Comments on: Spirituality vs. Science: Fight?

By: Pam Hogeweide

Pam Hogeweide — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 09:04:40 +0000

I loved how you said,

“But “question everything” doesn’t mean “believe nothing”.”

Totally. I totally get that and say a hearty-praise-the-Lord-Amen!

As a follower of Christ, I often downplay and keep secretive some of the experiences I have hearing the voice of God. The dreams I have. The uncanny knowing of Knowing without any reasonable explanation of that knowing. I minimize it. I hide.

And it does not serve anyone when that hiding is out of insecurity. I understand the wisdom of patience and caution, yet this is not why I often hang back in expressing the reality of the dynamic friendship I enjoy with God.

It definitely distills down to faith. And a preacher friend of mine asked, How do you spell faith?
R-I-S-K.

We risk being foolish and sounding foolish by what we put our faith into. And of course we risk being duped and led astray. Some agnostic friends of mine who are cynical towards Christianity sometimes try to dissuade me from my paradigm of faith with their rational arguments. I finally had to tell them, “Hey, I don’t know. How can anyone know for sure about anything. But what I do know is that following Christ has helped me be a kinder more loving human being. So I will follow Jesus all the days of life…”

This was such a great post. And it’s the last one of the day for me. Long summer days with active teens in the house means I’m staying up way too late. Time to hit it.

Blessings to you guys!

Pam Hogeweide’s last blog post..Demotivational Devotional: Unpurposed Living {Day Four}

By: Goddess Leonie | Goddess Guidebook

Goddess Leonie | Goddess Guidebook — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 00:36:55 +0000

I adore, adore, adore this post possum.
My word for this year is: Faith.
No matter what else is going on, just keep trusting and having faith that I am loved, I am taken care of, Great Spirit is all around me, and that all will be well.
Recently I went back home to my family’s land. And so many of my family don’t believe in anything. And it got me to thinking about *why* I believe.
I believe because the deep wise voice inside me tells me so.
I believe because it makes my life richer, more wonderful and more amazing than I could imagine.
I believe because that I was born to do – follow this spirit named Leonie and find out what gifts she has to tell me.

Big love you
xoxo

By: Tatty Franey

Tatty Franey — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 21:19:51 +0000

oh Kyeli, what a wonderful post. i too choose to believe. and i talk to my guides all the time, and they reassure me when things are tough. and they help me pick up pieces of me when i break down. and the fairies? they sprinkle golden glitter on me every night. and anyone other than my parents of my husband take it all as a big joke from weird Tatty. but that’s ok :)
thanks for posting this, so so much!

By: James

James — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 20:15:47 +0000

A question for you. You talk a lot about paradigms and paradigm shifting. Do you believe that people who follow different paradigms experience different worlds (i.e. if I believe in fairies, they exist for me, but they won’t exist for the person standing next to me who is a Born Again Christian.), or do you believe that a paradigm is a way a person has of explaining and interpreting the world around them and we all experience the same world?

By: Kira

Kira — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 19:08:10 +0000

I’m happiest when I have an explanation from science and from spirituality for the same phenomenon. And when I don’t have an explanation, I have faith. I choose to believe in the gods, and act as though unseen forces are real because it makes my life more meaningful and interesting. I prefer the kinds of reality-making I can do within my witchy paradigm. But I never forget that it was a choice. I don’t like people who believe in something as a default, without questioning it, or because their culture tells them to. Faith is always a choice.

By: Julia

Julia — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 17:07:42 +0000

I’ve just started reading Simon Westchester’s book about Krakatoa (and since I’ve just started it, and I’m going to say something about what’s in the first 8 pages of over 300, I figure that’s not spoiling anything, right?). Its eruption/destruction in 1883 was traumatic for humanity, not because it was a big-ass mountain blowing up and throwing all sorts of things into the air that messed with weather for a good while, but because portions of humanity were making a paradigm shift from using religion to explain things to using science to explain things — and while this was happening, there wasn’t enough *information* to explain how it could have happened for a long time, and this was psychologically traumatic to a great many people.

(If anyone wants a quote of the most relevant paragraph, the one I thought of when I was reading this post, I’ve checked the box to be notified by e-mail of any more comments here, and I’ll be happy to come back with it any time before Wednesday. And holler if you want to know more about the book once I’ve finished it — at page 18, he’s working on some of the political history of the era, and that’s as far as I’ve gotten at this point. But so far, I’m finding it to be very interesting.)

By: Nathalie Lussier

Nathalie Lussier — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 23:30:36 +0000

You are such a brave soul, pioneer woman, and wonderful witch. Yay!! I totally believe in faeries, and my spiritual guide is a hummingbird. I've had him since I was like 10 or so, and my dad always encouraged me to keep my connection with him. So I've been really lucky to have such an open minded dad, when it came to spirituality. I freaked my mom out by buying lots of Wiccan/Pagan books in my early teens. She got over it eventually, but I stopped mentioning it too. Now I'm really taking a look at where I lost track of my spiritual path along the way, and getting back in the groove! :) Thank you for putting yourself and your spirituality out there. It has been life changing, and I'm sure others are also equally touched! Nathalie Lussier’s last blog post..Organic Food: The Raw Debate Over Benefits of Organic

By: kate

kate — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 19:17:17 +0000

“And because I don’t talk about it, I don’t know anyone else who has experienced anything like anything I have.”

wow – this jumped out at me because i really don’t talk about my spirituality either. much less publicly! in a blog! and at the same time i complain (mostly in my head) that there is no one to talk to about… spiritual things!

It seems so obvious here, but honestly, i think i just keep waiting for someone else be the brave one and start the conversation. my ‘spirit’ stuff is different from yours, yet i find yours fascinating too and still relate-able. I really do hope you write more about these things in the blog!

THANK YOU for sharing!! it strengthens those of us who are big chickens :)

By: Sandy

Sandy — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 17:46:53 +0000

You’ve got me thinking on a bunch of different tangents already… not the least of which is “oh wow, I lead 2 separate lives – one in which I am a witch, priestess and teacher and one in which I’m just a ‘regular’ person.” Some serious thinking to do there.

The other thing is, the best scientist end up nearly as mystics. Look at Einstein and most of your quantum physicists. The people who cannot abide both, who have such insecurity in their world that science can be the only answer practice what I call the religion of science. What you, I think, call the paradigm of science. But I think there is another paradigm of true science. One that is much more about asking questions and seeking to understand the universe and how we interact with it… and that is not so far from the paradigm of most witches. The people who practice the religion of science don’t believe in questions until they already have answers. What a very difficult way to live.

By: Bryan

Bryan — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 17:36:28 +0000

“In the book, the author made the usual error. In our dominant culture, science is the dominant paradigm, so if the events in the book had happened today in our reality, it would be only natural for the boy to turn to science.

But in the boy’s paradigm, that would have actually been completely impossible.”

The author creates the world and decides what is or isn’t possible. The author can’t make the usual error because the author is the creator of what’s in the boy’s head. And it’s certainly possible for someone from a religious culture to reject everything they’ve been told. Otherwise, we’d have no atheists to begin with.

Maybe you’re making the usual error in comparing the boy with yourself?