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What Color is Your Emuna?

2/11/2017

 

The Dark & Muted World of Atheism

While atheists consider themselves objective, open-minded, impartial, and more rationalist and scientific than those who believe in God, the truth is atheism actually originates from a more constricted mind.

This sounds strange at first, especially seeing as it’s the atheist-agnostic biologists and astrophysicists who revel in awe and delight in the constructs of life and the universe, leading them to weave increasingly complex theories of spontaneous universe-generation/development and evolution.

Yet they desire only those complexities which they can see, examine, and try to understand.

This blind spot against acknowledging their own human deficiency—a Divinely imbued “disability,” so to speak—derives from a closed mind and not a mind open to ever-expanding possibilities far beyond human comprehension.
(Even as these same atheists claim otherwise.)

But let’s bring this down to some concrete examples.

Deafness and Music

Picture
Can a person profoundly deaf from birth imagine music?

No.

At the most, such a person can feel musical vibrations (which some deaf people enjoy).

Conversely, can a hearing person ever hope to describe music to a profoundly deaf-from-birth person?

No.

This is true even if the deaf person possesses a genius IQ, won the Olympic Gold Medal in gymnastics, earned the Nobel Prize in literature, possesses heightened sense of smell and superior eyesight, can out-compute a computer, and surpasses Picasso in artistic ability.

This is true even if the hearing person is the most articulate, imaginative, and eloquent person on the face of the planet.

Any discussion of sopranos and baritones, of tubas and harps or musical notes will be totally lost on this otherwise exceptional person.

No matter how hard you try to break it down and find metaphors, the simplest jump-rope jingle (which a 3-year-old could sing) will be totally lost on this exceptional multi-talented genius, simply because he has never had the ability to hear.
 
Let’s move on to blindness.


Blindness & Color & Light

Can a person fully blind from birth understand anything about color?

No.

Again, regardless of how exceptional in every other ability this blind person may be, and regardless of how poetic and brilliant your oratory skills may be, you will never be able to get a fully blind-from-birth person to imagine even the dullest mustard-yellow or the brightest shade of fuchsia.

Even the most basic contrast of black and white, which even a baby can perceive, is lost on such a brilliant person...simply because he lacks the faculty of sight.

In fact, when asked what they see, blind-from-birth people just say nothing.

Not "black" or "darkness," but nothing.

(And that's impossible for a seeing person like me to imagine. How do you imagine "nothing"?)

What about light? Can you explain light to a blind person?

Interestingly, it depends.

Many blind people perceive bright sunlight at least on some level.

Others perceive sunlight as an overwhelmingly painful assault on their senses (which is one of the reasons why some wear dark glasses).

Yet even the concept of light as normally perceived by most people will be lost on a person fully blind from birth.

But we don't even need such extreme disabilities to prove the point.

What about simple colorblindness?
Picture


Most colorblind people do see color.

They just don’t see all the colors that normal sight provides.

For example, protanopia colorblindness allows a person to see shades of black, white, blue, gray, yellow, and yellow-brown. (A mahogany brown looks like yellowed charcoal.)

So he can see perfectly well and he even has a good understanding of color.

Could you explain mahogany brown to him?

Maybe. Kind of.

Okay. But can you explain red or green to him?

No.

Red and green look slightly different to him (as different shades of brown-gray), but still remain a far cry from the rich color possessed by red and green.

One such colorblind person explained he can differentiate between red and green, but feels at a loss as to why others find the colors so eye-catching and contrasting.

In other words, he realizes that something is there that he cannot see or even imagine.

Similarly, this is the main difference between a monotheist and an atheist.


Aack! Trapped in the Third Dimension!

The monotheist realizes he lacks certain senses and abilities.

Metaphorically speaking, he knows there is music he cannot hear and colors he cannot see and light he cannot appreciate.

From this, he realizes that there are even higher senses and concepts that he cannot comprehend, and that are so far beyond his comprehension, he cannot even name them.

(Although Zoharic literature does exactly this to a certain extent.)

In other words, the monotheist is open-minded and humble enough (even if he is arrogant in other areas) to acknowledge the reality of a fully Omnipotent and Eternal Creator.

But an atheist basically says that if he cannot perceive it with his physical senses, then it must not exist.

Okay, yes—that’s an oversimplification of atheist thinking.

Many atheist scientists claim an open mind toward new discoveries and advancements in human understanding of how the world works.

Some are even open to the idea of dimensions beyond the known 3 and of “higher” (i.e. more mysterious) beings, whether they be aliens or spirits—but not more than that.

Because more than that is beyond the imagination of even the most brilliant and imaginative science-fiction author.

Atheists miss the bare fact that simply being 3-dimensional is a crippling disability that plagues every single human being.

Sure, certain meditative practices can launch a person into experiencing states beyond this dimension, states otherwise impossible to experience or imagine—the state of Nevuah/Prophecy being the highest and clearest.

But as long as you’re in This World, you are in a state of severe constriction. You suffer a sensory disability far more crippling that any kind of blindness or deafness.

This is the human condition.

Yet if you believe in God, you keep going, hoping He’ll allow you to experience extra light, color, and music according to your particular capability of any given moment (metaphorically speaking).

But all the while, you’re still aware that as long as you remain in This World, there are states and concepts you cannot even understand the name of, let alone comprehend or experience—no matter how carefully one might try to describe them to you.

And this acceptance and awareness includes Hashem and all His Paradoxes (i.e. All-Knowing and Controls Everything yet still allows for free choice, Wholly Compassionate and Only Does Good yet still allows Auschwitz).

And yes, if you believe in God, you may sometimes find yourself getting tongue-tied or intimidated by a particularly brilliant atheist.

But that's similar to, say, your knowledge of music or color being dismissed by brilliant deaf or blind person via complex constructs of muted & dark castles in the air.
Picture
For more on this topic, please see:
The Incomprehensible Beauty and Necessity of Paradox

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Sonia uk
3/11/2017 03:37:16

So if atheists cannot or truly don't believe in a Deity because they don't know or understand the concept - without evidence acceptable and comprehensible to them - why are they at fault just for admitting it? It may hurt the believer's sensitivities but other than that, I cannot see that it is inherently evil or just plain wrong to voice their opinion. If they don't get it, then they just don't get it - just like a deaf or blind person wouldn't get sound/sight.

Myrtle Rising
3/11/2017 12:52:15

Hi, Sonia uk,

I think I can relate to your points because they reflect what I myself used to feel at one point.

I'd like to address them with the following ideas:

As far as what I dug up during my own years of research, there is definitely acceptable and comprehensible evidence for a Creator. People who conduct honest and thorough research will reach the basic conclusion of a Creator.

Furthermore, much of the "science" atheists use to support their position is pretty shaky. If it helps, Spiritual Self-Help is conducting a series right now that addresses just one aspect of this issue of unsupported yet widely accepted "science." The first part starts here:
http://www.spiritualselfhelp.org/blog/the-false-foundations-of-modern-science-radiocarbon-dating

My own foray into Venus research alone revealed a lot of unsupported theories and outright falsehood -- literally building castles on air. It's here:
http://www.myrtlerising.com/blog/yet-another-stunning-scientific-discovery-heck-we-havent-got-a-clue
and here:
http://www.myrtlerising.com/blog/the-venus-effect-lots-of-fun-insanity

Furthermore, I'm not sure why you assume that atheism hurts a monotheist's sensitivities? I don't feel "hurt" by atheism any more than I feel hurt by the Flat Earth theory.
The fact is that God does exist and believing otherwise is factually wrong and ultimately harmful.

And while atheists who grow up in a relatively moral society will often be nice people, atheism generally leads to less compassion and more immorality. Studies show that atheists generally give less charity, volunteer less, and are often pro-abortion rights (although this isn't true about all of them). Communism and Nazism were essentially atheist movements Yes, Russian communists and European nazis were originally raised in Christian environments and influenced by Christian antisemitism, which probably influenced their atheism. But anyway, Christianity at its heart is polytheistic (despite the fact that Christians consider themselves fully monotheistic), another factually wrong belief related to atheism that leads and has led to immorality.

To address your final point:
As far as I can tell, atheists aren't just admitting that they haven't found acceptable evidence (although this description might fit agnostics), they are taking a firm stand on the issue.

And taking the analogy of relating to them as one would a deaf or blind person, I ask whether it makes any sense to listen to a profoundly deaf-from-birth person's views on the experience of music? (And I mean beyond their experience of musical vibrations.)

Should we accept lectures and books written by a blind-from-birth person about how and why color does not and cannot exist?

Taking the analogy further, we can certainly understand blind and deaf limitations and behave compassionately toward them, while also appreciating their skill in other areas, but theoretically speaking, to in any way validate a view that music and color don't really exist or aren't important, or to make any policy based on these views about music and color?

Thank you.

chana
5/11/2017 21:19:48

"The atheist, too, has a god, and it is himself.
The idolater at least understands there is something greater than him, something beyond the grasp of his physical senses, some external forces to which he is subject.
But for the atheist, all the universe is defined by his own understanding, all ethics are subject to his approval, and even he himself is an artifact of his own mind. He is a self-made man, for he creates his own universe and squeezes himself inside it." http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/147754/jewish/The-Atheist.htm

Myrtle Rising
5/11/2017 21:47:05

Thank you, Chana.


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