Beyond the Duality of Blind Belief and Blind Denial

[Nick_A]

It may make sense to contemplate the body of God within time and space rather than our Source beyond the limits of time and space.

[PoeticUniverse]

It may make sense to contemplate the body of God within time and space rather than our Source beyond the limits of time and space.

You are not and cannot be in some separate place from the All; there is no separate here and there; you are already in the All.

[Nick_A]

It may make sense to contemplate the body of God within time and space rather than our Source beyond the limits of time and space.

You are not and cannot be in some separate place from the All; there is no separate here and there; you are already in the All.

Imagine for a moment that the ALL is the unity of its three elemental forces which is why it is ONE and manifests at the highest level of vibration. Creation or the body of God begins as the three elemental forces separate and become three. So at the highest level of vibration beyond time an space God is ONE. At the first level of Creation God is three functioning within time and space at a lower level of vibration. So God is simultaneously one and three, one within the other, which is an ancient Christian idea.

[PoeticUniverse]

an ancient Christian idea.

Ancient ideas aren't really grounded in anything much, if anything at all.

[Nick_A]

an ancient Christian idea.

Ancient ideas aren't really grounded in anything much, if anything at all.

I believe in perennial philosophy. From wiki

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perennial_philosophy

The perennial philosophy (Latin: philosophia perennis),[note 1] also referred to as perennialism and perennial wisdom, is a perspective in philosophy and spirituality that views all of the world's religious traditions as sharing a single, metaphysical truth or origin from which all esoteric and exoteric knowledge and doctrine has grown.

Perennialism has its roots in the Renaissance interest in neo-Platonism and its idea of the One, from which all existence emanates. Marsilio Ficino (1433–1499) sought to integrate Hermeticism with Greek and Jewish-Christian thought,[1] discerning a prisca theologia which could be found in all ages.[2] Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (1463–94) suggested that truth could be found in many, rather than just two, traditions. He proposed a harmony between the thought of Plato and Aristotle, and saw aspects of the prisca theologia in Averroes (Ibn Rushd), the Quran, the Kabbalah and other sources.[3] Agostino Steuco (1497–1548) coined the term philosophia perennis......................

The ancient ideas within perennial philosophy is the closest we can come to realty

[PoeticUniverse]

The ancient ideas within perennial philosophy is the closest we can come to realty

Supposing the One, But no Cigar

We’ve approached the Mystery, and have found
That Beginnings can’t be, so what goes round
Must be all things, as there’s no point to impart
A design; yet drink—to naught more we’re bound!

[Nick_A]

The ancient ideas within perennial philosophy is the closest we can come to realty

Supposing the One, But no Cigar

We’ve approached the Mystery, and have found
That Beginnings can’t be, so what goes round
Must be all things, as there’s no point to impart
A design; yet drink—to naught more we’re bound!

The Absolute IS. It has no beginning or end. Creation EXISTS. It is a continuous cycle following the laws of involution (away from the Source) and evolution (return to the Source). A circle doesn't have a beginning

[PoeticUniverse]

Creation EXISTS. It is a continuous cycle following the laws of involution (away from the Source) and evolution (return to the Source). A circle doesn't have a beginning

14. The Universe’s Cosmic and Biological Evolution is as Natural

The processes are of understandable laws of physics, chemistry, and biology, with no extra-natural of miracles.

We know what happened in the first fractions of a second after the supposed Big Bang and can predict the course of the Universe and its thinned out future. After the start the progress was very slow, just as it would be naturally; it took 13+ billion years for life to appear on Earth.

God seems to be as a Diety—like a smart scientist, rather than a Magician or a Theity (a new word).

A Brief History of All History

Alice looked to the stars and remarked, “I’ve come such a long way to be here, with you both, but my possibility was there after the beginning, spread all over the place. I’m taking a cosmology course from Professor Victor Stenger, the guy you play tennis with, Patrick, and the mid-term is coming, so I’m going to practice for it now, adding some reflections of my own to some of the items.”

“The Planck era at 1E-43 seconds was the first hint of me, as a cyclical compactfication or a vacuum fluctuation eruption in an indefinite realm that’s as close to Nothing as can be, but it can’t be a Nothing as such, since that would be a definite, whereas the vacuum as the basic something must be fuzzy, uncaused. Motion can’t cease.

“To learn the Secrets of what IS and ever WAS, we must brave the crypt and ghost of cause. This quantum foam as quantum fields is ever and always, and has pairs of virtual particles quick appearing and then annihilating and disappearing, as noise. They are somethings, as one might call possibility or potential, but are not yet as true, meaningful existence until they become part of an information process and thus persist. This state has always been, and must be, so jot: that this All is ever here to be, since ‘Nothing’ cannot.

“Here we fathom the cryptic, where only the shade of substance slept with arithmetic. There is a basic lightness of being because anything more would then be of parts, and thus beyond the fundamental arts. Bits of information need to be separated, manifesting by ‘creating’ a Planck sized piece of space. We experience their separation as space. The bits can have relative relationships. Time emerges, too.

“So, where the causeless reigns supreme, the spark nursed by embers is the first that the universe remembers when it fires toward the other members in a processing way. The opposite twins as virtual pairs rule the causing call, these positives and negatives constituting the All.

“It proceeds very quickly. At 1E-36 seconds, in a GUT (Grand Unified Theory) transition, the strong force separates from the electro–weak force, the strong force providing for stability and the weak force for changeability.

“Inflation begins, as a slow rolling scalar field generates negative pressure, causing an exponential expansion of spacetime. The doubling is of a vacuum energy density of 1E73 tons/cm^3. Quantum fluctuations lock in nearly scale invariant 1E-5 variation in energy density. Inflation was so fast that some virtual particles couldn’t recombine, thus becoming real. Here the enigma of the ever immortal is undone and unloosed through its portal.

“At 1E-34 seconds, inflation quickly ends, the decay of the scalar inflaton field causing reheating. Is this the ‘let there be light moment’? No, photons don’t exist yet, but other massless vector quanta like left and right weak and B-L particles may exist. Things are not well known about this era. I am still a twinkling in the cosmic eye.

“At1E-34 to 1E-8 seconds, in the quark era, there is the quark gluon plasma, and then quarks and perhaps super partner particles dominate matter content.

“At 1E-17 to 1E-15 seconds, SUSY (supersymmetry) breaking occurs when proposed super partners acquire mass with the LSP (lightest supersymmetric particle) expected to have a mass of about 10 Tev. In induced gravity models, this is where mass energy first generates the induced gravity field; gravity is born. I am grounded.

“At 1E-10 seconds, there comes the electroweak transition, when the electroweak force, under the action of the Higgs mechanism breaks symmetry. The photon is born. The Standard Model particles acquire mass.

“Lo! They will guide me, as illumination beside me, while the mind whirls round and round, as the ear draws forth the sound, as the eye sees the light, and of the dark the fright. Fear not the proof—it’s the beauty of the truth.

“At 1E-5 seconds, quark confinement comes about when the QCD (Quantum chromodynamics) vacuum becomes superconducting to color magnetic current. Quarks and gluons become confined.

“At 1E-5 to 1 E-4 seconds, in the hadron era, protons, neutrons, and pions, etc., form. Now my future atoms are on the horizon.

“At 1E -4 seconds, hadron annihilation occurs during a brief period of proton/anti proton and neutron/anti neutron annihilation. A slight favoring of matter over anti matter, possibly locked in by CP violation (the combination of charge symmetry and parity symmetry) at reheating allows some excess protons and neutrons to survive, with ten billion photons for every matter particle, which tells us how many annihilations there were.

“At 1E-4 to 10 seconds, in the next era, leptons are the dominant energy density, such as electrons.

“We are up to about one second after the Big Bang now, at neutrino decoupling, when mass energy falls low enough to free neutrinos, creating the neutrino cosmic background.

“At 10 seconds, electrons and positrons annihilate, leaving a tiny fraction of electrons remaining. At this point the total number of electrons equals the total number of protons. This is a beautiful symmetry.

“From 10 seconds to 57 thousand years is the radiation era, in which photons created from the annihilation of matter and anti-matter dominate the energy density of universe. Light has been let; I will shine.

“At 1-5 minutes, nucleosynthesis begins, as fusion of protons creates helium, deuterium and trace amounts of lithium. A few of my basics are there.

“At 57,000 years, there is matter/radiation equality.

The radiation density (photon and neutrino) and matter density (dark and atomic) are equal. This is because radiation density falls more quickly due to the stretching of the relativistic particles’ wavelengths. Dark matter clumps into structures. Atomic matter begins oscillation due to the battle between gravity and photon pressure generating acoustic oscillations. The first sounds of the new universe come forth as the ‘word’.

“At 380,000 years, there is recombination, when the temperature falls low enough to allow atoms to form; photons decouple. The CMBR (Cosmic Microwave Radiation Background) is born, locking in its structure for us to look back at later—the record of the earliest times in the universe.

“For 5 to 200 million years, there is a dark age, as the photons fall into the infra red energy range. The universe goes dark. The atomic gas continues to fall toward the dark matter clumps, which grow more pronounced.

“Near to 100 Million years, the densest clumps halt their expansion and begin collapsing.

“By 200 Million years, the first mini halos form and within these the atomic cloud cools and collapses to make the very first stars whose light brings to an end the dark era. We are totally of stars to be.

“At 200 million years, there are the first stars, which are very massive and short lived, but emit some lower atomic elements since this doesn’t require extra energy. They die in violent neuron star collisions or in supernova explosions, filling the cosmos with the higher atomic elements that needed energy to be added, building dust for new stars and the planets of solar systems, and the elements for life.

“At 200 to 800 million years, there is the epoch of ionization, in which the radiation from the stars and possibly the first quasars, ionizes much of the remaining neutral hydrogen and helium. A thin mist returns and partly obscures the CMBR, but future Low Frequency Radio Telescopes may be able to see the epoch of ionization.

“At 1 to 2 billion years, there become infant galaxies, as star groups merge. There are frequent collisions of galaxies, high star birth rates, and high supernova rates. Heavy element production changes the pattern of star formation, making them lower mass, less luminous and longer lived, like second and third generation metallic stars of today that life had to wait for. The stage is set for the emergence of life, although it is 6 billions years away; the cosmos will then have eyes to see and minds to think, like ours.

“At 2 to 3 billion years, there is a star birth and quasar peak. In the dense environment of frequent galaxy collisions, the star birth rate reaches it maximum, as does the forming and feeding of supermassive black holes, as darkling beasts. Abandon hope all ye who enter there.

“At 6 billion years, there are the first very rich galaxy clusters, since enough time has elapsed for the densest regions to stop expanding and form these clusters.

“At 7 billion years, there is decelerated acceleration.

The effects of dark energy kick in. The universe once again begins to accelerate its expansion rate, but gentler.

“At 8 billion years, the first modern spiral galaxies form, although some elliptical galaxies form in the first billion years, but classic spiral galaxies aren’t seen until at about 5 billion years.

“At 9 billion years, there is matter and dark energy equality, since the falling density of matter, both dark and atomic, become equal to that of dark energy.

“At 9.1 billion years, our sun and Earth form. We are inherent, as ever. Our solar system forms in the outer disk of the Milky Way, a relatively safe place. The stage is set for the emergence of humankind in the Cosmos—for us to meet and love. All this from stabilizations forming, onward and upward, in emergences, taking on a life of their own, and so on.

“At 13.7 billion years, there is the present time. Human civilization perhaps reaches its peak and perhaps begins heading into decline and eventual extinction due to over population, resource depletion, and environmental destruction, which generates conflict as human nation states fight for ever dwindling resources. Hopefully, humankind is not typical and intelligent life solves the problem of balancing intelligent life needs with available resources by developing communitarian economic social structures.

“By the way, all of this seems dynamic in time. There perhaps cannot be a block universe because it’s infinite, it’s a complexity as First, it can’t have a definite blueprint, and we would not need brains to redundantly figure things out if they were already set, as in a movie, as conglomerations are.

“At 16 to 17 billion years in the future, the Milky Way collides with the Andromeda galaxy. Somewhere within this time our sun enters into its red giant phase, vaporizing the Earth. Humankind, perhaps already extinct for over 4 billion years is not around here to witness this event, though possibly a new intelligent species which emerged after the extinction of human–kind might be. It will be a very sad time for them unless their technology includes very advanced space flight. We are just a tiny and insignificant spark of all time considered at large, as less than 5% of all matter types.

“At 20 billion years, the growth of structures ceases, for expansion due to dark energy empties each casual patch of the cosmos. The great story of our universe draws to a close. It was a ride to the middle of nowhere.

“At 100 billion years, what remains of the Milky Way is alone in its causal patch of the Universe. We are alone.

“At 1000 billion years, which is a trillion, the last stars die, giving rise to the final, silent dark; however, stirring in the vacuum of spacetime itself are the ever present vacuum fluctuations. One small patch quite by some indefinite chance fluctuates sufficiently to create a volume of false vacuum which cuts off from its mother universe by negative pressure, and explodes into a new universe, creating new spacetime and future hope for the emergence of intelligent life in the cosmos. I’m done.”

“Cripes!” I exclaimed, “and that’s only a part of the exam, as the overall scheme, with more details to it.”

Cho added, “Very good, and Patrick and I came up with something like your idea, as Fundamental Possibility, since there’s no point at which to impart any definite plan to Totality, given that is has no ‘outside’ and no ‘before’.”

“Yeah,” answered Alice. “Cosmetics is much easier than cosmology, by far; however, I’m so glad to be as me, relating to both of you. We, although distinctive outcroppings of the ‘IS’, as the Cosmos ongoing, aren’t really independent, self goings-on, but are all of the play’s expression continuing and happening from the one big effect of the Big Bang—and that’s what does us all.”

[PoeticUniverse]

The first dimension of length is created by stringing points or vertical limits together. The second dimension of width or eternity is created by extending all the moments of time out in a 90 degree angle producing a plane.

Like our shades dance the walls of Plato’s cave,
We’re 3D shadows of 4D’s enclave…
It’s like a lamp lights up a paper shade—
We are as figures thereupon portrayed.

We are magic lanterns shining here; 
Our spirits are the lights in there.
We’re the One’s Candled Magic Shadow-show,
In which we Phantom Figures come and go.

Mind, like Shelley’s prism of many-colored glass,
Strains the white radiance of Eternity
Into our being—until death tramples us—
And then back we must go—to stardust.

We are phenomena’s projected face,
Well-painted from noumena’s unseen base.
From what bright star came the gleam in your eyes? 
From what distant sun came your smile, light-wise?

Our minds and senses interpret and dispense
The base reality into the colors and sensations
Of the phenomenal world from the noumenal;
We may become either rainbows or ugly stains!

Come, light your lantern and mine with good cheer;
We’re magic lamps; our spirits dance in here.
Our beginnings and ends are of nowhere,
So, let’s radiate, since for now we’re here!

[Nick_A]

Nice speculations on the duality within creation. However in order for creation to have any meaning for Man, a person must decide if the universe is the result of an accident or a necessary logical devolution of elemental laws and if a third force of reconciliation is necessary for unity. If the universe is an accident then all this philosophy is unnecessary; just eat, drink, and be merry.

If a person reasons that a third force is necessary for unity, how do they avoid restricting themselves to the choice of blind belief or blind denial?

[PoeticUniverse]

how do they avoid restricting themselves to the choice of blind belief or blind denial?

In theory, one cannot know the answer. In practice, it's hard to sit on a fence, and so one usually leans one way or another—having but probability to employ. The answers are not necessarily equiprobable.

[PoeticUniverse]

If the universe is an accident then all this philosophy is unnecessary; just eat, drink, and be merry.

The Awakening

1.
AWAKE! For Morning in the Bowl of Night
Has flung the Stone that puts the Stars to Flight:
And Lo! the Hunter of the East has caught
The Sultan’s Turret in a Noose of Light.

The sun doth smite the roofs with Orient ray  
And, Khosrau like, his wine-red sheen display:  
Arise, and drink! the herald of the dawn  
Uplifts his voice, and cries, ‘Oh, drink to-day!’

2.
Dreaming when Dawn’s Left Hand was in the Sky
I heard a Voice within the Tavern cry,
“Awake, my Little ones, and fill the Cup
Before Life’s Liquor in its Cup be dry.”

The universe’s mantle binds us worn—
Tears feeding the river on which we’re borne.
Hell’s but an ember of our senseless fears;
Heaven’s the rose-breath of opening morn.

A dream spoke to me, while I slumbered deep,
“You’re wasting on the threshold of Death’s keep;
Doth in repose does the rosebud blossom?
Entombed, you can for eternity sleep.”

At this hour of the dawning; up, flower of thy kind! 
With rubies in crystal, come gladden the mind; 
For this moment we borrow from Time on the wing
Full oft wilt thou seek nor again wilt thou find.

Angel of joyful foot! the dawn is nigh;  
Pour wine, and lift your tuneful voice on high,  
Sing how Jamshyds and Khosraus bit the dust,  
Whelmed by the rolling months, from Tir to Dai!

3.
And, as the Cock crew, those who stood before
The Tavern shouted—“Open then the Door.
You know how little while we have to stay,
And, once departed, may return no more.”

Oh! wine is richer that the realm of Jam,  
More fragrant than the food of Miriam;  
Sweeter are sighs that drunkards heave at morn  
Than strains of Bu Sa’id and Bin Adham. 


OK, Nick, that's fine, but what of the Universe seeming to have a near zero-sum balance of opposites? How is that explained?

[Nick_A]

If the universe is an accident then all this philosophy is unnecessary; just eat, drink, and be merry.

The Awakening

1.
AWAKE! For Morning in the Bowl of Night
Has flung the Stone that puts the Stars to Flight:
And Lo! the Hunter of the East has caught
The Sultan’s Turret in a Noose of Light.

The sun doth smite the roofs with Orient ray  
And, Khosrau like, his wine-red sheen display:  
Arise, and drink! the herald of the dawn  
Uplifts his voice, and cries, ‘Oh, drink to-day!’

2.
Dreaming when Dawn’s Left Hand was in the Sky
I heard a Voice within the Tavern cry,
“Awake, my Little ones, and fill the Cup
Before Life’s Liquor in its Cup be dry.”

The universe’s mantle binds us worn—
Tears feeding the river on which we’re borne.
Hell’s but an ember of our senseless fears;
Heaven’s the rose-breath of opening morn.

A dream spoke to me, while I slumbered deep,
“You’re wasting on the threshold of Death’s keep;
Doth in repose does the rosebud blossom?
Entombed, you can for eternity sleep.”

At this hour of the dawning; up, flower of thy kind! 
With rubies in crystal, come gladden the mind; 
For this moment we borrow from Time on the wing
Full oft wilt thou seek nor again wilt thou find.

Angel of joyful foot! the dawn is nigh;  
Pour wine, and lift your tuneful voice on high,  
Sing how Jamshyds and Khosraus bit the dust,  
Whelmed by the rolling months, from Tir to Dai!

3.
And, as the Cock crew, those who stood before
The Tavern shouted—“Open then the Door.
You know how little while we have to stay,
And, once departed, may return no more.”

Oh! wine is richer that the realm of Jam,  
More fragrant than the food of Miriam;  
Sweeter are sighs that drunkards heave at morn  
Than strains of Bu Sa’id and Bin Adham. 


OK, Nick, that's fine, but what of the Universe seeming to have a near zero-sum balance of opposites? How is that explained?

It is explained by the law of the Included Middle. Light and dark are opposites. They become One or united at a higher level of reality.

[PoeticUniverse]

It is explained by the law of the Included Middle. Light and dark are opposites. They become One or united at a higher level of reality.

Except that Zero is not One.

The human condition is such
That it often just prematurely halts at a word,
Such as ‘God’, for the believers,
Or ‘consciousness’ or ‘infinity’, for anyone.

As for matter, it has many particulars,
Such as its total amount and its individual properties
Of spin, charge, form, size, mass, location,
Matter vs. antimatter state, and other specifics,

And a curious symmetry about zero, such as
That there are only two stable matter particles,
The electron/positron and the proton/antiproton,
And only one stable energy particle, the photon.
(Free neutrons decay within 12 minutes.)

So, there are only those number of ways above
To make the stable particles that Nature loves,
As waves of something and anti-something.

The wave amplitude of the positive/negative grants charge;
The wave frequency grants energy’s amount
And the extension into dimension.

So, where does this leave us?
We are fine, for there is/was literally nothing
To make the original stuff of, anyway.

Look about; there are particles
Of opposite polarity of charge
And matter/antimatter states;

The weak force opposes the strong force;
The positive kinetic energy of stuff is canceled
By the negative potential energy of gravity, etc.,

An equation of a zero balance
Has to replace the cause and effect
That could not have gone on forever beneath.

It is the opposite polarity of charge
That nullifies all of existence in the overview,
But not in actuality, for Nothing cannot be.

Zero-sum physics perhaps started here:

Einstein as a near traffic fatality…

George Gamow told in his book, ‘My World Line’,
How he was conversing with Albert Einstein
While walking through Princeton in the 1940s.

Gamow casually mentioned that one of his colleagues
[Pascual Jordan] had pointed out to him that according
To Einstein’s equations a star could be created
Out of nothing at all, because [at point zero]
Its negative gravitational energy [mass defect]
Precisely cancels out [is equal to]
Its positive mass energy [rest mass].

“Einstein stopped in his tracks,” says Gamow,
“And, since we were crossing a street,
Several cars had to stop to avoid running us down”.

Now that we know of this zero-balance requirement,
We might use it as a reason
For the necessity of conservation laws.

Boundless space, overall electric neutrality,
And conservation of charge, momentum, and energy
Leads inexorably to barely nothing, really.

The zero-equation is the reason
The universe is the way it is,
The reason why the universe
Must be the way it is,
And the reason why it is.

It is the perfect zero-sum equation.

Zero and infinity, the smallest and the largest,
Both lead to nonexistence,
And so our finite existence cannot be there,
But must be at its midpoint.

Zero and infinity lead to many
Of the same problems in algebra and cosmology.
They are the same thing: nonexistence.

[Sculptor1]

As we’ve all witnessed debates over the existence and relevance of God within society boils down to those who blindly believe and those who blindly deny.

I think you are getting off the a false start here.
It seems a classic strawman fallacy.
For most of us the existence of god was taken as read, like the tooth fairy and Santa. People making the journey to atheism usually have a job of unpicking the assumptions by clashing against obvious fallacies which the blind faithers confront them with.
I would imagine that many who beleive in god would reject the blind faith attribution, but I cannot speak for them.
I have a range of very specific and rational reasons why I have rejected the idea of god, and I think most atheists have had to make some sort of journey from the cluthes of their infantile theism. This road is the raod to knowledge paved with evidence and reason. Faith, belief and God cannot walk that road, and I know that because my eyes are OPEN.