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Saturday, October 20
View Article  What does early Christian philosophy imply about our relationship to the Causative Force? Part II of II
by Daniel J. Shepard on Sat 20 Oct 2007 12:00 AM EDT

What does early Christian philosophy imply about our relationship to the Causative Force?

 

Part II of II

... Thus, religion was able to separate ‘evil’ from its picture of a ‘perfectly good’ being. Purpose for life emerged.

 

Life existed for the purpose of singing praises and bolstering the ego of the Causative Force, an omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent being.

 

One of many more paradoxes arose, that of an all present, all knowing, all powerful being needing the reassurance that it was just that.

 

Philosophy, reason, began its search for eternity, the Causative Force, and an understanding of our relationship to this abstract Force.

 

Within a thousand years, philosophy began evolving toward the concept of an omnipresent Causative Force, panentheism. And with it came a purpose, aiding the Causative Force to grow.

 

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Science, observation, began its search for eternity, what lay beyond the universe, the abstract Force which initiated our universe, our reality.

 

Within a short 500 years, science began evolving towards the concept of entropy – all physical realities must, at some point, come to an end.

 

This implied there must be a beginning; we were created.

 

Action and reaction, cause and effect, beginning and end, a Causative Force and Her creation interacting. Science was also coming to the same conclusion.

 

End

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Friday, October 19
View Article  What does early Christian philosophy imply about our relationship to the Causative Force? Part I of II
by Daniel J. Shepard on Fri 19 Oct 2007 12:00 AM EDT

What does early Christian philosophy imply about our relationship to the Causative Force?

 

 

Part I of II:

 

Early Christian philosophy was concerned with the interaction of the Causative Force to reality – our universe.

 

With the split of reason and faith, however, faith was no longer held accountable to reason and was able to subscribe to unreasonable arguments in the name of faith.

 

In a sense, this was a form of religious poetic licensing granted by religion.

 

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Other areas of perception were unwilling to acknowledge this process of granting religious poetic license.

 

Thus, observation/science and reason/philosophy ignored religions and moved on by themselves.

 

The end results for all three were surprisingly similar although attained by entirely different means.

 

Religion, using religious poetic license granted to itself, decided to declare the Causative Force to exist, to be omnipresent/all present, and humans to have an essence connected to this timeless concept of eternity.

 

Religious poetic license allowed religion to ignore reason and observation and declare this Causative Force to be omnipresent, but then turned around and stated that reality was not within Her.

 

To be continued: Part II of II: Thus, religion was able to separate ‘evil’ from...
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Thursday, October 11
View Article  What does the conceptual framework of atheism imply about the universe within which we live? Part II of II
by Daniel J. Shepard on Thu 11 Oct 2007 12:00 AM EDT

What does the conceptual framework of atheism imply about the universe within which we live?

 

Part II of II

...As such, life has value only for today.

 

This leads to actions that are directed toward self satisfaction and self-serving ends.

 

This is not to say atheists are all self-serving. Rather, it is saying that with atheism, the concept of a Causative Force, the soul, and eternity are missing and do not add to our understanding of why we must elevate our behavior of living for the moment.

 

The lack of the ideas of a Causative Force, the soul, and eternity establishes a universe lacking the idealism these ideas create.

 

The lack of understanding that something may exist beyond our universe leaves us with only a limited universe for our dreams, idealism, understanding, and logic.

 

Philosophy, religion, and science then become limited just as do our dreams and imaginations.

 

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The value we place upon the individual depends upon the significance we perceive we have.

 

With the perception that existence only occurs in our universe, we limit our significance to just this universe.

 

As such, we define our own significance to exist within the boundaries of this universe.

 

This forces us into limiting our hopes, dreams, and creative insights to concepts that pertain to what lies in our physical reality, in our universe.

 

This limitation transfers into the logic we use to determine what is and what isn’t rational human behavior.

 

If life only exists today, then the only rational behavior is behavior that leads to pleasure.

 

Thinking in terms of elevating one’s behavior because it might be beneficial in the afterlife becomes an irrational act. Under atheism, intolerance of suffering, love of one another, justice being meted out in the afterlife become irrational.

 

End

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Wednesday, October 10
View Article  What does the conceptual framework of atheism imply about the universe within which we live? Part I of II
by Daniel J. Shepard on Wed 10 Oct 2007 12:00 AM EDT

What does the conceptual framework of atheism imply about the universe within which we live?

 

 

Part I of II

 

Atheism provides the beginning point of the debate regarding the size of our universe.

 

Atheism says the universe is infinite in size.

 

There are no boundaries to our universe.

 

There is no Causative Force for our universe.

 

Our universe had no beginning.

 

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The existence of a Causative Force is more important to us as individuals and as a species than it would first appear.

 

In fact, the existence of a Causative Force has a great deal to do with how we treat each other.

 

Atheism begins the debate regarding the size of a Causative Force by defining that Her size as so small, She does not exist.

 

With no Causative Force, we have a sense that life is momentary.

 

We live life for now rather than for what is to follow.

 

To be continued: Part II of II: As such,...
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Tuesday, October 9
View Article  What does Buddhism reinforce about the significance of existence, life? Part I of I
by Daniel J. Shepard on Tue 09 Oct 2007 12:00 AM EDT

What does Buddhism reinforce about the significance of existence, life?

 

 

Part I of I

 

Buddhism gives us the understanding that the significance of life and the impact it generates is so important that we must focus upon reducing suffering, the negative aspects of life.

 

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The idea of all humans having a soul is tied to eternity and provides a whole new way of looking at the individual.

 

Now the individual is not important because they are alive, but rather the individual is important because the individual is tied to eternity.

 

This idea of being connected to eternity changed the direction of our behavior.

 

A tie to eternity meant we needed to consider our action because our actions now might affect our state of existence later.

 

Why this was so was not totally understood, but Buddhists sensed this to be true.

 

As such, Buddhists further opened up the idea that life was significant and allowing suffering in life would have a major impact upon existence in eternity.

 

In short, Buddhism further advanced the concept that life had value, significance.

 

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As we increase the idea regarding how big our universe is and in turn how big our Creator is, we enlarge what we view as the potential of existence.

 

The Buddhist ideas were very significant, therefore, in terms of reinforcing the significance of life.

 

Now suffering, a part of life itself, was no longer to be taken lightly or just ignored for its existence impacted upon eternity.

 

Life under Buddhism took on a greater significance and one aspect of life, suffering, became a focal point.

 

End

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