154. Notes - 'baggage of the soul' / fewer choices

154. 26 June 2019

       You are at Linda and Bill's. Bill is working on cleaning up on the recent work of reconstructing their bedroom which will be completed mid-July. Carol and Linda are at the hairdressers. 

       1020 hours. I was looking over some Internet definitions of 'spiritual reality' and find the definitions lacking part from ambiguity and part from personal viewpoints of what spiritual reality is or might be. From this I whittled spiritual reality down to First Cause. 

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First cause, in philosophy, the self-created being (i.e., God) to which every chain of causes must ultimately go back. The term was used by Greek thinkers and became an underlying assumption in the Judeo-Christian tradition. Many philosophers and theologians in this tradition have formulated an argument for the existence of God by claiming that the world that man observes with his senses must have been brought into being by God as the first cause. The classic Christian formulation of this argument came from the medieval theologian St. Thomas Aquinas, who was influenced by the thought of the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle. Aquinas argued that the observable order of causation is not self-explanatory. It can only be accounted for by the existence of a first cause; this first cause, however, must not be considered simply as the first in a series of continuing causes, but rather as first cause in the sense of being the cause for the whole series of observable causes.

The 18th-century German philosopher Immanuel Kant rejected the argument from causality because, according to one of his central theses, causality cannot legitimately be applied beyond the realm of possible experience to a transcendent cause.

Protestantism generally has rejected the validity of the first-cause argument; nevertheless, for most Christians it remains an article of faith that God is the first cause of all that exists.The person who conceives of God in this way is apt to look upon the observable world as contingent—i.e., as something that could not exist by itself.

Selected and edited from - ps://www.britannica.com/topic/first-cause

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       1032 hours. The above easily fits into my personal view, because it is cultural view I held growing up, but this does not mean that reality is something that could not exist by itself. That is another question, and a secondary one at that. If a transcendent cause is [a Kantian] one, and is 'beyond the limits of all possible experience and knowledge' then human beings cannot legitimately respond. Then this thought exercise is beyond a waste of time (1044)

       Thought is not beyond the baggage of the soul, Mr. Orndorff. 

       1627 hours. What is the baggage within, Miss Havisham? First, however, I need to look up 'baggage'. 

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baggage - noun - 

1 personal belongings packed in suitcases for traveling; luggage. • the portable equipment of an army. 

2 past experiences or long-held ideas regarded as burdens and impediments: the emotional baggage I'm hauling around | the party jettisoned its traditional ideological baggage. 

ORIGIN late Middle English: from Old French bagage (from baguer ‘tie up’), or bagues ‘bundles’; perhaps related to bag.

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       Baggage of the soul does not relate to a human being's spiritual heartanmind, Mr. Orndorff. 

        Time for a break, orndorff. Post. Amorella

       2219 hours. 'Baggage of the soul' is not the same thing in English as 'baggage in the soul'. Did I make a mistake in translation Miss Havisham?

       I will make corrections where I see fit, orndorff. - Amorella

       2223 hours. I still make mistakes in interpretation, Amorella. I am notorious through my entire life making such mistakes through over-interpretation and under-interpretation. I make grammar mistakes, all kinds of writing mistakes. The irony overflows with the most humbling humors. Me, an English major -- as a student teacher at Olentangy High my guiding teacher privately suggested that I go into another kind of work than teaching English -- this is after I spelled 'Grammer' on the board and didn't think a thing of it. She corrected me privately and I changed it acting like I just made a stupid mistake and knew better. This admission is most humbling. To be honest though, I couldn't teach anything else except perhaps history if I had three more hours at the time. Even then, so many history majors were also physical education coaches. That's how I remember it. 

       You genuinely feel you had no choice as far as teaching was concerned. Basically, you had fewer choices. Post. - Amorella