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Moontown_Rabbit
Guest
Yes. The goal of a Catholic is a heavenly paradise, while the Epicurean seeks an earthly utopia. This is not a trivial difference.
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4
4Horsemen
Guest
We are embodied spirits, not the slaves of our biological and genetic blueprint, which is the determinist postition. According to Dr. Patrick Haggard, a neuroscientist has “got to be a determinist . . . there is no ghost in the machine.” He claims it is an illusion that we are choosing freely. He has company in his thinking. An article in The Wanderer by Philip Trower attacks this assertion.
Denying free will is to deny moral responsibility. This removes any semblance of justice and law as well as all the higher things in life like love, beauty and goodness. Virtue would be meaningless. How could we appreciate the arts if pleasure is just stimulation of a nerve in a brain circuit? The determinists and empiricists cannot be living their own beliefs when they leave their ivory tower offices and interact with others. They may discover that they are more than a sum total of “causal influences” at the moment, but are an essential “me” or ego.
The relationship of brain to mind is like that of a car to its driver. If the car breaks down, he can’t use it. As long as it works, the person is in charge and operates the car. It seems simplistic, but seemingly mind-boggling to the determinists.
Our bodies eventually break down and disintegrate, but the component that survives is the soul, which has eyes of its own. St. Teresa of Avila mentions the “eyes of the soul” in her works,writing that one can see the spiritual world more clearly and that “intellectual visions” were on a higher plane than corporeal or imaginative visions, the “essence of the soul.”
Denying free will is to deny moral responsibility. This removes any semblance of justice and law as well as all the higher things in life like love, beauty and goodness. Virtue would be meaningless. How could we appreciate the arts if pleasure is just stimulation of a nerve in a brain circuit? The determinists and empiricists cannot be living their own beliefs when they leave their ivory tower offices and interact with others. They may discover that they are more than a sum total of “causal influences” at the moment, but are an essential “me” or ego.
The relationship of brain to mind is like that of a car to its driver. If the car breaks down, he can’t use it. As long as it works, the person is in charge and operates the car. It seems simplistic, but seemingly mind-boggling to the determinists.
Our bodies eventually break down and disintegrate, but the component that survives is the soul, which has eyes of its own. St. Teresa of Avila mentions the “eyes of the soul” in her works,writing that one can see the spiritual world more clearly and that “intellectual visions” were on a higher plane than corporeal or imaginative visions, the “essence of the soul.”
4
4Horsemen
Guest
We are embodied spirits, not the slaves of our biological and genetic blueprint, which is the determinist postition. According to Dr. Patrick Haggard, a neuroscientist has “got to be a determinist . . . there is no ghost in the machine.” He claims it is an illusion that we are choosing freely. He has company in his thinking. An article in The Wanderer by Philip Trower attacks this assertion.
Denying free will is to deny moral responsibility. This removes any semblance of justice and law as well as all the higher things in life like love, beauty and goodness. Virtue would be meaningless. How could we appreciate the arts if pleasure is just stimulation of a nerve in a brain circuit? The determinists and empiricists cannot be living their own beliefs when they leave their ivory tower offices and interact with others. They may discover that they are more than a sum total of “causal influences” at the moment, but are an essential “me” or ego.
The relationship of brain to mind is like that of a car to its driver. If the car breaks down, he can’t use it. As long as it works, the person is in charge and operates the car. It seems simplistic, but seemingly mind-boggling to the determinists.
Our bodies eventually break down and disintegrate, but the component that survives is the soul, which has eyes of its own. St. Teresa of Avila mentions the “eyes of the soul” in her works,writing that one can see the spiritual world more clearly and that “intellectual visions” were on a higher plane than corporeal or imaginative visions, the “essence of the soul.”
For those with a background in microbiology, Trower recommends reading The Hidden Face of God subtitled “Science Reveals the Ultimate Truth” by Gerald L. Schroeder.
Denying free will is to deny moral responsibility. This removes any semblance of justice and law as well as all the higher things in life like love, beauty and goodness. Virtue would be meaningless. How could we appreciate the arts if pleasure is just stimulation of a nerve in a brain circuit? The determinists and empiricists cannot be living their own beliefs when they leave their ivory tower offices and interact with others. They may discover that they are more than a sum total of “causal influences” at the moment, but are an essential “me” or ego.
The relationship of brain to mind is like that of a car to its driver. If the car breaks down, he can’t use it. As long as it works, the person is in charge and operates the car. It seems simplistic, but seemingly mind-boggling to the determinists.
Our bodies eventually break down and disintegrate, but the component that survives is the soul, which has eyes of its own. St. Teresa of Avila mentions the “eyes of the soul” in her works,writing that one can see the spiritual world more clearly and that “intellectual visions” were on a higher plane than corporeal or imaginative visions, the “essence of the soul.”
For those with a background in microbiology, Trower recommends reading The Hidden Face of God subtitled “Science Reveals the Ultimate Truth” by Gerald L. Schroeder.
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4Horsemen
Guest
Sorry about the double post! 
I
inocente
Guest
Not sure why a portion of creation has to be incorporeal.
Ghosts, ghouls and zombies seem a lot more scary than physical explanations - the more superstitions that get binned the better.
I’d say we’re living in interesting times, where an old worldview is in the process of being replaced, and out of that in future there will come a new spirituality. Materialism is a temporary phenomenon, a part of the current confusion. It’s in our nature to have spiritual feelings, they can’t be denied for long, and God always has something up His sleeve.
M
Moontown_Rabbit
Guest
God created the law of gravity and Rachmaninoff created his 3rd concerto. Both are intrinsically incorporeal (you can test this by trying to identify a single corporeal property within either that is not contingent upon another object). If you replace “has to be” with “is” you’re good to go!
If superstitious and false are synonyms, then we should get rid of 'em while being careful not to call real incorporeal things superstitions. St. Micheal is on our side but he might get steamed if he heard someone declare that angels do not exist.
I
inocente
Guest
That’ll teach me - I thought you were using incorporeal as in supernatural rather than spiritual. Fell over this today – Señor Thomas working out if light is a body - ccel.org/ccel/aquinas/summa.FP_Q67_A2.html. I’m still going to go with God creating a physical universe though.
Baptists are not required to have saints to get steamed, and some even go so far as to say angels are metaphors.
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