A Wiccan Speaks: The Basis of Reality [Repost] [Archive]

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technomage

April 10th 2005, 01:27 AM

I posted the following back in November ... well, the thread got sidetracked, and I never got to posting the rest of the series for critique. So first and foremost, a couple of requests.

1: I would like for comments to be restricted to a critique of the OP material. If someone would like to go off on a tangential point, I invite them to start a new thread: I will do my best to respond to any tangential threads. (Richbee is an exception, as I no longer converse with him.)

2: If you have comments or critique, I welcome them. However, can we please completely and totally avoid ad hominem--it got really boring a long time ago.

-----

Greetings, my friends; be at peace. Settle in by the fire--it's a pleasant night tonight where I am, but it might get chilly in your part of the world. Come sit--be welcome, and be at peace. Tonight, I've come to tell you the tale of the Six Blind Men and the Elephant. This is a very simple story, and it won't take long to tell, but it's the foundation for many of the others.

I first heard this story from a follower of Muhammad (peace be upon him), but have since heard version from Christians, Hebrews, Hindus, Neo-Pagans--it seems that this story is popular...which is odd, for it also seems that while everyone tells the tale, few learn from it.

It seems that there were six blind men, leading each other thru the streets. And of course, as often happens in situations like this, they were in a terrible pickle. They kept bumping into walls, falling into ditches, and tripping over cats and small children--and of course, each time they tripped, they each blamed their fellows for their misfortune. "Achmed! You have led me into a wall, and I have hurt my nose!" "Ow! Mustafah! You have led me into a ditch, and I have scraped my knee!" All in all, they were truly a pitiable sight, but this is how they made their way in the world, begging alms and cursing each other roundly.

Until one day they heard of a great wonder that was come to town: a great scholar of the law, the Mufti Shabaz, had come with a marvel that none in that no one in that town had ever seen--he had brought an elephant. Well, of course you know what came next. These six blind men heard everyone going on and on about seeing the elephant, so they decided that they, too, would go and find out what the elephant was like. So cursing and complaining to each other, the six blind men laboriously stumbled to the coffeehouse where the Mufti Shabaz was taking his meal, and following the noise of the crowd, they soon came to the elephant.

One felt the elephant's leg, and said, "Wallah! See, this elephant is much like a tree, for it goes down to the ground, and up to the heavens, and it is covered with smooth, wrinkled bark! I know what it looks like, now!"

Another felt the elephant's tail, and said, "Lo! It is much like a small snake, for it is thin, and I can easily hold it in one hand! I know what it looks like, now!"

At the other end of the animal, one of the blind men felt the trunk, and loudly cried, "Nay! Not so! It is like a snake indeed, but such a large and powerful one as I cannot describe! It is so strong that, for a moment, it lifted me into the air!"

One was under the elephant's belly, and feeling with his hands, said "My brothers, I am blind, but I am wiser than all of you! This elephant is not like a snake nor a tree, but like a barrel suspended off the ground!"

And another bumped nose-first into the side of the elephant, and feeling with his hands, said 'No, you fool, not snake nor tree nor barrel at all, but very much like a wall--indeed, like the wall that Achmed led me into this morning, the insolent fool!'

Another happened to grab the very end of the tusk, and said "You are all wrong, you blind fools! The elephant is very like a great spear!"

Each one of them described which part of the elephant he felt, and was convinced that this was the totality of the elephant. They soon fell to arguing, and came to blows, while the elephant just walked away from them.

They were all wrong .... and they were all blind.

Hmph, how do you like that. I just get into my stride and the story up and ends on me. Just quits like that, it does.

But it does illustrate several points. We have finite human minds: the Universe, while still finite, is a heck of a lot larger and more complex than the human mind can fully comprehend. And most religions that I'm aware of state that the Divine is "infinite"--try understanding infinity as anything but an abstract concept, and don't be surprised if you sprain your brain!

While we cannot comprehend a finite (but really big) universe, and cannot even approach comprehension of an infinite Deity, we can understand a limited amount of either. We can learn about the stars and galaxies that fill the universe, or we can explore our concepts of belief and study our faith. Either path increases one's understanding.

The problem comes in when you try to definitively state that your understanding is superior to anyone else's. Let's look at things logically: if we are prevented, because of our finite nature, from understanding an infinite God, then instead of any one religion being "right," it is entirely probable that all religions are equally "wrong!" Indeed, the most accurate religion in the world--the one that spoke most accurately of the nature of the Gods--would have to show only the very palest shadow of Truth. When faced with the Infinite, logic, reason, and human understanding are feeble reeds, indeed.

But then someone could come along and say "But we know what the elephant looks like--for lo, the Elephant has told us in His book." Well, perhaps, that is so, but how am I to believe your Elephant Book over that one over there, or this one here, or the one they used a thousand years ago in some other place, or the one they'll be using a thousand years from now on a planet far away.

But this ducking around and speaking of the "Elephant Book" is so much sophistry. Let us be blunt: I speak of the Christian Bible, and of the belief put into it. Now, it must be understood that I am not "picking on" the Bible, or those who place their faith in it. I feel that the Bible is a a book that contains much wisdom, when read wisely. But I am writing this text in English, and for most English-speaking people, the Bible is "The" holy book. Using the Bible as an example is not intended to try to "debunk" the Christian Scripture, or the Christian faith, but it is a readily understood example.

When you hear a book being criticized, such as the Odyssey, or the Tain Bo Cuailinge, or the Mabinogian, most people in our Western Culture offer no defense for any lack of historicity. There are no long theses on why the bones of the Cyclopes, or the Sirens, have not been found; there are no archaeological digs to try to find evidence of the Battle of Cooley, or to find the head of Bran the Blessed, or the Cauldron of Ceridwen. This makes sense: the Odyssey, the Tain, and the Mabinogian are all myths--they are culturally significant, but none of them claim to be the inspired word of the Gods.

Not so with the Bible: but the Bible is not alone in this regard. There are other books that proclaim themselves to be the Words of God, or at least to speak authoritatively about God/the Gods. From the Egyptian Book of Going Forth By Day to The Book of Mormon to the writings of the leader of the next "kool-aid cult" that splashes briefly across the headlines, we have documents clamoring for our attention, our acceptance, and our faith. How are we to decide which one speaks the truth?

We could use tradition as our standard of authority. This is all well and good, but if tradition ruled all, we would still be worshiping the spirits revered by our tribal ancestors. Every single one of the religions extant in the word today was, at one time, a break with tradition. Christianity broke away from both Judaism, and from Greco-Roman Mystery religions and philosophy; Islam broke away from Judaism, Christianity, and the pre-Islamic Paganism of modern Saudi Arabia; Sikhism broke away from Hinduism and Islam; and the list could be carried on indefinitely. Even within a religion, one can have multiple schisms, separations, disagreements--hence the bewildering multiplicity of Christian denominations.

We could go for subjective experience, and indeed, there are some religions that encourage this. I'm given to understand that the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints states that those who are called to receive the word of God will feel a "burning in the bosom" when they read the Book of Mormon. Evangelical Christians often state that "you will know" when God lays his hand upon your heart--and while this is a common occurrence, it is still a subjective one. In Voudon, and some other Afro-Caribbean religions, certain practitioners are subject to divine possession by the Loas. In my own faith of Wicca, the possibility does exist for ecstatic vision, divine inspiration, or even divine possession (usually significantly less dramatic than Voudon), and we certainly have those who claim to have experienced one or more of these states. Yet while these experiences are subjective, each and every religion has its own set of subjective experiences...and each and every living religion has many, many adherents who experience the appropriate things.

We could use logic to evaluate the various claims, but again, we are left with subjective evaluations. One person may decide to favor books based on historical accuracy, while another one may decide based on ethical parameters, and a third may decide based on perceived literary merit. As a tool of inquiry in matters of faith, logic is a feeble reed at its best.

We are, then, left with chance, choice, and faith.

1: We all were born into our various countries and cultures through what a secular view would call "random chance." (A religious view would say "Will of God/the Gods," but remember--we haven't even gotten far enough to decide which Book to read, much less which God to believe in!) We could have been born in Communist China, in which case there are very good odds that none of us would have even heard the names "Jesus," "Kernunos," or any other God-name. We could have been born in Saudi Arabia or Afghanistan, where Islam is the only faith taught, Witch-craft is forbidden by law, and Jesus is described only as a teacher.

2: In England, America, Canada, Australia, and most of the European Continent, we have something that many nations cannot say: we have the freedom to choose what Gods we wish to believe in. In America, there is no state Church: in England, there is, but there are no longer enforced legal penalties for not joining the Anglican Church.

3: We have faith, which boils down to a very simple question: who do you believe in? Some take the song "God of our Fathers" literally, and follow a God or join a church "because Mamma and Daddy went there." Some closely evaluate what church will enhance their social standing, or will allow them access to other business people, or political power, or for any number of mercenary reasons. And some earnestly seek a church that speaks to them, and aids them in seeking the will of God/the Gods.

Ah, but for all that we have, there are several things that we do not possess.

1: We do not have certainly of the historic claims of many of the "Sacred Books" available: whether one speaks of the Bible, the Q'uran, the writings of the B'ab and the Baha U'llah (pbut), there are several points that are of disputable historicity. This is not the appropriate place to discuss specifics, but one thing needs to be made perfectly clear here: these issues of historicity do nothing to devalue these books.

Indeed, issues of historicity plague every faith, including my own religion of Wicca. In Wicca, much is made of the "history myth" of Medieval and Renaissance persecution of "witches," without also acknowledging that those accused "witches" have nothing to do with us.

2: We do not have extra-Biblical verification for many of the items in the various narratives of the "Holy Books." Like direct historical confirmation, this does nothing to devalue these books, especially since absence of evidence does not qualify as evidence of absence.

Again, Wiccan doctrine suffers this flaw in equal measure. Many of the specifics of our history myth are just that; elements of myth, with no historical basis.

3: Depending on your interpretation, we may have no clear moral authority--at least, by the moral and ethical standards of modern culture. There are a few points of Judeo-Christian ethics and myth that are of questionable morality, including: commandments to commit genocide (several citations, but see especially the book of Joshua); probable human sacrifice (Judges 11); punishment of innocents for the sins of one man (several, but see Joshua 7); and the entire concept of scape-goating, or substitutionary atonement (Lev. 16, or the entire "Jesus died for the sins of the world" doctrine). Now, all of these issues become understandable when we study the cultures that produced them: so the conflict with modern ethics and morals does nothing to devalue the Bible.

It must also be acknowledged that there are currently moral and ethical issues within Wicca that have not been addressed, much less resolved. On these issues--such as abortion, euthanasia, the role and responsibility of the clergy, and responsibility of Wiccans as individuals to a largely non-Wiccan community--the dialog is just beginning. This is not entirely to our deficit: Christianity has a two-thousand-year head start on these issues, and has still not resolved all of them.

Generally speaking, there is no objective standard for accepting the Bible over other books that claim to be the Word of God/the Gods. However, it must also be acknowledged that there is no objective standard for rejecting it. Each person has their own criteria for acceptance or rejection, and frankly most people would not change their beliefs no matter what contradictory facts were presented. The average LDS member is no more concerned that the cities of the Hebrew Tribes cannot be found in North America than a typical Christian is concerned with the absence of extra-Biblical documentary evidence concerning Jesus, or than a representative Israelite is concerned with the lack of evidence of an Egyptian Exodus. All have chosen to follow their particular faith for their own peculiar reason...and there is no arguing matters of taste.

Now, as I said at the beginning, it is not my intention to "pick on" the Christian Bible, or on Christianity. All of the above objections to the "accuracy" of the Bible can be applied equally to any sacred book--including my own Book of Shadows.

As an exercise, think about your own faith. What subjective experiences led you to choose the path that you follow? Don't describe the experience in terms of external phenomena; describe it in terms of internal feelings, in the sense of "I felt this...." I would be profoundly grateful if those who choose to do the exercise would share their experiences, but these were (and are) extremely individual, and may be very private, so if you choose not to share, I certainly understand.

Now, with all the emphasis on "subjective experience," you might begin to believe that I view subjective experience as more important than objective truth. And nothing could be further from fact.

OK, let's give a few basic definitions. When I say a fact is "objective," I mean that just about anyone and everyone can grasp that fact. The fact that the sky is blue is an objective fact. (Quibblers who mention night-time, weather, blindness, or other hair-splitting chicanery are going to get grounded from the s'mores. I mean it! )

I would hazard a guess that most of us are in agreement that there is such a thing as objective fact. We can all point to a phenomenon and say "This occurred: we perceive it by how it affected our senses." The occurrence is real, and so are the effects--or, in other words, when the tree falls in the forest with no one to hear, it does indeed make a sound: its reality does not depend on the mind that perceives it. Now, that point of view is usually called "realism."

Realism is not universal: I know people, including one I work with several days a week, who believe that if they can change the way they think about something, then the nature of that thing is changed--its reality and nature depend on the consciousness of the observer (one definition of a philosophy called "idealism"). Generally speaking, Idealism, in one form or another, is becoming more prevalent today. Movies like "The Matrix" are not driving post-modern philosophy because they are popular; instead, they are popular because they reflect post-modern philosophy. In our contemporary society, there is a tendency to ignore the reality of the physical world. There is a greater tendency toward the conflicting aspects of existentialism, and--at its extreme--towards solipsism (informally defined).

Oops, I think I lost some folks. OK, let's get some basics here. All of these definitions are "informal": if you want the formal definitions, try Wikipedia.

* Existentialism: Among other things, Existentialism states that perceptions are private; what I perceive does not have any necessary connection with what you perceive. Existentialism is quite centered on the Self, but does acknowledge the existence of others.

* "Solipsism" is the belief that "Nothing outside of my own existence can be proven." An "extreme" Solipsist believes that any thing that he perceives is not intrinsically real, but is only a projection of his own mind, while a "mainstream" Solipsist believes that anything outside of his consciousness has no meaning to him. While it is true that no great philosopher has ever espoused Solipsism, it is also true that much of philosophy from Descartes onward has taken an Ego-centered view of perception.

* Postmodernism: Postmodern philosophy, briefly stated, asserts that there are no "meta-narratives." Sound like gobbledygook? It's not. What that means is that there is no over-arching "story" of people; more precisely, there are no over-arching "people stories" that legitimize knowledge and cultural practices. Post-modernism is the cornerstone to the "Me First" philosophical thought that has come out since World War II.

As the joke goes about the well: "It's a mighty deep subject, and sometimes quite dry." It's actually quite simple: existentialism says that "My reality can be different than yours." Solipsism is extreme existentialism, and states that "My reality is the only reality that I can attach meaning to." Post-modernism says that "Your ideas and concepts do not justify me changing my mind unless I want to." These are the philosophies of individualism, and though they had their roots before World War II, they gained a great deal of popularity as a rejection of the totalitarian philosophies of the World Wars.

Individualism has its place, and it is in individualism that Neo-Paganism found one part of its beginnings--one "root," if you will. Yet it is also with individualism--especially extreme individualism--that we see the advent of destructive, nihilistic systems of thought: among them the destructiveness of "Absolutist Capitalism," that form of Capitalism that recognizes no ethical limits to profit; the moral and ethical bankruptcy of "Absolutist Existentialism," which denies any objective basis for right and wrong; and the intellectual sterility of "Absolutist Pluralism," which states that all ideas must be respected equally, regardless of ethics, accuracy, or even of usefulness.

Note the common ground: "absolutist." It seems to be a truism that any single idea, followed absolutely, leads only to ruin. Human experience does not seem to be amenable to the black-and-white world of absolutes: instead, we seem to do much better with a give-and-take relativism that can adjust for changes in circumstances. But even with the relativism of human experience, we find certain recurring questions that occur. Is there such a thing as absolute right and wrong? Is there even such a thing as objective right and wrong?

Well, so far we can't answer that. We haven't yet defined what is "real," much less what is right and wrong. The first we can begin to do here, and the second will wait for a later fire. (Believe it or not, all of that was back-ground!)

What is real? Most Wiccans take a very hard-line view of Realism: the world is not only real, it is also Sacred (as in "sharing or possessing Divine nature"). We come to that conclusion because of our belief in the manner that the Universe was created.

Before Time, there was the One -- and the One was All.

And the One beheld Itself in the curved mirror of Nothingness, and loved Itself, and the one became Two -- Male and Female, separate, but still One.

And the Two (who are One) came together, and loved, and as they sang in their love Time was created, to hold the meter of the Song. And Space was created, to contain the bounds of Their Love.

And as Their song of love became cries of pleasure, of Their joy and love for each other was born all that is, spun of the very essence of the Two (who are One). The great galaxies that spin, and the stars within them; the planets and moons that revolve and turn, each in its own path; and all of Creation sang back the Love of the Two (who are One).

And of their love was born all things that live, spun -- like the Universe itself -- from the very substance of the Two (who are One).

And thus all Life was born in Love. For we are all from the One, who is Two -- created in Love, born of Love, and returning to Love.

And thus was everything made that was made.

Now we need to make a distinction. Is the above story an accurate, scientific view of the creation of the universe? Of course not--all jokes about the "Big Bang" to the side.... The story above is one version of a Wiccan Creation Myth--a culturally significant story that explains (among other things) our relationship to the Gods, and the nature of reality within a Wiccan religious context. It is "religious Truth," not scientific fact.

And as religious "truth," it illustrates many points of Wiccan belief. We believe that the Universe is real, because we believe that the Gods are real; the above myth, or any other creation myth (of any religion), has far more to do with how that religion perceives the Gods than it does with how the world was actually made.

But philosophy also deals with issues of what is real and what is not real: such a discussion is called mataphysics. Or, to give it the pride of place that some Philosophers give it....

Metaphysics: The Investigation of Ultimate Reality

It sounds so pretentious, doesn't it? Metaphysics is somewhat of a tempest in a teapot: philosophers can argue all day on what is real, what is ultimate reality, and still go home to supper without worrying if their meal--real or imaginary--will fill their bellies. By itself, metaphysics is a relatively unimportant study: it only becomes truly important when it is used as a basis for other segments of philosophy.

This is the real importance of metaphysics: our understanding of what is real is the foundation for how we react to the world around us. If the world that we sense is not real, then we are reacting to projections of our own awareness, our own sensations, or even of our own illusions and delusions. If the world is real, then we are reacting to something that has substance -- and we, as part of that world, have substance. Our concepts of the reality (or lack of reality) of the world around us have profound implications on our understanding of learning, and on our values, especially ethical values. If the world that we see does not have a fundamental 'reality" to it, then ethics becomes much less important: why should we behave in an ethical fashion to something that, on many levels (as some argue), does not exist?

I cannot speak for your understanding of the basic "reality" of the Universe--such is beyond my ken, unless you choose to share those views with me. But I can state that, if the Universe has an innate reality and we treat it as if it does not, then we run the risk of devaluing something that is real. If, on the other hand, the Universe has no innate reality, and we treat it like it does, we still interact with a universe that reacts consistently to the stimuli that we observe, or initiate.

That sounds a lot deeper than it actually is: basically, whether or not the Universe is innately "real," it behaves as if it were. Or, in other words, a hammer dropped on your toe will still cause pain.

This concept--that the universe is real, and that it has innate value--is the foundation for understanding other branches of Wiccan philosophy. If we accept the Universe as real, then our senses are perceiving real things. And if we are perceiving real things, then we are gaining knowledge....and it goes on from there.

-----

Justin

Richbee

April 10th 2005, 03:18 PM

Not so with the Bible: but the Bible is not alone in this regard. There are other books that proclaim themselves to be the Words of God, or at least to speak authoritatively about God/the Gods.

Justin

Not really true is it? The Bible stands alone and over 900 times in the OT alone proclaims to be literally, the very Words of God.

I have often stated that Wicca or Wiccan Philosophy was founded by Crowley and Gardner in Theosophy, and we should expand on this.

And, Theosophy borrowed many ideas from Hinduism.

No Heaven? No Hell? No Sin? Sound familar? God is unknowable? Who says?

Now, a complete thread has peeled back the fallicies of the Blind Men and the Elephant, in Christian God has spoken, and literally in Hinduism, God is unknowable, and mute. (The Elephant doesn't speak)

Now, as far as Hindu books and the gods go, have you ever wondered why Hinduism agrees with Wicca?

So, what claim do the Hindu scriptures make? What is the origin of these gods?

The earliest Hindu literature, the Rig Veda, speaks often of “the Creator,” of “the One,” a Great God over all the other gods. He is called Varuna, and is closely related to the Zoroastrian god Ahura Mazdâ (“Wise Lord”) and the Greek god Uranus (Ourania).

Though an insignificant sea god in the current pantheon, Varuna was a prominent god in the ancient system, and the subject of many hymns in the Rig Veda. Zwemer writes that Varuna is “the most impressive of the Vedic gods. He is the prehistoric Sky-god whose nature and attributes point to a very early monotheistic conception”. This god is an ethical god, capable of great wrath or merciful forgiveness of sins.

Note this passage from the Vedas:

I do not wish, King Varuna,
To go down to the home of clay,
Be gracious, mighty lord, and spare.
Whatever wrong we men commit against the race
Of heavenly ones, O Varuna, whatever law
Of thine we here have broken through thoughtlessness,
For that transgression do not punish us, O god (Rig Veda VII.lxxxix.1-3).

Varuna is already on the decline by the time the Vedas were committed to writing; Indra, a warrior god, takes prominence in the later Vedic period. Yet even then, Varuna is qualitatively different from Indra and all the other gods that follow him in the Vedic literature; he is less anthropomorphic and more majestic (cf. Zwemer, p. 88). Other Hindu deities act like humans in the same way as the Greek gods, yet Varuna is above that. It would seem that this god embodies many of the qualities of Jehovah, albeit diluted and removed by many hundreds of miles and years.

Source (www.apologeticspress.org/modules.php?name=Read&cat=4&itemid=2579)

Depending on your interpretation, we may have no clear moral authority--at least, by the moral and ethical standards of modern culture.

False. (BTW, by what objective moral standard do you make such assertions? What is your standard? Roman Law under the pagans, like Nero?)

Our Nation has been founded on the Judeo-Christian moral codes and as found in English Common Law, and ...

The Magna Carta!

Yes!

:yes:

The promises of the English Magna Carta and English Common Law fulfilled in America - Click and Learn (www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/mcarta.html)

Ahem!

:ahem:

Forgotten our Pilgrims and: The Mayflower Compact (www.mayflowerhistory.com/PrimarySources/MayflowerCompact.php
)???

Who has brainwashed you? (Shuu, tell us, which Witch taught you this "wisdom"?)

"The general principles on which the fathers achieved independence were…the general principles of Christianity…I will avow that I then believed, and now believe, that those general principles of Christianity are as eternal and immutable as the existence and attributes of God." (John Adam's letter to Thomas Jefferson. The Writings of Thomas Jefferson by Thomas Jefferson. Washington, D.C.: The Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association, 1904. Vol. XIII. pp. 292.294.)

"We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion…Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people . It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." (President John Adams. October 11, 1798. Address to the Military.)

And, let us not forget:

"The highest glory of the American Revolution was this, it connected in one indissoluble bond, principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity." (July 4, 1821.)

There are a few points of Judeo-Christian ethics and myth that are of questionable morality, including: commandments to commit genocide (several citations, but see especially the book of Joshua);

Judging God's Justice, and on what grounds?

Are you going to defend the ancient enemies of Israel and the Hebrews? Taking sides in their Civil Wars for survival?

Would you defend pagan practices of live human sacrifice? Their Sex cults?

probable human sacrifice (Judges 11);

Oh, still confused? Did you miss the Law as found in Leviticus? "Sacrifice not thy children to Mollech..." - paraphrased.

...punishment of innocents for the sins of one man (several, but see Joshua 7); and the entire concept of scape-goating, or substitutionary atonement (Lev. 16, or the entire "Jesus died for the sins of the world" doctrine). Now, all of these issues become understandable when we study the cultures that produced them: so the conflict with modern ethics and morals does nothing to devalue the Bible.

So, still missing out on the New Covenant thinking and
God's progressive revelation?

Durthorin

April 10th 2005, 04:27 PM

Richbee

April 10th 2005, 04:46 PM

Rich, once more. Leave off sir. You attack man who can not see you an has asked not to be afflicted with you. Courtesy would demand you leave him be. If you wish to attack Wicca then I suggest you create your own thread to do so. If your attacking Justin, then I suggest you rethink a personal attack in the name of faith.

Brighid Bless, Dur

Attack?

You mean, where Justin attacks fair minded reason, history, logic, the Bible, and Jesus Christ?

Oh, O.K., fair is fair my friend.

Stay on topic, or pick and choose the rumble of your choice in the Locker Room! (are you suggesting that you and I need to rumble in the Locker Room over my free posting rights under "World Religions"?)

No one can suspend Reality, not even through Magick illusions.

Jesus said,

"For judgment I have come into the World, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind."

:thumb:

Now, who claims to see, and who wants to be blind? (Hint: The Blind Men and the Elephant - why is the Elephant dumb? - Is God unknowable?)

*** EDIT ADD ***

Mute?

Moot?

Dur', note that over here, under "World Religions'", I have, and many who hold polar opposite POV's can trade posts, such as under "Judaism", or "WatchTower - Jehovah Witesses". (Geez, I even brought up "Jews for Jesus" points under Juduism, and my threads were popular.)

Now, are you suggesting that TWeb sponsor a Wiccan only area, where your "wisdom" - origins, logic, philosophy and Religion are safe from interfaith discussion, or safe from the Light of Truth?

BTW, I have started some softball threads over here, and originally out of respect. (I'll mention this to my buudy, Mr. Hardball, Chris Matthews and see if he can't invite you and Justin on MSNBC, and to talk over our Religious rights!)

:rofl:

You know, that next to Chris Matthews, I'm kind of soft and cute!

technomage

April 10th 2005, 11:45 PM

Richbee

April 11th 2005, 12:28 AM

Hi, Dur,

Dur, don't worry about it: Rich knows he's on ignore and I'm not reading his posts. He's not writing them to me--he's "playing to the audience." Let him strut and fret his hour upon the stage. His antics neither pick my pocket nor break my leg.

Justin

Justin,

Keep running from the truth, perhaps some day soon you can explain your assertions about the Bible, Jesus Christ (the one your reject), and your mistatements about American history and our foundations of Justice and Morality in America.

Bill Haynes reminds us:

The man most often quoted as the author of the phrase "separation of church and state," Thomas Jefferson, said in 1781,

"And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with his wrath? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep for ever." (1)

Clearly, Jefferson never envisioned or intended that all references to God would be expunged from our nation and culture.

The first president of our country demonstrated his faith in God on numerous occasions. He understood that God, by His gracious will, had allowed this new nation to be established as the greatest citadel of religious freedom in the world. In his Thanksgiving Proclamation in 1789, George Washington said, "It is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favors." (2)

President Washington was not calling the country to adopt a particular religion, but rather to acknowledge that there is a Supreme Being who is sovereign over His creation. God grants common grace to nations, and His benefits are immense to our nation.

John Adams, the second president of the United States, said in a letter in 1776, "Statesmen, my dear Sir, may plan and speculate for Liberty, but it is Religion and Morality alone, which can establish the Principles upon which Freedom can securely stand." (3)

Here, the understanding is that liberty comes from principles and truths that are above natural man.

It is apparent that those founding fathers of our republic understood the importance of including God in our national framework. The Bible says,

"Righteousness exalts a nation . . ." (Proverbs 14:34) - this righteousness only comes from acknowledging the Source of righteousness and life - God.

The belief in God and acknowledgment of that belief in public and civic proclamations is a very important part of our history and continues to be so today.

By Bill Haynes - Senior Policy Analyst for Cultural & Worldview Studies

1. Notes on the State of Virginia, Query 18, 1781
2. Thanksgiving Proclamation, October 3, 1789
3. Letter to Zabdiel Adams, June 21, 1776

Durthorin

April 11th 2005, 12:28 AM

Iktovian

April 11th 2005, 12:29 AM

:ponder::ponder::ponder::ponder::ponder::ponder::ponder::ponder::ponder::ponder::ponder::ponder::ponder::ponder::ponder:]

Richbee

April 11th 2005, 12:32 AM

:ponder:

Ikto'

This is getting old fast!

Iktovian

April 11th 2005, 01:27 AM

yup

Richbee

April 11th 2005, 01:37 AM

yup

I meant your style of using all symbols, no words.

Any thoughts on Justin's POV on reality?

kofh2u

April 11th 2005, 01:47 AM

hello justin,
I think you are right.
There s absolutely no rea on to assume that the scripture of the Jews ought be bowed down to as some absolute truth, particularly uninspected.

In the name of brevity, I would sum the matter to be a philosophical discussion. In this, I would add the reminded that, in fact, our philosophy of lufe might not be that which is exposed to us in the Bible, but that we do have one, de facto of observable behavior.

I would argue that if we closely watched and collected data on any random individual, we would discover after many generations, perhaps, that humans behave in a a finite number of ways. These behaviors could be tagged as very much similar to behaviors in prvious generations.

I submit that these behaviors are motivated by preconceived thinking, and that the patterns of these various behaviors witness to an underlining philosophy, known or unrecignized by the individual.

With that said, I argue that Jewish "horse sense" has been incapsulated in scripture and it is the thirteeth, (13), t peof philosophy available to human thinking.

In defense of what I say, I refer to the well known and popularly applied Myers-Briggs Type Inventory which identifies @ twelve types of people recognizable by predictable behaviors.

I further offer reference to the Catholic Encyclopedia which enumerates the twelve modern philosophies.

Then, I point to the Jews who Moses separated into twelve "tribes" or types.

See what I am proposing?

Scripture is true concerning the one way to live. You don't need to accept it in faith if you are in this age where knowledge abounds and men run to and fro. I can explain it to you. This philosophy of life IS from the God of the living we are experiencing.

Altruism is the 13th way. All others are founded on Selfishness.

Iktovian

April 11th 2005, 01:51 AM

no
even if i knew what a pov was
i ahve no real interest in his arguments as he makes the puzzleing assuption that you can have morals before God.
i just get a bit compulsive when I open the smilies box

Vivian

April 11th 2005, 03:03 AM

Hi justin,

There are many potential dialogues in the smorgesboard OP offering on this thread! If I may address a couple of points that came to mind while reading...

The elephant may be a representation of Truth, but it is not Truth Itself. So even if we could see it in its entirety, we would still only be looking at a shadow, a form and a room full of sighted men would still disagree on it's true essense due to differences in perception that come from each's unique emotional and mental bodies.

Truth is not something that we grasp, but something that we enter, that we become One with and then express through our mental, emotion, and physical bodies. This is why Jesus could say I am the Truth, for He and Truth were One.

I found the following revelation received by Mayerhofer in the mid 1800s to be something worthy of our consideration when looking at any holy writing...

Until man comprehends the interpretation or the spiritual sense of the Words – which is called correspondence – it is in vain to grasp the innermost sense of My Words. Even the great number of new words which you have obtained up to now bear witness to this. For the more often you read them, the more spiritual they become compared to many earlier different interpretations, whereas now the content becomes clear to you. You have to start from the premise that I, as Supreme Spirit, can think and speak only spiritually. Likewise, that I clothe spiritual thoughts and ideas in words comprehensible to you in accordance with the capacity of the human mind.

I am not sure if you realize, justin, the verity found in the Wiccan story of creation. The same is found in many religious and cultural traditions including Hindu - which has already been mentioned. But this story does not prove that this physical world is Real. There is much more to the story, many layers of creation before we get down to the nitty gritty of the creation of this world. But even if it were a result of the first level of creation, it still would not be Real. Only God is Eternal and therefore Real. All of creation is temporary and will someday pass away. So while this world is very real to us while we live here, it is a world of life and death and everything here will glimmer and fade. What has a beginning must also have an end.

So as Jesus teaches, why put our attention on the things of this world that will only rot and die? Why not put our focus on those things of the kingdom of Heaven, those things which are Eternal?

You asked if we would share the experiences had that led to each's present understanding. Honestly, for most, each other's experiences are rather boring, so I will keep this limited.

For several years I had what are called mystical experiences - of Jesus and the Father God and these experiences opened my heart and mind in ways that are inexplicable. Everything taught during this time has proven to be true, although my understanding of what was experienced was not.

I was merely experiencing the astral realm for what I connected with was perceived with my mundane senses. True Divine experience can only be had in a state of elevated consciousness, when we step out of ego perspective into increasing levels of God perspective. When we connect with True God it is through our minds, connecting with a Unity of existence that joins all that has been created.

If one has not experienced an elevation of consciousness, it is easy to understand why they would confuse astral experiences for True experiences of God.

vivian

kofh2u

April 11th 2005, 08:22 AM

Hello vivian,
I like your elephant parable.

When I read it elsewhere, the men were actually boys. They were peering thru holes in the circus tent which housed an elephant.
Each could only see a small part, and based upon that sensory data alone, they discribed the whole animal, from their individual perspectives.
Consequently, the "tail" observer reported a snake-like animal, while the others ranged from hippo to long armed tree-like octopus. They argued and never realized the importance of their collective observation.

But, you correctly discribe the human condition.

Twelve innate and genetically sourced perspectives will always insist upon separate beliefs concerning reality.

The five senses would seem to collect the same data, but the interneural processes utilize twelve slightly different "software" programs by which such input is analyzed.

This is not a mistake in God's refining process of evolution. It is evidence that, whatever lies beyond our own mental grasp, whatever is "out there," in the external world, it is more complicated in its details than we personally can imagine. We need other points of view and a slow developing understanding over time, even generations.

In this lies the fundamental principle of the scriptural philosophy preaching Altruism.

We NEED all twelve perspectives.

In order to understand what is out there, what is not "in here," inside us, in our mental world, we need the collective "technology that utilizes our individual "science," or discovery. We are NOT capable of independence, but must hang together if we avoid a separate "hanging."

This is the second insight of the two pillars, Boaz and Jason. First, there IS something real "out there." Second, we can not separately understand it fully.

These are two postulates necessary to our building of the imaginary mental model of Universe, the tower to highest heaven, our temple of the cosmos (we "think") we are housed in.
That is, our understanding of the Truth we call The World.

In the image created in our mind, reality IS almighty. Fire DOES burn.
We believe this because we postulate cause-effect, verified empirically by repeated experiences.

So, the first premise of the philosophy of scripture is that something Real exists out there, which IS Almighty in our life.

The second postulate is that we are modelling a replica mentally, an image internally, which can be examined by our internal thinking.

The third postulate is that we can rely upon our mind to understaand what exists, as the dependable tool given us by the Reality out there.

Conversely, we postulate order and principles, and laws out there, which are not capricious and unknowable.

The first theory follows that: from the helpful attention and sharing with others, together we seem capable of puzzling this matter of Reality out.

In this theory, unlike the individual and separate parts of the elephant we feel we are, we, in Reality, are more like ants.

technomage

April 11th 2005, 08:57 AM

no
even if i knew what a pov was

"pov" stands for "Point Of View."

i ahve no real interest in his arguments as he makes the puzzleing assuption that you can have morals before God.

Iktovian, all cultures have "morals"--"morals" are the standards of right and wrong that develop within a culture. In certain New Guinea cultures, it is "moral" to eat your defeated enemy: in American and European culture, cannibalism is completely immoral.

The normal Christian objection is that no matter how "moral" a person is, their morality is not good enough for God: Isa 64:6 is the usual proof text.

i just get a bit compulsive when I open the smilies box

Well, I do wish you would consider being a bit less compulsive. :wink: Too many animated graphics degrades the performance for some browsers.

Justin

technomage

April 11th 2005, 08:59 AM

May the Goddess bless and keep you, Dur

May the Lord and Lady grant you Strength and Beauty, my friend. :hug:

Justin

Solly

April 11th 2005, 09:00 AM

Rather long to comprehend all of it Justin. I would guess that, although at times it seems like you are, yet you are not arguing for mere relativism. There IS indeed an elephant there; but the point being that we do not know it is an elephant, and so what we do know becomes exalted to the place of elephantness, and we focus on that. And that this is the path the different religions, philosophies, and ideologies have taken. so, if I am reading you right, in an objectively existing reality, we are subjectively directed to 'create' an image of that objective reality. But it also sems to be part of your view that we can actually never grasp the fulness of the elephant, we are only ever limited to different views of it. The 'many roads up the mountain' view of Truth.
But I would still fall back to my position that Jesus came to show us what the elephant is like, he is the ikon, the human shaped image of the 'elephant'. I know you can contest that, and some other relgions appear to have a similar view - although Jesus is not an avatar, a theophany.

My experience was quite simple. I was examining the different religious and philosophical viewpoints I had encountered over the previous 12 years, to write a book encapsulating my own philosophy - a mixture of Nietzsche, Mahayana Buddhism, and some wacco stuff. i asked the simple question, what made each view believable, and how could it seem more than a simple human construct, so that I could make my view believable to others. I soon found myself confronted with Christ on the Cross, and the fact that he had died for reasons I did not understand; I was then siezed with the impression that it impacted me in some way. i was then siezed with the knowledge that I was wrong: there was a God - which I had denied up to that point - and that I was 100% wrong, not only in all I had done and believed, but in all I was, my whole being, and that the answer lay in Christ - though I didn't know what the answer was at that point. Like CS Lewis, I was a reluctant convert; at times I have been a reluctant Christian, but I am still a Christian after 15 years. If you have read Pascal, you'll know what kind of expereinces I encounter as a Christian. I had read things like William Sargeant's Battle for the mind, and suspected 'emotional' conversions, 'supernatural' events; i had none of these, just the powerful moral impression of my own wrongness; of Christ being the answer to that, and acceptance by God because of that. You might say perhaps the answer would lie in Islam, or something else. But it was Christ I 'saw' not muhammed, nor Buddha - whom i had bowed to once a week - nor a vision of an angel.

Richbee

April 11th 2005, 11:12 AM

Iktovian, all cultures have "morals"--"morals" are the standards of right and wrong that develop within a culture. In certain New Guinea cultures, it is "moral" to eat your defeated enemy: in American and European culture, cannibalism is completely immoral.

Not really true, but all Religions and cultures do have ethics of sorts.

Professor Peter Kreeft writes:

What is this essence of religion anyway? I challenge anyone to define it broadly enough to include Confucianism, Buddhism, and modern Reform Judaism but narrowly enough to exclude Platonism, atheistic Marxism, and Nazism.

The unproved and unprovable assumption ...that the essence of religion is a kind of lowest common denominator or common factor. Perhaps the common factor is a weak and watery thing rather than an essential thing. Perhaps it does not exist at all. No one has ever produced it.

Question:

“But if you compare the Sermon on the Mount, Buddha's Dhammapada, Lao-tzu's Tao-te-ching, Confucius' Analects, the Bhagavad Gita, the Proverbs of Solomon, and the Dialogues of Plato, you will find it a real, profound, and strong agreement. “

Yes, but this is ethics, not religion. The objector is assuming that the essence of religion is ethics. It is not. Everyone has an ethic, not everyone has a religion. Tell an atheist that ethics equals religion. He will be rightly insulted, for you would be calling him either religious if he is ethical, or unethical because he is non-religious. Ethics may be the first step in religion but it is not the last. As C. S. Lewis says, “The road to the Promised Land runs past Mount Sinai. “ [Not through a Witch]

Peter Kreeft (www.catholiceducation.org/articles/apologetics/ap0020.html)

Richbee

April 11th 2005, 11:26 AM

There IS indeed an elephant there; but the point being that we do not know it is an elephant, and so what we do know becomes exalted to the place of elephantness, and we focus on that. And that this is the path the different religions, philosophies, and ideologies have taken. so, if I am reading you right, in an objectively existing reality, we are subjectively directed to 'create' an image of that objective reality. But it also sems to be part of your view that we can actually never grasp the fulness of the elephant, we are only ever limited to different views of it. The 'many roads up the mountain' view of Truth.

Solly,

I really appreciate your honesty here, and authencity. Ideas have consequences, and because of your background in some Eastern philosophies, you will not be surprised by the origin of the old "Blind Men and the (dumb) Elephant".

In Eastern Religion, or mysticism (One of the Wiccan sources) God is unknowable, so any explicit revelation of God as talking or incarnating in our World - directly must be rejected. Justin knows the Elephant story better than he leads on, and then misquotes it. (Note the Elephant is literally dumb - and is not speaking. Neither are Justin's magick cosmic forces testifying about God.)

Consider the source and the message:

In the children's book, The Blind Men and the Elephant, Lillian Quigley retells the ancient fable of six blind men who visit the palace of the Rajah and encounter an elephant for the first time. As each touches the animal with his hands, he announces his discoveries.

The first blind man put out his hand and touched the side of the elephant. "How smooth! An elephant is like a wall." The second blind man put out his hand and touched the trunk of the elephant. "How round! An elephant is like a snake." The third blind man put out his hand and touched the tusk of the elephant. "How sharp! An elephant is like a spear." The fourth blind man put out his hand and touched the leg of the elephant. "How tall! An elephant is like a tree." The fifth blind man reached out his hand and touched the ear of the elephant. "How wide! An elephant is like a fan." The sixth blind man put out his hand and touched the tail of the elephant. "How thin! An elephant is like a rope."

As the story goes, an argument quickly ensued, each blind man thinking his own perception of the elephant was the correct one. The Rajah, awakened by the commotion, called out from the balcony. "The elephant is a big animal," he said. "Each man touched only one part. You must put all the parts together to find out what an elephant is like."

Enlightened by the Rajah's wisdom, the blind men reached agreement. "Each one of us knows only a part. To find out the whole truth we must put all the parts together."

The religious application holds that every faith represents just one part of a larger truth about God. Each has only a piece of the truth, ultimately leading to God by different routes. Advocates of Eastern religions are fond of quoting this fable.

How should we respond to this Story, and does it describe how different peoples, or cultures encounter God, and then tell different aspects of the same one God?

Source: Lillian Quigley, The Blind Men and the Elephant (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1959). Possible original sources of the story are the Jataka Tales, a collection of Buddhist birth stories, and the Pancatantra Stories, Hindu religious instruction fables.

Solly

April 11th 2005, 11:29 AM

Richbee

April 11th 2005, 11:41 AM

The idea appears in the west too, Richbee, from Platonism, through Kant, and into Barth.

I wonder, if each only knows in part, and has no idea of what an elephant is, how they will put it together. REmember those first fossil reconstrucitons, how they made a quadroped, not an upright beast...

Sure, and for Plato wasn't shadows on the back of a cave?

Today more so:

Neo-Platonism (Neognosticism)

“I am sorry from my heart that Plato has been the caterer to all these heretics.” (Tertullian, A Treatise on the Soul)

A sort of “neo-Platonism” was extant in the Mediterranean in 1st century A.D. One proponent was Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria, who believed:

God is indefinable, and has no contact with carnal (material) substance

One Supreme force (logos) created the material world ("Word" of God or "Reason" of God)

Humans strive for freedom from prison of the body

Reincarnation is possible for those not released at death

Solly

April 11th 2005, 11:45 AM

Richbee

April 11th 2005, 12:00 PM

But Plato at least recognised - perhaps contradictorally - that some one might actually attain knowledge of The Truth, and go back and tell the others. Buddhism has its Bodhisattva vow also. See, humans WANT to know, regardless of the ideas that say we can't.

But I am still with Pascal's wager, properly understood. Explain the situation, and point to the answer. It's all one can do.

Thanks, and yes, you are quite right.

However, ideas have consequences, and if we peel back the layers of darkness and shine the light of truth.

Poof.

The illusion vanishes.

In relativism, truth is a fashion, or a whim, and note the dualism involved and repeated all through history, from Gnosticism to Hinduism. Shiva the Creator/Destroyer. Or, Zoroastrianism, founded by Persian Prophet Zoroaster (630? - 553? BC). In this religion, a battle between light (Ormazd) and darkness (Ahriman) features prominently.

Now, consider the famous, or infamous teaching of a 1970's influential Witch:

*** Edit Add ***

Light/Dark, or Good/Evil dualism is reflected in the teachings of Starhawk.

For example, though she does not think destruction is necessarily evil, she states:

"The nature of the Goddess is never single...She is light and the darkness, the patroness of love and death, who makes all possibilities. She brings both comfort and pain."

Elsewhere she says,

"As Crone, She is the dark face of life, which demands death and sacrifice...In Witchcraft, the dark, waning aspect of the god/goddess is not evil -- it is a vital part of the natural cycle."

This aspect of the divine manifesting itself in polarities (dualism) is echoed by almost all (if not all) witches.

In Dreaming the Dark Starhawk attempts to grapple with ethical issues and the problem of evil:

"Evil is a concept that cannot be separated from the stories of duality. Power-over, violence, coercion...are not evil in the sense of being part of a force in direct opposition to good. Instead, we can see them as mistakes, processes born of chance that spread because they have served their purposes....The problem of evil is really a problem of randomness."

Solly

April 11th 2005, 12:08 PM

I operate from a slightly different premise Richbee. i assume the best of people, until i see the worst, but even then there is hope. I of course believe Justin is wrong, and have never balked from saying so; but I also believe that sometimes, rather than pulling down, its a matter of going through with people, reaching for that which the Creator wants, and which they can be broght to see. If the world was full of atheists, and only Christianity - assumming for the sake of argument, that it is the Truth - then it would be an easy option. but religions and philosophies exist. People want to know, but they are enslaved to sin and satan. They are to be rescued, not fought. Sometimes that rescue is forceful, as when we try to pull someone out of a swirling current, but it is still a rescue. I don't do battle much, any more than Jesus did, except with hypocrisy amongst those who should have know better. I tend to fail when i do battle.
So, let Justin hold onto his part of the elephant - at least he is doing that, and hopefully it's a nice part :wink:, but let's encourage him to find out more about the elephant, and that he can do that. Let's show him what it means to have found the elephant, what a difference that makes.
Sometimes, we forget, and clutch our small part - and sometimes it is the wrong part, the s***ty part, and we get s**t on Heb 12, but that's our reminder.

There's just too much of this OT smiting and cursing going on these days.

:shocked:

Richbee

April 11th 2005, 12:21 PM

Solly

April 11th 2005, 12:27 PM

Amen.

Justin, you can read the last few posts of Richbee on this page.

gotta go home now. Goodnight.

[sorry mossrose :hamster:]

technomage

April 11th 2005, 01:09 PM

Rather long to comprehend all of it Justin. I would guess that, although at times it seems like you are, yet you are not arguing for mere relativism.

Precisely: I hold that there is an Objective, Absolute Truth to Creation--and I use the term "Creation" quite deliberately, since I posit the existence of a Creator as an axiom. I posit that it may be possible to gain some knowledge about this creator ... but by the same token, it is possible to falsely claim knowledge (either through self-deception, or through honest error, or failure to understand ... whatever).

But I would still fall back to my position that Jesus came to show us what the elephant is like, he is the ikon, the human shaped image of the 'elephant'.

Solly, I can gladly accept your understanding of Jesus as a subjective "ikon" of the objective Creator ... but if you've read any of my writings on the Scriptures, I think they will give you a greater understanding on why I do not accept your Scriptures as an accurate discussion of the Creator.

That does not mean that I think you are subjectively wrong: I do, however, state (with all respect) that your picture of the objective Truth is grossly distorted and incomplete. But please don't feel that I'm picking on you specifically, Sollym or on Christianity in general--I also am quite sure that my own "picture" is equally distorted, and equally incomplete. The phrase "through a glass, darkly" is the most apt metaphor possible.

If we propose an infinite (or even near infinite) Creator, then one necessary consequence of that proposition is that we human beings are not capable of a complete understanding of the Creator. It is possible (but not at all guaranteed) that we may gain an incomplete understanding ... but there is no possiblility of a finite human being gaining full comprehension of an infinite Creator.

Justin

kofh2u

April 11th 2005, 02:15 PM

May the Lord and Lady grant you Strength and Beauty, my friend. :hug:

Justin

To the point, Justin, does Wicca teach that men are fundamentally independent of eachother, or does Wicca teach men are social animals very much in the mold of ants?

It would be beautiful if Wicca taught that Father Nature made us to live in Mother Nature's bosom as a team, altruistically.
We are devoted to the survival of the species. This is the primary instinct, the fear of God, that we will not only personally die, but our children too. And, the best modern thought suggests major survival problems confront our species.

Richbee

April 11th 2005, 02:17 PM

Amen.

Justin, you can read the last few posts of Richbee on this page.

gotta go home now. Goodnight.

[sorry mossrose :hamster:]

:mossrose:

I know the feeling!

Please Solly, start a new thread, I am all ears!

:solly:

Richbee sings amen!

Richbee

April 11th 2005, 02:21 PM

Solly, I can gladly accept your understanding of Jesus as a subjective "ikon" of the objective Creator ... but if you've read any of my writings on the Scriptures, I think they will give you a greater understanding on why I do not accept your Scriptures as an accurate discussion of the Creator.

More spinning relativism.

Jesus never gave anyone the option of taking Jesus at any less than his Word.

Wiccan deception is sweet and slight! :ahem:

Quote:

Jesus and....

".....his appeal to Isaiah 61:1-2 suggests that he understood himself as the one "anointed" of the Lord, that is, as Israel’s Messiah. A recently published scroll from Qumran has lent additional support to this traditional Christian belief.

According to 4Q521,

"Heaven and earth will obey his Messiah and all that is in them will not turn away from the commandments of the holy ones ... for (the Lord) will honor the pious upon the throne of the eternal Kingdom, setting prisoners free, opening the eyes of the blind, raising up those who are bowed down…. For he will heal the wounded, revive the dead, proclaim good news to the poor."

This passage, which contains allusions to Isaiah 26:19 (raising the dead), 35:5-6 (opening the eyes of the blind), and 61:1-2 (proclaiming good news to the poor), parallels Jesus’ reply to John the Baptist. Because 4Q521 implies that these wonderful things happen at the time of the Messiah, we may correctly assume that by describing his ministry in the same terms, Jesus was telling John that, yes, indeed he is the Messiah, the "one who is to come."

Now look at:

"Go back and report to John what you hear and see: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor."

Source: Jesus and Judaism, By Craig A. Evans (www.wcg.org/lit/jesus/judaism.htm)

technomage

April 11th 2005, 02:25 PM

In defense of what I say, I refer to the well known and popularly applied Myers-Briggs Type Inventory which identifies @ twelve types of people recognizable by predictable behaviors.

Um, David, the MBTI offers sixteen "types," not twelve. Of those sixteen types, none completely negate the possibility of altruism.

Additionally, I am not at all confident in the MTBI as some "Grand Design," though I quite agree that it can be a useful tool in categorizing and understanding individuals. It is not, however, a tremendously effective tool for understanding groups, and it is definitely not an effective tool for understanding or categorizing all of human behavior throughout history.

Trying to categorize all of human behavior may very well be a case of mistaking the map for the terrain.

Justin

technomage

April 11th 2005, 02:31 PM

To the point, Justin, does Wicca teach that men are fundamentally independent of eachother, or does Wicca teach men are social animals very much in the mold of ants?

Not ... really either of the above. Yes, we are in some aspects independant of each other, but at the same time, we have evolved as social animals--admittedly, most of our history shows the traits of small groups who war against small groups, and I think that you'll agree that this is an inferior view to all people working together in amity and peace. Unfortunately, humanity is also a competative animal, and it may or may not be possible for all people wo work together in this fashion.

And it seems that we need both traits--the cooperative and the competative--to be fully "human."

Justin

Richbee

April 11th 2005, 02:52 PM

To the point, Justin, does Wicca teach that men are fundamentally independent of eachother, or does Wicca teach men are social animals very much in the mold of ants?

It would be beautiful if Wicca taught that Father Nature made us to live in Mother Nature's bosom as a team, altruistically.
We are devoted to the survival of the species. This is the primary instinct, the fear of God, that we will not only personally die, but our children too. And, the best modern thought suggests major survival problems confront our species.

Relativism seems to be your card, and you have a strange POV on the New Testament.

To witches who believe that magic is a natural, neutral force or power, Christians reply that it is rather empowered by "the prince of the power of the air that now works in the children of disobedience" (Eph. 2:2).

Witches say their spells and incantations are nice, history reveals that this is not true, and many bad spells have been wished for and cast. (curses)

Whether wiccan witches acknowledge it or not, all occultism involves interaction and trafficking with demonic spirits (See: Lev. 17:7; 20:6; Deut. 32:17; Ps. 106:36-39; 1 Cor. 10:20-21; Rev. 9:20-21).

Justin must reject these scriptures as only a subjective "opinion" and deny Reality.

Carl G. Jung's assertion that "everything human is relative."

And, ahem! :ahem:

We can, and we should respond that:

Is this statement relative too, since it was uttered by a human?

If it is *NOT* relative, then the statement is not true.

But if the statement itself IS relative, that would mean there are times when it is not true!!!

Just stop and think!

When some things human are not relative, and are hence absolute. But this would contradict Jung's original statement. Thus, it is both false and self-defeating. Clearly, the sword of logic cuts both ways.

Justin and Wiccans are illogical, irrational, and incoherant.

But of course, they can deny Logic, but then they would have use Logic themselves!

To deny this is to admit the Logic we use to think and Live!

Circular Spin and lots of stirring. :pot:

The cauldron is full of :sad:

technomage

April 11th 2005, 03:03 PM

Hi, Vivian,

The elephant may be a representation of Truth, but it is not Truth Itself. So even if we could see it in its entirety, we would still only be looking at a shadow, a form and a room full of sighted men would still disagree on it's true essense due to differences in perception that come from each's unique emotional and mental bodies.

Vivian, I have to respectfully disagree ... sort of. I feel you're taking the analogy farther than I intended, and while there's certainly nothing wrong with that in and of itself, it does not help communication between us. The way I see things, we are able to definitely know facts--individual pieces of data. If those facts match the nature of what we are investigating, then those facts are true. I'll go much more in-depth with a discussion of truth later, but that's sufficient for a very brief discussion.

The problem with the "differences in perception" that you cite is that, as human beings, our physical perceptions occur by the same biological processes. Your eyes work in the same fashion as mine, which means that the chemicals that react to light in your eyes are also present in my own eyes, and reacts in exactly the same way. We know that through biology.

In many respects, your mind works in exactly the same way mine does ... well, at least the physical aspects of it. The same neurotransmitters, the same biological structure of the neurons, the same electrochemical reactions. Indeed, at one time we used to think that people's minds worked differently because people could look at the same information and come up with the same conclusion: now we know that, at least on the strictly biological side, the human brain works in exactly the same manner for everyone.

Now, that's what science tells us ... but science is not competent to evaluate, measure, test, or even discuss the soul--whether you call it the "mental and emotional bodies" or the "aura" or whatever. However, it certainly makes sense to me that if the bodies work in exactly the same way (mechanically), then the souls are probably not all that dissimilar--your "soul" is certainly unique, as mine is unique, but if there is any sort of mechanical functionality to them, that functionality works in the same way for everyone.

I am not sure if you realize, justin, the verity found in the Wiccan story of creation. The same is found in many religious and cultural traditions including Hindu - which has already been mentioned. But this story does not prove that this physical world is Real. There is much more to the story, many layers of creation before we get down to the nitty gritty of the creation of this world.

Hmmm. I understand what you are saying ... but I have to wonder if it is accurate. However, I think I can best illustrate this by analogy.

Think of the two of us taking a trip from, say, New York to San Francisco. Now, it's a pretty long trip, and we're not sure of the exact way to get to where we are going, so we both buy maps. I buy a single-sheet, poster-sized map of the US, you buy a comprehensive, in-depth, 200-page atlas.

I get in my car, you get in your car, and we're off. Perhaps one or the other decides on side trips, or maybe we both travel straight through ... whatever. The point is this: maybe my map reveals much less detail than yours, and maybe yours is so packed with details that it makes finding something specific difficult to find, but neither map changes the nature of the road.

I honestly feel that this is what the Gnostics (and to some extent, the Neo-Platonists that the Gnostics developed from) have done: they have made a very complex, complicated map of the way to the Creator. Sometimes the maps are so complex, and a person can get lost in the intricacies of the cartography, that they pull their car completely to the side of the road and stop driving, the better to admire the map. They may have a much greater understanding of metaphysics, but the point is that they've stopped driving, and are not making any progress.

But even if it were a result of the first level of creation, it still would not be Real. Only God is Eternal and therefore Real. All of creation is temporary and will someday pass away. So while this world is very real to us while we live here, it is a world of life and death and everything here will glimmer and fade. What has a beginning must also have an end.

I'm aware of the Gnostic doctrine on the separation of God from the Creation--Vivian, with all due respect, I reject it as yet another man-made "map." That does not mean that I feel the map is "wrong"--well, I do feel that way, but as I have said before, I feel that my own Wicca, or Christianity, or Islam, are all equally "wrong"--because I do feel that people can come into union with God via Gnosticism. It does, however, mean that I believe most Gnostics who come into union with God do so in spite of their Gnostic training--and again, I feel that this is true of Wiccans as well.

Justin

Richbee

April 11th 2005, 04:27 PM

.....The problem with the "differences in perception" that you cite is that, as human beings, our physical perceptions occur by the same biological processes.

I feel that my own Wicca, or Christianity, or Islam, are all equally "wrong"--because I do feel that people can come into union with God via Gnosticism. It does, however, mean that I believe most Gnostics who come into union with God do so in spite of their Gnostic training--and again, I feel that this is true of Wiccans as well.

- Justin

Some folks just want to deny that Big Elephant and the fact of real encounters with Reality. Ancient gnostics denied the material World and God.

Here is the rub:

*Experience and Truth*

Many witches fail to recognize a key distinction regarding the validity of experiences. Over and over again, one finds a failure on the witches' part to distinguish between real experiences that people actually have versus experiences that are true.

For instance, I could have an experience or sensation of falling off a cliff. The feeling might be quite intense. Upon awakening from a dream; however, I know that feeling was not really falling at all but lying on my bed, dreaming.

Well, think about it, did I experience a powerful sense of falling?

Was I really falling?

Justin cofuses his mystical experiences with Spiritual realities. Demonic powers are real.

To confuse spiritual realities and the truth of God's reality is to commit the fallacy of equivocation.

Now, back to the BIG Elephant!

The claim of Christianity is that man doesn't learn about God by groping.

Instead, discovery is through God's own self-disclosure. He is not passive and silent, leaving us to guess about His nature. God tells us what He is like and what He wants.

If God speaks, this changes everything. All contrary opinions are silenced, all conjectures are put to rest. God has made Himself known, giving us a standard by which to measure all other religious claims. The parable of the blind men does not take this possibility into account. Yet three of the world's great religions--Christianity, Judaism, and Islam--make this claim.

Deductive Not Inductive

There is a second problem with the parable. It presumes that Christians reject pluralism because they lack exposure to other beliefs, much as the blind men erred because each explored only a part of the elephant. Had they searched more completely, they would have seen their error. Christians are just uninformed.

This is not the case, though. Christians reject pluralism, in part, because defining elements of different religions contradict each other. It's not an inductive problem of discovery; it's a problem of coherence.

Judaism teaches Jesus is not the Messiah. Christianity teaches He is. Jesus either is the Messiah or He's not. Both groups can't be right. The notion that Christianity and Judaism are somehow equally true is contradictory, like square circles.

What if the elephant in the parable was a miniature, so small the blind man could close his hand and completely encompass the elephant? If another then claimed, "The elephant is bigger than a house," the first would be correct to disagree. Why? Because an elephant can't be small enough to fit into one's hand and also be as big as a house at the same time.

No possible future discovery is going to change the fact that religious claims cannot be harmonized. Rather, exploration complicates the issue. The more one knows about the core beliefs of various faiths, the more complex the problem of harmonizing becomes.

Appealing to the ubiquity of something like the "golden rule" is no help. It is a moral action guide that says almost nothing about any religion's fundamental understanding of the shape of the world. Profound contradictions between foundational beliefs are not removed by pointing out shared moral proverbs.

Contradictory claims can't be simultaneously true. This has nothing to do with further discovery. Religious pluralism is false on deductive grounds, not inductive. (Wiccans are refuted)

The Suicidal Elephant

The third objection is the most serious. The application of this parable to issues of truth is doomed before it gets started. The view commits suicide; it is self-refuting. Here's how.

There's only one way to know our cultural or religious biases blind us to the larger truth that all religions lead to God. Someone who sees clearly without bias must tell us so. This parable, though, teaches that such objectivity is impossible.

For example, in order for William Graham Sumner to conclude that all moral claims are an illusion, he must first escape the illusion himself. He must have a full and accurate view of the entire picture--just as the king had of the blind men and the elephant from his balcony. The Rajah was in a position of privileged access to the truth. Because he could see clearly, he was able to correct those who were blind.

Such a privileged view, though, is precisely what advocates of both religious pluralism and the radical skepticism of post-modernism deny. Completely objective assessments are illusions, they claim. The truth lies in some combination of opinions or, for the more skeptical, is out of reach for any of us. This is precisely the kind of thing, though, the parable does not allow one to say.

The skeptical view itself is a claim meant to be understood as an objective and true assessment of the world. It's as if one said, "Each of us is blind," and then added, "but I'll tell you what the world really looks like." This is a clear contradiction.

The problem becomes obvious by offering this challenge. Ask the one offering the parable, "Where would you be in the illustration? When you apply this parable to the issue of truth, are you like one of the blind men or are you like the king?"

This dilemma is unsolvable. If the story-teller is like one of the six who can't see--if he is one of the blind men groping around--how does he know everyone else is blind and has only a portion of the truth? On the other hand, if he fancies himself in the position of the king, how is it that he alone escapes the illusion that blinds the rest of us? The postmodernist finds himself in the position of offering the insight of the Raja while simultaneously claiming he is one of the blind men.

At best, this parable--if it were accurate--might justify agnosticism, not religious pluralism. All one could really say is that it may be the case we're all groping about with no one in full possession of the truth--but this can't be know for sure.

The King Sees

If everyone truly is blind, then no one can know if he or anyone else is mistaken. Only someone who knows the whole truth can identify another on the fringes of it. In this story, only the king can do that--no one else.

The most ironic turn of all is that the parable of the six blind men and the elephant, to a great degree, is an accurate picture of reality. It's just been misapplied.

We are like blind men, fumbling around in the world searching for answers to life's deepest questions. From time to time, we seem to stumble upon some things that are true, but we're often confused and mistaken, just as the blind men were.

How do I know this? Because the King has spoken. He is above, instructing us, advising us of our mistakes, and correcting our error.

The real question is: Will we listen?

Stand to Reason - Click Here for the Truth Seekers (www.str.org/free/commentaries/apologetics/relativism/troublew.htm)

Solly

April 12th 2005, 04:48 AM

Precisely: I hold that there is an Objective, Absolute Truth to Creation--and I use the term "Creation" quite deliberately, since I posit the existence of a Creator as an axiom. I posit that it may be possible to gain some knowledge about this creator ... but by the same token, it is possible to falsely claim knowledge (either through self-deception, or through honest error, or failure to understand ... whatever).

Solly, I can gladly accept your understanding of Jesus as a subjective "ikon" of the objective Creator ... but if you've read any of my writings on the Scriptures, I think they will give you a greater understanding on why I do not accept your Scriptures as an accurate discussion of the Creator.

That does not mean that I think you are subjectively wrong: I do, however, state (with all respect) that your picture of the objective Truth is grossly distorted and incomplete. But please don't feel that I'm picking on you specifically, Sollym or on Christianity in general--I also am quite sure that my own "picture" is equally distorted, and equally incomplete. The phrase "through a glass, darkly" is the most apt metaphor possible.

If we propose an infinite (or even near infinite) Creator, then one necessary consequence of that proposition is that we human beings are not capable of a complete understanding of the Creator. It is possible (but not at all guaranteed) that we may gain an incomplete understanding ... but there is no possiblility of a finite human being gaining full comprehension of an infinite Creator.

Justin

Ok, let me try and get this straight.

You are saying ther is an objective being we call the creator.
You are saying we can subjectively know something of this being.
But because this being is infinite - whatever that means, and I think that is an important point - we cannot claim to know this being in totality.
Therefore, any attempts to know this being are doomed to a certain amount of failure, and so we must all look at each others views and accept the contingency of them.

But this raises the problem I mentioned before. If we are all touching different parts of the elephant, and we can't investigate the whole elephant, how are we warranted in moving from our individual subjective experiences, to an objective whole of which our SE's are a part, and CAN BE SHOWN TO BE A PART.

Now, in response, Christianity has never claimed to know all there is to know about the Creator. But it does not asume that that is for purely cognitive/logical reasons, ie how can a finite being know an infinite one. the finite/infinite issue is a gnostic/theosophical issue, not a Christian one. What Christianity says is that God became human shaped; he accommodated himself to our understanding, and said, As I am, so is the Father. Or, to put it in a silly way, if God was redeeming ants, he would appear as an ant. That's what being the Ikon of God means. That is what the Son reveals, because we all know a son should be like his Dad. But that does not mean he is giving us a physical description, but rather a moral/spiritual one: as we see his priorities, values, actions, mercy, joys, saddnesses, etc, so we see the Father heart of God.
The issue of finite/infinite is a red herring, since we can't even know a finite being in its totality - as your wife would tell you if you have one. It is not the point of Christianity to allow us to comprehend God as he is in esse, but to 'know' him, to have a relationship with him. My dog - if I had one - does not need to comprehend me in total to have that. but you know this, that's why you refer to the Lord and Lady. They are personal monikers, rather than just referring to The Force, or something. You recognise, even by default, that at the heart of the universe there is personality.

I do not think your picture of objective truth is wrong, I think your idea of what constitutes objective truth - and our relationship to it - is wrong. You are inadvertantly mixing up the notion of philosophical truth with religious truth. Jesus said I am the truth. He didn't mean propositional truth. Old English has a word little used today. Verity. You'll find it in the Athanasian creed though. Very God of Very God, Very Man of Very Man. The word means truth. But not propositional truth. it means genuine, real, as opposed to copies, fakes, etc. Not truth and lies/falshood, but truth and imitation. Jesus - and what he shows us of God - is the Verity, the Real McCoy, the Myth that actually happened, the metaphor that is still real.

Btw, I see Richbee has gone off the deep end again.

Solly

April 12th 2005, 05:14 AM

Light/Dark, or Good/Evil dualism is reflected in the teachings of Starhawk.

For example, though she does not think destruction is necessarily evil, she states:

"The nature of the Goddess is never single...She is light and the darkness, the patroness of love and death, who makes all possibilities. She brings both comfort and pain."

Elsewhere she says,

"As Crone, She is the dark face of life, which demands death and sacrifice...In Witchcraft, the dark, waning aspect of the god/goddess is not evil -- it is a vital part of the natural cycle."

This aspect of the divine manifesting itself in polarities (dualism) is echoed by almost all (if not all) witches.

In Dreaming the Dark Starhawk attempts to grapple with ethical issues and the problem of evil:

"Evil is a concept that cannot be separated from the stories of duality. Power-over, violence, coercion...are not evil in the sense of being part of a force in direct opposition to good. Instead, we can see them as mistakes, processes born of chance that spread because they have served their purposes....The problem of evil is really a problem of randomness."

Just picking up on this, although it might not be the right thread - but I don't want to wade through the other thread on evil - this is what one might call the Darth Vader view of evil. We are told by Obi Wan that the Force surrounds the galaxy blah blah blah, but then we are told that the Force has a dark side, as if it has personality and makes moral choices, when actually there are just dark people who misuse the Force. People, however, assume that already, that's part of the appeal of SW, and it's found in any film with clear categories of right and wrong, good and evil, from Cowboy films onwards. Judaism and Christianity (and by default Islam) go against this tide to one extent or another, although it tends to creep back in; just see the state of American politics.
Part of the problem is the definition of evil; as Nietzsche points out, we need a genealogy of morals to determine the origin of some of our values and value-concepts. Evil can just mean bad for us, rather than malevolence on the part of the universe at large. Theodocies, Chrisitan, Wiccan, or otherwise, are attempts to make sense of the data, and dualism is the default position.
It's interesting that in ANE mythologies evil is related in some way with the Chaos monster - The problem of evil is really a problem of randomness - and that critter is put firmly in its place by the Genesis account.

Duder

April 12th 2005, 01:50 PM

Greetings, Justin -

I pray that after you have read my comments I will not be sent to bed without s'mores. I do love my s'mores. Your OP was a wonderful post, and I wish I had time to respond with as much depth and energy - but the best I can do this morning will be a few general observations.

I believe the most important claim you made was that the sky is blue. Everything else follows from or is closely linked to that claim. And if for no reason but to protect my s'mores privilages, I also affirm that the sky is blue. But I cannot resist asking the question "where is the sky?". I follow your pointing finger, and I see it just as you do, but can we think about this for a minute?

If we can levitate, how far up do we have to go before we are in the sky? Two feet? Two hundred? Twenty thousand? Twenty miles? Suppose we go so high that we are in the last upper reaches of the atomsphere - above us is the vacuum of space, below us is all the air. Now, where are we in relation to the sky? If you tell me now to "look at the sky", in which direction shall I look? When I look down I see the ground far, far, below, with some beautiful clouds closely embracing it. From our point of view, are those clouds still in the sky? They seem more earthbound than skyward to me, from this perspective. I also notice that I do not see any blue, either above me or below me.

When we were standing on the earth, we said that the moon was in the sky - but now I see it, away up higher than our present position. It's in space. Is outer space part of the sky? Must be. In everyday conversation we talk about the moon, the sun and the stars as being in the sky.

Now we travel even higher into the sky, until we come to Mars (Yes, Mars is in the sky. We have seen Mars from our own back yards as a red dot that appears among the stars and other celestial bodies in the sky). And as we land on the planet Mars and look back from whence we came, we notice with some astonishment that the earth is in the sky.

It appears that everything is in the sky. Sky is another word for the universe. The sky contains every quality, every attribute and every color. The sky is the very existential field in which we find ourselves. Ten years ago, I helped a neighbor dig a well. As I stood at the bottom of that 30 foot shaft, I was in the sky. A person on Mars looking at me through a super telescope could have told me that.

But when we use the word sky, we don't mean all of existence, do we? We mean something special and seperate from the total existential field, with the implication that there are some things that are not in the sky. What we really mean when we say sky is the blue dome that covers the world that the ancients believed in. But we know there is no such dome. The sky is really everything, and the sky that is not everything is a figment of the imagination. The sky (in its usual sense) is a total abstraction. it refers to a mere appearance. It's about our perception and how things look to us. The sky does not exist objectively - out there - seperate from us - and if there were no minds and no observers, there would be no sky.

If you think about it, all of the words we use to denote things share this abstract quality. Modern science understands that to define what a thing is, you have to describe not only the thing, but the entire field where you find the thing. This is especially evident in biology, where the focus is no longer so much on an organism as it is on the organism/environment system.

After I read your post, I randomly opened a book by the Wiccan priestess Starhawk, and my eyes landed on a paragraph where she discusses this. Objects in the world to which we assign names (tree, buffalo, stone, sky) are temporary patterns in an ever-changing field of energy. Which patterns we notice, and the way in which we mentally divide the field is a matter of the observer's choice. No patterns are seperate from the field, and every pattern is a part of larger patterns, with no clear demarcation betwen the levels of patterning. It is all one thing going on.

The sky exists and it is blue. But that refers to nothing but my experience - and it happens, through a program of mass hypnosis called "conditioning", that you and I divide up the existential field in the same way so that we notice a blue sky. The sky is only an experiential phenomenon - it has no other validity. I honor the sky in the same way you do. Maybe more so, because I see myself as co-creator of the sky.

Realism fails when you examine things closely enough, or from a wide enough perspective.

technomage

April 12th 2005, 02:24 PM

Greetings, Jason

It's Justin. (Duder --> :pie:) :wink:

If we can levitate, how far up do we have to go before we are in the sky? Two feet? Two hundred? Twenty thousand? Twenty miles? Suppose we go so high that we are in the last upper reaches of the atomsphere - above us is the vacuum of space, below us is all the air. Now, where are we in relation to the sky? If you tell me now to "look at the sky", in which direction shall I look? When I look down I see the ground far, far, below, with some beautiful clouds closely embracing it. From our point of view, are those clouds still in the sky? They seem more earthbound than skyward to me, from this perspective.

I'll quite agree that perspective is important to perception ... but perspective and perception do not affect the basic nature of the universe (at least, they don't affect the nature of the universe above thw quantum level).

If you were to ask me "How high do we need to go to be in the sky," I would tell you "We are there already." Something that is perceptable does not have to be tangible to be real, and though I would (if forced to get technical) explain the blue sky in terms of Rayleigh scattering, the point holds: the sky starts with the lowest oxygen atoms in the atmosphere (a considerable distance below my pointing finger, at least, on that scale).

When we were standing on the earth, we said that the moon was in the sky - but now I see it, away up higher than our present position. It's in space. Is outer space part of the sky? Must be. In everyday conversation we talk about the moon, the sun and the stars as being in the sky.

That is because everyday conversation allows for equivocation ... and truth to tell, I deliberately chose to retain "everyday language" rather than go for the highly specific jargon that resists equivocation. One less s'more for me, I suppose, :sad: but my intentions were good. :smile: If I were to say "the sky is blue," you're quite correct that I'm speaking of the terrestrial atmosphere, and that the word "sky" is actually to ambiguous for technical use.

If you think about it, all of the words we use to denote things share this abstract quality. Modern science understands that to define what a thing is, you have to describe not only the thing, but the entire field where you find the thing.

There is an error in your thinking--Starhawk's, too, as a matter of fact. You are quite correct that the word-concepts are not intrinsically real, and that the things that the word-concepts defined would not be changed were there no words used. However, the things defined are the "terrain"--the words used to define them are the "map," and the map is not the terrain.

Realism fails when you examine things closely enough, or from a wide enough perspective.

The problem with such a view of realism is that it invalidates all possible knowledge except as subjective "word-concepts." However, this piece is an introduction: I'll speak next of the nature of knowledge (3 parts), then we shall get to the basis of Realism. Things will become clearer.

Patience, my friend ... and have a s'more. :wink:

Justin

Duder

April 12th 2005, 02:36 PM

Hi, Dur,

Dur, don't worry about it: Rich knows he's on ignore and I'm not reading his posts. He's not writing them to me--he's "playing to the audience." Let him strut and fret his hour upon the stage. His antics neither pick my pocket nor break my leg.

Justin

Richbee's posts are so unpleasant, arrogant, cocksure and mean-spirited that I'm removing myself from Richbee's audience so that I will not be tempted to engage in his games.

I should like to point out that the things you believe in most loudly are the things you find most doutful. Richbee's raving is a sign of some terrible insecurity - which he tries to alleviate by convincing others of the truth of his dubious claims.

Something else about Richbee should be noted. He is a person with a profoundy low sense of self-worth. He compensates by presenting himself as part of a scheme which is infinitly good and infinitely powerful - and woe and misery to all who are not with him. As Eric Hoffer said in The True Believer, The less justified a man is in claiming excellence for his own self, the more ready he is to claim all excellence for . . . his holy cause.And: A man is likely to mind his own business when it is worth minding. When it is not, he takes his mind off his own meaningless affairs by minding other people's business....

Duder

April 12th 2005, 02:41 PM

It's Justin. (Duder --> :pie:) :wink:

I knew it was you. Typing "Jason" instead of "Justin" was a regratable, dyslexic brain fart. Sorry about that.

Perhaps I can respond to your other comments later in the day.

technomage

April 12th 2005, 02:43 PM

Oh, no problem. But I have an older brother named Jason, so I get great enjoyment over people accidentally calling me that. :wink:

I'd love to hear the responses when you have time, and it's not like it's going to be a big rush ... I'm planning on posting a new one about once a week.

Justin

Richbee

April 12th 2005, 02:50 PM

Just picking up on this, although it might not be the right thread - but I don't want to wade through the other thread on evil - this is what one might call the Darth Vader view of evil. We are told by Obi Wan that the Force surrounds the galaxy blah blah blah, but then we are told that the Force has a dark side, as if it has personality and makes moral choices, when actually there are just dark people who misuse the Force. People, however, assume that already, that's part of the appeal of SW, and it's found in any film with clear categories of right and wrong, good and evil, from Cowboy films onwards. Judaism and Christianity (and by default Islam) go against this tide to one extent or another, although it tends to creep back in; just see the state of American politics.

Part of the problem is the definition of evil; as Nietzsche points out, we need a genealogy of morals to determine the origin of some of our values and value-concepts. Evil can just mean bad for us, rather than malevolence on the part of the universe at large. Theodocies, Chrisitan, Wiccan, or otherwise, are attempts to make sense of the data, and dualism is the default position.

It's interesting that in ANE mythologies evil is related in some way with the Chaos monster - The problem of evil is really a problem of randomness - and that critter is put firmly in its place by the Genesis account.

The problem with Dualism is that a god or goddess has created this evil. (e.g. Shiva is Creator/Destoyer).

As I mentioned Wicca was founded upon much from the cult Theosophy, and in turn based on some Hindu teaching.

If God is all, or in all, then God is evil as well.

Naturally, the Bible teaches quite the opposite, evil is not a thing God created.

Evil is present because we the created have freely chosen this as an action.

Re: Nietzsche

(Notice some of the roots of Wicca or Theosophy - founded right after the infamy of same.)

Nietzsche's first book, “The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music,” single-handedly revolutionized the accepted view of the ancient Greeks as all “sweetness and light,” reason and order. For Nietzsche, the tragic poets were the great Greeks, and the philosophers, starting with Socrates, were the small ones, pale and passionless. All the Western world had followed Socrates and his rationalism and moralism, and had denied the other, darker side of man, the tragic side.

Nietzsche instead exalted tragedy, chaos, disorder and irrationality, symbolized by the god Dionysus, god of growth and drunken orgies. He claimed that Socrates had turned the world instead to the worship of Apollo, god of the sun, light, order and reason. But the fate of Nietzsche's god Dionysus was soon to overtake Nietzsche himself; as Dionysus was literally torn apart by the Titans, supernatural monsters of the underworld, Nietzsche's mind was to be cracked asunder by his own inner Titans.

In: “The Genealogy of Morals” he claimed that morality was an invention of the weak (especially the Jews, and then the Christians) to weaken the strong. The sheep convinced the wolf to act like a sheep. This is unnatural, argues Nietzsche, and seeing morality's unnatural origin in resentment at inferiority will free us from its power over us.

Friedrich Nietzsche - Click Here (www.catholiceducation.org/articles/civilization/cc0009.html)

Background History - Nietzsche and Theosophy have common denominators

While in Leipzig visiting a friend, Nietzsche happened across a philosophical work which would influence his thought in profound ways. That book was Arthur Schopenhauer's two volume, The World as Will and Representation, published in 1819.

Here, his major contribution was his concept of Subjective Idealism -- that the world is my idea, a phantasm of the mind, and therefore, in itself, meaningless. Will, the active side of our nature, or Impulse, is the key to the one thing we know directly from the inside -- the self, and therefore the key to the understanding of all things.

Although the will is entirely real, it is not free, nor does it have any ultimate purpose. Rather, it is all-consuming, pointless, and negative, "all life is suffering."

His ideas were strongly influenced by the Upanishads and Buddhism. (roots of Wicca) Schopenhauer was the first major European philosopher to make a point of atheism; however, he admired the asceticism of Christianity and Buddhism, declaring that after removing the dogmas these religions have as their philosophical underpinning the abolition of the will.

Once again, I am reminded to start a thread on the foundations of Wicca, and Theosophy, but this topic is really evil, and no fun at all. (Google: Theosophy)

Richbee

April 12th 2005, 02:55 PM

Richbee's posts are so unpleasant, arrogant, cocksure and mean-spirited that I'm removing myself from Richbee's audience so that I will not be tempted to engage in his games.

I should like to point out that the things you believe in most loudly are the things you find most doutful. Richbee's raving is a sign of some terrible insecurity - which he tries to alleviate by convincing others of the truth of his dubious claims.

Something else about Richbee should be noted. He is a person with a profoundy low sense of self-worth. He compensates by presenting himself as part of a scheme which is infinitly good and infinitely powerful - and woe and misery to all who are not with him. As Eric Hoffer said in The True Believer, The less justified a man is in claiming excellence for his own self, the more ready he is to claim all excellence for . . . his holy cause.And: A man is likely to mind his own business when it is worth minding. When it is not, he takes his mind off his own meaningless affairs by minding other people's business....

But, how do you "know" this, and you have only posted in Words?

Explain.

Have your "perceptions" deceived you? Brain chemistry? How do you distinguish between fact, fantasy, experience and absolute truth, or objective reality?

Richbee

April 12th 2005, 03:00 PM

After I read your post, I randomly opened a book by the Wiccan priestess Starhawk, and my eyes landed on a paragraph where she discusses this. Objects in the world to which we assign names (tree, buffalo, stone, sky) are temporary patterns in an ever-changing field of energy. Which patterns we notice, and the way in which we mentally divide the field is a matter of the observer's choice. No patterns are seperate from the field, and every pattern is a part of larger patterns, with no clear demarcation betwen the levels of patterning. It is all one thing going on.

The sky exists and it is blue. But that refers to nothing but my experience - and it happens, through a program of mass hypnosis called "conditioning", that you and I divide up the existential field in the same way so that we notice a blue sky. The sky is only an experiential phenomenon - it has no other validity. I honor the sky in the same way you do. Maybe more so, because I see myself as co-creator of the sky.

Realism fails when you examine things closely enough, or from a wide enough perspective.

Hmmmm, just Words? Trust me airline pilots have a different perspective on the Reality of the Sky, and gravity too.

Perspective

Perception

Deception

Reailty

Experience

These are just words.

*** Edit Add ***

*Experience and Truth*

We should stop and recognize the key distinction regarding the validity of experiences. Yes, we all have many opinions of subjective experiences, but we can and do distinguish between real experiences versus experiences that are true, or valid. Religious or Spiritual experience(s) may be real, but not always true or vaild.

Consider, Carl G. Jung's assertion that "everything human is relative."

But, wait!

Is this statement relative too, since it was uttered by a human?

If it is *NOT* relative, then the statement is not true.

But if the statement itself IS relative, that would mean there are times when it is not true!!!

Just stop and think!

When some things human are not relative, and are hence absolute. But this would contradict Jung's original statement. Thus, it is both false and self-defeating. Clearly, the sword of logic cuts both ways.

:ahem:

Duder

April 12th 2005, 05:28 PM

I'll quite agree that perspective is important to perception ... but perspective and perception do not affect the basic nature of the universe (at least, they don't affect the nature of the universe above thw quantum level).

Hi, Justin -

I'm almost sure that the disconnect between the quantum and the classical worlds is not as sharp as you're making it here. You'll agree that quantum events do have an effect on events in our macro world, and there are many situations that expemplify that. For example, consider a stray cosmic particle (that does what it does for wierd, quantum reasons) causing a genetic mutation that has enormous consequences on the whole bioshere of the earth's future. Or consider Shrodinger's Cat, where the act of observation determines the poor kitty's fate. We can think of many examples where the larger world would be quite different if a certain quantum event had not happened. And if quantum events are effected or determined by consciousness, I think we will be forced to conclude that we are to a very large degree responsible for the world being the way it is.

I have often used quantum mechanics as one possible explaination of how wiccan spells work. Have you ever considered that all of the events we experience are our own responsibility? Perhaps we unconsciously pull events in from the field of quantum possibilities, without knowing what we are doing. The witch, on the other hand, attempts to do it consciously when she casts a spell. She wants to collapse the quantum wave function with intent, and not allow random chance or unconscious thoughts to do it. This paragraph is pure speculation, and you can take it or leave it.

The point is, if perception effects reality on the quantum level, then it cannot help but effect the world on the macro level. We don't have a situation where the two worlds are unfolding in seperate and unconnected ways. Your disconnect is apparent only: Our world is nothing other than the quantum world seen out-of-focus. The courseness of our senses "smears out" quantum wierdness for the benefit of our everyday perceptions, giving us a false sense of security in ordinary normalcy.

If you were to ask me "How high do we need to go to be in the sky," I would tell you "We are there already." Something that is perceptable does not have to be tangible to be real, and though I would (if forced to get technical) explain the blue sky in terms of Rayleigh scattering, the point holds: the sky starts with the lowest oxygen atoms in the atmosphere (a considerable distance below my pointing finger, at least, on that scale).

Are you saying that the sky is that region of space where there is oxygen? The blueness of the sky, then, is an emergent quality that is not a property of the sky (oxygen isn't blue) - blueness is instead an interaction between sunlight, oxygen and your perceptive mind. All three of these need to conspire in a special way to make blue. Now, if you want to say and really mean that "the sky is blue", then you have to mean that the sky is the sun, the oxygen, and you and I who perceive the blue. And when you try to define you and I, you find yourself describing an organism/environment system that includes the whole biosphere, the planet, and the Milky Way galaxy.

When you try to define the sky (or anything else) and take things to their logical conclusion, you find that the sky means either everything or nothing. There is just no chopping things up on any ontological level. The knife is purely epistemic. The universe is an unbroken whole, and the chopping is a trick we employ to meet each other at the pond in the park at noon for a game of chess. The park, the pond and the chess are abstractions - products of the way in which we have chopped up the unified field in a coordinated, yet ultimately arbitrary, way.

I agree that the intangible is real. Think about it - there is nothing that is tangible! Ponderous concreteness is a thing of the past, and what we have is a swirling medium which manifests patterns that come and go. But there is really nothing there - not in the sense of ponderous concreteness.

I believe that what is ultimately real is experience itself. Since I turned my world inside out, I can find no reason to think that events cause my awareness. How could I possibly go about verifying such a thing? Here we get into the whole epistemological problem in philosophy - the little officer in the driver's seat in our heads, trying to figure out if the images on his viewscreens are real. Well, they are real - real images. They are not images OF anything at all. They are the basic reality.

Blue is real, buffalos are real, I am real. It's just that when I am forced to think about the basis of these thing's reality, and am left with the whole show. I am everything, and the ego that considers itself alone, cut off, a tragic center of consciousness locked up in a bag of skin, is a hallucination caught in a closed loop for a little while. That litle ego is something that I (the whole universe) am doing. I am also doing your ego, which you probably notice when you join me up here on the level where we, together, are everything.

That is because everyday conversation allows for equivocation ... and truth to tell, I deliberately chose to retain "everyday language" rather than go for the highly specific jargon that resists equivocation. One less s'more for me, I suppose, :sad: but my intentions were good. :smile: If I were to say "the sky is blue," you're quite correct that I'm speaking of the terrestrial atmosphere, and that the word "sky" is actually to ambiguous for technical use.

"Sky" is the perfect word to use. Boil out all of the hooey, and the sky is an ultimate reality by virtue of the fact that we experience it. Try to make it something else beyond experience and you get either everything or nothing - the whole universe or an empty abstraction.

There is an error in your thinking--Starhawk's, too, as a matter of fact. You may disagree with Scott Cunningham and other, lesser authors, but you DARE disagree with Starhawk! You heretic! Blasphemer! Outcast! :eek: :wink:

You are quite correct that the word-concepts are not intrinsically real, and that the things that the word-concepts defined would not be changed were there no words used. However, the things defined are the "terrain"--the words used to define them are the "map," and the map is not the terrain.

That is a point of view yet to be demonstrated. How do you know that maps are not all that we have? If you do not have the ability to glance over the top of the map to observe the hypothetical terrain, how do you know the terrain is there? Remeber that you cannot get out of your perceptions, and your concepts and your words flow from your perceptions.

I am not trying to make the world some kind of chaotic jumble. It has consistency. Our respective maps share much in common. That is because they ultimately derive from a common mapmaker. The difference in our maps, however, is because the universe choses to observe itself from a variety of perspectives - closed loops of consciousness not unlike whirlpools in a single river. We are not just these little loops. We are the river.

The problem with such a view of realism is that it invalidates all possible knowledge except as subjective "word-concepts."

No. We have a deeper reality than the word-concepts - the immediate experience itself. The word-concepts are about that experience, and are realted to it as the menu to the meal. People who are always stuck in the word-concept level are removed from the immediacy and vibrancy of experience, and are eating their menus.

However, this piece is an introduction: I'll speak next of the nature of knowledge (3 parts), then we shall get to the basis of Realism. Things will become clearer.

I shall look forward to that.

Patience, my friend ... and have a s'more. :wink:

It is easy to have patience with a writer as agreeable to the spirit as yourself; and a high pleasure to interact with him, too.

Duder

kofh2u

April 13th 2005, 06:04 PM

Not ... really either of the above. Yes, we are in some aspects independant of each other, but at the same time, we have evolved as social animals--admittedly, most of our history shows the traits of small groups who war against small groups, and I think that you'll agree that this is an inferior view to all people working together in amity and peace. Unfortunately, humanity is also a competative animal, and it may or may not be possible for all people wo work together in this fashion.

And it seems that we need both traits--the cooperative and the competative--to be fully "human."

Justin

Thank you the direct answer.

You are not alone, because as you note the human condition is as you describe. Many try to serve two master, but that is tokenism and equivalent the Jewish attempt to straddle the intent of the Law by the compromise by meticulous observation of its details.

I believe what you call Wicca is actual just one of the twelve major pagan religions that have been with all Gentile nations before there was a Jew. I also think that these same religions are still with us, unrecognized and misinterpreted as one strain of secular practice or another.

The ancients had an advantage in that they clearly saw the anthropomorphic behavior for what it was. They even used prefixes to tneir names like Nebuchadnezzad. Obviously, he was an academic or educated man, worshipper of the Babylonian God, Nebo, whose sign in the heavens was the planet Mercury.

It isn't that this is exposing a few worshippers of some evil occult nature. It is quite the opposite, IMO.

I believe we are born with predisposition to interact with others in just a dozen or so ways. Its so natural and innate that real Christians, like Sister Teresa, are the weird people.

Wicca seems to me to be worship of The Queen of Heaven, it is a stoicism that reveres beauty, nature, and usually has a rather strict moral code, believing in the theory that pain usually quickly follows on the heels of pleasure. But, this is just an intuitive guess, because I haven't researched it.

How close am I on this?

Richbee

April 13th 2005, 06:13 PM

Thank you the direct answer.

You are not alone, because as you note the human condition is as you describe. Many try to serve two master, but that is tokenism and equivalent the Jewish attempt to straddle the intent of the Law by the compromise by meticulous observation of its details.

I believe what you call Wicca is actual just one of the twelve major pagan religions that have been with all Gentile nations before there was a Jew. I also think that these same religions are still with us, unrecognized and misinterpreted as one strain of secular practice or another.

The ancients had an advantage in that they clearly saw the anthropomorphic behavior for what it was. They even used prefixes to tneir names like Nebuchadnezzad. Obviously, he was an academic or educated man, worshipper of the Babylonian God, Nebo, whose sign in the heavens was the planet Mercury.

It isn't that this is exposing a few worshippers of some evil occult nature. It is quite the opposite, IMO.

I believe we are born with predisposition to interact with others in just a dozen or so ways. Its so natural and innate that real Christians, like Sister Teresa, are the weird people.

Wicca seems to me to be worship of The Queen of Heaven, it is a stoicism that reveres beauty, nature, and usually has a rather strict moral code, believing in the theory that pain usually quickly follows on the heels of pleasure. But, this is just an intuitive guess, because I haven't researched it.

How close am I on this?

There is no "Queen of Heaven".

kofh2u

April 13th 2005, 09:54 PM

There is no "Queen of Heaven".

Yeah there is.

Every human society has developed a mythology. In each there are about a dozen sterotypical "God" and "Goddesses" with rather similar personal characteristics and "interpersonal" social behavior among the other deities in the pantheon.

Hera is the Queen of Heaven in Greek Mythology.

Duder

April 14th 2005, 02:11 AM

Yeah there is.

Every human society has developed a mythology. In each there are about a dozen sterotypical "God" and "Goddesses" with rather similar personal characteristics and "interpersonal" social behavior among the other deities in the pantheon.

Hera is the Queen of Heaven in Greek Mythology.

I cannot see the whole argument from which Richbee concludes there is no queen of heaven. It must be a work of subtle genius! But one wonders what it can mean for God to be male if there is no female counterpart. What would God's maleness be good for?

But you are right, I think. Even the Judeo-Christian mythology has feminine divinity. She is called "Wisdom" in the Old Testament, and named "Sofia" in the Greek. She was sometimes seen as the Mother of God, and the one who moderated his outbursts of temper with wisdom. In Catholic Christianity, something of her survives as Mother Mary.

technomage

April 14th 2005, 07:27 AM

I believe what you call Wicca is actual just one of the twelve major pagan religions that have been with all Gentile nations before there was a Jew. I also think that these same religions are still with us, unrecognized and misinterpreted as one strain of secular practice or another.

David, your "belief" is not even close to the reality, but comes solely from your conjecture and theorizing. You have evidently done little to gain any actual knowledge of Wicca, of the MTBI that you gravely misunderstand, and--so it would seem--of the reality that you strive (and fail) to force to conform to your pre-conceived notion of how the world "should work." That certainly does not mean that you have everything wrong--after all, any set of beliefs that concludes that altruism is beneficial can't be all bad--but it does mean that what you are saying has little or no basis in truth.

The first and most fundamentally flawed "bad argument" that philosophy has ever engendered is the idea that "There is no Truth," with the argument that "Truth is entirely subjective" coming in a very close second. The entirety of Truth may be beyond our grasp as finite human beings, but we are certainly capable of making true statements--statements that actually match the real nature of the thing we are speaking about. Each true statement is a small part of Truth.

Yet you come here with a series of misunderstandings, mischaracterizations, and a seemingly complete and absolute incomprehension of even the most basic things that you speak of. The MTBI proposes sixteen character types, not twelve. As for your statements about Wicca ... dear Gods, David!

Wicca seems to me to be worship of The Queen of Heaven, it is a stoicism that reveres beauty, nature, and usually has a rather strict moral code, believing in the theory that pain usually quickly follows on the heels of pleasure. But, this is just an intuitive guess, because I haven't researched it.

How close am I on this?

About as close as I would be if I said that Christianity consisted of eating a cookie to go to heaven.

This may very well sound like I am speaking to you in anger--I am not. It is true that I am shocked and appalled at the incredible ignorance you are displaying, and aghast at the seemingly deliberate rejection of the facts.

David, life does not neatly divide itself into twelve parts for your convenience ... life is a complex, confusing, and occasionally understandable gift from the Gods. I pray you, my friend, put down the blinders of categorization that you have attempted to impose upon a world that is much more complex, rich, and wonderful than you or I could possibly imagine.

Justin

Richbee

April 14th 2005, 05:42 PM

I cannot see the whole argument from which Richbee concludes there is no queen of heaven. It must be a work of subtle genius! But one wonders what it can mean for God to be male if there is no female counterpart. What would God's maleness be good for?

But you are right, I think. Even the Judeo-Christian mythology has feminine divinity. She is called "Wisdom" in the Old Testament, and named "Sofia" in the Greek. She was sometimes seen as the Mother of God, and the one who moderated his outbursts of temper with wisdom. In Catholic Christianity, something of her survives as Mother Mary.

:lmbo:

:rofl:

Christianity, unlike paganism or Neopganism is not about fables, legends and old stories, invented by poets, long ago abandoned to the wind of change and the truth of the Gospel preached by St. Patrick in Ireland, or Ninian is also called Nynia, Ninias, Rigna, Trignan, Ninnidh, Ringan, Ninus of Galloway (www.justus.anglican.org/resources/bio/245.html), Scotland.

Jesus Christ is the faint hope of myth, who became fact! God incarnate!

Or as Lewis remarks, "Myth became Fact."

"The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth."

"For this is the marriage of heaven and earth: Perfect Myth and Perfect Fact, claiming not only our love and our obedience, but also our wonder and delight, addressed to the savage, the child, and the poet in each one of us no less than to the moralist, the scholar, and the philosopher."

(See: God in the Dock (Grand Rapids: Eerdman's, 1970) 67.)

Myth became History

Many voices have been heard in the last few centuries speaking of Christianity, if not religion in general, as a psychological crutch.

The idea is that time has moved forward such that we have outgrown the superstition, and along with it, the need to explain life and comfort ourselves with archaic religious myth.

And though by equating religion with "myth" some mean to suggest that religion is fanciful and untrue, the comparison between Christianity and the genre of myth is absolutely fascinating. In fact, it is a comparison C.S. Lewis and G.K. Chesterton found altogether fitting, altogether revealing.

Lewis recognized the great Greek, Roman, and Nordic myths as being a genre of narrative that wrestled as fiercely as the human heart can wrestle with its yearning to know the gods.

In this, he reasoned that what we glean from the myth is not truth but reality, as myths concern themselves with questions of ultimate reality and theological inquiry. One pictures Sisyphus rolling the great stone up the hill, only to find it tumbling down the hill before he reaches the top, and then having to roll it back up again—endlessly. Through myth we ask profoundly, does life have meaning? Do the gods hate us? Do they even care? Is life worth living? As Chesterton comments in Everlasting Man,

"In a word, mythology is a search; it is something that combines a recurrent desire with a recurrent doubt, mixing a most hungry sincerity in the idea of seeking for a place with a most dark and deep and mysterious levity about all the places found."

Indeed, myth has concerned itself with the great and impenetrable questions of life, questions that every worldview must answer.

And yet of the parallels between myth and Christianity, the modern mind argues that Jesus is just one more attempt at explaining what we merely wish were true. And that is partially correct. There are elements in myth that we want to believe: Namely that the gods do reveal themselves to us, that heavenly mysteries can be known on some real level, that life is saturated with purpose and meaning. Indeed, such qualities reach the deepest thirsts and longings of mankind; they are things we want to be true. But Christianity would take this one step further. It would argue that these are actually the stories that we knew on some real level had to be true. In myth, mankind has revealed what is engraved deeply on our hearts.

You see, within the great myths life is lived under that which is beyond us. There is an understanding that there is something to which we must bow, that we are required to answer to someone. There is awareness that our stories are lived alongside and touched by stories of the transcendent, of the ultimate. And we were right. What man has somehow always known has in fact happened.

Or as Lewis remarks, "Myth became Fact."

For the Christian story is exactly that. God did show Himself. He stepped through the unseen and came to dwell within the seen. The Eternal reached into time and touched real and datable history. In our creed it is stated that Jesus, "suffered under Pontius Pilate…" A reminder that what man has longed for most has really happened:

"The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth."

Lewis' words provide a fitting conclusion.

"For this is the marriage of heaven and earth: Perfect Myth and Perfect Fact, claiming not only our love and our obedience, but also our wonder and delight, addressed to the savage, the child, and the poet in each one of us no less than to the moralist, the scholar, and the philosopher."

(See: God in the Dock (Grand Rapids: Eerdman's, 1970) 67.)

May the One who was, and is, and is to come be to you all things this day and always.

Source: Slice of Infinity (www.rzim.org/publications/slicetran.php?sliceid=423)[/QUOTE]