12 Steps to Joy (6)
May 27, 2018
12 Steps to Joy (6)
The Word of Creation (2)
In the beginning the Word already existed.
The Word was with God,
And the Word was God.
The Word existed in the beginning with God.
God created everything through the Word,
And nothing was created except through the Word.
The Word gave life to everything that was created,
And the life of the Word brought light to everyone.
The light shines in the darkness,
And the darkness can never extinguish it.”
John 1:1-5.
God created everything through the Word,
And nothing was created except through the Word.
According to physics, the universe as we know it is impossible! The odds of all the forces being exactly what they are, all 200+ constants and numerical forces, are so minuscule that it should not have occurred, ever. Yes, I know that it has been stated that it is ‘obvious’ that there an infinite number of useless universes generated before ours randomly appeared, but there is no way that can ever be proven inside the bubble that is our universe. So, did God create an impossible world, or are the physical properties of our universe a sign of the goodness of God?
It is important, if our world we construct in our searching spirituality is to be on solid ground, that we consider both the physical world we sense and build with our brains and perceptions to match our spiritual search and beliefs. We live in the physical world, and the physical world defines the tangible world that feeds all that we know about our universe and life on the physical plane. I believe that both the physical world and the spiritual world see and grasp the same thing, and knowledge of the physical universe completes and compliments our search for meaning in life in the spiritual plane. Indeed, if “the kingdom of God lies within (or among) us” (Luke 17:21)then that kingdom must be a reflection of the wonder of God. God lives in the here and now, and only in the here and now, so we need to understand the what the ‘here and now’ consists of.
I want to spend some time looking at our world from the science of Quantum Physics. I will not use any math, and if you think “I do not understand this”, you are in good company, for NOBODY understands the results, or why they behave as they do, or why the math requires strange constants (Planck’s constant of 10 to the -33 power (decimal point followed by 32 zeros then a 1) is a good example. This constant is needed in many places to make the math match reality) to get the correct results as observed. The results in this strange world of quantum physics has been proven over and over, but no one knows why or the full ramifications of the mathematical statements, including the experts in quantum physics. All they understand is what the math says, and they are surmising the physical implications of the math, and have found experiments that verify the truth of the math, so the mathematics of quantum physics have evolved in response to experimental results that mystified those doing the experiments.
First some experiments gave startling results, and the results were verified by further experiments, but some anomalies resulted from the experiments. Then those steeped in the math equations derived new equations that explained the new startling results, but predicted even more startling results. These new predictions were then verified by other experiments, which found more anomalies, and so on.
I will discuss some of these results and their implications, using language from both the science of physics and the linguistic approach of spirituality. I will use light as the prime example, but will then discuss how everything we say about the action of light we can say about what we think of as matter, but with different levels of the results.
Two theories of light emerged in the early part of science discussions. At the beginning of the 11thcentury, Alhazen wrote the first treatise on the optics, describing refraction, reflection, and other light phenomena, stating that these experiments proved that light was a particle. Then in 1630, Rene Descartes popularized the opposing view that light was a wave. But Isaac Newton spent 30 years arguing that reflection could only be accomplished using particles that travel in a straight line (his first law of motion) as waves would deviate from a perfectly straight line.
The accent that light was a wave was given further credence by the famed double slit experiment in 1802, and the realization that visible light, ultraviolet light, and infrared light were all electromagnetic waves of differing frequencies, and it seemed that the wave theory of light was firmly fixed in place.
However, experiments in electromagnetic sources around 1900 could not be explained using classic continuous wave theory, but required groups (or ‘quanta’, as they began to be called)(yep, the term ‘quantum physics’ came from the quanta of light approach) of light, and relied on a parallel development of the ‘atom’ theory of electron particles carrying a negative charge that circled a positively charged center, or nucleus. Then experimenters were able to send electrons through a vacuum to strike a plate and generate light, all of which violated the thoughts at that time – where did that light wave come from? It sure seemed to act like a particle, and they named that particle the photon.
All agreed that there was a flaw in their thinking, and considered the use of quanta of light as an error, but saw no way around that. But in 1905 Albert Einstein took these ‘flawed’ equations and proved that they were indeed correct, and solved several outstanding contradictions in physics in one stroke – but insisted that these proved that light was both a wave and a particle, depending on what the “observer” was doing with the light.
All this strange behavior of light was thought to be a property of light alone, and while introducing some unusual thoughts, did not really impact anything, but made many things, such as radio and television possible starting in that time frame.
Then something really strange occurred: in 1923, it was suggested that matter itself should behave just as light, saying that the laws of relativity as proposed by Einstein led to that conclusion, and matter should have a potential wave associated with it, depending on the observer. It took several years to prove this, but it was eventually proven when it was realized that the wavelength of matter, that distance between two peaks in the wave, was extremelyshort for matter. It is possible to do the ‘two-slit’ experiment with electrons, using crystals as the slit patterns, as the distance between the two slits has to be in the same order of magnitude as the wavelength of the material, and the internal structure of crystals was sufficiently fine to produce the patterns.
It is possible today to fire electrons and produce the interference patterns that can only be produced by waves, just like the interference patterns in 1802 had proven that, indeed, light was a wave, since visible light has a wavelength about 390 – 700 nanometers, a little less than a millimeter. Indeed, matter, as well as light, is both a wave and a particle, much to the chagrin of everyone. Everything behaves in the same way, no matter what it is described as in the jargon of science.
Yes, I know, you are asking why am I wasting your time talking about physics, when I should be talking about God. Well, I amtalking about God, but using the terminology of science instead of God. Next time I will translate all of this into language that shows how this series of evolutionary and revolutionary thought patterns have led to an understanding of the very nature of God as revealed to us in our time.
Meditation
Creator of all, it is truly astounding and beautiful how everything is bound together in a single framework. But Your Core Being is also in a single framework that we have called love, and all this, no matter what we call it, is built on that creative love we see expressed in all we see and observe and feel. Everything is love. All that we see contains the beauty and simplicity of love. There is nothing that has been made except through love, and all creation is the glory of love made visible. My heart sings in glory to all that is, and I give myself into this wonder of love that is called creation. I am grateful for all the beauty and wonder that You have revealed to humanity, and am looking forward with great anticipation for all the wonders yet to be revealed.
MY BOOK, THE 12 STEPS TO JOY AND HAPPINESS,IS NOW AVAILABLE FROM HAY HOUSE, BALBOA PRESS, AMAZON, AND BARNES AND NOBLE, AS WELL AS OTHER SOURCES, IN HARD COVER, SOFT COVER, AND EBOOK FORMATS.
We are bound in the music of life where we dance and weave within that glorious melody, or what some call God. Now, God has said that we are the very image of God (Genesis 1:27), and as images of God, we have the inborn ability to have Joy and Happiness forever present in our life. The author, David L. Peters, is an octogenarian whose life has always been filled with joy, regardless of outward appearances. The wonders of the Kingdom of Heaven is everyone’s birthright, if you know how to let your Creator and the Universe enter your spirit. Jesus put it succinctly: “The Kingdom of God lies within” (Luke 17:21). The Kingdom of God, Paradise, Heaven: these lie within you, right now, waiting for you to only turn and see, and join in the dance. Paradise is right within us, but how do we unlock the door to this wonder of joy? This book lays a path open that the author has followed for almost 80 years, starting as a young boy in rural Ohio, and it operates as advertised. No matter how things look in life, how bad it seems, all one need do is look deeper within and find the joy that can fill life: life is good! The life of abundant joy and happiness is yours for the asking. Dip your toe in the living waters, and taste the Beauty of God that is awaiting.
