“Using reason alone to find a way to the divine would be a bit like using guidebooks to discover a new country without ever rising from your seat. The discourse of reason are never going to produce momentous myths like the burning bush, the right journey to Jerusalem or the empty tomb. These are meaningful stories, not arguments, and they, rather than philosophical algebra, are the basic stuff of spiritual search and practice.”
Mark Vernon – from the Big Questions.
This is my new book that I stopped to buy at Chapters. I will add it to the pile on a desk similar to this.
How can God, the unknown, be clearly presence to me and still be perplexing? Seems reasonable to me.
After reading the first chapter on want is a human, without the appeal to ancient or religious authority but purely in mathematical terms, the conclusion seems to be the mind and soul are
distinct from the body. Reading this from Rene Descartes one gets the feeling we are all mechanical beings. Reason seems to be built on certainties and experiences and yet doubt seems to still be true.
Again today I learned it is good to have a plan B, because instead of sitting in a quiet booth we ended up at a happy, slightly noisy group of golfers. We had a good visit, nevertheless getting to know Daniel a little better. Time went by very fast.
We carried on to visit cousin Eileen and talking to her and the social worker enabled her to make a decision. It sounds very harsh when one is told you will be making a decision to have no further treatment but to be in a place where you will be well taken care of.
I was hoping to do some work in the garden when I got home but I was exhausted.
Dad did not finish his hospice course because you are not allowed to miss a session and he was ill so could not attend. He will now be doing his hospice visiting with his very own cousin.
"If for any reason whatsoever, moral standards are conspicuously and unprecedentedly breached in one area of society, such as political, it will follow as night the day, that those standards will start collapsing all down the line- in sports, entertainment, education, the armed forces, business and government." - Margret Haley
5 comments:
Mr. Vernon leaves out reason and creativity (which are surely related). The god shape is much more like a song than an angry old-man-with-a-beard floating on a cloud. The thing about the god shape is that it doesn't 'care' about what humans do any more than it cares what the oceans do. That is why all (and I do mean all) religious doctrine is in no way (and I do mean no way) related to god. Except maybe some of the music bits, but then it is an accidental connection.
Love,
Rick
PS I'm in Saskatoon, staying at the Bessborough Hotel until tomorrow morning. River is high but only very minor flooding.
The rules that religions impose are human rules. Jesus didn't rise from the dead (cheap parlour trick, really) but he did see that truth.
Rick
Good to have your comments Rick.
Enjoy your stay there, dad and I never stayed there but atr there maybe once or twice.
love mom
Sunny cold here today , sunny top of 17c, not that cold... The kids start two weeks holiday today. Very busy day at work today everyone flying north to enjoy the warmth. They issued Jasmine and Matthews passport yesterday.
Ken
Last day of school for Ben and Morgan. Ben is having a party.
love mom
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