Music Selections

[Joe Mahmood]

JELLY ROLL - NOTHING LEFT AT ALL

 

[Joe Mahmood]

VABOH - MISTAKES BEFORE IM GONE

 

[Joe Mahmood]

BMIKE - ANXIETY

 

[Joe Mahmood]

KADEBOSTANY - MIND IF I STAY




Ask Ethan: Did God Create The Universe?

There’s one question that most of us ask at some point in our lives whose answer still eludes humanity: where did all this come from? Any component of reality that we ask that question of ⁠— of where it comes from ⁠— always has an answer that refers to some earlier, pre-existing form of reality. We might know that we, as individuals, came from other humans, but then we can ask where the first humans came from? If the answer is another pre-existing life form, then we can ask the question of how life began. And we can continue this line of questioning as far back as we want, to even before the Big Bang, until science has nothing left to say, and all we have is the grand abyss of the unknown. It’s there that this week’s question, from Mya Alexander, comes in:

"I am very interested in space and with who made us and what made us… what do you have to say about people who say that “God” made us?"

I’m interested in those questions too, Mya, and as you might have suspected, I have a lot to say about it.

For every question that we can conceive of asking, there are a few possibilities as to what the ultimate outcome will be. For the questions where our scientific footing is the most sturdy, we can state that not only is it a question that has a scientific answer, but that we’ve gathered sufficient evidence about the Universe to determine exactly what the answer is, and that we’ve ruled out every other potentially viable alternative.

These are questions like, “what is the shape of the Earth,” “have human beings ever walked on the Moon,” and “is planet Earth steadily warming since the dawn of the industrial revolution?” We know the answers to questions like these extremely well, and with extremely small uncertainties. We might make superior measurements and refine these answers to even better degrees in the future, but not only are the answers knowable, but they are known.

But perhaps we don’t know the answer to the question we’re asking. Perhaps we’re asking a question like one of the following:

1. When and how did the first human beings arise on our planet?

2. When and how did life begin on Earth?

3. When and how did the Milky Way come to be?

4. When and where did the very first star in the observable Universe form?

5. Or where did all the matter (as opposed to antimatter) that enabled our Universe to form as-is come from?

There are a lot of pieces of information that we scientifically know surrounding these questions, but the exact, definitive answers to them remain elusive. We fully expect that the answers to these (and similar) questions are knowable, and one of the goals of modern science is to uncover these answers. However, we do not have them yet.

And finally, there are questions that we can ask or ponder whose answers may never be revealed to us. As vast and enormous and old as our Universe is, the part of it that we can access and gain information from is most definitely finite.

We cannot observe any signals from more than 46.1 billion light-years away, as that’s the farthest extent of the observable Universe from our perspective.

We cannot measure any information from more than 13.8 billion years ago, since everything that exists is limited by both the speed of light and the time that’s passed since the Big Bang.

And even though the number of particles present in the Universe is mind-boggling, as there are approximately 10(to the power of 90) of them (including neutrinos and photons), that’s still a finite, quantifiable number.

In other words, there are questions we can ask whose answers — even if we consider the full suite of information available to an observer that exists in our physical Universe — may be scientifically impossible to know. We might be able to state what it was like when the Big Bang first began. We might even be able to tease out some information about cosmic inflation, the state that preceded and set up the Big Bang.

But if we want to know where cosmic inflation came from, how long it went on for, or what its properties were prior to that final fraction-of-a-second where its imprints actually affect our observable Universe, there doesn’t appear to be any way to test those ideas. Similarly, we cannot observe other Universes and thereby test the idea of a multiverse, or concoct a test that would enable us to probe the many-worlds idea of quantum mechanics.

It’s important to recognize that within this Universe, these three classes of questions should be dealt with in fundamentally different ways.

1. You can ask a question whose answer is not only knowable, but already known.

2. You can ask a question whose answer seems to be knowable if we had enough information, and that information exists in our Universe, even if we don’t have it yet.

3. You can ask a question whose answer is not knowable, even if we were to obtain every quantum bit of information available in the entire Universe.

If you are interested in questions like how we came to be — where “we” can mean you and me, human beings, our conscious minds, life, particles, the Universe, space and time, or the laws of physics itself — your question will fall into one of these three categories.

What I would say to someone who says that “God made us,” then, depends on which category their assertion falls into. If you’re asking a question whose answer is both knowable and very well known from a scientific perspective, that’s absolutely the worst intellectual place to argue for the existence of a deity who actively intervenes in our Universe. That’s, unfortunately, where many religions go awry, using dogma where scientific investigation is necessary.

Given the laws of nature and our overarching scientific theories that explain our physical Universe, the only way to argue for a God on those grounds is to find an event that defied those rules, and instead required some sort of divine intervention to explain. Every time such an assertion has ever been made and put to the test, the results have always been 100% consistent with explanations that rely on the physical alone. Faith is not a good substitute for situations where scientific knowledge is both necessary and available.

In scenarios where the answer should be scientifically knowable in principle, but we do not yet have adequate information to provide that answer, invoking a deity is only a slightly less bad idea than in the previous instance. This is what is infamously known as a God of the gaps argument: appealing to divine intervention to explain a physical phenomenon in this Universe that might be explicable by purely physical rules alone.

Throughout the past few millennia, many phenomena that once fell into this category — including phenomena that people once ascribed to the acts of a divine being — have since had their nature revealed, and are explicable without an appeal to the divine at all. It may just be my opinion, but if your God is such a small God that you are invoking their name to explain a mundane phenomenon that could have a scientific explanation, you’re very likely to be disappointed when the decisive measurements or observations are finally made.

However, there are questions that we are very much capable of asking that we can be quite confident fall outside the realm of science. When we ask questions about how we should live, how to treat one another, why we exist, or anything to do with our cosmic purpose, science appears to be ill-equipped to provide comprehensive, unambiguous answers.

We can ask question that science has no answer for. As I wrote back at the start of 2018,

“Religion is for anyone who wants it in their life, and science is as well. They are neither fundamentally incompatible, nor are they mutually exclusive. Knowledge, education, self-improvement, and the bettering of our shared world are endeavors that are open to everyone.”

Did God, in some form, create the entire Universe? Not only don’t I know, but I daresay that no one does.

Science cannot prove the existence of God, but it cannot disprove God either; it can only disprove the notion of a specific, poorly conceived God. If you claim that your God lives in the clouds, you can disprove that God by simply observing the clouds. If you claim that God lives in our Universe, you can disprove that God by observing the entire Universe. But if your God exists in an extra dimension, before cosmic inflation, or outside of space and time altogether, neither proof nor disproof is possible.

In a fundamental way, it is purely a matter of what your faith is. All we can control, at the end of the day, is how we treat one another. Do we welcome those who believe different things than we do into our hearts, communities, and lives? Or do we shun, exclude, and “other” them?

Regardless of what you believe, I have the same advice for you: choose kindness. It costs nothing, while benefitting the giver, the recipient, and those who simply witness it. Whether you say that God made us or not, I would say the same thing: the wonders and joys of science and the Universe are for you, exactly as you are, too.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2019/12/28/ask-ethan-did-god-create-the-universe/amp/

 

[Joe Mahmood]

KATY PERRY - RISE

https://youtu.be/hdw1uKiTI5c


"One life is all we have and we live it as we believe in living it. But to sacrifice what you are and to live without belief, that is a fate more terrible than dying."

~ Joan of Arc (1412 to 1431)

************************************************************

ALTERED STATES OF CONSCIOUSNESS

She was just an illiterate peasant girl who claimed to hear voices directly from God. But Joan of Arc would rise from obscurity to lead a demoralized army to victories that would change the course of nations, making her one of the most fascinating, compelling, and tragic figures in history.

During the chaos of Hundred Years' War, when northern France was decimated by English troops and the French monarchy was in retreat, a young girl from Orleans claimed to have divine instructions to lead the French army to victory. With nothing to lose, Charles VII allowed her to command some of his troops. To everyone's shock and wonder, she scored a series of triumphs over the English. News rapidly spread about this remarkable young girl. With each victory, her reputation began to grow, until she became a folk heroine, rallying the French around her. French troops, once on the verge of total collapse, scored decisive victories that paved the way for the coronation of the new king.

However, she was betrayed and captured by the English. They realized what a threat she posed to them, since she was a potent symbol for the French and claimed guidance directly from God Himself, so they subjected her to a show trial. After an elaborate interrogation, she was found guilty of heresy and burned at the stake at the age of nineteen in 1431.

In the centuries that followed, hundreds of attempts have been made to understand this remarkable teenager. Was she a prophet, a saint, or a mad woman? More recently, scientists have tried to use modern psychiatry and neuroscience to explain the lives of historical figures such as Joan of Arc.

Few question her sincerity about claims of divine inspiration. But many scientists have written that she might have suffered from schizophrenia, since she heard voices. Others have disputed this fact, since the surviving records of her trial reveal a person of rational thought and speech. The English laid several theological traps for her. They asked, for example, if she was in God's grace. If she answered yes, then she would be a heretic, since no one can know for certain if they are in God's grace. If she said no, then she was confessing her guilt, and that she was a fraud. Either way, she would lose.

In response that stunned the audience, she answered, "If I am not, may God put me there; and if I am, may God so keep me." The court notary, in the records, wrote, "Those who were interrogating her were stupefied."

In fact, the transcripts of her interrogation are so remarkable that George Bernard Shaw put literal translations of the court record in his play Saint Joan.

More recently, another theory has emerged about this exceptional woman: perhaps she actually suffered from temporal love epilepsy. People who have this condition sometimes experience seizures, but some them also experience a curious side effect that may shed some light on the structure of human beliefs. These patients suffer from "hyperreligiosity," and can't help thinking that there is a spirit or presence behind everything. Random events are never random, but have some deep religious significance. Some psychologists have speculated that a number of history's prophets suffered from these temporal love epileptic lesions, since they were convinced they talked to God. The neuroscientist Dr. David Eagleman says, " Some fraction of history's prophets, martyrs, and leaders appear to have had temporal love epilepsy. Consider Joan of Arc, the sixteen-year-old girl who managed to turn the tide of the Hundred Years' War because she believed (and convinced the French soldiers) that she was hearing voices from Saint Michael the arch angel, Saint Catherine of Alexandria, Saint Margaret, and Saint Gabriel."

This curious effect was noticed as far back as 1892, when textbooks on mental illness noted a link between "religious emotionalism" and epilepsy. It was first clinically described in 1975 by neurologist Norman Geschwind of Boston Veterans Administration Hospital. He noticed that epileptics who had electrical misfirings in their left temporal lobes often had religious experiences, and he speculated that the electrical storm in the brain somehow was the cause of these religious obsessions.

Dr. V. S. Ramachandran estimates that 30 to 40 percent of all the temporal lobe epileptics whom he has seen suffer from hyperreligiosity. He notes, "Sometimes it's a personal God, sometimes it's a more diffuse feeling of being one with the cosmos. Everything seems suffused with meaning. The patient will say, 'Finally, I see what it is all really about, Doctor. I really understand God. I understand my place in the universe - the cosmic scheme.

He also notes that many of these individuals are extremely adamant and convincing in their beliefs. He says, "I sometimes wonder whether such patients who have temporal lobe epilepsy have access to another dimension of reality, a wormhole of sorts into a parallel universe. But I usually don't say this to my colleagues, lest they doubt my sanity." He has experimented on patients with temporal lobe epilepsy, and confirmed that these individuals had a strong emotional reaction to the word "God" but not to neutral words. This means that the link between hyperreligiosity and temporal lobe epilepsy is real, not just anecdotal.

Psychologist Michael Persinger asserts that a certain type of transcranial electrical stimulation (called transcranial magnetic simulation, or TMS) can deliberately induce the effect of these epileptic lesions. If this is so, is it possible that magnetic fields can be used to alter one's religious beliefs?

In Dr. Persinger's studies, the subject places a helmet on his head (dubbed the "God helmet"), which contains a device that can send magnetism into particular parts of the brain. Afterward, when the subject is interviewed, he will often claim that he was in the presence of some great spirit. David Biello, writing in Scientific American, says, "During the three-minutes burst of stimulation, the affected subjects translated this perception of the divine into their own cultural and religious language - terming it God, Buddha, a benevolent presence, of the wonder if the universe." Since this effect is reproducible on demand, it indicates that perhaps the brain is hardwired in some way to respond to religious feelings.

Some scientists have gone further and have speculated that there is a "God gene" that predisposes the brain to be religious. Since most societies have created a religion of some sort, it seems plausible that our ability to respond to religious feelings might be genetically programmed into our genome. (Meanwhile, some evolutionary theorists have tried to explain these facts by claiming that religion served to increase the chances of survival for early humans. Religion helped bond bickering individuals into a cohesive tribe with a common mythology, which increased the chances that the tribe would stick together and survive.)

Would an experiment like one using the "God helmet" shake a person's religious beliefs? And can an MRI machine record the brain activity of someone who experiences a religious awakening?

To test these ideas, Dr. Mario Beauregard of the University of Montreal recruited a group of fifteen Carmelite nuns who agreed to put their heads into an MRI machine. To qualify for the experiment, all of them must "have had an experience of intense union with God."

Originally, Dr. Beauregard had hoped that the nuns would have a mystical communion with God, which could then be recorded by an MRI scan. However, being shoved into an MRI machine, where you are surrounded by tons of magnetic coils of wire and high-tech equipment, is not an ideal setting for a religious epiphany. The best they could do was to evoke memories of previous religious experiences. "God cannot be summoned at will," explained one of the nuns.

The final result was mixed and inconclusive, but several regions of the brain clearly lit up during the experiment:

1. The caudate nucleus, which is involved with learning and possibly falling in love. (Perhaps the nuns were feeling the unconditional love of God?)

2. The insula, which monitors body sensations and social emotions. (Perhaps the nuns were feeling close to the other nuns as they were reaching out to God?)

3. The parietal lobe, which helps process spatial awareness. (Perhaps the nuns felt they were in the physical presence of God?)

Dr. Beauregard had to admit that so many areas of the brain were activated, with so many different possible interpretations, that he could not say for sure whether hyperreligiosity could be induced. However, it was clear to him that the nuns' religious feelings were reflected in their brain scans.

But did this experiment shake the nuns' belief in God? No. In fact, the nuns concluded that God placed this "radio" in the brain so that we could communicate with Him.

Their conclusion was that God created humans to have this ability, so the brain has a divine antenna given to us by God so that we can feel His Presence. David Biello concludes, "Although atheists might argue that finding spirituality in the brain implies that religion is nothing more than divine delusion, the nuns were thrilled by their brain scans for precisely the opposite reason: they seemed to provide confirmation of God's interactions with them." Dr. Beauregard concluded, "If you are an atheist and you live a certain kind of experience, you will relate it to the magnificence of the universe. If you are a Christian, you will associate it with God. Who knows. Perhaps they are the same thing."

Similarly, Dr. Richard Dawkins, a biologist at Oxford University and an outspoken atheist, was once placed in the God helmet to see if his religious beliefs would change.

They did not.

So in conclusion, although hyperreligiosity may be induced via temporal lobe epilepsy and even magnetic fields, there is no convincing evidence that magnetic fields can alter one's religious views.

Excerpts from the book "THE FUTURE IF THE MIND" by Michio Kaku.

https://mkaku.org/

 

[Joe Mahmood]

HILLSONG - HOSANNA

 

[Joe Mahmood]

SKYLAR GREY - EVERYTHING I NEED



***************************************************************************

4th March 2021

LEGEND OF ATLANTIS - DRAIN THE OCEANS

 

[Joe Mahmood]

ROSES UNREAD - THE UGLY TRUTH

 

[Joe Mahmood]

Thanks for reading and listening.

Goodnight, wherever you are...

Always,

Joe

BARCELONA - PLEASE DON'T GO

 

[Joe Mahmood]

NF FT. BRITT NICOLE - CAN YOU HOLD ME

 

[Joe Mahmood]

BONNIE RAITT - I CAN'T MAKE YOU LOVE ME

 

[Joe Mahmood]

FINNEAS - BREAK MY HEART AGAIN

 

[Joe Mahmood]

GABBY BARRET - I HOPE

 

[Joe Mahmood]

COLTON DIXON - MIRACLES

 

[Joe Mahmood]

CHRISTINA AGUILERA - LOYAL BRAVE TRUE




Ancient China: Civilization

For the purposes of this article, ancient Chinese civilization refers to that period of China’s history which began in the early 2nd millennium BCE, when a literate, city-based culture first emerged, to the end of the Han dynasty, in 220 CE. By this time all the essential foundations of Chinese civilization had been laid down.

https://www.timemaps.com/civilizations/ancient-china/

 

[Joe Mahmood]

JIMMIE ALLEN, NOAH CYRUS - THIS IS US

 

[Joe Mahmood]

HARRY STYLES - FALLING

 

[Joe Mahmood]

CATRIEN - ERASE YOU

 

[Joe Mahmood]

RAVENSCROFT - SEE THROUGH

 

[Joe Mahmood]

LANSDOWNE - ONE SHOT