It’s actually a lot bluer when you’re standing in front of the actual thing than it is when you’re looking at the photograph. But even the actual thing as we see it before us is just a representation in our brains of what’s there, it’s not the thing itself.
A bat would have a completely different way of perceiving that farmhouse. More than likely, “blue” wouldn’t enter into it.
So what is reality exactly, that we are able to grasp it so differently? The photo is a real representation of the farmhouse, even after I’ve run it through my artistic software tweaks. It’s real enough that you could pick out the real thing after seeing the image, anyway. But a dog, say, probably wouldn’t connect the two dimensional image (which smells very different anyway) with the three dimensional house.
So. There’s something there, but we don’t know what it really is, do we? Our senses give us enough consistent information so that we can interact with our physical world, but as to what that physical world may actually be, we truly don’t have a clue.
Same with God. Let’s say the Methodist is a bat, the Buddhist a dog, the Cherokee an eagle, the atheist a fish. (A fish is probably never going to even be aware of the farmhouse. Just sayin’.) Each of these is just a way of trying to get a handle on some kind of something that’s ultimately incomprehensible, and there’s no point whatsoever in the fish arguing with the bat. Just leads to frustration.
Oh, man. All I wanted to do was take a pretty picture of a farmhouse, and I ended up in theology. See how one darn thing leads to another?
This image is from my gallery, Out Here in the Country — check it out when you get a chance because you’ll get to see the full resolution image in all its detail. Plus a little about how I go about creating these images. Just go here.
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Spyder Webb Fine Art 