I believe that tangible things are real-things that I can perceive through the use of my five senses: sight, smell, hearing, taste, touch. Yet I also think that there is a reality outside of the senses, because the senses stimulate our minds and give birth to our ideas, our thoughts, our hopes.
             There are many levels of reality, and everything is a product of the mind. You cannot investigate the question of whether or not something is real without using at least some of your senses, and this would naturally include your thought processes. You see a table and touch it and your mind says, "This is a table." Abstract things like love and courage and our faith in God-things that you cannot perceive with the five senses-also exist because your mind creates their reality. As we live we acquire knowledge of forms of reality that make up our world, and that knowledge is comprised of concepts that are derived from our perceptions. The fact that you can't see or hear or touch certain things doesn't mean that they don't exist or are less real than the table you can touch. Nobody outside of the encounters related in Holy Scripture has ever seen or heard God, but we know he exists because God is life itself. One doesn't always have to have the proof of the senses, but if we did need such evidence we could see God mirrored in the ever changing face of nature, in the embrace of the person we love, in the grasp of our newborn baby's hand.
             Everything that can be experienced becomes a reality on some level, so reality will also differ from individual to individual. I may look out of my window and see a beautiful sunset and for me it has a reality. It exists. Someone else may look out his window and never notice the sunset. However, the sunset is still there. It still exists. There are people walking around who truly believe they are Jesus or an alien being. That is their reality. My mother, during the ...