Quote:
Originally Posted by granpa
What you feel and what you know are two different things.
.....
To worship something is to feel that that thing is infinitely good. Worth any sacrifice. Anything that you feel is infinitely good is something you worship. That could be money or sex or drugs or even God.
You may know with your mind that it isn't really infinitely good and isn't worth the sacrifice but what you know and what you feel are two completely different things.
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"our tragic inclination to sin causes us to use our minds to rationalize our actions. Reason by itself is little more than an instrument to justify man's defensive ways of thinking. Reason, devoid of purifying power of faith, can never free itself from distortions and rationalizations." - Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
Granpa's assertion is based on subjective opinion. It's literally all in his mind- as he admits in his post.
Knowing and feeling are the same - he says. The rest of us call it experience, life experience. But assumptions and opinions are not the same as experience. They are the result of mental or cognitive capacity. They are the patterns we make in our minds to explain what we have experienced and felt from the outside world
as well as what we want.
Wanting and having are two different things. A thing once gotten may not be as tasty as wanting it. Hence the expression, "
be careful what you pray for because you may get it."
Unfortunately subjective opinions are sometimes misleading - as Granpa admits to us all. To use his examples, the addict forms the opinion that the thing he craves is good and is worth the sacrifice of any other thing to get it. The addict's opinion of the object of his craving may instead be a form of self-destruction. Granpa says so in his post , but the truth doesn't begin and end within the hardened shell of one's calcified brain case. Truth is found in the reality of the world around us
not in our opinion of it.
Truth is that which is consistent with what is. - Merriam-Webster dictionary
This is where God begins to reveal Himself to us - from the outside world. That which we experience of God from the outside world must be taken into our minds and digested as a mental assumption. For example, the Bible contains a number of factual historic accounts of God's action in the outside world. It also describes how people who witnessed these events reacted to them. Some changed their opinions of God and benefitted from their choice. Others did not and suffered grievious consequences for their foolishness. (A fool as defined by Merriam-Webster is a person
"lacking in common powers of understanding.")
The brain is a God given tool that humans use to understand the world around them. It can be used in a self-destructive capacity, as in the example of the addict or criminal, or it can be used to great advantage in the areas of science and spirituality. Evidence of God is everywhere in the outside world, in the history of the human race and in the testimony of those who know Him. A subjective opinion that denies the truth of God is the conclusion of a fool. It is a lie created in the mind, which exists only in a fool's mind.
It is therefore wise to seek God while we have time. He is willing to hear our prayers and send help. God is willing to save in every way a man can be saved. A fool sits in the dark corners of his mind and, like the drug addict, denies everything that is contrary to his self-inflicted self-destructive opinion.
The fear and knowledge of God is the beginning of wisdom.
and that's me, hollering from the choir loft...
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