Indeed! As you so astutely note, dear spirited, MarkBnsr's logical position is that of "the pot calling the kettle black." LOL!!! :^)
I think you are so right to point out that MarkBsnr indeed "has" a spiritual mind. Unfortunately, it seems he's been stuffing it with junk. As Chesterton noted, when a man ceases to believe in God that doesn't mean that he doesn't then believe in nothing. Rather it means he'll believe in anything. Nature hates a vacuum....
I also agree with you that MarkBnsr has crossed over into what, for him, should be "forbidden territory": metaphysics. The materialist/mechanistic view of the universe that he seems to hold stipulates that "all things supervene on the physical." That is, the ultimate principle of the universe reduces to matter in its motions. All natural effects must have natural causes. There are absolutely no spiritual or metaphysical principles or entities operating in the universe. To believe otherwise is to confess ignorance and superstition....
But this is a philosophical, even a religious statement, not a scientific one! Just try to subject it to the scientific method and you'll see what I mean.
Perhaps this is why some thinkers make the distinction between that which is "scientific," and that which is "scientistic." But I digress....
May I observe that this worldview is a total reduction of/abstraction from Nature, which then seeks to imprison Nature in the abstraction?
Who is really talking about "Reality" here???
Who is being, "objective," and who "subjective," here? The metaphysical materialist, or the humble student of Plato?
Maybe the following might help to put this problem into perspective:
... Oh priest, consider mankind, how the phenomena of life and Nature are under the very eyes of them all; but they, in their puny selfishness, see only the few things of which they can make use. Very rare are those who seek the Cause for its own sake; very rare are those who allow themselves to be moved by those phenomena of periodicity, attraction and repulsion which are the manifestation of the Ideas. How many, do you think, are there of those who seek with their heart the divine mystery which makes the waters rise to the sky and makes them descend again through the Nile to our Earth?Thank you so very much, dearest sister in Christ, for your most penetrating essay/post!
... How many are those who, without arrogance, search for the power that moves and the law that is behind all this?
— adapted from Her-Bak: The Living Face of Ancient Egypt by Isha Schwaller de Lubicz, by Joseph Needleman in A Sense of the Cosmos: Scientific Knowledge and Spiritual Truth.
But this is a philosophical, even a religious statement, not a scientific one! Just try to subject it to the scientific method and you'll see what I mean.
Thank you for your outstanding essay-post, dearest sister in Christ!
Excellent points.
Thx for the ping.
I would contend, dear sister that it is you that is filled with recycled stuffing. I do not believe in anything that is not handed down from the Apostles and the Church; whereas the non Christian beliefs are handed out and proselytized with wild abandon.
I also agree with you that MarkBnsr has crossed over into what, for him, should be "forbidden territory": metaphysics. The materialist/mechanistic view of the universe that he seems to hold stipulates that "all things supervene on the physical." That is, the ultimate principle of the universe reduces to matter in its motions. All natural effects must have natural causes. There are absolutely no spiritual or metaphysical principles or entities operating in the universe. To believe otherwise is to confess ignorance and superstition....
There is plenty of superstition here... I realize that there is a separation of the temporal and the spiritual. Those that claim to bridge the gap are either of God or of the tent revival preachers.
What is reality? And how does that relate to this rather interesting post?
bb: As Chesterton noted, when a man ceases to believe in God that doesn’t mean that he doesn’t then believe in nothing. Rather it means he’ll believe in anything.
Spirited: Indeed. When a man chooses to reject God the Father, this does not mean that his choice makes him an autonomous individual whose mind is “sacrosanct.” No, it is just when man willfully rejects God the Father that “peculiar” ideas take root in his mind.