credendo vides!

seeing is believing.

what you see is what you get.

you can't see what ain't there.

ever say these things? usually, these are people for whom fact and absolutes are the only reality. unfortunately, we have a character in christian fiction --doubting thomas-- who blows my whole point out of the water for many people. too many people are like doubting thomas in that they must see it, touch it, feel it to know it's real. how many homilies had i sat through as a roman catholic, listening to how much we are like doubting thomas, and how he's important for us as a reminder not to doubt the existence of god, especially since it's already been proven. why, just look at doubting thomas.

*smacks forehead*

if that's not a beautifully subtle way of programming people to only see to believe --telling them not to do it only after planting the idea in their head that they should-- thereby leaving them entirely closed to any other reality or possibility other than what the church tells them is there, i don't know what is.

sometimes i weep for that, but for the most part, i try to teach myself --a little at a time-- to love them more than i love them. because, really, i could love them a whole lot more than i love them...

anyway, seeing is believing. what if it weren't so clear cut? what if our experience of the objective material realm we perceive with our five senses and measure with our instruments (thank you, mr. brezsny) was nothing more than a mass hallucination we all subconsciously agreed to have at the same time and call it "reality?"


"seeing is believing," my metaphorically pronoiac ass! that is nothing more than a snot-nosed, cynical little catch phrase people use to support the disguised religion of fundamentalist materialism: an arrogant assertion that the scientific method is the sole arbiter of the ultimate truth; an absolute certainty that the metaphors of science deserve to trump all other metaphors. scientism is an obsessive emotional investment in results that can only be perceived with the "five" senses, or repeated within tightly controlled experiments, or measured with instruments that have already been invented.

at least judaism and christianity have ten commandments. the zealots of scientism have just one: Thou shalt have no other realities but the One True Consensual Hallucination Known as Habitual Waking Consciousness! (the televisionary oracle , robert brezsny pg 113)

now, don't get me wrong. i like science. in fact, i love science! i like velcro and the internet, indoor plumbing, lava lamps, and my collection of stylish-yet-affordable shoes. but science isn't the only reality. there are other things out there we can't see yet, and will never see if we don't look for them. and, even if we do, they'll suddenly changed into something else. sometimes the very nature of a thing is changed simply by trying to quantify it, study it, measure it. the Prime Directive is a pipe dream.

they discovered this in quantum physics, with the EPR Paradox. kind of like schrodinger's cat, only far more serious and dramatic. you see, once upon a time these three really smart guys got together (not literally), einstein, podolsky, and rosen. and they said, " what if, once upon a time, there were these two particles flying in opposite directions at the exact same speed? since we don't know how fast they were moving, we have to use this nifty equation called a wave function to describe them. someone then measured the speed of one particle, however according to other rules knowing the speed of one means you instantly know the speed of the other, and therefore its state has been changed. you can't describe it with that nifty wave function thingamahoozie anymore. however, if affecting one particle affects the other, then this goes against the laws of relativity."

"this just can't happen!" shrieks einstein. "seeing is believing!" you see, for one particle to affect the other over distance, this would have to happen instantaneously (faster than the speed of light), but for that to happen, it would also have to travel backwards through time. so you can see why einstein just flipped his wig.

of course, you don't have to be a scientific brainiac to understand it. just read douglas adams: "there is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. there is another theory which states that this has already happened."

so what does all this mean, anyway? "c'mon, delena," you say. "how does all this --fundamentalist materialism, the mass hallucination of supposed "reality," quantum physics, and the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy-- have to do with seeing is believing, killing armageddon, pronoia, and your loving war against the mass genocide of imagination?

only this, beauty and truth fans...

credendo vides. by believing, one sees.

what if there are worlds beyond the ken of your five mortal senses? what if there are colors, ideas, people and dreams and "magic" powers that are happening right in front of your face...and yet you cannot see them because you are not looking for them? because you don't believe? what if your very unbelief is affecting them right now? what if there are worlds and possibilities that are completely closed to us because we've closed our minds to them?

thought is power. thought is the power. thought created the universe. true, what the Phantasmagoric Succubus of Eternity thought was to play 'pop goes the weasel,' and The Word was "Wee!" but still. it was a thought! thoughts define our day, our individual realities! that chair you're sitting in? someone had a thought about how much more comfortable it would be to sit on something other than the ground, or a rock. that computer you're using? that mouse, the monitor by which you're able to navigate to and read iGoddess and thereby steer your own Divine Wow closer to your own inner Funk...someone had a really neat thought, a funky and totally crazy-whacked idea about a machine that could calculate thousands of equations a second. someone else had a thought about sharing information over vast distances, all from the comfort of their own laboratory (the original idea of the internet was so sciententists could share information), and from that thought came creation. those clothes you're wearing? someone thought, "man, i'm cold. i think i'll invent 'the shirt.'"

where did those thoughts come from? where does it all begin? the imagination! our imaginations are what fuel and move the multiverse! imagination, invention, entertainment, surprises, relationships, science, spirituality...it's all imagination! so you wake up on the wrong side of the bed? hey, your thoughts are crappy. and you're so busy having crappy thoughts, you don't pay attention to the "No Turn" sign, and get pulled over by a cop. you think bad thoughts and turn those thoughts into bad words and bad attitude to give to the cop, who then picks up your bad thoughts (via your bad mood, created by your bad thoughts) and slaps you with every traffic violation he can think of. you go to work, grumping and crabby and thinking even worse thoughts, snap at everyone, who then pick up your bad vibes and the aura in your workplace degenerates into one big clusterfuck. you go home, bark at your family, get heartburn, don't sleep well that night, wake up with really bad gas, and do it all over again. your thoughts have just created your reality. but seeing is believing, right? it is because it simply is.

but credendo vides!

i believe the universe is secretly conspiring to shower me with blessings. i wake up on the wrong side of the bed, so i think of my brother and sister on the other side of my bedroom door who will be glad to see me when i come out of my room. i take an extra ten minutes alone for myself because i'm feeling crabby. i get up, go pee, wash my hands and face, and when they see i don't look entirely like my lovely, sunny dee self, they ask what's wrong. i could turn my crabby, grouchy thoughts into crabby, grouchy words, but i'm being showered with blessings at that very moment.

"oh," i say, "i just didn't sleep well again, that's all. ngh. need tea. the tea is the life." *cc* chimes in with, "the tea is the life! yay tea! ommmm...." and this makes me chuckle. *mj* rubs my shoulder, showing me his affection and sympathy, maybe even encouragement. this makes me smile and, while i may be tired, i'm not crabby. my thoughts have defined my reality.

what if what you see really is what you get? how cool is that?