The Orthodox Through Catholic Eyes

Part V from the book I’m reading, The Keys of This Blood by Malachi Martin (New York, Simon & Schuster, 1990, p 288).

This is remarkable, although, I've been finding out, typical. We are viewed in such thoroughly secular terms that Catholics think if we don't have their idea of enough political clout, then our "ancient tradition ... today avails them not."  

For John Paul, the pathos of their [Orthodox] position is accentuated by the fact that these groups are heirs to an ancient tradition that today avails them not. Within that tradition, they have an instinct for the georeligious and, therefore, for the geopolitical. But the passage of time and the development of circumstances exclude them from that georeligious and geopolitical stance they feel in their bones as part of their heritage, part of their mandate and part of their reason for existence as religious groups.

Because they climbed into their positions by breaking with the Roman papacy and so abandoned their only realistic hope of georeligious status, John Paul looks upon them with a special solicitude. But he knows that as they now stand, their future lies down one of two pathways. Either they will remain lodged in relative isolation in their historical crevasses, holding on to their traditions. Or, as some of them have already shown an inclination to do, they will decide to accept some forms of merger with the various tides advancing on their positions. Beyond that, any final and satisfactory relief of their pathos must await near-future historical events of a worldwide magnitude.

In the meantime, because of their past they exercise a certain political influence of a localized nature, with which John Paul must reckon. The Russian Orthodox Church centered in the Patriarchate of Moscow not only wields considerable influence over some 100 million members, it also becomes the consenting, if unwilling, handmaiden of the Soviet Party-State. Its major officials accepted positions in the KGB. Its authorities acquiesced in the massacre of thousands of Roman Catholic clergy and accepted —as spoils of war — many Roman Catholic churches and institutions. Indeed, today, at least one solid faction in the Patriarchal Church is virulently antipapal. Throughout the remaining branches of Eastern Orthodoxy there persists a deeply buried antipapal and anti-Roman prejudice; it is felt that any aggrandizement of the papacy can only come at the cost of Orthodox dignity and privilege.

Dear Catholics:

We do not see any pathos at all in our situation.  In fact, we rejoice to be in much better circumstances, currently, than we usually have been throughout our history.   (This was less so when the book was published, 1990.) 

Granted, there are few Greeks who wouldn't like to see a new Byzantium of some sort.  But this is definitely not any part of the Orthodox Faith, much less any part of our reason for existing.   There is no such thing as any "mandate" in our religion either, to acquire political power.  In fact, quite the opposite; our mandate is to divest ourselves of eveything worldly.  We pray for any bishop who develops a lust for political power or any other fleshly ambition; and we seek to correct him, whether by admonition or (in extreme cases) by demonstration. He ceases to carry much weight with us. He may even find himself the object of ridicule.

No, really, for the Orthodox, it is not about "dignity and privilege" and never has been.   Please, God, let it never be.

No, it is not prejudice that causes us to reject papal supremacy.  (Why would you promote such a slur?)  The issue is primarily theological.

But yes, there are also some bad feelings, reinforced by very sad experience.   Forget dignity and privilege; historically, it's our homes and/or our lives have been at stake.  (Pun intended.)  And we're not speaking only of ancient experience, either, so please skip the uncharitable part about us nursing ancient grudges.  No, we're talking also about what is happening up to and including the present day. For only one example, didn't I just post a description of how Pope John Paul II planned to subvert the Orthodox Church and culture and use her people as political pawns?  All in the name of fostering closer ties with us.  If that's what "closer ties" means, how can you expect us not to shy away?

Finally, here's a puzzle for you: we find our ancient tradition avails us everything; yes, everything.  If this surprises you, please go and try to find out what it means.

Kids Say the Darndest Things

E-mail received this morning from my daughter, Erin:

This morning Sydney woke me up and said, "My nose has stopped breathing." I said, "Really?" She said, "Yes, my nose is stuck and it won't smell ANYthing!"

More Babies

The Richmond Animal League has received from various "kill shelters" 36 puppies ranging in age from 4-8 weeks and has put out an SOS. So I've made them a deal. They promise to take back all 4 kittens next Thursday (the day before I leave town for the weekend) and I'll take 2 of the youngest puppies, possibly three if it's necessary to avoid having an odd one left over with no siblings. Which they will keep for me over the weekend I'm gone and then return to my care.

Puppies are harder than kittens because once they're up and running, they have to be taken outdoors to do their jobbies. (No, I will NOT paper-train any puppy in my house; I find that too disgusting.)

Do you suppose a puppy could be trained to use a litter box?

Breaking News...

Katherine, my daughter-in-law, is recovering nicely from an emergency appendectomy late this afternoon. As it was a laparoscopic procedure, she may even go home tomorrow, if she continues doing as well as she is now.

Her mother, who lives a bare mile or so away, has been caring for the three children (Kelly, age 8, Ryan and Connor, age 5). Mark, my son, nevertheless reports being "tired." Yup, hospitals will do that to you.

Looks like Erin (my daughter) and Jeff and little Sydney will be hosting Kelly and the twins tomorrow. There's going to a Christmas parade in their town, followed by a neighborhood pizza party, which Santa always visits, complete with a little gift for each child.

Get Mommed!

Even if you already have the most wonderful Mom in the world, who can't use some extra mothering?  Get yourself a cyber-Mom to tide you over the cold and flu season, courtesy of Kleenex.

You get your choice of several moms, including a Southern Mom, Hispanic Mom, Countercultural Mom, Prim and Proper Mom, African-American Mom, Jewish Mom, Asian Mom.  (That's in order, from left to right.) You can "interview" each of them. Or you can take a quiz and let the website recommend a Mom based upon your answers.

You can check items on a list you'd like your cyber-Mom to do for you, such as wake you up on a given morning or mornings (or after your nap in the afternoon), telepone you at bedtime and tell you a bedtime story, send you an e-mail about this morning's weather conditions, give you daily advice, etc. 

It's fun!  If you adopt one of these extra Moms, let me know which one, and then I'll tell you whether we are cyber-siblings!

A Graduation

The three baby squirrels have now graduated from the cat carrier to a wire cage.  I laid a sheet of plastic in a corner of the sunroom, with newspaper on top of that, to put under the cage.  Inside the cage I put a hanging water bottle, a mineral block, some apple chunks and rodent chow and a nest bag.  The nest bag consists of three king-sized, flannel pillowcases each inside the other.  It's hung in a corner of the cage with three large safety pins, so it has a triangular opening.

When I put the babies in the cage, they just froze in place from fright.  So I put them in the nest bag, where they are currently hiding.  Hunger will bring them out in due course, because although their size is increasing, the amount I formula I give them is not.  Hunger and curiosity will prod them to explore their new surroundings.  Oh, I should mention, there's a cover over their cage, so they don't feel so out in the open and exposed.

After they've learned to be at home in their new cage for three days or so, I'll move the cage, with an even warmer nest bag, outdoors.  The weather here is still in the upper 60's most days, in the afternoons, at least, so the change shouldn't be much of a shock. 

The four little kittens went with me this morning for a visit next door, to the day care center.  There, under close superivision, the children held them and petted them and two small dogs thoroughly sniffed them.  I'll try to repeat this exercise tomorrow and a bit next week, so these furballs will become good pets for homes with dogs and children.

Their own graduation is near; they are now nearly 8 weeks old, and at 9 weeks, they'll be put up for adoption.  I hope somebody takes them home for Christmas.

The Orthodox as the Pope’s Political Pawns

Part IV from the book I’m reading, The Keys of This Blood by Malachi Martin (New York, Simon & Schuster, 1990).

Pope John Paul had a two-pronged approach toward the Soviet Union. One was political; the other was to foment sociocultural change within it. This is from pages 43-44:

…there was nothing in the Vatican’s Ostpolitik, and nothing in the Vatican protocols, to keep [the Pope] from attempting an end run around the Soviet Party-State. In precisely such a move, the New Holy Father set about building closer and ever closer ties with the Russian Orthodox Church and with Eastern Orthodoxy in general.

This papal end run included overt moves – John Paul visiting the Greek Orthodox center in Instanbul, for example; and he received and openly favored visits to the Vatican by Orthodox prelates. But there were also constant covert moves originating in Poland and radiating into western parts of the USSR, moves that fostered a common religious bond between Eastern European roman Catholics and Russian Orthodox communities.

Later historians with access to records unavailable today will document the successes of John Paul’s end-run policies and their basic premise. Suffice it to say now that, in spite of the official prostitution of the Russian Orthodox Church to the ideological policies of the Party-State, John Paul’s efforts nourished within that Church a genuinely Christian core of prelates and people eager once and for all to reenter the mainstream of European Christianity as vindicated by papal Rome; and eager as well to renounce the role, accepted once upon a time by Russian Orthodox Church authorities, as servants of the Soviet Party-State in the fomentation of worldwide revolution.

By the opening of the eighties, about half of the Orthodox prelates were already secretly prepared, if the opportunity were afforded, to place themselves under the ecclesiastical unity of the Roman Pope.

Martin Malachi remarks a couple of paragraphs later (p. 45) that this "end run around Soviet officaldom was not a religious gambit, but a geopolitical strategy."

So much for the self-congratulatory talk one sometimes hears in Orthodox circles about the pope: He's afraid of us because he knows we have the true Faith. He dares not deny our doctrine, because the Catholics themselves once taught it. So since he cannot deny our doctrine, yet it is differenct from his, he feels the only thing left is, he has to get rid of us.

Nnnnnnno. Theology and spirituality don't enter into it. The Pope isn’t even interested in us religiously at all. Only in whatever political power or influence the Orthodox Church may have.   It is our misfortune, you see, to occupy, in Europe, a place of great strategic importance.  "In John Paul’s geopolitical analysis, Europe from the Atlantic to the Urals is a giant seesaw of power. Europe from the Baltic to the Adriatic Sea is the center of that power. The Holy Father’s battle was to control that center."

Baby Squirrels

The squirrels have become used to me, and have made the association between me and food.  So now I put my hand in their box and they all compete to be the first to climb into it.  Nobody offers to bite anymore.

I don't even have to keep track anymore of which one/s I've fed; the hungry one/s will climb aboard eagerly.

Within a day or two, I shall remove them from the cat carrier in which they now reside and put them into a wire cage.  Easier to keep clean, and it will give them a chance to learn to climb. 

Kittens, meanwhile, have learned they can get over the barrier I've put at the kitchen door.  They don't much care to, but any day now I'm going to have a problem.  Guess I'll have to devise some sort of better top for their playpen.  They learned 3 days ago they could get out of the existing one.

You Can’t Really Root for Any Side

Part III of exerpts from The Keys of This Blood by Malachi Martin (New York, Simon & Schuster, 1990

If you are hoping the Western alliance will win the competition for ruling the New World Order, think again.

In the first place, these people are not religion-friendly. Or if they are, most of them are Jews, among the entrepreneurs, the global executives, the shakers and movers, even among the heads of State. Mr. Obama, of course, is not Jewish, but his top advisors are: David Plouffe, David Axelrod, Emmanual Rahm. Read The Israel Lobby for much more and valuable information.

Moreover, a global government is not going to look anything like a traditional, American, Jeffersonian democracy. Here’s a sober reminder from the book I’m reading (pp. 15-16).

The fundamental idea of democracy – government of, for and by the people, with its ancillary institutions guaranteeing both continuity in government and fundamental rights on the person and civic levels of life – is inviolable in its structural elements. Take away any element – the right to vote, say, or the right of free association – and the entire structure loses its integrity. Tip the balance in favor of one institutional arm, executive over legislative, or legislative over judicial – and the orderly system is jiggered. Adopt only one provision of democracy – take the right of free association again – or even three or four, and as Mr. Gorbachev is presently learning the hard way, you will not have anything like the democratic egalitarianism of the United States or Great Britain.

The fact of the matter is, however, that any geopolitical structure worthy of the name would necessitate an entirely different regime of rights and duties. In a truly one-world order, it would not be possible to regulate an election of high officials in the same manner as democratic egalitarianism requires. General referenda would also be impossible.

So obvious has this difficulty been … that warning scenarios have long been prepared in the democratic capitalist camp itself. Scenarios that show in considerable detail just how and why, in the transition to a world order, the various processes of democracy would have to be shouldered by select groups, themselves picked by other select groups.

It takes little imagination to see that such a situation is not likely to lead to egalitarianism, democratic or otherwise. Nor is it likely to lead to wide rolling plains and smiling upland meadows of popular contentment.

Animal Nursery Report

The three little squirrels are still terrified of me. They were used to Chris, of course, and she has more kittens and cats than I have, so she must have had as much of their scent as I do, but that doesn't seem to be the overriding factor. It's MY scent that scares them. The smallest, the male, is the least scared. The largest, a female, has twice nipped me, without breaking the skin. Now I don't give her that opportunity any more. I still wrap their heads with a corner of the baby blanket so they can't see me, at least at first, until they are already hungrily sucking away. Then I let them see me. Then it seems okay.

They're munching on Cheerios, walnuts, broccoli, and carrots in between bottle feedings. The two smaller ones are taking 12 ccs of formula per feeding; the largest is taking 14-15.

The male is an aspirator. You have to feed him twice as slowly as his sisters, lest he get the formula up his nose and choke on it.

They're about a third of their adult size. Tails already rather fluffy.

Kittens are doing very well. We spent about an hour snuggling this morning, on the sofa in the sunroom.

That sunroom, by the way, is even more important to us in Winter than in Summer. Sitting in its bright light, especially during these shortest days of the year, takes away my winter blahs (Seasonal Affective Disorder) almost entirely. I hardly mind winter now, as long as I can be in that room for at least an hour or so each day.

On the Vatican's Role in Geopolitics

When I first began reading The Keys of This Blood by Malachi Martin (New York, Simon & Schuster, 1990), I took it as an indictment of the Vatican. Upon re-reading the first chapter (Yes, it’s worth more than one reading!), I now find it all full of breathless admiration. Well, it’s a bit difficult to tell, as if Malachi Martin himself were ambivalent about it.

At any rate, most of us never attributed nearly as much importance as this author does to the pope’s role in the geopolitical arena.

In any case, though, it’s alarming to think of the papacy now once again imagining itself in such a role, seeking to control the world and considering this its rightful place. Here’s another couple of excerpts from the book to make us ponder. I’ve put into boldface the phrases I find most troubling, although all of it is.

In October of 1978, when [Korol Wojtyla] emerged from the Sistine Chapel in Rome as Pope John Paul II, the 263rd successor to Peter the Apostle, he was himself the head of the most extensive and deeply experienced of the three global powers that would, within a short time, set about ending the nation system of world politics that has defined human society for over a thousand years.

It is not too much to say, in fact, that the chosen purpose of John Paul’s pontificate – the engine that drives his papal grand policy and that determines his day-to-day, year-by-year strategies – is to be the victor in that competition, now well under way.

(p. 17)

In a move that was so totally unexpected at that moment…that it was misread by most of the world – but a move that was characteristic in its display of his independence of both East and West – Pope John Paul embarked without delay on his papal gamble to force the hand of geopolitical change.

In the late spring of 1979, he made an official visit as newly elected Roman Pope to his Soviet-run homeland of Poland. There, he defined [the issues of the day] again and again in terms based solely and solidly on Roman Catholic principles…

It is a measure of the frozen mentalities of that time that few in the West understood the enormous leap John Paul accomplished in that first of his many papal travels. Mot observers took it as the return of a religious leader to his beloved Poland, as an emotional but otherwise unremarkable apostolic visit, complete with sermons and ceremonies and excited, weeping throngs.

…

Presciently as well as by planned design, the Pontiff’s first step into the geopolitical arena was eastward into Poland, the underbelly of the Soviet Union. In John Paul’s geopolitical analysis, Europe from the Atlantic to the Urals is a giant seesaw of power. Europe from the Baltic to the Adriatic Sea is the center of that power. The Holy Father’s battle was to control that center.)

ANASTASIA’S NOTE: That center includes Greece and several other Orthodox nations.

World commentary and opinion aside, therefore, the point of John Paul’s foray into Poland was not merely that he was a religious leader. The point was that he was more. He was a geopolitical pope. … Now he served notice that he intended to take up and effectively exercise once more the international role that had been central to the tradition of Rome, and to the very mandate Catholics maintain was conferred by Christ upon Peter and upon each of his successors.

(p. 21-22)

On his trip to Poland in 1979, barely eight months after his election, he signaled the opening of the millennium endgame. He became the first of the three players to enter the new geopolitical arena.

(p. 23)

ANASTASIA’S NOTES: If this is true and if the author's earlier statement is also true, that "now that it [the competition] has started, there is no way it can be reversed or called off," then the Pope did us no favor in initiating it.

But it seems to me the Pope was the last of the three competitors to enter the arena. The United States and the Soviet Union had been at it since the end of World War II. Cold War, and all; anybody remember that?

New World Order

Willing or not, ready or not, we are all involved in an all-out, no-holds-barred three-way global competition. Most of us are not competitors, however. We are the stakes. For the competition is about who will establish the first one-world system of government that has ever existed in the society of nations. It is about who will hold and wield the dual power of authority and control over each of us as individuals and over all of us together as a community; over the entire six billion people expected by demographers to inhabit the earth by early in the third millennium.

The competition is all-out because, now that it has started, there is no way it can be reversed or called off.

No holds are barred because, once the competition has been decided, the world and all that’s in it – our way of life as individuals and as citizens of the nations; our families and our jobs; our trade and commerce and money; our educational systems and our religions and our cultures; even the badges of our national identity, which most of us have always taken for granted – all will have been powerfully and radically altered forever. No one can be exempted from its effects. No sector of our lives will remain untouched.

The competition began and continues as a three-way affair because that is the number of rivals with sufficient resources to establish and maintain a new world order.

Nobody who is acquainted with the plans of these three rivals has any doubt but that only one of them can win. Each expects the other two to be overwhelmed and swallowed up in the coming maelstrom of change. That being the case, it would appear inescapable that their competition will end up as a confrontation.

As for the time factor involved, those of us who are under seventy [in 1990] will see at least the basic structures of the new world government installed. Those of us under forty will surely live under its legislative, executive, and judiciary authority and control. Indeed, the three rivals themselves – and many more besides as time goes on – speak about this new world order not as something around a distant corner of time, but as something that is imminent.

These are the opening words of The Keys of This Blood, a non-fiction work by the former Jesuit, Malachi Martin. Martin was a long-time Vatican insider; his book details the role of the Vatican in this three-way struggle. What role? The Vatican, he says, was first in the arena, initiating the competition. And the Vatican is one of the three competitors. The other two, says Martin, writing in 1990, are the Soviet Union and certain allied Western interests, namely, global corporations and their political lackeys, presidents, senators, congressmen, etc.

Today, 20 years later, we'd probably say the Soviet Union has been replaced in the arena by China. And perhaps the Vatican has been eclipsed by Islam.

But the competition is still on, and it's the real reason for so much of what governments do, including our own, that otherwise seems to make so little sense.

No, this competition didn't start under President Obama, but in the late 1970s. And it has been joined by every President since, Republican or Democrat. With the possible exception of Bill Clinton, whose administration was too scandal-ridden to deal with much else. And - biggest scandal of all, though it received less attention - who actually sold himself to China.

No, our politicians aren't stupid. They're just out to rule the world. Or at least to prevent their rivals from doing it, which amounts to the same thing.

This is going to be a fascinating book. I can hardly wait to read the rest.

Animal Nursery, December Report

The four kittens have been here nearly two and a half weeks now. It took most of that time to get them healthy. They turned out to have clostridium, a nasty bacterium, one strain of which is botulism and another, tetanus. My theory is that the canned food the agency gave me was bad. It certainly stank horribly. But I'd never used that brand before, or ever heard of it, so I assumed it was supposed to...

Anyway, they are on Day 7 of a 10-day course of amoxycillin. Kitties are bouncy once again, chasing each other around, having mock fights. They're on a different brand of canned food, and only as a supplement to the dry.

The best socialized of the bunch is Miss Fortune, the all-black one. Next comes Mittens. She was originally named something else, but "Mittens" is what stuck, because of her four white paws and white chin and tummy. Mittens will nibble your ear. Or chin, or will suck upon anything she can. Then comes Aurora, the biggest, twice the weight of Miss Fortune, with the longest hair, very silky. The least socialized is Tinkerbelle, the one I thought would turn out to be the runt, but she isn't; Miss Fortune is. Tinkerbelle does not like to be picked up! She will, however, come to you and climb all over you and snuggle after a while.

They're nearly 7 weeks old now; two more weeks and they'll graduate from my nursery and be put up for adoption.

Also, St. Nicholas left me a gift today. It's three baby squirrels! Squirrels are not, not, not supposed to have babies this time of year, but they do anyway, occasionally. These are 5 weeks old, eyes opened a week ago, according to Chris, who had them 2 and a half weeks but needed to pass them on. They are just starting to nibble on solids and meanwhile are still bottle-fed, three times a day. Yay!! They will have to be wintered over; that's the bad part. It isn't much fun traipsing outside in the winter weather to keep them fed and supplied with non-frozen water. Well, that's a few weeks away, yet. No point worrying about it now. For now, I'm just going to enjoy having some warm furballs to bottle feed. Thank you, St. Nicholas!

Riddle: What's nicer than three kittens snuggling with you, all purring?

Answer: Four.

Beware Your Small Children

You already know to be careful what you say around them. But what you do can also come back to bite you. As in the time I innocently asked a little girl next door how her mother was, and the five-year-old replied, "Well, right now she's in her room with the door locked, which probably means she has stress. Or else migraine."

My daughter's friend was mortified last week when her kindergartner came home with the picture she had drawn to share with the class. It showed Mommy and Daddy in the shower.

Hint for teachers and neighbors: Just do not say a single word. Anything whatsoever you say is apt to be quoted back to the parents, or worse yet, misquoted to them.

Anthropic Coincidence, Part 2 of 2

Here are several more conditions necessary for the emergence of complex, intelligent life, taken from this web site. I do not necessarily understand all of them, but here they are, in case you do. Or you can just skim or even skip this list and go to the comments at the end of this post.

The Big-bang

• The explosive-force of the big-bang had to be fine-tuned to match the strength of gravity to one part in 10000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000.

• This is one part in 10^60. The number 10^60 = 1 followed by 60 zeros.

• This precision is the same as the odds of a random shot (bullet from a gun) hitting a one-inch target from a distance of 20 billion light-years.

• Epistemic probability: 0.00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00001
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Density-of-matter in the Big-bang

• In the big-bang, the density-of-matter in the universe after Planck time (fraction of a second after the big-bang) had to be matched to the critical-density to better than one part in 10000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000.

• This is one part in 10^50, which is 1 followed by 50 zeros.

• Epistemic probability: 0.00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00001
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The inflationary Big-bang

• In the inflationary big-bang, the cosmological constant and a particular force need to be fine-tuned for galaxies and planets to form.

• The net result is a situation with an epistemic-probability of one part in 10^81, which is 1 followed by 81 zeros.

• Epistemic probability: 0.00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 1
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Lambda in the inflationary Big-bang

• In the inflationary big-bang, bare-lambda and quantum-lambda (two components of the cosmological constant) had to be fine-tuned to cancel each other to better than one part in 10000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000, for galaxies and planets to form.

• This is one part in 10^50, which is 1 followed by 50 zeros.

• Epistemic probability: 0.00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00001
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The Strong Force

• The strong-force (which binds particles in atomic nuclei) had to be balanced with the weak-nuclear-force to about one part in 10000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000.

• This is one part in 10^60, which is 1 followed by 60 zeros.

• Epistemic probability: 0.00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00001
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Gravity

• The force of gravity had to be tuned to one part in 10000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000, for stars capable of supporting-life to exist (based on balancing electromagnetic forces with gravitational forces).

• This is one part in 10^40, which is 1 followed by 40 zeros.

• Epistemic probability: 0.00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00001
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Electrons & Protons

• The number of electrons had to be matched to the number of protons to one part in 10000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00, for formation of stars and planets.

• This is one part in 10^37, which is 1 followed by 37 zeros.

• Epistemic probability: 0.00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 01
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Carbon Resonance

• A nuclear resonance had to be created for formation of carbon (via alpha particle collision with Beryllium-8) and then tuned to close to a specific energy, to enable a brief window of opportunity for formation of carbon.

• Without this, there would be negligible carbon in the universe.

• Carbon is the only element designed to be capable of forming the long molecular-chains necessary for the complexity required by life (silicon for instance forms much shorter and less versatile chains that are not specified-complex enough).
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Oxygen Resonance

• A nuclear resonance for formation of oxygen had to be tuned to prevent complete cannibalization of carbon (via alpha-particle collision with carbon, resulting in oxygen).

• If the oxygen-resonance were half a percent higher, there would be negligible carbon in the universe and on earth. Carbon is the only element designed to be capable of forming the long molecular-chains necessary for the complexity required by life.
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Particle masses

• Proton, neutron and electron masses had to be fine-tuned to enable life.

• For instance, free neutrons decay to form protons. If the proton mass were slightly higher, the opposite would happen, resulting in a universe full of neutronium.

• There would be no elements (no hydrogen, oxygen, carbon) and no way to create the molecular-complexity required for life.
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Weak Nuclear Force

• The weak-nuclear force had to be fine-tuned to enable life.

• Slightly stronger, and no helium or heavier elements would form. And there would be no means to create the molecular-complexity required for life.

• Slightly weaker, and no hydrogen would remain (to provide fuel for steady-burning stars needed as sources of energy for life).

• Also, supernova explosions would not be able to disperse the medium-to-heavy elements created in stars.

• Elements such as carbon (for molecular chains basic to life), iron (for hemoglobin), copper and other elements used in life-forms were originally created in stars, then dispersed by supernova explosions, to finally reach/coalesce into earth…
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Dimensions

• The number of dimensions in our universe had to be fine-tuned to enable life.

• The topological, and physical laws of the universe need more than two spatial-dimensions, and less than five extended-dimensions for stability and the complexity required for life…

• This requirement is met in our universe, with 3 extended spatial-dimensions and 1 temporal dimension.
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Carbon chemistry

• Lee Smolin (a world-class physicist and a leader in quantum gravity) estimates that if the physical constants of the universe were chosen randomly, the epistemic-probability of ending up with a world with carbon chemistry is less than one part in 10^220.

• This epistemic-probability is one part in: 10000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 0.

• Epistemic Probability: 0.0000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 1
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Cosmological Flatness

• Lee Smolin (physicist) estimates the epistemic-probability for the "equivalent-temperature" of the universe being such as to enable cosmological flatness, to be one part in 10^32.
• Epistemic Probability: 0.00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 01
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Quantum Gravity & Cosmological Flatness

• Looking at Quantum Gravity and what it would take to obtain Flat Euclidean 3D space upto cosmological scales (as observed in our universe) …
• Calculating the epistemic probability of this occurring by random chance, using spin-networks from Roger Penrose, applied to quantum gravity by Lee Smolin and co-scientists. The number of predicted spin-network nodes in our universe would be at least 10^180. And allowing a 10% deviation from cosmological flatness, we end up with an epistemic-probability of less than one part in 10^(10^180).

• This is one part in 10^(10^180), which is 10 followed by 10^180 zeros.

• Epistemic Probability: 0.0000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 … … … … … 00001

• If I were to write this number out, as 0.0000 0000 …, with all of its zeros, we would need a computer hard-drive much larger than the size of our entire universe, just to hold all of the zeros that I would have to write out.
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The big-bang (reprise)

• The big-bang had to result in a universe with relatively low-entropy (a high degree of thermodynamic-order), which could then proceed to increase in entropy with time, thus enabling formation of galaxies, stars, planets and ultimately enabling life to function once it was created.

• In 1989 Roger Penrose (a world-class mathematician) calculated the precision required to create our universe with the necessary thermodynamic-order and to send it on its way (to develop in a manner compatible with life). His calculated precision was one part in 10^(10^123).

END OF LIST

Now these lists I’ve shared with you are by no means exhaustive. There are lots more factors. If you combine all the probabilities, you get a probability of it all happening that is incomprehensibly small.

Can we get from this type of data to God? Yes and no.

What we can’t get to from here is the Christian God, the Holy Trinity, the good God, the Only Lover of Mankind. We can’t arrive at that from here because Christian theology doesn't work that way. Christian theology begins and ends with Jesus Christ; it arises from the lived encounter His followers have with Jesus, from the beginning of His earthly ministry down to today. So we mustn’t make too much of an argument from Anthropic Coincidence.

Nevertheless, as St. Paul writes, "what may be known of God is manifest in them [the unrighteous], for God has shown it to them. For since the creation of the world the invisible things of Him are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, namely His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse.” (Romans 1:20) That much we can get to: we can understand that God (some sort of God) exists and has eternal power.

Atheists have some remarkable ways of trying to get around this, of denying that the universe is fine-tuned (designed intentionally) for life. One way they seek to avoid this conclusion is to theorize that not all life must necessarily be anything like what we know as life. Perhaps there is such a thing, for example, as silicon-based life, rather than carbon-based. Computer chips, after all, are silicon. Could they evolve to intelligent life forms? (I told you this was remarkable stuff!) Or could the Web morph into a living being?

Or perhaps life somewhere is made of something else altogether other than chemicals, other than molecules. (Such as what? Angels?)

Ultimately fatal to the design argument is the unwarranted assumption that only one type of life is possible--a chemistry-based life such as we have here on earth. This would not exist except for the narrow range of parameters in our universe … We have no basis for ruling out other forms of matter than molecules in the universe as building blocks of complex systems. From TalkReason.

But of course these argument fail to address the known data, shifting instead to daydreams. If you don’t like the data, invent some imaginary data. But we’re not speaking of anybody’s fantasy. The debate concerns life as we know it.

Another “out” atheists like, the most common one apparently, is to speculate that our universe is actually one of many. Perhaps in other universes, the laws of nature don't hold. And what's a "law of nature" anyway?

Prior to these recent developments, the physicist's conception of the laws of nature was pretty much that of most lay people: those laws were assumed to be rules for the behavior of matter and energy that are part of the very structure of the universe, laid out at the creation. However, in the past several decades we have gradually come to understand that what we call "laws of physics" are basically our own descriptions of certain symmetries observed in nature and the way in which these symmetries, in some cases, happen to be broken.

Yup, "laws of nature" don't always hold, as the Orthodox will readily agree. But other universes, operating on different principles?

Even if the same laws of physics hold true in every universe, say atheists, maybe there are so many universes that, however small the chances, the conditions for life were bound to be right, eventually, just by chance, in at least one of them. And our universe, unsurprisingly, is merely that one. This is really the only way to go (so far as I can see)if you want to insist this universe is random.

Of course there is not a shred, not an iota, of evidence for all these hypothetical other universes, or even for just one of them. Much less for universes with different "laws of nature." Suddenly, scientists become highly unscientific! Suddenly, they've left science behind altogether.

Once we do that, then frankly, it seems not only easier, but also more reasonable, more intelligent, even more nearly scientific, just to believe in God.