 Posted Friday, June 05, 2009 1:22 PM
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Anonymous June 5, 2009 @ 2:55:48 PM,
Sorry Do Go Be Man but I don't follow.
Hopefully without appearing disrespectful, I am not surprised. In all the years I was in Christian Science and since, I have not encountered any Christian Scientist able or willing to address the dichotomy of using matter to deny matter. Even the publication of Science and Health required paper, matter. Christian Science churches may be structures of truth and love, but they are constructed of bricks and mortar, matter. Music and sound systems in the churches come from organs, pianos, and amplifiers, matter. The sounds they create resonate in congregational ears, matter. spirituality.com, christianscience.com, and other such web sites spread the teachings of Mary Baker Eddy using electronic data streams, matter. You shared with us through a material chain including your keyboard, computer, and Internet connection.
I assume that you breath air, matter, consume food and water, matter, wear clothes, matter. Perhaps you, your practitioner, teacher, or readers wear glasses, matter. Have you or any other Christian Scientist of which you are aware made the demonstration over matter to the point of eliminating even a rudimentary reliance on matter? Mary Baker Eddy did eventually make that demonstration in that she has "shuffled off this mortal coil" yet her followers built an elaborate material tomb to mark the location of her mortal, material, remains.
Do Go Be Man
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Posted Saturday, June 06, 2009 8:23 AM
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Mere Kat,
>>Let me try to help. Plank did not say "matter doesn't exist" That is what Eddy said. --Plank said: "There is no matter as such." It's the "as such" part that you are missing. It means that matter exists, but not the way it is perceived --not as solid entities --"as such". You can't quote Eddy or Plank out of context and expect to prove anything.<<
Semantics again. Like the definition of “Is”.
Perhaps an example will help the discussion…If matter is real, solid stuff, and disease is caused by real solid matter based germs, viruses, etc, and pharmaceuticals are based on real, solid matter based science that has a provable one-to-one effect on the treatment of disease...why do placebos have any effect at all?
"And it's curious that you refer to "life-saving material cure for what ever ails you", ......modern medicine rates between first and third as the leading cause of death in the US.."
>>I'm wondering ---are you saying you will refuse insulin shots if you develop diabetes, or you will not accept chloroquine if you contract malaria?<<
Not at all.
Your use of the term “life-saving material cure for what ever ails you” is saying that relying on modern medicine is a slam dunk to “cure what ever ails you”, and facts tell a far different story.
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Posted Saturday, June 06, 2009 8:27 AM
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>>Hopefully without appearing disrespectful, I am not surprised. In all the years I was in Christian Science and since, I have not encountered any Christian Scientist able or willing to address the dichotomy of using matter to deny matter.<<
It’s that darn communication thing. We speak to each other in an attempt to better understand each other, and this is a good thing. Till the discussion turns to God, then we get to discredit each other’s views crafting our responses by what the other said, rather than reason, prejudice of course leading the way.
By taking the tack you did, you have to realize that you opened your own theology to such scrutiny, which I can assure you falls apart using like observations as you have. And we get absolutely nowhere doing that.
As I’m sure you are aware Eddy addresses the point you raised. In her explanation referred to as, “Scientific Translation of Immortal Mind” where she uses three degrees.
1st degree- Depravity….
2nd degree- Evil beliefs disappearing…
3rd degree-Understanding
Admittedly to someone who is determined to hold on tenaciously to matter based reasoning, Eddy’s explanation won’t help much. But their argument against it does more to reveal their bias rather than discredit Eddy, which is usually their motive to begin with.
Perhaps another way of discussing the reality of matter would be by asking, “Does matter exist beyond perception?” Advanced physics says and has proven it does not. Does this mean these physicists agree with Eddy? I doubt it, but that’s not the point anyway.
The point of a discussion of God to me is to advance perception to a higher realm of reasoning. Christians are quite familiar with this as Jesus did so by using familiar, everyday examples, i.e. “the kingdom of heaven is like”, sowing seed, leaven, hidden treasure, a man seeking pearls,… employing such reasoning to get his listeners to get a glimpse that God’s kingdom is at hand. To give them what Oprah calls the “Ah-Hahhh” moment.
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Posted Saturday, June 06, 2009 11:50 AM
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| Anonymous, You are not being fair. You retreat behind claims of semantics, yet you are the one who is making false arguments -- crudely and rudely changing other people's statements to suit your own fancy. You were wrong about Plank, and you should just admit it. Plank did not say "matter is unreal", and I did not say "matter is real, solid stuff or that disease is caused by real solid matter." Likewise, "...you might not avail yourself of a life-saving material cure for what ever ails you." does not mean "relying on modern medicine is a slam dunk to 'cure what ever ails you'" Where do you get this stuff? There are limits to modern medicine. I know that personally. I've lost a brother to HIV AIDS, a father to cancer, another family member to the ravages of Ahlziemers, another to ALS. Modern medicine did not --could not cure them, but it did make their lives more comfortable, and it certainly did not kill them. Given your ready acceptance of modern medical treatments, (insulin and cholorquine), I could assume that you disagree with Mary Baker Eddy's assertions that "Christian Science exterminates the drug, and rests on Mind alone as the curative Principle..." or "It is not wise to take a halting and half-way position or to expect to work equally with Spirit and matter," or maybe you blame this retreat to the tried and true, sure cures of medical science to your lack of understanding of CS?
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Posted Saturday, June 06, 2009 2:35 PM
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My stars, what bloody awful debate this turned out to be. Frankly I don't much care whether matter is real or unreal, all I care is that I have enough money to buy the stuff I need to buy the gas to fuel up my car, and drive to the market to buy foods to feed my kids and my neighbors, visit the prisoners and the widows, give aid to the men and women who have been beaten up and left for dead by the road side. To me that stuff was commanded, and it is what matters most. And I couldn't care less whether the body, the money, the car, the food, the neighbors are real or not. Let's eat. It feels good inside of me to eat.
Whether quantum physics says this is all a joke is beyond the ability of the mind that I possess to figure out when I so fiercely crave a plate of solid, lightly seasoned and gently cooked but still fresh food to eat .... don't give me a MBE scientific statement of being sandwich, give me a real solid material sandwich! I'll eat it, and by it's taste and texture I will know it. Thank you very much. And when you come over to my house at lunch time, you will not get a recitation of MBE's "proof" of our unreality, you will get a nice fresh crunchy salad served on a pretty plate, and I will offer you a cushy, clean chair to sit on. If your body is unreal you can pass up the salad and stand on your unreal little feet in your unreal shoes, on my unreal floor. But then I wonder why you came by car or bus and didn't just pop in by astral projection?
no moreCS4me
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Posted Saturday, June 06, 2009 3:01 PM
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| Hear, hear no moreCS4me, It's refreshing to hear someone talk about those things that truly matter. Thanks for weighing in!
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Posted Saturday, June 06, 2009 6:59 PM
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Anonymous, my friend; if CS is helping you so much why are you here in this forum? If you are being helped by it and thereby witness its usefulness, then why are you questioning it? Moreover, why question it in a forum such as this?
Is there something more that is bothering you? Please share with us more about how CS helps you and, if applicable, where you find yourself questioning it.
--STEVE O.
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Posted Saturday, June 06, 2009 8:40 PM
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Mere Cat, John, Do Go Be Man, Linda,
Thanks for giving me the space here to vent my views. You are absolutely the best friends I have ever had because you allow me to say things that I have had bottled up inside of me for many decades. No one else ever wanted to hear about it.... you have cared so much about CSers whether they were still practicing or whether they were angry formers ... You have published whatever I have had to say in the past months on these threads without censoring me. Believe me, I know I am the least polite of the bunch here and I hold my breath every time I press that "Post Reply" button, scared that you will reprimand me for my wild emotions, sarcasm, lack of tact, and dark humor. But you always allow me freedom of speech, and often times you validate me by addressing me in a posted reply which I greatly appreciate.
You are sanity savers par excellence.
no more CS4me
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Posted Sunday, June 07, 2009 10:24 AM
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I puzzled for many years as to the existence or not of matter. When I was a CSist I came to beleive that matter was nothing, as I learnt about each particle, atoms etc getting smaller and smaller until perhaps matter itself ultimately could not be found. After leaving CS I started to realise that I was missing the other fundamental property of the reality around us, which was energy and energy fields.
I think the answers to all this are to be found not in "how" we are here in this world, but "why". I have found the accounts of people who have had "near death experiences " very illuminating. There are hundreds of these and all have certain key consistencies. One of these is that we have been sent here to this world, sanctioned and created by God himself, to learn and grow. And the most important thing we are sent here is to love. We have been given families and friends in all their dynamics to learn about different kinds of love, such as love for a child, parent etc, and of course things like mercy, justice, forgiveness, which perhaps cannot be learnt any other way than being in a world like this.
The wonderful things that this has given me are that God knows all about this world and our progress in it, and that we do have a very real purpose to fulfill here. So unlike the CS view.
Starfish
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Posted Tuesday, June 09, 2009 6:19 AM
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Mere Kat,
>>You are not being fair. You retreat behind claims of semantics, yet you are the one who is making false arguments -- crudely and rudely changing other people's statements to suit your own fancy. You were wrong about Plank, and you should just admit it.<<
I quoted Planck. How does that make me wrong? Wouldn’t that make Planck wrong? Is that what you’re saying?
>> Plank did not say "matter is unreal", and I did not say "matter is real, solid stuff or that disease is caused by real solid matter."<<
Then is matter real or not? Yes or No works fine for me.
>> Likewise, "...you might not avail yourself of a life-saving material cure for what ever ails you." does not mean "relying on modern medicine is a slam dunk to 'cure what ever ails you'" Where do you get this stuff? <<
Sorry, it’s hard to distinguish the difference.
>>Where do you get this stuff?<<
From your posts.
>>There are limits to modern medicine. I know that personally. I've lost a brother to HIV AIDS, a father to cancer, another family member to the ravages of Ahlziemers, another to ALS. Modern medicine did not --could not cure them, but it did make their lives more comfortable, and it certainly did not kill them.<<
I’m sorry for you loss.
If you’re interested in facts concerning modern medicine go to this site…
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2004/07/07/healthcare-death-ref.aspx
You’ll see references to Journal of the American Medical Assoc, Center for Disease Control, Institute of Medicine, and many others.
>>Given your ready acceptance of modern medical treatments, (insulin and cholorquine), I could assume that you disagree with Mary Baker Eddy's assertions that "Christian Science exterminates the drug, and rests on Mind alone as the curative Principle..." or "It is not wise to take a halting and half-way position or to expect to work equally with Spirit and matter," or maybe you blame this retreat to the tried and true, sure cures of medical science to your lack of understanding of CS?<<
No, I don’t disagree with Eddy, I don’t understand everything she said, but then I don’t understand a lot of things from Scripture either, but this doesn’t mean I disagree with Scripture. Just that understanding God takes work.
Here’s a conundrum for me…
I can understand loving God with all my heart, soul, mind and strength on an intellectual level, it’s the day-to-day living that trips me up. Just like loving my neighbor as myself seems easy enough, but who does that?
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