Nothing is Impossible

[JM]

Hiya!

On Mon, Sep 20, 2010 at 9:39 PM, Mary Wenzel <hika...@yahoo.com>
wrote:
> You've probably seen this already but in case you haven't . . .
>
> http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/09/20/battling-cancer-atheist-author-christopher-hitchens-skipping-prayer-day-honor/

Thanks. I did see the debate on Saturday which seems to have been the
occasion also of this interview. Glad you brought it up, richly
fraught as it is with much to be talked about. With Hitchens of course
his position is a bit more complicated than it may at first appear,
seeing that the way he parses it, his atheism is counterpoised against
what he describes as 'theism' which is not to be taken as necessarily
including the "deism" of e.g. Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson,
Newton and possibly even Einstein, nor to be confused with the
pantheism of Spinoza.

As he has explained his position, his atheism amounts to rejecting any
sort of anthropomorphic, 'personal' God which would be interested in
or active as a controlling, judging, grace dispensing force of
influence in the affairs of man. As such that would not necessarily
rule out his entertaining, with Socrates the possibility of an
immortal soul merging with the pantheistic "All" at time of death.

What Hitchens perhaps fails to recognize however is that if such a
deistic or pantheistic divine reality should exist, then there would
be no question but that this would be the divinity which has set the
natural processes of stars and planets, human evolution into motion.
This would be the god which at the most fundamental level works the
miracle of bringing something out of nothing--or as Spinoza would have
it, out of his own nature. The deists see a god which is the cause of
all being in the world, and having been that cause, this god rests and
is no longer active in the affairs of the universe, and as such, men.

As Aristotle had it, there is somewhat more to it: there must be a
*purpose* (also seen as a *necessity*) to that miracle of creation,
the Big Bang, driving the seeming accidents of nature that give rise
to such a planet, Earth which would be amenable to human evolution.
This is the "teleological" argument that Kierkegaard applies to such
things as the sacrifice of Issac by Abraham.

The idea is that where there is purpose, *telos* an 'end' in sight
right from the beginning--then let that also be applied to the end of
man: death. Death has its purpose, and necessity. Death is the
purpose of birth. The entire universe is born to that purpose, that it
should go through the transformation of death, man undergoing it all
along the way till the end of the cosmos, and once again the Big Bang
to begin it all over again -- UNLESS as the Hindus and Buddhists
teach, an end to that cycle of birth and death be achieved by 'waking
up and dying right' so to speak.

The idea of course is that one whose dharma is followed with all the
compassion, commitment, dedication, and discipline you have guiding
your life right up to the end of it; she (the soul) will be prepared
for death and discover through the course of dying that you go to
eternal bliss, into the Light. Faith is the Dharma that carries the
soul across the torrent of that 'River Styx' seen in the underworld of
Hades by the Greeks. Certain Hindus and Buddhists might deny that
faith is the 'bark of Charon', but that denial would be frivolous
since they too must believe that their path of meditation, compassion
and yogic discipline is true.

So, what Hitchens is not seeing in all this is how the very fact that
the original miracle of the Big Bang is proof that miracles do happen;
or i.e. the 'impossible' happens: the impossibility of something from
nothing. If something (the universe and man) can arise out of nothing,
then 'anything' and everything can and does arise out of nothing--or
i.e. out of the nature of God. God can be 'anything' that would be in
comportment with the purpose and necessity of the miracle, a purpose
which being necessary, is Good.

God can be anything good. God can be Krishna or Christ. Something in
the nature of God will not permit for Nothing to be the condition in
nature and reality. Nothing is not good. Something which transcends
all time, something with Purpose, something Necessary and Good which
is opposed to the evil of nothingness and death LIVES -- and that is
God. He can be anything good. He can be Jesus, or he can be the
pantheistic god of Spinoza. With him, all things are possible so that
those whose faith see Jesus beckoning to them them before the Light,
they will see him. The Buddhists who see the Light as being the end
and the purpose with no deity or man standing at its portals will see
the Good Light, and simply see no reason, with the Hindus to call it
Krisha, or with the Christians to call it Christ, or with the Jews to
call it "bosom of Abraham." It's all good, all God.

Since it IS possible for something to come out of nothing, then the
reverse case is also true: something (man) can dissolve upon death
into what is really there instead of nothing: God. Yet man must first
understand that his own physical being, his life, his body is made of
nothing, the very nothing (of pain, suffering, evil, ego, fear,
possessiveness) that separates us from God. As the Buddhists teach, we
must disattach from the nothing that our dying physical being is.
Comes a point in dying where grasping at the nothingness of transient
life must stop, where Death is embraced for the release and relief and
rest it is there to provide.

Kierkegaard showed that only when Abraham determined not to withhold
the knife from the throat of his only son begotten of Sarai, holding
fast to his faith that God had his purpose, then the miracle of the
ram tethered in the bushes, from out of nowhere, appears.

It is perhaps also a miracle to consider the full syntax of the
following statement: NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE. In other words, not only
does this mean that by virtue of the first miracle, all miracles can
happen, that with God nothing is impossible. Good! But by reverse
analysis it means something more, that 'Nothing' as a state of affairs
in Reality is impossible. Nothing, as a state of reality, cannot
'exist'. Not so long as God is there in its place.

Because 'nothing' is ruled out, then indeed nothing IS ruled out as a
possibility, including God, heaven and nirvana.
--
JM