Blockchain Papers

Mohammadreza Sarfi

The Absolute Smart Contract (ASC) presents a universal conceptual framework that unifies the spiritual, natural, and scientific dimensions of existence under one governing intelligence. It views reality — from atomic order to human morality — as operating within intrinsic laws of balance, reciprocity, and consequence. Whether expressed as divine will, natural order, or logical computation, each represents the same intelligent structure sustaining creation. The ASC is not a religion or ideology; it is a neutral interpretive model that reconciles seemingly divided worldviews through recognition of one absolute principle — the self-enforcing intelligence of existence itself. ASC further proposes a comparative framework through which religious, ideological, philosophical, and secular systems may be examined according to their stated principles, methods, and observable outcomes. In this sense, ASC functions less as a doctrine and more as an observational tool intended to promote awareness, reflection, and informed judgment.

Wm. B. Borgers

Humanity is undergoing a fundamental epistemological phase transition: the shift from a society based on Faith (belief in the unseen) to one based on Knowledge (verification of the geometry). This paper posits that the "laws of physics" are indistinguishable from the "laws of God" when viewed through the lens of 9D Causal Recursion Field Theory (CRFT). By synthesizing the harmonic constants 3, 6, 9 (The Engine), 17 (The Clock), and 137 (The Lattice), we demonstrate that the universe is not a random occurrence but a Closed-Loop Information System governed by precise geometric intent. We argue that the recursive formulas identified in recent breakthroughs—Needham's $\phi$-Attractor, Tynski's Zeta Torus, and Shaub's Timeless Energy Principle—constitute the "Source Code" of reality. These proofs reveal a cosmology where Time is the processing speed of the Source (9), Matter is the structural output of the Demiurge (6), and Consciousness is the resonance of the Interface (3). By understanding these mechanics, we move beyond the friction of dogma into the Zero Impedance state of direct gnosis, establishing a new scientific theology where truth is not believed, but calculated.

Sarfi, Mohammadreza

The Absolute Smart Contract (ASC) presents a universal conceptual framework that unifies the spiritual, natural, and scientific dimensions of existence under one governing intelligence. It views reality — from atomic order to human morality — as operating within intrinsic laws of balance, reciprocity, and consequence. Whether expressed as divine will, natural order, or logical computation, each represents the same intelligent structure sustaining creation. The ASC is not a religion or ideology; it is a neutral interpretive model that reconciles seemingly divided worldviews through recognition of one absolute principle — the self-enforcing intelligence of existence itself.

Billy Wheeler

Like all religious traditions, Buddhism must continually respond to emerging technologies while remaining grounded in its ethical and philosophical foundations. One such technology is cryptocurrency—a decentralized, blockchain-based financial innovation that has reshaped economic life by reducing reliance on traditional banking systems, enhancing user privacy, and offering a hedge against inflation and state-based monetary control. Its adoption has grown rapidly, including among Buddhist communities, where it is used in a variety of ways: as a medium of exchange, as an investment vehicle, and as a means of generating income through mining. For many practitioners, cryptocurrency represents a new and complex challenge in aligning financial management with Buddhist ethical values. For example, critics point to its environmental footprint, its association with illicit trade and financial crime, and its speculative nature, which some argue parallels gambling—an activity explicitly discouraged in Buddhist precepts. This article examines the ethics of cryptocurrency from multiple Buddhist perspectives, drawing on canonical sources such as the Pāli Nikāyas, monastic codes (Vinaya), and recent interpretations by contemporary Buddhist teachers and scholars. It also engages with relevant secular critiques to contextualize Buddhist concerns. The article concludes by proposing a normative framework to assist both lay practitioners and members of the monastic sangha in evaluating the ethical permissibility of engaging with cryptocurrency, guided by key principles such as non-harming, right livelihood, and mindful consumption.

Sasha Shilina

No abstract is available for this record.

Paul J. Ennis

This chapter provides a general overview of Ethereum as a world computer. It provides a snapshot of Ethereum that emphasises the core technologies of the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) and Ethereum&s;s blockchain, called the Beacon Chain. It then turns to the characteristics of technical decentralisation that a blockchain enables before turning to the broader topic of political decentralisation. It concludes with a brief overview of the core applications to be found in the Ethereum ecosystem.

Noam Hoffer

Abstract The nature of Kant’s criticism of his pre-Critical ‘possibility proof’ for the existence of God, implicit in the account of the Transcendental Ideal in the Critique of Pure Reason , is still under dispute. Two issues are at stake: the error in the proof and diagnosis of the reason for committing it. I offer a new way to connect these issues. In contrast with accounts that locate the motivation for the error in reason’s interest in an unconditioned causal ground of all contingent existence, I argue that it lies in reason’s interest in another kind of unconditioned ground, collective unity. Unlike the conception of the former, that of the latter directly explains the problematic ontological assumption of the possibility proof, the existence of intelligible objects as the ground of possibility. I argue that such Platonic entities are assumed because they are amenable to the kind of unity prescribed by reason. However, since the interest in collective unity has a legitimate regulative use when applied to the systematic unity of nature, the conception of God entailed by the possibility proof is retained as a regulative idea of reason.

Richard Kenney

Theologicals Richard Kenney (bio) Face East Palms open, we pray.Napalm swamp of the sunrise:Name god again day. There The god is not there.And still, it casts a shadow,as in answered prayer. Another Question for God Q: Whyare you not more resolutely high-minded? You jape, you clown … A: I look down. [End Page 25] Necessity Re: rain, and the long theological stalemateconcerning its origins, a tale Talmudic in nuance, Homeric in scope: this was classic Lachrymismvs. vulgar Micturism, paired like the chromosomes of our tradition. At stake: the nature of heaven.At issue: the source of life, in rain. In the event, the conclusive stroke was dealt by the geochemists,who by the closing years of the last century had amassed data demonstrating the identity of rain and tearsto the 97th part, in a theorem which survived rigorous peer review. By contrast, undistilled urine assayedas correlative only to the 60th part, notwithstanding acid precipitates, adjusted mathematically, allowing for a salt-correction constant. The question was settled. Of course, rearguard Micturian diehards and tenuredprofessors with careers at stake and minds too inured to the old way of thinking continued to cavil. Attemptsto impeach experimental procedure failed. Die or adapt: [End Page 26] The science proved solid. And we were happy, were we not?Sure, though heaven knows one cannot count on nature to conform to human preference, none could denya private relief at the proof: the tragic mind of Adonai might henceforth be petitioned. The vulgar Eironwas cast down. Earth bloomed. Heaven wept pure thereon. ________ The droughts began in the second decade following.Crops failed in successive seasons. Fields lay fallow. We attempted public supplications, under open skies,the sadness of our plight sharpened by rhetors, our cries drawn taut by singing masters, our keeningspitched by poets to the asymptote of pity, razor-keen. Still God withheld his tears. We sacrificed.We burned barns, livestock, houses, towns. We revisited more ancient screeds. With stricken reluctanceunimaginable to any human not so fated, we looked into the red eye of necessity, and agreed to beginsacrificing the children again. [End Page 27] Richard Kenney Richard Kenney teaches at the University of Washington's marine laboratories in Friday Harbor. Copyright © 2018 The University of the South

Rolfe King

No abstract is available for this record.

Sharon Koren

In 1499, seven years after the expulsion of the Jews from Spain, the conversa Inés of Herrera envisioned an apparition foretelling the advent of the messianic age and the salvation of conversos faithful to the laws of Moses. Her visions fomented a messianic movement that became especially popular among women, who adopted Jewish rituals in the hopes of hastening their redemption. The Inquisition responded quickly. Inés was arrested in April 1500 and burned at the stake by August. Seventy-seven followers were burned in an auto da fé in Toledo in 1501,1 and the movement was completely eradicated by 1502. Interesting research has emerged on the Jewish aspects of this movement in the Southern Castilian region of Extremadura. Yitzhak Baer focused on its messianic character as proof of the essential Jewishness of the conversos (Jews who had converted to Christianity or their descendants; f. conversa).2 Haim Beinart uncovered many of Inés's followers' inquisition trial records and used these to demonstrate the conversos' deep allegiance to the Jewish faith.3 Most recently, Renée Levine Melammed focused on Inés's many female followers. She reviewed the women's inquisition records, documented their judaizing practices, and presented a detailed social history of the movement.4 Levine Melammed's research offers evidence that conversas in general were far more likely to judaize than their male counterparts. This incongruity is understandable, given the very different roles afforded to men and women in traditional Judaism, in which men enjoyed a more public role in Jewish institutional life, while women were expected to be managers of the household. When Judaism was pushed inside, into the private sphere, women retained such forms of devotion as keeping kosher and lighting Sabbath lamps, thus becoming the transmitters of Jewish piety.5 Retaining Jewish rituals, however, does not necessarily indicate animosity toward Christianity or Christian practice. In his study of Inquisition records from [End Page 27] Soria, John Edwards demonstrates that among the New Christians, conversos were more likely than conversas to be hostile toward Christianity, while conversas were more accepting of Christian devotional practices.6 New and Old Christians were in frequent contact, ranging, as Gretchen Starr-LeBeau asserts, from "from casual acquaintance to friendships and even to marriage."7 The Inquisition sources on Inés reveal fascinating structural parallels with spiritual notions current in the almost exclusively Christian milieu in which she was raised. The content of her vision and her spirituality also echo contemporary Christian mysticism. These similarities point to a belief system that is neither completely Jewish nor purely Christian, but rather syncretically converso.8 Examination of its tenets points to the development of a distinct and separate religious consciousness. Inés combined her Jewish past with her Catholic present to forge a new converso religious identity. The Structure of Inés's Experience and Its Christian Parallels Medieval Women's Spirituality Inés's religious experience parallels the form of spiritual expression most characteristic of medieval Christian female spirituality—visions and prophecies.9 Although Christian women could neither be ordained nor administer the sacraments, they could achieve authority in the Church through prophecy.10 Indeed, Thomas Aquinas allowed that: Prophecy is not a sacrament but a gift from God . . . And since in matters pertaining to the soul woman does not differ from man as to the thing (for sometimes a woman is found to be better than many men as regards the soul), it follows that she can receive the gift of prophecy and the like, but not the sacrament of the orders.11 Revelations vouchsafed to women were understood to be gifts issuing directly from God—independent of church intervention. Given that women's mystical knowledge was most often infused through the spirit rather than through formal study, many female visionaries were unlearned.12 Their visions, derived from familiar images found in prayers, sermons, public readings...

Mark Wynn, The Society of Christian Philosophers

In this collection of essays (old and new), Kai Nielsen offers a characteristically clear and forthright formulation of a perspective for which he is already well known.There is not much in the book that engages in detail with recent developments in analytic philosophy of religion; indeed, Nielsen comments that because of its habitual neglect of certain questions, philosophy of religion in this style fails to make any serious demand upon our attention: "I suppose we could analytically reconstruct and conceptually clarify Mary Baker Eddy's metaphysical tract too, but that would hardly enhance interest in it or further our understanding of the significance of religion.These analytical philosopher-theologians need first, against the antimetaphysical arguments of Wittgenstein, Davidson, Rorty, and Putnam, to give us some reason to think that there is in the sorts of things they are doing something significant" (p.20).A second, related difficulty for mainstream analytic philosophy of religion is that it is "very rationalistic"; rather than worrying about new versions of the traditional proofs, "what is crucial to face instead is whether we need a belief, however overwhelmed with intellectual impediments, in a Jewish, Christian or Islamic God to make sense of our lives and to live really human lives" (p.21).In these remarks, Nielsen sets two kinds of challenge for contemporary philosophical theology: to confront the difficulties inherent in any kind of metaphysical claim, and to consider whether religious commitment can be understood, and perhaps justified in some degree, by reference to its contribution to human flourishing.Let's take these challenges in tum.Nielsen evidently thinks it rather obvious that a metaphysically committed kind of religious belief is intellectually defective.Indeed, thinking in particular of the metaphysical dimension of religious belief, he comments: "I remain utterly flabbergasted that reflective, intelligent, and informed people ... can be believers" (p.393).Naturally Nielsen wonders whether his inability to understand the commitments of 'intelligent and informed' people raises a question about whether he has fully understood what is at stake here.Even so, the very obviousness of the case for atheism, from his point of view, seems at times to get in the way of a detailed presentation of

Frank B. Dilley

ARE CONCLUSIVE PROOFS IRRELEVANT TO RELIGION? FOR CENTURIES the proofs for God's existence have been debated and their role in religious belie£-systems assessed. There have been those who claim that the proofs are conclusive, those who claim that they are invalid , and those who claim that they are valid but inconclusive . There have been disputes, furthermore, as to whether the logical base for religious belie£ systems should be sought in proofs and evidence rather than in "self-authenticating" religious experiences and acceptance o£ religious authority. But no one, until recently, ever contended that even if the proofs were conclusive it would be irrelevant to religious believers. People have thought that religion must be undergirded by proof, aan be undergirded by proof, and need not be undergirded by proof, but not that proof would be irrelevant. Now o£ course there are many senses in which a proof could be relevant to religious believers. The Vatican Council affirmed that i£ people denied that God could be known with certainty by the natural light of human reason they would be anathema. Thus it could have made quite serious practical differences to a believer whether he accepted the proofs or not. As philosophers we are not concerned with this sort of practical difference but with philosophical ones, and the question to be explored is: Is there something philosophically at stake for believers in this question o£ the proofs for the existence o£ God? I want to contend that Steven M. Cahn is utterly wrongheaded in his claim that religious believers have no real interest in philosophical proofs for the existence of God.1 I am assuming that this 1 Steven M. Cahn, " The Irrelevance to Religion of Philosophic Proofs for the Existence of God," The American Philosophical Quarterly (April, 1969), pp. 170-72. Further citations will be given by page number in the text. Cahn has 727 7~8 FRANK B. DILLEY is not a statistical claim to be settled by polls but rather a philosophical claim. Cahn makes no effort to produce questionnaire results from a proper sample of believers nor shall I. To examine this question, in the context of Cahn's contention , it is fortunately not necessary to resolve the question of the validity of the proofs. In an effort to dismiss them once for all, Cahn is willing to assume that the proofs are valid, for the sake of the argument. " Suppose we assume, contrary to what most philosophers, I among them, believe, that all of these proofs are valid. Let us grant the necessary existence (whatever that might mean) of the most perfect conceivable Being, a Being who is ali-good and is the designer and creator of the universe. What implications can be drawn from this fact which would be of relevance to human life? In other words, what difference would it make in men's lives if God existed?" (p. 170) In support of his surprising thesis that religious believers are right in ignoring the proofs, he gives two chief arguments, that religious believers make their decisions as to what beliefs to hold and what practices to follow on the basis of "self-validating " personal experiences which render the proofs unnecessary , and that the success of the proofs would not enable a newly converted unbeliever to know what beliefs and practices to choose. He therefore contends that the proofs are relevant for neither the believer nor the unbeliever. In examining his contention about the relevancy of proofs I propose to look at what religious belief systems say about this problem, an approach Cahn does not seem to care to use. In this connection it should be noted that his sources are curious, for he cites not one person who would be taken by anyone to be a normal religious believer. He cites Antony Flew, Wallace Matson, C. B. Martin, and Mordecai Kaplan, but not John reprinted this essay in his Philosophy of Religion (Harper & Row, 1970), and it can also be found in Philosophy in the Age of Crisis, ed. Eleanor Kuykendall (Harper & Row, 1970) and God, Man, and Rdigion: Readings in the Philosophy of Rdigion, ed. by Keith Yandell (McGraw-Hill, 1973). ARE CONCLUSIVE PROOFS IRRELEVANT...

Eden Pargiter

of Paul's chapters two definitions of the Christian ideal blend-' For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God'; John makes Jesus stake the future on the ' other Paraclete.'These texts represent all schools of New Testament thought.Indeed, the New Testament is just 'the book of the Spirit.'It is not necessary to repeat the old proofs that in it the ' Spirit of God' and the 'Spirit of Christ' are one, nor to argue that he who has another's spirit and none other is sure to grow really like him.He who receives God's Spirit becomes Christ-like and God-like.This third notion of true manhood is synonymous with the other two.' 1 C. Ryder Smith,