How the Universe looks from here

By Ciel - About Me - E-mail this page - Add to My Favorites - Add to Blog List - See other blogs in Religion & Spirituality

Tuesday, February 13, 2018

Faith

My dad once said, "I don't need faith, I've got knowledge!" I think it was a response to my asking him to have a little faith in me. It was, however, his scient ist-mindset all around. Scientists seek knowledge, or as close as they can get to something they can claim as 'knowing.' At the same time, true scientists know they never know enough to say more than, "It looks like this is true with the information we have and the tests we can make." Real science is always ready to accept its own... Sign in to see full entry.

posted by Ciel at 9:28 AM | add or view comments (3) | leave calling card | link to this | view only this entry

Wednesday, January 31, 2018

Veneration

A program called WILD CHINA tours China's little-known and less-seen regions and through the course of several episodes, explores the relationships between the people and the wilds. This has always been a theme of the Chinese philosophyical world-view, the harmony of man and nature, that man holds nature and its expressions in veneration. This got me thinking: This sense of respect and awe, this recognition of the sacred in what is presented by nature, this is not uncommon in the world of human... Sign in to see full entry.

posted by Ciel at 6:17 AM | add or view comments (6) | leave calling card | link to this | view only this entry

Tuesday, January 2, 2018

Time to grow up

So much violence, so much anger and rage, so much fear... So many places in the world seem to be coming apart at the seams, all based on conflicting beliefs about the values of things, the necessities of life, the threats of difference and change... But life and the world are not static, and however comfortably we want to settle back with what is familiar, however much we cherish and defend untrue and unreal beliefs, forcing unreality on the reality of the world only creates havoc. Reality might... Sign in to see full entry.

posted by Ciel at 8:03 AM | add or view comments (11) | leave calling card | link to this | view only this entry

Friday, December 15, 2017

Conversation

It has been a while since I had a really interesting conversation with a stranger over my occasional morning coffee at Starbuck's. We traded ideas and words over a number of current social trends and topics, and discovered that we have several different terms for the same concepts, and that we agreed on most topics. He mentioned the Bible several times as his source of wisdom, and came around to stating that he has committed his faith to what he finds there. I acknowledged that my own faith lies... Sign in to see full entry.

posted by Ciel at 3:23 PM | add or view comments (6) | leave calling card | link to this | view only this entry

Wednesday, November 15, 2017

Swimming against the flow

I believe that we are here in the world not merely to dream the illusions of living, but to learn, as evolving entities, how to make choices: to try things on, to treat them as real for a while, until a more absolute version of Reality comes along and slaps down the personal version for its non-conformity to What Is. Then we fight back, trying to force what disagrees with our personal version to fit through our own special perceptual filters that are based on what we believe is real. When things... Sign in to see full entry.

posted by Ciel at 8:37 AM | add or view comments (5) | leave calling card | link to this | view only this entry

Thursday, October 26, 2017

I have been asked what I believe in...

I believe in a complex Reality. It is not a Universe, or Multiverse that can be described in simple, linear notions. I believe in God, but not a God as much like Man as the God of Western Culture is taken for. I believe in Good and Evil, in Light and Darkness, but neither without shadings of twilight, of mixture and inclusivity. I believe in Absolutes and also in Qualifiers and Conditionals: that there are spectrums and continuums of which we as humans perceive but a little and tend to attach to... Sign in to see full entry.

posted by Ciel at 6:42 AM | add or view comments (9) | leave calling card | link to this | view only this entry

Monday, September 11, 2017

Defining Terms

This is part of discussion going on over on Facebook that begins with someone asserting that, if the brain is a smartphone, then consiousness is its screen. There's a story about a teacher of philosophy who, one day, said, "Death is an illusion." The next day he taught, "Death is real." Naturally, a student asked, "So which one is it? Is death real, or is it illusion?" The teacher answered, "Death is a real illusion." By my definitions, a thing is real if it has an actual effect, therefore an... Sign in to see full entry.

posted by Ciel at 2:30 AM | add or view comments (4) | leave calling card | link to this | view only this entry

Thursday, August 10, 2017

OMG, there is SEX!

It is worth some consideration of where the fear of sex and nudity came from--fear or condemnation or resistance or shame. There was the idea of modesty, perhaps that evolved to regulate sexual behavior so some work could get done. Add to that some ideas of controlling patrilineal descent: it was necessary to know who fathered which child, which required more stringent control than encouraging modesty: people had to be ever more consciously focused on not taking chances of confusing the... Sign in to see full entry.

posted by Ciel at 10:03 AM | add or view comments (3) | leave calling card | link to this | view only this entry

OMG, there is SEX!

It is worth some consideration of where the fear of sex and nudity came from--fear or condemnation or resistance or shame. There was the idea of modesty, perhaps that evolved to regulate sexual behavior so some work could get done. Add to that some ideas of controlling patrilineal descent: it was necessary to know who fathered which child, which required more stringent control than encouraging modesty: people had to be ever more consciously focused on not taking chances of confusing the... Sign in to see full entry.

posted by Ciel at 10:02 AM | add or view comments (0) | leave calling card | link to this | view only this entry

Sunday, July 16, 2017

the illusion of darkness

The world is divided between two kinds of people: the people who care and the people who don't. There are the en-lightened hearts and souls, and there are the ones who live in the shadows cast by fears and falsehoods, ignorance and mistaken beliefs, and just plain wrong information. Education is the way to dispell the shadows. Tolerance of difference, patience with lack of understanding, generosity in the face of greed... All are lights in the darkness. If you light a candle in a dark place, it... Sign in to see full entry.

posted by Ciel at 6:28 AM | add or view comments (2) | leave calling card | link to this | view only this entry

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About this Blog

I've been asking the Universe to explain itself to me since I was about 11 years old. I asked specifically how to reconcile God with Science. Now and then, I seem to tune in on an answer. All that I write here represents not Truth, but what I believe to be true.I have my reasons, and I like to believe, my reason. ///Everything of my own words and/or pictures that I post on Blogit is copyright by CLRedding 1972-present, all rights reserved.///

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