There is a scene from a series called Joan of Arcadia (a truly undervalued series from the early 2000s) where Joan asks teen boy God to show her a miracle, and he points to a tree. She says “that’s just a tree” and he replies “Lets see you make one”
Do you believe in magic?
Why wouldn’t cancer be divine too?
Why would it be? If cancer, trees, and my ass are all divine, does the word “divine” mean anything at that point?
You are starting to see the beginnings of wisdom.
What is the definition of divine if the entire material universe is divine? And if everything is divine, how is that any sort of evidence or argument for the existence of a god?
Seeing the numinous in the material universe is no reason to jump all the way to deism or pantheism, if you ask me.
Yeah, that was kind of where I was going
Or, to put it another way…
Then why bother to use the emotionally and theologically loaded term “divine?”
I wasn’t the first one to use it.
And, as I said (a few posts up) in a more philosophical than antagonistic discussion (at least I hope it is that) then I am inclined to reply using the terms of those to whom I am replying.
I started off with a post about a tree being a miracle, at least from a certain point of view. I didn’t mention divine until someone else brought it up :)
Ok, then replace “divine” in my last comment with “miracle”. It’s still a theologically and emotionally loaded term
That was kind of my point – people associate “miracle” with good. With an act of God (whoever their God might be) but they don’t see an unexplained act of badness the same way.
That was the debate that started all this :)
Very much so. To take the example of your ass, if you are still using toilet paper and no water you should consider using water to wash up too.
In more general terms, acknowledging the material world to be devine, demands more respect and gratitude towards it. Western capitalist societies are terribly lacking of that, which both shows in the careless destruction of creation as well as the unhappyness from a lack of appreciation of what creation gives us.
In regards to things we perceive as negative, there exists a deeper meaning behind the hardships we face too. Note that this is very different from what some evangelicalists claim, that everything that happens to a person would be a reflection of what that person “deserves”, e.g. that the poor deserve to be poor and the rich deserve to be rich. That is directly contradictorary to all abrahamic scriptures.