Website owner:  James Miller

In nature, the truth is usually hidden



   In nature, things are often not what they seem.  The real truth 
   about things is usually hidden, obscure, not obvious.  Whether 
   we are talking about the nature of matter, chemical reactions, 
   laws governing force and motion, the movement of celestial 
   bodies, the phenomenon of electricity, of magnetism, light and 
   its properties and laws, the phenomenon of sound and the ways 
   in which it works, etc. the truth is not out in the open and 
   obvious.  It is hidden.  Deeply hidden.  That truth that is 
   visible and obvious in this world is only a very small tip of a 
   huge iceberg of truth.  The rest of truth is all hidden.  On 
   first observation the earth would appear to be flat.  A 
   reasonable person would assume it to be flat.  Lacking any 
   evidence to the contrary it is natural to assume it is flat.  
   There would be no reason to think otherwise.  Yet even in 
   ancient times facts were learned that raised doubts about it 
   being flat.  And, indeed, it is not flat.  It is a sphere.  
   Appearances can be deceiving.  To a person without the benefit 
   of modern scientific knowledge, such as a person of ancient 
   times (or some illiterate or ignorant person or young child of 
   today), there are many phenomena of nature that he is aware of 
   (for example, the sun passing overhead once every day), but he 
   doesn't know what underlies them or what is really happening.  
   Such a person can, for example, easily say to himself, 
   "Substance or matter is what I can see and feel.  If I can't 
   see it and feel it, it doesn't exist".  As to what air is or 
   why wind exerts force, that is something that is a mystery that 
   he doesn't quite understand.  He doesn't know that air is 
   actually a substance --- but it is.  He knows about sound but 
   doesn't know what it is or how it is transmitted and has 
   probably never thought about it.  He knows that people breathe 
   but he doesn't know why and has never thought about it.  He is 
   aware of lots of facts but he doesn't know what underlies them 
   or what they mean. 

   Man has long tried to penetrate the deep, underlying secrets of 
   nature; to understand what lies underneath; to know what matter 
   is made of, for example; and how different kinds of substances 
   in nature are related to each other; and the meanings of the 
   motions of the celestial bodies.  These kinds of inquiries 
   started with the philosophical, inquisitive minds of the 
   ancient Greeks.  But it was not the Greeks but another people 
   who were to make the real progress.  These people were the 
   Europeans.  Their inquiries started about 500 years ago.  It 
   was under the siege of their minds that nature finally started 
   giving up its secrets.  And as that siege continued it gave up 
   more and more secrets.  This great thrust by the European to 
   understand nature that has taken place over the past 500 years, 
   to ferret out its hidden secrets, this great quest for 
   knowledge by the European, has resulted in our modern 
   technological world.  The task has been a long and laborious 
   one.  It has not been easy.  It has involved the cooperative 
   effort of myriads of minds over the years and has involved 
   digging out the truth a little at a time.  The endeavor has 
   been a highly intellectual one involving an enormous amount of 
   mental and physical energy in the form of reflective thought, 
   reason, logic, deduction, thoughtful analysis and a particular 
   technique of experiment and observation called the Scientific 
   Method.  It has all been a grand exercise in detective work.  
   And the Europeans have been aided more and more in this great 
   task by peoples of other countries, mostly countries of 
   European descent and orientation such as the USA.  By its 
   nature the work has generally required people who were highly 
   educated, highly intelligent, people given to much study.  And 
   the work has been frustrating and difficult, requiring great 
   persistence.  A great army of investigators and researchers 
   working in a myriad of areas, each building on the work of 
   others before him, making progress a little at a time over a 
   period of many years, has brought us into the position we are 
   in today.  The result of it all has been an accumulation of an 
   enormous body of knowledge about nature and the laws that 
   underlie it.  And man has learned to use all this new knowledge 
   to his advantage.  A direct product of it has been a great and 
   accumulating multitude of inventions, inventions resulting in 
   all the marvels of our modern age --- automobiles, airplanes, 
   telephone, radio, television, computers, the internet, modern 
   medical capabilities, etc. 

   Man's knowledge and understanding of the physical world that he 
   lives in has exploded over the last 500 years due to the above 
   process.  Yet with all that he has accomplished with regard to 
   understanding the natural world his understanding of himself 
   and of spiritual things has not changed from where it was 5000 
   years ago.  Man himself is the same as he has ever been; his 
   basic nature with all its weaknesses and inclinations has not 
   changed.  He is still subject to all the same inclinations ---
   inclinations towards things like dishonesty, selfishness, 
   hatred, jealousy, pride, envy, greed, vengefulness, malice, 
   laziness, covetousness, cheating, lying, stealing,  self-
   indulgence, unchastity, lustfulness, debauchery, profligacy, 
   fornication, adultery, sexual perversion, etc.  He is still 
   inclined towards taking all the wrong paths and listening to 
   all the lies and deceptions of Satan.  Morally he has not 
   improved.  He has learned nothing.  He still falls into all the 
   snares and traps of sin and then curses God and man.  In fact, 
   one could be excused for thinking that he has regressed.  

   May 2003






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