T. G. I. F. ! Errr, TGIS?

I ran into this over at Gary's blog (the source is given below). Since I got in late last night and did not get a chance to blog it then I thought I would post it now because it is something I thought was interesting and opens up to a bigger blog entry.

1. In your opinion, how important is spirituality in a person's life?

For me it is very important, especially since one of my beliefs is that we are spiritual beings having a human experience.

2. On a scale of 1-5, how spiritual are you?

About a 4. We all express our spirituality in different ways.

3. If you could ask God a single question and get the answer now, what would it be?

The Platypus - what were you thinking? (Sorry, I have always wanted to ask and yes I would blow the question on that.)

4. Do you believe in miracles?

Yes

5. Ever experienced a miracle? If so, tell us about it.

Nothing I would especially chock up to a miracle, although I have had some weird occurences in my life that could be considered as such. The weirdest one was where I was on an ice street heading for a particularly nasty accident with a phone pole. Missed everything and I still have no idea how.

From T. G. I. F. !


This brings up something that I have not really talked much about here - spirituality. Now I am a student of metaphysics, which I found this defintion on the web that I like:

The branch of philosophy asking "what exists?" What entities form this universe? Metaphysical studies can concern difficult, perhaps unanswerable, questions bordering theology. Ayer, (1971) used the term "transcendent metaphysics" for proposals of existence beyond the observable universe. Like Kant, he denied them a part in logic. As used here, metaphysics includes any suggestion that something, not immediately obvious, does exist. From here.

I would say I fall more into the "transcendent metaphysics" area. I do believe there is more to reality than what we see. My ravings about the film What The Bleep Do We Know? is probably evidence of that. I do believe in life after death and in reincarnation, although I do not believe that the only reason we are reborn is becuase of bad karma. I believe we are here to learn, and once we learn all the lessons we can from being here on this planet we will no longer come back here.

I, in particular, have always been fascinated by psychic phenomena. Call it the sixth sense, extra sensory perception, gut instinct or whatever. Somewhere I read Sonia Choquette had refered to the whole thing as reading energy in motion. I like that definition, and the more I read the more I feel that each of us have that ability. Some of us may be able to do it better, just like some people have better hearing or sight, but I do believe we each can tap into that.

It has been shown in lab studies that the power of prayer works. Even in "What The Bleep?" they talk about reducing the murder rate in D. C. with meditation. The thing is there is no currently measurable phenomena going on to explain this. Now I personally believe there is something going on, we just can't prove it with our currently level of understanding & technology. There is a quote, and I don't know who it is from, that says "technology far enough removed from your own appears to be magic". In a way, this is all magic.

Now some might counter that prayer is asking for divine intervention. Ok, fair enough. However there have been other studies where people can guess the cards (we have all seen the test) with greater than expected results. Some of the mediums that contact "the dead" have details that through normal means they would not. Also, one thing I did not mention about prayer, is that results do not appear to be dependent upon the recepient belief in any god or even if the two people are of the same religion. That seems to be counter to what a lot of religions preach.

So there is SOMETHING going on. What, I haven't the foggiest idea. But that does not stop me from working with it and studying more.