Lacewing wrote:
Might it be that one's "reality" actually turns off the parts of one's brain/thinking that would enable them to see and hear beyond that reality?
Some theists and self-proclaimed "divinely-inspired" appear to have disabled their ability to step beyond their well-worn thought grooves that are seemingly protecting them and defining their identity. Speaking with them can be like speaking in a language they cannot even hear/understand -- no matter how simple it is. They have to translate it into their model, and it loses all sorts of intended meaning and content in the translation, if any of it survives at all. They have no clue how utterly exasperating it is to have any meaningful and balanced interaction with them, because they're operating with all they can see!
When people don't hear over and over, I think that shows HOW GREAT THEIR NEED IS to stay fixed where they are... and their need probably can't be alleviated by any amount of clever discourse. Also, they want others to join them THERE in the limited space of their need... rather than they, themselves, stepping out beyond it. In a way, I think this helps validate their plot of reality, if others are willing to engage with them while they cling to it. Of course, seeds are being planted, which will likely eventually sprout -- and hopefully the "land-locked" will come to realize how much more than THAT there is -- and eventually we'll all laugh at how much effort was put forth into bringing ourselves forth at this point in time.
So we return to the initial problem Simone Weil put so well
Religion in so far as it is a source of consolation is a hindrance to true faith; and in this sense atheism is a purification. I have to be an atheist with that part of myself which is not made for God. Among those in whom the supernatural part of themselves has not been awakened, the atheists are right and the believers wrong.
- Simone Weil, Faiths of Meditation; Contemplation of the divine
the Simone Weil Reader, edited by George A. Panichas (David McKay Co. NY 1977) p 417
The Blind deniers are fixed in their opinion that believers live in defensive habitual fantasy and the blind believers refuse to admit the value of intellectual doubt. Then there are the rare atheists who do not defend their psychological blindness so become capable of opening to religious experience.
Einstein, Simone Weil, Jacob Needleman, and others were all brilliant atheists but all eventually experienced the necessity of a Source. Their advanced understandings of science only increased the necessity for a conscious source.
Believe what you want Lacewing. My only concern is for the young held prisoner in secular institutions of spiritual child abuse called schools. Brilliant kids who are spiritually alive are gradually being spiritually killed by the influence of secular educators dedicated to inflicting their ignorance on the young. As long as adults obey the laws it makes no difference what they believe. But if a kid is not first physically killed by abortion, what are their chances of surviving efforts to spritually kill them in this day and age? Not so good. That is why the influences of those like Einstein, Simone Weil, and Jacob Needleman are so important. They can provide the young with the alternative they need. They understand the value of both science and the essence of religion so killing isn’t necessary.
