jtm@syteka.UUCP (Jim McCrae) (09/28/84)
In response to Ed Bernstein's recent pleas for a little more
"enlightened" understanding and discussion of the Big Guy Up There,
hey, I'm with you, Ed. But these mixed forums bring out the best
in us, true dialectic at work. After all, Ed, you and I need to
be challenged to state our points and arguments; back-patting is
not the way to understanding. Hence, I'd nix net.religion.<whateer>.
I would have to say, though, that Christians arguing details of
Christian ethics and ideals may wish to...oh, never mind, let them
use their 'n' keys.
Back to Ed's admonishment that we consider God in a way other
than as a great big humanoid with lots of power and a deep voice.
(How many of you thought "that's what God's really like!" when you
first saw "The Ten Commandments"? Don't be shy. I did.) I have read
that the word "Yahweh" in the dialect of Hebrew used at the time
the Old Testament was written was synomynous with "place". Now, if
you readily understand the connection you don't need Ed's pointer;
if you don't, you might want to look into Judeo-Christian mysticism.
Mysticism's not such a bad word, and it's not such a bad thing. I
think one can be an adherent of mysticism without having experienced
it firsthand. There is a growing awareness of the necessity of
"spirit" in modern science. (Sez who?! Sez me!) There are many of
us who were raised in the 20th century secular science-is-the-last-
word mindset who have comfortably come to grips with a very fulfilling
form of mysticism. No trances or fingernails to the floor, just an
acceptance that every moment and all it reveals to us is the immediate
incarnation of an underlying principle of existence we may as well
call God. As Karl Pribram ("Languages of the Brain") points out,
mysticism is no more unusual than the deregression of certain
sections of a DNA molecule in the course of telling a cell to get
some set of characteristics. (Bad language.)
Jim McCrae !hplabs!sytek!jtm