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Statement Of Faith


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Remember that TCPC is mostly about questions and not answers.

When I read the Eight Points I see answers to questions I've had all my life. But that's not to say that we don't continue to love the questions.

 

 

Hi Mystictrek,

 

I like what you said about "continuing to love the questions"...I think that is really our only hope for progress along our spiritual paths.

And I believe,that we ought to strive to always have more questions than answers.

I read somewhere recently...."We can't really tell others about what we BELIEVE...only what we have EXPERIENCED". Anything we say beyond our experience, is only "preaching".

Is that too strong a statement of faith? What do you think?

 

 

Blessings to you,

 

Jerry

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I believe that you are right on the mark jerry.

 

Experience is the wellspring of belief AND faith. If you can run across others whose experiences resonate with yours, then the sharing of belief and faith is enhanced. One cannot experience anything without questioning aspects of the universe around them.

 

So keep on questioning everything, especially authority.

 

That's what Jesus did best, non-violently, even though He could look into the future and see the turmoil that His works would create. That's the only way that progress is made across the eons. History teaches us all that lesson.

 

flow.... :rolleyes:

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Des - LOL!!!

 

Flow- "Thanks for the information. I thought that it might have something to do with the head wizard. The secrecy of the name thing is interesting though considering the ancient Hebrews' prohibition on the use of the name of G-d. "

 

Really more of a Beetlejuice or Lord of the Rings type prohibition - avoid summoning someone or drawing their unholy attention to you by using their name.

:D

The books really are good... except #5... but I love sharing them with my kids. It's a neat age now - we can all enjoy series together! :P

Edited by Cynthia
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I have a BIG problem with saying that only humans have eternal significance. I just don't get that at all. Upon what can we base this anthropocentrism besides pure egocentricity and a wish?

 

Such anthropocentrism is precisely what has led us to destroy the natural environment and to treat our fellow creatures with horrific cruelty. We've got to expand our theological thinking beyond ourselves to consider all life on the planet... and even the cosmos.

I get to this by assuming that anything bound by time is by definition destined to end. Only those things within time that have an eternal connection can of themselves have eternal significance. Which as far as my thinking goes limits that to humanity. We appear to be the only life-form in the universe with the capacity for self-awareness. Other animals have consciousness and may know as much about their worlds as we do about ours, but they don't seem to know that they know. This suggests to me that some facet of ourselves, the 'soul' perhaps, is grounded in eternity. It's what gives us the ability to think about ourselves from an outside-of-ourselves viewpoint, what we call self-awareness.

 

The impact of the rest of the cosmos on each of us gives it considerable indirect influence because it's our primary source of information about the Creator. But the only eternal significance of this 'book of nature' is I think in the changes it inspires in that part of us with the potential to continue beyond physical death.

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Only those things within time that have an eternal connection can of themselves have eternal significance. Which as far as my thinking goes limits that to humanity. We appear to be the only life-form in the universe with the capacity for self-awareness. Other animals have consciousness and may know as much about their worlds as we do about ours, but they don't seem to know that they know.

I agree that humans have a fairly (maybe even totally) unique capacity for self-awareness, "knowing that we know," etc. But I don't think it "grounds us in eternity" in a way that the rest of the world and/or cosmos doesn't share. I think it makes us consciously aware that all temporal reality is grounded in eternity, which is part of what gives us the unique role and responsibility I alluded to in my earlier response. If we were hypothetically to discover another species in the cosmos who had an even higher degree of reflexive capacity than we do -- which seems far from unlikely -- how would that discovery alter our eternal standing? Or, for an example that hits closer to our experience, what about people who are born with severe brain damage, and lack the level of reflexive capacity that "ordinary" people possess? Do these people have less eternal significance?

 

We have to distinguish the capacity for reflection on our existence -- which varies widely both within and across species -- from the actual ontological character of our existence itself.

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I agree that humans have a fairly (maybe even totally) unique capacity for self-awareness, "knowing that we know," etc.  But I don't think it "grounds us in eternity" in a way that the rest of the world and/or cosmos doesn't share.  I think it makes us consciously aware that all temporal reality is grounded in eternity, which is part of what gives us the unique role and responsibility I alluded to in my earlier response.

Perhaps grounded was the wrong word for what I meant. I think of creation as only having existence in our now, with the past being 'simply' an imprint on the present. So 'temporal reality', if the time-slice we consider to be 'now' is infinitely short, is just a plane of space that has no meaning of itself for what it is logically contained by. It's only those of us that exist within this continuity of plane recreation (what we experience as spacetime) and that also have some 'external', ie. eternal, point of reference (to give us self-awareness) that find meaning here.

 

Or something like that.

If we were hypothetically to discover another species in the cosmos who had an even higher degree of reflexive capacity than we do -- which seems far from unlikely -- how would that discovery alter our eternal standing?  Or, for an example that hits closer to our experience, what about people who are born with severe brain damage, and lack the level of reflexive capacity that "ordinary" people possess?  Do these people have less eternal significance?

Whether it's another species elsewhere in the cosmos, or Flow's one yet to evolve on earth, or a brain-damaged one of us, this eternal component of these persons' being does not seem dependent on their biology for it's significance. Perhaps we can only know them when we're no longer bound by the limitations of our humanity. I suspect there's a lot of stuff like that. :)

Edited by Dave Marshall
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Just got back from St. Louis so will remark on the HP comments. Yes, the He Who Must Not be Named (etc) are more for fear that in some way the evil would be summoned, I think. NO I didn't like Book 5 (OOP) that well either, but really loved Half Blood Prince. It was arguably as dark but with Harry in a better state. Ending awfully sad.

 

 

--des

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