Every mechanic, builder, inventor and creator has a toolbox with gadgets and tools and materials needed to execute any given task. Most of the tools we use are specialized for a given task. A screwdriver, for example, is perfect at driving screws, however useless for holding nuts.
Tools provide us (mankind) with a mechanical advantage that we would not have without them. Try to drive a nail without a hammer, or chop down a tree without an axe. The genius of mankind to fashion tools to enhance our quality of living, and make our modern lives possible, is truly a gift indeed.
As we have discovered earlier, our physical universe has constants that keep order in God's creation. We are perfectly suited to operate on our world and much of this we owe to simple things like: gravity, friction, momentum, and inertia, to name a few. Even before God introduced Adam to Eve, Adam was making good use of gravity and friction, otherwise, he'd be floating around Eden, and without friction, everything he grasped would slip through his fingers like a wet bar of soap.
Reading Gen 3:17, we can see that God makes it official that mankind has to toil, sweat, and work the soil for the rest of his life. Undoubtedly, after Gen 3:23, Adam makes good use of his newly invented shovel, hoe, and pick, in which to "work" the ground. Before that (Gen 2:15) God had Adam already "working" in the garden. Clearly, God created us here, to work.
What tools then does God use at his disposal? By the strictest sense of the function of tools, it appears that God has no need for any tools. If tools help mankind, perform work, it is because we need help to gain an advantage. Consider the lever and fulcrum for a mechanical advantage! However, God doesn't need help from tools. Read the last few chapters of Job and it becomes obvious that God simply causes everything to happen. The creator of the universe is essentially a General Contractor with infinite control, unlimited budget, and no-one to answer to!
What materials does God use in his creation? While it's unclear through any biblical research, it is written that God simply spoke or formed things into existence. There are numerous theories to attempt to explain how the universe actually became physical, but most scientists tend to explain their theories from within the box.
If we take a beautiful man-made crystal vase and drop it onto a concrete floor, it will shatter beyond its original form and take on a new form using the laws of Chaos to drive it. The crystal vase was created in our 3D + Time universe, but let's think out of our universe and into a realm where the spirit resides.
Take a fraction of God's spirit and drop it into our universe. Like a pebble in a calm lake, the effect is dramatic and the ripples are endless. Everything that has any form in our our universe could easily trace it's very existence to an infinitesimal portion of Gods spirit. Not in an ethereal sense, but literally! It makes perfect sense when we say God is everywhere or God is within us... indeed, we and everything in our existence is literally derived from Gods spiritual gift to our universe.
It's reasonable to conclude that God has no need for tools because God doesn't have to work (toil) at anything. Gods "construction material" comes from his spirit entering our physical universe and is not subject to the law of mans Chaos, rather Gods law of order. Metaphorically speaking, when mankind explodes, he disintegrates, when God explodes, he integrates into greater order.
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Thursday, March 25, 2010
One More Time...
Earlier, I stated that our physical universe was an iteration of one of Gods creations. With infinity at Gods disposal, undoubtedly there could have been an infinite number of iterations in which universes were created, destroyed, re-created, tweaked, destroyed etc... Finally, the Bible stops and drops into a creation of a universe where we are the active participants.
How can I be so sure that this creation was not Gods one and only attempt at universe building? There are a few clues that are unexplained in the Biblical text itself. Since Gen.1:1 and forward, describe our creation, from little more than the start of light and dark, at what time before that were the Angels created? I can't recall any mention of any dinosaur hunts. But dinosaurs were here and for sure, Noah (Gen 6:9) was not herding pterodactyls on board the ark!
A great war in heaven, (Rev 12:7) was foretold by John, but when did that happen? Must have been before Gen 1:2, because Satan was already prowling around Eden after that. Scholars have proposed that a Gap Theory exists in the Bible, right between Gen 1:1 and Gen1:2. The NIV Bible translation uses the word now to define the end of the Gap. "Now the earth was formless and empty..." (Gen 1:2) this could presumably be the result of the war, or even a new start for our version of Earth, another iteration? Regardless, the use of the word now would seem to suggest a time before now as in, what was then and what is now.
From an engineering standpoint, we already know that God is very accurate and precise with time, and that allows our physical laws to remain constant. Preparing the Earth through various physical transformations would likely give us the perfect construct to call home. Even today the Earth is still changing, shifting, and active to the core.
A blacksmith fashions a sword by applying heat and pounding pressure to shape and harden its edges and core. This operation is performed numerous times on the sword and eventually it becomes suitable to be used as it was intended.
All of this explains another characteristic to learn about God. With the power to create anything by mere spoken word, God chooses to operate within our reality and maintain the physical constants to provide us with an existence in the past, present and future.
How can I be so sure that this creation was not Gods one and only attempt at universe building? There are a few clues that are unexplained in the Biblical text itself. Since Gen.1:1 and forward, describe our creation, from little more than the start of light and dark, at what time before that were the Angels created? I can't recall any mention of any dinosaur hunts. But dinosaurs were here and for sure, Noah (Gen 6:9) was not herding pterodactyls on board the ark!
A great war in heaven, (Rev 12:7) was foretold by John, but when did that happen? Must have been before Gen 1:2, because Satan was already prowling around Eden after that. Scholars have proposed that a Gap Theory exists in the Bible, right between Gen 1:1 and Gen1:2. The NIV Bible translation uses the word now to define the end of the Gap. "Now the earth was formless and empty..." (Gen 1:2) this could presumably be the result of the war, or even a new start for our version of Earth, another iteration? Regardless, the use of the word now would seem to suggest a time before now as in, what was then and what is now.
From an engineering standpoint, we already know that God is very accurate and precise with time, and that allows our physical laws to remain constant. Preparing the Earth through various physical transformations would likely give us the perfect construct to call home. Even today the Earth is still changing, shifting, and active to the core.
A blacksmith fashions a sword by applying heat and pounding pressure to shape and harden its edges and core. This operation is performed numerous times on the sword and eventually it becomes suitable to be used as it was intended.
All of this explains another characteristic to learn about God. With the power to create anything by mere spoken word, God chooses to operate within our reality and maintain the physical constants to provide us with an existence in the past, present and future.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
It's About Time
An important consideration regarding God is how he is beyond time. It's safe to say, in our limited imagination, that when we confirm that God has always been, always is, and always will be, we place him outside time. But what is time, and is it important to God?
In Genesis 1:1 we get a glimpse into Gods past, or shall I say, our perception of an earlier time of God. In the beginning... does not really refer to God but an iteration of our physical universe. Beginning signals to us a start of something, let's say time. Without time, the physical universe would not exist as we know it. Every molecule in existence moves through time and it either interacts with other molecules or just decays as its half-life approaches. Same for atoms, same for us! Even light, which doesn't have any tangible substance, has a wavelength that travels at 299792.458 km per second.
Is time important to God? For our benefit, he created two time-based events called day and night (Gen 1:3). While the Bible places an order of creation, it suggests that there was morning and evening before the sun, moon or stars were spoken into existence. However, an order of creation would suggest time since there is nothing that says that everything was created in one instant! Therefore God does exist inside and outside of our time-line and he allows it to proceed in a precise orderly fashion.
God has control of time and he is very consistent with it's operation. Our perception of time is relative to our own awareness, however our awareness has no bearing on time as it operates within our physical universe. A real good movie seems to end too soon, while a boring lecture drags on forever. Imagine if God decided to randomly speed up or slow down the constant of time. The infinitesimal tweak of time would destroy our physical universe as we know it. The very movement of molecules and protons and electrons would be altered in time and they would instantly change from one substance to another. If God wants us around for a while in this physical universe, he (God) has perfect and accurate control of time!
In Genesis 1:1 we get a glimpse into Gods past, or shall I say, our perception of an earlier time of God. In the beginning... does not really refer to God but an iteration of our physical universe. Beginning signals to us a start of something, let's say time. Without time, the physical universe would not exist as we know it. Every molecule in existence moves through time and it either interacts with other molecules or just decays as its half-life approaches. Same for atoms, same for us! Even light, which doesn't have any tangible substance, has a wavelength that travels at 299792.458 km per second.
Is time important to God? For our benefit, he created two time-based events called day and night (Gen 1:3). While the Bible places an order of creation, it suggests that there was morning and evening before the sun, moon or stars were spoken into existence. However, an order of creation would suggest time since there is nothing that says that everything was created in one instant! Therefore God does exist inside and outside of our time-line and he allows it to proceed in a precise orderly fashion.
God has control of time and he is very consistent with it's operation. Our perception of time is relative to our own awareness, however our awareness has no bearing on time as it operates within our physical universe. A real good movie seems to end too soon, while a boring lecture drags on forever. Imagine if God decided to randomly speed up or slow down the constant of time. The infinitesimal tweak of time would destroy our physical universe as we know it. The very movement of molecules and protons and electrons would be altered in time and they would instantly change from one substance to another. If God wants us around for a while in this physical universe, he (God) has perfect and accurate control of time!
Monday, March 22, 2010
In The Beginning...
In order to reverse engineer God, we must first learn or discover everything we can about how God works. This is a journey that can easily last a lifetime, but let's limit our learning to a much shorter period.
Engineering requires knowing how many things already work, how things are structured, and how and where to find additional information to keep from re-inventing the wheel. Reverse-engineering takes something that already exists and through intense observation, prodding, measuring, and holding it up to an existing body of works, all in an attempt to discover how and why it does what it does.
Education and experience will help us satisfy the requirement of knowing how many things already work. In my particular case, as an engineer/inventor, it's my job to know how things work. Take for example a television, while it may seem like magic that makes it work, it's actually a complex system composed of many simple operations. An automobile has many complex systems, propulsion, transmission, drive-train, steering, braking, cabin air conditioning, entertainment, power windows, doors, wipers, etc... the list does end, but it ultimately breaks down into many super simple mechanisms, that when closely examined, is very simple to understand.
The Bible is an excellent guide of reference, since it speaks of God directly. Knowing the Bible verse by verse and in context, is crucial to understanding how and why God does what he does. There are a few principles that are important when the Bible is used to learn about God. After 10 years of scholastic Bible study from a very gifted Bible Teacher, Dr. Bill Creasy (who has spent decades sharing his knowledge of the Bible plain and simple) I tend to acknowledge these very same principles of the Bible as well:
#1 The Bible is rooted in its geography - Everything happens in terms of its locality.
#2 The Bible emerges from history - Events happened and were recorded by third party verification.
#3 The Bible has a linear structure - It starts in Genesis and ends in Revelation, in between is a linear narrative.
#4 The Bible is the word of God - While the stories are written and edited by man, the original intention remains, however translations make for many heated debate and entire religions, we'll undoubtedly research this principle in greater detail, later.
To keep from clouding our judgment, in this reverse-engineering endeavor, I think it makes sense to keep religion, as a personal worship mechanism, off-the-table, so no one is personally offended. However it is perfectly reasonable to use cultural and traditional beliefs to share insight and experience on any aspect of understanding how and why God works. Obviously God works, but it's how and why he does what he does that promotes this entire exercise! Also equally obviously, God is neither he nor she, God is... With that, I'll stick with he since there appears to be a father/son relationship described within the biblical text.
All of this groundwork should setup a framework or structure to begin this journey. We have the experience, to understand complex subjects, and knowledge of the Bible to provide a blueprint and additional information for the task of reverse-engineering God.
Engineering requires knowing how many things already work, how things are structured, and how and where to find additional information to keep from re-inventing the wheel. Reverse-engineering takes something that already exists and through intense observation, prodding, measuring, and holding it up to an existing body of works, all in an attempt to discover how and why it does what it does.
Education and experience will help us satisfy the requirement of knowing how many things already work. In my particular case, as an engineer/inventor, it's my job to know how things work. Take for example a television, while it may seem like magic that makes it work, it's actually a complex system composed of many simple operations. An automobile has many complex systems, propulsion, transmission, drive-train, steering, braking, cabin air conditioning, entertainment, power windows, doors, wipers, etc... the list does end, but it ultimately breaks down into many super simple mechanisms, that when closely examined, is very simple to understand.
The Bible is an excellent guide of reference, since it speaks of God directly. Knowing the Bible verse by verse and in context, is crucial to understanding how and why God does what he does. There are a few principles that are important when the Bible is used to learn about God. After 10 years of scholastic Bible study from a very gifted Bible Teacher, Dr. Bill Creasy (who has spent decades sharing his knowledge of the Bible plain and simple) I tend to acknowledge these very same principles of the Bible as well:
#1 The Bible is rooted in its geography - Everything happens in terms of its locality.
#2 The Bible emerges from history - Events happened and were recorded by third party verification.
#3 The Bible has a linear structure - It starts in Genesis and ends in Revelation, in between is a linear narrative.
#4 The Bible is the word of God - While the stories are written and edited by man, the original intention remains, however translations make for many heated debate and entire religions, we'll undoubtedly research this principle in greater detail, later.
To keep from clouding our judgment, in this reverse-engineering endeavor, I think it makes sense to keep religion, as a personal worship mechanism, off-the-table, so no one is personally offended. However it is perfectly reasonable to use cultural and traditional beliefs to share insight and experience on any aspect of understanding how and why God works. Obviously God works, but it's how and why he does what he does that promotes this entire exercise! Also equally obviously, God is neither he nor she, God is... With that, I'll stick with he since there appears to be a father/son relationship described within the biblical text.
All of this groundwork should setup a framework or structure to begin this journey. We have the experience, to understand complex subjects, and knowledge of the Bible to provide a blueprint and additional information for the task of reverse-engineering God.
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