You're using the word "believe" with two different meanings. An atheist's disbelief is about the real existence of something there's no evidence of, but what you call "belief in the great beast" is just the simple commitment to face the world as it shows and live life with sound judgement. Both things, atheism and a reasonable approach to life, seem to go together.Nick_A wrote:Atheism can mean many things. An atheist may not believe in one personal god or many gods or any gods yet may believe in the great Beast which is the God of society. So it is a hard question to do justice to.
But what "conscious Source of creation outside of time and space"? The more we use deductive reasoning, the more we are compelled to disbelieve that such an entity could ever exist. If such an entity dwelled "outside of time and space", there couldn't even be a moment of creation. For something to be a source, would require a movement from a previous state to another, but that would be impossible for an entity that by definition would be static and lacking any dimensional properties, like a body would. And if "creation" is the body of god, then it wouldn't be created, right?Nick_A wrote:Both deductive and inductive reason are used within the one level of reality of secularism. However, in order to understand the connection between a conscious Source of creation outside of time and space and creation itself, the body of God, a person must be open to the use of deductive reason that can visualize levels of reality like the Russian dolls where one exists within the other.
We could approach this either epistemologically or ontologically. From an ontological point of view, two levels of reality would actually account for dualism, which is nonsense. From an epistemological point of view, we could divide reality (the one and only there can be) in many levels, according to the depth of our knowledge of the world. But of course, that would be just a conceptual classification in our minds, not a real and objective separation of things in the world.Nick_A wrote:Before considering the structure of the universe as levels of reality, can you admit the potential for two levels of reality referred to by Plato in the divided line analogy? If not, then the structure of the universe based on levels of reality will be nonsense for you.
The problem is that a person "opening to the reality" actually means here closing his/her mind to the reality reachable by sense and reason, and embracing blindly a set of ideas about things supposedly happening in other unreachable domains, just because some people told them so, even though these folks have no way of demonstrating it. All they can say is: "well, remember the cave, if reality were what we say it is, you wouldn't distinguish it from the shadows and you wouldn't believe us". The same argument could be told against these enlightened mystics: "yet, there could be another level beyond your reality that you can't see". The game would never end.Nick_A wrote:Plato spoke of the intelligible world beyond the visible world the secularist claims as the totality of reality. But as soon as a person opens to the reality of the intelligible world as a higher level of reality, then the question of its source appears which Plato called the Good and Plotinus called the One.
This contravenes your own argument that "the beneficial effects of grace on the human psyche" are required for true knowledge. In that case, the key element for the supposed transcendental connection was to come from outside, from the external agent (the divine). But as we progress in our inquiries, such element of "grace" keeps being absent and you resort to the same thing that you said we should not trust: the human condition. What else could be a person's "sincere efforts" or the courage to develop abilities and achieve things? That looks pretty mundane to me.Nick_A wrote:If this were true, the Ways would be useless. A person may walk up to a piano and be unable to play it. This doesn’t mean they cannot develop the ability to play the piano. A person beginning with the sincere efforts to “know thyself” can become capable of experiencing higher consciousness. The world may frown upon it but those with the need and courage can develop themselves inwardly on the path to becoming conscious individuals.
That may be a beautiful fable, but it will be even better if we exclude any supernatural, disembodied, spiritual entity dwelling in an immaterial realm. Allegories apart, some civilizations worshiped the sun and it would have made more sense, wouldn't it?Nick_A wrote:It is the same with a human being. The roots or the lower parts of the collective human essence requires a healthy society and a metaxu that emphasizes human quality. At the same time the higher parts of the human essence requires the nourishment of grace just like the plant needs the sunlight. When we remain closed the quality of human being is diminished just as the plant is killed or diminished without sunlight. A healthy metaxu and the conscious opening to receive the nourishment of grace assures normal healthy human beings. The human condition as it is prevents what should be normal.
You referred to it as "a conscious Source of creation outside of time and space" which also has a body ("creation itself, the body of God"). That sounds like a person.Nick_A wrote:You are referring to man made interpretations and idolatry. The One is not a person.