3 Theories Of Everything by Ellis Potter

Oh I'll talk....trust me on that! I find it hard to shut up! I just wanted our specific Third Circle Trinity argument to be elsewhere so as not to detract from the book.In the 45 Questions Chapter, Potter has some good ones. Care to hear them?

1) Do you truly believe it's possible to simplify so vast and complex a subject as the cosmos into one of your theoretical circles?2)What is the Monist's view of spiritual evolution?3)How do people of monistic religions see marriage?4) How do people of monistic religions explain increases or changes in the human population?5)You suggested that there is no genuine right and wrong in Monism. Doesn't the idea of karma,however, implicitly recognize the concepts of right and wrong, and therefore a general moral structure?
**********************************************
One thing that I respect about Potter is that he never cancels out the beliefs of the first circle simply because he is now a Christian. Edited by Phat, : No reason given.

I may as well share the questions which I found to be most helpful and revealing to me personally. 1) Do you truly believe it's possible to simplify so vast and complex a subject as the cosmos into one of your theoretical circles?
No, it's not. The three circles are grossly reductionistic symbol sets. I hope they will be useful, but they are not adequate. Objective truth in the form of a symbol is not sufficient to express the Truth. Truth is also subjective,which means that explanations involving symbols must be combined with your personal subjective experience to produce reality. You cannot merely think about Jesus and be a Christian any more than you can think about matrimony and have a marriage. The reality of being married is much larger than any kind of symbol.Christians sometimes adopt a defensive posture to the good they see in non-Christians. An example would be a statement like: Well, it was nice of those atheists to contribute to a good cause,but--and the but may be followed by--they don't have Jesus, or they are going to hell in the end, or some other statement that has the effect of discounting the goodness of another human being. Have you witnessed this attitude toward non-Christian acts of goodness, and what thoughts do you have about it?
I have seen that attitude, but less recently than in previous years,I'm glad to say. I think it's out of place in the kingdom of God not to recognize goodness when we see it, and not to believe that all human beings have eternity in their hearts. In a fundamental sense, it's not possible to please God without faith, but I think it's possible to express His image in a variety of ways,in some cases more accurately by the non-Christian than by the Christian. But those expressions of goodness,if not contextualized and completed by Jesus Christ, are not integrated. They are not held together. They are bits and snatches and incomplete. The goodness of the Christian, even if in some cases less than that of the non-Christian, is completed in Christ. Edited by Phat, : No reason given.

First of all, it really isn't "made-up". But I'll never convince you unless I somehow can capture some objective proof some day.Even then, I could see you fighting it. Most of you really want autonomy and never would trust a cosmic authority figure even if One could be proven to exist.

Good morning, O Tangled One..(who introduced me to the concept of realism)
which I just looked up to jump-start my brain. Realism on Wikipedia One good feature that I like now about the evolving usefulness of Wikipedia is the feature that lets me simply hover over a sub-classification or word mentioned in an article and see the sub-definition pop up handily. Now that we are on the subject, allow me to try and do the same with references to Ellis Potter and his book...on Wiki. Im lazy this morning and am satisfied for now with learning through comparing and contrasting word definitions within a given topic. I did the same with our boy Danial Dennett and pigeon-holed his basic beliefs quite quickly. One thing that I noted which led me back around to Wikis article on Realism is the observation of Dennetts thinking and of how he was raised in the Empiricist tradition.In regards to our ongoing discussions and debates between myself and youse guys, I am starting to understand your positions somewhat better, but for the life of me cannot figure why it is so hard for you to understand mine. I certainly didnt simply adopt a belief/philosophy which was simply (and entirely) made up!There is a lot of anecdotal and subjective evidence within the community, and not everyone is a personified loon. Yes I know... and you will again tell me that the characters are limited to the book. That characters in a book are totally created by the authors of said book. Your logic is sound, I will admit. Lets just say then for the sake of argument that the body of believers on the planet makes up their own characters and passes them around to each other as a collective mythos. Does that observation satisfy your demand for honesty? AddbyEdit:
I also clipped this from Wiki in an article titled "Belief". That fellow Roderick Chisholm is where i'm heading next.Edited by Phat, : tangling up an ideaEdited by Phat, : No reason given.

I appreciate your feedback and honesty. This morning I am travelling down a rabbit trail regarding word definitions. I just found this one on Wikipedia:
Metaphysical naturalism ... (also called ontological naturalism, philosophical naturalism and antisupernaturalism) is a philosophical worldview which holds that there is nothing but natural elements, principles, and relations of the kind studied by the natural sciences. Methodological naturalism is a philosophical basis for science, for which metaphysical naturalism provides only one possible ontological foundation. Broadly, the corresponding theological perspective is religious naturalism or spiritual naturalism. More specifically, metaphysical naturalism rejects the supernatural concepts and explanations that are part of many religions. so i'm trying to defend the idea that my world view is not simply made up. I am observing many of the great minds quoted in support of science and scientific/philosophical concepts and definitions which built upon one another and which led to many further theories and schools of thought today.Having observed this...my question is: Why is the religious theologians who have built their ideas ajnd philosophies upon the Bible and also on the thoughts of many church fathers thought of less respectfully for having gotten their world views thusly?

oh hush. I edited that post and went off in another direction. My basic question, after hovering over scientists and philosophers in the wiki pages, was why you so flippantly stated that *we* make stuff up with no source behind it. But the science mi9nds and philosophy minds use each others words to build on their own theories. Yes, these theories can be better tested than can the theological theories, but to limit the ideas to empirical evidence is a bit biased in my mind. In philosophy, you often have to take what is said with the premise that you yourself don't need to believe it but are curious where the idea comes from.

RE:Message 273In PaulK's topic, Time and Beginning to Exist PaulK states that of the many definitional subsets of Monism, he would most likely agree with Substance Monism. Given that I never even knew the concept of Monism until roughly 2 months ago when I read Ellis Potters Book...And given the fact that Pauls Main Topic is in the Science Forums, perhaps we can discuss the spiritual rabbit trails more completely here without dragging the other topic off of its Science Foundation. Your other topic is appropriately science-centered. I was hoping that you and I could "flesh out" the human centered and philosophical aspects of your view on Monism, which I ironically found as I was googling the Wiki Definition of Materialism. And as for Potter defining his own terminology, perhaps we can understand his viewpoint eventually also. I would love to send you his book...its not too thick and could be devoured in one afternoon...but I've no idea how busy you are or if you would even be receptive to such an idea. Perhaps if we continue to discuss it, I can provide the Cliff Notes version as we dialogue. Edited by Phat, : No reason given.

Yet the fact remains that of all species known, humans are the only species that attempt to understand the entire universe. Theology is as useful of a tool as is math. You wont understand the WHY and HOW of anything through Math alone. You stubbornly refuse to consider Theology a tool only because you have rejected the basic premise and subsequent usage of such a tool.

I reject your notion that all beliefs are relative and equally valid. You may have rejected one God more than I have, but you are then stuck explaining the WHY and the HOW of where this universe came from and whether or not we humans collectively or specifically exclusively are going anywhere. Objective evidence, materialistic determinism, or Pauls current adherence to physicalism seem to be the only tools you have left in your box, having thrown Jesus and Schrodinger's Cat out. Why must you always place Jesus last? You seem to have His incarnate message higher up on your list, which is a good thing, but having thrown all of the gods away, you are now being challenged to take a leap of faith and stand for something rather than rest on your laurels of not knowing. You humanists will never make it off of the planet without standing for something. Edited by Phat, : No reason given.

If by concrete you mean material, I would argue that there was at one time Jesus Christ as a concrete entity and when He rose, the Body of Christ or the Church became the resident of the Spirit as concrete entity. We can all quibble until the cows come home about that, and were we in India, perhaps the Hindu may argue that the cows themselves represented the concrete entity of Spirit residence.

Perhaps you are an atheist because you cannot fathom God as a concrete entity.Personally I am much more comfortable with the idea of a Creator of all seen and unseen than I am with Quantum mechanics and Physics trying to configure an objective truth concerning the origin of the universe. Perhaps you are more evidence based and logical than I am and see no need for consideration of a Creator for which there likely never be evidence.

quote:

---

Perhaps you are an atheist because you cannot fathom God as a concrete entity.

---

As I also said, Perhaps you are more evidence based and logical than I am and see no need for consideration of a Creator for which there likely never be evidence. My perception of a Creator is personal while yours is likely hypothetical. Granted that is true, but I perceive science as trying to define reality based only on what it has to work with. There is nothing personal about science. And your criteria is evidence and wherever that evidence leads. You have no need for God so why make it personal? (and I know that you will tell me yet again that you *do* have a desire to seek truth and if it be God then GREAT, but I see no desire to take any leaps of faith on your part. You sit back in the Lab and compare statistics.

Interesting.
RaelianismThe reason that I "stick" with my childhood fairy tales, which I never adapted until I was over 30, by the way is because I have experienced the supernatural. Once you have such an observational and/or participatory encounter you can never again go back to square one.And I will admit for the sake of argument that I want God as taught by apologists
and modern tradition to actually be real. I likely suffer from confirmation bias.

I cant understand why you threw away the God you thought you knew. I would be scared to death of letting go of mine. Its a bit like a bird leaving the nest. Why leave home? You were right in that I fit the profile of the older son. And I too would be mad at a little brother who spent half of Dads stuff and then had the audacity to come home and mooch off of my share.