Adding reason to faith
Home
Main Page  »  The West
« Previous 5 days  |  Next 5 days »
Monday, October 22
View Article  How does early Christian philosophy help us understand what life is? Part II of II
by Daniel J. Shepard on Mon 22 Oct 2007 12:00 AM EDT

How does early Christian philosophy help us understand what life is?

 

Part II of II

... In short, if nothing exists beyond the boundaries of our universe, immortality becomes illogical since time permeates our universe.

 

With the elimination of the rationality of immortality, religions would lose their significance.

 

Early Christian philosophy was not about to entertain any suggestions leading to this possibility.

 

So it was that early Christian philosophy expanded upon the size of the Causative

Force over what western/Middle Eastern pre-Judaic faiths believed.

 

Early Christian philosophy established the size of the Causative Force to be greater than physical reality, our universe.

 

With the increase in size of the Causative Force came an elevation of the significance of the individual followed by an elevation of behavior.

 

•

 

Early Christian philosophy offered us an understanding of something greater existing than life.

 

Something greater than the universe existed and we had the opportunity to be a part of it if….

 

With philosophy questioning the qualifier, ‘If …,’ philosophy found itself in direct confrontation with religion, which refused to give up its control over the keys to the gates of ‘heaven.’

 

Religions, unwilling to be questioned, created a split between faith and reason.

 

Religion moved on with its own existence ignoring scientific or philosophical perceptions contradicting religion.

 

End

Leave Comment  |  Permanent Link  |  Cosmos
Sunday, October 21
View Article  How does early Christian philosophy help us understand what life is? Part I of II
by Daniel J. Shepard on Sun 21 Oct 2007 12:00 AM EDT

How does early Christian philosophy help us understand what life is?

 

 

Part I of II

 

There are two statements we can make regarding our universe – our reality: our universe either exists within something or it does not.

 

In either case, our definition of what life is becomes quite different.

 

•

 

If life exists, then the definition of life would most probably have to be derived from and account for either one of these two perceptions.

 

If life exists within the Causative Force (panentheism), then hope rises up and engulfs all individuals equally.

 

Significance becomes absolute and rational rather than a possibility beyond our understanding.

 

On the other hand, if life does not exist within the Causative Force because there is no outside to the universe, then hope begins to die out and eventually loses the warmth and comfort it had to offer us.

 

Without an existence outside the universe, time becomes a major factor of our existence, for it permeates our universe.

 

With no outside beyond our reality, time, being a function of matter and energy, becomes a characteristic of all living things and, thus, immortality becomes an irrational concept.

 

To be continued: Part II of II: In short, if nothing exists beyond the boundaries of our universe, immortality...
Leave Comment  |  Permanent Link  |  Cosmos
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.

 

•

 

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

Leave Comment  |  Permanent Link  |  Cosmos
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.

 

•

 

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...
Leave Comment  |  Permanent Link  |  Cosmos
Thursday, October 18
View Article  How do the concepts of early Christian philosophy reinforce the concept of symbiotic panentheism? Part II of II
by Daniel J. Shepard on Thu 18 Oct 2007 12:00 AM EDT

How do the concepts of early Christian philosophy reinforce the concept of symbiotic panentheism?

 

Part II of II

... Also keep in mind that the model being examined within this trilogy is not professed to be ‘the’ model.

 

The point of the trilogy is to develop a process for the creation of a model that is the most accurate model we are capable of creating at this particular point in time using faiths, observations, and logic we have been able to gather as a species.

 

Early Christian philosophy is definitely a part of this.

 

•

 

We can no more ignore the perceptions of early Christian philosophy than we can the faiths of one billion Muslims, one billion Hindus, three hundred million Buddhists, three hundred million atheists, tens of millions of Jews or eight hundred million people who have no particular religious orientation.

 

All views must be respected and the only way to do that is to build a foundation capable of rationalizing the right of all individuals to exist within a physical reality, whose intention is understood in broad principle by all.

 

The intention of the unified view would be the creation of a universal philosophy.

 

The operative phrases here are unified view and universal.

 

One of the fundamental principles such a model would need to embrace in order to be unifying and universal is unconditional love, a basic principle of early Christian philosophy.

End

Leave Comment  |  Permanent Link  |  Cosmos