Religion

Submitted by jhwierenga on Thu, 07/26/2018 - 16:15

The God Hypothesis

In science, the proposition that God exists is not admissible as a premise. However, it is perfectly acceptable as a conclusion. Not only do the premises of QO lend credibility to this conclusion, they also provide new insights into the nature of God, the existence of evil, and the manner in which evil will be overcome.

We cannot just ignore the God hypothesis. A theory of absolutely everything is not complete without taking a position on the question as to whether God exists, and if so, what God is like. Firstly, we examine whether the original quantum and all the knowledge of the quanta which have emanated from it may be expected to be alive, conscious and capable of having purposes and effectuating them in the universe. We conclude that this is indeed the case. In other words, QO leads us to the tentative conclusion that God probably exists. However, to avoid unnecessary contamination of terms, we speak not of God, but of the One. Millennia of religious discussion and experience have attached so much dogmatic baggage to the concept of God that it is almost impossible to have an objective discussion about what QO can tell us of the divine, unless we use another term. Some of the most pernicious elements of this baggage is discussed in the lemma "Greek accretions to the concept of God". If the church fathers had been more in touch with the Jewish conception of the power of names, the church would have avoided taking this baggage on.

Good and evil

Our notion of God opens the way to a second discussion: What is evil, and how did evil originate? Does good need evil in order to be good? QO provides original and satisfying answers to these questions. In QO, things that do not proceed from the One can turn out to be evil, not in the sense of being totally bad, but in the sense of being fundamentally wrong. God is as good is. Evil needs good to be able to exist at all. The good does not need the evil to be good, it exists of itself. The One said that creation was good, and didn’t need to refer to evil to give this utterance meaning. The good can take evil and turn it to the good, making a greater good, but that is not the same thing as good needing evil and still less as good being the opposite of evil. We must never conclude that the ability of good to deal with evil means that the good needs evil to be good. That is just as nonsensical as thinking that the fact that some artists turn rubbish into art proves that art needs rubbish.

Thirdly, we discuss the issue of how evil can be defeated. It should not surprise you - but probably will - that a central role in this discussion is accorded to the traditional Christian concept that the sacrificial death of Christ on the cross is crucial to defeating evil. QO has an original and credible explanation, discussed in the lemma "How to heal a universe".

God and man

Finally, we discuss what the One is like. Can the One be conceived of as a trinity? That leads to a discussion as to who you are, and how you will experience the end of the universe.