Saturday, December 12, 2015

2015 Council on Pandeism meeting text

We had a great Pandeism meeting on Dec. 12 at noon Pacific Time. Much of it was spoken, but some was typed. A lot of the typed stuff makes little sense out of the context of the spoken conversation, but here it is anyway, as a record for the interested.

Blessings!!

[12:12:51 PM] K Mapson: hello, is anybody out there?
[12:13:34 PM] K Mapson: who's that?
[12:13:39 PM] K Mapson: Juice?
[12:14:17 PM] juice The Jedi Dominguez: my computer inst compatible and I'm signing thru my phone
[12:14:19 PM] K Mapson: [I'm actually not sure who else is in the call, you're the only vid I see, but I hear another voice]
[12:14:32 PM] K Mapson: That is the Buddhabrot!!
[12:15:06 PM] K Mapson: It is indeed.
[12:15:31 PM] K Mapson: Juice, are you typing?
[12:15:39 PM] juice The Jedi Dominguez: can you hear me? not sure how to join
[12:15:42 PM] K Mapson: The Buddhabrot is a mathemetical formula.
[12:15:55 PM] Amy P-----: we can't hear you right now, juice.
[12:16:02 PM] K Mapson: are you speaking? I'm sure I heard you (or somebody) earlier.
[12:16:15 PM] Amy P-----: yeah somebody said hello.
[12:16:53 PM] Amy P-----: we hear you
[12:16:56 PM] K Mapson: hello, we hear you!!
[12:17:09 PM] Amy P-----: yes
[12:17:10 PM] K Mapson: Yes, can you hear Amy?
[12:17:40 PM] Ivan Sanders: Wish I could join you guys
[12:17:57 PM] K Mapson: Ivan Sanders is the creater of Koilas
[12:18:11 PM] K Mapson: longtime friend -- good man for the cause
[12:18:18 PM] K Mapson: yes he is
[12:18:20 PM] Ivan Sanders: Koilas.org is for you guys. If you want to add or change anything to it let me know.
[12:18:39 PM] Amy P-----: thanks, Koilas
[12:18:41 PM] K Mapson: http://www.koilas.org/
[12:19:25 PM] K Mapson: Koilas is a quite interesting effort to build a pandeistic religion.
[12:19:26 PM] Ivan Sanders: It's totally for you guys. And for the world. I can do anything with it, so let me know and we can use it for any purpose.
[12:19:46 PM] K Mapson: Ivan, I signed the book contract today.
[12:19:52 PM] K Mapson: with the what where on Twitter?
[12:20:00 PM] Amy P-----: alien face
[12:20:06 PM] K Mapson: Crispy Sea?
[12:20:14 PM] Ivan Sanders: Congratulations! I have to go, traveling today. You guys have a good and productive meeting.
[12:20:23 PM] Amy P-----: thanks for coming
[12:20:39 PM] Ivan Sanders: Take care. Miss you KM
[12:20:50 PM] Ivan Sanders: (penguin)
[12:20:54 PM] K Mapson: Bless you, Ivan -- we'll be in touch!!
[12:21:05 PM] K Mapson: YES!! Phillip -- one of my writers!!
[12:21:15 PM] K Mapson: I'm typing in.
[12:21:22 PM] Phillip Jones: Hi
[12:21:39 PM] K Mapson: We have Amy, Juice, and Phillip
[12:22:45 PM] K Mapson: So now would be the time for the statement, for inspiration!!
[12:27:11 PM] K Mapson: I feel you, brother -- same for me!!
[12:27:17 PM] K Mapson: (no, mine blew up completely)
[12:28:56 PM] K Mapson: Being told not to look for an answer is no better than being told that the answer comes from a Bronze-Age book.
[12:29:22 PM] K Mapson: Very into that, yes.
[12:29:48 PM] K Mapson: If our Universe was designed for us to evolve to this point, why would it be meant to stop here?
[12:29:58 PM] Amy P-----: good point
[12:31:06 PM] K Mapson: But that's good!! That's a way through the usual filter!!
[12:32:09 PM] K Mapson: Yes, the Internet.
[12:32:32 PM] K Mapson: reaches people who, generations past, would only ever have been told things by their parents and peers
[12:32:46 PM] K Mapson: The book will be in print too!! ;)
[12:34:13 PM] K Mapson: It is an inevitable synergy. An idea like Pandeism comes to make sense at the same time as the technology comes to exist to disperse the knowledge.
[12:34:47 PM] K Mapson: (almost as if it was planned like that) ;)
[12:35:41 PM] K Mapson: I define a deity by what it does -- it's an entity able to create a rational Universe, with whatever power and intellect is required for that.
[12:36:26 PM] K Mapson: I think there's a universal underlying connectedness, which people sometimes feel, and mistake for the bearded guy in the sky.
[12:36:48 PM] K Mapson: But an awesome cell!!
[12:36:58 PM] K Mapson: We are all awesome cells!!
[12:38:29 PM] K Mapson: Some of our writers who focus on the consciousness aspect -- Bernardo Kastrup and Anthony Peake.
[12:39:36 PM] K Mapson: (if you look them up on Amazon, you can get a sense of their writings)
[12:40:16 PM] K Mapson: Very confusingly -- since I use PanDeist on some sites.
[12:40:45 PM] K Mapson: He is.
[12:41:24 PM] K Mapson: Typing -- no microphone.
[12:42:45 PM] K Mapson: I would consider "science" as a whole being the means by which we discover how the Creator did everything.
[12:43:57 PM] K Mapson: I'd recommend to everybody to read William C. Lane's article on Leibniz's Best World, which addresses this issue very well (it will be republished in the book as well). It's dense writing, but packed full of thought.
[12:44:42 PM] Amy P-----: which subject?
[12:45:36 PM] K Mapson: Lane's article? Its ostensibly about morality, but it points out that a pandeistic Creator could not create a Universe with no suffering in it, unless it makes physics insanely more complex.
[12:45:55 PM] K Mapson: So far as we can tell, our laws of physics are the simplest set of rules which can bring about our life-generating Universe.
[12:47:59 PM] K Mapson: Dawkins is great at explaining that part, actually -- too bad he sees it through such a reductionist framework.
[12:49:56 PM] K Mapson: We are evolving ourselves. What we evolve ourselves towards is inevitably something more godlike, in intellect at least.
[12:51:32 PM] K Mapson: A friend of mine once described the theistic image of god as "a cartoon clown suit" thrown on the Creator to make it comfortable to envision.
[12:51:45 PM] Amy P-----: haha I like that
[12:52:37 PM] K Mapson: That's why theism is so terrible tho -- we take all these human traits, bigotries, fears, and assign them to a god.
[12:53:59 PM] K Mapson: That is what Ivan Sanders is doing with Koilas -- writing a religion that will be updated as new knowledge is added.
[12:54:08 PM] K Mapson: Sure!!
[12:55:46 PM] K Mapson: I want to go over the state of the book, and the plan for it, and for the Kickstarter to support it.
[12:56:08 PM] K Mapson: These are, in my view, all ways to distribute the knowledge.
[12:56:33 PM] K Mapson: For example, Kickstarter is a fundraising platform, but people who look at this there will learn about it.
[12:57:14 PM] K Mapson: There are countless forums out there, beyond Twitter and Facebook and the like.
[12:58:37 PM] K Mapson: An the unending battles between "Christianity" and "Islam" or between "Theism" and "Atheism" suck all the oxygen out of the room. Like "Coke" and "Pepsi" -- with no option for "water"!!
[12:59:36 PM] K Mapson: That's why it is so important that we have even these small discussions.
[12:59:56 PM] K Mapson: Phillip, has this helped you think about what you will write?
[1:00:20 PM] K Mapson: (that is a great, great direction)
[1:00:48 PM] Amy P-----: glad you agree
[1:01:27 PM] Ivan Sanders: Wish I could participate. Last time there were 3 of us and it lasted 3 hours. Again, I want everyone to know that Koilas.org is for everyone and I would love to add more content in the website. Take care everyone and keep me in the loop at [email address]
[1:01:45 PM] K Mapson: Ivan, we'll definitely keep you in!!
[1:02:20 PM] Amy P-----: thanks, we brought Koilas up again while you were absent, Ivan
[1:03:24 PM] K Mapson: We must always begin by confessing we could be wrong in everything we believe.... unfortunately, the most wrong people never take that step.
[1:04:31 PM] K Mapson: I tend not to call it a religion -- it's a philosophy, a framework for seeing our Universe in a way which makes sense.
[1:05:14 PM] Amy P-----: I agree with that view as well
[1:05:25 PM] K Mapson: I  love that. Must find it.
[1:05:32 PM] Amy P-----: must find what?
[1:05:37 PM] K Mapson: that quote
[1:06:29 PM] K Mapson: Juice, find out where that quote about the Nobel Prize comes from!! :D
[1:07:08 PM] Amy P-----: hyperspace by michio kaku
[1:07:41 PM] K Mapson: So I wanted everybody to know we have ten authors so far for the Pandeism Anthology, and are aiming to get all pieces in by March.
[1:08:44 PM] K Mapson: The Kickstarter will be started most likely in January, to fund a college writing competition with a modest cash prize, with the winning article to be published in the book as well.
[1:09:28 PM] K Mapson: Authors thus far:
[1:09:30 PM] K Mapson: Robert G. Brown
William C. Lane
Raphael Lataster
Orlando Alcantara Fernandez
Bernardo Kastrup
Phillip Alexander Jones
Alan Dawe
Anthony Peake
Julian West
Michael Arnheim
[1:09:48 PM] K Mapson: Brown is physicist at Duke Univ.
[1:10:54 PM] K Mapson: Lataster is an Australian theologian
[1:11:04 PM] K Mapson: by Bernard Haisch
[1:11:27 PM] K Mapson: (I asked Haisch to write a piece for the anthology, but he's not writing in that area anymore)
[1:12:51 PM] K Mapson: I'd kind of like to get some 'opposing viewpoints' pieces from atheists/theists, but have gotten no bites from those I've asked.
[1:13:29 PM] K Mapson: But 10-12 pieces is a healthy selection for an anthology.
[1:14:35 PM] K Mapson: The fact that other possibilities are possible doesn't itself make any possibility impossible. ;)
[1:15:19 PM] Amy P-----: what other types of voices do we have in the anthology?
[1:15:22 PM] K Mapson: If there's no beginning, everything would already have happened infinitely long ago!!
[1:15:50 PM] K Mapson: Alan Dawe (from New Zealand) is more of a spiritualist -- he wrote "The God Franchise," great book.
[1:16:04 PM] K Mapson: Julian West is a historian of mythology
[1:16:43 PM] K Mapson: Michael Arnheim is a UK barrister, who wrote "The God Book" (just came out) which is an argument for Deism.
[1:17:04 PM] Amy P-----: any other info to cover after this, k?
[1:17:44 PM] K Mapson: I think we're good -- I think we've got a sense of direction. Naturally, we could go on talking about the topic for hours.... but at some point we must live our lives as well!!
[1:17:56 PM] Amy P-----: haha, ok
[1:18:26 PM] K Mapson: I'm going to put up a website to track progress, and will send it to everybody.
[1:18:54 PM] K Mapson: You're both writers -- write!!
[1:19:16 PM] K Mapson: Amy, from you I want a poem. I'll sneak that into the book as well.
[1:20:21 PM] Amy P-----: @amybeff
[1:20:30 PM] K Mapson: Well, for Juice, and all of us -- keep getting into arguments with people about it -- hearing their objections always sharpens our ability to address the possibilities.
[1:21:57 PM] K Mapson: There are like ten Facebook Pandeism groups.... need to bring them all together.
[1:22:16 PM] Amy P-----: alright, let's keep that in mind
[1:22:27 PM] K Mapson: (Amy, do I know you know you on Facebook)
[1:22:44 PM] Amy P-----: Not currently
[1:22:50 PM] K Mapson: (find me there, I'm the only Knujon Mapson)
[1:22:57 PM] Amy P-----: got it
[1:22:59 PM] K Mapson: Mind = blown
[1:23:12 PM] K Mapson: Nope -- that is it for today -- blessings, all!!
[1:23:27 PM] K Mapson: And thank you all so much!!
[1:24:15 PM] K Mapson: :)
[1:24:22 PM] *** Call ended, duration 1:15:23 ***
[1:24:23 PM] Phillip Jones: :-)
[1:24:51 PM] juice The Jedi Dominguez: 👍🏾 :)
[1:24:59 PM] Phillip Jones: (champagne)

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