Image of God

Month, Day: 179, Knowledge, Honour (Perfection) 

My theme is science and religion, principally with respect to computation and its important contributions to the theme. Science is abetted by computation; religion is not so much, except for the various types of suites of organizing systems. Both require humans to be at their best, in all ways. 

So, technical issues have been the center of attention. But, the other day, I talked to a Christian theologian whose study deals with the 'Image of God' from the Old Testament. I would add that the concept is also prominent in the Jewish religious thinking which fact I became more aware of lately due to my reading on Hasidic teachings. To my surprise, the whole of the worldview is quite powerful, allowing me some insight into the long years of patiently enduring the tests of living a Jewish life. 

Now, there had been reviews of the book by the theologian which covered the discussions over the ages, stressing several characters from my past such as Aquinas and Augustine from the past and others who are more recent whom I did not know of due to their being of the Protestant persuasion. Remarkedly, seeing that this work has continued was thrilling, since the pure technical view drains imagination and a lot more. 

But, it turns out that one of the Pontifical Universities of Rome published a view of the book which was even more a bunch of encouragement. In fact, that got me to realize that I need to now include theology (starting with a small 't') in my arguments with respect to science and religion where operational decisions are stressed as being of proper focus. 

Small 't' needs some explanation. Publicly, in the case of science, we cannot bring in big 'T' now and expect reasonable reactions. Let's talk that. We can, though, argue for approaches that will bridge, such as 'psychether' as a proposal,  more axiomatic than hypothetical. Of course, this approach is dealing with the harder views of science. The computer allows the subject to get attention. 

That is easily explained. Take AIn't with its mathematical basis. We would be better off lifting the technical material to public view even if it is altered for consumption. There would be nothing hidden as abstract views can always be wedded with their details (somewhat faithfully). Sufficient examples are extant after our two decades plus of the network-spawned modes. Again, lots to discuss here. 

But, after some pondering, diving into the Christian hermeneutics and other quarrel-raising methods without a safety net would be quite tedious, perhaps even unhealthy. So, what is there in Islam on the subject? Turns out to be lots and lots to consider. 

Example: The Image of God in the Qur'an. There are plenty of other examples, but my take on this is that using 'Image of Adam' would be without any controversy being raised. That is, God created Adam, and we are of Him. Mind you, the small 't' would require that all voices be heard. We have the ability now to do this which is a side-effect of truth engineering which is a natural consequence of taking proper action in this regard. 

But, what of Baha'i? Well, we have this, for an example: Prolegomena to a Bahá’í Theology. Okay. This is from 1992. Myself, I have worked independently for five decades and am ready to write some notes about the necessary studies for the purpose of helping people understand how complex systems (general sense, not that related to the 'butterfly effect' and variants to that theme). 

Which allows me to back up. What started all of this was going back to Kant whom I had not paid attention to since I found out about Baha'u'llah. And, immediately, a meme came up which extended one that I already had leading to this: AIn't can't Kant. Where the reference to Immanuel is multi-faceted. 

I will not apologize for the style that I am using having developed it to allow a spectral notion to be conveyed in the valley of those who like to fight over polarities that might not even be true. It's not poetry, either. Rather, the notion is that when we have computer systems supposedly beating people with word-based tests, something is wrong. Words is one of the attributes of God that are formulated through the means given us by the Bab for managing time-oriented events. 

Cutting this short, for now, but we can address all of the ramifications implied above. I am in my ninth decade and will work this as I can. I have decades of research. Something to note, perhaps, would be the recent discussions that reveal another bit of research over the same timeframe as mine. This has to do with psychedelic-based approaches to therapy. 

Another approach would use insights from working with the above themes with an explicit feed into the decision process, covering the totality of analytic and synthetic modes.  

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Note: Part of our task is to look at the ways that people have dealt with the 'Image of God" issue. Holy Science is an example of one type of effective method.  

Remarks: 11/01/2022

10/31/2022 --