Discovering Einstein's God?!

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April 27, 2010 - Kimmel Center for the Arts, Philadelphia

Before a sold-out house at the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts in Philadelphia, Krista Tippett, host of public radio's Speaking of Faith, discusses the evolution of faith in our time and the questions and discoveries behind her new book, "Einstein's God," and includes interactive conversation with the audience.

Monkey Around?

Prince Charles is quoted as saying, “I learned the way a monkey learns - by watching its parents.” Perhaps so but I wonder who learns fastest, the Prince or the monkey?

According to recent scientific findings, when it comes to serious mental powers like short-term memory, young chimpanzees can significantly outperform the Prince at some short-term memory tasks.

In the words of Winston Churchill, “Never hold discussions with the monkey when the organ grinder is in the room.” After all, scientists have the video to prove it. And one of the lead researcher’s says that chimps seem to have something akin to "photographic memory," at least for short-term tests. Don't believe it? Well, then, here’s a way for you to test yourself against the chimp. Just click the link below for a video test.

Click: Test yourself against the chimp!

FYI: Rules of the Game: First, researchers in Japan taught six chimps--three 5-year-olds and their mothers--to recognize and order the numbers 1 through 9. Then they taught them to play a memory game.

In the game, the numbers would appear randomly on a video screen. The object was to touch them in order: 1, 2, 3, etc. But there was a catch. As soon as the chimps pressed 1, the rest of the numbers disappeared, covered over by white boxes. So they had to remember where they had seen the numbers and touch the white boxes that covered them.

Results of the Game: Not only could the chimps do this just as accurately as college students, they could do it faster, too. So the scientists devised another test, to see who could remember and order five numbers that flashed on a screen for just fractions of a second. Result? Another chimp win.

PS. Once I entered a free-style dance contest as a teenager. I won! My prize? A Monkees Album! "Hey hey we're the Monkees, People say we monkey around. But we're too busy pushing buttons to put Prince Charles down."

PSS.

Once I was a tadpole beginning to begin,
Then I was a frog with my tail tucked in,
Then I was a monkey in a banyan tree,
And now I am a professor with a Ph.D.

Enjoy, ron

Word of the Year!

Have you been plutoed lately?

'Plutoed' Chosen As '06 Word of the Year!

ANAHEIM, Calif. (AP) -- Pluto is finally getting some respect - not from
astronomers, but from wordsmiths.

"Plutoed" was chosen 2006's Word of the Year by the American Dialect Society at its annual meeting Friday.

To "pluto" is "to demote or devalue someone or something," much like what happened to the former planet last year when the General Assembly of the International Astronomical Union decided Pluto didn't meet its definition of a planet.

"Our members believe the great emotional reaction of the public to the demotion of Pluto shows the importance of Pluto as a name," said society president Cleveland Evans. "We may no longer believe in the Roman god Pluto, but we still have a sense of personal connection with the former planet." [...]

FYI: Friends, our solar system has eight planets, not nine as you've been told all your life. On second thought, maybe it has twelve. Actually, scientists can't agree, even after the International Astronomical Union (IAU) - the folks who officially keep track of celestial bodies - ruled in August 2006 that tiny Pluto isn't a planet after all.

Yet for the time being Pluto has been plutoed!

enjoy using the word, revdrron

Free Will!

Are you interested in reading something secular about the enduring problem of free will? Check out this New York Times article (click link on title).

SCIENCE (January 2, 2007)
Free Will: Now You Have It, Now You Don’t
By DENNIS OVERBYE

Quote:

Experiments suggest that the conscious choice is an illusion, but some
philosophers and physicists choose to disagree.

BTW: Toward the end of the article the author quotes Dr. Libet who in turn quotes the writer Issac Bashevis Singer. The quote by Bashevis is profound in its own right but I have more fun with his following quote.

“We have to believe in free will. We have no choice.”

enjoy, ron

Einstein & a personal God

We read in 1 Corinthians 2.6-16 that a message of wisdom is spoken among the mature or spiritual. But this sort of wisdom remains a mystery to those without the Spirit, regardless their genius.

Albert Einstein knew something about mystery and considered himself to be a deeply religious man. We are told that he came to this position through his deep sense of the incomprehensible mystery in which he thought the cosmos was implanted. As far as we know, Einstein also looked favorably on the ethical teachings of Jesus and the prophets. However, he considered belief in a personal God to be the main obstacle to the reconciliation of science and religion. What do you think? Is belief in a personal God compatible with a scientific understanding of the world?

The Apostle Paul informs us that a person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God (2.14). So how is it that a human being, even an unscientific one, can know the wisdom of God? How can a person make such a high and exalted claim as to know the very mind of God, specifically, to have the mind of Christ (16b)?

In other words, how does the Spirit work? How does He impart this wisdom, this mind, to humankind? We are told that the Spirit's activity is an action of inward illumination (vv. 10, 13). That is, a person's natural, spiritual blindness is removed, the veil is taken from the eyes of their heart, their pride & their prejudice are alike broken down, & they’re given an understanding of spiritual realities.

The wisdom of God would have never been discovered by scientific investigation alone. Further, without the Spirit’s intervention, it would have never occurred to Einstein that God was (and is) personal. For as verse 7 says, it’s a "secret & hidden wisdom," or it’s a wisdom "in a mystery & concealed." So the only way for anyone to know it is for God to reveal it. Revelation is the act of God whereby what once was concealed from us is now made known to us.

Paul tells us something about this process in vv 10–13. He uses an analogy: among humankind a person's thoughts & concerns are only known to the spirit of that person. And only if he wills can another person become privy to what those thoughts & concerns are. If one desires one can reveal his thoughts. So it is with God: no one knows God’s mind except God’s own Spirit. But God has willed to impart God’s wisdom by his Spirit.

Consequently, it is not belief in a personal God that stands as the main obstacle to the reconciliation of science and religion. It is unbelief! After all without faith in a personal God (revealed by and through the Spirit in the Person and work of Jesus Christ) no one can even begin to plum the elements of compatibility between religious truth and a scientific understanding of the world?