Why Bother?

[JosephM]

I can't point to a specific post. It is just what *I perceive* to be the general attitude, mainly stemming from the supposition that all we have is personal opinions, that the only thing we are sure of is that we are not sure of anything.

 

That certainly may be the opinion of some or a few expressed in their posts but that certainly doesn't speak for PC or this forum. While point 6 certainly expresses placing more grace in the search for understanding than in dogmatic certainty, i for one am most certain in my mind on at least a few issues and i hope there are other here that are also.

 

....... perhaps time will graciously allow some of my better contributions here to be a blessing to others. That's the best I can do for now, Joseph.

Wishing you the best,

 

In my view, i think that hope has already been fulfilled. On the whole i believe your posts have been a real blessing to others already and will continue to be read and encourage and inspire others at a particular stage of a similar journey.

 

Joseph

[Mike]

Bill,

 

It is perfectly fine for you to identify with the pragmatic side of religion. Though I must admit: questioning the nature of experience, God and reality as we have been doing goes a bit beyond what pragmatism usually invokes, so I'm not quite sure how our preceding discussion fits with what you've now written. I know personally I've never been satisfied with practice unless practice also identifies or is one with truth. Of course -- we can also come to understand that practice is truth, if we can enter into a deep relationship with our practice.

 

I've enjoyed this discussion.

 

Peace,

Mike

[GeorgeW]

It is perfectly fine for you to identify with the pragmatic side of religion. Though I must admit: questioning the nature of experience, God and reality as we have been doing goes a bit beyond what pragmatism usually invokes, . . .

 

Mike,

 

I fail to see why one would preclude the other.

 

George

[BillM]

Mike,

 

Though I must admit: questioning the nature of experience, God and reality as we have been doing goes a bit beyond what pragmatism usually invokes, so I'm not quite sure how our preceding discussion fits with what you've now written.

 

If you recall, I said at the start of this thread that I wasn’t quite sure where I was going with it. I guess if I had to sum it up, I would put it thus:

 

As I see it, Christianity tells us that we are part of a larger story than just our individual lives. For illustrative purposes, let’s call this a Big Picture. And to keep this short, I’m going to greatly simplify it. The Big Picture that I was given by Christianity when I was a kid and as a young adult went like this:

 

1. God created the world as a good place. But humans messed it up. Therefore, because it is messed up, God is going to have to destroy it. But before he does so, he has sent Christ to tell us how to escape the world before God ends it. So Christ, if we believe in him, saves us from a doomed creation.

 

This is the Big Picture that popular Christianity instilled in me. But over the years, I struggled with this Big Picture and, without going into all of the details, came to see a different Big Picture that I think is not only Christian, but perhaps more progressively Christian. That Big Picture goes like this:

 

2. God created the world as a good place. But humans messed it up. Nevertheless, God loves the world and intends to redeem it. He does this by calling out a people in order to bless and impact the world for good. In the Hebrew scriptures, he called out the Jewish nation. In the New Testament, he, through Jesus, calls out the church. The church, as she follows the teachings of her Lord and the Spirit, is to be a blessing to the world in order to redeem it, to make it like what Jesus called “the kingdom of God.”

 

The first Big Picture is focused on salvation. The second Big Picture is focused on mission. The first Big Picture is focused on “What can my religion do for me?” The second is focused on “What can I do, with God’s help, for others?”

 

In closing, questioning the nature of God and reality has everything to do with the Big Picture. If God is not real or cannot be in some sense known, then the major component (and possibly the author) of the Big Picture is missing from it. And if the world is not real, then the mission is fiction, there is nothing to redeem. All we are left with is subjective, in-our-own-mind phantasms that are nothing more than meaningless mind games and futile activities that occupy us until we return to dust. And if this is indeed the way it is, that is why I asked, “Why Bother?"

 

ws

[JosephM]

(snip)

 

In closing, questioning the nature of God and reality has everything to do with the Big Picture. If God is not real or cannot be in some sense known, then the major component (and possibly the author) of the Big Picture is missing from it. And if the world is not real, then the mission is fiction, there is nothing to redeem. All we are left with is subjective, in-our-own-mind phantasms that are nothing more than meaningless mind games and futile activities that occupy us until we return to dust. And if this is indeed the way it is, that is why I asked, “Why Bother?"

ws

 

I guess one could ask that question of an atheist and he/she might have an answer that might make some sense. I have heard some sensibly sounding answers from them .

 

But since i ASSUME you are addressing the question mainly to Progressive Christians , who by definition in Point 1 here have found an approach God, the author of the big picture would seem to not be missing. As far as the world being real, i would think most all progressive Christians would answer either yes real, or real enough. While some may speak of the world as illusory in the context of it being deceptive or not exactly the way it seems or appears to the senses, i have never heard one who identifies as a PC say the world is not real. (though that does not preclude there may be one who says so) While some as myself might say that since our nature here is subjective, reality as perceived and distorted by the five senses and our conditioning can be and often is deceptive. I think this can be evidenced by various mental conditions defined by psychiatry. However, the meaninglessness of life is not a tenet of Progressive Christianity as evidenced by the affirmations for inclusiveness, social justice, positive behavior, value in questioning and resistance to evil to name a few in the 8 points. To me meaninglessness has no tenet in PC. Having said all that i am still confused on why the question is even asked when it appears to me the question assumes the ones it is addressed to believe "God is not real or cannot be in some sense known", "the world is not real", "All we are left with is subjective, in-our-own-mind phantasms", and "meaningless mind games and futile activities that occupy us until we return to dust."

 

While i agree questioning the nature of God and reality does have much to do with the big picture, i guess as an individual i don't understand your intent or purpose in your summary and asking the question. I know you are already familiar with the 8 points so i am a bit perplexed. I have not heard anyone in this thread affirm any of the things to which your question begs an answer. Perhaps i am mis-reading you and someone else can enlighten me? Maybe i am just confused and i have just got a bit too much sun here today and it is frying my brain.

 

Joseph

[BillM]

Joseph,

 

Well, it is possible that my concerns are unfounded, or maybe I’ve read something into responses that isn’t really there, or I’ve blown something out of proportion, I don’t know. As I stated up front, this is a “processing” thread for me, just to openly talk about where I am and what I feel at the moment, even if I am slightly (or more than slightly) delusional. If I had prematurely considered any of this a serious complaint, I would have posted it in the Complaints section. Maybe, in retrospect, I should have just put it in the Personal Stories and Journeys section. You are, of course, welcome to put it there if you’d like. Anyway, the positive side of this is that this thread, I hope, is that it clarifies a few things (at least for me), and that, to me, is never a bad thing.

 

ws

[Mike]

Mike,

 

I fail to see why one would preclude the other.

 

George

 

Hi George,

 

I agree that they canboth be present in a balanced worldview (in fact they most likely should be). Pragmatism, to whatever degree it is introduced, by definition represents a concern for practical results rather than ontology or theory. For instance, a pragmatic approach to theoretical physics would only be concerned with whether the theory works (i.e. makes predictions and unites data within a coherent framework), rather than the ontology of theory, that is, whether the theory is actually "true".

 

Peace,

Mike

[JenellYB]

WS, re the "different paths" you make note of, as choices of what path to take, I suggest rather than see them as different paths, from among which we must choose one, that they are more like "lanes" on just one path. In our journey, we may at times change lanes, move over into and travel a ways in one or the other, and even at times, travel straddling two or more of them at once. That has definitely been how I would describe my own journey. And very often, it seems I have encountered points on my journey in which I've felt need to linger, travel more slowly, so as to explore that stretch of the path from several or even all of those 'lanes' before I move on.

 

So too do I see it with different "ways of knowing"..no one way of knowing seems adequate to me in all things, and seldom do I find any one way of knowing adequate in feeling secure in knowing about any one thing. While there are ways of knowing based on material evidence that can be effectively shared with others, many things we deal with in life aren't like that. Things we may know through personal experience are often things we cannot effectively share with others at all, or are limited to sharing only with some others that have themselves also had such personal experience.

 

That we cannot effectively share with others something we know only by personal experience isn't limited to metaphysical matters, but something we can encounter in even the most ordinary material matters, as well. And that we have no effective way of sharing something with others does not mean what we know by personal experience isn't "real."

 

Suppose, for example, you personally observe some person engaged in an activity or commiting some act that would be entirely opposed to, inconsistent with, the image you and others have held of that person. That is, in fact, quite a common experience in any of our lives. In such a situation, not only not effectively share what you know with others, you may find that others would likey not only not believe you, but even form a negative judgement of you for trying to share it. I've known such situations in which one person observed say, a person committing an act of theft, or adultery, or some other offensive act, but for that person's "good reputation" among others, and no material means of presenting "evidence" to others, the observer trully is the only one that "knows" about it, and that others would not believe them if they try to share it, has no bearing on whether or not the observer is "correct" in his or her "knowledge" of it. But if this observe meets one other person that has also observed that act, then the two can share between themselves the "knowledge" each has, that others do not.

 

In any one's personal matters of God, whether their experiences seem of a nature spiritual, cognitive, or sensual, one can "know" with certainty what one has experienced, but there is no way to share that with others in such a way as to make it "knowledge" to those others...all those others can ever have, at best, is belief, if they have some personal reasons to accept what this person has told them. I don't think "belief" can ever progress to "knowledge" without personal experience. Knowledge is more than merely strong belief. You can believe something so strongly as to even be willing to die for that belief, and still be dead wrong.

 

This is the point at which, in my opinion religion often fails. Not only is belief without evidence demanded, but demanded to the degree that the possiblity of belief moving into knowledge through personal experience is actually rejected. To many, "faith" is only still "faith" if one has no real evidence to support it. I prefer to think of faith as a gift of knowledge, which to me means it originates somewhere outside myself, to be something I've been "given", and mere belief just doesn't qualify as that in my thinking. So how was my faith "given" that knowledge except by personal experience?

 

Now I can effectively share this knowledge of my faith with others that have experienced something similar, but there's no way I can do so with those that have not, and therefore for whom it is not a part of their perceived reality? Here I think I'm upon the point troubling W.S., and that surely troubles most of us at times. Just as the observer that has just stumbled upon and witnessed someone of sterling reputation within their community, engaged in an offensive act, but lacking a handy camera or other means with which to produce evidence others can see, may find it impossible to convince others of what has been seen, and is therefore now real personal knowledge, without means of sharing that knowledge with any other. Is this observer's state of knowledge in the matter any less valid for that no one else knows or believes it?

 

Now while I may feel secure in my having knowledge of a reality beyond this material one, of the presence of a 'greater power', if we want to call that God or whatever, through having had personal experiences of the numinous kind, that I have put to critical examination and test as best I might to try to "explain" in some rational way, yet had to come to accept for what they seemed. that isn't something I can present to anyone else with expectation they accept my 'say so' as even belief, let alone knowledge. I can say with all sincerity that I have experienced having been "spoken to by God" or whatever that "other" might be called, or "shown" things through such a means, but there is no valid reason anyone should accept my 'say so' in such matters.

 

I am also intelligent and rational and realistic enough to know that people going about claiming God has "told" them this or that, are most often rightfully seen as being either unhinged or trying to run a scam or even just trying to get attention or impress others with their "superior spirituality". The same can be true of such a situation as described above, of say, someone claiming to have observed their spouse of sterling reputation committing adultery, without material evidence to back up their claim, as it is not uncommon for those involved in a marriage break-up to make false claims about the other. Most of us are also well aware of how often humans resort to "God says, God told me," whatever it is so others must accept what I say as the very word of God saying it, and that that can happen with either deliberate intent, or for that person him or her self being in a state of delusion, really believing it themselves.

 

But this means that much of what I might say I "know" about God is not such that I can lay out to stand upon in presenting as knowledge useful to others in knowing God. In the process of my state of belief transforming into knowledge through personal experience, which neccesitated my rejection of much of the beliefs and doctrines of religion, I also lost any solid ground upon which to stand in trying to talk to others about God. As W.S. puts it, that feeling of "why bother", yes, this feels very much like trying to stand upon quicksand in telling others why I believe what I do about God, at least with those that have not had similar personnal experiences themselves. It also means that when I myself experience uncertainties and doubts, as it is human to do, I do not have something outside myself in ths material reality to take hold of, to steady me and help me feel secure. The result of that is positive, it forces me to, as Jesus instructed, "seek within" myself, but it doesn always feel good, isn't always a comfortable experience. Just as as a young adult out on my own confronting what appeared overwhelming challenges in life I didn't know how to negotiate, it sometimes seemed my life as a child under my parent's care, having them set rules and tell me what to do, had been a far more secure place to be. Those rules I lived under as a child really wouldn't help me in those adult situations, but I often did long for some certain way laid out for me, so I didn't have to figure out something myself. I see that as a close analogy to any of us that have begun the process of breaking away from the certainties of our religious indoctinations, to seek a closer and more personal understanding of and relationship with that greater than ourselves, by God or whatever name.

 

I see this state, this sense of uncertainty, of standing on quicksand without something we can present to others that conforms to standards of our material reality, a stage of growth along the journey. I see it as learning to transition from "telling" to "showing" as our means of testimony, before and to others, in how we translate that knowledge gained through personal experience into actions in our life.

 

Jenell

[BillM]

Jenell, I really appreciate your post. Much of what you’ve said resonates deep in my soul. I like what you said about the “different paths” being more like “different lanes” on just one path. I also like what you said about different ways or means of knowing.

 

To me, faith is a tricky subject to talk about. I don’t think it is holding to a set of beliefs or doctrines. To me, faith is more a way of life born out of the experience of what we consider to be true or real. In other words, faith is our response to our personal experience. For instance, I have faith in my wife because I have and continue to personally experience her. I could give you a list of facts about her (birth date, birth place, schools attended, vocation, height, weight, hair color, etc.), but these facts would not cause you to have faith in her. Or I could give you my or other people’s experiences and perceptions of her, but I don’t think that would constitute you having faith in her. For you to have faith in her, it seems to me, you would have to experience her as a friend, in a mutual relationship. You would have to, though in a limited sense, “live with her.” My faith in her results in me following a certain “way of life” that is much different than I would have without her or with someone else.

 

But though I have faith in her, I certainly don’t know everything about her. And she doesn’t hesitate to remind me of this. And I don’t have to know or experience everything about her. I know and experience…enough. Enough that I have invested my life in this relationship.

 

I see faith in God in a similar vein but taken, of course, to a much higher level. It is said that God knows everything about me. But I have to admit in honesty that I know or experience relatively little of him. Yet, it is...enough. Enough that I have invest my life in this relationship, though at times it gets very rocky and I have my doubts.

 

I also appreciate what you had to say about living as a child with your parents and the guidance they gave you and the trials and freedom of growing up. I suspect that if we mature spiritually as we should, we reach the stage where we no longer have that “authority figure” to tell us what to think, do, or how to live. Conservative Christianity, imo, has the advantage of peddling “certainty” that many find comforting. That form of Christianity can be, in many respects, very comforting, as it assures us that God is in control and that he determines our destiny (some say from before we are born). When/if a person lets go of that kind of Christianity, there is great freedom, but, yes, it can be scary. After all, if we been deceived before or lived in illusion then, how do we know that we are not being deceived now? How do we know that it isn’t all an illusion, a dream within a dream? This is, for me, where I, perhaps still childishly, still affirm that God is there and that God is real and that God can, in some sense, be trusted. But I have to be honest and say that I have no objective proof, that I could be “off my nut.” Who is to say for sure? Life, it seems to me, is not about surety or certainty. It is about having the faith to get up every morning and doing what needs to be done in order to have the best life we can within the constraints and challenges that we face and to help others along this journey also. I suspect that this is the best that any of us can really do.

 

You wrote: “I see it as learning to transition from "telling" to "showing" as our means of testimony, before and to others, in how we translate that knowledge gained through personal experience into actions in our life.” To me, this is a powerful and key statement. A life of faith is not a list of beliefs that we pass on to family, friends, and others. It is a way of living, as you have said “personal experiences”, that are manifested in actions that, while are not proof, could certainly qualify as evidence that there is Something (let’s call it love) or Someone (let’s humbly call it God) that is worth giving our lives to. When/if we do that, then we find that the apostle James was right about faith being attested to by our deeds. Beliefs are a dime a dozen. Faith is more precious than gold.

 

ws

[JosephM]

When/if a person lets go of that kind of Christianity, there is great freedom, but, yes, it can be scary. After all, if we been deceived before or lived in illusion then, how do we know that we are not being deceived now? How do we know that it isn’t all an illusion, a dream within a dream? This is, for me, where I, perhaps still childishly, still affirm that God is there and that God is real and that God can, in some sense, be trusted. But I have to be honest and say that I have no objective proof, that I could be “off my nut.

ws

Bill,

 

I would just like to enter my thoughts on this one part of your above post. The post speaks well for itself and with much clarity. In my own experience now, i no longer find a lot of doubt or self concern about being deceived even though that once was the case with "that kind of Christianity". If one asked why?, i would have to answer because before i allowed others (a church system founded by men) to build what i thought was a foundation to stand on. When it washed away as sand and God was revealed by direct experience, there was a distinct difference. That foundation came from a place within with a surety not programmed or placed there by men or even thought or reasoning. And with that experience and others came an awareness of an inseparable link between source and i as phenomena that is recognized for what it is and greater than any doubt or uncertainty that may arise. So some may ask, or thoughts may arise, how do you know for sure? you admittedly were deceived once. All i can say is the source is different and because the source is home , without name, and experienced as profound peace, it is as certain as ones very own existence and unmistakeable as is ones own wife. This then begs the question to oneself, If i can't trust that I am, then what can i trust?

 

Just some musings,

Joseph

[Mike]

After all, if we been deceived before or lived in illusion then, how do we know that we are not being deceived now? How do we know that it isn’t all an illusion, a dream within a dream? This is, for me, where I, perhaps still childishly, still affirm that God is there and that God is real and that God can, in some sense, be trusted. But I have to be honest and say that I have no objective proof, that I could be “off my nut.

ws

 

Of course, if everything is an illusion, then nothing is. The word 'illusion' loses any sense.

 

 

Your words bring the Taoist text, The Chuangtzu, to mind.

 

Once Zhuangzi dreamt he was a butterfly, a butterfly flitting and fluttering around, happy with himself and doing as he pleased. He didn't know he was Zhuangzi. Suddenly he woke up and there he was, solid and unmistakable Zhuangzi. But he didn't know if he was Zhuangzi who had dreamt he was a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming he was Zhuangzi. Between Zhuangzi and a butterfly there must be some distinction! This is called the Transformation of Things.

 

Kuang-Ming Wu, in his 'Butterfly as Companion', comments on just this part of the text. He writes,

 

His name, "Chuang Chou" was given by his parents and is not himself; the butterfly has no such problem, because it has no name. Its essence is fluttering--from one idea to another, one event to another, one life to another, fluttering from dream to its awakening to another dream. It does not deny the distinction between awakening and dreaming, reality and illusion, knowledge and ignorance, Chuang Chou and butterfly, or even the reality of uncertainty. It just affirms its situation as it "flutters" from one thing to another. Its "name" is fluttering.

 

We must be warned, however, against "investigating" the dream as some of the wise philosophers do, asking whether dream is an "experience," whether it is "verifiable," whether in a dream "error" is possible. Asking such questions is like asking what shape the wind and clouds have. The wind is neither square nor round, any more than dreaming is waking. Error, experience, and verification are notions of the waking world; they have as much to do with dream as the wind and clouds have with shape. Such investigation entangles us in much gobbledygook. We might as well try to catch and store the wind in a box.

[BillM]

Joseph,

 

I like the way that you describe the Source as "home". That's an interesting way to put it and conjures up some comforting images. I also like what you said about "profound peace". I think I've experienced something similar. As I've said in this thread (and I trust that it is okay here as long as I behave myself), I'm not afraid of using God-language. It's not that I think my language is more accurate or better (for I know how often what we call God is misrepresented or distorted), but it is simply part of my history, part of my culture, part of my "native language." It is both a bane and a blessing, for I often have to use qualifiers. And though I have, imo, experienced God as more than a person, I have not experience God as less than personal. I can't deny this and still be true to myself and my own experiences.

 

But as is often pointed out, we are subjective creatures. You have great trust in yourself, Joseph, in your experiences, in your interpretation of those experiences, and of where you are in the journey. I'm, I suppose, too new to freedom to be there yet (just being honest). This is why, for me, I need community. Community, when it is good, serves as a sounding board for us to put our ideas and experiences out there for constructive criticism, to help us answer the question, "Am I right in trusting myself in this?" Another way to put it is that God speaks to us through others, that God doesn't intend for us to be Lone Rangers. Imo, there is a balance to be found. We need to trust ourselves enough that our fears don't paralyze us, but it is often beneficial to listen for the voice of God in others. This can, obviously, get sticky and tricky at times. But I still want to try to keep a balance between listening to the Spirit in me and the Spirit that I hear in others.

 

ws

[JosephM]

Bill,

 

Yes community is good and not only for you but for me also. The benefit i get from community here may be slightly different than what you describe but nevertheless it benefits me also. I do think all of creation speaks to us.

 

I do not think i have great trust in myself as you might suppose. It is important to me not to trust myself which is subject to deception but rather to trust that which sustains my self, that by grace i might be able to distinguish between the two which are interconnected. If i identify with that in which there is no deception what is it to myself if i fall for i know i will be made to stand in spite of what we call our own humanity. Therein is my trust and it is of no credit to me.

 

Rom 8:38-39 speaks to me not by words alone.

 

Joseph

[BillM]

Karen,

 

I appreciate your input on this also, although I have to admit that I'm still trying to find that "middle ground" - hence "way seeker."

 

…and a good reminder about volunteer service to the community.

 

Yes, that is important to me, a faith that has feet and hands. But, to me, it is more than just *me* doing good service to demonstrate my faith. Without descending in the "nature of Jesus" Pandora's box, I still believe that there is something within Christianity that is incarnational i.e. that we encounter God in each other. So it is more than just doing good works, it is the experience that we actually, in some sense, continue to encounter God as we serve one another in love. This, to me, takes good works far beyond the typical Protestant complaint that good works are attempts to earn God's favor or earn salvation. We meet God in others, especially in those whom society or institutional religion has rejected as "less than."

 

To me it is interesting to speculate on God’s nature, purpose, degree of involvement in human history, etc—

but at the end of the day, what takes precedence-- the emotional / spiritual need to pray; or the intellectual need to define God’s attributes in comprehensible terms? for me it’s the former, but not making a value judgment –just a personal preference.

 

That's my experience also. Or, perhaps more accurately, that is becoming my experience. Just being honest about this, after reading many of Jack Spong's books and going, perhaps, too far to the left, I was convinced that there was "no one" to pray to. From what Jack writes, I doubt that he is a theist. God is, for him, a concept. Imo, one does not pray to a concept. On the other hand, when I was too far to the right, God was too confined to the "guy in the sky". So I am seeking that middle ground. Where it is, I'm not quite sure yet. But my experience with that couple who wanted us to pray for the future grandchildren, and the fact that I couldn't pray, told me that something is wrong inside me. There has got to be (or I hope there is) a middle ground between "Pray and God will do what you want" and "There is no God to pray to, prayer is only self-reflection."

 

I can only imagine how difficult it is to renounce a fundamentalist insistence on certainty, without going to the opposite extreme of total scepticism— but there is a middle ground.

 

That's what I want to find. I was so reactionary to what I found in one ditch of the road that I backed across the road into the other ditch. Got a tow truck?

 

And different kinds of knowledge: the rational, cerebral type, and the biblical kind of knowing-- intimate relationship--trusting that in private soul-searching prayer, our innermost self is in contact with the heart of the Creator. To me that seems the most likely way we are to commune with the source of our being.

 

I like the way you put that, Karen, although I've still to discover just what that means to me personally. I don't deny that God is in us or that we are part of God. But neither do I deny that the Creator is More than us. Put crudely, God in me helps me live with myself, God as Creator or Source helps me to live with others and our world. I don't think I have to choose between one or the other. It seems that the two concepts should be compatible. This is what we see in Paul's assertion that "God was in Christ" which resulted in benefit for the world - reconciliation. I would think, or hope, that God in us is for the blessing of ourselves and for others. Leslie Newbigin says that monotheism's worst heresy is that God blesses us just for our benefit, to the exclusion of others.

 

thanks for the thread.

 

Thanks for your thoughts and input on this.

[Mike]

Karen Writes,

 

I can only imagine how difficult it is to renounce a fundamentalist insistence on certainty, without going to the opposite extreme of total scepticism— but there is a middle ground.

 

and

 

And different kinds of knowledge: the rational, cerebral type, and the biblical kind of knowing-- intimate relationship

 

I really agree with this. This middle ground, I think, is discovered when one begins to explore that biblical sense of knowing -- intimacy, relationship. Knowledge, then, is constituted by our intimate relationship to reality, not by abstract, objectual concepts. Where does the old skepticism go at this point? Well, it never really goes anywhere -- it's just that we've begun to ask different kinds of questions, and have comported ourselves to this notion of reality in a very different way. Reality discloses itself according to the method we use to approach it; if one method is fruitless, then we have to change our question, lest we continually wind up with the same result we were trying to avoid.

 

One other thought is that it can be said that we do not have only five senses, we have six -- thought, concepts. It rarely occurs to us that thought can be considered one of the senses. Thought doesn't stand apart from the world. It is part of the arising of reality itself. We reason with what we are, and what we are is reality itself.

 

Peace,

Mike

[JenellYB]

Mike wrote: "One other thought is that it can be said that we do not have only five senses, we have six -- thought, concepts. It rarely occurs to us that thought can be considered one of the senses. Thought doesn't stand apart from the world. "

 

That is certainly true. But also, thought as a sense overarches all our other senses, in that it is how we process and interpret meaning from and appropriate response to the sensory data collected through all the other "physical" senses.

 

I have read that in cases where person's blind from brith were medically given the capacity for sight, that even wiith physically "perfect vision" as far as the eyes and transmissions of signals to the brain were restored, the person expereinces it as just a massive onlslaught of meaningless stimuli, just random patterns of shades of light and dark and shades of color, not as recognizable forms as the sighted take for granted. I've read of such ones describing a dizzying and even sickening experience of movement. like terrible motion sickness as eveything seems to be randomly moving, and of the person expereincing it as it being their own body in motion, I think perhaps like one might expereince in some of those dramatic Imax theatres. Of how when they moved, in such as walking forward, their perception was of it all rushing toward them. The brain has to learn how to process all those patterns of light and dark and color, into meaningful representations of anything.

 

I am reminded of the biblical story in which Jesus restored a blind man's sight, but accomplished it in two steps. In the first, the man could "see" but wasn't able to make sense of what he was seeing, as he put it, he saw men as trees walking. It was Jesus' second step through which the man was able to make sense of what he was able to see.

 

 

Jenell

[rivanna]

Bill, Mike,

 

thanks for the responses.

Coming to PC from a liberal agnostic background can be just as much of a struggle as coming from fundamentalism, and frustrating to communicate without being misunderstood.

 

Writers like Richard Rohr are helpful to me, on being patient and humble with ambiguity --“The apophatic tradition I love is that of surrender to the wonderful and always too-much mystery of God….Jesus defines truth itself as personal rather than conceptual, rearranging the world of religion from arguments over ideas into a world of encounter, relationship and mutual presence to the other….Mystery is not something you can’t understand, it is something that is endlessly understandable—multilayered, pregnant with meaning and never totally admits to closure or resolution.”

[JosephM]

Jesus defines truth itself as personal rather than conceptual, rearranging the world of religion from arguments over ideas into a world of encounter, relationship and mutual presence to the other….Mystery is not something you can’t understand, it is something that is endlessly understandable—multilayered, pregnant with meaning and never totally admits to closure or resolution.”

 

This is to me not only accurate but most eloquently stated.

[BillM]

Karen,

 

I love your Rohr quote. It seems to me that most of the time when Jesus taught truth, he taught in in parables of relationships - a farmer and his field, a father and his sons, a landowner and his servants, a woman and her money, the rich man and Lazarus, the brides and the bridegroom. To me, the truth of his parables often comes down to how to "two sides" of the relationships should be one, but are disjointed, and seeking harmony. This may or may not mean total disolution of dualism, but I think it at least implies synergy or the intimate cooperation of relationships for the good of the whole. If we believe, experience, or live as part of the More, I don't think we can help but to feel that it is personal. We know truth, not by holding to certain detached concepts in our heads, but by experiencing the Other (whether that be God or God's creation) in our hearts, in relationship. Pretty messy stuff.

 

Have a good day, my friend.

[Mike]

Coming to PC from a liberal agnostic background can be just as much of a struggle as coming from fundamentalism, and frustrating to communicate without being misunderstood.

 

Thanks for the thoughts and quote, Karen. I like the idea of mystery-as-endlessly understandable. It seems that to discover a genuine 'middle path' to religion and spirituality is to discover a precious jewel. No matter what your background, odds are that it will be difficult to come to the point where one can make a critical and spiritual affirmation about reality.

 

Peace,

Mike