quote:Originally posted by Dagonee: If one is referring to the physical phenomenon represtented by 2+2=4 - that taking 2 objects together and grouping them with 4 more objects results in 4 objects being present - I'm not sure it's in a different category than predicting a rock falling to the ground. There could hypothetically be a physical law that when two objects come into contact with two others, one is destroyed or a new one is created.
The rock falling to the ground is experiential, but the four objects are not. Your have two objects in one hand, and two objects in the other, so anywhere in the universe your would know that you have a sum total of 4 objects. You might never have seen a rock or know if a rock is lighter than a soap bubble, which would not fall down to the ground.
I would like to know if the knowledge of the weight and densities of common minerals is genetic. Are we aware of certain physical laws by genetic programming? Like the reflex which causes babies to hold their breath under water, are babies aware that their weight will drag them off the edge of a cliff if they stray too far?
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Here's an interesting article on babies learning to crawl. It seems to imply that babies learn the dangers of falling; they are not inborn. The pertinent part is quoted below:
quote:In one of her studies, Adolph gathered a group of 9-month-olds who had been sitting up for a while but had only just started to crawl. In the first scenario, the babies were placed on a platform in view of a bright red ball 2 feet below. In their excited pursuit of the ball, the babies would have fallen off the platform if no one had caught them. Yet when they were seated with their legs dangling over the edge of the platform, the babies gazed at the tempting red ball but didn't reach for it because they knew they would fall.
Why were babies more cautious in the second instance? The 9-month-old babies, with several months' of sitting experience, knew what they could and couldn't do from that position. On the other hand, as novice crawlers they lacked both the depth perception and eye-hand coordination to judge their own abilities correctly during the precarious new activity.
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(I really need to get internet access at home!)
Hi, guys!
twinky, I suppose atheists "lack" faith in a deity. I don't suppose most atheists feel it as a lack any more than they would feel the lack of an extra limb. Or some might notice it - they might want to believe - but the bad ways that the human race has used religion (for example) could be sufficient to overcome that desire.
I don't think that human philosphy is a waste of time. I do think that reason and philosophy are necessary to inform and shape mature faith.
quote: ) what she describes lands closer to what I would call "hope"--acting on something you are not certain is true.
But, Jim, I am certain it is true. More certain than material proof could make me be.
quote: what she says could be misconstrued as saying you ought to believe something *in spite of* logical evidence that it is true-- which I don't think she is actually saying
I might be saying that. I know that my senses have, on occasion, been deceived. I know that my reason has sometimes been faulty. My faith does not depend on those things, although it is made deeper and more refined by them.
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I think what people are trying to figure out is how you can believe anything independent of your reason and your senses.
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No. I don't think Aquinas was nuts. I think he was desperate to justify his faith despite the fact that his reason told him it was foolish, so he came up with foolish reasons to have faith.
That said, his philosophy was quite good. It was his apology that blew chunks.
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"Mind" and "heart" are, to me, merely the two modes of operation of that thing called "soul" or "will"... one rational, one intuitive.
I know you are arguing that faith is supra-rational, but I think where we disconnect is actually that you seem to think that something can be in your heart before you apprehend it. I think, and Aquinas agrees with me, that the opposite is true-- that by the very nature of having feelings or intuitions with respect to something you, ipso facto, apprehend its existence.
Even in the case of a really great work of art which unleashes a feeling you've never experienced before, it is able to do so precisely because you are perceiving something new.
But now we get away from Scholastic thought and into Simulacra and Simulation, which, I confess, I put down because it was too complicated.
Not because I don't think I could have understood it, but because it became increasingly clear that that whoever translated the copy I had was using as large and obscure words as possible and I just don't have the spare time to be patient with that sort of thing.
... and thanks for the kind words Posts: 3846 | Registered: Apr 2004
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So where does the HS come into the equation? Is God's call to us something we "understand" in the mind or something we "feel" in the heart. Both? Or something else?
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quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: Kate, to boil it down: how do you know something's in your heart if you don't sense it?
Well that is kind of the question, isn't it?
Tom, I think that, up to now, we may be using "sense" differently. I have been talking about the usual 5 senses (sight, hearing, touch, smell, taste) - the ones that would be used to examine "material evidence". I don't use those senses to know what is in my heart. I am suggesting that, to know what is in my heart, I use something other than/beyond those five senses.
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I submit that you sense an emotion due to physical changes in your body chemistry, and reason about the possible causes, ultimately concluding (based on the nature of those sensations) that God put it there.
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And I (respectfully) submit that you are wrong. As a matter of fact, I have faith that you are wrong.
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I submit that God put it there, but that it is nevertheless a sort of evidence that supports your faith rationally.
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So what does it feel like, exactly, when you feel something in your heart? I'm curious as to how you notice it without any sensation or conscious awareness. Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: As a matter of fact, I have faith that you are wrong.
Kate, I'm not sure I'm following here... you seem to be placing a great deal of emphasis on human knowledge as an entirely spiritual experience. I disagree. In fact this approach denies the whole reason (as I understand it) for the Incarnation.
am I off?
and I'd submit that you *do* sense feelings in your heart through touch... there's a reason that "heart" got labled as such... the physical organ of your heart responds strongly to emotions and you can identify emotions based on what you feel in your chest.
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I think the broader sense of "touch" applies here, Kate. If your face flushes, and you're aware of the sensation of heat, do you consider that to be "touch?" If not, which of the five senses covers an awareness of temperature?
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I agree with that, Jim-Me. I think emotion and "spiritual sense" (if they are not actually the same thing) are very closely linked and also very dependant on body chemistry. I think that explains why so many religions rely on "altered states" to generate profound spiritual experiences.
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quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: As a matter of fact, I have faith that you are wrong.
Kate, I'm not sure I'm following here... you seem to be placing a great deal of emphasis on human knowledge as an entirely spiritual experience. I disagree. In fact this approach denies the whole reason (as I understand it) for the Incarnation.
am I off?
and I'd submit that you *do* sense feelings in your heart through touch... there's a reason that "heart" got labled as such... the physical organ of your heart responds strongly to emotions and you can identify emotions based on what you feel in your chest.
I must not be being very clear. I do not think that human knowledge is entirely spiritual. I think that a great majority of things that humans know, we know through our senses or our reason.
I think that there are many reasons for the Incarnation. Example, clarity, God's desire to be with us, encouragement - just to start. Many would say that the whole point was sacrifice. I think that God has/will/is trying every path to connect with us.
If we decide that a "feeling in the chest" counts as touch, that's fine. It isn't all that important, because my faith does not depend on that either.
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quote:It isn't all that important, because my faith does not depend on that either.
Well, that's what I'm trying to understand. If your faith doesn't depend on a feeling in your chest, on any logic, or on your understanding of your religion, or on any of your personal observations, on what else can it possibly depend?
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quote: So where does the HS come into the equation? Is God's call to us something we "understand" in the mind or something we "feel" in the heart. Both? Or something else?
Just for clarification, I asked the above. Which led to a diversion on "feeling things in the heart". I did not mean to suggest that faith was only something that one feels in the heart any more than it is only something that one understands with the mind.
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quote:It isn't all that important, because my faith does not depend on that either.
Well, that's what I'm trying to understand. If your faith doesn't depend on a feeling in your chest, on any logic, or on your understanding of your religion, or on any of your personal observations, on what else can it possibly depend?
On God. On grace. On the Holy Spirit.
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But how are you aware of any of those things without your senses or reason making you aware of them? In other words, it is only POSSIBLE for your faith to be based on God or Grace or the Holy Spirit inasmuch as you are capable of perceiving or rationalizing the existence of these things.
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Forgive me for pressing but I think this is an important point. Your response does truly beg the question, "what, aside from God does it depend on?"
Because it *has* to depend on you at some point, or it isn't you that has faith. This is where I part ways vehemently from a lot of fundamentalists... we can't have faith without God, but we *do* play a role and we aren't merely passive recipients of Grace.
Otheriwse it's a very short set of steps, that I *know* you don't advocate (which, BTW, is an example of Faith on my part-- faith in you ), from "I know this and he doesn't" to "God loves me and not him."
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Absolutely, it depends on me as well. I make the decision to respond. I believe that God calls to each of us, wants to be in relation to each of us. My decision to respond to that with faith is my own.
But the part of the Holy Spirit that is me (or the part of me that is the Holy Spirit?) is still me.
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And, to clarify, you DO sense God's call, right, with some sense or another? That is, you're aware of the call in some way, even if you aren't necessarily able to describe it?
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quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: And, to clarify, you DO sense God's call, right, with some sense or another? That is, you're aware of the call in some way, even if you aren't necessarily able to describe it?
Hmmm. Sometimes. Not always. Nor even most of the time.
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Should I assume you're being evasive, here, or are you really speaking of using as a cornerstone of your faith something you've never perceived or experienced in any way?
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Sorry. Read incredulity, not snideness, into that post.
Because, frankly, I cannot see how you use something you cannot perceive or experience as a REASON to believe. It can be a CONSEQUENCE of belief -- "I believe that God lives in my heart because I believe X, and it follows from X that God lives in my heart even if I can't perceive Him" -- but I honestly can't see a way to parse "I believe God exists because God lives in my heart, and I know God lives in my heart because I've never noticed God in my heart in any way" that doesn't sound really strange.
Edit: I take it back. I can think of one way, which is "I believe in God because God makes me," but that would seem to fly in the face of most modern theology.
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Tom, certainly there is awareness, but it is difficult to define. I imagine that it is similar to answering the question of how do you know that you love your husband. Sometimes you can rationalize it, sometimes you feel it, sometimes, even when you can't feel it or rationalize it, you know it anyway, sometimes you just decide it. So, while it is informed, shaped, etc, by those things, it does not depend on them.
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I just think, now, that we are operating on different definitions of "know" now.
I can see, Kate, how you could choose to believe in something you do not apprehend in any way, but I don't see how you can call that "knowing". That it's not what many of us here mean when we use the word "faith" is, I suppose, well-worn territory.
And, again, I'm not trying to put words in your mouth, much less beliefs in your heart... this is just what it sounds like you are saying to me, and, evidently, to Tom as well.
Edit: the knowing you love your husband is not a problem because that's strictly internal.
I think I see what you are saying-- that you have faith and knowledge because of an indwelling of God's Grace... not too far removed from what Tom says about you having faith because God makes you. That would make it a strictly internal process, but I would reiterate that it's problematic in that it leaves someone like Tom inexplicably kept in the dark by God Himself. It's a little too Calvinistic for my blood.
I think faith is more about knowing that your husband (or whatever) loves you... and doing so requires external inputs.
Tell me if my summary is right, now: Basically, you are saying Faith comes from within, planted by God and sprouting inside you, and that while external things may inform and even nurture it, it's essential life and power is inherent in it-- that it is self-contained. I am saying that Faith is a response to the knowledge and understanding, in this particular case, that there is such a thing as God. How's that?
quote: Edit: I take it back. I can think of one way, which is "I believe in God because God makes me," but that would seem to fly in the face of most modern theology.
Sorry, Tom, I didn't see this before. Cetainly, I don't think God forces me to do anything. I would say, "I believe in God because God invites me - and I choose to accept."
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quote:Originally posted by Jim-Me: I just think, now, that we are operating on different definitions of "know" now.
I can see, Kate, how you could choose to believe in something you do not apprehend in any way, but I don't see how you can call that "knowing". That it's not what many of us here mean when we use the word "faith" is, I suppose, well-worn territory.
And, again, I'm not trying to put words in your mouth, much less beliefs in your heart... this is just what it sounds like you are saying to me, and, evidently, to Tom as well.
Yup. I think that folks made clear that they were for the most part "definition 1" people. My point is that if your faith depends on "material evidence or logic" then you are vulnerable when either of those fail you - just as enochville was.
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Jim, okay - with the edits, we are pretty close. The potential for faith, the "seed", the invitation, is internal, God-given - and given to everyone. How we respond is up to us. The choice for faith or against is ours to make. I do think that once we make that choice, God is available to help us keep that choice.
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There is a common verse, often cited about a person's individual belief-- "a slender reed, He will not break."
I think our common ground is that God plants the seed and will nurture it and keep it alive as long as possible. I think this is true even of atheists like Tom and Twinky, whose interest in truth, as evidenced by their desire to understand these things that they do not ascribe to themselves, I take to also be a "symptom" (if you will) of God's grace.
Your emphasis led me (and others, I think) to believe that you were talking about a basis for deciding to have faith, rather than suggesting, as I now understand, that your decision to have faith is, ultimately, because of God's Grace residing in you and not any rational process.
Again, to me, this is a little too Calvinistic... not so much now in what you are trying to say, but in the way it can be taken. It seems to follow from what you say that people have more or less faith based on differing soil conditions (cf. the Parable of the Sower) for their "seed of faith" and that, thereby (and here is the mistake, all too easy to make) people who have the most vocal, or even the most irrational "faith" are the ones most beloved of God or the ones with the deepest soil. I *know* this to be last to be untrue (see my comments on Tom and Twinky, above) and I have to confess I see that error as tied to an emphasis on the idea you are espousing (which, if I haven't been clear, I don't so much dispute as de-emphasize, as I now understand you).
does that make sense to everyone?
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You are making sense. I see the slender reed verse to mean flexible and I think that flexible means "not too attached to the details." My faith is pretty "big picture" if that makes sense. The "details" aren't important to me, so they are not particularly vulnerable. For example, people got very bent out of shape about "The DaVinci Code". The idea of Jesus being married is considered by some to be dangerous. It is harmless to me because it doesn't matter to me.
Also, in the parable of the sower. Sometimes the soil was fine, but there were birds, or rocks, or weeds. Not the fault of the soil, but of the world around the soil. I think that, for many, organized religion has been a source of birds, and rocks, and weeds.
I can see where the emphasis can sound almost gnostic. But saying that we are all different people and that we all have different lives and different influences and different opportunities is in no way saying that God loves any of us less than others.
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quote:The potential for faith, the "seed", the invitation, is internal, God-given - and given to everyone.
What does it feel like? What does it "look" like? What form did this seed take at the moment you became aware of it and chose to accept it?
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So you were born with this knowledge that God wanted your love, but can't describe or reproduce this sensation and don't consider it a rational thought?
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Don't know about "born" - I don't remember quite that far. Certainly can't reproduce it for someone else - although I can sometimes encourage, I suppose. I wouldn't call it a rational thought - though certainly not "irrational"!
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How can you actually encourage this, if it's as close to an inborn trait as you can imagine? If there's nothing to listen to and nothing to perceive, how can you encourage it in any way or teach anyone else to receive it?
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Christy, I (see back a bit) was talking about depending on material evidence and the five "normal" senses. Clearly there are other ways of perceiving. When one talks about "listening" to your heart, they don't mean with your ears - unless they are using a stethoscope.
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