Beautiful letter, Spencer. Since childhood I've held to the belief that after the body dies, the soul or spirit lives on...Whatever that means we will not know in this lifetime; it is a mystery, but somehow it relates to the personal lives we've lived, the people we love, and the goodness of God.
I have this image. Maybe from being present at the death of both of my parents. Maybe reading about near-death experiences. (My father had coded in the hospital before my sister and I could arrive. He was resuscitated. He kept telling us he wanted to go back to that beautiful White House on top of the hill.) Or maybe it was The Matrix. But I have felt recently that the brain is God’s way station where Divine energy connects to this material world. And the interaction of the material with God’s divine energy creates the mind. Once that plug is pulled, it’s all just gunk, as you note. But when it’s connected it is a grand beautiful dance to behold a universe within a universe.
Wow. Yeah the distinction between alive/not alive is so starkly present to observation and yet impossible to define in bare material terms (scientists are always puzzling over this).
Spencer, your closing sentence really gets down to the brass tacks, doesn’t it? We must be more than just a collection of molecules. Nothing else can explain the mind.
I agree. If we’re wrong, we amount to nothing. I simply believe we are correct. And the mind and the Apostles’ actions prove it to me. As Charles Colson said, no one dies for a lie, much less be beaten, tortured, and executed over 40 years for one.
" We must be more than just a collection of molecules"
And therein lays A Real Problem for Materialists. As Jerry Leiber / Mike Stoller put it. "Is That All There is?" IF all this (the universe) just happened by random chance, why not just Do what you want, Take what you can?
They don't live their life that way. People Can't. Some Try, but it doesn't work out well for them. Prison, Insane Asylum, or Dead.
I just listened to a talk about how big some of the stars are compared to our sun. And how teeny tiny our earth is compared to these stars. And if you want to feel like dust, looking at the pictures of these stars can really do it! How gigantic space is. And to think that our God just blew out a breath to create the biggest star! And that He chooses to make us personally His is just so amazing.
Beautiful letter, Spencer. Since childhood I've held to the belief that after the body dies, the soul or spirit lives on...Whatever that means we will not know in this lifetime; it is a mystery, but somehow it relates to the personal lives we've lived, the people we love, and the goodness of God.
I have this image. Maybe from being present at the death of both of my parents. Maybe reading about near-death experiences. (My father had coded in the hospital before my sister and I could arrive. He was resuscitated. He kept telling us he wanted to go back to that beautiful White House on top of the hill.) Or maybe it was The Matrix. But I have felt recently that the brain is God’s way station where Divine energy connects to this material world. And the interaction of the material with God’s divine energy creates the mind. Once that plug is pulled, it’s all just gunk, as you note. But when it’s connected it is a grand beautiful dance to behold a universe within a universe.
Wow. Yeah the distinction between alive/not alive is so starkly present to observation and yet impossible to define in bare material terms (scientists are always puzzling over this).
Spencer, your closing sentence really gets down to the brass tacks, doesn’t it? We must be more than just a collection of molecules. Nothing else can explain the mind.
We’ve been trying to wriggle out of those kinds of choices for so long (hundreds of years!) but these really are the options imo
I agree. If we’re wrong, we amount to nothing. I simply believe we are correct. And the mind and the Apostles’ actions prove it to me. As Charles Colson said, no one dies for a lie, much less be beaten, tortured, and executed over 40 years for one.
" We must be more than just a collection of molecules"
And therein lays A Real Problem for Materialists. As Jerry Leiber / Mike Stoller put it. "Is That All There is?" IF all this (the universe) just happened by random chance, why not just Do what you want, Take what you can?
They don't live their life that way. People Can't. Some Try, but it doesn't work out well for them. Prison, Insane Asylum, or Dead.
I just listened to a talk about how big some of the stars are compared to our sun. And how teeny tiny our earth is compared to these stars. And if you want to feel like dust, looking at the pictures of these stars can really do it! How gigantic space is. And to think that our God just blew out a breath to create the biggest star! And that He chooses to make us personally His is just so amazing.
What is man, that thou art mindful of him!
Only He in the form of a finite being could offer an Infinite sacrifice.
Allowing us to sing the New song -the song of redeeming love, the song that says without him we are nothing but with him we are everything.