What we must accept if we accept materialism

Maybe not, but it's a deeper or fuller reality nonetheless. Spirituality includes realms connected to and intertwined with observable 3-D reality, according to most if not all spiritual traditions.For example, Paul says that "in him (God) we live and breath and have our being." He explicitly refers to an immanent aspect of God that is fundamental to the natural world and is the basis, foundation or gives rise to, and controls the natural world, natural defined here as 3-D.So the idea of spirituality or spiritual embraces immanent aspects both with God as spiritual and for people (people have spirits), and angels too. It is true that there is a transcendant aspect of God, and so perhaps a spiritual realm beyond this universe entirely, maybe.On the other hand, God created the spiritual realm as part of the reality we live in according to the Bible, and the reality we live is constantly dependent on the animation of an aspect of God in which we live, and move and have our being.You can find similar ideas in other spiritual traditions. All of them depict the spiritual realm as part of the universe and fundamental to physical reality, and so it makes sense if these traditions are true, that the more we delve into the fundamentals of the material world, the more likely we are to begin studying the invisible, at least to the naked eye, spiritual world.If we begin to see parallels in spiritual principles with scientific discoveries, such as we see in QM, then it is reasonable, imo, to consider that we have begun to apply science to the study of an aspect of reality referred to in various religious traditions as "spiritual."

One of the fundamental qualities of spirituality is an ability to be connected beyond what we normally see in 3-D. For example, it is often reported by spiritual people, and believed and reported in spiritual traditions, that an event can occur to someone they know, and at that very moment, they sense it. There is no "material" explanation as to how that information can be revealed to them, at least not if material is defined as 3-D. Likewise, the idea is that GOd's Spirit can be multi-positiona, present with people everywhere at the same time.What we see with entanglement is non-locality or inseparability despite the fact that we observe locality and separability in 3-D. So the non-separable aspect is invisible. This parallels very much with what the claims are for the spiritual realm, also generally considered invisible.There is also the idea in entanglement that one action in one place automatically effects the entangled particle, which is a spiritual principle as well, that effects can occur without any observed direct material connections causing such the effect.

Hopefully the quantum theory discussion has already petered out, but if not I'm declaring an end to that off-topic discussion in this thread. It's a very interesting topic, and anyone who wants to continue pursuing it should propose a thread for it, and I'll approve it as quickly as possible.For the purposes of this thread I'm going to declare the definition of materialism to be the traditional definition of science and methodological naturalism. In this definition, materialism definitely does not include God or angels. It it did then evangelicals would not be raising objections to the influence of materialism and this thread would not exist. No other definition makes sense for this thread. Furthermore, this definition is consistent with the definitions at Wikipedia, Answers.com, Columbia Electronic Encyclopaedia and other definitional sites around the Internet.There should be no more posts about quantum theory after this one. I will delete the content of such posts when I notice them.This message has been edited by Admin, 02-10-2006 08:53 PM

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--	Percy
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Faith, that is a very kind offer.E-mail me (check my profile), and I'll send you an address. I promise to listen to the tape and share my thoughts privately. No apology necessary: we both know we disagree about the possibility not only of Biblical inerrancy but the possibility of the inerrant transmission of scriptural events as well.

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I don't even think the scriptures of OTHER religions have changed, if you are talking about the transmission of manuscripts, although they may feel free to add new teachings to them, as Christians don't.Do you think all ancient manuscripts have failed to survive the processes of copying and translation? What about the writings of the Greek philosophers that survived, or Homer's writings, or the ancient historians? Have they been tampered with or what?I suppose this got discussed somewhere before, but I don't remember it.Anyway, just had this thought to add here.

We don't generally worry about people doing good. What kind of thing would be an acceptable ground to you?

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The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible

God might be a ground.

I'd argue that the working out of ethical and legal obligations is a purely practical matter. Is it that difficult for a group to work out that it's in everyone's interests to treat murder or theft, for example, as ethically wrong, and to provide some kind of sanction to deter people from committing these acts? How could any society exist without such rules? It's based on reason and experience, and is a libertarian principle that both of our countries hold dear. One can trace the arguments for it through the works of many thinkers, particularly since the enlightenment, but my favourite expression of it is found in John Stuart Mill's essay, On Liberty. I doesn't make any sense to me to talk of the universe being run by moral principles. Moral principles apply to the behaviour of human beings; I wouldn't expect them to have any meaning outside that sphere. Firstly, if there were a single, all-powerful God one would expect to see a single, universal morality shared by all cultures. If ethics and laws arose naturally, as I have suggested, then one would expect some commonality (because it's difficult to imagine any society surviving for long if it didn't outlaw murder or theft, say), but one would also expect a great deal of diversity, because not all cultures face exactly the same conditions of life, or contain the same individuals.Secondly, even a universal moral law such as 'Thou shalt not kill' is not considered absolute by any society (except among groups like the Quakers and Jehovah's Witnesses in the West, and by Jains and some Buddhists and Hindus in the East). And the reason why it isn't considered absolute is because the proscription only applies to a limited group, not to all of mankind. If that group goes to war with another group, then very few consider applying the protection of the rule to members of the other group. Although ultimately everyone is completely free to take any action they like, in reality we all live in society and we generally constrain our behaviour (either consciously or unconsciously) to avoid social disapproval or legal punishment.A traditional conservative would argue that there is nothing to be gained by trying to look beyond these traditional values and laws, that these values and laws are somehow infallible, having been revealed by an all-powerful God or fashioned by a group of wise men living in some mythic golden age.However, I think that experience has shown that no set of social values or laws is completely infallible. Our history is full of adjustments and refinements inspired by men who have looked beyond revelation and tradition to search out more solid foundations for our moral behaviour.As to the question of how we choose between different moral principles, well we use reason and experience, as we do in all things. What other means do we have for making judgements about anything? The supernatural, in all its guises, seems to me so bounded by human desires and concerns that I can't feel much awe for the world it describes. When I compare the human-scale universe of Genesis, for example, with the jaw-droppingly complex reality we've uncovered over the past five hundred years, the story pales into insignificance beside the reality.The real world seems infinitely vast, infinitely complex, infinitely mysterious. It is contemplation of the non-human otherness of that world that gives me a sense of the numinous, not the all-too-human stories of gods and angels.

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The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible

How would God provide an acceptable ground for you?

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The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible

One needs an absolute standard. If you had one you could figure out if any given action was moral or immoral. The concept of God admittedly presents what appears to be a logical problem as regards morals. But still, if there was a God, and we knew His standard, perhaps we could call that an absolute.

Please explain.

It's that old paradox about whether some action is good because God thinks it is or whether some action is good in and of itself and God approves of it. If the latter, then this would indicate that God is adhering to a standard, and so that standard would not have been created by Him. It would be logically anterior to Him. Obviously we can't have that. If the former, then if God had thought that murder was good, then murder would be good.Some respond with the statement, "God IS goodness," but this strikes me as a verbal dodge.

I guess I'm not familiar with the problem you are presenting. But my answer would be similar to the above, in that God's moral law can't be anything other than a perfect expression of his own character, and He is good.

quote:

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God's moral law can'tbe anything other than a perfect expression of his own character, and He is good.

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The problem is this: When you say that God's character is good then - for the statement to be anything other than vaccuous - it must hold that God is good by a standard independant of God. And this standard itself would then be the real ground of morality.t

What can I say. God disagrees. There is no standard independent of God.