Harry

I've read this discussion from top to bottom and I don't think many minds have been changed very much but the arc toward truth and understanding bends slowly. None of us understand the whole truth. I usually learn the most from rephrasing my own thoughts in the light shed by others repeating their understanding them. This is how I came to my current understanding of the Life Force being the prime cause of all that exists. Life force is to me what God or the various words and symbols used to describe the indescribable are to others; the source of all natural forces and the laws that govern them. I submit that the life force is a triune force of Love, Truth and consciousness. It is the "ground of all being" from quantum size to microscopic to mesoscopic and on through macroscopic cosmology. Life force is the ultimate energy completing and connecting all that exists. We are all one in the Life Force. I think the mythical Jesus of The Bible understood the Life Force and the universal connection of all things and the benefit of living the mortal part of our lives in love, truth and consciousness of good and evil. He understood that birth and death were the beginning and end of our personal mortality and that the life force within us would go on in other expressions after leaving our mortal remains.

There are two components to birth control, conception and contraception. The Catholic Church is pro-conception and anti-contraception. Abstinence from birth control would mean taking no part in either, total neutrality. As I remember being brought up in my Catholic community, the purpose of marriage was for pro-creation, having a large family raised in the Catholic faith. Women were to be used as baby factories. The Church wants to control the woman and her womb; any theological argument would have to be an argument of total neutrality. There has been no such theological justification that I am aware of. Anyone? During the past couple of years Republican controlled state legislatures have been passing or trying to pass laws that define when human life begins. Last week Arizona passed a bill that says human life begins when the ovary releases the egg which is two weeks prior to the time conception can take place. Why are they doing this? It is part of a movement to overturn Roe v. Wade. Following is a letter to the editor I submitted yesterday to our local news paper.

Definition of SUPERNATURAL 1: of or relating to an order of existence beyond the visible observable universe; especially : of or relating to God or a god, demigod, spirit, or devil. 2a : departing from what is usual or normal especially so as to appear to transcend the laws of nature. 2b : attributed to an invisible agent (as a ghost or spirit). I don't see "supernatural" as "beyond natural". I understand supernatural as not only natural but natural to perfection. God would be supernatural. I think of natural law coming from a supernatural life force of love, truth and consciousness. To me the only true reality is my own existence; “###### ergo Sum” all the rest is sensual and therefore posteriori knowledge. Debating the meaning of words with other words the definitions of which are uncertain is an academic exercise but can be entertaining in the right spirit. I can remember back in my youth when I questioned if everything I sensed could be a figament of my active imagination. Things seem as real to me when I dream sometimes as they do when I'm awake.

Why is reality such a contentious issue?

Some of the most interesting science and philosophy I've read in years that I can say I understand comes from this link of Geoff Haselhurst, Karene Howie Here is a small section on Einstein and religion. Sometimes I go to this website and literally spend hours soaking up the information then I spend more hours thinking about it. Introduction: Pantheist Religion of Albert Einstein

Norm, Unfortunately there are people who are not progressive but fundamentalist conservatives in that they will not be moved from centuries of what I would call almost genetic beliefs. These people are just as certain that they are right as progressive liberals. Fundamentalists are conservative by definition. Here is a direct quote from the website called a Patheos, dedicated to understanding world religions and religious movements. It claims to be the most accurate and balanced information available on the web written by the world's leading authorities on religion and spirituality. “Christian Fundamentalism is a conservative movement within American Protestantism that aims to uphold traditional Christian beliefs in the face of many modernist challenges. Christian Fundamentalism arose out of the late 19th and early 20th century conflicts with mainline Protestant churches over modernist challenges, including biblical criticism and interpretation. In response, between 1910 and 1915 conservative scholars from Princeton Theological Seminary published a series of twelve books titled The Fundamentals, which reaffirmed biblical inerrancy and attacked biblical criticism. Soon, Christian fundamentals began founding their own Bible colleges and Bible institutes to teach fundamentalist doctrines to future generations and provide structure to the movement. Christian fundamentalists teach the literal interpretation of scripture and hold to key Christian doctrines, including Jesus' birth, death, and resurrection, and salvation from our sins through the grace of God by having faith in Jesus Christ. Besides these doctrines, Christian Fundamentalism is also marked by its conservative social stances, including the refusal to smoke, drink alcohol, or dance. In recent decades, Christian Fundamentalism has also been characterized by its criticism of liberal social and political policies most notably legalized abortion, evolution taught in schools, and gay and lesbian rights.” The progressive Christians I know are progressive in other areas as well. They are well educated and politically liberal. There are some progressive Christians that may be called moderate but none are called fundamentalists. Paz Harry

Hi Mick, I hope you decide to stay and interact with us. It's not often we have the wisdom of 80 years to avail ourselves to. There is another RC priest who was with us on the old Spong forum, he's a missionary in the Amazon region. His name is Roy Joseph O'Shea. I like discussing philosophical stuff and cosmology as well as the next guy. paz Harry

As I see it there are two motivating factors for those to want this ban enshrined in our Federal and State Constitutions. The first is homophobia and the second is religion. Both of these motives are selfish and have nothing to do with a threat to the institution of marriage. Homophobia is not a fear of gays it is the fear of being gay. Some of the most notorious homophobes are anti-gay crusaders and a majority of them are conservatives. I won't go into the long list of names here, anyone with a computer and the time can find these hypocrites. I've learned from my life experiences that people tend to dislike most in others what they fear most in themselves. Anti gay crusaders are often gay themselves and because of fear of being exposed they want others to believe they are as straight as straight can be. Many do this by joining in a "traditional" marriage and having children. This could be the threat they see to traditional marriage, that it will be confused with gay marriage. It makes sense that they would want no ambiguity about marriage. The religious excuse for persecuting gays is equally as abhorrent and once again it is all about the fear of what others will think of you if you don't speak out against the "sin". Anyone so called Christian who is anti-gay is a hypocrite in one way or the other. There is reason to think that Jesus and the Apostles were gay, especially Paul who had serious problems with women and his own "member". Someday in the not too distant future, perhaps within the next couple of generations, people will understand that sexuality and gender identity both physiological and psychological are built into our DNA on a broad scalar range with male on one end and female on the other with all kinds of variations in between. We all share 99.999 percent identical DNA but that .001 percent is what makes the difference in our physiological and psychological makeup. Just because someone doesn't fall within the range we consider normal doesn't mean that they are not as natural as everyone else. Science shows us that the number of gays in a population is predictable, thus being gay is a natural occurrence not a choice someone makes after they have reached the age of reason; to believe that is just shows ignorance of established science.

Carl, I am anxious to hear more of your ideas on consciousness. I too have strong sense that all consciousness does not reside in our skull but the higher levels of consciousness are outside of us and that our brain is somehow our link to universal consciousness and life force itself. I think the brain is like a transmitter/receiver that communicates with outside energy and other dimensions and that it can be tuned or aligned like the IF section of a super hetrodyne receiver I have a great interest in PSI because I have a step daughter who is a psychic. I've gone to lengths to convince myself that psychics are frauds but the more I study the phenomena the deeper I'm drawn to understand otherwise. The institute of Noetic Sciences is a place I discovered while doing research on PSI. If you are aware of other sites like this that deal with consciousness that you found valuable please share them with us. Yesterday Stauch was kind enough to share his near death experience with us in a post on Kathy's 911 conspiracy topic. Not only did he have a NDE but he also told us of his prior reincarnations. I take Stauch very seriously because I have an intuitive feeling that he is more in touch with the life force or universal consciousness field than most. I have a strong feeling that scientists are on the verge of discovery that will be a consciousness paradigm shift for humanity and it will be good. I don't know if the ending of the Aztek calander on 12/21/2012 has anything to do with it or not but we shall see.

Carl, I think my opening post of Immortal Souls fits in nicely here so I have cut and pasted it below.