It has long disturbed me that there is a significant number of folks in our society who seem adamant in the belief that their "Christian faith" somehow demands that they steadfastly, and as loudly as possible, deny the veracity of every single fact that has ever been discovered by modern science. I'm talking about folks who flatly refuse to believe that the Earth could possibly be more than 6,000 years old (despite the fact that the very rocks the Earth is made of prove it is 4.5 billion years old); for that matter, there are folks who flatly refuse to believe that the Earth is anything other than flat (despite the fact that we have built vehicles which allow us to fly up high enough to see, directly, that the Earth is spherical). I'm not even going to get into the whole dinosaur thing at the moment! :)
Now, I'd be content for the most part to ignore such fringe groups altogether, except for the fact that many of them cite as the foundation for their rejection of tested and proven fact ... Holy Scripture. Mistakenly believing the Bible to be some sort of academic, "scientific" treatise on biology, geology, astronomy, and history, these folks interpret Scripture so literally that they deny even that they are interpreting Scripture at all ~ and thus they are forced to reject any statement on the subjects of biology, geology, etc., which do not line up precisely with their literal interpretation of Scripture.
Recently on Facebook, someone started a thread that purported to use logic to "prove" faith. Of course, that in itself involves a massive misinterpretation of what faith actually is ... but what triggered this blog post was the fact that many of the comments posted to that thread talked about believing in God instead of "believing" in evolution. Here were folks who were (apparently sincerely) attempting to defend and promote the Christian faith ... but their approach to doing so was to attack, denigrate, and deny the validity of tested and proven scientific fact.
Here's what I have to say to that, and let me direct this point specifically to my fellow Christians:
We have a moral and ethical obligation to develop our whole selves (body, mind, and soul) and devote our entire selves to the service of God in Christ. At our baptism, we take on the responsibility of sharing in Christ's eternal priesthood.
Now, if you wear that label with pride instead of a humble sense of duty, you end up thinking (wrongly!) that faith is all about proving that your team is the winning team, and that is not what God has called us to do, according to Scripture. What's worse, if you boast about being "a Christian" and you reject concrete, observable facts and instead embrace ignorance and superstition, then your testimony, your witness to the world, proclaims that Christianity is ignorance and superstition.
Not only is that a false proclamation ~ Christianity has a long and glorious tradition of deeply intelligent and intellectual theology and philosophy, neither of which in any way contradict known and proven scientific research and evidence ~ but such a (false) proclamation of "faith" turns mere prideful ignorance into a sinful idolatry, doubly sinful because it drives people away from Christ!
If you go down that road, if you make your "faith" the antithesis of fact and set your religion up in contradiction to reality, what account will you make of yourself before the Lord God of Hosts, when you go to your reckoning and He asks why you have profaned His creation by denying all its splendid wonder, tarnished His church with vain superstition in place of sound theology, and worst of all driven people of perception, intelligence, and reason away from His Son?
Very insightful. It's strange how some sources on the internet and elsewhere proclaim hard and fast rules on evolution vs. creationism.
ReplyDeleteThe Big Bang Theory is largely regarded in scientific circles as to how the universe began. That doesn't in anyway try to disprove God's existence. Much like in Genesis when He said "let there be light" could that be the Big Bang referenced in scripture?
Great blog, good read. I'll be sure to check out your older posts as well.
Thanks, David ~ very kind of you. And like you, I don't think it's hard to find ways of reading Scripture that parallel what we "know" through concrete observance of the physical universe. Carl Sagan in his book _The Dragons of Eden_ draws a parallel, for instance, between the increase in brain-size-to-body-mass ratio that accompanied the evolutionary development of the human species from other species of apes, on the one hand, and the biblical account of woman being cursed with great pain in childbearing as a result of humankind's eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge and thus becoming self-aware.
DeleteThanks for taking time to check out the blog; I look forward to any other insights you might feel like sharing!
Chris
From an outside perspective, it just looks like two sides arguing over whose interpretation is correct when neither even have a coherent method of determining that in any kind of objective manner. And I won't even get into how either of you know that it contains god's word.
ReplyDeleteWhile I obviously would agree with you much more so on this topic than a literalist, I can at least understand their mindset. They can't imagine why god would make the bible so confusing as to cause such divisiveness in interpretations, and go about creation in such an inefficient and roundabout way. To them, it only makes sense if it is all literal.
I'd imagine that if god were to ask them why they profaned his creation by doing this, they might ask him in return why he profaned them by being so abstruse. Just like I would ask him why he didn't provide any evidence.
And to extend the imagined conversation, we could easily picture God replying: what, the entire cosmos wasn't enough evidence for you?
Delete;~p
I disagree that there's no coherent method of determining or evaluating the comparative validity of competing interpretations of Scripture. In this case, in particular, the literalists are manifestly, demonstrably incorrect in their interpretation. The ones who claim, based on their incorrect interpretation of Scripture, that the Earth is only 6,000 years old, for example, are *proven* wrong by hard geologic evidence. So there is just one instance of a coherent method for deciding at the very least which interpretation cannot be correct, no?
As for why a god would inspire a sacred text and "make [it] so confusing as to cause such divisiveness in interpretation," that is actually the subject of future blog posts, so STAY TUNED, TRUE BELIEVERS (AND SKEPTICS, TOO)!
:)
Thanks for the responses! These are excellent points ~ exactly the sorts of things we (collectively) ought to be discussing, in my view. Much appreciated!
Chris
No, I can't easily picture a god replying to my question of evidence with appeals to a special pleading fallacy twice over in the argument from design. I have a feeling that his knowledge of logic would prove him to be much less inept than that. Being omniscient and all. :)
DeleteYour example shows that we can determine which interpretation more closely matches modern scientific understanding in any particular verse or verses, yes. But I'm not interested in that. I want to know why anyone should consider this book to contain the word of god and live their lives according to it in the first place. I want to know why it should be treated any differently than a collection of stories that contain no more knowledge or insight than what a typical shepherd living in the desert at that time would be capable of. In that case your example is worthless since you are already starting with the presupposition that it is god's word and must be correct, then working backwards. That's no way to determine if a book contains god's word, because you can apply that to any book and just "interpret" the bad parts to be right. If you have a better way, I would love to hear it.
I agree that these are the things we should be discussing, and I look forward to doing just that. Thanks. :)
Whoa, no one said anything about irreducible complexity or suggested that the nature, structure, & organization of the cosmos could only come from an intelligent creator; nobody invoked the classic (classically flawed) “argument from design.” Pay close attention to what I say and you’ll also notice what I’m not saying. Nor did I commit any sort of special pleading or any other classical fallacy of logic.
DeleteI merely pointed out that the very fact that anything exists--at all--is evidence that things exist: the fact that consciousness exists is evidence that consciousness exists. If a god is replying to your question (the hypothetical situation you brought up), that’s evidence that a god exists..
On a serious note, you’re making assertions without defining terms. To be fair, I am, too, but that’s why I specifically addressed my fellow Christians. Let go of your notion of “god” as anthropomorphic superbeing. Good for kids in Sunday school, but for reasons you allude to, untenable for grown folks like us. What if “God” is “the sum-total of all matter and energy and consciousness in the cosmos”? With that definition, the fact that anything at all exists is indeed evidence of the existence of God.
An important question that is often completely overlooked is this: why should anything exist at all? Yet it does; what does that imply?
You raise another crucial question when you say “I want to know why it [the Bible] should be treated any differently than a collection of stories that contain no more knowledge or insight that what a typical shepherd living in the desert at that time would be capable of.”
Set aside for the moment that the books of the Bible weren’t composed by typical shepherds living in a desert at one particular time--they weren’t, but set that aside. You’re really asking “What makes a text a sacred text?” Why should one book be treated as “sacred” and another not? What’s the difference between the Bible and the Qur’an? Or The Lord of the Rings? That question really deserves its own future blog post here!
But for starters, I’d suggest that question can only be answered experientially: if a book has a transformative effect upon your life, if that book forms, shapes, & makes you into a better, more noble, more humble, more self-sacrificing, more loving and compassionate person, then that’s a pretty fair indication that such a book partakes of a spiritual nature, at least insofar as divinity is working through that book to be a force for good in the world. That is a pretty good touchstone for measuring the sacredness of a thing.
If you read and study the Bible and it does absolutely nothing for you--much less to you--in terms of developing your capacity to love, to feel compassion, to give of yourself in service to other human beings, then you can hardly consider that book sacred. But if you study The Lord of the Rings in and it transforms you into a loving, humble, compassionate, devout servant of your fellow man, then that book would have had a profound and profoundly spiritual affect on your life and your consciousness; that, in my view, would most certainly be worth calling sacred.
There is no way I know of that is internal or inherent to any given text to tell if that text is the “word of God.” If you have “heard” the word of God in your own “heart,” in your own consciousness, then it is relatively easy to determine whether something written down is “the word of God.” If you have never experienced anything like that, then it becomes much more difficult--perhaps even impossible--to discern the word of God in any text.
Either way, it has to be experienced. If all a person does is to study the words on the page, divorced from any real experience of consciousness, of life, then he or she will, I think, remain ever baffled when it comes to an attempt to make sense out of any spiritual text, whether it be the Bible or the Bhagavad Gita.
Excellent point to bring up, and again, I think, worthy of its own blog post.
If on judgement day I asked god why he didn't provide evidence for me to believe and he in return asked why the universe wasn't enough, he would indeed be implying that I should have been convinced by the argument from design. That is exactly what the argument from design is. It is ripe with problems, not limited to two separate instances of special pleading. If all you were saying is that the universe is evidence for the universe, then I agree. I just don't see how that would be relevant in this case.
Delete"What if “God” is “the sum-total of all matter and energy and consciousness in the cosmos”? With that definition, the fact that anything at all exists is indeed evidence of the existence of God."
I agree. But how useful are such vague terms? You're basically just defining god as the universe. Why not just call it the universe? Let me take a stab at answering that for you :). It's because that's not all you're talking about. You want to tack on some extra supernatural baggage to it. Otherwise, you wouldn't use the word god.
I didn't say the bible was composed by shepherds living in the desert at one time. I implied that there's nothing in the bible that couldn't have come from a typical shepherd living in the desert in the respective time frame. I'm not unfamiliar with the history of the bible. Early christianity and the origins of the bible are pet studies of mine. :)
"...if a book has a transformative effect upon your life, if that book forms, shapes, & makes you into a better, more noble, more humble, more self-sacrificing, more loving and compassionate person, then that’s a pretty fair indication that such a book partakes of a spiritual nature, at least insofar as divinity is working through that book to be a force for good in the world. That is a pretty good touchstone for measuring the sacredness of a thing. "
Here we come to my most important questions to you. The bible doesn't do this for me. Although many science books do. And many atheistic/anti-religious/anti-supernatural books do. How can that be considered something divinity is working through? And I've never heard a definition of the word "spiritual" that has ever seemed coherent in the slightest. Maybe you can be my first? :)
I'm all for people reading books that bring about a sense of awe, are humbling, consciousness raising, and help them be better people. I just feel that it is quite dangerous for people to adhere to any particular book as god's word. Especially when that book can be interpreted in many dangerous ways. I say we take the good parts of all books, leave the bad, and not feel the need to attach any sort of supernatural element to it.
I agree that it's worthy of its own blog post. I look forward to reading them. Thanks.
Pt. 1: The problem with your misinterpreting my hypothetical response about the universe’s mere existence being enough “evidence” as the “argument from design” is that, to qualify as the argument from design, *design* must be an essential component of the argument; in my hypothetical divine response, design is completely absent from the discussion. The point I’m emphasizing is the *mere existence* of the universe *at all* ~ I’m not even remotely hinting at the idea that the universe “seems to have been designed.” You’re either misunderstanding my response or intentionally misrepresenting what I said as the “argument from design” when it is not. I’m not sure how much more plainly I can make that distinction, but if you need me to, I’ll try.
DeleteTo your second point, you appear to be labeling the terms I offered in my “what if” question as “vague” when they are not vague at all. In fact, the “sum total of all matter and energy and consciousness in the universe” is a rather specific definition for “god.” It is certainly more specific than “the Powers that Be,” for example. “Matter” is clearly defined scientifically, as is “energy”; the only term with which science struggles at present is consciousness ~ and of course that is one of the ways in which empiricism becomes impractical and inappropriate for discussing spiritual matters. But that hardly makes the term “vague”; it simply places it beyond the purview of empiricism ~ and I would argue that is as it should be. Either way, it ain’t vague. :)
You are wise to ask “why not just call it the universe?”; sometimes, I do! That works fine for me. I suspect it doesn’t work fine for you, and I suspect that’s because your definition of the universe is a bit more limited than mine. I will reiterate something I’ve suggested to you before: there is no such thing as “supernatural”; everything that exists is “natural.” However, the “natural” universe includes the existence of more than that which is merely tangible to our senses (directly or indirectly). If you wish to distinguish the merely physical (matter & energy) from the totality of the universe, perhaps the term “god” is more useful for the more inclusive usage, and the term “universe” is more useful for the limited, merely physical concept.
And yes, you did say that the Bible was composed by shepherds living in the desert ~ not in so many words, but your meaning was quite clear. Let’s not play games or mince words. :) But that’s all right. It doesn’t change the fact that there are plenty of things in the Bible that could not have come from a typical shepherd living in the desert in any time frame, let alone the relevant ones. You’re just plain wrong on that point, and you have studied biblical origins and authorship enough to know that.
But to the more important point, it is very easy, actually, for me to see the divine working through whatever books inspire you and have a transformative affect on your life. From the outside perspective (i.e., exterior to your subjective, conscious experience), it matters not one whit the subject matter of the books you find “sacred” (it doesn’t even matter that you wouldn’t use that term for those books); what matters is the affect on your consciousness ~ that’s it.
Pt. 2: Hmm, a definition of “spiritual,” huh? How about “that which is neither physical nor tangible; that which is essential”? How’s that work? Seems coherent to me, for what it’s worth.
DeleteNow, here’s a critical point of agreement, I think, between our two perspectives: I am totally with you that it can be dangerous to define a text as “sacred” … but only insofar as it is dangerous to adhere to any one particular book *exclusively* as the source and record of God’s word. Any attempt on the part of man to limit God like that, to begin with, is doomed to failure. But more importantly, the danger, in my view, comes not from recognizing sacredness, but from only recognizing sacredness in one specific place. The latter leads folks to demonize what others perceive as sacred when it differs from our own perceptions, and that, as we both know, has a long and bloody history. Like you, I firmly believe we should take the good parts of all books (et al.), and leave the bad; like you, I deny the existence of anything “supernatural” (i.e., “not natural”). Unlike you, though, I believe we need to expand our understanding of what is “natural” to come nearer to the truth.
I have to thank you for your responses; these questions and counterpoints are invaluable as I work to articulate what I (at the present moment) perceive to be true. I will eventually take this response I’m typing now and develop it into its own blog entry ~ this is an excellent conversation to have. Thank you!
Chris
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DeletePt. 2: I understand what it means for something to be non-physical and/or intangible. I understand what it means for something to be essential. I do not understand what it means for something to be non-physical, intangible, and essential in the way you seem to be implying. Can you please be more specific? Are you just talking about concepts like truth and justice?
DeleteI don't see why we should consider any text as "sacred". That carries with it all sorts of baggage that you can't even begin to justify. What is sacred? What isn't? Who decides? This can't just be opinion. Something is either god's word or it's not. How do we tell? It seems silly to even go looking to call any particular text "sacred". Looking through many texts for what is sacred, or looking through only one text for something sacred both lead to dangerous and unnecessarily silly conclusions by people arguing over which texts are sacred, which are not, how to interpret such sacred texts, etc. Expanding from one book to many doesn't solve any of those problems. It could even be said to compound them.
"Unlike you, though, I believe we need to expand our understanding of what is “natural” to come nearer to the truth.
Nonsense. Our understanding of the universe is expanding every day, and I am cheering it on the whole way. I am open to accepting anything (and I mean anything), as long as there is good evidence and reason for it. I'm just not willing to accept such bad evidence and reasoning to believe things that are no more likely than any other supernatural claim. That's not a good pathway to truth. And the truth, or what is more likely to be true, is all I care about. Beliefs inform our actions. That is why I want as many true beliefs and as few false beliefs as possible.
Thanks, Chris. SUBSCRIBED :)
-Tony-
Pt. 1:
Delete"...we could easily picture God replying: what, the entire cosmos wasn't enough evidence for you?"
That is your exact quote. What could you possibly have been implying here if not an argument from design or argument from ignorance? Why exactly should the mere existence of the universe have convinced me of god's existence in that hypothetical conversation? But let's move on to the more important points.
Ok. So you're saying the universe is the sum total of energy, matter, and consciousness (of which I have at least somewhat of an understanding of), plus this other "stuff" that we can't sense. That's where you lose me. I see no reason to accept that there is any "stuff" beyond our senses. And until I have a good reason to believe it, I won't. And no one else should either (By the way, that is not the same as asserting that it doesn't exist). You don't get to just assert some mystical intangible substance as the evidence for god that is conveniently unfalsifiable. You need to demonstrate its reliability and accuracy in some way. If it's unfalsifiable and untestable, it is indistinguishable from the nonexistent. One could use this "evidence" to prove anything if it were to be accepted.
I would love for you to point me to something in the bible that is so profound and beyond the comprehension of anyone living at that time as to wow me. I've read it all the way through a few times, and nothing ever stuck out. Maybe god's cure for leprosy? That was a good one. :)
Thanks, Chris. I appreciate your time and your responses.
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ReplyDeleteSpeaking of time, I must apologize for taking months to reply to your last responses. My life, it seems, has little regard for questions of Internet courtesy.
ReplyDeleteNow, in the interest of time, rather than get bogged down in each specific point, let me again draw your attention to a difference in paradigm, in basic framework and approach, between the perspective I'm articulating and what I perceive in your responses. You seem to base all of your particular comments (views) on the presumption that only that which is subject to empirical testing and verification exists. While that foundation is certainly a choice anyone is welcome to make, it is by no means inevitable or universal, and it is, as I've attempted to point out, often demonstrably short of the full measure of reality as we human beings experience it.
In other words, human experience makes it clear that there is more to existence than that which is merely physically tangible. By the way, when I point out the existence of things which are not perceptible through our physical senses, I am not saying that we cannot sense, perceive, or apprehend such things at all ~ only that our physical senses cannot detect them. But human consciousness is far from limited to the range of the physically tangible. Nor does understanding that there is more to reality than the physically tangible mean "anything goes"; we have more choices than A) pure empiricism or B) unhinged, psychotic delusion. You seem to be discounting any possibility for middle ground, there. Please correct me if I'm wrong about that.
At any rate, that seems to me to be the most profound difference between the worldview you're putting forth and the one I'm articulating here. If one accepts the postulate that reality includes and encompasses more than that which is merely physically tangible, then one has no difficulty understanding that the experiences of consciousness may be seen as being real, that they may be explored and tested as rigorously and as methodically as any empiricist might investigate any physical phenomenon. If one rejects that postulate, as you seem to have, then anything that follows from it must perforce be seen as "nonsense."
Which brings me back to a point I think I've offered you before, in other conversations: the fact that Person A may not have seen/experienced anything to convince him that there's more to reality than the physically tangible in no way means that Person B has not ~ much less that Person B "cannot." A person who is color-blind cannot rationally convince a person who can perceive color that there's no real difference between red and green, simply because the color-blind person cannot perceive the difference.
Thus, to reiterate, applying empirical standards of physical evidence to questions of spirituality and metaphysics is problematic, at best, and downright foolish in most cases. When you demand physical evidence of non-physically-testable things, you are not investigating: rather, you are simply manufacturing excuses not to investigate. In short, you're asking the wrong questions, based on the wrong presumptions and principles. And by "wrong," I just mean inapplicable, non-productive, not useful, unhelpful, etc. No value-judgment is intended or implied. If a person wishes to limit his belief merely to that which is tangible, that's his choice ... but that also means he will never understand or find remotely satisfying the answers he receives to spiritual questions.
Pt. 1: No need to apologize. I'm sure you have much more important things to tend to than responding to me. :)
DeleteI hope everything's been well with you.
"You seem to base all of your particular comments (views) on the presumption that only that which is subject to empirical testing and verification exists."
I have never said that. What I have said many times is that we would not be rationally justified in believing extraordinary claims without sufficient evidence that can be objectively verified in some way. That is very different than claiming that something doesn't exist until it's proven. Invisible, intangible pixies may or may not exist. But we would not be rationally justified in believing in them without sufficient evidence that can be objectively verified in some way. Even if they do in fact exist. I hope this clarifies that point.
"human experience makes it clear that there is more to existence than that which is merely physically tangible"
That's not clear to me, and I'm certainly not alone. I see no reason to accept this assertion, but I welcome any evidence to support it.
"human consciousness is far from limited to the range of the physically tangible"
I don't see a reason to accept this assertion either. Can you demonstrate this in any way? Why can't it be limited to the physically tangible? Couldn't it be that consciousness is just a product of the brain? If so, wouldn't that be like saying "Microsoft Office is far from limited to the range of the physical hard drive"? Can you give any example or demonstration of a mind and/or consciousness existing or operating without a physical brain?
"we have more choices than A) pure empiricism or B) unhinged, psychotic delusion. You seem to be discounting any possibility for middle ground, there"
I haven't done that. To me, it seems that you're the one doing this. You've implied in the past that either god exists or you are a delusional psychotic(because of your experiences). It's not nearly that black and white. One can be perfectly sane, and still have seemingly supernatural experiences that are rooted in the physical.
"If one accepts the postulate that reality includes and encompasses more than that which is merely physically tangible, then one has no difficulty understanding that the experiences of consciousness may be seen as being real, that they may be explored and tested as rigorously and as methodically as any empiricist might investigate any physical phenomenon"
And if one accepts the postulate that there exists an alternate, intangible pixie universe, then one has no difficulty understanding that there are invisible, intangible pixies living in my butt. :)
I would ask for a good reason to accept that postulate. Then I would ask why I should accept the second part, even if I did accept the first. For example, the fairies might exist but not live in my butt. I'd still require a connection there. Sorry for the humorous analogy. I just thought I'd lighten the mood a bit. :)
Continued...
Pt. 2:
Delete"the fact that Person A may not have seen/experienced anything to convince him that there's more to reality than the physically tangible in no way means that Person B has not ~ much less that Person B "cannot.""
I agree with you 100% here.
"A person who is color-blind cannot rationally convince a person who can perceive color that there's no real difference between red and green, simply because the color-blind person cannot perceive the difference."
I agree with you here again. But you're missing the most important part of this hypothetical. The color-blind person can easily be shown that the person who perceives color is experiencing something that he himself cannot. This can be demonstrated in numerous objectively verifiable ways. For instance, you can ask the color-blind person to randomly pull out flash cards of different colors (with his side of the card having the color name written), and observe as the other person repeatedly names all the colors correctly. It would not be rationally justified to believe that the other person can experience color without this kind of objectively verifiable demonstration. Can you even approach that kind of evidence or demonstration for your intangible experiences? I'm a willing participant for that demonstration.
"When you demand physical evidence of non-physically-testable things, you are not investigating: rather, you are simply manufacturing excuses not to investigate"
I see no reason to believe that non-physical things exist in the sense that you are implying. Until you can demonstrate the reliability of your hypothesis in some kind of verifiable way, it would be foolish to try and claim it as part of reality. In what sense can it even be said to exist if we cannot perceive it with any of our five senses? Can you differentiate between that which exists yet we cannot perceive with our physical senses, and that which does not exist? I'm not making excuses not to investigate. I'm still waiting for something TO investigate.
Thanks, Chris! Just let me know if you want to take this off-line at any time (I'd be glad to), or if you just want me to bugger off. :)
Thanks for the thought-provoking points. To your statements regarding the various ideas you see no reason to accept, and to the things the existence of which you see justification for believing, I reply: okay. :) Despite the superficiality of that response, I do not intend it to be snide or coy. I simply mean that either until you directly experience such things in your own conscious awareness, and/or unless you become willing to shift the paradigm within which you've constructed your notions of evidence*, then ~ as I've observed many times before ~ you indeed should not accept the views nor believe in the things in question.
ReplyDeleteTo reiterate: the kind of verification for which you continually ask is, by virtue of the nature of the subject at hand, not applicable. At least, that is my present understanding. I, too, am constantly questioning and exploring, and perhaps I have not been as explicit as I should about the fact that my views are always subject to change tomorrow (or even later today!).
That said, I would never invite you or anyone else "to bugger off" from my blog ... but I do wonder from time to time if it doesn't get immensely frustrating for you to continue attempting to converse with someone who must seem, in your view, to be dodging every question you ask and avoiding every point you offer. Obviously, in my view, I am neither doing nor trying to do any such thing, but when I try to imagine how my replies must come across to you, I must wonder. :)
But again, the only way you can verify the things you're asking me to verify for you is for you to seek such direct experiences of spirit in your own consciousness. I can recommend some practices and techniques that may be helpful to you in that endeavor, but as each of us is unique in our experience of consciousness, what works for me might not work for you.
I do appreciate the conversation and the perspective you offer, and I believe I've learned from you and will continue to do so ~ for that, I am very, very grateful. Thank you!
Peace,
C