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Author Thread: Reality
Phoenyx

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Reality
Posted : 5 Jul, 2009 03:34 PM

What is it? How would you define it so it cannot be identified as fantasy? How would a crazy person's perception of the world, with pink flying unicorns, be excused from your definition.

Lastly, is there reality according to your definition?

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Gibbons_Dance

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Posted : 24 Jul, 2009 10:02 PM

There is ultimately no objective way we can know reality, because all reality is filtered through our senses and our minds, and both are limited and able to be deceived.



Have you read "Sophie's World" by Jostein Gaarder? In it, he refers to the ontology of an Irish Bishop whose name eludes me at present, but who thought that reality all emanated from God's thoughts and that its existence depended on God upholding it; if I'm remembering/ interpreting it correctly. George Berkley (Berkeley?), that was his name.



"What is reality?" is the ultimate question that ontology seeks to answer, but epistemology ("How can we be sure?") won't let it. As _everything_ we believe finally comes down to faith, we can only be sure that (1) thinking exists, and (2) someone/ something exists, as thinking is a process that requires an entity with the capacity to undertake that process. (Thinking is an abstract noun that only exists as a process and therefore something concrete must exist in order for thinking to exist.)



For everyday living, we must assume that what we see is what we get. Reality (as we believe society defines it) is both external to us and internal, as far as we process what is external to us. The problem is when a person's internal interpretation goes haywire and they start to believe in flying spaghetti unicorns or what you will. We usually assume that someone is off the rails if they start to believe something that is alien to the experience of the rest of us. So people believe in gravity because we all experience it. Not all people believe in flying spaghetti unicorns because they are an uncommon sight.



But experiencing something unusual isn't (it shouldn't be) enough. If someone is experiencing psychosis (ie an experience of their perception being separate from our [and their previous] common reality), they will also be emotionally agitated - but again this isn't enough to prove they're wrong - and also they will refuse to admit they could be wrong. They believe they are right but they are uncomfortable: something isn't "right". Their beliefs may be demonstrated to be incorrect by logic and practical evidence, but they refuse to believe that they are wrong. This would be about as close as we can get, on a practical level, to knowing that someone is away from reality.



Their is a lot more to be said (much of it between the lines!) but that can do for a starter.

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Posted : 4 Feb, 2010 09:58 PM

Nothing real can be threatened,



Nothing unreal exists,



Herein lies the Peace of God



:dancingp:

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Posted : 5 Feb, 2010 05:35 PM

How can reality exsist if we exsist only in the mind of God? Oh well, what do I choose to know about reality. Back to the farm where life is :ROFL: all the time.

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Posted : 5 Feb, 2010 10:39 PM

Perception IS reality.

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Posted : 20 Jun, 2011 01:33 AM

Only God himself is reality; only God himself is Truth. If we are indeed only in God's mind, then the only way we can experience reality is to have God living in us (Christian = meaningful, growing personal relationship with the God of Truth). Once we are finally united with him in heaven where he lives enthroned amongst his mightiest creations (cherubim), we can experience reality. We can't get there without first being cleansed of our falsehoods, the sin (all sin is traceable back to some distortion of truth/God's character which IS truth). The only cleansing solution is to have God living in us via the Holy Spirit.



So no, we cannot truly experience the fullness of reality until the curtains are drawn back and we experience the revealing ( or "revelation") of God in his true glory in heaven. I think the only people who have experienced reality while on earth are those who have seen heaven. People includingbutnotlimitedto Daniel, Isaiah, Jesus, John, etc. There aren't many who are close enough to God that he gives them a taste of reality to tell others about, but there are some.



Bottom line: reality is God himself, and we should want nothing more than to live in reality by having him live through us.

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