. If the person is between 1.60m and 1.70m you’re down to 10 people. And so forth: moustache, blond, teeth, DNA–until you’ve identified the ‘one and only’.

In other words, knowing identifying signs and using elimination–you can reduce the group of people to that unique person and then even verify your findings by all sorts of other tests and identifying signs.

By knowing identifying signs and using elimination, you can reduce the group of people to that…
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To get right to the point. That’s the basic reason I wrote Inventory of the Universe and Audit of the Universe–because they contain the identifying signs. Every single question asked in those books that is a ‘why’ question needs an answer … and the sacred book that answers ALL of those ‘why’ questions with COHERENT WORDS in a SYSTEMATIC WAY is the ONE that we want to use.

We can actually kill two birds with one stone, (not sure that’s an appropriate analogy). Firstly we will receive understanding as to what’s happening here on Earth probably with instructions as to how we can have more peace and prosperity. Secondly, if a book can provide us with such information it will tell us something about the nature of the author. After all, if you read a ‘how to’ book and it helps you do what it sets out to do, not only will you have a solution to your problem but you’ll have a great respect for the author of this valuable information.

A group of ‘sacred books’ can be reduced to ‘the sacred book’ by elimination:

You must know what ‘evidence’ you’re looking for. As one sage once wrote: Teach me that which I see not.

We must know what evidence we’re looking for. It’s not one proof or even 7 proofs (the sensational heading of a booklet I sent off for many years ago) that represent ‘evidence.’ It is not even a majority or a mass of information that is convincing. Look at religions today. Each of them has masses of information, each is convinced their mass is the right mass–and the end result is confusion.One of the reasons for this turmoil is the search for ‘facts‘–irrefutable truths that can be physically touched, demonstrated and witnessed. Various phenomena fit into this category: paranormal experiences like anything that can be considered to be a ‘miracle’: visions, apparitions, after-death experiences, talking in tongues. I could lump in ghosts, flying objects, psychic powers…All such phenomena are considered by some–maybe many–to be ‘spiritual’ and hence godly or Godly or at least pointing to something ‘larger than humankind.’

And indeed, this could very well be the case, I’m not denying any of these phenomena.However–and this is the key–does any one or even the totality of these phenomena ‘prove truth?’ Display evidence and give answers to fundamental questions?

I believe not.

They are individual, independent, isolated, unrelated events that reveal ‘special and spectacular circumstances,’ but they don’t leave us with anything concrete.These phenomena don’t guide us in eliminating the unessential and finding the essential.

A group of 'sacred books' can be reduced to identify 'the sacred book' by elimination.
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 The 21st century is marked by a lot of ‘mystery’–in films, literature, TV and real-life. Those involved in probing and investigating such mysteries are continually searching for the ‘motivation’ of people. Why did such and such do this? Act this way? What were they thinking? What’s behind such behavior? If and when a confession takes place inevitably that motivation is stated: I did it because …This is the ‘why.’This is the ultimate ‘evidence.’ This represents the invisible facts. This is the real motivation behind the visible evidence.
 The questions we’re going to ask and that seek answers are ‘WHY QUESTIONS.’ They are interrogations that don’t have physical proof to offer. For instance, ask the ‘why question’ of all the above phenomena:

Why paranormal experiences?
Why miracles?
Why visions?
Why apparitions?
Why after-death experiences?
Why talking in tongues?
Why ghosts, flying objects, psychic powers?

It is much, much more difficult to answer the ‘why questions’, correct? Yes!

Can the sacred books answer these questions?

Can the sacred books answer ALL the why questions about the universe, Earth, life, death, past, present, future?

Is there even ONE sacred book that gives us answers to such fundamental–but very difficult to answer–motivations?

To begin the process of elimination and find the one sacred book–if there is one–we first have to ask the right questions: The why questions. Don’t miss the upcoming blog posts that will point us in the right direction.

This blog post is an excerpt from chapter 2.1 of Origin of the Universe.

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Join The Explanation Newsletter to stay informed of updates. and future events. No obligations, total privacy, unsubscribe if you want. Your gift is a free pdf of The Explanation and a free pdf of Answering the Big Questions in Life

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Learn how to play Take Inventory – The Interconnectivity Game (free) that nourishes your neurons and is taking the world by storm. Play a round with family and friends. View the above videos and use the tags at the end of this blog for dozens of ideas to play Take Inventory – The Game.

See the index of the book Inventory of the Universe to find a specific chapter and read it online.

Purchase Inventory of the Universe at Amazon – Purchase the Kindle version

Google Play – Barnes@Nobles – Kobo – iTunes

Unlock Bible meaning via Biblical Hebrew … with no fuss. The free video course that puts you in the driver’s seat to navigate the Bible as never before. Join now

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State of the Earth’s Atmosphere – For Better or Worse?

How is Earth’s Atmosphere faring nowadays? Is it our breath of life or our wheeze of death?

Combatting smog in China with canned Oxygen. A way of raising awareness of what humankind is doing to Earth’s atmosphere.

Via satellites and planes we explore the atmosphere—it’s part of our daily lives, there is little that we do in which the atmosphere, with the carbon cycle, nitrogen cycle, oxygen, weather, and so on, doesn’t play a role in some way; likewise, the bulk of human activity shapes our atmosphere and by extension our world. Our atmosphere is the protective envelope of the earth as we’ve seen, no other planet, to our knowledge, has such a hospitable background for life.

(Audit of the Universe chapter 2.1)

How, exactly, is human life changing the atmosphere, and specifically the earth’s climate, for ‘good’ or ‘bad’?  The stories in this chapter will unfold and ‘air’ all the evidence.

Galacti is once again our tour guide/real estate agent. ‘I’m afraid Earth is a bit of a ‘fixer-upper’ these days,’ he says.

‘What happening?’ I ask.

‘Ah…well, do you see that unobstructed view of Alaska in June, and Beijing all year round?’

‘I can’t see Beijing because of the smog.  What happened?’ I repeat my question.

‘Let’s start by examining what has happened to the three components of the atmosphere,’ Galacti says. ‘In our last tour it was all about location, location and location.  Now it’s climate, climate, and climate!’

From Heart attack to Fertilizer: Nitrogen Impact

Nitrogen is important and essential for all life. If you are a heart patient taking nitro-glycerin pills, you have an excellent idea of how we need nitrogen. People who have high blood pressure and are at high risk for heart attack or angina (chest pain) carry nitroglycerin pills, tablets, patches, tongue spray and ointment with tape for application with them at all times, to take at the first sign of trouble.

It is dispersed in a capsule, so you can’t blow anything up with these pills.  What the nitroglycerin does is dilate the blood vessels, which reduces the blood flow to the heart and creates a drop in blood pressure in the arteries, so that the heart does not pump as hard—less blood and oxygen needed, the heart calms down, the heart relaxes.  Nitrogen in this case can save lives.

‘That’s the practical application of nitrogen,’ Galacti says. ‘On this planet you have creative people who think of these things.’

However, you can have too much of a good thing: human activities now remove more nitrogen from the atmosphere than all natural processes combined, and much of this nitrogen ends up as a pollutant. A particularly serious problem is nitrate pollution from agricultural runoff in ground and surface water supplies, which can not only poison humans and other living creatures drinking polluted waters.

Human activities now remove more nitrogen from the atmosphere than all natural processes…
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It can also significantly change freshwater and marine ecosystems, creating ‘dead zones’ (more on this in the next chapter) and poisoning fish. An excess of nitrogen oxides from traffic emissions combines with other pollutants from industry as well as hot weather and forms ozone, a pollutant and protectant (the proverbial ‘ozone layer’).

‘Here we are at our first stop,’ Galacti says.

We join scientists at a floating laboratory in the Indian Ocean, in a narrow shipping lane between Sri Lanka and Singapore. We aren’t here to contemplate the view of the water, but rather to contemplate the orange trails of nitrous oxide or NOx we see. The scientists are tracking the trails of nitrous oxide and excess ozone across the globe, but because, ironically, of the clarity of the air here, it is easier to see nitrous oxide trails than along the coast of, say, industrialized oil-drilling China or the United States (most of the scientists on this floating laboratory work for NASA).

There are many examples of NOx pollution. Coal-burning factories, agricultural emissions, transportation, and medical factories produce the equivalent weight of 100 Empire State Buildings of NOx gas in the air annually. This is worldwide and specifically in high-emission countries such as the US, China, Brazil, India, and Russia.

There’s a recommended limit for exposure to the planet: The Kyoto Protocol recognizes nitrous oxide in the atmosphere as being 300 times more potent than carbon dioxide. ‘In this neighborhood we have standards—you can’t just pollute,’ Galacti says. ‘When there’s overexposure, especially if we don’t have sufficient oxygen in the atmosphere—nitrous oxide destroys the beneficial ozone as well, bringing about change in global temperatures.’

Selling Air: Oxygen

As we’ve seen, our blood carries oxygen, once called ‘fire air’, throughout our bodies and is a key ingredient in biological life, in photosynthesis and respiration, in carbohydrates, fats, fatty acids, amino acids, proteins–we know that oxygen is essential for life/breath, and also generating energy in cells, but oxygen deserves praise beyond that.

‘Our next stop is an oxygen bar in Vegas, and then on to Beijing,’ Galacti announces.

Galacti’s Sidebar

The world record for a person to hold their breath was set by Stig ‘Aqauman’ Severinsen, when he held his breath for 22 minutes. Most of us can handle a few seconds to a minute or so. Under stress it’s even less than that. The composition of the air, the temperature, and the consistency (altitude) impact the amount of time people can hold their breath.

 

Many athletes train at high altitudes to develop their lungpower. Astronauts wearing spacesuits and swimmers wearing diving suits remind us that outside our surface environment, hostility waits, and we must be prepared to navigate these alien regions that are not hospitable to human life.

We humans can’t survive without oxygen, and to that end, we spend money on treatments at ‘oxygen bars’, establishments around the world where we receive oxygen treatments in all different colors. You would think we would get more than enough oxygen in our daily lives, because we all breathe the same air—however, that’s precisely the problem!  Industrialized and not-so-advanced cities are battling the same problems: Beijing, China, London, England, Ludhiana in India, Ahwaz in Iran, and Ulaanbaatar in Mongolia.

“Welcome to Beijing, China,” Galacti says. “Home of the Forbidden City.  Please put on your air pollution masks now.  You will notice that in this neighborhood, everyone wears these masks.” The city regularly exceeds accepted levels of fine particles—less than 2.5 micrometers (PM2.5) in diameter. They are so small you need an electron microscope to detect them. They’re produced by all types of combustion like motor vehicles, coal-burning and other power plants, residential wood burning, agricultural burning, forest fires, and certain industrial processes.

In response to warnings from the World Health Organization that the air in Beijing and Northern China has exceeded international air quality standards, a Chinese multimillionaire is selling oxygen in colorful ‘soft drink’ aluminum cans.

“Wow, that sounds as if he is taking advantage of the situation,” Galacti comments. “On the other hand, I’ve heard he wants to draw attention to what you humans are doing to the air.  Can of air, anyone? You’ll need it to live in Beijing.  We can make a deal…”

The measurements in Beijing can be as disturbing as the ‘London Fog’, also dubbed the ‘Great Smog’ of 1952 in which 4,000 people died—mainly elderly and young people as well as those with respiratory and heart ailments, with 8,000 more deaths in the weeks following the miasma.

It was a ‘perfect storm’ of exceptionally high coal-burning byproducts with particulate matter 56 times normal levels of the period, of smoke, sulfur dioxide, sulphuric acid, fluorine compounds and hydrochloric acids, all known industrial pollutants, combined with near-zero temperatures, high pressure and mild winds that trapped the smog in the city for several days.

How certain can we be that pollution was the cause of squeezing out the oxygen?  In 1956 Britain passed the Clean Air Act that established ‘smokeless zones’.  Other legislation followed to prevent such a dire situation from occurring again.  To be blunt…the smog was so bad that the environmental movement was born.

Sadly, London today is still smog-filled, and 4,000 people die yearly from harmful pollutants.

“You’ll notice a thick nasty haze blocking the plains of Northern China (as well as London), so what the Chinese billionaire is doing to sound the alarm about the problem is a noble goal,” Galacti says. “But if you’re looking for clean air, let’s do some more searching and see if we find some.  Where does all the pollution come from?” Is the ‘can’ half-empty or half-full?

Where does all the air pollution come from?” Is the ‘can of oxygen’ half-empty or half-full?
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This blog post is an excerpt of chapter 2.1 from Audit of the Universe

Dig Deeper into The Explanation

Join The Explanation Newsletter to stay informed of updates. and future events. No obligations, total privacy, unsubscribe if you want. Your gift is a free pdf of The Explanation and a free pdf of Answering the Big Questions in Life

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Learn how to play Take Inventory – The Interconnectivity Game (free) that nourishes your neurons and is taking the world by storm. Play a round with family and friends. View the above videos and use the tags at the end of this blog for dozens of ideas to play Take Inventory – The Game.

See the index of the book Inventory of the Universe to find a specific chapter and read it online.

Purchase Inventory of the Universe at Amazon – Purchase the Kindle version

Google Play – Barnes@Nobles – Kobo – iTunes

Unlock Bible meaning via Biblical Hebrew … with no fuss. The free video course that puts you in the driver’s seat to navigate the Bible as never before. Join now

Since you read all the way to here… you liked it. Please use the Social Network links just below to share this excerpt of Inventory of the Universe, State of the Earth’s Atmosphere – For Better or Worse?

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Coherent Completeness is the Logical Reasoning of the s/Source

Theology, the logical reasoning of the Source, will lead us to Coherent Completeness.

Coherent Completeness is the logical reasoning of the Source of all things

Referring to the definition of theology from the last blog post, this ‘sound reasoned study’ should lead, in a harmonious way, to peace and prosperity. It’s not just about ‘humanity,’ but about humanity and nature. It’s about the physical and the non-physical, the visible and the invisible, the physical facts and the mental ethereal–or the spiritual as some would call it.

(Origin of the Universe chapter 1.3)

Coherent Completeness

It’s the real Grand Unifying Theory—Theory of Everything—not on a scientific level (I have no clue to that one) but on a universal mankind mental and spiritual level. For the time-being I’ll equate the ‘spiritual level’ to the mental and leave open the possibility that there might be other levels that are not readily visible to mankind.

This GUT, as scientists refer to it, (Inventory, chapter 1) or Coherent Completeness, as I’m going to call it, is a unique concept.

Coherent Completeness is the all-englobing-everything. It’s monotheology, the monoview, monomind, monotruth.

 

It unifies, into one complete puzzle, a coherent view of all the visible and invisible pieces and renders a clear image of the why, how and what of the Universe we are a part of.

That is a tall order.

Coherent Completeness is the all-englobing-everything. It’s monotheology, the monoview,…
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And I hear one of the key counter-arguments.

The religious minded population, who believes in a Higher Power, often points out: The author—God—is mysterious, He’s not a ‘man,’ how can you expect to understand the mind of God? Or, we are just supposed to do our best and leave the rest to Him. He knows our hearts and will do what He has to. And 1001 other reasonings that drive us away from even thinking we can sound the mind of God.

Well, that is the task The Explanation has set before itself. To show how to reach and teach Coherent Completeness.

In the last post of Origin of the Universe I defined the word ‘theology’ as ‘the logical words of God’. I need to take you on a short, or more likely very long thought journey. You might already be skeptical (or outright dubious) about where I’m leading you. But, I need to share another primary port of call with you as we start to examine the Origin of the Universe. That, of and by itself, is already a daring destination–but even more daring is the answer to the question: Why is there a Universe?

Such a question is not theoretical or ethereal, simply because you and I are part of and maybe even the cause or result of this Universe. In essence we’re asking the questions: Why is there life? Why is humankind here on Earth? These are the most underlying issues. Answer those questions and you’ve gone a long way to help people believe. As Simon Sinek would paraphrase this, “the why is the basis, then we can deal with the ‘how’ and ‘what’.”

Humankind is at the crossroads of its existence or extinction, as never before as I’ve pointed out in Audit of the Universe. Leaders, philosophers, scientists and religionists are all giving us their ideas of ‘how’ to run society and ‘what’ to do with society—to improve its outcome, when they don’t even know ‘why’ society exists.

By turning to the above definition of theology (God’s logical words) to answer: ‘Why the Universe?’ I intend to take into account two givens:

There’s an ‘author-originator’ who is intelligent enough to know what he’s doing.
That what he is doing is logical. That there’s a plan of coherent completeness in place to reach the desired outcome.

Again, I repeat, I don’t expect my readers to believe any of this! After all a lot of people don’t believe in God, and frankly when we look around at 41,000 religions I can understand why. And since many believe there’s no God–why should there be any logical plan?

Even a lot, if not most ‘religious’ people, don’t necessarily think of God as having a plan. And when you consider the state of Earth today with its magnitude of suffering—how can you justify a good God responsible for such a seemingly unjust plan. Where’s the ‘logic’ in that?

Should this be your skeptical case then I ask you to consider this book as another mystery novel—a book of fiction like Star Wars with its all-powerful leaders of the Galaxy and Universe. Read on and consider what I write as pure fantasy—just like the galactic sovereignty of the Supreme Leaders. Even though the Force and Jediism have been taken on by some as their religion. Science fiction, the imaginations of some human author’s mind, has been raised to the level of ‘god’s logical words.’

You’ll get a kick and chuckle from my wild imagination.

Back to theology: It is understanding the mind and concepts of that originator. It is the all-encompassing ‘WHY’ as the foundational motivation of the source as compared to the ‘What’ and ‘How’ of religion.

Theology goes deep into the mind and purpose of the author and answers the ‘Why.’

Whenever the ‘author’ thinks, says or does something–there’s a reason. Nothing is done haphazardly. There’s motivation, rationale and an explanation behind each move.

Theology goes deep into the mind and purpose of the author and answers the ‘Why.’
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Theology, the logical reasoning of God, the Source, will lead us to Coherent Completeness.

Theology, the logical reasoning of God, the Source, will lead us to Coherent Completeness.
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Who is the author of The Explanation?

In conclusion to this section on Theology I’d like to tell you about a dilemma I had when the idea of writing a book first germinated: The title. what was I going to name it? Originally, it was to be one book, not a series. And the second question, as the author, how should I present my name? Maybe even use a pseudonym. As you can see, I decided against the latter simply because the teaching and videos that accompany the books would reveal my identity anyway.

What was capital to me was that I NOT be seen as the ‘author of the coherent completeness.’ Let me be clear. The plan for humankind that I will expose in the rest of this and subsequent books, is NOT MY PLAN. As I’ve said, if it were my plan then you and I could argue about it until the cows come home. I’m just as human as any person be they a leader, philosopher, scientist or religionist. My ideas are just as bad as anyone else’s on this humongous subject of ‘coherent completeness.’

If you think the Theory of Everything, the grail scientists are scrambling to uncover is something, well, it’s small fry compared to coherent completeness. Personally, I’m totally incapable of authoring anything as complicated and as intricately interwoven as that plan is. No mystery thriller, no matter how suspenseful at throwing curve balls it is, even holds a candle to the mystery of coherent completeness.

No mystery thriller even holds a candle to the mystery of coherent completeness
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No human, I repeat, no human, could have, can or will think up a plan like coherent completeness. This is the mystery of mysteries that we are going to delve into.

No human, could have, can or will think up a plan like coherent completeness.
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So, what’s my relationship to this plan? I wanted the title of this book series to reflect that clearly: The Explanation with Sam Kneller. It looks like a minor detail–with–but it’s not. Most titles would be: …. BY with the name of the author. I’m specifically avoiding the ‘by’ to show clearly that I’m NOT the author of The Explanation as such. All I’m doing is expressing The Explanation in different terms. I’m exposing it in a new light to make it available to a wider audience. This is The Explanation WITH Sam Kneller. I’m just along for its exposition.

I am in ABSOLUTELY NO WAY the author of the plan of coherent completeness. I’m a dummy when it comes to that. Your appreciation of, or argumentation with the plan of coherent completeness is not an issue to take up with Sam Kneller. That’s why I will not debate, quarrel or squabble about this plan. If you or I do have a problem with it, then you need to take it up with the real Author–and I repeat, that’s not me.

Inventory of the Universe and Audit of the Universe and these first chapter of Origin represent the introductory information necessary to understand The Explanation. We’re almost there. But, If we want to get into theology we first have to:

Determine WHERE these ‘sound, reasoned words, related to god(s) / God’ are.

This blog post is an excerpt of chapter 1.3 from Origin of the Universe

Dig Deeper into The Explanation

Join The Explanation Newsletter to stay informed of updates. and future events. No obligations, total privacy, unsubscribe if you want. Your gift is a free pdf of The Explanation and a free pdf of Answering the Big Questions in Life

TheExplanation.com

Email address:

Learn how to play Take Inventory – The Interconnectivity Game (free) that nourishes your neurons and is taking the world by storm. Play a round with family and friends. View the above videos and use the tags at the end of this blog for dozens of ideas to play Take Inventory – The Game.

See the index of the book Inventory of the Universe to find a specific chapter and read it online.

Purchase Inventory of the Universe at Amazon – Purchase the Kindle version

Google Play – Barnes@Nobles – Kobo – iTunes

Unlock Bible meaning via Biblical Hebrew … with no fuss. The free video course that puts you in the driver’s seat to navigate the Bible as never before. Join now

Since you read all the way to here… you liked it. Please use the Social Network links just below to share this excerpt of Inventory of the Universe, Coherent Completeness is the Logical Reasoning of the s/Source

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The Space Race: Weapons or Manufacturing–Which will Win?

The Space Race isn’t which country will win the war, but for humankind’s sake, will peaceful or belligerent pursuits win out?

The Space Race isn’t which country will win the war, but for humankind’s sake, will peaceful or belligerent pursuits win out?

Manufacturing in Space

It’s a space race. We are using space in unique ways, namely to produce goods necessary for human activity such as top-quality semiconductor chips for computers, protein crystals that can help deliver pharmaceuticals, contact lenses, and aerogels—the lightest solid material known yet able to support the weight of a compact car—that can be used in foam insulation for household windows.

(Audit of the Universe chapter 1.6)

Take the example of contact lenses. Optical manufacturing companies and space agencies have conducted experiments to expose contact lens materials such as fluorine, silicon and acrylic (fluoro-silicone/acrylate) to the microgravity of space in pressurized research labs in the Space Shuttle.

The lenses formed under these conditions have proved to be more permeable to gases, thus allowing more oxygen to reach the eyes. Also, these space-manufactured gas-permeable contact lenses are less likely to attract bacteria, preventing eye infections.

Space Wars: Beyond Science Fiction

Our next story, Galacti says, is epic. It concerns the battle to control the ‘ultimate high ground’—It’s the space race.

A bit of history: Before June 20,1944, nothing manmade had ever entered this ‘off limits’ environment that engulfs earth. But World War II and the German V-2 rockets developed by Werner von Braun shattered ‘space’, reaching altitudes up to 200 km, about 100 km into ‘space’. The ‘V’ stands for Vergeltungswaffe, German for ‘retaliatory or reprisal weapons’ launched against the British.

The story of the weapons space race begins with a personal anecdote for me: My mother described the German ‘terror bombing’ during World War II, how Londoners could hear the roaring engines of the V-2’s arriving over London and suddenly they’d cease–moments of anguishing silence as they fell out of the sky, landing, nobody knew where, exploding into destruction and indiscriminate death of 7,183 people in England and Belgium.

Paradoxically manufacturing these first space age weapons took more lives, about 25,000, amongst the forced laborers from the SS concentration camp Dora (Mittelbau KZ). When Werner von Braun defected to the US, he created a version of the V-2 which became an intermediate-range ballistic missile. However, the scope of this argument goes beyond the World War II era conflicts–the story of weapons is much broader.

If we think about weapons, we see a progression: hand combat > dagger, sword, spear (pierce, throw, but need personal contact) > slingshot (trying to hit the enemy from further away) > catapult > gunpowder > guns and their evolution: sniper (distance), machine gun (fire-power) > cannon (guns of Navarone and the V-3’s which had a range up to 165 km–that’s unbelievable) > atom bomb > missiles > SCUD guided missiles from the Iraq War that fly at ground level following the topography to their target > ICBMs > Missiles from Space. The space race is on.

Galacti brings up a quote:

No superpower has ever decided to become weaker.

No superpower has ever decided to become weaker.
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The story of space weapons also includes international attempts to restrict or ban them such as the Outer Space Treaty of 1967, signed by one hundred nations from Afghanistan to the United States, and the Space Code proposed by the European Union in 2012.

The Outer Space Treaty, designed as a ‘nonarmament’ treaty based on concerns about the space race even before Russia’s launch of Sputnik, is, according to our digital library of the universe, ‘an undertaking not to place in orbit around the Earth, install on the moon or any other celestial body, or otherwise station in outer space, nuclear or any other weapons of mass destruction,’ and ‘limits the use of the moon and other celestial bodies exclusively to peaceful purposes’.

However, despite international agreements the ‘space race’ has continued between the United States and Russia, two proponents of the treaty, as well as other players seeking this ‘ultimate high ground’.

We follow several nations in our story: USA (anti-satellite systems), India (Advanced Air Defence missile interceptor) Russia (anti-missile system), North Korea (UNHA rocket), China (anti-satellite device), and even joint ventures between nations such as India-Russia (BrahMos cruise missile).

The USA has destroyed a satellite with a missile, China pulverized its own target satellite as well as a medium-range ballistic missile in space. India is developing a ‘hit-to-kill’ anti-satellite system.

Space is vast, so we think. Why should we worry? International ‘peace workers’ in many countries think that we have reason to be worried. Worse, if nations continue to rattle ‘space sabers’ and destroy satellites, we could cripple our world as we know it: Communication networks disrupted, television signals gone black, financial networks wiped out, air traffic controls dismantled, aircrafts lost. A real disaster scenario.

Space Summary

More than 95% of tracked Space Objects are made up of debris.

Space, unlike any other ‘territory’ in our generation, clearly reveals a ‘before’ and ‘after’ status of the intervention of humankind and our effect on ‘Space’. We discussed space debris in the last blog post. The above image clearly reveals the state of affairs in 1960 (pristine clean) compared with 2009. In just 50 short years, there is a definite reality of positive and negative.

Space has gone from spotless to soiled, from virgin to adulterated. The unclouded evidence in its transformation should cause humankind to reflect on its behavior.

Space has gone from spotless to soiled, from virgin to adulterated in just 50 years.
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Have we measured the consequences, the rewards and penalties? Where will we be in ten or twenty years? What decisions are being made and steps being taken to stave off this gnawing situation?  Is the glass of peace and prosperity getting fuller or emptier? What is the tendency for mankind?

This blog post is an excerpt from chapter 1.6 of Audit of the Universe

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Deity and Sound, Reasoned Words are the Crux of Theology

Do we spell Deity with a small ‘d’ (deity) or a capital ‘D’ (Deity) and whomever this might be, can they pronounce and transmit reasoned words? That is the meaning of Theology.

 

The Crux of Theology

Remember our fundamental question: How is it possible to establish Peace and Harmony on Earth and in the Universe? Well, this is not the fundamental question! The first question to ask is:

(Origin of the Universe 1.2)

WHY do we even want Peace and Harmony on Earth?

WHY is that our goal? After all, why not have Conflict and Discord or other configurations?

Who alone can give the ultimate answer to this question? And I mean the ultimate REAL, CORRECT answer. I’ve already concluded in Audit of the Universe that experience, philosophy, science and religion have given us all sorts of answers but who knows for a certainty which, if any, of these ‘human answers’ has any worth?

So, we take a look at Theology. Here are the first two paragraphs of the definition of Theology according to Wikipedia . I cite this source, not because it’s the best or worst, but simply because it’s readily available to all of us.

Augustine of Hippo defined the Latin equivalent, theologia, as “reasoning or discussion concerning the Deity”; Richard Hooker defined “theology” in English as “the science of things divine”. The term can, however, be used for a variety of different disciplines or fields of study.

 

Theology begins with the assumption that the divine exists in some form, such as in physical, supernatural, mental, or social realities, and that evidence for and about it may be found via personal spiritual experiences and/or historical records of such experiences as documented by others.

 

The study of these assumptions is not part of theology proper but is found in the philosophy of religion, and increasingly though the psychology of religion and neurotheology. As a science, theology aims to structure and understand these experiences and concepts, and to use them to derive normative prescriptions for how to live our lives.

I have not highlighted anything in the above quote because I would like you to come to your own conclusions.

Here are my conclusions about this definition:

There’s an assumption that the divine exists. It is not definitely, and to say the least, not definitively, defined and it doesn’t even have a capital ‘D’ for Divine or God. Should we refer to Deity or deity?
This ‘divine’ may be found via personal experiences and/or historical records.

We have to be very careful with ‘personal experiences’ because that is the first of the four points in Audit that has not brought us proper solutions to peace and prosperity for the time being.
The ‘historical records’ is a vital concept to which we will return in the next chapter about Sacred Books.


This definition indicates that theology, as a science, aims to understand these experiences and concepts and from them, draw conclusions on how to live.

I’m going to resume this in short by saying this Wikipedia description of theology is academic and indeed incorporates the four ways humankind reasons (experience, philosophy, science and religion) to reach answers.

In short, this definition of theology gets us no further than where we were at the end of Audit. It says that theology is ‘humankind’s reasoning about the divine.’ Put another way it’s the ‘tail defining the head.’ The opening paragraph of the definition of Wikipedia says as much:

Augustine of Hippo defined the Latin equivalent, theologia, as ‘reasoning or discussion concerning the Deity.’ At least there’s a capital ‘D.’

The Explanation does NOT (for emphasis) define theology this way.

How The Explanation defines Theology

Further down the Widipedia page we can find the etymology of theology:

Theology translates into English from the Greek theologia (θεολογία) which derived from Τheos (Θεός), meaning “God,” and -logia (-λογία), meaning “utterances, sayings, or oracles” (a word related to logos [λόγος], meaning “word, discourse, account, or reasoning“) which had passed into Latin as theologia and into French as théologie.

The above is correct … but then it adds: Greek theologia (θεολογία) was used with the meaning “discourse on god” in the fourth century BC by Plato.

No doubt Plato and others talked a lot about ‘god,’ as I said, the tail wagging the dog. This is not The Explanation’s point of view.

Let’s look at the word theology which can be broken into two distinct parts: ‘theo’ and ‘logy’.

The 1st part ‘theo’ means god or God.

Right away we run into a thorny issue: The existence, or not, of some higher power. Then, if we agree there is one: The nature of this higher power. If we took a poll on this we’d get every idea under the sun—and then some.  A factor of belief comes, heavily, into play—and this is a very personal feeling that characterizes each one of us. As the author of this book I want to respect your beliefs, about G/god, science, religion or any other or lack thereof, .

However, we have taken a step in the direction of some ‘higher power’ when we decided that none of the four key ways humankind reasons (experience, philosophy, science, religion) is fully working.

Theology means we continue in the direction of a ‘higher power’ fully aware that we don’t know if this ‘G/god’ even exists and that this power has yet to be defined.

The 2nd part of theology is ‘-logy’

From a Google definition we read: combining form: suffix: -logy; suffix: -ology

denoting a subject of study or interest: “psychology”
denoting a characteristic of speech or language: “eulogy”
denoting a type of discourse: “trilogy”

‘Logy’ has to do with ‘study of’ or ‘language and discourse’ around a particular subject. In this case: god(s) or God.

We find a related word as part of ‘logy’: logo

logogram ˈlɒɡə(ʊ)ɡram/

a sign or character representing a word or phrase, such as those used in shorthand and some ancient writing systems.

As you can see this word is is related to ‘sign’, ‘character’, ‘word’, ‘phrase’, ‘shorthand’, and ‘writing systems’. All of this is is part of ‘study of language and discourse’ as we saw above. We see company logos everywhere–one identifying sign, oftentimes without even a word–and we know exactly what or who it’s referring to.

Theology is : the sign or set of signs, characters, words, phrases, in short,

the writing system that identifies and expounds god(s) / God.

I’m going to go a step further here because within this concept of ‘logy’ and ‘logo’ we find a familiar English word: logic.

Late Middle English: via Old French logique and late Latin logica from Greek logikē (tekhnē) ‘(art) of reason’, from logos ‘word, reason’. (Google definition)

Middle English logik, from Anglo-French, from Latin logica, from Greek logikē, from feminine of logikos of reason, from logos reason (Merriam-Webster definition). Merriam goes on to add this:

A proper or reasonable way of thinking about something:  sound reasoning  logic in what you said.>
A science that deals with the rules and processes used in sound thinking and reasoning

When we take these concepts into consideration we can define theology as the study of words related to God. But not just any words, rather ‘sound, reasoned words‘.

The Explanation is NOT about ‘humankind’s words about a deity’. That’s what Wikipedia and the ‘Science of Theology’ does.

The Explanation IS about the ‘sound reasoned words of God.’ What does God have to say? What is His reasoning? Why does He want Peace and Prosperity? It’s only the ‘Source’ that can really give real solid answers.

Theology, as seen by The Explanation, refers to the ‘word of the source’. The source being god with small or capital ‘g.’ Since it’s generally associated with religion and its originator it comes with a capital ‘G.’ I don’t expect non-believers to accept the capital ‘G’ or even to believe that God has or could transmit the answers to the basic questions of life.

The Explanation is about the 'sound reasoned words of God.' What does God have to say?
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What I’d say here is: You’ve listened to just about everything humankind has to say about d/Deity–why not give an ear to what Deity ‘might’ have to say?

This blog post is an excerpt from chapter 1.2 of Origin of the Universe

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Space Debris, Humankind has Managed to Pollute Earth’s Space

Space, beyond Earth’s atmosphere, the vastest, pristine domain–or is it? Space debris is accumulating at an alarming rate.

Space Debris

Down here on Earth, peering up into the vast sky, gazing at the stars, planets and galaxies makes us realize just how magnificent and majestic outer space is. However, the naked eye can’t see the 1400 km thick sphere enveloping our planet just beyond Earth’s atmosphere where a Formula 1 race of out-of-control space debris with no pit stops and no rules whirls around day in day out.

(Audit of the Universe chapter 1.5)

“Please deposit all trash into the recycle bins,” Galacti announces. “We can’t take the chance that microbes from your coffee cups or the crusts of bread from your plate might leak out into Space. As it is, the International Space Station crew tossed out plastic bags of solid waste, and they had quite a disposal problem when their plumbing broke. They also lost a tool bag while working outside the space station, but they weren’t able to track it.”

Many objects, including some costly ones, have drifted out of our ‘view’ in space. Earth’s radar dishes have been pointed at orbits around Mercury, for example, where space shuttles have voyaged—but space shuttles and satellites do go missing, as opposed to being in stealth mode (more on that in a moment).

How can a space shuttle just wander away if we have shuttle-tracking radar dishes aimed at the orbits around Mercury? Galacti notes it’s not possible to monitor every orbit with radar dishes, and that satellites and spacecraft missions periodically malfunction and go ‘missing’ before ground crews detect that there is anything wrong. More space debris.

Some of those missions also end up smashed on the moon, strewn here and there across the flat moonscape. Granted, you can have satellites merrily orbiting the Moon for a century or, as mentioned, sustaining our cell phone signals.

It seems beyond belief that we would ‘lose’ something so complex as a non-reusable Russian space shuttle or a reusable U.S. space shuttle, both of which cost on average $10,000 per pound ($22,000 per kilogram).

Space satellites, stray pieces from the early days of the space shuttle, and even future space missions to explore asteroids threaten to clutter the skies. Satellite-satellite collisions generate space junk that could circle Earth and threaten other satellites for the next 10,000 years.

What goes up doesn’t necessarily come down–not from space. Would you believe that there’s actually a “junkyard” of thousands of pieces of scrap floating around? So much so that new launchings and satellite placement have to take into account what’s in the vicinity–it’s an expensive traffic jam. Mission planners have to calculate orbits around the poles and the equator carefully, as the smallest change, for example a piece of space debris striking a satellite can alter the orbit or even collide and destroy it.

We are far from the point where the ‘traffic’ in space resembles the traffic in Jakarta, Indonesia, but it is a concern now and into the future. It’s hard enough to believe we can pollute the huge amounts of water in the oceans worldwide. Now we have to get our minds around the pollution of the infinitely more vastness of space around the earth.

We are, incidentally, also polluting the skies with cell phone signals that block part of the spectrum of radio wavelengths astronomers, such as the scientists at the Aricebo Observatory, use to look at the cosmos. We look at our cell phones and wonder what we are doing to the universe. What other clutter are we responsible for, and what are we losing?

Scientific estimates indicate there are more than 670,000 debris 1–10 cm, and around 29

,000 larger pieces of trackable space debris that can reach 8 ton defunct satellites the size of a bus, speeding around Earth in various orbits.

These are mainly in Low Earth Orbit (LEO), between altitudes of 160 and 2000 km, where all manned space flights (except trips to the moon) have taken place. As well as the Geostationary Earth Orbit (GEO), at 36,000 km where weather and communication satellites hover above one spot in synchronized rotation with the earth transmitting information from their focal area.

The image reveals the entry hole created on Space Shuttle Endeavour’s radiator panel by the impact of unknown space debris.

But the real collision risk comes from an estimated untrackable 170 million debris smaller than 1 cm (0.4 in). This flying flotsam is highly dangerous, not only because of its destructive nature but, as Galacti points out, it may have already reached ‘critical density.’

This is a point at which more space debris is being created by launchings and collisions–than is being removed by natural forces like falling out of orbit and being burnt up in the atmosphere. which some experts believe. This starts a chain reaction of pulverizing more and more space debris.

Small objects such as flecks of paint don’t leave a large impact but, like a piece of gravel cracking your windshield as you drive, they deteriorate highly polished lenses and solar panels. Another factor is speed, this space debris is traveling at Mach 9, nine times the speed of sound and can make shreds out of a satellite. Hypervelocity impacts cause metals to act like fluids and at extreme hypervelocity both impactor and target are vaporized.

In Space, paint flecks, like gravel on a windshield, deteriorate highly polished lenses and…
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We’ve harnessed the confines of space for man’s necessities, to communicate more and faster, to get better forecasts, to scrutinize the globe for natural resources–and in so doing to what extent are we emptying a glass that was full?

This blog post is an excerpt from chapter 1.5 of Audit of the Universe

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Into Theology, a Fifth Approach to Life with Peace and Prosperity

Theology–An alternative to Experience, Philosophy, Science and Religion, for leading us to Peace and Prosperity.

Is Theology–An alternative to Experience, Philosophy, Science and Religion

To be honest, we have to, at least, ask ourselves whether Theology can be an option to find out if it can lead to a better way of life on Earth–and even beyond.

Here’s the situation as I see it now

I read in a report Le Point, a French magazine, that ‘worldwide poverty is receding—that in the last few years it has dropped from 25% of the world population to just 10%.’ Now, that’s wonderful, but what is the benchmark for ‘poverty’? Earning $1.90 per day!! Yes, that gets two exclamation marks. In our Western world that sum of money is ludicrous, $57 a month.

(Origin of the Universe chapter 1.1)

That financial calculation of poverty is fictitious–if you earn $2 a day, you’re not poor anymore. Welcome to a life where you have enough to live and eat ‘reasonably’ well! And here, we’re only talking about financial poverty, what about education, health, housing and working conditions?

In the final chapter of Audit of the Universe I broached the ‘Big Four’ of humankind’s approaches to life, problem solving and decision-making:

Experience (History, Government, Leadership)
Philosophy (Human Reasoning)
Science
Religion

I came to the conclusion that all of these foundational methods for governing this Earth and mankind have yielded results, but that those results have been ‘mixed and mitigated.’ As positive, or negative, as we might consider them, or that they might be, and there’s an awful lot of discord right there, these foundations have not brought planet Earth what it’s looking for: peace and prosperity.

Let’s grasp a new perspective

It’s time to open our eyes and take a deeper look at reality. I invite you to take a step back from this world, and think, just think.

I have no proofs to offer you, no rabbits to pull out of a hat.

I do have a process that I’m going to suggest and develop starting with this book, Origin of the Universe.

The process involves NONE of the four methods above: No personal experience, no science, no philosophy and no religion.

So, what’s left?

The basis for further discussion is: Theology. This is one field we have not discussed yet.

The basis for further discussion to reach The Explanation is: Theology. This is one field we…
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Some might think this is akin to religion but there’s a night-and-day difference between the two. So, let’s, hopefully with an open mind, explore this fifth option.

The first point to be made is a clarification of the term. Simply because we might incorporate or confound theology with religion. They are two totally different babies.

The Crux of Religion

In Audit of the Universe (chapter 14) we saw that there are some 41,000 Christian denominations. They have ‘teachings and practices based on revealed sources’. This myriad of religious organizations is rife with schisms, splits and divergences with innumerable teachings and practices purporting to be based on ‘original written and oral inspired works’. These sources are used to justify the religious rites, practices and beliefs.

Oftentimes what has happened here is that the focus and importance of the ‘practices and beliefs’ have replaced the focus and importance of the source writings. Or there’s been misunderstanding over the comprehension of these foundational documents. This is the basis of splinter religions.

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines religion this way: The belief in a god or in a group of gods. an organized system of beliefs, ceremonies, and rules used to worship a god or a group of gods.

The origin of the word ‘religion’ might surprise you: Middle English (originally in the sense ‘life under monastic vows’): from Old French, or from Latin religio(n-) ‘obligation, bond, reverence’, perhaps based on Latin religare ‘to bind’.

Religion and philosophies are very strong forces at work on the minds of human beings. Once a person is captivated by a group—or their own ideas—of what their spiritual practices should be, the tendency is to stand behind that concept and use the source writings, and associated arguments to demonstrate the basis for their actions and thoughts.

With 41,000 varieties it is impossible to generalize as to the motivations and reasons for this plethora of groups. It could be: Culture, traditions, the personality of a leader, the persuasiveness and persistence of arguments, the peaceful ambiance or individual predilection. People are drawn to or away from these groups. The sheer multitude of such Christian denominations stands as a stark reminder that Christians find themselves obligated by their comprehension of doctrine, bound by particular practices, revering their concept of Christ.

What is true of Christianity is valid for the multitudinous splinters in religious and philosophical groups worldwide.

We have to get back to the foundation and the basics: Theology.

This blog post is an excerpt from chapter 1.1 of Origin of the Universe

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See the index of the book Inventory of the Universe to find a specific chapter and read it online.

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The Space Station, a Step to Colonizing the Moon and Mars

Space stations are no longer science fiction. The ISS has been host to over 330 men and women from 17 countries since its inauguration in 1998. How much to we really know about space?

Space stations are no longer science fiction. The ISS has been host to over 330 men and women from 17 countries since its inauguration in 1998.

We’re off to the space station, strapped into a luxury ‘space tourism’ shuttle such as Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic or some other spacecraft that might win the X-Prize. While we stare into the view screens at our seat, which give us images of our journey as well as access the digital library of the universe, we think about the actual exploration of space and the discoveries we have made.

(Audit chapter 1.4)

The Kepler Mission, an unmanned spacecraft, has discovered several new planets in the Kepler-22 star system inside our Milky Way galaxy. The automated Mars Rover ‘Opportunity’ has unearthed discoveries in the 14-mile-wide crater named Endeavour. Japan’s Hayabusa spacecraft has visited the asteroid Itokawa to bring back samples.

There are two private inflatable space modules, Genesis I and Genesis II, currently in orbit around the Earth following their 2006 and 2007 launch, respectively, by the private American firm Bigelow Aerospace.

International Space Station

The international orbital laboratory opens its doors ‘so to speak’ so that visitors can see the real life of the ISS—24 hours in space. The front end of the ISS, which houses the space shuttle docking hatch, displays the flags of the fifteen nations involved in creating this monument to international cooperation.

An astronaut aboard the ISS explains what it is like to begin the day in space. For example, our audience wants to know: how do you wake up, how do you brush your teeth?  The same way you would on earth, except instead of rinsing out in a sink, the astronaut uses a disposable towel provided by the Russian Space Agency. The astronaut uses the brightly colored towel to catch the spittle. Afterwards, he can even shave inside his small quarters.

Our astronaut wears ‘normal’ street clothes while aboard the space station and doesn’t change them very often, especially since the environment of the space station is more sterile than the streets of wherever the astronauts’ home cities happen to be.

Time to start the day and go to work. Our astronaut may update computer equipment much as IT departments would on Earth. Alternatively our astronaut may check life support systems and make sure that the electrolysis, the process by which electricity generated by the station’s solar panels splits water into its components to ensure oxygen for the ISS inhabitants to breathe.

Our astronaut may assist scientists from all over the world in doing research such as developing vaccines for MRSA and Salmonella bacteria. Or the astronaut may participate in a spacewalk to maintain the Hubble Space Telescope. Russians, Americans, Canadians, all working in this community, shielded from the vastness and coldness of space.

It is stimulating and inspiring to think that astronauts from different cultures and countries can live and work in s space station, 24/7, in cooperation with each other, in harmony. On Earth, a multinational effort from France, Japan, Russia, America, Canada, French Guiana, Germany, the Netherlands and Italy supports and maintains the ISS program.

Given space being so vast and since we haven’t achieved the old science-fiction ideals of putting colonies on the Moon, one traveler wants to know whether what we’ve achieved is real progress. After all, establishing a colony on the Moon, would be a good testing ground for establishing one on Mars. What do we really know about space?

We haven’t achieved putting colonies on the Moon, can we really put one on Mars?
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Side Trip: Dark Matter

I said we weren’t going back to the pinhead, but it deserves a brief revisit, as we think of all the matter and energy in the universe–everything in that pinhead–all summed up in a neat little package “The Theory of Everything”.

Scientists now know that there’s a substance called “Dark Matter”. Our space shuttle is looking for it, like a kind of “Dark Matter Safari”. We’ve never observed this, we don’t know where it is, in the atmosphere or in outer space… but valid calculation based deducted from gravitational effects on visible matter has evidence that it has to be “there”. In fact, it represents 27% of ALL the matter in the universe,

This is extremely hard to believe, even unimaginable, but it’s fact.

In our dark matter safari we also seek the substance called “Dark Energy”. Again, it’s elusive, like a rare species that never shows itself, but realistic computations from the accelerating expansion of the universe show that it represents 68% of ALL the energy in the universe.

Again, this is extremely hard to believe, even unimaginable, but it’s fact. The universe, scientists believe, is composed of the two elements Dark Matter at 27% and Dark Energy at 68%.

That’s 95% of everything in the pinhead at the Big Bang.

One of our passengers examines a test tube containing a “soup” that represents the remaining 5%: all the atoms, protons, mesons, baryons, quarks that we can “observe,” albeit not with the naked eye, measure, and make mathematical equations and theorems with. But suppose the visitor reduces that soup to 0.4%, the part of the universe we can actually see. It’s like taking 4 pieces of a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle–with so little information can we really figure out what the universe truly is and all the details that make it work?

“Imagine basing the ‘Theory of Spaceflight’ or ‘The Theory of a Dolphin’ on such scant knowledge,” Galacti comments, eliciting laughter. “And yet we have those theories. We have a ‘Theory of Everything’ because when computers predicted the weather for this launch, we may have had a bit of difficulty, but the system worked. Or did it?

To an extent, within a few hours, we can predict the weather, but even there we often come up short despite the powerful computers at our disposal. We are the most advanced and progressive generation scientifically since man walked the earth, but studying with only 0.4% of the universe we’re in for many, many, many surprises.”

This blog post is an excerpt from chapter 1.4 of Audit of the Universe

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Learn how to play Take Inventory – The Interconnectivity Game (free) that nourishes your neurons and is taking the world by storm. Play a round with family and friends. View the above videos and use the tags at the end of this blog for dozens of ideas to play Take Inventory – The Game.

See the index of the book Inventory of the Universe to find a specific chapter and read it online.

Purchase Inventory of the Universe at Amazon – Purchase the Kindle version

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Sam Would Like You to Know: About Proselytism and Contributions

There is no Proselytism. Participative contributions will be accepted. Just want to be clear from the start.

There is no Proselytism. Participative contributions will be accepted. Just want to be clear from the start.

No Proselytism

I would like you to understand right at the outset of Origin of the Universe–there is absolutely no intent at proselytism on behalf of the author. I’ve stated and restate, I belong to no group, no Church, no religious organization. I have no intention of joining anything or anyone and certainly not of establishing any organization.

(Origin of the Universe Preface Notes 2)

My sole intent for writing The Explanation series of books is because I see a void in understanding the relationship between the world we live in with its day-to-day chores and challenges and the desire humankind has to know if there’s more to life than meets the physical eye. Is there ‘something/someone’ bigger than us out there? You can call it god, God, spirits, ghosts, extraterrestrial beings, angels, demons–whatever you want. Is there some tie-in between the invisible (to humankind) and visible worlds?

I spent twenty-five years in the Christian ministry and in 1997 left the fulltime ministry for personal reasons. At the same time, the Worldwide Church of God exploded into a few major branches and literally hundreds of doctinal fragments. Personally, I floundered around, obliged to focus on my professional life, but soon I found myself trying to make heads and tails of my spiritual life. It was at this point that the idea of writing began to germ.

However, there are so many commentaries and interpretations of the Bible and particularly the book of Genesis that I didn’t want to follow the crowd. I’d already used the Biblical Hebrew approach during my Ministry and it was effective in teaching and opening a new vista on the Bible. I spent a couple of years taking online Biblical Hebrew with what was called eTeacherHebrew and is now the Israel Institute of Biblical Studies. I needed first-rate verification that the study method I was using is valid. And I now realize it is 100% valid.

Teaching and using Biblical Hebrew as the basis of understanding of Genesis and the Old Testament, and even associated with the Greek New Testament unlocks Bible meaning. There are a multitude of biblical meanings that are impossible to understand in any and all translations. Yes, that’s quite a statement. But, I guarantee you that–although you’ll grasp the basics of the Bible in a translation–you’ll miss the profound meaning of its authors–indeed, maybe its Author–I say ‘maybe’ for those who don’t believe–which I understand.

If you’re into Bible study, you’ve certainly seen Biblical Hebrew used is some way. But you haven’t seen the method that I teach and use to expound scripture–that’s what this book Origin of the Universe is based on.

I repeat, you can rest at ease, no proselytism–take it or leave it–it’s up to you. At the most there’ll be a group or community for those who want to be informed of the material I’ll be covering in these follow-on books (there are another four basically already written) and my Unlock Bible Meaning via Biblical Hebrew courses which are available at www.TheExplanation.com. It is likely there’ll be online presentations, Bible webinars (which I’m calling ‘biblars’), podcasts, classes and discussion groups or Q&A sessions and other activities along that line.

But there will be no religious services of any kind. These activities will take place on internet which covers both geographical location and time zone considerations as well as continuity of materials for anytime-consultation. Be assured that each individual is totally free to follow their own convictions, including myself following my own convictions.

All the material (print, image and vocal) can be re-used and re-distributed openly and freely just as I do from the website www.TheExplanation.com The only stipulation in the copyright is that such distribution be accompanied, in all instances, with the indication of the source: Produced by The Explanation with Sam Kneller at www.TheExplanation.com

Whether you like or dislike, adhere to or reject any of the explanations that will result from the reading and study in these books is entirely up to you. Anyone is free to participate or drop out of further reading or participation.

The only behavior I request is respectful participation and constructive commentary.

Participative Contributions

One final word regarding finances. All the material used for publication of The Explanation series is available totally free of charge in digital format at www.TheExplanation.com. When it comes to the availability of this same material via any commercial sites, like Amazon, both digitally and physically (printed works) there is a cost and hence a purchase price. These commercial sites do recompense authors, in this case myself, with a portion of the payment.

Your participative contributions will help grow and spread the answers to seekers of the big questions in life.

The portion that returns to Sam Kneller is used exclusively for publication and propagation of The Explanation. All financing of this work has been via personal finances. I have given much thought to the concept of contributions and have decided to accept them from those who wish to participate in the effort put into The Explanation. Let me assure you that any such contributions via the website www.TheExplantion.com will solely be used in the publication and dissemination of The Explanation. I thank those people and appreciate their participative efforts. I will shortly be setting up a WordPress add-on to manage contributions via Paypal. Since The Explanation does not have the official status for accepting contributions there can be no tax deductions–unfortunately.

I will keep you posted as these management systems are activated.

This blog post is an excerpt from the Preface and Notes 2 of Origin of the Universe.

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Join The Explanation Newsletter to stay informed of updates. and future events. No obligations, total privacy, unsubscribe if you want. Your gift is a free pdf of The Explanation and a free pdf of Answering the Big Questions in Life

TheExplanation.com

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Learn how to play Take Inventory – The Interconnectivity Game (free) that nourishes your neurons and is taking the world by storm. Play a round with family and friends. View the above videos and use the tags at the end of this blog for dozens of ideas to play Take Inventory – The Game.

See the index of the book Inventory of the Universe to find a specific chapter and read it online.

Purchase Inventory of the Universe at Amazon – Purchase the Kindle version

Google Play – Barnes@Nobles – Kobo – iTunes

Unlock Bible meaning via Biblical Hebrew … with no fuss. The free video course that puts you in the driver’s seat to navigate the Bible as never before. Join now

Since you read all the way to here… you liked it. Please use the Social Network links just below to share this excerpt of Inventory of the Universe, Sam Would Like You to Know: About Proselytism and Contributions

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Satellites have got their Surveillance Eyes on Earth and Us

Thousands of satellites pepper space like eyes in the sky. They survey and scrutinize, some say spy, on just about everything that takes place on Earth.

Thousands of satellites–eyes in the sky–pepper space They survey and scrutinize Earth: Protagonists? or Protectors?

What about the four cardinal points, and the ways in which ancient monuments and megaliths seemingly ‘mirror’ the position of the heavens? Galacti says as he transports the ancient Irish temple New Grange into the landscape, and next transports Stonehenge several feet away—along the ley lines.

(Audit chapter 1.2)

In the new area of archaeological study known as geodesy, Ley Lines hypothetically link ancient monuments and megaliths, which fits with the tradition in many societies of building points of use according to straight lines.

Think of the Ley Lines as train tracks or a city planned on a grid. The builders of ancient pyramids in Mexico appear to have planned their structures as if on an axis, for example: Suppose Stonehenge or La Grange or the Pyramid of Kulkulkan in Chichen Itza in Mexico are the nexus of electrical, magnetic, ‘mystical’ or psychic energy—or landmarks for UFOs to navigate by.

Skeptics and believers put equal faith in disproving or advancing this idea.

Just as you rarely think of ancient navigation aids, you probably don’t think of the role the stars still play in navigation today, in a way.

Eye on Satellites

Consider that a handful of countries can now blast powerful rockets loaded with satellites into space. A lot of them are in a “geo-stationery” orbit around earth. At an altitude of 36,000 km they revolve at the same speed as earth, and hence always stay in the same position. Three such satellites can have communications beamed up to and then between them thus permitting round the world instantaneous verbal, TV, video, web exchanges. It’s absolutely brilliant, out of this world.

Just as if you go to the top of a 50 floor skyscraper you can see further in the distance than if you were on the ground, so, too, with 120 satellites in the Earth’s orbit, every square inch of earth can be seen and watched. It’s possible to capture the number on a car’s license plate as well as monitor military movements, missile launchings and even self-defense.

Hundreds of other uses like weather forecasting, measuring the height of mountains, the size and topographical changes of the polar caps, and the search for precious elements like lithium for long life batteries. Today, thousands of specialized satellites revolve incessantly around in this void, gathering and transmitting unimaginable amounts of data earthward. But what exactly is that data telling us?

We can actually view, with the naked eye, one of the global positioning satellites allowing us to pinpoint our location. There are 24 GPS satellites in orbit creating a man-made GPS constellation.

Although we’ve been traveling using the ‘Galacti Positioning System,’ we’re aware of GPS technology during our journey because of our cameras, smartphones and iPads—all of which use GPS technology. Consider that we can speak into our cell phones, or go to a virtual map and search for whatever it is we want to find—a café au lait, a computer shop or a planetarium.

Contrast that with the newborn rats and the navigating monarch butterflies from our zoo filled with ability in Inventory Chapter 6 and our human-animal comparison in Inventory Chapter 10. The rats are born knowing where to find food, and butterflies have their own sunlight-activated biological GPS.

Satellites are also conduits for television, radio, cell phones, atmospheric and weather information and tools to gather and send scientific information, such as data on cosmic X-rays, gamma rays and electromagnetic radiation back to science centers all over the world.

How do these satellites accumulate and transmit data? The satellites record “internal data,” a status report cataloguing where the satellites are pointing, whether or not the satellite is functioning, whether the satellite is in danger of colliding with any other object–which surely doesn’t happen frequently, does it? We might be surprised. In any case, the ground crew regularly checks the satellite’s ‘vital signs’ to make sure everything is functioning.

Then we come to the fun part: the images of stars and planets, light spectra, measurements, count rates, and other figures describing Mercury, for example. Fortunately for scientists, the majority of data the satellites transmit is for our weather stations. Scientists have two options here: They can wait for a fresh batch of data every orbit or receive the data streamed to them live in realtime.

However, Galacti notes that the data is only as good as the instruments used, so it is worth paying attention to the housekeeping data to make sure the instruments are calibrated properly. Seeing new dwarf stars, new space phenomena, trying to understand the Big Bang, prompt us to reach farther, to launch the Mars Rovers.

The result of all this satellite technology?

Without being aware of it, we use space, as a medium, every day. When we connect to the Internet or make a cell phone call or check the weather before we leave for work or play, we’re using satellite signals crisscrossing above the exosphere. Space is not just an ideal, space is part of our everyday lives–when we look to the heavens and wonder, we also forget that we are using ‘outer space’ to accomplish tasks we all take for granted, with the same confidence with which we have accepted putting a man on the moon.

Mind-boggling.

Also, via satellite we can locate sub-surface resources such as underground water. India has launched remote sensing satellites that help to create maps of underground water in order to identify locations for drilling wells.



In addition, international space agencies have put satellites in orbit to track the groundwater disappearing beneath the farmlands of northern India, between Jaipur and Delhi, a stretch of 270 km (170 miles), about the distance between London and Liverpool.

Data from NASA’s GRACE Project collected between 2002-2008 reveals that the groundwater in Northern India is being used to irrigate crops at a faster rate than the water cycle can replenish the underground aquifers. The naked eye cannot detect changes in water levels, but twin satellites can measure how much groundwater is withdrawn from the earth–one foot per year for the last several years.

By measuring changes in the gravitational field between the two satellites, changes recorded by a microwave ranging system, and analyzing data recorded by the satellites’ instrumentation, the scientific team can create a ‘map’ of groundwater gains and losses (the map above shows a ‘red alert’ spot in northern India). By diagnosing the problem the scientists can help the Indian government conserve water—a positive development to be sure!

Satellites ‘see’ and record everything–do they see too much?

Big Brother

Imagine international satellites scanning your phone conversations for ‘keywords’ connected to global terrorism. You may make a joke and say something in all innocence, ignorant of the consequences. Meanwhile a computer is flagging those words as the satellite transfers the data at lightning speed into a detection-analysis computer program.

Yes, this keeps us ‘safe’ from global crime and terrorism and while some think it is necessary, other members of our group have concerns about their private conversations being monitored in this way by a sophisticated computer system connected to data-gathering and defense satellites.

And how about cameras in ‘ommunities such as Glasgow, Scotland, the safest community in the UK, yet the use of public surveillance cameras are on the rise (408 cameras compared to 326 in my home city of Paris), what is the purpose? Do the surveillance cameras contribute to public safety? How about London, where crime rates have not lowered since the 1980s, yet according to reports the average citizen in London appears on camera 300 times per day?

We can debate the efficacy of surveillance systems, that’s one of those ‘glass half-full’ or ‘glass half-empty’ questions, yet as Galacti says, many people worry about their privacy while others think, ‘If you’ve done nothing wrong then you have nothing to worry about.’

This is an excerpt from chapter 1.3 of Audit of the Universe

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Join The Explanation Newsletter to stay informed of updates. and future events. No obligations, total privacy, unsubscribe if you want. Your gift is a free pdf of The Explanation and a free pdf of Answering the Big Questions in Life

TheExplanation.com

Email address:

Learn how to play Take Inventory – The Interconnectivity Game (free) that nourishes your neurons and is taking the world by storm. Play a round with family and friends. View the above videos and use the tags at the end of this blog for dozens of ideas to play Take Inventory – The Game.

See the index of the book Inventory of the Universe to find a specific chapter and read it online.

Purchase Inventory of the Universe at Amazon – Purchase the Kindle version

Google Play – Barnes@Nobles – Kobo – iTunes

Unlock Bible meaning via Biblical Hebrew … with no fuss. The free video course that puts you in the driver’s seat to navigate the Bible as never before. Join now

Since you read all the way to here… you liked it. Please use the Social Network links just below to share this excerpt of Inventory of the Universe, Satellites have got their Surveillance Eyes on Earth and Us

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