“When we upend things in physics these days, it's not necessarily that old things were wrong. It's just that underlying it is a more complete theory.”
Lisa Randall, Theoretical Physicist
Sunday, November 25, 2007
Saturday, November 24, 2007
Back To Hyperboria?
James Lovelock's scenario of our grim future on earth suggests that survivors will retreat to the northern latitudes of Canada, Iceland, Scandinavia and the Arctic basin. The self-regulating system of the earth is out of whack and will make a jump to a hotter state, as it has in the past. Of the present 6.6 billion people only 500 million will survive.
Lovelock's book, “The Revenge Of Gaia,” predicts extreme weather by 2020, and by 2040 the Sahara will move into Europe, Berlin will be as hot as Baghdad, Atlanta will be a jungle, Phoenix will be uninhabitable, as will Beijing, which will try to move up to Siberia and thus clash with Russia, we will have severe epidemics after mass migrations.
Lovelock says we should use the term "sustainable retreat” rather than sustainable development. Remaining humans could go nuclear, desalinate the ocean, grow synthetic food, prepare for chaos, and engineer the climate. Smart cities will prepare by shoring up hospitals, securing dependable food and water. Dumb cities will be overrun and descend into chaos.
Lovelock's book, “The Revenge Of Gaia,” predicts extreme weather by 2020, and by 2040 the Sahara will move into Europe, Berlin will be as hot as Baghdad, Atlanta will be a jungle, Phoenix will be uninhabitable, as will Beijing, which will try to move up to Siberia and thus clash with Russia, we will have severe epidemics after mass migrations.
Lovelock says we should use the term "sustainable retreat” rather than sustainable development. Remaining humans could go nuclear, desalinate the ocean, grow synthetic food, prepare for chaos, and engineer the climate. Smart cities will prepare by shoring up hospitals, securing dependable food and water. Dumb cities will be overrun and descend into chaos.
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Soul Fallacies
The old terms Immanent and Transcendent remain better terms to describe the Soul and Spirit than such newer terms as “prerational” and “transrational” which Ken Wilber uses.
Immanence describes the Soul within the body, which can guide the Soul and body to Godhood. The Soul is not God, one does not “evolve” to the Soul, one “involves” to the Soul; one evolves to Godhood.
It has been politically incorrect, to say the least, to speak of future evolution, and this may have been an influence in the recent New Age confounding of evolution to God with involution to the Soul-Within. However, old masters also confounded these dynamics before evolution had been defined as we now define it.
Contact with the Soul-Within is dazzling, even life-changing, and such contact can lead to a Great Spiritual Blockade, but the Soul is to God as the spark is to the fire. We can contact the Soul-Within through involution for guidance in the bio-spiritual evolution to Godhood.
Immanence describes the Soul within the body, which can guide the Soul and body to Godhood. The Soul is not God, one does not “evolve” to the Soul, one “involves” to the Soul; one evolves to Godhood.
It has been politically incorrect, to say the least, to speak of future evolution, and this may have been an influence in the recent New Age confounding of evolution to God with involution to the Soul-Within. However, old masters also confounded these dynamics before evolution had been defined as we now define it.
Contact with the Soul-Within is dazzling, even life-changing, and such contact can lead to a Great Spiritual Blockade, but the Soul is to God as the spark is to the fire. We can contact the Soul-Within through involution for guidance in the bio-spiritual evolution to Godhood.
Monday, November 12, 2007
The Values of the Flesh
Bearing witness to the truth of the Christian God need not define the heroic ideal of Classicism as a far lesser value, contrary to St. Augustine. Can reason guide us further than Augustine thought it could?
Augustine asks how to satisfy the demands of human consciousness in their fullest measure. The “concupiscence of the flesh” cannot satisfy the ultimate demands of consciousness, he says, materialism is like “a runaway slave.” Theological materialism and the Evolutionary Christian Church (ECC) suggests that this view wrongly puts matrimony on a less exalted plane than a chastity which triumphs over the lusts of the flesh.
Elements of God survive in the Spirit-Will, which activates bio-spiritual life to Godhood. Augustine did not have knowledge of the science of evolution (too Manichean?) Chastity remains an important virtue in the traditional, involuntary, meditations of the Church, but religiously directed evolution raises the value of marriage. Ambrose and St. Paul declared: “marry and weep,” but the ECC does not speak of marriage in this way. Profane Reproduction leads away from God, in that it moves against evolution, whereas Sacred Reproduction enhances our evolution to Godhood. This is not to say that discerning the path to higher consciousness, higher intelligence, and beauty in evolution is easy, both science and religion are required.
Augustine asks how to satisfy the demands of human consciousness in their fullest measure. The “concupiscence of the flesh” cannot satisfy the ultimate demands of consciousness, he says, materialism is like “a runaway slave.” Theological materialism and the Evolutionary Christian Church (ECC) suggests that this view wrongly puts matrimony on a less exalted plane than a chastity which triumphs over the lusts of the flesh.
Elements of God survive in the Spirit-Will, which activates bio-spiritual life to Godhood. Augustine did not have knowledge of the science of evolution (too Manichean?) Chastity remains an important virtue in the traditional, involuntary, meditations of the Church, but religiously directed evolution raises the value of marriage. Ambrose and St. Paul declared: “marry and weep,” but the ECC does not speak of marriage in this way. Profane Reproduction leads away from God, in that it moves against evolution, whereas Sacred Reproduction enhances our evolution to Godhood. This is not to say that discerning the path to higher consciousness, higher intelligence, and beauty in evolution is easy, both science and religion are required.
Wednesday, November 07, 2007
Two Enlightenments
There are two goals, two enlightenments, which have in history been virtually two ways of viewing the cosmos: the involutionary and the evolutionary. For most of the world's religions the involutionary has defined spiritual enlightenment. The evolutionary goal is the goal of evolution to Godhood, or ultimate evolution. The evolutionary goal brings biological-material-supermaterial evolution into traditional religion, which has been almost exclusively centered on involutionary enlightenment.
New Age thinkers speak about “wholeness” and integrating the “shadow,” but wholeness and integration will come only when ongoing and upgoing biological evolution is affirmed and included in traditional religion. This will not be easy, of course, since the subject of continuing human evolution remains profoundly politically incorrect. This period of change in history is perhaps as great a period of change as the times of St Augustine, and later St. Thomas Aquinas, in their transmuting of the classical world.
It is understandable that the bliss which comes (but rarely for the few) from involutionary enlightenment might blind adherents, or create what we have called “The Great Spiritual Blockade,” yet we need to move on to the Second Enlightenment or Ultimate Evolution , which is our biological-material-supermaterial evolution to Godhood.
New Age thinkers speak about “wholeness” and integrating the “shadow,” but wholeness and integration will come only when ongoing and upgoing biological evolution is affirmed and included in traditional religion. This will not be easy, of course, since the subject of continuing human evolution remains profoundly politically incorrect. This period of change in history is perhaps as great a period of change as the times of St Augustine, and later St. Thomas Aquinas, in their transmuting of the classical world.
It is understandable that the bliss which comes (but rarely for the few) from involutionary enlightenment might blind adherents, or create what we have called “The Great Spiritual Blockade,” yet we need to move on to the Second Enlightenment or Ultimate Evolution , which is our biological-material-supermaterial evolution to Godhood.
Monday, November 05, 2007
A Christian Nod Back To Classicism
Early Christianity rejected the classical view of apotheosis with the great understanding that all of humanity can be deified by learning how to believe in Christ, whereas the classical view thought that only heroes and supermen could reach Godhood.
St. Athanasius, in the fourth century, said that we are rendered immortal by activating our latent spiritual powers through the indwelling Word, which we share with God. Eastern religions also contain this departure from Classicism.
The Evolutionary Christian Church, with a nod back to Classicism (and forward to modern science) defines the process of connecting with our spiritual inward nature as only half of the great task of attaining Godhood. The other half of our religion relates to the evolutionary outward path of material and supermaterial evolution all the way to Godhood. This is the Twofold Path.
St. Athanasius, in the fourth century, said that we are rendered immortal by activating our latent spiritual powers through the indwelling Word, which we share with God. Eastern religions also contain this departure from Classicism.
The Evolutionary Christian Church, with a nod back to Classicism (and forward to modern science) defines the process of connecting with our spiritual inward nature as only half of the great task of attaining Godhood. The other half of our religion relates to the evolutionary outward path of material and supermaterial evolution all the way to Godhood. This is the Twofold Path.
Sunday, November 04, 2007
On Reconciling Religion And Science
The radical position taken by traditionalists on reconciling religion and science is basically to reject science. The radical position taken by science on reconciling religion and science is basically to reject religion. The position that the late Pope John Paul took on this was a Conservative one, although it followed Vatican Two, which traditionalists see as not conservative.
John Paul's position was put this way: “...there are two autonomous realms of knowledge. There is what reason can attain through the use of the scientific method; and there is that knowledge which has its source in revelation. Both science and faith have points of contact: they both illumine an aspect of reality. Science considers the world and the human person on the horizontal level, the level of physical/chemical processes and of quantifiable matter. Religious faith, on the other hand, considers the vertical level: the level of the human person's transcendent origin, dignity and destiny: the level of the human person in his or her relationship with God.”
The Evolutionary Christian Church accepts John Paul's position on this as the Conservative way to proceed, but we do not rest there. We move forward and seek to join religion and science and make them one, we prefer not to see them as a marriage of different things. Yet we think we should proceed on this conservatively, moving ever toward the future, when religion and science are finally seen as one, as we are seeking to see it.
John Paul's position was put this way: “...there are two autonomous realms of knowledge. There is what reason can attain through the use of the scientific method; and there is that knowledge which has its source in revelation. Both science and faith have points of contact: they both illumine an aspect of reality. Science considers the world and the human person on the horizontal level, the level of physical/chemical processes and of quantifiable matter. Religious faith, on the other hand, considers the vertical level: the level of the human person's transcendent origin, dignity and destiny: the level of the human person in his or her relationship with God.”
The Evolutionary Christian Church accepts John Paul's position on this as the Conservative way to proceed, but we do not rest there. We move forward and seek to join religion and science and make them one, we prefer not to see them as a marriage of different things. Yet we think we should proceed on this conservatively, moving ever toward the future, when religion and science are finally seen as one, as we are seeking to see it.
Saturday, November 03, 2007
ECC's Eco-Philosophy
Eco-philosophers (e.g. Worldchanging) seek evolution toward the sustainability of our material circumstances and social formations, and traditional spiritualists seek the interior, involutionary structures of consciousness. The Evolutionary Christian Church wants the Green vision of sustainability to include the future, sustainable, evolution of human life, all the way to Godhood.
A. Material-social sustainability
B. Involutionary spirituality
C. Sustainable, human, bio-spiritual evolution
A. Material-social sustainability
B. Involutionary spirituality
C. Sustainable, human, bio-spiritual evolution
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