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BLOG SITE OF SPIRITUALMAN, KEVILL DAVIES

Novelist. Author of APSARAS and tales from the beautiful Saigh Valley. First person to quantify spiritual values.

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Monday 12 November 2012

New Archbishop of Canterbury


Following a delay the next Archbishop of Canterbury has been named as Justin Welby. Those who were tasked with creating a shortlist to submit to Downing Street have been unable to agree with much speculation that opinions are divided about the future role of the Church and its world-wide canon. Where is God when you want him, you might ask?
The appointment of Welby comes at another important time for the Anglican Church as members struggle with the questions of female Bishops and the legitimacy of formal marriage of gay people. Prayers beseeching clues to the right path from the previous encumbent of the post also went unanswered.

The Church of England is not the only Church in crisis. This comes at a time when we learn that the Pope's butler stole secret papers that he maintains embarrassed his beloved Church. I'm sure that hidden in the Vatican's vaults are papers secreted away because their contents threaten the very existence of the Church, proving that rather than having been built on the Rock of Peter The Roman Catholic Church is in fact built on shifting sands. In the last one hundred years, the present nuclear age, I believe that better education, particularly in the sciences, has brought a change in people's perception of the Christian Churches as manifest in the decline of traditional congregations. People are increasingly sceptical of the Transubstantiation and Resurrection although adherents of more evangelical movements have grown, to my mind reflecting a movement away from traditional feelings of faith towards a mood that better reflects an understanding of mankind's own innate spirituality. Love and altruism can be found in peoples without invoking a Creator or living God.
I can see a time, maybe a couple of hundred years from now, when the Abrahamic Churches, as we know them, will be no more. Because many of the peoples who follow Islam are not so scientifically aware it may be five hundred years before they finally see the light. By then the oil will have run out and I doubt very much that the Prophet will be able to help those countries which currently rely on it for income and two thousand years after its inception, Muslims will still not know whether it is better to follow the Sunni tradition or the shi'ite.

However, we have recently witnessed the commemoration of the war dead at the annual service from the Cenotaph. It is a service mirrored all over the world as people remember those who gave their life so that those who are left could live free from tyrrany. In almost all instances these services are conducted by the Church and I know of no more fitting organisation with which to trust this responsibility. If only it could be done without reference to a God. Man has a spiritual side which needs to be satisfied, if only to be there when the people singly or collectively need to be inspired. Not by divine beings or supernatural occurrences but by men or women who through the ages have commanded respect by their deeds and words. Jesus, Moses and Mohammed would be amongst them; so too the prophets and Siddhārtha Gautama, the Buddha. Turn all the churches, synagogues, mosques and temples into houses, not of God, Yahweh, or Allah, but as shrines dedicated to the celebration of mankind. A place where humans can see the liturgy in the stars; hear it through the music of Beethoven and Bach, feel it in the emotion of seeing a newborn child. A place where the creed is an exposition of the total laws of physics. In short I am suggesting that the world does not need division but the coming together of the faiths to unite under the one banner of Religious Humanism. Each day people are dying and suffering because of their religious faiths. God is not answering the prayers of the people of Gaza, Haiti and the horn of Africa to name but three areas of severe human suffering. Now is the time to ask any God to reveal himself. Faith is not enough; it never was. Mankind is at the crossroads and needs answers not promises; decisions not prevarication, openness not obfuscation. Who will lead?

Wednesday 7 November 2012

Obama wins Presidency

If an image can convey the message of a thousand words, this is it. It shows Democrat Obama comforting the North Point Marina owner who'd lost everything in superstorm, 'Sandy', next to Republican Governor of New Jersey, Chris Christie.



I doubt that the Republican Presidential hopeful, Romney, could have done it and if he had it wouldn't have been sincere.
This wasn't just a hug this was a compassionate hug in which he reassured the owner he wouldn't forget her plight.

This image tells all who see it that Obama is a man of the people and for the people. It wasn't plain sailing however. The folk of the United States are no different from others all over the world in facing hardship and in some cases, poverty. People felt that they needed a change; that the old regime couldn't deliver. And it might have worked for the Republicans if the man they selected could have offered the one Nation message. When you have a financial crisis, economic meltdown and recession bordering on a depression caused by the Bankers, how clever is it to select a Banker to be a Presidential candidate? It's no good saying that he must be the right man because he's been good for  few Companies and knows one end of a balance sheet from another. The truth of the matter is that for the majority of voters: if you show them a Banker, they'll show you an arsehole.
Romney's religion didn't, in my opinion, help him either. The Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints, founded in the States in the mid nineteenth century, has courted much controversy with the suspicion that it seperates families by strict adherence to codes that alienates non practitioners. Whilst the aims are mostly laudible, the population of America, like the rest of the world is made up, not of saints but people trying to get by on what cards life has dealt them and they don't want to be told how to behave by a priveleged proselytizer.

Central to Mormon faith is the belief that God speaks to his children and answers their prayers. Well he didn't answer the prayers of Mr. Romney yesterday and I doubt very much if he'll answer them in the future.

Friday 2 November 2012

Further considerations of the soul

Further to my last blog I have been considering the question of the soul, resurrection and the day of judgement. Christians and Muslims hold that sometime in the future there will be a day of judgement when everyone who has ever lived will be judged and those that are good are accepted into heaven. This time has been tentatively identified by the scientist Frank Tippler as corresponding to his scientific ending of life called the 'Omega Point'. However, the report by Dr. Stuart Hameroff, suggests that people who undergo near-death experiences see a white light and feel an overwhelming contentedness. It seems that heaven is attained immediately after death. How can this be and what part does the soul play?

Perhaps the answer can be found by further consideration of my thesis that time itself has three dimensions. see here.
The measure of our sense of time is given by T where T=  √t² + (-t)² + (it)²  where 't' is real time, '-t' is unreal time and 'it' is imaginary time and i = √-1.
In real life, and assuming that the coefficient for each term is unity, then T = t. In other words our sense of time equates with 'real' time.

If at the time of death the 'real' time component IN THE BRAIN reduces to zero, then T = √(-t)² + (it)² = 0.  In other words we find that whilst those living still believe that the day of judgement lies in the future, those that have already died find that judgement (or whatever) follows immediately.
Is it possible that the (-t)² + (it)² part of our sense of time is in some way independent of the body?

What happens at the other end of the spectrum, the start of life? At conception the brain is not in existence and we can postulate that 'real' time is not working. There must be some point in the embryo when the proto-brain is sufficiently developed to sense time. I believe that the observed dreaming state of embryos is determined by the imaginary time component and its existence necessarily precedes the presence of the 'real' time. It is the mechanism that prepares the child to live after birth and to seek a breast automatically. Being negative it refers to the historical and biological past experience and therefore prepares the newborn child for survival.
The imaginary time operation of the brain, it's mode of preparing the body for what is to come, extends into adulthood and is nightly manifest in dreams and in daytime can give rise to instances of 'flashback' and deja vu. For example, it is my contention that as we naturally approach our death our body and mind are prepared for the final moments by this time component.