On Miracles & Uri Gellor

David Hume famously defined a miracle as a violation of the laws of nature.   The impossibility of such things is obvious - whatever actually happens must be in accordance with the laws of nature for the laws of nature must serve as an explanation for why everything is the way it is.

Does this clear up any of the common "mysteries". 

Yuri Gellor is a well known magician - he can perform tricks and I believe admits that his spoon

bending is a trick. Anyway, what if it isn't? What if he can bend spoons simply by looking at 

them and thinking of them as bent. What then? Then there is a law of nature with which Yuri's

spoon bending is consistent. A higher law, as it were.

Similarly with Moses. Moses is reported to have thrown his staff onto the ground and had it

change into a snake which then proceeded to eat the snakes of the priests of Ra. One says "you

can't change wood into snakes." Well, as far as we know, but maybe someone can?

Science is the knowledge of generalizations - generally things are attracted to each other, that

is called gravity. Science is also the knowledge of exceptions - sometimes things aren't

attracted to each other, that's another force (magnetic forces can do this, for instance). So

what?

It is outside the scope of generalizing to say that something did not happen once. Any story

that begins "once upon a time" science can neither confirm nor deny by experimentation.

It can tell us "we can not repeat that by doing anything of the sort." But does this prove

that something did not happen or just that we don't know how to repeat it?

Many well known magicians have been debunked by hidden cameras - the tricks they play that

amount to small miracles impress everyone. But what about real magic?

What would real magic look like today?

In our world dominated by humans, magic very seldom takes the form of extracting water from

rocks or gathering manna from heaven - we gather our own manna and steal that of our

brothers.

No, in our world, magic takes the same for it always did - in the battle between good and evil.

God is not a parlor magician, neither is the Devil. If the Devil makes someone wealthy or

healthy, there is a reason. What that reason is simply not investigated by modern scientific

methods mostly because rational motivation simply is not causally oriented.

We don't help our sisters because we are compelled to by force, that wouldn't be helping them

at all. We do it because we want to. If we were compelled to help someone, we wouldn't say

that we were helping them at all, but that, as it were, whoever helped us to do it did it.

In my own case, miracles happen when I help someone -at all-. I'm not a particularly nice

person. So when I find myself helping someone and it working, I'm taken aback, impressed

so to speak.

Miracles then, are simply invisible to those without the eyes to see them. Those who scoff

say that there is no miracle at all, not seeing that their own breath is a great miracle. Who

can seriously ignore the infinite depth and mystery involved in the fact that we are breathing

and living? Lots of people, they're called the blind.

Some Basic Truths

The world is magical.

Science wishes to tell us that there is no mystery in the world.  But a 3-year-old able to ask the question "why" can deconstruct this illusion with five questions:

Child: Daddy, why is there a moon at night?

Daddy: Because the orbit of the moon around the earth is such and so.

Child: Why is the orbit of the moon around the earth such and so?

Daddy: Because gravity holds the moon in that orbit and the earth has such and such a position in the solar system.

Child: Why does gravity hold the moon in an orbit?

Daddy: Because gravity holds all things together.

Child:  Why does gravity hold all things together?

Daddy: Because it is one of the fundamental laws of nature.

Child: Why is gravity one of the fundamental laws of nature?

Daddy: ...

The common answer of course is the same as "why is there anything at all?"  Usually there are two answers - to give up trying to answer the question or to answer it with a hard answer - "God".

In the case of "God" the assertion is that God is simply the name for the thing which is necessary and by which all other things which are not necessary come to be.  The existence of this necessary being is proved in many ways, some of them provided in scientific theory itself (e.g. the anthropic principle) and some provided by pure reason - nothing is without reason, therefore everything has a reason for being what it is.  

God too has a reason for being what God is.   God is a bridge between the possible and the actual - making what is merely possible into actual things in the real world.  The existence of this bridge is also demonstrable - if there were no actual things, then nothing would be possible either for the mere possibility of what is actual is itself actual.

As a result, God is "magical" in the common sense of being able to choose between laws of nature, as it were, at will.  A law of nature is merely one of an array of possible laws of nature.    Why isn't gravity the weak nuclear force?  

Then there is the anthropic principle itself - why should it be that there are people so that there is a world that supports people?

"Why" is all-powerful in its penetration to the deep magic.

What is the deep magic?

To choose between what merely might be and what actually is, is the deep magic, the power of God.  We have that power - we choose what is now and what will be - God has given it to us in this small amount.  

Can we change the laws of physics?

Uri Geller claimed to have done it, but hey, we all have to make a living.

What is God's domain and what is our domain?  Many practitioners of magic claim to be able to change the laws of the universe locally.  It is our illusion, why not change it?  And yet there is another path, those who are enlisted in the service of God also can change the laws of physics locally in order to, presumably, better serve the purposes of God.  

What does God want?

Why did God make this world?

Stay tuned, next week ...

The Hartal

The United States' Recession is now in it's 8th coincidental year.   While there are always ups and downs in an economy, the generalized trend toward dependence on foreign countries for basic necessities and even luxuries in life is an unsustainable model leading to this paradox:

How can we sustain an economy here if we borrow money to buy things produced in foreign countries as our basic practice of sustenance?

The answer, unfortunately, is to war with other countries, to ensure that their labor can always be exchanged at a better rate than our lenders give to us.  I don't mean always "literal warfare" but economic warfare.

Paying less money for something produced in a foreign country than a comparable product produced at home is fundamentally paradoxical as well - how can it be cheaper to produce something and then ship it to a destination than it is to produce it near where it is to be used.  Consider grapes.  If I have grapes in my back yard, they are free to me.  If they are down the street at a farm, I must pay for them, but can avoid shipping them by walking.  If I must ship them 10,000 miles, someone must pay for that shipping.  While there are occasionally products that simply can be produced better in another location because of geographical or climatic issues, in a country as large as the United States, it is obviously possible to produce anything needed or desired for the sustenance of life here in this country.  We have every climate and terrain available for us to use. 

The answer, again, is unfortunately war.  If we can borrow or force enough shipping costs, we can get what we want.  

But borrowing is not a sustainable method.

Is war?

The answer to that question is yes and no.

Jesus says "Whoever lives by the sword dies by the sword" and they have a saying in, we hear, India, a professional swimmer dies of drowning".  War is good for gun makers, less good for soldiers and families of the dead.  Many empires have lasted centuries on the basis of war-time economies, Rome of course comes to mind.

Was Rome sustainable?  The answer is "perhaps" but at the cost of the morality of its people.  Do we want to be a country that sustains itself by exacting taxes from foreign countries, enslaving them and conscripting our people to enforce our dominion?

I think the answer has to be the same as in the case of Rome.  It wasn't Rome's inability to persecute wars and enforce its will that made it unsustainable.  It was their inability to maintain their will in the face of the obvious moral dilemma -> how can you sustain a will to live by plundering other people if you have a moral sense that it's wrong?

Today, America has this choice.  We know it's wrong to kill people in foreign countries for oil.  We know it's wrong to rob people and take advantage of slave labor.  Yet we do it.  As a result, our country is suffering for our sins - our children die in wars, we all live in continual debt...

So I propose to end these problems once and for all with two simple actions of penance if you will for common sins as a country:

a) don't buy "unnecessary gas" -> if you need it to live, go for it -> if you can do something else, don't do it.  This means no delivery pizza unless the place delivers by bicycle....  Think this -> is the thing you're doing worth someone -potentially- being shot for?

b) take your money out of your bank and put it in a credit union.  Credit unions are, in general, mutual benefit corporations who are required to use their money democratically to benefit their members.  That is, as a member of the credit union, you are also an owner and your credit union is effectively working for your benefit.  The laws governing credit unions require them to be open and beneficial in their dealings rather than maximally profit-oriented.  

So think, when you deposit your money, is it worth your extra 2% per year to support a multi-national system of oppression and usury that enslaves other countries and peoples and doesn't invest in your home towns?

Hoping you will join me in abstaining from our countries joint sins,

Robert Lindauer