Mind, Matter, and Miracles
This article isn’t intended to be a philosophical exposition. It’s a collection of thoughts and impressions, based on personal experience and reflection – nothing more, nothing less; let experience be my guide, dare I say.
Our era is underwritten by measure, number, and weight. Above humanity, above beauty and poetry, above Nature and the Law, sits the exalted throne of “science.” In all of men’s problems, “science” holds the final say; it is the great arbiter. “Science” determines true from false, permissible from impermissible. The scientific elite, the “experts” emeritus, tend to their god with priestly devotion. To question this “god,” and its final judgement, is heresy; to question its servants is idiocy.
I recognize the immeasurable value of true science - inquiry about the manifold realities, possibilities, and mysteries of existence. Science has brought mankind from blind ignorance into rational understanding of the world. It has curbed suffering, sickness, and death; for this, I am grateful.
However, “science” itself has become a sort of sickness. In many men’s hearts, the perennial place of spirit has been dethroned by a zealous belief in a mechanical god. Man has been lifted from the instinctual, illogical thinking of the past, only to find himself imprisoned by the same mechanisms that previously liberated him. He ruthlessly defends his captor, fighting tooth and nail, for he finds identity and security in him. But without spirit, without universal Truth and spiritual love, man dwells in death and poverty.
I’ll briefly “get philosophical,” if I haven’t already. We, as human beings, tend to believe what we have been conditioned to believe. We inherit, consciously or unconsciously, the relics of familial, cultural, and sociological pasts. If we “believe in nothing,” generally, we still believe in something. The difference is, we have much less awareness of what we believe in. Many revel in this ignorance – I detest it.
I believe that the seeming vacation of spirit, of love, and compassion, from man’s heart is evident in today’s world. Data is unequivocally trusted over experience and intuition; ironically, data can prove nearly anything. Doctors and “health experts,” observably, are often skeletal and gaunt; does the phenomenology match the report? Do you trust “the data” over your own two eyes? Do you truly believe that in your heart, in the depths of your soul, you cannot discern what is True from what is false?
Rather than present some sort of formal argument, I’ll end this article with some questions, in hopes of sparking deeper reflection – I’m generally not one for arguments.
Do you believe, that perhaps, there is some aspect of reality beyond our own limited perceptions?
Do you believe that George Washington sufficiently consulted with statisticians prior to heading the war effort? What would they have told him?
Do you believe that Jesus received approval from leading physicists before turning water into wine?
