…and are simple. Just as when you record inventory or other information on a computer, the electrons that transmit the computer data are “real” – in a tangible sort of way, but the “eight quantity of part 030A” or the “dress, yellow, size 8” as reflected in the “network” realm, is a “concept” or “idea.” What is on the computer screen describes and points to (occasionally) the actual item in a warehouse or on the sales floor, but it is not the “thing in itself” (as Kant might have described it).Even if we are not banking electronically, the ink and the paper of the dollar bill is “real” in a tangible way, but what it represents is far more powerful (or less, depending on the decade), then the “record of labor, value, products, and services” it represents.
Now the simple leap comes into play. Christianity, as well as other faiths which hold to an equally real, but different, spiritual realm (not merely an idea or a thought or a feeling but a “realm” or “plane” of existence, holds that our lives, and what we see as “real” now, not just action and motion -- not just our hands, our feet, our bodies, ourselves, is akin to what an intangible idea or symbol represents to “physical” or “material” reality which we can touch. Ironically, the Christian paradigm holds that even intangible things, used above to illustrate a distance from “material” reality -- our thoughts, feelings, emotions, attitudes, and their like -- will show up as tangible reality in the spiritual realm for eternity.
So whereas we may not be able to fathom a reality more “real” then what we hear and see and touch and think, a “reality-squared” of which Christianity claims eternal life is made of, it is not a difficult concept. Thoughts, feelings, ideas, and electrons in a bank account can compel action in the realm of what we now know as physically reality very easily. The same is true of current tangible and intangible reality that we know now in the spiritual reality of which we only have a (temporary) glimpse.
James
Random thoughts in this vein:
1)
No one can tell me that the Big Bang does not require a leap of faith. (Where did matter come from? Time necessitates that we began, thus, what could have been before this matter-wise. Furthermore, what caused the Big Bang?) So isn't God as the Great Cause really the more logical conclusion?
2)
While at first the concept of the trinity, three persons, yet one, may seem a bit insane and unfathomable, what must be remembered is that God created all. This includes all time, space and dimensions. Mathematically, we can prove that there are more dimensions than those that we experience in our reality. Yet, we could not fathom these dimensions. Is it really that far fetched then to believe that we should be able to fathom a trinity which created dimensions that are unfathomable to us?
Mike Crockett
Agreed! I guess I was just attempting to describe the spiritual reality's relationship to physical reality here the same way ideas, though non tangible, relate to physical reality. Only in the case of the spiritual reality, the spiritual reality (not the physical reality as it relates to ideas, symbols, information stored in a computer network) is more real than the physical reality) though we do not see it fully yet.
David
God as the Great Cause is certainly one conclusion. "The more logical conclusion" is a matter of debate. I do not believe that a belief in the Big Bang, or whatever you call the beginning of the Universe,necessitates unbelief in God. That is all I am prepared to say on 1 cup of coffee
Mike Crockett
"What is real?"
-Morphius, the Matrix
Mike Crockett
Also, it has become interesting to me, and this would not just be the result of popular culture/video gaming (for example), that because folks are beginning to accept the concept of alternate physical realities that accepting alternate spiritual realities, even "actual" contradictory - not just "apparently" contradictory - claims of spiritual realities (folks just feel they operate in separate spiritual realms), seems a whole lot easier for folks to do. If one is of the "one (yet one dynamic, often unfathomable) physical and spiritual reality" view as I appear to be ( =p ) , when we start to transcend "linear" thinking with regard to spiritual reality claims, without violating reason and common sense, though possibly appearing to do so (as we did with the theory of relativity; your mass increases and time slows down for you the faster you go; space is curved), it is interesting how we can explore that apparent leaps of (Aristotelian) logic can be, possibly, not-so-much-of-a-leap...
1 comments:
David
logic is defined as " a reasoned and reasonable judgment " There is no empirical evidence to suggest the existence of a supreme being that I am aware of. Christians are fond of pointing to the Bible as "evidence" of the existence of God, and to the New Testament as "evidence" of the divinity of Jesus. I can think of no definition of the word "evidence" whereby this is acceptable. Belief in God is ultimately based on faith.
Mike Crockett
What about a nihilist argument that claims that things could be a lot worse (flesh regularly rotting, dropping off our bones, little or no self-healing or regenerative powers of the body)? I understand it is believed that evolution enabled the complex adaptive nature of biology (and I am not discounting evolution) however, at the root of the ... See Morecomparison, a non-spiritual realm scientist must empirically demonstrate that 15 billion years is enough time for the biology evident to have arisen out of pure matter (the root substance that is theorized evolved into life. The current scientific theory of origins (driven somewhat by recent Nobel-prize winners in physics) demonstrates the probability that one part per trillionth of matter more than anti-matter what the state of things that gave arise to the multiverse. But it is interesting in that paradigm to wonder where that extra part of matter came from...
One could argue that the evidence of "good fortune" in my life is merely circumstantial, especially when combined with the fact that so many suffer only misery during their short lives here on earth. However, evidence I would concoct to demonstrate a "divine presence" not just in my life but in the lives of those who suffer would require assent to specific examples in my life where recreation and dynamic mysteries occur despite my best or worst intentions. Ultimately, I guess, it is a "glass-half-full" mentality. But since, like most, I, too, have suffered catastrophe and near misses (like most; that have resulted not only in the elimination of pain and danger, but use of the suffering and despair itself to bring about "windfall; and not talking about bullets lodged in helmets in Afghanistan with no harm to the wearer), I am still trying to philosophically assess "minor miracles" which I can't escape even when I try.
I guess there is a theory that would postulate because a survivalist psychology that assumes naturally great character arises from great suffering (John McCain, pow, great orator, Obama, suffering, great orator, MLK, suffering, great orator, David (writer above), suffering, great orator, "ordinary folk," great suffering great orator, but I wonder if human psychology (with is a decent piece of evidence) is enough to continually deny-self with the type of heroic self-sacrifice and service I see? It would be "will to power" or will to live and a natural biological adrenaline, akin to performance enhancing drugs. I guess a little more empirical study is needed for convincing evidence of the entry of "spirit-matter" into the human soul or material realm... =)
Post a Comment