Lily flower
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- Jun 28, 2010
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Share your most life changing faith moment:
Share your most life changing faith moment:
For me it was becoming a monist.
My religion teacher told us about monism: the idea that everything is made out of matter, without any spirits or any non-physical things. Even thoughts were electric signals and, as such, made of electrons. I was scared. I asked him if it was true. He reassured me, but I think he never realized why I was so shocked. I didn't realize it myself at that time.
I actually wanted to forget that lesson, to unhear it. Because, to know about monism, meant I had to think about it. I wanted to know why I intuitively rejected it. I wanted to reject it, to keep on believing in spirits, but now that I knew of some alternative, I needed an argument... and probably I was afraid of not finding one.
I thought for three or four days about it, agonizing and really going deep whenever I could.
I could not accept that thoughts, feelings, imagination and love were made of mere matter, were subject to ordinary and simple laws of nature I could understand, such as gravity or electricity. But what of the alternative? If there was another sort of stuff, spirit stuff let's say, that made up those things, that spirit stuff certainly interacted with matter. If it interacted with matter, we could measure its interaction and derive the laws of nature which governed spirit stuff. But then spirit stuff was not different from matter! The only difference I could see was that we knew and understood (for a part) the laws that governed ordinary matter; and we didn't know the ones of the spirit stuff.
And it was crucial that these laws would stay unknown. Otherwise spirit stuff and matter were of the same kind and we should better call it all matter. As I am a scientist, I couldn't accept some rule which says people mustn't try to understand something.
I had painted myself in a corner and I knew it. Whether known or unknown, things like thoughts, emotions, imagination (always a big one for me)... obeyed laws of nature. Like matter does.
I thought I had the choice between two alternatives. Either spiritual things were made of mere matter and, love and such didn't really exist; or there had to be some superior spiritual stuff but that meant there was a realm of reality we couldn't (Shouldn't? Mustn't?) investigate. There is a mistake in the reasoning and I converted once I saw it. "Mere" matter? If love is made of chemicals, like a tree, that doesn't mean love is less worth than I thought. It means chemicals are more worth than I thought. It means love is as real as a tree.
So if there is only one thing I will be able to convince you of, let it be this:
Matter is awesome stuff. It can make up stars and rainbows and chocolate ice-cream. It can make up eyes and taste buds able to take in input from stars, rainbows and chocolate ice-cream. It can make up nerves to relay the input and brains wired to enjoy it. It's awesome stuff.
The Incarnation is God becoming flesh. So the spirit and the flesh are one. At one level this is profoundly and deeply poetic, and at the rational level, it makes no sense.
And in between there is Victor.Some poems make no sense. Some are even made to make no sense and are praised for it. Others are beautiful and meaningful at the same time.
And in between there is Victor.