Between Science and Spirituality

The Chronicle of Higher Education ^ | Nov. 29, 2002 | John Horgan

[underthesun]

PING

[f.Christian]

Good News For The Day

‘The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone.’ (Luke 20:17)

"The most familiar, and the best-loved images of Jesus, are those that picture to us, his gentle, compassionate spirit. "Whoever comes to me, I will in no wise cast out"; "Come to me, all you who are weary"; "Let the little children come to me."

"But there are other images of Jesus in the Gospels, which show another aspect of his personality. They emphasize the steel in him. Sometimes Jesus was awesome; formidable."

"In the parable, Jesus presents himself as the landlord's Son; the rejected stone, that eventually becomes the most important stone in the superstructure of the kingdom of God. Jesus plainly thought that those who opposed him were in collision with God. He was warning nation's leaders: "It is unwise and unsafe to be against me." Tough talk from Jesus! He was signaling what was taken up by Peter at Pentecost, where, full of resurrection joy and authority, he preached saying: "This Jesus, you put him to death. . . . but God raised him from the dead. God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ" (Acts 2:31-36).

"In the parable of the wicked tenants, Jesus teaches that those who discard him, will not thereby have gotten rid of him. Jesus was not, and is not now, a passing phenomenon. So truly does Jesus represent reality; so deeply entrenched in the ultimate truth of existence, is his life and teaching, that He, and not his opponents, will prevail. If the universe is a moral place (and Christ himself is the most convincing evidence that it is), then his prediction that he would triumph, even over those who killed him, must come true. Therefore let us treasure the august aspects of his personality, as much as his gentle features, for they signal a world order in which 'goodness', as Jesus taught it, will... reign---unopposed. The stone that was rejected, will become the capstone."

Good News For The Day

‘The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone.’ (Luke 20:17)

"There is a certain inevitability about Christ. He is the fulfillment of Herod's worst nightmare. Herod killed John the Baptist, and when Christ followed, the ruler thought John had risen from the dead. In a sense, it was true. Jesus' first appeals to the corrupt king were made through the Baptist."

"Christ is uncompromising; inexorable. He is unpreventable, unstoppable, unavoidable. An outline of the creation's future is discernible in the personality of Jesus. The new world order will bear the stamp of his character."

"The invincibility of Jesus is good news. It confirms our deepest hope-that the highest values known to humankind, will overcome, and reign. It is good strengthening to believe that... Spirit---is higher than matter. No one really wants to inhabit a world where material values rule. The incarnation of such values are exampled by Adolf Hitler, or Idi Amin."

"It is good news to know that we are loved by a 'tough love'; a love that is not willing to give up, or let go, and hence, a love that suffers long. In short we are loved by a love that will triumph. "Love never fails."

Good News For The Day

‘He who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces, but on whom it falls will be crushed.’ (Matthew 21:44)

"In his parable of the tenants, Jesus looks across the years of Israel's covenant privilege, and gives his interpretation of them. He sees that Israel's history can be stated in terms of its refusal to recognize Him-the rejected stone. Through the prophetic ministry, Christ had made many pre-incarnational appeals to his people. "How often would I have gathered you together, even as a hen gathers her chickens."

"Thus did Jesus claim deep involvement in his nation's history. The Jews had stumbled over the Christ of the Old Testament. Many times the people had been humbled and broken through its rejection of his claims. So it may be with us. Our life story can be understood as the tale of a person engaged in a quest to make terms with the Stone-with Christ."

"From the beginning, Christ has been present to us. Our first meeting with him was through the warmth and love of our mother; then our father, and later, teachers and mentors. Christ has been there in providence; in good and ill. We have bumped into him time and again, in our attempts to be free of his claims. We have fought tooth and nail for our freedom from God. We have been burned and bruised repeatedly. These seasons of brokenness have been gracious. They have been... signs to us---that life will not work any other way but Christ's way."

"God enable me to discern the ministry of Jesus, the Stone, in my life."

[forsnax5]

If all of time is as a panoramic plane to the Creator (leaning loosely on the concept of flatland), then going to a point on the plane of time is as easy for Him as anything He does.

This concept makes all of time into a CD, where everything that ever happened or will happen is recorded. The creator of the CD can go to any point on the CD, being outside the limits of it (and it must have limits if the creator can be beyond them).

This is an easy-to-understand concept, because we're familiar with CDs. But it excludes free will.

The popular dodge for this conundrum is that every time a choice is made, a new CD (universe) is created. Think of all the Jewel Boxes He'd need!

If a person's essense can enter an afterlife, I don't think it can take a mind with it. Perhaps the soul is like a flat stone being skipped across an infinite lake, where each splash is a different existence, and each expanding pattern of ripples is a new mind.

[BikerNYC]

If they did not believe, with all their hearts, that they would live again in glory, why would they bother with a lie?

Fanatics believe a lot of things with all their heart. Where is the evidence that what they believed is true? The testimony of others who believed like them? How about the testimony of those who did and do not believe with all their heart? Many, many Jews died during the Inquisition when they refused to renounce their very heart-felt beliefs. Were these Jews right when they declared that Jesus was not the son of god?

[MHGinTN]

This is an easy-to-understand concept, because we're familiar with CDs. But it excludes free will. The individual has free will, to chose; that choice, when made, is registered on the CD and is then part of the temporal record ... taking your useful analogy. Free will is not excluded merely because God has access to all of the dimension time, the past, present, and future.

His knowledge of us, by giving us the free will to chose individually, is the reason He offered His Son for us. It is the individual who chooses to accept or reject that gift, even as the Creator is able to see our choice. We condemn ourselves in a rejection of that gift, but we shall all be resurrected some where/when, some to everlasting loss of communion with the Creator, some to everlasting communion with the Creator. When we are given that choice is the gnarly issue not to be debated on this particular forum.

[Bob J]

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[Hank Kerchief]

Give me a break. Show me a pound of courage, a quart of love, a mile of sacrifice. Good Grief. You're almost as a pita as my #2 son.

That's my argument. I thought you were arguing for numbers being pure concept. My point was that numbers are nothing more than abstractions from perceived and identified qualities of material existense. I would never make such abstractions applicable to concepts of consciousness such as courage, or love. (I consider sacrifice a very evil concept, by the way.)

What in the world made you believe I would confuse concepts about material existense with concepts of consciousness?

(This does not mean I believe courage, love, fear, and other such concepts are unmeasurable. They are, in a relative sense, such as more or less courage, or love, and so one.)

Hank

[Hank Kerchief]

PS. Tried to read Aristotle. Drove me to abstraction. With all of his counting and sorting, he couldn't have been much fun at a party, or a debate either.

Yes, well I do understand that.

Hank

[MissAmericanPie]

Look, your in a room, the door is locked, and your friend walks right through it. Would you really want to tell anyone? Do you think that they really believed anyone would understand it, or think them sane? Would you or I tell it?

Only if the fear of not telling it out weighed the fear of telling it. The fear of offending God by remaining silent, added to the weight of evidence that life continues, would be the only weight sufficient enough to make everyday people fess up to having seen something like that. Their hero had just died, they felt used and abused, not knowing what to do next, where to go. Then there he was in the midst of them, they were terrified. But when they left that room, they were changed human beings, not the devil himself, or threat of death, could make them take back the truth of the matter, they sure didn't care if people thought them insane and they fully understood that most would.

[BikerNYC]

Would you really want to tell anyone? Do you think that they really believed anyone would understand it, or think them sane? Would you or I tell it?

A very nice story. Those who have been abducted by aliens phrase it the same way. Why would they subject themselves to such ridicule unless what they said were true?

[Nogbad]

To hold that the world is eternal
or to hold that it is not
or to agree
to any other of the propositions you adduce
Vaccha
is the jungle of theorising
the wilderness of theorising
the tangle of theorising
the bondage and the shackles
of theorizing
attended by ill
distress
perturbation
and fever
It conduces not to detachment
passionlessness
tranquility
peace
to knowledge and wisdom
of Nirvana.
This is the danger
I perceive
in these views
which makes me discard them all.

The Buddha

[beckett]

[                                     ]

[MissAmericanPie]

Given the public miracles, I don't see a problem believing his private miracles. But you, like the ones in power at the time, can write them off as the superstitions of the unwashed masses, or mass hysteria.

For me, given the preponderance of the historical record, going back a thousand years before his birth, I can't write it off as mass hysteria. I don't know if you have read the bible, but if you have or ever do, I would like to call to your attention, the great detail given to the varying personalities of the individuals God worked through. This attention by God to the individual, and what makes him tick, is the very basis of the Christian inspired value placed on the individual in our Constitution.

And here is the difference, to me, between the Quaran, Buddism, Hinduism, all the "isims" and the historical record of the Bible. One cannot read it, and not come to an understanding of the importance of the individual personality to God, Himself, and the love glowing there, and the longing for, the individual to reconcile himself to the One who created and loves him. You matter to Him, each and every one of us do. The question is asked, does He matter to you? It can only be answered "yes" or "no".

The bible is many things, an historical record of man, from our begining, an insight into the fact that no matter what our circumstances, light switches, and cars, or clubs and caves, mankind has not changed a whit in his hearts desires or rational. The same intrigues and reactions that were typical of people then are typical of people now.

The bible is also a message from God, revealing Himself and His plan for our future to us. "I would not have you ignorant" is a beautiful assurance to be rested in. And given that His foretelling of His plan, and the fact that history and the present gives evidence of it's truth and power, the assurance that He is right on time gives a joy that surpasses the daily tribulations we all endure.

He told us that He would send a "Redeemer", a Saviour, He did. Some missed that fact because He did not arrive with fanfare and trumpets, but in humility and in the clothes of a servant. The everyday man, ordinary to the eye of the beholder. Diety wrapped in flesh and binding us to Him, and Him to us in every way possible, genetically, and spiritually. When He created us in his "image" we were merely an image, when He wrapped himself in flesh we became His kindred. When He laid down His life, He defeated the death that we had become infected with.

I'm trying to inspire your curiosity and hunger here. I'm sure not Billy Graham unfortunately. I can only tell you that the more science learns, the more evident it becomes that there is a plan here. I'll read something new, the "Crunch", multi-dimensions, the "yes", "no" step beyond Quantum Mechanics and think to myself, "Well this is in the bible, been there all this time in black and white".

The bible makes it clear what this plan is, and what will lead up to the completion of it. I hope you read it and come to appreciate it's value and message, the simple truth of it.

[Cvengr]

Heb 4:12 need not be metaphorical. The Word of God does indeed cut between soul and spirit.

[LogicWings]

May commend you on an excellent post. Your are at least speaking in a fashion that makes sense to me, even though we may not always agree.

Your Pinker quote is interesting and you are quite right that what he is saying is mere assertion. It is conjecture but not an isolated case. I find it everywhere. I am reading a Masters of Science book on Darwin, just because it has been so long since last read anything about evolution, and it is the pivotal element in so many of the discussions here. On the first page of the first chapter he said that Darwin “proved the fact of evolution.” Huh? When did this happen? When did the theory become a fact? Then why don’t all evolutionists agree on the mechanism? So I find such things everywhere.

And I agree with you, even if they succeed in replicating abiogenesis in the lab, that doesn’t prove anything other that we can replicate it in the lab. Doesn’t mean that’s how it happened the first time.

After Satre I think Kierkegaard is one of my least favorite writers. The definition you gave is one of my main objections to the concept, if it is ’totally other’ then how does he know anything about it to make the statement? This is as much an unwarranted assertion as Pinker.

It has been a while but Julian Jaynes postulated not only God as right brain communication, but consciousness itself as a byproduct of the breakdown of the bicameral mind. This presupposes there is a breakdown, and I don’t find any evidence of that in sane people. In fact, just the opposite. The most conscious people are those that can reconcile the two, who don’t see any such division. Rare in today’s world.

I noted with interest your pejorative use of the term "insane" to describe theists earlier in the thread.

Oh, I guess I have to plead guilty. But many theists are functionally insane, something we ignore on a daily basis in this country, and around the world. The recent guy in New England that starved his child to death because his sister had a ‘revelation’ that the child was ‘chosen’ and should eat no solid food. The guy who refused medical attention for his daughter because he believed God would heal the child, and she died. That crazy lady in Texas who drowned her five kids to keep them from falling into the clutches of the devil (the religious side of this story is seldom told.) The stories are too numerous to mention. Aren’t these people functionally insane?

Aren’t those Islamic theists who strap bombs to themselves blow themselves up in crowded places insane? Oh, I know, I know, you are going to say, well they aren’t Xtians and they don’t represent all theists, and this is why I said I plead guilty. I know it sounds sometimes like I’m tarring everybody with the same brush, but there are theists and there are theists. I think there are so many contradictions in most theist’s positions that they are somewhat insane. My exposure to the thought processes and the stubborn refusal to consider anything other than ‘what they believe’ hasn’t moderated my view any.

Is it so bizarre to be a little insane when presented with the great surprise of life?

This statement scares me. It opens the door to anything. I could use this statement to justify Hitler. When does one cross the line from a ‘little’ insane to a ‘lot’ insane?

Is a leap of faith really that irrational?

Well, if you mean the word ‘faith’ in the sense of believing in the existence of the ‘supernatural’ that you also admit you have no reasons for believing in, other than that you believe, then yes. It is that irrational.

Hardcore materialists confidently aver that no leakage occurs between the material and the non-material.

Well, materialists don’t have any evidence for that either, they can’t. The relationship between energy and matter has utterly demolished this argument but most people don’t realize it yet. Energy is ‘non-material’ by definition, so there is more to the universe than the material. We are just beginning to understand what this is and the implications are huge.

To jump out of sequence:

Does BettyBoop's formidable metaxy no longer apply? Or does knowledge simply move us a little further down a path still jam packed with an unending supply of mysteries?

I’m not sure I’m familiar with BB’s writings enough to understand what you mean here. Has the ghost in the machine truly been vanquished? According to whom? I’ll bet I can find holes in any argument that asserts it has. When do we know we’ve pierced the final ‘mystery?’ When do you decide you know enough to say, “Enough! I’ve figured it out!” When you do, don’t you turn to stone like those that gazed upon the face of the Medusa?

And finally, to return myself to the question:

I believe they are wrong. I think that somewhere way, way down deep in Mandelbrot's fractals --- way, way down, almost infinitely way down --- there is a leak.

And this also where we part company, I think you‘re looking the wrong way. I don’t look, ’way, way down.’ The function of philosophy is, ultimately, is to integrate everything into a whole. I look UP, I look at the big picture. What is the ’whole thing?’ If there is an answer it is in the sum total, the Universe, and not in the reductionist, devil is in the details, details.

Some insanely huge piece of the puzzle is missing, and not even the best theories of evolutionary psychology show much promise of finding it.

I have been studying Japanese for years, it is a very difficult language. There is a single line in my current language book that makes the point - ’Mind pervades the whole universe.’

And Jesus was a sailor when He walked upon the water.
And he spent a long time watching from a lonely wooden tower,
and when He knew for certain only drowning men could see Him.
He said “All men shall be sailors, then, until the sea shall free them."
But He Himself was broken long before the sky would open.
Forsaken almost human, He sank beneath your wisdom like a stone.

[LogicWings]

You might find it enormously fulfilling to give equal time and read the Old and New Testaments completely,....or even partially while in fellowship with God.

I have read, cover to cover, all the Scriptures a number of times over the years. I read them long before I discovered the Nag Hamadi scripts, the coptic writings and the Hidden Gospels, [or those Gospels that weren't canonized (which are far more interesting than those that were, and supports my view that the Church was more a political entity than a religious one.)]

[LogicWings]

Gnosticism fails to properly address the issue

It does not, this is merely your opinion.

and the seeming causal effect on reality can be used by those persons in the spirit domain who are deceiving (demons and deceiving spirits) to further deceive the unrepentant.

At this point I reliquish the floor. It isn't enough to have to believe in God, we have to believe in all this too!

Healing may be caused by fallen angels as well as by holy power. Not the best example to use when discerning the Holy Spirit.

Then how can 'you' ever know when a healing is from God or is from a "fallen angel?" Why can't you be fooled as well as anybody else? Because only what you believe is true? Why, because you say so???

You just utterly undercut your own argument. Maybe all are deceived.