Nature of God

 In my previous article, that can be found here, I argued about the existence of God. In this one though, I wish to argue about His nature and how He actually is. In order for the reader to be able to follow this article I advise him to read first my article about the existence of souls, that can be found here, in order to make himself familiar with the notions of Ideas, that exceeds the common perceptions about the world. If not, due to the fact that we humans develop a physical intuition in order to explain the environment around us in classical terms since the moment we are born, the reader will inhibit himself in the process of comprehending the following. That will happen by subjecting himself inside the closed box of classical thinking, which must be abandoned in order for a person to be able to think further and ultimately grasp the truth.
 To start with, we must define what God is. He is defined as the supreme being; and also we accept that He is the creator of everything, including obviously the universe. Secondly, we have to take as granted that everything obeys to the rules of logic, meaning if we deduce something via logic then it must be by requirement true. So, for starters let us examine something that many believe about His nature and His attributes, that He has a physical body made out of matter. If that was the case then He would be unable to create the world; which by definition excludes Him from being God. The reason simply being that He had to exist before the creation of everything, in order to create everything. And it is impossible for something physical to exist before the creation of the Big Bang or the creation of matter itself. In addition, if He had a materialistic body then He would be bound by the spacetime continuum, meaning the limitations presented in space (have to travel) and time (not knowing the future and the past). As a result He would be unable to look after all of his creation everywhere and simultaneously and He would be able to be caught ''by surprise''. Plus, since the basic principle of matter is that it is variable, then God would change, therefore He would not be eternal and He would be subject to an unavoidable death. So, it stems from logic that we have to accept that God must not have a material body since then He would not be supreme neither He could be the architect of everything. Rather He must consist of something different, which for now let us give it the name ether. Furthermore, diving inside the boundary of quantum mechanics we must imagine ether as something that is not affected by time or space, rather it exist ''beyond'' them. In order to do that I encourage you to think again about the notion of Ideas that also exist ''outside'' this world and see the following video that can be found here. This explains about the tenth dimension that theoretical physicists are arguing about and can be used to ''visualize'' the omnipotent and omnipresent attributes of ether.
 Now, due to our previous acknowledgement we can deduce that ether must be invariable, in the sense that because it exist ''beyond'' time it does not change. Rather, it exists simultaneously both in the past and in the future, while it remains immutable to the corrosion of time. Decay and disintegration are characteristics of matter, that are not applicable in this case because ether is not material. Also it is not bound by the realm of space, meaning it is omnipresent. Note that according to physics time and space are interdependent. As a result, again, we realize that ether is immutable because change comes in matter either by time or by interaction with another material; both of these cases are irrelevant with ether. I encourage you to think about an idea, for example justice. The idea itself does not age or change, neither it is bound in a certain location. Same wise is the behaviour of ether. That allows God to reign as the supreme being, not being limited like all the entities who have a physical body.
 In addition, logic forces us to think that matter must be able to affect ether as much as a physical object can affect an idea. Materials are bound by spacetime, while ether is not and therefore they cannot affect it. Moreover, logic forces us to think that if God could bleed and die then he would not be God. But since, according to my previous article God must exist, then we are forced to accept that matter cannot affect ether. Again, I encourage you to think of an idea. How possible it is to kill and idea? Does it make sense to bomb justice or to shoot kindness? Furthermore, since God created the Big Bang, as previously stated He must have existed ''before'' it and therefore He must not have been affected by it. The entirety of energy and matter were suppressed in a singularity (including the limits of space and time). But on the other hand, God in order to create the world he must have been able to affect it. In order to design the Big Bang and interact with his creations we must be forced to accept that ether can affect matter, even though matter cannot affect it! Our physical intuition might try to prohibit us from accepting that indisputable conclusion, because in our everyday world interactions go both ways (remember Newton's third law: When one body exerts a force on a second body, the second body simultaneously exerts a force equal in magnitude and opposite in direction on the first body.). But one can realize that does always happen, for example matter does not affect ideas, but as seen in my previous article about the soul, ideas can affect matter. For example the extraordinary power of the human mind, where positive thinking can actually affect positively our future. Again, I encourage you to read Jean Pierre Mallet's double time theory that can be found here, or to think about the stunning effects of placebo! Even further, in large scale the Newtonian law of interaction holds well, but in the microscopic world of quantum mechanics things can be more complicated. Finally, think about the origin of our consciousness. As seen in my previous article about the existence of the human soul, matter meaning our physical death does not affect our soul, but our soul-consciousness can give rise to the electromagnetic pulses that travel through our nerves while alive. This is an example of something non physical (soul that generates our consciousness) affecting something physical (pulses through nerves), while the interaction the other way around is prohibited (death does not kill our soul)! Closing this argument, on a philosophical base, we must think how could something fleeting affect something permanent? The two ways interaction that our physical intuition might try to hold on, happens only between material objects and in this case ether is not material.
 A final postulate we must accept is that in order for God to be able to design the universe and to be the first amongst the first, ether must be able to bare intelligence. According to my previous article about the soul, consciousness and therefore intelligence do not stem from our brain but rather from our spirit and the brain is only the medium which allows our spirit to ''interact'' in this world. Therefore, the spirit is able to bare intelligence by itself, with no need of the brain and according to ancient philosophers, for example Plato (see Phaedrus) when it is not ''distracted'' by the physical body it is able to think freely and much better in every way! Like wise, ether must be intelligent and therefore alive. In my previous article where I argued about the existence of God I defined life as consciousness and death as its absent. In that sense God being the ultimate intelligence is alive and furthermore He is life Himself. Finally we can conclude that ether is life, for it is consciousness, while matter being unable to bear intelligence by itself is dead.
 As a result we end up with four undeniable postulates about the nature of God. First that God does not have a material body, rather He is constituted of something else, which for the moment I arbitrarily call ether. Second that ether exists ''beyond'' spacetime and therefore it is unchangeable and eternal. Third that matter cannot affect ether, even though ether can affect matter. And last but not least, ether can be intelligent, without the need of any physical brain to manifest consciousness. Now, it is conspicuous to deduce that if a being cannot be killed, hurt, or affected negatively in any way it will not feel fear, anxiety and a whole range of adverse feelings. And this is exactly what an ethereal being would be like! In addition an misfortune, would most certainly not happen to God, who is the supreme being. For example, our physical bodies can by hurt and they can feel pain, while an entity made out of ether would feel none of it. Therefore, non physical ethereal entities would feel no negative emotions, because nothing could be the cause of them! And above all, God would have no need to feel anything negative, like jealousy since He is the first amongst the firsts, or hate since He can't be hurt, or disappointment since He is omnipresent or even having unfulfilled wishes since He is omnipotent! But as someone that read my article about the soul, knows that ideas and emotions come in pairs. This means that the more happy someone is the less unhappy he is or the more good he feels the less bad he feels. That simple. But of course this goes also the other way around, meaning that if someone has no negative feelings inside him, then by definition he must be filled with positive ones! And finally we can conclude that God must feel only positive emotions, which by necessity means that He is good, just, kind, fair and above all loving!
 To extend my arguments one should realize that negative emotions lead to other negative emotions. For example despair leads to anger towards others, and anger leads to hate and so on. Emotions run in cycles, since one can be the cause of another. Of course, a negative feeling can not be the cause of a positive feeling. Therefore, if an initial negative emotion is fundamentally lucking, then other negative feelings would be unable to be produced in order to succeed it. But in the ethereal world, a whole range of negative emotions are missing! Furthermore, diving into the world of physics once again, God that exists beyond the limits of space and time, is omnipresent. To better understand that, I encourage you to remember the previous video about the ten dimensions. Ignoring the tenth dimension, which directly associates with the multiverse that is of no interest here, we will talk about a being in the sixth dimension. Then this being would be able not only to see the present, which is one frame in the forth dimension (what humans comprehend), but also the past and the future. Moreover, it would be able to see the world explicitly, with each detail of space and time evident. The analogy is that we, living in the forth dimension, only perceive three dimensions (height, width and length), but we are able to see every detail at once only in two dimensions. Of course two dimensional object do not exist in reality, as much as three dimensional objects do, but a painting or the screen of your computer can be a very good approximation in order to help visualize this idea. So God, would be able not only to be omnipresent, but also to know everything that has happened and every possible universe that can happen, while He could see what is happening in the forth dimension (or the fifth, and even higher if we suppose that He exist in the tenth dimension) the way we can see what is happening in a piece of paper. Then logic forces us to deduce that He must ''know everything'' or better said, nothing can be hidden from Him. As a result He must be wise, not only in the sense that He knows everything, but also because He is intelligent enough to create everything. Therefore,
we must assume that He knows what is best, what is bad and what is good (since also as said in my previous article about God, He must have created these notions themselves) etc. Now, that wisdom has been proven as one of His attributes, we must wonder what a wise being would choose to be: good or evil. The answer is obvious. God is love and kindness.
 In addition, a being that has such attributes and abilities, that can incarnate His will at any moment and knows all, must be said to have the maximum degree of freedom. But being free can only lead to positive emotions and these begin a cycle of other positive feelings. Moreover, since He is omnipotent and understands that in order to be happy one should feel himself with positive emotions, why would He chose to do otherwise and be unhappy? I mean feeling despair, depressions or even sad feels bad right? People, sometimes ''choose'' indirectly with their actions to feel like that, but God being all wise, as we accepted before, must be able to elect directly and undistracted what He wishes to feel. Therefore, obviously since He would choose to be happy, He must be filled with positive emotions like love, kindness, mercy and compassion. Furthermore, unlike humans that can be disturbed, hurt etc. God, being by its nature all powerful, should not be able to be disrupted from His positive status. Of course, one might say that He must feel uneasy by the dreadfulness of humans, because as stated before He must be compassionate about us. True, but the positive emotions of kindness and love that God feels all the time as previously stated, are not affected by the environment or the universe in His case, but stems only from His will. To better understand that, one should read my articles about why happiness depends only on our emotions that we can choose to feel and not from our environment, even though the vast majority of the time this is not the case,  that can be found in order here and here.  Of course, a good parent does not get angry at his six years old child when it makes a mischief. Using the same analogy, we must assume that the all knowing and all wise God must not get angry when humans are making non wise decisions, for example the use of violence. Rather, understanding what each person has gone through in his life and the reason that led him to such a stupid action, He must be merciful and compassionate. Finally, since in my previous article I provided substantial proofs about the immortal existence of the human soul, we must wonder, what is our life in this world in comparison with eternity?
 With that knowledge in mind, that God is kind, fair, just and loving we must decide to live our life in accordance with His will and to follow His way of being benign. For His way is the right way and He wishes nothing more than happiness, love and peace for humans. A being that does not have negative emotions inside it, like hate, anger, jealousy or rancour will never be violent and will never hurt another being. Therefore, we should follow the example of God and try to be good and just towards our fellow people and always keep in mind that He knows everything, all our struggles and all the good we have done and the help that we have provided others with. Of course, one might wonder if God is loving why does He allow all these dreadful things to happen? This is a question I will provide an answer in my next article, as well as what is ether, but for now we must keep in mind that God loves each and every one of us and let that knowledge fill us with light and hope for the future, but most importantly with love for all mankind!

Apothegm

''Happiness will not be found in wealth, but in the tranquility of soul.''

Aristotle

God

 In this article I must ask again of my readers to have their mind open to new possibilities and ideas and not to allow what they already know inhibit them from learning something new. That is the case because once more in this article, I will speak about things that are totally counter intuitive and exceed our physical sense. Therefore, they are hard to comprehend and follow. As a result, if the reader wishes to understand the logic in this article, he must be patient and willing to think outside of the closed box that explains physical reality in classical terms. With that I mean, that since the day we are born we develop a physical intuition about the world around us, which sadly is wrong, due to the fact that reality is much more complicated and it requires way more elaborate theories to be explained, that are totally counter intuitive and cannot be visualized (eg. Quantum Mechanics). When one will perform that, then he will enable himself to understand this article and its purpose, which is no else that to prove the existence of God.
 In my previous article where I argued about the presence of soul, I provided evidence about the existence of ideas. As a result, in order for someone to be able to follow this article, since ideas and soul are fundamental notions that will be extensively used here, he must read first this article, which can be found here. So, I will proceed assuming that the reader is familiar with the notion of ideas.
 First of all, one should define what God is. God is the greatest entity of all. Of course, as shown in my previous article, human have souls that are eternal and so we must assume that God has to also be a soul, the ''biggest'' soul in fact. Furthermore, as one can easily observe that ideas comes in opposite pairs. For example, hot and gold, just and unjust, good and bad. Nature is divided in two, because ideas by their nature, always have an opposite. The same goes for situations due to the fact that something either exists or it doesn't. In order to make myself clear, a situation exists, for example sleep, or it does not, meaning there is ''no sleep'' or to be awake. Therefore, ideas are binaries. Of course that does not hold true for objects, eg. you cannot have the opposite of a piece of wood. But, one may wonder, if that holds true for everything in nature?  The answer is yes because if one can think of an idea then by definition he will be able to think the opposite of that idea. Therefore, both opposites of an idea must exist (either physical or ideal) or the idea itself would collapse, for example you cannot have hot without cold. But as we saw in the previous article, ideas are real. They might not have a physical form, but they exist and can also affect the material world. Now, one should think about the idea of life. Life, let it be defined as the existence of consciousness and death as its absence. One can easily conclude then that the universe is dead, since it does not have any consciousness. Planets, suns and space are not alive neither they can think. But, as we stated previously ideas and situation comes in pairs, therefore since the whole physical universe is dead, then there must be, by definition, something that is alive and conscious! As stated in the previous article, about the existence of soul, consciousness does not actually originate from the brain, but rather from the spirit, while the brain is just the medium that allows consciousness and ideas to ''freely interact'' with the physical world. Since, obviously there is no grand physical entity at the size of the universe, then logic forces us to accept that there is a master being with a non material, spiritual form and is also the exact opposite of the physical world, meaning alive and conscious. That entity can be called God.
 Even further, Anselm of Canterbury defined God as "that than which nothing greater can be conceived". He then proceed into developing the ontological argument. It states that God exist as an idea in the human mind. But, if something exists then it must be ''greater'' than something that does not exist. Thus, by definition, if God exists as an idea in the mind but does not necessarily exist in reality, then we can imagine something that is greater than God. But, it is impossible to think of anything that is greater than God. As a result, God must exist in reality! Furthermore, one may back up this argument by saying that ideas are real. As a result, the idea of absolute ''greatness'' must also be real, even though perfection is absent in the physical world. But, again if something exists then it must be better than something that does not exist. As a result something must exist, that is the absolute ''great''. That ''something'' is called by definition God. Also, that implies again that God does not have a physical form, rather he is spirit and soul.
 Moreover, one must think about what produces ideas. Obviously, ideas are being formed by our consciousness, or better said, by our spirit and are ''materialized'' in this world via the brain. One should note that consciousness, like ideas, is not material or physical, rather it has a ''spiritual nature''. As a result, the human mind can think and create it's own ideas. For example, this article or how to solve a particular problem. Producing ideas is part of our everyday life, it is what our thinking conscious does. But producing new ideas is something mush harder to achieve than thinking about something trivial like where you should eat next. With that, I mean that one can easily utilize an already known idea, made by someone else, for example to think if an action is just or not, or to understand a scientific principle. But, constructing new ideas, eg. a theorem to explain how nature works or how to design a certain product, can be quite different from using something already known. Therefore, humans have to struggle to produce a worthwhile idea, either if it is in art (like a painting) or in science (like research). And of course there are limits to what the human mind can produce, independent of intelligence. For example as stated before, one cannot produce an idea that does not have an ''opposite pair'', due to the fact something will exist or it will not exist. Or additionally no one can thing of something that does not exist and also does not not exist. Like the old joke goes ''try to imagine a new colour''. But then, it comes to mind that justice, good, numbers etc. are also nothing more than ideas. Fundamental ideas, but ideas none the less. As a result, it is mandatory to assume that, by their nature, they had to be created also! But when and how these ideas came to be? Could humanity have created these ideas? Because these ideas are so essential that the universe itself would not work without them. Would the universe exist if they weren't already available the ideas of space, time, mathematics, or even balance? Did the first person who though if something was good or bad, discovered the idea of good or is it something deeper, that existed before even time started to tick? The answer is obvious. As a result we must assume that an entity greater than humans thought of these ideas. And in addition, since some of this ideas are fundamental for the very creation of the universe, they must have been constructed before the Big Bang. This entity is well known and it goes by the name God.
 Even further, in my article about the nature of reality, that can be found here, I state that reality is unique and we cannot have more than one thing to exist at the same time. Therefore, God must be unique in the sense that Zeus, Odin and Allah cannot all be true. As a result, all religions and spiritual organizations, since they are claiming to be bringing God's will towards humans, must say the same thing, since God, like reality, is unique. Obviously they don't, but God is an infinite being, unlimited and perfect, in the sense that he is all good, all loving, just etc. So how can humans, who are limited, finite, and not perfect, understand God and also His word? How could they preserve through various generations His word unchanged? We haven't. In another article, that can be found here, I explain how the church corrupted the preachings of Christ throughout the centuries, and why what the church teaches now is very far away from what Jesus said. That did not happen only to Christians, but also to almost every other major religion. Therefore, if one studies every religion and serious spiritual organization and manages to see beyond this human factor of corruption that varies due to the difference between eras, cultures and civilizations, he will discover they are all saying the same things, that I refer to in other articles. He will discover the same truths behind the teachings of Christ, Buddha, Plato and Gandhi! And these preachings, that are by their nature about love, kindness and forgiveness, can validate the existence of God, since it is impossible for the various eras and continents to share the same beliefs throughout history!
 In addition, the oldest argument in the book, is the one about the creation of the universe. But beyond that, what about the creation of the human souls? Since it is non possible for us to create ourselves, then we must assume that someone else did this for us. Logic forces us to think that a greater soul must have been the reason behind all of that. Note that unlike matter, ideas do not require a raw material or a feedstock to be created and so we must assume that so does the human spirit. Therefore, the whole primordial creation of spiritual beings and ideas must be traced back to one starting point. That starting point is named God.
 Finally, many arguments that are based on logic have been created in support of the existence of God. A list of them can be found here. But I think the most vital argument of all, stems from Socrates's theory of reminiscence. As one would know be reading my article about the human soul Socrates states that if for example someone sees an orange, what he might remember is that moment when he was eating an orange with his significant other. This is called recollection,which is to remember something by thinking of something entirely different, that has no obvious connection with it. For example, to remember of your significant other, because you though of the orange you were eating. Of course, in order to recollect something, it is obvious that you must already know it, and furthermore, it does not matter if the thing that caused that recollection is similar or completely different from it. Then Socrates asked how one learned the idea of equality? Since no two physical objects can be equal. A piece of wood or a rock cannot be equal to another piece of wood or a rock. They can be similar, but not equal.Two ideas can be equal, like two numbers, but physical objects can only be similar, always falling short of the idea of the perfect equality.  Differences between them will be always be found, even if one has to search to a microscopical level. Same thing goes for justice, beauty, good, and other ideas. Even though we do not see them, because they are not physical, we know about them, by seeing something else, similar to it or different. Therefore, what we are doing is recollection! But, as stated, in order for someone to be able to recollect something he must already know it! As a result, people can not actually learn these ideas, for example what is good, equal and beautiful, but they recollect them, necessarily from a time before their birth, since apparently it is impossible to learn them inside this world! Using this logic Socrates proved the existence of the human soul. But, now I may ask, how do we know about the idea of God? Obviously we don't see any omnipotent and omnipresent beings in nature, or to be honest, we don't see anything that even remotely resembles God. Therefore, in order for us to have the idea of God, we must have recollect it from a moment before our birth in this world! That means that God must not only be real, but we must also have ''seen'' Him, in order for us to be able to recollect Him! And there is at least one moment at which we must, by definition, have ''gazed'' upon Him, the moment of our creation.
  Closing this article, one should try to find happiness and hope in his life, due to the knowledge that God exist. I believe that everyone can find peace and consolation in the knowledge that there is someone who watches over him, even though sometimes it doesn't feel like it. That is the purpose of this webpage after all, to bring hope and happiness to people. But also, to lead them towards a lifestyle of love, kindness, spirituality and forgiveness; characteristics that bring humans closer to God. Because how else could we hope to reach the divine, if not by trying to become divine ourselves, through enlightenment and love? And now that we know that there is light in the end of this dark tunnel we call life, we must strife for it. All we have to do is to walk towards it, with steps of kindness and to never stop walking. God is real, just a few steps ahead, for those who go in the right direction, the direction of good.

Charlie Chaplin: The Greatest Speech Ever Made

Apothegm

"Do not search for happiness; it is always inside you''

-Pythagoras

Soul

   In this article, I will politely ask my readers to have their minds open to new possibilities and ideas, and to not let what they already know inhibit them from learning something new. That is because I will try to explore some new ideas and philosophies that are counter intuitive and hard to understand, but will eventually lead to the knowledge about the purpose of humanity in this world and fill your lives with hope.
  From the moment we are born in this world, we develop a physical intuition about how the environment behaves and how matter interacts. But in this article, we need to leave this intuition behind us and step into a new realm, the world of ideas. That is because ideas are not physical, nor do they have a material form, and so they do not behave like everything else that we see, touch or feel in this world. Of course, the first argument or thought one might have is the fact that since they have no physical existence, are ideas even real? Since they are a product of our thoughts and do not possess a material form, do they really exist? The answer is yes. First, think about science. Math does not exist, in the sense that one will never encounter the number -2.3 in nature. But math does lead us in real results. For example, as it comes to the imaginary numbers (where the imaginary number ''i'' is equal to the square root of minus 1) even though they are not real, they can be used to compute real results and beyond that, they have physical applications in geometry. Mathematician J. Hadamard stated, ''The shortest path between two truths in the real domain passes through the complex domain.'' So even though they do not physically exist, they exist as ideas that can be used in order to produce physical results. A great example of this is the sum of all integers numbers, which is equal to -1/12. In order for someone to understand that, he should watch the appropriate video here, and if he has no mathematical background, he should watch it after the 16:03 minute mark. An infinite sum is not something that can physically happen; if I started to add numbers from the beginning of the universe until its end, even then, I would not be close to infinity. But their result, instead of being infinite as someone would expect, converges to -1/12, a negative number. That is a result that a classical mind, that isexplaining the world using classical physics, cannot accept and understand. But, classical physics falls short when it comes to comprehending reality and this is the point where quantum mechanics step in. And as a physics student, I can tell you that this is a completely valid quantum mechanical result, that even though it does not agree with our physical intuition and logic, it has been validated as true. It is called the Casimir effect and more information about it can be found here. The experiment is simple. Scientists placed two uncharged conductive plates next to each other in a vacuum. In the absence of an electric field, someone would expect the energy between them to equal zero. However quantum mechanics tells us that there can be no zero energy as in the vacuum particles spontaneously are ''created and destroyed'' (Heisenberg uncertainty principle and more information about it can be found here). So when the scientists did the math, in order to try to predict the result they would get, they ended up with the sum of all integer numbers for one dimension and in cube for three dimensions. Of course, the classical result would suggest this sum to be infinite, which would mean infinite energy between the two plates, which is obviously wrong. But when they performed the experiment, they measured the energy in one dimension to be -1/12 and in three dimensions the corresponding result! From ideas that have no physical representation, we ended up with applicable real results! That must mean that ideas are actually real and not just fictional.
 Furthermore, one can do extraordinary things with the power of his mind. For example, he can heal himself via the use of what is widely known as placebo effect or can cause damage to his health via long term anxiety. Placebo effect is the phenomenon where a patient can experience positive, or more rarely, negative effects in his health by believing that he is under medical treatment, even though in reality he is not, such as being given sugar pills instead of the actual medication. Such is the power of mind that Doctors Walach Harald of the European University of Frankfurt, Germany and Kirsch Irving of the University of Hull, United Kingdom stated in the abstract of their book ''Herbal treatments and antidepressant medication'' that, ''Depression is one of the most widespread psychological disorders. According to statistics reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, approximately 8% of adults and adolescents reported being depressed during any 2-week period between 2006 and 2008. The most common treatment for depression is antidepressant medication. From 2005 to 2008, about 1 in 10 Americans aged 12 and over took antidepressants, an increase of 400% over estimates made a decade earlier. During this same period, a controversy developed regarding the efficacy of these treatments. Although a strong positive response to anti depressive medication is undeniable, clinical trials indicate that most of this response is duplicated by inert placebos. This finding has led some authors to question whether antidepressants are much more than active placebos.'' Another amazing story that demonstrates the power of our ideas is the one by Henry Beecher, who while treating soldiers during World War II, ran out of morphine. As a result, he decided to tell his patients that he was still giving them morphine, while in reality he was infusing them with a saline solution. Surprisingly, 40% of the soldiers said that the given medicine had eased their pain. Moreover, the psychologist Guy Sapirstein determined after 39 studies on the effectiveness of antidepressant medicines that 50% of the therapeutic benefits were derived from the placebo effect, while only 27% was caused due to the given drugs! Three years later, with the help of the psychologist Irving Kirsch, he conducted 19 double-blind studies regarding depression, and he concluded that the benefits of the placebo were causing 75% of the total benefits! Even a whole book would not be enough in order to site all the amazing benefits form placebos, so I will leave the reader with the question: how could thoughts possibly have such a big effect if they are not real? Doctor Jean-Pierre Garnier Malet claims (double time theory and the relative video can be found here) that thoughts can not only affect ourselves, but also our environment, where positive thoughts can prevent problems while negative thoughts can create them. Pythagoras and other ancient philosophers used to claim the same thing. Why do all self-improvement books say to believe in yourself? Because ideas and thoughts are real and by believing you can do something, you can actually do it.
 Of course, we humans produce thoughts. So let's define our character, emotions and memories with the word ''soul'', and our intellect, meaning our ability to think with the word ''spirit'', like Pythagoras did. Here comes the big question. Are our thoughts and ideas a product of our brain alone and so when we die, our spirit and soul (thoughts) cease to exist as well? Or does intellect, a product of our spirit that is manifested in this world via the brain, live on after our death and so, like every religion and spiritual organization claims, we continue to exist? Are our souls and spirits immortal, or is it just a fancy word I used to define our emotions and intellect? To get a defining answer, one should read Phaedrus by Plato, where Socrates proves via logical arguments that our soul (because, unlike me Socrates defined as our soul both our emotion and our intellect) is immortal. I will try to superficially convey his arguments here. In the beginning Socrates, as a teaser, argues that ''opposite'' things happen from ''opposite'', meaning that when one of them is being reduced, the other one is being increased. For example the more beautiful someone is, the less ugly he is, the more good he is, the less evil he is. Also, one thing or ''state'' is being derived from its opposite, like being awake, or being cold. You go from sleep to awake and then back to sleep again, or from hot to cold and back to hot again. But death is obviously being derived from life. So, according to our previous train of thought, life must also being derived from death. Here a true philosopher would ask, ''What is life''? Life is defined as our existence, while death as the non-existence. If something can think, it has intellect, so it ''exists'', and so it is alive. Descartes said, '' as long as I can think, I know that I exist.'' Therefore, life, having here the meaning of intellect, must have existed before we were born, and must continue to exist after our death so that is may come back to life again. For more proof recall my article about reincarnation, which you may read here. So of course, in order for our intellect to exist before our body was created, it must result in the existence of what I have defined as spirit. These thoughts might appear weird and counter intuitive because we are not dealing with physical objects here, but with ideas. You cannot have the opposite of a piece of wood, but you can have the opposite of justice to be injustice, because justice is an idea and it does not behave like matter, but it also extremely real. Obviously, this ''proof'' from Socrates about the existence of our soul after our death is based on a generalization, and it is questionable. That is the reason I called it a teaser before. Thankfully Socrates did not stop his arguments here.
 Additionally, Socrates developed his theory of reminiscence, which logically leads into the immortality of soul. More specifically, if for example someone sees an apple, what he might remember is that moment when he was eating an apple with his significant other. This is called recollection, meaning to remember something from something else, that has no obvious connection with it except in your mind. Of course, in order to recollect something, it is obvious that you must already know it, and furthermore, it does not matter if the thing that caused the recollection of another thing is similar or completely different from it. But then Socrates asked how one learned the idea of equality? Since no physical objects can be equal. A piece of wood or a rock cannot be equal to another wood or rock. They can be similar, but not equal. Two ideas can be equal, like two numbers, but physical objects can only be similar, always falling short of the idea of the perfect equality. Same think goes for justice, beauty, good, and other ideas. Even though we do not see them, because they are not physical, we know about them, by seeing something else, similar to it or different. Therefore, what we are doing is recollection! But, as stated, in order to recollect something we must already know it! As a result, we do not really learn these ideas, like what is nice and beautiful, but we recollect them, from a time before we were born, since apparently we cannot do that inside this world! Therefore, our soul and spirit must have existed before we were born in order for us to have these ideas inside us. So our thoughts and emotions are not produced by the brain, but rather our soul and spirit, and are manifested in this world via the brain. In addition, people have unjustified phobias. For example, someone can be claustrophobic even though he has never had any bad experiences with them. That means that his soul, his character, already had this idea inputted into his mind. How is that possible though if he had never experienced anything like it before? Could it be that he had a bad experience in a previous life that could result in such a phobia? Doctor Ian Stevenson devoted his life to finding evidence that memories and physical injuries can be transferred from one life to another by examining more than 3000 children over 40 years. His researcher became internationally recognized and more information about it can be found here.
 Finally, Socrates developed another theory where he claims that not only ideas exist, but they are also,as the word denotes, ideal. For example, there is such a thing as the ideal beauty, and in order for something to be beautiful, it must ''participate'' in the idea of beauty. Even though this idea initially might appear counter intuitive, it makes sense because if one stops thinking in term of matter, he will see that beauty, harmony and other such ideas, are unique. Take as an example the temperature. We cannot have something becoming a different cold than another, neither can it reach a different absolute zero temperature. Similarly, if there were two ideas that described the ideal beauty, then these ideas would be the same and therefore it would be illogical to speak of them as being separate. It is easier to visualize with numbers. We can have one pie in one table and one pie in another table and the two pies would be different no matter what, even if we have to search for these differences at the microscopic level. But, as it comes to ideas, the number one will always be the same number one, and therefore, we cannot talk about two number ones, because it is illogical. Consequently, there can be only one idea of beauty etc., and the more something ''participates'' inside that idea, the more beautiful it is. Of course, the more beautiful something is, the less ugly it is, the more good something is, the less evil it is. These ideas Socrates called opposite and unlike physical objects, ideas always have an opposite. Additionally, he stated that something cannot cause opposite results. For example, an action, an object, or generally anything cannot cause different results at the same time, meaning nothing can influence an object in a way so that it can make it both hot and cold at the same time. It is illogical for X to coexist with its opposite Y together such as something cannot be good and bad together. That is because the more we have of one, the less we have of another. Lets say there are three people, A, B, and C, each one taller than the other. Socrates assumes that B is taller than C, but shorter than A, because of their height. According to our previous developed logic, something can not cause both opposites (the idea of short and tall) at the same time. Therefore, B is not taller than C and shorter than A because of their height, but due to how much they participate in the idea of size! It is not their physical height that makes one taller than the other, but how much their height participates in the idea of size! This is a new and strange way of thinking that is challenging to understand, but it goes accordingly with logic and reason, and so it must be followed. Socrates then stated that some things must participate by their nature in one idea and if they ''leave'' this idea, they stop existing. For example, Socrates says that ice must be part of the idea of cold, for if it is not cold, then it is water. Additionally, if someone is a saint then he must participate in the idea of good, and if he is no longer good, then he ceases to be a saint. If a number is even, then it can never stop participating in the idea of even and become odd. Basically, if a thing by its nature participates in one idea, then it cannot participate in its opposite. Therefore, things that, by their nature, participates in opposite ideas do not ''belong'' and ''go'' together, like numbers, which are divided in odd and even and these two categories cannot be mixed up. Therefore opposite ideas not only exclude each other, but also exclude the things that participate inside them! Socrates gave a practical example of this. Ice participates in the idea of cold, and fire participates in the idea of hot. Therefore, they exclude each other because if we throw ice in the fire, the fire will be extinguished and ice will turn to water. Finally, Socrates asked one of his students to tell him something that participates in each idea. For example, he asked what thing raises temperature? It is what participates in the idea of ''hot'', e.g. fire. Then he said, what produces sickness? The answer is obviously what participates in the opposite of the idea of health, for example fever. Afterwards, he asked what thing makes a number odd. Apparently it is what participates in the idea of odd numbers, for example the number one. But finally he said, what brings life? A great question indeed. According to our previous logic, it is the thing that participates in the idea of life, which is none other than our soul! Because life is existence and thought or consciousnesses is what makes us exists. Rocks do not have consciousness, nor can they think, thus they are dead, meaning a rock as a person, an entity a being, does not exist. Once again, Descartes said as long as I think, I exist. As long as you can think, you exist as an individual, as an entity, and as a person. But, if after you die, everything ends and your thoughts, ideas, and character die with your brain then you do not exist anymore. Simple as that. But you do not need to worry about that because the opposite idea of life is death. And as we just saw, our soul participates in the idea of life and so it cannot participate the idea of death! As a result, our soul is immortal and can never die!
 Even further, in my article about the nature of reality, that can be found here, I state that reality is unique and we cannot have more than one thing to exist at the same time. Therefore, God must be unique in the sense that Zeus, Odin and Allah cannot all be true. As a result, all religions and spiritual organizations, since they are claiming to be bringing God's will towards humans, must say the same thing, since God, like reality, is unique. Obviously they don't, but God is an infinite being, unlimited and perfect, in the sense that he is all good, all loving, just etc. So how can humans, who are limited, finite, and not perfect, understand God and also His word? How could they preserve through various generations His word unchanged? We haven't. In another article, that can be found here, I explain how the church corrupted the preachings of Christ throughout the centuries, and why what the church teaches now is very far away from what Jesus said. That did not happen only to Christians, but also to almost every other major religion. Therefore, if one studies every religion and serious spiritual organization and manages to see beyond this human factor of corruption that varies due to the difference between eras, cultures and civilizations, he will discover they are all saying the same things. He will discover the same truths behind the teachings of Christ, Buddha, Plato and Gandhi! But, the most well-known and obvious thing is that every religion talked about the existence of the soul and life after death.
 I prompt you to think something beautiful for example a nice painting. The painting, as we stated before, participates in the idea of beauty. But if the painting is destroyed does the ideal beauty also die with it? No. That is the reason ideas are immortal. They are not affected by matter. How many times I stab or torn apart the painting, I will not affect the idea of beauty, because, simply enough, it is not physical. Even if all beauty in Earth ceased to exist, the ideal beauty would be unaffected. As a result, ideas cannot be affected by matter. I cannot hurt justice, neither can I kill the number one. Note that as we saw before though, ideas can affect matter (e.g. placebo effect). Therefore, something material cannot produce ideas since it cannot even affect them. So, it is not our brain that produces our thoughts, but rather our spirit. But beyond that, since matter does not affect ideas, then our physical death should not affect at all our intellect, our character, and our thoughts! That is the reason I defined in the beginning our intellect as our spirit and our character as our soul because they are immortal and continue to exist after our death! And even further, if our soul (character and emotions) and our spirit (intellect) dies with our body, how could something mortal give birth to something immortal, like ideas? Finally, the spacetime continuum that encloses our universe affects only material things, even if they have no mass (e.g. photons of light). But, as I have stated before, ideas are not physical. Therefore, they exist beyond the limits of time and space. And so, stepping inside the boundary of quantum mechanics once again, something that exists beyond time does not age, change, or fade away. Matter changes by its nature, but ideas and therefore also souls are not physical. Therefore their nature does not dictate them to change and eventually die.
 As a result, we must accept the existence of our immortal soul, not because we want to believe in it, but because logic forces us to believe in it. This way, we can reevaluate our priorities in life and chose the right path for us. Our life is short, minimal in comparison with our soul, which is forever, and so instead of giving into lesser desires like anger and hate, we must do our best to love the people around us and help them, so that we may take care of our soul this way. We must abolish our previous ways of thinking and devote our life in the search for good, kindness, and enlightenment so that we may live forever with the good actions we have done and not the bad. Finally, before we take up any action, we should pause to think if our action will to benefit our soul or our purse. Our soul is eternal and we are going to live with it forever, so it is simply not worth it to corrupt our immortal soul in order to fulfill some fleeting desire we have. Everything in this life falls short to immortality, and so we must tend to the everlasting part of us, not our ephemeral life in this world, by being kind, helpful, and a positive influence in this cosmos.


                                                                                                                  Andreas Sarchosis

Apothegm

When you are speaking, you just repeat what you already know.

But when you are listening, you may learn something new.

-Dalai Lama