What are you?

You are a spirit occupying a body.  Jesus said in Mathew 10:28 "Do not fear those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell." New American Standard Bible  Similar words are in Luke 12:4-5.

Natural science does not believe that we are spirits occupying bodies, which has led to their frustrating failure to find 1) the "seat of consciousness", the sense of self or "me" that we all have; 2) a way to make artificial intelligence self-aware rather than just mimicking it; 3) the origin of life from chemicals, which is making a body without adding a soul, because life only comes from life.  As Dr. James Tour has pointed out, although resurrecting a dead organism should be easier than synthesizing one from scratch, no one can do it, not even with a dead cell.

Your brain is the interface between your spirit and the physical world.  The two are completely interwoven, so that our perceptions, abilities, limitations, and natural desires are determined by the body, while self-awareness and the initiative to think or act are with your spirit.  The body grows from a baby to maturity to frailty, and can be injured, even parts lost, but the spirit is constant.  The spirit learns from its time in the body, and makes choices with consequences that are realized after it separates from the body in death.  Natural science misses all of that, equating brain cell activity with you.  But no one really thinks of themselves as a collection of activated brain cells.  The source of a television program is not in the TV set, nor is the essence of a person in the brain.  By denying the existence of the spirit, natural science has locked itself out of reality.

If you only tend to the needs of your body (seeking comfort, avoiding pain, eating, sleeping, etc.) you neglect the spirit - you - and the other spirits you meet.

Where are we?

We are in a place made for living, learning, and testing.  Life is a deep mystery, yet there are clues.

1.  It is now clear that the theory of evolution is false; all living things were designed and created.  The designer requires abilities usually attributed to God - infinite intelligence and creative power.

2.  There is now physical evidence to validate the Shroud of Turin as the burial cloth of Jesus Christ.  By itself, it proves that He existed, was killed in the manner described in the gospels, and was resurrected in a sudden flash.

3.  Near-death experiences of resuscitated persons who were clinically dead show that there is an individual existence beyond the physical universe - the "spiritual realm".

If all of us were at home in the spiritual realm before we came to this physical world, then our true selves are designed to live in the spiritual realm.  We have obviously been compelled to forget where we came from.  Any strong difference between the physical world and spiritual realm will be sensed by our true selves as something that should be corrected.  By this we can discern things about the spiritual realm.

What our spirits remember and long for

 

 

What it is like here

 

Permanence, complete stability

 

 

Constant change

 

Security

 

 

Danger; all die

 

No needs

 

 

Need many things, and these change with age

 

Status according to who we really are

 

 

 

Chance of birth mostly determines where we stand in the world; yet all are equally susceptible to destruction

 

Peace, happiness, freedom

 

 

Trouble, fear, frustration

 

Always healthy

 

 

Physical deterioration, injury

 

With kindred spirits

 

 

All types are mixed together; we might never meet kindred spirits
 

Instant communication to anywhere

 

 

Must invent communication devices

 

Music is always everywhere

 

 

Must play live or recorded music

 

Creating by imagining

 

 

Patience, effort, skill, cost in treasure are required; reading and movies try to recapture some of home
 

Games are important

 

 

Games are frivolous

 

Spiritual virtues (love, loyalty, honor, justice, truth) are tangible and real

 

 

The struggle for survival, comfort, and material success crowd out the spiritual realm

 

The power of God rules and is apparent to all

 

 

God is hidden; there is a constant battle between good and evil; evil rules the world by deception, force, and chaos

Is it any wonder that newborns are happy, and the dying are anxious to go when they get a glimpse of the beyond?

The words of Jesus Christ about who rules the world and what we are to do are a message to us from the spiritual realm.  We will be back there soon enough, and be judged on our time here.

 


June 2023 James Webb Space Telescope image of a distant, galaxy-size question mark
perfectly oriented for viewing from Earth.  What do you suppose is the question?

 

What about the Universe?

Atomic forces and masses are so precisely balanced, so "finely tuned", that either the universe was designed by an infinitely intelligent and powerful being or there are an infinite number of universes ("multiverse") and we are in one where everything happens to be perfect.  Don't just take my word for it…

"This is the anthropic principle, the fact that the fundamental constants seem to be finely tuned to allow for life.  Changing them even slightly makes life impossible." - Celebrity theoretical physicist Michio Kaku
https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/expert-forum-with-michio-kaku

"I believe we exist in a multiverse of universes." - Celebrity theoretical physicist Michio Kaku, from his book The Future of the Mind

"…the laws of physics in our universe may just be accidental.  They may have arisen spontaneously, and they don't have to be the way they are.  But if they were any different, we wouldn't be here to ask the question."  "It is of course always philosophically possible - as a last resort, when no stronger physical argument is available - to promote a prediction based on the strong anthropic principle to the status of an explanation by thinking in terms of a 'world ensemble'.  By this I mean an ensemble of universes characterized by all conceivable combinations of initial conditions and fundamental constants". – Celebrity theoretical physicist and cosmologist Lawrence Krauss
https://www.npr.org/2012/01/13/145175263/lawrence-krauss-on-a-universe-from-nothing

Consider these facts:

For the universe to form, the force of gravity had to match precisely the explosive force of the Big Bang.  If the explosive force were just one part in 1055 higher, there would be only gas without stars or planets.  If the rate of expansion was lower by just one part in 1015, all matter would have collapsed back to a point in a few million years.

The strength of the force of gravity precisely matches the strength of the electromagnetic force.  Gravity is roughly 1039 times weaker than electromagnetism.  If the force of gravity was changed by one part in 1040, all stars would be either hot blue giants or cool red dwarfs.  Stars like the sun would not exist.  If the electromagnetic force were slightly stronger, all stars would be red, and they would collapse more easily into white dwarfs, neutron stars, or black holes.  If it were slightly weaker, all stars would be blue, and burn out relatively quickly.

The weak nuclear force affects photons, electrons, and neutrinos.  If it were slightly greater, neutrons would decay more quickly and not be available to form helium.  If it were significantly greater, hydrogen would quickly burn, and only helium would be available to make stars.  Without hydrogen, the universe would not contain water.  On the other hand, if it were slightly weaker, hydrogen would become helium, leaving no hydrogen.  The weak force also affects beta decay, in which neutrons decay to protons, electrons, and neutrinos.  There are about a billion neutrinos for each proton and electron, or about a billion per cubic meter of space throughout the universe.  Total neutrino mass could exceed the mass of all stars.  So even a miniscule increase in a neutrino's mass (5 x 10-35 kg) would cause the universe to contract instead of expand.  Stars are made of hydrogen and helium, and heavier elements are made in the compressed interiors of stars.  Supernova explosions of stars spread the heavy elements around their galaxies.  These explosions depend on a very precise value of the weak nuclear force.  If it were much weaker, neutrinos could not exert enough pressure inside a star to cause a supernova explosion.  But if it were much stronger, neutrinos would remain stuck inside a star’s core.

The strong nuclear force binds the particles in an atom's nucleus and is the strongest of the forces, about 100 times as strong as the electromagnetic force which in turn is 10,000 times stronger than the weak nuclear force.  The weak nuclear force is about 1031 times stronger than the force of gravity.  Considering these enormous differences in strength, you can appreciate the remarkable precision required to balance these forces to one part in 1060.

If the strong nuclear force were any weaker, nuclei of atoms would not hold together.  The universe would have only one element – hydrogen.  Deuterium (hydrogen with an added neutron) would not exist.  Deuterium is crucial to the nuclear reaction that keeps stars like the sun burning.  If the strong nuclear force were only 2% stronger, two protons could bind despite their natural repulsion, and hydrogen would be rare in the universe.  Hydrogen was necessary to form both the sun and liquid water.  Combined protons would also make hydrogen catastrophically explosive.  Heavier elements would be rare as well, and prevent quarks from forming protons.  A 2% decrease in the strong nuclear force would make some heavy elements unstable.  The weak force controls the sun’s burning of hydrogen in a slow and steady way.  Deuterium would put the strong nuclear force in control, and burn hydrogen at a rate 1018 times faster.  That would quickly consume most or all of the hydrogen, leaving helium as the only element in the universe.

The electromagnetic force binds protons and electrons in atoms.  If the electromagnetic force were slightly stronger, an atom would not share an electron with other atoms, and molecules would not form.  If the force were slightly weaker, electrons would not stay in their paths around an atom's nucleus.  And the electromagnetic force must be precisely balanced with the ratio of electron-to-proton mass.  If this ratio were not precisely balanced, the chemical bonding required for life would not occur.  As it is, the proton is 1,836 times heavier than the electron.  Also, the difference in mass between the proton and neutron (neutron mass minus proton mass) allows stable nuclides to exist.  The neutron is more massive than the proton by about one part in a thousand.  If the difference were greater, neutrons would decay into protons, and electromagnetic repulsion would blow atomic nuclei apart.  This would result in a universe of only protons, with hydrogen the only possible element.  Neutrons are needed to form all the other elements because they have the strong nuclear force to hold nuclei together without the electromagnetic repulsion to disintegrate a nucleus.  If the difference in masses were slightly less, free neutrons would not decay into protons, and hydrogen would not exist.  If the neutron mass failed to exceed the proton mass by a little more than the electron mass, then atoms would collapse, with electrons combining with protons to make neutrons.  As it is now, there are about 7 protons for every neutron, allowing other elements to be made.

The number of electrons must be balanced to the number of protons to one part in 1037.  Without this balance, the force of gravity, which is essential to forming stars and planets, would be overwhelmed by the electromagnetic force.

Because of the precise requirements for its existence, the carbon atom should be very rare.  If the resonance level (energy level) of carbon were 4% lower, there would be essentially no carbon.  If the level in oxygen were ½% higher, virtually all carbon would have been converted to oxygen.  Without carbon, life could not exist.

From: Overman, Dean L. A Case Against Accident and Self-Organization. 1997. 244 pages. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Lanham, Maryland. See pages 130 – 142.

 

John Michael Fischer, 2009 - 2024
www.newgeology.us