Well you certainly took the wind out of my sails. As such you may find what I have to say rather humorous rather than relevant to your answer. At any rate, I will be eager to hear your response.
Alien life? You said:
Possible but no evidence for it.
Star Trek transporter is impossible IMO.
I'll assume you answered candidly.
I asked those two questions because I know that you have some knowledge of science. I suppose we may be a bit amaturish when it comes to the details of such things, but I believe an intelligent human being with the right cognitive capacities can visualize these things. I believe most people are in that catagory.
I wanted to make two points... Jesus is aid to have ascended into heaven. He was 'Taken up' in a cloud (whatever that means). I like to picture that as some form of dematerialization.
The point is not so much that the 'transporter' technology is harnessable by man with machinery capable of accomplishing such a feat, but that it is far more natural or ('most natural') than what we consider supernatural at the levels of reality inwhich God lives. The reality inwhich energy is then reduced to mere Spirit and transcends the natural universe. I believe it to be 'most natural'.
Of course that is a metaphysical belief like string theory, and is only a hint of what I interpret the quantum realm to contain. And I admittedly am no expert on the sciences, the quantum being one of them. However, John Polkinghorne at Cambridge is a professor of quantum physics at cambridge and makes that same point. That the dimension of the transcendant can no longer be ignored. Others such as the pantheist Fritjof Capra, also make the claim but from a different spiritual bent than Christianity.
It's something I think is worthy of considering. Not dismissable out of hand.
To me, this is just fascinating stuff to ponder and think about. And in an obvious way, also just so happens to point to the person of Christ, as not just extraordinary, but likely as well. Am I trying to lead you. Absolutely!
It ties in with the other question. I have often thought that something is out there. I think it is inherent in the human condition . Something that confirms for us on some very fuzzy level that we are not alone.
I got this idea when in disgusted response to my Christian beliefs, a man told me he was waiting for the aliens show up and set us all straight. He had understandably lost his faith in Mankind. And that tends to push us from the idea of this God-man as believeable.
It cuts at the root of our belief that any man could actually be so much more righteous than you or I, that we could bend our knee in the kind of honorable service that so many films about honor and selflessness conjure.
Let's admit that our patriototism in whatever culture is the blind leading the blind. So the question arises, who can see? Who has the discipline and the patience to lead us into reality? who has the authority to handle that kind of power? What would it look like?
What struck me with his alien comment, was his search for a savior. Again, a common theme for humanity. Something base and 'most natural'. Be it cars, women, money, politics, philosophy, aliens or what have you, we simply need to have something to believe in.
So I responded to him, and said that I believed the aliens had already visited us two thousand years ago. And not in some mechanical vessel that fits our notion of a space craft, but something far more sophisticated. A vessel of such complexity and natural construction, that it was part and parcel of the universe itself. An organic vessel of unimaginable glory. something we take for granted more than almost any other gift.
And then I mentioned to him that just as in the 50' movie where the alien comes out of his ship and reveals himself with a gesture of peace and we interpret that as a threat and kill him... So we also crucified our Lord when we could not understand his terms of peace.
It's 'most natural'.
That connection is far more than coincidental to me. How about you? What do you think when Christ tells us we are condemed already, and He did not come to condemn but to save.
What do you think when a man claims to be God and then lays down all he has materially and completely trusts in what to us seems to be the unknown?
When you look at the world, is it not condemed already? Speaking for myself, I know that I am like that thief on the cross... My punishment would be justified, because in some 'most natural' way... I believe in my heart that there is justice, though the physical evidence would lead me to think not.
Jar wanted an affirmative example of an absolute in the other thread. I believe it is justice, mercy, and love.
We expect all of those from others because it is most natural.
There is only one place you find them all.
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