One Of My Favorite Quotes:

[Will Campbell]

From one of my heroes:

"I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, whose purposes are modeled after our own--a God, in short, who is but a reflection of human fraility. Neither can I believe that the individual survives the death of his body, although feeble souls harbor such thoughts through fear or ridiculous egotism. It is enough for me to contemplate the mystery of conscious life perpetuating itself through all eternity, to reflect upon the marvelous structure of the universe which we can dimly perceive, and to try humbly to comprehend even an infinitesimal part of the intelligence manifested in nature."
~Dr. Albert Einstein~

 

[beenherebeforeagain]

Welcome, Will!
One of my heroes, as well. Although, I'm not above criticizing and challenging my heroes. While there is much to admire in this quote, I have never had the confidence in my own knowledge--or the knowledge of others--to be comfortable offering blanket judgments on whether or not others' souls are "feeble" or not, especially based on just one belief about one particular aspect of reality. Not to mention, there are other possible origins for belief in continued existence beyond death outside of fear and egotism.

I am more interested in his statement about "the mystery of conscious life perpetuating itself through all eternity:" what does he mean by that? Conscious life has not always existed, and there is no guarantee of it continuing for any given amount of time, much less "all eternity." In fact, I think the laws of physics rather militate against any such prospect. I also wonder about the statement on "the intelligence manifested in nature."

That aside, I find his thought very powerful, that we observe and contemplate the wonders of nature. While he worked tirelessly during his life to "understand the mind of God," and come up with that relatively simple equation to describe all of physical existence, I think he also understood that even if we were to come up with that description of reality, it would be only a dim perception of something grander.

Thanks for posting this thought-provoker!

 

[Will Campbell]

Another favorite quote....another hero:

"The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter. But we may hope that the dawn of reason and freedom of thought in these United States will do away with all this artificial scaffolding."
~Thomas Jefferson~ excerpt from a letter written to John Adams dated April 11, 1823.

 

[Will Campbell]

Welcome, Will!
One of my heroes, as well. Although, I'm not above criticizing and challenging my heroes. While there is much to admire in this quote, I have never had the confidence in my own knowledge--or the knowledge of others--to be comfortable offering blanket judgments on whether or not others' souls are "feeble" or not, especially based on just one belief about one particular aspect of reality. Not to mention, there are other possible origins for belief in continued existence beyond death outside of fear and egotism.

I am more interested in his statement about "the mystery of conscious life perpetuating itself through all eternity:" what does he mean by that? Conscious life has not always existed, and there is no guarantee of it continuing for any given amount of time, much less "all eternity." In fact, I think the laws of physics rather militate against any such prospect. I also wonder about the statement on "the intelligence manifested in nature."

That aside, I find his thought very powerful, that we observe and contemplate the wonders of nature. While he worked tirelessly during his life to "understand the mind of God," and come up with that relatively simple equation to describe all of physical existence, I think he also understood that even if we were to come up with that description of reality, it would be only a dim perception of something grander.

Thanks for posting this thought-provoker!

Thanks to you as well.

After I got over my childhood brainwashing I noticed the main thing folks use religion for....a crutch. During my 80 years around this old earth I've attended no less than 100 Christian funerals. Guess what? Not a one of them offered any possibility of the deceased not passing through pearly gates, doing the thing in heaven which they enjoyed most while they were alive and never a harmful word uttered by anyone who attended. Some of the people whose funeral I attended were alienated from their own children, living with a younger woman out of wedlock, a boldfaced liar etc. Get the picture?