Getting Out and Getting Down!
We were invited to an outdoor bluegrass concert on a school playground this beautiful afternoon. The musicians were the Stillhouse Bottom Band. (A statistical analysis was once done of this kind of old music, the fiddler said, and they found that the largest number of songs were not about love, loss, or heartbreak. They were about chickens.) I could not sit or stand still while listening to them, and understood the stories of people being driven to dance to exhaustion by a fiddling Devil. This is wild music, that made me feel planted in the soil of North Carolina in a new way. You can hear its Scotch-Irish roots; I thought of it as “Celtic Klezmer.” J called it “rockin’ mountain music.” It’s the kind of music that, when people had nothing else for entertainment, was enough.
I missed the person I would have wanted to tell “Celtic Klezmer” to. Laurence Halsey Reeve. He and his girlfriend Bonnie used to go to bluegrass festivals and clog dancing. Maybe the last time I saw him, over a cat — he was, besides our longtime friend, our vet — I joked with him about it being “WASP Soul.” He loved that. I discovered I’m still very angry at him. Angry for the casual machismo of not fastening his seatbelt that icy New Year’s Eve eve in the early ’90s when he went out to run an errand and ended up killing himself instead of a deer.
The Case for God (by realpc)
There is a new book called The Case for God, by Karen Armstrong. It was recommended to me and I read some reviews, but I did not read the book. Of course I can’t really know what a book is like just by reading the reviews, but the reviews convinced me not to read it, and I will try to explain why. The title led me to think it might be a logical and scientific argument explaining the evidence against atheism, which is the kind of book I might want to read. The reviews I read , on the other hand, suggest that it’s the old “religion and science inhabit completely separate worlds and have nothing to say about each other” argument. Which I do not agree with at all. And furthermore, scientific atheists are impervious to that argument because they “know” science has shown that the “god hypothesis” is unnecessary. They “know” that consciousness, intelligence, only can occur as the product of a physical brain.
The form of pro-god argument expressed in that book says that god is beyond human comprehension and cannot be studied by science. It says that god is not a person, is not tangible. And it says that faith in god can make us a better, nicer, happier person. Ok, there might be some truth in some of that, but there is untruth in it also, and the truth it contains is incomplete and inadequate.
I had read one of C.S Lewis’ books, having heard that it was a logical argument for god. But it wasn’t. It was the old “god is beyond science and reason, and faith in god will make you happier and nicer” argument. It just makes scientific atheists laugh scornfully (something they do a lot of).
I’ve had many arguments with scientific atheists, and I have never won, and they never accepted a single one of my points. But the experience has made me aware of exactly what scientific atheists believe (and their beliefs are pretty much identical). I think I know exactly what the major holes in their logic are, and how they misinterpret the evidence. I won’t try to explain all that in this post. I just want to say something about my beliefs regarding science and religion, why I have always considered this of great importance, and why scientific atheism is becoming a powerful force in our society. And why that’s too bad.
I first learned that god is not real many years ago in college. I believed the professors because I didn’t know much, and they seemed to know a lot. They said that science had demonstrated there are no such things as gods, spirits, angels, devils, etc. It was all the childish unscientific fantasies of ignorant uneducated people.
“Knowing” this made me feel smart and superior, but sometimes I still wondered. Why did so many people believe these silly fantasies? Why had people in all corners of the world, in all cultures, held similar beliefs in spirits, demons, etc.?
So I was motivated to find out if what I learned in college was true. Or was it just another myth, another product of human imagination, a story “smart” people told themselves so they could feel superior and scientific? I set out to learn if scientific atheism is actually based on logic and evidence. I read a lot and I thought a lot, for many years.
I found that no, scientific atheism is not based on scientific evidence or logic. Richard Dawkins is not a voice of reason, fighting the dark forces of ignorance — he is a promoter of a myth. And no, science and religion do not inhabit separate worlds, and yes it is possible to study “god” scientifically.
You can say that god is infinitely beyond human comprehension, but that is saying nothing. Almost everything is beyond human comprehension. And what does the word “god” mean anyway? I don’t even frame the question that way. Instead of asking if god exists and is real, I ask whether “Matter creates Mind” or “Mind creates Matter.” To me the latter is obviously true, and is supported by evidence and logic.
We don’t have to seek evidence for an ultimate infinite God, an all-knowing source of everything that is. We can simply ask whether Mind creates Matter. Is the brain a machine that generates consciousness, or a machine that allows consciousness to interact with the “physical” world of our senses (as described by Sheldrake)?
Dawkins’ basic premiss is that Darwin’s theory of evolution has been proven, and that it shows that natural selection acting on random, purposeless events caused life to appear and evolve. The world is made of lifeless “matter” which assembled itself through the Darwinian process into ourselves, and all other living things.
An enormous amount of evidence has been found for evolution, and for the Darwinian process of adaptation by natural selection. Anyone who doubts these facts is stubborn and silly, or ignorant. But there is nothing whatsoever in any branch of science that suggests this is how and why life originated and evolved. Evolution is true. Natural selection is true. They are two different things; one did not cause the other — I have never been able to explain that to an atheist!
The purpose of the Intelligent Design movement is to show that, although evolution occurred, we do not know how or why. ID is a criticism of the Darwinian theory, which says lifeless, mindless matter can generate life and mind. ID says it is mathematically impossible. ID has not convinced the scientific atheists; they just laugh scornfully at it.
I believe our universe is made out of information, not “matter.” Science has shown us that “matter” is not “physical.” Everything is made of relationships, forces, differences. There are dimensional levels above and beyond the world of our senses. The universe is an infinite Mind, I believe.
So Mind creates Matter, and Mind can and does exist separately from physical brains. There are higher, or different, planes of existence than our own. There are beings, entities, “people,” gods, demons, spirits, angels, devils — why can’t there be? Millions have seen them and heard them and felt them — they were not all hallucinating, in my opinion,
This is not a case for “god,” it’s a case for Mind over Matter. The universe is an infinite Mind and it generates Minds, beings, spirits, etc. Each of us is a face of the ultimate infinite God. There are infinitely many aspects of the ultimate God, and there are an infinite number of mental beings, gods, spirits, etc., on all levels.
I am trying not to make this a long post. I have many reasons for what I’m saying, but I know someone might say it’s ridiculous and unscientific, that I am taking vague and untested scientific theories and spinning wild fantasies. No, I am not. But it would take hundreds or thousands of pages, which you would not read, to explain. I will just say for right now that there is more than enough evidence from parapsychology that Mind can exist and operate separately from matter.
I am not basing everything on parapsycholgy, but I am saying it’s at start, and you can’t just deny and dismiss it. Many times I showed scientific atheists evidence from parapsychology and, after they laughed scornfully, they were unable to explain why they refused to believe it. It must be a mistake, it must be fake. They stopped laughing and started yelling and cursing. I was banned from their blogs.
So .. the case for god. I believe in god and I experience god in my own way. I don’t have a definition for it. I feel I am part of a living conscious universe. And actually, yes it does make me a happier person. Nicer I am not sure about.
What I love about where I live – an invitation to a series.
I have a lot of internet folks I know, and some of them I have a vision of what they look like as people, some through their Twitter avatars, some through their blog pics. But I rarely know much about where they live! This leads me to imagine a lot of things, most of them fanciful! For example, I know Amba doesn’t live there anymore, but I see her in a West Village apartment, one with several problems, but with at least two really, really cool features. Like what? Oh, say a great 19th century fireplace, or a super doorman, or a fantastic view, or a fabulous Master Bedroom. Something like that. If the Chrysler Building had apartments, she should have one with one of those chrome eagle heads as a patio overlooking midtown. Yow, the thought of it!
I propose a series where you write about what you love a lot where you live. Now, I don’t want people to concentrate on the city or state or region they’re in; more their domicile, the house or apartment where they hang their head at night. Got a cool armchair, a neat appliance you take pleasure in, a wall that has just the right color, a cool skylight? That’s what I want to hear about. This doesn’t mean you can’t talk about your city or region or your weather, but connect it to your home, not just “it’s nice and sunny here.” See where I’m going? Let’s share the love…and I’ll start us off.
1.)I have a great view out my living room window. I live on top of a golf course, with a street and a small park between a line of trees that are supposed to keep wayward shots on the course, but every year the Golfoids drop a few balls off my porch awning onto my front lawn. I’ve been saving these orphans for over 20 years. To what end I don’t know, but when I figure it out…it’ll be fantastic. (Don’t golf myself) The trees are lush and the whole view is incredibly soothing. The window faces west, so I get to bid the sun adios every day… I get to see hordes of birds (or bats?) up in the trees take off at dusk for lotsa mosquito killing duty, even nicer.
2.)I live on a corner with another house on only one side. Surprisingly quiet, even though I’m only a mile from downtown.
3.)I have a gigantic lilac bush that runs down the whole side of the house to the end of the lot. It only blooms for a short time in May, but for a month I open my bedroom window and sleep in the perfume of lilacs, and the scent eventually fills the whole house… fabulous!
4.) Location! 40 feet from my front door is the bus stop, highly useful when your ride is semi-functional as mine is. Within a block: A 24-hour pharmacy, a good mainstream grocery store, and a great green grocer, jammed packed with an excellent collection of stuff. I can exist without the car if need be, even in the winter when I sometimes get snow-locked in.
5.)My den is small, but it’s like a fighter cockpit of what defines me. All my main stuff is close at hand, in a system that I know by heart but couldn’t really explain to someone else. Everything is almost just arms length away, so when I need something…bang, I don’t have to hunt for it.
6.)The media room sets the tone for the work day. I can’t work/exist in pure quiet, so something is always cranking away out there. Somedays the Ramones, or Scarlatti, or Brian Eno, otherdays, I have Pulp Fiction or Dr. Strangelove on a loop all day long. When I need a break, I check and see how Jules and Vincent are doing or if Major Kong can get those damn bomb bay doors open…When I’m really cranking on work, it’s a “Beatles day” where my studio outtakes of the Fabs grind away while I’m trying to debug some crazy piece of C++ code…they’re working, I’m working, and George Martin is telling me it sounds wonderful to him. Am I in Studio Two at Abbey Road? I lose track, and that too is…sublime.
7.)Between the den and the media room…the kitchen. I love to cook, and can’t see why I just can’t do everything at the same time…so I do! I miss sitting in an office cubicle as much as…well, no I don’t miss an office cubicle one teensy tiny iota! Eating, cooking, working, snoozing…I do them when I need to do them, and clocks be damned! The house lends itself to this big time.
Chime in with what you love about where you live!
Ambiance 