Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Friday, December 26, 2008

Thursday, December 25, 2008

The Supernatural

The concept of the Supernatural is illegitimate. By definition what happens is a natural occurrence. Thus, nothing can happen that is supernatural. Ultimately, this is an issue of reference frame. From an ignorant reference frame, an unexplained event may not seem to have a natural cause, thus is it explained through supernatural cause. However, from a more enlightened reference frame, an explanation (which may not even be rational, but regardless it will be natural) which is a result of nature will be attributed as the cause. This even applies to theories such as synchronicity. Synchronicity seems supernatural given our knowledge of the universe, but this is only because we have limited knowledge of the universe. This is not to dismiss God, but simply to deduce that God is not supernatural. If God, spirituality, and metaphysics seems supernatural (which they do) it is because we have limited knowledge of them. As stated before this is particularly true of God which is "that which we have limited knowledge towards."



Thank You Eric Reitan!


Finally someone has put Dawkins in his place.


Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Not Sure What Volkswagon is Getting at Here, But I Like It

VOLKSWAGON SURREAL CAMPAIGN


Advertising Agency: DDB, Berlin, Germany
Chief Creative Officer: Amir Kassaei
Executive Creative Directors: Stefan Schulte, Bert Peulecke
Creative Directors: Ludwig Berndl, Kristoffer Heilemann
Art Directors: Marian Grabmayer, Marcus Intek
Illustrator: Kirill Chudinskiy
Account Manager: Kathrin Thiele


Wednesday, December 17, 2008

ReThink This



This is in response to Matthew Apler's book The God Part of the Brain. In it he biologically explains spiritual experiences, and accurately so. However, he then makes the conclusion based on this that because a spiritual experience has a physical explanation, it has no truth to it.

If a psychological mechanism can exist to alter reality in order to increase the survival of an individual (as he argues is the purpose of the transcendental mechanism).
Then, the transcendenal mechanism may be an illusion.
and, the ego mechanism may be an illusion.
If the ego mechanism and the transcendenal mechansim are mutually exclusive.
It is impossible to determine if the transcendental reality is the illusion or if the ego reality is the illusion.
As for the experience itself is concerned.
There is no defnite way to dtermine if any experience has truth in itself because experiences are only within one's own realm of consciousness.
Thus, the explanation of a physical mechanism behind an epxerience cannot disqualify the truth of that experience.


Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Can Spirituality and Rationality Coexist?


Does a physical explanation of a spiritual experience disqualify that experience? Is there any reason to believe that how we percieve the world in a wakened state is any more real than in a trance state?



Wednesday, December 10, 2008

An Open Letter to Atheists: There's No Need to Hate on God

I am not writing this to prove the existence of God. I have not “proved” his existence, but reinvented the understanding of God. Mankind has always tried to understand God on an explicit level. We’ve personified him, we’ve given him powers, we’ve made him into a man that had a life on Earth, we’ve decided that he wants to be pleased by the actions we take in this life and we’ve decided the actions to take to please him. We’ve been painting a picture of God, but who has seen God? No one has, so of course the picture has been inaccurate.
In response to this misunderstanding, you have gone to the opposite extreme. You deny the existence of God, you ridicule any belief in him, and you claim you have a replacement for God. The atheist argument is this: logic is the only right way to understand the universe. Only ideas that can be supported logically should be acknowledged. Since you see no logical reason to believe in God, since God seems to be an idea which is juxtaposed to logic you decided that the idea of God should not be acknowledged.
But, once God is properly understood, it becomes clear that God is a result of our reasoning. God is a fundamental component of the human mind. I say human because God is not a legitimate concept if our reasoning is not limited. But, if you had no limitations on your reasoning, you would be God(the omnipotent one).
God, like everything else in your reality is an idea. Before we decide what the idea of God is we have to understand what an idea is. This is because God is a unique idea with a unique place in our reality. The one thing you have to know about ideas before understanding God is that there are a certain set of ideas in our mind are more primitive than others. They are the primary ideas, they are the ideas which we use to understand and create every other idea. These are the building blocks of our reality. Because of this we cannot define these ideas like we can define the ideas that are based upon them. A few examples of these ideas are: life, death, and love.
There is something I want you to notice about these ideas. They are all the subjects of our forms of art, and they are also all integral parts of our religions. These are ideas which are always associated with God. This is because we can’t make sense of them on the explicit level for reasons just explained. Instead we understand them through expression and ritual.
As for the idea that is to be discussed here: God. God is the idea of “that which cannot be understood.” This is why we associate him with the mysteries of our reality. This is why he cannot be understood on a logical level. However, if we think about the concept of God logically, his existence makes logical sense, even though we cannot prove him logically. If God could be defined, then the idea of God would be false because the idea by definition is “that which can’t be defined,” and if God can’t be defined, then the idea of God is logically legitimate. What this means is that God is a logically legitimate concept that cannot be proven. God is essentially the idea that makes the logical system of our minds incomplete. All logical systems are incomplete in their ability to prove everything that is true, our minds are no exception.
If you understand God in this way, there are many ethical, ontological, and epistemological consequences that result from this understanding. The bottom line is that we should stop worrying about whether God exists, and start trying to understand his place in our reality. whether God exists, and just let him be.


Friday, December 5, 2008

The Extent of Greatness


If a mountain is big enough, such as Mt. McKinley pictured here, it can create its own localized weather.



Thursday, December 4, 2008