Moorad Alexanian wrote:
> Dear George,
>
> Spirit is that which is immaterial and a part of man. Man is body, mind and
> spirit. An animal is body and mind. Man cannot be explained as a material
> being only. The whole realm of the moral is outside the physical, yet it
> exists. Man exists in the realm of the physical/spiritual otherwise man
> could not make moral decisions. Some of what I say is what I consider
> self-evident. Perhaps they are not to you, but that is where we differ.
Hi Moorad;
Thanks for the response.
My Original question was: "What is the difference between spiritual and
material? " in the context of apologetic force; to which I proffered two
possible answers: 1) the notion of spirit is a holdover from pre-modern
superstitious notions of ghosts or 2) what is not made of baronic matter
(material) is defined as spirit. That is, I implied that neither of these
response would have no apologetic force.
You support the second with the qualification of baronic matter that has
organized into human beings. I tried to foresee your response when I mentioned
that this answer is "...simply creating word categories (and) that (doesn't)
don't have much apologetic appeal to scientists". Surly, the human psyche is
"immaterial and a part of man" but I you classify this as mind - separating mind
from spirit. By so doing however, you even further remove hope of cognition as
to what constitutes spirit - literally! If spirit is to involve religious
experience, science has shown religious experiences to simply be mental states
demonstrable in the labs of neurologists today. Thus, spirit, mind and body are
categories created and believed in by religious folk organizing their world-view
but are void of scientific merit and therefore have no apologetic appeal.
If you would, allow me to play the "atheist's advocate" to illustrate why I
raised the question I did in my post.
As a physicist, my scientific understanding of matter is that it is to be
thought of as energy and form and not at all as "hard substance" as classically
understood. What is a field quanta anyway? (this is to say nothing about
information which inhabits physical structures!) Hence, the demarcating line
between material and immaterial you offer as "self evident" is simply presumed
and antiquated with no apologetic force to a "materialist". Have you read the
recent series of article in Physics Today regarding "mass without mass"? Mass
can be thought of as consisting of massless entities! Is this spirit enough?
An appeal to morality is simply an appeal to human cultural norms which are also
imbedded in the physically real world of the human psyche and the practicality
of human cohabitation. It has nothing to do with ghostly portions of the human
condition. Such notions of spirit vs body are based solely upon Hebrew and Greek
religious/philosophical presuppositions alien to modern science.
(Atheist advocacy mode off ) :-)
It is one thing to claim "I believe" - and I join you with this proclamation of
faith in the cross of God's Christ; but a program that purports that "... to
bring the spiritual out of the materialist is to have him/her follow the logical
conclusion of their ideas and see how it leads to folly", will have to appeal to
something other than a presumed existence and dichotomy of spirit vs material:
to a materialist, spirit = psyche so the reasoning never gets off the ground.
Perhaps we can learn something from science (pun intended :-) ) when it comes to
thinking about the spirit. After all, Christianity is a physical religion very
concerned with the body - both present and future. Maybe psyche is enough for
God to be concerned over in regards to eternal life for humans and the
resurrection of the body is for a new "down load" of the information that is us
to take place in. Maybe not. :-). While these musings do require abandoning long
held notions of ghosts and mortals, I have found such ideas based upon
information and energy to be very effective in my apologetic endeavors with
scientifically sophisticated individuals.
God Bless You
George A.
>
> >> Dear Bert,
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Take care,
> >>
> >> Moorad
> >>
> >>
> >> >For me the bigger issue is bringing the materialist into the spiritual
> >> >realm and this is the battle to fight.
> >> >
> >> >
> >> >Bert M.
> >
> >
> >
> >
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