Determinism and Free Will

Free will and determinism, or pre-determinism exist in different paradigms that aren't mutually exclusive in actualization. That is there are theological and cosmological paradigms as well as the practical actualization of will.

  One may plainly think and then act upon the thought on a practical level. One has a few degrees of freedom of motion to act, and some freedom to think (if the boom box isn't too loud and you are trying to make some complex calculation), few degrees of freedom to move if bound and gagged.   If God is omniscient then he knows everything in every possible Universe and configuration, so in that sense it is necessarily pre-determined for God, and the will of people though free is pre-determined or determinate and not free to be other than what it must be.  

Tegmark’s Level 4 or 5 Universe has a different paradigm; every universe that possibly can exist does, and each though any individual has switches his consciousness to the static universe corresponding to the thought he has. The physical Universe don't change in their dimensional configuration, it is the thought that changes corresponding to the right space-time coordinates in each possible Universe. That is the past, present and future of every Universe already exists.

That is something to think about with such great complexity in stellar evolution for example. Maybe the complexity problem can be resolved with quantum computers, or since the foundation of Tegmark’s Universe is pure, abstract math (maybe built up like Leibnitz’s monadology or strings). A pure math Universe is closer to being like a Universe of Universes existing within the mind of God constructed with protocols of spirit.

On Totalization impacting free will.

People already shut down freedom of expression. Corporatism tolerates nothing in conflict with corporate interests preponderantly. The recent China-N.B.A. issue was a case in point; corporatism and communism each repress free speech. The Democrat Party and socialists tend these days to want to force things there way through any means legal or quasi-legal that work. Anyone antipathetic may find a kind of hate speech in any language-perhaps becoming easier with increasing power. Search engine stuff may be downgraded so nobody finds it; or the writer banned from social media platforms, an employee terminated, a web page closed down. Nothing new in the mill town wanting total political control to support its interests. The new thing is that the world is being totalized incidentally through global networking.

Impeachment Recall Campaign and Low Albedo

Democrats are still wasting time trying to impeach President Trump with a Soviet-style in camera secret committee inquisition while people are putting up heat absorbing asphalt parking lots and buildings. The least the fake environmentalist Democrats could do would be to pass a bill with tax breaks for high albedo construction including parking lots and roofs in order to help reduce global warming increase.

People in the north sometimes tear up perfectly good reinforced steel concrete parking lots to replace them with heat absorbing asphalt so they can reduce parking lot snow removal costs. That leads one to wonder- why not just asphalt over Alaska and Siberia too in order to increase heat absorption and make the world a nice room temperature of 90 degrees f (lol)?

https://earthsky.org/earth/atmospheric-co2-record-high-may-2019

A Note on Separation of State and Church

When government controls a religion and has a state religion history shows that it is bad. Because wicked people eventually take over governments, even if only for a while, it is better to have a separation of state and church. Adolph Hitler and Germany of the Reich era had an official church and people like Karl Barth left it, or wouldn't join it. Not even Christians agree on correct doctrine not uncommonly, imagine if President Trump, Hillary Clinton, Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders made the theological decisions as leader of the Church of America.

State churches aren't good for either Christians or secular citizens. I would say the Church of England is somewhat poor on theology and discipline. England led the way on homosexual marriage and the Anglican Church of Canada put a heavy price on native Canadian children. With a state church theological pursuit of truth is limited to what the state wants. The U.K. has religious pluralism though it has the Church of England. There are still Catholics and other protestants. I am not a fan of royalty or authoritarianism; some people are. 

The Roman Empire divided with the state church of the Eastern Empire at Constantinople. The schism led to the eventual sacking of Constantinople by crusaders and the later conquest by Turks and more war. I can easily imagine a different course of development for Christian history under different circumstances; the secular and political condition shouldn't really decide how Christians form ecclesiastically. I like a priesthood of believers church structure rather than a patriarchal structure.

 If government is able to influence religion that works badly for the church and freedom in general-even in the secular world. Sin in the world in Europe and North America would emerge as a certain percent of the population regardless of the relationship of government to the faith community. It was the government-the-US Supreme Court, that forced sin on the nation (homo marriage), reflecting elite desire for sin and populist sales.

Russia May Be Able to Support Kurdish Security

President Trump may have walked a tightrope in switching off support for Kurds, Syrian Christians and Alawi of Syria deftly last week. Americans were alarmed about the abandonment of the Kurds that appeared to occur overnight. 

It may be that Russia's entry into the Syrian ground game in a substantial way may offset Turkish aggression and defeat efforts from various players to make Syria a Sunni kingdom. A vast Sunni kingdom stretching from Africa to Europe would need to crush quite a few bodies to establish and undermine the security of Israel and others.

I have no idea what interest Russia has in Syria. Siberia and the North Shore is probably a much better place aesthetically.

Since Russia is no longer a Trotskyite communist nation aspiring to take over the world it might not be a bad thing to have Russia providing Syrian security at their expense instead of other foreign powers. The Shi'a have a problem with the Sunni now and then, and a secure somewhat neutral multi-religious Syria may  not be a bad thing at all concerning the suppression of sparks of sectarian conflict.

President Trump did not secure a lasting homeland for the Kurds in the region, yet the Syrians and Russians may provide part of one in exchange for the support of Kurds as Sunni themselves to defend against various Sunni elements that would like to destroy the Syrian government and establish a Sunni Syria. If the Kurds become victimized in mass then President Trump should assume responsibility in part and relocate those that care to move, to the U.S.A.

One must wonder what secret diplomacy occurred through unknown channels between Russia and President Putin. Apparently the Democrats hadn't any whistle-blowers listening in to the call.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/10/15/russian-troops-take-over-key-u-s-outpost-syria-after-withdrawal/3985962002/

Is There a Doomsday Clock for Global Warming?

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has published a doomsday clock for nuclear war for decades. The minute hand has been at two minutes to midnight for several years too, I believe. The trouble with going full-tilt for panic too soon is that one can't get closer without resorting to Eleatic micro and pico-second intervals. If people establish a Doomsday clock for Global Warming it should not be at the panic place initially- give a little space to take note of worsening conditions.

https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/current-time/

Maybe these guys;The Union of Concerned Scientists have published a doomsday clock somewhere.

https://scitechdaily.com/scientists-warn-nine-climate-tipping-points-now-active-could-threaten-the-existence-of-human-civilization/

https://blog.ucsusa.org/peter-frumhoff/global-warming-fact-co2-emissions-since-1988-764

https://www.forbes.com/sites/rrapier/2018/06/29/global-carbon-dioxide-emissions-set-new-record/#434893a743a9

Drone Ensemble for I.E.D. Removal

The problem of improvised explosive devices might be addressed with drones able to convey a lightweight ground probe unit quickly to discovered i.e.d.s for detonation or removal. Various locations for central control could be placed with units able to be quickly dispatched and arrive for processing of i.e.d.'s- even with A.I. flight and process controllers when humans are  unavailable,  when provided with a g.p.s. coordinate.

The ground unit robot should be lightweight yet effective and probing or detonating i.e.d.

Because terrorists may use drones to deliver explosives it might be a useful response to develop jagdrones to hunt hostile drones as well.

Advantages include fast response time compared to human operators travelling on the ground.

Why People are Religious

People had fear of the unknown-and rightly so in most cases. Explanations were made to account for things (ref Big Bang theory). Liege lords demanded allegiance from their peasant-serfs. Yet God is different from secular loyalty, fealty and such matters. There were tribal gods of course, and when different tribal gods appeared in different tribes that caused issues. Actually it was challenging to separate the concept of god from tribal approaches to god. The idea of eternal life freed people from the hopelessness of bad political leadership and death.

https://time.com/5699122/elizabeth-warren-facebook-fake-ad-mark-zuckerberg/

A transcendent god differs quite a bit from the Roman amalgam of gods taken from tribes they conquered. Muhammad’s father was keeper of the Kaaba (spirit house) at Mecca with its pantheon of gods. When Muhammad’s father lost his job and was kicked out Muhammad borrowed Christian and Jewish ideas and scripture to write his own transcending approach to god- Allah. Allah was a tribal god without borders able to lead all of the tribes that joined in. The political  approach to religion or legiance attaches even to secular concepts such as evolution that is an endemic belief of the Democrat party in the U.S.A. Like Allah, secular atheist evolution runs toward a god-without-borders approach politically manifesting in the hatred of traditional American values and border security in favor of globalism.

People do learn religious ideas from culture. In the Bible God does say that everyone knows him and that they just forget who he is, or repress that sense (in the book of Jeremiah). Secular evolutionists like to explain away God through various reductionist straw men associations, and that is good enough to satisfy those that aren’t too philosophically inclined.

There were a number of arguments in support of the necessity of God- such as the ontological argument, or rather the logical probability of God, that can also be improved to support the idea that a Supreme Being is the source of all that exists. Logical studies for-themselves support the plausibility of a Supreme Being whom is spirit and different than the content of creation. That is, one may use logic and reason to look into the idea that a Supreme being created the Universe in some way regardless of disputes that may arise concerning a posteriori hermeneutics or cosmological mechanics in support or opposition.

A philosophical approach to consideration of the likelihood of the existence of a Supreme Being differs significantly from purely tribal approaches to belief in a tribal god.

The Japanese Shinto ideas seems reasonable yet unbelievable to westerners. The Tori and Kami- spirit gates and spirits fluttering about like birds don’t seem better than the Romans and Local deities such as Janus-the door god, whose temple opened only when the Romans went to war.

Christians of course believe in the person that was Jesus Christ as the Son (member of the trinity) of God, and God Himself, equal to the Father. I think Jesus was the real thing too. It was lucky that he appeared in history when he did.

Christianity is also a transcendent faith-without-borders yet it also instructs Christians to obey  secular laws and authorities (that don’t interfere with Christian faith).

So why do some have more religion than others? For the same reasons I would suppose as people believe in anything including science. Personal thought, reliance on authority, prevailing social customs; maybe it is a matter of grace finally. Some people try to treat all religions as the same, and religious belief too, in order to 'solve' them. One might use biology to solve physics or geology equally well.

When James Peebles won the Nobel for physics a couple of days ago that showed how much scientists believe in Big Bang theory. It is part of a secular belief system, yet it could be wrong. That is there are other ideas that could account for the existence of the physical Universe in the same scientific vein such as this Universe could be the froth around a 4 dimensional black hole from a Universe with five dimensions, etc...a white hole as it were.

Thus Spake Zarathustra- What its About

'Thus Spake Zarathustra' is Nietzsche's world view as the philosopher of the eternal recurrence. His philosopher named Zarathustra lived on a hill overlooking a city far below. From that homeless guy's tent (I added that) he viewed and considered the morality and social structure of the people in the village.

Zarathustra considers the hum-drum life of the villagers whom he regards as mindless sheep going about their social conventional lives like meaningless ants. The 19th century was the age of romanticism and idealism- those were points of view that disdained the social order. Nietzsche had a different point of view.

One night walking along the shore of Lake Geneva he had a strong sense of déjà vous. He realized (for-himself) that the life, world and Universe had happened before- an infinite number of times. That ‘enlightenment’ made him superior to others. He believed the right response for superpersons with an eternally recursive point of view was to act like wolves, predators or vampires upon the human species that were not so enlightened living unreflectively and unaware in their lives in the villages and cities.

There are interesting paradoxes in Nietzche’s infinite recursion of everything that exists. For one thing, even the vampire superpersons would be doomed to act as vampire super-persons forever without being able to change anything about their lives.

My thought is that Nietzche’s strong mental states were a little traumatizing and introverting. His syphilis may have made him view the Universe as recurrent. If life is tough it may be that déjà vous occurs naturally in some circumstances. It could be a kind of self-reflecting cognition of the present that makes it seem infinitely recurring, like when a tv camera is pointed at a camera giving the illusion of infinite recurrence.

Nietzsche put his point of view in his book 'Thus Spake Zarathustra'. Perhaps he envisioned himself as being like Zarathustra himself as a great man founding a religion. Certainly there are a lot of syphilitic drug addict followers of Nietzsche today.

Physicalism, Information and Soul

 Physicalism is itself a philosophical point of view about the mass and energy in which humans exist and of which the Universe is made. It used to be called materialism. People exist within the field that is the Universe as it is generally understood. People tend to believe it is made of particles and waves that are energy. The entire structure from largest to smallest isn't fully known, though a lot of the things within it are. Some believe God created and sustains the energy field-as it could all be within his thought, others think it might be a hologram or even pure mathematics at its core, yet one thing can be certain; people experience the Universe.

Physicalism is also known as material monism. Some people use the concept to distinguishing if from Ryle kinds of ghost-in-the-machine theories about spirit. Personally I believe God needs no extra substance for a soul to be immortal. If a soul is information God as an omniscient being has no loss of information as if Shannon entropy destroyed His data.  Actually information is thought never to be lost from the Universe-even at a black hole. So with the right information God can sustain or clone a soul (though each is unique in theology) and give it whatever span he chooses. What is information to absolute Spirit one might wonder?

Physicalists tend to be monists exclusively, though lacking an overall account of everything that is falsifiable (obviously and perhaps necessarily)

The Universe could as well be an idea, or a super-computer simulation.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/physicalism/
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/berkeley/ Berkeley’s ideaism
https://www.physicsoftheuniverse.com/topics_quantum.html
https://physics.aps.org/articles/v6/111 The Higgs Field
https://arxiv.org/abs/0704.0646 The Mathematical Universe

About Dying for Your Country and Living for Others

I think it might be easier to understand in a primitive situation. For example if a family of humans with small children were walking on the savanna and a lion attacked- should the father not defend his family, or just run and let the kids be devoured (and the woman)? patriotism depends on the circumstances and the reasons.

 Some ideals are probably worth defending to the death and others not. It would be better to keep a free society and people free than to fall into slavery. That is a reason why democracy sometimes needs to be defended against oligarchs, plutocrats and communists. 

Wouldn't one rather live in freedom than slavery? On the living for others principle; the Lord pointed out that service for others is a good idea. This world is temporal and the kingdom of God eternal. If one has faith in that it makes sense. If one has no faith then it is altruism which is o.k., or servility or slavishness that is bad. 

One last point; some whit said it is better to let the enemy die for your country.