I think that God proves His existence via dreams, which we cannot consciously control, and which technology or our willful conscious imagination cannot invent or alter or delete. Dreams bypass technology.
In the 24-hour cycle of continuous thought, we have repetitious phases. Within deep sleep it includes about 5-6 REM cycles in our sleep. REM stands for repeated eye movements. When individuals have been wakened during REM sleep, they report dreaming at that time.
When I was in an agnostic phase in my own life, and in psychoanalysis with an atheistic psychoanalyst, I had a dream that was a warning, at a time that I was stopping analysis. This was it: My analyst was taking me on his boat down the river Styx. He threw me overboard, symbolic that our relationship was ending. My naked body came up on a bank that was a bare hill. My eyes were shut, and my right breast was cut. The dreamer is the best interpreter of dreams.
My interpretation: Because I had stopped the process, I was rescuable, but ended up on the surface of a hill was bare. I was naked (I had revealed a lot of myself to him- a lot like confession), eyes shut (blind), and my right breast was cut (my lifestyle would lessen my potential expression of my femininity). I was blind to God. I was going to hell (the river Styx) if I had stayed on the boat of atheism any longer.
I could not have invented that dream, waking, or could not have had that dream affected by any technology.
God has spoken via dreams throughout the Bible. The dreamer usually knows what it means. Although we often do not remember our dreams, God has worked on us in our sleep.
A woman physician friend of mine's PhD son-in-law has been with the CDC. When he and his family lived in Atlanta, he told my friend that some curious investigators at the CDC had tried to find, via diagnostic radiological methods, to locate the brain site for God, and they said that there is a site for belief in God. I would think it has to be in the midbrain. I do not think that they published it.
Fasting likely makes that site very active. When a person fasts, he gets acidotic, meaning gets a lower blood pH. Maybe you think you are going to die, and you think of God then, if you have acidosis. Fasting and a lower blood pH maybe really opens up that site!
I tried Yoga once when at an APA (American Psychiatric Association) meeting, yoga that was freely offered, as I was curious. Yoga techniques require that you deep-breathe much, and you get alkalotic, meaning get a higher blood pH. I tried to think of God during the so-called relaxation yoga exercises. I couldn't think of anything religious. That alkalotic state seems to exclude thoughts of God; it did for me. You think only of yourself as the center of the world. I have come to think that Yoga is dangerous to the soul. It is interesting that Buddhists, who Jean Paul II identified as atheists, practice yoga.
Anyway--I think that God lodges not only in our hearts and spirit, but he is actually in our brains, and speaks to us in dreams at times.
And fasting helps physiologically to have more faith. Despite our technological advances, God still speaks to us telling us of His existence, and His telling us we have to know of Him, which is love as He does not desert us, as dreams are beyond any technology to alter.
To: Jean Paul II, Ratzinger, Francis, and others: Don't worry, God is in control.
Some of my own thoughts about how technology does not win the day.
Fascinating analysis of the thinking of Francis. His clumsiness in handling Vatican problems, such as past priest molestation problems and Vatican finances, is disguising his pastoral qualities. Each pope has seemed to demonstrate singular desirable spiritual qualities for our clergy and Catholic laity to cherish, emulate, and to override with prayer in our modern world of technology that is so useful but distracting from our mission in life to worship God.
Hi Father Brendan:
I think that God proves His existence via dreams, which we cannot consciously control, and which technology or our willful conscious imagination cannot invent or alter or delete. Dreams bypass technology.
In the 24-hour cycle of continuous thought, we have repetitious phases. Within deep sleep it includes about 5-6 REM cycles in our sleep. REM stands for repeated eye movements. When individuals have been wakened during REM sleep, they report dreaming at that time.
When I was in an agnostic phase in my own life, and in psychoanalysis with an atheistic psychoanalyst, I had a dream that was a warning, at a time that I was stopping analysis. This was it: My analyst was taking me on his boat down the river Styx. He threw me overboard, symbolic that our relationship was ending. My naked body came up on a bank that was a bare hill. My eyes were shut, and my right breast was cut. The dreamer is the best interpreter of dreams.
My interpretation: Because I had stopped the process, I was rescuable, but ended up on the surface of a hill was bare. I was naked (I had revealed a lot of myself to him- a lot like confession), eyes shut (blind), and my right breast was cut (my lifestyle would lessen my potential expression of my femininity). I was blind to God. I was going to hell (the river Styx) if I had stayed on the boat of atheism any longer.
I could not have invented that dream, waking, or could not have had that dream affected by any technology.
God has spoken via dreams throughout the Bible. The dreamer usually knows what it means. Although we often do not remember our dreams, God has worked on us in our sleep.
A woman physician friend of mine's PhD son-in-law has been with the CDC. When he and his family lived in Atlanta, he told my friend that some curious investigators at the CDC had tried to find, via diagnostic radiological methods, to locate the brain site for God, and they said that there is a site for belief in God. I would think it has to be in the midbrain. I do not think that they published it.
Fasting likely makes that site very active. When a person fasts, he gets acidotic, meaning gets a lower blood pH. Maybe you think you are going to die, and you think of God then, if you have acidosis. Fasting and a lower blood pH maybe really opens up that site!
I tried Yoga once when at an APA (American Psychiatric Association) meeting, yoga that was freely offered, as I was curious. Yoga techniques require that you deep-breathe much, and you get alkalotic, meaning get a higher blood pH. I tried to think of God during the so-called relaxation yoga exercises. I couldn't think of anything religious. That alkalotic state seems to exclude thoughts of God; it did for me. You think only of yourself as the center of the world. I have come to think that Yoga is dangerous to the soul. It is interesting that Buddhists, who Jean Paul II identified as atheists, practice yoga.
Anyway--I think that God lodges not only in our hearts and spirit, but he is actually in our brains, and speaks to us in dreams at times.
And fasting helps physiologically to have more faith. Despite our technological advances, God still speaks to us telling us of His existence, and His telling us we have to know of Him, which is love as He does not desert us, as dreams are beyond any technology to alter.
To: Jean Paul II, Ratzinger, Francis, and others: Don't worry, God is in control.
Some of my own thoughts about how technology does not win the day.
Dora
Fascinating analysis of the thinking of Francis. His clumsiness in handling Vatican problems, such as past priest molestation problems and Vatican finances, is disguising his pastoral qualities. Each pope has seemed to demonstrate singular desirable spiritual qualities for our clergy and Catholic laity to cherish, emulate, and to override with prayer in our modern world of technology that is so useful but distracting from our mission in life to worship God.
Dora