1 result for (book:notp AND session:798 AND stemmed:framework)
[... 5 paragraphs ...]
In those terms, therefore, the universe either had “a Creator,” or it had none; or it came into being as stated in the Big Bang theory, and is either constantly expanding or it is not. Evolution exists or it does not. As a rule such theories are proven “true” by the simple process of excluding anything else that seems contradictory, and so generally your scientific theories carry the weight of strong validity within their own frameworks.
In those frameworks you have made certain classifications that now appear quite obvious. Common sense upholds them, and it seems impossible to consider reality otherwise. Yet by their nature such categories structure your experience of reality itself to such an extent that any alternate ways of perceiving life seem not only untrustworthy, but completely impossible.
[... 2 paragraphs ...]
Your specializations work as long as you stay within the framework, though then you must wrestle with the questions that such divisions automatically entail. It is perhaps difficult for you to realize that these are written and verbalized categories that in no real manner tell you anything about the actual experience of other creatures — but only note habits, tendencies, and separations of the most exterior nature.
[... 6 paragraphs ...]
The subjective feeling of your being, your intimate experience from moment-to moment — these possess the same mysterious quality that it seems to you the universe possesses. You are mortal, and everywhere encounter evidence of that mortality, and yet within its framework your feelings and thoughts have a reality to you personally that transcends all such classifications. You know that physically you will die, yet each person at one time or another is secretly sure that he or she will not meet such a fate, and that life is somehow eternal.
[... 16 paragraphs ...]