faith and beliefs

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To you I'm an atheist; to God, I'm the Loyal Opposition. ~ Woody Allen

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[Jana]

Mystery is only mystery on feeling it so.
Paradox is only paradox on feeling it so.
Understanding is only understanding on feeling it so.
Disenchantment is only disenchantment on feeling it so.

Some days we are just a bag of cells who learnt how to survive for 3.5 billion  years.
Other days we are God.

If it is a participatory universe, we better not default before the game begins.

[jimtzu]

out of Mystery arises the slightly less mysterious Feminine properties  of the Uni-verse that gives birth to the ten thousand things, including man, who, in his egoic hubris thinks he can understand the Mystery, but the more he discovers, the less he knows.

[Francis]

To these self-confident researchers, the idea that the spirit might exist apart from the body is just ridiculous. Instead, everything arises from atoms. Genes shape temperament. Brain chemicals shape behavior. Assemblies of neurons create consciousness. Free will is an illusion. Human beings are “hard-wired” to do this or that. Religion is an accident.

In this materialist view, people perceive God’s existence because their brains have evolved to confabulate belief systems. You put a magnetic helmet around their heads and they will begin to think they are having a spiritual epiphany. If they suffer from temporal lobe epilepsy, they will show signs of hyperreligiosity, an overexcitement of the brain tissue that leads sufferers to believe they are conversing with God. ~Brooks

I think the real problem here is that these people really think that there two irreconcilable  viewpoints, but I don't see it that way. One model says that angels and demons shape temperament. The other say it's genes and/or experiences. What we used to called 'angels' and 'demons' are now called 'genes' and 'experiences'. One side feels that the other side was using outdated and ambiguous concepts. But have they really examined the concepts of genes and experiences enough to prove that those concepts are not likewise ambiguous and fanciful? The other side feels that their glorious hierarchy of personalities has been reduced to a blind and soulless mechanism. Have they really explored the properties of genes and experiences in enough depth to justify such prejudice?

[jimtzu]

in both of those instances they've forgotton about Mystery.  the religion side, thinking they know the mystery, have given it names and beliefs, trying to codify the Mystery itself.   the science side is forgetting that the unknown that they're trying to unravel is Mystery, all the while denying that it exists or that they are part of it.

ignorance comes in many packages   

[Francis]

It's the old Korzybski thing: just because somebody has some mental image of what a word means, they tend to think that they understand all about the referent (i.e the thing that word refers to.)

[Jana]

Enlightenment is to be aware of ones ignorance...this is recognition of the mystery...the unknown and unknowable.

http://touregypt.net/hymntoaten.htm  —The mystery is best expressed in poetry.