Thanks everyone, Dale, since I got this cancer, I have
1 had 5 patent applications (unfortunately deep sixed by Anadarko when my employer was bought out)
2 Lived in China a couple of years
3 learned Mandarin
4 co-invented several processes related to seismic data’s relationship to the underlying rock material
5 started 4 businesses, one of which I still run; one of which was related to the above
6 Went to Antarctica, Tibet and worked a lot in Newfoundland
7 had an incredible number of opportunities to witness to my Lord’s love for us
8 figured out a superb argument that the soul is immaterial
9 and most importantly, irritated the accommodationalists. lol
I read something yesterday and it made me think of your post- As far as life on Earth is concerned “God’s man, in the center of God’s will is immortal until God is done with him.”
I’ve been reflecting on the different kinds of trials we each get and why, since I believe that they are designed for us individually. I’m thinking that the crucible of yours is so that your gold will shine more brilliantly and that your Master’s face will be reflected more clearly in it.
(Sometimes hardships are designed just to get our attention and to show us our dependence and neediness.)
Just noting how this goes against the standard wisdom we godless more often draw on when helping them through a tough time. Then we remind them that it isn’t all about them. They haven’t been singled out. They shouldn’t take things personally. Here you are assuming the author of the cosmos has designs on them in particular, that it really is all about them. I don’t think there is anything in my atheist lite experience which corresponds to the idea that everything happens for a reason and for my benefit. Do you find comfort in this? Is a fairly common Christian perspective I wonder? Are there any circumstances where you think it doesn’t apply or would not be a good idea to give as advice or for comfort? Just curious.
Do you have any choice except to infer ultimate meaninglessness? Christians, on the other hand, should infer that everything has meaning, not that we will be able to discover or correctly deduce what it is every time. God is too big not to be involved in the minutest detail, including mutations in DNA – recall my nephrectomy account. ‘Luck’ should not be in a Christian’s active vocabulary.
I probably shouldn’t be trying to answer mail today, As expected, chemo has knocked me for a loop, but here goes.
I think my Turkishtranslator experience was designed for me, to maintain the thinnest thread of faith during my years of doubt. I simply couldn’t help but believe it was an act of God–such an outlier of the same probability of the powerball selling only one ticket, and that ticket won. Everyone would rightly say the game was rigged. Strangely some try to say it wasn’t rigged with the translator but would be for the Powerball.
I suspect it was given to me because God knew I would need it years later. If that is so, then he made me to go through those years of doubt.
I am not so sanguine about gold ahead (or whatever replaces it). I don’t feel like I have been a very devout Christian,and certainly those who suffer for their faith in places like China, Cuba or other places of persecution, are far and away to be honored by us more than any of us.
Amen. I don’t remember who said it, but it was something to the effect that the greatest Christian alive today was probably a woman with cancer dying alone in India. I’m also reminded of ‘Sarah Smith’ in C.S. Lewis’ The Great Divorce:
Since Dale has already answered, I will answered. When I was diagnosed in 2003 with my cancer, and the doctor, whose bedside manner was to yell at me that I was going to be his first patient to die since PSA came in and that it was going to be very quick, I went into the normal human depression at that information. I thought of all I had done as being useless, meaningless and it was all going to be tossed into the trash as soon as I was gone. I then thought of my older brother, who died of cancer when he was 29 leaving a wife and 2 tiny kids, and thought, “What do I have to gripe about, I saw my kids grow up?” Behind this thought was, the weak knowledge that I will see Gary again some day and he would think me a selfish wuse if I complained about what I had been given.
After that, I never went through any of the other stages of Katherine Kubler-Ross, other than acceptance. I never denied it, I was never angry, I never bargained with God. I asked for healing once, about 2009, but never again–God knows my need and I don’t believe in begging and repetition.
I do believe God has kept me alive far beyond the statistics for some purpose (yes, there is purpose in life and it is illustrated simply–when you go to the grocery story, what is your purpose lol). If you get Gleason 8 prostate cancer and it is found spreading out of the prostate into other parts of your gut, the odds of you living long is not very good. I have out lived 3 prognostications of my death and am working on the fourth (July 8th this year). They say I have 6 months, as I have noted.
If anything, my cancer and impending death has made me realize how true Christianity is. There is even scientific evidence that the soul does not arise from matter (Wigner’s friend thread) and Mitch’s objections now can be viewed in light of his believe that there isn’t really anything spiritual in this world because doing that would violate natural law. Spiritual stuff is in the next world as I see his views. I learned of that info on the soul’s existence a couple of days after my oncologist at MD Anderson told me it had spread now to my bones. I was a bit bummed out, not badly but I viewed that info as a cheer up card from God. Why did I learn of it that week when I had been working on that issue off and on for 30 years, failing to find the one piece of data I needed. But I found it that week. It is curious to me.
Finally, I can worship in my Church’s singing time in a way I have never ever worshipped before. Earlier in life, death was theoretical. Now it stalks me and is very real. Four ribs with tumors, one on the spine, spots in my lungs, a gaggle of cancer in the lymph nodes near my heart (see it is near and dear to me), a tumor on my illium and one near my adrenal gland. I am a walking cancer. But I have found, God is also stalking me, being near to me, and strengthening me. I haven’t cried over this for years. God doesn’t owe me anything, not a healing, not longer life, nor a lack of pain. What he gave me is his love, and I saw it in action with that cheer up card I got from God in July 2018. He didn’t spare his son, Jesus, why should I demand otherwise for me? I think I would be a wuse if I did.
Since I nearly became an atheist, what I learned of atheism and agnosticism, Yall use half of the data, the materialist part, and ignore the other half of the data needed to understand this world, the spiritual part. Faith is a part of everyone’s life, but the key is faith in the right thing.
I guess I must have a choice since I don’t infer meaningless. I wasn’t asking to disparage your beliefs. Really I just thought this was something pretty different and perhaps worth noting to think some more about it.
From the outside the relationship you describe with what you think of as God may seem especially meaningful to you but I wouldn’t trade my relationship with what I think gives rise to God belief for what you have. But if it suits you, more power to you. To each his own, okay?
This seems a little like saying everything is the most important thing. But that doesn’t jive with my experience. Some moments feel more significant or special and others less so. But all and all, I wouldn’t have it any other way. Life is sublimely beautiful and precious and I wouldn’t want it any other way. But that doesn’t mean the fourth hour driving on I5 when my back starts cramping up is as satisfying or meaningful as watching a new flower starting to form on a plant I put in a few years ago. Some moments you just have to get through to get to other moments. But the overall stew of moments is well balanced and I have no complaints.
I don’t have a lot of use for “luck” either but overall I feel lucky and appreciative. Life as a human being whether cut short or elongated past your body and mind’s ability to function properly is very special even if finite.
You didn’t disparage my religion and I wouldn’t care if you did. I have heard disparagement by some really hard nose atheists so I don’t have thin skin in that regard. Honest questions deserve honest answers. But I will always defend my views, and I think everyone should defend their views.
When I was doing a negotiations, one guy went to my boss to tell him that I was a real hard nose. lol (that boss was harder than I), My boss told him that he could assure him that the hard didn’t stop with my nose! lol I always figured my job is to get the best deal for my bosses; it is the other guy’s job to get the best deal for his bosses. If each of us did our jobs, we tented to meet in the middle. If they didn’t. I took what they would offer me, even if they complained about it. It wasn’t my job to represent them; it was his job. Similarly for each of our world views. If you believe it; defend it with vigour.
I can appreciate that. I have a Borg division of siblings, in which I am Second of Seven. (Sorry if this Star Trek reference doesn’t connect.) But growing up, Fifth of Seven was sort of my apprentice. When his bad knees and feet got him booted from the air force at 19 he came to live with me. One beautiful Sunday we spent driving up the coast in his Fiat Spider. We stopped for gas less than a mile from home and on the home stretch a drunk passed out at the wheel of his big american beater and ran into us head on. I who always wear a seat belt somehow did not this time. Fifth of Seven had his on. I was in and out of consciousness many times, Rodney went into a coma from which he never emerged and doctors told my best friend who pressed them that he was brain dead. He did everything one can hope to do as the driver in that situation but there was no way to escape the collision.
I must say I attach no meaning to the fact that I survived without a seatbelt in the catapult seat while he did not. To think otherwise I’d have to believe there was meaning for him to have lost his life so young. There is no way his life was less important than mine or that he was less deserving than I. It wasn’t about me and it wasn’t about him nor do I think the drunk (who also survived) was given an important life lesson. ■■■■ happens. We all die. And yet life is very precious still and acquires the meaning we find and claim.
Very understandable and definitely a human experience which can add depth if you don’t drown in it. I’d say you seem to have kept your balance. When my brother died, I was recently separated from my first wife, after months of disability I quit my job with little thought of what I would do next and one night while returning from walking past the place where the accident had happened again I wasn’t paying attention and my first dog got run over by someone speeding out of a bar’s parking lot. She’d fallen behind to sniff something but when I heard the tires squeal I called her and she came immediately to her peril. Needless to say I have also experienced depression just this one time for about a year and a half but I didn’t seek treatment. I just read and slept a lot. I became uncomfortable around people and felt I’d become duller, less insightful. I remember reaching a point when I decided I would just let go of wishing I was what I had been and decided to just begin again and see what would happen. My life would not have been anywhere near as meaningful to me if this had not have happened. Except for losing Fifth of Seven, I have no regrets at all.
Probably for many purposes. I think the purpose of life is to serve that something more that sometimes gives you more perspective than you would have living entirely for your self chosen purposes. After the accident I lost insight into other people, myself or much of anything else. I think losing confidence in myself left me open to what I could discover by just waiting and holding a space for an answer rather than being quick to fill all the spaces in as I would have in the past. They say sometimes you have to lose yourself to find yourself but I think what I found was what gives rise to God belief. Which is good because I think I needed some help and before I got it I realized how much we all depend on what is really given as a gift but which we think of as our own doing. I still don’t think God is a separate being, it is far subtler than that. But I know there is something more and as a result I am more now than I was when I thought I was clever.
True for you is what matters. Go with that.
Amen to that. We literally swim in gifts. Nothing more is required.
I readily admit to having faith but I refuse to think I need to read about what it is I have faith in from any experts or historical eye witnesses of miracles. If it works for you, great. The main thing is to foster that relationship. You’ve done that. Believe me when it comes time to cash in my chips I won’t feel cheated in any way. I’m glad you feel the same way.
As I have rejected accommodationalism, I also can’t agree with the above either. What is true matters. Truth for me doesn’t matter. The truth, or falsity of what I believe will be determined in the after life. If it is Parsiism that is found to be true, then I have wasted my life. And if it is atheism/ materialism. I won’t have any regrets because regrets are thoughts. Personal annihilation leaves nothing to have thoughts in. lol Did you think you would sneak that presupposition past me?
I really do reject this common idea of ‘your truth’. The implicit presupposition, is that there is NO truth. Truth for me can’t be 2+2 =347298 and for you 2+2=5 at the same time. Both are not true.
Well I think there is something which gives rise to and supports God belief, that it matters and that it is possible to have a relationship to. I don’t think it is well understood and so I don’t think the form which it takes is paramount. If your concept of God helps you maintain that relationship, I think that is what matters most. But I don’t think you need to wait for an afterlife to know that it is true. The test that matters is the relationship, the wordless, formless relationship which is felt. If you recognize its importance, makes space for it and act accordingly you’ll know. Just not “know” in the way you “know” arithmetic.
I wasn’t trying to slip any presuppositions over on you. I’m telling you what seems to true to me. From my perspective, this is true.
They don’t even come close to equating. Did you ever work with inequalities in math? You way understated that. It seems exceedingly little like to the point of being nothing like!
It should not jive with your experience. Not one eensie bit.
What you think gives rise to God belief. Huh. It has more than a little to do with accepting testimony, having had occasion to find that testimony true, and then having had the reality of dynamic interaction. It is not just “God belief.”
(Have you ever reflected on how much of what you believe reality to be is based solely on your acceptance of testimony?)
Some have argued that the evolution of altruism is involved in the evolution of religion. I do know statistics show atheists give less money to charitable causes than do devout religious people. Charitable giving is a good thing for society.
Of a relationship, as I have said, I can’t feel comfortable fooling myself. I did that early in my adult life and will try never to do it again. If what I have is a relationship with an idea, that isn’t a relationship, in my view. I can have a relationship with my cat, or another human, and, I think, a God, but to have a relationship with an idea of a God who doesn’t exist lacks the two way interaction a relationship requires.
I was joking about the slipping a presupposition. That is why I used an emoji and the lol. I won’t deny later discussing it with seriousness.
Well you may of course decide on what terms you will or won’t have a relationship with whomever you like. But just so you know I’ve never said I had a relationship with God. I’ve been careful to say what it is that I tune into is probably what gives rise to and supports God belief. I suspect that had I been successfully assimilated into an intact culture in which an expectation was implanted that a relationship with God could happen, I would have assumed that is what I experienced. I don’t think whatever it may be is exactly like a person. In some ways yes but in other ways no. At any rate there have been no words exchanged, or if there were I assumed they were timely recollections of sentiments I’d heard from others or read about somewhere. Who is to say? Like you I do not wish to read in more than is there. But I’m not expecting whatever it is to meet my expectations. Much is given but no invitation have I received to interrogate this and insist that it jump into any of the conceptual cubby holes I can imagine. It feels to me as if this relationship is entirely up to me. But it feels as if I need to meet it more than half way, like it would be content to do its job and let me do mine. I’m the nosy one who would like more interaction. But I guess you wouldn’t call it a relationship unless whatever it was produced the bonafides you expected and submitted to your questioning. I don’t think it works that way.
For me it isn’t the idea of a God. I conceptualize it as another center of consciousness, possibly something earlier than that which we seem to rule in our conscious minds. That is the only way I can makes sense of it and it also the way I make sense of religious experience. I assume the intra-personal is being projected out into the trans-personal and I doubt that is warranted. I don’t know it for a fact but that is my best guess regarding what is going on.
Could be true. I don’t know. But I’m not at all sure that whatever-it-is is anywhere near as obsessed with morality as the God of the Bible. I think I feel closer and more approval when I’m in nature or working in my garden or involved in some other aesthetic activity. That is when I feel more receptive and notice how much like gifts inspiration is, to the point where it seems awkward to accept credit for anything more than acting faithfully to bring about what is given. From my one bout with depression I know that insight into the minds and hearts of others isn’t the product of my own cleverness either. That is a gift which can be withdrawn. We don’t bring that about, we just take credit for it.
One point of difference I feel with Christianity is the desire to put God on a pedestal, to earn his favor and to call Him lord. I don’t think what I think gives rise to God belief cares about any of that. I think we’re partners. In fact I’d say I’m the CEO and whatever it is the board of directors who can vote me out or dismiss me for egregious conduct. But whatever-it-is wants me to use my capacity for exploring hypothetical alternatives. But like any good CEO I need to look to the board to understand the mission of the organization, that isn’t up to me.
One part of the mission that I am very clear on is that treating others as fully autonomous human beings who are deserving of respect is essential. It feels very wrong not to and so very important to tune into the needs of others. But I do not feel compelled to devote myself to working with lepers in India or any other grand sacrifice. I have no indication that the board cares about that as much as it does tuning into the beauty of nature and the importance and dignity of all creatures (even the ones who taste good).
One of the first things I noticed in your post is the use of the word ‘feel’ a lot. I have read that use of this word vs the word ‘think’ marks a big divide in human personalities and the ultimate outlook. Example:
I think I feel closer and more approval when I’m in nature or working in my garden or involved in some other aesthetic activity. That is when I **feel **more receptive and notice how much like gifts inspiration is, …
It is probably my personality to not try to ‘feel’. My feelings can be very misleading. Logic, I find less misleading although if one starts with the wrong assumption one ends up with the wrong conclusion, there is no similar mechanism for judging if our feelings are leading us in the right direction or not. My feelings always say, ‘Go eat another cookie’ and that isn’t always good for me. LOL
I am not criticizing the difference, It is a difference that exists among humans.
I don’t believe Christian theology says we have to earn God’s favor, at least most Protestant theology says that. Yes, individual Christians try to do that, but as I understand theology, we simply can’t earn his favor.
We also don’t put him on a pedestal because we like him there, or feel he should be there; it is because we believe He exists and that is his rightful place. If He doesn’t exist, who cares? If He does, it brings with it a lot of logical implications to our world view.
One part of the mission that I am very clear on is that treating others as fully autonomous human beings who are deserving of respect is essential.
This is not directed at you but are thoughts that your sentence caused me to think about.
Again I find an interesting question in the above. I agree about treating people with respect, but I may have a different view of respect than some. I believe people can live up to a high standard. One of the things I did as a manager was not very popular. I emphasized quality control on the oil prospects we were thinking about drilling. I was one of the hardest QC people in my company, my management knew it and would send me to places they felt required tighter scrutiny of the science–indeed, 3 dry holes in a row was why I was sent to the UK and I was told in no uncertain terms to fix that.
Now, I knew the people who worked for me could do better. I treated them like adults, but adults should be able to handle objections to the ideas they are presenting–even tough questions. Coddling or worrying about feelings doesn’t improve the success rate Logic was how we improved the success rate in the wells we drilled. I did the same thing in China and we had the first successful well in about 5 years. Sadly, other factors led to the company not pursuing it as a field. I still think they walked from a good oil field. But no one, not even me, likes to have my work scrutinized in detail. In science that is a necessity. Why it isn’t considered so in theology as well, amazes me, given that I think theology may be more important.
lol
