Evidence plus experience plus faith plus revelation equals something that might be a lot like God.
We talked about evidence. We talked about revelation.
Experience.
Oh, btw, I should mention in passing that you get to decide which way the evidence points (as we have said) and you get to decide whether or not any particular revelation is in fact a revelation, and which one you like and which ones you don't like.
That seems to be built into the system. You get to decide. Now, whether or not that's a Free Will thing is something else you get to decide, unless you don't believe in Free Will, in which case, well, you don't have a choice about anything. Not only is the universe and everything in it an elaborate illusion, so is Free Will.
What THAT means is that you probably shouldn't feel too cocky about what you believe. Don't get the Big Head. If there's no Free Will, then really, getting all impressed with yourself is just silly.
Of course, if there is Free Will, then chances are good that's evidence that the Big Guy really exists.
In which case, getting all impressed with yourself is also just silly, since the Big Guy is, um, a lot Bigger a Guy than you are. Just sayin'.
It's also possible that the Big Guy exists even if Free Will does not.
Of course, if Free Will does not exist, then neither does love, and we're kinda bettin' on love.
(I should say that this week, science doesn't believe in Free Will. But it kinda goes back and forth on that.)(Evidence keeps changing.)(Darn that evidence.)
And btw, if you perchance don't believe in free will or gods or God, and you think religious people are idiots, well, frankly,
THAT makes no sense at all. More on that later.
And now we're back to talking about experience.
Let's go back to revelation for a minute.
There are lots of potential revelations in history to consider. Every religion seems to have one or two or several.
Islam's got one. Judaism's got a baker's dozen (I didn't actually count, so we're just approximating on that one.) Christianity has all of those plus, you know, the whole Jesus thing. The Latter Day Saints got one, in addition to whatever they pick and choose from other places. JWs got some, but they mostly overlap with Judaism and Christianity. Nearly everyone with a substance abuse issue has got a few. All the cults do. Without a revelation, well, what a crappy cult.
So how are you supposed to figure out 1) which one is the real one? and/or 2) are ANY of them a real one?
Yeah. That's a good question.
I have a close friend named Josie who if she's reading this right now is going WTH?! but I won't use her last name, so only I and she and all of our mutual friends will know. (BTW, in WTH, the H is Heck.)(It's a concession.)(Remember, "crapload" is our official limit.)(If you want to put a different, alternative letter of your own creative choosing in there, well, if there's Free Will, go right ahead, and if there's not, then you can't help it anyway, so go right ahead.)
Anyway. Short version. In high school (a very long time ago) she fell in love with another friend named Jeff (who's right now going WTH?! Sorry, dude. It was some significant fraction of a century ago, and it was kinda sweet.)
Josie was, and remains as far as I know, an atheist.
But she told me at the time that the love she felt for Jeff caused her to say, this is so powerful and incredible and uncontrollable that she could understand how God might exist.
I think she got over it. Sorry, Jeff.
But 1) since the universe is only and always formed of interactions and 2) the highest form of interaction is (we are saying) love, then 3) the experience of love might be that experience, the revelation that aims us in the direction of God.
Now love might just be biochemical and a evolutionary response to the need to procreate and keep the species going and Free Will might not exist and it's not really love it's just urges, but
I don't think so.
Those things might be true, but to say that's all that love is ... reductive.
It might be instinctive (whatever THAT means) and evolutionarily derivative and all of that, but
It's more.
You know it and I know it.
Yes, love is biochemical. So what? So are we all.
But Complexity Theory tells us that there's a tipping point (derived from Chaos Theory) wherein something ...
Happens ...
And something magical emerges from the mix that is far more than just biochemistry.
Yes, procreation, yes, keeping the species going, sure.
But love is vastly more than just biochemistry or an evolutionary imperative.
Love is profoundly, magically, mysteriously, wondrously built into the fabric of existence, the ultimate form of interaction in a universe that is defined from smallest to largest, from the least to the greatest, from the most transient to the most persistent, from the quantum smallness to the relativistic vastness of time and space, from the relationship between particle and observer to the relationship between space-time and matter by
Interaction.
Ultimately, interaction is experience. Everything that interacts enters into an experience with the focus of the interaction, and reality emerges and is defined by that experience. It is Quantum and Relativistic and Newtonian. It is transcendent.
Wow. That was a bit much. Let's rephrase that.
It takes two to tango.
That is, it is the interaction between two dancers that creates the dance. Without the interaction, no tango. Without two dancers, no tango. Without the tango, no dancing, no dancers.
And no experience.
If God does not exist, then there's no interaction, no experience. Just delusion.
But if God exists, and if he is interacting with the universe, and if he is a God of love, then it is possible to interact with that God and experience love.
It may inevitable.
And it will be different for everyone, unique to each person, but somehow universal all at the same time.
Unique. And universal.
That's what love is.
And the love that we all feel for, I don't know, cat videos on YouTube, or, more seriously, the people whom we each love, just might be that space-time-centric, Newtonian, Quantum, Relativistic, Chaotic and Complex interaction that points us to, I don't know,
The actual real moment when the 5th dimension (or whatever) touched the 4 dimensions that we inhabit and
Divine love became tangible.
But that would take some faith. So maybe we should talk about it.
We talked about evidence. We talked about revelation.
Experience.
Oh, btw, I should mention in passing that you get to decide which way the evidence points (as we have said) and you get to decide whether or not any particular revelation is in fact a revelation, and which one you like and which ones you don't like.
What THAT means is that you probably shouldn't feel too cocky about what you believe. Don't get the Big Head. If there's no Free Will, then really, getting all impressed with yourself is just silly.
Of course, if there is Free Will, then chances are good that's evidence that the Big Guy really exists.
In which case, getting all impressed with yourself is also just silly, since the Big Guy is, um, a lot Bigger a Guy than you are. Just sayin'.
Of course, if Free Will does not exist, then neither does love, and we're kinda bettin' on love.
(I should say that this week, science doesn't believe in Free Will. But it kinda goes back and forth on that.)(Evidence keeps changing.)(Darn that evidence.)
And btw, if you perchance don't believe in free will or gods or God, and you think religious people are idiots, well, frankly,
THAT makes no sense at all. More on that later.
And now we're back to talking about experience.
Let's go back to revelation for a minute.
There are lots of potential revelations in history to consider. Every religion seems to have one or two or several.
Islam's got one. Judaism's got a baker's dozen (I didn't actually count, so we're just approximating on that one.) Christianity has all of those plus, you know, the whole Jesus thing. The Latter Day Saints got one, in addition to whatever they pick and choose from other places. JWs got some, but they mostly overlap with Judaism and Christianity. Nearly everyone with a substance abuse issue has got a few. All the cults do. Without a revelation, well, what a crappy cult.
So how are you supposed to figure out 1) which one is the real one? and/or 2) are ANY of them a real one?
Yeah. That's a good question.
I have a close friend named Josie who if she's reading this right now is going WTH?! but I won't use her last name, so only I and she and all of our mutual friends will know. (BTW, in WTH, the H is Heck.)(It's a concession.)(Remember, "crapload" is our official limit.)(If you want to put a different, alternative letter of your own creative choosing in there, well, if there's Free Will, go right ahead, and if there's not, then you can't help it anyway, so go right ahead.)
Anyway. Short version. In high school (a very long time ago) she fell in love with another friend named Jeff (who's right now going WTH?! Sorry, dude. It was some significant fraction of a century ago, and it was kinda sweet.)
Josie was, and remains as far as I know, an atheist.
But she told me at the time that the love she felt for Jeff caused her to say, this is so powerful and incredible and uncontrollable that she could understand how God might exist.
I think she got over it. Sorry, Jeff.
But 1) since the universe is only and always formed of interactions and 2) the highest form of interaction is (we are saying) love, then 3) the experience of love might be that experience, the revelation that aims us in the direction of God.
I don't think so.
Those things might be true, but to say that's all that love is ... reductive.
It might be instinctive (whatever THAT means) and evolutionarily derivative and all of that, but
It's more.
You know it and I know it.
Yes, love is biochemical. So what? So are we all.
But Complexity Theory tells us that there's a tipping point (derived from Chaos Theory) wherein something ...
Happens ...
And something magical emerges from the mix that is far more than just biochemistry.
Yes, procreation, yes, keeping the species going, sure.
But love is vastly more than just biochemistry or an evolutionary imperative.
Love is profoundly, magically, mysteriously, wondrously built into the fabric of existence, the ultimate form of interaction in a universe that is defined from smallest to largest, from the least to the greatest, from the most transient to the most persistent, from the quantum smallness to the relativistic vastness of time and space, from the relationship between particle and observer to the relationship between space-time and matter by
Interaction.
Ultimately, interaction is experience. Everything that interacts enters into an experience with the focus of the interaction, and reality emerges and is defined by that experience. It is Quantum and Relativistic and Newtonian. It is transcendent.
Wow. That was a bit much. Let's rephrase that.
It takes two to tango.
That is, it is the interaction between two dancers that creates the dance. Without the interaction, no tango. Without two dancers, no tango. Without the tango, no dancing, no dancers.
And no experience.
If God does not exist, then there's no interaction, no experience. Just delusion.
But if God exists, and if he is interacting with the universe, and if he is a God of love, then it is possible to interact with that God and experience love.
It may inevitable.
And it will be different for everyone, unique to each person, but somehow universal all at the same time.
Unique. And universal.
That's what love is.
The actual real moment when the 5th dimension (or whatever) touched the 4 dimensions that we inhabit and
Divine love became tangible.
But that would take some faith. So maybe we should talk about it.
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