Sunday, February 26, 2006
'The Dynamic Unity of Reality'
One quote from Einstein mentioned in the sermon at church this morning, and my effort to find it online, led me to a site dedicated to Truth and Reality -- as apposed to "truth, justice and the American way."
Very interesting stuff.
Here's the quote that got me looking:
"The most beautiful and most profound experience is the sensation of the mystical. It is the sower of all true science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead. To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their primitive forms - this knowledge, this feeling is at the center of true religiousness."
-- Albert Einstein. "The Merging of Spirit and Science"
And here's another one to spark thinking:
"A human being is part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. We experience ourselves, our thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest. A kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from the prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. The true value of a human being is determined by the measure and the sense in which they have obtained liberation from the self. We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if humanity is to survive.
-- Albert Einstein, 1954
I took the liberty of boldfacing the parts that speak to me as a Christian.
--ER
Very interesting stuff.
Here's the quote that got me looking:
"The most beautiful and most profound experience is the sensation of the mystical. It is the sower of all true science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead. To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their primitive forms - this knowledge, this feeling is at the center of true religiousness."
-- Albert Einstein. "The Merging of Spirit and Science"
And here's another one to spark thinking:
"A human being is part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. We experience ourselves, our thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest. A kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from the prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. The true value of a human being is determined by the measure and the sense in which they have obtained liberation from the self. We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if humanity is to survive.
-- Albert Einstein, 1954
I took the liberty of boldfacing the parts that speak to me as a Christian.
--ER
Comments:
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"I took the liberty of boldfacing the parts that speak to me as a Christian."
the emphasized passages also speak to the secular humanist in me. many of the things i most value are entirely intangible.
KEvron
the emphasized passages also speak to the secular humanist in me. many of the things i most value are entirely intangible.
KEvron
My point being that nothing in the search for truth in science, or the search for truth in metaphysics, or the search for truth in religious faith -- none of its has to contradict.
It's all a search for understanding. And any scientist, or metaphysician(?) or religious believer who claims to have the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth is being untrue to science, to philosophy, and to faith.
But that's just my take on it. :-)
It's all a search for understanding. And any scientist, or metaphysician(?) or religious believer who claims to have the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth is being untrue to science, to philosophy, and to faith.
But that's just my take on it. :-)
Blogger is a bit bloggy some days. That happened to me the other day when I had a followup response to something you posted -- later on, mine showed up before the post I was referring to! Maybe you need to put some prunes in your hard drive to make it run a little more regularly.
Did my heart good, BTW, to see that one of the adult Sunday school classes at the crazy lefty church has taken up Jimmy Carter's new book as a text. :-)
God bless James Earl Carter, and his wilderness-crying voice.
God bless James Earl Carter, and his wilderness-crying voice.
I think you misunderstood what Einstein was saying. In fact, those statements are more in line with the Buddah than with Jesus. His views on the existence of God were more clear in this quote:
"I cannot conceive of a god who rewards and punishes it's creatures or has a will of the kind that we experience in ourselves. Neither can I -nor would I want to- conceive of an individual that survives his physical death. Let feeble souls, from fear or absurd egotism, cherish such thoughts. I am satisfied with the mystery of the eternity of life and a glimpse of the marvelous structure of the existing world, together with the devoted striving to comprehend a protion, be it ever so tiny, of the Reason that minifest itself in nature."
I think what he was trying to say is that you cannot possibly know why we are here or if there is a God the way you or I might conceive of Him. His religiousness was more the feeling of being absolutely in awe of how amazing the Universe is and how it is even more amazing to understand even a little bit of the science behind how it works.
Interesting discussion and great web site.
"I cannot conceive of a god who rewards and punishes it's creatures or has a will of the kind that we experience in ourselves. Neither can I -nor would I want to- conceive of an individual that survives his physical death. Let feeble souls, from fear or absurd egotism, cherish such thoughts. I am satisfied with the mystery of the eternity of life and a glimpse of the marvelous structure of the existing world, together with the devoted striving to comprehend a protion, be it ever so tiny, of the Reason that minifest itself in nature."
I think what he was trying to say is that you cannot possibly know why we are here or if there is a God the way you or I might conceive of Him. His religiousness was more the feeling of being absolutely in awe of how amazing the Universe is and how it is even more amazing to understand even a little bit of the science behind how it works.
Interesting discussion and great web site.
# posted by 
: 8:02 AM
: 8:02 AM
Thanks, Anon. But I argue that what people *say* Jesus is about is different than what Jesus said. I have no problem with the Einstein remark being Buddahan, or, as KEvron pointed out, secular-humanist -- it also is Jesusian.
Makes sense, I think, for one who emphasizes Jesus's inclusivity over the church's general tendency toward -- and fundamentalism's radical insistance on -- exclusivity.
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Makes sense, I think, for one who emphasizes Jesus's inclusivity over the church's general tendency toward -- and fundamentalism's radical insistance on -- exclusivity.
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