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  %RELIGION FAITH BELIEF POSSIBLE MIRACLE COLLUSION 920807

     Religious  faith has often been regarded as involving
belief  in  the  reality  of  events  which  involve   the
violation of entirely regular patterns of natural process;
i.e., patterns described by scientific laws of nature such
as:  the laws of conservation  of energy, linear momentum,
angular  momentum,  and charge---and the laws  of  Kepler,
Newton,  Gravity,   Thermodynamics,  and Electromagnetism.
Often  religious miracles have  been regarded as involving
such violations of entirely  regular patterns  of  natural
process;  and  religious  faith  is regarded as  requiring
belief in the reality of miracles so understood.

     If religious faith is of the nature described  above,
then  scientists  cannot with honesty and  integrity  have
religious faith;  for such religious faith contradicts all
that is central to the discoveries of scientific  research
wherein entirely regular patterns of natural processes are
found and carefully described. Scientists'  experimentally
confirmed faith in the regularity of the natural  patterns
of process runs counter to a religious faith which affirms
that those patterns of process are not entirely regular.

     One person cannot with integrity believe that natural
processes  are  entirely  regular  in  conforming  to  the
descriptions  of the most fully verified scientific  laws;
and at the  same time honestly believe in the significance
of  miracles  whose  essence entails the violation of  the
most  fully  verified  scientific  laws.   The  nature  of
religious faith has often been defined in misleading ways,
or  natural  processes cannot with confidence be described
as entirely reliable,  or some other misleading assumption
or  belief is involved  in the conflicting perceptions  of
the ultimate nature of reality.

     It may help to regard religious faith and miracles as
involving the miraculous transcendence of the patterns  of
processes of  collusive  games of mutual self deception of
addicts and their casts of supporting codependents. Such a
miraculous transcendence of collusions entails a return to
honesty  and integrity;  rather  than  an  abandonment  of
honesty and integrity.  What seems impossible from  within
the framework  of the paradigms of collusions,  addictions
and  codependency;   is in fact possible---and  opens  the
doors to real hope,  love,  honesty,  acceptance, personal
affirmations  and truthful relationships.  The opening  of
those  doors  is what is really miraculous and baffling to
those  who  are trapped in the dishonesty  of  collusions,
addictions,  and codependencies.  Religious miracles  need
not  involve the violation of any scientifically  verified
regularity in natural processes.

                                                                                                                               
                         (c) 2005 by Paul A. Smith in      
                    (On Being Yourself, Whole and Healthy)  
                                                                                                                               
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