Category: Philosophy

Musings on Shakespeare and One Less God

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(c) Can Stock Photo

(c) Can Stock Photo

Stephen F. Roberts famously said that we are all atheists, he just believes in one less God (or less gods) than others. It is a rather clever statement that many self-described atheists or agnostics have repeated, but it’s more kitsch than substance.

Atheism could be defined as belief in no God, but atheists often object to that because they don’t perceive themselves, or don’t want to perceive themselves, as believing or having faith in anything. That’s absurd, of course. We all believe in something – even if we only believe in the material world and our ability as humans to comprehend it. Continue reading “Musings on Shakespeare and One Less God” →

Atoms, Empty Space and Opinion

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N. Dakota Sunset - Alex Fleming 2

I am a follower of Christ, and a believer in truth. Not that I have a monopoly on truth. Truth is truth, I like to say. Facets of it are available to everyone at all times.

Truth might be overrated. I say that only partially tongue in cheek.  Jesus says He is the way, the truth and the life, so truth is only part of the equation – even for Jesus.

This is also a truth: there is nothing new under the sun. To “prove” that statement, I offer Democritus, who lived centuries before Christ and millennia before “modern” scientific discoveries.

He might have been a typical modernist, eschewing any reality but matter and energy, but for the fact that he was born in another era, and he believed in gods.

Iron age ignorance is what moderns call it now. That fits into the opinion part, between atoms and empty space.

I think we take comfort, or try to, in the vastness of time and space. It leaves a lot of room to stretch out. We don’t like being hemmed in. Me included.

But, there is this nagging small voice. Continue reading “Atoms, Empty Space and Opinion” →

What If Time Is An Illusion?

When we “look back” it may seem as if time was a dream.

kevingdrendel2 Comments
Photo by Beth Drenbel
Photo by Beth Drendel

What if time is an illusion?

A self-described atheist threw out this proposition offhandedly in a conversation I had with him recently. I think it makes sense to respect the people we dialogue with, including atheists, so I chewed on that proposition a bit.

As often is the case, I woke up this morning thinking about things that I had been thinking about the night before. In my reflection, it dawned on me that, perhaps, he was right: time is an illusion. It actually makes some sense, but maybe not like he imagined. Let me explain.

Continue reading “What If Time Is An Illusion?” →

Myth, Appearance and Reality

What other appearances (like the sun orbits the earth) and corresponding realities (like the earth orbits the sun) exist that we have yet to debunk or lay hold of?

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(c) Can Stock Photo

(c) Can Stock Photo

Some of the great breakthrough realizations in human history are that the earth is not flat, that the earth is round and rotating, that the Sun does not revolve around the earth, that the Earth revolves around the Sun, and the earth along with other round bodies in space rotate around each other kept in correlation with each other by gravitational pull. These realities are different than the appearances.

We appear to be standing on a stationary earth that, for all we can see, is flat. The Sun appears to rise, cross the sky and set every day. It is no great leap to understand that the sun might move around the earth, though the perception of a flat earth persisted into modern times. The moon seems to move around the earth in the same way the sun seems to move around the earth, but one does move around the earth and the other doesn’t.

Although we have known the realities for centuries, we still talk in terms of the appearances. We talk about the Sun rising and setting. We describe the phenomena as sunrise and sunset. Someone unfamiliar with our colloquialisms might hear us speak and think that we are ignorant of the truth.

The appearances have a strong hold on us. So strong that they persist in our language and how we describe things on a day to day basis. Those appearances stubbornly refuse to leave our everyday speaking patterns.

What other appearances and corresponding realities exist that we have yet to debunk or lay hold of? Continue reading “Myth, Appearance and Reality” →

The Ways of Death and a Way of Life

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We all have a “way”. The way that we traverse in this life is the path that we follow, the road that guides us, an inner compass, a moral code, a worldview. Some us, perhaps most of us, waver in the way that we travel. Some of us have constructed our own ways; others have borrowed from others: friends, family, culture, teachers, philosophers, church, the Bible and other sources.

We all have moral imperatives that guide us. They are so embedded in most of us that we hardly even think about them. When we are faced with decisions, we fall back on them, often without consciously thinking about them. They become habits of thought and action. Continue reading “The Ways of Death and a Way of Life” →