Like to get a thanks in, Crabsy with your understanding about keeping one's feet on this wonderful earth thus following Aquinas with his studious message concerning the necessary tie between earth and beyond.

Must say, however, that as regards knowledge of history, Hope is much more important to me than faith, as faith can become too much involved with historical concepts such as treating our Aborigines as low life, for example.

Makes an old bushman wonder if there really is a God or a Great Architect, and whether male or female, it was them who gifted us with sport and the need for rules of fairness for all humankind.

bushbred wrote: Must say, however, that as regards knowledge of history, Hope is much more important to me than faith, as faith can become too much involved with historical concepts such as treating our Aborigines as low life, for example.

Dear bushbred,

Robert Kenny's "The Lamb Enters the Dreaming" tells the story of the first Aborigine to become Christian.

This was before Darwin published "The Descent of Man", and the predominant opinion among the scientific community and the non-religious was that the Aborigines were a separate species. It was not killing a human being to kill them. The missionaries believed in the Bible stories that had all people descended from Adam and Eve so they thought of Aborigines as human and therefore tried to protect them.

It was only after Darwin that the non-religious in general who accepted Darwinian theory thought of Aborigines as human. There were still exceptions such as the anthropologist, Carlton Coon, who thought of the races of man having separate origins even though they were enough alike to breed.

Faith can encourage doing the right thing for the wrong reasons.

Darwin was a truly enlightened soul, much more so than many famous moderns or pious Christians. This is he in the “Voyage of the Beagle” qtd. in Gould’s “The Mismeasure of Man” (36):
“Near Rio de Janeiro I lived opposite to an old lady, who kept screws to crush the fingers of her female slaves. I have stayed in a house where a young household mulatto, daily and hourly, was reviled, beaten and persecuted enough to break the spirit of the lowest animal. I have seen a little boy, six or seven years old, struck thrice with a horse-whip (before I could interfere) on his naked head, for having handed me a glass of water not quite clean. …And these deads are done and palliated by men, who profess to love their neighbours as themselves, who believe in God, and prey that his Will be done on Earth! It’s makes one’s blood boil, and yet heart tremble, to think that we Englishmen and our American descendants, with their boastful cry of liberty, have been and are [still] so guilty”.
Darwin was a great and compassionate man.

Peter Hume, Socratease, duncan mills:

Thanks for you questioning.

“Naming the divine” as duncan mills puts it, is unnecessary – maybe even a hindrance – when meditating, gaining mystical insights through the natural environment and music, feeling the pulse of union while making love, or sensing ongoing creation as you hold your baby for the first time.

But I wrote this article primarily to help readers understand why some people – such as I – might go to church, or consider the Bible important, or pray, or call themselves Christians. Granted, the act of naming can unduly restrict, even distort, experience of the divine. But if non-linguistic channels of intelligence – music, art, drama, dance etc. – are also given weight the experience of the divine can avoid such barriers. That is one reason why the liturgy of my church is so important to me.

And yes, any institution has an intrinsic tendency to ossify due to the innate will to power of individuals within it. But if enough challenges come from other more anti-authoritarian individuals this tendency need not triumph. If the organisational structure allows such voices to be heard and to persuade, then the institution can renew its vitality with fresh understanding and practices. I see this happening in my church and this gives me great hope.

david f and Squeers:

I agree that Darwin was a “great and compassionate man” – and still is!

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Dear Stephen,

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Dreams were the stock in trade of Sigmund Freud. Your story appears a classical case study for the Freudian psychoanalytical school of psychology.

Though you did not mention it in your article I imagine you investigated likely interpretations of the recurrent dreams you experienced, including, perhaps, by consulting psychoanalysts of the Freudian school.

Your definition of a non-exitant, "insisting" God seems very much to me to be the expression of what Freud termed the "super-ego" of (I should add, in your case) "an atheist".

It is to the credit of the Anglican church that somebody like you can find a place within its fold in which you feel comfortable.

Regarding the definition of "truth", it seems that David Fisher and many others, including a certain number of theologists, tend to confuse the notion of "truth" with that of "reality".

A close friend of mine and eminent (Anglican) theologist even defines God as the "ultimate reality".

(Continued ...)

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Dear Stephen, (continued)

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Not surprisingly, my definition of "truth" is fairly close to yours though expressed in vastly different terms.

I see truth as information which has not been voluntarily deformed at the time of emission. Or should I say it is whatever version of reality, thought, ideas, qualia, dreams or imagination a particular individual is capable of perceiving or experiencing and subsequently transmitting without voluntarily deforming it.

Truth and the object of truth (reality, thought, ideas, qualia etc ...) are totally different entities. Truth is simply the absence of intent to voluntarily deform information concerning the oject of truth.

That, of course, does not exclude the involuntary deformation concerning the object of truth. The information that is emitted may be totally erroneous but perfectly truthful.

There are as many truths as there are observers and each one may be completely different from all the others, though each observer is telling the truth from his or her particular perspective, the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. I see truth as a perfectly subjective notion.

Our initial perception may be false. We may incorrectly interpret what we perceive. Shock or prejudice may prevent us from correctly registering what we perceive. We may suffer a lapse of memory at the time of transmitting the information. We may not employ the correct expressions or be sufficiently precise in relaying the information. Our body language may be inconsistant with our oral expression, etc. All these and many other factors may possibly result in the involuntary deformation of information concerning the object of truth.

The star we claim to see may have disappeared from the heavens millions of years ago. That does not alter the fact that we are telling the truth in claiming to see it. The reality we (truthfully) see does not exist at the moment we see it.

Unless, of course, there are other living species capable of deliberately deforming the information they transmit regarding their perceptions and experiences, truth will disappear with humanity.

Reality, of course, will continue to exist.



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