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To: AntiGuv; betty boop; xzins; marron
Thank you for your reply! Sorry to be late, had a bit of varnishing to do...

Whew! I’m glad you clarified that you are agnostic – I was fixing to have to abandon my habit of referring to metaphysical naturalists with a parenthetical “atheists” following. It is always true that metaphysical naturalists are atheists but not necessarily true that all atheists are metaphysical naturalists though I had never met one until you.

If I were to bet my life on it, however, I would certainly bet that there are no gods as the term is commonly understood.

Nevertheless, I’m not giving up on you. After all, doubting Thomas was an apostle too.

I am neutral with regard to what may come after life; our minds are energy fields and it's not entirely clear what happens to them once we die. My suspicion is that they just dissipate, but we don't know for certain.

I’m very glad you envision the mind as an energy field rather than merely an epiphenomenon of the physical brain. That is a huge move in the “right” direction from my point of view.

On the other point, when you actually meet the One resurrected from the dead, Jesus Christ, then I’m confident you will understand what comes next.

One final point before we leave this sidebar discussion – it is very curious to me that you have formulated an opinion about the beginning with regard to cosmology but not with regard to life.

2,195 posted on 06/01/2005 2:05:41 PM PDT by Alamo-Girl
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To: Alamo-Girl
One final point before we leave this sidebar discussion – it is very curious to me that you have formulated an opinion about the beginning with regard to cosmology but not with regard to life.

That is incorrect, I have most certainly formulated an opinion with regard to the beginning of life. When I sit out on my front deck and gaze at the trees and the wildlife I don't fabricate this stark disjunction with the elements surrounding them. I envision the ecosystem as but an extension of the earth, reaching up to the skies, with the same essence coursing through all of it. I regard life as an inherent extension of the properties of this universe, that perpetually attempts to organize itself even as entropy inevitably breaks it all down. Wherever the elements of the universe are arranged in such manner that they might organize organically, then they will do so, and the longer they are serendipitously graced with a stable environment, they will arrange themselves in ever more complex forms, until at some juncture they organize themselves into something like us, that can then turn around and master the less organized properties of the universe, and shape them into yet more elaborate forms and functions.

And, as it were, I do not envision mankind or any of his constructs as apart from nature and the properties of the universe itself. Whatever we are and whatever we do and whatever we make is perfectly and completely natural.

2,198 posted on 06/01/2005 2:18:14 PM PDT by AntiGuv (™)
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