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BS: Matter and Spirit
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Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit From: *daylia* Date: 25 Jun 06 - 11:10 AM Oops, almost forgot ... bless you, 282RA! And a full round of blessings on the whole house, too. Hee hee! :-) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit From: Little Hawk Date: 25 Jun 06 - 02:14 PM I think you're misunderstanding my basic perspective on this kind of subject, 282AR. I'm interested in such subjects as "matter and spirit" from a philosophical point of view. I don't belong to any organized religion and I don't consider myself a member of any particular religion or creed. I am not attached to any particular religion's set of rules or dogma. I'm essentially a philosopher by nature. I'm interested in philosophical ideas. All religions contain a great deal of philosophy about life and about human nature, and that's why religions interest me. You keep asking "where's your proof" to me or Daylia or whomever...and I think, "Why would he even be asking that????" Philosophy is a study of hypothetical ideas which are interesting in their own right. The moment one of those ideas becomes provable it's not philosophy anymore...it's a known fact! My tendency to believe that I have a soul...or that souls reincarnate...is a philosophical hypothesis. I don't know that there is any way of proving it, except to experience it consciously. I don't know it for a fact, but I find it a philosophical premise which makes more sense to me than believing that I'm just a temporary consciousness trapped in a dying physical body which will cease when the heart stops beating. A philosopher does not require proof in order to espouse a philosophical theory, and that's all it amounts to. A philosopher enjoys considering alternative philosophical theories, and he will usually like one better than another. That's natural. I like the theory that we have souls which outlive the body. I never claimed to have proof of it, nor would I demand that anyone else provide proof of it. ;-) Such things usually cannot be proven or disproven...but they are interesting and they are worth talking about...and talking about them should not arouse hostility in people who subscribe to a different philosophy, should it? Isn't it more fun to have many philosophies than to only have one? As you can see, I am in favour of freedom of thought on this matter...accordingly I am little inclined to tie myself rigidly to any one set of religious philosophy. I understand your resistance to what you see as religious dogma...as practiced by some people...but if that's what you're fighting against, then I am not your enemy. **** You asked what it means to "bless" something (or someone). That's strictly a matter of personal opinion. Here's what it means to me: It means to send positive thoughts and intentions and feelings toward that something or someone. It works way better than sending negative thoughts, feelings, and intentions...I can tell you that! Try it and see. Any number of examples could be given, but I should think it's so obvious that it's hardly necessary. A "blessing" is simply a positively directed thought, that's all. And positive thoughts lead to positive actions, don't they? A belief in what I think of as "Spirit" is simply a belief in the power and effectiveness of thought to affect life in a great variety of meaningfull ways. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit From: 282RA Date: 25 Jun 06 - 04:02 PM >>Oops, almost forgot ... bless you, 282RA!<< If it sort of means have a nice day, then, thank you, and you as well! And yes, everybody else also. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit From: 282RA Date: 25 Jun 06 - 04:44 PM >>A philosopher does not require proof in order to espouse a philosophical theory<< Actually, he or she does. That's how the philosopher makes the point. This proof is more often than not self-evident. My criticism of a First Cause doctrine depends on self-evident proof--a priori, I suppose you'd call it. I pointed out why the First Cause doctrine simply cannot work: it violates everything we know about causality to the point where it is simply absurd to even classify it as a form of causality. I don't have to get up and prove it. That causality is an endless chain both forward and backward is self-evident unless you have a real world example of something appearing or occurring that was totally uncaused by anything and, of course, there can be no such thing. Hence the a priori nature of the evidence. As for reincarnation, I agree that it is likely and I do have an argument for it. However, its conclusion is not very specific. It does lead us to conclude that consciousness is somehow reborn or recycled in a physical body and that it appears that mind and body are mutually dependent. That means one cannot really exist separately from the other. The implication of this is that neither has any true reality but are manifestations of something more primal, more fundamental but whatever that is, it is not perceivable by us, not experiential. Therefore, it cannot be labeled because language cannot capture it. Therefore, to give it words is to necessarily misunderstand and mischaracterize it. How do we characterize it then? You can't. It's something you feel inside, something you KNOW. However, that part can never be transmitted to another person, it is necessarily limited to first person experience. You give the appearance of grasping that it is experiential but then try to explain it to others at which point you lose it and become another dogmatic preacher. If you understood that it is only something one can know inside beyond language, you would simply leave off at that point. All I can do is demonstrate why a concept doesn't really work but I can't do more than that. It gives the impression I negate everything nihilistically but I don't. There's something beyond the words but I can't express it and if I try, I'll not only be wrong, I'll be dogmatically expressing my beliefs--saying this is how it is but offering no proof. You can only prove what you can prove. Beyond that, it's just your feelings on the matter, at which point you have to back off. You've done as much as can be done. So I don't try to tell others what to believe at that point, I don't have any pipeline enlightenment myself. But I can show them why a superficial position doesn't work and doesn't even scratch the truth. What people do with that is up to them. I don't really know what to do with it either. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit From: *daylia* Date: 25 Jun 06 - 05:03 PM Well, it does mean have a great day, or all the best, or may you always get your money for nothing and your chicks for free -- or whatever thing one might choose to think it means, I suppose. As long as it's a 'good' (ie desirable and beneficial) thing. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit From: *daylia* Date: 25 Jun 06 - 05:12 PM PS - thanks comin right back to you as well, 282RA. By the way, hope you don't mind me asking but what does 282RA stand for? (If you're an android and that's your offical |
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Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit From: Little Hawk Date: 25 Jun 06 - 05:15 PM Are you sure you're not just trying to "win the argument" on technical points. 282AR? ;-) I am trying to find common ground with you here, not perpetuate a disagreement... I realize that many of these matters are in fact inexpressible in human language. Nevertheless, there's no harm in trying to express them as best we can. The effort of trying to can produce some great poetry and literature, and that's worthwhile. It seems to me that the scientific community has proposed the notion of a "first event", namely: the Big Bang. They propose that prior to that event there was no perceivable Universe as we know it, but that the Universe as we know it came into being as a result of the Big Bang. I believe they further propose that time itself did not exist prior to that event...time being the measure of an object's travel across a given distance. When there are no separate objects, and thus no distances in between them, there is in effect no time. It's interesting to me how closely that resembles some of the symbolic religious stories in Genesis and various other ancient holy books. I don't think that either science or religion will ever find final explanations for such things, because each explanation simply leads to further questions. It's like trying to find the smallest obervable particle...there tends to always be another smaller one lurking inside it, like the Russian dolls inside Russian dolls. It just depends how closely you are able to look at it. Despite all the facts we can marshall, life and existence remain mysterious. Religion and philosophy are attempts to unravel the mystery. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit From: 282RA Date: 26 Jun 06 - 12:37 PM >>Are you sure you're not just trying to "win the argument" on technical points. 282AR? ;-) I am trying to find common ground with you here, not perpetuate a disagreement...<< You have a knack for taking little jabs. "You sound like me when I was in my twenties" translates into, "Oh, I once thought like you but I was young and foolish but I grew out of it. Too bad you didn't." It rubs a person the wrong way. >>I realize that many of these matters are in fact inexpressible in human language. Nevertheless, there's no harm in trying to express them as best we can.<< It's a doomed venture. Any attempt to express it will be wrong. Why tell people something you know is wrong when you're trying to convey a truth? >>The effort of trying to can produce some great poetry and literature, and that's worthwhile.<< Poetry is generally metaphoric. Expressing truths in abstract that allow the reader to do his or her own processing. You can't just tell people how it is because it will be wrong and you're wrong if you attempt it. You're causing more harm than good if take you as some kind of authority. If you studied Eastern philosophy then you know Buddha was silent on certain matters. Why? Because no words will work except to worsen the situation. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit From: Little Hawk Date: 26 Jun 06 - 01:09 PM I don't take myself as some kind of authority. I just enjoy talking about things that interest me. None of us is an authority on these matters, as far as I can see. Yes, I do deliver little jabs sometimes...but we all do that, I think. It's human nature to do so when caught up in the heat of a debate. I find it genuinely intriguing that I might now disagree totally with someone about a matter which I would have agree with them entirely on at another time in my own life (regardless of what age I was at the time). It shows just how capricious and changeable human beings are. The people that really puzzle me, in fact, are the ones who never change their minds about anything from the time they are children till they time they have one foot in the grave. Is such extraordinary consistency indicative of steadfastness...or just sheer stupidity and lack of imagination? I wonder. ;-) I think the fact that people change their minds as time goes on is good...it shows they are willing to be flexible and adapt. I've met people who went from being religious to being atheists, and I've met people who did the exact opposite. In either case it could indicate either a step forward into a greater understanding...or a step backward into some kind of disillusionment or an attempt to find security and "cover up" against further hurt. It could be good or it could be bad...and that would depend entirely on the specific personality of the person in question. In other words: there are both wise and stupid ways of being "religious", and there are both wise and stupid ways of being atheistic. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit From: 282RA Date: 26 Jun 06 - 09:15 PM >>By the way, hope you don't mind me asking but what does 282RA stand for?<< It's a long, unintelligible story. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit From: Bill D Date: 26 Jun 06 - 11:34 PM wasn't it RA282 for awhile? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit From: Little Hawk Date: 27 Jun 06 - 01:32 AM I keep getting confused too. I thought it was 282AR for a while... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit From: John O'L Date: 27 Jun 06 - 01:41 AM No Bill, and no Little Hawk, it was Guest AR282 for a while, bless you both. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit From: freda underhill Date: 27 Jun 06 - 01:58 AM Gesundheit! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit From: John O'L Date: 27 Jun 06 - 03:01 AM Bless me father, for I have sneezed... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit From: *daylia* Date: 27 Jun 06 - 07:54 AM Wow, I can't believe the way this thread is shaping up! So many blessings flying about -- I feel more, uh, sacred every time I come here! ;-) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit From: Dewey Date: 30 Jun 06 - 06:29 AM Bill, Typing with your head up your rear-end, kind of limits your having a SERIOUS mystical experience. It's like saying there is no such thing as vanilla ice cream, and having the final say on the subject, just because you've never bother trying vanilla ice cream. Have you seriously tried finding God by practicing the 13 principles described in Napolean Hill's Classic Book, Think and Grow Rich? Whether you have or haven't experienced the 6th sense, does not, in one i-oda, change reality. God will APPEAR TO YOU, if you practice these principles and it will totally flip you out. I'm not asking you to take my word for any of this. You cannot take my word until you find God for yourself in you own state of mind. you will either confirm my truth, or deny it based on your attitude of mind, but be aware it is your attitude, not that of the many thousands if not millions out there that are/ or have experienced this very real phenomonon. Try to discover the face of God, like all ancient sages, philisophers, and wisdom teachers as well, you will find wisdom and intergated direction in the presents of God, and the devine spirit of the creation. The "secert' Napolean HIll talks about is denied to all, except those that are "ready" Aristotle, Socrates, Descarte, Voltaire, Mozart, Einstein, Edison, Burbank, Ford, Carnegie, Rockafeller, Emerson, Whitman, etc. etc. were all "READY" Study history and the above philosphers (for a starter) and you will READ IN THEIR BIOGRAPHIES that they ALL agreed on the presents of a Metaphyscial God guiding their every thought and activity. I'm not just touting or preaching here. This stuff is in your College textbooks, Just try taking a philosphy course from a local university if you doubt this experience exists and/or existed in the mind's of many great men and women. As far as the secret: Thomas Edison used it and asked God for many Good and perfect things which mankind is still benifiting from today. His Definite Major purpose which inspired his 6th sense was a noble one: the advancement of human understanding and happiness. he asked God for Good things, things which benefited everyone, and his consciousness was expanded to recieve these gifts from the universal intelligents which flowed though him.... due to this ONE IDEA. All riches have there BEGINNING IN AN IDEA. It has to be a major purpose that is not self-centered but benefits all that it serves. and from THAT SPIRITUAL force comes the MATERIAL force. Edison's fertile mind linked up with infinite intelligents brought some of the follow INTEGRATED ADVANCEMENTS in the physical world for mankind: Inventions such as concrete, rubber tires, car batteries, headlights. electrical power transformers, telephone lines, movie projectors, recording equipment, typewriters. All seriving his higher goal: "The advancement of human understanding and happiness" From that DEFINITE MAJOR PURPOSE of Thomas Edison's came the ability to move industrial goods, the abilty to light cities for industries, the ability for mass communication, the abilty to tame the landscape etc. etc. To raise crops. to feed people etc. etc. etc. No doubt, we are all still benifiting from this definite major purpose of what was one man and his devine connection to a higher form of inetllgents beyond man's. The infinite intelligents fell upon Faraday in this century, He CHANNELED thosands of formulas for ceramic semi-conductors, formulas from infininte intelligents, which when taken down to the lab were found to be 100 percent workable and correct. Advancements which lead to production of modern computer storage capacity, and low and behold.... we know have the internet (something by the way which could never have happed had Thomas Edison not used infinite intelligent to help him in the creation of the power grid and the advancement of basic phone service in every city, something which infinite intelligents also was responsible for as well if you take the time to study his life you will learn of these facts as I did, just do a google search and you will no doubtedly be amazed. Infinite Intelligents also helped Miscrosoft's Bill Gates come up will the DOS operating system. It is a true story and a FACT that this system, was GIVEN to him in its ENTIRETY in a DREAM while he was asleep, and upon awakening he put it to use. Don't you yet see the purpose of the power of intention? Intention is forced in the universe that allows the act of CREATION to take place, it flows through you and through every other living thing for the good and perfect benefit of the whole, when used and orchestrated with the state of mind that affirms and integrates the perfection. Just look at nature, and you will see the very intention of God himself... the infinite spirit in its very own creation: everything works to together in utter perfection for the good of the whole. Let's see if some of the arrogant scientists could be even 1/1,000th as good as nature ALWAYS is in intergrating and balancing the whole of creation for the good of all and everything within it. INTENTION IS EVERYWHERE, it's also in our mind's pysche and souls as well. i.e. everything!!!! And some of you smirk because, LH, Daylia, and myself cannot fully comprehend and explain it ALL in one small neat little sentence. Of course we cannot, God is not finite, and he is far bigger. So what that we cannot understand it all. We need not to still have to ability to to move with and experience the flow of such creativity and perfect. Then you begin to question where God is? And if he can still be determined, He is in fact and without doubt in EVERY ATOM working his wonders in both the spiritual and the material world constantly, in ways so bizarre and devine we will can NEVER see the full picture, but I say so what? I still know and can feel the force that is behind it all guiding me and guiding everything else as well. It doesn't mean that we cannot find the general collective experiences that the mystics of all ages agree to as being elements of the nature of god, this devine creator. Vanilla ice cream does exist. As does God. But you have to open yourself up to trying vanilla ice cream out, much like you have to open yourself up to God, to know his nature, and/ or favor. Anybody that's tasted vanilla ice cream, knows collectively much of the following and is in total agreement, the ice cream is cold, and it is cream tasting, it melts etc. People who have EXPERIENCED God, in a MYSTICAL way, all agree whole-heartedly about the following: God is in everyone, everything, every place, and everywhere at once, 24/7 and is independant of our small thoughts and own mind yet is able to give us precisely what we need at precisely when we need it once we have developed the pyscho-spiritual relations. Our Father (first cause) Which art in heaven (perfect) Hallowed (Holy, Full of Goodness) Be thy Name (authority, author of creation) Thy (GOD's) Kingdom (rules which define and unfold goodness) Come (Manifested in conscious devine activity) Thy will (orchestrated by infininite intellgents) Be Done (accomplished) In earth (the physical) as it is in heaven. (perfection through intercession with the devine) We are not alone in our thoughts or even in our very biology. As above, So below. (Hermes) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit From: Little Hawk Date: 30 Jun 06 - 01:34 PM They smirk, Dewey, with the utter, smug assurance of a tiny, self-worshipping bubble of ego that KNOWS it is the final authority on everything it surveys and has an opinion on. Well, at least...until it dies. Then all the strutting and preening and "being right" is over, and the World goes on regardless, surprising in its graceful and effortless ability to survive and prosper without that little blathering bubble of ego. And then? Oh, the blessed silence! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit From: beardedbruce Date: 30 Jun 06 - 01:54 PM Dewey, I have a great deal for you, cash and in small unmarked bills. You seem to think that the ONLY path to understanding is your own- THAT is the FIRST indication that you might not be accurate. I can claim to have had many conversations with the Universe, and thus have a far better understanding of it than you- BUT SO WHAT? The statement that "When you experience ( whatever) then you will understand" does not add value to any discussion. To suggest to BillD ( of all people) "Just try taking a philosphy course from a local university if you doubt this experience exists and/or existed in the mind's of many great men and women." indicstes a real disconnect between you and reality. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit From: Bill D Date: 30 Jun 06 - 02:31 PM *grin* |
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Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit From: Little Hawk Date: 30 Jun 06 - 02:52 PM Actually, the only direct path to anyone's understanding IS their own. The usual error they seem to make is that everyone else must necessarily hold the same understanding...or be wrong or worse yet, even evil! ;-) And from there stem the usual lot of misunderstandings, religious wars, cultural wars, race wars, class wars, mercantile wars, etc. A world of many understandings is good. Always has been. Tolerance allows for a world of many understandings. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit From: Bill D Date: 30 Jun 06 - 02:54 PM you need to do more research, Dewey...let me give you an example start here (why, yes, I DO have a copy) then you can go here and expand your understanding even more. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit From: beardedbruce Date: 30 Jun 06 - 03:10 PM LH- "Actually, the only direct path to anyone's understanding IS their own." Absolute TRUTH! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit From: Little Hawk Date: 30 Jun 06 - 03:17 PM Thank you. We obviously agree on that, BB. It's something that's been clear to me ever since I could walk and talk. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit From: *daylia* Date: 30 Jun 06 - 04:51 PM To suggest to BillD ( of all people) "Just try taking a philosphy course from a local university if you doubt this experience exists and/or existed in the mind's of many great men and women." indicstes a real disconnect between you and reality. All it indicates to me is that Dewey's most likely unaware of Bill's background in philosophy. Or, if that's not the case, it may indicate that Dewey really has it in for Bill. The suggestion's rather like offering someone a good stiff drink - on their way home from the AA meeting. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit From: Little Hawk Date: 30 Jun 06 - 05:52 PM Going by my own philosophy course back in University, Daylia, I would say that philosophy classes are overloaded with teachers and students who like to impress each other with their immense verbal skills, but who have a hard time actually believing in anything....because it would make them too vulnerable. It's kind of like being so clever that you outsmart yourself, even if you don't outsmart anyone else. At the end of the day it's all just a big, impressive lot of windbag verbiage with nothing inside it, like an empty eggshell that's been painted up fancy. All talk, no substance. I was not impressed. People are what they believe. If they are too sophisticated and clever to believe anything then they are, in effect, precisely what they believe. Nothing. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit From: Bill D Date: 30 Jun 06 - 05:57 PM "Going by my own philosophy course..." all ONE of it? Did it include the wisdom that all generalizations are suspect? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit From: GUEST,Blind DRunk in Blind River Date: 30 Jun 06 - 06:01 PM It ain't just the gnereals that are suspectious! It's all them other ossifers too...like the sarjeants, the captains, the majors, the lottenants. All of 'em. It don't take a flippin' college degree to know that, eh? You can't trust none of the flipheads. Cops are even worse. - BDiBR |
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Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit From: Bill D Date: 30 Jun 06 - 06:04 PM ummm-hmmmm |
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Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit From: Little Hawk Date: 30 Jun 06 - 06:05 PM One was enough, Bill. I love philosophy, but I don't love the atmosphere that simmers around a university philosophy classroom. Accordingly, after that I read philosophy books rather than taking philosophy courses. My feeling is that the average person's natural tendency to become a pontificating, opinionated, self-obsessed prat increases exponentially with every additional philosophy course taken and passed. I'm sure there are individual exceptions to that, though. ;-) Like you, for example. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit From: Bill D Date: 30 Jun 06 - 06:11 PM see, that's the trouble with allowing 'average' persons to take Philosophy courses, Little Hawk... ;>) They tend to distort and water down what they hear. There oughta be a weeding out process with a written exam before they get in the door, just to be sure they have the proper attitude. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit From: Little Hawk Date: 30 Jun 06 - 06:16 PM I don't doubt that such a weeding out process could be handily accomplished, Bill, if William Shatner were in charge of interviewing all the applicants. Sadly, though, he doesn't have the necessary time for that. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit From: Little Hawk Date: 30 Jun 06 - 06:19 PM He doesn't even have the time to interview all the coeds, God knows...though I'm sure he would like to. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit From: Bill D Date: 30 Jun 06 - 06:42 PM I once had a coed interview ME when I was a grad. teaching asst. I had given her onle a "C" on her paper, and she allowed as how she'd do 'anything' to get a better grade. "Oh...even re-write the paper?", I suggested. The interview ended quickly...*grin* One day, sitting with my friend who was actually teaching a logic course, a coed spotted us and stopped by, gushing to him.."Oh, Mr. Wilson, you know how you told us about the two different kinds of logic...inductive and deductive? Well, my girlfriend & I have discovered another kind!" "Oh?", replied my friend, always the scholar..." and what is that?" "We call it SEductive logic" she cooed. "Then, that makes four kinds", he began, "as I had not mentioned in class about ABductive logic, which is distinguished by...." that interview, too, ended quickly, as she discovered she had to be somewhere... Them coeds would bamboozle Shatner...he wouldn't stand a chance. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit From: Amos Date: 30 Jun 06 - 06:46 PM Wait a minute -- is this moral philosophy or immoral philosophy? I majored in the latter at thew same time Bill was majoring in the former. I am reminded of the great saying, "There are many ways up the moutain, but the view from on top is always the same...". Steven Colbert, the great American theological theorist, gave a similar opinion when expressing his belief that America exists, and is inclusive of Muslims, Jews, Buddhists and Jaynes..."because I believe there are any number of ways to accept Jesus Christ as your personal savior...". LOL. Anyone who spends any time trying to untangle truth learns that assertions -- especially loud and emotional ones -- are often a dead giveaway of something other. A |
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Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit From: Bill D Date: 30 Jun 06 - 07:11 PM we (the Philosophy dept.)once had a notice from the audio-visual center that they were showing the movie "Plato's Republic"...brows were wrinkled as we tried to imagine how it would be done. No one I knew actually went, but the graffiti on the notice got very funny....the one I remember allowed as how: "Next week, the movie will be "Kant's Critique of Pure Reason" starring Julie Newmar as 'the sensible manifold'..." ...now, Amos, you would have liked that. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit From: Little Hawk Date: 30 Jun 06 - 07:50 PM You and Indiana Jones, Bill....holding off those seductive coeds together. ;-) Bravely done, sir. You did not yield to temptation. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit From: *daylia* Date: 01 Jul 06 - 10:17 AM Bill, do you ever feel imprisoned by obstructive logic? Or destructive logic? How bout havockive logic? Muckuptive logic? Upchuckive logic? Maybe even Getfuctive logic? (sorry, couldn't resist ....) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit From: Bill D Date: 01 Jul 06 - 11:01 AM nope, can't say as I do. How 'bout you? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit From: *daylia* Date: 01 Jul 06 - 11:19 AM Nah. Not since I escaped the "it might be Auschwitz, but it's home!" syndrome, anyway. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit From: freda underhill Date: 01 Jul 06 - 12:05 PM what a great site, Bill D.. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit From: Bill D Date: 01 Jul 06 - 12:11 PM oh...the sacred texts site? Yep! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit From: Amos Date: 01 Jul 06 - 02:41 PM Your assertion that first cause is not possible is not at all self evident. If every cause we observe has something prior to it there are two possibilities: the first cause which began the cascade is unobservable OR the first cause does not exist. Either postulate explains the phenomena and neither is proveable, nor is either disprovable. Good thing we are not talking science here. It is also possible that in calling Infinite Intelligence the "first" cause, Napoleon Hill was not speaking chronologically but in order of magnitudes or seniority, philosophically. A |
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Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit From: redsnapper Date: 02 Jul 06 - 12:29 PM Either postulate explains the phenomena and neither is proveable, nor is either disprovable. Good thing we are not talking science here. Or plain English... (;>) RS |
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Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit From: Amos Date: 02 Jul 06 - 01:24 PM Well, RS, what part didn't you understand? It's plain enough to me. A |
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Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit From: 282RA Date: 02 Jul 06 - 01:58 PM >>the first cause which began the cascade is unobservable<< Saying it's unobserved is just a veil we throw over it so as not to notice the imperfections. Is it a first cause or not? If it is, then it violates causation as we know it. If it is not, then god is not the beginning of everything since the whole point of postulating a first cause is to avoid that pitfall of an endless chain of causation--of something preceding god. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit From: Bill D Date: 02 Jul 06 - 03:02 PM Most humans simply do not like the concept of infinity when it is applied to causation.(we like it fine when considering an afterlife) We have no idea whether the notion of a 'first cause'- God or otherwise- makes sense, but that doesn't stop many from making declarative statements. We have the grammar/language to describe things we don't have the senses to experience or comprehend. It's also a great temptation to construct a logically consistent schema that no one can prove 'wrong', whether it has any basis in reality or not.....sometimes there is money to be made in the enterprise. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit From: 282RA Date: 02 Jul 06 - 04:19 PM The shameless tearing down of Shatner on this thread will cease immediately! You don't want to get me going. Go ahead and tear down philosophy, tear down religion, tear down mythology, tear down the very fabric of society and all our cherished institutions if you are of the mind. BUT LEAVE SHATNER OUT OF THIS!!!!! What did he ever do to you? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit From: Bill D Date: 02 Jul 06 - 04:24 PM Shatner? I'm surprised he isn't here getting |
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Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit From: Bill D Date: 02 Jul 06 - 04:24 PM the 500th post |
