Here's a topic for discussion!

I said this in answer to Ron's comment to my last post. Oh, I should cite that, so it doesn't become forever unavailable to everyone who isn't willing to hack my password [or bribe it out of me (some currencies are more attractive than others, if you know what I mean)]:

Yeah I have an explanation for the corruption that has destroyed Africas credibility.

The 4 horseman and the king of the desolate places.
ron | Homepage

Here's what I said:

The evidence I've seen seems to indicate that the supernatural realms are purely reactive to what we humans decide to do with ourselves here.

The prayers I've prayed that seemed to have had an effect in this world, seem to have been a matter of people accepting the mood I wanted them to accept and either acting carefully or carelessly based on that.

The choice is always ours.

BTW, I pray to Jesus, accepting the filter he (He) gave as an example in the Garden of Gethsemane, "Nevertheless, not my will, but Thine be done," but I don't forget the Parable of the Unjust Judge:

"In a certain city there was a judge, who neither feared God, nor had respect for people. In that city there was a widow who kept coming to him and saying, 'Grant me justice against my opponent.' For a while he refused; but later he said to himself, 'Though I have no fear of God and no respect for anyone, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out by continually coming.' " (Luke 18:2-5)

But keep in mind that it was Justice that he was offering. He wasn't merely giving in to her whim.

For the sake of discussion, keep in mind two things:

1. I don't believe in determinism - i.e. that our choices are merely illusory. You'd have to present a pretty impressive argument to persuade me change my mind on that score.

2. I base my beliefs on MY experience - the evidence of my OWN senses, and my interpretations of them. I'm willing to entertain others' accounts and interpretations of their own experiences, but I won't necessarily consider them definitive, and...

Well, make it three things,

3. I grant great respect to tried and true ideas. I won't throw out a traditional way or idea without solid historical evidence that it's crap. For instance, I'm a great fan of the Founders of America, but I do wish that many of the ideas of the Scholastics (Thomists within the Catholic Church) had been more strongly held by them and their successors. If I could, I'd claim St. Thomas Aquinas as my patron. If I knew how. (It'd probably help to read him, eh? I've only read bits from some of his more brilliant intellectual descendants, and a fair bit of his philosophical inspiration, Aristotle. Though, "study" would be too strong a word.)