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“What if God doesn’t DO things? What if God is IN things?”

Written by Juliet Bennett
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In his TED Talk, the Canon Pastor of Exeter Cathedral in the UK, Tom Honey, explained some of the dilemmas involved in challenging images and ideas attached to the traditional notion of God within his congregation. He explains the way that ‘most people, both within and outside the organized church, still have a picture of a celestial controller, a rule maker, a policeman in the sky who orders everything, and causes everything to happen,’ and how in time he had become ‘more and more uncomfortable with this perception of God.’ He says, ‘Isn’t it ironic that Christians who claim to believe in an infinite, unknowable being then tie God down in closed systems and rigid doctrines?’

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wdkxdiOFJA[/youtube]

Honey describes his inclination toward more feminine notions of God that that recognise that God is, by definition, unknowable. Such notions are well known ‘liberal academic circles,’ he says, yet church leaders have tended not to share these ideas with their congregations. He explains: ‘clergy like myself have been reluctant to air them, for fear of creating tension and division in our church communities, for fear of upsetting the simple faith of more traditional believers. I have chosen not to rock the boat.’

The tsunami in 2004 provided an impetus for him facing this fear and confronting the ideas that orthodoxy attached to God. Honey could not reconcile the idea that God was in control of the horrific deaths of so many people. He critiques the lyrics of a song they used to sing: “The wind and waves obey Him.” ‘Do they?’ he asks. ‘Does God demand loyalty, like any medieval tyrant?’ Can we really believe in ‘A God who looks after His own, so that Christians are OK, while everyone else perishes? A cosmic us and them, and a God who is guilty of the worst kind of favoritism?’ Honey does not suggest rejecting the existence of God altogether, he suggests questioning what images and ideas we are attributing to God.

‘what if God doesn’t act? What if God doesn’t do things at all? What if God is in things? […] In the natural cycle of life and death, the creation and destruction that must happen continuously. In the process of evolution. In the incredible intricacy and magnificence of the natural world. In the collective unconscious, the soul of the human race […] In presence and in absence. In simplicity and complexity. In change and development and growth.’

Tom Honey’s talk illustrates the difference between what theologians refer to as “classic theism” and “panentheism”, which is what I am currently writing my MPhil thesis on with a full draft due this month (hence why my blog entries are presently few and far between).

Peace, Truth

What is Fundamentalism?

Written by Juliet Bennett
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The word “Fundamentalism” might make you think of people with unwavering beliefs who refuse to consider alternative views. You could be thinking of people committed to a political ideology on the far left or far right, or maybe a form of religious fundamentalism.

The word is often used interchangeably with “Extremism”, which may make you think of suicide bombers, hate crimes against gays, sexual discrimination against women—anyone who use a “Holy Scripture” to justify violence. Yet you might be interested that its origins were much more specific.

Origins

The term “Fundamentalism” was originally coined in 1920 in reference to a Protestant Christian movement that spread from the United States via a short book entitled The Fundamentals: A testimony to the truth (financed by two Christian laymen to be distributed to ministers and missionaries around the world in 1909).

This series acted as a ‘new statement of the fundamentals of Christianity’ which condemned ‘Darwinism, Higher Criticism, liberal theology, modern philosophy, socialism, materialism, atheism, spiritualism, Romanism, Mormonism, and Christian Science;’ and affirmed ‘the virgin birth, atoning death, bodily resurrection, miracles, and a second coming of Christ, together with Scriptural inerrancy.’[1]

This movement spurred the “Fundamentalist–Modernist Controversy”, as Modernism was imagined to be a descent from Christianity to Atheism:

Descent_of_the_Modernists,_E._J._Pace,_Christian_Cartoons,_1922

Why does it continue?

In The Battle for God, Karen Armstrong examines fundamentalism in Christian, Islam and Judaic religions, describing a perceived ‘terror of extinction’, a fear that secularists are trying to wipe them out.

Feeling as though their identity is under attack, fundamentalists have undertaken a campaign to ‘re-sacralize’ society, a cause that has become ‘aggressive and distorted’, initiating a ‘dialectical relationship with an aggressive secularism which showed scant respect for religion and its adherents’. This has essentially trapped secularists and fundamentalists in the ‘escalating spiral of hostility and recrimination’ that is visible today.[2]

Alternatives to Atheism and Fundamentalist Religion

It can often seem like one has a choice to believe in a literal interpretation of a Bible – be it the creation myths or the miracles of Jesus’ life, death, resurrection and ascension, or to live in a Godless world. Yet religion and theology is not so black and white. Good and Evil are ideals that are interpreted by different cultures to be discerned in different ways.

Many fundamentalists are not aware that their unchanging truth is in fact a new interpretation of a truth shaped by theological debates and politics over the last two millennia. Most are unaware that their interpretation of the Bible has been distorted by the modern paradigm from which they see it.

Fundamentalists do not realise that by adopting a simplistic literal interpretation, without regard for Jewish midrashim and the role of mythos, prevents an understanding of the “more-than-literal” meaning that embedded in the Bible.

There are many ways that people understand God without believing “He” [sic] is a supernatural God that is separate from the world. Many such understandings fall into the theological category of “Panentheism” (click to learn more about this natural philosophical theology).

Modern fundamentalism

Now the word fundamentalism, rightly or wrongly, is used in a much broader sense. It is easy to observe fundamentalist approaches not only within Christianity, but also within Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism and some say even Atheism.

Whether it is called fundamentalism, or something else, it seems that any ideology – political, religious or other – that holds a one-dimensional perspective as absolute, with a refusal to see that an idea or issue looks different from different standpoints, is dangerous.

Does that makes me a fundamentalistic multi-dimensionalist?

References:

[1] Stuart Piggin, Evangelical Christianity in Australia (Melbourne: Oxford University Press
Australia 1996)., pp. 79-80.

[2] Karen Armstrong, The Battle for God: Fundamentalism in Judaism, Christianity and Islam

(London: HarperCollins, 2000)., pp. 370-371.

Picture:

“The Descent of the Modernists”, by E. J. Pace, first appearing in his book Christian Cartoons, published in 1922.

Source=*File:Descent_of_the_Modernists,_E._J._Pace,_Christian_Cartoons,_1922.jpg Date=2011-07-17 04:3

Academic, Truth,

Is colour real? Reality and rainbows.

Written by Juliet Bennett
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DSC_1070 copy‘Extensive studies of colour perception over several decades have made it clear that there are no colours in the external world, independent of the process of perception.’[1]

Since I was a child I’ve wondered if what I see to be green is the same as what you see to be green. I wondered if I were to switch places with someone would I be horrified by everyone walking around with green faces or green hair.

That’s not the kind of un-real we are talking about here. I think we’re safe to assume our eyes have evolved to see things in at least somewhat similar tones – though we do tend to draw the boundaries differently. Lime and aqua are examples of contested colours…. what I call a limey green, someone else calls limey yellow. Same goes for aqua – is it green or is it blue?

Nit picking aside, the quote above points to an interesting phenomenon: colour, in fact, does not exist external to human perception.

The entire structure of our colour categories come from our neural structures – wave lengths reflected in interaction with colour cones in our retinas and the neural circuitry connected to them. Alan Watts illustrates this beautifully through a more easily understood example a rainbow.

A rainbow appears only when there is a certain triangular arrangement between: the sun, the moisture in the air, and an observer.

A rainbow is not an illusion – a number of observers can verify its existence. Yet it doesn’t exist external to our observation. Chase it and it disappears:

‘One could say that if the sun and a body of moisture were in the right relationship, say, over the ocean, any observer on a ship that sailed into line with them would see a rainbow. But one could also say that if an observer and the sun were correctly aligned there would be a rainbow if there were moisture in the air!’[2]

The observer is an essential part of this story.

Same story for colour.

Same story for reality.

There is no solid “external reality”. Watts asks: what if mountains and rocks and stars are also observed through a participatory observation?

In other words: what if, like the rainbow, mountains and rocks and stars also do not exist without an observer?

This points to the intrinsic connection between the observer and observed. Through our observation we participate in the creation of the universe as it is today. Through our actions we participate in the creation of the universe of tomorrow.

This is a central insight of “phenomenology”- the study of experience. It is also a central insight of “quantum mechanics” (although I admit to saying this with limited understanding).

Capra writes: ‘our bodies define a set of fundamental spatial relations that we use not only in orienting ourselves but in perceiving the relationship of one object to another.’[1]

Through limited senses we hear/see/smell/touch/feel/sense/act in an experienced world. Simultaneously other humans experience it differently, and other organisms experience it very differently.

Humans cannot know what it is like to be a dolphin in the sea, a bird in the air, an ancient oak tree, a rock deep in Earth’s ground, or a star in a galaxy far away. These entities have their own internal realities – absorbing from their environment, undertaking changes from within, and releasing something back out again. These entities have “intrinsic value” in and of themselves. They also have “utility value” to humans, even if only to appreciate their aesthetics. I’m getting side-tracked…

The point I’m trying to make here is that while each organism observes (and possibly co-creates) the “reality” of the environment that surrounds it, this cannot be seen as separate from everything else that exists. In this way the figure and the ground are one, and we are one with everything – as observers, participants, and the observed result.

Colour, rainbows and mountains exist – but they only exist in this way in relation to human perception.

[1]  Capra, Fritjof (2002). The Hidden Connections : Integrating the Biological, Cognitive, and Social Dimensions of Life into a Science of Sustainability. New York: Doubleday. p. 54.
[2] Alan Watts, The book : on the taboo against knowing who you are, 1969. p. 95.
Beauty, Truth

Cycles of Death and Rebirth

Written by Juliet Bennett
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After years of anticipation Samsara, the sequel to the movie Baraka, has been released. Samsara is a meditation on the endless cycle of birth, death, and rebirth, to which life in the material world is bound.

In Sanskrit, “Samsara” literally translates to “a passing through, from sam altogether + sarati it runs”. Samsara is a journey through life, and the film provides a confronting snapshot of life, Earth, humanity, and the cycles we are a part of.

Directed by Ron Fricke and produced by Mark Magidson, Samsara features exquisite cinematography filmed on 70mm film camera with with motion control time-lapse transformed into HD digital. Prepare to be blown away…

Here’s a preview:

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qp967YAAdNk[/youtube]

It is filmed in Angola, Ethiopia, Ghana, Namibia, China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Israel, Palestine, Japan, Jordan, Myanmar, Philippines, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Thailand, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, France, Italy, Brazil and the United States.

Samsara interlaces reality and illusion: human robots that look real, human geishas that look fake. Religions, culture, counter-cultures, spirituality, science, natural disasters and its glorious wonders.

We see a rotation birth and death and rebirth: of buildings torn apart by disasters in contrast with impeccable stained glass of a majestic church; of volcanoes and glaciers; of assembly line construction and their endlessly expansive disposal; of the systematic birth, milking and slaughter of cows (and devoured by obese Americans scoffing Big Macs); of weapons and bullets, prison dances, geometric patterns of mass-scale martial arts; of the sun’s rise, fall and rise the next day. A mixture of the beautiful and ugly cycles of the material world in which we live.

The film ends a little suddenly, I felt there was more to see of this journey. And I felt left, surprisingly, without any kind of strong message. The feeling emanated the experience of being – a feeling I took to be: “That’s all folks.” 

Life is good and bad; humans are good and bad; Earth and the Universe contain good and bad. Creation requires destruction. The death of all things is inevitable, and a necessary condition for birth. We are all a part of this process. One must accept it, and then, if one likes, play with it.

That’s definitely what Fricke and Magidson have done, and what a confronting, inspiring and illuminating result!

If you haven’t seen Samsara, get to the cinema before it’s finished. And if you haven’t seen Baraka, make sure you see that too:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XO1nSVy8q8I[/youtube]

 

Truth

Questions to ask

Written by Juliet Bennett
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‘The notions most worth questioning are just those which are most taken for granted.’ [1]

I’m not sure who said “Truth cannot be told, it can only be found” (or something along those lines), but I believe there’s something very important in this idea.

Each of us must search for our own truth/s. When you find your truth, you cannot impart it to others. You can share your truth in the context of it being your truth, understanding that the person you are sharing it with may enjoy your perspective and gain some insights from it, but in the end must find their own truth for themselves.

Sheep in NZFollowing-the-leader in New Zealand January 2008

 

If you accept a truth or “The Truth” that someone is trying share with you than you become a sheep. While there’s lots one can learn from those around them, especially those who have searched and thought critically about what is usually taken-for-granted, there’s still a process we each of us are called to do.

I realise some religions call their congregations to be sheep, preaching that it is the sheep who will be rewarded in this life or another. Even some areas of the academy, and in economics and politics (especially in Australia), encourage and reward sheepish behaviour.

The greatest danger of being a sheep is that your shepherd may lead you down the wrong path, maybe off a cliff or to an abattoir… If one doesn’t stop to question where all one’s other sheep-friends are going, and where and why a shepherd is taking them, they leave themselves vulnerable to be used and abused by those in power, whether it is the intention of the shepherd or not.

Not all religions discourage questioning of the doctrinal truths. Some religions teach the opposite. For example check out my post on the Buddhist Kālāma Sutta, the “Charter of Free Inquiry” if you haven’t already.

It is a worthwhile process to question what we are told, questioning what we have not been told, questioning our assumptions, questioning our leaders and teachers, questioning their assumptions, and thinking about how they came to believe what they do.

The questions we ask must consider the most fundamental assumption in our lives, those things that we most take for granted. This means questioning the direction we are going, the implications of our actions, and after careful observation, analyses and foresight, deciding where we want to go and what actions are likely to take us there.

[1] Alan Watts, The Two Hands of God : The Myths of Polarity (London: Rider, 1978). p. 34. Watts says this is what Whitehead showed us.

Truth,

Cosmological, Phonemological & Narrative Time

Written by Juliet Bennett
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There are many ways to experience time. Our society dissects the movements of the cosmos, turning slices of time into clocks and calendars. Within those structures time can seem to move at very different speeds – when I’m bored or watching the clock, minutes can pass by very slowly, and when I’m enjoying myself the hours and days pass by very fast. How do these senses of time, the first known as “cosmological time” and the latter “phenomenological time” connect with each other? Ricoeur says it is through a third time—”narrative time”.

My new habit is to turn concepts into diagrams to help me understand them. The picture below is adapted from Paul Ricoeur’s analysis of philosophy of time in Narrative and Time, and mixed with Campbell’s thoughts on eternity.

Phenomenological time is the time of experience – it can feel as if it moves fast, slow or even stop altogether.

Cosmological time is the time of the celestial movements of Earth, our sun, our moon, and the stars and galaxies. It is the time we keep track of in our calendars and with our watches.

Narrative time is a bridge between the time that our consciousness experiences, and the time of celestial movements. It is the bridge between what is inside our bag of skin, and what is outside. Narrative, story-telling, the linking of events in a causal chain, gives us identity and helps us make sense of this divide between inside and out.

Outside of time is eternity.

Something I’ve been pondering is the connection between eternity and my internal sense of time. Could there be a circular link between the two?

I envisage a kind of like a black hole from within ourselves to the eternal, and from the eternal back to our internal being.

Can eternity exist within phenomenological time in the same way that and cosmological time exists within eternity?

In this sense within the pink spheroids those experiencing phenomenological time might keep track of a linear sense of cosmological time, which will die when our universe eventually collapses. Out of the collapse I imagine a new universe will expand, and time will exist anew.

Outside of all of this chaos, outside of the pink spheroids, we see black space, dark matter, the eternal no-thing. And within our selves, a some-thing, I believe we contain a sense of this eternal no-thing.

We can relate the eternal something and eternal nothing like yin and yang. Neither could be without its opposite, and each contains a bit of the other.

 

Truth

Is Heaven Everlasting or Eternal?

Written by Juliet Bennett
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‘Heaven is not eternal, it’s just everlasting,’ says Joseph Campbell.

‘I don’t follow that,’ Bill Moyers replied.

‘Heaven and hell are described as forever. Heaven is of unending time. It is not eternal. Eternal is beyond time.  The concept of time shuts out eternity.’[1]

Joseph Campbell is a comparative mythologist, the great mind behind The Hero’s Journey, among his many achievements.

The first time I read this quote I thought Campbell was saying that heaven is a place or state of being that we can experience in the world today. Such an experience may be in the present moment, and each moment in time can be seen to last forever if viewed from outside of time.

But the more I think about these words, the more unsure I am of what they really mean.

If you have a magical “heavenly” moment where time seems to stand still, is this moment not outside of time, and hence an eternal moment?

The few times I’ve experienced such moments it feels as if nothing exists outside of that everlasting occasion. In my memory I can revisit that moment at any time. Yet to feel as if time has frozen, makes me think such a moment is outside of time, and hence eternal. I’m confused.

In my recent post on panentheism I described my “belief in God” but not in a supernatural spooky God of punishment and reward. It seems to me such a conception of God originated in immature minds, institutionalized to motivate behaviours that the powerful desired from the masses. A panentheistic (all-in-God) understanding of the relationship between humans and their universe is based on what is, that is, interpreting meaning out of the great mystery and magic that exists in the natural process of evolution and consciousness of being.

This returns me to Campbell’s thoughts on heaven.

I don’t believe in heaven or hell as a physical place where one’s individual soul transcends or descends to when their body croaks. I do, however, believe in heaven and hell, as states of mind-body-soul in the world today. I have experienced and witnessed both these states at different times of my life. These moments are everlasting – they will exist forever inside time. But they are not eternal. They are not a place outside of time, where I will go after I die.

I think there’s a trace of the eternal in every moment, and a trace of the moments in the eternal. But this is all but a guess. Whether one is absorbed back into all that is, inside time, or disappears into the eternal, I suppose is something we’ll just have to wait to find out.

 

[1] Campbell, Joseph (1988). The Power of Myth – Joseph Campbell with Bill Moyers. New York: Doubleday. p. 280.

Truth, ,

Alan Watts Fan Club

Written by Juliet Bennett
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I’ve met two people who also can’t get enough Alan Watts, and tonight will be our first night of our small Alan Watts Fan Club! In preparation I thought it would be useful to post some thoughts and summaries of his work.

Alan Watts (1915-1973) was a British-born philosopher best known for popularising Eastern philosophy for a Western audience. While he worked in many universities, including a fellowship at Harvard, giving lectures and writing books for many universities, he called himself “a philosophical entertainer”. Read about his life here. He published his first book at 21 years old – 1936 The Spirit of Zen and he continued to write, talk and explore life without boundaries.

My favourites of his work so far:

  • 1940 The Meaning of Happiness
  • 1963 The Two Hands of God – The Myths of Polarity
  • 1966 The Book – On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are
  • 1970 Does It Matter?: Essays on Man’s Relation to Materiality

Trey Parker & Matt Stone (who did South Park) animated these clips:

Prickles and Goo

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXi_ldNRNtM[/youtube]

Maddness

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulFXFVTpCsY[/youtube]

Music and Life

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGoTmNU_5A0[/youtube]

“I”

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAVM_Xk_o9E[/youtube]

Then there’s Watts’ TV series  “Eastern Wisdom and Modern Life” – two seasons filmed 1959-1960 for KQED public television  in San Francisco:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9d6vjgq0L5A[/youtube]

Some favourite quotes:

‘Most of us have the sensation that “I myself” is a separate center for feeling and action, living inside and bounded by the physical body – a center which “confronts” an “external” world of people and things, making contact through the senses with a universe both alien and strange… This feeling of being lonely and very temporary visitors in the universe is in flat contradiction to everything known about man (and all other living organisms) in the sciences. We do not “come into” this world; we come out of it, as leaves from a tree. As the ocean “waves,” the universe “peoples.” Every individual is an expression of the whole realm of nature, a unique action of the total universe.’ [1] pp. 15-6.

‘When the line between myself and what happens to be is dissolved and there is no stronghold left for an ego even with a passive witness, I find myself not in a world but as a world which is neither compulsive nor capricious. What happens is neither automatic nor arbitrary: it just happens, and all happenings are mutually interdependent in a way that seems unbelievably harmonious. Every this goes with every that. Without others there is no self, and without somewhere else there is no here, so that – in this sense – self is other and here is there.’ [1] p. 113.

In other words, I am both that which I do voluntarily, and what I do involuntarily, and my admitting all the involuntary aspects of my life – from my birth into a particular cultural circumstances, to my death in which ever way it will come, I empower myself to not be a victim but to seek the lessons from both the good and the bad, and make the most of the short window of life I’m here to experience.

‘In terms of the great Oriental philosophies, man’s un-happiness is rooted in the feeling of anxiety which attends his sense of being an isolated individual or ego, separate from “life” or “reality” as a whole. On the other hand, happiness – a sense of harmony, completion, and wholeness – comes with the realization that the feeling of isolation is an illusion. [… This order of happiness] is not a result to be attained through action, but a fact to be realized through knowledge. The sphere of action is to express it, not to gain it.’[2]‘The Meaning of Happiness explains that the psychological equivalent of this doctrine is a state of mind called is “total acceptance,” a ‘yes-saying to everything that we experience, the unreserved acceptance of what we are, of what we feel and know at this and every moment.’[2]

Some of my other blog entries on Alan Watts:

 


[1] Alan Watts, The Book : On the Taboo against Knowing Who You Are (London: Jonathan Cape, 1969).

[2] Alan Watts, The Meaning of Happiness: The Quest for Freedom of the Spirit in Modern Psychology and the Wisdom of the East (London: Village Press, 1968). p. iv.

 

 

Truth

Panentheism: Reframing the God debate

Written by Juliet Bennett
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Rather than debating “Is there are God?” shouldn’t it first be clarified “what exactly one is referring to by this word “God”? Can Panentheism provide a new slant on the God debate between New Atheists and Fundamentalist Christians?

I am having a mini thesis crisis – overwhelmed by wanting to say too much on too many things, referring to too many theorists, so I thought I’d share part of it with you and see if that helps. Some of the questions I ask myself:

  • Does “God” need to be understood as supernatural king-like deity that is an all-powerful separate being intervening from outside?
  • Must the theory of evolution and the scientific worldview need to bring us to the conclusion that “we are flukes” and life is rather meaningless?
  • Might the worldview of eastern religions, process philosophy, panentheist theology, spiritual ecology etc. more conducive to peace with justice (i.e. a sustainable global social and ecological well-being for humans now and future)?

Given the supernatural understandings of God came from a people who thought earth was flat, and angels carried the sun and moon around the heavens, maybe it’s time to revisit old metaphors, and the worldviews that resulted from their rejection…

Based on a talk by Alan Watts (of course), let me (try to) explain what I’m talking about.

Two worldviews dominate western culture:

1. POTTER & CLAY: Based on the creation story in Genesis: earth is an artifact, created by a separate king-like supernatural God (in yellow), who deems man (who is also separate from nature) its steward, yet dominates over it.

2. MECHANICAL CLOCK: Based on the rejection of the Genesis story: the universe is a machine that started with a Big Bang: life is random, meaningless, a bunch of balls on a billiard table. Yet the assumptions from the first model remain: man stole the king’s crown, but continues to be separate from nature, continuing to dominate, divide and conquer.

Is there another way to tell the story?

3. COSMIC DRAMA: In the “dramatic” model of the universe, life is seen as a game, a dance, a play, with God manifesting Itself in acting different roles. In this sense “you” are God, and everything else. This idea can be seen in Eastern philosophies, in deep ecology, spiritual versions of western religions and process theology or panentheism (all is God).

Panentheism is the idea that everything (pan) is inside (en) a macrocosmic entity some refer to as “God” (theism).

Panentheism is considered by many scholars to be a natural, rational and ecological alternative to the polarized classic theism and atheism.[1]

While the term is not widely recognized, the philosophical ideas proposed by panentheism underlie many religious and scientific understandings of life. It is inherent to most Hindu and Buddhist philosophy, Neopaganism, Indigenous worldviews, and the more liberal Christian, Islam, and Judaic theologies.[2]

The widely quoted Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church define panentheism as:

“The belief that the Being of God includes and penetrates the whole universe, so that every part of it exists in Him, but (as against Pantheism) that His Being is more than, and is not exhausted by, the universe.”[3]

Watts says:

“You have seen that the universe is at root a magical illusion and a fabulous game, and that there is no separate “you” to get something out of it, as if life were a bank to be robbed. The only real “you” is the one that comes and goes, manifests and withdraws itself eternally in and as every conscious being. For “you” is the universe looking at itself from billions of points of view, points that come and go so that the vision is forever new.” [1]

For me, positing your “self” as part of a bigger “Self”, as you are a temporal expression of God (as is everyone else), is an exciting story that decreases feelings of separateness and alienation, fear of death and provides an impetus for Care of the Other.

I want to know if using different metaphors and developing process understandings of God might lead to something more meaningful than the frustrating debates like between Dawkins and Cardinal Pell? Clearly these people are speaking different languages!

I want to know if a “dramatic” worldview can affect one’s actions to play a more active role in bringing about a society of peace with justice:

  • Does understanding the “other” as your self—including the planet and other life forms—increase your care for other people and the environment?
  • Does such a narrative increase your sense of purpose, feeling of wholeness, help come to embrace uncertainty and life’s adventure?

I realise panentheism doesn’t immediately bring about peace with justice, i.e. I realize one cannot say “because Japan is Buddhist (which could be seen as panentheism) and because India is Hindu (which could also be seen as panentheism) they are more peaceful and just then western societies” – not at all…. Maybe that’s why I feel lost. Then I add my narrative theory into the mix, and various field texts, and I feel dizzy….

I am pretty sure it is my panentheist/dramatic worldview that inspires such care and purpose in me, but I’m not sure it’s of value to anyone else…

Thoughts?

References:

[1] Eg. Birch, Charles (1999). Biology and the Riddle of Life. Sydney: UNSW Press. Griffin, David Ray (2001). Reenchantment without Supernaturalism : A Process Philosophy of Religion. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, Tucker and Grim. (1994). Worldviews and Ecology: Religion, Philosophy, and the Environment. New York: Orbis Books.

[2] Cooper mentions the works of Martin Buber (Judaism), Muhammed Iqbal (Islam), Sarvepalli Radhakrishman (Hinduism), Alan Watts and Masao Abe (Zen Buddhism), and Starhawk (Wiccan Neopaganism), among others. For example see: Johnston, Mark (2009). Saving God : Religion after Idolatry. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. Borg, Marcus J. (2003). The Heart of Christianity: Rediscovering a Life of Faith. New York: HarperCollins. Smith, Huston (1991). The World’s Religions : Our Great Wisdom Traditions. [San Francisco]: HarperSanFrancisco. Rinpoche, Sogyal (1992). The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying. Sydney: Random House Australia (Pty) Ltd. Stockton, Eugene (1995). The Aboriginal Gift : Spirituality for a Nation. Alexandria, N.S.W.: Millennium Books.

[3] Clayton, Philip and Arthur Peacocke, Eds. (2004). In Whom We Live and Move and Have Our Being: Panentheistic Reflections on God’s Presence in a Scientific World. Cambridge: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. Inner sleeve.

[4] Watts The Book : On the Taboo against Knowing Who You Are. p. 118.

 

 

Academic, Truth,