1. The Origin of Life
A "primaeval soup" is postulated within which chemicals knocked together
until they just happened to create a nucleic acid that reproduced itself.
It sounds unlikely and if a subtle cause like a pre-existing desire to that
end intervened "magically" it would be easier to accept and understand.
2. The Evolution of Species
The survival of the fittest is a truism. However the idea that random
mutations of genes (mostly disadvantageous) ran on until one was found that
actually helped the species is also questionable. We don't understand the
genetic language well enough to assess its chances. The existence of a
pre-existing desire to adapt and survive that intervened "magically" would
make it easier to accept and understand.
3. The Evolution of the Biosphere
The interaction of species and environment such as the altering of the land
and atmosphere and climate of the Earth in the Gaia hypothesis, also sounds
unlikely unless there were an ongoing desire for all life to survive and
make a home for itself. The limits and fragility of the experiment we may
alas be about to discover.
4. The growth of the individual
Given a genetic blueprint there does not seem to be enough information to
chart the growth of an individual with all the infinitely different whorls
on each human finger for instance that is individual specific, and then
spatially arranged (in most cases perfectly if no Thalidomide is
administered) on a hand an arm and so on. This process could also be
understood better if a disembodied program guided it.
5. Parapsychology
Clairvoyance telepathy psychokinesis and precognition all require either
radical rejection of statistical theory or acceptance of a force or
intelligence that goes beyond strict borders of space and time, such as,
operating in other dimensions.
6. Other dimensions
Physics has overtaken its sacrosanct prohibition on more than three (or four)
dimensions so that latest theories requiring 6 10 or 26 dimensions of space
are discussed and it cannot any longer be said that "other dimensions are
ruled out" by science, indeed science is now the worst culprit in such
speculation.
7. Magic & Wonder
Going beyond 5. into the realm of everyday Pagan experience with divination
and healing and weather magic and physical apports and whatever, we (Pagan
practitioners) learn to live in a world that is very different from 19th
Century materialist physics, but not one that, 20th Century physics imbued
with the Uncertainty Principle, Chaos Theory, Catastrophe Theory, String
Theory, and tomorrow's wonder theory, will be unable to reconcile in the
21st to 22nd Centuries. Traditional materialism with its philosophically
fatal Determinism, is however, dead & gone & well rid of.
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