My theory could be construed as a sort of atheistic monotheism where there is a human perfection defined.

At the second coming, there will be atheists saying it isn't real.

I think it's inevitable that atheists populate higher learning, but we've reached a tipping point, we now have tools so precise that when we measure the atom, we realize there's nothing there but what we want there to be.

Free will.

The universe is made of free will.

Dice is the only game that God plays.

What do you see for the future of higher education?

@Supra_Librix, So you are disputing Einstein, who said "God doesn't play dice."

Higher education will surely continue to follow the Soviet model, and eventually the Soviet Socialist Republic of America will also collapse under its own weight, and be replaced by a Putin-like despot; the courageous constitutional republican experiment maybe gone forever, except in the memories of those who remember what it was like before 1942. Not many now.

And for those of us who know that Jesus Christ can and did cross the dimensional barrier to sacrifice himself for all of us, a greater reality is available to us who are lucky enough to know it. Those of us who know it will be drawn through that inter-dimensional barrier now suggested by physicists, from mathematics that take clues from this one. Our reality may be like a film on the "surface" of greater reality, from which everything here is obvious. Not so the reverse. There is great danger in the longer term to believing that we are each a god, who can re-create reality.

Modern thinkers “...revived the sense of the collective power of human communities. Man, formerly too humble, begins to think of himself as almost a God. In all this I feel a grave danger, the danger of what might be called cosmic impiety. The concept of "truth" as something dependent of facts largely outside human control has been one of the ways in which philosophy hitherto has inculcated the necessary element of humility. When this check upon pride is removed, a further step is taken on the road toward a certain kind of madness - the intoxication of power which invaded philosophy with Fichte, and to which modern men, whether philosophers or not, are prone. I am persuaded that this intoxication is the greatest danger of our time, and that any philosophy which, however unintentionally, contributes to it is increasing the danger of vast social disorder.” - Bertrand Russell.

@TimTuolomne Of course Einstein was wrong.

The quantum theory clearly shows that.

Good quotes, we are certainly closer to being gods than ever before.

This virus is a good check on hubris, but if you have enough money, you just self quarantine on a yacht. You isolate yourself from the hoi polloi.

Who knows how many billions are being poured into extending life, editing the genes that cause aging, The fountain of youth is just millimeters from our grasp.

Maybe we are meant to become Gods.

It doesn't make sense that after we die there's no progression after that, if there's any progression at all, over eternity everyone is destined to become a god.

@Supra_Librix. We disagree that there is nothing after death. It would be the height of arrogance to think we, a species which has practically no understanding our ourselves, very little of the oceans, and almost none beyond Earth, should draw the unsupportable conclusion - as if we know for sure, that there is no greater species or being than ourselves, and nothing beyond our limited comprehension. There is the Bible, and evidence of Christ's resurrection - which defies known laws of physics. That paradox alone should stand as a wake-up call that there is a great deal that we don't know.

And was Einstein right and wrong at the same time???

@TimTuolomne there may well be something, but so far, no one can prove it in a way that satisfies everyone.

But if there IS, having broken the law of entropy this long, you think it just stops after we die?

That would seem contradictory to a heaven.

@Supra_Librix. Firstly, one should not expect a connection between Heaven and Earth - like a portal between dimensions, to be provable, anymore than the Resurrection repeatable. And there may be a reason it should not be. What if this is an experiment by an advanced being, and we are as an ant farm? In an ant farm, we see everything they do, and they are oblivious to us.

What if the experiment has been constructed to build a kind of sentience in the creatures made, as if in a petri dish, and the "graduation" was measured in their realization of their origin, and their maker? What if there was one major introduction of evidence, like an "injection" of the truth of the greater reality, and the rest left to develop as part of the experiment?

I came to that firstly as an engineer and a skeptic, I was curious about why people were religious. I went to churches to find out (My family were all atheists) Then after investigating a bit, my interest morphed to how anyone could believe in the Resurrection, which violates all Earthly physical laws. I investigated by asking and researching.

At one point, having read Scripture, known history and Theology scholars who studied the Resurrection, I came to an awful moment - a bit like the adrenaline flush that happens when you know you are falling from a height and realize that you fear you could be badly hurt, and heard myself say "Oh cr*p, that happened!" So the intellectual security of my tether to Earthly logic had been severed. Completely unexpected. Upsetting. 

In time my panic was replaced by the far greater sense of security that emerged from my understanding of the great gift of life, Salvation and enlightenment in God's creation. 

At first I felt I was a fraud in faith.   Most others come to it by a "leap of faith," not research.    I felt comfort eventually that the sciences were also under God's pervue.  Everything is, including evolution.  Some feel they must interpret Scripture to discount the sciences, and I have found the opposite.  I'm not the only one who thinks so. 

Some physicists propose that our reality is but a shell on the "surface" of a greater reality.  That mathematically derived possibility bears a spooky resemblance to Creation as described in Scripture.  Physicists like Michio Kaku see God in the mass value of particles like the tachyon half spin, and the Higgs Boson.   And Heisenberg once said "The universe is not only stranger than we think.  It is stranger than we CAN think."   

"Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality." - Carl Sagan. The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark.

@TimTuolomne Great introspection, appreciated.

I consider myself agnostic, to be atheist is to be limited.

The way I see it, whether God exists or not is irrelevant to a morality.

You don't need a higher power to know how to act with your fellow man.

If you don't believe in God, fine. Just act like you do.

@Supra_Librix, The ant in the ant farm is not only limited, and probably unaware of its limitation, it is also unaware of its visibility to us, a "higher power." I submit that faking a belief in God will not allow you to "graduate." And the free will has been given to you to decide that for yourself.

@TimTuolomne I submit that faking is a psychological phenomenon.

Plenty of people fake it to get along with their family, etc. Some fake it then are discovered as frauds shaking the faith of those who took them seriously.

If God determines that faking but being a better person that one who doesn't is a disqualifier, isn't that contradictory to a just god?

@Supra_Librix. Although I think that is a great question, I get from Scripture that what is necessary is not good works without understanding of your origin. Understanding the sacrifice of Christ is necessary.

Plenty of religious philosophies have good works at their core of beliefs, but there is no standard that gets you into heaven. No one can tell you except a human priest how good is good enough, and guess what. No one is.

The standard of access to heaven through belief in Christ alone is unique. However that belief is not regarded as Scripturally genuine if it is not accompanied by gratitude for His sacrifice, that inspires morality.

So morality by itself MAY get you into heaven in other religious philosophies, (you can't be sure) but definitely not in Christianity.

It's a little hyperbolic, I agree. This panic probably did more to move the global consciousness than 5 or 10 years without one.

I agree with the lefties that college should be essentially free. Or no more than the cost of students physically taking care of the facilities to pay their way.

Apprenticeships will make a comeback in a big way. Good times are ahead.