I am not being “deliberately evasive.” What is real is true! Right? What exactly is the “life” that is within a “tree”? It is a real and true mystery what exactly the “life” within a “tree” actually is! Right? I personally equate that “real and true mystery of life” that is within a “tree” with God - The Supreme Natural Deity. The “tree” is actually, really, truly alive, yet science cannot explain exactly what that “mystery of life” is or where it comes from or where it goes when the “tree” dies. Nonetheless, I personally experience and am dependent upon the “mystery of life” that animates all trees on planet earth. Faith is not required for me to do so. “Trees” are real and true. I do not need “faith” to sustain my personal experience with planet earth or the heavens. Planet earth is real and true, and the air I breathe is real and true, and the universe is real and true. Words in a book cannot change these facts of this reality.
I certainly hope I have made myself a little clearer.
There will be no dropping of acid during these correspondences. You are a trip AM, I sware.
You can equate the life that is in a tree with the supreme natural deity all day long, AM, demonstrating this absolutley is another task altogether. There are certain elements of life, no matter how obvious from a reality standpoint that require us to take a leap of faith to understand or believe in. Believing that the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the deep, is one of them. How in the world would you demonstrate this without there being some faith involved.
Question AM. What would the specific facts or information that you do not have, as you did not actually see God do these things, be called? In other words, you were not there when this happened. What word beside Faith would you use to fill in this missing data.
Again if the universe, cosmos or whatever, is eternal, do you know with absolute proof know that God is its source, could it (life within the universe}not be a product of itself and its eternal process of cosmological evolution?
You employ terms such as the mystery of life and with the same breath indicate that faith is not required. This alone is nonsensical and contradictory. If you cannot explain the source or parts ofthe mystery itself, it doubtful you you can demonstrate it from a physical stand point. What do you say freakshow, ha ha
“Trees” are real and true. I do not need “faith” to sustain my personal experience with planet earth or the heavens. Planet earth is real and true, and the air I breathe is real and true, and the universe is real and true. Words in a book cannot change these facts of this reality.
I agree that you do not need faith to sustain what you can see, the physical, but please show me how without faith you can "literally" show me the spiritual. Remember these words AM, "show me hell and I will believe in it" AM, show me one particle of the spirit world or non-physical world and I will believe you. Now I agree and certainly believe in these things, I am simply trying to get you to acknowledge the necessity of faith.
What??? You want me to explain or demonstrate to you exactly what “nature” is?
Why yes I would please. You made the contention that it is more than physical, or physical laws in motion. You seem to nearly be deifying nature. I say it is "material" in essence, it is limited in its usage and it nearly totally different than the spiritual. Hence Jesus' words, "what shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world (universe) and lose his own soul. Or what shall he give in exchange for his soul (spiritual)
Your problem AM is that you are trying to make the physical tantamount with the spiritual. But you have no logical, rational, physical, material way of demonstrating this, other than employing words like "vitality" (wasnt that a hair cream at one time). These words may enhnce the physical but they will not elevate them to the spiritual or assist you in proving its existence, it takes a leap of faith, though not blind by definition. "Faith is the substance of things hoped for the EVIDENCE of things not seen"
Please demonstrate using simply the material world AM any particle of the spiritual. Now, not just an argument that appears to inculcate the spiritual, but that shows me the essence of the spiritual. If you cannot you are walking by faith.
What “proper information or correct understanding” do you perceive me as missing?
To "physically" demonstrate that nature is more than material or physical.
To Physically demonstrate that the physical cam from the spiritual.
To show me without the exact information, as you were not there, the facts that prove God did these things.
To demonstrate why you are not in the same boat as everyone else walking by faith.
Does this help you?
First, exactly what is the “obvious logical contradiction” that you perceive here?
I am not only employing nature as my proof of the spiritual!! Life is before the mortal; life is during the mortal; life is after the mortal. I am employing nature as my proof of life. Since life and spirit appear to be synonymous, yet both are equally mysterious, I am employing “reality, the sum total of the forces at work throughout the universe, the universe with all its phenomena” (Webster’s Dictionary) as living, factual proof of the mystery of life - the Supreme Natural Deity. I don’t perceive there being any other options. The last time I looked planet earth and the air we breathe were still part of “reality, the sum total of the forces at work throughout the universe, the universe with all its phenomena” (Webster’s Dictionary), i.e. nature.
The above may be reasonable but it is not literally demonstratable. "Appear synonoumous" and are synonymous are two different things. "Actually" demonstrating this is even greater. Your above statment is frought with specualation and covered with "faith". Think about it AM and quit being stubborn.
Nature is not absolute proof of the spiritual. As you have pointed out numerous times there is no way to demonstrate these things absolutley, now you seem to be moving backwards from your position.
How do you demonstrate the "factual proof" of a mystery, that is nearly silly. If you cannot examine its parts and handle or see its make-up you are speculating
Let me stay with the “tree” concept: A living/mortal “tree” is animated by a force of life that is a mystery, right? You do acknowledge that the mysterious force of life animates a “living tree”? The mysterious force of life that animates a “living tree” is the same mysterious force of life that animates all of nature {i.e. the universe with all its phenomena). That mysterious force of life that animates the universe with all its phenomena is the “spirit of life” that emanates from the Supreme Natural God. The universe, all of nature, planet earth, as well as the air we breathe are all mortal, but the Supreme Natural God and the “Life” It/He emanates is eternal.
Bravo acid boy, ha ha. Now demonstrate this to me physical, literally without the use of words, give me substance of the spiritual. Get it. "without faith it is IMMPOSIBLE to please God."
I completely agree with your above statement. Figurative, metaphorical, poetic, proverbial, and allegorical, statements or expressions are designed and implemented to help us understand that which we cannot possibly comprehend.
When I said "it help us understand" I did not mean that we would. I meant that we could put into terms for use with ourselves and "understand" it from our perspecive. That is different from seeing, comprehending or grasping the spiritual.
I have tried to make a distinction between “The Cosmos” and the “universe”. Apparently I did not do a very good job. Let me try again.
I am using the terminology, “The Cosmos”, to denote “the deep” mentioned in Gen. 1:2. The terminology “the deep {a.k.a. The Cosmos}” is the dark space that existed prior to God’s spirit hovering and before light. After God’s spirit hovered and after light what came into existence is “nature: The universe, with all its phenomena; the sum total of the forces at work throughout the universe; reality” (Webster’s Dictionary). As part of this “nature”, this “universe,” this “reality”, the Supreme Natural God created planet earth and all the hosts thereof.
This distinction you are trying to make between these two does not exist. The cosmos and universe are the same, your illustration is therefore not valid. "In the beggining God created the heavens and the earth". You concept is imaginary, atleast according to the text itself.
I completely agree with your above statement. Figurative, metaphorical, poetic, proverbial, and allegorical, statements or expressions are designed and implemented to help us understand that which we cannot possibly comprehend.
Not comprehending something AM and yet believing in it, is Faith. I know you are tired of hearing that but that is just the way it is.. These fellas that believe in biological evolution, did not see it happen but have faith that it did, atleast from thier perspective.
However, Gen. 1:2 describes the spirit of God hovering over the face of the deep; so, it appears as though “the deep” as well as the formless and void earth existed outside of God. At least that is what I read from the translation provided by the New Revised Standard Version Bible.
How does this put anything outside of God? This was there after, "in the Beggining God created.....etc, etc. controlled substance are illegal in Colorado as well.
The English term “spirit” attributes anthropomorphic personality traits to ethereal beings. I do not happen to concur with this anthropomorphizing of ethereal beings.
I tend to look to the Hebrew word {transliterated: ruch} which is specifically employed to denote: wind & breath. In the Hebrew Tanakh the feminine noun is employed literally as well as figuratively; literally in the sense of the “wind” being the “air” we breathe that sustains our mortal existence, and figuratively in the sense that when we stop breathing our personality stops existing. When we exhale our final breath our physical personality appears to leave with that final exhale. Thus, figuratively speaking, our personality leaves our body when we exhale for the last time and our final breath returns to the air, the sky, the ether, the realm of the heavens, back to God.
The English attributes this to the word Spirit, because that is its meaning.
I think I have clear picture of what is goin on here. You are sitting around a camp fire with some native americans smoking that proverbial peace pipe, trying to find your spirit guide, ha ha.
You can interpret spirit any way you want and you can draw illustrations from anywhere you want. However, showing some connection and connecting "spirit" with breath involves the usage of words and the ones you have chosen make God "not" an actual being with personality and intelligence but a substance, unless you have a more amplified definiton of "spirit". In this instance you appear to have contradicted youself from earlier posts where you describe him as not only spirit but an actual personality. Now he appears to be inanimate and only breath and wind.
We can be relatively certain that God is not a physical being, and therefore it stands to reason that God would be an ethereal being. An ethereal being would be considered a “spirit.”
It sounds by definiton you are making actually less than human and equating him strickly with the physical
Where do you derive you more amplified definiton of etheral? How do you know of these creatures, what is your source aside from the physical that they exist? Can you show me one? Can you demonstrate from any literal or physical property a particle of thier existence.
If you need more clarification just let me know.
Wow,this would be very helpful. I dont think you can carry your argument out any further, its getting ready to run into a logical empass, just as it started out, but I will wait and see what you can produce without "faith"
AM wrote: All things come from this Divine Life and all things return to this Divine Life.
This is one of the most beautiful expressions of faith I have ever heared. What do you say, ICANT?
You guys really have no idea of how the mystery of life works at all, do you? Life is not a known property. Life is a mystery. Today life is a mystery and in the ancient past life was a mystery, and tomorrow and far into the future life will remain a mystery. The first three chapters of Genesis are our ancient ancestors’ way of describing the mystery of life. Science cannot penetrate the mystery of life. Yet, the mystery of life remains very real, actual, observable, but it cannot be determined. That is a fact of life. No faith is required. God is the mystery of life; without God no life exists. We did agree on this point.
Forgive my bluntness AM, this is one of the single most contradictory statements I have ever seen. If we dont undersand it, why is it still a mystery to you? You see the obvious problem with equaing absolutes with uncertainties then claiming someone "really doesnt understand how it works, right. Come on AM atleast try and be logical.
This friend of yours is a pretty wise and smart person. You’re lucky to have such a friend. Ha, ha, ha.
Can my friend tell weather or not my razor and lawnmower have a spirit, because I am getting ready to use them both and I do not want to tork them off. Now I know my dachschund and Jack Russlle I have are alive because one of them dropped a duce in here and I cant find it, but I know its there, if you know what I mean. Sorry that was tacky, what can I say I was raised in Alabama. We dont realy act like the characters in Talledaga Nights, probably more like the character "cousin Eddie" (Randy Quad), off the Vacation series, yeah like that much better.
D Bertot
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