Reason and Spirit

The Death of Bin Laden: An Opportunity to Examine Our Motivation

2011-05-04T12:01:00.000-07:00

The world is starting to adjust to life without Osama Bin Laden. In the aftermath of the street celebrations, there have been dozens of opinion pieces, blog entries and Facebook posts on how people “should” have reacted to the news. I’m not sure that people’s feelings can be subjected to a moral imperative. We feel what we feel and in a free society, nobody else gets to control that.

Were the crowds celebrating death and extolling assassination or was something else happening? It’s not for me to say. What we can say is that Bin Laden was the face of world terrorism for over 10 years. His voice and his face appeared in repeated videos gloating over the death and destruction that he and his followers caused.

My feelings differ vastly from those whose lives were directly touched by the events of 9/11 and I do feel that the world is a better place without Osama Bin Laden. Although others might step into the position he once held, nobody will take his place. The face of terrorism has changed forever.

I am not a pacifist although I greatly respect the courage and message of non-violence advanced by Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. They along with their followers chose the route of non-violence as a way of making their respective cases in the court of public opinion which eventually won the day for them.

It was an effective and admirable strategy under those circumstances. However, self sacrifice in the name of non-violence is always a personal choice; it cannot be made for others. To say that we must never oppose evil by force in the face of a fanatical ideology that is dedicated to as much human destruction as it can bring about might be seen as a form of complicity or appeasement.

The word “evil” properly applies to Bin Laden and his followers. Unity co-founder Charles Fillmore once said that; “Evil is a parasite. It has no permanent life of itself. Its whole existence depends on the life it borrows from its parent. When its connection with the parent is severed, nothing remains.”

The parasite known as Al Qaida was slowly sucking the life out of its Islamic host. In return, it offered a perverse ideology which essentially said to their Muslim brothers and sisters that if you oppose or even disagree with us, we will kill you. After the death of Bin Laden, the parasite no longer has a visible, living face and even before that, a significant shift was taking place.

In Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, a new generation was starting to reject the parasitic ideology of death and oppression represented by Bin Laden in favor of something more liberating and life affirming. Intelligent people eventually realize that parasitic evil is always taking and has nothing positive to offer. When the host rejects it, parasitic evil ultimately collapses under its own dead weight.

What is the “proper” response from a spiritual standpoint? Our spiritual discernment must first start with a consciousness that is free from fear, hatred or a desire for vengeance. The next step is to understand that there is more than one alternative. Sometimes nothing needs to be done and indeed nothing can be done. Other times, the eventual collapse is helped along by a little nudge from the outside. And in some cases, an even larger effort is required.

Whichever choice is deemed appropriate under the circumstances, the final step and each step after that is the same as the first; to proceed with a consciousness that is free from fear, hatred or a desire for vengeance. If that means that we should stop cheering, then let there be silence.

Counting Down to 2012

2010-02-09T14:16:00.000-08:00

Here is my bold prediction for what is going to happen in 2012; there will be earthquakes, hurricanes, tornados, volcanic eruptions, political and social unrest and lots of changes in the world. In other words, nothing much different from what has gone on every single year since the beginning of human history.

On the other hand, there are people who claim that something will occur in 2012 that will be so unique and unprecedented that it can only be regarded as the end or beginning of an age, part of some pre-determined cosmic cycle that ancient civilizations have been aware of for eons. First, there are the doomsayers who predict various catastrophes that could end life as we know it on planet earth. Then there are those who claim that 2012 will usher in something more vague and ambiguous such as a “new world age” or some kind of transformation or shift.

These predictions are based on a variety of things such as the Mayan calendar, various prophecies and events contained in indigenous mythology and folklore, messages from channeled entities, astrology and even the writings of Edgar Cayce and Nostradamus. In the January/February 2010 issue of Unity Magazine, the cover story featured an interview with author Gregg Braden whose recent book is called “Fractal Time; The Secret of 2012 and a New World Age.”

After reading the interview, I was left with far more questions than answers. I find it difficult to understand why we would decide to take indigenous mythology and prophecy literally when the Unity movement generally opts for an allegorical approach when it comes to scripture.

Mr. Braden seems to be saying these myths are authoritative because modern research has confirmed the accuracy of ancient Hopi prophecy telling of a time when the planet froze over and stopped spinning. I would love to see the research that verifies that one. Sure, we have had several ice age cycles but there is absolutely no evidence that the earth ever stopped spinning.

Consider this; I’ve checked across several sources which state that the earth’s mass is around six septillion kilograms. That’s a 6 followed by 24 zeros. At the equator, the surface of the earth is moving at a speed of around 1,000 MPH. I would be interested to hear from a physicist about the amount of energy that it would take to counteract that combination of mass and velocity and the effect it would have on the very structure of the planet itself.

Then, according to the Hindu Vedas, we are supposed to be in a “Kali Yuga” characterized by unreasonable rulers, addictions, famine, death and victimization. When has the world not been in a “Kali Yuga”?

Other support for a 2012 special event comes from Aztec cosmology characterized by cycles ending with great winds, fire from the sky and global cooling. The world has been experiencing these events in the form of volcanoes, asteroids, lightning, floods and windstorms for millions of years. These stories sound a bit mundane in the grand scheme of things.

Then we have Edgar Cayce and Nostradamus telling us that the new millennium would bring great change. So did the last millennium. Why is this one so different and why should we accept the authority of Cayce and Nostradamus? It is so easy to take ambiguous prophecies and quatrains after the fact and through a process of observational selection, find circumstances that fit and then call it a hit. Let’s hear about the many misses as well and then decide.

Anyone remember the “harmonic convergence” in 1987? That was another “new world age” event predicted by astrology and the Mayan calendar that was to usher in an era of peace and cooperation. Although nothing specific happened, people look back and say that the fall of the Soviet Union, the end of Apartheid and the reunification of Germany followed 1987 which is proof that the convergence happened.

Another name for that kind of observational selection is cherry picking; choosing the positive events after the fact in order to support a theory and ignoring the negative stuff like the earthquake that hit Los Angeles in October 1987. In 1988 the U.S. shot down an Iranian airliner killing 209 and a Pan Am 747 was blown up by terrorists over Lockerbie Scotland. 1989 brought the Tiananmen Square massacre followed by the Persian Gulf War in 1990. In other words, the world went on as it always had with delight followed by disaster.

Finally, we have something called “The Time Code Calculator” which uses a mathematical formula based on fractals to allow us to calculate when an event from the past might repeat. For example, using the December 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor as a seed event, the calculator predicts future times when conditions are ripe for an attack on the U.S. Sure enough, go to the calculator at greggbraden.com, put it in mode one, input December 1941 and keep working forward from the dates you get and you will come to 2001 and everyone knows what happened in 2001. Except the calculator says June of 2001. Close enough I guess.

In the interest of science, I would like to hear some independent opinions from mathematicians and physicists. One of the keys to claiming any kind of reliable knowledge is the peer review process which is totally lacking here. In light of the devastating earthquake in Haiti in January of this year, I looked up the calculator and put in June 1770, the date of the last known quake in Port Au Prince. The closest date that came up was October 2009. Does that count as a hit? After all, it was only off by 3 months.

Every year brings with it at least one event of unprecedented significance. Attempting to rank one as more significant than another is folly. Would anyone care to argue that the holocaust was more or less significant than the abolition of slavery or that the American Revolution was a more pivotal event than the Protestant Reformation?

I’m more concerned about the fact that in the USA today, slightly more than 60% of our population does not accept the scientific validity of evolution. One of those people seems to be starting a run for President in 2012 and she also believes in demons and witchcraft. Maybe 2012 is something to be afraid of after all.

Book Review: Eternal Life by John Shelby Spong

2010-01-30T11:39:00.000-08:00

I will be forever grateful to the Unity movement for introducing me to the writings of John Shelby Spong. He was the Episcopal Bishop of Newark New Jersey until his retirement in 2000 and has been a leading voice for progressive Christianity for over 30 years. Bishop Spong was a keynote speaker at the 2009 conference of our Association of Unity Churches International where he received the Light of God Expressing in Society Award for his work.

His books have provocative titles such as: Rescuing the Bible From Fundamentalism; Why Christianity Must Change or Die; Resurrection: Myth or Reality? and Jesus for the Non-Religious. Now we can add to that list his latest challenge to the status quo: Eternal Life: A New Vision; Beyond Religion, Beyond Theism, Beyond Heaven and Hell. This book is not for the faint of heart.

We are used to John Spong leveling devastating critiques of traditional Christian dogma with most Unity folks cheering him on. In Eternal Life, he expands his territory. Do you believe that God has a plan for your life or that the “soul” chooses your destiny? Bishop Spong convincingly argues that he is an accidental human being, not the product of anyone’s design and without any obvious preconceived purpose.

Nor does he find it reasonable to believe in any concept of eternal life where our personality carries over. That would rule out traditional notions of heaven and reincarnation. After looking into near death experiences, he remains more skeptical than convinced.

Another challenging observation he makes is that this present moment appears to be little more than the non-real instant through which the future passes on its journey to the past and concludes that it is the present that actually doesn’t exist for human beings. How will that sit with fans of Eckhart Tolle and The Power of Now?

He believes than human beings should have the personal and legal right to choose when and how to die. This decision is called a moral and ethical decision to be celebrated and lauded. He makes it clear that these are his personal views while backing them up with evidence based on a lifetime of research and experience.

His passion for the subject matter arises from the fact that he is 79 years old and facing these issues in a very real way. Although he is vital and healthy, he candidly admits that this may be his final book. If so, it will be a fitting epitaph for a man who has never been afraid to ask the tough questions about matters of faith and then follow the evidence to wherever it may lead; even it meant taking an unpopular position or abandoning comfortable but outdated beliefs.

For those who are curious about Bishop Spong’s final conclusions, without giving anything away, this quote from the book provides a hint: “Our ultimate destiny was never to be religious human beings, as we once thought; it was simply to be fully and totally human. Religion, that human activity to which we once entrusted our destiny, is now revealed only as a stage of life that had to be transcended before we could discover our destiny… It has been the human destiny to walk through the fearful and the limiting in order to discover the transcendent and the infinitely real. We had to walk through self-consciousness to discover the universal consciousness.”

Bishop Spong is a first rate scholar and his book has plenty of substance for those of us who need footnotes and an extensive bibliography. He also recounts almost his entire life story which gives the book an autobiographical flavor. He is quite repetitive about his key points which might be an annoyance to some readers but is perhaps a reasonable accommodation in our attention span challenged culture.

This is a book meant to encourage dialogue about difficult issues. For those who are ready to let go of supernatural or superstitious explanations for what happens when we die, Bishop Spong provides a basis for finding a new and more reason based approach to living and dying with a transcendent sense of meaning and purpose.

Haiti's Curse

2010-01-19T10:30:00.000-08:00

2009 is history, a year that provided unlimited excuses for not updating this blog. In February my father died at age 91. In April we had to euthanize our 12 year old golden retriever dog. After that it was house hunting after the rental we have lived in since 2004 was put on the market. I figured we were buying at the right time and at the end of July found a home in Rocklin that was perfect for us. In September we welcomed our next golden retriever puppy, a female named Tara. Now it’s time to get back to other things, like this blog.

I am hoping to do more book and movie reviews as well as comment on other things. As I write this, it has been almost a week since the earthquake in Haiti. On the day after the quake I mentioned to my wife that I wondered how long it would take for Pat Robertson to say something stupid about the situation. Based on his past track record with 911(caused by god’s wrath against feminists and the ACLU) and hurricane Katrina, (caused by god’s wrath against gay pride parades) it should be less than a week. Try 24 hours.

According to Pat, the Haitians are suffering because they have been under a curse. Here’s the quote: "They were under the heel of the French. You know, Napoleon III, or whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, we will serve you if you'll get us free from the French. True story. And so, the devil said, okay it's a deal [...] ever since, they have been cursed by one thing after the other."

Seems they made this pact with the devil at the start of their slave revolt in 1791. Some historians mention a voodoo ceremony presided over by one of the leaders of the revolt. So let me get this straight, Pat Robertson’s god says it would have been better for the Haitians to remain enslaved than to rely on an indigenous religious practice to rally the people to accomplish the only successful slave rebellion in modern history.

It is hard to believe that in 2010 educated people still believe in demons and curses or a theistic, supernatural all powerful god-person who controls the elements and tectonics to kill people he doesn’t like. And if a few righteous people get caught up in the divine carnage, I guess we just have to consider them expendable or martyrs. An all powerful god should be able to do better than that.

A new survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life reports that Americans are changing religious affiliations at a rising rate. The survey also indicates that the group that had the greatest net gain was the unaffiliated. More than 16 percent of American adults say they are not part of any organized faith, which makes the unaffiliated the country's fourth largest "religious group." ....While the unaffiliated have been growing, Protestantism has been declining, the survey found.

It is easy to understand why this is happening with people like Pat Robertson as the public face of protestant Christianity in America. The real curse for Haiti came in the form of the Europeans who practiced slavery and used the Bible to justify their atrocities.

Big Brother Isn't Just Watching Anymore (He’s Inside of Your Head!)

2009-01-12T15:21:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year everyone, 2008 is over and that means it’s time for the 2009 Weird Science awards as voted by we the people on the msn.com science and technology page. The top vote getter was the discovery of a 2,700 year old marijuana stash in the grave of an ancient Chinese shaman, a result which says more about the weirdness of the voters than the science. Other top vote getters in the silly category were a beer drinking tree shrew (notice a theme here?), a four eared cat and a see through fish created by selective breeding.

Then there was the discovery that sounded more scary than weird; “Japanese researchers have reproduced images of things people were looking at by analyzing brain scans, opening the way for people to communicate directly from their mind.” Volunteers were hooked up to a medical brain scanner and then shown black and white images. The results of the scans were analyzed by software that was able to produce replicas of the images the volunteers were seeing. Check out the story here: www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28286263/

Although the Big Brother mind reading scenario created by this technology might seem scary, the philosophical implications are intriguing. Is it possible that mind, thought and consciousness might actually be reducible to brain chemistry? If a machine can accurately capture and reproduce something that is being processed by human consciousness, what might that do to our whole concept of consciousness? Maybe it’s not so mysterious and special after all.

Research such as this is subject to peer review and it will be most interesting to see if the results hold up under scrutiny. Assuming they do and brain scanning becomes better able to detect what is going on within an individual mind, it will raise some major legal, theological and ethical questions. Is the Unity Movement prepared to address and weigh in on these questions? Better yet, why not lead the way?

It will require us to refine and perhaps redefine concepts like soul, consciousness itself and the whole notion of what it really means to be human. Little things like that. The world is changing rapidly and the major cause is our technology. It isn’t going away so we need to get going and find ways to make sure our teachings remain relevant in the midst of this kind of change. Reality marches on and we can either run away from it or embrace it. On this issue, I’m with Byron Katie, author of “Loving What Is” who said that when you argue with reality, you lose, but only 100% of the time.

Losing My Religulous

2008-10-16T13:48:00.000-07:00

I saw Religulous over the weekend, a very funny and challenging new movie from Bill Maher skewering various forms of religious expression. Maher is the former host of politically incorrect on Comedy Central which is a good description for this movie. I can't think of too many religious groups who would be left un-offended. Maher has nothing good to say about organized religion although he had nothing at all to say about that nebulous alternative to religion called spirituality.

His primary targets are the fundamentalist branches of Christianity, Orthodox Judaism and Islam in general with a brief shot at the weirdness known as Scientology. He also takes on the Mormons who are in a category of their own. His bottom line is that we shouldn’t be looking for ways to foster religious tolerance. Instead we should be finding ways to marginalize religion and expose the irrational, anti-intellectual, violent, xenophobic, misogynistic and misanthropic tendencies of the religions he is going after.

I think Bill Maher is one of the funniest and most intelligent satirists working today and parts of the movie were hilarious. At one point he is interviewing a "reformed" gay evangelical who insists that no one is “born gay” and Maher quips; “have you ever met little Richard?” Perhaps the best moment was his interview with father Reginald Foster, an American priest serving as the Vatican Latin expert. Father Foster refuses to wear priestly garb and comes across as a happy heretic with his progressive views on various topics. Another high point was watching the former director of the Vatican observatory, Jesuit priest George Coyne, make mincemeat of the claims of creationists.

Maher makes no claim of being fair and balanced. He offers no hint of a middle ground or opposing viewpoint. That task is left to others. This movie is a polemic; his concluding words are “religion must die in order for mankind to live.” I am inclined to agree to the extent that the religion he is talking about is the kind of fundamentalism that longs for the violent end times of Revelation or is bent on world conquest and domination violently or otherwise.

The biggest problem with the movie is that it doesn’t address the issue of why religion was invented in the first place. Human beings have always been looking for answers to ultimate questions and even if there are no answers, we need ways to talk about those questions. The movie does a great job of demonstrating how dysfunctional certain religious institutions have become but offers no alternative for dealing with the big questions. Science doesn’t have all the answers either so where to from here?

One suggestion might be to allow ourselves to evolve beyond the limitations of both religion and spirituality. The fact that humankind is outgrowing the magical and supernatural doesn’t mean an end to mystery and awe. The wonders of consciousness cannot be explained by mere reduction to biological components. Evolution is demonstrating an emerging level of complexity greater than the sum total of its parts that cannot be explained by random chance.

I would imagine that many people watching this movie might feel a bit defensive. Indeed, there are many apologists responding to Maher with varying degrees of alarm and outrage. The main reason that this movie did not have me squirming is because I do not identify with any of the religious labels being targeted. So what am I you might ask? I am an integral, evolutionary humanist. Good luck with that one Bill.

Neo-Idolatry and the Golden Calf of Post Modernism

2008-10-01T10:27:00.000-07:00

In the October issue of our church newsletter which went to print the second week in September, I commented on the economic issues that were confronting us. I reprint it here more or less as a lead in to an episode of the Colbert Report in which Stephen Colbert says it better (and funnier) than I ever could. His comments follow the failure of the House to pass the so called "bailout" on September 29th and how we need to have faith... in "the Market." Check it out here... it's a hoot and we all need a bit of that:

Talking about the economy has become a national preoccupation. It is remarkable how much power we attribute to this mysterious entity by the way we think and talk about it, so much so that the state of the economy now has the power to determine the state of our collective consciousness. Our mood goes up and down like a roller coaster along with the Dow and the price of oil. Could it be that the way our nation regards the economy has become a form of neo-idolatry, the golden calf of post-modernism, a god like being unto itself?

In the March 1999 issue of The Atlantic, Harvard Theology Professor Harvey Cox wrote an article entitled; “The Market as God” in which he observed that there are compelling similarities between the ways that economists talk about “The Market” and theologians talk about God: “…there lies embedded in the business pages an entire theology, which is comparable in scope if not in profundity to that of Thomas Aquinas or Karl Barth.” The entire article can be found here: www.theatlantic.com/doc/199903/market-god

But just because economists are starting to sound like theologians doesn’t mean we have to buy into their idolatry. This year, our annual seven week fall series will be based on the book Spiritual Economics: The Principles and Process of True Prosperity by Eric Butterworth. This is a timely topic. In his typically clear and direct fashion, Eric Butterworth tells us:

“You are not responsible for what is said in the Wall Street Journal or what comes out of Washington in the form of economic indicators, but you are very much responsible for what you think about these things. You cannot afford to let the so-called experts decide how you are going to think and feel.”

True prosperity is measured by the state of our consciousness not the state of our bank accounts. Eric Butterworth brings a refreshing and much needed perspective to the subject that is free from magical thinking and dogmatic attitudes about manifesting and tithing. Most importantly, he stays focused on the primary aim of all of our teachings which is to show us how to become self liberated, fully functioning human beings instead of using spirituality to justify egocentricity and materialism.

In his forward to the 1998 edition of Spiritual Economics, David F. Miller, the former vice chairman and COO of the J.C. Penny Company Inc. writes: “Advancements in science, art, and indeed economics, all arise from the same source, the creative mind that taps into the inner Self and eventually finds expression in our actions.”

Our task as human beings is to awaken to the presence of that creative mind and learn how to draw upon the strength and wisdom of our true Self as we navigate the inevitable ups and downs of the fullness of life which includes the physical world and the karmic effects of our own actions and those of others. Spiritual economics is about taking responsibility for our own consciousness in order to find greater freedom and a sense of confidence (dare I say hope?) that humankind is up to any challenge that we may encounter.

On a Collision Course With the Dark Ages

2008-09-10T08:58:00.000-07:00

As if we didn’t have enough to worry about, now we are supposed lose sleep wondering whether a super powerful particle collider in Switzerland might produce a microscopic black hole that will swallow the earth. Seriously. According to msn.com, a lawsuit has been filed to shut the project down which started this week. It was brought by Walter Wagner, a former radiation safety officer with a law degree. Now there’s a dangerous combination.

Despite the outcry, these are not mad scientists bent on destroying the world. No, they have a much more ambitious purpose; they want to re-create the Big Bang in order to find God, or at least something that has been nick named the “God particle.” The technical and less colorful name is a “Higgs Boson” and it might be the key to the mysteries of the universe.

Yes, there is a chance they could produce a mini-black hole, but the experts assure us that the little guys are very unstable and will simply blink out of existence as soon as they appear. Too bad. Sounds like a waste of a perfectly good black hole. Considering the time and money being invested, if they don’t find God we should at least get something out of the deal even if it is a massively destructive quantum singularity. Assuming we could control it, we could use it to suck down garbage and our landfill problems would be solved forever. A green black hole, the mind boggles.

I only wish it were happening at the Fermilab collider outside my old hometown of Geneva, Illinois. By God, if anyone is going to find God, they should be American or at least from a country that wears religion on its collective sleeve instead of those European secular humanists. And that probably explains why the project is happening in Geneva, Switzerland instead of Geneva, Illinois.

If our leadership edge in science and technology seems to be slipping, it may have something to do with a subtle but discernible disdain for reason and science in this country. When the powers that be think it would be great to teach creationism alongside science in our classrooms, we are on a collision course with the dark ages.

It doesn’t have to be that way, we can alter our course but it will take a willingness to expand our concept of God beyond the mercurial anthropomorphic guy in the sky who sends hurricanes to destroy cities that have gay pride parades. Shallow religion offers easy answers to ultimate questions which results in leaders who think they have a direct pipeline to the will of God.

I prefer a deep religion that isn’t afraid of what we might discover as we tackle the ultimate questions that seem beyond our capacity to answer right now. God particles, black holes and mystery are all part of the plan and we have the ingenuity to rise to the challenge of the big questions. After all, we were created in the image and likeness of God so naturally we are going to discover and express those qualities if we give it a chance. That’s where I am placing my faith.

Homophobia and Protection of Marriage

2008-08-11T15:41:00.000-07:00

The call has gone out; arise oh righteous ones and come to the aid of Proposition 8 in order to stamp out the threat to marriage and halt the moral decline of our country, or at least the state of California. Proposition 8 is an effort to amend the California Constitution to define marriage as between one man and one woman. Much of the support for it is based on religious arguments that appeal to the Bible and God’s divine plan.

Supporters of Proposition 8 who rely on religious arguments create an interesting conundrum. If the government is required to ban same sex marriages because God and the Bible mandates it, then any such legislation or constitutional amendment will constitute an establishment of religion contrary to the first amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

The only reason that government should be involved in the issue of marriage at all is in the event of dissolution to ensure the orderly disposition of property and money and to make sure that the rights of children are protected. The gender of the married couple is irrelevant to these considerations. For a government to define who can be married or create separate but equal classifications called marriage and domestic partnership requires some rational basis for doing so beyond tradition or religious concerns.

That’s the legal argument. After all, I’m still a lawyer. However, the larger issues go beyond legalities. Supporters of Proposition 8 ultimately resort to the language of morality which suggests that they want this to function as a referendum on the issue of homosexuality in general. Is it ok, sinful, immoral or just plain icky? You decide. Most of the arguments in support of sinful and immoral are based on the Bible.

Here’s an interesting thought experiment. Try formulating a non-Biblical argument against homosexuality that doesn’t apply equally to heterosexual conduct. If you say that homosexuality is unnatural because it doesn’t lead to pro-creation, then heterosexuals who are childless are unnatural as well. Better root them out too while we are at it or at least pass a law to make sure they return to doing only what comes “naturally” or at least adopting a child to keep up appearances.

Ok, but what about the immorality in those gay pride parades, all the leather and butt cheeks… shocking! Watch any cable TV lately? Heterosexual pop-culture is doing more to sexualize our society than anything a neighborhood parade could hope to do, if indeed that is the agenda. By the way, I have several gay and lesbian friends and I asked them to show me the homosexual agenda that I hear so many folks worried about. If there is such a thing, I haven’t seen it yet. Must be one of them there stealth agendas, you know… a secret conspiracy!! And as for those who object to homosexuality because its “icky”, all I can say is curb your imagination and grow up.

They say hindsight is 20/20, especially when it comes to moral outrage. When we look backwards in time we have no problem identifying customs and practices that were given the stamp of moral approval that would be considered immoral and outrageous today. Slavery, Native American genocide, denying women voting and property rights and child labor are the obvious ones, all justified by the prevailing religious authorities of the day.

One hundred years from now, what will that same hindsight reveal? Discrimination and hatred based on a person’s sexual orientation will certainly leave our descendants shaking their heads and saying “what were they thinking?” But even worse would be the perception that we were lacking any kind of a moral compass as we focused on the sexuality of consenting adults and ignored the very real moral evils of poverty, ignorance, disease, government corruption, environmental degradation and ethnic genocide.

There are many expressions of family life and no one form is stronger than another. The key ingredients are unconditional love and a commitment to selfless service. Government and churches cannot protect marriage by legislation or constitutional amendments. The best way to protect marriage is to provide support and encouragement to couples, regardless of gender, who are ready to express such a high level of commitment to each other.

Acts of God?

2008-05-13T15:25:00.000-07:00

People who believe in the Biblical end times must be putting their affairs in order and getting ready for the rapture. First the cyclone in Myanmar with over 30,000 dead and counting. Then over the weekend, tornados in the Midwest killed 21. Monday we heard about the big earthquake centered in Chengdu China. The initial death toll is 12,000 and rising.

Insurance policies used to refer to these kinds of events as acts of God which is an insult to any concept of the Divine that I would choose to have. The acts of God are the people digging through the rubble, providing food and shelter and donating to support relief efforts. Even so, human ego adds to the misery as the totalitarian government in Myanmar tells the world that it values isolation and control even if it costs the lives of its citizens.

If there is a judgment day, it is now as we watch the most effective relief efforts being made by Buddhist monks, the same monks who brought non-violent protest in support of democratic reforms and social justice. I wonder what the neo-atheists like Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris have to say about this interplay between the spiritual and secular worlds.

To Some, It’s Still Evilution

2008-04-17T09:37:00.000-07:00

One of the highlights of our recent trip to Chicago (after celebrating my father’s 90th birthday) was a trip to the Field Museum of Natural History down on the lakefront. I couldn’t remember the last time I had been there but it was probably more than 30 years ago when I was still living in the Chicago area with my parents.

The Field Museum is renowned for its extensive fossil collections, especially the Dinosaurs, including Sue, the worlds largest, most famous and most complete T. rex. But instead of displaying the collection like a bunch of exhibits behind glass as I recalled from my childhood, they are now part of an interactive journey through time called The Evolving Planet.

You enter the exhibit beginning with planet earth 4.5 billion years ago and then walk through the various eras, epochs and periods all the way up to the present day. Each step is illustrated with fossils, dioramas, and short movies summarizing the information and highlighting dozens of scientists whose life work is on display. There are six major extinctions and several cycles of ice ages. We spent over five hours taking it all in.

A portion of the exhibit was devoted to the work of Charles Darwin whose name is synonymous with evolution. And ever since Darwin wrote Origin of Species, evolution has been under attack by Biblical fundamentalists. They tried to prevent evolution from being taught in our schools and failed. They switched tactics and offered their own “theory” of creationism and its latest incarnation, intelligent design insisting that these teachings are of equal stature with the “theory” of evolution and should be taught in our schools.

As I learned at the Field Museum, evolution isn’t just one theory among others; it is one of the most strongly substantiated theories in modern science. It’s the only scientifically accepted theory that both explains the amazing diversity of life on Earth today—and provides a concrete explanation for why this diversity has changed throughout history. I have never viewed evolution as a threat or contradiction to the idea that there is intelligence in the form of principle within it.

Later on in his life, Charles Darwin is quoted as saying; "When I wrote The Origin of Species, my faith in God was as strong as that of a bishop." According to Darwin Biographer James Moore, Darwin wants to convince you in this book that God has established laws of nature on Earth, as in the heavens, and these laws produce the forms of life that we observe. And the principal cause of this for Darwin is what he calls natural selection.

Evolution is perfectly compatible with principle, intelligence and cause. No one suggests that it is a random and meaningless process. That would be a philosophical argument not a scientific conclusion. Even neo-atheist Richard Dawkins, truly an expert in the field of evolution, doesn’t call it a random process. He objects to the idea of a mythical supernatural god with human attributes who manipulates the phenomenal world.

The evolution/creationist debate is far from over. Creationists continue to attempt to undermine the work of science because it contradicts their literal reading of Genesis. I say let God out of the box and see the magnificence and scope of creation through open and wondering eyes. That was my experience at the Field Museum and I can't wait to go back! Check out these resources for more information.

For a virtual tour of the Field Museum exhibit: http://www.fieldmuseum.org/evolvingplanet/

For more on Darwin see “Evolution and Wonder; Understanding Charles Darwin” http://speakingoffaith.publicradio.org/programs/darwin/index.shtml

Welcome to Reason and Spirit

2008-03-17T10:45:00.000-07:00

The time has come to join the blogosphere. There just doesn’t seem to be enough time on Sunday or enough space in the newsletter to talk about all of the things of interest in the world. Here, I can write to my hearts content on a wide variety of subjects. Book reviews, current events, movies, TV, ethics, theology, integral theory, the Bible, comparative religion… the possibilities are endless. And the best part about it is that it is interactive. Questions and comments are a part of the process and that is how ideas grow.

The most difficult thing about getting started was coming up with a name. Something short, easy to remember and not over used that captures the essence of what we are talking about. Reason and Spirit speaks to a pre-occupation that I have had for most of my adult life; how to make sense of existence and our place in the cosmos.

So far, the only two things that have provided any illumination have been the faculty of reason and intuitive insights I attribute to that which we call Spirit. Hence, Reason and Spirit. For those of you who think that perhaps Spirit should come first (like my wife Karen) it is a simple matter of alphabetical order not value ranking.

Unity co-founders Charles and Myrtle Fillmore were living examples of the dynamic interplay of reason and spirit. They combined critical thinking and mystical wisdom in a creative way that has allowed us to reframe our Christian heritage and embrace the truth teachings of other traditions. It’s an idea that has started to catch on.

In January we talked about the changes that have been taking place within Evangelical Christianity. Increased dialogue with other faiths, emphasis on social justice, responsibility for the ecosystem and renewing our commitment to eradicating hunger, poverty and ignorance are the focus of this movement that has been called the emerging church. Two great examples can be found here, www.deepshift.org and here, www.sojourners.com . The conversation has started, who wants to be a part of it?