By religious characterization, I indeed classify myself as Jewish. However, I have always been fascinated with the study of all of the varying religious beliefs.
My particular ideological beliefs derive from the Jewish esoteric school of thought called Kabbalah. Kabbalah, in and of itself, is not a specific denomination of Jewish belief, rather, it is a method of religious thought. Kabbalah seeks to define the nature of humanity and the universe through ontological perspectives. From a Kabbalistic perspective, my interest in the various world religions makes perfect sense; as from an ontological perspective, all the various religions of the world indeed demonstrate varying aspects of God.
Essentially, it is humanly impossible to ever fully constrain a preeminent and omnipresent God into one categorical classification. Therefore, each religious interpretation provides value for understanding the entire body of God. One nice aspect of having a fairly open-minded view towards religious studies is it allows me to gain many, diverse perspectives on some of the fundamental questions of life.
“What Would Jesus Do,”
This was a phrase "What Would Jesus Do?" became popular, especially in the United States during the 1990's. In popular consciousness, the phrase is most remembered through the display of the acronym "WWJD" on bracelets and wristbands.
The phrase “What Would Jesus Do” was meant to express the moral imperative that one should consider their choices in life and try to represent compassion, love, and intemperance to excess. In effect, live a life emulating the virtues displayed by Jesus.
Being versed in Christianity, I was always somewhat amused with the “What Would Jesus Do” phrase. Undeniably, the core of message was a good one. In fact, as Jews, we also have something similar coming from the Torah with the Tallit Katan, and Tzitzit (Numbers 15.38).
However, the source of my amusement was that from a Puritan perspective, when it came to “What Would Jesus Do,” losing your s***, throwing over booths and whipping people with a cat-of-nine-tails was technically was on the table of acceptable options (Matthew 21.12–17; Mark 11.15–19; and Luke 19.45–48).
In the “Cleansing of the Temple,” depicted in the New Testament, this is exactly what Jesus did. In fact, Jesus losing his temper at the Temple had a lot to do with why a week later he would be arrested and crucified.
For me, the “cleansing of the temple” by Jesus is a fascinating anecdote to examine and it makes me consider what does this say about the entire body of God?
At the fundamental level, we as human beings, are indeed nothing more than sets of various emotions. Everything else about the human experience can be considered by examining emotional experiences and what outcomes are produced by these emotions.
If you consider emotion, not as if it is some transient state of being, and rather as a tangible fabric of existence, emotion would have to follow the same Newtonian laws of psychics that are absolute in the universe.
As such, this would suggest that human emotion functions under Newton’s first law of thermodynamics that defines the conservation of energy. The law of thermodynamics states that the energy of a closed system must remain constant and it can neither increase nor decrease without interference from the outside.
Since the universe is itself a closed system, the total amount of energy in existence has always been the same. In a spiritual sense, this closed system could be considered representative of the body of God.
Now, the total amount of energy in the universe is consistent. However, the form energy takes is always change. If the fundamental energy that comprises human emotion is consistent, then the only variability comes from what state our emotional energy assumes.
Moreover, this means that the energy for anger and the energy for happiness are equivalent. At least on a fundamental level.
As a form of energy, emotion would also follow the second law of thermodynamics which says, if two initially isolated systems in separate but nearby regions of space are allowed to interact, they will eventually reach mutual thermodynamic equilibrium. When one isolated system transfers energy to another, the energy transferred is called kinetic energy. It is this transference of energy that allows two separate systems to have an influence on each other.
What does this mean in terms of emotion and interaction of human beings?
It means that when you are in an emotional state of anger and you come into contact with another person, you will ultimately transfer the emotional energy of anger through this interaction. De facto this movement creates a form of kinetic angry energy onto another person.
To put it simply, when your angry and come into contact with another person, you will cause this other person to be angry with you.
In truth, this is a natural process in which we all constantly seek to engage in. Emotional states such as anger, sadness, disgust, or fear; are negative states of emotional energy. They act upon us as the inverse of creative or progressive interaction with our environment. Consider it as though negative energy absorbs inward similar to black holes in space.
Comparatively, happiness, love, trust, or comfort are positive strong states of emotional energy. They act upon us to inspire creative and progressive interaction with our environment. Positive energy inspires us to explode outward like the birth of a star in the universe.
At the fundamental level, life can be summed as being the pursuit of constantly trying to transfer our emotional states from negative to positive.
Unfortunately, there is a pesky law that states that energy is consistent is universal, therefore, in order to change the form of negative energy to a positive energy it must be transferred to another isolated system. In the case of energy, this means negative emotion must be transferred onto another human being or a system that can absorb one's negative emotion.
For this to be true, it creates a massive dilemma when it comes to world peace.
Essentially, in order to achieve a universal state of positive energy among all human beings, equal parts of negative energy must be transferred onto some other isolated system since it cannot be destroyed. In order for world peace to exist that would require that negative energy to be transferred onto something other than another human being.
This transference of negative energy is what also creates the irrationality and impossibility that one could ever eradicate something like terrorism by killing it. In order to kill off all terrorist, it would require one to do so with an emotional state of happiness, love or comfort.
In reality, this is exactly what every sovereign nation from the beginning of time has tried to do. Yet we see the side-effects of it presently as we argue the merits of standing for the National Anthem. In order to kill from a place of positive energy, one must do so with a sense of national pride or under the precedent that one’s actions are patriotic, and done so for the greater good of humanity.
Unfortunately, the result in trying rid negative energy by literally killing off its energy source is impossible. All that results is negative energy is transferred onto another system. This occurs when negative energy is imposed upon those asked to kill for the greater good.
We have seen plenty of examples of this in PTSD associated with our American combat veterans. The anger or hate held by those we destroy becomes anxiety or depression within those who were set out to destroy them for the greater good. The other result is that same negative energy is simply transferred onto another human system. For example, the anger and hatred of a once innocent bystander that can result if their family falls victim to being collateral damage and merely a byproduct of war.
Going back to Jesus.
What was meaning behind him losing it in the bible? Especially since this action demonstrates him converting his overwhelmingly positive energy into negative energy. Why would this event have occurred considering the knowledge that negative energy is a destructive force?
Suddenly, the longer I pondered this mystery, I began to consider could this be the entire foundational basis behind how we can influence and interact with our universe, and even use negative energy for the greater good?
What if Jesus never actually lost his temper at all?
Instead, what if Jesus demonstrated what real power is within the universe. If the energy of emotion is always constant, yet the form it takes can be changed, could the real power come from possessing the ability to control emotional energy?
When Jesus lost his temper in the Temple, he converted his own emotional energy into anger. Given all of what was recorded about Jesus up to this point, it can be easily said he possessed a tremendous amount of emotional energy. In fact, the emotional energy he possessed was so powerful that it could interact and influence others, then spread like wildfire.
What if Jesus used this powerful control of emotional energy to form anger so it could be transferred onto the Roman and Jewish Oligarchies in power at the time? The result would ensure that enough negative energy was consumed, and in an attempt to transfer it back into positive energy, those power-holders would ultimately desire to take Jesus’ life.
In effect, in the Christian faith, when it is discussed that “Jesus died for our sins” or that he “made a sacrifice for mankind,” what if what is actually being discussed is how he sacrificed positive for negative in order to set forward a series of events that led to his Crucifixion?
If this is true, that would mean that the ensuing events involved with his Crucifixion actually would depict a remarkable occurrence in which the transference of negative energy was rejected. Rather, than allowing that negative energy be absorbed, during his Crucifixion Jesus maintains a tone of positive energy and displays forgiveness, love, and compassion.
“Father, forgive them, for they know not what they are doing.” Luke 23.34.
This poses the greatest question of all. What happened to the negative energy of Jesus accusers?
By written account it could be said that Jesus' accusers were unable to rid themselves of their negative energy because of his response. In fact, what if this is indeed the underlying principle of what the Christian theme of salvation actually means?
Jesus, by deliberate rejection, prevented negative energy from being transferred onto him and thereby demonstrated that positive energy actually outweighs the negative energy in this world.
The concept of understanding the underlying physical and philosophical structure of the universe is something that I have reflected on for a large part of my life. It is the foundation of what inspired by academic pursuits in life. In my undergrad studies, I couldn’t decide on what I wanted to focus on, mathematics or psychology.
For me, the underlying framework of the universe must both contain, mathematical structure, and it must also have some interaction with our conscious mind. When I finally couldn’t make up my mind between one of these two pursuits, I decided to get undergraduate degrees in both. Later, I would focus my graduate studies solely on cognitive psychology as I felt I had enough basis of mathematical structure necessary for what I wanted to examine.
Ultimately, I began to recognize that indeed when it comes to the transference of energy’s, there does exist a quantifiable way in which it was possible to negate negative with positive. It requires one to examine not the structure of energy contained with a closed system. Rather, it is to consider the form in which energy takes on and recognize it represents a changeable state.
Essentially, if positivity and negativity are viewed as being material they can be quantified and defined by using irrational numbers. Irrational numbers represent real numbers that when measured in a line segment they are incommensurable. Most importantly, some of the most important ratios in the universe are irrational numbers, including the ratio pi of a circle’s circumference to its diameter, Euler’s number e, the mathematical constant that is the base of the natural logarithm, and the golden ratio.
The golden ratio could be one of the most important links of correlation in defining emotional states of being in human beings. In mathematics, two quantities are in the golden ratio if their ratio is the same as the ratio of their sum to the larger of two quantities.
Geometrically, the golden ratio relates to the mathematical relationship between what we perceive as being aesthetically pleasing including in architecture, painting, the direction of written works, music.
Remarkably, the golden ratio is expressed in naturally occurring phenomenon by the arrangement of parts, such how plants grow, the structure of the human body, the orbital rotation of galaxies, magnetic resonance in spins in cobalt niobate crystals, and it has even been examined in connection with the human genome DNA.
The golden ratio can be observed in man-made systems as well. Financial markets exhibit patterns of the golden ratio and in the optimization of unimodal functions; which are data sets and probability distributions and not general functions. Essentially, the method in which we examine meta-data to forecast human behavior and one of the methods utilized by the NSA in gathering intelligence to display pre-event indicators.
The relationship between human states of emotion and the golden ratio can be hypothesized by recognizing the ratio’s significant occurrence in the natural world and the fact that geometrically it is naturally pleasing to the human eye. In essence, the golden ratio naturally invokes positive emotion because it is perceived by the human mind as being harmonious.
If you consider emotional energy as being defined by irrational numbers, that means the overall structure of human emotion can itself be defined by geometrically by a golden rectangle. The entirety of the structure represents a person’s constant state of emotional energy. A golden ratio can be segmented into separate, yet dissimilar parts.
Given the natural human yearning for positive emotional states the emotional quantities will always create a plane figure with unequal adjacent sides, or a rectangle and not an equally proportioned square. The ratio can be calculated by dividing by a real number and then adding a real number. It can be expressed algebraically to measure quantity.
Ok, so what does all of this mean more digestible terms?
It means that the human experience can be measured in each person by a dimensionless number which produces a rate of change. Essentially, all of us individually contain a finite amount of energy that can be both positive and negative. In reality, we are incapable of ever truly transferring all of our negative energy onto another isolated system.
Instead, there is a delicate duality that exists in which, for lack of better terms, we try to ensure that our positive emotions are in maintained in a larger aspect than our negative. This concept of duality is itself a naturally occurring phenomenon and a component of philosophical and spiritual discussion for the last 32,000 years of human existence.
However, unlike the concept of Yin and Yang, human beings should not, and inherently do not, try to balance our negative and positive emotions. Instead, we try to ensure our positive outweigh our negative.
Going back to Jesus cleansing the Temple, what is demonstrated here is not the idea that Jesus flat out lost his temper. Rather, it was the Jesus was in control of his emotional golden ratio. He could influence his emotional state as to transfer emotional energy onto those around him. Additionally, this demonstrates that there is value in the negative emotions we possess, yet the idea is to control the use of negative emotion so as to influence your environment, eventually for positivity.
Assumedly, most people would not want to use negative emotion to influence the events that Jesus set into motion. However, that idea of self-sacrifice is the prevailing theme that would ultimately create the entire religious belief of Christianity. Most importantly, it wasn’t the act of controlling negativity that demonstrated how the world can be saved. Rather, it was the actions Jesus demonstrated later, during his crucifixion that displayed humanity’s salvation. Ultimately, this demonstration is the same exact method I have been searching, researching and trying to define mathematically.
This says that the only way to influence others around you and rid their prevailing negative emotional state, requires one to absorb another's negative energy, and in return transfer back positive energy onto them. Essentially, it is the entire foundational tenant of every single religious belief and to a large degree what represents our inborn sense of ethical and moral virtuousness.
By seeking to expand your own positive state of being, and reducing your negative state of being, it affords one the ability to interact with others by engaging in a harmonious transference of emotional states that result in both parties walking away positively. This is the fundamental concept of charity.
Essentially, a person has to be a good person, so they have enough goodness to share with others who happen to be in a state of which their negative emotions are their dominant emotional state. This is exactly what is demonstrated during the depiction of Jesus when he was crucified. He had so much positive emotion that he had enough to absorb the negative emotions of others and give back to them, positive emotion. In fact, this transference of positive emotion was so significant, conceptually it endured and is the theme of an entire religious faith.
Of course, there is a downside to this entire representation of human being’s interaction with each other and the universe.
Now, Jesus indeed was able to transfer positive energy unto those who were more consumed by negative energy. However, it wasn’t without a price.
In fact, in case of Jesus, what ultimately led to the creation of Christianity and what ultimately labeled him the Savior by Christians, was that he sacrificed his life in order to transfer positive energy unto the world.
What this says is that people are not meant to bank their positive emotions only for themselves. Rather, they are meant to have a surplus of positive energy in order to give out to others. Again, this is repeatedly shown in the New Testament with Jesus, as he consistently preaches about the concept of responding to negativity with positivity. The epitome of this comes from the Gospel of Matthew, in which Jesus gives an alternative to the Old Testament's “eye for an eye.”
“You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well. If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles. Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.” Matthew 5.38-42.
One can interpret this verse literally, or in deeper philosophical reflection, Jesus is exactly describing this transference of negative and positive energy through a mathematical algorithmic system in which negativity can only be defeated by having a disproportionate amount of positive energy. More importantly, this passage very clearly defines the role of responding to negativity with a disproportionate amount of positive energy.
Taking this out of the realm of science, physics, and spirituality, is there evidence to support the basis of transference of negative energy to positive energy in the sociological world?
You bet there is.
As I am typing this, I just finished reading an article about Kevin Wilshaw, who was a member of the National Front, a far-right and fascist group in the U.K. Just recently, Wilshaw denounced the group and came out with the fact that he was both a gay and Jewish. This may seem incredibly strange for a gay Jewish man to be a 40-year member of an anti-Semitic, anti-gay hate group, however, what was Wilshaw actually seeking when he joined a group like the National Front, to begin with?
Almost assuredly if one was to speak with Wilshaw personally, a great deal of his desire to join a group that was overtly antagonistic against his own identity would be based on suffering from an ego-dystonic state over who he was and how society perceived him. Essentially, Wilshaw was inundated with negative emotion over who he inherently was. Therefore, his joining a hate group was merely a method of seeking out positive emotion and a method of transferring the negative emotional state he was in. He was transferring that negative emotion onto others, in hopes of replacing it with positive emotion of belonging to a group. Albeit a hate group, but still a group none-the-less.
This is merely one in a number of equally impressive examples. In fact, there are tons of stories about white supremacists or Neo-Nazi’s rejecting their hate-filled lifestyle after a person of color befriended them. A good example is the incredible story of Johnny Lee Clary. Clary was once the leader of the KKK, who eventually became a Pentecostal Christian that traveled the world preaching against racism and hate groups just like the one he once led. In an interview, Clary once recounted the story of how Rev. Wade Watts, former leader of the Oklahoma chapter of the NAACP fostered his turning away from hate by responding to his hateful racist rhetoric with love and compassion.
Eventually, you can model the instances of negativity met with positivity, resulting in positivity with mathematical precession. Now, what this ultimately says is that the continuance of racism, hate, or negative social concepts continue to persist not because of those who are racist, hateful, or negative. In reality, the hard pill to swallow for some is that these negative emotional constructs exist because of those who want peace.
It doesn’t matter if you look at it from the historical, spiritual, scientific, psychological, or sociological perspective, the results are all the same. All points back to the same focal point, which is the when you meet negativity with negativity, the ensuing result will not produce a positive outcome.
Clearly, religion has attempted to assist in this endeavor. However, the overwhelming majority of people fail to truly exhibit the ability to “Love your enemies, and do good to those who hate you.” Luke 6.27. That concept has become a neoclassical view that says, “so long as I don’t say I hate my enemies I’m good. But I’ll be damned if I do my enemies any good.” Therefore, barring some transcendence of consciousness, it is hard to see how religion alone can create a moral or ethical awakening in people.
From a modern perspective, the questions can be posed how might technology be used to assist the psychological barriers that prevent people from being capable of demonstrating that 2 to 1, positive to negative, ratio that Jesus describes in The Gospel of Matthew?
Under current precedent, this may be virtually impossible considering that we currently use technology as a method of overcoming our psychological limits set by ethical and moral consciousness. Killing people becomes so much more palatable when we do so 50,000 feet in the air and through the controls of a joystick and video screen. Essentially, there currently exists no 10 commandments of technology. Instead, we use our technology as a method to get around those pesky ethical rules.
Ultimately, the concept of how human beings establish emotional states and how these states change opens the door for a host of various other questions and future examinations. For example, is it possible to model and develop metrics to measure the emotional volume of a society on the macro level? In my opinion, it absolutely is possible and this is an area in which technology could assist in the measuring of societies overall state of emotional being.
Most intriguing for me personally is the idea that understanding human emotion from a mathematical level could lead towards understanding the ultimate mystery of human consciousness. In terms of technological integration, the ultimate frontier is a true amalgamation between technology and consciousness. However, I personally believe this frontier cannot ever be explored until we understand how conscious experience is manifested outwardly, which is through human emotion. Additionally, without this understanding any true biological/artificial transcendence would merely be yet another example of how technology can destroy us, not improve us.
During the US Civil War, hatred became entrenched between the North and South. In one instance, President Abraham Lincoln was criticized for speaking of benevolent treatment for the Southern rebels. The critic reminded Lincoln that there was a war going on, the Confederates were the enemy, and they should be destroyed. But Lincoln wisely responded, “I destroy my enemies when I make them my friends.”
In my opinion, what President Abraham Lincoln said is undeniably valid through a host of episodic and archived evidence throughout human history. Rather, the question is not whether what Lincoln said is true. Instead, the question is, are human beings capable of making their enemy their friend.