Monday 5 February 2001

Pic of the day: "Do you have to feel, like, "energized" or something?"

No magic, we're christians

Yesterday, half in jest, I lamented the lack of miracles in my life. The truth is, I try to avoid them. Apart from simply praying (and usually I'm not too specific about it either). It's not like I go about laying on hands and stuff. A Norwegian preacher of some fame recommended that christians try to lay on hands on their cat to see if they had the Gift of Healing. Now that's an intriguing approach. I haven't tried, neither on man nor beast.[1] And frankly, I think it would be a bit creepy if they got better. I mean, sure, it would be nice, but then what now? It's sort of comfortable to know that you can't do anything about the suffering in the world, apart from paying tax.

Don't know how this is in your church, if you're a christian. I have got the impression that there aren't usually magic workshops. I saw on the Net that the witches network is arranging craft workshops now. You know, it's sort of ironic if christians don't. 1900 years ago, it was we who were a small semi-secret cult of magic wielders. And look at us now. I think most of us don't even know in theory how miracles work, much less in practice. Hands on, as it were.

Do you have to feel, like, "energized" or something to lay on hands on the sick? Or does the energy come when you do it? Or does it go directly into the patient? I know that with revelations, there is no clear connection between the preacher's energy and the way the Spirit works in the listener. Shouting and waving the arms seems to have no effect. This could of course be because the shouter doesn't have any revelations himself. (It's normally a he.) That would make it sort of hard to convey them.

***

Let me say a few word about magic in our world, as opposed to Dungeons & Dragons. You've probably heard that a sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. But I wonder if it doesn't hold the other way around too. That a sufficiently advanced magic seems to be just plain mundane. Just look at yourself.

We know that we consist of atoms. By and large, nothing else but atoms. Well, there's some photons and such, but just the stuff you'd find in any body of the same size and temperature. And we know that atoms are simple fellows. They follow straight, mechanical laws. They attract each other based on the number of electrons in their outer shell. Some attractions are stronger than others. They can all be tested in the lab, again and again. We know them well enough and they're just lifeless building blocks. At the same time, we know from personal experience that we have a reasonably free will. If I want to turn my head, I do so. If I want to raise my hand, it rises. Somewhere between the lifeless building blocks and the whole, something has changed.

ERROR: Life not logical!
(A)bort, (R)etry, (I)gnore? i

***

I think we may be misled if we consider miracles to be supernatural, like AD&D spells. If life itself is any indication, miracles are natural. In fact, some of them have during my lifetime become highly respectable and have got a scientific name: Placebo effect. Sometimes you give people an utterly harmless substance and tell them that it will heal them, and they get better. Or tell them that the sugar pill is poisonous and they can get really bad. (Nocebo effect.)

So we accept that if people believe something will happen in their own body, it is more likely to happen. We do not know exactly how; some say there are increased levels of certain chemicals like interleukin. I'm not sure if those are measured or just assumed. But what happens if we believe that something is going to happen outside our own body? In another person's body? In a cat's body? It's not supposed to work. Then again, neither was placebo. It just happened to work, and then the theories came later as to why it worked.

Next issue of Illustrert Vitenskap promises an article about spontaneous remission of cancers. I'd like to see that one. Now you may point out that this happens whether or not your pray for people. But you'd be one sorry chap if there's not someone who pray for you. You never know, people lurk around every corner ready to pray at the slightest provocation ... Anyway, I don't think that's important to my statement today. The fact is, the improbable sometimes happens. And then the theories come.

***

On a more personal note, I think I've mentioned this before ... There are often enough in my own life that I've been in danger, usually of my own doing. Climbing with no rope in the mountainside where goats refuse to go, locked in a small room with no windows and everyone on vacation and the dinner on the oven, carried off by the current while I had just learned to swim ... and more, several more. I think virtually every time, I prayed to the Lord. But there were no great white lights, no angel wings, no heavenly music, not even a feeling of the Divine Presence. (I've felt that feeling sometimes, but not then.) All that happened was that somehow something happened so I got out of my predicament. Usually, I found a little more strength than I knew of. On a rare occasion, someone showed up to help me, but that's less common.

I will understand if people say: "Well, that really proves it. Your god is just an imaginary friend. It's all inside yourself. There are no miracles." I still think this depends on how you define miracles. If you define miracles as something that should not happen by natural laws, then by definition if there are enough miracles they are not miracles anymore. Perhaps in 20 or 30 years, synchronicity is an accepted part of science the way placebo is today?

I don't really think I know God. I think I know only an image of God inside me. Not the real thing. But I don't believe in a God that hides in the cracks and fringes of knowledge, where the light of science has not yet reached. I believe in a God who is the foundation of science, and whose entire creation is one enormous miracle from beginning to end. And my life, and your life, are ongoing miracles. Believe it or not ...

And with that, we return to our regularly scheduled fluff ... God willing.

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[1]: Yeast, however... In school, we had an experiment in which we should create carbon dioxide by means of baker's yeast fermenting in a reagent glass. We took turns at keeping the mixture at optimal temperature by holding it between our hands. Until my turn, at which point the process abruptly stopped. Now that could be a bad omen, but the reason was simply that my hands were icy cold ... worse than nothing, in fact, for the poor yeast. Bad omens? Cold hands, warm heart? Or just a very inhibited teenager? God knows.