ren wrote: Metaphysical implies that it precedes the physical. Ubiquitous implies that it is in everything. A power implies a 'force' (I know right) as opposed to nothing. To put it in other words the force powers everything that exist, be it particles, space, or time. It isn't abstract. The force is the whole. The tiniest moment in time, the tiniest particle, radiation, space, you name it, is an expression of the force and evidence of it.
So... in other words its an entirely meaningless term, then. It literally means nothing because no line can be drawn to separate things encompassed by it from things that aren't. Claims of its significance and effects are also unfalsifiable, because by the definition you gave there can be no test performed that gives different results in any pair of possible worlds. How is this a reasonable position? Half of it is gibberish, the other half entirely irrational. Oh, but wait, it gets better. Not only do you hold to this single least reasonable - let alone useful - take on the Force, you also say:
If you believe it isn't the case, you're not jedi. First line of the doctrine.
Excuse me, dear sir... In my seven years of being registered, at TOTJO including the year or so worth of membership at TOTJO, and what little interaction I enjoyed with the larger Jedi community during that and afterward, not
once was I surveyed on what the TOTJO doctrine ought contain. Would I have had much of a contribution to make if I was? No, probably not. So let me ask you, if I may, what fraction of active members past and present actually did vote on the contents of the doctrine? Maybe the council did. Maybe the clergy did. It's not like this is out in the open, so I for one wouldn't know. What fraction of active members elected any of the composers of the doctrine to represent them and their beliefs?
Far be it from me to dictate to you who you should or shouldn't personally or in your capacity as councillor recognize as Jedi or not, who exactly are you to speak on any of their behalves but your own? Who are you to declare what is or isn't a Jedi? Who elected you to make such decisions for any of them? And if you want to say that this is not you, but the doctrine, then by the very same token, why is the doctrine an authoritative document on that question? At best it can be argued that it defines what a member of the TOTJO is. Heck, it can be argued that you as an (unelected) councillor get to make that call. You are not the King of Jediism. The TOTJO Doctrine is not gospel. Not even the Code is, though I'd argue that in a contest for purity, out of the Code and the Doctrine, surely the latter isn't to pervail, is it, not with a Catholic creed forced in there artificially.
