It may be of some interest, though I am not entirely sure, how much is often come to in recognition of debt. A discovery of an owing, most often in gratitude, to things we once formerly overlooked or were once in all of ignorance. It can range from an appreciation of parents, teachers, friends, instructors, even to those things more vague to us in impacts of experience(s). The forming of who we are, and if at all content in it and beyond some wishing we were someone other, we learn, is owed mostly to those people and matters over which we recognize we have had no control.
Now, of course, the embittered person may sense none of this nor care for such considerations, and may rather view those things uncontrolled as having done nothing but harm to him. And I am not sure the very proud will have much, if any, appreciation of these thinking he believes he has arranged himself according to his own good choice(s). The very self made man. (If there really be such a thing)
So, to those who may even have only the vaguest sense of that which I speak, I speak. And I have some hope to, even according to a man whose way of thinking also has impressed me much. Who was not reluctant to describe himself as debtor. And who came to understand to whom all ultimate sense of debt, even though un-repayable, was owed.
But even this in experience may not be strange to those who have come this far in reading with some sense of that which I speak…for myself having deceased parents to whom I must acknowledge much; there is much gratitude though it is without any hope of repayment. And a great part of that, this depth of gratitude, is in some measure deepened by seeing they would have neither expected it nor sought it. How much the more then is sensed as owed! Do you not yourself find some feelings of gratitude for those who have done right by you, simply believing it was all, and only right to do so? Not in service of some other agenda? I really don’t know of greater love, nor example of it.
Therefore, though it may be oddly received of some perhaps, how I now must acknowledge some form of debt to those who have stridently resisted me…and particularly those who call themselves atheists that have done so. Whether of my pretense or sincerity, where I may have sought to present a thinking God as a, or even the reality, some have resisted to such extent to press me (who believed he served this very conscious and thinking God) to think…even more. And to do so convinced this is done in the presence of that God I believe.
And that, of course, is the crux of all these matters that may be in contention, is it not, that there is a thinking and conscious reality of [a] Being, even responsible for all? Or not…that all is random and of a chaos without order or orderliness or design…adhering to “sometimes” laws (as we may know them) but subject to finding them contradicted in certain circumstance. Or by certain experimentation.
For under duress, or extremes of observation even what we call the material universe can be observed to behave far differently than once we thought. Really bringing all into question about what we do, or may call, the material universe. (For anyone who cares to, you may read about Lord Rutherford and the impacts such discovery had upon him. Even to a man afraid to leave his bed)
We may both, or all, believer and professed atheist alike…speak of beginnings. And if one is a strict materialist (if there be such a thing) the easily poked holes into some claim of “everything had to come from somewhere or something” that one may propound as irrefutable proof of a conscious initiation of all matter, should be plain. For when asked or confronted with “therefore even (a) god cannot be exempt from such a thing as a beginning” by that argument, is often odious to the believer. “No” he may protest, “God is what (or who) has no beginning nor any end” and the facile argument that “everything” must have had a beginning outside of itself (by an initiator) must no less, crumble. For the materialist might then respond with “if you make an exception for a “something without beginning or end” in such argument…who is to say such might not be as easily applicable to the material?
And I have heard many arguments and contentions, often being part of them, myself. And the matter of beginnings, of what is real vs what is of imagination and conjecture or speculation, are often rife with these contentions. And again, as it cannot be over stressed, is the matter of consciousness and thought “present” to all, even sustaining all, or just the apparent randomness of material acting in all materiality according to its own being of restrictions upon it.
But this also cannot be over stressed, such verbal arguments (or written) are acknowledged as owing to thought and/or consciousness in observation(s) and expression. Apart from the existence of consciousness (and thought) such do not (can they?) take place. To me this is prima facie and any contradiction otherwise would be far more than absurd. Then the question must follow, even to each, “is thought/consciousness real?” And though I, for the purposes of this writing may seem to equate them (thought/consciousness) I am less than convinced that in all things they are the same. But there is enough for us to consider them, for now, at least coupled. Unless one cares to disagree, to which I cannot but be receptive of hearing.
Now, that question of “is consciousness real?” has far deeper implications than I can express. And none need answer, to each inwardly they already have. Unless you are one unconvinced they think in reality. And that such thinking is (actually) real to them, perhaps with nothing other more real to them than their thoughts; for it is all and only by such we even have and hold any notion of reality and any hope of expression of the observable. We are either “truly” in some form of consciousness or consciousness does not exist; or taking that proposition to a more absurd end that one (them self) is sole possessor of it. As in “I know I think, but I am not at all convinced you do”. Which actually may be a far more prevalent attitude than one might admit, or care to consider.
And one may even expand upon some premise that all communication is to find whether one is alone in their thinking, or may, somehow, reach by communication a mind not unlike their own, also “in thinking” and consciousness. Able to find and establish connection. And we could also argue whether communication ever actually takes place or we are just screaming into a void and at best, only receiving a vague echo from images we believe real. And, we could “go there” if one cares to.
But if you are unconvinced you are the only one who thinks (or possesses consciousness) we then have basis to continue.
The proposition (not unlike myself) is ridiculously simple. And it is offered to the strict materialist whether of “Big Bang” persuasion or something other as to beginnings. (For one could easily ask “what was before the Big Bang”? A more remote beginning of material, one could suppose.) And this would not in any way establish a theist’s contentions. Material (and energy) one could simply argue “always is”…even if we can only see or theorize back to what our observations inform. Inform to our consciousness.
The proposition is again simple. At least if one has any concession to consciousness and thought being a “real” thing. Is it more or less real than a rock…which at best is only considered “real” by consciousness and thought(s) about it? Consciousness may be the most fundamental “matter” of all we are allowed to consider, reasonably. For unless we confess to it, make some claim (even if only to ourselves) as having it, upon what other is anything constructed for knowing? In that sense it is prima facie proof and of all necessity, especially if we no less consider communication as a real thing.
The simple proposition: If material (and/or mindless energy) is truly all there is, and “in the beginning” is all and only material from which, and of which all we observe (your house, my house, your car, my car, that star or that star all present in some form of material) is all and only the real and true, and that consciousness itself was “not there” in whatever beginning we may ascribe, then whence came it?
Could what had no owe-able consciousness “at beginning” then create from itself something that never was, or in it, or to it, before? Yes, materially my car and yours is in there somewhere, this and that star, this and that rock, our bath towels, bananas, and toenails. But if consciousness “is/was” not there (as some might contend) seeing only arrays of atoms, subatomic particles as building blocks being acted upon by all and only ignorant forces, whence your intelligence? (Such intelligence that even “projects back” to occupy that space of time looking for intelligence)
Of course this is no “proof” of anything, (much less God or a god) but unless one is prepared to deny their own consciousness as real, there are matters we might consider. Even beyond what are called the material. Or mindless energies.
If you are my atheist friend, you may see the conundrum presented if one says “consciousness always was…and is” at very least in potential in all material and is not something new to material at all, nor not present already in all matter. Then you may be at best a pantheist.
For in that mix of material was/is also what constitutes your brain whether one believes it really thinks or not. (How one could think they do not actually think…would be curious at best)
Yet it, your and my brain, may not actually be the seat of consciousness. But that seat is worth searching out.
For if one’s consciousness is all and only of random or chaotic construction, how can it be trusted for any reliable data?
You expect more from your speedometer, and a pilot their altimeter.
Can there be reason in a thing apart from reason for a thing?
And in this universe, do any of us ever truly claim to have no reason?
Even in ourselves?
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