Cosmology & Kabbalah

Cosmology is the discipline that deals with the nature of the Universe as a whole. Cosmologists seek to understand the origin, evolution, structure, and ultimate fate of the Universe at large, as well as the natural laws that keep it in order. [1] Modern cosmology is dominated by the Big Bang theory, which brings together observational astronomy and particle physics.[2]

Though the word cosmology is recent (first used in 1730 in Christian Wolff's Cosmologia Generalis), the study of the universe has a long history involving science, philosophy, esotericism, metaphysics, and religion. Related studies include cosmogony, which focuses on the origin of the Universe, and cosmography, which maps the features of the Universe. Cosmology is also connected to astronomy. However, they are contrasted in that while the former is concerned with the Universe in its entirety, the latter deals with individual celestial objects.

wiki

Kabbalah, also spelled Kabala or Cabala (Hebrew: קַבָּלָה‎ literally "receiving"), is a variegated esoteric method, discipline and school of thought. Its definition varies according to the tradition and aims of those following it,[1] from its religious origin as an integral part of Judaism, to Christian, New Age, or Occultist syncretic adaptions. Kabbalah is a set of esoteric teachings meant to explain the relationship between an unchanging, eternal and mysterious Ein Sof (no end) and the mortal and finite universe (his creation). While it is heavily used by some denominations, it is not a religious denomination in itself. Inside Judaism, it forms the foundations of mystical religious interpretation. Outside Judaism, its scriptures are read outside the traditional canons of organised religion. Kabbalah seeks to define the nature of the universe and the human being, the nature and purpose of existence, and various other ontological questions. It also presents methods to aid understanding of these concepts and to thereby attain spiritual realisation.

Kabbalah originally developed entirely within the realm of Jewish thought and kabbalists often use classical Jewish sources to explain and demonstrate its esoteric teachings. These teachings are thus held by followers in Judaism to define the inner meaning of both the Hebrew Bible and traditional Rabbinic literature, their formerly concealed transmitted dimension, as well as to explain the significance of Jewish religious observances.[2]

Traditional practitioners believe its earliest origins pre-date world religions, forming the primordial blueprint for Creation's philosophies, religions, sciences, arts and political systems.[3] Historically, Kabbalah emerged, after earlier forms of Jewish mysticism, in 12th-13th century Southern France and Spain, becoming reinterpreted in the Jewish mystical renaissance of 16th century Ottoman Palestine. It was popularised in the form of Hasidic Judaism from the 18th century onwards. 20th century interest in Kabbalah has inspired cross-denominational Jewish renewal and contributed to wider non-Jewish contemporary spirituality, as well as engaging its flourishing emergence and historical re-emphasis through newly established academic investigation.

wiki

Kabbalistic Cosmology
and its parallels in the
‘Big-Bang' of Modern Physics


Adam McLean ©


In earlier articles I have tried to point out the links between hermetic and alchemical ideas and the developing current of thought in modern physics and cosmology. In this present piece I would like to pursue the strange parallels between the late 16th century reformation of kabbalistic cosmology that arose through the insights of Isaac Luria, and the recent reformulation of the ‘big-bang' into the so-called ‘inflationary model' of cosmic creation. Although the formulation of these two cosmologies was separated by some 400 years, we can recognise that they addressed the same problem, that of the emanation of the cosmos out of nothing.

http://www.levity.com/alchemy/luria.html

...

Sefer HaTemunah (Hebrew: ספר התמונה ‎) (lit. "Book of the Figure", i.e. shape of the Hebrew letters) is a 13–14th century kabbalistic text. It is quoted in many Halakhic sources.

By interpreting the texts of Sefer HaTemunah and the Midrash, Isaac ben Samuel of Acre calculated the age of the universe to be 15,340,500,000 years old.[1][9] His reasoning was as follows: as the Midrash states, "A thousand years in your sight are but as yesterday" (Psalm 90:4); a physical year contains 365 ¼ days, which, if multiplied by 1000 would give the length of a divine year as 365,250 physical years; if we are living in the last, 7th Sabbatical cycle, that would mean that the creation as it described in the Bible happened 42,000 divine years ago; to convert this figure to physical years it should be multiplied by 365,250; this gives the result 15,340,500,000 years.[1]

In 1993, Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan wrote that the Big Bang occurred "approximately 15 billion years ago", calling this "the same conclusion" as the 13th century kabbalists.[1] According to a 2010 estimate by NASA's Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe project, the age of the universe is 13.75 ± 0.13 billion years.[10]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sefer_HaTemunah

...

June 7th, 2008, 09:49 GMT · By Gabriel Gache

Physicists Claim Evidence of Universe Before Big Bang

What was before this universe is currently anybody's guess, but it is highly likely that it was preceded by a similar universe and therefore time existed before the Big Bang. The evidence to back this theory is said to be found in the Cosmic Microwave Background

radiation left behind by the light created when the universe was only 400,000 years old and could explain why time seems to move in a single direction, when logic says it should be reversible.


The CMB fills the entire space of the universe in all directions and although it is generally relatively smooth, it does contain some temperature fluctuations that are associated with the galaxy clusters we see today in the visible universe. The same fluctuations could be evidence of the fact that the current universe inflated from a previous one, says Dr Adrienne Erickcek from the California Institute for Technology.

According to Erickcek and her colleagues, the data provided by NASA's Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe points towards a scenario in which the current universe suddenly expanded into space.

"A universe could form inside this room and we'd never know", said the co-author of the study Professor Sean Caroll at the American Astronomical Society, because the phenomenon would be rather unspectacular. The study originally started as an attempt to explain why time moves only in one direction. Caroll says that although the laws of physics allow time to be completely reversible on the microscopic scale, on the macroscopic scale this never happens.

It is widely believed that this is a consequence of the second law of thermodynamics, which states that a system will always evolve from a low to a high entropy, simply put, from a highly ordered system to complete disorder. It basically says that the universe began its life in an ordered state.

"Every time you break an egg or spill a glass of water you're learning about the Big Bang", said Professor Carroll.

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Physicists-Claim-Evidence-of-Universe-Before-Big-Bang-87494.shtml

....

"Physicists Claim Evidence of Universe Before Big Bang"

...a system will always evolve from a low to a high entropy, simply put, from a highly ordered system to complete disorder...

...Physicists have long blamed this one-way movement, known as the "arrow of time", on a physical rule known as the second law of thermodynamics, which insists that systems move over time from order to disorder.

This rule is so fundamental to physics that pioneering astronomer Arthur Eddington insisted that "if your theory is found to be against the second law of thermodynamics I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation".

The second law cannot be escaped, but Professor Carroll pointed out that it depends on a major assumption - that the Universe began its life in an ordered state.

This makes understanding the roots of this most fundamental of laws a job for cosmologists.

"Every time you break an egg or spill a glass of water, you're learning about the Big Bang," Professor Carroll explained.

Before the bang

In his presentation, the Caltech astronomer explained that by creating a Big Bang from the cold space of a previous universe, the new universe begins its life in just such an ordered state.

The apparent direction of time - and the fact that it's hard to put a broken egg back together - is the consequence.

Much work remains to be done on the theory: the researchers' first priority will be to calculate the odds of a new universe appearing from a previous one.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7440217.stm

...

INFLATION has become a cosmological buzzword in the 1990s. No self-respecting theory of the Universe is complete without a reference to inflation -- and at the same time there is now a bewildering variety of different versions of inflation to choose from. Clearly, what's needed is a beginner's guide to inflation, where newcomers to cosmology can find out just what this exciting development is all about. This is it -- new readers start here.

The reason why something like inflation was needed in cosmology was highlighted by discussions of two key problems in the 1970s. The first of these is the horizon problem -- the puzzle that the Universe looks the same on opposite sides of the sky (opposite horizons) even though there has not been time since the Big Bang for light (or anything else) to travel across the Universe and back. So how do the opposite horizons "know" how to keep in step with each other? The second puzzle is called the flatness problem This is the puzzle that the spacetime of the Universe is very nearly flat, which means that the Universe sits just on the dividing line between eternal expansion and eventual recollapse....



...In October 1981, there was an international meeting in Moscow, where inflation was a major talking point. Stephen Hawking presented a paper claiming that inflation could not be made to work at all, but the Russian cosmologist Andrei Linde presented an improved version, called "new inflation", which got around the difficulties with Guth's model. Ironically, Linde was the official translator for Hawking's talk, and had the embarrassing task of offering the audience the counter-argument to his own work! But after the formal presentations Hawking was persuaded that Linde was right, and inflation might be made to work after all. Within a few months, the new inflationary scenario was also published by Andreas Albrecht and Paul Steinhardt, of the University of Pennsylvania, and by the end of 1982 inflation was well established. Linde has been involved in most of the significant developments with the theory since then. The next step forward came with the realization that there need not be anything special about the Planck- sized region of spacetime that expanded to become our Universe. If that was part of some larger region of spacetime in which all kinds of scalar fields were at work, then only the regions in which those fields produced inflation could lead to the emergence of a large universe like our own. Linde called this "chaotic inflation", because the scalar fields can have any value at different places in the early super-universe; it is the standard version of inflation today, and can be regarded as an example of the kind of reasoning associated with the anthropic principle (but note that this use of the term "chaos" is like the everyday meaning implying a complicated mess, and has nothing to do with the mathematical subject known as "chaos theory").

The idea of chaotic inflation led to what is (so far) the ultimate development of the inflationary scenario. The great unanswered question in standard Big Bang cosmology is what came "before" the singularity. It is often said that the question is meaningless, since time itself began at the singularity. But chaotic inflation suggests that our Universe grew out of a quantum fluctuation in some pre-existing region of spacetime, and that exactly equivalent processes can create regions of inflation within our own Universe. In effect, new universes bud off from our Universe, and our Universe may itself have budded off from another universe, in a process which had no beginning and will have no end. A variation on this theme suggests that the "budding" process takes place through black holes, and that every time a black hole collapses into a singularity it "bounces" out into another set of spacetime dimensions, creating a new inflationary universe -- this is called the baby universe scenario.

There are similarities between the idea of eternal inflation and a self-reproducing universe and the version of the Steady State hypothesis developed in England by Fred Hoyle and Jayant Narlikar, with their C-field playing the part of the scalar field that drives inflation. As Hoyle wryly pointed out at a meeting of the Royal Astronomical Society in London in December 1994, the relevant equations in inflation theory are exactly the same as in his version of the Steady State idea, but with the letter "C" replaced by the Greek "Ø". "This," said Hoyle (tongue firmly in cheek) "makes all the difference in the world".

Modern proponents of the inflationary scenario arrived at these equations entirely independently of Hoyle's approach, and are reluctant to accept this analogy, having cut their cosmological teeth on the Big Bang model. Indeed, when Guth was asked, in 1980, how the then new idea of inflation related to the Steady State theory, he is reported as replying "what is the Steady State theory?" But although inflation is generally regarded as a development of Big Bang cosmology, it is better seen as marrying the best features of both the Big Bang and the Steady State scenarios.


http://www.lifesci.sussex.ac.uk/home/John_Gribbin/cosmo.htm

...

zone's translation: couched in scientific jargon, we are inching this thing forward to the final goal...we need to get to EMANATIONS....


Ein Sof (or Ayn Sof) (Hebrew אין סוף), in Kabbalah, is understood as God prior to His self-manifestation in the production of any spiritual Realm, probably derived from Ibn Gabirol's term, "the Endless One" (she-en lo tiklah). Ein Sof may be translated as "no end," "unending," "there is no end," or Infinite.

Ein Sof is the divine origin of all created existence, in contrast to the Ein (or Ayn), which is infinite no-thingness. It was first used by Azriel ben Menahem, who, sharing the Neoplatonic view that God can have no desire, thought, word, or action, emphasized by it the negation of any attribute. Of the Ein Sof, nothing ("Ein") can be grasped ("Sof"-limitation). It is the origin of the Ohr Ein Sof, the "Infinite Light" of paradoxical Divine self-knowledge, nullified within the Ein Sof prior to Creation. In Lurianic Kabbalah, the first act of Creation, the Tzimtzum self "withdrawal" of God to create an "empty space", takes place from there. In Hasidism, the Tzimtzum is only illusionary concealment of the Ohr Ein Sof, giving rise to Monistic Panentheism. Consequently, Hasidism focuses on the Atzmus Divine essence, rooted higher within the Godhead than the Ein Sof, which is limited to infinitude, and reflected in the essence (Etzem) of the Torah and the soul.

wiki

~

"The idea of chaotic inflation led to what is (so far) the ultimate development of the inflationary scenario. The great unanswered question in standard Big Bang cosmology is what came "before" the singularity."



LOL!

The Kabbalistic Theory of Emanation of Worlds

Like the Neoplatonists, the Kabbalists held a strongly emanationist position. Thus they teach that the En Sof ("the Infinite"; i.e. the Absolute or Godhead) emanates the first sefirah, Keter, which in turn emanates the next one, Hokmah, and so on, down to the lowest sefirah, Malkhut.

In the Lurianic Tzimtzum scheme each successive sefirah is contained within the preceeding - like layers in an onion, except in reverse (grows from the outside in - (see diagram above).

An alternative version has the emanation of worlds rather than sefirot. So the En Sof emanates the World of Atzilut, Atzilut emanates Beriah, and thus through to the lowest world, Asiyah.

In Kabbalah therefore there is no "creation out of nothing" in the conventional Judeo-Christian sense. Moreover, each of the sefirt and worlds stands in a precise relationship to the adjacent worlds.. To quote Rabbi Levi I. Krakovsky, a contemporary Kabbalistic writer:

"...Ain Sof is considered as Spirit to Adam Kadmon and Adam Kadmon is the vessel for that Spirit, symbolising matter....Adam Kadmon in relation to Atzilut is Spirit, and Azilut is matter against Adam Kadmon. Bria is matter to Atzilut and Atzilut is spirit to Bria. Bria is spirit to Yetzira and Yetzira is matter to Bria. Yetzirah is spirit to Assia and Assia is matter to Yetzira."
[Rabbi Levi I. Krakovsky, Kabbalah - The Light of Redemption, Research Centre of Kabbalah, 1970, p.19

Other connections between the successive worlds can be made. Elsewhere in the same work Krakovsky writes:

"...the world of Emanation [Atzilut] is the root to the world of Creation [Beriah], its branch. The world of Creation is in turn the root to the world of Formation [Yetzirah], its branch, and so on..."
Ibid, p.86

Almost exactly the same metaphor - root and offshoot - in the ancient Indian Chandogya Upanishad (Seventh Century B.C.E.).

And because each lower world contains the same sefirotic configoration as the one which preceeded it, each lower level is a lower image of the preceeding World. The ten Sefirot, the ten archetypal attributes of God, are thus repeated in each World or plane of existence, thus producing a fractal cosmology wherin each part mirrors the whole.

http://www.kheper.net/topics/Kabbalah/emanation.htm

...

On Big Bang Singularity Dynamics


Abstract: It is well known that Stephen Hawking and Roger Penrose have shown through their big bang singularity theorems that big bang singularity did exist.

This singularity was an invisible tiny dot. ( )

The present contents of our Universe were suppressed into this glow dot singularity. It has been computed that nearly 13.5 billion years ago this tiny dot singularity exploded and began to expand. Einstein’s general relativity theory verified all these physical phenomena. In this work, the authors analyzed glow dot big bang singularity and space.

http://www.mrelativity.net/Papers/41/Space.pdf

...

hmm...singularity.

emanations...



Yet much of the discussion has headed down the blind alley of transhumanism. Nanotech scientists have long sought to rescue their discipline’s public image from the vocal but fringe spokespersons such as Eric Drexler and billionaire inventor Ray Kurzweil, who have painted a fantastic picture of tiny robots patching up our cells and perhaps hugely extending our longevity.

Kurzweil has suggested that nanotech will play a big role in guiding us to a moment he calls the Singularity: a convergence of exponentially growing computer power and medical capability that will transform us into disembodied immortals.

He has even set up a Singularity University, based on NASA’s research park in Silicon Valley, to prepare the way.

http://philipball.blogspot.ca/2012/01/nanotheology.html

....

oh....NASA?
Singularity?
immortality?

hi oscar. are you familiar with this gentleman and his discipline?
anything suspicious here? at all? (i used to be in advertising/PR/graphics...my job half the time was to 'bend' reality - lie is another word).





Zoltan G. Levay
Imaging Group Lead

Office of Public Outreach
levay@stsci.edu
Voice: 410-338-4907
Fax: 410-338-4579
3700 San Martin Drive
Baltimore, Maryland 21218
USA


Hubble Space Telescope News
Develop images and graphics for use in news releases announcing HST results, in cooperation with observers.
On the News Team: advise on selection of findings to publicize and how to present them, coordinate assembly of release content on-line for internal review (via news in-progress and Basecamp, accessible internally only).



Imaging
Produce presentation images and illustrations from Hubble Space Telescope observations.
Principal software:

Adobe Creative Suite (Photoshop, Illustrator, Bridge, Dreamweaver, Acrobat)
Adobe Photoshop Lightroom
IRAF/PyRAF/STSDAS, ds9, RSI IDL,
Microsoft Office (Word, PowerPoint, Excel)
Apple iWork (Keynote, Pages, Numbers)


Principal hardware:

Macintosh Pro, Mac OS-X





Hubble Heritage
Member of the Hubble Heritage Team, whose mission is to find and present the most beautiful images from the Hubble Space Telescope.



Web development
Provide on-line previews of materials for press release in progress.
Produce web-ready graphics for permanent news sites.
Design news and other web documents.
Principal software: Adobe Dreamweaver




Presentation Resources


Various images, illustrations, text, etc. related to HST and STScI, useful for presentation.

Brief story of my work (or more formally)
Publications






Hubble News and Images
Bringing important Hubble science results to the media and the public.

Hubble Heritage
Bringing the most visually appealing Hubble images to the public.

Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI)
Center of science operations for the Hubble Space Telescope and my place of employment.

Office of Public Outreach (OPO)
My department within STScI, includes news, formal education and informal science and online outreach among other things.

Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA, Inc.)
My employer, a not-for-profit university consortium that operates the Space Telescope Science Institute and other observatories.

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
Funds, operates and maintains the Hubble Space Telescope spacecraft and observatory. Human spaceflight, space science, among many of other activities.

Selected Hubble images and science results
Biggest images (highest resolution)
Very small selection of prettiest pictures
Most significant science


Presentation Resources
Various images, illustrations, text, etc. related to HST and STScI, useful for presentation

Indiana University Astronomy Department
My undergraduate alma mater (BS Astrophysics 1975).



Creating Hubble's Technicolor Universe (PDF)
Article in Sky & Telescope magazine (Copyright 2002, Sky Publishing Corp.), made available by permission of the publisher.

Making HST Pictures: Examples and Illustrations
Steps in Producing Color HST Pictures
Step-by-step description of producing color images.
More detailed explanation using Photoshop (PDF).

Behind the Pictures
Popular-level description (web pages) of how the pictures are made.

Is that what they really look like?
A slightly more technical description of how the pictures are made.

Why Reality is a Gray Area in Astronomy
Article about color in astronomy at space.com

Coloring the Universe
Part of a report on Hubble and Webb Telescopes from the Online NewsHour

http://www.stsci.edu/~levay/

~

unfortunately, the page i was most interested in is no longer available:

Why Reality is a Gray Area in Astronomy
Article about color in astronomy at space.com

the Coloring the universe link is still active though....what do you make of this oscar?:

"Since the Hubble Space Telescope began collecting data from the far reaches of the universe more than ten years ago, the public has been treated to striking images of stars forming, galaxies merging and other cosmic phenomena. But Hubble itself does not produce the colors in these amazing images. Astronomers add the jewel-toned hues, using software such as Photoshop"

zone wrote:hi oscar. are you familiar with this gentleman and his discipline?
anything suspicious here? at all? (i used to be in advertising/PR/graphics...my job half the time was to 'bend' reality - lie is another word).





Zoltan G. Levay
Imaging Group Lead

Office of Public Outreach
levay@stsci.edu
Voice: 410-338-4907
Fax: 410-338-4579
3700 San Martin Drive
Baltimore, Maryland 21218
USA

Primary Duties

Hubble Space Telescope News
Develop images and graphics for use in news releases announcing HST results, in cooperation with observers.
On the News Team: advise on selection of findings to publicize and how to present them, coordinate assembly of release content on-line for internal review (via news in-progress and Basecamp, accessible internally only).

Imaging
Produce presentation images and illustrations from Hubble Space Telescope observations.
Principal software:

Adobe Creative Suite (Photoshop, Illustrator, Bridge, Dreamweaver, Acrobat)
Adobe Photoshop Lightroom
IRAF/PyRAF/STSDAS, ds9, RSI IDL,
Microsoft Office (Word, PowerPoint, Excel)
Apple iWork (Keynote, Pages, Numbers)


Principal hardware:

Macintosh Pro, Mac OS-X

In Addition

Hubble Heritage
Member of the Hubble Heritage Team, whose mission is to find and present the most beautiful images from the Hubble Space Telescope.

Web development
Provide on-line previews of materials for press release in progress.
Produce web-ready graphics for permanent news sites.
Design news and other web documents.
Principal software: Adobe Dreamweaver




Presentation Resources


Various images, illustrations, text, etc. related to HST and STScI, useful for presentation.

Brief story of my work (or more formally)
Publications

Links

Hubble News and Images
Bringing important Hubble science results to the media and the public.

Hubble Heritage
Bringing the most visually appealing Hubble images to the public.

Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI)
Center of science operations for the Hubble Space Telescope and my place of employment.

Office of Public Outreach (OPO)
My department within STScI, includes news, formal education and informal science and online outreach among other things.

Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA, Inc.)
My employer, a not-for-profit university consortium that operates the Space Telescope Science Institute and other observatories.

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
Funds, operates and maintains the Hubble Space Telescope spacecraft and observatory. Human spaceflight, space science, among many of other activities.

Selected Hubble images and science results
Biggest images (highest resolution)
Very small selection of prettiest pictures
Most significant science


Presentation Resources
Various images, illustrations, text, etc. related to HST and STScI, useful for presentation

Indiana University Astronomy Department
My undergraduate alma mater (BS Astrophysics 1975).

Producing color images
Descriptions and references

Creating Hubble's Technicolor Universe (PDF)
Article in Sky & Telescope magazine (Copyright 2002, Sky Publishing Corp.), made available by permission of the publisher.

Making HST Pictures: Examples and Illustrations
Steps in Producing Color HST Pictures
Step-by-step description of producing color images.
More detailed explanation using Photoshop (PDF).

Behind the Pictures
Popular-level description (web pages) of how the pictures are made.

Is that what they really look like?
A slightly more technical description of how the pictures are made.

Why Reality is a Gray Area in Astronomy
Article about color in astronomy at space.com

Coloring the Universe
Part of a report on Hubble and Webb Telescopes from the Online NewsHour

http://www.stsci.edu/~levay/

~

unfortunately, the page i was most interested in is no longer available:

Why Reality is a Gray Area in Astronomy
Article about color in astronomy at space.com

the Coloring the universe link is still active though....what do you make of this oscar?:

"Since the Hubble Space Telescope began collecting data from the far reaches of the universe more than ten years ago, the public has been treated to striking images of stars forming, galaxies merging and other cosmic phenomena. But Hubble itself does not produce the colors in these amazing images. Astronomers add the jewel-toned hues, using software such as Photoshop"

No, i'm not familiar with ZOLTAN!!!! haha but he does sound like a comic book villian. Now as far as false color and psuedo color used in astronomy , yes I am familiar with that. Many high end telescopes to my knowledge use ccd's that are monochrome because they are more sensitive and have higher performance. One of the reasons for this is because a color ccd needs to pack cells that are sensitive to different spectra to give you color information, so if you imagine a 9x9 grid of cells , in a monochome ccd all cells will be sensitive to all wavelengths of light, but in a color one only 1 out of 3 will be sensitive to a wavelength range...so you can imagine how that cuts down on resolution and sensitivity in amount of die space. This is important when looking at distant faint objects, you want to capture as much light as possible, as this will give you the most detail. This is not to say that color information cannot be extracted, as you can filter the light so that you only get red blue or green information, which can then be later recombined to give you a color image, and this is one type of psuedo/false color that is used in published images. Another thing that happens sometimes, is non visible wavelengths are given color values, so sometimes when you are looking at a picture of a galaxy or something, you are seeing a combination of visible light, infrared, and x-rays with the infrared and x-rays given a color value that you would not see if you were looking with the naked eye. astronomers also add color from spectroscopy information, that is they have determined what components are made of with spectroscopy, and give those components different colors, which wouldn't really be noticeable with the naked eye. Anyway, again like most of this stuff this is no big secret, although when I was a kid and my dad first told me about this I was super disappointed.

thanks oscar.
this is not lost on me: "Anyway, again like most of this stuff this is no big secret, although when I was a kid and my dad first told me about this I was super disappointed."

lol....perhaps you have more disappointment in your future.
naturally you weren't tricked by Tupac...and modern cosmology has no bad guys involved.

my point was - we have zolton and a graphics agency prepping images for public consumption. do we have any reason to trust/not trust them?

many times i began with a 'concept', then went to a B&W drawing, then a color rendering. i could even do photo-realism. was what i created real?

is zoltan a freemason? does it matter?

i guess i could just ask again: could our comic book voltan be faking everything?
how much faking is permissable? why bother at all?

also...how far away is the best telescope right now?

has it actually sent back a high res image/pic/photo of a star?
would that image look any different from what i would see when i look into the sky?

Abraham Isaac Kook (1865-1935) was the first Ashkenazic chief rabbi of the Palestine mandate, among other achievements. He is considered one of the fathers of religious Zionism. The following article examines his Zionistic beliefs. Reprinted with permission from The Land of Israel: Jewish Perspectives, edited by Lawrence A. Hoffman

Eretz Yisrael [the Land of Israel], Kook wrote, was the spatial center of holiness in the world, radiating holiness vertically to the Jews who lived upon the Land as well as horizontally to other portions and peoples of the earth.

The spirit of the Land was entirely pure and clean, while spirit elsewhere was mired in kelipot, or "husks" of impurity. The air of the land really did "make one wise," as the Rabbis had said.

In a typical elevation of sociology to theol­ogy, Kook argued that the Jewish imagination outside the Land had become stunted and even deformed. The cause was not merely assimilation to Gen­tile cultures possessed of far less light and holiness than Israel. In addition, the Jews had depleted over two millennia the store of creativity carried away with them into exile. During their absence, the flow of spirit had ceased; its gradual diminishing was responsible for the character of galut [Diaspora] life. Realizing these facts, the Jews had grasped the urgency of return.

Moreover, since the entire world was poor in holiness and sunk in wicked­ness, it was utterly dependent upon the Jews for a renewal of light and spirit. Israel's return to the Land would thus mark the end of a worldwide era of darkness and initiate the redemption of all humanity.....

http://www.myjewishlearning.com/israel/Jewish_Thought/Modern/Religious_Zionism/Abraham_Isaac_Kook.shtml?ISJT

spirit elsewhere was mired in kelipot, or "husks" of impurity

zone wrote:
Eretz Yisrael [the Land of Israel], Kook wrote, was the spatial center of holiness in the world, radiating holiness vertically to the Jews who lived upon the Land as well as horizontally to other portions and peoples of the earth.

The spirit of the Land was entirely pure and clean, while spirit elsewhere was mired in kelipot, or "husks" of impurity.

Here's what the Tanya, the 'bible' of Chabad theology written by the first Chabad Rebbe, Schneur Zalman of Liadi, actually says about non-Jews:

מה שאין כן נפשות אומות העולם הן משאר קליפות טמאות שאין בהן טוב כלל

…The souls of the nations of the world [e.g.,non-Jews], however, emanate from the other, unclean kelipot which contain no good whatever

כמו שכתוב בע׳ חיים שער מ״ט פרק ג׳: וכל טיבו דעבדין האומות לגרמייהו עבדין

as is written in Etz Chayim, Portal 49, ch. 3, that all the good that the nations do, is done out of selfish motives.

וכדאיתא בגמרא על פסוק: וחסד לאומים חטאת — שכל צדקה וחסד שאומות העולם עושין אינן אלא להתייהר כו׳

So the Gemara [Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Bava Batra folio page 10b] comments on the verse, “The kindness of the nations is sin” [the biblical Book of Proverbs, 14] — that all the charity and kindness done by the nations of the world is only for their self-glorification…

The source of that bigotry is the Tanya, end of Chapter 1, page 5 in the bilingual edition published by the Kehot Publication Society, the official publication society of Chabad-Lubavitch, under the direct control of the then Lubavitcher Rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, in 1981, English translation by Rabbi Dr. Nissan Mindel, a senior assistant of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson. Other sections of the book were translated by other prominent Chabad rabbis including Rabbi Nisen Mangel and Rabbi Jacob Immanuel Schochet.

The book contains extensive English language introductions by the translators and a preface written by the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, himself lauding the translations.

Chabad hasidim study a portion of the Tanya each day and complete the entire book once every year.

Etz Chaim, the source the Tanya quotes, is kabbalistic and dates from the 1500s. It was written by Rabbi Chaim Vital, the chief disciple of Rabbi Isaac Luria. Known as the Ari HaKodesh, Luria is considered to be the preeminent kabbalist of all time.

(For those who might wish to use the Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson's, campaign to have non-Jews follow the Seven Laws of Noah to prove Chabad's lack of bigotry, remember that the Rebbe specifically pointed out that almost all non-Jewish religions, including almost every Christian denomination, violates provisions of the Seven Laws of Noah. Only non-Jews who leave those religions and who follow the path set down in the Seven Laws of Noah, and do so exclusively and completely for the sake of properly serving God, and not for the sake of receiving any benefit, no matter how small, fall into the category of a righteous gentile. Those handful of gentiles can be called righteous. The rest of the billions of non-Jews are not righteous, and their souls are exactly as described by the Tanya above.)

http://failedmessiah.typepad.com/failed_messiahcom/2012/02/lying-to-oprah-what-hasidim-really-think-about-non-jews-456.html

...

zone wrote:
The rest of the billions of non-Jews are not righteous, and their souls are exactly as described by the Tanya above.)

http://failedmessiah.typepad.com/failed_messiahcom/2012/02/lying-to-oprah-what-hasidim-really-think-about-non-jews-456.html

...

gotta get those divine sparks back somehow.....

zone wrote:thanks oscar.
this is not lost on me: "Anyway, again like most of this stuff this is no big secret, although when I was a kid and my dad first told me about this I was super disappointed."

lol....perhaps you have more disappointment in your future.
naturally you weren't tricked by Tupac...and modern cosmology has no bad guys involved.

I guess.

zone wrote:
my point was - we have zolton and a graphics agency prepping images for public consumption. do we have any reason to trust/not trust them?

I dont think we dont have a reason to distrust Zoltan, outside of his name.

zone wrote:
many times i began with a 'concept', then went to a B&W drawing, then a color rendering. i could even do photo-realism. was what i created real?

It was a real a creation, and it might have had features that correspond to things in reality, but if you mean was it an image created by recording photons that were emitted by matter, then no.

zone wrote:
is zoltan a freemason? does it matter?

I dont know if he is a mason or not, but no I dont see how that would matter.

zone wrote:
i guess i could just ask again: could our comic book voltan be faking everything?

Well, I suppose he could be faking some things that only Hubble could detect, but I'm not familiar with anything that Hubble can see that earth based telescopes simply cant at all. So again, in order to fake everything he'd probably have to be in cahoots with pretty much every professional astronomer with access to a good earth based observatory, and plenty of amateur astronomers with high grade telescopes.

zone wrote:
how much faking is permissable?

I suppose if false and pseudo color is faking then I think that's permissible as there are good scientific and practical reasons for the practice and its not a secret as to why it happens or that it happens. I dont think that if simulations are faking, then those are permissible, as long as they are not pawned off as actual recordings. Now flat out going into Photoshop and making up a purely digital image with the express purpose of deceiving people, this is not IMO permissible.

zone wrote:
why bother at all?

Why bother with what at all?

zone wrote:
also...how far away is the best telescope right now?

well arguably in the visible range Hubble is still the best telescope, it is something like 550km from earth.

zone wrote:
has it actually sent back a high res image/pic/photo of a star?
would that image look any different from what i would see when i look into the sky?

Well its sent back lots of images of stars, for the most part all stars still look like little balls of light with Hubble, so in that way, no not really. However there are things that the HST can resolve that look very different, like the Orion nebula, which on a really clear dark night looks like a sort of bright fuzzy star.

For many modern Jews, the term tikkun olam (repairing the world) has become a code-phrase synonymous with social and environmental action. It is linked to a call for healing the ills of the world. Indeed, tikkun olam has become the defining purpose of much of modern Jewish life. What many of those who use this term do not know is that this idea is rooted in the last great myth infused into Jewish tradition, a cosmological myth created in the sixteenth century by the great Jewish mystic, Rabbi Isaac Luria of Safed, known as the Ari (1534-1572).

...While the Ari did not invent the term tikkun olam, he transformed its meaning, and created the underlying myth that defines it. The term is first found in the Mishnah, dating from the second century CE, where it means “guarding the established order.” The term is also found in the third section of the Aleinu prayer, dating from the talmudic era, where it means “perfecting the world under the rule of God.” Maimonides in the twelfth century expanded its meaning. He defined it as an approach to the rulings and customs of the rabbis that is intended “to strengthen the religion and order the world.” The Ari’s myth changed the meaning of the term again, so that it now refers to his all-inclusive myth, which begins with the creation of the world and ends with the messianic era, known as “the End of Days.”

http://www.tikkun.org/nextgen/how-the-ari-created-a-myth-and-transformed-judaism

...

The term is first found in the Mishnah, dating from the second century CE, where it means “guarding the established order.”








John 1
The Word Became Flesh

1In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2He was with God in the beginning.

3Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4In him was life, and that life was the light of men. 5The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understooda it.

6There came a man who was sent from God; his name was John. 7He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all men might believe. 8He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light. 9The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world.b

10He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. 11He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. 12Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— 13children born not of natural descent,c nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.

14The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only,d who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

15John testifies concerning him. He cries out, saying, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.’” 16From the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another. 17For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only,e,f who is at the Father’s side, has made him known.

John the Baptist Denies Being the Christ

19Now this was John’s testimony when the Jews of Jerusalem sent priests and Levites to ask him who he was. 20He did not fail to confess, but confessed freely, “I am not the Christ.g”

21They asked him, “Then who are you? Are you Elijah?”

He said, “I am not.”

“Are you the Prophet?”

He answered, “No.”

22Finally they said, “Who are you? Give us an answer to take back to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?”

23John replied in the words of Isaiah the prophet, “I am the voice of one calling in the desert, ‘Make straight the way for the Lord.’”h

24Now some Pharisees who had been sent 25questioned him, “Why then do you baptize if you are not the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet?”

26“I baptize withi water,” John replied, “but among you stands one you do not know. 27He is the one who comes after me, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie.”

28This all happened at Bethany on the other side of the Jordan, where John was baptizing.

Jesus the Lamb of God

29The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! 30This is the one I meant when I said, ‘A man who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.’ 31I myself did not know him, but the reason I came baptizing with water was that he might be revealed to Israel.”

32Then John gave this testimony: “I saw the Spirit come down from heaven as a dove and remain on him. 33I would not have known him, except that the one who sent me to baptize with water told me, ‘The man on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain is he who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.’ 34I have seen and I testify that this is the Son of God.”

sorry Doc.
i'm trying to stay out of the UberNerd threads...its getting tricky.

put stuff where ever it belongs.

(it seems like it all belongs in the same place: RELIGIONS vs JESUS)

rename this thread or move it around...maybe out of christianity & science (?)

TREE OF LIFE - KABBALAH















9-11....


pillars at St John The Divine Cathedral NY
from 1997.

Check this out its just barmy, my comments in blue:

Expert panel: NASA seems lost in space, needs goal.

Where is NASA going? Expert panel says space agency isn't quite sure, needs clear goals.

By Seth Borenstein, AP Science Writer | Associated Press – 1 hr 39 mins ago

WASHINGTON (AP) -- NASA is adrift without a coherent vision for where it should be going, an independent panel of space, science and engineering experts says.

Well, the original goal of the ORIGINS PROGRAM was to set out to prove the evolutionism/Darwinism/Big-Bangism paradigm correct. Now, seeing as everything looks like the universe is a giant finite bubble with Earth unmoving at the centre and everything else arranged in roughly concentric rings around us...it DOESN'T SURPRISE ME that NASA is utterly lost!

But the report by the National Academy of Sciences doesn't blame the space agency. It faults the president, Congress and the nation for not giving NASA clear direction. At the same time, the report said NASA is doing little to further the stated goal of the White House to send astronauts to a nearby asteroid.

??????? lolz....Obama wants to land astonuts on an asteroid...a complete physical IMPOSSIBILITY!

Panel member Bob Crippen, a retired NASA manager and astronaut who piloted the first space shuttle mission, said he has never seen the space agency so adrift. He said that includes the decade between the end of the Apollo moon landings and the beginning of the space shuttle program.

"I think people (at NASA) want to be focused a little more and know where they are going," Crippen told The Associated Press.

President Barack Obama in 2010 told the space agency to plan to send astronauts to an asteroid by 2025 as a training ground for an eventual Mars landing. But the 80-page report from the national academy and its authors say that there is little support for that idea within NASA and the international space community. Also, NASA hasn't allocated much money for it. Nor has it done much to locate an asteroid target. The agency's vague strategic plan avoids mention of an asteroid mission.

...obviously because they know its science fiction.

Crippen said an asteroid mission just doesn't make sense, technically or politically.

...there you have it.

"I hate to use the word credible, but people don't buy it," said academy panel member Marcia Smith, president of Space and Technology Policy Group. "They don't feel that the asteroid mission is the right one."

NASA chief spokesman David Weaver said in an emailed statement that the agency has clear and challenging goals.

Like what? Whats left for NASA? Nothing they set out to find has been found! Not aliens, not dark matter, not the big bang....NADA!

SOURCE: Yahoo News

Thought you guys might appreciate this thread by "JohnMartin" over at TheologyWeb.  He's the geocentrist I linked to before.

He made a thread basically challenging the entire mainstream(MS) worldview of the universe.  An interesting read. 

http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/showthread.php?157292-Will-MS-Science-Ever-Answer-its-Critics-Questions

JohnMartin wrote:
Mainstream Science (MS) followers often ask me questions about geocentrism for the sake of having fun with the geo geek. I have answered many questions on two very long geocentrism threads at T-web and now it’s time for the MSer’s to answer my questions. For all you MSer’s out there in T-web, please try to answer the following questions.

1. The uniformly expanding universe has zero probability of occurring. What answer does MS science have to say for the zero probability of all the galaxies moving apart uniformly?

2. What is the cause of the universe expanding uniformly in all directions and what is its experimental basis?

3. What experimental basis is there for space to expand? If there is none, why do MSer’s hold to space expansion in the standard model? Doesn’t this mean the standard model is without experimental foundation?

4. What is the experimental evidence for the universe expanding uniformly in all directions?

5. If there is a cause of the universal expansion in all directions, why then do MSer’s have a problem with other models that posit a universal cause of motion?

6. The expanding universe is full of dark energy and dark matter, which we have virtually no experimental evidence for. Why then do MSer’s insist on an expanding universe without any solid experimental basis for the model?

7. MS science in Newtonian Mechanics (NM) and Relativity (R) holds to several assumptions concerning gravity and these assumptions are very problematic. Why do MSer’s hold to those assumptions?

8. NM assumes gravity is caused by mass attraction. Yet there is no experimental evidence for such attraction. Why then do MSer’s insist NM can be used to prove the earth moves?

9. NM requires instantaneous action as a distance without a medium, making the gravity act to breach causation. Why then do MSer’s insist NM is a sound model?

10. There is no experimental evidence for mass attraction. Why then do MSer’s insist NM is sound without experimental evidence?

11. There is probably no atomic or particle physics theory, or any theory whatsoever for the cause of mass attraction. Why then do MSer’s insist NM is sound, when there is no MS science theory behind it?

12. NM is routinely invalidated in all the spiral galaxies we observe all over the universe. Why then do MSer’s insist NM is not invalidated and can be used to model the cosmos?

13. SR and GR require time dilation and length contraction, which have no experimental or rational basis. Why then do MSer’s insist SR and GR are sound, when two of their principle tenets are unsound and have not direct experimental basis?

14. GR says gravity is the bending of the ST continuum, which is merely a Cartesian coordinate system with relative fluid time t as the fourth dimension added onto fixed coordinates x,y,z. Why then do MSer’s insist GR has explanatory value when the S-T continuum with its variable time ‘t’ is not founded in reason?

15. Aberration of light is caused by a moving observer, yet there is no aberration of moon light. Why do MSer's insist the earth is moving when we have direct evidence in our own back yard that the earth is stationary?

16. The standard model is based upon the Copernican principle and an assumed homogenous universe. Yet the CMB has monopoles, dipoles, quardropoles and octopoles, showing the universe is not homogenous. How do MSer’s reconcile the poles with homogeneity?

17. The standard model is based upon GR which denies there can be a dipole in the universe, yet the CMB shows there is a dipole. How do MSer’s reconcile the universal dipole with GR?

18. The standard model includes dark energy and dark matter, which is so selective in choosing not to expand galaxies, but only the space between galaxies. How do MSer’s explain this selectivity?

19. Dark energy and dark matter permeates the universe but is excluded from the long range satellite flight path calcs. How do MSer’s explain omission?

I’m looking forward to a feast of non-answers, evasions and contradictions from the MSer’s. The shoe is on the other foot now ladies and gentlemen. It’s time for the MSer’s to be grilled.


JM

QUOTE~

Professor Eilam Gross of the Weizmann Institute of Science, described the "Big Bang" theory in terms amazingly consistent with the story of the Creation in the Torah and Kabbalah literature.
~
We briefly review the reference to just some of these concepts in the Torah and the Kabbalah:

"The origin of the universe at a single point"

According to the Kabbalah of Ha'ari, the emergence of the worlds began at a single point that occurred after the first "contraction" of the "infinite light" that filled all space prior to the Creation.
According to the Kabbalah, the beginning of the creation of the
physical world was in the formation of the primal material, and
immediately after its formation the dimension of time was created. The
process continued with the formation of the different types of
individual creatures, including the different materials of which they
are composed and time allotted to each of them.

"The ancient light trapped within plasma"

As early as Rashi's commentary of Genesis, we find mention that the
Creator hid the ancient light of the six days of the Creation. Since
then, this light has been referred to in Kabbalah literature as "the
hidden light" (or ganuz). The hidden light is revealed in the teachings
of the Kabbalah and Jewish mysticism to those who learn it, and will be
revealed to all humanity in the future.

"The universe spread out and cooled"

Kabbalah literature explains the interpretation of the name of the Creator,SH-D-I: she'amar le'olamo dai –
He who told the world enough(!). According to Jewish-Kabbalah
tradition about the creation of the world, in the beginning, the
heavens stretched out infinitely, until the Creator told them
"enough"(!) and stopped the spreading of the heavens and the entire
universe – a process parallel to restriction, cooling and gelling.

SOURCE: The big Bang, Kabbalah in the wourld

wow Doc. this is good.
was kinda having this convo with somebody - but they went quiet.
might come back and mine from here.

just amazing.

Edgar Allan Poe 1848

Though modern critics have dismissed Eureka for having no scientific worth or merit, Poe's work presages modern science with his own concept of the Big Bang. He postulated that the universe began from a single originating particle or singularity, willed by a "Divine Volition". This "primordial particle", initiated by God, divides into all the particles of the universe. These particles seek one another because of their originating unity (gravity) resulting in the end of the universe as a single particle.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eureka:_A_Prose_Poem#Influence_and_significance

''From the one particle, as a center,'' he wrote, ''let us suppose to be irradiated spherically -- in all directions -- to immeasurable but still to definite distances in the previously vacant space -- a certain inexpressibly great yet limited number of unimaginably yet not infinitely minute atoms.''

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/02/books/think-tank-what-did-poe-know-about-cosmology-nothing-but-he-was-right.html


And we're meant to believe Georges Lamaitre came up with Big Bang theory through scientific investigation, when people have been writing about the exact same thing for thousands of years... right.

It's the same thing with Darwin.  We get a fairytale that he came up with Evolution as the result of examining the evidence and drawing scientific hypotheses.   When in reality Darwin's own grandpa, and a legion of freemasons and occultists before him had been writing about roughly the same concept of Evolution for centuries, going right back to ancient religions.