Faith traditions offer conflicting beliefs about our inner nature and challenges. Fortunately, a knowledge-based view is emerging that offers fresh and realistic hope for improving the quality of our lives and relationships.
Ignorance of our inherited drives has been one of the greatest causes of suffering throughout human history -- individually and collectively.
Every religion offers mythic beliefs about our inner workings. But until recently, we had no measurable knowledge about how our minds and emotions actually work -- what drives us, and why.
Now we know, through a wide range of evidence, that the powerful biological instincts we inherited are 'mismatched' for the supercharged environments we have created. Honoring this now indisputable fact can help us channel our deepest drives in ways that serve, rather than sabotage, our joy in life and the quality of our relationships and legacy. As well, we can appreciate how this inspiring, science-based perspective REALizes, or naturalizes, ancient mythic insights.
I delivered the following TEDx talk in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in May 2012. Beneath the video player is a brief description of some of the main points I covered.
Most of us, including evangelicals, know that our trials and temptations, our inner struggles, our troubling habits of thought and behavior, our personal and relational challenges, are not literally the result of our great-great-great-great... grandmother eating an apple.
Within each of us are instincts molded by millions of years of evolution to have us think and behave in ways that certainly benefitted our ancestors. Indeed, all of us alive today owe our existence to those very same instincts. But what have they done for us lately? To be blunt, they've made many of us fat, some addicted, and most of us in denial about how we are impacting the planet.
Our instincts can hardly be faulted. We are surrounded by 'supernormal allurements': processed foods, feel-good drugs and alcohol, Internet porn, and media sources that are no longer tethered to reality. Our ancestors faced none of these challenges.
Our ways of getting news, interacting with friends, and dealing with enemies have been altered beyond recognition by modern technologies. Our opportunities for indulging romantic or sexual urges, or wasting time and distracting ourselves, would be unrecognizable even to our great-grandparents.
The cultural contexts have changed enormously -- but our brains and bodies have not. We still have the same fears and desires as our ancestors, but now those instincts are out of sync with life conditions.
Compounding the problem is that we've all inherited exquisite skills for self-deception. The human brain not only distorts perception and memory; it then uses its extraordinary powers to rationalize or justify the distortion. In essence, our brain regularly tricks us -- and then masterfully hides the evidence!
Consider: Prior to microscopes, it wasn't just difficult to understand infection; it was impossible. Prior to telescopes, it was impossible to understand the Universe. The same is true of our inner world. Without an evolutionary grasp of why our instincts and emotions are the way they are, it isn't just difficult to wisely choose and live our priorities in this fast-paced, modern world. It's effectively impossible.
Our long history of living in primitive conditions and in small tribal groups did not give us instincts or equip us to deal with the supernormal allurements surrounding us today.
Especially for the young, trying to master one's animal urges (physical or social) without first learning why they evolved, and without appreciating the purposes they once served, is like trying to figure out why your car is running poorly when you've never been taught what's going on under the hood.
As Edward O. Wilson has written, "We exist in a bizarre combination of Stone Age emotions, medieval beliefs, and god-like technology."
We cannot, of course, change our instincts -- but we can change how we relate to them, how we manage them. Thanks to the evolutionary sciences, we now can understand our instincts and finally face our challenges with a measure of lightness and compassion and with practical tools that actually work.
The process begins with distinguishing fault from responsibility. We can thereby free ourselves of the burden of guilt, shame, and self-condemnation from choices we've made in the past, while stepping up to the responsibility of making amends for our wake and fashioning a better future.
When we honor our inherited drives (which is nearly impossible when referring to them as "inner demons," or our "shadow" or "ego") we can feel our heart expanding in gratitude, generosity, and compassion for self and others -- and our inner state will not only match but strengthen the ways in which we already are serving our community and the world.
NOTE: My 27-year-old son, Shane (an athletic trainer and life coach), and I are in the process of creating an online support structure for men who want to explore this subject more deeply, individually or collectively, titled, "Men Evolving Men." If you'd like to be notified when this is available, email me at Michael@TheGreatStory.org
Also see:
Follow Rev. Michael Dowd on Twitter: www.twitter.com/MBDowd
Wishing you a wonderful and relaxing Independence Day holiday, ILoveTheUSofA.
Warmly,
~ Michael
Psychologist Daniel Kahneman('Thinking: Fast and Slow' and a pioneer in the study of cognitive biases) said at a recent conference on science communication that in order to communicate effectively with people, "It almost necessarily involves stories." - pretty solid validation of the need for The Great Story, Big History, Epic of Evolution approach.
The human mind can be our greatest asset and our greatest enemy.
What better reality to evolve the soul than to live a physical life in a world of creature desires and those with political agenda's and their attempt to control and manipulate us and economic ideologies of greed and selfishness and the challenge of separating religious dogma from divine spiritual teachings.
The evolution of consciousness is the stuff of life, in religious terms the expression/s of God's divine potential; whereas the evolution of the physical is just appearances that both the religious and the materialists judge by appearances.
"The process begins with distinguishing fault from responsibility"
This sentence needs to be explained in much more detail. responsibility can mean personal responsibility and that usually means to most culpability and blameworthiness.
Plus, MBDowd and Son are going to teach us "how" to honor our inherited drives. I can just see it now..."Honey, did you just throw the dog out the window!??" the wife asks. "Yes, as a matter of fact I did, sweetheart, " the husband replies. "It all has to do with my primal instincts which I'm honoring today. And, it was either throw him out the window or eat him! By the way, do you know where my club is?" the husband retorts. "Are you looking for your nine iron?" the wife asks. "No, I mean my club the real one. I think that dog is sneaking back in!" the husband replies.
Still, I appreciate your sense of humor in the last para. :-)
However, it would still seem that, from reading this other article, that the instincts which you are speaking of are still the more pacifistic.
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How deeply are we talking about, in dollars and cents?
Currently, I'm thinking that we'll probably be doing 90-minute interactive conference calls once a week, creating a structure for online small groups and community interaction, and working closely with a small group of co-facilitators, and the cost being somewhere in the ballpark of $5-$10/week ($20-$40/month), depending on someone's income level and degree of participation.
Given what I said above, however, I suspect that we'll be doing some bartering and perhaps offering scholarships too.
Men Evolving Men:
Fitness for Life Online "Gym":
http://thegreatstory.org/men.pdf
I believe this concept is the complete opposite to any spirituality that honors EGO/SELF.
Christianity teaches that the WORD of GOD became flesh and blood, in order to bring it to its intended purpose. In the killing of sin, I.e. the animalistic desires Base natures, drives, and raising it to a new creation, mankind is enabled by this one act to enter into a co-crufication,( die to self, surrender) and co-resurrection, spiritually in Christ. This new life "Eternal Life" empowers mankind to overcome sin, base natures, temptations, and ultimately death.
Shalom
Why Evangelize Evolution?
http://evolutionarychristianity.com/blog/why-evangelize-evolution/
Evolution Isn't About Darwin -- It's About Salvation Before You Die
http://evolutionarychristianity.com/blog/evolution-isnt-about-darwin-its-about-salvation-before-you-die/
Here's a rap I've used pretty effectively to shock some literalists out of otherworldlyism...
Supernatural Is Unnatural Is Uninspiring (When You Think About It):
blogpost: http://thankgodforevolution.com/node/2024
podcast: http://evolutionaryevangelists.libsyn.com/29_supernatural_is_unnatural_is_uninspiring
I am a whole who cannot understand or be understood as an assemblage of parts. Sure, if I need the help of a mechanic (e.g., a physician) I know he will operate by his blueprints. But I am no more the result of a blueprint than a work of art is the sum of its materials. As all of us, I need help. From religion I expect a holistic understanding.
You need to get out more, my friend. You've been hanging around philosophy majors too long. (I'm speaking as a philosophy major, myself.) :-)
I call religion that avoids the responsibility of rigorous investigation "greeting card religion:" lots of good advice and best wishes for a successful life. A probing and provocative theology is not absent from the current scene. But it is being written by philosophers, literary and comparative religion scholars, found in cultural and religious theory as well as in the curricula for religious studies at the university level.
Yes, those require an institutional commitment. If hanging out there has no appeal to a majority of people today, so much the worse for them.
This and other lines are delightful being heard in a religious context. Perhaps Fox Entertainment could use a nightly show? Their vewers don't seem to belive in evolution, the earth being over 6k years old, and think all instincts have to do with sex which started at the first taste of...apple.
I'd love to be invited to do a nightly show, though I'm pretty sure Fox News wouldn't see me as a good fit. :-)
Having said that, however, a few years ago I *was* invited onto the Sunday morning FOX & Friends, which was broadcast nationally, and had fun "evangelizing" evolution. Check it out...
http://michaeldowd.org/news/tv/tv.html
Follow the links at the end. They're each a portal to a lots of good online resources on this subject.
You haven't met many evangelicals... :(
"4 He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, 5 and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? 6 So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”