Here are a few of the points I made or intended to make at this remarkably rousing debate between the atheists and skeptics -- Michael Shermer and Sam Harris on one side and Deepak Chopra and myself on the other. The debate was mostly focused on the scientific aspects for the existence or non existence of God. My role was to provide a somewhat different perspective.
1. The world has been rearranged, the reset button of history has been hit. Many are called to take initiatives that before would have seemed unlikely, if not downright impossible, including the rethinking of the reality of the Intelligence that underlies the universe. My perspective joins that of the poet Christopher Fry: "Thank God our time is now when wrong comes up to meet us everywhere, never to leave us till we take the longest stride of soul men ever took." In this, we are present at the birth of an opportunity that exceeds our imagination -- the 13.7 billion year experiment that could result in our lives coming to end within the century.
2. There is a radical need for a new natural philosophy based on our new knowledge of the cosmos, the world, the cross-cultural mix of knowledge and understanding, potential evolutionary directions, and our own emerging realities. We have been shackled for too long by philosophies, however noble, that have been limited by much narrower views of the world. And what is worse, too many of us have been patterned and prepared in the alembic of these limited views, however out of date they may be, and we find ourselves to have been marinated in the medieval soup of the mind. Today, many feel the need to release inadequate ideas of God so that we can all move forward. To become atheistic and skeptical at a time of so much opportunity is one way to respond to our dilemma, but then we forget that religion and spirituality are also about the quest for meaning, transcendence, seeing the interrelatedness between things, compassion, goodness, laughter, and the great Pattern that connects all things with each other as well as ways to live kindly with the suffering that is an inescapable part of the human condition. Thus, faith will never go away and, in the words of Karen Armstrong, " To identify religion with its worst manifestations, claim that they represent the whole, and then demolish the straw dog thus set up does not seem a rational or useful way of conducting this important debate."
3. In spite of the fact that there appears to be a decline in attendance in traditional organized religions, the search for spiritual experience has rarely been greater. In America alone, in the last 30 years, the number of religious groups has doubled. We take new names, sit zazen, become Sufis, Taoists, neo-pagans, devotees of Kali and Vedanta. Buddhism in all its varieties is the fastest growing American faith. There is an eruption of spiritual polyphony, that some might caustically see as "the Divine Deli" or "cafeteria religion." What this points to recalls the original Greek meaning of enthusiasm: entheosiasmos, "being filled with the god." As one Catholic Brother told me, "These other traditions do not contradict my own. Rather, they open the wells of the Waters of Life. When I meditate with His Holiness [the Dalai Lama], I feel as if the deep rivers of our respective traditions are meeting and becoming a mighty flood of spirit and renewal."
4. The complexity of the present world is shattering expectations in every arena, most especially, in the geography of the soul. Lost as we all are, we can understand why some retreat into fundamentalisms that provide archaic certainties, holding houses of containment before the onrush of new realities. Others wander in a spiritual void, overwhelmed by the loss of all pattern, looking to material accomplishments to replace the loss of essence. Still others flee into "replacement strategies"-- psychotherapy, drugs, sex, growth seminars, travel. In each case, mind and body are at the end of their tether, swung out into vertigo over the abyss of Being. And yet the yearning for personal experience of the divine reality has never been greater.
5. As Martin Buber taught us, "I" attends to "Thou" much more than "I" attends to itself. When you get beneath the surface crust of everyday consciousness, and past the sensory, psychological and even mythic and symbolic levels of the ecology of inner space, you discover the depths beyond depths, and, with it, peace, serenity joy -- no separations, but also a transcendent grace and even high creativity. It is not just the mystics, but the high creatives (some of whom are scientists) who report that in the throes of creative experience, feel themselves aligned, guided, allied by a power that is beyond or deep within themselves. This power is felt as spiritual reality, a vision, an inward voice, an invisible life's companion, and became a formidable motivation for a quest for truth and discovery. One cannot just reduce these experiences to brain secretions and happy neural chemistries. There is more to us than that. We inhabit the Universe, but the Universe, with its vast domain of intelligence and inspiration also inhabits us! In certain states of consciousness and explorations we tap into its myriad resources.
6. The issue of where this is all coming from has ancient roots. St. Francis in the 13th century defined the issue of consciousness, the brain and God when he said "What we are looking for is Who is looking." Meister Eckhart, a little later, took it further when he said "The eye by which I see God is the same eye by which God sees me." He got into a lot of trouble with the Pope over that one.
My own take on this is that we are the players in a great game called Paradox. And what is the paradox? It is that we are both Infinite and finite beings: As finite beings we are Godstuff incorporated in space and time; as Infinite being, we are the Living Universe in an eternal yet spirited form of itself. As this Infinite self expressing aspects of God, and as a form of the Living Universe, we find ourselves capable of creating and sustaining an individual finite self. That is you -- the human being that is the microcosm or, if you will, the fractal of the Infinite self. The human Selfing game may be what Infinity does for fun. Not realizing this, we live in a state of galloping ambiguity, caught in a limited time vehicle
and yearning for our greater self. Then when we make the rare excursion into our Greater being, becoming our cosmic selves, we suddenly yearn like Dorothy in Oz to get back home to the farm in Kansas. Why is this? To continue the metaphor, to live in Kansas however joyous and rewarding it is to chronically confront our limitations of body, mind and the others. Whereas to enter into infinite life is rather difficult to navigate and transcends all understanding.
I believe that to live in a state of both/and is to become who and what we were patterned to be. We cannot contract the infinite to fit into the finite, because if we do so we just end up with a fundamentalist God. However, we can extend -- through conscious work on ourselves -- the capacity to expand and thus to enter into partnership with the infinite. Then, and this may be the goal of the Paradox game, we do indeed discover that we are an infinity of selves creating and sustaining our individual human self. Do you see the stupendous import of this statement? To me, it is a mind cracking, soul buffeting, life enlargening realization. Once understood and internalized, it adds tremendous power to our freedom to be, our enormous capacity to grow, evolve and recreate ourselves, and our ability to live simultaneously as finite and infinite beings. The Infinite self has some part in directing the development and unfolding of the finite self, and the finite self offering joy, entertainment and knowledge to the Infinite self. This is the Paradox of partnership resolved. The game is to overcome the illusion of separation.
Now we know that many of the great spiritual traditions, Buddhist, Hindu, Taoist, the Christian mystical tradition declare that the finite and the infinite are on a continuum with each other. Even recent scientific speculation is saying the same. Modern physics of the quantum variety as Deepak Chopra so brilliantly illustrates, increasingly extends into the paradoxical and mystical in is pursuit of a unified theory of the fundamental forces of the living universe.
Finally, we are that crossroads between biology and cosmology. We are called to explore the mystery itself as an interface between engagement with external realities and embrace of the inner journey. This brings us to a place of contemplative practice, and the vital synergy between inner and outer realities necessary to transform self, institutions, paths of possibility, as well as visionary endeavors. And in so doing, unleash the human spirit of those who compose the institution or endeavor and of those who are served by this. It is an activity of extraordinary balance, a tension in repose. It is about a zone in which paradox occurs. It is a space where the sacred emerges and the local self disappears. It is a space of exquisite silence and of extraordinary service. It is a space wherein there is a fusing and blending of silence and service. In such a state one has access to the creative, world making place where one's unique entelechy (the essential self) meets the Entelechy of a potential new time, one that gives the details of an evolution in person and society.
There is a wonderful Sufi story of a man broken hearted by all the suffering and sorrow he saw in the world. He sat by the roadside and began to beat the earth. He looks up and yells at God. "Look at this mess. Look at all this pain. Look at all this killing and hatred. God, Oh God, why don't you DO something!?"
And God said, "I did do something. I sent you."
Follow Dr. Jean Houston on Twitter: www.twitter.com/JeanHouston
Meister Eckhart's statement is a declaration of self-realization and religious heresy rolled up in one!
Eckhart's statement begs the question: "Is the universe conscious?"
My personal answer is: "As there is nothing proving consciousness is "contained", and you can't separate life from the universe, then the universe should be conscious". Some would call that consciousness "God".
Each participant had a valid perspective to present to the audience. Houston brought validation to a debate becoming nonproductive, something gifted women do. Her nonverbal behavior spoke a silent peace, and when afforded a chance to speak, if one listened, wisdom blessed us, too.
She knows absolutely nothing more about God than Einstein except that he was honest and admitted that.
She was the empress who had no clothes.
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"God is an essence we know nothing of. Until this awful blasphemy's got rid of there will never be any liberal science in the world."
John Adams (October 30, 1735 – July 4, 1826) was an American politician and the second President of the United States (1797–1801), after being the first Vice President (1789–1797) for two terms. He is regarded as one of the most influential Founding Fathers of the United States.
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/05042007/transcript3.html
I wasn't claiming she wasn't courageous. In fact, most humans are courageous, in some domain or the other. However, one can be courageous and woolly at the same time. Your own standards for clarity appear to rule out nothing, so (perhaps) the sole judge of what makes sense is simply how you feel about a statement. I'm all for asking the questions, but if Houston's answers are what awaits the questor, then we'd do well to heed Sancho Panza's words to *his* brave but deluded knight.
For me it does come down to who is asking the question.
Do dogs ask the question is there a god?
Does god exist to those that do not ask the question?
As a poet and spirit singer, I feel god through poetry and mystical music.
A dog might be feeling god when he has a great meal.
Do we feel god, or do we think god?
So now all I have are more questions *). xx
Anna K. Rose, Ashland, Oregon twitter: triadicheart
Dr. Houston’s ideas trumped Chopra’s on all accounts.
You said: “Deepak Chopra and Jean Houston are two courageous individuals to take on a public debate over the existence and future of God opposing leading atheists BOTH SUPERBLY EQUIPPED TO DISPROVE THE EXISTENCE OF GOD”.
What made you conceive this notion that anyone is equipped to disprove the existence of one Dieu-lusion or several gods?
Science is entirely comfortable with a lack of complete knowledge. It's religion that has trouble with this.
That is why science is a philosophy of discovery while religion is a philosophy of ignorance. By pretending they own the truth, merchants of religions make a lot of money but their lies are harming society.
Time magazine’s MAN OF THE CENTURY, Albert Einstein himself, conceded this was impossible.
...To be sure, the doctrine of a personal God interfering with natural events could never be refuted, in the real sense, by science, for this doctrine can always take refuge in those domains in which scientific knowledge has not yet been able to set foot.
But I am persuaded that such behavior on the part of the representatives of religion WOULD NOT ONLY BE UNWORTHY BUT ALSO FATAL. For a doctrine which is able to maintain itself not in clear light but only in the dark, will of necessity lose its effect on mankind, with incalculable harm to human progress...
Albert Einstein
http://books.google.com/books?id=hyO7PLl0u1sC&pg=PA93&lpg=PA93&dq=#v=onepage&q=&f=false
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ניפוץ אלילים - ביעור הבערות
HOLY HERETICS
http://holyheretics.com/
To do this, it will require a very difficult process of letting go of much tradition and dogma. But it can be done, by focusing on the core message of "loving one another" which has always been the essence of the message from their spiritual masters. Not only can this be done, but it must be done. For it is the lack of love that the world is suffering from. But love, the sacred, feelings from faith resulting in lack of fear, consciousness, etc. can only be experienced. They can never be scientifically proven. This is why poetry, story, art exists. They all try to express the unprovable, the unmanifested or the infinite and to invoke personal feeling that can only be personally experienced in the finite.
The debate is really about the need for beliefs that will lead to greater love in society. This will lead to the establishment of common values and new societal systems that can provide the foundation to build a new peaceful world.
Have a Wonderful Day! - Mike - UPLIFTING HUMANITY
Organized religions represent the largest groups of organized beliefs and therefore have the most impact on the manifested, physical world. In this regard, a huge part of the condition of our world, the good and the bad, is a result of the successes and failures of their belief systems. The underlying theme of most atheism movements is the push to stop the "bad" that occurs from the failures of organized religion. Too often religious beliefs have led to divisions, intolerance and decreased reason within society breeding all sort of destructive behaviors. The actions of the atheists to counter the negative impacts of organized religion is also their public recognition of the power of the unmanifested, of thoughts and beliefs. Spirituality attempts to achieve the same effect, but not through a direct frontal assault on religion, but by reaching individuals who are searching for something more that can only be experienced.
The common sense discussion on the human creative process and the importance of beliefs is best described in my opinion by the work of Neil Donald Walsch in his Conversations with God series. New Revelations in particular examines the importance of uplifting beliefs. In this effort, organized religion needs to transcend its current level of beliefs about both Life and God.
(see next post for final part)
Part 2
As quantum physicists continue to try to build the bridge between the manifested and the unmanifested worlds of energy, thoughts are emerging as powerful forces. In fact I am of strong opinion that grouped thoughts or beliefs are the most powerful forces in the world. It is the creative process of moving from the unmanifested to the manifested through the sequence of thought, word action that has resulted in the world as we experience it today. Becoming aware of this process is becoming enlightened about consciousness and the importance of reason. Reason is essential to success of both the secular humanists and spiritualists, for what good is awareness without the use of logical reasoning? They need each other like a fish needs water. What would Thomas Jefferson be without both enlightenment and reason? Public awareness of the real forces of creativity within each individual that drives the evolution of all human society is one of the first steps that will advance the needed discussion between contemporary spiritual leaders and atheists from just debate to an actual uplifting of humanity.
( see next post for next section)