Reconciling Religion and Evolutionary Biology

Penelope · Sat Nov 05, 2011 11:15 am


	Quote: RT: 3 Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. • To be poor in spirit is to set value on things that are eternal, over things that pass. The word of God is eternal, giving strength and wisdom from age to age. We pray for all who hear the word of God.

What is 'the word of God' in your opinion? Do you mean the holy bible? The big book of incomprehensible stories which have caused so much bloodshed because of their obscurity? Muslim, Judaism and Christianity all based on this blood spattered book. Or do you mean Jesus, whom Saint John calls, the Word. Whom you do not believe ever existed.

Penelope · Sat Nov 05, 2011 11:48 am


	Quote: 4 Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted. • Those who mourn are sensitive and compassionate, caring for the loss of others, feeling grief and empathy at destruction and suffering. Aboriginal people of Australia mourn for the loss of their old ways. People in Syria, in Japan, in Libya, in Somalia, in Congo, mourn for the loss of loved ones in the senseless destruction they have experienced. We ourselves mourn for the death and suffering of friends and family. We pray for comfort for those who mourn.

Come on, most of us mourn for something, or some one. If we mourn for lost friends and family (or Princess Diana) it doesn't make us sensitive and compassionate, it makes us human beings. There is nothing creditable about mourning.

Penelope · Sat Nov 05, 2011 11:54 am


	Quote: 5 Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth. • The meek have no voice, and yet they have rights and dignity. Jesus Christ represented the meek of the earth on his journey to the cross, and in his rising he promised the triumph of the meek. We pray for those whose interests and needs are not heard amid the hubbub of the strong, that their intrinsic rights and dignity may be defended and honoured.

Us meek, we don't want the earth. I would suggest that our interests and needs are in a more spiritual place. So, I don't know what this beatitude is about.

Penelope · Sat Nov 05, 2011 12:15 pm


	Quote: 16 Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven. • To God be the glory. We pray for all who do good works, that their path may be lit by the vision of true faith. God of grace and love, we pray to you in the name of your eternal Son, Jesus Christ, seeking the presence of your holy spirit in our lives and in the lives of those we love. Amen

I understand this one....it is about 'demonstrating' what we believe in by doing good works....doing and giving, not sitting about praying and feeling pious. It is about loving and caring.....and letting people see that we haven't given up yet....even though we don't believe in a 'Father in Heaven'.....in fact, we don't know what we believe in....but there is a spirit of love permeating these carbon-based life forms.

geo · Sat Nov 05, 2011 1:43 pm

Penelope wrote:


	Quote: 5 Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth. • The meek have no voice, and yet they have rights and dignity. Jesus Christ represented the meek of the earth on his journey to the cross, and in his rising he promised the triumph of the meek. We pray for those whose interests and needs are not heard amid the hubbub of the strong, that their intrinsic rights and dignity may be defended and honoured.

Us meek, we don't want the earth. I would suggest that our interests and needs are in a more spiritual place. So, I don't know what this beatitude is about.

I see "meek" in the same context as intellectual humility. The sentiment is particularly resonant with repressed people because it promises a future in which they will no longer have to suffer or be at the whim of those who lord over them. A more cynical interpretation would be that those in power promote this message to prevent the masses from uprising.

Kung Fu knows . . .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gASY7Lj5GPQ

Penelope · Sat Nov 05, 2011 6:00 pm


	Quote: geo wrote: I see "meek" in the same context as intellectual humility.

Yes, and this would be why pride is said to be the deadliest of the seven sins.

I see meek as meaning childlike. Not, childish...but childlike.

Robert Tulip · Sat Nov 05, 2011 8:29 pm


	DWill wrote: I'd be happier with 'metaphorical' than 'allegorical' to describe the way you use Christ and God. I don't think we can have allegory on the word-level, really. But come to that, I don't think there is an escape route in the metaphor disclaimer, either. The mind will take hold of these words as things with actuality, just because putting them in language makes them entities. They have a certain specificity in the context that makes it unlikely that the mind really is able to translate them into non-categories. Belief--true belief--depends on having fixed points as anchors. Without those, you might have intuitions, leanings, perceptions, but not belief.


	Wikipedia wrote: Allegory is a demonstrative form of representation explaining meaning other than the words that are spoken. Allegory communicates its message by means of symbolic figures, actions or symbolic representation. Allegory is generally treated as a figure of rhetoric, but an allegory does not have to be expressed in language: briefly, an allegory is a device used to present an idea, principle or meaning, which can be presented in literary form, such as a poem or novel, or in visual form, such as in painting or drawing.As a literary device, an allegory in its most general sense is an extended metaphor. As an artistic device, an allegory is a visual symbolic representation. An example of a simple visual allegory is the image of the grim reaper. Viewers understand that the image of the grim reaper is a symbolic representation of death. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegory

Understood as logos, or word of god, Christ is allegory for cosmic reason. If we seek to understand how human life relates to the laws of physics and evolution, the idea here is that the message of Christ crystallizes ultimate purpose and meaning into a cosmic rationality for human life, what we should do to reconcile ourselves with fate and be attuned to our real situation.

So the series of 'blessed are' statements in the Sermon on the Mount indicate how human life should evolve, how Christianity proposes values which are rejected by the world, seeing the rejection of these values as key risks for human survival as a species. For example, the dominant instinct regards the meek with contempt. But the Beatitudes say this dominant attitude is evil, and those who have no voice should be treated with innate dignity.

The 'fixed anchor' here is the existence of the universe, and the idea that we can understand how to prosper as a species within it. Imagining Jesus Christ as a real historical person is nothing but idolatry, a graven image as condemned in the ten commandments. This is the big error of the church, simplifying allegory in order to make it popular, and then believing their own lies. You have to work to understand the conceptual complexity.

Robert Tulip · Sat Nov 05, 2011 10:28 pm


	Dexter wrote: Don't you find it odd that you are probably the only one in your church -- and probably one of the few anywhere for that matter -- who is praying to Jesus even though you don't believe he exists (if I understand your position correctly)?

Hi Dexter, if you read what I said carefully, I do not pray to Jesus. I state at the end that I pray to God, but conceive of God as nature. Out of courtesy to Christian hearers, I did not use this prayer to confront them with atheist ideas. Really, I am praying to whoever reads or hears the prayer, in the hope they may think more carefully about ethics and the construction of relation to divinity.

I do not believe there was a "Jesus of Nazareth" as described in the Bible, or that any supernatural claims are plausible. However, the construction of the myth of Christ remains a sublime ethical achievement, and should not be dissed just because it is associated with historical claims that are not true. All the stories about Jesus were probably originally intended as parables, and it was only the ignorant buffoonery of the church that failed to see the real meaning and then suppressed it to the point of invisibility.

Robert Tulip · Sat Nov 05, 2011 10:37 pm

Penelope wrote:


	Quote: RT: 3 Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. • To be poor in spirit is to set value on things that are eternal, over things that pass. The word of God is eternal, giving strength and wisdom from age to age. We pray for all who hear the word of God.

What is 'the word of God' in your opinion? Do you mean the holy bible? The big book of incomprehensible stories which have caused so much bloodshed because of their obscurity? Muslim, Judaism and Christianity all based on this blood spattered book. Or do you mean Jesus, whom Saint John calls, the Word. Whom you do not believe ever existed.

Hi Penelope, thank you for reading this. In my opinion, the word of God can be heard by beginning with an understanding that mathematics is the grammar of science. Biblical claims can only be the word of God to the extent they cohere with scientific knowledge and with the eternal wisdom of mathematical truth. The Sermon on the Mount seems to me to be a good starting point for a science of ethics.

Robert Tulip · Sat Nov 05, 2011 10:43 pm

Penelope wrote:


	Quote: 4 Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted. • Those who mourn are sensitive and compassionate, caring for the loss of others, feeling grief and empathy at destruction and suffering. Aboriginal people of Australia mourn for the loss of their old ways. People in Syria, in Japan, in Libya, in Somalia, in Congo, mourn for the loss of loved ones in the senseless destruction they have experienced. We ourselves mourn for the death and suffering of friends and family. We pray for comfort for those who mourn.

Come on, most of us mourn for something, or some one. If we mourn for lost friends and family (or Princess Diana) it doesn't make us sensitive and compassionate, it makes us human beings. There is nothing creditable about mourning.

Not mourning when you should is heartless and psychotic. To the extent we are honestly mournful when we should be, we show compassion - feeling with others. Mourning is not being maudlin, it is a mark of respect for loss. The hysteria over Princess Diana was a mark that British society had forgotten how to mourn, and so used the occasion to release pent up grief which broke like a dam.

Robert Tulip · Sat Nov 05, 2011 10:52 pm

Penelope wrote:


	Quote: 5 Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth. • The meek have no voice, and yet they have rights and dignity. Jesus Christ represented the meek of the earth on his journey to the cross, and in his rising he promised the triumph of the meek. We pray for those whose interests and needs are not heard amid the hubbub of the strong, that their intrinsic rights and dignity may be defended and honoured.

Us meek, we don't want the earth. I would suggest that our interests and needs are in a more spiritual place. So, I don't know what this beatitude is about.

I think of the meek in terms of ecology. A complex ecosystem achieves an evolutionarily stable strategy. Non-meekness is the deliberate external disruption of a stable system. So even though a stable ecosystem includes predators who are not literally meek, they are still part of a natural reality that is sustainable. The problem arises when humans turn up who are alienated from nature due to false religious delusion and hubris, and imagine they are above nature and can ignore and destroy it. 'Blessed are the meek' is a call to recognize that humans are within nature, not above it. It is a complex idea that shows how the Sermon on the Mount rejects the patriarchal tradition of war and conquest and presents a vision of a transformed paradigm of human relation to the earth.

DWill · Sun Nov 06, 2011 9:35 am

Robert, you're making accommodations to Christian theology so that you can remain within this fold that gives you enrichment. I mean a Christian setting. Your theology is fine for you but I don't think translates well for a lot of others and is very much your creation. To me it has the marks of considerable strain. Again I'd say that your vision is a good illustration of religion in our era becoming private and optional. By 'private' I don't mean that it must only exist within you, but that it doesn't express a reality that should be seen as generally compelling for the world, as old religion does claim. If you could find others who would share the same interpretations, the religion would still be private. And that is a sign of progress.

I know you'll say that you're not accommodating, but instead returning to the original, non-literal understanding of Christianity. I don't intend to argue about that here, but what defines Christianity is the 2,000 years or so of its being a world institution. It came to be the dominant institution precisely by adopting the historical narrative that you deplore. There's little doubt that without that choice there would be no Christianity today to think about reforming. In this sense, there never was any other Christianity.

Relating your Christianity to ecological or other modern imperatives must be working for you. I think it's a mistake, however, to believe that outcomes in any way depend on using the means or lens you've been promoting, which again constitutes your personal interpretation. Others will have their own individual ways of connecting their values with saving the world from disaster. They may even use the literal words of the Bible to do this. The possibilities are numerous.

Robert Tulip · Sun Nov 06, 2011 2:58 pm


	DWill wrote: what defines Christianity is the 2,000 years or so of its being a world institution. It came to be the dominant institution precisely by adopting the historical narrative that you deplore.

DWill, based on your comment here, perhaps you have not heard of Martin Luther, John Calvin and the Protestant Reformation? Protestantism protested about how the Roman Catholic Church had interpreted Christianity for 1500 years. By going back to source documents, Protestantism enabled Christianity to evolve and change to become more relevant for the modern capitalist world. Your suggestion that Christianity is defined entirely by its past evolution as an institution is fallacious. That is a recipe to trap Christianity in its heritage. Bishop Jack Spong argues Christianity must change or die. Your attitude seems to be based on the assumption that Christianity should die because it cannot change. You regard it as a quaint dead fossil, not a living tradition.

My view is that a new reformation is required to make Christianity compatible with science. This is a further evolutionary step in the nature of faith. Mythology always evolves through the clash of ideas. Science now claims to refute Christianity, but science brings its own unexamined myths into play here. I argue this alleged modern refutation of religion is shallow, and fails to engage with deep truths contained within Christian faith. It is possible to abandon those parts of Christianity that are obsolete and transform it into a relevant living faith, especially by showing how faith in Christ originally arose as an ethical cosmology. Christ has become an idol for the church, and a new iconoclasm is required to cast light on the baseless taboos and fetishes of prevailing doctrine.

In discussion on this topic, I have emphasized the astronomical vision of precession of the equinox. This seems a highly obscure and irrelevant topic to those who have not studied it, but to me it is the entire foundation of understanding. What precession shows is that historical Christianity was established for a past age, but we are now entering a new age, which should build on the precedent of the past age through cumulative adaptation, while entering entirely new ways of seeing. This is a purely evolutionary vision, based on objective empirical observation and logic. Just as Galileo is reputed to have said 'but it moves', and thereby established the modern scientific paradigm, the need now is to say 'but it wobbles', in order to combine the religious thesis with its scientific antithesis into an new synthesis.

Penelope · Mon Nov 07, 2011 4:44 pm

I am currently reading:

Jesus and the Lost Goddess - The Secret Teachings of the Original Christians - by Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy

It has a very good stab at explaining how and why the Bible is completely allegorical, spiritually speaking. So I am beginning to comprehend what Robert is saying.

It gives a very plausible explanation of how and why the esoteric teachings were suppressed.

It's cheered me up anyway. One of those books which just plops into one's lap at the right time. Phew!!

DWill · Mon Nov 07, 2011 8:31 pm

Robert Tulip wrote:


	DWill wrote: what defines Christianity is the 2,000 years or so of its being a world institution. It came to be the dominant institution precisely by adopting the historical narrative that you deplore.

DWill, based on your comment here, perhaps you have not heard of Martin Luther, John Calvin and the Protestant Reformation? Protestantism protested about how the Roman Catholic Church had interpreted Christianity for 1500 years. By going back to source documents, Protestantism enabled Christianity to evolve and change to become more relevant for the modern capitalist world. Your suggestion that Christianity is defined entirely by its past evolution as an institution is fallacious. That is a recipe to trap Christianity in its heritage. Bishop Jack Spong argues Christianity must change or die. Your attitude seems to be based on the assumption that Christianity should die because it cannot change. You regard it as a quaint dead fossil, not a living tradition.

No, Robert, what I said was simply that the only religion the world has ever known as 'Christianity' is the one that takes very seriously the historical narrative that you so deplore. Luther and Calvin changed church governance and tweaked theology, but they did not create other Christianities. They also did not bring one bit closer the allegorical or astrotheological understandings that you see as the true core; in fact, they did the opposite since Protestantism led directly to Bible literalism.

You misunderstand my POV if you think I believe that C should die; I've never said so or thought so. What I think about it personally is separate from the matter of how other people may use it. I do think, however, that without a basis in something concrete and historical, there will not be anything left that people will want to call Christianity. Though there could be some amalgam or syncretism that may or may not coalesce into a recognized religion with a different name. No one can predict the future.


	Quote: In discussion on this topic, I have emphasized the astronomical vision of precession of the equinox. This seems a highly obscure and irrelevant topic to those who have not studied it, but to me it is the entire foundation of understanding. What precession shows is that historical Christianity was established for a past age, but we are now entering a new age, which should build on the precedent of the past age through cumulative adaptation, while entering entirely new ways of seeing. This is a purely evolutionary vision, based on objective empirical observation and logic. Just as Galileo is reputed to have said 'but it moves', and thereby established the modern scientific paradigm, the need now is to say 'but it wobbles', in order to combine the religious thesis with its scientific antithesis into an new synthesis.

You may have objective facts in hand, but the meaning and significance is something you assign, something that still must be believed through faith. How can you make me recognize through empirical demonstration that we are entering a new age? Talk of old ages and new ages may interest some people, but science will never be a tool that investigates such a thing.

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