6 & 7

six things i think are arbitrary:

• spoken languages
• countries (lines on a map)
• laws
• culture
• genres (of music)
• the divisions of scientific disciplines (...more genre's)

seven things i think are true:

• love
• math
• good music
• gender (the complementary concept/aspects of male and female)
• c
• redemption
• life (that life thrives)

invariance

"Code is Poetry"

it's a cool little quip.  but the point, whether we are einstein or not, is that we each develop an intuitive feel of how to approach a problem *before* we work out a logical replication of that as a rational thought.  they way we work out something intuitive, is art.

it struck me then - that if code is poetry - then the code of reality - revealed in say mathematics - would display God's intuitive sense, and be his poetry, his art.

Psalm 19:1-9 (The Message) A David Psalm
God's glory is on tour in the skies, God-craft on exhibit across the horizon. Madame Day holds classes every morning, Professor Night lectures each evening. Their words aren't heard, their voices aren't recorded, But their silence fills the earth: unspoken truth is spoken everywhere. The revelation of God is whole and pulls our lives together. The signposts of God are clear and point out the right road. The life-maps of God are right, showing the way to joy. The directions of God are plain and easy on the eyes. God's reputation is twenty-four-carat gold, with a lifetime guarantee. The decisions of God are accurate down to the nth degree.

there are a number of lines of God's code that have revealed themselves - accurate and also elegant to the nth degree. at the top of the pack are Einsteins Mass-Energy Equivalence and Maxwell's Electromagnetism Relationships.  But I would argue other lines of code have revealed themselves and are evident to all... love, redemption, beauty, grace, mercy, his infinite power, and goodness. these lines of code run rampant throughout all human experience - and they remain changeless regardless of your frame of reference.  this idea is called invariance. and it's a bombshell.

what i want to rail against, is that we pretend like we live in a newtonian (or flat euclidean) universe - but we don't.  we really live in an einsteinien (or curved minkowskian) universe.  but that doesn't mean that there aren't things that are changeless.  we've just been looking in the wrong categories for things to anchor ourselves to.  

for instance, we've been looking at facts-as-parsed-by-language to be True-from-all-perspectives-and-sides, and failed to recognize / respect the dimensionality of reality.  we need to recognize the ramifications of what Einstein learned about God and reality a hundred years ago - and start to graple with its meaning for us.

This is God's code.  This is God's poetry.  This is his art.  It's breathtaking in it's beauty, magnitude, elegance, and invariance.

p.s.  and of course, an einsteinien universe is not the last most correct understanding / revision of reality - there is a problem ;-)

bwaha hahaa haaaa

facts

This image represents changing views of spacetime along the world line of a rapidly accelerating observer.

In this animation, the vertical direction indicates time and the horizontal direction indicates distance, the dashed line is the spacetime trajectory ("world line") of the observer. The lower quarter of the diagram shows the events that are visible to the observer, and the upper quarter shows the light cone - those that will be able to see the observer. The small dots are arbitrary events in spacetime.

The slope of the world line (deviation from being vertical) gives the relative velocity to the observer. Note how the view of spacetime changes when the observer accelerates.

(taken from this page on wiki)

i would like to equate events (represented here as dots) with facts (i don't believe this to be an egregious error).  from our point of view - our experience of reality is holistic, consistent and intuitive.  from our perspective - reality doesn't feel like this image (even near the speed of light).  But God's-view-of-our-perspective looks precisely like this image.  The same would be true for every event given every person who has ever lived.

So the full truth (or Truth is you prefer)... the full reality - from e.g. God's perspective, would require every world line to be mapped in a similar manner - simultaneously.  This mapping would require many more dimensions to accomplish ... and still may not exhaust the full dimensionality of truth / reality that is God's.

this image isn't anti-truth. this is truth.

these ideas aren't anti-christian. this is christianity.

and this isn't anti-God. this is God's nature.

next episode - invariance!

our reformation

what martin luther began to do in 1517, was to call into question the absolute truths of the religious establishment & its associated power structure. he did this by pointing out accepted teachings and practices that were not scriptural, and by pointing out that infallible teachings from some popes contradicted the infallible teachings from other (earlier) popes.

luther's basis for doing so was the priesthood of all believers.

this opened the door for a less centralized leadership structure and the establishment of independent churches. many of us in protestant circles consider this model a vast improvement over the previous model... local pastors and teachers now have authority to create local versions of truth... we are given essentially more data points on what is truth (vice one data point via the papacy)... and perhaps more flavors of truth to choose from... (in increasing order of discomfort for some).

~

today we find fiefdoms of power - run by elites, who went to school, have special knowledge, received credentials, and are now empowered to tell us what the scriptures mean. if you've been paying attention, that should sound familiar. what these leaders hold in common today, is a claim that absolute truth exists and we can know it... code for *they* know it. not, *you* or *i* can know it. that should sound familiar too.

in response, we invoke a familiar test... we'll call it Luther's test. we point out teachings that have come down that are not scriptural (e.g. the church phillip yancey grew up in), and we point out that teachings from fiefs (who believe we can know absolute truth) contradict other teachings from other fiefs (who also believe we can know absolute truth).

to wit:

take all the christian ministers or leaders who claim we can know absolute truth ... (take just those from north america and/or a specific denomination, this will still work) ... and ask them to write down the truths that we are sure that we know.

build a website like baptistaboslutetruth.com and have everyone enter their set of absolute truths. if what they believe is so, we could expect vast agreement with a striking level of detail - with only a few outliers... (we'll call them "false prophets" secure in the knowledge they will burn in hell).

this should be relatively easy to accomplish. even trivial - and would settle the matter. yet, it hasn't been done, and won't be done... because it can't be done... because agreement doesn't exist. rome tried this first.

traditionally, the response of the catholic church when errors or contradictions are pointed out, has been to say that the pope didn't have his infallibility hat on when he issued such and such a statement. today, senior pastors and religious leaders pull the same trick as the catholic church does when confronted by errors or contradictions amongst their teachings. all except for relinquishing either their hold on power or their assurance that absolute truth is knowable.

these folks insist the power structure and the senior / teaching pastor or other leader must continue ... e.g. "to keep us from error". an alternative understanding is these roles are important because these people like their day job... and anyone who claims that absolute truth isn't knowable threatens this system and basis of power. this is their linchpin... so don't expect them to understand this - or to surrender this point easily.

~

the key to unlocking an understanding in much of this - is to realize that when we are using the word truth in many of these arguments, what were really arguing are facts. facts like; 1) the earth is the center of the solar system, 2) black people are the 'sons of ham' and are inferior, 3) women should cover their head and not speak in church, 4) bringing more wine to parties where drinking has already been occurring is not christ-like, and 5) the whale that jonah lived in for three days was the dunkleosteus.

contrary to what rick warren says, the first reformation wasn't about beliefs - it was about wresting this same notion of absolute truth away from the religious powers that be. and todays reformation, our reformation, led by the emerging church... is not really a second reformation. it's really just a continuation of luther's work.

our basis for doing so is the priesthood of ALL believers.