more..full/post
http://www.celestinevision.com/celestine/forum/viewtopic.php?p=15061#15061

<<..It is/not..possible,..in process metaphysics,
to conceive..divine activity..as ..supernatural”..[intervention..into the..“natural”.order]..of events...>>

if..god egsists..
whatever he did..he did..according to..his NATURE
[nurture/grace/mercy/love/life/logic/light/follows natural-process/natural-law

<<..Process/theists..usually regard..the distinction/between..the supernatural/natural..as a by-product.of the doctrine..[of creation ex nihilo.]..>>

its..their nature to..feed the ego..claim to own..nature
super..means super/special..EX-clusive}..in lue..of the..super/mundane

<<..In process/thought,..there is.no such/thing..as a realm..of the natural..in contrast..to that which..is supernatural...>>*

It..is tempting..to emphasize process/theism's..denial of the supernatural..and thereby highlight..what the process/God..cannot do in comparison..to what..the traditional/God..can do

(that is,..to bring something..from nothing).

<<The metaphysical/considerations..of the existence..of
the supernatural..can be difficult..to approach..*as an exercise in philosophy..or theology..*because of/many dependencies..on its antithesis,..the natural,

..THAT will ultimately..have
to/be..inverted..or rejected.>>

..or accepted..

<<..by definition..anything*
that..exists..*naturally..is/not supernatural.

Sometimes we mean..by the nature..of a thing/the essence,
or that..which the schoolmen scruple not..to call..the quiddity..of a thing,..edit

<<Sometimes we take..nature
for..an internal/principle..of motion>>..edit

<<Sometimes..by nature..the established course..of things>>

<<..Sometimes we take nature..for an aggregate..of powers>>
edit
.

<<..Sometimes we take..nature for the universe,..or the..system of the corporeal works..of God,..in the world.>>..

<<..And sometimes too,..we would express..by nature
a semi-deity..or other strange..kind of being,..such as this discourse examines..the notion of.

<<..of the word nature,..nature..
is wont to/be set..or in opposition..
or contradistinction..to other things,..edit

<<..that is..which is..>>

<<..We say/that wicked men..are
still..in the state/of..nature,
but the..regenerate..in a state of grace;..>>

,<>..that cures..wrought
by medicines..are natural operations..but the miraculous/were..supernatural.>>

but..what of magic?
its..all trick*..seeing..means food..for deceiving*

<<././The term "supernatural"..is often/used
interchangeably with..paranormal..or preternatural

Epistemologically, the relationship between the supernatural and the natural is indistinct in terms of natural phenomena that, ex hypothesi, violate the laws of nature, in so far as such laws are realistically accountable.

Parapsychologists..use the term psi/..chi
we all..just chose..our own way..[ta0]..naturally*

Dear George,

I usually prefer to use the term separation of religion and state rather than religion and state. The connection of Buddhism and state in Sri Lanka, Islam and state in Saudi Arabia and Judaism and state in Israel are not good either. I have the impression that almost all religions also have a tradition of separation of religion and state. As far as I know the only religion that has an official doctrine of obedience to the state is Bahai’i.

http://www.bahai.org/misc/politics

“Bahá’u’lláh called upon His followers to obey the government in power at a given time, and to refrain strictly from any attempts to subvert or undermine it. Should the government of a nation change, the Bahá’í community must, in the same spirit of faithfulness, give its loyalty to the new administration, in every fashion consistent with the principle of nonpolitical involvement.”

Conscience may oppose obedience to the government. Although I disagree with some of the political positions of the Catholic Church I prefer its involvement to the Bahá’í disengagement. Democracy requires the engagement of the citizenry. Separation of religion and state implies to me the freedom of religion to operate outside the confines of government and to freely criticise and oppose the government. It restricts the government in that government cannot use religion to further its dictates.

I maintain that our personal beliefs should be no business of the state. One great problem is that the modern state has a technology of surveillance and data collection unavailable to previous entities. Using the rationalisations of fighting crime and terrorism the state pries. Some entities resist. The American Library Association has refused law enforcement bodies access to the records of the reading choices of library users.

<What you describe as “your” materialism is what I used to call the Sagan maxim, a belief, that there is nothing that science cannot potentially explain, or, as I like to put it, that all reality is reducible to the physical.>

Since we do not live in a deterministic world science cannot explain everything.

Dear George,

What is HSC?

<I can understand your misgivings about the too slowly process of totally separating the state from Christianity in Australia (and elsewhere). Perhaps inertia plays its role not only in physics but also when passing from what used to be Christendom to a secular society.>

Australia is not passing from Christendom to a secular society. In the nineteenth century all Australian states passed laws mandating that public education be free, compulsory and secular. In 1910 the Queensland Bible Society succeeded in getting the word, secular, removed from the Education Act. The Catholic Church at the time objected as they feared that religious education in the public schools would be primarily Protestant. The church was correct. There is very little support for restoring ‘secular’ to the Education Act. The Catholic Church is now silent on the issue as possibly they fear being seen as exacerbating sectarian tensions.

The Australian Christian Lobby, a fundamentalist group, which does not represent most mainstream Christian branches has an inordinate influence. Scripture Union and Access Ministries, two fundamentalist groups, provide almost all the chaplains to the public schools. The National School Chaplaincy Program (NSCP) was initiated in 2006.

The increasing Christian fundamentalist influence is accompanied by an increasing percentage of Australians who have no religion. Most of the latter are unorganised while the former is well organised.

Which Platonic dialogues are most instrumental in forming your worldview? I have been greatly influenced by Popper’s two volumes, “The Open Society and its Enemies.” The first volume deals with Plato and the second with Hegel and Marx.

so many..dialogues

CREATION..FROM..the MATHEMATICAL_POINT

from/some..swedenberg/quotes..i..re-quoted here
http://www.celestinevision.com/celestine/forum/viewtopic.php?p=15067#15067

<<>.the call..of Reason..which
demands..a cause...for..every_effect.

The refusal..to follow out..the demands..of the rational,..and
instead..*stop..in the middle..of a process of thought,..is not thinking.

The Natural..sees only..from effects.

The Rational..looks for causes...
And because this is..instinct..in the rational mind,..the common sense..of menkind..(i.e...the spontaneous/intuition..of the rational mind)..has led men..to acknowledge..that the world..may have..its cause..in an infinite Source.

Still..there are those..who stick..in the idea..that this creative source..of all the things..of space and time..which we discern about us..and which compose us,..*may be Nature;

that is to say,..that the particular things..we know of
are merely..the changes of form..[E}..which are assumed..by the basic substance of..Nature,.;and that/tha.. substance..is eternal,..or from eternity.

But..this still..involves..that a finite substance
could be..from eternity...It supposes.that..an infinity..of space and an..infinity of time..can be predicated..*of Nature..or of the finite...For eternity..is an infinity,..as regards time.

Yet—the thought..is impossible!

For space and time,..and even..their spiritual/equivalent,
which is..of the finite/state,..are thus..the antitheses of infinity...

Therefore..we read..in the Writings:..“God..from eternity..can be thought about,..but in no wise..Nature..*from eternity;..

consequently

the creation..of the/universe..by God..can be.thought about,
but in..no wise..*creation..from Nature.

“The world..was created..by God,..not in time,..by chance
but..times were..introduced..by God..by/with creation .”

“In the..sight.of God,..there were no spaces
or*..times before..creation,..but after it.

If..our thoughts..are to be led..by the..sacred/science/Writings,
we must be..willing to accept..the conditions..which the Writings require...

*Sensual thinking—from..mere prototypical/appearances
and from..merely material realities—cannot reach..
where the Writings..would have us follow. “

Creation itself,”..they tell us,
“cannot..be brought within one’s grasp..
unless space and time..are removed..from the thought.”

“The eye..beholds..the universe,
and the brain..makes logic..of it..via the minds-eye

conclude..in the first place..that it was created,
and then wonder..who created it...for..what good reason..

[know/thyself]
was..it alone..men..
who would not..be alone..[all-one?]

The mind..that thinks..from the mortal/finite/eye..
comes..to the conclusion..that it was..created by Nature;..
but the mind's-eye..that does not think..from that..of the mortal/material/eye..concludes that it is..from God.

The mind...that takes..a middle/course,
thinks..that it is..from a Being of which..it has no idea,..for it perceives that..*not anything..is from nothing;

but such/a..mind..falls into Nature,
because..about the Infinite..it has an idea of space,..and concerning eternity..it has..simply..an idea..of time;

these..are interior-natural-materialist[men]
while those..who simply..think of Nature..as a creatrix,..are external-natural...eternal

[peter-natural..or peter neutral?]

Dear Banjo,

Thanks for helping me better articulate my own position.

>>Your proposal had a restriction attached to it which I took off, thus opening it up to a much broader perspective (world view). <<

What restriction? In my view the assumption that science can explain everything including consciousness (to be accepted by everybody like in the case of the movement of the planets) is a restriction going in the opposite direction to the assumption that science is restricted (by self-referential paradoxes?) in its attempts to explain consciousness on its own.

The “theist” restriction is epistemological, it restricts the scope of science, the “materialist” is metaphysical, it restricts what one understands as “ultimate” reality.

Open-mindedness means accepting both “restrictions” as valid worldview alternatives, although - for whatever personal reasons - one opts for one of them. In this sense I only doubted the ability of “conscious” humans to fully explain the essence of their consciousness.

Doubts or no doubts, when a (neuro)scientist tries to understand consciousness from within science it is irrelevant whether he believes in God or not. That is called methodological materialism. [Like when I was doing research in mathematics, the fact that I had a wife and loved her was irrelevant to what I was doing, so as a mathematician I was a “methodological bachelor”].

>>I am particularly attentive, when engaging a debate - any debate, on any subject - in examining the hypotheses which are to serve as the basis of discussion.<<

This is true when the “hypotheses” can be expressed unequivocally in a language both sides agree on, like in the example you mention. This is hardly the case when fundamental worldview assumptions are concerned. This I tried to illustrate on the statement “reality is all that exists” which - as I wrote - is a good definition of one of the terms involved, if we can agree on the meaning of the other one (c.f. www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=14464). That is why I put many terms in quotation marks signaling the assumption that we can a priori agree on what it means.

(ctd)

(ctd)

>>… elements which establish the truth … may take the form of falsifiable material evidence and/or circumstantial evidence and/or the testimony of credible eye witnesses.<<

Falsifiable material evidence will point towards something that is material, i.e can be totally explained by science, hence not what one usually understands by God or the supernatural (see the paragraph on “miracles” in my article). Also, there are many events, testimonies etc that are accepted by believers in God (of whatever religion) as “circumstantial evidence” or “testimony of credible eye witnesses” (e.g in the Bible).

I was asking for an EXAMPLE of such evidence, testimony etc that would convince most ALL ATHEISTS (and be accepted as evidence also by a substantial part of our descendants in e.g. two thousand years). Like one could elaborate an example of what would constitute evidence for the existence of intelligent life on other planets, without knowing whether such evidence will ever materialize.

>>There may well be a Christian equivalent, but I’m not sure you’ve got the right one. <<

Well, that might be so, the wording is not important as long as we can agree that there is a reciprocal attitude.

Once more, thanks for your feedback.

Dear david f,

>>I usually prefer to use the term separation of religion and state rather than religion and state<<

What’s the difference? Otherwise I agree with you sentiments about how separation of state and religion should look, adding only my remark about inertia.

>>Since we do not live in a deterministic world science cannot explain everything.<<

This again depends on what one understands by explanation. QF, that certainly does not assume determinism, can nevertheless “explain” things that we could not have understood - did not even know about - a few centuries ago.

>>What is HSC?<<

High School Certificate. Sorry, I forgot the term is/was used only in Victoria.

(ctd)