Which Came First, Intelligence or System

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. (Genesis 1:1 NASB, NIV, NLT)

Now that the chicken-and-egg problem is solved, we cannot apply this analogy to the First Cause question.

Instead of chicken-and-egg problem, now I have intelligence-and-system problem. Which came first, intelligence or system? Did an intelligence designed and created the system, or a system of laws evolved intelligence accidentally and mindlessly?

The current theory of the beginning of the universe is the big bang theory. The big bang caused the existence of time and space. But what about the laws? Did the big bang created all these laws at the same time, or the laws have a separate existence? If the laws of the universe have a separate existence, where were they held?

Marcus Aurelius, Good Roman Emperor, Persecutor of Christians

In Philip Schaff's History of the Christian Church, the persecution under the great philosopher-king Marcus Aurelius is described this way:

Marcus Aurelius, the philosopher on the throne, was a well-educated, just, kind, and amiable emperor, and reached the old Roman ideal of self-reliant Stoic virtue, but for this very reason he had no sympathy with Christianity, and probably regarded it as an absurd and fanatical superstition. He had no room in his cosmopolitan philanthropy for the purest and most innocent of his subjects, many of whom served in his own army. He was flooded with apologies of Melito, Miltiades, Athenagoras in behalf of the persecuted Christians, but turned a deaf ear to them. Only once, in his Meditations, does he allude to them, and then with scorn, tracing their noble enthusiasm for martyrdom to "sheer obstinacy" and love for theatrical display. His excuse is ignorance. He probably never read a line of the New Testament, nor of the apologies addressed to him. Belonging to the later Stoical school, which believed in an immediate absorption after death into the Divine essence, he considered the Christian doctrine of the immortality of the soul, with its moral consequences, as vicious and dangerous to the welfare of the state. A law was passed under his reign, punishing every one with exile who should endeavor to influence people's mind by fear of the Divinity, and this law was, no doubt, aimed at the Christians. At all events his reign was a stormy time for the church, although the persecutions cannot be directly traced to him. The law of Trajan was sufficient to justify the severest measures against the followers of the "forbidden" religion. It was during the reign of Marcus Aurelius that Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna, was martyred. Later, there is record of "new decrees" making it easier for Christians to be accused and have their property confiscated. In 177, 48 Christians were martyred in the amphitheater in Lyons (modern France).

The Kalama Sutta - The four Solaces

The disciple of the Noble Ones, Kalamas, who has such a hate-free mind, such a malice-free mind, such an undefiled mind, and such a purified mind, is one by whom four solaces are found here and now.
'Suppose there is a hereafter and there is a fruit, result, of deeds done well or ill. Then it is possible that at the dissolution of the body after death, I shall arise in the heavenly world, which is possessed of the state of bliss.' This is the first solace found by him.
'Suppose there is no hereafter and there is no fruit, no result, of deeds done well or ill. Yet in this world, here and now, free from hatred, free from malice, safe and sound, and happy, I keep myself.' This is the second solace found by him.
'Suppose evil (results) befall an evil-doer. I, however, think of doing evil to no one. Then, how can ill (results) affect me who do no evil deed?' This is the third solace found by him.
'Suppose evil (results) do not befall an evil-doer. Then I see myself purified in any case.' This is the fourth solace found by him.

The first two solace reminds me of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus the Roman Emperor who said, "Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones. I am not afraid."

The third solace is not true. just because you did not commit evil does not mean that evil will not come to you. This is an imperfect and sinful world. Bad things happens to good people in this type of world.

Two Agnostics

The LORD has looked down from heaven upon the sons of men to see if there are any who understand, who seek after God. They have all turned aside, together they have become corrupt; There is no one who does good, not even one (Psalm 14:2-3 NASB).

Buddha and Confucius are two agnostics who developed some methodology to seek certain truth. They did not use these methodology to seek God (see Psalm 14:2-3, above). Buddha taught Eight-fold path 八正道 to achieve human perfection. Confucius taught Eight Items 八目 to achieve world peace.

八目
Investigation of things 格物、Extend knowledge 致知、诚意、正心、修身、齐家、治国、平天下

Eight-fold path 八正道
Wisdom
Right View 正見, Right Intention 正思惟

Ethical Conduct
Right Speech 正語, Right Action 正業, Right Livelihood 正命

Mental Development
Right Effort 正精進, Right Mindfulness 正念, Right Concentration 正定

The Agnostic's Guide to True Religion

There may seem to be many religions and gods, but your fellow agnostic, Confucius, said that we should always begin at the classification of things (格物).

If you look carefully at all the religious systems of the world, you can actually divide them into two classes:

1. Creator religion: eternal creator (god or gods) who created the universe but not part of it;

2. System religion: an eternal system of rules exists from which the current universe is built upon.

So it is a chicken and egg problem - is there is some intelligent personality (a god or some gods) who create the system, or the system is always there, and the god or gods and the universe arise out of the system.

Common sense tells me that things are always made by some intelligent personality. I am sure many heard of the watch implies a watchmaker analogy. Critics of this analogy like to point that the watchmaker would likewise need another maker, and so on ad infinitum. Well, mathematics tell me that the largest number n, will always have a larger number, n + 1. But we define "infinity" to resolve the issue. Likewise, if a maker always have another maker, then it will stop at the infinite maker, which is God.

If we agree that there is some intelligent personality creating the universe, then our next job is to identify this intelligent personality. Among all the religions that claim to have some intelligent personality that create the universe, which is the most probable?

First, let us eliminate false creators. An example is Pan Ku (盤古, 盘古), the creator in Chinese mythology. He was formed from an egg which was formed from a formless chaos. In another word, he was created within a pre-existing system. Thus it is not a true creator religion, but a system religion. Likewise are the creation accounts of many polytheist religions, which seem to accept a system from which our world, gods and people, exists.

The only true creator religions that I know of are the monotheistic religions. The most likely candidates for creator God are the God of Abraham and the God of Sikhism. Thus the Agnostic can start by studying all the monotheistic religions. This should narrow down the scope.

Agnosticism

Agnostics believe that God has given insufficient evidence for His existence. But God disagree. "For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse (Romans 1:20, NASB)."

In the olden days, men thought that the world was just a small place and the sky was a high ceiling. They thought that if they build a tower tall enough, they could reach God's heaven (Genesis 11:1-4). It would be understandable if their opinion of God was low. But Noah and his sons were still alive. They could ask them.

Today, we know how big and complex our universe is. It is still beyond our comprehension. We even learn engineering (biomimetics) from "mother nature". However, we attribute the existence of this great universe to chance based on the laws of physics. We assigned the eternal attributes of the Creator to His creation.

"The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge. There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard. (Psalm 19:1-3 KJV)"

Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, Roman Emperor, Agnostic

"Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones. I am not afraid." Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, Roman Emperor (161 to 180), last of the Five Good Emperors, Stoic Philosopher, Persecutor of Christians.

This is a good bet, live a good life and hope for the best. The problem is what is "good"?

Every employee knows of this thing call "KPI (Key Performance Indicator)". The Employer defines the KPI (i.e. what is good for the company) and the employee works towards it. Now, if Marcus Aurelius is an employee, he would probably say something like this, "I do not know what my company's objective is. I do not even know which company I am working for. I just do my best in my job. If the company is just, I would be rewarded. If the company is unjust, maybe I should quit. If I am actually not an employee, too bad, I worked for free, but at least, I found something to occupy my time."

A lot of religion does not give clear KPI. It is always a vague "live a good life" thingy, but never clearly stating how good is good enough. The Christian God gives a very clear KPI.

Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. (Mark 16:16 ESV)

Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. (John 3:18 ESV)

So it is very clear, and these verses are just two of the many verses stating the same fact. Salvation is not what you do, but what you believe.

By putting the KPI as what he did, "live a good life", Marcus Aurelius, the last of the Five Good Roman Emperors, the great Stoic philosopher and author of the book "Meditations", made a great mistake. This mistake led him to persecute Christians and he is now condemned in Hades, waiting for the Final Judgement at the Great White Throne (Revelations 20:11-15). His ultimate sin is to refuse to believe his Creator.

Lee Kuan Yew's comments on various religions

In the transcript of the interview Seth Mydans had with Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew, for the New York Times and the International Herald Tribune held on 1 September 2010, Mr Lee gave his comments on various religions.

Agnosticism
"I am an agnostic."

The meaning of the word, from various dictionaries:
One who believes that it is impossible to know whether there is a God, who is skeptical about the existence of God but does not profess true atheism.
One who is doubtful, noncommittal or unwilling to commit to an opinion about something.

This website gave the origin of the word "Agnostic":
QUOTE
The word agnostic was coined in 1869 by Thomas Henry Huxley, the noted English biologist. Though the date of coinage is known, the specific etymology that Huxley had in mind has been a matter of debate for some years. The following portion of a letter dated March 13, 1881 (which has since disappeared) from R.H. Hutton was printed by the editors of the Oxford English Dictionary at the entry for agnostic:
Suggested by Prof. Huxley at a party held previous to the formation of the now defunct Metaphysical Society, at Mr. James Knowles’s house on Clapham Common, one evening in 1869, in my hearing. He took it from St. Paul’s mention of the altar to "the Unknown God."
The Greek form of the altar inscription given in Acts 17:23 is agnosto theo.
UNQUOTE


Chinese Traditional Religion
"I was brought up in a traditional Chinese family with ancestor worship. I would go to my grandfather’s grave on All Soul’s Day which is called “Qingming”. My father would bring me along, lay out food and candles and burn some paper money and kowtow three times over his tombstone. At home on specific days outside the kitchen he would put up two candles with my grandfather’s picture. But as I grew up, I questioned this because I think this is superstition. ... After my father died, I dropped the practice."

Being the former Prime Minister of Singapore, Mr Lee is aware of the importance of monetary policy. It is simply impossible that 阎罗王 (if he exists) would allow monetary exchange via burning of cheap paper. It is tantamount to allowing strangers to print legal currency.


Christianity
"My youngest brother baptised my father as a Christian. He did not have the right to. ... I do not know if my father was fully aware when he was converted into Christianity."


Islam
"The Muslims say that there are seventy houris, beautiful women up there. But nobody has come back to confirm this."

The 72 houris are found in what Muslims refer to as Gharib Hadiths (weak or strange Hadiths), so it is better not to believe them. However, the Quran does promise men young maidens for companions (Surah an-Naba' 78:31-34) in paradise but does not specify their exact number. I wonder what would the women get.


Buddhism
"The Buddhist believes in transmigration of the soul. If you live a good life, the reward is in your next migration, you will be a good being, not an ugly animal. It is a comforting thought, but my wife and I do not believe in it."

Buddhists do not believe in transmigration of the soul. Hindus do.